11226	----	Proofreading Team BUILDING A STATE IN APACHE LAND * * * * * From articles of Charles D. Poston in the _Overland Express_ * * * * * 1894 * * * * * I How the Territory Was Acquired In San Francisco in the early fifties, there was a house on the northeast corner of Stockton and Washington, of considerable architectural pretensions for the period, which was called the "Government Boarding House." The cause of this appellation was that the California senators and their families, a member of Congress and his wife, the United States marshal, and several lesser dignitaries of the Federal Government, resided there. In those early days private mansions were few; so the boarding-house formed the only home of the Argonauts. After the ladies retired at night, the gentlemen usually assembled in the spacious parlor, opened a bottle of Sazerac, and discussed politics. It was known to the senators that the American minister in Mexico had been instructed to negotiate a new treaty with Mexico for the acquisition of additional territory; not that there was a pressing necessity for more land, but for reasons which will be briefly stated: 1st. By the treaty of 1848, usually called Guadaloupe Hidalgo,[A] the government of the United States had undertaken to protect the Mexicans from the incursions of Indians within the United States boundary, and as this proved to be an impractical undertaking, the damages on account of failure began to assume alarming proportions, and the government of the United States was naturally anxious to be released from the obligation. 2. The Democratic party was in the plenitude of power, and the Southern States were dominant in the Administration. It had been the dream of this element for many years to construct a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, and the additional territory was required for "a pass". It was not known at that early day that railroads could be constructed across the Rocky Mountains at a higher latitude, and it was feared that snow and ice might interfere with traffic in the extremes of winter. The State of Texas had already given encouragement to the construction of such a railroad, by a liberal grant of land reaching as far west as the Rio Grande, and it devolved upon the United States to provide the means of getting on to the Pacific Ocean. The intervening country belonged at that time to Mexico, and for the purpose of acquiring this land the treaty was authorized. The condition of affairs in Mexico was favorable to a negotiation. Santa Ana had usurped the powers of the government, and was absolute dictator under the name of President. There was no Mexican Congress, and none had been convened since they were herded together at the conclusion of the Mexican War under protection of American troops. The condition of affairs in the United States was also extremely favorable. The treasury was overflowing with California gold, under the tariff of 1846 business was prosperous, the public debt small, and the future unclouded. The American Minister to Mexico (General Gadsden of South Carolina) was authorized to make several propositions:-- 1st. Fifty Millions for a boundary line from the mouth of the Rio Grande west to the Pacific Ocean. 2nd. Twenty millions for a boundary line due east from the mouth of the Yaqui River in the Gulf of Mexico to the Rio Grande. This was to include the peninsula of Lower California. 3rd. Ten millions for a boundary line to include the "railroad pass." A treaty was finally concluded for the smaller boundary, including the "railroad pass," comprising the land between the Rio Grande and the Colorado Rivers south of the Gila River, with the boundary line between the United States and Mexico about the shape of a dog's hind leg. The price paid for the new territory, which was temporarily called the "Gadsden Purchase," was ten million dollars. A check for seven million was given by Mr. Guthrie, Secretary of the Treasury, on the sub-treasury in New York, to the agent of Santa Ana; but not a dollar of it ever reached the Mexican treasury, as Santa Ana fled with the spoil. The remaining three millions were retained to pay the "lobby" and confirm the treaty. The treaty was signed in Mexico on the 23d day of December, 1853. Pending the negotiation of the treaty between the high contracting parties, in the City of Mexico, the discussion of the subject grew interesting at the Government Boarding-House in San Francisco, and a new California was hoped for on the southern boundary. Old Spanish history was ransacked for information from the voyages of Cortez in the Gulf of California to the latest dates, and maps of the country were in great demand. In the mean time an agent of the Iturbide family had arrived in San Francisco with a "Mexican Grant." After the execution of the Emperor Iturbide, the Congress of the Mexican Republic voted an indemnity to the family of one million dollars; but on account of successive revolutions this sum was never at the disposition of the Mexican treasury, and in liquidation the Mexican government made the family a grant of land in California, north of the Bay of San Francisco, but before the land could be located, the Americans had "acquired" the country, and it was lost. The heirs then made application to the Mexican government for another grant of land in lieu of the California concession, and were granted seven hundred leagues of land, to be located in Sonora, Sinaloa and Lower California, in such parcels as they might select. Seven hundred leagues, or 3,000,800 acres, is a large tract of land in a single body, and the attorney of the heirs considered it more convenient to locate the land in small tracts of a league or two at a place. The government of Mexico conceded whatever was required, and the grant was made in all due form of Mexican law. In the discussion at the Government Boarding House in San Francisco it was urged: That the Gulf of California was the Mediterranean of the Pacific, and its waters full of pearls. That the Peninsula of Lower California was copper-bound, interspersed with gold and minerals, illustrated with old Spanish Missions, and fanned by the gentlest breezes from the South Pacific. That the State of Sonora was one of the richest of Mexico in silver, copper, gold, coal and other materials, with highly productive agricultural valleys in the temperate zone. That the country north of Sonora, called in the Spanish history "Arizunea" (rocky country) was full of minerals, with fertile valleys washed by numerous rivers, and covered by forests primeval. That the climate was all that could be desired, from the level of the Gulf of California, to an altitude of 15,000 feet in the mountains of the north. That the Southern Pacific Railroad would soon be built through the new country, and that a new State would be made as a connecting link between Texas and California, with the usual quota of governors, senators, and public officials. It was urged that the Iturbide Grant could be located so as to secure the best sites for towns and cities in the new State, and the rest distributed to settlers as an inducement for rapid colonization. The enthusiasm increased with the glamour of Spanish history and the generous flow of Sazerac. It must be admitted that an alluring prospect was opened for a young man idling away his life over a custom house desk at three hundred dollars a month; and in the enthusiasm of youth I undertook to make an exploration of the new territory and to locate the Iturbide Grant. Who could have foreseen that the attempted location of the Iturbide Grant would upset the Mexican Republic and set up an empire in Mexico under French protection? The first thing was to organize a "syndicate" in San Francisco, to furnish funds for expenses and for the location of the Iturbide Grant. This was easily accomplished through some enthusiastic French bankers. The ex-member of Congress was dispatched to the City of Mexico to secure the approbation of the Mexican government, and I embarked at San Francisco for Guaymas with a rather tough cargo of humanity. They were not so bad as reckless; not ungovernable, but independent. The records of the United States consulate in Guaymas, if they are preserved, show our registration as American citizens, fourteenth day of January, 1854. The Mexican officials were polite, but not cordial. They said Santa Ana had no right to sell the territory, as he was an usurper and possessed no authority from the Mexican people. As international tribunals had not then been established to determine these nice points of international ethics, we did not stop to argue the question, but pushed on to the newly acquired territory. We were very much disappointed at its meagerness, and especially that the boundary did not include a port in the Gulf of California. A larger territory could have been secured as easily, but the American Minister had only one idea, and that was to secure "a pass" for a Southern Pacific Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. The pass desired was the Guadaloupe Cañon, used as a wagon road by General Cook in his march from New Mexico to California in 1846, and strange to say, not subsequently occupied as a railroad pass. The country south of the new boundary line is not of much consequence to us: it belongs to Mexico. The country north of the Mexican boundary is the most marvelous in the United States. After many years of arduous investigation and comparison with all the other countries of the world, it is still nearly as great an enigma as when first explored in 1854. The valleys are as fair as the sun ever shone upon, with soil as productive as the valley of the Nile. The rigors of winter never disturb agricultural pursuits in the open. In fact, in the southern portion of the territory there is no winter. The valleys of Arizona are not surpassed for fertility and beauty by any that I have seen, and that includes the whole world; but still they are not occupied. Spanish and Mexican grants have hung over the country like a cloud, and settlers could not be certain of a clear title. Moreover, the Apaches have been a continual source of dread and danger. This state of affairs is, however, now passing away. There were evidences of a recent Mexican occupation, with the ruins of towns, missions, presidios, haciendas, and ranches. There were evidences of former Spanish civilization, with extensive workings in mines. There were evidences of a still more remote and mysterious civilization by an aboriginal race, of which we know nothing, and can learn but little by the vestiges they have left upon earth. They constructed houses, lived in communities, congregated in cities, built fortresses, and cultivated the soil by irrigation. No evidence has been found that they used any domestic animals, no relic of wheeled vehicles, neither iron, steel, nor copper implements; and yet they built houses more than five stories high, and cut joists with stone axes. How they transported timbers for houses is not known. The engineering for their irrigating canals was as perfect as that practiced on the Euphrates, the Ganges, or the Nile. The ruins of the great houses (casas grandes) are precisely with the cardinal points. Near Florence, on the Gila, is beyond all doubt the oldest and most unique edifice in the United States. Just when and how it was built baffles human curiosity. Whether it was erected for a temple, a palace, or a town hall, cannot be ascertained. The settlement or city surrounding the ruin must have occupied a radius of quite ten miles, judging from the ruins and pieces of broken pottery within that space. An irrigating canal formerly ran from the Gila River to the city or settlement, for domestic uses and for irrigation. The Pima Indians have lived in their villages on the Gila River time immemorial, at least they have no tradition of the time of their coming. Their tribal organization has many features worthy imitation by more civilized people. The government rests with a hereditary chief and a council of sages. The rights of property are protected, as far as they have any individual property, which is small, as they are in fact communists. The water from the Gila River to irrigate their lands is obtained by canals constructed by the common labor of the tribe. In my intercourse with these Indians for many years they frequently asked questions which would puzzle, the most profound philosopher to answer. For instance, they inquired, "Who made the world and everything therein?" I replied, "God." "Where does he live?" "In the sky." "What does he sit on?" In their domestic relations they have a system thousands of years older than the Edmunds Act, which works to suit them, and fills the requirements of satisfied nationalities. The old men said the marriage system had given them more trouble than anything else, and they finally abandoned all laws to the laws of nature. The young people were allowed to mate by natural selection, and if they were not satisfied they could "swap." In after years, when I was Superintendent of Indian Affairs, I selected a stalwart Pima named Luis, who was proud of his acquirements in the English language, and gave him a uniform, sword, and epaulettes about the size of a saucer, to stand guard in front of my quarters. One day I came out and found Luis walking with an ununiformed Pima, with their arms around each other's waists, according to their custom. I inquired, "Luis, who is that?" "That is my brother-in-law." "Did you marry his sister?" "No." "Did he marry your sister?" "No." "Then how is he your brother-in-law?" "We swapped wives." Among the Pimas there is no incentive to avarice, and the accumulation of large personal fortunes. When a Pima dies, most of his personal property, that is, house and household belongings, which he had used during life, is committed to the flames as a sanitary measure, and whatever he may have left of personal property is divided among the tribe. The dead are buried in the ground in silence, and you can never get the Pimas to pronounce the name of a dead man. The Pimas have many customs resembling the Jews, especially the periodical seclusion of women. The Apaches have robbed them time immemorial, and they in turn make frequent campaigns against the Apaches. When they return from such a campaign, if they have shed blood they paint their faces black, and seclude themselves from the women. If they have not shed blood they paint their faces white, and enter the joys of matrimony. The Pima handiwork in earthenware, horsehair, bridle reins, ropes, and domestic utensils, is remarkably ingenious. They formerly cultivated cotton and manufactured cotton cloth of a very strong quality. The men understood spinning and weaving, and passed the winter in this industrial pursuit. Their subsistence is wheat, corn, melons, pumpkins, vegetables, and the wild fruits. They have herds of cattle, plenty of horses, and great quantities of poultry. The Americans are indebted to the Pima Indians for provisions furnished the California emigration, and for supplies for the early overland stages, besides their faithful and unwavering friendship. The habitations of these prehistoric people form the most unique of all the anomalous dwellings of Arizona, and a more minute investigation than has hitherto been made will show the earliest habitations of man. There are similar edifices in Egypt and India, but they are mostly temples. These Arizona cliff dwellings are the only edifices of the kind that are known to have been inhabited by mankind. They exist mostly in the mountains in the northern portion of Arizona. A more ancient race, still, lived in the excavations on the sides of the mountains, prepared, no doubt, as a refuge against enemies. At the time of our first exploration (1854) there was virtually no civilized population in the recently acquired territory. The old pueblo of Tucson contained probably three hundred Mexicans, Indians, and half breeds. The Pima Indians on the Gila River numbered from seven to ten thousand, and were the only producing population. We could not explore the country north of the Gila River, because of the Apaches, who then numbered fully twenty thousand. For three hundred years they have killed Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans, which makes about the longest continuous war on record. It was impossible to remain with a considerable number of men in a country destitute of sustenance; so we followed the Gila River down to its junction with the Colorado, and camped on the bank opposite Fort Yuma, glad to be again in sight of the American flag. The commanding officer, Major--afterwards General--Heintzelman, issued the regulation allowance of emigrant rations, which were very grateful to men who had been living for some time without what are usually called the necessaries of life. Fort Yuma was established in 1851, to suppress the Indians on the Colorado, and to protect emigrants at the crossing. It was apparent that the junction of the Gila and Colorado must be the seaport of the new territory. The Colorado was supposed to be navigable nearly seven hundred miles, and steamboats were already at Yuma transporting supplies for the post. By the treaty with Mexico of 1848 the boundary line was established from the mouth of the Rio Grande northwardly to the headwaters of the Gila River, thence along the channel of the Gila River to its confluence with the Colorado. The treaty then says: "From a point at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado rivers, westerly to a point on the Pacific Ocean six miles south of the southernmost point of the Bay of San Diego." As the geography of the country was not well understood at the time, it was not presumably known to the makers of the treaty that the boundary line would include both banks of the Colorado River in the American boundary, but it does. By a curious turn in the Colorado River, after passing through the gorge between Fort Yuma and the opposite bank, the boundary line of the United States includes both banks of the River to the crossing at Pilot Knob, nearly nine miles. When the State of California was organized in 1850, the constitution adopted the boundary line of the State, and consequently assumed jurisdiction over the slip of land on the bank of the Colorado opposite Fort Yuma. When Fort Yuma was established, the commanding officer established a military reservation, including both banks of the Colorado River at its junction with the Gila. The boundary line between Mexico and the United States, under the treaty of 1848, was run in 1850, and monuments erected on the southern bank of the Colorado, to indicate the possession of the United States. While we were encamped on the banks of the Colorado River, in the hot month of July, 1854, we concluded to locate a town-site on the slip of land opposite Fort Yuma, and as we were well provided with treaties, maps, surveying instruments, and stationery, there was not much difficulty in making the location. The actual survey showed 936 acres within the slip, and this was quite large enough for a "town-site." A town-site is generally the first evidence of American civilization. After locating the town-site at Yuma there was nothing to do but to cross the desert from the Colorado River to San Diego. We made the journey on mules, with extraordinary discomfort. At San Diego we were as much rejoiced as the followers of Xenophon to see the sea. The town-site was duly registered in San Diego, which could not have been done if both banks of the Colorado just below its junction with the Gila had not been recognized as being within the jurisdiction of the State of California. The county of San Diego collected taxes there for many years. After the organization of the Territory of Arizona in 1863, Arizona assumed jurisdiction over the slip, and built a prison there. Congress subsequently made a grant of land included in the slip to the "Village of Yuma," so that it is a mere question of jurisdiction, not involving the validity of any titles. The question of jurisdiction still remains unsettled, as it requires both an Act of Congress and Act of the State Legislature to change the boundaries of a sovereign State. The town-site of Yuma has grown slowly, but there will be a town there as long as the two rivers flow. The Southern Pacific Railroad was completed years ago, and forms the great artery of commerce. Immigration enterprises of great magnitude have been undertaken with the waters of the Colorado River. The river washes fully three hundred thousand square miles, and furnishes a water power in the cataracts of the Grand Cañon only second to Niagara. "At Yuma, on the Colorado River, the only attempt at irrigation so far made is by pumping works, which raise the water from the river and convey it in pipes to the lands to be watered. While thus far only a limited area is watered by this method, the results are satisfactory, and the expense no greater than in many of the pipe systems of California. "But for the magnitude, scope, and the boldness of its purpose, the project to irrigate the great Colorado Desert is without a parallel in the arid West, if in the world. "This undertaking contemplates the construction of gravity canals from a point in the Colorado River, several miles above Yuma, and the conducting of the waters of this river over an arid waste, that, while forbidding in appearance, is known to be capable of great fertility. One interesting feature of this plan to reclaim the desert is found in the character of the water to be utilized. Analysis shows that the water of the Colorado River carries a larger percentage of sedimentary deposit than any other river in the world, not excepting the Nile. The same is true, in a relative degree, of all the other rivers in Arizona. By constant use of these waters the soil not only receives the reviving benefits of irrigation, but at the same time a very considerable amount of fertilizing material. "The beneficial results thus made possible have already been practically demonstrated, and what may be achieved by the proposed reclamation of a vast area, with peculiar advantages of climate and environment, is one of the most significant suggestions conceivable in connection with the new era of irrigation. "The storage of water by reservoirs for irrigation purposes has thus far been one of the untried problems in Arizona. But the possibilities in this section are equal to any section of the arid West, and because of the stability and certainty of this method, it is only a question of time when it will be carried into practical force."[B] In the progress of civilization, Fort Yuma has given way to an Indian school, where the dusky denizens of the Colorado are progressing in learning. After concluding our business in San Diego, we took the steamer for San Francisco, and laid the result of the reconnaissance (which was not much) before the "Syndicate." We had an audience with the commanding officer of the Pacific, and procured a recommendation to the Secretary of War for an exploration of the Colorado River. This was subsequently accomplished with beneficial results,--at least for information. In San Francisco it was decided that I should proceed to Washington, for the purpose of soliciting assistance of the Federal Government in opening the new Territory for settlement, and the voyage was made _via_ Panama. * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [Footnote A: It has been a mystery which I have been asked to explain a thousand times, why the Gadsden Treaty was made with such a boundary line. The true inwardness of the treaty is attempted to be explained. The boundary line at Yuma, on the Colorado, at the junction of the Gila, is now submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. See Attorney General Hart.--C.D.P.] [Footnote B: Quoted from a recent article of mine in a local paper. Such quotations will occur in this series without further credit.--C.D.P.] II Early Mining and Filibustering In 1855, When I arrived in Washington as an amateur delegate from the new Territory, the "Gadsden Purchase" did not attract much attention. They had something else to do. President Pierce, the most affable of Presidents, was very polite, and asked many questions about the new acquisition. The Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, promised to order an exploration of the Colorado River as soon as he could get an appropriation, and to send troops to the new Territory as soon as they could be spared. During the winter General Heintzelman came to Washington, and as the town was crowded, and he could not find suitable accommodations, I had an extra bed put in my room at the National, and we messed together. It was an advantage to have an officer of the Army who had been in command at Yuma to give information about the country, and the association thus formed lasted through life. There was not much to be done in Washington, so I went over to New York, the seat of "The Texas Pacific Railroad Company." This company had been organized under a munificent land grant from the State of Texas. The capital stock was a hundred million dollars. The scheme was to build a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean on the proceeds of land grants and bonds, and make the hundred millions of dollars stock as profit, less one tenth of one per cent to be paid in for expenses and promotion money. The President of this company was Robert J. Walker, Secretary of the Treasury under President Polk; Vice-President, Thomas Butler King, of Georgia, late Collector of the Port in San Francisco, my recent superior; Secretary, Samuel Jaudon, late Cashier of the United States Bank. Mr. Walker, the President of the Company, received me at dinner at his mansion on Fifth Avenue, and my acquaintance with Thomas Butler King was renewed over sparkling vintages. This company had parcelled the world out among its officers. Robert J. Walker was to have the financial field of Europe. Samuel Jaudon, the secretary, was to display his financial ability in New York and the Atlantic cities. Edgar Conkling, of Cincinnati, was agent for the Mississippi Valley. Thomas Butler King was allotted the State of Texas, and I, being the junior, was to have the country between the Rio Grande and the Colorado. I told them all I knew about the Territory,--and a great deal more,--and enlarged upon the advantages that would accrue to the railroad company by an exploration of the new Territory and a development of its mineral resources. They inquired how much it would cost to make the exploration. I replied that I would start with a hundred thousand dollars if there was a million behind it. A company was organized with a capital of two million dollars, and shares sold at an average of fifty dollars. General Heintzelman was appointed president, and I was appointed "manager and commandant." The office was located in Cincinnati, for the convenience of General Heintzelman, who was stationed at Newport Barracks, Ky. William Wrightson was appointed secretary. As soon as the necessary arrangements were made I started west on this arduous undertaking. The arms and equipments had been shipped to San Antonio, Texas, and I proceeded there to complete the outfit. San Antonio was the best outfitting place in the Southwest at that time. Wagons, ambulances, mules, horses, and provisions were abundant, and men could be found in Texas willing to go anywhere. At San Antonio I met the famous George Wilkins Kendall, who advised me to go to New Bramfels, where I could find some educated German miners, and as he was going to Austin I accompanied him as far as New Bramfels, and received the benefit of his introduction. There were plenty of educated German miners about New Bramfels, working on farms and selling lager beer, and they enlisted joyfully. The rest of the company was made up of frontiersmen (buckskin boys), who were not afraid of the devil. We pulled out of San Antonio, Texas, on the first day of May, 1856, and took the road to El Paso, or Paso del Norte, on the Rio Grande, 762 miles by the itinerary. The plains of Texas were covered with verdure and flowers, and the mocking birds made the night march a serenade. I carried recommendations from the War Department to the military officers of the frontiers for assistance, if necessary. The first military post on the road was Fort Clark (El Moro), and a beautiful location. The post was at that time under the command of the famous John Bankhead Magruder, whom I had known in California. Magruder had recently returned from Europe, bringing two French cooks; and as he was a notorious bon vivant, it was not disagreeable to accept an invitation to dinner. After breakfast next morning I went to take my leave of the officers, but Magruder said:-- "Sir, you cannot go. Consider yourself under arrest." I replied, "General, I am not aware of having violated any of the regulations of the Army." "No, sir, but you are violating the rules of hospitality. You shall stay here three days. Send your train on to the Pecos, and I will send an escort with you to overtake it." So I remained at Fort Clark three days in duress, and never had a prisoner of war more hospitable entertainment. Texas overflows with abundant provisions, if they only had French cooks. After a toilsome and dangerous march through Lipans and Commanches we arrived on the upper Rio Grande, at El Paso, in time to spend the Fourth of July. El Paso at this time was enjoying an era of commercial prosperity. The Mexican trade was good. Silver flowed in in a stream. After recruiting at El Paso we moved up to the crossing of the Rio Grande at Fort Thorn, and prepared to plunge into Apache land. Camping the command on the green-fringed Mimbres I took five men, and with Doctor Steck and his interpreter made a visit to the Apaches in their stronghold at Santa Rita del Cobre. There was an old triangular-shaped fort built by the Spaniards which afforded shelter. There were about three hundred Apaches in camp,--physically, fine looking fellows who seemed as happy as the day was long. The agent distributed two wagon loads of corn, from which they made "tiz-win," an intoxicating drink. Their principal business, if they have any, is stealing stock in Mexico and selling it on the Rio Grande. The mule trade was lively. They proved themselves expert marksmen; but I noticed always cut the bullets out of the trees, as they are economists in ammunition if nothing else. Deer and turkeys were plentiful, and we feasted for several days in the old triangular fort and under the trees. Doctor Steck told the Apaches that I was "a mighty big man," and they must not steal any of my stock nor kill any of my men. The chiefs said they wanted to be friends with the Americans, and would not molest us if we did not interfere with their "trade with Mexico." On this basis we made a treaty and the Apaches kept it. I had a lot of tin-types taken in New York, which I distributed freely among the chiefs, so they might know me if we should meet again. Many years afterwards an Apache girl told me they could have killed me often from ambush, but they remembered the treaty and would not do it. I have generally found the Indians willing to keep faith with the whites, if the whites will keep faith with them. After leaving the camp at the Mimbres, we crossed the Chiricahua Mountains, and camped for noon on a little stream called the San Simon, which empties into the Gila River. We had scarcely unlimbered when the rear guard called out, "Apaches!" and about a hundred came thundering down the western slope of the mountain, well mounted and well armed. Their horsemanship was admirable, their horses in good condition, and many of them caparisoned with silver-mounted saddles and bridles, the spoil of Mexican foray. A rope was quickly stretched across the road, the ammunition boxes got out, and everything prepared for a fight. The chief was a fine-looking man named Alessandro, and as a fight was the last thing we desired, a parley was called when they reached the rope. When asked what they wished, they said they wanted to come into camp and trade; that they had captives, mules, mescal, and so on. We told them we were not traders, and had nothing to sell. They were rather insolent at this, and made some demonstrations against the rope. I told the interpreter to say that I would shoot the first man that crossed the rope, and they retired for consultations. Finally they thought better of it, or did not like the looks of our rifles and pistols, and struck off for their homes in the north. I had a stalwart native of Bohemia in the company who was considered very brave; but when the attack was imminent he was a little slow in coming forward, and I cried out somewhat angrily, "Anton, why don't you come out?" He replied, "Wait till I light my pipe." And that Dutchman stalked out with a rifle in his hand, two pistols on his sides, and a great German pipe in his mouth. The Apaches did not trouble us any more, and after crossing high mountains and wide valleys we arrived on the Santa Cruz River, and camped at the old Mission Church of San Xavier del Bac. Three leagues north of the Mission Church of San Xavier del Bac (Bac means water) is located the ancient and honorable pueblo of Tucson. This is the most ancient pueblo in Arizona, and is first mentioned in Spanish history in the narrative of Castaneda, in 1540. The Spanish expedition of Coronado in search of gold stopped here awhile, and washed some gold from the sands of the Cañon del Oro on sheep skins. It is well known that that expedition drove sheep. The Spaniards, from this experience, remembering the island of Colchis, named the place Tucson,--Jason in Spanish. The "ancient and honorable pueblo" has borne this name ever since, without profound knowledge of its origin. The patron saint of Tucson is San Augustine, and as it was now the last of August the fiesta in honor of her patron saint was being celebrated. As we had a long march and a dry time, the animals were sent out to graze in charge of the Papago Indians living around the Missions; two weeks' furlough was given the men to attend the fiesta, confess their sins, and get acquainted with the Mexican señoritas, who flocked there in great numbers from the adjoining State of Sonora. Music and revelry were continued day and night, with very few interruptions by violence. The only disorder that I observed was caused by a quarrel among some Americans, and the use of the infernal revolver. There were not more than a dozen Americans in the pueblo of Tucson when we arrived, and they were not Methodist preachers. The town has grown with the country, and now contains a population of nearly ten thousand people, of many shades of color and many nationalities. The first question to be settled was the location of a headquarters for the company. We had come a long way, at considerable risk and expense, and fortunately without disaster. We were now encamped in view of the scene of our future operations, and the exploration and settlement of a territory of considerably over a hundred thousand square miles was before us, and the destiny of a new State was in embryo. It would not be prudent to expose the lives of the men and valuable property we had hauled so far to the cupidity of the natives; and therefore a safe place for storage and for defense was the first necessity in selecting a headquarters. We had some hundred and fifty horses and mules, wagons, ambulances, arms, provisions, merchandise, mining, material,--and moreover, what we considered of inestimable value, the future,--in our keeping, and a proper location was a grave consideration. The Spaniards had located a presidio at the base of the Santa Rita Mountains on the Santa Cruz River, a stream as large and as beautiful as the Arno, flowing from the southeast, and watering opulent valleys which had been formerly occupied and cultivated. The presidio was called Tu-bac (the water). The Mexican troops had just evacuated the presidio of Tubac, leaving the quarters in a fair state of preservation, minus the doors and windows, which they hauled away. The presidio of Tubac was about ten leagues south of the mission church of San Xavier del Bac, on the Santa Cruz River, on the high road (camino real) to Sonora and Mexico; consequently we struck camp at the Mission San Xavier del Bac, and pulled out for the presidio of Tubac to establish our headquarters and future home. There was not a soul in the old presidio. It was like entering the ruins of Pompeii. Nevertheless we set to work, cleaned out the quarters, repaired the corrals, and prepared to make ourselves as comfortable as possible. The first necessity in a new settlement is lumber, and we dispatched men to the adjacent mountains of Santa Rita to cut pine with whip-saws, and soon had lumber for doors, windows, tables, chairs, bedsteads, and the primitive furniture necessary for housekeeping. The quarters could accommodate about three hundred men, and the corrals were ample for the animals. The old quartel made a good storehouse, and the tower on the north, of which three stories remained, was utilized as a lookout. The beautiful Santa Cruz washed the eastern side of the presidio, and fuel and grass were abundant in the valley and on the mountain sides. It was not more than a hundred leagues to Guaymas, the seaport of the Gulf of California, where European merchandise could be obtained. There were no frontier custom houses at that time to vex and hinder commerce. In the autumn of 1856 we had made the headquarters for the company at Tubac comfortable, laid in a store of provisions for the winter, and were ready to begin the exploration of the country for mines. When you look at the Santa Rita Mountains from Tubac, it seems a formidable undertaking to tunnel and honeycomb them for mines. Nevertheless, we began to attack with stout hearts and strong arms, full of hope and enthusiasm. The mines in the Santa Rita Mountains had been previously worked by the Spaniards and Mexicans, as was evident by the ruins of arrastres and smelters. Gold could be washed on the mountain sides, and silver veins could be traced by the discolored grass. As soon as it was known in Mexico that an American company had arrived in Tubac, Mexicans from Sonora and the adjacent States came in great numbers to work, and skillful miners could be employed at from fifteen to twenty-five dollars a month and rations. Sonora furnished flour, beef, beans, sugar, barley, corn, and vegetables, at moderate prices. A few straggling Americans came along now and then on pretense of seeking employment. When questioned on that delicate subject, they said they would work for $10 a day and board; that they got that in California, and would never work for less. After staying a few days at the company's expense they would reluctantly move on, showing their gratitude for hospitality by spreading the rumor that "the managers at Tubac employed foreigners and greasers, and would not give a white man a chance." They were generally worthless, dissipated, dangerous, low white trash. Many Mexicans that had been formerly soldiers at the presidio of Tubac had little holdings of land in the valley, and returned to cultivate their farms, in many cases accompanied by their families. By Christmas, 1856, an informal census showed the presence of fully a thousand souls (such as they were) in the valley of the Santa Cruz in the vicinity of Tubac. We had no law but love, and no occupation but labor. No government, no taxes, no public debt, no politics. It was a community in a perfect state of nature. As "syndic" under New Mexico, I opened a book of records, performed the marriage ceremony, baptized children, and granted divorces. Sonora has always been famous for the beauty and gracefulness of its señoritas. The civil wars in Mexico, and the exodus of the male population from Northern Mexico to California, had disturbed the equilibrium of population, till in some pueblos the disproportion was as great as a dozen females to one male; and in the genial climate of Sonora this anomalous condition of society was unendurable. Consequently the señoritas and grass widows sought the American camp on the Santa Cruz River. When they could get transportation in wagons hauling provisions they came in state,--others came on the hurricane deck of burros, and many came on foot. All were provided for. The Mexican señoritas really had a refining influence on the frontier population. Many of them had been educated at convents, and all of them were good Catholics. They called the American men "Los God-dammes," and the American women "Las Camisas-Colorados." If there is anything that a Mexican woman despises it is a red petticoat. They are exceedingly dainty in their underclothing,--wear the finest linen they can afford; and spend half their lives over the washing machine. The men of northern Mexico are far inferior to the women in every respect. This accretion of female population added very much to the charms of frontier society. The Mexican women were not by any means useless appendages in camp. They could keep house, cook some dainty dishes, wash clothes, sew, dance, and sing,--moreover, they were expert at cards, and divested many a miner of his week's wages over a game of monte. As Alcalde of Tubac under the government of New Mexico, I was legally authorized to celebrate the rites of matrimony, baptize children, grant divorces, execute criminals, declare war, and perform all the functions of the ancient El Cadi. The records of this primitive period are on file in the Recorder's office of the Pueblo of Tucson, Pima County. Tubac became a kind of Gretna Green for runaway couples from Sonora; as the priest there charged them twenty-five dollars, and the Alcalde of Tubac tied the knot gratis, and gave them a treat besides. I had been marrying people and baptizing children at Tubac for a year or two, and had a good many godchildren named Carlos or Carlotta according to gender, and began to feel quite patriarchal, when Bishop Lame sent down Father Mashboef, (Vicar Apostolic,) of New Mexico, to look after the spiritual condition of the Arizona people. It required all the sheets and tablecloths of the establishment to fix up a confessional room, and we had to wait till noon for the blessing at breakfast; but worse than all that, my commadres, who used to embrace me with such affection, went away with their reybosas over their heads without even a friendly salutation. It was "muy triste" in Tubac, and I began to feel the effects of the ban of the Church; when one day after breakfast Father Mashboef took me by the arm, (a man always takes you by the arm when he has anything unpleasant to say,) and said:-- "My young friend, I appreciate all you have been trying to do for these people; but these marriages you have celebrated are not good in the eyes of God." I knew there would be a riot on the Santa Cruz if this ban could not be lifted. The women were sulky, and the men commenced cursing and swearing, and said they thought they were entitled to all the rights of matrimony. My strong defense was that I had not charged any of them anything, and had given them a marriage certificate with a seal on it, made out of a Mexican dollar; and had given a treat and fired off the anvil. Still, although the Pope of Rome was beyond the jurisdiction of even the Alcalde of Tubac, I could not see the way open for a restoration of happiness. At last I arranged with Father Mashboef to give the sanction of the Church to the marriages and legitimize the little Carloses and Carlottas with holy water, and it cost the company about $700 to rectify the matrimonial situation in Santa Cruz. An idea that it was lonesome at Tubac would be incorrect. One can never be lonesome who is useful, and its was considered at the time that the opening of mines which yielded nothing before, the cultivation of land which lay fallow, the employment of labor which was idle, and the development of a new country were meritorious undertakings. The table at Tubac was generously supplied with the best the market afforded, besides venison, antelope, turkeys, bear, quail, wild ducks, and other game, and we obtained through Guaymas a reasonable supply of French wines for Sunday dinners and the celebration of feast days. It is astonishing how rapidly the development of mines increases commerce. We had scarcely commenced to make silver bars--"current with the merchant"--when the plaza at Tubac presented a picturesque scene of primitive commerce. Pack trains arrived from Mexico, loaded with all kinds of provisions. The rule was to purchase everything they brought, whether we wanted it or not. They were quite willing to take in exchange silver bars or American merchandise. Sometimes they preferred American merchandise. Whether they paid duties in Mexico was none of our business. We were essentially free traders. The winter was mild and charming, very little snow, and only frost enough to purify the atmosphere. It would be difficult to find in any country of the world, so near the sea, such prolific valleys fenced in by mountains teeming with minerals. The natural elements of prosperity seem concentrated in profusion seldom found. In our primitive simplicity we reasoned that if we could take ores from the mountains and reduce them to gold and silver with which to pay for labor and purchase the productions of the valleys, a community could be established in the country independent of foreign resources. The result will show the success or failure of this Utopian scheme. The usual routine at Tubac, in addition to the regular business of distributing supplies to the mining camps, was chocolate or strong coffee the first thing in the morning, breakfast at sunrise, dinner at noon, and supper at sunset. Sunday was the day of days at Tubac, as the superintendents came in from the mining camps to spend the day and take dinner, returning in the afternoon. One Sunday we had a fat wild turkey weighing about twenty-five pounds, and one of my engineers asked permission to assist in the _cocina_. It was done to a charm, and stuffed with pine nuts, which gave it a fine flavor. As we had plenty of horses and saddles, a gallop to the old Mission of San Jose de Turnucacori, one league south on the Santa Cruz River, afforded exercise and diversion for the ladies, especially of a Sunday afternoon. The old mission was rapidly going to ruin, but the records showed that it formerly supported a population of 3,500 people, from cultivation of the rich lands in the valley, grazing cattle, and working the silver mines. The Santa Cruz valley had been and could apparently again be made an earthly paradise. Many fruit trees yet remained in the gardens of the old mission church, and the "Campo Santo" walls were in a perfect state of preservation. The communal system of the Latin races was well adapted to this country of oases and detached valleys. Caesar knew nearly as much about the governing machine as the sachem of Tammany Hall, or a governor in Mexico. At least, he enriched himself. In countries requiring irrigation the communal system of distributing water has been found to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. The plan of a government granting water to corporations, to be sold as a monopoly, is an atrocity against nature; and no deserving people will for long submit to it. The question will soon come up whether the government has any more right to sell the water than the air. In the spring of 1857, a garden containing about two acres was prepared at Tubac, and irrigated by a canal from the Santa Cruz River. By the industry of a German gardener with two Mexican assistants, we soon produced all vegetables, melons, etc., that we required, and many a weary traveler remembers, or ought to remember, the hospitalities of Tubac. We were never a week without some company, and sometimes had more than we required; but nobody was ever charged anything for entertainment, horse-shoeing, and fresh supplies for the road. Hospitality is a savage virtue, and disappears with civilization. As the ores in the Santa Rita Mountains did not make a satisfactory yield, we turned our explorations to the west of the Santa Cruz River, and soon struck a vein of petanque (silver copper glance) that yielded from the grass roots seven thousand dollars a ton. This mine was named in honor of the president of the company, "Heintzelman," which in German mining lore is also the name of the genius who presides over mines. The silver bullion over expenses, which were about fifty per cent, was shipped, via Guaymas, to San Francisco, where it brought from 125 to 132 cents per ounce for the Asiatic market. Silver bars form rather an inconvenient currency, and necessity required some more convenient medium. We therefore adopted the Mexican system of "boletas." Engravings were made in New York, and paper money printed on pasteboard about two inches by three in small denominations, twelve and one half cents, twenty-five cents, fifty cents, one dollar, five dollars, ten dollars. Each boleta had a picture, by which the illiterate could ascertain its denomination, viz: twelve and a half cents, a pig; twenty-five cents, a calf; fifty cents, a rooster; one dollar, a horse; five dollars, a bull; ten dollars, a lion. With these "boletas" the hands were paid off every Saturday, and they were currency at the stores, and among the merchants of the country and in Mexico. When a run of silver was made, anyone holding tickets could have them redeemed in silver bars, or in exchange on San Francisco. This primitive system of greenbacks worked very well,--everybody holding boletas was interested in the success of the mines; and the whole community was dependent on the prosperity of the company. They were all redeemed. Mines form the bank of Nature, and industry puts the money in circulation, to the benefit of mankind. In the autumn of 1857 a detachment from the regiment of First Dragoons arrived in the Santa Cruz Valley, for the purpose of establishing a military post, and for the protection of the infant settlements. The officers were Colonel Blake, Major Stein, and Captain Ewell. The first military post was established at Calaveras, and the arrival of the officers made quite an addition to the society on the Santa Cruz. Incident to the arrival of the military on the Santa Cruz was a citizens' train of wagons laden with supplies,--twelve wagons of twelve mules each,--belonging to Santiago Hubbell, of New Mexico. While he was encamped at Tubac I inquired the price of freight, and learned it was fifteen cents a pound from Kansas City. I inquired what he would charge to take back a freight of ores, and he agreed to haul them from the Heintzelman mine to Kansas City and a steamboat for twelve and a half cents a pound, and I loaded his wagons with ores in rawhide bags,--a ton to the wagon. This was the first shipment of ores, and a pretty "long haul." Upon the arrival of these ores in the States they were distributed to different cities for examination and assay, and gave the country its first reputation as a producer of minerals. The average yield in silver was not enormous, as the ores contained a great deal of copper, but the silver yield was about fifteen hundred dollars to the ton. In December, 1856, I purchased for the company the estate of "La Aribac," or Arivaca, as it is called by Americans. This place is a beautiful valley encompassed by mountains, and containing only a few leagues of land. It was settled by Augustine Ortiz, a Spaniard, in 1802, and title obtained from the Spanish government. The ownership and occupation descended to his two sons, Tomas and Ignacio Ortiz, who obtained additional title from the Mexican Republic in 1833, and maintained continuous occupation until 1856, when they sold to the company for a valuable consideration. The validity of the title has been denied by the United States, notwithstanding the obligations of the treaty, and is now pending before the United States Land Court, with the prospect of an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, with a fair prospect of the ultimate loss of the property. The company conveyed the property with all mines and claims in Arizona to the writer, on the 2nd January, 1870,--a woful heritage. In the early months of 1857, everything was going well in the Santa Cruz valley. The mines were yielding silver bullion by the most primitive methods of reduction. The farmers were planting with every prospect of a good crop. Emigrants were coming into the country and taking up farms. Merchants were busy in search of the Almighty Dollar or its representative. The only disturbing element in the vicinity was a little guerilla war, going on in Sonora between two factions for the control of the State government. Gaudara was the actual governor, and had been so for many years, during which time he had accumulated a handsome fortune in lands, mills, mines, merchandise, live stock, and fincas. He was a sedate and dignified man, much respected by the natives, and especially polite and hospitable to foreigners. Pesquiera was an educated savage, without property or position, and naturally coveted his neighbor's goods. Consequently a revolution was commenced to obtain control of the governorship of the State; and just the same as when King David sought refuge in the cave of Adullam, all who were in debt, all who were refugees, all who were thieves, and all who were distressed, joined Pesquiera to rob Guadara. This is all there was,--or ever is, to Mexican revolutions. On the discovery of gold in California, many Mexicans went from Sonora to California and remained there. Among these was one Ainsa, of Manila descent, married to a native of Sonora, who migrated to California with a large family of girls and boys in 1850, and had a Bank and Mexican Agency on the northwest corner of Clay and Montgomery streets, where there was the usual sign,-- SE COMPRA ORO Up Stairs The girls of the Ainsa family grew to womanhood, and carried the beauty and graces of Sonora to a good market. They all married Americans, and married well. As Helen of Sparta caused the Trojan War, and many eminent women have caused many eminent wars, there was no reason why the Ainsa women should not take part in the little revolution going on in their native State (Sonora). Their husbands could then become eminent men, annex the State of Sonora to the United States, and become governors and senators. It was a laudable ambition on the part of the Ainsa women, and their husbands were eminently deserving,--in fact, their husbands were already the foremost men in California in political position. One of them had been a prominent candidate for the United States Senate, and the others had occupied high position in Federal and State service, and were highly respected among their fellow citizens. In this state of affairs the eldest brother,--Augustine, was despatched to Sonora to see what arrangements could be made with Pesquiera if the Americans would come from California and help him oust Gaudara. Pesquiera was in desperate straits, and agreed to whatever was necessary; the substance of which was that the Americans should come with five hundred men, well armed, and assist him in ousting Guadara and establishing himself as governor of Sonora. After that the Americans could name whatever they wanted in money or political offices, even to the annexation of the State, which was at that time semi-independent of Mexico. Augustine, the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, returned to California with the agreement in writing; and the Americans immediately began to drum up for recruits; but the prosperity of California was so great that but a few could be persuaded to leave a certainty for an uncertainty. The Americans in California actually started for Sonora with less than fifty men, with vague promises of recruits by sea. The records of the ferryman on the Colorado River show that they crossed the river with only forty-two men and a boy. With this meager force these infatuated and misguided men pushed one hundred and thirty-two miles across a barren desert to the boundary line of Mexico at the Sonoita (Clover Creek), where there is a little stream of water struggling for existence in the sands. At the Sonoita the invaders were met by a proclamation from Pesquiera, forwarded through Redondo, the Prefect of Altar, warning them not to enter the State of Sonora. When men have resolved on destruction, reason is useless, and they paid no attention to the order, and crossed the boundary line of Mexico with arms and in hostile array. When they reached the vicinity of Altar they diverged from the main road to the west, and took the road to Caborca. The only possible reason for this movement is that they may have expected reinforcements by sea, as Caborca is the nearest settlement to a little port called Libertad, where small ships could land. Be this as it may, no reinforcements ever came: and this little handful of Americans soon found themselves hemmed in at the little town of Caborca without hope or succor. They were the very first gentlemen of the States, mostly of good families, good education, and good prospects in California. What inhuman demon ever induced them to place themselves in such position, God only knows. Many of them left their wives and families in California, and all of them had warm friends there. Pesquiera issued a bloodthirsty proclamation, in the usual grandiloquent language of Spain, calling all patriotic Mexicans to arms, to exterminate the invaders and to preserve their homes. The roads fairly swarmed with Mexicans. Those who had no guns carried lances, those who had no horses went on foot. Caborca was soon surrounded by Mexicans, and the forty-two Americans and one little boy took refuge in the church on the east side of the plaza. This proved only a temporary refuge. An Indian shot a lighted arrow into the church and set it on fire. The Americans stacked arms and surrendered. My God! had they lost their senses? These forty-two American gentlemen, who had left their wives, children, and friends in California a month or two before under a contract with Pesquiera were butchered like hogs in the streets of Caborca, and neither God nor man raised hand to stop the inhuman slaughter. They had not come within two hundred miles of my place, and nobody could have turned them from their purpose if they had. Many of them were old friends and acquaintances in California, and their massacre cast a gloom over the country. There was only one redeeming act that ever came to my knowledge, and I know it to be true. When Pesquiera's order to massacre the invaders were read, Gabilonda, second in command, swore he would have nothing to do with it, and mounting his horse swung the little boy Evans behind him and galloped away to Altar. Gabilonda carried him to Guaymas, from where he was afterwards sent to California. It has been stated that the corpses were left in the streets for the hogs to eat, but the cure of Caborca assured me that he had a trench dug and gave them Christian interment. I never saw nor conversed with any of the leaders, but a detachment came up the Gila River to Tucson and Tubac, enlisting recruits, but could only raise twenty-five or thirty men. The invasion was generally discouraged by the settlers on the Santa Cruz. When they passed by Sopori on their way to join the main body, I remember very well the advice of old Colonel Douglas, a veteran in Mexican revolutions. He said,-- "Boys, unless you can carry men enough to whip both sides, never cross the Mexican line." I was at Arivaca when the Santa Cruz contingent returned, badly demoralized, wounded, naked, and starving. The place was converted into a hospital for their relief, with such accommodations as could be afforded. Pesquiera was well aware of the adage that "dead men tell no tales." Crabb was beheaded, and his head carried in triumph to Pesquiera, preserved in a keg of Mescal, with the savage barbarity of the days of Herod. The contracts which would have compromised Pesquiera with the Mexican government were destroyed by fire. So ended the Crabb Expedition, one of the most ill-fated and melancholy of any in the bloody annals of Mexico. The result of this expedition, commonly called "Crabb's," was that the Mexican government laid an embargo upon all trade with this side of the line, and business of all kinds was paralyzed. Under these circumstances I crossed the desert on mule-back to Los Angeles, with only one companion, and went to San Francisco to take a rest. III War-Time in Arizona The invasion of Sonora in the summer of 1857 by filibusters from California, generally called the "Crabb Expedition," caused the pall of death to fall on the boundary line of Mexico. Forty-two Americans had been massacred at Caborca, and many Mexicans had been killed. The abrasion was so serious that Americans were not safe over the Mexican boundary, and Mexicans were in danger in the boundaries of the United States. Gabilonda, who was the only Mexican officer who protested against the massacre, came very near being mobbed by Americans in Tucson, although he was perfectly innocent of any crime,--on the contrary, deserved credit for his humanity in rescuing the boy Evans. Gabilonda was subsequently tried by a Mexican court martial organized by Pesquiera, the Governor of Sonora, and acquitted. He lived to a green old age as Collector of Mexican customs on the boundary line, and died honored and respected. When I returned from San Francisco to the mines, in the winter of 1857, the country was paralyzed; but by the talisman of silver bars the mines were put in operation again, and miners induced to come in from Mexico. Christmas week the usual festival was given at Arivaca, and all the neighbors within a hundred miles invited. In 1858 the business of the Territory resumed its former prosperity, and the sad events of the "Crabb Expedition" were smoothed over as far as possible. The government had subsidized an overland mail service at nearly a million a year, called the Butterfield line, with daily mails from St. Louis to San Francisco, running through Arizona. The mail service of the West has done a great deal to build up the country; and population came flocking into the Territory with high hopes of its future prosperity. General Heintzelman obtained a furlough, and came out to superintend the mines. Colonel Samuel Colt, of revolver fame, succeeded him as president of the company, as he had contributed about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in money and arms to its resources, with the intention of enlisting as much capital as might be required from New England. Machinery was constructed on the Atlantic seaboard, and hauled overland from the Gulf of Mexico to the mines,--1350 miles. The Apaches had not up to this time given any trouble; but on the contrary, passed within sight of our herds, going hundreds of miles into Mexico on their forays rather than break their treaty with the Americans. They could have easily carried off our stock by killing the few vaqueros kept with them on the range, but refrained from doing so from motives well understood on the frontiers. There is an unwritten law among ranchmen as old as the treaty between Abraham and Lot. In 1857 a company of lumbermen from Maine, under a captain named Tarbox, established a camp in the Santa Rita Mountains to whipsaw lumber at one hundred and fifty dollars per thousand feet, and were doing well, as the company bought all they could saw. They built a house and corral on the south side of the Santa Cruz River, on the road from Tucson to Tubac, called the Canoa. This wayside inn formed a very convenient stopping place for travelers on the road. One day twenty-five or thirty Mexicans rode into Tubac, and said the Apaches had made a raid on their ranches, and were carrying off some hundred head of horses and mules over the Babaquivera plain, intending to cross the Santa Cruz River between the Canoa and Tucson. The Mexicans wanted us to join them in a cortada (cut off), and rescue the animals, offering to divide them with us for our assistance; but remembering our treaty with the Apaches, and how faithfully they had kept it, we declined. They went on to the Canoa, where the lumbermen were in camp, and made the same proposition, which they accepted, as they were new in the country and needed horses and mules. The lumbermen joined the Mexicans, and as they could easily discern the course of the Apaches by the clouds of dust, succeeded in forming an ambuscade and fired on the Apaches when they reached the river. The Apaches fled at the fire, leaving the stolen stock behind. The Mexicans made a fair division, and the mule trade was lively with the lumbermen and the merchants in Tucson. With the proceeds of their adventure the lumbermen added many comforts and luxuries to their camp at the Canoa on the Santa Cruz, and travelers reveled in crystal and whisky. About the next full moon after this event, we had been passing the usual quiet Sunday in Tubac, when a Mexican vaquero came galloping furiously into the plaza, crying out: "Apaches! Apaches! Apaches!" As soon as he had recovered sufficiently to talk, we learned that the Apaches had made an attack on Canoa, and killed all the settlers. It was late in the day; the men had nearly all gone to the mines, and we could only muster about a dozen men and horses; so we did not start until early next morning, as the Mexican said there were "Muchos Apaches." When we reached the Canoa, a little after sunrise, the place looked as if it had been struck by a hurricane. The doors and windows were smashed, and the house a smoking ruin. The former inmates were lying around dead, and three of them had been thrown into the well, head foremost. We buried seven men in a row, in front of the burnt houses. As well as could be ascertained by the tracks, there must have been fully eighty Apaches on horseback. They carried off on this raid 280 head of animals from the Canoa and the adjoining ranches. There were some companies of the First Dragoons eating beef at Fort Buchanan. The commanding officer was notified, and sent some troops in pursuit, but the Apaches were in their strongholds long before the dragoons saddled their horses. The pursuit of Apaches is exceedingly dangerous, as they are very skillful in forming ambuscades, and never give a fair fight in an open field. Their horsemanship is far superior to American troops, who are for the most part foreigners, and exceedingly awkward. The second serious trouble with the Apaches was brought about by a far more foolish cause than the first, and it was much more disastrous. In the winter of 1857 a somber colored son of Erin came along on foot to the presidio of Tubac, and solicited the rights of hospitality, food and a fire. Whether he had been run out of California by the Vigilance Committee, as many of our "guests" had been, or was escaping legitimate justice, was not in question; the imperative cravings of the stomach admit of very scant ceremony; so I took John Ward in to dinner, and provided him with all the comforts of home. At bed-time he asked me if he might sleep in the front room by the fire; to which I reluctantly consented, taking good care to lock and bar the door between us. The next morning after breakfast I gave John Ward some grub, and advised him to push on to Fort Buchanan, on the Sonoita, where he could probably get some employment. He went on to the Sonoita and took up a ranch, forming a temporary partnership with a Mexican woman, according to the customs of the country at that time. She had a little boy who also appeared to be partly of Celtic descent, as he had a red head, and was nicknamed "Micky Free." This probably formed the only matrimonial tie between John Ward and the Mexican woman. In the course of time John Ward got a hay contract, a wagon, and a few yoke of oxen, and appeared to be thriving at Uncle Sam's expense. Fort Buchanan was garrisoned by a portion of the First Regiment of dragoons. The most of the men were Germans, and could not mount a horse without a step-ladder. In the early part of 1858 John Ward got drunk, and beat his step-son Micky Free until he ran away to Sonora. Ward became so blind drunk that he could not find his oxen; so he went to the Fort and complained to Major Stein, the commanding officer, that the Apaches had stolen his oxen and carried off the woman's boy. Major Stein was a very good man, and very capable of running a saw-mill in Missouri, where he came from. He listened to John Ward's tale of woe, and ordered out a detachment of the First Dragoons, under Lieutenant Bascomb, to pursue the Apaches and recover Micky Free and the oxen. Bascomb was a fine-looking young fellow, a Kentuckian, a West Pointer, and of course a gentleman; but he was unfortunately a fool; although his uncle, Preacher Bascomb, of Lexington, was accounted a very eminent clergyman of the Presbyterian Church. This is a very different family from Bascomb of the Confederate X roads. Lieutenant Bascomb's command pursued some Apaches, who had been raiding in Sonora, into the Whetstone Mountains, where they called a parley. The Apaches were summoned to camp _under a white flag_; and feeling perfectly innocent of having committed a crime against the Americans, fearlessly presented themselves before Lieutenant Bascomb and his boys in blue. They positively denied having seen the boy or stolen the oxen; and they told the truth, as was well known afterward; but the Lieutenant was not satisfied, and ordered them seized and executed. Four Apache chiefs were seized and tied. Cochise (in the Apache dialect Wood) managed to get hold of a knife, which he had concealed, cut his bonds, and escape. He was a very brave leader, and after having wreaked a terrible vengeance for the treachery of American troops to the Apaches, died in peace at the Indian Agency in the Chiricahua Mountains, 1874. The war thus inaugurated by this Apache chieftain lasted fourteen years, and has scarcely any parallel in the horrors of Indian warfare. The men, women, and children, killed; the property destroyed, and the detriment to the settlement of Arizona cannot be computed. The cost of the war against Cochise would have purchased John Ward a string of yokes of oxen reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and as for his woman's son, Micky Free, he afterwards became an Indian scout and interpreter, and about as infamous a scoundrel as those who generally adorn that profession. I am on very friendly terms with him and all his family, and would not write a word in derogation of his character, or of his step-father, John Ward, but to vindicate history. The Vigilance Committee of San Francisco sent a considerable number of unsavory immigrants to Arizona, who with the refugees from Mexico, Texas and Arkansas, rendered mule property rather insecure in the early days. Gambling has been an industrial pursuit since the first settlement of the country, and the saloon business flourishes with the prosperity of the times. Strange to say, amidst this heterogeneous population there has never been a vigilance committee. The Company and the country (synonymous terms) continued to improve, with occasional interruptions by the Apaches, until the beginning of 1861, when the reverberations of the gun fired at Sumter were heard in the Arizona mountains. A newspaper had been started by the company at Tubac, called _The Arizonian_. Our mail came overland by Butterfield coaches, at the rate of a hundred miles a day, but at last we waited for "the mail that never came." In the spring of 1861 a coach was started out from the Rio Grande with thirteen of the bravest buckskin boys of the West, and ten or twelve thousand dollars in gold, to pay off the line and withdraw the service; but the Apaches waylaid the coach in Stein's Pass, killed all of the men, and captured the gold. In the month of June the machinery was running smoothly at Arivaca, the mines were yielding handsomely, and two hundred and fifty employees were working for good wages, which were paid punctually every Saturday afternoon. One day an orderly from Fort Buchanan rode up to headquarters and handed me a note from Lieutenant Chapin, enclosing a copy of an order from the commanding officer of the Military Department:-- Santa Fe, June, 1861, Commanding Officer, Fort Buchanan:-- On receipt of this you will abandon and destroy your Post; burn your Commissary and Quartermasters' stores, and everything between the Colorado and Rio Grande that will feed an army. March out with your guns loaded, and do not permit any citizen within fifteen miles of your lines. (Signed) Major General Lynde A council of the principal employees was called, and the order laid before them. The wisest said we could not hold the country after the troops abandoned it,--that the Apaches would come down upon us by the hundred, and the Mexicans would cut our throats. It was concluded to reduce the ore we had mined, which was yielding about a thousand dollars a day, pay off the hands, and prepare for the worst. About a week afterwards the Apaches came down by stealth, and carried off out of the corral one hundred and forty-six horses and mules. The Apaches are very adroit in stealing stock, and no doubt inherit the skill of many generations in theft. The corrals are generally built of adobe, with a gate or bars at the entrance. It was a customary practice for the Apaches to saw an entrance through an adobe wall with their horsehair ropes (cabrestas). The corral at Arivaca was constructed of adobes, with a layer of cactus poles (ocquitillo) lengthwise between each layer of adobes. The Apaches tried their rope saw, but the cactus parted the rope. The bars were up, and a log chain wound around each bar and locked to the post; but they removed the bars quietly by wrapping their scrapes around the chain, to prevent the noise alarming the watchman. The steam engine was running day and night, and the watchman had orders to go the rounds of the place every hour during the night; but the Apaches were so skillful and secretive in their movements that not the least intimation of their presence on the place was observed,--not even by the watchdogs, which generally have a keen scent for Indians. At the break of day the Apaches gave a whoop, and disappeared with the entire herd before the astonished gaze of five watchmen, who were sleeping under a porch within thirty yards. A pursuit was organized as soon as possible; but the pursuers soon ran into an ambuscade prepared by the retreating Apaches, when three were killed and two wounded. The rest returned without recovering any of the stock. This loss of stock made very lonesome times at Arivaca, as it could not be replaced in the country, and we had no animals to haul ores, fuel, or provisions; only a few riding and ambulance animals, which had to be kept in stables and fed on grain. About the same time the Apaches made an attack on the Santa Rita Mining Hacienda, and the eastern side of the Santa Cruz River had to be abandoned. At Tubac, the headquarters of the company, where the old Mexican cuartel furnished ample room for storage, about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of merchandise, machinery and supplies were stored. The Apaches, to the number of nearly a hundred, surrounded the town and compelled its evacuation. The plunder and destruction of property was complete. We had scarcely a safe place to sleep, and nothing to sleep on but the ground. The women and children were escorted to the old pueblo of Tucson, where the few people remaining in the Territory were concentrated; and they remained there in a miserable condition until the troops arrived from California under General James A. Carlton, United States Army, commonly called "Carlton's Column." General Carlton, upon arriving in the Territory, issued an order declaring martial law between the Colorado and the Rio Grande. These troops garrisoned the country between the rivers, and drove out the rebel troops, who had come in from Texas under the Confederate government. After the abandonment of the Territory by the United States troops armed Mexicans in considerable numbers crossed the boundary line, declaring that the American government was broken up, and they had come to take their country back again. Even the few Americans left in the country were not at peace among themselves,--the chances were that if you met in the road it was to draw arms, and declare whether you were for the North or the South. The Mexicans at the mines assassinated all the white men there when they were asleep, looted the place, and fled across the boundary to Mexico. The smoke of burning wheat-fields could be seen up and down the Santa Cruz valley, where the troops were in retreat, destroying everything before and behind them. The government of the United States abandoned the first settlers of Arizona to the merciless Apaches. It was impossible to remain in the country and continue the business without animals for transportation, so there was nothing to be done but to pack our portable property on the few animals we kept in stables, and strike out across the deserts for California. With only one companion, Professor Pumpelly, and a faithful negro and some friendly Indians for packers, we made the journey to Yuma by the fourth of July, where we first heard of the battle of Bull Run. Another journey took us across the Colorado Desert to Los Angeles, and thence we went by steamer to San Francisco, and thence via Panama to New York. It was sad to leave the country that had cost so much money and blood in ruins, but it seemed to be inevitable. The plant of the Company at this time in machinery, materials, tools, provisions, animals, wagons, etc., amounted to considerably over a million dollars, but the greatest blow was the destruction of our hopes,--not so much of making money as of making a country. Of all the lonesome sounds that I remember (and it seems ludicrous now), most distinct is the crowing of cocks on the deserted ranches. The very chickens seemed to know that they were abandoned. We were followed all the way to Yuma by a band of Mexican robbers, as it was supposed we carried a great amount of treasure, and the fatigue of the journey by day and standing guard all night was trying on the strongest constitution in the hot summer month of June. An account of the breaking up of Arizona and our journey across the deserts to California has been given by Professor Pumpelly, in his book, "Across America and Asia." The subject is so repugnant that the harrowing scenes preceding the abandonment of the country are only briefly stated. The Civil War was in full blast upon my arrival in New York, and the change of venue from Apache Land was not peaceful. The little balance to my credit from the silver mines was with William T. Coleman & Co., 88 Wall Street, and I put it up as margin on gold at $132 and sold for $250. After resting a while in New York I went down to Washington, and found my old friend General Heintzelman in command of what was technically called "The Defenses of Washington." The capital of the nation was beleaguered! The Civil War and its results set Arizona back about twenty years. The location of the Iturbide Grant had been continued in Sonora and Lower California, under direction of Captain--afterwards General--Stone, an officer for the United States Army, of engineering ability. I had first become acquainted with him when he was quartermaster at Benicia Barracks, in California, and met him the last time when he was chief of staff to the Khedive of Egypt at Grand Cairo, on the Nile. Pesquiera, the governor of Sonora, held the state in quasi-independence of Mexico, and drove the surveying party under Stone out of Mexico by force of arms. The funds for the location and survey of the Iturbide Grant had been furnished by French bankers in San Francisco, and obtained by them through their correspondent in Paris. A large portion of the money had been contributed by the entourage of the Second Empire under Napoleon, as the French were desirous of getting a foothold in Mexico. The expulsion of Stone's locating and surveying party was considered an affront to France, as the survey and location were undertaken under a valid grant of land made by the Mexican government, and the French were not satisfied to lose the many millions of francs they had invested in the enterprise. The influence of the shareholders in the Iturbide land location finally caused the intervention of the French government. It will be remembered that the first intervention was a joint occupation of Vera Cruz by French, English and Spanish; but the English and Spanish soon withdrew, and left the French to pull their own chestnut out of the fire. The time was not ripe for the French intervention in Mexico until we were in the midst of the Civil War, when Napoleon seized the opportunity to set up Maximilian of Austria, as Emperor of Mexico, protected by French forces under Bazaine. No doubt but Napoleon and the officials of the Second Empire sympathized with the government of the Confederate States, and would have given them substantial aid if they had dared; but the Russian Czar sent a fleet to New York as a warning,--and the French had had enough of Russians on their track. It was expressly stipulated in France, upon the founding of the Maximilian Empire, that the obligations given for funds to carry on the survey and location of the Iturbide Grant should be inscribed and recognized as a public debt of the Empire, and such will be found a matter of record and history. Many Frenchmen, no doubt, keep them as companion souvenirs to the obligations of the Panama Canal. The Grant has never been located, and the Mexican government yet owes the heirs, in equity, the original million dollars. The French, under Maximilian, occupied Mexico up to the American boundary line, and many Mexicans took refuge in the United States,--among them Pesquiera, the governor of Sonora. His camp was at the old Mission of Tumucacori, in the Santa Cruz Valley and his wife is buried there. President Juarez, of Mexico, was a refugee at El Paso del Norte during the reign of Maximilian, in destitute circumstances, when I was enabled to furnish him with a hundred thousand dollars in gold on a concession of Lower California. The circumstances were recently related for the Examiner of San Francisco, by Señor Romero, the Mexican minister in Washington. During the brief existence of the Maximilian Empire in Mexico, many Americans flocked to the capital for adventures, as sympathizers with the government of the Confederate States, and consequently with the occupation of Mexico. The late Senator Gwin of California was the acknowledged leader of the Americans, and it was rumored that he was to be created Duke of Sonora, but I never believed that the sterling old Democrat would have accepted a title of nobility. The battle of Gettysburg sealed the fate of the Maximilian Empire, as well as the fate of the empire of the United States. The Mexican Empire and the French Empire have both passed away like dreams, but the Empire of the People grows stronger every year. IV Arizona a Territory at Last When the Civil War was nearly over, General Heintzelman accompanied me on a call at the executive mansion, to solicit the organization of a territorial government for Arizona. President Lincoln listened to my tale of woe like a martyr, and finally said, "Well, you must see Ben Wade about that." I subsequently called upon Senator Wade of Ohio, the chairman of the Committee on Territories, and repeated my story of Arizona. The bluff old Senator said, "O, yes, I have heard of that country,--it is just like hell--all it lacks is water and good society." He finally consented to attend a meeting at the President's, to discuss the subject. Ashley of Ohio was chairman of the Committee on Territories in the House, and readily agreed to favor the organization of a territorial government. In a few days President Lincoln appointed an evening, to hear the Delegation in favor of Arizona from 8 to 12. The chairmen of the committees on Territories attended, and General Heintzelman and some other friends were present. I presented the maps, historical data, some specimens of minerals and Indian relics, and after a long conference and some interesting stories by the President, the organization of a territorial government for Arizona was agreed upon. The country was at that time under martial law,--General Carlton. If any system of government is repellent to Americans it is martial law. Whatever may be the expense of juries, lawyers, witnesses, and courts, they form the only means civilized society has yet devised for the settlement of disputes. It is true that a territorial form of government was never contemplated by the framers of the Constitution, as no provision was made for such a form of government; but this omission is covered by the general welfare clause, which gives Congress the power to "provide for the general welfare." The formula adopted in an Act of Congress organizing a Territory, is "An Act to provide a provisional government, etc., etc., etc." In course of time, no doubt, all the Territories will be admitted as States, as the territorial form of government is not provided for as a permanency by the Constitution, and is moreover anomalous in the American system. The people residing in the Territories are to a considerable extent disfranchised politically, and are not, in fact, full-fledged American citizens. The idea of taxation without representation is irritating to their sense of justice, and for many other cogent reasons Congress will be forced by public opinion to admit the Territories to all the rights of sovereign States. The delegate from New Mexico and myself sat at a table, and drew up a bill dividing New Mexico into nearly equal parts by the hundred and eleventh degree of longitude west; and providing for the organization of "The Territory of Arizona" from the western half. The bill soon became an Act of Congress, and was approved by President Lincoln on the twenty-third of February, 1863. The offices were divided out among the supporters of the measure at an oyster supper, and as I was apparently to get nothing but the shells, I fortified myself with a drink, and exclaimed, "Well, gentlemen, what is to become of me?" They seemed not to have thought about that, and the Governor-elect said: "O, we will give you charge of the Indians, you are acquainted with them." So I was appointed "Superintendent of Indian Affairs." The salary of the office was two thousand dollars a year, payable in greenbacks worth about thirty-three cents on the dollar in the currency of Arizona. Arrangements were made for the transportation of my new colleagues across the plains at government expense; but I took Ben Holladay's coach at Kansas City, and crossed the continent to Sacramento, and thence by river steamer to San Francisco. The Indian goods had been shipped to Yuma. In San Francisco I met my old friend, J. Ross Browne, who had just returned from Europe, and invited him to accompany me through Arizona at my expense. He afterwards wrote an account of the journey, "Wanderings in the Apache Country," published by Harpers. Archbishop Alemany, whom I had known as a parish priest in Kentucky, called upon me in San Francisco, and asked if I would take a couple of priests down to Arizona, to restore the service among the Indians at the old Mission of San Xavier del Bac on the Santa Cruz, to which I assented with great pleasure. After a voyage by sea from San Francisco to Los Angeles, I presented my orders from the Secretary of War to the commanding officer at Drumm Barracks for an escort of cavalry and transportation to Arizona; and prepared for the journey across the Colorado Desert. We arrived at Yuma just before Christmas, and during Christmas week regaled the Yumas, Cocopas, and neighboring tribes of Indians with their first presents from Uncle Sam. After distributing the Indian goods at Yuma, we proceeded upon the Gila River some two hundred miles to the Pima village, where my old friends, the Pima Indians, gave a warm welcome, not entirely on account of the Indian goods. At the Pima villages one Sunday, I requested the priests to celebrate the mass, and tell the Indians something about God,--remembering my own failure in teaching theology. The troops were drawn up, the Indians assembled, and Father Bosco through my interpreter preached the first sermon the Pima Indians ever heard. At dinner, the good Father took me by the ear, and said, "What for you make me preach to these savages?--they squat on the ground, and laugh at me like monkeys." The next place for the distribution of Indian goods was at the Mission of San Xavier del Bac, three leagues south of Tucson, among the Papagos, a christianized branch of the great Pima tribe. The Papago chiefs were my old friends and acquaintances, and received the priests with fireworks and illuminations. They knew of our coming, and had swept the church and grounds clean, and ornamented the altar with mistletoe. The Indians had been expecting the priests for many years,---- For the Jesuits told them long ago As sure as the water continued to flow, The sun to shine, and the grass to grow, They would come again to the Papago. I installed the priests in the old Mission buildings, and turned over the goods intended for the Papagos for distribution at their convenience. I met an old friend at the Mission called "Buckskin Alick," who had lived there all through the war without reading a newspaper or changing his clothes. As nails were scarce, Buckskin Alick had constructed a mill held together by rawhides, and was grinding wheat for the Papagos. In the meantime he had taken up with a Papago girl, to the scandal of the tribe. The priests told him he must marry the girl or leave. He appealed to me for protection, but I told him I had resigned my sacerdotal functions to the priest. He married the girl, and kept the mill. In 1863 a considerable number of prospectors had come into Arizona, mostly from the California side, on account of discoveries of gold on the Hassayamp. Old Pauline Weaver was the discoverer, as he had been a trapper and pioneer since 1836. His name is carved on the walls of the Casa Grande with that date. The gold washers there were doing very well, and ranches began to be established on the river. But the Apaches were not inclined to leave the settlers in peace when they had some fine horses and mules, and some fat cattle. So the Tonto Apaches made a raid on the Hassayamp, and carried off nearly all the stock. King Woolsey had come into the country then, and was a prominent man among the settlers, and undoubtedly a very brave one; so he raised a company to go after the Tontos. (As every one knows, "tonto" means "fool.") There were not more than twenty-five men, including some friendly Maricopas. They were well armed, but their commisariat consisted principally of panole and jerkey. They followed the Indians across the Verde to a place about half way between Globe and the Silver King, where they came to a parley. The tanks there are surrounded by rough ledges of basalt rocks, and the country in the vicinity is covered by scoriae, as though a volcano had vomited the refuse of the subterranean world to disfigure nature. The Indians came in slowly for a talk, but were insolent and defiant. Delshay, the Tonto chief, demanded a blanket and some coffee and whisky. The Americans had neither coffee nor whisky for their own use, and he was quite put out about it, but partook of panole and jerked beef. The parley was very unsatisfactory, as the Indians were surly, and made demands which it was impossible to grant. There were about twenty-five Indians at the council, and fifty or more on the surrounding ledges. As the Indians became more hostile the situation became more serious, and it was evident to the Americans that they were surrounded, and in imminent danger of massacre. Woolsey was not only a brave but a very intelligent man, and he saw at once that either the Americans or the Indians were to be slaughtered, so he said: "Boys, we have got to die or get out of this. Each of you pick out your Indian, and I will shoot the chief for a signal." The fusillade commenced, and all the Indians that could run stampeded. The only American killed was Lennon, a half brother of Ammi White, my Indian agent at the Pima villages. Lennon had picked out his Indian and sent a bullet to his heart; but the Indian in the agonies of death made a lunge at Lennon with his spear and transfixed him. They both fell at the Bloody Tanks in the embrace of death. The Americans rescued Lennon's body, and having strapped it over a pack mule, carried it away to the next camp, where it was buried with Christian services at the foot of an aspen tree. The Americans brought away twenty-four scalps. After the Bloody Tanks affair some of the men engaged in it came into the Pima villages, where I was in camp. J. Ross Browne, who was with me, took down the account in short hand, and I made a list of the Americans engaged in the expedition. I remember, when Browne got through with his stenography, he asked one of the men if he had any Indian relics. The man replied, "Yes, I have got some jerked years," and he presented Browne about a dozen "jerked years" strung on buckskin. I concluded to make a scout up country and see what was going on among the Indians, and as there were no troops at my command I organized a company of Pimas and Maricopas as scouts. They had recently received arms and ammunition from the government, and I had uniforms and swords enough for the officers. They soon learned to drill, and already knew how to shoot. The commissariat was not quite up to military regulations, but we set out all the same, following along the Hassayamp to Antelope Peak, when we turned east by Walnut Creek to the Verde over an infernal trail. The way down the Verde was not much better, as the Black Cañon has never been considered strewn with roses; but we hunted and fished to the junction of the Verde and Salt River without seeing any Apaches. The only "sign" we saw was cut on a tree,--twenty-four Americans and twenty-four arrows pointed at them, which the Pimas interpreted to me as the number of Americans the Apaches threatened to kill in retaliation. There was not a soul on the Verde, and not a white man nor a house on the Salt River, from the junction of the Verde to its confluence with the Gila. We camped at the "Hole-in-the-Rock," and next morning crossed Salt River at the peak about Tempe, and crossed over to the Pima villages, glad enough to get to that haven of rest. It was 100 miles to Tucson, and 280 miles to Yuma, and not a soul nor any provisions between the two places. There was no great inducement to stay in the Territory at that time, except for people who had an insane ambition for orchestral fame on the golden harps of New Jerusalem. Many of the people had read about the government of the United States, in school books; and perhaps had enjoyed the felicity of hearing a Fourth of July oration in youth; but these were myths of antiquity in Arizona. There was no government of any consequence, and even what there was was conducted on the Democratic principle, not for protection but for revenue only. I anticipated the fourteenth amendment, and distributed the Indian goods without regard to race, color or former condition of servitude. Anybody that came along in need of blankets or tobacco was freely supplied. I wound up the Indian service with loss of about $5,000 out of my own pocket. At camp on the Hassayamp, Henry Wickenburg came in with some specimens of gold quartz he had found out to the west, at a place subsequently called Vulture, and wanted me to buy the find. I said, "Henry, I don't want to buy your mine, but I will give you twenty-five dollars' worth of grub and a meerschaum pipe if you will go away and leave me alone." I was also importuned to purchase Miguel Peralta's title from the King of Spain for the Salt River Valley; but my experience with Spanish grants in Texas, California and Arizona, did not incline me to invest, even if the grant had been made by the Pope of Rome, and guaranteed by the Continental Congress. The only members of the Woolsey Expedition remaining in Arizona that I know of are Peeples of Phoenix, Chase of Antelope, and Blair at Florence. The government of the United States can never recompense the people of Arizona for the atrocities committed by the Apaches. It will never do to make the plea that a government so vain-glorious and boastful could not have conquered this tribe of savages, if the will to do so had existed. Now, after forty years of devastation, the government pays the Apaches one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year in goods to maintain a quasi peace. The settlers are not at any time secure against an Apache outbreak, and there are at the present time some Apaches on the war-path, which the government acknowledges its impotency to capture. "A Century of Dishonor" was a well written book, and contains many unpleasant truths. In the meantime, while I was delivering the Indian goods, my colleagues in the territorial government had crossed the plains, and established the capital at a remote place in the northern mountains, which they called "Prescott," in honor of the Mexican historian. Just as was supposed, they quarreled all the way across the plains about who should be the first delegate to Congress from a Territory they had never seen. Upon my arrival at Prescott they were perfectly disgusted to learn that I had already been declared a candidate, and was likely to get the votes of the people. The political machine had not then been organized, and the people had some say in the elections. The election was held in due time, and I was elected the first delegate to Congress from Arizona. The "carpet baggers" worked the Territory for all it was worth, as is evidenced by the public debt, which is three times as great as any State or Territory in the Union, _per capita_. The Capital was moved from town to town, as a political factor in the election of delegates, but now rests at Phoenix, in the Salt River Valley, where it will permanently remain, as no other place in the Territory can ever rival Phoenix in the abundance of all that contributes to the comfort and happiness of life. The soil is fertile, the climate healthful, and with water storage in reservoirs a city will grow equal to any on the Nile. At this time there was not an inhabitant on Salt River where Phoenix now stands, and the Salt River Valley was a desolate and abandoned waste. It had been occupied some thousands of years ago by a race who cultivated the land by irrigation, and built houses and cities which have gone to ruin. The most diligent search has developed but few evidences of the extent of their civilization. They had not advanced very far, as they left no relics of either iron, copper, or steel. The land in cultivation would have supported a population of from fifty to a hundred thousand souls. It is an excusable ambition for a man, especially in the Western country, to desire the honor of representing his State or Territory in Congress. It was necessary to cross the deserts to San Francisco, and thence via Panama to New York and Washington. I had scarcely taken my seat, when a distinguished-looking gentleman (Roscoe Conkling) came up and introduced himself, saying in a very pompous way: "I observe you have drawn a front seat,--and as I presume you do not wish to debate, I shall feel very much obliged if you will have the courtesy to exchange seats with me." I replied, "With the greatest pleasure, sir," and took a back seat, more becoming to my station. In a few days the chairman of the Committee on Mileage came around to my seat, and said, "Poston, how is this?--your mileage is $7,200, and mine is only $300." I replied, "Frank, what is the price of whisky in your district?" He said, "About two dollars and a half per gallon." "Well," I said, "it is fifteen dollars a gallon in Arizona--that equalizes the mileage." He certified the account, and never said another word. The salary was $5,000 a year, which added to the mileage, made $12,200;--but it all went, and a great deal more, in entertainment and presents at Washington. It was esteemed an honor to represent the Territory for which so many sacrifices had been made, and such severe hardships endured, and money was not spared to bring it to public notice on every suitable occasion. The members of Congress usually manifest courtesy to delegates, as they are considered in a political sense orphans of the Republic, not having any vote nor in any other way being recognized as equals. They were not obliged at that time to serve on committees, nor expected to answer the roll-call. It was an easy berth for an indolent man without ambition or avarice. The Thirty-eighth Congress was considered a very able assembly. The Civil War had brought the most illustrious men of the nation to the surface, and their acquaintance leaves a pleasant memory. When I look over their photographs, now it is like shuffling an old pack of cards which have been played out,--they have nearly all gone to the Upper Chamber,--in this world or the next. Grow and Holman are the only ones in the House now. Thaddeus Stevens was the leader of the House, and treated me with the most distinguished consideration,--even to the compliment of dining at my house,--which was unprecedented in his long public career. The old sinner said the exception was made because my wife was a Baptist. I made but one speech, and that was on the subject of Indian affairs. An appropriation of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars was obtained for the construction of irrigating canals, to enable the Indians of Arizona to become self-supporting. This was the first instance in which irrigation was brought to the notice of the government. President Lincoln was always accessible amid his heavy cares. As my family lived in the neighborhood where the President had been reared, my little girl made him a satchel of corn shucks from the field where he had hoed corn barefooted in the briars, thinking he might appreciate a souvenir from his old home. One afternoon I escorted my daughter to the executive mansion to deliver my present. The President received it graciously, and made many enquiries about the old neighbors. The 38th Congress passed the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, and as the delegates could not vote they were requested to sign a paper giving their adhesion. I signed for Arizona; but it was a bitter pill. The End. 
17488	----	[Transcriber's Note: All brackets except those used with footnotes are in the original text, as are asterisks indicating long ellipsis.] * * * * * THE REPAIR OF CASA GRANDE RUIN, ARIZONA, IN 1891 BY COSMOS MINDELEFF * * * * * CONTENTS Introduction 321 Description of the ruins 321 Condition of Casa Grande in 1891 323 Plans for the repairs 325 Execution of the work 326 Reservation of the land 330 Specimens found in the excavations 330 Exhibits 333 I. Contract for repairing and preserving Casa Grande ruin, Arizona 333 II. Plans and specifications for the preservation of the Casa Grande ruin, Arizona, 1891 335 General requirements 335 Clearing out the debris 335 Underpinning walls 336 Filling in openings 336 Bracing 336 Wire fencing 337 Roof 337 III. Plans and sections 337 IV. Oath of disinterestedness 338 V. Bids 338 VI. Indorsements 339 VII. Report of Mr H. C. Rizer 340 Supplement 344 Correspondence and report relating to the condition of Casa Grande in 1895, with recommendations concerning its further protection 344 I. Letter of Reverend Isaac T. Whittemore, custodian of Casa Grande, to the Secretary of the Interior, recommending an appropriation for further protecting the ruin 344 II. Indorsement of Mr Whittemore's letter by the Acting Secretary of the Interior 344 III. Letter of the Acting Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Interior suggesting an examination of Casa Grande with a view of its further protection 344 IV. Letter of the Acting Secretary of the Interior to the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology approving the suggestion that Casa Grande be visited with a view of determining the desirability of its further protection 347 V. Letter of the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Interior regarding the examination of Casa Grande by Mr W J McGee 347 VI. Report of the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Interior on the examination of the condition of Casa Grande by Mr W J McGee, with a recommendation concerning its further protection 348 ILLUSTRATIONS Plate CXII. Map of the Casa Grande group 321 CXIII. Ground plan of Casa Grande ruin 322 CXIV. General view of Casa Grande 325 CXV. Interior wall surface 326 CXVI. West front of Casa Grande showing blocks of masonry 329 CXVII. Plan showing ground-level erosion, tie-rods, limits of work, and lines of ground sections 330 CXVIII. East-and-west ground sections 333 CXIX. North-and-south ground sections 335 CXX. South front of the ruin, showing underpinning and ends of tie-rods 337 CXXI. View from the southeast before the completion of the work 339 CXXII. Suggested plan of roof and support 340 CXXIII. Section through _A-B_ of roof plan, showing suggested roof support 343 CXXIV. Section through _C-D_ of roof plan, showing suggested roof support 345 CXXV. Map showing location of Casa Grande reservation 346 [Transcriber's Note: In the original, all illustrations are full-page plates distributed evenly through the text. Their exact position has not been shown in this e-text.] * * * * * THE REPAIR OF CASA GRANDE RUIN By Cosmos Mindeleff * * * * * INTRODUCTION In March, 1889, an appropriation of $2,000 was made by Congress for the repair of Casa Grande ruin in southern Arizona. This amount was insufficient for complete restoration, but under the authority of the act of Congress making the appropriation some work was done. Partly as an aid to further possible work, and partly that there may be an available record of what has been done for the benefit of future students of American archeology, this report is presented. A full description of Casa Grande has been given by the writer in a published memoir[1] on that ruin, hence only a brief account will now be necessary to aid in making the present report intelligible. Following this description is a statement of the condition of the ruin in 1891 and of the plans formed for its repair, the latter being necessarily controlled by the amount appropriated. After this there is an account of the work done, from the passage of the bill until the delivery of the work to the agent of the United States who received it, and of the reservation, of an area of land about the ruin by order of the President. This is followed by a catalogue of the articles found during the excavations in and about the ruin, which were subsequently deposited in the National Museum; a transcript of the contract under which the work was done, including specifications, plans, and sections, and the report of Mr H. C. Rizer, who inspected and received the work. Finally, there are appended the correspondence and report relating to the condition of Casa Grande in 1895, with recommendations concerning its further protection. [Footnote 1: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 289 et seq.] Casa Grande has occupied a very important place in the literature of American archeology, a place which it doubtless will continue to occupy; and as dates are frequently of importance an effort has been made to make the present report as full as possible in that respect. DESCRIPTION OF THE RUINS Casa Grande appears to be the sole surviving remnant of an extensive and important class of remains in the southwest. These remains occur usually in large groups or clusters, and Casa Grande is no exception. The name has been ordinarily applied to a single house structure standing near the southwestern corner of a large area covered by mounds and other debris; but some writers have applied the term to the southwestern portion of the area, others to the whole area. Probably no two investigators would assign exactly the same limits to this area, as its margins merge imperceptibly into the surrounding country. The accompanying map (plate CXII) shows the limits of the ruins as interpreted by the writer. The surface covered by well-defined remains, as there shown, extends about 1,800 feet north and south and 1,500 feet east and west, or a total area of about 65 acres. Casa Grande ruin occupies a position near the southwestern corner of the group, and its size is insignificant as compared with the entire cluster of ruins, or even with the remains of the large structure which occupied the north-central part of the area. The contour interval on the map is 1 foot, sufficiently small to show much surface detail. The depressions are indicated by dotted contours. Within the area shown on the map there are a large number of mounds, more or less leveled by long-continued exposure to the elements. Some appear to be quite old, others represent buildings which were standing within the historic period, and many interesting features are presented which can not even be alluded to here. Casa Grande proper was one of the smallest of the house clusters, but it is unique in that the walls are still standing to a height of more than 25 feet. While fragments of standing wall are not uncommon, either in the area mentioned or in the valleys of Gala and Salt rivers generally, no other example exists, so far as known, so well preserved as the one under consideration. For miles around Casa Grande the ground surface is so flat that from the summit of the walls an immense stretch of country is brought under view in every direction. In the whole southwest, where there are thousands of ruins, many of which represent villages located with especial reference to outlook, there are few, if any, so well situated as this. A ground plan of the ruin is shown in plate CXII and a general view in plate CXIV. The area covered and inclosed by standing walls is about 43 by 59 feet, but the building is not exactly rectangular, nor do its sides exactly face the cardinal points, notwithstanding many published statements to that effect. The building comprised three central rooms, each approximately 10 by 24 feet, arranged side by side with the longer axes north and south, and two other rooms, each about 9 by 35 feet, occupying, respectively, the northern and southern ends of the building, and arranged transversely across the ends of the central rooms, the longer axes running east and west. Excepting the central tier of rooms, which was three stories high, all the walls rose to a height of two stories above the ground. The northeastern and southeastern corners of the structure have fallen, and large blocks of the material of which they were composed are strewn upon the ground in the vicinity. The exterior walls rise to a height of from 20 to 25 feet above the ground. This height accommodated two stories, but the top of the wall is from 1 to 2 feet higher than the roof level of the second story. The middle room or space was built up three stories high, and the walls are still standing to a height of 28 to 30 feet above the ground level. The tops of the walls, while rough and greatly eroded, are approximately level. The exterior surface of the walls is rough, as shown in the illustrations, but the interior walls of the rooms are finished with a remarkable degree of smoothness, so much so that it has attracted the attention of everyone who has visited the ruin. Plate CXV shows this feature. At the ground level the exterior wall is from 3½ to 4½ feet thick, and in one place over 5 feet thick. The interior walls are from 3 to 4 feet thick. At the tops the walls are about 2 feet thick. The building was constructed by crude methods, thoroughly aboriginal in character, and there is no uniformity in its measurements. The walls, even in the same room, are not of even thickness; the floor joists were seldom in a straight line, and measurements made at similar places (for example, at the two ends of a room) seldom agree. Casa Grande is often referred to as an adobe structure, but this use of the term is misleading. Adobe construction consists of the use of molded brick, dried in the sun, but not baked. The walls here are composed of huge blocks of rammed earth, 3 to 5 feet long, 2 feet high and 3 to 4 feet thick. These blocks were not molded and then laid in the wall, but were manufactured in place. Plate CXVI shows the character of these blocks. The material employed was admirably suited for the purpose, being when dry almost as hard as sandstone and nearly as durable. A building with walls of this material would last indefinitely, provided a few slight repairs were made at the conclusion of each rainy season. When abandoned, however, sapping at the ground level would commence and would in time bring down all the walls; yet in the two centuries which have elapsed since Padre Kino's visit to this place--and Casa Grande was then a ruin--there has been but little destruction from the elements, the damage done by relic hunters during the last twenty years being, in fact, much greater than that due to all causes in the preceding two centuries. The building was well provided with doorways and other openings, arranged in pairs, one above the other. There were doorways from each room into every adjoining room, except that the rooms of the middle tier were entered only from the east. Some of the openings were not used, and were closed with blocks of solid masonry, built into them long prior to the final abandonment of the structure. CONDITION OF CASA GRANDE IN 1891 The south and east fronts of Casa Grande seem to have suffered, particularly from the weather, and here rainstorms have probably caused some of the damage. The outer faces of the walls are of the same material as the wall mass, all the masonry being composed of earth from the immediate site. In the construction of the walls this soil was laid up in successive courses of varying thickness, whose limits form clearly defined and approximately horizontal joints. The northeast and southeast corners of the building have entirely fallen away, and low mounds of their debris still show many knobs and lumps, parts of the original wall mass. The destruction of the walls was due mainly to undermining at the ground level. The character of this undermining is shown in many of the illustrations to this report, especially in plate CXVI, and its extent is indicated on the accompanying ground plan (plate CXVII) by dotted lines within the wall mass. Although the material of which the walls are composed is very hard when dry, and capable of resisting the destructive influences to which it has been subjected for a long time, yet under certain conditions it becomes more yielding. The excessively dry climate of this region, which in one respect has made the preservation of the ruin possible, has also furnished, in its periodic sandstorms, a most efficient agent of destruction. The amount of moisture in the soil is so small as scarcely to be detected, but what there is in the soil next to the walls is absorbed by the latter, rising doubtless by capillary attraction to a height of a foot or more from the ground. This portion of the wall being then more moist than the remainder, although possibly only in an infinitesimal degree, is more subject to erosion by flying sand in the windstorms so frequent in this region, and gradually the base of the wall is eaten away until the support becomes insufficient and the wall falls en masse. The plan shows that in some places the walls have been eaten away at the ground level to a depth of more than a foot. Portions of the south wall were in a dangerous condition and likely to fall at any time. Visiting tourists have done much damage by their vandalism. They have torn out and carried away every lintel and every particle of visible wood in the building. After the removal of the lintels a comparatively short time elapses before the falling in of the wall above. Apparently but a small amount of this damage can be attributed to rainstorms, which, although rare in this region, are sometimes violent. There is evidence that the present height of the walls is nearly the original height, in other words, that the loss from surface erosion in several centuries has been trifling, although numerous opinions to the contrary have been expressed by causal observers. The eastern wall has suffered more from this cause than the others; a belt on the northern half, apparently softer than the remainder of the wall, has been eaten away to a depth of nearly a foot. The interior wall faces are in good condition generally, except about openings and in places near the top. Evidences of the original flooring are preserved in several of the rooms, especially in the north room. The flooring conformed to the pueblo type in the use of a series of principal beams, about 3 inches in diameter, above which was a secondary series smaller in size and placed quite close together, and above this again a layer of rushes with a coating of clay. All the walls show evidences of the principal series of beams in the line of holes formed by their ends where they were embedded in the walls. In the south wall, in parts of the east wall high up on the level of the upper roof, and in parts of other walls a few stumps of floor beams remained. These specimens of aboriginal woodwork have survived only because they are not in sight from the ground, and their existence therefore was not suspected by the tourists. Evidence of the other features of the floor construction can be seen on the walls in places where they have left an imprint, as described in the memoir previously cited. No single opening remains intact, as the lintels have been removed from every one of them. This is particularly unfortunate, for openings at their best are an element of weakness in a wall, and here each opening, after the lintel was removed, became, as it were, a center of weakness from which the destruction of the wall mass gradually proceeded further and further. PLANS FOR THE REPAIRS The plans for the repair of the ruin and its preservation included the reservation of the area covered by remains and, if possible, its inclosure, for within that area are exhibited all the various degrees of decay and disintegration which clearly link the comparatively well preserved Casa Grande with the numerous almost obliterated ruins along the Gila and the Salt, whose vestiges will become even less distinct as time passes and cultivation increases. It was deemed necessary to remove all the rubbish and debris within the building and from an area measuring 10 feet from the outer walls in every direction. Plate CXVII shows the extent of this area, and six sections are shown in plates CXVIII and CXIX, three on east-and-west lines and three on north-and-south lines. The lines along which these sections were made are indicated on the plan, plate CXVII. The ground level was determined by excavation, and is of course only approximate. The sections show the estimated amount of debris which was to be removed. Aside from other considerations, it was necessary to uncover the walls to the ground level in order to do the necessary underpinning. It was planned to underpin the walls, where erosion at the ground level had weakened them, with hard-burned brick laid in cement mortar. Plate CXVII shows in a measure the extent of this erosion. The brick surface was to be set back an inch or two and faced with that thickness of cement mortar. Plate CXX shows the south front and plate CXXI the south and east fronts when the brickwork was completed, but before it was plastered, and will illustrate what was planned better than can a description. This treatment, it was believed, would give a surface capable of effectually resisting atmospheric influences and the destructive action of flying sand, and at the same time would not disfigure the ruin by making the repairs obtrusive. The broken-out lintels of openings were to be replaced, and the cavities above them filled in with brick faced with mortar similar to the underpinning. The south wall, which was in a dangerous condition, was to be supported by three internal braces, as shown in the plan, plate CXVII. The longest brace or beam was necessarily of wood, as the wide range of temperature in this region, even between day and night, would produce so much expansion and contraction in an iron rod 60 feet long that without some compensating device the wall would be rocked on its base and its rapid destruction necessarily follow. EXECUTION OF THE WORK Appended to that portion of the sundry civil appropriation act approved March. 2, 1889,[1] in which certain expenses of the United States Geological Survey are provided for, is the following item: Repair of the ruin of Casa Grande, Arizona: To enable the Secretary of the Interior to repair and protect the ruin of Casa Grande, situate in Pinal County, near Florence, Arizona, two thousand dollars; and the President is authorized to reserve from settlement and sale the land on which said ruin is situated and so much of the public land adjacent thereto as in his judgment may be necessary for the protection of said ruin and of the ancient city of which it is a part. [Footnote 1: 25 Statutes, p. 961.] On the 12th of April, 1889, there was a conference between the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of the General Land Office looking to the execution of the law, and on the 16th of that month the Commissioner submitted a statement on the subject, calling attention to the fact that the appropriation would not be available until July 1 following, and suggesting that a special agent should be sent out to examine the ruin. This suggestion was approved, and on April 27, 1889, Special Agent Alexander L. Morrison, of the General Land Office, was instructed to proceed to the ruins for the purpose of investigating and reporting as to what method should be adopted for their repair and protection. Mr Morrison was further instructed to report "all the facts obtainable as regards said ruins of 'Casa Grande,' in order that appropriate action may be taken by the Department for its preservation." On May 15,1889, Mr Morrison submitted a report to the Commissioner, describing his journey, the location of the ruin, the ruin itself, and other ruins in the vicinity. He stated that danger to the ruin was of three kinds--(1) by vandalism, (2) by elements, (3) by undermining. He recommended the construction of a roof and an underpinning of stone for the walls. Finally, he gave some historical notes, and closed with a peroration. Mr Morrison's plans were found impracticable, as their execution would require an expenditure of many times the sum appropriated, and on September 23, 1889, all the papers in the case were transmitted by the Secretary to the Director of the Geological Survey, "for appropriate action under the clause of the act referred to, as being within the province of your Bureau." It was ordered that the work be commenced without the least delay, and November 27, 1889, Mr Victor Mindeleff, of the Bureau of Ethnology, was detailed by the Director and ordered to proceed to the ruin and report on the best means of repairing it and protecting it from further destruction. He was also directed to make other investigations in the vicinity, which have no relation to the present case. On July 1, 1890, Mr Mindeleff submitted a report. He described the ruins of which Casa Grande is the type, and also Casa Grande itself. He also made a statement of the condition of the ruin and suggested that the main destruction "was due to the undermining of the walls, and stated that much damage had been done by tourists. He recommended (1) that an area about the ruin be fenced in; (2) that a man be located permanently on the ground to watch the ruins; (3) that the ruins be cleaned out; (4) that the walls be underpinned with brick instead of stone, as previously suggested; (5) that the tops of the walls, after removing several inches to afford a good bearing surface, be treated with a coping of cement. It was regarded that this plan, if carried into effect, would afford sufficient protection against the weather, but a plan for a roof was submitted should such a structure be deemed desirable and practicable. Mr Mindeleff also recommended a number of tie-rods and beams, the replacement of the broken-out lintels, and the filling of the cavities above. This plan was approved in its general features, but the means provided for its execution were found insufficient. A further complication arose from the fact that a few months later Mr Mindeleff severed his connection with the Bureau of Ethnology and his knowledge became no longer available. November 20, 1890, the writer was ordered to proceed to the ruin and inaugurate the work of repair, following, so far as practicable, the plans already approved. He left Washington soon afterward and reached the ruin late in December. It was found necessary to make a detailed survey of the ruin and of the group of which it forms a part, and to make plans and sections showing the probable amount of excavation for the use of those who were invited to bid on the work. Furthermore, the amount appropriated was so well known to be inadequate that great difficulty was experienced in obtaining bids, and it was only through the efficient cooperation of the Reverend I. T. Whittemore at Florence and of Mr C. A. Garlick at Phoenix that success was finally achieved. Two bids were received from the former place and one from the latter; but this was not accomplished until March 17, 1891, the date when the last bid was received. In the meantime the writer, having completed his work at Casa Grande, so far as he could, had entered, in January, on an archeologic investigation of the valley of the Rio Verde, in compliance with his orders to that effect. It was found impossible to execute all the work deemed requisite for the preservation of the ruin within the limits of the appropriation. A selection of items became necessary, therefore, and those which were of most importance were chosen. Even in this, however, it was found that a maximum limit on the amount of work to be done on each item must be set, and this limit was considerably below the amount of work estimated to be necessary. The first thing to be done was, of course, the clearing out of the rubbish and debris. The item next in importance was the underpinning of the walls with brick wherever it was needed. The third item was the restoration of the lintels and the filling of the cavities above them. The fourth item was the tying in of the south wall, or of the several parts of it, with braces. This was the only feature of the plan which would appreciably disfigure the ruin, but some such device was deemed essential for the preservation of the south wall. These four items consumed practically all of the amount appropriated, and the other items of the original plan were therefore omitted. The bid of T. L. Stouffer and F. E. White, of Florence, Arizona, covering the four items, was accepted, and a contract was made with them, under date of May 9, 1891, for the execution of the work for the sum of $1,985. This contract, together with the specifications, plans, and other drawings which formed part of it, accompany this report. It was transmitted to the Director of the Geological Survey, and by him approved and forwarded to the Secretary of the Interior June 6, 1891. It was approved by the Acting Secretary June 20, 1891. Finally, on July 20, 1891, it was placed on file, together "with the bids, proposals, and all the original papers." A time limit of two months was made in the contract, expiring August 20, 1891, but it was changed to four months from July 1, 1891, expiring October 31, 1891. Before the time expired, however, Mr H. G. Rizer, then chief clerk of the Bureau of Ethnology, was ordered to proceed to Casa Grande ruin to examine the work done and, if in accord with the terms of the contract and the specifications, to certify the amount due the contractors. He submitted a report, under date of November 24, 1891, which is appended hereto. He also obtained six photographic negatives of the work as it stood a short time before its completion, and two of these (reproduced in plates CXX and CXXI) have been utilized in the preparation of this report. Mr Rizer found that a considerable amount of work had been done by the contractors in excess of that authorized, and also that not sufficient work had been done to render the repairs permanently effective. Under the terms of the contract, no amount in excess of that stated ($1,985) could be paid, and payment of this amount was made late in 1891. On January 7, 1892, the contractors filed a claim for extra work on the ruin amounting to $600.40. The work was actually performed, but the terms of the contract were clear, and the claim was therefore disapproved January 28, 1892. It would have been desirable to have had a supervisor of the work, but as the contract consumed practically all of the amount appropriated no provision could be made for one. It is fortunate, therefore, that the Reverend I. T. Whittemore, who had in the meantime been appointed honorary custodian of the ruin, generously undertook to look after the work without compensation, and on its conclusion the small sum remaining ($15) was turned over to him, thus exhausting the appropriation. In the sundry civil appropriation act for the year ending June 30, 1893, provision was made for a salaried custodian of the ruin, and Mr Whittemore was appointed to this position. Similar provision has been continued from year to year to the present time. It is to be regretted that the necessities of the case, imposed by the limited amount appropriated, compelled the fixing of a maximum amount of work so far below the amount necessary that the repair of the ruin is incomplete. Had it been possible to carry out the plans, it is believed that the ruin would have stood unchanged for many decades, if not for a century. Should further provision be made for the continuation of the work, it should include an item for the fencing of the area covered by the ruins or of the reservation, and possibly an item for the construction of a roof. It is not clear that a roof is absolutely necessary, but it is certain that it would be very undesirable. The region where this rain occurs has probably less rainfall than any other part of the United States, but it must not be forgotten that while rainstorms are infrequent they are sometimes violent, and what damage they do may be done in a few hours. All the items for the repair of the ruin, except that pertaining to a roof, were so devised that the ruin was not materially disfigured or changed, and were they fully carried out the ruin would present much the same general appearance as before. It is important that this appearance should be preserved as far as possible, but it can not be maintained if a roof is erected over the walls. As four years have elapsed since the completion of the work, it should be possible now to determine whether atmospheric erosion has played a material part in the work of destruction.[1] [Footnote 1: See the letter of the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Interior regarding the examination of Casa Grande by Mr W J McGee in the supplement to the present paper.] In the original plans and in the specifications which formed part of the contract (although this section was not operative) a plan for a roof was included. Such a structure, if erected at all, should be made as inconspicuous as possible and should be supported entirely from within the building. The system of framing employed might safely be left to the contractor if he were made responsible for the strength of the completed structure. RESERVATION OF THE LAND The final step in the execution of the law quoted was taken June 22, 1892. On that date the recommendation of the writer to the Director of the Geological Survey, referred by him to the Secretary of the Interior and by the latter to the President, was finally approved, and it was ordered that an area of land sufficient for the preservation of the ruin, and comprising in all 480 acres, be reserved under authority of act of Congress approved March 2, 1889. This area is shown on the map reproduced in plate CXXV, the base of which is a map accompanying the report of Mr H. C. Rizer. The letter of the Secretary of the Interior recommending the reservation of the Casa Grande tract, with its indorsement by the President, is as follows: Department of the Interior, _Washington, June 20, 1893_. Sir: I have the honor to recommend that the SW. ¼ SW. ¼, SE. ¼ SW. ¼, SW. ¼ SE. ¼ section 9, NW. ¼, NW. ¼ NE. ¼, SW. ¼ NE. ¼, NW. ¼ SW. ¼, NE. ¼ SW. ¼, and NW. ¼ SE. ¼ section 16, all in township 5 south, range 8 east, Gila and Salt river meridian, Arizona, containing 480 acres more or less, and including the Casa Grande ruin, be reserved in accordance with the authority vested in you by the act of March 2, 1889 (25 Stat., 961), for the protection of the ruin. The Director of the Bureau of Ethnology requests that the reservation be made, and the Acting Commissioner of the General Land Office knows of no objection to such action. Very respectfully, John W. Noble, _Secretary_. The President. [_Indorsement by the President_] Executive Mansion, _June 23, 1892_. Let the lands described within be reserved for the protection of the Casa Grande ruin as recommended by the Secretary of the Interior. Benj. Harrison. The limits of this reservation are laid down on the plat of the survey of said township in the General Land Office, and the reservation is now under the control of the Secretary of the Interior. SPECIMENS FOUND IN THE EXCAVATIONS In the course of the excavations a number of specimens of archeologic interest were unearthed. These were all preserved and on the conclusion of the work were forwarded to the National Museum in Washington, in compliance with the terms of the contract. Following is a list showing the collection number and also the Museum number. National Museum number | |Bureau of Ethnology number | | | | Article | Number of specimens | | | | | | | Remarks --------+-----+---------------------+------+----------------------------- | | | | 155088 | 595 | Fragments of large | Lot. | Plain red on both sides. | | earthenware vessel. | | 155089 | 596 | Large bowl. | 1 | Red outside; black, polished | | | | inside; restored. 155090 | 597 | Large vase. | 1 | Decorated outside; restored. 155091 | 598 | Pottery fragments. | 14 | Decorated. 155092 | 599 | Pottery vase (toy). | 1 | Small, dark brown. 155093 | 600 | Pottery bowl (toy). | 1 | Small, black. 155094 | 601 | Pottery disk or | 4 | | | spindle. | | 155095 | 602 | Pottery toy | 1 | Dark brown. | | (mountain goat). | | | 603 | Adobe. | 2 | Lumps; 1 showing impression | | | | of cloth, the other of a | | | | human foot. | 604 | Small shells. | Lot. | | 605 | -- do -- | Lot. | | 606 | Small shells(lonus?)| Lot. | | 607 | Small shells (cut | Lot. | For use as pendants. | | and perforated). | | | 608 | Small shells, beads,| Lot. | 1 string and 2 fragments. | | and pendants. | | | 609 | Bone awls. | 3 | | 610 | Bone fragments. | 6 | Partly charred. | 611 | Chalk, obsidian | Lot. | | | chips, and brown | | | | adobe. | | | 612 | Charred wood, 2 | 4 | | | nuts, and a | | | | corncob. | | | 613 | Charred textiles, | 2 | | | cloth. | | | 614 | Wooden joist | 3 | 3, 6, and 9 inches long; | | fragments. | | 4 inches diameter. | 615 | Reed. | 1 | 12 inches long. | 616 | Stone axes. | 7 | And 3 broken, grooved. | 617 | Pounding stone and | 2 | Of sandstone, with | | fragment. | | ring-shaped handle. | 618 | Stone pestles | 2 | One 12½ inches long, 1¾ | | | | inches diameter; one 9½ | | | | inches long, 1¾ inches | | | | diameter; also a fragment | 619 | Stone mullers. | 4 | | 620 | Stone hammers. | 6 | 1 pitted. | 621 | Stone mullers, flat.| 6 | 5 broken. | 622 | Stone mortar, flat. | 1 | 6½ by 12 inches; 2 inches | | | | thick. | 623 | -- do -- | 1 | 13 by 22 inches; 6 inches | | | | thick. | 624 | Stone, polished. | 1 | 22 inches long, 6½ inches | | | | diameter; restored. | 625 | Stone hoes or | 2 | | | chopping knives. | | | 626 | Limestone ornament. | 1 | Carved; fragmentary. | 627 | Small stone vessel. | 1 | Serpent carved on the | | | | outside. | 628 | Stone arrowhead. | 2 | 1 of obsidian, very small, | | | | and 1 of flint; also a | | | | broken specimen. Specimen number 627 B.E. was not obtained from the ruin itself, but was found in that vicinity by Mr Whittemore and presented by him. EXHIBITS I. CONTRACT FOR REPAIRING AND PRESERVING CASA GRANDE RUIN, ARIZONA _This contract_, made and entered into this ninth day of May, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, between Theodore Louis Stouffer and Frederick Emerson White, both of Florence, Arizona, as principals, and Augustine Gray Williams, of Florence, Arizona, Andrew James Doran, of Florence, Arizona, as sureties, of the first part, and the United States of America, by Cosmos Mindeleff, acting for the Secretary of the Interior, of the second part: _Witnesseth_, That the said parties of the first part do hereby contract and agree with the United States of America, as follows: That for the consideration hereinafter mentioned they will at their own expense and risk perform and execute the work upon the Casa Grande ruin, described and specified in the specification hereto annexed and forming a part hereof, in the manner and with the conditions specified, items of said work to be as follows: Item No. 1. Clearing out the débris: To excavate and remove 350 cubic yards of earth and débris, or less, as specified, amount of excavation not to exceed 350 cubic yards. Item No. 2. Underpinning walls: To underpin the walls as specified, requiring 750 cubic feet of brick masonry, or less, amount of masonry not to exceed 750 cubic feet. Item No. 3. Filling in cavities: To fill in cavities and openings as specified, 500 lineal feet of 2 by 4 inches squared lumber and 800 cubic feet of masonry, or less, whole amount of filling not to exceed 825 cubic feet. Item No. 4. To brace the walls as specified in the annexed plan and specifications. Items numbered five and six of the specifications hereto annexed, together with the plans, specifications, and conditions pertaining especially and only to them and not to the other items, are omitted. The said parties of the first part further contract and agree to deliver over the work, completed and finished, to such person as the Secretary of the Interior may designate, within two months after receipt of notice that this contract has been approved by the Secretary of the Interior. _It is further stipulated and agreed_, That should the parties of the first part fail to complete the work within the time specified, or should they deliver work which is not in accordance with the plans and specifications hereto annexed, only such sum shall be paid for the work as may be agreed upon by the said parties of the first part and the Secretary of the Interior; and it is further stipulated and agreed on the part of the parties of the first part that if the work is not completed in the time specified and according to the specifications hereto annexed they will pay to the United States a sum not exceeding fifty dollars for each and every week after the time specified, such payments to be deducted from the amount due for work done: _Provided_, That the Secretary of the Interior, or such person as he may authorize to do so, may extend the time for the completion of the work. _And the United States of America_, by the said Cosmos Mindeleff, acting for the Secretary of the Interior, do hereby contract and agree with the said parties of the first part that for the aforesaid work, performed and executed in the manner and under the conditions aforesaid, there shall be paid to the said parties of the first part the following sums: For item No. 1. For clearing out the débris, as specified and as above limited, sixty cents ($0.60) for each cubic yard. For item No. 2. For underpinning walls, as specified and as above limited, one dollar ($1) for each cubic foot. For item No. 3. For filling in cavities, as specified and as above limited, one dollar ($1) for each cubic foot, including lumber. For item No. 4. For bracing walls, as specified, two hundred dollars ($200). _Provided_, That payments for the work here contracted for shall be made only after the inspection and approval of the work by such person as the Secretary of the Interior shall designate. It is an express condition of this contract that it shall have no force or effect until it is submitted to and approved by the Secretary of the Interior. It is a further condition of this contract that no Member or Delegate to Congress, or any other officer or agent of the United States, either directly or indirectly, himself or by any other person in trust for him, or for his use and benefit, or on his account, is a party to or in any manner interested, in whole or in part, in this contract, or in the enjoyments, benefits, profits, or emoluments arising therefrom. (Signed) Theodore Louis Stouffer. [SEAL] Frederick Emerson White. [SEAL] Augustine Gray Williams. [SEAL] Andrew James Doran. [SEAL] Witnesses as to Stouffer, White, Doran, and Williams: (Signed) Frank C. Kebbey, _Clerk District Court, Second Judicial District, Territory of Arizona_. Cosmos Mindeleff, [SEAL] _Acting for the Secretary of the Interior_. Witnesses as to Cosmos Mindeleff: (Signed) Jeff Hunt. Chas. B. Eaman. AFFIDAVIT OF CONTRACTORS Territory of Arizona, _County of Pinal, ss:_ Augustine Gray Williams and Andrew James Doran, subscribers to and sureties in the contract hereto annexed, being duly sworn, depose and say, each for himself, that he is worth the sum of two thousand dollars over and above all debts and liabilities which he owes or has incurred, and exclusive of property exempt by law from levy and sale under execution. (Signed) Augustine Gray Williams. [SEAL] Andrew James Doran. [SEAL] Sworn to and subscribed before me this ninth day of May, A. D. 1891. [SEAL] (Signed) Frank C. Kebbey, _Clerk District Court, Second Judicial District, Territory of Arizona_. Territory of Arizona, _S Ct:_ I, Joseph H. Kebbey, associate justice of the supreme court of the Territory of Arizona, certify that I am personally acquainted with Augustine Gray Williams and Andrew James Doran, sureties, and that in my opinion they are good and sufficient to the amounts in which they have bound themselves in the foregoing contract. Florence, Arizona Territory, 9th May, 1891. (Signed) Joseph H. Kebbey, _Associate Justice Supreme Court, Arizona Territory_. II. PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THE CASA GRANDE RUIN, ARIZONA, 1891 (_Attached to and forming part of contract_) GENERAL REQUIREMENTS All the work upon this ruin is to be carried out in such a manner as to interfere as little as possible with the present condition and appearance of the building, and the contractors will be held responsible for any injury to it. The work is to be carried on under a supervisor, acting for the United States, who shall have power to reject any materials it is proposed to use in the work which are not in his judgment equal to those specified, and he shall have power to have torn down any work done which he has reason to suspect is not such as required by the specifications, but if such work shall prove upon inspection to have been well done the contractor may make a charge of the amount which would have been allowed for that part of the work had it passed inspection. When the work is completed it must pass the final inspection of the supervisor, or such person as the Secretary of the Interior may designate for the purpose. 1. CLEARING OUT THE DÉBRIS The débris now filling up the interior is to be removed down to the floor level, or the original ground level. The débris covering an area measuring 10 feet from the exterior walls of the building in every direction is also to be removed. This work is to be carried on in conjunction with the underpinning of the walls, and is to be dependent upon the progress of the latter, the work being done as required by the person holding the contract for the underpinning. All proper precautions must be observed during the progress of the work to prevent any injury to the building, the walls being properly braced and supported before excavation is commenced. The contractor will be held responsible for any injury to the building. Any objects found of archeologic or other value properly belong to the United States and must be deposited in the National Museum. The material removed from the building and from the area about it is to be removed to a proper distance, not less than 100 yards from the building. Proper drainage channels must be provided to keep the excavated area permanently clear of water. 2. UNDERPINNING WALLS The walls where eroded at the ground level are to be underpinned with hard-burned brick, laid in good cement mortar and extending to a depth of at least 12 inches below the original ground level. This work must be carried on gradually and very carefully in conjunction with the clearing out of the débris. The under surfaces of the overhanging walls must be carefully trimmed to afford solid horizontal bearings against the brickwork. The face of the brickwork is to be set back at least 1 inch and not more than 2 inches from the face of the wall, and the brickwork is to be plastered with a coating of cement mortar, 1 to 2 inches thick, bringing it out flush with the outer wall. 3. FILLING IN OPENINGS The broken-out lintels of openings are to be replaced by wooden lintels composed of squared lumber, 2 by 4 inches in size, laid side by side across nearly the whole thickness of the walls, with not more than 1 inch space between the boards, and of the same length as the original lintels. The broken-out walls are to be trimmed to afford solid resting places for the new lintels, which are to occupy the same horizontal planes that the old ones did. The openings above the lintels are to be filled in in the same manner as the underpinning previously described, the tinder wall surfaces being carefully dressed to afford solid horizontal bearings, the brick work being set back 1 inch from the wall surfaces and plastered with a coating of cement mortar to bring it out flush with the wall. 4. BRACING One wooden brace and two iron braces are to be put in, as shown upon the plan hereto annexed. The wooden brace is to be of one piece, or of two pieces well bolted together, of selected lumber, free from knots and other imperfections, squared, and measuring 6 by 8 inches in cross section. The iron braces are to be of 1 inch diameter, best quality wrought-iron rods. The bearing plates, four to each rod, are to be not less than 10 inches in diameter, of sufficient strength, and securely and permanently fastened to the braces. 5. WIRE FENCING Such area as may be determined is to be fenced with the best quality of galvanized iron barbed wire, strung upon posts placed 20 feet apart. The posts are to be of mesquite, not less than 3 inches in diameter and of a reasonable degree of straightness (not varying more than 5 inches from a straight line). The posts are to be at least 6 feet 6 inches long and are to be planted perpendicularly with 4 feet 6 inches clear and at least 2 feet below the ground surface. Three lines of double wire are to be stretched upon and securely fastened to the posts, the first at a distance of 2 feet from the ground, the second at 3 feet, and the third at 4 feet from the ground. Two gateways are to be provided, at such points as may be directed, the side posts to be of squared timber, 6 by 6 inches in cross section, and the gates to be made of sawed lumber 1 inch by 5 inches, hung upon good iron hinges, and leaving a clear space of not less than 12 feet when open, the whole to be executed in the best and most workmanlike manner. 6. ROOF The building is to be crowned by a roof of corrugated iron, supported in the manner shown in the accompanying plan and sections. The uprights are to be of selected squared lumber 1 foot square, each in a single piece, the lower ends planted at least 3 feet below the original ground level, and to be braced and tied to each other, as shown in the plan. The tie pieces are to be of selected squared lumber, 4 inches by 6 inches in cross section. The roof is to be framed and braced in the ordinary manner, and this framing is to extend beyond the outer wall 6 feet. The covering is to be a good quality of corrugated iron roofing, securely fastened to the framework, and painted with three good coats of the best quality of roof paint. The whole to be constructed and executed, in the best and most workmanlike manner, of good materials throughout, and to be of a strength sufficient to withstand the windstorms to which it may be subjected. III. PLANS AND SECTIONS--PRESERVATION OF THE CASA GRANDE RUIN, ARIZONA. SCALE OF ALL THE PLANS AND SECTIONS. 0.1 INCH = 1 FOOT Plans and sections accompanying specifications are as follows: Plan showing tie-rods, limits of work, and lines of ground sections. [Plate CXVII of this report.] Three east-and-west sections to show estimated amount of excavation necessary. [Plate CXVIII of this report.] Three north-and-south sections to show estimated amount of excavation necessary. [Plate CXIX of this report.] Plan showing roof support. [Plate CXXII of this report.] Two sections showing roof support. [Plate CXXIII and plate CXXIV of this report.] IV. OATH OF DISINTERESTEDNESS I do solemnly swear that the copy of contract hereunto annexed is an exact copy of contract made by me personally with Theodore Louis Stouffer and Frederick Emerson White; that I made the same fairly, without any benefit or advantage to myself, or allowing any such benefit or advantage corruptly to the said Theodore Louis Stouffer and Frederick Emerson White, or to any other person or persons; and that the papers accompanying include all those relating to the said contract, as required by the statute, in such case made and provided. (Signed) Cosmos Mindeleff. Sworn to and subscribed before me at Washington, D.C., this 18th day of July, 1891. [SEAL] (Signed) Jno. D. McChesney, _Notary Public_. V. BIDS I Bid for repairs on the Casa Grande ruins, in Pinal County, Arizona, bidders to furnish all labor and materials according to specifications: Item No. 1. Cleaning out débris, 60 cents per cubic yard. Item No. 2. Underpinning walls, $1 per cubic foot. Item No. 3. Filling in openings, $1 per cubic foot. Item No. 4. Bracing walls, $200. Item No. 5. Wire fence, 3 cents per foot complete. Item No. 6. Roof, $2,000. (Signed) T. L. Stouffer. F. E. White. Florence, Arizona, _January 28, 1891_. II Bid for putting a roof on the Casa Grande ruins as per plans and specifications furnished, $3,000. (Signed) C. D. Henry. III Bid for fencing in the Casa Grande ruins: Furnishing the posts and barbed wire, for 100 feet of fence, $7 per 100 feet. (Signed) C. D. Henry. IV Bids for restoring the Casa Grande ruins: First. Removing débris from interior of the ruins, 320 cubic yards, more or less, $1 per yard; 140 cubic yards from exterior of the ruins, at 60 cents per yard. Second. Eight hundred cubic feet of brick masonry underpinning, more or less, at $1.30 per cubic foot. Third. One thousand cubic feet, more or less, of brick masonry to fill in cavities, at $1.40 per cubic foot. Fourth. Bracing walls, as per plans, $120. Fifth. Five hundred lineal feet of 2 by 4 square timber at 8 cents per foot, lumber measure. (Signed) C. D. Henry. V Phoenix, Arizona, _February 11, 1891_. Cosmos Mindeleff, Esq., _Tempe, Arizona_. Dear Sir: I hereby submit for your consideration, in reference to the plans and specifications for the preservation of the Casa Grande ruins of Arizona, bids upon the following propositions, to wit: First. "Cleaning out the débris." For the removal of 470 cubic yards of material, more or less, at $2.65 per cubic yard. Second. "Underpinning walls." For 800 cubic feet of brick masonry, more or less, laid and plastered as specified, at $4.25 per cubic foot. Third. "Filling in openings." For filling in cavities in walls and restoring lintels of openings, as specified, 1,000 cubic feet, more or less, at $2.25 per cubic foot. Fourth. "Bracing walls." For bracing walls, $85.30. Fifth. "Wire fencing." Twenty-five dollars and twenty-five cents per 100 feet of completed fence. Sixth. "Roofing." As per specifications, $4,722. Respectfully submitted. (Signed) M. E. Clauton. VI. INDORSEMENTS _Contract for the repair and preservation of the Casa Grande ruin, Arizona, 1891_ Department of the Interior, U. S. Geological Survey, _June 6, 1891_. Respectfully forwarded to the Secretary of the Interior, recommending approval. (Signed) J. W. Powell, _Director_. Department of the Interior, _June 20, 1891_. The within contract is hereby approved. (Signed) Geo. C. Chandler, _Acting Secretary_. June 30, 1891. Transmitted by J. W. Powell, Director, to the Secretary of the Interior for file in returns office. July 1, 1891. Returned for oath. July 20, 1891. J. W. Powell, Director, transmits amended contract, with bids, proposals, and all original papers attached. VII. REPORT OF MR H. C. RIZER Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, _November 24, 1891_. Honorable J. W. Powell, _Director of the Bureau of Ethnology_. Sir: Complying with your order directing me to proceed to Florence, Arizona, to witness the closing up of the work under contract for the preservation of Casa Grande ruin near that place, and to report to you the amount and character of the work accomplished, certifying the amount due the contractors under each item, I have the honor to submit the following report: I visited the ruin first on October 20, and found the work well advanced. Steady progress was made from said date until October 31, the limitation expressed in the contract for prosecuting it. In order to ascertain the exact location of Casa Grande ruin and to aid me in the determination of the amount of work performed by the contractors, I employed Mr Albert T. Colton, a civil engineer and the official surveyor of Pinal county, Arizona, within the limits of which the ruin stands. From actual measurements made by Mr Colton, based upon official notes in his custody, he informed me the ruin was located in the northeast corner of the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 16 of township 5 south, range 8 east. A congressional township plat on which Mr Colton has marked the exact location of the ruin is filed herewith, marked Exhibit A, and made a part of this report [plate CXXV]. On October 29 Mr Colton at my instance took measurements of the brickwork in underpinning and filling in cavities in the walls and of the excavation done by the contractors. His estimate, based upon these measurements, was submitted to me in writing. It is filed herewith, marked Exhibit B, and is made a part of this report. I find from these measurements that the contractors excavated and removed to a point 100 yards from the ruin 570 cubic yards of débris, 271 cubic yards of which were removed from the interior and 299 cubic yards from the exterior walls of the building, within an area of 10 feet of said walls. I also find the amount of underpinning done by the contractors to be 919 cubic feet, and the amount of filling in openings to be 1,161 cubic feet. The underpinning is done with hard-burned brick laid in good cement mortar extending to a depth of 12 inches below the original ground level. The face of the brickwork is set back from 1 to 2 inches from the face of the wall and plastered with a coat of good cement mortar, making it flush with the outer wall. In filling in cavities more than 500 lineal feet of 2 by 4 inch squared lumber was used to replace broken-out lintels and laid side by side across nearly the whole thickness of the walls, with not more than 1 inch space between the boards. They occupy the same horizontal planes as the original lintels, and the walls are trimmed to afford solid resting places for them. The openings above the lintels have been filled in the same manner as the underpinning, with hard-burned brick set back 1 inch from the wall surfaces and plastered with a coating of cement mortar, bringing it out flush with the original wall. I further find that the contractors have placed one wooden brace and two iron braces as designated in the specifications. The wooden brace is constructed of two pieces of good, clear, squared lumber 6 by 8 inches in cross section, well bolted together, secured by plates of boiler iron three-eighths of an inch thick and 14 by 18 inches square. The specifications provide for this brace to run from the south side of the south wall through the center room with a plate on each side of the south wall and one on each side of the wall on the north side of the center room. The contractors have deviated from these requirements in having extended the said brace through the entire length of the building and placed the plates that were specified for the north wall of the center room on the respective sides of the extreme north wall of the building. While this deviation adds nothing to the security of the south wall, it is doubtless as effective as it would have been had it been placed as contemplated in the plan. It may in some degree strengthen the north wall, and I recommend that it be accepted as in compliance with the terms of the contract. The two iron rods called for in the specifications are of wrought iron 1½ inches in diameter, secured by boiler-iron plates three-eighths of an inch thick and 12 inches in diameter, securely fastened as required in the specifications. There was a necessary deviation from the plan as to the place the rod nearest the east side of the building should be placed. Early in the prosecution of the work a portion of the debris in contact with the eastern wall was removed. During the night following this a section of the south end of the east wall fell, carrying with it that portion of the wall between the south and east rooms to which the plan required said rod to be attached. In consequence the contractors placed the rod so as to connect it with the portion of the wall still intact. As a brace to the south wall it is placed advantageously. In excavation, underpinning, and filling in the contractors have exceeded the limitations prescribed in the contract, and have therefore performed an amount of work for the remuneration of which there is no provision. The following table shows the amount of work authorized in each of the four items with reference to which the contract was drawn and the amount actually performed by contractors: Item |1. Excavating and clearing out débris. | |2. Underpinning walls. | | |3. Filling in cavities. | | | |4. Braces. ----------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+-----------+ Maximum authorized | 350 cubic | 750 cubic | 825 | 1 wood | | yards | feet | cubic feet | and 1 iron| | | | | | Performed by | 570 cubic | 919 cubic | 1,161 | 1 wood and| contractors | yards | feet | cubic feet | 2 iron | | | | | | Excess | 220 cubic | 169 cubic | 336 | | | yards | feet | cubic feet | | | | | | | Contract Price | 60 cents | $1 per | $1 per | $200 | | per cubic | cubic foot| cubic foot | | | yard | | | | | | | | | Maximum allowances | $210 | $750 | 825 | 200 | under contract | | | | | | | | | | Amount contractors | 342 | 919 | 1,161 | 200 | claim to have | | | | | earned | | | | | | | | | | Excess of contractors'| 132 | 169 | 336 | | claim over amount | | | | | authorized | | | | | ----------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+-----------+ From this it will be observed that, taking the rate of compensation provided for in the contract as a basis, the contractors have performed work in excess of that authorized to the amount of $638 [$637]. They are fully advised that there is no provision for the payment of this excess. The requirements of the contract are, in my opinion, fully met in the quality of material used and the work performed. The preservation of the ruin is incomplete. There are six places where lintels have disappeared and not been replaced and a corresponding number of cavities that should be filled. Deep seams have been cut in the walls by the action of the elements, and unless far greater provision is made for its protection the work already done will be of small avail. At many places where the débris came in contact with the wall disintegration seems to have resulted. At a slight touch it frequently crumbles. Owing to this fact two sections of the wall fell during the progress of the work when the debris was removed--one from the east wall, described above, and one from the south wall near the west extremity. These breaches maybe observed as shown in two of the six accompanying photographs [plates CXX, CXXI]. These photographs were taken ten days before the work was completed. There being no professional photographer in that vicinity I was compelled to take advantage of the kind offer of Mr H. H. Burrell, an amateur photographer, who happened to be there at that time. Thus the views I secured failed to show all the brickwork done. The coating of mortar was not applied until after the date on which the views were taken, in consequence of which the bare bricks are shown in the views. During the progress of work in removing the debris a number of articles of interest to the ethnologist were found at various depths and localities. They have been packed by the contractors and will be sent to the National Museum. The floors in the center, north, and east rooms were found to be about 8 feet above the ground surface. The material was similar to that of which the walls are composed. The west and south rooms appeared to have had floors at one time on the same level, but the surfaces had disintegrated, and there was a mass of loose earth, which was removed to a depth of 6.9 feet below the floors of the other three rooms, where another floor was found slightly less firm than those. Reverend Isaac T. Whittemore, who has been designated by the honorable the Secretary of the Interior as the custodian of the ruin, rendered me valuable assistance in the performance of my mission. He has manifested a zealous concern for the preservation of the ruin and has given time and labor to that end. There is no provision for his just compensation. I therefore recommend that if any funds be found available after the payment of the amount due the contractors the same be ordered paid to Mr Whittemore for his services. Very respectfully, H. C. Rizer, _Chief Clerk_. SUPPLEMENT CORRESPONDENCE AND REPORT RELATING TO THE CONDITION OF CASA GRANDE IN 1895, WITH RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING ITS FURTHER PROTECTION I. _Letter of Reverend Isaac T. Whittemore, custodian of Casa Grande, to the Secretary of the Interior, recommending an appropriation for further protecting the ruin_ Florence, Arizona, _July 25, 1895_. Honorable Hoke Smith, _Secretary of the Interior_. Dear Sir: It is with great hesitancy that I write to add to the burdens of one so busy and burdened as I presume you to be. But it is not for myself but for others that I write, and will try to be laconic. Can you embody in your next report to Congress an appeal for an appropriation of $7,000 or $8,00[0] to roof the Casa Grande ruin, to fence 40 acres, and make excavations of all the mounds in the vicinity for the purpose of learning the history of the wonderful people who once lived here and erected the buildings and built canals? * * * * * Very sincerely, yours, Isaac T. Whittemore, _Custodian Casa Grande_. II. _Indorsement of the Mr Whittemore's by the Acting Secretary of the Interior_ Department of the Interior, _August 7, 1895_. Respectfully referred to the Director of Bureau of Ethnology for consideration of so much of within letter as relates to the Casa Grande ruin, and such recommendation as the facts may warrant, and report. Wm. H. Sims, _Acting Secretary_. III. _Letter of the Acting Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Interior suggesting an examination of Casa Grande with a view of its further protection_ Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, _Washington, August 28, 1895_. Sir: Your request of August 7 for a report concerning a recommendation by Reverend Isaac T. Whittemore, under date of July 25, that provision be made for further protecting Casa Grande ruin, near Florence, Arizona, by the erection of a suitable roof, has been under consideration. In many respects Casa Grande ruin is one of the most noteworthy relics of a prehistoric age and people remaining within the limits of the United States. It was discovered, already in a ruinous condition, by Padre Kino in 1694, and since that time it has been a subject of record by explorers and historians. Thus its history is exceptionally extended and complete. By reason of its early discovery and its condition when first seen by white men, it is known that Casa Grande is a strictly aboriginal structure; and archeologic researches in this country and Mexico afford grounds for considering it a typical structure for its times and for the natives of the southwestern region. Many other structures were mentioned or described by the Spanish explorers, but the impressions of these explorers were tinctured by previous experience in an inhospitable region, and their descriptions were tinged by the romantic ideas of the age; very few of these structures were within the limits of the United States, and nearly all of these situated in the neighboring republic of Mexico disappeared long ago; there is hardly a structure left, except Casa Grande ruin, by which the early accounts of Spanish explorers in North America can be checked and interpreted--none other of its class exists in the United States. Casa Grande ruin is, therefore, a relic of exceptional importance and of essentially unique character. Unfortunately this structure, like others erected by the most advanced among the native races in the southwest, is of perishable material; it is built of adobe, or rather of cajon, i.e., of a puddled clay, molded into walls, dried in the sun. Such walls would stand a short time only in humid regions; but in the arid region the material is desiccated and baked under cloudless sky and sun for many months at a time, and becomes so hard as to resist, fairly, the rare storms of the region. It is by reason of climatal conditions that cajon and adobe have come into general use for building in southwestern United States, as in contiguous parts of Mexico; and it is by reason of the same conditions that a few of the ancient structures remain, and the best preserved of all is found in the Gila valley, one of the most desert regions on the western hemisphere. Yet the best of the cajon structures is perishable; so long as the roof remains and the summits of the walls are protected, disintegration proceeds slowly; but when the projecting roof is removed, the rare but violent storms attack the walls, and they are gradually channeled and gullied by the storm waters, while the exterior surface gradually disintegrates and falls away under the alternate wetting and drying. Even in the most arid regions, the earth-built structures typical of the southwest are surely, albeit slowly, ravaged and destroyed. Several years ago Casa Grande ruin was brought into general notice throughout the United States in consequence of southwestern explorations; and in 1889, in response to a petition from several illustrious Americans, the Congress of the United States, at the instance of Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, made an appropriation of $2,000 for the purpose of undertaking the preservation of this ruin. This appropriation was expended in works urgently required to prevent the falling of the walls and final destruction of the ruin; they included metal stays for the walls, with brickwork for the support and protection of the walls at their bases. Subsequently an area of about 480 acres, including the ruin, was reserved from settlement by Executive order. A custodian was also appointed, and, as this office has been informed, has been continued down to the present. This action on the part of the legislative and executive branches of the Government can only be regarded as indicating a desire and continued intention to preserve the ruin for the benefit of the people of the United States. The expenditures thus far authorized for the preservation of Casa Grande ruin have been made in such manner as to meet the most urgent needs only, and without them the structure would probably have been, before this time, beyond the reach of preservation. The preservative works were undertaken as emergency measures, rather than as steps in carrying out a well-considered plan. From the outset it has been understood by architects and archeologists and others familiar with the structure that preservation can be insured only by throwing a roof over the entire ruin in such manner as to protect the walls from the fierce rainstorms which occasionally occur in the Gila valley. No lesser work will preserve the ruin more than a generation or two; and unless this work of roofing is contemplated and is undertaken within a few years, the emergency work will be of little avail and the money expended therein will be lost. Accordingly, assuming a desire and continued intention on the part of the Government to preserve this noteworthy relic, no hesitation is felt in recommending that a suitable roof be placed over Casa Grande ruin, at such time as may be expedient; and, in view of the rapidity with which destruction is now in progress, there is no hesitation in saying that the work should be undertaken at the earliest practicable date. It should be added that neither the Director nor any of the collaborators in the Bureau of American Ethnology have visited Casa Grande ruin for some three years, and accordingly that there are no data in this office to indicate whether there is especially urgent necessity for undertaking preservative work at this time; but much confidence is placed in the judgment of the custodian, Reverend Isaac T. Whittemore, who is known to several collaborators in the Bureau. The subject of the preservation of Casa Grande, in many respects the most noteworthy ruin in the United States, is deemed important; and if the Secretary of the Interior desires more specific information concerning the present condition of the ruin, as a basis for further action or judgment, it will be a pleasure to have an officer of this Bureau make a special examination of, and report on, the ruin during the autumn. I have the honor to be, yours, with great respect, W J McGee, _Acting Director_. The Secretary of the Interior. IV. _Letter of the Acting Secretary of the Interior to the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology, approving the suggestion that Casa Grande be visited with a view of determining the desirability of its further protection_ Department of the Interior, _Washington, September 12, 1895_. The Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology, _Smithsonian Institution_. Dear Sir: I am in receipt of your letter of the 28th ultimo submitting a report upon the recommendation made by the Reverend Isaac T. Whittemore, custodian, that provision be made for further protection of the Casa Grande ruin near Florence, Arizona, by the erection of a suitable roof. In response thereto I have to state that more specific information concerning the present condition of the ruin and the probable cost of providing proper protection for it is desirable in the preparation of an estimate to be submitted to Congress with a view of securing appropriation for the work. To this end the Department gladly avails itself of your offer to send an officer of your Bureau, at its expense, to make a special examination and report on the ruin during the autumn of this year. Very respectfully, John M. Reynolds, _Acting Secretary_. V. _Letter of the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Interior regarding the examination of Casa Grande by Mr W J McGee_ Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, _Washington, October 18, 1895_. Sir: Pursuant to your request of September 12, 1895, Mr W J McGee, ethnologist in charge in the Bureau of American Ethnology, will in a few days repair to Florence, Arizona, for the purpose of examining Casa Grande ruin and determining the desirability of further works for its preservation. * * * In accordance with terms of preceding correspondence, it is of course understood that the cost of the work will be borne wholly by this Bureau. I have the honor to be, yours, with great respect, J. W. Powell, _Director_. The Secretary of the Interior, _Washington, D.C_. VI. _Report of the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Interior on the examination of the condition of Casa Grande by Mr W J McGee, with a recommendation concerning its further protection_ Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, _Washington, November 15, 1895_. Sir: Pursuant to a proposal made in connection with a report from this office relating to the ruins known as Casa Grande, near Florence, Arizona, under date of August 28, 1895, and to the acceptance of this proposal in a communication from the Department of the Interior under date of September 12, 1895, Mr W J McGee, ethnologist in charge of the Bureau of American Ethnology, has within a few days made an examination of Casa Grande ruin with the view of determining the need for further protection of the ruin by a roof or otherwise. There are in this office two series of photographs representing the ruin. The first series was taken in 1892 before the protective works authorized by the Congress were commenced; the second series represents the work in progress. In the recent examination the present condition of the ruin was carefully compared with the condition represented in the photographs. On comparing the profiles of the walls, it was found that in many cases the irregular upper surfaces retain the exact configuration of 1892, even to the slightest knobs and rain-formed crevices; the correspondence being so close as to show that the injury and loss by weathering during the interim has been imperceptible. In some other cases, notably along the southern and eastern walls, the profiles are more extensively modified; some of the points and knobs shown in the photographs are gone, some of the old crevices are widened and deepened, and some new crevices appear; and in some parts it can be seen that walls are lowered several inches. On the whole the modification of the profiles of the walls is limited, yet such as to indicate that destruction is proceeding at a not inconsiderable rate. On comparing the scars and crevices on the sides of the walls, it was found that, while many remain essentially unchanged, most are enlarged and deepened. This is particularly noteworthy on the eastern and southern walls, which are most beaten by wind-driven rains, and which are also most modified in profile. It would appear that destruction is proceeding more rapidly along the sides of the walls than along the crests. On examining the walls with respect to apparent solidity and stability, it was found that nearly all are in fair or good condition. The only portion that would seem in special danger is the central section of the southern exterior wall. This section seems insecure, and might at any time be overthrown by a heavy wind following a rain storm. This section was not, unfortunately, braced or tied to the stronger interior wall when the protective works were carried out in 1892. On examining the structure to ascertain the effect of the protective works of 1892 in staying the destructive processes, particularly the undermining of the walls by spattering rain and drifting sand, it was found that in most cases the results have been excellent. On the inner side of the middle section of the southern exterior wall sapping is in progress at the ground level, and also along the rows of joist openings for the first and second stories, and in a few other places the protection seems inadequate; but in general the anticipations of the projectors of the protective works seem to have been realized. The most serious of the destructive processes was sapping, and this process has been nearly checked by the protective works. The second was the desurfacing and subsequent eating away of the walls by beating rains and frost, and this is still in progress at a moderate rate. The least serious process was the wearing away of the crests of the walls by rain and winds, and this is still going on at a perceptible rate. It is impossible to determine, and difficult even to approximate, the rate of destruction quantitatively, especially so since it goes on cumulatively, with constantly increasing rapidity, as the cemented surfaces are destroyed and the crevices widen and deepen; but judging from the history of the ruin, and from the rate of destruction indicated by comparing the photographs of 1892 with the present aspect, it would seem safe to conclude that, if protected completely from vandalism, the ruin will be comparatively little injured during the next five years, and will stand perhaps half a century, without further protective works, before moldering into dust. In view of the slow yet ever increasing rate of destruction of the ruin, and of its great interest as a tangible record of the prehistoric inhabitants of this country, no hesitation is felt in recommending that the structure be further protected, and practically perpetuated, by a suitable roof, so designed as to shield the walls from rain and sun and at the same time permit an unobstructed view of the ruin from any direction. * * * * * I have the honor to be, sir, yours, with great respect, J. W. Powell, _Director_. Secretary of the Interior. INDEX Adobe construction, what constitutes 323 Burrell, H. H., Casa Grande photographed by 343 Clauton, M. E., bid of, for repair of Casa Grande 339 Colton, A. T., on Casa Grande reserve 340 Contract for repairing Casa Grande 333-335 Doran, A. J., affidavit of 335 contract with, for Casa Grande repair 334 Eaman, C. B., witness to Casa Grande contract 334 Garlick, C. A., cooperation of, in repair of Casa Grande 327 Henry, C. D., bids of, for repair of Casa Grande 338-339 Hoar, G.F., interest of, in Casa Grande 346 Hunt, Jeff, witness to Casa Grande contract 334 Kebbey, F. C., witness to Casa Grande contract 334, 335 Kebbey, J. H., affidavit of 335 Kino, Eusebius, Casa Grande visited by 323, 345 McGee, W. J. directed to examine Casa Grande 347 examination of Casa Grande by 329 examination of Casa Grande recommended by 344-347 report on Casa Grande by 348-349 Mindeleff, V., report by, on Casa Grande 327 Morrison, A. L., report by, on Casa Grande 326-327 Specimens found at Casa Grande 330-332 Stouffer, T. L., bid of, for Casa Grande repair 328, 338 contract with, for Casa Grande repair 334 White, F. E., bid of, on Casa Grande repair 328, 338 contract with, for Casa Grande repair 334 Whittemore, I. T., appointed custodian of Casa Grande, 329 compensation of, recommended, 318 cooperation of, in repair of Casa Grande, 327 judgment of, regarding Casa Grande, 316 on further protection of Casa Grande, 341 Williams, A. G., affidavit of, 335 contract with, for Casa Grande repair, 334 * * * * * [Errors and Anomalies: W J McGee _except in the Index, this name is consistently printed without periods (W. J.)_ Plate CXVII shows the extent of this area, and six sections are shown in plates CXVIII and CXIX _text reads_ Plate VI ... VII and VIII (_as if numbering from I within article_) Very sincerely, yours, _comma in original_ Indorsement of the Mr Whittemore's by the Acting Secretary _wording as in original_ ] 
18703	----	[Transcriber's Note: Punctuation in catalog entries has been silently regularized. Other errors are noted at the end of the text.] * * * * * SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTIONS OBTAINED FROM THE INDIANS OF NEW MEXICO IN 1880. BY JAMES STEVENSON. * * * * * CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION 429 Collections from Cuyamunque 435 Articles of stone 435 Rubbing stones 435 Articles of clay 436 Collections from Nambé 436 Articles of stone 436 Articles of clay 437 Collections from Pojuaque 438 Articles of stone 438 Articles of clay 439 Articles of bone and horn 440 Collections from Old Pojuaque 441 Articles of stone 441 Articles of clay 441 Collections from Santa Clara 441 Articles of stone 441 Articles of clay 443 Polished black ware 443 Black or brown ware 447 Whitened ware with colored decorations 449 Vegetal substances 449 Collections from Tesuque 450 Articles of stone 450 Articles of clay 450 Collections from Turquoise Mine 450 Collections from Santo Domingo 450 Articles of stone 450 Articles of clay 451 Collections from Jémez 452 Articles of stone 452 Articles of clay 452 Miscellaneous articles 454 Collections from Silla 454 Articles of stone 454 Articles of clay 454 Miscellaneous 455 Collections from San Juan 456 Articles of stone 456 Articles of clay 456 Polished black ware 456 Brown and black ware 457 White ware with decorations 457 Miscellaneous articles 458 Collection from Santa Ana 458 Articles of stone 458 Articles of clay 458 Collection from Sandia, N. Mex. 458 Collection from Cochití 459 Articles of stone 459 Articles of clay 459 Miscellaneous articles 460 Collections from San Ildefonso 460 Articles of stone 460 Articles of clay 461 Red ware with decorations in black 462 Red and brown ware without decorations 463 Black polished ware 463 Black ware not polished 463 Miscellaneous articles 464 Collections from Taos 464 Articles of stone 464 Articles of clay 464 White and red ware with decorations 465 ILLUSTRATIONS. Fig. 698.--Pojuaque pitcher 440 699.--Santa Clara polished black ware 443 700.--Santa Clara polished black ware 444 701.--Santa Clara bowl 445 702.--Santa Clara image 445 703.--Santa Clara meal basket 446 704.--Santa Clara pipe 446 705.--Santa Clara canteen 447 706.--Santa Clara canteen 449 707.--Santo Domingo tinaja 451 708.--Jémez water vase 453 709.--Silla water vessel 455 710.--The blanket weaver 454 711.--San Juan water vessel 457 712.--San Ildefonso water vessel 461 713.--Taos polishing stone 464 714.--Taos vessel 465 [Illustration: MAP OF THE PROVINCE OF TUSAYAN, ARIZONA Surveyed by A. L. WEBSTER 1881] * * * * * ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTIONS OBTAINED FROM THE INDIANS OF NEW MEXICO IN 1880. By James Stevenson. * * * * * INTRODUCTION. It is thought best that I should give, in connection with the catalogue of collections made by the party under my charge in 1880-'81, a brief statement in relation to the collections described in the catalogues, and the information obtained in regard to the Pueblo tribes. Our explorations during the field season of 1880 and 1881 were restricted to the Pueblo tribes located along the Rio Grande and its tributaries in New Mexico. The chief object in view was to secure as soon as possible all the ethnological and archaeological data obtainable before it should be lost to science by the influx of civilized population which is being rapidly thrown into this region by the extension of railroads into and through it. Not only are the architectural remains being rapidly destroyed and archaeological specimens collected and carried away by travelers, excursionists, and curiosity hunters, but the ancient habits and customs of these tribes are rapidly giving way and falling into disuse before the influence of eastern civilization. Our party, consisting, besides myself, of Mr. Galbraith, archaeologist, Mr. Morancy, assistant, and Mr. J. K. Hillers, photographer, proceeded to Santa Fé, N. Mex., where an outfit was secured for the season's work. From here we proceeded to Taos, one of the most extensive pueblos in the Rio Grande region. This village is situated on the Rio Taos a few miles from the Rio Grande, and just under the shadow of the Taos Mountains. It comprises two large sections, one on each side of the Rio Taos. These are compactly built and each six stories high. The industrial pursuits of these Indians are principally pastoral and agricultural, they having a good market for their products in the Mexican village of Fernandez de Taos, containing a population of about 4,000 Mexicans and eastern people. The party spent several days here making investigations and collections. The collection made was small but quite varied and novel, though few of the articles obtained were of their own manufacture. Quite a number of stone implements were secured, among which were some stone knives, pipes, a number of rude stone axes and hammers, arrow smoothers, &c. The pottery obtained here is chiefly of the common type and resembles that from San Juan, from whence in all probability it was received by exchange and barter. Earthenware, so far as I can learn, is not now made in Taos, except by a few families where a Taos Indian has married a woman from San Juan or some other tribe where the manufacture of pottery is carried on. If this industry was ever, practiced by the Taos Indians it must have been at a remote period; in fact there seems to be no tradition of it now among them. From here we went next to the pueblo of San Juan, situated on the left bank of the Rio Grande, about 50 miles south of Taos. At this pueblo a collection was made of stone implements, articles of clay, &c. These specimens are not quite so representative as those from some of the more southern pueblos, the village being situated on one of the military wagon roads, over which many Europeans pass, and hence frequently visited; many of the most valuable specimens of implements and pottery have been bartered away; however, those we obtained display quite fully all the industries of the people of this pueblo. This collection consists of a number of fine stone mortars, pestles, arrow and spear heads, also several polishing stones. Quite a number of small animal forms carved out of stone were also secured. At this pueblo many specimens of the black polished ware peculiar to a few of the tribes in the Rio Grande Valley were collected. From San Juan we proceeded to Santa Clara, situated a few miles below on the right bank of the Rio Grande. This pueblo proved to be so interesting in its surroundings that some time was spent here in making investigations. We found the people extensively engaged in the manufacture of that black polished pottery of which so little has been known heretofore, especially in regard to the process of baking and coloring it, which is fully described in the text accompanying the catalogue of last year in this volume. The larger portion of the specimens of earthenware obtained here was of this kind, though several specimens of the red and some few of the ornamented class were also secured. Most of the pottery manufactured at this village is the black polished ware. That of the decorated class is ornamented with the juice of _Cleome integrifolia_, which is fixed in the ware in the process of burning. Mineral substances, so far as I could learn, are not used by the Indians of Santa Clara in decorating their pottery. Among the specimens are a number of interesting stone implements, nearly all of an older kind than any made by this people at the present day. During our stay at this pueblo some interesting archaeological discoveries were made of which a brief mention in this connection may not be out of place, and which will certainly prove of great interest to future investigators. Between the Rio Grande and Valle Mountains, commencing about 12 miles below, or south, of Santa Clara, and extending south, to within ten miles of Cochití, a distance of about 65 miles, is an extensive area, the intermediate elevated portion of which is composed of a yellowish volcanic tufa, of coarse texture and sufficiently soft and yielding to be readily worked or carved with rude stone implements. Over this entire area there are irregular elevations, somewhat circular in outline, from 50 to 200 feet in height, the faces of which have been worn away by the elements, and are in nearly all instances perpendicular. These consecutive elevations extend back from the Rio Grande from five to fifteen miles. Over this whole expanse of country, in the faces of these cliffs, we found an immense number of cavate dwellings, cut out by the hand of man. We made no attempt to count the number of these curious dwellings, dug like hermit cells out of the rock, but they may be estimated with safety among the thousands. I made many inquiries of the neighboring tribes in regard to the history of these dwellings, but could elicit no information from any of them. The response was invariably, "they are very old and the people who occupied them are gone." An inspection of a portion of this area revealed a condition of things which I have no doubt prevails throughout. The dwellings were found in the faces of the cliffs, about 20 feet apart in many instances, but the distances are irregular. A careful examination satisfied me that they were excavated with rude stone implements resembling adzes, numbers of which were found here, and which were probably used by fastening one end to a handle. The doorways, which are square, were first cut into the face of the wall to a depth of about one foot, and then the work of enlarging the room began. The interiors of the rooms are oval in shape, about 12 feet in diameter, and only of sufficient height to enable one to stand upright. The process, from the evidences shown inside, of carving out the interior of the dwelling was by scraping grooves several inches deep and apart, and breaking out the intermediate portion; in this way the work progressed until the room reached the desired size. Inside of these rooms were found many little niches and excavated recesses used for storing household ornaments, the larger ones probably supplying the place of cupboards. Near the roofs of many of the caves are mortises, projecting from which, in many instances, were found the decayed ends of wooden beams or sleepers, which were probably used, as they are now in the modern Pueblo dwellings, as poles over which to hang blankets and clothing, or to dry meat. These dwellings were without fireplaces; but the evidences of fire were plainly visible at the side of each cave, and in none of those visited did we find any orifice for the egress of the smoke but the small doorway. On the outside or in front of these singular habitations are rows of holes mortised into the face of the cliffs about the doors. It is quite evident that these were for the insertion of beams of wood (for forming booths or shelters in the front), as ends of beams were found sticking there, which, in their sheltered position and in this dry climate, may have been preserved for centuries. Upon the top of the mesa of which these cliffs are the exposed sides we found the ruins of large circular buildings made of square stones 8 by 12 inches in size. The walls of some of these structures remain standing to the height of ten or twelve feet, and show that from four to five hundred people can find room within each inclosure. One of these buildings was rectangular and two were round structures. The latter were about 100 and 150 feet in diameter, the rectangular one about 300 feet square. Many small square rooms were constructed in the interior from large cut bricks of the tufa of which the bluffs are composed. These rooms all opened toward the center of the large inclosure, which has but one general doorway. From these ruins we secured great quantities of pottery, arrow and spear heads, knives, grinding-stones, arrow-smoothers, and many of the small flint adzes, which were undoubtedly used for making the blocks for the structures on the mesa and for excavating the cave dwellings. Among the débris in the dwellings are found corncobs and other evidences of the food used by the inhabitants. This certainly indicates that the people who occupied these singular dwellings were agricultural. The faces of some of the more prominent cliffs contained as many as three rows of chambers one above the other; the débris at the foot, sometimes 200 feet deep, covered up at least two rows of these chambers. Along the edges of the cliffs and over the rocky surface of the mesa are winding footpaths from 3 to 10 inches deep, worn by the feet of the inhabitants. Some of these paths showed perceptible foot-prints where it was inconvenient for those following the path to do otherwise than tread in the footsteps of their predecessors. In our limited investigations we were unable to discover any evidence of burial customs. No graves could be found, and nothing of human remains. The southern portion of this area seems to have been most densely populated. Some of the protected walls in the neighborhood retain hieroglyphics in abundance. These resemble the picture writing of the present Indians of that region. Many interesting specimens of the art of this ancient people can be seen in the images of wild animals scattered over various spots. Many of them are cut in full relief out of the tufa and are always in some natural attitude, and can always be identified where the weather has not destroyed the original form. The most prominent are two mountain lions, side by side and life size. Further examinations will reveal much more of value and interest in connection with this very inviting locality. Mr. Galbraith, who accompanied my party, spent some time examining this region and made collections here. The next pueblo visited was San Ildefonso, about five miles below Santa Clara, on the opposite bank of the Rio Grande. But few specimens were obtained here. The people of this pueblo devote their time chiefly to agricultural and pastoral pursuits, and have almost abandoned the manufacture of pottery, that in use by them at the present time being mostly obtained from neighboring tribes. From San Ildefonso we proceeded to Nambé, a pueblo which has become almost extinct. The remnant of this people is situated about 25 miles above Ildefonso, on Nambé Creek, and not far from the base of the mountains. The people of Nambé have several times in years past moved their pueblo higher up the stream, the valley of which furnishes them fine agricultural and grazing grounds. They make very little pottery, but we found stored in many of the houses of the village great quantities of stone implements, principally large metates and grinding-stones. We also found many specimens of interest among the ruins of old Nambé and Pojuaque, as well as the remains of pottery in such quantities as to show that in the past the manufacture of pottery had been carried on quite extensively. In this vicinity I made arrangements with one of the employés of the party, who had resided many years at Santa Fé, to make excavations and collections from the old sites of Nambé, Pojuaque, and Cuyamunque, in which he was quite successful. From the pueblos north of Santa Fé we traveled direct to Cochití, 27 miles southwest of Santa Fé. This village is situated on the right bank of the Rio Grande and about three miles from Peña Blanca, a small Mexican town opposite. Here a very interesting collection was secured consisting mostly of pottery, many of the vessels simulating animal forms, variously ornamented with representations of some varieties of the flora of the locality. A few stone implements were also obtained here. We next visited Jémez, situated on the Rio Jémez. From thence we went to Silla and Santa Ana. At each of these villages representative collections were made, all of which are referred to in detail in the catalogue. The next villages visited were Santo Domingo and Sandia, on the Rio Grande. Some characteristic specimens were obtained at each of these pueblos. The method of their manufacture and the manner of using them are generally the same as in most of the other pueblos. A small collection of rude stone hammers was obtained from the turquois mine in the Cerrillo Mountains, about 25 miles from Santa Fé. The products of this celebrated mine, which were objects of traffic all over New Mexico, as well as contiguous countries, probably formed one inducement which led to the Spanish conquest of this region. The turquoises from this mine have always been valued as ornaments by the Indians of New Mexico, and carried far and wide for sale by them. The mine was worked in a most primitive manner with these rude stone hammers, a number of which were secured. The collections are all now in the National Museum for study and inspection. The following sketch is introduced here to show the method of using the batten stick represented in Fig. 546. There is not a family among the Pueblos or Navajos that does not possess the necessary implements for weaving blankets, belts and garters. Figs. 500-502 will convey an idea of the variety in design and coloring which prevails in this class of Indian fabrics, while Fig. 710 represents a blanket weaver at work. The picture is taken from a photograph made on the spot by Mr. Hillers, and is colored in accordance with the actual colors of the yarns and threads used in its manufacture. The particular class of blankets represented in this illustration is woven in the estufas, and is used almost exclusively in sacred dances and ceremonies of the tribe, all other garments being made in the houses or in the open air. The Navajos are celebrated for their skill as blanket weavers, and the Mokis are equally skilled in the manufacture of a finer class of the same article, which is much sought after by the surrounding tribes for ornamental purposes in sacred and other dances. The vertical threads, as shown in the figure, are the warp threads; the coarser thread which is inserted transversely between these is the yarn or weft. The three rods in the center of the blanket are lease rods, which are introduced among the threads of the warp to separate them and thus facilitate the insertion of the weft thread. These rods are each passed in front of one warp thread and behind another, alternately, across the whole warp, and between each rod the threads are brought from the back of one to the front of the next, and _vice versa_. The bar held in hands of the weaver serves as a batten for driving or beating the weft thread into the angle formed by the crossed warp threads. This loom resembles in principle the ancient Egyptian, Grecian, and French looms which are described on pages 55 to 62 of "The History and Principles of Weaving by Hand and Power," by A. Barlow, London, 1878, and on pages 41 to 45 of the "Treatise on Weaving and Designing of Textile Fabrics," by Thomas E. Ashenhurst, Bradford, England, 1881. See also pp. 200 to 208, Vol. II, of the "Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain," by A. Ure, London, 1861. COLLECTIONS FROM CUYAMUNQUE. ARTICLES OF STONE. _RUBBING STONES._ (Used as rubbers in grinding corn on metates.) 1-3. 1, (46506); 2, (46507); 3, (46517). Basalt. 4, (46510). Sandstone. 5, (46512). Conglomerate. 6-9. 6, (46513); 7, (46514); 8, (46515); 9, (46516). Mica schist. 10-11. 10, (46518); 11, (46529). Of hornblende schist; these are elongate and intended to be used with both hands. 12-13. 12, (46508); 13, (46567). Quartzite metates. 14-15. 14, (46509); 15, (46511). Sandstone metates, the latter but little used and almost flat. 16, (46551). Rubbing stone of andesite. 17-24. 17, (46555); 18, (46556); 19, (46557); 20, (46558); 21, (46561); 22, (46563); 23, (46569); 24, (46559). Small smoothing stone mostly of quartzite, one or two only of basalt. These are bowlders weighing from one to three pounds, rounded by natural agencies, and selected by the natives to be used for smoothing and polishing purposes. When much used they are worn down flat on one side, the side used being worn off, just as the rubbing stone in the old process of preparing paint. 25-26. 25, (46519); 26, (46520). Unfinished celts of basalt. 27, (46521). Crude hoe or adze of mica schist. 28, (46522). Schist stone with groove for smoothing arrow shaft, and hole for rounding point. 29-31. 29, (46523); 30, (46524); 31, (46525). Crude stone implements, supposed to be used for digging. 32-34. 32, (46526); 33, (46527); 34, (46528). Very crude stone implements, probably used for pounding. 35, (46530). Double-handled baking stone; basalt. The use of stones of this kind will be more particularly noticed hereafter. 36, (46531). Broken rounded mortar; basalt. 37, (47532). A small, oblong, mortar-shaped vessel of lava. The width three inches, length when unbroken was probably four and a half inches; width of inside two inches, length probably three and one-fourth inches, depth of cavity three-fourths of an inch. On the portion remaining there are four feet; originally there were doubtless six. On one side is a projection or handle similar in form and size to the feet. 38-54. 38, (46533); 39, (46534); 40, (46535); 41, (46536); 42, (46537); 43, (46538); 44, (46539); 45, (46550); 46, (46552); 47, (46553); 48, (46554); 49, (46560); 50, (46562); 51, (46565); 52, (46566); 53, (46568); 54, (47571). Pounding or hammer stones, some of them simple cobble stones, others with marks of slight preparation for use by chipping off or rubbing down prominences. 55, (46540). Sandstone with smoothed surface and groove for smoothing arrow shafts. 56-64. 56, (46541); 57, (46542); 58, (46543); 59, (46544); 60, (46545); 61, (46546); 62, (46547); 63, (46548); 64, (46564). Small stones, chiefly quartz, basalt, and agate, used for smoothing and polishing pottery. 65-68. 65, (46570); 66, (46572); 67, (46573); 68, (46574). Broken rubbers for metates. 69, (46988). Spear head. Basalt. 70, (46989). Arrow head. Obsidian. ARTICLES OF CLAY. (Only one perfect specimen obtained.) 71, (46575). A bowl. 72, (46718). Fragments of ancient pottery. COLLECTIONS FROM NAMBÉ. ARTICLES OF STONE. 73-78. 73, (46577); 74, (46578); 75, (46579); 76, (46580); 77, (46581); 78, (46583). Quartzite rubbing stones of an elongate form. 79, (46582). Similar to the last group, but appears to have been used as a pestle as well as a rubber. 80-85. 80, (46584); 81, (46585); 82, (49586); 83, (46587); 84, (46588); 85, (46589). Pounding stones, chiefly of quartzite. These are quite regularly formed, cylindrical or spindle-shaped, with blunt or squarely docked ends, from four to seven inches long and two to three inches in diameter, used chiefly in pounding mesquite beans. 86-89. 86, (46590); 87, (46591); 88, (46592); 89, (46593). Round, flattened, or disk-shaped quartzite pounders, medium and small sizes. 90-91. 90, (46596); and 91, (46597). Pounders similar to the preceding group, but smaller. 92, (46594). A flat or disk-shaped polishing stone of quartzite. 93, (46595). An oblong rectangular quartzite pounding stone. 94-105. 94, (46598); 95, (46599); 96, (46600); 97, (46601); 98, (46602); 99, (46603); 100, (46604); 101, (46605); 102, (46606); 103, (46607); 104, (46608); 105, (46609). Small irregular stones of jasper and basalt used in shaping and polishing pottery. 106, (46610). Elongate, well-worn, sandstone meal rubber or rubber for metate. 107, (46611). A stone bowl or basin made from an oblong, somewhat oval-shaped quartzite slab, and used for pounding and grinding mesquite beans. The length is 19 inches, greatest width 10 inches, depth of depression 2 inches. 108, (46612). Rather large disk-shaped smoothing stone of basalt. 109-114. 109, (46719); 110, (46720); 111, (46721); 112, (46722); 113, (46723); and 114, (46724). Rubbers for metates of the usual form, mostly of basalt, well worn, and most of them broken. 115-131. 115, (46725); 116, (46726); 117, (46728); 118, (46729); 119, (46732); 120, (46733); 121, (46734); 122, (46735); 123, (46739); 124, (46740); 125, (46741); 126, (46742); 127, (46743); 128, (46744); 129, (46749); 130, (46750); 131, (46761). Crude pounding stones, mostly simple cobble stones, more or less worn by use. 132-150. 132, (46727); 133, (46730); 134, (46731); 135, (46736); 136, (46737); 137, (46738); 138, (46745); 139, (46746); 140, (46747); 141, (46748); 142, (46751); 143, (46752); 144, (46753); 145, (46754); 146, (46755); 147, (46756); 148, (46757); 149, (46758); 150, (46759). Small and mostly polished smoothing stones, used chiefly in polishing pottery; all well worn; of jasper, quartzite; or basalt. 151, (46760). A broken grooved ax of basalt. 152, (47051). A very large metate, twenty-four inches long and fifteen inches wide, much worn, the middle of the curve being three and one-half inches below the surface. 153, (47048). Ax with groove on one edge. 154, (47049). Hammer with broad annular groove. 155, (47050). Hammer with lateral notches. 156, (47051). Ax, broken. 157, (48052). Grooved hammer. 158, (47056). Half of a large mortar, much worn. 159, (47058). Metate. 160, (47059). A small mortar, probably used for grinding and pounding chili (pepper). ARTICLES OF CLAY. Articles of clay from this pueblo, which are but few in number, are either of polished black ware or unpolished of the natural _tierra amarilla_ or yellow earth, color, but more or less blackened by use. This ware is of precisely the same character and quality as the black pottery from Santa Clara. The pitchers, cups, and basins are evidently modeled after introduced patterns from civilized nations. All are without ornamentation. 161, (47033). Tinaja or olla, with narrow neck; _tierra amarilla_, blackened. 162, (47032). Tinaja or olla, rather small, polished black ware. 163-164. 163, (47034); 164, (47035). Pitchers of the ordinary form with handle and spout, about half-gallon size, polished black ware. 165, (47036). Small olla, yellow ware. 166, (47037). Small olla-shaped bowl; yellow ware. 167, (47038). A cup without handle. 168-171. 168, (47039); 169, (47040); 170, (47041); 171, (47042). Cups with handle similar in form and size to the ordinary white stone-china coffee cups; yellow-ware. 172, (47043). Cup similar in form and size to the preceding, but of polished black ware. 173, (47044). Small cup without handle; polished black ware. 174, (47045). Small cooking pot with handle; polished black ware. 175, (47046). A pear-shaped water vessel with two loop handles placed opposite each other near the mouth. 176, (47047). A large, polished black ware basin of the usual washbasin form, but with undulate border. 177, (47060). Small bowl, black polished ware. COLLECTIONS FROM POJUAQUE. ARTICLES OF STONE. 178-189. 178, (46613); 179, (46614); 180, (46615); 181, (46616); 182, (46617); 183, (46618); 184, (46619); 185, (46620); 186, (46621); 187, (46622); 188, (46657); 189, (46658). Hammers with groove around the middle. In 46618 the groove is double. They are of quartzite, lava, greenstone, metamorphic rock and basalt. 190-202. 190, (46623); 191, (46624); 192, (46625); 193, (46627); 194, (46639); 195, (46640); 196, (46641); 197, (46642); 198, (46644); 199, (45645); 200, (46646); 201, (46647); 202, (46648). Small smoothing-stones. 203, (46626). A triangular pounding stone. 204-212. 204, (46628); 205, (46629); 206, (46630); 207, (46631); 208, (46632); 209, (46633); 210, (46634); 211, (46650); 212, (46632). Oval pounding-stones made out of rolled pebbles or bowlders. 213, (46635). Elongate slender implements of basalt, probably used in molding pottery, especially the larger flaring bowls. 214, (46636). A smaller implement of similar form used as a polisher for particular vessels. 215-216. 215, (46637); 216, (46638). Flat stones with straight groove for smoothing arrow-shafts. 217, (46643). An unfinished ax of basalt. 218, (46651). A mortar for pounding and grinding mesquite beans. 219, (46653). Rude, partially grooved ax. 220, (46654). Small quartzite pestle. 221, (46659). A very regular, much-worn basaltic metate. 222, (47926). A large, well-worn metate. 223-226. 223, (46660); 224, (47927); 225, (47928); 226, (47929). Rubbing stones for metate. 227-228. 227, (47930); 228, (47931). Broken hatchets with annular groove near the hammer end. 229-232. 229, (47932); 230, (47933); 231, (47934); 232, (47935). Rude hatchets or digging implements notched on the side. 233-234. 233, (47936); 234, (47937). Hammers or pounding-stones with groove around the middle. 235-248. 235, (47938); 236, (47939); 237, (47944); 238, (47951); 239, (47952); 240, (47953); 241, (47954); 242, (47955); 243, (47956); 244, (47958); 245, (47959); 246, (47963); 247, (47964); 248, (47965). Pounding-stones. 249-255. 249, (47940); 250, (47941); 251, (47942); 252, (47943); 253, (47960); 254, (47961); 255, (47962). Small smoothing-stones. 256, (47945). Quartz pestle. 257, (47946). Stone for crushing and grinding mesquite beans. 258-261. 258, (47947); 259, (47948); 260, (47949); 261, (47950). Small disk-shaped hammer-stones with finger pits or depressions usually on both sides. 262-265. 262, (47966); 263, (47967); 264, (47968); 265, (47969). Stones with flat surface and a single straight groove for polishing or straightening arrow-shafts. 266-267. 266, (47971); 267, (47972). Similar stones, with two and three grooves, used for same purpose. 268, (47970). Piece of soap-stone used for moulding bullets. 269, (47974). Rude mortar for grinding paint. 270, (47973). Muller for grinding paint in the paint mortar. ARTICLES OF CLAY. These are few and simple and chiefly of the yellow micaceous ware, some of it blackened by use so that the original color cannot now be observed. Some of the pieces are of red ware with ornamentations. 273-274. 273, (47431); 274, (47432). Pottery moulds for bottoms of vessels. 275, (47434). A pitcher-shaped teapot of red micaceous ware, with handle; a row of projecting points around the middle, one-half of these (those on one side) having the tips notched. There is a triangular spout in front, the opening to it being through numerous small round holes forming a strainer. Capacity about three pints. (Fig. 698.) [Illustration: Fig. 698. 47434] 276, (47435). Small pitcher-shaped cooking pot with handle and crenulate margin. 277-278. 277, (47436); 278, (47437). Small plain bowls used in cooking. 279, (47438). A small boat-shaped bowl resembling a pickle dish. 280, (47439). A small, polished black olla. 281, (47440). A small flat flaring bowl of red ware, with simple, narrow, inner marginal black band and an inner sub-marginal line of triangular points with dots between them. 282, (47441). Small image of a quadruped, very rude; impossible to determine the animal intended; white ware with undulate black lines. 283, (47442). Image of a small bird with wings spread; white ware with black lines. 284, (47443). Small bowl of white ware, ornamented with red triangles and squares bordered by black lines. 285, (47444). Specimen of the paint used by the Indians to ornament themselves in their dances. ARTICLES OF BONE AND HORN. 271, (46656). Corn-husker; handle of antelope-horn and point of iron. 272, (48047). Implement of horn, perforated for straightening arrow-shafts. COLLECTIONS FROM OLD POJUAQUE. ARTICLES OF STONE. 286-288. 286, (46661); 287, (46662); 288, (46714). Fragments of metates. 289, (46663). Large, very regularly shaped and much worn metate. 290-296. 290, (46664); 291, (46665); 292, (46666); 293, (46667); 294, (46668); 295, (46669); 296, (46670). Rubbing stones for metates, mostly broken. 297-319. 297, (46671); 298, (46672); 299, (46673); 300, (46674); 301, (46675); 302, (46676); 303, (46677); 304, (46678); 305, (46679); 306, (46683); 307, (46684); 308, (46695); 309, (46690); 310, (46680); 311, (46701); 312, (46702); 313, (46705); 314, (46709); 315, (46710); 316, (46711); 317, (46712); 318, (46713); 319, (46715). Smoothing stones. 320-335. 320, (46681); 321, (46682); 322, (46685); 323, (46686); 324, (46687); 325, (46688); 326, (46689); 327, (46690); 328, (46691); 329, (46692); 330, (46693); 331, (46694); 332, (46699); 333, (46704); 334, (46706); 335, (46707). Hammers or pounding stones, mostly rude and simple, showing but little preparation. 336-338. 336, (46697); 337, (46698); 338, (46700). Rude unpolished celts. 339, (46703). A sharpening stone. Slate. 340, (46708). Grooved stones for polishing arrow-shafts. ARTICLES OF CLAY. These consist of only a few fragments of ancient ornamented pottery. 341-342. 341, (46716); 342, (46717). Fragments of pottery from the ruins of the old pueblo. COLLECTIONS FROM SANTA CLARA. ARTICLES OF STONE. 343-349. 343, (46762); 344, (46763); 345, (46764); 346, (47535); 347, (47552); 348, (47563); 349, (47564). Metates or grinding stones. 350, (46765). Blocks of stone from the walls of a ruined pueblo, (Liparito or Mesa.) 351-352. 351, (46767); 352, (46780). Rude hatchets or digging stones, notched at the sides and one end, more or less chipped. 353, (46781). Stone hammer, regular in form, grooved, and more than usually slender and pointed. 354-355. 354, (46782); 355, (46787). Pounding stones, chipped and notched at the sides. 356-357. 356, (46792); 357, (46793). Rounded pounding stones with finger pits. 358-359. 358, (46794); 359, (46799). Spherical stones used for casse-têtes, or in common parlance, slung-shot. 300-378. 360, (46800); 361, (46801); 362, (46802); 363, (46815); 364, (46828); 365, (46830); 366, (46832); 367, (46834); 368, (46841); 369, (46873); 370, (46881); 371, (46896); 372, (46965); 373, (47565); 374, (47679); 375, (47689); 376, (47693); 377, (47701); 378, (47707). Rude hammer-stones, some with notches at the sides, others without; none grooved. 379-381. 379, (46803); 380, (46812); 381, (46814). Rubbing stones for metate; mostly broken. 382, (46813). A rude, broken axe. 383-384. 383, (46824); 384, (46825). Smoothing stones used in making and polishing pottery. 385, (46826). Grooved stone for polishing arrow-shafts. 386, (46827). Fragments of pestles. 387-392. 387, (46831); 388, (46833); 389, (46842); 390, (46843); 391, (46963); 392, (46982). Smoothing stones. 393-396. 393, (46844); 394, (46864); 395, (47694); 396, (47700). Rubbing or smoothing stones. 397-398. 397, (46865); 398, (46868). Stone balls used as slung-shot. 399-400. 399, (46869); 400, (46871). Small, round hammer stones. 401, (47714). A rudely carved stone, probably intended to represent some animal. 402-404. 402, (46872); 403, (46882); 404, (46895). Grooved hammers. 405, (46983). Large pounding stone. 406-407. 406, (46985); 407, (46986). Bottles containing chips and flakes of obsidian and agate, from ancient pueblo on mesa. 408, (47987). Collection of 10 stones used in smoothing pottery. 409, (47536). Collection of 67 stones used in smoothing pottery. 410, (47537). Twenty-one stone chips and flakes. 411, (47538). Eight hammer stones and chips. 412-413. 412, (47539); 413, (47549). Grinding or rubbing stones for metate. 414, (47551). Stone mortar. 415-416. 415, (47553); 416, (47559). Rubbing stones for metate. 417-418. 417, (47560); 418, (47562). Pounding stones. 419, (47680). Large metate. 420-421. 420, (47681); 421, (47688). Rubbing stones for metate. 422, (46990). Grooved hammer. 423, (47709). Round pounding stone. 424, (47710). Chips and flakes of agate and jasper (one box). 425, (47711). Smoothing stones for pottery. 426, (47713). Chips and flakes of obsidian (one box). 427, (47715). Flakes and arrow heads of obsidian. ARTICLES OF CLAY. These consist of vessels of pottery, a few clay images, and two or three clay pipes. The pottery (with the exception of one or two pieces obtained from other pueblos) is all black ware, some of which is quite well polished. Some of the ollas are quite large, the form shown in fig. 699 (46993), predominating; others with rather high neck which is marked with sharp, oblique ridges, as shown in fig. 700 (47023). [Illustration: Fig. 699. 46993] _POLISHED BLACK WARE._ 428, (46993). Olla shown in fig. 699. The somewhat peculiar form of the body, the sharp curve at the shoulder and straight line in the lower half, is the point to which attention is more particularly called, as this appears to be the principal type form of these vessels, with this pueblo. 429, (46994). A jar-shaped olla. 430-433. 430, (46995); 431, (47023); Fig. 700. 432, (47024); 433, (47147). These are well shown in fig. 700. The oblique lines on the neck indicate sharp external ridges. The lip is also usually undulate or crenate. The size is from medium to large, varying in capacity from one to three or four gallons. 434, (46996). A large pitcher, lower part of the body much inflated, neck rather narrow and encircled by a sharp undulate ridge, handle and spout of the usual form; capacity about two gallons. Coarse brown micaceous ware blackened by fire. 435-437. 435, (46997); 436, (46999); 437, (47008). Small flat olla-shaped bowls. 438, 439. 438, (47002); 439, (47014). Small tinajas with angular shoulders. [Illustration: Fig. 700. 47023] 440, (47019). A rather small flaring bowl with flat bottom, ornamented with oval depressions on the inner surface; the margin is distinctly and somewhat regularly heptagonal. 441-448. 441, (47029); 442, (47123); 443, (47137); 444, (47141); 445, (47142); 446, (47143); 447, (47143a); 448, (47150). Large tinajas most of which are similar in form to that shown in figure 699 (46993); Nos. (47133) and (46137) being the only exception; they are more jar-shaped. 449, (47030). A broken tinaja. 450, (47085). A flaring, flat-bottomed, bowl or dish, similar to number (47019) except that the inner ornamental depressions are spirally arranged. 451, (47109.) A jar or tinaja similar in form to (46993) fig. 699, except that the neck is longer and the lip flaring and undulate. [Illustration: Fig. 701. 47120] 452-454. 452, (47112); 453, (47127); 454, (47494). Small pitcher, probably a toy, with handle and a long lip projecting backwards as well as in front. 455-457. 455, (47517); 456, (47115); 457, (47132). Flat-bottomed flaring bowls or dishes similar in form to 450, (47019), but without the inner indentation. [Illustration: Fig. 702. 47123] 458, (47120). A flat-bottomed flaring bowl ornamented internally with spiral ridges and undulated margin shown in fig. 701. 459, (47123). An image of a person in a worshiping attitude, probably intended to represent a Catholic priest chanting. See fig. 702. 460-461. 460, (47134); 461, (47504). Flat-bottomed fan-shaped dishes. 462, (47088). Tea-pot with ordinary handle and spout, copied after the ordinary tea-pot of civilized life. 463, (47116). Basin-like dish, with numerous slightly elevated lines internally. 464, (47136). A duck, small and rude. 465, (47481). An urn-shaped vase with long neck, and without handles. Quite small, scarcely above toy size. 466, (47482). A pottery meal basket used in religious ceremonies and dances; shown in fig. 703. Although differing materially from the Zuñi sacred meal baskets, yet, as is shown in the figure, the pyramidal elevations on the margin are retained. [Illustration: Fig. 703. 47482] [Illustration: Fig. 704. 47492] 467-468. 467, (47483); 468, (47487). Tinajas, usually with the lip margin undulate. 469, (47492). Pipe, ornamented on the side with an indented line terminating in an arrow-point, probably denoting lightning; fig. 704. 470, (47493). Pipe, small, cylindrical, slightly hexagonal. 471, (47496). A singular canteen or water vessel shown in fig. 705. 472-477. 472, (47497); 473, (47500); 474, (47506); 475, (47507); 476, (47519); 477, (47516). Pottery moccasins, small toy size. 478, (47498). A squat-shaped olla used as a bowl. 479-480. 479, (47501); 480, (47138). A water vessel precisely of the form and ornamentation shown in fig. 700, but with a handle on each side. 481, (47503). Pitcher without spout. 482, (47502). Earth used for whitening in the manufacture of pottery. 483, (47510). Plain bowl. 484, (47512). Plain bowl. 485, (47527). Well formed bowl with foot or pedestal. [Illustration: Fig. 705. 47496] 486-489. 486, (47001); 487, (47716); 488, (47028); 489, (47717). Flaring bowls with undulate margins. 490, (47718). Bowl similar in form to the preceding one, but much larger. _BLACK OR BROWN WARE._ (Blackened by use on the fire; not polished.) This ware, when first made and before use, varies in shade from dark earth color to reddish-brown, but the soot, smoke, and fire, when in use, soon darken it; hence it is usually described as black ware. The articles are used for cooking purposes, such as pots--which are usually pot-shaped--some without handles and some with a handle on one side, bowls, &c. The pots vary in capacity from a pint to a little over a gallon. 491-517. 491, (46998); 492, (47000); 493, (47003); 494, (47004); 495, (47010); 496, (47011); 497, (47015); 498, (47021); 499, (47026); 500, (47089); 501, (47100); 502, (47104); 503, (47108); 504, (47119); 505, (47126); 506, (47128); 507, (47488); 508, (47489); 509, (47499); 510, (47505); 511, (47508); 512, (47511); 513, (47521); 514, (47523); 515, (47528); 516, (47529); 517, (47531). Cooking vessels shaped much like the ordinary pot, without handles and without legs. 518-533. 518, (47007); 519, (47012); 520, (47017); 521, (47018); 522, (47020); 523, (47022); 524, (47025); 525, (47092); 526, (47096); 527, (47101); 528, (47111); 529, (47117); 530, (47121); 531, (47124); 532, (47515); 533, (47522). Cooking vessels with handle on one side resembling pitchers. 534-540. 534, (47005); 535, (47009); 536, (47016); 537, (47107); 538, (47129); 539, (47148); 540, (47006). Toy bowls. 541, (47013). A double-mouthed canteen. 542, (47027). A bowl with handle on one side used for cooking purposes. 543-544. 543, (47086); 544, (47090). Globular paint cups, small. 545-546. 545, (47087); 546, (47091). Pipes of the ordinary form, _Tierra amarilla_. 547-549. 547, (47093); 548, (47097); 549, (47098). Images similar to that shown in fig. 702. 550, (47094). Double paint-cup. 551, (47095). Imitation in pottery of a Derby, or some round-crowned, straight-rimmed hat. 552-555. 552, (47099); 553, (47102); 554, (47118); 555, (47122). Small, somewhat boat-shaped dishes; that is, dishes slightly oval with the margin flared at the ends: used as soap dishes. 556, (47103). Small image of a person bearing something on each arm. 557, (47105). A gourd-shaped pipe. 558-559. 558, (47106); 559, (47490). Bowls with legs; margin undulate. 560, (47110). Pottery basket with handle, with smooth margin and without ornamentation. 561, (47113). Globular cooking-pot. 562, (47114). Skillet with handle and feet. 563, (47130). Toy cooking vessels. 564-565. 564, (47131); 565, (47139). Sitting images wearing something like a crown on the head. 566. Sitting image with representations of feathers on the head. 567-568. 567, (47145); 568, (47146). Images. 569-570. 569, (47151); 570, (47300). Fragments of pottery from the mesa. 571-572. 571, (47479); 572, (47532). Doubled-bellied bottles used as water vessels. 573, (47491). Small cup with handle. 574, (47495). Image with horns. 575, (47507). Bowl with straight side and flat bottom. 576-577. 576, (47509); 577, (47533). Toy bowls. 578, (47514). Plain bowl with foot or pedestal. 579, (47513). Small pitcher with handle and spout; ordinary form in civilized life. 580, (47520). Tinaja. 581-583. 581, (47525); 582, (47526); 583, (47530). Potter's clay of the kind used in making the preceding vessels. _WHITENED WARE WITH COLORED DECORATIONS._ There are but few specimens of this ware, which are chiefly important from the fact that the material is of that firm, close, and superior quality that characterizes the ancient pottery of that region. The decorations and general appearance also ally it to the ancient ware. 584, (47476). A turnip-shaped canteen; the only opening being a small hole in the top of the handle, which arises from the top in the form of a semicircular loop. Decorations consist of three bands around the upper half, the first alternate white and black squares, the second a plain red band, and the third or lower like the first. Capacity about three quarts. (Fig. 706.) [Illustration: Fig. 706. 47476] 585, (47477). A bowl decorated internally with a submarginal band consisting of a vine and leaf; externally with a band of small pear-shaped figures; all in black. 586, (47478). Canteen of the usual form. 587, (47480). Turnip-shaped canteens; small, circular mouth at the center on top; on each side a knob. VEGETAL SUBSTANCES. 587½, (46829). Spinning top copied from the ordinary top of civilized life. COLLECTIONS FROM TESUQUE. ARTICLES OF STONE. 588, (47061). Large regular metate, not much worn. 589, (47063). Metate with legs, regularly oblong, not much worn. 590, (47062). Stone axe and chisel combined. ARTICLES OF CLAY. 691, (47064). Medium-sized tinaja of the usual form, quite regular and symmetrical, white ware with decorations; zigzag band around the neck; body divided into compartments with a large three-leaved figure in each. 592, (47065). Tinaja similar in form and size to the preceding; black polished ware. COLLECTIONS FROM TURQUOISE MINE. This collection, which is a small one, consists, with the exception of some bows, arrows and quivers, of stone hammers only, which were used for mining purposes. 593-594. 593, (47066); 594, (47082). Mining stone-hammers; are large and roughly hewn, usually with an imperfect groove around the middle. 595, (47083). Bows, arrows and beaded quiver. 596, (47084). Bows, arrows and plain quiver. 597, (48048). Bird snares. COLLECTIONS FROM SANTO DOMINGO. The collection from this pueblo consists chiefly of pottery belonging to the white decorated variety with ornamentation in black. But few articles of stone were obtained. ARTICLES OF STONE. 598-599. 598, (47182); 599, (47185). Stone hatchets with broad annular groove near the blunt end. ARTICLES OF CLAY. 600, (47154). Medium-sized tinaja, much, ornamented with vines and birds; body with a broad belt of Greek frets with leaf ornaments above and below. 601, (47155). Similar in every respect to the preceding except that the neck has on it only figures of the cactus leaf. 602, (47157). Tinaja, medium size; zigzag band around the neck, body ornamented with triangles and curved twigs with pinnate leaves. 603, (47156). Large tinaja with scalloped band around the neck; a broad belt of straight lines and crescents on the body. 604, (47158). Large tinaja shown in Fig. 707. [Illustration: Fig. 707. 47158] 605, (47159). Water vessel somewhat in the form of a teapot, with short, straight, cylindrical spout, open on the top, and a transverse loop handle. Ornamented with bands of small triangles. 606, (47223). Similar to preceding, except that the handle is not transverse and the figures are chiefly large stars. 607, (47160). A cup-shaped ladle with handle like ordinary teapot; birds and triangles internally, zigzag lines externally. 608, (47161). Bowl; a double-scalloped, ornamental, broad marginal band and a cross ornament internally. No external ornamentation. 609, (47162). Bowl; crenate marginal band and square central figure internally; external surface plain. 610-617 610, (47163); 611, (47164); 612, (47165); 613, (47166); 614, (47167); 615, (47168); 616, (47169); 617, (47170). Small saucer-shaped bowls ornamented on the inside only, chiefly with crenate marginal bands and leaf figures. In one 615, (47168), there is the figure of a deer and of a long-billed bird. 618, (47171). Pitcher with handle and lip usual form, undulate margin, ornamentation as on the neck of (47158), Fig. 707. 619, (47222). Similar in every respect to 618, (47171), except that the handle is twisted. 620, (47172). Basket-shaped water vessel with handle, three-leaved figures. 621, (47173). Small jar with handle on the side, leaf figures. 622-623. 622, (47174); 623, (47175). Small barrel-shaped jars with diamond figures. 624-626. 624, (47176); 625, (47178); 626, (47179). Double-bellied water bottles, the first with birds and triangles, the second with triangles and diamonds, and the third with flower and leaf ornaments. 627, (47177). Pottery moccasins with leaf and flower ornamentation. 628-629. 628, (47180); 629, (47181). Small bowl-shaped cups with handle; ornamentation chiefly triangles. COLLECTIONS FROM JÉMEZ. ARTICLES OF STONE. 630-635. 630, (47209); 631, (47211); 632, (47212); 633, (47279); 634, (47280); 635, (47281). Stone hatchets with imperfect grooves. 636, (42282). Square block of stone with grooves lengthwise and crosswise on one face, used to polish arrow shafts. 637-638. 637, (47051); 638, (47053). Broken rubbers for metates. 639, (48034). Rude stone pounders. 640, (48038). Pestle. 641, (48059). A celt of jasper. 642-643. 642, (48060); 643, (48061). Smoothing stones. ARTICLES OF CLAY. These are mostly white ware with ornamentation in black and red; there are a few black specimens. 644-646. 644, (47186); 645, (47187); 646, (47188). Specimens of clay used in making pottery. 647-648. 647, (47216); 648, (47220). Bricks from an old Spanish wall. 649-655. 649, (47189); 650, (47190); 651, (47191); 652, (47193); 653, (47194); 654, (47195); 655, (47198). Small jar-shaped tinajas. The ornamentation consists of heavy waved lines on the body and interrupted straight lines, triangles and narrow simple or scalloped bands on the neck. 656, (47192). A medium-sized tinaja, swollen at the shoulder and of the form shown in Fig. 372. The upper part is ornamented with a broad belt of animal figures, deer and birds, separated from each other by a triangle between each, two, with the elongate point directed upwards. Middle surrounded by a belt of oblique broken lines. 657, (47196). Olla of the usual form; ornamentation, a vine, leaves and birds. 658, (47197). Medium-sized, jar-shaped olla, with undulate margin and ornamentation as shown in Fig. 708. [Illustration: Fig. 708. 47197] 659, (47199). Olla with zigzag band around the neck and four dentate bands around the body. 660-665. 660, (47200); 661, (47201); 662, (47202); 663, (47203); 664, (47204); 665, (47215). Canteens of the usual form with two loop handles; upper half ornamented. Chief figures, triangles, stars, and birds. 666, (47205). Tinaja with handle on the side, ornamentation delicate and decidedly neat; zigzag and dotted lines, long pinnate leaf, flowers, &c. 667, (48062). Fragments of pottery from ruins (7 pieces.) 668, (47206). Water vessel resembling in form a tinaja, but with small orifice; ornamented with slender vines and leaves. 669, (47207). Biscuit-shaped bowl; triangular figures on external surface similar to those so common on Zuñi bowls. 670, (47208). Small regularly-shaped bowl; triangular figures. 671, (47213). Tinaja with handle; resembling in form and ornamentation, the pitchers found at Cañon de Chelley. 672, (47214). Olla with crenate margin; external decorations elks and birds. 673, (47278). Small tinaja with a kind of scroll figure around the body. 674-675. 674, (47276); 675, (47277). Small unburned and unadorned tinajas. MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 676, (48050). Wooden image decorated with feathers (presented by Mrs. T. Stevenson). 677, (47221). Specimen of the matting used in building. COLLECTIONS FROM SILLA. ARTICLES OF STONE. 678, (47224). Small square mortar of lava. 679-680. 679, (47242); 680, (47255). Stone hatchets rather well formed with blunt poll, distinct annular groove, and tapering blade; chiefly of basalt, three of metamorphic rock. 681-682. 681, (47256); 682, (47258). Smoothing stones. 683-684. 683, (47259); 684, (47260). Stone hammers with groove. 685-686. 685, (47261); 686, (47263). Pounding stones. 687, (47262). Small oval mortar (lava.) ARTICLES OF CLAY. (White ware with red and black decorations.) 688, (47225). Small toy tinaja, a narrow scalloped band at the margin and near the bottom, crescents between. 689, (47227). Tinaja with small orifice, duck figure in red. 690, Water vessel in form of a duck; orifice on the back, wings formed into loop handles. Red and black decorations. 691, (47228). Water vessel in form of a duck; orifice over the neck, loop handle on the back. 692-693. 692, (47237); 693, (47239). Water vessels in form of a duck, without handles. [Illustration: Fig. 710. THE BLANKET WEAVER.] 694-696. 694, (47229); 695, (47230); 696, (47232). Animal images; first probably a Rocky Mountain sheep; the other two probably dogs. Very rude ornamentation without design. 697, (47236). Water vessel of the form and ornamentation shown in Fig. 709. [Illustration: Fig. 709. 47236] 698, (47238). Medium-sized tinaja with leaf ornaments. 699, (47294). Tinaja with figures like those common on the Zuñi ollas. 700, (47818). Water vessel in the form of a horse, white ware ornamented. 701, (47820). Dog's head, plain. MISCELLANEOUS. 702, (47264). Specimens of mineral paint. (Ochre or clay-stone.) 703-705. 703, (47265); 704, (47267); 705, (47268). Turquoise drills. 706, (47266). Block of wood to be used in connection with the turquoise drill. Has a simple pit in the center in which the apex of the drill turns. 707, (47269). Wooden war-club of hard oak with serpentine line and arrow point (as on pipe, Fig. 704), cut on one side. 708, (47270). Bow, arrows, and quiver. 709, (47819). Leather bag adorned with feathers, with pebbles inside, used as a rattle in dances. 710, (47234). Tortoise shell with pendent rattles, used us a dance ornament. 711, (47235). A gourd with pebbles inside, used as a rattle. COLLECTIONS FROM SAN JUAN. ARTICLES OF STONE. 712, (47760). Flat rubbing or smoothing stone of slate. 713-714. 713, (47762); 714, (47763). Stone hatchets notched at the sides. 715, (47764). Small hammer notched at the sides. 716-717. 716, (47765); 717, (47766). Stone candlesticks, the former with circular base, body hemispherical, with hole in the top. The other (from the altar of the Catholic Church) with square base, the stand short, circular, with moldings. 718, (47767). Square, flat mortar. 719-724. 719, (47768); 720, (47769); 721, (47770); 722, (47799); 723, (47783); 724, (47776.) Pounding stones. 725-733. 725, (47771); 726, (47774); 727, (47777); 728, (47778); 729, (47782); 730, (47785); 731, (47787); 732, (47790); 733, (47792). Stones with grooves or notches. 734-742. 734, (47772); 735, (47775); 736, (47779); 737, (47781); 738, (47784); 739, (47786); 740, (47789); 741, (47793); 742, (47796). Stone hammers, some grooved, others not. 743-747. 743, (47773); 744, (47788); 745, (47797); 746, (47798); 747, (47808). Smoothing or polishing stones. 748, (47800). A collection of fifty smoothing stones used in polishing pottery. 749-750. 749, (47803); 750, (47804). Small paint mortars. 751, (47805). Scraper and polisher. 752, (47806). Rude animal image, (quadruped). 753, (47807). Hammer. 754, (47809). Hornstone triangular knife. 755, (47810). Collection Of nine stone implements. ARTICLES OF CLAY. The collection of pottery made at this pueblo presents quite a variety of articles, such as the ordinary clay vessels, bowls, tinajas, water vessels, &c., of black, polished black, brown, mostly without ornamentation, and white ornamented ware, images, pipes, moccasins, &c. _POLISHED BLACK WARE._ 756, (47720). A bowl with indented lines and areas internally. 757-758. 757, (47732); 758, (47742). Globular water vessels with loop handles. 759-761. 759, (47733); 760, (47745); 761, (47750). Small tinajas. 762-764. 762, (47735); 763, (47748); 764, (47749). Flat dish-shaped bowls. 765, (47737). A canteen made upon the same plan as that shown in fig. 706, (47476); that is, with opening only at the top of the loop-handle. The body is crock-shaped with top flat. 766, (47752). Small image. 767-768. 767, (47753); 768, (47759). Straight cylindrical pipes. 769-770. 769, (47754); 770, (47755). Moccasins. 771, (47757). Small dish. 772, (47758). Pipe precisely the same in ornamentation as that shown in fig. 704. _BROWN AND BLACK WARE._ The black are only cooking vessels, not polished, but colored chiefly by use in cooking; the rest are brown. 773, (47726). A very regularly formed teapot with handle and spout, similar to, and evidently modeled after, those used in civilized life. 774, (47728). Sugar bowl with lid, ordinary form. 775-777. 775, (47772); 776, (47739); 777, (47741). Bowls with feet. 778, (47731). Water vessel in the form of a ring, orifice on the outer surface. 779-781. 779, (47734); 780, (47736); 781, (47744). Cooking pots without handles. 782, (47738). Cooking pot with handle, regular pitcher form. 783, (47740). Canteen without handles. 784-785. 784, (47746); 785, (47747.) Small (toy) bowls. 786-787. 786, (47751); 787, (47756). Small (toy) tinajas. _WHITE WARE WITH DECORATIONS._ But few specimens; ornamentation simple and in black. 788, (47721). Bowl; internally an undulate marginal band, externally a middle band of diamonds and ovals. [Illustration: Fig. 711. 47723] 789, (47730). Bowl; broad inner marginal band of outline blocks alternating with snake-like figures, external marginal band of outline leaves. 790, (47722). Canteen of the usual form with knobs at the sides. 791, (47723). Small tinaja shown in Fig. 711. 792, (47725). Small tinaja with cross on the neck and a double scalloped middle band. 793, (47724). Water vessel in the form of a duck, loop-handle on the back; plain. 794, (47719). Small tinaja. 795, (47727). Canteen of usual form, knob handles, with circle and square. MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 796, (47811). Head mats of corn-husks, ring-shaped and painted. 797, (47812). Arrow-points, chips, flakes, &c. 798, (47813). Young otter skin. 799, (47814). A scarf to be worn over the shoulder while dancing; with long beaded streamers and tassels. 800, (47815). Medicine bag. 801, (47801). Pottery spindle whirl, simple small disk with hole in the middle. COLLECTION FROM SANTA ANA. ARTICLES OF STONE. 802-804. 802, (47284); 803, (47285); 804, (47286). Stone hatchets with groove. ARTICLES OF CLAY. These consist of white ornamented ware. 805, (47287). Animal image, probably a fawn, handle on the back. 806-809. 806, (47290); 807, (47291); 808, (47292); 809, (47293). Small tinajas with decorations in black. The figures are the same as those found on Zuñi pottery--scrolls, triangles, scalloped lines and birds, but no antelopes or deer. COLLECTION FROM SANDIA, N. MEX. 810-811. 810, (47240); 811, (47241). Biscuit-shaped unburnt bowls. COLLECTION FROM COCHITI. ARTICLES OF STONE. 812-815. 812, (47901); 813, (47905); 814, (47474); 815, (47475). Hat-shaped lava stones used in cooking bread; they are heated and placed on top of the cake. This is an old custom almost entirely abandoned, and now practiced only by a few families of this pueblo. 816-818. 816, (47906); 817, (47907); 818, (47909). Regularly formed pestles. 819-820. 819, (47908); 820, (47910). Pounding stones with groove. 821-822. 821, (47911); 822, (47919). Grooved hatchets or axes. 823-824. 823, (47920); 824, (47923). Smoothing stones. 825, (47924). A collection of 20 smoothing stones. 826, (47925). Seven oval segments or disks of gourd, regularly cut and edged for scraping and smoothing pottery. 827-828. 827, (47470); 828, (47471). Hatchets or pounders (for it is doubtful to which class they belong), with handle yet attached. The second was probably used as a hatchet, the first more likely as a pounder. 829, (47472). Well-shaped hatchets. 830, (47473). Lava mortar. ARTICLES OF CLAY. These, with only one or two exceptions, consist of white decorated ware; the bottoms are polished red as usual, but the decorations are in black. 831-832. 831, (47273); 832, (47274). Canteens with loop handles on the side, the first with a star or rosette ornament in the top and scalloped line around the middle, second with triangular figures. 833, (47275). Plain unburnt tinaja. 834, (47288). Image, duck's body with cow's head. 835, (47289). Duck image. This and also the preceding with loop handle on the back and trident figures on the sides. 836, (47295). Pitcher-shaped cup, with handle, ornamentation, oblique dashes. 837, (47296). Deep, olla-shaped bowl; anvil-shaped figures on the outside. 838, (47297). Small canteen, loop-handles at the sides, central star ornament. 839-840. 839, (47445); 840, (47446). Bowls adorned with sprigs and flowers internally and stars externally; quite neat. 841-844. 841, (47447); 842, (47448); 843, (47449); 844, (47460). Bowls; most of them with a narrow dotted marginal band externally and internally. 841, (47447) has a central star inside and a band of triangles on the outside. 842, (47448) with no other ornamentation. 843, (47449) and 844, (47460) with animal figures on the inner face. 845, (47461). A biscuit-shaped bowl, with vertical ridges on the external surface. 845½, (47462). Water vessels, the body shaped as the ordinary tinaja, surmounted with outstretched arms and human head, the orifice through the mouth. Scroll ornaments. 846, (47463). Canteen of the usual form with loop handles and leaf ornaments. 847-848. 847, (47464); 848, (47466). Duck images used as water vessels. 849, (47465). Water vessel; animal image somewhat resembling a fish, but was probably intended for a duck; loop handle on the back and at each side. 850, (47468). Gourd-shaped water vessel with animal head at the apex, as in Fig. 709. 851, (47467). Toy cooking vessel of unadorned brown ware. 852, (47816). Large tinaja of white painted ware, with lid much like Fig. 651, (39533), plate 81. MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 853, (47301). Specimen of dried melon; is twisted like a rope. 854, (47392). Fox skin. 855, (47303). Brick from a wall. 856, (47304). Copper cannon ball scarcely one inch in diameter. 857, (47305). Copper kettle with handle. 858, (48049). A musical instrument. COLLECTIONS FROM SAN ILDEFONSO. The collections from this pueblo were the largest made during the year 1880, consisting of pottery of different kinds, black and brown painted ware, stone implements and wooden utensils. ARTICLES OF STONE. 858½-861. 858½, (47976); 859, (47977); 860, (48031); 861, (48044). Lava mortars. 862, (48032). Mortar with three cavities. 863, (47978). Pestle and rubber combined. 864-867. 864, (47979); 865, (47985); 866, (47017); 867, (48025). Rubbers for metates, of regular form. 868-877. 868, (47986); 869, (47999); 870, (48000); 871, (48010); 872, (48013); 873, (48015); 874, (48016); 875, (48026); 876, (48033); 877, (48039). Pounding stones. 878, (47987). Paint muller. 879-880. 879, (47988); 880, (48045). Pestles. 881-883. 881, (47989); 882, (48028); 883, (48029). Grooved hammers. 884-887. 884, (47990); 885, (47996); 886, (47998); 887, (48030). Hatchets with grooves or notches. 888-892. 888, (47997); 889, (48001); 890, (48009); 891, (48040); 892, (48043). Smoothing stones. 893, (48014). Round stone used as slung shot. 894, (48027). Chisel. ARTICLES OF CLAY. These consist of painted white ware with decorations in black; polished black ware and black and brown ware. The white pottery resembles very closely, in the forms, color, and ornamentation, that from Taos and Cochiti, the white in all these being of a creamy color. [Illustration: Fig. 712. 47326] 895-897. 895, (47319); 896, (47321); 897, (47325). Medium-sized hemispherical bowls, ornamented, on the inside only, with star figures or rosettes and triangles. 898-899. 898, (47320); 899, (47324). Similar bowls with similar ornamentation both internally and externally. 900, (47323). Bowl of similar form and size; only decoration a broad external marginal band with oval spaces in it. 901, (47322). Small bowl with decorations on the inner surface only. 902-903. 902, (47326); 903, (47327). Medium-sized olla-shaped bowls not adorned internally; marginal line of dots externally. Latter with zigzag belt; former with serpents, crosses, and figure of bottle on a stand; Fig. 712. 904, (47329). Large tinaja with cover. Vines and leaves on the neck, and around the body a broad belt of figures resembling fringed medicine bags. 905-906. 905, (47334); 906, (47336). Canteens of the usual form, with loop handles at the sides; the first ornamented with the common central star and triangles, the second has no central figure. Posterior Half with interlaced figure. 907, (47335). Globular canteens; side handles; cactus leaves and simple broad bands. 905, (47337). Flower-pot precisely of the usual form, with hole in the bottom, grooved outline, dentate bands. 909-916. 909, (47351); 910, (47354); 911, (47359); 912, (47360); 913, (47361); 914, (47362); 915, (47363); 916, (47364.) Small bowls with decorations on the inner face. 917, (47373). Small pitcher; handle broken off. 918, (47387). A bowl of peculiar and significant ornamentation. 919-920. 919, (47389); 920, (47390). Bowls ornamented on the inner face only. 921-922. 921, (47391); 922, (47392). Straight-sided or crock-shaped, deep bowls, with foot. First with a zigzag submarginal band on the inner side and a zigzag line and dots around the body on the outside. The latter with a dotted inner marginal band, a vine and leaves around the outside. 923-925. 923, (47399); 924, (47400); 925, (47401). Pear-shaped or conical water-vessels, with animal heads at the apex; decorations simple. 926-927. 926, (47414); 927, (47415). Olla-shaped bowls, of medium size, ornamented internally and externally. 928, (47416). Basin-shaped bowl, with foot, ornamented internally and externally. 929, (47426). Bird image. _RED WARE WITH DECORATIONS IN BLACK._ 930, (47328). Medium-sized tinaja, bead figures or necklace around the neck, zigzag band on the shoulders, sprig, double looped and serrate triangular figures on the body. 931, (47331). Small tinaja; undulate marginal band, tear-drops on the neck, large band divided into triangles pointing alternately up and down, fitting into the spaces, each with two oval, red spaces. 932, (47333). Small tinaja, with alternating triangles base to base on both neck and body, those on the body with circular spaces. 933, (47338). Flower-pot of the ordinary form, with undulate margin, zigzag submarginal band, belt of flower ornaments on the body. 934, (47340). Bowl with a belt of anvil-shaped figures on the outside. 935, (47352). Bowl decorated on the inside, outside plain. 936, (47355). Bowl with vine externally and internally. _RED AND BROWN WARE WITHOUT DECORATIONS._ 937-939. 937, (47339); 938, (47358); 939, (47379). Plain bowls. 940, (47353). Olla-shaped bowl with undulate margin. 941-942. 941, (47370); 942, (47375). Small tinajas. 943, (47372). Bottle with square groove around the middle. 944, (47376). Oval dish. 945-946. 945, (47377); 946, (47378). Flat circular dishes. 947, (47397). A rather large, regular-shaped fruit jar with margin expanded horizontally. 948-953. 948, (47404); 949, (47405); 950, (47406); 951, (47409); 952, (47410); 953, (47411). Bird images. 954-956. 954, (47407); 955, (57408); 956, (47413). Images of the human form, first with hat on, second apparently praying, third with arms extended and sash crossing in front from each shoulder. 957, (47424). Images of the human form. 958, (47403). Basket-shaped, toy water-vessel with loop handle. _BLACK POLISHED WARE._ 959-961. 959, (47341); 960, (47350); 961, (47417). Bowls. 962-963. 962, (47356); 963, (47357). Dishes with undulate edge. 964-965. 964, (47365); 965, (47366). Toy bowls. 966-967. 966, (47380); 967, (47386). Small basket-shaped vessels with handles across the top. 968, (47388). Oblong dish. 969, (47393). Basin with foot and undulate margin. 970, (47394). Toy jar. 971-972. 971, (47395); 972, (47396). Toy pottery kegs, the latter with a handle. 973, (47402). Duck-shaped water-vessel. 974, (47412). Two-headed bird image. 975, (47418). Small paint cup. 976-977. 976, (47419); 977, (47420). Bowls with arched handle. 978-979. 978, (47427); 979, (47430). Toy dishes. _BLACK WARE NOT POLISHED._ 980-982. 980, (47367); 981, (47369); 982, (47371). Cooking pots. MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 983, (47318). Ox cart, "_carreta_." 984, (47425). Arrow straightener of bone; (a piece of bone with round holes in it). COLLECTIONS FROM TAOS. The collections made from this pueblo were quite extensive and varied. ARTICLES OF STONE. 985-997. 985, (47846); 986, (47848); 987, (47852); 988, (47854); 989, (47856); 990, (47858); 991, (47863); 992, (47873); 993, (47875); 994, (47879); 995, (47880); 996, (47883); 997, (47887). Stone hatchets grooved. 998-1004. 998, (47847); 999, (47853); 1000, (47861); 1001, (47864); 1002, (47876); 1003, (47878); 1004, (47882). Rounding stones. 1005-1014 1005, (47855); 1006, (47860); 1007, (47866); 1008, (47869); 1009, (47880); 1010, (47871); 1011, (47872); 1012, (47877); 1013, (47881); 1014, (47884). Stone hammers very rude, sometimes with a groove, but generally with simply a notch at each side. 1015, (47859). Rude stone knife. 1016-1021. 1016, (47862); 1017, (47865); 1018, (47867); 1019, (47868); 1020, (47885); 1021, (47886). Rubbing and polishing stones. 1022, (47874). Grooved stone for polishing arrow-shafts (Fig. 713). [Illustration: Fig. 713.] ARTICLES OF CLAY. These are chiefly vessels of brown and black ware, some two or three pieces only being ornamented ware. 1023-1027. 1023, (47821); 1024, (47822); 1025, (47828); 1026, (47829); 1027, (47833). Brown ware, pitcher shaped vessels with handle, used as cooking vessels. 1028-1032. 1028, (47823); 1029, (47824); 1030, (47825); 1031, (47826); 1032, (47827). Cooking pots, brown ware, smoke stained. 1033, (47830). Olla of unburned ware. 1034, (47831). Bowl with handle, black ware. 1035, (47832). Teapot of the ordinary form, polished black ware. 1036, (47834). Small globular olla with undulate margin, of polished black ware. 1037, (47835). Water bottle with four loop handles, brown ware. 1038-1041. 1038, (47836); 1039, (47839); 1040, (47839); 1041, (47845). Small spherical ollas of brown ware. 1042, (47840). Small bowl of black polished ware. 1043, (47841). A globular water vessel with a ridge around the middle; polished black ware. 1044, (47842). Dish of polished black ware. _WHITE AND RED WARE WITH DECORATIONS._ 1045, (47844). A singular-shaped bowl shown in Fig. 714. The outside is red but the inside is painted white; ornamentation in black. [Illustration: Fig. 714. 47844] 1046, (47843). A bottle-shaped canteen with animal head, flower and serrated ornamentation. Red ware. 1047, (47838). Large tinaja, white ware with black ornamentation, sprigs and triangles. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Errata noted by transcriber: [List of Illustrations] 710.--The blanket weaver 454 _text reads "434"_ turquois _normal spelling for this publication_ short, circular, with moldings. _text reads ".?"_ 
1049	----	VANISHED ARIZONA Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman by Martha Summerhayes TO MY SON HARRY SUMMERHAYES WHO SHARED THE VICISSITUDES OF MY LIFE IN ARIZONA, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED Preface I have written this story of my army life at the urgent and ceaseless request of my children. For whenever I allude to those early days, and tell to them the tales they have so often heard, they always say: "Now, mother, will you write these stories for us? Please, mother, do; we must never forget them." Then, after an interval, "Mother, have you written those stories of Arizona yet?" until finally, with the aid of some old letters written from those very places (the letters having been preserved, with other papers of mine, by an uncle in New England long since dead), I have been able to give a fairly connected story. I have not attempted to commemorate my husband's brave career in the Civil War, as I was not married until some years after the close of that war, nor to describe the many Indian campaigns in which he took part, nor to write about the achievements of the old Eighth Infantry. I leave all that to the historian. I have given simply the impressions made upon the mind of a young New England woman who left her comfortable home in the early seventies, to follow a second lieutenant into the wildest encampments of the American army. Hoping the story may possess some interest for the younger women of the army, and possibly for some of our old friends, both in the army and in civil life, I venture to send it forth. POSTCRIPT (second edition). The appendix to this, the second edition of my book, will tell something of the kind manner in which the first edition was received by my friends and the public at large. But as several people had expressed a wish that I should tell more of my army experiences I have gone carefully over the entire book, adding some detail and a few incidents which had come to my mind later. I have also been able, with some difficulty and much patient effort, to secure several photographs of exceptional interest, which have been added to the illustrations. January, 1911. CONTENTS PREFACE CHAPTER I. GERMANY AND THE ARMY II. I JOINED THE ARMY III. ARMY HOUSE-KEEPING IV. DOWN THE PACIFIC COAST V. THE SLUE VI. UP THE RIO COLORADO VII. THE MOJAVE DESERT VIII. LEARNING HOW TO SOLDIER IX. ACROSS THE MOGOLLONS X. A PERILOUS ADVENTURE XI. CAMP APACHE XII. LIFE AMONGST THE APACHES XIII. A NEW RECRUIT XIV. A MEMORABLE JOURNEY XV. FORDING THE LITTLE COLORADO XVI. STONEMAN'S LAKE XVII. THE COLORADO DESERT XVIII. EHRENBERG ON THE COLORADO XIX. SUMMER AT EHRENBERG XX. MY DELIVERER XXI. WINTER IN EHRENBERG XXII. RETURN TO THE STATES XXIII. BACK TO ARIZONA XXIV. UP THE VALLEY OF THE GILA XXV. OLD CAMP MACDOWELL XXVI. A SUDDEN ORDER XXVII. THE EIGHTH FOOT LEAVES ARIZONA XXVIII. CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA XXIX. CHANGING STATION XXX. FORT NIOBRARA XXXI. SANTA FE XXXII. TEXAS XXXIII. DAVID'S ISLAND APPENDIX VANISHED ARIZONA CHAPTER I. GERMANY AND THE ARMY The stalwart men of the Prussian army, the Lancers, the Dragoons, the Hussars, the clank of their sabres on the pavements, their brilliant uniforms, all made an impression upon my romantic mind, and I listened eagerly, in the quiet evenings, to tales of Hanover under King George, to stories of battles lost, and the entry of the Prussians into the old Residenz-stadt; the flight of the King, and the sorrow and chagrin which prevailed. For I was living in the family of General Weste, the former stadt-commandant of Hanover, who had served fifty years in the army and had accompanied King George on his exit from the city. He was a gallant veteran, with the rank of General-Lieutenant, ausser Dienst. A charming and dignified man, accepting philosophically the fact that Hanover had become Prussian, but loyal in his heart to his King and to old Hanover; pretending great wrath when, on the King's birthday, he found yellow and white sand strewn before his door, but unable to conceal the joyful gleam in his eye when he spoke of it. The General's wife was the daughter of a burgomaster and had been brought up in a neighboring town. She was a dear, kind soul. The house-keeping was simple, but stately and precise, as befitted the rank of this officer. The General was addressed by the servants as Excellenz and his wife as Frau Excellenz. A charming unmarried daughter lived at home, making, with myself, a family of four. Life was spent quietly, and every evening, after our coffee (served in the living-room in winter, and in the garden in summer), Frau Generalin would amuse me with descriptions of life in her old home, and of how girls were brought up in her day; how industry was esteemed by her mother the greatest virtue, and idleness was punished as the most beguiling sin. She was never allowed, she said, to read, even on Sunday, without her knitting-work in her hands; and she would often sigh, and say to me, in German (for dear Frau Generalin spoke no other tongue), "Ach, Martha, you American girls are so differently brought up"; and I would say, "But, Frau Generalin, which way do you think is the better?" She would then look puzzled, shrug her shoulders, and often say, "Ach! times are different I suppose, but my ideas can never change." Now the dear Frau Generalin did not speak a word of English, and as I had had only a few lessons in German before I left America, I had the utmost difficulty at first in comprehending what she said. She spoke rapidly and I would listen with the closest attention, only to give up in despair, and to say, "Gute Nacht," evening after evening, with my head buzzing and my mind a blank. After a few weeks, however, I began to understand everything she said, altho' I could not yet write or read the language, and I listened with the greatest interest to the story of her marriage with young Lieutenant Weste, of the bringing up of her four children, and of the old days in Hanover, before the Prussians took possession. She described to me the brilliant Hanoverian Court, the endless festivities and balls, the stately elegance of the old city, and the cruel misfortunes of the King. And how, a few days after the King's flight, the end of all things came to her; for she was politely informed one evening, by a big Prussian major, that she must seek other lodgings--he needed her quarters. At this point she always wept, and I sympathized. Thus I came to know military life in Germany, and I fell in love with the army, with its brilliancy and its glitter, with its struggles and its romance, with its sharp contrasts, its deprivations, and its chivalry. I came to know, as their guest, the best of old military society. They were very old-fashioned and precise, and Frau Generalin often told me that American girls were too ausgelassen in their manners. She often reproved me for seating myself upon the sofa (which was only for old people) and also for looking about too much when walking on the streets. Young girls must keep their eyes more cast down, looking up only occasionally. (I thought this dreadfully prim, as I was eager to see everything). I was expected to stop and drop a little courtesy on meeting an older woman, and then to inquire after the health of each member of the family. It seemed to take a lot of time, but all the other girls did it, and there seemed to be no hurry about anything, ever, in that elegant old Residenz-stadt. Surely a contrast to our bustling American towns. A sentiment seemed to underlie everything they did. The Emperor meant so much to them, and they adored the Empress. A personal feeling, an affection, such as I had never heard of in a republic, caused me to stop and wonder if an empire were not the best, after all. And one day, when the Emperor, passing through Hanover en route, drove down the Georgen-strasse in an open barouche and raised his hat as he glanced at the sidewalk where I happened to be standing, my heart seemed to stop beating, and I was overcome by a most wonderful feeling--a feeling that in a man would have meant chivalry and loyalty unto death. In this beautiful old city, life could not be taken any other than leisurely. Theatres with early hours, the maid coming for me with a lantern at nine o'clock, the frequent Kaffee-klatsch, the delightful afternoon coffee at the Georgen-garten, the visits to the Zoological gardens, where we always took our fresh rolls along with our knitting-work in a basket, and then sat at a little table in the open, and were served with coffee, sweet cream, and butter, by a strapping Hessian peasant woman--all so simple, yet so elegant, so peaceful. We heard the best music at the theatre, which was managed with the same precision, and maintained by the Government with the same generosity, as in the days of King George. No one was allowed to enter after the overture had begun, and an absolute hush prevailed. The orchestra consisted of sixty or more pieces, and the audience was critical. The parquet was filled with officers in the gayest uniforms; there were few ladies amongst them; the latter sat mostly in the boxes, of which there were several tiers, and as soon as the curtain fell, between the acts, the officers would rise, turn around, and level their glasses at the boxes. Sometimes they came and visited in the boxes. As I had been brought up in a town half Quaker, half Puritan, the custom of going to the theatre Sunday evenings was rather a questionable one in my mind. But I soon fell in with their ways, and found that on Sunday evenings there was always the most brilliant audience and the best plays were selected. With this break-down of the wall of narrow prejudice, I gave up others equally as narrow, and adopted the German customs with my whole heart. I studied the language with unflinching perseverance, for this was the opportunity I had dreamed about and longed for in the barren winter evenings at Nantucket when I sat poring over Coleridge's translations of Schiller's plays and Bayard Taylor's version of Goethe's Faust. Should I ever read these intelligently in the original? And when my father consented for me to go over and spend a year and live in General Weste's family, there never was a happier or more grateful young woman. Appreciative and eager, I did not waste a moment, and my keen enjoyment of the German classics repaid me a hundred fold for all my industry. Neither time nor misfortune, nor illness can take from me the memory of that year of privileges such as is given few American girls to enjoy, when they are at an age to fully appreciate them. And so completely separated was I from the American and English colony that I rarely heard my own language spoken, and thus I lived, ate, listened, talked, and even dreamed in German. There seemed to be time enough to do everything we wished; and, as the Franco-Prussian war was just over (it was the year of 1871), and many troops were in garrison at Hanover, the officers could always join us at the various gardens for after-dinner coffee, which, by the way, was not taken in the demi-tasse, but in good generous coffee-cups, with plenty of rich cream. Every one drank at least two cups, the officers smoked, the women knitted or embroidered, and those were among the pleasantest hours I spent in Germany. The intrusion of unwelcome visitors was never to be feared, as, by common consent, the various classes in Hanover kept by themselves, thus enjoying life much better than in a country where everybody is striving after the pleasures and luxuries enjoyed by those whom circumstances have placed above them. The gay uniforms lent a brilliancy to every affair, however simple. Officers were not allowed to appear en civile, unless on leave of absence. I used to say, "Oh, Frau General, how fascinating it all is!" "Hush, Martha," she would say; "life in the army is not always so brilliant as it looks; in fact, we often call it, over here, 'glaenzendes Elend.'" These bitter words made a great impression upon my mind, and in after years, on the American frontier, I seemed to hear them over and over again. When I bade good-bye to the General and his family, I felt a tightening about my throat and my heart, and I could not speak. Life in Germany had become dear to me, and I had not known how dear until I was leaving it forever. CHAPTER II. I JOINED THE ARMY I was put in charge of the captain of the North German Lloyd S. S. "Donau," and after a most terrific cyclone in mid-ocean, in which we nearly foundered, I landed in Hoboken, sixteen days from Bremen. My brother, Harry Dunham, met me on the pier, saying, as he took me in his arms, "You do not need to tell me what sort of a trip you have had; it is enough to look at the ship--that tells the story." As the vessel had been about given up for lost, her arrival was somewhat of an agreeable surprise to all our friends, and to none more so than my old friend Jack, a second lieutenant of the United States army, who seemed so glad to have me back in America, that I concluded the only thing to do was to join the army myself. A quiet wedding in the country soon followed my decision, and we set out early in April of the year 1874 to join his regiment, which was stationed at Fort Russell, Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. I had never been west of New York, and Cheyenne seemed to me, in contrast with the finished civilization of Europe, which I had so recently left, the wildest sort of a place. Arriving in the morning, and alighting from the train, two gallant officers, in the uniform of the United States infantry, approached and gave us welcome; and to me, the bride, a special "welcome to the regiment" was given by each of them with outstretched hands. Major Wilhelm said, "The ambulance is right here; you must come to our house and stay until you get your quarters." Such was my introduction to the army--and to the army ambulance, in which I was destined to travel so many miles. Four lively mules and a soldier driver brought us soon to the post, and Mrs. Wilhelm welcomed us to her pleasant and comfortable-looking quarters. I had never seen an army post in America. I had always lived in places which needed no garrison, and the army, except in Germany, was an unknown quantity to me. Fort Russell was a large post, and the garrison consisted of many companies of cavalry and infantry. It was all new and strange to me. Soon after luncheon, Jack said to Major Wilhelm, "Well, now, I must go and look for quarters: what's the prospect?" "You will have to turn some one out," said the Major, as they left the house together. About an hour afterwards they returned, and Jack said, "Well, I have turned out Lynch; but," he added, "as his wife and child are away, I do not believe he'll care very much." "Oh," said I, "I'm so sorry to have to turn anybody out!" The Major and his wife smiled, and the former remarked, "You must not have too much sympathy: it's the custom of the service--it's always done--by virtue of rank. They'll hate you for doing it, but if you don't do it they'll not respect you. After you've been turned out once yourself, you will not mind turning others out." The following morning I drove over to Cheyenne with Mrs. Wilhelm, and as I passed Lieutenant Lynch's quarters and saw soldiers removing Mrs. Lynch's lares and penates, in the shape of a sewing machine, lamp-shades, and other home-like things, I turned away in pity that such customs could exist in our service. To me, who had lived my life in the house in which I was born, moving was a thing to be dreaded. But Mrs. Wilhelm comforted me, and assured me it was not such a serious matter after all. Army women were accustomed to it, she said. CHAPTER III. ARMY HOUSE-KEEPING Not knowing before I left home just what was needed for house-keeping in the army, and being able to gather only vague ideas on the subject from Jack, who declared that his quarters were furnished admirably, I had taken out with me but few articles in addition to the silver and linen-chests. I began to have serious doubts on the subject of my menage, after inspecting the bachelor furnishings which had seemed so ample to my husband. But there was so much to be seen in the way of guard mount, cavalry drill, and various military functions, besides the drives to town and the concerts of the string orchestra, that I had little time to think of the practical side of life. Added to this, we were enjoying the delightful hospitality of the Wilhelms, and the Major insisted upon making me acquainted with the "real old-fashioned army toddy" several times a day,--a new beverage to me, brought up in a blue-ribbon community, where wine-bibbing and whiskey drinking were rated as belonging to only the lowest classes. To be sure, my father always drank two fingers of fine cognac before dinner, but I had always considered that a sort of medicine for a man advanced in years. Taken all in all, it is not to be wondered at if I saw not much in those few days besides bright buttons, blue uniforms, and shining swords. Everything was military and gay and brilliant, and I forgot the very existence of practical things, in listening to the dreamy strains of Italian and German music, rendered by our excellent and painstaking orchestra. For the Eighth Infantry loved good music, and had imported its musicians direct from Italy. This came to an end, however, after a few days, and I was obliged to descend from those heights to the dead level of domestic economy. My husband informed me that the quarters were ready for our occupancy and that we could begin house-keeping at once. He had engaged a soldier named Adams for a striker; he did not know whether Adams was much of a cook, he said, but he was the only available man just then, as the companies were up north at the Agency. Our quarters consisted of three rooms and a kitchen, which formed one-half of a double house. I asked Jack why we could not have a whole house. I did not think I could possibly live in three rooms and a kitchen. "Why, Martha," said he, "did you not know that women are not reckoned in at all at the War Department? A lieutenant's allowance of quarters, according to the Army Regulations, is one room and a kitchen, a captain's allowance is two rooms and a kitchen, and so on up, until a colonel has a fairly good house." I told him I thought it an outrage; that lieutenants' wives needed quite as much as colonels' wives. He laughed and said, "You see we have already two rooms over our proper allowance; there are so many married officers, that the Government has had to stretch a point." After indulging in some rather harsh comments upon a government which could treat lieutenants' wives so shabbily, I began to investigate my surroundings. Jack had placed his furnishings (some lace curtains, camp chairs, and a carpet) in the living-room, and there was a forlorn-looking bedstead in the bedroom. A pine table in the dining-room and a range in the kitchen completed the outfit. A soldier had scrubbed the rough floors with a straw broom: it was absolutely forlorn, and my heart sank within me. But then I thought of Mrs. Wilhelm's quarters, and resolved to try my best to make ours look as cheerful and pretty as hers. A chaplain was about leaving the post and wished to dispose of his things, so we bought a carpet of him, a few more camp chairs of various designs, and a cheerful-looking table-cover. We were obliged to be very economical, as Jack was a second lieutenant, the pay was small and a little in arrears, after the wedding trip and long journey out. We bought white Holland shades for the windows, and made the three rooms fairly comfortable and then I turned my attention to the kitchen. Jack said I should not have to buy anything at all; the Quartermaster Department furnished everything in the line of kitchen utensils; and, as his word was law, I went over to the quartermaster store-house to select the needed articles. After what I had been told, I was surprised to find nothing smaller than two-gallon tea-kettles, meat-forks a yard long, and mess-kettles deep enough to cook rations for fifty men! I rebelled, and said I would not use such gigantic things. My husband said: "Now, Mattie, be reasonable; all the army women keep house with these utensils; the regiment will move soon, and then what should we do with a lot of tin pans and such stuff? You know a second lieutenant is allowed only a thousand pounds of baggage when he changes station." This was a hard lesson, which I learned later. Having been brought up in an old-time community, where women deferred to their husbands in everything, I yielded, and the huge things were sent over. I had told Mrs. Wilhelm that we were to have luncheon in our own quarters. So Adams made a fire large enough to roast beef for a company of soldiers, and he and I attempted to boil a few eggs in the deep mess-kettle and to make the water boil in the huge tea-kettle. But Adams, as it turned out, was not a cook, and I must confess that my own attention had been more engrossed by the study of German auxiliary verbs, during the few previous years, than with the art of cooking. Of course, like all New England girls of that period, I knew how to make quince jelly and floating islands, but of the actual, practical side of cooking, and the management of a range, I knew nothing. Here was a dilemma, indeed! The eggs appeared to boil, but they did not seem to be done when we took them off, by the minute-hand of the clock. I declared the kettle was too large; Adams said he did not understand it at all. I could have wept with chagrin! Our first meal a deux! I appealed to Jack. He said, "Why, of course, Martha, you ought to know that things do not cook as quickly at this altitude as they do down at the sea level. We are thousands of feet above the sea here in Wyoming." (I am not sure it was thousands, but it was hundreds at least.) So that was the trouble, and I had not thought of it! My head was giddy with the glamour, the uniform, the guard-mount, the military music, the rarefied air, the new conditions, the new interests of my life. Heine's songs, Goethe's plays, history and romance were floating through my mind. Is it to be wondered at that I and Adams together prepared the most atrocious meals that ever a new husband had to eat? I related my difficulties to Jack, and told him I thought we should never be able to manage with such kitchen utensils as were furnished by the Q. M. D. "Oh, pshaw! You are pampered and spoiled with your New England kitchens," said he; "you will have to learn to do as other army women do--cook in cans and such things, be inventive, and learn to do with nothing." This was my first lesson in army house-keeping. After my unpractical teacher had gone out on some official business, I ran over to Mrs. Wilhelm's quarters and said, "Will you let me see your kitchen closet?" She assented, and I saw the most beautiful array of tin-ware, shining and neat, placed in rows upon the shelves and hanging from hooks on the wall. "So!" I said; "my military husband does not know anything about these things;" and I availed myself of the first trip of the ambulance over to Cheyenne, bought a stock of tin-ware and had it charged, and made no mention of it--because I feared that tin-ware was to be our bone of contention, and I put off the evil day. The cooking went on better after that, but I did not have much assistance from Adams. I had great trouble at first with the titles and the rank: but I soon learned that many of the officers were addressed by the brevet title bestowed upon them for gallant service in the Civil War, and I began to understand about the ways and customs of the army of Uncle Sam. In contrast to the Germans, the American lieutenants were not addressed by their title (except officially); I learned to "Mr." all the lieutenants who had no brevet. One morning I suggested to Adams that he should wash the front windows; after being gone a half hour, to borrow a step-ladder, he entered the room, mounted the ladder and began. I sat writing. Suddenly, he faced around, and addressing me, said, "Madam, do you believe in spiritualism?" "Good gracious! Adams, no; why do you ask me such a question?" This was enough; he proceeded to give a lecture on the subject worthy of a man higher up on the ladder of this life. I bade him come to an end as soon as I dared (for I was not accustomed to soldiers), and suggested that he was forgetting his work. It was early in April, and the snow drifted through the crevices of the old dried-out house, in banks upon our bed; but that was soon mended, and things began to go smoothly enough, when Jack was ordered to join his company, which was up at the Spotted Tail Agency. It was expected that the Sioux under this chief would break out at any minute. They had become disaffected about some treaty. I did not like to be left alone with the Spiritualist, so Jack asked one of the laundresses, whose husband was out with the company, to come and stay and take care of me. Mrs. Patten was an old campaigner; she understood everything about officers and their ways, and she made me absolutely comfortable for those two lonely months. I always felt grateful to her; she was a dear old Irish woman. All the families and a few officers were left at the post, and, with the daily drive to Cheyenne, some small dances and theatricals, my time was pleasantly occupied. Cheyenne in those early days was an amusing but unattractive frontier town; it presented a great contrast to the old civilization I had so recently left. We often saw women in cotton wrappers, high-heeled slippers, and sun-bonnets, walking in the main streets. Cows, pigs, and saloons seemed to be a feature of the place. In about six weeks, the affairs of the Sioux were settled, and the troops returned to the post. The weather began to be uncomfortably hot in those low wooden houses. I missed the comforts of home and the fresh sea air of the coast, but I tried to make the best of it. Our sleeping-room was very small, and its one window looked out over the boundless prairie at the back of the post. On account of the great heat, we were obliged to have this window wide open at night. I heard the cries and wails of various animals, but Jack said that was nothing--they always heard them. Once, at midnight, the wails seemed to be nearer, and I was terrified; but he told me 'twas only the half-wild cats and coyotes which prowled around the post. I asked him if they ever came in. "Gracious, no!" he said; "they are too wild." I calmed myself for sleep--when like lightning, one of the huge creatures gave a flying leap in at our window, across the bed, and through into the living-room. "Jerusalem!" cried the lieutenant, and flew after her, snatching his sword, which stood in the corner, and poking vigorously under the divan. I rolled myself under the bed-covers, in the most abject terror lest she might come back the same way; and, true enough, she did, with a most piercing cry. I never had much rest after that occurrence, as we had no protection against these wild-cats. The regiment, however, in June was ordered to Arizona, that dreaded and then unknown land, and the uncertain future was before me. I saw the other women packing china and their various belongings. I seemed to be helpless. Jack was busy with things outside. He had three large army chests, which were brought in and placed before me. "Now," he said, "all our things must go into those chests"--and I supposed they must. I was pitifully ignorant of the details of moving, and I stood despairingly gazing into the depths of those boxes, when the jolly and stout wife of Major von Hermann passed my window. She glanced in, comprehended the situation, and entered, saying, "You do not understand how to pack? Let me help you: give me a cushion to kneel upon--now bring everything that is to be packed, and I can soon show you how to do it." With her kind assistance the chests were packed, and I found that we had a great deal of surplus stuff which had to be put into rough cases, or rolled into packages and covered with burlap. Jack fumed when he saw it, and declared we could not take it all, as it exceeded our allowance of weight. I declared we must take it, or we could not exist. With some concessions on both sides we were finally packed up, and left Fort Russell about the middle of June, with the first detachment, consisting of head-quarters and band, for San Francisco, over the Union Pacific Railroad. For it must be remembered, that in 1874 there were no railroads in Arizona, and all troops which were sent to that distant territory either marched over-land through New Mexico, or were transported by steamer from San Francisco down the coast, and up the Gulf of California to Fort Yuma, from which point they marched up the valley of the Gila to the southern posts, or continued up the Colorado River by steamer, to other points of disembarkation, whence they marched to the posts in the interior, or the northern part of the territory. Much to my delight, we were allowed to remain over in San Francisco, and go down with the second detachment. We made the most of the time, which was about a fortnight, and on the sixth of August we embarked with six companies of soldiers, Lieutenant Colonel Wilkins in command, on the old steamship "Newbern," Captain Metzger, for Arizona. CHAPTER IV. DOWN THE PACIFIC COAST Now the "Newbern" was famous for being a good roller, and she lived up to her reputation. For seven days I saw only the inside of our stateroom. At the end of that time we arrived off Cape St. Lucas (the extreme southern point of Lower California), and I went on deck. We anchored and took cattle aboard. I watched the natives tow them off, the cattle swimming behind their small boats, and then saw the poor beasts hoisted up by their horns to the deck of our ship. I thought it most dreadfully cruel, but was informed that it had been done from time immemorial, so I ceased to talk about it, knowing that I could not reform those aged countries, and realizing, faintly perhaps (for I had never seen much of the rough side of life), that just as cruel things were done to the cattle we consume in the North. Now that Mr. Sinclair, in his great book "The Jungle," has brought the multiplied horrors of the great packing-houses before our very eyes, we might witness the hoisting of the cattle over the ship's side without feeling such intense pity, admitting that everything is relative, even cruelty. It was now the middle of August, and the weather had become insufferably hot, but we were out of the long swell of the Pacific Ocean; we had rounded Cape St. Lucas, and were steaming up the Gulf of California, towards the mouth of the Great Colorado, whose red and turbulent waters empty themselves into this gulf, at its head. I now had time to become acquainted with the officers of the regiment, whom I had not before met; they had come in from other posts and joined the command at San Francisco. The daughter of the lieutenant-colonel was on board, the beautiful and graceful Caroline Wilkins, the belle of the regiment; and Major Worth, to whose company my husband belonged. I took a special interest in the latter, as I knew we must face life together in the wilds of Arizona. I had time to learn something about the regiment and its history; and that Major Worth's father, whose monument I had so often seen in New York, was the first colonel of the Eighth Infantry, when it was organized in the State of New York in 1838. The party on board was merry enough, and even gay. There was Captain Ogilby, a great, genial Scotchman, and Captain Porter, a graduate of Dublin, and so charmingly witty. He seemed very devoted to Miss Wilkins, but Miss Wilkins was accustomed to the devotion of all the officers of the Eighth Infantry. In fact, it was said that every young lieutenant who joined the regiment had proposed to her. She was most attractive, and as she had too kind a heart to be a coquette, she was a universal favorite with the women as well as with the men. There was Ella Bailey, too, Miss Wilkins' sister, with her young and handsome husband and their young baby. Then, dear Mrs. Wilkins, who had been so many years in the army that she remembered crossing the plains in a real ox-team. She represented the best type of the older army woman--and it was so lovely to see her with her two daughters, all in the same regiment. A mother of grown-up daughters was not often met with in the army. And Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkins, a gentleman in the truest sense of the word--a man of rather quiet tastes, never happier than when he had leisure for indulging his musical taste in strumming all sorts of Spanish fandangos on the guitar, or his somewhat marked talent with the pencil and brush. The heat of the staterooms compelled us all to sleep on deck, so our mattresses were brought up by the soldiers at night, and spread about. The situation, however, was so novel and altogether ludicrous, and our fear of rats which ran about on deck so great, that sleep was well-nigh out of the question. Before dawn, we fled to our staterooms, but by sunrise we were glad to dress and escape from their suffocating heat and go on deck again. Black coffee and hard-tack were sent up, and this sustained us until the nine-o'clock breakfast, which was elaborate, but not good. There was no milk, of course, except the heavily sweetened sort, which I could not use: it was the old-time condensed and canned milk; the meats were beyond everything, except the poor, tough, fresh beef we had seen hoisted over the side, at Cape St. Lucas. The butter, poor at the best, began to pour like oil. Black coffee and bread, and a baked sweet potato, seemed the only things that I could swallow. The heat in the Gulf of California was intense. Our trunks were brought up from the vessel's hold, and we took out summer clothing. But how inadequate and inappropriate it was for that climate! Our faces burned and blistered; even the parting on the head burned, under the awnings which were kept spread. The ice-supply decreased alarmingly, the meats turned green, and when the steward went down into the refrigerator, which was somewhere below the quarter-deck, to get provisions for the day, every woman held a bottle of salts to her nose, and the officers fled to the forward part of the ship. The odor which ascended from that refrigerator was indescribable: it lingered and would not go. It followed us to the table, and when we tasted the food we tasted the odor. We bribed the steward for ice. Finally, I could not go below at all, but had a baked sweet potato brought on deck, and lived several days upon that diet. On the 14th of August we anchored off Mazatlan, a picturesque and ancient adobe town in old Mexico. The approach to this port was strikingly beautiful. Great rocks, cut by the surf into arches and caverns, guarded the entrance to the harbor. We anchored two miles out. A customs and a Wells-Fargo boat boarded us, and many natives came along side, bringing fresh cocoanuts, bananas, and limes. Some Mexicans bound for Guaymas came on board, and a troupe of Japanese jugglers. While we were unloading cargo, some officers and their wives went on shore in one of the ship's boats, and found it a most interesting place. It was garrisoned by Mexican troops, uniformed in white cotton shirts and trousers. They visited the old hotel, the amphitheatre where the bull-fights were held, and the old fort. They told also about the cock-pits--and about the refreshing drinks they had. My thirst began to be abnormal. We bought a dozen cocoanuts, and I drank the milk from them, and made up my mind to go ashore at the next port; for after nine days with only thick black coffee and bad warm water to drink, I was longing for a cup of good tea or a glass of fresh, sweet milk. A day or so more brought us to Guaymas, another Mexican port. Mrs. Wilkins said she had heard something about an old Spaniard there, who used to cook meals for stray travellers. This was enough. I was desperately hungry and thirsty, and we decided to try and find him. Mrs. Wilkins spoke a little Spanish, and by dint of inquiries we found the man's house, a little old, forlorn, deserted-looking adobe casa. We rapped vigorously upon the old door, and after some minutes a small, withered old man appeared. Mrs. Wilkins told him what we wanted, but this ancient Delmonico declined to serve us, and said, in Spanish, the country was "a desert"; he had "nothing in the house"; he had "not cooked a meal in years"; he could not; and, finally, he would not; and he gently pushed the door to in our faces. But we did not give it up, and Mrs. Wilkins continued to persuade. I mustered what Spanish I knew, and told him I would pay him any price for a cup of coffee with fresh milk. He finally yielded, and told us to return in one hour. So we walked around the little deserted town. I could think only of the breakfast we were to have in the old man's casa. And it met and exceeded our wildest anticipations, for, just fancy! We were served with a delicious boullion, then chicken, perfectly cooked, accompanied by some dish flavored with chile verde, creamy biscuit, fresh butter, and golden coffee with milk. There were three or four women and several officers in the party, and we had a merry breakfast. We paid the old man generously, thanked him warmly, and returned to the ship, fortified to endure the sight of all the green ducks that came out of the lower hold. You must remember that the "Newbern" was a small and old propeller, not fitted up for passengers, and in those days the great refrigerating plants were unheard of. The women who go to the Philippines on our great transports of to-day cannot realize and will scarcely believe what we endured for lack of ice and of good food on that never-to-be-forgotten voyage down the Pacific coast and up the Gulf of California in the summer of 1874. CHAPTER V. THE SLUE At last, after a voyage of thirteen days, we came to anchor a mile or so off Port Isabel, at the mouth of the Colorado River. A narrow but deep slue runs up into the desert land, on the east side of the river's mouth, and provides a harbor of refuge for the flat-bottomed stern-wheelers which meet the ocean steamers at this point. Hurricanes are prevalent at this season in the Gulf of California, but we had been fortunate in not meeting with any on the voyage. The wind now freshened, however, and beat the waves into angry foam, and there we lay for three days on the "Newbern," off Port Isabel, before the sea was calm enough for the transfer of troops and baggage to the lighters. This was excessively disagreeable. The wind was like a breath from a furnace; it seemed as though the days would never end, and the wind never stop blowing. Jack's official diary says: "One soldier died to-day." Finally, on the fourth day, the wind abated, and the transfer was begun. We boarded the river steamboat "Cocopah," towing a barge loaded with soldiers, and steamed away for the slue. I must say that we welcomed the change with delight. Towards the end of the afternoon the "Cocopah" put her nose to the shore and tied up. It seemed strange not to see pier sand docks, nor even piles to tie to. Anchors were taken ashore and the boat secured in that manner: there being no trees of sufficient size to make fast to. The soldiers went into camp on shore. The heat down in that low, flat place was intense. Another man died that night. What was our chagrin, the next morning, to learn that we must go back to the "Newbern," to carry some freight from up-river. There was nothing to do but stay on board and tow that dreary barge, filled with hot, red, baked-looking ore, out to the ship, unload, and go back up the slue. Jack's diary records: "Aug. 23rd. Heat awful. Pringle died to-day." He was the third soldier to succumb. It seemed to me their fate was a hard one. To die, down in that wretched place, to be rolled in a blanket and buried on those desert shores, with nothing but a heap of stones to mark their graves. The adjutant of the battalion read the burial service, and the trumpeters stepped to the edge of the graves and sounded "Taps," which echoed sad and melancholy far over those parched and arid lands. My eyes filled with tears, for one of the soldiers was from our own company, and had been kind to me. Jack said: "You mustn't cry, Mattie; it's a soldier's life, and when a man enlists he must take his chances." "Yes, but," I said, "somewhere there must be a mother or sister, or some one who cares for these poor men, and it's all so sad to think of." "Well, I know it is sad," he replied, soothingly, "but listen! It is all over, and the burial party is returning." I listened and heard the gay strains of "The girl I left behind me," which the trumpeters were playing with all their might. "You see," said Jack, "it would not do for the soldiers to be sad when one of them dies. Why, it would demoralize the whole command. So they play these gay things to cheer them up." And I began to feel that tears must be out of place at a soldier's funeral. I attended many a one after that, but I had too much imagination, and in spite of all my brave efforts, visions of the poor boy's mother on some little farm in Missouri or Kansas perhaps, or in some New England town, or possibly in the old country, would come before me, and my heart was filled with sadness. The Post Hospital seemed to me a lonesome place to die in, although the surgeon and soldier attendants were kind to the sick men. There were no women nurses in the army in those days. The next day, the "Cocopah" started again and towed a barge out to the ship. But the hot wind sprang up and blew fiercely, and we lay off and on all day, until it was calm enough to tow her back to the slue. By that time I had about given up all hope of getting any farther, and if the weather had only been cooler I could have endured with equanimity the idle life and knocking about from the ship to the slue, and from the slue to the ship. But the heat was unbearable. We had to unpack our trunks again and get out heavy-soled shoes, for the zinc which covered the decks of these river-steamers burned through the thin slippers we had worn on the ship. That day we had a little diversion, for we saw the "Gila" come down the river and up the slue, and tie up directly alongside of us. She had on board and in barges four companies of the Twenty-third Infantry, who were going into the States. We exchanged greetings and visits, and from the great joy manifested by them all, I drew my conclusions as to what lay before us, in the dry and desolate country we were about to enter. The women's clothes looked ridiculously old-fashioned, and I wondered if I should look that way when my time came to leave Arizona. Little cared they, those women of the Twenty-third, for, joy upon joys! They saw the "Newbern" out there in the offing, waiting to take them back to green hills, and to cool days and nights, and to those they had left behind, three years before. On account of the wind, which blew again with great violence, the "Cocopah" could not leave the slue that day. The officers and soldiers were desperate for something to do. So they tried fishing, and caught some "croakers," which tasted very fresh and good, after all the curried and doctored-up messes we had been obliged to eat on board ship. We spent seven days in and out of that slue. Finally, on August the 26th, the wind subsided and we started up river. Towards sunset we arrived at a place called "Old Soldier's Camp." There the "Gila" joined us, and the command was divided between the two river-boats. We were assigned to the "Gila," and I settled myself down with my belongings, for the remainder of the journey up river. We resigned ourselves to the dreadful heat, and at the end of two more days the river had begun to narrow, and we arrived at Fort Yuma, which was at that time the post best known to, and most talked about by army officers of any in Arizona. No one except old campaigners knew much about any other post in the Territory. It was said to be the very hottest place that ever existed, and from the time we left San Francisco we had heard the story, oft repeated, of the poor soldier who died at Fort Yuma, and after awhile returned to beg for his blankets, having found the regions of Pluto so much cooler than the place he had left. But the fort looked pleasant to us, as we approached. It lay on a high mesa to the left of us and there was a little green grass where the post was built. None of the officers knew as yet their destination, and I found myself wishing it might be our good fortune to stay at Fort Yuma. It seemed such a friendly place. Lieutenant Haskell, Twelfth Infantry, who was stationed there, came down to the boat to greet us, and brought us our letters from home. He then extended his gracious hospitality to us all, arranging for us to come to his quarters the next day for a meal, and dividing the party as best he could accommodate us. It fell to our lot to go to breakfast with Major and Mrs. Wells and Miss Wilkins. An ambulance was sent the next morning, at nine o'clock, to bring us up the steep and winding road, white with heat, which led to the fort. I can never forget the taste of the oatmeal with fresh milk, the eggs and butter, and delicious tomatoes, which were served to us in his latticed dining-room. After twenty-three days of heat and glare, and scorching winds, and stale food, Fort Yuma and Mr. Haskell's dining-room seemed like Paradise. Of course it was hot; it was August, and we expected it. But the heat of those places can be much alleviated by the surroundings. There were shower baths, and latticed piazzas, and large ollas hanging in the shade of them, containing cool water. Yuma was only twenty days from San Francisco, and they were able to get many things direct by steamer. Of course there was no ice, and butter was kept only by ingenious devices of the Chinese servants; there were but few vegetables, but what was to be had at all in that country, was to be had at Fort Yuma. We staid one more day, and left two companies of the regiment there. When we departed, I felt, somehow, as though we were saying good-bye to the world and civilization, and as our boat clattered and tugged away up river with its great wheel astern, I could not help looking back longingly to old Fort Yuma. CHAPTER VI. UP THE RIO COLORADO And now began our real journey up the Colorado River, that river unknown to me except in my early geography lessons--that mighty and untamed river, which is to-day unknown except to the explorer, or the few people who have navigated its turbulent waters. Back in memory was the picture of it on the map; here was the reality, then, and here we were, on the steamer "Gila," Captain Mellon, with the barge full of soldiers towing on after us, starting for Fort Mojave, some two hundred miles above. The vague and shadowy foreboding that had fluttered through my mind before I left Fort Russell had now also become a reality and crowded out every other thought. The river, the scenery, seemed, after all, but an illusion, and interested me but in a dreamy sort of way. We had staterooms, but could not remain in them long at a time, on account of the intense heat. I had never felt such heat, and no one else ever had or has since. The days were interminable. We wandered around the boat, first forward, then aft, to find a cool spot. We hung up our canteens (covered with flannel and dipped in water), where they would swing in the shade, thereby obtaining water which was a trifle cooler than the air. There was no ice, and consequently no fresh provisions. A Chinaman served as steward and cook, and at the ringing of a bell we all went into a small saloon back of the pilothouse, where the meals were served. Our party at table on the "Gila" consisted of several unmarried officers, and several officers with their wives, about eight or nine in all, and we could have had a merry time enough but for the awful heat, which destroyed both our good looks and our tempers. The fare was meagre, of course; fresh biscuit without butter, very salt boiled beef, and some canned vegetables, which were poor enough in those days. Pies made from preserved peaches or plums generally followed this delectable course. Chinamen, as we all know, can make pies under conditions that would stagger most chefs. They may have no marble pastry-slab, and the lard may run like oil, still they can make pies that taste good to the hungry traveller. But that dining-room was hot! The metal handles of the knives were uncomfortably warm to the touch; and even the wooden arms of the chairs felt as if they were slowly igniting. After a hasty meal, and a few remarks upon the salt beef, and the general misery of our lot, we would seek some spot which might be a trifle cooler. A siesta was out of the question, as the staterooms were insufferable; and so we dragged out the weary days. At sundown the boat put her nose up to the bank and tied up for the night. The soldiers left the barges and went into camp on shore, to cook their suppers and to sleep. The banks of the river offered no very attractive spot upon which to make a camp; they were low, flat, and covered with underbrush and arrow-weed, which grew thick to the water's edge. I always found it interesting to watch the barge unload the men at sundown. At twilight some of the soldiers came on board and laid our mattresses side by side on the after deck. Pajamas and loose gowns were soon en evidence, but nothing mattered, as they were no electric lights to disturb us with their glare. Rank also mattered not; Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkins and his wife lay down to rest, with the captains and lieutenants and their wives, wherever their respective strikers had placed their mattresses (for this was the good old time when the soldiers were allowed to wait upon officers 'families). Under these circumstances, much sleep was not to be thought of; the sultry heat by the river bank, and the pungent smell of the arrow-weed which lined the shores thickly, contributed more to stimulate than to soothe the weary nerves. But the glare of the sun was gone, and after awhile a stillness settled down upon this company of Uncle Sam's servants and their followers. (In the Army Regulations, wives are not rated except as "camp followers.") But even this short respite from the glare of the sun was soon to end; for before the crack of dawn, or, as it seemed to us, shortly after midnight, came such a clatter with the fires and the high-pressure engine and the sparks, and what all they did in that wild and reckless land, that further rest was impossible, and we betook ourselves with our mattresses to the staterooms, for another attempt at sleep, which, however, meant only failure, as the sun rose incredibly early on that river, and we were glad to take a hasty sponge from a basin of rather thick looking river-water, and go again out on deck, where we could always get a cup of black coffee from the Chinaman. And thus began another day of intolerable glare and heat. Conversation lagged; no topic seemed to have any interest except the thermometer, which hung in the coolest place on the boat; and one day when Major Worth looked at it and pronounced it one hundred and twenty-two in the shade, a grim despair seized upon me, and I wondered how much more heat human beings could endure. There was nothing to relieve the monotony of the scenery. On each side of us, low river banks, and nothing between those and the horizon line. On our left was Lower [*] California, and on our right, Arizona. Both appeared to be deserts. * This term is here used (as we used it at Ehrenberg) to designate the low, flat lands west of the river, without any reference to Lower California proper,--the long peninsula belonging to Mexico. As the river narrowed, however, the trip began to be enlivened by the constant danger of getting aground on the shifting sand-bars which are so numerous in this mighty river. Jack Mellon was then the most famous pilot on the Colorado, and he was very skilful in steering clear of the sand-bars, skimming over them, or working his boat off, when once fast upon them. The deck-hands, men of a mixed Indian and Mexican race, stood ready with long poles, in the bow, to jump overboard, when we struck a bar, and by dint of pushing, and reversing the engine, the boat would swing off. On approaching a shallow place, they would sound with their poles, and in a sing-song high-pitched tone drawl out the number of feet. Sometimes their sleepy drawling tones would suddenly cease, and crying loudly, "No alli agua!" they would swing themselves over the side of the boat into the river, and begin their strange and intricate manipulations with the poles. Then, again, they would carry the anchor away off and by means of great spars, and some method too complicated for me to describe, Captain Mellon would fairly lift the boat over the bar. But our progress was naturally much retarded, and sometimes we were aground an hour, sometimes a half day or more. Captain Mellon was always cheerful. River steamboating was his life, and sand-bars were his excitement. On one occasion, I said, "Oh! Captain, do you think we shall get off this bar to-day?" "Well, you can't tell," he said, with a twinkle in his eye; "one trip, I lay fifty-two days on a bar," and then, after a short pause, "but that don't happen very often; we sometimes lay a week, though; there is no telling; the bars change all the time." Sometimes the low trees and brushwood on the banks parted, and a young squaw would peer out at us. This was a little diversion, and picturesque besides. They wore very short skirts made of stripped bark, and as they held back the branches of the low willows, and looked at us with curiosity, they made pictures so pretty that I have never forgotten them. We had no kodaks then, but even if we had had them, they could not have reproduced the fine copper color of those bare shoulders and arms, the soft wood colors of the short bark skirts, the gleam of the sun upon their blue-black hair, and the turquoise color of the wide bead-bands which encircled their arms. One morning, as I was trying to finish out a nap in my stateroom, Jack came excitedly in and said: "Get up, Martha, we are coming to Ehrenberg!" Visions of castles on the Rhine, and stories of the middle ages floated through my mind, as I sprang up, in pleasurable anticipation of seeing an interesting and beautiful place. Alas! for my ignorance. I saw but a row of low thatched hovels, perched on the edge of the ragged looking river-bank; a road ran lengthwise along, and opposite the hovels I saw a store and some more mean-looking huts of adobe. "Oh! Jack!" I cried, "and is that Ehrenberg? Who on earth gave such a name to the wretched place?" "Oh, some old German prospector, I suppose; but never mind, the place is all right enough. Come! Hurry up! We are going to stop here and land freight. There is an officer stationed here. See those low white walls? That is where he lives. Captain Bernard of the Fifth Cavalry. It's quite a place; come out and see it." But I did not go ashore. Of all dreary, miserable-looking settlements that one could possibly imagine, that was the worst. An unfriendly, dirty, and Heaven-forsaken place, inhabited by a poor class of Mexicans and half-breeds. It was, however, an important shipping station for freight which was to be sent overland to the interior, and there was always one army officer stationed there. Captain Bernard came on board to see us. I did not ask him how he liked his station; it seemed to me too satirical; like asking the Prisoner of Chillon, for instance, how he liked his dungeon. I looked over towards those low white walls, which enclosed the Government corral and the habitation of this officer, and thanked my stars that no such dreadful detail had come to my husband. I did not dream that in less than a year this exceptionally hard fate was to be my own. We left Ehrenberg with no regrets, and pushed on up river. On the third of September the boilers "foamed" so that we had to tie up for nearly a day. This was caused by the water being so very muddy. The Rio Colorado deserves its name, for its swift-flowing current sweeps by like a mass of seething red liquid, turbulent and thick and treacherous. It was said on the river, that those who sank beneath its surface were never seen again, and in looking over into those whirlpools and swirling eddies, one might well believe this to be true. From there on, up the river, we passed through great canons and the scenery was grand enough; but one cannot enjoy scenery with the mercury ranging from 107 to 122 in the shade. The grandeur was quite lost upon us all, and we were suffocated by the scorching heat radiating from those massive walls of rocks between which we puffed and clattered along. I must confess that the history of this great river was quite unknown to me then. I had never read of the early attempts made to explore it, both from above and from its mouth, and the wonders of the "Grand Canon" were as yet unknown to the world. I did not realize that, as we steamed along between those high perpendicular walls of rock, we were really seeing the lower end of that great chasm which now, thirty years later, has become one of the most famous resorts of this country and, in fact, of the world. There was some mention made of Major Powell, that daring adventurer, who, a few years previously, had accomplished the marvellous feat of going down the Colorado and through the Grand Canon, in a small boat, he being the first man who had at that time ever accomplished it, many men having lost their lives in the attempt. At last, on the 8th of September, we arrived at Camp Mojave, on the right bank of the river; a low, square enclosure, on the low level of the flat land near the river. It seemed an age since we had left Yuma and twice an age since we had left the mouth of the river. But it was only eighteen days in all, and Captain Mellon remarked: "A quick trip!" and congratulated us on the good luck we had had in not being detained on the sandbars. "Great Heavens," I thought, "if that is what they call a quick trip!" But I do not know just what I thought, for those eighteen days on the Great Colorado in midsummer, had burned themselves into my memory, and I made an inward vow that nothing would ever force me into such a situation again. I did not stop to really think; I only felt, and my only feeling was a desire to get cool and to get out of the Territory in some other way and at some cooler season. How futile a wish, and how futile a vow! Dellenbaugh, who was with Powell in 1869 in his second expedition down the river in small boats, has given to the world a most interesting account of this wonderful river and the canons through which it cuts its tempestuous way to the Gulf of California, in two volumes entitled "The Romance of the Great Colorado" and "A Canon Voyage". We bade good-bye to our gallant river captain and watched the great stern-wheeler as she swung out into the stream, and, heading up river, disappeared around a bend; for even at that time this venturesome pilot had pushed his boat farther up than any other steam-craft had ever gone, and we heard that there were terrific rapids and falls and unknown mysteries above. The superstition of centuries hovered over the "great cut," and but few civilized beings had looked down into its awful depths. Brave, dashing, handsome Jack Mellon! What would I give and what would we all give, to see thee once more, thou Wizard of the Great Colorado! We turned our faces towards the Mojave desert, and I wondered, what next? The Post Surgeon kindly took care of us for two days and nights, and we slept upon the broad piazzas of his quarters. We heard no more the crackling and fizzing of the stern-wheeler's high-pressure engines at daylight, and our eyes, tired with gazing at the red whirlpools of the river, found relief in looking out upon the grey-white flat expanse which surrounded Fort Mojave, and merged itself into the desert beyond. CHAPTER VII. THE MOJAVE DESERT Thou white and dried-up sea! so old! So strewn with wealth, so sown with gold! Yes, thou art old and hoary white With time and ruin of all things, And on thy lonesome borders Night Sits brooding o'er with drooping wings.--JOAQUIN MILLER. The country had grown steadily more unfriendly ever since leaving Fort Yuma, and the surroundings of Camp Mojave were dreary enough. But we took time to sort out our belongings, and the officers arranged for transportation across the Territory. Some had bought, in San Francisco, comfortable travelling-carriages for their families. They were old campaigners; they knew a thing or two about Arizona; we lieutenants did not know, we had never heard much about this part of our country. But a comfortable large carriage, known as a Dougherty wagon, or, in common army parlance, an ambulance, was secured for me to travel in. This vehicle had a large body, with two seats facing each other, and a seat outside for the driver. The inside of the wagon could be closed if desired by canvas sides and back which rolled up and down, and by a curtain which dropped behind the driver's seat. So I was enabled to have some degree of privacy, if I wished. We repacked our mess-chest, and bought from the Commissary at Mojave the provisions necessary for the long journey to Fort Whipple, which was the destination of one of the companies and the headquarters officers. On the morning of September 10th everything in the post was astir with preparations for the first march. It was now thirty-five days since we left San Francisco, but the change from boat to land travelling offered an agreeable diversion after the monotony of the river. I watched with interest the loading of the great prairie-schooners, into which went the soldiers' boxes and the camp equipage. Outside was lashed a good deal of the lighter stuff; I noticed a barrel of china, which looked much like our own, lashed directly over one wheel. Then there were the massive blue army wagons, which were also heavily loaded; the laundresses with their children and belongings were placed in these. At last the command moved out. It was to me a novel sight. The wagons and schooners were each drawn by teams of six heavy mules, while a team of six lighter mules was put to each ambulance and carriage. These were quite different from the draught animals I had always seen in the Eastern States; these Government mules being sleek, well-fed and trained to trot as fast as the average carriage-horse. The harnesses were quite smart, being trimmed off with white ivory rings. Each mule was "Lize" or "Fanny" or "Kate", and the soldiers who handled the lines were accustomed to the work; for work, and arduous work, it proved to be, as we advanced into the then unknown Territory of Arizona. The main body of the troops marched in advance; then came the ambulances and carriages, followed by the baggage-wagons and a small rear-guard. When the troops were halted once an hour for rest, the officers, who marched with the soldiers, would come to the ambulances and chat awhile, until the bugle call for "Assembly" sounded, when they would join their commands again, the men would fall in, the call "Forward" was sounded, and the small-sized army train moved on. The first day's march was over a dreary country; a hot wind blew, and everything was filled with dust. I had long ago discarded my hat, as an unnecessary and troublesome article; consequently my head wa snow a mass of fine white dust, which stuck fast, of course. I was covered from head to foot with it, and it would not shake off, so, although our steamboat troubles were over, our land troubles had begun. We reached, after a few hours' travel, the desolate place where we were to camp. In the mean time, it had been arranged for Major Worth, who had no family, to share our mess, and we had secured the services of a soldier belonging to his company whose ability as a camp cook was known to both officers. I cannot say that life in the army, as far as I had gone, presented any very great attractions. This, our first camp, was on the river, a little above Hardyville. Good water was there, and that was all; I had not yet learned to appreciate that. There was not a tree nor a shrub to give shade. The only thing I could see, except sky and sand, was a ruined adobe enclosure, with no roof. I sat in the ambulance until our tent was pitched, and then Jack came to me, followed by a six-foot soldier, and said: "Mattie, this is Bowen, our striker; now I want you to tell him what he shall cook for our supper; and--don't you think it would be nice if you could show him how to make some of those good New England doughnuts? I think Major Worth might like them; and after all the awful stuff we have had, you know," et caetera, et caetera. I met the situation, after an inward struggle, and said, weakly, "Where are the eggs?" "Oh," said he, "you don't need eggs; you're on the frontier now; you must learn to do without eggs." Everything in me rebelled, but still I yielded. You see I had been married only six months; the women at home, and in Germany also, had always shown great deference to their husbands' wishes. But at that moment I almost wished Major Worth and Jack and Bowen and the mess-chest at the bottom of the Rio Colorado. However, I nerved myself for the effort, and when Bowen had his camp-fire made, he came and called me. At the best, I never had much confidence in my ability as a cook, but as a camp cook! Ah, me! Everything seemed to swim before my eyes, and I fancied that the other women were looking at me from their tents. Bowen was very civil, turned back the cover of the mess-chest and propped it up. That was the table. Then he brought me a tin basin, and some flour, some condensed milk, some sugar, and a rolling-pin, and then he hung a camp-kettle with lard in it over the fire. I stirred up a mixture in the basin, but the humiliation of failure was spared me, for just then, without warning, came one of those terrific sandstorms which prevail on the deserts of Arizona, blowing us all before it in its fury, and filling everything with sand. We all scurried to the tents; some of them had blown down. There was not much shelter, but the storm was soon over, and we stood collecting our scattered senses. I saw Mrs. Wilkins at the door of her tent. She beckoned to me; I went over there, and she said: "Now, my dear, I am going to give you some advice. You must not take it unkindly. I am an old army woman and I have made many campaigns with the Colonel; you have but just joined the army. You must never try to do any cooking at the camp-fire. The soldiers are there for that work, and they know lots more about it than any of us do." "But, Jack," I began-- "Never mind Jack," said she; "he does not know as much as I do about it; and when you reach your post," she added, "you can show him what you can do in that line." Bowen cleared away the sandy remains of the doubtful dough, and prepared for us a very fair supper. Soldiers' bacon, and coffee, and biscuits baked in a Dutch oven. While waiting for the sun to set, we took a short stroll over to the adobe ruins. Inside the enclosure lay an enormous rattlesnake, coiled. It was the first one I had ever seen except in a cage, and I was fascinated by the horror of the round, grayish-looking heap, so near the color of the sand on which it lay. Some soldiers came and killed it. But I noticed that Bowen took extra pains that night, to spread buffalo robes under our mattresses, and to place around them a hair lariat. "Snakes won't cross over that," he said, with a grin. Bowen was a character. Originally from some farm in Vermont, he had served some years with the Eighth Infantry, and for a long time in the same company under Major Worth, and had cooked for the bachelors' mess. He was very tall, and had a good-natured face, but he did not have much opinion of what is known as etiquette, either military or civil; he seemed to consider himself a sort of protector to the officers of Company K, and now, as well, to the woman who had joined the company. He took us all under his wing, as it were, and although he had to be sharply reprimanded sometimes, in a kind of language which he seemed to expect, he was allowed more latitude than most soldiers. This was my first night under canvas in the army. I did not like those desert places, and they grew to have a horror for me. At four o'clock in the morning the cook's call sounded, the mules were fed, and the crunching and the braying were something to awaken the heaviest sleepers. Bowen called us. I was much upset by the dreadful dust, which was thick upon everything I touched. We had to hasten our toilet, as they were striking tents and breaking camp early, in order to reach before noon the next place where there was water. Sitting on camp-stools, around the mess-tables, in the open, before the break of day, we swallowed some black coffee and ate some rather thick slices of bacon and dry bread. The Wilkins' tent was near ours, and I said to them, rather peevishly: "Isn't this dust something awful?" Miss Wilkins looked up with her sweet smile and gentle manner and replied: "Why, yes, Mrs. Summerhayes, it is pretty bad, but you must not worry about such a little thing as dust." "How can I help it?" I said; "my hair, my clothes, everything full of it, and no chance for a bath or a change: a miserable little basin of water and--" I suppose I was running on with all my grievances, but she stopped me and said again: "Soon, now, you will not mind it at all. Ella and I are army girls, you know, and we do not mind anything. There's no use in fretting about little things." Miss Wilkins' remarks made a tremendous impression upon my mind and I began to study her philosophy. At break of day the command marched out, their rifles on their shoulders, swaying along ahead of us, in the sunlight and the heat, which continued still to be almost unendurable. The dry white dust of this desert country boiled and surged up and around us in suffocating clouds. I had my own canteen hung up in the ambulance, but the water in it got very warm and I learned to take but a swallow at a time, as it could not be refilled until we reached the next spring--and there is always some uncertainty in Arizona as to whether the spring or basin has gone dry. So water was precious, and we could not afford to waste a drop. At about noon we reached a forlorn mud hut, known as Packwood's ranch. But the place had a bar, which was cheerful for some of the poor men, as the two days' marches had been rather hard upon them, being so "soft" from the long voyage. I could never begrudge a soldier a bit of cheer after the hard marches in Arizona, through miles of dust and burning heat, their canteens long emptied and their lips parched and dry. I watched them often as they marched along with their blanket-rolls, their haversacks, and their rifles, and I used to wonder that they did not complain. About that time the greatest luxury in the entire world seemed to me to be a glass of fresh sweet milk, and I shall always remember Mr. Packwood's ranch, because we had milk to drink with our supper, and some delicious quail to eat. Ranches in that part of Arizona meant only low adobe dwellings occupied by prospectors or men who kept the relays of animals for stage routes. Wretched, forbidding-looking places they were! Never a tree or a bush to give shade, never a sign of comfort or home. Our tents were pitched near Packwood's, out in the broiling sun. They were like ovens; there was no shade, no coolness anywhere; we would have gladly slept, after the day's march, but instead we sat broiling in the ambulances, and waited for the long afternoon to wear away. The next day dragged along in the same manner; the command marching bravely along through dust and heat and thirst, as Kipling's soldier sings: "With its best foot first And the road a-sliding past, An' every bloomin' campin'-ground Exactly like the last". Beal's Springs did not differ from the other ranch, except that possibly it was even more desolate. But a German lived there, who must have had some knowledge of cooking, for I remember that we bought a peach pie from him and ate it with a relish. I remember, too, that we gave him a good silver dollar for it. The only other incident of that day's march was the suicide of Major Worth's pet dog "Pete." Having exhausted his ability to endure, this beautiful red setter fixed his eye upon a distant range of mountains, and ran without turning, or heeding any call, straight as the crow flies, towards them and death. We never saw him again; a ranchman told us he had known of several other instances where a well-bred dog had given up in this manner, and attempted to run for the hills. We had a large greyhound with us, but he did not desert. Major Worth was much affected by the loss of his dog, and did not join us at supper that night. We kept a nice fat quail for him, however, and at about nine o'clock, when all was still and dark, Jack entered the Major's tent and said: "Come now, Major, my wife has sent you this nice quail; don't give up so about Pete, you know." The Major lay upon his camp-bed, with his face turned to the wall of his tent; he gave a deep sigh, rolled himself over and said: "Well, put it on the table, and light the candle; I'll try to eat it. Thank your wife for me." So the Lieutenant made a light, and lo! and behold, the plate was there, but the quail was gone! In the darkness, our great kangaroo hound had stolen noiselessly upon his master's heels, and quietly removed the bird. The two officers were dumbfounded. Major Worth said: "D--n my luck;" and turned his face again to the wall of his tent. Now Major Worth was just the dearest and gentlest sort of a man, but he had been born and brought up in the old army, and everyone knows that times and customs were different then. Men drank more and swore a good deal, and while I do not wish my story to seem profane, yet I would not describe army life or the officers as I knew them, if I did not allow the latter to use an occasional strong expression. The incident, however, served to cheer up the Major, though he continued to deplore the loss of his beautiful dog. For the next two days our route lay over the dreariest and most desolate country. It was not only dreary, it was positively hostile in its attitude towards every living thing except snakes, centipedes and spiders. They seemed to flourish in those surroundings. Sometimes either Major Worth or Jack would come and drive along a few miles in the ambulance with me to cheer me up, and they allowed me to abuse the country to my heart's content. It seemed to do me much good. The desert was new to me then. I had not read Pierre Loti's wonderful book, "Le Desert," and I did not see much to admire in the desolate waste lands through which we were travelling. I did not dream of the power of the desert, nor that I should ever long to see it again. But as I write, the longing possesses me, and the pictures then indelibly printed upon my mind, long forgotten amidst the scenes and events of half a lifetime, unfold themselves like a panorama before my vision and call me to come back, to look upon them once more. CHAPTER VIII. LEARNING HOW TO SOLDIER "The grasses failed, and then a mass Of dry red cactus ruled the land: The sun rose right above and fell, As falling molten from the skies, And no winged thing was seen to pass." Joaquin Miller. We made fourteen miles the next day, and went into camp at a place called Freeze-wash, near some old silver mines. A bare and lonesome spot, where there was only sand to be seen, and some black, burnt-looking rocks. From under these rocks, crept great tarantulas, not forgetting lizards, snakes, and not forgetting the scorpion, which ran along with its tail turned up ready to sting anything that came in its way. The place furnished good water, however, and that was now the most important thing. The next day's march was a long one. The guides said: "Twenty-eight miles to Willow Grove Springs." The command halted ten minutes every hour for rest, but the sun poured down upon us, and I was glad to stay in the ambulance. It was at these times that my thoughts turned back to the East and to the blue sea and the green fields of God's country. I looked out at the men, who were getting pretty well fagged, and at the young officers whose uniforms were white with dust, and Frau Weste's words about glaenzendes Elend came to my mind. I fell to thinking: was the army life, then, only "glittering misery," and had I come to participate in it? Some of the old soldiers had given out, and had to be put on the army wagons. I was getting to look rather fagged and seedy, and was much annoyed at my appearance. Not being acquainted with the vicissitudes of the desert, I had not brought in my travelling-case a sufficient number of thin washbodices. The few I had soon became black beyond recognition, as the dust boiled (literally) up and into the ambulance and covered me from head to foot. But there was no help for it, and no one was much better off. It was about that time that we began to see the outlines of a great mountain away to the left and north of us. It seemed to grow nearer and nearer, and fascinated our gaze. Willow Grove Springs was reached at four o'clock and the small cluster of willow trees was most refreshing to our tired eyes. The next day's march was over a rolling country. We began to see grass, and to feel that, at last, we were out of the desert. The wonderful mountain still loomed up large and clear on our left. I thought of the old Spanish explorers and wondered if they came so far as this, when they journeyed through that part of our country three hundred years before. I wondered what beautiful and high-sounding name they might have given it. I wondered a good deal about that bare and isolated mountain, rising out of what seemed an endless waste of sand. I asked the driver if he knew the name of it: "That is Bill Williams' mountain, ma'am," he replied, and relapsed into his customary silence, which was unbroken except by an occasional remark to the wheelers or the leaders. I thought of the Harz Mountains, which I had so recently tramped over, and the romantic names and legends connected with them, and I sighed to think such an imposing landmark as this should have such a prosaic name. I realized that Arizona was not a land of romance; and when Jack came to the ambulance, I said, "Don't you think it a pity that such monstrous things are allowed in America, as to call that great fine mountain 'Bill Williams' mountain'?" "Why no," he said; "I suppose he discovered it, and I dare say he had a hard enough time before he got to it." We camped at Fort Rock, and Lieutenant Bailey shot an antelope. It was the first game we had seen; our spirits revived a bit; the sight of green grass and trees brought new life to us. Anvil Rock and old Camp Hualapais were our next two stopping places. We drove through groves of oaks, cedars and pines, and the days began hopefully and ended pleasantly. To be sure, the roads were very rough and our bones ached after a long day's travelling. But our tents were now pitched under tall pine trees and looked inviting. Soldiers have a knack of making a tent attractive. "Madame, the Lieutenant's compliments, and your tent is ready." I then alighted and found my little home awaiting me. The tent-flaps tied open, the mattresses laid, the blankets turned back, the camp-table with candle-stick upon it, and a couple of camp-chairs at the door of the tent. Surely it is good to be in the army I then thought; and after a supper consisting of soldiers' hot biscuit, antelope steak broiled over the coals, and a large cup of black coffee, I went to rest, listening to the soughing of the pines. My mattress was spread always upon the ground, with a buffalo robe under it and a hair lariat around it, to keep off the snakes; as it is said they do not like to cross them. I found the ground more comfortable than the camp cots which were used by some of the officers, and most of the women. The only Indians we had seen up to that time were the peaceful tribes of the Yumas, Cocopahs and Mojaves, who lived along the Colorado. We had not yet entered the land of the dread Apache. The nights were now cool enough, and I never knew sweeter rest than came to me in the midst of those pine groves. Our road was gradually turning southward, but for some days Bill Williams was the predominating feature of the landscape; turn whichever way we might, still this purple mountain was before us. It seemed to pervade the entire country, and took on such wonderful pink colors at sunset. Bill Williams held me in thrall, until the hills and valleys in the vicinity of Fort Whipple shut him out from my sight. But he seemed to have come into my life somehow, and in spite of his name, I loved him for the companionship he had given me during those long, hot, weary and interminable days. About the middle of September, we arrived at American ranch, some ten miles from Fort Whipple, which was the headquarters station. Colonel Wilkins and his family left us, and drove on to their destination. Some officers of the Fifth Cavalry rode out to greet us, and Lieutenant Earl Thomas asked me to come into the post and rest a day or two at their house, as we then had learned that K Company was to march on to Camp Apache, in the far eastern part of the Territory. We were now enabled to get some fresh clothing from our trunks, which were in the depths of the prairie-schooners, and all the officers' wives were glad to go into the post, where we were most kindly entertained. Fort Whipple was a very gay and hospitable post, near the town of Prescott, which was the capital city of Arizona. The country being mountainous and fertile, the place was very attractive, and I felt sorry that we were not to remain there. But I soon learned that in the army, regrets were vain. I soon ceased to ask myself whether I was sorry or glad at any change in our stations. On the next day the troops marched in, and camped outside the post. The married officers were able to join their wives, and the three days we spent there were delightful. There was a dance given, several informal dinners, drives into the town of Prescott, and festivities of various kinds. General Crook commanded the Department of Arizona then; he was out on some expedition, but Mrs. Crook gave a pleasant dinner for us. After dinner, Mrs. Crook came and sat beside me, asked kindly about our long journey, and added: "I am truly sorry the General is away; I should like for him to meet you; you are just the sort of woman he likes." A few years afterwards I met the General, and remembering this remark, I was conscious of making a special effort to please. The indifferent courtesy with which he treated me, however, led me to think that women are often mistaken judges of their husband's tastes. The officers' quarters at Fort Whipple were quite commodious, and after seven weeks' continuous travelling, the comforts which surrounded me at Mrs. Thomas' home seemed like the veriest luxuries. I was much affected by the kindness shown me by people I had never met before, and I kept wondering if I should ever have an opportunity to return their courtesies. "Don't worry about that, Martha," said Jack, "your turn will come." He proved a true prophet, for sooner or later, I saw them all again, and was able to extend to them the hospitality of an army home. Nevertheless, my heart grows warm whenever I think of the people who first welcomed me to Arizona, me a stranger in the army, and in the great southwest as well. At Fort Whipple we met also some people we had known at Fort Russell, who had gone down with the first detachment, among them Major and Mrs. Wilhelm, who were to remain at headquarters. We bade good-bye to the Colonel and his family, to the officers of F, who were to stay behind, and to our kind friends of the Fifth Cavalry. We now made a fresh start, with Captain Ogilby in command. Two days took us into Camp Verde, which lies on a mesa above the river from which it takes its name. Captain Brayton, of the Eight Infantry, and his wife, who were already settled at Camp Verde, received us and took the best care of us. Mrs. Brayton gave me a few more lessons in army house-keeping, and I could not have had a better teacher. I told her about Jack and the tinware; her bright eyes snapped, and she said: "Men think they know everything, but the truth is, they don't know anything; you go right ahead and have all the tinware and other things; all you can get, in fact; and when the time comes to move, send Jack out of the house, get a soldier to come in and pack you up, and say nothing about it." "But the weight--" "Fiddlesticks! They all say that; now you just not mind their talk, but take all you need, and it will get carried along, somehow." Still another company left our ranks, and remained at Camp Verde. The command was now getting deplorably small, I thought, to enter an Indian country, for we were now to start for Camp Apache. Several routes were discussed, but, it being quite early in the autumn, and the Apache Indians being just then comparatively quiet, they decided to march the troops over Crook's Trail, which crossed the Mogollon range and was considered to be shorter than any other. It was all the same to me. I had never seen a map of Arizona, and never heard of Crook's Trail. Maps never interested me, and I had not read much about life in the Territories. At that time, the history of our savage races was a blank page to me. I had been listening to the stories of an old civilization, and my mind did not adjust itself readily to the new surroundings. CHAPTER IX. ACROSS THE MOGOLLONS It was a fine afternoon in the latter part of September, when our small detachment, with Captain Ogilby in command, marched out of Camp Verde. There were two companies of soldiers, numbering about a hundred men in all, five or six officers, Mrs. Bailey and myself, and a couple of laundresses. I cannot say that we were gay. Mrs. Bailey had said good-bye to her father and mother and sister at Fort Whipple, and although she was an army girl, she did not seem to bear the parting very philosophically. Her young child, nine months old, was with her, and her husband, as stalwart and handsome an officer as ever wore shoulder-straps. But we were facing unknown dangers, in a far country, away from mother, father, sister and brother--a country infested with roving bands of the most cruel tribe ever known, who tortured before they killed. We could not even pretend to be gay. The travelling was very difficult and rough, and both men and animals were worn out by night. But we were now in the mountains, the air was cool and pleasant, and the nights so cold that we were glad to have a small stove in our tents to dress by in the mornings. The scenery was wild and grand; in fact, beyond all that I had ever dreamed of; more than that, it seemed so untrod, so fresh, somehow, and I do not suppose that even now, in the day of railroads and tourists, many people have had the view of the Tonto Basin which we had one day from the top of the Mogollon range. I remember thinking, as we alighted from our ambulances and stood looking over into the Basin, "Surely I have never seen anything to compare with this--but oh! would any sane human being voluntarily go through with what I have endured on this journey, in order to look upon this wonderful scene?" The roads had now become so difficult that our wagon-train could not move as fast as the lighter vehicles or the troops. Sometimes at a critical place in the road, where the ascent was not only dangerous, but doubtful, or there was, perhaps, a sharp turn, the ambulances waited to see the wagons safely over the pass. Each wagon had its six mules; each ambulance had also its quota of six. At the foot of one of these steep places, the wagons would halt, the teamsters would inspect the road, and calculate the possibilities of reaching the top; then, furiously cracking their whips, and pouring forth volley upon volley of oaths, they would start the team. Each mule got its share of dreadful curses. I had never heard or conceived of any oaths like those. They made my blood fairly curdle, and I am not speaking figuratively. The shivers ran up and down my back, and I half expected to see those teamsters struck down by the hand of the Almighty. For although the anathemas hurled at my innocent head, during the impressionable years of girlhood, by the pale and determined Congregational ministers with gold-bowed spectacles, who held forth in the meeting-house of my maternal ancestry (all honor to their sincerity), had taken little hold upon my mind, still, the vital drop of the Puritan was in my blood, and the fear of a personal God and His wrath still existed, away back in the hidden recesses of my heart. This swearing and lashing went on until the heavily-loaded prairie-schooner, swaying, swinging, and swerving to the edge of the cut, and back again to the perpendicular wall of the mountain, would finally reach the top, and pass on around the bend; then another would do the same. Each teamster had his own particular variety of oaths, each mule had a feminine name, and this brought the swearing down to a sort of personal basis. I remonstrated with Jack, but he said: teamsters always swore; "the mules wouldn't even stir to go up a hill, if they weren't sworn at like that." By the time we had crossed the great Mogollon mesa, I had become accustomed to those dreadful oaths, and learned to admire the skill, persistency and endurance shown by those rough teamsters. I actually got so far as to believe what Jack had told me about the swearing being necessary, for I saw impossible feats performed by the combination. When near camp, and over the difficult places, we drove on ahead and waited for the wagons to come in. It was sometimes late evening before tents could be pitched and supper cooked. And oh! to see the poor jaded animals when the wagons reached camp! I could forget my own discomfort and even hunger, when I looked at their sad faces. One night the teamsters reported that a six-mule team had rolled down the steep side of a mountain. I did not ask what became of the poor faithful mules; I do not know, to this day. In my pity and real distress over the fate of these patient brutes, I forgot to inquire what boxes were on the unfortunate wagon. We began to have some shooting. Lieutenant Bailey shot a young deer, and some wild turkeys, and we could not complain any more of the lack of fresh food. It did not surprise us to learn that ours was the first wagon-train to pass over Crook's Trail. For miles and miles the so-called road was nothing but a clearing, and we were pitched and jerked from side to side of the ambulance, as we struck large rocks or tree-stumps; in some steep places, logs were chained to the rear of the ambulance, to keep it from pitching forward onto the backs of the mules. At such places I got out and picked my way down the rocky declivity. We now began to hear of the Apache Indians, who were always out, in either large or small bands, doing their murderous work. One day a party of horseman tore past us at a gallop. Some of them raised their hats to us as they rushed past, and our officers recognized General Crook, but we could not, in the cloud of dust, distinguish officers from scouts. All wore the flannel shirt, handkerchief tied about the neck, and broad campaign hat. After supper that evening, the conversation turned upon Indians in general, and Apaches in particular. We camped always at a basin, or a tank, or a hole, or a spring, or in some canon, by a creek. Always from water to water we marched. Our camp that night was in the midst of a primeval grove of tall pine trees; verily, an untrodden land. We had a big camp-fire, and sat around it until very late. There were only five or six officers, and Mrs. Bailey and myself. The darkness and blackness of the place were uncanny. We all sat looking into the fire. Somebody said, "Injuns would not have such a big fire as that." "No; you bet they wouldn't," was the quick reply of one of the officers. Then followed a long pause; we all sat thinking, and gazing into the fire, which crackled and leaped into fitful blazes. "Our figures must make a mighty good outline against that fire," remarked one of officers, nonchalantly; "I dare say those stealthy sons of Satan know exactly where we are at this minute," he added. "Yes, you bet your life they do!" answered one of the younger men, lapsing into the frontiersman's language, from the force of his convictions. "Look behind you at those trees, Jack," said Major Worth. "Can you see anything? No! And if there were an Apache behind each one of them, we should never know it." We all turned and peered into the black darkness which surrounded us. Another pause followed; the silence was weird--only the cracking of the fire was heard, and the mournful soughing of the wind in the pines. Suddenly, a crash! We started to our feet and faced around. "A dead branch," said some one. Major Worth shrugged his shoulders, and turning to Jack, said, in a low tone, "D---- d if I don't believe I'm getting nervous," and saying "good night," he walked towards his tent. No element of doubt pervaded my mind as to my own state. The weird feeling of being up in those remote mountain passes, with but a handful of soldiers against the wary Apaches, the mysterious look of those black tree-trunks, upon which flickered the uncertain light of the camp-fire now dying, and from behind each one of which I imagined a red devil might be at that moment taking aim with his deadly arrow, all inspired me with fear such as I had never before known. In the cyclone which had overtaken our good ship in mid-Atlantic, where we lay tossing about at the mercy of the waves for thirty-six long hours, I had expected to yield my body to the dark and grewsome depths of the ocean. I had almost felt the cold arms of Death about me; but compared to the sickening dread of the cruel Apache, my fears then had been as naught. Facing the inevitable at sea, I had closed my eyes and said good-bye to Life. But in this mysterious darkness, every nerve, every sense, was keenly alive with terror. Several of that small party around the camp-fire have gone from amongst us, but I venture to say that, of the few who are left, not one will deny that he shared in the vague apprehension which seized upon us. Midnight found us still lingering around the dead ashes of the fire. After going to our tent, Jack saw that I was frightened. He said: "Don't worry, Martha, an Apache never was known to attack in the night," and after hearing many repetitions of this assertion, upon which I made him take his oath, I threw myself upon the bed. After our candle was out, I said: "When do they attack?" Jack who, with the soldiers' indifference to danger, was already half asleep, replied: "Just before daylight, usually, but do not worry, I say; there aren't any Injuns in this neighborhood. Why! Didn't you meet General Crook to-day? You ought to have some sense. If there'd been an Injun around here he would have cleaned him out. Now go to sleep and don't be foolish." But I was taking my first lessons in campaigning, and sleep was not so easy. Just before dawn, as I had fallen into a light slumber, the flaps of the tent burst open, and began shaking violently to and fro. I sprang to my feet, prepared for the worst. Jack started up: "What is it?" he cried. "It must have been the wind, I think, but it frightened me," I murmured. The Lieutenant fastened the tent-flaps together, and lay down to sleep again; but my heart beat fast, and I listened for every sound. The day gradually dawned, and with it my fears of the night were allayed. But ever after that, Jack's fatal answer, "Just before daylight," kept my eyes wide open for hours before the dawn. CHAPTER X. A PERILOUS ADVENTURE One fine afternoon, after a march of twenty-two miles over a rocky road, and finding our provisions low, Mr. Bailey and Jack went out to shoot wild turkeys. As they shouldered their guns and walked away. Captain Ogilby called out to them, "Do not go too far from camp." Jack returned at sundown with a pair of fine turkeys! but Bailey failed to come in. However, as they all knew him to be an experienced woodsman, no one showed much anxiety until darkness had settled over the camp. Then they began to signal, by discharging their rifles; the officers went out in various directions, giving "halloos," and firing at intervals, but there came no sound of the missing man. The camp was now thoroughly alarmed. This was too dangerous a place for a man to be wandering around in all night, and search-parties of soldiers were formed. Trees were burned, and the din of rifles, constantly discharged, added to the excitement. One party after another came in. They had scoured the country--and not a trace of Bailey. The young wife sat in her tent, soothing her little child; everybody except her, gave up hope; the time dragged on; our hearts grew heavy; the sky was alight with blazing trees. I went into Mrs. Bailey's tent. She was calm and altogether lovely, and said: "Charley can't get lost, and unless something has happened to him, he will come in." Ella Bailey was a brave young army woman; she was an inspiration to the entire camp. Finally, after hours of the keenest anxiety, a noise of gladsome shouts rang through the trees, and in came a party of men with the young officer on their shoulders. His friend Craig had been untiring in the search, and at last had heard a faint "halloo" in the distance, and one shot (the only cartridge poor Bailey had left). After going over almost impassable places, they finally found him, lying at the bottom of a ravine. In the black darkness of the evening, he had walked directly over the edge of the chasm and fallen to the bottom, dislocating his ankle. He was some miles from camp, and had used up all his ammunition except the one cartridge. He had tried in vain to walk or even crawl out of the ravine, but had finally been overcome by exhaustion and lay there helpless, in the wild vastnesses of the mountains. A desperate situation, indeed! Some time afterwards, he told me how he felt, when he realized how poor his chances were, when he saw he had only one cartridge left and found that he had scarce strength to answer a "halloo," should he hear one. But soldiers never like to talk much about such things. CHAPTER XI. CAMP APACHE By the fourth of October we had crossed the range, and began to see something which looked like roads. Our animals were fagged to a state of exhaustion, but the travelling was now much easier and there was good grazing, and after three more long day's marches, we arrived at Camp Apache. We were now at our journey's end, after two months' continuous travelling, and I felt reasonably sure of shelter and a fireside for the winter at least. I knew that my husband's promotion was expected, but the immediate present was filled with an interest so absorbing, that a consideration of the future was out of the question. At that time (it was the year of 1874) the officers' quarters at Camp Apache were log cabins, built near the edge of the deep canon through which the White Mountain River flows, before its junction with Black River. We were welcomed by the officers of the Fifth Cavalry, who were stationed there. It was altogether picturesque and attractive. In addition to the row of log cabins, there were enormous stables and Government buildings, and a cutler's store. We were entertained for a day or two, and then quarters were assigned to us. The second lieutenants had rather a poor choice, as the quarters were scarce. We were assigned a half of a log cabin, which gave us one room, a small square hall, and a bare shed, the latter detached from the house, to be used for a kitchen. The room on the other side of the hall was occupied by the Post Surgeon, who was temporarily absent. Our things were unloaded and brought to this cabin. I missed the barrel of china, and learned that it had been on the unfortunate wagon which rolled down the mountain-side. I had not attained that state of mind which came to me later in my army life. I cared then a good deal about my belongings, and the annoyance caused by the loss of our china was quite considerable. I knew there was none to be obtained at Camp Apache, as most of the merchandise came in by pack-train to that isolated place. Mrs. Dodge, of the Twenty-third Infantry, who was about to leave the post, heard of my predicament, and offered me some china plates and cups, which she thought not worth the trouble of packing (so she said), and I was glad to accept them, and thanked her, almost with tears in my eyes. Bowen nailed down our one carpet over the poor board floor (after having first sprinkled down a thick layer of clean straw, which he brought from the quartermaster stables). Two iron cots from the hospital were brought over, and two bed-sacks filled with fresh, sweet straw, were laid upon them; over these were laid our mattresses. Woven-wire springs were then unheard of in that country. We untied our folding chairs, built a fire on the hearth, captured an old broken-legged wash-stand and a round table from somewhere, and that was our living-room. A pine table was found for the small hall, which was to be our dinning-room, and some chairs with raw-hide seats were brought from the barracks, some shelves knocked up against one wall, to serve as sideboard. Now for the kitchen! A cooking-stove and various things were sent over from the Q. M. store-house, and Bowen (the wonder of it!) drove in nails, and hung up my Fort Russell tin-ware, and put up shelves and stood my pans in rows, and polished the stove, and went out and stole a table somewhere (Bowen was invaluable in that way), polished the zinc under the stove, and lo! and behold, my army kitchen! Bowen was indeed a treasure; he said he would like to cook for us, for ten dollars a month. We readily accepted this offer. There were no persons to be obtained, in these distant places, who could do the cooking in the families of officers, so it was customary to employ a soldier; and the soldier often displayed remarkable ability in the way of cooking, in some cases, in fact, more than in the way of soldiering. They liked the little addition to their pay, if they were of frugal mind; they had also their own quiet room to sleep in, and I often thought the family life, offering as it did a contrast to the bareness and desolation of the noisy barracks, appealed to the domestic instinct, so strong in some men's natures. At all events, it was always easy in those days to get a man from the company, and they sometimes remained for years with an officer's family; in some cases attending drills and roll-calls besides. Now came the unpacking of the chests and trunks. In our one diminutive room, and small hall, was no closet, there were no hooks on the bare walls, no place to hang things or lay things, and what to do I did not know. I was in despair; Jack came in, to find me sitting on the edge of a chest, which was half unpacked, the contents on the floor. I was very mournful, and he did not see why. "Oh! Jack! I've nowhere to put things!" "What things?" said this impossible man. "Why, all our things," said I, losing my temper; "can't you see them?'' "Put them back in the chests,--and get them out as you need them," said this son of Mars, and buckled on his sword. "Do the best you can, Martha, I have to go to the barracks; be back again soon." I looked around me, and tried to solve the problem. There was no bureau, nothing; not a nook or corner where a thing might be stowed. I gazed at the motley collection of bed-linen, dust-pans, silver bottles, boot jacks, saddles, old uniforms, full dress military hats, sword-belts, riding-boots, cut glass, window-shades, lamps, work-baskets, and books, and I gave it up in despair. You see, I was not an army girl, and I did not know how to manage. There was nothing to be done, however, but to follow Jack's advice, so I threw the boots, saddles and equipments under the bed, and laid the other things back in the chests, closed the lids and went out to take a look at the post. Towards evening, a soldier came for orders for beef, and I learned how to manage that. I was told that we bought our meats direct from the contractor; I had to state how much and what cuts I wished. Another soldier came to bring us milk, and I asked Jack who was the milkman, and he said, blessed if he knew; I learned, afterwards, that the soldiers roped some of the wild Texas cows that were kept in one of the Government corrals, and tied them securely to keep them from kicking; then milked them, and the milk was divided up among the officers' families, according to rank. We received about a pint every night. I declared it was not enough; but I soon discovered that however much education, position and money might count in civil life, rank seemed to be the one and only thing in the army, and Jack had not much of that just then. The question of getting settled comfortably still worried me, and after a day of two, I went over to see what Mrs. Bailey had done. To my surprise, I found her out playing tennis, her little boy asleep in the baby-carriage, which they had brought all the way from San Francisco, near the court. I joined the group, and afterwards asked her advice about the matter. She laughed kindly, and said: "Oh! you'll get used to it, and things will settle themselves. Of course it is troublesome, but you can have shelves and such things--you'll soon learn," and still smiling, she gave her ball a neat left-hander. I concluded that my New England bringing up had been too serious, and wondered if I had made a dreadful mistake in marrying into the army, or at least in following my husband to Arizona. I debated the question with myself from all sides, and decided then and there that young army wives should stay at home with their mothers and fathers, and not go into such wild and uncouth places. I thought my decision irrevocable. Before the two small deep windows in our room we hung some Turkey red cotton, Jack built in his spare moments a couch for me, and gradually our small quarters assumed an appearance of comfort. I turned my attention a little to social matters. We dined at Captain Montgomery's (the commanding officer's) house; his wife was a famous Washington beauty. He had more rank, consequently more rooms, than we had, and their quarters were very comfortable and attractive. There was much that was new and interesting at the post. The Indians who lived on this reservation were the White Mountain Apaches, a fierce and cruel tribe, whose depredations and atrocities had been carried on for years, in and around, and, indeed, far away from their mountain homes. But this tribe was now under surveillance of the Government, and guarded by a strong garrison of cavalry and infantry at Camp Apache. They were divided into bands, under Chiefs Pedro, Diablo, Patone and Cibiano; they came into the post twice a week to be counted, and to receive their rations of beef, sugar, beans, and other staples, which Uncle Sam's commissary officer issued to them. In the absence of other amusement, the officers' wives walked over to witness this rather solemn ceremony. At least, the serious expression on the faces of the Indians, as they received their rations, gave an air of solemnity to the proceeding. Large stakes were driven into the ground; at each stake, sat or stood the leader of a band; a sort of father to his people; then the rest of them stretched out in several long lines, young bucks and old ones, squaws and pappooses, the families together, about seventeen hundred souls in all. I used to walk up and down between the lines, with the other women, and the squaws looked at our clothes and chuckled, and made some of their inarticulate remarks to each other. The bucks looked admiringly at the white women, especially at the cavalry beauty, Mrs. Montgomery, although I thought that Chief Diablo cast a special eye at our young Mrs. Bailey, of the infantry. Diablo was a handsome fellow. I was especially impressed by his extraordinary good looks. This tribe was quiet at that time, only a few renegades escaping into the hills on their wild adventures: but I never felt any confidence in them and was, on the whole, rather afraid of them. The squaws were shy, and seldom came near the officers' quarters. Some of the younger girls were extremely pretty; they had delicate hands, and small feet encased in well-shaped moccasins. They wore short skirts made of stripped bark, which hung gracefully about their bare knees and supple limbs, and usually a sort of low-necked camisa, made neatly of coarse, unbleached muslin, with a band around the neck and arms, and, in cold weather a pretty blanket was wrapped around their shoulders and fastened at the breast in front. In summer the blanket was replaced by a square of bright calico. Their coarse, black hair hung in long braids in front over each shoulder, and nearly all of them wore an even bang or fringe over the forehead. Of course hats were unheard of. The Apaches, both men and women, had not then departed from the customs of their ancestors, and still retained the extraordinary beauty and picturesqueness of their aboriginal dress. They wore sometimes a fine buckskin upper garment, and if of high standing in the tribe, necklaces of elks teeth. The young lieutenants sometimes tried to make up to the prettiest ones, and offered them trinkets, pretty boxes of soap, beads, and small mirrors (so dear to the heart of the Indian girl), but the young maids were coy enough; it seemed to me they cared more for men of their own race. Once or twice, I saw older squaws with horribly disfigured faces. I supposed it was the result of some ravaging disease, but I learned that it was the custom of this tribe, to cut off the noses of those women who were unfaithful to their lords. Poor creatures, they had my pity, for they were only children of Nature, after all, living close to the earth, close to the pulse of their mother. But this sort of punishment seemed to be the expression of the cruel and revengeful nature of the Apache. CHAPTER XII. LIFE AMONGST THE APACHES Bowen proved to be a fairly good cook, and I ventured to ask people to dinner in our little hall dining-room, a veritable box of a place. One day, feeling particularly ambitious to have my dinner a success, I made a bold attempt at oyster patties. With the confidence of youth and inexperience, I made the pastry, and it was a success; I took a can of Baltimore oysters, and did them up in a fashion that astonished myself, and when, after the soup, each guest was served with a hot oyster patty, one of the cavalry officers fairly gasped. "Oyster patty, if I'm alive! Where on earth--Bless my stars! And this at Camp Apache!" "And by Holy Jerusalem! they are good, too," claimed Captain Reilly, and turning to Bowen, he said: "Bowen, did you make these?" Bowen straightened himself up to his six foot two, clapped his heels together, and came to "attention," looked straight to the front, and replied: "Yes, sir." I thought I heard Captain Reilly say in an undertone to his neighbor, "The hell he did," but I was not sure. At that season, we got excellent wild turkeys there, and good Southdown mutton, and one could not complain of such living. But I could never get accustomed to the wretched small space of one room and a hall; for the kitchen, being detached, could scarcely be counted in. I had been born and brought up in a spacious house, with plenty of bedrooms, closets, and an immense old-time garret. The forlorn makeshifts for closets, and the absence of all conveniences, annoyed me and added much to the difficulties of my situation. Added to this, I soon discovered that my husband had a penchant for buying and collecting things which seemed utterly worthless to me, and only added to the number of articles to be handled and packed away. I begged him to refrain, and to remember that he was married, and that we had not the money to spend in such ways. He really did try to improve, and denied himself the taking of many an alluring share in raffles for old saddles, pistols, guns, and cow-boy's stuff, which were always being held at the sutler's store. But an auction of condemned hospital stores was too much for him, and he came in triumphantly one day, bringing a box of antiquated dentist's instruments in his hand. "Good gracious!" I cried, "what can you ever do with those forceps?" "Oh! they are splendid," he said, "and they will come in mighty handy some time." I saw that he loved tools and instruments, and I reflected, why not? There are lots of things I have a passion for, and love, just as he loves those things and I shall never say any more about it. "Only," I added, aloud, "do not expect me to pack up such trash when we come to move; you will have to look out for it yourself." So with that spiteful remark from me, the episode of the forceps was ended, for the time at least. As the winter came on, the isolation of the place had a rather depressing effect upon us all. The officers were engaged in their various duties: drill, courts-martial, instruction, and other military occupations. They found some diversion at "the store," where the ranchmen assembled and told frontier stories and played exciting games of poker. Jack's duties as commissary officer kept him much away from me, and I was very lonely. The mail was brought in twice a week by a soldier on horseback. When he failed to come in at the usual time, much anxiety was manifested, and I learned that only a short time before, one of the mail-carriers had been killed by Indians and the mail destroyed. I did not wonder that on mail-day everybody came out in front of the quarters and asked: "Is the mail-carrier in?" And nothing much was done or thought of on that day, until we saw him come jogging in, the mail-bag tied behind his saddle. Our letters were from two to three weeks old. The eastern mail came via Santa Fe to the terminus of the railroad, and then by stage; for in 1874, the railroads did not extend very far into the Southwest. At a certain point on the old New Mexico road, our man met the San Carlos carrier, and received the mail for Apache. "I do not understand," I said, "how any soldier can be found to take such a dangerous detail." "Why so?" said Jack. "They like it." "I should think that when they got into those canons and narrow defiles, they would think of the horrible fate of their predecessor," said I. "Perhaps they do," he answered; "but a soldier is always glad to get a detail that gives him a change from the routine of post life." I was getting to learn about the indomitable pluck of our soldiers. They did not seem to be afraid of anything. At Camp Apache my opinion of the American soldier was formed, and it has never changed. In the long march across the Territory, they had cared for my wants and performed uncomplainingly for me services usually rendered by women. Those were before the days of lineal promotion. Officers remained with their regiments for many years. A feeling of regimental prestige held officers and men together. I began to share that feeling. I knew the names of the men in the company, and not one but was ready to do a service for the "Lieutenant's wife." "K" had long been a bachelor company; and now a young woman had joined it. I was a person to be pampered and cared for, and they knew besides that I was not long in the army. During that winter I received many a wild turkey and other nice things for the table, from the men of the company. I learned to know and to thoroughly respect the enlisted man of the American army. And now into the varied kaleidoscope of my army life stepped the Indian Agent. And of all unkempt, unshorn, disagreeable-looking personages who had ever stepped foot into our quarters, this was the worst. "Heaven save us from a Government which appoints such men as that to watch over and deal with Indians," cried I, as he left the house. "Is it possible that his position here demands social recognition?" I added. "Hush!" said the second lieutenant of K company. "It's the Interior Department that appoints the Indian Agents, and besides," he added, "it's not good taste on your part, Martha, to abuse the Government which gives us our bread and butter." "Well, you can say what you like, and preach policy all you wish, no Government on earth can compel me to associate with such men as those!" With that assertion, I left the room, to prevent farther argument. And I will here add that in my experience on the frontier, which extended over a long period, it was never my good fortune to meet with an Indian Agent who impressed me as being the right sort of a man to deal with those children of nature, for Indians are like children, and their intuitions are keen. They know and appreciate honesty and fair dealing, and they know a gentleman when they meet one. The winter came on apace, but the weather was mild and pleasant. One day some officers came in and said we must go over to the "Ravine" that evening, where the Indians were going to have a rare sort of a dance. There was no one to say to me: "Do not go," and, as we welcomed any little excitement which would relieve the monotony of our lives, we cast aside all doubts of the advisability of my going. So, after dinner, we joined the others, and sallied forth into the darkness of an Arizona night. We crossed the large parade-ground, and picked our way over a rough and pathless country, lighted only by the stars above. Arriving at the edge of the ravine, what a scene was before us! We looked down into a natural amphitheatre, in which blazed great fires; hordes of wild Apaches darted about, while others sat on logs beating their tomtoms. I was afraid, and held back, but the rest of the party descended into the ravine, and, leaning on a good strong arm, I followed. We all sat down on the great trunk of a fallen tree, and soon the dancers came into the arena. They were entirely naked, except for the loin-cloth; their bodies were painted, and from their elbows and knees stood out bunches of feathers, giving them the appearance of huge flying creatures; jingling things were attached to their necks and arms. Upon their heads were large frames, made to resemble the branching horns of an elk, and as they danced, and bowed their heads, the horns lent them the appearance of some unknown animal, and added greatly to their height. Their feathers waved, their jingles shook, and their painted bodies twisted and turned in the light of the great fire, which roared and leaped on high. At one moment they were birds, at another animals, at the next they were demons. The noise of the tomtoms and the harsh shouts of the Indians grew wilder and wilder. It was weird and terrifying. Then came a pause; the arena was cleared, and with much solemnity two wicked-looking creatures came out and performed a sort of shadow dance, brandishing knives as they glided through the intricate figures. It was a fascinating but unearthly scene, and the setting completed the illusion. Fright deprived me of the power of thought, but in a sort of subconscious way I felt that Orpheus must have witnessed just such mad revels when he went down into Pluto's regions. Suddenly the shouts became war whoops, the demons brandished their knives madly, and nodded their branching horns; the tomtoms were beaten with a dreadful din, and terror seized my heart. What if they be treacherous, and had lured our small party down into this ravine for an ambush! The thing could well be, I thought. I saw uneasiness in the faces of the other women, and by mutual consent we got up and slowly took our departure. I barely had strength to climb up the steep side of the hollow. I was thankful to escape from its horrors. Scarce three months after that some of the same band of Indians fired into the garrison and fled to the mountains. I remarked to Jack, that I thought we were very imprudent to go to see that dance, and he said he supposed we were. But I had never regarded life in such a light way as he seemed to. Women usually like to talk over their trials and their wonderful adventures, and that is why I am writing this, I suppose. Men simply will not talk about such things. The cavalry beauty seemed to look at this frontier life philosophically--what she really thought about it, I never knew. Mrs. Bailey was so much occupied by the care of her young child and various out-door amusements, that she did not, apparently, think much about things that happened around us. At all events, she never seemed inclined to talk about them. There was no one else to talk to; the soil was strange, and the atmosphere a foreign one to me; life did not seem to be taken seriously out there, as it was back in New England, where they always loved to sit down and talk things over. I was downright lonesome for my mother and sisters. I could not go out very much at that time, so I occupied myself a good deal with needle-work. One evening we heard firing across the canon. Jack caught up his sword, buckling on his belt as he went out. "Injuns fighting on the other side of the river," some soldier reported. Finding that it did not concern us, Jack said, "Come out into the back yard, Martha, and look over the stockade, and I think you can see across the river." So I hurried out to the stockade, but Jack, seeing that I was not tall enough, picked up an empty box that stood under the window of the room belonging to the Doctor, when, thud! fell something out onto the ground, and rolled away. I started involuntarily. It was dark in the yard. I stood stock still. "What was that?" I whispered. "Nothing but an old Edam cheese," said this true-hearted soldier of mine. I knew it was not a cheese, but said no more. I stood up on the box, watched the firing like a man, and went quietly back into the quarters. After retiring, I said, "You might just a swell tell me now, you will have to sooner or later, what was in the box--it had a dreadful sound, as it rolled away on the ground." "Well," said he, "if you must know, it was an Injun's head that the Doctor had saved, to take to Washington with him. It had a sort of a malformed skull or jaw-bone or something. But he left it behind--I guess it got a leetle to old for him to carry," he laughed. "Somebody told me there was a head in the yard, but I forgot all about it. Lucky thing you didn't see it, wasn't it? I suppose you'd been scared--well, I must tell the fatigue party to-morrow to take it away. Now don't let me forget it," and this soldier of many battles fell into the peaceful slumber which comes to those who know not fear. The next day I overheard him telling Major Worth what had happened, and adding that he would roast that Doctor if he ever came back. I was seeing the rugged side of life, indeed, and getting accustomed to shocks. Now the cavalry beauty gave a dinner. It was lovely; but in the midst of it, we perceived a sort of confusion of moccasined footsteps outside the dining-room. My nerves were, by this time, always on the alert. I glanced through the large door opening out into the hall, and saw a group of Indian scouts; they laid a coffee-sack down by the corner fire-place, near the front door. The commanding officer left the table hastily; the portiere was drawn. I had heard tales of atrocious cruelties committed by a band of Indians who had escaped from the reservation and were ravaging the country around. I had heard how they maimed poor sheep and cut off the legs of cattle at the first joint, leaving them to die; how they tortured women, and burned their husbands and children before their eyes; I had heard also that the Indian scouts were out after them, with orders to bring them in, dead or alive. The next day I learned that the ringleader's head was in the bag that I had seen, and that the others had surrendered and returned. The scouts were Apaches in the pay of the Government, and I always heard that, as long as they were serving as scouts, they showed themselves loyal and would hunt down their nearest relative. Major Worth got tired of the monotony of a bachelor's life at Camp Apache and decided to give a dance in his quarters, and invite the chiefs. I think the other officers did not wholly approve of it, although they felt friendly enough towards them, as long as they were not causing disturbances. But to meet the savage Apache on a basis of social equality, in an officer's quarters, and to dance in a quadrille with him! Well, the limit of all things had been reached! However, Major Worth, who was actually suffering from the ennui of frontier life in winter, and in time of peace, determined to carry out his project, so he had his quarters, which were quite spacious, cleared and decorated with evergreen boughs. From his company, he secured some men who could play the banjo and guitar, and all the officers and their wives, and the chiefs with their harems, came to this novel fete. A quadrille was formed, in which the chiefs danced opposite the officers. The squaws sat around, as they were too shy to dance. These chiefs were painted, and wore only their necklaces and the customary loin-cloth, throwing their blankets about their shoulders when they had finished dancing. I noticed again Chief Diablo's great good looks. Conversation was carried on principally by signs and nods, and through the interpreter (a white man named Cooley). Besides, the officers had picked up many short phrases of the harsh and gutteral Apache tongue. Diablo was charmed with the young, handsome wife of one of the officers, and asked her husband how many ponies he would take for her, and Pedro asked Major Worth, if all those white squaws belonged to him. The party passed off pleasantly enough, and was not especially subversive to discipline, although I believe it was not repeated. Afterwards, long afterwards, when we were stationed at David's Island, New York Harbor, and Major Worth was no longer a bachelor, but a dignified married man and had gained his star in the Spanish War, we used to meet occasionally down by the barge office or taking a Fenster-promenade on Broadway, and we would always stand awhile and chat over the old days at Camp Apache in '74. Never mind how pressing our mutual engagements were, we could never forego the pleasure of talking over those wild days and contrasting them with our then present surroundings. "Shall you ever forget my party?" he said, the last time we met. CHAPTER XIII. A NEW RECRUIT In January our little boy arrived, to share our fate and to gladden our hearts. As he was the first child born to an officer's family in Camp Apache, there was the greatest excitement. All the sheep-ranchers and cattlemen for miles around came into the post. The beneficent canteen, with its soldiers' and officers' clubrooms did not exist then. So they all gathered at the sutler's store, to celebrate events with a round of drinks. They wanted to shake hands with and congratulate the new father, after their fashion, upon the advent of the blond-haired baby. Their great hearts went out to him, and they vied with each other in doing the handsome thing by him, in a manner according to their lights, and their ideas of wishing well to a man; a manner, sometimes, alas! disastrous in its results to the man! However, by this time, I was getting used to all sides of frontier life. I had no time to be lonely now, for I had no nurse, and the only person who was able to render me service was a laundress of the Fifth Cavalry, who came for about two hours each day, to give the baby his bath and to arrange things about the bed. I begged her to stay with me, but, of course, I knew it was impossible. So here I was, inexperienced and helpless, alone in bed, with an infant a few days old. Dr. Loring, our excellent Post Surgeon, was both kind and skillful, but he was in poor health and expecting each day to be ordered to another station. My husband was obliged to be at the Commissary Office all day, issuing rations to troops and scouts, and attending to the duties of his position. But, realizing in a measure the utter helplessness of my situation, he sent a soldier up to lead a wire cord through the thick wall at the head of my bed and out through the small yard into the kitchen. To this they attached a big cow-bell, so, by making some considerable effort to reach up and pull this wire, I could summon Bowen, that is, if Bowen happened to be there. But Bowen seemed always to be out at drill or over at the company quarters, and frequently my bell brought no response. When he did come, however, he was just as kind and just as awkward as it was possible for a great big six-foot farmer-soldier to be. But I grew weaker and weaker with trying to be strong, and one day when Jack came in and found both the baby and myself crying, he said, man-like, "What's the matter?" I said, "I must have some one to take care of me, or we shall both die." He seemed to realize that the situation was desperate, and mounted men were sent out immediately in all directions to find a woman. At last, a Mexican girl was found in a wood-chopper's camp, and was brought to me. She was quite young and very ignorant and stupid, and spoke nothing but a sort of Mexican "lingo," and did not understand a word of English. But I felt that my life was saved; and Bowen fixed up a place on the couch for her to sleep, and Jack went over to the unoccupied room on the other side of the cabin and took possession of the absent doctor's bed. I begged Jack to hunt up a Spanish dictionary, and fortunately one was found at the sutler's store, which, doubtless the sutler or his predecessor had brought into the country years before. The girl did not know anything. I do not think she had ever been inside a casa before. She had washed herself in mountain streams, and did not know what basins and sponges were for. So it was of no use to point to the objects I wanted. I propped myself up in bed and studied the dictionary, and, having some idea of the pronunciation of Latin languages, I essayed to call for warm water and various other necessary articles needed around a sick bed. Sometimes I succeeded in getting an idea through her impervious brain, but more often she would stand dazed and immovable and I would let the dictionary drop from my tired hands and fall back upon the pillow in a sweat of exhaustion. Then Bowen would be called in, and with the help of some perfunctory language and gestures on his part, this silent creature of the mountains would seem to wake up and try to understand. And so I worried through those dreadful days--and the nights! Ah! we had better not describe them. The poor wild thing slept the sleep of death and could not hear my loudest calls nor desperate shouts. So Jack attached a cord to her pillow, and I would tug and tug at that and pull the pillow from under her head. It was of no avail. She slept peacefully on, and it seemed to me, as I lay there staring at her, that not even Gabriel's trump would ever arouse her. In desperation I would creep out of bed and wait upon myself and then confess to Jack and the Doctor next day. Well, we had to let the creature go, for she was of no use, and the Spanish dictionary was laid aside. I struggled along, fighting against odds; how I ever got well at all is a wonder, when I think of all the sanitary precautions taken now-a-days with young mothers and babies. The Doctor was ordered away and another one came. I had no advice or help from any one. Calomel or quinine are the only medicines I remember taking myself or giving to my child. But to go back a little. The seventh day after the birth of the baby, a delegation of several squaws, wives of chiefs, came to pay me a formal visit. They brought me some finely woven baskets, and a beautiful pappoose-basket or cradle, such as they carry their own babies in. This was made of the lightest wood, and covered with the finest skin of fawn, tanned with birch bark by their own hands, and embroidered in blue beads; it was their best work. I admired it, and tried to express to them my thanks. These squaws took my baby (he was lying beside me on the bed), then, cooing and chuckling, they looked about the room, until they found a small pillow, which they laid into the basket-cradle, then put my baby in, drew the flaps together, and laced him into it; then stood it up, and laid it down, and laughed again in their gentle manner, and finally soothed him to sleep. I was quite touched by the friendliness of it all. They laid the cradle on the table and departed. Jack went out to bring Major Worth in, to see the pretty sight, and as the two entered the room, Jack pointed to the pappoose-basket. Major Worth tip-toed forward, and gazed into the cradle; he did not speak for some time; then, in his inimitable way, and half under his breath, he said, slowly, "Well, I'll be d--d!" This was all, but when he turned towards the bedside, and came and shook my hand, his eyes shone with a gentle and tender look. And so was the new recruit introduced to the Captain of Company K. And now there must be a bath-tub for the baby. The sutler rummaged his entire place, to find something that might do. At last, he sent me a freshly scoured tub, that looked as if it might, at no very remote date, have contained salt mackerel marked "A One." So then, every morning at nine o'clock, our little half-window was black with the heads of the curious squaws and bucks, trying to get a glimpse of the fair baby's bath. A wonderful performance, it appeared to them. Once a week this room, which was now a nursery combined with bedroom and living-room, was overhauled by the stalwart Bowen. The baby was put to sleep and laced securely into the pappoose-basket. He was then carried into the kitchen, laid on the dresser, and I sat by with a book or needle-work watching him, until Bowen had finished the room. On one of these occasions, I noticed a ledger lying upon one of the shelves. I looked into it, and imagine my astonishment, when I read: "Aunt Hepsey's Muffins," "Sarah's Indian Pudding," and on another page, "Hasty's Lemon Tarts," "Aunt Susan's Method of Cooking a Leg of Mutton," and "Josie Well's Pressed Calf Liver." Here were my own, my very own family recipes, copied into Bowen's ledger, in large illiterate characters; and on the fly-leaf, "Charles Bowen's Receipt Book." I burst into a good hearty laugh, almost the first one I had enjoyed since I arrived at Camp Apache. The long-expected promotion to a first lieutenancy came at about this time. Jack was assigned to a company which was stationed at Camp MacDowell, but his departure for the new post was delayed until the spring should be more advanced and I should be able to undertake the long, rough trip with our young child. The second week in April, my baby just nine weeks old, we began to pack up. I had gained a little in experience, to be sure, but I had lost my health and strength. I knew nothing of the care of a young infant, and depended entirely upon the advice of the Post Surgeon, who happened at that time to be a young man, much better versed in the sawing off of soldiers' legs than in the treatment of young mothers and babies. The packing up was done under difficulties, and with much help from our faithful Bowen. It was arranged for Mrs. Bailey, who was to spend the summer with her parents at Fort Whipple, to make the trip at the same time, as our road to Camp MacDowell took us through Fort Whipple. There were provided two ambulances with six mules each, two baggage-wagons, an escort of six calvarymen fully armed, and a guide. Lieutenant Bailey was to accompany his wife on the trip. I was genuinely sorry to part with Major Worth, but in the excitement and fatigue of breaking up our home, I had little time to think of my feelings. My young child absorbed all my time. Alas! for the ignorance of young women, thrust by circumstances into such a situation! I had miscalculated my strength, for I had never known illness in my life, and there was no one to tell me any better. I reckoned upon my superbly healthy nature to bring me through. In fact, I did not think much about it; I simply got ready and went, as soldiers do. I heard them say that we were not to cross the Mogollon range, but were to go to the north of it, ford the Colorado Chiquito at Sunset Crossing, and so on to Camp Verde and Whipple Barracks by the Stoneman's Lake road. It sounded poetic and pretty. Colorado Chiquito, Sunset Crossing, and Stoneman's Lake road! I thought to myself, they were prettier than any of the names I had heard in Arizona. CHAPTER XIV. A MEMORABLE JOURNEY How broken plunged the steep descent! How barren! Desolate and rent By earthquake shock, the land lay dead, Like some proud king in old-time slain. An ugly skeleton, it gleamed In burning sands. The fiery rain Of fierce volcanoes here had sown Its ashes. Burnt and black and seamed With thunder-strokes and strewn With cinders. Yea, so overthrown, That wilder men than we had said, On seeing this, with gathered breath, "We come on the confines of death!"--JOAQUIN MILLER. Six good cavalrymen galloped along by our side, on the morning of April 24th, 1875, as with two ambulances, two army wagons, and a Mexican guide, we drove out of Camp Apache at a brisk trot. The drivers were all armed, and spare rifles hung inside the ambulances. I wore a small derringer, with a narrow belt filled with cartridges. An incongruous sight, methinks now, it must have been. A young mother, pale and thin, a child of scarce three months in her arms, and a pistol belt around her waist! I scarcely looked back at Camp Apache. We had a long day's march before us, and we looked ahead. Towards night we made camp at Cooley's ranch, and slept inside, on the floor. Cooley was interpreter and scout, and although he was a white man, he had married a young Indian girl, the daughter of one of the chiefs and was known as a squaw man. There seemed to be two Indian girls at his ranch; they were both tidy and good-looking, and they prepared us a most appetizing supper. The ranch had spaces for windows, covered with thin unbleached muslin (or manta, as it is always called out there), glass windows being then too great a luxury in that remote place. There were some partitions inside the ranch, but no doors; and, of course, no floors except adobe. Several half-breed children, nearly naked, stood and gazed at us as we prepared for rest. This was interesting and picturesque from many standpoints perhaps, but it did not tend to make me sleepy. I lay gazing into the fire which was smouldering in the corner, and finally I said, in a whisper, "Jack, which girl do you think is Cooley's wife?" "I don't know," answered this cross and tired man; and then added, "both of 'em, I guess." Now this was too awful, but I knew he did not intend for me to ask any more questions. I had a difficult time, in those days, reconciling what I saw with what I had been taught was right, and I had to sort over my ideas and deep-rooted prejudices a good many times. The two pretty squaws prepared a nice breakfast for us, and we set out, quite refreshed, to travel over the malapais (as the great lava-beds in that part of the country are called). There was no trace of a road. A few hours of this grinding and crunching over crushed lava wearied us all, and the animals found it hard pulling, although the country was level. We crossed Silver Creek without difficulty, and arrived at Stinson's ranch, after traveling twenty-five miles, mostly malapais. Do not for a moment think of these ranches as farms. Some of them were deserted sheep ranches, and had only adobe walls standing in ruins. But the camp must have a name, and on the old maps of Arizona these names are still to be found. Of course, on the new railroad maps, they are absent. They were generally near a spring or a creek, consequently were chosen as camps. Mrs. Bailey had her year-old boy, Howard, with her. We began to experience the utmost inconvenience from the lack of warm water and other things so necessary to the health and comfort of children. But we tried to make light of it all, and the two Lieutenants tried, in a man's way, to help us out. We declared we must have some clean towels for the next day, so we tried to rinse out, in the cold, hard water of the well, those which we had with us, and, as it was now nightfall and there was no fire inside this apparently deserted ranch, the two Lieutenants stood and held the wet towels before the camp-fire until they were dry. Mrs. Bailey and I, too tired to move, sat and watched them and had each our own thoughts. She was an army girl and perhaps had seen such things before, but it was a situation that did not seem quite in keeping with my ideas of the fitness of things in general, and with the uniform in particular. The uniform, associated in my mind with brilliant functions, guard-mount, parades and full-dress weddings--the uniform, in fact, that I adored. As I sat, gazing at them, they both turned around, and, realizing how almost ludicrous they looked, they began to laugh. Whereupon we all four laughed and Jack said: "Nice work for United States officers! hey, Bailey?" "It might be worse," sighed the handsome, blond-haired Bailey. Thirty miles the next day, over a good road, brought us to Walker's ranch, on the site of old Camp Supply. This ranch was habitable in a way, and the owner said we might use the bedrooms; but the wild-cats about the place were so numerous and so troublesome in the night, that we could not sleep. I have mentioned the absence of windows in these ranches; we were now to experience the great inconvenience resulting therefrom, for the low open spaces furnished great opportunity for the cats. In at one opening, and out at another they flew, first across the Bailey's bed, then over ours. The dogs caught the spirit of the chase, and added their noise to that of the cats. Both babies began to cry, and then up got Bailey and threw his heavy campaign boots at the cats, with some fitting remarks. A momentary silence reigned, and we tried again to sleep. Back came the cats, and then came Jack's turn with boots and travelling satchels. It was all of no avail, and we resigned ourselves. Cruelly tired, here we were, we two women, compelled to sit on hard boxes or the edge of a bed, to quiet our poor babies, all through that night, at that old sheep-ranch. Like the wretched emigrant, differing only from her inasmuch as she, never having known comfort perhaps, cannot realize her misery. The two Lieutenants slipped on their blouses, and sat looking helplessly at us, waging war on the cats at intervals. And so the dawn found us, our nerves at a tension, and our strength gone--a poor preparation for the trying day which was to follow. We were able to buy a couple of sheep there, to take with us for supplies, and some antelope meat. We could not indulge, in foolish scruples, but I tried not to look when they tied the live sheep and threw them into one of the wagons. Quite early in the day, we met a man who said he had been fired upon by some Indians at Sanford's Pass. We thought perhaps he had been scared by some stray shot, and we did not pay much attention to his story. Soon after, however, we passed a sort of old adobe ruin, out of which crept two bare-headed Mexicans, so badly frightened that their dark faces were pallid; their hair seemed standing on end, and they looked stark mad with fear. They talked wildly to the guide, and gesticulated, pointing in the direction of the Pass. They had been fired at, and their ponies taken by some roving Apaches. They had been in hiding for over a day, and were hungry and miserable. We gave them food and drink. They implored us, by the Holy Virgin, not to go through the Pass. What was to be done? The officers took counsel; the men looked to their arms. It was decided to go through. Jack examined his revolver, and saw that my pistol was loaded. I was instructed minutely what to do, in case we were attacked. For miles we strained our eyes, looking in the direction whence these men had come. At last, in mid-afternoon, we approached the Pass, a narrow defile winding down between high hills from this table-land to the plain below. To say that we feared an ambush, would not perhaps convey a very clear idea of how I felt on entering the Pass. There was not a word spoken. I obeyed orders, and lay down in the bottom of the ambulance; I took my derringer out of the holster and cocked it. I looked at my little boy lying helpless there beside me, and at his delicate temples, lined with thin blue veins, and wondered if I could follow out the instructions I had received: for Jack had said, after the decision was made, to go through the Pass, "Now, Mattie, I don't think for a minute that there are any Injuns in that Pass, and you must not be afraid. We have got to go through it any way; but"--he hesitated,--"we may be mistaken; there may be a few of them in there, and they'll have a mighty good chance to get in a shot or two. And now listen: if I'm hit, you'll know what to do. You have your derringer; and when you see that there is no help for it, if they get away with the whole outfit, why, there's only one thing to be done. Don't let them get the baby, for they will carry you both off and--well, you know the squaws are much more cruel than the bucks. Don't let them get either of you alive. Now"--to the driver--"go on." Jack was a man of few words, and seldom spoke much in times like that. So I lay very quiet in the bottom of the ambulance. I realized that we were in great danger. My thoughts flew back to the East, and I saw, as in a flash, my father and mother, sisters and brother; I think I tried to say a short prayer for them, and that they might never know the worst. I fixed my eyes upon my husband's face. There he sat, rifle in hand, his features motionless, his eyes keenly watching out from one side of the ambulance, while a stalwart cavalry-man, carbine in hand, watched the other side of the narrow defile. The minutes seemed like hours. The driver kept his animals steady, and we rattled along. At last, as I perceived the steep slope of the road, I looked out, and saw that the Pass was widening out, and we must be nearing the end of it. "Keep still," said Jack, without moving a feature. My heart seemed then to stop beating, and I dared not move again, until I heard him say, "Thank God, we're out of it! Get up, Mattie! See the river yonder? We'll cross that to-night, and then we'll be out of their God d----d country!" This was Jack's way of working off his excitement, and I did not mind it. I knew he was not afraid of Apaches for himself, but for his wife and child. And if I had been a man, I should have said just as much and perhaps more. We were now down in a flat country, and low alkali plains lay between us and the river. My nerves gradually recovered from the tension in which they had been held; the driver stopped his team for a moment, the other ambulance drove up alongside of us, and Ella Bailey and I looked at each other; we did not talk any, but I believe we cried just a little. Then Mr. Bailey and Jack (thinking we were giving way, I suppose) pulled out their big flasks, and we had to take a cup of good whiskey, weakened up with a little water from our canteens, which had been filled at Walker's ranch in the morning. Great Heavens! I thought, was it this morning that we left Walker's ranch, or was it a year ago? So much had I lived through in a few hours. CHAPTER XV. FORDING THE LITTLE COLORADO At a bend in the road the Mexican guide galloped up near the ambulance, and pointing off to the westward with a graceful gesture, said: "Colorado Chiquito! Colorado Chiquito!" And, sure enough, there in the afternoon sun lay the narrow winding river, its surface as smooth as glass, and its banks as if covered with snow. We drove straight for the ford, known as Sunset Crossing. The guide was sure he knew the place. But the river was high, and I could not see how anybody could cross it without a boat. The Mexican rode his pony in once or twice; shook his head, and said in Spanish, "there was much quicksand. The old ford had changed much since he saw it." He galloped excitedly to and fro, along the bank of the river, always returning to the same place, and declaring "it was the ford; there was no other; he knew it well." But the wagons not having yet arrived, it was decided not to attempt crossing until morning, when we could get a fresh start. The sun was gradually sinking in the west, but the heat down in that alkali river-bottom even at that early season of the year was most uncomfortable. I was worn out with fright and fatigue; my poor child cried piteously and incessantly. Nothing was of any avail to soothe him. After the tents were pitched and the camp-fires made, some warm water was brought, and I tried to wash away some of the dust from him, but the alkali water only irritated his delicate skin, and his head, where it had lain on my arm, was inflamed by the constant rubbing. It began to break out in ugly blisters; I was in despair. We were about as wretchedly off as two human beings could be, and live, it seemed to me. The disappointment at not getting across the river, combined with the fear that the Indians were still in the neighborhood, added to my nervousness and produced an exhaustion which, under other circumstances, would have meant collapse. The mournful and demoniacal cries of the coyotes filled the night; they seemed to come close to the tent, and their number seemed to be legion. I lay with eyes wide open, watching for the day to come, and resolving each minute that if I ever escaped alive from that lonely river-bottom with its burning alkali, and its millions of howling coyotes, I would never, never risk being placed in such a situation again. At dawn everybody got up and dressed. I looked in my small hand-mirror, and it seemed to me my hair had turned a greyish color, and while it was not exactly white, the warm chestnut tinge never came back into it, after that day and night of terror. My eyes looked back at me large and hollow from the small glass, and I was in that state when it is easy to imagine the look of Death in one's own face. I think sometimes it comes, after we have thought ourselves near the borders. And I surely had been close to them the day before. ***** If perchance any of my readers have followed this narrative so far, and there be among them possibly any men, young or old, I would say to such ones: "Desist!" For what I am going to tell about in this chapter, and possibly another, concerns nobody but women, and my story will now, for awhile, not concern itself with the Eighth Foot, nor the army, nor the War Department, nor the Interior Department, nor the strategic value of Sunset Crossing, which may now be a railroad station, for all I know. It is simply a story of my journey from the far bank of the Little Colorado to Fort Whipple, and then on, by a change of orders, over mountains and valleys, cactus plains and desert lands, to the banks of the Great Colorado. My attitude towards the places I travelled through was naturally influenced by the fact that I had a young baby in my arms the entire way, and that I was not able to endure hardship at that time. For usually, be it remembered, at that period of a child's life, both mother and infant are not out of the hands of the doctor and trained nurse, to say nothing of the assistance so gladly rendered by those near and dear. The morning of the 28th of April dawned shortly after midnight, as mornings in Arizona generally do at that season, and after a hasty camp breakfast, and a good deal of reconnoitering on the part of the officers, who did not seem to be exactly satisfied about the Mexican's knowledge of the ford, they told him to push his pony in, and cross if he could. He managed to pick his way across and back, after a good deal of floundering, and we decided to try the ford. First they hitched up ten mules to one of the heavily loaded baggage-wagons, the teamster cracked his whip, and in they went. But the quicksand frightened the leaders, and they lost their courage. Now when a mule loses courage, in the water, he puts his head down and is done for. The leaders disappeared entirely, then the next two and finally the whole ten of them were gone, irrevocably, as I thought. But like a flash, the officers shouted: "Cut away those mules! Jump in there!" and amid other expletives the men plunged in, and feeling around under the water cut the poor animals loose and they began to crawl out on the other bank. I drew a long breath, for I thought the ten mules were drowned. The guide picked his way over again to the other side and caught them up, and then I began to wonder how on earth we should ever get across. There lay the heavy army wagon, deep mired in the middle of the stream, and what did I see? Our army chests, floating away down the river. I cried out: "Oh! do save our chests!" "They're all right, we'll get them presently," said Jack. It seemed a long time to me, before the soldiers could get them to the bank, which they did, with the aid of stout ropes. All our worldly goods were in those chests, and I knew they were soaked wet and probably ruined; but, after all, what did it matter, in the face of the serious problem which confronted us? In the meantime, some of the men had floated the other boxes and trunks out of the wagon back to the shore, and were busy taking the huge vehicle apart. Any one who knows the size of an army wagon will realize that this was hard work, especially as the wagon was mired, and nearly submerged. But the men worked desperately, and at last succeeded in getting every part of it back onto the dry land. Somebody stirred up the camp-fire and put the kettle on, and Mrs. Bailey and I mixed up a smoking strong hot toddy for those brave fellows, who were by this time well exhausted. Then they set to work to make a boat, by drawing a large canvas under the body of the wagon, and fastening it securely. For this Lieutenant of mine had been a sailor-man and knew well how to meet emergencies. One or two of the soldiers had now forded the stream on horseback, and taken over a heavy rope, which was made fast to our improvised boat. I was acquainted with all kinds of boats, from a catamaran to a full-rigged ship, but never a craft like this had I seen. Over the sides we clambered, however, and were ferried across the treacherous and glassy waters of the Little Colorado. All the baggage and the two ambulances were ferried over, and the other wagon was unloaded and drawn over by means of ropes. This proceeding took all day, and of course we could get no farther, and were again obliged to camp in that most uncomfortable river-bottom. But we felt safer on that side. I looked at the smooth surface of the river, and its alkali shores, and the picture became indelibly impressed upon my memory. The unpleasant reality destroyed any poetic associations which might otherwise have clung to the name of Sunset Crossing in my ever vivid imagination. After the tents were pitched, and the camp snugged up, Mr. Bailey produced some champagne and we wished each other joy, that we had made the dangerous crossing and escaped the perils of Sanford's Pass. I am afraid the champagne was not as cold as might have been desired, but the bottle had been wrapped in a wet blanket, and cooled a little in that way, and we drank it with zest, from a mess-cup. CHAPTER XVI. STONEMAN'S LAKE The road began now to ascend, and after twenty miles' travelling we reached a place called Updyke's Tanks. It was a nice place, with plenty of wood and grass. The next day we camped at Jay Coxe's Tanks. It was a hard day's march, and I was tired out when we arrived there. The ambulance was simply jerked over those miles of fearful rocks; one could not say driven or dragged over, for we were pitched from rock to rock the entire distance. Stoneman's Lake Road was famous, as I afterwards heard. Perhaps it was just as well for me that I did not know about it in advance. The sure-footed mules picked their way over these sharp-edged rocks. There was not a moment's respite. We asked a soldier to help with holding the baby, for my arms gave out entirely, and were as if paralyzed. The jolting threw us all by turns against the sides of the ambulance (which was not padded), and we all got some rather bad bruises. We finally bethought ourselves of the pappoose basket, which we had brought along in the ambulance, having at the last moment no other place to put it. So a halt was called, we placed the tired baby in this semi-cradle, laced the sides snugly over him, and were thus enabled to carry him over those dreadful roads without danger. He did not cry much, but the dust made him thirsty. I could not give him nourishment without stopping the entire train of wagons, on account of the constant pitching of the ambulance; delay was not advisable or expedient, so my poor little son had to endure with the rest of us. The big Alsatian cavalryman held the cradle easily in his strong arms, and so the long miles were travelled, one by one. At noon of this day we made a refreshing halt, built a fire and took some luncheon. We found a shady, grassy spot, upon which the blankets were spread, and we stretched ourselves out upon them and rested. But we were still some miles from water, so after a short respite we were compelled to push on. We had been getting steadily higher since leaving Sunset Crossing, and now it began to be cold and looked like snow. Mrs. Bailey and I found it very trying to meet these changes of temperature. A good place for the camp was found at Coxe's Tanks, trenches were dug around the tents, and the earth banked up to keep us warm. The cool air, our great fatigue, and the comparative absence of danger combined to give us a heavenly night's rest. Towards sunset of the next day, which was May Day, our cavalcade reached Stoneman's Lake. We had had another rough march, and had reached the limit of endurance, or thought we had, when we emerged from a mountain pass and drew rein upon the high green mesa overlooking Stoneman's Lake, a beautiful blue sheet of water lying there away below us. It was good to our tired eyes, which had gazed upon nothing but burnt rocks and alkali plains for so many days. Our camp was beautiful beyond description, and lay near the edge of the mesa, whence we could look down upon the lovely lake. It was a complete surprise to us, as points of scenery were not much known or talked about then in Arizona. Ponds and lakes were unheard of. They did not seem to exist in that drear land of arid wastes. We never heard of water except that of the Colorado or the Gila or the tanks and basins, and irrigation ditches of the settlers. But here was a real Italian lake, a lake as blue as the skies above us. We feasted our eyes and our very souls upon it. Bailey and the guide shot some wild turkeys, and as we had already eaten all the mutton we had along, the ragout of turkey made by the soldier-cook for our supper tasted better to us tired and hungry travellers, perhaps, than a canvasback at Delmonico's tastes to the weary lounger or the over-worked financier. In the course of the day, we had passed a sort of sign-board, with the rudely written inscription, "Camp Starvation," and we had heard from Mr. Bailey the story of the tragic misfortunes at this very place of the well-known Hitchcock family of Arizona. The road was lined with dry bones, and skulls of oxen, white and bleached in the sun, lying on the bare rocks. Indeed, at every stage of the road we had seen evidences of hard travel, exhausted cattle, anxious teamsters, hunger and thirst, despair, starvation, and death. However, Stoneman's Lake remains a joy in the memory, and far and away the most beautiful spot I ever saw in Arizona. But unless the approaches to it are made easier, tourists will never gaze upon it. In the distance we saw the "divide," over which we must pass in order to reach Camp Verde, which was to be our first stopping place, and we looked joyfully towards the next day's march, which we expected would bring us there. We thought the worst was over and, before retiring to our tents for the night, we walked over to the edge of the high mesa and, in the gathering shadows of twilight, looked down into the depths of that beautiful lake, knowing that probably we should never see it again. And indeed, in all the years I spent in Arizona afterward, I never even heard of the lake again. I wonder now, did it really exist or was it an illusion, a dream, or the mirage which appears to the desert traveller, to satisfy him and lure him on, to quiet his imagination, and to save his senses from utter extinction? In the morning the camp was all astir for an early move. We had no time to look back: we were starting for a long day's march, across the "divide," and into Camp Verde. But we soon found that the road (if road it could be called) was worse than any we had encountered. The ambulance was pitched and jerked from rock to rock and we were thumped against the iron framework in a most dangerous manner. So we got out and picked our way over the great sharp boulders. The Alsatian soldier carried the baby, who lay securely in the pappoose cradle. One of the cavalry escort suggested my taking his horse, but I did not feel strong enough to think of mounting a horse, so great was my discouragement and so exhausted was my vitality. Oh! if girls only knew about these things I thought! For just a little knowledge of the care of an infant and its needs, its nourishment and its habits, might have saved both mother and child from such utter collapse. Little by little we gave up hope of reaching Verde that day. At four o'clock we crossed the "divide," and clattered down a road so near the edge of a precipice that I was frightened beyond everything: my senses nearly left me. Down and around, this way and that, near the edge, then back again, swaying, swerving, pitching, the gravel clattering over the precipice, the six mules trotting their fastest, we reached the bottom and the driver pulled up his team. "Beaver Springs!" said he, impressively, loosening up the brakes. As Jack lifted me out of the ambulance, I said: "Why didn't you tell me?" pointing back to the steep road. "Oh," said he, "I thought it was better for you not to know; people get scared about such things, when they know about them before hand." "But," I remarked, "such a break-neck pace!" Then, to the driver, "Smith, how could you drive down that place at such a rate and frighten me so?" "Had to, ma'am, or we'd a'gone over the edge." I had been brought up in a flat country down near the sea, and I did not know the dangers of mountain travelling, nor the difficulties attending the piloting of a six-mule team down a road like that. From this time on, however, Smith rose in my estimation. I seemed also to be realizing that the Southwest was a great country and that there was much to learn about. Life out there was beginning to interest me. Camp Verde lay sixteen miles farther on; no one knew if the road were good or bad. I declared I could not travel another mile, even if they all went on and left me to the wolves and the darkness of Beaver Springs. We looked to our provisions and took account of stock. There was not enough for the two families. We had no flour and no bread; there was only a small piece of bacon, six potatoes, some condensed milk, and some chocolate. The Baileys decided to go on; for Mrs. Bailey was to meet her sister at Verde and her parents at Whipple. We said good-bye, and their ambulance rolled away. Our tent was pitched and the baby was laid on the bed, asleep from pure exhaustion. The dread darkness of night descended upon us, and the strange odors of the bottom-lands arose, mingling with the delicious smoky smell of the camp-fire. By the light of the blazing mesquite wood, we now divided what provisions we had, into two portions: one for supper, and one for breakfast. A very light meal we had that evening, and I arose from the mess-table unsatisfied and hungry. Jack and I sat down by the camp-fire, musing over the hard times we were having, when suddenly I heard a terrified cry from my little son. We rushed to the tent, lighted a candle, and oh! horror upon horrors! his head and face were covered with large black ants; he was wailing helplessly, and beating the air with his tiny arms. "My God!" cried Jack, "we're camped over an ant-hill!" I seized the child, and brushing off the ants as I fled, brought him out to the fire, where by its light I succeeded in getting rid of them all. But the horror of it! Can any mother brought up in God's country with kind nurses and loved ones to minister to her child, for a moment imagine how I felt when I saw those hideous, three-bodied, long-legged black ants crawling over my baby's face? After a lapse of years, I cannot recall that moment without a shudder. The soldiers at last found a place which seemed to be free from ant-hills, and our tent was again pitched, but only to find that the venomous things swarmed over us as soon as we lay down to rest. And so, after the fashion of the Missouri emigrant, we climbed into the ambulance and lay down upon our blankets in the bottom of it, and tried to believe we were comfortable. My long, hard journey of the preceding autumn, covering a period of two months; my trying experiences during the winter at Camp Apache; the sudden break-up and the packing; the lack of assistance from a nurse; the terrors of the journey; the sympathy for my child, who suffered from many ailments and principally from lack of nourishment, added to the profound fatigue I felt, had reduced my strength to a minimum. I wonder that I lived, but something sustained me, and when we reached Camp Verde the next day, and drew up before Lieutenant O'Connell's quarters, and saw Mrs. O'Connell's kind face beaming to welcome us, I felt that here was relief at last. The tall Alsatian handed the pappoose cradle to Mrs. O'Connell. "Gracious goodness! what is this?" cried the bewildered woman; "surely it cannot be your baby! You haven't turned entirely Indian, have you, amongst those wild Apaches?" I felt sorry I had not taken him out of the basket before we arrived. I did not realize the impression it would make at Camp Verde. After all, they did not know anything about our life at Apache, or our rough travels to get back from there. Here were lace-curtained windows, well-dressed women, smart uniforms, and, in fact, civilization, compared with what we had left. The women of the post gathered around the broad piazza, to see the wonder. But when they saw the poor little wan face, the blue eyes which looked sadly out at them from this rude cradle, the linen bandages covering the back of the head, they did not laugh any more, but took him and ministered to him, as only kind women can minister to a sick baby. There was not much rest, however, for we had to sort and rearrange our things, and dress ourselves properly. (Oh! the luxury of a room and a tub, after that journey!) Jack put on his best uniform, and there was no end of visiting, in spite of the heat, which was considerable even at that early date in May. The day there would have been pleasant enough but for my wretched condition. The next morning we set out for Fort Whipple, making a long day's march, and arriving late in the evening. The wife of the Quartermaster, a total stranger to me, received us, and before we had time to exchange the usual social platitudes, she gave one look at the baby, and put an end to any such attempts. "You have a sick child; give him to me;" then I told her some things, and she said: "I wonder he is alive." Then she took him under her charge and declared we should not leave her house until he was well again. She understood all about nursing, and day by day, under her good care, and Doctor Henry Lippincott's skilful treatment, I saw my baby brought back to life again. Can I ever forget Mrs. Aldrich's blessed kindness? Up to then, I had taken no interest in Camp MacDowell, where was stationed the company into which my husband was promoted. I knew it was somewhere in the southern part of the Territory, and isolated. The present was enough. I was meeting my old Fort Russell friends, and under Doctor Lippincott's good care I was getting back a measure of strength. Camp MacDowell was not yet a reality to me. We met again Colonel Wilkins and Mrs. Wilkins and Carrie, and Mrs. Wilkins thanked me for bringing her daughter alive out of those wilds. Poor girl; 'twas but a few months when we heard of her death, at the birth of her second child. I have always thought her death was caused by the long hard journey from Apache to Whipple, for Nature never intended women to go through what we went through, on that memorable journey by Stoneman's Lake. There I met again Captain Porter, and I asked him if he had progressed any in his courtship, and he, being very much embarrassed, said he did not know, but if patient waiting was of any avail, he believed he might win his bride. After we had been at Whipple a few days, Jack came in and remarked casually to Lieutenant Aldrich, "Well, I heard Bernard has asked to be relieved from Ehrenberg. "What!" I said, "the lonely man down there on the river--the prisoner of Chillon--the silent one? Well, they are going to relieve him, of course?" "Why, yes," said Jack, falteringly, "if they can get anyone to take his place." "Can't they order some one?" I inquired. "Of course they can," he replied, and then, turning towards the window, he ventured: "The fact is Martha, I've been offered it, and am thinking it over." (The real truth was, that he had applied for it, thinking it possessed great advantages over Camp MacDowell. ) "What! do I hear aright? Have your senses left you? Are you crazy? Are you going to take me to that awful place? Why, Jack, I should die there!" "Now, Martha, be reasonable; listen to me, and if you really decide against it, I'll throw up the detail. But don't you see, we shall be right on the river, the boat comes up every fortnight or so, you can jump aboard and go up to San Francisco." (Oh, how alluring that sounded to my ears!) "Why, it's no trouble to get out of Arizona from Ehrenberg. Then, too, I shall be independent, and can do just as I like, and when I like," et caetera, et caetera. "Oh, you'll be making the greatest mistake, if you decide against it. As for MacDowell, it's a hell of a place, down there in the South; and you never will be able to go back East with the baby, if we once get settled down there. Why, it's a good fifteen days from the river." And so he piled up the arguments in favor of Ehrenberg, saying finally, "You need not stop a day there. If the boat happens to be up, you can jump right aboard and start at once down river." All the discomforts of the voyage on the "Newbern," and the memory of those long days spent on the river steamer in August had paled before my recent experiences. I flew, in imagination, to the deck of the "Gila," and to good Captain Mellon, who would take me and my child out of that wretched Territory. "Yes, yes, let us go then," I cried; for here came in my inexperience. I thought I was choosing the lesser evil, and I knew that Jack believed it to be so, and also that he had set his heart upon Ehrenberg, for reasons known only to the understanding of a military man. So it was decided to take the Ehrenberg detail. CHAPTER XVII. THE COLORADO DESERT Some serpents slid from out the grass That grew in tufts by shattered stone, Then hid below some broken mass Of ruins older than the East, That Time had eaten, as a bone Is eaten by some savage beast. Great dull-eyed rattlesnakes--they lay All loathsome, yellow-skinned, and slept Coiled tight as pine knots in the sun, With flat heads through the centre run; Then struck out sharp, then rattling crept Flat-bellied down the dusty way. --JOAQUIN MILLER. At the end of a week, we started forth for Ehrenberg. Our escort was now sent back to Camp Apache, and the Baileys remained at Fort Whipple, so our outfit consisted of one ambulance and one army wagon. One or two soldiers went along, to help with the teams and the camp. We travelled two days over a semi-civilized country, and found quite comfortable ranches where we spent the nights. The greatest luxury was fresh milk, and we enjoyed that at these ranches in Skull Valley. They kept American cows, and supplied Whipple Barracks with milk and butter. We drank, and drank, and drank again, and carried a jugful to our bedside. The third day brought us to Cullen's ranch, at the edge of the desert. Mrs. Cullen was a Mexican woman and had a little boy named Daniel; she cooked us a delicious supper of stewed chicken, and fried eggs, and good bread, and then she put our boy to bed in Daniel's crib. I felt so grateful to her; and with a return of physical comfort, I began to think that life, after all, might be worth the living. Hopefully and cheerfully the next morning we entered the vast Colorado desert. This was verily the desert, more like the desert which our imagination pictures, than the one we had crossed in September from Mojave. It seemed so white, so bare, so endless, and so still; irreclaimable, eternal, like Death itself. The stillness was appalling. We saw great numbers of lizards darting about like lightning; they were nearly as white as the sand itself, and sat up on their hind legs and looked at us with their pretty, beady black eyes. It seemed very far off from everywhere and everybody, this desert--but I knew there was a camp somewhere awaiting us, and our mules trotted patiently on. Towards noon they began to raise their heads and sniff the air; they knew that water was near. They quickened their pace, and we soon drew up before a large wooden structure. There were no trees nor grass around it. A Mexican worked the machinery with the aid of a mule, and water was bought for our twelve animals, at so much per head. The place was called Mesquite Wells; the man dwelt alone in his desolation, with no living being except his mule for company. How could he endure it! I was not able, even faintly, to comprehend it; I had not lived long enough. He occupied a small hut, and there he staid, year in and year out, selling water to the passing traveller; and I fancy that travellers were not so frequent at Mesquite Wells a quarter of a century ago. The thought of that hermit and his dreary surroundings filled my mind for a long time after we drove away, and it was only when we halted and a soldier got down to kill a great rattlesnake near the ambulance, that my thoughts were diverted. The man brought the rattles to us and the new toy served to amuse my little son. At night we arrived at Desert Station. There was a good ranch there, kept by Hunt and Dudley, Englishmen, I believe. I did not see them, but I wondered who they were and why they staid in such a place. They were absent at the time; perhaps they had mines or something of the sort to look after. One is always imagining things about people who live in such extraordinary places. At all events, whatever Messrs. Hunt and Dudley were doing down there, their ranch was clean and attractive, which was more than could be said of the place where we stopped the next night, a place called Tyson's Wells. We slept in our tent that night, for of all places on the earth a poorly kept ranch in Arizona is the most melancholy and uninviting. It reeks of everything unclean, morally and physically. Owen Wister has described such a place in his delightful story, where the young tenderfoot dances for the amusement of the old habitues. One more day's travel across the desert brought us to our El Dorado. CHAPTER XVIII. EHRENBERG ON THE COLORADO Under the burning mid-day sun of Arizona, on May 16th, our six good mules, with the long whip cracking about their ears, and the ambulance rattling merrily along, brought us into the village of Ehrenberg. There was one street, so called, which ran along on the river bank, and then a few cross streets straggling back into the desert, with here and there a low adobe casa. The Government house stood not far from the river, and as we drove up to the entrance the same blank white walls stared at me. It did not look so much like a prison, after all, I thought. Captain Bernard, the man whom I had pitied, stood at the doorway, to greet us, and after we were inside the house he had some biscuits and wine brought; and then the change of stations was talked of, and he said to me, "Now, please make yourself at home. The house is yours; my things are virtually packed up, and I leave in a day or two. There is a soldier here who can stay with you; he has been able to attend to my simple wants. I eat only twice a day; and here is Charley, my Indian, who fetches the water from the river and does the chores. I dine generally at sundown." A shadow fell across the sunlight in the doorway; I looked around and there stood "Charley," who had come in with the noiseless step of the moccasined foot. I saw before me a handsome naked Cocopah Indian, who wore a belt and a gee-string. He seemed to feel at home and began to help with the bags and various paraphernalia of ambulance travellers. He looked to be about twenty-four years old. His face was smiling and friendly and I knew I should like him. The house was a one-story adobe. It formed two sides of a hollow square; the other two sides were a high wall, and the Government freight-house respectively. The courtyard was partly shaded by a ramada and partly open to the hot sun. There was a chicken-yard in one corner of the inclosed square, and in the centre stood a rickety old pump, which indicated some sort of a well. Not a green leaf or tree or blade of grass in sight. Nothing but white sand, as far as one could see, in all directions. Inside the house there were bare white walls, ceilings covered with manta, and sagging, as they always do; small windows set in deep embrasures, and adobe floors. Small and inconvenient rooms, opening one into another around two sides of the square. A sort of low veranda protected by lattice screens, made from a species of slim cactus, called ocotilla, woven together, and bound with raw-hide, ran around a part of the house. Our dinner was enlivened by some good Cocomonga wine. I tried to ascertain something about the source of provisions, but evidently the soldier had done the foraging, and Captain Bernard admitted that it was difficult, adding always that he did not require much, "it was so warm," et caetera, et caetera. The next morning I took the reins, nominally, but told the soldier to go ahead and do just as he had always done. I selected a small room for the baby's bath, the all important function of the day. The Indian brought me a large tub (the same sort of a half of a vinegar barrel we had used at Apache for ourselves), set it down in the middle of the floor, and brought water from a barrel which stood in the corral. A low box was placed for me to sit on. This was a bachelor establishment, and there was no place but the floor to lay things on; but what with the splashing and the leaking and the dripping, the floor turned to mud and the white clothes and towels were covered with it, and I myself was a sight to behold. The Indian stood smiling at my plight. He spoke only a pigeon English, but said, "too much-ee wet." I was in despair; things began to look hopeless again to me. I thought "surely these Mexicans must know how to manage with these floors." Fisher, the steamboat agent, came in, and I asked him if he could not find me a nurse. He said he would try, and went out to see what could be done. He finally brought in a rather forlorn looking Mexican woman leading a little child (whose father was not known), and she said she would come to us for quinze pesos a month. I consulted with Fisher, and he said she was a pretty good sort, and that we could not afford to be too particular down in that country. And so she came; and although she was indolent, and forever smoking cigarettes, she did care for the baby, and fanned him when he slept, and proved a blessing to me. And now came the unpacking of our boxes, which had floated down the Colorado Chiquito. The fine damask, brought from Germany for my linen chest, was a mass of mildew; and when the books came to light, I could have wept to see the pretty editions of Schiller, Goethe, and Lessing, which I had bought in Hanover, fall out of their bindings; the latter, warped out of all shape, and some of them unrecognizable. I did the best I could, however, not to show too much concern, and gathered the pages carefully together, to dry them in the sun. They were my pride, my best beloved possessions, the links that bound me to the happy days in old Hanover. I went to Fisher for everything--a large, well-built American, and a kind good man. Mrs. Fisher could not endure the life at Ehrenberg, so she lived in San Francisco, he told me. There were several other white men in the place, and two large stores where everything was kept that people in such countries buy. These merchants made enormous profits, and their families lived in luxury in San Francisco. The rest of the population consisted of a very poor class of Mexicans, Cocopah, Yuma and Mojave Indians, and half-breeds. The duties of the army officer stationed here consisted principally in receiving and shipping the enormous quantity of Government freight which was landed by the river steamers. It was shipped by wagon trains across the Territory, and at all times the work carried large responsibilities with it. I soon realized that however much the present incumbent might like the situation, it was no fit place for a woman. The station at Ehrenberg was what we call, in the army, "detached service." I realized that we had left the army for the time being; that we had cut loose from a garrison; that we were in a place where good food could not be procured, and where there were practically no servants to be had. That there was not a woman to speak to, or to go to for advice or help, and, worst of all, that there was no doctor in the place. Besides all this, my clothes were all ruined by lying wet for a fortnight in the boxes, and I had practically nothing to wear. I did not then know what useless things clothes were in Ehrenberg. The situation appeared rather serious; the weather had grown intensely hot, and it was decided that the only thing for me to do was to go to San Francisco for the summer. So one day we heard the whistle of the "Gila" going up; and when she came down river, I was all ready to go on board, with Patrocina and Jesusita, [*] and my own child, who was yet but five months old. I bade farewell to the man on detached service, and we headed down river. We seemed to go down very rapidly, although the trip lasted several days. Patrocina took to her bed with neuralgia (or nostalgia); her little devil of a child screamed the entire days and nights through, to the utter discomfiture of the few other passengers. A young lieutenant and his wife and an army surgeon, who had come from one of the posts in the interior, were among the number, and they seemed to think that I could help it (though they did not say so). * Diminutive of Jesus, a very common name amongst the Mexicans. Pronounced Hay-soo-se-ta. Finally the doctor said that if I did not throw Jesusita overboard, he would; why didn't I "wring the neck of its worthless Mexican of a mother?" and so on, until I really grew very nervous and unhappy, thinking what I should do after we got on board the ocean steamer. I, a victim of seasickness, with this unlucky woman and her child on my hands, in addition to my own! No; I made up my mind to go back to Ehrenberg, but I said nothing. I did not dare to let Doctor Clark know of my decision, for I knew he would try to dissuade me; but when we reached the mouth of the river, and they began to transfer the passengers to the ocean steamer which lay in the offing, I quietly sat down upon my trunk and told them I was going back to Ehrenberg. Captain Mellon grinned; the others were speechless; they tried persuasion, but saw it was useless; and then they said good-bye to me, and our stern-wheeler headed about and started for up river. Ehrenberg had become truly my old man of the sea; I could not get rid of it. There I must go, and there I must stay, until circumstances and the Fates were more propitious for my departure. CHAPTER XIX. SUMMER AT EHRENBERG The week we spent going up the Colorado in June was not as uncomfortable as the time spent on the river in August of the previous year. Everything is relative, I discovered, and I was happy in going back to stay with the First Lieutenant of C Company, and share his fortunes awhile longer. Patrocina recovered, as soon as she found we were to return to Ehrenberg. I wondered how anybody could be so homesick for such a God-forsaken place. I asked her if she had ever seen a tree, or green grass (for I could talk with her quite easily now). She shook her mournful head. "But don't you want to see trees and grass and flowers?" Another sad shake of the head was the only reply. Such people, such natures, and such lives, were incomprehensible to me then. I could not look at things except from my own standpoint. She took her child upon her knee, and lighted a cigarette; I took mine upon my knee, and gazed at the river banks: they were now old friends: I had gazed at them many times before; how much I had experienced, and how much had happened since I first saw them! Could it be that I should ever come to love them, and the pungent smell of the arrow-weed which covered them to the water's edge? The huge mosquitoes swarmed over us in the nights from those thick clumps of arrow-weed and willow, and the nets with which Captain Mellon provided us did not afford much protection. The June heat was bad enough, though not quite so stifling as the August heat. I was becoming accustomed to climates, and had learned to endure discomfort. The salt beef and the Chinaman's peach pies were no longer offensive to me. Indeed, I had a good appetite for them, though they were not exactly the sort of food prescribed by the modern doctor, for a young mother. Of course, milk, eggs, and all fresh food were not to be had on the river boats. Ice was still a thing unknown on the Colorado. When, after a week, the "Gila" pushed her nose up to the bank at Ehrenberg, there stood the Quartermaster. He jumped aboard, and did not seem in the least surprised to see me. "I knew you'd come back," said he. I laughed, of course, and we both laughed. "I hadn't the courage to go on," I replied "Oh, well, we can make things comfortable here and get through the summer some way," he said. "I'll build some rooms on, and a kitchen, and we can surely get along. It's the healthiest place in the world for children, they tell me." So after a hearty handshake with Captain Mellon, who had taken such good care of me on my week's voyage up river, I being almost the only passenger, I put my foot once more on the shores of old Ehrenberg, and we wended our way towards the blank white walls of the Government house. I was glad to be back, and content to wait. So work was begun immediately on the kitchen. My first stipulation was, that the new rooms were to have wooden floors; for, although the Cocopah Charley kept the adobe floors in perfect condition, by sprinkling them down and sweeping them out every morning, they were quite impossible, especially where it concerned white dresses and children, and the little sharp rocks in them seemed to be so tiring to the feet. Life as we Americans live it was difficult in Ehrenberg. I often said: "Oh! if we could only live as the Mexicans live, how easy it would be!" For they had their fire built between some stones piled up in their yard, a piece of sheet iron laid over the top: this was the cooking-stove. A pot of coffee was made in the morning early, and the family sat on the low porch and drank it, and ate a biscuit. Then a kettle of frijoles [*] was put over to boil. These were boiled slowly for some hours, then lard and salt were added, and they simmered down until they were deliciously fit to eat, and had a thick red gravy. *Mexican brown bean. Then the young matron, or daughter of the house, would mix the peculiar paste of flour and salt and water, for tortillas, a species of unleavened bread. These tortillas were patted out until they were as large as a dinner plate, and very thin; then thrown onto the hot sheet-iron, where they baked. Each one of the family then got a tortilla, the spoonful of beans was laid upon it, and so they managed without the paraphernalia of silver and china and napery. How I envied them the simplicity of their lives! Besides, the tortillas were delicious to eat, and as for the frijoles, they were beyond anything I had ever eaten in the shape of beans. I took lessons in the making of tortillas. A woman was paid to come and teach me; but I never mastered the art. It is in the blood of the Mexican, and a girl begins at a very early age to make the tortilla. It is the most graceful thing to see a pretty Mexican toss the wafer-like disc over her bare arm, and pat it out until transparent. This was their supper; for, like nearly all people in the tropics, they ate only twice a day. Their fare was varied sometimes by a little carni seca, pounded up and stewed with chile verde or chile colorado. Now if you could hear the soft, exquisite, affectionate drawl with which the Mexican woman says chile verde you could perhaps come to realize what an important part the delicious green pepper plays in the cookery of these countries. They do not use it in its raw state, but generally roast it whole, stripping off the thin skin and throwing away the seeds, leaving only the pulp, which acquires a fine flavor by having been roasted or toasted over the hot coals. The women were scrupulously clean and modest, and always wore, when in their casa, a low-necked and short-sleeved white linen camisa, fitting neatly, with bands around neck and arms. Over this they wore a calico skirt; always white stockings and black slippers. When they ventured out, the younger women put on muslin gowns, and carried parasols. The older women wore a linen towel thrown over their heads, or, in cool weather, the black riboso. I often cried: "Oh! if I could only dress as the Mexicans do! Their necks and arms do look so cool and clean." I have always been sorry I did not adopt their fashion of house apparel. Instead of that, I yielded to the prejudices of my conservative partner, and sweltered during the day in high-necked and long-sleeved white dresses, kept up the table in American fashion, ate American food in so far as we could get it, and all at the expense of strength; for our soldier cooks, who were loaned us by Captain Ernest from his company at Fort Yuma, were constantly being changed, and I was often left with the Indian and the indolent Patrocina. At those times, how I wished I had no silver, no table linen, no china, and could revert to the primitive customs of my neighbors! There was no market, but occasionally a Mexican killed a steer, and we bought enough for one meal; but having no ice, and no place away from the terrific heat, the meat was hung out under the ramada with a piece of netting over it, until the first heat had passed out of it, and then it was cooked. The Mexican, after selling what meat he could, cut the rest into thin strips and hung it up on ropes to dry in the sun. It dried hard and brittle, in its natural state, so pure is the air on that wonderful river bank. They called this carni seca, and the Americans called it "jerked beef." Patrocina often prepared me a dish of this, when I was unable to taste the fresh meat. She would pound it fine with a heavy pestle, and then put it to simmer, seasoning it with the green or red pepper. It was most savory. There was no butter at all during the hot months, but our hens laid a few eggs, and the Quartermaster was allowed to keep a small lot of commissary stores, from which we drew our supplies of flour, ham, and canned things. We were often without milk for weeks at a time, for the cows crossed the river to graze, and sometimes could not get back until the river fell again, and they could pick their way back across the shifting sand bars. The Indian brought the water every morning in buckets from the river. It looked like melted chocolate. He filled the barrels, and when it had settled clear, the ollas were filled, and thus the drinking water was a trifle cooler than the air. One day it seemed unusually cool, so I said: "Let us see by the thermometer how cool the water really is." We found the temperature of the water to be 86 degrees; but that, with the air at 122 in the shade, seemed quite refreshing to drink. I did not see any white people at all except Fisher, Abe Frank (the mail contractor), and one or two of the younger merchants. If I wanted anything, I went to Fisher. He always could solve the difficulty. He procured for me an excellent middle-aged laundress, who came and brought the linen herself, and, bowing to the floor, said always, "Buenos dias, Senorita!" dwelling on the latter word, as a gentle compliment to a younger woman, and then, "Mucho calor este dia," in her low, drawling voice. Like the others, she was spotlessly clean, modest and gentle. I asked her what on earth they did about bathing, for I had found the tub baths with the muddy water so disagreeable. She told me the women bathed in the river at daybreak, and asked me if I would like to go with them. I was only too glad to avail myself of her invitation, and so, like Pharoah's daughter of old, I went with my gentle handmaiden every morning to the river bank, and, wading in about knee-deep in the thick red waters, we sat down and let the swift current flow by us. We dared not go deeper; we could feel the round stones grinding against each other as they were carried down, and we were all afraid. It was difficult to keep one's foothold, and Capt. Mellon's words were ever ringing in my ears, "He who disappears below the surface of the Colorado is never seen again." But we joined hands and ventured like children and played like children in these red waters and after all, it was much nicer than a tub of muddy water indoors. A clump of low mesquite trees at the top of the bank afforded sufficient protection at that hour; we rubbed dry, slipped on a loose gown, and wended our way home. What a contrast to the limpid, bracing salt waters of my own beloved shores! When I thought of them, I was seized with a longing which consumed me and made my heart sick; and I thought of these poor people, who had never known anything in their lives but those desert places, and that muddy red water, and wondered what they would do, how they would act, if transported into some beautiful forest, or to the cool bright shores where clear blue waters invite to a plunge. Whenever the river-boat came up, we were sure to have guests, for many officers went into the Territory via Ehrenberg. Sometimes the "transportation" was awaiting them; at other times, they were obliged to wait at Ehrenberg until it arrived. They usually lived on the boat, as we had no extra rooms, but I generally asked them to luncheon or supper (for anything that could be called a dinner was out of the question). This caused me some anxiety, as there was nothing to be had; but I remembered the hospitality I had received, and thought of what they had been obliged to eat on the voyage, and I always asked them to share what we could provide, however simple it might be. At such times we heard all the news from Washington and the States, and all about the fashions, and they, in their turn, asked me all sorts of questions about Ehrenberg and how I managed to endure the life. They were always astonished when the Cocopah Indian waited on them at table, for he wore nothing but his gee-string, and although it was an every-day matter to us, it rather took their breath away. But "Charley" appealed to my aesthetic sense in every way. Tall, and well-made, with clean-cut limbs and features, fine smooth copper-colored skin, handsome face, heavy black hair done up in pompadour fashion and plastered with Colorado mud, which was baked white by the sun, a small feather at the crown of his head, wide turquoise bead bracelets upon his upper arm, and a knife at his waist--this was my Charley, my half-tame Cocopah, my man about the place, my butler in fact, for Charley understood how to open a bottle of Cocomonga gracefully, and to keep the glasses filled. Charley also wheeled the baby out along the river banks, for we had had a fine "perambulator" sent down from San Francisco. It was an incongruous sight, to be sure, and one must laugh to think of it. The Ehrenberg babies did not have carriages, and the village flocked to see it. There sat the fair-haired, six-months-old boy, with but one linen garment on, no cap, no stockings--and this wild man of the desert, his knife gleaming at his waist, and his gee-string floating out behind, wheeling and pushing the carriage along the sandy roads. But this came to an end; for one day Fisher rushed in, breathless, and said: "Well! here is your baby! I was just in time, for that Injun of yours left the carriage in the middle of the street, to look in at the store window, and a herd of wild cattle came tearing down! I grabbed the carriage to the sidewalk, cussed the Injun out, and here's the child! It's no use," he added, "you can't trust those Injuns out of sight." The heat was terrific. Our cots were placed in the open part of the corral (as our courtyard was always called). It was a desolate-looking place; on one side, the high adobe wall; on another, the freight-house; and on the other two, our apartments. Our kitchen and the two other rooms were now completed. The kitchen had no windows, only open spaces to admit the air and light, and we were often startled in the night by the noise of thieves in the house, rummaging for food. At such times, our soldier-cook would rush into the corral with his rifle, the Lieutenant would jump up and seize his shotgun, which always stood near by, and together they would roam through the house. But the thieving Indians could jump out of the windows as easily as they jumped in, and the excitement would soon be over. The violent sand-storms which prevail in those deserts, sometimes came up in the night, without warning; then we rushed half suffocated and blinded into the house, and as soon as we had closed the windows it had passed on, leaving a deep layer of sand on everything in the room, and on our perspiring bodies. Then came the work, next day, for the Indian had to carry everything out of doors; and one storm was so bad that he had to use a shovel to remove the sand from the floors. The desert literally blew into the house. And now we saw a singular phenomenon. In the late afternoon of each day, a hot steam would collect over the face of the river, then slowly rise, and floating over the length and breadth of this wretched hamlet of Ehrenberg, descend upon and envelop us. Thus we wilted and perspired, and had one part of the vapor bath without its bracing concomitant of the cool shower. In a half hour it was gone, but always left me prostrate; then Jack gave me milk punch, if milk was at hand, or sherry and egg, or something to bring me up to normal again. We got to dread the steam so; it was the climax of the long hot day and was peculiar to that part of the river. The paraphernalia by the side of our cots at night consisted of a pitcher of cold tea, a lantern, matches, a revolver, and a shotgun. Enormous yellow cats, which lived in and around the freight-house, darted to and fro inside and outside the house, along the ceiling-beams, emitting loud cries, and that alone was enough to prevent sleep. In the old part of the house, some of the partitions did not run up to the roof, but were left open (for ventilation, I suppose), thus making a fine play-ground for cats and rats, which darted along, squeaking, meowing and clattering all the night through. An uncanny feeling of insecurity was ever with me. What with the accumulated effect of the day's heat, what with the thieving Indians, the sand-storms and the cats, our nights by no means gave us the refreshment needed by our worn-out systems. By the latter part of the summer, I was so exhausted by the heat and the various difficulties of living, that I had become a mere shadow of my former self. Men and children seem to thrive in those climates, but it is death to women, as I had often heard. It was in the late summer that the boat arrived one day bringing a large number of staff officers and their wives, head clerks, and "general service" men for Fort Whipple. They had all been stationed in Washington for a number of years, having had what is known in the army as "gilt-edged" details. I threw a linen towel over my head, and went to the boat to call on them, and, remembering my voyage from San Francisco the year before, prepared to sympathize with them. But they had met their fate with resignation; knowing they should find a good climate and a pleasant post up in the mountains, and as they had no young children with them, they were disposed to make merry over their discomforts. We asked them to come to our quarters for supper, and to come early, as any place was cooler than the boat, lying down there in the melting sun, and nothing to look upon but those hot zinc-covered decks or the ragged river banks, with their uninviting huts scattered along the edge. The surroundings somehow did not fit these people. Now Mrs. Montgomery at Camp Apache seemed to have adapted herself to the rude setting of a log cabin in the mountains, but these were Staff people and they had enjoyed for years the civilized side of army life; now they were determined to rough it, but they did not know how to begin. The beautiful wife of the Adjutant-General was mourning over some freckles which had come to adorn her dazzling complexion, and she had put on a large hat with a veil. Was there ever anything so incongruous as a hat and veil in Ehrenberg! For a long time I had not seen a woman in a hat; the Mexicans all wore a linen towel over their heads. But her beauty was startling, and, after all, I thought, a woman so handsome must try to live up to her reputation. Now for some weeks Jack had been investigating the sulphur well, which was beneath the old pump in our corral. He had had a long wooden bath-tub built, and I watched it with a lazy interest, and observed his glee as he found a longshoreman or roustabout who could caulk it. The shape was exactly like a coffin (but men have no imaginations), and when I told him how it made me feel to look at it, he said: "Oh! you are always thinking of gloomy things. It's a fine tub, and we are mighty lucky to find that man to caulk it. I'm going to set it up in the little square room, and lead the sulphur water into it, and it will be splendid, and just think," he added, "what it will do for rheumatism!" Now Jack had served in the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteers during the Civil War, and the swamps of the Chickahominy had brought him into close acquaintance with that dread disease. As for myself, rheumatism was about the only ailment I did not have at that time, and I suppose I did not really sympathize with him. But this energetic and indomitable man mended the pump, with Fisher's help, and led the water into the house, laid a floor, set up the tub in the little square room, and behold, our sulphur bath! After much persuasion, I tried the bath. The water flowed thick and inky black into the tub; of course the odor was beyond description, and the effect upon me was not such that I was ever willing to try it again. Jack beamed. "How do you like it, Martha?" said he. "Isn't it fine? Why people travel hundreds of miles to get a bath like that!" I had my own opinion, but I did not wish to dampen his enthusiasm. Still, in order to protect myself in the future, I had to tell him I thought I should ordinarily prefer the river. "Well," he said, "there are those who will be thankful to have a bath in that water; I am going to use it every day." I remonstrated: "How do you know what is in that inky water--and how do you dare to use it?" "Oh, Fisher says it's all right; people here used to drink it years ago, but they have not done so lately, because the pump was broken down." The Washington people seemed glad to pay us the visit. Jack's eyes danced with true generosity and glee. He marked his victim; and, selecting the Staff beauty and the Paymaster's wife, he expatiated on the wonderful properties of his sulphur bath. "Why, yes, the sooner the better," said Mrs. Martin. "I'd give everything I have in this world, and all my chances for the next, to get a tub bath!" "It will be so refreshing just before supper," said Mrs. Maynadier, who was more conservative. So the Indian, who had put on his dark blue waist-band (or sash), made from flannel, revelled out and twisted into strands of yarn, and which showed the supple muscles of his clean-cut thighs, and who had done up an extra high pompadour in white clay, and burnished his knife, which gleamed at his waist, ushered these Washington women into a small apartment adjoining the bath-room, and turned on the inky stream into the sarcophagus. The Staff beauty looked at the black pool, and shuddered. "Do you use it?" said she. "Occasionally," I equivocated. "Does it hurt the complexion?" she ventured. "Jack thinks it excellent for that," I replied. And then I left them, directing Charley to wait, and prepare the bath for the second victim. By and by the beauty came out. "Where is your mirror?" cried she (for our appointments were primitive, and mirrors did not grow on bushes at Ehrenberg); "I fancy I look queer," she added, and, in truth, she did; for our water of the Styx did not seem to affiliate with the chemical properties of the numerous cosmetics used by her, more or less, all her life, but especially on the voyage, and her face had taken on a queer color, with peculiar spots here and there. Fortunately my mirrors were neither large nor true, and she never really saw how she looked, but when she came back into the living-room, she laughed and said to Jack: "What kind of water did you say that was? I never saw any just like it." "Oh! you have probably never been much to the sulphur springs," said he, with his most superior and crushing manner. "Perhaps not," she replied, "but I thought I knew something about it; why, my entire body turned such a queer color." "Oh! it always does that," said this optimistic soldier man, "and that shows it is doing good." The Paymaster's wife joined us later. I think she had profited by the beauty's experience, for she said but little. The Quartermaster was happy; and what if his wife did not believe in that uncanny stream which flowed somewhere from out the infernal regions, underlying that wretched hamlet, he had succeeded in being a benefactor to two travellers at least! We had a merry supper: cold ham, chicken, and fresh biscuit, a plenty of good Cocomonga wine, sweet milk, which to be sure turned to curds as it stood on the table, some sort of preserves from a tin, and good coffee. I gave them the best to be had in the desert--and at all events it was a change from the Chinaman's salt beef and peach pies, and they saw fresh table linen and shining silver, and accepted our simple hospitality in the spirit in which we gave it. Alice Martin was much amused over Charley; and Charley could do nothing but gaze on her lovely features. "Why on earth don't you put some clothes on him?" laughed she, in her delightful way. I explained to her that the Indian's fashion of wearing white men's clothes was not pleasing to the eye, and told her that she must cultivate her aesthetic sense, and in a short time she would be able to admire these copper-colored creatures of Nature as much as I did. But I fear that a life spent mostly in a large city had cast fetters around her imagination, and that the life at Fort Whipple afterwards savored too much of civilization to loosen the bonds of her soul. I saw her many times again, but she never recovered from her amazement at Charley's lack of apparel, and she never forgot the sulphur bath. CHAPTER XX. MY DELIVERER One day, in the early autumn, as the "Gila" touched at Ehrenberg, on her way down river, Captain Mellon called Jack on to the boat, and, pointing to a young woman, who was about to go ashore, said: "Now, there's a girl I think will do for your wife. She imagines she has bronchial troubles, and some doctor has ordered her to Tucson. She comes from up North somewhere. Her money has given out, and she thinks I am going to leave her here. Of course, you know I would not do that; I can take her on down to Yuma, but I thought your wife might like to have her, so I've told her she could not travel on this boat any farther without she could pay her fare. Speak to her: she looks to me like a nice sort of a girl." In the meantime, the young woman had gone ashore and was sitting upon her trunk, gazing hopelessly about. Jack approached, offered her a home and good wages, and brought her to me. I could have hugged her for very joy, but I restrained myself and advised her to stay with us for awhile, saying the Ehrenberg climate was quite as good as that of Tucson. She remarked quietly: "You do not look as if it agreed with you very well, ma'am." Then I told her of my young child, and my hard journeys, and she decided to stay until she could earn enough to reach Tucson. And so Ellen became a member of our Ehrenberg family. She was a fine, strong girl, and a very good cook, and seemed to be in perfect health. She said, however, that she had had an obstinate cough which nothing would reach, and that was why she came to Arizona. From that time, things went more smoothly. Some yeast was procured from the Mexican bakeshop, and Ellen baked bread and other things, which seemed like the greatest luxuries to us. We sent the soldier back to his company at Fort Yuma, and began to live with a degree of comfort. I looked at Ellen as my deliverer, and regarded her coming as a special providence, the kind I had heard about all my life in New England, but had never much believed in. After a few weeks, Ellen was one evening seized with a dreadful toothache, which grew so severe that she declared she could not endure it another hour: she must have the tooth out. "Was there a dentist in the place?" I looked at Jack: he looked at me: Ellen groaned with pain. "Why, yes! of course there is," said this man for emergencies; "Fisher takes out teeth, he told me so the other day." Now I did not believe that Fisher knew any more about extracting teeth than I did myself, but I breathed a prayer to the Recording Angel, and said naught. "I'll go get Fisher," said Jack. Now Fisher was the steamboat agent. He stood six feet in his stockings, had a powerful physique and a determined eye. Men in those countries had to be determined; for if they once lost their nerve, Heaven save them. Fisher had handsome black eyes. When they came in, I said: "Can you attend to this business, Mr. Fisher?" "I think so," he replied, quietly. "The Quartermaster says he has some forceps." I gasped. Jack, who had left the room, now appeared, a box of instruments in his hand, his eyes shining with joy and triumph. Fisher took the box, and scanned it. "I guess they'll do," said he. So we placed Ellen in a chair, a stiff barrack chair, with a raw-hide seat, and no arms. It was evening. "Mattie, you must hold the candle," said Jack. "I'll hold Ellen, and, Fisher, you pull the tooth." So I lighted the candle, and held it, while Ellen tried, by its flickering light, to show Fisher the tooth that ached. Fisher looked again at the box of instruments. "Why," said he, "these are lower jaw rollers, the kind used a hundred years ago; and her tooth is an upper jaw." "Never mind," answered the Lieutenant, "the instruments are all right. Fisher, you can get the tooth out, that's all you want, isn't it?" The Lieutenant was impatient; and besides he did not wish any slur cast upon his precious instruments. So Fisher took up the forceps, and clattered around amongst Ellen's sound white teeth. His hand shook, great beads of perspiration gathered on his face, and I perceived a very strong odor of Cocomonga wine. He had evidently braced for the occasion. It was, however, too late to protest. He fastened onto a molar, and with the lion's strength which lay in his gigantic frame, he wrenched it out. Ellen put up her hand and felt the place. "My God! you've pulled the wrong tooth!" cried she, and so he had. I seized a jug of red wine which stood near by, and poured out a gobletful, which she drank. The blood came freely from her mouth, and I feared something dreadful had happened. Fisher declared she had shown him the wrong tooth, and was perfectly willing to try again. I could not witness the second attempt, so I put the candle down and fled. The stout-hearted and confiding girl allowed the second trial, and between the steamboat agent, the Lieutenant, and the red wine, the aching molar was finally extracted. This was a serious and painful occurrence. It did not cause any of us to laugh, at the time. I am sure that Ellen, at least, never saw the comical side of it. When it was all over, I thanked Fisher, and Jack beamed upon me with: "You see, Mattie, my case of instruments did come in handy, after all." Encouraged by success, he applied for a pannier of medicines, and the Ehrenberg citizens soon regarded him as a healer. At a certain hour in the morning, the sick ones came to his office, and he dispensed simple drugs to them and was enabled to do much good. He seemed to have a sort of intuitive knowledge about medicines and performed some miraculous cures, but acquired little or no facility in the use of the language. I was often called in as interpreter, and with the help of the sign language, and the little I knew of Spanish, we managed to get an idea of the ailments of these poor people. And so our life flowed on in that desolate spot, by the banks of the Great Colorado. I rarely went outside the enclosure, except for my bath in the river at daylight, or for some urgent matter. The one street along the river was hot and sandy and neglected. One had not only to wade through the sand, but to step over the dried heads or horns or bones of animals left there to whiten where they died, or thrown out, possibly, when some one killed a sheep or beef. Nothing decayed there, but dried and baked hard in that wonderful air and sun. Then, the groups of Indians, squaws and halfbreeds loafing around the village and the store! One never felt sure what one was to meet, and although by this time I tolerated about everything that I had been taught to think wicked or immoral, still, in Ehrenberg, the limit was reached, in the sights I saw on the village streets, too bold and too rude to be described in these pages. The few white men there led respectable lives enough for that country. The standard was not high, and when I thought of the dreary years they had already spent there without their families, and the years they must look forward to remaining there, I was willing to reserve my judgement. CHAPTER XXI. WINTER IN EHRENBERG We asked my sister, Mrs. Penniman, to come out and spend the winter with us, and to bring her son, who was in most delicate health. It was said that the climate of Ehrenberg would have a magical effect upon all diseases of the lungs or throat. So, to save her boy, my sister made the long and arduous trip out from New England, arriving in Ehrenberg in October. What a joy to see her, and to initiate her into the ways of our life in Arizona! Everything was new, everything was a wonder to her and to my nephew. At first, he seemed to gain perceptibly, and we had great hopes of his recovery. It was now cool enough to sleep indoors, and we began to know what it was to have a good night's rest. But no sooner had we gotten one part of our life comfortably arranged, before another part seemed to fall out of adjustment. Accidents and climatic conditions kept my mind in a perpetual state of unrest. Our dining-room door opened through two small rooms into the kitchen, and one day, as I sat at the table, waiting for Jack to come in to supper, I heard a strange sort of crashing noise. Looking towards the kitchen, through the vista of open doorways, I saw Ellen rush to the door which led to the courtyard. She turned a livid white, threw up her hands, and cried, "Great God! the Captain!" She was transfixed with horror. I flew to the door, and saw that the pump had collapsed and gone down into the deep sulphur well. In a second, Jack's head and hands appeared at the edge; he seemed to be caught in the debris of rotten timber. Before I could get to him, he had scrambled half way out. "Don't come near this place," he cried, "it's all caving in!" And so it seemed; for, as he worked himself up and out, the entire structure feel in, and half the corral with it, as it looked to me. Jack escaped what might have been an unlucky bath in his sulphur well, and we all recovered our composure as best we could. Surely, if life was dull at Ehrenberg, it could not be called exactly monotonous. We were not obliged to seek our excitement outside; we had plenty of it, such as it was, within our walls. My confidence in Ehrenberg, however, as a salubrious dwelling-place, was being gradually and literally undermined. I began to be distrustful of the very ground beneath my feet. Ellen felt the same way, evidently, although we did not talk much about it. She probably longed also for some of her own kind; and when, one morning, we went into the dining-room for breakfast, Ellen stood, hat on, bag in hand, at the door. Dreading to meet my chagrin, she said: "Good-bye, Captain; good-bye, missis, you've been very kind to me. I'm leaving on the stage for Tucson--where I first started for, you know." And she tripped out and climbed up into the dusty, rickety vehicle called "the stage." I had felt so safe about Ellen, as I did not know that any stage line ran through the place. And now I was in a fine plight! I took a sunshade, and ran over to Fisher's house. "Mr. Fisher, what shall I do? Ellen has gone to Tucson!" Fisher bethought himself, and we went out together in the village. Not a woman to be found who would come to cook for us! There was only one thing to do. The Quartermaster was allowed a soldier, to assist in the Government work. I asked him if he understood cooking; he said he had never done any, but he would try, if I would show him how. This proved a hopeless task, and I finally gave it up. Jack dispatched an Indian runner to Fort Yuma, ninety miles or more down river, begging Captain Ernest to send us a soldier-cook on the next boat. This was a long time to wait; the inconveniences were intolerable: there were our four selves, Patrocina and Jesusita, the soldier-clerk and the Indian, to be provided for: Patrocina prepared carni seca with peppers, a little boy came around with cuajada, a delicious sweet curd cheese, and I tried my hand at bread, following out Ellen's instructions. How often I said to my husband. "If we must live in this wretched place, let's give up civilization and live as the Mexicans do! They are the only happy beings around here. "Look at them, as you pass along the street! At nearly any hour in the day you can see them, sitting under their ramada, their backs propped against the wall of their casa, calmly smoking cigarettes and gazing at nothing, with a look of ineffable contentment upon their features! They surely have solved the problem of life!" But we seemed never to be able to free ourselves from the fetters of civilization, and so I struggled on. One evening after dusk, I went into the kitchen, opened the kitchen closet door to take out some dish, when clatter! bang! down fell the bread-pan, and a shower of other tin ware, and before I could fairly get my breath, out jumped two young squaws and without deigning to glance at me they darted across the kitchen and leaped out the window like two frightened fawn. They had on nothing but their birthday clothes and as I was somewhat startled at the sight of them, I stood transfixed, my eyes gazing at the open space through which they had flown. Charley, the Indian, was in the corral, filling the ollas, and, hearing the commotion, came in and saw just the disappearing heels of the two squaws. I said, very sternly: "Charley, how came those squaws in my closet?" He looked very much ashamed and said: "Oh, me tell you: bad man go to kill 'em; I hide 'em." "Well," said I, "do not hide any more girls in this casa! You savez that?" He bowed his head in acquiescence. I afterwards learned that one of the girls was his sister. The weather was now fairly comfortable, and in the evenings we sat under the ramada, in front of the house, and watched the beautiful pink glow which spread over the entire heavens and illuminated the distant mountains of Lower California. I have never seen anything like that wonderful color, which spread itself over sky, river and desert. For an hour, one could have believed oneself in a magician's realm. At about this time, the sad-eyed Patrocina found it expedient to withdraw into the green valleys of Lower California, to recuperate for a few months. With the impish Jesusita in her arms, she bade me a mournful good-bye. Worthless as she was from the standpoint of civilized morals, I was attached to her and felt sorry to part with her. Then I took a Mexican woman from Chihuahua. Now the Chihuahuans hold their heads high, and it was rather with awe that I greeted the tall middle-aged Chihuahuan lady who came to be our little son's nurse. Her name was Angela. "Angel of light," I thought, how fortunate I am to get her! After a few weeks, Fisher observed that the whole village was eating Ferris ham, an unusual delicacy in Ehrenberg, and that the Goldwaters' had sold none. So he suggested that our commissary storehouse be looked to; and it was found that a dozen hams or so had been withdrawn from their canvas covers, the covers stuffed with straw, and hung back in place. Verily the Chihuahuan was adding to her pin-money in a most unworthy fashion, and she had to go. After that, I was left without a nurse. My little son was now about nine months old. Milk began to be more plentiful at this season, and, with my sister's advice and help, I decided to make the one great change in a baby's life i.e., to take him from his mother. Modern methods were unknown then, and we had neither of us any experience in these matters and there was no doctor in the place. The result was, that both the baby and myself were painfully and desperately ill and not knowing which way to turn for aid, when, by a lucky turn of Fortune's wheel, our good, dear Doctor Henry Lippincott came through Ehrenberg on his way out to the States. Once more he took care of us, and it is to him that I believe I owe my life. Captain Ernest sent us a cook from Yuma, and soon some officers came for the duck-shooting. There were thousands of ducks around the various lagoons in the neighborhood, and the sport was rare. We had all the ducks we could eat. Then came an earthquake, which tore and rent the baked earth apart. The ground shivered, the windows rattled, the birds fell close to the ground and could not fly, the stove-pipes fell to the floor, the thick walls cracked and finally, the earth rocked to and fro like some huge thing trying to get its balance. It was in the afternoon. My sister and I were sitting with our needle-work in the living-room. Little Harry was on the floor, occupied with some toys. I was paralyzed with fear; my sister did not move. We sat gazing at each other, scarce daring to breathe, expecting every instant the heavy walls to crumble about our heads. The earth rocked and rocked, and rocked again, then swayed and swayed and finally was still. My sister caught Harry in her arms, and then Jack and Willie came breathlessly in. "Did you feel it?" said Jack. "Did we feel it!" said I, scornfully. Sarah was silent, and I looked so reproachfully at Jack, that he dropped his light tone, and said: "It was pretty awful. We were in the Goldwaters' store, when suddenly it grew dark and the lamps above our heads began to rattle and swing, and we all rushed out into the middle of the street and stood, rather dazed, for we scarcely knew what had happened; then we hurried home. But it's all over now." "I do not believe it," said I; "we shall have more"; and, in fact, we did have two light shocks in the night, but no more followed, and the next morning, we recovered, in a measure, from our fright and went out to see the great fissures in that treacherous crust of earth upon which Ehrenberg was built. I grew afraid, after that, and the idea that the earth would eventually open and engulf us all took possession of my mind. My health, already weakened by shocks and severe strains, gave way entirely. I, who had gloried in the most perfect health, and had a constitution of iron, became an emaciated invalid. From my window, one evening at sundown, I saw a weird procession moving slowly along towards the outskirts of the village. It must be a funeral, thought I, and it flashed across my mind that I had never seen the burying-ground. A man with a rude cross led the procession. Then came some Mexicans with violins and guitars. After the musicians, came the body of the deceased, wrapped in a white cloth, borne on a bier by friends, and followed by the little band of weeping women, with black ribosos folded about their heads. They did not use coffins at Ehrenberg, because they had none, I suppose. The next day I asked Jack to walk to the grave-yard with me. He postponed it from day to day, but I insisted upon going. At last, he took me to see it. There was no enclosure, but the bare, sloping, sandy place was sprinkled with graves, marked by heaps of stones, and in some instances by rude crosses of wood, some of which had been wrenched from their upright position by the fierce sand-storms. There was not a blade of grass, a tree, or a flower. I walked about among these graves, and close beside some of them I saw deep holes and whitnened bones. I was quite ignorant or unthinking, and asked what the holes were. "It is where the coyotes and wolves come in the nights," said Jack. My heart sickened as I thought of these horrors, and I wondered if Ehrenberg held anything in store for me worse than what I had already seen. We turned away from this unhallowed grave-yard and walked to our quarters. I had never known much about "nerves," but I began to see spectres in the night, and those ghastly graves with their coyote-holes were ever before me. The place was but a stone's throw from us, and the uneasy spirits from these desecrated graves began to haunt me. I could not sit alone on the porch at night, for they peered through the lattice, and mocked at me, and beckoned. Some had no heads, some no arms, but they pointed or nodded towards the grewsome burying-ground: "You'll be with us soon, you'll be with us soon." CHAPTER XXII. RETURN TO THE STATES I dream of the east wind's tonic, Of the breakers' stormy roar, And the peace of the inner harbor With the long low Shimmo shore. * * * * I long for the buoy-bell's tolling When the north wind brings from afar The smooth, green, shining billows, To be churned into foam on the bar. Oh! for the sea-gulls' screaming As they swoop so bold and free! Oh! for the fragrant commons, And the glorious open sea!-- For the restful great contentment, For the joy that is never known Till past the jetty and Brant Point Light The Islander comes to his own! --MARY E. STARBUCK. "I must send you out. I see that you cannot stand it here another month," said Jack one day; and so he bundled us onto the boat in the early spring, and took us down the river to meet the ocean steamer. There was no question about it this time, and I well knew it. I left my sister and her son in Ehrenberg, and I never saw my nephew again. A month later, his state of health became so alarming that my sister took him to San Francisco. He survived the long voyage, but died there a few weeks later at the home of my cousin. At Fort Yuma we telegraphed all over the country for a nurse, but no money would tempt those Mexican women to face an ocean voyage. Jack put me on board the old "Newbern" in charge of the Captain, waited to see our vessel under way, then waved good-bye from the deck of the "Gila," and turned his face towards his post and duty. I met the situation as best I could, and as I have already described a voyage on this old craft, I shall not again enter into details. There was no stewardess on board, and all arrangements were of the crudest description. Both my child and I were seasick all the way, and the voyage lasted sixteen days. Our misery was very great. The passengers were few in number, only a couple of Mexican miners who had been prospecting, an irritable old Mexican woman, and a German doctor, who was agreeable but elusive. The old Mexican woman sat on the deck all day, with her back against the stateroom door; she was a picturesque and indolent figure. There was no diversion, no variety; my little boy required constant care and watching. The days seemed endless. Everbody bought great bunches of green bananas at the ports in Mexico, where we stopped for passengers. The old woman was irritable, and one day when she saw the agreeable German doctor pulling bananas from the bunch which she had hung in the sun to ripen, she got up muttering "Carramba," and shaking her fist in his face. He appeased her wrath by offering her, in the most fluent Spanish, some from his own bunch when they should be ripe. Such were my surroundings on the old "Newbern." The German doctor was interesting, and I loved to talk with him, on days when I was not seasick, and to read the letters which he had received from his family, who were living on their Rittergut (or landed estates) in Prussia. He amused me by tales of his life at a wretched little mining village somewhere about fifty miles from Ehrenberg, and I was always wondering how he came to have lived there. He had the keenest sense of humor, and as I listened to the tales of his adventures and miraculous escapes from death at the hands of these desperate folk, I looked in his large laughing blue eyes and tried to solve the mystery. For that he was of noble birth and of ancient family there was no doubt. There were the letters, there was the crest, and here was the offshoot of the family. I made up my mind that he was a ne'er-do-weel and a rolling stone. He was elusive, and, beyond his adventures, told me nothing of himself. It was some time after my arrival in San Francisco that I learned more about him. Now, after we rounded Cape St. Lucas, we were caught in the long heavy swell of the Pacific Ocean, and it was only at intervals that my little boy and I could leave our stateroom. The doctor often held him while I ran below to get something to eat, and I can never forget his kindness; and if, as I afterward heard in San Francisco, he really had entered the "Gate of a hundred sorrows," it would perhaps best explain his elusiveness, his general condition, and his sometimes dazed expression. A gentle and kindly spirit, met by chance, known through the propinquity of a sixteen days' voyage, and never forgotten. Everything comes to an end, however interminable it may seem, and at last the sharp and jagged outlines of the coast began to grow softer and we approached the Golden Gate. The old "Newbern," with nothing in her but ballast, rolled and lurched along, through the bright green waters of the outer bar. I stood leaning against the great mast, steadying myself as best I could, and the tears rolled down my face; for I saw the friendly green hills, and before me lay the glorious bay of San Francisco. I had left behind me the deserts, the black rocks, the burning sun, the snakes, the scorpions, the centipedes, the Indians and the Ehrenberg graveyard; and so the tears flowed, and I did not try to stop them; they were tears of joy. The custom officers wanted to confiscate the great bundles of Mexican cigarettes they found in my trunk, but "No," I told them, "they were for my own use." They raised their eyebrows, gave me one look, and put them back into the trunk. My beloved California relatives met us, and took care of us for a fortnight, and when I entered a Pullman car for a nine days' journey to my old home, it seemed like the most luxurious comfort, although I had a fourteen-months-old child in my arms, and no nurse. So does everything in this life go by comparison. Arriving in Boston, my sister Harriet met me at the train, and as she took little Harry from my arms she cried: "Where did you get that sunbonnet? Now the baby can't wear that in Boston!" Of course we were both thinking hard of all that had happened to me since we parted, on the morning after my wedding, two years before, and we were so overcome with the joy of meeting, that if it had not been for the baby's white sunbonnet, I do not know what kind of a scene we might have made. That saved the situation, and after a few days of rest and necessary shopping, we started for our old home in Nantucket. Such a welcome as the baby and I had from my mother and father and all old friends! But I saw sadness in their faces, and I heard it in their voices, for no one thought I could possibly live. I felt, however, sure it was not too late. I knew the East wind's tonic would not fail me, its own child. Stories of our experiences and misfortunes were eagerly listened to, by the family, and betwixt sighs and laughter they declared they were going to fill some boxes which should contain everything necessary for comfort in those distant places. So one room in our old house was set apart for this; great boxes were brought, and day by day various articles, useful, ornamental, and comfortable, and precious heirlooms of silver and glass, were packed away in them. It was the year of 1876, the year of the great Centennial, at Philadelphia. Everybody went, but it had no attractions for me. I was happy enough, enjoying the health-giving air and the comforts of an Eastern home. I wondered that I had ever complained about anything there, or wished to leave that blissful spot. The poorest person in that place by the sea had more to be thankful for, in my opinion, than the richest people in Arizona. I felt as if I must cry it out from the house-tops. My heart was thankful every minute of the day and night, for every breath of soft air that I breathed, for every bit of fresh fish that I ate, for fresh vegetables, and for butter--for gardens, for trees, for flowers, for the good firm earth beneath my feet. I wrote the man on detached service that I should never return to Ehrenberg. After eight months, in which my health was wholly restored, I heard the good news that Captain Corliss had applied for his first lieutenant, and I decided to join him at once at Camp MacDowell. Although I had not wholly forgotten that Camp MacDowell had been called by very bad names during our stay at Fort Whipple, at the time that Jack decided on the Ehrenberg detail, I determined to brave it, in all its unattractiveness, isolation and heat, for I knew there was a garrison and a Doctor there, and a few officers' families, I knew supplies were to be obtained and the ordinary comforts of a far-off post. Then too, in my summer in the East I had discovered that I was really a soldier's wife and I must go back to it all. To the army with its glitter and its misery, to the post with its discomforts, to the soldiers, to the drills, to the bugle-calls, to the monotony, to the heat of Southern Arizona, to the uniform and the stalwart Captains and gay Lieutenants who wore it, I felt the call and I must go. CHAPTER XXIII. BACK TO ARIZONA The last nails were driven in the precious boxes, and I started overland in November with my little son, now nearly two years old. "Overland" in those days meant nine days from New York to San Francisco. Arriving in Chicago, I found it impossible to secure a section on the Pullman car so was obliged to content myself with a lower berth. I did not allow myself to be disappointed. On entering the section, I saw an enormous pair of queer cow hide shoes, the very queerest shoes I had ever seen, lying on the floor, with a much used travelling bag. I speculated a good deal on the shoes, but did not see the owner of them until several hours later, when a short thick-set German with sandy close-cut beard entered and saluted me politely. "You are noticing my shoes perhaps Madame?" "Yes" I said, involuntarily answering him in German. His face shone with pleasure and he explained to me that they were made in Russia and he always wore them when travelling. "What have we," I thought, "an anarchist?" But with the inexperience and fearlessness of youth, I entered into a most delightful conversation in German with him. I found him rather an extraordinarily well educated gentleman and he said he lived in Nevada, but had been over to Vienna to place his little boy at a military school, "as," he said, "there is nothing like a uniform to give a boy self-respect." He said his wife had died several months before. I congratulated myself that the occupant of the upper berth was at least a gentleman. The next day, as we sat opposite each other chatting, always in German, he paused, and fixing his eyes rather steadily upon me he remarked: "Do you think I put on mourning when my wife died? no indeed, I put on white kid gloves and had a fiddler and danced at the grave. All this mourning that people have is utter nonsense." I was amazed at the turn his conversation had taken and sat quite still, not knowing just what to say or to do. After awhile, he looked at me steadily, and said, very deferentially, "Madame, the spirit of my dead wife is looking at me from out your eyes." By this time I realized that the man was a maniac, and I had always heard that one must agree with crazy people, so I nodded, and that seemed to satisfy him, and bye and bye after some minutes which seemed like hours to me, he went off to the smoking room. The tension was broken and I appealed to a very nice looking woman who happened to be going to some place in Nevada near which this Doctor lived, and she said, when I told her his name, "Why, yes, I heard of him before I left home, he lives in Silver City, and at the death of his wife, he went hopelessly insane, but," she added, "he is harmless, I believe." This was a nice fix, to be sure, and I staid over in her section all day, and late that night the Doctor arrived at the junction where he was to take another train. So I slept in peace, after a considerable agitation. There is nothing like experience to teach a young woman how to travel alone. In San Francisco I learned that I could now go as far as Los Angeles by rail, thence by steamer to San Diego, and so on by stage to Fort Yuma, where my husband was to meet me with an ambulance and a wagon. I was enchanted with the idea of avoiding the long sea-trip down the Pacific coast, but sent my boxes down by the Steamer "Montana," sister ship of the old "Newbern," and after a few days' rest in San Francisco, set forth by rail for Los Angeles. At San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles, we embarked for San Diego. It was a heavenly night. I sat on deck enjoying the calm sea, and listening to the romantic story of Lieutenant Philip Reade, then stationed at San Diego. He was telling the story himself, and I had never read or heard of anything so mysterious or so tragic. Then, too, aside from the story, Mr. Reade was a very good-looking and chivalrous young army officer. He was returning to his station in San Diego, and we had this pleasant opportunity to renew what had been a very slight acquaintance. The calm waters of the Pacific, with their long and gentle swell, the pale light of the full moon, our steamer gliding so quietly along, the soft air of the California coast, the absence of noisy travellers, these made a fit setting for the story of his early love and marriage, and the tragic mystery which surrounded the death of his young bride. All the romance which lived and will ever live in me was awake to the story, and the hours passed all too quickly. But a cry from my little boy in the near-by deck stateroom recalled me to the realities of life and I said good-night, having spent one of the most delightful evenings I ever remember. Mr. Reade wears now a star on his shoulder, and well earned it is, too. I wonder if he has forgotten how he helped to bind up my little boy's finger which had been broken in an accident on the train from San Francisco to Los Angeles? or how he procured a surgeon for me on our arrival there, and got a comfortable room for us at the hotel? or how he took us to drive (with an older lady for a chaperon), or how he kindly cared for us until we were safely on the boat that evening? If I had ever thought chivalry dead, I learned then that I had been mistaken. San Diego charmed me, as we steamed, the next morning, into its shining bay. But as our boat was two hours late and the stage-coach was waiting, I had to decline Mr. Reade's enchanting offers to drive us around the beautiful place, to show me the fine beaches, and his quarters, and all other points of interest in this old town of Southern California. Arizona, not San Diego, was my destination, so we took a hasty breakfast at the hotel and boarded the stage, which, filled with passengers, was waiting before the door. The driver waited for no ceremonies, muttered something about being late, cracked his whip, and away we went. I tried to stow myself and my little boy and my belongings away comfortably, but the road was rough and the coach swayed, and I gave it up. There were passengers on top of the coach, and passengers inside the coach. One woman who was totally deaf, and some miners and blacksmiths, and a few other men, the flotsam and jetsam of the Western countries, who come from no one knoweth whence, and who go, no one knoweth whither, who have no trade or profession and are sometimes even without a name. They seemed to want to be kind to me. Harry got very stage-sick and gave us much trouble, and they all helped me to hold him. Night came. I do not remember that we made any stops at all; if we did, I have forgotten them. The night on that stage-coach can be better imagined than described. I do not know of any adjectives that I could apply to it. Just before dawn, we stopped to change horses and driver, and as the day began to break, we felt ourselves going down somewhere at a terrific speed. The great Concord coach slipped and slid and swayed on its huge springs as we rounded the curves. The road was narrow and appeared to be cut out of solid rock, which seemed to be as smooth as soapstone; the four horses were put to their speed, and down and around and away we went. I drew in my breath as I looked out and over into the abyss on my left. Death and destruction seemed to be the end awaiting us all. Everybody was limp, when we reached the bottom--that is, I was limp, and I suppose the others were. The stage-driver knew I was frightened, because I sat still and looked white and he came and lifted me out. He lived in a small cabin at the bottom of the mountain; I talked with him some. "The fact is," he said, "we are an hour late this morning; we always make it a point to 'do it' before dawn, so the passengers can't see anything; they are almost sure to get stampeded if we come down by daylight." I mentioned this road afterwards in San Francisco, and learned that it was a famous road, cut out of the side of a solid mountain of rock; long talked of, long desired, and finally built, at great expense, by the state and the county together; that they always had the same man to drive over it, and that they never did it by daylight. I did not inquire if there had ever been any accidents. I seemed to have learned all I wanted to know about it. After a little rest and a breakfast at a sort of roadhouse, a relay of horses was taken, and we travelled one more day over a flat country, to the end of the stage-route. Jack was to meet me. Already from the stage I had espied the post ambulance and two blue uniforms. Out jumped Major Ernest and Jack. I remember thinking how straight and how well they looked. I had forgotten really how army men did look, I had been so long away. And now we were to go to Fort Yuma and stay with the Wells' until my boxes, which had been sent around by water on the steamer "Montana," should arrive. I had only the usual thirty pounds allowance of luggage with me on the stage, and it was made up entirely of my boy's clothing, and an evening dress I had worn on the last night of my stay in San Francisco. Fort Yuma was delightful at this season (December), and after four or five days spent most enjoyably, we crossed over one morning on the old rope ferryboat to Yuma City, to inquire at the big country store there of news from the Gulf. There was no bridge then over the Colorado. The merchant called Jack to one side and said something to him in a low tone. I was sure it concerned the steamer, and I said: "what it is?" Then they told me that news had just been received from below, that the "Montana" had been burned to the water's edge in Guaymas harbor, and everything on board destroyed; the passengers had been saved with much difficulty, as the disaster occurred in the night. I had lost all the clothes I had in the world--and my precious boxes were gone. I scarcely knew how to meet the calamity. Jack said: "Don't mind, Mattie; I'm so thankful you and the boy were not on board the ship; the things are nothing, no account at all." "But," said I, "you do not understand. I have no clothes except what I have on, and a party dress. Oh! what shall I do?" I cried. The merchant was very sympathetic and kind, and Major Wells said, "Let's go home and tell Fanny; maybe she can suggest something." I turned toward the counter, and bought some sewing materials, realizing that outside of my toilet articles and my party dress all my personal belongings were swept away. I was in a country where there were no dressmakers, and no shops; I was, for the time being, a pauper, as far as clothing was concerned. When I got back to Mrs. Wells I broke down entirely; she put her arms around me and said: "I've heard all about it; I know just how you must feel; now come in my room, and we'll see what can be done." She laid out enough clothing to last me until I could get some things from the East, and gave me a grey and white percale dress with a basque, and a border, and although it was all very much too large for me, it sufficed to relieve my immediate distress. Letters were dispatched to the East, in various directions, for every sort and description of clothing, but it was at least two months before any of it appeared, and I felt like an object of charity for a long time. Then, too, I had anticipated the fitting up of our quarters with all the pretty cretonnes and other things I had brought from home. And now the contents of those boxes were no more! The memory of the visit was all that was left to me. It was very hard to bear. Preparations for our journey to Camp MacDowell were at last completed. The route to our new post lay along the valley of the Gila River, following it up from its mouth, where it empties into the Colorado, eastwards towards the southern middle portion of Arizona. CHAPTER XXIV. UP THE VALLEY OF THE GILA The December sun was shining brightly down, as only the Arizona sun can shine at high noon in winter, when we crossed the Colorado on the primitive ferryboat drawn by ropes, clambered up into the great thorough-brace wagon (or ambulance) with its dusty white canvas covers all rolled up at the sides, said good-bye to our kind hosts of Fort Yuma, and started, rattling along the sandy main street of Yuma City, for old Camp MacDowell. Our big blue army wagon, which had been provided for my boxes and trunks, rumbling along behind us, empty except for the camp equipage. But it all seemed so good to me: I was happy to see the soldiers again, the drivers and teamsters, and even the sleek Government mules. The old blue uniforms made my heart glad. Every sound was familiar, even the rattling of the harness with its ivory rings and the harsh sound of the heavy brakes reinforced with old leather soles. Even the country looked attractive, smiling under the December sun. I wondered if I had really grown to love the desert. I had read somewhere that people did. But I was not paying much attention in those days to the analysis of my feelings. I did not stop to question the subtle fascination which I felt steal over me as we rolled along the smooth hard roads that followed the windings of the Gila River. I was back again in the army; I had cast my lot with a soldier, and where he was, was home to me. In Nantucket, no one thought much about the army. The uniform of the regulars was never seen there. The profession of arms was scarcely known or heard of. Few people manifested any interest in the life of the Far West. I had, while there, felt out of touch with my oldest friends. Only my darling old uncle, a brave old whaling captain, had said: "Mattie, I am much interested in all you have written us about Arizona; come right down below and show me on the dining-room map just where you went." Gladly I followed him down the stairs, and he took his pencil out and began to trace. After he had crossed the Mississippi, there did not seem to be anything but blank country, and I could not find Arizona, and it was written in large letters across the entire half of this antique map, "Unexplored." "True enough," he laughed. "I must buy me a new map." But he drew his pencil around Cape Horn and up the Pacific coast, and I described to him the voyages I had made on the old "Newbern," and his face was aglow with memories. "Yes," he said, "in 1826, we put into San Francisco harbor and sent our boats up to San Jose for water and we took goats from some of those islands, too. Oh! I know the coast well enough. We were on our way to the Ar'tic Ocean then, after right whales." But, as a rule, people there seemed to have little interest in the army and it had made me feel as one apart. Gila City was our first camp; not exactly a city, to be sure, at that time, whatever it may be now. We were greeted by the sight of a few old adobe houses, and the usual saloon. I had ceased, however, to dwell upon such trifles as names. Even "Filibuster," the name of our next camp, elicited no remark from me. The weather was fine beyond description. Each day, at noon, we got out of the ambulance, and sat down on the warm white sand, by a little clump of mesquite, and ate our luncheon. Coveys of quail flew up and we shot them, thereby insuring a good supper. The mules trotted along contentedly on the smooth white road, which followed the south bank of the Gila River. Myriads of lizards ran out and looked at us. "Hello, here you are again," they seemed to say. The Gila Valley in December was quite a different thing from the Mojave desert in September; and although there was not much to see, in that low, flat country, yet we three were joyous and happy. Good health again was mine, the travelling was ideal, there were no discomforts, and I experienced no terrors in this part of Arizona. Each morning, when the tent was struck, and I sat on the camp-stool by the little heap of ashes, which was all that remained of what had been so pleasant a home for an afternoon and a night, a little lonesome feeling crept over me, at the thought of leaving the place. So strong is the instinct and love of home in some people, that the little tendrils shoot out in a day and weave themselves around a spot which has given them shelter. Such as those are not born to be nomads. Camps were made at Stanwix, Oatman's Flat, and Gila Bend. There we left the river, which makes a mighty loop at this point, and struck across the plains to Maricopa Wells. The last day's march took us across the Gila River, over the Maricopa desert, and brought us to the Salt River. We forded it at sundown, rested our animals a half hour or so, and drove through the MacDowell canon in the dark of the evening, nine miles more to the post. A day's march of forty-five miles. (A relay of mules had been sent to meet us at the Salt River, but by some oversight, we had missed it.) Jack had told me of the curious cholla cactus, which is said to nod at the approach of human beings, and to deposit its barbed needles at their feet. Also I had heard stories of this deep, dark canon and things that had happened there. Fort MacDowell was in Maricopa County, Arizona, on the Verde River, seventy miles or so south of Camp Verde; the roving bands of Indians, escaping from Camp Apache and the San Carlos reservation, which lay far to the east and southeast, often found secure hiding places in the fastnesses of the Superstition Mountains and other ranges, which lay between old Camp MacDowell and these reservations. Hence, a company of cavalry and one of infantry were stationed at Camp MacDowell, and the officers and men of this small command were kept busy, scouting, and driving the renegades from out of this part of the country back to their reservations. It was by no means an idle post, as I found after I got there; the life at Camp MacDowell meant hard work, exposure and fatigue for this small body of men. As we wound our way through this deep, dark canon, after crossing the Salt River, I remembered the things I had heard, of ambush and murder. Our animals were too tired to go out of a walk, the night fell in black shadows down between those high mountain walls, the chollas, which are a pale sage-green color in the day-time, took on a ghastly hue. They were dotted here and there along the road, and on the steep mountainsides. They grew nearly as tall as a man, and on each branch were great excrescences which looked like people's heads, in the vague light which fell upon them. They nodded to us, and it made me shudder; they seemed to be something human. The soldiers were not partial to MacDowell canon; they knew too much about the place; and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we emerged from this dark uncanny road and saw the lights of the post, lying low, long, flat, around a square. CHAPTER XXV. OLD CAMP MACDOWELL We were expected, evidently, for as we drove along the road in front of the officers' quarters they all came out to meet us, and we received a great welcome. Captain Corliss of C company welcomed us to the post and to his company, and said he hoped I should like MacDowell better than I did Ehrenberg. Now Ehrenberg seemed years agone, and I could laugh at the mention of it. Supper was awaiting us at Captain Corliss's, and Mrs. Kendall, wife of Lieutenant Kendall, Sixth Cavalry, had, in Jack's absence, put the finishing touches to our quarters. So I went at once to a comfortable home, and life in the army began again for me. How good everything seemed! There was Doctor Clark, whom I had met first at Ehrenberg, and who wanted to throw Patrocina and Jesusita into the Colorado. I was so glad to find him there; he was such a good doctor, and we never had a moment's anxiety, as long as he staid at Camp MacDowell. Our confidence in him was unbounded. It was easy enough to obtain a man from the company. There were then no hateful laws forbidding soldiers to work in officers' families; no dreaded inspectors, who put the flat question, "Do you employ a soldier for menial labor?" Captain Corliss gave me an old man by the name of Smith, and he was glad to come and stay with us and do what simple cooking we required. One of the laundresses let me have her daughter for nurserymaid, and our small establishment at Camp MacDowell moved on smoothly, if not with elegance. The officers' quarters were a long, low line of adobe buildings with no space between them; the houses were separated only by thick walls. In front, the windows looked out over the parade ground. In the rear, they opened out on a road which ran along the whole length, and on the other side of which lay another row of long, low buildings which were the kitchens, each set of quarters having its own. We occupied the quarters at the end of the row, and a large bay window looked out over a rather desolate plain, and across to the large and well-kept hospital. As all my draperies and pretty cretonnes had been burnt up on the ill-fated ship, I had nothing but bare white shades at the windows, and the rooms looked desolate enough. But a long divan was soon built, and some coarse yellow cotton bought at John Smith's (the sutler's) store, to cover it. My pretty rugs and mats were also gone, and there was only the old ingrain carpet from Fort Russell. The floors were adobe, and some men from the company came and laid down old canvas, then the carpet, and drove in great spikes around the edge to hold it down. The floors of the bedroom and dining-room were covered with canvas in the same manner. Our furnishings were very scanty and I felt very mournful about the loss of the boxes. We could not claim restitution as the steamship company had been courteous enough to take the boxes down free of charge. John Smith, the post trader (the name "sutler" fell into disuse about now) kept a large store but, nothing that I could use to beautify my quarters with--and our losses had been so heavy that we really could not afford to send back East for more things. My new white dresses came and were suitable enough for the winter climate of MacDowell. But I missed the thousand and one accessories of a woman's wardrobe, the accumulation of years, the comfortable things which money could not buy especially at that distance. I had never learned how to make dresses or to fit garments and although I knew how to sew, my accomplishments ran more in the line of outdoor sports. But Mrs. Kendall whose experience in frontier life had made her self-reliant, lent me some patterns, and I bought some of John Smith's calico and went to work to make gowns suited to the hot weather. This was in 1877, and every one will remember that the ready-made house-gowns were not to be had in those days in the excellence and profusion in which they can to-day be found, in all parts of the country. Now Mrs. Kendall was a tall, fine woman, much larger than I, but I used her patterns without alterations, and the result was something like a bag. They were freshly laundried and cool, however, and I did not place so much importance on the lines of them, as the young women of the present time do. To-day, the poorest farmer's wife in the wilds of Arkansas or Alaska can wear better fitting gowns than I wore then. But my riding habits, of which I had several kinds, to suit warm and cold countries, had been left in Jack's care at Ehrenberg, and as long as these fitted well, it did not so much matter about the gowns. Captain Chaffee, who commanded the company of the Sixth Cavalry stationed there, was away on leave, but Mr. Kendall, his first lieutenant, consented for me to exercise "Cochise," Captain Chaffee's Indian pony, and I had a royal time. Cavalry officers usually hate riding: that is, riding for pleasure; for they are in the saddle so much, for dead earnest work; but a young officer, a second lieutenant, not long out from the Academy, liked to ride, and we had many pleasant riding parties. Mr. Dravo and I rode one day to the Mormon settlement, seventeen miles away, on some business with the bishop, and a Mormon woman gave us a lunch of fried salt pork, potatoes, bread, and milk. How good it tasted, after our long ride! and how we laughed about it all, and jollied, after the fashion of young people, all the way back to the post! Mr Dravo had also lost all his things on the "Montana," and we sympathized greatly with each other. He, however, had sent an order home to Pennsylvania, duplicating all the contents of his boxes. I told him I could not duplicate mine, if I sent a thousand orders East. When, after some months, his boxes came, he brought me in a package, done up in tissue paper and tied with ribbon: "Mother sends you these; she wrote that I was not to open them; I think she felt sorry for you, when I wrote her you had lost all your clothing. I suppose," he added, mustering his West Point French to the front, and handing me the package, "it is what you ladies call 'lingerie.'" I hope I blushed, and I think I did, for I was not so very old, and I was touched by this sweet remembrance from the dear mother back in Pittsburgh. And so many lovely things happened all the time; everybody was so kind to me. Mrs. Kendall and her young sister, Kate Taylor, Mrs. John Smith and I, were the only women that winter at Camp MacDowell. Afterwards, Captain Corliss brought a bride to the post, and a new doctor took Doctor Clark's place. There were interminable scouts, which took both cavalry and infantry out of the post. We heard a great deal about "chasing Injuns" in the Superstition Mountains, and once a lieutenant of infantry went out to chase an escaping Indian Agent. Old Smith, my cook, was not very satisfactory; he drank a good deal, and I got very tired of the trouble he caused me. It was before the days of the canteen, and soldiers could get all the whiskey they wanted at the trader's store; and, it being generally the brand that was known in the army as "Forty rod," they got very drunk on it sometimes. I never had it in my heart to blame them much, poor fellows, for every human beings wants and needs some sort of recreation and jovial excitement. Captain Corliss said to Jack one day, in my presence, "I had a fine batch of recruits come in this morning." "That's lovely," said I; "what kind of men are they? Any good cooks amongst them?" (for I was getting very tired of Smith). Captain Corliss smiled a grim smile. "What do you think the United States Government enlists men for?" said he; "do you think I want my company to be made up of dish-washers?" He was really quite angry with me, and I concluded that I had been too abrupt, in my eagerness for another man, and that my ideas on the subject were becoming warped. I decided that I must be more diplomatic in the future, in my dealings with the Captain of C company. The next day, when we went to breakfast, whom did we find in the dining-room but Bowen! Our old Bowen of the long march across the Territory! Of Camp Apache and K company! He had his white apron on, his hair rolled back in his most fetching style, and was putting the coffee on the table. "But, Bowen," said I, "where--how on earth--did you--how did you know we--what does it mean?" Bowen saluted the First Lieutenant of C company, and said: "Well, sir, the fact is, my time was out, and I thought I would quit. I went to San Francisco and worked in a miners' restaurant" (here he hesitated), "but I didn't like it, and I tried something else, and lost all my money, and I got tired of the town, so I thought I'd take on again, and as I knowed ye's were in C company now, I thought I'd come to MacDowell, and I came over here this morning and told old Smith he'd better quit; this was my job, and here I am, and I hope ye're all well--and the little boy?" Here was loyalty indeed, and here was Bowen the Immortal, back again! And now things ran smoothly once more. Roasts of beef and haunches of venison, ducks and other good things we had through the winter. It was cool enough to wear white cotton dresses, but nothing heavier. It never rained, and the climate was superb, although it was always hot in the sun. We had heard that it was very hot here; in fact, people called MacDowell by very bad names. As the spring came on, we began to realize that the epithets applied to it might be quite appropriate. In front of our quarters was a ramada, [*] supported by rude poles of the cottonwood tree. Then came the sidewalk, and the acequia (ditch), then a row of young cottonwood trees, then the parade ground. Through the acequia ran the clear water that supplied the post, and under the shade of the ramadas, hung the large ollas from which we dipped the drinking water, for as yet, of course, ice was not even dreamed of in the far plains of MacDowell. The heat became intense, as the summer approached. To sleep inside the house was impossible, and we soon followed the example of the cavalry, who had their beds out on the parade ground. *A sort of rude awning made of brush and supported by cottonwood poles. Two iron cots, therefore, were brought from the hospital, and placed side by side in front of our quarters, beyond the acequia and the cottonwood trees, in fact, out in the open space of the parade ground. Upon these were laid some mattresses and sheets, and after "taps" had sounded, and lights were out, we retired to rest. Near the cots stood Harry's crib. We had not thought about the ants, however, and they swarmed over our beds, driving us into the house. The next morning Bowen placed a tin can of water under each point of contact; and as each cot had eight legs, and the crib had four, twenty cans were necessary. He had not taken the trouble to remove the labels, and the pictures of red tomatoes glared at us in the hot sun through the day; they did not look poetic, but our old enemies, the ants, were outwitted. There was another species of tiny insect, however, which seemed to drop from the little cotton-wood trees which grew at the edge of the acequia, and myriads of them descended and crawled all over us, so we had to have our beds moved still farther out on to the open space of the parade ground. And now we were fortified against all the venomous creeping things and we looked forward to blissful nights of rest. We did not look along the line, when we retired to our cots, but if we had, we should have seen shadowy figures, laden with pillows, flying from the houses to the cots or vice versa. It was certainly a novel experience. With but a sheet for a covering, there we lay, looking up at the starry heavens. I watched the Great Bear go around, and other constellations and seemed to come into close touch with Nature and the mysterious night. But the melancholy solemnity of my communings was much affected by the howling of the coyotes, which seemed sometimes to be so near that I jumped to the side of the crib, to see if my little boy was being carried off. The good sweet slumber which I craved never came to me in those weird Arizona nights under the stars. At about midnight, a sort of dewy coolness would come down from the sky, and we could then sleep a little; but the sun rose incredibly early in that southern country, and by the crack of dawn sheeted figures were to be seen darting back into the quarters, to try for another nap. The nap rarely came to any of us, for the heat of the houses never passed off, day or night, at that season. After an early breakfast, the long day began again. The question of what to eat came to be a serious one. We experimented with all sorts of tinned foods, and tried to produce some variety from them, but it was all rather tiresome. We almost dreaded the visits of the Paymaster and the Inspector at that season, as we never had anything in the house to give them. One hot night, at about ten o'clock, we heard the rattle of wheels, and an ambulance drew up at our door. Out jumped Colonel Biddle, Inspector General, from Fort Whipple. "What shall I give him to eat, poor hungry man?" I thought. I looked in the wire-covered safe, which hung outside the kitchen, and discovered half a beefsteak-pie. The gallant Colonel declared that if there was one thing above all others that he liked, it was cold beefsteak-pie. Lieutenant Thomas of the Fifth Cavalry echoed his sentiments, and with a bottle of Cocomonga, which was always kept cooling somewhere, they had a merry supper. These visits broke the monotony of our life at Camp MacDowell. We heard of the gay doings up at Fort Whipple, and of the lovely climate there. Mr. Thomas said he could not understand why we wore such bags of dresses. I told him spitefully that if the women of Fort Whipple would come down to MacDowell to spend the summer, they would soon be able to explain it to him. I began to feel embarrassed at the fit of my house-gowns. After a few days spent with us, however, the mercury ranging from l04 to l20 degrees in the shade, he ceased to comment upon our dresses or our customs. I had a glass jar of butter sent over from the Commissary, and asked Colonel Biddle if he thought it right that such butter as that should be bought by the purchasing officer in San Francisco. It had melted, and separated into layers of dead white, deep orange and pinkish-purple colors. Thus I, too, as well as General Miles, had my turn at trying to reform the Commissary Department of Uncle Sam's army. Hammocks were swung under the ramadas, and after luncheon everybody tried a siesta. Then, near sundown, an ambulance came and took us over to the Verde River, about a mile away, where we bathed in water almost as thick as that of the Great Colorado. We taught Mrs. Kendall to swim, but Mr. Kendall, being an inland man, did not take to the water. Now the Verde River was not a very good substitute for the sea, and the thick water filled our ears and mouths, but it gave us a little half hour in the day when we could experience a feeling of being cool, and we found it worth while to take the trouble. Thick clumps of mesquite trees furnished us with dressing-rooms. We were all young, and youth requires so little with which to make merry. After the meagre evening dinner, the Kendalls and ourselves sat together under the ramada until taps, listening generally to the droll anecdotes told by Mr. Kendall, who had an inexhaustible fund. Then another night under the stars, and so passed the time away. We lived, ate, slept by the bugle calls. Reveille means sunrise, when a Lieutenant must hasten to put himself into uniform, sword and belt, and go out to receive the report of the company or companies of soldiers, who stand drawn up in line on the parade ground. At about nine o'clock in the morning comes the guard-mount, a function always which everybody goes out to see. Then the various drill calls, and recalls, and sick-call and the beautiful stable-call for the cavalry, when the horses are groomed and watered, the thrilling fire-call and the startling assembly, or call-to-arms, when every soldier jumps for his rifle and every officer buckles on his sword, and a woman's heart stands still. Then at night, "tattoo," when the company officers go out to receive the report of "all present and accounted for"--and shortly after that, the mournful "taps," a signal for the barrack lights to be put out. The bugle call of "taps" is mournful also through association, as it is always blown over the grave of a soldier or an officer, after the coffin has been lowered into the earth. The soldier-musicians who blow the calls, seem to love the call of "taps," (strangely enough) and I remember well that there at Camp MacDowell, we all used to go out and listen when "taps went," as the soldier who blew it, seemed to put a whole world of sorrow into it, turning to the four points of the compass and letting its clear tones tremble through the air, away off across the Maricopa desert and then toward the East, our home so faraway. We never spoke, we just listened, and who can tell the thoughts that each one had in his mind? Church nor ministers nor priests had we there in those distant lands, but can we say that our lives were wholly without religion? The Sunday inspection of men and barracks, which was performed with much precision and formality, and often in full dress uniform, gave us something by which we could mark the weeks, as they slipped along. There was no religious service of any kind, as Uncle Sam did not seem to think that the souls of us people in the outposts needed looking after. It would have afforded much comfort to the Roman Catholics had there been a priest stationed there. The only sermon I ever heard in old Camp MacDowell was delivered by a Mormon Bishop and was of a rather preposterous nature, neither instructive nor edifying. But the good Catholics read their prayer-books at home, and the rest of us almost forgot that such organizations as churches existed. Another bright winter found us still gazing at the Four Peaks of the MacDowell Mountains, the only landmark on the horizon. I was glad, in those days, that I had not staid back East, for the life of an officer without his family, in those drear places, is indeed a blank and empty one. "Four years I have sat here and looked at the Four Peaks," said Captain Corliss, one day, "and I'm getting almighty tired of it." CHAPTER XXVI. A SUDDEN ORDER In June, 1878, Jack was ordered to report to the commanding officer at Fort Lowell (near the ancient city of Tucson), to act as Quartermaster and Commissary at that post. This was a sudden and totally unexpected order. It was indeed hard, and it seemed to me cruel. For our regiment had been four years in the Territory, and we were reasonably sure of being ordered out before long. Tucson lay far to the south of us, and was even hotter than this place. But there was nothing to be done; we packed up, I with a heavy heart, Jack with his customary stoicism. With the grief which comes only at that time in one's life, and which sees no end and no limit, I parted from my friends at Camp MacDowell. Two years together, in the most intimate companionship, cut off from the outside world, and away from all early ties, had united us with indissoluble bonds,--and now we were to part,--forever as I thought. We all wept; I embraced them all, and Jack lifted me into the ambulance; Mrs. Kendall gave a last kiss to our little boy; Donahue, our soldier-driver, loosened up his brakes, cracked his long whip, and away we went, down over the flat, through the dark MacDowell canon, with the chollas nodding to us as we passed, across the Salt River, and on across an open desert to Florence, forty miles or so to the southeast of us. At Florence we sent our military transportation back and staid over a day at a tavern to rest. We met there a very agreeable and cultivated gentleman, Mr. Charles Poston, who was en route to his home, somewhere in the mountains nearby. We took the Tucson stage at sundown, and travelled all night. I heard afterwards more about Mr. Poston: he had attained some reputation in the literary world by writing about the Sun-worshippers of Asia. He had been a great traveller in his early life, but now had built himself some sort of a house in one of the desolate mountains which rose out of these vast plains of Arizona, hoisted his sun-flag on the top, there to pass the rest of his days. People out there said he was a sun-worshipper. I do not know. "But when I am tired of life and people," I thought, "this will not be the place I shall choose." Arriving at Tucson, after a hot and tiresome night in the stage, we went to an old hostelry. Tucson looked attractive. Ancient civilization is always interesting to me. Leaving me at the tavern, my husband drove out to Fort Lowell, to see about quarters and things in general. In a few hours he returned with the overwhelming news that he found a dispatch awaiting him at that post, ordering him to return immediately to his company at Camp MacDowell, as the Eighth Infantry was ordered to the Department of California. Ordered "out" at last! I felt like jumping up onto the table, climbing onto the roof, dancing and singing and shouting for joy! Tired as we were (and I thought I had reached the limit), we were not too tired to take the first stage back for Florence, which left that evening. Those two nights on the Tucson stage are a blank in my memory. I got through them somehow. In the morning, as we approached the town of Florence, the great blue army wagon containing our household goods, hove in sight--its white canvas cover stretched over hoops, its six sturdy mules coming along at a good trot, and Sergeant Stone cracking his long whip, to keep up a proper pace in the eyes of the Tucson stage-driver. Jack called him to halt, and down went the Sergeant's big brakes. Both teams came to a stand-still, and we told the Sergeant the news. Bewilderment, surprise, joy, followed each other on the old Sergeant's countenance. He turned his heavy team about, and promised to reach Camp MacDowell as soon as the animals could make it. At Florence, we left the stage, and went to the little tavern once more; the stage route did not lie in our direction, so we must hire a private conveyance to bring us to Camp MacDowell. Jack found a man who had a good pair of ponies and an open buckboard. Towards night we set forth to cross the plain which lies between Florence and the Salt River, due northwest by the map. When I saw the driver I did not care much for his appearance. He did not inspire me with confidence, but the ponies looked strong, and we had forty or fifty miles before us. After we got fairly into the desert, which was a trackless waste, I became possessed by a feeling that the man did not know the way. He talked a good deal about the North Star, and the fork in the road, and that we must be sure not to miss it. It was a still, hot, starlit night. Jack and the driver sat on the front seat. They had taken the back seat out, and my little boy and I sat in the bottom of the wagon, with the hard cushions to lean against through the night. I suppose we were drowsy with sleep; at all events, the talk about the fork of the road and the North Star faded away into dreams. I awoke with a chilly feeling, and a sudden jolt over a rock. "I do not recollect any rocks on this road, Jack, when we came over it in the ambulance," said I. "Neither do I," he replied. I looked for the North Star: I had looked for it often when in open boats. It was away off on our left, the road seemed to be ascending and rocky: I had never seen this piece of road before, that I was sure of. "We are going to the eastward," said I, "and we should be going northwest." "My dear, lie down and go to sleep; the man knows the road; he is taking a short cut, I suppose," said the Lieutenant. There was something not at all reassuring in his tones, however. The driver did not turn his head nor speak. I looked at the North Star, which was getting farther and farther on our left, and I felt the gloomy conviction that we were lost on the desert. Finally, at daylight, after going higher and higher, we drew up in an old deserted mining-camp. The driver jerked his ponies up, and, with a sullen gesture, said, "We must have missed the fork of the road; this is Picket Post." "Great Heavens!" I cried; "how far out of the way are we?" "About fifteen miles," he drawled, "you see we shall have to go back to the place where the road forks, and make a new start." I nearly collapsed with discouragement. I looked around at the ruined walls and crumbling pillars of stone, so weird and so grey in the dawning light: it might have been a worshipping place of the Druids. My little son shivered with the light chill which comes at daybreak in those tropical countries: we were hungry and tired and miserable: my bones ached, and I felt like crying. We gave the poor ponies time to breathe, and took a bite of cold food ourselves. Ah! that blighted and desolate place called Picket Post! Forsaken by God and man, it might have been the entrance to Hades. Would the ponies hold out? They looked jaded to be sure, but we had stopped long enough to breathe them, and away they trotted again, down the mountain this time, instead of up. It was broad day when we reached the fork of the road, which we had not been able to see in the night: there was no mistaking it now. We had travelled already about forty miles, thirty more lay before us; but there were no hills, it was all flat country, and the owner of these brave little ponies said we could make it. As we neared the MacDowell canon, we met Captain Corliss marching out with his company (truly they had lost no time in starting for California), and he told his First Lieutenant he would make slow marches, that we might overtake him before he reached Yuma. We were obliged to wait at Camp MacDowell for Sergeant Stone to arrive with our wagonful of household goods, and then, after a mighty weeding out and repacking, we set forth once more, with a good team of mules and a good driver, to join the command. We bade the Sixth Cavalry people once more good-bye, but I was so nearly dead by this time, with the heat, and the fatigue of all this hard travelling and packing up, that the keener edge of my emotions was dulled. Eight days and nights spent in travelling hither and thither over those hot plains in Southern Arizona, and all for what? Because somebody in ordering somebody to change his station, had forgotten that somebody's regiment was about to be ordered out of the country it had been in for four years. Also because my husband was a soldier who obeyed orders without questioning them. If he had been a political wire-puller, many of our misfortunes might have been averted. But then, while I half envied the wives of the wire-pullers, I took a sort of pride in the blind obedience shown by my own particular soldier to the orders he received. After that week's experience, I held another colloquy with myself, and decided that wives should not follow their husbands in the army, and that if I ever got back East again, I would stay: I simply could not go on enduring these unmitigated and unreasonable hardships. The Florence man staid over at the post a day or so to rest his ponies. I bade him good-bye and told him to take care of those brave little beasts, which had travelled seventy miles without rest, to bring us to our destination. He nodded pleasantly and drove away. "A queer customer," I observed to Jack. "Yes," answered he, "they told me in Florence that he was a 'road agent' and desperado, but there did not seem to be anyone else, and my orders were peremptory, so I took him. I knew the ponies could pull us through, by the looks of them; and road agents are all right with army officers, they know they wouldn't get anything if they held 'em up." "How much did he charge you for the trip?" I asked. "Sixteen dollars," was the reply. And so ended the episode. Except that I looked back to Picket Post with a sort of horror, I thought no more about it. CHAPTER XXVII. THE EIGHTH FOOT LEAVES ARIZONA And now after the eight days of most distressing heat, and the fatigue of all sorts and varieties of travelling, the nights spent in a stage-coach or at a desert inn, or in the road agent's buckboard, holding always my little son close to my side, came six days more of journeying down the valley of the Gila. We took supper in Phoenix, at a place known as "Devine's." I was hearing a good deal about Phoenix; for even then, its gardens, its orchards and its climate were becoming famous, but the season of the year was unpropitious to form a favorable opinion of that thriving place, even if my opinions of Arizona, with its parched-up soil and insufferable heat, had not been formed already. We crossed the Gila somewhere below there, and stopped at our old camping places, but the entire valley was seething hot, and the remembrance of the December journey seemed but an aggravating dream. We joined Captain Corliss and the company at Antelope Station, and in two more days were at Yuma City. By this time, the Southern Pacific Railroad had been built as far as Yuma, and a bridge thrown across the Colorado at this point. It seemed an incongruity. And how burning hot the cars looked, standing there in the Arizona sun! After four years in that Territory, and remembering the days, weeks, and even months spent in travelling on the river, or marching through the deserts, I could not make the Pullman cars seem a reality. We brushed the dust of the Gila Valley from our clothes, I unearthed a hat from somewhere, and some wraps which had not seen the light for nearly two years, and prepared to board the train. I cried out in my mind, the prayer of the woman in one of Fisher's Ehrenberg stories, to which I used to listen with unmitigated delight, when I lived there. The story was this: "Mrs. Blank used to live here in Ehrenberg; she hated the place just as you do, but she was obliged to stay. Finally, after a period of two years, she and her sister, who had lived with her, were able to get away. I crossed over the river with them to Lower California, on the old rope ferry-boat which they used to have near Ehrenberg, and as soon as the boat touched the bank, they jumped ashore, and down they both went upon their knees, clasped their hands, raised their eyes to Heaven, and Mrs. Blank said: 'I thank Thee, oh Lord! Thou hast at last delivered us from the wilderness, and brought us back to God's country. Receive my thanks, oh Lord!'" And then Fisher used to add: "And the tears rolled down their faces, and I knew they felt every word they spoke; and I guess you'll feel about the same way when you get out of Arizona, even if you don't quite drop on your knees," he said. The soldiers did not look half so picturesque, climbing into the cars, as they did when loading onto a barge; and when the train went across the bridge, and we looked down upon the swirling red waters of the Great Colorado from the windows of a luxurious Pullman, I sighed; and, with the strange contradictoriness of the human mind, I felt sorry that the old days had come to an end. For, somehow, the hardships and deprivations which we have endured, lose their bitterness when they have become only a memory. CHAPTER XXVIII. CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA A portion of our regiment was ordered to Oregon, to join General Howard, who was conducting the Bannock Campaign, so I remained that summer in San Francisco, to await my husband's return. I could not break away from my Arizona habits. I wore only white dresses, partly because I had no others which were in fashion, partly because I had become imbued with a profound indifference to dress. "They'll think you're a Mexican," said my New England aunt (who regarded all foreigners with contempt). "Let them think," said I; "I almost wish I were; for, after all, they are the only people who understand the philosophy of living. Look at the tired faces of the women in your streets," I added, "one never sees that sort of expression down below, and I have made up my mind not to be caught by the whirlpool of advanced civilization again." Added to the white dresses, I smoked cigarettes, and slept all the afternoons. I was in the bondage of tropical customs, and I had lapsed back into a state of what my aunt called semi-barbarism. "Let me enjoy this heavenly cool climate, and do not worry me," I begged. I shuddered when I heard people complain of the cold winds of the San Francisco summer. How do they dare tempt Fate, thought I, and I wished them all in Ehrenberg or MacDowell for one summer. "I think they might then know something about climate, and would have something to complain about!" How I revelled in the flowers, and all the luxuries of that delightful city! The headquarters of the Eighth was located at Benicia, and General Kautz, our Colonel, invited me to pay a visit to his wife. A pleasant boat-trip up the Sacramento River brought us to Benicia. Mrs. Kautz, a handsome and accomplished Austrian, presided over her lovely army home in a manner to captivate my fancy, and the luxury of their surroundings almost made me speechless. "The other side of army life," thought I. A visit to Angel Island, one of the harbor defences, strengthened this impression. Four years of life in the southern posts of Arizona had almost made me believe that army life was indeed but "glittering misery," as the Germans had called it. In the autumn, the troops returned from Oregon, and C company was ordered to Camp MacDermit, a lonely spot up in the northern part of Nevada (Nevada being included in the Department of California). I was sure by that time that bad luck was pursuing us. I did not know so much about the "ins and outs" of the army then as I do now. At my aunt's suggestion, I secured a Chinaman of good caste for a servant, and by deceiving him (also my aunt's advice) with the idea that we were going only as far as Sacramento, succeeded in making him willing to accompany us. We started east, and left the railroad at a station called "Winnemucca." MacDermit lay ninety miles to the north. But at Winnemucca the Chinaman balked. "You say: 'All'e same Saclamento': lis place heap too far: me no likee!" I talked to him, and, being a good sort, he saw that I meant well, and the soldiers bundled him on top of the army wagon, gave him a lot of good-natured guying, and a revolver to keep off Indians, and so we secured Hoo Chack. Captain Corliss had been obliged to go on ahead with his wife, who was in the most delicate health. The post ambulance had met them at this place. Jack was to march over the ninety miles, with the company. I watched them starting out, the men, glad of the release from the railroad train, their guns on their shoulders, stepping off in military style and in good form. The wagons followed--the big blue army wagons, and Hoo Chack, looking rather glum, sitting on top of a pile of baggage. I took the Silver City stage, and except for my little boy I was the only passenger for the most of the way. We did the ninety miles without resting over, except for relays of horses. I climbed up on the box and talked with the driver. I liked these stage-drivers. They were "nervy," fearless men, and kind, too, and had a great dash and go about them. They often had a quiet and gentle bearing, but by that time I knew pretty well what sort of stuff they were made of, and I liked to have them talk to me, and I liked to look out upon the world through their eyes, and judge of things from their standpoint. It was an easy journey, and we passed a comfortable night in the stage. Camp MacDermit was a colorless, forbidding sort of a place. Only one company was stationed there, and my husband was nearly always scouting in the mountains north of us. The weather was severe, and the winter there was joyless and lonesome. The extreme cold and the loneliness affected my spirits, and I suffered from depression. I had no woman to talk to, for Mrs. Corliss, who was the only other officer's wife at the post, was confined to the house by the most delicate health, and her mind was wholly absorbed by the care of her young infant. There were no nurses to be had in that desolate corner of the earth. One day, a dreadful looking man appeared at the door, a person such as one never sees except on the outskirts of civilization, and I wondered what business brought him. He wore a long, black, greasy frock coat, a tall hat, and had the face of a sneak. He wanted the Chinaman's poll-tax, he said. "But," I suggested, "I never heard of collecting taxes in a Government post; soldiers and officers do not pay taxes." "That may be," he replied, "but your Chinaman is not a soldier, and I am going to have his tax before I leave this house." "So, ho," I thought; "a threat!" and the soldier's blood rose in me. I was alone; Jack was miles away up North. Hoo Chack appeared in the hall; he had evidently heard the man's last remark. "Now," I said, "this Chinaman is in my employ, and he shall not pay any tax, until I find out if he be exempt or not." The evil-looking man approached the Chinaman. Hoo Chack grew a shade paler. I fancied he had a knife under his white shirt; in fact, he felt around for it. I said, "Hoo Chack, go away, I will talk to this man." I opened the front door. "Come with me" (to the tax-collector); "we will ask the commanding officer about this matter." My heart was really in my mouth, but I returned the man's steady and dogged gaze, and he followed me to Captain Corliss' quarters. I explained the matter to the Captain, and left the man to his mercy. "Why didn't you call the Sergeant of the Guard, and have the man slapped into the guard-house?" said Jack, when I told him about it afterwards. "The man had no business around here; he was trying to browbeat you into giving him a dollar, I suppose." The country above us was full of desperadoes from Boise and Silver City, and I was afraid to be left alone so much at night; so I begged Captain Corliss to let me have a soldier to sleep in my quarters. He sent me old Needham. So I installed old Needham in my guest chamber with his loaded rifle. Now old Needham was but a wisp of a man; long years of service had broken down his health; he was all wizened up and feeble; but he was a soldier; I felt safe, and could sleep once more. Just the sight of Needham and his old blue uniform coming at night, after taps, was a comfort to me. Anxiety filled my soul, for Jack was scouting in the Stein Mountains all winter in the snow, after Indians who were avowedly hostile, and had threatened to kill on sight. He often went out with a small pack-train, and some Indian scouts, five or six soldiers, and I thought it quite wrong for him to be sent into the mountains with so small a number. Camp MacDermit was, as I have already mentioned, a "one-company post." We all know what that may mean, on the frontier. Our Second Lieutenant was absent, and all the hard work of winter scouting fell upon Jack, keeping him away for weeks at a time. The Piute Indians were supposed to be peaceful, and their old chief, Winnemucca, once the warlike and dreaded foe of the white man, was now quiet enough, and too old to fight. He lived, with his family, at an Indian village near the post. He came to see me occasionally. His dress was a curious mixture of civilization and savagery. He wore the chapeau and dress-coat of a General of the American Army, with a large epaulette on one shoulder. He was very proud of the coat, because General Crook had given it to him. His shirt, leggings and moccasins were of buckskin, and the long braids of his coal-black hair, tied with strips of red flannel, gave the last touch to this incongruous costume. But I must say that his demeanor was gentle and dignified, and, after recovering from the superficial impressions which his startling costume had at first made upon my mind, I could well believe that he had once been the war-leader, as he was now the political head of his once-powerful tribe. Winnemucca did not disdain to accept some little sugar-cakes from me, and would sit down on our veranda and munch them. He always showed me the pasteboard medal which hung around his neck, and which bore General Howard's signature; and he always said: "General Howard tell me, me good Injun, me go up--up--up"--pointing dramatically towards Heaven. On one occasion, feeling desperate for amusement, I said to him: "General Howard very good man, but he make a mistake; where you go, is not up--up--up, but," pointing solemnly to the earth below us, "down--down--down." He looked incredulous, but I assured him it was a nice place down there. Some of the scattered bands of the tribe, however, were restless and unsubdued, and gave us much trouble, and it was these bands that necessitated the scouts. My little son, Harry, four years old, was my constant and only companion, during that long, cold, and anxious winter. My mother sent me an appealing invitation to come home for a year. I accepted gladly, and one afternoon in May, Jack put us aboard the Silver City stage, which passed daily through the post. Our excellent Chinese servant promised to stay with the "Captain" and take care of him, and as I said "Good-bye, Hoo Chack," I noticed an expression of real regret on his usually stolid features. Occupied with my thoughts, on entering the stage, I did not notice the passengers or the man sitting next me on the back seat. Darkness soon closed around us, and I suppose we fell asleep. Between naps, I heard a queer clanking sound, but supposed it was the chains of the harness or the stage-coach gear. The next morning, as we got out at a relay station for breakfast, I saw the handcuffs on the man next to whom I had sat all the night long. The sheriff was on the box outside. He very obligingly changed seats with me for the rest of the way, and evening found us on the overland train speeding on our journey East. Camp MacDermit with its dreary associations and surroundings faded gradually from my mind, like a dream. ***** The year of 1879 brought us several changes. My little daughter was born in mid-summer at our old home in Nantucket. As I lay watching the curtains move gently to and fro in the soft sea-breezes, and saw my mother and sister moving about the room, and a good old nurse rocking my baby in her arms, I could but think of those other days at Camp Apache, when I lay through the long hours, with my new-born baby by my side, watching, listening for some one to come in. There was no one, no woman to come, except the poor hard-working laundress of the cavalry, who did come once a day to care for the baby. Ah! what a contrast! and I had to shut my eyes for fear I should cry, at the mere thought of those other days. ***** Jack took a year's leave of absence and joined me in the autumn at Nantucket, and the winter was spent in New York, enjoying the theatres and various amusements we had so long been deprived of. Here we met again Captain Porter and Carrie Wilkins, who was now Mrs. Porter. They were stationed at David's Island, one of the harbor posts, and we went over to see them. "Yes," he said, "as Jacob waited seven years for Rachel, so I waited for Carrie." The following summer brought us the good news that Captain Corliss' company was ordered to Angel Island, in the bay of San Francisco. "Thank goodness," said Jack, "C company has got some good luck, at last!" Joyfully we started back on the overland trip to California, which took about nine days at that time. Now, travelling with a year-old baby and a five-year-old boy was quite troublesome, and we were very glad when the train had crossed the bleak Sierras and swept down into the lovely valley of the Sacramento. Arriving in San Francisco, we went to the old Occidental Hotel, and as we were going in to dinner, a card was handed to us. "Hoo Chack" was the name on the card. "That Chinaman!" I cried to Jack. "How do you suppose he knew we were here?" We soon made arrangements for him to accompany us to Angel Island, and in a few days this "heathen Chinee" had unpacked all our boxes and made our quarters very comfortable. He was rather a high-caste man, and as true and loyal as a Christian. He never broke his word, and he staid with us as long as we remained in California. And now we began to live, to truly live; for we felt that the years spent at those desert posts under the scorching suns of Arizona had cheated us out of all but a bare existence upon earth. The flowers ran riot in our garden, fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh fish, and all the luxuries of that marvellous climate, were brought to our door. A comfortable Government steamboat plied between San Francisco and its harbor posts, and the distance was not great--only three quarters of an hour. So we had a taste of the social life of that fascinating city, and could enjoy the theatres also. On the Island, we had music and dancing, as it was the headquarters of the regiment. Mrs. Kautz, so brilliant and gay, held grand court here--receptions, military functions, lawn tennis, bright uniforms, were the order of the day. And that incomparable climate! How I revelled in it! When the fog rolled in from the Golden Gate, and enveloped the great city of Saint Francis in its cold vapors, the Island of the Angels lay warm and bright in the sunshine. The old Spaniards named it well, and the old Nantucket whalers who sailed around Cape Horn on their way to the Ar'tic, away back in the eighteen twenties, used to put in near there for water, and were well familiar with its bright shores, before it was touched by man's handiwork. Was there ever such an emerald green as adorned those hills which sloped down to the bay? Could anything equal the fields of golden escholzchia which lay there in the sunshine? Or the blue masses of "baby-eye," which opened in the mornings and held up their pretty cups to catch the dew? Was this a real Paradise? It surely seemed so to us; and, as if Nature had not done enough, the Fates stepped in and sent all the agreeable young officers of the regiment there, to help us enjoy the heavenly spot. There was Terrett, the handsome and aristocratic young Baltimorean, one of the finest men I ever saw in uniform; and Richardson, the stalwart Texan, and many others, with whom we danced and played tennis, and altogether there was so much to do and to enjoy that Time rushed by and we knew only that we were happy, and enchanted with Life. Did any uniform ever equal that of the infantry in those days? The dark blue, heavily braided "blouse," the white stripe on the light blue trousers, the jaunty cap? And then, the straight backs and the slim lines of those youthful figures! It seems to me any woman who was not an Egyptian mummy would feel her heart thrill and her blood tingle at the sight of them. Indians and deserts and Ehrenberg did not exist for me any more. My girlhood seemed to have returned, and I enjoyed everything with the keenest zest. My old friend Charley Bailey, who had married for his second wife a most accomplished young San Francisco girl, lived next door to us. General and Mrs. Kautz entertained so hospitably, and were so beloved by all. Together Mrs. Kautz and I read the German classics, and went to the German theatre; and by and by a very celebrated player, Friedrich Haase, from the Royal Theatre of Berlin, came to San Francisco. We never missed a performance, and when his tour was over, Mrs. Kautz gave a lawn party at Angel Island for him and a few of the members of his company. It was charming. I well remember how the sun shone that day, and, as we strolled up from the boat with them, Frau Haase stopped, looked at the blue sky, the lovely clouds, the green slopes of the Island and said: "Mein Gott! Frau Summerhayes, was ist das fur ein Paradies! Warum haben Sie uns nicht gesagt, Sie wohnten im Paradies!" So, with music and German speech, and strolls to the North and to the South Batteries, that wonderful and never to-be-forgotten day with the great Friedrich Haase came to an end. The months flew by, and the second winter found us still there; we heard rumors of Indian troubles in Arizona, and at last the orders came. The officers packed away their evening clothes in camphor and had their campaign clothes put out to air, and got their mess-chests in order, and the post was alive with preparations for the field. All the families were to stay behind. The most famous Indian renegade was to be hunted down, and serious fighting was looked for. At last all was ready, and the day was fixed for the departure of the troops. The winter rains had set in, and the skies were grey, as the command marched down to the boat. The officers and soldiers were in their campaign clothes; the latter had their blanket-rolls and haversacks slung over their shoulders, and their tin cups, which hung from the haversacks, rattled and jingled as they marched down in even columns of four, over the wet and grassy slopes of the parade ground, where so short a time before all had been glitter and sunshine. I realized then perhaps for the first time what the uniform really stood for; that every man who wore it, was going out to fight--that they held their lives as nothing. The glitter was all gone; nothing but sad reality remained. The officers' wives and the soldiers' wives followed the troops to the dock. The soldiers marched single file over the gang-plank of the boat, the officers said good-bye, the shrill whistle of the "General McPherson" sounded--and they were off. We leaned back against the coal-sheds, and soldiers' and officers' wives alike all wept together. And now a season of gloom came upon us. The skies were dull and murky and the rain poured down. Our old friend Bailey, who was left behind on account of illness, grew worse and finally his case was pronounced hopeless. His death added to the deep gloom and sadness which enveloped us all. A few of the soldiers who had staid on the Island to take care of the post, carried poor Bailey to the boat, his casket wrapped in the flag and followed by a little procession of women. I thought I had never seen anything so sad. The campaign lengthened out into months, but the California winters are never very long, and before the troops came back the hills looked their brightest green again. The campaign had ended with no very serious losses to our troops and all was joyous again, until another order took us from the sea-coast to the interior once more. CHAPTER XXIX. CHANGING STATION It was the custom to change the stations of the different companies of a regiment about every two years. So the autumn of '82 found us on the way to Fort Halleck, a post in Nevada, but differing vastly from the desolate MacDermit station. Fort Halleck was only thirteen miles south of the Overland Railroad, and lay near a spur of the Humboldt range. There were miles of sage-brush between the railroad and the post, but the mountains which rose abruptly five thousand feet on the far side, made a magnificent background for the officers' quarters, which lay nestled at the bottom of the foot-hills. "Oh! what a lovely post!" I cried, as we drove in. Major Sanford of the First Cavalry, with Captain Carr and Lieutenant Oscar Brown, received us. "Dear me," I thought, "if the First Cavalry is made up of such gallant men as these, the old Eighth Infantry will have to look out for its laurels." Mrs. Sanford and Mrs. Carr gave us a great welcome and vied with each other in providing for our comfort, and we were soon established. It was so good to see the gay yellow of the cavalry again! Now I rode, to my heart's content, and it was good to be alive; to see the cavalry drill, and to ride through the canons, gorgeous in their flaming autumn tints; then again to gallop through the sage-brush, jumping where we could not turn, starting up rabbits by the score. That little old post, now long since abandoned, marked a pleasant epoch in our life. From the ranches scattered around we could procure butter and squabs and young vegetables, and the soldiers cultivated great garden patches, and our small dinners and breakfasts live in delightful memory. At the end of two years spent so pleasantly with the people of the First Cavalry, our company was again ordered to Angel Island. But a second very active campaign in Arizona and Mexico, against Geronimo, took our soldiers away from us, and we passed through a period of considerable anxiety. June of '86 saw the entire regiment ordered to take station in Arizona once more. We travelled to Tucson in a Pullman car. It was hot and uninteresting. I had been at Tucson nine years before, for a few hours, but the place seemed unfamiliar. I looked for the old tavern; I saw only the railroad restaurant. We went in to take breakfast, before driving out to the post of Fort Lowell, seven miles away. Everything seemed changed. Iced cantaloupe was served by a spick-span alert waiter; then, quail on toast. "Ice in Arizona?" It was like a dream, and I remarked to Jack, "This isn't the same Arizona we knew in '74," and then, "I don't believe I like it as well, either; all this luxury doesn't seem to belong to the place." After a drive behind some smart mules, over a flat stretch of seven miles, we arrived at Fort Lowell, a rather attractive post, with a long line of officers' quarters, before which ran a level road shaded by beautiful great trees. We were assigned a half of one of these sets of quarters, and as our half had no conveniences for house-keeping, it was arranged that we should join a mess with General and Mrs. Kautz and their family. We soon got settled down to our life there, and we had various recreations; among them, driving over to Tucson and riding on horseback are those which I remember best. We made a few acquaintances in Tucson, and they sometimes drove out in the evenings, or more frequently rode out on horseback. Then we would gather together on the Kautz piazza and everybody sang to the accompaniment of Mrs. Kautz's guitar. It was very hot, of course; we had all expected that, but the luxuries obtainable through the coming of the railroad, such as ice, and various summer drinks, and lemons, and butter, helped out to make the summer there more comfortable. We slept on the piazzas, which ran around the houses on a level with the ground. At that time the fad for sleeping out of doors, at least amongst civilized people, did not exist, and our arrangements were entirely primitive. Our quarters were surrounded by a small yard and a fence; the latter was dilapidated, and the gate swung on one hinge. We were seven miles from anywhere, and surrounded by a desolate country. I did not experience the feeling of terror that I had had at Camp Apache, for instance, nor the grewsome fear of the Ehrenberg grave-yard, nor the appalling fright I had known in crossing the Mogollon range or in driving through Sanford's Pass. But still there was a haunting feeling of insecurity which hung around me especially at night. I was awfully afraid of snakes, and no sooner had we lain ourselves down on our cots to sleep, than I would hear a rustling among the dry leaves that had blown in under our beds. Then all would be still again; then a crackling and a rustling--in a flash I would be sitting up in bed. "Jack, do you hear that?" Of course I did not dare to move or jump out of bed, so I would sit, rigid, scared. "Jack! what is it?" "Nonsense, Mattie, go to sleep; it's the toads jumping about in the leaves." But my sleep was fitful and disturbed, and I never knew what a good night's rest was. One night I was awakened by a tremendous snort right over my face. I opened my eyes and looked into the wild eyes of a big black bull. I think I must have screamed, for the bull ran clattering off the piazza and out through the gate. By this time Jack was up, and Harry and Katherine, who slept on the front piazza, came running out, and I said: "Well, this is the limit of all things, and if that gate isn't mended to-morrow, I will know the reason why." Now I heard a vague rumor that there was a creature of this sort in or near the post, and that he had a habit of wandering around at night, but as I had never seen him, it had made no great impression on my mind. Jack had a great laugh at me, but I did not think then, nor do I now, that it was anything to be laughed at. We had heard much of the old Mission of San Xavier del Bac, away the other side of Tucson. Mrs. Kautz decided to go over there and go into camp and paint a picture of San Xavier. It was about sixteen miles from Fort Lowell. So all the camp paraphernalia was gotten ready and several of the officers joined the party, and we all went over to San Xavier and camped for a few days under the shadow of those beautiful old walls. This Mission is almost unknown to the American traveler. Exquisite in color, form and architecture, it stands there a silent reminder of the Past. The curious carvings and paintings inside the church, and the precious old vestments which were shown us by an ancient custodian, filled my mind with wonder. The building is partly in ruins, and the little squirrels were running about the galleries, but the great dome is intact, and many of the wonderful figures which ornament it. Of course we know the Spanish built it about the middle or last of the sixteenth century, and that they tried to christianize the tribes of Indians who lived around in the vicinity. But there is no sign of priest or communicant now, nothing but a desolate plain around it for miles. No one can possibly understand how the building of this large and beautiful mission was accomplished, and I believe history furnishes very little information. In its archives was found quite recently the charter given by Ferdinand and Isabella, to establish the "pueblo" of Tucson about the beginning of the 16th century. After a few delightful days, we broke camp and returned to Fort Lowell. And now the summer was drawing to a close, and we were anticipating the delights of the winter climate at Tucson, when, without a note of warning, came the orders for Fort Niobrara. We looked, appalled, in each other's faces, the evening the telegram came, for we did not even know where Fort Niobrara was. We all rushed into Major Wilhelm's quarters, for he always knew everything. We (Mrs. Kautz and several of the other ladies of the post, and myself) were in a state of tremendous excitement. We pounded on Major Wilhelm's door and we heard a faint voice from his bedroom (for it was after ten o'clock); then we waited a few moments and he said, "Come in." We opened the door, but there being no light in his quarters we could not see him. A voice said: "What in the name of--" but we did not wait for him to finish; we all shouted: "Where is Fort Niobrara?" "The Devil!" he said. "Are we ordered there?" "Yes, yes," we cried; "where is it?" "Why, girls," he said, relapsing into his customary moderate tones, "It's a hell of a freezing cold place, away up north in Nebraska." We turned our backs and went over to our quarters to have a consultation, and we all retired with sad hearts. Now, just think of it! To come to Fort Lowell in July, only to move in November! What could it mean? It was hard to leave the sunny South, to spend the winter in those congealed regions in the North. We were but just settled, and now came another break-up! Our establishment now, with two children, several servants, two saddle horses, and additional household furnishings, was not so simple as in the beginning of our army life, when three chests and a box or two contained our worldly goods. Each move we made was more difficult than the last; our allowance of baggage did not begin to cover what we had to take along, and this added greatly to the expense of moving. The enormous waste attending a move, and the heavy outlay incurred in travelling and getting settled anew, kept us always poor; these considerations increased our chagrin over this unexpected change of station. There was nothing to be done, however. Orders are relentless, even if they seem senseless, which this one did, to the women, at least, of the Eighth Infantry. CHAPTER XXX. FORT NIOBRARA The journey itself, however, was not to be dreaded, although it was so undesired. It was entirely by rail across New Mexico and Kansas, to St. Joseph, then up the Missouri River and then across the state to the westward. Finally, after four or five days, we reached the small frontier town of Valentine, in the very northwest corner of the bleak and desolate state of Nebraska. The post of Niobrara was four miles away, on the Niobrara (swift water) River. Some officers of the Ninth Cavalry met us at the station with the post ambulances. There were six companies of our regiment, with headquarters and band. It was November, and the drive across the rolling prairie-land gave us a fair glimpse of the country around. We crossed the old bridge over the Niobrara River, and entered the post. The snow lay already on the brown and barren hills, and the place struck a chill to my heart. The Ninth Cavalry took care of all the officers' families until we could get established. Lieutenant Bingham, a handsome and distinguished-looking young bachelor, took us with our two children to his quarters, and made us delightfully at home. His quarters were luxuriously furnished, and he was altogether adorable. This, to be sure, helped to soften my first harsh impressions of the place. Quarters were not very plentiful, and we were compelled to take a house occupied by a young officer of the Ninth. What base ingratitude it seemed, after the kindness we had accepted from his regiment! But there was no help for it. We secured a colored cook, who proved a very treasure, and on inquiring how she came to be in those wilds, I learned that she had accompanied a young heiress who eloped with a cavalry lieutenant, from her home in New York some years before. What a contrast was here, and what a cruel contrast! With blood thinned down by the enervating summer at Tucson, here we were, thrust into the polar regions! Ice and snow and blizzards, blizzards and snow and ice! The mercury disappeared at the bottom of the thermometer, and we had nothing to mark any degrees lower than 40 below zero. Human calculations had evidently stopped there. Enormous box stoves were in every room and in the halls; the old-fashioned sort that we used to see in school-rooms and meeting-houses in New England. Into these, the soldiers stuffed great logs of mountain mahogany, and the fires were kept roaring day and night. A board walk ran in front of the officers' quarters, and, desperate for fresh air and exercise, some of the ladies would bundle up and go to walk. But frozen chins, ears and elbows soon made this undesirable, and we gave up trying the fresh air, unless the mercury rose to 18 below, when a few of us would take our daily promenade. We could not complain of our fare, however, for our larder hung full of all sorts of delicate and delicious things, brought in by the grangers, and which we were glad to buy. Prairie-chickens, young pigs, venison, and ducks, all hanging, to be used when desired. To frappe a bottle of wine, we stood it on the porch; in a few minutes it would pour crystals. House-keeping was easy, but keeping warm was difficult. It was about this time that the law was passed abolishing the post-trader's store, and forbidding the selling of whiskey to soldiers on a Government reservation. The pleasant canteen, or Post Exchange, the soldiers' club-room, was established, where the men could go to relieve the monotony of their lives. With the abolition of whiskey, the tone of the post improved greatly; the men were contented with a glass of beer or light wine, the canteen was well managed, so the profits went back into the company messes in the shape of luxuries heretofore unknown; billiards and reading-rooms were established; and from that time on, the canteen came to be regarded in the army as a most excellent institution. The men gained in self-respect; the canteen provided them with a place where they could go and take a bite of lunch, read, chat, smoke, or play games with their own chosen friends, and escape the lonesomeness of the barracks. But, alas! this condition of things was not destined to endure, for the women of the various Temperance societies, in their mistaken zeal and woeful ignorance of the soldiers' life, succeeded in influencing legislation to such an extent that the canteen, in its turn, was abolished; with what dire results, we of the army all know. Those estimable women of the W. C. T. U. thought to do good to the army, no doubt, but through their pitiful ignorance of the soldiers' needs they have done him an incalculable harm. Let them stay by their lectures and their clubs, I say, and their other amusements; let them exercise their good influences nearer home, with a class of people whose conditions are understood by them, where they can, no doubt, do worlds of good. They cannot know the drear monotony of the barracks life on the frontier in times of peace. I have lived close by it, and I know it well. A ceaseless round of drill and work and lessons, and work and lessons and drill--no recreation, no excitement, no change. Far away from family and all home companionship, a man longs for some pleasant place to go, after the day's work is done. Perhaps these women think (if, in their blind enthusiasm, they think at all) that a young soldier or an old soldier needs no recreation. At all events, they have taken from him the only one he had, the good old canteen, and given him nothing in return. Now Fort Niobrara was a large post. There were ten companies, cavalry and infantry, General August V. Kautz, the Colonel of the Eighth Infantry, in command. And here, amidst the sand-hills of Nebraska, we first began to really know our Colonel. A man of strong convictions and abiding honesty, a soldier who knew his profession thoroughly, having not only achieved distinction in the Civil War, but having served when little more than a boy, in the Mexican War of 1846. Genial in his manners, brave and kind, he was beloved by all. The three Kautz children, Frankie, Austin, and Navarra, were the inseparable companions of our own children. There was a small school for the children of the post, and a soldier by the name of Delany was schoolmaster. He tried hard to make our children learn, but they did not wish to study, and spent all their spare time in planning tricks to be played upon poor Delany. It was a difficult situation for the soldier. Finally, the two oldest Kautz children were sent East to boarding-school, and we also began to realize that something must be done. Our surroundings during the early winter, it is true, had been dreary enough, but as the weather softened a bit and the spring approached, the post began to wake up. In the meantime, Cupid had not been idle. It was observed that Mr. Bingham, our gracious host of the Ninth Cavalry, had fallen in love with Antoinette, the pretty and attractive daughter of Captain Lynch of our own regiment, and the post began to be on the qui vive to see how the affair would end, for nobody expects to see the course of true love run smooth. In their case, however, the Fates were kind and in due time the happy engagement was announced. We had an excellent amusement hall, with a fine floor for dancing. The chapel was at one end, and a fairly good stage was at the other. Being nearer civilization now, in the state of Nebraska, Uncle Sam provided us with a chaplain, and a weekly service was held by the Anglican clergyman--a tall, well-formed man, a scholar and, as we say, a gentleman. He wore the uniform of the army chaplain, and as far as looks went could hold his own with any of the younger officers. And it was a great comfort to the church people to have this weekly service. During the rest of the time, the chapel was concealed by heavy curtains, and the seats turned around facing the stage. We had a good string orchestra of twenty or more pieces, and as there were a number of active young bachelors at the post, a series of weekly dances was inaugurated. Never did I enjoy dancing more than at this time. Then Mrs. Kautz, who was a thorough music lover and had a cultivated taste as well as a trained and exquisite voice, gave several musicales, for which much preparation was made, and which were most delightful. These were given at the quarters of General Kautz, a long, low, rambling one-story house, arranged with that artistic taste for which Mrs. Kautz was distinguished. Then came theatricals, all managed by Mrs. Kautz, whose talents were versatile. We charged admission, for we needed some more scenery, and the neighboring frontier town of Valentine came riding and driving over the prairie and across the old bridge of the Niobrara River, to see our plays. We had a well-lighted stage. Our methods were primitive, as there was no gas or electricity there in those days, but the results were good, and the histrionic ability shown by some of our young men and women seemed marvellous to us. I remember especially Bob Emmet's acting, which moved me to tears, in a most pathetic love scene. I thought, "What has the stage lost, in this gifted man!" But he is of a family whose talents are well known, and his personality, no doubt, added much to his natural ability as an actor. Neither the army nor the stage can now claim this brilliant cavalry officer, as he was induced, by urgent family reasons, shortly after the period of which I am writing, to resign his commission and retire to private life, at the very height of his ambitious career. And now the summer came on apace. A tennis-court was made, and added greatly to our amusement. We were in the saddle every day, and the country around proved very attractive at this season, both for riding and driving. But all this gayety did not content me, for the serious question of education for our children now presented itself; the question which, sooner or later, presents itself to the minds of all the parents of army children. It is settled differently by different people. It had taken a year for us to decide. I made up my mind that the first thing to be done was to take the children East and then decide on schools afterwards. So our plans were completed and the day of departure fixed upon. Jack was to remain at the Post. About an hour before I was to leave I saw the members of the string orchestra filing across the parade ground, coming directly towards our quarters. My heart began to beat faster, as I realized that Mrs. Kautz had planned a serenade for me. I felt it was a great break in my army life, but I did not know I was leaving the old regiment forever, the regiment with which I had been associated for so many years. And as I listened to the beautiful strains of the music I loved so well, my eyes were wet with tears, and after all the goodbye's were said, to the officers and their wives, my friends who had shared all our joys and our sorrows in so many places and under so many conditions, I ran out to the stable and pressed my cheek against the soft warm noses of our two saddle horses. I felt that life was over for me, and nothing but work and care remained. I say I felt all this. It must have been premonition, for I had no idea that I was leaving the line of the army forever. The ambulance was at the door, to take us to Valentine, where I bade Jack good bye, and took the train for the East. His last promise was to visit us once a year, or whenever he could get a leave of absence. My husband had now worn the single bar on his shoulder-strap for eleven years or more; before that, the straps of the second lieutenant had adorned his broad shoulders for a period quite as long. Twenty-two years a lieutenant in the regular army, after fighting, in a volunteer regiment of his own state, through the four years of the Civil War! The "gallant and meritorious service" for which he had received brevets, seemed, indeed, to have been forgotten. He had grown grey in Indian campaigns, and it looked as if the frontier might always be the home of the senior lieutenant of the old Eighth. Promotion in that regiment had been at a standstill for years. Being in Washington for a short time towards mid-winter enjoying the social side of military life at the Capital, an opportunity came to me to meet President Cleveland, and although his administration was nearing its close, and the stress of official cares was very great, he seemed to have leisure and interest to ask me about my life on the frontier; and as the conversation became quite personal, the impulse seized me, to tell him just how I felt about the education of our children, and then to tell him what I thought and what others thought about the unjust way in which the promotions and retirements in our regiment had been managed. He listened with the greatest interest and seemed pleased with my frankness. He asked me what the soldiers and officers out there thought of "So and So." "They hate him," I said. Whereupon he laughed outright and I knew I had committed an indiscretion, but life on the frontier does not teach one diplomacy of speech, and by that time I was nerved up to say just what I felt, regardless of results. "Well," he said, smiling, "I am afraid I cannot interfere much with those military matters;" then, pointing with his left hand and thumb towards the War Department, "they fix them all up over there in the Adjutant General's office," he added. Then he asked me many more questions; if I had always stayed out there with my husband, and why I did not live in the East, as so many army women did; and all the time I could hear the dull thud of the carpenters' hammers, for they were building even then the board seats for the public who would witness the inaugural ceremonies of his successor, and with each stroke of the hammer, his face seemed to grow more sad. I felt the greatness of the man; his desire to be just and good: his marvellous personal power, his ability to understand and to sympathize, and when I parted from him he said again laughingly, "Well, I shall not forget your husband's regiment, and if anything turns up for those fine men you have told me about, they will hear from me." And I knew they were the words of a man, who meant what he said. In the course of our conversation he had asked, "Who are these men? Do they ever come to Washington? I rarely have these things explained to me and I have little time to interfere with the decisions of the Adjutant General's office." I replied: "No, Mr. President, they are not the men you see around Washington. Our regiment stays on the frontier, and these men are the ones who do the fighting, and you people here in Washington are apt to forget all about them." "What have they ever done? Were they in the Civil War?" he asked. "Their records stand in black and white in the War Department," I replied, "if you have the interest to learn more about them." "Women's opinions are influenced by their feelings," he said. "Mine are based upon what I know, and I am prepared to stand by my convictions," I replied. Soon after this interview, I returned to New York and I did not give the matter very much further thought, but my impression of the greatness of Mr. Cleveland and of his powerful personality has remained with me to this day. A vacancy occurred about this time in the Quartermaster's Department, and the appointment was eagerly sought for by many Lieutenants of the army. President Cleveland saw fit to give the appointment to Lieutenant Summerhayes, making him a Captain and Quartermaster, and then, another vacancy occurring shortly after, he appointed Lieutenant John McEwen Hyde to be also a Captain and Quartermaster. Lieutenant Hyde stood next in rank to my husband and had grown grey in the old Eighth Infantry. So the regiment came in for its honor at last, and General Kautz, when the news of the second appointment reached him, exclaimed, "Well! well! does the President think my regiment a nursery for the Staff?" The Eighth Foot and the Ninth Horse at Niobrara gave the new Captain and Quartermaster a rousing farewell, for now my husband was leaving his old regiment forever; and, while he appreciated fully the honor of his new staff position, he felt a sadness at breaking off the associations of so many years--a sadness which can scarcely be understood by the young officers of the present day, who are promoted from one regiment to another, and rarely remain long enough with one organization to know even the men of their own Company. There were many champagne suppers, dinners and card-parties given for him, to make the good-bye something to be remembered, and at the end of a week's festivities, he departed by a night train from Valentine, thus eluding the hospitality of those generous but wild frontiersmen, who were waiting to give him what they call out there a "send-off." For Valentine was like all frontier towns; a row of stores and saloons. The men who kept them were generous, if somewhat rough. One of the officers of the post, having occasion to go to the railroad station one day at Valentine, saw the body of a man hanging to a telegraph pole a short distance up the track. He said to the station man: "What does that mean?" (nodding his head in the direction of the telegraph pole). "Why, it means just this," said the station man, "the people who hung that man last night had the nerve to put him right in front of this place, by G--. What would the passengers think of this town, sir, as they went by? Why, the reputation of Valentine would be ruined! Yes, sir, we cut him down and moved him up a pole or two. He was a hard case, though," he added. CHAPTER XXXI. SANTA FE I made haste to present Captain Summerhayes with the shoulder-straps of his new rank, when he joined me in New York. ***** The orders for Santa Fe reached us in mid-summer at Nantucket. I knew about as much of Santa Fe as the average American knows, and that was nothing; but I did know that the Staff appointment solved the problem of education for us (for Staff officers are usually stationed in cities), and I knew that our frontier life was over. I welcomed the change, for our children were getting older, and we were ourselves approaching the age when comfort means more to one than it heretofore has. Jack obeyed his sudden orders, and I followed him as soon as possible. Arriving at Santa Fe in the mellow sunlight of an October day, we were met by my husband and an officer of the Tenth Infantry, and as we drove into the town, its appearance of placid content, its ancient buildings, its great trees, its clear air, its friendly, indolent-looking inhabitants, gave me a delightful feeling of home. A mysterious charm seemed to possess me. It was the spell which that old town loves to throw over the strangers who venture off the beaten track to come within her walls. Lying only eighteen miles away, over a small branch road from Llamy (a station on the Atchison and Topeka Railroad), few people take the trouble to stop over to visit it. "Dead old town," says the commercial traveller, "nothing doing there." And it is true. But no spot that I have visited in this country has thrown around me the spell of enchantment which held me fast in that sleepy and historic town. The Governor's Palace, the old plaza, the ancient churches, the antiquated customs, the Sisters' Hospital, the old Convent of Our Lady of Loretto, the soft music of the Spanish tongue, I loved them all. There were no factories; no noise was ever heard; the sun shone peacefully on, through winter and summer alike. There was no cold, no heat, but a delightful year-around climate. Why the place was not crowded with health seekers, was a puzzle to me. I had thought that the bay of San Francisco offered the most agreeable climate in America, but, in the Territory of New Mexico, Santa Fe was the perfection of all climates combined. The old city lies in the broad valley of the Santa Fe Creek, but the valley of the Santa Fe Creek lies seven thousand feet above the sea level. I should never have known that we were living at a great altitude, if I had not been told, for the equable climate made us forget to inquire about height or depth or distance. I listened to old Father de Fourri preach his short sermons in English to the few Americans who sat on one side of the aisle, in the church of Our Lady of Guadaloupe; then, turning with an easy gesture towards his Mexican congregation, who sat or knelt near the sanctuary, and saying, "Hermanos mios," he gave the same discourse in good Spanish. I felt comfortable in the thought that I was improving my Spanish as well as profiting by Father de Fourri's sound logic. This good priest had grown old at Santa Fe in the service of his church. The Mexican women, with their black ribosos wound around their heads and concealing their faces, knelt during the entire mass, and made many long responses in Latin. After years spent in a heathenish manner, as regards all church observations, this devout and unique service, following the customs of ancient Spain, was interesting to me in the extreme. Sometimes on a Sunday afternoon I attended Vespers in the chapel of the Sisters' Hospital (as it was called). A fine Sanitarium, managed entirely by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity. Sister Victoria, who was at the head of the management, was not only a very beautiful woman, but she had an agreeable voice and always led in the singing. It seemed like Heaven. I wrote to my friends in the East to come to the Sisters' Hospital if they wanted health, peace and happiness, for it was surely to be found there. I visited the convent of Our Lady of Loretto: I stood before a high wall in an embrasure of which there was a low wooden gate; I pulled on a small knotted string which hung out of a little hole, and a queer old bell rang. Then one of the nuns came and let me in, across a beautiful garden to the convent school. I placed my little daughter as a day pupil there, as she was now eleven years old. The nuns spoke very little English and the children none at all. The entire city was ancient, Spanish, Catholic, steeped in a religious atmosphere and in what the average American Protestant would call the superstitions of the dark ages. There were endless fiestas, and processions and religious services, I saw them all and became much interested in reading the history of the Catholic missions, established so early out through what was then a wild and unexplored country. After that, I listened with renewed interest to old Father de Fouri, who had tended and led his flock of simple people so long and so lovingly. There was a large painting of Our Lady of Guadaloupe over the altar--these people firmly believed that she had appeared to them, on the earth, and so strong was the influence around me that I began almost to believe it too. I never missed the Sunday morning mass, and I fell in easily with the religious observances. I read and studied about the old explorers, and I seemed to live in the time of Cortez and his brave band. I became acquainted with Adolf Bandelier, who had lived for years in that country, engaged in research for the American Archaeological Society. I visited the Indian pueblos, those marvellous structures of adobe, where live entire tribes, and saw natives who have not changed their manner of speech or dress since the days when the Spaniards first penetrated to their curious dwellings, three hundred or more years ago. I climbed the rickety ladders, by which one enters these strange dwellings, and bought the great bowls which these Indians shape in some manner without the assistance of a potter's wheel, and then bake in their mud ovens. The pueblo of Tesuque is only nine miles from Santa Fe, and a pleasant drive, at that; it seemed strange to me that the road was not lined with tourists. But no, they pass all these wonders by, in their disinclination to go off the beaten track. Visiting the pueblos gets to be a craze. Governor and Mrs. Prince knew them all--the pueblo of Taos, of Santa Clara, San Juan, and others; and the Governor's collection of great stone idols was a marvel indeed. He kept them laid out on shelves, which resembled the bunks on a great vessel, and in an apartment especially reserved for them, in his residence at Santa Fe, and it was always with considerable awe that I entered that apartment. The Governor occupied at that time a low, rambling adobe house, on Palace Avenue, and this, with its thick walls and low window-seats, made a fit setting for the treasures they had gathered. Later on, the Governor's family occupied the palace (as it is always called) of the old Spanish Viceroy, a most ancient, picturesque, yet dignified building, facing the plaza. The various apartments in this old palace were used for Government offices when we were stationed there in 1889, and in one of these rooms, General Lew Wallace, a few years before, had written his famous book, "Ben Hur." On the walls were hanging old portraits painted by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. They were done on rawhide, and whether these interesting and historic pictures have been preserved by our Government I do not know. The distinguished Anglican clergyman living there taught a small class of boys, and the "Academy," an excellent school established by the Presbyterian Board of Missions, afforded good advantages for the young girls of the garrison. And as we had found that the Convent of Loretto was not just adapted to the education of an American child, we withdrew Katharine from that school and placed her at the Presbyterian Academy. To be sure, the young woman teacher gave a rousing lecture on total abstinence once a week; going even so far as to say, that to partake of apple sauce which had begun to ferment was yielding to the temptations of Satan. The young woman's arguments made a disastrous impression upon our children's minds; so much so, that the rich German Jews whose daughters attended the school complained greatly; for, as they told us, these girls would hasten to snatch the decanters from the sideboard, at the approach of visitors, and hide them, and they began to sit in judgment upon their elders. Now these men were among the leading citizens of the town; they were self-respecting and wealthy. They could not stand these extreme doctrines, so opposed to their life and their traditions. We informed Miss X. one day that she could excuse our children from the total abstinence lecture, or we should be compelled to withdraw them from the school. She said she could not compel them to listen, but preach she must. She remained obedient to her orders from the Board, and we could but respect her for that. Our young daughters were, however, excused from the lecture. But our time was not entirely given up to the study of ancient pottery, for the social life there was delightful. The garrison was in the centre of the town, the houses were comfortable, and the streets shaded by old trees. The Tenth Infantry had its headquarters and two companies there. Every afternoon, the military band played in the Plaza, where everybody went and sat on benches in the shade of the old trees, or, if cool, in the delightful sunshine. The pretty and well-dressed senoritas cast shy glances at the young officers of the Tenth; but, alas! the handsome and attractive Lieutenants Van Vliet and Seyburn, and the more sedate Lieutenant Plummer, could not return these bewitching glances, as they were all settled in life. The two former officers had married in Detroit, and both Mrs. Van Vliet and Mrs. Seyburn did honor to the beautiful city of Michigan, for they were most agreeable and clever women, and presided over their army homes with distinguished grace and hospitality. The Americans who lived there were all professional people; mostly lawyers, and a few bankers. I could not understand why so many Eastern lawyers lived there. I afterwards learned that the old Spanish land grants had given rise to illimitable and never-ending litigation. Every morning we rode across country. There were no fences, but the wide irrigation ditches gave us a plenty of excitement, and the riding was glorious. I had no occasion yet to realize that we had left the line of the army. A camping trip to the head-waters of the Pecos, where we caught speckled trout in great abundance in the foaming riffles and shallow pools of this rushing mountain stream, remaining in camp a week under the spreading boughs of the mighty pines, added to the variety and delights of our life there. With such an existence as this, good health and diversion, the time passed rapidly by. It was against the law now for soldiers to marry; the old days of "laundresses" had passed away. But the trombone player of the Tenth Infantry band (a young Boston boy) had married a wife, and now a baby had come to them. They could get no quarters, so we took the family in, and, as the wife was an excellent cook, we were able to give many small dinners. The walls of the house being three feet thick, we were never troubled by the trombone practice or the infant's cries. And many a delightful evening we had around the board, with Father de Fourri, Rev. Mr. Meany (the Anglican clergyman), the officers and ladies of the Tenth, Governor and Mrs. Prince, and the brilliant lawyer folk of Santa Fe. Such an ideal life cannot last long; this existence of ours does not seem to be contrived on those lines. At the end of a year, orders came for Texas, and perhaps it was well that orders came, or we might be in Santa Fe to-day, wrapt in a dream of past ages; for the city of the Holy Faith had bound us with invisible chains. With our departure from Santa Fe, all picturesqueness came to an end in our army life. Ever after that, we had really good houses to live in, which had all modern arrangements; we had beautiful, well-kept lawns and gardens, the same sort of domestic service that civilians have, and lived almost the same life. CHAPTER XXXII. TEXAS Whenever I think of San Antonio and Fort Sam Houston, the perfume of the wood violet which blossomed in mid-winter along the borders of our lawn, and the delicate odor of the Cape jessamine, seem to be wafted about me. Fort Sam Houston is the Headquarters of the Department of Texas, and all the Staff officers live there, in comfortable stone houses, with broad lawns shaded by chinaberry trees. Then at the top of the hill is a great quadrangle, with a clock tower and all the department offices. On the other side of this quadrangle is the post, where the line officers live. General Stanley commanded the Department. A fine, dignified and able man, with a great record as an Indian fighter. Jack knew him well, as he had been with him in the first preliminary survey for the northern Pacific Railroad, when he drove old Sitting Bull back to the Powder River. He was now about to reach the age of retirement; and as the day approached, that day when a man has reached the limit of his usefulness (in the opinion of an ever-wise Government), that day which sounds the knell of active service, that day so dreaded and yet so longed for, that day when an army officer is sixty-four years old and Uncle Sam lays him upon the shelf, as that day approached, the city of San Antonio, in fact the entire State of Texas poured forth to bid him Godspeed; for if ever an army man was beloved, it was General Stanley by the State of Texas. Now on the other side of the great quadrangle lay the post, where were the soldiers' barracks and quarters of the line officers. This was commanded by Colonel Coppinger, a gallant officer, who had fought in many wars in many countries. He had his famous regiment, the Twenty-third Infantry, and many were the pleasant dances and theatricals we had, with the music furnished by their band; for, as it was a time of peace, the troops were all in garrison. Major Burbank was there also, with his well-drilled Light Battery of the 3rd Artillery. My husband, being a Captain and Quartermaster, served directly under General George H. Weeks, who was Chief Quartermaster of the Department, and I can never forget his kindness to us both. He was one of the best men I ever knew, in the army or out of it, and came to be one of my dearest friends. He possessed the sturdy qualities of his Puritan ancestry, united with the charming manners of an aristocrat. We belonged, of course, now, with the Staff, and something, an intangible something, seemed to have gone out of the life. The officers were all older, and the Staff uniforms were more sombre. I missed the white stripe of the infantry, and the yellow of the cavalry. The shoulder-straps all had gold eagles or leaves on them, instead of the Captains' or Lieutenants' bars. Many of the Staff officers wore civilians' clothes, which distressed me much, and I used to tell them that if I were Secretary of War they would not be permitted to go about in black alpaca coats and cinnamon-brown trousers. "What would you have us do?" said General Weeks. "Wear white duck and brass buttons," I replied. "Fol-de-rol!" said the fine-looking and erect Chief Quartermaster; "you would have us be as vain as we were when we were Lieutenants?" "You can afford to be," I answered; for, even with his threescore years, he had retained the lines of youth, and was, in my opinion, the finest looking man in the Staff of the Army. But all my reproaches and all my diplomacy were of no avail in reforming the Staff. Evidently comfort and not looks was their motto. One day, I accidentally caught a side view of myself in a long mirror (long mirrors had not been very plentiful on the frontier), and was appalled by the fact that my own lines corresponded but too well, alas! with those of the Staff. Ah, me! were the days, then, of Lieutenants forever past and gone? The days of suppleness and youth, the careless gay days, when there was no thought for the future, no anxiety about education, when the day began with a wild dash across country and ended with a dinner and dance---were they over, then, for us all? Major Burbank's battery of light artillery came over and enlivened the quiet of our post occasionally with their brilliant red color. At those times, we all went out and stood in the music pavilion to watch the drill; and when his horses and guns and caissons thundered down the hill and swept by us at a terrific gallop, our hearts stood still. Even the dignified Staff permitted themselves a thrill, and as for us women, our excitement knew no bounds. The brilliant red of the artillery brought color to the rather grey aspect of the quiet Headquarters post, and the magnificent drill supplied the martial element so dear to a woman's heart. In San Antonio, the New has almost obliterated the Old, and little remains except its pretty green river, its picturesque bridges, and the historic Alamo, to mark it from other cities in the Southwest. In the late afternoon, everybody drove to the Plaza, where all the country people were selling their garden-stuff and poultry in the open square. This was charming, and we all bought live fowl and drove home again. One heard cackling and gobbling from the smart traps and victorias, and it seemed to be a survival of an old custom. The whole town took a drive after that, and supped at eight o'clock. The San Antonio people believe there is no climate to equal theirs, and talk much about the cool breezes from the Gulf of Mexico, which is some miles away. But I found seven months of the twelve too hot for comfort, and I could never detect much coolness in the summer breezes. After I settled down to the sedateness which is supposed to belong to the Staff, I began to enjoy life very much. There is compensation for every loss, and I found, with the new friends, many of whom had lived their lives, and had known sorrow and joy, a true companionship which enriched my life, and filled the days with gladness. My son had completed the High School course in San Antonio, under an able German master, and had been sent East to prepare for the Stevens Institute of Technology, and in the following spring I took my daughter Katharine and fled from the dreaded heat of a Texas summer. Never can I forget the child's grief on parting from her Texas pony. She extorted a solemn promise from her father, who was obliged to stay in Texas, that he would never part with him. My brother, then unmarried, and my sister Harriet were living together in New Rochelle and to them we went. Harry's vacation enabled him to be with us, and we had a delightful summer. It was good to be on the shores of Long Island Sound. In the autumn, not knowing what next was in store for us, I placed my dear little Katharine at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Kenwood on the Hudson, that she might be able to complete her education in one place, and in the care of those lovely, gentle and refined ladies of that order. Shortly after that, Captain Jack was ordered to David's Island, New York Harbor (now called Fort Slocum), where we spent four happy and uninterrupted years, in the most constant intercourse with my dear brother and sister. Old friends were coming and going all the time, and it seemed so good to us to be living in a place where this was possible. Captain Summerhayes was constructing officer and had a busy life, with all the various sorts of building to be done there. David's Island was then an Artillery Post, and there were several batteries stationed there. (Afterwards it became a recruiting station.) The garrison was often entirely changed. At one time, General Henry C. Cook was in command. He and his charming Southern wife added so much to the enjoyment of the post. Then came our old friends the Van Vliets of Santa Fe days; and Dr. and Mrs. Valery Havard, who are so well known in the army, and then Colonel Carl Woodruff and Mrs. Woodruff, whom we all liked so much, and dear Doctor Julian Cabell, and others, who completed a delightful garrison. And we had a series of informal dances and invited the distinguished members of the artist colony from New Rochelle, and it was at one of these dances that I first met Frederic Remington. I had long admired his work and had been most anxious to meet him. As a rule, Frederic did not attend any social functions, but he loved the army, and as Mrs. Remington was fond of social life, they were both present at our first little invitation dance. About the middle of the evening I noticed Mr. Remington sitting alone and I crossed the hall and sat down beside him. I then told him how much I had loved his work and how it appealed to all army folks, and how glad I was to know him, and I suppose I said many other things such as literary men and painters and players often have to hear from enthusiastic women like myself. However, Frederic seemed pleased, and made some modest little speech and then fell into an abstracted silence, gazing on the great flag which was stretched across the hall at one end, and from behind which some few soldiers who were going to assist in serving the supper were passing in and out. I fell in with his mood immediately, as he was a person with whom formality was impossible, and said: "What are you looking at, Mr. Remington?" He replied, turning upon me his round boyish face and his blue eyes gladdening, "I was just thinking I wished I was behind in there where those blue jackets are--you know--behind that flag with the soldiers--those are the men I like to study, you know, I don't like all this fuss and feathers of society"--then, blushing at his lack of gallantry, he added: "It's all right, of course, pretty women and all that, and I suppose you think I'm dreadful and--do you want me to dance with you--that's the proper thing here isn't it?" Whereupon, he seized me in his great arms and whirled me around at a pace I never dreamed of, and, once around, he said, "that's enough of this thing, isn't it, let's sit down, I believe I'm going to like you, though I'm not much for women." I said "You must come over here often;" and he replied, "You've got a lot of jolly good fellows over here and I will do it." Afterwards, the Remingtons and ourselves became the closest friends. Mrs. Remington's maiden name was Eva Caton, and after the first few meetings, she became "little Eva" to me--and if ever there was an embodiment of that gentle lovely name and what it implies, it is this woman, the wife of the great artist, who has stood by him through all the reverses of his early life and been, in every sense, his guiding star. And now began visits to the studio, a great room he had built on to his house at New Rochelle. It had an enormous fire place where great logs were burned, and the walls were hung with the most rare and wonderful Indian curios. There he did all the painting which has made him famous in the last twenty years, and all the modelling which has already become so well known and would have eventually made him a name as a great sculptor. He always worked steadily until three o'clock and then there was a walk or game of tennis or a ride. After dinner, delightful evenings in the studio. Frederic was a student and a deep thinker. He liked to solve all questions for himself and did not accept readily other men's theories. He thought much on religious subjects and the future life, and liked to compare the Christian religion with the religions of Eastern countries, weighing them one against the other with fairness and clear logic. And so we sat, many evenings into the night, Frederic and Jack stretched in their big leather chairs puffing away at their pipes, Eva with her needlework, and myself a rapt listener: wondering at this man of genius, who could work with his creative brush all day long and talk with the eloquence of a learned Doctor of Divinity half the night. During the time we were stationed at Davids Island, Mr. Remington and Jack made a trip to the Southwest, where they shot the peccary (wild hog) in Texas and afterwards blue quail and other game in Mexico. Artist and soldier, they got on famously together notwithstanding the difference in their ages. And now he was going to try his hand at a novel, a real romance. We talked a good deal about the little Indian boy, and I got to love White Weasel long before he appeared in print as John Ermine. The book came out after we had left New Rochelle--but I received a copy from him, and wrote him my opinion of it, which was one of unstinted praise. But it did not surprise me to learn that he did not consider it a success from a financial point of view. "You see," he said a year afterwards, "that sort of thing does not interest the public. What they want,"--here he began to mimic some funny old East Side person, and both hands gesticulating--"is a back yard and a cabbage patch and a cook stove and babies' clothes drying beside it, you see, Mattie," he said. "They don't want to know anything about the Indian or the half-breed, or what he thinks or believes." And then he went off into one of his irresistible tirades combining ridicule and abuse of the reading public, in language such as only Frederic Remington could use before women and still retain his dignity. "Well, Frederic," I said, "I will try to recollect that, when I write my experiences of Army Life." In writing him my opinion of his book the year before, I had said, "In fact, I am in love with John Ermine." The following Christmas he sent me the accompanying card. Now the book was dramatized and produced, with Hackett as John Ermine, at the Globe Theatre in September of 1902--the hottest weather ever on record in Boston at that season. Of course seats were reserved for us; we were living at Nantucket that year, and we set sail at noon to see the great production. We snatched a bite of supper at a near-by hotel in Boston and hurried to the theatre, but being late, had some difficulty in getting our seats. The curtain was up and there sat Hackett, not with long yellow hair (which was the salient point in the half-breed scout) but rather well-groomed, looking more like a parlor Indian than a real live half-breed, such as all we army people knew. I thought "this will never do." The house was full, Hackett did the part well, and the audience murmured on going out: "a very artistic success." But the play was too mystical, too sad. It would have suited the "New Theatre" patrons better. I wrote him from Nantucket and criticized one or two minor points, such as the 1850 riding habits of the women, which were slouchy and unbecoming and made the army people look like poor emigrants and I received this letter in reply: WEBSTER AVENUE, NEW ROCHELLE, N. Y. My dear Mrs. S., Much obliged for your talk--it is just what we want--proper impressions. I fought for that long hair but the management said the audience has got to, have some Hackett--why I could not see--but he is a matinee idol and that long with the box office. We'll dress Katherine up better. The long rehearsals at night nearly killed me--I was completely done up and came home on train Monday in that terrific heat and now I am in the hands of a doctor. Imagine me a week without sleep. Hope that fight took Jack back to his youth. For the stage I don't think it was bad. We'll get grey shirts on their men later. The old lady arrives to-day--she has been in Gloversville. I think the play will go--but, we may have to save Ermine. The public is a funny old cat and won't stand for the mustard. Well, glad you had a good time and of course you can't charge me up with the heat. Yours, FREDERICK R. Remington made a trip to the Yellowstone Park and this is what he wrote to Jack. His letters were never dated. My dear Summerhayes: Say if you could get a few puffs of this cold air out here you would think you were full of champagne water. I feel like a d--- kid-- I thought I should never be young again--but here I am only 14 years old--my whiskers are falling out. Capt. Brown of the 1st cav. wishes to be remembered to you both. He is Park Superintendent. Says if you will come out here he will take care of you and he would. Am painting and doing some good work. Made a "govt. six" yesterday. In the course of time, he bought an Island in the St. Lawrence and they spent several summers there. On the occasion of my husband accepting a detail in active service in Washington at the Soldiers' Home, after his retirement, he received the following letter. INGLENEUK, CHIPPEWA BAY, N. Y. My dear Jack-- So there you are--and I'm d--- glad you are so nicely fixed. It's the least they could do for you and you ought to be able to enjoy it for ten years before they find any spavins on you if you will behave yourself, but I guess you will drift into that Army and Navy Club and round up with a lot of those old alkalied prairie-dogs whom neither Indians nor whiskey could kill and Mr. Gout will take you over his route to Arlington. I'm on the water wagon and I feel like a young mule. I am never going to get down again to try the walking. If I lose my whip I am going to drive right on and leave it. We are having a fine summer and I may run over to Washington this winter and throw my eye over you to see how you go. We made a trip down to New Foundland but saw nothing worth while. I guess I am getting to be an old swat--I can't see anything that didn't happen twenty years ago, Y-- FREDERICK R. At the close of the year just gone, this great soul passed from the earth leaving a blank in our lives that nothing can ever fill. Passed into the great Beyond whose mysteries were always troubling his mind. Suddenly and swiftly the call came--the hand was stilled and the restless spirit took its flight. CHAPTER XXXIII. DAVID'S ISLAND At Davids' Island the four happiest years of my army life glided swiftly away. There was a small steam tug which made regular and frequent trips over to New Rochelle and we enjoyed our intercourse with the artists and players who lived there. Zogbaum, whose well known pictures of sailors and warships and soldiers had reached us even in the far West, and whose charming family added so much to our pleasure. Julian Hawthorne with his daughter Hildegarde, now so well known as a literary critic; Henry Loomis Nelson, whose fair daughter Margaret came to our little dances and promptly fell in love with a young, slim, straight Artillery officer. A case of love at first sight, followed by a short courtship and a beautiful little country wedding at Miss Nelson's home on the old Pelham Road, where Hildegarde Hawthorne was bridesmaid in a white dress and scarlet flowers (the artillery colors) and many famous literary people from everywhere were present. Augustus Thomas, the brilliant playwright, whose home was near the Remingtons on Lathers' Hill, and whose wife, so young, so beautiful and so accomplished, made that home attractive and charming. Francis Wilson, known to the world at large, first as a singer in comic opera, and now as an actor and author, also lived in New Rochelle, and we came to have the honor of being numbered amongst his friends. A devoted husband and kind father, a man of letters and a book lover, such is the man as we knew him in his home and with his family. And now came the delicious warm summer days. We persuaded the Quartermaster to prop up the little row of old bathing houses which had toppled over with the heavy winter gales. There were several bathing enthusiasts amongst us; we had a pretty fair little stretch of beach which was set apart for the officers' families, and now what bathing parties we had! Kemble, the illustrator, joined our ranks--and on a warm summer morning the little old Tug Hamilton was gay with the artists and their families, the players and writers of plays, and soon you could see the little garrison hastening to the beach and the swimmers running down the long pier, down the run-way and off head first into the clear waters of the Sound. What a company was that! The younger and the older ones all together, children and their fathers and mothers, all happy, all well, all so gay, and we of the frontier so enamored of civilization and what it brought us! There were no intruders and ah! those were happy days. Uncle Sam seemed to be making up to us for what we had lost during all those long years in the wild places. Then Augustus Thomas wrote the play of "Arizona" and we went to New York to see it put on, and we sat in Mr. Thomas' box and saw our frontier life brought before us with startling reality. And so one season followed another. Each bringing its pleasures, and then came another lovely wedding, for my brother Harry gave up his bachelor estate and married one of the nicest and handsomest girls in Westchester County, and their home in New Rochelle was most attractive. My son was at the Stevens Institute and both he and Katharine were able to spend their vacations at David's Island, and altogether, our life there was near to perfection. We were doomed to have one more tour in the West, however, and this time it was the Middle West. For in the autumn of '96, Jack was ordered to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, on construction work. Jefferson Barracks is an old and historic post on the Mississippi River, some ten miles south of St. Louis. I could not seem to take any interest in the post or in the life there. I could not form new ties so quickly, after our life on the coast, and I did not like the Mississippi Valley, and St. Louis was too far from the post, and the trolley ride over there too disagreeable for words. After seven months of just existing (on my part) at Jefferson Barracks, Jack received an order for Fort Myer, the end, the aim, the dream of all army people. Fort Myer is about three miles from Washington, D. C. We lost no time in getting there and were soon settled in our pleasant quarters. There was some building to be done, but the duty was comparatively light, and we entered with considerable zest into the social life of the Capital. We expected to remain there for two years, at the end of which time Captain Summerhayes would be retired and Washington would be our permanent home. But alas! our anticipation was never to be realized, for, as we all know, in May of 1898, the Spanish War broke out, and my husband was ordered to New York City to take charge of the Army Transport Service, under Colonel Kimball. No delay was permitted to him, so I was left behind, to pack up the household goods and to dispose of our horses and carriages as best I could. The battle of Manila Bay had changed the current of our lives, and we were once more adrift. The young Cavalry officers came in to say good-bye to Captain Jack: every one was busy packing up his belongings for an indefinite period and preparing for the field. We all felt the undercurrent of sadness and uncertainty, but "a good health" and "happy return" was drunk all around, and Jack departed at midnight for his new station and new duties. The next morning at daybreak we were awakened by the tramp, tramp of the Cavalry, marching out of the post, en route for Cuba. We peered out of the windows and watched the troops we loved so well, until every man and horse had vanished from our sight. Fort Myer was deserted and our hearts were sad. ***** My sister Harriet, who was visiting us at that time, returned from her morning walk, and as she stepped upon the porch, she said: "Well! of all lonesome places I ever saw, this is the worst yet. I am going to pack my trunk and leave. I came to visit an army post, but not an old women's home or an orphan asylum: that is about all this place is now. I simply cannot stay!" Whereupon, she proceeded immediately to carry out her resolution, and I was left behind with my young daughter, to finish and close up our life at Fort Myer. To describe the year which followed, that strenuous year in New York, is beyond my power. That summer gave Jack his promotion to a Major, but the anxiety and the terrible strain of official work broke down his health entirely, and in the following winter the doctors sent him to Florida, to recuperate. After six weeks in St. Augustine, we returned to New York. The stress of the war was over; the Major was ordered to Governor's Island as Chief Quartermaster, Department of the East, and in the following year he was retired, by operation of the law, at the age limit. I was glad to rest from the incessant changing of stations; the life had become irksome to me, in its perpetual unrest. I was glad to find a place to lay my head, and to feel that we were not under orders; to find and to keep a roof-tree, under which we could abide forever. In 1903, by an act of Congress, the veterans of the Civil War, who had served continuously for thirty years or more were given an extra grade, so now my hero wears with complacency the silver leaf of the Lieutenant-Colonel, and is enjoying the quiet life of a civilian. But that fatal spirit of unrest from which I thought to escape, and which ruled my life for so many years, sometimes asserts its power, and at those times my thoughts turn back to the days when we were all Lieutenants together, marching across the deserts and mountains of Arizona; back to my friends of the Eighth Infantry, that historic regiment, whose officers and men fought before the walls of Chapultepec and Mexico, back to my friends of the Sixth Cavalry, to the days at Camp MacDowell, where we slept under the stars, and watched the sun rise from behind the Four Peaks of the MacDowell Mountains: where we rode the big cavalry horses over the sands of the Maricopa desert, swung in our hammocks under the ramadas; swam in the red waters of the Verde River, ate canned peaches, pink butter and commissary hams, listened for the scratching of the centipedes as they scampered around the edges of our canvas-covered floors, found scorpions in our slippers, and rattlesnakes under our beds. The old post is long since abandoned, but the Four Peaks still stand, wrapped in their black shadows by night, and their purple colors by day, waiting for the passing of the Apache and the coming of the white man, who shall dig his canals in those arid plains, and build his cities upon the ruins of the ancient Aztec dwellings. The Sixth Cavalry, as well as the Eighth Infantry, has seen many vicissitudes since those days. Some of our gallant Captains and Lieutenants have won their stars, others have been slain in battle. Dear, gentle Major Worth received wounds in the Cuban campaign, which caused his death, but he wore his stars before he obeyed the "last call." The gay young officers of Angel Island days hold dignified commands in the Philippines, Cuba, and Alaska. ***** My early experiences were unusually rough. None of us seek such experiences, but possibly they bring with them a sort of recompense, in that simple comforts afterwards seem, by contrast, to be the greatest luxuries. I am glad to have known the army: the soldiers, the line, and the Staff; it is good to think of honor and chivalry, obedience to duty and the pride of arms; to have lived amongst men whose motives were unselfish and whose aims were high; amongst men who served an ideal; who stood ready, at the call of their country, to give their lives for a Government which is, to them, the best in the world. Sometimes I hear the still voices of the Desert: they seem to be calling me through the echoes of the Past. I hear, in fancy, the wheels of the ambulance crunching the small broken stones of the malapais, or grating swiftly over the gravel of the smooth white roads of the river-bottoms. I hear the rattle of the ivory rings on the harness of the six-mule team; I see the soldiers marching on ahead; I see my white tent, so inviting after a long day's journey. But how vain these fancies! Railroad and automobile have annihilated distance, the army life of those years is past and gone, and Arizona, as we knew it, has vanished from the face of the earth. THE END. APPENDIX. NANTUCKET ISLAND, June 1910. When, a few years ago, I determined to write my recollections of life in the army, I was wholly unfamiliar with the methods of publishers, and the firm to whom I applied to bring out my book, did not urge upon me the advisability of having it electrotyped, firstly, because, as they said afterwards, I myself had such a very modest opinion of my book, and, secondly because they thought a book of so decidedly personal a character would not reach a sale of more than a few hundred copies at the farthest. The matter of electrotyping was not even discussed between us. The entire edition of one thousand copies was exhausted in about a year, without having been carried on the lists of any bookseller or advertised in any way except through some circulars sent by myself to personal friends, and through several excellent reviews in prominent newspapers. As the demand for the book continued, I have thought it advisable to re-issue it, adding a good deal that has come into my mind since its publication. ***** It was after the Colonel's retirement that we came to spend the summers at Nantucket, and I began to enjoy the leisure that never comes into the life of an army woman during the active service of her husband. We were no longer expecting sudden orders, and I was able to think quietly over the events of the past. My old letters which had been returned to me really gave me the inspiration to write the book and as I read them over, the people and the events therein described were recalled vividly to my mind--events which I had forgotten, people whom I had forgotten--events and people all crowded out of my memory for many years by the pressure of family cares, and the succession of changes in our stations, by anxiety during Indian campaigns, and the constant readjustment of my mind to new scenes and new friends. And so, in the delicious quiet of the Autumn days at Nantucket, when the summer winds had ceased to blow and the frogs had ceased their pipings in the salt meadows, and the sea was wondering whether it should keep its summer blue or change into its winter grey, I sat down at my desk and began to write my story. Looking out over the quiet ocean in those wonderful November days, when a peaceful calm brooded over all things, I gathered up all the threads of my various experiences and wove them together. But the people and the lands I wrote about did not really exist for me; they were dream people and dream lands. I wrote of them as they had appeared to me in those early years, and, strange as it may seem, I did not once stop to think if the people and the lands still existed. For a quarter of a century I had lived in the day that began with reveille and ended with "Taps." Now on this enchanted island, there was no reveille to awaken us in the morning, and in the evening the only sound we could hear was the "ruck" of the waves on the far outer shores and the sad tolling of the bell buoy when the heaving swell of the ocean came rolling over the bar. And so I wrote, and the story grew into a book which was published and sent out to friends and family. As time passed on, I began to receive orders for the book from army officers, and then one day I received orders from people in Arizona and I awoke to the fact that Arizona was no longer the land of my memories. I began to receive booklets telling me of projected railroads, also pictures of wonderful buildings, all showing progress and prosperity. And then came letters from some Presidents of railroads whose lines ran through Arizona, and from bankers and politicians and business men of Tucson, Phoenix and Yuma City. Photographs showing shady roads and streets, where once all was a glare and a sandy waste. Letters from mining men who knew every foot of the roads we had marched over; pictures of the great Laguna dam on the Colorado, and of the quarters of the Government Reclamation Service Corps at Yuma. These letters and pictures told me of the wonderful contrast presented by my story to the Arizona of today; and although I had not spared that country, in my desire to place before my children and friends a vivid picture of my life out there, all these men seemed willing to forgive me and even declared that my story might do as much to advance their interests and the prosperity of Arizona as anything which had been written with only that object in view. My soul was calmed by these assurances, and I ceased to be distressed by thinking over the descriptions I had given of the unpleasant conditions existing in that country in the seventies. In the meantime, the San Francisco Chronicle had published a good review of my book, and reproduced the photograph of Captain Jack Mellon, the noted pilot of the Colorado river, adding that he was undoubtedly one of the most picturesque characters who had ever lived on the Pacific Coast and that he had died some years ago. And so he was really dead! And perhaps the others too, were all gone from the earth, I thought when one day I received a communication from an entire stranger, who informed me that the writer of the review in the San Francisco newspaper had been mistaken in the matter of Captain Mellon's death, that he had seen him recently and that he lived at San Diego. So I wrote to him and made haste to forward him a copy of my book, which reached him at Yuma, on the Colorado, and this is what he wrote: YUMA, Dec. 15th, 1908. My dear Mrs. Summerhayes: Your good book and letter came yesterday p. m., for which accept my thanks. My home is not in San Diego, but in Coronado, across the bay from San Diego. That is the reason I did not get your letter sooner. In one hour after I received your book, I had orders for nine of them. All these books go to the official force of the Reclamation Service here who are Damming the Colorado for the Government Irrigation Project. They are not Damming it as we formerly did, but with good solid masonry. The Dam is 4800 feet long and 300 feet wide and 10 feet above high water. In high water it will flow over the top of the Dam, but in low water the ditches or canals will take all the water out of the River, the approximate cost is three million. There will be a tunnel under the River at Yuma just below the Bridge, to bring the water into Arizona which is thickly settled to the Mexican Line. I have done nothing on the River since the 23rd of last August, at which date they closed the River to Navigation, and the only reason I am now in Yumais trying to get something from Government for my boats made useless by the Dam. I expect to get a little, but not a tenth of what they cost me. Your book could not have a better title: it is "Vanished Arizona" sure enough, vanished the good and warm Hearts that were here when you were. The People here now are cold blooded as a snake and are all trying to get the best of the other fellow. There are but two alive that were on the River when you were on it. Polhemus and myself are all that are left, but I have many friends on this coast. ***** The nurse Patrocina died in Los Angeles last summer and the crying kid Jesusita she had on the boat when you went from Ehrenberg to the mouth of the River grew up to be the finest looking Girl in these Parts; She was the Star witness in a murder trial in Los Angeles last winter, and her picture was in all of the Papers. I am sending you a picture of the Steamer "Mojave" which was not on the river when you were here. I made 20 trips with her up to the Virgin River, which is 145 miles above Fort Mojave, or 75 miles higher than any other man has gone with a boat: she was 10 feet longer than the "Gila" or any other boat ever on the River. (Excuse this blowing but it's the truth). In 1864 I was on a trip down the Gulf of California, in a small sail boat and one of my companions was John Stanton. In Angel's Bay a man whom we were giving a passage to, murdered my partner and ran off with the boat and left Charley Ticen, John Stanton and myself on the beach. We were seventeen days tramping to a village with nothing to eat but cactus but I think I have told you the story before and what I want to know, is this Stanton alive. He belonged to New Bedford--his father had been master of a whale-ship. When we reached Guaymas, Stanton found a friend, the mate of a steamer, the mate also belonged to New Bedford. When we parted, Stanton told me he was going home and was going to stay there, and as he was two years younger than me, he may still be in New Bedford, and as you are on the ground, maybe you can help me to find out. All the people that I know praise your descriptive power and now my dear Mrs. Summerhayes I suppose you will have a hard time wading through my scrawl but I know you will be generous and remember that I went to sea when a little over nine years of age and had my pen been half as often in my hand as a marlin spike, I would now be able to write a much clearer hand. I have a little bungalow on Coronado Beach, across the bay from San Diego, and if you ever come there, you or your husband, you are welcome; while I have a bean you can have half. I would like to see you and talk over old times. Yuma is quite a place now; no more adobes built; it is brick and concrete, cement sidewalks and flower gardens with electric light and a good water system. My home is within five minutes walk of the Pacific Ocean. I was born at Digby, Nova Scotia, and the first music I ever heard was the surf of the Bay of Fundy, and when I close my eyes forever I hope the surf of the Pacific will be the last sound that will greet my ears. I read Vanished Arizona last night until after midnight, and thought what we both had gone through since you first came up the Colorado with me. My acquaintance with the army was always pleasant, and like Tom Moore I often say: Let fate do her worst, there are relics of joy Bright dreams of the past which she cannot destroy! Which come in the night-time of sorrow and care And bring back the features that joy used to wear. Long, long be my heart with such memories filled! I suppose the Colonel goes down to the Ship Chandler's and gams with the old whaling captains. When I was a boy, there was a wealthy family of ship-owners in New Bedford by the name of Robinson. I saw one of their ships in Bombay, India, that was in 1854, her name was the Mary Robinson, and altho' there were over a hundred ships on the bay, she was the handsomest there. Well, good friend, I am afraid I will tire you out, so I will belay this, and with best wishes for you and yours, I am, yours truly, J. A. MELLON. P. S.--Fisher is long since called to his Long Home. ***** I had fancied, when Vanished Arizona was published, that it might possibly appeal to the sympathies of women, and that men would lay it aside as a sort-of a "woman's book"--but I have received more really sympathetic letters from men than I have from women, all telling me, in different words, that the human side of the story had appealed to them, and I suppose this comes from the fact that originally I wrote it for my children, and felt perfect freedom to put my whole self into it. And now that the book is entirely out of my hands, I am glad that I wrote it as I did, for if I had stopped to think that my dream people might be real people, and that the real people would read it, I might never have had the courage to write it at all. The many letters I have received of which there have been several hundred I am sure, have been so interesting that I reproduce a few more of them here: FORT BENJAMIN HARRISON, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA. January 10, 1909. My dear Mrs. Summerhayes: I have just read the book. It is a good book, a true book, one of the best kind of books. After taking it up I did not lay it down till it was finished--till with you I had again gone over the malapais deserts of Arizona, and recalled my own meetings with you at Niobrara and at old Fort Marcy or Santa Fe. You were my cicerone in the old town and I couldn't have had a better one--or more charming one. The book has recalled many memories to me. Scarcely a name you mention but is or was a friend. Major Van Vliet loaned me his copy, but I shall get one of my own and shall tell my friends in the East that, if they desire a true picture of army life as it appears to the army woman, they must read your book. For my part I feel that I must congratulate you on your successful work and thank you for the pleasure you have given me in its perusal. With cordial regard to you and yours, and with best wishes for many happy years. Very sincerely yours, L. W. V. KENNON, Maj. 10th Inf. HEADQUARTERS THIRD BRIGADE, NATIONAL GUARD OF PENNSYLVANIA, WILKES-BARRE, PENNSYLVANIA. JANUARY 19, 1908. Dear Madam: I am sending you herewith my check for two copies of "Vanished Arizona." This summer our mutual friend, Colonel Beaumont (late 4th U. S. Cav.) ordered two copies for me and I have given them both away to friends whom I wanted to have read your delightful and charming book. I am now ordering one of these for another friend and wish to keep one in my record library as a memorable story of the bravery and courage of the noble band of army men and women who helped to blaze the pathway of the nation's progress in its course of Empire Westward. No personal record written, which I have read, tells so splendidly of what the good women of our army endured in the trials that beset the army in the life on the plains in the days succeeding the Civil War. And all this at a time when the nation and its people were caring but little for you all and the struggles you were making. I will be pleased indeed if you will kindly inscribe your name in one of the books you will send me. Sincerely Yours, C. B. DOUGHERTY, Brig. Gen'l N. G. Pa. Jan. 19, 1908 SCHENECTADY, N. Y. June 8th, 1908. Mrs. John W. Summerhayes, North Shore Hill, Nantucket, Mass. My Dear Mrs. Summerhayes: Were I to say that I enjoyed "Vanished Arizona, "I should very inadequately express my feelings about it, because there is so much to arouse emotions deeper than what we call "enjoyment;" it stirs the sympathies and excites our admiration for your courage and your fortitude. In a word, the story, honest and unaffected, yet vivid, has in it that touch of nature which makes kin of us all. How actual knowledge and experience broadens our minds! Your appreciation of, and charity for, the weaknesses of those living a lonely life of deprivation on the frontier, impressed me very much. I wish too, that what you say about the canteen could be published in every newspaper in America. Very sincerely yours, M. F. WESTOVER, Secretary Gen'l Electric Co. THE MILITARY SERVICE INSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. Governor's Island, N. Y. June 25, 1908. Dear Mrs. Summerhayes: I offer my personal congratulations upon your success in producing a work of such absorbing interest to all friends of the Army, and so instructive to the public at large. I have just finished reading the book, from cover to cover, to my wife and we have enjoyed it thoroughly. Will you please advise me where the book can be purchased in New York, or otherwise mail two copies to me at 203 W. 54th Street, New York City, with memo of price per copy, that I may remit the amount. Very truly yours, T. F. RODENBOUGH, Secretary and Editor (Brig. Gen'l. U. S. A.) YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN, CONN. May 15, 1910. Dear Mrs. Summerhayes: I have read every word of your book "Vanished Arizona" with intense interest. You have given a vivid account of what you actually saw and lived through, and nobody can resist the truthfulness and reality of your narrative. The book is a real contribution to American history, and to the chronicles of army life. Faithfully yours, WM. LYON PHELPS, [Professor of English literature at Yale University.] LONACONING, MD., Jan. 2, 1909. Col. J. W. Summerhays, New Rochelle, N. Y. Dear Sir: Captain William Baird, 6th Cavalry, retired, now at Annapolis, sent me Mrs. Summerhay's book to read, and I have read it with delight, for I was in "K" when Mrs. Summerhays "took on" in the 8th. Myself and my brother, Michael, served in "K" Company from David's Island to Camp Apache. Doubtless you have forgotten me, but I am sure that you remember the tall fifer of "K", Michael Gurnett. He was killed at Camp Mohave in Sept. 1885, while in Company "G" of the 1st Infantry. I was five years in "K", but my brother re-enlisted in "K", and afterward joined the First. He served in the 31st, 22nd, 8th and 1st. Oh, that little book! We're all in it, even poor Charley Bowen. Mrs. Summerhays should have written a longer story. She soldiered long enough with the 8th in the "bloody 70's" to be able to write a book five times as big. For what she's done, God bless her! She is entitled to the Irishman's benediction: "May every hair in her head be a candle to light her soul to glory." We poor old Regulars have little said about us in print, and wish to God that "Vanished Arizona" was in the hands of every old veteran of the "Marching 8th." If I had the means I would send a copy to our 1st Serg't Bernard Moran, and the other old comrades at the Soldiers' Home. But, alas, evil times have fallen upon us, and--I'm not writing a jeremiad--I took the book from the post office and when I saw the crossed guns and the "8" there was a lump in my throat, and I went into the barber shop and read it through before I left. A friend of mine was in the shop and when I came to Pringle's death, he said, "Gurnett, that must be a sad book you're reading, why man, you're crying." I believe I was, but they were tears of joy. And, Oh, Lord, to think of Bowen having a full page in history; but, after all, maybe he deserved it. And that picture of my company commander! [Worth]. Long, long, have I gazed on it. I was only sixteen and a half years old when I joined his company at David's Island, Dec. 6th, 1871. Folliot A. Whitney was 1st lieutenant and Cyrus Earnest, 2nd. What a fine man Whitney was. A finer man nor truer gentleman ever wore a shoulder strap. If he had been company commander I'd have re-enlisted and stayed with him. I was always afraid of Worth, though he was always good to my brother and myself. I deeply regretted Lieut. Whitney's death in Cuba, and I watched Major Worth's career in the last war. It nearly broke my heart that I could not go. Oh, the rattle of the war drum and the bugle calls and the marching troops, it set me crazy, and me not able to take a hand in the scrap. Mrs. Summerhays calls him Wm. T. Worth, isn't it Wm. S. Worth? The copy I have read was loaned me by Captain Baird; he says it's a Christmas gift from General Carter, and I must return it. My poor wife has read it with keen interest and says she: "William, I am going to have that book for my children," and she'll get it, yea, verily! she will. Well, Colonel, I'm right glad to know that you are still on this side of the great divide, and I know that you and Mrs. S. will be glad to hear from an old "walk-a-heap" of the 8th. I am working for a Cumberland newspaper--Lonaconing reporter--and I will send you a copy or two of the paper with this. And now, permit me to subscribe myself your Comrade In Arms, WILLIAM A. GURNETT. Dear Mrs. Summerhayes: Read your book--in fact when I got started I forgot my bedtime (and you know how rigid that is) and sat it through. It has a bully note of the old army--it was all worthwhile--they had color, those days. I say--now suppose you had married a man who kept a drug store--see what you would have had and see what you would have missed. Yours, FREDERIC REMINGTON. 
17487	----	* * * * * CASA GRANDE RUIN BY COSMOS MINDELEFF * * * * * CONTENTS Introduction 295 Location and character 295 History and literature 295 Description 298 The Casa Grande group 298 Casa Grande ruin 306 State of preservation 306 Dimensions 307 Detailed description 309 Openings 314 Conclusions 318 ILLUSTRATIONS Plate LI. Map of Casa Grande group 298 LII. Ground plan of Casa Grande ruin 302 LIII. General view of Casa Grande ruin 305 LIV. Standing wall near Casa Grande 307 LV. Western front of Casa Grande ruin 309 LVI. Interior wall of Casa Grande ruin 310 LVII. Blocked opening in western wall 312 LVIII. Square opening in southern room 314 LIX. Remains of lintel 317 LX. Circular opening in northern room 319 Fig. 328. Map of large mound 301 329. Map of hollow mound 304 330. Elevations of walls, middle room 315 * * * * * CASA GRANDE RUIN By Cosmos Mindeleff * * * * * INTRODUCTION. LOCATION AND CHARACTER. The Casa Grande ruin, situated near Gila river, in southern Arizona, is perhaps the best known specimen of aboriginal architecture in the United States, and no treatise on American antiquities is complete without a more or less extended description of it. Its literature, which extends over two centuries, is voluminous, but of little value to the practical scientific worker, since hardly two descriptions can be found which agree. The variations in size of the ruin given by various authors is astonishing, ranging from 1,500 square feet to nearly 5 acres or about 200,000 square feet in area. These extreme variations are doubtless due to difference of judgment as to what portion of the area covered by remains of walls should be assigned to the Casa Grande proper, for this structure is but a portion of a large group of ruins. So far as known to the writer no accurate plan of the Casa Grande ruin proper has hitherto been made, although plans have been published; and very few data concerning the group of which it forms a part are available. It would seem, therefore, that a brief report presenting accurate plans and careful descriptions may be of value, even though no pretention to exhaustive treatment is made. HISTORY AND LITERATURE. The earlier writers on the Casa Grande generally state that it was in ruins at the time of the first Spanish invasion of the country, in 1540, and quote in support of this assertion Castañeda's description of a ruin encountered on the march.[1] Castañeda remarks that, "The structure was in ruins and without a roof." Elsewhere he says that the name "Chichilticale" was given to the place where they stopped because the monks found in the vicinity a house which had been inhabited by a people who came from Cibola. He surmises that the ruin was formerly a fortress, destroyed long before by the barbarous tribes which they found in the country. His description of these tribes seems to apply to the Apache. [Footnote 1: Castañeda in Ternaux-Compans. Voyage de Cibola. French text, p. 1, pp. 41, 161-162. (The original text--Spanish--is in the Lenox Library; no English translation has yet been published.)] The geographic data furnished by Castañeda and the other chroniclers of Coronado's expedition is very scanty, and the exact route followed has not yet been determined and probably never will be. So far as these data go, however, they are against the assumption that the Chichilticale of Castañeda is the Casa Grande of today. Mr. A. F. Bandelier, whose studies of the documentary history of the southwest are well known, inclines to the opinion that the vicinity of Old Camp Grant, on the Rio San Pedro, Arizona, more nearly fill the descriptions. Be this as it may, however, the work of Castañeda was lost to sight, and it is not until more than a century later that the authentic history of the ruin commences. In 1694 the Jesuit Father Kino heard of the ruin, and later in the same year visited it and said mass within its walls. His secretary and usual companion on his missionary journeys, Mange by name, was not with him on this occasion, but in 1697 another visit was paid to the ruin and the description recorded by Mange[1] in his diary heads the long list of accounts extending down to the present time.[2] Mange describes the ruin as consisting of-- A large edifice, the principal room in the center being four stories high, and those adjoining it on its four sides three stories, with walls 2 varas thick, of strong argamaso y baro (adobe) so smooth on the inside that they resemble planed boards, and so polished that they shine like Puebla pottery. [Footnote 1: An English translation is given by H. H. Bancroft, Works, iv, p. 622, note. Also by Bartlett, Personal Narrative, 1854, vol. ii, pp. 281-282; another was published by Schoolcraft, Hist. Cond. and Pros. of Am. Ind., vol. iii, 1853, p. 301.] [Footnote 2: Quite an extensive list is given by Bancroft (op. cit., pp. 622-625, notes), and by Bandelier in Papers Arch. Inst. of Amer., American series, i, p. 11, note.] Mange also gives some details of construction, and states that in the immediate vicinity there were remains of twelve other buildings, the walls half fallen and the roofs burned out. Following Mange's account there were a number of descriptions of no special value, and a more useful one written by Padre Font, who in 1775 and 1776 made a journey to Gila and Colorado rivers and beyond. This description[1] is quite circumstantial and is of especial interest because it formed the basis of nearly all the accounts written up to the time when that country came into our possession. According to this authority-- The house forms an oblong square, facing exactly the four cardinal points, and round about it there are ruins indicating a fence or wall which surrounded the house and other buildings. The exterior or plaza extends north and south 420 feet and east and west 260 feet. [Footnote 1: A number of copies of Font's Journal are known. Bancroft gives a partial translation in op. cit., p. 623, note, as does also Bartlett (op. cit., pp. 278-280); and a French translation is given by Ternaux Compans, ix, Voyages de Cibola, appendix.] Font measured the five rooms of the main building, and recorded many interesting details. It will be noticed that he described a surrounding wall inclosing a comparatively large area; and nearly all the writers who published accounts prior to our conquest of the country in 1846 based their descriptions on Font's journal and erroneously applied his measurement of the supposed circumscribing wall to the Casa Grande proper. The conquest of the country by the "Army of the West" attracted attention anew to the ruin, through the descriptions of Colonel Emory and Captain Johnston. The expedition passed up the Gila valley, and Colonel Emory, in his journal, gives a fanciful illustration and a slight description. The journal of Captain Johnston contained a somewhat better description and a rough but fairly good sketch. The best description of that period, however, was that given by John Russell Bartlett, in his "Personal Narrative," published in 1854. Bartlett observed that the ruin consists of three buildings, "all included within an area of 150 yards." He described these buildings and gave ground plans of two of them and elevations of the principal structure. He also gave a translation of a portion of Font's journal, as well as the previous description of Mange. He surmised that the central room of the main building, and perhaps the whole structure, was used for the storage of corn. Bartlett's account held place for nearly thirty years as the main reliance of compilers, and it forms today one of the most circumstantial and comprehensive descriptions extant. Other descriptions appeared at intervals of a few years, some compiled from Bartlett and Font, others based on personal observation, but none of them containing anything new, until the account of Mr. A. F. Bandelier, published some ten years ago,[1] is reached. [Footnote 1: Archæological Inst. of Amer., 5th Ann. Rep., 1884.] Mr. Bandelier described the large group, of which the Casa Grande forms a part, and gave its dimensions as 400 meters (1,300 feet) north and south by 200 meters (650 feet) east and west. He also described and gave measurements of the Casa Grande proper and discusses its place in the field of aboriginal architecture. In a later publication[1] he discussed the ruin at somewhat greater length, and presented also a rough sketch plan of the group and ground plans of the Casa Grande and of the mound north of it. He gave a short history of the ruin and quite an extended account of the Pima traditions concerning it. He considered the Casa Grande a stronghold or fortress, a place of last resort, the counterpart, functionally, of the blockhouse of the early settlers of eastern United States. [Footnote 1: Papers Archæol. Inst. of Amer., Amer. ser., iv, Cambridge, 1892, p. 453 et sec.] In 1888 Mr. F. H. Cushing presented to the Congrès International des Américanistes[1] some "Preliminary notes" on his work as director of the Hemenway southwestern archeological expedition. Mr. Cushing did not describe the Casa Grande, but merely alluded to it as a surviving example of the temple, or principal structure, which occurred in conjunction with nearly all the settlements studied. As Mr. Cushing's work was devoted, however, to the investigation of remains analogous to, if not identical with, the Casa Grande, his report forms a valuable contribution to the literature of this subject, and although not everyone can accept the broad inferences and generalizations drawn by Mr. Cushing--of which he was able, unfortunately, to present only a mere statement--the report should be consulted by every student of southwestern archeology. [Footnote 1: Berlin meeting, 1888; Compte-Rendu, Berlin, 1890, p. 150 et seq.] The latest contribution to the literature of the Casa Grande is a report by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes,[1] also of the Hemenway expedition, under the title "On the present condition of a ruin in Arizona called Casa Grande." Two magnificent illustrations are presented, engravings from photographs, showing general views of the ruin, as well as a number of views depicting details, and the ground plan presented at the end of the report is the best so far published. It is unfortunate that this author was not able to give more time to the study of the ruin; yet his report is a valuable contribution to our knowledge concerning the Casa Grande. [Footnote 1: Jour. of Amer. Ethn. and Arch., Cambridge, 1892, vol. ii, page 179 et seq.] DESCRIPTION. THE CASA GRANDE GROUP. The Casa Grande has been variously placed at from 2 leagues to 2 miles south of Gila river. The writer has never traversed the distance from the ruin to the river, but the ruin is about a mile from Walker ranch, which is well known in that neighborhood, and about half a mile from the river. This question, however, is not of much importance, as the ruin is easily found by anyone looking for it, being located directly on one of the stage routes from Casa Grande station, on the Southern Pacific railroad, to Florence, Arizona, and about 9 miles below, or west of, the latter place. The name Casa Grande has been usually applied to a single structure standing near the southwestern corner of a large area covered by mounds and other débris, but some writers have applied it to the southwestern portion of the area and even to the whole area. The latter seems the proper application of the term, but to avoid confusion, where both the settlement as a whole and that portion which has formed the theme of so many writers are referred to, the settlement will be designated as the Casa Grande group, and the single structure with standing walls as the Casa Grande ruin. Probably no two investigators would assign the same limits to the area covered by the group, as the margins of this area merge imperceptibly into the surrounding country. The accompanying map (plate LI) shows this area as interpreted by the writer. The surface covered by well defined remains, as there shown, extends about 1,800 feet north and south and 1,500 feet east and west, or a total area of about 65 acres. [Illustration: Pl. LI: Map of Casa Grande Group.] The Casa Grande ruin, as the term is here used, occupies a position near the southwestern corner of the group, and it will be noticed that its size is insignificant as compared with that of the entire group, or even with the large structure in the north-central part of it. The division of the group into northern and southern portions, which has been made by some writers, is clearly shown on the map; but this division is more apparent than real. The contour interval on the map is one foot--a sufficiently small interval to show the surface configuration closely and to bring out some of its peculiarities. Depressions are shown by dotted contours. It will be noticed that while most of the mounds which mark the sites of former structures rise but 10 feet or less above the surrounding level, the profiles vary considerably, some being much more smoothed off and rounded than others, the former being shown on the map by even, "flowing" contours, while the latter are more irregular; and it will be further noticed that the irregularity reaches its maximum in the vicinity of the Casa Grande ruin proper, where the ground surface was more recently formed, from the fall of walls that were standing within the historical period. External appearance is a very unsafe criterion of age, although in some cases, like the present, it affords a fair basis for hypothesis as to comparative age; but even in this case, where the various portions of the group have presumably been affected alike by climatic and other influences, such hypothesis, while perhaps interesting, must be used with the greatest caution. Within a few miles of this place the writer has seen the remains of a modern adobe house whose maximum age could not exceed a decade or two, yet which presented an appearance of antiquity quite as great as that of the wall remains east and southeast of the Casa Grande ruin. The application of the hypothesis to the map brings out some interesting results. In the first place, it may be seen that in the lowest mounds, such as those in the northwestern corner of the sheet, on the southern margin, and southwest of the well-marked mound on the eastern margin, the contours are more flowing and the slopes more gentle than in others. This suggests that these smoothed mounds are older than the others, and, further, that their present height is not so great as their former height; and again, under this hypothesis, it suggests that the remains do not belong to one period, but that the interval which elapsed between the abandonment of the structures whose sites are marked by the low mounds and the most recent abandonment was long. In other words, this group, under the hypothesis, affords another illustration of a fact constantly impressed on the student of southwestern village remains, that each village site marks but an epoch in the history of the tribe occupying it--a period during which there was constant, incessant change, new bands or minor divisions of the tribe appearing on the scene, other divisions leaving the parent village for other sites, and the ebb and flow continuing until at some period in its history the population of a village sometimes became so reduced that the remainder, as a matter of precaution, or for some trifling reason, abandoned it en masse. This phase of pueblo life, more prominent in the olden days than at present, but still extant, has not received the prominence it deserves in the study of southwestern remains. Its effects can be seen in almost every ruin; not all the villages of a group, nor even all the parts of a village, were inhabited at the same time, and estimates of population based on the number of ruins within a given region, and even those based on the size of a given ruin, must be materially revised. As this subject has been elsewhere[1] discussed, it can be dismissed here with the statement that the Casa Grande group seems to have formed no exception to the general rule, but that its population changed from time to time, and that the extent of the remains is no criterion of the former population. [Footnote 1: See pp. 179-261 of this Report, "Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley."] It will be noticed that in some of the mounds, noticeably those in the immediate vicinity of the Casa Grande ruin, the surface is very irregular. In this instance the irregularity indicates a recent formation of surface; for at this point many walls now marked only by mounds were standing within the historical period. External contour is of course a product of erosion, yet similarity of contour does not necessarily indicate either equal erosion or equal antiquity. Surface erosion does not become a prominent factor until after the walls have fallen, and one wall may easily last for a century or two centuries longer than another similarly situated. The surface erosion of a standing wall of grout, such as these under discussion, is very slight; photographs of the Casa Grande ruin, extending over a period of sixteen years, and made from practically the same point of view, show that the skyline or silhouette remained essentially unchanged during that period, every little knob and projection remaining the same. It is through sapping or undermining at the ground surface that walls are destroyed. An inspection of the illustrations accompanying this paper will show what is meant by sapping: the external walls are cut away at the ground surface to a depth varying from a few inches to nearly 2 feet. After a rain the ground, and that portion of the walls at present below its surface, retains moisture much longer than the part of the walls which stands clear; the moisture rises by capillary attraction a foot or two above the ground surface, rendering the walls at this level softer than elsewhere, and as this portion is more exposed to the flying sand which the wind sweeps over the ground it is here that erosion attains its maximum. The wall is gradually cut away at and just above the ground surface until finally the base becomes too small to support it and it falls en masse. Then and not till then surface erosion becomes an important factor and the profile of the mass becomes finally rounded. But it will be readily seen that a slight difference of texture, or thickness, or exposure, or some trifling difference too minute for observation, might easily add many decades to the apparent age of a mound. The walls once fallen, however, the rounding or smoothing of the mounds would probably proceed at an equal rate throughout the group, and study of the profile gives a fairly good estimate as to the comparative age of the mounds. On this basis the most ancient mounds are those specified above, while the most recent are those in the immediate vicinity of the Casa Grande ruin. This estimate accords well with the limited historical data and with the Pima traditions, which recount that the Casa Grande ruin was the last inhabited village in this vicinity. [Illustration: Fig. 328.--Map of large mound.] Probably intermediate in time between the Casa Grande ruin and the rounded mounds described above should be placed the large structure occupying the northern-central part of the map. This mound is deserving of more than a passing notice. It consists of two mounds, each four or five times the size of the Casa Grande ruin, resting on a flat-topped pedestal or terrace about 5 feet above the general level. The summits of these mounds, which are nearly flat, are some 13 feet above this level. The sides of the mounds slope very sharply, and have suffered somewhat from erosion, being cut by deep gullies, as shown in figure 328, which is an enlargement from the map. It has been stated that these structures were mounds, pure and simple, used for sacrifice or worship, resembling somewhat the well-known pyramid of Cholula; but there is no doubt that they are the remains of house-structures, for a careful examination of the surface on the slopes, reveals the ends of regular walls. The height is not exceptional, the mound on the east being less than 3 feet lower, while the one on the southeast lacks less than 4 feet of its height. The characteristic feature, however, and one difficult to explain, except on the hypothesis stated, is the sharp slope of the sides. It will be noticed that the raised base or terrace on which the mounds are located is not perfectly flat, but on the contrary has a raised rim. This rim seems quite inconsistent with the theory which has been advanced that the terrace was built up solidly as a terrace or base, as in that case it would seem natural that the slope from the base of the mounds to the edge of the terrace would be continuous. There is an abundance of room between the crest of the rim and the base of the terrace for a row of single rooms, inclosing a court within which the main structures stood, or such a court may have been covered, wholly or partly with clusters of rooms, single storied outside, but rising in the center, in two main clusters, three or more stories high. Such an agglomeration of rooms might under certain conditions produce the result seen here, although a circumscribing heavy wall, occupying the position of the crest of the rim and inclosing two main clusters each rising three or more stories, might also produce this result. The difficulty with the latter hypothesis is, however, that under it we should expect to find a greater depression between the base of the mounds and the edge of the terrace. The most reasonable hypothesis, therefore, is that the space between the base of the mounds and the edge of the terrace was occupied by rooms of one story. This would also help to explain the steepness of the slopes of the mounds themselves. The walls of the structures they represent, being protected by the adjacent low walls of the one-story rooms, would not suffer appreciably by undermining at the ground level, and if the central room or rooms of each cluster were higher than the surrounding rooms, as is the case in the Casa Grande ruin, the exterior walls, being usually heavier than the inner walls, would be the last to succumb, the clusters would be filled up by the disintegration of the inner walls, and not until the spaces between the low one-story walls surrounding the central cluster were nearly filled up would the pronounced disintegration of the outer walls of the structures commence. At that period the walls were probably covered and protected by debris dropping from above, and possibly the profile of the mounds was already established, being only slightly modified by surface erosion since. [Illustration: Pl. LII: Ground Plan of Casa Grande Ruin.] About the center of the eastern side of the terrace, and also on the western side, the water which falls on the surface of the structure is discharged through rather pronounced depressions at these points. These depressions are not the work of running water, though doubtless emphasized by that agency, but represent low or open spaces in the original structure, probably passageways or gateways. Furthermore, before or inside each gateway there is a slightly depressed area, just where we would expect to find it under our hypothesis, and showing that the process of filling in is not yet completed. If the structure were to remain undisturbed for some decades longer these spaces would doubtless be filled up from material washed from the mounds, giving eventually a continuous slope from the base of the mounds to the edge of the terrace. On the eastern margin of the map and in the southeastern corner two small and sharply defined mounds, differing in character from any others of the group, are represented. That shown on the eastern margin rises about 6 feet and the other about 10 feet above the surrounding level, and both stand out alone, no other remains occurring within a hundred yards in any direction. These mounds seem a thing apart from the other remains in the group; and it is probable that they represent the latest period in the occupancy of this site, or possibly a period subsequent to its final abandonment as a place of residence. Analogous remains occur in conjunction with some large ruins in the north, and there they represent single rooms, parts of the original structure kept in a fair state of preservation by occasional repairs while the remainder of the village was going to ruin, and used as farming outlooks long after the site was abandoned as a place of residence. As these farming outlooks have been discussed at some length in another paper[1] it is not necessary here to enlarge upon their function and the important part they play in Pueblo architecture. If the high mounds in question mark, as supposed, the sites of farming outlooks such as those which are found in the north, they indicate that the occupancy of the region in which they occur was continued after the abandonment of the Casa Grande structure by the people who built it or by people of similar habits and customs. [Footnote 1: A Study of Pueblo Architecture; 8th Ann. Rep. Bur. Eth., 1891, pp. 86, 227, and elsewhere.] An inspection of the map will show a number of depressions, some of quite large area, indicated by dotted contour lines. The principal one occurs a little west of the center of the area, and is worth more than a passing notice since similar structures are widely distributed throughout this region. It may be roughly characterized as a mound with excavated center. The ground for some distance about the structure (except for two depressions discussed later) is quite flat. From this flat surface as a base the structure rises to a height of 5 feet. From the exterior it has the appearance of an ordinary mound, but on reaching the top the interior is found to be hollowed out to a depth which even at the present day is below the surrounding surface, although not below the depressions adjoining. The main structure or mound is shown in figure 329 (an enlargement from the map). It measures on top of the crest 150 feet from north to south and about 80 feet from east to west, but covers a ground area of 200 feet by 120 feet or over half an acre. The crest is of the same height throughout, except for slight elevations on the eastern and western sides and a little knoll or swell in the southwestern corner. There is no indication of any break in the continuity of the crest such as would be found were there openings or gateways to the interior. The bottom of the depression in the main structure is at present about a foot below the surrounding ground surface, but it must have been originally considerably more than this, as the profile indicates long exposure to atmospheric erosion and consequent filling of the interior. No excavation was made and the character of the construction can not be determined, but the mound is apparently a simple earth structure--not laid up in blocks, like the Casa Grande ruin. [Illustration: Fig. 329.--Map of hollow mound.] [Illustration: Pl. LIII: General View of Casa Grande.] To the east and to the west are two large depressions, each about 5 feet below the surrounding ground surface, evidently the places whence the material for the construction of the mound was obtained. Yet the amount of material removed from these excavations must have been considerably in excess of that used in the construction of the mound, and this excess was doubtless utilized in neighboring constructions, since it is hardly to be supposed that it was carried away to any considerable distance. The purpose of this hollow mound, which is a fair type of many similar structures found in this region, is not clear. Mr. Frank Hamilton Cushing, while director of the Hemenway southwestern archeological expedition, found a number of these structures and excavated some of them. From remains thus found he concluded that they were sun-temples, as he termed them, and that they were covered with a roof made of coiled strands of grass, after a manner analogous to that in which pueblo baskets are made. A somewhat similar class of structures was found by the writer on the upper Rio Verde, but these were probably thrashing floors. Possibly the structure under discussion was for a similar purpose, yet its depth in proportion to its size was almost too great for such use. The question must be left for determination if possible by excavation. In the southern central part of the map is shown another excavation, covering a larger area than any of the others, of very irregular outline and from 3 to 4 feet deep. It is apparently older than the others and probably furnished the material for the house structures northeast and southwest of it. Bordering the depression on the south there are some low mounds, almost obliterated, which probably were the sites of other house structures. Scattered about the area shown on the map there are several small depressions, usually more regular in outline than those described. The best example is situated near the northeastern corner of the area. It is situated in the point of a low promontory, is about 3 feet deep, almost regularly oval in outline, and measures about 50 by 100 feet. A similar depression less than 2 feet deep occurs near the northwest corner of the area, and immediately south of the last there is another, more irregular in outline, and nearly 3 feet deep. There are also some small depressions in the immediate vicinity of the Casa Grande ruin and of the mounds north of it. With a single exception none of these depressions are so situated that they could be used as reservoirs for the storage of water collected from the surface, and the catchment area of the depressions is so small and the rate of evaporation in this area so great that their use as reservoirs is out of the question. It is probable that all of the smaller depressions represent simply sites where building material was obtained. Possibly the ground at these points furnished more suitable material than elsewhere, and, if so, the builders may have taken the trouble to transport it several hundred yards rather than follow the usual practice of using material within a few feet of the site. This hypothesis would explain the large size of the depressions, otherwise an anomalous feature. CASA GRANDE RUIN. _State of Preservation._ The area occupied by the Casa Grande ruin is insignificant as compared with that of the entire group, yet it has attracted the greater attention because it comprises practically all the walls still standing. There is only one small fragment of wall east of the main structure and another south of it. The ruin is especially interesting because it is the best preserved example now remaining of a type of structure which, there is reason to believe, was widely distributed throughout the Gila valley, and which, so far as now known, is not found elsewhere. The conditions under which pueblo architecture developed in the north were peculiar, and stamped themselves indelibly on the house structures there found. Here in the south there is a radical change in physical environment: even the available building material was different, and while it is probable that a systematic investigation of this field will show essentially the same ideas that in the north are worked out in stone, here embodied in a different material and doubtless somewhat modified to suit the changed environment, yet any general conclusion based on the study of a single ruin would be unsafe. In the present state of knowledge of this field it is not advisable to attempt more than a detailed description, embodying, however, a few inferences, applicable to this ruin only, which seem well supported by the evidence obtained. The Casa Grande ruin is located near the southwestern corner of the group, and the ground surface for miles about it in every direction is so flat that from the summit of the walls an immense stretch of country is brought under view. On the east is the broad valley of Gila river rising in a great plain to a distant range of mountains. About a mile and a half toward the north a fringe of cottonwood trees marks the course of the river, beyond which the plain continues, broken somewhat by hills and buttes, until the view is closed by the Superstition mountains. On the northwest the valley of Gila river runs into the horizon, with a few buttes here and there. On the west lies a range of mountains closing the valley in that direction, while toward the southwest and south it extends until in places it meets the horizon, while in other places it is closed by ranges of mountain blue and misty in the distance. In an experience of some years among northern ruins, many of them located with special reference to outlook over tillable lands, the writer has found no other ruin so well situated as this. The character of the site occupied by the ruin indicates that it belongs to a late date if not to the final period in the occupancy of this region, a period when by reason of natural increase of numbers, or perhaps aggregation of related gentes, the defense motive no longer dominated the selection of a village site, but reliance was placed on numbers and character of structures, and the builders felt free to select a site with reference only to their wants as a horticultural people. This period or stage has been reached by many of the Pueblo tribes, although mostly within the historical period; but some of them, the Tusayan for example, are still in a prior stage. [Illustration: Pl. LIV: Standing Wall near Casa Grande.] A ground plan of the ruin is shown in plate LII, and a general view in plate LIII. The area covered and inclosed by standing walls is about 43 feet by 59 feet, but the building is not exactly rectangular, and the common statement that it faces the cardinal points is erroneous. The variation from the magnetic north is shown on the ground plan, which was made in December, 1890. The building comprised three central rooms, each approximately 10 by 24 feet, arranged side by side with the longer axes north and south, and two other rooms, each about 9 by 35 feet, occupying respectively the northern and southern ends of the building, and arranged transversely across the ends of the central rooms, with the longer axes running east and west. Except the central room, which was three stories in height, all the rooms were two stories above the ground. The northeastern and southeastern corners of the structure have fallen, and large blocks of the material of which they were composed are strewn upon the ground in the vicinity. It is probable that the destruction of these corners prior to that of the rest of the building was due to the disintegration of minor walls connected with them and extending, as shown by the ridges on the ground plan, northward from the northeastern corner and eastward from the southeastern corner. These walls doubtless formed part of the original structure and were probably erected with it; otherwise the corners of the main structure would not have been torn out or strained enough to fall before the rest of the building was affected. It is not likely that the main building originally stood alone as at present. On the contrary there is every reason to suppose that it was connected with other buildings about 75 feet east of it, now marked by a bit of standing wall shown on the map (plate LI), and probably also with a small structure about 170 feet south of it, shown in plate LIV. These connections seem to have been by open courts inclosed by walls and not by continuous buildings. The court east of the ruin is well marked by the contours and seems to have been entered by a gateway or opening at its southeastern corner. _Dimensions._ It is probable that the area immediately adjacent to the ruin, and now covered by mounds, carried buildings of the same time with the main structure and was occupied contemporaneously with it or nearly so. This area, well marked on the map, measures about 400 feet north and south, and 240 feet east and west. It is not rectangular, although the eastern and western sides, now marked by long ridges, are roughly parallel. The northeastern corner does not conform to a rectangular plan, and the southern side is not more than half closed by the low ridge which extends partly across it. This area is doubtless the one measured in 1776, by Padre Font, whose description, was copied by later writers, and whose measurements were applied by Humboldt and others to the ruin itself. Font gave his measurements as those of a circumscribing wall, and his inference has been adopted by many, in fact most, later writers. A circumscribing wall is an anomalous feature, in the experience of the writer, and a close inspection of the general map will show that Font's inference is hardly justified by the condition of the remains today. It seems more likely that the area in question was covered by groups of buildings and rows of rooms, connected by open courts, and forming an outline sometimes regular for a considerable distance, but more often irregular, after the manner of pueblo structures today. The long north and south ridge which forms the southeastern corner of the area, with other ridges extending westward, is quite wide on top, wide enough to accommodate a single row of rooms of the same width as those of the ruin, and it is hardly reasonable to suppose that a wall would be built 10 or 12 feet wide when one of 4 feet would serve every purpose to which it could possibly be put. Furthermore, the supposition of an inclosing wall does not leave any reasonable explanation of the transverse ridges above mentioned, nor of the long ridge which runs southward from the southeastern corner of the ruin. The exterior walls rise to a height of from 20 to 25 feet above the ground. This height accommodated two stories, but the top of the wall is now 1 to 2 feet higher than the roof level of the second story. The middle room or space was built up three stories high and the walls are now 28 to 30 feet above the ground level. The tops of the walls, while rough and much eroded, are approximately level. The exterior surface of the walls is rough, as shown in the illustrations, but the interior walls of the rooms are finished with a remarkable degree of smoothness, so much so as to attract the attention of everyone who has visited the ruin. Mange, who saw the ruin with Padre Font in 1697, says the walls shine like Puebla pottery, and they still retain this finish wherever the surface has not cracked off. This fine finish is shown in a number of illustrations herewith. The walls are not of even thickness. At the ground level the exterior wall is from 3½ to 4½ feet thick, and in one place at the southern end of the eastern wall, is a trifle over 5 feet thick. The interior walls are from 3 to 4 feet thick at base. At the top the walls are reduced to about 2 feet thick, partly by setbacks or steps at the floor levels, partly by exterior batter, the interior wall surface being approximately vertical. Some writers, noting the inclination of the outer wall surface, and not seeing the interior, have inferred that the walls leaned considerably away from the perpendicular. This inference has been strengthened, in some cases, by an examination of the interior, for the inner wall surface, while finely finished, is not by any means a plane surface, being generally concave in each room; yet a line drawn from floor level to floor level would be very nearly vertical. The building was constructed by crude methods, thoroughly aboriginal in character, and there is no uniformity in its measurements. The walls, even in the same room, are not of even thickness, the floor joists were seldom on a straight line, and measurements made at similar places, e.g., the two ends of a room, seldom agree. [Illustration: Pl. LV: West Front of Casa Grande Ruin.] A series of precise measurements gives the following results: Outside eastern wall, at level 3 feet above center of depressed area adjoining the ruin on the east, 59 feet; western wall at same level, 59 feet 1 inch; northern and southern walls, at same level, 42 and 43 feet respectively. These measurements are between points formed by the intersection of the wall lines; the northeastern and southeastern corners having fallen, the actual length of standing wall is less. At the level stated the northern wall measures but 34 feet 4 inches, and the southern wall 36 feet 10 inches. A similar irregularity is found in the interior measurements of rooms. The middle room is marked by an exceptional departure from regularity in shape and dimensions. Both the east and west walls are bowed eastward, making the western wall convex and the eastern wall concave in reference to the room. Precise measurements of the middle room at the second floor level, 8 feet above the base previously stated, are as follows: Eastern side, 24 feet 8½ inches; western side, 24 feet 2 inches; northern side, 9 feet 3½ inches; southern side, 9 feet 1 inch. The eastern room is a little more regular, but there is a difference of 11 inches between the measurements of the northern and southern ends. A similar difference is found in the western room, amounting there to 6 inches. The northern and southern rooms do not afford as good bases for comparison, as a corner is missing in each; but measurements to a point where the interior wall surfaces would intersect if prolonged, show variations of from 6 inches to a foot. The statement that the ruin exhibits exceptional skill in construction on the part of the builders, is not, therefore, supported by facts. _Detailed Description._ The Casa Grande ruin is often referred to as an adobe structure. Adobe construction, if we limit the word to its proper meaning, consists of the use of molded brick, dried in the sun but not baked. Adobe, as thus defined, is very largely used throughout the southwest, more than nine out of ten houses erected by the Mexican population and many of those erected by the Pueblo Indians being so constructed; but, in the experience of the writer, it is never found in the older ruins, although seen to a limited extent in ruins known to belong to a period subsequent to the Spanish conquest. Its discovery, therefore, in the Casa Grande would be important; but no trace of it can be found. The walls are composed of huge blocks of earth, 3 to 5 feet long, 2 feet high, and 3 to 4 feet thick. These blocks were not molded and placed in situ, but were manufactured in place. The method adopted was probably the erection of a framework of canes or light poles, woven with reeds or grass, forming two parallel surfaces or planes, some 3 or 4 feet apart and about 5 feet long. Into this open box or trough was rammed clayey earth obtained from the immediate vicinity and mixed with water to a heavy paste. When the mass was sufficiently dry, the framework was moved along the wall and the operation repeated. This is the typical pisé or rammed-earth construction, and in the hands of skilled workmen it suffices for the construction of quite elaborate buildings. As here used, however, the appliances were rude and the workmen unskilled. An inspection of the illustrations herewith, especially of plate LV, showing the western wall of the ruin, will indicate clearly how this work was done. The horizontal lines, marking what may be called courses, are very well defined, and, while the vertical joints are not apparent in the illustration, a close inspection of the wall itself shows them. It will be noticed that the builders were unable to keep straight courses, and that occasional thin courses were put in to bring the wall up to a general level. This is even more noticeable in other parts of the ruin. It is probable that as the walls rose the exterior surface was smoothed with the hand or with some suitable implement, but it was not carefully finished like the interior, nor was it treated like the latter with a specially prepared material. The material employed for the walls was admirably suited for the purpose, being when dry almost as hard as sandstone and practically indestructible. The manner in which such walls disintegrate under atmospheric influences has already been set forth in detail in this report. An inhabited structure with walls like these would last indefinitely, provided occupancy continued and a few slight repairs, which would accompany occupancy, were made at the conclusion of each rainy season. When abandoned, however, sapping at the ground level would commence, and would in time level all the walls; yet in the two centuries which have elapsed since Padre Kino's visit--and the Casa Grande was then a ruin--there has been but little destruction, the damage done by relic hunters in the last twenty years being in fact much greater than that wrought by the elements in the preceding two centuries. The relic hunters seem to have had a craze for wood, as the lintels of openings and even the stumps of floor joists have been torn out and carried away. The writer has been reliably informed that as late as twenty years ago a portion of the floor or roof in one of the rooms was still in place, but at the present day nothing is left of the floors except marks on the vertical walls, and a few stumps of floor joists, deeply imbedded in the walls, and so high that they can not be seen from the ground. [Illustration: Pl. LVI: Interior Wall of Casa Grande Ruin.] The floors of the rooms, which were also the roofs of the rooms below, were of the ordinary pueblo type, employed also today by the American and Mexican population of this region. In the Casa Grande ruin a series of light joists or heavy poles was laid across the shorter axis of the room at the time the walls were erected; these poles were 3 to 6 inches in diameter, not selected or laid with unusual care, as the holes in the side walls which mark the places they occupied are seldom in a straight line, and their shape often indicates that the poles were quite crooked. Better executed examples of the same construction are often found in northern ruins. Over the primary series of joists was placed a layer of light poles, 1½ to 2 inches in diameter, and over these reeds and coarse grass were spread. The prints of the light poles can still be seen on the walls. The floor or roof was then finished with a heavy coating of clay, trodden down solid and smoothed to a level. A number of blocks of this final floor finish, bearing the impress of the grass and reeds, were found in the middle room. There is usually a setback in the wall at the floor level, but this practice was not followed in all the rooms. The position of the floor is well marked in all cases by holes in the wall, into which beams projected sometimes to a depth of 3 feet, and by a peculiar roughness of the wall. Plate LVI shows two floor levels, both set back slightly and the upper one strongly marked by the roughness mentioned. This roughness apparently marks the thickness of the floor in some cases, yet in others it is much too thick for a floor and must have had some other purpose. The relation of these marks to the beam holes suggests that in some cases there was a low and probably narrow bench around two or more sides of the room; such benches are often found in the present Pueblo villages. The walls of the northern room are fairly well preserved, except in the northeastern corner, which has fallen. The principal floor beams were of necessity laid north and south, across the shorter axis of the room, while the secondary series of poles, 1½ inches in diameter, have left their impression in the eastern and western walls. There is no setback in the northern wall at the first floor level, though there is a very slight one in the southern wall; none appears in the eastern and western walls. Yet in the second roof level there is a double setback of 9 and 5 inches in the western wall, and the northern wall has a setback of 9 inches, and the top of the wall still shows the position of nearly all the roof timbers. This suggests--and the suggestion is supported by other facts to be mentioned later--that the northern room was added after the completion of the rest of the edifice. The second roof or third floor level, the present top of the wall, has a decided pitch outward, amounting to nearly 5 inches. Furthermore, the outside of the northern wall of the middle room, above the second roof level of the northern room, is very much eroded. This indicates that the northern room never had a greater height than two stories, but probably the walls were crowned with low parapets. In this connection it may be stated that a calculation of the amount of débris within the building and for a distance of 10 feet about it in every direction, the interior floor level being determined by excavation, showed an amount of material which, added to the walls, would raise them less than 3 feet; in other words, the present height of the walls is very nearly the maximum height. Subsequent to this examination the ruin was cleared out by contractors for the Government in carrying out a plan for the repair and preservation of the ruin, and it was reported that in one of the rooms a floor level below that previously determined was found, making an underground story or cellar. This would but slightly modify the foregoing conclusion, as the additional débris would raise the walls less than a foot, and in the calculation no account was taken of material removed from the surface of the walls. In support of the hypothesis that the second roof level of the northern room was the top roof, it may be stated that there is no trace of an opening in the walls above that level, except on the western side. There was a narrow opening in the western corner, but so well filled that it is hardly perceptible. Doubtless it formed a niche or opening in the parapet. The southern wall on the first roof level still preserves very clear and distinct impressions of the rushes which were used in the construction of the roof. In some cases these impressions occur 3 inches above the top of the floor beams, in others directly above them, showing that the secondary series of poles was very irregularly placed. In the eastern and western walls the impressions of rushes are also clear, but there they are parallel with the wall surface. The rushes were about the thickness of a pencil. The floor joists were 3 to 4 inches in diameter, and as a rule projected into the wall but 5 to 8 inches. In some places in the northern wall, however, they extended into the masonry as much as 3 feet 3 inches. The beams were doubtless cut by guess, at the place where trees of the requisite size were found, according to the method employed by the Pueblo Indians today, and if, as supposed, the northern room was built after the rest of the structure, the excess in length would necessarily be found in the northern wall. In the roof construction previously described rushes or canes formed the third member, and in the northern room the wall is rough immediately above the impressions of rushes, and projects 8 to 12 inches. This feature is well marked; it may be a remnant of the clay covering of floor or roof, but it is almost too thick for that and possibly marks the position of a low bench, as previously suggested. The bottoms of the openings come just to or a trifle above the top of this marking. [Illustration: Pl. LVII: Blocked Opening in West Wall.] The walls of the western room were smoothly finished and the finish is well preserved, but here, as in the northern room, the exterior wall of the middle room was not finished above the second roof level, and there is no doubt that two stories above the ground were the maximum height of the western rooms, excluding the parapet. The eastern wall presents a marked double convexity while the western wall is comparatively straight in a horizontal line, but markedly concave vertically above the first roof level. Below this level it is straight. The floor beams were from 3 to 6 inches in diameter. The marks in the eastern wall show that the beams projected into it to a nearly uniform depth of 1 foot 4 inches. In the western wall, however, the depth varies from 1 to 3 feet. The beams which entered the eastern wall were very irregularly placed, the line rising in the center some 3 or 4 inches. The beams of the second roof level show the same irregularity and in the same place; possibly this was done to correct a level, for the same feature is repeated in the eastern room. The walls of the southern room are perhaps better finished and less well constructed than any others in the building. The beam holes in the southern wall are regular, those in the northern wall less so. The beams used averaged a little smaller than those in the other rooms, and there is no trace whatever in the overhanging wall of the use of rushes or canes in the construction of the roof above. The walls depart considerably from vertical plane surfaces; the southern wall inclines fully 12 inches inward, while in the northeastern corner the side of a doorway projects fully 3 inches into the room. The broken condition of the southern wall indicates carelessness in construction. The weakest point in pisé construction is of course the framing around openings. In the southern wall the openings, being doubtless the first to give way, are now almost completely obliterated. In the center of the wall there were two openings, one above the other, but not a trace of lintels now remains, and the eastern half of the wall now stands clear from other walls. Probably there was also an opening near the southwestern corner of the room, but the lintels giving way the wall above fell down and, as shown on the ground plan (plate LII), filled up the opening. This could happen only with exceptionally light lintels and exceptionally bad construction of walls; one of the large blocks, before described as composing the wall, must have rested directly above the opening, which was practically the same size as the block. The walls of the eastern room were well finished, and, except the western wall, in fairly good preservation. The floor beams were not placed in a straight line, but rise slightly near the middle, as noted above. The finish of some of the openings suggests that the floor was but 3 or 4 inches above the beams, and that the roughened surface, already mentioned, was not part of it. The northern wall of this room seems to have run through to the outside, on the east, as though at one time it formed the exterior wall of the structure; and the eastern wall of the building north of this room is separated from the rest of the wall by a wide crack, as though it had been built against a smooth surface. The western wall of this room shows clearly that in the construction of the building the floor beams were laid on the tops of the walls, and that the intervening spaces were filled with small lumps of material up to a level with or a little above the upper surface of the beams, the regular construction with large blocks being then resumed. In the middle room many blocks bearing the imprint of grass and rushes were found, and the rough marking of the walls just above the floor beams is covered in places in this room with masonry composed of these grass marked blocks projecting some distance into the room, indicating that in this room at least they mark the position of a bench. These blocks occupy the whole thickness of the setback at the second roof level--perhaps an indication that the upper story was added after the building was occupied. _Openings._ The Casa Grande was well provided with doorways and other openings arranged in pairs one above the other. There were doorways from each room into each adjoining room, except that the middle room was entered only from the east. Some of the openings were not used and were closed with blocks of solid masonry built into them long prior to the final abandonment of the ruin. The middle room had three doorways, one above the other, all opening eastward. The lowest doorway opened directly on the floor level, and was 2 feet wide, with vertical sides. Its height could not be determined, as the top was completely broken away and merged with the opening above, but the bottom, which is also the floor level, is 6 feet 9 inches below the level of the first roof beams. The doorway of the second story is preserved only on the northern side. Its bottom, still easily distinguishable, is 1 foot 6 inches above the bottom of the floor beams. It was not over 2 feet wide and was about 4 feet high. The upper doorway is still well preserved, except that the lintels are gone. It is about three inches narrower at the top than at the bottom and about 4 feet high. In addition to its three doorways, all in the eastern wall, the middle tier of rooms was well provided with niches and holes in the walls, some of them doubtless utilized as outlooks. On the left of the upper doorway are two holes, a foot apart, about 4 inches in diameter, and smoothly finished. Almost directly above these some 3 feet, and about 2 feet higher than the top of the door, there are two similar holes. Near the southern end of the room in the same wall there is another round opening a trifle larger and about 4½ feet above the floor level. In the western wall there are two similar openings, and there is one each in the northern and southern walls. All these openings are circular, of small diameter, and are in the upper or third story, as shown on the elevations herewith, figure 330. The frequency of openings in the upper or third story and their absence on lower levels, except the specially arranged openings described later, supports the hypothesis that none of the rooms except the middle one were ever more than two stories high and that the wall remains above the second roof level represent a low parapet. [Illustration: Pl. LVIII: Square Opening in South Room.] In the second story, or middle room of the middle tier, there were no openings except the doorway in the eastern wall and two small orifices in the western wall. In the middle of this wall there is a niche about 18 inches below the roof, and a foot below this is a round-cornered opening measuring about 7 by 8 inches extending through the wall. This opening was on a level with another in the western wall of the western room, and commanded a far-reaching though contracted view toward the west. Below and a little northward is a similar though somewhat larger opening corresponding to an opening in the western wall of the western room. [Illustration: Fig. 330.--Elevations of walls, middle room.] The upper doorway in the western wall of the western room is much broken out, but the top can still be traced. It was 4 feet 5½ inches in height and 1 foot 11 inches wide at top. The opening was blocked by solid masonry built into it and completely filling it up to within 10 inches of the top. This upper space, which is on a level with the upper hole in the middle room, seems to have been purposely left to allow an outlook from that room. The filling block is level on top and flush with the wall inside and out. At a height of 12 inches above the lower edge of the floor beams below it, and perhaps 3 inches above the floor, is the lower edge of a roughly square opening a foot across, cut out from the block itself and inclined slightly downward toward the exterior. It was plastered and smoothly finished. This opening corresponds to the one in the middle room already described. This filling block, with the orifice under discussion, is shown in figure 330, and in detail in plate LVII. The lower doorway, shown in figure 330, is much broken out, and although now but 2 feet 1½ inches wide at its narrowest part, no trace of the original surface remains on the northern side. The opening was 4 feet 6½ inches high and probably less than 2 feet wide, with vertical sides. In the western wall of the southern room there was but one opening. This is about 9 inches square, finished smoothly, and occurs in the upper room, about 6 feet 5 inches above the floor. It is shown in plate LVIII. The doorway between this room and the western room was smoothly finished and is in good order except the top, which is entirely gone. It was covered with double lintels made of poles 2 to 4 inches in diameter, the lower series about 3 inches above the top of the door. The opening was originally filled in like that described above, leaving only 8 or 10 inches of the upper part open. The lower part of the block was pierced by a square hole, like that in the western room, but this has weathered or been broken out and the block has slipped down, so that now its top is 1 foot 5½ inches below what was formerly the top of the opening. The top of the filling block is still smooth and finished and shows across its entire width a series of prints probably of flat sticks about an inch and a half wide, though, possibly these are marks of some finishing tool. The marks run north and south. The opening below the one just described was so much filled up at the time of examination that none of its features could be determined, except that it was bridged by two tiers of sticks of the usual size as lintels. The subsequent excavation before referred to, however, apparently disclosed an opening similar to the one described, and, like it, filled nearly to the top with a large block. A little west of the middle of the northern wall there are three niches, arranged side by side and about 6½ feet above the first roof beams. The niches are 10 inches high, a foot wide, and about a foot deep, and are about 8 inches apart. They are smoothly finished and plastered, but were roughly made. The eastern opening in the northern wall, opening into the east room, is well preserved except the top, which is missing. It measured 4 feet 2½ inches in height and 1 foot 11 inches wide at the bottom, the top being nearly an inch narrower. It carried two tiers of lintels of medium size. The gap in the southern wall of the southern room, shown in the plan, though now open from the ground up, represents the location of two doorways, one above the other. Remains of both of these can still be seen on the ends of the walls. No measurements can be obtained. The large fallen block near the southwestern corner of the room, which undoubtedly slipped down from above, shows a finished surface at the ground level inside, but above it no trace of an opening can be seen, possibly because the ends of the walls above are much eroded. [Illustration: Pl. LIX: Remains of Lintels.] The upper opening in the eastern wall of the eastern room was apparently capped with a single lintel composed of five sticks 4 to 6 inches in diameter laid level on the top of a course of masonry. The bottom of the opening is filled either with washed-down material or with the remains of a block such as that previously described. This opening is the most irregular one in the building, the top being nearly 4 inches narrower than the bottom, but the northern side of the opening is vertical, the southern side only being inclined inward. The opening was 4 feet 11 inches high and 1 foot 8½ inches wide at the bottom. The opening immediately below that described, which was the ground floor entrance from the east, is so much broken out that no evidence remains of its size and character. There appears to have been only one row of lintel poles. The eastern opening in the southern wall of the northern room is well preserved, the lintels having been torn out by relic hunters without much destruction of the surrounding masonry. It was neatly finished, and its bottom, was probably a little above the first roof level. The edges of the openings were made straight with flat sticks, either used as implements or incorporated into the structure, and forming almost perfectly straight edges. Marks of the same method of construction or finish are apparent in all the other openings, but the remains are not so well preserved as in this instance. Possibly the immediate lintels of openings were formed of thin flat sticks, as the lintel poles are often some inches above the top of the opening. In this opening the supporting lintel was formed of a number of poles 2 to 4 inches in diameter, irregularly placed, sometimes two or three in vertical series with very little filling between them. This construction has been characterized as a Norman arch. The opening was originally 1 foot 11 inches at the top and 4 feet 6 inches high. The bottom is 1½ inches wider than the top. The upper opening in the western end of the southern wall is much like that just described. A small fragment of masonry above the lintel remains, and this is within a quarter of an inch of the top of the opening. Above the opening there was a series of rough lintel poles, 3 to 5 inches in diameter, arranged in three tiers with 4 to 6 inches of filling between them. Prints of these sticks are left in the wall and show that some of them were quite crooked. Probably they were of mesquite, obtained from the immediate vicinity. The edges of the openings were finished with flat sticks, like those described, and its bottom was 6 inches to a foot above the floor. The height of the opening was 4 feet 3 inches and its width at the top 2 feet, at the bottom 2 feet 1½ inches. The opening immediately below the last described is filled with débris to the level of the lintel. Above this, however, there is a series of three tiers of sticks with 6 to 8 inches of masonry between them vertically, sometimes laid side by side, sometimes separated by a foot of masonry. Some of these lintel poles, as well as those of the opening above it, extend 3 feet into the wall, others only a few inches. The lower sides or bottoms of the holes are washed with pink clay, the same material used for surfacing the interior walls. Perhaps this was merely the wetting used to make succeeding courses of clay stick better. This opening is shown in plate LIX. Near the middle of the northern wall there are two openings, one above the other. The upper opening was finished in the same manner as those already described. But two tiers of poles show above it, though the top is well preserved, and another tier may be buried in the wall. There are indications that the opening was closed by a block about 2 feet thick and flush with the outside. The height of the opening was 4 feet 5 inches, width at top 1 foot 4½ inches, and at the bottom 1 foot 10 inches. It narrows a little from north to south. The lower opening is so much broken out that little remains to show its character. There is a suggestion that the opening was only 2 feet high, and there were probably three tiers of lintels above the opening, the top of which was 2½ feet below the roof beams, but the evidence is not so clear as in the other instances. In the middle of the western wall, at a height of 5 feet 8 inches above the first roof level, there is a large, roughly circular opening or window, 14 inches in diameter. This is shown in plate LX. It is smoothly finished, and enlarges, slightly, outward. CONCLUSIONS. As before stated, any conclusions drawn from a study of the Casa Grande itself, and not checked by examination of other similar or analogous ruins, can not be considered as firmly established, yet they have a suggestive value. From the character of the remains it seems probable that the site of the ruins here designated as the Casa Grande group was occupied a long time, not as a whole, but piecemeal as it were, one part being occupied and abandoned while some other part was being built up, and that this ebb and flow of population through many generations reached its final period in the occupation of the structure here termed the Casa Grande ruin. It is probable that this structure did not exist at the time the site was first occupied, and still more probable that all or nearly all the other sites were abandoned for some time before the structure now called the Casa Grande was erected. It is also probable that after the abandonment of the Casa Grande the ground about it was still worked by its former population, who temporarily occupied, during the horticultural season, farming outlooks located near it. [Illustration: Pl. LX: Circular Opening in North Room.] The methods employed in the construction of the buildings of the Casa Grande were thoroughly aboriginal and characteristically rude in application. A fair degree of adaptability to purpose and environment is seen, indicating that the Casa Grande was one, and not the first, building of a series constructed by the people who erected it and by their ancestors, but the degree of skill exhibited and amount of ingenuity shown in overcoming difficulties do not compare with that found in many northern ruins. As architects, the inhabitants of the Casa Grande did not occupy the first rank among pueblo-builders. It is probable that the Casa Grande ruin as we see it today shows very nearly the full height of the structure as it stood when it was abandoned. The middle tier of rooms rose to a height of three stories; the others were but two stories high. It is also probable that the building was enlarged after being once completed and occupied. At one time it probably consisted of four rooms on the ground plan, each two stories high. The northern tier, of rooms was added afterward, and probably also the third room in the central tier. The Casa Grande was undoubtedly built and occupied by a branch of the Pueblo race, or by an allied people. Who these people were it is impossible to determine finally from the examination of one ruin, but all the evidence at hand suggests that they were the ancestors of the present Pima Indians, now found in the vicinity and known to have formerly been a pueblo-building tribe. This conclusion is supported by the Pima traditions, as collected by Mr. Bandelier, who is intimately acquainted with the documentary history of the southwest, and whose knowledge of the Pima traditions is perhaps greater than that of anyone else now living. In his various writings he hints at this connection, and in one place he declares explicitly that the Casa Grande is a Pima structure. None of the internal evidence of the ruin is at variance with this conclusion. On the contrary, the scanty evidence is in accord with the hypothesis that the Casa Grande was erected and occupied by the ancestors of the Pima Indians. INDEX Adobe defined 309 Age of Casa Grande 299, 318 Bandelier, A. F., Description of Casa Grande by 297 Pima Casa-Grande tradition by 319 Bartlett, J. R., cited 296, 297 Casa Grande, Masonry of 306 Chichilticale, Description of 295 Cushing, F. H., Allusion by, to Casa Grande 297 southwestern sun-temples 305 Defensive motive of Casa Grande 307 Depressions, Artificial, at Casa Grande 303 Dimensions of Casa Grande 307 Doorways in Casa Grande 314 Emory, W. H., Visit of, to Casa Grande 297 Fewkes, J. W., Description of Casa Grande by 298 Floors of Casa Grande 311 Font, Pedro, Account of Casa Grande by 296 on dimensions of Casa Grande 307 Humboldt, A. von, on dimensions of Casa Grande 308 Johnston, Capt., Visit of to Casa Grande 297 Kino, Eusebio, Visit of, to Casa Grande 296 Lintels in Casa Grande 317 Mange, Juan M., on Casa Grande 296 Masonry of Casa Grande 309 Mindeleff, V., on pueblo farming outlooks 303 Mound surrounding Casa Grande 300 Photographs of Casa Grande compared 300 Pima, Casa Grande built by the 319 Population of pueblos 300 Casa Grande 300 Rooms of Casa Grande, Dimensions of 307 Site of Casa Grande, Character of 306 Ternaux-Compans, Translation of Castaneda by 296 Thrashing Floors in Verde valley 305 Tradition of Pima, of Casa Grande 319 Walls of Casa Grande 308, 300, 313 Window-Openings in Casa Grande 314 Woodwork of Casa Grande 310, 312, 313 * * * * * [Errata: ...no English translation has yet been published.) _closing parenthesis missing in original_ Bancroft gives a partial translation in op. cit., p. 623, note, _original reads_ p. 623, note), thrashing floors _spelling as in original (text and Index)_ (Index) Casa Grande / Masonry of 306 _text reads_ 360] 
10932	----	Proofreading Team. OVER THE PASS BY FREDERICK PALMER AUTHOR OF THE VAGABOND, DANBURY RODD, ETC. 1912 CONTENTS PART I--AN EASY TRAVELLER CHAPTER I YOUTH IN SPURS II DINOSAUR OR DESPERADO III JACK RIDES IN COMPANY IV HE CARRIES THE MAIL V A SMILE AND A SQUARE CHIN VI OBLIVION IS NOT EASY VII WHAT HAPPENED AT LANG'S VIII ACCORDING TO CODE IX THE DEVIL IS OUT X MARY EXPLAINS XI SEÑOR DON'T CARE RECEIVES XII MARY BRINGS TRIBUTE XIII A JOURNEY ON CRUTCHES XIV "HOW FAST YOU SEW!" XV WHEN THE DESERT BLOOMS XVI A CHANGE OF MIND XVII THE DOGE SNAPS A RUBBER BAND XVIII ANOTHER STRANGER ARRIVES XIX LOOKING OVER PRECIPICES XX A PUZZLED AMBASSADOR XXI "GOOD-BY, LITTLE RIVERS!" XXII "LUCK, JACK, LUCK!" PART II--HE FINDS HIMSELF XXIII LABELLED AND SHIPPED XXIV IN THE CITADEL OF THE MILLIONS XXV "BUT WITH YOU, YES, SIR!" XXVII BY RIGHT OF ANCESTRY XXVIII JACK GETS A RAISE XXIX A MEETING ON THE AVENUE TRAIL XXX WITH THE PHANTOMS XXXI PRATHER WOULD NOT WAIT XXXII A CRISIS IN THE WINGFIELD LIBRARY XXXIII PRATHER SEES THE PORTRAIT XXXIV "JOHN WINGFIELD, YOU--" PART III--HE FINDS HIS PLACE IN LIFE XXXV BACK TO LITTLE RIVERS XXXVI AROUND THE WATER-HOLE XXXVII THE END OF THE WEAVING XXXVIII THEIR SIDE OF THE PASS PART I AN EASY TRAVELLER I YOUTH IN SPURS Here time was as nothing; here sunset and sunrise were as incidents of an uncalendared, everlasting day; here chaotic grandeur was that of the earth's crust when it cooled after the last convulsive movement of genesis. In all the region about the Galeria Pass the silence of the dry Arizona air seemed luminous and eternal. Whoever climbed to the crotch of that V, cut jagged against the sky for distances yet unreckoned by tourist folders, might have the reward of pitching the tents of his imagination at the gateway of the clouds. Early on a certain afternoon he would have noted to the eastward a speck far out on a vast basin of sand which was enclosed by a rim of tumbling mountains. Continued observation at long range would have shown the speck to be moving almost imperceptibly, with what seemed the impertinence of infinitesimal life in that dead world; and, eventually, it would have taken the form of a man astride a pony. The man was young, fantastically young if you were to judge by his garb, a flamboyant expression of the romantic cowboy style which might have served as a sensational exhibit in a shop-window. In place of the conventional blue wool shirt was one of dark blue silk. The _chaparejos_, or "chaps," were of the softest leather, with the fringe at the seams generously long; and the silver spurs at the boot-heels were chased in antique pattern and ridiculously large. Instead of the conventional handkerchief at the neck was a dark red string tie; while the straight-brimmed cowpuncher hat, out of keeping with the general effect of newness and laundered freshness, had that tint which only exposure to many dewfalls and many blazing mid-days will produce in light-colored felt. There was vagrancy in the smile of his singularly sensitive mouth and vagrancy in the relaxed way that he rode. From the fondness with which his gaze swept the naked peaks they might have been cities _en fête_ calling him to their festivities. If so, he was in no haste to let realization overtake anticipation. His reins hung loose. He hummed snatches of Spanish, French, and English songs. Their cosmopolitan freedom of variety was as out of keeping with the scene as their lilt, which had the tripping, self-carrying impetus of the sheer joy of living. Lapsing into silence, his face went ruminative and then sad. With a sudden indrawing of breath he freed himself from his reverie, and bending over from his saddle patted a buckskin neck in affectionate tattoo. Tawny ears turned backward in appreciative fellowship, but without any break in a plodding dog-trot. Though the rider's aspect might say with the desert that time was nothing, the pony's expressed a logical purpose. Thus the speed of their machine-like progress was entirely regulated by the prospect of a measure of oats at the journey's end. When they came to the foot-hills and the rider dismounted and led the way, with a following muzzle at times poking the small of his back, up the tortuous path, rounding pinnacles and skimming the edge of abysses, his leg muscles answered with the readiness of familiarity with climbing. At the top he saw why the pass had received its name of Galeria from the Spanish. A great isosceles of precipitous walls formed a long, natural gallery, which the heaving of the earth's crust had rent and time had eroded. It lay near the present boundary line of two civilizations: in the neutral zone of desert expanses, where the Saxon pioneer, with his lips closed on English _s's_, had paused in his progress southward; and the _conquistadore_, with tongue caressing Castilian vowels, had paused in his progress northward. At the other side the traveller beheld a basin which was a thousand feet higher than the one behind him. It approached the pass at a gentler slope. It must be cooler than the other, its ozone a little rarer. A sea of quivering and singing light in the afternoon glow, it was lost in the horizon. Not far from the foot-hills floated a patch of foliage, checkered by the roofs of the houses of an irrigation colony, hanging kitelike at the end of the silver thread of a river whose waters had set gardens abloom in sterile expanses. There seemed a refusal of intimacy with the one visible symbol of its relations with the outer world; for the railroad, with its lines of steel flashing across the gray levels, passed beyond the outer edge of the oasis. "This beats any valley I've seen yet," and the traveller spoke with the confidence of one who is a connoisseur of Arizona valleys. He paused for some time in hesitancy to take a farewell of the rapturous vista. A hundred feet lower and the refraction of the light would present it in different coloring and perspective. With his spell of visual intoxication ran the consciousness of being utterly alone. But the egoism of his isolation in the towering infinite did not endure; for the sound of voices, a man's and a woman's, broke on his ear. The man's was strident, disagreeable, persistent. Its timbre was such as he had heard coming out of the doors of border saloons. The woman's was quiet and resisting, its quality of youth peculiarly emphasized by its restrained emotion. Now the easy traveller took stock of his immediate surroundings, which had interested him only as a foothold and vantage-point for the panorama that he had been breathing in. Here, of all conceivable places, he was in danger of becoming eavesdropper to a conversation which was evidently very personal. Rounding the escarpment at his elbow he saw, on a shelf of decaying granite, two waiting ponies. One had a Mexican saddle of the cowboy type. The other had an Eastern side-saddle, which struck him as exotic in a land where women mostly ride astride. And what woman, whatever style of riding she chose, should care to come to this pass? Judging by the direction from which the voices came, the speakers were hidden by still another turn in the defile. A few more steps brought eye as well as ear back to the living world with the sight of a girl seated on a bowlder. He could see nothing of her face except the cheek, which was brown, and the tip of a chin, which he guessed was oval, and her hair, which was dark under her hatbrim and shimmering with gold where it was kissed by the rays of the sun. An impression as swift as a flash of light could not exclude inevitable curiosity as to the full face; a curiosity emphasized by the poised erectness of her slender figure. The man was bending over her in a familiar way. He was thirty, perhaps, in the prime of physical vigor, square-jawed, cocksure, a six-shooter slung at his hip. Though she was not giving way before him, her attitude, in its steadiness, reflected distress in a bowstrung tremulousness. Suddenly, at something he said which the easy traveller could not quite understand, she sprang up aflame, her hand flying back against the rock wall behind her for support. Then the man spoke so loud that he was distinctly audible. "When you get mad like that you're prettier'n ever," he said. It was a peculiar situation. It seemed incredible, melodramatic, unreal, in sight of the crawling freight train far out on the levels. "Aren't you overplaying your part, sir?" the easy traveller asked. The man's hand flew to his six-shooter, while the girl looked around in swift and eager impulse to the interrupting voice. Its owner, the color scheme of his attire emphasized by the glare of the low sun, expressed in his pose and the inquiring flicker of a smile purely the element of the casual. Far from making any movement toward his own six-shooter, he seemed oblivious of any such necessity. With the first glimpse of her face, when he saw the violet flame of her anger go ruddy with surprise and relief, then fluid and sparkling as a culminating change of emotion, he felt cheap for having asked himself the question--which now seemed so superficial--whether she were good-looking or not. She was, undoubtedly, yes, undoubtedly good-looking in a way of her own. "What business is it of yours?" demanded the man, evidently under the impression that he was due to say something, while his fingers still rested on his holster. "None at all, unless she says so," the deliverer answered. "Is it?" he asked her. After her first glance at him she had lowered her lashes. Now she raised them, sending a direct message beside which her first glance had been dumb indifference. He was seeing into the depths of her eyes in the consciousness of a privilege rarely bestowed. They gave wing to a thousand inquiries. He had the thrill of an explorer who is about to enter on a voyage of discovery. Then the veil was drawn before his ship had even put out from port. It was a veil woven with fine threads of appreciative and conventional gratitude. "It is!" she said decisively. "I'll be going," said the persecutor, with a grimace that seemed mixed partly of inherent bravado and partly of shame, as his pulse slowed down to normal. "As you please," answered that easy traveller. "I had no mind to exert any positive directions over your movements." His politeness, his disinterestedness, and his evident disinclination to any kind of vehemence carried an implication more exasperating than an open challenge. They changed melodrama into comedy. They made his protagonist appear a negligible quantity. "There's some things I don't do when women are around," the persecutor returned, grudgingly, and went for his horse; while oppressive silence prevailed. The easy traveller was not looking at the girl or she at him. He was regarding the other man idly, curiously, though not contemptuously as he mounted and started down the trail toward the valley, only to draw rein as he looked back over his shoulder with a glare which took the easy traveller in from head to foot. "Huh! You near-silk dude!" he said chokingly, in his rancor which had grown with the few minutes he had had for self-communion. "If you mean my shirt, it was sold to me for pure silk," the easy traveller returned, in half-diffident correction of the statement. "We'll meet again!" came the more definite and articulate defiance. "Perhaps. Who can tell? Arizona, though a large place, has so few people that it is humanly very small." Now the other man rose in his stirrups, resting the weight of his body on the palm of the hand which was on the back of his saddle. He was rigid, his voice was shaking with very genuine though dramatic rage drawn to a fine point of determination. "When we do meet, you better draw! I give you warning!" he called. There was no sign that this threat had made the easy traveller tighten a single muscle. But a trace of scepticism had crept into his smile. "Whew!" He drew the exclamation out into a whistle. "Whistle--whistle while you can! You won't have many more chances! Draw, you tenderfoot! But it won't do any good--I'll get you!" With this challenge the other settled back into the saddle and proceeded on his way. "Whew!" The second whistle was anything but truculent and anything but apologetic. It had the unconscious and spontaneous quality of the delight of the collector who finds a new specimen in wild places. From under her lashes the girl had been watching the easy traveller rather than her persecutor; first, studiously; then, in the confusion of embarrassment that left her speechless. "Well, well," he concluded, "you must take not only your zoology, but your anthropology as you find it!" His drollness, his dry contemplation of the specimen, and his absurdly gay and unpractical attire, formed a combination of elements suddenly grouped into an effect that touched her reflex nerves after the strain with the magic of humor. She could not help herself: she burst out laughing. At this, he looked away from the specimen; looked around puzzled, quizzically, and, in sympathetic impulse, began laughing himself. Thus a wholly unmodern incident took a whimsical turn out of a horror which, if farcical in the abstract, was no less potent in the concrete. "Quite like the Middle Ages, isn't it?" he said. "But Walter Scott ceased writing in the thirties!" she returned, quick to fall in with his cue. "The swooning age outlasted him--lasted, indeed, into the era of hoop-skirts; but that, too, is gone." "They do give medals," she added. "For rescuing the drowning only; and they are a great nuisance to carry around in one's baggage. Please don't recommend me!" Both laughed again softly, looking fairly at each other in understanding, twentieth-century fashion. She was not to play the classic damsel or he the classic rescuer. Yet the fact of a young man finding a young woman brutally annoyed on the roof of the world, five or six miles from a settlement--well, it was a fact. Over the bump of their self-introduction, free of the serious impression of her experience, she could think for him as well as for herself. This struck her with sudden alarm. "I fear I have made you a dangerous enemy," she said. "Pete Leddy is the prize ruffian of our community of Little Rivers." "I thought that this would be an interesting valley," he returned, in bland appreciation of her contribution of information about the habits of the specimen. II DINOSAUR OR DESPERADO She faced a situation irritating and vitalizing, and inevitably, under its growing perplexity, her observation of his appearance and characteristics had been acute with feminine intuition, which is so frequently right, that we forget that it may not always be. She imagined him with a certain amiable aimlessness turning his pony to one side so as not to knock down a danger sign, while he rode straight over a precipice. What would have happened if Leddy had really drawn? she asked herself. Probably her deliverer would have regarded the muzzle of Leddy's gun in studious vacancy before a bullet sent him to kingdom come. All speculation aside, her problem was how to rescue her rescuer. She felt almost motherly on his account, he was so blissfully oblivious to realities. And she felt, too, that under the circumstances, she ought to be formal. "Now, Mister--" she began; and the Mister sounded odd and stilted in her ears in relation to him. "Jack is my name," he said simply. "Mine is Mary," she volunteered, giving him as much as he had given and no more. "Now, sir," she went on, in peremptory earnestness, "this is serious." "It _was_," he answered. "At least, unpleasant." "It is, _now_. Pete Leddy meant what he said when he said that he would draw." "He ought to, from his repeated emphasis," answered Jack, in agreeable affirmation. "He has six notches on his gun-handle--six men that he has killed!" Mary went on. "Whew!" said Jack. "And he isn't more than thirty! He seems a hard worker who keeps right on the job." She pressed her lips together to control her amusement, before she asked categorically, with the precision of a school-mistress: "Do you know how to shoot?" He was surprised. He seemed to be wondering if she were not making sport of him. "Why should I carry a six-shooter if I did not?" he asked. This convinced her that his revolver was a part of his play cowboy costume. He had come out of the East thinking that desperado etiquette of the Bad Lands was _opéra bouffe_. "Leddy is a dead shot. He will give you no chance!" she insisted. "I should think not," Jack mused. "No, naturally not; otherwise there might have been no sixth notch. The third or the fourth, even the second object of his favor might have blasted his fair young career as a wood-carver. Has he set any limit to his ambition? Is he going to make it an even hundred and then retire?" "I don't know!" she gasped. "I must ask," he added, thoughtfully. Was he out of his head? Certainly his eye was not insane. Its bluish-gray was twinkling enjoyably into hers. "You exasperated him with that whistle. It was a deadly insult to his desperado pride. You are marked--don't you see, marked?" she persisted. "And I brought it on! I am responsible!" He shook his head in a denial so unmoved by her appeal that she was sure he would send Job into an apoplectic frenzy. "Pardon me, but you're contradicting your own statement. You just said it was the whistle," he corrected her. "It's the whistle that gives me Check Number Seven. You haven't the least bit of responsibility. The whistle gets it all, just as you said." This was too much. Confuting her with her own words! Quibbling with his own danger in order to make her an accomplice of murder! She lost her temper completely. That fact alone could account for the audacity of her next remark. "I wonder if you really know enough to come in out of the rain!" she stormed. "That's the blessing of living in Arizona," he returned. "It is such a dry climate." She caught herself laughing; and this only made her the more intense a second later, on a different tack. Now she would plead. "Please--please promise me that you will not go to Little Rivers to-night. Promise that you will turn back over the pass!" "You put me between the devil and the dragon. What you ask is impossible. I'll tell you why," he went on, confidentially. "You know this is the land of fossil dinosaurs." "I had a brute on my hands," she thought; "now I have the Mad Hatter and the March Hare in collaboration!" "There is a big dinosaur come to life on the other side," he proceeded. "I just got through the pass in time. I could feel his breath on my back--a hot, gun-powdery breath! It was awful, simply awful and horrible, too. And just as I had resigned myself to be his entrée, by great luck his big middle got wedged in the bottom of the V, and his scales scraped like the plates of a ship against a stone pier!" To her disgust she was laughing again. "If I went back now out of fear of Pete Leddy," he continued, "that dinosaur would know that I was such insignificant prey he would not even take the trouble to knock me down with a forepaw. He would swallow me alive and running! Think of that slimy slide down the red upholstery of his gullet, not to mention the misery of a total loss of my dignity and self-respect!" He had spoken it all as if he believed it true. He made it seem almost true. "I like nonsense as much as anybody," she began, "and I do not forget that you did me a great kindness." "Which any stranger, any third person coming at the right moment might have done," he interrupted. "Sir Walter's age has passed." "Yes, but Pete Leddy belongs still farther back. We may laugh at his ruffianly bravado, but no one may laugh at a forty-four calibre bullet! Think what you are going to make me pay for your kindness! I must pay with memory of the sound of a shot and the fall of a body there in the streets of Little Rivers--a nightmare for life! Oh, I beg of you, though it is fun for you to be killed, consider me! Don't go down into that valley! I beg of you, go back over the pass!" There was no acting, no suspicion of a gesture. She stood quite still, while all the power of her eyes reflected the misery which she pictured for herself. The low pitch of her voice sounded its depths with that restraint which makes for the most poignant intensity. As she reached her climax he had come out of his languid pose. He was erect and rigid. She saw him as some person other than the one to whom she had begun her appeal. He was still smiling, but his smile was of a different sort. Instead of being the significant thing about him in expression of his casualness, it seemed the softening compensation for his stubbornness. "I'd like to, but it is hardly in human nature for me to do that. I can't!" And he asked if he might bring up her pony. "Yes," she consented. She thought that the faint bow of courtesy with which he had accompanied the announcement of his decision he would have given, in common politeness, to anyone who pointed at the danger sign before he rode over the precipice. "May I ride down with you, or shall I go ahead?" he inquired, after he had assisted her to mount. "With me!" she answered, quickly. "You are safe while you are with me." The decisive turn to her mobile lips and the faint wrinkles of a frown, coming and going in various heraldry, formed a vividly sentient and versatile expression of emotions while she watched his silhouette against the sky as he turned to get his own pony. "Come, P.D.--come along!" he called. In answer to his voice an equine face, peculiarly reflective of trail wisdom, bony and large, particularly over the eyes, slowly turned toward its master. P.D. was considering. "Come along! The trail, P.D.!" And P.D. came, but with democratic independence, taking his time to get into motion. "He is never fast," Jack explained, "but once he has the motor going, he keeps at it all day. So I call him P.D. without the Q., as he is never quick." "Pretty Damn, you mean!" she exclaimed, with a certain spontaneous pride of understanding. Then she flushed in confusion. "Oh, thank you! It was so human of you to translate it out loud! It isn't profane. Look at him now. Don't you think it is a good name for him?" Jack asked, seriously. "I do!" She was laughing again, oblivious of the impending tragedy. III JACK RIDES IN COMPANY Let not the Grundy woman raise an eyebrow of deprecation at the informal introduction of Jack and Mary, or we shall refute her with her own precepts, which make the steps to a throne the steps of the social pyramid. If she wishes a sponsor, we name an impeccable majesty of the very oldest dynasty of all, which is entirely without scandal. We remind her of the ancient rule that people who meet at court, vouched for by royal favor, need no introduction. These two had met under the roof of the Eternal Painter. His palette is somewhere in the upper ether and his head in the interplanetary spaces. His heavy eyebrows twinkle with star-dust. Dodging occasional flying meteors, which harass him as flies harass a landscapist out of doors on a hot day, he is ever active, this mighty artist of the changing desert sky. So fickle his moods, so versatile his genius, so quick to creation his fancy, that he never knows what his next composition will be till the second that it is begun. No earthly rival need be jealous of him. He will never clog the galleries. He always paints on the same canvas, scraping off one picture to make room for another. And you do not mind the loss of the old. You live for the new. His Majesty has no artistic memory. He is as young as he was the day that he flung out his first tentative lunette after chaos. He is the patron saint of all pilgrims from the city's struggle, where they found no oases of rest. He melts "pasts" and family skeletons and hidden stories of any kind whatsoever into the blue as a background with the abandoned preoccupation of his own brushwork. His lieges, who seek oblivion in the desert, need not worry about the water that will never run over the millwheel again, or dwell in prophecy on floods to come. The omnipotence of the moment transports and soothes them. "Time is nothing!" says the Eternal Painter. "If you feel important, remember that man's hectic bustling makes but worm-work on the planet. Live and breathe joyfully and magnificently! Do not strain your eyes over embroidery! Come to my open gallery! And how do you like the way I set those silver clouds a-tumbling? Do you know anything better under the dome of any church or capitol? Shall I bank them? Line them with purple? It is done! But no! Let us wipe it all out, change the tint of our background, and start afresh!" With his eleven hundred million billionth sunset, or thereabouts, His Majesty held a man and a woman who had met on the roof of the world in thrall. He was lurid at the outset, dipping his camel's hair in at the round furnace door sinking toward the hills, whose red vortex shot tongues of flame into canyons and crevasses and drove out their lurking shadows with the fire of its inquisition. The foliage of Little Rivers became a grove of quivering leaves of gold, set on a vast beaten platter of gold. And the man and the woman, like all things else in the landscape, were suffused in this still, Parnassian, penetrating brilliancy, which ought to make even a miser feel that his hoarded eagles and sovereigns are ephemeral dross. "I love it all--all the desert!" said Mary Ewold. "And I, too!" "I have for six years." "I for five." The sentences had struck clearly as answering chimes, impersonally, in their preoccupied gazing. "It gave me life!" he added. "And it gave me life!" Then they looked at each other in mutual surprise and understanding; each in wonder that the other had ever been anything but radiant of out-of-doors health. That fleck on the lungs which brought a doctor's orders had long ago been healed by the physician of the ozone they were breathing. "And you remained," he said. "And you, also," she answered. Their own silence seemed to become a thing apart from the silence of the infinite. It was as if both recognized a common thought that even the Eternal Painter could not compel oblivion of the past to which they did not return; of the faith of cities to which they had been bred. But it is one of the Eternal Painter's rules that no one of his subjects should ask another of his subjects why he stays on the desert. Jack was the first to speak, and his voice returned to the casual key. "Usually I watch the sunset while we make camp," he said. "I am very late to-night--late beyond all habit; and sunset and sunrise do make one a creature of habit out here. Firio and my little train will grow impatient waiting for me." "You mean the Indian and the burro with the silver bells that came over the pass some time before you?" Of course they belonged to him, she was thinking, even as she made the inquiry. This play cowboy, with his absurdly enormous silver spurs, would naturally put bells on his burro. "Yes, I sent Firio with Wrath of God and Jag Ear on ahead and told him to wait at the foot of the descent. Wrath of God will worry--he is of a worrying nature. I must be going." In view of the dinosaur nonsense she was already prepared for a variety of inventional talk from him. As they started down from the pass in single file, she leading, the sun sank behind the hills, leaving the Eternal Painter, unhindered by a furnace glare in the centre of the canvas, to paint with a thousand brushes in the radiant tints of the afterglow. "You don't like that one, O art critics!" we hear him saying. "Well, here is another before you have adjusted your _pince-nez,_ and I will brush it away before you have emitted your first Ah! I do not criticise. I paint--I paint for the love of it. I paint with the pigments of the firmament and the imagination of the universe." The two did not talk of that sky which held their averted glances, while knowing hoofs that bore their weight kept the path. For how can you talk of the desert sky except in the banality of exclamations? It is _lèse majesté_ to the Eternal Painter to attempt description. At times she looked back and their eyes met in understanding, as true subjects of His Majesty, and then they looked skyward to see what changes the Master's witchery had wrought. In supreme intoxication of the senses, breathing that dry air which was like cool wine coming in long sips to the palate, they rode down the winding trail, till, after a surpassing outburst, the Eternal Painter dropped his brush for the night. It was dusk. Shadows returned to the crevasses. Free of the magic of the sky, with the curtains of night drawing in, the mighty savagery of the bare mountains in their disdain of man and imagination reasserted itself. It dropped Mary Ewold from the azure to the reality of Pete Leddy. She was seeing, the smoking end of a revolver and a body lying in a pool of blood; and there, behind her, rode this smiling stranger, proceeding so genially and carelessly to the fate which she had provided for him. With the last turn, which brought them level with the plain, they came upon an Indian, a baggage burro, and a riding-pony. The Indian sprang up, grinning: his welcome and doffing a Mexican steeple-hat. "I must introduce you all around," Jack told Mary. She observed in his manner something new!--a positive enthusiasm for his three retainers, which included a certain well-relished vanity in their loyalty and character. "Firio has Sancho Panza beaten to a frazzle," Jack said. "Sancho was fat and unresourceful; even stupid. Fancy him broiling a quail on a spit! Fancy what a lot of trouble Firio could have saved Don Quixote de la Mancha! Why, confound it, he would have spoiled the story!" Firio was a solid grain, to take Jack's view, winnowed out of bushels of aboriginal chaff; an Indian, all Indian, without any strain of Spanish blood in the primitive southern strain. "And Firio rides Wrath of God," Jack continued, nodding to a pony with a low-hung head and pendant lip, whose lugubrious expression was exaggerated by a scar. "He looks it, don't you think?--always miserable, whether his nose is in the oats or we run out of water. He is our sad philosopher, who has just as dependable a gait as P.D. I have many theories about the psychology of his ego. Sometimes I explain it by a desire both to escape and to pursue unhappiness, which amounts to a solemn kind of perpetual motion. But he has a positively sweet nature. There is no more malice in his professional mournfulness than in the cheerful humor of Jag Ear." "It is plain to see which is Jag Ear," she observed, "and how he earned his name." Every time a burro gets into the corn, an Indian master cuts off a bit of long, furry ear as a lesson. Before Jag Ear passed into kindlier hands he had been clipped closer than a Boston terrier. Only a single upstanding fragment remained in token of a graded education which had availed him nothing. "There's no curtailing Jag Ear's curiosity," said Jack. "To him, everything is worth trying. That is why he is a born traveller. He has been with me from Colorado to Chihuahua, on all my wanderings back and forth." While he spoke, Firio mounted Wrath of God and, with Jag Ear's bells jingling, the supply division set out on the road. Jack and Mary followed, this time riding side by side, pony nose to pony nose, in an intimacy of association impossible in the narrow mountain trail. It was an intimacy signalized by silence. There was an end to the mighty transports of the heights; the wells of whimsicality had dried up. The weight of the silence seemed balancing on a brittle thread. All the afternoon's events aligned themselves in a colossal satire. In the half light Jack became a gaunt and lonely figure that ought to be confined in some Utopian kindergarten. Mary could feel her temples beating with the fear of what was waiting for him in Little Rivers, now a dark mass on the levels, just dark, without color or any attraction except the mystery that goes with the shroud of night. She knew how he would laugh at her fears; for she guessed that he was unafraid of anything in the world which, however, was no protection from Pete Leddy's six-shooter. "I--I have a right to know--won't you tell me how you are going to defend yourself against Pete Leddy?" she demanded, in a sudden outburst. "I hadn't thought of that. Certainly, I shall leave it to Pete himself to open hostilities. I hadn't thought of it because I have been too busy thinking out how I was going to break a piece of news to Firio. I have been an awful coward about it, putting it off and putting it off. I had planned to do it on my birthday two weeks ago, and then he gave me these big silver spurs--spent a whole month's wages on them, think of that! I bought this cowboy regalia to go with them. You can't imagine how that pleased him. It certainly was great fun." Mary could only shake her head hopelessly. "Firio and Jag Ear and Wrath of God and old P.D. here--we've sort of grown used to one another's foolishness. Now I can't put it off any longer, and I'd about as soon be murdered as tell him that I am going East in the morning." "You mean you are going to leave here for good?" She mistrusted her own hearing. She was dazzled by this sudden burst of light through the clouds. "Yes, by the first train. This is my last desert ride." Why had he not said so at first? It would not only have saved her from worry, but from the humiliation of pleading with a stranger. Doubtless he had enjoyed teasing her. But no matter. The affair need not last much longer, now. She told herself that, if necessary, she would mount guard over him for the remaining twelve hours of his stay. Once he was aboard the Pullman he would be out of danger; her responsibility would be over and the whole affair would become a bizarre memory; an incident closed. "Back to New York," he said, as one who enters a fog without a compass. "Back to fight pleosaurs, dinosaurs, and all kinds of monsters," he added, with a cheeriness which rang with the first false note she had heard from him. "I don't care," he concluded, and broke into a Spanish air, whose beat ran with the trickling hoof-beats of the ponies in the sand. "That is it!" she thought. "That explains. He just does not care about anything." Ahead, the lamps were beginning to twinkle in the little settlement which had sent such a contrast in citizenship as Mary Ewold and Pete Leddy out to the pass. They were approaching a single, isolated building, from the door of which came a spray of light and the sound of men's voices. "That is Bill Lang's place," Mary explained. "He keeps a store, with a bar in the rear. He also has the post-office, thanks to his political influence, and this is where I have to stop for the mail when I return from the pass." She had not spoken with any sense of a hint which it was inevitable he should accept. "Let me get it for you;" and before she had time to protest, he had dismounted, drawing rein at the edge of the wooden steps. She rode past where his pony was standing. When he entered the door, his tallness and lean ease of posture silhouetted in the light, she could look in on the group of idling male gossips. "Don't!" It was a half cry from her, hardly audible in an intensity which she knew was futile in the surge of her torturing self-incrimination. Why had she not thought that it would be here that Pete Leddy was bound to wait for anyone coming in by the trail from Galeria? The loungers suddenly dropped to the cover of boxes and barrels, as a flicker of steel shot upward, and behind the gleaming rim of a revolver muzzle held rigid was a brown hand and Leddy's hard, unyielding face. What matter if the easy traveller could shoot? He was caught like a man coming out of an alley. He had no chance to draw in turn. In the click of a second-hand the thing would be over. Mary's eyes involuntarily closed, to avoid seeing the flash from the revolver. She listened for the report; for the fall of a body which should express the horror she had visualized for the hundredth time. A century seemed to pass and there was no sound except the beat of her heart, which ran in a cataract throb to her temples; no sound except that and what seemed to be soft, regular steps on the bare floor of the store. "Coward!" she told herself, with the agony of her suspense breaking. "He saved you from inexpressible humiliation and you are afraid even to look!" She opened her eyes, prepared for the worst. Had she gone out of her head? Could she no longer trust her own eyesight? What she saw was inconceivable. The startled faces of the loungers were rising from behind the boxes and barrels. Pete Leddy's gun had dropped to his side and his would-be victim had a hand on Pete's shoulder. Jack was talking apparently in a kindly and reasoning tone, but she could not make out his words. One man alone evidently had not taken cover. It was Jim Galway, a rancher, who had been standing at the mail counter. To judge by his expression, what Jack was saying had his approval. With a nod to Leddy and then a nod to the others, as if in amicable conclusion of the affair, Jack wheeled around to the counter, disclosing Leddy's face wry with insupportable chagrin. His revolver was still in his hand. In the swift impulse of one at bay who finds himself released, he brought it up. There was murder, murder from behind, in the catlike quickness of his movement; but Jim Galway was equally quick. He threw his whole weight toward Leddy in a catapult leap, as he grasped Leddy's wrist and bore it down. Jack faced about in alert readiness. Seeing that Galway had the situation pat, he put up his hand in a kind of questioning, puzzled remonstrance; but Mary noticed that he was very erect. He spoke and Galway spoke in answer. Evidently he was asking that Leddy be released. To this Galway consented at length, but without drawing back until he had seen Leddy's gun safe in the holster. Then Leddy raised himself challengingly on tiptoes to Jack, who turned to Galway in the manner of one extending an invitation. On his part, Leddy turned to Ropey Smith, another of Little Rivers' ruffians. After this, Leddy went through the door at the rear; the loungers resumed their seats on the cracker barrels and gazed at one another with dropped jaws, while Bill Lang proceeded with his business as postmaster. IV HE CARRIES THE MAIL When the suspense was over for Mary, the glare of the store lamp went dancing in grotesque waves, and abruptly, uncannily, fell away into the distant, swimming glow of a lantern suffused with fog. She swayed. Only the leg-rest kept her from slipping off the pony. Her first returning sense of her surroundings came with the sound of a voice, the same careless, pleasant voice which she had heard at Galeria asking Pete Leddy if he were not overplaying his part. "You were right," said the voice. "It was the whistle that made him so angry." Indistinctly she associated a slowly-shaping figure with the voice and realized that she had been away in the unknown for a second. Yes, it was all very well to talk about Sir Walter being out of fashion, but she had been near to fainting, and in none of the affectation of the hoop-skirt age, either. Had she done any foolish thing in expression of a weakness that she had never known before? Had she extended her hand for support? Had he caught her as she wobbled in the saddle? No. She was relieved to see that he was not near enough for that. "By no stretch of ethics can you charge yourself with further responsibility or fears," he continued. "Pete and I understand each other perfectly, now." But in his jocularity ran something which was plain, if unspoken. It was that he would put an end to a disagreeable subject. His first words to her had provided a bridge--and burned it--from the bank of the disagreeable to the bank of agreeable. Her own desire, with full mastery of her faculties coming swiftly, fell in with his. She wanted to blot out that horror and scotch a sudden uprising of curiosity as to the exact nature of the gamble in death through which he had passed. It was enough that he was alive. The blurry figure became distinct, smiling with inquiry in a glance from her to the stack of papers, magazines, and pamphlets which crowded his circling arms. He seemed to have emptied the post-office. There had not been any Pete Leddy; there had been no display of six-shooters. He had gone in after the mail. Here he was ready to deliver it by the bushel, while he waited for orders. She had to laugh at his predicament as he lowered his chin to steady a book on the top of the pile. "Oh, I meant to tell you that you were not to bring the second-class matter!" she told him. "We always send a servant with a basket for that. You see what comes of having a father who is not only omnivorous, but has a herbivorous capacity." He saw that the book had a row of Italian stamps across the wrapper. Unless that popular magazine stopped slipping, both the book and a heavy German pamphlet would go. He took two hasty steps toward her, in mock distress of appeal. "I'll allow salvage if you act promptly!" he said. She lifted the tottering apex just in time to prevent its fall. "I'll take the book," she said. "Father has been waiting months for it. We can separate the letters and leave the rest in the store to be sent for." "The railroad station is on the other side of the town, isn't it?" he asked. "Yes." "I shall camp nearby, so it will be no trouble to leave my burden at your door as I pass." "He does have the gift of oiling the wheels in either, big or little moments," she thought, as she realized how simple and considerate had been his course from the first. He was a stranger going on his way, stopping, however, to do her or any other traveller a favor _en route_. "Firio, we're ready to hear Jag Ear's bells!" he called. "_Sí_!" answered Firio. All the while the Indian had kept in the shadow, away from the spray of light from the store lamp, unaware of the rapid drama that had passed among the boxes and barrels. He had observed nothing unusual in the young lady, whose outward manifestation of what she had, witnessed was the closing of her eyes. It was out of the question that Jack should mount a horse when both arms were crowded with their burden. He walked beside Mary's stirrup leather in the attitude of that attendant on royalty who bears a crown on a cushion. "Little Rivers is a new town, isn't it?" he asked. "Yes, the Town Wonderful," she answered. "Father founded it." She spoke with an affection which ran as deep into the soil as young roots after water. If on the pass she had seemed a part of the desert, of great, lonely distances and a far-flung carpet of dreams, here she seemed to belong to books and gardens. "I wish I had time to look over the Town Wonderful in the morning, but my train goes very early, I believe." After his years of aimless travelling, to which he had so readily confessed, he had tied himself to a definite hour on a railroad schedule as something commanding and inviolable. Such inconsistency did not surprise her. Had she not already learned to expect inconsistencies from him? "Oh, it is all simple and primitive, but it means a lot to us," she said. "What one's home and people mean to him is pretty well all of one's own human drama," he returned, seriously. The peace of evening was in the air and the lights along the single street were a gentle and persistent protest of human life against the mighty stretch of the enveloping mantle of night. From the cottages of the ranchers came the sound of voices. The twang of a guitar quivering starward made medley with Jag Ear's bells. Here, for a little distance, the trail, in its long reach on the desert, had taken on the dignity of the urban name of street. On either side, fronting the cottages, ran the slow waters of two irrigation ditches, gleaming where lamp-rays penetrated the darkness. The date of each rancher's settlement was fairly indicated by the size of the quick-growing umbrella and pepper-trees which had been planted for shade. Thus all the mass of foliage rose like a mound of gentle slope toward the centre of the town, where Jack saw vaguely the outlines of a rambling bungalow, more spacious if no more pretentious than its neighbors in its architecture. At a cement bridge over the ditch, leading to a broad veranda under the soft illumination of a big, wrought-iron lantern, Mary drew rein. "This is home," she said; "and--and thank you!" He could not see her face, which was in the shadow turned toward him, as he looked into the light of the lantern from the other side of her pony. "And--thank you!" It was as if she had been on the point of saying something else and could not get the form of any sentence except these two words. Was there anything further to say except "Thank you"? Anything but to repeat "Thank you"? There he stood, this stranger so correctly introduced by the Eternal Painter, with his burden, waiting instructions in this moment of awkward diffidence. He looked at her and at the porch and at his bundle of mail in a quizzical appeal. Then she realized that, in a peculiar lapse of abstraction, she had forgotten about his encumberment. Before she could speak there was a sonorous hail from the house; a hail in keeping with the generous bulk of its owner, who had come through the door. He was well past middle-age, with a thatch of gray hair half covering his high forehead. In one hand he held the book that he had been reading, and in the other a pair of big tortoise-shell glasses. "Mary, you are late--and what have we here?" He was beaming at Jack as he came across the bridge and he broke into hearty laughter as he viewed Jack's preoccupation with the second-class matter. "At last! At last we have rural free delivery in Little Rivers! We are the coming town! And your uniform, sir"--Jasper Ewold took in the cowboy outfit with a sweeping glance which warmed with the picturesque effect--"it's a great improvement on the regulation; fit for free delivery in Little Rivers, where nobody studies to be unconventional in any vanity of mistaking that for originality, but nobody need be conventional." He took some of the cargo in his own hands. With the hearty breeze of his personality he fairly blew Jack onto the porch, where magazines and pamphlets were dropped indiscriminately in a pile on a rattan settee. "You certainly have enough reading matter," said Jack. "And I must be getting on to camp." For he had no invitation to stay from Mary and the conventional fact that he had to recognize is that a postman's call is not a social call. As he turned to go he faced her coming across the bridge. An Indian servant, who seemed to have materialized out of the night, had taken charge of her pony. "To camp! Never!" said Jasper Ewold. "Sir Knight, slip your lance in the ring of the castle walls--but having no lance and this being no castle, well, Sir Knight in _chaparejos_--that is to say, Sir Chaps--let me inform you"--here Jasper Ewold threw back his shoulders and tossed his mane of hair, his voice sinking to a serious basso profundo--"yes, inform you, sir, that there is one convention, a local rule, that no stranger crosses this threshold at dinner-time without staying to dinner." There was a resonance in his tone, a liveliness to his expression, that was infectious. "But Firio and Jag Ear and Wrath of God wait for me," Jack said, entering with real enjoyment into the grandiose style. "High sounding company, sir! Let me see them!" demanded Jasper Ewold. Jack pointed to his cavalcade waiting in the half shadows, where the lamp-rays grew thin. Wrath of God's bony face was pointed lugubriously toward the door; Jag Ear was wiggling his fragment of ear. "And Moses on the mountain-top says that you stay!" declared Jasper Ewold. Jack looked at Mary. She had not spoken yet and he waited on her word. "Please do!" she said. "Father wants someone to talk to." "Yes, Sir Chaps, I shall talk; otherwise, why was man given a tongue in his head and ideas?" Refusal was out of the question. Accordingly, Firio was sent on to make camp alone. "Now, Sir Chaps, now, Mr.--" began Jasper Ewold, pausing blankly. "Why, Mary, you have not given me his city directory name!" "Mr.--" and Mary blushed. She could only pass the, blame back to the Eternal Painter's oversight in their introduction. "Jack Wingfield!" said Jack, on his own account. "Jack Wingfield!" repeated Jasper Ewold, tasting the name. A flicker of surprise followed by a flicker of drawn intensity ran over his features, and he studied Jack in a long glance, which he masked just in time to save it from being a stare. Jack was conscious of the scrutiny. He flushed slightly and waited for some word to explain it; but none came. Jasper Ewold's Olympian geniality returned in a spontaneous flood. "Come inside, Jack Wingfield," he said. "Come inside, Sir Chaps--for that is how I shall call you." The very drum-beat of hospitality was in his voice. It was a wonderful voice, deep and warm and musical; not to be forgotten. V A SMILE AND A SQUARE CHIN When a man comes to the door book in hand and you have the testimony of the versatility and breadth of his reading in half a bushel of mail for him, you expect to find his surroundings in keeping. But in Jasper Ewold's living-room Jack found nothing of the kind. Heavy, natural beams supported the ceiling. On the gray cement walls were four German photographs of famous marbles. The Venus de Milo looked across to the David of Michael Angelo; the Flying Victory across to Rodin's Thinker. In the centre was a massive Florentine table, its broad top bare except for a big ivory tusk paper-knife free from any mounting of silver. On the shelf underneath were portfolios of the reproductions of paintings. An effect which at first was one of quiet spaciousness became impressive and compelling. Its simplicity was without any of the artificiality that sometimes accompanies an effort to escape over-ornamentation. No one could be in the room without thinking through his eyes and with his imagination. Wherever he sat he would look up to a masterpiece as the sole object of contemplation. "This is my room. Here, Mary lets me have my way," said Jasper Ewold. "And it is not expensive." "The Japanese idea of concentration," said Jack. Jasper Ewold, who had been watching the effect of the room on Jack, as he watched it on every new-comer, showed his surprise and pleasure that this young man in cowboy regalia understood some things besides camps and trails; and this very fact made him answer in the vigorous and enjoyed combatancy of the born controversialist. "Japanese? No!" he declared. "The little men with their storks and vases have merely discovered to us in decoration a principle which was Greek in a more majestic world than theirs. It was the true instinct of the classic motherhood of our art before collectors mistook their residences for warehouses." "And the books?" Jack asked, boyishly. "Where are they? Yes, what do you do with all the second-class matter?" The question was bait to Jasper Ewold. It gave him an opportunity for discourse. "When I read I want nothing but a paper-cutter close at hand--a good, big paper-cutter, whose own weight carries it through the leaves. And I want to be alone with that book. If I am too lazy to go to the library for another, then it is not worth reading. When I get head-achy with print and look up, I don't want to stare at the backs of more books. I want something to rest and fill the eye. I--" "Father," Mary admonished him, "I fear this is going to be long. Why not continue after Mr. Wingfield has washed off the dust of travel and we are at table?" "Mary is merely jealous. She wants to hurry you to the dining-room, which was designed to her taste," answered her father, with an affectation of grand indignation. "The dust of travel here is clean desert dust--but I admit that it is gritty. Come with me, Sir Chaps!" He bade Jack precede him through a door diagonally opposite the one by which he had entered from the veranda. On the other side Jack found himself surrounded by walls of books, which formed a parallelogram around a great deal table littered with magazines and papers. Here, indeed, the printed word might riot as it pleased in the joyous variety and chaos of that truly omnivorous reader of herbivorous capacity. Out of the library Jack passed into Jasper Ewold's bedroom. It was small, with a soldier's cot of exaggerated size that must have been built for his amplitude of person, and it was bare of ornament except for an old ivory crucifix. "There's a pitcher and basin, if you incline to a limited operation for outward convention," said Jasper Ewold; "and through that door you will find a shower, if you are for frank, unlimited submersion of the altogether." "Have I time for the altogether?" Jack asked. "When youth has not in this house, it marks a retrocession toward barbarism for Little Rivers which I refuse to contemplate. Take your shower, Sir Chaps, and"--a smile went weaving over the hills and valleys of Jasper Ewold's face--"and, mind, you take off those grand boots or they will get full of water! You will find me in the library when you are through;" and, shaking with subterranean enjoyment of his own joke, he closed the door. Cool water from the bowels of the mountains fell on a figure as slender as that of the great Michael's David pictured in the living-room; a figure whose muscles ran rippling with leanness and suppleness, without the bunching over-development of the athlete. He bubbled in shivery delight with the first frigid sting of the downpour; he laughed in ecstasy as he pulled the valve wide open, inviting a Niagara. While he was still glowing with the rough intimacy of the towel, he viewed the trappings thrown over the chair and his revolver holster on the bureau in a sense of detachment, as if in the surroundings of civilization some voice of civilization made him wish for flannels in which to dine. Then there came a rap at the door, and an Indian appeared with an envelope addressed in feminine handwriting. On the corner of the page within was a palm-tree--a crest to which anybody who dwelt on the desert might be entitled; and Jack read: "DEAR MR. WINGFIELD: "Please don't tell father about that horrible business on the pass. It will worry him unnecessarily and might interfere with my afternoon rides, which are everything to me. There is not the slightest danger in the future. After this I shall always go armed. "Sincerely yours, "MARY EWOLD." The shower had put him in such lively humor that his answer was born in a flash from memory of her own catechising of him on Galeria. "First, I must ask if you know how to shoot," he scribbled beneath her signature. The Indian seemed hardly out of the doorway before he was back with a reply: "I do, or I would not go armed," it said. She had capped his satire with satire whose prick was, somehow, delicious. He regarded the sweep of her handwriting with a lingering interest, studying the swift nervous strokes before he sent the note back with still another postscript: "Of course I had never meant to tell anybody," he wrote. "It is not a thing to think of in that way." This, he thought, must be the end of the correspondence; but he was wrong. The peripatetic go-between reappeared, and under Jack's last communication was written, "Thank you!" He could hardly write "Welcome!" in return. It was strictly a case of nothing more to say by either duelist. In an impulse he slipped the sheet, with its palm symbolic of desert mystery and oasis luxuriance, into his pocket. "Here I am in the midst of the shucks and biting into the meat of the kernel," said Jasper Ewold, as Jack entered the library to find him standing in the midst of wrappings which he had dropped on the floor; "yes, biting into very rich meat." He held up the book which was evidently the one that had balanced uncertainly on the pile which Jack had brought from the post-office. "Professor Giuccamini's researches! It is as interesting as a novel. But come! You are hungry!" Book in hand, and without removing his tortoise-shell spectacles, he passed out into the garden at the rear. There a cloth was laid under a pavilion. "In a country where it never rains," said the host, "where it is eternal spring, walls to a house are conventions on which to stack books and hang pictures. Mary has chosen nature for her decorative effect--cheaper, even, than mine. In the distance is Galeria; in the foreground, what was desert six years ago." The overhead lamp deepened to purple the magenta of the bougainvillea vines running up the pillars of the pavilion; made the adjacent rows of peony blossoms a pure, radiant white; while beyond, in the shadows, was a broad path between rows of young palms. Mary appeared around a hedge which hid the open-air kitchen. The girl of the gray riding-habit was transformed into a girl in white. Jack saw her as a domestic being. He guessed that she had seen that the table was set right; that she had had a look-in at the cooking; that the hands whose boast it was that they could shoot, had picked the jonquils in the slender bronze vase on the table. "Father, there you are again, bringing a book to the dining-room against the rules," she warned him; "against all your preachments about reading at meals!" "That's so, Mary," said Jasper Ewold, absently, regarding the book as if some wicked genius had placed it in his hand quite unbeknown to him. "But, Mary, it is Professor Giuccamini at last! Giuccamini that I have waited for so long! I beg your pardon, Sir Chaps! When I have somebody to talk to I stand doubly accused. Books at dinner! I descend into dotage!" In disgust he started toward the house with the book. But in the very doorway he paused and, reopening the book, turned three or four pages with ravenous interest. "Giuccamini and I agree!" he shouted. "He says there is no doubt that Burlamacchi and Pico were correct. Cosmo de' Medici did call Savonarola to his death-bed, and I am glad of it. I like good stories to turn out true! But here I have a listener--a live listener, and I ramble on about dead tyrants and martyrs. I apologize--I apologize!" and he disappeared in the library. "Father does not let me leave books in the living-room, which is his. Why should he bring them to the dining-room, which is mine?" Mary explained. "There must be law in every household," Jack agreed. "Yes, somebody fresh to talk to, at, around, and through!" called Jasper Ewold, as he reappeared. "Yes, and over your head; otherwise I shall not be flattered by my own conversation." "He glories in being an intellectual snob," Mary said. "Please pretend at times not to understand him." "Thank you, Mary. You are the corrective that keeps my paternal superiority in balance," answered her father, with a comprehending wave of his hand indicating his sense of humor at the same time as playful insistence on his role as forensic master of the universe. How he did talk! He was a mill to which all intellectual grist was welcome. Over its wheel the water ran now singing, again with the roar of a cataract. He changed theme with the relish of one who rambles at will, and the emotion of every opinion was written on the big expanse of his features and enforced with gestures. He talked of George Washington, of Andrea del Sarto, of melon-growing, trimming pepper-trees, the Divina Commedia, fighting rose-bugs, of Schopenhauer and of Florence--a great deal about Florence, a city that seemed to hang in his mind as a sort of Renaissance background for everything else, even for melon-growing. "You are getting over my head!" Jack warned him at times, politely. "That is the trouble," said Jasper Ewold. "Consider the hardship of being the one wise man in the world! I find it lonely, inconvenient, stupefying. Why, I can't even convince Jim Galway that I know more about dry farming than he!" Jack listened raptly, his face glowing. Once, when he looked in his host's direction suddenly, after speaking to Mary, he found that he was the object of the same inquiring scrutiny that he had been on the porch. In lulls he caught the old man's face in repose. It had sadness, then, the sadness of wreckage; sadness against which he seemed to fence in his wordy feints and thrusts. "Christian civilization began in the Tuscan valley," the philosopher proceeded, harking back to the book which had arrived by the evening's mail. "Florence was a devil--Florence was divine. They raised geniuses and devils and martyrs: the most cloud-topping geniuses, the worst devils, the most saintly martyrs. But better than being a drone in a Florence pension is all this"--with a wave of his hand to the garden and the stars--"which I owe to Mary and the little speck on her lungs which brought us here after--after we had found that we had not as much money as we thought we had and an old fellow who had been an idling student, mostly living abroad all his life, felt the cramp of the material facts of board-and-clothes money. It made Mary well. It made me know the fulness of wisdom of the bee and the ant, and it brought me back to the spirit of America--the spirit of youth and accomplishment. Instead of dreaming of past cities, I set out to make a city like a true American. Here we came to camp in our first travelled delight of desert spaces for her sake; and here we brought what was left of the fortune and started a settlement." The spectator-philosopher attitude of audience to the world's stage passed. He became the builder and the rancher, enthusiastically dwelling on the growth of orchards and gardens in expert fondness. As Jack listened, the fragrance of flowers was in his nostrils and in intervals between Jasper Ewold's sentences he seemed to hear the rustle of borning leaf-fronds breaking the silence. But the narrative was not an idyll. Toil and patience had been the handmaidens of the fecundity of the soil. Prosperity had brought an entail of problems. Jasper Ewold mentioned them briefly, as if he would not ask a guest to share the shadows which they brought to his brow. "The honey of our prosperity brings us something besides the bees. It brings those who would share the honey without work," said he. "It brings the Bill Lang hive and Pete Leddy." At the mention of the name, Jack's and Mary's glances met. "You have promised not to tell," hers was saying. "I will not," his was answering. But clearly he had grasped the fact that Little Rivers was getting out of its patron's hands, and every honest man in that community wanted to be rid of Pete Leddy. "I should think your old friend, Cosmo de' Medici, would have found a way," Jack suggested. "Cosmo is for talk," said Mary. "At heart father is a Quaker." "Some are for lynching," said Jasper Ewold, thoughtfully. "Begin to promote order with disorder and where will you end?" he inquired, belligerently. "This is not the Middle Ages. This is the Little Rivers of peace." Then, after a quotation from Cardinal Newman, which seemed pretty far-fetched to deal with desert ruffians, he was away again, setting out fruit trees and fighting the scale. "And our Date Tree Wonderful!" he continued. "This year we get our first fruit, unless the book is wrong. You cannot realize what this first-born of promise means to Little Rivers. Under the magic of water it completes the cycle of desert fecundity, from Scotch oats and Irish potatoes to the Arab's bread. Bananas I do not include. Never where the banana grows has there been art or literature, a good priesthood, unimpassioned law-makers, honest bankers, or a noble knighthood. It is just a little too warm. Here we can build a civilization which neither roasts us in summer nor freezes us in winter." There was a fluid magnetism in the rush of Jasper Ewold's junketing verbiage which carried the listener on the bosom of a pleasant stream. Jack was suddenly reminded that it must be very late and he had far overstayed the retiring hour of the desert, where the Eternal Painter commands early rising. "Going--going so soon!" protested Jasper Ewold. "So late!" Jack smiled back. To prove that it was, he called attention to the fact, when they passed through the living-room to the veranda, that not a light remained in any ranch-house. "I have not started my talk yet," said Jasper. "But next time you come I will really make a beginning--and you shall see the Date Tree Wonderful." "I go by the morning train," Jack returned. "So! so!" mused Jasper. "So! so!" he objected, but not gloomily. "I get a good listener only to lose him!" But Jack was hardly conscious of the philosopher's words. In that interval he had still another glimpse of Mary's eyes without the veil and saw deeper than he had before; saw vast solitudes, inviting yet offering no invitation, where bright streams seemed to flash and sing under the sunlight and then disappear in a desert. That was her farewell to the easy traveller who had stopped to do her a favor on the trail. And he seemed to ask nothing more in that spellbound second; nor did he after the veil had fallen, and he acquitted himself of some spoken form of thanks for an evening of happiness. "A pleasant journey!" Mary said. "Luck, Sir Chaps, luck!" called Jasper Ewold. Jack's easy stride, as he passed out into the night, confirmed the last glimpse of his smiling, whimsical "I don't care" attitude, which never minded the danger sign on the precipice's edge. "He does not really want to go back to New York," Mary remarked, and was surprised to find that she had spoken her thought aloud. "I hardly agree with that opinion," said her father absently, his thoughts far afield from the fetter of his words. "But of one thing I am sure, John Wingfield! A smile and a square chin!" VI OBLIVION IS NOT EASY "A smile and a square chin!" Mary repeated, as they went back into the living-room. "Yes, hasn't he both, this Wingfield?" asked her father. "This Wingfield"--on the finish of the sentence there was a halting, appreciable accent. He moved toward the table with the listlessness of some enormous automaton of a man to whom every step of existence was a step in a treadmill. There was a heavy sadness about his features which rarely came, and always startled her when it did come with a fear that they had so set in gloom that they would never change. He raised his hand to the wick screw of the lamp, waiting for her to pass through the room before turning off the flame which bathed him in its rays, giving him the effect of a Rodinesque incarnation of memory. Any melancholy that beset him was her own enemy, to be fought and cajoled. Mary slipped to his side, dropping her head on his shoulder and patting his cheek. But this magic which had so frequently rallied him brought only a transient, hazy smile and in its company what seemed a random thought. "And you and he came down the pass together? Yes, yes!" he said. His tone had the vagueness of one drawing in from the sea a net that seemed to have no end. Had Jack Wingfield been more than a symbol? Had he brought something more than an expression of culture, manner, and ease of a past which nothing could dim? Had he suggested some personal relation to that past which her father preferred to keep unexplained? These questions crowded into her mind speculatively. They were seeking a form of conveyance when she realized that she had been adrift with imaginings. He was getting older. She must expect his preoccupation and his absent-mindedness to become more exacting. "Yes, yes!" His voice had risen to its customary sonority; his eyes were twinkling; all the hard lines had become benignant wrinkles of Olympian charm. "Yes, yes! You and this funny tourist! What a desert it is! I wonder--now, I wonder if he will go aboard the Pullman in that stage costume. But come, come, Mary! It's bedtime for all pastoral workers and subjects of the Eternal Painter. Off you go, or we shall be playing blind-man's-buff in the dark!" He was chuckling as he turned down the wick. "His enormous spurs, and Jag Ear and Wrath of God!" he said. Her fancy ran dancing rejoicingly with his mood. "Don't forget the name of his pony!" she called merrily from the stairs. "It's P.D." "P.D.!" said her father, with the disappointment of one tempted by a good morsel which he finds tasteless. "There he seems to have descended to alphabetic commonplace. No imagery in that!" "He is a slow, reliable pony," put in Mary, "without the Q." "Pretty Damn, without the Quick! Oh, I know slang!" Jasper Ewold burst into laughter. It was still echoing through the house when she entered her room. As it died away it seemed to sound hollow and veiled, when the texture of sunny, transparent solidity in his laugh was its most pronounced characteristic. Probably this, too, was imagination, Mary thought. It had been an overwrought day, whose events had made inconsiderable things supreme over logic. She always slept well; she would sleep easily to-night, because it was so late. But she found herself staring blankly into the darkness and her thoughts ranging in a shuttle play of incoherency from the moment that Leddy had approached her on the pass till a stranger, whom she never expected to see again, walked away into the night. What folly! What folly to keep awake over an incident of desert life! But was it folly? What sublime egoism of isolated provincialism to imagine that it had been anything but a great event! Naturally, quiet, desert nerves must still be quivering after the strain. Inevitably, they would not calm instantly, particularly as she had taken coffee for supper. She was wroth about the coffee, though she had taken less than usual that evening. She heard the clock strike one; she heard it strike two, and three. And he, on his part--this Sir Chaps who had come so abruptly into her life and evidently set old passions afire in her father's mind--of course he was sleeping! That was the exasperating phlegm of him. He would sleep on horseback, riding toward the edge of a precipice! "A smile and a square chin--and dreamy vagueness," she kept repeating. The details of the scene in the store recurred with a vividness which counting a flock of sheep as they went over a stile or any other trick for outwitting insomnia could not drive from her mind. Then Pete Leddy's final look of defiance and Jack Wingfield's attitude in answer rose out of the pantomime in merciless clearness. All the indecisiveness of the interchange of guesses and rehearsed impressions was gone. She got a message, abruptly and convincingly. This incident of the pass was not closed. An ultimatum had been exchanged. Death lay between these two men. Jack had accepted the issue. The clock struck four and five. Before it struck again daylight would have come; and before night came again, what? To lie still in the torment of this new experience of wakefulness with its peculiar, half-recognized forebodings, had become unbearable. She rose and dressed and went down stairs softly, candle in hand, aware only that every agitated fibre of her being was whipping her to action which should give some muscular relief from the strain of her overwrought faculties. She would go into the garden and walk there, waiting for sunrise. But at the edge of the path she was arrested by a shadow coming from the servants' sleeping-quarters. It was Ignacio, the little Indian who cared for her horse, ran errands, and fought garden bugs for her--Ignacio, the note-bearer. "Señorita! señorita!" he exclaimed, and his voice, vibrant with something stronger than surprise, had a certain knowing quality, as if he understood more than he dared to utter. "Señorita, you rise early!" "Sometimes one likes to look at the morning stars," she remarked. But there were no stars; only a pale moon, as Ignacio could see for himself. "Señorita, that young man who was here and Pete Leddy--do you know, señorita?" "The young man who came down from the pass with me, you mean?" she asked, inwardly shamed at her simulation of casual curiosity. "Yes, he and Leddy--bad blood between them'" said Ignacio. "You no know, señorita? They fight at daybreak." The pantomime in the store, Jack's form disappearing with its easy step into the night, analyzed in the light of this news became the natural climax of a series of events all under the spell of fatality. "Come, Ignacio!" she said. "We must hurry!" And she started around the house toward the street. VII WHAT HAPPENED AT LANG'S While Jack had been playing the pioneer of rural free delivery in Little Rivers, Pete Leddy, in the rear of Bill Lang's store, was refusing all stimulants, but indulging in an unusually large cud of tobacco. "Liquor ain't no help in drawing a bead," he explained to the loungers who followed him through the door after Jack had gone. If Pete did not want to drink it was not discreet to press him, considering the mood he was in. The others took liberal doses, which seemed only to heighten the detail of the drama which they had witnessed. To Mary it had been all pantomime; to them it was dynamic with language. It was something beyond any previous contemplation of possibility in their cosmos. The store had been enjoying an average evening. All present were expressing their undaunted faith in the invincibility of James J. Jeffries, when a smiling stranger appeared in the doorway. He was dressed like a regular cowboy dude. His like might have appeared on the stage, but had never been known to get off a Pullman in Arizona. And the instant he appeared, up flashed Pete Leddy's revolver. The gang had often discussed when and how Pete would get his seventh victim, and here they were about to be witnesses of the deed. Instinct taught them the proper conduct on such occasions. The tenderfoot was as good as dead; but, being a tenderfoot and naturally a bad shot and prone to excitement, he might draw and fire wild. They ducked with the avidity of woodchucks into their holes--all except Jim Galway, who remained leaning against the counter. "I gin ye warning!" they heard Pete say, and closed their eyes involuntarily--all except Jim Galway--with their last impression the tenderfoot's ingenuous smile and the gleam on Pete's gun-barrel. They waited for the report, as Mary had, and then they heard steps and looked up to see that dude tenderfoot, still smiling, going straight toward the muzzle pointed at his head, his hands at his side in no attempt to draw. The thing was incredible and supernatural. "Pete is letting him come close first," they thought. But there, unbelievable as it was, Pete was lowering his revolver and the tenderfoot's hand was on his shoulder in a friendly, explanatory position. Pete seemed in a trance, without will-power over his trigger finger, and Pete was the last man in the world that you would expect to lose his nerve. Jim Galway being the one calm observer, whose vision had not been disturbed by precipitancy in taking cover, let us have his version. "He just walked over to Pete--that's all I can say--walked over to him, simple and calm, like he was going to ask for a match. All I could think of and see was his smile right into that muzzle and the glint in his eyes, which were looking into Pete's. Someway you couldn't shoot into that smile and that glint, which was sort of saying, 'Go ahead! I'm leaving it to you and I don't care!'--just as if a flash of powder was all the same to him as a flash of lightning." The desert had given Jack life; and it would seem as if what the desert had given, it might take away. He was not going to humble himself by throwing up his arms or standing still for execution. He was on his way into the store and he continued on his way. If something stopped him, then he would not have to take the train East in the morning. "Now if you want to kill me, Pete Leddy," the astonished group heard this stranger say, "why, I'm not going to deny you the chance. But I don't want you to do it just out of impulse, and I know that is not your own reasoned way. You certainly would want sporting rules to prevail and that I should have an equal chance of killing you. So we will go outside, stand off any number of paces you say, let our gun-barrels hang down even with the seams of our trousers, and wait for somebody to say 'one, two, three--fire!'" Not once had that peculiar smile faded from Jack's lips or the glint in his eyes diverted from its probe of Leddy's eyes. His voice went well with the smile and with an undercurrent of high voltage which seemed the audible corollary of the glint. Every man knew that, despite his gay adornment, he was not bluffing. He had made his proposition in deadly earnest and was ready to carry it out. Pete Leddy shuffled and bit the ends of his moustache, and his face was drawn and white and his shoulder burning under the easy grip of Jack's hand. From the bore of the unremitting glance that had confounded him he shifted his gaze sheepishly. "Oh, h--l!" he said, and the tone, in its disgust and its attempt to laugh off the incident, gave the simplicity of an exclamation from his limited vocabulary its character. "Oh, h--l! I was just trying you out as a tenderfoot--a little joke!" At this, all the crowd laughed in an explosive breath of relief. The inflection of the laugh made Pete go red and look challengingly from face to face, with the result that all became piously sober. "Then it is all right? I meant in no way to wound your feelings or even your susceptibilities," said Jack; and, accepting the incident as closed, he turned to the counter and asked for the Ewold mail. Free from that smile and the glint of the eyes, Pete came to in a torrent of reaction. He, with six notches on his gun-handle, had been trifled with by a grinning tenderfoot. Rage mounted red to his brow. No man who had humiliated him should live. He would have shot Jack in the back if it had not been for Jim Galway, lean as a lath, lantern-jawed, with deep-set blue eyes, his bearing different from that of the other loungers. Jim had not joined in the laugh over Pete's explanation; he had remained impassive through the whole scene; but the readiness with which he knocked Leddy's revolver down showed that this immovability had let nothing escape his quiet observation. When Jack looked around and understood what had passed, his face was without the smile. It was set and his body had stiffened free of the counter. "I'll take the gun away from him. It's high time somebody did," said Galway. "I think you had better, if that is the only way that he knows how to fight," said Jack. "I have wondered how he got the six. Presumably he murdered them." "To their faces, as I'll get you!" Leddy answered. "I'll play your way now, one, two, three--fire!" Galway, convinced that this stranger did not know how to shoot, turned to Jack: "It's not worth your being a target for a dead shot," he said. "In the morning, yes," answered Jack; and he was smiling again in a way that swept the audience with uncanniness. "But to-night I am engaged. Make it early to-morrow, as I have to take the first train East." "Well, are you going to let me go?" Leddy asked Jim, while he looked in appeal to the loungers, who were his men. "Yes, by all means," Jack told Galway. "And as I shall want a man with me, may I rely on you? Four of us will be enough, with a fifth to give the word." "Ropey Smith can go with me," said Leddy. It scarcely occurred to them to give the name of duel to this meeting, which Jack held was the only fair way when one felt that he must have satisfaction from an adversary in the form of death. An _arroyo_ a mile from town was chosen and the time dawn, for a meeting which was to reverse the ethics of that boasted fair-play in which the man who first gets a bead is the hero. "It seems a mediaeval day for me," Jack said, when the details were concluded. "Good-night, gentlemen," he added, after Bill Lang, with fingers that bungled from agitation, had filled his arms with second-class matter. Jim Galway resumed his position, leaning against the counter watchfully as the gang filed out to the rear to wet up, and in his right hand, which was in his pocket, nestled an automatic pistol. "I'd shot Pete Leddy dead--'twas the first real fair chance within the law--so help me, God! I would," he thought, "if there had been time to spare, and save that queer tenderfoot's life. And me a second in a regular duel! Well, I'll be--but it ain't no regular duel. One of 'em is going to drop--that is, the tenderfoot is. I don't just know how to line him up. He beats me!" VIII ACCORDING TO CODE It was the supreme moment of night before dawn. A violet mist shrouded everything. The clamminess of the dew touched Mary's forehead and her hand brushed the moisture-laden hedge as she left the Ewold yard. She remembered that Jack had said that he would camp near the station, so there was no doubt in which direction she should go. Hastening along the silent street, it was easy for her to imagine that she and Ignacio were the only sentient beings, abroad in a world that had stopped breathing. Softly, impalpably, with both the graciousness of a host and the determinedness of an intruder who will not be gainsaid, the first rays of morning light filtered into the mist. The violet went pink. From pale pink it turned to rose-pink; to the light of life which was as yet as still as the light of the moon. The occasional giant cactus in the open beyond the village outskirts ceased to be spectral. For the first time Mary Ewold was in the presence of the wonder of daybreak on the desert without watching for the harbinger of gold in the V of the pass, with its revelation of a dome of blue where unfathomable space had been. For the first time daybreak interested her only in broadening and defining her vision of her immediate surroundings. When the permeating softness suddenly yielded to full transparency, spreading from the fanfare of the rising sun come bolt above the range, and the mist rose, she left the road at sight of two ponies and a burro in a group, their heads together in drooping fellowship. She knew them at once for P.D., Wrath of God, and Jag Ear. Nearby rose a thin spiral of smoke and back of it was a huddled figure, Firio, preparing the morning meal. Animals and servant were as motionless as the cactus. Evidently they did not hear her footsteps. They formed a picture of nightly oblivion, unconscious that day had come. Firio's face was hidden by his big Mexican hat; he did not look up even when she was near. She noted the two blanket-rolls where the two comrades of the trail had slept. She saw that both were empty and knew that Jack had already gone. "Where is Mr. Wingfield?" she demanded, breathlessly. Firio was not startled. To be startled was hardly in his Indian nature. The hat tipped upward and under the brim-edge his black eyes gleamed, as the sandy soil all around him gleamed in the dew. He shrugged his shoulders when he recognized the lady speaking as the one who had delayed him at the foot of the pass the previous afternoon. Thanks to her, he had been left alone without his master the whole evening. "He go to stretch his legs," answered Firio. Apparently, Sir Chaps had been disinclined to disturb the routine of camp by telling Firio anything about the duel. "Where did he go? In which direction?" Mary persisted. Firio moved the coffee-pot closer to the fire. This seemed to require the concentration of all his faculties, including that of speech. He was a fit servant for one who took duels so casually. "Where? Where?" she repeated. "Where? Have you no tongue?" snapped Ignacio. Firio gazed all around as if looking for Jack; then nodded in the direction of rising ground which broke at the edge of a depression about fifty yards away. Her impatience had made the delay of a minute seem hours, while the brilliance of the light had now become that of broad day. She forgot all constraint. She ran, and as she ran she listened for a shot as if it were something inevitable, past due. And then she uttered a muffled cry of relief, as the scene in a depression which had been the bed of an ancient river flashed before her with theatric completeness. In the bottom of it were five men, two moving and three stationary. Jim Galway and Ropey Smith were walking side by side, keeping a measured step as they paced off a certain distance, while Bill Lang and Pete Leddy and Jack stood by. Leddy and Lang were watching the process inflexibly. Jack was in the costume which had flushed her curiosity so vividly on the pass and he appeared the same amused, disinterested and wondering traveller who had then come upon strange doings. She stopped, her temples throbbing giddily, her breaths coming in gasps; stopped to gain mastery of herself before she decided what she would do next. On the opposite bank of the _arroyo_ was a line of heads, like those of infantry above a parapet, and she comprehended that, in the same way that news of a cock-fight travels, the gallery gods of Little Rivers had received a tip of a sporting event so phenomenal that it changed the sluggards among them into early risers. They were making themselves comfortable lying flat on their stomachs and exposing as little as possible of their precious bodies to the danger of that tenderfoot firing wild. It was a great show, of which they would miss no detail; and all had their interest whetted by some possible new complication of the plot when they saw the tall, familiar figure of Jasper Ewold's daughter standing against the skyline. She felt the greedy inquiry of their eyes; she guessed their thoughts. This new element of the situation swept her with a realization of the punishment she must suffer for that chance meeting on Galeria and then with resentful anger, which transformed Jack Wingfield's indifference to callous bravado. Must she face that battery of leers from the town ruffians while she implored a stranger, who had been nothing to her yesterday and would be nothing tomorrow, to run away from a combat which was a creation of his own stubbornness? She was in revolt against herself, against him, and against the whole miserable business. If she proceeded, public opinion would involve her in a sentimental interest in a stranger. She must live with the story forever, while to an idle traveller it was only an adventure at a way-station on his journey. She had but to withdraw in feigned surprise from the sight of a scene which she had come upon unawares and she would be free of any association with it. For all Little Rivers knew that she was given to random walks and rides. No one would be surprised that she was abroad at this early hour. It would be ascribed to the nonsense which afflicted the Ewolds, father and daughter, about sunrises. Yes, she had been in a nightmare. With the light of day she was seeing clearly. Had she not warned him about Leddy? Had not she done her part? Should she submit herself to fruitless humiliation? Go to him in as much distress as if his existence were her care? If he would not listen to her yesterday, why should she expect him to listen to her now? She would return to her garden. Its picture of content and isolation called her away from the stare of the faces on the other bank. She turned on her heel abruptly, took two or three spasmodic steps and stopped suddenly, confronted with another picture--one of imagination--that of Jack Wingfield lying dead. The recollection of a voice, the voice that had stopped the approach of Leddy's passion-inflamed face to her own on the pass, sounded in her ears. She faced around, drawn by something that will and reason could not overcome, to see that Jim Galway and Ropey Smith had finished their task of pacing off the distance. The two combatants were starting for their stations, their long shadows in the slant of the morning sunlight travelling over the sand like pursuing spectres. Leddy went with the quick, firm step which bespoke the keenness of his desire; Jack more slowly, at a natural gait. His station was so near her that she could reach him with a dozen steps. And he was whistling--the only sound in a silence which seemed to stretch as far as the desert--whistling gaily in apparent unconsciousness that the whole affair was anything but play. The effect of this was benumbing. It made her muscles go limp. She sank down for very want of strength to keep erect; and Ignacio, hardly observed, keeping close to her dropped at her side. "Ignacio, tell the young man, the one who was our guest last evening, that I wish to see him!" she gasped. With flickering, shrewd eyes Ignacio had watched her distress. He craved the word that should call him to service and was off with a bound. His rushing, agitated figure was precipitated into a scene hard set as men on a chess-board in deadly serenity. Leddy and Jack, were already facing each other. "Señor! Señor!" Ignacio shouted, as he ran. "Señor Don't Care of the Big Spurs--wait!" The message which he had to give was his mistress's and, therefore, nobody else's business. He rose on tiptoes to whisper it into Jack's ear. Jack listened, with head bent to catch the words. He looked over to Mary for an instant of intent silence and then raised his empty left hand in signal. "Sorry, but I must ask for a little delay!" he called to Leddy. His tone was wonderful in its politeness and he bowed considerately to his adversary. "I thought it was all bluff!" Leddy answered. "You'll get it, though--you'll get it in the old way if you haven't the nerve to take it in yours!" "Really, I am stubbornly fond of my way," Jack said. "I shall be only a minute. That will give you time to steady your nerves," he added, in the encouraging, reassuring strain of a coach to a man going to the bat. He was coming toward Mary with his easy, languid gait, radiant of casual inquiry. The time of his steps seemed to be reckoned in succeeding hammer-beats in her brain. He was coming and she had to find reasons to keep him from going back; because if it had not been for her he would be quite safe. Oh, if she could only be free of that idea of obligation to him! All the pain, the confusion, the embarrassment was on her side. His very manner of approach, in keeping with the whole story of his conduct toward her, showed him incapable of such feelings. She had another reaction. She devoutly wished that she had not sent for him. Had not his own perversity taken his fate out of her hands? If he preferred to die, why should it be her concern? Should she volunteer herself as a rescuer of fools? The gleaming sand of the _arroyo_ rose in a dazzling mist before her eyes, obscuring him, clothing him with the unreality of a dream; and then, in physical reality, he emerged. He was so near as she rose spasmodically that she could have laid her hand on his shoulder. His hat under his arm, he stood smiling in the bland, questioning interest of a spectator happening along the path, even as he had in her first glimpse of him on the pass. "I don't care! Go on! Go on!" she was going to say. "You have made sport of me! You make sport of everything! Life itself is a joke to you!" The tempest of the words was in her eyes, if it did not reach her tongue's end. It was halted by the look of hurt surprise, of real pain, which appeared on his face. Was it possible, after all, that he could feel? The thought brought forth the passionate cry of her mission after that sleepless night. "I beg of you--I implore you--don't!" Had anyone told her yesterday that she would have been begging any man in melodramatic supplication for anything, she would have thought of herself as mad. Wasn't she mad? Wasn't he mad? Yet she broke into passionate appeal. "It is horrible--unspeakable! I cannot bear it!" A flood of color swept his cheeks and with it came a peculiar, feminine, almost awkward, gentleness. His air was that of wordless humility. He seemed more than ever an uncomprehending, sure prey for Leddy. "Don't you realize what death is?" she asked. The question, so earnest and searching, had the contrary effect on him. It changed him back to his careless self. He laughed in the way of one who deprecates another's illusion or passing fancy. This added to her conviction that he did not realize, that he was incapable of realizing, his position. "Do you think I am about to die?" he asked softly. "With Pete Leddy firing at you twenty yards away--yes! And you pose--you pose! If you were human you would be serious!" "Pose?" He repeated the word. It startled him, mystified him. "The clothes I bought to please Firio, you mean?" he inquired, his face lighting. "No, about death. It is horrible--horrible! Death for which I am responsible!" "Why, have you forgotten that we settled all that?" he asked. "It was not you. It was the habit I had formed of whistling in the loneliness of the desert. I am sorry, now, that I did not stick to singing, even at the expense of a sore throat." Now he called to Leddy, and his voice, high-pitched and powerful, seemed to travel in the luminous air as on resilient, invisible wires. "Leddy, wasn't it the way I whistled to you the first time we met that made you want satisfaction? You remember"--and he broke into a whistle. His tone was different from that to Leddy on the pass; the whistle was different. It was shrill and mocking. "Yes, the whistle!" yelled Leddy. "No man can whistle to me like that and live!" Jack laughed as if he appreciated all the possibilities of humor inherent in the picture of the bloodthirsty Leddy, the waiting seconds and the gallery. He turned to Mary with a gesture of his outstretched hands: "There, you see! I brought it on myself." "You are brutal! You are without feeling--you are ridiculous--you--" she stormed, chokingly. And in face of this he became reasoning, philosophical. "Yes, I admit that it is all ridiculous, even to farce, this little _comédie humaine_. But we must remember that beside the age of the desert none of us last long. Ridiculous, yes; but if I will whistle, why, then, I must play out the game I've started." He was looking straight into her eyes, and there was that in his gaze which came as a surprise and with something of the effect of a blade out of a scabbard. It chilled her. It fastened her inactive to the earth with a helplessness that was uncanny. It mixed the element of fear for him with the element of fear of him. "Remember I am of age--and I don't mind," he added, with the faintest glint of satire in his reassurance. He was walking away, with a wave of his hand to Leddy; he was going over the precipice's edge after thanking the danger sign. He did not hasten, nor did he loiter. The precipice resolved itself into an incident of a journey of the same order as an ankle-deep stream trickling across a highway. IX THE DEVIL IS OUT She had done her best and she had failed. What reason was there for her to remain? Should she endure witnessing in reality the horror which she had pictured so vividly in imagination? A flash of fire! The fall of a careening figure to the earth! Leddy's grin of satisfaction! The rejoicing of his clan of spectators over the exploit, while youth which sang airs to the beat of a pony's hoofs and knew the worship of the Eternal Painter lay dead! What reason to remain except to punish herself! She would go. But something banished reason. She was held in the leash of suspense, staring with clearness of vision in one second; staring into a mist the next; while the coming and going of Ignacio's breaths between his teeth was the only sound in her ears. "Señor Don't Care of the Big Spurs will win!" he whispered. "He will?" she repeated, like one marvelling, in the tautness of every nerve and muscle, that she had the power of speech. She peered into Ignacio's face. Its Indian impassivity was gone. His lips were twitching; his eyes were burning points between half-closed lids. "Why?" she asked. "How?" "I know. I watch him. I have seen a mountain lion asleep in a tree. His paw is like velvet. He smiles. There seems no fight in him. I know. There is a devil, a big devil, in Señor Don't Care. It sleeps so much it very terrible when it awakes. And Pete Leddy--he is all the time awake; all the time too ready. Something in him will make his arm shake when the moment to shoot comes and something in Señor Don't Care--his devil--will make his arm steady." Could Ignacio be right? Did Jack really know how to shoot? Was he confident of the outcome? Were his smiles the mask of a conviction that he was to kill and not to be killed? After all, had his attitude toward her been merely acting? Had she undergone this humiliation as the fish on the line of the mischievous play of one who had stopped over a train in order to do murder? No! If he were capable of such guile he knew that Leddy could shoot well and that twenty yards was a deadly range for a good shot. He was taking a chance and the devil in him was laughing at the chance, while it laughed at her for thinking that he was an innocent going to slaughter in expression of a capricious sense of chivalry. "He will win--he will win if Leddy plays fair!" Ignacio repeated. Now she was telling herself that it was solely for the sake of her conscience that she wanted to see Señor Don't Care survive; solely for the sake of her conscience that she wanted to see him go aboard the train safe. After that, she could forget ever having owed this trifler the feeling of gratitude for a favor done. Literally, he must live in order to be a dead and unremembered incident of her existence. And Jack was back at his station, with the bright sunlight heightening the colors of his play cowboy attire, his weight on the ball of his right foot thrown well ahead of the other, his head up, but the whole effect languid, even deferential. He seemed about to take off his hat to the joyous sky of a fair day in May. His shadow expressed the same feeling as his pose, that of tranquil youth with its eyes on the horizon. Leddy had the peculiar slouch of the desperado, which is associated with the spread of pioneering civilization by the raucous criers of red-blooded individualism. If Jack's bearing was amateurish, then Pete's was professional in its threatening pose; and his shadow, like himself, had an unrelieved hardness of outline. Both drew their guns from their holsters and lowered them till the barrels lay even with the trousers seams. They awaited the word to fire which Bill Lang, who stood at an angle equidistant from the two men, was to give. "Wait!" Jack called, in a tone which indicated that something had recurred to him. Then a half laugh from him fell on the brilliant, shining, hard silence with something of the sound of a pebble slipping over glare ice. "Leddy, it has just occurred to me that we are both foolish--honestly, we are!" he said. "The idea when Arizona is so sparsely settled of our starting out to depopulate it in such a premeditated manner on such a beautiful morning, and all because I was such an inept whistler! Why, if I had realized what a perfectly bad whistler I was I would never have whistled again. If my whistle hurt your feelings I am sorry, and I--" "No, you don't!" yelled Leddy. "I've waited long enough! It's fight, you--" "Oh, all right! You are so emphatic," Jack answered. His voice was still pleasant, but shot with something metallic. The very shadow of him seemed to stiffen with the stiffening of his muscles. "Ready!" called Bill Lang. The ruling passion that had carved six notches on his gun-handle overwhelmed Pete Leddy. At least, let us give him the benefit of the doubt and say that this and not calculation was responsible for his action. Before the word for preparation was free of Lang's lips, and without waiting for the word to fire, his revolver came up in a swift quarter-circle. He was sure of his aim at that range with a ready draw. Again and again he had thus hit his target in practice and six times he had winged his man by such agile promptness. With the flash from the muzzle all the members of the gallery rose on hands and knees. They were as sure that there was to be a seventh notch as of their identity. There was no question in their minds but Pete had played a smart trick. They had known from the first that he would win. And the proof of it was in the sudden, uncontrollable movement of the adversary. Jack whirled half round. He was falling. But even as he fell he was still facing his adversary. He plunged forward unsteadily and came to rest on his left elbow. A trickle of blood showed on the chap of his left leg, which had tightened as his knee twisted under him. Leddy's rage had been so hot that for once his trigger finger had been too quick. He had aimed too low. But he was sure that he had done for his man and he looked triumphantly toward the gallery gods whose hero he was. They had now risen to their feet. In answer to their congratulations he waved his left hand, palm out, in salutation. His gun-hand had dropped back to his trousers seam. Even as it dropped, Jack's revolver had risen, his own gun-hand steadied in the palm of his left hand, which had an elbow in the sand for a rest. Victor and spectators, in their preoccupation with the relief and elation of a drama finished, had their first warning of what was to come in a voice that did not seem like the voice of the tenderfoot as they had heard it, but of another man. And Leddy was looking at a black hole in a rim of steel which, though twenty yards away, seemed hot against his forehead, while he turned cold. "Now, Pete Leddy, do not move a muscle!" Jack told him. "Pete Leddy, you did not play my way. I still have a shot due, and I am going to kill you!" Jack's face seemed never to have worn a smile. It was all chin, and thin, tightly-pressed lips, and solid, straight nose, bronze and unyielding. "And I am going to kill you!" This was surely the devil of Ignacio's imagery speaking in him--a cold, passionless, gray-eyed devil. Though they had never seen him shoot, everybody felt now that he could shoot with deadly accuracy and that there was no play cowboy in his present mood. He had the bead of death on Leddy and he would fire with the first flicker of resistance. His call seemed to have sunk the feet of everyone beneath the sand to bed-rock and riveted them there. Lang and the two seconds were as motionless as statues. Mary recalled Leddy's leer at her on the pass, with its intent of something more horrible than murder. Savagery rose in her heart. It was right that he should be killed. He deserved his fate. But no sooner was the savagery born--born, she felt, of the very hypnosis of that carved face--than she cast it out shudderingly in the realization that she had wished the death of a fellow human being! She looked away from Jack; and then it occurred to her that he must be bleeding. He was again a companion of the trail, his strength ebbing away. Her impulse was retarded by no fear of the gallery now. It brought her to her feet. "But first drop your revolver!" she heard Jack call, as she ran. She saw it fall from Leddy's trembling hand, as a dead leaf goes free of a breeze-shaken limb. All the fight was out of him. The courage of six notches was not the courage to accept in stoicism the penalty of foul play. And that black rim was burning his forehead. "Galway, you have a gun?" Jack asked. "Yes," Galway answered, mechanically. His presence of mind, which had been so sure in the store, was somewhat shaken. He had seen men killed, but never in such deliberate fashion. "Take it out'" There was a quality in the command like frosty madness, which one instinctively obeyed. The half-prostrate figure of the tenderfoot seemed to dominate everything--men, earth, and air. Mary had a glimpse of Galway drawing an automatic pistol from his pocket when she dropped at Jack's side. She knew that Jack had not heard or seen her approach. All his will was flowing out along a pistol's sight, even as his blood was flowing out on the sand in a broadening circle of red. It was well that she had come. Her fingers were splashed as she felt for the artery, which she closed by leaning her whole weight on the thumb. Ignacio had followed her and immediately after him came Firio, who had been startled in his breakfast preparations by the sound of a shot and had set out to investigate its cause. He was as changed as his master; a twitching, fierce being, glaring at her and at the wound and then prolongedly and watchfully at Pete Leddy. "Can you shoot to kill?" Jack asked Galway, in a piercing summons. "Yes," drawled Galway. "Then up with your gun--quick! There! A bead on Ropey Smith!" Galway had the bead before Ropey could protest. "Give Ropey ten seconds to drop his gun or we will care for him at the same time as Pete'" Jack concluded. Ropey did not wait the ten seconds. He was over-prompt for the same reasons of temperament that made Pete Leddy prefer his own way of fighting. "I take it that we can count on the neutrality of our spectators. They cannot be interested in the success of either side," Jack observed, with dry humor, but still methodically. "All they ask is a spectacle." "Yes, you bet!" came a voice from the gallery, undisguisedly eager to concur. "Now, Pete and Ropey," Jack began, and broke off. There was a poignant silence that waited on the processes of his mind. Not only was there no sound, but to Mary there seemed no movement anywhere in the world, except the pulse of the artery trying to drive its flood past the barrier of her thumb. Jack kept his bead unremittingly on Pete. It was Firio who broke the silence. "Kill him! He is bad! He hates you!" said Firio. "_Sí, sí_! If you do not kill him now, you must some time," said Ignacio. Mary felt that even if Jack heard them he would not let their advice influence him. On the bank before she had hastened to him a strange and awful visitor in her heart had wished for Leddy's death. Now she wished for him to go away unharmed. She wished it in the name of her own responsibility for all that had happened. Yet her tongue had no urging word to offer. She waited in a supernatural and dreadful curiosity on Jack's decision. It was as if he were to answer one more question in explanation of the mystery of his nature. Could he deliberately shoot down an unarmed man? Was he that hard? "I am thinking just how to deal with you, Pete and Ropey," Jack proceeded. "As I understand it, you have not been very useful citizens of Little Rivers. You can live under one condition--that you leave town and never return armed. Half a minute to decide!" "I'll go!" said Pete. "I'll go!" said Ropey. "And keep your words?" "Yes!" they assented. But neither moved. The fact that Jack had not yet lowered his revolver made them cautious. They were obviously over-anxious to play safe to the last. "Then go!" called Jack. Pete and Ropey slouched away, leaving behind Ropey's gun, which was unimportant as it had only one notch, and Pete's precious companion of many campaigns with its six notches, lying on the sand. "And, gentlemen," Jack called to the spectators, "our little entertainment is over now. I am afraid that you will be late for breakfast." Apparently it came as a real inspiration to all at once that they might be, for they began to withdraw with a celerity that was amazingly spontaneous. Their heads disappeared below the skyline and only the actors were left. Pete and Ropey--Bill Lang following--walked away along the bed of the _arroyo_, instead of going over the bank. Pete paused when he was out of range. The old threat was again in his pose. "I'm not through with you, yet!" he called. "Why, I hope you are!" Jack answered. He let his revolver fall with a convulsion of weakness. Mary wondered if he were going to faint. She wondered if she herself were not going to faint, in a giddy second, while the red spot on the sand shaped itself in revolving grotesquery. But the consciousness that she must not lift her weight from the artery was a centering idea to keep her faculties in some sort of equilibrium. He was looking around at her, she knew. Now she must see his face after this transformation in him which had made her fears of his competency silly imaginings; after she had linked her name with his in an overwhelming village sensation. She was stricken by unanalyzable emotions and by a horror of her nearness to him, her contact with his very blood, and his power. She was conscious of a glimpse of his turning profile, still transfixed with the cool purpose of action. Then they were gazing full at each other, eyes into eyes, directly, questioningly. He was smiling as he had on the pass; as he had when he stood with his arms full of mail waiting for the signal to deposit his load. His devil had slipped back into his inner being. He spoke first, and in the voice that went with his vaguest mood; the voice in which he had described his escape from the dinosaur whose scales had become wedged in the defile at the critical moment. "You have a strong thumb and it must be tired, as well as all bluggy," he said, falling into a childhood symbol for taking the whole affair in play. Could he be the same man who had said, "I am going to kill you!" so relentlessly? He had eased the situation with the ready gift he had for easing situations; but, at the same time, he had made those unanalyzable emotions more complex, though they were swept into the background for the moment. He glanced down at his leg with comprehending surprise. "Now, certainly, you are free of all responsibility," he added. "You kept the strength in me to escape the fate you feared. Jim Galway will make a tourniquet and relieve you." The first available thing for tightening the tourniquet was the barrel of Pete Leddy's gun and the first suggestion for material came from her. It was the sash of her gown, which Galway knotted with his strong, sunburned fingers. When she could lift her numbed thumb from its task and rose to her feet she had a feeling of relief, as if she were free of magnetic bonds and uncanny personal proximity. The incident was closed--surely closed. She was breathing a prayer of thanks when a remark from Galway to Jack brought back her apprehension. "I guess you will have to postpone catching to-day's train," he said. Certainly, Jack must remain until his wound had healed and his strength had returned. And where would he go? He could not camp out on the desert. As Jasper Ewold had the most commodious bungalow it seemed natural that any wounded stranger should be taken there. The idea chilled her as an insupportable intrusion. Jack hesitated a moment. He was evidently considering whether he could not still keep to his programme. "Yes, Jim, I'm afraid I shall have to ask you for a cot for a few days," he said, finally. Again he had the right thought at the right moment. Had he surmised what was passing in her mind? "Seeing that you've got Pete Leddy out of town, I should say that you were fairly entitled to a whole bed," Jim drawled. "These two Indians here can make a hustle to get some kind of a litter." Now she could go. That was her one crying thought: She could go! And again he came to her rescue with his smiling considerateness. "You have missed your breakfast, I'll warrant," he said to her. "Please don't wait. You were so brave and cool about it all, and--I--" A faint tide of color rose to his cheeks, which had been pale from loss of blood. For once he seemed unable to find a word. Mary denied him any assistance in his embarrassment. "Yes," she answered, almost bluntly. Then she added an excuse: "And you should have a doctor at once. I will send him." She did not look at Jack again, but hastened away. When she was over the bank of the _arroyo_ out of sight she put her fingers to her temples in strong pressure. That pulse made her think of another, which had been under her thumb, and she withdrew her fingers quickly. "It is the sun! I have no hat," she said to herself, "and I didn't sleep well." X MARY EXPLAINS Dr. Patterson was still asleep when Mary rapped at his door. Having aroused him to action by calling out that a stranger had been wounded in the _arroyo_, she did not pause to offer any further details. With her eyes level and dull, she walked rapidly along the main street where nobody was yet abroad, her one thought to reach her room uninterrupted. As she approached the house she saw her father standing on the porch, his face beaming with the joy of a serenely-lived moment as he had his morning look at the Eternal Painter's first display for the day. She had crossed the bridge before he became conscious of her presence. "Mary! You are up first! Out so early when you went to bed so late!" he greeted her. "I did not sleep well," she explained. "What, Mary, you not sleep well!" All the preoccupation with the heavens went from his eyes, which swept her from head to foot. "Mary! Your hand is covered with blood! There is blood on your dress' What does this mean?" She looked down and for the first time saw dark red spots on her skirt. The sight sent a shiver through her, which she mastered before she spoke. "Oh, nothing--or a good deal, if you put it in another way. A real sensation for Little Rivers!" she said. "But you are not telling!" "It is such a remarkable story, father, it ought not to be spoiled by giving away its plot," she said, with assumed lightness. "I don't feel equal to doing full justice to it until after I've had my bath. I will tell you at breakfast. That's a reason for your waiting for me." And she hastened past him into the house. "Was it--was it something to do with this Wingfield?" he called excitedly after her. "Yes, about the fellow of the enormous spurs--Señor Don't Care, as Ignacio calls him," she answered from the stair. Some note underneath her nonchalance seemed to disturb, even to distress him. He entered the house and started through the living-room on his way to the library. But he paused as if in answer to a call from one of the four photographs on the wall, Michael Angelo's young David, in the supple ease of grace. The David which Michael made from an imperfect piece of marble! The David which sculptors say is ill-proportioned! The David into which, however, the master breathed the thing we call genius, in the bloom of his own youth finding its power, even as David found his against Goliath. This David has come out of the unknown, over the hills, with the dew of morning freshness on his brow. He is unconscious of self; of everything except that he is unafraid. If all other aspirants have failed in downing the old champion, why, he will try. Now, Jasper Ewold frowned at David as if he were getting no answer to a series of questions. "I must make a change. You have been up a long time, David," he thought; for he had many of these photographs which he kept in a special store-room subject to his pleasure in hanging. "Yes, I will have a Madonna--two Madonnas, perhaps, and a Velasquez and a Rembrandt next time." In the library he set to reading Professor Giuccamini; but he found himself disagreeing with the professor. "I want your facts which you have dug out of the archives," he said, speaking to the book as if it were alive. "I don't want your opinions. Confound it!" he threw Giuccamini on the table. "I'll make my own opinions! Nothing else to do out here on the desert. Time enough to change them as often as I want, too." He went into the garden--the garden which, next to Mary, was the most intimate thing in his affections. Usually, every new leaf that had burst forth over night set itself in the gelatine of his mind like so many letterpress changes on a printed page to a proof-reader. This time, however, a new palm leaf, a new spray of bougainvillea blossoms, a bud on the latest rose setting which he had from Los Angeles, said "Good morning," without any response from him. He paced back and forth, his hands clasped behind him, his head bowed moodily, and his shoulders drawn together in a way that made him seem older and more portly. With each turn he looked sharply, impatiently, toward the door of the house. Never had Mary so felt the charm of her room as on this morning; never had it seemed so set apart from the world and so personal. It was the breadth of the ell and the size of her father's library and bedroom combined. The windows could hardly be called windows in a Northern sense, for there was no glass. It was unnecessary to seal up the source of light and air in a dry climate, where a blanket at night supplied all the extra warmth one's body ever required. The blinds swung inward and the shades softened the light and added to the privacy which the screen of the growing young trees and creeping vines were fast supplying. Here she could be more utterly alone than on the summit of the pass itself. She paused in the doorway, surveying familiar objects in the enjoyed triumph of complete seclusion. While she waited for the water to run into the bowl, she looked fixedly at the stains of a fluid which had been so warm in its touch. It was only blood, she told herself. It would wash off, and she held her hands in the water and saw the spread of the dye through the bowl in a moment of preoccupation. Then she scrubbed as vigorously as if she were bent on removing the skin itself. After she had held up her dripping fingers in satisfied inspection, the spots on her gown caught her eye. For a moment they, too, held her staring attention; then she slipped out of the gown precipitately. With this, her determined haste was at an end. She was about to enjoy the feminine luxury of time. The combing of her hair became a delightful and leisurely function in the silky feel of the strands in her fingers and the refreshing pull at the roots. The flow of the bath water made the music of pleasurable anticipation, and immersion set the very spirit of physical life leaping and tingling in her veins. And all the while she was thinking of how to fashion a narrative. When she started down-stairs she was not only refreshed but remade. She was going to breakfast at the usual hour, after the usual processes of ushering herself from the night's rest into the day's activities. There had been no stealthy trip out to the _arroyo_; no duel; no wound; no Señor Don't Care. She had only a story which involved all these elements, a most preposterous story, to tell. "Now you shall hear all about it!" she called to her father as soon as she saw him; "the strangest, most absurd, most amusing affair"--she piled up the adjectives--"that has ever occurred in Little Rivers!" She began at once, even before she poured his coffee, her voice a trifle high-pitched with her simulation of humor. And she was exactly veracious, avoiding details, yet missing nothing that gave the facts a pleasant trail. She told of the meeting with Leddy on the pass and of the arrival of the gorgeous traveller; of Jack's whistle; of Pete's challenge. Jasper Ewold listened with stoical attentiveness. He did not laugh, even when Jack's vagaries were mentioned. "Why didn't you tell me last night?" was his first question. "To be honest, I was afraid that it would worry you. I was afraid that you would not permit me to go to the pass alone again. But you will?" She slipped her hand across the table and laid her fingers appealingly on the broad back of his heavily tanned hand, from which the veins rose in bronze welts. "And he was nice about it in his ridiculous, big-spurs fashion. He said that it was all due to the whistle." "Go on! Go on! There must be more!" her father insisted impatiently. She gave him the pantomime of the store, not as a bit of tragedy--she was careful about that--but as something witnessed by an impersonal spectator and narrator of stories. "He walked right toward a muzzle, this Wingfield?" Jasper asked, his brows contracting. "Why, yes. I told you at the start it was all most preposterous," she answered. "And he was not afraid of death--this Wingfield!" Jasper repeated. He was looking away from her. The contraction of his brows had become a scowl of mystification. "Why do you always speak of him as 'this Wingfield,'" she demanded, "as if the town were full of Wingfields and he was a particular one?" He looked around quickly, his features working in a kind of confusion. Then he smiled. "I was thinking of the whistle," he explained. "Well, we'll call him this Sir Chaps, this Señor Don't Care, or whatever you please. As for his walking into the gun, there is nothing remarkable in that. You draw on a man. You expect him to throw up his hands or reach for his gun. He does nothing but smile right along the level of the sight into your eyes. It was disturbing to Pete's sense of etiquette on such occasions. It threw him off. There are similar instances in history. A soldier once put a musket at Bonaparte's head. Some of Caesar's legionaries once pressed their swords at his breast. Such old hands in human psychology had the presence of mind to smile. And the history of the West is full of examples which have not been recorded. Go on, Mary!" "Ignacio says he has a devil in him," she added. "That little Indian has a lot of primitive race wisdom. Probably he is right," her father said soberly. "It explains what followed," she proceeded. She was emphatic about the reason for her part. She went out to the _arroyo_ on behalf of her responsibility for a human life. "But why did you not rouse me? Why did you go alone?" he asked. "I didn't think--there wasn't time--I was upset and hurried." She proceeded in a forced monotone which seemed to allow her hardly a single full breath. "And I am going to kill you!" she repeated, shuddering, at the close of the narrative. "When he said that did his face change completely? Did it seem like the face of another man? Yes, did it seem as if there were one face that could charm and another that could kill?" Jasper's words came slowly and with a drawn exactness. They formed the inquiry of one who expected corroboration of an impression. "Yes." "You felt it--you felt it very definitely, Mary?" "Yes." She was living over the moment of Jack's transformation from silk to steel. The scene in the _arroyo_ became burning clear. Under the strain of the suppression of her own excitement, concentrated in her purpose to make all the realism of the duel an absurdity, she did not watch keenly for the signs of expression by which she usually knew what was passing in her father's mind. But she was not too preoccupied to see that he was relieved over her assent that there was a devil in Jack Wingfield, which struck her as a puzzle in keeping with all that morning's experience. It added to the inward demoralization which had suddenly dammed her power of speech. "Ignacio saw it, too, so I was interested," Jasper added quickly, in a more natural tone, settling back into his chair. His agitation had passed. So that was it. Her father's dominant, fine old egoism was rejoicing in another proof of his excellence as a judge of character. "Finis! The story is told!" he continued softly. All told! And it had been a success. Mary caught her breath in a gay, high-pitched exclamation of realization that she had not to go on with explanations. "Our singular cavalier is safe!" she said. "My debt is paid. I need not worry any further lest someone who did me a favor should suffer for it!" "True! true!" Jasper's outburst of laughter when he had paused in turning down the wick of the lamp the previous evening had been as a forced blast from the brasses. Anyone with strong lungs may laugh majestically; but it takes depth of feeling and years rich with experience to express the gratification that now possessed him. He stretched his hands across the table to her and the laugh that came then came as a cataract of spontaneity. "Exactly, Mary! The duel provided the way to pay a debt," he said. "Why, it is you who have done our Big Spurs a favor! He has a wound to show to his friends in the East! I am proud that you could take it all so coolly and reasonably." She improved her opportunity while he held her hands. "I will go armed next time, and I do know how to shoot, so you won't worry"--she put it that way, rather than openly ask his consent--"if I ride out to the pass?" "Mary, I have every reason to believe that you know how to take care of yourself," he answered. And that very afternoon she rode out to Galeria, starting a little earlier than usual, returning a little later than usual, in jubilant mood. "Everything is the same!" she had repeated a dozen times on the road. "Everything is the same!" she told herself before she fell asleep; and her sleep was long and sweet, in nature's gratitude for rest after a storm. The sunlight breaking through the interstices of the foliage of a poplar, sensitive to a slight breeze, came between the lattices in trembling patchwork on the bed, flickering over her face and losing itself in the strands of her hair. "Everything is the same!" she said, when her faculties were cleared of drowsiness. For the second time she gave intimate, precious thanks for a simple thing that had never occurred to her as a blessing before: for the seclusion and silence of her room, free from all invasion except of her own thoughts. The quicker flow of blood that came with awaking, the expanding thrill of physical strength and buoyancy of life renewed, brought with it the moral courage which morning often brings to flout the compromises of the confusion of the evening's weariness. The inspiriting, cool air of night electrified by the sun cleared her vision. She saw all the pictures on the slate of yesterday and their message plainly, as something that could not be erased by any Buddhistic ritual of reiterated phrase. "No, everything is not the same, not even the ride--not yet!" she admitted. "But time will make it so--time and a sense of humor, which I hope I have." XI SEÑOR DON'T CARE RECEIVES Jack lounged in an armchair in the Galway sitting-room with his bandaged leg bolstered on a stool after Dr. Patterson had fished a bit of lead out of the wound. Tribute overflowed from the table to the chairs and from the chairs to the floor; pineapples, their knobby jackets all yellow from ripening in the field, with the full succulency of root-fed and sun-drawn flavor; monstrous navel oranges, leaden with the weight of juice, richer than cloth of gold and velvet soft; and every fruit of the fertile soil and benignant climate; and jellies, pies, and custards. But these were only the edibles. There were flowers in equal abundance. They banked the windows. "It's Jasper Ewold's idea to bring gifts when you call," explained Jim Galway. "Jasper is always sowing ideas and lots of them have sprung up and flourished." Jack had not been in Little Rivers twenty-four hours, and he had played a part in its criminal annals and become subject to all the embarrassment of favors of a royal bride or a prima donna who is about to sail. In a bower, amazed, he was meeting the world of Little Rivers and its wife. Men of all ages; men with foreign accent; men born and bred as farmers; men to whom the effect of indoor occupation clung; men still weak, but with red corpuscles singing a song of returning health in their arteries--strapping, vigorous men, all with hands hardened by manual labor and in their eyes the far distances of the desert, in contrast to the sparkle of oasis intimacy. Women with the accent of college classrooms; women who made plural nouns the running mates of singular verbs; women who were novices in housework; women drilled in drudgery from childhood--all expanding, all dwelling in a democracy that had begun its life afresh in a new land, and all with the wonder of gardens where there had been only sagebrush in their beings. There was something at odds with Jack's experience of desert towns in the picture of a bronzed rancher, his arms loaded with roses, saying, in boyish diffidence: "Mister, you fit him fair and you sure fixed him good. Just a few roses--they're so thick over to our place that they're getting a pest. Thought mebbe they'd be nice for you to look at while you was tied up to a chair nursing Pete's soovenir!" One visitor whose bulk filled the doorway, the expansion of his smile spreading over a bounteous rotundity of cheek, impressed himself as a personality who had the distinction in avoirdupois that Jim Galway had in leanness. In his hand he had five or six peonies as large as saucers. "Every complete community has a fat man, seh!" he announced, with a certain ample bashfulness in keeping with his general amplitude and a musical Southern accent. "If it wants to feel perfectly comfortable it has!" said Jack, by way of welcome. "Well, I'm the fat man of Little Rivers, name being Bob Worther!" said he, grinning as he came across the room with an amazingly quick, easy step. "No rivals?" inquired Jack. "No, seh! I staked out the first claim and I've an eye out for any new-comers over the two hundred mark. I warn them off! Jasper Ewold is up to two hundred, but he doesn't count. Why, you ought to have seen me, seh, before I came to this valley!" "A living skeleton?" "No, seh! Back in Alabama I had reached a point where I broke so many chairs and was getting so nervous from sudden falls in the midst of conversation, when I made a lively gesture that I didn't dare sit down away from home except at church, where they had pews. I weighed three hundred and fifty!" "And now?" "I acknowledge two hundred and forty, including my legs, which are very powerful, having worked off that extra hundred. I've got the boss job for making a fat man spider-waisted--inspector of ditches and dams. Any other man would have to use a horse, but I hoof it, and that's economy all around. And being big I grow big things. Violets wouldn't be much more in my line than drawnwork. I've got this whole town beat on peonies and pumpkins. Being as it's a fat man's pleasure to cheer people up, I dropped in to bring you a few peonies and to say that, considering the few well-selected words you spoke to Pete Leddy on this town's behalf, I'm prepared to vote for you for anything from coroner to president, seh!" Later, after Bob had gone, a small girl brought a spray of gladiolus, their slender stems down to her toe-tips and the opening blossoms half hiding her face. Jack insisted on having them laid across his knee She was not a fairy out of a play, as he knew by her conversation. "Mister, did you yell when you was hit?" she asked. Jack considered thoughtfully. It would not do to be vagarious under such a shrewd examination; he must be exact. "No, I don't think I did. I was too busy." "I'll bet you wanted to, if you hadn't been so busy. Did it hurt much?" "Not so very much." "Maybe that was why you didn't yell. Mother says that all you can see is a little black spot--except you can't see it for the bandages. Is that the way yours is?" "I believe so. In fact, I'll tell you a secret: That's the fashion in wounds." "Mother will be glad to know she's right. She sets a lot by her opinion, does mother. Say, do you like plums?" Jack already had a peck of plums, but another peck would not add much to the redundancy as far as he was concerned. "I'll bring you some. We've got the biggest plums in Little Rivers--oh, so big! Bigger'n Mr. Ewold's! I'll bring some right away." She paused, however, in the doorway. "Don't you tell anybody I said they were bigger'n Mr. Ewold's," she went on. "It might hurt his feelings. He's what they call the o-rig-i-nal set-tler, and we always agree that he grows the biggest of everything, because--why, because he's got such a big laugh and such a big smile. Mother says sour-faced people oughtn't to have a face any bigger'n a crab apple; but Mr. Ewold's face couldn't be too big if it was as big as all outdoors! Good-by. I reckon you won't be s'prised to hear that I'm the dreadful talker of our family." "Wait!" Jack called. "You haven't told me your name." "Belvedere Smith. Father says it ain't a name for living things. But mother is dreadfully set in her ideas of names, and she doesn't like it because people call me Belvy; but they just naturally will." "Belvedere, did you ever hear of the three little blue mice"--Jack was leaning toward her with an air of fascinating mystery--"that thought they could hide in the white clover from the white cat that had two black stripes on her back?" There was a pellmell dash across the room and her face, with wide-open eyes dancing in curiosity, was pressed close to his: "Why did the cat have two black stripes? Why? why?" "Just what I was going to tell," said the pacifier of desperadoes. "They were off on a tremendous adventure, with anthills for mountains and clover-stems for the tree-trunks of forests in the path. Tragedy seemed due for the mice, when a bee dropped off a thistle blossom for a remarkable reason--none other than that a hummingbird cuffed him in the ear with his wing--and the bee, looking for revenge with his stinger on the first vulnerable spot, stung the cat right in the Achilles tendon of his paw, just as that paw was about to descend with murderous purpose. The cat ran away crying, with both black stripes ridges of fur sticking up straight, while the rest of the fur lay nice and smooth; and the mice giggled so that their ears nearly wiggled off their heads. So all ended happily." "He does beat all!" thought Mrs. Galway, who had overheard part of the nonsense from the doorway. "Wouldn't it make Pete Leddy mad if he could hear the man who took his gun away getting off fairy stuff like that!" Mrs. Galway had brought in a cake of her own baking. She was slightly jealous of the neighbors' pastry as entering into her own particular field of excellence. Jack saw that the supply of cake in the Galway pantry must be as limitless as the pigments on the Eternal Painter's palette. "The doctor said that I was to have a light diet," he expostulated; "and I am stuffed to the brim." "I'll make you some floating island," said Mrs. Galway, refusing to strike her colors. "That isn't filling and passes the time," Jack admitted. "Jim says if you had to Fletcherize on floating island you would starve to death and your teeth would get so used to missing a step on the stairs that they would never be able to deal with real victuals at all." "Mrs. Galway," Jack observed sagely, dropping his head on the back of the chair, "I see that it has occurred to you and Jim that it is an excellent world and full of excellent nonsense. I am ready to eat both fluffy isles and the yellow sea in which they float. I am ready to keep on getting hungry with my efforts, even though you make it continents and oceans!" From his window he had a view, over the dark, polished green of Jim's orange trees, of the range, brown and gray and bare, holding steady shadows of its own and host to the shadows of journeying clouds, with the pass set in the centre as a cleft in a forbidding barrier. In the yard Wrath of God, Jag Ear, and P.D. were tethered. Deep content illumined the faces of P.D. and Jag Ear; but Wrath of God was as sorrowful as ever. A cheerful Wrath of God would have excited fears for his health. "Yet, maybe he is enjoying his rest more than the others," Jack told Firio, who kept appearing at the window on some excuse or other. "Perhaps he takes his happiness internally. Perhaps the external signs are only the last stand of a lugubriousness driven out by overwhelming forces of internal joy." "_Sí, sí_!" said Firio. "Firio, you are eminently a conversationalist," said Jack. "You agree with any foolishness as if it were a new theory of ethics. You are an ideal companion. I never have to listen to you in order that I may in turn have my say." "_Sí_," said Firio. He leaned on the windowsill, his black eyes shining with ingenuous and flattering appeal: "I will broil you a quail on a spit," he whispered. "It's better than stove cooking." "Don't talk of that!" Jack exclaimed, almost sharply. The suggestion brought a swift change to sadness over his face and drew a veil of vagueness over his eyes. "No, Firio, and I'll tell you why: the odor of a quail broiled on a spit belongs at the end of a day's journey, when you camp in sight of no habitation. You should sit on a dusty blanket-roll; you should eat by the light of the embers or a guttering candle. No, Firio, we'll wait till some other day. And it's not exactly courtesy to our hostess to bring in provender from the outside." The trail had apparently taught Firio all the moods of his master. He knew when it was unwise to persist. "_Sí_!" he whispered, and withdrew. Jack looked at Galeria and then back quickly, as if resisting its call. He smiled half wryly and readjusted his position in the chair. Over the hedge he could see the heads and shoulders of passers-by. Jim Galway had come into the room, when Jasper Ewold's broad back and great head hove in sight with something of the steady majesty of progress of a full-rigged ship. "The Doge!" Jack exclaimed, brightening. Jim was taken unawares. Was it the name of a new kind of semi-tropical fruit not yet introduced into Arizona? "Not the Doge of Venice--hardly, when Mr. Ewold's love runs to Florence! The Doge of Little Rivers!" "Why, the Doge--of course!" Jim was "on" now and grinning. "I didn't think of my history at first. That's a good one for Jasper Ewold!" "O Doge of Little Rivers, I expected you in a gondola of state!" said Jack, with a playfully grandiloquent gesture, as Jasper's abundance filled the doorway. "But it is all the more compliment to me that you should walk." "Doge, eh?" Jasper tasted the word. "Pooh!" he said. "Persiflage! persiflage! I saw at once yesterday that you had a weakness for it." "And Miss Ewold? How is she?" Jack asked. Remembering the promise that Mary had exacted from him, he took care not to refer to her part in the duel. His question fell aptly for what Jasper had to say. Being a man used to keeping the gate ever open to the full flood of spontaneity, he became stilted in the repetition of anything he had thought out and rehearsed. He was overcheerful, without the mellowness of tone which gave his cheer its charm on the previous evening. "She's not a bit the worse. Why, she went for a ride out to the pass this afternoon as usual! I've had the whole story, from the pass till the minute that Jim put the tourniquet on your leg. She recognizes the great kindness you did her." "Not a kindness--an inevitable interruption by any passer-by," Jack put in. "Naturally she felt that it was a kindness, a service, and when she knew you were in danger she acted promptly for herself, with a desert girl's self-reliance. When it was all over she saw the whole thing in its proper perspective, as an unpleasant, preposterous piece of barbarism which had turned out fortunately." "Oh, I am glad of that!" Jack exclaimed, in relief that spoke rejoicing in every fibre. "I had worried. I had feared lest I had insisted too much on going on. But I had to. And I know that it was a scene that only men ought to witness--so horrible I feared it might leave a disagreeable impression." "Ah, Mary has courage and humor. She sees the ridiculous. She laughs at it all, now!" "Laughs?" asked Jack. "Yes, it was laughable;" and he broke into laughter, in which Jasper joined thunderously. Jasper kept on laughing after Jack stopped, and in genuine relief to find that the affair was to be as uninfluencing a chapter in the easy traveller's life as in Mary's. "Our regret is that we may have delayed you, sir," Jasper proceeded. "You may have had to postpone an important engagement. I understand that you had planned to take the train this morning." "When one has been in the desert for a long time," Jack answered, "a few days more or less hardly matter in the time of his departure. In a week Dr. Patterson says that I may go. Meanwhile, I shall have the pleasure of getting acquainted with Little Rivers, which, otherwise, I should have missed." "I am glad!" Jasper Ewold exclaimed with dramatic quickness. "Glad that your wound is so slight--glad that you need not be shut up long when you are due elsewhere." What books should he bring to the invalid to while away the time? "The Three Musketeers" or "Cyrano"? Jack seemed to know his "Cyrano" so well that a copy could be only a prompt. He settled deeper in his chair and, more to the sky than to Jasper Ewold, repeated Cyrano's address to his cadets, set to a tune of his own. His body might be in the chair, with a bandaged leg, but clearly his mind was away on the trail. "Yes, let me see," he said, coming back to earth. "I should like the 'Road to Rome,' something of Charles Lamb, Aldrich's 'Story of a Bad Boy,' Heine---but no! What am I saying? Bring me any solid book on economics. I ought to be reading economics. Economics and Charles Lamb, that will do. Do you think they could travel together?" "All printed things can, if you choose. I'll include Lamb." "And any Daudet lying loose," Jack added. "And Omar?" "I carry Omar in my head, thank you, O Doge!" "Sir Chaps of the enormous spurs, you have a broad taste for one who rides over the pass of Galeria after five years in Arizona," said the Doge as he rose. He was covertly surveying that soft, winning, dreamy profile which had turned so hard when the devil that was within came to the surface. "I was fed on books and galleries in my boyhood," Jack said; but with a reticence that indicated that this was all he cared to tell about his past. XII MARY BRINGS TRIBUTE Every resident except the cronies of Pete Leddy considered it a duty, once a day at least, to look over the Galway hedge and ask how Señor Don't Care was doing. That is, everyone with a single exception, which was Mary. Jack had never seen her even pass the house. It was as if his very existence had dropped out of her ken. The town remarked the anomaly. "You have not been in lately," Mrs. Galway reminded her. "My flowers have required a lot of attention; also, I have been riding out to the pass a good deal," she answered, and changed the subject to geraniums, for the very good reason that she had just been weeding her geranium bed. Mrs. Galway looked at her strangely and Mary caught the glance. She guessed what Mrs. Galway was thinking: that she had been a little inconsiderate of a man who had been wounded in her service. "Probably it is time I bore tribute, too," she said to herself. That afternoon she took down a glass of jelly from the pantry shelves and set forth in the line of duty, frowning and rehearsing a presentation speech as she went. With every step toward the Galway cottage she was increasingly confused and exasperated with herself for even thinking of a speech. As she drew near she heard a treble chorus of "ohs!" and "ahs!" and saw Jack on the porch surrounded by children. "It's dinosaur foolishness again!" she thought, pungently. He was in the full fettle of nonsense, his head a little to one side and lowered, while he looked through his eyebrows at his hearers, measuring the effect of his words. She thought of that face when he called to Leddy, "I am going to kill you!" and felt the pulse of inquiry beat over all that lay in this man's repertory between the two moods. "Then, counting each one in his big, deep, bass voice, like this," he was saying, "that funny little dwarf kept dropping oranges out of the tree on the big giant, who could not wiggle and was squeaking in protest in his little, old woman's voice. Every orange hit him right on the bridge of his nose, and he was saying: 'You know I never could bear yellow! It fusses me so.'" "He doesn't need any jelly! I am going on!" Mary thought. Then Jack saw a slim, pliant form hastening by and a brown profile under hair bare of a hat, with eyes straight ahead. Mary might have been a unit of marching infantry. The story stopped abruptly. "Yes--and--and--go on!" cried the children. Jack held up his hand for silence. "How do you do?" he called, and she caught in his tone and in her first glimpse of his face a certain mischievousness, as if he, who missed no points for idle enjoyment of any situation, had a satisfaction in taking her by surprise with his greeting. This put her on her mettle with the quickness of a summons to fence. She was as nonchalant as he. "And you are doing well, I learn," she answered. "Oh, come in and hear it, Miss Ewold! It's the best one yet!" cried Belvedere Smith. "And--and--" "And--and--" began the chorus. Mary went to the hedge. She dropped the glass of jelly on the thick carpet of the privet. "I have just brought my gift. I'll leave it here. Belvy will bring it when the story is over. I am glad you are recovering so rapidly." "And--and--" insisted the chorus. "You oughtn't to miss this story. It's a regular Jim dandy!" Belvedere shouted. "Yes, won't you come in?" Jack begged in serious urgency. "I pride myself that it is almost intellectual toward the close." "I have no doubt," she said, looking fairly at him from under her hand, which she held up to shade her face, so he saw only the snap of her eyes in the shadow. "But I am in a hurry." And he was looking at a shoulder and a quarter profile as she turned away. "Did you make the jelly yourself?" he called. "Yes, I am not afraid of the truth--I did!" she answered with a backward glance and not stopping. "Oh, bully!" he exclaimed with great enthusiasm, in which she detected a strain of what she classified as impudence. "But all the time the giant was fumbling in his pocket for his green handkerchief. You know the dwarf did not like green. It fussed him just as much as yellow fussed the giant. But it was a narrow pocket, so narrow that he could only get his big thumb in, and very deep. So, you see--" and she heard the tale proceeding as she walked on to the end of the street, where she turned around and came back across the desert and through the garden. On the way she found it amusing to consider Jack judicially as a human exhibit, stripped of all the chimera of romance with which Little Rivers had clothed his personality. If he had not happened to meet her on the pass, the townspeople would have regarded this stranger as an invasion of real life by a character out of a comic opera. She viewed the specimen under a magnifying glass in all angles, turning it around as if it were a bronze or an ivory statuette. 1. In his favor: Firstly, children were fond of him; but his extravagance of phrase and love of applause accounted for that. Secondly, Firio was devoted to him. Such worshipful attachment on the part of a native Indian to any Saxon was remarkable. Yet this was explained by his love of color, his foible for the picturesque, his vagabond irresponsibility, and, mostly, by his latent savagery--which she would hardly have been willing to apply to Ignacio's worshipful attachment to herself. 2. Against him: Everything of any importance, except in the eyes of children and savages; everything in logic. He would not stand analysis at all. He was without definite character. He was posing, affected, pleased with himself, superficial, and theatrical, and interested in people only so long as they amused him or gratified his personal vanity. "I had the best of the argument in leaving the jelly on the hedge, and that is the last I shall hear of it," she concluded. Not so. Mrs. Galway came that evening, a bearer of messages. "He says it is the most wonderful jelly that ever was," said Mrs. Galway. "He ate half the glass for dinner and is saving the rest for breakfast--I'm using his own words and you know what a killing way he has of putting things--saving it for breakfast so that he will have something to live through the night for and in the morning the joy of it will not be all a memory. He wants to know if you have any more of the same kind." "Yes, a dozen glasses," Mary returned. "Tell him we are glad of the opportunity of finishing last year's stock, and I send it provided he eats half a glass with every meal." "I don't know what his answer will be to that," said Mrs. Galway, contracting her brow studiously at Mary. "But he would have one quick. He always has. He's so poetic and all that, we're planning to go to the station to see him off and pelt him with flowers; and Dr. Patterson is going to fashion a white cat out of white carnations, with deep red ones for the black stripes, for the children to present." "Hurrah!" exclaimed Mary blithely, and went for the jelly. She was spared further bulletins on the state of health of the wounded until her father returned from his daily call the next morning. She was in the living-room and she knew by his step on the porch, vigorous yet light, that he was uplifted by good news or by the anticipation of the exploitation of some new idea--a pleasure second only to that of the idea's birth. Such was his elation that he broke one of his own rules by tossing some of the books loaned to Jack onto the broad top of the table of the living-room, which was sacred to the isolation of the ivory paper-knife. "He has named the date!" shouted the Doge. "He goes by to-morrow's train! It will be a gala affair, almost an historical moment in the early history of this community. I am to make a speech presenting him with the freedom of the whole world. Between us we have hit on a proper modern symbol of the gift. He slips me his Pullman ticket and I formally offer it to him as the key to the hospitality of the seven seas, the two hemispheres, and the teeming cities that lie beyond the range. It will be great fun, with plenty of persiflage. And, Mary, they suggest that you write some verses--ridiculous verses, in keeping with the whole nonsensical business." "You mean that I am to stand on the platform and read poetry dedicated to him?" she demanded. "Poetry, Mary? You grow ambitious. Not poetry--foolish doggerel. Or someone will read it for you." He had not failed to watch the play of her expression. She had received all his nonsense, announced in his best style of simulated forensic grandeur, with a certain unchanging serenity which was unamused: which was, indeed, barely interested. "And someone else shall write it, for I don't think of any verses," she said, with a slight shrug of the shoulder. "Besides, I shall not be there." "Not be there! People will remark your absence!" "Will they?" she asked, thoughtfully, as if that had not occurred to her. "No, they will be too occupied with the persiflage. I am going to ride out to the pass in the morning very early--before daybreak." "But"--he was positively frolicsome as he caught her hands and waved them back and forth, while he rocked his shoulders--"when you are stubborn, Mary, have your way. I will make your excuses. And I to work now. It is the hour of the hoe," as he called all hours except those of darkness and the hot midday. For Jasper Ewold was no idler in the affairs of his ranch or of the town. Few city men were so busy. His everlasting talk was incidental, like the babbling of a brook which, however, keeps steadily flowing on; and the stored scholarship of his mind was supplemented by long evenings with no other relaxation but reading. Now as he went down the path he broke into song; and when the Doge sang it was something awful, excusable only by the sheer happiness that brought on the attack. Mary had important sewing, which this morning she chose to do in her room rather than in her favorite spot in the garden. She closed the shutters on the sunny side and sat down by the window nearest the garden, peculiarly sensible of the soft light and cool spaciousness of an inner world. The occasional buzz of a bee, the flutter of the leaves of the poplar, might have been the voice of the outer world in Southern Spain or Southern Italy, or anywhere else where the air is balmy. And to-morrow! Out to Galeria in the fervor of a pilgrim to some shrine, with the easy movement of her pony and the rigid lines of the pass gradually drawing nearer and the sky ever distant! She would be mistress of her thoughts in all the silent glamour of morning on the desert. She would hear the train stop at the station, its heavy effort as it pulled out, and watch it winding over the flashing steel threads in a clamor of stridency and harshness, which grew fainter and fainter. And she would smile as it disappeared around a bend in the range. She would smile at him, at the incident, just as carelessly as he had smiled when he told of the dinosaur. XIII A JOURNEY ON CRUTCHES The sun became benign in its afternoon slant. Little Rivers was beginning to move after its siesta, with the stretching of muscles that would grow more vigorous as evening approached and freshened life came into the air with the sprinkle of sunset brilliance. To Jack the hour palpably brought a reminder of the misery of the moment when a thing long postponed must at last be performed. The softness of speculative fancy faded from his face. His lips tightened in a way that seemed to bring his chin into prominence in mastery of his being. As he called Firio, his voice unusually high-pitched, he did not look out at P.D. and Wrath of God and Jag Ear. Firio came with the eagerness of one who is restless for action. He leaned on the windowsill, his elbows spread, his chin cupped in his hands, his Indian blankness of countenance enlivened by the glow of his eyes, as jewels enliven dull brown velvet. "Firio, I have something to tell you." "_Sí_!" There was a laboring of Jack's throat muscles, and then he forced out the truth in a few words. "Firio," he said, "this is my trail end. I am going back to New York to-morrow." "_Sí_!" answered Firio, without a tremor of emotion; but his eyes glowed confidently, fixedly, into Jack's. "There will be money for you, and--" "_Sí_!" said Firio mechanically, as if repeating the lines of a lesson. Was this Indian boy prepared for the news? Or did he not care? Was he simply clay that served without feeling? The thought made Jack wince. He paused, and the dark eyes, as in a spell, kept staring into his. "And you get P.D. and Wrath of God and Jag Ear and, yes, the big spurs and the chaps, too, to keep to remember me by." Firio did not answer. "You are not pleased? You--" "_Sí_! I will keep them for you. You will want them; you will come back to all this;" and suddenly Firio was galvanized into the life of a single gesture. He swept his arm toward the sky, indicating infinite distance. "No, I shall never come back! I can't!" Jack said; and his face had set hard, as if it were a wall about to be driven at a wall. "I must go and I must stay." "_Sí_!" said Firio, resuming his impassiveness, and slipped around the corner of the house. "He does care!" Jack cried with a smile, which, however, was not the smile of gardens, of running brooks, and of song. "I am glad--glad!" He picked up his crutches and went out to the three steeds of trail memory: "And _you_ care--_you_ care!" he repeated to them. He drew a lugubrious grimace in mockery at Wrath of God. He tickled the sliver of the donkey's ear, whereat Jag Ear wiggled the sliver in blissful unconsciousness that he had lost any of the ornamental equipment of his tribe. "You are like most of us; we don't see our deformities, Jag Ear," Jack told him. "And if others were also blind to them, why, we should all be good-looking!" His arm slipped around P.D.'s neck and he ran a finger up and down P.D.'s nose with a tickling caress. "You old plodder!" he said. "You know a lot. It's good to have the love of any living thing that has been near me as long as you have." This preposterous being was preposterously sentimental over a pair of ponies and an earless donkey. When Mrs. Galway, who had watched him from the window, came out on the porch she saw that he was on his way through the gate in the hedge to the street. "Look here! Did the doctor say you might?" she called. "No, my leg says it!" Jack answered, gaily. "Just a little walk! Back soon." It was his first enterprise in locomotion outside the limits of Jim Galway's yard since he had been wounded. He turned blissful traveller again. Having come to know the faces of the citizens, now he was to look into the faces of their habitations. The broad main street, with its rows of trees, narrowed with perspective until it became a gray spot of desert sand. Under the trees leisurely flowed those arteries of ranch and garden-life, the irrigation ditches. Continuity of line in the hedge-fences was evidently a municipal requirement; but over the hedges individualism expressed itself freely, yet with a harmony which had been set by public fashion. The houses were of cement in simple design. They had no architectural message except that of a background for ornamentation by the genius of the soil's productivity. They waited on vines to cover their sides and trees to cast shade across their doorways. One need not remain long to know the old families in this community, where the criterion of local aristocracy was the size of your plums or the number of crops of alfalfa you could grow in a year. Already Jack felt at home. It was as if he were friends with a whole world, lacking the social distinctions which only begin when someone acquires sufficient worldly possessions to give exclusive, formal dinners. He knew every passer-by well enough to address him or her by the Christian name. Women called to him from porches with a dozen invitations to visit gardens. "Just a saunter, just a try-out before I take the train. Not going far," he always answered; yet there was something in his bearing that suggested a definite mission. "We hate to lose you!" called Mrs. Smith. "I hate to be lost!" Jack called back; "but that is just my natural luck." "I suppose you've got your work cut out for you back East, same's everybody else, somewhere or other, 'less they're millionaires, who all stay in the city and try to run from microbes in their automobiles." "Yes, I have work--lots of it," said Jack, ruefully. He shifted his weight on the crutches, paused and looked at the sky. The Eternal Painter was dipping his brush lightly and sweeping soft, silvery films, as a kind of glorified finger-exercise, over an intangible blue. "Why care? Why care?" His Majesty was asking. "Why not leave all the problems of earthly existence to your lungs? Why not lie back and look on at things and breathe my air? That is enough to keep your whole being in tune with the Infinite." It was his afternoon mood. At sunset he would have another. Then he would be crying out against the folly of wasting one precious moment in the eons, because that moment could never return to be lived over. Jack kept on until he recognized the cement bridge where he had stopped when he came from the post-office with Mary. Left bare of its surroundings, the first habitation in Little Rivers, with the ell which had been added later, would have appeared a barracks. But Jasper Ewold had the oldest trees and the most luxuriant hedge and vines as the reward of his pioneerdom. When Jack crossed the bridge and stood in the opening of the hedge there was no one on the porch in the inviting shade of the prodigal bougainvillea vines. So he hitched his way up the steps. Feeling that it was a formal occasion, he searched for the door-bell. There was none. He rapped on the casing and waited, while he looked at the cool, quiet interior, with the portrait of David facing him from the wall. "David, you seem to be the only one at home," he remarked, for there had been no answer to his raps; "and you are too busy getting a bead on Goliath to answer the immaterial questions of a wayfarer." Accepting the freedom of the Little Rivers custom on such occasions, he followed the path to the rear. His head knocked off the dead petals of a rambler rose blossom, scattering them at his feet. Rounding the corner of the house, he saw the arbor where he had dined the night of his arrival, and beyond this an old-fashioned flower garden separated by a path from a garden of roses. There was a sound of activity from the kitchen behind a trellis screen, but he did not call out for guidance. He would trust to finding his own way. When he came to the broad path, its stretch lay under a crochet-work of shadows from the ragged leaves of two rows of palms which ran to the edge of an orange grove, and the centre of this path was in a straight line with the bottom of the V of Galeria. Jasper Ewold had laid out his little domain according to a set plan before the water was first let go in laughing triumph over the parched earth, and this plan, as one might see on every hand, was expressive of the training of older civilizations in landscape gardening, which ages of men striving for harmonious forms of beauty in green and growing things had tested, and which the Doge, in all his unconventionalism of personality, was as little inclined to amend as he was to amend the classic authors. An avenue of palms is the epic of the desert; a bougainvillea vine its sonnet. Between the palms to the right and left Jack had glimpses of a vegetable garden; of rows of berry bushes; of a grove of young fig-trees; of rows of the sword-bundles of pineapple tops. Everything except the old-fashioned flower-bed, with its border of mignonette, and the generous beds of roses and other flowers of the bountiful sisterhood of petals of artificial cultivation, spoke of utility which must make the ground pay as well as please. Jack took each step as if he were apprehensive of disturbing the quiet Midway of the avenue of palms ran a cross avenue, and at the meeting-point was a circle, which evidently waited till the oranges and the olives should pay for a statue and surrounding benches. Over the breadth of the cross avenue lay the glossy canopy of the outstretched branches of umbrella-trees. A table of roughly planed boards painted green and green rattan chairs were in keeping with the restful effect, while the world without was aglare with light. Here Mary had brought her sewing for the afternoon. She was working so intently that she had not heard his approach. He had paused just as his line of vision came flush with the trunks of the umbrella-trees. For the first time he saw his companion in adventure in repose, her head bent, leaving clear the line of her neck from the roots of her hair to the collar, and the soft light bringing out the delicate brown of her skin. There seemed no movement anywhere in the world at the moment, except the flash of her needle in and out. XIV "HOW FAST YOU SEW!" And she had not seen him! He was touched with a sense of guilt for having looked so long; for not having at once called to her; and rather than give her the shock of calling now, he moved toward her, the scuff of his limp, pendent foot attracting her attention. Her start at the sound was followed, when she saw him, with amazement and a flush and a movement as if she would rise. But she controlled the movement, if not the flush, and fell back into her chair, picking up her sewing, which had dropped on the table. It was like him, she might well think, to come unexpectedly, without invitation or announcement. She was alert, ready to take the offensive as the best means of defence, and wishing, in devout futility, that he had stayed away. He was smiling happily at everything in cosmos and at her as a part of it. "Good afternoon!" "Good afternoon!" "That last lot of jelly was better than the first," he said softly. "Was it? You must favor vintage jelly!" "I came to call--my p.p.c. call--and to see your garden," he added. "Is there any particular feature that interests you?" she asked. "The date-trees? The aviary? The nursery?" "No," he answered, "not just yet. It is very cool here under the umbrella-trees, isn't it? I have walked all the way from the Galways and I'll rest a while, if I may." He was no longer the play cavalier in overornamented _chaparejos_ and cart-wheel spurs, but a lame fellow in overalls, who was hitching toward her on crutches, his cowpuncher hat held by the brim and flopping with every step. But he wore the silk shirt and the string tie, and somehow he made even the overalls seem "dressy." "Pray sit down," she said politely. Standing his crutches against the table, he accepted the invitation. She resumed her sewing, eyes on the needle, lips pressed into a straight line and head bending low. He might have been a stranger on a bench in a public park for all the attention she was paying to him. She realized that she was rude and took satisfaction in it as the only way of expressing her determination not to reopen a closed incident. "It's wonderful--wonderful!" he observed, in a voice of contemplative awe. "What is?" she asked. "Why, how fast you sew!" "Yes?" she said, as automatically as she stitched. "Your wound is quite all right? No danger of infection?" "I don't blame you!" he burst out. His tone had turned sad and urgent. She looked up quickly, with the flare of a frown. His remark had brought her out of her pose and she became vivid and real. "Blame me!" she demanded, sharply, as one who flies to arms. But she met a new phase--neither banter, nor fancy, nor unvarying coolness in the face of fire. He was all contrition and apology. Must she be the audience to some fresh exhibition of his versatility? "I do not blame you for feeling the way that you do," he said. "How do you know how I feel?" she asked; and as far as he could see into her eyes there was nothing but the flash of sword-points. "I don't. I only know how I think you feel--how you might well feel," he answered delicately. "After Pete let his gun drop in the store I should not have named terms for an encounter. I should have turned to the law for protection for the few hours that I had to remain in town." "But to you that would have been avoiding battle!" she exclaimed. "Which may take courage," he rejoined. "What I did was selfish. It was bravado, with no thought of your position." "It is late to worry about that now. What does it matter? I did not want anyone killed on my account, and no one was," she insisted. "Besides, you should not be blue," this with a ripple of satire; "it is not quite all bravado to face Pete Leddy's gun at twenty yards." "And it is not courage. Courage is a force of will driving you into danger for some high purpose. I want you to realize that I am not such a barbarian that I do not know that I could have kept you out of it all if I had had proper self-control. Though probably, on the impulse, I would do the fool thing over again! Yes, that's the worst of it!" "There is a devil in him!" Ignacio's words were sounding in her ears. To how many men had he said, "I am going to kill you?" What other quarrels had he known in his wanderings from Colorado to Chihuahua? "If you really want my opinion, I am glad, so far as I am concerned, that you did fight," she said lightly. "Aren't you a hero? Isn't the town free of Leddy? And you take the train in the morning!" "Yes." The monosyllable was drawn out rather faintly. For the first time since they had met on the pass she felt she was mistress of the situation. This time she had not to plead with him in fear for his life. She could regard him without any sense of obligation, this invader of her garden retreat who had to put in one more afternoon in a dull desert town before he was away to that outside world which she might know only through books and memory. She rose exultantly, disregarding any formality that she would owe to the average guest; for an average guest he was not. Her attitude meant that she was having the last word; that she was showing her mettle. He did not rise. He was staring into the sunlight, as if it were darkness alive with flitting spectres which baffled identification. "Yes, back--back to armies of Leddys!" he said slowly. But this she saw as still another pose. It did not make her pause in gathering up her sewing. She was convinced that there was nothing more for her to say, except to give their parting an appearance of ease and unconcern. "Is it work you mean? You are not used to that, I take it?" she inquired a little sarcastically. "Yes, call it work," he answered, looking away from the spectres and back to her. "And you have never done any work!" she added. "Not much," he admitted, with his old, airy carelessness. He was smiling at the spectres now, as he had at the dinosaur. "As there is nothing particular about the garden that I can show you--" she was moving away. "No, I will be walking back to the house," he said after she had taken a few steps. "Will you wait on my slow pace?" He reached for his crutches, lifted himself to his feet and swung to her side. She who wished that the interview were over saw that it must be prolonged. Then suddenly she realized the weakness as well as the brusqueness of her attitude. She had been about to fly from him as from something that she feared. It was not necessary. It was foolish, even cowardly. "I thought perhaps you preferred to be alone, you seemed so abstracted," she said, lamely; and then, as they came out into the sunlight in the circle, she began talking of the garden as she would to any visitor; of its beginnings, its growth, and its future, when her father's plans should have been fulfilled. "And in all these years you have never been back East?" he asked. "No. We are always planning a trip, but the money which we save for it goes into more plantings." They had been moving slowly toward the house, but now he stopped and his glance swept the sky and rested on Galeria. "It is the best valley of all! I knew it as soon as I saw it from the pass!" and the rapture of the scene was sounding in every syllable like chimes out of the distance. She knew that he was far away from the garden, and delaying, still delaying. If she spoke she felt that he would not hear what she said. If she went on it seemed certain that she would leave him standing there like a statue. "And there is more land here to make gardens like this?" he asked slowly, absorbed. "Yes, with water and labor and time." Though his face was in the full light of the sun, it seemed at times in shadow; then it glowed, as if between two passions. For an instant it was grim, the chin coming forward, the brows contracting; then it was transformed with something that was as a complete surrender to the transport of irresistible temptation. He looked down at her quickly and she saw him in the mood of story-telling to the children, suffused with the radiance of a decision. "I prefer the Leddys of Little Rivers to the Leddys of New York," he said. "I am not going to-morrow! I am going to have land and a home under the aegis of the Eternal Painter and in sight of Galeria, and worship at the shrine of fecund peace. Will you and the Doge help me?" he asked with an enthusiasm that was infectious. "May I go to his school of agriculture, horticulture, and floriculture?" Dumfounded, she bent her head and stared at the ground to hide her astonishment. "You want citizens, industrious young citizens, don't you?" he persisted. "Yes, yes!" she said hastily and confusedly. "Do you know a good piece of land?" he continued. "Yes, several parcels," she answered, recovering her poise and smiling in mockery. "Come on!" he cried. He was taking long, jumping steps on his crutches as they went up the path. "You will take me to look at the land, won't you, please--now? I want to get acquainted with my future estate. I mean to beat the Smiths at plums, Jim Galway at alfalfa, even rival Bob Worther at pumpkins and peonies. And you will help me lay out the flower garden, won't you? You see, I shall have to call in the experts in every line to start with, before I begin to improve on them and make them all jealous. I may find a kind of plum that will grow on alfalfa stalks," he hazarded. "What a horticultural sensation!" "And a spineless cactus called the Leddy!" His eyes were laughing into hers and hers irresistibly laughed back. She guessed that he was only joking. He had acted so well in the latest rôle that she had actually believed in his sincerity for a moment. He meant to take the train, of course, but his resourceful capriciousness had supplied him with a less awkward exit from the garden than she had provided. He would yet have the last word if she did not watch out--a last mischievous word at her expense. "First, you will have to plow the ground, in the broiling hot sun," she said tauntingly, when they had passed around to the porch. She was starting into the house with nervous, precipitate triumph. The last word was hers, after all. "But you are going to show me the land now!" His tone was so serious and so hurt that she paused. "And"--with the seriousness electrified by a glance that sought for mutual understanding--"and we are to forget about that duel and the whole hero-desperado business. I am a prospective settler who just arrived this afternoon. I came direct to headquarters to inquire about property. The Doge not being at home, won't you show me around?" Again he had said the right thing at the right time, with a delightful impersonality precluding sentiment. "I couldn't be unaccommodating," she admitted. "It is against all Little Rivers ethics." "I feel like a butterfly about to come out of his miserable chrysalis! Haven't you a walking-stick? I am going to shed the crutches!" She became femininely solicitous at once. "Are you sure you ought? Did the doctor say you might? Is the wound healed?" "There isn't any wound!" he answered. "That is one of the things which we are to forget." She brought a stick and he laid the crutches on the porch. He favored the lame leg, yet he kept up a clipping pace, talking the while as fast as the Doge himself as they passed through one of the side streets out onto the cactus-spotted, baking, cracked levels. "This is it!" she said finally. "This is all that father and I had to begin with." "Enough!" he answered, and held out his hands, palms open. "With callouses I will win luxuriance!" She showed him the irrigation ditch from which he should draw his water; she told him of the first steps; She painted all the difficulties in the darkest colors, without once lessening the glow of his optimism. He was so overwhelmingly, boyishly happy that she had to be happy with him in making believe that he was about to be a real rancher. But he should not have the sport all on his side. He must not think that she accepted this latest departure of his imagination incarnated by his Thespian gift in anything but his own spirit. "You plowing! You spraying trees for the scale! You digging up weeds! You stacking alfalfa! You settling down in one place as a unit of co-ordinate industry! You earning bread by the sweat of your brow! You with callouses!" Thus she laughed at him. Very seriously he held out his hands and ran a finger around a palm and across the finger-joints: "That is where I shall get them," he said. "But not on the thumb. I believe you get them on the thumb only by playing golf." He asked about carpenters and laborers; he chose the site for his house; he plotted the walks and orchards. She could not refuse her advice. Who can about the planning of new houses and gardens? He had everything quite settled except the land grant from the Doge when they started back; while the sun, with the swift passage of time in such fascinating diversion, had swung low in its ellipse. When they reached the main street the Doge was on the porch passing his opinion on the Eternal Painter's evening work. "Some very remarkable purples to-night, I admit, Your Majesty, without any intention of giving you too good an opinion of yourself; but otherwise, you are not up to your mark. There must have been a downpour in the rainy world on the other side of the Sierras that moistened your pigments. Next thing we know you will be turning water-colorist!" he was saying, when he heard Jack's voice. "Here's a new settler!" Jack called. "I am going to stay in Little Rivers and win all the prizes." "You are joking!" gasped the Doge. "Not joking," said Jack. "I want to close the bargain to-night." "You bring color and adventure--yes! I did not expect the honor--the town will be delighted! I am overwhelmed! Will you plow with Pete Leddy's gun drawn by Wrath of God, sir, and harrow with your spurs drawn by Jag Ear? Shall you make a specialty of olives? Do you dare to aspire as high as dates?" The Doge's speech had begun incoherently, but steadied into rallying humor at the close. "I haven't seen the date-tree yet," said Jack. "Not until I have can I judge whether or not I shall dare to rival the lord of the manor in his own specialty. And there are business details which I must settle with you, O Doge of this city of slender canals!" "O youth, will you tarry with peace between wars?" answered the Doge, in quick response to the spirit of nonsense as a basis for their new relations. "Come, and I will show you our noblest product of peace, the Date-Tree Wonderful!" he said, leading the way to the garden, while Mary hurried rather precipitately into the house. Jasper Ewold was at his best, a glowing husbandman, when he pointed aloft to the clusters of fruit pendent from the crotches of the stiff branches, enclosed in cloth bags to keep them free of insects. "Do you see strange lettering on the cloth?" he asked. "Yes, it looks like Arabic." "So it is! Among other futile diversions in a past incarnation I studied Arabic a little, and I still have my lexicon. Perhaps my construction might not please the grammarians of classic Bagdad, but the sentiment is there safe enough in the language of the mother romance world of the date: 'All hail, first-born of our Western desert fecundity!' It is calling out to the pass and the range from the wastes where the sagebrush has had its own way since the great stir that there was in the world at genesis." "With the unlimited authority I have in bestowing titles," said Jack, "I have a mind to make you an Emir. But it's a pity that you haven't a camel squatting under your date-tree and placidly chewing his cud." "A tempting thought!" declared the Doge unctuously. "Bob Worther could ride him on the tours of inspection. I think the jounce would be almost as good a flesh-reducer as pedestrianism." "There you go! You would have the camel wearing bells, with reins of red leather and a purple saddle-cloth hung with spangles, and Bob--our excellent Bob--in a turban! Persiflage, sir! A very demoralization of the faculties with cataracts of verbiage, sir!" declared the Doge as he started back to the house. "Little Rivers is a practical town," he proceeded seriously. "We indulge in nonsense only after sunset and when a stranger appears riding a horse with a profane name. Yes, a practical town; and I am surprised at your disloyalty to your own burro by mentioning camels." "It rests with you, I believe, to let me have the land and also the water," said Jack. "We grow businesslike!" returned the Doge with a change of manner. "Very!" declared Jack. "The requirement is that you become a member of the water users' association and pay your quota of taxes per acre foot; and the price you pay for your land also goes to the association. But I decide on the eligibility of the applicant." They were in front of the house by this time, and again the Doge gave Jack that sharp, quick, knowing glance of scrutiny through his heavy, tufted eyebrows, before he proceeded: "The concession for the use of the river for irrigation is mine, administered by the water users' association as if it were theirs, under the condition that no one who has not my approval can have membership. That is, it is practically mine, owing to my arrangement with old Mr. Lefferts, who lives upstream. He is an eccentric, a hermit. He came here many years ago to get as far away from civilization as he could, I judge. That gives him an underlying right. Originally he had two partners, squaw men. Both are dead. He had made no improvements beyond drawing enough water for a garden and for his horse and cow. When I came to make a bargain with him he named an annual sum which should keep him for the rest of his life; and thus he waived his rights. First, Jim Galway, then other settlers drifted in. I formed the water users' association. All taxes and sums for the sale of land go into keeping the dam and ditches in condition." "You take nothing for yourself!" "A great deal. The working out of an idea--an idea in moulding a little community in my old age in a fashion that pleases me; while my own property, of course, increases in value. At my death the rights go to the community. But no Utopia; Sir Chaps! Just hard-working, cheerful men and women in a safe refuge!" "And I am young!" exclaimed Jack, with a hopeful smile. "I have good health. I mean to work. I try to be cheerful. Am I eligible?" "Sir Chaps, you--you have done us a great favor. Everybody likes you. Sir Chaps"--the Doge hesitated for an instant, with a baffling, unspoken inquiry in his eyes--"Sir Chaps, I like your companionship and your mastery of persiflage. Jim Galway, who is secretary of the association, will look after details of the permit and Bob Worther will turn the water on your land, and the whole town will assist you with advice! Luck, Sir Chaps, in your new vocation!" That evening, while the Doge took down the David and set a fragment from the frieze of the Parthenon in its place, Little Rivers talked of the delightful news that it was not to lose its strange story-teller and duelist. Little Rivers was puzzled. Not once had Jack intimated a thought of staying. By his own account, so far as he had given any, his wound had merely delayed his departure to New York, where he had pressing business. He had his reservation on the Pullman made for the morning express; he had paid a farewell call at the Ewolds, and apparently then had changed his mind and his career. These were the only clues to work on, except the one suggested by Mrs. Galway, who was the wise woman of the community, while Mrs. Smith was the propagandist. "I guess he likes the way Mary Ewold snubs him!" said Mrs. Galway. But there was one person in town who was not surprised at Jack's decision. When Jack sang out as he entered the Galway yard on returning from the Doge's, "We stay, Firio, we stay!" Firio said: "_Sí_, Señor Jack!" with no change of expression except a brighter gleam than usual in his velvety eyes. XV WHEN THE DESERT BLOOMS Perhaps we may best describe this as a chapter of Incidents; or, to use a simile, a broad, eddying bend in a river on a plateau, with cataracts and canyons awaiting it on its route to the sea. Or, discarding the simile and speaking in literal terms, in a search for a theme on which to hang the incidents, we revert to Mary's raillery at the announcement of an easy traveller that he was going to turn sober rancher. "You plowing! You blistering your hands! You earning your bread by the sweat of your brow!" But there he was in blue overalls, sinking his spade deep for settings, digging ditches and driving furrows through the virgin soil, while the masons and carpenters built his ranch house. "They are straight furrows, too!" Jack declared. "Passably so!" answered Mary. "And look at the blisters!" he continued, exhibiting his puffy palms. "You seem to think blisters a remarkable human phenomenon, a sensational novelty to a laboring population!" "Now, would you advise pricking?" he asked, with deference to her judgment. "It is so critical in your case that you ought to consult a doctor rather than take lay advice." "Jim Galway says that the thorough way, I mulched my soil before putting in my first crop of alfalfa is a model for all future settlers," he ventured. She remarked that Jim was always encouraging to new-comers, and remarked this in a way that implied that some new-comers possibly needed hazing. "And I am up at dawn and hard at it for six hours before midday." "Yes, it is wonderful!" she admitted, with a mock show of being overwhelmingly impressed. "Nobody in the world ever worked ten hours a day before!" "I'm doing more than any man that I pay two-fifty. I do perspire, and if you don't call that earning your bread with the sweat of your brow, why this is an astoundingly illogical world!" "There is a great difference between sporadic display and that continuity which is the final proof of efficiency," she corrected him. "Long, involved sentences often indicate the loss of an argument!" declared Jack. "There isn't any argument!" said Mary with superior disinterestedness. By common inspiration they had established a truce of nonsense. She still called him Jack; he still called her Mary. It was the only point of tacit admission that they had ever met before he asked her to show a prospective settler a parcel of land. Their new relations were as the house of cards of fellowship: cards of glass, iridescent and brittle, mocking the idea that there could be oblivion of the scene in Lang's store, the crack of Leddy's pistol in the _arroyo_, or the pulse of Jack's artery under her thumb! She was sure that he could forget these experiences, even if she could not. That was his character, as she saw it, free of clinging roots of yesterday's events, living some new part every day. In the house of cards she set up a barrier, which he saw as a veil over her eyes. Not once had he a glimpse of their depths. There was only the surface gleam of sunbeams and sometimes of rapier-points, merry but significant. She frequently rode out to the pass and occasionally, when his day's work was done, he would ride to the foot of the range to meet her, and as they came back he often sang, but never whistled. Indeed, he had ceased to whistle altogether. Perhaps he regarded the omission as an insurance against duels. Aside from nonsense they had common interests in cultural and daily life, from the Eternal Painter's brushwork to how to dress a salad. She did extend her approval for the generous space which he was allowing for flower-beds, and advised him in the practical construction of his kitchen; while the Doge decorated the living-room with Delia Robbias, which, however, never arrived at the express office. He was a neighbor always at home in the Ewold house. The Doge revelled in their disputations, yet never was really intimate or affectionate as he was with Jim Galway, who knew not the Pitti, the Prado, nor the Louvre, and could not understand the intoning of Dante in the original as Jack could, thanks to his having been brought up in libraries and galleries. The town, which was not supposed to ask about pasts, could not help puzzling about his. What was the story of this teller of stories? The secluded little community was in a poor way to find out, even if the conscientious feeling about a custom had not been a restraint that kept wonder free from inquiring hints. They took him for what he was in all their personal relations; that was the delightful way of Little Rivers, which inner curiosity might not alloy. His broader experience of that world over the pass which stretched around the globe and back to the other range-wall of the valley, seemed only to make him fall more easily into the simple ways of the fellow-ranchers of the Doge's selection, who were genuine, hall-marked people, whatever the origin from which the individual sprang. He knew the fatigue of productive labor as something far sweeter than the fatigue that comes from mere exercise, and the neophyte's enthusiasm was his. "I'm sitting at the outer edge of the circle," he told Jim Galway. "But when my first crop is harvested I shall be on the inside--a real rancher!" "You've already got one foot over the circle," said Jim. "And with my first crop of dates I'll be in the holy of holies of pastoral bliss!" "Yes, I should say so!" Jim responded, but in a way that indicated surprise at the thought of Jack's remaining in Little Rivers long enough for such a consummation. When his alfalfa covered the earth with a green carpet Jack was under a spell of something more than the never-ending marvel of dry seeds springing into succulent abundance without the waving of any magic wand. "I made it out of the desert!" he cried. "It laughs in triumph at the bare stretches around it, waiting on water!" "That is it," said Jim; "waiting on water!" "The promise of what might come!" "It will come! Some day, Jack, you and I will ride up into the river canyon and I will show you a place where you can see the blue sky between precipitous walls two hundred feet high. The abyss is so narrow you can throw a stone across it." "What lies beyond?" asked Jack, his eyes lighting vividly. "A great basin which was the bed of an ancient lake before the water wore its way through." "A dam between those walls--and you have another lake!" "Yes, and the spring freshets from the northern water-shed all held in a reservoir--none going to waste! And, Jack, as population spreads the dam must come." "Why, the Doge has a kingdom!" "Yes, that's the best of it, the rights being in his hands. He shares up with everybody and we get it when he dies. That's why we are ready to accept the Doge's sentiments as kind of gospel. If ornamental hedges waste water and bring bugs and are contrary to practical ranching ideas, why--well, why not? It's our Little Rivers to enjoy as we please. We aren't growing so fast, but we're growing in a clean, beautiful way, as Jasper Ewold says. What if that river was owned by one man! What if we had to pay the price he set for what takes the place of rain, as they do in some places in California? We're going to say who shall build that dam!" "Think of it! Think of it!" Jack half whispered, his imagination in play. "Plot after plot being added to this little oasis until it extends from range to range, one sea of green! Many little towns, with Little Rivers the mother town, spreading its ideas! Yes, think of being in at the making of a new world, seeing visions develop into reality as, stone by stone, an edifice rises! I--I--" Jack paused, a cloud sweeping over his features, his eyes seeming to stare at a wall. His body alone seemed in Little Rivers, his mind on the other side of the pass. He was in one of those moods of abstraction that ever made his fellow-ranchers feel that he would not be with them permanently. Indeed, he had whole days when his smile had a sad turn; when, though he spoke pleasantly, the inspiration of talk was not in him and when Belvy Smith could not rouse any action in the cat with two black stripes down its back. But many Little Riversites, including the Doge, had their sad days, when they looked away at the pass oftener than usual, as if seeing a life-story framed in the V. His came usually, as Mrs. Smith observed, when he had a letter from the East. And it was then that he would pretend to cough to Firio. These mock coughing spells were one of the few manifestations that made the impassive Firio laugh. "Now you know I am not well, don't you, Firio?" he would ask, waggishly, the very thought seeming to take him out of the doldrums. "I could never live out of this climate. Why, even now I have a cough, kuh-er!" Firio had turned a stove cook. He accepted the humiliation in a spirit of loyalty. But often he would go out among the sagebrush and return with a feathery tribute, which he would broil on a spit in a fire made in the yard. Always when Jack rode out to meet Mary at the foot of the range, Firio would follow; and always he had his rifle. For it was part of Jack's seeming inconsistency, emphasizing his inscrutability, that he would never wear his revolver. It hung beside Pete's on the wall of the living-room as a second relic. Far from being a quarrel-maker, he was peaceful to the point of Quakerish predilection. "Nobody ever hears anything of Leddy," said Jim; "but he will never forget or forgive, and one day he will show up unexpectedly." "Not armed!" said Jack. "Do you think he will keep his word?" "I know he will. I asked him and he said he would." "You're very simple, Jack. But mind, he can keep his word and still use a gun outside the town!" "So he might!" admitted Jack, laughing in a way that indicated that the subject was distasteful to him; for he would never talk of the duel. Now we come to that little affair of Pedro Nogales. Pedro was a half-breed, whose God among men was Pete Leddy no less than Jack was Firio's and the Doge was Ignacio's. In his shanty back of Bill Lang's the Mexicans and Indians lost their remaining wages in gambling after he had filled them with _mescal_. It happened that Gonzalez, head man of the laborers under Bob Worther, who had saved quite a sum, came away penniless after taking but one drink. Every ounce of Bob's avoirdupois was in a rage. "It's time we cleaned out Pedro's place, seh!" he told Jack; "and you and Jim Galway have got to help me do it!" "I don't like to get into a row," said Jack very soberly. "Then I'll undertake the job alone," Bob retorted. "That will be a good deal worse, for when I get going I lose my temper and I tell you, seh, I've got a lot to lose! And, Jack, are you going to stand by and see robbery done by the meanest, most worthless greaser in the valley--and a good Indian the victim?" "Yes, Jack," said Jim, "you've got such a formidable reputation since your set-to with Leddy that the Indians think you are a regular master of magic. You're just the one to make Pedro come to terms." "A formidable reputation without firing a shot!" admitted Jack quizzically, and consented. "You'll surely want your gun this time!" Bob warned him. "No," said Jack. "But--" "I have hung up my gun!" Jack said decisively. "We'll try to handle this peacefully. Come on!" "Well, we've got our guns, anyway!" Jim put in. It was mid-afternoon, a slack hour for Pedro's kind of trade, and the shanty was empty of customers when the impromptu vigilance committee entered. Pedro himself was half dozing in the faro dealer's chair. His small, ferret eyes flashed a spark at the visitors as he rose, but he was politeness itself. "Señores! It is great honor! Be seated, señores!" he said with eloquent deference. The very sight of him set all the ounces in Bob quivering in an outburst: "No chairs for us! You fork over Gonzalez's money that you tricked out of him!" "I take Gonzalez's money! I? Señores?" "It's a hundred and twenty dollars that he earned honestly, and the quicker you lay your hands on it the better for you!" Bob roared back. Pedro was quite impassive. "Señores, if Gonzalez need money--señores, I honest man! Señores, sit down! We talk!" Pedro dropped back into his chair and his hand, with cat-like quickness, shot under the faro table. Jack had come through the door after Jim and Bob. He was standing a little behind them, and while they had been watching Pedro's face he had watched Pedro's movements. "Pedro, take your hand out from under the table and without your gun!" said Jack; and Jim Galway caught a thrill in Jack's voice that he had heard in the _arroyo_. Pedro looked into Señor Don't Care's eyes and saw a bead, though they were not looking along the glint of a revolver barrel. "_Sí_, señor!" said Pedro, settling back in the chair with palms out in intimation of his pacific intentions. "Now, Pedro, you have Gonzalez's money, haven't you?" Jack went on, in the reasoning fashion that he had adopted to Leddy in the store. "And you aren't going to make yourself or Bob trouble. You are going to give it back!" "_Sí_, señor!" said Pedro wincing. While he was producing the money and counting it, his furtive glance kept watch of Jack. Then, as the committee turned to go, he suddenly exclaimed with angry surprise and disillusion: "You got no gun!" While Jim and Bob waited for Jack to precede them out of the door Jim had time to note Pedro's baleful, piercing look at Jack's back. "Just as I told you, Jack--and I reckon you saved a big row. You just put a scare into that hellion with a word, like you had a thousand devils in you!" said Jim. "It's all over!" Jack answered, looking more hurt than pleased over the congratulations. "Very fortunately over." "But," Jim observed, tensely, "Pedro is not only Leddy's bitter partisan and ready to do his bidding, Pedro's a bit loco, besides--the kind that hesitates at nothing when he gets a grudge. You've got to look out for him." "Oh, no!" said Jack, in the full swing of a Señor Don't Care mood. Jim and Bob began to entertain the feelings of Mary on the pass, when she thought of Jack as walking over precipices regardless of danger signs. After all, did he really know how to shoot? If he would not look after himself, it was their duty to look after him. Jim suggested that the rule which Jack had made for Leddy should have universal application. No one whosoever should wear arms in Little Rivers without a permit. The new ordinance had the Doge's approval; and Jim and Bob, both of whom had permits, kept watch that it was enforced, particularly in the case of Pedro Nogales. Meanwhile, Jack kept the ten-hour-a-day law. His alfalfa was growing with prolific rapidity, but Firio had the air of one who waits between journeys. "Never the trail again?" he asked temptingly, one day. "Never the trail again!" Jack declared firmly. "_Sí, sí, sí_--the trail again!" "You think so? Then why do you ask?" "To make a question," answered Firio. "The big sadness will be too strong. It will make you move--_sí_!" "The big sadness!" Jack exclaimed. He seized Firio by the shoulders and looked narrowly at him, and Firio met the gaze with soft, puzzling lights in his eyes. "Ho! ho! A big sadness! How do you know?" he laughed. "I learn on the trail when I watch you look at the stars. And Señorita Ewold, she know; but she think the big sadness a devil. She--" and he paused. "She--yes?" Jack asked. "She--" Firio started again. Jack suddenly raised his hands from Firio's shoulders in a gesture of interruption. It was not exactly Firio's place to hazard opinions about Mary Ewold. "Never mind!" he said, rather sharply. But Firio proceeded fixedly to finish what he had to say. "She has a big sadness, which makes her ride to the pass. She rides out so she can ride back smiling." "Firio, don't mistake your imagination for divination!" Jack warned him. As Firio did not understand the meaning of this he said nothing. Probably he would have said nothing even if he had understood. "I'll show you the nature of the big sadness and that the devil is a joy devil when we harvest our first crop of alfalfa," Jack concluded. "Then I shall make a holiday! Then I shall be a real rancher and something is going to happen!" "The trail!" exclaimed Firio, and the soft light in his eyes flashed. "_Sí_! The trail and the big spurs and the revolver in the holster!" "No!" But Firio said "_Sí_"! with the supreme confidence of one who holds that belief in fulfilment will make any wish come true. XVI A CHANGE OF MIND It was Sunday afternoon; or, to date it by an epochal event, the day after Jack's alfalfa crop had fallen before the mower. Mary was seated on the bench under the avenue of umbrella-trees reading a thin edition of Marcus Aurelius bound in flexible leather. Of late she had developed a fondness for the more austere philosophers. Jack, whose mood was entirely to the sonneteers, came softly singing down the avenue of palms and presented himself before her in a romping spirit of interruption. "O expert in floriculture!" he said, "the humble pupil acting as a Committee of One has failed utterly to agree with himself as to the form of his new flowerbed. There must be a Committee of Two. Will you come?" "Good! I am weary of Marcus. I can't help thinking that he too far antedates the Bordeaux mixture!" she answered, springing to her feet with positive enthusiasm. He rarely met positive enthusiasm in her and everything in him called for it at the moment. He found it so inspiring that the problem of the bed was settled easily by his consent to all her suggestions--a too-ready consent, she told herself. "After all, it is your flower garden," she reminded him. "No, every flower garden in Little Rivers is yours!" he declared. The way he said this made her frown. She saw him taking a step on the other side of that barrier over which she mounted guard. "Never make your hyperboles felonious!" she warned him. "Besides, if you are going to be a real Little Riversite you should have opinions of your own." "I haven't any to-day--none except victory!" and he held out his palms, exhibiting their yellowish plates. "Look! Even corns on the joints!" "Yes, they look quite real," she admitted, censoriously. "Haven't I made good? Do you remember how you stood here on the very site of my house and lectured me? I would not work! I would not--" "You have worked a little--a little!" she said grudgingly, and showed him as much of the wondrous sparkle in her eyes as he could see out of the corners between the lashes. She never allowed him to look into her eyes if she apprehended any attempt to cross the barrier. But she could see well enough out of the corners to know that his glances had a kind of hungry joy and a promise of some new demonstration in his attitude toward her. She must watch that barrier very shrewdly. "Look at my hedge!" he went on. "It is knee-high already, and my umbrella-trees cast enough shade for anybody, if he will wrap himself around the trunk. But such things are ornamental. I have a more practical appeal. Come on!" His elation was insistent, superior to any prickling gibes of banter, as they walked on the mealy earth between rows of young orange settings, and the sweet odor of drying alfalfa came to their nostrils, borne by a vagrant breeze. He swept his hand toward the field in a gesture of pride, his shoulders thrown back in a deep breath of exultation. "The callouses win!" And he exhibited them again. But she refused even to glance at them this time. "You seem to think callouses phenomenal. Most people in Little Rivers accept them as they do the noses on their faces." "They certainly are phenomenal on me. So is my first crop! My first crop! I'll be up at dawn to stack it--and then I'm no longer a neophyte. I am an initiate! I'm a real rancher! A holiday is due! I celebrate!" He was rhapsodic and he was serious, too. She was provokingly flippant as an antidote for Marcus Aurelius, whom she was still carrying in the little flexible leather volume. "How celebrate?" she inquired. "By walking through the town with a wisp of alfalfa in one hand and exhibiting the callouses on the other? or will you be drawn on a float by Jag Ear--a float labeled, 'The Idler Enjoying His Own Reform?' We'll all turn out and cheer." "Amusing, but not dignified and not to my taste. No! I shall celebrate by a terrific spree--a ride to the pass!" He turned his face toward the range, earnest in its transfixion and suffused with the spirit of restlessness and the call of the mighty rock masses, gray in their great ribs and purple in their abysses. She felt that same call as something fluid and electric running through the air from sky to earth, and set her lips in readiness for whatever folly he was about to suggest. "A ride to the pass and a view of the sunset from the very top!" he cried. He looked down at her quickly, and all the force of the call he had transformed into a sunny, personal appeal, which made her avert her glance. "My day in the country--my holiday, if you will go with me! Will you, and gaze out over that spot of green in the glare of the desert, knowing that a little of it is mine?" "Your orange-trees are too young. It's so far away they will hardly show," she ventured, surveying the distance to the pass judicially. "Will you?" "Why, to me a ride to the pass is not a thing to be planned a day beforehand," she said deliberately, still studiously observing Galeria. "It is a matter of momentary inspiration. Make it a set engagement and it is but a plodding journey. I can best tell in the morning," she concluded. "And, by the way, I see you haven't yet tried grafting plums on the alfalfa stalks." "No. I have learned better. It is not consistent. You see, you mow alfalfa and you pick plums." This return to drollery, in keeping with the prescribed order of their relations, made her look up in candid amusement over the barrier which for a moment he had been endangering. "Honestly, Jack, you do improve," she said, with mock encouragement. "You seem to have mastered a number of the simple truths of age-old agricultural experience." "But will you? Will you ride to the pass?" He had the question launched fairly into her eyes. She could not escape it. He saw one bright flash, whether of real anger or simply vexation at his reversion to the theme he could not tell, and her lashes dropped; she ran the leaf edges of the austere Marcus back and forth in her fingers, thip-thip-thip. That was the only sound for some seconds, very long seconds. "As I've already tried to make clear to you, it's such a businesslike thing to ride to the pass unless you have the inspiration," she remarked thoughtfully to Marcus. "Perhaps I shall get the inspiration on the way back to the house;" which was a signal that she was going. "And, by the way, Jack, to return to the object of my coming, if you have ideas of your own about flowers incorporate them; that is the way to develop your floricultural talent." She turned away, but he followed. He was at her side and proceeding with her, his head bent toward her, boyishly, eagerly. "You see, I have never been out to the pass," he remarked urgently. "What! You--" she started in surprise and checked herself. "Didn't I come by train?" he asked reprovingly. "No!" she answered. Her eyes were level with the road, her voice was a little unnatural. "No! You came over the pass, Jack." It was the first time in the months of his citizenship of Little Rivers that she had ever hinted anything but belief in the fiction that they had first met when he asked her to show him a parcel of land. She seemed to be calling a truth out of the past and grappling with it, while her lips tightened and she drew in her chin. "Then I did come over the pass," he agreed; and after a pause added: "But there was no Pete Leddy." "Yes, oh, yes--there was a Pete Leddy!" "But he will not be there this time!" And now his voice, in a transport that seemed to touch the cloud heights, was neither like the voice of the easy traveller on the pass, nor the voice of his sharp call to Leddy to disarm, nor the voice of the storyteller. It had a new note, a note startling to her. "We shall be on the pass without Leddy and smiling over Leddy and thanking him for his unwitting service in making me stop in Little Rivers," he concluded. "Yes, he did that," she admitted stoically, as if it were some oppressive fact for which she could offer no thanks. "I want to see our ponies with their bridles hanging loose! I want the great silence! I want company, with imagination speaking from the sky and reality speaking from the patch of green out on the sea of gray! Will you?" Their steps ran rhythmically together. His look was eager in anticipation, while she kept on running the leaves of the austere Marcus through her fingers. Her lips were half open, as if about to speak, but were without words; the thin, delicate nostrils trembled. "Will you? Will you, because I kept the faith of callouses? Will you go forth and dream for a day? We'll tell fairy stories! We'll get a pole and prod the dinosaur through the narrow part of the pass and hear him roar his awfullest. Will you?" Her fingers paused in the pages as if they had found a helpful passage. The chin tilted upward resolutely and he had a full view of her eyes, dancing with challenging lights. She was augustly, gloriously mischievous. "Will you go in costume? Will you wear your spurs and the chaps and the silk shirt?" The question said that it was not a time to be serious. It sprinkled the crest of the barrier with gleaming slivers of glass, which might give zest to words spoken across it, but would be most sharp to the touch. "I will wear my spurs around my wrists, if you say, tie roses in the fringe of my chaps, bind my hat with a big red silk bandanna, and put streamers on P.D.'s bits!" "That is too enticing for refusal," she answered, playfully. "I particularly want to hear the dinosaur roar." They had come to the opening of the Ewold hedge, and they paused to consider arrangements. There was no one in sight on the street except Jim Galway, who was approaching at some distance. "Shall we start in the morning and have luncheon at the foot of the range?" suggested Jack. She favored an early afternoon start; he argued for his point of view, and in their preoccupation with the passage of arms they did not notice Pedro Nogales slipping along beside the hedge with soft steps, his hand under his jacket. A gleam out of the bosom of Pedro's jacket, a cry from Mary, and a knife flashed upward and drove toward Jack's neck. Jack had seemed oblivious of his surroundings, his gaze centered on Mary. Yet he was able to duck backward so that the blade only slit open his shirt as Pedro, with the misdirected force of his blow, lunged past its object. Mary saw that face which had been laughing into hers, which had been so close to hers in its persistent smile of persuasion, struck white and rigid and a glint like that of the blade itself in the eyes. In a breath Jack had become another being of incarnate, unthinking physical power and swiftness. One hand seized Pedro's wrist, the other his upper arm, and Mary heard the metallic click of the knife as it struck the earth and the sickening sound of the bone of Pedro's forearm cracking. She saw Pedro's eyes bursting from their sockets in pain and fear; she saw Jack's still profile of unyielding will and the set muscles of his neck and the knitting muscles of his forearm driving Pedro over against the hedge, as if bent on breaking the Mexican's back in two, and she waited in frozen apprehension to hear another bone crack, even expecting Pedro's death cry. "The devil is out of Señor Don't Care!" It was the voice of Ignacio, who had come around the house in time to witness the scene. "What fearful strength! You will kill him!" It was the voice of the Doge, from the porch. "Yes, please stop!" Mary pleaded. Suddenly, at the sound of her cry, Jack released his hold. The strong column of his neck became apparently too weak to hold the weight of his head. Inert, he fell against the hedge for support, his hands hanging limp at his side, while he stared dazedly into space. It seemed then that Pedro might have picked up the knife and carried out his plan of murder without defence by the victim. "Yes, yes, yes!" Jack repeated. Pedro had not moved from the hollow in the hedge which the impress of his body had made. He was trembling, his lips had fallen away from his teeth, and he watched Jack in stricken horror, a beaten creature waiting on some judgment from which there was no appeal. "We'll tell fairy stories"--Jack's soft tones of persuasion repeated themselves in Mary's ears in contrast to the effect of what she had just witnessed. Her hand slipped along the crest of the hedge, as if to steady herself. "I'll change my mind about going to the pass, Jack," she said. "Yes, Mary," he answered in a faint tone. He looked around to see her back as she turned away from him; then, with an effort, he stepped free of the hedge. "Come, we will go to the doctor!" he said to the Mexican. He touched Pedro's shoulder softly and softly ran his hand down the sleeve in which the arm hung limp. Pedro had not moved; he still leaned against the hedge inanimate as a mannikin. "Come! Your legs are not broken! You can walk!" said Jim Galway, who had come up in a hurry when he saw what was happening. "Pedro, you will learn not to play with the devil in Señor Don't Care!" whispered Ignacio, while Mary had disappeared in the house and the Doge stood watching. Jack had stroked Pedro's head while the bone was being set. He had arranged for Pedro's care. And now he was in his own yard with Jag Ear and the ponies, rubbing their muzzles alternately in silent impartiality, his head bowed reflectively as Firio came around the corner of the house. At first he half stared at Firio, then he surveyed the steeds of his long journeyings in questioning uncertainty, and then looked back at Firio, smiling wanly. "Firio," he said, "I feel that I am a pretty big coward. Firio, I am full up--full to overflowing. My mind is stuffed with cobwebs. I--I must think things out. I must have the solitudes." "The trail!" prescribed Doctor Firio. After Jack had given his ranch in charge to Galway, he rode away in the dusk, not by the main street, but straight across the levels toward the pass. XVII THE DOGE SNAPS A RUBBER BAND Jasper Ewold was a disciple of an old-fashioned custom that has fallen into disuse since the multiplicity of typewriters made writing for one's own pleasure too arduous; or, if you will have another reason, since our existence and feelings have become so complex that we can no longer express them with the simple directness of our ancestors. He kept a diary with what he called a perfect regularity of intermittency. A week might pass without his writing a single word, and again he might indulge freely for a dozen nights running. He wrote as much or as little as he pleased. He wrote when he had something to tell and when he was in the mood to tell it. "It is facing yourself in your own ink," he said. "It is confessing that you are an egoist and providing an antidote for your egoism. Firstly, you will never be bored by your own past if you can appreciate your errors and inconsistencies. Secondly, you will never be tempted to bore others with your past as long as you wish to pose as a wise man." He must have found, as you would find if you had left youth behind and could see yourself in your own ink, that the first tracery of any controlling factor in your life was faint and inconsequential to you at the time, without presage of its importance until you saw other lines, also faint and inconsequential in their beginnings, drawing in toward it to form a powerful current. On the evening that Jack took to the trail again, Jasper Ewold had a number of thick notebooks out of the box in the library which he always kept locked, and placed them on the living-room table beside his easy chair, in which he settled himself. Mary was sewing while he pored over his life in review as written by his own hand. Her knowledge of the secrets of that chronicle from wandering student days to desert exile was limited to glimpses of the close lines of fine-written pages across the breadth of the circle of the lamp's reflection. He surrounded his diary with a line of mystery which she never attempted to cross. On occasions he would read to her certain portions which struck his recollection happily; but these were invariably limited to his impressions of some city or some work of art that he was seeing for the first time in the geniality of the unadulterated joy of living in what she guessed was the period of youth before she was born; and never did they throw any light on his story except that of his views as a traveller and a personality. But he did not break out into a single quotation to-night. It seemed as if he were following the thread of some reference from year to year; for he ran his fingers through the leaves of certain parts hastily and became studiously intense at other parts as he gloomily pondered over them. Neither she nor her father had mentioned Jack since the scene by the hedge. This was entirely in keeping with custom. It seemed a matter of instinct with both that they never talked to each other of him. Yet she was conscious that he had been in her father's mind all through the evening meal, and she was equally certain that her father realized that he was in her mind. It was late when the Doge finished his reading, and he finished it with the page of the last book, where the fine handwriting stopped at the edge of the blank white space of the future. An old desire, ever strong with Mary, which she had never quite had the temerity to express, had become impelling under the influence of her father's unusually long and silent preoccupation. "Am I never to have a glimpse of that treasure? Am I never, never to read your diary?" she asked. The Doge drew his tufted eyebrows together in utter astonishment. "What! What, Mary! Why, Mary, I might preach a lesson on the folly of feminine curiosity. Do you think I would ask to see your diary?" "But I don't keep one." "Hoo-hoo-hoo!" The Doge was blowing out his lips in an ado of deprecatory nonsense. "Don't keep one? Have you lost your memory?" "I had it a minute ago--yes," after an instant's playful consideration, "I am sure that I have it now." "Then, everybody with a memory certainly keeps a diary. Would you want me to read all the foolish things you had ever thought? Do you think I would want to?" "No," she answered. "There you are, then!" declared the Doge victoriously, as he rose, slipping a rubber band with a forbidding snap over the last book. "And this is all stupid personal stuff--but mine own!" There was an unconscious sigh of weariness as he took up the thumbed leather volumes. He was haggard. "Mine own" had given him no pleasure that evening. All the years of his life seemed to rest heavily upon him for a silent moment. Mary feared that she had hurt him by her request. "You have read so much you will scarcely do any writing to-night," she ventured. "Yes, I will add a few more lines--the spirit is in me--a few more days to the long record," he said, absently, then, after a pause, suddenly, with a kind of suppressed force vibrating in his voice: "Well, our Sir Chaps has gone." "As unceremoniously as he came," she answered. "It was terrible the way he broke Nogales's wrist!" remarked the Doge narrowly. "Terrible!" she assented as she folded her work, her head bent. "Gone, and doubtless for good!" he continued, still watching her sharply. "Very likely!" she answered carelessly without looking up. "His vagarious playtime for this section is over." "Just it! Just it!" the Doge exclaimed happily. "And if Leddy overtakes him now, it's his own affair!" "Yes, yes! He and his Wrath of God and Jag Ear are away to other worlds!" "And other Leddys!" "No doubt! No doubt!" concluded the Doge, in high good humor, all the vexation of his diary seemingly forgotten as he left the room. But, as the Doge and Mary were to find, they were alone among Little Riversites in thinking that the breaking of Pedro Nogales's wrist was horrible. Jim Galway, who had witnessed the affair, took a radically contrary view, which everyone else not of the Leddy partisanship readily accepted. Despite the frequency of Jack's visits to the Ewold garden and all the happy exchange of pleasantries with his hosts, the community could not escape the thought of a certain latent hostility toward Jack on the part of the Doge, the more noticeable because it was so out of keeping with his nature. "Doge, sometimes I think you are almost prejudiced against Jack Wingfield because he didn't let Leddy have his way," said Jim, with an outright frankness that was unprecedented in speaking to Jasper Ewold. "You're such a regular old Quaker!" "But that little Mexican panting in abject fear against the hedge!" persisted the Doge. "A nice, peaceful little Mexican with a knife, sneaking up to plant it in Jack's neck!" "But Jack is so powerful! And his look! I was so near I could see it well as he towered over Nogales!" "Yes, no mistaking the look. I saw it in the _arroyo_. It made me think of what the look of one of those old sea-fighters might have been like when they lashed alongside and boarded the enemy." "And the crack of the bone!" continued the Doge. "Would you have a man turn cherub when he has escaped having his jugular slashed by a margin of two or three inches? Would you have him say, 'Please, naughty boy, give me your knife? You mustn't play with such things!'" "No! That's hyperbole!" the Doge returned with a lame attempt at a laugh. "Mebbe it is, whatever hyperbole is," said Jim; "but if so, hyperbole is a darned poor means of self-defence. Yes, the trouble is you are against Jack Wingfield!" "Yes, I am!" said the Doge suddenly, as if inward anger had got the better of him. "And the rest of us are for him!" Jim declared sturdily. "Naturally! naturally!" said the Doge, passing his hand over his brow. "Yes, youth and color and bravery!" He shook his head moodily, as if Jim's statement brought up some vital, unpleasant, but inevitable fact to his mind. "It's beyond me how anybody can help liking him!" concluded Galway stubbornly. "I like him--yes, I do like him! I cannot help it!" the Doge admitted rather grudgingly as he turned away. "So we weren't so far apart, after all!" Galway hastened to call after the Doge in apology for his testiness. "We like him for what he has been to us and will always be to us. That's the only criterion of character in Little Rivers according to your own code, isn't it, Jasper Ewold?" "Exactly!" answered the Doge over his shoulder. The community entered into a committee of the whole on Jack Wingfield. With every citizen contributing a quota of personal experience, his story was rehearsed from the day of his arrival to the day of his departure. Argument fluctuated on the question of whether or not he would ever return, with now the noes and now the ayes having it. On this point Jim had the only first-hand evidence. "He said to let things grow until he showed up or I heard from him," said Jim. "Not what I would call enlightening," said Bob Worther. "That was his way of expressing it; but to do him justice, he showed what a good rancher he was by his attention to the details that had to be cared for," Jim added. "He's like the spirit of the winds, I guess," put in Mrs. Galway. "Something comes a-calling him or a-driving him, I don't know which. Indeed, I'm not altogether certain that it isn't a case of Mary Ewold this time!" "Yes," agreed Jim. "The fighting look went out of his face when she spoke, and when he saw how horrified she was, why, I never saw such a change come over a man! It was just like a piece of steel wilting." However, the children, who had no part in the august discussions of the committee of the whole, were certain that their story-teller would come back. Their ideas about Jack were based on a simple, self-convincing faith of the same order as Firio's. Lonely as they were, they were hardly more lonely than their elders, who were supposed to have the philosophy of adults. No Jack singing out "Hello!" on the main street! No Jack looking up from work to ask boyishly: "Am I learning? Oh, I'll be the boss rancher yet!" No Jack springing all sorts of conceits, not of broad humor, but the kind that sort of set a "twinkling in your insides," as Bob Worther expressed it! No Jack inspiring a feeling deeper than twinkles on his sad days! He had been an improvement in town life that became indispensable once it was absent. Little Rivers was fairly homesick for him. "How did we ever get along without him before he came, anyway?" Bob Worther demanded. Then another new-comer, as distinctive from the average settler as Jack was, diverted talk into another channel, without, however, reconciling the people to their loss. XVIII ANOTHER STRANGER ARRIVES If the history of Little Rivers were to be written in chapter headings the first would be, "Jasper Ewold Founded the Town"; the second, "Jack Wingfield Arrived"; and the third, "John Prather Arrived." While Jack came in chaps and spurs, bearing an argosy of fancy, Prather came by rail, carrying a suitcase in a conventional and businesslike fashion. Bill Deering, as the representative of a spring wagon that did the local omnibus and express business, was on the platform of the station when the 11:15 rolled in, and sang out, in a burst of joy, as the stranger, a man in the early twenties, stepped off the Pullman: "What's this, Jack? Back by train--and in store clothes? Well, of all--" and saw his mistake when the stranger's full face was turned toward him. "Yes, I am sometimes called Jack," said the stranger pleasantly. "Now, where have we met before? Perhaps in Goldfield? No matter. It is time we got acquainted. My name is Prather, and yours?" As he surveyed the man before him, Bill was as fussed as the giant of the fairy story had been by a display of yellow. He was uncertain whether he was giving his own baptismal name or somebody's else. "By Jing! No, I don't know you, but you sure are the dead spit of a fellow I do know!" said Bill. "Well, he has done me the favor of introducing me to you, anyway," said Prather, who had a remarkably ingratiating smile. "I would like a place to stop while I take a look around. Is there a hotel?" "Rooms over the store and grub at Mrs. Smith's--none better!" "That will do." As they rode into town more than one passer-by called out a ringing "Hello, Jack!" or, "Back, eh, Jack? Hurrah for you!" and then uttered an exclamation of disillusion when Prather turned his head. "The others see it, too," said Bill. "They seem to. Who is this double of mine?" "Jack Wingfield." "Jack Wingfield? It seems that our first names are the same, too. He lives here, I take it." "Yes. But he's away now." "Well, when he comes back"--with a pause of slight irritation--"there will be no difficulty in telling us apart." He put his finger to a triangular patch of mole on his cheek. His irritation passed and a sense of appreciative amusement at the distinction took its place. "Now, where shall I find Jasper Ewold?" he asked, as Bill drew up before the Smiths. A few minutes later the Doge, busy among his orange-trees, hearing a step, looked up with a signal of recognition which changed to blank inquiry when the cheek with the mole was turned toward him. "Upon my word, sir, I--I thought that you were--" he began. "Mr. Wingfield! Yes, everybody in town seems to think so at first glance, so I am quite used to the comparison by this time," Prather put in, easily. "It is very interesting to meet the founder of a town, and I have come to you to find out about conditions here." Prather did not appear as if he had ever done manual labor. He was too young to have turned from ill health or failure in the city to the refuge of the land. Indeed, his quiet gray suit of good material indicated unostentatious prosperity. Evidently he was well-bred and evidently he was not an agent for a new style of seeding harrow or weed killer. "You think of settling?" asked the Doge. "Yes. From all I have heard of Little Rivers, it's a community where I should feel at home." "Then, sir, we will talk of it at luncheon; it is knocking-off time for the morning. Yes, I'll talk as much as you please. Come on, Mr. Prather!" They started along the avenue of palms, the Doge still studying the face at his side. "Pardon me for staring at you, but the resemblance to Jack Wingfield at first sight is most striking," he added. "Has he travelled much in the West?" asked Prather. "Yes, much--leading an aimless life." "Then he must be the one that I was taken for in Salt Lake City one day. The man who called out to me saw his mistake, just as you did, when he saw my full face;" and again Prather made a gesture of understanding amusement to the mole. "When you consider what confusion there must be in the workrooms, with the storks flapping and screeching like newsboys outside the delivery room," mused the Doge, "and when you consider the multitudinous population of the earth, it's surprising that the good Lord is able to furnish such a variety of faces as he does. But they do say that every one of us has a few doubles. In the case of famous public men they get their pictures in the papers." "Yes, very few of us but have been mistaken for a friend by a stranger passing in the street!" Prather suggested. "Only to have the stranger see his mistake at a second glance; and on second glance you do not look very much like Jack Wingfield," the Doge concluded. "Just a coincidence in physiognomy!" And Prather was very frank about his past. "I have led rather a hard life," he said. "Though I was well brought up my father left mother and me quite penniless. I had to fend for myself at the age of sixteen. A friend gave me an opportunity to go to Goldfield at the outbreak of the excitement there. The rough experience of a mining-camp was not exactly to my taste, but it meant a livelihood. My real interest has always been in irrigation farming. I would rather grow a good crop than mine for gold. Well, I saved a little money at Goldfield--saved it to buy land. But land is not the only consideration. The surroundings, the people with whom you have to live count for a great deal when you mean to settle permanently." "Excellent!" declared the Doge. "A good citizen in full fellowship with your neighbors! Exactly what we want in Little Rivers." Prather had a complexion of that velvety whiteness that never tans. His eyes were calm, yet attractive, with a peculiar insinuating charm when he talked that made it seem easy and natural to respond to his wishes. In listening he had an ingratiating manner that was flattering to the speaker. "A practical man!" the Doge said to Mary that evening. "The kind we need here. He and I had a grand afternoon of it together. Every one of his questions about soils and cultivation was to the point." "Not one argument?" she asked. "No, Mary; no time for argument." "You do like people to agree with you, after all!" she hazarded. For she did not like Prather. "Pooh! Not a matter of agreement! No persiflage! No altitudinous conversation of the kind that grows no crops. Prather wants to learn, and he's got good, clean ideas, with a trained and accurate mind--the best possible combination. I hope he will stay for the very reason that he is not the kind that takes up a plot of land for life on an impulse, which usually results in turning on the water and getting discouraged because nature will not do the rest. But he is very favorably impressed. He said that after Goldfield Little Rivers was like Paradise--practical Paradise. Good phrase, practical Paradise!" In two or three days the new-comer knew everyone in town; but though he addressed the men by their first names they always addressed him as "Mr. Prather." In another respect besides his features he was like Jack: he was much given to smiling. "The difference between his smile and Jack's," said Mrs. Galway, who was at one with Mary in not liking him, "is that his is sort of a drawing-in kind of smile and Jack's sort of radiates." The children developed no interest in him. It was evident that he could not tell stories, except with an effort. In his goings and comings, ever asking pleasant questions and passing compliments, he was usually accompanied by the Doge, and his attitude toward the old man was the admiring deference of disciple for master. "I am sorry I don't understand that," he would say when the Doge fell into a scholastic allusion to explain a point. "I was hard at work when lots of my friends were in college." "Learning may be ruination," responded the Doge, "though it wouldn't have been in your case. It's the man that counts. See what you have made of yourself!" "Ah, yes, but I feel that I have missed something. When I am settled here I shall be able to make up for lost time, with your help, sir." "Every pigeonhole in my mind will be open at your call!" said the Doge, glowing at the prospect. The favor that Prather found in the eyes of Jasper Ewold partly accounted for what favor he found in Little Rivers' eyes. "Prather has certainly made a hit with the Doge!" quoth Bob Worther. "As the Doge gets older I reckon he will like compliments better than persiflage. But Jack could pay a compliment, too--only he never used the ladle." It was Bob, as inspector of ditches and dams, who provided a horse for Prather to inspect the source of the water supply. In keeping with a characteristic thoroughness, Prather wanted to go up the river into the canyon. He made himself a very enjoyable companion on the way, drawing out all of Bob's best stories. When they stopped in sight of the streak of blue sky through the breach in the mighty wall that had once imprisoned the ancient lake, he was silent for some time, while he surveyed this grandeur of the heights with smiling contemplation, at intervals rubbing the palms of his hands together in a manner habitual with him when he was particularly pleased. "I guess the same idea has struck you that strikes everybody at sight of that, seh!" said Bob. "Yes, a dam might be practical," Prather answered. "But it would take a lot of capital--a lot of capital!" On the way back they stopped before a dilapidated shanty near the foothills. In the midst of a littered yard old man Lefferts, half dozing, occupied a broken chair. "Since the Doge came old man Lefferts has had to do no work at all. A Mexican looks after him. But it hasn't made him any happier," Bob explained as they approached. "Howdy yourself?" growled Lefferts in answer to Bob's greeting. "He seems to be a character!" whispered Prather to Bob, as he smiled at the prospect. "To confess the truth, I am a little saddle sore and tired. I didn't get much riding in Goldfield. I think I'll stop and rest and get acquainted." "You won't get much satisfaction but growls." "That will be all the more fun for me," rejoined Prather. "But don't let me keep you." "No. I must be going on. I've got some things to look after before nightfall," said Bob, while Prather, in a humor proof against any hermit cantankerousness, rode into the yard. When he returned after dark he said, laughingly, that he had enjoyed himself, though the conversation was all on one side. The next morning he decided to take up the plot of land adjoining Jack's. "But I shall not be able to begin work for a few weeks," he said. "I must go to Goldfield to settle up my affairs before I begin my new career." "If Jack ever comes back I wonder what he will say to his new neighbor!" Little Rivers wondered. XIX LOOKING OVER PRECIPICES To Mary Ewold the pass was a dividing line between two appeals. The Little Rivers side, with the green patch of oasis in the distance, had a message of peaceful enjoyment of what fortune had provided for her. Under its spell she saw herself content to live within garden walls forever in the land that had given her life, grateful for the trickles of intelligence that came by mail from the outside world. The other side aroused a mighty restlessness. Therefore, she rarely made that short journey which spread another panorama of space before her. But this was one of the afternoons when she welcomed a tumult of any kind as a relief from her depression; and she went on through the V as soon as she reached the summit. Seated on a flat-topped rock, oblivious of the passage of time, of the dream cities of the Eternal Painter, she was staring far away where the narrowing gray line between the mountain rims met the sky. She was seeing beyond the horizon. She was seeing cities of memory and reality. A great yearning was in her heart. All the monotonous level lap of the heights which seemed without end was a symbol that separated her from her desire. She imagined herself in a Pullman, flashing by farms and villages; in a shop selecting gowns; viewing from a high window the human stream of Fifth Avenue; taking passage on a steamer; hearing again foreign tongues long ago familiar to her ears; sensing the rustle of great audiences before a curtain rose; glimpsing the Mediterranean from a car window; feeling herself a unit in the throbbing promenade of the life of many streets while her hunger took its fill of a busy world. "It is hard to do it all in imagination!" she said to herself. "Even imagination needs an occasional nest-egg of reality by way of encouragement." An hour on the far side of the pass played the emotional part for her of a storm of tears for many another woman. She rejoiced in being utterly alone; rejoiced in the grandeur of the very wastes around her as mounting guard over the freedom of her thoughts. There was no living speck on the trail, which she knew lay across the expanse of parched earth to the edge of the blue dome; there was not even a bird in the air. Undisturbed, she might think anything, pray for anything; she might feed the flame of revolt till the fuel of many weeks' accumulation had burned itself out and left her calm in the wisdom and understanding that reconciled her to her portion and freshened to return through Galeria to the quiet routine of her daily existence. Her mind paused in its travels from capital to capital and she was conscious solely of the stark majesty of her surroundings. She listened. There was no sound. The spacious stillness was soothing to her nerves; a specific when all the Eternal Painter's art failed. She closed her eyes, trying to realize that great silence as one would try to realize the Infinite. Then faintly she heard a man's voice singing. It seemed at first a trick of the imagination. But nearer and nearer it came, in the fellowship of life joyfully invading the solitude; and with a readjustment of her faculties to the expected event, she watched the point where the trail dipped on a sharp turn of grade. Above it rose a cowpuncher hat, then a silk shirt with a string tie, and after that a sage baggage burro with clipped ears, a solemn-faced pony, and an Indian. Jack was watching his steps in the uneven path, and not until the full length of him had appeared and he was flush on the level with her did he look up. She was leaning back, her weight partly poised on the flat of her hand on the rock, revealing the full curve of throat and the soft sweep of the lines of her slim figure, erect, her head thrown back, her face in shadow with the sun behind playing in her hair, in half-defiant readiness. She saw him as the spirit of travel--its ease, mystery, unattachedness--which had spanned the distances between her and the horizon, in the freedom of his wandering choice. His low-pitched exclamation of surprise was vibrant with appreciation of the picture she made, and he stood quite still in a second's wistful silence, waiting on her first word after the lapse of the many days since he had brought a look of horror into her eyes. "Hello, Jack!" she said in the old tone of comradeship. It struck a spark electrifying him with all his old, happy manner. He swept off his hat with a grand bow, blinking in the blaze of the sun which turned his tan to a bronze and touched the smile, which was born as an inspiration from her greeting, with radiance. "Hello to you, Mary, guarding the pass to Little Rivers!" he said exultantly. "You are just the person I wanted to see. I have been in a hurry to tell you about a certain thing ever since it came to me this morning." She guessed that he was about to make up a new story. He must have had time for many inventions in the ten days of his absence. But she welcomed any tangent of nonsense that set the right key for the coincidence of their meeting. She had refused to ride to the pass with him and here they were alone together on the pass. Three or four steps, so light that they seemed to be irresistibly winning permission from her, and he had sat down on another flat-topped rock close by. Firio and the baggage train moved on up the trail methodically and stopped well in the background. "You know how when you meet a person you are sometimes haunted by a conviction that you have met him before!" he began. "How exasperated you are not to be able to recall the time and place!" "Had you forgotten where you met the dinosaur?" she asked. "He must have thought you very impolite after all the trouble he had taken to make you remember him the last time you went through the pass." "Oh, the dinosaur and I have patched up a truce, because it seems, after all, that I had mistaken his identity and he was a pleosaur. But"--he did not take the pains to parry her interruption with more foolery, and proceeded as if she had not spoken--"it has never been out of my mind that your father gave me a glance at our first meeting which asked the question that has kept recurring to me: Where had he and I seen each other before?" "Well?" she said curiously, recalling her father's repeated allusions to "this Wingfield," his strange depression after Jack had left the night before the duel, his reticence and animadversions. "I said nothing about it, nor did he. I wonder if it has not been a kind of contest between us as to which should be the first to say 'Tag!'" She smiled at this and leaned farther back, but with the curtain of her eyelashes widening in tremulous intensity. "I knew it would come!" he went on, with dramatic fervor. "Such things do come unexpectedly in a flash when there is a sudden electric connection with some dusty pigeonhole in the mind. It was in Florence that he and I met! In Florence, on the road to Fiesole!" "Florence! The road to Fiesole!" Mary repeated; and the names seemed to rouse in her a rapturous recollection. She leaned forward now, her lips apart, her eyes glowing. In place of wastes she was seeing brown roofs and the sweep of the Tuscan Valley. "And _we_ met--_you_ and _I_!" "We?" Her glance came sharply back from the distances in the astonishment of dilating pupils that drew together in inquiry as she saw that he was in earnest. "Yes. I was at the extremely mature age of six and you must have been about a year younger. Do you remember it at all?" "No!" She was silent, concentrated, groping. "No, no!" she repeated. "Five is very immature compared to six!" "Your father had a beard then, a great blond beard that excited my emulation. When I grew up I was going to have one like it and just such bushy eyebrows. You came up the Fiesole road at his side, holding fast to his thumb. I was playing at our villa gate. You went up the path with him to see my mother--I can see just how you looked holding so fast to that thumb! After a while you came straying out alone. Now don't you remember? Don't you? Something quite sensational happened." "No!" "Well, I showed off what a great boy I was. I walked on the parapet of the villa wall. I bowed to my audience aged five with the grandeur of a tight-rope performer who has just done his best thriller as a climax to his turn." "Yes--yes!" she breathed, with quick-running emphasis. Out of the mists of fifteen years had come a signal. She bent nearer to him in the wonder of a thing found in the darkness of memory, which always has the fascination of a communication from another world. "You wanted me to come up on the wall," she said, taking up the thread of the story. "You said it was so easy, and you helped me up, and when I looked down at the road I was overcome and fell down all in a heap on the parapet." "And heavens!" he gasped, living the scene over again, "wasn't I frightened for fear you would tumble off!" "But I remember that you helped me down very nicely--and--and that is all I do remember. What then?" She had come to a blind alley and perplexity was in her face, though she tried to put the question nonchalantly. What then? How deep ran the current of this past association? "Why, there wasn't much else. Your father came down the path and his big thumb took you in tow. I did not see you again. A week later mother and I had gone to Switzerland--we were always on the move." The candor of his glance told her that this was all. As boy and girl they had met under an Italian sky. As man and woman they had met under an Arizona sky. Now the charm of the Florence of their affections held them with a magic touch. They were not in a savage setting, looking out over savage distances, but on the Piazzale Michelangelo, looking out over the city of Renaissance genius which slumbers on the refulgent bosom of its past; they were oblivious of the Eternal Painter's canvasses and enjoying Raphael's, Botticelli's, and Andrea del Sarto's. Possibly the Eternal Painter, in the leniency of philosophic appreciation of their oblivion to his art, hazarded a guess about the destiny of this pair. He could not really have known their destiny. No, it is impossible to grant him the power of divination; for if he had it he might not be so young of heart. Their talk flitted here and there in exclamations, each bringing an entail of recollection of some familiar, enjoyed thing; and when at last it returned to their immediate surroundings the shadow of the range was creeping out onto the plain, cut by the brilliance of the sun through the V. Mary rose with a quick, self-accusing cry about the lateness of the hour. To him it was a call on his resources to delay their departure. "Do you see where that shelf breaks abruptly?" he asked. "It must be the side of a canyon. Have you ever looked down?" "I started to once." "I should not like to go over the pass again without seeing if this is really a canyon of any account. I feel myself quite an authority on canyons." "It will be dark before we reach Little Rivers!" she protested. "Ten minutes--only a step!" and he was appealing in his boyish fashion to have his way. "Nonsense! Besides, I do not care for canyons." "You still fear, then, to look down from walls? You--" And this decided her. On another occasion she had gone to the precipice edge and faltered. She would master her dizziness for once and all; he should not know from her any confession of a weakness which was purely of the imagination. The point to which he had alluded was an immense overhanging slab of granite stratum deep set in the mountain side. As they approached, a thrill of lightness and uncertainty was setting her limbs a-quiver. Her elbow was touching his, her will driving her feet forward desperately. Suddenly she was gazing down, down, down, into black depths which seemed calling irresistibly and melting her power of muscular volition, while he with another step was on the very edge, leaning over and smiling. She dropped back convulsively. He was all happy absorption in the face of that abyss. How easy for him to topple over and go hurtling into the chasm! "Don't!" she gasped, and blindly tugged at his arm to draw him back. As he looked around in surprise and inquiry, she withdrew her hand in a reaction against her familiarity, yet did not lower it, holding it out with fingers spread in expression of her horror. Serenely he regarded her for a moment in her confusion and distress, and then, smiling, while the still light of confidence was in his eyes, he locked his arm in hers. Before she could protest or resist he had drawn her to his side. "It is just as safe as looking off the roof of a porch on to a flower garden," he said. And why she knew not, but the fact had come as something definite and settled: she was no longer dizzy or uncertain. Calmly, in the triumph of mind over fear, in the glory of a new sensation of power, she looked down into that gulf of shadows--looked down for a thousand feet, where the narrowing, sheer walls merged into darkness. From this pit to the blue above there was only infinite silence, with no movement but his pulse-beat which she could feel in his wrist distinctly. He had her fast, a pawn of one of his impulses. A shiver of revolt ran through her. He had taken this liberty because she had shown weakness. And she was not weak. She had come to the precipice to prove that she was not. "Thank you. My little tremor of horror has passed," she told him. "I can stand without help, now." He released his hold and she stood quite free of him, a glance flashing her independence. Smilingly she looked down and smilingly and triumphantly back at him. "You need not keep your arm up in that fashion ready to assist me. It is tiring," she said, with a touch of her old fire of banter over the barrier. "I am all right, now. I don't know what gave me that giddy turn--probably sitting still so long and looking out at the blaze of the desert." He swept her with a look of admiration; and their eyes meeting, she looked back into the abyss. "I wish I had such courage," he said with sudden, tense earnestness; "courage to master my revulsion against shadows." "Perhaps it will come like an inspiration," she answered uncomprehendingly. Then both were silent until she spoke of a stunted little pine three or four hundred feet down, in the crotch of an outcropping. Its sinking roots had split a rock, over which the other roots sprawled in gnarly persistence. Some passing bird had dropped the seed which had found a bed in a pocket of dust from the erosions of time. So it had grown and set up housekeeping in its isolation, even as the community of Little Rivers had in a desert basin beside a water-course. "The little pine has courage--the courage of the dwarf," she said. "It is worth more than a whole forest of its majestic cousins in Maine. How green it is--greener than they!" "But they rise straight to heaven in their majesty!" he returned, to make controversy. "Yes, out of the ease of their rich beds!" "In a crowd and waiting for the axe!" "And this one, in its isolation, creating something where there was nothing! Every one of its needles is counted in its cost of birth out of the stubborn soil! And waiting all its life down there for the reward of a look and a word of praise!" "But," he went on, in the delight of hearing her voice in rebuttal, "the big pines give us the masts of ships and they build houses and furnish the kindling for the hardwood logs of the hearth!" "The little pine makes no pretensions. It has done more. It has given us something without which houses are empty: It has given us a thought!" "True!" he exclaimed soberly, yielding. And now all the lively signals of the impulse of action played on his face. "For your glance and your word of praise it shall pay you tribute!" he cried. "I am going down to bring you one of its clusters of spines." "But, Jack, it is a dangerous climb--it is late! No! no!" "No climb at all. It is easy if I work my way around by that ledge yonder. I see stepping-places all the way." How like him! While she thought only of the pine, he had been thinking how to make a descent; how to conquer some physical difficulty. Already he had started despite her protest. "I don't want to rob the little pine!" she called, testily. "I'll bring a needle, then!" "Even every needle is precious!" "I'll bring a dead one, then!" There was no combatting him, she knew, when he was headstrong; and when he was particularly headstrong he would laugh in his soft way. He was laughing now as he took off his spurs and tossed them aside. "No climbing in these cart-wheels, and I shall have to roll up my chaps!" She went back to the precipice edge to prove to him, to prove to herself, that she could stand there alone, without the moral support of anyone at her side, and found that she could. She had mastered her weakness. It was as if a new force had been born in her. She felt its stiffening in every fibre as she saw him pass around the ledge and start down toward the little pine; felt it as something which could build barriers and mount them with an invulnerable guard. How would he get past that steep shoulder? The worst obstacle confronted him at the very beginning of the descent. He was hugging a rock face, feeling his way, with nothing but a few inches of a projecting seam between him and the darkness far below. His foot slipped, his body turned half around, and she had a second of the horror that she had felt when waiting for the sound of Leddy's shot in Bill Lang's store. She saw his outspread hands clutching the seam above; watched for them to let go. But they held; the foot groped and got its footing again, and he worked his way out on a shelf. He was safe and she dropped on her knees weakly, still looking down at him. It was the old story of their relations. Was this man ever to be subjecting her to spasms of fear on his account? And there he was beaming up at her reassuringly, while she felt the blood which had gone from her face return in a hot flood. It brought with it anger in place of fear. "I don't want it! I don't want it!" she cried down. "And I want to get it for you! I want to get it for you--for you!" His voice was a tumult of emotion in the abandon of passionate declaration. So long had she held him back that now when the flood came it had the power of conserved strength bursting a dam in wild havoc. "There is nothing I would not like to do for you, Mary!" he cried. "I'd like to pull that pine up for you, even if it bled and suffered! I'd like to go on doing things for you forever!" There was not even a movement of her lips in answer. It seemed to her now that there on the precipice edge, while he held her arm in his, the iridescent house of glass had fallen about them in a confused, dazzling shower of wreckage. He had found an opening. He had broken through the barrier. Half unconscious of his progress, of the chasm itself, she waited in a daze and came out of it to see him sweeping his hat upward from beside the pine before he reached as far as he could among the branches and, with what seemed to her the refinement of effrontery and disregard of her wishes, broke off a tawny young branch. He waved it to her--this garland of conquest won out of the jaws of danger, which he was ready to throw at her feet from the lists. "No, no, no!" she said, half aloud. She saw him start back with his sure steps, his shoulders swinging with the lithe, adaptable movement of his body; and every step was drawing him nearer to a meeting which would be like no other between them. Soon he would be crunching the glass of the house under that confident tread; in the ecstasy of a new part he would be before the opening he had broken in the barrier with the jauntiness of one who expected admission. His pulse-beat under the touch of her fingers at the precipice edge, his artery-beat in the _arroyo_, was hammering in her temples, hammering out a decision which, when it came, brought her to her feet. Now the shadows were deep; all the glory of the sunset in the Eternal Painter's chaotic last moments of his day's work overspread the western sky, and from the furnace in which he dipped his brush came a blade of rich, blazing gold through the pass and lay across the trail. It enveloped her as, half running, mindless of her footing, slipping as she went, she hurried toward the other side of Galeria. When Jack Wingfield came up over the ledge, a pine tassel in his hand, his languor of other days transformed into high-strung, triumphant intensity, the sparkle of a splendid hope in his eyes, only Firio was there to welcome him. "Señorita Ewold said she no could wait," Firio explained. "It was very late, she said." Jack stopped as if struck and his features became a lifeless mask, as lifeless as the walls of the canyon. He looked down at the trophy of his climb and ran his fingers over the needles slowly, again and again, in abstraction. "I understand!" he said, half to himself; and then aloud: "Firio, we will not go into town to-night. We will camp on the other side by the river." "_Sí_! I shot enough quail this afternoon for dinner." But Jack did not have much appetite, and after dinner he did not amuse Firio with inventions of his fancy. He lay long awake, his head on his clasped hands, looking at the stars. XX A PUZZLED AMBASSADOR A faint aureole of light crept up back of the pass. "Dawn at last!" Jack breathed, in relief. "Firio! Firio! Up with you!" "Oh-yuh!" yawned Firio. "_Sí, sí_!" he said, rising numbly to his feet and rubbing his eyes with his fists, while he tried to comprehend an astonishing reversal of custom. Usually he awakened his camp-mate; but this morning his camp-mate had awakened him. A half shadow in the semi-darkness, Jack was already throwing the saddle over P.D.'s back. "We will get away at once," he said. Firio knew that something strange had come over Señor Jack after he had met Señorita Ewold on the pass, and now he was convinced that this thing had been working in Señor Jack's mind all night. "Coffee before we start?" he inquired ingratiatingly. "Coffee at the ranch," Jack answered. In their expeditious preparations for departure he hummed no snatches of song as a paean of stretching muscles and the expansion of his being with the full tide of the conscious life of day; and this, too, was contrary to custom. Before it was fairly light they were on the road, with Jack urging P.D. forward at a trot. The silence was soft with the shimmer of dawn; all glistening and still the roofs and trees of Little Rivers took form. The moist sweetness of its gardens perfumed the fresh morning air in greeting to the easy traveller, while the makers of gardens were yet asleep. It was the same hour that Mary had hurried forth after her wakeful night to stop the duel in the _arroyo_. As Jack approached the Ewold home he had a glimpse of something white, a woman's gown he thought, that disappeared behind the vines. He concluded that Mary must have risen early to watch the sunrise, and drew rein opposite the porch; but through the lace-work of the vines he saw that it was empty. Yet he was positive that he had seen her and that she must have seen him coming. She was missing the very glorious moment which she had risen to see. A rim of molten gold was showing in the defile and all the summits of the range were topped with flowing fire. "Mary!" he called. There was no answer. Had he been mistaken? Had mental suggestion played him a trick? Had his eyes personified a wish when they saw a figure on the steps? "Mary!" he called again, and his voice was loud enough for her to have heard if she were awake and near. Still there was no answer. The pass had now become a flaming vortex which bathed him in its far-spreading radiance. But he had lost interest in sunrises. A last backward, hungry glance over his shoulder as he started gave him a glimpse through the open door of the living-room, and he saw Mary leaning against the table looking down at her hands, which were half clasped in her lap, as if she were waiting for him to get out of the way. Thus he understood that he had ended their comradeship when he had broken through the barrier on the previous afternoon, and the only thing that could bring it back was the birth of a feeling in her greater than comradeship. His shoulders fell together, the reins loosened, while P.D., masterless if not riderless, proceeded homeward. "Hello, Jack!" It was the greeting of Bob Worther, the inspector of ditches, who was the only man abroad at that hour. Jack looked up with an effort to be genial and found Bob closely studying his features in a stare. "What's the matter, Bob?" he asked. "Has my complexion turned green over night or my nose slipped around to my ear?" "I was trying to make out if you do look like him!" Bob declared. "Like whom? What the deuce is the mystery?" "What--why, of course you're the most interested party and the only Little Riversite that don't know about it, seh!" After all, there was some compensation for early rising. Bob expanded with the privilege of being the first to break the news. "If you'd come yesterday you'd have seen him. He went by the noon train," he said, and proceeded with the story of Prather. Jack had never heard of the man before and was obviously uninterested. He did not seem to care if a dozen doubles came to town. "Oh, yes, there's another thing concerning you," Bob continued. "I was so interested in telling you about Prather that I near forgot it. A swell-looking fellow--says he's a doctor and he's got New York written all over him--came in yesterday particularly to see you." Though it was a saying in Little Rivers that nobody ever found Jack at a loss, he started perceptibly now. His fingers worked nervously on the reins and he bit his lips in irritation. "He was asking a lot of questions about you," Bob added. By this time Jack had summoned back his smile. He did not seem to mind if a dozen doctors came to town at the same time as a dozen doubles. "Did you tell him that I had a cough--kuh-er?" he asked, casually. "Why, no! I said you could thrash your weight in wildcats and he says, 'Well, he'll have to, yet!' and then shut up as if he'd overspoke himself--and I judge that he ain't the kind that does that often. But say, Jack," Bob demanded, in the alarm of local partisanship which apprehends that it may unwittingly have served an outside interest, "did you want us to dope it out that you were an invalid? We ain't been getting you in wrong, I hope?" "Not a bit!" answered Jack with a reassuring slap on Bob's shoulder. "Was his name Bennington?" "Yes, that's it." "Well," said Jack thoughtfully and with a return of his annoyance, "he will find me at home when he calls." And P.D. knew that the reins were still held in listless hands as he turned down the side street toward the new ranch. Firio was feeling like an astrologer who had lost faith in his crystal ball. An interrogation had taken the place of his confident "_Sí, sí_" of desert understanding of the mind of his patron. Jack had broken camp with the precipitancy of one who was eager to be quit of the trail and back at the ranch; yet he gave his young trees only a passing glance before entering the house. He had not wanted coffee on the road, yet coffee served with the crisp odor of bacon accompanying its aroma, after his bath and return to ranch clothes, found no appetite. He was as a man whose mind cannot hold fast to anything that he is doing. Firio, restless, worried, his eyes flicking covert glances, was frequently in and out of the living-room on one excuse or another. "What work to-day?" he asked, as he cleared away the breakfast dishes. "What has Señor Jack planned for us to do?" "The work to-day? The work to-day?" Jack repeated absently. "First the mail." He nodded toward a pile on the table. "And I shall make ready to stay a long time?" Firio insinuated softly. "No!" Jack answered to space. The pyramid of mail might have been a week's batch for the Doge himself. At the bottom were a number of books and above them magazines which Jack had subscribed for when he found that they were not on the Doge's list. There was only one letter as a first-class postage symbol of the exile's intimacy with the outside world, and out of this tumbled a check and a blank receipt to be filled in. He tore off the wrappers of the magazines as a means of some sort of physical occupation and rolled them into balls, which he cast at the waste-basket; but neither the contents of the magazines nor those of the newspapers seemed to interest him. His aspect was that of one waiting in a lobby to keep an appointment. When he heard steps on the porch he sang out cheerily, "Come in!" but, contrary to the habit of Little Rivers hospitality, he did not hasten to meet his caller, and any keenness of anticipation which he may have felt was well masked. There entered a man of middle age, with close-cropped gray beard, clad in soft flannels, the trousers bottoms turned up in New York fashion for negligee business suits for that spring. To the simple interior of a western ranch house he brought the atmosphere of complex civilization as a thing ineradicably bred into his being. It was evident, too, that he had been used to having his arrival in any room a moment of importance which summoned the rapt attention of everybody, whether nurses, fellow physicians, or the members of the patient's family. But this time that was lacking. The young man leaning against the table was not visibly impressed. "Hello, doctor!" said Jack, as unconcernedly as he would have passed the time of day with Jim Galway in the street. "Hello, Jack!" said the doctor. Jack went just half-way across the room to shake hands. Then he dropped back to his easy position, with the table as a rest, after he had set a chair for the visitor. "How do you like Little Rivers?" Jack asked. "I have been here only thirty-six hours," answered the doctor, avoiding a direct answer. He was pulling off his silk summer gloves, making the operation a trifle elaborate, one which seemed to require much attention. "I came pretty near mistaking another man for you, but his mole patch saved me. I didn't think you could have grown one out here. Wonderfully like you! Have you met him?" He glanced up as he asked this question, which seemed the first to occur to him as a warming-up topic of conversation before he came to the business in hand. "No. I have just heard of him," Jack answered. The doctor smiled at his gloves, which he now folded and put in his pocket. Don't the lecturers to young medical students say, "Divert your patient's mind to some topic other than himself as you get your first impression"? Now Dr. Bennington drew forward in his chair, rested the tips of the long fingers of a soft, capable hand on the edge of the table, and looked up to Jack in professional candor, sweeping him with the knowing eye of the modern confessor of the secrets of all manner of mankind. With the other hand he drew a stethoscope from his side coat-pocket. "Well, Jack, you can guess what brought me all the way from New York--just five minutes' work!" and he gave the symbol of examination a flourish in emphasis. "I don't think I have forgotten the etiquette of the patient on such occasions," Jack returned. "It is an easy function in this Arizona climate." He drew his shirt up from a compact loin and lean middle, revealing the arch of his deep chest, the flesh of which was healthy pink under neck and face plated with Indian tan. The doctor's eyes lighted with the bliss of a critic used to searching for flaws at sight of a masterpiece. While he conducted the initial plottings with the rubber cup which carried sounds to one of the most expensive senses of hearing in America, Jack was gazing out of the window, as if his mind were far away across the cactus-spotted levels. "Breathe deep!" commanded the doctor. Jack's nostrils quivered with the indrawing of a great gust of air and his diaphragm swelled until his ribs were like taut bowstrings. "And you were the pasty-faced weakling that left my office five years ago--and you, you husky giant, have brought me two thousand miles to see if you were really convalescent!" "I hope the trip will do you good!" said Jack, sweetly. "But it is great news that I take back, great news!" said the doctor, as he put the stethoscope in his pocket. "Yes?" returned Jack, slipping his head through his shirt. "You don't find even a speck?" "Not a speck! No sign of the lesion! There is no reason why you should not have gone home long ago." "No?" Jack was fastening his string tie and doing this with something of the urban nicety with which the doctor had folded his gloves. That tie was one of the few inheritances from complex civilization which still had Jack's favor. "What have you found to do all these years?" Jack was surprised at the question. "I have just wandered about and read and thought," he explained. "Without developing any sense of responsibility?" demanded the doctor in exasperation. "I have tried to be good to my horses, and of late I have taken to ranching. There is a lot of responsibility in that and care, too. Take the scale, for instance!" "A confounded little ranch out in this God-forsaken place, that a Swede immigrant might run!" "No, the Swedes aren't particularly good at irrigation, though better than the Dutch. You see, the Hollanders are used to having so much water that--" Jack was leaning idly against the table again. The fashionable practitioner, accustomed to having his words accepted at their cost price in gold, broke in hotly: "It is past all understanding! You, the heir to twenty millions!" "Is it twenty now?" Jack asked softly and sadly. "Nearer thirty, probably! And shirking your duty! Shirking and for what--for what?" Jack faced around. The doctor, meeting a calm eye that was quizzically challenging, paused abruptly, feeling that in some way he had been caught at a professional disadvantage in his outburst of emotion. "Don't you like Little Rivers?" asked Jack. "I should be bored to death!" the doctor admitted, honestly. "Well, you see this air never healed a lesion for you! You never uttered a prayer to it for strength with every breath! And, doctor," Jack hesitated, while his lips were half open, showing his even teeth slightly apart in the manner of a break in a story to the children where he expected them to be very attentive to what was coming, "you can take a piece of tissue and analyze it, yes, a piece of brain tissue and find all the blood-vessels, but not what a man was thinking, can you? Until you can take a precipitate of his thoughts--the very thoughts he is unconscious of himself--and put them under a microscope, why, there must be a lot of guesswork about the source of all unconventional human actions." Jack laughed over his invasion of psychology; and when he laughed in a certain way the impulse to join him was strong, as Mary first found on the pass. So the doctor laughed, partly in relief, perhaps, that this uncertain element which he was finding in Jack had not yet proved explosive. "That would make a capital excuse for a student flunking in examinations!" he said. "It might be a worthy one--not that I say it ought to pass him." "Now, Jack," the doctor began afresh, the reassuring force of his personality again in play. He took a step and raised his hands as if he would put them on Jack's shoulders. One could imagine him driving hypochondria out of many a patient's mind by thus making his own vigorous optimism flow down from his fingertips, while he looked into the patient's eye. But his hands remained in the air, though Jack had been only smiling at him. This was not the way to handle this patient, something told his trained, sensitive instinct in time, and he let his hands fall in semblance of a gesture of protest, gave a shrug and came directly to the point very genuinely. "Well, Jack--your father!" "Yes." And Jack's face was still and blank, while shadows played over it in a war among themselves. "He did not even tell me you were coming," he added. "Perhaps he feared that it would give you time to develop a cough or you would start overland to Chihuahua so I should miss you. Jack, he needs you! All that fortune waits for you!" "Now that I am strong, yes! He did not come out to see me even during the first year when I had not the health to go to him, nor did he think to come with you." "He--he is a very busy man!" explained the doctor, in ready championship. And yet he looked away from Jack, and when he looked back it was with an appeal to conscience rather than to filial affection. "Is it right to remain, however much you like this desert life? Have you any excuse?" "Yes, an overwhelming one!" exclaimed Jack in a voice that was high-pitched and determined, while his eyes burned and no trace of humor remained on lips that were as firm as the outline of his chin. "Yes, one that thrills me from head to foot with the steady ardor of the soldier who makes a siege!" "I--I--you are beyond me! Then you will stay? You are not coming home?" "Yes," Jack answered, in another mood, but one equally rigid. "I am coming at once. That was all settled last night under the stars. I have found the courage!" "The courage to go to twenty millions!" gasped the doctor. "But--good! You will go! That is enough! Why shouldn't we take the same train back?" he went on enthusiastically. "I shall be coming through here in less than a week. You see, I am so near California that I simply had to steal a few days with my sister, who can't come East on account of her health. I have been so tied down to practice that I have not seen her for fifteen years. That will give you time to arrange your affairs. How about it?" "It would be delightful, but--" Jack was hesitating. "No, I will refuse. You see, I rode horseback when I entered this valley for the first time and I should like to ride out in the way I came. Just sentiment!" "Jack!" exclaimed the doctor. He was casting about how to express his suspicion when something electric checked him--a current that began in Jack's measured glance. Jack was not mentioning that his word was being questioned, but something still and effective that came from far away out on the untrod desert was in the room. It fell on the nerves of the ambassador from the court of complex civilization like a sudden hush on a city's traffic. Jack broke the silence by asking, in a tone of lively hospitality: "You will join me at luncheon?" "I should like to," answered the doctor, "but I can catch a train on the other trunk line that will give me a few more hours with my sister. And what shall I wire your father? Have you any suggestion?" "Why, that he will be able to judge for himself in a few days how near cured I am." "You will wire him the date of your arrival?" "Yes." "Jack," said the doctor at the door, "that remark of yours about the analysis of brain tissue and of thought put a truth very happily. Come and see me and let me know how you get on. Good-by!" He took his departure thoughtfully, rather than with a sense of triumph over the success of a two-thousand-mile mission in the name of twenty millions. XXI "GOOD-BY, LITTLE RIVERS!" It was the thing thrilling him with the ardor of a soldier preparing for a siege that sent Jack to the Ewolds' later in the morning. He had come determined to finish the speech that he had called up to Mary from the canyon. As he crossed the cement bridge, Ignacio appeared on the path and took his position there obdurately, instead of standing to one side with a nod, as usual, to let the caller pass. "Señorita Ewold is not at home!" he announced, before Jack had spoken. "Not even in the garden?" "No, señor." "But she will be back soon?" "I do not think so." Ignacio's face was as blank as a wall, but knowingly, authoritatively blank. His brown eyes glistened with cold assurance. He seemed to have become the interpreter of a message in keeping with Mary's flight from the pass and her withdrawal from the porch when she had seen Jack approaching. Here was a new barrier which did not permit even banter across the crest. She must know that he was going, for the news of his approaching departure had already spread through the town. She had chosen not to see him again, even for a farewell. For a little time he stood in thought, while Ignacio remained steadfast on the path, watchful, perhaps, for the devil in Señor Don't Care to appear. Suddenly Jack's features glowed with action; he took a step as if he would sweep by Ignacio on into the garden. But the impulse instantly passed. He stopped, his face drawn as it had been when he fell limp against the hedge stricken by the horror of his seeming brutality to Pedro Nogales, and turned away into the street with a mask of smiles for the greetings and regrets of the friends whom he met. Worth twenty millions or twenty cents, he was still Jack to Little Rivers; still the knight who had come over the range to vanquish Pete Leddy; still a fellow-rancher in the full freemasonry of calloused hands; still the joyous teller of stories. The thought of losing him set tendrils in the ranchers' hearts twitching in sympathy with tendrils in his own, which he found rooted very deep now that he must tear them out. That afternoon at the appointed hour for his departure every man, woman, and child had assembled at the end of the main street, where it broke into the desert trail. The principal found an excuse for dismissing school an hour earlier than usual. That is, everyone was present except Mary. The Doge came, if a little late, to fulfil his function as chosen spokesman for all in bidding Jack Godspeed on his journey. "Señor Don't Care, you are a part of the history of Little Rivers!" he said, airily. "You have brought us something which we lacked in our singularly peaceful beginning. Without romance, sir, no community is complete. I have found you a felicitous disputant whom I shall miss; for you leave me to provide the arguments on both sides of a subject on the same evening. Our people have found you a neighbor of infinite resources of humor and cheer. We wish you a pleasant trail. We wish you warm sunshine when the weather is chill and shade when the weather is hot, and that you shall ever travel with a singing heart, while old age never overtakes the fancy of youth." Every one of the familiar faces grouped around the fine, cultured old face of the Doge expressed the thoughts to which he had given form. "May your arguments be as thick as fireflies, O Doge!" Jack answered, "everyone bearing a torch to illumine the outer darkness of ignorance! May every happy thought I have for Little Rivers spring up in a date-tree wonderful! Then, before the year is out, you will have a forest of date-trees stretching from foothills to foothills, across the whole valley." "And one more about the giant with the little voice and the dwarf with the big voice and the cat with the stripes down her back!" cried Belvy Smith, spokeswoman for the children. "Are they just going on forever having adventures and us never knowing about them?" "No. I have been holding back the last story," Jack said. "Both the giant and the dwarf were getting old, as you all know, and they were pretty badly battered up from their continual warfare. Why, the scar which the giant got on his forehead in their last battle was so big that if the dwarf had had it there would have been no top left to his head. After the cat had lost that precious black tip to her tail she became more and more thoughtful. She made up her mind to retire and reform and have a permanent home. And you know what a gift she had for planning out things and how clever she was about getting her own way. Now she sat in a hedge corner thinking and thinking and looking at the stubby end of her tail, and suddenly she cried, 'Eureka!' And what do you think she did? She went to a paint shop and had her left ear painted yellow and her right ear painted green. So, now you can see her any day sunning herself on the steps of the cottage where the giant and the dwarf live in peace. Whenever they have an inclination to quarrel she jumps between them and wiggles the yellow ear at the giant and the green ear at the dwarf, which fusses them both so that they promise to be good and rush off to get her a saucer of milk." "A green ear and a yellow ear! What a funny looking cat she must be!" exclaimed Belvy. "So she says to herself between purrs," concluded Jack. "But she is a philosopher and knows that she would look still funnier if she had lost her ears as Jag Ear has. Good-by, children! Good-by, everybody! Good-by, Little Rivers!" Jack gave P.D. a signal and the crowd broke into a cheer, which was punctuated by the music of Jag Ear's bells as his burrohood got in motion. The Doge, who had brought his horse, mounted. "I will ride a little distance with you," he said. He appeared like a man who had a great deal on his mind and yet was at a loss for words. There was the unprecedented situation of silence between the two exponents of persiflage in Little Rivers. "I--" he began, and paused as if the subject were too big for him and it were better not to begin at all. Then he drew rein. "Luck, Jack!" he said, simply, and there was something like pity in his tone. "And Mary--you will say good-by to her and thank her!" said Jack. "I think you may meet her," answered the Doge. "She went away early taking her luncheon, before she knew that you were going." So Ignacio had been acting on his own authority! The thrill of the news singing in Jack's veins was too overwhelming for him to notice the challenge and apprehension in the Doge's glance. The Doge saw the glow of a thousand happy, eager thoughts in Jack's face. He hesitated again on the brink of speech, before, with a toss of his leonine head as if he were veritably leaving fate's affairs to fate, he turned to go; and Jack mechanically touched P.D.'s rein, while he gazed toward the pass. P.D. had not gone many steps when Jack heard the same sonorous call that had greeted him that first night when he stopped before the door of the Ewolds; the call of a great, infectious fellowship between men: "Luck, Sir Chaps! I defy you to wear your spurs up the Avenue! Give my love to that new Campanile in Babylon, the Metropolitan tower! Get it in the mist! Get it under the sun! Kiss your hand to golden Diana, huntress of Manhattan's winds! Say ahoy to old Farragut! And on gray days have a look for me at the new Sorollas in the Museum! Luck, Sir Chaps!" "Good crops and a generous mail, O Doge!" Jack rode fast, in the gladness of a hope this side of the pass and in the face of shadows on the other side which he did not attempt to define. To Firio he seemed to have grown taller and older. XXII "LUCK, JACK, LUCK!" Apprehensively he watched the end of the ribbon running under P.D.'s hoofs for the sight of a horsewoman breaking free of the foothills. The momentary fear which rode with him was that Mary might be returning earlier than usual. If they met on the road--why, the road was without imagination and, in keeping with her new attitude toward him, she might pass him by with a nod. But at the top of the pass imagination would be supreme. There they had first met; there they had found their first thought in common in the ozone which had meant life to them both. He did not look up at the sky changes. As he climbed the winding path worn by moccasined feet before the Persians marched to Thermopylae, his mind was too occupied making pictures of its own in glowing anticipation to have any interest in outside pictures. This path was narrow. Here, at least, she must pause; and she must listen. Every turn which showed another empty stretch ahead sent his spirits soaring. Then he saw a pony with an empty side-saddle on the shelf. A few steps more and he saw Mary. She was seated with the defile at her back, her hands clasped over her knee. In this position, as in every position which she naturally took, she had a pliant and personal grace. The welter of light of the low sun was ablaze in her face. Her profile had a luminous wistfulness. Her lashes were half closed, at once retaining the vision of the panorama at her feet as a thing of atmospheric enjoyment and shutting it out from the intimacy of her thoughts. And more enveloping than the light was the silence which held her in a spell as still as the rocks themselves, waiting on time's dispensation where time was nothing. Yet the soft movement of her bosom with her even breaths triumphed in a life supreme and palpitant over all that dead world. Thus he drank her in before the crunch of a stone under his heel warned her of his presence and set her breaths going and coming in quick gusts as she wheeled around, half rising and then dropping back to a position as still as before, with a trace of new dignity in her grace, while her starkness of inquiry gradually changed to stoicism. "Mary, I came upon you very suddenly," he said. "Yes"--a bare, echoing monosyllable. He stepped to one side to let Firio and his little cavalcade pass. All the while she continued to look at him through the screen of her half-closed lashes in a way that set her repose and charm apart as something precious and cold and baffling. Now he realized that he had made a breach in the barrier of their old relations only to find himself in a garden whose flowers fell to ashes at his touch. He saw the light that enveloped her as an armor far less vulnerable than any wall, and the splendor of her was growing in his eyes. Jag Ear's bells with their warm and merry notes became a faint tinkle that was lost in the depths of the defile. The two were alone on the spot where the Eternal Painter had introduced them so simply as Jack and Mary, and where he, as the easy traveller, had listened to her plead for his own life. It was his turn to plead. She was not to be won by fighting Leddys or tearing up pine-trees by their roots. That armor was without a joint; a lance would bend like so much tin against its plates, and yet there must be some alchemy that would make it melt as a mist before the sun. It was tenanted by a being all sentiency, which saw him through her visor as a passer-by in a gallery. But one in armor does not fly from passers-by as she had flown while he was climbing up the canyon wall with his pine-tree branch. "I have learned now to look over any kind of a precipice without getting dizzy," she announced, quietly. He was not the Jack who had come over the ledge in the energy of his passion yesterday to find her gone. He had turned gentle and was smiling with craved permission for a respite from her evident severity as he dropped to a half-lying posture near her. Overhead, the Eternal Painter was throwing in the smoky purple of a false thunderhead, sweeping it away with the promise of a downpour, rolling in piles of silver clouds and drawing them out into filmy fingers melting into a luminous blue. "One can never tire of this," he said, tentatively. "To me it is all!" she answered, in an absorption with the scene that made him as inconsequential as the rocks around her. "And you never long for cities, with their swift currents and busy eddies?" he asked. "Cities are life, the life of humanity, and I am human. I--" The unfinished sentence sank into the silence of things inexpressible or which it was purposeless to express. Her voice suggested the tinkle of Jag Ear's bells floating away into space. If a precipitate were taken from her forehead, in keeping with Jack's suggestion to Dr. Bennington, it would have been mercury, which is so tangible to the eye and intangible to the touch. Press it and it breaks into little globules, only to be shaken together in a coherent whole. If there is joy or pain in the breaking, either one must be glittering and immeasurable. "But Little Rivers is best," she added after a time, speaking not to him, but devoutly to the oasis of green. In the crystal air Little Rivers seemed so near that one could touch the roofs of the houses with the fingertips of an extended arm, and yet so diminutive in the spacious bosom of the plateau that it might be set in the palm of the hand. Jack was as one afraid of his own power of speech. A misplaced word might send her away as oblivious of him as a globule of mercury rolling free from the grasp. Here was a Mary unfathomed of all his hazards of study, undreamed of in all his flights of fancy. "It is my last view," he began. "I have said all my good-bys in town. I am going." Covertly, fearfully, he watched the effect of the news. At least now she would look around at him. He would no longer have to talk to a profile and to the golden mist of the horizon about the greatest thing of his life. But there was no sign of surprise; not even an inclination of her head. "Yes," she told the horizon; and after a little silence added: "The time has come to play another part?" She asked the question of the horizon, without any trace of the old banter over the wall. She asked it in confirmation of a commonplace. "I know that you have always thought of me as playing a part. But I am not my own master. I must go. I--" "Back to your millions!" She finished the sentence for him. "Then you--you knew! You knew!" But his exclamation of astonishment did not move her to a glance in his direction or even a tremor. "Yes," she went on. "Father told me about your millions last night. He has known from the first who you were." "And he told no one else in Little Rivers? He never mentioned it to me or even to you before!" "Why should he when you did not mention it yourself? His omission was natural delicacy, in keeping with your own attitude. Isn't it part of the custom of Little Rivers that pasts melt into the desert? There is no standard except the conduct of the present!" And all this speech was in a monotone of quiet explanation. "He did not even tell you until last night! Until after our meeting on the other side of the pass! It is strange! strange!" he repeated in the insistence of wonder. He saw the lashes part a little, then quiver and close as she lifted her gaze from the horizon rim to the vortex of the sun. Then she smiled wearily. "He likes a joke," she said. "Probably he enjoyed his knowledge of your secret and wanted to see if I would guess the truth before you were through playing your part." "But the part was not a part!" he said, with the emphasis of fire creeping along a fuse. "It was real. I do not want to leave Little Rivers!" "Not in your present enthusiasm," she returned with a warning inflection of literalness, when he would have welcomed satire, anger, or any reprisal of words as something live and warm; something on which his mind could lay definite hold. In her impersonal calm she was subjecting him to an exquisite torture. He was a man flayed past all endurance, flayed by a love that fed on the revelation of a mystery in her being superbly in control. The riot of all the colors of the sky spoke from his eyes as he sprang to his feet. He became as intense as in the supreme moment in the _arroyo_; as reckless as when he walked across the store toward a gun-muzzle. Only hers were this time the set, still features. His were lighted with all the strength of him and all the faith of him. "A part!" he cried. "Yes, a part--a sovereign and true part which I shall ever play! I was going that day we first met, going before the legate of the millions came to me. Why did I stay? Because I could not go when I saw that you wanted to turn me out of the garden!" His quivering words were spoken to a profile of bronze, over which flickered a smile as she answered with a prompting and disinterested analysis. "You said it was to make callouses on your hands. But that must have been persiflage. The truth is that you imagined a challenger. You wanted to win a victory!" she answered. "It was for you that I calloused my hands!" "Time will make them soft!" She was half teasing now, but teasing through the visor, not over the wall. "And if I sought victory I saw that I was being beaten while I made a profession of you, not of gardening! Yes, of you! I could confess it to all the world and its ridicule!" "Jack, you are dramatic!" If she would only once look at him! If he could only speak into her eyes! If her breaths did not come and go so regularly! "Why did I take to the trail after Pedro Nogales struck at me with his knife? Because I saw the look on your face when you saw that I had broken his arm. I had not meant to break his arm--yet I know that I might have done worse but for you! I did not mean to kill Leddy--yet there was something in me which might have killed him but for you!" "I am glad to have prevented murder!" she answered almost harshly. A shadow of horror, as if in recollection of the scene in the _arroyo_ and beside the hedge, passed over her face. "Yes, I understand! I understand!" he said. "And you must hear why this terrible impulse rose in me." "I know." "You know? You know?" he repeated. "About the millions," she corrected herself, hastily. "Go on, Jack, if you wish!" Urgency crept into her tone, the urgency of wishing to have done with a scene which she was bearing with the fortitude of tightened nerves. "It was the millions that sent me out here with a message, when I did not much care about anything, and their message was: 'We do not want to see you again if you are to be forever a weakling. Get strong, for our power is to the strong! Get strong, or do not come back!'" "Yes?" For the first time since he had begun his story she looked fairly at him. It was as if the armor had melted with sympathy and pity and she, in the pride of the poverty of Little Rivers, was armed with a Samaritan kindliness. For a second only he saw her thus, before she looked away to the horizon and he saw that she was again in armor. "And I craved strength! It was my one way to make good. I rode the solitudes, following the seasons, getting strength. I rejoiced in the tan of my arm and the movement of my own muscles. I learned to love the feel of a rifle-stock against my shoulder, the touch of the trigger to my finger's end. I would shoot at the cactus in the moonlight--oh, that is difficult, shooting by moonlight!--and I gloried in my increasing accuracy--I, the weakling of libraries and galleries and sunny verandas of tourist resorts! Afraid at first of a precipice's edge, I came to enjoy looking over into abysses and in spending a whole day climbing down into their depths, while Firio waited in camp. And at times I would cry out: 'Millions, I am strong! I am not afraid of you! I am not afraid of anything!' In the days when I knew I could never be acceptable as their master I knew I was in no danger of ever having to face them. When I had grown strong, less than ever did I want to face them. I know not why, but I saw shadows; I looked into another kind of depths--mental depths--which held a message that I feared. So I procrastinated, staying on in the air which had given me red blood. But that was cowardly, and that day I came over the pass I was making my last ride in the kingdom of irresponsibility. I was going home! "When you asked me not to face Leddy I simply had to refuse. I had just as soon as not that Leddy would shoot at me, because I wanted to see if he would. Yes, I was strong. I had conquered. And if Leddy hit me, why, I did not have to go back to battle with the shadows--the obsession of shadows which had grown in my mind as my strength grew. When I was smiling in Leddy's muzzle, as they say I did, I was just smiling exultantly at the millions that had called me a weakling, and saying, like some boaster, 'Could you do this, millions?' I--I--well, Mary, I--I have told you what I never was quite able to tell myself before." "Thank you, Jack!" she answered, and all the particles of sunlight that bathed her seemed to reflect her quiet gladness as something detached, permeating, and transcendent. "When Leddy challenged me I wanted to fight," he went on. "I wanted to see how cool I, the weakling whom the millions scorned, could be in battle. After Leddy's shot in the _arroyo_ I found that strength had discovered something else in me--something that had lain dormant in boyhood and had not awakened to any consciousness of itself in the five years on the desert--something of which all my boyhood training made me no less afraid than of the shadows, born of the blood, born of the very strength I had won. It seemed to run counter to books and gardens and peace itself--a lawless, devil-like creature! Yes, I gloried in the fact that I could kill Leddy. It was an intoxication to hold a steady bead on him. And you saw and felt that in me--yes, I tell you everything as a man must when he comes to a woman offering himself, his all, with his angels, his devils, and his dreams!" He paused trembling, as before a judge. She turned quickly, with a sudden, winsome vivacity, the glow of a great satisfaction in her eyes and smiling a comradeship which made her old attitude over the wall a thing of dross and yet far more intimate. Her hand went out to meet his. "Jack, we have had good times together," she said. "We were never mawkish; we were just good citizens of Little Rivers, weren't we? And, Jack, every mortal of us is partly what he is born and the rest is what he can do to bend inheritance to his will. But we can never quite transform our inheritance and if we stifle it, some day it will break loose. The first thing is to face what seems born in us, and you have made a good beginning." She gave his hands a nervous, earnest clasp and withdrew hers as she rose. So they stood facing each other, she in the panoply of good will, he with his heart on his sleeve. The swiftly changing pictures of the Eternal Painter in his evening orgy seemed to fill the air with the music of a symphony in its last measures, and her very breaths and smiles to be keeping time with its irresistible movement toward the finale. "I must be starting back, Jack," she said. "And, Mary, I must learn how to master the millions. Oh, I have not the courage of the little dwarf pine in the canyon! Mary, Mary, I calloused my hands for you! I want to master the millions for you! I would give you the freedom of Little Rivers and all the cities of the world!" "No, Jack! This is my side of the pass. I shall be very happy here." "Then I will stay in Little Rivers! I will leave the millions to the shadows! I will stay on ranch-making, fortune-making. Mary, I love you! I love you!" There was no staying the flame of his feeling. He seized her hands; he drew her to him. But her hands were cold; they were shivering. "Jack! No, no! It is not in the blood!" she cried in the face of some mocking phantom, her calmness gone and her words rocking with the tumult of emotion. "In the blood, Mary? What do you mean? What do you know that I don't know? Do you know those shadows that I cannot understand better than I?" he pleaded; and he was thinking of the Doge's look of pity and challenge and of the meeting long ago in Florence as the hazy filaments of a mystery. "No, I should not have said that. What do I know? Little--nothing that will help! I know what is in me, as I know what is in you. I am afraid of myself--afraid of you!" "Mary, I will fight all the shadows!" He drew her close to him resistlessly in his might. "Jack, you will not use your strength against me! Jack!" He saw her eyes in a mist of pain and reproach as he released her. And now she threw back her head; she was smiling in the philosophy of garden nonsense as she cried: "Good-by, Jack! Luck against the dinosaur! Don't press him too hard when he is turning a sharp corner. Remember he has a long reach with his old paleozoic tail. Luck!" with a laugh through her tears; a laugh with tremulous cheer in it and yet with the ring of a key in the lock of a gate. Unsteadily he bent over and taking her hands in his pressed his lips to them. "Yes, luck!" he repeated, and half staggering turned toward the defile. "Luck!" she called after him when he was out of sight. "Luck!" she called to the silence of the pass. Three days with the trail and the Eternal Painter mocking him, when the singing of Spanish verses that go click with the beat of horse-hoofs in the sand sounded hollow as the refrain of vain memories, and from the steps of a Pullman he had a final glimpse of Firio's mournful face, with its dark eyes shining in the light of the station lamp. Firio had in his hand a paper, a sort of will and testament given him at the last minute, which made him master in fee simple of the ranch where he had been servant, with the provision that the Doge of Little Rivers might store his overflow of books there forever. PART II HE FINDS HIMSELF XXIII LABELLED AND SHIPPED Behold Jack clad in the habiliments of conventional civilization taken from the stock of ready-made suitings in an El Paso store! They were of the Moscowitz and Guggenheim type, the very latest and nattiest, as advertised in popular prints. The dealer said that no gentleman could be well dressed without them. He wanted to complete the transformation with a cream-colored Fedora or a brown derby. "I'll wait on the thirty-third degree a little longer," said Jack, fondling the flat-brimmed cowpuncher model of affectionate predilection. Swinging on a hook on the sleeper with the sway of the train, its company was soothing to him all the way across the continent. The time was March, that season of the northern year when winter growing stale has a gritty, sticky taste and the relief of spring seems yet far away. After the desert air the steam heat was stifling and nauseating. Jack's head was a barrel about to burst its hoops; his skin drying like a mummy's; his muscles in a starchy misery from lack of exercise. He felt boxed up, an express package labelled and shipped. When he crawled into his berth at night it was with a sense of giving himself up to asphyxiation at the whim of strange gods. If you have ever come back to town after six months in the woods, six months far from the hysteria of tittering electric bells, the brassy honk-honk of automobiles, the clang of surface cars and the screech of their wheels on the rails, multiply your period of absence by ten, add a certain amount of desert temperament, and you will vaguely understand how the red corpuscles were raising rebellion in Jack's artery walls on the morning of his journey's end. From the ferryboat on the dull-green bosom of the river he first renewed his memory of the spectral and forbidding abysses and pinnacles of New York. Here time is everything; here man has done his mightiest in contriving masses to imitate the architectural chaos of genesis. A mantle of chill, smoky mist formed the dome of heaven, in which a pale, suffused, yellowish spot alone bespoke the existence of a sun in the universe. In keeping with his promise to Dr. Bennington he had wired to his father, naming his train; and in a few minutes Wingfield, Sr. and Wingfield, Jr. would meet for the first time in five years. Jack was conscious of a faster beating of his heart and a feeling of awesome expectancy as the crowd debouched from the ferryboat. At the exit to the street a big limousine was waiting. The gilt initials on the door left no doubt for whom it had been sent. But there was no one to meet him, no one after his long absence except a chauffeur and a footman, who glanced at Jack sharply. After the exchange of a corroborative nod between them the footman advanced. "If you please, Mr. Wingfield," he said, taking Jack's suit case. "What would Jim Galway think of me now!" thought Jack. He put his head inside the car cautiously. "Another box!" he thought, this time aloud. "You have the check for it, sir?" asked the footman, thinking that Jack was using the English of the mother island for trunk. "No. That's all my baggage." In the tapering, cut-glass vase between the two front window-panels of the "box" was a rose--a symbol of the luxury of the twenty millions, evidently put there regularly every morning by direction of their master. Its freshness and color appealed to Jack. He took it out and pressed it to his nostrils. "Just needs the morning sun and the dew to be perfect," he said to the amazed attendants; "and I will walk if you will take the suit case to the house." He kept the rose, which he twirled in his fingers as he sauntered across town, now pausing at curb corners to glance back in thoughtful survey, now looking aloft at the peaks of Broadway which lay beyond the foothills of the river-front avenues. "All to me what the desert is to other folks!" he mused; "desert, without any cacti or mesquite! All the trails cross one another in a maze. A boxed-up desert--boxes and boxes piled on top of one another! Everybody in harness and attached by an invisible, unbreakable, inelastic leash to a box, whither he bears his honey or goes to nurse his broken wings!--so it seems to me and very headachy!" At Madison Square he was at the base of the range itself; and halting on the corner of Twenty-third Street and the Avenue he was a statue as aloof as the statue of Farragut from his surroundings. Salt sea spray ever whispers in the atmosphere around the old sailor. How St. Gaudens created it and keeps it there in the heart of New York is his secret. Possibly the sculptor put some of his soul into it as young Michael Angelo did into his young David. It is a great thing to put some of your soul into a thing, whether it is driving a nail or moulding a piece of clay into life. There are men who pause before the old Admiral and see the cutwater of men-of-war's bows and hear the singing of the signal halyards as they rise with the command to close in. Perhaps the Eternal Painter had put a little of his soul into the heart of Jack; for some busy marchers of the Avenue trail as they glanced at him saw the free desert and heard hoof-beats in the sand. Others seeing a tanned Westerner kissing his hand to Diana of Madison Square Garden probably thought him mad. Next, performing another sentimental errand for the Doge of Little Rivers, his gaze rose along the column of the Metropolitan tower. Its heights were half shrouded in mist, through which glowed the gold of the lantern. "Oh, bully! bully!" he thought. "The only sun in sight a manufactured one, shining on top of a manufactured mountain! It is a big business building a mountain; only, when God Almighty scattered so many ready-made ones about, why take the trouble?" he concluded. "Or so it seems to me," he added, sadly, in due appreciation of the utterly reactionary mood of a man who has been boxed up for a week. Now he turned toward a quarter which he had, thus far, kept out of the compass of observation. He looked up the jagged range of Broadway where, over a terra-cotta pile, floated a crimson flag with "John Wingfield" in big, white letters. "My mountain! My box! My millions!" he breathed half audibly. How the people whom he passed, their faces speaking city keenness of ambition, must envy his position! How little reason they had to envy him, he thought, as he walked around the great building and saw his name glaring at him in gilt letters over the plate-glass windows and on all the delivery wagons, open-mouthed for the packages being wheeled out under the long glass awning. "A whole block now! Yes, the doctor was right. It must be thirty instead of twenty millions!" he concluded, as his vision swept the straight-line, window-checkered mass of the twelve stories. "And I do wish we had a tower! If one could go up on top of a tower and look out over the range now and then and breathe deep, it would help." When he entered the main door he paused in a maze, gazing at the acreage of counters manned by clerks and the aisles swarming with shoppers under the glare of the big, electric globes, and listening to the babble of shrill talk, the calls of the elevator boys, the coughing of the pneumatic tubes and the clang of the elevator doors. It was all like some devilishly complicated dream from which he would never awake. He must have a little time in order to orient himself before he could think rationally. The roar of the train still obsessed him; the air in the store seemed more stifling than that of the sleeper. So he decided that, rather than be shot up into The Presence by the elevator, he would gradually scale the heights. Ascending stairway after stairway, he ranged back and forth over the floors, a stranger in his own wonderland. When he reached the eleventh floor, with only one more to the offices, the whole atmosphere seemed suddenly to turn rare with expectancy; a rustle to run through all the goods on the counters; the very Paris gowns among which he was standing to be called to martial attention. "The boss!" he heard one of the model girls say. Turning to follow her nod toward the stairway, Jack saw, two-thirds of the way up the broad flight, a man past middle age, in dark gray suit and neutral tie, rubbing his palms together as he surveyed a stratum of his principality. The sight of him to Jack was like the touch of a myriad electric needles that pricked sharply, without exhilaration. "The boss is likely to run up that way any time of the day," said the model girl to a customer; "and what he don't see don't count!" "Not much older; not much changed!" thought Jack; and his realization of the disinterestedness of his observation tipped the needles with acid. In the sharpness of the master's button-counting survey there was swift finality; and his impressions completed, analyzed, docketed for reference, he ran on up the flight with light step, still rubbing the palms of his hands in the unctuously well-contained and appreciative sense of his power. To Jack he was a fascinating, grand, distant figure, this of his own father, yet mortally near. If the model girl had had the same keenness of observation for what is borne in the face as for what is worn on the back, she could not have failed to note the strong family resemblance between the young man standing near her and the man who had paused on the stairway. This glimpse of his father's mastery of every detail of that organization which he had built, this glimpse of cool, self-centered authority, only reminded Jack of his own ignorance and flightiness in view of all that would be expected of him. He knew less than one of the cash girls about how to run the store. A duel with Leddy was a simple matter beside this battle he had to wage. He mounted the last flight of stairs into an area of glass-paneled doors, behind which the creative business of the great concern was conducted. Out of one marked "Private," closing it softly and stepping softly, came a round-shouldered, stooping man of middle age, with the apprehensive and palliating manner of a long-service private secretary who has many things to remember and many persons to appease with explanations. It was evident that Peter Mortimer had just come from The Presence. At sight of Jack he drew back in a surprise that broke into a beaming delight which played over his tired and wrinkled features in ecstasy. "Jack! Jack! You did it! You did it!" he cried. "Peter!" Jack seized the secretary's hands and swung them back and forth. "You've got a grip of iron! And tanned--my, how you're tanned! You did it, Jack, you did it! It hardly seems credible, when I think of the last time I saw you." It was then that the secretary had seen a Jack with his eyes moist; a Jack pasty-faced, hollow-cheeked; and, in what was a revolutionary outburst for a unit in the offices, Peter Mortimer had put his arm around the boy in a cry for the success of the Odyssey for health which the heir was about to begin. And Mortimer's words were sweet, while the words of the farewell from the other side of the glass-paneled door marked "Private" were acrid with the disappointed hopes of the speaker. "You have always been a weakling, Jack, and I have had little to say about your rearing. Go out to the desert and stay--stay till you are strong!" declared the voice of strength, as if glad to be freed of the sight of weakness in its own image. "Father did not come to meet me?" Jack observed questioningly now to Mortimer. "He was very busy--he did not feel certain about the nature of your telegram--he--" and Mortimer's impulses withdrew into the shell of the professional private secretary. "I wired that he should see for himself if I were well. So he shall!" said Jack, turning toward the door. "Yes--that will be all right--yes, there is no one with him!" Mortimer, in the very instinct of long practice, was about to go in to announce the visitor, but paused. As Jack entered, whatever else may have been in his eyes, there was no moisture. XXIV IN THE CITADEL OF THE MILLIONS John Wingfield, Sr. sat at a mahogany table without a single drawer, in the centre of a large room with bare, green-tinted walls. His oculist had said that green was the best color for the eyes. Beside the green blotting-pad in front of him was a pile of papers. These would either be disposed of in the course of the day or, if any waited on the morrow's decision, would be taken away by Peter Mortimer overnight. When he rose to go home it was always with a clear desk; a habit, a belief of his singularly well-ordered mind in the mastery of the teeming detail that throbbed under the thin soles of his soft kid shoes. On the other side of the pad was the telephone, and beyond it the supreme implements of his will, a row of pearl-topped push-buttons. The story of John Wingfield, Sr.'s rise and career, as the lieutenants of the offices and the battalions of the shopping floors knew it, was not the story, perhaps, as Dr. Bennington or Peter Mortimer knew it; but, then, doctors and private secretaries are supposed to hold their secrets. There was little out of the commonplace in the world's accepted version. You may hear its like from the moneyed host at his dinner table in New York or as he shows you over the acres of his country estate, enthusing with a personal narrative of conquest which is to him unique. John Wingfield, Sr. makes history for us in the type of woman whom he married and the type of son she bore him. He was the son of a New England country clergyman, to whom working his way through college in order to practise a profession made no appeal. Birth and boyhood in poverty had taught him, from want of money, the power of money. He sought the centre of the market-place. At sixteen he was a clerk, marked by his industry not less than by his engaging manners, on six dollars a week in the little store that was the site of his present triumph. Of course he became a partner and then owner. It was his frequent remark, when he turned reminiscent, that if he could only get as good clerks as he was in his day he would soon have a monopoly of supplying New York and its environs with all it ate and wore and needed to furnish its houses; which raises the point that possibly such an equality of high standards in efficiency might make all clerks employers. The steady flame of his egoism was fanned with his Successes. Without real intimates or friends, he had an effective magnetism in making others do his bidding. It had hardly occurred to him that his discovery of the principle of never doing anything yourself that you can win others to do for you and never failing, when you have a minute to spare, to do a thing yourself when you can do it better than any assistant, was already a practice with leaders in trade and industry before the Pharaohs. Life had been to him a ladder which he ascended without any glances to right or left or at the rung that he had left behind. The adaptable processes of his mind kept pace with his rise. He made himself at home in each higher stratum of atmosphere. His marriage, delayed until he was forty and already a man of power, was still another upward step. Alice Jamison brought him capital and position. The world was puzzled why she should have accepted him; but this stroke of success he now considered as the vital error of a career which, otherwise, had been flawlessly planned. Yet he could flatter his egoism with the thought that it was less a fault of judgment than of the uncertainty of feminine temperament, which could not be measured by logic. New York saw little of Mrs. Wingfield after Jack's birth. Her friends knew her as a creature all life and light before her marriage; they realized that the life and light had passed out of her soon after the boy came; and thenceforth they saw and heard little of her. She had given herself up to the insistent possessorship and company of her son. Those who met her when travelling reported how frail she was and how constrained. Jack was fourteen when his mother died. He was brought home and sent to school in America; and two-years later Dr. Bennington announced that the slender youngster, who had been so completely estranged from the affairs of the store, must matriculate in the ozone of high altitudes instead of in college, if his life were to be saved. Whether Jack were riding over the _mesas_ of Arizona or playing in a villa garden in Florence, John Wingfield, Sr.'s outlook on life was the same. It was the obsession of self in his affairs. After the eclipse of his egoism the deluge. The very thought that anyone should succeed him was a shock reminding him of growing age in the midst of the full possession of his faculties, while he felt no diminution of his ambition. "I am getting better," came the occasional message from that stranger son. And the father kept on playing the tune of accruing millions on the push-buttons. His decision to send Dr. Bennington to Arizona came suddenly, just after he had turned sixty-three. He had had an attack of grip at the same time that his attention had been acutely called to the demoralization of another great business institution whose head had died without issue, leaving his affairs in the hands of trustees. Two days of confinement in his room with a high pulse had brought reflection and the development of atavism. What if the institution built as a monument to himself should also pass! What if the name of Wingfield, his name, should no longer float twelve stories high over his building! He foresaw the promise of companionship of a restless and ghastly apparition in the future. But he recovered rapidly from his illness and his mental processes were as keen and prehensile as ever. Checking off one against the other, with customary shrewdness, he had a number of doctors go over him, and all agreed that he was good for twenty years yet. Twenty years! Why, Jack would be middle-aged by that time! Twenty years was the difference between forty-three and sixty-three. Since he was forty-three he had quintupled his fortune. He would at least double it again. He was not old; he was young; he was an exceptional man who had taken good care of himself. The threescore and ten heresy could not apply to him. Bennington's telegram irritated him with its lack of precision. Fifteen hundred dollars and expenses to send an expert to Arizona and in return this unbusinesslike report: "You will see Jack for yourself. He is coming." In the full enjoyment of health, observing every nice rule for longevity, his slumber sweet, his appetite good, John Wingfield, Sr. had less interest in John Wingfield, Jr. than he had when his bones were aching with the grip. Jack's telegram from Chicago announcing the train by which he would arrive aroused an old resentment, which dated far back to Jack's childhood and to a frail woman who had been proof against her husband's will. Did this home-coming mean a son who could learn the business; a strong, shrewd, cool-headed son? A son who could be such an adjutant as only one who is of your own flesh and blood can be in the full pursuit of the same family interest as yourself? If Jack were well, would not Bennington have said so? Would he not have emphasized it? This was human nature as John Wingfield, Sr. knew it; human nature which never missed a chance to ingratiate itself by announcing success in the service of a man of power. The spirit of his farewell message to Jack, which said that strength might return but bade weakness to remain away, and the injured pride of seeing a presentment of wounded egoism in the features of a sickly boy, which had kept him from going to Arizona, were again dominant. Yet that morning he had a pressing sense of distraction. Even Mortimer noticed it as something unusual and amazing. He kept reverting to Jack's history between flashes of apprehension and he was angry with himself over his inability to concentrate his mind. Concentration was his god. He could turn from lace-buyer to floor-walker with the quickness of the swing of an electric switch. Concentrate and he was oblivious to everything but the subject in hand. He was in one of the moments of apprehension, half staring at the buttons on the desk rather than at the papers, when he heard the door open without warning and looked up to see a lean, sturdy height filling the doorway and the light from the window full on a bronzed and serene face. More than ever was Jack like David come over the hills in his incarnation of sleeping energy. Instead of a sling he carried the rose. Into the abode of the nicely governed rules of longevity came the atmosphere of some invasive spirit that would make the stake of life the foam on the crest of a charge in a splendid moment; the spirit of Señor Don't Care pausing inquiringly, almost apologetically, as some soldier in dusty khaki might if he had marched into a study unawares. Jack was waiting, waiting and smiling, for his father to speak. In a swift survey, his features transfixed at first with astonishment, then glowing with pride, the father half rose from his chair, as if in an impulse to embrace the prodigal. But he paused. He felt that something under his control was getting out of his control. He felt that he had been tricked. The boy must have been well for a long time. Yes! But he was well! That was the vital point. He was well, and magnificent in his vigor. The father made another movement; and still Jack was waiting, inquiring yet not advancing. And John Wingfield, Sr. wished that he had gone to the station; he wished that he had paid a visit to Arizona. This thought working in his mind supplied Jack's attitude with an aspect which made the father hesitate and then drop back into his chair, confused and uncertain for the first time in his own office. "Well, Jack, you--you surely do look cured!" he said awkwardly. "You see, I--I was a little surprised to see you at the office. I sent the limousine for you, thinking you would want to go straight to the house and wash off the dust of travel. Didn't you connect?" "Yes, thank you, father--and when you didn't meet me--" "I--I was very busy. I meant to, but something interrupted--I--" The father stopped, confounded by his own hesitation. "Of course," said Jack. He spoke deferentially, understandingly. "I know how busy you always are." Yet the tone was such to John Wingfield, Sr.'s ears that he eyed Jack cautiously, sharply, in the expectancy that almost any kind of undisciplined force might break loose from this muscular giant whom he was trying to reconcile with the Jack whom he had last seen. "I thought I'd stretch my legs, so I came over to the store to see how it had grown," said Jack. "I don't interrupt--for a moment?" He sat down on the chair opposite his father's and laid his faded cowpuncher hat and the rose on the desk. They looked odd in the company of the pushbuttons and the pile of papers in that neutral-toned room which was chilling in its monotony of color. And though Jack was almost boyishly penitent, in the manner of one who comes before parental authority after he has been in mischief, still John Wingfield, Sr. could not escape the dead weight of an impression that he was speaking to a stranger and not to his own flesh and blood. He wished now that he had shown affection on Jack's entrance. He had a desire to grip the brown hand that was on the edge of the desk fingering the rose stem; but the lateness of the demonstration, its futility in making up for his previous neglect, and some subtle influence radiating from Jack's person, restrained him. It was apparent that Jack might sit on in silence indefinitely; in a desert silence. "Well, Jack, I hear you had a ranch," said the father, with a faint effort at jocularity. "Yes, and a great crop of alfalfa," answered Jack, happily. "And it seems that all the time you were away you have never used your allowance, so it has just been piling up for you." "I didn't need it. I had quite sufficient from the income of my mother's estate." "Yes--your mother--I had forgotten!" "Naturally, I preferred to use that, when I was of so little service to you unless I got strong, as you said," Jack said, very quietly. Now came another silence, the silence of luminous, unsounded depths concealing that in the mind which has never been spoken or even taken form. Jack's garden of words had dried up, as his ranch would dry up for want of water. He rose to go, groping for something that should express proper contrition for wasted years, but it refused to come. He picked up the rose and the hat, while the father regarded him with stony wonder which said: "Are you mine, or are you not? What is the nature of this new strength? On what will it turn?" For Jack's features had set with a strange firmness and his eyes, looking into his father's, had a steady light. It seemed as if he might stalk out of the office forever, and nothing could stop him. But suddenly he flashed his smile; he had looked about searching for a talisman and found it in the rose, which set his garden of words abloom again. "This room is so bare it must be lonely for you," he said. "Wouldn't it be a good idea to cheer it up a bit? To have this rose in a vase on your table where you could see it, instead of riding about in an empty automobile box?" "Why, there is a whole cold storage booth full of them down on the first floor!" said the father. "Yes, I saw them in their icy prison under the electric light bulbs. The beads of water on them were like tears of longing to get out for the joy of their swan song under a woman's smiles or beside a sick bed," said Jack, in the glow of real enthusiasm. "Good line for the ad writer!" his father exclaimed, instinctively. "You always did have fanciful ideas, Jack." "Yes, I suppose I have!" he said, with some surprise and very thoughtfully. "I suppose that I was born with them and never weeded them out." "No doubt!" and the father frowned. Surveying the broad shoulders before him, he was thinking how nothing but aimlessness and fantasies and everything out of harmony with the career to come had been encouraged in the son. But he saw soberness coming into Jack's eyes and with it the pressure of a certain resoluteness of purpose. And now Jack spoke again, a trifle sadly, as if guessing his father's thoughts. "It will be a case of weeding for me in the future, won't it?" he asked wanly, as he rose. "I am full of foolish ideas that are just bound to run away with me." "Jack! Jack!" John Wingfield, Sr. put his hands out to the shoulders of his son and gripped them strongly, and for a second let his own weight half rest on that sturdy column which he sensed under the grip. His pale face, the paleness of the type that never tans, flushed. "Jack, come!" he said. He permitted himself something like real dramatic feeling as he signalled his son to follow him out of the office and led the way to a corner of one of the balconies where, under the light from the glass roof of the great central court, he could see down the tiers of floors to the jewelry counter which sparkled at the bottom of the well. "Look! look!" he exclaimed, rubbing his palms together with a peculiar crisp sound. "All selling my goods! All built from the little store where I began as a clerk!" "It's--it's immense!" gasped Jack; and he felt a dizziness and confusion in gazing at this kind of an abyss. "And it's only beginning! It's to go on growing and growing! You see why I wanted you to be strong, Jack; why it would not do to be weak if you had all this responsibility." This was a form of apology for his farewell to Jack, but the message was the same: He had not wanted a son who should be of his life and heart and ever his in faults and illnesses. This was the recognizable one of the shadows between them now recalled. He had wanted a fresh physical machine into which he could blow the breath of his own masterful being and instil the cunning of his experience. He saw in this straight, clean-limbed youth at his side the hope of Jack's babyhood fulfilled, in the projection of his own ego as a living thing after he himself was gone. "And it is to go on growing and growing, in my name and your name--John Wingfield!" Jack was swallowing spasmodically; he moistened his lips; he grasped the balcony railing so tight that his knuckles were white knobs on the bronze back of his hand. The father in his enthusiasm hardly noticed this. "What couldn't I have done," he added, "if I had had all this to begin with! All that you will have to begin with!" Jack managed a smile, rather thin and wavering. "Yes, I am going to try my best." "All I ask! You have me for a teacher and I know one or two little things!" said the father, fairly grinning in the transmission of his joke. "Now, you must be short on clothes," he added; "so you can get something ready-made downstairs while you have some making at Thompson's." "Don't you buy your clothes, your best clothes, I mean, in your own store?" Jack asked. It was his first question in getting acquainted with his future property. "No. We cater to a little bigger class of trade--one of the many twists of the business," was the answer. "And now we'll meet at dinner, shall we, and have a good long talk," he concluded, closing the interview and turning to the door, his mind snapping back to the matter he was about to take up when he had been interrupted with more eagerness than ever, now that his egoism thrilled with a still greater purpose. "I--I left my hat on your desk," Jack explained, as he followed his father into the office. "Well, you don't want to be carrying packages about," said John Wingfield, Sr. "That is hardly the fashion in New York, though John Wingfield's son can make it so if he wants to. I'll have that flat-brimmed western one sent up to the house and you can fit out with another when you go downstairs for clothes. That is, I suppose you will want to keep this as a memento, eh?" and he held out the cowpuncher, sweeping it with a sardonic glance. "No," Jack answered decisively, out of the impulse that came with the sight of the veteran companion that had shielded him from the sun on the trail. It was good to have any kind of an impulse after his giddiness on the balcony at sight of all the phantasmagoria of detail that he must master. If he were to be equal to this future there must be an end of temptation. He must shake himself free of the last clinging bit of chrysalis of the old life. His amazed father saw the child of the desert, where convention is made by your fancy and the supply of water in your canteen, go to the window and raise the sash. Leaning out, he let the hat drop into Broadway, with his eyes just over the line of the ledge while he watched it fall, dipping and gliding, to the feet of a messenger boy, who picked it up, waved it gleefully aloft before putting it over his cap, and with mock strides of grandeur went his way. "That gave him a lot of pleasure--and a remarkably quick system for delivering goods, wasn't it?" said Jack, cheerfully. "Yes, I should say so!" assented his father, returning to his seat. "Dinner at seven!" he called before the door closed; and as his finger sought one of the push-buttons it rested for a moment on the metal edge of the socket, his head bowed, while an indefinable emotion, mixed of prophecy and recollection, must have fluttered through the routine channels of his vigorous mind. XXV "BUT WITH YOU, 'YES, SIR'" As Jack came out of the office, Mortimer appeared from an adjoining room in furtive, mouselike curiosity. "Not much damage done!" said Jack, in happy relief from the ordeal. "I am without a hat, but I have the rose." He held it up before Mortimer's worn, kindly face that had been so genuine in welcome. "Yes, I must have kept it to decorate you, Peter!" Ineffectually, in timorous confusion, the old secretary protested while Jack fastened it in his buttonhole. "And you are going to help me, aren't you, Peter?" Jack went on, seriously. "You are going to hold up a finger of warning when I get off the course. I am to be practical, matter-of-fact; there's to be an end to all fantastic ideas." An end to all fantastic ideas! But it was hardly according to the gospel of the matter-of-fact to take Burleigh, the fitter, out to luncheon. Jack might excuse himself on the ground that he had not yet begun his apprenticeship and had several hours of freedom before his first lesson at dinner. This ecstasy of a recess, perhaps, made him lay aside the derby, which the clerk said was very becoming, and choose a softer head-covering with a bit of feather in the band, which the clerk, with positive enthusiasm, said was still more becoming. At all events, it was easy on his temples, while the derby was stiff and binding and conducive to a certain depression of spirits. Burleigh, the fitter, was almost as old as Mortimer. He rose to the exceptional situation, his eyes lighting as he surveyed the form to be clothed with a professional gratification unsurpassed by that of Dr. Bennington in plotting Jack's chest with a stethoscope. "Yes, sir, we will have that dinner-jacket ready to-night, sir, depend upon it--and couldn't I show you something in cheviots?" Jack broke another precedent. A Wingfield, he decided to patronize the Wingfield store, because he saw how supremely happy every order made Burleigh. "You can do it as well as Thompson's?" he asked. "With you, yes, sir--though Thompson is a great expert on round shoulders. But with you, yes, sir!" When the business of measuring was over, while Burleigh peered triumphant over the pile of cloths from which the masterpieces were to be fashioned, Jack said that he had a ripping appetite and he did not see why he and Burleigh should not appease their hunger in company. Burleigh gasped; then he grinned in abandoned delight and slipped off his shiny coat and little tailor's apron that bristled with pins. They went to a restaurant of reputation, which Jack said was in keeping with the occasion when a man changed his habits from Arizona simplicity to urban multiplicity of courses. And what did Burleigh like? Burleigh admitted that if he were a plutocrat he would have caviar at least once a day; and caviar appeared in a little glass cup set in the midst of cracked ice, flanked by crisp toast. After caviar came other things to Burleigh's taste. He was having such an awesomely grand feast that he was tongue-tied; but Jack could never eat in silence until he had forgotten how to tell stories. So he told Burleigh stories of the trail and of life in Little Rivers in a way that reflected the desert sunshine in Burleigh's eyes. Burleigh thought that he would like to live in Little Rivers. Almost anyone might after hearing Jack's description, in the joy of its call to himself. "Now, if you would trust me," said Burleigh, when they left the restaurant, "I should like to send out for some cloths not in stock for a couple of suits. And couldn't I make you up three or four fancy waistcoats, with a little color in them--the right color to go with the cloth? You can carry a little color--decidedly, yes." "Yes, I rather like color," said Jack, succumbing to temptation, though he felt that the heir to great responsibilities ought to dress in the most neutral of tones. "And I should like to select the ties to go with the suits and a few shirts, just to carry out my scheme--a kind of professional triumph for me, you see. May I?" "Go ahead!" said Jack. "And you can depend on your evening suit to be up in time. But I am going to rush a little broader braid on those ready-made trousers--you can carry that, too," Burleigh concluded. When they parted Jack turned into Fifth Avenue. Before he had gone a block the bulky eminence of a Fifth Avenue stage awakened his imagination. How could anybody think of confinement in a taxicab when he might ride in the elephant's howdah of that top platform, enjoying mortal superiority over surrounding humanity? Jack hung the howdah with silken streamers and set a mahout's turban on the head of the man on the seat in front of him, while the glistening semi-oval tops of the limousines floating in the mist of the rising grade from Madison Square to Forty-second Street, swarmed and halted in a kind of blind, cramped _pas de quatre_ from cross street to cross street, amid the breaking surge of pedestrians. "Such a throbbing of machine motion," he thought, "that I don't see how anybody can have an emotion of his own without bumping into somebody else's." It was a scene of another age and world to him, puzzling, overpowering, dismal, mocking him with a sense of loneliness that he had never felt on the desert. Could he ever catch up with this procession which had all the time been moving on in the five years of his absence? Could he learn to talk and think in the regulated manner of the traffic rules of convention? The few chums of his brief home school-days were long away from the fellowship of academies; they had settled in their grooves, with established intimacies. If he found his own flock he could claim admission to the fold only with the golden key of his millions, rather than by the password of kindred understanding. The tripping, finely-clad women, human flower of all the maelstrom of urban toil, in their detachment seemed only to bring up a visualized picture of Mary. What would he not like to do for her! He wished that he could pick up the Waldorf and set it on the other side of the street as a proof of the overmastering desire that possessed him whenever she was in his mind. And the Doge! He was the wisest man in the world. With a nod of well-considered and easy generosity Jack presented him with the new Public Library. And then all the people on the sidewalks vanished and the buildings melted away into sunswept levels, and the Avenue was a trail down which Mary came on her pony in the resplendent sufficiency of his dreams. "Great heavens!" he warned himself. "And I am to take my first lesson in running the business this evening! What perfect lunacy comes from mistaking the top of a Fifth Avenue stage for a howdah!" XXVI THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY How thankful he was that the old brick corner mansion in Madison Avenue, with age alone to recommend its architecture of the seventies--let it stand for what it was--had not been replaced by one of stone freshly polished each year! The butler who opened the door was new and stiffer than the one of the old days; but he saw that the broad hall, with the stairs running across the rear in their second flight, was little more changed than the exterior. Five years since he had left that hall! He was in the thrall of anticipation incident to seeing old associations with the eyes of manhood. The butler made to take his hat, but Jack, oblivious of the attention, went on to the doorway of the drawing-room, his look centering on a portrait that faced the door. In this place of honor he saw a Gainsborough. He uttered a note of pained surprise. "There used to be another portrait here. Where is it?" he demanded. The butler, who had heard that the son of the house was an invalid, had not recovered from his astonishment at the appearance of health of the returned prodigal. "Upstairs, sir," he answered. "When Mr. Wingfield got this prize last year, sir--" Though the butler had spoken hardly a dozen words, he became conscious of something atmospheric that made him stop in the confusion of one who finds that he has been garrulous with an explanation that does not explain. "Please take this upstairs and bring back the other," said Jack. "Yes, sir. You will be going to your room, sir, and while--" The butler had a feeling of a troublesome future between two masters. "Now, please!" said Jack, settling into a chair to wait. The Gainsborough countess, with her sweeping plumes, her rich, fleshy, soft tones, her charming affectation, which gave you, after the art interest, no more human interest in her than in a draped model, was carried upstairs and back came the picture that it had displaced. The frame still bore at the bottom the title "Portrait of a Lady," under which it had been exhibited at the Salon many years ago. It was by a young artist, young then, named Sargent. He had the courage of his method, this youngster, no less than Hals, who also worked his wonders with little paint when this suited his genius best. The gauze of the gown where it blended with the background at the edge of the line of arm was so thin, seemingly made by a single brush-stroke, that it almost showed the canvas. A purpose in that gauze: The thinness of transparency of character! The eyes of the portrait alone seemed deep. They were lambent and dark, looking straight ahead inquiringly, yet in the knowledge that no answer to the Great Riddle could change the course of her steps in the blind alley of a life whose tenement walls were lighted with her radiance. You could see through the gown, through the flesh of that frail figure, so lacking in sensuousness yet so glowing with a quiet fire, to the soul itself. She seemed of such a delicate, chaste fragility that she could be shattered by a single harsh touch. There would be no outcry except the tinkle of the fragments. The feelings of anyone who witnessed the breaking and heard the tinkle would be a criterion of his place in the wide margin between nerveless barbarism and sensitive gentility. "I give! I give! I give!" was her message. For a long time, he had no measure of it, Jack sat studying the portrait, set clear in many scenes of memory in review. It had been a face as changeful as the travels, ever full of quick lights and quick shadows. He had had flashes of it as it was in the portrait in its very triumph of resignation. He had known it laughing with stories of fancy which she told him; sympathetic in tutorial illumination as she gave him lessons and brought out the meaning of a line of poetry or a painting; beset by the restlessness which meant another period of travel; intense as fire itself, gripping his hands in hers in a defiance of possession; in moods when both its sadness and its playfulness said, "I don't care!" and again, fleeing from his presence to hide her tears. It was with the new sight of man's maturity and soberness that he now saw his mother, feeling the intangible and indestructible feminine majesty of her; feeling her fragility which had brought forth her living soul in its beauty and impressionableness as a link with the cause of his Odyssey; believing that she was rejoicing in his strength and understanding gloriously that it had only brought him nearer to her. After he had been to his room to dress he returned to the same chair and settled into the same reverie that was sounding depths of his being that he had never suspected. He was mutely asking her help, asking the support of her frail, feminine courage for his masculine courage in the battle before him; and little tremors of nervous determination were running through him, when he heard his father's footstep and became conscious of his father's presence in the doorway. There was a moment, not of hesitation but of completing a thought, before he looked up and rose to his feet. In that moment, John Wingfield, Sr. had his own shock over the change in the room. The muscles of his face twitched in irritation, as if his wife's very frailty were baffling invulnerability. Straightening his features into a mask, his eyes still spoke his emotion in a kind of stare of resentment at the picture. Then he saw his son's shoulders rising above his own and looked into his son's eyes to see them smiling. Long isolated by his power from clashes of will under the roof of his store or his house, the father had a sense of the rippling flash of steel blades. A word might start a havoc of whirling, burning sentences, confusing and stifling as a desert sandstorm; or it might bring a single killing flash out of gathering clouds. Thus the two were facing each other in a silence oppressive to both, which neither knew how to break, when relief came in the butler's announcement of dinner. Indeed, by such small, objective interruptions do dynamic inner impulses hang that this little thing may have suppressed the lightnings. The father was the first to speak. He hoped that a first day in New York had brought Jack a good appetite; certainly, he could see that the store had given him a wonderful fit for a rush order. XXVII BY RIGHT OF ANCESTRY There were to be no stories of Little Rivers at dinner; no questions asked about desert life. This chapter of Jack's career was a past rung of the ladder to John Wingfield, Sr. who was ever looking up to the rungs above. The magnetism and charm with which he won men to his service now turned to the immediate problem of his son, whom he was to refashion according to his ideas. "Are you ready to settle down?" he asked, half fearful lest that scene in the drawing-room might have wrought a change of purpose. In answer he was seeing another Jack; a Jack relaxed, amiable, even amenable. "If you have the patience," said Jack. "You know, father, I haven't a cash-register mind. I'm starting out on a new trail and I am likely to go lame at times. But I mean to be game." He looked very frankly and earnestly into his father's eyes. "Wild oats sown! My boy, after all!" thought the father. "Respected his mother! Well, didn't I respect mine? Of course--and let him! It is good principles. It is right. He has health; that is better than schooling." In place of the shock of the son's will against his, he was feeling it as a force which might yet act in unison with his. He expanded with the pride of the fortune-builder. He told how a city within a city is created and run; of tentacles of investment and enterprise stretching beyond the store in illimitable ambition; how the ball of success, once it was set rolling, gathered bulk of its own momentum and ever needed closer watching to keep it clear of obstacles. "And I am to stand on top like a gymnast on a sphere or be rolled under," thought Jack. "And I'll have cloth of gold breeches and a balancing pole tipped with jewels; but--but--" "A good listener, and that is a lot!" thought the father, happily. Jack had interrupted neither with questions nor vagaries. He was gravely attentive, marveling over this story of a man's labor and triumph. "And the way to learn the business is not from talks by me," said his father, finally. "You cannot begin at the top." "No! no!" said Jack, aghast. "The top would be quite too insecure, too dizzy to start with." "Right!" the father exclaimed, decidedly. "You must learn each department of itself, and then how it works in with the others. It will be drudgery, but it is best--right at the bottom!" "Yes, father, where there is no danger of a fall." "You will be put on an apprentice salary of ten dollars a week." "And I'll try to earn it." "Of course, you understand that the ten is a charge against the store. That's business. But as for a private allowance, you are John Wingfield's son and--" "I think I have enough of my own for the present," Jack put in. "As you wish. But if you need more, say the word. And you shall name the department where you are to begin. Did you get any idea of which you'd choose from looking the store over to-day?" "That's very considerate of you!" Jack answered. He was relieved and pleased and made his choice quickly, though he mentioned it half timidly as if he feared that it might be ridiculous, so uncertain was he about the rules of apprenticeship. "You see I have been used to the open air and I'd like a little time in which to acclimatize myself in New York. Now, all those big wagons that bring the goods in and the little wagons that take them out--there is an out-of-door aspect to the delivery service. Is that an important branch to learn?" "Very--getting the goods to the customer--very!" "Then I'll start with that and sort of a roving commission to look over the other departments." "Good! We will consider it settled. And, Jack, every man's labor that you can save and retain efficiency--that is the trick! Organization and ideas, that's what makes the employer and so makes success. Why, Jack, if you could cut down the working costs in the delivery department or improve the service at the present cost, why--" John Wingfield, Sr. rubbed the palms of his hands together delightedly. Everything was going finely--so far. He added that proviso of _so far_ instinctively. "Besides, Jack," he went on, changing to another subject that was equally vital to his ego, "this name of Wingfield is something to work for. I was the son of a poor New England clergyman, but there is family back of it; good blood, good blood! I was not the first John Wingfield and you shall not be the last!" He rose from the table, bidding the servant to bring the coffee to the drawing-room. With the same light, quick step that he ascended the flights in the store, he led the way downstairs, his face alive with the dramatic anticipation that it had worn when he took Jack out of the office to look down from the balcony of the court. "Ah, we have something besides the store, Jack!" he was saying, in the very exultation of the pride of possession, as he went to the opposite side of the mantel from the mother's portrait and turned on the reflector over a picture. Jack saw a buccaneer under the brush of the gold and the shadows of Spain; a robust, ready figure on fighting edge, who seemed to say, "After you, sir; and, then, pardon me, but it's your finish, sir!" "It's a Velasquez!" Jack exclaimed. "And you knew that at a glance!" said his father. "Why, yes!" "Not many Velasquezes in America," said the father, thinking, incidentally, that his son would not have to pay the dealers a heavy toll for an art education, while he revelled in a surprise that he was evidently holding back. "Or many better Velasquezes than this, anywhere," added Jack. "What mastery! What a gift from heaven that was vouchsafed to a human being to paint like that!" He was in a spell, held no less by the painter's art than by the subject. "Absolutely a certified Velasquez, bought from the estate of Count Galting," continued his father. "I paid a cool two hundred and fifty thousand for it. And that isn't all, Jack, that isn't all that you are going to drudge for as an apprentice in the delivery department. I know what I am talking about. I wasn't fooled by any of the genealogists who manufacture ancestors. I had it all looked up by four experts, checking one off against another." "Yes," answered Jack, absently. He had hardly heard his father's words. In fervent scrutiny he was leaning forward, his weight on the ball of the foot, the attitude of the man in the picture. "And who do you think he is--who?" pursued John Wingfield, Sr. "A man who fought face to face with the enemy; a man whom men followed! Velasquez caught all that!" answered Jack. "That old fellow was a great man in his day--a great Englishman--and his name was John Wingfield! He was your ancestor and mine!" After a quick breath of awakening comprehension Jack took a step nearer the portrait, all his faculties in the throe of beaming inquiry of Señor Don't Care and desert freedom, in the self-same, alert readiness of pose as the figure he was facing. "They say I resemble him!" The father repeated that phrase which he had used in benignant satisfaction to many a guest, but now seeing with greedy eyes a likeness between his son and the ancestor deeper than mere resemblance of feature, he added: "But you--you, Jack, you're the dead spit of him!" "Yes," said Jack, as if he either were not surprised or were too engrossed to be interested. To the buccaneer's "After you, sir; and, then, your finish, sir!" he seemed to be saying, in the fully-lived spirit of imagination: "A good epitaph, sir! I'll see that it is written on your tombstone!" The father, singularly affected by the mutual and enjoyed challenge that he was witnessing, half expected to see a sword leap out of the scabbard of the canvas and another from Jack's side. "If he had lived in our day," said the father, "he would have built himself a great place; he would have been the head of a great institution, just as I am." "Two centuries is a long way to fetch a comparison," answered Jack, hazily, out of a corner of his brain still reserved for conversation, while all the rest of it was centered elsewhere. "He might have been a cow-puncher, a revolutionist, or an aviator. Certainly, he would never have been a camp-follower." "At all events, a man of power. It's in the blood!" "It's in the blood!" Jack repeated, with a sort of staring, lingering emphasis. He was hearing Mary's protest on the pass; her final, mysterious reason for sending him away; her "It's not in the blood!" There could be no connection between this and the ancestor; yet, in the stirred depths of his nature, probing the inheritance in his veins, her hurt cry had come echoing to his ears. "Why, I would have paid double the price rather than not have got that picture!" the father went on. "There is a good deal of talk about family trees in this town and a strong tendency in some quarters for second generations of wealth to feel a little superiority over the first generation. Here I come along with an ancestor eight generations back, painted by Velasquez. I tell you it was something of a sensation when I exhibited him in the store!" "You--you--" and Jack glanced at his father perplexedly; "you exhibited him in the store!" he said. "Why, yes, as a great Velasquez I had just bought. I didn't advertise him as my ancestor, of course. Still, the fact got around; yes, the fact got around, Jack." While Jack studied the picture, his father studied Jack, whose face and whose manner of blissful challenge to all comers in the unconcern of easy fatality and ready blade seemed to grow more and more like that of the first John Wingfield. At length, Jack passed over to the other side of the mantel and turned on the reflector over the portrait of his mother; and, in turn, standing silently before her all his militancy was gone and in its place came the dreamy softness with which he would watch the Eternal Painter cloud-rolling on the horizon. And he was like her not in features, not in the color of hair or eyes, but in a peculiar sensitiveness, distinguished no less by a fatalism of its own kind than was the cheery aggressiveness of the buccaneer. "Yes, father," he said, "that old ruffian forebear of ours could swear and could kill. But he had the virtue of truth. He could not act or live a lie. And I guess something else--how supremely gentle he could be before a woman like her. Velasquez brought out a joyous devil and Sargent brought out a soul!" John Wingfield, Sr., who stood by the grate, was drumming nervously on the mantel. The drumming ceased. The fingers rested rigid and white on the dark wood. Alive to another manifestation of the lurking force in his son, he hastened to change the subject. "I had almost forgotten that you always had a taste for art, Jack." "Yes, from her;" which was hardly changing the subject. "As for the first John Wingfield, you may be sure that I wanted to know everything there was to know about the old fellow," said the father. "So I set a lot of bookworms looking up the archives of the English and Spanish governments and digging around in the libraries after material. Then I had it all put together in proper shape by a literary sharp." "You have that!" cried Jack. "You have the framework from which you can build the whole story of him--the story of how he fought and how Velasquez came to paint him? Oh, I want to read it!" With an unexplored land between gilt-tooled covers under his arm he went upstairs early, in the transport of wanderlust that had sent him away over the sand from Little Rivers. _Sí, sí_, Firio, outward bound, camp under the stars! If Señor Don't Care's desert journeys were over--and he had no thought but that they were--there was no ban on travelling in fancy over sea trails in the ancestor's company. Jack was with the buccaneer when he boarded the enemy at the head of his men; with him before the Board of Admiralty when, a young captain of twenty-two, he refused to lie to save his skin; with him when, in answer to the scolding of Elizabeth, then an old woman, he said: "It is glorious for one who fought so hard for Your Majesty to have the recognition even of Your Majesty's chiding in answer to the protest of the Spanish ambassador," which won Elizabeth's reversal of the Admiralty's decision; with him when, in a later change of fortune, he went to the court of Spain for once on a mission which required a sheathed blade; with him when the dark eye of Velasquez, who painted men and women of his time while his colleagues were painting Madonnas, glowed with a discoverer's joy at sight of this fair-haired type of the enemy, whom he led away to his studio. More than once was there mention of the fact that this terrible fighter was gentle with women and fonder of the company of children than of statesmen or courtiers. He had married the daughter of a great merchant, a delicate type of beauty; the last to fascinate a buccaneer, according to the gossips of the time. Rumor had it that he had taken her for the wherewithal to pay the enormous debts contracted in his latest exploit. To disprove this he went to sea in a temper with a frigate and came back laden with the treasure of half a dozen galleons, to find that his wife had died at the birth of a son. He promised himself to settle down for good; but the fog of London choked lungs used to soft airs; he heard the call of the sun and was away again to seek adventure in the broiling reaches of the Caribbean. A man of restless, wild spirit, breathing inconsistencies incomprehensible to the conventions of Whitehall! And his son had turned a Cromwellian, who, in poverty, sought refuge in America when Charles II. came to the throne; and from him, in the vicissitudes of five generations, the poor clergyman was descended. Thus ran the tale in its completeness. The end of the ancestor's career had been in keeping with its character and course. He had been spared the slow decay of faculties in armchair reminiscence. He had gone down in his ship without striking his colors, fighting the Spaniards one to three. When Jack closed the cover on the last page tenderly and in enraptured understanding, it was past midnight. The spaciousness of the sea under clouds of battle smoke had melted into the spaciousness of the desert under the Eternal Painter's canopy. Then four walls of a bedroom in Madison Avenue materialized, shutting out the horizon; a carpet in place of sand formed the floor; and in place of a blanket roll was a canopied bed upon which a servant had laid out a suit of pajamas. In the impulse of a desire to look into the face of the first John Wingfield in the light of all he now knew, Jack went downstairs, and in the silence of the house drank in the portrait again. "You splendid old devil, you!" he breathed, understandingly. "How should you like to start out delivering goods with me in the morning?" XXVIII JACK GETS A RAISE The next morning Jack went down town with his father in the limousine. About an hour later, after he had been introduced to the head of the delivery division, he was on his way up town beside a driver of one of the wagons on the Harlem route. He was in the uniform of the Wingfield light cavalry, having obtained a cap with embroidered initials on the front. The driver was like to burst from inward mirth, and Jack was regarding the prospect with veritable juvenile zest. At dinner that evening John Wingfield, Jr. narrated his experiences of the day to John Wingfield, Sr. with the simplicity and verisimilitude that always make for both realism and true comedy. "But, Jack, you took me too literally! It is hardly in keeping with your position! You--" "Why, I thought that the only way to know the whole business was to play every part. Didn't you ever deliver packages in person in your early days?" "I can't say that I did!" the father admitted wryly. "Then it seems to me that you missed one of the most entertaining and instructive features," Jack continued. "You cannot imagine the majestic feminine disdain with which you may be informed that a five-cent bar of soap should be delivered at the back door instead of the front door. The most indignant example was a red-haired woman who was doing her own work in a flat. She fairly blazed. She wanted to know if I didn't know what dumb-waiters were for." "And what did you say?" the father asked wearily; for the ninth John Wingfield had a limited sense of humor. "Oh, I try, however irritating the circumstances, to be most courtly, for the honor of the store," said Jack. "I told her that I was very sorry and I would speak to you in person about the mistake." "You mean that you admitted who you were?" "Oh, no! The red-haired woman laughed and took the package in at the front door," Jack responded. Anybody in Little Rivers would have understood just how he looked and smiled and why it was that the red-haired woman laughed. "Jack--now, really, Jack, this is not quite dignified!" expostulated the father. "What do you think your ancestor would say to it?" "I suspect that he would have made an even more ingratiating bow to the lady than I could," said Jack, thoughtfully. "They had the grand manner better developed in his day than in ours." In the ensuing weeks John Wingfield, Sr. dwelt in a kind of infernal wonder about his son. He was cheered when some friend of his world who had met Jack in the garb of his caste, as fitted by Burleigh, would say: "Fine, strapping son you have there, Wingfield!" He was abashed and dumfounded when Jack announced that he had taken Mamie Devore, who sold culinary utensils in the basement, out to luncheon with her "steady company," Joe Mathewson, driver of one of the warehouse trucks. "They were a little awed at first," Jack explained, "but they soon became natural. I don't know anything pleasanter than making people feel perfectly natural, do you? You see, Joe and Mamie are very real, father, and most businesslike; an ambitious, upstanding pair. They're going to have two thousand dollars saved before they marry. "'I don't believe that a woman ought to work out after she's married,' was the way Joe put it. And Mamie, with her eyes fairly devouring him, snapped back: 'No, she'd have enough to do looking after you, you big old bluff!' "Mamie is a wiry little thing and Joe is a heavyweight, with a hand almost as big as a baseball mit. That's partly why their practical romance is so fascinating. Why, it's wonderful the stories that are playing themselves out in that big store, father! Well, you see Joe is on a stint--two thousand before he gets Mamie. He had been making money on the side nights in boxing bouts. But Mamie stopped the fighting. She said she was not going to have a husband with the tip of his nose driven up between his eyes like a bull-dog's. And what do you imagine they are going to do with the two thousand? Buy a farm! Isn't that corking!" John Wingfield, Sr. shrugged his shoulders, but did not express his feelings with any remark. It seemed to him that Jack must have been born without a sense of proportion. With the breaking of spring, when gardens were beginning to sprout, Jack broadened his study to the trails of Westchester, Long Island, and New Jersey, coursed by the big automobile vans of the suburban delivery. To the people of the store, whose streets he traversed at will in unremitting wonder over its varied activities, he had brought something of the same sensation that he had to an Arizona town. He came to know the employees by name, even as he had his neighbors in Little Rivers. He nodded to the clerks as he passed down an aisle. They watched for his coming and brightened with his approach and met his smile with their smiles. In their idle moments he would stop and talk of the desert. Although he was learning to like the store as a community of human beings its business was as the works of a watch, when all he knew was how to tell the time by the face. But he tried hard to learn; tried until his head was dizzy with a whirl of dissociated facts, which he knew ought to be associated, and under the call of his utter restlessness would disappear altogether for two or three days. "Relieving the pressure! It's a safety-valve so I shan't blow up," he explained to his father, sadly. "Take your time," said John Wingfield, Sr., having in mind a recent talk with Dr. Bennington. Jack listened faithfully to his father's clear-cut lessons. He asked questions which only made his father sigh; for they had little to do with the economy of working costs. All his suggestions were extravagant; they would contribute to the joy of the employees, but not to profit. And other questions made his father frown in devising answers which were in the nature of explanations. Born of his rambling and humanly observant relations with every department, they led into the very heart of things in that mighty organization. There were times when it was hard for him to control his indignation. There were trails leading to the room with the glass-paneled door marked "Private" which he half feared to pursue. Thus, between father and son remained that indefinable chasm of thought and habit which filial duty or politeness could not bridge. No stories of the desert were ever told at home, though it was so easy to tell them to Burleigh or Mathewson, those contrasts in a pale fitter of clothes and a herculean rustler of dry-goods boxes. But echoes of the tales came to the father through his assistants. He had the feeling of some stranger spirit in his own likeness moving there in the streets of his city under the talisman of a consanguinity that was nominal. One day he put an inquiry to the general manager concretely, though in a way to avoid the appearance of asking another's opinion about his own son. "He has your gift of winning men to him. There is no denying his popularity with the force," said the general manager, who was a diplomat. The same question was put to Peter Mortimer. "We all love him. I think a lot of people in the store would march out to the desert after him," said Mortimer, with real rejoicing in his candor and courage. Indeed, of late he had been developing cheer as well as courage, imbibing both, perhaps, from the roses in the vase on his employer's desk. Jack had ordered a fresh bunch put there every day; and when employees were sick packages of grapes and bunches of flowers came to them, in Little Rivers fashion, with J.W. on the card, as if they had come from the head of the firm himself. "Maybe Jack will soften the old man a little," ran a whisper from basement to roof. For the battalions called him "Jack," rather than "Mr. Wingfield," just as Little Rivers had. "The boy's good nature isn't making him too familiar with the employees?" was a second question which the father had asked both the general manager and Mortimer. "No. That is the surprising thing--the gift of being friendly without being familiar," answered the manager. "He's got a kind of self-respect that induces respect in others," said Peter. John Wingfield, Sr. was the proprietor of the store, but the human world of the store began to feel a kind of proprietorship in Jack, while its guardian interest in helping him in his mistakes was common enough to be a conspiracy. And the callouses were gone from his hands. There was no longer a dividing line between tan and white on his forehead. No outward symbol of the desert clung to his person except the moments of the far vision of distances in his eyes. Superficially, on the Avenue he would have been taken for one of his caste. But tossing a cowpuncher hat out of a window into Broadway was easier than tossing a thing out of mind. He sat up nights to write to Mary. Letter after letter he poured out as a diary of his experiences in his new world, letters breathing a pupil's hope of learning and all that pupil's sorry vagaries. No answer ever came, not even to the most appealing ones about his most adventurous conflicts with the dinosaur. He felt the chagrin of the army of unpublished novelists who lay their hearts bare on the stone slab of the dissectors in a publisher's office. He might as well have thrown all he wrote into the waste-basket so far as any result was concerned; yet he kept on writing as if it were his glorious duty to report to her as his superior. But he found a more responsive correspondent in Jim Galway; and this was the letter he received: "DEAR JACK: "The whole valley is not yet sprouting with dates as you said it would from your thinking of us. Maybe we didn't use the right seed. Your ranch is still called Jack's ranch, and Firio is doing his best and about the best I ever knew in an Indian. But as you always said, Indians are mostly human, like the rest of us, barring a sort of born twist in their intellect for which they aren't responsible. You see, Jack, a lot of your sayings still live with us, though you are gone. "Well, Firio keeps your P.D. exercised and won't let anybody but himself ride him. He says you will need him. For you can't budge the stubborn little cuss. He declares you're coming back. When we tell him you're worth twenty millions and he's plumb full of primitive foolishness and general ignorance of the outside world, he says, '_Sí_, he will come back!' like some heathen oracle that's strong on repetition and weak on vocabulary. "Of course you know about the new addition to our citizenship, John Prather, that double of yours that you didn't happen to meet. And I might mention that by this time, after we've seen so much of him, we agree with the Doge that he doesn't look a bit like you. Well, he's making a fine ranch across the road from you, but hiring all his work done, which ain't exactly according to Little Rivers custom, as you will remember. The Doge sets a lot by him, though I can't see how there's much in common between them. This fellow's not full of all that kind of scholastic persiflage that you are, Jack. He's so all-fired practical his joints would crack if he wasn't so oily; and he's up to old man Lefferts' pretty often. "He goes to Phoenix a good deal. When I was there the other day I heard he was circulating around among the politicians in his quiet way, and I saw him and Pete Leddy hobnobbing together. I didn't like that. But when I told the Doge of it he said he guessed there wasn't much real hobnobbing. The Doge is certainly strong for Prather. Another thing I heard was that, after all, old man Lefferts' two partners aren't dead, and Prather's been hunting them up. "Come to think of it, I didn't tell you that Pete Leddy and some of the gang have been back in town. Of course we have every confidence in the Doge, he's been so fair to this community. Still, some of us can't help having our private suspicions, considering what a lot we have at stake. And four or five of us was talking the other night, when suddenly we all agreed how you'd shine in any trouble, and if there was going to be any--not that there is--we wished you were here. "Well, Jack, the pass hasn't changed and the sunsets are just as grand as ever and the air just as free. The pass won't have changed and the sunsets will be doing business at the old stand when the antiquaries are digging up the remote civilization of Little Rivers and putting it in a high scale because they ran across a pot of Mrs. Galway's jam in the ruins--the same hifalutin compliment being your own when you were nursing your wound, as you will remember. "Here's wishing you luck from the whole town, way out here in nowhere. "As ever yours, "James R. Galway. "P.S. Belvy Smith wants to know if you won't write just one story. I told her you were too busy for such nonsense now. But she refuses to believe it. She says being busy doesn't matter to you. She says the stories just pop out. So I transmit her request. J.R.G." "P.D. waiting!" breathed Jack. "No changing Firio! He is like the pass. I wonder how Wrath of God and Jag Ear are!" He wrote a story for Belvy. He wrote to Firio in resolute assertion that he would never require the services of P.D. again, when he knew that Firio, despite the protests, would still keep P.D. fit for the trail. He wrote to Jim Galway how immersed he was in his new career, but that he might come for a while--for a little while, with emphasis--if ever Jim wired that he was needed. "That was a good holiday--a regular week-end debauch away from the shop!" he thought, when the letters were finished. Soon after this came an event which, for the first time, gave John Wingfield, Sr. a revelation of the side of his son that had won Little Rivers and the interest of the rank and file of the store. Among Jack's many suggestions, in his aim to carry out his father's talk about the creative business sense the first night they were together, had been one for a suburban clubbing delivery system. It had been dismissed as fantastic, but Jack had asked that it be given a trial and his father had consented. Its basis was a certain confidence in human nature. Jack and his father had dined together the evening after the master of the push-buttons had gone through the final reports of the experiment. "Well, Jack, I am going to raise your salary to a hundred a week," the father announced. "On the ground that if you pay me more I might make myself worth more?" Jack asked respectfully. "No, as a matter of business. Whenever any man makes two dollars for the store, he gets one dollar and I keep the other. That is the basis of my success--others earning money for me. Your club scheme is a go. As the accountant works it out, it has brought a profit of two hundred a week." "Then I have done something worth while, really?" Jack asked, eagerly, but half sceptical of such good fortune. "Yes. You have created a value. You have used your powers of observation and your brain. That's the thing that makes a few men employers while the multitude remains employees." "Father! Then I am not quite hopeless?" "Hopeless! My son hopeless! No, no! I didn't expect you to learn the business in a week, or a month, or even a year. Time! time!" Nor did John Wingfield, Sr. wish his son to develop too rapidly. Now that he was so sure of beating threescore and ten, while retaining the full possession of his faculties, if he followed the rules of longevity, he would not have welcomed a son who could spring into the saddle at once. He wanted to ride alone. He who had never shared his power with anyone! He who had never admitted anyone into even a few shares of company partnership in his concern! Time! time! The boy would never fall heir to undivided responsibility before he was forty. John Wingfield, Sr. was pleased with himself; pleased over a good sign; and he could not deny that he was pleased at the sudden change in Jack. For he saw Jack's eyes sparkling into his own; sparkling with comradeship and spontaneous gratification. Was the boy to be his in thought and purpose, after all? Yes, of course; yes, inevitably, with the approach of maturity. Gradually the flightiness of his upbringing would wear off down to the steel, the hard-tempered, paternal steel. "You can scarcely realize what a fight it has been for me until you know the life I led out in Arizona, getting strong for you and the store," Jack began. "Strong for me! For the store! Yes, Jack!" There was an emphasis on the subjective personal pronoun--for _him_; for the store! The father's face beamed a serene delight. This Jack accepted as the expression of sympathy and understanding which he had craved. It was to him an inspiration of fellowship that set the well of his inner being in overflow and the force of his personality, which the father had felt uncannily before the mother's picture, became something persuasive in its radiance rather than something held in leash as a threatening and volcanic element. Now he could talk as freely and happily of the desert to his father as to Burleigh and Mathewson. He told of the long rides; of Firio and Wrath of God. He made the tinkle of Jag Ear's bells heard in the silence of the dining-room as it was heard in the silences of the trail. He mentioned how he was afraid to come back after he was strong. "Afraid?" queried his father. "Yes. But I was coming--coming when, at the top of the pass, I saw Little Rivers for the first time." He sketched his meeting with Mary Ewold; the story of the town and the story of Jasper Ewold as he knew it, now glancing at his father, now seeming to see nothing except visualization of the pictures of his story. The father, looking at the table-cloth, at times playing with his coffee-spoon, made no comment. "And that first night I saw that Jasper Ewold had met me somewhere before. But--" he went on after going back to the incident of the villa in his childhood--"that hardly explained. How could he remember the face of a grown man from the face of a boy? Jasper Ewold! Do you recall ever having met him? He must have known my mother. Perhaps he knew you, though why he should not have told me I don't know." "Yes, yes--Jasper Ewold," said the father. "I knew him in his younger days. His was an old family up in Burbridge, the New England town where I came from. Too much college, too much travel, as I remember, characterized Jasper Ewold. No settled point of view; and I judge from what you say that he must have run through his patrimony. One of the ups and downs of the world, Jack. And he never mentioned that he had met me?" "No." "Probably a part of that desert notion of freemasonry in keeping pasts a secret. But why did you stay on after you had recovered from your wound?" he asked penetratingly, though he was looking again at the bottom of his coffee-cup. "For a reason that comes to a man but once in his life!" Jack answered. Had the father looked up--it was a habit of his in listening to any report to lower his eyes, his face a mask--he might have seen Jack's face in the supremacy of emotion, as it was when he had called up to Mary from the canyon and when he had pleaded with her on the pass. But John Wingfield, Sr. could not mistake the message of a voice vibrating with all the force of a being let free living over the scene. With the shadows settling over his eyes, Jack came to her answer and to the finality of her cry: "It's not in the blood!" The only sound was a slight tinkle of a spoon against the coffee-cup. Looking at his father he saw a nervous flutter in his cheeks, his lips hard set, his brow drawn down; and the rigidity of the profile was such that Jack was struck by the shiver of a thought that it must have been like his own as others said it was when he had gripped Pedro Nogales's arm. But this passed quickly, leaving, however, in its trail an expression of shock and displeasure. "So it was the girl, that kept you--you were in love!" John Wingfield, Sr. exclaimed, tensely. "Yes, I was--I am! You have it, father, the unchangeable all of it! I face a wall of mystery. 'It's not in the blood!' she said, as if it were some bar sinister. What could she have meant?" In the fever of baffled intensity crying for light and help, he was sharing the secret that had beset him relentlessly and giving his father the supreme confidence of his heart. Leaning across the table he grasped his father's hand, which lay still and unresponsive and singularly cold for a second. Then John Wingfield, Sr. raised his other hand and patted the back of Jack's hesitantly, as if uncertain how to deal with this latest situation that had developed out of his son's old life. Finally he looked up good-temperedly, deprecatingly. "Well, well, Jack, I almost forgot that you are young. It's quite a bad case!" he said. "But what did she mean? Can you guess? I have thought of it so much that it has meant a thousand wild things!" Jack persisted desperately. "Come! come!" the father rallied him. "Time, time!" He gripped the hand that was gripping his and swung it free of the table with a kindly shake. All the effective charm of his personality which he never wasted, the charm that could develop out of the mask to gain an end when the period of listening was over, was in play. "She excited the opposition of the strength in you," he said. "You ask what did she mean? It is hard to tell what a woman means, but I judge that she meant that it was not in her blood to marry a fellow who went about fighting duels and breaking arms. She would like a more peaceful sort; and, yes, anything that came into her mind leaped out and you were mystified by her strange exclamation!" "Perhaps. I suppose that may be it. It was just myself, just my devil!" Jack assented limply. "Time! time! All this will pass." Jack could not answer that commonplace with one of his own, that it would not pass; he could only return the pressure when his father, rising and coming around the table, slipped his arm about the son in a demonstration of affection which was like opening the gate to a new epoch in their relations. "And you would have killed Leddy! You could have broken that Mexican in two! I should like to have seen that! So would the ancestor!" said the father, giving Jack a hug. "Yes, but, father, that was the horror of it!" "Not the power to do it--no! I mean, Jack, that in this world it is well to be strong." "And you think that I am no longer a weakling?" Jack asked strangely; "that I carried out your instructions when you sent me away?" "Oh, Jack, you remember my farewell remark? It was made in irritation and suffering. That hurt me. It hurt my pride and all that my work stands for. It hurt me as much as it hurt you. But if it was a whip, why, then, it served a purpose, as I wanted it to." "Yes, it was a whip!" said Jack, mechanically. "Then all ends well--all quits! And, Jack," he swung Jack, who was unresisting but unresponsive, around facing him, "if you ever have any doubts or any questions to ask bring them to me, won't you?" "Yes." "And, Jack, a hundred a week to-morrow! You're all right, Jack!" And he gave Jack a slap on the back as they left the dining-room. XXIX A MEETING ON THE AVENUE TRAIL Light sang in the veins and thoughts of a city. Light cleansed the streets of vapors. Light, the light of the sunshine of late May, made a far different New York from the New York under a blanket of March mist of the day of Jack's arrival. The lantern of the Metropolitan tower was all blazing gold; Diana's scarf trailed behind her in the shimmering abandon of her _honi soit qui mal y pense_ chases on Olympus; Admiral Farragut grew urbane, sailing on a smooth sea with victory won; General Sherman in his over-brightness, guided by his guardian lady, still gallantly pursued the tone of time in the direction of the old City Hall and Trinity; and the marble façade of the new library seemed no less at home than under an Agean sky. An ecstasy, blinding eyes to blemishes, set critical faculties to rejoicing over perfections. They graciously overlooked the blotch of red brick hiding the body of St. Patrick's on the way up town in gratitude for twin spires against the sky. Enveloping radiance gilded the sharp lines of skyscrapers and swept away the shadows in the chasms between them. It pointed the bows of busy tugs with sprays of diamonds falling on the molten surface of rivers and bays. It called up paeans of childish trebles from tenement alleys; slipped into the sickrooms of private houses, delaying the advent of crape on the door; and played across the rows of beds in the public wards of hospitals in the primal democracy of the gift of ozone to the earth. The milky glass roof of the central court of the Wingfield store acted as a screen to the omnipotent visitor, but he set unfiltered patches of delight in the aisles and on the counters near the walls. Mamie Devore and Burleigh and Peter Mortimer and many other clerks and employees asked if this were like a desert day and Jack said that it was. He longed to be free of all roofs and feel the geniality of the hearth-fire of the planetary system penetrating through his coat, his skin, his flesh, into his very being. Why not close the store and make a holiday for everybody? he asked himself; only to be amazed, on second thought, at such a preposterous suggestion from a hundred-dollar-a-week author of created profits in the business. He was almost on the point of acting on another impulse, which was that he and his father break away into the country in a touring car, not knowing where they were going to stop until hunger overtook an inn. This, too, he dismissed as a milder form of the same demoralizing order of heresy, bound to be disturbing to the new filial relations springing from the night when he had told his desert story over the coffee, which, contrary to the conventional idea of an exchange of confidences clearing the mind of a burden, had only provoked more restlessness. At least, he would fare forth for a while on the broad asphalt trail that begins under the arch of the little park and runs to the entrance of the great park. Even as the desert has its spell of overawing stillness in an uninhabited land, so this trail had its spell of congested human movement in the heart of habitations. A broad, luminous blade lay across the west side of the street and left the other in shade; and all the world that loved sunshine and had no errands on the east side kept to the west side. There was a communism of inspiration abroad. It was a conqueror's triumph just to be alive and feel the pulse-beat of the throng. The very over-developed sensitiveness of city nerves became something to be thankful for in providing the capacity for keener enjoyment as compensation for the capacity for keener pain. Womankind was in spring plumage. The mere consciousness of the value of light to their costumes, no less than the elixir in their nostrils, gave vivacity to their features. As usual, Jack was seeing them only to see Mary. The creation of no _couturier_ could bear rivalry with the garb in which his imagination clothed her. He found himself suddenly engrossed in a particular exhibit of fashion's parade a little distance ahead and going in the same direction as himself, a young woman in a simplicity of gown to which her carriage gave the final touch of art. Her steps had a long-limbed freedom and lightness, with which his own steps ran in a rhythm to the music of some past association. The thrall of a likeness, which more and more possessed him, made him hasten to draw near for a more satisfying glimpse. The young woman turned her head to glance into a shop-window and then there could be no mistaking that cheek and chin and the peculiar relation of the long lashes to the brow. It was the profile whose imprint had become indelible on his mind when he had come round an elbow of rock on Galeria. The Jack of wild, tumultuous pleading who had parted from Mary Ewold on the pass became a Jack elate with the glad, swimming joy of May sunshine at seeing and speaking to her again. "Mary! Mary!" he cried. "My, but you've become a grand swell!" he breathed delectably, with a fuller vision of her. "Jack!" There was a nervous twitching of her lips. He saw her eyes at first in a blaze of surprise and wonder; then change to the baffling sparkle, hiding their depths, of the slivers of glass on the old barrier. His smile and hers in unspoken understanding said that two comrades of another trail had met on the Avenue trail. There had not been any Leddy; there had not been any scene on the pass. They were back to the conditions of the protocol he had established when they started out from the porch of the Ewold bungalow in the airiest possible mood to look at a parcel of land. "And you also have become a grand swell!" she said. "Did you expect that I should be in a gray riding-habit? Certainly I didn't expect to see you in chaps and spurs." It was brittle business; but with a common resource in play they managed it well. And there they were walking together, noted by passers-by for their youth and beaming oblivion to everything but themselves. "How long have you been here?" Jack asked. "Two weeks," she answered. Two weeks in the same town and this his first glimpse of her! What a maze New York was! What a desert waste of two weeks! "Yes. Our decision to come was rather abrupt," she explained. "A sudden call to travel came to father; came to him like an inspiration that he could not resist. And how happily he has entered into the spirit of the city again! It has made him young." "And it has been quite like martyrdom for you!" Jack put in, teasingly. "Terrible! Sackcloth and ashes!" "I see you are wearing the sackcloth." She laughed outright, with a downward glance at her gown, at once in guilt and appreciation. "Another whim of father's." "The Doge a scapegoat for fashion!" "Not a scapegoat--a partisan! He insisted on going to one of the best places. Could I resist? I wanted to see how I felt, how I appeared." "The veritable curiosity of a Japanese woman getting her first foreign gown!" "Thank you! That is another excuse." "And it certainly looks very well," Jack declared. "Do you think so?" Mary flushed slightly. She could not help being pleased. "After six years, could I drop back into the old chrysalis naturally, without awkwardness? Did I still know how to wear a fine gown?"--and the gift for it, as anyone could see, was born in her as surely as certain gifts were born in Jack. "But," she added, severely, "I have only two--just two! And the cost of them! It will take the whole orange crop!" Just two, when she ought to have twenty! When he would have liked to put all the Paris models in the store in a wagon and, himself driving, deliver them at her door! "Having succumbed to temptation, I enjoy it out of sheer respect to the orange crop," Mary said; "and yes, because I like beautiful gowns; wickedly, truly like them! And I like the Avenue, just as I like the desert." And all that she liked he could give her! And all that he could give she had stubbornly refused! The liveliness of her expression, the many shades of meaning that she could set capering with a glance, were now as the personal reflection of the day and the scene. Their gait was a sauntering one. They went as far as the Park and started back, as if all the time of the desert were theirs. They stopped to look into the windows of shops of every kind, from antiques to millinery. When he saw a hat which he declared, after deliberate, critical appraisement, would surely become her, she asked boldly if it were better than the one she wore. "I mean an extra hat; that one more hat would have the good fortune of becoming you!" "Almost a real contribution to the literature of compliments!" she answered, unruffled. He thought, too, that she ought to have a certain necklace in a jeweler's window. "To wear over my riding-habit or when I am digging in the flower beds?" she inquired. When they passed a display of luxuries for masculine adornment, she found a further retort in suggesting that he ought to have a certain giddy fancy waistcoat. He complimented her on her taste, bought the waistcoat and, going to the rear of the shop, returned wearing it with a momentarily appreciated show of jaunty swagger. "Why be on the Avenue and not buy?" he queried, enthusing with a new idea. Jim Galway should have a cowpuncher hat as a present. The style of band was a subject of discussion calling on their discriminative views of Jim's personal tastes. This led to thoughts of others in Little Rivers who would appreciate gifts, and to the purchase of toys for the children, a positive revel. When they were through it was well past noon and they were in the region of the restaurants. The sun in majestic altitude swept the breadth of the Avenue. "Shall we lunch--yes, and in the Best Swell Place?" he asked, as if it were a matter-of-course part of the programme, while inwardly he was stirred with the fear of her refusal. He felt that any minute she might leave him, with no alternative but another farewell. She hesitated a moment seriously, then accepted blithely and naturally. "Yes, the Best Swell Place--let's! Who isn't entitled to the Best Swell Place occasionally?" After an argument in comparison of famous names, they were convinced that they had really chosen the Best Swell Place by the fact of a vacant table at a window looking out over a box hedge. Jack told the waiter that the assemblage was not an autocracy, but a parliament which, with a full quorum present, would enjoy in discursive appreciation selections from the broad range of a bill of fare. A luncheon for two narrows a walk on the Avenue, where you are part of a crowd, into restricted intimacy. He was feeling the intoxication of her inscrutability, catching gleams of the wealth that lay beyond it, across the limited breadth of a table-cloth. He forgot about the unspoken conditions in a sally which was like putting his hand on top of the barrier for an impetuous leap across. "I wrote you stacks of letters," he said, "and you never sent me one little line; not even 'Yours received and contents noted!'" In a flash all intimacy vanished. She might have been at the other end of the dining-room in somebody else's party nodding to him as to an acquaintance. Her answer was delayed about as long as it takes to lift an arrow from a quiver and notch it in a bowstring. "A novel may be very interesting, but that does not mean that I write to the author!" He imagined her going through the meal in polite silence or in measured commonplaces, turning the happy parliament into a frigid Gothic ceremony. Why had he not kept in mind that sufficient to the hour is the pleasure of it? Famished for her companionship, a foolhardy impulse of temptation had risked its loss. The waiter set something before them and softly withdrew. Jack signaled the unspoken humility of being a disciplined soldier at attention on his side of the barrier and Mary signaled a trifle superior but good-natured acceptance of his apology and promise of better conduct. They were back to the truce of nonsense, apostrophizing the cooking of the Best Swell Place, setting exclamations to their glimpses of people passing in the street. For they had never wanted for words when talking across the barrier; there was paucity of conversation only when he threatened an invasion. While a New Yorker meeting a former New Yorker on the desert might have little to tell not already chronicled in the press, a Little Riversite meeting a former Little Riversite in New York had a family budget of news. How high were Jack's hedges? How were the Doge's date-trees? How was this and that person coming on? Listening to all the details, Jack felt homesickness creeping over him, and he clung fondly to every one of the swiftly-passing moments. By no reference and by no inference had she suggested that there was ever any likelihood of his meeting or hearing from her again. A thread of old relations had been spun only to be snapped. She was, indeed, as a visitation developed out of the sunshine of the Avenue, into which she would dissolve. "I was to meet father at a bookstore at three," she said, finally, as she rose. "Inevitably he would be there or in a gallery," said Jack. "He has done the galleries. This is the day for buying books--still more books! I suppose he is spending the orange crop again. If you keep on spending the same orange crop, just where do you arrive in the maze of finance?" "I should not like to say without consulting the head book-keeper or, at least, Peter Mortimer!" They were coming out of the door of the Best Swell Place, now. A word and she would be going in one direction and he in another. How easily she might speak that word, with an electric and final glance of good-will! "But I must say howdy do to the Doge!" he urged. "I should like to see him buying books. What a prodigal debauch of learning! I cannot miss that!" "It is not far," she said, prolonging Paradise for him. A few blocks below Forty-second Street they turned into a cross street which was the same that led to the Wingfield house; and halfway to Madison Avenue they entered a bookstore. The light from low windows spreading across the counters blended with the light from high windows at the back, and here, on a platform at the head of the stairs, before a big table sat the Doge, in the majesty of a great patron of literature, with a clerk standing by in deftly-urging attentiveness. Mary and Jack paused at the foot of the stairs watching him. Gently he was fingering an old octavo; fingering it as one would who was between the hyperionic desire of possession and a fear that a bank account owed its solvency to keeping the amounts of deposits somewhere in proportion to the amount of withdrawals. "No, sir! No more, you tempter!" he declared. "No more, you unctuous ambassador from the court of Gutenberg! Why, this one would take enough alfalfa at the present price a ton to bury your store under a haycock as high as the Roman Pantheon!" The Doge rose and picked up his broad-brimmed hat, prepared to fly from danger. He would not expose himself a moment longer to the wiles of that clerk. "I'll wait for my daughter down there in the safe and economical environs of the popular novels fresh from the press!" he said. Turning to descend the stairs he saw the waiting pair. He stopped stock still and threw up his hand in a gesture of astonishment. His glance hovered back and forth between Jack's face and Mary's, and then met Jack's look with something of the same challenge and confidence of his farewell on the road out of Little Rivers, and in an outburst of genial raillery he began the conversation where he had left off with the final call of his personal good wishes and his salutations to certain landmarks of New York. "Well, well, Sir Chaps! I saw Sorolla in his new style; very different from the academics of the young Sorolla. He has found his mission and let himself go. No wonder people flocked to his exhibitions on misty days! The trouble with our artists is that they are afraid to let themselves go, afraid to be popular. They think technique is the thing, when it is only the tool. Why, confound it all! all the great masters were popular in their day--Venetian, Florentine, Flemish! Confound it, yes! And not one Velasquez"--evidently he was talking partly to get his bearings after his shock at seeing Jack--"no, not one Velasquez in the Metropolitan! I go home without seeing a Velasquez. They have the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe collection, thousands of square yards of it, and yes, cheer up! Thank heaven, they have some great Americans, Inness and Martin and Homer and our exile Whistler, who annexed Japan, and our Sargent, born in Florence. And I did see the Metropolitan tower. I take off my hat, my broad-brimmed hat, wishing that it were as big as a carter's umbrella, to that tower. I hate to think it an accident of chaos like the Grand Canyon. I rather like to think of it as majestic promise." The Doge had talked so fast that he was almost out of breath. He was ready to yield the floor to Jack. "I kissed my hand to Diana for you!" said Jack. "And what do you think? The lady in answer shook out her scarf and something white and small fluttered down. I picked it up. It was a note." "Did you open that note?" asked the Doge in haughty suspicion. "Naturally." "Wasn't it marked personal for me?"--this in fine simulation of indignation. "Without address!" "I am chagrined and surprised at Diana," said the Doge ruefully. "It's the effect of city association. As a matter of course, she ought to have given it to Mercury, or at least to one of the Centaurs, considering all the horseshows that have been held under her skipping toes! Well, what did she say? Being a woman of action she was brief. What did she say?" "It was in the nature of a general personal complaint. Her costume is in need of repair; it is flaking disgracefully. She said that if you had not forsaken your love of the plastic for love of the graphic arts you would long ago have stolen a little gold off the Eternal Painter's palette, just to clothe her decently for the sake of her own self-respect--the town having set her so high that its sense of propriety was quite safe." "I stand convicted of neglect," said the Doge, coming down to the floor of the store. "I will shoot her a bundle of gold leaf from the top of the pass on a ray of evening sunshine." There, he gave Jack a pat on the shoulder; a hasty, playful, almost affectionate demonstration, and broke off with a shout of: "Persiflage, sir, persiflage!" "It is manna to me!" declared Jack, in the fulness and sweetness of the sensation of the atmosphere of Little Rivers reproduced in New York. "And not a Velasquez in the Metropolitan!" mused the Doge, bustling along the aisle hurriedly. "Well, Mary, we have errands to do. There is no time to spare." They were at the door, Jack in wistful insistence, hungry for their companionship, and the Doge and Mary in common hesitancy for a phrase before parting from him. He was ahead of the phrase. "But there is a Velasquez, one of the greatest of Velasquezes, just a few steps from here! It would take only a minute to see it." "A Velasquez a few steps from here!" cried the Doge. "Where? Be exact, before I let my hopes rise too high." "The subject is an ancestor of mine. My father has it." Jack had looked in the direction of the Wingfield house on the Madison Avenue corner as he spoke, and the Doge had followed his glance. The eagerness passed from the Doge's face, but not its intensity. That was transmuted into something staring and hard. "A very great Velasquez!" Jack repeated. "My _amour propre_!" the Doge said, in whispered abstraction, using the French which so exactly expresses the rightness of an inner feeling that will not let one do a thing however much he may wish to. Then a wave of confusion passed over his face, evidently at the echo of his thoughts in the form of words come unwittingly from his lips. He tried to retrieve his exclamation in an effort at the forensic: "The _amour propre_ of any American is hurt by the thought that he must go to a private gallery to see a Velasquez in the greatest city of the land!" But it was a lame explanation. Clearly, some old antipathy had been aroused in Jasper Ewold; and it made him hesitate to enter the big red brick house on the corner. "And we have a wonderful Sargent, too, a Sargent of my mother!" Jack proceeded. "Yes, yes!" said the Doge, and eagerness returned; a strange, moving eagerness that seemed to come from the same depths as the exclamation that had arrested his acceptance of the invitation at the outset. It held the monosyllables like drops of water trembling before they fell. "I should like you to see them both," said Jack. "Yes," said the Doge, the word an echo rather than consent. "There is no one at home at this hour; you will have all the time you can spare for the pictures." In the ascendency of his ardor to retain the joy of their company and in the perplexity of mystery injected afresh into his relations with Mary, Jack was hardly conscious that his urging was only another way of saying that his father was absent. And Mary had not thrown her influence either for or against going. She was watching her father, curiously and penetratingly, as if trying to understand the source of the emotion that he was seeking to control. "Why, in that case," exclaimed the Doge, "why, you see," he went on to explain, "we desert folk, though we are used to galleries, are a little diffident about meeting people who live in big mansions. I mean, people who have not had the desert training that you have had, Sir Chaps. If it is only a matter of looking at a picture without any social responsibilities, and that picture a Velasquez, why, we must take the time, mustn't we, Mary?" "Yes," Mary assented. With Mary on one side of him and Jack on the other, the Doge was walking heavily and slowly. "At what period of Velasquez's career?" he asked, vacantly. "When he was young and the subject was middle-aged, a Northerner, with fair hair and lean muscles under a skin bronzed by the tropics, and the unquenchable fire of youth in his eyes." "That ought to be a good Velasquez," said the Doge. At the bottom step of the flight up to the entrance to the house he hesitated. He appeared to be very old and very tired. His face had gone quite pale. The lids hung heavily over his eyes. Jack dropped back in alarm to assist him; but his color quickly returned and the old challenge was in his glance as it met Jack's. "Now for your Velasquez!" he exclaimed, with calm vigor. Once in the hall, Jack stood to one side of the door of the drawing-room to let the Doge enter first. As the old man crossed the threshold his hands were clasped behind him; his shoulders had fallen together, not in weariness now, but in a kind of dazed, studious expectancy; and he faced the "Portrait of a Lady." "This is the Sargent," he said slowly, his lips barely opening in mechanical and absent comment. "A good Sargent!" He was as still as the picture in his bowed and earnest gaze into her eyes, except for an occasional nervous movement of the fingers. All the surroundings seemed to melt into a neutral background for the two; there was nothing else in the room but the scholar in his age and the "Portrait of a Lady" in her youth. Jack saw the Doge's face, its many lines expressive as through a mist of time, its hills and valleys in the sun and the shadow of emotions as variable as the mother's in life, speaking personal resentment and wrong, admiration and tenderness, grievous inquiry and philosophy, while the only answer was the radiant, "I give! I give!" Finally, the Doge tightened the clasp of his hands, with a quiver of his frame, as he turned toward Jack. "Yes, a really great Sargent--a Sargent of supreme inspiration!" he said. "Now for your Velasquez!" Before the portrait of the first John Wingfield, Jasper Ewold's head and shoulders recovered their sturdiness of outline and his features lighted with the veritable touch of the brush of genius itself. He was the connoisseur who understands, whose joy of possession is in the very tingling depths of born instinct, rich with training and ripened by time. It was superior to any bought title of ownership. In the presence of a supreme standard, every shade of discriminative criticism and appraisal became threads woven into a fabric of rapture. "Mary," he said, his voice having the mellowness of age in its deep appreciation, "Mary, wherever you saw this--skied or put in a corner among a thousand other pictures, in a warehouse, a Quaker meetinghouse, anywhere, whatever its surroundings--should you feel its compelling power? Should you pause, incapable of analysis, in a spell of tribute?" "Yes, I don't think I am quite so insensible as not to realize the greatness of this portrait, or that of the Sargent, either," she answered. "Good! I am glad, Mary, very glad. You do me credit!" Now he turned from the artist to the subject. He divined the kind of man the first John Wingfield was; divined it almost as written in the chronicle which Jack kept in his room in hallowed fraternity. Only he bore hard on the unremitting, callous, impulsive aggressiveness of a fierce past age, with its survival of the fittest swordsmen and buccaneers, which had no heroes for him except the painters, poets, and thinkers it gave to posterity. "Fire-eating old devil! And the best thing he ever did, the best luck he ever had, was attracting the attention of a young artist. It's immortality just to be painted by Velasquez; the only immortality many a famous man of the time will ever know!" He looked away from the picture to Jack's face keenly and back at the picture and back at Jack and back at the picture once more. "Yes, yes!" he mused, corroboratively; and Jack realized that at the same time Mary had been making the same comparison. "Very like!" she said, with that impersonal exactness which to him was always the most exasperating of her phases. Then the Doge returned to the Sargent. He was standing nearer the picture, but in the same position as before, while Jack and Mary waited silently on his pleasure; and all three were as motionless as the furniture, had it not been for the nervous twitching of the Doge's fingers. He seemed unconscious of the passing of time; a man in a maze of absorption with his thoughts. Jack was strangely affected. His brain was marking time at the double-quick of fruitless energy. He felt the atmosphere of the room surcharged with the hostility of the unknown. He was gathering a multitude of impressions which only contributed more chaos to chaos. His sensibilities abnormally alive to every sound, he heard the outside door opened with a latch-key; he heard steps in the hall, and saw his father's figure in the doorway of the drawing-room. John Wingfield, Sr. appeared with a smile that was gone in a flash. His face went stark and gray as stone under a frown from the Doge to Jack; and with an exclamation of the half-articulate "Oh!" of confusion, he withdrew. Jack looked around to see the Doge half turned in the direction of the door, gripping the back of a chair to steady himself, while Mary was regarding this sudden change in him in answer to the stricken change in the intruder with some of Jack's own paralysis of wonder. The Doge was the first to speak. He fairly rocked the chair as he jerked his hand free of its support, while he shook with a palsy which was not that of fear, for there was raging color in his cheeks. The physical power of his great figure was revealed. For the first time Jack was able to think of him as capable of towering militancy. His anger gradually yielded to the pressure of will and the situation. At length he said faintly, with a kind of abyssmal courtesy: "Thank you, Sir Chaps! Now I shall not go back to the desert without having seen a Velasquez. Thank you! And we must be going." Jack had an impulse, worthy of the tempestuous buccaneer of the picture, to call to his father to come down; and then to bar the front door until his burning questions were heard. The still light in Mary's eyes would have checked him, if not his own proper second thought and the fear of precipitating an ungovernable crisis. There had been shadows, real shadows, he was thinking wildly; they were not born of desert imaginings; and out of the quandary of his anguish came only the desire not to part from the Doge and Mary in this fashion! No, not until in some way equilibrium of mind was restored. Though he knew that they did not expect or want his company, he went out into the street with them. He would go as far as their hotel, he remarked, in the bravery of simulated ease. The three were walking in the same relative positions that they had before, with the Doge's bulk hiding Mary from Jack's sight. The Doge set a rapid pace, as if under the impetus of a desire to escape from the neighborhood of the Wingfield house. "Well, Sir Chaps," he said, after a while, "it will be a long time before the provincials come to New York again. Why, in this New York you can spend a patrimony in two weeks"--this with an affected amusement at his own extravagance--"and I've pretty nearly done it. So we fly from temptation. Yes, Mary, we will take the morning train." "The morning train!" Mary exclaimed; and her surprise left no doubt that her father's decision was new to her. Was it due to an exchange of glances between a stark face and a face crimson with indignation which Jack had already connected with the working out of his own destiny? "Yes, that is better than spending our orange crop again!" she hastened to add, with reassuring humor. "I'm fairly homesick for our oasis." "We've had our fill of the big city," said the Doge, feelingly, "and we are away to our little city of peace where we turned our pasts under with the first furrows in the virgin soil." Then silence. The truce of nonsense was dead. Persiflage was dead. Jack was as a mute stranger keeping at their side unasked, while the only glimpse he had of Mary was the edge of her hat and her fingertips on her father's sleeve. Silence, which he felt was as hard for them as for him, lasted until they were at the entrance to the quiet little hotel on a cross-town street where the Ewolds were staying; and having the first glimpse of Mary's eyes since they had started, he found nothing fathomable in them except unmistakable relief that the walk was over. "Thank you for showing me the Velasquez," said the Doge. "Thank you, Jack," Mary added. Both spoke in a manner that signaled to him the end of all things, but an end which he could not accept. "I--I--oh, there are a thousand questions I--" he broke out, desperately. The muscles of his face tightened. Unconsciously he had leaned forward toward the Doge in his intensity, and his attitude had become that of the Wingfield of the portrait. A lower note of command ran through the misery of his tone. Jasper Ewold stared at him in a second of scrutiny, at once burningly analytic and reflective. Then he flushed as he had at sight of the figure in the drawing-room doorway. His look plainly said: "How much longer do you mean to harass me?" as if Jack's features were now no less the image of a hard and bitter memory than those of John Wingfield, Sr. Jack drew back hurt and dumb, in face of this anger turned on himself. At length, the Doge mustered his rallying smile, which was that of a man who carries into his declining years a burden of disappointments which he fears may, in his bad moments, get the better of his personal system of philosophy. "Come, Mary!" he said, drawing his arm through hers. He became, in an evident effort, a grand, old-fashioned gentleman, making a bow of farewell. "Come, Mary, it's an early train and we have our packing yet to do." This time it was, indeed, dismissal; such a dismissal with polite urgency as a venerable cabinet minister might give an importunate caller who is slow to go. He and Mary started into the hotel. But he halted in the doorway to say over his shoulder, with something of his old-time cheer, which had the same element of pity as his leave-taking on the trail outside of Little Rivers: "Luck, Sir Chaps!" "Luck!" Mary called in the same strained tone that she had called to Jack when he went over the pass on his way to New York, the tone that was like the click of a key in the lock of a gate. XXX WITH THE PHANTOMS As Jack left the hotel entrance he was walking in the treadmill mechanics of a prisoner pacing a cell, without note of his surroundings, except of dim, moving figures with which he must avoid collision. The phantoms of his boyhood, bulky and stiflingly near, had a monstrous reality, yet the ghostly intangibility that mocked his sword-thrusts of tortured inquiry. At length his distraction centered on the fact that he and his father were to dine alone that evening. They dined alone regularly every Wednesday, when Jack made a report of his progress and received a lesson in business. It was at the last council of this kind that John Wingfield, Sr. had bidden his son to bring all questions and doubts to him. Now Jack hailed the weekly function as having all the promise of relief of a surgeon's knife. Fully and candidly he would unburden himself of every question beating in his brain and every doubt assailing his spirit. By the time that he was mounting the steps of the house his growing impatience could no longer bear even the delay of waiting on dinner. When he entered the hall he was the driven creature of an impelling desire that must be satisfied immediately. "Will you ask my father if he will see me at once?" he said to the butler. "Mr. Wingfield left word that he had to go into the country for the night," answered the butler. "I am sorry, sir," he added confusedly, in view of the blank disappointment with which the information was received. In dreary state Jack dined by himself in the big dining-room, leaving the food almost untouched. At intervals he was roused to a sense of his presence at table by the servant's question if he should bring another course. Without waiting for the last one, he went downstairs to the drawing-room, and standing near the "Portrait of a Lady," again poured out his questions, receiving the old answer of "I give! I give!" which meant, he knew, that she had given all of herself to him. Saying after saying of hers raced through his mind without throwing light on the mystery, which had the uncanniness of a conspiracy against him. And after his mother, Mary had influenced him more than any other person. She had brought life to the seeds which his mother had planted in his nature. That new life could not die, but without her it could not flourish. Her cry of "It's not in the blood!" again came echoing to his ears. What had she meant? The question sent him to the Ewolds' hotel; it sent this note up to her room: "MARY: "In behalf of old desert comradeship, if I were in trouble wouldn't you help me all you could? If I were in darkness and you could give me light, would you refuse? Won't you see me for a few moments, if I promise to keep to my side of the barrier which you have raised between us? I will wait here in the lobby a long time, hoping that you will. "JACK." "All the light I have to give. I also am in darkness," came the answer in a nervous, impulsive hand across a sheet of paper; and soon Mary herself appeared from the elevator, not in the fashion of the Avenue, but in simple gray coat and skirt, such as she wore at home. She greeted him in a startled, half-fearful manner, as if her presence were due to the impulsion of duty rather than choice. "Shall we walk?" she asked, turning toward the door in the welcome of movement as a steadying influence in her evident emotion. There they were in the old rhythm of step of Little Rivers companionship on a cross-town street. He saw that the costly hat that he had selected for her in the display of a shop-window after all was not the equal of the plain model with a fetching turn to the brim and a single militant feather, which she wore that evening. The light feather boa around her neck on account of the cool night air seemed particularly becoming. He was near, very near, her, so near that their elbows touched; but the nearness was like that of a picture out of a frame which has come to life and may step back into cold canvas at any moment. Oh, it was hard, in the might of his love for her, not to forget everything else and cry out another declaration, as he had from the canyon! But her face was very still. She was waiting for him to begin, while her fingers were playing nervously with the tip of her boa. "I must be frank, very frank," he said. "Yes, Jack, or why speak at all?" "From the night of my arrival in Little Rivers, when the Doge at once recognized who I was without telling me, I saw that, under his politeness and his kindness, he was hostile to my presence in Little Rivers." "Yes, I think that in a way he was," she answered. "I was conscious that something out of the past was between him and me, and that it included you in a subtle influence that nothing could change. And this afternoon, while you were at the house and my father came to the drawing-room door, I could not help noticing how the Doge was overcome. You noticed it, too?" "Yes, I never saw my father in such anger before. It seemed to me that he could have struck down that man in the doorway!" There was a perceptible shudder, but she did not look up, her glance remaining level with the flags. "And on the pass you said, 'It's not in the blood!'" he continued. "Yes, almost in terror you said it, as if it spelled an impassable gulf between us. Why? why? Mary, haven't I a right to know?" As he broke off passionately with this appeal, which was as the focus of all the fears that had tormented him, they were immediately under the light of a street lamp. She turned her head toward him resolutely, in the mustering of her forces for an ordeal. Her face was pale, but there was an effort at the old smile of comradeship. "Yes, as I said, the little light that I have is yours, Jack," she began. "But there is not much. It is, perhaps, more what I feel than what I know that has influenced me. All that my father has ever said about you and your father and your relations to us was the night after I returned from the pass ahead of you, when you had descended into the canyon to frighten me with the risk you were taking." "I did not mean to frighten you!" he interjected. "I only followed an impulse." "Yes, one of your impulses, Jack," she remarked, comprehendingly. "Father and I have been so much together--indeed, we have never been apart--that there is more than filial sympathy of feeling between us. There is something akin to telepathy. We often divine each other's thoughts. I think that he understood what had taken place between us on the pass; that you had brought on some sort of a crisis in our relations. It was then that he told me who you were, as you know. Then he talked of you and your father--you still wish to hear?" "Yes!" "And you will listen in silence?" "Yes!" "I will grant your defence of your father, but you will not argue? I am giving what you ask, in justice to myself; I am giving my reasons, my feelings." "No, I will not argue." Their tones were so low that a passer-by would have hardly been conscious that they were talking; but had the passer-by caught the pitch he might have hazarded many guesses, every one serious. "Then, I will try to make clear all that father said. You were the image of your father--a smile and a square chin. The smile could charm and the chin could kill. He liked you for some things that seemed to spring from another source, as he called it; but these would vanish and in the end you would be like your father, as he knew when he saw you break Pedro Nogales's arm. And you gloried in your strength; as you told me on the pass and as I saw for myself in the duel. And to you, father said, victory was the supreme guerdon of life. It ran triumphant and inextinguishable in your veins." "I--" he said, chokingly; but remembered his promise not to argue. "Any opposition, any refusal excited your will to overcome it in the sheer joy of the exercise of your strength. This had been your father's story in everything, even in his marriage." She paused. "There is nothing more? No further light on his old relations with my father and mother?" he asked. "Only a single exclamation, 'It's not in the blood for you to believe in Jack Wingfield, Mary!' And after that he turned silent and moody. I pressed him for reasons. He answered that he had told me enough. I had to live my own life; the rest I must decide for myself. I knew that I was hurting him sorely. I was striking home into that past about which he would never speak, though I know it still causes him many days of suffering." "But on the desert there is no past!" Jack exclaimed. "Yes, there is, Jack. There is your own heart. On the desert your past is not shared with others. But to-night, after I received your note, I did try, for the second time in my life, to share father's. I told him your request; I spoke of the scene in your drawing-room; I asked him what it meant. He answered that you must learn from one nearer you than he was, and that he never wanted to think of that scene again." It was she who had chosen the direction at the street corners. They were returning now toward the hotel. The fingers which had been playing with the boa had crumpled the end of it into a ball, which they were gripping so tightly that the knuckles were little white spots set in a blood-red background. She was suffering, but determined to leave nothing unsaid. "Jack, when I said 'It's not in the blood' I was more than repeating my father's words. They expressed a truth for me. I meant not only rebellion against what was in you, but against the thing that was in me. Why, Jack, I do not even remember my own mother! I have only heard father speak of her sadly when I was much younger. Of late years he has not mentioned her. He and the desert and the garden are all I have and all I know; and probably, yes--probably I'm a strange sort of being. But what I am, I am; and to that I will be true. Father went to the desert to save my life; and broken-hearted, old, he is greater to me than the sum of any worldly success. And, Jack, you forget--riding over the pass so grandly with your impulses, as if to want a thing is to get it--you--but we have had good times together; and, as I said, you belong on one side of the pass and I on the other. This and much else, which one cannot see or define, is between us. From the day you came, some forbidding influence seemed at work in my father's life and mine; and when you had gone another man, with your features and your smile, came to Little Rivers; one that I understand even less than you!" Jack recalled the references to the new rancher by Bob Worther on the day of his departure for the East and, later, in Jim Galway's letter. But he did not speak. Something more compelling than his promise was keeping him silent: her own apprehension, with its story of phantoms of her own. "And yesterday I saw your father's face," she went on, "as it appeared in the doorway for a second before he saw my father and was struck with fear, and how like yours it was--but more like John Prather's. And the high-sounding preachments about the poverty that might go with fine gowns became real to me. They were not banal at all. They were simple truth, free of rhetoric and pretence. I knew that my cry of 'It's not in the blood' was as true in me as any impulse of yours ever could be in you!" To the end, under the dominance of her will, she had not faltered; and with the end she looked up with a faint smile of stoicism and an invincible flame in her eyes. Anything that he might be able to say would be as flashing a blade in and out of a blaze. She had become superior to the resources of barrier or armor, confident of a self whose richness he realized anew. He saw and felt the tempered fineness of her as something that would mind neither siege nor prayer. "I am not afraid," she said, "and I know that you are not. It is all right!" Then she added, with a desperate coolness, but still clasping the boa rigidly: "The hotel is only a block away, and to-morrow you will be back in the store and I shall soon be on my side of the pass." This was her right word for a situation when his temples were throbbing, harking back, with time's reversal of conditions, to a situation after the duel in the _arroyo_ was over and he had used the right word when her temples were throbbing and her hands splashed. If retribution were her object, she had repaid in nerve-twitch of torture for nerve-twitch of torture. The picture that had been alive and out of its frame was back on cold canvas. Even the girl he had known across the barrier, even the girl in armor, seemed more kindly. But one can talk, even to a picture in a frame; at least, Jack could, with wistful persistence. "You don't mind if I tell you again--if I speak my one continuous thought aloud again?" he asked. "Mary, I love you! I love you in such a way that I"--with a faint bravery of humor as he saw danger signals--"I would build mud-houses all day for you to knock to pieces!" "Foolish business, Jack!" she answered. "Or drag a plow." "Very hard work!" "Or set out to tunnel a mountain single-handed, with hammer and chisel." "I think you would find it dreadfully monotonous at the end of the first week." He had spoken his extravagances without winning a glance from her. She had answered with a precision that was more trying than silence. "_I_ shouldn't find it so if you were in the neighborhood to welcome me when I knocked off for the day," he declared. "You see, I can't help it. I can't help what is in me, just as surely as the breath of life is in me." "Jack!" she flashed back, with arresting sharpness, but without looking around, while her step quickened perceptibly, "suppose I say that I am sorry and I, too, cannot help it; that I, too, have temperament, as well as you;" her tone was almost harsh; "that even you cannot have everything you command; that for you to want a thing does not mean that I want it; that I cannot help the fact that I do not--" With a quick interruption he stayed the end of the sentence, as if it were a descending blade. "Don't say that!" he implored. "It is too much like taking a vow that might make you fearfully stubborn in order to live up to it. Perhaps the thing will come some day. It's wonderful how such a thing does come. You see, I speak from experience," he went on, in wan insistence, with the entrance to the hotel in sight. "Why, it is there before you realize it, like the morning sunshine in a room while you are yet asleep. And you open your eyes and there is the joyous wonder, settling itself all through you and making itself at home forever. You know for the first time that you are alive. You know for the first time that you were born into this world merely because one other person was born into it." "Very well said," she conceded, in hasty approval, without vouchsafing him a glance. "I begin to think you get more inspiration for compliments on this side of the pass than on the other,"--and they were at the hotel door. Precipitately she hastened through it, as if with her last display of strength after the exhaustion of that walk. XXXI PRATHER WOULD NOT WAIT When he returned to the house, Jack found a letter that had come in the late mail from Jim Galway: "First off, that story you sent for Belvy," Jim wrote. "We've heard it read and reread, and the more it's worn with reading the fresher it gets in our minds. As I size up the effect on the population, we folks in the forties and fifties got more fun out of it than anybody except the folks in the seventies and the five-to-twelve-year-olds. Some of the thirteen and fourteen-year-olds were inclined to think at first that it wasn't quite grown up enough for them, until they saw what fashionable literature it was becoming. Then their dignified maturity limbered up a little. Jack, it certainly did us a world of good. It seemed as if you were back home again." "Back home again!" Jack repeated, joyously; and then shook his head at himself in solemn warning. "And those of us that don't take our meat without salt sort of needed cheering up," Jim went on. "Only a few days after I wrote you, the Doge and Mary suddenly started for New York. Maybe he has looked you up." (The "maybe" followed an "of course," which had been scratched through.) "And maybe if he has you know more about what is going on here than we do. We practically don't know anything; but I've sure got a feeling of that uncertainty in the atmosphere that I used to have before a cyclone when I lived in Kansas. This Prather, that so many thought at first looked like you, has also gone to New York. "He left only two days ago. Maybe you will run across him. I don't know, but it seems to me he's gone to get the powder for some kind of a blow-up here. Jack, you know what would happen if we lost our water rights and you know what I wrote you in my last letter. Leddy and Ropey Smith are hanging around all the time, and since the Doge went a whole lot of fellows that don't belong to the honey-bee class have been turning up and putting up their tents out on the outskirts, like they expected something to happen. If things get worse and I've got something to go on and we need you, I'm going to telegraph just as I said I would; because, Jack, though you're worth a lot of millions, someway we feel you're one of us. "Very truly yours for Little Rivers, "JAMES R. GALWAY. "P.S.--Belvy said to put in P.S. because P.S.'s are always the most important part of a letter. She wants to know if you won't write another story." "I will!" said Jack. "I will, immediately!" He made it a long story. He took a deal of pains with it in the very relief of something to do when sleep was impossible and he must count the moments in wretched impatience until his interview with the one person who could answer his questions. As he went down town in the morning the very freshness of the air inspired him with the hope that he should come out of his father's office with every phantom reduced to a figment of imagination springing from the abnormality of his life-story; with a message that should allay Mary's fears and soften her harshness toward him; with the certainty that the next time he and his father sat together at dinner it would be in a permanent understanding, craved of affection. Mary might come to New York; the Doge might spend his declining years in leisurely patronage of bookshops and galleries; and he would learn how to run the business, though his head split, as became a simple, normal son. These eddying thoughts on the surface of his mind, however, could not free him of a consciousness of a deep, unsounded current that seemed to be the irresistible, moving power of Mary's future, the store's, his fathers, Jasper Ewold's and his own. With it he was going into a gorge, over a cataract, or out into pleasant valleys, he knew not which. He knew nothing except that there was no stopping the flood of the current which had its source in streams already flowing before he was born. When the last question had been asked his future would be clear. Relief was ahead, and after relief would come the end of introspection and the beginning of his real career. But another question was waiting for him in the store. It was walking the streets of his father's city in the freedom of a spectator who comes to observe and not to buy. Crossing the first floor as he came to the court, Jack saw, with sudden distinctness among the many faces coming and going, a profile which, in its first association, developed on his vision as that of his own when he shaved in front of the ear in the morning. He had only a glimpse before it was turned away and its owner, a young man in a quiet gray suit, started up the stairs. Jack studied the young man's back half amusedly to see if this, too, were like his own, and laughed at himself because he was sure that he would not know his own back if it were preceding him in a promenade up the Avenue. In peculiar suspense he was hoping that the young man would pause and look around, as his father always did and shoppers often did, in a survey of the busy, moving picture of the whole floor. But the young man went on to the top of the flight. There he proceeded along the railing of the court. His profile was again in view under a strong light, and Jack realized that his first recognition of a resemblance was the recognition of an indisputable fact. "Have I a double out West and another in New York?" he thought. "It gives a man a kind of secondhand feeling!" Then he recalled Jim's letter saying that John Prather had gone to New York. Was this John Prather? He had no doubt that it was when the object of his scrutiny, with full face in view, stopped and leaned over the balcony just above the diamond counter. There was a mole patch on the cheek such as Jack remembered that the accounts of John Prather had mentioned. "I am as much fussed as the giant was at the sight of yellow!" Jack mused. But for the mole patch the features were his own, as he knew them, though no one not given to more frequent personal councils with mirrors than Señor Don't Care of desert trails knows quite the lights and shadows of his own countenance, which give it its character even more than does its form. John Prather was regarding the jewelry display, where the diamonds were scintillating under the light from the milk glass roof, with a smile of amused contemplation. His expression was unpleasant to Jack. It had a quality of satire and of covetousness as its owner leaned farther over the rail and rubbed the palms of his hands together as gleefully as if the diamonds were about to fly into his pockets by enchantment. All the time Jack had stood motionless in fixed and amazed observation. He wondered that his stare had not drawn the other's attention. But John Prather seemed too preoccupied with the dazzle of wealth to be susceptible to any telepathic influence. "Great heavens! I am gaping at him as if he were climbing hand over hand up the face of a sky-scraper!" Jack thought. It was time something happened. Why should he get so wrought up over the fact that another man looked like him? "I'll get acquainted!" he declared, shaking himself free of his antipathy. "We are both from Little Rivers and that's a ready excuse for introducing myself." As he started across the floor toward the stairs, Prather straightened from his leaning posture. For an instant his glance seemed to rest on Jack. Indeed, eye met eye for a flash; and then Prather moved away. His decision to go might easily have been the electric result of Jack's own decision to join him. Jack ran up the stairs. At the head of the flight he saw, at half the distance across the floor, Prather's back entering an elevator on the down trip. He hurried forward, his desire to meet and speak with the man whose influence Jim Galway and Mary feared now overwhelming. "Hello!" Jack sang out; and this to Prather's face after he had turned around in the elevator. In the second while the elevator man was swinging to the door, Jack and Prather were fairly looking at each other. Prather had seen that Jack wanted to speak to him, even if he had not heard the call. His answer was a smile of mixed recognition and satire. He made a gesture of appreciative understanding of the distinction in their likeness by touching the mole on his cheek with his finger, which was Jack's last glimpse of him before he was shot down into the lower regions of the store. "He did it neatly!" Jack gasped, with a sense of defeat and chagrin. "And it is plain that he does not care to get acquainted. Perhaps he takes it for granted that I am not friendly and foresaw that I would ask him a lot of questions about Little Rivers that he would not care to answer." At all events, the only way to accept the situation was lightly, his reason insisted. "Having heard about the likeness, possibly he came to the store to have a look at me, and after seeing me felt that he had been libeled!" But his feelings refused to follow his reason in an amused view. "I do not like John Prather!" he concluded, as he took the next elevator to the top floor. "Yes, I liked Pete Leddy better at our first meeting. I had rather a man would swear at me than smile in that fashion. It is much more simple." The incident had had such a besetting and disagreeable effect that Jack would have found it difficult to rid his mind of it if he had not had a more centering and pressing object in prospect in the citadel of the push-buttons behind the glass marked "Private." John Wingfield, Sr. looked up from his desk in covert watchfulness to detect his son's mood, and he was conscious of a quality of manner that recalled the returning exile's entry into the same room upon his arrival from the West. "Well, Jack," the father said, with marked cheeriness, "I hear you have been taking a holiday. It's all right, and you will find motoring beats pony riding." "In some ways," Jack answered; and then he came a step nearer, his hand resting on the edge of the desk, as he looked into his father's eyes with glowing candor. John Wingfield, Sr.'s eyes shifted to the pushbuttons and later to a paper on the desk, with which his fingers played gently. He realized instantly that something unusual was on Jack's mind. "Father," Jack went on, "I want a long talk quite alone with you. When it is over I feel that we shall both know each other better; we can work together in a fuller understanding." "Yes, Jack," answered the father, cautiously feeling his way with a swift upward glance, which fell again to the paper. "Well, what is it now? Come on!" "There are a lot of questions I want to ask--family questions." "Family questions?" The fingers paused in playing with the paper for an instant and went on playing again. The soft hands were as white as the paper. "Family questions, eh? Well, there isn't much to our family except you and I and that old ancestor--and a long talk, you say?" "Yes. I thought that probably this would be a good time; you could give me an hour now. It might not take that long." Jack's voice was even and engaging and respectful. But it seemed to fill the room with many echoing whispers. "I have a very busy day before me," the father said, still without looking up. He was talking to a little pad at one corner of the green blotter which had a list of his appointments. "Your questions are not so imperative that they cannot wait?" "Then shall it be at dinner?" Jack asked. "At dinner? No. I have an engagement for dinner." "Shall you be home early? Shall I wait up for you?" Jack persisted. "Yes, that's it! Say at nine. I'll make a point of it--in the library at nine!" John Wingfield, Sr.'s hand slipped away from the papers and patted the back of Jack's hand. "And come on with your questions. I will answer every one that I can." He was looking up at Jack now, smilingly and attractively in his frankness. "Every one that I can, from the first John Wingfield right down to the present!" But the hand that lay on Jack's was cold and its movement nervous and spasmodic. "Thank you, father. I knew you would. I haven't forgotten your wish that I should bring all my doubts and questions to you," said Jack, happily. And in an impulse which had the devoutness of a rising hope he took that cold, soft hand in both of his and gave it a shake; and the feel of the son's grip, firm and warm, remained with John Wingfield, Sr. while he stared at the door through which Jack had passed out. When he had pulled himself together he asked Mortimer to connect him with Dr. Bennington. "Doctor, I want a little talk with you to-night before nine," he said. "Could you dine with me--not at the house--say at the club? Yes--excellent--and make it at seven. Yes. Good-by!" XXXII A CRISIS IN THE WINGFIELD LIBRARY A library atmosphere was missing from the Wingfield library, with its heavy panelling and rows of red and blue morocco backs. Rather the suggestion was of a bastion of privacy, where a man of action might make his plans or take counsel at leisure amid rich and mellow surroundings. Here, John Wingfield, Sr. had gained points through post-prandial geniality which he could never have won in the presence of the battery of push-buttons; here, his most successful conceptions had come to him; here, he had known the greatest moments of his life. He was right in saying that he loved his library; but he hardly loved it for its books. When he returned to the house shortly before nine from his session with Dr. Bennington, it was with the knowledge that another great moment was in prospect. He took a few turns up and down the room before he rang for the butler to tell Jack that he had come in. Then he placed a chair near the desk, where its occupant would sit facing him. After he sat down he moved the desk lamp, which was the only light in the room, so that its rays fell on the back of the chair and left his own face in shadow--a precaution which he had taken on many other occasions in adroitness of stage management. He drew from the humidor drawer of his desk a box of the long cigars with blunt ends which need no encircling gilt band in praise of their quality. As Jack entered, the father welcomed him with a warm, paternal smile. And be it remembered that John Wingfield, Sr. could smile most pleasantly, and he knew the value of his smile. Jack answered the smile with one of his own, a little wan, a little subdued, yet enlivening under the glow of his father's evident happiness at seeing him. The father, who had transgressed the rules of longevity by taking a second cigar after dinner, now pushed the box across the desk to his son. Jack said that he would "roll one"; he did not care to smoke much. He produced a small package of flake tobacco and a packet of rice paper and with a deftness that was like sleight of hand made a cigarette without spilling a single flake. He had not always chosen the "makings" in place of private stock Havanas, but it seemed to suit his mood to-night. "That is one of the things you learned in the West," the father observed affably, to break the ice. "I can do them with one hand," Jack answered. "But you are likely to have an overflow--which is all right when you have the whole desert for the litter. Besides, in a library it would have the effect of gallery play, I fear." He was seated in a way that revealed all the supple lines of his figure. However relaxed his attitude before his father, it was always suggestive of latent strength, appealing at once to paternal pride and paternal uncertainty as to what course the strength would take. His face under the light of the lamp was boyish and singularly without trace of guile. The father struck a match and held it to light his son's cigarette; another habit of his which he had found flattering to men who were brought into the library for conference. Jack took a puff slowly and, after a time, another puff, and then dropped the cigarette on the ash receiver as much as to say that he had smoked enough. Something told John Wingfield, Sr. that this was to be a long interview and in no way hurried, as he saw the smile dying on the son's lips and misery coming into the son's eyes. "These last two days have been pretty poignant for me," Jack began, in a simple, outright fashion; "and only half an hour ago I got this. It was hard to resist taking the first train West." He drew a telegram from his pocket and handed it to his father. "We want you and though we don't suppose you can come, we simply had to let you know. "JAMES R. GALWAY." "It is Greek to me," said the father. "From your Little Rivers friends, I judge." "Yes. I suppose that we may as well begin with it, as it drove everything else out of my mind for the moment." John Wingfield, Sr. swung around in his chair, with his face in the shadow. His attitude was that of a companionable listener who is prepared for any kind of news. "As you will, Jack," he said. "Everything that pertains to you is my interest. Go ahead in your own way." "It concerns John Prather. I don't know that I have ever told you about him in my talks of Little Rivers." "John Prather?" The father reflectively sounded the name, the while he studied the spiral of smoke rising from his cigar. "No, I don't think you have mentioned him." It was Jack's purpose to take his father entirely into his confidence; to reveal his own mind so that there should be nothing of its perplexities which his father did not understand. He might not choose a logical sequence of thought or event, but in the end nothing should be left untold. Indeed, he had not studied how to begin his inquiries. That he had left to take care of itself. His chief solicitude was to keep his mind open and free of bitterness whatever transpired, and it was evident that he was under a great strain. He told of the coming of John Prather to Little Rivers while he was absent; of the mention of the likeness by his fellow-ranchers; and of the fears entertained by Jim Galway and Mary. When he came to the scene in the store that afternoon it was given in a transparent fulness of detail; while all his changing emotions, from his first glimpse of Prather's profile to the effort to speak with him and the ultimatum of Prather's satirical gesture, were reflected in his features. He was the story-teller, putting his gift to an unpleasant task in illumination of sober fact and not the uses of imagination; and his audience was his father's cheek and ear in the shadow. "Extraordinary!" John Wingfield, Sr. exclaimed when Jack had finished, glancing around with a shrug. "Naturally, you were irritated. I like to think that only two men have the Wingfield features--the features of the ancestor--yes, only two: you and I!" "It was more than irritation; it was something profound and disturbing, almost revolting!" Jack exclaimed, under the disagreeable spell of his vivid recollection of the incident. "The resemblance to you was so striking, father, especially in the profile!" Jack was leaning forward, the better to see his father's profile, dim in the half light. "Yes, recognizable instantly--the nose and the lines about the mouth! You have never met anyone who has seen this man? You have never heard of him?" he asked, almost morbidly. John Wingfield, Sr. broke into a laugh, which was deprecatory and metallic. He looked fairly into Jack's eyes with a kind of inquiring amazement at the boy's overwrought intensity. "Why, no, Jack," he said, reassuringly. "If I had I shouldn't have forgotten it, you may be sure. And, well, Jack, there is no use of being sensitive about it, though I understand your indignation--especially after he flaunted the fact of the resemblance in such a manner and refused to meet you. From what I have heard about that fight with Leddy--Dr. Bennington told me--I can appreciate why he did not care to meet you." He laughed, more genially this time, in the survey of his son's broad shoulders. "I fear there is something of the old ancestor's devil in you when you get going!" he added. So his father had seen this, too--what Mary had seen--this thing born in him with the coming of his strength! "Yes, I suppose there is," he admitted, ruefully. "Yes, I have reason to know that there is." His face went moody. Any malice toward John Prather passed. He was penitent for a feeling against a stranger that seemed akin to the dormant instinct that had made him glory in holding a bead on Pete Leddy. "And I am glad of it!" said John Wingfield, Sr., with a flash of stronger emotion than he had yet shown in the interview. "I am not. It makes me almost afraid of myself," Jack answered. "Oh, I don't mean firing six-shooters--hardly! I mean backbone," he hastened to add, almost ingratiatingly. "It is a thing to control, Jack, not to worry about." "Yes, to control!" said Jack, dismally. He was hearing Ignacio's cry of "The devil is out of Señor Don't Care!" and seeing for the thousandth time Mary's horrified face as he pressed Pedro Nogales against the hedge. Now poise was all on the side of the father, who glanced away from Jack at the glint of the library cases in the semi-darkness in satisfaction. But only a moment did the son's absent mood last. He leaned forward quivering, free from his spell of reflection, and his words came pelting like hail. He was at grip with the phantoms and nothing should loosen his hold till the truth was out. "Father, I could not fail to see the look on your face and the look on Jasper Ewold's when you found him in the drawing-room!" At the sudden reversal of his son's attitude, John Wingfield, Sr. had drawn back into the shadow, as, if in defensive instinct before the force that was beating in Jack's voice. "Yes, I was startled; yes, very startled! But, go on! Speak everything that you have in mind; for it is evident that you have much to say. Go on!" he repeated more calmly, and turned his face farther into the shadow, while he inclined his head toward Jack as if to hear better. One leg had drawn up under him and was pressing against the chair. Jack waited a moment to gather his thoughts. When he spoke his passion was gone. "We have always been as strangers, father," he began. "I have no recollection of you in childhood until that day you came as a stranger to the house at Versailles. I was seven, then. My mother was away, as you will recall. I remember that you did not kiss me or show any affection. You did not even say who you were. You looked me over, and I was very frail. I saw that I did not please you; and I did not like you. In my childish perversity I would speak only French to you, which you did not understand. When my mother came home, do you remember her look? I do. She went white as chalk and trembled. I was frightened with the thought that she was going to die. It was a little while before she spoke and when she did speak she was like stone. She asked you what you wanted, as if you were an intruder. You said: 'I have been looking at the boy!' Your expression told me again that you were not pleased with me. Without another word you departed. I can still hear your steps on the walk as you went away; they were so very firm." "Yes, Jack, I can never forget." The tone was that of a man racked. "What else?" he asked. "Go on, Jack!" "You know the life my mother and I led, study and play together. And that was the only time you saw me until I was fourteen. I was mortally in awe of you then and in awe of you the day I went West with your message to get strong. But I got strong; yes, strong, father!" "Yes, Jack," said the father. "Yes, Jack, leave nothing unsaid--nothing!" Now Jack swept back to the villa garden in Florence, the day of the Doge's call; and from there to the Doge's glance of recognition that first night in Little Rivers; then to the scene in front of the bookstore, when the Doge hesitated about going to see the Velasquez. He pictured the Doge's absorption over the mother's portrait; he repeated Mary's story on the previous evening. All the while the profile, so dimly outlined in the outer darkness beyond the lamp's circle of light, to which he had been speaking, had not stirred. The father's cigar had gone out. It lay idly in his fingers, which rested on the arm of the chair, above a tiny pile of ashes on the rug. But there was no other sign of emotion, except his half affirmative interjections, with a confessional's encouragement to empty the mind of its every affliction. "Why were my mother and myself always in exile? What was this barrier between you and her? Why was it that I never saw you? Why this bitterness of Jasper Ewold against you? Why should that bitterness be turned against me? I want to know, father, so that we can start afresh and right. I no longer want to be in the dark, with its mystery, but in the light, where I can grapple with the truth!" There was no rancor, no crashing of sentences; only high tension in the finality of an inquiry in which hope and fear rose together. "Yes, Jack!" exclaimed John Wingfield, Sr., after a silence in which he seemed to be passing all that Jack had said in review. "I am glad you have told me this; that you have come to the one to whom you should come in trouble. You have made it possible for me to speak of something that I never found a way to speak about, myself. For, Jack, you truly have been a stranger to me and I to you, thanks to the chain of influences which you have mentioned." Very slowly John Wingfield, Sr. had turned in his chair. Distress was rising in his tone as he leaned toward Jack. His face under the rim of light of the lamp had a new charm, which was not that of the indulgent or flattering or winning smile, or the masterful set of his chin on an object. He seemed pallid and old, struggling against a phantom himself; almost pitiful, this man of strength, while his eyes looked into Jack's with limpid candor. "Jack, I will tell you all I can," he said. "I want to. It is duty. It is relief. But first, will you tell me what your mother told you? What her reasons were? I have a right to know that, haven't I, in my effort to make my side clear?" He spoke in direct, intimate appeal. Jack's lips were trembling and his whole nature was throbbing in a new-found sympathy. For the first time he saw his father as a man of sensitive feeling, capable of deep suffering. And he was to have the truth, all the truth, in kindness and affection. "After you had left the house at Versailles," said Jack, "she took me in her arms and said that you were my father. 'Did you like him?' she asked; and I said no, realizing nothing but the childish impression of the interview. At that she was wildly, almost hysterically, triumphant. I was glad to have made her so happy. 'You are mine alone! You have only me!' she declared over and over again. 'And you must never ask me any questions, for that is best.' She never mentioned you afterward; and in all my life, until I was fourteen, I was never away from her." Again the palm of John Wingfield, Sr.'s hand ran back and forth over his knee and the foot that was against the chair leg beat a nervous tattoo; while he drew a longer breath than usual, which might have been either of surprise or relief. His face fell back behind the rim of the lamp's rays, but he did not turn it away as he had when Jack was talking. "You know only the Jasper Ewold who has been mellowed by time," he began. "His scholarship was a bond of companionship for you in the isolation of a small community. I know him as boy and young man. He was very precocious. At the age of eight, as I remember, he could read his Caesar. You will appreciate what that meant in a New England town--that he was somewhat spoiled by admiration. And, naturally, his character and mine were very different, thanks to the difference in our situations; for the Ewolds had a good deal of money in those days. I was the type of boy who was ready to work at any kind of odd job in order to get dimes and quarters for my little bank. "Well, it is quite absurd to go back to that as the beginning of Jasper Ewold's feelings toward me; but one day young Wingfield felt that young Ewold was patronizing him. We had a turn at fisticuffs which resulted in my favor. Jasper was a proud boy, and he never quite forgave me. In fact, he was not used to being crossed. Learning was easy for him; he was good-looking; he had an attractive manner, and it seemed only his right that all doors should open when he knocked. Soon after our battle he went away to school. Not until we were well past thirty did our paths cross again. He was something of a painter, but he really had had no set purpose in life except the pleasures of his intellectual diversions. I will not say that he was wild, but at least he had lived in the abundant freedom of his opportunities. He fell in love at the same time that I did with Alice Jamison. You have seen your mother's picture, but that gives you little idea of her beauty in girlhood." "I have always thought her beautiful!" Jack exclaimed spontaneously. "Yes. I am glad. She always was beautiful to me; but I like best to think of her before she turned against me. I like to think of her as she was in the days of our courtship. Fortune favored me instead of Jasper Ewold. I can well understand the blow it was to him, that she should take the storekeeper, the man without learning, the man without family, as people supposed then, when he thought that she belonged entirely to his world. But his enmity thereafter I can only explain by his wounded pride; by a mortal defeat for one used to having his way, for one who had never known discipline. Your mother and I were very happy for a time. I thought that she loved me and had chosen me because I was a man of purpose, while Jasper Ewold was not." John Wingfield, Sr. spoke deliberately, measuring his thought before he put it into words, as if he were trying to set himself apart as one figure in a drama while he aimed to do exact justice to the others. "It was soon after you were born that your mother's attitude changed. She was, as you know, supersensitive, and whatever her grievances were she kept them to herself. My immersion in my affairs was such that I could not be as attentive to her as I ought to have been. Sometimes I thought that the advertisement with our name in big letters in every morning paper might be offensive to her; again, that she missed in me the education I had had to forfeit in youth, and that my affection could hardly take its place. I know that Jasper Ewold saw her occasionally, and in his impulse I know that he said things about me that were untrue. But that I pass over. In his place I, too, might have been bitter. "The best explanation I can find of your mother's change toward me is one that belongs in the domain of psychology and pathology. She suffered a great deal at your birth and she never regained her former strength. When she rose from her bed it was with a shadow over her mind. I saw that she was unhappy and nervous in my presence. Indeed, I had at times to face the awful sensation of feeling that I was actually repugnant to her. She was especially irritable if I kissed or fondled you. She dropped all her friends; she never made calls; she refused to see callers. I consulted specialists and all the satisfaction I had was that she was of a peculiarly high-strung nature and that in certain phases of melancholia, where there is no complete mental and physical breakdown, the patient turns on the one whom she would hold nearest and dearest if she were normal. The child that had taken her strength became the virtual passion of her worship, which she would share with no one. "When she proposed to go to Europe for a rest, taking you with her, I welcomed the idea. I rejoiced in the hope that the doctors held out that she would come back well, and I ventured to believe in a happy future, with you as our common object of love and care. But she never returned, as you know; and she only wrote me once, a wild sort of letter about what a beautiful boy you were and that she had you and I had the store and I was never to send her any more remittances. "I made a number of trips to Europe. I could not go frequently, because in those days, Jack, I was a heavy borrower of money in the expansion of my business, and only one who has built up a great business can understand how, in the earlier and more uncertain period of our banking credits, the absence of personal attention in any sudden crisis might throw you on the rocks. Naturally, when I went I wrote to Alice that I was coming; but I always found that she had gone and left no address for forwarding mail from the Crédit Lyonnais. Once when I went without writing she eluded me, and the second time I found that she had a cottage at Versailles. That, as you know, was the only occasion when I ever saw you or her until I came to bring you home after her sudden death." "Yes," Jack whispered starkly. "That day I had left her as well as usual and came home to find her lying still and white on a couch, her book fallen out of her hand onto the floor and--" the words choked in his throat. "And the stranger, your father, who came for you seemed very hard and forbidding to you!" "Yes," Jack managed to say. "But, Jack, when my steps sounded so firm the day I left you at Versailles it was the firmness of force of will fighting to accept the inevitable. For I had seen your face. It was like mine, and yet I had to give you up! I had to give you up knowing that I might not see you again; knowing that this tragic, incomprehensible fatality had set you against me; knowing that any further efforts to see you meant only pain for Alice and for me. Whatever happiness she knew came from you, and that she should have. And remember, Jack, that out of all this tragedy I, too, had my point of view. I had my moments of reproach against fate; my moments of bitterness and anger; my moments when I set all my mind with, volcanic energy into my affairs in order to forget my misfortune. I had to build for the sake of building. Perhaps that hardened me. "When you came home I saw that you were mine in blood but not mine in heart. All your training had been foreign, all of estrangement from the business and the ways of the home-country; which you could not help, I could not help, nothing now could help. But, after all, I had been building for you; that was my new solace. I wanted you to be equal to what was coming to you, and that change meant discipline. To be frank with you, as you have been with me, you were sickly, hectic, dreamy; and when word came that you must go to the desert if your life were to be saved--well, Jack, I had to put affection aside and consider this blow for what it was, and think not of kind words but of what was best for you and your future. I knew that my duty to you and your duty to yourself was to see you become strong, and for your sake you must not return until you were strong. "Now, as for the scene in the drawing-room the other day: I could not forget what Jasper Ewold had said of me. That was one thing. Another was that I had detected his influence over you; an influence against the purpose and steadiness that I was trying to inculcate in you; and suddenly coming upon him in my own house, in view of his enmity and the way in which he had spoken about me, I was naturally startled and indignant and withdrew to avoid a scene. That is all, Jack. I have answered your questions to the best of my knowledge. If others occur to you I will try my best to answer them, too;" and the father seemed ready to submit every recess of his mind to the son's inquisition. "You have answered everything," said Jack; "everything--fairly, considerately, generously." There was a flash of triumph in the father's eyes. Slowly he rose and stood with his finger-ends caressing the blotting-pad. Jack rose at the same time, his movement automatic, instinctively in sympathy with his father's. His head was bowed under stress of the emotion, incapable of translation into language, which transfixed him. It had all been made clear, this thing that no one could help. His feeling toward his mother could never change; but penetrating to the depths in which it had been held sacred was a new feeling. The pain that had brought him into the world had brought misery to the authors of his being. There was no phantom except the breath of life in his nostrils which they had given him. Watchfully, respecting the son's silence, the father's lips tightened, his chin went out slightly and his brows drew together in a way that indicated that he did not consider the battle over. At length, Jack's head came up and his face had the strength of a youthful replica of the ancestor's, radiant in gratitude, and in his eyes for the first time, in looking into his father's, were trust and affection. There was no word, no other demonstration except the steady, liquid look that spoke the birth of a great, understanding comradeship. The father fed his hunger for possession, which had been irresistibly growing in him for the last two months, on that look. He saw his son's strength as something that had at last become malleable; and this was the moment when the metal was at white heat, ready for knowing turns with the pincers and knowing blows of the hammer. The message from Jim Galway was still on the table where the father had laid it after reading. Now he pressed his fingers on it so hard that the nails became a row of red spots. "And the telegram, Jack?" he asked. Jack stared at the yellow slip of paper as the symbol of problems that reappeared with burning acuteness in his mind. It smiled at him in the satire of John Prather triumphing in Little Rivers. It visualized pictures of lean ranchers who had brought him flowers in the days of his convalescence; of children gathered around him on the steps of his bungalow; of all the friendly faces brimming good-will into his own on the day of his departure; of a patch of green in desert loneliness, with a summons to arms to defend its arteries of life. "They want me to help--I half promised!" he said. "Yes. And just how can you help?" asked his father, gently. "Why, that is not quite clear yet. But a stranger, they made me one of themselves. They say that they need me. And, father, that thrilled me. It thrilled the idler to find that there was some place where he could be of service; that there was some one definite thing that others thought he could do well!" The father proceeded cautiously, reasonably, with his questions, as one who seeks for light for its own sake. Jack's answers were luminously frank. For there was always to be truth between them in their new fellowship, unfettered by hopes or vagaries. "You could help with your knowledge of law? With political influence? Help these men seasoned by experience in land disputes in that region?" "No!" "And would Jasper Ewold, whom I understand is the head and founder of the community, want you to come? Has he asked you?" the father continued, drawing in the web of logic. "On the contrary, he would not want me." "And Miss Ewold? Would she want you?" There Jack hesitated. When he spoke, however, it was to admit the fact that was stabbing him. "No, she would not. She has dismissed me. But--but I half promised," he added, his features setting firmly as they had after Leddy had fired at him. "It seems like duty, unavoidable." The metal was cooling, losing its malleability, and the father proceeded to thrust it back into the furnace. "Then, I take it that your value to Little Rivers is your cool hand with a gun," he said, "and the summons is to uncertainties which may lead to something worse than a duel. You are asked to come because you can fight. Do you want to go for that? To go to let the devil, as you call it, out of you?" Now the metal was soft with the heat of the shame of the moment when Jack had called to Leddy, "I am going to kill you!" and of the moment when he saw Pedro Nogales's limp, broken arm and ghastly face. "No, no!" Jack gasped. "I want no fight! I never want to draw a bead on a man again! I never want to have a revolver in my hand again!" He was shuddering, half leaning against the desk for support. His father waited in observant comprehension. Convulsively, Jack straightened with desperation and all the impassioned pleading to Mary on the pass was in his eyes. "But the thing that I cannot help--the transcendent thing, not of logic, not of Little Rivers' difficulties--how am I to give that up?" he cried. "Miss Ewold, you mean?" "Yes!" "Jack, I know! I understand! Who should understand if not I?" The father drew Jack's hand into his own, and the fluid force of his desire for mastery was flowing out from his finger-ends into the son's fibres, which were receptively sensitive to the caress. "I know what it is when the woman you love dismisses you! You have her to think of as well as yourself. Your own wish may not be lord. You may not win that which will not be won"--how well he knew that!--"either by protest, by persistence, or by labor. You are dealing with the tender and intangible; with feminine temperament, Jack. And, Jack, it is wise for you, isn't it, to bear in mind that your life has not been normal? With the switch from desert to city life homesickness has crept over you. From to-night things will not be so strange, will they? But if you wish a change, go to Europe--yes, go, though I cannot bear to think of losing you the very moment that we have come to know each other; when the past is clear and amends are at hand. "And, Jack, if your mother were here with us and were herself, would she want you to go back to take up a rifle instead of your work at my side? I do not pretend to understand Jasper Ewold's or Mary Ewold's thoughts. She has preferred to make another generation's ill-feeling her own in a thing that concerns her life alone. She has seen enough of you to know her mind. For, from all I hear, you have not been a faint-hearted lover. Is it fair to her to follow her back to the desert? Is it the courage of self-denial, of control of impulse on your part? Would your mother want you to persist in a veritable conquest by force of your will, whose strength you hardly realize, against Mary Ewold's sensibilities? And if you broke down her will, if you won, would there be happiness for you and for her? Jack, wait! If she cares for you, if there is any germ of love for you in her, it will grow of itself. You cannot force it into blossom. Come, Jack, am I not right?" Jack's hands lay cold and limp in his father's; so limp that it seemed only a case of leading, now. Yet there was always the uncertain in the boy; the uncertain hovering under that face of ashes that the father was so keenly watching; a face so clearly revealing the throes of a struggle that sent cold little shivers into his father's warm grasp. Jack's eyes were looking into the distance through a mist. He dropped the lids as if he wanted darkness in which to think. When he raised them it was to look in his father's eyes firmly. There was a half sob, as if this sentimentalist, this Señor Don't Care, had wrung determination from a precipice edge, even as Mary Ewold had. He gripped his father's hands strongly and lifted them on a level with his breast. "You have been very fine, father! I want you to be patient and go on helping me. The trail is a rough one, but straight, now. I--I'm too brimming full to talk!" And blindly he left the library. When the door closed, John Wingfield, Sr. seized the telegram, rolled it up with a glad, fierce energy and threw it into the waste-basket. His head went up; his eyes became points of sharp flame; his lips parted in a smile of relief and triumph and came together in a straight line before he sank down in his chair in a collapse of exhaustion. After a while he had the decanter brought in; he gulped a glass of brandy, lighted another cigar, and, swinging around, fell back at ease, his mind a blank except for one glowing thought: "He will not go! He will give up the girl! He is to be all mine!" It is said that the best actors never go on the stage. They play real parts in private life, making their own lines as they watch the other players. One of this company, surveying the glint of his bookcases, was satisfied with the greatest effort of his life in his library. XXXIII PRATHER SEES THE PORTRAIT It did not occur to Jack to question a word of the narrative that had reduced a dismal enigma to luminous, connected facts. With the swift processes of reason and the promptness of decision of which he was capable on occasion, he had made up his mind as to his future even as he ascended the stairs to his room. The poignancy of his father's appeal had struck to the bed-rock of his affection and his conscience, revealing duty not as a thing that you set for yourself, but which circumstances set for you. Never before had he realized how hopelessly he had been a dreamer. Firio, P.D., Wrath of God, and Jag Ear became the fantastic memory of another incarnation. His devil should never again rejoice in having his finger on a trigger or send him off an easy traveller in search of gorgeous sunrises. His devil should be transformed into a backbone of unremitting apprenticeship in loving service for the father who had built for him in love. Though his head split, he would master every detail of the business. And when Jack stepped into the Rubicon he did not splash around or look back. He went right over to the new country on the other bank. But there were certain persons whom he must inform of the crossing. First, he wrote a telegram to Jim Galway: "Sorry, but overwhelming duty here will not permit. Luck and my prayers with you." Then to Firio a letter, which did not come quite so easily: "You see by now that you are mistaken, Firio. I am not coming back. Make the most of the ranch--your ranch--that you can." The brevity, he told himself, was in keeping with Firio's own style. Besides, anything more at length would have opened up an avenue of recollections which properly belonged to oblivion. And Mary? Yes, he would write to her, too. He would cut the last strand with the West. That was best. That was the part of his new courage of self-denial stripping itself of every trammeling association of sentiment. Other men had given up the women of their choice; and he could never be the man of this woman's choice. Somehow, his father's talk had made him realize an inevitable outcome which had better be met and mastered in present fortitude, rather than after prolonged years of fruitless hope centering two thousand miles away. He started a dozen letters to Mary, meaning each to be a fitting _envoi_ to their comradeship and a song of good wishes. Each one he wrote in the haste of having the task quickly over, only to throw away what he had written when he read it. The touch that he wanted would not come. He was simply flashing out a few of a thousand disconnected thoughts that ran away incoherently with his pen. But wasn't any letter, any communication of any kind, superfluous? Wasn't it the folly of weak and stupid stubbornness? She had spoken her final word in their relations at the hotel door. There was no Little Rivers; there was no Mary; there was nothing but the store. To enforce this fiat he had only to send the wire to Jim and post the letter to Firio. This he would do himself. A stroll would give him fresh air. It was just what he needed after all he had been through that evening; and he would see the streets not with any memory of the old restlessness when he and his father were strangers, but kindly, as the symbol of the future. His room was on the second floor. As he left it, he heard the door-bell ring, its electric titter very clear in the silence of the house. No doubt it meant a telegram for his father. At the turn of the stairs on the first floor he saw the back of the butler before the open door. Evidently it was not a matter of a telegram, but of some late caller. Jack paused in the darkness of the landing, partly to avoid the bother of having to meet anyone and partly arrested by the manner of the butler, who seemed to be startled and in doubt about admitting a stranger at that hour. Indistinctly, Jack could hear the caller's voice. The tone was familiar in a peculiar quality, which he tried to associate with a voice that he had heard frequently. The butler, apparently satisfied with the caller's appearance, or, at least, with his own ability to take care of a single intruder, stepped back, with a word to come in. Then, out of the obscurity of the vestibule, appeared the pale face of John Prather. Jack withdrew farther into the shadows instinctively, as if he had seen a ghost; as if, indeed, he were in fear of ghosts. "I will take your card to Mr. Wingfield," said the butler. Prather made a perfunctory movement as if for a card-case, but apparently changed his mind under the prompting suggestion that it was superfluous. "My name is John Prather," he announced. "Mr. Wingfield knows who I am and I am quite sure that he will see me." While the butler, after rapping cautiously, went into the library with the message, John Prather stood half smiling to himself as he looked around the hall. The effect seemed to please him in a contemplative fashion, for he rubbed the palms of his hands together, as he had in his survey of the diamond counters. He was serenity itself as John Wingfield, Sr. burst out of the library, his face hard-set. "I thought you were going this evening!" he exclaimed. "By what right do you come here?" He placed himself directly in front of Prather, thus hiding Prather's figure, but not his face, which Jack could see was not in the least disturbed by the other's temper. "Oh, no! The early morning train has the connections I want for Arizona," he answered casually, as if he were far from being in any hurry. "I was taking a walk, and happening to turn into Madison Avenue I found myself in front of the house. It occurred to me what a lot I had heard about that ancestor, and seeing a light in the library, and considering how late it was, I thought I might have a glimpse of him without inconveniencing any other member of the family. Do you mind?" He put the question with an inflection that was at once engaging and confident. "Mind!" gasped John Wingfield, Sr. "I am sure you do not!" Prather returned. Now a certain deference and a certain pungency of satire ran together in his tone, the mixture being nicely and pleasurably controlled. "Is it in there, in the drawing-room?" "And then what else? Where do you mean to end? I thought that--" "Nothing else," Prather interrupted reassuringly. "Everything is settled, of course. This is sort of a farewell privilege." "Yes, in there!" snapped John Wingfield, Sr. "It's the picture on the other side of the mantel. I will wait here--and be quick, quick, I tell you! I want you out of this house! I've done enough! I--" "Thanks! It is very good-natured of you!" John Prather passed leisurely into the drawing-room and John Wingfield, Sr. stood guard by the door, his hand gripping the heavy portieres for support, while his gaze was steadily fixed at a point in the turn of the stairs just below where Jack was obscured in the shadow. His face was drawn and ashen against the deep red of the hangings, and torment and fear and defiance, now one and then the other, were in ascendency over the features which Jack had always associated with composed and unchanging mastery until he had seen them illumined with affection only an hour before. And the father had said that he had never met or heard of John Prather! The father had said so quietly, decidedly, without hesitation! This one thought kept repeating itself to Jack's stunned brain as he leaned against the wall limp from a blow that admits of no aggressive return. "The ancestor certainly must have been a snappy member of society in his time! It has been delightful to have a look at him," said John Prather, as he came out of the drawing-room. He paused as he spoke. He was still smiling. The mole on his cheek was toward the stairway; and it seemed to heighten the satire of his smile. The faces of the young man and the old man were close together and they were standing in much the same attitude, giving an effect of likeness in more than physiognomy. That note of John Prather's voice that had sounded so familiar to Jack was a note in the father's voice when he was particularly suave. "This is the end--that is the understanding--the end?" demanded John Wingfield, Sr. "Oh, quite!" John Prather answered easily, moving toward the door. He did not offer his hand, nor did John Wingfield, Sr. offer to take it. But as he went out he said, his smile broadening: "I hope that Jack makes a success with the store, though he never could run it as well as I could. Good-by!" "Good-by!" gasped John Wingfield, Sr. He wheeled around distractedly and stood still, his head bowed, his fingers working nervously before his hands parted in a shrugging, outspread gesture of relief; then, his head rising, his body stiffening, once more his arbitrary self, he started up the stairs with the firm yet elastic step with which he mounted the flights of the store. If Jack remained where he was they would meet. What purpose in questions now? The answer to all might be as false as to one. He was no more in a mood to trust himself with a word to his father than he had been to trust himself with a word to John Prather. He dropped back into the darkness of the dining-room and sank into a chair. When a bedroom door upstairs had closed softly he was sequestered in silence with his thoughts. His own father had lied to him! Lied blandly! Lied with eyes limpid with appeal! And the supreme commandment on which his mother had ever insisted was truth. The least infraction of it she would not forgive; it was the only thing for which she had ever punished him. He recalled the one occasion when she had seemed harsh and merciless, as she said: "A lie fouls the mouth of the one who utters it, Jack. A lie may torture and kill. It may ruin a life. It is the weapon of the coward--and never be a coward, Jack, never be afraid!" At the New England preparatory school which he had attended after he came home, a lie was the abomination on which the discipline of student comradeship laid a scourge. Out on the desert, where the trails run straight and the battle of life is waged straight against thirst and fatigue and distance, men spoke straight. And nothing had been explained, after all! The phantom was back, definite of form and smiling in irony. For it had a face, now, the face of John Prather! How was he connected with the story of the mother? the father? the Doge? Then, like a shaft of light across memory, came the recollection of a thing that had been so negligible to Jack at the time. It was Dr. Bennington's first question in Jack's living-room; a question so carelessly put and so dissociated from the object of his visit! Jack remembered Dr. Bennington's curious glance through his eyebrows as he asked him if he had met John Prather. And Dr. Bennington had brought Jack into the world! He knew the family history! The Jack that now rose from the chair was a Jack of action, driven by the scourge of John Prather's smile into obsession with the one idea which was crying: "I will know! I will know!" Downstairs in the hall he learned over the telephone that Dr. Bennington had just gone out on a call. It would be possible to see him yet to-night! An hour later, as the doctor entered his reception-room he was startled by a pacing figure in the throes of impatience, who turned on him without formality in an outburst: "Dr. Bennington, you asked me in Little Rivers if I had ever met John Prather. I have met him! Who is he? What is he to me?" The doctor's suavity was thrown off its balance, but he did not lose his presence of mind. He was too old a hand at his profession, too capable, for that. "I refuse to answer!" he said quickly and decisively. "Then you do know!" Jack took a step toward the doctor. His weight was on the ball of his foot; his eyes had the fire of a command that was not to be resisted. "Heavens! How like the ancestor!" the doctor exclaimed involuntarily. "Then you do know! Who is he? What is he to me?" It seemed as if the ceiling were about to crack. The doctor looked away to avoid the bore of Jack's unrelenting scrutiny. He took a turn up and down, rapidly, nervously, his fingers pressed in against the palms and the muscles of his forearms moving in the way of one who is trying to hold himself in control by an outward expression of force against inward rebellion. "I dined with your father to-night!" he exclaimed. "I counseled him to tell you the truth! I said that if he did not want to tell it for its own sake, as policy it was the only thing to you! I--I--" he stopped, facing Jack with a sort of grisly defiance. "Jack, a doctor is a confessor of men! He keeps their secrets! Good-night!" And he strode through the office door, which he closed behind him sharply, in reminder that the interview was at an end. As Jack went down the steps into the night, the face of John Prather, with a satirical turn to the lips, was preceding him. Now he walked madly up and down and back and forth across town to the river fronts, with panting energy of stride, as he fastened the leash of will on quivering nerves. When dawn came it was the dawn of the desert calling to a brain that had fought its way to a lucid purpose. It started him to the store in the fervor of a grateful mission, while a familiar greeting kept repeating itself in his ears on the way: "You won't forget, Jack, about giving me a chance to come along if you ever go out West again, will you?" The question was one in answer to a promise; a reminder from certain employees into whom he had fused his own spirit of enthusiasm about dry wastes yielding abundance. "But you must work very hard," he had told them. "Not until you have callouses on your hands can you succeed or really know how to enjoy a desert sunrise or sunset. After that, you will be able to stand erect and look destiny in the face." "No February slush!" Burleigh, the fitter, had said. "No depending on one man to hold your job!" "Your own boss! You own some land and you just naturally get what you earn!" according to Joe Mathewson. "And from what I can make out," observed one of the automobile van drivers whom Jack had accompanied on the suburban rounds, "it requires about as much brains as running an automobile to be what you'd call a first-class, a number one desert Rube, Jack!" "Yes," Jack told him. "The process that makes the earth fruitful is not less complicated than a motor, simply because it is one of the earliest inventions. You mix in nature's carbureter light and moisture with the chemical elements of the soil." "I'm on!" the chauffeur rejoined. "If a man works with a plow instead of a screwdriver, it doesn't follow that his mind is as vacant as a cow that stands stockstill in the middle of the road to show you that you can't fool her into thinking that radiators are good to eat." In explaining the labor and pains of orange-growing, which ended only with the careful picking and packing, Jack would talk as earnestly as his father would about the tedious detail which went into the purchase and sale of the articles in any department of the store. He might not be able to choose the best expert for the ribbon counter, but he had a certain confidence that he could tell the man or the woman who would make good in Little Rivers. No manager was more thorough in his observation of clerks for promotion than Jack in observing would-be ranchers. He had given his promise to one after another of a test list of disciples; and at times he had been surprised to find how serious both he and the disciples were over a matter that existed entirely on the hypothesis that he was not going to stay permanently in New York. This morning he was at the store for the last time, arriving even before the delivery division, to circulate the news that he was returning to Little Rivers. Trouble was brewing out there, he explained, but they could depend on him. He would make a place for them and send word when he was ready; and all whom he had marked as faithful were eager to go. Thus he had builded unwittingly for another future of responsibilities when he had paused in the midst of the store's responsibilities to tell stories of how a desert ranch is run. But one disciple did not even want to wait on the message. It was Peter Mortimer, whom Jack caught on his way to the elevator at eight, his usual hour, to make sure of having the letters opened and systematically arranged when his employer should appear. "So you are going, Jack! And--and, Jack, you know?" asked Peter significantly. "Yes, Peter. And I see that you know." "I do, but my word is given not to tell." Through that night's march Jack had guessed enough. He had guessed his fill of chill misery, which now took the place of the hunger of inquiry. The full truth was speeding out to the desert. It was with John Prather. "Then I will not press you, Peter," he said. "But, Peter, just one question, if you care to answer; was it--was it this thing that drove my mother into exile?" "Yes, Jack." Then a moment's silence, with Peter's eyes full of sympathy and Jack's dull with pain. "And, Jack," Peter went on, "well, I've been so long at it that suddenly, now you're going, I feel choked up, as if I were about to overflow with anarchy. Jack, I'm going to give notice that I will retire as soon as there is somebody to take my place. I want to rest and not have to keep trying to remember if I have forgotten anything. I've saved up a little money and whatever happens out there, why, there'll be some place I can buy where I can grow roses and salads, as you say, if nothing more profitable, won't there?" "Yes, Peter. I know other fertile valleys besides that of Little Rivers, though none that is its equal. I shall have a garden in one of them and you shall have a garden next to mine." "Then I feel fixed comfortable for life!" said Peter, with a perfectly wonderful smile enlivening the wrinkles of his old face, which made Jack think once more that life was worth living. Later in the morning, after he had bought tickets for Little Rivers, Jack returned to the house. When he stood devoutly before the portrait, whose "I give! I give!" he now understood in new depths, he thought: "I know that you would not want to remain here another hour. You would want to go with me." And before the portrait on the other side of the mantel he thought, challengingly and affectionately: "And you? You were an old devil, no doubt, but you would not lie! No, you would not lie to the Admiralty or to Elizabeth even to save your head! Yes, you would want to go with me, too!" Tenderly he assisted the butler to pack the portraits, which were put in a cab. When Jack departed in their company, this note lay on the desk in the library, awaiting John Wingfield, Sr.'s return that evening: "Father: "The wire to Jim Galway which I enclose tells its own story. It was written after our talk. When I was going out to send it I saw John Prather and you in the hall. You said that you knew nothing of him. I overheard what passed between you and him. So I am going back to Little Rivers. The only hope for me now is out there. "I am taking the portrait of my mother, because it is mine. I am taking the portrait of the ancestor, because I cannot help it any more than he could help taking a Spanish galleon. That is all I ask or ever could accept in the way of an inheritance. "Jack." XXXIV "JOHN WINGFIELD, YOU--" John Wingfield, Sr. had often made the boast that he never worried; that he never took his business to bed with him. When his head touched the pillow there was oblivion until he awoke refreshed to greet the problems left over from yesterday. Such a mind must be a reliably co-ordinated piece of machinery, with a pendulum in place of a heart. It is overawing to average mortals who have not the temerity to say "Nonsense!" to great egos. Yet the best adjusted clocks may have a lapse in a powerful magnetic storm, and in an earthquake they might even be tipped off the shelf, with their metal parts rendered quite as helpless by the fall as those of a human organism subject to the constitutional weaknesses of the flesh. It was also John Wingfield, Sr.'s boast to himself that he had never been beaten, which average mortals with the temerity to say "Nonsense!"--that most equilibratory of words--might have diagnosed as a bad case of self-esteem finding a way to forget the resented incidental reverses of success. Yet, even average mortals noted when John Wingfield, Sr. arrived late at the store the morning after Jack's departure for the West that he had not slept well. His haggardness suggested that for once the pushbutton to the switch of oblivion had failed him. The smile of satisfied power was lacking. In the words of the elevator boy, impersonal observer and swinger of doors, "I never seen the old man like that before!" But the upward flight through the streets of his city, if it did not bring back the smile, brought back the old pride of ownership and domination. He still had a kingdom; he was still king. Resentment rose against the cause of the miserable twelve hours which had thrown the machinery of his being out of order. He passed the word to himself that he should sleep to-night and that from this moment, henceforth things would be the same as they had been before Jack came home. Yes, there was just one reality for him. It was enthroned in his office. This morning was to be like any other business morning; like thousands of mornings to come in the many years of activity that stretched ahead of him. "A little late," he said, explaining his tardiness to his secretary; a superfluity of words in which he would not ordinarily have indulged. "I had some things to attend to on the outside." With customary quiet attentiveness, Mortimer went through the mail with his employer, who was frequently reassuring himself that his mind was as clear, his answers as sure, and his interest as concentrated as usual. This task finished, Mortimer, with his bundle of letters and notes in hand, instead of going out of the room when he had passed around the desk, turned and faced the man whom he had served for thirty years. "Mr. Wingfield--" "Well, Peter?" John Wingfield, Sr. looked up sharply, struck by Mortimer's tone, which seemed to come from another man. In Mortimer's eye was a placid, confident light and his stoop was less marked. "Mr. Wingfield, I am getting on in years, now," he said, "and I have concluded to retire as soon as you have someone for my place; the sooner, sir, the more agreeable to me." "What! What put this idea into your head?" John Wingfield, Sr. snapped. Often of late he had thought that it was time he got a younger man in Peter's place. But he did not like the initiative to come from Peter; not on this particular morning. "Why, just the notion that I should like to rest. Yes, rest and play a little, and grow roses and salads," said the old secretary, respectfully. "Roses and salads! What in--where are you going to grow them?" There was something so serene about Peter that his highly imperious, poised employer found it impertinent, not to say maddening. Peter had a look of the freedom of desert distances in his eyes already. A lieutenant was actually radiating happiness in that neutral-toned sanctum of power, particularly this morning. "I am going out to Little Rivers, or to some place that Jack finds for me, where I am to have a garden and work--or maybe I better call it potter around--out of doors in January and February, just like it was June." Peter spoke very genially, as if he were trying to win a disciple on his own account. "With Jack! Oh!" gasped John Wingfield, Sr. He struck his closed fist into the palm of his hand in his favorite gesture of anger, the antithesis of the crisp rubbing of the palms, which he so rarely used of late years. Rage was contrary to the rules of longevity, exciting the heart and exerting pressure on the artery walls. "Yes, sir," answered Peter, pleasantly. "Well--yes--well, Jack has decided to go back!" Then there rose strongly in John Wingfield, Sr.'s mind a suspicion that had been faintly signaled to his keen observation of everything that went on in the store. "Are any other employees going?" he demanded. "Yes, sir, I think there are; not immediately, but as soon as he finds a place for them." "How many?" "I don't think it is any secret. About fifty, sir." "Name some of them!" "Joe Mathewson, that big fellow who drives a warehouse truck, and Burleigh;" and Peter went on with those of the test proof list whom he knew. Every one of them had high standing. Every one represented a value. While at first John Wingfield, Sr. had decided savagely that Mortimer should remain at his pleasure, now his sense of outraged egoism took an opposite turn. He could get on without Mortimer; he could get on if every employee in the store walked out. There were more where they came from in a city of five millions population; and no one in the world knew so well as he how to train them. "Very good, Peter!" he said rigidly, as if he were making a declaration of war. "Fix up your papers and leave as soon as you please. I will have one of the clerks take your place." "Thank you. That is very kind, Mr. Wingfield!" Mortimer returned, so politely, even exultantly, that his aspect seemed treasonable. John Wingfield, Sr. tried to concentrate his attention on some long and important letters that had been left on his desk for further consideration; but his mind refused to stick to the lines of typewriting. "This one is a little complicated," he thought, "I will lay it aside." He tried the second and the third letters, with no better results. A tanned face and a pair of broad shoulders kept appearing between him and the paper. Again he was thinking of Jack, as he had all night, to the exclusion of everything else. Unquestionably, this son had a lot of magnetic force in him; he had command of men. Why, he had won fifty of the best employees out of sheer sentiment to follow him out to the desert, when they had no idea what they were in for! His gaze fell and rested for some time on the bunch of roses on his desk. Every morning there had been a fresh bunch, in keeping with the custom that Jack had established. The father had become so used to their presence that he was unconscious of it. For all the pleasure he got out of them, they might as well have been in the cornucopia vase in the limousine. His hand went out spasmodically toward the roses, as if he would crush them; crush this symbol of the thing drawn from the mother that had invaded the calm autocracy of his existence. The velvety richness of the petals leaning toward him above the drooping grace of their stems made him pause in realization of the absurdity of his anger. A feeling to which he had been a stranger swept over him. It was like a breaking instinct of dependableness; and then he called up Dr. Bennington. "Well, he has gone!" he told the doctor, desperately. "You did not tell him the truth!" came the answer; and he noted that the doctor's voice was without its usual suavity. It was as matter-of-fact to the man of millions as if it had been advising an operation in a dispensary case. "No, not exactly," John Wingfield, Sr. confessed. "I told you what his nature was; how it had drawn on the temperament of his mother. I told you that with candor, with a decently human humility appealing to his affections, everything was possible. And remember, he is strong, stronger than you, John Wingfield! There's a process of fate in him! John Wingfield, you--" The sentence ended abruptly, as if the doctor had dropped the receiver on the hooks with a crash. Phantoms were closing in around John Wingfield, Sr.... His memory ranged back over the days of ardent youth, in the full tide of growing success, when to want a thing, human or material, meant to have it.... And in his time he had told a good many lies. The right lie, big and daring, at the right moment had won more than one victory. With John Prather out of the way, he had decided on an outright falsehood to his son. Why had he not compromised with Dr. Bennington's advice and tried part falsehood and part contrition? But no matter, no matter. He would go on; he was made of steel. Again the tanned face and broad shoulders stood between him and the page. Jack was strong; yes, strong; and he was worth having. All the old desire of possession reappeared, in company with his hatred of defeat. He was thinking of the bare spot on the wall in the drawing-room in place of the Velasquez. There would be an end of his saying: "The boy is the spit of the ancestor and just as good a fighter, too; only his abilities are turned into other channels more in keeping with the spirit of the age!" An end of: "Fine son you have there!" from men at the club who had given him only a passing nod in the old days. For he was not displeased that the boy was liked, where he himself was not. The men whom he admired were those who had faced him with "No!" across the library desk; who had got the better of him, even if he did not admit it to himself. And the strength of his son, baffling to his cosmos, had won his admiration. No, he would not lose Jack's strength without an effort; he wanted it for his own. Perhaps something else, too, there in the loneliness of the office in the face of that bunch of roses was pulling him: the thrill that he had felt when he saw the moisture in Jack's eyes and felt the warmth of his grasp before Jack left the library. And Jack and John Prather were speeding West to the same destination! They would meet! What then? There was no use of trying to work in an office on Broadway when the forces which he had brought into being over twenty years ago were in danger of being unloosed out on the desert, with Jack riding free and the fingers of the ancestor-devil on the reins. John Wingfield, Sr. called in the general manager. "You are in charge until I return," he said; and a few hours later he was in a private car, bound for Little Rivers. PART III HE FINDS HIS PLACE IN LIFE XXXV BACK TO LITTLE RIVERS As with the gentle touch of a familiar hand, the ozone of high altitudes gradually and sweetly awakened Jack. The engine was puffing on an upgrade; the car creaked and leaned in taking a curve. Raising the shade of his berth he looked out on spectral ranges that seemed marching and tumbling through dim distances. With pillows doubled under his head he lay back, filling sight and mind with the indistinctness and spacious mystery of the desert at night; recalling his thoughts with his last view of it over two months ago in the morning hours after leaving El Paso and seeing his future with it now, where then he had seen his future with the store. "Think of old Burleigh raising oranges! I am sure that the trees will be well trimmed," he whispered. "Think of Mamie Devore in the thick of the great jelly competition, while the weight of Joe Mathewson's shoulders starts a spade into the soil as if it were going right to the centre of the earth. Why, Joe is likely to get us into international difficulties by poking the ribs of a Chinese ancestor! Yes--if we don't lose our Little Rivers; and we must not lose it!" The silvery face of the moon grew fainter with the coming of a ruddier light; the shadows of the mountains were being etched definitely on the plateaus that stretched out like vast floors under the developing glow of sunrise; and the full splendor of day had come, with its majestic spread of vision. "When Joe sees that he will feel so strong he will want to get out and carry the Pullman," Jack thought. "But Mamie will not let him for fear that he will overdo!" How slow the train seemed to travel! It was a snail compared to Jack's eagerness to arrive. He was inclined to think that P.D., Wrath of God, and Jag Ear were faster than through expresses. He kept inquiring of the conductor if they were on time, and the conductor kept repeating that they were. How near that flash of steel at a bend around a tongue of chaotic rock, stretching out into the desert sea, with its command to man to tunnel or accept a winding path for his iron horse! How long in coming to it in that rare air, with its deceit of distances! Landmark after landmark of peak or bold ridge took the angle of some recollected view of his five years' wanderings. It was already noon when he saw Galeria from the far end of the long basin that he had crossed, with the V as the compass of his bearings, on the ride that brought him to the top to meet Mary and Pete Leddy. Then the V was lost while the train wound around the range that formed one side of the basin's rim. The blaze of midday had passed before it entered the reaches of the best valley yet in the judgment of a connoisseur in valleys; and under the Eternal Painter's canopy a spot of green quivered in the heat-rays of the horizon. His Majesty was in a dreamy mood. He was playing in delicate variations, tranquil and enchanting, of effects in gold and silver, now gossamery thin, now thick and rich. "What is this thing crawling along on two silken threads and so afraid of the hills?" he was asking, sleepily. "Eh? No! Bring the easel to me, if you want a painting. I am not going to rise from my easy couch. There! Fix that cushion so! I am a leisurely, lordly aristocrat. Palette? No, I will just shake my soft beard of fine mist back and forth across the sky, a spectrum for the sunrays. So! so! I see that this worm is a railroad train. Let it curl up in the shadow of a gorge and take a nap. I will wake it up by and by when I seize my brush and start a riot in the heavens that will make its rows of window-glass eyes stare." "I am on this train and in a hurry!" Jack objected. "Do I hear the faint echo of a human ego down there on the earth?" demanded the Eternal Painter. "Who are you? One of the art critics?" "One of Your Majesty's loving subjects, who has been away in a foreign kingdom and returns to your allegiance," Jack answered. "So be it. I shall know if what you say is true when I gaze into your eyes at sunset." "I am bringing you a Velasquez!" Jack added. "Good! Put him where he can have a view out of the window of his first teacher at work in the studio of the universe." The train crept on toward the hour of the Eternal Painter's riot and toward Little Rivers, while the patch of green was softly, impalpably growing, growing, until the crisscross breaks of the streets developed and Jack could identify the Doge's and other bungalows. He was on the platform of the car before the brakes ground on the wheels, leaning out to see a crowd at the station, which a minute later became a prospect of familiar, kindly, beaming faces. There was a roar of "Hello, Jack!" in the heavy voices of men and the treble of children. Then he did not see the faces at all for a second; he saw only mist. "Not tanned, Jack, but you'll brown up soon!" "Gosh! But we've been lonesome without you!" "Cure any case of sore eyes on record!" Jack was too full of the glory of this unaffected welcome in answer to his telegram that he was coming to find words at first; but as he fairly dropped off the steps into the arms of Jim Galway and Dr. Patterson he shouted in a shaking voice: "Hello, everybody! Hello, Little Rivers!" He noted, while all were trying to grasp his hands at once, that the men had their six-shooters. A half-dozen were struggling to get his suit case. Not one of his friends was missing except the Doge and Mary. "Let the patient have a little air!" protested Dr. Patterson, as some started in to shake hands a second time. "Fellow-citizens, if there's anything in the direct primary I feel sure of the nomination!" said Jack drily. "You're already elected!" shouted Bob Worther. Around at the other side of the station Jack found Firio waiting his turn in patient isolation, with P.D., Wrath of God, and Jag Ear. "_Sí! sí_!" called Firio triumphantly to all the sceptics who had told him that Jack would not return. Jack took the little Indian by the shoulders and rocked him back and forth in delight, while Firio's eyes were burning coals of jubilation. "You knew!" Jack exclaimed. "You were right! I have come back!" "_Sí, sí_! I know!" repeated Firio. "No stopping him from bringing the whole cavalcade to the station, either," said Jim Galway. "And he wouldn't join the rest of us out in front of the station. He was going to be his own reception committee and hold an overflow meeting all by himself!" There was no disguising the fact that the equine trio of veterans remembered Jack. With P.D. and Jag Ear the demonstration was unrestrained; but however exultant Wrath of God might be in secret, he was of no mind to compromise his reputation for lugubriousness by any public display of emotional weakness. "Wrath of God, I believe you were a cross-eyed Cromwellian soldier in your previous incarnation!" said Jack; "and as it is hard for a horse to be crosseyed, you could not retain the characteristic. Think of that! Wouldn't a cross-eyed Cromwellian soldier strike fear to the heart of any loyalist? And Jag Ear, you're getting fat!" "I keep his hoofs hard. When he fat he eat less on trail!" explained Firio, becoming almost voluble. "All ready for trail!" he hinted. "Not now, Firio," said Jack. "And, Firio, there's a package at the station, a big, flat case. It came by express on the same train with me--the most precious package in the world. See that it is taken to the house." "Sí! You ride?" asked Firio, offering P.D.'s reins. "No, we'll all walk." The procession had started toward the town when Jack felt something soft poking him in the small of the back and looked around to find that the cause was P.D.'s muzzle. Wrath of God and Jag Ear might go with Firio, but P.D. proposed to follow Jack. "And after I have ridden you thousands of miles and you've heard all my songs over and over! Well, well, P.D., you are a subtle flatterer! Come along!" Then he turned to Jim Galway: "Has John Prather arrived?" "Yes, last night." "He is here now?" Jack put in quickly. "No; he pulled out at dawn on his way to Agua Fria." "Oh!" Jack was plainly disappointed. "He has the grant for the water rights?" "Yes," said Jim, "though he hasn't made the fact public. He does everything in his smooth, quiet fashion, with a long head, and I suppose he hasn't things just right yet to spring his surprise. But there is no disputing the fact--he has us!" One man henceforth was in control of the water. His power over the desert community would be equivalent to control of the rains in a humid locality. "You see," Jim continued, "old man Lefferts' partners had really never sold out to him; so his transfer to the Doge wasn't legal. He turned his papers over to Prather, giving Prather full power to act for him in securing the partners' surrender of their claims and straighten out everything with the Territory and get a bonafide concession. That is as I understand it, for the whole business has been done in an underhand way. Prather represented to the Doge that he was acting entirely in the interests of the community and his only charge would be the costs. The Doge quite believed in Prather's single-mindedness and public spirit. Well, with the use of money and all the influences he could command, including the kind that Pete Leddy exercises, he got the concession and in his name. It was very smart work. I suppose it was due to the crafty way he could direct the Doge to do his wishes that the Doge happened to be off the scene at the critical stage of the negotiations. When he went to New York all that remained was for him to obtain the capital for his scheme. Lefferts and his partners had the underlying rights and the Doge the later rights, thanks to his improvements, and Prather has them both. Well, Leddy and his crowd have been taking up plots right and left; that's their share in the exploitation. They're here, waiting for the announcement to be made and--well, the water users' association is still in charge; but it won't be when Prather says the word." "And you have no plans?" Jack asked. "None." "And the Doge?" "None. What can the old man do? Though nobody exactly blames him, a good many aren't of a mind to consult him at all. The crisis has passed beyond him. Three or four men, good men, too, were inclined to have it out with John Prather; but that would have precipitated a general fight with Leddy's gang. The conservatives got the hot-heads to wait till you came. You see, the trouble with every suggestion is that pretty much everybody is against it except the fellow who made it. The more we have talked, the more we have drifted back to you. It's a case of all we've got in the world and standing together, and we are ready to get behind you and take orders, Jack." "Yes, ready to fight at the drop of the hat, seh, or to sit still on our doorsteps with our tongues in our cheeks and doing the wives' mending, as you say!" declared Bob Worther. "It's right up to you!" "You are all of the same opinion?" asked Jack. They were, with one voice, which was not vociferous. For theirs was that significantly quiet mood of an American crowd when easy-going good nature turns to steel. Their partisanship in pioneerdom had not been with six-shooters, but with the ethics of the Doge; and such men when aroused do not precede action with threats. "All right!" said Jack. There was a rustle and an exchange of satisfied glances and a chorus of approval like an indrawing of breath. "First, I will see the Doge," Jack added; "and then I shall go to the house." Galway, Dr. Patterson, Worther, and three or four others went on with him toward the Ewold bungalow. They were halted on the way by Pete Leddy, Ropey Smith, and a dozen followers, who appeared from a side street and stopped across Jack's path, every one of them with a certain slouching aggressiveness and staring hard at him. Pete and Ropey still kept faith with their pledge to Jack in the _arroyo_. They were without guns, but their companions were armed in defiance of the local ordinance which had been established for Jack's protection. "Howdy do, Leddy?" said Jack, as amiably as if there had never been anything but the pleasantest of relations between them. "Getting polite, eh! Where's your pretty whistle?" Leddy answered. "I put it in storage in New York," Jack said laughing; then, with a sudden change to seriousness: "Leddy, is it true that you and John Prather have got the water rights to this town?" "None of your d----d business!" Leddy rapped out. "The only business I've got with you has been waiting for some time, and you can have it your way out in the _arroyo_ where we had it before, right now!" "As I said, Pete, I put the whistle in storage and I have already apologized for the way I used it," returned Jack. "I can't accommodate you in the _arroyo_ again. I have other things to attend to." "Then the first time you get outside the limits of this town you will have to play my way--a man's way!" "I hope not, Pete!" "Naturally you hope so, for you know I will get you, you--" "Careful!" Jack interrupted. "You'd better leave that out until we are both armed. Or, if you will not, why, we both have weapons that nature gave us. Do you prefer that way?" and Jack's weight had shifted to the ball of his foot. Plainly this was not to Pete's taste. "I don't want to bruise you. I mean to make a clean hole through you!" he answered. "That is both courteous and merciful; and you are very insistent, Leddy," Jack returned, and walked on. "Just as sweet as honey, just as cool as ice, and just as sunny as June!" whispered Bob Worther to the man next him. Again Jack was before the opening in the Ewold hedge, with its glimpse of the spacious living-room. The big ivory paper-cutter lay in its accustomed place on the broad top of the Florentine table. In line with it on the wall was a photograph of Abbey's mural in the Pennsylvania capitol and through the open window a photograph of a Puvis de Chavannes was visible. Evidently the Doge had already hung some of the reproductions of masterpieces which he had brought from New York. But no one was on the porch or in the living-room; the house was silent. As Jack started across the cement bridge he was halted by a laugh from his companions. He found that P.D. was taking no risks of losing his master again; he was going right on into the Doge's, too. Jim took charge of him, receiving in return a glance from the pony that positively reeked of malice. Again Jack was on his way around the Doge's bungalow on the journey he had made so many times in the growing ardor of the love that had mastered his senses. The quiet of the garden seemed a part of the pervasive stillness that stretched away to the pass from the broad path of the palms under the blazonry of the sun. As he proceeded he heard the crunching of gravel under a heavy tread. The Doge was pacing back and forth in the cross path, fighting despair with the forced vigor of his steps, while Mary was seated watching him. As the Doge wheeled to face Jack at the sound of his approach, it was not in surprise, but rather in preparedness for the expected appearance of another character in a drama. This was also Mary's attitude. They had heard of his coming and they received his call with a trace of fatalistic curiosity. The Doge suddenly dropped on a bench, as if overcome by the weariness and depression of spirits that he had been defying; but there was something unyielding and indomitable in Mary's aspect. "Well, Sir Chaps, welcome!" said the Doge. "We still have a seat in the shade for you. Will you sit down?" But Jack remained standing, as if what he had to say would be soon said. "I have come back and come for good," he began. "Yes, I have come back to take all the blue ribbons at ranching," he added, with a touch of garden nonsense that came like a second thought to soften the abruptness of his announcement. "For good! For good! You!" The Doge stared at Jack in incomprehension. "Yes, my future is out here, now." "You give up the store--the millions--your inheritance!" cried the Doge, still amazed and sceptical as he sounded the preposterousness of this idea to worldly credulity. "Quite!" There was no mistaking the firmness of the word. "To make your fortune, your life, out here?" The Doge's voice was throbbing with the wonder of the thing. "Yes!" "Why? Why? I feel that I have a right to ask why!" demanded the Doge, in all the majesty of the moment when he faced John Wingfield, Sr. in the drawing-room. "Because of a lie and what it concealed. Because of reasons that may not be so vague to you as they are to me." "A lie! Yes, a lie that came home!" the Doge repeated, while he passed his hand back and forth over his eyes. The hand was trembling. Indeed, his whole body was trembling, while he sought for self-control and to collect his thoughts for what he had to say to that still figure awaiting his words. When he looked up it was with an expression wholly new to Jack. Its candor was not that of transparent mental processes in serene philosophy or forensic display, but that of a man who was about to lay bare things of the past which he had kept secret. "Sir Chaps, I am going to give you my story, however weak and blameworthy it makes me appear," he said. "Sir Chaps, you saw me in anger in the Wingfield drawing-room, further baffling you with a mystery which must have begun for you the night that you came to Little Rivers when we exchanged a look in which I saw that you knew that I recognized you. I tried to talk as if you were a welcome stranger, when I was holding in my rancor. There was no other face in the world that I would not rather have seen in this community than yours! "How glad I was to hear that you were leaving by the morning train! How I counted the days of your convalescence after you were wounded! How glad I was at the news that you were to go as soon as you were well! With what a revelry of suggestion I planned to speed your parting! How demoralized I was when you announced that you were going to stay! How amazed at your seriousness about ranching--but how distrustful! Yet what joy in your companionship! At times I wanted to get my arms around you and hug you as a scarred old grizzly bear would hug a cub. And, first and last, your success with everybody here! Your cool hand in the duel! That iron in your will which would triumph at any cost when you broke Nogales's arm! For some reason you had chosen to stop, in the play period of youth, on the way to the inheritance to overcome some obstacle that it pleased you to overcome and to amuse yourself a while in Little Rivers--you with your steadiness in a fight and your airy, smiling confidence in yourself!" "I--I did not know that I was like that!" said Jack, in hurt, groping surprise. "Was I truly?" The Doge nodded. "As I saw you," he said. Jack looked at Mary, frankly and calmly. "Was I truly?" he asked her. "As I saw you!" she repeated, as an impersonal, honest witness. "Then I must have been!" he said, with conviction. "But I hope that I shall not be in the future." And he smiled at Mary wistfully. But her gaze was bent on the ground. "And you want it all--all the story from me?" the Doge asked, hesitating. "All!" Jack answered. "It strikes hard at your father." "The truth must strike where it will, now!" "Then, your face, so like your father's, stood for the wreck of two lives to me, and for recollections in my own career that tinged my view of you, Jack. You were one newcomer to Little Rivers to whom I could not wholly apply the desert rule of oblivion to the past and judgment of every man solely by his conduct in this community. No! It was out of the question that I could ever look at you without thinking who you were. "You know, of course, that your father and I spent our boyhood in Burbridge. Once I found that he had told me an untruth and we had our difference out, as boys will; and, as I was in the right, he confessed the lie before I let him up. That defeat was a hurt to his egoism that he could not forget. He was that way, John Wingfield, in his egoism. It was like flint, and his ambition and energy were without bounds. I remember he would say when teased that some day he should have more money than all the town together, and when he had money no one would dare to tease him. He had a remarkable gift of ingratiation with anyone who could be of service to him. My uncle, who was the head of the family, was fond of him; he saw the possibilities of success in this smart youngster in a New England village. It was the Ewold money that gave John Wingfield his start. With it he bought the store in which he began as a clerk. He lost a good part of the Ewold fortune later in one of his enterprises that did not turn out well. But all this is trifling beside what is to come. "He went on to his great commercial career. I, poor fool, was an egoist, too. I tried to paint. I had taste, but no talent. In outbursts of despair my critical discrimination consigned my own work to the rubbish heap. I tried to write books, only to find that all I had was a head stuffed with learning, mixed with the philosophy that is death to the concentrated application that means positive accomplishment. But I could not create. I was by nature only a drinker at the fountain; only a student, the pitiful student who could read his Caesar at eight, learn a language without half trying, but with no ability to make my knowledge of service; with no masterful purpose of my own--a failure!" "No one is a failure who spreads kindliness and culture as he goes through life," Jack interrupted, earnestly; "who gives of himself unstintedly as you have; who teaches people to bring a tribute of flowers to a convalescent! Why, to found a town and make the desert bloom--that is better than to add another book to the weight of library shelves or to get a picture on the line!" "Thank you, Jack!" said the Doge, with a flash of his happy manner of old, while there was the play of fleeting sunshine over the hills and valleys of his features. "I won't call it persiflage. I am too selfish, too greedy of a little cheer to call it persiflage. I like the illusion you suggest." He was silent for a while, and when he spoke again it was with the tragic simplicity of one near his climax. "Your father and I loved the same girl---your mother. It seemed that in every sympathy of mind and heart she and I were meant to travel the long highway together. But your father won her with his gift for ingratiation with the object of his desire, which amounts to a kind of genius. He won her with a lie and put me in a position that seemed to prove that the lie was truth. She accepted him in reaction; in an impulse of heart-break that followed what she believed to be a revelation of my true character as something far worse than that of idler. I married the woman whom he had made the object of his well-managed calumny. My wife knew where my heart was and why I had married her. It is from her that Mary gets her dark hair and the brown of her cheeks which make her appear so at home on the desert. Soon after Mary's birth she chose to live apart from me--but I will not speak further of her. She is long ago dead. I knew that your mother had left your father. I saw her a few times in Europe. But she never gave the reason for the separation. She would talk nothing of the past, and with the years heavy on our shoulders and the memory of what we had been to each other hovering close, words came with difficulty and every one was painful. Her whole life was bound up in you, as mine was in Mary. It was you that kept her from being a bitter cynic; you that kept her alive. "Some of the Ewold money that John Wingfield lost was mine. You see how he kept on winning; how all the threads of his weaving closed in around me. I came to the desert to give Mary life with the fragments of my fortune; and here I hope that, as you say, I have done something worthier than live the life of a wandering, leisurely student who had lapsed into the observer for want of the capacity by nature or training to do anything else. "But sometimes I did long for the centres of civilization; to touch elbows with their activities; to feel the flow of the current of humanity in great streets. Not that I wanted to give up Little Rivers, but I wanted to go forth to fill the mind with argosies which I could enjoy here at my leisure. And Mary was young. The longing that she concealed must be far more powerful than mine. I saw the supreme selfishness of shutting her up on the desert, without any glimpse of the outer world. I sensed the call that sent her on her lonely rides to the pass. I feared that your coming had increased her restlessness. "But I wander! That is my fault, as you know, Sir Chaps. Well, we come to the end of the weaving; to the finality of John Wingfield's victory. Little Rivers was getting out of hand. I could plan a ranch, but I had not a business head. I had neither the gift nor the experience to deal with lawyers and land-grabbers. I knew that with the increase of population and development our position was exciting the cupidity of those who find quicker profit in annexing what others have built than in building on their own account. I knew that we ought to have a great dam; that there was water to irrigate ten times the present irrigated area. "Then came John Prather. I saw in him the judgment, energy, and ability for organization of a real man of affairs. He was young, self-made, engaging and convincing of manner. He liked our life and ideals in Little Rivers; he wanted to share our future. In his resemblance to you I saw nothing but a coincidence that I passed over lightly. He knew how to handle the difficult situation that arose with the reappearance of old man Lefferts' partners. He would get the water rights legalized beyond dispute and turn them over to the water users' association; he would bring in capital for the dam; the value of our property would be enhanced; Little Rivers would become a city in her own right, while I was growing old delectably in the pride of founder. So he pictured it and so I dreamed. I was so sure of the future that I dared the expense of a trip to New York. "And always to me, when I looked at you and when I thought of you, you were the son of John Wingfield; you incarnated the inheritance of his strength. But when, from the drawing-room, I saw your father, whom I had not seen for fifteen years, then--well, the thing came to me in a burning second, the while I glimpsed his face before he saw mine. He was smiling as if pleased with himself and his power; he was rubbing the palms of his hands together; and I saw that it was John Prather who was like John Wingfield in manner, pose, and feature. You were like the fighting man, your ancestor, and your airy confidence was his. And I, witless and unperceiving, had been won by the same methods of ingratiation with which John Wingfield had won the assistance of the Ewold fortune for the first step of his career; with which he had won Alice Jamison and kept me unaware of his plan while he was lying to her. "Finally, let us say, in all charity, that your father is what he is because of what is born in him and for the same reason that the snowball gathers size as it rolls; and I am what I am for the same reason that the wind scatter the sands of the desert--a man full of books and tangent inconsequence of ideas, without sense; a simpleton who knows a painting but does not know men; a garrulous, philosophizing, blind, old simpleton, whose pompous incompetency has betrayed a trust! Through me, men and women came here to settle and make a home! Through me they lose--to my shame!" The Doge buried his face in his hands and drew a deep breath more pitiful than a sob, which, as it went free of the lungs, seemed to leave an empty ruin of what had once been a splendid edifice. He was in striking contrast to Mary, who, throughout the story fondly regarding him, had remained as straight as a young pine. Now, with her rigidity suddenly become so pliant that it was a fluid thing mixed of indignation, fearlessness, and compelling sympathy, she sprang to his side. She knew the touchstone to her father's emotion. He did not want his cheek patted in that moment of agony. He wanted a stimulant; some justification for living. "There is no shame in believing in those who speak fairly! There is honor, the honor of faith in mankind!" she cried penetratingly. "There is no shame in being the victim of lies!" "No! No shame!" the Doge cried, rising unsteadily to his feet under the whip. "And we are not afraid for the future!" she continued. "And the other men and women in Little Rivers are not afraid for the future!" "No, not afraid under this sun, in this air. Afraid!" An unconquerable flame had come into his eyes in answer to that in Mary's. "The others have asked me to act for them, and I think I may yet save our rights," said Jack. "Will you also trust me?" "Will I trust you, Jack? Trust you who gave up your inheritance?" exclaimed the Doge. "I would trust you on a mission to the stars or to lead a regiment; and the wish of the others is mine." Jack had turned to go, but he looked back at Mary. "And you, Mary? I have your good wishes?" He could not resist that question; and though it was clear that nothing could stay him--as clear as it had been in the _arroyo_ that he would keep his word and face Leddy--he was hanging on her word and he was seeing her eyes moist, with a bright fire like that of sunshine on still water. She was swaying slightly as a young pine might in a wind. Her eyes darkened as with fear, then her cheeks went crimson with the stir of her blood; and suddenly, her eyes were sparkling in their moisture like water when it ripples under sunshine. "Yes, Jack," she said quietly, with the tense eagerness of a good cause that sends a man away to the wars. "That is everything!" he answered. So it was! Everything that he could ask now, with his story and hers so fresh in mind! He started up the path, but stopped at the turn to look back and wave his hand to the two figures in a confident gesture. "Luck with you, Sir Chaps!" called the Doge, with all the far-carrying force of his oldtime sonorousness. "Luck! luck!" Mary called, on her part; and her voice had a flute note that seemed to go singing on its own ether waves through the tender green foliage, through all the gardens of Little Rivers, and even away to the pass. "Mary! Mary!" he answered, with a ring of cheeriness. "Luck for me will always come at your command!" A moment later Galway and the others saw him smiling with a hope that ran as high as his purpose, as he passed through the gateway of the hedge. "It will all be right!" he told them. With P.D. keeping his muzzle close to the middle of Jack's back, the party started toward his house, which took them almost the length of the main street. "Prather went by the range trail, of course?" Jack asked Galway. "No, straight out across the desert," said Galway. "Straight out across the desert!" exclaimed Jack, mystified. For one had a choice of two routes to Agua Fria, which was well over the border in Mexico. Not a drop of water was to be had on the way across the trackless plateau, but halfway on the range trail was a camping-place, Las Cascadas, where a spring which spouted in a tiny cascade welcomed the traveller. Under irrigation, most of the land for the whole stretch between the two towns would be fertile. There was said to be a big underground run at Agua Fria that could be pumped at little expense. "All I can make out of Prather's taking a straight line, which really is slower, as you know, on account of the heavy sand in places, is to look over the soil," said Galway. "He may be preparing to get a concession in Mexico at the same time as on this side, so as to secure control of the whole valley. It means railroads, factories, new towns, millions--but you and I have talked all this before in our dreams." "Who was with him?" Jack asked. "Pedro Nogales. He seems to have taken quite a fancy to Pedro and Pedro is acting as guide. Leddy recommended him, I suppose." "No one else?" "No." "Good!" said Jack. As they turned into the side street where the front of Jack's bungalow was visible, Jim Galway observed that they had seen nothing of Leddy or any of his followers. "Maybe he's gone to join Prather," said Bob Worther. But Jack paid no attention to the remark. He was preoccupied with the first sight of his ranch in over two months. "It will be all right!" he called out to the crowd in his yard; for the others who had met him at the station were waiting for him there. "Bob, those umbrella-trees could shade a thin, short man now, even if he didn't hug the trunk! Firio has done well, hasn't he?" he concluded, after he had walked through the garden and surveyed the fields and orchards in fond comparison as to progress. "The best I ever knew an Indian to do!" said Jim Galway. "And everything kept right on growing while I was away! That's the joy of planting things. They are growing for somebody, if not for you!" Inside the house he found Firio, with the help of some of the ranchers, taking the pictures out of their cases. Firio surveyed the buccaneer for some time, squinting his eyes and finally opening them saucer-wide in approval. "You!" he said to Jack. And of the Sargent, after equally deliberate observation, he said: "A lady!" That seemed about all there was to say and expressed the thought of the onlookers. "And, Firio, now it's the trail!" said Jack. "_Sí, sí_!" said Firio, ever so softly. "We take rifles?" "Yes. Food for a week and two-days' water." It pleased Jack to hang the portraits while Firio was putting on Jag Ear's pack; and he made it a ceremony in which his silence was uninterrupted by the comments of the ranchers. They stood in wondering awe before John Wingfield, Knight, hung where he could watch the Eternal Painter at his sunset displays and looking at the "Portrait of a Lady" across the breadth of the living-room, whose neutral tones made a perfect setting for their dominant genius. "I believe they are at home," said Jack, with a fond look from one to the other, when Firio came to say that everything was ready. "Señor Jack," whispered Firio insinuatingly, "for the trail you wear the grand, glad trail clothes and the big spurs. I keep them shiny--the big spurs!" He was speaking with the authority of an expert in trail fashions, who would consider Jack in very bad form if he refused. "Why, yes, Firio, yes; it is so long since we have been on the trail!" And he went into the bedroom to make the change. "I've never seen him quite so dumb quiet!" said Worther. Jack certainly had been quiet, ominously quiet and self-contained. When he came out of the bedroom he was without the jaunty freedom of manner that Little Rivers always associated with his full regalia. In place of the dreamy distances in his eyes on such occasions were a sad preoccupation and determination. When they went outside to Firio and the waiting ponies, the Eternal Painter was in his evening orgy of splendor. But even Jack did not look up at the sky this time as he walked along in silence with his fellow-citizens to the point where the farthest furrow of his ranch had been drawn across the virgin desert. His foot was already in the stirrup when Jim Galway spoke the thought of all: "Jack, there's only two of you, and if it happened that you met Leddy--" "It is Prather that I want to see," Jack answered. "But Leddy's whole gang! We don't know what your plans are, but if there's going to be a mix-up, why, we've got to be with you!" "No!" said Jack, decidedly. "Remember, Jim, you were to trust me. This is a mission that requires only two; it is between Prather and me. We are going to get acquainted for the first time." Already Firio, riding Wrath of God, had started, and the bells of Jag Ear were jingling, while the rifles, their bores so clean from Firio's care, danced with the gleams of sunset in their movement with the burro's jogging trot. Jack sprang into the saddle, his face lighting as the foot came home in the stirrup. "It will be all right!" he called back. P.D. in the freshness of his long holiday, feeling a familiar pressure of a leg, hastened to overtake his companions; and the group of Little Riversites watched a chubby horseman and a tall, gaunt horseman, bathed in gold, riding away on a hazy sea of gold, with Jag Ear's bells growing fainter and fainter, until the moving specks were lost in the darkness. XXXVI AROUND THE WATER-HOLE Easy traveller had turned speedy traveller, on a schedule. Never had he and Firio ridden so fast as in pursuit of John Prather, who had eight hours' start of them on a two-days' journey. Jag Ear had to trot all the time to keep up. Ounce by ounce he was drawing on his sinking fund of fat in a constitutional crisis. "I keep his hoofs good. I keep his wind good. All right!" said Firio. It was after midnight before the steady jingle of Jag Ear's orchestra had any intermission. An hour for food and rest and the little party was off again in the delicious cool of the night, toward a curtain pricked with stars which seemed to be drawn down over the edge of the world. "What sort of horses had Prather and Nogales?" Jack asked. He must reach the water-hole as soon as Prather; for it was not unlikely that Prather might have fresh mounts waiting there to take him on to the nearest railroad station in Mexico. "Look good, but bad. Nogales no know horses!" Firio answered. "And they rode in the heat of the day!" said Jack, confidently. "_Sí_! And we ride P.D. and Wrath of God!" There were no sign-posts on this highway of desert space except the many-armed giant cacti, in their furrowed armor set with clusters of needles, like tawny auroras gleaming faintly; no trail on the hard earth under foot, mottled with bunches of sagebrush and sprays of low-lying cacti, all as still as the figures of an inlaid flooring in the violet sheen, with an occasional quick, irregular, shadowy movement when a frightened lizard or a gopher beat a precipitate retreat from the invading thud of hoofs in this sanctuary of dust-dry life. And the course of the hoofs was set midway between the looming masses of the mountain walls of the valley. Firio listened for songs from Señor Jack; he waited for stories from Señor Jack; but none came. He, the untalkative one of the pair, the living embodiment of a silent and happy companionship back and forth from Colorado to Chihuahua, liked to hear talk. Without it he was lonesome. If, by the criterion of a school examination, he never understood more than half of what Jack said, yet, in the measure of spirit, he understood everything. Now Jack was going mile after mile with nothing except occasional urging words to P.D. His close-cut hair well brushed back from his forehead revealed the sweep of his brow, lengthening his profile and adding to the effect of his leanness. The moonlight on his face, which had lost its tan, gave him an aspect of subdued and patient serenity in keeping with the surroundings. You would have said that he could ride on forever without tiring, and that he could go over a precipice now without even seeing any danger sign. He had never been like this in all Firio's memory. The silence became unsupportable for once to Indian taciturnity. If Jack would not talk Firio would. Yes, he would ask a question, just to hear the sound of a voice. "We go to fight?" "No, Firio." "Not to fight Prather?" "No." "To fight Leddy?" "I hope not." "Why we go? Why so--why so--" he had not the language to express the strange, brooding inquiry of his mind. "I go to save Little Rivers." "_Sí_!" said Firio, but as if this did not answer his question. "I go to get the end of a story, Firio--my story!" continued Jack. "I have travelled long for the story and now I shall have it all from John Prather." "_Sí, sí_!" said Firio, as if all the knowledge in the world had flashed into his head quicker than the hand of legerdemain could run the leaves of a pack of cards through its fingers. "And then?" At last Firio had won a smile from the untanned face which could not be the same to him until it was tanned. "Then I shall plant seeds and keep the ground around them soft and the weeds out of it; and I shall wear my heart on my sleeve and lay a siege--a siege in the open, without parallels or mines! A siege in the open!" Firio did not understand much about parallels or mines or, for that matter, about sieges; but he could see the smile fading from Jack's lips and could comprehend that the future of which Jack was speaking was very far from another prospect, which was immediate and vivid in his mind. "But you must fight Leddy! _Sí, sí_! You must fight Leddy first!" "Then I must, I suppose," said Jack, absently. "All things in their turn and time." "_Sí_!" answered Firio. All things in their turn and time! This desert truth was bred in him through his ancestry, no less than in the Eternal Painter himself. Again the silence of the morning darkness, with all the stars twinkling more faintly and some slipping from their places in the curtain into the deeper recesses of the broad band of night on the surface of the rolling ball. The plodding hoofs kept up their regular beat of the march of their little world of action in the presence of the Infinite; plodding, plodding on into the dawn which sent the last of the stars in flight, while the curtain melted away before blue distances swimming with light. Still bareheaded, Jack looked into the face of the sun which heaved above an irregular roof of rocks. It blazed into the range on the other side of the valley. It slaked its thirst with the slight fall of dew as a great, red tongue would lick up crumbs. Sun and sky, cactus and sagebrush, rock and dry earth and sand, that was all. Nowhere in that stretch of basin that seemed without end was there a sign of any other horseman or of human life. But at length, as they rode, their eyes saw what only eyes used to desert reaches could see, that the speck in the distance was not a cactus or even two or three cacti in line, but something alive and moving. Perceptibly they were gaining on it, while it developed into two riders and a pack animal in single file. Now Jack and Firio were coming into a region of more stunted vegetation, and soon the two figures emerged into a stretch of gray carpet on which they were as clearly silhouetted as a white sail on a green sea. "Very thick sand there--five or six miles of it. It make this the long way," said Firio. "They call it the apron of hell to fools who ride at noon." "And beyond that how many miles to the water-hole?" "Five or six." But Firio knew a way around where the going was good. It made a difference of two or three miles in distance against them, but two or three times that in their favor in time and the strength taken out of their ponies. "How long will Prather be in getting through the sand?" Jack asked. Firio squinted at the objects of their pursuit for a while, as if he wanted to be exact. "Almost as many hours as miles," he said. Near the zenith now, the sun was a bulging furnace eye, piercing through shirts into the flesh and sucking the very moisture of the veins. A single catspaw was all that the Eternal Painter had to offer over that basin shut in between the long, jagged teeth of the ranges biting into the steel-blue of the sky. The savage, merciless hours of the desert day approached; the hours of reckoning for unknowing and unprepared travellers. Jag Ear's bells had a faint plaintiveness at intervals and again their jingling was rapid and hysterical, as he tried to make up the distance lost through a lapse in effort. He had ceased altogether to wiggle the sliver of ear--the baton with which he conducted his orchestra--because this was clearly a waste of energy. P.D.'s steps still retained their dogged persistence, but their regular beat was slower, like that of a clock that needs winding. His head hung low. Wrath of God was no more and no less melancholy than when he was rusticating in Jack's yard. It seemed as if his sad visage, so reliably and grandly sad, might still be marching on toward the indeterminate line of the horizon when his legs were worn off his body. "Firio, you brown son of the sun," said Jack, with a sudden display of his old-time trail imagery, "you prolix, garrulous Firio, you knew! You had the great equine trio ready, and look at the miles they have done since sunset to prove it! You, P.D., favorite trooper of our household cavalry! You, Wrath of God, don't be afraid to make an inward smile, for your face will never tell on you! You, Jag Ear, beat a tattoo with the fragment of the gothic glory of burrohood, for we rest, to go on all the faster when the heat of the day is past!" While Prather and Nogales were riding over hell's apron, their pursuers had saddles off hot, moist backs, over which knowing hands were run to find no sores. After they had eaten, P.D. and Wrath of God and Jag Ear stood in drooping relaxation which would make the most of every moment of respite. Jack and Firio, with a blanket fastened to the rifles as standards, made a patch of shade in which they lay down. "Have a nap, Firio," said Jack. "I will wake you when it is time to start." "And you--you no sleep?" asked Firio. "I could not sleep to-day," Jack answered. "I don't feel as if I could sleep until I've seen Prather and heard his story--my story--Firio!" And he lay with eyes half closed, staring at the steel blue overhead. It was well after midday when they mounted for the remainder of the journey. The Eternal Painter was shaking out the silvery cloud-mist of his beard across a background that had a softer, kindlier, deeper blue. The shadows of the ponies and their riders and Jag Ear and his pack no longer lay under their bellies heavily, but were stretched out to one side by the angle of the sun, in cheerful, jogging fraternity. Prather and Nogales had again become only a speck. "Do you think that they are out of the sand?" asked Jack. "Very near," Firio answered. "Their ponies had a whole night's rest--we must not forget that," said Jack; "and they must be in a hurry, for certainly Nogales had sense enough to rest over noon." "_Quien sabe_!" answered Firio. "But we catch them--_sí, sí_!" Leading the way, Firio turned toward the eastern range until he came to a narrow tongue of shale almost as hard to the hoofs as asphalt, that ran like a shoal across that sea of sand. Rest had given the great equine trio renewed life. P.D., reduced in rank to second place, could not think of allowing more than a foot between his muzzle and the tail of Wrath of God, who was bound to make up the time he had lost in pursuit of the horizon. Another hypothesis of Jack's as to the cause of Wrath of God's melancholy was that solemn Covenanter's inability to get any nearer to the edge of the earth. Once he could poke his nose through the blue curtain and see what was on the other side, the satisfaction of his eternal curiosity might have made him a rollicking comedian. As for Jag Ear, his baton was once more conducting his orchestra in spirited tempo. He, who was nearest of all three in heart to Firio, might well have been saying to himself: "I knew! I knew we were not going through the sand! Firio and I knew!" So rapidly were they gaining that, when past the sand and they turned back westward, it was only a question of half an hour or so to come up with Prather and Nogales. Nogales had been riding ahead; but now Prather, after gazing over his shoulder for some time at his pursuers, took the lead. He was urging his horse as if he would avoid being overtaken. Evidently Nogales did not share that desire, for he let Prather go on alone. But Prather's horse was too tired after its effort in the sand and he halted and waited until Nogales, at a slow walk, closed up the gap between them, when they proceeded at their old, weary gait. As Jack and Firio came within hailing distance, both Prather and Nogales glanced at them sharply; but no word was spoken on either side. The absence of any call between these isolated voyagers of the desert sea was strangely unlike the average desert meeting. Prather and Nogales did not look back again, not even when Jack and Firio were very near. A neigh by P.D., a break into a trot by him and Wrath of God, and Firio was saying to Nogales: "You went right through the sand!" "_Sí_!" answered Pedro, with a grin. Still Prather did not so much as turn his head to get a glimpse of Jack, nor did he offer any sign of knowledge of Jack's presence when Jack reined alongside him so close that their stirrup leathers were brushing. Prather was gazing at the desert exactly in front of him, the reins hanging loose, almost out of hand. His horse was about spent, if not on the point of foundering. Jack was so near the mole on the cheek of the peculiar paleness that never tans that by half extending his arm he might have touched it. After all, it was only a raised patch of blue, a blemish removable by the slightest surgical operation which its owner must have preferred to retain. Firio and Nogales, also riding side by side, were also silent. There was no sound except Jag Ear's bells, now sunk to a faint tinkle in keeping with the slow progress of Prather's beaten horse. Looking at Prather's hands, Jack was thinking of another pair of hands amazingly like them. In the uncanniness of its proximity he was imagining how the profile would look without the birthmark, and he found himself grateful for the silence, which spoke so powerfully to him, in the time that it provided for bringing his faculties under control. "How do you do?" he said at last, pleasantly. Probably the silence had been equally welcome to Prather in charting his own course in the now unavoidable interview. He looked around slowly, and he was smiling with a trace of the satire that Jack had seen in the elevator, but smiling watchfully in a way that covers the apprehension of a keen glance. And he saw features that were calm and eyes that were still as the sky. "How do you do?" he answered; and paused as one who is about to slip a point of steel home into a scabbard. "How do you do, brother?" he added, as if uttering a shibboleth that could protect him from any physical violence. "Brother! Brother! Yes!" repeated Jack, with dry lips. This shaping of conviction into fact so nakedly, so coolly, made all the desert and the sky swim before him in kaleidoscopic patches of blue and gray, shot with zigzag flashes. He half reeled in the saddle; his hands gripped the pommel to hold himself in place. It was as if a long strain of nervous tension had come to an end with a crack. Prather's smile took a turn of deeper satisfaction. It was like John Wingfield, Sr.'s after Jack had left the library. "This is the first time we have ever met to speak," said Prather, easily. "Yes!" assented Jack, the gray settling back into desert and the blue into sky and the zigzag flashes becoming only the brilliance of late afternoon sunshine. "Certainly it is time that we got acquainted, brother," said Prather. "It is!" agreed Jack. "It is time that I knew your story!" "Which you have hardly heard from your--I mean, our father!" The pause between the "your" and the "our" was made with an appreciative significance. "Well, you see, I was the brother who had the mole on his cheek!" "Yes--pitifully yes!" said Jack, with a kind of horror at the expression of this face in his father's likeness, no less than at the words. "Why, no! I've often thought of _you_ rather pitifully!" said Prather. "You well might!" Jack answered, feelingly. "We may well share a common pity for each other." There was no sign that John Prather subscribed to the sentiment except in a certain quizzical turn of his lips, as he looked away. "Yes, the story has been kept from me. I have come for it!" said Jack. "That is raking out the skeletons. But why not rake out our skeletons together, you and I?" said Prather. It was clear that he enjoyed the prospect as an opportunity for retributive enlightenment. "To begin with, I have the rights of primogeniture in my favor," he said. "I was born a day before you were, in the same city of New York. My mother's name was not down in the telephone list as Mrs. Wingfield, however--I look at it all philosophically, you understand--and it was just that which made the difference between you and me, outside of the difference of our natures. But I am proud of my birth on both sides, in my own way. My mother was won without marriage and she was true to father. A woman of real ability, my mother! She was well suited to be John Wingfield's wife; better, I think, in the practical world of materialism than your mother. By a peculiar coincidence, unknown to father, my mother called in Dr. Bennington. So you and I have a further bond, in that the same doctor brought us into the world." "And my mother must have known this!" Jack exclaimed, in racking horror. At last the cause of her exile was clear in all its grisly monstrousness; the source of the pain in her eyes in the portrait had been traced home. Again he saw her white and trembling when she returned to the house in Versailles to find a visitor there; and now he realized the fulness of her relief when the frail boy said that he did not like his father. Her travels had spoken the restlessness of flight in search of oblivion to the very fact of his paternity. The "I give! I give!" of the portrait was the giving of the infinity of her fine, sensitive being to him to make him all hers. His feeling which had held him on the desert when he should have gone home, that feeling of literal revulsion toward his inheritance, was a thing born in him which had grown under her caresses and her training. She had been living solely for him to that last moment when the book dropped out of her hand; and the incarnation of that which had killed her was riding beside him now in the flesh. He felt a weaving of his muscles, a tightening of his nerves, as if waiting on the spark of will, and all the strength that he had built in the name of the store was madly tempted. But no! John Prather was not to blame, any more than himself. He would listen to John Prather, as justice listens to evidence, and endure his stare to the end. "Yes, your mother knew," continued Prather. "My mother made a point of having her know. That was part of my mother's own bitterness. That was her teaching to me from the first. She had no illusions. She knew the advantages and the disadvantages of her position. She was and is one of the few persons in the world of whom my father is a little afraid." "Then she still lives?" asked Jack sharply. "Yes, she is in California," Prather returned. "She often referred to the mole on my cheek as the symbol of my handicap in the world of convention. 'But for the mole, Jack, you would have the store,' she often said. It delighted her that I had my father's face. As I grew older the resemblance became more marked. I could see that I pleased my father with my practical ideas of life, which I developed when quite young. He saw to it that my mother and I lived well and that I went to a good school. From my books I drew the same lesson as from my peculiar inheritance; the lesson that my mother was always inculcating. 'A bank account,' she would repeat, 'will erase even a mole patch on the cheek. It is the supreme power that will carry you anywhere, Jack. You must make money!' "When father came to see her he would talk with a candor with which I am sure he never talked to your mother. He would tell of his successes, revealing the strategy and system by which they were won, finding her both understanding and sympathetic. I became a little blade that delighted to get sharp against his big blade by asking him questions. He did not want me about the store, and this was one of the things in which my mother humored him. She knew just when to humor and just when to threaten the play of the strong card which she always held. "All the while her ambition was laying its plans. It was that I should have the Wingfield store one day, myself. Out of school hours I would range the other department stores. You see, I had not only inherited my father's face more strikingly than you had, but also his talents. I spent the summer vacations of my fourteenth and fifteenth years in a store. I won the attention of my superiors and promise of promotion. I foresaw the day when I should so prove my ability that father would take me into his own store, and then, gradually, I would make my place, secure, while you were idling about Europe. And in those days you were frail and I was vigorous. "There was no mistaking that father's sense of convention was the one thing that stood between him and my desire. He feared the world's opinion if the truth became known, and deep down in heart he could never get over the pride of having married into your mother's family. You had very good blood on the maternal side, as they say, while my mother had begun in the cloak department and was self-made, like father. Again, I was so truly his son in every instinct that he may have been a little jealous of me. Father does not like to think that any other man was ever quite as great as he is. I confess that is the way I feel, too. That is what life is, after all--it is yourself. Yes, I saw the store as mine--surely mine, with time!" Prather's reins lay across the pommel of the saddle drawn taut by the drooping head of his horse, which was barely dragging one foot after another. He gave Jack a glance of flashing resentment and then, in his first impulse of real emotion, made a fist of one hand and drove it angrily into the palm of the other before continuing. "Then father went to Europe to bring you home. He had decided for the son of convention, the son of blood! Though self-made, he was for family as against talent. Besides, it was a victory for him. At last you were his. After your return there was a scene between mother and him, a cool, bitter argument. He defied her to play her last card. He said that you knew the truth and that she could at best only make a row. And he wanted us out of New York; the place for me was a new country. He would make us a handsome allowance. So my mother agreed to his terms and we went to the Pacific coast. There I was to enter one of the colleges. My mother wanted me to have a college education, you see. The last meeting between father and me was very interesting, blade playing on blade. He really hated to let me go, for by this time he knew how hopeless you were. He embraced me and said that I would get on, anyway. I told him that the only trouble was that while I was the real son, I had a mole on my cheek. "The West was best. There we could claim the favor of convention, Mrs. Prather and her son. I matriculated at Stanford, but I saw nothing in it for me. It was all dream stuff. Greek and Latin don't help in building a fortune. They handicap you with the loss of time it takes to learn them, at least; and I meant to be worth a million before I was thirty. Now I know that I shall be worth two or three or four millions at thirty, if all goes as I plan. So I cut college and broke for Goldfield. I ran a store and was a secret partner in a saloon that paid better than the store. I was in the game morning, noon, and night; it beat marching to class to recite Horace and fiddle with the binomial theorem, as it must for every man who counts for something in the world." Throughout, Prather's tone, except for the one moment of anger, had been that of an even recital of facts by one who does not allow himself to consider anything but facts in the judgment of his position. At times he gave Jack covert glances out of the tail of his eye and saw Jack's face white and drawn and his head lowered. Now Prather became the victim--so he would have put it, no doubt--of another outburst of feeling. "But it was not like having the store!" he said. "No, my heart was in the store; and that morning when you saw me looking down from the gallery I was permitting myself to dream. I was thinking of what had come to you, the fairy prince of good fortune, who had no talent for your inheritance, and of what I might have done with it. I was thinking how I could win men to work for me"--and there he was smiling with the father's charm--"and of the millions to come if I could begin to build on the foundation that father had laid. I saw branches in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia--a great chain of stores all co-ordinated under my directing hand--I the master!" He rubbed the palms of his hands together as he had over the scintillation of the jewelry counters. Though Jack had not looked around, his ear recognized that crisp sound of exultant power. "Yes," Jack murmured thoughtfully, as if inviting Prather to go on with anything further he might have to say. "All mine--mine!" Prather concluded, in a sort of hypnosis with his own picture. Jack still stared at the earth, his profile limned in gold and the side of his face toward Prather in shadow. They were nearing the clump of cotton-woods around the water-hole at the base of a tongue of the range which ran out into the desert, and Firio rode up to whisper in Spanish: "Señor Jack, see there! Horsemen!" Jack raised his head with a returning sense of his surroundings to see some mounted men, eight in all he counted, riding along the range trail a half mile nearer the water-hole than themselves. Their horses had the gait of exhaustion after a long, hard ride. "You know who it is?" Firio whispered. "Yes," Jack answered. "They had the better trail and have outridden us. All right, Firio!" "Leddy--Pete Leddy and some of his men!" exclaimed Prather, shading his eyes to watch the file of figures now passing under the cotton-woods. It seemed to relieve him. "I suppose he came on my account," he added, nodding to Nogales. "Yes," said Nogales, with a grin. He always either grinned or his face had a half savage impassiveness. "I wonder if Leddy thought I was in danger," and Prather gave Jack a knowing glance of satisfaction. "We shall all camp together," he added, smiling. Jack did not answer for a moment. He was intent on the cotton-woods. Leddy and his companions appeared on the other side, the figures of riders and horses bathed in the sunset glow. Then they disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them up. "They are going on! They are not going to stop!" said Prather apprehensively. "There is a basin beyond the water-hole and the seepage makes a little pasture," Jack explained. "You will see them back in a moment." "Oh, yes!" said Prather, with a thrill in his voice; and again the palms of his hands were making that refrain of delight. "But I have told my story," he resumed. "Now may I ask you a question? Why have you come back?" Jack looked around frankly and dispassionately. "To save Little Rivers from you! I understand that you have secured the water rights." "Well, then, I have!" declared Prather, confidently, "and I mean to have the rights for the whole valley!" and he struck his fist into his palm. "You see," he went on, with another flash of satire, "it is not exactly fair that you should have the store and Little Rivers, too. I had heard of the possibilities here from my friend Leddy, who was also at Goldfield. A useful man in his place! He got his sixth notch there. When I came and looked around and saw that here was the opportunity I wanted, I wired father that in any fair division of territory everything west of the Mississippi belonged to me"--he was showing some bravado in his sense of security now, when he saw that Leddy and his men were returning through the cotton-woods to the water-hole--"and I should like to have you out of my way. I told him you were the picture of health, even if you didn't have anything in your head, and if you were ever going to learn the business it was time that you began. But father is always careful. Naturally he wanted to check off my report with another's; for he didn't want you back if you were ill. So he sent Dr. Bennington out to get professional confirmation of my statement." "And you told Jasper Ewold that you wanted the rights only to turn them over to the water users' association and then bring in capital to build a dam, with everybody sharing alike in the prosperity that was to come." "Yes, and Jasper Ewold was so simple! Well, what I told him was strategy--strategy of which I think father would approve. When you have a big object in view the end must justify the means. Look at the situation! Two hundred thousand acres of land waiting on water to be the most fertile in the world! Why, when I rode up the valley the first time and saw what could be done, I was amazed to think that such an opportunity should be lying around loose. Little Rivers was so out of the way that other promoters had overlooked it, and everybody had sort of taken it for granted that Jasper Ewold and his water users' association really had legal possession. It was my chance. I thought big. That dam should be mine. I had the money I had made in Goldfield, but it was not enough for my purpose. "Where should I turn for outside capital that would not demand a majority interest in the project? I concluded that it was time father did something for me in return for giving up the store. Besides this call of justice I had another influence with him. I was sure that when he told my mother that you knew the truth he was making a statement that suited his purpose. I was sure that you knew nothing of my story and that father did not want you to know it. I was ready to tell if he did not meet my demands. "Well, you know how he can talk when he wants to gain a point. I fancy that I talked as well as father when I showed him how that dam would pay for itself in five years in tolls and twenty per cent on the capital after that; when I showed him how a population ten times that of his store would have to take their water from me; when I showed him all the side issues of profit from town sites and the increase of values of the big holdings which Leddy's men would take up for me. You ought to have seen his eyes glow. He could not withstand his pride in me. 'You have the gift, the one gift!' he said. I told him yes, it was in the blood; and I struck while the iron was hot. I got an outright sum from him; and he could not resist a chance to share all that profit when capital was to be had in New York for three or four per cent. He went in as silent partner, as I was in the saloon at Goldfield; as a partner with a minority interest." John Prather paused to laugh to himself over his victory, while the movement of palm on palm was rapid and prolonged. "Our arrangement amounted to the commercial division of territory for the family, which I had suggested," he went on with appreciative irony. "You and he were to have the east side of the Mississippi and I was to have the west, and you were never to know my story. Publicly, father and I were strangers and quits, and we came to this agreement in the room of a down-town hotel. "The day before I started West I simply had to have a look through the store--the store that I loved and that I had to lose. Yes, the store is far more to my taste than this rough western life. Naturally, as my existence was to be kept a secret from you, when you followed me to the elevator and tried to get acquainted I couldn't have it." "But as the elevator descended you pointed to the mole," said Jack. "Did I? I suppose that was an involuntary, instinctive pleasantry. The previous evening father and I had had a farewell visit together. We went into the country." "The night after the scene in the drawing-room!" Jack thought. "I knew that father was worried because he had to make an effort to show that he was not. Usually he can cover his worries perfectly. He said that he might have a fight in order to keep you and that he very much wanted you to stay. But he did not succeed," concluded Prather, fist driving into palm. "You came on the express after me." "Because, fortunately, you went to the house to have a look at the ancestor!" "Yes," said Prather. "But I did not see you." "However, I saw you from the landing and overheard what passed between you and father!" "No matter!" cried Prather harshly. "I am prepared for you!" He looked toward the water-hole significantly. "And the concession is mine! The dam will be mine!" "The dam could be built and all the valley might bloom without so much power passing into the hands of one man," said Jack. P.D. scenting the pasturage and feeling the pangs of thirst was starting forward at a smarter pace; but Jack held him back to the snail's crawl of Prather's pony. "Who would do it? Jasper Ewold? Jim Galway?" Prather demanded. "What these men need is a leader. They don't realize what I am doing for them. Do they think I want to put in ten years out here for nothing? For every dollar that they make for me they are going to make one for themselves. That's the rule of prosperity. I am not robbing them. I am taking only my fair share in return for creative business genius. The fellows in Little Rivers who sulk and don't get on will have only themselves to thank." "But they lose their independence," Jack was arguing quietly, as if he would thrash out the subject. "There are other things than money in this world." "There's nothing much money won't do!" said Prather. "It will not give one self-respect or courage or moral fibre; it will not bring the gift of poetry, music, or painting; or turn a lie into truth; or bring back virtue to a woman who has been defiled; or make the courage to face death calmly." "It will do all I want!" Prather answered. "Father not having been true to his agreement by keeping you in New York, why should I keep his secret? He breaks faith; I break faith. It seems to me as if there were no escaping the penalty of my birth. I no sooner arrive than I find the whole town knows of your return; and not only that, but a wire comes from father saying that we had better not meet until he comes." "Until he comes! Yes, go on!" "Well, as you say, you are here to save Little Rivers and that meant an interview with me, and--well," again the palms in their crisp movement, "before I started out I told Pete Leddy that if you came after me I should look to him for protection, and it seems he is on time." "Yes," said Jack, without looking at Prather. All the while he had kept watch on the water-hole, and he received Prather's announcement stoically as a confirmation of his suspicions. "So, if you will take my advice, brother, the best thing for you to do is to ride back before we reach the water-hole, unless you prefer Leddy's company. This time he will fight you in his way." "My horse is tired and there is neither water nor feed for him except there." Jack stated this quietly and stubbornly, as he nodded toward the cotton-woods. Then he looked around to Prather. Suddenly Prather found himself looking at a face that seemed to have only the form of that face by the side of which he had been riding. It was as if another man had taken Jack's place in the saddle. The ancestor was rising in Jack. Prather saw an electric spark in Jack's eyes, the spark of the high voltage that made his muscles weave and a flutter come in his cheeks. "No, I am not going back until I have recovered the rights that you have taken from Little Rivers!" he said. Prather in sudden confusion realized that he had let his feelings go too soon. They were not yet at the water-hole, and he was within easy reach of that hand working on the reins in a way that promised an outburst. "You think of physical violence against me--your own flesh and blood!" he said defensively. He saw Jack shudder in reaction and knew that he was safe for the moment. When Jack looked away at the water-hole Prather's fingers slipped to his own six-shooter and rested there, twitching nervously; and in the rear Firio was watching both him and Nogales shrewdly. From any outward sign now, Jack might have been starting on another journey with quiet eagerness; a journey that might end at a precipice a few yards ahead or at the other side of the world. Of this alone you could be sure from the resoluteness of his features, that he was going straight on; while Firio, in the telepathy of desert companionship, understood that he was missing no developing detail within the narrow range of vision in front of P.D.'s nose. Trusting all to Jack, Firio was on wires, ready for a spring in any direction. They were coming to the edge of a depression of an old watercourse that wound around past the cotton-woods to the ridge itself and included the basin where Leddy and his followers had tethered their horses. But this part of it was dry sand. The standing figures around the water-hole had sunk down. Jack could see them as lumps in a row. A blade of flame from the setting sun fell on them, revealing the glint of rifle barrels. "Firio! Quick--down! P.D., down!" Jack called, dismounting with a leap; and as though in answer to his warning came the singing of bullets about their ears. P.D. had been trained to sink on all fours at a word and he and Jack together dropped into the cover of the _arroyo_, below the desert line. When he looked around Firio was at his side, still holding the reins of Wrath of God. But Wrath of God's sturdy, plodding nature had little facility in learning tricks. A tiny stream of blood was flowing down his forehead and he lay still. At last, all in loyal service, he had reached the horizon. His bony, homely, good old face seemed singularly peaceful, as if satisfied with the reward at his journey's end. Jag Ear was standing beside P.D. and Prather's burro next to him, both unharmed. Nogales's horse had also been killed, but its rider was safe. Prather was crawling down the side of the _arroyo_ on his belly, digging his hands into the dirt, his face white and contorted and his eyes shifting back and forth in ghastly incomprehension. His horse followed him and sank down in final surrender to exhaustion. By common impulse, Jack and Firio seized the rifles from Jag Ear's pack, while Nogales, a spectator, squatted beside Prather. "What--what does it mean?" Prather gasped, spasmodically. "I--I--was it Leddy that fired on us?" "Yes," said Jack over his shoulder, as he and Firio started up the bank of the _arroyo_ facing the water-hole. "No doubt of it." "It was you they wanted--not me--not me! I--I--" "I don't know. At all events, I do not mean they shall rush us!" Jack answered, as he and Firio hugged the slope with their rifles resting on top and only their heads showing above it. "No! It couldn't be that they recognized me. They will let me by! They expect me!" "Yes, you belong on their side!" Jack called back. "I will send out a flag of truce!" said Prather, brightening with the thought. "You, Nogales, take my handkerchief and go and explain to Leddy!" Nogales seemed agreeable to the suggestion. Indeed, he was very expeditious in starting. While Jack never took his eye off the sight of his barrel, Nogales walked across the gleaming interval between the two parties waving Prather's handkerchief. Leddy rose on his knee watchfully, rifle in hand, while he spoke with Nogales. Then Nogales started back with his head thrown up jubilantly, but stopped when he was within calling distance and sang out, truculently: "Leddy get you both! He get everything!" He turned on his heel and soon was another lump around the water-hole. "That makes nine, Firio!" said Jack. He smiled in relief to be rid of Nogales; smiled in happy confidence, as if he were truly the ancestor's child. "_Sí_!" answered Firio, as if he had just as soon there were a regiment against them. He was happy beyond words. He patted his rifle barrel; he spread out his big red bandanna beside his elbow and on it nicely arranged a couple of extra charges of cartridges. Prather remained flat on the bottom of the _arroyo_, overwhelmed. It was some time before he could speak. "I--I don't understand! It isn't possible!" he said finally. "Everything is possible with Leddy. It seems that there can be peace between him and me in this valley in only one way," Jack answered. "But me! I suppose he found out that I--" Prather stopped without finishing the sentence. "What am I to do?" he asked Jack in livid appeal. "Why, it is three against nine, if you choose!" Jack answered. "You have a rifle, and it is for your life." "My life!" Prather gasped, another wave of fear submerging him. "Yes. We have no horses with which to make our escape and we should be winged as soon as we exposed ourselves. Leddy means that we shall die of thirst, or die fighting." Through all this dialogue Jack had been speaking to the head that lay between his eye and a target. As Prather reached up a trembling hand to take his rifle from the back of his burro one of the lumps around the water-hole rose, possibly to change position. When it became the silhouette of a kneeling man, Jack fired and the figure plunged forward like an automaton that had had its back broken. "Eight!" whispered Firio. "Duck!" Jack told him; for a response instantly came in a volley that kicked up the dust around their heads. But Jack's rifle lay in limp hands. "Eight!" he repeated, dazedly. "And I shot to kill--to kill!" His face blanched with horror at the thing that he had done. It seemed as if the strength had been struck out of him. He appeared ready to let destiny overtake him rather than fire again. Then as in a flash, the ancestor in him reappeared and in his features was written that very process of fate which Dr. Bennington had said was in him. Again his hand was firm on the barrel and his eye riveted on the sight, as he drew himself up until he lay even with the bank of the _arroyo_. The volley from the cotton-woods had swept over Prather's head at the instant that he had taken hold of his rifle. It dropped from his grasp. He burrowed in the sand under the pressure of that near and sinister rush of singing breaths. "I can't! I can't!" he said helplessly. He was leaden flesh, without the power to move. At his words Jack glanced back to see a dropped jaw and glassy, staring eyes. "You are suffering!" exclaimed Jack. "Are you hit?" "No!" Prather managed to say, and reached out for his rifle in clumsy desperation, as if he were feeling for it in the dark. "Take your time!" said Jack encouragingly, as one would to a victim of stage fright. "There isn't any danger for the moment, while advantage of position is with us--the sun over our shoulders and in their faces." The lumps around the water-hole grew smaller. Evidently, as a result of the lesson, they were creeping backward on their stomachs to a less exposed position. Two had quite disappeared, or else the brilliant play of light had melted them into the golden carpet of reflected sunshine on which they rested. Directly, Jack saw two figures creeping over the rim of the pasturage basin. "So, that's it!" he said to Firio. Firio nodded his understanding of Leddy's plan to take them in flank under cover of the _arroyo_. "We shall have to respond in kind!" said Jack. He left his hat where his head had been and began crawling along the side of the _arroyo_, but paused to call to Prather, who, now that no bullets were flying, was trying the mechanism of his rifle with a somewhat steadier hand: "Prather, if you could manage to get up there beside Firio and join him in pouring out a magazine full at the right moment, it would help! If not, put your hat up there beside mine. You can do that without exposing yourself." Jack's tone was that of one who urges a tired man to take a few more steps, or an invalid without any appetite to try another sup of broth. It had no hint of irony. "No matter," said Firio. "Leddy know he can't fight. Leddy know there is only two of us!" His tone was without satire, but its sting was sharper than satire; that of an Indian shrug over a negligible quantity. It started Prather on all fours laboriously toward him. "I am going to the turn in the _arroyo_ that commands the next turn," Jack explained. "When I whistle you empty your magazines. Keep your heads down and fire fast, no matter if not accurately, so as to disturb their aim at me!" "_Sí_!" said Firio. "I know!" No one could deny that he was having a very good time making war in the company of Señor Jack. "Yes, Mister Prather," he added, when, after toiling painfully on his belly for the few feet he had to go, Prather lay with his stark face near Firio's; a face strangely like that of John Wingfield, Sr. when he saw Jasper Ewold from the drawing-room doorway. "For your life, Mister Prather! _Sí_! Up a little more! Chin high as mine, so! Eye on sight, so!" Prather obeyed in an abyssmal sort of shame which, for the time being, conquered his fear, though not his palsy; for his rifle barrel trembled on its rest. Meanwhile, Jack had crept to the bend in the _arroyo_. He was listening. It would not do to show his head as a warning of his presence. Faintly he heard men moving in the sand, moving slowly and cautiously. At the moment he chose as the right one, with rifle cocked and finger on trigger, he gave his signal. Then he sprang to the top of the bank, fully exposed to the marksmen at the water-hole. For no half measure would do. He must have a full view of the bottom of the next bend. There he saw two crawling figures. He fired twice and dropped down with three or four stinging whispers in his ears and a second volley overhead as he was under cover. Again he sprang up over the bank in the temptation to see the result of his aim. One of the would-be flankers lay prostrate and still, face downward. The other was disappearing beyond the second bend. "Seven, now!" he thought miserably, in comprehension of the whole business as ridicule in human savagery. "They won't trouble us again immediately. They will wait on darkness and thirst," he concluded; and called, as he turned back, to Firio: "It worked like a charm, O son of the sun! They could not fire at all straight with your bullets flying about their heads, disturbing their--" His speech ended at sight of Prather, half rolling, half tumbling down the slope, his hands over his face, while he uttered a prolonged moan. "Bullet hit a rock under sand!" said Firio, as Jack hastened to assist Prather, who had come to a halt at the very bottom of the _arroyo_ and lay gasping on his side. Jack took hold of Prather's wrists to draw his hands away from the wound. "My God! Out here, like a rat in a trap!" Prather groaned. "When I have all life before me! In sight of millions and power--a rat in a trap out on this damnable desert, as if I were of no more account than a rancher!" "Let me see!" said Jack; for Prather was holding his hands tight against his face, as if he feared that all the blood in his body would pour out if he removed them. "Let me see! Maybe it is not so bad!" Prather let his hands drop and the right one which was over the cheek with the mole was splashed red between the fingers. On the cheek was a raw spot, from which ran a slight trickle. The mole had gone. A splinter of rock, or perhaps a bullet, with its jacket split, ricocheting sidewise, had torn it clean from the flesh. "Not at all dangerous!" said Jack. "No?" exclaimed Prather, in utter relief. "It will heal in a fortnight!" A small medicine case was among the regular supplies that were always packed on that omnibus of a burro, Jag Ear. While Jack was bandaging the wound, Firio, who kept watch, had no news to report. "Nothing matters! They will get us, anyway!" Prather moaned. The shock of being hit had quite finished any pretence at concealing his mortal fear of the outcome. "Oh, I wouldn't say that! We already have them down to seven!" said Jack encouragingly, as he made a pillow of a blanket and bade Prather rest his head on it. But he knew well that they were a seven who had learned wisdom from the fate of their comrades. From Nogales, Leddy must have heard of the loss of two horses. At best, but one of the beleaguered three had any means of escape. Leddy could well afford to curb his impatience as he camped comfortably by the water-hole, while his own horses grazed. The sun was still above the western ridge in the effulgence of its adieu for the day. Jack was on his knee, with the broad, level glare full on him, looking at Prather, who was in the shadow; and his reflections were mixed with that pity which one feels toward another who is lame or blind or suffers for the want of any sense or faculty that is born to the average human being. For a man of true courage rarely sees a coward as anything but a man ailing; he is grateful for nature's kindness to himself. And the spark of John Wingfield, Knight, skipping generations before it settled on a descendant, had not chosen John Prather for its favor. The ancestor was all Jack's. Prather, in his agony of mind, had moments of wondering envy as he watched Jack's changing expression. He could see that Jack, in entire detachment from his problem of fighting Leddy, was thinking soberly in the silence of the desert, unconscious in his absorption of the presence of any other human being. Suddenly his eyes opened wide in the luminousness of a happy discovery; his lips turned a smile of supreme satisfaction, and his face seemed to be giving back the light of the sun. "It's all right!" he said. "Yes, everything is going to be all right!" "How?" asked Prather wistfully, feeling the infection of the confident ring of Jack's tone. "There is one horse left," said Jack. "He is in better condition than Leddy imagines. When darkness comes you can get away with him and by morning he will have brought you to water at Las Cascadas, halfway on the range trail. Then you will be quite safe." "Yes! Yes!" Prather half rose, his breath coming fast, his eyes ravenous. "And in return you will give Little Rivers back its water rights! Is that a bargain?" Jack asked. "Give up my concession and all it means to me! Give it up absolutely--its millions!" objected Prather, in an uncontrollable impulse of greed. "King Richard III, you remember," Jack declared, with a trace of his old humor breaking out over the new aspect of the situation, "said he would give his kingdom for a horse. He could not get the horse and he lost both his kingdom and his life. If he had been able to make the trade he might have saved his life and perhaps--who knows?--have won another kingdom." "I will save my life!" Prather concluded; but under his breath he added bitterly: "And you get both the store and Little Rivers!" in the prehensile instinct which gains one thing only to covet another. "You have the papers for the concession with you?" Jack asked. "I--I--" "Yes!" interposed Jack firmly. "Yes!" Prather admitted. "And you have pencil and paper to make some sort of transfer that will be the first legal step in undoing what you have done?" "Yes." While Prather was occupied with this, Jack found pencil and paper on his own account and by the light of the sun's last rays and in the happiness of one who has brought a story to a good end, he wrote to his father: "John Prather will tell you how he and I met out on the desert before you came and of the long talk we had. "You wanted a son who would go on building on the great foundation you had laid. You have one. He said that you wanted to give him the store. The reason why you might not give it to him no longer exists. The mole is gone. Of course there will be a scar where the mole was. I, too, shall have to carry a scar. But the means is in your power to go far toward erasing his, for his mother, Mrs. Prather, is still living. "So everything is clear. Everything is coming out right. John Prather and I change places, as nature intended that we should. You need have no apprehensions on my account. Though I had not a cent in the world I could make my living out here--a very sweet thought, this, to me, with its promise of something real and practical and worth while, at which I can make good. I know that you are going to keep the bargain that Prather and I have made; and think of me as over the pass and very happy as I write this, in the confidence that at last all accounts have been balanced and we can both turn to a fresh page in the ledger. JACK." When Jack, after he had received the transfer, gave the letter to Prather to read, Prather was transfixed with incredulity. "You mean this?" he gasped blankly, as his surprise became articulate. "Yes. You have quite the better of King Richard--you gain both the kingdom and the horse." "The store, yes, the store--mine! Mine--the store!" said Prather, in a slow, passionate monotone, his fingers trembling with the very triumph of possession as he thrust the letter into his pocket. "The store, yes, the store!" he repeated, amazement mixed with exultation. "But--" his keen, practical mind was recovering its balance; he was on guard again. Between him and the realization of his inheritance lay the shadow of the fear of the miles in the night. "But--there is no trick?" he hazarded in suspicion. "No!" Jack spoke in such a way that it removed the last doubt for Prather, who kneaded his palms together in a kind of frenzy, oblivious of all except the moneyed prospect of the kingdom craved that had become a kingdom won. "How long before I start?" he asked. "As soon as the first darkness settles and before the moon rises." "I shall need some food," Prather went on ingratiatingly. "And they say wounds bring on fever. Have you any water to drink on the way?" "We will fix you up the best we can. I will divide what water remains between you and P.D. He shall have his share now and you can drink yours later." The sun had set. The afterglow was fading, and in a few minutes, when the light was quite out of the heavens, Jack announced that it was time for Prather to start. "How shall I know the direction?" Prather asked. "Trust P.D. He will find it," said Jack. He held the stirrup for Prather to mount with the relief of freeing himself at last from the clinging touch of the phantoms. "You are perfectly safe. In two days you will be mounting the steps of a Pullman on your way to New York." "And you? What--what are you going to do?" Prather inquired hectically, with a momentary qualm of shame. "Why, if Firio and I are to have water to make coffee for breakfast we must take the water-hole!" Jack answered, as if this were a thing of minor importance beside seeing Prather safely on his way. "Be sure not to overwater P.D. after the night's ride, and don't overdo him on the final stretch, and turn him over to Galway when you arrive. Home, P.D.! Home!" he concluded, striking that good soldier with the flat of his hand on the buttocks. And P.D. trotted away into the night. Jack listened to the hoof-beats on the soft earth dying away and then crept up beside Firio on the bank and gazed into the black wall in the direction of the cotton-woods. A slight glow in the basin, which must be Leddy's camp-fire, was the only sign of life in the neighborhood. The silence was profound. He had not spoken a word to Firio. With one problem forever solved, he was absorbed in another. "Leddy drinks, eats, waits!" whispered Firio. "If we try to go they hunt us down!" "Yes," said Jack. "And we not go, eh? We stay? We fight?" "For water, Firio, yes! Two against seven!" "_Sí_!" Firio had no illusions about the situation. "_Sí_!" he repeated stoically. "And, Firio--" Jack's hand slipped with a quick, gripping caress onto Firio's shoulder. An inspiration had come to the mind of action, just as a line comes to a poet in a flash; as one must have come to the ancestor many times after he had gone into a tight place trusting to his wits and his blade to bring him out. "And, Firio, we are going to change our base, as the army men say--and change it before the moon rises. Jag Ear, we shall have to leave you behind," he added, when they had dropped back to the burro's side. "Just make yourself comfortable. Leddy surely wouldn't think of killing so valuable a member of the non-combatant class. We will come for you, by and by. It will be all right!" He gave the sliver of ear an affectionate corkscrew twist before he and Firio, taking all their ammunition, crawled along the bottom of the _arroyo_ and up the ridge where they settled down comfortably behind a ledge commanding the water-hole at easy range. "It's lucky we learned to shoot in the moonlight!" Jack whispered. "_Sí"!_ Firio answered, in perfect understanding. XXXVII THE END OF THE WEAVING For over a week a private car had stood on a siding at Little Rivers. Every morning a porter polished the brasswork of the platform in heraldry of the luxury within. Occasionally a young man with a plaster over a wound on his cheek would walk up and down the road-bed on the far side of the car. Indeed, he had worn a path there. He never went into town, and any glances that he may have cast in that direction spoke his desire to be forever free of its sight. Not a train passed that he did not wish himself aboard and away. But as heir-apparent he had no thought of endangering his new kingdom by going before his father went. He meant to keep very close to the throne. He had become clingingly, determinedly filial. At times the gleam of the brasswork would exercise the same hypnosis over his senses as the scintillation of the jewelry counters of the store, and he would rub his hands crisply together. John Wingfield, Sr. spent little time in the car. Morning and afternoon and evening he would go over to Dr. Patterson's with the question: "How is he?" which all Little Rivers was asking. The rules of longevity were in oblivion and the routine channels of a mind, so used to teeming detail, had become abysses as dark and void as the canyons of the range. On the day of his arrival in Little Rivers he found a town peopled mostly by women and children. All of the men who could bear arms and get a horse had departed, and with them Mary. Thereby hangs a story all to the honor of little Ignacio. After Jack had ridden away with his insistent refusal of assistance, apprehension among the group that watched him disappear in the gathering darkness was allayed by reports of men who had been at the store, where they found the Leddyites hanging about as usual. True, no one had seen either Pete or Ropey Smith, but Lang said that they were upstairs playing poker, a favorite relaxation from the strain of their intellectual life. But Ignacio learned from another Indian in Lang's service that Pete and seven of his best shots had started for Agua Fria about the same time as Jack, while the rest of the gang that had been left behind were making it their business to cover the leader's absence. Distrusting Ignacio, they locked him in a closet off the bar. In the early hours of the morning he succeeded in escaping with his news, which he carried first to Mary. She was not asleep when he rapped at her door. It had been a night of wakefulness for her, recalling the night after her meeting with Jack on the pass before the duel in the _arroyo_. "I for Señor Don't Care, now! I for every devil in him! And they go to kill him!" was the incoherent way in which he began his announcement. In an hour the alarm had travelled from house to house. While the gang slept at Lang's or in their tents, a solemn cavalcade set forth quietly into the night, with rifles slung over their shoulders or lying across the pommels of their saddles, bound to rescue Jack Wingfield. They had protested against Mary's going with all the old, familiar arguments that occur to the male at thought of a woman in physical danger. "It is the least that any of us can do," she declared. "But of what service will you be?" Dr. Patterson asked. "No one can say yet," she replied. "And no one shall stop me!" She was driven by the same impulse that had sent her across the _arroyo_ in face of the ruffians on the bank to Jack's side after he was wounded. "My pony can keep up with the best of yours," she added. Leddy had eight hours' start on a two-days' journey. It was not in horse-flesh to gain much on his fast and hardened ponies. There was little chance that Jack could hold out against such odds as he must face, even if he had escaped an ambush. So they rode in desperation and in silence, each too certain of what was in the minds of the others to make pretence of a hope that was not in the heart. Their only stop for rest was at Las Cascadas in the hot hours of midday. Darkness had fallen when they overtook a solitary horseman coming from Agua Fria. John Prather drew rein well to one side of the trail. He had a moment, as they approached, in which to think out his explanation of his position. "It's Prather, and riding P.D.!" Galway announced. "Where is Jack Wingfield?" came the merciless question as in one voice from all. "You are his friends! You have come to rescue him!" Prather cried. He seemed overcome by his relief. At all events, the wildness of his exclamation in face of the force barring the trail was without affectation. "There is time? There is hope?" "Yes! yes!" gasped Prather, as the men began to surround him. "Why are you here? Why on his horse?" "Leddy turned on me, too! I was fighting at Wingfield's side! We got two of them before dark! Then I was wounded and couldn't see to shoot. And I came for help. And you will be in time! He's in a good position!" "I think you are lying!" said Galway. "He couldn't help it!" said Bob Worther. "How--how would I have his horse if he weren't willing?" protested Prather, frantically. "By stealing it, in keeping with your character!" "Yes! On general principles we ought to--" "I have a piece of rope!" called a voice from the rear. "There isn't any tree. But we can drop him over the wall of a chasm!" Spectral figures with set faces appallingly grim in the thin moonlight pressed close to Prather. "My God! No!" he pleaded, throatily. "We fought together, I tell you! We drew lots to see which one should take the risk of riding through danger to save the other!" "Lying again!" "Here's the rope! All we've got to do is to slip a noose over his head!" "It's a clean piece of rope, isn't it?" said the Doge, in his mellow voice. "I don't think it's worth while soiling a clean piece of rope. Come! Taking his life is no way to save Jack's. Come, we are losing time!" "Right, Doge!" said the man with the rope. "But it is some satisfaction to give him a scare." "And take care of P.D.!" called another. "Yes, if you founder Jack's pony you'll hear from us a-plenty!" This was their adieu to John Prather, who was left to pursue his way in safety to his kingdom, while they rode on, following a hard path at the base of the range. Those with the best horses took the lead, while the heavier men, including the Doge, whose weight was telling on their mounts, fell to the rear. Mary was at the head, between Dr. Patterson and Jim Galway. The stars flickered out; the moon grew pale, and for a while the horsemen rode into a wall of blackness, conscious of progress only by the sound of hoof-beats which they were relentlessly urging forward. Then dawn flashed up over the chaos of rocks, pursuing night with the sweep of its broadening, translucent wings across the valley to the other range. The tops of the cotton-woods rose out of the sparkling sea, floating free of any visible support of trunks, and the rescuers saw that they were near the end of their journey. There was a faint sound of a shot; then of another shot and another. After that, the radiant, baffling silence of daybreak on uninhabited wastes, when the very active glory of the spreading, intensifying light ought, one feels, to bring paeans of orchestral splendor. It set desperation in the hearts of the riders, which was communicated to weary ponies driven to a last effort of speed. And still no more shots. The silence spoke the end of some tragedy with the first streaks from the rising sun clearing a target to a waiting marksman's eye. Around the cotton-woods was no sign of human movement; nothing but inanimate, dark spots which developed into prostrate human forms, in pantomimic expression of the story of that night's work done in the moonlight and finished with the first flush of morning. Two of the outstretched figures were lying head to head a few yards apart on either side of the water-hole. The one on the side toward the ridge was recognized as Jack, still as death. Another a short distance behind him, at the sound of hoof-beats looked up with face blanched despite its dark skin, the parched lips stretched over the teeth; but in Firio's eyes there was still fire, as he whispered, "All right!" before he sank back unconscious. A wound in his shoulder had been bandaged, but the wrist of his gun hand lay beside a fresh red spot on the earth. Jack had a bullet hole in the upper left arm plugged with a bit of cotton; and a deep furrow across the temple, which was bleeding. His rigid fingers were still gripping his six-shooter. He lay partly on his side, facing Leddy, who had rolled over on his back dead. Mary and Dr. Patterson dropped from their horses simultaneously. The doctor pressed his hand over Jack's heart, to find it still beating. "Jack!" they whispered. "Jack!" they called aloud. He roused slightly, lifting his weary eyelids and gazing at them as if they were uncertain shadows who wanted some kind of an explanation from him which he had not the strength to give. "We must drink--blaze away, Leddy," he murmured. "I'm coming down after the stars go out--close--close as you like--we must drink!" "No vital hit!" said the doctor; while Mary bringing water assisted him to bathe the wounds before he dressed them. "No, not from a bullet!" he added, after the dressing was finished and he had one hand on Jack's hot brow and the other on his pulse. Then he attended to Firio, who was talking incoherently: "Take water-hole--boil coffee in the morning--quail for dinner, Señor Jack--_sí, sí_!" When they had moved Jack and Firio into the shadow of the cotton-woods and forced water down their throats, Firio revived enough to recognize those around him and to cry out an inquiry about Jack; but Jack himself continued in a stupor, apparently unconscious of his surroundings and scarcely alive except for breathing. Yet, when litters of blankets and rifles tied together had been fashioned and attached to the pack-saddles of tandem burros, as he was lifted into place for the return he seemed to understand that he was starting on a journey; for he said, disjointedly: "Don't forget Wrath of God--and Jag Ear is thirsty--and bury Wrath of God fittingly--give him an epitaph! He was gloomy, but it was a good gloom, a kind of kingly gloom, and he liked the prospect when at last he stuck his head through the blue blanket of the horizon." Those of the party who remained behind for the last duty to the dead counted its most solemn moment, perhaps, the one that gave Wrath of God the honorable due of a soldier who had fallen face to the enemy. Bob Worther wrote the epitaph with a pencil on a bit of wood: "Here lies the gloomiest pony that ever was. The gloomier he was the better he went and the better Jack Wingfield liked him;" which was Bob's way of interpreting Jack's instructions. Then Worther and his detail rode as fast as they might to overtake the slow-marching group in trail of the litters with the question that all Little Rivers had been asking ever since, "How is he?" A ghastly, painfully tedious journey this homeward one, made mostly in the night, with the men going thirsty in the final stretches in order that wet bandages might be kept on Jack's feverish head; while Dr. Patterson was frequently thrusting his little thermometer between Jack's hot, cracking lips. "If he were free of this jouncing! It is a terrible strain on him, but the only thing is to go on!" the doctor kept repeating. But when Jack lay white and still in his bedroom and Firio was rapidly convalescing, the fever refused to abate. It seemed bound to burn out the life that remained after the hemorrhage from his wounds had ceased. Men found it hard to work in the fields while they waited on the crisis. John Wingfield, Sr. sat for hours under Dr. Patterson's umbrella-tree in moody absorption. He talked to all who would talk to him. Always he was asking about the duel in the _arroyo_ which was fought in Jack's way. He could not hear enough of it; and later he almost attached himself to the one eye-witness of the final duel, which had been fought in Leddy's way. When Firio was well enough to walk out he was to be found in a long chair on Jack's porch, ever raising a warning finger for silence to anyone who approached and looking out across the yard to Jag Ear, who was winning back the fat he had lost in a constitutional crisis, and P.D., who, after bearing himself first and last in a manner characteristic of a pony who was P.D. but never Q., seemed already none the worse for the hardships he had endured. The master of twenty millions would sit on the steps, while Firio occupied the chair and regarded him much as if he were a blank wall. But at times Firio would humor the persistent inquirer with a few abbreviated sentences. It was out of such fragments as this that John Wingfield, Sr. had to piece the story of the fight for the water-hole. "Señor Jack and Mister Prather, they no look alike," said Firio one day, evidently bound to make an end of the father's company. "Anybody say that got bad eyes. Mister Prather"--and Firio smiled peculiarly--"I call him the mole! He burrow in the sand, so! His hand tremble, so! He act like a man believe himself the only god in the world when he in no danger, but when he get in danger he act like he afraid he got to meet some other god!" "But Jack? Now, after Prather had gone?" persisted the father greedily. "We glad the mole go. It sort of hurt inside to think a man like him. He make you wonder what for he born." John Wingfield, Sr. half rose in a sudden movement, as if he were about to go, but remained in response to another emotion that was stronger than the impulse. "And Jack? He kept his head! He figured out his chances coolly! Now, that trick he played by going up on the ridge under cover of darkness?" "No trick!" said Firio resentfully, in instinctive defence. "That the place to fight! Señor Jack he see it." "And all through the night you kept firing?" "_Sí,_ after moon very bright and over our shoulders in their faces! _Sí_, at the little lumps that lie so still. When they move quick like they stung, we know we hit!" "Ah, that was it! You hit! You hit! And the other fellows couldn't. You had the light with you--everything! Jack had seen to that! He used his head! He--he was strong, strong!" Quite unconsciously, John Wingfield, Sr. rubbed his palms together. "When you pleased you always rub your hands same as Mister Prather," observed Firio. "Oh! Do I? I--" John Wingfield, Sr. clasped his fingers together tightly. "Yes, and the finish of the fight--how was that?" "Sometimes, when there no firing, Señor Jack and Leddy call out to each other. Leddy he swear hard, like he fight. Señor Jack he sing back his answers cheerful, like he fight. Toward morning we both wounded and only Leddy and one other man alive on his side. When a cloud slip over the moon and the big darkness before morning come, we creep down from the ridge and with first light we bang-bang quick--and I no remember any more." "Forced the fighting--forced it right at the end!" cried John Wingfield, Sr. in the flush of a great pride. "The aggressive, that is it--that is the way to win, always!" "But Señor Jack no fight just to win!" said Firio. "He no want to fight. In the big darkness, before we crawl down to the water-hole, he call out to Leddy to make quits. He almost beg Leddy. But Leddy, he say: 'I never quit and I get you!' 'Sorry,' says Señor Jack, with the devil out again, 'sorry--and we'll see!' No, Señor Jack no like to fight till you make him fight and the devil is out. He fight for water; he fight for peace. He no want just to win and kill, but--but--" bringing his story to an end, Firio looked hard at the father, his velvety eyes shot with a comprehending gleam as he shrugged his shoulders--"but you no understand, you and the mole!" John Wingfield, Sr. shifted his gaze hurriedly from the little Indian. His face went ashen and it was working convulsively as he assisted himself to rise by gripping the veranda post. "Why do you think that?" he asked. "I know!" said Firio. His lips closed firmly. That was all he had to say. John Wingfield, Sr. turned away with the unsteady step of a man who is afraid of slipping or stumbling, though the path was hard and even. Out in the street he met the cold nods of the people of a town where his son had a dominion founded on something that was lacking in his own. And one of those who nodded to him ever so politely was a new citizen, who had once been a unit of his own city within a city. Peter Mortimer had arrived in Little Rivers only two days after his late employer. Peter had been like some old tree that everybody thinks has seen its last winter. But now he waited only on the good word from the sick-room for the sap of renewed youth to rise in his veins and his shriveled branches to break into leaf at the call of spring. And the good word did come thrilling through the community. The physical crisis had passed. The fever was burning itself out. But a mental crisis developed, and with it a new cause for apprehension. Even after Jack's temperature was normal and he should have been well on the road to convalescence, there was a veil over his eyes which would not allow him to recognize anybody. When he spoke it was in delirium, living over some incident of the past or of sheer imagination. Now he was the ancestor, fitting out his ship: "No, you can't come! A man who is a malingerer on the London docks would be a malingerer on the Spanish Main. I don't want bullies and boasters. Let them stay at home to pick quarrels in the alleys and cheer the Lord Mayor's procession!" Now his frigate was under full sail, sighting the enemy: "Suppose they have two guns to our one! That makes it about even! We'll get the windward side, as we have before! Who cares about their guns once we start to board!" Another time he was on the trail: "I'll grow so strong, so strong that he can never call me a weakling again! He will be proud of me. That is my only way to make good." Then he was apprenticed to the millions: "All this detail makes me feel as if my brains were a tangled spool of thread. But I will master it--I will!" Again, he was happily telling stories to the children; or tragically pleading with Leddy that there had been slaughter enough around the water-hole; or serenely planning the future which he foresaw for himself when the phantoms were laid: "I may not know how to run the store, but I do seem to fit in here. We can find the capital! We will build the dam ourselves!" His body grew stronger, with little appreciable change otherwise. For an instant he would seem to know the person who was speaking to him; then he was away on the winds of delirium. "His mind is too strong for him not to come out of this all right. It is only a question of time, isn't it?" insisted the father. "There was a far greater capacity in him for suffering in that hellish fight than there was in Pete Leddy," said Dr. Patterson. "He had sensitiveness to impressions which was born in him, at the same time that a will of steel was born in him--the sensitiveness of the mother, perhaps, and the will of the ancestor. His life hung by a thread when we found him and his nerves had been twisted and tortured by the ordeal of that night. And that isn't all. There was more than fighting. Something that preceded the fight was even harder on him. I knew from his look when he set out for Agua Fria that he was under a terrible strain; a strain worse than that of a few hours' battle--the kind that had been weighing day after day on the will that grimly sustained its weight. And that wound in the head was very close, very, and it came at the moment when he collapsed in reaction after that last telling shot. Something snapped then. There was a fracture of the kind that only nature can set. Will he come out of this delirium, you ask? I don't know. Much depends upon whether that strain is over for good or if it is still pressing on his mind. When he rises from his bed he may be himself or he may ride away madly into the face of the sun. I don't know. Nobody on earth can know." "Yes, yes!" said John Wingfield, Sr. slowly. In Jack's wildest moments it was Mary's voice that had the most telling effect. However low she spoke he seemed always to recognize the tone and would greet it with a smile and frequently break into verses and scraps of remembered conversations of his boyhood exile in villa gardens. One morning, when she and Dr. Patterson had entered the room together, Jack called out miserably: "Just killing, killing, killing! What will Mary say to me, now?" He raised his hands, fingers spread, and stared at them with a ghastly look. She sprang to the bedside and seized them fast in hers, and bending very close to him, as if she would impart conviction with every quivering particle of her being, she said: "She thinks you splendid! She is glad, glad! It is just what she wanted you to do. She wished every bullet that you fired luck--luck for your sake, to speed it straight to the mark!" He seemed to understand what she was saying, as one understands that shade is cool after the broiling torment of the sun. "Luck will always come at your command, Mary!" he whispered, repeating his last words when he left the Ewold garden to go to the wars. "And she wants you to rest--just rest--and not worry!" This had the effect of a soothing draught. Smilingly he fell back on the pillow and slept. "You put some spirit into that!" said the doctor, after he and Mary had tiptoed out of the room; "a little of the spirit in keeping with a dark-eyed girl who lives in the land of the Eternal Painter." "All I had!" answered Mary, with simple earnestness. At noon Jack was still sleeping. He slept on through the last hours of the day. "The first long stretch he has had," ran the bulletin, from tongue to tongue, "and real sleep, too--the kind that counts!" In the late afternoon, when the coolness and the shadows of evening were creeping in at the doors and windows, the doctor, Peter Mortimer, the father, and Firio were on the veranda, while Mrs. Galway was on watch by the bedside. "He's waking!" she came out to whisper. The doctor hastened past her into the sick-room. As he entered, Jack looked up with a bright, puzzled light in his eyes. "Just what does this mean?" he asked. "Just how does it happen that I am here? I thought that I--" "We brought you in some days ago," the doctor explained. "And since you took the water-hole your mind has been enjoying a little vacation, while we moved your body about as we pleased." "I took the water-hole, then! And Firio? Firio? He--" "He is just waiting outside to congratulate you on the re-establishment of the old cordial relations between mind and body," the doctor returned; and slipped out to call Firio and to announce: "He is right as rain, right as rain!" news that Mrs. Galway set forth immediately to herald through the community. As for Firio, he strode into Jack's presence with the air of conqueror, sage, and prophet in one. "Is it really you, Firio? Come here, so that I can feel of you and make sure, you son of the sun!" Jack put out his thin, white hand to Firio, and the velvet of Firio's eyes was very soft, indeed. "Did you know when they brought you in?" Jack asked. "When burro stumble I feel ouch and see desert and then I drift away up to sky again," answered Firio. "All right now, eh? Pretty soon you so strong I have to broil five--six--seven quail a day and still you hungry!" The doctor who had been looking on from the doorway felt a vigorous touch on the arm and turned to hear John Wingfield, Sr. asking him to make way. With a grimace approaching a scowl he drew back free of Jack's sight and held up his hand in protest. "You had better not excite him!" he whispered. "But I am his father!" said John Wingfield, Sr. with something of his old, masterful manner in a moment of irritation, as he pushed by the doctor. He paused rather abruptly when his eyes met Jack's. A faint flush, appearing in Jack's cheeks, only emphasized his wanness and the whiteness of his neck and chin and forehead. "Well, Jack, right as rain, they say! I knew you would come out all right! It was in the blood that--" and the rest of John Wingfield, Sr.'s speech fell away into inarticulateness. It was a weak, emaciated son, this son whom he saw in contrast to the one who had entered his office unannounced one morning; and yet the father now felt that same indefinable radiation of calm strength closing his throat that he had felt then. Jack was looking steadily in his father's direction, but through him as through a thin shadow and into the distance. He smiled, but very faintly and very meaningly. "Father, you will keep the bargain I have made," he said, as if this were a thing admitting of no dispute. "It is fair to the other one, isn't it? Yes, we have found the truth at last, haven't we? And the truth makes it all clear for him and for you and for me." "You mean--it is all over--you stay out here for good--you--" said John Wingfield, Sr. gropingly. Then another figure appeared in the doorway and Jack's eyes returned from the distances to rest on it fondly. In response to an impulse that he could not control, Peter Mortimer was peering timidly into the sick-room. "Why, Peter!" exclaimed Jack, happily. "Come farther in, so I can see more of you than the tip of your nose." After a glance of inquiry at the doctor, which received an affirmative nod, Peter ventured another step. "So it's salads and roses, is it, Peter?" Jack continued. "Well, I think you may telegraph any time, now, that the others can come as soon as they are ready and their places are filled." Thus John Wingfield, Sr. had his answer; thus the processes of fate that Dr. Bennington had said were in the younger man had worked out their end. Under the spur of a sudden, powerful resolution, the father withdrew. In the living-room he met Jasper Ewold. The two men paused, facing each other. They were alone with the frank, daring features from Velasquez's brush and with the "I give! I give!" of the Sargent, both reflecting the afterglow of sunset; while the features of the living--John Wingfield, Sr.'s, in stony anger, and Jasper Ewold's, serene in philosophy--told their story without the touch of a painter's genius. "You have stolen my son, Jasper Ewold!" declared John Wingfield, Sr. with the bitterness of one whose personal edict excluded defeat from his lexicon, only to find it writ broad across the page. "I suppose you think you have won, damn you, Jasper Ewold!" The Doge flushed. He seemed on the point of an outburst. Then he looked significantly from the portrait of the ancestor to the portrait of the mother. "He was never yours to lose!" was the answer, without passion. John Wingfield, Sr. recoiled, avoiding a glance at the walls where the pictures hung. The Doge stepped to one side to leave the way clear. John Wingfield, Sr. went out unsteadily, with head bowed. But he had not gone far before his head went up with a jerk and he struck fist into palm decisively. Rigidly, ignoring everyone he passed and looking straight ahead, he walked rapidly toward the station, as if every step meant welcome freedom, from the earth that it touched. His private car was attached to the evening express, and while it started homeward with the king and the determinedly filial heir-apparent to the citadel of the push-buttons, through all the gardens of Little Rivers ran the joyous news that Jack was "right as rain." It was a thing to start a continual exchange of visits and to keep the lights burning in the houses unusually late. But all was dark and silent out at Bill Lang's store. After their return from Agua Fria, the rescuing party, Jim Galway leading, had attended to another matter. The remnants of Pete Leddy's gang, far from offering any resistance, explained that they had business elsewhere which admitted of no delay. There was peace in the valley of Little Rivers. Its phantoms had been laid at the same time as Jack's. XXXVIII THEIR SIDE OF THE PASS "Persiflage! Persiflage!" cried the Doge. He and Jack were in the full tilt of controversy, Jack pressing an advantage as they came around the corner of the Ewold house. It was like the old times and better than the old times. For now there was understanding where then there had been mystery. The stream of their comradeship ran smoothly in an open country, with no unsounded depths. "But I notice that you always say persiflage just as I am getting the better of the argument!" Jack whipped back. "Has it taken you all this time to find that out? For what purpose is the word in the English vocabulary? But I'll take the other side, which is the easy one, next time, and then we'll see! Boom! boom!" The Doge pursed out his lips in mock terrorization of his opponent. "You are pretty near yourself again, young sir," he added, as he paused at the opening in the hedge. "Yes, strength has been fairly flooding back the last two or three days. I can feel it travelling in my veins and making the tissues expand. It is glorious to be alive, O Doge!" "Now, do you want me to take the other side on that question so you can have another unearned victory? I refuse to humor the invalid any longer and I agree. The proposition that it is glorious to live on such an afternoon as this is carried unanimously. But I will never agree that you can grow dates the equal of mine." "Not until my first crop is ripe; then there will be no dispute!" "That is real persiflage!" the Doge called after Jack. Jack had made his first visit to the Doge's garden since he had left it to meet Prather and Leddy rather brief when he found that Mary was not at home. She had ridden out to the pass. Her trips to the pass had been so frequent of late that he had seen little of her during his convalescence. Yet he had eaten her jelly exclusively. He had eaten it with his bread, his porridge, his dessert, and with the quail that Firio had broiled. He had even intimated his willingness to mix it with his soup. She advised him to stir it into his coffee, instead. When he was seated in the long chair on the porch and she called to ask how he was, they had kept to the domain of nonsense, with never a reference to sombre memories; but she was a little constrained, a little shy, and he never gave her cause to raise the barrier, even if she had been of the mind in face of a possible recurrence of former provocations while he was weak and easily tired. It was enough for him to hear her talk; enough to look out restfully toward the gray masses of the range; enough to know that the desert had brought him oblivion to the past; enough to see his future as clear as the V of Galeria against the sky, sharing the life of the same community with her. And what else? He was almost in fear of the very question that was never out of his mind. She might wish him luck in the wars, but he knew her too well to have any illusions that this meant the giving of the great thing she had to give, unless in the full spontaneity of spirit. This afternoon, with the flood of returning strength, the question suddenly became commanding in a fresh-born suspense. As he walked back to the house he met Belvy Smith and some of the children. Of course they asked for a story, and he continued one about a battered knight and his Heart's Desire, which he had begun some days previously. "He wasn't a particularly handsome knight or particularly good--inclined to mischief, I think, when he forgot himself--but he was mightily in earnest. He didn't know how to take no. Say 'No!' to him and push him off the mountain top and there he was, starting for the peak again! And he was not so foolish as he might seem. When he reached the top he was happy just to get a smile from his Heart's Desire before he was tossed back again. His fingers were worn clear down to the first joint and his feet off up to the knees, so he could not hold on to the seams of canyons as well as before. He would have been a ridiculous spectacle if he weren't so pitiful. And that wasn't the worst of it. He was pretty well shot to pieces by the brigands whom he had met on his travels. With every ascent there was less of him to climb, you see. In fact, he was being worn down so fast that pretty soon there wouldn't be much left of him except his wishbone. That was indestructible. He would always wish. And after the hardest climb of all, here he is very near the top again, and--" "And--and--" "I'll have to finish this story later," said Jack, sending the youngsters on their way, while he went his own to call to Firio, as he entered the yard: "Son of the sun, I feel so strong that I am going for a ride!" "You wear the big spurs and the grand chaps?" Firio asked. Jack hesitated thoughtfully. "No, just plain togs," he answered. "I think we will hang up that circus costume as a souvenir. We are past that stage of our career. My devil is dead." It was Firio's turn to be thoughtful. "_Sí_! We had enough fight! We get old and sober! _Sí_, I know! We settle down. I am going to begin to shave!" he concluded, stroking the black down on his boyish lip. With the town behind him and the sinking sun over his shoulder, the battered knight rode toward the foothills and on up the winding path, oblivious of the Eternal Painter's magic and conscious only that every step brought him nearer his Heart's Desire. Here was the rock where she was seated when he had first seen her. What ages had passed since then! And there, around the escarpment, he saw her pony on the shelf! Dropping P.D.'s reins, he hurried on impetuously. With the final turn he found Mary seated on the rock where she had been the day that he had come to say farewell before he went to battle with the millions. Now as then, she was gazing far out over that sea of singing, quivering light, and the crunch of his footsteps awakened her from her revery. But how differently she looked around! Her breaths were coming in a happy storm, her face crimsoning, her nostrils playing in trembling dilation. In her eyes he saw open gates and a long vista of a fair highway in a glorious land; and the splendor of her was something near and yielding. He sank down beside her. Her hands stole into his; her head dropped on his shoulder; and he felt a warm and palpitating union with the very breath of her life. "What do I see!" cried the Eternal Painter. "Two human beings who have climbed up as near heaven as they could and seem as happy as if they had reached it!" "We have reached it!" Jack called back. "And we like it, you hoary-bearded, Olympian impersonality!" Thus they watched the sun go down, gilding the foliage of their Little Rivers, seeing their future in the fulness and richness of the life of their choice, which should spread the oasis the length of that valley, and knowing that any excursions to the world over the pass would only sink their roots deeper in the soil of the valley that had given them life. "Jack, oh, Jack! How I did fight against the thing that was born in me that morning in the _arroyo_! I was in fear of it and of myself. In fear of it I ran from you that day you climbed down to the pine. But I shan't run again--not so far but that I can be sure you can catch me. Jack, oh, Jack! And this is the hand that saved you from Leddy--the right hand! I think I shall always like it better than the left hand! And, Jack, there is a little touch of gray on the temples"--Mary was running her fingers very, very gently over the wound--"which I like. But we shall be so happy that it will be centuries before the rest of your hair is gray! Jack, oh, Jack!" 
14367	----	WHEN A MAN'S A MAN BY HAROLD BELL WRIGHT GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK By arrangement with D. Appleton-Century Co. 1916 TO MY SONS GILBERT AND PAUL NORMAN THIS STORY OF MANHOOD IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THEIR FATHER _Acknowledgment_ It is fitting that I should here express my indebtedness to those Williamson Valley friends who in the kindness of their hearts made this story possible. To Mr. George A. Carter, who so generously introduced me to the scenes described in these pages, and who, on the Pot-Hook-S ranch, gave to my family one of the most delightful summers we have ever enjoyed; to Mr. J.H. Stephens and his family, who so cordially welcomed me at rodeo time; to Mr. and Mrs. Joe Contreras, for their kindly hospitality; to Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Stewart, who, while this story was first in the making, made me so much at home in the Cross-Triangle home-ranch; to Mr. J.W. Cook, my constant companion, helpful guide, patient teacher and tactful sponsor, who, with his charming wife, made his home mine; to Mr. and Mrs. Herbert N. Cook, and to the many other cattlemen and cowboys, with whom, on the range, in the rodeos, in the wild horse chase about Toohey, after outlaw cattle in Granite Basin, in the corrals and pastures, I rode and worked and lived, my gratitude is more than I can put in words. Truer friends or better companions than these great-hearted, outspoken, hardy riders, no man could have. If my story in any degree wins the approval of these, my comrades of ranch and range. I shall be proud and happy. H.B.W. "CAMP HOLE-IN-THE-MOUNTAIN" NEAR TUCSON, ARIZONA APRIL 29, 1916 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. AFTER THE CELEBRATION 11 II. ON THE DIVIDE 23 III. IN THE BIG PASTURE 35 IV. AT THE CORRAL 47 V. A BIT OF THE PAST 81 VI. THE DRIFT FENCE 91 VII. THINGS THAT ENDURE 115 VIII. CONCERNING BRANDS 133 IX. THE TAILHOLT MOUNTAIN OUTFIT 159 X. THE RODEO 181 XI. AFTER THE RODEO 197 XII. FRONTIER DAY 239 XIII. IN GRANITE BASIN 261 XIV. AT MINT SPRING 281 XV. ON CEDAR RIDGE 297 XVI. THE SKY LINE 323 [Illustration: WHEN A MAN'S A MAN] CHAPTER I. AFTER THE CELEBRATION. There is a land where a man, to live, must be a man. It is a land of granite and marble and porphyry and gold--and a man's strength must be as the strength of the primeval hills. It is a land of oaks and cedars and pines--and a man's mental grace must be as the grace of the untamed trees. It is a land of far-arched and unstained skies, where the wind sweeps free and untainted, and the atmosphere is the atmosphere of those places that remain as God made them--and a man's soul must be as the unstained skies, the unburdened wind, and the untainted atmosphere. It is a land of wide mesas, of wild, rolling pastures and broad, untilled, valley meadows--and a man's freedom must be that freedom which is not bounded by the fences of a too weak and timid conventionalism. In this land every man is--by divine right--his own king; he is his own jury, his own counsel, his own judge, and--if it must be--his own executioner. And in this land where a man, to live, must be a man, a woman, if she be not a woman, must surely perish. This is the story of a man who regained that which in his youth had been lost to him; and of how, even when he had recovered that which had been taken from him, he still paid the price of his loss. It is the story of a woman who was saved from herself; and of how she was led to hold fast to those things, the loss of which cost the man so great a price. The story, as I have put it down here, begins at Prescott, Arizona, on the day following the annual Fourth-of-July celebration in one of those far-western years that saw the passing of the Indian and the coming of the automobile. The man was walking along one of the few roads that lead out from the little city, through the mountain gaps and passes, to the wide, unfenced ranges, and to the lonely scattered ranches on the creeks and flats and valleys of the great open country that lies beyond. From the fact that he was walking in that land where the distances are such that men most commonly ride, and from the many marks that environment and training leave upon us all, it was evident that the pedestrian was a stranger. He was a man in the prime of young manhood--tall and exceedingly well proportioned--and as he went forward along the dusty road he bore himself with the unconscious air of one more accustomed to crowded streets than to that rude and unpaved highway. His clothing bore the unmistakable stamp of a tailor of rank. His person was groomed with that nicety of detail that is permitted only to those who possess both means and leisure, as well as taste. It was evident, too, from his movement and bearing, that he had not sought the mile-high atmosphere of Prescott with the hope that it holds out to those in need of health. But, still, there was a something about him that suggested a lack of the manly vigor and strength that should have been his. A student of men would have said that Nature made this man to be in physical strength and spiritual prowess, a comrade and leader of men--a man's man--a man among men. The same student, looking more closely, might have added that in some way--through some cruel trick of fortune--this man had been cheated of his birthright. The day was still young when the stranger gained the top of the first hill where the road turns to make its steep and winding way down through scattered pines and scrub oak to the Burnt Ranch. Behind him the little city--so picturesque in its mountain basin, with the wild, unfenced land coming down to its very dooryards--was slowly awakening after the last mad night of its celebration. The tents of the tawdry shows that had tempted the crowds with vulgar indecencies, and the booths that had sheltered the petty games of chance where loud-voiced criers had persuaded the multitude with the hope of winning a worthless bauble or a tinsel toy, were being cleared away from the borders of the plaza, the beauty of which their presence had marred. In the plaza itself--which is the heart of the town, and is usually kept with much pride and care--the bronze statue of the vigorous Rough Rider Bucky O'Neil and his spirited charger seemed pathetically out of place among the litter of colored confetti and exploded fireworks, and the refuse from various "treats" and lunches left by the celebrating citizens and their guests. The flags and bunting that from window and roof and pole and doorway had given the day its gay note of color hung faded and listless, as though, spent with their gaiety, and mutely conscious that the spirit and purpose of their gladness was past, they waited the hand that would remove them to the ash barrel and the rubbish heap. Pausing, the man turned to look back. For some minutes he stood as one who, while determined upon a certain course, yet hesitates--reluctant and regretful--at the beginning of his venture. Then he went on; walking with a certain reckless swing, as though, in ignorance of that land toward which he had set his face, he still resolutely turned his back upon that which lay behind. It was as though, for this man, too, the gala day, with its tinseled bravery and its confetti spirit, was of the past. A short way down the hill the man stopped again. This time to stand half turned, with his head in a listening attitude. The sound of a vehicle approaching from the way whence he had come had reached his ear. As the noise of wheels and hoofs grew louder a strange expression of mingled uncertainty, determination, and something very like fear came over his face. He started forward, hesitated, looked back, then turned doubtfully toward the thinly wooded mountain side. Then, with tardy decision he left the road and disappeared behind a clump of oak bushes, an instant before a team and buckboard rounded the turn and appeared in full view. An unmistakable cattleman--grizzly-haired, square-shouldered and substantial--was driving the wild looking team. Beside him sat a motherly woman and a little boy. As they passed the clump of bushes the near horse of the half-broken pair gave a catlike bound to the right against his tracemate. A second jump followed the first with flash-like quickness; and this time the frightened animal was accompanied by his companion, who, not knowing what it was all about, jumped on general principles. But, quick as they were, the strength of the driver's skillful arms met their weight on the reins and forced them to keep the road. "You blamed fools"--the driver chided good-naturedly, as they plunged ahead--"been raised on a cow ranch to get scared at a calf in the brush!" Very slowly the stranger came from behind the bushes. Cautiously he returned to the road. His fine lips curled in a curious mocking smile. But it was himself that he mocked, for there was a look in his dark eyes that gave to his naturally strong face an almost pathetic expression of self-depreciation and shame. As the pedestrian crossed the creek at the Burnt Ranch, Joe Conley, leading a horse by a riata which was looped as it had fallen about the animal's neck, came through the big corral gate across the road from the house. At the barn Joe disappeared through the small door of the saddle room, the coil of the riata still in his hand, thus compelling his mount to await his return. At sight of the cowboy the stranger again paused and stood hesitating in indecision. But as Joe reappeared from the barn with bridle, saddle blanket and saddle in hand, the man went reluctantly forward as though prompted by some necessity. "Good morning!" said the stranger, courteously, and his voice was the voice that fitted his dress and bearing, while his face was now the carefully schooled countenance of a man world-trained and well-poised. With a quick estimating glance Joe returned the stranger's greeting and, dropping the saddle and blanket on the ground, approached his horse's head. Instantly the animal sprang back, with head high and eyes defiant; but there was no escape, for the rawhide riata was still securely held by his master. There was a short, sharp scuffle that sent the gravel by the roadside flying--the controlling bit was between the reluctant teeth--and the cowboy, who had silently taken the horse's objection as a matter of course, adjusted the blanket, and with the easy skill of long practice swung the heavy saddle to its place. As the cowboy caught the dangling cinch, and with a deft hand tucked the latigo strap through the ring and drew it tight, there was a look of almost pathetic wistfulness on the watching stranger's face--a look of wistfulness and admiration and envy. Dropping the stirrup, Joe again faced the stranger, this time inquiringly, with that bold, straightforward look so characteristic of his kind. And now, when the man spoke, his voice had a curious note, as if the speaker had lost a little of his poise. It was almost a note of apology, and again in his eyes there was that pitiful look of self-depreciation and shame. "Pardon me," he said, "but will you tell me, please, am I right that this is the road to the Williamson Valley?" The stranger's manner and voice were in such contrast to his general appearance that the cowboy frankly looked his wonder as he answered courteously, "Yes, sir." "And it will take me direct to the Cross-Triangle Ranch?" "If you keep straight ahead across the valley, it will. If you take the right-hand fork on the ridge above the goat ranch, it will take you to Simmons. There's a road from Simmons to the Cross-Triangle on the far side of the valley, though. You can see the valley and the Cross-Triangle home ranch from the top of the Divide." "Thank you." The stranger was turning to go when the man in the blue jumper and fringed leather chaps spoke again, curiously. "The Dean with Stella and Little Billy passed in the buckboard less than an hour ago, on their way home from the celebration. Funny they didn't pick you up, if you're goin' there!" The other paused questioningly. "The Dean?" The cowboy smiled. "Mr. Baldwin, the owner of the Cross-Triangle, you know." "Oh!" The stranger was clearly embarrassed. Perhaps he was thinking of that clump of bushes on the mountain side. Joe, loosing his riata from the horse's neck, and coiling it carefully, considered a moment. Then: "You ain't goin' to walk to the Cross-Triangle, be you?" That self-mocking smile touched the man's lips; but there was a hint of decisive purpose in his voice as he answered, "Oh, yes." Again the cowboy frankly measured the stranger. Then he moved toward the corral gate, the coiled riata in one hand, the bridle rein in the other. "I'll catch up a horse for you," he said in a matter-of-fact tone, as if reaching a decision. The other spoke hastily. "No, no, please don't trouble." Joe paused curiously. "Any friend of Mr. Baldwin's is welcome to anything on the Burnt Ranch, Stranger." "But I--ah--I--have never met Mr. Baldwin," explained the other lamely. "Oh, that's all right," returned the cowboy heartily. "You're a-goin' to, an' that's the same thing." Again he started toward the gate. "But I--pardon me--you are very kind--but I--I prefer to walk." Once more Joe halted, a puzzled expression on his tanned and weather-beaten face. "I suppose you know it's some walk," he suggested doubtfully, as if the man's ignorance were the only possible solution of his unheard-of assertion. "So I understand. But it will be good for me. Really, I prefer to walk." Without a word the cowboy turned back to his horse, and proceeded methodically to tie the coiled riata in its place on the saddle. Then, without a glance toward the stranger who stood watching him in embarrassed silence, he threw the bridle reins over his horse's head, gripped the saddle horn and swung to his seat, reining his horse away from the man beside the road. The stranger, thus abruptly dismissed, moved hurriedly away. Half way to the creek the cowboy checked his horse and looked back at the pedestrian as the latter was making his way under the pines and up the hill. When the man had disappeared over the crest of the hill, the cowboy muttered a bewildered something, and, touching his horse with the spurs, loped away, as if dismissing a problem too complex for his simple mind. All that day the stranger followed the dusty, unfenced road. Over his head the wide, bright sky was without a cloud to break its vast expanse. On the great, open range of mountain, flat and valley the cattle lay quietly in the shade of oak or walnut or cedar, or, with slow, listless movement, sought the watering places to slake their thirst. The wild things retreated to their secret hiding places in rocky den and leafy thicket to await the cool of the evening hunting hour. The very air was motionless, as if the never-tired wind itself drowsed indolently. And alone in the hushed bigness of that land the man walked with his thoughts--brooding, perhaps, over whatever it was that had so strangely placed him there--dreaming, it may be, over that which might have been, or that which yet might be--viewing with questioning, wondering, half-fearful eyes the mighty, untamed scenes that met his eye on every hand. Nor did anyone see him, for at every sound of approaching horse or vehicle he went aside from the highway to hide in the bushes or behind convenient rocks. And always when he came from his hiding place to resume his journey that odd smile of self-mockery was on his face. At noon he rested for a little beside the road while he ate a meager sandwich that he took from the pocket of his coat. Then he pushed on again, with grim determination, deeper and deeper into the heart and life of that world which was, to him, so evidently new and strange. The afternoon was well spent when he made his way--wearily now, with drooping shoulders and dragging step--up the long slope of the Divide that marks the eastern boundary of the range about Williamson Valley. At the summit, where the road turns sharply around a shoulder of the mountain and begins the steep descent on the other side of the ridge, he stopped. His tired form straightened. His face lighted with a look of wondering awe, and an involuntary exclamation came from his lips as his unaccustomed eyes swept the wide view that lay from his feet unrolled before him. Under that sky, so unmatched in its clearness and depth of color, the land lay in all its variety of valley and forest and mesa and mountain--a scene unrivaled in the magnificence and grandeur of its beauty. Miles upon miles in the distance, across those primeval reaches, the faint blue peaks and domes and ridges of the mountains ranked--an uncounted sentinel host. The darker masses of the timbered hillsides, with the varying shades of pine and cedar, the lighter tints of oak brush and chaparral, the dun tones of the open grass lands, and the brighter note of the valley meadows' green were defined, blended and harmonized by the overlying haze with a delicacy exquisite beyond all human power to picture. And in the nearer distances, chief of that army of mountain peaks, and master of the many miles that lie within their circle, Granite Mountain, gray and grim, reared its mighty bulk of cliff and crag as if in supreme defiance of the changing years or the hand of humankind. In the heart of that beautiful land upon which, from the summit of the Divide, the stranger looked with such rapt appreciation, lies Williamson Valley, a natural meadow of lush, dark green, native grass. And, had the man's eyes been trained to such distances, he might have distinguished in the blue haze the red roofs of the buildings of the Cross-Triangle Ranch. For some time the man stood there, a lonely figure against the sky, peculiarly out of place in his careful garb of the cities. The schooled indifference of his face was broken. His self-depreciation and mockery were forgotten. His dark eyes glowed with the fire of excited anticipation--with hope and determined purpose. Then, with a quick movement, as though some ghost of the past had touched him on the shoulder, he looked back on the way he had come. And the light in his eyes went out in the gloom of painful memories. His countenance, unguarded because of his day of loneliness, grew dark with sadness and shame. It was as though he looked beyond the town he had left that morning, with its litter and refuse of yesterday's pleasure, to a life and a world of tawdry shams, wherein men give themselves to win by means fair or foul the tinsel baubles that are offered in the world's petty games of chance. And yet, even as he looked back, there was in the man's face as much of longing as of regret. He seemed as one who, realizing that he had reached a point in his life journey--a divide, as it were--from which he could see two ways, was resolved to turn from the path he longed to follow and to take the road that appealed to him the least. As one enlisting to fight in a just and worthy cause might pause a moment, before taking the oath of service, to regret the ease and freedom he was about to surrender, so this man paused on the summit of the Divide. Slowly, at last, in weariness of body and spirit, he stumbled a few feet aside from the road, and, sinking down upon a convenient rock, gave himself again to the contemplation of that scene which lay before him. And there was that in his movement now that seemed to tell of one who, in the grip of some bitter and disappointing experience, was yet being forced by something deep in his being to reach out in the strength of his manhood to take that which he had been denied. Again the man's untrained eyes had failed to note that which would have first attracted the attention of one schooled in the land that lay about him. He had not seen a tiny moving speck on the road over which he had passed. A horseman was riding toward him. CHAPTER II. ON THE DIVIDE. Had the man on the Divide noticed the approaching horseman it would have been evident, even to one so unacquainted with the country as the stranger, that the rider belonged to that land of riders. While still at a distance too great for the eye to distinguish the details of fringed leather chaps, soft shirt, short jumper, sombrero, spurs and riata, no one could have mistaken the ease and grace of the cowboy who seemed so literally a part of his horse. His seat in the saddle was so secure, so easy, and his bearing so unaffected and natural, that every movement of the powerful animal he rode expressed itself rhythmically in his own lithe and sinewy body. While the stranger sat wrapped in meditative thought, unheeding the approach of the rider, the horseman, coming on with a long, swinging lope, watched the motionless figure on the summit of the Divide with careful interest. As he drew nearer the cowboy pulled his horse down to a walk, and from under his broad hat brim regarded the stranger intently. He was within a few yards of the point where the man sat when the latter caught the sound of the horse's feet, and, with a quick, startled look over his shoulder, sprang up and started as if to escape. But it was too late, and, as though on second thought, he whirled about with a half defiant air to face the intruder. The horseman stopped. He had not missed the significance of that hurried movement, and his right hand rested carelessly on his leather clad thigh, while his grey eyes were fixed boldly, inquiringly, almost challengingly, on the man he had so unintentionally surprised. As he sat there on his horse, so alert, so ready, in his cowboy garb and trappings, against the background of Granite Mountain, with all its rugged, primeval strength, the rider made a striking picture of virile manhood. Of some years less than thirty, he was, perhaps, neither as tall nor as heavy as the stranger; but in spite of a certain boyish look on his smooth-shaven, deeply-bronzed face, he bore himself with the unmistakable air of a matured and self-reliant man. Every nerve and fiber of him seemed alive with that vital energy which is the true beauty and the glory of life. The two men presented a striking contrast. Without question one was the proud and finished product of our most advanced civilization. It was as evident that the splendid manhood of the other had never been dwarfed by the weakening atmosphere of an over-cultured, too conventional and too complex environment. The stranger with his carefully tailored clothing and his man-of-the-world face and bearing was as unlike this rider of the unfenced lands as a daintily groomed thoroughbred from the sheltered and guarded stables of fashion is unlike a wild, untamed stallion from the hills and ranges about Granite Mountain. Yet, unlike as they were, there was a something that marked them as kin. The man of the ranges and the man of the cities were, deep beneath the surface of their beings, as like as the spirited thoroughbred and the unbroken wild horse. The cowboy was all that the stranger might have been. The stranger was all that the cowboy, under like conditions, would have been. As they silently faced each other it seemed for a moment that each instinctively recognized this kinship. Then into the dark eyes of the stranger--as when he had watched the cowboy at the Burnt Ranch--there came that look of wistful admiration and envy. And at this, as if the man had somehow made himself known, the horseman relaxed his attitude of tense readiness. The hand that had held the bridle rein to command instant action of his horse, and the hand that had rested so near the rider's hip, came together on the saddle horn in careless ease, while a boyish smile of amusement broke over the young man's face. That smile brought a flash of resentment into the eyes of the other and a flush of red darkened his untanned cheeks. A moment he stood; then with an air of haughty rebuke he deliberately turned his back, and, seating himself again, looked away over the landscape. But the smiling cowboy did not move. For a moment as he regarded the stranger his shoulders shook with silent, contemptuous laughter; then his face became grave, and he looked a little ashamed. The minutes passed, and still he sat there, quietly waiting. Presently, as if yielding to the persistent, silent presence of the horseman, and submitting reluctantly to the intrusion, the other turned, and again the two who were so like and yet so unlike faced each other. It was the stranger now who smiled. But it was a smile that caused the cowboy to become on the instant kindly considerate. Perhaps he remembered one of the Dean's favorite sayings: "Keep your eye on the man who laughs when he's hurt." "Good evening!" said the stranger doubtfully, but with a hint of conscious superiority in his manner. "Howdy!" returned the cowboy heartily, and in his deep voice was the kindliness that made him so loved by all who knew him. "Been having some trouble?" "If I have, it is my own, sir," retorted the other coldly. "Sure," returned the horseman gently, "and you're welcome to it. Every man has all he needs of his own, I reckon. But I didn't mean it that way; I meant your horse." The stranger looked at him questioningly. "Beg pardon?" he said. "What?" "I do not understand." "Your horse--where is your horse?" "Oh, yes! Certainly--of course--my horse--how stupid of me!" The tone of the man's answer was one of half apology, and he was smiling whimsically now as if at his own predicament, as he continued. "I have no horse. Really, you know, I wouldn't know what to do with one if I had it." "You don't mean to say that you drifted all the way out here from Prescott on foot!" exclaimed the astonished cowboy. The man on the ground looked up at the horseman, and in a droll tone that made the rider his friend, said, while he stretched his long legs painfully: "I like to walk. You see I--ah--fancied it would be good for me, don't you know." The cowboy laughingly considered--trying, as he said afterward, to figure it out. It was clear that this tall stranger was not in search of health, nor did he show any of the distinguishing marks of the tourist. He certainly appeared to be a man of means. He could not be looking for work. He did not seem a suspicious character--quite the contrary--and yet--there was that significant hurried movement as if to escape when the horseman had surprised him. The etiquette of the country forbade a direct question, but-- "Yes," he agreed thoughtfully, "walking comes in handy sometimes. I don't take to it much myself, though." Then he added shrewdly, "You were at the celebration, I reckon." The stranger's voice betrayed quick enthusiasm, but that odd wistfulness crept into his eyes again and he seemed to lose a little of his poise. "Indeed I was," he said. "I never saw anything to compare with it. I've seen all kinds of athletic sports and contests and exhibitions, with circus performances and riding, and that sort of thing, you know, and I've read about such things, of course, but"--and his voice grew thoughtful--"that men ever actually did them--and all in the day's work, as you may say--I--I never dreamed that there _were_ men like that in these days." The cowboy shifted his weight uneasily in the saddle, while he regarded the man on the ground curiously. "She was sure a humdinger of a celebration," he admitted, "but as for the show part I've seen things happen when nobody was thinking anything about it that would make those stunts at Prescott look funny. The horse racing was pretty good, though," he finished, with suggestive emphasis. The other did not miss the point of the suggestion. "I didn't bet on anything," he laughed. "It's funny nobody picked you up on the road out here," the cowboy next offered pointedly. "The folks started home early this morning--and Jim Reid and his family passed me about an hour ago--they were in an automobile. The Simmons stage must have caught up with you somewhere." The stranger's face flushed, and he seemed trying to find some answer. The cowboy watched him curiously; then in a musing tone added the suggestion, "Some lonesome up here on foot." "But there are times, you know," returned the other desperately, "when a man prefers to be alone." The cowboy straightened in his saddle and lifted his reins. "Thanks," he said dryly, "I reckon I'd better be moving." But the other spoke quickly. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Acton, I did not mean that for you." The horseman dropped his hands again to the saddle horn, and resumed his lounging posture, thus tacitly accepting the apology. "You have the advantage of me," he said. The stranger laughed. "Everyone knows that 'Wild Horse Phil' of the Cross-Triangle Ranch won the bronco-riding championship yesterday. I saw you ride." Philip Acton's face showed boyish embarrassment. The other continued, with his strange enthusiasm. "It was great work--wonderful! I never saw anything like it." There was no mistaking the genuineness of his admiration, nor could he hide that wistful look in his eyes. "Shucks!" said the cowboy uneasily. "I could pick a dozen of the boys in that outfit who can ride all around me. It was just my luck, that's all--I happened to draw an easy one." "Easy!" ejaculated the stranger, seeing again in his mind the fighting, plunging, maddened, outlawed brute that this boy-faced man had mastered. "And I suppose catching and throwing those steers was easy, too?" The cowboy was plainly wondering at the man's peculiar enthusiasm for these most commonplace things. "The roping? Why, that was no more than we're doing all the time." "I don't mean the roping," returned the other, "I mean when you rode up beside one of those steers that was running at full speed, and caught him by the horns with your bare hands, and jumped from your saddle, and threw the beast over you, and then lay there with his horns pinning you down! You aren't doing that all the time, are you? You don't mean to tell me that such things as that are a part of your everyday work!" "Oh, the bull doggin'! Why, no," admitted Phil, with an embarrassed laugh, "that was just fun, you know." The stranger stared at him, speechless. Fun! In the name of all that is most modern in civilization, what manner of men were these who did such things in fun! If this was their recreation, what must their work be! "Do you mind my asking," he said wistfully, "how you learned to do such things?" "Why, I don't know--we just do them, I reckon." "And could anyone learn to ride as you ride, do you think?" The question came with marked eagerness. "I don't see why not," answered the cowboy honestly. The stranger shook his head doubtfully and looked away over the wild land where the shadows of the late afternoon were lengthening. "Where are you going to stop to-night?" Phil Acton asked suddenly. The stranger did not take his eyes from the view that seemed to hold for him such peculiar interest. "Really," he answered indifferently, "I had not thought of that." "I should think you'd be thinking of it along about supper time, if you've walked from town since morning." The stranger looked up with sudden interest; but the cowboy fancied that there was a touch of bitterness under the droll tone of his reply. "Do you know, Mr. Acton, I have never been really hungry in my life. It might be interesting to try it once, don't you think?" Phil Acton laughed, as he returned, "It might be interesting, all right, but I think I better tell you, just the same, that there's a ranch down yonder in the timber. It's nothing but a goat ranch, but I reckon they would take you in. It's too far to the Cross-Triangle for me to ask you there. You can see the buildings, though, from here." The stranger sprang up in quick interest. "You can? The Cross-Triangle Ranch?" "Sure," the cowboy smiled and pointed into the distance. "Those red spots over there are the roofs. Jim Reid's place--the Pot-Hook-S--is just this side of the meadows, and a little to the south. The old Acton homestead--where I was born--is in that bunch of cottonwoods, across the wash from the Cross-Triangle." But strive as he might the stranger's eyes could discern no sign of human habitation in those vast reaches that lay before him. "If you are ever over that way, drop in," said Phil cordially. "Mr. Baldwin will be glad to meet you." "Do you really mean that?" questioned the other doubtfully. "We don't say such things in this country if we don't mean them, Stranger," was the cool retort. "Of course, I beg your pardon, Mr. Acton," came the confused reply. "I should like to see the ranch. I may--I will--That is, if I--" He stopped as if not knowing how to finish, and with a gesture of hopelessness turned away to stand silently looking back toward the town, while his face was dark with painful memories, and his lips curved in that mirthless, self-mocking smile. And Philip Acton, seeing, felt suddenly that he had rudely intruded upon the privacy of one who had sought the solitude of that lonely place to hide the hurt of some bitter experience. A certain native gentleness made the man of the ranges understand that this stranger was face to face with some crisis in his life--that he was passing through one of those trials through which a man must pass alone. Had it been possible the cowboy would have apologized. But that would have been an added unkindness. Lifting the reins and sitting erect in the saddle, he said indifferently, "Well, I must be moving. I take a short cut here. So long! Better make it on down to the goat ranch--it's not far." He touched his horse with the spur and the animal sprang away. "Good-bye!" called the stranger, and that wistful look was in his eyes as the rider swung his horse aside from the road, plunged down the mountain side, and dashed away through the brush and over the rocks with reckless speed. With a low exclamation of wondering admiration, the man climbed hastily to a higher point, and from there watched until horse and rider, taking a steeper declivity without checking their breakneck course, dropped from sight in a cloud of dust. The faint sound of the sliding rocks and gravel dislodged by the flying feet died away; the cloud of dust dissolved in the thin air. The stranger looked away into the blue distance in another vain attempt to see the red spots that marked the Cross-Triangle Ranch. Slowly the man returned to his seat on the rock. The long shadows of Granite Mountain crept out from the base of the cliffs farther and farther over the country below. The blue of the distant hills changed to mauve with deeper masses of purple in the shadows where the canyons are. The lonely figure on the summit of the Divide did not move. The sun hid itself behind the line of mountains, and the blue of the sky in the west changed slowly to gold against which the peaks and domes and points were silhouetted as if cut by a graver's tool, and the bold cliffs and battlements of old Granite grew coldly gray in the gloom. As the night came on and the details of its structure were lost, the mountain, to the watching man on the Divide, assumed the appearance of a mighty fortress--a fortress, he thought, to which a generation of men might retreat from a civilization that threatened them with destruction; and once more the man faced back the way he had come. The far-away cities were already in the blaze of their own artificial lights--lights valued not for their power to make men see, but for their power to dazzle, attract and intoxicate--lights that permitted no kindly dusk at eventide wherein a man might rest from his day's work--a quiet hour; lights that revealed squalid shame and tinsel show--lights that hid the stars. The man on the Divide lifted his face to the stars that now in the wide-arched sky were gathering in such unnumbered multitudes to keep their sentinel watch over the world below. The cool evening wind came whispering over the lonely land, and all the furred and winged creatures of the night stole from their dark hiding places into the gloom which is the beginning of their day. A coyote crept stealthily past in the dark and from the mountain side below came the weird, ghostly call of its mate. An owl drifted by on silent wings. Night birds chirped in the chaparral. A fox barked on the ridge above. The shadowy form of a bat flitted here and there. From somewhere in the distance a bull bellowed his deep-voiced challenge. Suddenly the man on the summit of the Divide sprang to his feet and, with a gesture that had he not been so alone might have seemed affectedly dramatic, stretched out his arms in an attitude of wistful longing while his lips moved as if, again and again, he whispered a name. CHAPTER III. IN THE BIG PASTURE. In the Williamson Valley country the spring round-up, or "rodeo," as it is called in Arizona, and the shipping are well over by the last of June. During the long summer weeks, until the beginning of the fall rodeo in September, there is little for the riders to do. The cattle roam free on the open ranges, while calves grow into yearlings, yearlings become two-year-olds, and two-year-olds mature for the market. On the Cross-Triangle and similar ranches, three or four of the steadier year-round hands only are held. These repair and build fences, visit the watering places, brand an occasional calf that somehow has managed to escape the dragnet of the rodeo, and with "dope bottle" ever at hand doctor such animals as are afflicted with screwworms. It is during these weeks, too, that the horses are broken; for, with the hard and dangerous work of the fall and spring months, there is always need for fresh mounts. The horses of the Cross-Triangle were never permitted to run on the open range. Because the leaders of the numerous bands of wild horses that roamed over the country about Granite Mountain were always ambitious to gain recruits for their harems from their civilized neighbors, the freedom of the ranch horses was limited by the fences of a four-thousand-acre pasture. But within these miles of barbed wire boundaries the brood mares with their growing progeny lived as free and untamed as their wild cousins on the unfenced lands about them. The colts, except for one painful experience, when they were roped and branded, from the day of their birth until they were ready to be broken were never handled. On the morning following his meeting with the stranger on the Divide Phil Acton, with two of his cowboy helpers, rode out to the big pasture to bring in the band. The owner of the Cross-Triangle always declared that Phil was intimately acquainted with every individual horse and head of stock between the Divide and Camp Wood Mountain, and from Skull Valley to the Big Chino. In moments of enthusiasm the Dean even maintained stoutly that his young foreman knew as well every coyote, fox, badger, deer, antelope, mountain lion, bobcat and wild horse that had home or hunting ground in the country over which the lad had ridden since his babyhood. Certain it is that "Wild Horse Phil," as he was called by admiring friends--for reasons which you shall hear--loved this work and life to which he was born. Every feature of that wild land, from lonely mountain peak to hidden canyon spring, was as familiar to him as the streets and buildings of a man's home city are well known to the one reared among them. And as he rode that morning with his comrades to the day's work the young man felt keenly the call of the primitive, unspoiled life that throbbed with such vital strength about him. He could not have put that which he felt into words; he was not even conscious of the forces that so moved him; he only knew that he was glad. The days of the celebration at Prescott had been enjoyable days. To meet old friends and comrades; to ride with them in the contests that all true men of his kind love; to compare experiences and exchange news and gossip with widely separated neighbors--had been a pleasure. But the curious crowds of strangers; the throngs of sightseers from the, to him, unknown world of cities, who had regarded him as they might have viewed some rare and little-known creature in a menagerie, and the brazen presence of those unclean parasites and harpies that prey always upon such occasions had oppressed and disgusted him until he was glad to escape again to the clean freedom, the pure vitality and the unspoiled spirit of his everyday life and environment. In an overflow of sheer physical and spiritual energy he lifted his horse into a run and with a shrill cowboy yell challenged his companions to a wild race to the pasture gate. It was some time after noon when Phil checked his horse near the ruins of an old Indian lookout on the top of Black Hill. Below, in the open land above Deep Wash, he could see his cowboy companions working the band of horses that had been gathered slowly toward the narrow pass that at the eastern end of Black Hill leads through to the flats at the upper end of the big meadows, and so to the gate and to the way they would follow to the corral. It was Phil's purpose to ride across Black Hill down the western and northern slope, through the cedar timber, and, picking up any horses that might be ranging there, join the others at the gate. In the meanwhile there was time for a few minutes rest. Dismounting, he loosed the girths and lifted saddle and blanket from Hobson's steaming back. Then, while the good horse, wearied with the hard riding and the steep climb up the mountain side, stood quietly in the shade of a cedar his master, stretched on the ground near by, idly scanned the world that lay below and about them. Very clearly in that light atmosphere Phil could see the trees and buildings of the home ranch, and, just across the sandy wash from the Cross-Triangle, the grove of cottonwoods and walnuts that hid the little old house where he was born. A mile away, on the eastern side of the great valley meadows, he could see the home buildings of the Reid ranch--the Pot-Hook-S--where Kitty Reid had lived all the days of her life except those three years which she had spent at school in the East. The young man on the top of Black Hill looked long at the Reid home. In his mind he could see Kitty dressed in some cool, simple gown, fresh and dainty after the morning's housework, sitting with book or sewing on the front porch. The porch was on the other side of the house, it is true, and the distance was too great for him to distinguish a person in any case, but all that made no difference to Phil's vision--he could see her just the same. Kitty had been very kind to Phil at the celebration. But Kitty was always kind--nearly always. But in spite of her kindness the cowboy felt that she had not, somehow, seemed to place a very high valuation upon the medal he had won in the bronco-riding contest. Phil himself did not greatly value the medal; but he had wanted greatly to win that championship because of the very substantial money prize that went with it. That money, in Phil's mind, was to play a very important part in a long cherished dream that was one of the things that Phil Acton did not talk about. He had not, in fact, ridden for the championship at all, but for his dream, and that was why it mattered so much when Kitty seemed so to lack interest in his success. As though his subconscious mind directed the movement, the young man looked away from Kitty's home to the distant mountain ridge where the night before on the summit of the Divide he had met the stranger. All the way home the cowboy had wondered about the man; evolving many theories, inventing many things to account for his presence, alone and on foot, so far from the surroundings to which he was so clearly accustomed. Of one thing Phil was sure--the man was in trouble--deep trouble. The more that the clean-minded, gentle-hearted lad of the great out-of-doors thought about it, the more strongly he felt that he had unwittingly intruded at a moment that was sacred to the stranger--sacred because the man was fighting one of those battles that every man must fight--and fight alone. It was this feeling that had kept the young man from speaking of the incident to anyone--even to the Dean, or to "Mother," as he called Mrs. Baldwin. Perhaps, too, this feeling was the real reason for Phil's sense of kinship with the stranger, for the cowboy himself had moments in his life that he could permit no man to look upon. But in his thinking of the man whose personality had so impressed him one thing stood out above all the rest--the stranger clearly belonged to that world of which, from experience, the young foreman of the Cross-Triangle knew nothing. Phil Acton had no desire for the world to which the stranger belonged, but in his heart there was a troublesome question. If--if he himself were more like the man whom he had met on the Divide; if--if he knew more of that other world; if he, in some degree, belonged to that other world, as Kitty, because of her three years in school belonged, would it make any difference? From the distant mountain ridge that marks the eastern limits of the Williamson Valley country, and thus, in a degree, marked the limit of Phil's world, the lad's gaze turned again to the scene immediately before him. The band of horses, followed by the cowboys, were trotting from the narrow pass out into the open flats. Some of the band--the mothers--went quietly, knowing from past experience that they would in a few hours be returned to their freedom. Others--the colts and yearlings--bewildered, curious and fearful, followed their mothers without protest. But those who in many a friendly race or primitive battle had proved their growing years seemed to sense a coming crisis in their lives, hitherto peaceful. And these, as though warned by that strange instinct which guards all wild things, and realizing that the open ground between the pass and the gate presented their last opportunity, made final desperate efforts to escape. With sudden dashes, dodging and doubling, they tried again and again for freedom. But always between them and the haunts they loved there was a persistent horseman. Running, leaping, whirling, in their efforts to be everywhere at once, the riders worked their charges toward the gate. The man on the hilltop sprang to his feet. Hobson threw up his head, and with sharp ears forward eagerly watched the game he knew so well. With a quickness incredible to the uninitiated, Phil threw blanket and saddle to place. As he drew the cinch tight, a shrill cowboy yell came up from the flat below. One of the band, a powerful bay, had broken past the guarding horsemen, and was running with every ounce of his strength for the timber on the western slope of Black Hill. For a hundred yards one of the riders had tried to overtake and turn the fugitive; but as he saw how the stride of the free horse was widening the distance between them, the cowboy turned back lest others follow the successful runaway's example. The yell was to inform Phil of the situation. Before the echoes of the signal could die away Phil was in the saddle, and with an answering shout sent Hobson down the rough mountain side in a wild, reckless, plunging run to head the, for the moment, victorious bay. An hour later the foreman rejoined his companions who were holding the band of horses at the gate. The big bay, reluctant, protesting, twisting and turning in vain attempts to outmaneuver Hobson, was a captive in the loop of "Wild Horse Phil's" riata. In the big corral that afternoon Phil and his helpers with the Dean and Little Billy looking on, cut out from the herd the horses selected to be broken. These, one by one, were forced through the gate into the adjoining corral, from which they watched with uneasy wonder and many excited and ineffectual attempts to follow, when their more fortunate companions were driven again to the big pasture. Then Phil opened another gate, and the little band dashed wildly through, to find themselves in the small meadow pasture where they would pass the last night before the one great battle of their lives--a battle that would be for them a dividing point between those years of ease and freedom which had been theirs from birth and the years of hard and useful service that were to come. Phil sat on his horse at the gate watching with critical eye as the unbroken animals raced away. "Some good ones in the bunch this year, Uncle Will," he commented to his employer, who, standing on the watering trough in the other corral, was looking over the fence. "There's bound to be some good ones in every bunch," returned Mr. Baldwin. "And some no account ones, too," he added, as his foreman dismounted beside him. Then, while the young man slipped the bridle from his horse and stood waiting for the animal to drink, the older man regarded him silently, as though in his own mind the Dean's observation bore somewhat upon Phil himself. That was always the way with the Dean. As Sheriff Fellows once remarked to Judge Powell in the old days of the cattle rustlers' glory, "Whatever Bill Baldwin says is mighty nigh always double-barreled." There are also two sides to the Dean. Or, rather, to be accurate, there is a front and a back. The back--flat and straight and broad--indicates one side of his character--the side that belongs with the square chin and the blue eyes that always look at you with such frank directness. It was this side of the man that brought him barefooted and penniless to Arizona in those days long gone when he was only a boy and Arizona a strong man's country. It was this side of him that brought him triumphantly through those hard years of the Indian troubles, and in those wild and lawless times made him respected and feared by the evildoers and trusted and followed by those of his kind who, out of the hardships and dangers of those turbulent days, made the Arizona of to-day. It was this side, too, that finally made the barefoot, penniless boy the owner of the Cross-Triangle Ranch. I do not know the exact number of the Dean's years--I only know that his hair is grey, and that he does not ride as much as he once did. I have heard him say, though, that for thirty-five years he lived in the saddle, and that the Cross-Triangle brand is one of the oldest irons in the State. And I know, too, that his back is still flat and broad and straight. The Dean's front, so well-rounded and hearty, indicates as clearly the other side of his character. And it is this side that belongs to the full red cheeks, the ever-ready chuckle or laugh; that puts the twinkle in the blue eyes, and the kindly tones in his deep voice. It is this side of the Dean's character that adds so large a measure of love to the respect and confidence accorded him by neighbors and friends, business associates and employees. It is this side of the Dean, too, that, in these days, sits in the shade of the big walnut trees--planted by his own hand--and talks to the youngsters of the days that are gone, and that makes the young riders of this generation seek him out for counsel and sympathy and help. Three things the Dean knows--cattle and horses and men. One thing the Dean will not, cannot tolerate--weakness in one who should be strong. Even bad men he admires, if they are strong--not for their badness, but for their strength. Mistaken men he loves in spite of their mistakes--if only they be not weaklings. There is no place anywhere in the Dean's philosophy of life for a weakling. I heard him tell a man once--nor shall I ever forget it--"You had better die like a man, sir, than live like a sneaking coyote." The Dean's sons, men grown, were gone from the home ranch to the fields and work of their choosing. Little Billy, a nephew of seven years, was--as Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin said laughingly--their second crop. When Phil's horse--satisfied--lifted his dripping muzzle from the watering trough, the Dean walked with his young foreman to the saddle shed. Neither of the men spoke, for between them there was that companionship which does not require a constant flow of talk to keep it alive. Not until the cowboy had turned his horse loose, and was hanging saddle and bridle on their accustomed peg did the older man speak. "Jim Reid's goin' to begin breakin' horses next week." "So I heard," returned Phil, carefully spreading his saddle blanket to dry. The Dean spoke again in a tone of indifference. "He wants you to help him." "Me! What's the matter with Jack?" "He's goin' to the D.1 to-morrow." Phil was examining the wrapping on his saddle horn with--the Dean noted--quite unnecessary care. "Kitty was over this mornin'," said the Dean gently. The young man turned, and, taking off his spurs, hung them on the saddle horn. Then as he kicked off his leather chaps he said shortly, "I'm not looking for a job as a professional bronco-buster." The Dean's eyes twinkled. "Thought you might like to help a neighbor out; just to be neighborly, you know." "Do you want me to ride for Reid?" demanded Phil. "Well, I suppose as long as there's broncs to bust somebody's got to bust 'em," the Dean returned, without committing himself. And then, when Phil made no reply, he added laughing, "I told Kitty to tell him, though, that I reckoned you had as big a string as you could handle here." As they moved away toward the house, Phil returned with significant emphasis, "When I have to ride for anybody besides you it won't be Kitty Reid's father." And the Dean commented in his reflective tone, "It does sometimes seem to make a difference who a man rides for, don't it?" In the pasture by the corrals, the horses that awaited the approaching trial that would mark for them the beginning of a new life passed a restless night. Some in meekness of spirit or, perhaps, with deeper wisdom fed quietly. Others wandered about aimlessly, snatching an occasional uneasy mouthful of grass, and looking about often in troubled doubt. The more rebellious ones followed the fence, searching for some place of weakness in the barbed barrier that imprisoned them. And one, who, had he not been by circumstance robbed of his birthright, would have been the strong leader of a wild band, stood often with wide nostrils and challenging eye, gazing toward the corrals and buildings as if questioning the right of those who had brought him there from the haunts he loved. And somewhere in the night of that land which was as unknown to him as the meadow pasture was strange to the unbroken horses, a man awaited the day which, for him too, was to stand through all his remaining years as a mark between the old life and the new. As Phil Acton lay in his bed, with doors and windows open wide to welcome the cool night air, he heard the restless horses in the near-by pasture, and smiled as he thought of the big bay and the morrow--smiled with the smile of a man who looks forward to a battle worthy of his best strength and skill. And then, strangely enough, as he was slipping into that dreamless sleep of those who live as he lived, his mind went back again to the stranger whom he had met on the summit of the Divide. If he were more like that man, would it make any difference--the cowboy wondered. CHAPTER IV. AT THE CORRAL. In the beginning of the morning, when Granite Mountain's fortress-like battlements and towers loomed gray and bold and grim, the big bay horse trumpeted a warning to his less watchful mates. Instantly, with heads high and eyes wide, the band stood in frightened indecision. Two horsemen--shadowy and mysterious forms in the misty light--were riding from the corral into the pasture. As the riders approached, individuals in the band moved uneasily, starting as if to run, hesitating, turning for another look, maneuvering to put their mates between them and the enemy. But the bay went boldly a short distance toward the danger and stood still with wide nostrils and fierce eyes as though ready for the combat. For a few moments, as the horsemen seemed about to go past, hope beat high in the hearts of the timid prisoners. Then the riders circled to put the band between themselves and the corral gate, and the frightened animals knew. But always as they whirled and dodged in their attempts to avoid that big gate toward which they were forced to move, there was a silent, persistent horseman barring the way. The big bay alone, as though realizing the futility of such efforts and so conserving his strength for whatever was to follow, trotted proudly, boldly into the corral, where he stood, his eyes never leaving the riders, as his mates crowded and jostled about him. "There's one in that bunch that's sure aimin' to make you ride some," said Curly Elson with a grin, to Phil, as the family sat at breakfast. On the Cross-Triangle the men who were held through the summer and winter seasons between the months of the rodeos were considered members of the family. Chosen for their character, as well as for their knowledge of the country and their skill in their work the Dean and "Stella," as Mrs. Baldwin is called throughout all that country, always spoke of them affectionately as "our boys." And this, better than anything that could be said, is an introduction to the mistress of the Cross-Triangle household. At the challenging laugh which followed Curly's observation, Phil returned quietly with his sunny smile, "Maybe I'll quit him before he gets good and started." "He's sure fixin' to make you back the decision of them contest judges," offered Bob Colton. And Mrs. Baldwin, young in spirit as any of her boys, added, "Better not wear your medal, son. It might excite him to know that you are the champion buster of Arizona." "Shucks!" piped up Little Billy excitedly, "Phil can ride anything what wears hair, can't you, Phil?" Phil, embarrassed at the laughter which followed, said, with tactful seriousness, to his little champion, "That's right, kid. You stand up for your pardner every time, don't you? You'll be riding them yourself before long. There's a little sorrel in that bunch that I've picked out to gentle for you." He glanced at his employer meaningly, and the Dean's face glowed with appreciation of the young man's thoughtfulness. "That old horse, Sheep, of yours," continued Phil to Little Billy, "is getting too old and stiff for your work. I've noticed him stumbling a lot lately." Again he glanced inquiringly at the Dean, who answered the look with a slight nod of approval. "You'd better make him gentle your horse first, Billy," teased Curly. "He might not be in the business when that big one gets through with him." Little Billy's retort came in a flash. "Huh, 'Wild Horse Phil' will be a-ridin' 'em long after you've got your'n, Curly Elson." "Look out, son," cautioned the Dean, when the laugh had gone round again. "Curly will be slippin' a burr under your saddle, if you don't." Then to the men: "What horse is it that you boys think is goin' to be such a bad one? That big bay with the blazed face?" The cowboys nodded. "He's bad, all right," said Phil. "Well," commented the Dean, leaning back in his chair and speaking generally, "he's sure got a license to be bad. His mother was the wickedest piece of horse flesh I ever knew. Remember her, Stella?" "Indeed I do," returned Mrs. Baldwin. "She nearly ruined that Windy Jim who came from nobody knew where, and bragged that he could ride anything." The Dean chuckled reminiscently. "She sure sent Windy back where he came from. But I tell you, boys, that kind of a horse makes the best in the world once you get 'em broke right. Horses are just like men, anyhow. If they ain't got enough in 'em to fight when they're bein' broke, they ain't generally worth breakin'." "The man that rides that bay will sure be a-horseback," said Curly. "He's a man's horse, all right," agreed Bob. Breakfast over, the men left the house, not too quietly, and laughing, jesting and romping like school boys, went out to the corrals, with Little Billy tagging eagerly at their heels. The Dean and Phil remained for a few minutes at the table. "You really oughtn't to say such things to those boys, Will," reproved Mrs. Baldwin, as she watched them from the window. "It encourages them to be wild, and land knows they don't need any encouragement." "Shucks," returned the Dean, with that gentle note that was always in his voice when he spoke to her. "If such talk as that can hurt 'em, there ain't nothin' that could save 'em. You're always afraid somebody's goin' to go bad. Look at me and Phil here," he added, as they in turn pushed their chairs back from the table; "you've fussed enough over us to spoil a dozen men, and ain't we been a credit to you all the time?" At this they laughed together. But as Phil was leaving the house Mrs. Baldwin stopped him at the door to say earnestly, "You will be careful to-day, won't you, son? You know my other Phil--" She stopped and turned away. The young man knew that story--a story common to that land where the lives of men are not infrequently offered a sacrifice to the untamed strength of the life that in many forms they are daily called upon to meet and master. "Never mind, mother," he said gently. "I'll be all right." Then more lightly he added, with his sunny smile, "If that big bay starts anything with me, I'll climb the corral fence pronto." Quietly, as one who faces a hard day's work, Phil went to the saddle shed where he buckled on chaps and spurs. Then, after looking carefully to stirrup leathers, cinch and latigos, he went on to the corrals, the heavy saddle under his arm. Curly and Bob, their horses saddled and ready, were making animated targets of themselves for Little Billy, who, mounted on Sheep, a gentle old cow-horse, was whirling a miniature riata. As the foreman appeared, the cowboys dropped their fun, and, mounting, took the coils of their own rawhide ropes in hand. "Which one will you have first, Phil?" asked Curly, as he moved toward the gate between the big corral and the smaller enclosure that held the band of horses. "That black one with the white star will do," directed Phil quietly. Then to Little Billy: "You'd better get back there out of the way, pardner. That black is liable to jump clear over you and Sheep." "You better get outside, son," amended the Dean, who had come out to watch the beginning of the work. "No, no--please, Uncle Will," begged the lad. "They can't get me as long as I'm on Sheep." Phil and the Dean laughed. "I'll look out for him," said the young man. "Only," he added to the boy, "you must keep out of the way." "And see that you stick to Sheep, if you expect him to take care of you," finished the Dean, relenting. Meanwhile the gate between the corrals had been thrown open, and with Bob to guard the opening Curly rode in among the unbroken horses to cut out the animal indicated by Phil, and from within that circular enclosure, where the earth had been ground to fine powder by hundreds of thousands of frightened feet, came the rolling thunder of quick-beating hoofs as in a swirling cloud of yellow dust the horses rushed and leaped and whirled. Again and again the frightened animals threw themselves against the barrier that hemmed them in; but that fence, built of cedar posts set close in stockade fashion and laced on the outside with wire, was made to withstand the maddened rush of the heaviest steers. And always, amid the confusion of the frenzied animals, the figure of the mounted man in their midst could be seen calmly directing their wildest movements, and soon, out from the crowding, jostling, whirling mass of flying feet and tossing manes and tails, the black with the white star shot toward the gate. Bob's horse leaped aside from the way. Curly's horse was between the black and his mates, and before the animal could gather his confused senses he was in the larger corral. The day's work had begun. The black dodged skillfully, and the loop of Curly's riata missed the mark. "You better let somebody put eyes in that rope, Curly," remarked Phil, laconically, as he stepped aside to avoid a wild rush. The chagrined cowboy said something in a low tone, so that Little Billy could not hear. The Dean chuckled. Bob's riata whirled, shot out its snaky length, and his trained horse braced himself skillfully to the black's weight on the rope. For a few minutes the animal at the loop end of the riata struggled desperately--plunging, tugging, throwing himself this way and that; but always the experienced cow-horse turned with his victim and the rope was never slack. When his first wild efforts were over and the black stood with his wide braced feet, breathing heavily as that choking loop began to tell, the strain on the taut riata was lessened, and Phil went quietly toward the frightened captive. No one moved or spoke. This was not an exhibition the success of which depended on the vicious wildness of the horse to be conquered. This was work, and it was not Phil's business to provoke the black to extremes in order to exhibit his own prowess as a rider for the pleasure of spectators who had paid to see the show. The rider was employed to win the confidence of the unbroken horse entrusted to him; to force obedience, if necessary; to gentle and train, and so make of the wild creature a useful and valuable servant for the Dean. There are riders whose methods demand that they throw every unbroken horse given them to handle, and who gentle an animal by beating it about the head with loaded quirts, ripping its flanks open with sharp spurs and tearing its mouth with torturing bits and ropes. These turn over to their employers as their finished product horses that are broken, indeed--but broken only in spirit, with no heart or courage left to them, with dispositions ruined, and often with physical injuries from which they never recover. But riders of such methods have no place among the men employed by owners of the Dean's type. On the Cross-Triangle, and indeed on all ranches where conservative business principles are in force, the horses are handled with all the care and gentleness that the work and the individuality of the animal will permit. After a little Phil's hand gently touched the black's head. Instantly the struggle was resumed. The rider dodged a vicious blow from the strong fore hoofs and with a good natured laugh softly chided the desperate animal. And so, presently, the kind hand was again stretched forth; and then a broad band of leather was deftly slipped over the black's frightened eyes. Another thicker and softer rope was knotted so that it could not slip about the now sweating neck, and fashioned into a hackamore or halter about the animal's nose. Then the riata was loosed. Working deftly, silently, gently--ever wary of those dangerous hoofs--Phil next placed blanket and saddle on the trembling black and drew the cinch tight. Then the gate leading from the corral to the open range was swung back. Easily, but quickly and surely, the rider swung to his seat. He paused a moment to be sure that all was right, and then leaning forward he reached over and raised the leather blindfold. For an instant the wild, unbroken horse stood still, then reared until it seemed he must fall, and then, as his forefeet touched the ground again, the spurs went home, and with a mighty leap forward the frenzied animal dashed, bucking, plunging, pitching, through the gate and away toward the open country, followed by Curly and Bob, with Little Billy spurring old Sheep, in hot pursuit. For a little the Dean lingered in the suddenly emptied corral. Stepping up on the end of the long watering trough, close to the dividing fence, he studied with knowing eye the animals on the other side. Then leisurely he made his way out of the corral, visited the windmill pump, looked in on Stella from the kitchen porch, and then saddled Browny, his own particular horse that grazed always about the place at privileged ease, and rode off somewhere on some business of his own. When the black horse had spent his strength in a vain attempt to rid himself of the dreadful burden that had attached itself so securely to his back, he was herded back to the corral, where the burden set him free. Dripping with sweat, trembling in every limb and muscle, wild-eyed, with distended nostrils and heaving flanks, the black crowded in among his mates again, his first lesson over--his years of ease and freedom past forever. "And which will it be this time?" came Curly's question. "I'll have that buckskin this trip," answered Phil. And again that swirling cloud of dust raised by those thundering hoofs drifted over the stockade enclosure, and out of the mad confusion the buckskin dashed wildly through the gate to be initiated into his new life. And so, hour after hour, the work went on, as horse after horse at Phil's word was cut out of the band and ridden; and every horse, according to disposition and temper and strength, was different. While his helpers did their part the rider caught a few moments rest. Always he was good natured, soft spoken and gentle. When a frightened animal, not understanding, tried to kill him, he accepted it as evidence of a commendable spirit, and, with that sunny, boyish smile, informed his pupil kindly that he was a good horse and must not make a fool of himself. In so many ways, as the Dean had said at breakfast that morning, horses are just like men. It was mid-afternoon when the master of the Cross-Triangle again strolled leisurely out to the corrals. Phil and his helpers, including Little Billy, were just disappearing over the rise of ground beyond the gate on the farther side of the enclosure as the Dean reached the gate that opens toward the barn and house. He went on through the corral, and slowly, as one having nothing else to do, climbed the little knoll from which he could watch the riders in the distance. When the horsemen had disappeared among the scattered cedars on the ridge, a mile or so to the west, the Dean still stood looking in that direction. But the owner of the Cross-Triangle was not watching for the return of his men. He was not even thinking of them. He was looking beyond the cedar ridge to where, several miles away, a long, mesa-topped mountain showed black against the blue of the more distant hills. The edge of this high table-land broke abruptly in a long series of vertical cliffs, the formation known to Arizonians as rim rocks. The deep shadows of the towering black wall of cliffs and the gloom of the pines and cedars that hid the foot of the mountain gave the place a sinister and threatening appearance. As he looked, the Dean's kindly face grew somber and stern; his blue eyes were for the moment cold and accusing; under his grizzled mustache his mouth, usually so ready to smile or laugh, was set in lines of uncompromising firmness. In these quiet and well-earned restful years of the Dean's life the Tailholt Mountain outfit was the only disturbing element. But the Dean did not permit himself to be long annoyed by the thoughts provoked by Tailholt Mountain. Philosophically he turned his broad back to the intruding scene, and went back to the corral, and to the more pleasing occupation of looking at the horses. If the Dean had not so abruptly turned his back upon the landscape, he would have noticed the figure of a man moving slowly along the road that skirted the valley meadow leading from Simmons to the Cross-Triangle Ranch. Presently the riders returned, and Phil, when he had removed saddle, blanket and hackamore from his pupil, seated himself on the edge of the watering trough beside the Dean. "I see you ain't tackled the big bay yet," remarked the older man. "Thought if I'd let him look on for a while, he might figure it out that he'd better be good and not get himself hurt," smiled Phil. "He's sure some horse," he added admiringly. Then to his helpers: "I'll take that black with the white forefoot this time, Curly." Just as the fresh horse dashed into the larger corral a man on foot appeared, coming over the rise of ground to the west; and by the time that Curly's loop was over the black's head the man stood at the gate. One glance told Phil that it was the stranger whom he had met on the Divide. The man seemed to understand that it was no time for greetings and, without offering to enter the enclosure, climbed to the top of the big gate, where he sat, with one leg over the topmost bar, an interested spectator. The maneuvers of the black brought Phil to that side of the corral, and, as he coolly dodged the fighting horse, he glanced up with his boyish smile and a quick nod of welcome to the man perched above him. The stranger smiled in return, but did not speak. He must have thought, though, that this cowboy appeared quite different from the picturesque rider he had seen at the celebration and on the summit of the Divide. _That_ Phil Acton had been--as the cowboy himself would have said--"all togged out in his glad rags." This man wore chaps that were old and patched from hard service; his shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, was the color of the corral dirt, and a generous tear revealed one muscular shoulder; his hat was greasy and battered; his face grimed and streaked with dust and sweat, but his sunny, boyish smile would have identified Phil in any garb. When the rider was ready to mount, and Bob went to open the gate, the stranger climbed down and drew a little aside. And when Phil, passing where he stood, looked laughingly down at him from the back of the bucking, plunging horse, he made as if to applaud, but checked himself and went quickly to the top of the knoll to watch the riders until they disappeared over the ridge. "Howdy! Fine weather we're havin'." It was the Dean's hearty voice. He had gone forward courteously to greet the stranger while the latter was watching the riders. The man turned impulsively, his face lighted with enthusiasm. "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "but that man can ride!" "Yes, Phil does pretty well," returned the Dean indifferently. "Won the championship at Prescott the other day." Then, more heartily: "He's a mighty good boy, too--take him any way you like." As he spoke the cattleman looked the stranger over critically, much as he would have looked at a steer or horse, noting the long limbs, the well-made body, the strong face and clear, dark eyes. The man's dress told the Dean simply that the stranger was from the city. His bearing commanded the older man's respect. The stranger's next statement, as he looked thoughtfully over the wide Land of valley and hill and mesa and mountain, convinced the Dean that he was a man of judgment. "Arizona is a wonderful country, sir--wonderful!" "Finest in the world, sir," agreed the Dean promptly. "There just naturally can't be any better. We've got the climate; we've got the land; and we've got the men." The stranger looked at the Dean quickly when he said "men." It was worth much to hear the Dean speak that word. "Indeed you have," he returned heartily. "I never saw such men." "Of course you haven't," said the Dean. "I tell you, sir, they just don't make 'em outside of Arizona. It takes a country like this to produce real men. A man's got to be a man out here. Of course, though," he admitted kindly, "we don't know much except to ride, an' throw a rope, an' shoot, mebby, once in a while." The riders were returning and the Dean and the stranger walked back down the little hill to the corral. "You have a fine ranch here, Mr. Baldwin," again observed the stranger. The Dean glanced at him sharply. Many men had tried to buy the Cross-Triangle. This man certainly appeared prosperous even though he was walking. But there was no accounting for the queer things that city men would do. "It does pretty well," the cattleman admitted. "I manage to make a livin'." The other smiled as though slightly embarrassed. Then: "Do you need any help?" "Help!" The Dean looked at him amazed. "I mean--I would like a position--to work for you, you know." The Dean was speechless. Again he surveyed the stranger with his measuring, critical look. "You've never done any work," he said gently. The man stood very straight before him and spoke almost defiantly. "No, I haven't, but is that any reason why I should not?" The Dean's eyes twinkled, as they have a way of doing when you say something that he likes. "I'd say it's a better reason why you should," he returned quietly. Then he said to Phil, who, having dismissed his four-footed pupil, was coming toward them: "Phil, this man wants a job. Think we can use him?" The young man looked at the stranger with unfeigned surprise and with a hint of amusement, but gave no sign that he had ever seen him before. The same natural delicacy of feeling that had prevented the cowboy from discussing the man upon whose privacy he felt he had intruded that evening of their meeting on the Divide led him now to ignore the incident--a consideration which could not but command the strange man's respect, and for which he looked his gratitude. There was something about the stranger, too, that to Phil seemed different. This tall, well-built fellow who stood before them so self-possessed, and ready for anything, was not altogether like the uncertain, embarrassed, half-frightened and troubled gentleman at whom Phil had first laughed with thinly veiled contempt, and then had pitied. It was as though the man who sat that night alone on the Divide had, out of the very bitterness of his experience, called forth from within himself a strength of which, until then, he had been only dimly conscious. There was now, in his face and bearing, courage and decision and purpose, and with it all a glint of that same humor that had made him so bitterly mock himself. The Dean's philosophy touching the possibilities of the man who laughs when he is hurt seemed in this stranger about to be justified. Phil felt oddly, too, that the man was in a way experimenting with himself--testing himself as it were--and being altogether a normal human, the cowboy felt strongly inclined to help the experimenter. In this spirit he answered the Dean, while looking mischievously at the stranger. "We can use him if he can ride." The stranger smiled understandingly. "I don't see why I couldn't," he returned in that droll tone. "I seem to have the legs." He looked down at his long lower limbs reflectively, as though quaintly considering them quite apart from himself. Phil laughed. "Huh," said the Dean, slightly mystified at the apparent understanding between the young men. Then to the stranger: "What do you want to work for? You don't look as though you needed to. A sort of vacation, heh?" There was spirit in the man's answer. "I want to work for the reason that all men want work. If you do not employ me, I must try somewhere else." "Come from Prescott to Simmons on the stage, did you?" "No, sir, I walked." "Walked! Huh! Tried anywhere else for a job?" "No, sir." "Who sent you out here?" The stranger smiled. "I saw Mr. Acton ride in the contest. I learned that he was foreman of the Cross-Triangle Ranch. I thought I would rather work where he worked, if I could." The Dean looked at Phil. Phil looked at the Dean. Together they looked at the stranger. The two cowboys who were sitting on their horses near-by grinned at each other. "And what is your name, sir?" the Dean asked courteously. For the first time the man hesitated and seemed embarrassed. He looked uneasily about with a helpless inquiring glance, as though appealing for some suggestion. "Oh, never mind your name, if you have forgotten it," said the Dean dryly. The stranger's roaming eyes fell upon Phil's old chaps, that in every wrinkle and scar and rip and tear gave such eloquent testimony as to the wearer's life, and that curious, self-mocking smile touched his lips. Then, throwing up his head and looking the Dean straight in the eye, he said boldly, but with that note of droll humor in his voice, "My name is Patches, sir, Honorable Patches." The Dean's eyes twinkled, but his face was grave. Phil's face flushed; he had not failed to identify the source of the stranger's inspiration. But before either the Dean or Phil could speak a shout of laughter came from Curly Elson, and the stranger had turned to face the cowboy. "Something seems to amuse you," he said quietly to the man on the horse; and at the tone of his voice Phil and the Dean exchanged significant glances. The grinning cowboy looked down at the stranger in evident contempt. "Patches," he drawled. "Honorable Patches! That's a hell of a name, now, ain't it?" The man went two long steps toward the mocking rider, and spoke quietly, but with unmistakable meaning. "I'll endeavor to make it all of that for you, if you will get off your horse." The grinning cowboy, with a wink at his companion, dismounted cheerfully. Curly Elson was held to be the best man with his hands in Yavapai County. He could not refuse so tempting an opportunity to add to his well-earned reputation. Five minutes later Curly lifted himself on one elbow in the corral dust, and looked up with respectful admiration to the quiet man who stood waiting for him to rise. Curly's lip was bleeding generously; the side of his face seemed to have slipped out of place, and his left eye was closing surely and rapidly. "Get up," said the tall man calmly. "There is more where that came from, if you want it." The cowboy grinned painfully. "I ain't hankerin' after any more," he mumbled, feeling his face tenderly. "It said that my name was Patches," suggested the stranger. "Sure, Mr. Patches, I reckon nobody'll question that." "Honorable Patches," again prompted the stranger. "Yes, sir. You bet; Honorable Patches," agreed Curly with emphasis. Then, as he painfully regained his feet, he held out his hand with as nearly a smile as his battered features would permit. "Do you mind shaking on it, Mr. Honorable Patches? Just to show that there's no hard feelin's?" Patches responded instantly with a manner that won Curly's heart. "Good!" he said. "I knew you would do that when you understood, or I wouldn't have bothered to show you my credentials." "My mistake," returned Curly. "It's them there credentials of yourn, not your name, that's hell." He gingerly mounted his horse again, and Patches turned back to the Dean as though apologizing for the interruption. "I beg your pardon, sir, but--about work?" The Dean never told anyone just what his thoughts were at that particular moment; probably because they were so many and so contradictory and confusing. Whether from this uncertainty of mind; from a habit of depending upon his young foreman, or because of that something, which Phil and the stranger seemed to have in common, he shifted the whole matter by saying, "It's up to Phil here. He's foreman of the Cross-Triangle. If he wants to hire you, it's all right with me." At this the two young men faced each other; and on the face of each was a half questioning, half challenging smile. The stranger seemed to say, "I know I am at your mercy; I don't expect you to believe in me after our meeting on the Divide, but I dare you to put me to the test." And Phil, if he had spoken, might have said, "I felt when I met you first that there was a man around somewhere. I know you are curious to see what you would do if put to the test. I am curious, too. I'll give you a chance." Aloud he reminded the stranger pointedly, "I said we might use you if you could ride." Patches smiled his self-mocking smile, evidently appreciating his predicament. "And I said," he retorted, "that I didn't see why I couldn't." Phil turned to his grinning but respectful helpers. "Bring out that bay with the blazed face." "Great Snakes!" ejaculated Curly to Bob, as they reached the gate leading to the adjoining corral. "His name is Patches, all right, but he'll be pieces when that bay devil gets through with him, if he can't ride. Do you reckon he can?" "Dunno," returned Bob, as he unlatched the gate without dismounting. "I thought he couldn't fight." "So did I," returned Curly, grimly nursing his battered face. "You cut out the horse; I can't more'n half see." It was no trouble to cut out the bay. The big horse seemed to understand that his time had come. All day he had seen his mates go forth to their testing, had watched them as they fought with all their strength the skill and endurance of that smiling, boy-faced man, and then had seen them as they returned, sweating, trembling, conquered and subdued. As Bob rode toward him, he stood for one defiant moment as motionless as a horse of bronze; then, with a suddenness that gave Curly at the gate barely time to dodge his rush, he leaped forward into the larger arena. Phil was watching the stranger as the big horse came through the gate. The man did not move, but his eyes were glowing darkly, his face was flushed, and he was smiling to himself mockingly--as though amused at the thought of what was about to happen to him. The Dean also was watching Patches, and again the young foreman and his employer exchanged significant glances as Phil turned and went quickly to Little Billy. Lifting the lad from his saddle and seating him on the fence above the long watering trough, he said, "There's a grandstand seat for you, pardner; don't get down unless you have to, and then get down outside. See?" At that moment yells of warning, with a "Look out, Phil!" came from Curly, Bob and the Dean. A quick look over his shoulder, and Phil saw the big horse with ears wickedly flat, eyes gleaming, and teeth bared, making straight in his direction. The animal had apparently singled him out as the author of his misfortunes, and proposed to dispose of his arch-enemy at the very outset of the battle. There was only one sane thing to do, and Phil did it. A vigorous, scrambling leap placed him beside Little Billy on the top of the fence above the watering trough. "Good thing I reserved a seat in your grandstand for myself, wasn't it, pardner?" he smiled down at the boy by his side. Then Bob's riata fell true, and as the powerful horse plunged and fought that strangling noose Phil came leisurely down from the fence. "Where was you goin', Phil?" chuckled the Dean. "You sure warn't losin' any time," laughed Curly. And Bob, without taking his eyes from the vicious animal at the end of his taut riata, and working skillfully with his trained cow-horse to foil every wicked plunge and wild leap, grinned with appreciation, as he added, "I'll bet four bits you can't do it again, Phil, without a runnin' start." "I just thought I'd keep Little Billy company for a spell," smiled Phil. "He looked so sort of lonesome up there." The stranger, at first amazed that they could turn into jest an incident which might so easily have been a tragedy, suddenly laughed aloud--a joyous, ringing laugh that made Phil look at him sharply. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Acton," said Patches meekly, but with that droll voice which brought a glint of laughter into the foreman's eyes and called forth another chuckle from the Dean. "You can take my saddle," said Phil pointedly. "It's over there at the end of the watering trough. You'll find the stirrups about right, I reckon--I ride with them rather long." For a moment the stranger looked him straight in the eyes, then without a word started for the saddle. He was half way to the end of the watering trough when Phil overtook him. "I believe I'd rather saddle him myself," the cowboy explained quietly, with his sunny smile. "You see, I've got to teach these horses some cow sense before the fall rodeo, and I'm rather particular about the way they're handled at the start." "Exactly," returned Patches, "I don't blame you. That fellow seems rather to demand careful treatment, doesn't he?" Phil laughed. "Oh, you don't need to be too particular about his feelings once you're up in the middle of him," he retorted. The big bay, instead of acquiring sense from his observations, as Phil had expressed to the Dean a hope that he would, seemed to have gained courage and determination. Phil's approach was the signal for a mad plunge in the young man's direction, which was checked by the skill and weight of Bob's trained cow-horse on the rope. Several times Phil went toward the bay, and every time his advance was met by one of those vicious rushes. Then Phil mounted Curly's horse, and from his hand the loop of another riata fell over the bay's head. Shortening his rope by coiling it in his rein hand, he maneuvered the trained horse closer and closer to his struggling captive, until, with Bob's co-operation on the other side of the fighting animal, he could with safety fix the leather blindfold over those wicked eyes. When at last hackamore and saddle were in place, and the bay stood trembling and sweating, Phil wiped the perspiration from his own forehead and turned to the stranger. "Your horse is ready, sir." The man's face was perhaps a shade whiter than its usual color, but his eyes were glowing, and there was a grim set look about his smiling lips that made the hearts of those men go out to him. He seemed to realize so that the joke was on himself, and with it all exhibited such reckless indifference to consequences. Without an instant's hesitation he started toward the horse. "Great Snakes!" muttered Curly to Bob, "talk about nerve!" The Dean started forward. "Wait a minute, Mr. Patches," he said. The stranger faced him. "Can you ride that horse?" asked the Dean, pointedly. "I'm going to," returned Patches. "But," he added with his droll humor, "I can't say how far." "Don't you know that he'll kill you if he can?" questioned the Dean curiously, while his eyes twinkled approval. "He does seem to have some such notion," admitted Patches. "You better let him alone," said the Dean. "You don't need to kill yourself to get a job with this outfit." "That's very kind of you, sir," returned the stranger gratefully. "I'm rather glad you said that. But I'm going to ride him just the same." They looked at him in amazement, for it was clear to them now that the man really could not ride. The Dean spoke kindly. "Why?" "Because," said Patches slowly, "I am curious to see what I will do under such circumstances, and if I don't try the experiment now I'll never know whether I have the nerve to do it or not." As he finished he turned and walked deliberately toward the horse. Phil ran to Curly's side, and the cowboy at his foreman's gesture leaped from his saddle. The young man mounted his helper's horse, and with a quick movement caught the riata from the saddle horn and flipped open a ready loop. The stranger was close to the bay's off, or right, side. "The other side, Patches," called Phil genially. "You want to start in right, you know." Not a man laughed--except the stranger. "Thanks," he said, and came around to the proper side. "Take your time," called Phil again. "Stand by his shoulder and watch his heels. Take the stirrup with your right hand and turn it to catch your foot. Stay back by his shoulder until you are ready to swing up. Take your time." "I won't be long," returned Patches, as he awkwardly gained his seat in the saddle. Phil moved his horse nearer the center of the corral, and shook out his loop a little. "When you're ready, lean over and pull up the blindfold," he called. The man on the horse did not hesitate. With every angry nerve and muscle strained to the utmost, the powerful bay leaped into the air, coming down with legs stiff and head between his knees. For an instant the man miraculously kept his place. With another vicious plunge and a cork-screw twist the maddened brute went up again, and this time the man was flung from the saddle as from a gigantic catapult, to fall upon his shoulders and back in the corral dust, where he lay still. The horse, rid of his enemy, leaped again; then with catlike quickness and devilish cunning whirled, and with wicked teeth bared and vicious, blazing eyes, rushed for the helpless man on the ground. With a yell Bob spurred to put himself between the bay and his victim, but had there been time the move would have been useless, for no horse could have withstood that mad charge. The vicious brute was within a bound of his victim, and had reared to crush him with the weight of heavy hoofs, when a rawhide rope tightened about those uplifted forefeet and the bay himself crashed to earth. Leaving the cow-horse to hold the riata tight, Phil sprang from his saddle and ran to the fallen man. The Dean came with water in his felt hat from the trough, and presently the stranger opened his eyes. For a moment he lay looking up into their faces as though wondering where he was, and how he happened there. "Are you hurt bad?" asked the Dean. That brought him to his senses, and he got to his feet somewhat unsteadily, and began brushing the dust from his clothes. Then he looked curiously toward the horse that Curly was holding down by the simple means of sitting on the animal's head. "I certainly thought my legs were long enough to reach around him," he said reflectively. "How in the world did he manage it? I seemed to be falling for a week." Phil yelled and the Dean laughed until the tears ran down his red cheeks, while Bob and Curly went wild. Patches went to the horse, and gravely walked around him. Then, "Let him up," he said to Curly. The cowboy looked at Phil, who nodded. As the bay regained his feet, Patches started toward him. "Here," said the Dean peremptorily. "You come away from there." "I'm going to see if he can do it again," declared Patches grimly. "Not to-day, you ain't," returned the Dean. "You're workin' for me now, an' you're too good a man to be killed tryin' any more crazy experiments." At the Dean's words the look of gratitude in the man's eyes was almost pathetic. "I wonder if I am," he said, so low that only the Dean and Phil heard. "If you are what?" asked the Dean, puzzled by his manner. "Worth anything--as a man--you know," came the strange reply. The Dean chuckled. "You'll be all right when you get your growth. Come on over here now, out of the way, while Phil takes some of the cussedness out of that fool horse." Together they watched Phil ride the bay and return him to his mates a very tired and a much wiser pupil. Then, while Patches remained to watch further operations in the corral, the Dean went to the house to tell Stella all about it. "And what do you think he really is?" she asked, as the last of a long list of questions and comments. The Dean shook his head. "There's no tellin'. A man like that is liable to be anything." Then he added, with his usual philosophy: "He acts, though, like a genuine thoroughbred that's been badly mishandled an' has just found it out." When the day's work was finished and supper was over Little Billy found Patches where he stood looking across the valley toward Granite Mountain that loomed so boldly against the soft light of the evening sky. The man greeted the boy awkwardly, as though unaccustomed to children. But Little Billy, very much at ease, signified his readiness to help the stranger to an intimate acquaintance with the world of which he knew so much more than this big man. He began with no waste of time on mere preliminaries. "See that mountain over there? That's Granite Mountain. There's wild horses live around there, an' sometimes we catch 'em. Bet you don't know that Phil's name is 'Wild Horse Phil'." Patches smiled. "That's a good name for him, isn't it?" "You bet." He turned and pointed eagerly to the west. "There's another mountain over there I bet you don't know the name of." "Which one do you mean? I see several." "That long, black lookin' one. Do you know about it?" "I'm really afraid that I don't." "Well, I'll tell you," said Billy, proud of his superior knowledge. "That there's Tailholt Mountain." "Indeed!" "Yes, and Nick Cambert and Yavapai Joe lives over there. Do you know about them?" The tall man shook his head. "No, I don't believe that I do." Little Billy lowered his voice to a mysterious whisper. "Well, I'll tell you. Only you mus'n't ever say anything 'bout it out loud. Nick and Yavapai is cattle thieves. They been a-brandin' our calves, an' Phil, he's goin' to catch 'em at it some day, an' then they'll wish they hadn't. Phil, he's my pardner, you know." "And a fine pardner, too, I'll bet," returned the stranger, as if not wishing to acquire further information about the men of Tailholt Mountain. "You bet he is," came the instant response. "Only Jim Reid, he don't like him very well." "That's too bad, isn't it?" "Yes. You see, Jim Reid is Kitty's daddy. They live over there." He pointed across the meadow to where, a mile away, a light twinkled in the window of the Pot-Hook-S ranch house. "Kitty Reid's a mighty nice girl, I tell you, but Jim, he says that there needn't no cow-puncher come around tryin' to get her, 'cause she's been away to school, you know, an' I think Phil--" "Whoa! Hold on a minute, sonny," interrupted Patches hastily. "What's the matter?" questioned Little Billy. "Why, it strikes me that a boy with a pardner like 'Wild Horse Phil' ought to be mighty careful about how he talked over that pardner's private affairs with a stranger. Don't you think so?" "Mebby so," agreed Billy. "But you see, I know that Phil wants Kitty 'cause--" "Sh! What in the world is that?" whispered Patches in great fear, catching his small companion by the arm. "That! Don't you know an owl when you hear one? Gee! but you're a tenderfoot, ain't you?" Catching sight of the Dean who was coming toward them, he shouted gleefully. "Uncle Will, Mr. Patches is scared of an owl. What do you know about that; Patches is scared of an owl!" "Your Aunt Stella wants you," laughed the Dean. And Billy ran off to the house to share his joke on the tenderfoot with his Aunt Stella and his "pardner," Phil. "I've got to go to town to-morrow," said the Dean. "I expect you better go along and get your trunk, or whatever you have and some sort of an outfit. You can't work in them clothes." Patches answered hesitatingly. "Why, I think I can get along all right, Mr. Baldwin." "But you'll want your stuff--your trunk or grip--or whatever you've got," returned the Dean. "But I have nothing in Prescott," said the stranger slowly. "You haven't? Well, you'll need an outfit anyway," persisted the cattleman. "Really, I think I can get along for a while," Patches returned diffidently. The Dean considered for a little; then he said with straightforward bluntness, but not at all unkindly, "Look here, young man, you ain't afraid to go to Prescott, are you?" The other laughed. "Not at all, sir. It's not that. I suppose I must tell you now, though. All the clothes I have are on my back, and I haven't a cent in the world with which to buy an outfit, as you call it." The Dean chuckled. "So that's it? I thought mebby you was dodgin' the sheriff. If it's just plain broke that's the matter, why you'll go to town with me in the mornin', an' we'll get what you need. I'll hold it out of your wages until it's paid." As though the matter were settled, he turned back toward the house, adding, "Phil will show you where you're to sleep." When the foreman had shown the new man to his room, the cowboy asked casually, "Found the goat ranch, all right, night before last, did you?" The other hesitated; then he said gravely, "I didn't look for it, Mr. Acton." "You didn't look for it?" "No, sir." "Do you mean to say that you spent the night up there on the Divide without blankets or anything?" "Yes, sir, I did." "And where did you stop last night?" "At Simmons." "Walked, I suppose?" The stranger smiled. "Yes." "But, look here," said the puzzled cowboy, "I don't mean to be asking questions about what is none of my business, but I can't figure it out. If you were coming out here to get a job on the Cross-Triangle, why didn't you go to Mr. Baldwin in town? Anybody could have pointed him out to you. Or, why didn't you say something to me, when we were talking back there on the Divide?" "Why, you see," explained the other lamely, "I didn't exactly want to work on the Cross-Triangle, or anywhere." "But you told Uncle Will that you wanted to work here, and you were on your way when I met you." "Yes, I know, but you see--oh, hang it all, Mr. Acton, haven't you ever wanted to do something that you didn't want to do? Haven't you ever been caught in a corner that you were simply forced to get out of when you didn't like the only way that would get you out? I don't mean anything criminal," he added, with a short laugh. "Yes, I have," returned the other seriously, "and if you don't mind there's no handle to my name. Around here I'm just plain Phil, Mr. Patches." "Thanks. Neither does Patches need decorating." "And now, one more," said Phil, with his winning smile. "Why in the name of all the obstinate fools that roam at large did you walk out here when you must have had plenty of chances to ride?" "Well, you see," said Patches slowly, "I fear I can't explain, but it was just a part of my job." "Your job! But you didn't have any job until this afternoon." "Oh, yes, I did. I had the biggest kind of a job. You see, that's what I was doing on the Divide all night; trying to find some other way to do it." "And do you mind telling me what that job is?" asked Phil curiously. Patches laughed as though at himself. "I don't know that I can, exactly," he said. "I think, perhaps, it's just to ride that big bay horse out there." Phil laughed aloud--a hearty laugh of good-fellowship. "You'll do that all right." "Do you think so, really," asked Patches, eagerly. "Sure; I know it." "I wish I could be sure," returned the strange man doubtfully--and the cowboy, wondering, saw that wistful look in his eyes. "That big devil is a man's horse, all right," mused Phil. "Why, of course--and that's just it--don't you see?" cried the other impulsively. Then, as if he regretted his words, he asked quickly, "Do you name your horses?" "Sure," answered the cowboy; "we generally find something to call them." "And have you named the big bay yet?" Phil laughed. "I named him yesterday, when he broke away as we were bringing the bunch in, and I had to rope him to get him back." "And what did you name him?" "Stranger." "Stranger! And why Stranger?" "Oh, I don't know. Just one of my fool notions," returned Phil. "Good-night!" CHAPTER V. A BIT OF THE PAST. The next morning Mr. Baldwin and Patches set out for town. "I suppose," said the Dean, and a slightly curious tone colored the remark, "that mebby you've been used to automobiles. Buck and Prince here, an' this old buckboard will seem sort of slow to you." Patches was stepping into the rig as the Dean spoke. As the young man took his seat by the cattleman's side, the Dean nodded to Phil who was holding the team. At the signal Phil released the horses' heads and stepped aside, whereupon Buck and Prince, of one mind, looked back over their shoulders, made a few playful attempts to twist themselves out of the harness, lunged forward their length, stood straight up on their hind feet, then sprang away as if they were fully determined to land that buckboard in Prescott within the next fifteen minutes. "Did you say slow?" questioned Patches, as he clung to his seat. The Dean chuckled and favored his new man with a twinkling glance of approval. A few seconds later, on the other side of the sandy wash, the Dean skillfully checked their headlong career, with a narrow margin of safety between the team and the gate. "I reckon we'll get through with less fuss if you'll open it," he said to Patches. Then to Buck and Prince: "Whoa! you blamed fools. Can't you stand a minute?" "Stella's been devilin' me to get a machine ever since Jim Reid got his," he continued, while the horses were repeating their preliminary contortions, and Patches was regaining his seat. "But I told her I'd be scared to death to ride in the fool contraption." At this Buck and Prince, in a wild riot of animal strength and spirit, leaped a slight depression in the road with such vigor that the front wheels of the buckboard left the ground. Patches glanced sidewise at his employer, with a smile of delighted appreciation, but said nothing. The Dean liked him for that. The Dean always insists that the hardest man in the world to talk to is the one who always has something to say for himself. "Why," he continued, with a burst of honest feeling, "if I was ever to bring one of them things home to the Cross-Triangle, I'd be ashamed to look a horse or steer in the face." They dashed through a patch of wild sunflowers that in the bottom lands grow thick and rank; whirled past the tumble-down corner of an old fence that enclosed a long neglected garden; and dashed recklessly through a deserted and weed-grown yard. On one side of the road was the ancient barn and stable, with sagging, weather-beaten roof, leaning walls and battered doors that hung dejectedly on their rusty and broken hinges. The corral stockade was breached in many places by the years that had rotted the posts. The old-time windlass pump that, operated by a blind burro, once lifted water for the long vanished herds, was a pathetic old wreck, incapable now of offering drink to a thirsty sparrow. On their other hand, beneath the wide branches of giant sycamores and walnuts, and backed by a tangled orchard wilderness, stood an old house, empty and neglected, as if in the shadowy gloom of the untrimmed trees it awaited, lonely and forlorn, the kindly hand of oblivion. "This is the old Acton homestead," said the Dean quietly, as one might speak beside an ancient grave. Then as they were driving through the narrow lane that crosses the great meadow, he indicated with a nod of his head group of buildings on the other side of the green fields, and something less than a mile to the south. "That's Jim Reid's place. His iron is the Pot-Hook-S. Jim's stock runs on the old Acton range, but the homestead belongs to Phil yet. Jim Reid's a fine man." The Dean spoke stoutly, almost as though he were making the assertion to convince himself. "Yes, sir, Jim's all right. Good neighbor; good cowman; square as they make 'em. Some folks seem to think he's a mite over-bearin' an' rough-spoken sometimes, and he's kind of quick at suspicionin' everybody; but Jim and me have always got along the best kind." Again the Dean was silent, as though he had forgotten the man beside him in his occupation with thoughts that he could not share. When they had crossed the valley meadows and, climbing the hill on the other side, could see the road for several miles ahead, the Dean pointed to a black object on the next ridge. "There's Jim's automobile now. They're headin' for Prescott, too. Kitty's drivin', I reckon. I tell Stella that that machine and Kitty's learnin' to run the thing is about all the returns that Jim can show for the money he's spent in educatin' her. I don't mean," he added, with a quick look at Patches, as though he feared to be misunderstood, "that Kitty's one of them good-for-nothin' butterfly girls. She ain't that by a good deal. Why, she was raised right here in this neighborhood, an' we love her the same as if she was our own. She can cook a meal or make a dress 'bout as well as her mother, an' does it, too; an' she can ride a horse or throw a rope better'n some punchers I've seen, but--" The Dean stopped, seemingly for want of words to express exactly his thought. "It seems to me," offered Patches abstractedly, "that education, as we call it, is a benefit only when it adds to one's life. If schooling or culture, or whatever you choose to term it, is permitted to rob one of the fundamental and essential elements of life, it is most certainly an evil." "That's the idea," exclaimed the Dean, with frank admiration for his companion's ability to say that which he himself thought. "You say it like a book. But that's it. It ain't the learnin' an' all the stuff that Kitty got while she was at school that's worryin' us. It's what she's likely to lose through gettin' 'em. This here modern, down-to-the-minute, higher livin', loftier sphere, intellectual supremacy idea is all right if folks'll just keep their feet on the ground. "You take Stella an' me now. I know we're old fashioned an' slow an' all that, an' we've seen a lot of hardships since we was married over in Skull Valley where she was born an' raised. She was just a girl then, an' I was only a kid, punchin' steers for a livin'. I suppose we've seen about as hard times as anybody. At least that's what they would be called now. But, hell, _we_ didn't think nothin' of it then; we was happy, sir, and we've been happy for over forty year. I tell you, sir, we've lived--just lived every minute, and that's a blamed sight more than a lot of these higher-cultured, top-lofty, half-dead couples that marry and separate, and separate and marry again now-a-days can say. "No, sir, 'tain't what a man gets that makes him rich; it's what he keeps. And these folks that are swoppin' the old-fashioned sort of love that builds homes and raises families and lets man and wife work together, an' meet trouble together, an' be happy together, an' grow old bein' happy together--if they're swoppin' all that for these here new, down-to-date ideas of such things, they're makin' a damned poor bargain, accordin' to my way of thinkin'. There is such a thing, sir, as educatin' a man or woman plumb out of reach of happiness. "Look at our Phil," the Dean continued, for the man beside him was a wonderful listener. "There just naturally couldn't be a better all round man than Phil Acton. He's healthy; don't know what it is to have an hour's sickness; strong as a young bull; clean, honest, square, no bad habits, a fine worker, an' a fine thinker, too--even if he ain't had much schoolin', he's read a lot. Take him any way you like--just as a man, I mean--an' that's the way you got to take 'em--there ain't a better man that Phil livin'. Yet a lot of these folks would say he's nothin' but a cow-puncher. As for that, Jim Reid ain't much more than a cow-puncher himself. I tell you, I've seen cow-punchers that was mighty good men, an' I've seen graduates from them there universities that was plumb good for nothin'--with no more real man about 'em than there is about one of these here wax dummies that they hang clothes on in the store windows. What any self-respectin' woman can see in one of them that would make her want to marry him is more than I've ever been able to figger out." If the Dean had not been so engrossed in his own thoughts, he would have wondered at the strange effect of his words upon his companion. The young man's face flushed scarlet, then paled as though with sudden illness, and he looked sidewise at the older man with an expression of shame and humiliation, while his eyes, wistful and pleading, were filled with pain. Honorable Patches who had won the admiration of those men in the Cross-Triangle corrals was again the troubled, shamefaced, half-frightened creature whom Phil met on the Divide. But the good Dean did not see, and so, encouraged by the other's silence, he continued his dissertation. "Of course, I don't mean to say that education and that sort of thing spoils every man. Now, there's young Stanford Manning--" If the Dean had suddenly fired a gun at Patches, the young man could not have shown greater surprise and consternation. "Stanford Manning!" he gasped. At his tone the Dean turned to look at him curiously. "I mean Stanford Manning, the mining engineer," he explained. "Do you know him?" "I have heard of him," Patches managed to reply. "Well," continued the Dean, "he came out to this country about three years ago--straight from college--and he has sure made good. He's got the education an' culture an' polish an' all that, an' with it he can hold his own among any kind or sort of men livin'. There ain't a man--cow-puncher, miner or anything else--in Yavapai County that don't take off his hat to Stanford Manning." "Is he in this country now?" asked Patches, with an effort at self-control that the Dean did not notice. "No, I understand his Company called him back East about a month ago. Goin' to send him to some of their properties up in Montana, I heard." When his companion made no comment, the Dean said reflectively, as Buck and Prince climbed slowly up the grade to the summit of the Divide, "I'll tell you, son, I've seen a good many changes in this country. I can remember when there wasn't a fence in all Yavapai County--hardly in the Territory. And now--why the last time I drove over to Skull Valley I got so tangled up in 'em that I plumb lost myself. When Phil's daddy an' me was youngsters we used to ride from Camp Verde and Flagstaff clean to Date Creek without ever openin' a gate. But I can't see that men change much, though. They're good and bad, just like they've always been--an' I reckon always will be. There's been leaders and weaklin's and just betwixt and betweens in every herd of cattle or band of horses that ever I owned. You take Phil, now. He's exactly like his daddy was before him." "His father must have been a fine man," said Patches, with quiet earnestness. The Dean looked at him with an approving twinkle. "Fine?" For a few minutes, as they were rounding the turn of the road on the summit of the Divide where Phil and the stranger had met, the Dean looked away toward Granite Mountain. Then, as if thinking aloud, rather than purposely addressing his companion, he said, "John Acton--Honest John, as everybody called him--and I came to this country together when we were boys. Walked in, sir, with some pioneers from Kansas. We kept in touch with each other all the while we was growin' to be men; punched cattle for the same outfits most of the time; even did most of our courtin' together, for Phil's mother an' Stella were neighbors an' great friends over in Skull Valley. When we'd finally saved enough to get started we located homesteads close together back there in the Valley, an' as soon as we could get some sort of shacks built we married the girls and set up housekeepin'. Our stock ranged together, of course, but John sort of took care of the east side of the meadows an' I kept more to the west. When the children came along--John an' Mary had three before Phil, but only Phil lived--an' the stock had increased an' we'd built some decent houses, things seemed to be about as fine as possible. Then John went on a note for a man in Prescott. I tried my best to keep him out of it, but, shucks! he just laughed at me. You see, he was one of the best hearted men that ever lived--one of those men, you know, that just naturally believes in everybody. "Well, it wound up after a-while by John losin' mighty nigh everything. We managed to save the homestead, but practically all the stock had to go. An' it wasn't more than a year after that till Mary died. We never did know just what was the matter with her--an' after that it seemed like John never was the same. He got killed in the rodeo that same fall--just wasn't himself somehow. I was with him when he died. "Stella and me raised Phil--we don't know any difference between him and one of our own boys. The old homestead is his, of course, but Jim Reid's stock runs on the old range. Phil's got a few head that he works with mine--a pretty good bunch by now--for he's kept addin' to what his father left, an' I've paid him wages ever since he was big enough. Phil don't say much, even to Stella an' me, but I know he's figurin' on fixin' up the old home place some day." After a long silence the Dean said again, as if voicing some conclusion of his unspoken thoughts: "Jim Reid is pretty well fixed, you see, an' Kitty bein' the only girl, it's natural, I reckon, that they should have ideas about her future, an' all that. I reckon it's natural, too, that the girl should find ranch life away out here so far from anywhere, a little slow after her three years at school in the East. She never says it, but somehow you can most always tell what Kitty's thinkin' without her speakin' a word." "I have known people like that," said Patches, probably because there was so little that he could say. "Yes, an' when you know Kitty, you'll say, like I always have, that if there's a man in Yavapai County that wouldn't ride the hoofs off the best horse in his outfit, night or day, to win a smile from her, he ought to be lynched." That afternoon in Prescott they purchased an outfit for Patches, and the following day set out for the long return drive to the ranch. They had reached the top of the hill at the western end of the meadow lane, when they saw a young woman, on a black horse, riding away from the gate that opens from the lane into the Pot-Hook-S meadow pasture, toward the ranch buildings on the farther side of the field. As they drove into the yard at home, it was nearly supper time, and the men were coming from the corrals. "Kitty's been over all the afternoon," Little Billy informed them promptly. "I told her all about you, Patches. She says she's just dyin' to see you." Phil joined in the laugh, but Patches fancied that there was a shadow in the cowboy's usually sunny eyes as the young man looked at him to say, "That big horse of yours sure made me ride some to-day." CHAPTER VI. THE DRIFT FENCE. The education of Honorable Patches was begun without further delay. Because Phil's time was so fully occupied with his four-footed pupils, the Dean himself became the stranger's teacher, and all sorts of odd jobs about the ranch, from cleaning the pig pen to weeding the garden, were the text books. The man balked at nothing. Indeed, he seemed to find a curious, grim satisfaction in accomplishing the most menial and disagreeable tasks; and when he made mistakes, as he often did, he laughed at himself with such bitter, mocking humor that the Dean wondered. "He's got me beat," the Dean confided to Stella. "There ain't nothin' that he won't tackle, an' I'm satisfied that the man never did a stroke of work before in his life. But he seems to be always tryin' experiments with himself, like he expected himself to play the fool one way or another, an' wanted to see if he would, an' then when he don't he's as surprised and tickled as a kid." The Dean himself was not at all above assisting his new man in those experiments, and so it happened that day when Patches had been set to repairing the meadow pasture fence near the lower corrals. The Dean, riding out that way to see how his pupil was progressing, noticed a particularly cross-tempered shorthorn bull that had wandered in from the near-by range to water at the house corral. But Phil and his helpers were in possession of the premises near the watering trough, and his shorthorn majesty was therefore even more than usual out of patience with the whole world. The corrals were between the bull and Patches, so that the animal had not noticed the man, and the Dean, chuckling to himself, and without attracting Patches' attention, quietly drove the ill-tempered beast into the enclosure and shut the gate. Then, riding around the corral, the Dean called to the young man. When Patches stood beside his employer, the cattleman said, "Here's a blamed old bull that don't seem to be feelin' very well. I got him into the corral all right, but I'm so fat I can't reach him from the saddle. I wish you'd just halter him with this rope, so I can lead him up to the house and let Phil and the boys see what's wrong with him." Patches took the rope and started toward the corral gate. "Shall I put it around his neck and make a hitch over his nose, like you do a horse?" he asked, glad for the opportunity to exhibit his newly acquired knowledge of ropes and horses and things. "No, just tie it around his horns," the Dean answered. "He'll come, all right." The bull, seeing a man on foot at the entrance to his prison, rumbled a deep-voiced threat, and pawed the earth with angry strength. For an instant, Patches, with his hand on the latch of the gate, paused to glance from the dangerous-looking animal, that awaited his coming, to the Dean who sat on his horse just outside the fence. Then he slipped inside the corral and closed the gate behind him. The bull gazed at him a moment as if amazed at the audacity of this mere human, then lowered his head for the charge. "Climb that gate, quick," yelled the Dean at the critical moment. And Patches climbed--not a second too soon. From his position of safety he smiled cheerfully at the Dean. "He came all right, didn't he?" The Dean's full rounded front and thick shoulders shook with laughter, while Señor Bull dared the man on the gate to come down. "You crazy fool," said the Dean admiringly, when he could speak. "Didn't you know any better than to go in there on foot?" "But you said you wanted him," returned the chagrined Patches. "What I wanted," chuckled the Dean, "was to see if you had nerve enough to tackle him." "To tell the truth," returned Patches, with a happy laugh, "that's exactly what interested me." But, while the work assigned to Patches during those first days of his stay on the Cross-Triangle was chiefly those odd jobs which called for little or no experience, his higher education was by no means neglected. A wise and gentle old cow-horse was assigned to him, and the Dean taught him the various parts of his equipment, their proper use, and how to care for them. And every day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes late in the afternoon, the master found some errand or business that would necessitate his pupil riding with him. When Phil or Mrs. Baldwin would inquire about the Dean's kindergarten, as they called it, the Dean would laugh with them, but always he would say stoutly, "Just you wait. He'll be as near ready for the rodeo this fall as them pupils in that kindergarten of Phil's. He takes to ridin' like the good Lord had made him specially for that particular job. He's just a natural-born horseman, or I don't know men. He's got the sense, he's got the nerve, an' he's got the disposition. He's goin' to make a top hand in a few months, if"--he always added with twinkling eyes--"he don't get himself killed tryin' some fool experiment on himself." "I notice just the same that he always has plenty of help in his experimentin'," Mrs. Baldwin would return dryly, which saying indicted not only the Dean but Phil and every man on the Cross-Triangle, including Little Billy. Then came that day when Patches was given a task that--the Dean assured him--is one of the duties of even the oldest and best qualified cowboys. Patches was assigned to the work of fenceriding. But when the Dean rode out with his pupil early that morning to where the drift fence begins at the corner of the big pasture, and explained that "riding a fence" meant, in ranch language, looking for breaks and repairing any such when found, he did not explain the peculiarities of that particular kind of fence. "I told him to be sure and be back by night," he chuckled, as he explained Patches' absence at dinner to the other members of the household. "That was downright mean of you, Will Baldwin," chided Stella, with her usual motherly interest in the comfort of her boys. "You know the poor fellow will lose himself, sure, out in that wild Tailholt Mountain country." The boys laughed. "We'll find him in the morning, all right, mother," reassured Phil. "He can follow the fence back, can't he?" retorted the Dean. "Or, as far as that goes, old Snip will bring him home." "If he knows enough to figger it out, or to let Snip have his head," said Curly. "At any rate," the Dean maintained, "he'll learn somethin' about the country, an' he'll learn somethin' about fences, an' mebby he'll learn somethin' about horses. An' we'll see whether he can use his own head or not. There's nothin' like givin' a man a chance to find out things for himself sometimes. Besides, think what a chance he'll have for some of his experiments! I'll bet a yearling steer that when we do see him again, he'll be tickled to death at himself an' wonderin' how he had the nerve to do it." "To do what?" asked Mrs. Baldwin. "I don't know what," chuckled the Dean; "but he's bound to do some fool thing or other just to see if he can, and it'll be somethin' that nobody but him would ever think of doin', too." But Honorable Patches did not get lost that day--that is, not too badly lost. There was a time, though--but that does not belong just here. Patches was very well pleased with the task assigned to him that morning. For the first time he found himself trusted alone with a horse, on a mission that would keep him the full day in the saddle, and would take him beyond sight of the ranch house. Very bravely he set out, equipped with his cowboy regalia--except the riata, which the Dean, fearing experiments, had, at the last moment, thoughtfully borrowed--and armed with a fencing tool and staples. He was armed, too, with a brand-new "six-gun" in a spick and span holster, on a shiny belt of bright cartridges. The Dean had insisted on this, alleging that the embryo cowboy might want it to kill a sick cow or something. Patches wondered if he would know a sick cow if he should meet one, or how he was to diagnose the case to ascertain if she were sick enough to kill. The first thing he did, when the Dean was safely out of sight, was to dismount and examine his saddle girth. Always your real king of the cattle range is careful for the foundation of his throne. But there was no awkwardness, now, when he again swung to his seat. The young man was in reality a natural athlete. His work had already taken the soreness and stiffness out of his unaccustomed muscles, and he seemed, as the Dean had said, a born horseman. And as he rode, he looked about over the surrounding country with an expression on independence, freedom and fearlessness very different from the manner of the troubled man who had faced Phil Acton that night on the Divide. It was as though the spirit of the land was already working its magic within this man, too. He patted the holster at his side, felt the handle of the gun, lovingly fingered the bright cartridges in his shiny belt, leaned sidewise to look admiringly down at his fringed, leather chaps and spur ornamented boot heels, and wished for his riata--not forgetting, meanwhile, to scan the fence for places that might need his attention. The guardian angel who cares for the "tenderfoot" was good to Patches that day, and favored him with many sagging wires and leaning or broken posts, so that he could not ride far. Being painstaking and conscientious in his work, he had made not more than four miles by the beginning of the afternoon. Then he found a break that would occupy him for two hours at least. With rueful eyes he surveyed the long stretch of dilapidated fence. It was time, he reflected, that the Dean sent someone to look after his property, and dismounting, he went to work, forgetting, in his interest in the fencing problem, to insure his horse's near-by attendance. Now, the best of cow-horses are not above taking advantage of their opportunities. Perhaps Snip felt that fenceriding with a tenderfoot was a little beneath the dignity of his cattle-punching years. Perhaps he reasoned that this man who was always doing such strange things was purposely dismissing him. Perhaps he was thinking of the long watering trough and the rich meadow grass at home. Or, perhaps again, the wise old Snip, feeling the responsibility of his part in training the Dean's pupil, merely thought to give his inexperienced master a lesson. However it happened, Patches looked up from his work some time later to find himself alone. In consternation, he stood looking about, striving to catch a glimpse of the vanished Snip. Save a lone buzzard that wheeled in curious circles above his head there was no living thing in sight. As fast as his heavy, leather chaps and high-heeled, spur-ornamented boots would permit, he ran to the top of a knoll a hundred yards or so away. The wider range of country that came thus within the circle of his vision was as empty as it was silent. The buzzard wheeled nearer--the strange looking creature beneath it seemed so helpless that there might be in the situation something of vital interest to the tribe. Even buzzards must be about their business. There are few things more humiliating to professional riders of the range than to be left afoot; and while Patches was far too much a novice to have acquired the peculiar and traditional tastes and habits of the clan of which he had that morning felt himself a member, he was, in this, the equal of the best of them. He thought of himself walking shamefaced into the presence of the Dean and reporting the loss of the horse. The animal might be recovered, he supposed, for he was still, Patches thought, inside the pasture which that fence enclosed. Still there was a chance that the runaway would escape through some break and never be found. In any case the vision of the grinning cowboys was not an attractive one. But at least, thought the amateur cowboy, he would finish the work entrusted to him. He might lose a horse for the Dean, but the Dean's fence should be repaired. So he set to work with a will, and, finishing that particular break, set out on foot to follow the fence around the field and so back to the lane that would lead him to the buildings and corrals of the home ranch. For an hour he trudged along, making hard work of it in his chaps, boots, and spurs, stopping now and then to drive a staple or brace a post. The country was growing wilder and more broken, with cedar timber on the ridges and here and there a pine. Occasionally he could catch a glimpse of the black, forbidding walls of Tailholt Mountain. But Patches did not know that it was Tailholt. He only thought that he knew in which direction the home ranch lay. It seemed to him that it was a long, long way to the corner of the field--it must be a big pasture, indeed. The afternoon was well on when he paused on the summit of another ridge to rest. It, seemed to him that he had never in all his life been quite so warm. His legs ached. He was tired and thirsty and hungry. It was so still that the silence hurt, and that fence corner was nowhere in sight. He could not, now reach home before dark, even should he turn back; which, he decided grimly, he would not do. He would ride that fence if he camped three nights on the journey. Suddenly he sprang to his feet, waving his hat, hallooing and yelling like a madman. Two horsemen were riding on the other side of the fence, along the slope of the next ridge, at the edge of the timber. In vain Patches strove to attract their attention. If they heard him, they gave no sign, and presently he saw them turn, ride in among the cedars, and disappear. In desperation he ran along the fence, down the hill, across the narrow little valley, and up the ridge over which the riders had gone. On the top of the ridge he stopped again, to spend the last of his breath in another series of wild shouts. But there was no answer. Nor could he be sure, even, which way the horsemen had gone. Dropping down in the shade of a cedar, exhausted by his strenuous exertion, and wet with honest perspiration, he struggled for breath and fanned his hot face with his hat. Perhaps he even used some of the cowboy words that he had heard Curly and Bob employ when Little Billy was not around After the noise of his frantic efforts, the silence was more oppressive than ever. The Cross-Triangle ranch house was, somewhere, endless miles away. Then a faint sound in the narrow valley below him caught his ear. Turning quickly, he looked back the way he had come. Was he dreaming, or was it all just a part of the magic of that wonderful land? A young woman was riding toward him--coming at an easy swinging lope--and, following, at the end of a riata, was the cheerfully wise and philosophic Snip. Patches' first thought--when he had sufficiently recovered I from his amazement to think at all--was that the woman rode as he had never seen a woman ride before. Dressed in the divided skirt of corduroy, the loose, soft, gray shirt, gauntleted gloves, mannish felt hat, and boots, usual to Arizona horsewomen, she seemed as much at ease in the saddle as any cowboy in the land; and, indeed, she was. As she came up the slope, the man in the shade of the cedar saw that she was young. Her lithe, beautifully developed body yielded to the movement of the spirited horse she rode with the unspoiled grace of health and youth. Still nearer, and he saw her clear cheeks glowing with the exercise and excitement, her soft, brown hair under the wide brim of the gray sombrero, and her dark eyes, shining with the fun of her adventure. Then she saw him, and smiled; and Patches remembered what the Dean had said: "If there's a man in Yavapai County who wouldn't ride the hoofs off the best horse in his outfit to win a smile from Kitty Reid, he ought to be lynched." As the man stood, hat in hand, she checked her horse, and, in a voice that matched the smile so full of fun and the clean joy of living greeted him. "You are Mr. Honorable Patches, are you not?" Patches bowed. "Miss Reid, I believe?" She frankly looked her surprise. "Why, how did you know me?" "Your good friend, Mr. Baldwin, described you," he smiled. She colored and laughed to hide her slight embarrassment. "The dear old Dean is prejudiced, I fear." "Prejudiced he may be," Patches admitted, "but his judgement is unquestionable. And," he added gently, as her face grew grave and her chin lifted slightly, "his confidence in any man might be considered an endorsement, don't you think?" "Indeed, yes," she agreed heartily, her slight coldness vanishing instantly. "The Dean and Stella told me all about you this afternoon, or I should not have ventured to introduce myself. I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Patches," she finished with a mock formality that was delightful. "And I am delighted to meet you, Miss Reid, for so many reasons that I can't begin to tell you of them," he responded laughing. "And now, may I ask what good magic brings you like a fairy in the story book to the rescue of a poor stranger in the hour of his despair? Where did you find my faithless Snip? How did you know where to find me? Where is the Cross-Triangle Ranch? How many miles is it to the nearest water? Is it possible for me to get home in time for supper?" Looking down at him she laughed as only Kitty Reid could laugh. "You're making fun of me," he charged; "they all do. And I don't blame them in the least; I have been laughing at myself all day." "I'll answer your last question first," she returned. "Yes, you can easily reach the Cross-Triangle in time for supper, if you start at once. I will explain the magic as we ride." "You are going to show me the way?" he cried eagerly, starting toward his horse. "I really think it would be best," she said demurely. "Now I know you are a good fairy, or a guardian angel, or something like that," he returned, setting his foot in the stirrup to mount. Then suddenly he paused, with, "Wait a minute, please. I nearly forgot." And very carefully he examined the saddle girth to see that it was tight. "If you had remembered to throw your bridle rein over Snip's head when you left him, you wouldn't have needed a guardian angel this time," she said. He looked at her blankly over the patient Snip's back. "And so that was what made him go away? I knew I had done some silly thing that I ought not. That's the only thing about myself that I am always perfectly sure of," he added as he mounted. "You see I can always depend upon myself to make a fool of myself. It was that bad place in the fence that did it." He pulled up his horse suddenly as they were starting. "And that reminds me; there is one thing you positively must tell me before I can go a foot, even toward supper. How much farther is it to the corner of this field?" She looked at him in pretty amazement. "To the corner of this field?" "Yes, I knew, of course, that if I followed the fence it was bound to lead me around the field and so back to where I started. That's why I kept on; I thought I could finish the job and get home, even if Snip did compel me to ride the fence on foot." "But don't you know that this is a drift fence?" she asked, her eyes dancing with fun. "That's what the Dean called it," he admitted. "But if it's drifting anywhere, it's going end on. Perhaps that's why I couldn't catch the corner." "But there is no corner to a drift fence," she cried. "No corner?" She shook her head as if not trusting herself to speak. "And it doesn't go around anything--there is no field?" Again she shook her head. "Just runs away out in the country somewhere and stops?" She nodded. "It must be eighteen or twenty miles from here to the end." "Well, of all the silly fences!" he exclaimed, looking away to the mountain peaks toward which he had been so laboriously making his way. "Honestly, now, do you think that is any way for a respectable fence to act? And the Dean told me to be sure and get home before dark!" Then they laughed together--laughed until their horses must have wondered. As they rode on, she explained the purpose of the drift fence, and how it came to an end so many miles away and so far from water that the cattle do not usually find their way around it. "And now the magic!" he said. "You have made a most unreasonable, unconventional and altogether foolish fence appear reasonable, proper and perfectly sane. Please explain your coming with Snip to my relief." "Which was also unreasonable, unconventional and altogether foolish?" she questioned. "Which was altogether wonderful, unexpected and delightful," he retorted. "It is all perfectly simple," she explained. "Being rather--" She hesitated. "Well, rather sick of too much of nothing at all, you know, I went over to the Cross-Triangle right after dinner to visit a little with Stella--professionally." "Professionally?" he asked. She nodded brightly. "For the good of my soul. Stella's a famous soul doctor. The best ever except one, and she lives far away--away back east in Cleveland, Ohio." "Yes, I know her, too," he said gravely. And while they laughed at the absurdity of his assertion, they did not know until long afterward how literally true it was. "Of course, I knew about you," she continued. "Phil told me how you tried to ride that unbroken horse, the last time he was at our house. Phil thinks you are quite a wonderful man." "No doubt," said Patches mockingly. "I must have given a remarkable exhibition on that occasion." He was wondering just how much Phil had told her. "And so, you see," she continued, "I couldn't very well help being interested in the welfare of the stranger who had come among us. Besides, our traditional western hospitality demanded it; don't you think?" "Oh, certainly, certainly. You could really do nothing less than inquire about me," he agreed politely. "And so, you see, Stella quite restored my soul health; or at least afforded me temporary relief." He met the quizzing, teasing, laughing look in her eyes blankly. "You are making fun of me again," he said humbly. "I know I ought to laugh at myself, but--" "Why, don't you understand?" she cried. "Dr. Stella administered a generous dose of talk about the only new thing that has happened in this neighborhood for months and months and months." "Meaning me?" he asked. "Well, are you not?" she retorted. "I guess I am," he smiled. "Well, and then what?" "Why, then I came away, feeling much better, of course." "Yes?" "I was feeling so much better I decided I would go home a roundabout way; perhaps to the top of Black Hill; perhaps up Horse Wash, where I might meet father, who would be on his way home from Fair Oaks where he went this morning." "I see." "Well, so I met Snip, who was on his way to the Cross-Triangle. I knew, of course, that old Snip would be your horse." She smiled, as though to rob her words of any implied criticism of his horsemanship. "Exactly," he agreed understandingly. "And I was afraid that something might have happened; though I couldn't see how that could be, either, with Snip. And so I caught him--" He interrupted eagerly. "How?" "Why, with my riata," she returned, in a matter-of-fact tone, wondering at his question. "You caught my horse with your riata?" he repeated slowly. "And pray how should I have caught him?" she asked. "But--but, didn't he _run_?" She laughed. "Of course he ran. They all do that once they get away from you. But Snip never could outrun my Midnight," she retorted. He shook his head slowly, looking at her with frank admiration, as though, for the first time, he understood what a rare and wonderful creature she was. "And you can ride and rope like that?" he said doubtfully. She flushed hotly, and there was a spark of fire in the brown eyes. "I suppose you are thinking that I am coarse and mannish and all that," she said with spirit. "By your standards, Mr. Patches, I should have ridden back to the house, screaming, ladylike, for help." "No, no," he protested. "That's not fair. I was thinking how wonderful you are. Why, I would give--what wouldn't I give to be able to do a thing like that!" There was no mistaking his earnestness, and Kitty was all sunshine again, pardoning him with a smile. "You see," she explained, "I have always lived here, except my three years at school. Father taught me to use a riata, as he taught me to ride and shoot, because--well--because it's all a part of this life, and very useful sometimes; just as it is useful to know about hotels and time-tables and taxicabs, in that other part of the world." "I understand," he said gently. "It was stupid of me to notice it. I beg your pardon for interrupting the story of my rescue. You had just roped Snip while he was doing his best to outrun Midnight--simple and easy as calling a taxi--'Number Two Thousand Euclid Avenue, please'--and there you are." "Oh, do you know Cleveland?" she cried. For an instant he was confused. Then he said easily, "Everybody has heard of the famous Euclid Avenue. But how did you guess where Snip had left me?" "Why, Stella had told me that you were riding the drift fence," she answered, tactfully ignoring the evasion of her question. "I just followed the fence. So there was no magic about it at all, you see." "I'm not so sure about the magic," he returned slowly. "This is such a wonderful country--to me--that one can never be quite sure about anything. At least, I can't. But perhaps that's because I am such a new thing." "And do you like it?" she asked, frankly curious about him. "Like being a new thing?" he parried. "Yes and No." "I mean do you like this wonderful country, as you call it?" "I admire the people who belong to it tremendously," he returned. "I never met such men before--or such women," he finished with a smile. "But, do you like it?" she persisted. "Do you like the life--your work--would you be satisfied to live here always?" "Yes and No," he answered again, hesitatingly. "Oh, well," she said, with, he thought, a little bitterness and rebellion, "it doesn't really matter to you whether you like it or not, because _you_ are a man. If you are not satisfied with your environment, you can leave it--go away somewhere else--make yourself a part of some other life." He shook his head, wondering a little at her earnestness. "That does not always follow. Can a man, just because he is a man, always have or do just what he likes?" "If he's strong enough," she insisted. "But a woman must always do what other people like." He was sure now that she was speaking rebelliously. She continued, "Can't you, if you are not satisfied with this life here, go away?" "Yes, but not necessarily to any life I might desire. Perhaps some sheriff wants me. Perhaps I am an escaped convict. Perhaps--oh, a thousand things." She laughed aloud in spite of her serious mood. "What nonsense!" "But, why nonsense? What do you and your friends know of me?" "We know that you are not that kind of a man," she retorted warmly, "because"--she hesitated--"well, because you are _not_ that sort of a man." "Are you sure you don't mean because I am not man enough to make myself wanted very badly, even by the sheriff?" he asked, and Kitty could not mistake the bitterness in his voice. "Why, Mr. Patches!" she cried. "How could you think I meant such a thing? Forgive me! I was only wondering foolishly what you, a man of education and culture, could find in this rough life that would appeal to you in any way. My curiosity is unpardonable, I suppose, but you must know that we are all wondering why you are here." "I do not blame you," he returned, with that self-mocking smile, as though he were laughing at himself. "I told you I could always be depended upon to make a fool of myself. You see I am doing it now. I don't mind telling you this much--that I am here for the same reason that you went to visit Mrs. Baldwin this afternoon." "For the good of your soul?" she asked gently. "Exactly," he returned gravely. "For the good of my soul." "Well, then, Mr. Honorable Patches, here's to your soul's good health!" she cried brightly, checking her horse and holding out her hand. "We part here. You can see the Cross-Triangle buildings yonder. I go this way." He looked his pleasure, as he clasped her hand in hearty understanding of the friendship offered. "Thank you, Miss Reid. I still maintain that the Dean's judgment is unquestionable." She was not at all displeased with his reply. "By the way," she said, as if to prove her friendship. "I suppose you know what to expect from Uncle Will and the boys when they learn of your little adventure?" "I do," he answered, as if resigned to anything. "And do you enjoy making fun for them?" "I assure you, Miss Reid, I am very human." "Well, then, why don't you turn the laugh on them?" "But how?" "They are expecting you to get into some sort of a scrape, don't you think?" "They are always expecting that. And," he added, with that droll touch in his voice, "I must say I rarely disappoint them." "I suspect," she continued, thoughtfully, "that the Dean purposely did not explain that drift fence to you." "He has established precedents that would justify my thinking so, I'll admit." "Well, then, why don't you ride cheerfully home and report the progress of your work as though nothing had happened?" "You mean that you won't tell?" he cried. She nodded gaily. "I told them this afternoon that it wasn't fair for you to have no one but Stella on your side." "What a good Samaritan you are! You put me under an everlasting obligation to you." "All right," she laughed. "I'm glad you feel that way about it. I shall hold that debt against you until some day when I am in dreadful need, and then I shall demand payment in full. Good-by!" And once again Kitty had spoken, in jest, words that held for them both, had they but known, great significance. Patches watched until she was out of sight. Then he made his way happily to the house to receive, with a guilty conscience but with a light heart, congratulations and compliments upon his safe return. That evening Phil disappeared somewhere, in the twilight. And a little later Jim Reid rode into the Cross-Triangle dooryard. The owner of the Pot-Hook-S was a big man, tall and heavy, outspoken and somewhat gruff, with a manner that to strangers often seemed near to overbearing. When Patches was introduced, the big cattleman looked him over suspiciously, spoke a short word in response to Patches' commonplace, and abruptly turned his back to converse with the better-known members of the household. For an hour, perhaps, they chatted about matters of general interest, as neighbors will; then the caller arose to go, and the Dean walked with him to his horse. When the two men were out of hearing of the people on the porch Reid asked in a low voice, "Noticed any stock that didn't look right lately, Will?" "No. You see, we haven't been ridin' scarcely any since the Fourth. Phil and the boys have been busy with the horses every day, an' this new man don't count, you know." "Who is he, anyway?" asked Reid bluntly. "I don't know any more than that he says his name is Patches." "Funny name," grunted Jim. "Yes, but there's a lot of funny names, Jim," the Dean answered quietly. "I don't know as Patches is any funnier than Skinner or Foote or Hogg, or a hundred other names, when you come to think about it. We ain't just never happened to hear it before, that's all." "Where did you pick him up?" "He just came along an' wanted work. He's green as they make 'em, but willin', an' he's got good sense, too." "I'd go slow 'bout takin' strangers in," said the big man bluntly. "Shucks!" retorted the Dean. "Some of the best men I ever had was strangers when I hired 'em. Bein' a stranger ain't nothin' against a man. You and me would be strangers if we was to go many miles from Williamson Valley. Patches is a good man, I tell you. I'll stand for him, all right. Why, he's been out all day, alone, ridin' the drift fence, just as good any old-timer." "The drift fence!" "Yes, it's in pretty bad shape in places." "Yes, an' I ran onto a calf over in Horse Wash, this afternoon, not four hundred yards from the fence on the Tailholt side, fresh-branded with the Tailholt iron, an' I'll bet a thousand dollars it belongs to a Cross-Triangle cow." "What makes you think it was mine?" asked the Dean calmly. "Because it looked mighty like some of your Hereford stock, an' because I came on through the Horse Wash gate, an' about a half mile on this side, I found one of your cows that had just lost her calf." "They know we're busy an' ain't ridin' much, I reckon," mused the Dean. "If I was you, I'd put some hand that I knew to ridin' that drift fence," returned Jim significantly, as he mounted his horse to go. "You're plumb wrong, Jim," returned the Dean earnestly. "Why, the man don't know a Cross-Triangle from a Five-Bar, or a Pot-Hook-S." "It's your business, Will; I just thought I'd tell you," growled Reid. "Good-night!" "Good-night, Jim! I'm much obliged to you for ridin' over." CHAPTER VII. THINGS THAT ENDURE. When Kitty Reid told Patches that it was her soul sickness, from too much of nothing at all, that had sent her to visit Mrs. Baldwin that afternoon, she had spoken more in earnest than in jest. More than this, she had gone to the Cross-Triangle hoping to meet the stranger, of whom she had heard so much. Phil had told Kitty that she would like Patches. As Phil had put it, the man spoke her language; he could talk to her of people and books and those things of which the Williamson Valley folk knew so little. But as she rode slowly homeward after leaving Patches, she found herself of two minds regarding the incident. She had enjoyed meeting the man; he had interested and amused her; had taken her out of herself, for she was not slow to recognize that the man really did belong to that world which was so far from the world of her childhood. And she was glad for the little adventure that, for one afternoon, at least, had broken the dull, wearying monotony of her daily life. But the stranger, by the very fact of his belonging to that other world, had stimulated her desire for those things which in her home life and environment she so greatly missed. He had somehow seemed to magnify the almost unbearable commonplace narrowness of her daily routine. He had made her even more restless, disturbed and dissatisfied. It had been to her as when one in some foreign country meets a citizen from one's old home town. And for this Kitty was genuinely sorry. She did not wish to feel as she did about her home and the things that made the world of those she loved. She had tried honestly to still the unrest and to deny the longing. She had wished many times, since her return from the East, that she had never left her home for those three years in school. And yet, those years had meant much to her; they had been wonderful years; but they seemed, somehow--now that they were past and she was home again--to have brought her only that unrest and longing. From the beginning of her years until that first great crisis in her life--her going away to school--this world into which she was born had been to Kitty an all-sufficient world. The days of her childhood had been as carefree and joyous, almost, as the days of the young things of her father's roaming herds. As her girlhood years advanced, under her mother's wise companionship and careful teaching, she had grown into her share of the household duties and into a knowledge of woman's part in the life to which she belonged, as naturally as her girlish form had put on the graces of young womanhood. The things that filled the days of her father and mother, and the days of her neighbors and friends, had filled her days. The things that were all in all to those she loved had been all in all to her. And always, through those years, from her earliest childhood to her young womanhood, there was Phil, her playmate, schoolmate, protector, hero, slave. That Phil should be her boy sweetheart and young man lover had seemed as natural to Kitty as her relation to her parents. There had never been anyone else but Phil. There never could be--she was sure, in those days--anyone else. In Kitty's heart that afternoon, as she rode, so indifferent to the life that called from every bush and tree and grassy hill and distant mountain, there was sweet regret, deep and sincere, for those years that were now, to her, so irrevocably gone. Kitty did not know how impossible it was for her to ever wholly escape the things that belonged to her childhood and youth. Those things of her girlhood, out of which her heart and soul had been fashioned, were as interwoven in the fabric of her being as the vitality, strength and purity of the clean, wholesome, outdoor life of those same years were wrought into the glowing health and vigor and beauty of her physical womanhood. And then had come those other years--the maturing, ripening years--when, from the simple, primitive and enduring elements of life, she had gone to live amid complex, cultivated and largely fanciful standards and values. In that land of Kitty's birth a man is measured by the measure of his manhood; a woman is ranked by the quality of her womanhood. Strength and courage, sincerity, honesty, usefulness--these were the prime essentials of the man life that Kitty had, in those years of her girlhood, known; and these, too, in their feminine expressions, were the essentials of the woman life. But from these the young woman had gone to be educated in a world where other things are of first importance. She had gone to be taught that these are not the essential elements of manhood and womanhood. Or, at least, if she was not to be deliberately so taught, these things would be so ignored and neglected and overlooked in her training, that the effect on her character would be the same. In that new world she was to learn that men and women are not to be measured by the standards of manhood and womanhood--that they were to be rated, not for strength, but for culture; not for courage, but for intellectual cleverness; not for sincerity, but for manners; not for honesty, but for success; not for usefulness, but for social position, which is most often determined by the degree of uselessness. It was as though the handler of gems were to attach no value whatever to the weight of the diamond itself, but to fix the worth of the stone wholly by the cutting and polish that the crystal might receive. At first, Kitty had been excited, bewildered and fascinated by the glittering, sparkling, ever-changing, many-faceted life. Then she had grown weary and homesick. And then, as the months had passed, and she had been drawn more and more by association and environment into the world of down-to-dateism she, too, began to regard the sparkle of the diamond as the determining factor in the value of the gem. And when the young woman had achieved this, they called her education finished, and sent her back to the land over which Granite Mountain, gray and grim and fortress-like, with its ranks of sentinel bills? keeps enduring and unchanging watch. During those first glad days of Kitty's homecoming she had been eagerly interested in everything. The trivial bits of news about the small doings of her old friends had been delightful. The home life, with its simple routine and its sweet companionship, had been restful and satisfying. The very scenes of her girlhood had seemed to welcome her with a spirit of genuineness and steadfastness that had made her feel as one entering a safe home harbor after a long and adventurous voyage to far-away and little-known lands. And Phil, in the virile strength of his manhood, in the simple bigness of his character, and in his enduring and unchanging love, had made her feel his likeness to the primitive land of his birth. But when the glad excitement of those first days of her return were past, when the meetings with old friends were over and the tales of their doings exhausted, then Kitty began to realize what her education, as they called it, really meant. The lessons of those three years were not to be erased from her life as one would erase a mistake in a problem or a misspelled word. The tastes, habits of thought and standards of life, the acquirement of which constituted her culture, would not be denied. It was inevitable that there should be a clash between the claims of her home life and the claims of that life to which she now felt that she also belonged. However odious comparisons may be, they are many times inevitable. Loyally, Kitty tried to magnify the worth of those things that in her girlhood had been the supreme things in her life, but, try as she might, they were now, in comparison with those things which her culture placed first, of trivial importance. The virile strength and glowing health of Phil's unspoiled manhood--beautiful as the vigorous life of one of the wild horses from which he had his nickname--were overshadowed, now, by the young man's inability to clothe his splendid body in that fashion which her culture demanded. His simple and primitive views of life--as natural as the instinct which governs all creatures in his God-cultivated world--were now unrefined, ignoble, inelegant. His fine nature and unembarrassed intelligence, which found in the wealth of realities amid which he lived abundant food for his intellectual life, and which enabled him to see clearly, observe closely and think with such clean-cut directness, beside the intellectuality of those schooled in the thoughts of others, appeared as ignorance and illiteracy. The very fineness and gentleness of his nature were now the distinguishing marks of an uncouth and awkward rustic. With all her woman heart Kitty had fought against these comparisons--and continued to make them. Everything in her nature that belonged to Granite Mountain--that was, in short, the product of that land--answered to Phil's call, as instinctively as the life of that land calls and answers Its mating calls. Everything that she had acquired in those three years of a more advanced civilization denied and repulsed him. And now her meeting with Patches had stirred the warring forces to renewed activity, and in the distracting turmoil of her thoughts she found herself hating the land she loved, loathing the life that appealed to her with such insistent power, despising those whom she so dearly esteemed and honored, and denying the affection of which she was proud with a true woman's tender pride. Kitty was aroused from her absorption by the shrill boyish yells of her two younger brothers, who, catching sight of their sister from the top of one of the low hills that edge the meadow bottom lands, were charging recklessly down upon her. As the clatter and rumble of those eight flying hoofs drew nearer and nearer, Midnight, too, "came alive," as the cowboys say, and tossed his head and pranced with eager impatience. "Where in the world have you been all the afternoon?" demanded Jimmy, with twelve-year-old authority, as his pony slid to a halt within a foot or two of his sister's horse. And, "We wanted you to go with us, to see our coyote traps," reproved Conny--two years younger than his brother--as his pinto executed a like maneuver on the other side of the excited Midnight. "And where is Jack?" asked the young woman mischievously, as she smilingly welcomed the vigorous lads. "Couldn't he help?" Jack was the other member of the Reid trio of boys--a lusty four-year-old who felt himself equal to any venture that interested his brothers. Jimmy grinned. "Aw, mama coaxed him into the kitchen with something to eat while me and Conny sneaked down to the corral and saddled up and beat it." Big sister's dark eyebrows arched in shocked inquiry, "_Me_ and Conny?" "That is, Conny and I," amended Jimmy, with good-natured tolerance of his sister's whims. "You see, Kitty," put in Conny, "this hero coyote traps pin' ain't just fun. It's business. Dad's promised us three dollars for every scalp, an' we're aimin' to make a stake. We didn't git a blamed thing, to-day, though." Sister's painful and despairing expression was blissfully ignored as Jimmy stealthily flicked the long romal at the end of his bridle reins against Midnight's flank. "Gee!" observed the tickled youngster, as Kitty gave all her attention to restraining the fretting and indignant horse, "ol' Midnight is sure some festive, ain't he?" "I'll race you both to the big gate," challenged Kitty. "For how much?" demanded Jimmy quickly. "You got to give us fifty yards start," declared Conny, leaning forward in his saddle and shortening his reins. "If I win, you boys go straight to bed to-night, when it's time, without fussing," said Kitty, "and I'll give you to that oak bush yonder." "Good enough! You're on!" they shouted in chorus, and loped away. As they passed the handicap mark, another shrill, defiant yell came floating back to where Kitty sat reining in her impatient Midnight. At the signal, the two ponies leaped from a lope into a full run, while Kitty loosed the restraining rein and the black horse stretched away in pursuit. Spurs ring, shouting, entreating, the two lads urged their sturdy mounts toward the goal, and the pintos answered gamely with all that they had. Over knolls and washes, across arroyos and gullies they flew, sure-footed and eager, neck and neck, while behind them, drawing nearer and nearer, came the black, with body low, head outstretched and limbs that moved apparently with the timed regularity and driving power of a locomotive's piston rod. As she passed them, Kitty shouted a merry "Come on!" which they answered with redoubled exertion and another yell of hearty boyish admiration for the victorious Midnight and his beautiful rider. "Doggone that black streak!" exclaimed Jimmy, his eyes dancing with fun as they pulled up at the corral gate. "He opens and shuts like a blamed ol' jack rabbit," commented Conny. "Seemed like we was just a-sittin' still watchin' you go by." Kitty laughed, teasingly, and unconsciously slipped into the vernacular as she returned, "Did you kids think you were a-horseback?" "You just wait, Miss," retorted the grinning Jimmy, as he opened the big gate. "I'll get a horse some day that'll run circles around that ol' black scound'el." And then, as they dismounted at the door of the saddle room in the big barn, he added generously, "You scoot on up to the house, Kitty; I'll take care of Midnight. It must be gettin' near supper time, an' I'm hungry enough to eat a raw dog." At which alarming statement Kitty promptly scooted, stopping only long enough at the windmill pump for a cool, refreshing drink. Mrs. Reid, with sturdy little Jack helping, was already busy in the kitchen. She was a motherly woman, rather below Kitty's height, and inclined somewhat to a comfortable stoutness. In her face was the gentle strength and patience of those whose years have been spent in home-making, without the hardness that is sometimes seen in the faces of those whose love is not great enough to soften their tail. One knew by the light in her eyes whenever she spoke of Kitty, or, indeed, whenever the girl's name was mentioned, how large a place her only daughter held in her mother heart. While the two worked together at their homely task, the girl related in trivial detail the news of the neighborhood, and repeated faithfully the talk she had had with the mistress of the Cross-Triangle, answering all her mother's questions, replying with careful interest to the older woman's comments, relating all that was known or guessed, or observed regarding the stranger. But of her meeting with Patches, Kitty said little; only that she had met him as she was coming home. All during the evening meal, too, Patches was the principal topic of the conversation, though Mr. Reid, who had arrived home just in time for supper, said little. When supper was over, and the evening work finished, Kitty sat on the porch in the twilight, looking away across the wide valley meadows, toward the light that shone where the walnut trees about the Cross-Triangle ranch house made a darker mass in the gathering gloom. Her father had gone to call upon the Dean. The men were at the bunk-house, from which their voices came low and indistinct. Within the house the mother was coaxing little Jack to bed. Jimmy and Conny, at the farther end of the porch, were planning an extensive campaign against coyotes, and investing the unearned profits of their proposed industry. Kitty's thoughts were many miles away. In that bright and stirring life--so far from the gloomy stillness of her home land, where she sat so alone--what gay pleasures held her friends? Amid what brilliant scenes were they spending the evening, while she sat in her dark and silent world alone? As her memory pictured the lights, the stirring movement, the music, the merry-voiced talk, the laughter, the gaiety, the excitement, the companionship of those whose lives were so full of interest, her heart rebelled at the dull emptiness of her days. As she watched the evening dusk deepen into the darkness of the night, and the outlines of the familiar landscape fade and vanish in the thickening gloom, she felt the dreary monotony of the days and years that were to come, blotting out of her life all tone and color and forms of brightness and beauty. Then she saw, slowly emerging from the shadows of the meadow below, a darker shadow--mysterious, formless--that seemed, as it approached, to shape itself out of the very darkness through which it came, until, still dim and indistinct, a horseman was opening the meadow gate. Before the cowboy answered Jimmy's boyish "Hello!" Kitty knew that it was Phil. The young woman's first impulse was to retreat to the safe seclusion of her own room. But, even as she arose to her feet, she knew how that would hurt the man who had always been so good to her; and so she went generously down the walk to meet him where he would dismount and leave his horse. "Did you see father?" she asked, thinking as she spoke how little there was for them to talk about. "Why, no. What's the matter?" he returned quickly, pausing as if ready to ride again at her word. She laughed a little at his manner. "There is nothing the matter. He just went over to see the Dean, that's all." "I must have missed him crossing the meadow," returned Phil. "He always goes around by the road." Then, when he stood beside her, he added gently, "But there is something the matter, Kitty. What is it? Lonesome for the bright lights?" That was always Phil's way, she thought. He seemed always to know instinctively her every mood and wish. "Perhaps I was a little lonely," she admitted. "I am glad that you came." Then they were at the porch, and her ambitious brothers were telling Phil in detail their all-absorbing designs against the peace of the coyote tribe, and asking his advice. Mrs. Reid came to sit with them a-while, and again the talk followed around the narrow circle of their lives, until Kitty felt that she could bear no more. Then Mrs. Reid, more merciful than she knew, sent the boys to bed and retired to her own room. "And so you are tired of us all, and want to go back," mused Phil, breaking one of the long, silent periods that in these days seemed so often to fall upon them when they found themselves alone. "That's not quite fair, Phil," she returned gently. "You know it's not that." "Well, then, tired of this"--his gesture indicated the sweep of the wide land--"tired of what we are and what we do?" The girl stirred uneasily, but did not speak. "I don't blame you," he continued, as if thinking aloud. "It must seem mighty empty to those who don't really know it." "And don't I know it?" challenged Kitty. "You seem to forget that I was born here--that I have lived here almost as many years as you." "But just the same you don't know," returned Phil gently. "You see, dear, you knew it as a girl, the same as I did when I was a boy. But now--well, I know it as a man, and you as a woman know something that you think is very different." Again that long silence lay a barrier between them. Then Kitty made the effort, hesitatingly. "Do you love the life so very, very much, Phil?" He answered quickly. "Yes, but I could love any life that suited you." "No--no," she returned hurriedly, "that's not--I mean--Phil, why are you so satisfied here? There is so little for a man like you." "So little!" His voice told her that her words had stung. "I told you that you did not know. Why, everything that a man has a right to want is here. All that life can give anywhere is here--I mean all of life that is worth having. But I suppose," he finished lamely, "that it's hard for you to see it that way--now. It's like trying to make a city man understand why a fellow is never lonesome just because there's no crowd around. I guess I love this life and am satisfied with it just as the wild horses over there at the foot of old Granite love it and are satisfied." "But don't you feel, sometimes, that if you had greater opportunities--don't you sometimes wish that you could live where--" She paused at a loss for words. Phil somehow always made the things she craved seem so trivial. "I know what you mean," he answered. "You mean, don't the wild horses wish that they could live in a fine stable, and have a lot of men to feed and take care of them, and rig them out with fancy, gold-mounted harness, and let them prance down the streets for the crowds to see? No; horses have more sense than that. It takes a human to make that kind of a fool of himself. There's only one thing in the world that would make me want to try it, and I guess you know what that is." His last words robbed his answer of its sting, and she said gently, "You are bitter to-night, Phil. It is not like you." He did not answer. "Did something go wrong to-day?" she persisted. He turned suddenly to face her, and spoke with a passion unusual to him. "I saw you at the ranch this afternoon--as you were riding away. You did not even look toward the corral where you knew I was at work; and it seemed like all the heart went clear out of me. Oh, Kitty, girl, can't we bring back the old days as they were before you went away?" "Hush, Phil," she said, almost as she would have spoken to one of her boy brothers. But he went on recklessly. "No, I'm going to speak to-night. Ever since you came home you have refused to listen to me--you have put me off--made me keep still. I want you to tell me, Kitty, if I were like Honorable Patches, would it make any difference?" "I do not know Mr. Patches," she answered. "You met him to-day; and you know what I mean. Would it make any difference if I were like him?" "Why, Phil, dear, how can I answer such a question? I do not know." "Then it's not because I belong here in this country instead of back East in some city that has made you change?" "I have changed, I suppose, because I have become a woman, Phil, as you have become a man." "Yes, I have become a man," he returned, "but I have not changed, except that the boy's love has become a man's love. Would it make any difference, Kitty, if you cared more for the life here--I mean if you were contented here--if these things that mean so much to us all, satisfied you?" Again she answered, "I do not know, Phil. How can I know?" "Will you try, Kitty--I mean try to like your old home as you used to like it?" "Oh, Phil, I have tried. I do try," she cried. "But I don't think it's the life that I like or do not like that makes the difference. I am sure, Phil, that if I could"--she hesitated, then went on bravely--"if I could give you the love you want, nothing else would matter. You said you could like any life that suited me. Don't you think that I could be satisfied with any life that suited the man I loved?" "Yes," he said, "you could; and that's the answer." "What is the answer?" she asked. "Love, just love, Kitty--any place with love is a good place, and without love no life can satisfy. I am glad you said that. It was what I wanted you to say. I know now what I have to do. I am like Patches. I have found my job." There was no bitterness in his voice now. The girl was deeply moved, but--"I don't think I quite understand, Phil," she said. "Why, don't you see?" he returned. "My job is to win your love--to make you love me--for myself--for just what I am--as a man--and not to try to be something or to live some way that I think you would like. It's the man that you must love, and not what he does or where he lives. Isn't that it?" "Yes," she answered slowly. "I am sure that is so. It must be so, Phil." He rose to his feet abruptly. "All right," he said, almost roughly. "I'll go now. But don't make any mistake, Kitty. You're mine, girl, mine, by laws that are higher than the things they taught you at school. And you are going to find it out. I am going to win you--just as the wild things out there win their mates. You are going to come to me, girl, because you are mine--because you are my mate." And then, as she, too, arose, and they stood for a silent moment facing each other, the woman felt his strength, and in her woman heart was glad--glad and proud, though she could not give all that he asked. As she watched him ride away into the night, and the soft mystery of the darkness out of which he had come seemed to take his shadowy form again to itself, she wondered--wondered with regret in the thought--would he, perhaps, go thus out of her life? Would he? When Phil turned his horse into the meadow pasture at home the big bay, from somewhere in the darkness, trumpeted his challenge. A low laugh came from near by, and in the light of the stars Phil saw a man standing by the pasture fence. As he went toward the shadowy figure the voice of Patches followed the laugh. "I'll bet that was Stranger." "I know it was," answered Phil. "What's the matter that you're not in bed?" "Oh, I was just listening to the horses out there, and thinking," returned Patches. "Thinking about your job?" asked Phil quietly. "Perhaps," admitted the other. "Well, you have no reason to worry; you'll ride him all right," said the cowboy. "I wish I could be as sure," the other returned doubt fully. And they both knew that they were using the big bay horse as a symbol. "And I wish I was as sure of making good at my job, as I am that you will win out with yours," returned Phil. Patches' voice was very kind as he said reflectively, "So, you have a job, too. I am glad for that." "Glad?" "Yes," the tall man placed a hand on the other's shoulder as they turned to walk toward the house, "because, Phil, I have come to the conclusion that this old world is a mighty empty place for the man who has nothing to do." "But there seems to be a lot of fellows who manage to keep fairly busy doing nothing, just the same, don't you think?" replied Phil with a low laugh. "I said _man_'," retorted Patches, with emphasis. "That's right," agreed Phil. "A man just naturally requires a man's job." "And," mused Patches, "when it's all said and done, I suppose there's only one genuine, simon-pure, full-sized man's job in the world." "And I reckon that's right, too," returned the cowboy. CHAPTER VIII. CONCERNING BRANDS. A few days after Jim Reid's evening visit to the Dean two cowboys from the Diamond-and-a-Half outfit, on their way to Cherry Creek, stopped at the ranch for dinner. The well-known, open-handed Baldwin hospitality led many a passing rider thus aside from the main valley road and through the long meadow lane to the Cross-Triangle table. Always there was good food for man and horse, with a bed for those who came late in the day; and always there was a hearty welcome and talk under the walnut trees with the Dean. And in all that broad land there was scarce a cowboy who, when riding the range, would not look out for the Dean's cattle with almost the same interest and care that he gave to the animals bearing the brand of his own employer. So it was that these riders from the Tonto Flats country told the Dean that in looking over the Cross-Triangle cattle watering at Toohey they had seen several cases of screwworms. "We doped a couple of the worst, and branded a calf for you," said "Shorty" Myers. And his companion, Bert Wilson, added, as though apologizing, "We couldn't stop any longer because we got to make it over to Wheeler's before mornin'." "Much obliged, boys," returned the Dean. Then, with his ever-ready jest, "Sure you put the right brand on that calf?" "We-all ain't ridin' for no Tailholt Mountain outfit this season," retorted Bert dryly, as they all laughed at the Dean's question. And at the cowboy's words Patches, wondering, saw the laughing faces change and looks of grim significance flash from man to man. "Anybody seen anything over your way lately?" asked the Dean quietly. In the moment of silence that followed the visitors looked questioningly from the face of Patches to the Dean and then to Phil. Phil smiled his endorsement of the stranger, and "Shorty" said, "We found a couple of fresh-branded calves what didn't seem to have no mothers last week, and Bud Stillwell says some things look kind o' funny over in the D.1 neighborhood." Another significant silence followed. To Patches, it seemed as the brooding hush that often precedes a storm. He had not missed those questioning looks of the visitors, and had seen Phil's smiling endorsement, but he could not, of course, understand. He could only wonder and wait, for he felt intuitively that he must not speak. It was as though these strong men who had received him so generously into their lives put him, now, outside their circle, while they considered business of grave moment to themselves. "Well, boys," said the Dean, as if to dismiss the subject, "I've been in this cow business a good many years, now, an' I've seen all kinds of men come an' go, but I ain't never seen the man yet that could get ahead very far without payin' for what he got. Some time, one way or another, whether he's so minded or not, a man's just naturally got to pay." "That law is not peculiar to the cattle business, either, is it, Mr. Baldwin?" The words came from Patches, and as they saw his face, it was their turn to wonder. The Dean looked straight into the dark eyes that were so filled with painful memories, and wistful desire. "Sir?" "I mean," said Patches, embarrassed, as though he had spoken involuntarily, "that what you say applies to those who live idly--doing no useful work whatever--as well as to those who are dishonest in business of any kind, or who deliberately steal outright. Don't you think so?" The Dean--his eyes still fixed on the face of the new man--answered slowly, "I reckon that's so, Patches. When you come to think about it, it _must_ be so. One way or another every man that takes what he ain't earned has to pay for it." "Who is he?" asked the visitors of Curly and Bob, as they went for their horses, when the meal was over. The Cross-Triangle men shook their heads. "Just blew in one day, and the Dean hired him," said Bob. "But he's the handiest man with his fists that's ever been in this neck of the woods. If you don't believe it, just you start something," added Curly with enthusiasm. "Found it out, did you?" laughed Bert. "In something less than a minute," admitted Curly. "Funny name!" mused "Shorty." Bob grinned. "That's what Curly thought--at first." "And then he took another think, huh?" "Yep," agreed Curly, "he sure carries the proper credentials to make any name that he wants to wear good enough for me." The visitors mounted their horses, and sat looking appraisingly at the tall figure of Honorable Patches, as that gentleman passed them at a little distance, on his way to the barn. "Mebby you're right," admitted "Shorty," "but he sure talks like a schoolmarm, don't he?" "He sure ain't no puncher," commented Bert. "No, but I'm gamblin' that he's goin' to be," retorted Curly, ignoring the reference to Patches' culture. "Me, too," agreed Bob. "Well, we'll all try him out this fall rodeo"; and "better not let him drift far from the home ranch for a while," laughed the visitors. "So long!" and they were away. Before breakfast the next morning Phil said to Patches, "Catch up Snip, and give him a feed of grain. You'll ride with me to-day." At Patches' look of surprise he explained laughingly, "I'm going to give my school a little vacation, and Uncle Will thinks it's time you were out of the kindergarten." Later, as they were crossing the big pasture toward the country that lies to the south, the foreman volunteered the further information that for the next few weeks they would ride the range. "May I ask what for?" said Patches, encouraged by the cowboy's manner. It was one of the man's peculiarities that he rarely entered into the talk of his new friends when their work was the topic of conversation. And he never asked questions except when alone with Phil or the Dean, and then only when led on by them. It was not that he sought to hide his ignorance, for he made no pretenses whatever, but his reticence seemed, rather, the result of a curious feeling of shame that he had so little in common with these men whose lives were so filled with useful labor. And this, if he had known, was one of the things that made them like him. Men who live in such close daily touch with the primitive realities of life, and who thereby acquire a simple directness, with a certain native modesty, have no place in their hearts for--to use their own picturesque vernacular--a "four-flusher." Phil tactfully did not even smile at the question, but answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "To look out for screw-worms, brand a calf here and there, keep the water holes open, and look out for the stock generally." "And you mean," questioned Patches doubtfully, "that _I_ am to ride with you?" "Sure. You see, Uncle Will thinks you are too good a man to waste on the odd jobs around the place, and so I'm going to get you in shape for the rodeo this fall." The effect of his words was peculiar. A deep red colored Patches' face, and his eyes shone with a glad light, as he faced his companion. "And you--what do you think about it, Phil?" he demanded. The cowboy laughed at the man's eagerness. "Me? Oh, I think just as I have thought all the time--ever since you asked for a job that day in the corral." Patches drew a long breath, and, sitting very straight in the saddle, looked away toward Granite Mountain; while Phil, watching him curiously, felt something like kindly pity in his heart for this man who seemed to hunger so for a man's work, and a place among men. Just outside the Deep Wash gate of the big pasture, a few cattle were grazing in the open flat. As the men rode toward them, Phil took down his riata while Patches watched him questioningly. "We may as well begin right here," said the cowboy. "Do you see anything peculiar about anything in that bunch?" Patches studied the cattle in vain. "What about that calf yonder?" suggested Phil, leisurely opening the loop of his rope. "I mean that six-months youngster with the white face." Still Patches hesitated. Phil helped him again. "Look at his ears." "They're not marked," exclaimed Patches. "And what should they be marked?" asked the teacher. "Under-bit right and a split left, if he belongs to the Cross-Triangle," returned the pupil proudly, and in the same breath he exclaimed, "He is not branded either." Phil smiled approval. "That's right, and we'll just fix him now, before somebody else beats us to him." He moved his horse slowly toward the cattle as he spoke. "But," exclaimed Patches, "how do you know that he belongs to the Cross-Triangle?" "He doesn't," returned Phil, laughing. "He belongs to me." "But I don't see how you can tell." "I know because I know the stock," Phil explained, "and because I happen to remember that particular calf, in the rodeo last spring. He got away from us, with his mother, in the cedars and brush over near the head of Mint Wash. That's one of the things that you have to learn in this business, you see. But, to be sure we're right, you watch him a minute, and you'll see him go to a Five-Bar cow. The Five-Bar is my iron, you know--I have a few head running with Uncle Will's." Even as he spoke, the calf, frightened at their closer approach, ran to a cow that was branded as Phil had said, and the cow, with unmistakable maternal interest in her offspring, proved the ownership of the calf. "You see?" said Phil. "We'll get that fellow now, because before the next rodeo he'll be big enough to leave his mother, and then; if he isn't branded, he'll be a maverick, and will belong to anybody that puts an iron on him." "But couldn't someone brand him now, with their brand, and drive him away from his mother?" asked Patches. "Such things have been known to happen, and that not a thousand miles from here, either," returned Phil dryly. "But, really, you know, Mr. Patches, it isn't done among the best people." Patches laughed aloud at his companion's attempt at a simpering affectation. Then he watched with admiration while the cowboy sent his horse after the calf and, too quickly for an inexperienced eye to see just how it was done, the deft riata stretched the animal by the heels. With a short "hogging" rope, which he carried looped through a hole cut in the edge of his chaps near the belt, Phil tied the feet of his victim, before the animal had recovered from the shock of the fall; and then, with Patches helping, proceeded to build a small fire of dry grass and leaves and sticks from a near-by bush. From his saddle, Phil took a small iron rod, flattened at one end, and only long enough to permit its being held in the gloved hand when the flattened end was hot--a running iron, he called it, and explained to his interested pupil, as he thrust it into the fire, how some of the boys used an iron ring for range branding. "And is there no way to change or erase a brand?" asked Patches, while the iron was heating. "Sure there is," replied Phil. And sitting on his heels, cowboy fashion, he marked on the ground with a stick. "Look! This is the Cross-Triangle brand: [Illustration]; and this: [Illustration], the Four-Bar-M, happens to be Nick Cambert's iron, over at Tailholt Mountain. Now, can't you see how, supposing I were Nick, and this calf were branded with the Cross-Triangle, I could work the iron over into my brand?" Patches nodded. "But is there no way to detect such a fraud?" "It's a mighty hard thing to prove that an iron has bees worked over," Phil answered slowly. "About the only sure way is to catch the thief in the act." "But there are the earmarks," said Patches, a few moments later, when Phil had released the branded and marked calf--"the earmarks and the brand wouldn't agree." "They would if I were Nick," said the cowboy. Then he added quickly, as if regretting his remark, "Our earmark is an under-bit right and a split left, you said. Well, the Four-Bar-M earmark is a crop and an under-bit right and a swallow-fork left." With the point of his iron now he again marked in the dirt. "Here's your Cross-Triangle: [Illustration]; and here's your Pour-Bar-M: [Illustration]." "And if a calf branded with a Tailholt iron were to be found following a Cross-Triangle cow, then what?" came Patches' very natural question. "Then," returned the foreman of the Cross-Triangle grimly, "there would be a mighty good chance for trouble." "But it seems to me," said Patches, as they rode on, "that it would be easily possible for a man to brand another man's calf by mistake." "A man always makes a mistake when he puts his iron on another man's property," returned the cowboy shortly. "But might it not be done innocently, just the same!" persisted Patches. "Yes, it might," admitted Phil. "Well, then, what would you do if you found a calf, that you knew belonged to the Dean, branded with some other man's brand? I mean, how would you proceed?" "Oh, I see what you are driving at," said Phil in quite a different tone. "If you ever run on to a case, the first thing for you to do is to be dead sure that the misbranded calf belongs to one of our cows. Then, if you are right, and it's not too far, drive the cow and calf into the nearest corral and report it. If you can't get them to a corral without too much trouble, just put the Cross-Triangle on the calf's ribs. When he shows up in the next rodeo, with the right brand on his ribs, and some other brand where the right brand ought to be--you'll take pains to remember his natural markings, of course--you will explain the circumstances, and the owner of the iron that was put on him by mistake will be asked to vent his brand. A brand is vented by putting the same brand on the animal's shoulder. Look! There's one now." He pointed to an animal a short distance away. "See, that steer is branded Diamond-and-a-Half on hip and shoulder, and Cross-Triangle on his ribs. Well, when he was a yearling he belonged to the Diamond-and-a-Half outfit. We picked him up in the rodeo, away over toward Mud Tanks. He was running with our stock, and Stillwell didn't want to go to the trouble of taking him home--about thirty miles it is--so he sold him to Uncle Will, and vented his brand, as you see." "I see," said Patches, "but that's different from finding a calf misbranded." "Sure. There was no question of ownership there," agreed Phil. "But in the case of the calf," the cowboy's pupil persisted, "if it had left its mother when the man owning the iron was asked to vent it, there would be no way of proving the real ownership." "Nothing but the word of the man who found the calf with its mother, and, perhaps, the knowledge of the men who knew the stock." "What I am getting at," smiled Patches, "is this: it would come down at last to a question of men, wouldn't it?" "That's where most things come to in, the end in this country, Patches. But you're right. With owners like Uncle Will, and Jim Reid, and Stillwell, and dozens of others; and with cowboys like Curly and Bob and Bert and 'Shorty,' there would be no trouble at all about the matter." "But with others," suggested Patches. "Well," said Phil slowly, "there are men in this country, who, if they refused to vent a brand under such circumstances, would be seeing trouble, and mighty quick, too." "There's another thing that we've got to watch out for, just now," Phil continued, a few minutes later, "and that is, 'sleepers'. We'll suppose," he explained, "that I want to build up my, bunch of Five-Bars, and that I am not too particular about how I do it. Well, I run on to an unbranded Pot-Hook-S calf that looks good to me, but I don't dare put my iron on him because he's too young to leave his mother. If I let him go until he is older, some of Jim Reid's riders will brand him, and, you see, I never could work over the Pot-Hook-S iron into my Five-Bar. So I earmark the calf with the owner's marks, and don't brand him at all. Then he's a sleeper. If the Pot-Hook-S boys see him, they'll notice that he's earmarked all right, and very likely they'll take it for granted that he's branded, or, perhaps let him go anyway. Before the next rodeo I run on to my sleeper again, and he's big enough now to take away from the cow, so all I have to do is to change the earmarks and brand him with my iron. Of course, I wouldn't get all my sleepers, but--the percentage would be in my favor. If too many sleepers show up in the rodeo, though, folks would get mighty suspicious that someone was too handy with his knife. We got a lot of sleepers in the last rodeo," he concluded quietly. And Patches, remembering what Little Billy had said about Nick Cambert and Yavapai Joe, and with the talk of the visiting cowboys still fresh in his mind, realized that he was making progress in his education. Riding leisurely, and turning frequently aside for a nearer view of the cattle they sighted here and there, they reached Toohey a little before noon. Here, in a rocky hollow of the hills, a small stream wells from under the granite walls, only to lose itself a few hundred yards away in the sands and gravel of the wash. But, short as its run in the daylight is, the water never fails. And many cattle come from the open range that lies on every side, to drink, and, in summer time, to spend the heat of the day, standing in the cool, wet sands or lying in the shade of the giant sycamores that line the bank opposite the bluff. There are corrals near-by and a rude cook-shack under the wide-spreading branches of an old walnut tree; and the ground of the flat open space, a little back from the water, is beaten bare and hard by the thousands upon thousands of cattle that have at many a past rodeo-time been gathered there. The two men found, as the Diamond-and-a-Half riders had said, several animals suffering from those pests of the Arizona ranges, the screwworms. As Phil explained to Patches while they watered their horses, the screwworm is the larva of a blowfly bred in sores on living animals. The unhealed wounds of the branding iron made the calves by far the most numerous among the sufferers, and were the afflicted animals not treated the loss during the season would amount to considerable. "Look here, Patches," said the cowboy, as his practiced eyes noted the number needing attention. "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll just run this hospital bunch into the corral, and you can limber up that riata of yours." And so Patches learned not only the unpleasant work of cleaning the worm-infested sores with chloroform, but received his first lesson in the use of the cowboy's indispensable tool, the riata. "What next?" asked Patches, as the last calf escaped through the gate which he had just opened, and ran to find the waiting and anxious mother. Phil looked at his companion, and laughed. Honorable Patches showed the effect of his strenuous and bungling efforts to learn the rudiments of the apparently simple trick of roping a calf. His face was streaked with sweat and dust, his hair disheveled, and his clothing soiled and stained. But his eyes were bright, and his bearing eager and ready. "What's the matter?" he demanded, grinning happily at his teacher. "What fool thing have I done now?" "You're doing fine," Phil returned. "I was only thinking that you don't look much like the man I met up on the Divide that evening." "I don't feel much like him, either, as far as that goes," returned Patches. Phil glanced up at the sun. "What do you say to dinner? It must be about that time." "Dinner?" "Sure. I brought some jerky--there on my saddle--and some coffee. There ought to be an old pot in the shack yonder. Some of the boys don't bother, but I never like to miss a feed unless it's necessary." He did not explain that the dinner was really a thoughtful concession to his companion. "Ugh!" ejaculated Patches, with a shrug of disgust, the work they had been doing still fresh in his mind. "I couldn't eat a bite." "You think that now," retorted Phil, "but you just go down to the creek, drink all you can hold, wash up, and see how quick you'll change your mind when you smell the coffee." And thus Patches received yet another lesson--a lesson in the art of forgetting promptly the most disagreeable features of his work--an art very necessary to those who aspire to master real work of any sort whatever. When they had finished their simple meal, and lay stretched full length beneath the overhanging limbs of the age-old tree that had witnessed so many stirring scenes, and listened to so many camp-fire tales of ranch and range, they talked of things other than their work. In low tones, as men who feel a mystic and not-to-be-explained bond of fellowship--with half-closed eyes looking out into the untamed world that lay before them--they spoke of life, of its mystery and meaning. And Phil, usually so silent when any conversation touched himself, and so timid always in expressing his own self thoughts, was strangely moved to permit this man to look upon the carefully hidden and deeper things of his life. But upon his cherished dream--upon his great ambition--he kept the door fast closed. The time for that revelation of himself was not yet. "By the way, Phil," said Patches, when at last his companion signified that it was time for them to go. "Where were you educated? I don't think that I have heard you say." "I have no education," returned the young man, with a laugh that, to Patches, sounded a bitter note. "I'm just a common cow-puncher, that's all." "I beg your pardon," returned the other, "but I thought from the books you mentioned--" "Oh, the books! Why, you see, some four years ago a real, honest-to-goodness book man came out to this country for his health, and brought his disease along with him." "His disease?" questioned Patches. Phil smiled. "His books, I mean. They killed him, and I fell heir to his trouble. He was a good fellow, all right--we all liked him--might have been a man if he hadn't been so much of a scholar. I was curious, at first, just to see what it was that had got such a grip on him; and then I got interested myself. About that time, too, there was a reason why I thought it might be a good thing for me; so I sent for more, and have made a fairly good job of it in the past three years. I don't think that there's any danger, though, of the habit getting the grip on me that it had on him," he reflected with a whimsical grin. "It was our book friend who first called Uncle Will the Dean." "The title certainly fits him well," remarked Patches. "I don't wonder that it stuck. I suppose you received yours for your riding?" "Mine?" "'Wild Horse Phil,' I mean," smiled the other. Phil laughed. "Haven't you heard that yarn yet? I reckon I may as well tell you. No, wait!" he exclaimed eagerly. "We have lots of time. We'll ride south a little way and perhaps I can show you." As they rode away up the creek, Patches wondered much at his companion's words and at his manner, but the cowboy shook his head at every question, answering, simply, "Wait." Soon they had left the creek bed--passing through a rock gateway at the beginning of the little stream--and were riding up a long, gently sloping hollow between two low but rugged ridges. The crest of the rocky wall on their left was somewhat higher than the ridge on their right, but, as the floor of the long, narrow hollow ascended, the sides of the little valley became correspondingly lower. Patches noticed that his companion was now keenly alert and watchful. He sat his horse easily, but there was a certain air of readiness in his poise, as though he anticipated sudden action, while his eyes searched the mountain sides with eager expectancy. They had nearly reached the upper end of the long slope when Phil abruptly reined his horse to the left and rode straight up that rugged, rock-strewn mountain wall. To Patches it seemed impossible that a horse could climb such a place; but he said nothing, and wisely gave Snip his head. They were nearly at the top--so near, in fact, that Phil could see over the narrow crest--when the cowboy suddenly checked his horse and slipped from the saddle. With a gesture he bade his companion follow his example, and in a moment Patches stood beside him. Leaving their horses, they crept the few remaining feet to the summit. Crouching low, then lying prone, they worked their way to the top of a huge rounded rock, from which they could look over and down upon the country that lies beyond. Patches uttered a low exclamation, but Phil's instant grip on his arm checked further speech. From where they lay, they looked down upon a great mountain basin of gently rolling, native grass land. From the foot of that rocky ridge, the beautiful pasture stretches away, several miles, to the bold, gray cliffs and mighty, towering battlements of Granite Mountain. On the south, a range of dark hills, and to the north, a series of sharp peaks, form the natural boundaries. "Do you see them?" whispered Phil. Patches looked at him inquiringly. The stranger's interest in that wonderful scene had led him to overlook that which held his companion's attention. "There," whispered Phil impatiently, "on the side of that hill there--they're not more than four hundred yards away, and they're working toward us." "Do you mean those horses?" whispered Patches, amazed at his companion's manner. Phil nodded. "Do they belong to the Cross-Triangle?" asked Patches, still mystified. "The Cross-Triangle!" Phil chuckled. Then, with a note of genuine reverence in his voice, he added softly, "They belong to God, Mr. Honorable Patches." Then Patches understood. "Wild horses!" he ejaculated softly. There are few men, I think, who can look without admiration upon a beautifully formed, noble spirited horse. The glorious pride and strength and courage of these most kingly of God's creatures--even when they are in harness and subject to their often inferior masters--compel respect and a degree of appreciation. But seen as they roam free in those pastures that, since the creation, have never been marred by plow or fence--pastures that are theirs by divine right, and the sunny slopes and shady groves and rocky nooks of which constitute their kingdom--where, in their lordly strength, they are subject only to the dictates of their own being, and, unmutilated by human cruelty, rule by the power and authority of Nature's laws--they stir the blood of the coldest heart to a quicker flow, and thrill the mind of the dullest with admiring awe. "There's twenty-eight in that bunch," whispered Phil. "Do you see that big black stallion on guard--the one that throws up his head every minute or two for a look around?" Patches nodded. There was no mistaking the watchful leader of the band. "He's the chap that gave me my title, as you call it," chuckled Phil. "Come on, now, and we'll see them in action; then I'll tell you about it." He slipped from the rock and led the way back to the saddle horses. Riding along the ridge, just under the crest, they soon reached the point where the chain of low peaks merges into the hills that form the southern boundary of the basin, and so came suddenly into full view of the wild horses that were feeding on the slopes a little below. As the two horsemen appeared, the leader of the band threw up his head with a warning call to his fellows. Phil reined in his horse and motioned for Patches to do the same. For several minutes, the black stallion held his place, as motionless as the very rocks of the mountain side, gazing straight at the mounted men as though challenging their right to cross the boundary of his kingdom, while his retainers stood as still, waiting his leadership. With his long, black mane and tail rippling and waving in the breeze that swept down from Blair Pass and across the Basin, with his raven-black coat glistening in the sunlight with the sheen of richest satin where the swelling muscles curved and rounded from shadow to high light, and with his poise of perfect strength and freedom, he looked, as indeed he was, a prince of his kind--a lord of the untamed life that homes in those God-cultivated fields. Patches glanced at his companion, as if to speak, but struck by the expression on the cowboy's face, remained silent. Phil was leaning a little forward in his saddle, his body as perfect in its poise of alert and graceful strength as the body of the wild horse at which he was gazing with such fixed interest. The clear, deeply tanned skin of his cheeks glowed warmly with the red of his clean, rich blood, his eyes shone with suppressed excitement, his lips, slightly parted, curved in a smile of appreciation, love and reverence for the unspoiled beauty of the wild creature that he himself, in so many ways, unconsciously resembled. And Patches--bred and schooled in a world so far from this world of primitive things--looking from Phil to the wild horse, and back again from the stallion to the man, felt the spirit and the power that made them kin--felt it with a, to him, strange new feeling of reverence, as though in the perfect, unspoiled life-strength of man and horse he came in closer touch with the divine than he had ever known before. Then, without taking his eyes from the object of his almost worship, Phil said, "Now, watch him, Patches, watch him!" As he spoke, he moved slowly toward the band, while Patches rode close by his side. At their movement, the wild stallion called another warning to his followers, and went a few graceful paces toward the slowly approaching men. And then, as they continued their slow advance, he wheeled with the smooth grace of a swallow, and, with a movement so light and free that he seemed rather to skim over the surface of the ground than to tread upon it, circled here and there about his band, assembling them in closer order, flying, with ears flat and teeth bared and mane and tail tossing, in lordly fury at the laggards, driving them before him, but keeping always between his charges and the danger until they were at what he evidently judged to be, for their inferior strength, a distance of safety. Then again he halted his company and, moving alone a short way toward the horsemen, stood motionless, watching their slow approach. Again Phil checked his horse. "God!" he exclaimed under his breath. "What a sight! Oh, you beauty! You beauty!" But Patches was moved less by the royal beauty of the wild stallion than by the passionate reverence that vibrated in his companion's voice. Again the two horsemen moved forward; and again the stallion drove his band to a safe distance, and stood waiting between them and their enemies. Then the cowboy laughed aloud--a hearty laugh of clean enjoyment. "All right, old fellow, I'll just give you a whirl for luck," he said aloud to the wild horse, apparently forgetting his human companion. And Patches saw him shorten his reins, and rise a little in his stirrups, while his horse, as though understanding, gathered himself for a spring. In a flash Patches was alone, watching as Phil, riding with every ounce of strength that his mount could command, dashed straight toward the band. For a moment, the black stallion stood watching the now rapidly approaching rider. Then, wheeling, he started his band, driving them imperiously, now, to their utmost speed, and then, as though he understood this new maneuver of the cowboy, he swept past his running companions, with the clean, easy flight of an arrow, and taking his place at the head of his charges led them away toward Granite Mountain. Phil stopped, and Patches could see him watching, as the wild horses, with streaming manes and tails, following their leader, who seemed to run with less than half his strength, swept away across the rolling hillsides, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, until, as dark, swiftly moving dots, they vanished over the sky line. "Wasn't that great?" cried Phil, when he had loped back to his companion. "Did you see him go by the bunch like they were standing still?" "There didn't seem to be much show for you to catch him," said Patches. "Catch him!" exclaimed Phil. "Did you think I was trying to catch him? I just wanted to see him go. The horse doesn't live that could put a man within roping distance of any one in that bunch on a straightaway run, and the black can run circles around the whole outfit. I had him once, though." "You caught that black!" exclaimed Patches--incredulously. Phil grinned. "I sure had him for a little while." "But what is he doing out here running loose, then?" demanded the other. "Got away, did he?" "Got away, nothing. Fact is, he belongs to me right now, in a way, and I wouldn't swap him for any string of cow-horses that I ever saw." Then, as they rode toward the home ranch, Phil told the story that is known throughout all that country. "It was when the black was a yearling," he said. "I'd had my eye on him all the year, and so had some of the other boys who had sighted the band, for you could see, even when he was a colt, what he was going to be. The wild horses were getting rather too numerous that season, and we planned a chase to thin them out a little, as we do every two or three years. Of course, everybody was after the black; and one day, along toward the end of the chase, when the different bands had been broken up and scattered pretty much, I ran onto him. I was trailing an old gray up that draw--the way we went to-day, you know, and all at once I met him as he was coming over the top of the hill, right where you and I rode onto him. It was all so sudden that for a minute he was rattled as bad as I was; and, believe me, I was shaking like a leaf. I managed to come to, first, though, and hung my rope on him before he could get started. I don't know to this day where the old gray that I was after went. Well, sir; he fought like a devil, and for a spell we had it around and around until I wasn't dead sure whether I had him or he had me. But he was only a yearling then, you see, and I finally got him down." Phil paused, a peculiar expression on his face. Patches waited silently. "Do you know," said the cowboy, at last, hesitatingly, "I can't explain it--and I don't talk about it much, for it was the strangest thing that ever happened to me--but when I looked into that black stallion's eyes, and he looked me straight in the face, I never felt so sorry for anything in my life. I was sort of ashamed like--like--well, like I'd been caught holding up a church, you know, or something like that. We were all alone up there, just him and me, and while I was getting my wind, and we were sizing each other up, and I was feeling that way, I got to thinking what it all meant to him--to be broken and educated--and--well--civilized, you know; and I thought what a horse he would be if he was left alone to live as God made him, and so--well--" He paused again with an embarrassed laugh. "You let him go?" cried Patches. "It's God's truth, Patches. I couldn't do anything else--I just couldn't. One of the boys came up just in time to catch me turning him loose, and, of course, the whole outfit just naturally raised hell about it. You see, in a chase like that, we always bunch all we get and sell them off to the highest bidder, and every man in the outfit shares alike. The boys figured that the black was worth more than any five others that were caught, and so you couldn't blame them for feeling sore. But I fixed it with them by turning all my share into the pot, so they couldn't kick. That, you see, makes the black belong to me, in a way, and it's pretty generally understood that I propose to take care of him. There was a fellow, riding in the rodeo last fall, that took a shot at him one day, and--well--he left the country right after it happened and hasn't been seen around here since." The cowboy grinned as his companion's laugh rang out. "Do you know," Phil continued in a low tone, a few minutes later, "I believe that horse knows me yet. Whenever I am over in this part of the country I always have a look at him, if he happens to be around, and we visit a little, as we did to-day. I've got a funny notion that he likes it as much as I do, and, I can't tell how it is, but it sort of makes me feel good all over just to see him. I reckon you think I'm some fool," he finished with another short laugh of embarrassment, "but that's the way I feel--and that's why they call me 'Wild Horse Phil'." For a little they rode in silence; then Patches spoke, gravely, "I don't know how to tell you what I think, Phil, but I understand, and from the bottom of my heart I envy you." And the cowboy, looking at his companion, saw in the man's eyes something that reminded him of that which he had seen in the wild horse's eyes, that day when he had set him free. Had Patches, too, at some time in those days that were gone, been caught by the riata of circumstance or environment, and in some degree robbed of his God-inheritance? Phil smiled at the fancy, but, smiling, felt its truth; and with genuine sympathy felt this also to be true, that the man might yet, by the strength that was deepest within him, regain that which he had lost. And so that day, as the man from the ranges and the man from the cities rode together, the feeling of kinship that each had instinctively recognized at their first meeting on the Divide was strengthened. They knew that a mutual understanding which could not have been put into words of any tongue or land was drawing them closer together. A few days later the incident occurred that fixed their friendship--as they thought--for all time to come. CHAPTER IX. THE TAILHOLT MOUNTAIN OUTFIT. Phil and Patches were riding that day in the country about Old Camp. Early in the afternoon, they heard the persistent bawling of a calf, and upon riding toward the sound, found the animal deep in the cedar timber, which in that section thickly covers the ridges. The calf was freshly branded with the Tailholt iron. It was done, Phil said, the day before, probably in the late afternoon. The youngster was calling for his mother. "It's strange, she is not around somewhere," said Patches. "It would be more strange if she was," retorted the cowboy shortly, and he looked from the calf to the distant Tailholt Mountain, as though he were considering some problem which he did not, for some reason, care to share with his companion. "There's not much use to look for her," he added, with grim disappointment. "That's always the way. If we had ridden this range yesterday, instead of away over there in the Mint Wash country--I am always about a day behind." There was something in the manner and in the quiet speech of the usually sunny-tempered foreman that made his companion hesitate to ask questions, or to offer comment with the freedom that he had learned to feel that first day of their riding together. During the hours that followed Phil said very little, and when he did speak his words were brief and often curt, while, to Patches, he seemed to study the country over which they rode with unusual care. When they had eaten their rather gloomy lunch, he was in the saddle again almost before Patches had finished, with seemingly no inclination for their usual talk. The afternoon, was nearly gone, and they were making their way homeward when they saw a Cross-Triangle bull that had evidently been hurt in a fight. The animal was one of the Dean's much-prized Herefords, and the wound needed attention. "We've got to dope that," said Phil, "or the screwworms will be working in it sure." He was taking down his riata and watching the bull, who was rumbling a sullen, deep-voiced challenge, as he spoke. "Can I help?" asked Patches anxiously, as he viewed the powerful beast, for this was the first full-grown animal needing attention that he had seen in his few days' experience. "No," returned Phil. "Just keep in the clear, that's all. This chap is no calf, and he's sore over his scrap. He's on the prod right now." It all happened in a few seconds. The cowboy's horse, understanding from long experience that this threatening mark for his master's riata was in no gentle frame of mind, fretted uneasily as though dreading his part in the task before them. Patches saw the whirling rope leave Phil's hand, and saw it tighten, as the cowboy threw the weight of his horse against it; and then he caught a confused vision--a fallen, struggling horse with a man pinned to the ground beneath him, and a wickedly lowered head, with sharp horns and angry eyes, charging straight at them. Patches did not think--there was no time to think. With a yell of horror, he struck deep with both spurs, and his startled, pain-maddened horse leaped forward. Again he spurred cruelly with all his strength, and the next bound of his frenzied mount carried him upon those deadly horns. Patches remembered hearing a sickening rip, and a scream of fear and pain, as he felt the horse under him rise in the air. He never knew how he managed to free himself, as he fell backward with his struggling mount, but he distinctly saw Phil regain his saddle while his horse was in the very act of struggling to its feet, and he watched with anxious interest as the cowboy forced his excited mount in front of the bull to attract the beast's wicked attention. The bull, accepting the tantalizing challenge, charged again, and Patches, with a thrill of admiration for the man's coolness and skill, saw that Phil was coiling his riata, even while his frightened horse, with terrific leaps, avoided those menacing horns. The bull stopped, shook his head in anger over his failure, and looked back toward the man on foot. But again that horse and rider danced temptingly before him, so close that it seemed he could not fail, and again he charged, only to find that his mad rush carried him still further from the helpless Patches. And by now, Phil had recovered his riata, and the loop was whirling in easy circles about his head. The cow-horse, as though feeling the security that was in that familiar motion of his master's arm, steadied himself, and, in the few active moments that followed, obedient to every signal of his rider, did his part with almost human intelligence. When the bull was safely tied, Phil went to the frightfully injured horse, and with a merciful bullet ended the animal's suffering. Then he looked thoughtfully at Patches, who stood gazing ruefully at the dead animal, as though he felt himself to blame for the loss of his employer's property. A slight smile lightened the cowboy's face, as he noticed his companion's troubled thought. "I suppose I've done it now," said Patches, as though expecting well-merited censure. Phil's smile broadened. "You sure have," he returned, as he wiped the sweat from his face. "I'm much obliged to you." Patches looked at him in confused embarrassment. "Don't you know that you saved my life?" asked Phil dryly. "But--but, I killed a good horse for the Dean," stammered Patches. To which the Dean's foreman returned with a grin, "I reckon Uncle Will can stand the loss--considering." This relieved the tension, and they laughed together. "But tell me something, Patches," said Phil, curiously. "Why didn't you shoot the bull when he charged me?" "I didn't think of it," admitted Patches. "I didn't really think of anything." The cowboy nodded with understanding approval. "I've noticed that the man to tie to, in sudden trouble, is the man who doesn't have to think; the man, I mean, who just does the right thing instinctively, and waits to think about it afterwards when there's time." Patches was pleased. "I did the right thing, then?" "It was the only thing you _could_ do to save my life," returned Phil seriously. "If you had tried to use your gun--even if you could have managed to hit him--you wouldn't have stopped him in time. If you had been where you could have put a bullet between his eyes, it might have worked, but"--he smiled again--"I'm mighty glad you didn't think to try any experiments. Tell me something else," he added. "Did you realize the chance you were taking for yourself?" Patches shook his head. "I can't say that I realized anything except that you were in a bad fix, and that it was up to me to do something quick. How did it happen, anyway?" He seemed anxious to turn the conversation. "Diamond stepped in that hole there," explained Phil. "When he turned over I sure thought it was all day for me. Believe me, I won't forget this, Patches." For another moment there was an embarrassed silence; then Patches said, "What puzzles me is, why you didn't take a shot at him, after you were up, instead of risking your neck again trying to rope him." "Why, there was no use killing a good bull, as long as there was any other way. It's my business to keep him alive; that's what I started in to do, wasn't it?" And thus the cowboy, in a simple word or two, stated the creed of his profession, a creed that permits no consideration of personal danger or discomfort when the welfare of the employer's property is at stake. When they had removed saddle and bridle from the dead horse and had cleaned the ugly wound in the bull's side, Phil said, "Now, Mr. Honorable Patches, you'd better move on down the wash a piece, and get out of sight behind one of those cedars. This fellow is going to get busy again when I let him up. I'll come along when I've got rid of him." A little later, as Phil rode out of the cedars toward Patches, a deep, bellowing challenge came from up the wash. "He's just telling us what he'll do to us the next chance he gets," chuckled Phil. "Hop up behind me now and we'll go home." The gloom, that all day had seemed to overshadow Phil, was effectually banished by the excitement of the incident, and he was again his sunny, cheerful self. As they rode, they chatted and laughed merrily. Then, suddenly, as it had happened that morning, the cowboy was again grim and silent. Patches was wondering what had so quickly changed his companion's mood, when he caught sight of two horsemen, riding along the top of the ridge that forms the western side of the wash, their course paralleling that of the Cross-Triangle men, who were following the bed of the wash. When Patches directed Phil's attention to the riders, the cowboy said shortly, "I've been watching them for the last ten minutes." Then, as if regretting the manner of his reply, he added more kindly, "If they keep on the way they're going, we'll likely meet them about a mile down the wash where the ridge breaks." "Do you know them?" asked Patches curiously. "It's Nick Cambert and that poor, lost dog of a Yavapai Joe," Phil answered. "The Tailholt Mountain outfit," murmured Patches, watching the riders on the ridge with quickened interest. "Do you know, Phil, I believe I have seen those fellows before." "You have!" exclaimed Phil. "Where? When?" "I don't know how to tell you where," Patches replied, "but it was the day I rode the drift fence. They were on a ridge, across a little valley from me." "That must have been this same Horse Wash that we're following now," replied Phil; "it widens out a bit below here. What makes you think it was Nick and Joe?" "Why, those fellows up there look like the two that I saw, one big one and one rather lightweight. They were the same distance from me, you know, and--yes--I am sure those are the same horses." "Pretty good, Patches, but you ought to have reported it when you got home." "Why, I didn't think it of any importance." "There are two rules that you must follow, always," said the cowboy, "if you are going to learn to be a top hand in this business. The first is: to see everything that there is to see, and to see everything about everything that you see. And the second is: to remember it all. I don't mind telling you, now, that Jim Reid found a calf, fresh-branded with the Tailholt iron, that same afternoon, in that same neighborhood; and that, on our side of the drift fence, he ran onto a Cross-Triangle cow that had lost her calf. There come our friends now." The two horsemen were riding down the side of the hill at an angle that would bring about the meeting which Phil had foreseen. And Patches immediately broke the first of the two rules, for, while watching the riders, he did not notice that his companion loosened his gun in its holster. Nick Cambert was a large man, big-bodied and heavy, with sandy hair, and those peculiar light blue eyes which do not beget confidence. But, as the Tailholt Mountain men halted to greet Phil, Patches gave to Nick little more than a passing glance, so interested was he in the big man's companion. It is doubtful if blood, training, environment, circumstances, the fates, or whatever it is that gives to men individuality, ever marked a man with less manhood than was given to poor Yavapai Joe. Standing erect, he would have been, perhaps, a little above medium height, but thin and stooped, with a half-starved look, as he slouched listlessly in the saddle, it was almost impossible to think of him as a matured man. The receding chin, and coarse, loosely opened mouth, the pale, lifeless eyes set too closely together under a low forehead, with a ragged thatch of dead, mouse-colored hair, and a furtive, sneaking, lost-dog expression, proclaimed him the outcast that he was. The big man eyed Patches as he greeted the Cross-Triangle's foreman. "Howdy, Phil!" "Hello, Nick!" returned Phil coldly. "Howdy, Joe!" The younger man, who was gazing stupidly at Patches, returned the salutation with an unintelligible mumble, and proceeded to roll a cigarette. "You folks at the Cross-Triangle short of horses?" asked Nick, with an evident attempt at jocularity, alluding to the situation of the two men, who were riding one horse. "We got mixed up with a bull back yonder," Phil explained briefly. "They can sure put a horse out o' the game mighty quick sometimes," commented the other. "I've lost a few that way myself. It's about as far from here to my place as it is to Baldwin's, or I'd help you out. You're welcome, you know." "Much obliged," returned Phil, "but we'll make it home all right. I reckon we'd better be moving, though. So long!" "Adios!" Throughout this brief exchange of courtesies, Yavapai Joe had not moved, except to puff at his cigarette; nor had he ceased to regard Patches with a stupid curiosity. As Phil and Patches moved away, he still sat gazing after the stranger, until he was aroused by a sharp word from Nick, as the latter turned his horse toward Tailholt Mountain. Without changing his slouching position in the saddle, and with a final slinking, sidewise look toward Patches, the poor fellow obediently trailed after his master. Patches could not resist the impulse to turn for another look at the wretched shadow of manhood that so interested him. "Well, what do you think of that pair?" asked Phil, breaking in upon his companion's preoccupation. Patches shrugged his shoulders much as he had done that day of his first experience with the screwworms; then he said quietly, "Do you mind telling me about them, Phil?" "Why, there's not much to tell," returned the cowboy. "That is, there's not much that anybody knows for certain. Nick was born in Yavapai County. His father, old George Cambert, was one of the kind that seems honest enough, and industrious, too, but somehow always just misses it. They moved away to some place in Southern California when Nick was about grown. He came back six years ago, and located over there at the foot of Tailholt Mountain, and started his Four-Bar-M iron; and, one way or another, he's managed to get together quite a bunch of stock. You see, his expenses don't amount to anything, scarcely. He and Joe bach in an old shack that somebody built years ago, and they do all the riding themselves. Joe's not much force, but he's handier than you'd think, as long as there's somebody around to tell him what to do, and sort of back him up. Nick, though, can do two men's work any day in the year." "But it's strange that a man like Nick would have anything to do with such a creature as that poor specimen," mused Patches. "Are they related in any way?" "Nobody knows," answered Phil. "Joe first showed up at Prescott about four years ago with a man by the name of Dryden, who claimed that Joe was his son. They camped just outside of town, in some dirty old tents, and lived by picking up whatever was lying around loose. Dryden wouldn't work, and, naturally, no one would have Joe. Finally Dryden was sent up for robbing a store, and Joe nearly went with him. They let him off, I believe, because it was proved pretty well that he was only Dryden's tool, and didn't have nerve enough to do any real harm by himself. He drifted around for several months, living like a stray cur, until Nick took him in tow. Nick treats him shamefully, abuses him like a beast, and works him like a slave. The poor devil stays on with him because he doesn't know what else to do, I suppose." "Is he always like we saw him to-day?" asked Patches, who seemed strangely interested in this bit of human drift. "Doesn't he ever talk?" "Oh, yes, he'll talk all right, when Nick isn't around, or when there are not too many present. Get off somewhere alone with him, after he gets acquainted a little, and he's not half such bad company as he looks. I reckon that's the main reason why Nick keeps him. You see, no decent cow-puncher would dare work at Tailholt Mountain, and a man gets mighty lonesome living so much alone. But Joe never talks about where he came from, or who he is; shuts up like a clam if you so much as mention anything that looks like you were trying to find out about him. He's not such a fool as he looks, either, so far as that goes, but he's always got that sneaking, coyote sort of look, and whatever he does he does in that same way." "In other words," commented Patches thoughtfully, "poor Joe must have someone to depend on; taken alone he counts no more than a cipher." "That's it," said Phil. "With somebody to feed him, and think for him, and take care of him, and be responsible for him, in some sort of a way, he makes almost one." "After all, Phil," said Patches, with bitter sarcasm, "poor Yavapai Joe is not so much different from hundreds of men that I know. By their standards he should be envied." Phil was amazed at his companion's words, for they seemed to hint at something in the man's past, and Patches, so far as his reticence upon any subject that approached his own history, was always as silent as Yavapai Joe himself. "What do you mean by that?" Phil demanded. "What sort of men do you mean?" "I mean the sort that never do anything of their own free wills; the sort that have someone else to think for them, and feed them, and take care of them and take all the responsibility for what they do or do not do. I mean those who are dependents, and those who aspire to be dependent. I can't see that it makes any essential difference whether they have inherited wealth and what we call culture, or whether they are poverty-stricken semi-imbeciles like Joe; the principle is the same." As they dismounted at the home corral gate, Phil looked at his companion curiously. "You seem mighty interested in Joe," he said, with a smile. "I am," retorted Patches. "He reminds me of--of some one I know," he finished, with his old, self-mocking smile. "I have a fellow feeling for him, the same as you have for that wild horse, you know. I'd like to take him away from Nick, and see if it would be possible to make a real man of him," he mused, more to himself than to his companion. "I don't believe I'd try any experiments along that line, Patches," cautioned Phil. "You've got to have something to build on when you start to make a man. The raw material is not in Joe, and, besides," he added significantly, "folks might not understand." Patches laughed bitterly. "I have my hands full now." The next morning the foreman said that he would give that day to the horses he was training, and sent Patches, alone, after the saddle and bridle which they had left near the scene of the accident. "You can't miss finding the place again," he said to Patches; "just follow up the wash. You'll be back by noon--if you don't try any experiments," he added laughing. Patches had ridden as far as the spot where he and Phil had met the Tailholt Mountain men, and was thirsty. He thought of the distance he had yet to go, and then of the return back to the ranch, in the heat of the day. He remembered that Phil had told him, as they were riding out the morning before, of a spring a little way up the small side canyon that opens into the main wash through that break in the ridge. For a moment he hesitated; then he turned aside, determined to find the water. Riding perhaps two hundred yards into that narrow gap In the ridge, he found the way suddenly becoming steep and roughly strewn with boulders, and, thinking to make better time, left his horse tied to a bush in the shadow of the rocky wall, while he climbed up the dry watercourse on foot. He found, as Phil had said, that it was not far. Another hundred yards up the boulder-strewn break in the ridge, and he came out into a beautiful glade, where he found the spring, clear and cold, under a moss-grown rock, in the deep shade of an old gnarled and twisted cedar. Gratefully he threw himself down and drank long and deep; then sat for a few moments' rest, before making his way back to his horse. The moist, black earth of the cuplike hollow was roughly trampled by the cattle that knew the spot, and there were well-marked trails leading down through the heavy growth of brush and trees that clothed the hillsides. So dense was this forest growth, and so narrow the glade, that the sunlight only reached the cool retreat through a network of leaves and branches, in ever-shifting spots and bars of brightness. Nor could one see very far through the living screens. Patches was on the point of going, when he heard voices and the sound of horses' feet somewhere above. For a moment he sat silently listening. Then he realized that the riders were approaching, down one of the cattle trails. A moment more, and he thought he recognized one of the voices. There was a low, murmuring, whining tone, and then a rough, heavy voice, raised seemingly in anger. Patches felt sure, now, that he knew the speakers; and, obeying one of those impulses that so often prompted his actions, he slipped quietly into the dense growth on the side of the glade opposite the approaching riders. He was scarcely hidden--a hundred feet or so from the spring--when Nick Cambert and Yavapai Joe rode into the glade. If Patches had paused to think, he likely would have disdained to play the part of a hidden spy; but he had acted without thinking, and no sooner was he concealed than he realized that it was too late. So he smiled mockingly at himself, and awaited developments. He had heard and seen enough, since he had been in the Dean's employ, to understand the suspicion in which the owner of the Four-Bar-M iron was held; and from even his few days' work on the range in company with Phil, he had come to understand how difficult it was for the cattlemen to prove anything against the man who they had every reason to believe was stealing their stock. It was the possibility of getting some positive evidence, and of thus protecting his employer's property, that had really prompted him to take advantage of the chance situation. As the two men appeared, it was clear to the hidden observer that the weakling had in some way incurred his master's displeasure. The big man's face was red with anger, and his eyes were hard and cruel, while Joe had more than aver the look of a lost dog that expects nothing less than a curse and a kick. Nick drank at the spring, then turned back to his companion, who had not dismounted, but sat on his horse cringing and frightened, trying, with fluttering fingers, to roll a cigarette. A moment the big man surveyed his trembling follower; then, taking a heavy quirt from his saddle, he said with a contemptuous sneer, "Well, why don't you get your drink?" "I ain't thirsty, Nick," faltered the other. "You ain't thirsty?" mocked the man with a jeering laugh. "You're lying, an' you know it. Get down!" "Hones' to God, Nick, I don't want no drink," whimpered Joe, as his master toyed with the quirt suggestively. "Get down, I tell you!" commanded the big man. Joe obeyed, his thin form shaking with fear, and stood shrinking against his horse's side, his fearful eyes fixed on the man. "Now, come here." "Don't, Nick; for God's sake! don't hit me. I didn't mean no harm. Let me off this time, won't you, Nick?" "Come here. You got it comin', damn you, an' you know it. Come here, I say!" As if it were beyond his power to refuse, the wretched creature took a halting step or two toward the man whose brutal will dominated him; then he paused and half turned, as if to attempt escape. But that menacing voice stopped him. "Come here!" Whimpering and begging, with disconnected, unintelligible words, the poor fellow again started toward the man with the quirt. At the critical moment a quiet, well-schooled voice interrupted the scene. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Cambert!" Nick whirled with an oath of surprise and astonishment, to face Patches, who was coming leisurely toward him from the bushes above the spring. "What are you doin' here?" demanded Nick, while his victim slunk back to his horse, his eyes fixed upon the intruder with dumb amazement. "I came for a drink," returned Patches coolly. "Excellent water, isn't it? And the day is really quite warm--makes one appreciate such a delightfully cool retreat, don't you think?" "Heard us comin' an' thought you'd play the spy, did you?" growled the Tailholt Mountain man. Patches smiled. "Really, you know, I am afraid I didn't think much about it," he said gently. "I'm troubled that way, you see," he explained, with elaborate politeness. "Often do things upon impulse, don't you know--beastly embarrassing sometimes." Nick glared at this polite, soft-spoken gentleman, with half-amused anger. "I heard there was a dude tenderfoot hangin' 'round the Cross-Triangle," he said, at last. "You're sure a hell of a fine specimen. You've had your drink; now s'pose you get a-goin'." "I beg pardon?" drawled Patches, looking at him with innocent inquiry. "Vamoose! Get out! Go on about your business." "Really, Mr. Cambert, I understood that this was open range--" Patches looked about, as though carefully assuring himself that he was not mistaken in the spot. The big man's eyes narrowed wickedly. "It's closed to you, all right." Then, as Patches did not move, "Well, are you goin', or have I got to start you?" He took a threatening step toward the intruder. "No," returned Patches easily, "I am certainly not going--not just at present--and," he added thoughtfully, "if I were you, I wouldn't try to start _anything_." Something in the extraordinary self-possession of this soft-spoken stranger made the big man hesitate. "Oh, you wouldn't, heh?" he returned. "You mean, I s'pose, that you propose to interfere with my business." "If, by your business, you mean beating a man who is so unable to protect himself, I certainly propose to interfere." For a moment Nick glared at Patches as though doubting his own ears. Then rage at the tenderfoot's insolence mastered him. With a vile epithet, he caught the loaded quirt in his hand by its small end, and strode toward the intruder. But even as the big man swung his wicked weapon aloft, a hard fist, with the weight of a well-trained and well-developed shoulder back of it, found the point of his chin with scientific accuracy. The force of the blow, augmented as it was by Nick's weight as he was rushing to meet it, was terrific. The man's head snapped back, and he spun half around as he fell, so that the uplifted arm with its threatening weapon was twisted under the heavy bulk that lay quivering and harmless. Patches coolly bent over the unconscious man and extracted his gun from the holster. Then, stepping back a few paces, he quietly waited. Yavapai Joe, who had viewed the proceedings thus far with gaping mouth and frightened wonder, scrambled into his saddle and reined his horse about, as if to ride for his life. "Wait, Joe!" called Patches sharply. The weakling paused in pitiful indecision. "Nick will be all right in a few minutes," continued the stranger, reassuringly. "Stay where you are." Even as he spoke, the man on the ground opened his eyes. For a moment he gazed about, collecting his shocked and scattered senses. Then, with a mad roar, he got to his feet and reached for his gun, but when his hand touched the empty holster a look of dismay swept over his heavy face, and he looked doubtfully toward Patches, with a degree of respect and a somewhat humbled air. "Yes, I have your gun," said Patches soothingly. "You see, I thought it would be best to remove the temptation. You don't really want to shoot me, anyway, you know. You only think you do. When you have had time to consider it all, calmly, you'll thank me; because, don't you see, I would make you a lot more trouble dead than I could possibly, alive. I don't think that Mr. Baldwin would like to have me all shot to pieces, particularly if the shooting were done by someone from Tailholt Mountain. And I am quite sure that 'Wild Horse Phil' would be very much put out about it." "Well, what do you want?" growled Nick. "You've got the drop on me. What are you after, anyway?" "What peculiar expressions you western people use!" murmured Patches sweetly. "You say that I have got the drop on you; when, to be exact, you should have said that you got the drop _from_ me--do you see? Good, isn't it?" Nick's effort at self-control was heroic. Patches watched him with an insolent, taunting smile that goaded the man to reckless speech. "If you didn't have that gun, I'd--" the big man began, then stopped, for, as he spoke, Patches placed the weapon carefully on a rock and went toward him barehanded. "You would do what?" At the crisp, eager question that came in such sharp contrast to Patches' former speech, Nick hesitated and drew back a step. Patches promptly moved a step nearer; and his words came, now, in answer to the unfinished threat with cutting force. "What would you do, you big, hulking swine? You can bully a weakling not half your size; you can beat a helpless incompetent like a dog; you can bluster, and threaten a tenderfoot when you think he fears you; you can attack a man with a loaded quirt when you think him unable to defend himself;--show me what you can do _now_." The Tailholt Mountain man drew back another step. Patches continued his remarks. "You are a healthy specimen, you are. You have the frame of a bull with the spirit of a coyote and the courage of a sucking dove. Now--in your own vernacular--get a-goin'. Vamoose! Get out! I want to talk to your superior over there." Sullenly Nick Cambert mounted his horse and turned away toward one of the trails leading out from the little arena. "Come along, Joe!" he called to his follower. "No, you don't," Patches cut in with decisive force. "Joe, stay where you are!" Nick paused. "What do you mean by that?" he growled. "I mean," returned Patches, "that Joe is free to go with you, or not, as he chooses. Joe," he continued, addressing the cause of the controversy, "you need not go with this man. If you wish, you can come with me. I'll take care of you; and I'll give you a chance to make a man of yourself." Nick laughed coarsely. "So, that's your game, is it? Well, it won't work. I know now why Bill Baldwin's got you hangin' 'round, pretendin' you're a tenderfoot, you damned spy. Come on, Joe." He turned to ride on; and Joe, with a slinking, sidewise look at Patches, started to follow. Again Patches called, "Wait, Joe!" and his voice was almost pleading. "Can't you understand, Joe? Come with me. Don't be a dog for any man. Let me give you a chance. Be a man, Joe--for God's sake, be a man! Come with me." "Well," growled Nick to his follower, as Patches finished, "are you comin' or have I got to go and get you?" With a sickening, hangdog look Joe mumbled something and rode after his master. As they disappeared up the trail, Nick called back, "I'll get you yet, you sneakin' spy." "Not after you've had time to think it over," answered Patches cheerfully. "It would interfere too much with your _real_ business. I'll leave your gun at the gate of that old corral up the wash. Good-by, Joe!" For a few moments longer the strange man stood in the glade, listening to the vanishing sounds of their going, while that mirthless, self-mocking smile curved his lips. "Poor devil!" he muttered sadly, as he turned at last to make his way back to his horse. "Poor Joe! I know just how he feels. It's hard--it's beastly hard to break away." "I'm afraid I have made trouble for you, sir," Patches said ruefully to the Dean, as he briefly related the incident to his employer and to Phil that afternoon. "I'm sorry; I really didn't stop to think." "Trouble!" retorted the Dean, his eyes twinkling approval, while Phil laughed joyously. "Why, man, we've been prayin' for trouble with that blamed Tailholt Mountain outfit. You're a plumb wonder, young man. But what in thunder was you aimin' to do with that ornery Yavapai Joe, if he'd a' took you up on your fool proposition?" "Really, to tell the truth," murmured Patches, "I don't exactly know. I fancied the experiment would be interesting; and I was so sorry for the poor chap that I--" he stopped, shamefaced, to join in the laugh. But, later, the Dean and Phil talked together privately, with the result that during the days that followed, as Patches and his teacher rode the range together, the pupil found revolver practice added to his studies. The art of drawing and shooting a "six-gun" with quickness and certainty was often a useful part of the cowboy's training, Phil explained cheerfully. "In the case, for instance, of a mixup with a bad steer, when your horse falls, or something like that, you know." [Illustration: Saddles] CHAPTER X. THE RODEO. As the remaining weeks of the summer passed, Patches spent the days riding the range with Phil, and, under the careful eye of that experienced teacher, made rapid progress in the work he had chosen to master. The man's intense desire to succeed, his quick intelligence, with his instinct for acting without hesitation, and his reckless disregard for personal injury, together with his splendid physical strength, led him to a mastery of the details of a cowboy's work with remarkable readiness. Occasionally the two Cross-Triangle riders saw the men from Tailholt Mountain, sometimes merely sighting them in the distance, and, again, meeting them face to face at some watering place or on the range. When it happened that Nick Cambert was thus forced to keep up a show of friendly relations with the Cross-Triangle, the few commonplaces of the country were exchanged, but always the Tailholt Mountain man addressed his words to Phil, and, save for surly looks, ignored the foreman's companion. He had evidently--as Patches had said that he would--come to realize that he could not afford to arouse the cattlemen to action against him, as he would certainly have done, had he attempted to carry out his threat to "get" the man who had so humiliated him. But Patches' strange interest in Yavapai Joe in no way lessened. Always he had a kindly word for the poor unfortunate, and sought persistently to win the weakling's friendship. And Phil seeing this wondered, but held his peace. Frequently Kitty Reid, sometimes alone, often with the other members of the Reid household, came across the big meadow to spend an evening at the neighboring ranch. Sometimes Phil and Patches, stopping at the Pot-Hook-S home ranch, at the close of the day, for a drink at the windmill pump, would linger a while for a chat with Kitty, who would come from the house to greet them. And now and then Kitty, out for a ride on Midnight, would chance to meet the two Cross-Triangle men on the range, and so would accompany them for an hour or more. And thus the acquaintance between Patches and the girl grew into friendship; for Kitty loved to talk with this man of the things that play so large a part in that life which so appealed to her; and, with Phil's ever-ready and hearty endorsement of Patches, she felt safe in permitting the friendship to develop. And Patches, quietly observing, with now and then a conversational experiment--at which game he was an adepts--came to understand, almost as well as if he had been told, Phil's love for Kitty and her attitude toward the cowboy--her one-time schoolmate and sweetheart. Many times when the three were together, and the talk, guided by Kitty, led far from Phil's world, the cowboy would sit a silent listener, until Patches would skillfully turn the current back to the land of Granite Mountain and the life in which Phil had so vital a part. In the home-life at the Cross-Triangle, too, Patches gradually came to hold his own peculiar place. His cheerful helpfulness, and gentle, never-failing courtesy, no less than the secret pain and sadness that sometimes, at some chance remark, drove the light from his face and brought that wistful look into his eyes, won Mrs. Baldwin's heart. Many an evening under his walnut trees, with Stella and Phil and Curly and Bob and Little Billy near, the Dean was led by the rare skill and ready wit of Patches to open the book of his kindly philosophy, as he talked of the years that were past. And sometimes Patches himself, yielding to temptation offered by the Dean, would speak in such vein that the older man came to understand that this boy, as he so often called him, had somewhere, somehow, already experienced that Gethsemane which soon or late--the Dean maintains--leaves its shadow upon us all. The cowboys, for his quick and genuine appreciation of their skill and knowledge, as well as for his unassuming courage, hearty good nature and ready laugh, took him into their fellowship without question or reserve, while Little Billy, loyal ever to his ideal, "Wild Horse Phil," found a large place in his boyish heart for the tenderfoot who was so ready always to recognize superior wisdom and authority. So the stranger found his place among them, and in finding it, found also, perhaps, that which he most sorely needed. [Illustration:] When rodeo time came Patches was given a "string" of horses and, through the hard, grilling work that followed, took his place among the riders. There was no leisurely roaming over the range now, with only an occasional short dash after some animal that needed the "iron" or the "dope can;" but systematically and thoroughly the thirty or forty cowboys covered the country--mountain and mesa and flat, and wash and timbered ridge and rocky pass--for many miles in every direction. In this section of the great western cattle country, at the time of my story, the round-ups were cooperative. Each of the several ranchers whose cattle, marked by the owner's legally recorded brand, ranged over a common district that was defined only by natural boundaries, was represented in the rodeo by one or two or more of his cowboys, the number of his riders being relative to the number of cattle marked with his iron. This company of riders, each with from three to five saddle horses in his string, would assemble at one of the ranches participating in the rodeo. From this center they would work until a circle of country within riding distance was covered, the cattle gathered and "worked"--or, in other words, sorted--and the animals belonging to the various owners disposed of as the representatives were instructed by their employers. Then the rodeo would move to another ranch, and would so continue until the entire district of many miles was covered. The owner or the foreman of each ranch was in charge of the rodeo as long as the riders worked in his territory. When the company moved to the next point, this loader took his place in the ranks, and cheerfully received his orders from some comrade, who, the day before, had been as willingly obedient to him. There was little place in the rodeo for weak, incompetent or untrustworthy men. Each owner, from his long experience and knowledge of men, sent as his representatives the most skillful and conscientious riders that he could secure. To make a top hand at a rodeo a man needed to be, in the truest sense, a man. Before daylight, the horse wrangler had driven in the saddle band, and the men, with nose bags fashioned from grain sacks, were out in the corral to give the hard-working animals their feed of barley. The gray quiet of the early dawn was rudely broken by the sounds of the crowding, jostling, kicking, squealing band, mingled with the merry voices of the men, with now and then a shout of anger or warning as the cowboys moved here and there among their restless four-footed companions; and always, like a deep undertone, came the sound of trampling, iron-shod hoofs. Before the sky had changed to crimson and gold the call sounded from the ranch house, "Come and get it!" and laughing and joking in friendly rivalry, the boys rushed to breakfast. It was no dainty meal of toast and light cereals that these hardy ones demanded. But huge cuts of fresh-killed beef, with slabs of bread, and piles of potatoes, and stacks of hot cakes, and buckets of coffee, and whatever else the hard-working Chinaman could lay his hands on to satisfy their needs. As soon as each man reached the utmost limit of his capacity, he left the table without formality, and returned to the corral, where, with riata or persuasion, as the case demanded, he selected from his individual string of horses his first mount for the day. By the time the sun was beginning to gild the summit of old Granite Mountain's castle-like walls, and touch with glorious color the peaks of the neighboring sentinel hills, the last rider had saddled, and the company was mounted and ready for their foreman's word. Then to the music of jingling spurs, tinkling bridle chains, squeaking saddle leather, and the softer swish and rustle and flap of chaps, romals and riatas, they rode forth, laughing and joking, still, with now and then a roaring chorus of shouting comment or wild yells, as some half-broken horse gave an exhibition of his prowess in a mad effort to unseat his grinning rider. Soon the leader would call the name of a cowboy, known to be particularly familiar with the country which was to be the scene of that day's work, and telling him to take two or three or more men, as the case might be, would direct him to ride over a certain section, indicating the assigned territory by its natural marks of valley or flat or wash or ridge, and designating the point where the cattle would first be brought together. The cowboy named would rein his horse aside from the main company, calling the men of his choice as he did so, and a moment later with his companions would be lost to sight. A little farther, and again the foreman would name a rider, and, telling him to pick his men, would assign to him another section of the district to be covered, and this cowboy, with his chosen mates, would ride away. These smaller groups would, in their turn, separate, and thus the entire company of riders would open out like a huge fan to sweep the countryside. It was no mere pleasure canter along smoothly graded bridle paths or well-kept country highways that these men rode. From roughest rock-strewn mountain side and tree-clad slope, from boulder-piled watercourse and tangled brush, they must drive in the scattered cattle. At reckless speed, as their quarry ran and turned and dodged, they must hesitate at nothing. Climbing to the tops of the hills, scrambling catlike to the ragged crests of the ridges, sliding down the bluffs, jumping deep arroyos, leaping brush and boulders, twisting, dodging through the timber, they must go as fast as the strength and endurance of their mounts would permit. And so, gradually, as the sun climbed higher above the peaks and crags of Old Granite, the great living fan of men and horses closed, the courses of the widely scattered riders leading them, with the cattle they had found, to the given point. And now, the cattle, urged by the active horsemen, came streaming from the different sections to form the herd, and the quiet of the great range was broken by the bawling of confused and frightened calves, the lowing of anxious mothers, the shrill, long-drawn call of the steers, and the deep bellowing of the bulls, as the animals, so rudely driven from their peaceful feeding grounds, moved restlessly within the circle of guarding cowboys, while cows found their calves, and the monarchs of the range met in fierce combat. A number of the men--those whose mounts most needed the rest--were now left to hold the herd, or, perhaps, to move it quietly on to some other point, while the others were again sent out to cover another section of the territory included in that day's riding. As the hours passed, and the great fan of horsemen opened and closed, sweeping the cattle scattered over the range into the steadily growing herd, the rodeo moved gradually toward some chosen open flat or valley that afforded a space large enough for the operations that followed the work of gathering. At this "rodeo ground" a man would be waiting with fresh mounts for the riders, and, sometimes, with lunch. Quickly, those whose names were called by the foreman would change their saddles from dripping, exhausted horses to fresh animals from their individual strings, snatch a hasty lunch--often to be eaten in the saddle--and then, in their turn, would hold the cattle while their companions followed their example. Then came the fast, hot work of "parting" the cattle. The representatives from one of the ranches interested would ride in among the cattle held by the circle of cowboys, and, following their instructions, would select such animals bearing their employer's brand as were wanted, cutting them out and passing them through the line of guarding riders, to be held in a separate group. When the representatives of one owner had finished, they were followed by the men who rode for some other outfit; and so on, until the task of "parting" was finished. As the afternoon sun moved steadily toward the skyline of the western hills, the tireless activity of men and horses continued. The cattle, as the mounted men moved among them, drifted about, crowding and jostling, in uneasy discontent, with sometimes an indignant protest, and many attempts at escape by the more restless and venturesome. When an animal was singled out, the parting horses, chosen and prized for their quickness, dashed here and there through the herd with fierce leaps and furious rushes, stopping short in a terrific sprint to whirl, flashlike, and charge in another direction, as the quarry dodged and doubled. And now and then an animal would succeed for the moment in passing the guard line, only to be brought back after a short, sharp chase by the nearest cowboy. From the rodeo ground, where for long years the grass had been trampled out, the dust, lifted by the trampling thousands of hoofs in a dense, choking cloud, and heavy with the pungent odor of warm cattle and the smell of sweating horses, rising high into the clear air, could be seen from miles away, while the mingled voices of the bellowing, bawling herd, with now and then the shrill, piercing yells of the cowboys, could be heard almost as far. When this part of the work was over, some of the riders set out to drive the cattle selected to the distant home ranch corrals, while others of the company remained to brand the calves and to start the animals that were to have their freedom until the next rodeo time back to the open range. And so, at last--often not until the stars were out--the riders would dismount at the home corrals of the ranch that, at the time, was the center of their operations, or, perhaps, at some rodeo camping ground. At supper the day's work was reviewed with many a laugh and jest of pointed comment, and then, those whose horses needed attention because of saddle sores or, it might be, because of injuries from some fall on the rocks, busied themselves at the corral, while others met for a friendly game of cards, or talked and yarned over restful pipe or cigarette. And then, bed and blankets, and, all too soon, the reveille sounded by the beating hoofs of the saddle band as the wrangler drove them in, announced the beginning of another day. Not infrequently there were accidents--from falling horses--from angry bulls--from ill-tempered steers, or excited cows--or, perhaps, from a carelessly handled rope in some critical moment. Horses were killed; men with broken limbs, or with bodies bruised and crushed, were forced to drop out; and many a strong horseman who rode forth in the morning to the day's work, laughing and jesting with his mates, had been borne by his grave and silent comrades to some quiet resting place, to await, in long and dreamless sleep, the morning of that last great rodeo which, we are told, shall gather us all. Day after day, as Patches rode with these hardy men, Phil watched him finding himself and winning his place among the cowboys. They did not fail, as they said, to "try him out." Nor did Phil, in these trials, attempt in any way to assist his pupil. But the men learned very quickly, as Curly had learned at the time of Patches' introduction, that, while the new man was always ready to laugh with them when a joke was turned against himself, there was a line beyond which it was not well to go. In the work he was, of course, assigned only to such parts as did not require the skill and knowledge of long training and experience. But he did all that was given him to do with such readiness and skill, thanks to Phil's teaching, that the men wondered. And this, together with his evident ability in the art of defending himself, and the story of his strange coming to the Cross-Triangle, caused not a little talk, with many and varied opinions as to who he was, and what it was that had brought him among them. Strangely enough, very few believed that Patches' purpose in working as a cowboy for the Dean was simply to earn an honest livelihood. They felt instinctively--as, in fact, did Phil and the Dean--that there was something more beneath it all than such a commonplace. Nick Cambert, who, with Yavapai Joe, rode in the rodeo, carefully avoided the stranger. But Patches, by his persistent friendly interest in the Tailholt Mountain man's follower, added greatly to the warmth of the discussions and conjectures regarding himself. The rodeo had reached the Pot-Hook-S Ranch, with Jim Reid in charge, when the incident occurred which still further stimulated the various opinions and suggestions as to the new man's real character and mission. They were working the cattle that day on the rodeo ground just outside the home ranch corral. Phil and Curly were cutting out some Cross-Triangle steers, when the riders, who were holding the cattle, saw them separate a nine-months-old calf from the herd, and start it, not toward the cattle they had already cut out, but toward the corral. Instantly everybody knew what had happened. The cowboy nearest the gate did not need Phil's word to open it for his neighbor next in line to drive the calf inside. Not a word was said until the calves to be branded were also driven into the corral. Then Phil, after a moment's talk with Jim Reid, rode up to Nick Cambert, who was sitting on his horse a little apart from the group of intensely interested cowboys. The Cross-Triangle foreman's tone was curt. "I reckon I'll have to trouble you to vent your brand on that Cross-Triangle calf, Nick." The Tailholt Mountain man made no shallow pretense that he did not understand. "Not by a damn sight," he returned roughly. "I ain't raisin' calves for Bill Baldwin, an' I happen to know what I'm talkin' about this trip. That's a Four-Bar-M calf, an' I branded him myself over in Horse Wash before he left the cow. Some of your punchers are too damned handy with their runnin' irons, Mr. Wild Horse Phil." For a moment Phil looked at the man, while Jim Reid moved his horse nearer, and the cowboys waited, breathlessly. Then, without taking his eyes from the Tailholt Mountain man's face, Phil called sharply: "Patches, come here!" There was a sudden movement among the riders, and a subdued murmur, as Patches rode forward. "Is that calf you told me about in the corral, Patches?" asked Phil, when the man was beside him. "Yes, sir; that's him over there by that brindle cow." Patches indicated the animal in question. "And you put our iron on him?" asked Phil, still watching Nick. "I did," returned Patches, coolly. "Tell us about it," directed the Dean's foreman. And Patches obeyed, briefly. "It was that day you sent me to fix the fence on the southwest corner of the big pasture. I saw a bunch of cattle a little way outside the fence, and went to look them over. This calf was following a Cross-Triangle cow." "Are you sure?" "Yes, sir. I watched them for half an hour." "What was in the bunch?" "Four steers, a Pot-Hook-S bull, five cows and this calf. There were three Five-Bar cows, one Diamond-and-a-Half and one Cross-Triangle. The calf went to the Cross-Triangle cow every time. And, besides, he is marked just like his mother. I saw her again this afternoon while we were working the cattle." Phil nodded. "I know her." Jim Reid was watching Patches keenly, with a quiet look now and then at Nick. The cowboys were murmuring among themselves. "Pretty good work for a tenderfoot!" "Tenderfoot, hell!" "They've got Nick this trip." "Got nothin'! Can't you see it's a frame-up?" Phil spoke to Nick. "Well, are satisfied? Will you vent your brand?" The big man's face was distorted with passion. "Vent nothin'," he roared. "On the word of a damned sneakin' tenderfoot! I--" He stopped, as Patches, before Phil could check the movement, pushed close to his side. In the sudden stillness the new man's cool, deliberate voice sounded clearly. "I am positive that you made a mistake when you put your iron on that calf, Mr. Cambert. And," he added slowly, as though with the kindest possible intention, "I am sure that you can safely take my word for it without further question." For a moment Nick glared at Patches, speechless. Then, to the amazement of every cowboy in the corral, the big man mumbled a surly something, and took down his riata to rope the calf and disclaim his ownership of the animal. Jim Reid shook his head in puzzled doubt. The cowboys were clearly divided. "He's too good a hand for a tenderfoot," argued one; "carried that off like an old-timer." "'Tain't like Nick to lay down so easy for anybody," added another. "Nick's on to something about Mr. Patches that we ain't next to," insisted a third. "Or else we're all bein' strung for a bunch of suckers," offered still another. "You boys just hold your horses, an' ride easy," said Curly. "My money's still on Honorable Patches." And Bob added his loyal support with his cheerful "Me, too!" "It all looked straight enough," Jim Reid admitted to the Dean that evening, "but I can't get away from the notion that there was some sort of an understanding between your man an' that damned Tailholt Mountain thief. It looked like it was all too quiet an' easy somehow; like it had been planned beforehand." The Dean laughingly told his neighbor that he was right; that there was an understanding between Patches and Nick, and then explained by relating how Patches had met the Tailholt Mountain men that day at the spring. When the Dean had finished the big cowman asked several very suggestive questions. How did the Dean know that Patches' story was anything more than a cleverly arranged tale, invented for the express purpose of allaying any suspicion as to his true relationship with Nick? If Patches' character was so far above suspicion, why did he always dodge any talk that might touch his past? Was it necessary or usual for men to keep so close-mouthed about themselves? What did the Dean, or anyone else, for that matter, really know about this man who had appeared so strangely from nowhere, and had given a name even that was so plainly a ridiculous invention? The Dean must remember that the suspicion as to the source of Nick's too rapidly increasing herds had, so far, been directed wholly against Nick himself, and that the owner of the Four-Bar-M iron was not altogether a fool. It was quite time, Reid argued, for Nick to cease his personal activities, and to trust the actual work of branding to some confederate whose movements would not be so closely questioned. In short, Reid had been expecting some stranger to seek a job with some of the ranches that were in a position to contribute to the Tailholt Mountain outfit, and, for his part, he would await developments before becoming too enthusiastic over Honorable Patches. All of which the good Dean found very hard to answer. "But look here, Jim," he protested, "don't you go makin' it unpleasant for the boy. Whatever you think, you don't know any more than the rest of us. If we're guessin' on one side, you're guessin' on the other. I admit that what you say sounds reasonable; but, hang it, I like Patches. As for his name--well--we didn't use to go so much on names, in this country, you know. The boy may have some good reason for not talkin' about himself. Just give him a square chance; don't put no burrs under his saddle blanket--that's all I'm askin'." Jim laughed. The speech was so characteristic of the Dean, and Jim Reid loved his old friend and neighbor, as all men did, for being, as was commonly said, "so easy." "Don't worry, Will," he answered. "I'm not goin' to start anything. If I should happen to be right about Mr. Honorable Patches, he's exactly where we want him. I propose to keep my eye on him, that's all. And I think you an' Phil had better do the same." CHAPTER XI. AFTER THE RODEO. As the fall rodeo swept on its way over the wide ranges, the last reluctant bits of summer passed, and hints of the coming winter began to appear The yellow glory of the goldenrod, and the gorgeous banks of color on sunflower flats faded to earthy russet and brown; the white cups of the Jimson weed were broken and lost; the dainty pepper-grass, the thin-leafed grama-grass, and the heavier bladed bear-grass of the great pasture lands were dry and tawny; and the broom-weed that had tufted the rolling hills with brighter green, at the touch of the first frost, turned a dull and somber gray; while the varied beauties of the valley meadows became even as the dead and withered leaves of the Dean's walnut trees that, in falling, left the widespread limbs and branches so bare. Then the rodeo and the shipping were over; the weeks of the late fall range riding were past--and it was winter. From skyline to skyline the world was white, save for the dark pines upon the mountain sides, the brighter cedars and junipers upon the hills and ridges, and the living green of the oak brush, that, when all else was covered with snow, gave the cattle their winter feed. More than ever, now, with the passing of the summer and fall, Kitty longed for the stirring life that, in some measure, had won her from the scenes of her home and from her homeland friends. The young woman's friendship with Patches--made easy by the fact that the Baldwins had taken him so wholly into their hearts--served to keep alive her memories of that world to which she was sure he belonged, and such memories did not tend to make Kitty more contented and happy in Williamson Valley. Toward Phil, Kitty was unchanged. Many times her heart called for him so insistently that she wished she had never learned to know any life other than that life to which they had both been born. If only she had not spent those years away from home--she often told herself--it would all have been so different. She could have been happy with Phil--very happy--if only she had remained in his world. But now--now she was afraid--afraid for him as well as for herself. Her friendship with Patches had, in so many ways, emphasized the things that stood between her and the man whom, had it not been for her education, she would have accepted so gladly as her mate. Many times when the three were together, and Kitty had led the talk far from the life with which the cowboy was familiar, the young woman was forced, against the wish of her heart, to make comparisons. Kitty did not understand that Phil--unaccustomed to speaking of things outside his work and the life interests of his associates, and timid always in expressing his own thoughts--found it very hard to reveal the real wealth of his mind to her when she assumed so readily that he knew nothing beyond his horses and cattle. But Patches, to whom Phil had learned to speak with little reserve, understood. And, knowing that the wall which the girl felt separated her from the cowboy was built almost wholly of her own assumptions, Patches never lost an opportunity to help the young woman to a fuller acquaintance with the man whom she thought she had known since childhood. During the long winter months, many an evening at the Cross-Triangle, at the Reid home, or, perhaps, at some neighborhood party or dance, afforded Kitty opportunities for a fuller understanding of Phil, but resulted only in establishing a closer friendship with Patches. Then came the spring. The snow melted; the rains fell; the washes and creek channels were filled with roaring floods; hill and ridge and mountain slope and mesa awoke to the new life that was swelling in every branch and leaf and blade; the beauties of the valley meadow appeared again in fresh and fragrant loveliness; while from fence-post and bush and grassy bank and new-leaved tree the larks and mocking birds and doves voiced their glad return. And, with the spring, came a guest to the Cross-Triangle Ranch--another stranger. Patches had been riding the drift fence, and, as he made his way toward the home ranch, in the late afternoon, he looked a very different man from the Patches who, several months before, had been rescued by Kitty from a humiliating experience with that same fence. The fact that he was now riding Stranger, the big bay with the blazed face, more than anything else, perhaps, marked the change that had come to the man whom the horse had so viciously tested, on that day when they began together their education and work on the Cross-Triangle Ranch. No one meeting the cowboy, who handled his powerful and wild spirited mount with such easy confidence and skill, would have identified him with the white-faced, well-tailored gentleman whom Phil had met on the Divide. The months of active outdoor life had given his tall body a lithe and supple strength that was revealed in his every movement, while wind and sun had stained his skin that deep tan which marks those who must face the elements every waking hour. Prom tinkling bridle chain and jingling spur, to the coiled riata, his equipment showed the unmistakable marks of use. His fringed chaps, shaped, by many a day in the saddle, to his long legs, expressed experience, while his broad hat, soiled by sweat and dust, had acquired individuality, and his very jumper--once blue but now faded and patched--disclaimed the tenderfoot. Riding for a little way along the top of the ridge that forms the western edge of the valley, Patches looked down upon the red roofs of the buildings of the home ranch, and smiled as he thought of the welcome that awaited him there at the close of his day's work. The Dean and Stella, with Little Billy, and Phil, and the others of the home circle, had grown very dear to this strong man of whom they still knew nothing; and great as was the change in his outward appearance and manner, the man himself knew that there were other changes as great. Honorable Patches had not only acquired a name and a profession, but in acquiring them he had gained something of much greater worth to himself. And so he was grateful to those who, taking him on trust, had helped him more than they knew. He had left the ridge, and was half way across the flat toward the corrals, when Little Billy, spurring old Sheep in desperate energy, rode wildly out to meet him. As the lad approached, he greeted his big friend with shrill, boyish shouts, and Patches answered with a cowboy yell which did credit to his training, while Stranger, with a wild, preliminary bound into the air, proceeded, with many weird contortions, to give an exhibition which fairly expressed his sentiments. Little Billy grinned with delight. "Yip! Yip! Yee-e-e!" he shrilled, for Stranger's benefit. And then, as the big horse continued his manifestations, the lad added the cowboy's encouraging admonition to the rider. "Stay with him, Patches! Stay with him!" Patches laughingly stayed with him. "What you aimin' to do, pardner"--he asked good-naturedly, when Stranger at last consented to keep two feet on the ground at the same time--"tryin' to get me piled?" "Shucks!" retorted the youngster admiringly. "I don't reckon anything could pile you, _now_. I come out to tell you that we got company," he added, as, side by side, they rode on toward the corrals. Patches was properly surprised. "Company!" he exclaimed. Little Billy grinned proudly. "Yep. He's a man--from way back East somewhere. Uncle Will brought him out from town. They got here just after dinner. I don't guess he's ever seen a ranch before. Gee! but won't we have fun with him!" Patches face was grave as he listened. "How do you know he is from the East, Billy?" he asked, concealing his anxious interest with a smile at his little comrade. "Heard Uncle Will tell Phil and Kitty." "Oh, Kitty is at the house, too, is she?" Billy giggled. "She an' Phil's been off somewheres ridin' together most all day; they just got back a while ago. They was talkin' with the company when I left. Phil saw you when you was back there on the ridge, an' I come on out to tell you." Phil and Kitty were walking toward their horses, which were standing near the corral fence, as Patches and Little Billy came through the gate. The boy dropped from his saddle, and ran on into the house to tell his Aunt Stella that Patches had come, leaving Sheep to be looked after by whoever volunteered for the service. It was one of Little Billy's humiliations that he was not yet tall enough to saddle or bridle his own horse, and the men tactfully saw to it that his mount was always ready in the morning, and properly released at night, without any embarrassing comments on the subject. Patches checked his horse, and without dismounting greeted his friends. "You're not going?" he said to Kitty, with a note of protest in his voice. "I haven't seen you for a week. It's not fair for Phil to take advantage of his position and send me off somewhere alone while he spends his time riding over the country with you." They laughed up at him as he sat there on the big bay, hat in hand, looking down into their upturned faces with the intimate, friendly interest of an older brother. Patches noticed that Kitty's eyes were bright with excitement, and that Phil's were twinkling with suppressed merriment. "I must go, Patches," said the young woman. "I ought to have gone two hours ago; but I was so interested that the time slipped away before I realized." "We have company," explained Phil, looking at Patches and deliberately closing one eye--the one that Kitty could not see. "A distinguished guest, if you please. I'll loan you a clean shirt for supper; that is, if mother lets you eat at the same table with him." "Phil, how can you!" protested Kitty. The two men laughed, but Phil fancied that there was a hint of anxiety in Patches' face, as the man on the horse said, "Little Billy broke the news to me. Who is he?" "A friend of Judge Morris in Prescott," answered Phil. "The Judge asked Uncle Will to take him on the ranch for a while. He and the Judge were--" Kitty interrupted with enthusiasm. "It is Professor Parkhill, Patches, the famous professor of aesthetics, you know: Everard Charles Parkhill. And he's going to spend the summer in Williamson Valley! Isn't it wonderful!" Phil saw a look of relief in his friend's face as Patches answered Kitty with sympathetic interest. "It certainly will be a great pleasure, Miss Reid, especially for you, to have one so distinguished for his scholarship in the neighborhood. Is Professor Parkhill visiting Arizona for his health?" Something in Patches' voice caused Phil to turn hastily aside. But Kitty, who was thinking how perfectly Patches understood her, noticed nothing in his grave tones save his usual courteous deference. "Partly because of his health," she answered, "but he is going to prepare a series of lectures, I understand. He says that in the crude and uncultivated mentalities of our--" "Here he is now," interrupted Phil, as the distinguished guest of the Cross-Triangle appeared, coming slowly toward them. Professor Everard Charles Parkhill looked the part to which, from his birth, he had been assigned by his over-cultured parents. His slender body, with its narrow shoulders and sunken chest, frail as it was, seemed almost too heavy for his feeble legs. His thin face, bloodless and sallow, with a sparse, daintily trimmed beard and weak watery eyes, was characterized by a solemn and portentous gravity, as though, realizing fully the profound importance of his mission in life, he could permit no trivial thought to enter his bald, domelike head. One knew instinctively that in all the forty-five or fifty years of his little life no happiness or joy that had not been scientifically sterilized and certified had ever been permitted to stain his super-aesthetic soul. As he came forward, he gazed at the long-limbed man on the big bay horse with a curious eagerness, as though he were considering a strange and interesting creature that could scarcely be held to belong to the human race. "Professor Parkhill," said Phil coolly, "you were saying that you had never seen a genuine cowboy in his native haunt. Permit me to introduce a typical specimen, Mr. Honorable Patches. Patches, this is Professor Parkhill." "Phil," murmured Kitty, "how can you?" The Professor was gazing at Patches as though fascinated. And Patches, his weather-beaten face as grave as the face of a wooden Indian, stared back at the Professor with a blank, open-mouthed and wild-eyed expression of rustic wonder that convulsed Phil and made Kitty turn away to hide a smile. "Howdy! Proud to meet up with you, mister," drawled the typical specimen of the genus cowboy. And then, as though suddenly remembering his manners, he leaped to the ground and strode awkwardly forward, one hand outstretched in greeting, the other holding fast to Stranger's bridle rein, while the horse danced and plunged about with reckless indifference to the polite intentions of his master. The Professor backed fearfully away from the dangerous looking horse and the equally formidable-appearing cowboy. Whereat Patches addressed Stranger with a roar of savage wrath. "Whoa! You consarned, square-headed, stiff-legged, squint-eyed, lop-eared, four-flusher, you. Whoa, I tell you! Cain't you see I'm a-wantin' to shake hands with this here man what the boss has interduced me to?" Phil nearly choked. Kitty was looking unutterable things. They did not know that Patches was suffering from a reaction caused by the discovery that he had never before met Professor Parkhill. "You see, mister," he explained gravely, advancing again with Stranger following nervously, "this here fool horse ain't used to strangers, no how, 'specially them as don't look, as you might say, just natural like." He finished with a sheepish grin, as he grasped the visitor's soft little hand and pumped it up and down with virile energy. Then, staring with bucolic wonder at the distinguished representative of the highest culture, he asked, "Be you an honest-to-God professor? I've heard about such, but I ain't never seen one before." The little man replied hurriedly, but with timid pride, "Certainly, sir; yes, certainly." "You be!" exclaimed the cowboy, as though overcome by his nearness to such dignity. "Excuse me askin', but if you don't mind, now--what be you professor of?" The other answered with more courage, as though his soul found strength in the very word: "Aesthetics." The cowboy's jaw dropped, his mouth opened in gaping awe, and he looked from the professor to Phil and Kitty, as if silently appealing to them to verify this startling thing which he had heard. "You don't say!" he murmured at last in innocent admiration. "Well, now, to think of a little feller like you a-bein' all that! But jest what be them there esteticks what you're professor of--if you don't mind my askin'?" The distinguished scholar answered promptly, in his best platform voice, "The science or doctrine of the nature of beauty and of judgments of tastes." At this, Stranger, with a snort of fear, stood straight up on his hind legs, and Professor Parkhill scuttled to a position of safety behind Phil. "Excuse me, folks," said Patches. "I'm just naturally obliged to 'tend to this here thing what thinks he's a hoss. Come along, you ornery, pigeon-toed, knock-kneed, sway-backed, wooly-haired excuse, you. You ain't got no more manners 'n a measly coyote." The famous professor of aesthetics stood with Phil and Kitty watching Patches as that gentleman relieved the dancing bay of the saddle, and led him away through the corrals to the gate leading into the meadow pasture. "I beg pardon," murmured the visitor in his thin, little voice, "but what did I understand you to say is the fellow's name?" "Patches; Honorable Patches," answered Phil. "How strange! how extraordinarily strange! I should be very interested to know something of his ancestry, and, if possible, to trace the origin of such a peculiar name." Phil replied with exaggerated concern. "For heaven's sake, sir, don't say anything about the man's name in his hearing." "He--he is dangerous, you mean?" "He is, if he thinks anyone is making light of his name. You should ask some of the boys who have tried it." "But I--I assure you, Mr. Acton, I had no thought of ridicule--far from it. Oh, very far from it." Kitty was obliged to turn away. She arrived at the corral in time to meet Patches, who was returning. "You ought to be ashamed," she scolded. But in spite of herself her eyes were laughing. "Yes, ma'am," said Patches meekly, hat in hand. "How could you do such a thing?" she demanded. "How could I help doing it?" "How could you help it?" "Yes. You saw how he looked at me. Really, Miss Reid, I couldn't bear to disappoint him so cruelly. Honestly, now, wasn't I exactly what he expected me to be? I think you should compliment me. Didn't I do it very well?" "But, he'll think you're nothing but a cowboy," she protested. "Fine!" retorted Patches, quickly. "I thank you, Miss Reid; that is really the most satisfactory compliment I have ever received." "You're mocking me now," said Kitty, puzzled by his manner. "Indeed, I am not. I am very serious," he returned. "But here he comes again. With your gracious permission, I'll make my exit. Please don't explain to the professor. It would humiliate me, and think how it would shock and disappoint him!" Lifting his saddle from the ground and starting toward the shed, he said in a louder tone, "Sure, I won't ferget, Miss Kitty; an' you kin tell your paw that there baldfaced steer o' his'n, what give us the slip last rodeo time, is over in our big pasture. I sure seen him thar to-day." During the days immediately following that first meeting, Kitty passed many hours with Professor Parkhill. Phil and his cowboys were busy preparing for the spring rodeo. Mrs. Baldwin was wholly occupied with ministering to the animal comforts of her earthly household. And the Dean, always courteous and kind to his guest, managed, nevertheless, to think of some pressing business that demanded his immediate and personal attention whenever the visitor sought to engage him in conversation. The professor, quite naturally holding the cattleman to be but a rude, illiterate and wholly materialistic creature, but little superior in intellectual and spiritual powers to his own beasts, sought merely to investigate the Dean's mental works, with as little regard for the Dean's feelings as a biologist would show toward a hug. The Dean confided to Phil and Patches, one day when he had escaped to the blacksmith shop where the men were shoeing their horses, that the professor was harmlessly insane. "Just think," he exploded, "of the poor, little fool livin' in Chicago for three years, an' never once goin' out to the stockyards even!" It remained, therefore, for Kitty--the only worshiper of the professor's gods in Williamson Valley--to supply that companionship which seems so necessary even to those whose souls are so far removed from material wants. In short, as Little Billy put it, with a boy's irreverence, "Kitty rode herd on the professor." And, strangely enough to them all, Kitty seemed to like the job. Either because her friendship with Patches--which had some to mean a great deal to Kitty--outweighed her respect and admiration for the distinguished object of his fun, or because she waited for some opportunity to make the revelation a punishment to the offender, the young woman did not betray the real character of the cowboy to the stranger. And the professor, thanks to Phil's warning, not only refrained from investigating the name of Patches, but carefully avoided Patches himself. In the meantime, the "typical specimen" was forced to take a small part in the table talk lest he betray himself. So marked was this that Mrs. Baldwin one day, not understanding, openly chided him for being so "glum." Whereupon the Dean--to whom Phil had thoughtfully explained--teased the deceiver unmercifully, with many laughingly alleged reasons for his "grouch," while Curly and Bob, attributing their comrade's manner to the embarrassing presence of the stranger, grinned sympathetically; and the professor himself--unconsciously agreeing with the cowboys--with kindly condescension tried to make the victim of his august superiority as much at ease as possible; which naturally, for the Dean and Phil, added not a little to the situation. Then the spring rodeo took the men far from the home ranch, and for several weeks the distinguished guest of the Cross-Triangle was left almost wholly to the guardianship of the young woman who lived on the other side of the big meadows. It was the last day of the rodeo, when Phil rode to the home ranch, late in the afternoon, to consult with the Dean about the shipping. Patches and the cowboys who were to help in the long drive to the railroad were at Toohey with the cattle. While the cowboys were finishing their early breakfast the next morning, the foreman returned, and Patches knew, almost before Phil spoke, that something had happened. They shouted their greetings as he approached, but he had no smile for their cheery reception, nor did he answer, even, until he had ridden close to the group about the camp fire. Then, with a short "mornin', boys," he dismounted and stood with the bridle reins in his hand. At his manner a hush fell over the little company, and they watched him curiously. "No breakfast, Sam," he said, shortly, to the Chinaman. "Just a cup of coffee." Then to the cowboys, "You fellows saddle up and get that bunch of cattle to moving. We'll load at Skull Valley." Sam brought his coffee and he drank it as he stood, while the men hurriedly departed for their horses. Patches, the last to go, paused a moment, as though to speak, but Phil prevented him with a gruff order. "Get a move on you, Patches. Those cars will be there long before we are." And Patches, seeing the man's face dark and drawn with pain, moved away without a word. "Great snakes," softly ejaculated Curly a few moments later, as Patches stooped to take his saddle from where it lay on the ground beside Curly's. "What do you reckon's eatin' the boss? Him an' the Dean couldn't 'a' mixed it last night, could they? Do you reckon the Dean crawled him about somethin'?" Patches shook his head with a "Search me, pardner," as he turned to his horse. "Somethin's happened sure," muttered the other, busy with his saddle blanket. "Sufferin' cats! but I felt like he'd poured a bucket of ice water down my neck!" He drew the cinch tight with a vigorous jerk that brought a grunt of protest from his mount. "That's right," he continued, addressing the horse, "hump yourself, an' swell up and grunt, damn you; you ought to be thankin' God that you ain't nothin' but a hoss, nohow, with no feelin' 'cept what's in your belly." He dropped the heavy stirrup with a vicious slap, and swung to his seat. "If Phil's a-goin' to keep up the way he's startin', we'll sure have a pleasant little ol' ride to Skull Valley. Oh, Lord! but I wisht I was a professor of them there exteticks, or somethin' nice and gentle like, jest for to-day, anyhow." Patches laughed. "Think you could qualify, Curly?" The cowboy grinned as they rode off together. "So far as I've noticed the main part of the work, I could. The shade of them walnut trees at the home ranch, or the Pot-Hook-S front porch, an' a nice easy rockin' chair with fat cushions, or mebby the buckboard onct in a while, with Kitty to do the drivin'--Say, this has sure been some little ol' rodeo, ain't it? I ain't got a hoss in my string that can more'n stand up, an' honest to God, Patches, I'm jest corns all over. How's your saddle feel, this mornin'?" "It's got corns, too," admitted Patches. "But there's Phil; we'd better be riding." All that day Phil kept to himself, speaking to his companions only when speech could not be avoided, and then with the fewest possible words. That night, he left the company as soon as he had finished his supper, and went off somewhere alone, and Patches heard him finding his bed, long after the other members of the outfit were sound asleep. And the following day, through the trying work of loading the cattle, the young foreman was so little like himself that, had it not been that his men were nearly all old-time, boyhood friends who had known him all his life, there would surely have been a mutiny. It was late in the afternoon, when the last reluctant steer was prodded and pushed up the timbered runway from the pens, and crowded into the car. Curly and Bob were going with the cattle train. The others would remain at Skull Valley until morning, when they would start for their widely separated homes. Phil announced that he was going to the home ranch that night. "You can make it home sometime to-morrow, Patches," he finished, when he had said good-by to the little group of men with whom he had lived and worked in closest intimacy through the long weeks of the rodeo. He reined his horse about, even as he spoke, to set out on his long ride. The Cross-Triangle foreman was beyond hearing of the cowboys when Patches overtook him. "Do you mind if I go back to the Cross-Triangle with you to-night, Phil?" the cowboy asked quietly. Phil checked his horse and looked at his friend a moment without answering. Then, in a kindlier tone than he had used the past two days, he said, "You better stay here with the boys, and get your night's rest, Patches. You have had a long hard spell of it in this rodeo, and yesterday and to-day have not been exactly easy. Shipping is always hell, even when everybody is in a good humor," he smiled grimly. "If you do not object, I would really like to go," said Patches simply. "But your horse is as tired as you ought to be," protested Phil. "I'm riding Stranger, you know," the other answered. To which Phil replied tersely, "Let's be riding, then." The cowboys, who had been watching the two men, looked at each other in amazement as Phil and Patches rode away together. "Well, what do you make of that?" exclaimed one. "Looks like Honorable Patches was next," commented another. "Us old-timers ain't in it when it comes to associatin' with the boss," offered a third. "You shut up on that line," came sharply from Curly. "Phil ain't turnin' us down for nobody. I reckon if Patches is fool enough to want to ride to the Cross-Triangle to-night Phil ain't got no reason for stoppin' him. If any of you punchers wants to make the ride, the way's open, ain't it?" "Now, don't you go on the prod, too," soothed the other. "We wasn't meanin' nothin' agin Phil." "Well, what's the matter with Patches?" demanded the Cross-Triangle man, whose heart was sorely troubled by the mystery of his foreman's mood. "Ain't nobody _said_ as there was anything the matter. Fact is, don't nobody _know_ that there is." And for some reason Curly had no answer. "Don't it jest naturally beat thunder the way he's cottoned up to that yellow dog of a Yavapai Joe?" mused another, encouraged by Curly's silence. "Three or four of the boys told how they'd seen 'em together off an' on, but I didn't think nothin' of it until I seen 'em myself when we was workin' over at Tailholt. It was one evenin' after supper. I went down to the corral to fix up that Pedro horse's back, when I heard voices kind o' low like. I stopped a minute, an' then sort o' eased along in the dark, an' run right onto 'em where they was a-settin' in the door o' the saddle room, cozy as you please. Yavapai sneaked away while I was gettin' the lantern an' lightin' it, but Patches, he jest stayed an' held the light for me while I fixed ol' Pedro, jest as if nothin' had happened." "Well," said Curly sarcastically, "what _had_ happened?" "I don't know-nothin'--mebby." "If Patches was what some o' you boys seem to think, do you reckon he'd be a-ridin' for the Cross-Triangle?" demanded Curly. "He might, an' he mightn't," retorted two or three at once. "Nobody can't say nothin' in a case like that until the show-down," added one. "I don't reckon the Dean knows any more than the rest of us." "Unless Patches is what some of the other boys are guessin'," said another. "Which means," finished Curly, in a tone of disgust, "that we've got to millin' 'round the same old ring again. Come on, Bob; let's see what they've got for supper. That engine'll happen along directly, an' we'll be startin' hungry." Phil Acton was not ignorant of the different opinions that were held by the cattlemen regarding Honorable Patches. Nor, as the responsible foreman of the Cross-Triangle, could he remain indifferent to them. During those first months of Patches' life on the ranch, when the cowboy's heart had so often been moved to pity for the stranger who had come to them apparently from some painful crisis in his life, he had laughed at the suspicions of his old friends and associates. But as the months had passed, and Patches had so rapidly developed into a strong, self-reliant man, with a spirit of bold recklessness that was marked even among those hardy riders of the range, Phil forgot, in a measure, those characteristics that the stranger had shown at the beginning of their acquaintance. At the same time, the persistent suspicions of the cattlemen, together with Patches' curious, and, in a way, secret interest in Yavapai Joe, could not but have a decided influence upon the young man who was responsible for the Dean's property. It was inevitable, under the circumstances, that Phil's attitude toward Patches should change, even as the character of Patches himself had changed. While the foreman's manner of friendship and kindly regard remained, so far, unaltered, and while Phil still, in his heart, believed in his friend, and--as he would have said--"would continue to back his judgment until the show-down," nevertheless that spirit of intimacy which had so marked those first days of their work together had gradually been lost to them. The cowboy no longer talked to his companion, as he had talked that day when they lay in the shade of the walnut tree at Toohey, and during the following days of their range riding. He no longer admitted his friend into his inner life, as he had done that day when he told Patches the story of the wild stallion. And Patches, feeling the change, and unable to understand the reason for it, waited patiently for the time when the cloud that had fallen between them should lift. So they rode together that night, homeward bound, at the end of the long, hard weeks of the rodeo, in the deepening gloom of the day's passing, in the hushed stillness of the wild land, under the wide sky where the starry sentinel hosts were gathering for their ever-faithful watch. And as they rode, their stirrups often touching, each was alone with his own thoughts. Phil, still in the depth of his somber mood, brooded over his bitter trouble. Patches, sympathetically wondering, silently questioning, wished that he could help. There are times when a man's very soul forces him to seek companionship. Alone in the night with this man for whom, even at that first moment of their meeting on the Divide, he had felt a strange sense of kinship, Phil found himself drifting far from the questions that had risen to mar the closeness of their intimacy. The work of the rodeo was over; his cowboy associates, with their suggestive talk, were far away. Under the influence of the long, dark miles of that night, and the silent presence of his companion, the young man, for the time being, was no longer the responsible foreman of the Cross-Triangle Ranch. In all that vast and silent world there was, for Phil Acton, only himself, his trouble, and his friend. And so it came about that, little by little, the young man told Patches the story of his dream, and of how it was now shattered and broken. Sometimes bitterly, as though he felt injustice; sometimes harshly, as though in contempt for some weakness of his own; with sentences broken by the pain he strove to subdue, with halting words and long silences, Phil told of his plans for rebuilding the home of his boyhood, and of restoring the business that, through the generosity of his father, had been lost; of how, since his childhood almost, he had worked and saved to that end; and of his love for Kitty, which had been the very light of his dream, and without which for him there was no purpose in dreaming. And the man who rode so close beside him listened with a fuller understanding and a deeper sympathy than Phil knew. "And now," said Phil hopelessly, "it's all over. I've sure come to the end of my string. Reid has put the outfit on the market. He's going to sell out and quit. Uncle Will told me night before last when I went home to see about the shipping." "Reid is going to sell!" exclaimed Patches; and there was a curious note of exultation in his voice which Phil did not hear. Neither did Phil see that his companion was smiling to himself under cover of the darkness. "It's that damned Professor Parkhill that's brought it about," continued the cowboy bitterly. "Ever since Kitty came home from the East she has been discontented and dissatisfied with ranch life. I was all right when she went away, but when she came back she discovered that I was nothing but a cow-puncher. She has been fair, though. She has tried to get back where she was before she left and I thought I would win her again in time. I was so sure of it that it never troubled me. You have seen how it was. And you have seen how she was always wanting the life that she had learned to want while she was away--the life that you came from, Patches. I have been mighty glad for your friendship with her, too, because I thought she would learn from you that a man could have all that is worth having in _that_ life, and still be happy and contented _here_. And she would have learned, I am sure. She couldn't help seeing it. But now that damned fool who knows no more of real manhood than I do of his profession has spoiled it all." "But Phil, I don't understand. What has Parkhill to do with Reid's selling out?" "Why, don't you see?" Phil returned savagely. "He's the supreme representative of the highest highbrowed culture, isn't he? He's a lord high admiral, duke, or potentate of some sort, in the world of loftiest thought, isn't he? He lives, moves and has his being in the lofty realms of the purely spiritual, doesn't he? He's cultured, and cultivated, and spiritualized, until he vibrates nothing but pure soul--whatever that means--and he's refined himself, and mental-disciplined himself, and soul-dominated himself, until there's not an ounce of red blood left in his carcass. Get him between you and the sun, after what he calls a dinner, and you can see every material mouthful that he, has disgraced himself by swallowing. He's not human, I tell you; he's only a kind of a he-ghost, and ought to be fed on sterilized moonbeams and pasteurized starlight." "Amen!" said Patches solemnly, when Phil paused for lack of breath. "But, Phil, your eloquent characterization does not explain what the he-ghost has to do with the sale of the Pot-Hook-S outfit." Phil's voice again dropped into its hopeless key as he answered. "You remember how, from the very first, Kitty--well--sort of worshiped him, don't you?" "You mean how she worshiped his aesthetic cult, don't you?" corrected Patches quietly. "I suppose that's it," responded Phil gloomily. "Well, Uncle Will says that they have been together mighty near every day for the past three months, and that about half of the time they have been over at Kitty's home. He has discovered, he says, that Kitty possesses a rare and wonderful capacity for absorbing the higher truths of the more purely intellectual and spiritual planes of life, and that she has a marvelously developed appreciation of those ideals of life which are so far removed from the base and material interests and passions which belong to the mere animal existence of the common herd." "Oh, hell!" groaned Patches. "Well, that's what he told Uncle Will," returned Phil stoutly. "And he has harped on that string so long, and yammered so much to Jim and to Kitty's mother about the girl's wonderful intellectuality, and what a record-breaking career she would have if only she had the opportunity, and what a shame, and a loss to the world it is for her to remain buried in these soul-dwarfing surroundings, that they have got to believing it themselves. You see, Kitty herself has in a way been getting them used to the idea that Williamson Valley isn't much of a place, and that the cow business doesn't rank very high among the best people. So Jim is going to sell out, and move away somewhere, where Kitty can have her career, and the boys can grow up to be something better than low-down cow-punchers like you and me. Jim is able to retire anyway." "Thanks, Phil," said Patches quietly. "What for?" "Why, for including me in your class. I consider it a compliment, and"--he added, with a touch of his old self-mocking humor--"I think I know what I am saying--better, perhaps, than the he-ghost knows what he talks about." "It may be that you do," returned Phil wearily, "but you can see where it all puts me. The professor has sure got me down and hog-tied so tight that I can't even think." "Perhaps, and again, perhaps not," returned Patches. "Reid hasn't found a buyer for the outfit yet, has he?" "Not yet, but they'll come along fast enough. The Pot-Hook-S Ranch is too well known for the sale to hang fire long." The next day Phil seemed to slip back again, in his attitude toward Patches, to the temper of those last weeks of the rodeo. It was as though the young man--with his return to the home ranch and to the Dean and their talks and plans for the work--again put himself, his personal convictions and his peculiar regard for Patches, aside, and became the unprejudiced foreman, careful for his employer's interests. Patches very quickly, but without offense, found that the door, which his friend had opened in the long dark hours of that lonely night ride, had closed again; and, thinking that he understood, he made no attempt to force his way. But, for some reason, Patches appeared to be in an unusually happy frame of mind, and went singing and whistling about the corrals and buildings as though exceedingly well pleased with himself and with the world. The following day was Sunday. In the afternoon, Patches was roaming about the premises, keeping at a safe distance from the walnut trees in front of the house, where the professor had cornered the Dean, thus punishing both Patches and his employer by preventing one of their long Sunday talks which they both so much enjoyed. Phil had gone off somewhere to be alone, and Mrs. Baldwin was reading aloud to Little Billy. Honorable Patches was left very much to himself. From the top of the little hill near the corrals, he looked across the meadow at exactly the right moment to see someone riding away from the neighboring ranch. He watched until he was certain that whoever it was was not coming to the Cross-Triangle--at least, not by way of the meadow lane. Then, smiling to himself, he went to the big barn and saddled a horse--there are always two or three that are not turned out in the pasture--and in a few minutes was riding leisurely away on the Simmons road, along the western edge of the valley. An hour later he met Kitty Reid, who was on her way from Simmons to the Cross-Triangle. The young woman was sincerely glad to meet him. "But you were going to Simmons, were you not?" she asked, as he reined his horse about to ride with her. "To be truthful, I was going to Simmons if I met anyone else, or if I had not met you," he answered. Then, at her puzzled look, he explained, "I saw someone leave your house, and guessed that it was you. I guessed, too, that you would be coming this way." "And you actually rode out to meet me?" "Actually," he smiled. They chatted about the rodeo, and the news of the countryside--for it had been several weeks since they had met--and so reached the point of the last ridge before you come to the ranch. Then Patches asked, "May we ride over there on the ridge, and sit for a while in the shade of that old cedar, for a little talk? It's early yet, and it's been ages since we had a pow-wow." Reaching the point which Patches had chosen, they left their horses and made themselves comfortable on the brow of the hill, overlooking the wide valley meadow and the ranches. "And now," said Kitty, looking at him curiously, "what's the talk, Mr. Honorable Patches?" "Just you," said Patches, gravely. "Me?" "Your own charming self," he returned. "But, please, good sir, what have I done?" she asked. "Or, perhaps, it's what have I not done?" "Or perhaps," he retorted, "it's what you are going to do." "Oh!" "Miss Reid, I am going to ask you a favor--a great favor." "Yes?" "You have known me now almost a year." "Yes." "And, yet, to be exact, you do not know me at all." She did not answer, but looked at him steadily. "And that, in a way," he continued, "makes it easy for me to ask the favor; that is, if you feel that you can trust me ever so little--trust me, I mean, to the extent of believing me sincere." "I know that you are sincere, Patches," she answered, gravely. "Thank you," he returned. Then he said gently, "I want you to let me talk to you about what is most emphatically none of my business. I want you to let me ask you impertinent questions. I want you to talk to me about"--he hesitated; then finished with meaning--"about your career." She felt his earnestness, and was big enough to understand, and be grateful for the spirit that prompted his words. "Why, Patches," she cried, "after all that your friendship has meant to me, these past months, I could not think any question that you would ask impertinent Surely you know that, don't you?" "I hoped that you would feel that way. And I know that I would give five years of my life if I knew how to convince you of the truth which I have learned from my own bitter experience, and save you from--from yourself." She could not mistake his earnestness and in spite of herself the man's intense feeling moved her deeply. "Save me from myself?" she questioned. "What in the world do you mean, Patches?" "Is it true," he asked, "that your father is offering the ranch for sale, and that you are going out of the Williamson Valley life?" "Yes, but it is not such a sudden move as it seems. We have often talked about it at home--father and mother and I." "But the move is to be made chiefly on your account, is it not?" She flushed a little at this, but answered stoutly. "Yes. I suppose that is true. You see, being the only one in our family to have the advantages of--well--the advantages that I have had, it was natural that I should--Surely you have seen, Patches, how discontented and dissatisfied I have been with the life here! Why, until you came there was no one to whom I could talk, even--no one, I mean, who could understand." "But what is it that you want, or expect to find, that you may not have right here?" Then she told him all that he had expected to hear. Told him earnestly, passionately, of the life she craved, and of the sordid, commonplace narrowness and emptiness--as she saw it--of the life from which she sought to escape. And as she talked the man's good heart was heavy with sadness and pity for her. "Oh, girl, girl," he cried, when she had finished. "Can't you--won't you--understand? All that you seek is right here--everywhere about you--waiting for you to make it your own, and with it you may have here those greater things without which no life can be abundant and joyous. The culture and the intellectual life that is dependent upon mere environment is a crippled culture and a sickly life. The mind that cannot find its food for thought wherever it may be planed will never hobble very far on crutches of superficial cults and societies. You are leaving the substance, child, for the shadow. You are seeking the fads and fancies of shallow idlers, and turning your back upon eternal facts. You are following after silly fools who are chasing bubbles over the edge of God's good world. Believe me, girl, I know--God! but I do know what that life, stripped of its tinseled and spangled show, means. Take the good grain, child, and let the husks go." As the man spoke, Kitty watched him as though she were intently interested; but, in truth, her thoughts were more on the speaker than on what he said. "You are in earnest, aren't you, Patches?" she murmured softly. "I am," he returned sharply, for he saw that she was not even considering what he had said. "I know how mistaken you are; I know what it will mean to you when you find how much you have lost and how little you have gained." "And how am I mistaken? Do I not know what I want? Am I not better able than anyone else to say what satisfies me and what does not?" "No," he retorted, almost harshly, "you are not. You _think_ it is the culture, as you call it, that you want; but if that were really it, you would not go. You would find it here. The greatest minds that the world has ever known you may have right here in your home, on your library table. And you may listen to their thoughts without being disturbed by the magpie chatterings of vain and shallow pretenders. You are attracted by the pretentious forms and manners of that life; you think that because a certain class of people, who have nothing else to do, talk a certain jargon, and profess to follow certain teachers--who, nine times out of ten, are charlatans or fools--that they are the intellectual and spiritual leaders of the race. You are mistaking the very things that prevent intellectual and spiritual development for the things you think you want." She did not answer his thought, but replied to his words. "And supposing I am mistaken, as you say. Still, I do not see why it should matter so to you." He made a gesture of hopelessness and sat for a moment in silence. Then he said slowly, "I fear you will not understand, but did you ever hear the story of how 'Wild Horse Phil' earned his title?" She laughed. "Why, of course. Everybody knows about that. Dear, foolish old Phil--I shall miss him dreadfully." "Yes," he said significantly, "you will miss him. The life you are going to does not produce Phil Actons." "It produced an Honorable Patches," she retorted slyly. "Indeed it did _not_," he answered quickly. "It produced--" He checked himself, as though fearing that he would say too much. "But what have Phil and his wild horse to do with the question?" she asked. "Nothing, I fear. Only I feel about your going away as Phil felt when he gave the wild horse its freedom." "I don't think I understand," she said, genuinely puzzled. "I said you would not," he retorted bluntly, "and that's why you are leaving all this." His gesture indicated the vast sweep of country with old Granite Mountain in the distance. Then, with a nod and a look he indicated Professor Parkhill, who was walking toward them along the side of the ridge skirting the scattered cedar timber. "Here comes a product of the sort of culture to which you aspire. Behold the ideal manhood of your higher life! When the intellectual and spiritual life you so desire succeeds in producing racial fruit of that superior quality, it will have justified its existence--and will perish from the earth." Even as Patches spoke, he saw something just beyond the approaching man that made him start as if to rise to his feet. It was the unmistakable face of Yavapai Joe, who, from behind an oak bush, was watching the professor. Patches, glancing at Kitty, saw that she had not noticed. Before the young woman could reply to her companion's derisive remarks, the object which had prompted his comments arrived within speaking distance. "I trust I am not intruding," began the professor, in his small, thin voice. Then as Patches, his eyes still on that oak bush, stood up, the little man added, with hasty condescension, "Keep your seat, my man; keep your seat. I assure you it is not my purpose to deprive you of Miss Reid's company." Patches grinned. By that "my man" he knew that Kitty had not enlightened her teacher as to the "typical cowboy's" real character. "That's all right, perfessor," he said awkwardly. "I just seen a maverick over yonder a-piece. I reckon I'd better mosey along an' have a closer look at him. Me an' Kitty here warn't talkin' nothin' important, nohow. Just a gassin' like. I reckon she'd ruther go on home with you, anyhow, an' it's all right with me." "Maverick!" questioned the professor. "And what, may I ask, is a maverick?" "Hit's a critter what don't belong to nobody," answered Patches, moving toward his horse. At the same moment Kitty, who had risen, and was looking in the direction from which the professor had come, exclaimed, "Why, there's Yavapai Joe, Patches. What is he doing here?" She pointed, and the professor, looking, caught a glimpse of Joe's back as the fellow was slinking over the ridge. "I reckon mebby he wants to see me 'bout somethin' or other," Patches returned, as he mounted his horse. "Anyway, I'm a-goin' over that-a-way an' see. So long!" Patches rode up to Joe just as the Tailholt Mountain man regained his horse on the other side of the ridge. "Hello, Joe!" said the Cross-Triangle rider, easily. The wretched outcast was so shaken and confused that he could scarcely find the stirrup with his foot, and his face was pale and twitching with excitement. He looked at Patches, wildly, but spoke in a sullen tone. "What's he doin' here? What does he want? How did he get to this country, anyhow?" Patches was amazed, but spoke calmly. "Whom do you mean, Joe?" "I mean that man back there, Parkhill--Professor Parkhill. What's he a-lookin' for hangin' 'round here? You can tell him it ain't no use--I--" He stopped suddenly, and with a characteristic look of cunning, turned away. Patches rode beside him for some distance, but nothing that he could say would persuade the wretched creature to explain. "Yes, I know you're my friend, all right, Patches," he answered. "You sure been mighty friendly ter me, an' I ain't fergettin' it. But I ain't a-tellin' nothin' to nobody, an' it ain't a-goin' to do you no good to go askin' him 'bout me, neither." "I'm not going to ask Professor Parkhill anything, Joe," said Patches shortly. "You ain't?" "Certainly not; if you don't want me to know. I'm not trying to find out about anything that's none of my business." Joe looked at him with a cunning leer. "Oh, you ain't, ain't you? Nick 'lows that you're sure--" Again he caught himself. "But I ain't a-tellin' nothin' to nobody." "Well, have _I_ ever asked you to tell me anything?" demanded Patches. "No, you ain't--that's right--you sure been square with me, Patches, an' I ain't fergettin' it. Be you sure 'nuf my friend, Patches? Honest-to-God, now, be you?" His question was pitiful, and Patches assured the poor fellow that he had no wish to be anything but his friend, if only Yavapai Joe would accept his help. "Then," said Joe pleadingly, "if you mean all that you been sayin' about wantin' to help me, you'll do somethin' fer me right now." "What can I do, Joe?" "You kin promise me that you won't say nothin' to nobody 'bout me an' him back there." Patches, to demonstrate his friendliness, answered without thought, "Certainly, I'll promise that, Joe." "You won't tell nobody?" "No, I won't say a word." The poor fellow's face revealed his gratitude. "I'm obliged to you, Patches, I sure am, an' I ain't fergettin' nothin', either. You're my friend, all right, an' I'm your'n. I got to be a-hittin' it up now. Nick'll jest nachally gimme hell for bein' gone so long." "Good-by, Joe!" "So long, Patches! An' don't you get to thinkin' that I'm fergettin' how me an' you is friends." When Patches reviewed the incident, as he rode back to the ranch, he questioned if he had done right in promising Joe. But, after all, he reassured himself, he was under no obligation to interfere with what was clearly none of his business. He could not see that the matter in any possible way touched his employer's interests. And, he reflected, he had already tried the useless experiment of meddling with other people's affairs, and he did not care to repeat the experience. That evening Patches asked Phil's permission to go to Prescott the next day. It would be the first time that he had been to town since his coming to the ranch and the foreman readily granted his request. A few minutes later as Phil passed through the kitchen, Mrs. Baldwin remarked, "I wonder what Patches is feeling so gay about. Ever since he got home from the rodeo he's been singin' an' whistlin' an' grinnin' to himself all the time. He went out to the corral just now as merry as a lark." Phil laughed. "Anybody would be glad to get through with that rodeo, mother; besides, he is going to town to-morrow." "He is? Well, you mark my words, son, there's somethin' up to make him feel as good as he does." And then, when Phil had gone on out into the yard, Professor Parkhill found him. "Mr. Acton," began the guest timidly, "there is a little matter about which I feel I should speak to you." "Very well, sir," returned the cowboy. "I feel that it would be better for me to speak to you rather than to Mr. Baldwin, because, well, you are younger, and will, I am sure, understand more readily." "All right; what is it, Professor?" asked Phil encouragingly, wondering at the man's manner. "Do you mind--ah--walking a little way down the road?" As they strolled out toward the gate to the meadow road, the professor continued: "I think I should tell you about your man Patches." Phil looked at his companion sharply. "Well, what about him?" "I trust you will not misunderstand my interest, Mr. Acton, when I say that it also includes Miss Reid." Phil stopped short. Instantly Mrs. Baldwin's remark about Patches' happiness, his own confession that he had given up all hope of winning Kitty, and the thought of the friendship which he had seen developing during the past months, with the realization that Patches belonged to that world to which Kitty aspired--all swept through his mind. He was looking at the man beside him so intently that the professor said again uneasily: "I trust, Mr. Acton, that you will understand." Phil laughed shortly. "I think I do. But just the same you'd better explain. What about Patches and Miss Reid, sir?" The professor told how he had found them together that afternoon. "Oh, is that all?" laughed Phil. "But surely, Mr. Acton, you do not think that a man of that fellow's evident brutal instincts is a fit associate for a young woman of Miss Reid's character and refinement." "Perhaps not," admitted Phil, still laughing, "but I guess Kitty can take care of herself." "I do not agree with you, sir," said the other authoritatively. "A young woman of Miss Reid's--ah--spirituality and worldly inexperience must always be, to a certain extent, injured by contact with such illiterate, unrefined, and, I have no doubt, morally deficient characters." "But, look here, Professor," returned Phil, still grinning, "what do you expect me to do about it? I am not Kitty Reid's guardian. Why don't you talk to her yourself?" "Really," returned the little man, "I--there are reasons why I do not see my way clear to such a course. I had hoped that you might keep an eye on the fellow, and, if necessary, use your authority over him to prevent any such incidents in the future." "I'll see what I can do," answered Phil, thinking how the Dean would enjoy the joke. "But, look here; Kitty was with you when you got to the ranch. What became of Patches? Run, did he, when you appeared on the scene?" "Oh, no; he went away with a--with a maverick." "Went away with a maverick? What, in heaven's name, do you mean by that?" "That's what your man Patches said the fellow was. Miss Reid told me his name was Joe--Joe something." Phil was not laughing now. The fun of the situation had vanished. "Was it Yavapai Joe?" he demanded. "Yes, that was it. I am quite sure that was the name. He belongs at Tailend Mountain, I think Miss Reid said; you have such curious names in this country." "And Patches went away with him, you say?" "Yes, the fellow seemed to have been hiding in the bushes when we discovered him, and when Miss Reid asked what he was doing there your man said that he had come to see him about something. They went away together, I believe." As soon as he could escape from the professor, Phil went straight to Patches, who was in his room, reading. The man looked up with a welcoming smile as Phil entered, but as he saw the foreman's face his smile vanished quickly, and he laid aside his book. "Patches," said Phil abruptly, "what's this talk of the professor's about you and Yavapai Joe?" "I don't know what the professor is talking," Patches replied coldly, as though he did not exactly like the tone of Phil's question. "He says that Joe was sneaking about in the brush over on the ridge wanting to see you about something," returned Phil. "Joe was certainly over there on the ridge, and he may have wanted to see me; at any rate, I saw him." "Well, I've got to ask you what sort of business you have with that Tailholt Mountain thief that makes it necessary for him to sneak around in the brush for a meeting with you. If he wants to see you, why doesn't he come to the ranch, like a man?" Honorable Patches looked the Dean's foreman straight in the eyes, as he answered in a tone that he had never used before in speaking to Phil: "And I have to answer, sir, that my business with Yavapai Joe is entirely personal; that it has no relation whatever to your business as the foreman of this ranch. As to why Joe didn't come to the house, you must ask him; I don't know." "You refuse to explain?" demanded Phil. "I certainly refuse to discuss Joe Dryden's private affairs--that, so far as I can see, are of no importance to anyone but himself--with you or anyone else. Just as I should refuse to discuss any of your private affairs, with which I happened, by some chance, to be, in a way, familiar. I have made all the explanation necessary when I say that my business with him has nothing to do with your business. You have no right to ask me anything further." "I have the right to fire you," retorted Phil, angrily. Patches smiled, as he answered gently, "You have the right, Phil, but you won't use it." "And why not?" "Because you are not that kind of a man, Phil Acton," answered Patches slowly. "You know perfectly well that if you discharged me because of my friendship with poor Yavapai Joe, no ranch in this part of the country would give me a job. You are too honest yourself to condemn any man on mere suspicion, and you are too much of a gentleman to damn another simply because he, too, aspires to that distinction." "Very well, Patches," Phil returned, with less heat, "but I want you to understand one thing; I am responsible for the Cross-Triangle property and there is no friendship in the world strong enough to influence me in the slightest degree when it comes to a question of Uncle Will's interests. Do you get that?" "I got that months ago, Phil." Without another word, the Dean's foreman left the room. Patches sat for some time considering the situation. And now and then his lips curled in that old, self-mocking smile; realizing that he was caught in the trap of circumstance, he found a curious humor in his predicament. CHAPTER XII. FRONTIER DAY. Again it was July. And, with the time of the cattlemen's celebration of the Fourth at hand, riders from every part of the great western cow country assembled in Prescott for their annual contests. From Texas and Montana, from Oklahoma and New Mexico and Wyoming, the cowboys came with their saddles and riatas to meet each other and the men of Arizona in friendly trials of strength and skill. From many a wild pasture, outlaw horses famous for their vicious, unsubdued spirits, and their fierce, untamed strength, were brought to match their wicked, unbroken wills against the cool, determined courage of the riders. From the wide ranges, the steers that were to participate in the roping and bull-dogging contests were gathered and driven in. From many a ranch the fastest and best of the trained cow-horses were sent for the various cowboy races. And the little city, in its rocky, mile-high basin, upon which the higher surrounding mountains look so steadfastly down, again decked itself in gala colors, and opened wide its doors to welcome all who chose to come. From the Cross-Triangle and the neighboring ranches the cowboys, dressed in the best of their picturesque regalia, rode into the town, to witness and take part in the sports. With them rode Honorable Patches. And this was not the carefully groomed and immaculately attired gentleman who, in troubled spirit, had walked alone over that long, unfenced way a year before. This was not the timid, hesitating, shamefaced man at whom Phil Acton had laughed on the summit of the Divide. This was a man among men--a cowboy of the cowboys--bronzed, and lean, and rugged; vitally alive in every inch of his long body; with self-reliant courage and daring hardihood written all over him, expressed in every tone of his voice, and ringing in every note of his laughter. The Dean and Mrs. Baldwin and Little Billy drove in the buckboard, but the distinguished guest of the Cross-Triangle went with the Reid family in the automobile. The professor was not at all interested in the celebration, but he could not well remain at the ranch alone, and, it may be supposed, the invitation from Kitty helped to make the occasion endurable. The celebration this year--the posters and circulars declared--was to be the biggest and best that Prescott had ever offered. In proof of the bold assertion, the program promised, in addition to the usual events, an automobile race. Shades of all those mighty heroes of the saddle, whose names may not be erased from the history of the great West, think of it! An automobile race offered as the chief event in a Frontier Day Celebration! No wonder that Mrs. Manning said to her husband that day, "But Stan, where are the cowboys?" Stanford Manning answered laughingly, "Oh, they are here, all right, Helen; just wait a little and you will see." Mr. and Mrs. Manning had arrived from Cleveland, Ohio, the evening before, and Helen was eager and excited with the prospect of meeting the people, and witnessing the scenes of which her husband had told her with so much enthusiasm. As the Dean had told Patches that day when the cattleman had advanced the money for the stranger's outfit, the young mining engineer had won a place for himself amid the scenes and among the people of that western country. He had first come to the land of this story, fresh from his technical training in the East. His employers, quick to recognize not only his ability in his profession but his character and manhood, as well, had advanced him rapidly and, less than a month before Patches asked for work at the Cross-Triangle, had sent him on an important mission to their mines in the North. They were sending him, now, again to Arizona, this time as the resident manager of their properties in the Prescott district. This new advance in his profession, together with the substantial increase in salary which it brought, meant much to the engineer. Most of all, it meant his marriage to Helen Wakefield. A stop-over of two weeks at Cleveland, on way West, from the main offices of his Company in New York, had changed his return to Prescott from a simple business trip to a wedding journey. At the home of the Yavapai Club, on top of the hill, a clock above the plaza, a number of Prescott's citizens, with their guests, had gathered to watch the beginning of the automobile race. The course, from the corner in front of the St. Michael hotel, followed the street along one side of the plaza, climbed straight up the hill, passed the clubhouse, and so away into the open country. From the clubhouse veranda, from the lawn and walks in front, or from their seats in convenient automobiles standing near, the company enjoyed, thus, an unobstructed view of the starting point of the race, and could look down as well upon the crowds that pressed against the ropes which were stretched along either side of the street. Prom a friendly automobile, Helen Manning, with her husband's field glasses, was an eager and excited observer of the interesting scene, while Stanford near by was busy greeting old friends, presenting them to his wife and receiving their congratulations. And often, he turned with a fond look and a merry word to the young woman, as though reassuring himself that she was really there. There was no doubt about it, Stamford Manning, strong and steady and forceful, was very much in love with this girl who looked down into his face with such an air of sweet confidence and companionship. And Helen, as she turned from the scene that so interested her, to greet her husband's friends, to ask him some question, or to answer some laughing remark, could not hide the love light in her soft brown eyes. One could not fail to see that her woman heart was glad--glad and proud that this stalwart, broad-shouldered leader of men had chosen her for his mate. "But, Stan," she said, with a pretty air of disappointment, "I thought it was all going to be so different. Why, except for the mountains, and those poor Indians over there, this might all be in some little town back home. I thought there would be cowboys riding about everywhere, with long hair and big hats, and guns and things." Stanford and his friends who were standing near laughed. "I fear, Mrs. Manning," remarked Mr. Richards, one of Prescott's bank presidents, "that Stanford has been telling you wild west stories. The West moves as well as the East, you know. We are becoming civilized." "Indeed you are, Mr. Richards," Helen returned. "And I don't think I like it a bit. It's not fair to your poor eastern sight-seers, like myself." "If you are really so anxious to see a sure enough cowboy, look over there," said Stanford, and pointed across the street. "Where?" demanded Helen eagerly. "There," smiled Stanford, "the dark-faced chap near that automobile standing by the curb; the machine with the pretty girl at the wheel. See! he is stopping to talk with the girl." "What! That nice looking man, dressed just like thousands of men that we might see any day on the streets of Cleveland?" cried Helen. "Exactly," chuckled her husband, while the others laughed at her incredulous surprise. "But, just the same, that's Phil Acton; 'Wild Horse Phil,' if you please. He is the cowboy foreman of the Cross-Triangle Ranch, and won the championship in the bronco riding last year." "I don't believe it--you are making fun of me, Stanford Manning." Then, before he could answer, she cried, with quick excitement, "But, Stan, look! Look at the girl in the automobile! She looks like--it is, Stan, it is!" And to the amazement of her husband and her friends Mrs. Manning sprang to her feet and, waving her handkerchief, called, "Kitty! Oh, Kitty--Kitty Reid!" As her clear call rang out, many people turned to look, and then to smile at the picture, as she stood there in the bright Arizona day, so animated and wholesomely alive in the grace and charm of her beautiful young womanhood, above the little group of men who were looking up at her with laughing admiration. On the other side of the street, where she sat with her parents and Professor Parkhill, talking to Phil, Kitty heard the call, and looked. A moment later she was across the street, and the two young women were greeting each other with old-time schoolgirl enthusiasm. Introductions and explanations followed, with frequent feminine exclamations of surprise and delight. Then the men drew a little away, talking, laughing, as men will on such occasions, leaving the two women to themselves. In that eastern school, which, for those three years, had been Kitty's home, Helen Wakefield and the girl from Arizona had been close and intimate friends. Indeed, Helen, with her strong womanly character and that rare gift of helpful sympathy and understanding, had been to the girl fresh from the cattle ranges more than a friend; she had been counsellor and companion, and, in many ways, a wise guardian and teacher. "But why in the world didn't you write me about it?" demanded Kitty a little later. "Why didn't you tell me that you had become Mrs. Stanford Manning, and that you were coming to Prescott?" Helen laughed and blushed happily. "Why, you see, Kitty, it all happened so quickly that there was no time to write. You remember when I wrote you about Stan, I told you how poor he was, and how we didn't expect to be married for several years?" "Yes." "Well, then, you see, Stan's company, all unexpectedly to him, called him to New York and gave him this position out here. He had to start at once, and wired me from New York. Just think, I had only a week for the wedding and everything! I knew, of course, that I could find you after I got here." "And now that you are here," said Kitty decisively, "you and Mr. Manning are coming right out to Williamson Valley to spend your honeymoon on the ranch." But Helen shook her head. "Stan has it all planned, Kitty, and he won't listen to anything else. There is a place around here somewhere that he calls Granite Basin, and he has it all arranged that we are to camp out there for three weeks. His company has given him that much time, and we are going just as soon as this celebration is over. After that, while Stan gets started with his work, and fixes some place for us to live, I will make you a little visit." "I suppose there is no use trying to contend against the rights of a brand-new husband," returned Kitty, "but it's a promise, that you will come to me as soon as your camping trip is over?" "It's a promise," agreed Helen. "You see, that's really part of Stanford's plan; I was so sure you would want me, you know." "Want you? I should say I do want you," cried Kitty, "and I need you, too." Something in her voice made Helen look at her questioningly, but Kitty only smiled. "I'll tell you all about it when there is more time." "Let me see," said Helen. "There used to be--why, of course, that nice looking man you were talking to when I recognized you--Phil Acton." She looked across the street as she spoke, but Phil had gone. "Please don't, Helen dear," said Kitty, "that was only my schoolgirl nonsense. When I came back home I found how impossible it all was. But I must run back to the folks now. Won't you come and meet them?" Before Helen could answer someone shouted, "They're getting ready for the start," and everybody looked down the hill toward the place where the racing machines were sputtering and roaring in their clouds of blue smoke. Helen caught up the field glasses to look, saying, "We can't go now, Kitty. You stay here with us until after the race is started; then we'll go." As Helen lowered the glasses Stanford, who had come to stand beside the automobile, reached out his hand. "Let me have a look, Helen. They say my old friend, Judge Morris, is the official starter." He put the field glasses to his eyes. "There he is all right, as big as life; finest man that ever lived. Look, Helen." He returned the glasses to his wife "If you want to see a genuine western lawyer, a scholar and a gentleman, take a look at that six-foot-three or four down there in the gray clothes." "I see him," said Helen, "but there seems to be some thing the matter; there he goes back to the machines. Now he's laying down the law to the drivers." "They won't put over anything on Morris," said Stanford admiringly. Then a deep, kindly voice at his elbow said, "Howdy, Manning! Ain't you got time to speak to your old friends?" Stanford whirled and, with a glad exclamation, grasped the Dean's outstretched hand. Still holding fast to the cattleman, he again turned to his wife, who was looking down at them with smiling interest. "Helen, this is Mr. Baldwin--the Dean, you know." "Indeed, I ought to know the Dean," she cried, giving him her hand. "Stanford has told me so much about you that I am in love with you already." "And I"--retorted the Dean, looking up at her with his blue eyes twinkling approval--"I reckon I've always been in love with you. I'm sure glad to see that this young man has justified his reputation for good judgment. Have they got any more girls like you back East? 'Cause if they have, I'll sure be obliged to take a trip to that part of the world before I get too old." "You are just as Stan said you were," retorted Helen. "Uncle Will!" cried Kitty. "I am ashamed of you! I didn't think you would turn down your own home folks like that!" The Dean lifted his hat and rumpled his grizzly hair as though fairly caught. Then: "Why, Kitty, you know that I couldn't love any girl more than I do you. Why, you belong to me most as much as you belong to your own father and mother. But, you see--honey--well, you see, we've just naturally got to be nice to strangers, you know." When they had laughed at this, Kitty explained to that Dean how Mrs. Manning was the Helen Wakefield with whom she had been such friends at school, and that, after the Mannings' outing in Granite Basin, Helen was to visit Williamson Valley. "Campin' out in Granite Basin, heh?" said the Dean to Stanford. "I reckon you'll be seein' some o' my boys. They're goin' up into that country after outlaw steers next week." "I hope so," returned Stanford. "Helen has been complaining that there are no cowboys to be seen. I pointed out Phil Acton, but he didn't seem to fill the bill; she doesn't believe that he is a cowboy at all." The Dean chuckled. "He's never been anything else. They don't make 'em any better anywhere." Then he added soberly, "Phil's not ridin' in the contest this year, though." "What's the matter?" "I don't know. He's got some sort of a fool notion in his head that he don't want to make an exhibition of himself--that's what he said. I've got another man on the ranch now," he added, as though to change the subject, "that'll be mighty near as good as Phil in another year. His name is Patches. He's a good one, all right." Kitty, who, had been looking away down the street while the Dean was talking, put her hand on Helen's arm. "Look down there, Helen. I believe that is Patches now--that man sitting on his horse at the cross street, at the foot of the hill, just outside the ropes." Helen was looking through the field glasses. "I see him," she cried. "Now, that's more like it. He looks like what I expected to see. What a fine, big chap he is, isn't he?" Then, as she studied the distant horseman, a puzzled expression came over her face. "Why, Kitty!" she said in a low tone, so that the men who were talking did not hear. "Do you know, that man somehow reminds me"--she hesitated and lowered the glasses to look at her companion with half-amused, half-embarrassed eyes--"he reminds me of Lawrence Knight." Kitty's brown, fun-loving eyes glowed with mischief. "Really, Mrs. Manning, I am ashamed of you. Before the honeymoon has waned, your thoughts, with no better excuse than the appearance of a poor cow-puncher, go back to the captivating charms of your old millionaire lover. I--" "Kitty! Do hush," pleaded Helen. She lifted her glasses for another look at the cowboy. "I don't wonder that your conscience reproves you," teased Kitty, in a low tone. "But tell me, poor child, how did it happen that you lost your millionaire?" "I didn't lose him," retorted Helen, still watching Patches. "He lost me." Kitty persisted with a playful mockery. "What! the great, the wonderful Knight of so many millions, failed, with all his glittering charms, to captivate the fair but simple Helen! Really, I can't believe it." "Look at that man right there," flashed Helen proudly, indicating her husband, "and you can believe it." Kitty laughed so gaily that Stanford turned to look at them with smiling inquiry. "Never mind, Mr. Manning," said Kitty, "we are just reminiscing, that's all." "Don't miss the race," he answered; "they're getting ready again to start. It looks like a go this time." "And to think," murmured Kitty, "that I never so much as saw your Knight's picture! But you used to like Lawrence Knight, didn't you, Helen?" she added, as Helen lifted her field glasses again. And now, Mrs. Manning caught a note of earnest inquiry in her companion's voice. It was as though the girl were seeking confirmation of some purpose or decision of her own. "Why, yes, Kitty, I liked Larry Knight very much," she answered frankly. "He was a fine fellow in many ways--a dear, good friend. Stanford and I are both very fond of him; they were college mates, you know. But, my dear girl, no one could ever consider poor old Larry seriously--as a man, you know--he is so--so utterly and hopelessly worthless." "Worthless! With--how many millions is it?" "Oh, Kitty, you know what I mean. But, really dear, we have talked enough about Mr. Lawrence Knight. I'm going to have another look at the cowboy. _He_ looks like a real man, doesn't he? What is it the Dean called him?" "Patches." "Oh, yes; what a funny name--Patches." "Honorable Patches," said Kitty. "How odd!" mused Helen. "Oh, Stan, come here a minute. Take the glasses and look at that cowboy down there." Stanford trained the field glasses as she directed. "Doesn't he remind you of Larry Knight?" "Larry Knight!" Stanford looked at her in amazement. "That cow-puncher? Larry Knight? I should say _not_. Lord! but wouldn't fastidious, cultured and correct old Larry feel complimented to know that you found anything in a common cow-puncher to remind you of him!" "But, here, take your glasses, quick; they are going to start at last." Even as Helen looked, Judge Morris gave the signal and the first racing car, with a mighty roar, leaped away from the starting point, and thundered up the street between the lines of the crowding, cheering people. An instant more, and Helen Manning witnessed a scene that thrilled the hearts of every man, woman and child in that great crowd. As the big racing car, gathering speed at every throb of its powerful motor, swept toward the hill, a small boy, but little more than a toddling baby, escaped from his mother, who, with the excited throng, was crowding against the rope barrier, and before those whose eyes were fixed on the automobile noticed, the child was in the street, fairly in the path of the approaching machine. A sudden hush fell on the shouting multitude. Helen, through the field glasses, could see even the child's face, as, laughing gleefully, he looked back when his mother screamed. Stricken with horror, the young woman could not lower her glasses. Fascinated, she watched. The people seemed, for an instant, paralyzed. Not a soul moved or uttered a sound. Would the driver of the racing car swerve aside from his course in time? If he did, would the baby, in sudden fright, dodge in front of the machine? Then Helen saw the cowboy who had so interested her lean forward in his saddle and strike his spurs deep in the flanks of his already restless horse. With a tremendous bound the animal cleared the rope barrier, and in an instant was leaping toward the child and the approaching car. The people gasped at the daring of the man who had not waited to think. It was over in a second. As Patches swept by the child, he leaned low from the saddle; and, as the next leap of his horse carried him barely clear of the machine, they saw his tall, lithe body straighten, as he swung the baby up into his arms. Then, indeed, the crowd went wild. Men yelled and cheered; women laughed and cried; and, as the cowboy returned the frightened baby to the distressed mother, a hundred eager hands were stretched forth to greet him. But the excited horse backed away; someone raised the rope barrier, and Patches disappeared down the side street. Helen's eyes were wet, but she was smiling. "No," she said softly to Kitty and Stanford, "that was _not_ Lawrence Knight. Poor old Larry never could have done that." It was a little after the noon hour when Kitty, who, with her father, mother and brothers, had been for dinner at the home of one of their Prescott friends, was crossing the plaza on her way to join Mr. and Mrs. Manning, with whom she was to spend the afternoon. In a less frequented corner of the little park, back of the courthouse, she saw Patches. The cowboy, who had changed from his ranch costume to a less picturesque business garb, was seated alone on one of the benches that are placed along the walks, reading a letter. With his attention fixed upon the letter, he did not notice Kitty as she approached. And the girl, when she first caught sight of him, paused for an instant; then she went toward him slowly, studying him with a new interest. She was quite near when, looking up, he saw her. Instantly he rose to his feet, slipped the letter into his pocket, and stood before her, hat in hand, to greet her with genuine pleasure and with that gentle courtesy which always marked his bearing. And Kitty, as she looked up at him, felt, more convincingly than ever, that this man would be perfectly at ease in the most exacting social company. "I fear I interrupted you," said the young woman. "I was just passing." "Not at all," he protested. "Surely you can give me a moment of your busy gala day. I know you have a host of friends, of course, but--well, I am lonely. Curly and Bob and the boys are all having the time of their lives; the Dean and mother are lunching with friends; and I don't know where Phil has hidden himself." It was like him to mention Phil in almost his first words to her. And Kitty, as Patches spoke Phil's name, instantly, as she had so often done during the past few months, mentally placed the two men side by side. "I just wanted to tell you"--she hesitated--"Mr. Patches--" "I beg your pardon," he interrupted smiling. "Well, Patches then; but you seem so different somehow, dressed like this. I just wanted to tell you that I saw what happened this morning. It was splendid!" "Why, Miss Reid, you know that was nothing. The driver of the car would probably have dodged the youngster anyway. I acted on the impulse of the moment, without thinking. I'm always doing something unnecessarily foolish, you know." "The driver of the car would more likely have dodged into the child," she returned warmly. "And it was fortunate that some one in all that stupid crowd could act without taking time to think. Everybody says so. The dear old Dean is as pleased and proud as though you were one of his own sons." "Really, you make too much of it," he returned, clearly embarrassed by her praise. "Tell me, you are enjoying the celebration? And what's the matter with Phil? Can't you persuade him to ride in the contest? We don't want the championship to go out of Yavapai County, do we?" Why must he always bring Phil into their talk? Kitty asked herself. "I am sure that Phil knows how all his friends feel about his riding," she said coolly. "If he does not wish to gratify them, it is really a small matter, is it not?" Patches saw that he had made a mistake and changed easily to a safer topic. "You saw the beginning of the automobile race, of course? I suppose you will be on hand this afternoon for the finish?" "Oh, yes, I'm on my way now to join my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Stanford Manning. We are going to see the finish of the race together." She watched his face closely, as she spoke of her friends, but he gave no sign that he had ever heard the name before. "It will be worth seeing, I fancy," he returned. "At least everybody seems to feel that way." "I am sure to have a good time, anyway," she returned, "because, you see, Mrs. Manning is one of my very dearest girl friends, whom I have not seen for a long time." "Indeed! You _will_ enjoy the afternoon, then." Was there a shade too much enthusiasm in the tone of his reply? Kitty wondered. Could it be that his plea of loneliness was merely a conventional courtesy and that he was really relieved to find that she was engaged for the afternoon? "Yes, and I must hurry on to them, or they will think I am not coming," she said. "Have a good time, Patches; you surely have earned it. Good-by!" He stood for a moment watching her cross the park. Then, with a quick look around, as though he did not wish to be observed, he hurried across the street to the Western Union office. A few moments later he made his way, by little-frequented side streets, to the stable where he had left his horse; and while Kitty and her friends were watching the first of the racing cars cross the line, Patches was several miles away, riding as though pursued by the sheriff, straight for the Cross-Triangle Ranch. Several times that day, while she was with her eastern friends, Kitty saw Phil near by. But she gave him no signal to join them, and the cowboy, shy always, and hurt by Kitty's indifference, would not approach the little party without her invitation. But that evening, while Kitty was waiting in the hotel lobby for Mr. and Mrs. Manning, Phil, finding her alone, went to her. "I have been trying to speak to you all day," he said reproachfully. "Haven't you any time for me at all, Kitty?" "Don't be foolish, Phil," she returned; "you have seen me a dozen times." "I have _seen_ you, yes," he answered bitterly. "But, Phil, you could have come to me, if you had wanted to." "I have no desire to go where I am not wanted," he answered. "Phil!" "Well, you gave no sign that you wanted me." "There was no reason why I should," she retorted. "You are not a child. I was with my friends from the East. You could have joined us if you had cared to. I should be very glad, indeed, to present you to Mr. and Mrs. Manning." "Thank you, but I don't care to be exhibited as an interesting specimen to people who have no use for me except when I do a few fool stunts to amuse them." "Very well, Phil," she returned coldly. "If that is your feeling, I do not care to present you to my friends. They are every bit as sincere and genuine as you are; and I certainly shall not trouble them with anyone who cannot appreciate them." Kitty was angry, as she had good reason for being. But beneath her anger she was sorry for the man whose bitterness, she knew, was born of his love for her. And Phil saw only that Kitty was lost to him--saw in the girl's eastern friends those who, he felt, had robbed him of his dream. "I suppose," he said, after a moment's painful silence, "that I had better go back to the range where I belong. I'm out of place here." The girl was touched by the hopelessness in his voice, but she felt that it would be no kindness to offer him the relief of an encouraging word. Her day with her eastern friends, and the memories that her meeting with Mrs. Manning had aroused, convinced her more than ever that her old love for Phil, and the life of which he was a part, were for her impossible. When she did not speak, the cowboy said bitterly, "I noticed that your fine friends did not take quite all your time. You found an opportunity for a quiet little visit with Honorable Patches." Kitty was angry now in earnest. "You are forgetting yourself, Phil," she answered with cold dignity. "And I think that as long as you feel as you do toward my friends, and can speak to me like this about Mr. Patches, you are right in saying that you belong on the range. Mr. and Mrs. Manning are here, I see. I am going to dine with them. Good-by!" She turned away, leaving him standing there. A moment he waited, as though stunned; then he turned to make his way blindly out of the hotel. It was nearly morning when Patches was awakened by the sound of someone moving about the kitchen. A moment he listened, then, rising, went quickly to the kitchen door, thinking to surprise some chance night visitor. When Phil saw him standing there the foreman for a moment said nothing, but, with the bread knife in one hand and one of Stella's good loaves in the other, stared at him in blank surprise. Then the look of surprise changed to an expression of questioning suspicion, and he demanded harshly, "What in hell are _you_ doing here?" Patches saw that the man was laboring under some great trouble. Indeed, Phil's voice and manner were not unlike one under the influence of strong drink. But Patches knew that Phil never drank. "I was sleeping," he answered calmly. "You woke me, I suppose. I heard you, and came to see who was prowling around the kitchen at this time of the night; that is all." "Oh, that's all, is it? But what are you here for? Why aren't you in Prescott where you are supposed to be?" Patches, because he saw Phil's painful state of mind, exercised admirable self-control. "I supposed I had a perfect right to come here if I wished. I did not dream that my presence in this house would be questioned." "That depends," Phil retorted. "Why did you leave Prescott?" Patches, still calm, answered gently. "My reasons for not staying in Prescott are entirely personal, Phil; I do not care to explain just now." "Oh, you don't? Well, it seems to me, sir, that you have a devil of a lot of personal business that you can't explain." "I am afraid I have," returned Patches, with his old self-mocking smile. "But, look here, Phil, you are disturbed and all wrought up about something, or you wouldn't attack me like this. You don't really think me a suspicious character, and you know you don't. You are not yourself, old man, and I'll be hanged if I'll take anything you say as an insult, until I know that you say it, deliberately, in cold blood. I'm sorry for your trouble, Phil--damned sorry--I would give anything if I could help you. Perhaps I may be able to prove that later, but just now I think the kindest and wisest thing that I can do for us both is to say good-night." He turned at the last word, without waiting for Phil to speak, and went back to his room. CHAPTER XIII. IN GRANITE BASIN. On the other side of Granite Mountain from where Phil and Patches watched the wild horses that day, there is a rocky hollow, set high in the hills, but surrounded on every side by still higher peaks and ridges. Lying close under the sheer, towering cliffs of the mountain, those fortress-like walls so gray and grim and old seem to overshadow the place with a somber quiet, as though the memories of the many ages that had wrought their countless years into those mighty battlements gave to the very atmosphere a feeling of solemn and sacred seclusion. It was as though nature had thrown about this spot a strong protecting guard, that here, in her very heart, she might keep unprofaned the sweetness and strength and beauty of her primitive and everlasting treasures. In its wild and rugged setting, Granite Basin has, for the few who have the hardihood to find them, many beautiful glades and shady nooks, where the grass and wild flowers weave their lovely patterns for the earth floor, and tall pines spread their soft carpets of brown, while giant oaks and sycamores lift their cathedral arches to support the ceilings of green, and dark rock fountains set in banks of moss and fern hold water clear and cold. It was to one of these that Stanford Manning brought his bride for their honeymoon. Stanford himself pitched their tent and made their simple camp, for it was not in his plan that the sweet intimacy of these, the first weeks of their mated life, should be marred, even by servants. And Helen, wise in her love, permitted him to realize his dream in the fullness of its every detail. As she lay in the hammock which he had hung for her under the canopy of living green, and watched him while he brought wood for their camp fire, and made all ready for the night which was drawing near, she was glad that he had planned it so. But more than that, she was glad that he was the kind of a man who would care to plan it so. Then, when all was finished, he came to sit beside her, and together they watched the light of the setting sun fade from the summit of Old Granite, and saw the flaming cloud-banner that hung above the mountain's castle towers furled by the hand of night. In silence they watched those mighty towering battlements grow cold and grim, until against the sky the shadowy bulk stood mysterious and awful, as though to evidence in its grandeur and strength the omnipotent might and power of the Master Builder of the world and Giver of all life. And when the soft darkness was fully come, and the low murmuring voices of the night whispered from forest depth and mountain side, while the stars peered through the weaving of leaf and branch, and the ruddy light of their camp fire rose and fell, the man talked of the things that had gone into the making of his life. As though he wished his mate to know him more fully than anyone else could know, he spoke of those personal trials and struggles, those disappointments and failures, those plans and triumphs of which men so rarely speak; of his boyhood and his boyhood home life, of his father and mother, of those hard years of his youth, and his struggle for an education that would equip him for his chosen life work; he told her many things that she had known only in a general way. But most of all he talked of those days when he had first met her, and of how quickly and surely the acquaintance had grown into friendship, and then into a love which he dared not yet confess. Smilingly he told how he had tried to convince himself that she was not for him. And how, believing that she loved and would wed his friend, Lawrence Knight, he had come to the far West, to his work, and, if he could, to forget. "But I could not forget, dear girl," he said. "I could not escape the conviction that you belonged to me, as I felt that I belonged to you. I could not banish the feeling that some mysterious higher law--the law that governs the mating of the beautifully free creatures that live in these hills--had mated you and me. And so, as I worked and tried to forget, I went on dreaming just the same. It was that way when I first saw this place. I was crossing the country on my way to examine some prospects for the company, and camped at this very spot. And that evening I planned it all, just as it is to-night. I put the tent there, and built our fire, and stretched your hammock under the tree, and sat with you in the twilight; but even as I dreamed it I laughed at myself for a fool, for I could not believe that the dream would ever come true. And then, when I got back to Prescott, there was a letter from a Cleveland friend, telling me that Larry had gone abroad to be away a year or more, and another letter from the company, calling me East again. And so I stopped at Cleveland and--" He laughed happily. "I know now that dreams do come true." "You foolish boy," said Helen softly. "To think that I did not know. Why, when you went away, I was so sure that you would come for me again, that I never even thought that it could be any other way. I thought you did not speak because you felt that you were too poor, because you felt that you had so little to offer, and because you wished to prove yourself and your work before asking me to share your life. I did not dream that you could doubt my love for you, or think for a moment that there could ever be anyone else. I felt that you _must_ know; and so, you see, while I waited I had my dreams, too." "But don't you see, girl," he answered, as though for a moment he found it hard to believe his own happiness, "don't you see? Larry is such a splendid fellow, and you two were such friends, and you always seemed so fond of him, and with his wealth he could give you so much that I knew I never could give--" "Of course, I am fond of Larry; everyone is. He has absolutely nothing to do in the world but to make himself charming and pleasant and entertaining and amusing. Why, Stan, I don't suppose that in all his life he ever did one single thing that was necessary or useful. He even had a man to help him dress. He is cultured and intellectual, and bright and witty, and clean and good-natured, possessing, in fact, all the qualifications of a desirable lap dog, and you can't help liking him, just as you would like a pretty, useless pet." Stanford chuckled. She had described Lawrence Knight so accurately. "Poor old Larry," he said. "What a man he might have been if he had not been so pampered and petted and envied and spoiled, all because of his father's money. His heart is right, and at the bottom he has the right sort of stuff in him. His athletic record at school showed us that. I think that was why we all liked him so in spite of his uselessness." "I wish you could have known my father, Stan," said Helen thoughtfully, as though she, too, were moved to speak by the wish that her mate might know more of the things that had touched her deeper life. "I wish so, too," he answered. "I know that he must have been fine." "He was my ideal," she answered softly. "My other ideal, I mean. From the time I was a slip of a girl he made me his chum. Until he died we were always together. Mother died when I was a baby, you know. Many, many times he would take me with him when he made his professional visits to his patients, leaving me in the buggy to wait at each house--'to be his hitching post'--he used to say. And on those long rides, sometimes out into the country, he talked to me as I suppose not many fathers talk to their daughters. And because he was my father and a physician, and because we were so much alone in our companionship, I believed him the wisest and best man in all the world, and felt that nothing he said or did could be wrong. And so, you see, dear, my ideal man, the man to whom I could give myself, came to be the kind of a man that my father placed in the highest rank among men--a man like you, Stan. And almost the last talk we had before he died father said to me--I remember his very words--'My daughter, it will not be long now until men will seek you, until someone will ask you to share his life. Keep your ideal man safe in your heart of hearts, daughter, and remember that no matter what a suitor may have to offer of wealth or social rank, if he is not your ideal--if you cannot respect and admire him for his character and manhood alone--say no; say no, child, at any cost. But when your ideal man comes--the one who compels your respect and admiration for his strength of character, and for the usefulness of his life, the one whom you cannot help loving for his manhood alone--mate with him--no matter how light his purse or how lowly his rank in the world.' And so you see, as soon as I learned to know you, I realized what you were to me. But I wish--oh, how I wish--that father could have lived to know you, too." For some time they watched the dancing camp fire flames in silence, as though they had found in their love that true oneness that needs no spoken word. Then Stanford said, "And to think that we expected to wait two years or more, and now--thanks to a soulless corporation--we are here in a little less than a year!" "Thanks to no soulless corporation for that, sir," retorted Helen with spirit. "But thanks to the brains and strength and character of my husband." Two of the three weeks' vacation granted the engineer had passed when Mrs. Manning, one afternoon, informed her husband that as the ordained provider for the household it was imperative that he provide some game for their evening meal. "And what does Her Majesty, the cook, desire?" he asked. "Venison, perhaps?" She shook her head with decision. "You will be obliged to go too far, and be gone too long, to get a deer." "But you're going with me, of course." Again she shook her head. "I have something else to do. I can't always be tagging around after you while you are providing, you know; and we may as well begin to be civilized again. Just go a little way--not so far that you can't hear me call--and bring me some nice fat quail like those we had day before yesterday." She watched him disappear in the brush and then busied herself about the camp. Presently she heard the gun, and smiled as she pictured him hunting for their supper, much as though they were two primitive children of nature, instead of the two cultured members of a highly civilized race, that they really were. Then, presently she must go to the spring for water, that he might have a cool drink when he returned. She was half way to the spring, singing softly to herself, when a sound on the low ridge above the camp attracted her attention. Pausing, she looked and listened. The song died on her lips. It could not be Staford coming so noisily through the brush and from that direction. Even as the thought came, she heard the gun again, a little farther away down the narrow valley below the camp, and, in the same moment, the noise on the ridge grew louder, as though some heavy animal were crashing through the bushes. And then suddenly, as she stood there in frightened indecision, a long-horned, wild-eyed steer broke through the brush on the crest of the ridge and plunged down the steep slope toward the camp. Weak and helpless with fear, Helen could neither scream nor run, but stood fascinated by the very danger that menaced her--powerless, even, to turn her eyes away from the frightful creature that had so rudely broken the quiet seclusion of the little glade. Behind the steer, even as the frenzied animal leaped from the brow of the hill, she saw a horseman, as wild in his appearance and in his reckless rushing haste as the creature he pursued. Curiously, as in a dream, she saw the horse's neck and shoulders dripping wet with sweat, as with ears flat, nose outstretched, and nostrils wide the animal strained every nerve in an effort to put his rider a few feet closer to the escaping quarry. She even noted the fringed leather chaps, the faded blue jumper, the broad hat of the rider, and that in his rein hand he held the coil of a riata high above the saddle horn, while in his right was the half-opened loop. The bridle reins were loose, as though he gave the horse no thought; and they took the steep, downward plunge from the summit of the ridge without an instant's pause, and apparently with all the ease and confidence that they would have felt on smooth and level ground. The steer, catching sight of the woman, and seeing in her, perhaps, another enemy, swerved a little in his plunging course, and, with lowered head, charged straight at her. The loop of that rawhide rope was whirling now above the cowboy's head, and his spurs drew blood from the heaving flanks of the straining horse, as every mad leap of the steer brought death a few feet nearer the helpless woman. The situation must have broken with frightful suddenness upon the man, but he gave no sign--no startled shout, no excited movement. He even appeared, to Helen, to be as coolly deliberate as though no thought of her danger disturbed him; and she recognized, even in that awful moment, the cowboy whom she had watched through the field glasses, that day of the celebration at Prescott. She could not know that, in the same instant, as his horse plunged down from the summit of the ridge, Patches had recognized her; and that as his hand swung the riata with such cool and deliberate precision, the man was praying--praying as only a man who sees the woman he loves facing a dreadful death, with no hand but his to save her, could pray. God help him if his training of nerve and hand should fail now! Christ pity him, if that whirling loop should miss its mark, or fall short! His eye told him that the distance was still too great. He must--he _must_--lessen it; and again his spurs drew blood. He must be cool--cool and steady and sure--and he must act now--NOW! Helen saw the racing horse make a desperate leap as the spurs tore his heaving sides; she saw that swiftly whirling loop leave the rider's hand, as the man leaned forward in his saddle. Curiously she watched the loop open with beautiful precision, as the coils were loosed and the long, thin line lengthened through the air. It seemed to move so slowly--those wickedly lowered horns were so near! Then she saw the rider's right hand move with flashlike quickness to the saddle horn, as he threw his weight back, and the horse, with legs braced and hoofs plowing the ground, stopped in half his own length, and set his weight against the weight of the steer. The flexible riata straightened as a rod of iron, the steer's head jerked sideways; his horns buried themselves in the ground; he fell, almost at her feet. And then, as the cowboy leaped from his horse, Helen felt herself sinking into a soft, thick darkness that, try as she might, she could not escape. Still master of himself, but with a kind of fierce coolness, Patches ran to the fallen steer and securely tied the animal down. But when he turned to the woman who lay unconscious on the ground, a sob burst from his lips, and tears were streaming down his dust-grimed cheeks. And as he knelt beside her he called again and again that name which, a year before, he had whispered as he stood with empty, outstretched arms, alone, on the summit of the Divide. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her to the hammock, and finding water and a towel, wet her brow and face; and all the while, in an agony of fear, he talked to her with words of love. Overwrought by the unexpected, and, to him, almost miraculous meeting with Helen--weak and shaken by the strain of those moments of her danger, when her life depended so wholly upon his coolness and skill--unnerved by the sight of her lying so still and white, and beside himself with the strength of his passion--the man made no effort to account for her presence in that wild and lonely spot, so far from the scenes amid which he had learned to know and love her. He was conscious only that she was there--that she had been very near to death--that he had held her in his arms--and that he loved her with all the strength of his manhood. Presently, with a low cry of joy, he saw the blood creep back into her white cheeks. Slowly her eyes opened and she looked wonderingly up into his face. "Helen!" he breathed. "Helen!" "Why, Larry!" she murmured, still confused and wondering. "So it _was_ you, after all! But what in the world are you doing here like this? They told me your name was Patches--Honorable Patches." Then the man spoke--impetuously, almost fiercely, his words came without thought. "I am here because I would be anything, do anything that a man could be and do to win your love. A year ago, when I told you of my love, and asked you to be my wife, and, like the silly, pampered, petted fool that I was, thought that my wealth and the life that I offered could count for anything with a woman like you, you laughed at me. You told me that if ever you married, you would wed a man, not a fortune nor a social position. You made me see myself as I was--a useless idler, a dummy for the tailors, a superficial chatterer of pretty nothings to vain and shallow women; you told me that I possessed not one manly trait of character that could compel the genuine love of an honest woman. You let me see the truth, that my proposal to you was almost an insult. You made me understand that your very friendship for me was such a friendship as you might have with an amusing and irresponsible boy, or a spoiled child. You could not even consider my love for you seriously, as a woman like you must consider the love of a strong man. And you were right, Helen. But, dear, it was for me a bitter, bitter lesson. I went from you, ashamed to look men in the face. I felt myself guilty--a pitifully weak and cowardly thing, with no right to exist. In my humiliation, I ran from all who knew me--I came out here to escape from the life that had made me what I was--that had robbed me of my manhood. And here, by chance, in the contests at the celebration in Prescott, I saw a man--a cowboy--who possessed everything that I lacked, and for the lack of which you had laughed at me. And then alone one night I faced myself and fought it out. I knew that you were right, Helen, but it was not easy to give up the habits and luxury to which all my life I had been accustomed. It was not easy, I say, but my love for you made it a glorious thing to do; and I hoped and believed that if I proved myself a man, I could go back to you, in the strength of my manhood, and you would listen to me. And so, penniless and a stranger, under an assumed name, I sought useful, necessary work that called for the highest quality of manhood. And I have won, Helen; I know that I have won. To-day Patches, the cowboy, can look any man in the face. He can take his place and hold his own among men of any class anywhere. I have regained that of which the circumstances of birth and inheritance and training robbed me. I have won the right of a man to come to you again. I claim that right now, Helen. I tell you again that I love you. I love you as--" "Larry! Larry!" she cried, springing to her feet, and drawing away from him, as though suddenly awakened from some strange spell. "Larry, you must not! What do you mean? How can you say such things to me?" He answered her with reckless passion. "I say such things because I am a man, and because you are the woman I love and want; because--" She cried out again in protest. "Oh, stop, stop! Please stop! Don't you know?" "Know what?" he demanded. "My--my husband!" she gasped. "Stanford Manning--we are here on our honeymoon." She saw him flinch as though from a heavy blow, and put out his hand to the trunk of a tree near which they stood, to steady himself. He did not speak, but his lips moved as though he repeated her words to himself, over and over again; and he gazed at her with a strange bewildered, doubting look, as though he could not believe his own suffering. Impulsively Helen went a step toward him. "Larry!" she said. "Larry!" Her voice seemed to arouse him and he stood erect as though by a conscious effort of will. Then that old self-mocking smile was on his lips. He was laughing at his hurt--making sport of himself and his cruel predicament. But to Helen there was that in his smile which wrung her woman heart. "Oh, Larry," she said gently. "Forgive me; I am so sorry; I--" He put out his hand with a gesture of protest, and his voice was calm and courteous. "I beg your pardon, Helen. It was stupid of me not to have understood. I forgot myself for the moment. It was all so unexpected--meeting you like this. I did not think." He looked away toward his waiting horse and to the steer lying on the ground. "So you and Stanford Manning--Good old Stan! I am glad for him. And for you, too, Helen. Why, it was I who introduced him to you; do you remember?" He smiled again that mirthless, self-mocking smile, as he added without giving her time to speak, "If you will excuse me for a moment, I will rid your camp of the unwelcome presence of that beast yonder." Then he went toward his horse, as though turning for relief to the work that had become so familiar to him. She watched him while he released the steer, and drove the animal away over the ridge, where he permitted it to escape into the wild haunts where it lived with its outlaw companions. When he rode back to the little camp Stanford had returned. For an hour they talked together as old friends. But Helen, while she offered now and then a word or a remark, or asked a question, and laughed or smiled with them, left the talk mostly to the two men. Stanford, when the first shock of learning of Helen's narrow escape was over, was gaily enthusiastic and warm in his admiration for his old friend, who had, for no apparent reason but the wish to assert his own manhood, turned his back upon the ease and luxury of his wealth to live a life of adventurous hardship. And Patches, as he insisted they should call him, with many a laughing jest and droll comment told them of his new life and work. He was only serious when he made them promise to keep his identity a secret until he himself was ready to reveal his real name. "And what do you propose to do when your game of Patches is played out?" Stanford asked curiously. For an instant they saw him smiling mockingly at himself; then he answered lightly, "Try some other fool experiment, I reckon." Stanford chuckled; the reply was so like the cowboy Patches, and so unlike his old friend Larry Knight. "As for that, Stan," Patches continued, "I don't see that the game will ever be played out, as you say. Certainly I can never now go back altogether to what I was. The fellow you used to know in Cleveland is not really I, you see. Fact is, I think that fellow is quite dead--peace be to his ashes! The world is wide and there is always work for a man to do." The appearance of Phil Acton on the ridge, at the spot where the steer, followed by Patches, had first appeared, put an end to their further conversation with Lawrence Knight. "My boss!" said that gentleman, in his character of Patches the cowboy, as the Cross-Triangle foreman halted his horse on the brow of the hill, and sat looking down upon the camp. "Be careful, please, and don't let him suspect that you ever saw me before. I'll sure catch it now for loafing so long." "I know him," said Stanford. Then he called to the man above, "Come on down, Acton, and be sociable." Phil rode into camp, shook hands with Stanford cordially, and was presented to Mrs. Manning, to whom he spoke with a touch of embarrassment. Then he said, with a significant look at Patches, "I'm glad to meet you people, Mr. Manning, but we really haven't much time for sociability just now. Mr. Baldwin sent me with an outfit into this Granite Basin country to gather some of these outlaw steers. He expects us to be on the job." Turning to Patches, he continued, "When you didn't come back I thought you must have met with some serious trouble, and so trailed you. We've managed to lose a good deal of time, altogether. That steer you were after got away from you, did he?" Helen spoke quickly. "Oh, Mr. Acton, you must not blame Mr. Patches for what happened. Really, you must not. No one was to blame; it just happened--" She stopped, unable to finish the explanation, for she was thinking of that part of the incident which was known only to herself and Patches. Stanford told in a few words of his wife's danger and how the cowboy had saved her. "That was mighty good work, Patches," said Phil heartily, "mighty good work. I'm sorry, Mr. Manning, that our coming up here after these outlaws happened at just this time. It is too bad to so disturb you and Mrs. Manning. We are going home Friday, however, and I'll tell the boys to keep clear of your neighborhood in the meantime." As the two Cross-Triangle men walked toward their horses, Helen and Stanford heard Phil ask, "But where is that steer, Patches?" "I let him go," returned Patches. "You let him go!" exclaimed the foreman. "After you had him roped and tied? What did you do that for?" Patches was confused. "Really, I don't know." "I'd like to know what you figure we're up here for," said Phil, sharply. "You not only waste two or three hours visiting with these people, but you take my time trailing you up; and then you turn loose a steer after you get him. It looks like you'd lost your head mighty bad, after all." "I'm afraid you're right, Phil," Patches answered quietly. Helen looked at her husband indignantly but Stanford was grinning with delight. "To think," he murmured, "of Larry Knight taking a dressing-down like that from a mere cowboy foreman!" But Patches was by no means so meek in spirit as he appeared in his outward manner. He had been driven almost to the verge of desperation by the trying situation, and was fighting for self-control. To take his foreman's rebuke in the presence of his friends was not easy. "I reckon I'd better send you to the home ranch to-night, instead of Bob," continued Phil, as the two men mounted their horses and sat for a moment facing each other. "It looks like we could spare you best. Tell Uncle Will to send the chuck wagon and three more punchers, and that we'll start for the home ranch Friday. And be sure that you get back here to-morrow." "Shall I go now?" "Yes, you can go now." Patches wheeled his horse and rode away, while Phil disappeared over the ridge in the direction from which he had come. When the two cowboys were out of sight, Helen went straight to her husband, and to Stanford's consternation, when he took her in his arms, she was crying. "Why, girl, what is it?" he asked, holding her close. But she only answered between sobs as she clung to him, "It--it's nothing--never mind, Stan. I'm just upset." And Stanford quite naturally thought it was only a case of nerves caused by the danger through which she had passed. For nearly an hour, Patches rode toward the home ranch, taking only such notice of his surroundings as was necessary in order for him to keep his direction. Through the brush and timber, over the ridges down into valleys and washes, and along the rock-strewn mountain sides he allowed his horse to pick the way, and take his own gait, with scarcely a touch of rein or spur. The twilight hour was beginning when he reached a point from which he could see, in the distance, the red roofs of the Cross-Triangle buildings. Checking his horse, he sat for a long time, motionless, looking away over the broad land that had come to mean so much to him, as though watching the passing of the day. But the man did not note the changing colors in the western sky; he did not see the shadows deepening; he was not thinking of the coming of the night. The sight of the distant spot that, a year before, had held such possibilities for him, when, on the summit of the Divide, he had chosen between two widely separated ways of life, brought to him, now, a keener realization of the fact that he was again placed where he must choose. The sun was down upon those hopes and dreams that in the first hard weeks of his testing had inspired and strengthened him. The night of despairing, reckless abandonment of the very ideals of manhood for which he had so bravely struggled was upon him; while the spirit and strength of that manhood which he had so hardly attained fought against its surrender. When Stanford Manning had asked, "What will you do when your game of Patches is played out?" he had said that the man whom they had known in the old days was dead. Would this new man also die? Deliberately the man turned about and started back the way he had come. In their honeymoon camp, that evening, when the only light in the sky was the light of the stars, and the camp fire's ruddy flames made weird shadows come and go in the little glade, Helen, lying in the hammock, and Stanford, sitting near, talked of their old friend Lawrence Knight. But as they talked they did not know that a lonely horseman had stopped on the other side of the low ridge, and leaving his horse, had crept carefully through the brush, to a point on the brow of the hill, from which he could look down into the camp. From where he lay in the darkness, the man could see against the camp fire's light the two, where the hammock was swung under the trees. He could hear the low murmur of their voices, with now and then a laugh. But it was always the man who laughed, for there was little mirth in Helen's heart that night. Then he saw Stanford go into the tent and return again to the hammock; and soon there came floating up to him the sweet, plaintive music of Helen's guitar, and then her voice, full and low, with a wealth of womanhood in every tone, as she sang a love song to her mate. Later, when the dancing flames of the camp fire had fallen to a dull red glow, he saw them go arm in arm into their tent. Then all was still. The red glow of the fire dimmed to a spark, and darkness drew close about the scene. But even in the darkness the man could still see, under the wide, sheltering arms of the trees, a lighter spot--the white tent. "Gethsemane," said the Dean to me once, when our talk had ranged wide and touched upon many things, "Gethsemane ain't no place; it's somethin' that happens. Whenever a man goes up against himself, right there is where Gethsemane is. And right there, too, is sure to be a fight. A man may not always know about it at the time; he may be too busy fightin' to understand just what it all means; but he'll know about it afterwards--No matter which side of him wins, he'll know afterwards that it was the one big fight of his life." CHAPTER XIV. AT MINT SPRING. When those days at Prescott were over, and Mr. and Mrs. Manning had left for their camp in Granite Basin, Kitty Reid returned to Williamson Valley reluctantly. She felt that with Phil definitely out of her life the last interest that bound her to the scenes of her girlhood was broken. Before many weeks the ranch would be sold. A Prescott agent had opened negotiations for an eastern client who would soon be out to look over the property; and Mr. Reid felt, from all that the agent had said, that the sale was assured. In the meantime Kitty would wait as patiently as she could. To help her, there would be Helen's visit, and there was her friendship with Professor Parkhill. It was not strange, considering all the circumstances, that the young woman should give her time more generously than ever to the only person in the neighborhood, except Patches, perhaps, who she felt could understand and appreciate her desires for that higher life of which even her own parents were ignorant. And the professor did understand her fully. He told her so many times each day. Had he not given all the years of his little life to the study of those refining and spiritualizing truths that are so far above the comprehension of the base and ignoble common herd? Indeed, he understood her language; he understood fully, why the sordid, brutal materialism of her crude and uncultured environment so repulsed and disgusted her. He understood, more fully than Kitty herself, in fact, and explained to her clearly, that her desires for the higher intellectual and spiritual life were born of her own rare gifts, and evidenced beyond all question the fineness and delicacy of her nature. He rejoiced with her--with a pure and holy joy--that she was so soon to be set free to live amid the surroundings that would afford her those opportunities for the higher development of her intellectual and spiritual powers which her soul craved. All this he told her from day to day; and then, one afternoon, he told her more. It was the same afternoon that Patches had so unexpectedly found Helen and Stanford in their Granite Basin camp. Kitty and the professor had driven in the buckboard to Simmons for the mail, and were coming back by the road to the Cross-Triangle, when the man asked, "Must we return to the ranch so soon? It is so delightful out here where there is no one to intrude with vulgar commonplaces, to mar our companionship." "Why, no," returned Kitty. "There is no need for us to hurry home." She glanced around. "We might sit over there, under those cedars on the hill, where you found me with Mr. Patches that day--the day we saw Yavapai Joe, you remember." "If you think it quite safe to leave the vehicle," he said, "I should be delighted." Kitty tied the horses to a convenient bush at the foot of the low hill, and soon they were in the welcome shade of the cedars. "Miss Reid," the professor began, with portentous gravity, "I must confess that I have been rather puzzled to account for your presence here that day with such a man as that fellow Patches. You will pardon my saying so, I am sure, but you must have observed my very deep interest in you. I also chanced to see you with him one day in Prescott, in the park. You don't mind my speaking of it?" "Not at all, Professor Parkhill," Kitty returned, smiling as she thought how ignorant the professor was of the cowboy's real character. "I like Patches. He interests me very much; and there is really no reason why I should not be friendly with him. Don't you think that I should be kind to our cowboys?" "I suppose so," the professor sighed. "But it hurts me to see you have anything whatever in common with such a man. It shocks me to know that you must, in any degree, come in touch with such fellows. I shall be very glad, indeed, when you are free from any such kindly obligations, and safe among those of your own class." Kitty found it very hard to reply. She did not wish to be disloyal to Patches and her many Williamson Valley friends; nor did she like to explain how Patches had played a part for the professor's benefit, for she felt that by not exposing the deception she had, in a way, been a party to it. So she said nothing, but seemed to be silently weighing the value of her learned companion's observations. At least, it so appeared to the professor, and in her ready acceptance of his implied criticism of her conduct he found the encouragement he needed for that which followed. "You must understand, Miss Reid, that I have become exceedingly zealous for your welfare. In these months that we have been so much together your companionship--your spiritual and intellectual companionship, I should say--has come to be very dear to me. As our souls have communed, I have felt myself uplifted and inspired. I have been strengthened and encouraged, as never before, to climb on toward the mountain peaks of pure intellectuality. If I am not mistaken, you, too, have felt a degree of uplift as a result of our fellowship, have you not?" "Yes, indeed, Professor Parkhill," Kitty answered sincerely. "Our talks together have meant much more to me than I can tell. I shall never forget this summer. Your friendship has been a wonderful influence in my life." The little man moved uneasily and glanced timidly around. "I am truly glad to know that our companionship has not been altogether distasteful to you; I felt sure that it was not, but I--ahem!--I am glad to hear your confirmation of my opinion. It--ah--it enables me to say that which for several weeks past has been weighing heavily on my mind." Kitty looked at him with the manner of a trusting disciple waiting for the gems of truth that were about to fall from the lips of a venerable teacher. "Miss Reid--ah--why need our beautiful and mutually profitable companionship cease?" "I fear that I do not understand, Professor Parkhill," she answered, puzzled by his question. He looked at her with just a shade of mild--very mild--rebuke, as he returned, "Why, I think that I have stated my thought clearly. I mean that I am very desirous that our relation--the relation which we both have found so helpful--should continue. I am sure that we have, in these months which we have spent together, sufficient evidence that our souls vibrate in perfect harmony. I need you, dear friend; your understanding of my soul's desires is so sympathetic; I feel that you so complement and fill out, as it were, my spiritual self. I need you to encourage, to inspire, to assist me in the noble work to which I am devoting all my strength." She looked at him, now, with an expression of amazement. "Do you mean--" she faltered in confusion while the red blood colored her cheeks. "Yes," he answered, confidently. "I am asking you to be my wife. Not, however," he added hastily, "in the common, vulgar understanding of that relation. I am offering you, dear friend, that which is vastly higher than the union of the merely animal, which is based wholly upon the purely physical and material attraction. I am proposing marriage of our souls--a union, if you please, of our higher intellectual and spiritual selves. I feel, indeed, that by those higher laws which the vulgar, beastlike minds are incapable of recognizing, we are already one. I sense, as it were, that oneness which can exist only when two souls are mated by the great over-soul; I feel that you are already mine--that, I am--that we are already united in a spiritual union that is--" The young woman checked him with a gesture, which, had he interpreted it rightly, was one of repulsion. "Please stop, Professor Parkhill," she gasped in a tone of disgust. He was surprised, and not a little chagrined. "Am I to understand that you do not reciprocate my sentiment, Miss Reid? Is it possible that I have been so mistaken?" Kitty turned her head, as though she could not bear even to look at him. "What you ask is so impossible," she said in a low tone. "Impossible!" Strive as she might, the young woman could not altogether hide her feeling of abhorrence. And yet, she asked herself, why should this man's proposal arouse in her such antagonism and repugnance? He was a scholar, famed for his attainments in the world of the highest culture. As his wife, she would be admitted at once into the very inner circle of that life to which she aspired, and for which she was leaving her old home and friends. He had couched his proposal in the very terms of the spiritually and intellectually elect; he had declared himself in that language which she had so proudly thought she understood, and in which she had so often talked with him; and yet she was humiliated and ashamed. It was, to her, as though, in placing his offer of marriage upon the high, pure ground of a spiritual union, he had insulted her womanhood. Kitty realized wonderingly that she had not felt like this when Phil had confessed his love for her. In her woman heart, she was proud and glad to have won the love of such a man as Phil, even though she could not accept the cowboy as her mate. On that very spot which the professor had chosen for his declaration, Patches had told her that she was leaving the glorious and enduring realities of life for vain and foolish bubbles--that she was throwing aside the good grain and choosing the husks. Was this what Patches meant? she wondered. "I regret exceedingly, Miss Reid," the professor was saying, "that the pure and lofty sentiments which I have voiced do not seem to find a like response in your soul. I--" Again she interrupted him with that gesture of repulsion. "Please do not say any more, Professor Parkhill. I--I fear that I am very human, after all. Come, it is time that we were returning to the house." All through the remaining hours of that afternoon and evening Kitty was disturbed and troubled. At times she wanted to laugh at the professor's ridiculous proposal; and again, her cheeks burned with anger; and she could have cried in her shame and humiliation. And with it all her mind was distraught by the persistent question: Was not the professor's conception of an ideal mating the legitimate and logical conclusion of those very advanced ideas of culture which he represented, and which she had so much admired? If she sincerely believed the life represented by the professor and his kind so superior--so far above the life represented by Phil Acton--why should she not feel honored instead of being so humiliated and shamed by the professor's--she could not call it love? If the life which Phil had asked her to share was so low in the scale of civilization; if it were so far beneath the intellectual and spiritual ideals which she had formed, why did she feel so honored by the strong man's love? Why had she not felt humiliated and ashamed that Phil should want her to mate with him? Could it be, she asked herself again and again, that there was something, after all, superior to that culture which she had so truly thought stood for the highest ideals of the race? Could it be that, in the land of Granite Mountain, there was something, after all, that was as superior to the things she had been taught as Granite Mountain itself was superior in its primeval strength and enduring grandeur to the man-made buildings of her school? It was not strange that Kitty's troubled thoughts should turn to Helen Manning. Clearly, Helen's education had led to no confusion. On the contrary, she had found an ideal love, and a happiness such as every true, womanly woman must, in her heart of hearts, desire. It was far into the night when Kitty, wakeful and restless, heard the sound of a horse's feet. She could not know that it was Honorable Patches riding past on his way to the ranch on the other side of the broad valley meadows. Weary in body, and with mind and spirit exhausted by the trials through which he had passed, Patches crept to his bed. In the morning, when he delivered his message, the Dean, seeing the man's face, urged him to stay for the day at the ranch. But Patches said no; Phil was expecting him, and he must return to the outfit in Granite Basin. As soon as breakfast was over he set out. He had ridden as far as the head of Mint Wash, and had stopped to water his horse, and to refresh himself with a cool drink and a brief rest beside the fragrant mint-bordered spring, when he heard someone riding rapidly up the wash the way he had come. A moment later, Kitty, riding her favorite Midnight, rounded a jutting corner of the rocky wall of the bluff. As the girl caught sight of him, there beside the spring, she waved her hand in greeting. And the man, as he waved his answer, and watched her riding toward him, felt a thrill of gladness that she had come. The strong, true friendship that began with their very first meeting, when she had been so frankly interested in the tenderfoot, and so kindly helpful, and which had developed so steadily through the year, gave him, now, a feeling of comfort and relief. Wearied and worn by his disappointment and by his struggle with himself, with the cherished hope that had enabled him to choose and endure the hard life of the range brought to a sudden end, with his life itself made so empty and futile, he welcomed his woman friend with a warmth and gladness that brought a flush of pleasure to Kitty's cheek. For Kitty, too, had just passed through a humiliating and disappointing experience. In her troubled frame of mind, and in her perplexed and confused questioning, the young woman was as glad for the companionship of Patches as he was glad to welcome her. She felt a curious sense of relief and safety in his presence--somewhat as one, who, walking over uncertain bogs or treacherous quicksands, finds, all at once, the solid ground. "I saw you go past the house," she said, when she reached the spring where he stood awaiting her, "and I decided right then that I would go along with you to Granite Basin and visit my friends the Mannings. They told me that I might come this week, and I think they have had quite enough honeymooning, anyway. You know where they are camped, do you?" "Yes," he answered. "I saw them yesterday. But, come! Get down and cool off a bit. You've been riding some, haven't you?" "I wanted to catch you as soon as I could," she laughed, as she sprang lightly to the ground. "And you see you gained a good start while I was getting Midnight saddled. What a pretty spot! I must have a drink of that water this minute." "Sorry I have no cup," he said, and then he laughed with the pleasure of good comradeship as she answered: "You forget that I was born to the customs of this country." And, throwing aside her broad hat, she went down on the ground to drink from the spring, even as he had done. As the man watched her, a sudden thought flashed into his mind--a thought so startling, so unexpected, that he was for the moment bewildered. "Talk about the nectar of the gods!" cried Kitty with a deep breath of satisfaction, as she lifted her smiling face from the bright water to look up at him. And then she drank again. "And now, if you please, sir, you may bring me some of that water-cress; we'll sit over there in the shade, and who cares whether Granite Basin, the Mannings, and your fellow cow-punchers, are fifteen or fifty miles away?" He brought a generous bunch of the water-cress, and stretched himself full length beside her, as she sat on the ground under a tall sycamore. "Selah!" he laughed contentedly. "We seem to lack only the book of verses, the loaf and the jug; the wilderness is here, all right, and that's a perfectly good bough up there, and, of course, you could furnish the song; I might recite 'The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck,' but, alas! we haven't even a flask and biscuit." "What a pity that you should be so near and yet so far from paradise!" she retorted quickly. Then she added, with a mischievous smile, "It just happens that I have a sandwich in my saddle pocket." "Won't you sing? Please do," he returned, with an eagerness that amused her. But she shook her head reprovingly. "We would still lack the jug of wine, you know, and, really, I don't think that paradise is for cow-punchers, anyway, do you?" "Evidently not," he answered. And at her jesting words a queer feeling of rebellion possessed him. Why should he be condemned to years of loneliness? Why must he face a life without the companionship of a mate? If the paradise he had sought so hard to attain were denied him, why should he not still take what happiness he might? He was lying flat on his back, his hands clasped beneath his head, watching an eagle that wheeled, a tiny black speck, high under the blue arch of the sky. He seemed to have forgotten his companion. Kitty leaned toward him, and held a sprig of water-cress over his upturned face. "I haven't a penny," she said, "but I'll give you this." He sat up quickly. "Even at that price, my thoughts might cost you too much. But you haven't told me what you have done with our dear friend the professor? Haven't you a guilty conscience, deserting him like this?" Kitty held up both hands in a gesture of dismay. "Don't, Patches, please don't. Ugh! if you only knew how good it is to be with a _man_ again!" He laughed aloud in a spirit of reckless defiance. "And Phil is over in Granite Basin. I neglected to tell you that he knows the location of the Mannings' camp, as well as I." Kitty was a little puzzled by the tone of his laughter, and by his words. She spoke gravely. "Perhaps I should tell you, Patches--we have been such good friends, you and I--Phil--" "Yes!" he said. "Phil is nothing to me, Patches. I mean--" "You mean in the way he wanted to be?" He helped her with a touch of eager readiness. "Yes." "And have you told him, Kitty?" Patches asked gently. "Yes--I have told him," she replied. Patches was silent for a moment. Then, "Poor Phil!" he said softly. "I understand now; I thought that was it. He is a man among thousands, Kitty." "I know--I know," she returned, as though to dismiss the subject. "But it simply couldn't be." Patches was looking at her intently, with an expression in his dark eyes that Kitty had never before seen. The man's mind was in a whirl of quick excitement. As they had talked and laughed together, the thought that had so startled him, when her manner of familiar comradeship had brought such a feeling of comfort to his troubled spirit, had not left him. From that first moment of their meeting a year before there had been that feeling between them, of companionship, a feeling which had grown as their acquaintance had developed into the intimate friendship that had allowed him to speak to her as he had spoken that day under the cedars on the ridge. What might that friendship not grow into! He thought of her desire for the life that he knew so well, and how he could, while granting every wish of her heart, yet protect her from the shams and falseness. And with these thoughts was that feeling of rebellion against the loneliness of his life. Kitty's words regarding Phil removed the barrier, as it were, and the man's nature, which prompted him so often to act without pausing to consider, betrayed him into saying, "Would you be greatly shocked, Kitty, if I were to tell you that I am glad? That, while I am sorry for Phil, I am glad that you have said no to him?" "You are glad?" she said wonderingly. "Why?" "Because, now, _I_ am free to say what I could not have said had you not told me what you have. I want you, Kitty. I want to fill your life with beauty and happiness and contentment. I want you to go with me to see and know the natural wonders of the world, and the wonders that men have wrought. I want to surround you with the beauties of art and literature, with everything that your heart craves. I want you to know the people whose friendship would be a delight to you. Come with me, girl--be my wife, and together we will find--if not paradise, at least a full and useful and contented and happy life. Will you come, Kitty? Will you come with me?" As she listened her eyes grew big with wonder and delight. It was as though some good genie had suddenly opened wide the way to an enchanted laud. Then the gladness went swiftly from her face, and she said doubtingly, "You are jesting with me, Patches." As she spoke his cowboy name, the man laughed aloud. "I forgot that you do not even know me--I mean, that you do not know my name." "Are you some fairy prince in disguise, Sir Patches?" "Not a fairy, dear, and certainly not a prince; just a man, that's all. But a man, dear girl, who can offer you a clean life, an honored name, and all of which I have spoken. But I must tell you--I always knew that I would tell you some day, but I did not dream that it would be to-day. My name is Lawrence Knight. My home is in Cleveland, Ohio. Your father can easily satisfy himself as to my family and my own personal life and standing. It is enough for me to assure you now, dear, that I am abundantly able to give you all that I have promised." At the mention of his name, Kitty's eyes grew bright again. Thanks to her intimate friend and schoolmate, Helen Manning, she knew much more of Lawrence Knight than that gentleman supposed. "But, tell me," she asked curiously, trembling with suppressed excitement, "why is Mr. Lawrence Knight masquerading here as the cowboy Honorable Patches?" He answered earnestly. "I know it must seem strange to you, dear, but the simple truth is that I became ashamed of myself and my life of idle uselessness. I determined to see if I could take my place among men, simply as a man. I wanted to be accepted by men for myself, for my manhood, if you like, and not because of my--" he hesitated, then said frankly--"my money and social position. I wanted to depend upon myself--to live as other men live, by my own strength and courage and work. If I had given my real name, when I asked for work at the Cross-Triangle--someone would have found me out before very long, and my little experiment would have failed, don't you see?" While he spoke, Kitty's excited mind had caught at many thoughts. She believed sincerely that her girlhood love for Phil was dead. This man, even as Patches the cowboy, with a questionable shadow on his life, had compelled her respect and confidence, while in his evident education and social culture he had won her deepest admiration. She felt that he was all that Phil was, and more. There was in her feeling toward him, as he offered himself to her now, no hint of that instinctive repulsion and abhorrence with which she had received Professor Parkhill's declaration of spiritual affinity. Her recent experience with the Master of Aesthetics had so outraged her womanly instincts that the inevitable reaction from her perplexed and troubled mind led her to feel more deeply, and to be drawn more strongly, toward this man with whom any woman might be proud to mate. At the same time, the attractions of the life which she knew he could give her, and for which she longed so passionately, with the relief of the thought that her parents would not need to sacrifice themselves for her, were potent factors in the power of Lawrence Knight's appeal. "It would be wonderful," she said musingly. "I have dreamed and dreamed about such things." "You will come with me, dear? You will let me give you your heart's wish--you will go with me into the life for which you are so fitted?" "Do you really want me, Patches?" she asked timidly, as though in her mind there was still a shadow of doubt. "More than anything in the world," he urged. "Say yes. Kitty. Say that you will be my wife." The answer came softly, with a hint of questioning, still. "Yes." Kitty did not notice that the man had not spoken of his love for her. There were so many other things for her to consider, so many other things to distract her mind. Nor did the man notice that Kitty herself had failed to speak in any way that little word, which, rightly understood, holds in its fullest, deepest meaning, all of life's happiness--of labor and accomplishment--of success and triumph--of sacrifice and sorrow; holds, in its fullest, deepest meaning, indeed, all of life itself. CHAPTER XV. ON CEDAR RIDGE. Kitty's friends were very glad to welcome her at their camp in Granite Basin. The incident which had so rudely broken the seclusion of their honeymoon had been too nearly a tragedy to be easily forgotten. The charm of the place was, in some degree, for them, lost, and Kitty's coming helped to dispel the cloud that had a little overshadowed those last days of their outing. It was not at all difficult for them to persuade Kitty to remain longer than the one night that she had planned, and to accompany them to Prescott. Prom Prescott, Stanford must go to the mines, to take up his work, and to arrange for Helen's coming later, and Helen would go home with Kitty for the visit she had promised. The cowboys, who were returning to the Cross-Triangle Ranch, would take Kitty's horse to her home, and would carry a message explaining the young woman's absence, and asking that someone be sent to Prescott with the clothing she would need in town, and that the Reid automobile might be in Prescott in readiness to take the two young women back to the ranch on the appointed day. Kitty could not bring herself to tell even Helen about her engagement to Lawrence Knight, or Patches, as she would continue to call him until the time came for the cowboy himself to make his true name and character known. It had all happened so suddenly; the promises of the future were so wonderful--so far beyond the young woman's fondest dreams--that she herself could scarcely realize the truth. There would be time enough to tell Helen when they were together at the ranch. And she was insistent, too, that Patches must not interview her father until she herself had returned home. Phil and his cowboys with the cattle reached the Cross-Triangle corrals the evening before the day set for Kitty and Helen to arrive at the ranch on the other side of the valley meadows. The Cross-Triangle men were greeted by the news that Professor Parkhill had said good-by to Williamson Valley, and that the Pot-Hook-S Ranch had been sold. The eastern purchaser expected by Reid had arrived on the day that Kitty had gone to Granite Basin, and the deal had been closed without delay. But Reid was not to give possession of the property until after the fall rodeo. As the men sat under the walnut trees with the Dean that evening, discussing the incidents of the Granite Basin work, and speculating about the new owner of the neighboring ranch, Phil sat with Little Billy apart from the circle, and contributed to the conversation only now and then a word or a brief answer to some question. When Mrs. Baldwin persuaded the child that it was bedtime, Phil slipped quietly away in the darkness, and they did not see him again until breakfast the next morning. When breakfast was over, the foreman gave a few directions to his men, and rode away alone. The Dean, understanding the lad, whom he loved as one of his own sons, watched him go without a word or a question. To Mrs. Baldwin he said, "Just let him alone, Stella. The boy is all right. He's only gone off somewhere on the range to fight it out alone. Most likely he'll put in the day watching those wild horses over beyond Toohey. He generally goes to them when he's bothered about anything or in trouble of any sort." Patches, who had been sent on an errand of some kind to Fair Oaks, was returning home early in the afternoon, and had reached the neighborhood of that spring where he had first encountered Nick Cambert, when he heard a calf bawling lustily somewhere in the cedar timber not far away. Familiar as he now was with the voices of the range, the cowboy knew that the calf was in trouble. The call was one of fright and pain. Turning aside from his course, he rode, rapidly at first, then more cautiously, toward the sound. Presently he caught a whiff of smoke that came with the light breeze from somewhere ahead on the ridge along which he was riding. Instantly he rode into a thick clump of cedars, and, dismounting, tied his horse. Then he went on, carefully and silently, on foot. Soon he heard voices. Again the calf bawled in fright and pain, and the familiar odor of burning hair was carried to him on the breeze. Someone was branding a calf. It might be all right--it might not. Patches was unarmed, but, with characteristic disregard of consequences, he crept softly forward, toward a dense growth of trees and brush, from beyond which the noise and the smoke seemed to come. He had barely gained the cover when he heard someone on the other side ride rapidly away down the ridge. Hastily parting the bushes, he looked through to catch a glimpse of the horseman, but he was a moment too late; the rider had disappeared from sight in the timber. But, in a little open space among the cedars, the cowboy saw Yavapai Joe, standing beside a calf, fresh-branded with the Four-Bar-M iron, and earmarked with the Tailholt marks. Patches knew instantly, as well as though he had witnessed the actual branding, what, had happened. That part of the range was seldom visited except by the Dean's cowboys, and the Tailholt Mountain men, knowing that the Cross-Triangle riders were all at Granite Basin, were making good use of their opportunities. The man who had ridden away so hurriedly, a moment too soon for Patches to see him, was, without doubt, driving the mother of the calf to a distance that would effectually separate her from her offspring. But while he was so sure in his own mind, the Cross-Triangle man--as it had so often happened before--had arrived on the scene too late. He had no positive evidence that the animal just branded was not the lawful property of Nick Cambert. As Patches stepped from the bushes, Yavapai Joe faced him for a moment in guilty astonishment and fear; then he ran toward his horse. "Wait a minute, Joe!" called Patches. "What good will it do for you to run now? I'm not going to harm you." Joe stopped, and stood hesitating in indecision, watching the intruder with that sneaking, sidewise look. "Come on, Joe; let's have a little talk about this business," the Cross-Triangle man said in a matter-of-fact tone, as he seated himself on a large, flat-topped stone near the little fire. "You know you can't get away, so you might as well." "I ain't tellin' nothin' to nobody," said Joe sullenly, as he came slowly toward the Dean's cowboy. "No?" said Patches. "No, I ain't," asserted the Tailholt Mountain man stoutly. "That there calf is a Four-Bar-M calf, all right." "I see it is," returned the Cross-Triangle rider calmly. "But I'll just wait until Nick gets back, and ask him what it was before he worked over the iron." Joe, excited and confused by the cool nerve of this man, fell readily into the verbal trap. "You better go now, an' not wait to ask Nick no fool questions like that. If he finds you here talkin' with me when he gets back, hell'll be a-poppin' fer sure. Me an' you are friends, Patches, an' that's why I'm a-tellin' you you better pull your freight while the goin's good." "Much obliged, Joe, but there's no hurry. You don't need to be so rushed. It will be an hour before Nick gets back, if he drives that cow as far as he ought." Again poor Yavapai Joe told more than he intended. "You don't need to worry none 'bout Nick; he'll sure drive her far enough. He ain't takin' no chances, Nick ain't." With his convictions so readily confirmed, Patches had good ground upon which to base his following remarks. He had made a long shot when he spoke so confidently of the brand on the calf being worked over. For, of course, the calf might not have been branded at all when the Tailholt Mountain men caught it. But Joe's manner, as well as his warning answer, told that the shot had gone home. The fact that the brand had been worked over established also the fact that it was the Cross-Triangle brand that had been changed, because the Cross-Triangle was the only brand in that part of the country that could be changed into the Four-Bar-M. Patches, dropping his easy manner, and speaking straight to the point, said, "Look here, Joe, you and I might as well get down to cases. You know I am your friend, and I don't want to see you in trouble, but you can take it from me that you are in mighty serious trouble right now. I was hiding right there in those bushes, close enough to see all that happened, and I know that this is a Cross-Triangle calf, and that Nick and you worked the brand over. You know that it means the penitentiary for you, as well as for Nick, if the boys don't string you both up without any ceremony." Patches paused to let his words sink in. Joe's face was ashy white, and he was shaking with fright, as he stole a sneaking look toward his horse. Patches added sharply, "You can't give me the slip, either; I can kill you before you get half way to your horse." Trapped and helpless, Joe looked pleadingly at his captor. "You wouldn't send me up, would you, now, Patches?" he whined. "You an' me's good friends, ain't we? Anyway he wouldn't let me go to the pen, an' the boys wouldn't dast do nothin' to me when they knew." "Whom are you talking about?" demanded Patches. "Nick? Don't be a fool, Joe; Nick will be there right alongside of you." "I ain't meanin' Nick; I mean _him_ over there at the Cross-Triangle--Professor Parkhill. I'm a-tellin' you that _he_ wouldn't let you do nothin' to me." "Forget it, Joe," came the reply, without an instant's hesitation. "You know as well as I do how much chance Professor Parkhill, or anyone else, would have, trying to keep the boys from making you and Nick dance on nothing, once they hear of this. Besides, the professor is not in the valley now." The poor outcast's fright was pitiful. "You ain't meanin' that he--that he's gone?" he gasped. "Listen, Joe," said Patches quickly. "I can do more for you than he could, even if he were here. You know I am your friend, and I don't want to see a good fellow like you sent to prison for fifteen or twenty years, or, perhaps, hanged. But there's only one way that I can see for me to save you. You must go with me to the Cross-Triangle, and tell Mr. Baldwin all about it, how you were just working for Nick, and how he made you help him do this, and all that you know. If you do that, we can get you off." "I--I reckon you're right, Patches," returned the frightened weakling sullenly. "Nick has sure treated me like a dog, anyway. You won't let Nick get at me, will you, if I go?" "Nobody can get at you, Joe, if you go with me, and do the square thing. I'm going to take care of you myself, and help you to get out of this, and brace up and be a man. Come on; let's be moving. I'll turn this calf loose first, though." He was bending over the calf when a noise in the brush caused him to stand suddenly erect. Joe was whimpering with terror. Patches said fiercely, but in a low tone, "Shut up, and follow my lead. Be a man, and I'll get you out of this yet." "Nick will kill us sure," whined Joe. "Not if I get my hands on him first, he won't," retorted Patches. But it was with a feeling of relief that the cowboy saw Phil Acton ride toward them from the shelter of the timber. Before Patches could speak, Phil's gun covered him, and the foreman's voice rang out sharply. "Hands up!" Joe's hands shot above his head. Patches hesitated. "Quick!" said Phil. And as Patches saw the man's eyes over the black barrel of the weapon he obeyed. But as he raised his hands, a dull flush of anger colored his tanned face a deeper red, and his eyes grew dark with passion. He realized his situation instantly. The mystery that surrounded his first appearance when he had sought employment at the Cross-Triangle; the persistent suspicion of many of the cowboys because of his friendship for Yavapai Joe; his meeting with Joe which the professor had reported; his refusal to explain to Phil; his return to the ranch when everyone was away and he himself was supposed to be in Prescott--all these and many other incidents had come to their legitimate climax in his presence on that spot with Yavapai Joe, the smouldering fire and the freshly branded calf. He was unarmed, but Phil could not be sure of that, for many a cowboy carries his gun inside the leg of his leather chaps, where it does not so easily catch in the brush. But while Patches saw it all so clearly, he was enraged that this man with whom he had lived so intimately should believe him capable of such a crime, and treat him without question as a common cattle thief. Phil's coldness toward him, which had grown so gradually during the past three months, in this peremptory humiliation reached a point beyond which Patches' patient and considerate endurance could not go. The man's sense of justice was outraged; his fine feeling of honor was insulted. Trapped and helpless as he was under that menacing gun, he was possessed by a determination to defend himself against the accusation, and to teach Phil Acton that there was a limit to the insult he would endure, even in the name of friendship. To this end his only hope was to trap his foreman with words, as he had caught Yavapai Joe. At a game of words Honorable Patches was no unskilled novice. Controlling his anger, he said coolly, with biting sarcasm, while he looked at the cowboy with a mocking sneer, "You don't propose to take any chances, do you--holding up an unarmed man?" Patches saw by the flush that swept over Phil's cheeks how his words bit. "It doesn't pay to take chances with your kind," retorted the foreman hotly. "No," mocked Patches, "but it will pay big, I suppose, for the great 'Wild Horse Phil' to be branded as a sneak and a coward who is afraid to face an unarmed man unless he can get the drop on him?" Phil was goaded to madness by the cool, mocking words. With a reckless laugh, he slipped his weapon into the holster and sprang to the ground. At the same moment Patches and Joe lowered their hands, and Joe, unnoticed by either of the angry men, took a few stealthy steps toward his horse. Phil, deliberately folding his arms, stood looking at Patches. "I'll just call that bluff, you sneakin' calf stealer," he said coolly. "Now, unlimber that gun of yours, and get busy." Angry as he was, Patches felt a thrill of admiration for the man, and beneath his determination to force Phil Acton to treat him with respect, he was proud of his friend who had answered his sneering insinuation with such fearlessness. But he could not now hesitate in his plan of provoking Phil into disarming himself. "You're something of a four-flusher yourself, aren't you?" he mocked. "You know I have no gun. Your brave pose is very effective. I would congratulate you, only, you see, it doesn't impress me in the least." With an oath Phil snatched his gun from the holster, and threw it aside. "Have it any way you like," he retorted, and started toward Patches. Then a curious thing happened to Honorable Patches. Angry as he was, he became suddenly dominated by something that was more potent than his rage. "Stop!" he cried sharply, and with such ringing force that Phil involuntarily obeyed. "I can't fight you this way, Phil," he said; and the other, wondering, saw that whimsical, self-mocking smile on his lips. "You know as well as I do that you are no match for me barehanded. You couldn't even touch me; you have seen Curly and the others try it often enough. You are as helpless in my power, now, as I was in yours a moment ago. I am armed now and you are not. I can't fight you this way, Phil." In spite of himself Phil Acton was impressed by the truth and fairness of Patches' words. He recognized that an unequal contest could satisfy neither of them, and that it made no difference which of the contestants had the advantage. "Well," he said sarcastically, "what are you going to do about it?" "First," returned Patches calmly, "I am going to tell you how I happened to be here with Yavapai Joe." "I don't need any explanations from you. It's some more of your personal business, I suppose," retorted Phil. Patches controlled himself. "You are going to hear the explanation, just the same," he returned. "You can believe it or not, just as you please." "And what then?" demanded Phil. "Then I'm going to get a gun, and we'll settle the rest of it, man to man, on equal terms, just as soon as you like," answered Patches deliberately. Phil replied shortly. "Go ahead with your palaver. I'll have to hand it to you when it comes to talk. I am not educated that way myself." For a moment Patches hesitated, as though on the point of changing his mind about the explanation. Then his sense of justice--justice both for Phil and himself--conquered. But in telling Phil how he had come upon the scene too late for positive proof that the freshly branded calf was the Dean's property, and in explaining how, when the foreman arrived, he had just persuaded Joe to go with him and give the necessary evidence against Nick, Patches forgot the possible effect of his words upon Joe himself. The two Cross-Triangle men were so absorbed in their own affair that they had paid no attention to the Tailholt Mountain outcast. And Joe, taking advantage of the opportunity, had by this time gained a position beside his horse. As he heard Patches tell how he had no actual evidence that the calf was not Nick Cambert's property, a look of anger and cunning darkened the face of Nick's follower. He was angry at the way Patches had tricked him into betraying both himself and his evil master, and he saw a way to defeat the two cowboys and at the same time win Nick's approval. Quickly the fellow mounted his horse, and, before they could stop him, was out of sight in the timber. "I've done it now," exclaimed Patches in dismay. "I forgot all about Joe." "I don't think he counts for much in this game anyway," returned Phil, gruffly. As he spoke, the foreman turned his back to Patches and walked toward his gun. He had reached the spot where the weapon lay on the ground, when, from the bushes to the right, and a little back of Patches, who stood watching his companion, a shot rang out with startling suddenness. Patches saw Phil stumble forward, straighten for an instant, as though by sheer power of his will, and, turning, look back at him. Then, as Phil fell, the unarmed cowboy leaped forward toward that gun on the ground. Even as he moved, a second shot rang out and he felt the wind of the bullet on his cheek. With Phil's gun in his hand, he ran toward a cedar tree on the side of the open space opposite the point from which the shots came, and as he ran another bullet whistled past. A man moving as Patches moved is not an easy mark. The same man armed, and protected by the trunk of a tree, is still more difficult. A moment after he had gained cover, the cowboy heard the clatter of a horse's feet, near the spot from which the shots had come, and by the sound knew that the unseen marksman had chosen to retire with only half his evident purpose accomplished, rather than take the risk that had arisen with Patches' success in turning the ambush into an open fight. As the sound of the horse's swift rush down the side of the ridge grew fainter and fainter, Patches ran to Phil. A quick examination told him that the bullet had entered just under the right shoulder, and that the man, though unconscious and, no doubt, seriously wounded, was living. With rude bandages made by tearing his shirt into strips Patches checked the flow of blood, and bound up the wound as best he could. Then for a moment he considered. It was between three and four miles to the ranch. He could ride there and back in a few minutes. Someone must start for a doctor without an instant's loss of time. With water, proper bandages and stimulants, the wounded man could be cared for and moved in the buckboard with much greater safety than he could be carried in his present condition on a horse. The risk of leaving him for a few minutes was small, compared to the risk of taking him to the house under the only conditions possible. The next instant Patches was in Phil's saddle and riding as he had never ridden before. Jim Reid, with Kitty and Helen, was on the way back from Prescott as Kitty had planned. They were within ten miles of the ranch when the cattleman, who sat at the wheel of the automobile, saw a horseman coming toward them. A moment he watched the approaching figure, then, over his shoulder, he said to the girls, "Look at that fellow ride. There's something doin', sure." As he spoke he turned the machine well out of the road. A moment later he added, "It's Curly Elson from the Cross-Triangle. Somethin's happened in the valley." As he spoke, he stopped the machine, and sprang out so that the cowboy could see and recognize him. Curly did not draw rein until he was within a few feet of Reid; then he brought his running horse up with a suddenness that threw the animal on its haunches. Curly spoke tersely. "Phil Acton is shot. We need a doctor quick." Without a word Jim Reid leaped into the automobile. The car backed to turn around. As it paused an instant before starting forward again, Kitty put her hand on her father's shoulder. "Wait!" she cried. "I'm going to Phil. Curly, I want your horse; you can go with father." The cowboy was on the ground before she had finished speaking. And before the automobile was under way Kitty was riding back the way Curly had come. Kitty was scarcely conscious of what she had said. The cowboy's first words had struck her with the force of a physical blow, and in that first moment, she had been weak and helpless. She had felt as though a heavy weight pressed her down; a gray mist was before her eyes, and she could not see clearly. "Phil Acton is shot--Phil Acton is shot!" The cowboy's words had repeated themselves over and over. Then, with a sudden rush, her strength came again--the mist cleared; she must go to Phil; she must go fast, fast. Oh, why was this horse so slow! If only she were riding her own Midnight! She did not think as she rode. She did not wonder, nor question, nor analyze her emotions. She only felt. It was Phil who was hurt--Phil, the boy with whom she had played when she was a little girl--the lad with whom she had gone to school--the young man who had won the first love of her young woman heart. It was Phil, her Phil, who was hurt, and she must go to him--she must go fast, fast! It seemed to Kitty that hours passed before she reached the meadow lane. She was glad that Curly had left the gates open. As she crossed the familiar ground between the old Acton home and the ranch house on the other side of the sandy wash, she saw them. They were carrying him into the house as she rode into the yard, and at sight of that still form the gray mist came again, and she caught the saddle horn to save herself from falling. But it was only a moment until she was strong again, and ready to do all that Mrs. Baldwin asked. Phil had regained consciousness before they started home with him, but he was very weak from the loss of blood and the journey in the buckboard, though Bob drove ever so carefully, was almost more than he could bear. But with the relief that came when he was at last lying quietly in his own bed, and with the help of the stimulant, the splendid physical strength and vitality that was his because of his natural and unspoiled life again brought him back from the shadows into the light of full consciousness. It was then that the Dean, while Mrs. Baldwin and Kitty were occupied for a few moments in another part of the house, listened to all that his foreman could tell him about the affair up to the time that he had fallen unconscious. The Dean asked but few questions. But when the details were all clearly fixed in his mind, the older man bent over Phil and looked straight into the lad's clear and steady eyes, while he asked in a low tone, "Phil, did Patches do this?" And the young man answered, "Uncle Will, I don't know." With this he closed his eyes wearily, as though to sleep, and the Dean, seeing Kitty in the doorway, beckoned her to come and sit beside the bed. Then he stole quietly from the room. As in a dream Phil had seen Kitty when she rode into the yard. And he had been conscious of her presence as she moved about the house and the room where he lay. But he had given no sign that he knew she was there. As she seated herself, at the Dean's bidding, the cowboy opened his eyes for a moment, and looked up into her face. Then again the weary lids closed, and he gave no hint that he recognized her, save that the white lips set in firmer lines as though at another stab of pain. As she watched alone beside this man who had, since she could remember, been a part of her life, and as she realized that he was on the very border line of that land from which, if he entered, he could never return to her, Kitty Reid knew the truth that is greater than any knowledge that the schools of man can give. She knew the one great truth of her womanhood; knew it not from text book or class room; not from learned professor or cultured associates; but knew it from that good Master of Life who, with infinite wisdom, teaches his many pupils who are free to learn in the school of schools, the School of Nature. In that hour when the near presence of death so overshadowed all the trivial and non-essential things of life--when the little standards and petty values of poor human endeavor were as nothing--this woman knew that by the unwritten edict of God, who decreed that in all life two should be as one, this man was her only lawful mate. Environment, circumstance, that which we call culture and education, even death, might separate them; but nothing could nullify the fact that was attested by the instinct of her womanhood. Bending over the man who lay so still, she whispered the imperative will of her heart. "Come back to me, Phil--I want you--I need you, dear--come back to me!" Slowly he came out of the mists of weakness and pain to look up at her--doubtfully--wonderingly. But there was a light in Kitty's face that dispelled the doubt, and changed the look of wondering uncertainty to glad conviction. He did not speak. No word was necessary. Nor did he move, for he must be very still, and hold fast with all his strength to the life that was now so good. But the woman knew without words all that he would have said, and as his eyes closed again she bowed her head in thankfulness. Then rising she stole softly to the window. She felt that she must look out for a moment into the world that was so suddenly new and beautiful. Under the walnut trees she saw the Dean talking with the man whom she had promised to marry. Later Mr. Reid, with Helen and Curly, brought the doctor, and the noise of the automobile summoned every soul on the place to wait for the physician's verdict of life or death. While the Dean was in Phil's room with the physician, and the anxious ones were gathered in a little group in front of the house, Jim Reid stood apart from the others talking in low tones with the cowboy Bob. Patches, who was standing behind the automobile, heard Bob, who had raised his voice a little, say distinctly, "I tell you, sir, there ain't a bit of doubt in the world about it. There was the calf a layin' right there fresh-branded and marked. He'd plumb forgot to turn it loose, I reckon, bein' naturally rattled; or else he figgered that it warn't no use, if Phil should be able to tell what happened. The way I make it out is that Phil jumped him right in the act, so sudden that he shot without thinkin'; you know how he acts quick that-a-way. An' then he seen what he had done, an' that it was more than an even break that Phil wouldn't live, an' so figgered that his chance was better to stay an' run a bluff by comin' for help, an' all that. If he'd tried to make his get-away, there wouldn't 'a' been no question about it; an' he's got just nerve enough to take the chance he's a-takin' by stayin' right with the game." Patches started as though to go toward the men, but at that moment the doctor came from the house. As the physician approached the waiting group, that odd, mirthless, self-mocking smile touched Patches' lips; then he stepped forward to listen with the others to the doctor's words. Phil had a chance, the doctor said, but he told them frankly that it was only a chance. The injured man's wonderful vitality, his clean blood and unimpaired physical strength, together with his unshaken nerve and an indomitable will, were all greatly in his favor. With careful nursing they might with reason hope for his recovery. With expressions of relief, the group separated. Patches walked away alone. Mr. Reid, who would return to Prescott with the doctor, said to his daughter when the physician was ready, "Come, Kitty, I'll go by the house, so as to take you and Mrs. Manning home." But Kitty shook her head. "No, father. I'm not going home. Stella needs me here. Helen understands, don't you, Helen?" And wise Mrs. Manning, seeing in Kitty's face something that the man had not observed, answered, "Yes, dear, I do understand. You must stay, of course. I'll run over again in the morning." "Very well," answered Mr. Reid, who seemed in somewhat of a hurry. "I know you ought to stay. Tell Stella that mother will be over for a little while this evening." And the automobile moved away. That night, while Mrs. Baldwin and Kitty watched by Phil's bedside, and Patches, in his room, waited, sleepless, alone with his thoughts, men from the ranch on the other side of the quiet meadow were riding swiftly through the darkness. Before the new day had driven the stars from the wide sky, a little company of silent, grim-faced horsemen gathered in the Pot-Hook-S corral. In the dim, gray light of the early morning they followed Jim Reid out of the corral, and, riding fast, crossed the valley above the meadows and approached the Cross-Triangle corrals from the west. One man in the company led a horse with an empty saddle. Just beyond the little rise of ground outside the big gate they halted, while Jim Reid with two others, leaving their horses with the silent riders behind the hill, went on into the corral, where they seated themselves on the edge of the long watering trough near the tank, which hid them from the house. Fifteen minutes later, when the Dean stepped from the kitchen porch, he saw Curly running toward the house. As the older man hurried toward him, the cowboy, pale with excitement and anger, cried, "They've got him, sir--grabbed him when he went out to the corral." The Dean understood instantly. "My horse, quick, Curly," he said, and hurried on toward the saddle shed. "Which way did they go?" he asked, as he mounted. "Toward the cedars on the ridge where it happened," came the answer. "Do you want me?" "No. Don't let them know in the house," came the reply. And the Dean was gone. The little company of horsemen, with Patches in their midst, had reached the scene of the shooting, and had made their simple preparations. From that moment when they had covered him with their guns as he stepped through the corral gate, he had not spoken. "Well, sir," said the spokesman, "have you anything to say before we proceed?" Patches shook his head, and wonderingly they saw that curious mocking smile on his lips. "I don't suppose that any remarks I might make would impress you gentlemen in the least," he said coolly. "It would be useless and unkind for me to detain you longer than is necessary." An involuntary murmur of admiration came from the circle. They were men who could appreciate such unflinching courage. In the short pause that followed, the Dean, riding as he had not ridden for years, was in their midst. Before they could check him the veteran cowman was beside Patches. With a quick motion he snatched the riata from the cowboy's neck. An instant more, and he had cut the rope that bound Patches' hands. "Thank you, sir," said Patches calmly. "Don't do that, Will," called Jim Reid peremptorily. "This is our business." In the same breath he shouted to his companions, "Take him again, boys," and started forward. "Stand where you are," roared the Dean, and as they looked upon the stern countenance of the man who was so respected and loved throughout all that country, not a man moved. Reid himself involuntarily halted at the command. "I'll do this and more, Jim Reid," said the Dean firmly, and there was that in his voice which, in the wild days of the past, had compelled many a man to fear and obey him. "It's my business enough that you can call this meetin' off right here. I'll be responsible for this man. You boys mean well, but you're a little mite too previous this trip." "We aim to put a stop to that thievin' Tailholt Mountain outfit, Will," returned Reid, "an' we're goin' to do it right now." A murmur of agreement came from the group. The Dean did not give an inch. "You'll put a stop to nothin' this way; an' you'll sure start somethin' that'll be more than stealin' a few calves. The time for stringin' men up promiscuous like, on mere suspicion, is past in Arizona. I reckon there's more Cross-Triangle stock branded with the Tailholt Mountain iron than all the rest of you put together have lost, which sure entitles me to a front seat when it comes, to the show-down." "He's right, boys," said one of the older men. "You know I'm right, Tom," returned the Dean quickly. "You an' me have lived neighbors for pretty near thirty years, without ever a hard word passed between us, an' we've been through some mighty serious troubles together; an' you, too, George, an' Henry an' Bill. The rest of you boys I have known since you was little kids; an' me and your daddies worked an' fought side by side for decent livin' an' law-abidin' times before you was born. We did it 'cause we didn't want our children to go through with what we had to go through, or do some of the things that we had to do. An' now you're all thinkin' that you can cut me out of this. You think you can sneak out here before I'm out of my bed in the mornin', an' hang one of my own cowboys--as good a man as ever throwed a rope, too. Without sayin' a word to me, you come crawlin' right into my own corral, an' start to raisin' hell. I'm here to tell you that you can't do it. You can't do it because I won't let you." The men, with downcast eyes, sat on their horses, ashamed. Two or three muttered approval. Jim Reid said earnestly, "That's all right, Will. We knew how you would feel, an' we were just aimin' to save you any more trouble. Them Tailholt Mountain thieves have gone too far this time. We can't let you turn that man loose." "I ain't goin' to try to turn him loose," retorted the Dean. The men looked at each other. "What are you goin' to do, then?" asked the spokesman. "I'm goin' to make you turn him loose," came the startling answer. "You fellows took him; you've got to let him go." In spite of the grave situation several of the men grinned at the Dean's answer--it was so like him. "I'll bet a steer he does it, too," whispered one. The Dean turned to the man by his side. "Patches, tell these men all that you told me about this business." When the cowboy had told his story in detail, up to the point where Phil came upon the scene, the Dean interrupted him, "Now, get down there an' show us exactly how it happened after Phil rode on to you an' Yavapai Joe." Patches obeyed. As he was showing them where Phil stood when the shot was fired the Dean again interrupted with, "Wait a minute. Tom, you get down there an' stand just as Phil was standin'." The cattleman obeyed. When he had taken the position, the Dean continued, "Now, Patches, stand like you was when Phil was hit." Patches obeyed. "Now, then, where did that shot come from?" asked the Dean. Patches pointed. The Dean did not need to direct the next step in his demonstration. Three of the men were already off their horses, and moving around the bushes indicated by Patches. "Here's the tracks, all right," called one. "An' here," added another, from a few feet further away, "was where he left his horse." "An' now," continued the Dean, when the three men had come back from behind the bushes, and with Patches had remounted their horses, "I'll tell you somethin' else. I had a talk with Phil himself, an' the boy's story agrees with what Patches has just told you in every point. An', furthermore, Phil told me straight when I asked him that he didn't know himself who fired that shot." He paused for a moment for them to grasp the full import of his words. Then he summed up the case. "As the thing stands, we've got no evidence against anybody. It can't be proved that the calf wasn't Nick's property in the first place. It can't be proved that Nick was anywhere in the neighborhood. It can't be proved who fired that shot. It could have been Yavapai Joe, or anybody else, just as well as Nick. Phil himself, by bein' too quick to jump at conclusions, blocked this man's game, just when he was playin' the only hand that could have won out against Nick. If Phil hadn't 'a' happened on to Patches and Joe when he did, or if he had been a little slower about findin' a man guilty just because appearances were against him, we'd 'a' had the evidence from Yavapai Joe that we've been wantin', an' could 'a' called the turn on that Tailholt outfit proper. As it stands now, we're right where we was before. Now, what are you all goin' to do about it?" The men grinned shamefacedly, but were glad that the tragedy had been averted. They were by no means convinced that Patches was not guilty, but they were quick to see the possibilities of a mistake in the situation. "I reckon the Dean has adjourned the meetin', boys," said one. "Come on," called another. "Let's be ridin'." When the last man had disappeared in the timber, the Dean wiped the perspiration from his flushed face, and looked at Patches thoughtfully. Then that twinkle of approval came into the blue eyes, that a few moments before had been so cold and uncompromising. "Come, son," he said gently, "let's go to breakfast. Stella'll be wonderin' what's keepin' us." CHAPTER XVI. THE SKY LINE. Before their late breakfast was over at the Cross-Triangle Ranch, Helen Manning came across the valley meadows to help with the work of the household. Jimmy brought her, but when she saw that she was really needed, and that Mrs. Baldwin would be glad of her help, she told Jimmy that she would stay for the day. Someone from the Cross-Triangle, the Dean said, would take her home when she was ready to go. The afternoon was nearly gone when Curly returned from the lower end of the valley with a woman who would relieve Mrs. Baldwin of the housework, and, as her presence was no longer needed, Helen told the Dean that she would return to the Reid home. "I'll just tell Patches to take you over in the buckboard," said the Dean. "It was mighty kind of you to give us a hand to-day; it's been a big help to Stella and Kitty." "Please don't bother about the buckboard, Mr. Baldwin. I would enjoy the walk so much. But I would be glad if Mr. Patches could go with me--I would really feel safer, you know," she smiled. Mrs. Baldwin was sleeping and Kitty was watching beside Phil, so the Dean himself went as far as the wash with Helen and Patches, as the two set out for their walk across the meadows. When Helen had said good-by to the Dean, with a promise to come again on the morrow, and he had turned back toward the house, she said to her companion, "Oh, Larry, I am so glad for this opportunity; I wanted to see you alone, and I couldn't think how it was to be managed. I have something to tell you, Larry, something that I _must_ tell you, and you must promise to be very patient with me." "You know what happened this morning, do you?" he asked gravely, for he thought from her words that she had, perhaps, chanced to hear of some further action to be taken by the suspicious cattlemen. "It was terrible--terrible, Larry. Why didn't you tell them who you are? Why did you let them--" she could not finish. He laughed shortly. "It would have been such a sinful waste of words. Can't you imagine me trying to make those men believe such a fairy story--under such circumstances?" For a little they walked in silence; then he asked, "Is it about Jim Reid's suspicion that you wanted to see me, Helen?" "No, Larry, it isn't. It's about Kitty," she answered. "Oh!" "Kitty told me all about it, to-day," Helen continued. "The poor child is almost beside herself." The man did not speak. Helen looked up at him almost as a mother might have done. "Do you love her so very much, Larry? Tell me truly, do you?" Patches could not--dared not--look at her. "Tell me, Larry," she insisted gently. "I must know. Do you love Kitty as a man ought to love his wife?" The man answered in a voice that was low and shaking with emotion. "Why should you ask me such a question? You know the answer. What right have you to force me to tell you that which you already know--that I love you--another man's wife?" Helen's face went white. In her anxiety for Kitty she, had not foreseen this situation in which, by her question, she had placed herself. "Larry!" she said sharply. "Well," he retorted passionately, "you insisted that I tell you the truth." "I insisted that you tell me the truth about Kitty," she returned. "Well, you have it," he answered quickly. "Oh, Larry," she cried, "how could you--how could you ask a woman you do not love to be your wife? How could you do it, Larry? And just when I was so proud of you; so glad for you that you had found yourself; that you were such a splendid man!" "Kitty and I are the best of friends," he answered in a dull, spiritless tone, "the best of companions. In the past year I have grown very fond of her--we have much in common. I can give her the life she desires--the life she is fitted for. I will make her happy; I will be true to her; I will be to her everything that a man should be to his wife." "No, Larry," she said gently, touched by the hopelessness in his voice, for he had spoken as though he already knew that his attempt to justify his engagement to Kitty was vain. "No, Larry, you cannot be to Kitty everything that a man should be to his wife. You cannot, without love, be a husband to her." Again they walked in silence for a little way. Then Helen asked: "And are you sure, Larry, that Kitty cares for you--as a woman ought to care, I mean?" "I could not have asked her to be my wife if I had not thought so," he answered, with more spirit. "Of course," returned his companion gently, "and Kitty could not have answered, 'yes,' if she had not believed that you loved her." "Do you mean that you think Kitty does not care for me, Helen?" "I _know_ that she loves Phil Acton, Larry. I saw it in her face when we first learned that he was hurt. And to-day the poor girl confessed it. She loved him all the time, Larry--has loved him ever since they were boy and girl together. She has tried to deny her heart--she has tried to put other things above her love, but she knows now that she cannot. It is fortunate for you both that she realized her love for Mr. Acton before she had spoiled not only her own life but yours as well." "But, how could she promise to be my wife when she loved Phil?" he demanded. "But, how could you ask her when you--" Helen retorted quickly, without thinking of herself. Then she continued bravely, putting herself aside in her effort to make him understand. "You tempted her, Larry. You did not mean it so, perhaps, but you did. You tempted her with your wealth--with all that you could give her of material luxuries and ease and refinement. You tempted her to substitute those things for love. I know, Larry--I know, because you see, dear man, I was once tempted, too." He made a gesture of protest, but she went on, "You did not know, but I can tell you now that nothing but the memory of my dear father's teaching saved me from a terrible mistake. You are a man now, Larry. You are more to me than any man in the world, save one; and more than any man in the world, save that one, I respect and admire you for the manhood you have gained. But oh, Larry, Larry, don't you see? _'When a man's a man'_ there is one thing above all others that he cannot do. He cannot take advantage of a woman's weakness; he cannot tempt her beyond her strength; he must be strong both for himself and her; he must save her always from herself." The man lifted his head and looked away toward Granite Mountain. As once before this woman had aroused him to assert his manhood's strength, she called now to all that was finest and truest in the depth of his being. "You are always right, Helen," he said, almost reverently. "No, Larry," she answered quickly, "but you know that I am right in this." "I will free Kitty from her promise at once," he said, as though to end the matter. Helen answered quickly. "But that is exactly what you must not do." The man was bewildered. "Why, I thought--what in the world do you mean?" She laughed happily as she said, "Stupid Larry, don't you understand? You must make Kitty send you about your business. You must save her self-respect. Can't you see how ashamed and humiliated she would be if she imagined for a moment that you did not love her? Think what she would suffer if she knew that you had merely tried to buy her with your wealth and the things you possess!" She disregarded his protest. "That's exactly what your proposal meant, Larry. A girl like Kitty, if she knew the truth of what she had done, might even fancy herself unworthy to accept her happiness now that it has come. You must make her dismiss you, and all that you could give her. You must make her proud and happy to give herself to the man she loves." "But--what can I do?" he asked in desperation. "I don't know, Larry. But you must manage somehow--for Kitty's sake you _must_." "If only the Dean had not interrupted the proceedings this morning, how it would have simplified everything!" he mused, and she saw that as always he was laughing at himself. "Don't, Larry; please don't," she cried earnestly. He looked at her curiously. "Would you have me lie to her, Helen--deliberately lie?" She answered quietly. "I don't think that I would raise that question, if I were you, Larry--considering all the circumstances." On his way back to the Cross-Triangle, Patches walked as a man who, having determined upon a difficult and distasteful task, is of a mind to undertake it without delay. After supper that evening he managed to speak to Kitty when no one was near. "I must see you alone for a few minutes to-night," he whispered hurriedly. "As soon as possible. I will be under the trees near the bank of the wash. Come to me as soon as it is dark, and you can slip away." The young woman wondered at his manner. He was so hurried, and appeared so nervous and unlike himself. "But, Patches, I--" "You must!" he interrupted with a quick look toward the Dean, who was approaching them. "I have something to tell you--something that I must tell you to-night." He turned to speak to the Dean, and Kitty presently left them. An hour later, when the night had come, she found him waiting as he had said. "Listen, Kitty!" he began abruptly, and she thought from his manner and the tone of his voice that he was in a state of nervous fear. "I must go; I dare not stay here another day; I am going to-night." "Why, Patches," she said, forcing herself to speak quietly in order to calm him. "What is the matter?" "Matter?" he returned hurriedly. "You know what they tried to do to me this morning." Kitty was shocked. It was true that she did not--could not--care for this man as she loved Phil, but she had thought him her dearest friend, and she respected and admired him. It was not good to find him now like this--shaken and afraid. She could not understand. For the moment her own trouble was put aside by her honest concern for him. "But, Patches," she said earnestly, "that is all past now; it cannot happen again." "You do not know," he returned, "or you would not feel so sure. Phil might--" He checked himself as if he feared to finish the sentence. Kitty thought now that there must be more cause for his manner than she had guessed. "But you are not a cattle thief," she protested. "You have only to explain who you are; no one would for a moment believe that Lawrence Knight could be guilty of stealing; it's ridiculous on the face of it!" "You do not understand," he returned desperately. "There is more in this than stealing." Kitty started. "You don't mean, Patches--you can't mean--Phil--" she gasped. "Yes, I mean Phil," he whispered. "I--we were quarreling--I was angry. My God! girl, don't you see why I must go? I dare not stay. Listen, Kitty! It will be all right. Once I am out of this country and living under my own name I will be safe. Later you can come to me. You will come, won't you, dear? You know how I want you; this need make no change in our plans. If you love me you--" She stopped him with a low cry. "And you--it was you who did that?" "But I tell you we were quarreling, Kitty," he protested weakly. "And you think that I could go to you now?" She was trembling with indignation. "Oh, you are so mistaken. It seems that I was mistaken, too. I never dreamed that you--nothing--nothing, that you could ever do would make me forget what you have told me. You are right to go." "You mean that you will not come to me?" he faltered. "Could you really think that I would?" she retorted. "But, Kitty, you will let me go? You will not betray me? You will give me a chance?" "It is the only thing that I can do," she answered coldly. "I should die of shame, if it were ever known that I had thought of being more to you than I have been; but you must go to-night." And with this she left him, fairly running toward the house. Alone in the darkness, Honorable Patches smiled mockingly to himself. When morning came there was great excitement at the Cross-Triangle Ranch. Patches was missing. And more, the best horse in the Dean's outfit--the big bay with the blazed face, had also disappeared. Quickly the news spread throughout the valley, and to the distant ranches. And many were the wise heads that nodded understandingly; and many were the "I told you so's." The man who had appeared among them so mysteriously, and who, for a year, had been a never-failing topic of conversation, had finally established his character beyond all question. But the cattlemen felt with reason, because of the Dean's vigorous defense of the man when they would have administered justice, that the matter was now in his hands. They offered their services, and much advice; they quietly joked about the price of horses; but the Dean laughed at their jokes, listened to their advice, and said that he thought the sheriff of Yavapai County could be trusted to handle the case. To Helen only Kitty told of her last interview with Patches. And Helen, shocked and surprised at the thoroughness with which the man had brought about Kitty's freedom and peace of mind, bade the girl forget and be happy. When the crisis was passed, and Phil was out of danger, Kitty returned to her home, but every day she and Helen drove across the meadows to see how the patient was progressing. Then one day Helen said good-by to her Williamson Valley friends, and went with Stanford to the home he had prepared for her. And after that Kitty spent still more of her time at the house across the wash from the old Acton homestead. It was during those weeks of Phil's recovery, while he was slowly regaining his full measure of health and strength, that Kitty learned to know the cowboy in a way that she had never permitted herself to know him before. Little by little, as they sat together under the walnut trees, or walked slowly about the place, the young woman came to understand the mind of the man. As Phil shyly at first, then more freely, opened the doors of his inner self and talked to her as he had talked to Patches of the books he had read; of his observations and thoughts of nature, and of the great world movements and activities that by magazines and books and papers were brought to his hand, she learned to her surprise that even as he lived amid the scenes that called for the highest type of physical strength and courage, he lived an intellectual life that was as marked for its strength and manly vigor. But while they came thus daily into more intimate and closer companionship they spoke to no one of their love. Kitty, knowing how her father would look upon her engagement to the cowboy, put off the announcement from time to time, not wishing their happy companionship to be marred during those days of Phil's recovery. When he was strong enough to ride again, Kitty would come with Midnight, and together they would roam about the ranch and the country near by. So it happened that Sunday afternoon. Mr. and Mrs. Reid, with the three boys, were making a neighborly call on the Baldwins, and Phil and Kitty were riding in the vicinity of the spot where Kitty had first met Patches. They were seated in the shade of a cedar on the ridge not far from the drift fence gate, when Phil saw three horsemen approaching from the further side of the fence. By the time the horsemen had reached the gate, Phil knew them to be Yavapai Joe, Nick Cambert and Honorable Patches. Kitty, too, had, by this time, recognized the riders, and with an exclamation started to rise to her feet. But Phil said quietly, "Wait, Kitty; there's something about that outfit that looks mighty queer to me." The men were riding in single file, with Yavapai Joe in the lead and Patches last, and their positions were not changed when they halted while Joe, without dismounting, unlatched the gate. They came through the opening, still in the same order, and as they halted again, while Patches closed the gate, Phil saw what it was that caused them to move with such apparent lack of freedom in their relative positions, and why Nick Cambert's attitude in the saddle was so stiff and unnatural. Nick's hands were secured behind his back, and his feet were tied under the horse from stirrup to stirrup, while his horse was controlled by a lead rope, one end of which was made fast to Yavapai Joe's saddle horn. Patches caught sight of the two under the tree as he came through the gate, but he gave no sign that he had noticed them. As the little procession moved slowly nearer, Phil and Kitty looked at each other without a word, but as they turned again to watch the approaching horsemen, Kitty impulsively grasped Phil's arm. And sitting so, in such unconscious intimacy, they must have made a pleasing picture; at least the man who rode behind Nick Cambert seemed to think so, for he was trying to smile. When the riders were almost within speaking distance of the pair under the tree, they stopped; and the watchers saw Joe turn his face toward Patches for a moment, then look in their direction. Nick Cambert did not raise his head. Patches came on toward them alone. As they saw that it was the man's purpose to speak to them, Phil and Kitty rose and stood waiting, Kitty with her hand still on her companion's arm. And now, as they were given a closer and less obstructed view of the man who had been their friend, Kitty and Phil again exchanged wondering glances. This was not the Honorable Patches whom they had known so intimately. The man's clothing was soiled with dirt, and old from rough usage, with here and there a ragged tear. His tall form drooped with weariness, and his unshaven face, dark and deeply tanned, and grimed with sweat and dirt, was thin and drawn and old, and his tired eyes, deep set in their dark hollows, were bloodshot as though from sleepless nights. His dry lips parted in a painful smile, as he dismounted stiffly and limped courteously forward to greet them. "I know that I am scarcely presentable," he said in a voice that was as worn and old as his face, "but I could not resist the temptation to say 'Howdy'. Perhaps I should introduce myself though," he added, as if to save them from embarrassment. "My name is Lawrence Knight; I am a deputy sheriff of this county." A slight movement as he spoke threw back his unbuttoned jumper, and they saw the badge of his office. "In my official capacity I am taking a prisoner to Prescott." Phil recovered first, and caught the officer's hand in a grip that told more than words. Kitty nearly betrayed her secret when she gasped, "But you--you said that you--" With his ready skill he saved her, "That my name was Patches? I know it was wrong to deceive you as I did, and I regret that it was necessary for me to lie so deliberately, but the situation seemed to demand it. And I hoped that when you understood you would forgive the part I was forced to play for the good of everyone interested." Kitty understood the meaning in his words that was unknown to Phil, and her eyes expressed the gratitude that she could not speak. "By the way," Patches continued, "I am not mistaken in offering my congratulations and best wishes, am I?" They laughed happily. "We have made no announcement yet," Phil answered, "but you seem to know everything." "I feel like saying from the bottom of my heart 'God bless you, my children.' You make me feel strangely old," he returned, with a touch of his old wistfulness. Then he added in his droll way, "Perhaps, though, it's from living in the open and sleeping in my clothes so long. Talk about horses, I'd give my kingdom for a bath, a shave and a clean shirt. I had begun to think that our old friend Nick never would brand another calf; that he had reformed, just to get even with me, you know. By the way, Phil, you will be interested to know that Nick is the man who is really responsible for your happiness." "How?" demanded Phil. "Why, it was Nick who fired the shot that brought Kitty to her senses. My partner there, Yavapai Joe, saw him do it. If you people would like to thank my prisoner, I will permit it." When they had decided that they would deny themselves that pleasure, Patches said, "I don't blame you; he's a surly, ill-tempered beast, anyway. Which reminds me that I must be about my official business, and land him in Prescott to-night. I am going to stop at the ranch and ask the Dean for the team and buckboard, though," he added, as he climbed painfully into the saddle. "Adios! my children. Don't stay out too late." Hand in hand they watched him rejoin his companions and ride away behind the two Tailholt Mountain men. The Dean and Mrs. Baldwin, with their friends from the neighboring ranch, were enjoying their Sunday afternoon together as old friends will, when the three Reid boys and Little Billy came running from the corral where they had been holding an amateur bronco riding contest with a calf for the wild and wicked outlaw. As they ran toward the group under the walnut trees, the lads disturbed the peaceful conversation of their elders with wild shouts of "Patches has come back! Patches has come back! Nick Cambert is with him--so's Yavapai Joe!" Jim Reid sprang to his feet. But the Dean calmly kept his seat, and glancing up at his big friend with twinkling eyes, said to the boys, with pretended gruffness, "Aw, what's the matter with you kids? Don't you know that horse thief Patches wouldn't dare show himself in Williamson Valley again? You're havin' bad dreams--that's what's the matter with you. Or else you're tryin' to scare us." "Honest, it's Patches, Uncle Will," cried Littly Billy. "We seen him comin' from over beyond the corral," said Jimmy. "I saw him first," shouted Conny. "I was up in the grand stand--I mean on the fence." "Me, too," chirped Jack. Jim Reid stood looking toward the corral. "The boys are right, Will," he said in a low tone. "There they come now." As the three horsemen rode into the yard, and the watchers noted the peculiarity of their companionship, Jim Reid muttered something under his breath. But the Dean, as he rose leisurely to his feet, was smiling broadly. The little procession halted when the horses evidenced their dislike of the automobile, and Patches came stiffly forward on foot. Lifting his battered hat courteously to the company, he said to the Dean, "I have returned your horse, sir. I'm very much obliged to you. I think you will find him in fairly good condition." Jim Reid repeated whatever it was that he had muttered to himself. The Dean chuckled. "Jim," he said to the big cattleman, "I want to introduce my friend, Mr. Lawrence Knight, one of Sheriff Gordon's deputies. It looks like he had been busy over in the Tailholt Mountain neighborhood." The two men shook hands silently. Mrs. Reid greeted the officer cordially, while Mrs. Baldwin, to the Dean's great delight, demonstrated her welcome in the good old-fashioned mother way. "Will Baldwin, I could shake you," she cried, as Patches stood, a little confused by her impulsive greeting. "Here you knew all the time; and you kept pesterin' me by trying to make me believe that you thought he had run away because he was a thief!" It was, perhaps, the proudest moment of the Dean's life when he admitted that Patches had confided in him that morning when they were so late to breakfast. And how he had understood that the man's disappearance and the pretense of stealing a horse had been only a blind. The good Dean never dreamed that there was so much more in Honorable Patches' strategy than he knew! "Mr. Baldwin," said Patches presently, "could you let me have the team and buckboard? I want to get my prisoners to Prescott to-night, and"--he laughed shortly--"well, I certainly would appreciate those cushions." "Sure, son, you can have the whole Cross-Triangle outfit, if you want it," answered the Dean. "But hold on a minute." He turned with twinkling eyes to his neighbor. "Here's Jim with a perfectly good automobile that don't seem to be busy." The big man responded cordially. "Why, of course; I'll be glad to take you in." "Thank you," returned Patches. "I'll be ready in a minute." "But you're goin' to have something to eat first," cried Mrs. Baldwin. "I'll bet you're half starved; you sure look it." Patches shook his head. "Don't tempt me, mother; I can't stop now." "But you'll come back home to-night, won't you?" she asked anxiously. "I would like to," he said. "And may I bring a friend?" "Your friends are our friends, son," she answered. "Of course he's comin' back," said the Dean. "Where else would he go, I'd like to know?" They watched him as he went to his prisoner, and as, unlocking the handcuff that held Nick's right wrist, he re-locked it on his own left arm, thus linking his prisoner securely to himself. Then he spoke to Joe, and the young man, dismounting, unfastened the rope that bound Nick's feet. When Nick was on the ground the three came toward the machine. "I am afraid I must ask you to let someone take care of the horses," called Patches to the Dean. "I'll look after them," the Dean returned. "Don't forget now that you're comin' back to-night; Jim will bring you." Jim Reid, as the three men reached the automobile, said to Patches, "Will you take both of your prisoners in the back seat with you, or shall I take one of them in front with me?" Patches looked the big man straight in the eyes, and they heard him answer with significant emphasis, as he placed his free hand on Yavapai Joe's shoulder, "I have only one prisoner, Mr. Reid. This man is my friend. He will take whatever seat he prefers." Yavapai Joe climbed into the rear seat with the officer and his prisoner. It was after dark when Mr. Reid returned to the ranch with Patches and Joe. "You will find your room all ready, son," said Mrs. Baldwin, "and there's plenty of hot water in the bathroom tank for you both. Joe can take the extra bed in Curly's room. You show him. I'll have your supper as soon as you are ready." Patches almost fell asleep at the table. As soon as they had finished he went to his bed, where he remained, as Phil reported at intervals during the next forenoon, "dead to the world," until dinner time. In the afternoon they gathered under the walnut trees--the Cross-Triangle household and the friends from the neighboring ranch--and Patches told them his story; how, when he had left the ranch that night, he had ridden straight to his old friend Stanford Manning; and how Stanford had gone with him to the sheriff, where, through Manning's influence, together with the letter which Patches had brought from the Dean, he had been made an officer of the law. As he told them briefly of his days and nights alone, they needed no minute details to understand what it had meant to him. "It wasn't the work of catching Nick in a way to ensure his conviction that I minded," he said, "but the trouble was, that while I was watching Nick day and night, and dodging him all the time, I was afraid some enthusiastic cow-puncher would run on to me and treat himself to a shot just for luck. Not that I would have minded that so much, either, after the first week," he added in his droll way, "but considering all the circumstances it would have been rather a poor sort of finish." "And what about Yavapai Joe?" asked Phil. Patches smiled. "Where is Joe? What's he been doing all day?" The Dean answered. "He's just been moseyin' around. I tried to get him to talk, but all he would say was that he'd rather let Mr. Knight tell it." "Billy," said Patches, "will you find Yavapai Joe, and tell him that I would like to see him here?" When Little Billy, with the assistance of Jimmy and Conny and Jack, had gone proudly on his mission, Patches said to the others, "Technically, of course, Joe is my prisoner until after the trial, but please don't let him feel it. He will be the principal witness for the state." When Yavapai Joe appeared, embarrassed and ashamed in their presence, Patches said, as courteously as he would have introduced an equal, "Joe, I want my friends to know your real name. There is no better place in the world than right here to start that job of man-making that we have talked about. You remember that I told you how I started here." Yavapai Joe lifted his head and stood straighter by his tall friend's side, and there was a new note in his voice as he answered, "Whatever you say goes, Mr. Knight." Patches smiled. "Friends, this is Mr. Joseph Parkhill, the only son of the distinguished Professor Parkhill, whom you all know so well." If Patches had planned to enjoy the surprise his words caused, he could not have been disappointed. Presently, when Joe had slipped away again, Patches told them how, because of his interest in the young man, and because of the lad's strange knowledge of Professor Parkhill, he had written east for the distinguished scholar's history. "The professor himself was not really so much to blame," said Patches. "It seems that he was born to an intellectual life. The poor fellow never had a chance. Even as a child he was exhibited as a prodigy--a shining example of the possibilities of the race, you know. His father, who was also a professor of some sort, died when he was a baby. His mother, unfortunately, possessed an income sufficient to make it unnecessary that Everard Charles should ever do a day's real work. At the age of twenty, he was graduated from college; at the age of twenty-one he was married to--or perhaps it would be more accurate to say--he was married _by_--his landlady's daughter. Quite likely the woman was ambitious to break into that higher life to which the professor aspired, and caught her cultured opportunity in an unguarded moment. The details are not clear. But when their only child, Joe, was six years old, the mother ran away with a carpenter who had been at work on the house for some six weeks. A maiden aunt of some fifty years, who was a worshiper of the professor's cult, came to keep his house and to train Joe in the way that good boys should go. "But the lad proved rather too great a burden, and when he was thirteen they sent him to a school out here in the West, ostensibly for the benefit of the climate. The boy, it was said, being of abnormal mentality, needed to pursue his studies under the most favorable physical conditions. The professor, unhampered by his offspring, continued to climb his aesthetic ladder to intellectual and cultured glory. The boy in due time escaped from the school, and was educated by the man Dryden and Nick Cambert." "And what will become of him now?" asked the Dean. Patches smiled. "Why, the lad is twenty-one now, and we have agreed that it is about time that he began to make a man of himself--I can help him a little, perhaps--I have been trying occasionally the past year. But you see the conditions have not been altogether favorable to the experiment. It should be easy from now on." During the time that intervened before the trial of the Tailholt Mountain man, Phil and Patches re-established that intimate friendship of those first months of their work together. Then came the evening when Phil went across the meadow to ask Jim Reid for his daughter. The big cattleman looked at his young neighbor with frowning disapproval. "It won't do, Phil," he said at last. "I'm Kitty's father, and it's up to me to look out for her interests. You know how I've educated her for something better than this life. She may think now that she is willin' to throw it all away, but I know better. The time would come when she would be miserable. It's got to be somethin' more than a common cow-puncher for Kitty, Phil, and that's the truth." The cowboy did not argue. "Do I understand that your only objection is based upon the business in which I am engaged?" he asked coolly. Jim laughed. "The _business_ in which you are engaged? Why, boy, you sound like a first national bank. If you had any business of your own--if you was the owner of an outfit, an' could give Kitty the--well--the things her education has taught her to need, it would be different. I know you're a fine man, all right, but you're only a poor cow-puncher just the same. I'm speakin' for your own good, Phil, as well as for Kitty's," he added, with an effort at kindliness. "Then, if I had a good business, it would be different?" "Yes, son, it would sure make all the difference in the world." "Thank you," said the cowboy quietly, as he handed Mr. Reid a very legal looking envelope. "I happen to be half owner of this ranch and outfit. With my own property, it makes a fairly good start for a man of my age. My partner, Mr. Lawrence Knight, leaves the active management wholly in my hands; and he has abundant capital to increase our holdings and enlarge our operations just as fast as we can handle the business." The big man looked from the papers to the lad, then back to the papers. Then a broad smile lighted his heavy face, as he said, "I give it up--you win. You young fellers are too swift for me. I've been wantin' to retire anyway." He raised his voice and called, "Kitty--oh, Kitty!" The girl appeared in the doorway. "Come and get him," said Reid. "I guess he's yours." Helen Manning was sitting on the front porch of that little cottage on the mountain side where she and Stanford began their years of home-building. A half mile below she could see the mining buildings that were grouped about the shaft in picturesque disorder. Above, the tree-clad ridge rose against the sky. It was too far from the great world of cities, some would have said, but Helen did not find it so. With her books and her music, and the great out-of-doors; and with the companionship of her mate and the dreams they dreamed together, her woman heart was never lonely. She lowered the book she was reading, and looked through the open window to the clock in the living-room. A little while, and she would go down the hill to Stanford, for they loved to walk home together. Then, before lifting the printed page again, she looked over the wide view of rugged mountain sides and towering peaks that every day held for her some new beauty. She had resumed her reading when the sound of horses' feet attracted her attention. Patches and Yavapai Joe were riding up the hill. They stopped at the gate, and while Joe held Stranger's bridle rein, Patches came to Helen as she stood on the porch waiting to receive him. "Surely you will stay for the night," she urged when they had exchanged greetings, and had talked for a little while. "No," he answered quietly. "I just came this way to say good-by; I stopped for a few minutes with Stan at the office. He said I would find you here." "But where are you going?" she asked. Smiling he waved his hand toward the mountain ridge above. "Just over the sky line, Helen." "But, Larry, you will come again? You won't let us lose you altogether?" "Perhaps--some day," he said. "And who is that with you?" "Just a friend who cares to go with me. Stan will tell you." "Oh, Larry, Larry! What a man you are!" she cried proudly, as he stood before her holding out his hand. "If you think so, Helen, I am glad," he answered, and turned away. So she watched him go. Sitting there at home, she watched him ride up the winding road. Now he was in full view on some rocky shoulder of the mountain--now some turn carried him behind a rocky point--again she glimpsed him through the trees--again he was lost to her in the shadows. At last, for a moment, he stood out boldly against the wide-arched sky--and then he had passed from sight--over the sky line, as he had said. THE END 
18538	----	I Married a Ranger _By Dama Margaret Smith_ (_Mrs. "White Mountain"_) STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS THE MARUZEN COMPANY TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, SENDAI THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 55 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Copyright 1930 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University All Rights Reserved Published 1930 PRINTED AND BOUND IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS _This book is lovingly dedicated to White Mountain Smith who has made me glad I married a Ranger_ _FOREWORD_ _I Married a Ranger_ is an intimate story of "pioneer" life in a national park, told in an interesting, humorous way, that makes it most delightful. To me it is more than a book; it is a personal justification. For back in 1921, when the author came to my office in Washington and applied for the clerical vacancy existing at the Grand Canyon, no woman had been even considered for the position. The park was new, and neither time nor funds had been available to install facilities that are a necessary part of our park administrative and protective work. Especially was the Grand Canyon lacking in living quarters. For that reason the local superintendent, as well as Washington Office officials, were opposed to sending any women clerks there. Nevertheless, after talking to the author, I decided to make an exception in her case, so she became the first woman Government employee at the Canyon. _I Married a Ranger_ proves that the decision was a happy one. It is a pleasure to endorse Mrs. Smith's book, and at the same time to pay a tribute of admiration to the women of the Service, both employees and wives of employees, who carry on faithfully and courageously under all circumstances. ARNO B. CAMMERER _Associate Director,_ National Park Service TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. "_Out in Arizona, Where the Bad Men Are_" 1 II. "_This Ain't Washington!_" 11 III. "_I Do!_" 21 IV. _Celebrities and Squirrels_ 31 V. _Navajo Land_ 42 VI. "_They Killed Me_" 56 VII. _A Grand Canyon Christmas_ 67 VIII. _The Day's Work_ 77 IX. _The Doomed Tribe_ 89 X. _Where They Dance with Snakes_ 104 XI. _The Terrible Badger Fight_ 121 XII. _Grand Canyon Ups and Downs_ 131 XIII. _Sisters under the Skin_ 147 XIV. _The Passing Show_ 158 XV. _Fools, Flood, and Dynamite_ 170 [Illustration] _Chapter I: "OUT IN ARIZONA, WHERE THE BAD MEN ARE"_ "So you think you'd like to work in the Park Office at Grand Canyon?" "Sure!" "Where is Grand Canyon?" I asked as an afterthought. I knew just that little about the most spectacular chasm in the world, when I applied for an appointment there as a Government worker. Our train pulled into the rustic station in the wee small hours, and soon I had my first glimpse of the Canyon. Bathed in cold moonlight, the depths were filled with shadows that disappeared as the sun came up while I still lingered, spellbound, on the Rim. On the long train journey I had read and re-read the _Grand Canyon Information Booklet_, published by the National Park Service. I was still unprepared for what lay before me in carrying out my rôle as field clerk there. So very, very many pages of that booklet have never been written--pages replete with dangers and hardships, loneliness and privations, sacrifice and service, all sweetened with friendships not found in heartless, hurrying cities, lightened with loyalty and love, and tinted with glamour and romance. And over it all lies a fascination a stranger without the gates can never share. I was the first woman ever placed in field service at the Grand Canyon, and the Superintendent was not completely overjoyed at my arrival. To be fair, I suppose he expected me to be a clinging-vine nuisance, although I assured him I was well able to take care of myself. Time softens most of life's harsh memories, and I've learned to see his side of the question. What was he to do with a girl among scores of road builders and rangers? When I tell part of my experiences with him, I do so only because he has long been out of the Service and I can now see the humorous aspect of our private feud. As the sun rose higher over the Canyon, I reluctantly turned away and went to report my arrival to the Superintendent. He was a towering, gloomy giant of a man, and I rather timidly presented my assignment. He looked down from his superior height, eyed me severely, and spoke gruffly. "I suppose you know you were thrust upon me!" "No. I'm very sorry," I said, quite meekly. While I was desperately wondering what to do or say next, a tall blond man in Park uniform entered the office. The Superintendent looked quite relieved. "This is White Mountain, Chief Ranger here. I guess I'll turn you over to him. Look after her, will you, Chief?" And he washed his hands of me. In the Washington office I had often heard of "White Mountain" Smith. I recalled him as the Government scout that had seen years of service in Yellowstone before he became Chief Ranger at Grand Canyon. I looked him over rather curiously and decided that I liked him very well. His keen blue eyes were the friendliest I had seen since I left West Virginia. He looked like a typical Western man, and I was surprised that his speech had a "down East" tone. "Aren't you a Westerner?" "No, I'm a Connecticut Yankee," he smiled. "But we drift out here from everywhere. I've been in the West many years." "Have you ever been in West Virginia?" I blurted. Homesickness had settled all over me. He looked at me quickly, and I reckon he saw that tears were close to the surface. "No-o, I haven't been there. But my father went down there during the Civil War and helped clean up on the rebels!" Sparks flew then and I forgot to be homesick. But he laughed and led me toward my new home. We strolled up a slight rise through wonderful pine trees, with here and there a twisted juniper giving a grotesque touch to the landscape. The ground was covered with springy pine needles, and squirrels and birds were everywhere. We walked past rows and rows of white tents pitched in orderly array among the pines, the canvas village of fifty or more road builders. By and by we came to a drab gray shack, weather-beaten and discouraged, hunched under the trees as if it were trying to blot itself from the scene. I was passing on, when the Chief (White Mountain) stopped me with a gesture. "This is your home," he said. Just that bald statement. I thought he was joking, but he pushed the door open and we walked inside. The tiny shack had evidently seen duty as a warehouse and hadn't been manicured since! But in view of the fact that the Park Service was handicapped by lack of funds, and in the throes of road building and general development, I was lucky to draw a real house instead of a tent. I began to see why the Superintendent had looked askance at me when I arrived. I put on my rose-colored glasses and took stock of my abode. It was divided into two rooms, a kitchen and a combination living-dining-sleeping-dressing-bath-room. The front door was a heavy nailed-up affair that fastened with an iron hook and staple. The back door sagged on its leather hinges and moved open or shut reluctantly. Square holes were cut in the walls for windows, but these were innocent of screen or glass. Cracks in the roof and walls let in an abundance of Arizona atmosphere. The furniture consisted of a slab table that extended all the way through the middle of the room, a wicker chair, and a golden-oak dresser minus the mirror and lacking one drawer. White Mountain looked surprised and relieved, when I burst out laughing. He didn't know how funny the financial inducements of my new job sounded to me while I looked around that hovel: "So much per annum and furnished quarters!" "We'll fix this up for you. We rangers didn't know until this morning that you were coming," he said; and we went down to see if the cook was in a good humor. I was to eat at the "Mess House" with the road crew and rangers, provided the cook didn't mind having a woman around. I began to have leanings toward "Equal-Rights-for-Women Clubs," but the cook was as nice as could be. I fell in love with him instantly. Both he and his kitchen were so clean and cheerful. His name was Jack. He greeted me as man to man, with a hearty handclasp, and assured me he would look after me. "But you'll have to eat what the men do. I ain't got time to fix fancies for you," he hastened to add. A steel triangle hung on a tree near the cookhouse door, and when dinner was ready Jack's helper struck it sharply with an iron bar. This made a clatter that could be heard a mile and brought the men tumbling from their tents to eat. As I was washing my hands and face in the kitchen I heard Jack making a few remarks to his boarders: "Now don't any you roughnecks forget there's a lady eatin' here from now on, and I'll be damned if there's goin' to be any cussin', either." I don't believe they needed any warning, for during the months I lived near their tents and ate with them they never "forgot." Many of them no doubt had come from homes as good as mine, and more than one had college degrees. As they became accustomed to having me around they shed their reserve along with their coats and became just what they really were, a bunch of grown-up boys in search of adventure. A week later it seemed perfectly natural to sit down to luncheon with platters of steak, bowls of vegetables, mounds of potatoes, and pots of steaming black coffee; but just then it was a radical change from my usual glass of milk and thin sandwich lunch. The food was served on long pine tables, flanked by backless benches. Blue and white enamel dishes, steel knives and forks, and of course no napkins, made up the service. We drank coffee from tin cups, cooling and diluting it with condensed milk poured from the original can. I soon learned that "Shoot the cow!" meant nothing more deadly than "Pass the milk, please!" The rangers ate at a table apart from the other men. The Chief sat at the head of the table, and my plate was at his right. Several rangers rose to greet me when I came in. "I'm glad you came," said one of them. "We are apt to grow careless without someone to keep the rough edges polished for us." That was Ranger Charley Fisk, the most loyal, faithful friend one could wish for. He was never too tired nor too busy to add a shelf here or build a cabinet there in my tiny cabin for me. But all that I had to learn later. There was Frank, Ranger Winess; he and the Chief had been together many years in Yellowstone; and Ranger West, and Ranger Peck. These and several more were at the table. "Eat your dinner," the Chief advised, and I ate, from steak to pie. The three meals there were breakfast, dinner, and supper. No lettuce-leaf lunch for them. Dinner disposed of, I turned my attention to making my cabin fit to live in. The cook had his flunky sweep and scrub the floor, and then, with the aid of blankets, pictures, and draperies from my trunks, the little place began to lose its forlorn look. White Mountain contributed a fine pair of Pendleton blankets, gay and fleecy. He spread a Navajo rug on the floor and placed an armful of books on the table. Ranger Fisk threw the broken chair outside and brought me a chair he had made for himself. Ranger Winess had been riding the drift fence while we worked, but he appeared on the scene with a big cluster of red Indian paintbrush blossoms he had found in a coulee. None of us asked if they were picked inside the Park. No bed was available, and again Ranger Fisk came to the rescue. He lent me his cot and another ranger contributed his mattress. White Mountain was called away, and when he returned he said that he had hired a girl for the fire look-out tower, and suggested that I might like to have her live there with me. "She's part Indian," he added. "Fine. I like Indians, and anyway these doors won't lock. I'm glad to have her." So they found another cot and put it up in the kitchen for her. She was a jolly, warm-hearted girl, used to life in such places. Her husband was a forest ranger several miles away, and she spent most of her time in the open. All day she stayed high in the fire tower, with her glasses scanning the surrounding country. At the first sign of smoke, she determined its exact location by means of a map and then telephoned to Ranger Headquarters. Men were on their way immediately, and many serious forest fires were thus nipped in the bud. She and I surveyed each other curiously. I waited for her to do the talking. "You won't stay here long!" she said, and laughed when I asked her why. "This is a funny place to put you," she remarked next, after a glance around our new domain. "I'd rather be out under a tree, wouldn't you?" "God forbid!" I answered earnestly. "I'm no back-to-nature fan, and this is primitive a-plenty for me. There's no bathroom, and I can't even find a place to wash my face. What shall we do?" We reconnoitered, and found the water supply. We coaxed a tin basin away from the cook and were fully equipped as far as a bathroom was concerned. Thea--for that was her Indian name--agreed that it might be well to fasten our doors; so we dragged the decrepit dresser against the front portal and moved a trunk across the back entrance. As there were no shades at the windows, we undressed in the dark and retired. The wind moaned in the pines. A querulous coyote complained. Strange noises were everywhere around us. Scampering sounds echoed back and forth in the cabin. My cot was hard and springless as a rock, and when I stretched into a more comfortable position the end bar fell off and the whole structure collapsed, I with it. Modesty vetoed a light, since the men were still passing our cabin on their way to the tents; so in utter darkness I pulled the mattress under the table and there made myself as comfortable as possible. Just as I was dozing, Thea came in from the kitchen bringing her cot bumping and banging at her heels. She was utterly unnerved by rats and mice racing over her. We draped petticoats and other articles of feminine apparel over the windows and sat up the rest of the night over the smoky lamp. Wrapped in our bright blankets it would have been difficult to tell which of us was the Indian. "I'll get a cat tomorrow," I vowed. "You can't. Cats aren't allowed in the Park," she returned, dejectedly. "Well, then rats shouldn't be either," I snapped. "I can get some traps I reckon. Or is trapping prohibited in this area?" Thea just sighed. Morning finally came, as mornings have a habit of doing, and found me flinging things back in my trunk, while my companion eyed me sardonic-wise. I had spent sufficient time in the great open spaces, and just as soon as I could get some breakfast I was heading for Washington again. But by the time I had tucked in a "feed" of fried potatoes, eggs, hot cakes, and strong coffee, a lion couldn't have scared me away. "Bring on your mice," was my battle cry. At breakfast Ranger Fisk asked me quite seriously if I would have some cackle berries. I looked around, couldn't see any sort of fruit on the table, and, remembering the cook's injunction to eat what he set before me, I answered: "No, thank you; but I'll have an egg, please." After the laughter had subsided, White Mountain explained that cackle berries were eggs! I told the rangers about the mice in my house, and the cook overheard the conversation. A little later a teamster appeared at my cabin with a tiny gray kitten hidden under his coat. "Cook said you have mice, Miss. I've brought 'Tuffy' to you. Please keep him hid from the rangers. He has lived in the barn with me up to now." With such a loyal protector things took a turn for the better, and my Indian friend, my wee gray cat, and myself dwelt happily in our little Grayhaven. [Illustration] _Chapter II: "THIS AIN'T WASHINGTON!"_ "This ain't Washington, and we don't keep bankers' hours here," was the slogan of the Superintendent. He spoke that phrase, chanted it, and sang it. He made a litany of it; he turned it into a National Anthem. It came with such irritating regularity I could have sworn he timed it on a knotted string, sort of "Day-by-day-in-every-way" tempo, one might say. And it wasn't Washington, and we didn't live lives of ease; no banker ever toiled from dawn until all hours of the night, Sunday included! I made pothooks and translated them. I put figures down and added them up. For the road crew I checked in equipment and for the cook I chucked out rotten beef. The Superintendent had boasted that three weeks of the program he had laid out for me would be plenty to send me back where I came from and then he would have a regular place again. But I really didn't mind the work. I was learning to love the Arizona climate and the high thin air that kept one's spirits buoyed up in spite of little irritations. I was not lonely, for I had found many friends. When I had been at the Canyon a few days the young people gave a party for me. It was my début, so to speak. The world-famous stone building at Hermit's Rest was turned over to us for the evening by the Fred Harvey people, and, attended by the entire ranger force, I drove out the nine miles from Headquarters. We found the house crowded with guides, cowboys, stage-drivers, and their girls. Most of the girls were Fred Harvey waitresses, and if you think there is any discredit attached to that job you had better change your mind. The girls there were bookkeepers, teachers, college girls, and stenographers. They see the world and get well paid while doing it. The big rendezvous at Hermit's Rest resembles an enormous cavern. The fireplace is among the largest anywhere in the world, and the cave impression is further carried out by having flat stones laid for the floor, and rock benches covered with bearskins and Navajo rugs. Many distinguished guests from all parts of the globe have been entertained in that room, but we forgot all about distinguished personages and had a real old-fashioned party. We played cards and danced, and roasted weenies and marshmallows. After that party I felt that I belonged there at the Canyon and had neighbors. There were others, however. The Social Leader, for instance. She tried to turn our little democracy into a monarchy, with herself the sovereign. She was very near-sighted, and it was a mystery how she managed to know all about everything until we discovered she kept a pair of powerful field-glasses trained on the scene most of the time. The poor lady had a mania for selling discarded clothing at top prices. We used to ask each other when we met at supper, "Did you buy anything today?" I refused point-blank to buy her wreckage, but the rangers were at a disadvantage. They wanted to be gentlemen and not hurt her feelings! Now and then one would get cornered and stuck with a second-hand offering before he could make his getaway. Then how the others would rag him! One ranger, with tiny feet, of which he was inordinately proud, was forced to buy a pair of No. 12 shoes because they pinched the Social Leader's Husband's feet. He brought them to me. "My Gawd! What'll I do with these here box cars? They cost me six bucks and I'm ruined if the boys find out about it." An Indian squaw was peddling baskets at my house, and we traded the shoes to her for two baskets. I kept one and he the other. Not long after that he was burned to death in a forest fire, and when I packed his belongings to send to his mother the little basket was among his keepsakes. There was a Bridge Fiend in our midst, too! She weighed something like twenty stone, slept all forenoon, played bridge and ate chocolates all afternoon, and talked constantly of reducing. One day she went for a ride on a flop-eared mule; he got tired and lay down and rolled over and over in the sand. They had some trouble rescuing her before she got smashed. I told her the mule believed in rolling to help reduce. She didn't see the joke, but the mule and I did. Grand Canyon life was too exciting for her, so she left us. A quaint little person was the rancher's wife who brought fresh eggs and vegetables to us. She wore scant pajamas instead of skirts, because she thought it "more genteel," she explained. When a favorite horse or cow died, she carefully preserved the skull and other portions of the skeleton for interior-decoration purposes. Ranger Fisk and I took refuge in her parlor one day from a heavy rain. Her husband sat there like a graven image. He was never known to say more than a dozen words a day, but she carried on for the entire family. As Ranger Fisk said, "She turns her voice on and then goes away and forgets it's running." She told us all about the last moments of her skeletons before they were such, until it ceased to be funny. Ranger Fisk sought to change the conversation by asking her how long she had been married. "Ten years; but it seems like fifty," she said. We braved the rain after that. Ranger Fisk was born in Sweden. He ran away from home at fourteen and joined the Merchant Marine, and in that service poked into most of the queer seaports on the map. He had long since lost track of his kinsfolk, and although he insisted that he was anxious to marry he carefully kept away from all marriageable ladies. Ranger Winess was the sheik of the force. Every good-looking girl that came his way was rushed for a day and forgotten as soon as another arrived. He played his big guitar, and sang and danced, and made love, all with equal skill and lightness. The only love he was really constant to was Tony, his big bay horse. Ranger West, Assistant Chief Ranger, was the most like a storybook ranger of them all. He was essentially an outdoor man, without any parlor tricks. I have heard old-timers say he was the best man with horses they had ever known. He was much more interested in horses and tobacco than he was in women and small talk. But if there was a particularly dangerous task or one requiring sound judgment and a clear head, Ranger West was selected. He and Ranger Fisk and Ranger Winess were known as the "Three Musketeers." They were the backbone of the force. Sometimes I think my very nicest neighbor was the gardener at El Tovar Hotel. He saw me hungrily eying his flowers, and gave me a generous portion of plants and showed me how to care for them. I planted them alongside my little gray house, and after each basin of water had seen duty for cleansing purposes it went to water the flowers. We never wasted a drop of water. It was hauled a hundred miles in tank cars, and cost accordingly. I sometimes wondered if we paid extra for the red bugs that swam around in it so gaily. Anyway, my flowers didn't mind the bugs. They grew into masses of beautiful foliage and brilliant blossoms. I knew every leaf and bud on them. I almost sat up nights with them, I was so proud of their beauty. My flowers and my little gray kitten were all the company I had now. The fire guard girl had gone home. One of my neighbors asked me to go with a group of Fred Harvey girls to visit the Petrified Forest, lying more than a hundred miles southeast of the Canyon. As I had been working exceptionally hard in the Park Office, I declared myself a holiday, and Sunday morning early found us well on the way. We drove through ordinary desert country to Williams and from there on past Flagstaff and eastward to Holbrook. Eighteen miles from there we began to see fallen logs turned into stone. My ideas of the Petrified Forest were very vague, but I had expected to see standing trees turned to stone. These big logs were all lying down, and I couldn't find a single stump! We drove through several miles of fallen logs and came to the Government Museum where unique and choice specimens had been gathered together for visitors to see. It is hard to describe this wood, that isn't wood. It looks like wood, at least the grain and the shape, and knotholes and even wormholes are there; but it has turned to beautifully brilliant rock. Some pieces look like priceless Italian marble; others are all colors of the rainbow, blended together into a perfect poem of shades. Of course I asked for an explanation, and with all the technical terms left out, this is about what I learned: "These trees are probably forty million years old! None of them grew here. This is proved in several ways: there are few roots or branches and little bark." The ranger saw me touch the outside of a log that was covered with what looked to me like perfectly good bark! He smiled. "Yes, I know that looks like bark, but it is merely an outside crust of melted sand, et cetera, that formed on the logs as they rolled around in the water." "Water?" I certainly hadn't seen any water around the Petrified Forest. "Yes, water. This country, at one time, was an arm of the Pacific Ocean, and was drained by some disturbance which brought the Sierra Mountains to the surface. These logs grew probably a thousand miles north of here and were brought here in a great flood. They floated around for centuries perhaps, and were thoroughly impregnated with the mineral water, doubtless hot water. When the drainage took place, they were covered by silt and sand to a depth of perhaps two thousand feet. Here the petrifaction took place. Silica was present in great quantities. Manganese and iron provided the coloring matter, and through pressure these chemicals were forced into the grain of the wood, which gradually was absorbed and its cell structure replaced by ninety-nine per cent silica and the other per cent iron and manganese. Erosion brought what we see to the top. We have reason to believe that the earth around here covers many thousand more." After that all soaked in I asked him what the beautiful crystals in purple and amber were. These are really amethysts and topazes found in the center of the logs. Formed probably by resin in the wood, these jewels are next hardest to diamonds and have been much prized. One famous jeweler even had numberless logs blown to splinters with explosives in order to secure the gems. The wood is very little softer than diamond, and polishes beautifully for jewelry, book-ends, and table tops. The ranger warned us against taking any samples from the Reserve. We could have spent days wandering around among the fallen giants, each one disclosing new beauties in color and formation; but we finally left, reluctantly, each determined to come back again. It was quite dark when we reached the Canyon, and I was glad to creep into bed. My kitten snuggled down close to the pillow and sang sleepy songs, but I couldn't seem to get to sleep. Only cheesecloth nailed over the windows stood between me and all sorts of animals I imagined prowled the surrounding forest. The cheesecloth couldn't keep the noises out, and the cry that I heard might just as well have been the killing scream of a cougar as a bed-time story of a tree frog. It made my heart beat just as fast. And although the rangers declared I never heard more than one coyote at a time, I knew that at least twenty howling voices swelled the chorus. While I was trying to persuade myself that the noise I heard was just a pack rat, a puffing, blowing sound at the window took me tremblingly out to investigate. I knew some ferocious animal was about to devour me! But my precious flowers were the attraction. A great, gaunt cow had taken the last delectable bite from my pansy bed and was sticking out a greedy tongue to lap in the snapdragons. Throwing on my bathrobe, I grabbed the broom and attacked the invader. I whacked it fore and aft! I played a tune on its lank ribs! Taken completely by surprise, it hightailed clumsily up through the pines, with me and my trusty broom lending encouragement. When morning came, showing the havoc wrought on my despoiled posies, I was ready to weep. Ranger Winess joined me on my way to breakfast. "Don't get far from Headquarters today," he said. "Dollar Mark Bull is in here and he is a killer. I've been out on Tony after him, but he charged us and Tony bolted before I could shoot. When I got Tony down to brass tacks, Dollar Mark was hid." I felt my knees knocking together. "What's he look like?" I inquired, weakly. "Big red fellow, with wide horns and white face. Branded with a Dollar Mark. He's at least twenty years old, and mean!" My midnight visitor! I sat down suddenly on a lumber pile. It was handy to have a lumber pile, for I felt limp all over. I told the ranger about chasing the old beast around with a broom. His eyes bulged out on stems. Frequent appearances of "Dollar Mark" kept me from my daily tramps through the pines, and I spent more time on the Rim of the Canyon. Strangely, the great yawning chasm itself held no fascination for me. I could appreciate its dizzy depths, its vastness, its marvelous color effects, and its weird contours. I could feel the immensity of it, and it repelled instead of attracted. I seemed to see its barrenness and desolation, the cruel deception of its poisonous springs, and its insurmountable walls. I could visualize its hapless victims wandering frantically about, trying to find the way out of some blind coulee, until, exhausted and thirst-crazed, they lay down to die under the sun's pitiless glare. Many skeletons, half buried in sand, have been found to tell of such tragedies. It was only in the evenings, after the sun had gone down, that I could feel at ease with the Canyon. Then I loved to sit on the Rim and look down on the one living spot far below, where, almost a century ago, the Indians made their homes and raised their crops, watering the fields from the clear, cold spring that gushes out of the hillside. As the light faded, the soft mellow moon would swim into view, shrouding with tender light the stark, grim boulders. From the plateau, lost in the shadows, the harsh bray of wild burros, softened by distance, floated upward. On a clear day I could see objects on the North Rim, thirteen miles away, and with a pair of strong field glasses I could bring the scene quite close. It looked like a fairyland over there, and I wanted to cross over and see what it was really like. White Mountain advanced the theory that if we were married we could go over there for our honeymoon! I had to give the matter careful consideration; but while I considered, the moon came up, and behind us in the Music Room someone began to play softly Schubert's "Serenade." I said, "All right. Next year we'll go!" [Illustration] _Chapter III: "I DO!"_ The Washington Office decided, by this time, that I was really going to stay, so they sent another girl out to work with me. The poor Superintendent was speechless! But his agony was short-lived. Another superintendent was sent to relieve him, which was also a relief to me! My new girl was from Alabama and had never been west of that state. She was more of a tenderfoot than I, if possible. At first she insisted one had to have a bathtub or else be just "pore white trash," but in time she learned to bathe quite luxuriously in a three-pint basin. It took longer for her to master the art of lighting a kerosene lamp, and it was quite a while before she was expert enough to dodge the splinters in the rough pine floor. I felt like a seasoned sourdough beside her! We "ditched" the big cookstove, made the back room into sleeping quarters, and turned our front room into a sort of clubhouse. White Mountain gave us a wonderful phonograph and plenty of records. If one is inclined to belittle canned music, it is a good plan to live for a while where the only melody one hears is a wailing coyote or the wind moaning among the pines. We kept getting new records. The rangers dropped in every evening with offerings. Ranger Winess brought us love songs. He doted on John McCormack's ballads, and I secretly applauded his choice. Of course I had to praise the Harry Lauder selections that Ranger Fisk toted in. White Mountain favored Elman and Kreisler. The violin held him spellbound. But when Pat came we all suffered through an evening of Grand Opera spelled with capital letters! Nobody knew much about "Pat." He was a gentleman without doubt. He was educated and cultured, he was witty and traveled. His game of bridge was faultless and his discussion of art or music authentic. He was ready to discuss anything and everything, except himself. In making up personnel records I asked him to fill out a blank. He gave his name and age. "Education" was followed by "A.B." and "M.A." Nearest relative: "None." In case of injury or death notify--"_Nobody._" That was all. Somewhere he had a family that stood for something in the world, but where? He was a striking person, with his snow-white hair, bright blue eyes, and erect, soldier-like bearing. White Mountain and Ranger Winess had known him in Yellowstone; Ranger Fisk had seen him in Rainier; Ranger West had met him at Glacier. He taught me the game of cribbage, and the old game of gold-rush days--solo. One morning Pat came to my cabin and handed me a book. Without speaking he turned and walked away. Inside the volume I found a note: "I am going away. This is my favorite book. I want you to have it and keep it." The title of the book was _Story of an African Farm_. None of us ever saw Pat again. The yearly rains began to come daily, each with more force and water than the preceding one. Lightning flashed like bombs exploding, and thunder roared and reverberated back and forth from Rim to Rim of the Canyon. We sank above our shoes in mud every time we left the cabin. The days were disagreeable, but the evenings were spent in the cabin, Ranger Winess with his guitar and the other boys singing while we girls made fudge or sea-foam. Such quantities of candy as that bunch could consume! The sugar was paid for from the proceeds of a Put-and-Take game that kept us entertained. We had a girl friend, Virginia, from Washington as a guest, and she fell in love with Arizona. Also with Ranger Winess. It was about arranged that she would remain permanently, but one unlucky day he took her down Bright Angel Trail. He provided her with a tall lank mule, "By Gosh," to ride, and she had never been aboard an animal before. Every time By Gosh flopped an ear she thought he was trying to slap her in the face. On a steep part of the trail a hornet stung the mule, and he began to buck and kick. I asked Virginia what she did then. "I didn't do anything. By Gosh was doing enough for both of us," she said. Ranger Winess said, however, that she turned her mule's head in toward the bank and whacked him with the stick she carried. Which was the logical thing to do. Unfortunately Ranger Winess teased her a little about the incident, and a slight coolness arose. Just to show how little she cared for his company, Virginia left our party and strolled up to the Rim to observe the effect of moonlight on the mist that filled it. Our game of Put-and-Take was running along merrily when we heard a shriek, then another. We rushed out, and there was Dollar Mark Bull chasing Virginia around and around among the big pine trees while she yelled like a calliope. Seeing the door open she knocked a few of us over in her hurry to get inside. Then she bravely slammed the door and stood against it! Fortunately, Dollar Mark retreated and no lives were lost. The rangers departed, we soothed Virginia, now determined not to remain permanently, and settled down for the night. Everything quiet and peaceful, thank goodness! Alas! The most piercing shrieks I ever heard brought me upright in bed with every hair standing on end. It was morning. I looked at Virginia's bed. I could see her quite distinctly, parts of her at least. Her head was buried, ostrich-wise, in the blankets, while her feet beat a wild tattoo in the air. Stell woke up and joined the chorus. The cause of it all was a bewildered Navajo buck who stood mutely in the doorway, staring at the havoc he had created. At arm's length he tendered a pair of moccasins for sale. It was the first Reservation Indian in native dress, or rather undress, the girls had seen, and they truly expected to be scalped. It never occurs to an Indian to knock at a door, nor does the question of propriety enter into his calculations when he has an object in view. I told him to leave, and he went out. An hour later, however, when we went to breakfast, he was squatted outside my door waiting for us to appear. He had silver bracelets and rings beaten out of Mexican coins and studded with native turquoise and desert rubies. We each bought something. I bought because I liked his wares, and the other girls purchased as a sort of thank-offering for mercies received. The bracelets were set with the brilliant rubies found by the Indians in the desert. It is said that ants excavating far beneath the surface bring these semi-precious stones to the top. Others contend that they are not found underneath the ground but are brought by the ants from somewhere near the nest because their glitter attracts the ant. True or false, the story results in every anthill being carefully searched. Virginia's visit was drawing to a close, and White Mountain and I decided to announce our engagement while she was still with us. We gave a dinner at El Tovar, with the rangers and our closest friends present. At the same party another ranger announced his engagement and so the dinner was a hilarious affair. One of the oldest rangers there, and one notoriously shy with women, made me the object of a general laugh. He raised his glass solemnly and said: "Well, here's wishin' you joy, but I jest want to say this: ef you'd a played yo' cyards a little bit different, you wouldn't 'a had to take White Mountain." Before the dinner was over a call came from the public camp ground for aid. Our party broke up, and we girls went to the assistance of a fourteen-year-old mother whose baby was ill. Bad food and ignorance had been too much for the little nameless fellow, and he died about midnight. There was a terrible electric storm raging, and rain poured down through the old tent where the baby died. Ranger Winess carried the little body down to our house and we took the mother and followed. We put him in a dresser drawer and set to work to make clothes to bury him in. Ranger Fisk and Ranger Winess made the tiny casket, and we rummaged through our trunks for materials. A sheer dimity frock of mine that had figured in happier scenes made the shroud, and Virginia gave a silken scarf to line the coffin. Ranger Winess tacked muslin over the rough boards so it would look nicer to the young mother. There were enough of my flowers left by Dollar Mark to make a wreath, and that afternoon a piteous procession wended its way to the cemetery. And such a cemetery! Near the edge of the Canyon, a mile or so from Headquarters it lay, a bleak neglected spot in a sagebrush flat with nothing to mark the cattle-tramped graves, of which there were four. At the edge of the clearing, under a little pine, was the open grave, and while the coffin was lowered the men sang. I never heard a more lonesome sound than those men singing there over that little grave. White Mountain read the burial service. We took the mother back to our cabin while the grave was being filled in. I used to see her walking out there each morning with a few wild flowers to put on the mound. Ranger Winess managed to ride that way and keep her in sight until she returned to the camp ground. While the blue lupine blossomed she kept the mound covered with the fragrant flowers. Ranger Fisk had a vacation about this time, and he insisted White Mountain and I should get married while he could act as best man. So we journeyed to Flagstaff with him and were married. It seemed more like a wedding in a play than anything else. Ranger Fisk was burdened with the responsibility of the wedding-ring, license, minister's fee, and flowers for the occasion. He herded us into the clerk's office to secure the necessary papers, and the girl clerk that issued them was a stickler for form. We gave our names, our parents' names, our ages, birth-places, and previous states of servitude. I was getting ready to show her my vaccination scar, when she turned coldly critical eyes on me and asked: "Are you white?" This for a Virginian to answer was quite a blow. We went to the minister's house, and since two witnesses were necessary, the wife was called in from her washing. She came into the parlor drying her hands on her apron, which she discarded by rolling up and tossing into a chair. Ranger Fisk produced the ring, with a flourish, at the proper moment, gave the minister his money, after all the "I do's" had been said, and the wedding was over. So we were married. No wedding march, no flower girls, no veil, no rice, no wedding breakfast. Just a solemn promise to respect each other and be faithful. Perhaps the promise meant just a little more to us because it was not smothered in pomp. For a wedding-trip we visited the cliff dwellings in Walnut Canyon. Here, hundreds of years ago, other newly married couples had set up housekeeping and built their dreams into the walls that still tell the world that we are but newcomers on this hemisphere. The news of our marriage reached the Canyon ahead of us, and we found our little cabin filled with our friends and their gifts. They spent a merry evening with us and as we bade them goodnight we felt that such friendship was beyond price indeed. But after midnight! The great open spaces were literally filled with a most terrifying and ungodly racket. I heard shrieks and shots, and tin pans banging. Horrors! The cook was on another vanilla-extract jamboree!! But--drums boomed and bugles blared. Ah, of course! The Indians were on the warpath; I never entirely trusted those red devils. I looked around for a means of defense, but the Chief told me not to be alarmed--it was merely a "shivaree." "Now, what might that be?" I inquired. I supposed he meant at least a banshee, or at the very least an Irish wake! It was, however, nothing more or less than our friends serenading us. They came inside, thirty strong; the walls of the cabin fairly bulged. They played all sorts of tricks on us, and just as they left someone dropped a handful of sulphur on top of the stove. Naturally, we went outside with our visitors to wish them "godspeed!" "I'll never get married again; at least not in the land of the shivaree," I told White Mountain as we tried to repair the damage. I guess we were let off easy, for when our ranger friend returned with his bride they suffered a much worse fate. The groom was locked for hours in the old bear cage on the Rim, and his wife was loaded into a wheelbarrow and rolled back and forth across the railroad tracks until the Chief called a halt to that. He felt the treatment was a little too severe even for people in love. Since I could not go to live in the bachelor ranger quarters, White Mountain moved into my cabin until our house could be completed. A tent house was built for Stell in the back yard of our cabin. She was afraid to live alone, and used to wake us at all hours of the night. Once she came bursting into our cabin, hysterical with fright. A bunch of coyotes had been racing around and around her tent trying to get into the garbage can. They yelped and barked, and, finally, as she sobbed and tried to explain, "They sat down in my door and laughed like crazy people." She finished the night on our spare cot, for anybody that thinks coyotes can't act like demons had better spend a night in Arizona and listen to them perform. Stell wasn't a coward by any means. She was right there when real courage was needed. A broken leg to set or a corpse to bathe and dress were just chores that needed to be done, and she did her share of both. But seven thousand feet altitude for months at a time will draw a woman's nerves tauter than violin strings. I remember, one morning, Stell and I came home in the dawn after an all-night vigil with a dying woman. We were both nearly asleep as we stumbled along through the pines, but not too far gone to see Dollar Mark come charging at us. We had stopped at the cookhouse and begged a pot of hot coffee to take to our cabins. Stell was carrying it, and she stood her ground until the mean old bull was within a few feet of her. Then she dashed the boiling-hot coffee full in his gleaming red eyes, and while he snorted and bellowed with pain we shinnied up a juniper tree and hung there like some of our ancestors until the road crew came along and drove him away. We were pretty mad, and made a few sarcastic remarks about a ranger force that couldn't even "shoot the bull." We requested the loan of a gun, if necessary! Ranger Winess took our conversation to heart, and next morning hung a notice in Headquarters which "Regretted to report that Dollar Mark Bull accidentally fell over the Rim into the Canyon and was killed." In my heart I questioned both the "regret" and the "accidental" part of the report, and in order to still any remorse that the ranger might feel I baked him the best lemon pie I had in my repertoire! [Illustration] _Chapter IV: CELEBRITIES AND SQUIRRELS_ Soon after our wedding the Chief crossed to the North Rim to meet a party of celebrities, which included his old friend Emerson Hough. This was to have been our honeymoon trip, but I was left at home! The new Superintendent needed me in the office; therefore White Mountain spent our honeymoon trip alone. I had heard of such a thing, but never expected it to happen to me. I might have felt terribly cut up about it but on the South Rim we were fermenting with excitement getting ready to entertain important guests. General Diaz of Italy and his staff were coming, soon to be followed by Marshal Foch with his retinue. And in the meantime Tom Mix and Eva Novak had arrived with beautiful horses and swaggering cowboys to make a picture in the Canyon. What was a mere honeymoon compared to such luminaries? Tom and Eva spent three weeks making the picture, and we enjoyed every minute they were there. Ranger Winess was assigned to duty with them, and when they left the Canyon he found himself with the offer of a movie contract. Tom liked the way the ranger handled his horse and his rifle, and Tom's wife liked the sound of his guitar. So we lost Ranger Winess. He went away to Hollywood, and we all went around practicing: "I-knew-him-when" phrases. But Hollywood wasn't Grand Canyon, and there wasn't a horse there, not even Tom's celebrated Tony, that had half as much brains as his own bay Tony of the ranger horses. So Winess came back to us, and everybody was happy again. While the picture was being made, some of the company found a burro mother with a broken leg, and Ranger Winess mercifully ended her suffering. A tiny baby burro playing around the mother they took to camp and adopted at once. He was so comical with his big velvet ears and wise expression. Not bigger than a shepherd dog, the men could pick him up and carry him around the place. Tom took him to Mixville and the movie people taught him to drink out of a bottle, so he is well on the road to stardom. Ranger Winess, visiting in New Jersey a couple of years later, dropped into a theater where Tom Mix was in a vaudeville act. Mix spied the ranger, and when the act was over he stepped to the edge of the stage and sang out: "Hey, Winess, I still got that burro!" A dummy that had been used in the picture was left lying quite a distance up the side of a mountain, but quite visible from their movie camp. Tom bet his Director, Lynn Reynolds, twenty-five dollars that the dummy was six feet tall. He knew quite well that it was _not_ six feet tall, and knew that Reynolds knew so too. But the bet was on. A guide going to the top, was bribed by a ten-dollar bill from Tom, to stretch the dummy out to the required length. This guide went up the trail a few hours before Tom and Reynolds were due to measure the dummy. Imagine their feelings when they arrived, and found the money and this note pinned to the object of dispute: "Mr. Tom Mix, deer sir. I streetched the dam thing till it busted. It hain't no higher than me, and I hain't six feet. You'll plees find herein yore money. Youers truly, SHORTY." It is said that Reynolds collected in full and then hunted Shorty up and bestowed the twenty-five dollars on him. White Mountain returned from the North Rim full of his trip. He, together with Director Mather and Emerson Hough, had been all through the wonderful Southern Utah country, including Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park. Mr. Hough had just sold his masterpiece, _The Covered Wagon_, to the _Saturday Evening Post_, and was planning to write a Canyon story. He told White Mountain he felt that he was not big enough to write such a story but intended to try. His title was to be "The Scornful Valley." Before he could come to the Canyon again, he died on the operating table. Preparations were made for the visit of General Diaz, who came about Thanksgiving time. A great deal of pomp and glory surrounded his every movement. He and White Mountain were alone for a moment on one of the points overlooking the Canyon, and the General, looking intently into the big gorge, said to the Chief: "When I was a small boy I read a book about some people that stole some cattle and hid away in the Canyon. I wonder if it could have been near here?" White Mountain was able to point out a place in the distance that had been a crossing place for cattle in the early days, which pleased the soldier greatly. Hopi Joe and his Indian dancers gave an unusually fine exhibition of their tribal dances for the visitors. The General expressed his appreciation quite warmly to Joe after the dance ended, and asked Joe to pose with him for a picture. He was recalling other boyhood reading he had done, and his interest in the Indians was quite naïve. Joe took him into the Hopi House and they spent an hour or so going over the exhibition of Indian trophies there. After dinner, the General retired to his private car to rest, but the staff remained at the hotel and we danced until well after midnight. The General's own band furnished the music. There were no women in the visitor's party, but there was no lack of partners for the handsome, charming officers. That few of them spoke English and none of us understood Italian made no difference. Smiles and flirtatious glances speak a universal language, and many a wife kept her wedding-ring out of the lime-light. While we all enjoyed the visit of this famous man, we took a personal interest in Marshal Foch. And I'm not sure that General Diaz would have been entirely pleased could he have seen the extra special arrangements that were made to welcome Marshal Foch a few days later. Every ranger was called in from outlying posts; uniforms were pressed, boots shined, and horses groomed beyond recognition. Some of the rangers had served in France, and one tall lanky son of Tennessee had won the Croix de Guerre. To his great disgust and embarrassment, he was ordered to wear this decoration. When the special train rolled in, the rangers were lined up beside the track. The gallant old warrior stepped down from his car and walked along the line. His eye rested on that medal. He rushed up and fingered it lovingly "Croix de Guerre! Oui, oui, Croix de Guerre!" he kept repeating, as delighted as a child would be at the sight of a beloved toy. The ranger's face was a study. I believe he expected to be kissed on both cheeks, as he probably had been when the medal was originally bestowed upon him. White Mountain was presented to the Marshal as "Le Chieftain de le Rangeurs," and, as he said later, had a handshake and listened to a few words in French from the greatest general in history! The Marshal was the least imposing member of his staff. Small, unassuming, and even frail, he gave the impression of being infinitely weary of the world and its fighting, its falseness, and its empty pomp. He spoke practically no English, but when a tiny Indian maid crept near in her quaint velvet jacket and little full skirts, he extended a hand and said quite brokenly: "How are you, Little One?" In fact he spoke very little even in his own language. Several hours were consumed in viewing the Canyon and at lunch. Then he was taken out to Hermit's Rest and sat in front of the great fireplace for an hour, just resting and gazing silently into the glowing embers. All the while he stroked the big yellow cat that had come and jumped upon his knee as soon as he was settled. Then he walked down the trail a little way, refusing to ride the mule provided for him. When it was explained that his photograph on the mule was desired, he gravely bowed and climbed aboard the animal. Our new Superintendent, Colonel John R. White, had been in France and spoke French fluently. He hung breathlessly on the words of the Marshal when he turned to him after a long scrutiny of the depths below. "Now," thought Colonel White, "I shall hear something worthy of passing along to my children and grandchildren." "What a beautiful place to drop one's mother-in-law!" observed the Marshal in French. Later he remarked that the Canyon would make a wonderful border line between Germany and France! Hopi Joe gave his tribal dances around a fire built in the plaza. After the dance was over, the Marshal asked for an encore on the War Dance. Joe gave a very realistic performance that time. Once he came quite near the foreign warrior, brandishing his tomahawk and chanting. A pompous newspaper man decided to be a hero and pushed in between Joe and Marshal Foch. The General gave the self-appointed protector one look, and he was edged outside the circle and told to stay there, while Joe went on with his dance. A marvelous Navajo rug was presented to the visitor by Father Vabre, with the information that it was a gift from the Indians to their friend from over the sea. He was reminded that when the call came for volunteers many thousands of Arizona Indians left their desert home and went across the sea to fight for a government that had never recognized them as worthy to be its citizens. The General's face lighted up as he accepted the gift, and he replied that he would carry the rug with him and lay it before his own hearthstone, and that he would tell his children its story so that after he had gone on they would cherish it as he had and never part with it. One likes to think that perhaps during his last days on earth his eyes fell on this bright rug, reminding him that in faraway Arizona his friends were thinking of him and hoping for his recovery. A wildcat presented by an admirer was voted too energetic a gift to struggle with, so it was left in the bear cage on the Rim. Somebody turned it out and it committed suicide by leaping into the Canyon. A raw cold wind, such as can blow only at the Canyon, swept around the train as it carried Marshal Foch away. That wind brought tragedy and sorrow to us there at El Tovar, for, exposed to its cold blast, Mr. Brant, the hotel manager, contracted pneumonia. Travelers from all parts of the world knew and loved this genial and kindly gentleman. He had welcomed guests to El Tovar from the day its portals were first opened to tourists. Marshal Foch was the last guest he welcomed or waved to in farewell, for when the next day dawned he was fighting for life and in a few days he was gone. He had loved the Canyon with almost a fanatic's devotion, and although Captain Hance had not been buried on its Rim as had been his deep desire, Mr. Brant's grave was located not far from the El Tovar, overlooking the Great Chasm. The tomb had to be blasted from solid rock. All night long the dull rumble of explosives told me that the rangers, led by the wearer of the Croix de Guerre, were toiling away. The first snow of the season was falling when the funeral cortège started for the grave. White Mountain and other friends were pall-bearers, and twenty cowboys on black horses followed the casket. Father Vabre read the burial service, and George Wharton James spoke briefly of the friendship which had bound them together for many years. Since that time both the good priest and the famous author have passed on. Mr. Brant had an Airedale dog that was his constant companion. For days after his death this dog would get his master's hat and stick and search all over the hotel for him. He thought it was time for their daily walk. When the dog died they buried him near his master's grave. This had been Mr. Brant's request. The snow grew deeper and the mercury continued to go down, until it was almost impossible to spend much time outside. But the little iron stove stuffed full of pine wood kept the cabin fairly warm, and the birds and squirrels learned to stay close to the stovepipe on the roof. The squirrels would come to the cabin windows and pat against them with their tiny paws. They were begging for something to eat, and if a door or window were left open a minute it was good-by to anything found on the table. Bread, cake, or even fruit was a temptation not to be resisted. One would grab the prize and dart up the trunk of a big pine tree with the whole tribe hot-footing it right after him. One bold fellow waylaid me one morning when I opened the door, and bounced up on the step and into the kitchen. I shoved him off the cabinet, and he jumped on top of the stove. That wasn't hot enough to burn him but enough to make him good and mad, so he scrambled to my shoulder, ran down my arm, and sank his teeth in my hand. Then he ran up to the top of the shelves and sat there chattering and scolding until the Chief came home and gave him the bum's rush. This same fellow bit the Chief, too; but I always felt _he_ had it coming to him. White Mountain had a glass jar of piñon nuts, and he would hold them while the squirrels came and packed their jaws full. They looked too comical with their faces puffed up like little boys with mumps. When "Bunty" came for his share, the Chief placed his hand tightly over the top, just to tease him. He wanted to see what would happen. He found out. Bunty ran his paws over the slick surface of the jar two or three times, but couldn't find any way to reach the tempting nuts. He stopped and thought about the situation a while, then it seemed to dawn on him that he was the victim of a practical joke. All at once he jumped on the Chief's hand, buried his teeth in his thumb, then hopped to a lumber pile and waited for developments. He got the nuts, jar and all, right at his head. He side-stepped the assault and gloated over his store of piñons the rest of the afternoon. It had been an off year for piñons, so boxes were put up in sheltered nooks around the park and the rangers always put food into them while making patrols. I carried my pockets full of peanuts while riding the trails, and miles from Headquarters the squirrels learned to watch for me. I learned to look out for them also, after one had dropped from an overhanging bough to the flank of a sensitive horse I was riding. The Fred Harvey boys purchased a hundred pounds of peanuts for the little fellows, and the animals also learned to beg from tourists. All a squirrel had to do in order to keep well stuffed was to sit up in the middle of the road and look cunning. One day a severe cold kept me in bed. Three or four of the little rascals found an entrance and came pell-mell into the house. One located a cookie and the others chased him into my room with it. For half an hour they fought and raced back and fourth over my bed while I kept safely hidden under the covers, head and all. During a lull I took a cautious look around. There they sat, lined up like schoolboys, on the dresser, trying to get at the impudent squirrels in the glass! Failing in that, they investigated the bottles and boxes. They didn't care much for the smell of camphor, but one poke-nosey fellow put his nose in the powder jar and puffed; when he backed away, he looked like a merry old Santa Claus, his whiskers white with powder and his black eyes twinkling. Once the Chief gave them some Eastern chestnuts and black walnuts. They were bewildered. They rolled them over and over in their paws and sniffed at them, but made no effort to cut into the meat. We watched to see what they would do, and they took those funny nuts out under the trees and buried them good and deep. Maybe they thought time would mellow them. But the worst thing those little devils did to me happened later. I had cooked dinner for some of the powers-that-be from Washington, and for dessert I made three most wonderful lemon pies. They were dreams! Each one sported fluffy meringue not less than three inches thick (and eggs eighty cents a dozen). They were cooling on a shelf outside the door. Along comes greedy Mr. Bunty looking for something to devour. "You go away. I'm looking for real company and can't be bothered with you!" I told him, and made a threatening motion with the broom. He went--right into the first pie, and from that to the middle one; of course he couldn't slight the third and last one, so he wallowed across it. Then the horrid beast climbed a tree in front of my window. He cleaned, and polished, and lapped meringue off his gray squirrel coat, while I wiped tears and thought up a suitable epitaph for him. A dirty Supai squaw enjoyed the pies. She and her assorted babies ate them, smacking and gabbling over them just as if they hadn't been bathed in by a wild animal. [Illustration]. _Chapter V: NAVAJO LAND_ Indians! Navajos! How many wide-eyed childhood hours had I spent listening to stories of these ferocious warriors! And yet, here they were as tame as you please, walking by my door and holding out their native wares to sell. From the first instant my eyes rested upon a Navajo rug, I was fascinated by the gaudy thing. The more I saw, the more they appealed to the gypsy streak in my makeup. Each Navajo buck that came to my door peddling his rugs and silver ornaments was led into the house and questioned. Precious little information I was able to abstract at first from my saturnine visitors. As we became better acquainted, and they learned to expect liberal draughts of coffee sweetened into a syrup, sometimes their tongues loosened; but still I couldn't get all the information I craved regarding those marvelous rugs and how they were made. Finally the Chief decided to spend his vacation by taking me on a trip out into the Painted Desert, the home of this nomadic tribe. We chose the early days of summer after the spring rains had brought relief to the parched earth and replenished the water holes where we expected to camp each night. Another reason was that a great number of the tribal dances would be in full swing at this time. Old "Smolley," an antique "navvy," had just disposed of a supply of rugs and was wending his way homeward at the same time. Not choosing to travel in solitude, he firmly fastened himself to our caravan. I would have preferred his absence, for he was a vile, smelly old creature with bleary eyes and coarse uncombed gray hair tied into a club and with a red band around his head. His clothes were mostly a pair of cast-off overalls, which had not been discarded by the original owner until he was in danger of arrest for indecent exposure. Incessant wear night and day by Smolley had not improved their looks. But Smolley knew that I never could see him hungry while we ate; consequently he stuck closer than a brother. Our hospitality was well repaid later, for he took care that we saw the things we wanted to see in Navajo Land. The first day we rode through magnificent groves of stately yellow pines which extended from Grand Canyon out past Grand View and the picturesque old stage tavern there which is the property of Mr. W. R. Hearst. Quite a distance beyond there we stopped for lunch on a little knoll covered with prehistoric ruins. I asked Smolley what had become of the people who had built the homes lying at our feet. He grunted a few times and said that they were driven out on a big rock by their enemies and then the god caused the rock to fly away with them somewhere else. Interesting, if true. I decided that my guess was as good as his, so let the subject drop. It must have been a long time ago, for there were juniper trees growing from the middle of these ruins that the Chief said were almost three thousand years old. (He had sawed one down not much larger than these, polished the trunk and counted the annual rings with a magnifying-glass, and found it to be well over that age.) Among the rocks and débris, we found fragments of pottery painted not unlike the present Zuñi ware, and other pieces of the typical basket pottery showing the marks of woven vessels inside of which they had been plastered thousands of years ago. I fell to dreaming of those vanished people, the hands that had shaped this clay long since turned to dust themselves. What had their owner thought of, hoped, or planned while fashioning this bowl, fragments of which I turned over in my palms aeons later? But the lunch-stop ended, and we moved on. That night we camped at Desert View and with the first streak of dawn we prepared to leave the beaten path and follow a trail few tourists attempt. When we reached the Little Colorado, we followed Smolley implicitly as we forded the stream. "Chollo," our pack mule, became temperamental halfway across and bucked the rest of the way. I held my breath, expecting to see our cargo fly to the four winds; but the Chief had not packed notional mules for years in vain. A few pans rattled, and later I discovered that my hair brush was well smeared with jam. No other damage was done. All day long we rode through the blazing sun. I kept my eyes shut as much as possible, for the sun was so glaring that it sent sharp pains through my head. In front the Chief rode placidly on. Outside of turning him into a beautiful brick red, the sun seemingly did not affect him. Smolley was dozing. But I was in agony with thirst and heat and weariness. My horse, a gift from the Chief which I had not been wise enough to try out on a short journey before undertaking such a trip, was as stiff as a wooden horse. I told the Chief I knew Mescal was knock-kneed and stiff-legged. "Oh, no," was the casual reply, "he's a little stiff in the shoulders from his fall." "What fall?" "Why, I loaned him to one of the rangers last week and he took him down the Hermit Trail and Mescal fell overboard." "Is he subject to vertigo?" I wanted to know. I had heard we should have steep trails to travel on this trip. "No; the ranger loaded him with two water kegs, and when Mescal got excited on a steep switchback the ranger lost his head and drove him over the edge. He fell twenty feet and was knocked senseless. It took two hours to get him out again." "Some ranger," was my heated comment; "who was it?" "No matter," said the Chief. "He isn't a ranger any more." The Chief said Mescal did not suffer any from the stiffness, but I'll admit that I suffered both mentally and physically. Anyway I had that to worry about and it took my mind off the intolerable heat. Almost before we knew it a storm gathered and broke directly over our heads. There was no shelter, so we just kept riding. I had visions of pneumonia and sore throat and maybe rheumatism. In fact I began to feel twinges of rheumatics, but the Chief scoffed. He said I should have had a twelve-inch saddle instead of a fourteen and if I wasn't so dead set on a McClellan instead of a Western Stock I would be more comfortable. He draped a mackinaw around me and left me to my fate. I wasn't scared by the storm, but Mescal was positively unnerved. He trembled and cringed at every crash. I had always enjoyed electrical storms, but I never experienced one quite so personal before. Cartwheels and skyrockets exploded under my very nose and blue flame wrapped all around us. The Chief had gone on in search of the pack mule, and I was alone with Smolley. Through a lull in the storm I caught a glimpse of him. He slouched stolidly in the saddle as unconcernedly as he had slouched in the broiling heat. In fact I think he was still dozing. As suddenly as the storm had come it was gone, and we could see it ahead of us beating and lashing the hot sands. Clouds of earthy steam rose enveloping us, but as these cleared away the air was as cool and pure and sweet as in a New England orchard in May. On a bush by the trail a tiny wren appeared and burst into song like a vivacious firecracker. Rock squirrels darted here and there, and tiny cactus flowers opened their sleepy eyes and poured out fragrance. And then, by and by, it was evening and we were truly in Navajo Land. We made our camp by a water hole replenished by the recent rain. While the Chief hobbled the horses I drank my fill of the warm, brackish water and lay back on the saddles to rest. The Chief came into camp and put a can of water on the fire to boil. When it boiled he said, "Do you want a drink of this hot water or can you wait until it cools?" "Oh, I had a good drink while you were gone," I answered drowsily. "Where did you get it? The canteens were dry." "Why, out of the waterhole, of course"; I was impatient that he could be so stupid. "You did? Well, unless God holds you in the palm of his hand you will be good and sick. That water is full of germs. To say nothing of a dead cow or two. I thought you had better sense than to drink water from holes in the ground." I rose up and took another look at the oasis. Sure enough, horns and a hoof protruded from one end of the mudhole. I sank back weakly and wondered why I had ever thought I wanted to visit the Navajos. I hoped my loved ones back in the Virginias would not know how I died. It sounded too unromantic to say one passed out from drinking dead cow! I might as well say here that evidently I was held firmly by the Deity, for I felt no ill effects whatever. I couldn't eat any supper, but I knew Smolley would soon blow in and it would not be wasted. As dusk settled around us we could almost hear the silence. Here and there a prairie owl would whirl low to the ground with a throaty chuckle for a time, but that soon ceased. Across the fire I could see the dull glow of the Chief's cigarette, but the air was so quiet that not the faintest odor of tobacco drifted to me. While we lolled there, half waking, half dreaming, Old Smolley stepped noiselessly into camp and at a wave of the Chief's hand swiftly emptied the coffeepot and skillet. He wiped his greasy mouth on his sleeve and said: "Sing-sing this night. Three braves sick. Sing 'em well. You wanna see?" Did we! I was up and ready before his last word was out. We followed him for ten minutes up a dry wash filled with bowlders and dry brush. I stepped high and wide, fully expecting to be struck by a rattlesnake any minute. I knew if I said anything the Chief would laugh at me, so I stayed behind him and looked after my own safety. We reached a little mesa at the head of the coulee and found Indians of all shapes and sizes assembled there. Two or three huge campfires were crackling, and a pot of mutton stewed over one of them. Several young braves were playing cards, watched by a bevy of giggling native belles. The lads never raised their eyes to the girls, but they were quite conscious of feminine observation. Three men, grievously ill indeed, and probably made worse by the long ride to the scene of the dance, were lying in a hogan built of cottonwood branches. Outside, standing closely packed together, were the Navajo bucks and the medicine men. When an Indian is sick he goes to the doctor instead of sending for the doctor to visit him. And then invitations are sent out all over the Reservation for the singers to come and assist in the cure. The Navajos had responded loyally on this occasion and were grouped according to location. One group would sing the weird minor wail for half an hour and then another bunch would break in for a few minutes, only to have still a third delegation snatch the song away from them. So closely did they keep time and so smoothly did one bunch take up where another left off that we, standing less than twenty feet away, could not tell which group was singing except when the Tuba City crowd took up the plaint. Their number was so small that they couldn't get out much noise. The Indians had discarded their civilized garb for the occasion and were clad mostly in atmosphere helped out with a gee-string of calico. Some had streaks of white and black paint on them. I fell to dreaming of what it would have meant to be captured by such demons only a few years ago, and it wasn't long until I lost interest in that scene. I was ready to retreat. We watched the medicine men thump and bang the invalids with bunches of herbs and prayer sticks a few minutes longer; then with Smolley as our guide we wandered over to the Squaw Dance beside another bonfire, located at a decorous distance from the improvised hospital hogan. The leading squaw, with a big bunch of feathers fastened to a stick, advanced to the fire and made a few impressive gestures. She was garbed in the wide, gathered calico skirt, the velvet basque trimmed with silver buttons, and the high brown moccasins so dear to feminine Navajos. The orchestra was vocal, the bucks again furnishing the music. After circling around the spectators a few times the squaw decided on the man she wanted and with one hand took a firm grasp of his shirt just above the belt. Then she galloped backward around him while he was dragged helplessly about with her, looking as sheepish as the mutton simmering in the kettle. Other squaws picked partners and soon there were numerous couples doing the silly prance. Silly it looked to us, but I thought of a few of our civilized dances and immediately reversed my opinion. The squaws occasionally prowled around among the spectators, keeping in the shadows and seeking white men for partners. These, mostly cowboys and trading-post managers, were wary, and only one was caught napping. It cost him all the loose silver he had in his pocket to get rid of the tiny fat squaw that had captured him. We were told that dances and races would continue for several days, and so, firmly bidding good night to Smolley, we went back to camp and fell asleep with the faint hubbub coming to us now and then. Almost before the Chief had breakfast started the next morning Smolley stepped into the scene and took a prominent seat near the steaming coffeepot. "You arrive early," I remarked. "Now how could you know that breakfast was so near ready?" This last a trifle sarcastically, I fear. "Huh, me, I sleep here," pointing to the side of a rock not ten feet from my own downy bed. That settled me for keeps. I subsided and just gazed with a fatal hypnotism at the flapjacks disappearing down his ample gullet. It was fatal, for while I was spellbound the last one disappeared and I had to make myself some more or go without breakfast. When Smolley had stilled the first fierce pangs of starvation he pulled a pair of moccasins out of the front of his dirty shirt and tossed them to me. (The gesture had somewhat the appearance of tossing a bone to an angry dog.) Anyway the dog was appeased. The moccasins had stiff rawhide soles exactly shaped to fit my foot, and the uppers were soft brown buckskin beautifully tanned. They reached well above the ankles and fastened on the side with three fancy silver buttons made by a native silversmith. A tiny turquoise was set in the top of each button. I marveled at the way they fitted, until the Chief admitted that he had given Smolley one of my boudoir slippers for a sample. Eventually the other slipper went to a boot manufacturer and I became the possessor of real hand-made cowboy boots. Breakfast disposed of, we mounted and went in search of a rug factory, that being the initial excuse for the journey. A mile or two away we found one in operation. The loom consisted of two small cottonwood trees with cross-beams lashed to them, one at the top and the other at the bottom. A warp frame with four lighter sticks forming a square was fastened within the larger frame. The warp was drawn tight, with the threads crossed halfway to the top. Different-colored yarns were wound on a short stick, and with nimble fingers a squaw wove the pattern. There was no visible pattern for her to follow. She had that all mapped out in her brain, and followed it instinctively. I asked her to describe the way the rug would look when finished, and she said, "No can tell. Me know here," tapping her forehead. I liked the way the weaving was begun, and so I squatted there in the sunshine for two hours trying to get her to talk. Finally I gave her ten dollars for the rug when it should be finished and little by little she began to tell me the things I wanted to know. We made no real progress in our conversation until I learned that she had been a student at Sherman Indian Institute for eight years. When she found that I knew the school well and some of the teachers, a look of discontent and unhappiness came over her face. She said that she had been very, very happy at Sherman. With a wave of her slender brown hand she said: "Look at this!" Her eyes rested with distaste on the flock of sheep grazing near, turned to the mud-daubed hogan behind us, and swept on across the cactus-studded desert. "They teach us to sleep in soft, white beds and to bathe in tile bathtubs. We eat white cooking. We cook on electric stoves. We are white for years, and then they send us back to this! We sleep on the earth, we cook with sheep-dung fires; we have not water even for drinking. We hate our own people, we hate our children when they come!" I was so startled at the outburst. Her English was faultless. I had enough sense to keep still, and she went on more quietly: "When I left Sherman I hoped to marry a boy there who was learning the printer's trade. Then we could have lived as your people do. My father sold me for ten ponies and forty sheep. I am a squaw now. I live as squaws did hundreds of years ago. And so I try to be just a squaw. I hope to die soon." And there it was, just as she said. Turned into a white girl for eight years, given a long glimpse of the Promised Land, then pushed back into slavery. We saw lots of that. It seemed as though the ones that were born and lived and died without leaving the reservation were much happier. "What is your name?" I asked after we had been silent while her swift, nervous fingers wove a red figure into a white background. "I'm Mollie, Smolley's daughter." So the greedy old dog had sold his own child. That is the usual thing, Mollie said. Girls are sold to the highest bidder, but fortunately there is a saving clause. In case the girl dislikes her husband too much she makes him so miserable he takes her back to her father and they are divorced instantly. The father keeps the wedding gifts and sells her again for more sheep and horses. The flocks really belong to the women, but I can't see what good they do them. The women tend them and shear them and even nurse them. They wash and dye and card and weave the wool into rugs, and then their lordly masters take the rugs and sell them. A part of the money is gambled away on pony races or else beaten into silver jewelry to be turned into more money. A certain number of rugs are turned in to the trading-post for groceries, calico, and velvet. Navajos never set a table or serve a meal. They cook any time there is anything to cook, and then when the grub is done, eat it out of the pot with their fingers. They have no idea of saving anything for the next meal. They gorge like dogs, and then starve perhaps for days afterward. Mollie had two children, a slim, brown lad perhaps ten years old, who was watching the sheep near by, and a tiny maid of three, sitting silently by her mother. The boy seemed to have inherited some of his mother's rebellion and discontent, but it appeared on his small face as wistfulness. He was very shy, and when I offered him a silver coin he made no move to take it. I closed his fingers around it, and he ran to his mother with the treasure. As he passed me going back to his sheep, he raised his great, sad black eyes and for a second his white teeth flashed in a friendly grin. The men folks had wandered on to the races a mile away, and Mollie, the babe, and I followed. There was no business of closing up house when we left. She just put the bright wool out of the reach of pack rats and we were ready. I admired her forethought, for only the night before I had lost a cake of soap, one garter, and most of my hairpins. Of course the rat was honest, for he had left a dried cactus leaf, a pine cone, and various assorted sticks and straws in place of what he took. That's why this particularly vexing rodent is called a "trade rat." I used to hear that it takes two to make a bargain. That knowledge has not penetrated into pack-ratdom. A few Hopi and Supai Indians were darting around on show ponies, spotted and striped "Paints," as they call them. A Navajo lad came tearing down upon us, riding a most beautiful sorrel mare. It seemed that he would ride us down; but I never did run from an Indian, so I stood my ground. With a blood-chilling war whoop he pulled the mare to her haunches and laughed down at me. He was dressed as a white man would be and spoke perfect English. He was just home from Sherman, he explained, and was going to race his mare against the visitors. I took his picture on the mare, and he told me where to send it to him after it was finished. "I hope you win. I'm betting on you for Mollie," I told him and gave him some money. He did win! Around the smooth hillside the ponies swept, and when almost at the goal he leaned forward and whistled in the mare's ear. She doubled up like a jackknife and when she unfolded she was a nose ahead of them all. Every race ended the same way. He told me he won two hundred silver dollars all told. I am wearing a bracelet now made from one of them. Very seldom does one see a rattlesnake portrayed in any Hopi or Navajo work, but I had my heart set on a rattlesnake bracelet. Silversmith after silversmith turned me down flat, until at last Mollie and the boy told me they would see that I got what I wanted. A month later a strange Indian came to my house, handed me a package with a grunt, and disappeared. It was my bracelet. I always wear it to remind me of my visit to Navajo Land. [Illustration] _Chapter VI: "THEY KILLED ME"_ White Mountain and I walked out to the cemetery one evening at sunset, and I asked him to tell me about the four sleeping there. One trampled grave, without a marker, was the resting-place of a forest ranger who had died during the flu epidemic. At that time no body could be shipped except in a metal casket, and since it had been impossible to secure one he was buried far from his home and people. The mother wrote she would come and visit the grave as soon as she had enough money, but death took her too and she was spared seeing his neglected grave. The Chief stood looking down at the third grave, which still held the weather-beaten débris of funeral wreaths. "Cap Hance is buried here," he said. "He was a dear friend of mine." From his tone I scented a story, and as we strolled back to Headquarters he told me something of the quaint old character. In the days that followed, I heard his name often. Travelers who had not been at the Canyon for several years invariably inquired for "Cap" as soon as they arrived. I always felt a sense of personal shame when I heard a ranger directing them to his grave. He had begged with his last breath to be buried in the Canyon, or else on the Rim overlooking it. "God willing, and man aiding," as he always said. However, his wish had been ignored, for the regular cemetery is some distance from the Rim. This Captain John Hance was the first settler on the Rim of the Grand Canyon. The Hance Place is located about three miles east of Grand View Point. Here he built the old Hance Trail into the Canyon, and discovered numerous copper and asbestos mines. Many notables of the early days first saw the Canyon from his home, staging in there from Flagstaff, seventy miles away. He had an inexhaustible fund of stories, mostly made up out of whole cloth. These improbable tales were harmless, however, and in time he became almost an institution at the Canyon. The last years of his life were spent at El Tovar, regaling the tourists with his colorful and imaginary incidents of the wild and woolly days. He was quite proud of his Munchausenian abilities. Another old-timer at the Canyon, W. W. Bass, who is still alive, was Cap's best friend. Cap Hance was often heard to declare: "There are three liars here at the Canyon; I'm one and Bass is the other two." Romantic old ladies at El Tovar often pressed him for a story of his early fights with the Indians. Here is one of his experiences: "Once, a good many years ago when I was on the outs with the Navajos, I was riding the country a few miles back from here looking up some of my loose horses. I happened to cast my eye over to one side and saw a bunch of the red devils out looking for trouble. I saw that I was outnumbered, so I spurred old Roaney down into a draw at the left, hoping that I hadn't been seen. I got down the draw a little piece and thought I had given them the slip, but the yelling told me that they were still after me. I thought I could go down this draw a ways and then circle out and get back to my ranch. But I kept going down the canyon and the walls kept getting steeper and steeper, and narrower and narrower until finally they got so close together that me and Roaney stuck right there." At this point he always stopped and rolled a cigarette. The ladies were invariably goggle-eyed with excitement and would finally exclaim: "What happened then, Captain Hance?" "Oh, they killed me," he'd say simply. Another time he was again being chased by Indians, and looking back over his shoulder at them, not realizing that he was so near the Rim of the Canyon, his horse ran right up to the edge and jumped off into space. "I'd a been a goner that time," he said, "if I hadn't a had time to think it over and decide what to do." (He fell something like five thousand feet.) "So when my horse got within about fifteen feet from the ground, I rose up in the stirrups and gave a little hop and landed on the ground. All I got was a twisted ankle." A lady approached him one day while he stood on the Rim gazing into the mile-deep chasm. "Captain Hance," she said, "I don't see any water in the Canyon. Is this the dry season, or does it never have any water in it?" Gazing at her earnestly through his squinty, watery eyes, he exclaimed: "Madam! In the early days many's the time I have rode my horse up here and let him drink _right where we stand_!" The old fellow was a bachelor, but he insisted that in his younger days he had married a beautiful girl. When asked what had become of her he would look mournful and tell a sad tale of her falling over a ledge down in the Canyon when they were on their honeymoon. He said it took him three days to reach her, and that when he did locate her he found she had sustained a broken leg, so he had to shoot her. As he grew feeble, he seemed to long for the quiet depths of the gorge, and several times he slipped away and tried to follow the old trail he had made in his youth. He wanted to die down at his copper mine. At last, one night when he was near eighty years old, he escaped the vigilance of his friends and with an old burro that had shared his happier days he started down the trail. Ranger West got wind of it and followed him. He found him where he had fallen from the trail into a cactus patch and had lain all night exposed to the raw wind. He was brought back and cared for tenderly, but he passed away. Prominent men and women who had known and enjoyed him made up a fund to buy a bronze plate for his grave. Remembering the size of his yarns, whoever placed the enormous boulders at his head and feet put them nine feet apart. Halfway between my cabin and the Rim, in the pine woods, is a well-kept grave with a neat stone and an iron fence around it. Here lies the body of United States Senator Ashurst's father, who was an old-timer at the Canyon. Years ago, while working a mine at the bottom of the Canyon, he was caught by a cave-in and when his friends reached him he was dead. They lashed his body on an animal and brought him up the steep trail to be buried. While I was in Washington, Senator Ashurst told me of his father's death and something of his life at the Canyon. He said that often in the rush and worry of capitol life he longed for a few peaceful moments at his father's grave. I never saw Senator Ashurst at the Grand Canyon, but another senator was there often, stirring up some row or other with the Government men. He seemed to think he owned the Canyon, the sky overhead, the dirt underneath, and particularly the trail thereinto. His hirelings were numerous, and each and every one was primed to worry Uncle Sam's rangers. As dogs were prohibited in the Park, every employee of the Senator's was amply provided with canines. Did the tourists particularly enjoy dismounting for shade and rest at certain spots on the trail, those places were sure to get fenced in and plastered with "Keep Off" signs, under the pretense that they were mining claims and belonged to him. We used to wonder what time this Senator found to serve his constituents. Uncle Sam grew so weary of contesting every inch of the trail that he set himself to build a way of his own for the people to use. Several men under the direction of Ranger West were set to trail-building. They made themselves a tent city on the north side of the river and packers were kept busy taking mule loads of materials to them daily. Hundreds of pounds of TNT were packed down safely, but one slippery morning the horses which had been pressed into service lost their footing, slid over the edge of the trail, and hit Bright Angel again a thousand feet below. The packers held their breath expecting to be blown away, as two of the horses that fell were loaded with the high explosive. It was several minutes before they dared believe themselves safe. They sent for White Mountain, and when he reached the animals he found they were literally broken to pieces, their packs and cargoes scattered all over the side of the mountain. They dragged the dead animals a few feet and dropped them into a deep fissure which was handy. Fresh snow was scraped over the blood-stained landscape, and when the daily trail party rode serenely down a few minutes later there was nothing to show that a tragedy had taken place. Later an enormous charge of this high explosive was put back of a point that Rees Griffith, the veteran trail-builder, wished to remove, and the result was awaited anxiously. About four in the afternoon Rees called Headquarters and reported that the shot was a huge success. He was greatly elated and said his work was about done. It was. An hour later Ranger West called for help: Rees had climbed to the top to inspect the shot at close range, and a mammoth boulder loosened by the blast came tumbling down, carrying Rees to the rocks below. He was terribly crushed and broken, but made a gallant fight to live. In looking over some notes I found a copy of White Mountain's report, which tells the story much more completely than I could hope to: "In accordance with instructions, accompanied by Nurse Catti from El Tovar I left Headquarters about 6:30 P.M. bound for Camp Roosevelt, to be of such assistance as possible to Rees Griffith, who had been injured by a falling rock. "The night was not very cold, rather balmy than otherwise, and the descent into the Canyon was made as quickly as possible, the factor of safety being considered. Had we been engaged in any other errand the mystical beauty of the Canyon, bathed in ethereal moonlight, would have been greatly enjoyed. We reached the packers' camp at Pipe Creek at nine o'clock and found hot coffee prepared for us. Miss Catti borrowed a pair of chaps there from one of the boys, as the wind had come up and it was much colder. We were warned to proceed slowly over the remainder of the trail on account of packed ice in the trail. We covered Tonto Trail in good time, but below the 1,500-foot level on down was very dangerous. The tread of the trail was icy and in pitch darkness, the moonlight not reaching there. However, we reached the bottom without mishap. Miss Catti never uttered a word of complaint or fear, but urged me to go as fast as I considered safe. "When we reached Kaibab Suspension Bridge a ranger was waiting to take our mules. We walked across the bridge and found other mules there. We thus lost no time in crossing the bridge with animals. "We arrived at Camp Roosevelt a few minutes after eleven and went immediately to where Rees had been carried. Examination showed that he had been dead probably fifteen minutes. He had been unconscious since nine-thirty. Two fellow-Mormons sat with the body the rest of the night. "When morning came arrangements were made with Rangers West and Peck to pack the body out of the Canyon if it should be so ordered. (We would have mounted a platform on a mule's back, lashed the body in place, and packed it out in that manner.) However, we all felt that it would be much better to bury him in the Canyon near the place where he lost his life. After conferring with the Superintendent by telephone, Miss Catti, Landscape Engineer Ferris, Rangers West, Peck, and myself selected a spot considered proper from the point of landscape engineering, high water, surface wash, and proximity to the trail. This place is about five hundred yards west of the bridge in an alcove in the Archaean Rock which forms the Canyon wall. We dug a grave there. "The carpenter made a very good coffin from materials at hand, and we lined it with sheets sent down by Mrs. Smith for that purpose. She also sent a Prayer Book and a Bible to us by Ranger Winess, who accompanied the coroner to the scene of the accident. An impaneled jury of six declared the death to be due to unavoidable accident. After the inquest the coroner turned the personal effects of Rees over to me. They consisted of a gold watch and two hundred and ninety dollars in a money belt. I hold these subject to instructions from the widow. The body was prepared for burial by wrapping it in white according to Mormon custom. The coffin was carried to the grave, and, while our small company stood uncovered, I said a few words to the effect that it was right that this man should be laid to rest near the spot where he fell and where he had spent a great part of his life; that it was fitting and proper that we who had known him, worked with him, and loved him should perform this last duty. Then the services for the burial of the dead were read, and we left him there beside the trail he built." In the meantime I had been hovering anxiously at the phone, worried about the dark, icy trail White Mountain and Nurse had to travel, and fearing to hear that Rees was seriously injured. As soon as they reached camp they called and said he had gone before they could get there. He told me to wire the doctor at Williams and tell him he was not needed; also to see that a message was sent to the wife and children of the dead man telling them he would have to be buried in the Canyon where he was killed. These errands were to be attended to over the local phone, but for some reason the wire was dead. I was in a quandary. Just having recovered from a prolonged attack of flu, I felt it unwise to go out in several feet of snow, but that was my only course. Dressing as warmly as I could, I started up through the woods to ranger quarters. The snow was above my waist, and I bumped into trees and fell over buried logs before I reached the building. The long hall was in darkness. I knew that most of the boys were out on duty. What if no one were there! I knew my strength was about used up, and that I could never cross the railroad tracks to the Superintendent's house. I went down the long cold hall knocking on every door. Nothing but silence and plenty of it. I reached the door at the end of the hall and knocked. Instantly I remembered that room belonged to Rees. His dog, waiting to be taken down into the Canyon, leaped against the inside of the door and went into a frenzy of howling and barking. I was panic-stricken, and my nerve broke. I began to scream. Ranger Winess had slept all through my knocking, but with the first scream he developed a nightmare. He was back in the Philippines surrounded by fighting Moros and one was just ready to knife him! He turned loose a yell that crowded my feeble efforts aside. Finally he got organized and came to my rescue. I told him Rees was dead and gave him the Chief's message. "All right. I'll get dressed and attend to everything. You better get back to bed." I informed him I would not move an inch until I had company back through the darkness. He then took me home, and went to make arrangements. I called the Chief and told him Ranger Winess was on the job. Then I tried to sleep again. Coyotes howled. Rees' dog barked faintly; a screech owl in a tree near by moaned and complained, and my thoughts kept going with the sad news to the little home Rees had built for his family in Utah. Strange trampling, grinding noises close to the window finally made me so nervous I just had to investigate. Taking the Chief's "forty-five," which was a load in itself, I opened the rear door and crept around the house. And there was a poor hungry pony that had wandered away from an Indian camp, and found the straw packed around our water pipes. He was losing no time packing himself around the straw. I was so relieved I could have kissed his shaggy nose. I went back to bed and slept soundly. [Illustration] _Chapter VII: A GRAND CANYON CHRISTMAS_ Funny how one can never get over being homesick at Christmas. Days and weeks and even months can pass by without that yearning for family and home, but in all the years since I hung my stocking in front of the big fireplace in the old home I have never learned to face Christmas Eve in a strange place with any degree of happiness. I believe the rangers all felt the same way. Several days before Christmas they began to plan a real "feed." We had moved into our new house now, and it was decided to make a home of it by giving a Christmas housewarming. The rangers all helped to prepare the dinner. Each one could choose one dish he wanted cooked and it was cooked, even if we had to send to Montgomery Ward and Company for the makin's. Ranger Fisk opined that turkey dressing without oysters in it would be a total loss as far as he was concerned, so we ordered a gallon from the Coast. They arrived three days before Christmas, and it was his duty to keep them properly interred in a snow drift until the Great Day arrived. Ranger Winess wanted pumpkin pies with plenty of ginger; White Mountain thought roast turkey was about his speed. Since we would have that anyway, he got another vote. This time he called for mashed turnips and creamed onions. The Superintendent, Colonel White, being an Englishman, asked plaintively if we couldn't manage a plum pudding! We certainly managed one just bursting with plums. That made him happy for the rest of the day. I didn't tell anybody what I intended to have for my own special dish, but when the time came I produced a big, rich fruit cake, baked back home by my own mother, and stuffed full of nuts and fruit and ripened to a perfect taste. All the rangers helped to prepare the feast. One of them rode down the icy trail to Indian Gardens and brought back crisp, spicy watercress to garnish the turkey. After it became an effort to chew, and impossible to swallow, we washed the dishes and gathered around the blazing fire. Ranger Winess produced his omnipresent guitar and swept the strings idly for a moment. Then he began to sing, "Silent Night, Holy Night." That was the beginning of an hour of the kind of music one remembers from childhood. Just as each one had chosen his favorite dish, now each one selected his favorite Christmas song. When I asked for "Little Town of Bethlehem" nobody hesitated over the words. We all knew it better than we do "Star Spangled Banner!" I could have prophesied what Colonel White would call for, so it was no surprise when he swung into "God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing ye dismay." Fortunately, most of us had sung carols in our distant youth, and we sang right with the Colonel. Someone suggested that each one tell of the strangest Christmas Day he or she had ever spent. For a while none of us were in Arizona. Ranger Winess was in a state of siege in the Philippines, while the Moros worked themselves into a state of frenzy for the attack that followed; Ranger Fisk scaled Table Mountain, lying back of Capetown, and there picked a tiny white flower which he had pressed in the Bible presented to him there that day; each sailor in port had received a Bible that day with this inscription: "Capetown, Africa, Christ's Birthday, December 25, 19--." White Mountain snowshoed twenty miles in Yellowstone to have Christmas dinner with another ranger, but when he got there he found his friend delirious with flu. "Did he die?" we questioned anxiously. Ranger Winess and the Chief looked at each other and grinned. "Do I look like a dead one?" Ranger Winess demanded. "I couldn't let him die," White Mountain said. "We had just lost one Government man, mysteriously, and hadn't any more to spare. So I got his dogs and sledge and hauled him into Headquarters." Of course we wanted to know about the "lost" ranger. It seemed that there had broken out among the buffalo herd in the Park a strange malady that was killing them all off. An expert from Washington was en route to make a study of the ailment, and was due to arrive just before Christmas. Days passed into weeks and still he didn't show up. Inquiries to Washington disclosed that he had started as per schedule. Tracing his journey step by step it was discovered that on the train out of Chicago he had become ill with flu and had been left in a small town hospital. There he had died without recovering his speech, and had been buried in the potter's field! "Well, then what happened to the buffalo?" "Washington sent us a German scientist. We loved that nation just about that time, and on his arrival diplomatic relations were badly strained. He was too fat and soft to use snowshoes or skis, so we loaded him on a light truck and started for the buffalo farm. We stalled time and again, and he sat in lordly indifference while we pushed and shoveled out. We seemed hopelessly anchored in one drift, and from his perch where he sat swaddled up like a mummy came his 'Vy don't you carry a portable telephone so ve couldt hook it over the vires and call for _them_ to come and pull us oudt?' One of the rangers replied, 'It would be nice for us to telephone ourselves to please pull us oudt. _We_ are the _them_ that does the pulling around here.' "The old boy mumbled and sputtered but rolled out and put a husky shoulder to the wheel, and we went on our way rejoicing. He won our respect at the buffalo farm for he soon discovered the germ that was killing our charges, and he prepared a serum with which we vaccinated the entire herd." "Wow!" Colonel White exclaimed. "I think I'd rather fight Moros than vaccinate buffalo." He, too, had spent years in foreign warfare; his experiences are graphically told in _Bullets and Bolos_. While we heard about the buffalo, one of the rangers left the room. He came back presently, and White Mountain said to me: "Don't you want to see your Christmas present?" I looked across at my proud new riding-boots, with their fancy stitching, and funny high heels just like those the rangers wore. "I'm crazy about them," I said. But the whole bunch were laughing. White Mountain led me to the door, and there I had my first glimpse of Tar Baby! He was a four-year-old horse that had spent those years running wild on the range. A few months before he had been captured and partly tamed. But he was hard-mouthed, and stiff-necked and hell-bent on having his own way about things. I didn't know all that when I saw him this Christmas Day. To me he was perfect. He was round and fat, shiny black, with a white star in his forehead, and four white feet. One eye was blue, and the other one the nicest, softest, kindest brown! He was just that kind of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde horse, too! He was fitted out with a new saddle, a gaudy Navajo saddle blanket, and a bridle with silver inlaid fittings. The spade bit was necessary. I found that out later, also. I would have stood there speechless with admiration the rest of the day, but the others reminded me it was time to light the big tree we had planned for the children in the Park. The rangers had brought a slender fir into the Information Room and we had it trimmed within an inch of its life. Cranberries and popcorn ropes festooned its branches, and again Montgomery Ward and Company's catalogue had been searched for treasures to load it with. Every child in the Park, regardless of race or color, was remembered. Little brown brothers, whose Filipino mothers worked in the laundry, found themselves possessors of strange toys; Navajo babies and Hopi cupids from the Hopi House were well supplied. One small Hopi lass wailed loudly at the look of the flaxen-haired doll that fell to her lot. She was afraid to hold it--she wouldn't let anybody else touch it--so she stood it in a corner and squalled at it from a safe distance. When the party was over, an older sister had to carry it for her. I suspect she much preferred her native dolls. After the tree was bare, we all went down to the Fred Harvey Recreation Room and danced the rest of the evening away. I could hardly wait for morning to go for a ride on Tar Baby. Ranger West brought him down to the house to saddle him. While I dressed up in my new boots I overheard the conversation between the ranger and the horse. It was a rather one-sided talk, but quite interesting. "Whoa there, Tar Baby!" very firmly and casually. "Stand still now!" "Hey, now, you black devil, don't you try bitin' me again! Yes, he's a nice baby horse," this last remark quite saccharine. A slight silence fell while the cinches were being tightened, then--heels beating a tune on the side of the shed, and sultry, sulphuric remarks being fitted to the tune. About that time I was ready to go out. "Have any trouble with Tar Baby?" "No, oh, no. None whatever. Ready to go?" Every morning as soon as I was in the saddle we had the same argument. Would he go where and as fast as I desired, or would he run as fast and as far as he pleased? Sore wrists and a strained disposition were the price I paid for winning the battle. He just went wild if he could race with another horse. Of course White Mountain put his foot down on such racing, and since the rangers were such good sports their Chief never learned that racing was part of the daily program! One day, when some of the Washington officials were there, the Chief borrowed Tar Baby to ride. He said it took him half a day to get him to stay on the ground with the other horses. He came home fully determined that I must trade my Christmas gift for a more sensible horse. Tears and coaxing availed nothing, but I did win his consent to one more ride before I gave him up. Ranger West was going to ride the drift fence and I started out with him. Tar Baby was a handful that day, and I was having all I could do to control him. We passed a bunch of tourists having lunch out of paper sacks, and one of the men had a wonderful idea. He said something to the others, and while they giggled he blew one of the bags full of air and exploded it right under my horse. Of course Tar Baby bolted, and even as he ran away I admired his ability to keep ahead of Ranger West, who was running full tilt after us. It was five minutes before I could get the bit out of his teeth and bring the spade device into play. I had to choke him into submission. Ranger West and Ranger Fisk conducted those tourists out of the Park, and they had to leave without seeing the Canyon. "Ve drove here from New York to see this Canyon," one complained, and made wide gestures with both hands. "It wouldn't do you any good to see it," Ranger West told him grimly. "You'd probably push somebody over the edge to have a little fun." I was sure the Chief would take Tar Baby away after that. But I guess he thought if the horse hadn't killed me with such a good chance as he had, I was safe. He never said another word about selling him. Several Indians were camped around in the woods near the Park, and we visited them quite often. An Indian has as many angles in his makeup as a centipede has legs. Just about the time you think you have one characteristically placed, you put your finger down and he isn't there. Charge one with dishonesty, and the next week he will ride a hundred miles to deliver a bracelet you paid for months before. Decide he is cruel and inhuman, and he will spend the night in heart-breaking labor, carrying an injured white man to safety. I suggested hiring a certain Navajo to cut some wood, and was told that he was too lazy to eat what he wanted. In a few days this same brave came to Headquarters with the pelt of a cougar. He had followed the animal sixty miles, tracking it in the snow on foot without a dog to help him. We knew where he took the trail and where it ended. He killed the big cat, skinned it, and carried the pelt back to the Canyon. You won't find many white men with that much grit! A tourist from New York saw the pelt and coveted it. He offered twenty-five dollars. Neewah wanted fifty. The tourist tried to beat him down. There wasn't any argument about it. The whole conversation was a monologue. The Indian saw that the tourist wanted the skin badly, so he just sat and stared into space while the tourist elaborated on how much twenty-five dollars would buy and how little the pelt had cost the Indian! The buck simply sat there until it was about time for the train to pull out, then he picked up the hide and stalked away. Mr. Tourist hastened after him and shelled out fifty pesos. I expect he told the home folks how he shot that panther in self-defense. Ranger West did shoot a big cougar soon afterward. Not in self-defense but in revenge. Not many deer lived on the South Rim then. That was before the fawns were brought by airplane across the Canyon! The few that were there were cherished and protected in every possible way. A salt pen was built so high the cattle couldn't get in, and it was a wonderful sight to see the graceful deer spring over that high fence with seemingly no effort at all. Ranger West came in one morning with blood in his eye--one of his pets had been dragged down under the Rim and half devoured by a giant cougar. A hunt was staged at once. I was told to stay at home, but that didn't stop me from going. Ranger Fisk always saddled Tar Baby for me when everybody else thought it best to leave me behind. So I wasn't far away when the big cat was treed by the dogs. He sat close to the trunk of the dead tree, defying the dogs and spitting at them until they were almost upon him. Then he sprang up the tree and lay stretched out on a limb snarling until a rifle ball brought him down. He hit the ground fighting, and ripped the nose of an impetuous puppy wide open. Another shot stretched him out. He measured eight feet from tip to tip. His skin was tanned by an Indian and adorns a bench in the Ranger Office. [Illustration] _Chapter VIII: THE DAY'S WORK_ The snow had been tumbling down every day for weeks, until several feet lay on the ground. After each storm the rangers took snow plows and cleared the roads along the Rim, but the rest of our little world lay among big snow drifts. As we walked around among the houses, only our heads and shoulders showed above the snow. It was like living in Alaska. The gloomy days were getting monotonous, and when the Chief announced he was going to make an inspection trip over Tonto Trail, I elected myself, unanimously, to go along. "But it's cold riding down there, even if there is no snow," protested White Mountain. "And, besides, your horse is lame." "Well, it isn't exactly hot up here, and I'll borrow Dixie. I'm going!" Ranger West obligingly lent Dixie to me and I went. The thermometer registered well below zero when we started down Bright Angel Trail. On account of the icy trail my descent threatened to be a sudden one. Dixie slid along stiff-legged, and I was half paralyzed with fright and cold. But every time the Chief looked back, I pulled my frozen features into what I considered a cheerful smile. I got more and more scared as we went farther down, and finally had a brilliant idea. "My feet are awfully cold, and couldn't I walk a while?" The Chief had probably heard that same excuse from a thousand others, but he gravely assented and helped me dismount. I started down the trail leading Dixie. My feet really were so cold they were numb. This was probably a mercy, since Dixie kept stepping on them! I began to run to "keep out from in under," and she kept pace until we were almost galloping down the trail. When we got below the snow line, my excuse wouldn't work, and I had to ride again. There was sagebrush and sand and cactus. Then sand and cactus and sagebrush. Here and there we saw a lop-eared burro, and far away I saw an eagle sailing around. Having nothing else to do I counted the burros we passed--seventy. A bunch grazing near the trail looked interesting, so I made a careful approach and took their picture. Of course I forgot to roll the film, and a little later Friend Husband decided to photograph the enormous pillar that gives the name to Monument Creek. The result was rather amazing when we developed the film a week later. The wild burros were grazing placidly on the summit of a barren rock, a couple of hundred feet in the air, without visible means of ascent or descent. The Chief made a few sarcastic remarks about this picture, but I firmly reminded him my burros were there first! He didn't say anything else--aloud. It took a long day's riding to reach Hermit's Camp just at dusk. We were warmly welcomed by a roaring fire and hot supper. After I ate and then sat a while I was too stiff to move. I knew I would stay awake all night and nurse my aches. That, added to my fear of "phoby cats," made me reluctant to retire. What's a hydrophobia cat? I don't know for sure that it's anything, but the camp man told me to keep my door locked or one would sneak in and bite me. He also said that I would go crazy if one chewed on me. I intended to keep at least one ear cocked for suspicious noises; but when I hit the cot everything was a blank until I heard the Chief making a fire in the little tin stove. "Wake up and get dressed. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes, and I want you to walk down to the creek and see the trout." "Walk?" I never expected even to crawl again. Sore! Stiff!! I labored all of ten minutes trying to get my boots on. And I had to ride up Hermit Trail that day. I was glad to ride. I never mentioned walking to warm my feet. The trail wound up and up. Today I slid down on Dixie's tail, whereas yesterday I had braced my heels against her ears. A young snowslide came down the mountainside, and we almost went on with it. It missed us by such a very slight margin that fugitive snowballs rolled around Dixie's feet and left her trembling and cringing with fright. Dixie and I had been loitering quite a distance behind, because White Mountain had made us a little mad about something; but we decided we really had no right to be killed without letting him know about it, and we kept close to his heels the rest of the way. All too soon we reached near-zero weather again. It got zero, then zero-er, and quickly zero-est. I thought of all the hot things I could remember, endeavoring to raise the temperature. Real chili con carne. Pennsylvania Avenue in August. Hornet stings. Spankings sustained in my youth! It was useless. I couldn't qualify as a Scientist. Maybe I lacked concentration, for between looking out for another avalanche and wondering how soon I could decently ask for another cup of coffee from the thermos bottle, my thoughts wandered. Perhaps the Chief was cold, too. Anyway, we stopped at Santa Maria Spring and spread out our lunch. The quaint little shelter over the spring was being rapidly covered with Boston ivy. White Mountain said Earl Shirley used to ride down there twice a week after a hard day's work to water the newly set plants so they would grow. One is always learning new things about Western men! It was mighty good to find Ranger Fisk at the top of the trail. He said he thought I would be cold and tired so he brought a flivver to take me the remaining six miles in to Headquarters. He had the house warm and had melted snow for drinking-water. All the water pipes had frozen while we were gone, and I washed my face with cold cream for several days. I hadn't more than settled down comfortably when the Chief found it necessary to make another trip down. When he mentioned going I played the piano so loud I couldn't hear him. I had no desire to go. Not while I could sit in my warm house and read and sew in my comfortable rocking chair. It was without a single qualm that I waved him a floury adieu from the midst of cookie-making. I closed the door and went back to my baking, which was abruptly terminated by a blazing board falling into the crock of dough. The house was burning over my luckless head. I turned around and around a few times in the same spot, then tried to throw a bucket of water up against the ceiling. Had I been the conflagration it would have ended then and there, for I was thoroughly drenched. Failing to be my own fire engine I ran out and happened to see Ranger Winess crossing the road. He must have been startled at my war whoop, for he came running. By that time the smoke was rolling out through the roof. While he climbed into the loft and tore pieces of blazing boards away, I gave the emergency call by telephone, and soon we had plenty of help. After the fire was conquered, I went to the hotel and stayed until the Chief got back. The months from Christmas to April are the dullest at Grand Canyon. Of course tourists still come but not in the numbers milder weather brings. There is little or no automobile travel coming in from the outside world. Very few large groups or conventions come except in June, which seems to be the month for brides and large parties. That left the ranger family more time for play, especially in the evenings, and we had jolly parties in our big living-room. The piano was the drawing card, and combined with Ranger Winess' large guitar manufactured strange music. When the other rangers joined in and sang they managed to make quite a racket. Perhaps the songs they sang would not have met with enthusiasm in select drawing-rooms, but they had a charm for all that. Cowboy songs, sea chanties, and ballads many years old were often on call. Kipling's poems, especially "I Learned about Women from Her" were prime favorites. I soon learned to take my sewing close to the fire and sit there quietly a few minutes in order to be forgotten. There are realms of masculine pleasure into which no mere woman should intrude. Besides that, I never could negotiate the weird crooks and turns they gave to their tunes. Every time an old favorite was sung, it developed new twists and curves. Ranger Winess would discover a heretofore unknown chord on his guitar: "Get that one, boys. That's a wicked minor!" Then for the ensuing five minutes, agonizing wails shattered the smoke screen while they were on the trail of that elusive minor. I had one set rule regarding their concerts--positively no lighted cigarettes were to be parked on my piano! One song Ranger Winess always rendered as a solo, because all the others enjoyed hearing it too much to join in with him: OLD ROANEY I was hangin' 'round the town, and I didn't have a dime. I was out of work and loafin' all the time. When up stepped a man, and he said, "I suppose You're a bronco-buster. I can tell by your clothes." Well, I thought that I was, and I told him the same. I asked him if he had any bad ones to tame? "I have an old pony what knows how to buck; At stacking up cowboys he has all the luck."' I asked him what'd he pay if I was to stay And ride his old pony around for a day. "I'll give you ten dollars;" I said, "That's my chance," Throwed my saddle in the buckboard and headed for the ranch. Got up next morning, and right after chuck Went down to the corral to see that pony buck. He was standin' in the corner, standin' all alone---- That pig-eyed pony, a strawberry roan! Little pin ears that were red at the tip; The X-Y-Z was stamped on his hip. Narrow in the chest, with a scar on his jaw, What all goes with an old outlaw! First came the bridle, then there was a fight; But I throwed on my saddle and screwed it down tight, Stepped to his middle, feelin' mighty fine, Said: "Out of the way, boys, watch him unwind!" Well, I guess Old Roaney sure unwound; Didn't spend much of his time on the ground! Went up in the East, come down in the West---- Stickin' to his middle, I was doin' my best! He went in the air with his belly to the sun The old sun-fishin' son-of-a-gun! Lost both the stirrups and I lost my hat Reached for the horn, blinder than a bat. Then Old Roaney gently slid into high, Left me sittin' on nothin' but the sky. There ain't no cowboy who is alive Can ride Old Roaney when he makes his high dive! When the piano player stopped and Frank struck a few soft chords on his guitar I knew they were getting sentimental. Pretty soon someone would begin to hum: "When the dew is on the rose, and the world is all repose." ... Those rangers lived close to danger and hardships every day, but they had more real sentiment in their makeup than any type of men I know. Maybe it's because women are so scarce around them that they hold all womanhood in high regard. Most of them dreamed of a home and wife and children, but few of them felt they had a right to ask a woman to share their primitive mode of living. They might not jump up to retrieve a dropped handkerchief, or stand at attention when a woman entered a room, but in their hearts they had a deep respect for every woman that showed herself worthy. Now and then, a certain son of Scotland, Major Hunter Clarkson, dropped in. He was a real musician, and while I sewed and the Chief smoked he treated us to an hour of true melody. He used to play the bagpipes at home with his four brothers, he said, and he admitted that at times the racket they made jarred his mother's china from the shelves! He had served with the British forces in Egypt, and if he could have known how interested we were in his experiences, he would have given us more than a bare hint of the scenes that were enacted during the defense of the Dardanelles and the entrance into Jerusalem. One night he was telling us something about the habits of the Turks they fought, when the telephone rang and interrupted the narrative, which was never finished. The Chief had to go and investigate an attempted suicide. It seemed that a lad under twenty, in Cleveland, had seen on a movie screen a picture of Grand Canyon. He tucked that vision away somewhere in his distorted brain, and when he had his next quarrel with his mother he gathered together all his worldly wealth and invested it in a ticket to Grand Canyon. There he intended to end his troubles, and make his mother sorry she hadn't sewed on a button the instant he had asked her to! That was a touching scene he pictured to himself--his heart-broken mother weeping with remorse because her son had jumped into the Canyon. But! When he reached the Rim and looked over, it was a long way to the bottom, and there were sharp rocks there. Perhaps no one would ever find him, and what's the use of killing one's self if nobody knows about it? Something desperate had to be done, however, so he shot himself where he fancied his heart was located (he hit his stomach, which was a pretty close guess) with a cheap pistol he carried, hurled the gun into the Canyon, and started walking back to Headquarters. He met Ranger Winess making a patrol and reported to him that he had committed suicide! Rangers West and Winess took care of him through the night, with Nurse Catti's supervision, and the next day the Chief took him to Flagstaff, where the bullet was removed and he was returned to his mother a sadder and a wiser boy. There is some mysterious power about the Canyon that seems to make it impossible for a person to face the gorge and throw himself into it. A young man, immensely wealthy, brought his fiancée to the Canyon for a day's outing. At Williams, where they had lunch, he proposed that she go on to the Coast with him, but she refused, saying that she thought it was not the thing to do, since her mother expected her back home that night. He laughed and scribbled something on a paper which he tucked carelessly into a pocket of his overcoat. They went on to the Canyon and joined a party that walked out beyond Powell's Monument. He walked up to the Rim and stared into the depths, then turned facing his sweetheart. "Take my picture," he shouted; and while she bent over the kodak, he uttered a prayer, threw his arms up, and leaped _backward_ into the Canyon. He had not been able to face it and destroy the life God had given him. Hours later rangers recovered his body, and in his pocket found the paper on which he had written: "You wouldn't go with me to Los Angeles, so it's goodbye!" Ranger West came in one day and told me that there was a lot of sickness among the children at an Indian encampment a few miles from Headquarters. I rode out with him to see what was the matter and found that whooping-cough was rampant. For some reason, even though it was a very severe winter, the Supai Indians had come up from their home in Havasu Canyon, "Land of the Sky-Blue Water," made famous by Cadman, and were camped among the trees on a hillside. The barefoot women and dirty children were quite friendly, but the lazy, filthy bucks would have been insolent had I been alone. They lolled in the "hewas," brush huts daubed with mud, while the women dragged in wood and the children filled sacks with snow to melt for drinking purposes. To be sure they didn't waste any of it in washing themselves. They would not let me doctor the children, and several of them died; but we could never find where they were buried. It is a custom of that tribe to bury its members with the right arm sticking up out of the ground. In case it is a lordly man that has passed to the Happy Hunting Ground his pony is shot and propped upright beside the grave with the reins clutched in the dead master's hand. I thought I might be able to reach a better understanding with the women if the men were not present, so I told them to bring all the baskets they made to my house and I would look at them and buy some of them. Beautiful baskets were brought by the older squaws, and botched-up shabby ones by the younger generation. Sometimes a sick child would be brought by the mother, but there was little I could do for it outside of giving it nourishing food. An Indian's cure-all is castor oil. He will drink quarts of that if he can obtain it. The Supai women are without dignity or appeal, and I never formed the warm friendships with them that I did with women of other tribes. They begged for everything in sight. One fat old squaw coveted a yellow evening gown she saw in my closet; I gave it to her, also a discarded garden hat with big yellow roses on it. She draped the gown around her bent shoulders and perched the hat on top of her gray tangled hair and went away happier than Punch. In a few minutes a whole delegation of squaws arrived to see what they could salvage. Wattahomigie, their chief, and Dot, his wife, are far superior to the rest of the tribe, and when it was necessary to have any dealing with their people the Chief acted through Wattahomigie. He had often begged us to visit their Canyon home, and we promised to go when we could. He came strutting into our house one summer day and invited us to accompany him home, as the season of peaches and melons was at its height. He had been so sure we would go that he left orders for members of the tribe to meet us at Hilltop where the steep trail begins. We listened to him. [Illustration] _Chapter IX: THE DOOMED TRIBE_[1] Wattahomigie reminded us the next morning that we had promised to go with him, so we rushed around and in an hour were ready to follow his lead. It's a long trail, winding through forest and desert, up hill and down, skirting sheer precipices and creeping through tunnels. And at the end of the trail one stumbles upon the tiny, hidden village where the last handful of a once powerful nation has sought refuge. Half-clad, half-fed, half-wild, one might say, they hide away there in their poverty, ignorance, and superstition. But oh, the road one must travel to reach them! I hadn't anticipated Arizona trails when I so blithely announced to White Mountain, "Whither thou goest, I will go." Neither had I slept in an Indian village when I added, "And where thou lodgest, I will lodge." We loaded our camp equipment into the Ford, tied a canvas bag of water where it would be air-cooled, strapped a road-building shovel on the running-board, and were on our way. The first few miles led through forests of piñon and pine. Gradually rising, we reached the desert, where only cactus, sagebrush, and yucca grew. As far as we could see the still, gray desert lay brooding under the sun's white glare. Surely no living thing could exist in that alkali waste. But look! An ashen-colored lizard darts across the trail, a sage rabbit darts behind a yucca bush, and far overhead a tireless buzzard floats in circles. Is he keeping a death watch on the grizzled old "Desert Rat" we pass a little later? His face burned and seamed with the desert's heat and storms, the old prospector cheerfully waved at us, as he shared his beans and sour dough with a diminutive burro, which bore his master's pack during the long search through the trackless desert for the elusive gold. For us it would be suicide to leave the blazed trail. The chances are that the circling buzzard and hungry coyotes will be the only mourners present at his funeral. Now and then we passed a twisted, warped old juniper that was doubtless digging for a foothold while Christ walked on earth. The Chief said these old junipers vie with the Sequoias in age. Nothing else broke the monotony of the heat and sand, until we came to the first water hole. It was dry now, for the summer rains were long overdue, and bogged firmly in the red adobe mud was a gaunt long-horned cow. The Chief was too tender-hearted to shoot her and drive on, as he knew he should. Instead he stopped the car and got out to see if he could possibly "extract" her. Failing to frighten her into pulling herself out, he goaded her into a frenzy by throwing sharp stinging rocks at her. One landed on her tender flank and she tossed her horns and struggled. The Chief stooped, with his back to her, for another rock, just as she pulled out. "Look out. She's coming for you!" I yelled. Straight at her rescuer she charged with an angry rumble. Round and round a stunted piñon they raced, hot and angry. I was too helpless with mirth to be of any aid, and the Chief's gun was in the car. Still, an angry range cow on the prod is no joke, and it began to look serious. At last the impromptu marathon ended by the Chief making an extra sprint and rolling into the Ford just as her sharp horns raked him fore and aft. "Well!" he exploded, and glared at me while I wiped the tears out of my eyes. "Shall we drive on?" I inquired meekly. We drove on. A few miles along the way a piteous bawling reached us. Since even Arizona cattle must drink sometimes, a cow had hidden her baby while she went to a distant water hole. Three coyotes had nosed him out and were preparing to fill up on unwilling veal. He bobbed about on his unsteady little legs and protested earnestly. The sneaking beasts scattered at our approach, and we drove on thinking the calf would be all right. Looking back, however, we saw that the coyotes had returned and pulled him down. This time the Chief's forty-five ended the career of one, and the other two shifted into high, getting out of range without delay. The trembling calf was loaded into the machine and we dropped him when the main herd was reached. Here he would be safe from attack, but I have often wondered if the mother found her baby again. At the next water hole a lean lynx circled warily around with his eye fixed hungrily on some wild ducks swimming too far from shore for him to reach. It seemed that the sinister desert mothered cruel breeds. We had reached the "Indian Pasture" now, where the Indians kept their ponies. A score of Supai bucks were digging a shallow ditch. Upon being questioned they said the ditch was a mile long and would carry water to the big dam in their pasture when the rains fell. They were finishing the ditch just in time, for the first of the season's storms was closing down upon us. There was an ominous stillness, then the black cloud was rent with tongues of flame. And the rains descended--more than descended. They beat and dashed and poured until it seemed that the very floodgates of heaven had opened over our unfortunate heads. It was impossible to stay in the glue-and-gumbo road, so we took to the open prairie. Since this part of the country is well ventilated with prairie-dog holes, we had anything but smooth sailing. "Stop," I shouted, trying to make myself heard above the roar of the storm. "No time to stop now," was the answer. We pulled under a sheltering juniper and slowed up. "What did you want to stop there for? Don't you know we have to keep on moving if we reach a shelter tonight?" inquired the pilot of our ship. He had evidently been brooding over my unseemly mirth at the mad cow episode. "Oh, all right," I agreed, "but the bedding-roll bounced out and I thought you might want to pick it up." The fugitive bedding recovered, we resumed our journey. The storm ended as suddenly as everything else happens in that topsy-turvy land and in the eastern sky hung a double quivering rainbow. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. It _was_ double! The Chief explained that this was due to a mirage, but I placed it to the credit of altitude, like all other Arizona wonders. At Hilltop we found Indian guides with trail ponies to take us the rest of the way. They had been waiting two days for us, they said. Strolling to the Canyon's brink I encountered a fearful odor. "What in the world is that?" I asked Wattahomigie (which by the way means "Good Watchful Indian"). "Him pony," was the stolid reply. "But--?" "Buck and fall over trail," explained my Indian brave. I fled to the Chief for comfort and change of air. He investigated and found that when Wattahomigie had brought the ponies up from the village one had become unruly and pitched over the Rim, landing squarely across the trail a hundred feet below. It was the only trail, but it never occurred to the Noble Red Man to remove the dead horse. No indeed! If it proved impossible to get around the obstacle, why, stay off the trail until Providence cleared the way. In other words let Nature take its course. The Chief procured a few pounds of TNT from the Government warehouse located there, and with the aid of that soon cleared the trail. "That good way to clear trail," approved Wattahomigie. "No pull, no dig, no nothin'." I hoped no TNT would be left roaming at large for promiscuous experiments by Wattahomigie while we were natives of his village. We camped there at Hilltop that night, and after a supper of fried sage-rabbit, corn cakes, and coffee, I rolled into the blankets and fell asleep without worrying about the morrow. Something awakened me. I certainly _had_ heard something. Inch by inch I silently lifted myself from the blankets and peered into the shadows. Standing there like a graven image was a beautiful doe with twin fawns playing around her. Curiosity had conquered caution and she was investigating our camp. Just then a coyote's wild cry sounded from the distance. She lifted her sensitive nose and sniffed the air, then wheeled and glided into the deep shadows. Other coyote voices swelled the chorus. Hundreds it seemed were howling and shrieking like mad, when I dropped to sleep to dream I was listening to grand opera at the Metropolitan. Morning dawned clear and crisp. "Will it rain today?" I asked an Indian. "No rain; three sleeps, then rain," he told me; and this proved correct. Wattahomigie had provided a long-legged race horse for me to ride. "Will he carry her all right?" the Chief asked him. Wattahomigie looked me over carefully and one could almost see him comparing me mentally with a vision of his fat squaw, Dottie. His white teeth flashed a smile: "Sure, my squaw him all time ride that pony." That settled the matter. "Him squaw" weighs a good two hundred pounds and is so enveloped in voluminous skirts that the poor horse must feel completely submerged. This trail does not gradually grow steeper--it starts that way. I had been told that all other trails we had traveled were boulevards compared to this one, and it was well that I had been warned beforehand. My place was near the center of the caravan, and I was divided between the fear that I should slide down on top of the unwary Indian riding ahead and the one that the Chief's horse directly behind would bump me off the trail. It was a cheerful situation. The Canyon walls closed in upon us, and the trail grew worse, if that could be possible. The firm rock gave way to shale that slipped and slid under the feet of the horses. It was so narrow that one slip of a hoof would send the horse crashing on the rocks hundreds of feet beneath. Still this is the only path it has been possible to make down to the Indian retreat. It was carved out by a past generation when they crept down into the valley far below to make their last futile stand. We rounded a point and came out near a sparkling pool of clear, inviting water fed by a stream bursting out of what appeared to be solid rock. I knelt to drink, but was jerked to my feet sharply by a watchful Indian. The water is unfit to drink on account of the arsenic it contains. I noticed that none of the hot, tired horses even dipped their dusty noses into the pool. Safely away from this unhealthy spot we came into Rattlesnake Canyon, so named for obvious reasons, where the riding was much easier. Twelve miles onward and two thousand feet farther down found us among bubbling springs and magnificent cotton woods. This is where the Thousand Springs come into the sunlight after their rushing journey through many miles of underground caverns. New springs broke out from the roots of the trees and along the banks of the stream until it was a rushing little river. We were evidently expected, for when we reached the village the natives all turned out to see and be seen: brown children as innocent of clothing as when they first saw the light; fat, greasy squaws with babies on their backs; old men and women--all stared and gibbered at us. "Big Jim" and "Captain Burros" headed what seemed to be the committee of welcome. Big Jim was clad in a full-dress suit and silk hat donated to him by Albert, King of the Belgians, and with that monarch's medal of honor pinned to his front, Jim was, speaking conservatively, a startling vision. Captain Burros wore the white shirt of ceremony which he dons only for special occasions, with none of the whiteness dimmed by being tucked into his trousers. Big Jim welcomed us gravely, asking the Chief: "Did you bring my _fermit_?" This permit, a paper granting Big Jim a camping location on Park grounds, having been duly delivered, Jim invited us to share his hewa, but after one look at the surroundings we voted unanimously to camp farther up the stream among the cottonwoods. We chose a level spot near the ruins of an old hewa. While supper was being prepared an aged squaw tottered into camp and sat down. She wailed and beat her breast and finally was persuaded to tell her troubles. It seemed that she and her husband had lived in this hewa until his death a year or two before. Then the hewa was thrown open to the sky and abandoned, as is their custom. She disliked to mention his name because he might hear it in the spirit world and come back to see what was being said about him. "Don't you want him to come back?" I asked idly, thinking to tease her. Her look of utter terror was answer enough and shamed me for my thoughtlessness. These Indians have a most exaggerated fear of death. When one dies he and his personal belongings are taken to a wild spot and there either cremated or covered with stones. No white man has ever been permitted to enter this place of the dead. Any hour of the day or night that a white man approaches, an Indian rises apparently from out of the earth and silently waves him away. Until a few years ago the best horse of the dead Indian was strangled and sent into the Happy Hunting Ground with its owner, but with the passing of the older generation this custom has been abandoned. From a powerful and prosperous tribe of thousands this nation has dwindled down to less than two hundred wretched weaklings. Driven to this canyon fastness from their former dwelling-place by more warlike tribes, they have no coherent account of their wanderings or their ancestors. About all they can tell is that they once lived in cliff dwellings; that other Indians drove them away; and that then Spaniards and grasping whites pushed them nearer and nearer the Canyon until they descended into it, seeking refuge. They are held in low esteem by all other Indian tribes and never marry outside of their own people. Ridiculous and unreasonable tales about their savage customs have kept timid explorers at a safe distance, and thus little has been learned about them. This last fragment will pass away within a few years and all trace will be lost. Tuberculosis claims a dozen yearly; the children are weaklings from diseased parents and the result of intermarriage, so they fall victims of comparatively harmless ailments. A few years ago an epidemic of measles swept through the tribe. Poor ignorant creatures, trying to cool the burning fever they spent hours bathing in the cold waters of the stream flowing through the village. More than eighty died in one week from the effects, and others that lived through it are invalids. This was almost too much for their superstitious minds. They were for fleeing from that accursed place, but the old men said: "Where can we go? We have no other place but this. Let us wait here for death." So they spent hours in dancing and ceremonies to appease the angry gods. They have no favoring gods, only evil spirits which they must outwit or bribe with dances. The Peach Dance which we had gone to see was for the purpose of celebrating good crops of melons, corn, and other products and to implore the mercy of harmful powers during the winter months. After the sun was out of sight we followed Wattahomigie to the scene of the dance. There was no other light than that of the brush fires. A huge circle of howling, chanting Indians had formed a wide ring in which a dozen or more bucks and as many squaws were gathered. There seemed to be no prearranged procedure. When one of the dancers would feel so inclined, he, or she, would start a wild screeching and leaping about. This would continue until the singer ran out of breath. Occasionally a squaw would grow so enthused she would be quite overcome with emotion and fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth. No notice would be taken except to grab her by the hair and drag her to the edge of the circle. The dance lasted until the gray dawn and was the most ghastly and weird experience I ever went through. All I can compare it to is the nightmare I used to have after too much mince pie. Safely back at our camp with a brisk fire crackling under a pot of coffee, I began to throw off the shivering sensation, and by the time the coffee pot was empty I was ready for new adventures. Word had gone forth that I would buy all the baskets the squaws brought to me. I hoped in this way to get some first-hand information about the feminine side of affairs. Squaws and baskets and information poured in. Baskets of all sizes and shapes were brought, some good, some bad, but I bought them all. If I hesitated a moment over one the owner put the price down to a few cents. Just a dime or two for a whole week's work. Time has no value to them, and the creek banks are covered with the best willows in the world for basket-making. The basket-making art is the only talent these squaws have, while the bucks excel in tanning buckskin and other skins. These they trade to the Navajo Indians for silver and blankets. Then they race their ponies or gamble for the ownership of the coveted blankets. How they do love to gamble! Horses, blankets, squaws--anything and everything changes hands under the spell of the magic cards. Even the squaws and children gamble for beads and bright-colored calico. When a few pieces of real money are at stake, all is wild excitement. How the black eyes snap, and how taut is every nerve! Their hewas are merely shelters of willow, and there is absolutely no privacy about anything. Yet they are neither immoral nor unmoral. The girls all marry very young. At the age of twelve or thirteen the girl is chosen by some brave, who bargains with the father for her. A pony or its value in buckskin will buy almost any father's favorite daughter. But the girl is not forced to go with a lover whom she does not approve. The marriage ceremony is not elaborate; after all preliminaries are disposed of, the would-be bridegroom takes his blanket and moves into the hewa of the girl's people. If two or three moons pass without any quarrels between the young people, they move into a hewa of their own, and thus it is known that they are married. Divorce is just as simple; he merely sends her back to her father. An Indian brave of the Supai tribe can have as many wives as he can buy according to the tribal law. But since there is only about one squaw to every three braves, a man is lucky to have any wife, and divorce is rare. When two or more braves center their affections on one fair damsel, things are likely to happen. But three Indian judges solemnly sit in council and settle the question. Their solution is usually final, although two or three disgruntled braves have journeyed to our home at El Tovar sixty miles away to appeal to White Mountain for aid. The valley is fertile, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables thrive. In fact the natives live on what they raise in their haphazard way. They have a rude system of irrigation which carries water to every little garden. One other thing grows in abundance there--dogs! Such a flock of surly, mangy mongrels one would have to travel far to find. I don't know what they live on, for I never saw one of them being fed. "Big sing tonight," said one of the squaws squatting by our campfire. "What is a sing, Dottie?" "Much sing and dance. Medicine man drive away bad spirit from blind man." Of course we were present at the "sing," although I would never have called it that. An old half-blind Indian afflicted with granulated eyelids was the victim. The night was chilly, but he was clothed only in a look of resignation. The medicine man had a shot-filled gourd, a bunch of dried herbs, and an unlimited capacity for howling. First of all the patient was given a "sweat bath." He was put into a little teepee made of willows closely covered with burlap. Hot rocks were introduced and a pan of water thrown on them. More rocks and more water went inside until the poor Indian could stand it no longer. He came forth choking and gasping with the perspiration running from him. Buckets of cold water were then dashed over him and the medicine man got busy beating him over the head with the bunch of herbs, keeping up an unearthly screeching. This would last until morning, they said, but my interest flagged just about the time the priest found his second wind, and I retired. Five beautiful waterfalls are scattered down the valley, and I was most anxious to visit these. For some reason Wattahomigie hung back and we had trouble in persuading him to take us there. He reluctantly accompanied us when he saw we intended to go either with him or without. His attitude was explained when we were well along the trail; some freak of formation has made great sounding boxes of the Canyon, and these gather the noises of the water and the wind and return them again in shrieks of demoniacal laughter, barking of dogs, and sounds of talking and singing. It is startling to say the least, and no amount of explaining would convince Wattahomigie that it is not the revel hall of departed Indian spirits. The sun is lost there at midday, and darkness settles down soon after. We camped at Mooney Falls that night, so called on account of an adventurous prospector of that name losing his life by falling over the ledge there. It took ten months for his comrades to get equipment together and recover his body, which they buried at the foot of the falls. This place naturally holds no attraction for our Indian friends, and we had literally to push them from under our feet. They almost sat in the campfire, so determined were they to stay near us. The next day we started to Hilltop, with Big Jim and his squaw with us as an escort of honor. Jim rode serenely along, while Mary trudged after on foot. "Jim," said the Chief, "how is it that you ride and Mary walks?" Jim's voice was reproachfully astonished that anyone could be so dense: "Mary, she no got um horse!" The Indians gathered to see us off. I looked at the faces before me. Even the babies seemed hopeless and helpless. It is a people looking backward down the years with no thought of the morrow. "Can't you get them to be more hopeful or cheerful? Won't they even try to help themselves?" I asked Wattahomigie in desperation. He sadly shook his head. "No help," he said; "plenty for today, maybe no tomorrow." And maybe he's right. Not many more morrows for that doomed tribe. [Illustration] _Chapter X: WHERE THEY DANCE WITH SNAKES_[2] A few days after our visit to Supai, Ranger Fisk dropped in. "Going to the Snake Dance?" he asked me. "What's a Snake Dance, and where is it?" "Oh, it's over in the Hopi Reservation, and the crazy redskins hop around with rattlesnakes in their mouths so it'll rain." "I don't believe _that_. I'm going over and ask Joe about it," I replied, indignant that Charlie would try to tell me anything so improbable. I returned pretty soon from my visit to Joe, who is Chief of the Hopi Indians. He made his home with the Spencers at the Hopi House, and we were tried and true friends. "What did he say?" Both the Chief and Ranger Fisk hurled the question at me. "He said rattlesnakes are their brothers and they carry messages to the rain gods telling them of the need for rain in Hopi land. He didn't want to tell me much about it. White Mountain, let's go. _Please!_" So we went. But before we started I managed to gather a little more information about the yearly ceremony that is held in the Painted Desert country. Joe told me that the Government at Washington was opposed to their Snake Dance. He told me to bear in mind that water is the very breath of life to the desert dwellers, and that while his people did not like to oppose the agents placed there by the Government they certainly intended to continue their dance. We loaded the flivver with food and water, since we knew our welcome would be a shade warmer if we did not draw on the meager water supply in the Reservation. We dropped down to Flagstaff, and there on every street corner and in every store and hotel the Hopi Snake Dance was the main subject of conversation. It seemed that everybody was going! We left the main road there and swung off across the desert for the Hopi villages, built high on rocky mesas overlooking the surrounding country. It was delightful during the morning coolness, but all too soon the sun enveloped us. We met two or three Navajo men on their tough little ponies, but they were sullen and refused to answer my waves to them. While we repaired a puncture, a tiny Navajo girl in her full calico skirt and small velvet basque drove her flock of sheep near and shyly watched us. I offered her an apple and she shied away like a timid deer. But candy was too alluring. She crept closer and closer, and then I got sorry for her and placed it on a rock and turned my back. She lost no time in grabbing the sweet and darting back to her flock. The road was badly broken up with coulees and dry washes that a heavy rain would turn into embryo Colorados. I found myself hoping that the Snake Dance prayer for rain would not "take" until we were safely back over this road. Evening found us encamped at the foot of the high mesa upon which was built the Hopi village where the dance would be held this year. Close beside was the water hole that furnished the population with a scant supply. It was a sullen, dripping, seeping spring that had nothing in common with our gushing, singing springs of the Southern mountains. The water was caught in a scooped-out place under the cliff, crudely walled in with stones to keep animals away. Some stray cattle, however, had passed the barrier and perished there, for their bones protruded from the soft earth surrounding the pool. It was not an appetizing sight. Rude steps were cut in the rocky trail leading to the pueblo dwellings above two miles away, from whence came the squaws with big ollas to carry the water. This spring was the gossiping ground for all the female members of the mesa. They met there and laughed and quarreled and slandered others just as we white women do over a bridge table. I found myself going to sleep with my supper untasted, and leaving White Mountain to tidy up I went to bed with the sand for a mattress and the stars for a roof. Some time in the night I roused sufficiently to be glad that all stray rattlers, bull snakes, and their ilk were securely housed in the kivas being prayed over by the priests. At dawn we awakened to see half a score of naked braves dash by and lose themselves in the blue-shadowed distance. While we had breakfast I spoke of the runners. "Yes," said the Chief, "they are going out to collect the rattlesnakes." "Collect the rattlesnakes! Haven't they been garnered into the fold yet?" "No, today they will be brought from the north, tomorrow from the west, next day from the south, and last from the east." He glanced at me. "Provided, of course, that they don't show up here of their own accord. I _have_ heard that about this time of year every snake within a radius of fifty miles starts automatically for the Snake Dance village." "Well, _I_ shall sleep in the car tomorrow night and the next night and the next one, too." "Where will you sleep tonight?" "I'll not sleep. I intend to sit on top of the machine and see if any snakes do come in by themselves. Not that I'm afraid of snakes," I hastened to add; "but I'd hate to delay any pious-minded reptile conscientiously bent on reaching the scene of his religious duties." We solved the difficulty by renting a room in one of the pueblo houses. We followed the two-mile trail up the steep cliff to Walpi and found ourselves in a human aerie. Nobody knows how many centuries have passed since this tribe first made their home where we found them now. Living as they do in the very heart of a barren, arid waste, they control very little land worth taking from them and have therefore been unmolested longer than they otherwise would have been. They invite little attention from tourists except during the yearly ceremonial that we had come to witness. What _is_ this Snake Dance? The most spectacular and weird appeal to the gods of Nature that has ever been heard of! To gain an understanding of what rain means to these Indians we had only to live in their village the few days preceding the dance. They are compelled to exist on the water from winter's melting snow and the annual summer showers, which they catch in their rude cisterns and water holes. One's admiration for this unconquerable tribe is boundless, as the magnitude of their struggle for existence is comprehended. Choosing the most inaccessible and undesirable region they could find in which to make a determined and successful stand against the Spanish and the hated friars, they have positively subjugated the desert. Its every resource is known and utilized for their benefit. Is there an underground irrigation that moistens the soil, they have searched it out and thrust their seed corn into its fertile depths. The rocks are used to build their houses; the cottonwood branches make ladders and supports for the ceilings; the clay is fashioned into priceless pottery; grasses and fiber from the yucca turn into artistic baskets under their skillful fingers. Every drop of water that escapes from the springs nourishes beans and pumpkins to be stored away for winter use. Practically every plant on the desert is useful to them, either for their own needs or as food for their goats and burros. We knew and were known by many of the younger members of the tribe who had visited at the Grand Canyon, so we found a warm welcome and ready guides in our stroll around the village. The Hopi Indians are friendly and pleasant. They always respond to a greeting with a flashing smile and a cheery wave of the hand. This is not the way the sullen Navajos greet strangers. We saw many of that nomad tribe walking around the Hopi village. They were just as curious as we were about this snake dance. "Do the Navajos believe your dance will make the rain come?" I asked a young Hopi man who was chatting with the Chief. "Oh, yes. They believe." "Well, why don't you Hopis make them pay for their share of the rain you bring. It falls on their Reservation." That was a new thought to the Hopi and we left him staring over the desert, evidently pondering. I hope I didn't plant the seed that will lead to a desert warfare! I watched with fascinated eyes the antics of round, brown babies playing on the three-story housetops. I expected every instant that one would come tumbling off, but nobody else seemed to worry about them. On one housetop an aged Hopi was weaving a woolen dress for his wife. What a strange topsy-turvy land this was--where the men do the weaving and the wives build the houses. For the women do build those houses. They are made from stone brought up from the desert far below, and then they are thickly plastered with a mixture of adobe and water. Many families live in the same pueblo, but there are no openings from one room to another. Each house has its own entrance. There are generally three stories to each pueblo, the second one set back eight or ten feet on the roof of the first, and the third a like distance on the top of the second. This forms a terrace or balcony where many household duties are performed. I noticed that one pueblo was completely fenced in with head and foot pieces of ornate iron beds! Evidently the Government had at some time supplied each family with a bed and they had all passed into the hands of this enterprising landscape engineer. The houses we peeped into were bare of furniture with the exception of a Singer sewing machine. I venture to say there was one in every home up there. Many family groups were eating meals, all sitting in a circle around the food placed in dishes on the floor. It was difficult to see what they were serving, on account of the swarms of flies that settled on everything around. I saw corn on the ear, and in many places a sort of bean stew. Where there was a baby to be cared for, the oldest woman in the family sat apart and held it while the others ate. One old grandmother called my attention to the child she had on her lap. He was a big-eyed, shrunken mite, strapped flat to his board carrier. The day was broiling hot, but she motioned me to touch his feet. "Sick," she said. His tiny feet were like chunks of ice. It was a plain case of malnutrition, and what could I do to help, in the few days I was to be there? Many of the school boys and girls from boarding-schools were home for vacation, but they knew little or nothing about the meaning of the different dances and ceremonies that were going on in a dozen underground kivas in the village. One pretty maiden with marvelous masses of gleaming black hair volunteered to help us interview her uncle, an old Snake Priest, about his religion. We found "Uncle" lounging in the sunshine, mending his disreputable moccasins. He was not an encouraging subject as he sat there with only a loin cloth by way of haberdashery. He welcomed us as royally, however, as if he wore a king's robes, and listened courteously while the girl explained our errand. If there is a more difficult feat in the world than extracting information from a reluctant Indian I have never come across it. We gave up at last, and waited to see what was going to happen. The exact date of the dance is determined by the Snake Priest, and announced from the housetops nine days before it takes place. The underground "kivas" are filled with the various secret orders, corresponding to our lodges, going through their mystic ceremonies. From the top of the ladder that extends above the kiva opening, a bunch of turkey feathers hung, notifying outsiders that lodge was in session and that no visitors would be welcome. What candles and a cross mean to good Catholics, feathers mean to a Hopi. Flocks of turkeys are kept in the village for the purpose of making "bahos," or prayer sticks. These little pleas to spirits are found stuck all over the place. If a village is particularly blessed, they have a captive eagle anchored to a roof. And this bird is carefully fed and watered in order that its supply of feathers may not fail. Days before the dance, the young men are sent out to bring in the snakes. Armed with a little sacred meal, feathers, a long forked stick, and a stout sack, they go perhaps twenty miles from the village. When a snake is located dozing in the sun, he is first sprinkled with the sacred meal. If he coils and shows fight the ever trusty feather is brought into play. He is stroked and soothed with it, and pretty soon he relaxes and starts to crawl away. Quick as a flash he is caught directly behind the head and tucked away in the sack with his other objecting brethren. Every variety of snake encountered is brought in and placed in the sacred kiva. The legend on which they so firmly base their belief in snake magic is this: An adventurous Hopi went on a journey to find the dwelling-place of the Rain God, so that he might personally present their plea for plenty of showers. He floated down the Colorado until he was carried into the Underworld. There he met with many powerful gods, and finally the Snake God taught him the magic of making the rain fall on Hopi fields. They became fast friends, and when the Hopi returned to his home the Snake God presented him with his two daughters, one for a wife to the Hopi's brother, who belonged to the Antelope Clan, and the other to become his own bride. When the weddings took place all the snake brothers of the brides attended, and a great dance was made in their honor. Since that time a yearly dance and feast is held for the snakes, and they then descend to their Snake God father and tell him the Hopis still need rain. While the men garner snakes and perform in the kivas, the women are not idle. Far from it! Pottery-makers are busy putting the last touches of paint on their pottery, and basket makers add the last row of weaving to the baskets. These wares are displayed in every doorway and window, where they are most likely to catch the tourist eye. The best specimens are not put out for sale. I believe the attitude is, "Why place pearls before swine?" Houses are swept, and new plaster is applied inside and out. The girls chatter over their grinding stones, where they crush the meal for making "piki." Others mix and bake this piki, and it is piled high on flat baskets. It is made of cornmeal and water, and is baked on hot flat stones. The stone is first greased with hot mutton tallow, then the cook dips her fingers into the mixture and with one swift swipe spreads it evenly over the scorching surface. How they escape blistered fingers is always a marvel to me. Squaws are wearily climbing the steep trail with heavy ollas of water on their backs, held there by a shawl knotted around their foreheads. Others pass them going to the spring, where they sit and gossip a while before starting back with their burdens. It takes about the last of the hoarded water to prepare for the dance, since religion demands that every house and street be sprinkled and each and every Hopi must have his yearly bath and shampoo. I found a pretty girl having her hair put up in squash blossoms for the first time. Her mother told me she was ready to choose her husband now, and that the hairdress would notify the young braves to that effect. In Hopi land the girl chooses her own husband, proposes, and then takes him to live in her house. If she tires of him she throws his belongings out, and _he_ "goes back to mother!" After the Snake Dance my little girl would make her choice. I tried to get advance information, but she blushed and giggled like any other flapper. The old men were going to and from the planting grounds, many miles away in the valley. They went at a sort of dog trot, unless one was rich enough to own a burro; in that case it did the dog trotting. After the fields are planted, brush shelters are built and the infirm members of the tribe stay there to protect the fields from rabbits and burros. Who could blame a hungry little burro for making away with a luscious hill of green corn in the midst of a barren desert? And yet if he is caught he has to pay, literally--one of his ears for the ear of corn he has eaten. Very few Hopi burros retain their original couple of ears. The agents say that the time and strength consumed by the Indians in going to and from their fields, and in carrying water up to the village, could better be spent cultivating the crops. Therefore, many attempts have been made to move the Hopis from their lofty homes on the crags to Government houses on the level below. But they steadfastly refuse to be moved. Stand at the mesa edge and look out across the enchanting scene. To the far south the snow-crowned San Francisco peaks rear their lofty heights. To the north and east the sandy desert stretches away in heart-breaking desolation, relieved only by the tiny green patches of peach trees and corn fields. The blazing sun beats down appallingly. A purple haze quivers over the world. But evening comes, and as the sun drops out of sight a pink glow spreads over the eastern sky, giving a soft radiance to the landscape below. Soon this desert glow fades, and shadows creep nearer and nearer, until one seems to be gazing into the sooty depths of a midnight sea. Turn again toward the village. Firelight darts upward and dies to a glow; soft voices murmur through the twilight; a carefree burst of laughter comes from a group of returned school children. It suddenly dawns on one that this is the home of these people, their home as it was their fathers' and their fathers' home before them. They are contented and happy. Why leave their sun-kissed, wind-swept heights, seven thousand feet high, for the scorching desert below? The village was seething at the first hint of dawn on the day of the actual snake dance. Crowding the dizzy mesa edges were masses of Indians and whites drawn there for the ceremony. Somewhere, far below, through the desert dawn, a score of young men were running the grilling race to reach the village. The first to arrive would secure the sacred token bestowed by the Head Priest. This would insure fruitful crops from his planting next year and, perhaps more important, the most popular girl in the village would probably choose him for a husband. We stood near our squash-blossom girl, and the progress of the race was written on her face. I knew her choice was among the runners, and when the first one to arrive darted, panting, up to the priest and grasped the token, I knew who was her choice! The white visitors spent the forenoon strolling around the mesa, tasting Hopi food, feeding candy to the naked, roly-poly babies, or bargaining with visiting Navajos for rugs and silver jewelry. French, Spaniards, Mexicans, Germans, Americans, and Indians jostled each other good-naturedly. Cowboys, school teachers, moving-picture men, reporters, missionaries, and learned doctors were all there. One eminent doctor nudged the Chief gleefully and displayed a small flask he had hidden under his coat. I wondered if he had fortified himself with liquor in case of snakebite. He surely had! And how? He had heard for years of the secret antidote that is prepared by the Snake Priest and his wife, to be used all during the nine days the snakes are being handled. He traveled there from Chicago to secure a sample of that mixture. He found the ready ear of a Hopi youth, who supplied him with a generous sample in return for five dollars. The doctor was satisfied, for the time being, and so was the mischief-loving kid. He told us a few minutes later that he had sold seven such samples on the Q.T. and that he was going to have to mix up another brew! "What are you selling them?" I asked, trying to be as stern as possible. "Water we all washed in," he said, and we both had a good laugh. At noon the snakes were taken from the big jars and washed in other ollas of water. This is a matter of politeness. Since the snake brothers cannot wash themselves, it must be done for them. The middle of the afternoon found the crowd choosing places of vantage for the Snake Dance, which would begin just before sundown and last perhaps half an hour. Owners of houses were charging a dollar a seat on their roofs, and they could have sold many more seats had there been room for them. Scarcely a person seemed to realize that they were there to witness a religious ceremony and that to the Indians it was as sacred as could be any High Church service. Shouting and cheering, they waited for the dancers to appear. Finally a naked Indian, painted white and black and red, with a lot of strung shells draped over his chest, appeared, carrying the olla of snakes. These he deposited in a hut built of willow boughs with a bearskin for a door. Following him came twenty priests painted as he was, each with a loin cloth and a coyote skin hanging from the cloth behind. These went around the circle seven times, which seems to be the mystic number used in all these ceremonies. They chanted a weird, wordless tune all the time. Then they gathered in front of the kiva, where the snakes could be heard keeping up a constant dull rattling, and chanted this same tune seven times, stamping on the boards that covered the opening to the Underworld, in order that the gods down there might know they were on the job. One priest had a piece of board on the end of a strong string and every so often he would step out in front of the others and whirl and whiz that board around until it wailed like a lost soul. _That_ was the wind before the rain! A priest entered the snake kiva and passed a snake out to a priest dancer. The dancer placed this big rattler in his mouth and began the circle. Close beside him danced a companion called the "hugger." This protecting Indian kept one arm around the dancer's shoulders and his other hand occupied with a bunch of feathers with which he kept the snake's head from coming too close to the dancer's face. Entirely around the ring they went until the starting-place had been reached, when, with a quick, sharp jerk of his head, the dancer threw the snake into the center of the plaza. It lay there coiled, sputtering, and rattling in rage for a moment, then started to glide away. Quick as a flash a "gatherer" snatched him up and twirled him around his arm. As soon as the first dancer was rid of his snake he went for another, and we noticed that he was always given rattlers. Some of the other priests had thin, nervous whip snakes; some had big, sluggish bull snakes; but at least eighty per cent of the snakes were active, angry rattlers. The first dancer was an old man, gray-headed, and rather stooped. He had a poor hugger, for at least three times during the dance the hugger let a rattler strike the old priest. Once the priest flinched with pain and let the snake loose from his mouth. It hung on to his cheek with its fangs firmly implanted, and at last he tore him loose with both hands. The blood spurted from the wound, and a Hopi man beside me made a nervous clucking sound. "Will he die from that bite?" I asked the Hopi. "I think not. Maybe. I don't know." And I'm sure he didn't know any more about it than I did. But the old fellow continued with his dancing as if nothing had happened. At last about eighty snakes had been danced with and were now writhing, animated bouquets in the hands of the gatherers. A squaw came out and made a circle of sacred meal. Into this all the snakes were dumped, and more meal was sprinkled on them. Then each carrier, of which there were four, gathered all the snakes he could grasp by thrusting his arms into the squirming mass, and one carrier departed in each direction. We watched one running swiftly down the cliff until he reached the level desert, where he dumped his cargo, and came back to the plaza. There he and his other returned companions lined up on the edge of the mesa and drank a big draught of the secret preparation prepared by the Snake Priest and his wife. Then they let nature take its course. Such a heaving, vomiting set of redskins you never saw! This little chore attended to, they removed their paint and prepared to join in the feast and dancing that would last through the night. Before I left I hunted up the old Snake Priest and pressed him for an explanation of why the snake bites did not harm them. This is what he told me. "We do not extract the fangs. We do not cause the snakes to bite at things and exhaust their poison. We do not stupefy them with drugs as you could well see. But we do cleanse the priests so thoroughly that the poison cannot take hold. For nine days they fast, partaking of no food, and only of herb drinks prepared by our wise ones. They have many sweat baths and get the harmful fluids out of their blood. They have absolutely no fear of the snakes, and convey to them no nervousness or anger. Just before the dance they have a big drink of the herb brew, and they are painted thickly with an ointment that contains herbs that kill snake poison. Then after the dance, the emetic. That is all." "How many of your tribe know of this secret preparation?" "Only two. Myself and my squaw. Should I die my squaw tell the secret to my son. When my squaw die he teach _his_ squaw." Probably because this dance is staged at the time of year the rains are due in Arizona, it is seldom that twenty-four hours elapse after the dance before a downpour arrives. Hopi Snake Priests are good weather prophets! [Illustration] _Chapter XI: THE TERRIBLE BADGER FIGHT_ When winter ends, spring comes with a rush at the Canyon, and flowers pop up over night. They follow the melting snow until the hills are covered with flaming paintbrushes and tender blue lupine. Greasewood and manzanita put out fragrant, waxy blossoms, and wild pinks and Mariposa lilies hedge the trails. Encouraged by the glorious display of wild flowers, I planned, with more enthusiasm than judgment, to have a real flower garden beside our new house. I built a low rock wall around the space I had selected, and piled it full of rich black loam as fine as any green-house could afford. Father had sent seeds from the old garden at home, and various friends had contributed from their gardens in the East. These seeds had been planted in boxes which I kept near the stove until frost was gone. They were full of promising plants. Hollyhocks, larkspur, pansies, and foxglove were ready to transplant, when a terrible catastrophe occurred--a little neighbor girl called on me, and, finding me gone, was right peeved. She entertained herself by uprooting my posies. With a complete thoroughness she mixed plants and dirt together, stirring water into the mixture with my trowel. If her grown-up cake-making is done as conscientiously as was that job, she'll be a wonderful pastry cook! I discovered the mischief while it was still fresh, and out of the wreckage salvaged a few brave seedlings. They pouted awhile before they took heart, and root, but finally perked up again. Time healed their wounds and if an ambitious squirrel hadn't been looking for a place to hide a nut I might still have taken prizes in the state fair. As it was, only a very few sturdy plants lived to grace the garden. They flourished, and I had begun to look in their direction without crossing my fingers when a hungry cow and her yearling boy appeared on the scene. "Help yourself, son!" Ma cow said, suiting her actions to the advice given. Midsummer found a lonely cactus and a horned toad blooming in my garden. The weather got hotter and more hot, and my bird bath was duly appreciated by the feathered population. They gathered there in flocks, and the news went far and wide that water was to be had at the Chief's house. All the birds that had been fed during the winter brought their aunts, uncles, and cousins seventy times seven removed, until all I had to do was lie in my hammock and identify them from a book with colored plates. White Mountain's special pet was a tiny chickadee. This fragile little speck of birddom fluttered into the house one stormy day, and the Chief warmed it in his hands and fed it warm milk and crumbs. From that day on it belonged, brave soul and wee body, to him. As the days grew warmer it spent its time somewhere in the forest, but at mealtime when the Chief came home all he had to do was step outside the door and whistle. Out of the sky a diminutive atom would hurl itself downward to light on his outstretched palm. While we ate it would perch on White Mountain's shoulder and twitter and make soft little noises in its throat, now and then coming across to me but soon returning to its idol. There was something so touching in the confidence of the helpless bird, it brought a tight feeling into one's throat. At the height of the drought a national railroad strike was called, and for a few weeks things looked serious for us poor mortals stranded a hundred miles from our water supply. Life took a backward leap and we lived as our forefathers did before us. No water meant no light except oil lamps, and when the oil supply failed we went to bed at dark. Flashlights were carefully preserved for emergencies. We learned that tomato juice will keep life in the body even if it won't quench thirst. There was one well four miles away, and rangers were stationed there to see that nothing untoward happened to that supply. The water was drawn with a bucket, and it was some job to water all the park animals. Visitors were at that time barred from the Park, but one sage-brusher managed to get in past the sentry. He camped at Headquarters and sent his ten-year-old boy walking to Rowe Well to fill a pail with water and carry it back. Just before dark that night the Chief and I coming in from Hilltop met the little fellow, courageously struggling along eight miles from Headquarters and getting farther away every step. His bucket was leaky, and little of the precious water remained. We took him back to the well again, filled his bucket, and delivered him to his father. The lad pulled a dime from his pocket and extended it toward the Chief. "You keep it, son," said White Mountain. "Better take it, Mister. You hauled me quite a ways." The Chief leaned toward him confidentially. "You see it's like this. I work for the Government and Uncle Sam doesn't like for us to take tips." And so the matter rested. The boy had discharged his obligation like a gentleman. He didn't know he had offered the Chief Ranger a dime for saving his life. A few stray I. W. W.'s ("I Won't Works," the rangers called them) came in to see that nobody did anything for the Santa Fe. Of course the rangers were put on for guard duty around the railroad station and power house, day and night, and the fact that they protected the railroad's property at odd hours did not relieve them from their own regular duties the rest of the time. For weeks they did the work of three times their actual number, and did it cheerfully. It finally became necessary to import Indians from the Navajo Reservation to help with the labor around the car yard and the boiler yard. These could hardly be described as having a mechanical turn of mind, but they were fairly willing workers, and with careful supervision they managed to keep steam up and the wheels turning. The shop foreman, however, was threatened with apoplexy a dozen times a day during their term of service. When it seemed that we just couldn't endure any more, some boss somewhere pulled a string and train service was resumed. This brought in a mass of tourists, and the rangers were on the alert again to keep them out of messes. One day as the Chief and I were looking at some picturegraphs near the head of Bright Angel Trail we saw a simple old couple wandering childlike down the trail. "You mustn't go far down the trail," advised White Mountain. "It's very hot today, and you would not be able to make the return trip. It's lots harder coming back, you know." The old folks smiled and nodded, and we went on home. About midnight the phone rang, and the Chief groaned before he answered it. A troubled voice came over the wire. "My father and mother went down the trail to the river and haven't come back. I want the rangers to go and find them," said their son. "In the morning," replied the Chief. "Right _now_!" ordered the voice. "I, myself, told your father and mother not to go down there. They went anyway. They are probably sitting on a rock resting, and if so they are safe. If they are not on the trail the rangers could not find them, and I have no right to ask my men to endanger their lives by going on such a wild-goose chase." The son, a middle-aged man, acted like a spoiled child. He threatened and blustered and raved until the Chief hung up the receiver. At dawn the rangers went after the two old babes in the wood and found them creeping slowly up the trail. "Ma give out," puffed the husband. "Pa was real tuckered hisself," explained Ma. "But we had a nice time and we'll know to do what we're told next time." She was a game old sport. Son was speedily squelched by Ma's firm hand, and the adventure ended. Ma confessed to me that she had sat through the night in deadly fear of snakes, catamounts, and other "varmints," but, with a twinkle in her eye: "Don't you dare tell them men folks I was a-scairt!" I knew just how she felt. Everything was up in the air over the Fourth of July celebration that we intended to stage. It was to be a combination of Frontier Days, Wild West Show, and home talent exhibition. Indians came from the various reservations; cow-hands drifted in from the range; tourists collected around the edges; the rangers were there; and every guide that could be spared from the trail bloomed out in gala attire. We women had cooked enough grub to feed the crowd, and there was a barrel of lemonade, over which a guard was stationed to keep the Indians from falling in head first. The real cowboys, unobtrusive in their overalls and flannel shirts, teetered around on their high-heeled tight boots and gazed open-mouthed at the flamboyance of the Fred Harvey imitations. Varied and unique remarks accompanied the scrutiny. Pretty soon they began to nudge each other and snicker, and I saw more than one of them in consultation with the rangers. I felt in my bones that mischief was brewing. The usual riding and roping and tying stunts were pulled off, and in the afternoon the Indians were challenged to race horses with the white boys. The race was for half a mile and back, around the curve of a hillside. Off they went amid the wildest war-whoops and cowboy yells I ever heard. The Indians had the advantage, since they burdened their mounts with neither saddle nor bridle. Stretched flat along the pony's back, the rider guided him by knee pressure and spurred him to victory by whistling shrilly in a turned back ear. I was amused to see how the wily Indians jockeyed for the inside of the track, and they always got it too. Not a white man's horse won a dollar in the race. It might have been different, probably would have, in an endurance race, for Indian horses are swift only in short runs. They never have grain, and few of them have as much water as they need. Just before the sports ended, White Mountain announced that some of the cowboys had brought a badger into Headquarters with them and that they had another one located. If they succeeded in capturing it, there would be a badger fight at the Fred Harvey mess hall that night--provided no gambling or betting was done. Since the show was to be put on by the cowboys, they themselves should have the honor of picking the men fortunate enough to hold the ropes with which the badgers would be tied. Among the rangers broke out a frenzied dispute as to which ones should be chosen. That was more than the guides could stand for. No ranger could put that over on _them_. They pushed in and loudly demanded their rights from the owners of the fightin' badgers. In fair play to both sides, Frank Winess was chosen from the ranger force and a sheik stage-driver, newly arrived, represented Fred Harvey. The guides were forced to be satisfied with this arrangement. We disbanded to meet at seven for the fight. In case the other badger made good his escape we could still have a look at the one already in captivity and the evening would not be wasted. "Better wear your riding boots," Ranger Winess advised me. "Badgers scratch and fight like forty, and you know your failing when it comes to getting into the middle of a bad fix." I didn't reply to this, but I put on my high boots. At seven we reached the scene of battle. I was not entirely pleased with the idea of letting two frantic animals scratch each other to death, but the Chief seemed quite serene and I had the utmost confidence in his kindness to dumb animals. Two or three hundred onlookers, including tourists, were circled around an open space, which was lighted with automobile headlights. Under each of two big wooden boxes at opposite sides of the circle, a combatant lay. "Stand well back," ordered the Chief. And the crowd edged away. "Hey, you, Billy, I said no betting!" Billy Joint hastily pocketed the roll of bills he had been airing. "What's wrong, Frank?" For Ranger Winess limped into the ring, flinching at every step. "Nothin', Chief," bravely trying to cover up the pain with a grin. "I asked you what's the matter!" "Well, gee whiz, if you have to know everything, one of them broncs piled up with me this afternoon, and I busted my knee." The Chief felt sorry for Frank, because he knew how his heart was set on the sport in hand. "Sorry, Winess, but you'll have to step out and let Charley take your place." Ranger Fisk began to protest: "Gee, Chief, I ain't a fightin' man. I don't hanker to hold that tearing varmint." Frank was too crushed to say anything. But Shorty--in the foremost ranks stood Shorty! No guide so wonderfully chapped, so brightly handkerchiefed, so amazingly shirted, or so loudly perfumed as Shorty. He had a tourist girl on his manly arm and he longed for worlds to conquer. He advanced with a firm and determined tread. "Look here, Chief Ranger. Your man has been disqualified. The rangers have had their chance. It's up to us guides now. I demand the right to enter this ring." The Chief considered the matter. He looked at the rangers, and after a few mutters they sullenly nodded. "All right, Shorty. But you are taking all responsibility. Remember, whatever happens you have made your own choice. Charley, you and Frank look out for Margie. You know how foolish she is. She's likely to get all clawed up." I was mad enough to bite nails into tacks! Foolish! Look out for _me_! He was getting awfully careful of me all of a sudden. I jerked my arm loose from Ranger Fisk when he tried to lead me back from the front, and he reluctantly stayed beside me there. The pretty stage-driver was nervous. With his gloved hand he kept smoothing his hair back and he shifted from one foot to the other, while he grasped the rope firmly. As for Shorty, he was entirely unconcerned, as became a brave bold man. He merely traded his sheepskin chaps for a pair of silver-studded leather ones. Then he clamped his wide sombrero firmly on his head and declared himself ready. "Jerk quick and hard when we raise the boxes," the referee directed. "If they see each other at once, you boys aren't so liable to get bit up." "Jerk them out," bellowed Frank. They jerked. The onlookers gasped; then howled! then _roared_!! The gladiators fled! Nor stood on the order of their going. In the middle of the ring, firmly anchored to the ropes, were two articles of crockery well known to our grand-mothers in the days when the plumbing was all outside. So ended the Glorious Fourth. [Illustration] _Chapter XII: GRAND CANYON UPS AND DOWNS_[3] I was busy baking pies one morning when White Mountain sauntered into the kitchen and stood watching me. "How soon can you be ready to start across the Canyon?" he asked, as carelessly as though I had not been waiting for that priceless moment nearly two years. "How soon?" I was already untying my apron. "Right _now_!" "Oh, not that sudden. I mean can you be ready to start in the morning?" And with no more ceremony than that my wonderful adventure was launched. Long before dawn the next morning I was up and dressed in breeches, wool shirt, laced boots, and a wide felt hat, and felt like a full-fledged "dude." The Chief had insisted that I should ride a mule, but I had my own notions about that and "Supai Bob" was my mount. This was an Indian racing horse, and the pride of Wattahomigie's heart, but he cheerfully surrendered him to me whenever I had a bad trail to ride. He was high from the ground, long-legged, long-necked and almost gaunt, but gentle and sure-footed. We left El Tovar before anybody was stirring and while the depths of the Canyon were still lost in darkness. At the head of the trail I involuntarily pulled up short. "Leave hope behind all ye who enter here," flashed through my brain. Dante could have written a much more realistic _Inferno_ had he spent a few days in the Grand Canyon absorbing local color. Far below, the trail wound and crawled, losing itself in purple shadows that melted before the sun as we descended. The world still slept, with the exception of a few saucy jays who flew about us loudly claiming the heavens, the earth, and the waters beneath, should there be any. Two hours of steady descent brought us to the base of the red-wall limestone. In that two hours we had passed from the belt of pine and shrub to the one of sagebrush and cactus. Half an hour farther, and we arrived at Indian Gardens, a clump of willows and cottonwoods shading a stream of cold bubbling water from a never-failing spring. This little stream is full of delicious watercress, and more than once on festive occasions a ranger had gone down and brought back a supply to garnish the turkey. Not until I made the ride myself could I appreciate his service. At one time this spot was cultivated by the Havasupai Indians; hence the name. Every dude that has followed a Fred Harvey guide down the trail remembers this God-given oasis with gratitude. Water and shade and a perfectly good excuse for falling out of the saddle! No flopping mule ears; no toothache in both knees; no yawning void reaching up for one. Ten whole minutes in Paradise, and there's always a sporting chance that Gabriel may blow his horn, or an apoplectic stroke rescue one, before the heartless guide yells: "All aboard." We filled our canteens from the spring, for this is really the last good water until the bridge is crossed, and rode across the Tonto Trail along the plateau for five miles, through sagebrush, cactus, and yucca. Here and there a chuckwalla darted across the trail or a rock squirrel sat on his haunches and scolded as we passed. Nothing broke the monotony of the ride. At one point on the ride the trail hangs over the edge of Pipe Creek, a mere little chasm two thousand feet deep. Anywhere else this crevice between sheer walls of blackened, distorted, jagged rocks would be considered one of the original Seven Wonders. Placed as it is, one tosses it a patronizing glance, stifles a yawn, and rides on. A mile or so along we crossed a trickle of water coming from Wild Burro Springs, so named because the burros common to this region come there to drink. Just as we drew rein to allow our horses to quench their thirst, the sultry silence was shattered beyond repair. Such a rasping, choking, jarring sound rolled and echoed back and forth from crag to crag! "What's that?" I gasped, after I had swallowed my heart two or three times. The Chief pointed to a rock lying a few feet away. Over the top of this an enormous pair of ears protruded, and two big, solemn eyes were glued on us unblinkingly. It was only a wee wild burro, but what a large voice he owned! The thousand or more of these small gray and black animals are a heritage from the day of the prospector. Some of them are quite tame. One called "Bright Angel" was often utilized by tourists as a mount while they had pictures snapped to take to the admiring family left behind. We passed on across the plateau and rounded O'Neill Butte, named for Bucky O'Neill, one of Roosevelt's Rough Riders killed at San Juan Hill, and we suddenly came to the "sure 'nuff" jumping-off place at the edge of Granite Gorge. One should have at least a week's warning before this scene is thrown upon the screen. I think it was here that Irvin Cobb tendered his resignation--effective immediately. Straight down, fifteen hundred feet beneath one, flows the Colorado. There are no words to describe this. One must see it for one's self. Down, down, back and forth zigzags that trail, jumping from crag to crag and mesa to mesa, finally running on to the mere thread suspended from wall to wall high above the sullen brown torrent. When once started down this last lap of the journey riverward, one finds that the trail is a great deal smoother than that already traveled. But the bridge! Picture to yourself a four-foot wooden road, four hundred and twenty feet long, fenced with wire, and slung on steel cables fifty feet above a rushing muddy river, and you will see what I was supposed to ride across. My Indian horse stopped suddenly, planted himself firmly--and looked. I did likewise. "Those cables look light," I said, seeking some excuse to stay right where I was. But the Chief calmly informed me that they were "heavy enough." I presume he should know, having helped to carry them down that twelve-mile trail. Pride alone prevented me from turning and fleeing back up that steep trail like a fly up a wall. I looked at White Mountain. He was riding serenely on, never doubting my close attendance at his horse's heels. I told myself that I had undoubtedly reached a bridge that _had_ to be crossed, and so I spoke firmly, or as firmly as possible under the circumstances, to Supai Bob. No results. Bob was as unresponsive as any other Indian when he doesn't want to "savvy." I coaxed, I pulled, I pushed. I spanked with a board. Bob was not interested in what was across the river. Then and there I formed a high regard for that pony's sound judgment and will-power. At last the Chief looked back and saw my predicament. He turned his horse loose to continue across alone and came back over the wildly swaying bridge to me. "What's the matter?" Just as if he couldn't well see! I glared at him and he grinned. "Why don't you talk to him in Supai language?" "Speak to him yourself," I snapped and stalked out on that heaving horror. I never learned the details of the conversation, but a clatter of hoofs sounded behind me and Bob anchored his nose against my shoulder, there to remain until terra firma was regained. I worried all the rest of the way over and back about having to get him across again, but returning, he walked on to the bridge as if crossing it were his life work. On the north end of the bridge where the cables are anchored is a labyrinth of trails crossing and recrossing. The Chief explained that Bright Angel, the little wild burro, had made those at a time when high water had marooned him on that small area. While the bridge was being built he hung around constantly, and when it was completed he was the first animal allowed to cross it. I wonder what he thought of the promised land he had gazed at so longingly for years. Poor Brighty fell a victim to a tramp who refused to listen to advice, and crossed to the North Rim after the snows had come. Perhaps he had reasons for hiding away, but he took little Brighty from his winter home in the bottom of the Canyon to carry his pack for him. After being snowed in for several weeks in a cattle cabin several miles back from the Rim, Brighty died of starvation and was eaten by the man. Brighty had plenty of friends that miss him when they go down into the Canyon, and it will fare badly with his murderer if any of the rangers or guides see him again. Beside the trail, just across the bridge, is a prehistoric ruin. When Major Powell landed there on his first trip down the Colorado River in 1869, he found broken pottery, an old "matate" and many chipped flints, indicating that this had been the home of an arrowmaker. The mealing stone, or matate, can be seen at Phantom Ranch, half a mile on along the trail. And just at this point of the trip we came to a tragic spot, the one where Rees Griffith lies buried beside his own well-built trail. It had been in the dead of winter when Rees was buried there by his friends, and now the summer's scorching sun was streaming down on his grave. The colorful lines of the half-breed Déprez drifted through my mind: And there he lies now, and nobody knows; And the summer shines, and the winter snows, And the little gray hawk floats aloft in the air, And the gray coyote trots about here and there, And the buzzard sails on, And comes back and is gone, Stately and still like a ship on the sea; And the rattlesnake slides and glitters and glides Into his rift in a cottonwood tree. Just that lonely and already forgotten was the resting-place of the master trail-builder. It was noontime now, and all our grub, with the exception of a box of crackers and a jar of fig jam, likewise our bedding, was far ahead on a pack mule which had decided not to stop for lunch or dinner. Since we were not consulted in the matter we lunched on jam and crackers and then dined on crackers and jam. We hung the remainder of the feast in a tree and breakfasted on it a week later on our return trip. When one tries to describe the trail as it was to the North Rim in those days, words prove weak. The first twelve miles we had already traveled are too well known to need description; the remaining twenty--all rebuilt since that time--defy it. Sometimes the trail ran along in the creek bed for yards and yards. This made it impassable during the spring freshets. Arizona horses are trained to drink at every opportunity for fear there may never be another chance, and our mounts had learned their lesson well. They tried to imbibe at every crossing, and long after they were loaded to the gunwales they dipped greedy noses into the current. Six miles north of the river we turned aside from the main trail and followed a path a few rods to Ribbon Falls. We had intended to spend the night there, and I supposed we were to sleep standing up; but there was Chollo, our prodigal pack mule, who had found a luscious patch of grass near the Falls and decided to make it her first stopping-place. In that manner we recovered the bedding roll. White Mountain murmured a few sweet nothings into her innocent ear and anchored her firmly to a stake. That didn't please her at all. She complained loudly to her wild brethren, and they sympathized in heart-comforting brays from all points near at hand. Our horses were given grain and turned into the grassy cove, and supper was prepared. And while the coffee boiled we had a refreshing swim in Nature's bathtub at the bottom of the Falls. High above, the crystal stream bursts forth from the red cliff and falls in a sparkling cascade seventy feet, to strike against a big rock upholstered in softest green. Here it forms a morning-glory pool of almost icy coolness. Hot coffee and bacon with some of White Mountain's famous biscuits baked in a reflector tasted like a feed at Sherry's. I watched the Chief mix his biscuits while I lay resting against the piled-up saddles. I wondered how he intended to cook them, but managed to keep still and find out for myself. He took a folded piece of tin from his pack and with a few magic passes turned it into a roof-shaped structure resting on its side on two short steel legs. Another twist of the wrist lifted a little tin shelf into place. This contraption was set about a yard from the glowing fire and the pan of biscuits was placed on the shelf. As I stared at the open-work baker the biscuits puffed into lightness and slowly turned a rich tempting brown. After we had eaten the last one and the camp was put in order, we sat watching a fat moon wallow lazily up from behind the Rim. Strange forms crept into sight with the moon-rise--ruined Irish castles, fortresses hiding their dread secrets, sculptured groups, and weird goblins. By and by a few stars blossomed--great soft golden splashes, scattered about in an inverted turquoise bowl. The heavens seemed almost at our fingertips from the bottom of this deep southern gorge. While Bright Angel Creek murmured a soft accompaniment, the Chief told me how it received its name. An old legend says: Among the first Spanish explorers a small party attempted to cross the Colorado Canyon. They wandered down on to the plateau north of the river, and there their food and water gave out. Many hundreds of feet below them at the bottom of a sheer precipice flowed the great river. Their leader swooned from thirst and exhaustion. It seemed certain that death was near. Above them towered a wall they could not surmount. Just as they were ready to throw themselves into the river so far below, their leader revived and pleaded with them to keep going a little longer. He said: "In my dreams I have seen a beautiful _luminoso angelo_ with sparkling water dripping from his pinions. He beckons us on, and promises to lead to water." They took fresh courage and struggled on in desperation, when, lo, at their very feet flowed a crystal stream of life-giving water. In remembrance of the vision this stream was called "Bright Angel." Pretty as this legend is, the bestowal of the name is now officially credited to Major Powell. After the story ended I crept between my blankets, and as soon as I became sufficiently inured to the conversation between Chollo and her sympathizers I fell asleep. But along toward morning some inquisitive deer came in to share the grain our horses had scattered, and a big porcupine came home from lodge, quarreling and debating with himself about something. He stopped near us and chattered angrily about it, permanently ending our sleep. After breakfast we followed the trail through more ancient ruins, into a cottonwood grove and then on to a sandy flat. Sitting low in my saddle, almost dozing, I revived suddenly at a never-to-be-mistaken B-u-u-z-z-z! The horses recognized it instantly and froze in their tracks. Sibilant, wicked, it sounded again, and then a yellow streak slid across the trail and disappeared under a low bush. We waited, and pretty soon a coffin-shaped head came up and waved slowly to and fro. The Chief shot him with his forty-five and the snake twisted and writhed into the trail, then lay still. A moment later I had the rattles in my hatband for a souvenir. "Look out for his mate," the Chief said; but we didn't see it, and a few days later a ranger camping there found it coiled in his bed, and its rattles joined the ones already in my possession. On and on climbed the trail, growing steeper at every turn. I could have walked with a greater degree of comfort, but the Chief said: "Ride!" So I rode; and I mean just that. I rode every inch of that horse several times over. What time I wasn't clinging to his tail being dragged up a precipice, I was hanging around his neck like a limpet. One time, when the girth slipped, both the saddle and I rode upside down under his belly. Some time ago I saw a sloth clinging, wrong end to, to the top bars of his cage. It brought back painful memories of when the saddle slipped. When we reached the blue-wall a mighty roaring was audible. Far above, a torrent of water from some subterranean cavern bursts from the ledge with such force that the sound carries for miles. This is called Roaring Springs. Getting up over the blue-wall limestone was arduous. This limestone formation is difficult to conquer wherever it is found. Almost straight up, clinging to the horse's mane, we climbed, stopping frequently to let the panting animals breathe. As we neared the North Rim, now and then along the trail a wild rose blossomed, and as we climbed higher we threaded a maze of sweet locust, fern, and bracken. It was a fairyland. And then the trail topped out at an elevation of eight thousand feet into the forest primeval. Towering yellow pines, with feet planted in masses of flowers, pushed toward heaven. Scattered among the rugged pines were thousands of slender aspen trees, swaying and quivering, their white trunks giving an artificial effect to the scene as if the gods had set a stage for some pagan drama. Ruffed grouse strutted about, challenging the world at large. Our horses' hoofs scattered a brood and sent them scuttling to cover under vines and blossoms. Roused from his noonday siesta, a startled deer bounded away. One doe had her fawn secreted near the trail and she followed us for some distance to make sure her baby was safe. As we swung around a curve into an open valley, we came to a decrepit signpost. And what do you suppose it said? Merely: "Santa Fe R. R. and El Tovar," while a hand pointed back the way we had come. I wondered how many travelers had rushed madly around the corner in order to catch the Santa Fe Limited. But in those days the North Rim seemed to sprout signs, for soon we overtook this one: THE JIM OWENS CAMP GUIDING TOURISTS AND HUNTING PARTIES A SPECIALTY COUGARS CAUGHT TO ORDER RATES REASONABLE Of course the signing of Park lands is contrary to the policies of the National Park Service, and after White Mountain's inspection trip, these were promptly removed. At length we arrived at Jim's camp. Uncle Jim must have caught several cougars to order, for the cabin walls were covered with pelts and murderous-looking claws frescoed the ceiling. Uncle Jim told us that he has caught more than eleven hundred cougars in the past twenty years. He guided Teddy Roosevelt on his hunts in Arizona, and I doubt if there is a hunter and guide living today that is as well known and loved by famous men as is Jim Owens. He has retired from active guiding now, and spends his time raising buffalo in the Rock House Valley. Scenery on the North Rim is more varied and beautiful than that where we lived at El Tovar. Do you favor mountains? "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help." Far across the Canyon loom the snow-capped heights of San Francisco Peaks. Truly from those hills comes help. Water from a huge reservoir filled by melting snow on their summits supplies water to towns within a radius of a hundred miles. Look to the south and you see the Navajo Reservation, and the glorious, glowing Painted Desert. If peaceful scenes cloy, and you hanker for a thrill, drop your glance to the Colorado River, foaming and racing a mile or so below. Sunset from this point will linger in my memory while I live. A weird effect was caused by a sudden storm breaking in the Canyon's depths. All sense of deepness was blotted out and, instead, clouds billowed and beat against the jutting walls like waves breaking on some rock-bound coast. Point Sublime has been featured in poems and paint until it needs little introduction. It was here that Dutton drew inspiration for most of his poems of Grand Canyon, weaving a word picture of the scene, awe-inspiring and wonderful. How many of you have seen the incomparable painting of the Grand Canyon hanging in the Capitol at Washington? The artist, Thomas Moran, visited Point Sublime in 1873 with Major Powell, and later transferred to canvas the scene spread before him. Deer and grouse and small animals were about us all the way, and I had the pleasure of seeing a big white-tailed squirrel dart around and around a tree trunk. This squirrel is found nowhere else. That evening at sunset we drove with Blondy Jensen to VT Park through the "President's Forest." At first we saw two or three deer together, and then we came upon them feeding like herds of cattle, literally hundreds of them. They were all bucks. Blondy said the does were still back in the deep woods with their fawns. We reached the Diamond Bar Ranch just as supper was ready, and the cowboys invited us to eat. Two big Dutch ovens were piled with live coals before the fireplace. I eyed them with a lot of curiosity until a smiling cowboy lifted the lids for me to peep within. One was full of simmering tender beef and the other held biscuits just turning a delicious brown. I made up our minds then, and we all stayed for supper. It was late when we started back to our camp on the Rim, and the big car slid along at a great rate. Suddenly Blondy jammed on the brakes and almost lost me through the windshield. An enormous full-grown deer loomed directly in front of the headlights. There he stood, head thrown back, nostrils distended, monarch of all he surveyed. A moment longer he posed, then leaped away into the darkness, leaving us wondering if we had really seen anything. All too soon it was time for us to start back to the South Rim, and we made a reluctant departure. It rained on us part of the way, and loosened rocks made the going perilous. Halfway down the steepest part we met half a dozen loose pack mules. One of the first rules of safety for a trail without turnouts is that no loose stock must be allowed on it. My Indian horse chose that particular time and place to throw a fit of temperament, and he climbed out of the way of the wild mules by scrambling up a perpendicular rock and flattening out against the hillside. I slid off over his tail and landed in the trail on the back of my neck, but popped up to see what had happened to the Chief. The pack mules were being urged on from the rear by a fool mule-skinner, and they had crowded Tony, the Chief's mount, off the trail on to a good-sized rock that stuck out over the brink. He stood trembling on the rock and the Chief stood beside him on the same rock with an arm around the scared horse's neck, talking to him in his usual slow, calm way, all the time stroking Tony's ears and patting his neck. Inch by inch the rock was parting from the earth holding it, and it seemed to me I would just die of terror. White Mountain just kept on talking to the horse and trying to coax him back into the trail. At last Tony turned an almost human look on the Chief and then stepped back into the trail, just as the boulder gave way and went crashing down the incline, carrying trees, rocks, and earth with it. "Why didn't you let him go? Why did you just stand there like an idiot?" I raved. The reaction was so great that I entirely lost my temper. "Oh, my good new saddle was on him. I couldn't let that go, you know," said White Mountain. In the meantime the mules continued to mill and buck in the trail. Up rushed Mr. Mule-Skinner. He addressed the Chief in about these words: "Get the hell outa my way, you ---- ---- fool. Ain't you got no sense at all?" We will skip the next inch or two of this narrative, and let kind oblivion cover it as cool dusk masks the ravages of burning noon. Anyway, this was part of a hunting outfit, including Fred Stone, bound for the North Rim. To this day I can't see any comedy in Mr. Stone's acting. Tony seemed quite unnerved by his encounter, and as we crossed the swinging bridge he became startled at something and plunged wildly against the wire fencing the bridge. The Chief threw out a hand to steady himself and his ring, caught on a broken wire, cut into and buried itself in his flesh. When we reached the south end of the bridge we dismounted and tried to care for the painful wound, but with no medicine or water there was little we could do. We bound it up in a handkerchief and went on to the top, the Chief suffering agonies with the injury and the intense heat. On top a ranger cut the flesh away and filed the ring off. I added it to my other souvenirs. [Illustration] _Chapter XIII: SISTERS UNDER THE SKIN[4]_ "For the Colonel's Lady and Judy O'Grady Are sisters under the skin!" "And what of the women and children? How do they live?" I have been asked again and again, when speaking of Indians of the Southwest. And who isn't interested in the intimate details of the home life of our Indian sisters? What of their work? Their homes? Their dress? And--most interesting to us paleface women--what of their love affairs? Most of you have seen the stolid squaw, wrapped in a soiled blanket, silently offering her wares to tourists throughout the Southwest. Does it seem strange to you that this same stoical creature is just bubbling over with femininity? That she loves with devotion, is torn with passionate jealousy, and adorns herself just as carefully within her limited means for the benefit of masculine eyes, as you do? Among friends she sparkles, and laughs and gossips with her neighbors over a figurative back fence just as you do in Virginia or Vermont. Just living, loving, joyous, or sorrowing women are these brown-skinned sisters of ours. Were I looking for inspiration to paint a Madonna I would turn my steps toward the Painted Desert, and there among the Indian people I would find my model. Indian mothers are real mothers. Their greatest passion is mother-love. Not a pampering, sheltering, foolish love, but a great, tender love that seeks always what is best for the child, regardless of the mother's feelings or the child's own desires. The first years of an Indian baby's life are very simple. Apart from being fed without having to catch his dinner, there is not much to choose between his existence and that of any other healthy young animal. He and his little companions dart about in sunshine and rain, naked as little brown kewpies. I have never seen a deformed Indian baby or one with spinal trouble. Why? Because the mothers grow up living natural lives: they dress in loose-fitting, sensible clothing; they wear flat-heeled shoes or moccasins; they eat plain, nourishing food; and they walk and ride and work until almost the minute the child is born. They take the newborn babe to a water hole, bathe it, then strap it on a straight board with its little spine absolutely supported. Here it spends the first six months of its existence. The child's chin is bound round with a soft strip of leather, so that its breathing is done through its nostrils; no adenoids or mouth breathing among the Indians, and very little lung trouble as long as they do not try to imitate the white man's ways. Different tribes celebrate the birth of a child in different ways. The gift is always welcome when a little new life comes into an Indian home. The Hopi mother rubs her baby with wood ashes so that its body will not be covered with hair. Then a great feast is held and thank-offering gifts are received. Each relative brings an ear of corn to the mother and gives a name to the child. It may receive twenty or more names at birth, and yet in later life it will choose a name for itself or be named by its mother. Not so much ceremony greets the Navajo baby. Navajo mothers are far too busy and baby additions are too frequent to get excited about. The mother bathes herself and the newcomer in cold water, wraps him in his swaddling clothes of calico, straps him on his board cradle, suspends it on a limb, and goes on with the spinning or weaving that had occupied her a few minutes before. All Indian babies are direct gifts from the Powers That Be, and a token of said Powers' favor. A childless Indian wife is pitied and scoffed at by her tribe. After a few months the child is released from his cradle prison and allowed to tumble around the mother's loom while she weaves her blankets. He entertains himself and learns to creep and then to walk without any help. If there is an older child he is left in its care. It is not unusual to see a two or three-year-old youngster guarding a still younger one, and keeping it out of the fire or from under the hoofs of the ponies grazing around the camp. As the children grow older they are trained to work. The boys watch the flocks and help cultivate the fields, if fields there be, and the little girls are taught the household tasks of tanning the sheep hides, drying the meat in the sun, braiding the baskets, carding and spinning wool and making it into rugs, shaping the pottery and painting and baking it over the sheep-dung fires. These and dozens of other tasks are ever at hand for the Indian woman to busy herself with. If you think for an instant that you'd like to leave your own house and live a life of ease with the Indian woman, just forget it. It is a life of labor and hardship, of toil and endless tasks, from day-break until long after dark, and with the most primitive facilities one can imagine. Only on calendars do we see a beauteous Indian maiden draped in velvet, reclining on a mossy bank, and gazing at her own image in a placid pool. That Indian is the figment of a fevered artist brain in a New York studio. Should a real Indian woman try that stunt she'd search a long way for the water. Then she'd likely recline in a cactus bed and gaze at a medley of hoofs and horns of deceased cows bogged down in a mud hole. Such are the surroundings of our real Indians. Indian women are the home-makers and the home-keepers. They build the house, whether it be the brush hewa of the Supai or the stone pueblo of the Hopi. They gather the piñon nuts and grind them into meal. They crush the corn into meal, and thresh and winnow the beans, and dry the pumpkin for winter use. They cut the meat into strips and cure it into jerky. They dry the grapes and peaches. They garner the acorns and store them in huge baskets of their own weaving. They shear the sheep, and wash, dye, spin, and weave the wool into marvelous blankets. They cut the willows and gather sweet grasses for the making of baskets and trays. They grind and knead and shape clay into artistic pottery and then paint it with colors gleaned from the earth. They burn and bake the clay vessels until they are waterproof, and they carry them weary miles to the railway to sell them to the tourists so that their children may have food and clothing. The Hopi woman brings water to the village up a mile or two of heart-breaking trail, carrying it in great ollas set on her head or slung on her back. She must have water to make the mush for supper, and such trivial things as a shampoo or a bath are indulged in only just before the annual Snake Dance. Religion demands it then! Where water is plentiful, however, the Indians bathe and swim daily. They keep their hair clean and shining with frequent mud baths! Black, sticky mud from the bottom of the river is plastered thickly over the scalp and rubbed into the hair, where it is left for several hours. When it is washed away the hair is soft, and gleams like the sheeny wing of the blackbird. Root of the yucca plant is beaten into a pulp and used as a shampoo cream by other tribes. Cosmetics are not greatly in use among these women. They grow very brown and wrinkled at an early age, just when our sheltered women are looking their best. This is accounted for by the hard lives they live, exposed to the burning summer suns and biting winter winds, and by cooking over smoky campfires or hovering over them for warmth in the winter. An Indian's hands are never beautiful in an artistic sense. How could they be? They dress and tan the sheep and deer hides; they make moccasins and do exquisite bead work; they cut and carry the wood and keep the fires burning. They cook the meals and sit patiently by until the men have gobbled their fill before they partake. They care tenderly for the weaklings among the flocks of sheep and goats. Navajo women often nurse a deserted or motherless lamb at their own ample breasts. They make clothes for themselves and their families, although to look at the naked babies one would not think the dress-making business flourished. But with all the duties incumbent on an Indian mother she never neglects her children. They are taught all that she thinks will help them live good lives. The girls grow up with the knowledge that their destiny is to become good wives and mothers. They are taught that their bodies must be kept strong and fit to bear many children. And when the years of childhood are passed they know how to establish homes of their own. Many interesting customs are followed during courtship among the tribes. The Pueblos, among whom are the Hopis, have a pretty way by which the maidens announce their matrimonial aspirations. How? By putting their soft black hair, which heretofore has been worn loose, into huge whorls above the ears. This is called the squash-blossom headdress and signifies maturity. When this age is reached, the maiden makes up her mind just which lad she wants, then lets him know about it. The Hopi girl does her proposing by leaving some cornmeal piki or other edible prepared by her own hands at the door of the selected victim under cover of darkness. He usually knows who has left it, and then, if "Barkis is willin'," he eats out of the same bowl of mush with her, the medicine man holds a vessel of water into which both dip their hands, and the wedding ceremony is finished. He moves into the bride's house and they presumably live happily ever afterward. However, squalls do arise sometimes, and then the husband is likely to come home from work in the fields or a night at the lodge and find his wardrobe done up in his Sunday bandanna waiting on the doorstep for him. In that case all he can do is take his belongings and "go home to mother." His wife has divorced him by merely throwing his clothes out of her house. Navajo bucks purchase their wives for a certain number of sheep or horses, as do also the Supai, Cheyenne, Apache, and other desert tribes. There is not much fuss made over divorce among them, either. If a wife does not like her husband's treatment of her, she refuses to cook for him or to attend to any of her duties, and he gladly sends her back to her father. He, like Solomon of old, agrees that "it is better to dwell alone in the wilderness than with an angry and contentious woman." The father doesn't mind getting her back, because he keeps the original purchase price and will also collect from the next brave that wants to take a chance on her; why should he worry? In a few instances braves have been known to trade wives and throw in an extra pony or silver belt to settle all difficulties. The missionaries are doing much to discourage this practice and are trying to teach the Indians to marry in a civilized manner. In case they do succeed let us hope that while the savages embrace the marrying idea they will not emulate civilized people in divorce matters. For a primitive people with all the untrained impulses and natural instincts of animals, there is surprisingly little sexual immorality among the tribes. It seems that the women are naturally chaste. For there is no conventional standard among their own people by which they are judged. If an unmarried squaw has a child, there are deploring clucks, but the girl's parents care tenderly for the little one and its advent makes no difference in the mother's chances for a good marriage. Also the child does not suffer socially for its unfortunate birth, which is more humane at least than our method of treating such children. The children of a marriage take the mother's name and belong to her clan. She has absolute control of them until the girl reaches a marriageable age; then Dad collects the marriage price. Another thing we civilized parents might take into consideration. Indian babies are never punished by beating or shaking. It is the Indian idea that anything which injures a child's self-respect is very harmful. Yet Indian children are very well-behaved, and their respect and love for their elders is a beautiful thing. I have never seen an Indian child cry or sulk for anything forbidden it. Schools for Reservation children are compulsory, but whether they are altogether a blessing or not is still doubtful. To take an Indian child away from its own free, wild life, teach it to dress in white man's clothes, eat our food, sleep in our beds, bathe in white-tiled bathtubs, think our thoughts, learn our vices, and then, having led them to despise their own way of living, send them back to their people who have not changed while their children were being literally reborn--what does this accomplish? Doesn't Aesop tell us something of a crow that would be a dove and found himself an outcast everywhere? We are replacing the beautiful symbolism of the Indian by our materialism and leaving him bewildered and discouraged. Why should he be taught to despise his hogan, shaped after the beautiful rounded curve of the rainbow and the arched course of the sun in his daily journey across the sky--a type of home that has been his for generations? Do we ever stop to think why the mud hut is dome-shaped, why the door always faces the east? I have been watching one Hopi family for years. In this case simple housekeeping, plain sewing, and suitable cooking have been taught to the girl in school. The mother waits eagerly for the return of the daughter from school so that she can hear and learn and share what has been taught to her girl. Her efforts to keep pace with the child are so intense and her pride in her improved home is so great that it is pitiful. Isn't there some way the elders can share the knowledge we are trying to give the younger generation, so that parents and children may be brought closer together rather than estranged? No matter what color the skin, feminine nature never varies! Let one squaw get a new calico dress, and it creates a stir in every tepee. The female population gathers to admire, and the equivalent to our ohs and ahs fills the air. It takes something like twenty yards of calico to make an Indian flapper a skirt. It must be very full and quite long, with a ruffle on the hem for good measure. There is going to be no unseemly display of nether limbs. When a new dress is obtained it is put on right over the old one, and it is not unusual for four or five such billowing garments to be worn at once. A close-fitting basque of velvet forms the top part of this Navajo costume, and over all a machine-made blanket is worn. Store-made shoes, or more often the hand-made moccasins of soft doeskin trimmed with silver and turquoise buttons, are worn without stockings. The feet of Indian women are unusually small and well-shaped. The amount of jewelry that an Indian wears denotes his social rank, and, like their white brothers, they adorn the wife, so that it is not unusual to see their women decked out until they resemble prosperous Christmas trees. Many silver bracelets, studded with the native turquoises, strings and strings of silver beads, and shell necklaces, heavy silver belts, great turquoise earrings, rings and rings, make up the ensemble of Navajo jewelry. Even the babies are loaded down with it. It is the family pocketbook. When an Indian goes to a store he removes a section of jewelry and trades it for whatever takes his fancy. And one thing an Indian husband should give fervent thanks for--his wife never wears a hat. Our Indian sisters are not the slaves of their husbands as we have been led to believe. It is true that the hard work in the village or camp is done by the squaws, but it is done cheerfully and more as a right than as a duty. In olden times the wives kept the home fires burning and the crops growing while the braves were on the warpath or after game. Now that the men no longer have these pursuits, it never occurs to them to do their wives' work. Nor would they be permitted to do it. After the rugs, baskets, or pottery are finished, the husband may take them to the trading-post or depot and sell them; but the money must be turned over to the wife or accounted for to her full satisfaction. All the Indian women are tireless and fearless riders. They ride astride, with or without a saddle, and carry two or three of the smaller children with them. However, if there is only one pony, wifie walks, while her lordly mate rides. That is Indian etiquette. [Illustration] _Chapter XIV: THE PASSING SHOW_ Tourists! Flocks of them, trainloads and carloads! They came and looked, and passed on, and were forgotten, nine-tenths of them at least. Anyone who is interested in the study of human nature should set up shop on the Rim of the Grand Canyon and watch the world go by. I have never been able to determine why Eastern people can't act natural in the West! For instance: Shy spinster schoolma'ams, the essence of modesty at home, catch the spirit of adventure and appear swaggering along in the snuggest of knickers. They would die of shame should their home-town minister or school president catch them in such apparel. Fat ladies invariably wear breeches--tight khaki breeches--and with them they wear georgette blouses, silk stockings, and high-heeled pumps. I have even seen be-plumed chapeaux top the sport outfit. One thing is a safe bet--the plumper the lady, the snugger the breeches! Be-diamonded dowagers, hand-painted flappers, timid wives from Kansas, one and all seem to fall for the "My God" habit when they peer down into the Canyon. Ranger Winess did tell me of one original damsel; she said: "Ain't it cute?" I was standing on the Rim one day, watching a trail party through field glasses, when a stout, well-dressed man stopped and asked to borrow my glasses. He spoke of the width and depth of the Canyon, and stood seemingly lost in contemplation of the magnificent sight. I had him classified as a preacher, and I mentally rehearsed suitable Biblical quotations. He turned to me and asked, "Do you know what strikes me most forcibly about this place?" "No, what is it?" I hushed my soul to listen to some sublime sentiment. "_I haven't seen a fly since I've been here!_" I was spluttering to White Mountain about it and wishing I had pushed him over the edge, but the Chief thought it was funny. He said the man must have been a butcher. It is a strange fact that tourists will not listen to what Rangers tell them to do or not to do. The Government pays men who have spent their lives in such work to guide and guard strangers when they come into the National Parks. Many visitors resent advice, and are quite ready to cry for help when they get into difficulties or danger by ignoring instructions. And usually they don't appreciate the risks that are taken to rescue them from their own folly. A young man from New York City, with his companion, walked down the Bright Angel Trail to the Colorado River. Everybody knows, or should know, that the Colorado River is a most treacherous river. One glance at the sullen, silt-filled current tells that story. It seldom gives up its dead. But the New Yorker swam it, with his shoes and underclothing on. By the time he reached the far side he was completely exhausted. More than that he was panic-stricken at the undercurrents and whirlpools that had pulled at him and almost dragged him under. He would not swim back. His companion signaled and yelled encouragement, but nothing doing. Behind him rose a hundred-foot precipice; his clothes and his friend were on the southern bank. The bridge was four miles above, but unscalable walls made it impossible for him to reach that. Furthermore, night was at hand. When his friend knew that it was hopeless to wait any longer, he left him perched on a rock and started to Headquarters for help. This was a climb over seven miles of trail that gained a mile in altitude in that distance. Disregarding the facts that they had already done their day's work, that it was dark, and that his predicament was of his own making, the rangers went to the rescue. A canvas boat was lashed on a mule, another mule was led along for the victim to ride out on, and with four rangers the caravan was off. It was the plan to follow the trail to the Suspension Bridge, cross to the northern bank, follow down the river four miles to the cliff above the spot where the adventurer was roosting let the boat down over the ledge to the river, and, when the New Yorker got in, pull the boat upstream by means of the ropes until they found a safe place to drag it to shore. When almost down the trail they met the lad coming up, and he was mad! "Why didn't they come quicker? Why wasn't there a ranger down there to keep him from swimming the river?" And so forth. But no thanks to the men that had gone willingly to his rescue. However, they said they were well paid by the sight of him toiling up the trail in the moonlight, _au naturel_! They loaded him on a mule and brought him to the top. Then he refused to pay Fred Harvey for the mule. I might add _he paid_! I often wondered why people pay train fare across the continent and then spend their time poking around in _our_ houses. They would walk in without knocking, pick up and examine baskets, books, or anything that caught their fancy. One woman started to pull a blanket off my couch, saying "What do you want for this?" It was an old story to members of the Park Service, and after being embarrassed a few times we usually remembered to hook the door before taking a bath. One day Chief Joe and I were chatting in front of the Hopi House. His Indians had just completed one of their entertaining dances. As it happened we were discussing a new book that had just been published and I was interested in his view of the subject, _Outline of History_. All at once an imposing dowager bore down upon us with all sails set. "Are you a real Indian?" "Yes, madam," Joe bowed. "Where do you sleep?" "In the Hopi House." "What do you eat?" She eyed him through her lorgnette. "Most everything, madam," Joe managed to say. Luckily she departed before we lost control of ourselves. Joe says that he has been asked every question in the category, and then some. I think some of our stage idols and movie stars would be jealous if they could see the number of mash notes Joe receives. He is flattered and sought after and pursued by society ladies galore. The fact that he is married to one of his own people and has a fat, brown baby does not protect him. The Fred Harvey guides could throw interesting lights on tourist conduct if they wished, but they seldom relate their experiences. Our card club met in the recreation room of the guide quarters, and sometimes I would get a chance to listen in on the conversation of the guides. Their narrations were picturesque to say the least. "What held you up today, Ed?" "Well," drawled Ed, "a female dude wouldn't keep her mule movin' and that slowed up the whole shebang. I got tired tellin' her to kick him, so I jest throwed a loop round his neck and hitched 'im to my saddle horn. She kept up then." "Make her mad?" "Uh-huh." A pause while he carefully rolled and lighted a cigarette. "I reckon so. When we topped out an' I went to help her down, she wuz right smart riled." "Say she wuz goin' to report you to the President of these here United States?" "Don't know about that. She gimme a cut across the face with her bridle reins." Another pause. "'Twas real aggravatin'." Personally, I marveled at his calm. "What made you late in toppin' out?" Ed asked in his turn. "Well, we wuz late in startin' back, anyhow, and then I had to stop fer an hour pickin' cactus thorns outta an old-maid female." "Mule unload her in a patch, or did she sit down on one?" Ed was interested. "Naw, didn't do neither one. She tried to eat a prickly pear offa bush of cactus, and got her tongue full uv stickers. Said she always heard tell them cactus apples wuz good eatin'. I propped her mouth open with a glove so she couldn't bite none, and I picked cactus stickers till I wuz plumb weary." "Yeh, women is funny that way," philosophized the listener. "They do say Eve et an apple when she shouldn't ought to had." Another lad was lamenting because he had a pretty girl next to him in the trail party; as he said: "I was sure tryin' to make hay before the sun went down. Every time I'd say something low and confidential for her ear alone, a deaf old coot on the tail-end of the line would let out a yarp-- "'What'd you say, Guide?' or, 'I didn't get _that_, Guide.' "I reckon he thought I was exclaimin' on the magnificence of the picturesque beauty of the scenery, and he wasn't gittin' his money's worth of the remarks." One guide said he had trouble getting a man to make the return trip. He was so scared going down he figured he'd stay down there rather than ride back up the trail. Every morning, rain, snow, or shine, these guides, in flaming neckerchiefs, equally audible shirts, and woolly chaps, lead their string of patient mules up to the corral at the hotel, where the trail parties are loaded for the trip into the Canyon. Each mule has a complete set of individual characteristics, and mules are right set in their ways. If one wants to reach over the edge of a sheer precipice and crop a mouthful of grass, his rider may just as well let him reach. Mules seldom commit suicide, although at times the incentive must be strong. "Powder River," "Dishpan," "Rastus," and a few other equally hardy mule brethren are allotted to carry helpless fat tourists down the trail. It's no use for a fragile two-hundred-pound female to deny her weight. Guides have canny judgment when it comes to guessing, and you can't fool a Harvey mule. "Saint Peter," "Crowbar," and "By Jingo" are assigned to timid old ladies and frightened gentlemen. If I were issuing trail instructions for Canyon parties I would say something like this, basing my directions on daily observation: "The trail party starts about nine o'clock, and the departure should be surrounded with joyous shouts of bravado. After you have mounted your mule, or been laboriously hoisted aboard, let your conscience guide you as to your actions up and down the trail. When you top out at the end of the day and it is your turn to be unloaded, weakly drag your feet out of the stirrups, make sure that the guide is planted directly underneath you, turn loose all holds, and fall as heavily as possible directly on top of him. "After you have been placed on your feet, say about the third time, it might be well to make a feeble effort to stand alone. This accomplished, hobble off to the hotel, taking care to walk as bow-legged as possible. If you have a room with bath, dive into a blistering hot tubful and relax. If you were having a stingy streak when you registered, order a bath at the public bathroom and be thankful you have seventy-five cents with which to pay for it. Later take an inventory of your damages and, if they are not too severe, proceed to the dining-room and fill up on the most soul-satisfying meal Fred Harvey ever placed before the public. "Afterward, in the lobby, between examinations of 'I wish you were here' postcards, it might be well to warn newcomers about the dangers of the trip. Probably few tourists are as expert riders as you." We liked to poke fun at the saddle-sore dudes, but all the same the trip is a soul-trying one, and the right to boast to home folks about it is hardly earned. It is really a revelation to study the reaction of the Canyon on various races. On leaving the train a Japanese or Korean immediately seeks out a ranger or goes to the Park Office and secures every bit of information that is to be had. Age, formation, fauna, and flora are all investigated. Then armed with map, guidebook, and kodak he hikes to the bottom of the trail, and takes everything apart en route to see how it is made. English and German travelers come next in earnest study and observation. I am sorry to say that all foreigners seemed to show more intelligent interest in the Canyon than our own native Americans. Perhaps that is because only the more educated and intellectual foreigners are able to make the trip across the ocean. Lots of Americans never get farther than El Tovar, where they occupy easy chairs, leaving them several times a day to array themselves in still more gorgeous raiment. Of course, out of the hundreds of thousands that come to Grand Canyon, only a stray one now and then causes any anxiety or trouble. It is human nature to remember those that make trouble while thousands of the finest in the land pass unnoticed. Any mother can tell you that gentle, obedient Mary is not mentioned once, whereas naughty, turbulent Jane pops into the conversation continually. Rangers feel the same way about their charges. Perhaps a hundred people got on the train leaving the Canyon one snowy zero night. Those people were forgotten instantly, but not so the bellicose dame found wandering around the station asking when _her_ train would go. She had a ticket to New York, and stood on the platform like Andy Gump while the train with her baggage aboard pulled out. "It was headed the wrong way!" she explained tearfully, and stuck to her story, even when the sorely tried superintendent led her to the tracks and showed her that said track absolutely and finally ended there, without argument or compromise. And she was furious. Her former outburst was a mild prelude to what poured forth now. She would _not_ stay there until morning when the next train left. She demanded a special train; she ordered a handcar with which to overtake the recreant train; she called for a taxi to chase across to Williams with her, a mere eighty miles of ten-foot snowdrifts. Only shortage of breath occasioned by altitude and outraged sensibilities prevented her commandeering an airplane! None of these vehicles being forthcoming, she would stop in Washington if she ever made her escape from this God-forsaken hole, and have every Park employee fired. The Superintendent took her to the hotel, then came to me for help. "Please lend her a comb and a nightgown," he begged. "All right." I was used to anything by now. "Silk or flannel?" "Well," he said thoughtfully. "She acts like red flannel but probably expects crêpe de chine." I sent both over, and never saw either again. My heart went out to a poor little lady, sent by heartless relatives, traveling with only a maid. She was not mentally able to care for herself and certainly should not have been allowed to visit Grand Canyon. However, she and the maid arrived, with other visitors, and the maid seated her charge on a bench near the Rim, then went away about her own business. When she came back, behold, the little lady had vanished. After a long time, the maid reported her absence to the Ranger Office, and a search was organized. Soon after the rangers had set out to look for her, an automobile traveling from Flagstaff reported they had met a thinly dressed woman walking swiftly out into the desert. She had refused to answer when they spoke to her, and they were afraid she was not responsible for her actions. Ranger Winess, the Chief, and I climbed into the ever-ready Ford and took up the trail. A heavy storm was gathering and the wind cut like a knife. For several miles we saw nothing; then we saw her tracks in the muddy road where the sun had thawed the frozen ground earlier in the day. After a while great flakes of snow came down, and we lost all trace. Backtracking ourselves, we found where she had left the road and had hidden behind a big rock while we had passed. For an hour, through the falling snow, with night closing around us, we circled and searched, keeping in touch with each other by calling back and forth continually. It would have been easy enough for the rangers to have lost me, for I had no idea what direction I was moving in. We were about to give up and go back to Headquarters for men and lights when Ranger Winess stumbled over her as she crouched behind a log. She would have frozen to death in a very short time, and her coyote-picked bones would probably never have been discovered. She insisted she knew what she was about, and we had literally to lift her into the car and take her back to El Tovar. Whether the Canyon disorganized their judgment or whether they were equally silly at home I cannot tell, but certainly the two New England school teachers who tried horseback-riding for the first time, well--! I was mixing pie crust when the sound of thundering hoofbeats down through the woods took me to the door. Just at my porch some men were digging a deep ditch for plumbing. Two big black horses, a woman hanging around the neck of each, came galloping down on us, and as the foremost one gathered himself to leap the ditch, his fainting rider relaxed and fell right into the arms of a young Mormon workman. He carried her into my house, and I, not being entirely satisfied with the genuineness of the prolonged swoon, dismissed the workman and dashed the ice-cold pie crust water in her face. She "came to" speedily. Her companion arrived about that time and admitted that neither of them had ever been on a horse before, and not wanting to pay for the services of a guide they had claimed to be expert riders. It hadn't taken the horses long to find out how expert their riders were, and they had taken matters into their own hands, or perhaps it might be better to say they had taken the bits in their teeth and started for their stable. The girl on the leading horse said she had been looking for quite a while for a suitable place to fall, and when she saw the Mormon she knew that was her chance! It wasn't always the humans that got into trouble, either. I remember a beautiful collie dog that was being given an airing along the Rim. He suddenly lost his head, dashed over the low wall, and leaped to his death a thousand feet below. It took an Indian half a day of arduous climbing around fissures and bluffs to reach him and return him to his distracted owners for burial. They could not bear to leave the Canyon until they knew he was not lying injured and suffering on a ledge somewhere. [Illustration] _Chapter XV: FOOLS, FLOOD, AND DYNAMITE_ The Chief and I stayed home for a few days, and life rambled on without untoward incident. I began to breathe easier and stopped crossing my fingers whenever the phone rang. I even grew so placid that I settled myself to make a wedding dress for the little Mexican girl who helped me around the house. Her father was head of the Mexican colony whose village lies just out of Headquarters. Every member of the clan was a friend of mine, for I had helped them when they were sick and had saved all the colored pictures in magazines for their children. The wedding day dawned early, very early! At five o'clock I dragged myself from my warm bed and went to the schoolhouse where the wedding was staged. Father Vabre married the couple, and then we all went home with the happy pair. An accordion and a harmonica furnished music enough for several weddings; at least they made plenty of racket. We were seated at the table with the bride and groom. They sat there all day long, she still wearing her long wedding veil. The groom was attired in the niftiest shepherd-plaid suit I ever beheld. The checks were so large and so loud I was reminded constantly of a checker-board. A bright blue celluloid collar topped the outfit. I do not think the bridal couple spoke a word all day. They sat like statues and stonily received congratulations and a kiss on each cheek from all their friends. There was such a lot of dancing and feasting, and drinking the native wine secured for that grand occasion. Our plates were loaded with food of all sorts, but I compromised with a taste of the wine and a cup of coffee. The dancing and feasting lasted two or three days, but one day exhausted my capacity for endurance. Soon after the wedding, a tiny baby sister of the bride died, and its father came to get permission to bury it in the Park cemetery. I asked if I could do anything to help them, and Sandoval said I was to make the dress and put it on the baby for them. He produced bright orange organdie and pink ribbons for the purpose. Next morning I took the completed dress and some flowers the El Tovar gardener had contributed down to their home. I dressed the wee mite in the shroud, which was mightily admired, and placed the crucifix the mother gave me in its tiny waxen fist. Then the bride came with her veil and wreath of orange blossoms, and said she wanted to give them to the little sister. The mother spoke no English, but she pointed here and there where she wanted the flowers and bright bows of ribbon pinned. Strange, it looked to me, the little dead baby decked out in wedding finery, but the poor mother was content. She patted a ribbon and smoothed the dress, saying to me in Spanish: "The Madonna will find my baby _so_ beautiful!" One hot August day, the Chief and Ranger West went down into Salt Creek Basin, at the bottom of the Canyon, to look for some Government horses that had strayed away. In spite of their feeble protests I tagged along. We had checked up on the stock and were following the trail homeward. Ranger West rode in front on Black Dixie. Ordinarily he would have been humming like an overgrown bumblebee, or talking to Dixie, who he said was the only female he knew he would tell secrets to. But we had ridden far that day, and the heat radiated from the great ore rocks was almost beyond endurance. Now and then we could catch a glimpse of the river directly at the foot of the ledge our trail followed, and the water looked invitingly cool. All at once Dixie stopped so suddenly that Ranger West almost took a header. A man's hat was lying in the trail. Dismounting, the men looked for tracks. A quite legible story was written there for them to read. Some tenderfoot, thirst-crazed, had stumbled along that trail since we had passed that way a couple of hours earlier. Putting our horses to a lope we rode on until we came to his empty canteen; and a little farther on to a discarded coat and shirt. The tracks in the sand wavered like those of a drunken man. "We'll find his shoes next," the Chief called to Ranger West; "and then pretty soon the end of the trail for him. Can't go far barefoot in this hot sand." "Say," Ranger West shouted, "White Mountain, Poison Spring is just around the bend. We'll find the poor devil flattened out there sure. _You_ ride slow, Margie, and we'll hurry along." I didn't say anything, but I hurried along too. This spring he spoke of was strongly impregnated with arsenic. Even the wild burros shunned it; but I hardly dared to hope this desperate man would pass by it. The men rode over the expected shoes without stopping, but I got off of Tar Baby and got them. I began to think I would stay a little way behind. I felt rather weak and sick. Rounding the turn I could see there was nothing at the spring, and in the distance a stumbling figure was weaving along. The men were nearing him, so I spurred to a run. Every now and then the man would fall, lie prone for a minute, then struggle to his feet and go on. Suddenly my heart stood still. The figure left the trail and headed straight for the edge of the precipice. The river had made itself heard at last. Ranger West turned Dixie from the trail and rode straight across the plateau to where the man had disappeared behind a big boulder. The Chief followed West, but I rode the trail and kept my eyes resolutely ahead of me. I knew I couldn't endure seeing the man jump to certain death when we were at his heels with water and life. When I looked up again Ranger West had his rope in his hand widening the loop. White Mountain was with him. They were ten or fifteen feet from the man, who was lying on his stomach peering down at the water. As the poor fellow raised himself for the plunge, with a quick flirt of his wrist the ranger tossed the rope across the intervening space, and as the noose settled around the man's arms White Mountain and the ranger dragged him back from death. He lay stunned for a space, then twisted himself over, and mumbled through swollen, bleeding lips: "Is that really water down there?" They helped him back into the trail and gave him a swallow from a canteen. It took both the men to manage him, for with the first taste of water he went raving crazy. He fought and cursed them, and cried like a baby because he couldn't hold the canteen in his own hands. They laid him in the shade of our horses and poured a few drops down his throat at intervals until a degree of sanity returned. He was then placed on the Chief's horse, and the Chief and Ranger West took turns, one riding Dixie while the other helped the man stay in the saddle. We found later he was a German chemist looking for mineral deposits in the Canyon. Each morning a daily report of the previous day's doings is posted in Ranger Headquarters. I was curious to know what Ranger West's contribution would be for that day. This is what he said: "Patrolled Tonto Trail looking for lost horses. Accompanied Chief Ranger and wife. Brought in lost tenderfoot. Nothing to report." And that was that. The Chief decided to drive out to Desert View the afternoon following our Canyon experience, and he said I could go if I liked; he said he couldn't promise any excitement, but the lupine was beautiful in Long Jim Canyon, and I might enjoy it. "Thank God for a chance to be peaceful. I'm fed up on melodrama," I murmured, and I climbed into that old Ford with a breath of relief. We had such a beautiful drive. I waded waist-high in the fragrant lupine, and even took a nap on pine needles while White Mountain located the bench mark he was seeking. When he came back to me he said we had better start home. He saw a cloud that looked as if it might rain. Before we reached the Ford, the rain came down; then more rain came, and then there was a cloudburst. By that time we were well down toward the middle of Long Jim Canyon. This canyon acts just like a big ditch when rain falls. We had to keep going, and behind us a wall of water raced and foamed and reached out for us. It carried big logs with it, and maybe that water didn't make some time on the down grade. "Hang on, hold everything!" the Chief yelled in my ear, and we were off on as mad a race as John Gilpin ever rode. Henry would be proud of his offspring if he knew how one _could_ run when it had a flood behind it. "Peaceful! Quiet!! Restful!!!" I hissed at the Chief, between bumps. Driving was rather hazardous, because the water before us had carried trees and débris into the road almost blocking it at places. Now and then we almost squashed a dead cow the flood had deposited in our path. I hoped the gasoline would hold out. I prayed that the tires would last. And I mentally estimated the endurance power of springs and axles. Everything was jake, to use a cowboy expression, and we reached the mouth of the Canyon where both we and the flood could spread out. "Whew!" said the Chief, wiping his face. I didn't say anything. I can't remember that anything disastrous happened for two or three days after the flood. Life assumed an even tenor, and I yawned occasionally from sheer ennui. To break the monotony I made a salad. That was momentous! Salads meant something in our young lives out there. One of the rangers on leave had returned and brought me a fine head of lettuce--an entirely rash way of saying it with flowers. One last can of shrimp reposed on the shelf. It almost had cobwebs on it, we had cherished it so long, saving it for some grand spree. The time had arrived. That salad looked tempting as I sliced the rosy pimiento on top and piled it in the blue and white bowl. The ranger who contributed the lettuce was an invited guest, and he stood on one foot, then on the other, while the dressing was mixed. Even White Mountain hovered over it anxiously. Just then came a knock! A very famous "bugologist" had come to call on us. Of course the Chief invited him to dinner, while the ranger and I looked glumly at each other. Maybe there wouldn't be plenty of salad for four! Our guest was deep in his favorite sport, telling us all about the bugs that killed the beautiful yellow pines at the Canyon. "Have some butter, Professor, and try this salad," invited White Mountain. "Thanks, it looks enticing," answered our distinguished guest, and he placed the bowl with all its contents on his plate. Bite by bite the salad disappeared, while he discoursed on the proper method of killing the Yellow Pine Beetle. "Why aren't you folks eating some of this delicious salad? You deprive yourself of a treat when you refuse to eat salads. The human body requires the elements found in fresh, leafy plants, etc., etc." I gave the Chief's shins a sharp little kick. "We seldom eat salads," murmured White Mountain. I think I heard the disappointed ranger mutter: "Damn right we don't!" When the last bite was gone we all stepped outside to look for signs of the dread beetle on our own trees. While we stood there a blast was put off by the construction gang on the railway directly in front of our house. Rocks, 'dobe, and pine cones rattled down all around us. We beat a retreat into the house and the Chief called to the man in charge and warned him that such charges of powder as that must be covered if any more blasting were to be done. Again next morning big rocks struck the house, and broke a window. In the absence of a ranger, I walked down and requested the Turk in charge of the labor to use a little more discretion. Our house was newly painted inside and out. My windows were all clean, new curtains were up, the floors were newly waxed, and we were quite proud of our place of abode. I said to the Turk I was afraid the roof would leak if such sharp rocks hit it. He replied insolently that if he blew the roof off, the Santa Fe would put another on. I went back to the house in fear and trembling, and picked up my sewing. For half an hour I sewed in quiet. Then a terrific explosion rent the air. There was ominous silence for an instant, then the house crumpled over my head. The ridgepole came crashing down, bringing part of the roof and ceiling with it. Rocks and a great boulder fell into the room, knocking the stove over. Ashes and soot went everywhere. One rock grazed me and knocked the sewing basket from my lap. Part of a railroad tie carried the window sash and curtains in with it and landed on the piano. I have a vague recollection of searching vainly for my thimble, and then of grimly determining to locate the Chief's gun. It is well he wore his arsenal that day, else the usual order of things would have been reversed--a Christian would have massacred a Turk! While I was aimlessly wandering around through the wreckage, half dazed, White Mountain and the Superintendent rushed in. They frantically pulled me this way and pushed me that, trying to find out if I were hopelessly injured, or merely killed. They found out I could still talk! Then they turned their attention to the Turk and his men who came trooping in to view the remains. It seemed they had put down a charge of four sticks and it had failed to explode. So they had added four more and let her ramble. It was _some_ blow-up! At least the Turk found it so. "What do you want me to do?" that unfortunate asked me, after the Park men finished with him. "Oh, go outside and die!" "White Mountain, give me your pocketbook. I'm going to buy a ticket to West Virginia. I've had enough of the great open spaces," I continued. "Why go now?" he wanted to know. "You've escaped death from fire, flood, and fools. Might as well stay and see it through." So we started shoveling out the dirt. FOOTNOTES [1] Reprinted, by permission, with a few changes, from _Good Housekeeping_. [2] Reprinted, by permission, with a few changes, from _Good Housekeeping_. [3] Reprinted, by permission, with a few changes from _Good Housekeeping_. [4] Reprinted, by permission, from the _Los Angeles Times_ Sunday magazine. 
13150	----	Online Distributed Proofreaders Team THROUGH THE GRAND CANYON FROM WYOMING TO MEXICO By E.L. Kolb With a Foreword by Owen Wister New Edition With Additional Illustrations (72 Plates) From Photographs by the Author and His Brother 1915 Dedication TO THE MANY FRIENDS WHO "PULLED" FOR US, IF NOT WITH US DURING THE ONE HUNDRED ONE DAYS OF OUR RIVER TRIP, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. FOREWORD It is a dogged courage of which the author of this book is the serene possessor--shared equally by his daring brother; and evidence of this bravery is made plain throughout the following pages. Every youth who has in him a spark of adventure will kindle with desire to battle his way also from Green River to the foot of Bright Angel Trail; while every man whose bones have been stiffened and his breath made short by the years, will remember wistfully such wild tastes of risk and conquest that he, too, rejoiced in when he was young. Whether it deal with the climbing of dangerous peaks, or the descent (as here) of some fourteen hundred miles of water both mysterious and ferocious, the well-told tale of a perilous journey, planned with head and carried through with dauntless persistence, always holds the attention of its readers and gives them many a thrill. This tale is very well told. Though it is the third of its kind, it differs from its predecessors more than enough to hold its own: no previous explorers have attempted to take moving pictures of the Colorado River with themselves weltering in its foam. More than this: while the human race lasts it will be true, that any man who is lucky enough to fix upon a hard goal and win it, and can in direct and simple words tell us how he won it, will write a good book. Perhaps this planet does somewhere else contain a thing like the Colorado River--but that is no matter; we at any rate in our continent possess one of nature's very vastest works. After The River and its tributaries have done with all sight of the upper world, have left behind the bordering plains and streamed through the various gashes which their floods have sliced in the mountains that once stopped their way, then the culminating wonder begins. The River has been flowing through the loneliest part which remains to us of that large space once denominated "The Great American Desert" by the vague maps in our old geographies. It has passed through regions of emptiness still as wild as they were before Columbus came; where not only no man lives now nor any mark is found of those forgotten men of the cliffs, but the very surface of the earth itself looks monstrous and extinct. Upon one such region in particular the author of these pages dwells, when he climbs up out of the gulf in whose bottom he has left his boat by the River, to look out upon a world of round gray humps and hollows which seem as if it were made of the backs of huge elephants. Through such a country as this, scarcely belonging to our era any more than the mammoth or the pterodactyl, scarcely belonging to time at all, does the Colorado approach and enter its culminating marvel. Then, for 283 miles it inhabits a nether world of its own. The few that have ventured through these places and lived are a handful to those who went in and were never seen again. The white bones of some have been found on the shores; but most were drowned; and in this water no bodies ever rise, because the thick sand that its torrent churns along clogs and sinks them. This place exerts a magnetic spell. The sky is there above it, but not of it. Its being is apart; its climate; its light; its own. The beams of the sun come into it like visitors. Its own winds blow through it, not those of outside, where we live. The River streams down its mysterious reaches, hurrying ceaselessly; sometimes a smooth sliding lap, sometimes a falling, broken wilderness of billows and whirlpools. Above stand its walls, rising through space upon space of silence. They glow, they gloom, they shine. Bend after bend they reveal themselves, endlessly new in endlessly changing veils of colour. A swimming and jewelled blue predominates, as of sapphires being melted and spun into skeins of shifting cobweb. Bend after bend this trance of beauty and awe goes on, terrible as the Day of Judgment, sublime as the Psalms of David. Five thousand feet below the opens and barrens of Arizona, this canyon seems like an avenue conducting to the secret of the universe and the presence of the gods. Is much wonder to be felt that its beckoning enchantment should have drawn two young men to dwell beside it for many years; to give themselves wholly to it; to descend and ascend among its buttressed pinnacles; to discover caves and waterfalls hidden in its labyrinths; to climb, to creep, to hang in mid-air, in order to learn more and more of it, and at last to gratify wholly their passion in the great adventure of this journey through it from end to end? No siren song could have lured travellers more than the siren silence of the Grand Canyon: but these young men did not leave their bones to whiten upon its shores. The courage that brought them out whole is plain throughout this narrative, in spite of its modesty.--OWEN WISTER. PREFACE This is a simple narrative of our recent photographic trip down the Green and Colorado rivers in rowboats--our observations and impressions. It is not intended to replace in any way the books published by others covering a similar journey. Major J.W. Powell's report of the original exploration, for instance, is a classic, literary and geological; and searchers after excellence may well be recommended to his admirable work. Neither is this chronicle intended as a handbook of the territory traversed--such as Mr. F.S. Dellenbaugh's two volumes: "The Romance of the Grand Canyon," and "A Canyon Voyage." We could hardly hope to add anything of value to his wealth of detail. In fact, much of the data given here--such as distances, elevations, and records of other expeditions--is borrowed from the latter volume. And I take this opportunity of expressing our appreciation to Mr. Dellenbaugh for his most excellent and entertaining books. We are indebted to Mr. Julius F. Stone, of Columbus, Ohio, for much valuable information and assistance. Mr. Stone organized a party and made the complete trip down the Green and Colorado rivers in the fall and winter of 1909, arriving at Needles, California, on November 27, 1909. He freely gave us the benefit of his experience and presented us with the complete plans of the boats he used. One member of this party was Nathan Galloway, of Richfield, Utah. To him we owe much of the success of our journey. Mr. Galloway hunts and traps through the wilds of Utah, Colorado, and Arizona, and has a fame for skill and nerve throughout this entire region. He makes a yearly trip through the upper canyons, usually in a boat of his own construction; and in addition has the record of being the only person who has made two complete trips through the entire series of canyons, clear to Needles. He it is who has worked out the type of boats we used, and their management in the dangerous waters of the Colorado. We have tried to make this narrative not only simple, as we say, but truthful. However, no two people can see things in exactly the same light. To some, nothing looks big; to others, every little danger is unconsciously magnified out of all proportion. For instance, we can recall rapids which appeared rather insignificant at first, but which seemed decidedly otherwise after we had been overturned in them and had felt their power--especially at the moment when we were sure we had swallowed a large part of the water that composed them. The reader will kindly excuse the use of the first person, both singular and plural. It is our own story, after all, and there seems to be no other way than to tell it as you find it here. +CONTENTS+ CHAPTER PAGE I. PREPARATIONS AT GREEN RIVER CITY, WYOMING 1 II. INTERESTING SIGHTS OF SOUTHERN WYOMING 12 III. THE GATEWAY OF ALL THE CANYONS 22 IV. SUSPICIOUS HOSTS 36 V. THE BATTLE WITH LODORE 50 VI. HELL'S HALF MILE 64 VII. JIMMY GOES OVER THE MOUNTAIN 71 VIII. AN INLAND EXCURSION 83 IX. CANYON OF DESOLATION 93 X. HOSPITABLE RANCHMEN 102 XI. WONDERS OF EROSION 111 XII. COULD WE SUCCEED? 121 XIII. A COMPANION VOYAGER 129 XIV. A PATIENT AMID THE CATARACTS 142 XV. PLACER GOLD 156 XVI. A WARNING 169 XVII. A NIGHT OF THRILLS 178 XVIII. MARBLE HALLS AND MARBLE WALLS 190 XIX. SIGNALLING OUR CANYON HOME 203 XX. ONE MONTH LATER 219 XXI. WHAT CHRISTMAS EVE BROUGHT 235 XXII. SHORT OF PROVISIONS IN A SUNLESS GORGE 249 XXIII. THE LAST PORTAGE AND THE LAST RAPIDS 267 XXIV. ON THE CREST OF A FLOOD 280 XXV. FOUR DAYS TO YUMA 290 XXVI. ACROSS THE MEXICO BORDER 303 XXVII. THE GULF OF CALIFORNIA 321 ILLUSTRATIONS The Grand Canyon near the mouth of Ha Va Su Creek _Frontispiece_ After a difficult picture. E. C. Kolb on rope................... 2 In the Grand Canyon near the Little Colorado.................... 6 The start at Green River, Wyoming............................... 10 Fire Hole Chimneys.............................................. 10 A typical butte formation....................................... 14 Boats and crew. Photo taken in the Grand Canyon................. 18 Skeleton found in the Grand Canyon.............................. 22 Inside of the first canyons..................................... 26 Tilted rocks at Kingfisher Canyon............................... 26 "Immense rocks had fallen from the cliff"....................... 36 Ashley Falls, looking down-stream............................... 40 The rocks were dark red; occasional pines grew on the ledges, making a charming combination of colour....................... 44 "We stopped at one hay ranch close to the Utah-Colorado line"... 48 Remarkable entrance to Lodore Canyon............................ 52 "The river cut a channel under the walls" at Lower Disaster Falls......................................................... 56 "Everything was wet"............................................ 56 A Colorado River salmon......................................... 60 Lodore Canyon as seen from Brown's Park......................... 60 "The Canyon was gloomy and darkened with shreds of clouds"...... 64 "It took nine loads to empty one boat".......................... 68 "An upright log was found wedged between the boulders".......... 68 Echo Cliffs. "This was the end of Lodore"....................... 72 End of Echo Cliffs. The mouth of the Yampa River is on the right.......................................................... 72 Marvels of erosion.............................................. 76 "Here was one end of the rainbow of rock that began on the other side of the mountains".................................. 80 Pat Lynch: the canyon hermit.................................... 84 Each bed was placed in a rubber and a canvas sack............... 90 "Now for a fish story" ......................................... 100 The centre of three symmetrical formations in the Double Bow Knot.......................................................... 114 The Buttes of the Cross......................................... 118 "The Land of Standing Rocks was like a maze".................... 122 Rocks overhanging the Colorado's Gorge.......................... 122 Thirteen hundred feet above the Green River..................... 124 The junction of the Green and the Grand Rivers.................. 128 Looking west into Cataract Canyon............................... 132 Charles Smith and his boat...................................... 132 A narrow channel at Rapid No. 22................................ 136 Developing tests................................................ 136 Rapid No. 22 in Cataract Canyon................................. 140 The _Edith_ in a cataract....................................... 144 A seventy-five-foot drop in three-fourths of a mile............. 144 Camp in the heart of Cataract Canyon............................ 148 Lower Cataract Canyon. Boats tandem............................. 152 Beginning of a natural bridge. Glen Canyon...................... 152 Pictographs in Glen Canyon...................................... 158 Cliff ruins near San Juan River................................. 162 Rainbow Natural Bridge, looking south........................... 162 Rainbow Natural Bridge, looking north........................... 166 Glen Canyon near Navajo Mountain................................ 170 Upper Marble Canyon............................................. 170 Placer dredge at Lee's Ferry.................................... 174 Badger Creek Rapid.............................................. 180 Bands of marble in Marble Canyon................................ 180 A peaceful camp in Marble Canyon................................ 184 The Soap Creek Rapid; a little above lowest stage. Photo published by permission of Julius F. Stone.................... 188 "It was too good a camp to miss"................................ 192 Arch in Marble Canyon........................................... 192 Walls of Marble Canyon.......................................... 196 Approaching the Grand Canyon.................................... 200 End of Marble Canyon, from the mouth of the Little Colorado..... 204 Cataracts of the Little Colorado River.......................... 204 End of Hance Trail. Small white line is an intrusion of quartz in the algonkian.............................................. 208 Below the Sockdologer........................................... 210 The Rust Tramway. Span four hundred and fifty feet.............. 214 Bright Angel Creek and Canyon................................... 218 Leaving home, Dec. 19, 1911..................................... 222 A composite picture of Marble Canyon walls and a Grand Canyon rapid......................................................... 222 The _Edith_ (on left of central rock) in Granite Falls.......... 226 Rough water in Hermit Creek Rapid............................... 230 Type of rapid in the granite near Bass Trail.................... 234 The inner plateau, thirteen hundred feet above the river........ 238 Bert Lauzon, above Separation Rapid............................. 238 The break in the _Edith_........................................ 242 Merry Christmas. The repair was made with bilge boards, canvas, paint, and tin................................................ 242 Pulling clear of a rock......................................... 246 A shower bath................................................... 246 Grand Canyon at the mouth of Ha Va Su Canyon. Medium high water. Frontispiece shows same place in low water............. 250 "Morning revealed a little snow," on the top.................... 252 New Year's Eve was spent in this section between the highest sheer walls in the lower gorge................................ 252 Lava Falls. Lava on left, hot springs on right.................. 254 Swift water in Tapeets Creek Rapid.............................. 260 Lauzon, equipped with a life preserver on a rope, on guard below a rapid................................................. 260 In the last granite gorge....................................... 260 Capt. Burro: a Ha Va Supai...................................... 266 The Last Portage. The rocks were ice-filmed. Note potholes...... 270 Mooney Falls: Ha Va Su Canyon................................... 274 Watching for the signal fire. Mrs. Emery and Edith Kolb......... 278 The granite gorge near Bright Angel Trail....................... 282 The Grand Canyon from the head of Bright Angel Trail............ 286 The Cork Screw: lower end of Bright Angel Trail................. 290 Zoroaster Temple from the end of Bright Angel Trail............. 298 Winter in the Grand Canyon from the Rim......................... 308 Winter in the Grand Canyon at the River......................... 308 A vaquero in the making......................................... 318 Cliff swallows' nests. Found from Wyoming to Mexico............. 318 Steam vents beside Volcanic Lake................................ 326 Cocopah Mountain, Mexico........................................ 326 Ten miles from the Gulf of California. Coming up on a twenty-foot tide.............................................. 332 Sunset on the lower Colorado River.............................. 332 [Illustration] THROUGH THE GRAND CANYON FROM WYOMING TO MEXICO CHAPTER I PREPARATIONS AT GREEN RIVER CITY, WYOMING Early in September of 1911 my brother Emery and I landed in Green River City, Wyoming, ready for the launching of our boats on our long-planned trip down the Green and Colorado rivers. For ten years previous to this time we had lived at the Grand Canyon of Arizona, following the work of scenic photography. In a general way we had covered much of the country adjacent to our home, following our pack animals over ancient and little-used trails, climbing the walls of tributary canyons, dropping over the ledges with ropes when necessary, always in search of the interesting and unusual. After ten years of such work many of our plans in connection with a pictorial exploration of the Grand Canyon were crowned with success. Yet all the while our real ambition remained unsatisfied. We wanted to make the "Big Trip"--as we called it; in other words, we wanted a pictorial record of the entire series of canyons on the Green and Colorado rivers. The time had come at last, after years of hoping, after long months of active preparation. We stood at the freight window of the station at Green River City asking for news of our boats. They had arrived and could be seen in their crates shoved away in a corner. It was too late to do anything with them that day; so we let them remain where they were, and went out to look over the town. Green River City proved to be a busy little place noisy with switch engines, crowded with cattle-men and cowboys, and with hunting parties outfitting for the Jackson Hole country. A thoroughly Western town of the better sort, with all the picturesqueness of people and surroundings that the name implies. It was busier than usual, even, that evening; for a noisy but good-natured crowd had gathered around the telegraph office, eager for news of a wrestling match then taking place in an Eastern city. As we came up they broke into a cheer at the news that the American wrestler had defeated his foreign opponent. There was a discussion as to what constituted the "toe-hold," three boys ran an impromptu foot-race, there was some talk on the poor condition of the range, and the party began to break up. The little excitement over, we returned to the hotel; feeling, in spite of our enthusiasm, somewhat lonesome and very much out of place. Our sleep that night was fitful and broken by dreams wherein the places we had known were strangely interwoven with these new scenes and events. Through it all we seemed to hear the roar of the Rio Colorado. We looked out of the window the next morning, on a landscape that was novel, yet somehow familiar. The river, a quarter of a mile away, very clear and unruffled under its groves of cottonwood, wound through low barren hills, as unlike as could be to the cliffs and chasms we knew so well. But the colours--gray, red, and umber, just as Moran has painted them--reassured us. We seemed not so far from home, after all. It was Wyoming weather, though; clear and cold, after a windy night. When, after breakfast, we went down to the river, we found that a little ice had formed along the margin. The days of final preparation passed quickly--with unpacking of innumerable boxes and bundles, checking off each article against our lists; and with a long and careful overhauling of our photographic outfit. This last was a most important task, for the success of our expedition depended on our success as photographers. We could not hope to add anything of importance to the scientific and topographic knowledge of the canyons already existing: and merely to come out alive at the other end did not make a strong appeal to our vanity. We were there as scenic photographers in love with their work, and determined to reproduce the marvels of the Colorado's canyons, as far as we could do it. In addition to three film cameras we had 8 � 10 and 5 � 7 plate cameras; a plentiful supply of plates and films; a large cloth dark-room; and whatever chemicals we should need for tests. Most important of all, we had brought a motion-picture camera. We had no real assurance that so delicate an apparatus, always difficult to use and regulate, could even survive the journey--much less, in such inexperienced hands as ours, reproduce its wonders. But this, nevertheless, was our secret hope, hardly admitted to our most intimate friends--that we could bring out a record of the Colorado as it is, a live thing, armed as it were with teeth, ready to crush and devour. There was shopping to do; for the purchases of provisions, with a few exceptions, had been left to the last. There were callers, too--an embarrassing number of them. We had camped on a small island near the town, not knowing when we did so that it had recently been put aside for a public park. The whole of Green River City, it seemed, had learned of our project, and came to inspect, or advise, or jeer at us. The kindest of them wished us well; the other sort told us "it would serve us right"; but not one of our callers had any encouragement to offer. Many were the stories of disaster and death with which they entertained us. One story in particular, as it seems never to have reached print--though unquestionably true--ought to be set down here. Three years before two young men from St. Louis had embarked here, intending to follow the river throughout its whole course. They were expert canoeists, powerful swimmers, and equipped with a steel boat, we were told, built somewhat after the style of a canoe. They chose the time of high water--not knowing, probably, that while high water decreases the labour of the passage, it greatly increases the danger of it. They came to the first difficult rapid in Red Canyon, seventy odd miles below Green River City. It looked bad to them. They landed above it and stripped to their underclothing and socks. Then they pushed out into the stream. Almost at once they lost control of the boat. It overturned; it rolled over and over; it flung them off and left them swimming for their lives. In some way, possibly the currents favouring, they reached the shore. The boat, with all its contents, was gone. There they were, almost naked, without food, without weapons, without the means of building a fire; and in an uninhabited and utterly inhospitable country. For four days they wandered, blistered by the sun by day; nearly frozen at night, bruised by the rocks, and torn by the brambles. Finally they reached the ranch at the head of the canyons and were found by a half-breed Indian, who cared for them. Their underwear had been made into bindings for their lacerated feet; they were nearly starved, and on the verge of mental collapse. After two weeks' treatment in the hospital at Green River City they were partially restored to health. Quite likely they spent many of the long hours of their convalescence on the river bank, or on the little island, watching the unruffled stream glide underneath the cottonwoods. Such tales as this added nothing to our fears, of course--for the whole history of the Colorado is one long story of hardship and disaster, and we knew, even better than our advisors, what risks lay before us. We told our newfound friends, in fact, that we had lived for years on the brink of the Grand Canyon itself, a gorge deeper and more awful, even, than Lodore; with a volume of water ten times greater. We knew, of course, of the river's vast length, of the terrible gorges that confined it, of the hundreds of rapids through which a boat would have to pass. We knew, too, how Major Powell, undismayed by legends of underground channels, impassable cataracts, and whirlpools; of bloodthirsty tribes haunting its recesses,--had passed through the canyons in safety, measuring and surveying as he went. We also knew of the many other attempts that had been made--most of them ending in disaster or death, a very few being successful. Well, it had been done;[1] it could be done again--this was our answer to their premonitions. We had present worries enough to keep us from dwelling too much on the future. It had been our intention to start two weeks earlier, but there had been numerous unavoidable delays. The river was low; "the lowest they had seen it in years" they told us, and falling lower every day. There were the usual difficulties of arranging a lot of new material, and putting it in working order. At last we were ready for the boats, and you may be sure we lost no time in having them hauled to the river, and launching them. They were beauties--these two boats of ours--graceful, yet strong in line, floating easily, well up in the water, in spite of their five hundred pounds' weight. They were flat-bottomed, with a ten-inch rake or raise at either end; built of white cedar, with unusually high sides; with arched decks in bow and stern, for the safe storing of supplies. Sealed air chambers were placed in each end, large enough to keep the boats afloat even if filled with water. The compartment at the bow was lined with tin, carefully soldered, so that even a leak in the bottom would not admit water to our precious cargoes. We had placed no limit on their cost, only insisting that they should be of materials and workmanship of the very best, and strictly in accordance with our specifications. In every respect but one they pleased us. Imagine our consternation when we discovered that the hatch covers were anything but water-tight, though we had insisted more upon this, perhaps, than upon any other detail. Loose boards, with cross-pieces, fastened with little thumbscrews--there they were, ready to admit the water at the very first upset. There was nothing to be done. It was too late to rebuild the hatches even if we had had the proper material. Owing to the stage of water it was imperative that we should start at once. Bad as it would be to have water in our cargo, it would be worse to have too little water in the rock-obstructed channels of Red Canyon, or in the "flats" at Brown's Park for instance. Certainly the boats acted so beautifully in the water that we could almost overlook the defective hatches. Emery rowed upstream for a hundred yards, against a stiff current, and came back jubilant. "They're great--simply great!" he exclaimed. We had one real cause for worry, for actual anxiety, though; and as each hour brought us nearer to the time of departure, we grew more and more desperate. What about our third man? We were convinced that a third man was needed; if not for the duties of camp making, helping with the cooking and portaging; at least, for turning the crank of the motion-picture camera. Emery and I could not very well be running rapids, and photographing ourselves in the rapids at the same time. Without a capable assistant, therefore, much of the real purpose would be defeated. Our first move, accordingly, had been to secure the services of a strong, level-headed, and competent man. Friends strongly advised us to engage a Canadian canoe-man, or at least some one familiar with the management of boats in rough water. It was suggested, also, that we might secure the help of some one of the voyagers who had been members of one of the previous expeditions. But--we may as well be frank about it--we did not wish to be piloted through the Colorado by a guide. We wanted to make our own trip in our own way. If we failed, we would have no one but ourselves to blame; if we succeeded, we would have all the satisfaction that comes from original, personal exploration. In other words, we wanted a man to execute orders, not to give them. But that man was hard to find! There had been many applicants; some of them from distant parts of the country. One by one they were sifted out. At length we decided on one man; but later he withdrew. We turned elsewhere, but these applications were withdrawn, until there remained but a single letter, from a young man in San Francisco. He seemed in every way qualified. We wrote accepting his application, but while waiting to hear from us a civil service position had been offered and accepted. "He was sorry"; and so were we, for his references proved that he was a capable man. Later he wrote that he had secured a substitute. We replied on the instant, by wiring money for transportation, with instructions for the new man to report at once at Green River. We took very much for granted, having confidence in our friends' sincerity and knowledge of just what was required. The time had passed, two days before; but--no sign of our man! We wrote, we telegraphed, we walked back and forth to every train; but still he did not come. Had this man, too, failed us? Then "Jimmy" came--just the night before we were to leave. And never was a man more heartily welcome! With James Fagen of San Francisco our party was complete. He was an Irish-American, aged 22 years, a strong, active, and willing chap. To be sure, he was younger, and not so experienced at "roughing it" as we had hoped. But his good qualities, we were sure, would make up for what was lacking. Evening found us encamped a half mile below the town, the county bridge. Our preparations were finished--even to the final purchase of odds and ends; with ammunition for shot-gun and rifle. We threw our sleeping-bags on the dry ground close to the river's edge, and, all our anxieties gone, we turned our faces to the stars and slept. At daybreak we were aroused by the thunder of hoofs on the bridge above us, and the shouts of cowboys driving a large herd of half-broken horses. We tumbled into our clothes, splashed our faces with ice-cold water from the river, and hurried over to the hotel for a last breakfast. Then we sat down--in the little hotel at Green River City--as others had done before, to write last messages to those who were nearest and dearest to us. A telegram to our parents in an Eastern city; and another to Emery's wife and little girl, at Bright Angel, more than eight hundred miles down this self-same river--these, somehow, took longer to write than the letters themselves. But whatever we may have felt, we finished this final correspondence in silence, and hurried back to the river. Something of a crowd had gathered on the bridge to wish us _bon voyage_. Shouting up to them our thanks for their hospitality, and telling them to "look pleasant," we focussed the motion-picture camera on them, Emery turning the crank, as the boat swung out into the current. So began our journey, on Friday, September the 8th, 1911, at 9.30 A.M., as entered in my journal. CHAPTER II INTERESTING SIGHTS OF SOUTHERN WYOMING All this preparation--and still more, the vexatious delays--had been a heavy tax upon us. We needed a vacation. We took it--six pleasant care-free days--hunting and fishing as we drifted through the sixty miles of southern Wyoming. There were ducks and geese on the river to test our skill with the shot-gun. Only two miles below Green River City Emery secured our first duck, a promise of good sport to follow. An occasional cottontail rabbit was seen, scurrying to cover through the sage-brush, when we made a detour from the boats. We saw many jack-rabbits too--with their long legs, and exaggerated ears--creatures swifter, even, than the coyotes themselves. We saw few people, though an occasional rancher hailed us from the shore. Men of the open themselves, the character of our expedition appealed to them. Their invitations to "come up to the ranch, and spend the evening" were always hearty, and could seldom be refused if the day was nearly gone. The Logan boys' ranch, for instance, was our first camp; but will be one of the last to be forgotten. The two Logan boys were sturdy, companionable young men, full of pranks, and of that bubbling, generous humour that flourishes in this Western air. We were amused by their kindly offer to allow Jimmy to ride "the little bay"--a beautiful animal, with the shifty eye of a criminal. But Jimmy, though city-bred, was not to be trapped, and declined; very wisely, as we thought. We photographed their favourite horses, and the cabin; also helped them with their own camera, and developed some plates in the underground storm-cellar,--a perfect dark-room, as it happened. We took advantage of this pleasant camp to make a few alterations about our boats. Certain mechanical details had been neglected in our desire to be off, our intention being to look after them as occasion demanded. Our short run had already shown us where we were weak or unprepared. The rowlocks needed strengthening. One had come apart in our first brush with a little riffle. The rowlocks were of a little-used type, but very serviceable in dangerous waters. Inside the usual rowlock a heavy ring was hung, kept in place by strong set-screws, but allowing full play in every direction. These rings were slipped over the oars; then the usual leather collar was nailed on the oar, making it impossible for the rings to become separated from the oars. The holes for the set-screws were too shallow, so we went over the entire lot to deepen them. We foresaw where a break might occur, and hung another lock of the open type on a cord, beside each oar, ready for instant use in case of emergency. The Logan boys, seeing our difficulties in making some of these changes, came to our relief. "Help yourselves to the blacksmith shop," they said heartily. Here was an opportunity. Much time was consumed in providing a device to hold our extra oars--out of the way on top of the deck, but available at a moment's notice. Thanks to the Logan boys and their blacksmith shop, these and many other little details were corrected once for all; and we launched our boats in confidence on the morning of September 10. A few miles below we came to the locally famous Fire Hole Chimneys, interesting examples of the butte formation, so typical of the West. There were several of these buttes, about 800 feet high, composed of stratified rock; in colour quite similar to the rocks at Green River City, but capped with rock of a peculiar burnt appearance, though not of volcanic origin. Some of the buttes sloped up from the very edge of the river; others were separated from the river by low flats, covered with sage-brush and bunch-grass,--that nutritious food of the range stock. At the water's edge was the usual fringe of willows, cottonwoods, and shrubs innumerable,--all mirrored in the limpid surface of Green River. At the foot of the cliffs were a number of wild burros, old and young--fuzzy little baby-burros, looking ridiculously like jack-rabbits--snorting their indignation at our invasion of their privacy. Strange, by the way, how quickly these wild asses lose their wildness of carriage when broken, and lapse into the utmost docility! Just below the Chimneys Emery caught sight of fish gathered in a deep pool, under the foliage of a cottonwood tree which had fallen into the river. Our most tempting bait failed to interest them; so Emery, ever clever with hook and line, "snagged" one just to teach them better manners. It was a Colorado River salmon or whitefish. That evening I "snagged" a catfish and used this for salmon bait, a fourteen-pound specimen rewarding the attempt. These salmon were old friends of ours, being found from one end to the other of the Colorado, and on all its tributaries. They sometimes weigh twenty-five or thirty pounds, and are common at twenty pounds; being stockily built fish, with large, flat heads. They are not gamey, but afford a lot of meat with a very satisfying flavour. On September 11, about forty miles below Green River, we passed Black's Fork, a tributary entering from the west. It is a stream of considerable length, but was of little volume at that time. The banks were cliffs about 300 feet high, rugged, dark, and overhanging. Here were a half dozen eagles and many old nests--proof enough, if proof were needed, that we were in a little visited country. What strong, splendid birds they were; how powerful and graceful their flight as they circled up, and up, into the clear blue sky! Our next camp was at the Holmes' ranch, a few miles below Black's Fork. We tried to buy some eggs of Walter Holmes, and were told that we could have them on one condition--that we visit him that evening. This was a price we were only too glad to pay, and the evening will linger long in our memories. Mr. Holmes entertained us with stories of hunting trips--after big game in the wilds of Colorado; and among the lakes of the Wind River Mountains, the distant source of the Green River. Mrs. Holmes and two young ladies entertained us with music; and Jimmy, much to our surprise, joined in with a full, rich baritone. It was late that night when we rolled ourselves in our blankets, on the banks twenty feet above the river. Next morning we were shown a group of Mrs. Holmes' pets--several young rabbits and a kitten, romping together in the utmost good fellowship. The rabbits had been rescued from a watery grave in an irrigation ditch and carefully nursed back to life. We helped her search for a lame wild duck that had spurned the offer of a good home with civilized ducklings, and had taken to the sage-brush. Mrs. Holmes' love of wild animals, however, failed to include the bald-headed eagle that had shown such an appetite for her spring chickens. A few miles below this ranch we passed Bridger Crossing, a ford on an old trail through southern Wyoming. In pioneer days Jim Bridger's home was on this very spot. But those romantic days are long since past; and where this world-famous scout once watched through the loopholes of his barricade, was an amazed youngster ten or eleven years old who gazed on us, then ran to the cabin and emerged with a rifle in his hands. We thought little of this incident at the time, but later we met the father of the boy and were told that the children had been left alone with the small boy as their only protector, and that he stood ready to defend the home against any possible marauders. No doubt we looked bad enough to him. Just below the ford the channel widened, and the river became very shallow, the low rolling hills falling away into a wide green prairie. We camped that night on a small island, low and treeless, but covered with deep, rank grass. Next morning our sleeping-bags were wet with frost and dew. A hard pull against a heavy wind between gradually deepening rocky banks made us more than glad to pitch camp at noon a short distance above the mouth of Henry's Fork, a considerable stream flowing from the west. In the afternoon Emery and I decided to walk to Linwood, lying just across the Utah line, four miles up Henry's Fork. Jimmy preferred to remain with the boats. Between the river and a low mesa lay a large ranch of a different appearance from those others which we had passed. Those past were cattle ranches, with stock on the open range, and with little ground fit for cultivation, owing to the elevation. Here we found great, broad acres, fenced and cultivated, with thoroughbred stock--horses and cattle--contentedly grazing. This pastoral scene, with a background of rugged mountains, appealed strongly to our photographic instincts. After three or four exposures, we climbed the farthest fence and passing from alfalfa to sage-brush in one step, were at the foot of the mesa. Climbing to the summit, we beheld the village in the distance, in a beautiful green valley--a splendid example of Mormon irrigation and farming methods. Linwood proved to be the market-place for all the ranchers of this region. Dotting the foot-hills where water was less plentiful were occasional cabins, set down in the middle of hay ranches. All this husbandry only emphasized the surrounding desolation. Just beyond, dark in the southern sky, rose the great peaks of the Uintah range, the mountains we were so soon to enter. Storm-clouds had been gathering about one great snow-covered peak, far in the distance. These clouds spread and darkened, moving rapidly forward. We had taken the hint and were already making all possible haste toward the town, hoping to reach it before the storm broke. But it was useless. Long before we had gained the edge of the valley the rain had commenced in the mountains,--small local storms, resembling delicate violet-coloured veils, hung in the dense pall of the clouds. There were far flashes of lightning, and the subdued roar of distant thunder, rapidly growing louder as the storm approached. Unable to escape a drenching, we paused a moment to wonder at the sight; to marvel--and shrink a little too--at the wild, incessant lightning. The peaks themselves seemed to be tumbling together, such was the continuous roar of thunder, punctuated by frequent deafening crashes. Then the storm came down upon us. Such torrents of rain we have seldom witnessed: such gusts of driving wind! At times we could scarcely make headway against it, but after most strenuous effort we neared the village. We hoped to find shelter under a bridge, but found innumerable muddy streams running through the planks. So we resumed our plodding, slipping and sliding in the black, bottomless mud. The storm by this time had passed as quickly as it came. Wet to our skins, we crawled into the little store and post-office combined, and found it filled with ranch hands, waiting for the weekly mail. We made a few purchases, wrote some letters, then went to a large boarding-house near by and fortified ourselves with a generous, hot supper. There were comments by some of the men on our venture, but they lacked the true Green River tang. Here, close to the upper canyons, the unreasonable fear of the rapids gave way to a reasonable respect for them. Here we heard again of the two young men from St. Louis, and the mishaps that had befallen them. Here too we were to hear for the first time of the two Snyders, father and son, and the misfortunes that had overtaken them in Lodore Canyon, twenty years before. We were to hear more of these men later. We made what haste we could back to our boats, soon being overtaken by a horseman, a big-hearted Swede who insisted on carrying our load as long as we were going in his direction. How many just such instances of kindliness we were to experience on our journey down the river! How the West abounds with such men! It was dark when he left us a mile from the river. Here there was no road to follow, and we found that what had been numerous dry gullies before were now streams of muddy water. Two or three of these streams had to be crossed, and we had a disagreeable half hour in a marsh. Finally we reached the river, but not at the point where we had left our boats. We were uncertain whether the camp was above or below us, and called loudly for Jimmy, but received no answer. Emery felt sure that camp was upstream. So upstream we went, keeping back of the bushes that fringed the banks, carefully searching for a sign. After a few minutes' hunt we heard a sound: a subdued rumble, not unlike the distant thunder heard that afternoon, or of boats being dragged over the pebbles. What could it be? We listened again, carefully this time, and discovered that it came from a point about thirty feet away, on the opposite side of the bushes. It could be only one thing. Jimmy's snore had brought us home! Hurriedly securing some dry clothes from the rubber sacks, which contained our sleeping-bags as well, we made a quick change, and slid into the beds, inflating the air mattresses with our lungs after we were inside. Then we lay down contentedly to rest. CHAPTER III THE GATEWAY OF ALL THE CANYONS We awoke the next morning full of anticipation. Something new lay ahead of us, a promise of variety. In plain sight of our camp lay the entrance to Flaming Gorge, the gateway to the entire series of canyons. Hurriedly finishing our camp duties, we loaded the boats, fastened down the hatches, and shoved off into the current, eager to be on our way. It was cloudy overhead and looked as if we were to have more rain. Even then it must have been raining away to the north, for a dirty, clay-colored torrent rushed through the dry arroyo of the night before, a stream large enough to discolour the water of the Green itself. But we thought little of this. We were used to seeing muddy water in the Colorado's gorges; in fact we were surprised to find clear water at all, even in the Green River. Rowing downstream we found that the country sloped gently towards the mountains. The river skirted the edge of these foot-hills as if looking for a possible escape, then turned and entered the mountain at a sharp angle. The walls sloped back considerably at first, and there was a little shore on either side. Somewhere near this point runs the dividing line of Wyoming and Utah. We considered the gateway a subject worthy of a motion picture, if taken from the deck of the boat; but doubted if it would be a success owing to the condition of the light and the motion of the boat. Still it was considered worthy of a trial, and the film was run through. The colour of the rocks at the entrance was a light red, but not out of the ordinary in brilliancy. The rock formation was stratified, but displaced; standing at an angle and flexed over on top with a ragged break here and there, showing plainly the great pressure to which the rocks had been subjected. The upheaval was not violent, the scientists tell us, but slow and even, allowing the river to maintain its old channel, sawing its way through the sandstone. The broken canyon walls, when well inside the gorge, were about 600 to 700 feet high. The mountains beyond and on either side were much higher. The growth on the mountain sides was principally evergreen; Douglas fir, the bull-pine and yellow pine. There was a species of juniper, somewhat different from the Utah juniper, with which we were familiar at the Grand Canyon. Bushes and undergrowth were dense above the steep canyon walls, which were bare. Willows, alder-thickets, and a few cottonwood trees lined the shores. Meanwhile the current had quickened, almost imperceptibly at first, but enough to put us on our guard. While there were no rapids, use was made of what swift water we found by practising on the method we would use in making a passage through the bad rapids. As to this method, unused as yet by either of us, we had received careful verbal instruction from Mr. Stone, who had made the trip two years before our own venture; and from other friends of Nathan Galloway, the trapper, the man who first introduced the method on the Green and Colorado rivers. Our experience on water of any kind was rather limited. Emery could row a boat, and row it well, before we left Green River, but had never gone over any large rapids. While he was not nearly so large or heavy as I,--weighing no more than 130 pounds, while I weighed 170 pounds,--he made up for his lighter weight by a quickness and strength that often surprised me. He was always neat and clever in his method of handling his boat, taking a great deal of pride in keeping it free from marks, and avoiding rocks when making a landing. I had done very little rowing before leaving Green River, so little that I had difficulty in getting both oars in the water at the same time. Of course it did not take me long to learn that; but I did not have the knack of making clean landings, and bumped many rocks that my brother missed. Still I was improving all the time and was anxious to get into the rough water, feeling sure I would get through somehow, but doing my best in the meantime to get the knack of handling the boat properly before the rough water was reached. An occasional rock would stick up above the surface; the swift water would rush up on it, or drive past on either side. Instead of pulling downstream with might and main, and depending on a steersman with a sweep-oar to keep us clear of obstructions--the method usually adopted on large rivers, and by the earlier parties on the Colorado--by our method the single oarsman reversed his boat so that it was turned with the stern downstream, giving the oarsman a view of what was ahead; then by pulling upstream the boat was held in check. We allowed ourselves to be carried in a direct line with the rocks ahead, approaching them as closely as we dared; then, with a pull on one oar, the boat was turned slightly at an angle to the current, and swung to one side or the other; just as a ferry is headed into the current, the water itself helping to force it across. The ferry is held by a cable; the boat, by the oarsman; the results are quite similar. The boats, too, were somewhat unusual in design, having been carefully worked out by Galloway after much experience with the problem, and after building many boats. He finally settled on the design furnished us by Mr. Stone. The flat bottom, sloping up from the centre to either end, placed the boats on a pivot one might say, so that they could be turned very quickly, much more quickly than if they had had a keel. There was a four foot skag or keel under the stern end of the boat, but this was only used when in quiet water; and as it was never replaced after being once removed we seldom refer to it. Being flat-bottomed, they drew comparatively little water, a matter quite important on low water such as we found in the Green River. While each boat carried a weight of seven hundred pounds in addition to its own five hundred pounds, they often passed over rocks less than ten inches below the surface, and did so without touching. While the boats were quite large, the arched decks made them look even larger. A considerable amount of material could be stored under these decks. The only part of the boat that was entirely open or unprotected from the waves was the cockpit, or mid-section occupied by the oarsman. This was only large enough for one man. A second man had to sit on the deck behind the oarsman, with his feet hanging into the cockpit. Jimmy occupied this place of honour as we drifted through the placid water; first on one boat, then on the other, entertaining us meanwhile with his songs. We encountered two splashy little rapids this day, but with no rocks, or any dangerous feature whatever. Any method, or none at all, was safe enough in these rapids. The colouring of the rocks changed as we proceeded, and at the lower end of the short canyon we saw the flaming patch of colour that had suggested its name to Major Powell, forty-two years before. Intensified on that occasion by the reflected light of a gorgeous sunset, it must have been a most brilliant spectacle. Two beavers slid into the water when we were close beside them, then rose to the surface to stare curiously when we had passed. We left them undisturbed. Some geese decoyed us into an attempt to ambush them, but they kept always just out of reach of our guns. Wise fellows, those geese! A geological fault accompanied by the breaking down of the walls marks the division between Flaming Gorge and Horseshoe Canyon, which immediately follows. We nooned here, opposite a deserted cabin. A trail dropped by easy stages over the slope on the east side; and fresh tracks showed that sheep had recently been driven down to the water's edge. Passing through Horseshoe,--another very short canyon,--we found deep, placid pools, and sheer, light red walls rising about four hundred feet on either side, then sloping back steeply to the tree-covered mountains. In the middle of this canyon Emery was startled out of a day-dream by a rock falling into the water close beside him, with never a sound of warning. Years spent in the canyons had accustomed Emery and me to such occurrences; but Jimmy, unused to great gorges and towering cliffs, was much impressed by this incident. After all, it is only the unusual that is terrible. Jimmy was ready enough to take his chances at dodging bricks hurled by a San Francisco earthquake, but never got quite used to rocks descending from a source altogether out of sight. Small wonder, after all! Later we were to experience more of this thing, and on a scale to startle a stoic! We halted at the end of Horseshoe, early in the afternoon of September 14, 1911, one week out from Green River City. Camp No. 6 was pitched on a gravelly shore beside Sheep Creek, a clear sparkling stream, coming in from the slopes of the Uintah range. Just above us, on the west, rose three jagged cliffs, about five hundred feet high, reminding one by their shape of the Three Brothers of Yosemite Valley. Here, again, we were treated to another wonderful example of geologic displacement, the rocks of Horseshoe Canyon lying in level strata; while those of Kingfisher, which followed, were standing on end. Sheep Creek, flowing from the west, finds an easy course through the fault, at the division of the canyons. The balance of this day was spent in carefully packing our material and rearranging it in our boats, for we expected hard work to follow. Tempted by the rippling song of the brook, and by tales of fish to be found therein, we spent two hours fishing from its banks on the morning of the 15th. But the foliage of overhanging trees and shrubs was dense, making it difficult to cast our lines, or even to climb along its shores, and our small catch of two trout, which were fried with a strip of bacon to add flavour, only whetted our appetites for more. It was a little late in the season for many birds. Here in Kingfisher Canyon were a few of the fish-catching birds from which the canyon took its name. There were many of the tireless cliff-swallows scattered all through these canyons, wheeling and darting, ever on the wing. These, with the noisy crested jays, an occasional "camp-robber," the little nuthatches, the cheerful canyon wren with his rollicking song, the happy water-ousel, "kill-deer," and road-runners and the water birds,--ducks, geese, and mud-hens, with an occasional crane,--made up the bird life seen in the open country and in these upper canyons. Earlier in the season it must be a bird's paradise, for berries and seeds would then be plentiful. We resumed our journey at 10 A.M., a very short run bringing us to the end of Kingfisher Canyon. The three canyons passed through approximate hardly more than ten miles in length, different names being given for geological reasons, as they really form only one canyon. The walls at the end were broken down, and brilliantly tinted talus of many hues covered the slopes, the different colours intermingling near the bottom. The canyon-walled river turned southeast here, and continued in this general direction for many miles, but with many twists and turns. We had previously been informed that Red Canyon, the next to follow, while not considered bad when compared to others, gave one the experience most necessary to combat the rapids farther down. It was not without danger, however, as a review of previous expeditions showed: some had lost their lives, still others, their boats; and one of Major Powell's parties had upset a boat in a Red Canyon rapid. The stage of water was so different on these previous attempts that their experiences were of little value to us one way or the other. A reference to pictures taken by two of these parties showed us there was considerable more water when they went through--six, and even eight feet higher in places. Possibly this would be the best stage on which to make the voyage in heavy boats. The unfortunate ones had taken the spring rise, or flood water, with disastrous results to themselves or their boats. We soon found that our passage was to be hard on account of having too little water. In the quiet water above we had been seldom bothered with shoals; but now that we were in swifter water, there was scarcely any depth to it at all, except in the quiet pools between the rapids. For a description of our passage through this upper end of Red Canyon we refer to our journal: sketchy notes jotted down, usually in the evening just before retiring, by the light of a camp-fire, or the flickering flame of a candle. Under the date of Friday, September the 15th, we find the following: "End of Kingfisher: long, quiet pools and shoals where we grounded a few times; several small, splashy rapids; then a larger one near an old boat landing. Looked the rapid over from the shore. Jim remained at the lower end with a life-preserver on a rope, while we ran the rapid. Struck one or two rocks, lightly; but made the run in safety." "At the third rapid we saw some geese--but they got away. At noon we ate a cold lunch and because of the low water removed the skags, carrying them in the cockpit. The scenery in upper Red Canyon is impressive: pines and fir come down on the sloping sides to the river's edge; the rocks are reddish brown in colour, often broken in squares, and looking like great building blocks piled one upon another. The canyon is about fifteen hundred feet deep; the river is clear again, and averages about two hundred feet in width. We have seen a few deer tracks, but have not seen any deer. We also saw some jumping trout in a splashy little rapid. Doubtless they came from a little creek, close by, for we never heard of trout being found in the Green River." "We made a motion picture, while dropping our boats down with lines, over the first rapid we considered bad. Emery remained in the boats, keeping clear of the rocks with a pole. Powell's second party records an upset here. We passed Kettle Creek about 5 P.M. In the fifth rapids below Kettle Creek I got on the wrong side of the river and was carried into a very rocky rapid--the worst so far encountered. I touched a rock or two at the start, but made the run in safety; while Emery ran the opposite side without trouble. We camped beside a small stream on the south, where there were signs of an old camp." "_Saturday, September 16_. Clear and cold in the early morning. Started about 9 A.M. Lined our boats past a difficult rapid. Too many rocks, not enough water. Two or three miles below this I had some difficulty in a rapid, as the pin of a rowlock lifted out of the socket when in the middle of rough water. Emery snapped a picture just as it happened. A little later E.C.[2] ran a rocky rapid, but had so much trouble that we concluded to line my boat. Noon. Just a cold lunch, but with hot coffee from the vacuum bottles. Then at it again." "The scenery is wonderful; the canyon is deeper than above; the river is swift and has a decided drop. We proceed cautiously, and make slow progress. We camp for the day on the north side close to a little, dry gully, on a level sage and bunch-grass covered bottom back from the river's edge. An abruptly descending canyon banked with small cottonwood trees coming in from the opposite side contains a small stream. Put up our tent for the second time since leaving Green River, Wyoming. We are all weary, and glad to-morrow is Sunday--a day of rest." "_Sunday, September 17._ E.C. and I follow a fresh deer track up a game trail and get--a rabbit. Climb out about 1300 feet above the river to the top of the narrow canyon. Here is a sloping plateau, dotted with bunch-grass and grease-wood, a fourth of a mile wide. Then rounded mountains rise beyond the plateau, some of the peaks reaching a height of 4000 feet above the river. The opposite side is much the same, but with a wider plateau. We had no idea before what a wonderful country this is. It is a picture to tempt an artist. High on the mountain tops is the dark blue-green of pines and firs, reds and yellows are mixed in the quaking aspen,--for the frost comes early enough to catch the sap in the leaves; little openings, or parks with no trees, are tinted a beautiful soft gray; 'brownstone fronts' are found in the canyon walls; and a very light green in the willow-leafed cottonwoods at the river's edge, and in all side canyons where there is a running stream. The river glistens in the sunlight, as it winds around the base of the wall on which we stand, and then disappears around a bend in the canyon. Turn where we will, we see no sign of an opening, nothing but the rounded tops of wooded mountains, red and green, far as the eye can reach, until they disappear in the hazy blue. Finally Emery's keen eyes, aided by the binoculars, discover a log cabin at the foot of a mountain, on the plateau opposite us about three miles away." "We hurry back to camp and write some letters; then Jim and I cross the river and climb out over the rocky walls to the plateau above. In two hours we reach the cabin. It is new--not yet finished. A woman and four children are looking over a garden when we arrive. They are a little frightened at first, but soon recover. The woman gladly promises to take out our mail when they go to the nearest town, which happens to be Vernal, Utah, forty-five miles away. Three other families live near by, all recently moved in from Vernal. The woman tells us that Galloway hunts bear in these timbered mountains, and has killed some with a price on their heads--bear with a perverted taste for fresh beef."[3] "Thanking the woman, we make our way back to the river. We see some dried-out elk horns along our trail; though it is doubtful if elk get this far south at present. A deer trail, leading down a ravine, makes our homeward journey much easier. It has turned quite cold this evening, after sunset. We finish our notes and prepare to roll into our beds a little earlier than usual." CHAPTER IV SUSPICIOUS HOSTS We awoke bright and early the next morning, much refreshed by our day of rest and variety. With an early start we were soon pulling down the river, and noon found us several miles below the camp, having run eleven rapids with no particular difficulty. A reference in my notes reads: "Last one has a thousand rocks, and we could not miss them all. My rowing is improving, and we both got through fairly well." In the afternoon they continued to come--an endless succession of small rapids, with here and there a larger one. The canyon was similar to that at our camp above, dark red walls with occasional pines on the ledges,--a most charming combination of colour. At 2.30 P.M. we reached Ashley Falls, a rapid we had been expecting to see for some time. It was a place of singular beauty. A dozen immense rocks had fallen from the cliff on the left, almost completely blocking the channel--or so it seemed from one point of view. But there was a crooked channel, not more than twelve wide in places, through which the water shot like a stream from a nozzle. We wanted a motion picture of our dash through the chute. But the location for the camera was hard to secure, for a sheer bank of rock or low wall prevented us from climbing out on the right side. We overcame this by landing on a little bank at the base of the wall and by dropping a boat down with a line to the head of the rapid where a break occurred in the wall. Jimmy was left with the camera, the boat was pulled back, and we prepared to run the rapid. We first had to pass between two square rocks rising eight feet above the water so close together that we could not use the oars; then, when past these, pull ten feet to the right in order to clear the large rock at the end of the main dam, or barrier, not more than twenty feet below. To pull down bow first and try to make the turn, would mean to smash broadside against this rock. It could only be done by dropping stern first, and pulling to the right under the protection of the first rocks; though it was doubtful if even this could be accomplished, the current was so swift. The _Defiance_ was ready first, the _Edith_ was to follow as closely as safety allowed. Almost before I knew it I was in the narrow channel, so close to the right rock that I had to ship that oar, and pull altogether on the left one. As soon as I was through I made a few quick strokes, but the current was too strong for me; and a corner of the stern struck a bang when I was almost clear. She paused as a wave rolled over the decks, then rose quickly; a side current caught the boat, whirling it around, and the bow struck. I was still pulling with all my might, but everything happened so quickly,--with the boat whirling first this way, then that,--that my efforts were almost useless. But after that second strike I did get in a few strokes, and pulled into the quiet pool below the line of boulders. Emery held his boat in better position than I had done, and it looked for a while as if he would make it. But the _Edith_ struck on the stern, much as mine had done. Then he pulled clear and joined me in the shelter of the large rock, as cool and smiling as if he had been rowing on a mill-pond. We were delighted to find that our boats had suffered no damage from the blows they had received. Striking on the ends as they did, the shock was distributed throughout the whole boat. This completed our run for that day, and we went into camp just below the "Falls." Emery painted the name _Edith_ on the bow of his boat, at this camp. The name was given in honour of his four-year-old daughter, waiting for us at the Grand Canyon. I remarked that as no one loved me, I would name my boat the _Defiance_. But I hesitated about putting this name on the bow. I would look rather foolish, I thought, if the _Defiance_ should be wrecked in the first bad rapid. So the christening of my boat was left until such time as should have earned the title, although she was constantly referred to as the _Defiance_. We remained until noon of the following day at Ashley Falls, exploring, repairing, and photographing this picturesque spot. The canyon walls here dropped down to beautiful, rolling foot-hills eight or nine hundred feet high tree covered as before but more open. The diversity of rocks and hills was alluring. There was work to be done and no pleasanter spot could be found in which to do it. Among other things that had to be looked after were some adjustments to the motion-picture camera--usually referred to by us as the M.P.C.--this delicate work always falling to Emery, for he alone could do it. There was much to interest us here. Major Powell reported finding the name "Ashley" painted under an overhanging rock on the left side of the river. Underneath was a date, rather indistinct, but found to have been 1825, by Dellenbaugh, after carefully tracing the career of Colonel Ashley who was responsible for the record. Accompanied by a number of trappers, he made the passage through this canyon at that early day. We found a trace of the record. There were three letters--A-s-h--the first two quite distinct, and underneath were black spots. It must have been pretty good paint to leave a trace after eighty-six years! Resuming our journey we passed into deep canyon again,--the deepest we had found up to this time,--with steeply sloping, verdure-covered walls about 2700 feet high. The rapids still continued. At one rapid the remark was made that "Two feet of water would cover two hundred rocks so that our boats would pass over them." But we did not have the two feet needed. We had previously been informed that some of these mountains were the hiding-places of men who were "wanted" in the three states which bordered near here. Some escaping prisoners had also been traced to the mountains in this direction; then all tracks had ceased. The few peaceable ranchers who lived in these mountains were much alarmed over these reports. We found one such rancher on the plateau above the canyon, whom we will call Johnson for convenience,--living in one of the upper canyons. He sold us some provisions. In return he asked us to help him swim some of his horses across the river. He said the high water had taken out his own boat. The horses were rounded up in a mountain-hidden valley and driven into the water ahead of the boat. After securing the horses, Johnson's welcome seemed to turn to suspicion and he questioned our reasons for being there, wanting to know what we could find in that wild country to interest us. Johnson's sons, of whom there were several, seemed to put in most of their time at hunting and trapping, never leaving the house without a gun. The cabin home looked like an arsenal, revolvers and guns hanging on all the walls--even his daughters being familiar with their use. Although we had been very well treated after all, Mrs. Johnson especially having been very kind to us, we felt just a little relieved when the Johnson ranch was left behind. We use, in fact, a fictious name, not caring to visit on them the suspicions we ourselves felt in return. Another morning passed in repairing the M.P. camera, and another afternoon's work was necessary to get us out of the walls and the rapids of Red Canyon. But on the evening of the 20th, we did get out, and pulled into an open country known as Brown's Park, one week after entering Flaming Gorge. It had not been very fast travelling; but we were through, and with no mishap more serious than a split board on the side of my boat. Under favourable conditions, and in experienced hands, this distance might have been covered in three days. But meanwhile, we were gaining a lot of experience. About the lower end of Red Canyon the river turned directly east, paralleling the northern boundary of Utah, and continued to flow in this general direction until it crossed into Colorado. On emerging from Red Canyon we spied a ranch house or log cabin close to the river. The doors were open and there were many tracks in the sand, so we thought some one must be about. On approaching the house, however, we found the place was deserted, but with furniture, books, and pictures piled on the floor in the utmost confusion, as if the occupants had left in a great hurry. This surmise afterward proved to be correct; for we learned that the rancher had been murdered for his money, his body having been found in a boat farther down the river. Suspicion pointed to an old employee who had been seen lurking near the place. He was traced to the railroad, over a hundred miles to the north; but made his escape and was never caught. We found Brown's Park, once known as Brown's Hole, to be a beautiful valley several miles in width, and thirty-five or forty miles in length. The upper end of the valley was rugged in places, with rocky hills two or three hundred feet high. To the south, a few miles away, were the mountains, a continuation of those we had come through. We saw many cattle scattered over some of these rocky hills, grazing on the bunch-grass. At one place our course led us through a little canyon about two miles long, and scarcely more than two hundred feet deep. This was Swallow Canyon--a name suggested by the many birds of that species which had covered the canyon's walls with their little clay nests. The openings of some of these nests were so small that it scarcely seemed possible for a bird to enter. The water was deep and quiet in this short canyon, and a hard wind blowing up the stream made it difficult for us to gain any headway. In this case, too, the forms of the boat were against us. With the keel removed and with their high sides catching the wind, they were carried back and forth like small balloons. Well, we could put up with it for a while, for those very features would prove most valuable in the rough-water canyons which were to follow! Emerging from the canyon at last, we saw a ferry loaded with sheep crossing the stream. On the left shore was a large corral, also filled with sheep which a half dozen men were driving back and forth into different compartments. Later these men told us there were 2400 sheep in the flock. We took their word for it, making no attempt to count them. The foreman of the ranch agreed to sell us some sugar and honey,--these two articles being a welcome addition to our list of supplies, which were beginning to show the effects of our voracious appetites. We found many other log cabins and ranches as we proceeded. Some of them were deserted; at others men were busily engaged in cutting hay or the wild grass that grew in the bottoms. The fragrance of new-mown hay was in the air. Young boys and women were among these busy workers, some of the women being seated on large harvesters, handling the horses with as much dexterity as any of the men. The entire trip through this pretty valley was full of interest. We were hailed from the shore by some of the hay ranchers, it being a novel sight to them to see a river expedition. At one or two of these places we asked the reason for the deserted ranches above, and were given evasive answers. Finally we were told that cattle rustlers from the mountains made it so hard for the ranchers in the valleys that there was nothing for them to do but get out. They told us, also, that we were fortunate to get away from Johnson's ranch with our valuables! Our former host, we were told, had committed many depredations and had served one term for cattle stealing. Officers, disguised as prospectors, had taken employment with him and helped him kill and skin some cattle; the skins, with their telltale brands, having been partially burned and buried. On this evidence he was afterwards convicted. Our cool welcome by the Johnsons, their suspicions of us, the sinister arsenal of guns and pistols, all was explained! Quite likely some of these weapons had been trained against us by the trappers on the chance that we were either officers of the law, or competitors in the horse-stealing industry. For that matter we were actually guilty of the latter count, for come to think of it, we ourselves had helped them steal eight horses and a colt! The entire trip through this pretty valley was full of interest. It was all so different from anything seen above. There were great bottoms that gave evidence of having recently been overflooded, though now covered with cottonwood trees, gorgeous in their autumn foliage. We had often wondered where all the driftwood that floated down the Colorado came from; but after seeing those unnumbered acres of cottonwoods we ceased to wonder. There were many beaver slides on the banks; and in places, numberless trees had been felled by these industrious animals. On one or two occasions we narrowly escaped splitting the sides of our boats on snags of trees which the beavers had buried in the bottom of the stream. We saw no beaver dams on the river; they were not necessary, for deep, quiet pools existed everywhere in Brown's Park. We saw two beavers in this section. One of these rose, porpoise-like, to the top of the water, stared at us a moment, then brought his tail down with a resounding smack on the top of the water, and disappeared, to enter his home by the subterranean route, no doubt. The river was gradually losing its clear colour, for the sand-bars were beginning to "work out," or break, making the water quite roily. In some sections of Brown's Park we grounded on these sand-bars, making it necessary for us to get out into the water, pushing and pulling on the boats until deeper water was reached. Sometimes the deep water came when least expected, the sand-bars having a disconcerting way of dropping off abruptly on the downstream side. Jimmy stepped off the edge of one of these hidden ledges while working with a boat and was for some time in no condition to appreciate our ill-concealed mirth. Often we would be passing along on perfectly smooth water, when suddenly a turmoil would rise all about us as though a geyser had broken out below the surface. If we happened to be directly over it, the boat would be rocked back and forth for a while; then all would be peaceful again. This was most often caused by the ledges of sand, anywhere from three to ten feet high breaking down or falling forward as their bases were undermined. In a single night a bar of this kind will work upstream for a distance of several feet; then the sand will be carried down with the current to lodge again in some quiet pool, and again be carried on as before. This action gives rise to long lines of regular waves or swells extending for some distance down the stream. These are usually referred to as sand-waves. These waves increase in size in high water; and the monotonous thump, thump of the boat's bottom upon them is anything but pleasant, especially if one is trying to make fast time. So, with something new at every turn, we pulled lazily through Brown's Park, shooting at ducks and geese when we came near them, snapping our cameras when a picture presented itself, and observing the animal life along the stream. We stopped at one hay-ranch close to the Utah-Colorado line and chatted awhile with the workers. A pleasant-faced woman named Mrs. Chew asked us to deliver a message at a ranch a mile or two below. Here also was the post-office of Lodore, Colorado, located a short distance above the canyon of the same name. Mrs. Chew informed us that they had another ranch at the lower end of Lodore Canyon and asked us to look them up when we got through, remarking: "You may have trouble, you know. Two of my sons once tried it. They lost their boat, had to climb out, and nearly starved before they reached home." The post-office at the ranch, found as described, without another home in sight, was a welcome sight to us for several reasons. One reason was that it afforded shelter from a heavy downpour of rain that greeted us as we neared it, and a better reason still was, that it gave us a chance to write and mail some letters to those who would be most anxious to hear from us. Among the messages we mailed was a picture post-card of Coney Island at night. In some way this card had slipped between the leaves of a book that I had brought from the East. I sent it out, addressed to a friend who would understand the joke; writing underneath the picture, "We have an abundance of such scenery here." The young woman who had charge of the office looked at the card in amazement. It was evidently something new to her. She told us she had never been to the railroad, and that her brother took the mail out on horse-back to Steamboat, Colorado, 140 miles distant. The rain having ceased, we returned to our boats pausing to admire a rainbow that arched above the canyon in the mountains, toward which we were headed. We remarked, jokingly, to Jimmy that this was a good sign. He replied without smiling that he "hoped so." Jimmy's songs had long since ceased, and we suspected him of homesickness. With the exception of a short visit to some friends on a large ranch, Jimmy had never been away from his home in San Francisco. This present experience was quite a contrast, to be sure! We did what we could to keep him cheered up, but with little success. Jimmy had intimated that he would prefer to leave at the first opportunity to reach a railroad, and we willingly agreed to help him in every possible way. Emery and I also agreed between ourselves that we would not take any unnecessary risks with him; but would leave him out of the boats at all rapids, if there was any passage around them. The river had taken a sharp turn to the south soon after passing the post-office, heading directly towards the mountains. Camp was pitched just above the mouth of Lodore. This twenty-mile canyon bears a very unsavory reputation, having a descent of 425 feet in that short distance, the greater part of the fall occurring in a space of twelve miles. This would mean wild water somewhere! We were camped on a spot recently occupied by some engineers of the United States Conservation Department, who had been trying to determine if it was feasible to dam the river at this place. The plan was to flood the hole of Brown's Park and divert the water through the mountains by a tunnel to land suitable for cultivation and in addition, allow the muddy water to settle and so prevent the vast amount of silt from being washed on down, eventually to the mouth of the Colorado. The location seemed admirably suited for this stupendous project. But holes drilled beside the river failed to find bottom, as nothing but quicksand existed even at a depth of nearly three hundred feet; and without a strong foundation, such a dam would be utterly useless. CHAPTER V THE BATTLE WITH LODORE Camp routine was hurriedly disposed of the next morning, Saturday, September the 23d. Everything was made snug beneath the hatches, except the two guns, which were too long to go under the decks, and had to be carried in the open cockpits. "Camp No. 13, at the head of Lodore," as it is entered in my journal, was soon hidden by a bend in the river. The open, sun-lit country, with its pleasant ranches and its grazing cattle, its rolling, gray, sage-covered hills and its wild grass and cottonwood-covered bottoms, was left behind, and we were back in the realm of the rock-walled canyon, and beetle-browed, frowning cliffs with pines and cedars clutching at the scanty ledges. We paused long enough to make a picture or two, with the hope that the photographic record would give to others some idea of the geological and scenic wonder--said to be the greatest known example of its kind--which lay before us. Here is an obstructing mountain raised directly in the river's path. Yet with no deviation whatever the stream has cut through the very centre of the peak! The walls are almost sheer, especially at the the bottom, and are quite close together at the top. A mile inside the mountain on the left or east side of the gorge is 2700 feet high. Geologists say that the river was here first and that the mountain was slowly raised in its pathway--so slowly that the river could saw away and maintain its old channel. The quicksand found below the present level would seem to indicate that the walls were once even higher than at present, and that a subsidence had taken place after the cutting. The river at the entrance of this rock-walled canyon was nothing alarming, four small rapids being passed without event. Then a fifth was reached that looked worse. The _Edith_ was lined down. This was hard work, and dangerous too, owing to the strength of the current and the many rocks; so I concluded that my own boat, the _Defiance_, must run the rapid. Jimmy went below, with a life-preserver on a rope. Emery stood beside the rapid with a camera and made a picture as I shot past him. Fortunately I got through without mishap. I refused to upset even to please my brother. We were beginning to think that Lodore was not so bad after all. Rapid followed rapid in quick succession, and all were run without trouble; then we came to a large one. It was Upper Disaster Falls; so named by Major Powell, for it was here that one of his boats was wrecked on his first voyage of exploration. This boat failed to make the landing above the rapid and was carried over. She struck a rock broadside, turned around and struck again, breaking the boat completely in two. This boat was built of 3/4-inch oak reënforced with bulkheads. When this fact is taken into consideration, some idea may be had of the great power of these rapids. The three men who occupied the boat saved themselves by reaching an island a short distance below. This all happened on a stage of water much higher than the present one, so we did not let the occurrence influence us one way or the other, except to make us careful to land above the rapid. We found a very narrow channel between two submerged boulders, the water plunging and foaming for a short distance below, over many hidden rocks. Still, there was only one large rock near the lower end that we greatly feared, and by careful work that might be avoided. The _Edith_ went first and grazed the boulder slightly, but no harm was done as E.C. held his boat well in hand. I followed, and struck rocks at the same instant on both sides of the narrow channel with my oars. It will be remembered that we ran all these dangerous rapids facing downstream. The effect of this was to shoot the ends of both oars up past my face. The operator said that I made a grimace just as he took a picture of the scrimmage. We landed on the island below and talked of camping for the night, as it was getting late; but the island so rocky and inhospitable that we concluded to try the lower part of the rapid. This had no descent like the upper end; but it was very shallow, and we soon found ourselves on rocks, unable to proceed any farther. It took an hour of hard labour to work our heavy boats safely to the shore. We had been hoping for a rest the next day--Sunday--but the island was such a disagreeable place to camp that it seemed necessary to cross to the mainland at least. A coil of strong, pliable wire had been included in our material. Here was a chance to use it to advantage. The stream on the left side of the island could be waded, although it was very swift; and we managed to get the wire across and well fastened at both ends. Elevating the wire above the water with cross-sticks, our tent and camp material were run across on a pulley, and camp was pitched a hundred yards below, on the left shore of the river. There were fitful showers in the afternoon, and we rested from our labour, obtaining a great deal of comfort from our tent, which was put up here for the third time since leaving Green River City. Always, when the weather was clear, we slept in the open. Monday, the 25th, found us at the same camp. Having concluded that Disaster Falls was an ideal place for a moving picture, we sent the balance of the material across on the pulley and wire, making a picture of the operation; stopping often because it continued to shower. Between showers we resumed our work and picture making. The picture was to have been concluded with the operation of lining the boat across. E.C. stood on the shore about sixty feet away, working with the camera; Jimmy was on the island, paying out the rope; while I waded in the water, holding the bow of the boat as I worked her between the rocks. Having reached the end of the rope, I coiled it up, advising Jimmy to go up to a safe crossing and join my brother while I proceeded with the boat. All was going well, and I was nearing the shore, when I found myself suddenly carried off my feet into water beyond my depth, and drifting for the lower end of the rapid. Meanwhile I was holding to the bow of the boat, and calling lustily to my brother to save me. At first he did not notice that anything was wrong, as he was looking intently through the finder. Then he suddenly awoke to the fact that something was amiss, and came running down the boulder-strewn shore, but he could not help me, as we had neglected to leave a rope with him. Things were beginning to look pretty serious, when the boat stopped against a rock and I found myself once more with solid footing under me. It was too good a picture to miss; and I found the operator at the machine, turning the crank as I climbed out. We developed some films and plates that evening, securing some satisfactory results from these tests. It continued to rain all that night, with intermittent showers next morning. The rain made little difference to us, for we were in the water much of the following day as he boats were taken along the edge of another unrunnable rapid, a good companion rapid for the one just passed. This was Lower Disaster Falls, the first of many similar rapids we were to see, but this was one of the worst of its kind. The swift-rushing river found its channel blocked by the canyon wall on the right side, the cliff running at right angles to the course of the stream. The river, attacking the limestones, had cut a channel under the wall, then turned and ran with the wall, emerging about two hundred feet below. Standing on a rock and holding one end of a twenty-five foot string we threw a stone attached to the other end across to the opposite wall. The overhanging wall was within two feet of the rushing river; a higher stage of water would hide the cut completely from view. Think what would happen if a boat were carried against or under that wall! We thought of it many times as we carefully worked our boats along the shore. Between the delays of rain, with stops for picture making, portaging our material, and "lining" our boats, we spent almost three days in getting past the rapids called Upper and Lower Disaster Falls, with their combined fall of 50 feet in little more than half a mile. On the evening of September the 26th we camped almost within sight of this same place, at the base of a 3000-foot sugar-loaf mountain on the right, tree-covered from top to bottom. Things were going too easily for us, it seemed; but we were in for a few reverses. It stormed much of the night and still drizzled when we embarked on the following morning. The narrow canyon was gloomy and darkened with shreds of clouds drifting far below the rim. The first rapid was narrow, and contained some large boulders. The _Edith_ was caught on one of these and turned on her side, so that the water flowed in, filling the cockpit. The boat was taken off without difficulty, and bailed out. We found that the bulkheads failed to keep the water out of the hatches. Some material from the _Edith_ was transferred to the _Defiance_. A bed, in a protecting sack of rubber and canvas, was shoved under the seat and we proceeded. Less than an hour later I repeated my brother's performance, but I was not so fortunate as he. The _Defiance_ was carried against one rock as I tried to pull clear of another, and in an instant she was on her side, held by the rush of water. I caught the gunwale, and, climbing on to the rock that caused the disaster, I managed to catch the rope and held the boat. In the meantime Emery was in a whirlpool below, trying to land on the right side; but was having a difficult time of it. Jimmy stood on the shore unable to help. The bed was washed out of the boat and went bobbing over the waves, then before I knew what had happened, the rope was jerked from my hands and I was left stranded on my rock. Seeing this, Jimmy ran with all his might for a pool at the end of the rapid, bravely rescuing the boat and the bed as well, just as the _Edith_ was landed. A rope was soon thrown to me, after the inevitable picture was made. Then I jumped and was pulled to shore. On making an inventory we found that our guns were lost from the boat. Being too long to go under the hatches, they had been left in the cockpit. The _Defiance_ had an ugly rap on the bottom, where she struck a rock, the wood being smashed or jammed, but not broken out. Nearly all material in the two boats was wet, so we took everything out and piled it on a piece of canvas, spread out on the sand. We worked rapidly, for another storm had been threatening all the morning. We were engaged in putting up our little tent when a violent wind which swept up the canyon, followed by a downpour of rain interrupted our work; and if anything missed a soaking before, it certainly received it then. The sand was beaten into our cameras and everything was scattered helter-skelter over the shore. We were fortunate in only one respect. The wind was away from the river instead of toward it. We finally got the tent up, then threw everything into it in an indiscriminate pile, and waited for the storm to pass. Emery proposed that we do a song and dance just to show how good we felt; but any appearance of merriment was rather forced. Had the builders of the boats been there, we fear they would have had an uncomfortable half-hour; for nearly all this loss could have been avoided had our instructions regarding the hatch covers been followed. And for the sake of their saving a few dollars we had to suffer! The rain soon passed and we went to work, first starting a fire and getting a hurried lunch, for we had not eaten our noon meal, and it was then 4 P.M. We put up our dark-room tent, then went to work to find what was saved, and what was lost. We were surprised to find that all our small films and plates had escaped a soaking. Protected in tin and cardboard boxes, wrapped with adhesive tape, and covered with a coating of paraffine melted and poured over them, they had turned the water in nearly every instance. The motion-picture film was not so fortunate. The paraffine had worn off the tin boxes in spots, the water soaked through the tape in some instances, and entered to the film. One roll, tightly wrapped, became wet on the edges; the gelatine swelled and stuck to the other film, thus sealing the inner portion or picture part of the film, so that roll was saved. The motion-picture camera was filled with water, mud and sand; and the other cameras fared likewise. We cleaned them out as best we could, drying them over small alcohol lamp which we had included in our duffle. Our job seemed endless. Jimmy had retired early, for he could help us but little in this work. It rained again in torrents, and the wind howled about the tent. After midnight, as we still toiled, a land-slide, loosened by the soaking rains, thundered down the mountain side about a fourth of a mile below our camp. We hoped Jimmy would not hear it. We retired soon after this. Smaller slides followed at intervals, descending over the 3000-foot precipices. Thunder reverberated through the canyon, and altogether it was a night long to be remembered. These slides made one feel a little uncomfortable. "It would be most inconvenient," as we have heard some one say, "to wake in the morning and find ourselves wrapped up in a few tons of earth and rock." Emery woke me the next morning to report that the river had risen about six feet; and that my boat--rolled out on the sand but left untied--was just on the Point of going out with the water. It had proven fortunate for us all Emery was a light sleeper! There was no travelling this day, as the boat had to be repaired. Emery, being the ship's carpenter, set to work at once, while Jimmy and I stretched our ropes back and forth, and hung up the wet clothes. Then we built a number of fires underneath and soon had our belongings in a steam. Things were beginning to look cheerful again. The rain stopped, too, for a time at least. A little later Jimmy ran into camp with a fish which he had caught with his hands. It was of the kind commonly called the bony-tail or humpback or buffalo-fish, a peculiar species found in many of the rivers of the Southwest. It is distinguished by a small flat head with a hump directly behind it; the end of the body being round, very slender, and equipped with large tail-fins. This specimen was about sixteen inches long, the usual length for a full-grown fish of this species. Now for a fish story! On going down to the river we found a great many fish swimming in a small whirlpool, evidently trying to escape from the thick, slimy mud which was carried in the water. In a half-hour we secured fourteen fish, killing most of them with our oars. There were suckers and one catfish in the lot. You can judge for yourself how thick the water was, that such mudfishes as these should have been choked to helplessness. Our captured fish were given a bath in a bucket of rain-water, and we had a fish dinner. In the afternoon we made a test of the water from the river, and found that it contained 20 per cent of an alkaline silt. When we had to use this water, we bruised the leaf of a prickly pear cactus, and placed it in a bucket of water. This method, repeated two or three times, usually clears the muddiest water. We also dug holes in the sand at the side of the river. The water, filtering through the sand, was often clear enough to develop the tests we made with our films. Jimmy continued to feel downhearted; and this afternoon he told us his story. Our surmise about his being homesick was correct, but it was a little more than that. He had an invalid mother, it seemed, and, aided by an older brother, he had always looked after the needs of the family. When the proposition of making the river trip came up, serious objections were raised by the family; but when the transportation arrived he had determined to go, in spite of their objections. Now he feared that his mother would not live, or that we would be wrecked, and he would not know where to turn, or what to do. No wonder he felt blue! All we could do was to promise to help him leave the river at the very first opportunity. This would quite likely be at Jensen, Utah, still fifty miles farther downstream. It continued to rain by spells that night and the next morning. About 11 A.M. we resumed our work on the river. A short distance below our camp we saw the land-slide which we heard the night before--tons of earth and shattered rock wrapped about the split and stripped trunks of a half-dozen pines. The slide was started by the dislodged section of a sheer wall close to the top of the 2700-foot cliff. We also saw a boat of crude construction, pulled above the high-water mark; evidently abandoned a great while before. Any person who had to climb the walls at that place had a hard job to tackle, although we could pick out breaks where it looked feasible; there were a few places behind us where it would be next to impossible. We had only gone over a few rapids when we found a long pool, with driftwood eddying upstream, and knew that our run for the day was over--the Triplet Rapids were ahead of us. We found this rapid to be about a fourth of a mile long, divided into three sections as its name indicated, and filled with great boulders at the base of a sheer cliff on the right--another unrunnable rapid. Taking the camp material from the boats, we carried it down and pitched our tent first of all, then, while Emery prepared supper, Jimmy and I carried the remaining duffle down to camp. One of the boats was lined down also. Then after supper we enjoyed the first rest we had taken for some time. Camp Ideal we called it, and it well deserved the name. At the bottom of a tree-covered precipice reaching a height of 2700 feet, was a strip of firm, level sand, tapering off with a slope down to the water, making a perfect landing and dooryard. A great mass of driftwood, piled up at the end of the rapid, furnished us with all fuel we needed with small effort on our part. Our tent was backed against a large rock, while other flat rocks near at hand made convenient shelves on which to lay our camp dishes and kettles. It started to drizzle again that night, but what cared we? With a roaring fire in front of the tent we all cleaned up for a change, sewed patches on our tattered garments, and, sitting on our beds, wrote the day's happenings in our journals. Then we crawled into our comfortable beds, and I was soon dreaming of my boyhood days when I "played hookey" from school and went fishing in a creek that emptied into the Allegheny River, or climbed its rocky banks; to be awakened by Jimmy crying out in his sleep, "There she goes over the rapids." Jimmy was soon informed that he and the boats were perfectly safe, and I was brought back to a realization of the fact that I was not going to get a "whaling" for going swimming in dog-days; but instead was holed up in Lodore Canyon, in the extreme northwestern corner of Colorado. CHAPTER VI HELL'S HALF MILE We began our work the next morning where we left off the night before by bringing the remaining boat down along the edge of the "Triplets." Then, while Emery cooked the breakfast, Jimmy and I "broke camp." The beds came first. The air had been released from the mattresses before we got up,--one way of saving time. A change of dry clothing was placed with each bed, and they were rolled as tightly as the two of us could do it, after which they were strapped, placed in a rubber sack, with a canvas sack over that, both these sacks being laced at the top. The tent--one of those so-called balloon silk compositions--made a very small roll; the dark-room tent, with its three plies of cloth, made the largest bundle of the lot. Everything had been taken from the boats, and made quite a pile of dunnage, when it was all collected in a pile ready for loading. After the dishes were washed they were packed in a box, the smoke-covered pots and pans being placed in a sack. Everything was sorted and piled before the loading commenced. An equal division of nearly everything was made, so that the loss of one boat and its cargo would only partially cripple the expedition. The photographic plates and films, in protecting canvas sacks, were first disposed of, being stored in the tin-lined hatches in the bow of the boats. Two of the smaller rolls containing bedding, or clothing; a sack of flour, and half of the cameras completed the loads for the forward compartments. Five or six tin and wooden boxes, filled with provisions, went into the large compartments under the stern. A box containing tools and hardware for the inevitable repairs, and the weightier provisions--such as canned milk and canned meats--went in first. This served as ballast for the boats. Then the other provisions followed, the remaining rolls of bedding and tents being squeezed in on top. This compartment, with careful packing, would hold as much as two ordinary-sized trunks, but squeezing it all in through the small hatchway, or opening on top, was not an easy job. One thing we guarded very carefully from this time on was a waterproofed sack containing sugar. The muddy water had entered the top of this sack in our upset, and a liquefied sugar, or brown-coloured syrup, was used in our coffee and on our breakfast foods after that. It gradually dried out, and our emptied cups would contain a sediment of mud in the bottom. Such was our morning routine, although it was not often that everything was taken from the boats, and it only happened in this case because we made a portage the night before. Our work was all undone an hour later, when we came to the sharp descent known as Hell's Half Mile, A section of a cliff had fallen from above, and was shattered into a hundred fragments, large and small; gigantic rocks were scattered on both shores and through the river bed, not an orderly array of rocks such as that found at Ashley Falls, but a riotous mass, looking as though they had been hurled from the sky above. The stripped trunk of an eight-foot tree, with roots extending over the river, had been deposited by a recent flood on top of the principal barrier. All this was found about fifty yards below the beginning of the most violent descent in Lodore Canyon. It would have been difficult enough without this last complication; the barrier seemed next to insurmountable, tired and handicapped with heavy boats as we were. With a weary sigh we dropped our boats to the head of the rapid and prepared to make the portage. Our previous work was as nothing to this. Rounded limestone boulders, hard as flint and covered with a thin slime of mud from the recent rise, caused us to slip and fall many times. Then we dragged ourselves and loads up the sloping walls. They were cut with gullies from the recent rains; low scraggy cedars caught at our loads, or tore our clothes, as we staggered along; the muddy earth stuck to our shoes, or caused our feet to slip from under us as we climbed, first two or three hundred feet above the water, then close to the river's edge. Three-fourths of a mile of such work brought us a level place below the rapid. It took nine loads to empty one boat. Darkness came on before our boats were emptied, so they were securely tied in quiet water at the head of the rapid, and left for the morning. The next day found Emery and me at work on the boats, while Jimmy was stationed on the shore with the motion-picture camera. This wild scene, with its score of shooting currents, was too good a view to miss. With life-preservers inflated and adjusted, Emery sat in the boat at the oars, pulling against the current, lessening the velocity with which the boat was carried down toward the main barrier, while I followed on the shore, holding a rope, and dropped him down, a little at a time, until the water became too rough and the rocks too numerous. All directions were given with signals; the human voice was of little avail in the turmoil. We kept the boats in the water as long as it was safe to do so, for it greatly lessened the hard work of a portage. With one end of the boat floating on the water, an ordinary lift would take the other end over a rock with insufficient water above it to float the boat. Then the boat was balanced on the rock, the opposite end was lifted, she was shoved forward and dropped in the water again and another threatening rock was passed. Foot by foot we fought our way, now on the shore, now waist deep in the water below some protecting boulder, threatened every moment by the whirling water that struggled to drag us into the torrent. The sand and water collecting in our clothes weighted us down; the chill of standing in the cold water numbed our limbs. Finally the barrier was reached and the boats were run out close to the end, and tied in a quiet pool, while we devised some method of getting them past or over this obstruction. Directly underneath and beyond the roots of the tree were large rounded boulders, covered with slippery mud. Past this barrier the full force of the water raced, to hurl itself and divide its current against another rock. It was useless to try to take a boat around the end of the rock. The boat's sides, three-eighths of an inch thick, would be crushed like a cardboard box. If lifted into the V-shaped groove, the weight of the boats would wedge them and crush their sides. Fortunately an upright log was found tightly wedged between these boulders. A strong limb, with one end resting on a rock opposite, was nailed to this log; a triangle of stout sticks, with the point down, was placed opposite this first limb, on the same level, and was fastened to the upright log with still another piece; and another difficulty was overcome. With a short rope fastened to the iron bar or hand-hold on the stern, this end was lifted on to the cross-piece, the bow sticking into the water at a sharp angle. The short rope was tied to the stump, so we would not lose that we had gained. The longer rope from the bow was thrown over the roots of the tree above, then we both pulled on the rope, until finally the bow was on a level with the stern. She was pulled forward, the ropes were loosened and the boat rested on the cross-pieces. The motion-picture camera was transferred so as to command a view of the lower side of the barrier, then the boat was carefully tilted, and slid forward, a little at a time, until she finally gained headway, nearly jerking the rope from our hands, and shot into the pool below. We enjoyed the wildest ride we had experienced up to this time in running the lower end of this rapid. The balance of the day was spent in the same camp below the rapid. Our tent was put up in a group of box elder trees,--the first trees of this species we had seen. Red cedar trees dotted the rocky slopes, while the larger pines became scarce at the river's edge, and gathered near the top of the canyon's walls. The dark red rocks near the bottom were covered with a light blue-tinted stratum of limestone, similar to the fallen rocks found in the rapid above. In one land-slide, evidently struck with some rolling rock, lay the body of a small deer. We saw many mountain sheep tracks, but failed to see the sheep. Many dead fish, their gills filled with the slimy mud from the recent rise, floated past us, or lay half buried in the mud. These things were noticed as we went about our duties, for we were too weary to do any exploring. The next morning, Monday, October the 2d saw us making arrangements for the final run that would take us out of Lodore Canyon. No doubt it was a beautiful and a wonderful place, but none of us seemed sorry to leave it behind. For ten days we had not had a single day entirely free from rain, and instead of having a chance to run rapids, it seemed as if we had spent an entire week in carrying our loads, or in lining our boats through the canyon. The canyon walls lost much of their precipitous character as we neared the end of the canyon. A short run took us over the few rapids that remained, and at a turn ahead we saw a 300-foot ridge, brilliantly tinted in many colours,--light and golden yellows, orange and red, purple and lavender,--and composed of numberless wafer-like layers of rock, uptilted, so that the broken ends looked like the spines of a gigantic fish's back. A sharp turn to the left soon brought us to the end of this ridge, close to the bottom of a smooth, sheer wall. Across a wide, level point of sand we could see a large stream, the Yampa River, flowing from the East to join its waters with those of the Green. This was the end of Lodore Canyon. CHAPTER VII JIMMY GOES OVER THE MOUNTAIN The Yampa, or Bear River, was a welcome sight to us in spite of its disagreeable whitish yellow, clay colour; quite different from the red water of the Green River. The new stream meant more water in the channel, something we needed badly, as our past tribulations showed. The recent rise on the Green had subsided a little, but we now had a much higher stage than when we entered Lodore. Quite likely the new conditions gave us six feet of water above the low water on which we had been travelling. Would it increase or diminish our dangers? We were willing, Emery and I, even anxious, to risk our chances on the higher water. Directly opposite the Yampa, the right shore of the Green went up sheer about 700 feet high, indeed it seemed to overhang a trifle. This had been named Echo Cliffs by Powell's party. The cliffs gave a remarkable echo, repeating seven words plainly when shouted from the edge of the Yampa a hundred yards away, and would doubtless repeat more if shouted from the farther shore of the Yampa. Echo Cliffs, we found, were in the form of a peninsula and terminated just below this point where we stood, the river doubling back on the other side of the cliff. On the left side of the river, the walls fell back, leaving a flat, level space of about twenty-five acres. Here was a little ranch of which Mrs. Chew had told us. The Chew ranch lay back from the river on top of the cliffs. We found no one at home here at this first ranch, but there was evidence of recent habitation. There were a few peach trees, and a small garden, while beyond this were two buildings,--little shacks in a dilapidated condition. The doors were off their hinges and leaned against the building, a few logs being placed against the doors. Past the dooryard, coming out of a small canyon above the ranch, ran a little brook; up this canyon was a trail, the outlet to the ranch above. We camped near the mouth of the stream. It had been agreed upon the night before, that we should endeavour to make arrangements to have Jimmy taken out on horseback over the mountains. Before looking for the ranch, however, we asked him if he did not wish to reconsider his decision to leave here. We pointed out that Jensen, Utah, was only fifty miles away, half that distance being in quiet water, and that the worst canyon was behind us. But he said he had enough of the river and preferred to see what could be done. While I busied myself about camp, he and Emery left for the ranch. About seven o'clock that evening they returned in great spirits. They had found the ranch without any trouble nearly three miles from our camp. Mrs. Chew was there and gave them a hearty welcome. She had often wondered what had become of us. She invited the boys to remain for supper, which they did. They talked over the matter of transportation for Jimmy. As luck would have it, Mrs. Chew was going to drive over to Jensen, and Vernal, Utah, in two days' time, and agreed to take Jimmy along. Early the next morning two boys, one about fourteen years old the other a little older, rode down from the ranch. Some of their horses were pastured across the river and they had come after these. After a short visit they got into the _Edith_ with Emery and prepared to cross over to the pasture, which was a mile or more downstream. They were soon out of our sight. Jimmy and I remained at the camp, taking pictures, packing his belongings, and finding many odd jobs to be done. In about three hours the boys returned with their horses. The horses were quite gentle, and they had no difficulty in swimming them across. A young colt, too feeble to swim, placed its fore feet on its mother's flanks and was ferried across in that way. Then they were driven over a narrow trail skirting the cliff, 300 feet above the river. No one, looking from the river, would have imagined that any trail, over which horses could be driven, existed. The boys informed us that we were expected at the ranch for dinner, and would listen to no refusal so up we went, although we would have to make a second trip that day. The view of the ranch was another of those wonderful scenic changes which we were to meet with everywhere in this region. The flat on which we stood was simply a pocket, shut in by the round-domed mountains, with a pass, or an opening, to the east side. A small stream ran down a mountain side, spreading over the rocks, and glistening in the sunlight. This same stream passed the ranch, and ran on down through the narrow canyon up which we had come. The ranch itself was refreshing. The buildings were new, some were under construction; but there was considerable ground under cultivation. Cattle were scattered up the valley, or dotted the rocky slopes below the mountains. A wild spot this, on the borderland of the three states. None but people of fortitude, or even of daring, would think of taking up a homestead in this secluded spot. The same rumours of the escaped prisoners had drifted in here. It was Mr. Chew who gave us the information we have previously quoted concerning the murdered man. He had found the body in the boat, in front of the post-office. He further stated that others in the mountains would not hesitate at anything to drive out those who were trying to improve a homestead as he was doing, and that it was a common event to find the carcasses of his own horses or cattle which had been ruthlessly slaughtered. This was the reason for putting the horses across the river. There they were safe, for none could approach them save by going past the ranch, or coming through Lodore Canyon. Mr. Chew also told us of the Snyders, who had lost their boat in upper Lodore Canyon, and of how he had given them a horse and provisions to aid them in reaching the settlements. This did not prevent the elder Snyder from coming back to trap the next year, much to Mr. Chew's disgust. He thought one experience should be enough for any man. While we were talking, a very old, bearded man rode in on a horse. He was Pat Lynch, the owner of the little ranch by the river. He was a real old-timer, having been in Brown's Park when Major Powell was surveying that section of the country. He told us that he had been hired to get some meat for the party, and had killed five mountain sheep. He was so old that he scarcely knew what he was talking about, rambling from one subject to another; and would have us listening with impatience to hear the end of some wonderful tale of the early days, when he would suddenly switch off on to an entirely different subject, leaving the first unfinished. In spite of his years he was quite active, having broken the horses on which he rode, bareback, without assistance. We were told that he placed a spring or trap gun in his houses at the river, ready to greet any prying marauder The last we saw of him he was on his way to the post-office, miles away, to draw his pension for service in the Civil War. Returning to the transportation of Jimmy, it was settled that the Chews were to leave early the next morning. They also agreed to take out our exposed films and plate for us--something we had not counted on, but too good a chance to lose. We all three returned to the boats and packed the stuff that was to go out; then went back to the ranch with Jimmy. It was late--after midnight--when we reached there, and we did not disturb any one. Jimmy's blankets were unrolled in the wagon, so there would be no question about his going out. He was to go to Jensen, or Vernal, and there await us, keeping our films until we arrived. We knew they were in good hands. It was with some difficulty that we found our way back to our camp. The trail was difficult and it was pitch dark. My boat had been taken down to where Emery left the _Edith_ when the horses were driven across, and this extra distance was added to our walk. We were laggard the next morning, and in no hurry to resume our work. We rearranged our loads in the boats; with one less man and considerable less baggage as well, they were lighter by far. Our chances looked much more favourable for an easier passage. Not only were these things in our favour, but in addition we felt that we had served our apprenticeship at navigation in rapid water, and we were just as capable of meeting the rapids to follow as if we had years of experience to our record. On summing up we found that the river had dropped 1000 feet since leaving Green River, Wyoming, and that 5000 feet remained, to put us on a level with the ocean. Our difficulties would depend, of course, on how this fall was distributed. Most of the fall behind was found in Lodore and Red canyons. It was doubtful indeed if any section would have a more rapid fall than Lodore Canyon. There is a certain verse of wisdom which says that "Pride goeth before a fall," but perhaps it was just as well for us if we were a little bit elated by our past achievements as long as we had to go through with the balance of our self-imposed task. Confidence, in a proper degree, is a great help when real difficulties have to be surmounted. We were full of confidence that day when we pulled away about noon into Whirlpool Canyon, Whirlpool Canyon being next on the list. The camp we were about to leave was directly opposite Lodore Canyon, where it ran against the upended cliff. The gorgeous colours were the same as those on the opposite side, and, to a certain degree, were also found in Whirlpool Canyon. Our two and a half hours' dash through the fourteen miles of rapid water in Whirlpool Canyon put us in a joyful frame of mind. Rapid after rapid was left behind us without a pause in our rowing, with only a hasty survey standing on the deck of the boats before going over. Others that were free from rocks were rowed in bow first, the big waves breaking over our boats and ourselves. We bailed while drifting in the quiet stretches, then got ready for the next rapids. Two large rapids only were looked over from the shore and these were run in the same manner. We could hardly believe it was true when we emerged from the mountain so quickly into a little flat park or valley sheltered in the hills. This was Island or Rainbow Park, the latter name being suggested by the brilliant colouring of the rocks, in the mountains to our left. Perhaps the form of the rocks themselves helped a little, for here was one end of the rainbow of rock which began on the other side of the mountains. Jagged-edged canyons looking almost as if their sides had been rent asunder came out of these mountains. There was very little dark red here except away on top, 2300 feet above, where a covering of pines made a soft background for light-cream and gorgeous yellow-coloured pinnacles, or rocky walls of pink and purple and delicate shades of various hues. Large cottonwoods appeared again along the river banks, in brilliant autumn colours, adding to the beauties of the scene. Back from the river, to the west, stretched the level park, well covered with bunch-grass on which some cattle grazed, an occasional small prickly pear cactus, and the ever present, pungent sage. Verdure-covered islands dotted the course of the stream, which was quiet and sluggish, doubling back and forth like a serpent over many a useless mile. Nine miles of rowing brought us back to a point about three miles from the mouth of Whirlpool Canyon; where the river again enters the mountain, deliberately choosing this course to one, unobstructed for several miles, to the right. The next gorge was Split Mountain Canyon, so named because the stream divided the ridge length-wise, from one end to the other. It was short, only nine miles long, with a depth of 2700 feet in the centre of the canyon. Three miles of the nine were put behind us before we camped that evening. These were run in the same manner as the rapids of Whirlpool, scarcely pausing to look them over, but these rapids were bigger, much bigger. One we thought was just formed or at least increased in size by a great slide of rock that had fallen since the recent rains. We just escaped trouble in this rapid, both boats going over a large rock with a great cresting wave below, and followed by a very rough rapid. Emery was standing on top of a fifteen-foot rock below the rapid when I went over, and for a few moments could see nothing of my boat, hardly believing it possible that I had come through without a scratch. These rapids with the high water looked more like rapids we had seen in the Grand Canyon, and were very unlike the shallow water of a week previous. We had only travelled a half day, but felt as if it had been a very complete day when we camped at the foot of a rock slide on the right, just above another big rapid. On Thursday, October 5, Camp No. 20 was left behind. The rapid below the camp was big, big enough for a moving picture, so we took each other in turns as we ran the rapid. More rapids followed, but these were not so large. A few sharp-pointed spires of tinted rock lifted above us a thousand feet or more. Framed in with the branches of the near-by cottonwood trees, they made a charming picture. Less than three hours brought us to the end of Split Mountain Canyon, and the last bad water we were to have for some time. Just before leaving the canyon, we came to some curious grottos, or alcoves, under the rock walls on the left shore. The river has cut into these until they overhang, some of them twenty-five feet or over. In one of these was a beaver lying on a pile of floating sticks. Although we passed quite close, the beaver never moved, and we did not molest it. Another shower greeted us as we emerged into the Uinta Valley as it is called by the Ute Indians. This valley is eighty-seven miles long. It did not have the fertileness of Brown's Park, being raised in bare rolling hills, runnelled and gullied by the elements. The water was quiet here, and hard rowing was necessary to make any progress. We had gone about seven miles when we spied a large placer dredge close to the river. To the uninitiated this dredge would look much like a dredging steamboat out of water, but digging its own channel, which is what it really does. Great beds of gravel lay on either side of the river and placer gold in large or small quantities, but usually the latter is likely to exist in these beds. When a dredge like the one found here is to be installed, an opening is made in the river's bank leading to an excavation which has been made, then a large flatboat is floated in this. The dredging machinery is on this float, as well as most of the machinery through which the gravel is passed accompanied by a stream of water; then with quicksilver and rockers of various designs, the gold is separated from the gravel and sand. Numerous small buildings were standing near the dredge, but the buildings were empty, and the dredge lay idle. We saw many fresh tracks of men and horses aid were welcomed by a sleek, well-fed cat, but found the place was deserted. All buildings were open and in one was a telephone. We were anxious to hear just where we were, so we used the telephone and explained what we wanted to know. The "Central" informed us that we were about nine miles from Jensen, so we returned to the boats and pulled with a will through a land that was no longer barren, but with cozy ranch houses, surrounded by rows of stately poplars, bending with the wind, for it was storming in earnest now. About six o'clock that evening we caught sight of the top of the Jensen bridge; then, as we neared the village, the sun broke through the pall of cloud and mist, and a rainbow appeared in the sky above, and was mirrored in the swollen stream, rainbow and replica combined nearly completing the wondrous arc. There was a small inn beside the bridge, and arrangements were made for staying there that night. We were told that Jim and Mrs. Chew had passed through Jensen about four hours before we arrived. They had left word that they would go on through to Vernal, fifteen miles distant from the river. CHAPTER VIII AN INLAND EXCURSION Jensen was a small village with two stores and a post-office. A few scattered houses completed the village proper, but prosperous-looking ranches spread out on the lowland for two or three miles in all directions on the west side of the river. Avenues of poplar trees, fruit trees, and fields of alfalfa gave these ranches a different appearance from any others we had passed. We found some mail awaiting us at the post-office, and were soon busily engaged in reading the news from home. We conversed awhile with the few people at the hotel, then retired, but first made arrangements for saddle horses for the ride to Vernal. Next morning we found two spirited animals, saddled and waiting for us. We had some misgivings concerning these horses, but were assured that they were "all right." A group of grinning cowboys and ranch hands craning their necks from a barn, a hundred yards distant, rather inclined us to think that perhaps our informant might be mistaken. Nothing is more amusing to these men of the range than to see a man thrown from his horse, and a horse that is "all right" for one of them might be anything else to persons such as we who never rode anything except gentle horses, and rode those indifferently. We mounted quickly though, trying to appear unconcerned. The horses, much to our relief, behaved quite well, Emery's mount rearing back on his hind legs but not bucking. After that, all went smoothly. Leaving the irrigated ranches on the bottom lands, we ascended a low, rolling mesa, composed of gravel and clay, unwatered and unfertile, from which we caught occasional glimpses of the mountains and the gorge from which we had emerged, their brilliant colours softened and beautified by that swimming blue haze which belongs to this plateau region. Then we rode down into the beautiful Ashley Valley, watered by Ashley Creek, a good-sized stream even after it was used to irrigate all the country for miles above. The valley was several miles wide. The stream emptied into the river about a mile below Jensen. All parts of the valley were under cultivation. It is famous for its splendid deciduous fruits, apples, pears, peaches; splendid both in appearance and flavour. It excelled not only in fruits, however, but in all products of the field as well. "Vernal honey," which is marketed far and near, has a reputation for fine flavour wherever it is known. A thick growth of the bee-blossom or bee-weed crowded the road sides and hugged the fences. The fragrance of the flower can easily be noticed in the sweetness of the honey. The pity of it was that bushels of fruit lay rotting on the ground, for there were no transportation facilities, the nearest railroad being 90 miles distant. There were stock ranches too, with blooded stock in the fence-enclosed fields. Some of the splendid horses paced along beside us on the other side of the fence. We heard the rippling song of some meadow-larks this day, the only birds of this species we remember having seen on the Western plateaus. All these ranches were laid out in true Mormon style, that is, squared off in sections, fenced, and planted with shade-trees before being worked. The roads are usually wide and the streets exceptionally so. Except in the business streets, a large garden usually surrounds the home building, each family endeavouring to raise all their own vegetables, fruits, and poultry. They usually succeed. The shade trees about Vernal were Lombardy poplars. They attained a height that would give ample shade under most conditions, and too much when we were there, for the roads were very muddy, although they had dried in all other sections. Nearing Vernal, we passed Nathan Galloway's home, a cozy place set back some distance from the road. We had hoped to meet Galloway and have an opportunity of talking over his experiences with him, but found he was absent on a hunting trip, in fact was up in the mountains we had come through. On nearing the town we were greeted by a busy scene. Numerous wagons and horses stood in squares reserved for that purpose, or were tied to hitching posts in front of the many stores. Ranchers and their families were everywhere in evidence; there were numerous prospectors in their high-topped boots just returning from the mountains, and oil men in similar garb, muddy from head to foot. Later we learned that oil had recently been discovered about forty miles distant, this fact accounting for much of the activity. The town itself was a surprise; we found it to be very much up-to-date considering its isolated position. Two of the streets were paved and oiled and were supplied with drinking fountains. There were two prosperous looking banks, two well-stocked and up-to-date drug stores, several mercantile stores, and many others, all busy. Many of the buildings were of brick; all were substantial. Near a hotel we observed a group of men surrounding some one who was evidently keeping them interested. On approaching them we found it was Jimmy, giving a graphic description of some of our difficulties. His story was not finished, for he saw us and ran to greet us, as pleased to see us as we were to see him. He had little idea we would be along for two or three days and naturally was much surprised. On entering the hotel we were greeted by an old Grand Canyon friend, a civil engineer named Duff, who with a crew of men had been mapping the mountains near Whirlpool Canyon. You can imagine that it was a gratifying surprise to all concerned to find we were not altogether among strangers, though they were as hospitable as strangers could be. The hotel was a lively place that night. There was some musical talent among Duff's men, and Duff himself was an artist on the piano. Many of the young people of the town had dropped in that evening, as some one had passed the word that there might be an impromptu entertainment at the hotel. There was. Duff played and the boys sang. Jimmy was himself again and added his rich baritone. The town itself was not without musical talent, and altogether it was a restful change for us. Perhaps we should have felt even better if we had been dressed differently, for we wore much the same clothes as those in which we did our work on the river--a woollen shirt and overalls. Besides, neither Emery nor I had shaved since starting, and it is quite likely that we looked just a little uncouth. Appearances count for little with these people in the little-settled districts, and it is a common enough sight to them to see men dressed as we were. They did everything they could to make us feel at ease. As one person remarked, "The wealthiest cattle man, or the owner of the richest mine in the country, usually looks worse than all others after a month on the range or in the hills." If wealth were indicated on an inverse ratio to one's good appearance, we should have been very wealthy indeed. We felt as if it would take us a week to get rested and lost little time in getting to bed when the party broke up. We imagine most of the residents of Vernal were Mormons. It is part of their creed to give "the stranger within their gates" a cordial welcome. This however, was accorded to us, not only among the Mormons, but in every section of our journey on the Green and Colorado rivers. The following day was a busy one. Arrangements had been made with a local photographer to get the use of his dark room, and we proceeded to develop all plates and many of our films. These were then to be packed and shipped out. We were informed at the local express office, that it might be some time before they would go, as the recent rains had been very bad in Colorado and had washed out most of the bridges. Vernal had passenger transportation to the railway--a branch of the D. & R.G. running north into Colorado--by automobile, the route lying across the Green and also across the White River, a tributary to the Green. A steel structure had been washed away on the White River, making it impossible to get through to the station. The high water below here must have been a flood, judging from all reports. About ten bridges, large and small, were reported as being washed away on numerous branch streams leading into the Green River. Fortunately Vernal had another means of communication. This was a stage running southwest from Vernal, over 125 miles of rough road to Price, Utah--Price being a station on the main line of the D. & R.G. Jimmy concluded that he would take this road, in preference to the uncertainties of the other route, and noon that day found him on board the stage. He promised to write to us, and was anxious to hear of our success, but remarked that when he once got home he would "never leave San Francisco again." There was a final hand clasp, a cheer from the small group of men, and the stage drove away with Jimmy, a happy boy indeed. Our work on the developing progressed well, and with very satisfying results on the whole, and that evening found us with all plates packed ready for shipment to our home. The moving-picture film was also packed and shipped to be developed at once. This was quite a load off our minds. The following day we prepared to depart, but did not leave until the afternoon. Then, with promises to let them know the outcome of our venture, we parted from our friends and rode back to Jensen. We planned on leaving the following morning. The river had fallen one foot since we had landed, and we were anxious to have the benefit of the high water. We were told that it was six feet above the low-water stage of two weeks before. On Monday, October the 9th, after loading our boat with a new stock of provisions,--in which was included few jars of honey, and a few dozen of eggs, packed in sawdust,--we began what might be called the second stage of our journey; the 175-mile run to Blake or Green River, Utah, a little west of south from Jensen. Ten miles below Jensen was a ferry used by the auto and wagons. Here also was a ranch house, with a number of people in the yard. We were invited to land and did so. They had been informed by telephone of our coming and were looking for us; indeed they had even prepared dinner for us, hoping we would reach there in time. Not knowing all this, we had eaten our cold lunch half an hour before. The women were busy preserving fruits and garden truck, and insisted on us taking two or three jars along. This was a welcome change to the dried fruit, which was one of our principal foods. These people made the usual request--"Drop us a post card if you get through." The memory of these people that we met on this journey will linger with us as long as we live. They were always anxious to help us or cheer us on our way. We passed a dredge that evening and saw a man at work with a team and scoop shovel, the method being to scoop up the gravel and sand, then dump it in an iron car. This was then pulled by the horses to the top of a derrick up a sloping track and dumped. A stream of water pumped up from the river mixed with the gravel, the entire mass descended a long zigzagging chute. We paused a few minutes only and did not examine the complicated process of separating the mineral from the gravel. This dredge had been recently installed. We camped early, half a mile below the dredge. Emery had been feeling poorly all this day. He blamed his indisposition to having eaten too many good things when in Vernal--a break in training, as it were. This was our excuse for a short run that day. I played nurse and gave him some simple remedy from the little supply that we carried; and, after he was in his sleeping bag, I filled some hot-water bags for the first time on the trip, and soon had him feeling quite comfortable. A hard wind came up that night, and a little rain fell. I had a busy half-hour keeping our camp from being blown away. The storm was of short duration, and all was soon quiet again. On the following morning Emery felt so good that I had a hard time in keeping up with him and I wondered if he would ever stop. Towards evening, after a long pull, we neared the reservation of the Uinta Utes, and saw a few Indians camped away from the river. Here, again, were the cottonwood bottoms, banked by the barren, gravelly hills. We had been informed that there was a settlement called Ouray, some distance down the river, and we were anxious to reach it before night. But the river was sluggish, with devious and twisting channels, and it was dark when we finally landed at the Ouray ferry. CHAPTER IX CANYON OF DESOLATION Ouray, Utah, consisted of a large store to supply the wants of the Indians and ranchers, a small hotel, and a few dwellings. The agency proper was located some distance up the Uinta River, which stream emptied into the Green, just below Ouray. Supper was taken at the hotel, after which we visited a young man in charge of the store, looking over his curios and listening to tales of his life here among these Indians. They were peaceable enough now, but in years gone by were a danger to be reckoned with. We slept in our own beds close to our boats by the river. The following morning, when we were ready to leave, a small crowd gathered, a few Indians among them. Most of the Indians were big, fat, and sleepy-looking. Apparently they enjoyed the care of the government. A mile below we passed several squaws and numerous children under some trees, while on a high mound stood a lone buck Indian looking at us as we sped by, but without a single movement that we could see. He still stood there as we passed from sight a mile below. It might be interesting if one could know just what was in his mind as he watched us. A mile below the Uinta River, which entered on the west, we passed another stream, the White River, entering from the east, the two streams adding considerable water to the Green River. We passed another idle dredge, also some mineral workings in tunnels, and saw two men camped on the shore beside them. We saw numerous Indian carvings on the rocks, but judged they were recent because horses figured in most of them. In all the open country the river was fringed with large cottonwood trees, alders and willow thickets. A number of islands followed, one of them very symmetrical in shape, with cottonwood trees in the centre, while around the edge ran a fringe of bushes looking almost like a trimmed hedge. The autumn colouring added to its beauty. The hedge, as we called it, was dark red, brown, yellow, and green; the cottonwoods were a light yellow. After we had passed this island, a deer, confused by our voices, jumped into the river fifty yards behind us, leaping and swimming as he made for the shore. We had no gun, but Emery had the moving-picture camera at hand, and turned it on the deer. The hour was late, however, and we had little hopes of its success as a picture. The country back from the river stretched in rolling, barren hills 200 or 300 feet high--a continuation of the Bad Lands of Utah, which lay off to the west. With the next day's travel the hills lost some of their barren appearance. Some cattle were seen early in the afternoon of the following day. We passed a cattle man working at a ferry, who had just taken some stock across, which other men had driven on ahead. He was busy, so we did not interrupt him, merely calling to him from the boats, drifting meanwhile with the current. Soon we saw him riding down the shore and waited for him to catch up. He invited us to camp with him that evening, remarking that he had "just killed a beef." We thanked him, but declined, as it was early and we had only travelled a short distance that day. We chatted awhile, and he told us to look out for rapids ahead. He was rather surprised when he learned that we had started at Green River, Wyoming, and had already come through a few rapids. "Where are you going to stop?" he then asked. On being told that our destination was Needles, California, he threw up his hands with an expressive gesture, then added soberly, "Well, boys, I sure wish you luck," and rode back to his camp. We had difficulty in making a suitable landing that evening, as the high water had deposited great quantities of black mud over everything, making it very disagreeable when we left the boats. We finally found a place with less mud to wade through than on most of the banks seen, and tied up to the roots of a tree. While lying in our beds that night looking at the starlit sky--such a sky as is found only on these high plateaus--we discovered a comet directly above us. An astronomer would have enjoyed our opportunities for observing the heavens. No doubt this comet had been heralded far and wide, but we doubt if any one saw it to better advantage than did we. Later, some coyotes, possibly in chase of a rabbit, gave vent to their yodeling cry, and awakened us from a sound sleep. They were in a little lateral canyon, which magnified and gave a weird, organ-like echo to their calls long after the coyotes themselves had passed from hearing. The nights were getting warmer as we travelled south, but not so warm that we were bothered with insects. The same reason accounted for the absence of snakes or scorpions, for no doubt there were plenty of both in warm weather in this dry country. When there was no wind, the silence of the nights was impressive, with no sound save the lapping of the water against the banks. Sometimes a bird in the trees above would start up with a twitter, then quiet down again. On occasions the air chambers in our boats would contract on cooling off, making a noise like the boom of a distant gun, every little sound being magnified by the utter stillness of the night. There were other times when it was not so quiet. Hundreds of birds, geese, ducks and mud-hens had been seen the last few days. Also there were occasional cranes and herons, over a thousand miles from their breeding place at the mouth of the Colorado. As dusk settled, we would see these birds abandon their feeding in the mud, and line up on the shore, or on an island, and go to sleep. Occasionally one of these birds would start up out of a sound sleep with an unearthly squawk. Possibly an otter had interrupted its dreams, or a fox had pounced on one as it slept. It may be that it was only a bad dream of these enemies that caused their fright, but whatever it was, that first call would start up the entire flock and they would circle in confusion like a stampeded herd of cattle, their discordant cries putting an end to the stillness of the night. Finally they would settle down in a new spot, and all would be quiet once more. We saw a few birds that were strangers to us,--water birds which we imagined belonged to the salt water rather than the inland streams, making a little excursion, perhaps, away from their accustomed haunts. One type we saw on two occasions, much like a gull, but smaller, pure white as far as we could tell, soaring in graceful flight above the river. Camp No. 26 was close to the beginning of a new canyon. The country had been changing in appearance from rather flat plains to small bare hills, gradually increasing in height with smooth, rounded sides, and going up to a point, usually of a dirty clay colour, with little vegetation of any kind on them. The river for miles past had swept in long graceful curves, the hills being close to the river on the outside of the curve, leaving a big flat on the inside. This flat gradually sloped back to hills of an equal height to those opposite. Then the curve would reverse, and the same conditions would be met with again, but on opposite sides from the previous bend. After passing a creek the evening before, the hills became higher, and from our camp we could see the first place where they came close on both sides to the river. We felt now that our beautiful tree-covered canyons were behind us and from now on we would be hemmed in by the great eroded canyons of the Southwest. We were sorry to leave those others behind, and could easily understand why Major Powell had named this Desolation Canyon. As the canyon deepened the cliffs were cut into fantastic shapes, as is usual in rocks unprotected by vegetation. There was a hard rock near the top in places which overhung a softer formation. This would erode, giving a cornice-like effect to the cliffs. Others were surmounted by square towers and these were capped by a border of little squares, making the whole look much like a castle on the Rhine. For half a day we found no rapids, but pulled away on a good current. The walls gradually grew higher and were more rugged; a few trees cropped out on their sides. At noon our boats were lashed together and lunch was eaten as we drifted. We covered about three miles in this way, taking in the scenery as we passed. We saw a great stone arch, or natural bridge, high on a stupendous cliff to our right, and wondered if any one had ever climbed up to it. Our lunch was no more than finished when the first rapid was heard ahead of us. Quickly unlashing our boats, we prepared for strenuous work. Friday the 13th proved to be a lucky day; thirteen large rapids and thirteen small ones were placed behind us before we camped at Rock Creek--a splashing, laughing mountain stream, no doubt containing trout. The following morning we found there was a little ranch house below us, but, though we called from our boats, no one came out. We wondered how any one could reach this out-of-the-way place, as a road would be almost an impossibility. Later we found a well-constructed trail on the right-hand side all the way through the canyon. We saw a great many cattle travelling this trail. Some were drinking at the river when we swept into view. Our boats filled them with alarm, and they scrambled for the hillsides, looking after us with frightened expressions as we left them to the rear. We put in a full day at running rapids, one after another, until fifteen large ones were passed, no count being kept of the smaller ones. Some of these rapids resembled dams from six to twelve feet high, with the water falling abruptly over a steep slope. Others were long and rough, with swift water in places. Above one of these we had landed, then found we could get a much better view from the opposite shore. Emery crossed and landed, I followed. We had been having heavy winds all day. When crossing here I was caught by a sudden gust of wind and carried to the head of the rapid. I heard Emery call, "Look out for the big rock!" then over I went. The wind and water together had turned my boat sideways, and try as I would I could not get it turned around. I saw the rock Emery referred to straight ahead of me. It was about fifteen feet square and about fourteen feet from the shore, with a powerful current shooting between the rock and the shore. It seemed as if I must strike the rock broadside, and I ceased my struggle, but held out an oar with both hands, hoping to break the blow. But it never came. The water struck this rock with great force, then rebounded, and actually kept me from even touching the rock with the oar, but it caught the boat and shot it through the narrow channel, bow first, as neatly as it could possibly be done, then, turned the boat around again as I scrambled to regain my hold on both oars. No other rocks threatened however, and besides filling the cockpit with water, no damage was done. Emery had no desire to follow my passage and crossed back to the other side. Shooting over the upper end of the rapid, his boat ran up on a rounded rock, the stern sticking high in the air; it paused a moment, the current slowly turning it around as if on a pivot, and the boat slid off; then down he came lurching and plunging, but with no more difficulty. Many times in such places as these we saw the advantage of our flat-bottomed boats over one with a keel, for these would surely be upset when running up on such a rock. CHAPTER X HOSPITABLE RANCHMEN The appearance of Desolation Canyon had changed entirely in the lower end. Instead of a straight canyon without a break, we were surrounded by mountain peaks nearly 2500 feet high, with many side canyon between them and with little level parks at the end of the canyons beside the river. The tops were pine-covered; cedars clung to the rocky slopes. Some of these peaks were not unlike the formations of the Grand Canyon, as seen from the inner plateau, and the red colouring was once more found in the rocks. These peaks were gradually dropping down in height; and at one open section, with alfalfa and hay fields on gently sloping hillsides, we found a small ranch, the buildings being set back from the river. We concluded to call and found three men, the rancher and two young cowboys, at work in a blacksmith shop. Emery had forgotten to remove his life-preserver, and the men looked at him with some astonishment, as he was still soaking wet from the splashing waves of the last rapid. When I joined him he was explaining that no one had been drowned, and that we were merely making an excursion down the river. Mr. McPherson, the rancher, we learned, owned all the cattle seen up the river. The little cabin at our last camp was a sort of headquarters for his cowboys. The cattle were just being driven from the mountains before the snows came, and were to be wintered here in the canyons. Some of these cattle were much above the usual grade of range cattle, being thoroughbreds, although most of them ran loose on the range. This ranch had recently lost a valuable bull which had been killed by a bear up in the mountains--not unlike similar conflicts in more civilized sections of the country. McPherson camped on this bear's trail for several days and nights before he finally hung his pelt on a tree. He was a large cinnamon-coloured grizzly. Four other bears had been killed this same year, in these mountains. McPherson's home had burned down a short time before our visit, and his family had removed to Green River, Utah. A number of tents were erected, neatly boarded up, and we were informed that one of these was reserved for company, so we need not think of going any farther that day. These men, while absolutely fearless in the saddle, over these rough mountain trails, had "no use for the river" they told us; in fact, we found this was the usual attitude of the cattle men wherever we met them. McPherson's respect for the river was not without reason, as his father, with two others, had been drowned while making a crossing in a light boat near this point, some years before. Some accident occurred, possibly the breaking of a rowlock, and they were carried into a rapid. McPherson's men found it necessary to cross their cattle back and forth, but always took the wise precaution to have on some life-preservers. The cork preservers hung in the blacksmith shop, where they could easily be reached at a moment's notice. Desolation Canyon, with a slight breaking down of the walls for a short distance only, gave place to Gray Canyon below the McPherson Ranch. A good sized mountain stream, part of which irrigated the ranch above, found its way through this division. We had been told that more rapids lay ahead of us in Gray Canyon, but they were not so numerous in our next day's travel. What we did find were usually large, but we ran them all without difficulty. About noon we met five men in a boat, rowing up the stream in a long, still stretch. They told us they were working on a dam, a mile or two below. They followed us down to see us make the passage through the rapid which lay above their camp. The rapid was long and rocky, having a seventeen-foot fall in a half mile. We picked our channel by standing up in the boat before entering the rapid and were soon at the bottom with no worse mishap than bumping a rock or two rather lightly. We had bailed out and were tying our boats, when the men came panting down the hill up which they had climbed to see us make this plunge. A number of men were at work here, but this being Sunday, most of them had gone to Green River, Utah, twenty-one miles distant. Among the little crowd who came down to see us resume our rowing was a lady and a little girl who lived in a rock building, near the other buildings erected for the working-men. Emery showed the child a picture of his four-year-old daughter, Edith, with her mother--a picture he always carried in a note-book. Then he had her get in the boat with him, and we made a photograph of them. They were very good friends before we left. In a few hours we emerged from the low-walled canyon into a level country. A large butte, perhaps 700 feet high, stood out by itself, a mile from the main cliffs. This was Gunnison Butte, an old landmark near the Gunnison trail. We were anxious to reach Blake or Green River, Utah, not many miles below, that evening; but we failed to make it. There were several rapids, some of them quite large, and we had run them all when we came to a low dam that obstructed our passage, While looking it over, seeing how best to make a portage, a young man whom we had just seen remarked: "Well, boys, you had better tie up and I will help you in the morning." It was 5.30 then, and we were still six miles from Green River, so we took his advice and camped. On seeing our sleeping bags, tightly strapped and making rather small roll, he remarked: "Well, you fellows are not Mormons; I can tell by the size of your beds!" Our new friend gave the name of Wolverton. There was another man named Wilson who owned a ranch just below the dam. Both of these men were much interested in our experiences. Wolverton had considerable knowledge of the river and of boats; very little persuasion would have been necessary to have had him for a companion on the balance of our journey. But we had made up our minds to make it alone, now, as it looked feasible. Both Wilson and Wolverton knew the country below Green River, Utah, having made surveys through much of the surrounding territory. Wolverton said we must surely see his father, who lived down the river and who was an enthusiast on motor boats. A few minutes' work the next morning sufficed to get our boats over the dam. The dam was constructed of loose rock and piles, chinked with brush and covered with sloping planks,--just a small dam to raise the water for irrigation purposes. Much of the water ran through the canal; in places the planks were dry, in others some water ran over. The boats, being unloaded were pulled up on these planks, then slid into the water below. Wilson had a large water wheel for irrigation purposes, the first of several such wheels which we were to see this day. These wheels, twenty feet or more in height,--with slender metal buckets each holding gallons of water, fastened at intervals on either side,--were placed in a swift current, anchored on the shore to stout piles, or erected over mill-races cut in the banks. There they revolved, the buckets filling and emptying automatically, the water running off in troughs above the level of the river back to the fertile soil. Some of these wheels had ingenious floating arrangements whereby they accommodated themselves to the different stages of a rising or falling river. We took a few pictures of Wilson's place before leaving. He informed us that he had telephoned to certain people in Green River who would help us in various ways. Two hours' rowing, past many pretty little ranches, brought us to the railroad bridge, a grateful sight to us. A pumping plant stood beside the bridge under charge of Captain Yokey, one of Wilson's friends. Yokey owned a large motor boat, which was tied up to the shore. Our boats were left in his charge while we went up to the town, a mile distant. Another of Wilson's friends met us, and secured a dark room for us so that we could do a little developing and we prepared for work on the following day. That night a newspaper reporter hunted us out, anxious for a story. We gave him what we had, making light of our previous difficulties, which were exciting enough at times; but owing to the comparatively small size of the stream, we seldom thought our lives were in any great danger. The papers made the most of these things, and the stories that came out had little semblance to our original statements. We have since learned that no matter how much one minimizes such things, they are seldom published as reported. We put in a busy day unpacking new films and plates developing all films from the smaller cameras and sending these home. A new stock of provisions had to be purchased, enough for one month at least, for there was no chance of securing supplies until we reached our canyon home, about 425 miles below. We had a valuable addition to our cargo in two metal boxes that had been shipped here, as it was not possible to get them before leaving Wyoming. These cases or trunks were sent from England, and were water-tight, if not waterproof, there being a slight difference. Well constructed, with rubber gaskets and heavy clamps, every possible precaution had been taken, it seemed, to exclude the water and still render them easy of access. They were about thirty inches long, fifteen wide, and twelve high, just the thing for our photographic material. Up to this time everything had to be kept under the deck when in bad water. These boxes were placed in the open section in front of us, and were thoroughly fastened to the ribs to prevent loss, ready to be opened or closed in a moment, quite a convenience when pictures had to be taken hurriedly. The following day we went over the boats, caulking few leaks. The bottoms of the boats were considerably the worse for wear, owing to our difficulties in the first canyons. We got some thin oak strips and nailed them on the bottom to help protect them, when portaging. Sliding the boats on the scouring sand and rough-surfaced rock was hard on the half-inch boards on the bottom of the boats. This work was all completed that day, and everything was ready for the next plunge. In passing the station, we noticed the elevation above sea-level was placed at 4085 feet, and remembered that Green River, Wyoming, was 6080 feet, showing that our descent in the past 425 miles had been close to 2000 feet. We had not found it necessary to line or portage any rapids since leaving Lodore Canyon; we were hopeful that our good luck would continue. Nothing was to be feared from what remained of the Green River, 120 miles or more, for motor boats made the journey to its junction with the Grand, and we were told even ascended the Grand for some distance. Below this junction was the Colorado River, a different stream from the one we were still to navigate. Before leaving, we ate a final hearty breakfast at the boarding-house where we had been taking our meals. A number of young men, clerks in some of the business houses here, were among the boarders. The landlady a whole-souled German woman and an excellent cook, was greatly worried over their small appetites, thinking it was a reflection on her table. She remarked that she hoped we had good appetites, and I am sure she had no complaint to make so far as we were concerned. We had never stinted ourselves when on the river, but the change and the rest seemed to give us an abnormal appetite that could not be satisfied, and we would simply quit eating because we were ashamed to eat more. Less than half an hour after one of these big meals, I was surprised to see my brother in a restaurant with a sheepish grin on his face, and with a good-sized lunch before him. CHAPTER XI WONDERS OF EROSION _Thursday, October the 19th_. We embarked again with two of our new-found friends on board as passengers for a short ride, their intention being to hunt as they walked back. They left us at a ranch beside the San Rafael River, a small stream entering from the west. They left some mail with us to be delivered to Mr. Wolverton, whose son we had met above. About 20 miles below Green River we reached his home. Judging by a number of boats--both motor and row boats--tied to his landing, Mr. Wolverton was an enthusiastic river-man. After glancing over his mail, he asked how we had come and was interested when he learned that we were making a boating trip. He was decidedly interested when he saw the boats and learned that we were going to our home in the Grand Canyon. His first impression was that we were merely making a little pleasure trip on the quiet water. Going carefully over the boats, he remarked that they met with his approval with one exception. They seemed to be a little bit short for the heavy rapids of the Colorado, he thought. He agreed that our experience in the upper rapids had been good training, but said there was no comparison in the rapids. We would have a river ten times as great as in Lodore to contend with; and in numerous places, for short distances, the descent was as abrupt as anything we had seen on the Green. Wolverton was personally acquainted with a number of the men who had made the river trip, and, with the one exception of Major Powell's expeditions, had met all the parties who had successfully navigated its waters. This not only included Galloway's and Stone's respective expeditions, which had made the entire trip, but included two other expeditions which began at Green River, Utah, and had gone through the canyons of the Colorado.[4] These were the Brown-Stanton expedition, which made a railroad survey through the canyons of the Colorado; and another commonly known as the Russell-Monnette expedition, two of the party making the complete trip, arriving at Needles after a voyage filled with adventure and many narrow escapes. Mr. Wolverton remarked that every one knew of those who had navigated the entire series of canyons, but that few people knew of those who had been unsuccessful. He knew of seven parties that had failed to get through Cataract Canyon's forty-one miles of rapids, with their boats, most of them never being heard of again. These unsuccessful parties were often miners or prospectors who wished to get into the comparatively flat country which began about fifty miles below the Junction of the Green and the Grand rivers. Here lay Glen Canyon, with 150 miles of quiet water. Nothing need be feared in this, or in the 120 miles of good boating from Green River, Utah, to the junction. Between these two points, however, lay Cataract Canyon, beginning at the junction of the two rivers. Judging by its unsavory record, Cataract Canyon was something to be feared. Among these parties who had made short trips on the river was one composed of two men. Phil Foote was a gambler, stage robber, and bad man in general. He had broken out of jail in Salt Lake City and, accompanied by another of similar character, stole a boat at Green River, Utah, and proceeded down the river. Soon after entering Cataract Canyon, they lost their boat and provisions. Finding a tent which had been washed down the river, they tore it into strips and constructed a raft out driftwood, tying the logs together with the strips of canvas. Days of hardship followed, and starvation stared them in the face; until finally Foote's partner gave up, said he would drown himself. With an oath Foote drew his revolver, saying he had enough of such cowardice and would save him the trouble. His companion then begged for his life, saying he would stick to the end, and they finally got through to the Hite ranch, which lay a short distance below. They were taken care of here, and terminated their voyage a short distance beyond, going out over land. Foote was afterwards shot and killed while holding up a stage in Nevada. The Hite ranch also proved to be a place of refuge for others, the sole survivors of two other parties who were wrecked, one person escaping on each occasion. Hite's ranch, and Lee's Ferry, 140 miles below Hite, had mail service. We had left instructions at the post-office to forward our mail to one or the other of these points. These were also the only places on our 425-mile run to Bright Angel Trail where we could expect to see any people, so we were informed. We were about to descend into what is, possibly, the least inhabited portion of the United States of America. A party of civil engineers working here, joined us that evening at Wolverton's home. A young man in the party asked us if we would consent to carry a letter through with us and mail it at our destination. He thought it would be an interesting souvenir for the person to whom it was addressed. We agreed to do our best, but would not guarantee delivery. The next morning two letters were given us to mail, and were accepted with this one reservation. Before leaving Mr. Wolverton showed us his motor boat with much pardonable pride. On this boat he sometimes took small parties down to the beginning of the Colorado River, and up the Grand, a round trip of three hundred miles or more. The boat had never been taken down the Colorado for the simple reason that the rapids began almost immediately below the junction. Wolverton, while he had never been through the rapids in a boat, had followed the river on foot for several miles and was thoroughly familiar with their nature. On parting he remarked, "Well, boys, you are going to tackle a mighty hard proposition, but I'm sure you can make it if you are only careful. But look out and go easy." Wolverton was no novice, speaking from much experience in bad water, and we were greatly impressed by what he had to say. Five uneventful days were spent in Labyrinth and Stillwater canyons, through which the Green peacefully completed its rather violent descent. In the upper end we usually found rough water in the canyons and quiet water in the open sections. Here at least were two canyons, varying from 300 feet at their beginning to 1300 in depth, both without a rapid. The first of these was Labyrinth Canyon, so named from its elaborately winding course as well as its wonderful intricate system of dry, lateral canyons, and its reproduction in rock of architectural forms, castles, arches, and grottos; even animals and people were represented in every varying form. Our Sunday camp was beside what might be called a serpentine curve or series of loops in the river. This was at the centre of what is known as the Double Bow Knot, three rounded loops, very symmetrical in form, with an almost circular formation of flat-topped rock, a mile or more in diameter in the centre of each loop. A narrow neck of rock connects these formations to the main mesa, all being on the same level, about 700 feet above the river. The upper half of the rock walls was sheer; below was a steep boulder-covered slope. The centre formation is the largest and most perfect, being nearly two miles in diameter and almost round; so much so, that a very few minutes are necessary to climb over the narrow neck which connects this formation to the mesa. It took 45 minutes of hard rowing on a good current to take us around this one loop. The neck is being rapidly eroded, two hundred feet having disappeared from the top, and at some distant day will doubtless disappear entirely, making a short cut for the river, and will leave a rounded island of rock standing seven hundred feet above the river. A bird's-eye view of the three loops would compare well in shape to the little mechanical contrivance known as the "eye" in the combination of "hook and eye." All women and many men will get a clear idea the shape of the Double Bow Knot from this comparison. We recorded an interesting experiment with the thermometer at this camp, showing a great variety of temperatures, unbelievable almost to one who knows nothing of conditions in these semi-arid plateaus. A little ice had formed the night before. Under a clear sky the next day at noon, our thermometer recorded 54 degrees in the shade, but ran up to 102 degrees in the sun. At the same time the water in the river was 52 degrees Far. The effect of being deluged in ice-cold waves, then running into deep sunless canyons with a cold wind sweeping down from the snow on top, can be easier imagined than described. This is what we could expect to meet later. The colouring of the rocks varied greatly in many localities, a light red predominating. In some places the red rock was capped by a gray, flint-like limestone; in others this had disappeared, but underneath the red were regular strata of various-coloured rocks, pink, brown, light yellow, even blue and green being found in two or three sections. The forms of erosion were as varied as the rock itself, each different-coloured rock stratum presenting a different surface. In one place the surface was broken into rounded forms like the backs of a herd of elephants. In others we saw reproductions of images, carved by the drifting sands--a Diana, with uplifted arm, as large as the Goddess of Liberty; a Billiken on a throne with a hundred worshippers bowed around. Covered with nature-made ruins and magnificent rock structures, as this section is, it is not entirely without utility. It is a grazing country. Great numbers of contented cattle, white-faced, with red and white, or black and white patches of colour on their well-filled hides, were found in the open spaces between the sheer-walled cliffs. Dusty, well-beaten trails led down through these wide canyons, trails which undoubtedly gained the top of the level, rocky plateau a few miles back from the river. As is usual in a cattle country at the end of the summer season, the bunch-grass, close to the water supply--which in this case happened to the river--was nibbled close to the roots. The cattle only came here to drink, then travelled many miles, no doubt, to the better grazing on the upper plateaus. The sage, always gray, was grayer still, with dust raised by many passing herds. There was a band of range horses too, those splendid wild-eyed animals with kingly bearing, and wind-blown tails and manes, lean like a race-horse, strong-muscled and tough-sinewed, pawing and neighing, half defiant and half afraid of the sight of men, the only thing alive to which they pay tribute. It is a never ending source of wonder, to those unacquainted with the semi-arid country, how these animals can exist in a land which, to them, seems utterly destitute and barren. To many such, a meadow carpeted with blue grass or timothy is the only pasture on which grazing horses or grazing cattle can exist; the dried-out looking tufts of bunch-grass, scattered here and there or sheltered at the roots of the sage, mean nothing; the grama-grass hidden in the grease-wood is unnoticed or mistaken for a weed. But if the land was bare of verdure, the rock saved it from being monotonous. Varied in colour, the red rock predominated--blood-red at mid-day, orange-tinted at sunset, with gauze-like purple shadows, and with the delicate blue outlines always found in the Western distances; such a land could never be called uninteresting. The banks of the stream, here in the open, were always green. From an elevation they appeared like two emerald bands through a land of red, bordering a stream the tint of the aged pottery found along its shores. We were continually finding new trees and strange shrubs. Beside the cottonwoods and the willows there was an occasional wild-cherry tree; in the shrubs were the service-berry, and the squaw-berry, with sticky, acid-tasting fruit. The cacti were small, and excepting the prickly pear were confined nearly altogether to a small "pin-cushion" cactus, growing a little larger as we travelled south. And always in the mornings when out of the deep canyons the moist, pungent odour of the sage greeted our nostrils. It is inseparable from the West. There is no stuffy germ-laden air there, out in the sage; one is glad to live, simply to breathe it in and exhale and breathe again. In Stillwater Canyon the walls ran up to 1300 feet in height, a narrow canyon, with precipitous sides. Occasionally we could see great columns of rock standing on top of the mesa. Late one evening we saw some small cliff dwellings several hundred feet above the river, and a few crude ladders leaning against the cliff below the dwellings. A suitable camp could not be made here, or we would have stopped to examine them. The shores were slippery with mud and quicksands, and there was no fire-wood in sight. From here to the end of the canyons we would have to depend almost entirely on the drift-piles for fire-wood. A landing was finally made where a section of a cliff had toppled from above, affording a solid footing leading up to the higher bank. We judged from our maps that we were within a very few miles of the Colorado River. Here some footprints and signs of an old boat landing, apparently about a week old, were seen in the sand. This surprised us somewhat, as we had heard of no one coming down ahead of us. CHAPTER XII COULD WE SUCCEED? An hour or two at the oars the next morning sufficed to bring us to the junction of the Green and the Grand rivers. We tied up our boats, and prepared to climb out on top, as we had a desire to see the view from above. A mile back on the Green we had noticed a sort of canyon or slope breaking down on the west side, affording a chance to reach the top. Loading ourselves with a light lunch, a full canteen, and our smaller cameras, we returned to this point and proceeded to climb out. Powell's second expedition had climbed out at this same place; Wolverton had also mentioned the fact that he had been out; so we were quite sure of a successful attempt before we made the climb. The walk close to the river, over rocks and along narrow ledges, was hard work; the climb out was even more so. The contour maps which we carried credited these walls with 1300 feet height. If we had any doubt concerning the accuracy of this, it disappeared before we finally reached the top. What we saw, however, was worth all the discomfort we had undergone. Close the top, three branches of dry, rock-bottomed gullies carved from a gritty, homogeneous sandstone, spread out from the slope we had been climbing. These were less precipitous. Taking the extreme left-hand gully, we found the climb to the top much easier. At the very end we found an irregular hole a few feet in diameter not a cave, but an opening left between some immense rocks, touching at the top, seemingly rolled together. Gazing down through this opening, we were amazed to find that we were directly above the Colorado itself. It was so confusing at first that we had to climb to the very top to see which river it was, I contending that it was the Green, until satisfied that I was mistaken. The view from the top was overwhelming, and words can hardly describe what we saw, or how we were affected by it. We found ourselves on top of an irregular plateau of solid rock, with no earth or vegetation save a few little bushes and some very small cedars in cracks in the rocks. Branching canyons, three or four hundred feet in depth, and great fissures ran down in this rock at intervals. Some were dark and crooked, and the bottom could not be seen. Between these cracks, the rock rounded like elephants backs sloping steeply on either side. Some could be crossed, some could not. Others resembled a "maze," the puzzle being how to get from one point to another a few away. The rock was a sandstone and presented a rough surface affording a good hold, so there was little danger of slipping. We usually sat down and "inched" way to the edge of the cracks, jumping across to little ledges when possible, always helping each other. The rock at the very edge of the main canyon overhung, in places 75 to 100 feet, and the great mass of gigantic boulders--sections of shattered cliffs--on the steep slope near the river gave evidence of a continual breaking away of these immense rocks. To the north, across the canyon up which we had climbed, were a great number of smooth formations, from one hundred to four hundred feet high, rounded on top in domes, reminding one of Bagdad and tales from the Arabian Nights. "The Land of Standing Rocks," the Utes call it. The rock on which we stood was light gray or nearly white; the river walls at the base for a thousand feet above the river were dark red or chocolate-brown; while the tops of the formations above this level were a beautiful light red tint. But there were other wonders. On the south side of the Colorado's gorge, miles away, were great spires, pointing heavenward, singly and in groups, looking like a city of churches. Beyond the spires were the Blue Mountains, to the east the hazy LaSalle range, and nearest of all on the west just north of the Colorado lay the snow-covered peaks of the Henry Mountains. Directly below us was the Colorado River, muddy, swirllng, and forbidding. A mile away boomed a rapid, beyond that was another, then the river was lost to view. Standing on the brink of all this desolation, it is small wonder if we recalled the accounts of the disasters which had overtaken so many others in the canyon below us. Many who had escaped the water had climbed out on to this death trap, as it had proven to be for them, some to perish of thirst and starvation, a few to stagger into the ranch below the canyon, a week or more after they had escaped from the water. Small wonder that some of these had lost their reason. We could only conjecture at the fate of the party whose wrecked boat had been found by the Stone expedition, a few miles below this place, with their tracks still fresh in the sand. No trace of them was ever found. For the first time it began to dawn on us that we might have tackled a job beyond our power to complete. Most of the parties which had safely completed the trip were composed of several men, adding much to the safety of the expedition, as a whole. Others had boats much lighter than ours, a great help in many respects. Speaking for myself, I was just a little faint-hearted, and not a little overawed as we prepared to return to the boats. While returning, we saw evidences of ancient Indians--some broken arrow-heads, and pottery also, and a small cliff ruin under a shelving rock. What could an Indian find here to interest him! We had found neither bird, nor rabbit; not even a lizard in the Land of Standing Rocks. Perhaps they were sun worshippers, and wanted an unobstructed view of the eastern sky. That at least could be had, in unrivalled grandeur, here above the Rio Colorado. The shadows were beginning to lengthen when we finally reached our boats at the junction. Camp was made under a large weeping willow tree, the only tree of its kind we remembered having seen on the journey. While Emery prepared a hasty meal I made a few arrangements for embarking on the Colorado River the next morning. We were prepared to bid farewell to the Green River--the stream that had served us so well. In spite of our trials, even in the upper canyons, we had found much enjoyment in our passage through its strange and beautiful surroundings. From a scenic point of view the canyons of the Green River, with their wonderful rock formations and stupendous gorges, are second only to those of the Colorado itself. It is strange they are so little known, when one considers the comparative ease with which these canyons on the lower end can be reached. Some day perhaps, surfeited globe-trotters, after having tired of commonplace scenery and foreign lands, will learn what a wonderful region this is, here on the lower end of the Green River. Then no doubt, Wolverton, or others with similar outfits, will find a steady stream of sight-seers anxious to take the motor boat ride down to this point, and up to Moab, Utah, a little Mormon town on the Grand River. A short ride by automobile from Moab to the D. & R.C. railway would complete a most wonderful journey; then the transcontinental journey could be resumed. So I mused, as I contrived an arrangement of iron hooks and oak sticks to hold on a hatch cover, from which all the thumb screws had been lost. More than likely my dream of a line of sight-seeing motor boats will be long deferred; or they may even meet the fate of Brown's and Stanton's plans for a railroad down these gorges. As a reminder of the fate which overtakes so many of our feeble plans, we found a record of Stanton's survey on a fallen boulder, an inscription reading "A 81 + 50. Sta. D.C.C. & P.R.R.," the abbreviations standing for Denver, Colorado Canyons, and Pacific Railroad. It is possible that the hands that chiselled the inscription belonged to one of the three men who were afterwards drowned in Marble Canyon. Emery--being very practical--interrupted my revery and plans for future sight-seers by announcing supper. The meal was limited in variety, but generous in quantity, and consisted of a dried-beef stew, fried potatoes and cocoa. A satisfied interior soon dispelled all our previous apprehensiveness. We decided not to run our rapids before we came to them. The water still gave indications of being higher than low-water mark, although it was falling fast on the Green River. Each morning, for three days previous to our arrival at the junction, we would find the water about six inches lower than the stage of the evening before. Strange to say, we gained on the water with each day's rowing, until we had almost overtaken the stage of water we had lost during the night. More than likely we would have all the water we needed under the new conditions which were before us. Beginning with the Colorado River, we made our journals much more complete in some ways, giving all the large rapids a number and describing many of them in detail. This was done, not only for our own satisfaction, but for the purpose of comparison with others who had gone through, for many of these rapids have histories. It was often a question, when on the Green River, where to draw the line when counting a rapid; this was less difficult when on the Colorado. While the descent was about the same as in some of the rapids above, the increased volume of water made them look and act decidedly different. We drew the line, when counting a rapid, at a descent having a decided agitation of the water, hidden rocks, or swift descent and with an eddy or whirlpool below. Major Powell considered that many of these drops in the next canyon were above the ordinary rapid, hence the name, Cataract Canyon. At one of the camps below Green River, Utah boat had been christened the _Defiance_, by painting the name on the bow. After leaving the Green we referred to the boats by their respective names, being in the _Edith_, I in the _Defiance_. [Illustration: THE JUNCTION OF THE TWO RIVERS. THE GRAND RIVER IS ON THE RIGHT. NOTE BOATS.] CHAPTER XIII A COMPANION VOYAGER THURSDAY morning, October the 26th, found Emery feeling very poorly, but insisting on going ahead with our day's work, so Camp No. 34 was soon behind us. We were embarked on a new stream, flowing west-southwest, with a body of water ten times the size of that which we had found in the upper canyons of the Green. Our sixteen-foot boats looked quite small when compared with the united currents of the Green and the Grand rivers. The Colorado River must have been about 350 feet wide here just below the junction, with a three-mile current, and possibly twenty-five feet deep, although this is only a guess. The Grand River appeared to be the higher of the two streams, and had a decidedly red colour, as though a recent storm was being carried down its gorges; while the colour of the Green was more of a coffee colour--coffee with a little cream in it. A fourth of a mile below the junction the two currents began to mix, with a great ado about it, with small whirlpools and swift eddies, and sudden outbursts from beneath as though a strangled current was struggling to escape from the weight which overpowered it. The boats were twisted this way and that, and hard rowing was necessary to carry us down to the steadied current, and to the first rapid, which we could hear when yet far above it. Soon we were running rapids again, and getting a lot of sport out of it. There were some rocks, but there was water enough so that these could be avoided. If one channel did not suit us, we took another, and although we were drenched in every rapid, and the cockpit was half filled each time, it was not cold enough to cause us any great discomfort, and we bailed out at the end of each rapid, then hurried on to tackle the next. Each of these rapids was from a fourth to a third of a mile in length. The average was at least one big rapid to the mile. When No. 5 was reached we paused a little longer, and looked it over more carefully than we had the others. It had a short, quick descent, then a long line of white-topped waves, with a big whirlpool on the right. There were numerous rocks which would take careful work to avoid. The waves were big,--big enough for a motion picture,--so Emery remained on shore with both the motion-picture camera and the 8X10 plate camera in position, ready to take the picture, while I ran my boat. At the head of this rapid we saw footprints in the sand, but not made with the same shoe as that which we had noticed above the junction. We had also seen signs of a camp, and some fishes' heads above this point, and what we took to be a dog's track along the shore. At the head of the next rapid we saw them again, but on opposite side of the river, and could see where boat had been pulled up on the sand. This next rapid was almost as bad as the one above it, but with a longer descent, instead of one abrupt drop. The following rapid was so close that we continued along the shore to look it over at the same time, saving a stop between the two rapids. The shores were strewn with a litter of gigantic boulders--fallen sections of the overhanging cliffs. We found more of this in Cataract Canyon than in any of the canyons above. This was partly responsible for the violence of the rapids, although the descent of the river would make rough water even if there were no boulders. Working back along the shore, we were suddenly electrified into quick action by seeing the _Edith_ come floating down the river, close to the shore and almost on the rapid. Emery was a short distance ahead and ran for the _Defiance_; I caught up a long pole and got on a projecting rock, hoping I might steer her in. She passed me, and was soon in the midst of the rapid before Emery had launched the boat. Three gigantic boulders extended above the water about fifty feet from shore, with a very crooked channel between. Down toward these boulders came the _Edith_, plunging like a thing possessed. How it was done I could never tell, but she passed through the crooked channel without once touching, and continued over the rapid. Meanwhile Emery had run the other side and had gained on the _Edith_, but only caught her when close to the next rapid; so he turned her loose and came to the shore for me. Emery had not been feeling his best and I advised him to remain on shore while I took the boat. As we made the change we again observed the boat, bounding through the next rapid, whirling on the tops of the waves as though in the hands of a superhuman juggler. I managed to overtake her in a whirlpool below the rapid, and came to shore for her captain. He was nearly exhausted with his efforts; still he insisted on continuing. A few miles below we saw some ducks, and shot at them with a revolver. But the ducks flew disdainfully away, and landed in the pool below. By 4.30 P.M. we were twelve miles below the junction, a very good day's run considering the kind of water we were travelling on, and the amount of time we spent on the shore. We had just run our twelfth rapid, and were turning the boats around, when we saw a man back from the shore working over a pile of boxes which he had covered with a piece of canvas. A boat was tied to the water's edge. We called to him, and he answered, but did not seem nearly as much interested in seeing companion travellers as we were, and proceeded with his work. We landed, and, to save time, introduced ourselves, as there seemed to be a certain aloofness in his manner. He gave the name of Smith--with some hesitation, we thought. Smith was about medium size, but looked tough and wiry; he had a sandy complexion, with light hair and mustache. He had lost one eye, the other was that light gray colour that is usually associated with indomitable nerve. He had a shrewd, rather humorous expression, and gave one the impression of being very capable. Dressed in a neat whipcord suit, wearing light shoes and a carefully tied tie, recently shaved--a luxury we had denied ourselves, all this time--he was certainly an interesting character to meet in this out-of-the-way place. We should judge he was a little over forty years old; but whether prospector, trapper, or explorer it was hard to say. Some coyote skins, drying on a rock, would give one the impression that he was the second, with a touch of the latter thrown in. These coyotes were responsible for the tracks we had seen, and had mistaken for dog tracks, but of all the canyons we had seen he was in the last place where we would expect to find a trapper. The coyotes evidently reached the river gorge through side canyons on the left, where we had seen signs of ancient trails. Apart from that there was no sign of animal life. With the last of the wooded canyons, the signs of beaver had disappeared. There were a few otter tracks, but they are wily fellows, and are seldom trapped. While there are laws against the trapping of beaver, they seldom prevent the trappers from taking them when they get the chance; they are only a little more wary of strangers; the thought occurred to us that this trapper may have secured some beaver in the open sections above, and mistrusted us for this reason. It was too late to go any farther that evening, so we camped a hundred yards below him, close to where our boats were pulled out. At this place there was a long, wide flat in the canyon, with plenty of driftwood, so we saw no reason why we should quarrel with our neighbour. Smith accepted our invitation to supper, stating that he had just eaten before we arrived, but enjoyed some pineapple which we had kept for some special occasion, and which was served for dessert. Over the table we became better acquainted, and, after learning what we were doing, he recounted his experiences. He told us he had left Green River, Utah, a month before, and had been trapping as he came along. He knew there was a canyon, and some rapids below, but had no idea they were so bad, and thought they were about ended. No one had warned him, for he had told no one what he intended doing. He had bought an old water-logged boat that had been built by Galloway, and seeing the uselessness of trying to run the rapids with it, worked it down along the shores by holding it with a light chain. Once he had been pulled into the river, twice the boat had been upset, and he was just about dried out from the last spill when we arrived. He had heard us shooting at the ducks, so rather expected company--this in brief was his amazing story. We were surprised when we examined the boat closely. It had been well made, but was so old and rotten that it seemed ready to fall to pieces. In places, the nail heads had pulled through the boards. It was entirely open on top--a great risk in such water. His boxes were tied in to prevent loss. These boxes were now piled on the shore, with a large canvas thrown over them. This canvas, fastened at the top and sloping to the ground, served him for a tent; his bed was underneath. A pair of high-topped boots, placed bottom up over two sticks, stuck in the sand beside the camp-fire, explained the different tracks we had seen above. Smith evidently was not much alarmed over his situation. About the only thing that seemed to bother him was the fact that his smoking tobacco had been wet several times. That evening we got out our guide-book--Dellenbaugh's "A Canyon Voyage"--and tried to give him an idea of what was ahead. The walls ahead grew higher, and closer together; sometimes there was a shore on one side, sometimes on the other, at one or two places there was no shore on either side, and the rapids continued to get worse,--so we gathered from Dellenbaugh's experience. Above this point there were several places where one could climb out,--we had even seen signs of ancient trails in two side canyons,--below here few such places existed. Smith listened to all this attentively, then smiled and said "I guess there will be some way through." After a short visit he returned to his camp. We noticed that he slept on his gun,--to keep it dry, no doubt, for it looked like rain. Morning found us very sorry that we had not erected our tent, for it rained nearly all night, but when once in our beds it was a question which was preferable; to get out in the rain and put up our tent, or remain in our comfortable beds. We remained where we were. As we prepared to leave, we offered Smith a chance to accompany us through Cataract Canyon, telling him that we would help him with his boat until the quiet water of Glen Canyon was reached. He declined the opportunity, saying that he would rather travel slowly and do what trapping he could. He welcomed a chance to take a ride on the _Defiance_, however. We took him over two small rapids, and gave him an insight into our method of avoiding the dangers. He was very enthusiastic about it. On reaching the next rapid we all concluded it would be very unwise to carry any passengers, for it was violent water, so he got out on the shore. Smith had once seen some moving pictures of Japanese shooting rapids, but he said they were nothing compared to these, remarking that a bronco could hardly buck any harder. The next rapid was just as bad, Rapid No. 14 for Cataract Canyon, and Smith helped us secure a motion picture. Then he prepared to return to his camp. Just before leaving he explained rather apologetically, that ranchers, or others, were usually very unfriendly to a stranger coming into their section of the country. He had heard us shooting at the ducks and he imagined we belonged in some of the side canyons or on the top. This explained his puzzling attitude at our first meeting. If he had any beaver skins in his pack this would make him even more suspicious of strangers. We wished him nothing but the best of luck, and were good friends when we parted. His decision to make the trip alone, poorly equipped as he was, seemed like suicide to us. He promised to write to us if he got out, and with a final wave of the hand we left him on the shore. The rapid just passed was possibly the scene of the disaster discovered by the Stone expedition. They found a clumsy boat close to the shore, jammed in a mass of rocks, smashed and abandoned. There were tracks of three people in the sand, one track being a boy's. A coat was left on the shore. The tracks disappeared up a box canyon. Mr. Stone corresponded with the only settlements in all that region, few in number, and far distant; but nothing was ever heard of them, Two other parties have left Green River, Utah, within a year of this find and disappeared in like manner. This seemed to be the usual result of these attempts. In nearly every case they have started in boats that are entirely unfitted for rough water, and, seemingly without any knowledge of the real danger ahead, try to follow where others, properly equipped, have gone through. What a day of excitement that was! We always thought we needed a certain amount of thrills to make life sufficiently interesting for us. In a few hours' time, in the central portion of Cataract Canyon, we experienced nearly enough thrills to last us a lifetime. In one or two of the upper canyons we thought we were running rapids. Now we were learning what rapids really were. No sooner were we through one than another presented itself. At each of them we climbed along the boulder-strewn shores--the lower slopes growing steeper, the walls above towering higher--clear to the end of the rapid. Looking upstream we could pick out the submerged rocks hidden in the muddy water, and looking like an innocent wave from above. Twice we had picked out channels in sharp drops, after carefully observing their actions and deciding they were free from obstructions, when suddenly the waves would part for an instant and disclose a hidden rock--in one case as sharp as a hound's tooth--sure disaster if we ever struck it. As soon as we had decided on a channel we would lose no time in getting back to our boats and running it for we could feel our courage oozing from our finger tips with each second's delay. Time and again we got through just by a scratch. Success bred confidence; I distinctly remember feeling that water alone would not upset the boat; that it would take a collision with a rock to do it. And each time we got through. Twice I almost had reason to reverse my impression of the power of water. First the stern rose up in front of me, as if squaring off at the tops of the cliffs, then descended, until it seemed to be trying to plumb the depths of the river. The waves, rolling over me, almost knocked me out of the boat, I lost my hold on the oars and grabbed the sides of the boat; then, regaining the oars, I finished the run by pulling with the bow headed downstream, for the boat had "swapped ends" in the interval, and was heavy with about three barrels of water in the cockpit. I bailed out with a grocery box, kept under the seat for that purpose. It had been growing quite cold, and Emery's indisposition--or what was really acute indigestion--had weakened him for the past two days, but he pluckily declined to stop. I was soaked with my last immersion and chilled with the wind, so concluded there was no use having him go through the same experience and I ran his boat while he made a picture. We were both ready to camp then, but there was no suitable place and we had to push on to the next rapid. On looking it over we almost gave up our intention of running it. It was about a fourth of a mile long; a mass of submerged rocks extended entirely across the river; the entire rapid seemed impossible. We finally concluded it might be run by shooting up, stern first, on a sloping rock near the shore, then return as the current recoiled and ran back, dividing on either side of the rock. The only clear channel was one about twelve feet wide, between this rock and the shore. A projecting shore above prevented a direct entrance to this channel. We threw logs in and watched their action. In each case they paused when within five or six feet of the top of the slope, then returned with the current, whirled back to the side and shot through close to the shore. We planned to go through as close together as possible. Emery was ready first, I held back in a protecting pool, waiting for him to get out of the way. He got his position, facing stern downstream, gave the slightest shove forward, and the released boat whizzed down for fifty feet and ran up on the rock. She paused a moment, as the water prepared to return. He gave two quick pulls, shooting back again, slightly to the right, until he struck the narrow channel, then reversed his course and went through stern first exactly as we had planned it. The square stern, buoyed up by the air-chamber, lifted the boat out of the resulting wave as he struck the bottom of the descent. This much of the rapid had only taken a few seconds. I followed at once, but was not so fortunate. The _Defiance_ was carried to the left side, where some water dropped over the side of the rock, instead of reversing. I pulled frantically, seeing visions, meanwhile, of the boat and myself being toppled off the side of the rock, into the boulders and waves below. My rowing had no effect whatever, but the boat was grabbed by the returning wave and shot, as if from a catapult, back and around to the right, through the sloping narrow channel,--my returning course describing a half circle. Instead of rising, the pointed bow cut down into the waves until the water was on my shoulders. Emery turned his head for an instant to see what success I was having, and his boat was thrown on to a rock close to the shore. I passed him and landed, just before going into the next rapid. I then went back and helped him off the rock, and he continued his course over the leaping waves. He broke a rowlock before he landed, and had to use the substitute we had hung beside it. We found a good spot for a camp just above the next rapid. Our tent was stretched in front of a large boulder. A large pile of driftwood gave us all the fuel needed, and we soon had a big fire going and our wet clothes steaming on the line. CHAPTER XIV A PATIENT AMID THE CATARACTS An hour or so after making our camp, we began to doubt the wisdom of our choice of a location, for a downpour of rain threatened to send a stream of water under the tent. The stream was easily turned aside, while a door and numerous boards found in the drift pile, made a very good floor for the tent and lifted our sleeping bags off the wet sand. We had little trouble in this section to find sufficient driftwood for fires. The pile at this camp was enormous, and had evidently been gathering for years. Some of it, we could be sure, was recent, for a large pumpkin was found deposited in the drift pile twenty-five feet above the low-water stage on which we were travelling. This pumpkin, of course, could only have come down on the flood that had preceded us. What a mixture of curios some of those drift piles were, and what a great stretch of country they represented! The rivers, unsatisfied with washing away the fertile soil of the upper country, had levied a greedy toll on the homes along their banks, as well. Almost everything that would float, belonging to a home, could be found in some of them. There were pieces of furniture and toilet articles, children's toys and harness, several smashed boats had been seen, and bloated cattle as well. A short distance above this camp we had found two cans of white paint, carefully placed on top of a big rock above the high-water mark, by some previous voyager.[5] The boats were beginning to show the effect of hard usage, so we concluded to take the paint along. At another point, this same day, we found a corked bottle containing a faded note, undated, requesting the finder to write to a certain lady in Delta, Colorado. A note in my journal, beneath a record of this find, reads: "Aha! A romance at last!" Judging by the appearance of the note it might have been thrown in many years before. Delta, we knew, was on the Gunnison River, a tributary of the Grand River. The bottle must have travelled over two hundred miles to reach this spot. A letter which I sent out later brought a prompt answer, with the information that this bottle and four others with similar notes were set adrift by the writer and four of her schoolmates, nearly two years before. An agreement was made that the one first receiving an answer was to treat the others to a dinner. Our find was the second, so this young lady was a guest instead of the host. Emery took but little interest in our camp arrangements this evening, and went to bed as soon as it was possible for him to do so. He said little, but he was very weak, and I could tell from his drawn face that he was suffering, and knew that it was nothing but nervous energy that kept him at his work--that, and a promise which he had made to build a fire, within a stated time now less than two weeks away, in Bright Angel Creek Canyon, nearly three hundred miles below this camp, a signal to his wife and baby that he would be home the next day. I was worried about his condition and I feared a fever or pneumonia. For two or three days he had not been himself. It was one thing to battle with the river when well and strong; it would be decidedly different if one of us became seriously ill. For the first time in all our experiences together, where determination and skill seemed necessary to success, I had taken the lead during the past two days, feeling that my greater weight and strength, perhaps, would help me pull out of danger where he might fail. In two or three rapids I felt sure he did not have the strength to pull away from certain places that would smash the boats. After running the _Defiance_ through these rapids I suggested to him that; he would take a picture while I brought the _Edith_ down. He would stay near the _Defiance_, ready to aid in case of emergency. After being once through a rapid I found it quite a simple matter to run the second boat, and the knowledge that he would save me in case of an upset greatly lessened any danger that might have existed. He was too nervous to sleep, and asked me to take a last look at the boats before going to bed. They were pulled well up on the shore and securely tied, I found, so that it would take a flood to tear them loose. The rain, which had stopped for a while, began again as I rolled into the blankets; the fire, fed with great cottonwood logs, threw ghostly shadows on the cliffs which towered above us, and sputtered in the rain but refused to be drowned; while the roar of rapids, Nos. 22 and 23 combined, thundered and reverberated from wall to wall, and finally lulled us to sleep. The rain continued all night, but the weather cleared in the morning. Emery felt much the same as he had the day before, so we kept the same camp that day. We took some pictures, and made a few test developments, hanging the dark-room, or tent, inside the other tent for want of a better place to tie to. Sunday, October the 29th, we remained at the same place, and by evening were both greatly benefited by the rest. On Monday morning we packed up again, leaving only the moving-picture camera out, and pictured each other, alternately, as the boats made the Plunge over the steep descent in rapid No. 23. Both boats disappeared from sight on two or three occasions in this rapid and emerged nearly filled with water. The section just passed is credited with the greatest descent on the rivers, a fall of 75 feet in 3/4 of a mile. This includes the three rapids: Nos. 21, 22, and 23. Proceeding on our way the canyon narrowed, going up almost sheer to a height of 2500 feet or over. Segregated spires, with castle-like tops, stood out from the upper walls. The rapids, or cataracts, compared well with those passed above, connected in some instances by swift-rushing water instead of the quiet pools which were usually found between the rapids. We ran ten rapids this day, but several of these which were counted as one were a series of two or three rapids, which might be one in high water. All had a shore on one side or the other, but caution was imperative when crossing in the swift water between the rapids. A mishap here meant destruction. We figured that we had travelled about ten miles for this day's run. The menacing walls continued to go higher with the next day's travel, until they reached a height of 2700 feet. The left wall was so sheer that it almost seemed to overhang. The little vegetation which we had found on the lower slope gradually disappeared as the walls grew steeper, but a few scattered shrubs, sage-brush, and an occasional juniper grew on the rocky sides, or in one or two side canyons which entered from the south. These side canyons had the appearance of running back for considerable distances, but we did not explore any of them and could tell very little about them from the river. After our noon lunch this day, in order to keep our minds from dwelling too much on the rather depressing surroundings, we proposed having a little sport. On two or three occasions we had made motion pictures from the deck of the boats as we rowed in the quiet water; here we proposed taking a picture from the boats as we went over the rapids. The two boats were fastened stern to stern, so that the rowing would be done from the first boat. My brother sat on the bow behind with the motion-picture camera in front of him, holding it down with his chin, his legs clinging to the sides of the boat, with his left hand clutching at the hatch cover, and with his right hand free to turn the crank. In this way we passed over two small rapids. After that one experience we never tried it in a large rapid. As Smith had said a few days before the boat bucked like a broncho, and Emery had a great deal of difficulty to stay with the boat, to say nothing of taking a picture. Once or twice he was nearly unseated but pluckily hung on and kept turning away at the crank when it looked as if he and the camera would be dumped into the river. At one point in the lower end of Cataract Canyon we saw the name and date A.G. Turner, '07. Below this, close to the end of the canyon, were some ruins of cliff dwellings, and a ladder made by white men, placed against the walls below the ruins. On reaching a very deep, narrow canyon entering from the south, locally known as Dark Canyon, we knew that we were nearing the end of the rapids in Cataract Canyon. Dark Canyon extends a great distance back into the country, heading in the mountains we had seen to the south, when we climbed out at the junction of the Green and the Grand. Pine cones and other growths entirely foreign to the growth of the desert region were found near its mouth. A flood had recently filled the bottom of this narrow canyon to a depth of several feet, but the water had settled down again and left a little stream of clear water running through the boulders. The rapid at the end of this canyon was one of the worst of the entire series, and had been the scene of more than one fatality, we had been told. It had a very difficult approach and swung against the right wall, then the water was turned abruptly to the left by a great pile of fallen boulders. The cresting waves looked more like breakers of the ocean than anything we had seen on the river. We each had a good scare as we ran this rapid. Emery was completely hidden from my view, he was nearly strangled and blinded by the waves for a few seconds while struggling in the maelstrom; the _Edith_ was dropped directly on top of a rock in the middle of this rapid, then lifted on the next wave. I also had a thrilling experience but avoided the rock. In the lower part of the rapid a rowlock pulled apart; and to prevent the boat from turning sideways in the rapid, I threw up my knee, holding the oar against it for a lever until I was in quieter water, and could get the other rowlock in position. Separated from my brother in this instance, I had an opportunity to see the man and water conflict, with a perspective much as it would have appeared to a spectator happening on the scene. I was out of the heat of the battle. The excitement and indifference to danger that comes with a hand-to-hand grapple was gone. I heard the roar of the rapid; a roar so often heard that we forgot it was there. I saw the gloom of the great gorge, and the towering, sinister shafts of rock, weakened with cracks, waiting for the moment that would send them crashing to the bottom. I saw the mad, wild water hurled at the curving wall. Jagged rocks, like the bared fangs of some dream-monster, appeared now and then in the leaping, tumbling waves. Then down toward the turmoil--dwarfed to nothingness by the magnitude of the walls--sped the tiny shell-like boat, running smoothly like a racing machine! There was no rowing. The oar-blades were tipped high to avoid loss in the first comber; then the boat was buried in foam, and staggered through on the other side. It was buffeted here and there, now covered with a ton of water, now topping a ten-foot wave. Like a skilled boxer--quick of eye, and ready to seize any temporary advantage--the oarsman shot in his oars for two quick strokes, to straighten the boat with the current or dodge a threatening boulder; then covered by lifting his oars and ducking his head as a brown flood rolled over him. Time and again the manoeuvre was repeated: now here now there. One would think the chances were about one to a hundred that he would get through. But by some sort of a system, undoubtedly aided, many times, by good luck, the man and his boat won to land. After running a small rapid, we came to another, in the centre of which was an island,--the last rapid in Cataract Canyon. While not as bad as the one at Dark Canyon it was rather difficult, and at this point we found no shore on either side. The south side was rendered impassable by great boulders, much higher than the river level, which were scattered through the channel. The opposite channel began much like the rapid at Dark Canyon, sweeping under the wall until turned by a bend and many fallen rocks below the end of the island, then crossed with a line of cresting waves to the opposite side, where it was joined by the other stream, and the left wall was swept clean in like manner. We ran it by letting our boats drop into the stream, but pulled away from the wall and kept close to the island, then when its end was reached crossed the ridge of waves and pulled for the right-hand shore. In such rapids as this we often found the line of waves in the swift-rushing centre to be several feet higher than the water along the shore. Then our thoughts reverted to Smith. What would he do when he came to this rapid? The only escape was a narrow sloping ledge on the right side, beginning close to the water some distance above the rapid, reaching a height of sixty or seventy feet above the water at the lower end, while a descent could be made to the river some distance below here. It would be possible for him to climb over this with his provisions, but the idea of taking his boat up there was entirely out of the question, and, poorly equipped as he was, an attempt to run it would surely end in disaster. The breaking of an oar, the loss of a rowlock, or the slightest knock of his rotten boat against a rock, and Smith's fate would be similar to those others whose bones lay buried in the sands. In the next four miles we had no more rapids, but had some fine travelling on a very swift river. It was getting dusk, but we pulled away, for just ahead of us was the end of Cataract Canyon. We camped by a large side canyon on the left named Mille Crag Bend, with a great number of jagged pinnacles gathered in a group at the top of the walls, which had dropped down to a height of about 1300 feet. We felt just a little proud of our achievement, and believed we had established a record for Cataract Canyon, having run all rapids in four days' travelling, and come through in safety. We had one rapid to run the next morning at the beginning of Narrow Canyon, the only rapid in this nine-mile long canyon. The walls here at the beginning were twelve or thirteen hundred feet high, and tapered to the end, where they rise about four hundred feet above the Dirty Devil River. Narrow Canyon contains the longest straight stretch of river which we remembered having seen. When five miles from its mouth we could look through and see the snow-capped peak of Mt. Ellsworth beyond. This peak is one of the five that composes the Henry Mountains, which lay to the north of the river. Three hours' rowing brought us to the end. We paused a few minutes to make a picture or two of the Dirty Devil River,--or the Frémont River as it is now recorded on the maps. This stream, flowing from the north, was the exact opposite of the Bright Angel Creek, that beautiful stream we knew so well, two hundred and fifty miles below this point. The Dirty Devil was muddy and alkaline, while warm springs containing sulphur and other minerals added to its unpalatable taste. After tasting it we could well understand the feeling of the Jack Sumner, whose remark, after a similar trial, suggested its name to Major Powell. A short distance below this we saw a tent, and found it occupied by an old-timer named Kimball. Among other things he told us that he had a partner, named Turner, who had made the trip through the canyons above, and arrived at this point in safety. This was the man whose name we had seen on the walls in Cataract Canyon. Less than two miles more brought us to the Hite ranch, and post-office. John Hite gave us a cordial reception. He had known of our coming from the newspapers; besides, he had some mail for us. We spent the balance of the day in writing letters, and listening to Hite's interesting experiences of his many years of residence in this secluded spot. Hite's home had been a haven for the sole survivor of two expeditions which had met with disaster in Cataract. In each case they were on the verge of starvation. Hite kept a record of all known parties who had attempted the passage through the canyons above. Less than half of these parties, excepting Galloway's several successful trips, succeeded in getting through Cataract Canyon without wrecking boats or losing lives. After passing the Frémont River the walls on the right or north side dropped down, leaving low, barren sandstone hills rolling away from the river, with a fringe of willows and shrubs beside the water, and with the usual sage-brush, prickly pear, cactus and bunch-grass on the higher ground. We had seen one broken-down log cabin, but this ranch was the only extensive piece of ground that was cultivated. Judging by the size of his stacks of alfalfa, Hite had evidently had a good season. The banks of the south side of the river were about two hundred feet high, composed of a conglomerate mass of clay and gravel. This spot has long been a ferry crossing, known far and wide as Dandy Crossing, the only outlet across the river for the towns of southeastern Utah, along the San Juan River. The entire 150 miles of Glen Canyon had once been the scene of extensive placer operations. The boom finally died, a few claims only proving profitable. One of these claims was held by Bert Loper, one of the three miners who had gone down the river in 1908. Loper never finished, as his boat--a steel boat, by the way--was punctured in a rapid above Dark Canyon but was soon repaired. His cameras and plates being lost, he sent from Hite out for new ones. His companions--Chas. Russell, and E.R. Monette--were to wait for him at Lee's Ferry, after having prospected through Glen Canyon. Some mistake was made about the delivery of the cameras and, as Hite post-office only had weekly communication with the railroad, a month elapsed before he finally secured them. Lee's Ferry had been discontinued as a post-office at that time, and, although he tried to get a letter in to them, it was never delivered. His disappointment can be imagined better than described, when he reached Lee's Ferry and found his companions had left just a few days previous. They naturally thought if he were coming at all he would have been there long before that, and they gave him up, not knowing the cause of the delay. They left a letter, however, saying they would only go to the Bright Angel Trail, and the trip could be completed together on the following year. Loper spent many hard days working his boat, with his load of provisions, back against the current, and located a few miles below the Hite ranch. CHAPTER XV PLACER GOLD We passed Loper's claim after resuming our journey the next day. His workings were a one-man proposition and very ingenious. We found a tunnel in the gravel a hundred feet above the river, and some distance back from the river bank. A track of light rails ran from the river bank to these workings; the gravel and sand was loaded into a car, and hauled or pushed to the bank, then dumped into a chute, which sent it down to the river's edge. Loper was not at his work however, neither did we find him at his ranch, a mile down the river. He had a neat little place, with fruit trees and a garden, a horse or two, and some poultry. After resuming our rowing, when about a mile down the river, some one called to us from the shore, and Loper himself came running down to meet us. John Hite had requested us to stop and see his brother, Cass Hite, who owned a ranch and placer working nearly opposite where Loper had halted us; so Loper crossed with us, as he was anxious to know of our passage through the canyons. We found, in Cass Hite, an interesting "old-timer," one who had followed the crowd of miners and pioneers, in the West, since the discovery of gold on the coast. He was the discoverer of the White Canyon Natural Bridges, of Southern Utah, located between this point and the San Juan River, and had been the first to open the ferry at Dandy Crossings. Hite had prospected Navajo Mountain, southwest of this point, in the early sixties, about the time of the Navajos' trouble with the United States army, under the leadership of Kit Carson, who dislodged them from their strongholds in the mountains after many others had failed. Hite's life was saved on more than one occasion by warnings from a friendly chief, or head man of the Western Navajos, known as Hoskaninni, who regarded him as a brother, and bestowed on him the name, Hosteen pes'laki, meaning "Silver man." He is still known by this name, and refers to his pretty ranch as Tick a Bo, a Ute word for "friendly." Hite proudly quoted a poem written by Cy Warman about the theme of the Indian's regard for his white friend. Warman had followed the crowd in to this spot at the time of the boom, looking for local colour--human local colour, not the glitter in the sands. It was at John Hite's home where Warman had composed the one time popular song, "Sweet Marie." It would be safe to say that he brought his inspiration with him, for this was decidedly a man's country. We were told that it had only been visited by one woman in the past twelve years. Hite insisted on our remaining until the following morning, and we concluded that the rest would do us good. He loaded us up with watermelons, and with raisins, which he was curing at that time. We spent a pleasant afternoon under a shaded arbour, listening to his reminiscences, and munching at the raisins. That evening Loper told us his story of their canyon expedition. He felt a little bitter about some newspaper reports that had been published concerning this expedition, these reports giving the impression that his nerve had failed him, and that for this reason he had not continued on the journey. We mollified his feelings somewhat, when we told him that his companions were not responsible for these reports; but rather, that short telegraphic reports, sent out from the Grand Canyon, had been misconstrued by the papers; and that this accounted for the stories which had appeared. His companions had remained at the Grand Canyon for two days following their arrival at Bright Angel Trail. They gave Loper credit, to our certain knowledge, of being the only one of the party who knew how to handle the boats in rough water when they began the trip, and had stated that he ran all the boats through certain rapids until they caught the knack. They could not know of his reasons for the delay, and at that time had no knowledge of his arrival at Lee's Ferry, after they had gone. Naturally they were very much puzzled over his non-appearance. It got quite cold that night, and we were glad to have shelter of Hite's hospitable roof. In our trip down the river to this point we had seemed to keep even with the first cold weather. In all places where it was open, we would usually find a little ice accompanied by frost in the mornings, or if no ice had frozen the grass would be wet with dew. In the canyons there was little or no ice, and the air was quite dry. Naturally we preferred the canyons if we had a choice of camps. Loper looked as though he would like to accompany us as we pulled away the next morning, after having landed him on the south side of the stream. We, at least, had full confidence in his nerve to tackle the lower Colorado, after his record in Cataract Canyon. The five scattered peaks of the Henry Mountains were now to the north-northwest of us, rugged and snow-capped, supreme in their majesty above this desolate region. Signs of an ancient Indian race were plentiful in this section. There were several small cliff dwellings, walled up in ledges in the rocks, a hundred feet or so above a low flat which banked the river. At another place there were hundreds of carvings on a similar wall which overhung a little. Drawings of mountain-sheep were plentiful; there was one representing a human figure with a bow and arrow, and with a sheep standing on the arrow--their way of telling that he got the sheep, no doubt. There were masked figures engaged in a dance, not unlike some of the Hopi dances of to-day, as they picture them. There were geometrical figures, and designs of many varieties. A small rock building half covered with sand and the accumulations of many years stood at the base of the cliff; and quantities of broken pottery were scattered about the ruin. Farther down the river a pathway was worn into the sandstone where countless bare and moccasined feet had toiled, and climbed over the sloping wall to the mesa above. The ruins in this section were not extensive, like those found in the tributary canyons of the San Juan River, for instance, not a very great distance from here. Possibly this people stopped here as they travelled back and forth, trading with their cousins to the north; or the dwellings may have been built by the scattered members of the tribe, when their strongholds were assailed by the more warlike tribes that crowded in on them from all sides. What a story these cliffs could tell! What a romance they could narrate of various tribes, as distinct from each other as the nations of Europe, crowding each other; and at the last of this inoffensive race, coming from the far south, it may be; driven from pillar to post, making their last stand in this desert land; to perish of pestilence, or to be almost exterminated by the blood-thirsty tribes that surrounded them--then again, when the tide changed, and a new type of invader travelled from the east, pushing ever to the west, conquering all before them! But like the sphinx, the cliffs are silent and voiceless as the hillocks and sand-dunes along the Nile, that other desert stream, with a history no more ancient and momentous than this. That night we camped opposite the ruins of a dredge, sunk in the low water at the edge of the river. This dredge had once represented the outlay of a great deal of money. It is conceded by nearly all experts that the sands of these rivers contain gold, but it is of such a fine grain--what is known as flour gold--and the expense of saving it is so great, that it has not paid when operated on such a large scale. A few placers in Glen Canyon have paid individual operators, some of these claims being in gravel deposits from six hundred to eight hundred feet above the present level of the river. On the following day we again entered deep canyon; sheer for several hundred feet, creamy white above, with a dark red colour in the lower sandstone walls. That afternoon we passed a small muddy stream flowing from the north, in a narrow, rock-walled canyon. This was the Escalante River, a stream rising far to the north, named for one of the Spanish priests who had travelled this country, both to the north and the south of this point, as early as the year 1776, about the time when the New England colonists were in the midst of their struggle with the mother country. Just below the Escalante River, the canyon turned almost directly south, continuing in this general direction for several miles. A glimpse or two was had of the top of a tree-covered snow-capped peak directly ahead of us, or a little to the southwest. This could be none other than Navajo Mountain, a peak we could see from the Grand Canyon, and had often talked of climbing, but debated if we could spare the time, now that we were close to it. In all this run through Glen Canyon we had a good current, but only one place resembling a rapid. Here, below the Escalante, it was very quiet, and hard pulling was necessary to make any headway. We were anxious to reach the San Juan River that evening, but the days were growing short, and we were still many miles away when it began to grow dusk; so we kept a lookout for a suitable camp. The same conditions that had bothered us on one or two previous occasions were found here; slippery, muddy banks, and quicksand, together with an absence of firewood. We had learned before this to expect these conditions where the water was not swift. The slower stream had a chance to deposit its silt, and if the high water had been very quiet, we could expect to find it soft, or boggy. In the canyons containing swift water and rapids we seldom found mud, but found a firm sand, instead. Here in Glen Canyon we had plenty of mud, for the river had been falling the last few days. Time and again we inspected seemingly favourable places, only to be disappointed. The willows and dense shrubbery came down close to the river; the mud was black, deep, and sticky; all driftwood had gone out on the last flood. Meanwhile a glorious full moon had risen, spreading a soft, weird light over the canyon walls and the river; so that we now had a light much better than the dusk of half an hour previous, our course being almost due south. Finally, becoming discouraged, we decided to pull for the San Juan River, feeling sure that we would find a sand-bar there. It was late when we reached it, and instead of a sand-bar we found a delta of bottomless mud. We had drifted past the point where the rivers joined, before noticing that the stream turned directly to the west, with canyon walls two or three hundred feet high, and no moonlight entered there. Instead, it was black as a dungeon. From down in that darkness there came a muffled roar, reverberating against the walls, and sounding decidedly like a rapid. There was not a minute to lose. We pulled, and pulled hard--for the stream was now quite swift close to the right shore, and a sheer bank of earth about ten feet high made it difficult to land. Jumping into the mud at the edge of the water, we tied the boats to some bushes, then tore down the bank and climbed out on a dry, sandy point of land. At the end or sharp turn of the sheer wall we found a fair camp, with driftwood enough for that night. Emery, weak from his former illness and the long day's run, went to bed as soon as we had eaten a light supper. I looked after the cooking that evening, making some baking-powder bread,--otherwise known as a flapjack,--along with other arrangements for the next day; but I fear my efforts as a cook always resulted rather poorly. We had breakfast at an early hour the next morning and were ready for the boats at 7.15, the earliest start to our record. Our rapid of the night before proved to be a false alarm, being nothing more than the breaking of swift water as it swept the banks of rocks at the turn. It was quite different from what we had pictured in our minds. We had long looked forward to this day. Navajo Mountain, with bare, jagged sides and tree-covered dome, was located just a few miles below this camp. It was a sandstone mountain peak, towering 7000 feet above the river, the steep slope beginning some five or six miles back from the stream. The base on which it rested was of sandstone, rounded and gullied into curious forms, a warm red and orange colour predominating. The north side, facing the river, was steep of slope, covered with the fragments of crumbled cliffs and with soft cream-tinted pinnacles rising from its slope. The south side, we had reason, to believe, was tree-covered from top to bottom; the north side held only a few scattered cedar piñon We had often seen the hazy blue dome from the Grand Canyon, one hundred and twenty miles away, and while it was fifty miles farther by the river, we felt as if we were entered on the home stretch; as if we were in a country with which we were somewhat familiar. The Colorado and the San Juan rivers form the northern boundary of the Navajo Indian Reservation, comprising a tract of land as large as many Eastern states, extending over a hundred miles, both east and west from this point. Embodied in this reservation, and directly opposite our camp, was a small section of rugged land set aside for some Utes, who had friendly dealings, and who had intermarried with the Navajo. But if we expected to find the Navajo, or Utes on the shore, ready to greet us, we were doomed to disappointment. We explored a few side canyons this morning, hoping to find a spot where some of Major Powell's party--particularly those men who were afterwards killed by the Indians--had chiselled their names, which record we were told was to be found near the San Juan, but on which side we were not sure. While in one of these canyons, or what was really nothing more than a crooked overhanging slit in the rocks, containing a small stream, Emery found himself in some soft quicksand, plunged instantly above his knees, and sinking rapidly. He would have had a difficult time in getting out of this quicksand without help, for a smooth, rock wall was on one side, the other bank of the stream was sheer above him for a few feet, and there was nothing solid which he could reach. We had seen a great deal of quicksand before this, but nothing of this treacherous nature. Usually we could walk quickly over these sands without any danger of being held in them, or if caught--while lifting on a boat for instance--had no difficulty in getting out. When once out of this canyon we gave up our search for the carved record. But it was not the hope of shortening our homeward run, or the prospect of meeting Indians on the shores, or of finding historical records, even, that caused us to make this early start. It was the knowledge that the wonderful Rainbow Natural Bridge, recently discovered, and only visited by three parties of whites, lay hidden in one of the side canyons that ran from the north slope of Navajo Mountain. No one had gone into it from the river, but we were told it could be done. We hoped to find this bridge. The current was swift, and we travelled fast, in spite of a stiff wind which blew up the stream, getting a very good view of the mountain from the river a few miles below our camp, and another view of the extreme top, a short distance below this place, not over six miles from the San Juan. We had directions describing the canyon in which the bridge was located, our informant surmising that it was thirty miles below the San Juan. We thought it must be less than that, for the river was very direct at this place, and a person travelling over the extremely rough country which surrounded this side of the mountain slope would naturally have to travel much farther, so began to look for it about twelve miles below camp. But mile after mile went by without any sign of the landmarks that would tell us we were at the "Bridge Canyon." Then the river, which had circled the northern side of the peak, turned directly away from it, and we knew that we had missed the bridge. At no point on the trip had we met with a disappointment to equal that; even the loss of our moving-picture film, after our spill in Lodore, was small when compared with it. On looking back over the lay of the land, we felt sure that the bridge was at one of the two places, where we had seen the top of the mountain from the river. To go back against the current would take at least three days. Our provisions were limited in quantity and would not permit it; the canyon had deepened, and a second bench of sheer cliffs rose above the plateau, making it impossible to climb out: so we concluded to make the best of it, and pulled down the stream, trying to put as many miles as possible between ourselves and our great disappointment. This afternoon we passed from Utah into Arizona. For the remainder of the trip we would have Arizona on one side of the river at least. We had much the same difficulty this evening as we had the night before in finding a camp. Judging by the evidence along the shore, the high water which came down the San Juan had been a torrent, much greater than the flood on the Colorado and its upper tributaries. CHAPTER XVI A WARNING We camped that night at the Ute Ford, or the Crossing of the Fathers; a noted landmark of bygone days, when Escalante (in 1776) and others later followed the inter-tribal trails across these unfriendly lands. Later marauding Navajo used this trail, crossing the canyon to the north side, raiding the scattered Mormon settlements, bringing their stolen horses, and even sheep, down this canyon trail. Then they drove them across on a frozen river, and escaped with them to their mountain fastness. The Mormons finally tired of these predatory visits, and shut off all further loss from that source by blasting off a great ledge at the north end of the trail. This ruined the trail beyond all hope of repair, and there is no travel at present over the old Ute Crossing. The fording of the river on horseback was effected by dropping down to the river through a narrow side canyon, and crossing to the centre on a shoal, then following a centre shoal down quite a distance, and completing the crossing at a low point on the opposite side. This was only possible at the very lowest stage of water. The morning following our arrival here, we walked about a mile up the gravelly slope on the south side, to see if we could locate the pass by which the trail dropped down over these 3000-foot walls. The canyon had changed in appearance after leaving the mountain, and now we had a canyon; smaller, but not unlike the Grand Canyon in appearance, with an inner plateau, and a narrow canyon at the river, while the walls on top were several miles apart, and towering peaks or buttes rose from the plateau, reaching a height almost equal to the walls themselves. The upper walls were cream-tinted or white sandstone, the lower formation was a warm red sandstone. We could not discover the pass without a long walk to the base of the upper cliffs, so returned to the boats. About this time we heard shots, seeming to come from some point down the river, and on the north side. Later a dull hollow sound was heard like pounding on a great bass drum. We could not imagine what it was, but knew that it must be a great distance away. We had noticed instances before this, where these smooth, narrow canyon had a great magnifying effect on noises. In the section above the San Juan, where the upper walls overhung a little, a loud call would roll along for minutes before it finally died. A shot from a revolver sounded as if the cliff were falling. Our run this morning was delightful. The current was the best on which we had travelled. The channel swung from side to side, in great half circles, with most of the water thrown against the outside bank, or wall, with a five-or six-mile an hour current close to the wall. We took advantage of all this current, hugging the wall, with the stern almost touching, and with the bow pointed out so we would not run into the walls or scrape our oars. Then, when it seemed as if our necks were about to be permanently dislocated, from looking over one shoulder, the river would reverse its curve, the channel would cross to the other side, and we would give that side of our necks a rest. Once in a great while I would bump a rock, and would look around sheepishly, to see if my brother had seen me do it. I usually found him with a big grin on his face, if he happened to be ahead of me. We rowed about twenty miles down the river before we learned what had caused the noises heard in the morning. On rounding a turn we saw the strange spectacle of fifteen or twenty men at work on the half-constructed hull of a flat-bottomed steamboat, over sixty feet in length. This boat was on the bank quite a distance above the water, with the perpendicular walls of a crooked side canyon rising above it. It was a strange sight, here in this out-of-the-way corner of the world. Some men with heavy sledges were under the boat, driving large spikes into the planking. This was the noise we had heard that morning. The blasting, we learned later, was at some coal mines, several miles up this little canyon, which bore the name of Warm Creek Canyon. A road led down through the canyon, making it possible to haul the lumber for the boat, clear to the river's edge. The nearest railroad was close to two hundred miles from this place, quite a haul considering the ruggedness of the country. The material for the boat had been shipped from San Francisco, all cut, ready to put together. The vessel was to be used to carry coal down the river, to a dredge that had recently been installed at Lee's Ferry. The dinner gong had just sounded when we landed, and we were taken along with the crowd. There were some old acquaintances in this group of men, we found, from Flagstaff, Arizona. These men had received a Flagstaff paper which had published a short note we had sent from Green River, Utah. They had added a comment that no doubt this would be the last message we would have an opportunity to send out. Very cheering for Emery's wife, no doubt. Fortunately she shared our enthusiasm, and if she felt any apprehension her few letters failed to show it. We resumed our rowing at once after dinner, for we wished to reach Lee's Ferry, twenty-five miles distant, that evening. We had a good current, and soon left our friends behind us. We pulled with a will, and mile after mile was covered in record time, for our heavy boats. The walls continued to get higher as we neared our goal, going up sheer close to the river. We judged the greatest of these walls to be about eleven hundred feet high. After four hours of steady pulling we began to weary, for ours were no light loads to propel; but we were spurred to renewed effort by hearing the sounds of an engine in the distance. On rounding a turn we saw the end of Glen Canyon ahead of us, marked by a breaking down of the walls, and a chaotic mixture of dikes of rock, and slides of brilliantly coloured shales, broken and tilted in every direction. Just below this, close to a ferry, we saw the dredge on the right side of the river. We were quite close to the dredge before we were seen. Some men paused at their work to watch us as we neared them, one man calling to those behind him, "There come the brothers!" A whistle blew announcing the end of their day's labour, and of ours as well, as it happened. There was some cheering and waving of hats. One who seemed to be the foreman asked us to tie up to a float which served as a landing for three motor boats, and a number of skiffs. A loudly beaten triangle of steel announced that the evening meal was ready at a stone building not far from the dredge. We were soon seated at a long table with a lot of others as hungry as we, partaking of a well-cooked and substantial meal. We made arrangements to take a few meals here, as we wished to overhaul our outfits before resuming our journey. The meal ended, we inquired for the post-office, and were directed to a ranch building across the Paria River, a small stream which entered from the north, not unlike the Frémont River in size and appearance. Picking our way in the darkness, on boulders and planks which served as a crossing, we soon reached the building, set back from the river in the centre of the ranch. A man named Johnson, with his family, had charge of the ranch and post-office as well. Mail is brought by carrier from the south, a cross-country trip of 160 miles, through the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations. Johnson informed us that an old-time friend named Dave Rust had waited here three or four days, hoping to see us arrive, but business matters had forced him to leave just the day before. We were very sorry to have missed him. Rust lived in the little Mormon town of Kanab, Utah, eighty miles north of the Grand Canyon opposite our home. In addition to being a cattle man and rancher, he had superintended the construction of a cable crossing, or tramway, over the Colorado River, beside the mouth of Bright Angel Creek, not many miles from our home. He also maintains a cozy camp at this place, for the accommodation of tourists and hunting parties, which he conducts up Bright Angel Creek and into the Kaibab Forest. It was while returning from such a hunting trip that we first met Rust. Many are the trips we have taken with him since then, Emery, with his wife and the baby, even, making the "crossing" and the eighty-mile horseback ride to his home in Kanab, while I had continued on through to Salt Lake City. Rust had been the first to tell us of Galloway and his boating methods; and had given us a practical demonstration on the river. Naturally there was no one we would have been more pleased to see at that place, than Rust. In our mail we found a letter from him, stating, among other things, that he had camped the night before on the plateau, a few hundred feet above a certain big rapid, well known through this section as the Soap Creek Rapid. This locality is credited with being the scene of the first fatality which overtook the Brown-Stanton expedition; Brown being upset and drowned in the next rapid which followed, after having portaged the Soap Creek Rapid. Rust wrote also that there was a shore along the rapid, so there would be no difficulty in making the portage; and concluded by saying that he had a very impressive dream about us that night, the second of its kind since we had started on our journey. We understood from this that he had certain misgivings about this rapid, and took his dream to be a sort of a warning. Rust should have known us better. With all the perversity of human nature that letter made me want to run that rapid if it were possible. Why run the rapid, and get a moving picture as it was being done. Then we could show Rust how well we had learned our lesson! So I thought as we returned to the buildings near the dredge, but said nothing of what was in my mind to Emery, making the mental reservation that I would see the rapid first and decide afterwards. The foreman of the placer mines called us into his office that evening, and suggested that it might be a good plan to go over our boats thoroughly before we left, and offered us the privilege of using their workshop, with all its conveniences, for any needed repairs. He also let us have a room in one of the buildings for our photographic work. This foreman mourned the loss of a friend who had recently been drowned at the ferry. It seemed that the floods which had preceded us, especially that part which came down the San Juan River, had been something tremendous, rising 45 feet at the ferry, where the river was 400 feet wide; and rising much higher in the narrow portions of Glen Canyon. Great masses of driftwood had floated down, looking almost like a continuous raft. When the river had subsided somewhat, an attempt was made to cross with the ferry. The foreman and his friend, with two others, and a team of horses hitched to a wagon, were on the ferry. When in midstream it overturned in the swollen current. Three of the men escaped, the other man and the horses were drowned. A careful search had been made for the body to a point a few miles down the river, then the canyon closed in and they could go no farther. The body was never recovered. It is seldom that the Colorado River gives up its dead. The heavy sands collect in the clothes, and a body sinks much quicker than in ordinary water. Any object lodged on the bottom is soon covered with a sand-bar. The foreman knew this, of course; yet he wished us to keep a lookout for the body, which might, by some chance, have caught on the shore, when the water receded. This was as little as any one would do, and we gave him our promise to keep a careful watch. CHAPTER XVII A NIGHT OF THRILLS We declined the offer of a roof that night, preferring to sleep in the open here, for the evening was quite warm. We went to work the next morning when the whistle sounded at the dredge. Beyond caulking a few leaks in the boats, little was done with them. The tin receptacles holding our photographic plates and films were carefully coated with a covering of melted paraffine; for almost anything might happen, in the one hundred miles of rapid water that separated us from our home. Lee's Ferry was an interesting place, both for its old and its new associations. This had long been the home of John D. Lee, well known for the part he took in the Mountain Meadow Massacre, and for which he afterwards paid the death penalty. Here Lee had lived for many years, making few visits to the small settlements to the north, but on one of these visits he was captured. There were six or seven other buildings near the large stone building where we took our meals, so arranged that they made a short street, the upper row being built against a cliff of rock and shale, the other row being placed halfway between this row and the river. These buildings were all of rock, of which there was no lack, plastered with adobe, or mud. One, we were told, had been Lee's stronghold, it was a square building, with a few very small windows, and with loopholes in the sides. At the time of our visit it was occupied by two men; one, a young Englishman, recently arrived from South Africa--a remittance-man, in search of novelty--the other a grizzled forty-niner. Much could be written about this interesting group of men, and their alluring employment. There were some who had followed this work through all the camps of the West--to Colorado, to California, and to distant Alaska as well, they had journeyed; but it is doubtful if, in all their wanderings, they had seen any camp more strangely located than this, hemmed in with canyon walls. To us, their dredge and the steamboat up the river seemed as if they had been taken from the pages of some romance, or bit of fiction, and placed before us for our entertainment. There were other men as well, just as interesting m their way as the "old-timers," the sons of some of the owners of this proposition,--clean-cut young fellows,--working side by side with the veterans, as enthusiastic as if on their college campus. One feature about the dredge interested us greatly. This was a tube, or sucker, held suspended by a derrick above a float, and operated by compressed air. The tube was dropped into the sand at the bottom of the river, and would eat its way into it, bringing up rocks the size of one's fist, along with the gravel and sand. In a few hours a hole, ten or fifteen feet in depth and ten feet in diameter, would be excavated. Then the tube was raised, the float was moved, and the work started again. The coarse sand and gravel, carried by a stream of water, was returned to the river, after passing over the riffles; the screenings which remained passed over square metal plates--looking like sheets of tin--covered with quicksilver. These plates were cleaned with a rubber window-cleaner, and the entire residue was saved in a heavy metal pot, ready for the chemist. One day only was needed for our work, and by evening we were ready for the next plunge. We might have enjoyed a longer stay with these men, but stronger than this desire was our anxiety to reach our home, separated from us by a hundred miles of river, no extended part of the distance being entirely free from rapids. We had written to the Grand Canyon, bidding them look for our signal fire in Bright Angel Creek Canyon, in from seven to ten days, and planned to leave on the following morning. Nothing held us now except the hope that the mail, which was due that evening, might bring us a letter, although that was doubtful, for we were nearly a week ahead of our schedule as laid out at Green River, Utah. As we had anticipated, there was no mail for us, so we turned to inspect the mail carrier. He was a splendid specimen of the Navajo Indian,--a wrestler of note amoung his people, we were told,--large and muscular, and with a peculiar springy, slouchy walk that gave one the impression of great reserve strength. He had ridden that day from Tuba, an agency on their reservation, about seventy miles distant. This was the first sign of an Indian that we had seen in this section, although we had been travelling along the northern boundary of their reservation since leaving the mouth of the San Juan. These Indians have no use for the river, being children of the desert, rather than of the water. Beyond an occasional crossing and swimming their horses at easy fords, they make no attempt at its navigation, even in the quiet water of Glen Canyon. Some of the men showed this Indian our boats, and told him of our journey. He smiled, and shrugged his massive shoulders as much as to say, he "would believe it when he saw it." He had an opportunity to see us start, at least, on the following morning. Before leaving, we climbed a 300-foot mound on the left bank of the Paria River, directly opposite the Lee ranch. This mound is known as Lee's Lookout. Whether used by Lee or not, it had certainly served that purpose at some time. A circular wall of rock was built on top the mound, and commanded an excellent view of all the approaches to the junction of the rivers. This spot is of particular interest to the geologist, for a great fault, indicated by the Vermilion Cliffs, marks the division between Glen Canyon and Marble Canyon. This line of cliffs extends to the south for many miles across the Painted Desert, and north into Utah for even a greater distance, varying in height from two hundred feet at the southern end to as many thousand feet in some places to the north. Looking to the west, we could see that here was another of those sloping uplifts of rock, with the river cutting down, increasing the depth of the canyon with every mile. We had now descended about 2900 feet since leaving Green River City, Wyoming, not a very great fall for the distance travelled if an average is taken, but a considerable portion of the distance was on quiet water, as we have noted, with a fall of a foot or two to the mile, and with alternate sections only containing bad water. We were still at an elevation of 3170 feet above the sea-level, and in the 283 miles of canyon ahead of us--Marble Canyon and the Grand Canyon combined--the river descends 2330 feet, almost a continuous series of rapids from this point to the end of the Grand Canyon. After a hasty survey from our vantage point, we returned to the river and prepared to embark. As we left the dredge, the work was closed down for a few minutes, and the entire crowd of men, about forty in number, stood on an elevation to watch us run the first rapid. The Indian had crossed to the south side of the to feed his horse and caught a glimpse of us as we went past him. Running pell-mell down to his boat, he crossed the river and joined the group on the bank. About this time we were in the grip of the first rapid, a long splashy one, with no danger whatever, but large enough to keep us busy until we had passed from view. A few miles below this, after running a pair of small rapids, we reached a larger one, known as the Badger Creek Rapid, with a twenty-foot drop in the first 250 feet, succeeded by a hundred yards of violent water. Emery had a little difficulty in this rapid, when his boat touched a rock which turned the boat sideways in the current, and he was nearly overturned in the heavy waves which followed. As it was, we were both drenched. About the middle of the afternoon, twelve miles below Lee's Ferry, we reached the Soap Creek Rapid of which we had heard so much. The rapid had a fall of twenty-five feet, and was a quarter of a mile long. Most of the fall occurred in the first fifty yards. The river had narrowed down until it was less than two hundred feet wide at the beginning of the descent. Many rocks were smattered all through the upper end, especially at the first drop. On the very brink or edge of the first fall, there was a submerged rock in the centre of the channel, making an eight-foot fall over the rock. A violent current, deflected from the left shore, shot into this centre and added to the confusion. Twelve-foot waves from the conflicting currents, played leap-frog, jumping over or through each other alternately. Clearly there was no channel on that side. On the right or north side of the stream it looked more feasible, as the water shot down a sloping chute over a hundred feet before meeting with an obstruction. This came in the shape of two rocks, one about thirty feet below the other. To run the rapid this first rock would have to be passed before any attempt could be made to pull away from the second rock, which was quite close to the shore. Once past that there was a clear channel to the end of the rapid, if the centre, which contained many rocks, was avoided. Below the rapid was the usual whirlpool, then a smaller rapid, running under the left wall. This second rapid was the one that had been so fatal for Brown. The Soap Creek rapid in many ways was not as bad as some we had gone over in Cataract Canyon, but there were so many complications that we hesitated a long time before coming to a decision that we would make an attempt with one boat, depending on our good luck which had brought us through so many times, as much as we depended on our handling of the boat. It was planned that I should make the first attempt while Emery remained with the motion-picture camera just below the rock that we most feared, with the agreement that he was to get a picture of the upset if one occurred, then run to the lower end of the rapid with a rope and a life-preserver. After adjusting life-preservers I returned to my boat and was soon on the smooth water above the rapid, holding my boat to prevent her from being swept over the rock in the centre, jockeying for the proper position before I would allow her to be carried into the current. Once in, it seemed but an instant until I was past the first rock, and almost on top of the second. I was pulling with every ounce of strength, and was almost clear of the rock when the stern touched it gently. I had no idea the boat would overturn, but thought she would swing around the rock, heading bow first into the stream, as had been done before on several occasions. Instead of this she was thrown on her side with the bottom of the boat held against the rock while I found myself thrown out of the boat, but hanging to the gunwale. Then the boat swung around and instantly turned upright while I scrambled back into the cockpit. Looking over my shoulder, when I had things well in hand again, I saw my brother was still at the camera, white as a sheet, but turning at the crank as if our entire safety depended on it. After I landed the water-filled boat, however, he confessed to me that he had no idea whether he had caught the upset or not, as he may have resumed the work when he saw that I was safe. Then we went to work to find out what damage was done. First we found that the case, which was supposed to be waterproof, had a half-inch of water inside, but fortunately none of our films were wet. Some plates which we had just exposed and which were still in the holders were soaked. The cameras also had suffered. We hurriedly wiped off the surplus water and piled these things on the shore, then emptied the boat of a few barrels of water. This one experience, I suppose, should have been enough for me with that rapid, but I foolishly insisted on making another trial at it with the _Edith_, for I felt sure I could make it if I only had another chance, and the fact that Emery had the empty boat at the end of the rapid and could rescue me if an upset occurred greatly lessened the danger. The idea of making a portage, with the loss of nearly a day, did not appeal to me. Emery agreed to this reluctantly, and advised waiting until morning, for it was growing dusk, but with the remark "I will sleep better with both boats tied at the lower end of the rapid," I returned to the _Edith_. To make a long story short I missed my channel, and was carried over the rock in the centre of the stream. The _Edith_ had bravely mounted the first wave, and was climbing the second comber, standing almost on end, seemed to me, when the wave crested over the stern while the current shooting it from the side struck the submerged bow and she fell back in the water upside down. It was all done so quickly, I hardly knew what had occurred, but found myself in the water, whirling this way and that, holding to the right oar with a death-grip. I wondered if the strings would hold, and felt a great relief when the oar stopped slipping down,--as the blade reached the ring. It was the work of a second to climb the oar, and I found I was under the cockpit. Securing a firm hold on the gunwale, which had helped us so often, I got on the outside of the boat, thinking I might climb on top. About that time one of the largest waves broke over me, knocking me on the side of the head as if with a solid object, nearly tearing me from the boat. After that I kept as close to the boat as possible, paddling with my feet to keep them clear of rocks. Then the suction of the boat caught them and dragged them under, and for the rest of the rapid I had all I could do to hang to the boat. As the rapid dwindled I began to look for Emery, but was unable to see him, for it was now growing quite dark, but I could see a fire on shore that he had built. I tried to call but was strangled with the breaking waves; my voice was drowned in the roar of the rapid. One of the life-preservers was torn loose and floated ahead of me. Finally I got an answer, and could see that Emery had launched his boat. As he drew near I told him to save the life-preserver, which he did, then hurriedly pulled for me. I remarked with a forced laugh, to reassure him, "Gee, Emery, this water's cold." He failed to join in my levity, however, and said with feeling, "Thank the good Lord you are here!" and down in my heart I echoed his prayer of thanks. Somehow I had lost all desire to successfully navigate the Soap Creek Rapid. But our troubles were not entirely over. Emery had pulled me in after a futile attempt or two, with a hold sometimes used by wrestlers, linking his arm in mine, leaning forward, and pulling me in over his back I was so numbed by the cold that I could do little to help him, after what, I suppose, was about a quarter of an hour's struggle in the water; although it seemed much longer than that to me. We then caught the _Edith_ and attempted to turn her over, but before this could be done we were dragged into the next rapid. Emery caught up the oars, while I could do nothing but hold to the upturned boat, half filled with water, striving to drag us against the wall on the left side of the stream. It was no small task to handle the two boats in this way, but Emery made it; then, when he thought we were sure of a landing, the _Edith_ dragged us into the river again. Two more small rapids were run as we peered through the darkness for a landing. Finally we reached the shore over a mile below the Soap Creek Rapid. We were on the opposite side of the stream from that where we had unloaded the _Defiance_. This material would have to stay where it was that night. While bailing the water from the _Edith_ we noticed a peculiar odour, and thought for a while that it might be the body of the man who was drowned at the ferry, but later we found it came from a green cottonwood log that had become water-soaked, and was embedded in the sand, close to our landing. It was Emery's turn to do the greater part of the camp work that night, while I was content to hug the fire, wrapped in blankets, waiting for the coffee to boil. CHAPTER XVIII MARBLE HALLS AND MARBLE WALLS There was little of the spectacular in our work the next day as we slowly and laboriously dragged an empty boat upstream against the swift-running current, taking advantage of many little eddies, but finding much of the shore swept clean. I had ample opportunity to ponder on the wisdom of my attempt to save time by running the Soap Creek Rapid instead of making a portage, while we carried our loads over the immense boulders that banked the stream, down to a swift piece of water, past which we could not well bring the boats or while we developed the wet plates from the ruined plate-holders. It was with no little surprise that we found all the plates, except a few which were not uniformly wet and developed unevenly, could be saved. It took a day and a half to complete all this work. Marble Canyon was now beginning to narrow up with a steep, boulder-covered slope on either side, three or four hundred feet high; with a sheer wall of dark red limestone of equal height directly above that. There was also a plateau of red sandstone and distant walls topped with light-coloured rock, the same formations with which we were familiar in the Grand Canyon. The inner gorge had narrowed from a thousand feet or more down to four hundred feet, the slope at the river was growing steeper and gradually disappearing, and each mile of travel had added a hundred feet or more to the height of the walls. Soon after resuming our journey that afternoon, the slope disappeared altogether, and the sheer walls came down close to the water. There were few places where one could climb out, had we desired to do so. This hard limestone wall, which Major Powell had named the marble wall, had a disconcerting way of weathering very smooth and sheer, with a few ledges and fewer breaks. We made a short run that day, going over a few rapids, stopping an hour to make some pictures where an immense rock had fallen from the cliff above into the middle of the river bed, leaving a forty-foot channel on one side, and scarcely any on the other. Below this we found a rapid so much like the Soap Creek Rapid in appearance that a portage seemed advisable. It was evening when we got the _Edith_ to the lower end of this rapid after almost losing her, as we lined her down, and she was wedged under a sloping rock that overhung the rapid. We had two ropes, one at either end, attached to the boat in this case. Emery stood below the rock ready to pull her in when once past the rock. There was a sickening crackling of wood as the deck of the boat wedged under and down to the level of the water, and at Emery's call I released the boat, throwing the rope into the river, and hurried to help him. He was almost dragged into the water as the boat swung around fortunately striking against a sand-bank, instead of the many rocks that lined the shore. We were working with a stream different from the Green River, we found, and the _Defiance_ was taken from the water the next day and slowly worked, one end at a time, over the rocks, up to a level sand-bank, twenty-five or thirty feet above the river. Then we put rollers under her, and worked her down past the rapid. This work was little to our liking, for the boats, now pretty well water-soaked, weighed considerably more than their original five hundred pounds' weight. A few successful plunges soon brought back our former confidence, and we continued to run all other rapids that presented themselves. This afternoon we passed the first rapid we remembered having seen, where we could not land at its head before running it. A slightly higher stage of water, however, would have made many such rapids. Just below this point we found the body of a bighorn mountain-sheep floating in an eddy. It was impossible to tell just how he came to his death. There was no sign of any great fall that we could see. He had a splendid pair of horns, which we would have liked to have had at home, but which we did not care to amputate and carry with us. On this day's travel, we passed a number of places where the marble--which had suggested this canyon's name to Major Powell--appeared. The exposed parts were checked, or seamed, and apparently would have little commercial value. We passed a shallow cave or two this day, then found another cave or hole, running back about fifteen feet in the wall, so suitable for a camp that we could not refuse the temptation to stop, although we had made but a very short run this day. The high water had entered it, depositing successive layers of sand on the bottom, rising in steps, one above the other, making convenient shelves for maps and journals, pots and pans; while little shovelling was necessary to make the lower level of sand fit our sleeping bags. A number of small springs, bubbling from the walls near by, gave us the first clear water that we had found for some time, and a pile of driftwood caught in the rocks, directly in front of our cave, added to its desirability for a camp. Firewood was beginning to be the first consideration in choosing a camp, for in many places the high water had swept the shores clean, and spots which might otherwise have made splendid camps were rendered most undesirable for this reason. So Camp Number 47 was made in this little cave, with a violent rapid directly beneath us, making a din that might be anything but reassuring, were we not pretty well accustomed to it by this time. The next day, Sunday, November the 12th, was passed in the same spot. The air turned decidedly cold this day, a hard wind swept up the river, the sky above was overcast, and we had little doubt that snow was falling on the Kaibab Plateau, which we could not see, but which we knew rose to the height of 5500 feet above us, but a few miles to the northwest of this camp. The sheer walls directly above the river dropped down considerably at this point, and a break or two permitted us to climb up as high as we cared to go on the red sandstone wall, which had lost its level character, and now rose in a steep slope over a thousand feet above us. These walls, with no growth but the tussocks of bunch-grass, the prickly pear cactus, the mescal, and the yucca, were more destitute of growth than any we had seen, excepting the upper end of Desolation Canyon, even the upper walls lacking the growth of piñon pine and juniper which we usually associated with them. We were now directly below the Painted Desert, which lay to the left of the canyon, and no doubt a similar desert was on the right-hand side, in the form of a narrow plateau; but we had no means of knowing just how wide or narrow this was, before it raised again to the forest-covered Buckskin Mountains and the Kaibab Plateau. The rapid below our camp was just as bad as its roar, we found, on running it the next day. Most of the descent was confined to a violent drop at the very beginning, but there was a lot of complicated water in the big waves that followed. Emery was thrown forward in his boat, when he reached the bottom of the chute, striking his mouth, and bruising his hands, as he dropped his oars and caught the bulkhead. An extra oar was wrenched from the boat and disappeared in the white water, or foam that was as nearly white as muddy water ever gets. I nearly upset, and broke the pin of a rowlock, the released oar being jerked from my hand, sending me scrambling for an extra oar, when the boat swept into a swift whirlpool. Emery caught my oar as it whirled past him; the other was found a half-mile below in an eddy. Some of the rapids in the centre of Marble Canyon were not more than 75 feet wide, with a corresponding violence of water. The whirlpools in the wider channels below these rapids were the strongest we had seen, and had a most annoying way of holding the boats just when we thought we had evaded them. Sometimes there would be a whirlpool on either side, with a sharply defined line of division in the centre, along which it was next to impossible to go without being caught on one side or the other. These whirlpools were seldom regarded as serious, for our boats were too wide and heavy to be readily overturned in them, although we saved ourselves more than one upset by throwing our weight to the opposite side. A small boat would have upset. On two occasions we were caught in small whirlpools, where a point of rock projected from the shore, turning upstream, splitting a swift current and making a very rapid and difficult whirl, where the boats were nearly smashed against the walls. Below all such places were the familiar boils, or fountains, or shoots, as they are variously termed. These are the lower end of the whirlpools, emerging often from the quiet water below a rapid with nearly as much violence as they disappeared in the rapids above. These would often rise when least expected, breaking under the boats, the swift upshoot of water giving them such a rap that we sometimes thought we had struck a rock. If one happened to be in the centre of a boil when it broke, it would send them sailing down the stream many times faster than the regular current was travelling, rowing the boat having about as little effect on determining its course as if it was loaded on a flat-car. The other boat, at times just a few feet away, might be caught in the whirlpools that formed at the edge of the fountains, often opening up suddenly under one side of the boat, causing it to dip until the water poured over the edge, holding it to that one spot in spite of every effort to row away. Then we would strike peaceful water again, a mile or perhaps, so quiet that a thin covering of clear water over the top of the silt-laden pool beneath, reflecting the tinted walls and the turquoise sky beneath its limpid surface. Gems of sunlight sparkled on its bosom and scintillated in the ripples left behind by the oars. When seated with our backs to the strongest light, and when glancing along the top of such a pool instead of into it, the mirror-like surface gave way to a peculiar purplish tone which seemed to cover the pool, so that one would forget it was roily water, and saw only the iridescent beauty of a mountain stream. The wonderful marble walls--better known to the miners as the blue limestone walls--now rose from the water's edge to a height of eight or nine hundred feet, the surface of its light blue-gray rock being stained to a dark red, or a light red as the case might be, by the iron from the sandstone walls above. There were a thousand feet of these sandstone layers, red in all its varying hues, capped by the four-hundred foot cross-bedded sandstone wall, breaking sheer, ranging in tone from a soft buff to a golden yellow, with a bloom, or glow, as though illuminated from within. As we proceeded, another layer could be seen above this, the same limestone and with the same fossils--an examination of the rock-slides told us--as the topmost formation at the Grand Canyon. This was not unlike the cross-bedded sandstone in colour, but lacked its warmth and richness of tint. A close, examination of the rocks revealed many colours, that figured but little in the grand colour scheme of the canyon as a whole--the detailed ornamentation of the magnificent rock structure. A fracture of wall would show the true colour of the rock, beneath the stain; lime crystals studded its surface, like gems glinting in the sunlight; beautifully tinted jasper, resembling the petrified wood found in another part of Arizona, was embedded in the marble wall,--usually at the point of contact with another formation,--polished by the sands of the turbid river. All this told us that we were coming into our own. Four of the seven notable divisions of rock strata found in the Grand Canyon were now represented in Marble Canyon, and soon the green shale, which underlies the blue limestone, began to crop out by the river as the walls grew higher and the stream cut deeper. One turn of the canyon revealed a break where Stanton hid his provisions in a cave--after a second fatality in which two more of this ill-fated expedition lost their lives--and climbed out on top. Afterwards he re-outfitted with heavier boats and tackled the stream again. Just below this break the scene changed as we made a sharp turn to the left. Vasey's Paradise--named by Major Powell after Dr. Geo. W. Vasey, botanist of the United States Department of Agriculture--was disclosed to view. Beautiful streams gushed from rounded holes, fifty yards above the river. The rock walls reminded one of an ivy-covered castle of old England, guarded by a moat uncrossed by any drawbridge. It was trellised with vines, maidenhair ferns, and water-moss making a vivid green background for the golden yellow and burnished copper leaves which still clung to some small cottonwood trees--the only trees we had seen in Marble Canyon. In our haste to push on, we left the brass motion-picture tripod head on an island, from which we pictured this lovely spot. A rapid was put behind us before we noticed our loss, and there was no going back then. Another turn revealed a Gothic arch, or grotto, carved at the bend of the wall by the high water, with an overhang of more than a hundred feet, and a height nearly as great, for the flood waters ran above the hundred-foot stage in this narrow walled section. Then came a gloomy, prison-like formation, with a "Bridge of Sighs" two hundred feet above a gulch, connecting the dungeon to the perpendicular wall beyond; and with a hundred cave-like openings in its sheer sides like small windows, admitting a little daylight into its dark interior. The sullen boom of a rapid around the turn sounded like the march of an army coming up the gorge, so we climbed back into our boats after a vain attempt to climb up to some of the caves, and advanced to meet our foe. This rapid--the tenth for the day--while it was clear of rocks, had an abrupt drop, with powerful waves which did all sorts of things to us and to our boats; breaking a rowlock and the four pieces of line which held it, and flooding us both with a ton of water. We went into camp a short distance below this, in a narrow box canyon running back a hundred yards from the river, a gloomy, cathedral-like interior with sheer walls rising several hundred feet on three sides of us, and with the top of the south wall 2500 feet above us in plain sight of our camp, the one camp in Marble Canyon where our sleep was undisturbed by the roar of a rapid. But instead of the roar of a rapid, a howling wind swept down from the Painted Desert above, piling the mingled desert sands and river sands about our beds, scattering our camp material over the bottom of the narrow gorge. Soon after this camp--the fourth and the last in Marble Canyon--was left behind us, the walls began to widen out, especially on the north-northwest, and by noon we had passed from the narrow, direct canyon, into one with slopes and plateaus breaking the sheer walls, the wall on the left or southeast side being much the lower of the two, and more nearly perpendicular, rising to a height of 3200 feet, while the northwest side lifted up to the Kaibab Plateau, one point--miles back from the river--rising 6000 feet above us. We halted at noon beside the Nancoweep Valley. A wide tributary heading many miles back in the plateau the right, with a ramified series of canyons running into it, and with great expanses of sage-covered flats between. Deer tracks were found on these flats, deer which came down from the forest of the Buckskin Mountains. This was the point selected by Major Powell for the construction of a trail when he returned from his voyage of exploration to study the geology of this section. The trail, although neglected for many years, is still used by prospectors from Kanab, Utah, who make a yearly trip into the canyons to do some work on a mineral ledge a few miles below here. What a glorious, exhilarating run we had that day! From here to the end of Marble Canyon the rapids were almost continuous, with few violent drops and seldom broken by the usual quiet pools. It was the finest kind of water for fast travelling, and we made the most of it. The only previous run we had made that could in any way compare with it was in Whirlpool and Split Mountain canyons, when the high water was on. As we travelled, occasional glimpses were had of familiar places on Greenland Point--that thirty-mile peninsula of the Kaibab Plateau extending between Marble Canyon and the Grand Canyon--where we had gone deer-hunting, or on photographic expeditions with Rust. Another valley from the right was passed, then a peak rose before us close to the river, with its flat top rising to a height equal to the south wall. This was Chuar Butte. Once more we were in a narrow canyon, narrowing by this peak, but a canyon just the same. Soon we were below a wall we once had photographed from the mouth of the Little Colorado; then the stream itself came into view and we were soon anchored beside it. This was the beginning of the Grand Canyon. CHAPTER XIX SIGNALLING OUR CANYON HOME How long we had waited for this view! How many memories it recalled--and how different it seemed to our previous visit there! Then, the high water was on, and the turquoise-tinted mineral water of the Colorado Chiquito was backed up by the turbid flood waters of the Rio Colorado, forty feet or more above the present level. Now it was a rapid stream, throwing itself with wild abandon over the rocks and into the Colorado. There was the same deserted stone hut, built by a French prospector, many years before, and a plough that he had packed in over a thirty-mile trail--the most difficult one in all this rugged region! There was the little grass-plot where we pastured the burro, while we made a fifteen-mile walk up the bed of this narrow canyon! What a hard, hot journey it had been! A year and a half ago we sat on that rock, and talked of the day when we should come through here in boats! Even then we talked of building a raft, and of loading the burro on it for a spin on the flood waters. Lucky for us and for the burro that we didn't! We understand the temper of these waters now. Cape Desolation, a point of the Painted Desert on the west side of the Little Colorado, was almost directly above us, 3200 feet high. Chuar Butte, equally as high and with walls just as nearly perpendicular, extended on into the Grand Canyon on the right side, making the narrowest canyon of this depth that we had seen. The Navajo reservation terminated at the Little Colorado, although nothing but the maps indicated that we had passed from the land of the Red man to that of the White. Both were equally desolate, and equally wonderful. With the entrance of the new stream the canyon changes its southwest trend and turns directly west, and continues to hold to this general direction until the northwest corner of Arizona is reached. But we must be on again! Soon familiar segregated peaks in the Grand Canyon began to appear. There was Wotan's Throne on the right, and the "Copper Mine Mesa" on the left. Three or four miles below the junction a four-hundred foot perpendicular wall rose above us. The burro, on our previous visit, was almost shoved off that cliff when the pack caught on a rock, and was only saved by strenuous pulling on the neck-rope and pack harness. Soon we passed some tunnels on both sides of the river where the Mormon miners had tapped a copper ledge. At 4.15 P.M. we were at the end of the Tanner Trail, the outlet of the Little Colorado Trail to the rim above. It had taken seven hours of toil to cover the same ground we now sped over in an hour and a quarter. Major Powell, in 1872, found here the remnant of a very small hut built of mesquite logs, but whether the remains of an Indian's or white man's shelter cannot be stated. The trail, without doubt was used by the Indians before the white man invaded this region. The canyon had changed again from one which was very narrow to one much more complex, greater, and grander. The walls on top were many miles apart; Comanche Point, to our left, was over 4000 feet above us; Desert View, Moran Point, and other points on the south rim were even higher. On the right we could see an arch near Cape Final on Greenland Point, over 5000 feet up, that we had photographed, from the top, a few years before. Pagoda-shaped temples--the formation so typical of the Grand Canyon--clustered on all sides. The upper walls were similar in tint to those in Marble Canyon, but here at the river was a new formation; the algonkian, composed of thousands of brilliantly coloured bands of rock, standing at an angle--the one irregularity to the uniform layers of rock--a remnant of thousands of feet of rock which once covered this region, then was planed away before the other deposits were placed. All about us, close to the river, was a deep, soft sand formed by the disintegration of the rocks above, as brilliantly coloured as the rocks from which they came. What had been a very narrow stream above here spread out over a thousand feet wide, ran with a good current, and seemed to be anything but a shallow stream at that. We had travelled far that day but still sped on,--with a few rapids which did not retard, but rather helped us on our way, and with a good current between these rapids,--only stopping to camp when a three-hundred foot wall rose sheer from the river's edge, bringing to an end our basin-like river bottom, where one could walk out on either side. It was not necessary to hunt for driftwood this evening, for a thicket of mesquite--the best of all wood for a camp-fire--grew out of the sand-dunes, and some half-covered dead logs were unearthed from the drifted sand, and soon reduced to glowing coals. Meanwhile, we were enjoying one of those remarkable Arizona desert sunsets. Ominous clouds had been gathering in the afternoon, rising from the southwest, drifting across the canyon, and piling up against the north wall. A few fleecy clouds in the west partially obscured the sun until it neared the horizon, then a shaft of sunlight broke through once more, telegraphing its approach long before it reached us, the rays being visibly hurled through space like a javelin, or a lightning bolt, striking peak after peak so that one almost imagined they would hear the thunder roll. A yellow flame covered the western sky, to be succeeded in a few minutes by a crimson glow. The sharply defined colours of the different layers of rock had merged and softened, as the sun dropped from sight; purple shadows crept into the cavernous depths, while shafts of gold shot to the very tiptop of the peaks, or threw their shadows like silhouettes on the wall beyond. Then the scene shifted again, and it was all blood-red, reflecting from the sky and staining the rocks below, so that distant wall and sky merged, with little to show where the one ended and the other began. That beautiful haze, which tints, but does not obscure, enshrouded the temples and spires, changing from heliotrope to lavender, from lavender to deepest purple; there was a departing flare of flame like the collapse of a burning building; a few clouds in the zenith, torn by the winds so that they resembled the craters of the moon, were tinted for an instant around the crater's rims; the clouds faded to a dove-like gray; they darkened; the gray disappeared; the purple crept from the canyon into the arched dome overhead; the day was ended, twilight passed, and darkness settled over all. We sat silently by the fire for a few minutes, then rose and resumed our evening's work. This camp was at a point that could be seen from the Grand View hotel, fourteen miles from our home. We talked of building a signal fire on the promontory above the camp, knowing that the news would be telephoned to home if the fire was seen. But we gave up the plan. Although less than twenty miles from Bright Angel Trail, we were not safely through by any means. Two boats had been wrecked or lost in different rapids less than six miles from this camp. The forty-foot fall in the Hance or Red Canyon Rapid was three miles below us; the Sockdologer, the Grapevine, and other rapids nearly as large followed those; we might be no more fortunate than the others, and a delay after once giving a signal would cause more anxiety than no signal at all we thought, and the fire was not built. Particular attention was paid to the loading of the boats the next morning. The moving-picture film was tucked in the toes of our sleeping bags, and the protecting bags were carefully laced. We were not going to take any chances in this next plunge--the much-talked-of entrance to the granite gorge. A half-hour's run and a dash through one violent rapid landed us at the end of the Hance Trail--unused for tourist travel for several years--with a few torn and tattered tents back in the side canyon down which the trail wound its way. We half hoped that we would find some of the prospectors who make this section their winter home either at the Tanner or the Hance Trail, but there was no sign of recent visitors at either place, unless it was the numerous burro tracks in the sand. These tracks were doubtless made by some of the many wild burros that roam all the lower plateaus in the upper end of the Grand Canyon. After a careful inspection of the Hance Rapid we were glad the signal fire was not built. It was a nasty rapid. While reading over our notes one evening we were amused to find that we had catalogued different rapids with an equal amount of fall as "good," "bad," or "nasty," the difference depending nearly altogether on the rocks in the rapids. The "good rapids" were nothing but a descent of "big water," with great waves,--for which we cared little, but rather enjoyed if it was not too cold,--and with no danger from rocks; the "bad rapids" contained rocks, and twisting channels, but with half a chance of getting through. A nasty rapid was filled with rocks, many of them so concealed in the foam that it was often next to impossible to tell if rocks were there or not, and in which there was little chance of running through without smashing a boat. The Hance Rapid was such a one. Such a complication of twisted channels and protruding rocks we had not seen unless it was at Hell's Half Mile. It meant a portage--nothing less--the second since leaving that other rapid in Lodore. So we went to work, carrying our duffle across deep, soft sand-dunes, down to the middle of the rapid, where quieted for a hundred yards before it made the final plunge. The gathering dusk of evening found all material and one boat at this spot, with the other one at the head of the rapid, to be portaged the next day. But we did not portage this boat. A good night's rest, and the safeguard of a boat at the bottom of the plunge made it look much less dangerous, and five minutes after breakfast was finished, this boat was beside its mate, and we had a reel of film which we hoped would show just how we successfully ran this difficult rapid. While going over the second section, on the opposite side of the river, Emery was thrown out of his boat for an instant when the _Edith_ touched a rock in a twenty-five mile an hour current, similar to my first upset in the Soap Creek Rapid--the old story: out again; in again; on again--landing in safety at the end of the rapid not one whit the worse for the spill. This rapid marks the place where the granite, or igneous rock, intrudes, rising at a sharp angle, sloping upward down the stream, reaching the height of 1300 feet about one mile below. It marks the end of the large deposit of algonkian. The granite, when it attains its highest point, is covered with a 200-foot layer of sedimentary rock called the tonto sandstone. The top of this formation is exposed by a plateau from a quarter of a mile to three miles in width, on either side of the granite gorge; the same walls which were found in Marble Canyon rise above this. The temples which are scattered through the canyon--equal in height, in many cases, to the walls--have their foundation on this plateau. These peaks contain the same stratified rock with a uniform thickness whether in peak or wall, with little displacement and little sign of violent uplift, nearly all this canyon being the work of erosion: 5000 feet from the rim to the river; the edges of six great layers of sedimentary rock laid bare and with a narrow 1300-foot gorge through the igneous rock below--the Grand Canyon of Arizona. The granite gorge seemed to us to be the one place of all others that we had seen on this trip that would cause one to hesitate a long time before entering, if nothing definite was known of its nature. Another person might have felt the same way of the canyons we had passed, Lodore or Marble Canyon, for instance. A great deal depends on the nerves and digestion, no doubt; and the same person would look at it in a different light at different times, as we found from our own experiences. Our digestions were in excellent condition just at that time, and we were nerved up by the thought that we were going "to the plate for a home run" if possible, yet the granite gorge had a decidedly sinister look. The walls, while not sheer, were nearly so; they might be climbed in many places to the top of the granite; but the tonto sandstone wall nearly always overhangs this, breaks sheer, and seldom affords an outlet to the plateaus above, except where lateral canyons cut through. The rocks are very dark, with dikes of quartz, and with twisting seams of red and black granite, the great body of rock being made up of decomposed micaceous schists and gneiss, a treacherous material to climb. The entrance to this gorge is made on a quiet pool with no shore on either side after once well in. But several parties had been through since Major Powell made his initial trip, so we did not hesitate, but pushed on with the current. Now we could truly say that we were going home. The Hance Rapid was behind us; Bright Angel Creek was about twelve miles away. Soon we were in the deepest part of the gorge. Great dikes and uplifts of jagged rocks towered above us; and up, up, up, lifted the other walls above that. Bissell Point, on the very top, could plainly be seen from our quiet pool. Then came a series of rapids quite different from the Hance Rapid, and many others found above. Those others were usually caused in part by the detritus or deposit from side canyons, which dammed the stream, and what might be a swift stream, with a continuous drop, was transformed to a succession of mill-ponds and cataracts, or rapids. In nearly every case, in low water such as we were travelling on, the deposit made a shore on which we could land and inspect the rapid from below. The swift water invariably makes a narrow channel if it has no obstruction in its way; it is the quiet stream that makes a wide channel. But the rapids we found this day were nearly all different. They were seldom caused by great deposits of rock, but appeared to be formed by a dike or ledge of hard rock rising from the softer rock--the same intrusion being sometimes found on both sides of the stream--forming a dam the full width of the channel, over which the water made a swift descent, with a long line of interference waves below. But for a cold wind which swept up the stream, this style of rapid was more to our fancy. These were "good rapids," the "best" we had seen. There were few rocks to avoid. Some of the rapids were violent, but careful handling took us past every danger. There was little chance to make a portage at several of these places had we desired to do so. We gave them but a glance from the decks of the boats, then dropped into them. In one instance I saw the _Edith_ literally shoot through a wave bow first, both ends of the boat being visible, while her captain was buried in the foam. We had learned to discriminate by its noise, long before we could see a rapid, whether it was filled with rocks, or was merely a descent of big water. The latter, often just as impressive as the former, had a sullen, steady boom; the rocky rapids had the same sound, punctuated by another sound, like the crack of regiments of musketry. All were greatly magnified in sound by the narrow, echoing walls. We became so accustomed to this noise that we almost forgot it was there, and it was only after the long, quiet stretches that the noise was noticed In a few instances only we noticed the shattering vibration of air that is associated with waterfalls. Still there is noise enough in many rapids so that their boom can be heard several miles away from the top of the canyons. Guided by these sounds, and aided by our method of holding the boat in mid-stream, while making a reconnaissance, we were quite well aware of what we were likely to find before we anchored above a rapid. We were never fearful of being drawn into a cataract without having a chance to land somewhere. The water is strangely quiet, to a comparatively close distance above nearly all rapids. We usually tied up anywhere from fifty feet to a hundred yards above a drop, before inspecting it. If it was a "big-water" rapid, we usually looked it over standing on the seat in the boats, then continued. By signals with the hands, the one first over would guide the other, if any hidden rocks or dangerous channel threatened. While we did not think much about it, we usually noted the places where one might climb out on the plateau. Little could be told about the upper walls from the river. A chilling wind swept up the river, penetrating our soaked garments. But we paid little attention to this, only pulling the harder, not only to keep the circulation going, but every pull of the oars put us that much nearer home. We never paused in our rowing until we anchored at 4.30 P.M. under Rust's tramway, close to the mouth of Bright Angel Creek. According to the United States Geological Survey there is a descent of 178 feet from the head of the Hance Rapid to the end of Bright Angel Trail one mile below the creek. We would have a very moderate descent in that mile. The run from the Hance Rapid had been made in less than five hours. Our boats were tied in the shadow of the cage hanging from a cable sixty feet above. It stretched across a quiet pool, 450 feet across--for the river is dammed by débris from the creek below, and fills the channel from wall to wall. Hurriedly we made our way up to Rust's camp,--closed for the winter; for heavy snows would cover the North Rim in a few days or a few weeks at the farthest, filling the trails with heavy drifts and driving the cougar into the canyon where dogs and horses cannot follow. But the latch-string was out for us, we knew, had we cared to use the tents. Our signal fire was built a mile above the camp, at a spot that was plainly visible on a clear day from our home on the other side, six miles away as the crow flies. We had often looked at this spot, with a telescope, from the veranda of our studio, watching the hunting and sight-seeing parties ride up the bed of the stream. We rather feared the drifting clouds and mists would hide the fire from view, but now and then a rift appeared, and we knew if they were looking they could see its light. Camp No. 51 was made close to Bright Angel Creek, that evening, Thursday, October the 16th, two months and eight days from the time we had embarked on our journey. Three or four hours were spent in packing our material the next morning, so it could be stored in a miners' tunnel, near the end of the trail. We would pack little of this out, as we intended to resume our river work in a week or ten days. A five-minute run took us over the rapid below Bright Angel Creek, and down to a bend in the river, just above the Cameron or Bright Angel Trail. Two men--guides from the hotel--called to us as our boats swept into view. We made a quick dash over the vicious little drop below the bend,--easy for our boats, but dangerous enough for lighter craft on account of a difficult whirlpool,--and were soon on shore greeting old friends. Up on the plateau, 1300 feet above, a trail party of tourists and guides called down their welcome. The stores were put in the miners' tunnel as we had planned, and the boats were taken above the high-water mark; placed in dry dock one might say. The guides had good news for us and bad news too. Emery's wife had been ill with appendicitis nearly all the time we were on our journey. We had received letters from her at every post-office excepting Lee's Ferry, but never a hint that all was not well. She knew it would break up the trip. Pretty good nerve, we thought! Ragged and weary, but happy; a little lean and over-trained, but feeling entirely "fit,"--we commenced our seven-mile climb up the trail, every turn of which seemed like an old friend. When 1300 feet above the river, our little workshop beside a stream on the plateau--only used at intervals when no water can be had on top, and closed for three months past--gave us our first cheerless greeting. Although little more than a hundred feet from the trail, we did not stop to inspect it. Cameron's Indian Garden Camp was also closed for the day, and we were disappointed in a hope that we could telephone to our home, 3200 feet above. But the tents, under rows of waving cottonwoods, and surrounded by beds of blooming roses and glorious chrysanthemums, gave us a more cheerful welcome than our little building below. We only stopped to quench our thirst in the bubbling spring, then began the four-mile climb that would put us on top of the towering cliff. Soon we overtook the party we had seen on the plateau. Some of the tourists kindly offered us their mules, but mules were too slow for us, and they were soon far below us. Calls, faint at first, but growing louder as we advanced, came floating down from above. On nearing the top our younger brother Ernest, who had come on from Pittsburg to look after our business, came running down the trail to greet us. One member of a troupe of moving-picture actors, in cowboy garb, remarked that we "didn't look like moving-picture explorers"; then little Edith emerged from our studio just below the head of Bright Angel Trail and came skipping down toward us, but stopped suddenly when near us, and said smilingly: "Is that my Daddy with all those whiskers?" CHAPTER XX ONE MONTH LATER Naturally we were very impatient to know just what success we had met with in our photographic work. Some of the motion pictures had been printed and returned to us. My brother, who meanwhile had taken his family to Los Angeles, sent very encouraging reports regarding some of the films. Among the Canyon visitors who came down to inspect the results of our trip were Thomas Moran, the famous artist, with his daughter, Miss Ruth, whose interest was more than casual. Thomas Moran's name, more than any other, with the possible exception of Major Powell's, is to be associated with the Grand Canyon. It was his painting which hangs in the capital at Washington that first acquainted the American public with the wonders of the Canyon. This painting was the result of a journey he made with Major Powell, from Salt Lake City to the north side of the Canyon, thirty-eight years before. In addition he had made most of the cuts that illustrated Major Powell's government report; making his sketches on wood from photographs this expedition had taken with the old-fashioned wet plates that had to be coated and developed on the spot--wonderful photographs, which for beauty, softness, and detail are not excelled, and are scarcely equalled by more modern plates and photographic results. The only great advantage of the dry plates was the fact that they could catch the action of the water with an instantaneous exposure, where the wet plates had to have a long exposure and lost that action. Thomas Moran could pick up almost any picture that we made, and tell us at once just what section it came from and its identifying characteristics. His daughter, Miss Ruth, was just as much interested in our trip and its results. She was anxious to know when we would go on again and planned on making the trail trip down to the plateau to see us take the plunge over the first rough rapid. She was just a little anxious to see an upset, and asked if we could not promise that one would occur. A month passed before my brother returned from Los Angeles. His wife, who had remained there, was in good health again, and insisted on his finishing the trip at once. We were just as anxious to have it finished, but were not very enthusiastic about this last part on account of some very cold weather we had been having. On the other hand, we feared if the trip was not finished then it might never be completed. So we consoled ourselves with the thought that it was some warmer at the bottom than it was on top, and prepared to make the final plunge--350 miles to Needles, with a 1600-foot descent in the 185 miles that remained of the Grand Canyon. A foot of snow had fallen two nights before we planned on leaving. The thermometer had dropped to zero, and a little below on one occasion, during the nights for a week past. Close to the top the trail was filled with drifts. The walls were white with snow down to the plateau, 3200 feet below; something unusual, as it seldom descends as snow lower than two thousand feet, but turns to rain. But a week of cold, cloudy weather, accompanied by hard winds, had driven all warmth from the canyon, allowing this snow to descend lower than usual. Under such conditions the damp cold in the canyon, while not registered on the thermometer as low as that on top, is more penetrating. Very little sun reaches the bottom of the inner gorge in December and January. It is usually a few degrees colder than the inner plateau above it, which is open, and does get some sun. These were the conditions when we returned to our boats December the 19th, 1911, and found a thin covering of ice on small pools near the river. Our party was enlarged by the addition of two men who were anxious for some river experience. One was our younger brother, Ernest. We agreed to take him as far as the Bass Trail, twenty-five miles below, where he could get out on top and return to our home. The other was a young man named Bert Lauzon, who wanted to make the entire trip, and we were glad to have him. Lauzon, although but 24 years old, had been a quartz miner and mining engineer for some years. Coming from the mountains of Colorado, he had travelled over most of the Western states, and a considerable part of Mexico, in his expeditions. There was no question in our minds about Lauzon. He was the man we needed. To offset the weight of an extra man for each boat, our supplies were cut to the minimum, arrangements having been made with W.W. Bass--the proprietor of the Bass Camps and of the Mystic Springs Trail--to have some provisions packed in over his trail. What provisions we took ourselves were packed down on two mules, and anything we could spare from our boats was packed out on the same animals. As we were about ready to leave a friendly miner said: "You can't hook fish in the Colorado in the winter, they won't bite nohow. You'd better take a couple of sticks of my giant-powder along. That will help you get 'em, and it may keep you from starving." Under the circumstances it seemed like a wise precaution and we took his giant-powder, as he had suggested. The river had fallen two feet below the stage on which we quit a month before. A scale of foot-marks on a rock wall rising from the river showed that the water twenty-seven feet deep at that spot. No measurement was made in the middle of the river channel. The current here between two small rapids flows at five and three-fourths miles per hour. The width of the stream is close to 250 feet. The high-water mark here is forty-five feet above the low-water stage, then the river spreads to five hundred feet in width, running with a swiftness and strength of current and whirlpool that is tremendous. The highest authentic measurement in a narrow channel, of which we know, is one made by Julius F. Stone in Marble Canyon. He recorded one spot where the high-water mark was 115 feet above the low-water mark. These figures might look large at first, but if they are compared with some of the floods on the Ohio River, for instance, and that stream were boxed in a two hundred foot channel the difference would not be great, we imagine. One of the young men who greeted us when we landed came down with a companion to see us embark. On the plateau 1300 feet above, looking like small insects against the sky-line, was a trail party, equally interested. They did not stand on the point usually visited by such parties but had gone to a point about a mile to the west, where they had a good view of a short, rough rapid, the little rapid below the trail, while it was no place that one would care to swim in, had no comparison with this other rapid in violence. We had promised the party that we would run this rapid that afternoon, so we spent little time in packing systematically, but hurriedly threw the stuff in and embarked. Less than an hour later we had made the two-mile run and the dash through the short rapid, to the entire satisfaction of all concerned. We camped a short distance below the rapid, just opposite a grave of a man whose skeleton had been found halfway up the granite, five years before. Judging by his clothes and hob-nailed shoes he was a prospector. He was lying in a natural position, with his head resting on a rock. An overcoat was buttoned tightly about him. No large bones were broken, but he might have had a fall and been injured internally. More likely he became sick and died. The small bones of the hands and feet had been taken away by field-mice, and no doubt the turkey-buzzards had stripped the flesh. His pockets contained Los Angeles newspapers of 1900; he was found in 1906. The pockets also contained a pipe and a pocket-knife, but nothing by which he could be identified. The coroner's jury--of which my brother was a member--buried him where he was found, covering the body with rocks, for there was no earth. Such finds are not unusual in this rugged country. These prospectors seldom say where they are going, no track is kept of their movements, and unless something about their clothes tells who they are, their identity is seldom established. The proximity of this grave made us wonder how many more such unburied bodies there were along this river. We thought too of our friend Smith, back in Cataract Canyon, and wondered if we would hear from him again. Our helpers got a lot of experience in motion-picture making the next day, while we ran our boats through a number of good, strong rapids, well known locally as the Salt Creek Rapid, Granite Falls or Monument Rapid, the Hermit, the Bouchere, and others. This was all new to the boys, and provided some thrilling entertainment for them. When a difficult passage was safely made Bert would wave his hat and yell "Hoo" in a deep, long call that would carry above the roar of the rapids, then he and Ernest would follow along the shore with their cameras, as these rapids all had a shore on one side or the other. The sun shone on the river this day, and we congratulated ourselves on having made the most of our opportunities. In our first rapid the next morning, we had to carry our passengers whether we wanted to or not. There was no shore on either side. In such plunges they would lie down on the deck of the boat behind the oarsman, holding to the raised bulkhead, ducking their heads when an oncoming wave prepared to break over them. Then they would shake themselves as a water-spaniel does, and Bert with a grin would say, "Young fellows, business is picking up!" Ernest agreed, too, that he had never seen anything in Pittsburg that quite equalled it. If the rapid was not bad, they sat upright on the deck, but this made the boats top-heavy, and as much of the oarsman's work depended on swinging his weight from side to side, it was important that no mistake should be made about this distribution of weight. Often the bottom of a boat would show above the water as it listed to one side. At such a time a person sitting on the raised deck might get thrown overboard. Before starting on this last trip we had thought it would be only right to give our younger brother a ride in a rapid that would be sure to give him a good ducking, as his experience was going to be short. But the water and the wind, especially in the shadows, was so very cold that we gave this plan up, and avoided the waves as much as possible. He got a ducking this morning, however, in a place where we least expected it. It was not a rapid, just smooth, very swift water, while close to the right shore there was one submerged rock with a foot of water shooting over it, in such a way that it made a "reverse whirl" as they are called in Alaska--water rolling back upstream, and from all sides as well, to fill the vacuum just below the rock. This one was about twelve feet across; the water disappeared as though it was being poured down a manhole. The least care, or caution, would have taken me clear this place; but the smooth water was so deceptive, and was so much stronger than I had judged it to be, that I found myself caught sideways to the current, hemmed in with waves on all sides of the boat, knocked back and forth, and resisted in all my efforts to pull clear. The boat was gradually filling with the splashing water. Ernest was lying on the deck, hanging on like grim death, slipping off, first on one side, then on the other, and wondering what was going to happen. So was I. To be held up in the middle of a swift stream was a new experience, and I was not proud of it. The others passed as soon as they saw what had happened, and were waiting in an eddy below. Perhaps we were there only one minute, but it seemed like five. I helped Ernest into the cockpit. About that time the boat filled with splashing water and sunk low, the stream poured over the rock and into the boat, and she upset instantly. Ernest had on two life-preservers, and came up about thirty feet below, swimming very well considering that he was weighted with heavy clothes and high-topped shoes. The boys pulled him in before he was carried against a threatening wall. Meanwhile, I held to the boat, which was forced out as soon as she was overturned, and climbed on top, or rather on the bottom. I was trying to make the best of things and was giving a cheer when some one said, "There goes your hatch cover and you've lost the motion-picture camera." Perhaps I had. My cheering ceased. The camera had been hurriedly shoved down in the hatch a few minutes before. On being towed to shore, however, we found the camera had not fallen out. It had been shoved to the side less than one inch, but that little bit had saved it. It was filled with water, though, and all the pictures were on the unfinished roll in the camera, and were ruined. We had been in the ice-cold water long enough to lose that glow which comes after a quick immersion and were chilled through; but what bothered me more than anything else was the fact that I had been caught in such a trap after successfully running the bad rapids above. We made a short run after that so as to get out of sight of the deceptive place, then proceeded to dry out. The ruined film came in handy for kindling our camp-fire. We were now in the narrowest part of the upper portion of the Grand Canyon, the distance from rim to rim at one point being close to six miles. The width at Bright Angel varied from eight to fourteen miles. The peaks rising from the plateau, often as high as the canyon walls, and with flat tops a mile or more in width, made the canyon even narrower, so that at times we were in canyons close to a mile in depth, and little over four miles across at the tops. In this section of the granite there were few places where one could climb out. Nearly all the lateral canyons ended quite a distance above the river, then fell sheer; the lower parts of the walls were quite often smooth-surfaced, where they were polished by the sands in the stream. The black granite in such cases resembled huge deposits of anthracite coal. Sections of the granite often projected out of the water as islands, with the softer rock washed away, the granite being curiously carved by whirling rocks and the emery-like sands. Holes three and four feet deep were worn by small whirling rocks, and grooves were worn at one place by growing willows working back and forth in the water, the sand, strange to say, having less effect on the limbs than it had on the hard rocks. About noon of the day following this upset we reached the end of the Bass Trail and another cable crossing, about sixty feet above the water. Three men were waiting for us, and gave a call when we rowed in sight of their camp. One was Lauzon's brother, another was Cecil Dodd, a cowboy who looked after Bass' stock, and the breaking of his horses, the third was John Norberg, an "old timer" and an old friend as well, engaged at that time in working some asbestos and copper claims. The granite was broken down at this point, and another small deposit of algonkian was found here. There were intrusions, faults, and displacements both in these formations and in the layers above. These fractures exposed mineral seams and deposits of copper and asbestos on both sides of the river, some of which Bass had opened up and located, waiting for the day when there would be better transportation facilities than his burros afforded. This was not our first visit to this section. On other occasions we had descended by the Mystic Spring (or Bass) Trail, on the south side, crossed on the tramway and were taken by Bass over some of his many trails, on the north side. We had visited the asbestos claims, where the edge of a blanket formation of the rock known as serpentine, containing the asbestos, lay exposed to view, twisting around the head of narrow canyons, and under beetling cliffs. We went halfway up the north rim trail, through Shinumo and White canyons, our objective point on these trips being a narrow box canyon which contained a large boulder, rolled from the walls above, and wedged in the flume-like gorge far above our heads. This trail continues up to the top, going over the narrow neck which connects Powell's Plateau--a segregated section of thickly wooded surface several miles in extent--with the main extent of the Kaibab Plateau. Ernest, though slightly affected with tonsillitis, was loath to leave us here. It was zero weather on top, we were told, and it looked it. The walls and peaks were white with snow. He would not have an easy trip. The drifted snow was only broken by the one party that we found at the river, and quite likely it would be very late when he arrived at the ranch. John went up with him a few miles to get a horse for the ride home the next day. Ernest took with him a few hurriedly written letters and the exposed plates. The film we were going to save was lost in the upset. On inspecting the provisions which were packed in here we found the grocers had shipped the order short, omitting, besides other necessities, some canned baked beans, on which we depended a great deal. This meant one of two things. We would have to make a quicker run than we had planned on, or would have to get out of the canyon at one of the two places where such an exit could easily be made. The M. P. as our motion-picture camera was called--and which was re-christened but not abbreviated by Bert, as "The Member of Parliament"--had to be cleaned before we could proceed. It took all this day, and much of the next, to get the moisture and sand out of the delicate mechanism, and have it running smoothly again. After it was once more in good condition Emery announced that he wanted to work out a few scenes of an uncompleted "movie-drama." The action was snappy. The plot was brief, but harmonized well with the setting, and the "props." Dodd, who was a big Texan, was cast for the role of horse thief and bad man in general. Bert's brother, Morris Lauzon, was the deputy sheriff, and had a star cut from the top of a tomato can to prove it. John was to be a prospector. He would need little rehearsing for this part. In addition, he had not been out where he could have the services of a barber for six months past, which was all the better. John had a kind, quiet, easy-going way that made friends for him on sight. He was not consulted about the part he was to play, but we counted on his good nature and he was cast for the part. Emery, who was cast for the part of a mining engineer, arrived on the scene in his boat, after rounding the bend above the camp, tied up and climbed out over the cliffs to view the surrounding country. The hidden desperado, knowing that he was being hunted, stole the boat with its contents, and made his escape. The returning engineer arrived just in time to see his boat in the middle of the stream, and a levelled rifle halted him until the boat was hidden around the bend. At that moment the officer joined him, and a hurried consultation was held. Then the other boat, which had been separated from its companion, pulled into sight, and I was hailed by the men on shore. They came aboard and we gave chase. Could anything be better? The thief naturally thought he was safe, as he had not seen the second boat! After going over a few rapids, he saw a fire up in the cliffs, on the opposite side of the river. He landed, and climbed up to the camp where John was at work. John shared his camp fare with him, and directed him to a hidden trail. The pursuers, on finding the abandoned boat, quietly followed the trail, and surprised Dodd in John's camp. He was disarmed and sent across the river in the tramway, accompanied by the deputy, and was punished as he richly deserved to be. This was the scenario. Bert handled the camera. Emery was the playwright, director, and producer. All rights reserved. Everything worked beautifully. The film did not get balled up in the cogs, as sometimes happened. The light was good. Belasco himself could not have improved on the stage-setting. The trail led over the wildest, and most picturesque places imaginable. Dodd made a splendid desperado, and acted as if he had done nothing but steal horses and dodge the officers all his life. A pile of driftwood fifty feet high and with a tunnel underneath made a splendid hiding place for him while the first boat was being tied. Being a cowpuncher, it may be that he did not handle the oars as well as an experienced riverman, but any rapid could be used for an insert. The deputy, though youthful, was determined and never lost sight of the trail. The engineer acted his part well and registered surprise and anger, when he found how he had been tricked. John, who had returned, humoured us, and dug nuggets of gold out of limestone rocks, where no one would have thought of looking for them. The fact that the tramway scene was made before any of the others did not matter. We could play our last act first if we wanted to. All we had to do was to cut the film and fasten it on to the end. Emery was justly proud of his first efforts as a producer. We were sorry this film had not been sent out with Ernest. This thrilling drama will not be released in the near future. One day later we found that a drop of water had worked into the lens cell at the last upset. This fogged the lens. We focussed with a scale and had overlooked the lens when cleaning the camera. Nothing but a very faint outline showed on the film. We had all the film we needed for a week after this, for kindling our fires. CHAPTER XXI WHAT CHRISTMAS EVE BROUGHT In recording our various mishaps and upsets in these pages, it may seem to the reader as if I have given undue prominence to the part I took in them. If so, it has not been from choice, but because they happened in that way. No doubt a great deal of my trouble was due to carelessness. After I had learned to row my boat fairly well I sometimes took chances that proved to be anything but advisable, depending a good deal on luck, and luck was not always with me. My brother was less hasty in making his decisions, and was more careful in his movements, with the result that his boat had few marks of any kind, and he had been more fortunate than I with the rapids. It is my duty to record another adventure at this point, in which we all three shared, each in a different manner. This time I am going to give my brother's record of the happenings that overtook us about four o'clock in the afternoon of December the 24th, less than three hours after we left our friends at the Bass Trail with "best wishes for a Merry Christmas," and had received instructions from John "to keep our feet dry" My brother's account follows: "The fourth rapid below the Bass Trail was bad, but after looking it over we decided it could be run. We had taken chances in rapids that looked worse and came through unharmed; if we were successful here, it would be over in a few minutes, and forgotten an hour later. So we each made the attempt." "Lauzon had gone near the lower end of the rapid, taking the left shore, for a sixty-foot wall with a sloping bench on top rose sheer out of the water on the right. The only shore on the right was close to the head of the rapid, a small deposit or bank of earth and rock. The inner gorge here was about nine hundred feet deep." "Ellsworth went first, taking the left-hand side. I picked out a course on the right as being the least dangerous; but I was scarcely started when I found myself on a nest of jagged rocks, with violent water all about me, and with other rocks, some of them submerged, below me. I climbed out on the rocks and held the boat." "If the others could land below the rapid and climb back, they might get a rope to me and pull me off the rocks far enough to give me a new start, but they could not pull the boat in to shore through the rough water. A person thinks quickly under such circumstances, I had it all figured out as soon as I was on the rocks. The greatest trouble would be to hold the boat if she broke loose." "Then I saw that the _Defiance_ was in trouble. She caught in a reverse whirl in the very middle of the pounding rapid, bouncing back and forth like a great rubber ball. Finally she filled with the splashing water, sank low, and the water pouring over the rock caught the edge of the twelve-hundred pound boat and turned her over as if she were a toy; my brother was holding to the gunwale when she turned. Still she was held in the whirl, jumping as violently as ever, then turned upright again and was forced out. Ellsworth had disappeared, but came up nearly a hundred feet below, struggling to keep on top but going down with every breaking wave. When the quieter water was reached, he did not seem to have strength enough to swim out, but floated, motionless, in a standing position, his head kept up by the life-preservers. The next rapid was not over fifty yards below. If he was to be saved it must be done instantly." "I pried the boat loose, jumped in as she swung clear, and pulled with all my might, headed toward the centre of the river. I was almost clear when I was drawn over a dip, bow first, and struck a glancing blow against another rock I had never seen. There was a crash, and the boards broke like egg-shells. It was all done in a few moments. The _Edith_ was a wreck, I did not know how bad. My brother had disappeared. Lauzon was frantically climbing over some large boulders trying to reach the head of the next rapid, where the boat was held in an eddy. My boat was not upset, but the waves were surging through a great hole in her side. She was drawn into an eddy, close to the base of the wall, where I could tie up and climb out. It seemed folly to try the lower end with my filled boat. Climbing to the top of the rock, I could see half a mile down the canyon, but my brother was nowhere to be seen and I had no idea that he had escaped. I was returning to my wrecked boat when Bert waved his arms, and pointed to the head of the rapid. Going back once more, I saw him directly below me at the base of the sheer rock, in an opening where the wall receded. He had crawled out twenty feet above the next rapid. Returning to my wrecked boat, I was soon beside him. He was exhausted with his struggle in the icy waves; his outer garments were frozen. I soon procured blankets from my bed, removed the wet clothes, and wrapped him up. Lauzon, true to our expectations of what he would do when the test came, swam out and rescued the _Defiance_ before she was carried over the next rapid. He was inexperienced at the oars and had less than two hours practice after he had joined us. It was a tense moment when he started across, above the rapid. But he made it! Landing with a big grin, he exclaimed, 'Young fellows, business is picking up!' then added, 'And we're losing lots of good pictures!'" "These experiences were our Christmas presents that year. They were not done up in small packages." "We repaired the boat on Christmas day. Three smashed side ribs were replaced with mesquite, which we found growing on the walls. The hole was patched with boards from the loose bottom. This was painted; canvas was tacked over that and painted also, and a sheet of tin or galvanized iron went over it all. This completed the repair and the _Edith_ was as seaworthy as before." This is Emery's account of the "Christmas Rapid." I will add that the freezing temperature of the water and the struggle for breath in the breaking waves left me exhausted and at the mercy of the river. An eddy drew me out of the centre of the stream when I had given up all hope of any escape from the next rapid. I had seen my brother on the rock below the head of the rapid and knew there was no hope from him. As I was being drawn back into the current, close to the end of the sheer wall on the right, my feet struck bottom on some débris washed down from the cliff. I made three efforts to stand but fell each time, and finally crawled out on my hands and knees. I had the peculiar sensation of seeing a rain-storm descending before my eyes, although I knew no such thing existed; every fibre in my body ached and continued to do so for days afterward; and the moment I would close my eyes to sleep I would see mountainous waves about me and would feel myself being whirled head over heels just as I was in that rapid; but this rapid, strange to say, while exceedingly rough and swift, did not contain any waves that we would have considered large up to this time. In other words, it depended on the circumstances whether it was bad or not. When standing on the shore, picking a channel, it appeared to be a moderately bad rapid, in which a person, aided with life-preservers, should have little difficulty in keeping on top, at least half the time. After my battle, in which, as far as personal effort went, I had lost, and after my providential escape, that one rapid appeared to be the largest of the entire series. It is difficult to describe the rapids with the foot-rule standard, and give an idea of their power. One unfamiliar with "white water" usually associates a twelve-foot descent or a ten-foot wave with a similar wave on the ocean. There is no comparison. The waters of the ocean rise and fall, the waves travel, the water itself, except in breakers, is comparatively still. In bad rapids the water is whirled through at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, in some cases much swifter; the surface is broken by streams shooting up from every submerged rock; the weight of the river is behind it, and the waves, instead of tumbling forward, quite as often break upstream. Such waves, less than six feet high, are often dangers to be shunned. After being overturned in them we learned their tremendous power, a power we would never have associated with any water, before such an experience, short of a waterfall. There is a certain amount of danger in the canyons,--plenty of it. Still, in most cases, with care and forethought, much of it can be avoided. We think we are safe in saying that half of the parties who have attempted a passage through these canyons have met with fatalities. Most of these have occurred in Cataract Canyon, not because it is any worse than other sections,--certainly no worse than the Grand Canyon,--but because it is easily entered from the quiet, alluring water of the lower Green River. Without a doubt each successful expedition is responsible in a way for others' attempts. In nearly every instance the unfortunate ones have underestimated the danger, and have attempted the passage with inadequate boats, such as Smith had for instance, undecked and without air chambers. Both of these are imperative for safety. We had the benefit of the experiences of others. In addition, our years of work in the canyons had robbed them of their imaginary dangers, and--while we trust that we are not entirely without imagination--much of their weirdness and glamour with which they are inseparable to the idealist and the impressionist. Each of these upsets could have been avoided by a portage had we desired to make one, but success in other rapids made us a little reckless and ready to take a chance. Beyond getting our flour wet on the outside, we suffered very little loss to our cargo. We placed the two flour sacks beside the fires each evening, until the wet flour dried to a crust. We continued to use out of the centre of the sacks as though nothing had ever happened. Bert and I each had a little cough the next morning, but it disappeared by noon. Beyond that, we suffered no great inconvenience from our enforced bath. Sleeping in the open, with plenty of healthful exercise, kept us physically fit. The cold air and the cold water did not seem to bother the others, but I could not get comfortably warm during this cold snap. Added to this, it took me some time to get over my scare, and I could see all kinds of danger, in rapids, where Emery could see none. I insisted on untying the photographic cases from the boats, and carrying them around a number of rapids before we ran them. It is hardly necessary to say that no upset occurred in these rapids. Then came a cold day, with a raw wind sweeping up the river. A coating of ice covered the boats and the oars. We had turned directly to the north along the base of Powell's plateau, and were nearing the end of a second granite gorge, with violent rapids and jagged rocks. Emery made the remark that he had not had a swim for some time. In a half-hour we came to a rapid with two twelve-foot waves in the centre of the stream, with a projecting point above that would have to be passed, before we could pull out of the swift-running centre. Emery got his swim there. I was just behind and was more fortunate. I never saw anything more quickly done. Before the boat was fully overturned he swung an oar, so that it stuck out at an angle from the side of the boat, and used the oar for a step; an instant later he had cut the oar loose, and steered toward the shore. Bert threw him a rope from the shore, and he was pulled in. He was wearing a thin rubber coat fitting tightly about his wrists, tied about his neck, and belted at the waist. This protected him so thoroughly that he was only wet from the waist down. If we were a little inclined to be proud of our record above Bright Angel we had forgotten all about it by this time. We were scarcely more than sixty miles from home and had experienced three upsets and a smashed boat, all in one week. Just at the end of the second granite section we made our first portage since leaving Bright Angel. Bert and I worked on the boats, while Emery cooked the evening meal. Hot rice soup, flavoured with a can of prepared meat, was easily and quickly prepared, and formed one of the usual dishes at these meals. It contained a lot of nutriment, and the rice took up but little space in the boats. Sometimes the meat was omitted, and raisins were substituted. Prepared baked beans were a staple dish, but were not in our supply on this last part of the trip. We often made "hot cakes" twice a day; an excuse for eating a great deal of butter and honey, or syrup. None of these things were luxuries. They were the best foodstuff we could carry. We seemed to crave sweet stuff, and used quantities of sugar. We could carry eggs, when packed in sawdust, without trouble but did not carry many. We had little meat; what we had was bacon, and prepared meats of the lunch variety. Cheese was our main substitute for meat. It was easily carried and kept well. Dried peaches or apricots were on the bill for nearly every meal, each day's allowance being cooked the evening before. We tried several condensed or emergency foods, but discarded them all but one, for various reasons. The exception was Erbeswurst, a patent dried soup preparation. Other prepared soups were carried also. I must not forget the morning cereal. It was Cream of Wheat, easily prepared; eaten--not served, perhaps devoured would be a better word--with sugar and condensed cream, as long as it lasted, then with butter. Any remainder from breakfast was fried for other meals. Each evening, we would make some baking-powder biscuit in a frying-pan. A Dutch oven is better, but had too much weight. The appellation for such bread is "flapjack" or "dough-god." When I did the baking they were fearfully and wonderfully made. Cocoa, which was nourishing, often took the place of coffee. In fact our systems craved just what was most needed to build up muscle and create heat. We found it was useless to try to catch fish after the weather became cold. The fish would not bite. On the upper end of our journey we carried no tobacco, as it happened that Jimmy as well as ourselves were not tobacco users. There were no alcoholic stimulants. When Bert joined us, a small flask, for medicinal purposes only, was taken along. The whiskey was scarcely touched at this time. Bert enjoyed a pipe after his meals, but continued to keep good-natured even when his tobacco got wet, so tobacco was not absolutely necessary to him. Uninteresting and unromantic these things may be, but they were most important to us. We were only sorry the supply was not larger. While we never stinted ourselves, or cut the allowance of food, the amount was growing smaller every day, and it was not a question any more whether we would go out or not, to get provisions, to "rustle" as Bert called it, but where we would go out. We might go up Cataract Creek or Ha Va Su Creek, as it is sometimes called. We had been to the mouth of this canyon on foot, so there would be no danger of missing it. The Ha Va Supai Indians, about two hundred in number, lived in this lateral canyon about seven or eight miles from the river. An agent and a farmer lived with them, and might be able to sell us some provisions; if not, it would be fifty miles back to our home. The trail was much more direct than the river. The great drawback to this course was the fact that Ha Va Su Canyon, sheer-walled, deep, and narrow, contained a number of waterfalls, one of them about 175 feet high. The precipice over which it fell was nothing but a mineral deposit from the water, building higher every year. Formerly this was impassable, until some miners, after enlarging a sloping cave, had cut a winding stairway in it, which allowed a descent to be made to the bottom of the fall. A recent storm had remodelled all the falls in Cataract Creek Canyon, cutting out the travertine in some places, piling it up in others. A great mass of cottonwood trees were also mixed with the débris. The village, too, had been washed away and was then being rebuilt. We had been told that the tunnel was filled up, and as far as we knew no one had been to the river since the flood. The other outlet was Diamond Creek Canyon, much farther down the river. We would decide when we got to Ha Va Su just what we would do. Tapeets Creek, one mile below our camp,--a stream which has masqueraded under the title of Thunder River, and about which there has been considerable speculation,--proved to be a stream a little smaller than Bright Angel Creek, flowing through a narrow slot in the rocks, and did not fall sheer into the river, as has been reported. Perhaps a small cascade known as Surprise Falls which we passed the next day has been confused with Tapeets Creek. This stream corkscrews down through a narrow crevice and falls about two hundred feet, close to the river's edge. We are told that the upper end of Tapeets Creek is similar to this, but on a much larger scale. Just opposite this fall a big mountain-sheep jumped from under an overhanging ledge close to the water, and stared curiously at us, as though he wondered what strange things those were coming down with the current. It is doubtful if he ever saw a human being before. This sight sent us scrambling in our cases for cameras and firearms; and it was not the game laws, but a rusted trigger on the six-shooter instead, that saved the sheep. He finally took alarm and scampered away over the rocks, and we had no mutton stew that night. We had one night of heavy rain, and morning revealed a little snow within three hundred feet of the river, while a heavy white blanket covered the upper cliffs. It continued to snow on top, and rained on us nearly all this day. Emery took this opportunity to get the drop of moisture out of the lens, and put the camera in such shape that we could proceed with our picture making. A short run was made after this work was completed. The camp we were just leaving was about three miles above Kanab Canyon. The granite was behind us, disappearing with a steep descent much as it had emerged at the Hance Trail. There was also a small deposit of algonkian. This too had been passed, and we were back in the limestone and sandstone walls similar to the lower end of Marble Canyon. While the formations were the same, the canyon differed. The layers were thicker, the red sandstone and the marble walls were equally sheer; there was no plateau between. What plateau this canyon contained lay on top of the red sandstone. Few peaks rose above this. The canyon had completed its northern run and was turning back again to the west-southwest with a great sweep or circle. Less than an hour's work brought us to Kanab Canyon. CHAPTER XXII SHORT OF PROVISIONS IN A SUNLESS GORGE In the mud at Kanab Canyon we saw an old footprint of some person who had come down to the river through this narrow, gloomy gorge. It was here that Major Powell terminated his second voyage, on account of extreme high water. A picture they made showed their boats floated up in this side canyon. Our stage was much lower than this. F.S. Dellenbaugh, the author of "A Canyon Voyage," was a member of this second expedition. This book had been our guide down to this point; we could not have asked for a better one. Below here we had a general idea of the nature of the river, and had a set of the government maps, but we had neglected to provide ourselves with detailed information such as this volume gave us. Evening of the following day found us at Cataract Creek Canyon, but with a stage of water in the river nearly fifty feet lower than that which we had seen a few years before. The narrow entrance of this great canyon gives no hint of what it is like a few miles above. The Indian village is in the bottom of a 3000-foot canyon, half a mile wide and three miles long, covered with fertile fields, peach and apricot orchards. It even contained a few fig trees. Below the village the canyon narrowed to a hundred yards, with a level bottom, covered with a tangle of wild grape vines, cactus, and cottonwood trees. This section contained the two largest falls, and came to an end about four miles below the first fall. Then the canyon narrowed, deep and gloomy, until there was little room for anything but the powerful, rapidly descending stream. At the lower end it was often waist deep and fifteen or twenty feet wide. It was no easy task to go through this gorge. The stream had to be crossed several times. The canyon terminated in an extremely narrow gorge 2500 feet deep, dark and gloomy, one of the most impressive gorges we have ever seen. The main canyon was similar, with a few breaks on the sides, those breaks being ledges, or narrow sloping benches that would extend for miles, only to be brought to an abrupt end by side canyons. There are many mountain-sheep in this section, but we saw none either time. We could see many fresh tracks where they had followed these ledges around, and had gone up the narrow side canyon. It was cold in the main canyon, and no doubt the sheep could be found on the plateaus, which were more open, and would get sun when the sun shone. This plateau was 2500 feet above us. At the turn of the canyon we could see the other walls 2000 feet above that. The rapids in the section just passed had been widely separated and compared well with those of Marble Canyon, not the worst we had seen, but far from being tame. There was plenty of shore room at each of these rapids. Cactus of different species was now a feature of the scenery. The ocotilla or candlewood with long, lash-like stalks springing from a common centre--that cactus, which, when dried, needs only a lighted match to set it afire--flourishes in the rocky ledges. A species of small barrel-cactus about the size of a man's head, with fluted sides, or symmetrical vertical rows of small thorned lumps converging at the top of the "nigger-head," as they are sometimes called, grows in great numbers in crevices on the walls. The delicate "pin cushion" gathered in clusters of myriad small spiny balls. The prickly pear, here in Ha Va Su Canyon, were not the starved, shrivelled, mineral-tinted cactus such as we found at the beginning of our trip. Instead they were green and flourishing, with large fleshy leaves joining on to each other until they rise to a height of three feet or more and cover large patches of ground to the utter exclusion of all other growth. What a display of yellow and red these desert plants put forth when they are in bloom! A previous visit to Ha Va Su was made in the month of May when every group of prickly pear was a riot of pure colour. All this prolific growth is made possible by the extreme heat of the summer months aided in the case of those plants and trees which flourish in the fertile soil of Ha Va Su by the sub-irrigation and the spray from the fall. After making an inventory of our provisions we concluded not to try the tedious and uncertain trip up Cataract Creek. With care and good fortune we would have enough provisions to last us to Diamond Creek. With our run the next day the inner gorge continued to deepen, the walls drew closer together, so that we now had a narrow gorge hemming us in with 3000-foot walls from which there was no escape. They were about a fourth of a mile apart at the top. A boat at the foot of one of these walls was merely an atom. The total depth of the canyon was close to 4500 feet. There is nothing on earth to which this gorge can be compared. Storm-clouds lowered into the chasm in the early morning. The sky was overcast and threatening. We were travelling directly west again, and no sunlight entered here, even when the sun shone. The walls had lost their brighter reds, and what colour they had was dark and sombre, a dirty brown and dark green predominating. The mythology of the ancients, with their Inferno and their River Styx, could hardly conjure anything more supernatural or impressive than this gloomy gorge. There were a few bad rapids. One or two had no shore, others had an inclination to run under one wall and had to be run very carefully. If we could not get down alongside of a rapid, we could usually climb out on the walls at the head of the rapid and look it over from that vantage point. The one who climbed out would signal directions to the others, who would run it at once, and continue on to the next rapid. They would have its course figured out when the last boat arrived. One canyon entered from the left, level on the bottom, and about one hundred feet wide; it might be a means of outlet from this canyon, but it is doubtful, for the marble has a way of ending abruptly and dropping sheer, with a polished surface that is impossible to climb. New Year's Eve was spent in this section. The camp was exceptionally good. A square-sided, oblong section of rock about fifty feet long had fallen forward from the base of the cliff. This left a cave-like opening which was closed at one end with our dark-room tent. High water had placed a sandy floor, now thoroughly dry, in the bottom. Under the circumstances we could hardly ask for anything better. Of driftwood there was none, and our camp-fires were made of mesquite which grew in ledges in the rocks; in one case gathered with a great deal of labour on the shore opposite our camp, and ferried across on our boats. If a suitable camp was found after 3.30 P.M., we kept it, rather than run the risk of not finding another until after dark. Another day, January 1, 1912, brought us to the end of this gorge and into a wider and more open canyon, with the country above covered with volcanic peaks and cinder cones. Blow-holes had broken through the canyon walls close to the top of the gorge, pouring streams of lava down its sides, filling the bottom of the canyon with several hundred feet of lava. This condition extended down the canyon for twenty miles or more. Judging by the amount of lava the eruption must have continued for a great while. Could one imagine a more wonderful sight--the turbulent stream checked by the fire flood from above! What explosions and rending of rocks there must have been when the two elements met. The river would be backed up for a hundred miles! Each would be shoved on from behind! There was no escape! They must fight it out until one or the other conquered. But the fire could not keep up forever, and, though triumphant for a period, it finally succumbed, and the stream proceeded to cut down to the original level. Two miles below the first lava flow we saw what we took to be smoke and hurried down wondering if we would find a prospector or a cattle rustler. We agreed, if it was the latter, to let them off if they would share with us. But the smoke turned out to be warm springs, one of them making quite a stream which fell twenty feet into the river. Here in the river was a cataract, called Lava Falls, so filled with jagged pieces of the black rock that a portage was advisable. The weather had not moderated any in the last week, and we were in the water a great deal as we lifted and lined the boats over the rocks at the edge of the rapids. We would work in the water until numbed with the cold, then would go down to the warm springs and thaw out for a while. This was a little quicker than standing by the fire, but the relief was only temporary. This portage was finished the next morning. Another portage was made this same day, and the wide canyon where Major Powell found some Indian gardens was passed in the afternoon. The Indians were not at home when the Major called. His party felt they were justified in helping themselves to some pumpkins or squash, for their supplies were very low, and they could not go out to a settlement--as we expected to do in a day or two--and replenish them. We found the fish would not bite, just as our friend, the miner, had said, but we did succeed in landing a fourteen-pound salmon, in one of the deep pools not many miles from this point, and it was served up in steaks the next day. If our method of securing the salmon was unsportsmanlike, we excused ourselves for the methods used, just as Major Powell justified his appropriation of the Indians' squash. If that fish was ever needed, it was then, and it was a most welcome addition to our rapidly disappearing stock of provisions. We were only sorry we had not taken more "bait." The next day we did see a camp-fire, and on climbing the shore, found a little old prospector, clad in tattered garments, sitting in a little dugout about five feet square which he had shovelled out of the sand. He had roofed it with mesquite and an old blanket. A rapid, just below, made so much noise that he did not hear us until we were before his door. He looked at the rubber coats and the life-preservers, then said, with a matter-of-fact drawl, "Well, you fellows must have come by the river!" After talking awhile he asked: "What do you call yourselves?" This question would identify him as an old-time Westerner if we did not already know it. At one time it was not considered discreet to ask any one in these parts what their name was, or where they were from. He gave us a great deal of information about the country, and said that Diamond Creek was about six miles below. He had come across from Diamond Creek by a trail over a thousand foot ridge, with a burro and a pack mule, a month before. He had just been out near the top on the opposite side, doing some assessment work on some copper claims, crossing the river on a raft, and stated that on a previous occasion he had been drawn over the rapid, but got out. When he learned that we had come through Utah, he stated that he belonged near Vernal, and had once been upset in the upper canyons, about twenty years before. He proved to be the Snyder of whom we had heard at Linwood, and also from the Chews, who had given him a horse so he could get out over the mountains. Yet here was, a thousand miles below, cheerful as a cricket, and sure that a few months at the most would bring him unlimited wealth. He asked us to "share his chuck" with him, but we could see nothing but a very little flour, and a little bacon, so pleaded haste and pushed on for Diamond Creek. The mouth of this canyon did not look unlike others we had seen in this section, and one could easily pass it without knowing that it ran back with a gentle slope for twenty miles, and that a wagon road came down close to the river. It contained a small, clear stream. The original tourist camp in the Grand Canyon was located up this canyon. We packed all our plates and films, ready to take them out. The supplies left in the boats when we went out the next morning were: 5 pounds of flour, partly wet and crusted. 2 pounds mildewed Cream of Wheat. 3 or 4 cans (rusty) of dried beef. Less than one pound of sugar. We carried a lunch out with us. This was running a little too close for comfort. The mouth of Diamond Creek Canyon was covered with a growth of large mesquite trees. Cattle trails wound through this thorny thicket down to the river's edge. The trees thinned out a short distance back, and the canyon widened as it receded from the river. A half mile back from the river was the old slab building that had served as headquarters for the campers. Here the canyon divided, one containing the small stream heading in the high walls to the southeast; while the other branch ran directly south, heading near the railroad at the little flag-station of Peach Springs, twenty-three miles distant. It was flat-bottomed, growing wider and more valley-like with every mile, but not especially interesting to one who had seen the glory of all the canyons. Floods had spoiled what had once been a very passable stage road, dropping 4000 feet in twenty miles, down to the very depths of the Grand Canyon. Some cattle, driven down by the snows, were sunning themselves near the building. Our appearance filled them with alarm, and they "high tailed it" to use a cattle man's expression, scampering up the rocky slopes. A deer's track was seen in a snow-drift away from the river. On the sloping walls in the more open sections of this valley grew the stubby-thorned chaparral. The hackberry and the first specimens of the palo verde were found in this vicinity. The mesquite trees seen at the mouth of the canyon were real trees--about the size of a large apple tree--not the small bushes we had seen at the Little Colorado. All the growth was changing as we neared the lower altitudes and the mouth of the Grand Canyon, being that of the hot desert, which had found this artery or avenue leading to the heart of the rocky plateaus and had pushed its way into this foreign land. Even the animal life of the desert has followed this same road. Occasional Gila monsters, which are supposed to belong to the hot desert close to the Mexico line, have been found at Diamond Creek, and lizards of the Mojave Desert have been seen as far north as the foot of Bright Angel Trail. But we saw little animal life at this time. There were occasional otters disporting themselves near our boats, in one instance unafraid, in another raising a gray-bearded head near our boat with a startled look in his eyes. Then he turned and began to swim on the surface until our laughter caused him to dive. Tracks of the civet-cat or the ring-tailed cat--that large-eyed and large-eared animal, somewhat like a raccoon and much resembling a weasel--were often seen along the shores. The gray fox, the wild-cat, and the coyote, all natives of this land, kept to the higher piñon-covered hills. The beaver seldom penetrates into the deep canyons because of the lack of vegetation, but is found in all sections in the open country from the headwaters to the delta in Mexico. We went out by this canyon on January the 5th, and returned Sunday, January the 8th, bringing enough provisions to last us to the end of the big canyon. We imagined we would have no trouble getting what we needed in the open country below that. We sent some telegrams and received encouraging answers to them before returning. With us were two brothers, John and Will Nelson, cattle men who had given us a cattle man's welcome when we arrived at Peach Springs. There was no store at Peach Springs, and they supplied us with the provisions that we brought back. They drove a wagon for about half the distance, then the roads became impassable, so they unhitched and packed their bedding and our provisions in to the river. The Nelsons were anxious to see us run a rapid or two. We found the nights to be just as cold on top as they ever get in this section--a little below zero--although the midday sun was warm enough to melt the snow and make it slushy. I arrived at the river with my feet so swollen that I had difficulty in walking, a condition brought on by a previous freezing they had received, being wet continually by the icy water in my boat--which was leaking badly since we left Bright Angel--and the walk out through the slush. I was glad there was little walking to do when once at the river, and changed my shoes for arctics, which were more roomy and less painful. On the upper part of our trip there were occasional days when Emery was not feeling his best, while I had been most fortunate and had little complaint to make; now things seemed to be reversed. Emery, and Bert too, were having the time of their lives, while I was "getting mine" in no small doses.[6] We had always imagined that the Grand Canyon lost its depth and impressiveness below Diamond Creek. We were to learn our mistake. The colour was missing, that was true, for the marble and sandstone walls were brown, dirty, or colourless, with few of the pleasing tones of the canyon found in the upper end. But it was still the Grand Canyon. We were in the granite again--granite just as deep as any we had seen above, it may have been a little deeper, and in most cases it was very sheer. There was very little plateau, the limestone and sandstone rose above that, just as they had above Kanab Canyon. The light-coloured walls could not be seen. Many of the rapids of this lower section were just as bad as any we had gone over; one or two have been considered worse by different parties. Two hours after leaving the Nelsons we were halted by a rapid that made us catch our breath. It was in two sections--the lower one so full of jagged rocks that it meant a wrecked boat. The upper part fell about twenty feet we should judge and was bad enough. It was a question if we could run this and keep from going over the lower part! If we made a portage, our boats would have to be taken three or four hundred feet up the side of the cliff. The rapid was too strong to line a boat down. We concluded to risk running the first part. Bert climbed to the head of the second section of the rapid, where a projecting point of granite narrowed the stream, and formed a quiet eddy just above the foaming plunge. If we could keep out of the centre and land here we would be safe. Our shoes were removed, our trousers were rolled to our knees and we removed our coats. If we had to swim there, we were going to be prepared. The life-preservers were well inflated, and tied; then we made the plunge, Emery taking the lead, I following close behind. Our plan was to keep as near the shore as possible. Once I thought it was all over when I saw the _Edith_ pulled directly for a rock in spite of all Emery could do to pull away. Nothing but a rebounding wave saved him. I went through the same experience. Several times we were threatened with an upset, but we landed in safety. The portage was short and easy. Flat granite rocks were covered with a thin coat of ice. The boats were unloaded and slid across, then dropped below the projecting rock. The _Defiance_ skidded less than two feet and struck a projecting knob of rock the size of a goose egg. It punctured the side close to the stern, fortunately above the water line, and the wood was not entirely broken away. Two miles below this we found another bad one. This was lined while Bert got supper up in a little sloping canyon; about as uncomfortable a camp as we had found. Many of the rapids run the next day were violent. The river seemed to be trying to make up for lost time. We passed a canyon coming from the south containing two streams, one clear, and one muddy. The narrowest place we had seen on the river was a rapid run this day, not over forty feet wide. Evening brought us to a rapid with a lateral canyon coming in from each side, that on the right containing a muddy stream. The walls were sheer and jagged close to the rapid, with a break on the rugged slopes here and there. A sloping rock in the middle of the stream could be seen in the third section of the rapid. This was Separation Rapid, the point where the two Howland brothers and Dunn parted company with Major Powell and his party. From our camp at the left side we could easily figure out a way to the upper plateau. Above that they would have a difficult climb as far as we could tell. That they did reach the top is well known. They met a tragic fate. The second day after getting out they were killed by some Indians--the Shewits Utes--who had treated them hospitably at first and provided them with something to eat. That night a visiting Indian brought a tale of depredations committed by some miners against another section of their tribe. These men were believed to be the guilty parties, and they were ambushed the next morning. Their fate remained a mystery for a year; then a Ute was seen with a watch belonging to one of the men. Later a Mormon who had a great deal of influence with the Indians got their story from them, and reported to Major Powell what he had learned. It was a deplorable and a tragic ending to what otherwise was one of the most successful, daring, and momentous explorations ever undertaken on this continent. We find there is a current belief that it was cowardice and fear of this one rapid that caused these men to separate from the party. The more one hears of this separation, the more it seems that it was a difference of opinion on many matters, and not this one rapid, that caused them to leave. These men had been trappers and hunters, one might say pioneers, and one had been with Major Powell before the river exploration. They had gone through all the canyons, and had come through this far without a fatality. They had seen a great many rapids nearly as bad as this, and several that were worse, if one could judge by its nature when we found it. They were not being carried by others, but had charge of one boat. They did smash one boat in Disaster Rapid in Lodore Canyon, and at that time they claimed Major Powell gave them the wrong signal. This caused some feeling. At the time of the split, the food question was a serious one. There were short rations for a long time; in fact there was practically no food. After an observation, Major Powell informed them that they were within forty-five miles of the Virgin River, in a direct line. Much of the country between the end of the canyon and the Virgin River was open, a few Mormon settlements could be found up the Virgin Valley. He offered them half of the small stock of provisions, when they persisted in leaving, but they refused to take any provisions whatever, feeling sure that they could kill enough game to subsist on. This one instance would seem to be enough to clear them of the stigma of cowardice. The country on top was covered with volcanic cinders. There was little water to be found, and in many ways it was just as inhospitable as the canyon. The cook had a pan of biscuits, which he left on a rock for them, after the men had helped the party lift the boats over the rocks at the head of the rapid. After landing in safety around a bend which hid them from sight, the boating party fired their guns, hoping they would hear the report, and follow in the abandoned boat. It is doubtful if they could hear the sound of the guns, above the roar of the rapid. If they did, they paid no attention to it. The younger Howland wished to remain with the party, but threw his lot with his brother, when he withdrew. While these men did not have the Major's deep scientific interest in the successful completion of this exploration, they undoubtedly should have stayed with their leader, if their services were needed or desired. It is more than likely that they were insubordinate; they certainly made a misguided attempt, but in spite of these facts it scarcely seems just to brand them as cowards. Two days after they left, the boating party was camped at the end of the canyons. CHAPTER XXIII THE LAST PORTAGE AND THE LAST RAPIDS The first section of Separation Rapid was run the first thing in the morning, a manoeuvre that was accomplished by starting on the left shore and crossing the swift centre clear to the other shore. This allowed us to reach some quiet water near a small deposit of rock and earth at the base of the sheer wall. Two feet of water would have covered this deposit; likewise two feet of water would have given us a clear channel over this second section. As it was, the rapid was rough, with many rocks very near the surface. Directly across from us, close to the left shore, was what looked like a ten-foot geyser, or fountain of water. This was caused by a rock in the path of a strong current rebounding from the shore. The water ran up on the side near the wall, then fell on all sides. It was seldom the water had force enough to carry to the top of a rock as large as that. This portage of the second section was one of the easiest we had made. By rolling a few large rocks around we could get a stream water across our small shore large enough to float an empty boat with a little help, so we lightened them of the cargo and floated them through our canal. While running the third section the _Edith_ was carried up on the sloping rock in the middle of the stream; she paused a moment, then came down like a shot and whirled around to the side without mishap. This made the thirteenth rapid in which both boats were lined or portaged. In three other rapids one boat was run through and one was portaged. Half of all these rapids were located in the Grand Canyon. All this time we were anxiously looking forward to a rapid which Mr. Stone had described as being the worst in the entire series, also the last rapid we would be likely to portage and had informed us that below this particular rapid everything could be run with little or no inspection. Naturally we were anxious to get that rapid behind us. It was described as being located below a small stream flowing from the south. The same rapid was described by Major Powell as having a bold, lava-capped escarpment at the head of the rapid, on the right. We had not seen any lava since leaving Diamond Creek, and an entry in my notes reads, "we have gone over Stone's 'big rapid' three times and it is still ahead of us." The knowledge that there was a big rapid in the indefinite somewhere that was likely to cause us trouble seemed to give us more anxious moments than the many unmentioned rapids we were finding all this time. We wondered how high the escarpment was, and if we could take our boats over its top. We tried to convince ourselves that it was behind us, although sure that it could not be. But the absence of lava puzzled us. After one "bad" rapid and several "good" rapids we came to a sharp turn in the canyon. Emery was ahead and called back, "I see a little stream"; Bert joined with "I see the lava"; and the "Bold Escarpment Rapid," as we had been calling it for some time, was before us. It was more than a nasty rapid, it was a cataract! What a din that water sent up! We had to yell to make ourselves heard. The air vibrated with the impact of water against rock. The rapid was nearly half a mile long. There were two sections near its head staggered with great rocks, forty of them, just above or slightly submerged under the surface of the water. Our low stage of water helped us, so that we did not have to line the boats from the ledge, eighty feet above the water, as others had done. The rapid broke just below the lower end of the sheer rock, which extended twenty feet beyond the irregular shore. The _Edith_ went first, headed upstream, at a slight angle nearly touching the wall, dropping a few inches between each restraining stroke of the oars. Bert crouched on the bow, ready to spring with the rope, as soon as Emery passed the wall and headed her in below the wall. Jumping to the shore, he took a snub around a boulder and kept her from being dragged into the rapid. Then they both caught the _Defiance_ as she swung in below the rock, and half the battle was won before we tackled the rapid. Our days were short, and we did not take the boats down until the next day; but we did carry much of the camp material and cargo halfway down over ledges a hundred feet above the river. For a bad rapid we were very fortunate in getting past it as easily as we did. Logs were laid over rocks, the boats were skidded over them about their own length and dropped in again. Logs and boats were lined down in the swift, but less riotous water, to the next barrier, which was more difficult. A ten-foot rounded boulder lay close to the shore, with smaller rocks, smooth and ice-filmed, scattered between. Powerful currents swirled between these rocks and disappeared under two others, wedged closely together on top. Three times the logs were snatched from our grasp as we tried to bridge them across this current, and they vanished in the foam, to shoot out end first, twenty feet below and race away on the leaping water. A boat would be smashed to kindling-wood if once carried under there. At last we got our logs wedged, and an hour of tugging, in which only two men could take part at the same time, landed both boats in safety below this barrier. We shot the remainder of the rapid on water so swift that the oars were snatched from our hands if we tried to do more than keep the boats straight with the current. That rapid was no longer the "Bold Escarpment," but the "Last Portage" instead, and it was behind us. The afternoon was half gone when we made ready pull away from the Last Portage. There were other rapids, but scarcely a pause was made in our two-hour run, and we camped away from the roar of water. The canyon was widening out a little at a time; the granite disappeared in the following day's run, at noon. Grass-covered slopes, with seeping mineral springs, took the place of precipitous walls; they dropped to 2500 feet in height; numerous side canyons cut the walls in regular sections like gigantic city blocks, instead of an unbroken avenue. Small rapids continued to appear, there were a few small islands, and divided currents, so shallow they sometimes kept us guessing which one to take, but we continued to run them all without a pause. We would have run out of the canyon that day but for one thing. Five mountain-sheep were seen from our boats in one of the sloping grassy meadows above the river. We landed below, carried our cameras back, and spent half an hour in trying to see them again, but they had taken alarm. Placer claim locations and fresh burro tracks were seen in the sand at our last Grand Canyon camp, and a half mile below us we could see out into open country. We found the walls, or the end of the table-land, to be about two thousand feet high, with the canyon emerging at a sharp angle so that a narrow ridge, or "hogs-back" lay on the left side of the stream. Once out in the open the walls were seen to be quite steep, but could be climbed to the top almost any place without trouble. Saturday, January the 13th, we were out of the canyon at last, and the towering walls, now friendly, now menacing, were behind us. Three hundred and sixty-five large rapids, and nearly twice as many small rapids, were behind us and the dream of ten years was an accomplished fact. But best of all, there were no tragedies or fatalities to record. Perhaps we did look a little the worse for wear, but a few days away from the river would repair all that. The boats had a bump here and there, besides the one big patch on the _Edith_; a little mending and a little caulking would put both the _Edith_ and _Defiance_ in first-class condition. There is little of interest to record of our 175-mile run to Needles, California. It was a land of desolation--an extension of the Mojave Desert on the south, and the alkaline flats and mineral mountains of Nevada on the north, of Death Valley and the Funeral Mountains of California to the northwest--a burned-out land of grim-looking mountains extending north and south across our way; a dried-out, washed-out, and wind-swept land of extensive flats and arroyos; a land of rock and gravel cemented in marls and clay; ungraced with any but the desert plants,--cactus and thorny shrubs,--with little that was pleasing or attractive. A desert land it is true, but needing only the magic touch of water to transform much of it into a garden spot. Even as it was, a few months later it would be covered with the flaming blossoms of the desert growth, which seem to try to make amends in one or two short months for nearly a year of desolation. A wash ran along the base of the plateau from which we had emerged. An abandoned road and ferry showed that this had once been a well-travelled route. The stream had a good current and we pulled away, only stopping once to see the last of our plateau before a turn and deepening banks hid it from view. We wondered if the water ever dropped in a precipitous fall over the face of the wall and worked back, a little every year, as it does at Niagara. We could hardly doubt that there were some such falls back in the dim past when these canyons were being carved. In the middle of the afternoon we passed a ranch or a house with a little garden, occupied by two miners, who hailed us from the shore. A half-mile below was the Scanlon Ferry, a binding tie between Arizona, on the south and what was now Nevada, on the north, for we had reached the boundary line shortly after emerging from the canyon. We still travelled nearly directly west. The ferry was in charge of a Cornishman who also had as pretty a little ranch as one could expect to find in such an unlikely place. A purling stream of water, piped from somewhere up in the hills, had caused the transformation. The ranch was very homey with cattle and horses, sheep and hogs, dogs and cats, all sleek and contented-looking. The garden proved that this country had a warm climate, although we were not suffering from heat at that time. An effort was being made to grow some orange trees, but with little promise of success; there were fig trees and date-palms, with frozen dates hanging on the branches, one effect of the coldest winter they had seen in this section. The rancher told us he could not sell us anything that had to be brought in, for it was seventy miles to the railroad, but we could look over such supplies as he had. It ended by his selling us a chicken, two dozen eggs, five pounds of honey, and ten pounds of flour,--all for $2.50. We did not leave until the next morning, then bought another jar of honey, for we had no sugar, and two-thirds of the first jar was eaten before we left the ferry. We pulled away in such a hurry the next morning that we forgot an axe that had been carried with us for the entire journey. A five-hour run brought us to the mouth of the Virgin River, a sand-bar a mile wide, and with a red-coloured stream little larger than Cataract Creek winding through it. We had once seen this stream near its head waters, a beautiful mountain creek, that seemed to bear no relation to this repulsive-looking stream that entered from the north. A large, flat-topped, adobe building, apparently deserted, stood off at one side of the stream. This was the head of navigation for flat-bottomed steamboats that once plied between here and the towns on the lower end of the river. They carried supplies for small mines scattered through the mountains and took out cargoes of ore, and of rock salt which was mined back in Nevada. It was here at the Virgin River that Major Powell concluded his original voyage of exploration. Some of his men took the boats on down to Fort Mojave, a few miles above Needles; afterwards two of the party continued on to the Gulf. The country below the Virgin River had been explored by several parties, but previous to this time nothing definite was known of the gorges until this exploration by this most remarkable man. The difficulties of this hazardous trip were increased for him by the fact that he had lost an arm in the Civil War. It is usually taken for granted that the United States government was back of this exploration. This was true of the second expedition, but not of the first. Major Powell was aided to a certain extent by the State College of Illinois, otherwise he bore all the expense himself. We received $10,000 from the government to apply on the expenses of the second trip. We felt that we had some reason to feel a justifiable pride for having duplicated, in some ways, this arduous journey. It was impossible for us to do more than guess what must have been the feelings and anxieties of this explorer. Added to the fact that we had boats, tested and constructed to meet the requirements of the river, and the benefit of others' experiences, was a knowledge that we were not likely to be precipitated over a waterfall, or if we lost everything and succeeded in climbing out, that there were a few ranches and distant settlements scattered through the country. But we had traversed the same river and the same canyons which change but little from year to year, and had succeeded beyond our fondest hopes in having accomplished what we set out to do. The Black Mountains, dark and forbidding, composed of a hard rock which gave a metallic clink, and decorated with large spots of white, yellow, vermilion, and purple deposits of volcanic ashes, were entered this afternoon. The peaks were about a thousand feet high. The passage between is known as Boulder Canyon. Here we met two miners at work on a tunnel, or drift, who informed us that it was about forty miles to Las Vegas, Nevada, and that it was only twenty-five miles from the mouth of Las Vegas Wash, farther down the river, to this same town and the railroad. Fort Callville--an abandoned rock building, constructed by the directions of Brigham Young, without windows or roof, and surrounded by stone corrals--was passed the next day. At Las Vegas Wash the river turned at right angles, going directly south, holding with very little deviation to this general direction until it empties into the Gulf of California nearly five hundred miles away. The river seemed to be growing smaller as we got out in the open country. Like all Western rivers, when unprotected by canyons, it was sinking in the sand. Sand-bars impeded our progress at such places as the mouth of the Wash. But we had a good current, without rapids in Black Canyon, which came shortly below, and mile after mile was put behind us before we camped for the night. An old stamp-mill, closed for the time, but in charge of three men who were making preparations to resume work, was passed the next day. They had telephone communication with Searchlight, Nevada, twenty odd miles away, and we sent out some telegrams in that way. More sand-bars were encountered the next day, and ranches began to appear on both sides of the river. We had difficulty on some of these bars. In places the river bed was a mile wide, with stagnant pools above the sand, and with one deep channel twisting between. At Fort Mojave, now an Indian school and agency, we telephoned to some friends in Needles, as we had promised to do, telling them we would arrive about noon of the following day. We made a mistake in not camping at the high ground by the "fort" that night, for just below the river widened again and the channel turned out in the centre. It was getting dark and we had entered this before noticing which way it turned, and had a hard pull back to the shore, for we had no desire to camp out there in the quicksand. The shore was little more desirable. It was a marsh, covered with a growth of flags and tules but with the ground frozen enough so that we did not sink. Our last camp--No. 76--was made in this marsh. There we spent the night, hidden like hunted savages in the cane-brake, while an Indian brass band played some very good music for an officers' ball, less than half a mile away. We were up and away with the sun the next morning. On nearing Needles, a friend met us on the outskirts of the town and informed us that they had arranged what he called an official landing and reception. At his request we deferred going down at once, but busied ourselves instead at packing our cargo, ready for shipping. Our friend had secured the services of a motion-picture operator and our own camera was sent down to make a picture of the landing, which was made as he had arranged. We landed in Needles January 18, 1912; one month from the time of our start from Bright Angel Trail, with a total of one hundred and one days spent along the river. In that time our camps had been changed seventy-six times. Our two boats, highly prized as souvenirs of our twelve hundred mile trip, and which had carried us through three hundred and sixty-five big rapids, over a total descent of more than five thousand feet, were loaded on cars ready for shipment; the _Edith_ to Los Angeles, the _Defiance_ to the Grand Canyon. Among other mail awaiting us was the following letter, bearing the postmark of Hite, Utah: "KOLB BROS., "DEAR FRIENDS: "Well I got here at last after seventeen days in Cataract Canyon. The old boat will stand a little quiet water but will never go through another rapid. I certainly played 'ring-a-round' some of those rocks in Cataract Canyon; I tried every scheme I had ever heard of, and some that were never thought of before. At the last rapid in Cataract I carried all my stuff over the cliff, then tried to line the boat from the narrow ledge. The boat jerked me into the river, but I did not lose my hold on the chain and climbed on board. I had no oars, but managed to get through without striking any rocks, and landed a mile and a half below the supplies. I hope the 'movies' are good.[7] "Sincerely yours, "CHAS. SMITH." CONCLUSION. HOW I WENT TO MEXICO CHAPTER XXIV ON THE CREST OF A FLOOD A westward-bound train was bearing me across the Mojave Desert one day in May. In a few swiftly passing hours we had made a six-thousand foot descent from the plateau with its fir and aspen-covered mountain, its cedar and piñon-clothed foot-hills, and its extensive forests of yellow pine. Crimson and yellow-flowered cactus, sage and chaparral, succeeded the pines. The cool mountains had given way to burned-out, umber-coloured hills, rock-ribbed arroyos, and seemingly endless desert; and the sun was growing hotter every minute. If the heat continued to increase, I doubted if I would care to take a half-planned Colorado River trip down to the Gulf. Visions of the California beaches, of fishing at Catalina and of horseback rides over the Sierra's trails, nearly unsettled my determination to stop at Needles, on the California side of the river. This was my vacation! Why undergo all the discomfort of a voyage on a desert stream, when the pleasures and comforts of the Pacific beckoned? One thing was sure, if I was not successful in securing a boat at Needles, the very next train would find me on board, bound for the Western Slope. By mid-afternoon the chaparral had disappeared and only the cactus remained--the ocotilla, covered with a million flowers, wave upon wave of crimson flame, against the yellow earth. Violet-veiled mountains appeared in the west, marking the southern trend of the Colorado. The air was suffocating. The train-created wind was like a blast from a furnace; yet with the electric fans whirring, with blinds drawn and windows closed to keep the withering air _out_, it seemed a little less uncomfortable in the car, in spite of the unvitalized air, than under the scorching sun. We were beside the Colorado at last. I had a good view of the stream below, as we crossed the bridge--the Colorado in flood, muddy, turbulent, sweeping onward like an affrighted thing,--repulsive, yet with a fascination for me, born of an intimate acquaintance with the dangers of this stream. The river had called again! The heat was forgotten, the visions of the coast faded, for me the train could not reach Needles, ten miles up the river, quickly enough. With my brother, I had followed this stream down to Needles, through a thousand miles of canyon. I had seen how it carved its way through the mountains, carrying them on, in solution, toward the ocean. At last I would see what became of all these misplaced mountains. I would see the tidal bore as it swept in from the Gulf. I had heard there were wild hogs which burrowed through the cane-brake. It may be that I would learn of a vessel at some port down on the Mexican coast, which I might reach and which would take me around the Lower California Peninsula. I felt sure there was such a port. No doubt I could have found books to tell me exactly what I would see, but too much information would spoil all the romance of such an adventure. It was all very alluring. With the spring flood on, the river could not help but be interesting and exciting, a pretty good imitation of the rapids, perhaps. If I could only secure a boat! Half an hour later I was meeting old acquaintances about the hotel, connected with the station. The genial hotel manager, with the Irish name, was smilingly explaining to some newcomers that this was not hot; that "a dry heat at 110 degrees was not nearly as bad as 85 degrees back in Chicago," "and as for heat," he continued, "why down in Yuma"--then he caught sight of me, with a grin on my face, and perhaps he remembered that I had heard him say the same thing two years before, when it was even hotter; and he came over with out-stretched hand,--calling me uncomplimentary names, under his breath, for spoiling the effect of his explanation; all which was belied by his welcome. It takes an Irishman to run a big hotel in the middle of the desert. A few inquiries brought out the information that I was not likely to get a boat. The stores did not keep them. I should have given my order two weeks before to an Indian who built boats to order at $2.00 a foot. This was a new one on me. Suppose a fellow wanted--well say, about $15.00 worth. It would look something like a tub, wouldn't it? Perhaps it was to be the coast, for me, after all. The Colorado River in flood is a terrible stream. Unlike the Eastern rivers, there are no populous cities--with apologies to Needles and Yuma--along its shores, to be inundated with the floods. Unlike the rivers of the South, few great agricultural districts spread across its bottoms. Along the upper seven hundred miles there are not a half-dozen ranches with twenty-five acres under cultivation. But if destructive power and untamed energy are terrible, the Colorado River, in flood, is a terrible stream. After changing into some comfortable clothes I sauntered past the railway machine shops down to the river, and up to where a fight was being waged to save the upper part of the town from being torn away by the flood. For a month past, car after car of rock had been dumped along the river bank, only to disappear in the quicksands; and as yet no bottom had been reached. Up to this point the fight was about equal. The flood would not reach its crest until two or three weeks later. Beyond a fisherman or two there were few men by the river. The workmen had finished their day's labour. A ferryman said that I might talk an Indian into selling his boat, but it was doubtful. My next job was to find such an Indian. A big, greasy Mojave buck lay on an uncovered, rusty bed spring, slung on a home-made frame, before his willow and adobe home, close to the Colorado River. In answer to my repeated question he uncoiled and stretched the full length of his six foot six couch, grunted a few words in his native tongue to other Indians without a glance in my direction, then indifferently closed his eyes again. A young Indian in semi-cowboy garb,--not omitting a gorgeous silk handkerchief about his neck,--jabbered awhile with some grinning squaws, then said in perfectly understandable English, "He will sell his boat for $18.00. It is worth $30.00." This was decisive for an Indian. It usually takes a half-day of bickering to get them to make any kind of a bargain. I told him I would take it in the morning. It was a well-constructed boat, almost new, built of inch pine, flat-bottomed, and otherwise quite similar in shape to the boats my brother and I had used on our twelve hundred mile journey through the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers,--but without the graceful lines and swells that made those other boats so valuable to us in rapids. The boat was nearly new and well worth $30.00, as boat prices went in that town. Why he was willing to sell it for $18.00, or at the rate of $1.00 a foot, I could not imagine. It was the first bargain an Indian had ever offered me. But if I paid for it that evening, there were doubts in my mind if I should find it in the morning, so I delayed closing the bargain and went back again to inspect the boat. That evening I inquired among my acquaintances if there was any one who would care to accompany me. If so I would give them passage to Yuma, or to the Gulf of California in Mexico, if they wished it. But no one could go, or those who could, wouldn't. One would have thought from the stories with which I was regaled, that the rapids of the Grand Canyon were below Needles, and as for going to the Gulf, it was suicide. I was told of the outlaws along the border, of the firearms and opium smugglers, who shot first and questioned afterward, and of the insurrectos of Lower California. The river had no real outlet to the ocean, they said, since the break into Salton Sea, but spread over a cane-brake, thirty miles or more in width. Many people had gone into these swamps and never returned, whether lost in the jungles or killed by the Cocopah Indians, no one knew. They simply disappeared. It was all very alluring. My preparations, the next day, were few. I had included a sleeping bag with my baggage. It would come in equally handy whether I went down on the Colorado or up into the Coast Range. A frying-pan, a coffee-pot a few metal dishes and provisions for a week were all I needed. Some one suggested some bent poles, and a cover, such as are used on wagons to keep off the sun. This seemed like a good idea; and I hunted up a carpenter who did odd jobs. He did not have such a one, but he did have an old wagon-seat cover, which could be raised or dropped at will. This was even better, for sometimes hard winds sweep up the river. The cover was fastened to the sides of the boat. The boat, meanwhile, had been thoroughly scrubbed. It looked clean before, but I was not going to take any chances at carrying Indian live-stock along with his boat. My surplus baggage was sent on to Los Angeles, and twenty-four hours after I had landed in Needles, I was ready to embark. My experience in camping trips of various sorts has been that the start from headquarters occupies more time than any similar preparation. Once on the road, things naturally arrange themselves into some kind of a system, and an hour on the road in the evening means several hours gained the next morning. Added to this, there are always a number of loafers about railroad towns, and small things have a way of disappearing. With this in mind, I determined to make my start that evening, and at 7 P.M. on the 23d of May, 1913, I embarked on a six to eight mile an hour current, paced by cottonwood logs, carried down by the flood from the head waters in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. When sailing on the unruffled current one did not notice its swiftness--it sped so quietly yet at the same time with such deadly intent--until some half submerged cottonwood snags appeared, their jagged, broken limbs ploughing the stream exactly like the bow of a motor-driven boat, throwing two diverging lines of waves far down the stream. One would almost think the boat was motionless, it raced so smoothly,--and that the snags were tearing upstream as a river man had said, the day before, "like a dog with a bone in his teeth." A sunken stone-boat, with a cabin half submerged, seemed propelled by some unseen power and rapidly dwindled in the distance. So fascinating were these things that I forgot the approaching night. I first noticed it when the stream slackened its mad pace and spread over its banks into great wide marshes, in divided and subdivided channels and over submerged islands, with nothing but willow and fuzzy cattail tops to indicate that there was a bottom underneath. Here there was no place to camp had I wished to do so. Once I missed the main channel and had a difficult time in finding my way back in the dark. After two or three miles of this quiet current, the streams began to unite again, and the river regained its former speed. I was growing weary after the first excitement, and began to wish myself well out of it all and safely anchored to the shore. But I knew there was a level bank above the river close to the bridge, which would make a good camping place; so I rested on my oars facing down the stream with eyes and ears alert for the treacherous snags. Then the stars began to appear, one by one, lighting up the cloudless sky; a moist, tropical-like breeze moved up the stream, the channel narrowed and deepened, the snags vanished, and the stream increased its swiftness. And with eyes wide open, but unseeing, I dozed. It was the lights of a passenger train crossing the bridge, just a short distance away, that made me realize where I was. The train thundered into the darkness; but louder than the roar of the train was that of the water directly ahead, and hidden in the impenetrable shadow over on the right shore was a noise much like that made by a Grand Canyon rapid. Wide awake now, I pulled for the left, and after one or two attempts to land, I caught some willow tops and guided the boat to the raised bank. Beyond the willows was a higher ground, covered with a mesquite thicket, with cattle trails winding under the thorny trees. Here I unrolled my sleeping bag, then went up to interview the operator and the watchman, and to get a drink of clear water, for I had no desire to drink the liquid mud of the Colorado until it was necessary. In answer to a question I told them of my little ride. One of the men exclaimed, "You don't mean to say that you came down on the flood after dark!" On being informed that I had just arrived, he exclaimed: "Well I reckon you don't know what the Colorado is. It's a wonder this whirlpool didn't break you against the pier. You ought to have brought some one with you to see you drown!" CHAPTER XXV FOUR DAYS TO YUMA Before sunrise the following morning, I had completed my few camp duties, finished my breakfast and dropped my boat into the whirlpool above the bridge. My two friends watched the manoeuvre as I pulled clear of the logs and the piers which caused the water to make such alarming sounds the night before; then they gave me a final word of caution, and the information that the Parker Bridge was sixty miles away and that Yuma was two hundred and fifty miles down the stream. They thought that I should reach Yuma in a week. It seemed but a few minutes until the bridge was a mile up the stream. Now I was truly embarked for the gulf. By the time I had reached the spire-like mountainous rocks a few miles below the bridge, which gave the town of Needles its name, the sun was well up and I was beginning to learn what desert heat was, although I had little time to think of it as I was kept so busy with my boat. Here, the stream which was spread a mile wide above, had choked down to two hundred feet; small violent whirlpools formed at the abrupt turns in this so-called canyon and the water tore from side to side. In one whirl my boat was twice carried around the circle into which I had allowed it to be caught, then shot out on the pounding flood. Soon the slag-like mountains were passed and the country began to spread, first in a high barren land, then with a bottom land running back from the river. The willow bushes changed to willow trees, tall and spindly, crowded in a thicket down to the river's edge. The Chemehuevi Indians have their reservation here. On rounding an abrupt turn I surprised two little naked children, fat as butterballs, dabbling in a mud puddle close to the stream. The sight, coupled with the tropical-like heat and the jungle, could well make one imagine he was in Africa or India, and that the little brown bodies were the "alligator bait" of which we read. Only the 'gators were missing. The unexpected sight of a boat and a white man trying to photograph them started them both into a frightened squall. Then an indignant mother appeared, staring at me as though she would like to know what I had done to her offspring. Farther along were other squaws, with red and blue lines pencilled on their childlike, contented faces, seated under the willows. Their cotton garments, of red and blue bandanna handkerchiefs sewed together, added a gay bit of colour to the scene. Below this were two or three cozy little ranch houses and a few scattered cattle ranches, with cattle browsing back in the trees. All this time it was getting hotter, and I was thankful for my sheltering cover. My lunch, prepared in the morning, was eaten as I drifted. Except in a few quiet stretches I did little rowing, just enough to keep the boat away from the overhanging banks and in the strong current. The bottom lands began to build up again with banks of gravel and clay, growing higher with every mile. The deciduous trees gave way to the desert growths: the cholla, "the shower of gold," and the palo verde and the other acacias. Here were the California or valley-quail; and lean, long-legged jack-rabbits. Here too were the coyotes, leaner than the rabbits, but efficient, shifty-eyed, and insolent. One could admire but could hardly respect them. I had entertained hopes of reaching Parker that evening, but supposed the hour would be late if I reached it at all. Imagine my surprise, then, when at half-past four I heard the whistle of a train, and another turn revealed the Parker bridge. I had been told by others that it had taken them three or four days to reach this point on a low stage of water. Evidently the high water is much better for rapid and interesting travel. Here at the bridge, which was a hundred feet above the river, was a dredge, and an old flat-bottomed steamboat, a relic of a few years past, before the government built the Laguna dam above Yuma, and condemned the Colorado as a navigable stream. Those were the days which the Colorado steamboat men recall with as much fond remembrance as the old-time boatmen of the Mississippi remember their palmy days. In spite of the fact that the boats were flat-bottomed and small, it was real steamboating of an exciting nature at least. At times they beat up against the current as far as the mouth of the Rio Virgin. In low water the channels shifted back and forth first choked with sand on one side of the stream, then on the other. While the total fall from Fort Mojave, a few miles above Needles, to the Gulf is only 525 feet, considerable of that fall came in short sections, first with a swift descent, then in a quiet stretch. Even in the high-water stage I was finding some such places. Parker stood a mile back from the river, on top of the level gravelly earth which stretched for miles on either side of the river clear to the mountains. This earth and gravel mixture was so firmly packed that even the cactus had a scant foothold. The town interested me for one reason only, this being, that I could get my meals for the evening and the following morning, instead of having to cook them myself. After I had eaten them, however, there was a question in my mind if my own cooking, bad as it was, would not have answered the purpose just as well. The place was a new railroad town on an Indian reservation, a town of great expectations, somewhat deferred. It was not as interesting to me as my next stop at Ahrenburg, some fifty miles below Parker. This place while nothing but a collection of dilapidated adobe buildings, had an air of romance about it which was missing in the newer town. Ahrenburg had seen its day. Many years ago it was a busy mining camp, and the hope is entertained by the faithful who still reside in its picturesque adobe homes that it will come back with renewed vigour. Here at Ahrenburg I met a character who added greatly to the interest of my stay. He was a gigantic, raw-boned Frenchman, at that time engaged in the construction of a motor boat; but a miner, a sailor, and a soldier of fortune in many ways, one who had pried into many of the hidden corners of the country and had a graphic way of describing what he had seen. I was his guest until late that night, and was entertained royally on what humble fare he had to offer. We both intended to renew our acquaintance in the morning, but some prowling Mexicans near my boat, croaking frogs, and swarms of mosquitos gave me a restless night. With the first glimmer of daylight I was up, and half an hour later I was away on the flood. This was my big day. The current was better than much of that above; I was getting used to the heat, and, instead of idly drifting, I pulled steadily at the oars. The river twisted back and forth in great loops with the strong current, as is usual, always on the outside of the loops, close to the overhanging banks. I would keep my boat in this current, with a wary lookout over my shoulder for fallen trees and sudden turns, which had a way of appearing when least expected. At some such places the stream was engaged at undermining the banks which rose eight and ten feet above the water. Occasional sections, containing tons of earth and covered with tall, slender willow trees, would topple over, falling on the water with the roar of a cannon or a continued salute of cannons; for the falling, once started, quite often extended for half a mile down the stream. At one such place eighteen trees fell in three minutes, and it would be safe to say that a hundred trees were included in the extended fall. The trees, sixty feet high, resembled a field of gigantic grass or unripened grain; the river was a reaper, cutting it away at the roots. Over they tumbled to be buried in the stream; the water would swirl and boil, earth and trees would disappear; then the mass of leaf-covered timber, freed of the earth, would wash away to lodge on the first sand-bar, and the formation of a new island or a new shore would begin. Then again, the banks were barren, composed of gravel and clay, centuries older than the verdure-covered land, undisturbed, possibly, since some glacial period deposited it there. But a shifting of the channel directed the attack against these banks. Here the swift current would find a little irregularity on the surface and would begin its cutting. The sand-laden water bored exactly like an auger, in fast-cutting whirls. One such place I watched for a half-hour from the very beginning, until the undermined section, fourteen feet high, began to topple, and I pulled out to safety, but not far enough to escape a ducking in the resulting wave. Below this, instead of a firm earth, it was a loose sand and gravel mixture twenty feet above the river. Here for half a mile the entire bank was moving, slowly at the top, gathering speed at the bottom. While close to this I heard a peculiar hissing as of carbonated water all about me. At first I thought there were mineral springs underneath, but found the noise was caused by breaking air bubbles carried under the stream with the sands. All this day such phenomena continued, sliding sand-banks and tumbling jungles. In these latter places some cattle had suffered. Their trails ran parallel with the stream. No doubt they had one or two places where they drank cut down to the stream Knowing nothing of the cutting underneath, they had been precipitated into the flood, and now their carcasses were food for swarms of vultures gathered for an unholy feast. What powerful, graceful birds these scavengers are, stronger than the eagle even, tireless and seemingly motionless as they drift along searching every nook and cranny for their provender! But aside from a grudgingly given tribute of admiration for their power, one has about as much respect for them as for the equally graceful rattlesnake, that other product of nature which flourishes in this desert land. The bird life along this lower part of the river was wonderful in its variety. The birds of the desert mingled with those of the fertile lands. The song-birds vied with those of gorgeous plume. Water-birds disported themselves in the mud-banks and sloughs. The smaller birds seemed to pay little attention to the nearness of the hawks. Kingfisher perched on limbs overhanging the quiet pools, ready to drop at the faintest movement on the opaque water; the road-runner chased the festive lizard on the desert land back of the willows. Here also in the mesquite and giant cactus were thrush and Western meadow-larks and mocking-birds mimicking the call of the cat-bird. Down in the brush by the river was the happy little water-ousel, as cheerful in his way as the dumpy-built musical canyon wren. The Mexican crossbill appeared to have little fear of the migrating Northern shrike. There were warblers, cardinals, tanagers, waxwings, song-sparrows, and chickadees. Flitting droves of bush-tit dropped on to slender weeds, scarcely bending them, so light were they. Then in a minute they were gone. In the swamps or marshes were countless red-winged blackbirds. The most unobservant person could not help but see birds here. I had expected to find water-fowl, for the Colorado delta is their breeding place; but I little expected to find so many land birds in the trees along the river. Instead of having a lonesome trip, every minute was filled with something new, interesting, and beautiful and I was having the time of my life. I camped that night at Picachio,--meaning the Pocket,--eighty miles below Ahrenburg. This is still a mining district, but the pockets containing nuggets of gold which gave the place its name seem to have all been discovered at the time of the boom; the mining now done is in quartz ledges up on the sides of grim, mineral-stained hills. I was back in the land of rock again, a land showing the forces of nature in high points of foreign rock, shot up from beneath, penetrating the crust of the earth and in a few places emerging for a height of two hundred feet from the river itself, forming barren islands and great circling whirlpools, as large as that in the Niagara gorge, and I thought, for a while, almost as powerful. In one I attempted to keep to the short side of the river, but found it a difficult job, and one which took three times as long to accomplish as if I had allowed myself to be carried around the circle. Then the land became level again, and the Chocolate Mountains were seen to the west. A hard wind blew across the stream, so that I had to drop my sunshade to prevent being carried against the rocks. This day I passed a large irrigation canal leading off from the stream, the second such on the entire course of the Colorado. Here a friendly ranchman called to me from the shore and warned me of the Laguna dam some distance below. He said the water was backed up for three miles, so I would know when I was approaching it. In spite of this warning, I nearly came to grief at the dam. The wind had shifted until it blew directly down the stream. The river, nearly a mile wide, still ran with a powerful current; I ceased rowing and drifted down, over waves much like those one would find on a lake driven by a heavy wind. I saw some high poles and a heavy electric cable stretched across the stream, and concluded that this was the beginning of the dam. I began to look ahead for some sign of a barrier across the stream, far below, but I could see nothing of the kind; then as I neared the poles it suddenly dawned on me that there was no raised barrier which diverted all the water through a sluice, but a submerged dam, over which the flood poured, and that the poles were on that dam. My sail-like sunshade was dropped as quickly as I could do it, and, grabbing the oars, I began to pull for the California shore. It was fortunate for me that I happened to be comparatively near the shore when I began rowing. As it was, I landed below the diverting canal, and about a hundred yards above the dam. On examination the dam proved to be a slope about fifty feet long. A man in charge of the machinery controlling the gates told me that the dam lacked seven feet of being a mile wide, and that approximately seven feet of water was going over the entire dam. Great cement blocks and rocks had been dropped promiscuously below the dam to prevent it from being undermined. Even without the rocks it was doubtful if an uncovered boat could go through without upsetting. The great force of the water made a trough four or five feet lower than the river level, all water coming down the slope shooting underneath, while the river rolled back upstream. On two occasions boatmen had been carried over the dam. In each case the boat was wrecked, but the occupants were thrown out and escaped uninjured. I could not help but be amused, and feel a little uncomfortable too, when I saw how nearly I came to being wrecked here, after having escaped that fate in the rapids of the canyons. I ran my boat back to the diverting canal, then rowed down to the massive cement gates, which looked to me like a small replica of some of the locks on the Panama Canal. With the help of an Indian who was ready for a job my boat was taken out, rolled around the buildings on some sections of pipe, and slid over the bank into the canal below the gates. In spite of a desire to spend some time inspecting the machinery of this great work,--which, with the canal and other improvements, had cost the government over a million dollars--I immediately resumed my rowing. It was mid-afternoon, and measured by the canal, which was direct, it was twelve miles to Yuma. But I soon learned that great winding curves made it much farther by the river. In some cases it nearly doubled back on itself. The wind had shifted by this time and blew against me so hard that it was almost useless to attempt rowing. In another place there were no banks, and the water had spread for three miles in broken sloughs and around half-submerged islands, the one deep channel being lost in the maze of shallow ones. With these things to contend with it was dusk long before I neared the town, the twelve miles having stretched to twenty. Finally I saw a windmill partly submerged. Some distance away was a small ranch house also in the water. The house, with lights in the upper story, was a cheering sight; the windmill looked out of place in the midst of all this desolation of water. Soon other houses appeared with lights showing through the windows. Once I lost my way and spent a half hour in getting back to the right channel. Somewhere in the dark, I never knew just when, I passed the mouth of the Gila River. In a similar way in broad daylight I had passed the Bill Williams Fork above Ahrenburg. At last I neared the town. I could discern some buildings on top of a small hill, evidently one of the back streets of Yuma. After tying my boat, I hid my small load in some mesquite trees, then climbed the hill and passed between two peculiar stone houses dark as dungeons. They puzzled me from the outside, but when once past them, I was no longer in doubt. I had entered the open gateway leading to the courtyard of the Yuma penitentiary. No wonder the buildings looked like dungeons. This was a new experience for me, but somehow I had always imagined just how it would look. I was considering beating a retreat when a guard hailed me and asked me if I was not lost. With the assistance of the guard, I escaped from the pen and found my way to the streets of Yuma, just four days after leaving the Needles bridge. CHAPTER XXVI ACROSS THE MEXICO BORDER "Mexico is a good place to keep away from just at present." This was the invariable answer to a few casual inquiries concerning what I would be likely to meet with in the way of difficulties, a possible companion for the voyage to the Gulf, and how one could get back when once there. I received little encouragement from the people of Yuma. The cautions came not from the timid who see danger in every rumour, but from the old steamboat captains, the miners, and prospectors who knew the country and had interests in mineral claims across the border. These claims they had lost in many cases because they had failed for the last two years to keep up their assessment work. There were vague suggestions of being stood up against an adobe wall with a row of "yaller bellies" in front, or being thrown into damp dungeons and held for a ransom. The steamboat men could give me little information about the river. The old channel had filled with silt, and the river was diverted into a roundabout course little more than a creek in width, then spread over whole delta. The widely spread water finally collected into an ancient course of the Colorado, known as the Hardy or False Colorado. As nearly as I could learn no one from Yuma had been through this new channel beyond a certain point called Volcanic Lake. Two or three parties had come back with stories of having attempted it, but found themselves in the middle of a cane-brake with insufficient water to float a boat. With a desire to be of real assistance to me, one old captain called a Yuma Indian into his office and asked him his opinion, suggesting that he might go along. "Mebbe so get lost in the trees, mebbe so get shot by the Cocopah," the Indian replied as he shook his head. The captain laughed at the last and said that the Yuma and Cocopah Indians were not the best of friends, and accused each other of all sorts of things which neither had committed. Some Mexicans and certain outlawed whites who kept close to the border for different reasons, and the possibilities of bogging in a cane-brake were the only uncertainties. In so many words he advised me against going. Still I persevered. I had planned so long on completing my boating trip to the Gulf, that I disliked to abandon the idea altogether. I felt sure, with a flood on the Colorado, there would be some channel that a flat-bottomed boat could go through, when travelling with the current; but the return trip and the chances of being made a target for some hidden native who had lived on this unfriendly border and had as much reason for respecting some citizens of the United States as our own Indians had in the frontier days, caused me considerable concern. I knew it was customary everywhere to make much of the imaginary dangers, as we had found in our other journeys; but it is not difficult to discriminate between sound advice and the croakings which are based on lack of real information. I knew this was sound advice, and as usual I disliked to follow it. At last I got some encouragement. It came from a retired Wild West showman,--the real thing, one who knew the West from its early days. He laughed at the idea of danger and said I was not likely to find any one, even if I was anxious to do so, until I got to the La Bolso Ranch near the Gulf. They would be glad to see me. He thought it was likely to prove uninteresting unless I intended to hunt wild hogs, but that was useless without dogs, and I would have trouble getting a gun past the custom officers. His advice was to talk with the Mexican consul, as he might know some one who could bring me back by horseback. In the consul I found a young Spaniard, all affability, bows, and gestures; and without being conscious of it at first I too began making motions. He deplored my lack of knowledge of the Spanish language, laughed at any suggestion of trouble, as all trouble was in Eastern Sonora, he said, separated from the coast by two hundred miles of desert, and stated that the non-resident owner of the La Bolsa cattle ranch happened to be in the building at that moment. In a twinkling he had me before him and explained the situation. This gentleman, the owner of a 600,000-acre grant, and the fishing concession of the Gulf, stated that the ranch drove a team to Yuma once a week, that they would bring me back; in the interval I must consider myself the guest of the Rancho La Bolsa. The consul gave me a passport, and so it was all arranged. In spite of the consul's opinion, there were many whispered rumours of war, of silent automobiles loaded with firearms that stole out of town under cover of the night and returned in four days, and another of a river channel that could be followed and was followed, the start being made, not from Yuma, but from another border town farther west. A year before there had been an outbreak at this place of certain restless spirits,--some whites included,--and they went along the northern line of Mexico, sacking the ranches and terrorizing the people. The La Bolsa ranch was among those that suffered. The party contained some discharged vaqueros who were anxious to interview the ranch foreman, but fortunately for him he was absent. Then they turned south to Chihuahua and joined the army of Madero. War, to them, meant license to rob and kill. They were not insurrectos, but bandits, and this was the class that was most feared. Meanwhile I had not given up the idea of a possible companion. Before coming to Yuma I had entertained hopes of getting some one with a motor boat to take me down and back, but there were no motor boats, I found. The nearest approach to a power boat was an attempt that was being made to install the engine from a wrecked steam auto on a sort of flat-bottomed scow. I heard of this boat three or four times, and in each case the information was accompanied by a smile and some vague remarks about a "hybrid." I hunted up the owner,--the proprietor of a shooting gallery,--a man who had once had aspirations as a heavy-weight prize fighter, but had met with discouragement. So he had turned his activities to teaching the young idea how to shoot--especially the "Mexican idea" and those other border spirits who were itching for a scrap. The proprietor of the shooting gallery drove a thriving trade. Since he had abandoned his training he had taken on fat, and I found him to be a genial sort of giant who refused to concern himself with the serious side of life. Even a lacing he had received in San Francisco at the hands of a negro stevedore struck him as being humorous. He did not seem to have much more confidence in his "power boat" than the others, but said I might talk with the man who was putting it together, ending with the remark "Phillipps thinks he can make her run, and he has always talked of going to the Gulf." On investigation I found Al Phillipps was anxious to go to the Gulf, and would go along if I would wait until he got his boat in shape. This would take two days. Phillipps, as he told me himself, was a Jayhawker who had left the farm in Kansas and had gone to sea for two years. He was a cowboy, but had worked a year or two about mining engines. In Yuma he was a carpenter, but was anxious to leave and go prospecting along the Gulf. Phillipps and I were sure to have an interesting time. He spoke Spanish and did not fear any of the previously mentioned so-called dangers; he had heard of one party being carried out to sea when the tide rushed out of the river, but as we would have low tide he thought that, with caution, we could avoid that. At last all was ready for the momentous trial. The river bank was lined with a crowd of men who seemed to have plenty of leisure. Some long-haired Yuma Indians, and red and green turbaned Papagos, gathered in a group off a little to one side. A number of darkies were fishing for bullheads, and boys of three colors besides the Mexicans and a lone Chinaman clambered over the trees and the boats along the shore. It was a moment of suspense for Phillipps. His reputation as an engineer and a constructor of boats hung in the balance. He also had some original ideas about a rudder which had been incorporated in this boat. Now was his chance to test them out, and his hour of triumph if they worked. The test was a rigid one. The boat was to be turned upstream against an eight-mile current with big sand-waves, beginning about sixty feet from the shore, running in the middle of the river. If the engine ran, and the stern paddle-wheel turned, his reputation was saved. If she was powerful enough to go against the current, it was a triumph and we would start for the Gulf at once. On board were Phillipps, a volunteer, and myself. Before turning the boat loose, the engine was tried. It was a success. The paddle-wheel churned the water at a great rate, sending the boat upstream as far as the ropes would let her go. We would try a preliminary run in the quiet water close to the shore, before making the test in the swift current. The order was given to cast off, and for two men, the owner and another, to hold to the ropes and follow on the shore. The engine was started, the paddle-wheel revolved, slowly at first but gathering speed with each revolution. We began to move gently, then faster, so that the men on shore had difficulty in keeping even with us, impeded as they were with bushes and sloping banks. Flushed with success, the order was given to turn her loose, and we gathered in the ropes. Now we were drifting away from the shore and making some headway against the swift current. The crowd on shore was left behind. But as we left the bank the river increased in speed and the boat gradually lost. Then she stood still, but began to turn slowly, broadside to the current. This was something we had not foreseen. With no headway the rudder was of no avail. There was no sweep-oar; we had even neglected to put an oar on the boat. With pieces of boards the stranger and I paddled, trying to hold her straight, but all the time, in spite of our efforts, she drifted away from the land and slowly turned. A big sand-wave struck her, she wheeled in her tracks and raced straight for a pier, down the stream. About this time our engineer began having trouble with his engine. At first we feared it would not run, now it seemed it would not stop. A great shout went up from the shore, and a bet was made that we would run to the Gulf in less than a day. A darky boy fell off a boat in the excitement, the Indians did a dance, men pounded each other and whooped for joy. Then a bolt came loose, and the engine ran away. Driving-rod and belts were whirled "regardless," as the passenger afterwards said, about our heads. Then the crash came. Our efforts to escape the pier were of no avail. I made a puny effort to break the impact with a pole, but was sent sprawling on the deck. Al tumbled headlong on top of the engine, which he had stopped at last, our passenger rolled over and over, but we all stayed with the ship. Each grabbing a board, we began to paddle and steered the craft to the shore. With the excitement over, the crowd faded away. Only two or three willing hands remained to help us line the craft back to the landing. The owner, who had to run around the end of the bridge, came down puffing and blowing, badly winded, at the end of the first round. Without a word from any one we brought the boat back to the landing. Al was the first to speak. "Well, what are you going to do?" he asked. "Me? I'm going to take my boat and start for the Gulf in ten minutes. I'll take nothing that I cannot carry. If I have to leave the river I will travel light across the desert to Calexico. I think that I can get through. If you want to go along, I'll stick with you until we get back. What do you think about it?" It was a long speech and a little bitter perhaps. I felt that way. The disappointment on top of the three days' delay when time was precious could not be forgotten in a moment. And when my speech was said I was all through. Al said he would be ready in half an hour. Our beds were left behind. Al had a four-yard square of canvas for a sail. This would be sufficient covering at night in the hot desert. We had two canteens. The provisions, scarcely touched before arriving here, were sufficient for five days. I was so anxious to get started that I did not take the time to replenish them in Yuma, intending to do so at the custom-house on the Arizona side twelve miles below, where some one had told me there was a store. I counted on camping there. After a hurriedly eaten luncheon we were ready to start, the boat was shoved off, and we were embarked for Mexico. Half an hour later we passed the abandoned Imperial Canal, the man-made channel which had nearly destroyed the vast agricultural lands which it had in turn created. Just such a flood as that on which we were travelling had torn out the insufficiently supported head-gates. The entire stream, instead of pushing slowly across the delta, weltering in its own silt to the Gulf, poured into the bottom of the basin nearly four hundred feet below the top of this silt-made dam. In a single night it cut an eighty-foot channel in the unyielding soil, and what had once been the northern end of the California Gulf was turned into an inland sea, filled with the turbid waters of the Colorado, instead of the sparkling waters of the ocean. Nothing but an almost superhuman fight finally rescued the land from the grip of the water. A short distance below, just across the Mexican line, on the California side, was the new canal, dug in a firmer soil and with strongly built gates anchored in rock back from the river. Half a mile away from the stream, on a spur railway, was the Mexican custom-house. I had imagined that it would be beside the river, and that guards would be seen patrolling the shore. But aside from an Indian fishing, there was no one to be seen. We walked out to the custom-house, gave a list of the few things which we had, assured them that we carried no guns, paid our duty, and departed. We had imagined that our boat would be inspected, but no one came near. The border line makes a jog here at the river and the Arizona-Mexico line was still a few miles down the stream. We had passed the mouth of the old silt-dammed Colorado channel, which flowed a little west of south; and we turned instead to the west into the spreading delta or moraine. About this time I remarked that I had seen no store at the custom-house and that I must not neglect to get provisions at the next one or we would be rather short. "We passed our last custom-house back there." Al replied, "That's likely the last place we will see until we get to the ranch by the Gulf." No custom-house! No store! This was a surprise. What was a border for if not to have custom-houses and inspectors? With all the talk of smuggling I had not thought of anything else. And I could tell by Al's tone that his estimation of my foresight had dropped several degrees. This was only natural, for his disappointment and the jibes still rankled. At last we were wholly in Mexican territory. With the States behind, all of our swiftly running water had departed, and we now travelled on a stream that was nearly stagnant. All the cottonwood logs which had finally been carried down the stream after having been deposited on a hundred shores, found here their final resting place. About each cluster of logs an island was forming, covered with a rank grass and tules. Ramified channels wound here and there. Two or three times we found ourselves in a shallow channel, and with some difficulty retraced our way. All channels looked alike, but only one was deep. Then the willow trees which were far distant on either shore began to close in and we travelled in a channel not more than a hundred feet wide, growing smaller with every mile. This new channel is sometimes termed the Bee River. It parallels the northern Mexico line; it also parallels a twenty-five mile levee which the United States government has constructed along the northern edge of this fifty-mile wide dam shoved across the California Gulf by the stream, building higher every year. Except for the river channel the dam may be said to reach unbroken from the Arizona-Sonora Mesa to the Cocopah Mountains. The levee runs from a point of rocks near the river to Lone Mountain, a solitary peak some distance east of the main range. This levee, built since the trouble with the canal, is all that prevents the water from breaking into the basin in a dozen places. We saw signs of two or three camp-fires close to the stream, and with the memory of the stories haunting us a little we built only a small fire when we cooked our evening meal, then extinguished it, and camped on a dry point of land a mile or two below. I think we were both a little nervous that night; I confess that I was, and if an unwashed black-bearded individual had poked his head out from the willows and said, "Woof!" or whatever it is that they say when they want to start up a jack-rabbit, we would both have stampeded clear across the border. In fact I felt a little as I did when I played truant from school and wondered what would happen when I was found out. Daybreak found us ready to resume our journey, and with a rising sun any nervousness vanished. What could any one want with two men who had nothing but a flat-bottomed boat? All the morning we travelled west, the trees ever drawing closer as our water departed on the south, running through the willows, arrow-weed, and cat-tails. Then the channel opened into Volcanic Lake, a circular body of water, which is not a lake but simply a gathering together of the streams we had been losing, and here the water stands, depositing its mud. All the way across had no depth but a bottomless mud, so soft it would engulf a person if he tried to wade across. On the west there was no growth. The shore was nothing but an ash-like powder, not a sand, but a rich soil blown here and there, building in dunes against every obstruction, ever moving before the wind. Here were boiling, sputtering mud pots and steam vents building up and exhausting through mud pipe-stems, rising a foot or two above the springs. Here was a shelter or two of sun-warped boards constructed by those who come here crippled with rheumatism and are supposed to depart, cured. Here we saw signs of a wagon track driven toward Calexico, the border town directly north of the lake. The heat was scorching, the sun, reflected from the sand and water, was blistering, and we could well imagine what a walk across that ash-like soil would mean. Mirages in the distance beckoned, trees and lakes were seen over toward the mountains where we had seen nothing but desert before; heat waves rose and fell. Our mouths began to puff from the reflected sun, our faces burned and peeled, black and red in spots. There was no indication of the slightest breeze until about three o'clock, when the wind moved gently across the lake. We had skirted the northern part of the circle, passing a few small streams and then found one of the three large channels which empty the lake. As it happened we took the one on the outside, and the longest. The growth grew thicker than ever, the stream choked down to fifty feet. Now it began to loop backward and forward and back again, as though trying to make the longest and crookedest channel possible in the smallest space. The water in the channel was stagnant, swift streamlets rushed in from the tules on the north, and rushed out again on the south. It was not always a simple matter to ascertain which was the main channel. Others just as large were diverted from the stream. Twice we attempted to cut across, but the water became shallow, the tules stalled our boats, and we were glad to return, sounding with a pole when in doubt. Then we began to realize that we were not entirely alone in this wilderness of water. We saw evidence of another's passage, in broken cat-tails and blazed trees. In many places he had pushed into the thickets. We concluded it must be a trapper. At last, to our surprise, we saw a telephone equipment, sheltered in a box nailed on a water-surrounded tree. The line ran directly across the stream. Here also we could see where a boat had forced a way through, and the water plants had been cut with a sharp instrument. What could it be? We were certain no line ran to the only ranch at the Gulf. We had information of another ranch directly on the border line, but did not think it came below the levee, and as far as we had learned, there were no homes but the wickiups of the Cocopah in the jungles. It was like one of those thrilling stories of Old Sleuth and Dead Shot Dick which we read, concealed in our schoolbooks, when we were supposed to be studying the physical geography of Mexico. But the telephone was no fiction, and had recently been repaired, but for what purpose it was there we could not imagine. After leaving the lake there was no dry land. At night our boat, filled with green tules for a bed, was tied to a willow tree, with its roots submerged in ten feet of water. Never were there such swarms of mosquitos. In the morning our faces were corrugated with lumps, not a single exposed spot remaining unbitten. The loops continued with the next day's travel, but we were gradually working to the southwest, then they began to straighten out somewhat, as the diverted streams returned. We thought early in the morning that we would pass about ten miles to the east of the coast range, but it was not to be. Directly to the base of the dark, heat-vibrating rocks we pulled, and landed on the first shore that we had seen for twenty-four hours. Here was a recently used trail, and tracks where horses came down to the water. Here too was the track of a barefooted Cocopah, a tribe noted for its men of gigantic build, and with great feet out of all proportion to their size. If that footprint was to be fossilized, future generations would marvel at the evidence of some gigantic prehistoric animal, an alligator with a human-shaped foot. These Indians have lived in these mud bottoms so long, crossing the streams on rafts made of bundles of tules, and only going to the higher land when their homes are inundated by the floods, that they have become a near approach to a web-footed human being. Our stream merely touched the mountain, then turned directly to the southeast in a gradually increasing stream. Now we began to see the breeding places of the water-birds of which we had heard. There was a confusion of bird calls, sand-hill cranes were everywhere; in some cases with five stick-built nests in a single water-killed tree. A blue heron flopped around as though it had broken a wing, to decoy us from its nest. The snowy white pelican waddled along the banks and mingled with the cormorants. There were great numbers of gulls, and occasional snipe. We were too late to see the ducks which come here, literally by the million, during the winter months. There were hawks' nests in the same groups of trees as the cranes, with the young hawks stretching their necks for the food which was to be had in such abundance. And on another tree sat the parent hawks, complacently looking over the nests of the other birds, like a coyote waiting for a horse to die. At Cocopah Mountain a golden eagle soared, coming down close to the ground as we rested under the mesquite. Then as we travelled clear streams of water began to pour in from the north and east, those same streams we had lost above, but cleared entirely of their silt. Now the willows grew scarce, and instead of mud banks a dry, firm earth was built up from the river's edge, and the stream increased in size. Soon it was six or seven hundred feet wide and running with a fair current. This was the Hardy River. We noticed signs of falling water on the banks as though the stream had dropped an inch or two. In a half-hour the mark indicated a fall of eight inches or more; then we realized we were going out with the tide. A taste of water proved it. The river water was well mixed with a weak saline solution. We filled our canteens at once. We saw a small building and a flagpole on the south shore, but on nearing the place found it was deserted. A few miles below were two other channels equally as large as that on which we travelled, evidently fed by streams similar to our own. There were numerous scattered trees, some of them cottonwood, and we saw some grazing cattle. We began to look for the ranch house, which some one had said was at the point where the Colorado and the Hardy joined, and which others told us was at the Gulf. CHAPTER XXVII THE GULF OF CALIFORNIA That the head of the Gulf of California has a big tide is well known. Choked in a narrowing cone, the waters rise higher and higher as they come to the apex, reaching twenty-five feet or over in a high tide. This causes a tidal bore to roll up the Colorado, and from all reports it was something to be avoided. The earliest Spanish explorers told some wonderful tales of being caught in this bore and of nearly losing their little sailing vessels. This was my first experience with river tides. It was somewhat of a disappointment to me that I could not arrange to be here at a high tide, for we had come at the first quarter of the moon. Out on the open sea one can usually make some headway by rowing against the ebb or flow of the tide: here on the Colorado, where it flowed upstream at a rate of from five to eight miles an hour, it was different. When we reached the head of the tide, it was going out. Unfortunately for us the day was gone when the current began to run strong. It hardly seemed advisable to travel with it after dark. We might pass the ranch, or be carried against a rock-bound coast, or find difficulty in landing and be overwhelmed by the tidal bore. So when darkness fell we camped pulling our boat out in a little slough to prevent it from being carried away. Evidently we were too near the headwaters for a tidal bore, for at eleven P.M. the waters turned and came back as quietly as they ran out. We launched our boat before the break of day, and for four hours we travelled on a good current. The channel now had widened to a half-mile, with straight earthy banks, about fifteen feet high. Still there was no sign of a ranch, and it began to look to us as if there was little likelihood of finding any. The land was nearly level and except for a few raised hummocks on which grew some scattered trees, it was quite bare. This was not only because it did not get the life-giving water from the north, but because at times it was submerged under the saline waters from the south. Near the shores of the river, and extending back for fifty feet, was a matted, rank growth of grass; beyond that the earth was bare, baked and cracked by the burning sun. This grass, we found, was a favorite resort of rattlesnakes. We killed two of them, a large one and a vicious little flat-headed sidewinder. All this land was the south rim of the silt dam, which extended from the line of cliffs or mesa on the east to the mountains on the west. The other rim, a hundred feet higher, lay at least fifty miles to the north. Here was the resting-place of a small portion of the sediment carved away by the Colorado's floods. How deep it is piled and how far it extends out under the waters of the Gulf would be hard to say. We felt sure that we would get to the Gulf with this tide, but when the time came for it to turn we were still many miles away. There was nothing to do but to camp out on this sun-baked plain. We stopped a little after 9.30 A.M. Now that we were nearing the Gulf we were sure there would be a tidal bore. As we breakfasted a slight rushing sound was heard, and what appeared to be a ripple of broken water or small breaker came up the stream and passed on. This was a disappointment. With high water on the river and with a low tide this was all the tidal bore we would see. In four hours the water rose fourteen feet, then for two hours the rise was slower. Within three feet of the level it came. The opposite side, rounded at the edges, looked like a thread on top of the water, tapered to a single silken strand and looking toward the Gulf, merged into the water. To all appearances it was a placid lake spread from mountain to mesa. Our smaller canteen was still filled with the fresh water secured the evening before. The other had been emptied and was filled again before the return of the tide, but considerable taste of the salt remained. What we did now must be done with caution. So far we had not seen the ranch. We were in doubt whether it was somewhere out on the coast or back on one of the sloughs passed the evening before. We had heard of large sail-boats being hauled from Yuma and launched by the ranch. This would seem to indicate that it was somewhere on the Gulf. We had provisions sufficient for one day, one canteen of fresh water, and another so mixed with the salt water that we would not use it except as a last resort. A little after 3.30 P.M. the tide changed; we launched our boat and went out with the flood. As we neared the mouth of the stream we found that the inrush and outrush of water had torn the banks. Here the river spread in a circular pool several miles across. It seemed almost as if the waters ran clear to the line of yellow cliffs and to the hazy mountain range. Then the shores closed in again just before the current divided quite evenly on either side of a section of the barren plain named Montague Island. We took the channel to the east. Our last hope of finding the ranch was in a dried-out river channel, overgrown with trees. But although we looked carefully as we passed, there was no sign of a trail or of human life. Some egrets preened their silken feathers on the bank; sand-hill cranes and two coyotes, fat as hogs and dragging tails weighted with mud, feasted on the lively hermit-crabs, which they extracted from their holes--and that was all. The sun, just above the lilac-tinted mountains, hung like a great suspended ball of fire. The cloudless sky glared like a furnace. Deep purple shadows crept into the canyons slashing the mountain range. The yellow dust-waves and the mirages disappeared with the going down of the sun. Still we were carried on and on. We would go down with the tide. Now the end of the island lay opposite the line of cliffs; soon we would be in the Gulf. So ended the Colorado. Two thousand miles above, it was a beautiful river, born of a hundred snow-capped peaks and a thousand crystal streams; gathering strength, it became the masterful river which had carved the hearts of mountains and slashed the rocky plateaus, draining a kingdom and giving but little in return. Now it was going under, but it was fighting to the end. Waves of yellow struggled up through waves of green and were beaten down again. The dorsal fins of a half-dozen sharks cut circles near our craft. With the last afterglow we were past the end of the island and were nearing the brooding cliffs. Still the current ran strong. The last vestige of day was swallowed in the gloom, just as the Colorado was buried 'neath the blue. A hard wind was blowing, toward the shore; the sea was choppy. A point of rocks where the cliffs met the sea was our goal. Would we never reach it? Even in the night, which was now upon us, the distance was deceptive. At last we neared the pile of rocks. The sound of waters pounding on the shore was heard, and we hurriedly landed, a half-mile above it, just as the tide turned. The beach was a half-mile wide, covered with mud and sloughs. There was no high shore. But an examination showed that the tide ran back to the cliffs. One of us had to stay with the boat. Telling Phillipps to get what sleep he could, I sat in the boat, and allowed the small breakers which fox-chased each other to beat it in as the tide rose. An arctic explorer has said that having an adventure means that something unexpected or unforeseen has happened; that some one has been incompetent. I had the satisfaction of knowing that the fault of this adventure, if such it could be called, was mine. Here we were, at our goal in Mexico, supposed to be a hostile land, with scant provisions for one day. It was a hundred miles along the line of cliffs, back to Yuma. So far, we had failed to find the ranch. It was not likely that it was around the point of rocks. We knew now that the Colorado channel was fifteen miles from the mouth of the river, and was not a slough as we had supposed. Doubtless the ranch was up there. Our best plan was to return to the head of the tide, going up the Colorado, then if we did not find the ranch we would abandon the boat, snare some birds, keep out of the scorching heat, and travel in the morning and evening. Two active men should be able to do that without difficulty. So the hours passed, with the breakers driving the boat toward the line of cliffs. When it had reached its highest point, I pulled into a slough and tied up, then woke Al as we had agreed. While I slept, he climbed the cliffs to have a last look. An hour after daybreak he returned. Nothing but rock and desert could be seen. We dragged the boat down in the slime of the slough until we caught the falling tide. Then Al rigged up his sail. With the rising sun a light breeze blew in from the Gulf. Here was our opportunity. Slowly we went up against the falling tide. Then as the breeze failed, the tide returned. Fifty feet away a six foot black sea bass floated; his rounded back lifted above the water. With the approach of the boat he was gone. The sharks were seen again. Two hours later we had entered the mouth of the river carried by the rising tide. Several miles were left behind. Another breeze came up as the tide failed, and the sail was rigged up again. Things were coming our way at last. Al knew how to handle a boat. Running her in close to the top of the straight falling banks I could leap to the land, take a picture, then run and overtake the boat, and leap on again. Then the wind shifted, the tide turned, and we tied up, directly opposite the point where we had camped the afternoon before. It was the hottest day we had seen Whirlwinds, gathering the dust in slender funnels, scurried across the plains. Mirages of trees bordering shimmering lakes and spreading water such as we had come through below Yuma were to be seen, even out towards the sea. Then over toward the cliffs where the old Colorado once ran we saw a column of distant smoke. Perhaps it was a hunter; it could hardly be the ranch. As we could do nothing with the boat, we concluded to walk over that way. It was many miles distant. Taking everything we had, including our last lunch, we started our walk, leaving a cloth on a pole to mark the point where our boat was anchored. But after going four miles it still seemed no nearer than before, so we returned. It was evening. The water was drinkable again; that was something to be thankful for. By ten o'clock that night the tide would come up again. After dark we found that our boat was being beached. So we ran it down and began pulling it along over a shoal reaching far out from the shore. As we tugged I was sure I heard a call somewhere up the river. What kind of a land was this! Could it be that my senses were all deceiving me as my eyes were fooled by the mirage? I had heard it, Al had not, and laughed when I said that I had. We listened and heard it again, plainly this time, "Can't you men find a landing? We have a good one up here," it said. We asked them to row down, advising them to keep clear of the shoal. We waded out, guided by their voices, in the pitch darkness and neared the boat. One shadowy form sat in either end of a flat-bottomed boat. There was a mast, and the boat was fitted for two oarsmen as well. Evidently the load was heavy, for it was well down in the water. The sail cloth was spread over all the boat, excepting one end where there was a small sheet-iron stove, with a pan of glowing wood coal underneath. The aroma of coffee came from a pot on the stove. As I steadied myself at the bow I touched a crumpled flag,--Mexican, I thought,--but I could not see. Both figures sat facing us, with rifles in their hands, alert and ready for a surprise. Smugglers! I thought; guns, I imagined. They could not see our faces in the dark, neither could we distinguish theirs. Judging by their voices they were young men. I thought from the first that they were Mexicans, but they talked without accent. They could see that we carried no arms, but their vigilance was not relaxed. They asked what our trouble was and we told them of the beached boat, what we had been doing, and why we were there. They said they were out for a little sight-seeing trip down in the Gulf. They might go to Tiburone Island. One of them wondered if it was true that the natives were cannibals. He said he would not care about being shot, but he would hate to be put in their stew-pot. We asked them how much water they carried. A fifteen-gallon keg was all They hoped to get more along the coast. It is quite well known there is none. They professed to be uninformed about the country, did not know there was a ranch or a tidal bore, and thanked us for our information about the tides, and the advice to fill their keg when the water was lowest, which would be in half an hour. They could not sell any provisions, but gave us a quart of flour. As we talked an undermined bank toppled over, sounding like shots from a gun. One cocked his rifle on the impulse, then laughed when he realized what it was. Just before we parted one of them remarked, "You came through the Bee River four days ago, near a telephone, didn't you?" "Yes, but we didn't see any one," I replied. "No? But we saw you!" And we felt the smiles we could not see. They said the large ranch had some Chinamen clearing the highest ground, and building levees around it to keep the water out. The telephone and a motor boat connected the different ranches. Their advice to us was to keep to the river, not to look for the ranch, but to get on the telephone and raise a racket until some one showed up. Then we parted to go to our respective landings, with mutual wishes for a successful journey. The boat was pulled down. The tide was on the point of turning, but it would be an hour before there would be any strength to it. I went to shore and built a fire of some driftwood, for the long stand in the water had chilled me. Al stayed with the boat. Earlier in the day, I cautiously shook the sticks loose from the matted grass, fearing the rattlers which were everywhere. In this case nothing buzzed. But I had no sooner got my fire well started when a rattler began to sing, roused by the light and the heat, about twenty feet away. My fire was built beside one of the many sloughs which cut back through the grass and ended in the barren soil. These sloughs were filled with water when the tide was in and made ideal landing places, especially if one had to avoid a big tidal bore. Getting on the opposite side of the fire, I tossed a stick occasionally to keep him roused. Soon another joined, and between them they made the air hum. By this time I was thoroughly warmed and felt that the boat would be the best place for me. Carefully extinguishing my fire, I went down to the river just as the tide returned. Without any sign or call from the shore we were carried up with the tide. We were both weary but I dared not sleep, so I merely kept the boat away from the shores and drifted, while Phillipps slept. I had picked out a guiding star which I little needed while the current was running strong, but which would give us our course when the tide changed, for we could be carried out just as easily. But an hour after we left our camp another light appeared, growing larger and larger. It was one of two things. Either my fire was not extinguished, or a match thrown down by one of the others had fired the deep dry grass. I consoled myself that it could not spread, for the sloughs and the barren soil would cut it off. I had a grim satisfaction when I thought of the snakes and how they would run for the desert land. This was a real guiding star, growing larger and larger as we were carried up the stream. I slept on shore when the tide would take us no farther. Phillipps got breakfast. We were now about three miles from the slough. After breakfast we alternately towed the boat, for there was no wind to carry us up this morning, and two hours later arrived at the diverging streams. Near by we saw some mules showing evidence of having been worked. It was clear now that the ranch was near. There was still a chance that we would take the wrong stream. Over on the opposite side was a tall cottonwood tree. This I climbed, and had the satisfaction of seeing some kind of a shed half a mile up the east stream. The land between proved to be a large island. As we neared the building two swarthy men emerged and came down to the shore. "Buenos días," Al called as we pulled in to the landing. "Buenos días, Señor," they answered with a smile. They were employees of the Rancho La Bolso, which was a half-mile up the stream. Did we make the big fire which had burned until morning? Our answer seemed to relieve their minds. What would we do with our boat? It was theirs to do with as they pleased. Leading two horses from out of the building, they mounted and told us to climb on behind, and away we rode across some water-filled sloughs. Hidden in the trees we came to the buildings--three or four flat-topped adobe houses. Some little brown children scattered to announce our coming. As we dismounted two white men approached. "Why, hello, Phillipps!" the ranch boss said when he saw my companion. "This is a long walk from Yuma. You fellows are just in time to grub!" NOTES [Footnote 1: The various expeditions which are credited with continuous or complete journeys through all the canyons and the dates of leaving Green River, Wyoming, are as follows: Major Powell, 1st journey. May 24, 1869. Major Powell, 2nd journey. May 22, 1871. Discontinued at Kanab Canyon in the Grand Canyon. Galloway. Sept. 20, 1895 and 1896. Flavell. Aug. 27, 1896. Stone. Sept. 12, 1909. Kolb. Sept. 8, 1911. For a more complete record of the earlier parties see appendix.] [Footnote 2: The initials E.C. apply to my brother, Emery C. Kolb; E.L. to myself. These initials are frequently used in this text. For several years the nick-name "Ed" has been applied to me, and in my brothers' narratives I usually figure as Ed.] [Footnote 3: It is not unusual for certain individual animals to be outlawed or to have a price set on their heads by the stockmen's associations, in addition to the regular bounty paid by the counties. At the time this is written there is a standing reward of $200 for a certain "lobo," or timber wolf which roams over the Kaibab Forest directly opposite our home in the Grand Canyon. In addition to this there is a bounty of $10 offered by the county. This wolf has taken to killing colts and occasional full-grown horses, in addition to his regular diet of yearling calves.] [Footnote 4: Brown-Stanton. May 25, 1889. Russell-Monnette. Sept. 20, 1907. For a more complete record of these expeditions, as well as others who attempted the passage of the canyons below this point, see appendix.] [Footnote 5: Left by the Stone expedition.] [Footnote 6: While Major Powell was making his second voyage of exploration, another party was toiling up these canyons towing their boats from the precipitous shores. This party was under the leadership of Lieutenant Wheeler of the U.S. Army. The party was large, composed of twenty men, including a number of Mojave Indians, in the river expedition, while others were sent overland with supplies to the mouth of Diamond Creek. By almost superhuman effort they succeeded in getting their boats up the canyon as far as Diamond Creek. While there is no doubt that they reached this point, there were times when we could hardly believe it was possible when we saw the walls they would have to climb in this granite gorge. In some places there seemed to be no place less than five hundred feet above the river where they could secure a foothold. Their method was to carry a rope over these places, then pull the boats up through the rapids by main force. It would be just as easy to pull a heavy rowboat up the gorge of Niagara, as through some of these rapids. Their best plan, by far, would have been to haul their boats in at Diamond Creek and make the descent, as they did after reaching this point. The only advantage their method gave them was a knowledge of what they would meet with on the downstream run. Lieutenant Wheeler professed to disbelieve that Major Powell had descended below Diamond Creek, and called his voyage the completion of the exploration of the Colorado River. In a four days' run they succeeded in covering the same distance that had taken four weeks of endless toil, to bring their boats up to this point.] [Footnote 7: See appendix, History of Cataract Canyon.] 
13709	----	WOLFVILLE NIGHTS by Alfred Henry Lewis Author of "Wolfville", "Wolfville Days", "Peggy O'Nea", &c. 1902, CONTENTS. CHAPTER DEDICATION SOME COWBOY FACTS I. THE DISMISSAL OF SILVER PHIL II. COLONEL STERETT'S PANTHER HUNT III. HOW FARO NELL DEALT BANK IV. HOW THE RAVEN DIED V. THE QUEERNESS OF DAVE TUTT VI. WITH THE APACHE'S COMPLIMENTS VII. THE MILLS OF SAVAGE GODS VIII. TOM AND JERRY; WHEELERS IX. THE INFLUENCE OF FARO NELL X. THE GHOST OF THE BAR-B-8 XI. TUCSON JENNIE'S CORRECTION XII. BILL CONNORS OF THE OSAGES XIII. WHEN TUTT FIRST SAW TUCSON XIV. THE TROUBLES OF DAN BOGGS XV. BOWLEGS AND MAJOR BEN XVI. TOAD ALLEN'S ELOPEMENT XVII. THE CLIENTS OF AARON GREEN XVIII. COLONEL STERETT'S MARVELS XIX. THE LUCK OF HARDROBE XX. LONG AGO ON THE RIO GRANDE XXI. COLONEL COYOTE CLUBBS To William Greene Sterett this volume is inscribed. NEW YORK CITY, August 1, 1902 MY DEAR STERETT:-- In offering this book to you I might have advantage of the occasion to express my friendship and declare how high I hold you as a journalist and a man. Or I might speak of those years at Washington when in the gallery we worked shoulder to shoulder; I might recall to you the wit of Hannum, or remind you of the darkling Barrett, the mighty Decker, the excellent Cohen, the vivid Brown, the imaginative Miller, the volatile Angus, the epigrammatic Merrick, the quietly satirical Splain, Rouzer the earnest, Boynton the energetic, Carson the eminent, and Dunnell, famous for a bitter, frank integrity. I might remember that day when the gifted Fanciulli, with no more delicate inspiration than crackers, onions, and cheese, and no more splendid conservatory than Shoemaker's, wrote, played and consecrated to you his famous "Lone Star March" wherewith he so disquieted the public present of the next concert in the White House grounds. Or I might hark back to the campaign of '92, when together we struggled against national politics as evinced in the city of New York; I might repaint that election night when, with one hundred thousand whirling dervishes of democracy in Madison Square, dancing dances, and singing songs of victory, we undertook through the hubbub to send from the "Twenty-third street telegraph office" half-hourly bulletins to our papers in the West; how you, accompanied of the dignified Richard Bright, went often to the Fifth Avenue Hotel; and how at last you dictated your bulletins--a sort of triumphant blank verse, they were--as Homeric of spirit as lofty of phrase--to me, who caught them as they came from your lips, losing none of their fire, and so flashed them all burning into Texas, far away. But of what avail would be such recount? Distance separates us and time has come between. Those are the old years, these are the new, with newer years beyond. Life like a sea is filling from rivers of experience. Forgetfulness rises as a tide and creeps upward to drown within us those stories of the days that were. And because this is true, it comes to me that you as a memory must stand tallest in the midst of my regard. For of you I find within me no forgetfulness. I have met others; they came, they tarried, they departed. They came again; and on this second encounter the recollection of their existences smote upon me as a surprise. I had forgotten them as though they had not been. But such is not your tale. Drawn on the plates of memory, as with a tool of diamond, I carry you both in broadest outline and in each least of shade; and there hangs no picture in the gallery of hours gone, to which I turn with more of pleasure and of good. Nor am I alone in my recollection. Do I pass through the Fifth Avenue Hotel on my way to the Hoffman, that vandyked dispenser leans pleasantly across his counter, to ask with deepest interest: "Do you hear from the Old Man now?" Or am I belated in Shanley's, a beaming ring of waiters--if it be not an hour overrun of custom--will half-circle my table, and the boldest, "Pat," will question timidly, yet with a kindly Galway warmth: "How's the Old Man?" Old Man! That is your title: at once dignified and affectionate; and by it you come often to be referred to along Broadway these ten years after its conference. And when the latest word is uttered what is there more to fame! I shall hold myself fortunate, indeed, if, departing, I'm remembered by half so many half so long. But wherefore extend ourselves regretfully? We may meet again; the game is not played out. Pending such bright chance, I dedicate this book to you. It is the most of honour that lies in my lean power. And in so doing, I am almost moved to say, as said Goldsmith of Johnson in his offering of _She Stoops to Conquer_: "By inscribing this slight performance to you, I do not mean to so much compliment you as myself. It may do me some honour to inform the public that I have lived many years in intimacy with you. It may serve the interests of mankind also to inform them that the greatest wit may be found in a character without impairing the most unaffected piety." I repeat, I am all but moved to write these lines of you. It would tell my case at least; and while description might limp in so far as you lack somewhat of that snuffle of "true piety" so often engaging the Johnsonian nose, you make up the defect with possession of a wider philosophy, a better humour and a brighter, quicker wit than visited or dwelt beneath the candle-scorched wig of our old bully lexicographer. ALFRED HENRY LEWIS. Some Cowboy Facts. There are certain truths of a botanical character that are not generally known. Each year the trees in their occupation creep further west. There are regions in Missouri--not bottom lands--which sixty years ago were bald and bare of trees. Today they are heavy with timber. Westward, beyond the trees, lie the prairies, and beyond the prairies, the plains; the first are green with long grasses, the latter bare, brown and with a crisp, scorched, sparse vesture of vegetation scarce worth the name. As the trees march slowly westward in conquest of the prairies, so also do the prairies, in their verdant turn, become aggressors and push westward upon the plains. These last stretches, extending to the base of that bluff and sudden bulwark, the Rocky Mountains, can go no further. The Rockies hold the plains at bay and break, as it were, the teeth of the desert. As a result of this warfare of vegetations, the plains are to first disappear in favour of the prairies; and the prairies to give way before the trees. These mutations all wait on rain; and as the rain belt goes ever and ever westward, a strip of plains each year surrenders its aridity, and the prairies and then the trees press on and take new ground. These facts should contain some virtue of interest; the more since with the changes chronicled, come also changes in the character of both the inhabitants and the employments of these regions. With a civilised people extending themselves over new lands, cattle form ever the advance guard. Then come the farms. This is the procession of a civilised, peaceful invasion; thus is the column marshalled. First, the pastoral; next, the agricultural; third and last, the manufacturing;--and per consequence, the big cities, where the treasure chests of a race are kept. Blood and bone and muscle and heart are to the front; and the money that steadies and stays and protects and repays them and their efforts, to the rear. Forty years ago about all that took place west of the Mississipi of a money-making character was born of cattle. The cattle were worked in huge herds and, like the buffalo supplanted by them, roamed in unnumbered thousands. In a pre-railroad period, cattle were killed for their hides and tallow, and smart Yankee coasters went constantly to such ports as Galveston for these cargoes. The beef was left to the coyotes. Cattle find a natural theatre of existence on the plains. There, likewise, flourishes the pastoral man. But cattle herding, confined to the plains, gives way before the westward creep of agriculture. Each year beholds more western acres broken by the plough; each year witnesses a diminution of the cattle ranges and cattle herding. This need ring no bell of alarm concerning a future barren of a beef supply. More cattle are the product of the farm-regions than of the ranges. That ground, once range and now farm, raises more cattle now than then. Texas is a great cattle State. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri are first States of agriculture. The area of Texas is about even with the collected area of the other five. Yet one finds double the number of cattle in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri than in Texas, to say nothing of tenfold the sheep and hogs. No; one may be calm; one is not to fall a prey to any hunger of beef. While the farms in their westward pushing do not diminish the cattle, they reduce the cattleman and pinch off much that is romantic and picturesque. Between the farm and the wire fence, the cowboy, as once he flourished, has been modified, subdued, and made partially to disappear. In the good old days of the Jones and Plummer trail there were no wire fences, and the sullen farmer had not yet arrived. Your cowboy at that time was a person of thrill and consequence. He wore a broad-brimmed Stetson hat, and all about it a rattlesnake skin by way of band, retaining head and rattles. This was to be potent against headaches--a malady, by the way, which swept down no cowboy save in hours emergent of a spree. In such case the snake cure didn't cure. The hat was retained in defiance of winds, by a leathern cord caught about the back of the head, not under the chin. This cord was beautiful with a garniture of three or four perforated poker chips, red, yellow, and blue. There are sundry angles of costume where the dandyism of a cowboy of spirit and conceit may acquit itself; these are hatband, spurs, saddle, and leggins. I've seen hatbands made of braided gold and silver filigree; they were from Santa Fe, and always in the form of a rattlesnake, with rubies or emeralds or diamonds for eyes. Such gauds would cost from four hundred to two thousand dollars. Also, I've encountered a saddle which depleted its proud owner a round twenty-five hundred dollars. It was of finest Spanish leather, stamped and spattered with gold bosses. There was gold-capping on the saddle horn, and again on the circle of the cantle. It was a dream of a saddle, made at Paso del Norte; and the owner had it cinched upon a bronco dear at twenty dollars. One couldn't have sold the pony for a stack of white chips in any faro game of that neighbourhood (Las Vegas) and they were all crooked games at that. Your cowboy dandy frequently wears wrought steel spurs, inlaid with silver and gold; price, anything you please. If he flourish a true Brummel of the plains his leggins will be fronted from instep to belt with the thick pelt, hair outside, of a Newfoundland dog. These "chapps," are meant to protect the cowboy from rain and cold, as well as plum bushes, wire fences and other obstacles inimical, and against which he may lunge while riding headlong in the dark. The hair of the Newfoundland, thick and long and laid the right way, defies the rains; and your cowboy loathes water. Save in those four cardinals of vanity enumerated, your cowboy wears nothing from weakness; the rest of his outfit is legitimate. The long sharp heels of his boots are there to dig into the ground and hold fast to his mother earth while roping on foot. His gay pony when "roped" of a frosty morning would skate him all across and about the plains if it were not for these heels. The buckskin gloves tied in one of the saddle strings are used when roping, and to keep the half-inch manila lariat--or mayhap it's horsehair or rawhide pleated--from burning his hands. The red silken sash one was wont aforetime to see knotted about his waist, was used to hogtie and hold down the big cattle when roped and thrown. The sash--strong, soft and close--could be tied more tightly, quickly, surely than anything besides. In these days, with wire pastures and branding pens and the fine certainty of modern round-ups and a consequent paucity of mavericks, big cattle are seldom roped; wherefor the sash has been much cast aside. The saddle-bags or "war-bags,"--also covered of dogskin to match the leggins, and worn behind, not forward of the rider--are the cowboy's official wardrobe wherein he carries his second suit of underclothes, and his other shirt. His handkerchief, red cotton, is loosely knotted about the cowboy's neck, knot to the rear. He wipes the sweat from his brow therewith on those hot Texas days when in a branding pen he "flanks" calves or feeds the fires or handles the irons or stands off the horned indignation of the cows, resentful because of burned and bawling offspring. It would take two hundred thousand words to tell in half fashion the story of the cowboy. His religion of fatalism, his courage, his rides at full swing in midnight darkness to head and turn and hold a herd stampeded, when a slip on the storm-soaked grass by his unshod pony, or a misplaced prairie-dog hole, means a tumble, and a tumble means that a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of cattle, with hoofs like chopping knives, will run over him and make him look and feel and become as dead as a cancelled postage stamp; his troubles, his joys, his soberness in camp, his drunkenness in town, and his feuds and occasional "gun plays" are not to be disposed of in a preface. One cannot in such cramped space so much as hit the high places in a cowboy career. At work on the range and about his camp--for, bar accidents, wherever you find a cowboy you will find a camp--the cowboy is a youth of sober quiet dignity. There is a deal of deep politeness and nothing of epithet, insult or horseplay where everybody wears a gun. There are no folk inquisitive on the ranges. No one asks your name. If driven by stress of conversation to something akin to it the cowboy will say: "What may I call you, sir?" And he's as careful to add the "sir," as he is to expect it in return. You are at liberty to select what name you prefer. Where you hail from? where going? why? are queries never put. To look at the brand on your pony--you, a stranger--is a dangerous vulgarity to which no gentleman of the Panhandle or any other region of pure southwestern politeness would stoop. And if you wish to arouse an instant combination of hate, suspicion and contempt in the bosom of a cowboy you have but to stretch forth your artless Eastern hand and ask: "Let me look at your gun." Cowboys on the range or in the town are excessively clannish. They never desert each other, but stay and fight and die and storm a jail and shoot a sheriff if needs press, to rescue a comrade made captive in their company. Also they care for each other when sick or injured, and set one another's bones when broken in the falls and tumbles of their craft. On the range the cowboy is quiet, just and peaceable. There are neither women nor cards nor rum about the cow camps. The ranches and the boys themselves banish the two latter; and the first won't come. Women, cards and whiskey, the three war causes of the West, are confined to the towns. Those occasions when cattle are shipped and the beef-herds, per consequence, driven to the shipping point become the only times when the cowboy sees the town. In such hours he blooms and lives fully up to his opportunity. He has travelled perhaps two hundred miles and has been twenty days on the trail, for cattle may only be driven about ten miles a day; he has been up day and night and slept half the time in the saddle; he has made himself hoarse singing "Sam Bass" and "The Dying Ranger" to keep the cattle quiet and stave off stampedes; he has ridden ten ponies to shadows in his twenty days of driving, wherefore, and naturally, your cowboy feels like relaxing. There would be as many as ten men with each beef-herd; and the herd would include about five thousand head. There would be six "riders," divided into three watches to stand night guard over the herd and drive it through the day; there would be two "hoss hustlers," to hold the eighty or ninety ponies, turn and turn about, and carry them along with the herd; there would be the cook, with four mules and the chuck wagon; and lastly there would be the herd-boss, a cow expert he, and at the head of the business. Once the herd is off his hands and his mind at the end of the drive, the cowboy unbuckles and reposes himself from his labours. He becomes deeply and famously drunk. Hungering for the excitement of play he collides amiably with faro and monte and what other deadfalls are rife of the place. Never does he win; for the games aren't arranged that way. But he enjoys himself; and his losses do not prey on him. Sated with faro bank and monte--they can't be called games of chance, the only games of chance occurring when cowboys engage with each other at billiards or pool--sated, I say, with faro and Mexican monte, and exuberant of rum, which last has regular quick renewal, our cowboy will stagger to his pony, swing into the saddle, and with gladsome whoops and an occasional outburst from his six shooter directed toward the heavens, charge up and down the street. This last amusement appeals mightily to cowboys too drunk to walk. For, be it known, a gentleman may ride long after he may not walk. If a theatre be in action and mayhap a troop of "Red Stocking Blondes," elevating the drama therein, the cowboy is sure to attend. Also he will arrive with his lariat wound about his body under his coat; and his place will be the front row. At some engaging crisis, such as the "March of the Amazons," having first privily unwound and organised his lariat to that end, he will arise and "rope" an Amazon. This will produce bad language from the manager of the show, and compel the lady to sit upon the stage to the detriment of her wardrobe if no worse, and all to keep from being pulled across the footlights. Yet the exercise gives the cowboy deepest pleasure. Having thus distinguished the lady of his admiration, later he will meet her and escort her to the local dancehall. There, mingling with their frank companions, the two will drink, and loosen the boards of the floor with the strenuous dances of our frontier till daylight does appear. For the matter of a week, or perchance two--it depends on how fast his money melts--in these fashions will our gentleman of cows engage his hours and expand himself. He will make a deal of noise, drink a deal of whiskey, acquire a deal of what he terms "action"; but he harms nobody, and, in a town toughened to his racket and which needs and gets his money, disturbs nobody. "Let him whoop it up; he's paying for it, ain't he?" will be the prompt local retort to any inquiry as to why he is thus permitted to disport. So long as the cowboy observes the etiquette of the town, he will not be molested or "called down" by marshal or sheriff or citizen. There are four things your cowboy must not do. He must not insult a woman; he must not shoot his pistol in a store or bar-room; he must not ride his pony into those places of resort; and as a last proposal he must not ride his pony on the sidewalks. Shooting or riding into bar-rooms is reckoned as dangerous; riding on the sidewalk comes more under the head of insult, and is popularly regarded as a taunting defiance of the town marshal. On such occasions the marshal never fails to respond, and the cowboy is called upon to surrender. If he complies, which to the credit of his horse-sense he commonly does, he is led into brief captivity to be made loose when cooled. Does he resist arrest, there is an explosive rattle of six shooters, a mad scattering of the careful citizenry out of lines of fire, and a cowboy or marshal is added to the host beyond. At the close of the festival, if the marshal still lives he is congratulated; if the cowboy survives he is lynched; if both fall, they are buried with the honours of frontier war; while whatever the event, the communal ripple is but slight and only of the moment, following which the currents of Western existence sweep easily and calmly onward as before. A. H. L. WOLFVILLE NIGHTS CHAPTER I. The Dismissal of Silver Phil. "His name, complete, is 'Silver City Philip.' In them social observances of the Southwest wherein haste is a feacher an' brev'ty the bull's eye aimed at, said cognomen gets shortened to 'Silver Phil.'" The Old Cattleman looked thoughtfully into his glass, as if by that method he collected the scattered elements of a story. There was a pause; then he lifted the glass to his lips as one who being now evenly equipped of information, proposed that it arrive hand in hand with the inspiration which should build a tale from it. "Shore, this Silver Phil is dead now; an' I never yet crosses up with the gent who's that sooperfluous as to express regrets. It's Dan Boggs who dismisses Silver Phil; Dan does it in efforts he puts forth to faithfully represent the right. "Doc Peets allers allows this Silver Phil is a 'degen'rate;' leastwise that's the word Peets uses. An' while I freely concedes I ain't none too cl'ar as to jest what a degen'rate is, I stands ready to back Peets' deescription to win. Peets is, bar Colonel William Greene Sterett, the best eddicated sharp in Arizona; also the wariest as to expressin' views. Tharfore when Peets puts it up, onflinchin', that this yere Silver Phil's a degen'rate, you-all can spread your blankets an' go to sleep on it that a degen'rate he is. "Silver Phil is a little, dark, ignorant, tousled-ha'red party, none too neat in costume. He's as black an' small an' evil-seemin' as a Mexican; still, you sees at a glance he ain't no Greaser neither. An' with all this yere surface wickedness, Silver Phil has a quick, hyster'cal way like a woman or a bird; an' that's ever a grin on his face. You can smell 'bad' off Silver Phil, like smoke in a house, an' folks who's on the level--an' most folks is--conceives a notion ag'in him the moment him an' they meets up. "The first time I observes Silver Phil, he's walkin' down the licker room of the Red Light. As he goes by the bar, Black Jack--who's rearrangin' the nosepaint on the shelf so it shows to advantage--gets careless an' drops a bottle. "'Crash!' it goes onto the floor. "With the sound, an' the onexpected suddenness of it stampedin' his nerves, that a-way, Silver Phil leaps into the air like a cat; an' when he 'lights, he's frontin' Black Jack an' a gun in each hand. "'Which I won't be took!' says Silver Phil, all flustered. "His eyes is gleamin' an' his face is palin' an' his ugly grin gets even uglier than before. But like a flash, he sees thar's nothin' to go in the air about--nothin' that means him; an' he puts up his hardware an' composes himse'f. "'You-all conducts yourse'f like a sport who has something on his mind,' says Texas Thompson, who's thar present at the time, an' can't refrain from commentin' on the start that bottle-smashin' gives Silver Phil. "This Silver Phil makes no response, but sort o' grins plenty ghastly, while his breath comes quick. "Still, while you-all notes easy that this person's scared, it's plain he's a killer jest the same. It's frequent that a-way. I'm never much afraid of one of your cold game gents like Cherokee Hall; you can gamble the limit they'll never put a six-shooter in play till it's shorely come their turn. But timid, feverish, locoed people, whose jedgment is bad an' who's prone to feel themse'fs in peril; they're the kind who kills. For myse'f I shuns all sech. I won't say them erratic, quick-to-kill sports don't have courage; only it strikes me--an' I've rode up on a heap of 'em--it's more like a fear-bit f'rocity than sand. "Take Enright or Peets or Cherokee or Tutt or Jack Moore or Boggs or Texas Thompson; you're plumb safe with sech gents--all or any. An' yet thar ain't the first glimmer of bein' gun-shy about one of 'em; they're as clean strain as the eternal granite, an' no more likely to hide out from danger than a hill. An' while they differs from each other, yet they're all different from sech folks as Silver Phil. Boggs, goin' to war, is full of good-humoured grandeur, gala and confident, ready to start or stop like a good hoss. Cherokee Hall is quiet an' wordless; he gets pale, but sharp an' deadly; an' his notion is to fight for a finish. Peets is haughty an' sooperior on the few o'casions when he onbends in battle, an' comports himse'f like a gent who fights downhill; the same, ondoubted, bein' doo to them book advantages of Peets which elevates him an' lifts him above the common herd a whole lot. Enright who's oldest is of course slowest to embark in blood, an' pulls his weepons--when he does pull 'em--with sorrowful resignation. "'Which I'm shorely saddest when I shoots,' says Enright to me, as he reloads his gun one time. "These yere humane sentiments, however, don't deter him from shootin' soon an' aimin' low, which latter habits makes Wolfville's honoured chief a highly desp'rate game to get ag'inst. "Jack Moore, bein' as I explains former, the execyootive of the Stranglers, an' responsible for law an' order, has a heap of shootin' shoved onto him from time to time. Jack allers transacts these fireworks with a ca'm, offishul front, the same bein' devoid, equal, of anger or regrets. Tutt, partic'lar after he weds Tucson Jennie, an' more partic'lar still when he reaps new honours as the originator of that blessed infant Enright Peets Tutt, carries on what shootin' comes his way in a manner a lot dignified an' lofty; while Texas Thompson--who's mebby morbid about his wife down in Laredo demandin' she be divorced that time--although he picks up his hand in a fracas, ready an' irritable an' with no delays, after all is that well-balanced he's bound to be each time plumb right. "Which, you observes, son, from these yere settin's forth, that thar's a mighty sight of difference between gents like them pards of mine an' degen'rates of the tribe of Silver Phil. It's the difference between right an' wrong; one works from a impulse of pure jestice, the other is moved of a sperit of crime; an' thar you be. "Silver Phil, we learns later--an' it shore jestifies Peets in his theories about him bein' a degen'rate--has been in plenty of blood. But allers like a cat; savage, gore-thirsty, yet shy, prideless, an' ready to fly. It seems he begins to be homicidal in a humble way by downin' a trooper over near Fort Cummings. That's four years before he visits us. He's been blazin' away intermittent ever since, and allers crooel, crafty an' safe. It's got to be a shore thing or Silver Phil quits an' goes into the water like a mink. "This yere ondersized miscreant ain't ha'nted about Wolfville more'n four days before he shows how onnecessary he is to our success. Which he works a ha'r copper on Cherokee Hall. What's a ha'r copper? I'll onfold, short and terse, what Silver Phil does, an' then you saveys. Cherokee's dealin' his game--farobank she is; an' if all them national banks conducts themse'fs as squar' as that enterprise of Cherokee's, the fields of finance would be as safely honest as a church. Cherokee's turnin' his game one evenin'; Faro Nell on the lookout stool where she belongs. Silver Phil drifts up to the lay-out, an' camps over back of the king-end. He gets chips, an' goes to takin' chances alternate on the king, queen, jack, ten; all side an' side they be. Cherokee bein' squar' himse'f ain't over-prone to expect a devious play in others. He don't notice this Silver Phil none speshul, an' shoves the kyards. "Silver Phil wins three or four bets; it's Nell that catches on to his racket, an' signs up to Cherokee onder the table with her little foot. One glance an' Cherokee is loaded with information. This Silver Phil, it seems, in a sperit of avarice, equips himse'f with a copper--little wooden checker, is what this copper is--one he's done filched from Cherokee the day prior. He's fastened a long black hoss-ha'r to it, an' he ties the other end of the hoss-ha'r to his belt in front. This ha'r is long enough as he's planted at the table that a-way, so it reaches nice to them four nearest kyards,--the king, queen, jack, ten. An' said ha'r is plumb invisible except to eyes as sharp as Faro Nell's. The deceitful Silver Phil will have a stack on one of 'em, coppered with this yere ha'r copper. He watches the box. As the turns is made, if the kyards come his way, well an' good. Silver Phil does nothin' but garners in results. When the kyards start to show ag'in him, however, that's different. In sech events Silver Phil draws in his breath, sort o' takin' in on the hoss-ha'r, an' the copper comes off the bet. When the turn is made, thar's Silver Phil's bet--by virchoo of said fraud--open an' triumphant an' waitin' to be paid. "Cherokee gets posted quick an with a look. As sharp as winkin' Cherokee has a nine-inch bowie in his hand an' with one slash cuts the hoss-ha'r clost up by Silver Phil's belt. "'That's a yoonique invention!" observes Cherokee, an' he's sarcastic while he menaces with the knife at Silver Phil; 'that contraption is shorely plenty sagacious! But it don't go here. Shove in your chips.' Silver Phil obeys: an' he shows furtive, ugly, an' alarmed, an' all of 'em at once. He don't say a word. 'Now pull your freight,' concloods Cherokee. 'If you ever drifts within ten foot of a game of mine ag'in I'll throw this knife plumb through you--through an' through.' An' Cherokee, by way of lustration lets fly the knife across the bar-room. It comes like a flash. "'Chuck!' "Thar's a picture paper pasted onto the wooden wall of the Red Light, displayin' the liniaments of some party. That bowie pierces the picture--a shot in the cross it is--an' all with sech fervour that the p'int of the blade shows a inch an' a half on the other side of that individyool board. "'The next time I throws a knife in your presence,' remarks Cherokee to Silver Phil, an' Cherokee's as cold an' p'isonous as a rattlesnake, 'it'll be la'nched at you.' "Silver Phil don't say nothin' in retort. He's aware by the lib'ral way Cherokee sep'rates himse'f from the bowie that said weepon can't constitoote Cherokee's entire armament. An' as Silver Phil don't pack the sperit to face no sech flashlight warrior, he acts on Cherokee's hint to _vamos_, an fades into the street. Shore, Cherokee don't cash the felon's chips none; he confiscates 'em. Cherokee ain't quite so tenderly romantic as to make good to a detected robber. Moreover, he lets this Silver Phil go onharmed when by every roole his skelp is forfeit. It turns out good for the camp, however, as this yere experience proves so depressin' to Silver Phil he removes his blankets to Red Dog. Thar among them purblind tarrapins, its inhabitants, it's likely he gets prosperous an' ondetected action on that little old ha'r copper of his. "It's not only my beliefs, but likewise the opinions of sech joodicial sports as Enright, Peets, an' Colonel Sterett, that this maverick, Silver Phil, is all sorts of a crim'nal. An' I wouldn't wonder if he's a pure rustler that a-way; as ready to stand up a stage as snake a play at farobank. This idee settles down on the Wolfville intell'gence on the heels of a vicissitoode wherein Dan Boggs performs, an' which gets pulled off over in the Bird Cage Op'ry House. Jack Moore ain't thar none that time. Usual, Jack is a constant deevotee of the dramy. Jack's not only a first-nighter, he comes mighty clost to bein' a every-nighter. But this partic'lar evenin' when Boggs performs, Jack's rummagin' about some'ers else. "If Jack's thar, it's even money he'd a-had that second shot instead of Boggs; in which event, the results might have been something graver than this yere minoote wound which Boggs confers. I'm confident Jack would have cut in with the second shot for sech is his offishul system. Jack more'n once proclaims his position. "'By every roole of law,' says Jack at epocks when he declar's himse'f, 'an' on all o'casions, I, as kettle-tender to the Stranglers, is entitled to the first shot. When I uses the term 'o'casion,' I would be onderstood as alloodin' to affairs of a simply social kind, an' not to robberies, hold-ups, hoss-larcenies, an' other an' sim'lar transactions in spec'latif crime when every gent defends his own. Speakin' social, however, I reasserts that by every roole of guidance, I'm entitled to the first shot. Which a doo regyard for these plain rights of mine would go far to freein' Wolfville upper circles of the bullets which occurs from time to time, an' which even the most onconventional admits is shore a draw-back. All I can add as a closer,' concloods Jack, 'is that I'll make haste to open on any sport who transgresses these fiats an' goes to shootin' first. Moreover, it's likely that said offender finds that when I'm started once, what I misses in the orig'nal deal I'll make up in the draw, an' I tharfore trusts that none will prove so sooicidal as to put me to the test.' "This Bird Cage Op'ry House evenin', however, Jack is absent a heap. Dan Boggs is present, an' is leanin' back appreciatin' the show an' the Valley Tan plenty impartial. Dan likes both an' is doin' 'em even jestice. Over opp'site to Dan is a drunken passel of sports from Red Dog, said wretched hamlet bein' behind Wolfville in that as in all things else an' not ownin' no op'ry house. "As the evenin' proceeds--it's about sixth drink time--a casyooal gun goes off over among the Red Dog outfit, an' the lead tharfrom bores a hole in the wall clost to Dan's y'ear. Nacherally Dan don't like it. The show sort o' comes to a balk, an' takin' advantages of the lull Dan arises in a listless way an' addresses the Red Dogs. "'I merely desires to inquire,' says Dan 'whether that shot is inadvertent; or is it a mark of innocent joobilation an' approval of the show; or is it meant personal to me?' "'You can bet your moccasins!' shouts one of the Red Dog delegation, 'thar's no good fellowship with that gun-play. That shot's formal an' serious an' goes as it lays.' "'My mind bein' now cl'ar on the subject of motive,' says Dan; 'the proper course is plain.'" With this retort Dan slams away gen'ral--shoots into the flock like--at the picnickers from Red Dog, an' a party who's plenty drunk an' has his feet piled up on a table goes shy his off big toe. "As I remarks yeretofore it's as well Jack Moore ain't thar. Jack would have corralled something more momentous than a toe. Which Jack would have been shootin' in his capac'ty as marshal, an' couldn't onder sech circumstances have stooped to toes. But it's different with Dan. He is present private an' only idlin' 'round; an' he ain't driven to take high ground. More partic'lar since Dan's playin' a return game in the nacher of reproofs an' merely to resent the onlicensed liberties which Red Dog takes with him, Dan, as I says, is free to accept toes if he so decides. "When Dan busts this yere inebriate, the victim lams loose a yell ag'inst which a coyote would protest. That sot thinks he's shore killed. What with the scare an' the pain an' the nosepaint, an' regyardin' of himse'f as right then flutterin' about the rim of eternity, he gets seized with remorse an' allows he's out to confess his sins before he quits. As thar's no sky pilot to confide in, this drunkard figgers that Peets 'll do, an' with that he onloads on Peets how, bein' as he is a stage book-keep over in Red Dog, he's in cahoots with a outfit of route agents an' gives 'em the word when it's worth while to stand-up the stage. An' among other crim'nal pards of his this terrified person names that outlaw Silver Phil. Shore, when he rounds to an' learns it ain't nothin' but a toe, this party's chagrined to death. "This yere confidin' sport's arrested an' taken some'ers--Prescott mebby--to be tried in a shore-enough co't for the robberies; the Red Dog Stranglers not bein' game to butt in an' hang him a lot themse'fs. They surrenders him to the marshal who rides over for him; an' they would have turned out Silver Phil, too, only that small black outcast don't wait, but goes squanderin' off to onknown climes the moment he hears the news. He's vamoosed Red Dog before this penitent bookkeep ceases yelpin' an' sobbin' over his absent toe. "It ain't no time, however, before we hears further of Silver Phil; that is, by way of roomer. It looks like a couple of big cow outfits some'ers in the San Simon country--they're the 'Three-D' an' the 'K-in-a-box' brands--takes first to stealin' each, other's cattle, an', final, goes to war. Each side retains bands of murderers an' proceeds buoyantly to lay for one another. Which Silver Phil enlists with the 'Three-D' an' sneaks an' prowls an' bushwhacks an' shoots himse'f into more or less bloody an' ignoble prom'nence. At last the main war-chiefs of the Territory declar's themse'fs in on the riot an' chases both sides into the hills; an' among other excellent deeds they makes captive Silver Phil. "It's a great error they don't string this Silver Phil instanter. But no; after the procrastinatin' fashion of real law, they permits the villain--who's no more use on the surface of Arizona that a-way than one of them hydrophoby polecats whose bite is death--to get a law sharp to plead an' call for a show-down before a jedge an' jury. It takes days to try Silver Phil, an' marshals an' sheriff gents is two weeks squanderin' about gettin' witnesses; an' all to as much trouble an' loss of time an' dinero as would suffice to round-up the cattle of Cochise county. Enright an' the Stranglers would have turned the trick in twenty minutes an' never left the New York Store ontil with Silver Phil an' a lariat they reepairs to the windmill to put the finishin' touches on their lucoobrations. "Still, dooms slow an' shiftless as they shore be, at the wind-up Silver Phil's found guilty, an' is put in nom'nation by the presidin' alcade to be hanged; the time bein' set in a crazy-hoss fashion for a month away. As Silver Phil--which he's that bad an' hard he comes mighty clost to bein; game--is leavin' the co't-room with the marshal who's ridin' herd on him, he says: "'I ain't payin' much attention at the time,'--Silver Phil's talkin' to that marshal gent,--'bein' I'm thinkin' of something else, but do I onderstand that old grey sport on the bench to say you-all is to hang me next month?' "'That's whatever!' assents this marshal gent, 'an' you can gamble a bloo stack that hangin' you is a bet we ain't none likely to overlook. Which we're out to put our whole grateful souls into the dooty.' "'Now I thinks of it,' observes Silver Phil, 'I'm some averse to bein' hanged. I reckons, speakin' free an' free as between fellow sports, that in order for that execootion to be a blindin' success I'll have to be thar personal?' "'It's one of the mighty few o'casions,' responds the marshal, 'when your absence would shorely dash an' damp the gen'ral joy. As you says, you'll have to be thar a heap personal when said hangin' occurs.' "'I'm mighty sorry,' says Silver Phil, 'that you-all lays out your game in a fashion that so much depends on me. The more so, since the longer I considers this racket, the less likely it is I'll be thar. It's almost a cinch, with the plans I has, that I'll shore be some'ers else.' "They corrals Silver Phil in the one big upper room of a two-story 'doby, an' counts off a couple of dep'ty marshals to gyard him. These gyards, comin' squar' down to cases, ain't no improvement, moral, on Silver Phil himse'f; an' since they're twice his age--Silver Phil not bein' more'n twenty--it's safe as a play to say that both of 'em oughter have been hanged a heap before ever Silver Phil is born. These two hold-ups, however, turns dep'ty marshals in their old age, an' is put in to stand watch an' watch an' see that Silver Phil don't work loose from his hobbles an' go pirootin' off ag'in into parts onknown. Silver Phil is loaded with fetters,--handcuffs an' laig-locks both--an' these hold-up sentries is armed to the limit. "It's the idee of Doc Peets later, when he hears the details, that if the gyards that time treats Silver Phil with kindness, the little felon most likely would have remained to be hanged. But they don't: they abooses Silver Phil; cussin' him out an' herdin' him about like he's cattle. They're a evil-tempered couple, them dep'ties, an' they don't give Silver Phil no sort o' peace. "'As I su'gests yeretofore,' says Doc Peets, when he considers the case, 'this Silver Phil is a degen'rate. He's like a anamile. He don't entertain no reg'lar scheme to work free when he waxes sardonic with the marshal; that's only a bluff. Later, when them gyards takes to maltreatin' him an' battin' him about, it wakes up the venom in him, an' his cunnin' gets aroused along with his appetite for revenge.' "This Silver Phil, who's lean an' slim like I explains at the jump, has hands no bigger than a cat's paws. It ain't no time when he discovers that by cuttin' himse'f a bit on the irons, he can shuck the handcuffs whenever he's disposed. Even then, he don't outline no campaign for liberty; jest sort o' roominates an' waits. "It's one partic'lar mornin', some two weeks after Silver Phil's sentenced that a-way. The marshal gent himse'f ain't about, bein' on some dooty over to Tucson. Silver Phil is upsta'rs on the top floor of the 'doby with his gyards. Which he's hotter than a wildcat; the gyards an' him has been havin' a cussin' match, an' as Silver Phil outplays 'em talkin', one of 'em's done whacked him over the skelp with his gun. The blood's tricklin' down Silver Phil's fore'erd as he sits glowerin'. "One of the gyards is loadin' a ten-gauge Greener--a whole mouthful of buckshot in each shell. He's grinnin' at Silver Phil as he shoves the shells in the gun an' slams her shet. "'Which I'm loadin' that weepon for you,' says the gyard, contemplatin' Silver Phil derisive. "'You be, be you!' replies Silver Phil, his eyes burnin' with rage. 'Which you better look out a whole lot; you-all may get it yourse'f.' "The gyard laughs ugly an' exasperatin' an' puts the ten-gauge in a locker along with two or three Winchesters. Then he turns the key on the firearms an' goes caperin' off to his feed. "The other gyard, his _compadre_, is settin' on a stool lookin' out a window. Mebby he's considerin' of his sins. It would be more in his hand at this time if he thinks of Silver Phil. "Silver Phil, who's full of wrath at the taunts of the departed gyard, slips his hands free of the irons. Most of the hide on his wrists comes with 'em, but Silver Phil don't care. The gyard's back is to him as that gent sits gazin' out an' off along the dusty trail where it winds gray an' hot toward Tucson. Silver Phil organises, stealthy an' cat-cautious; he's out for the gyard's gun as it hangs from his belt, the butt all temptin' an' su'gestive. "As Silver Phil makes his first move the laig-locks clanks. It ain't louder than the jingle of a brace of copper _centouse_ knockin' together. It's enough, however; it strikes on the y'ear of that thoughtful gyard like the roar of a '44. He emerges from his reverie with a start; the play comes cl'ar as noonday to him in a moment. "The gyard leaps, without even lookin' 'round, to free himse'f from the clutch of Silver Phil. Which he's the splinter of a second too late. Silver Phil makes a spring like a mountain lion, laig-locks an' all, an' grabs the gun. As the gyard goes clatterin' down sta'rs. Silver Phil pumps two loads into him an' curls him up at the foot. Then Silver Phil hurls the six-shooter at him with a volley of mal'dictions. "Without pausin' a moment, Silver Phil grabs the stool an' smashes to flinders the locker that holds the 10-gauge Greener. He ain't forgot none; an' he's fair locoed to get that partic'lar weepon for the other gyard. He rips it from the rack an' shows at the window as his prey comes runnin' to the rescoo of his pard: "'Oh, you! Virg Sanders!' yells Silver Phil. "The second gyard looks up; an' as he does, Silver Phil gives him both bar'ls. Forty-two buckshot; an' that gyard's so clost he stops 'em all! As he lays dead, Silver Phil breaks the Greener in two, an' throws, one after the other, stock an' bar'l at him. "'Which I'll show you-all what happens when folks loads a gun for me!' says Silver Phil. "Nacherally, this artillery practice turns out the entire plaza. The folks is standin' about the 'doby which confines Silver Phil, wonderin' whatever that enthoosiast's goin' to do next. No, they don't come after him, an' I'll tell you why. Shore, thar's twenty gents lookin' on, any one of whom, so far as personal apprehensions is involved, would trail Silver Phil single-handed into a wolf's den. Which he'd feel plumb confident he gets away with Silver Phil an' the wolves thrown in to even up the odds. Still, no one stretches forth to capture Silver Phil on this yere voylent o'casion. An' these is the reasons. Thar's no reg'lar offishul present whose dooty it is to rope up this Silver Phil. If sech had chanced to be thar, you can put down a stack he'd come a-runnin', an' him or Silver Phil would have caught up with the two gyards on their journey into the beyond. But when it gets down to private people volunteerin' for dooty as marshals, folks in the Southwest goes some slothful to work. Thar's the friends of the accoosed--an' as a roole he ain't none friendless--who would mighty likely resent sech zeal. Also, in the case of Silver Phil, his captivity grows out of a cattle war. One third the public so far as it stands about the 'doby where Silver Phil is hived that time is 'Three-D' adherents, mebby another third is 'K-in-a-box' folks, while the last third is mighty likely nootral. Whichever way it breaks, however, thar's a tacit stand-off, an' never a sport of 'em lifts a finger or voice to head off Silver Phil. "'Which she's the inalien'ble right of Americans onder the constitootion to escape with every chance they gets,' says one. "'That's whatever!' coincides his pard; 'an' moreover this ain't our round-up nohow.' "It's in that fashion these private citizens adjusts their dooty to the state while pausin' to look on, in a sperit of cur'osity while Silver Phil makes his next play. "They don't wait long. Silver Phil comes out on the roof of a stoop in front. He's got a Winchester by now, an' promptly throws the muzzle tharof on a leadin' citizen. Silver Phil allows he'll plug this dignitary if they don't send up a sport with a file to cut loose the laig-locks. Tharupon the pop'lace, full of a warm interest by this time, does better. They gropes about in the war-bags of the Virg Sanders sharp who stops the buckshot an' gets his keys; a moment after, Silver Phil is free. "Still, this ontirin' hold-up goes on menacin' the leadin' citizen as former. Which now Silver Phil demands a bronco, bridled an' saddled. He gives the public ten minutes; if the bronco is absent at the end of ten minutes Silver Phil allows he'll introdooce about a pound of lead into where that village father does his cogitating. The bronco appears with six minutes to spar'. As it arrives, the vivacious Silver Phil jumps off the roof of the stoop--the same bein' low--an' is in the saddle an' out o' sight while as practised a hand as Huggins is pourin' out a drink. Where the trail bends 'round a mesa Silver Phil pulls up. "'Whoop! whoop! whoopee! for Silver Phil,' he shouts. "Then he waves the Winchester, an' as he spurs 'round the corner of the hill it's the last that spellbound outfit ever sees of Silver Phil. "Nacherally now," remarked my old friend, as he refreshed himself with a mouthful of scotch, "you-all is waitin' an' tryin' to guess wherever does Dan Boggs get in on this yere deal. An' it won't take no time to post you; the same bein' a comfort. "Not one word do we-all wolves of Wolfville hear of the divertin' adventures of Silver Phil--shootin' up his gyards an' fetchin' himse'f free--ontil days after. No one in camp has got Silver Phil on his mind at all; at least if he has he deems him safe an' shore in hock, a-waitin' to be stretched. Considerin' what follows, I never experiences trouble in adoptin' Doc Peets' argyments that the eepisodes wherein this onhappy Silver Phil figgers sort o' aggravates his intellects ontil he's locoed. "'Bein' this Silver Phil's a degen'rate,' declar's Peets, explanatory, 'he's easy an' soon to loco. His mind as well as his moral nacher is onbalanced congenital. Any triflin' jolt, much less than what that Silver Phil runs up on, an' his fretful wits is shore to leave the saddle. "Now that Silver Phil's free, but loonatic like Peets says, an' doubly vicious by them tantalisin' gyards, it looks like he thinks of nothin' but wreckin' reprisals on all who's crossed his trail. An' so with vengeance eatin' at his crim'nal heart he p'ints that bronco's muzzle straight as a bird flies for Wolfville. Whoever do you-all reckon now he wants? Cherokee Hall? Son, you've followed off the wrong waggon track. Silver Phil--imagine the turpitoode of sech a ornery wretch!--is out for the lovely skelp of Faro Nell who detects him in his ha'r-copper frauds that time. "Which the first intimations we has of Silver Phil after that escape, is one evenin' about fifth drink time--or as you-all says 'four o'clock.' The sun's still hot an' high over in the west. Thar's no game goin'; but bein' it's as convenient thar as elsewhere an' some cooler, Cherokee's settin' back of his layout with Faro Nell as usual on her lookout perch. Dan Boggs is across the street in the dancehall door, an' his pet best bronco is waitin' saddled in front. Hot an' drowsy; the street save for these is deserted. "It all takes place in a moment. Thar's a clattering rush; an' then, pony a-muck with sweat an' alkali dust, Silver Phil shows in the portals of the Red Light. Thar's a flash an' a spit of white smoke as he fires his six-shooter straight at Faro Nell. "Silver Phil is quick, but Cherokee is quicker. Cherokee sweeps Faro Nell from her stool with one motion of his arm an' the bullet that's searchin' for her lifts Cherokee's ha'r a trifle where he 'most gets his head in its way. "Ondoubted, this Silver Phil allows he c'llects on Faro Nell as planned. He don't shoot twice, an' he don't tarry none, but wheels his wearied pony, gives a yell, an' goes surgin' off. "But Silver Phil's got down to the turn of that evil deal of his existence. He ain't two hundred yards when Dan Boggs is in the saddle an' ridin' hard. Dan's bronco runs three foot for every one of the pony of Silver Phil's; which that beaten an' broken cayouse is eighty miles from his last mouthful of grass. "As Dan begins to crowd him, Silver Phil turns in the saddle an' shoots. The lead goes 'way off yonder--wild. Dan, grim an' silent, rides on without returnin' the fire. "'Which I wouldn't dishonour them guns of mine,' says Dan, explainin' later the pheenomenon of him not shootin' none, 'which I wouldn't dishonour them guns by usin' 'em on varmints like this yere Silver Phil.' "As Silver Phil reorganises for a second shot his bronco stumbles. Silver Phil pitches from the saddle an' strikes the grass to one side. As he half rises, Dan lowers on him like the swoop of a hawk. It's as though Dan's goin' to snatch a handkerchief from the ground. "As Dan flashes by, he swings low from the saddle an' his right hand takes a troo full grip on that outlaw's shoulder. Dan has the thews an' muscles of a cinnamon b'ar, an' Silver Phil is only a scrap of a man. As Dan straightens up in the stirrups, he heaves this Silver Phil on high to the length of his long arm; an' then he dashes him ag'inst the flint-hard earth; which the manoover--we-all witnesses it from mebby a quarter of a mile--which the manoover that a-way is shore remorseless! This Silver Phil is nothin' but shattered bones an' bleedin' pulp. He strikes the plains like he's crime from the clouds an' is dead without a quiver. "'Bury him? No!' says Old Man Enright to Dave Tutt who asks the question. 'Let him find his bed where he falls. "While Enright speaks, an' as Dan rides up to us at the Red Light, a prompt raven drops down over where this Silver Phil is layin'. Then another raven an' another--black an' wide of wing--comes floatin' down. A coyote yells--first with the short, sharp yelp, an' then with that multiplied patter of laughter like forty wolves at once. That daylight howl of the coyote alters tells of a death. Shore raven an' wolf is gatherin'. As Enright says: 'This yere Silver Phil ain't likely to be lonesome none to-night.' "'Did you kill him, Dan?' asks Faro Nell. "'Why, no, Nellie,' replies Dan, as he steps outen the stirrups an' beams on Faro Nell. She's still a bit onstrung, bein' only a little girl when all is said. 'Why, no, Nellie; I don't kill him speecific as Wolfville onderstands the word; but I dismisses him so effectual the kyard shore falls the same for Silver Phil.'" CHAPTER II. Colonel Sterett's Panther Hunt, "Panthers, what we-all calls 'mountain lions,'" observed the Old Cattleman, wearing meanwhile the sapient air of him who feels equipped of his subject, "is plenty furtive, not to say mighty sedyoolous to skulk. That's why a gent don't meet up with more of 'em while pirootin' about in the hills. Them cats hears him, or they sees him, an' him still ignorant tharof; an' with that they bashfully withdraws. Which it's to be urged in favour of mountain lions that they never forces themse'fs on no gent; they're shore considerate, that a-way, an' speshul of themse'fs. If one's ever hurt, you can bet it won't be a accident. However, it ain't for me to go 'round impugnin' the motives of no mountain lion; partic'lar when the entire tribe is strangers to me complete. But still a love of trooth compels me to concede that if mountain lions ain't cowardly, they're shore cautious a lot. Cattle an' calves they passes up as too bellicose, an' none of 'em ever faces any anamile more warlike than a baby colt or mebby a half-grown deer. I'm ridin' along the Caliente once when I hears a crashin' in the bushes on the bluff above--two hundred foot high, she is, an' as sheer as the walls of this yere tavern. As I lifts my eyes, a fear-frenzied mare an' colt comes chargin' up an' projects themse'fs over the precipice an' lands in the valley below. They're dead as Joolius Caesar when I rides onto 'em, while a brace of mountain lions is skirtin' up an' down the aige of the bluff they leaps from, mewin' an' lashin' their long tails in hot enthoosiasm. Shore, the cats has been chasin' the mare an' foal, an' they locoes 'em to that extent they don't know where they're headin' an' makes the death jump I relates. I bangs away with my six-shooter, but beyond givin' the mountain lions a convulsive start I can't say I does any execootion. They turns an' goes streakin' it through the pine woods like a drunkard to a barn raisin'. "Timid? Shore! They're that timid seminary girls compared to 'em is as sternly courageous as a passel of buccaneers. Out in Mitchell's canyon a couple of the Lee-Scott riders cuts the trail of a mountain lion and her two kittens. Now whatever do you-all reckon this old tabby does? Basely deserts her offsprings without even barin' a tooth, an' the cow-punchers takes 'em gently by their tails an' beats out their joovenile brains. That's straight; that mother lion goes swarmin' up the canyon like she ain't got a minute to live. An' you can gamble the limit that where a anamile sees its children perish without frontin' up for war, it don't possess the commonest roodiments of sand. Sech, son, is mountain lions. "It's one evenin' in the Red Light when Colonel Sterett, who's got through his day's toil on that Coyote paper he's editor of, onfolds concernin' a panther round-up which he pulls off in his yooth. "'This panther hunt,' says Colonel Sterett, as he fills his third tumbler, 'occurs when mighty likely I'm goin' on seventeen winters. I'm a leader among my young companions at the time; in fact, I allers is. An' I'm proud to say that my soopremacy that a-way is doo to the dom'nant character of my intellects. I'm ever bright an' sparklin' as a child, an' I recalls how my aptitoode for learnin' promotes me to be regyarded as the smartest lad in my set. If thar's visitors, to the school, or if the selectmen invades that academy to sort o' size us up, the teacher allers plays me on 'em. I'd go to the front for the outfit. Which I'm wont on sech harrowin' o'casions to recite a ode--the teacher's done wrote it himse'f--an' which is entitled Napoleon's Mad Career. Thar's twenty-four stanzas to it; an' while these interlopin' selectmen sets thar lookin' owley an' sagacious, I'd wallop loose with the twenty-four verses, stampin' up and down, an' accompanyin' said recitations with sech a multitood of reckless gestures, it comes plenty clost to backin' everybody plumb outen the room. Yere's the first verse: I'd drink an' sw'ar an' r'ar an' t'ar An' fall down in the mud, While the y'earth for forty miles about Is kivered with my blood. "'You-all can see from that speciment that our schoolmaster ain't simply flirtin' with the muses when he originates that epic; no sir, he means business; an' whenever I throws it into the selectmen, I does it jestice. The trustees used to silently line out for home when I finishes, an' never a yeep. It stuns 'em; it shore fills 'em to the brim! "'As I gazes r'arward,' goes on the Colonel, as by one rapt impulse he uplifts both his eyes an' his nosepaint, 'as I gazes r'arward, I says, on them sun-filled days, an' speshul if ever I gets betrayed into talkin' about 'em, I can hardly t'ar myse'f from the subject. I explains yeretofore, that not only by inclination but by birth, I'm a shore-enough 'ristocrat. This captaincy of local fashion I assoomes at a tender age. I wears the record as the first child to don shoes throughout the entire summer in that neighbourhood; an' many a time an' oft does my yoothful but envy-eaten compeers lambaste me for the insultin' innovation. But I sticks to my moccasins; an' to-day shoes in the Bloo Grass is almost as yooniversal as the licker habit. "'Thar dawns a hour, however, when my p'sition in the van of Kaintucky _ton_ comes within a ace of bein' ser'ously shook. It's on my way to school one dewey mornin' when I gets involved all inadvertent in a onhappy rupture with a polecat. I never does know how the misonderstandin' starts. After all, the seeds of said dispoote is by no means important; it's enough to say that polecat finally has me thoroughly convinced. Followin' the difference an' my defeat, I'm witless enough to keep goin' on to school, whereas I should have returned homeward an' cast myse'f upon my parents as a sacred trust. Of course, when I'm in school I don't go impartin' my troubles to the other chil'en; I emyoolates the heroism of the Spartan boy who stands to be eat by a fox, an' keeps 'em to myself. But the views of my late enemy is not to be smothered; they appeals to my young companions; who tharupon puts up a most onneedful riot of coughin's an' sneezin's. But nobody knows me as the party who's so pungent. "'It's a tryin' moment. I can see that, once I'm located, I'm goin' to be as onpop'lar as a b'ar in a hawg pen; I'll come tumblin' from my pinnacle in that proud commoonity as the glass of fashion an' the mold of form. You can go your bottom peso, the thought causes me to feel plenty perturbed. "'At this peril I has a inspiration; as good, too, as I ever entertains without the aid of rum. I determines to cast the opprobrium on some other boy an' send the hunt of gen'ral indignation sweepin' along his trail. "'Thar's a innocent infant who's a stoodent at this temple of childish learnin' an' his name is Riley Bark. This Riley is one of them giant children who's only twelve an' weighs three hundred pounds. An' in proportions as Riley is a son of Anak, physical, he's dwarfed mental; he ain't half as well upholstered with brains as a shepherd dog. That's right; Riley's intellects, is like a fly in a saucer of syrup, they struggles 'round plumb slow. I decides to uplift Riley to the public eye as the felon who's disturbin' that seminary's sereenity. Comin' to this decision, I p'ints at him where he's planted four seats ahead, all tangled up in a spellin' book, an' says in a loud whisper to a child who's sittin' next: "'Throw him out!' "'That's enough. No gent will ever realise how easy it is to direct a people's sentiment ontil he take a whirl at the game. In two minutes by the teacher's bull's-eye copper watch, every soul knows it's pore Riley; an' in three, the teacher's done drug Riley out doors by the ha'r of his head an' chased him home. Gents, I look back on that yoothful feat as a triumph of diplomacy; it shore saves my standin' as the Beau Brummel of the Bloo Grass. "'Good old days, them!' observes the Colonel mournfully, 'an' ones never to come ag'in! My sternest studies is romances, an' the peroosals of old tales as I tells you-all prior fills me full of moss an' mockin' birds in equal parts. I reads deep of _Walter Scott_ an' waxes to be a sharp on Moslems speshul. I dreams of the Siege of Acre, an' Richard the Lion Heart; an' I simply can't sleep nights for honin' to hold a tournament an' joust a whole lot for some fair lady's love. "'Once I commits the error of my career by joustin' with my brother Jeff. This yere Jeff is settin' on the bank of the Branch fishin' for bullpouts at the time, an' Jeff don't know I'm hoverin' near at all. Jeff's reedic'lous fond of fishin'; which he'd sooner fish than read _Paradise Lost_. I'm romancin' along, sim'larly bent, when I notes Jeff perched on the bank. To my boyish imagination Jeff at once turns to be a Paynim. I drops my bait box, couches my fishpole, an' emittin' a impromptoo warcry, charges him. It's the work of a moment; Jeff's onhossed an' falls into the Branch. "'But thar's bitterness to follow vict'ry. Jeff emerges like Diana from the bath an' frales the wamus off me with a club. Talk of puttin' a crimp in folks! Gents when Jeff's wrath is assuaged I'm all on one side like the leanin' tower of Pisa. Jeff actooally confers a skew-gee to my spinal column. "'A week later my folks takes me to a doctor. That practitioner puts on his specs an' looks me over with jealous care. "'"Whatever's wrong with him, Doc?" says my father. "'"Nothin'," says the physician, "only your son Willyum's five inches out o' plumb." "'Then he rigs a contraption made up of guy-ropes an' stay-laths, an' I has to wear it; an' mebby in three or four weeks he's got me warped back into the perpendic'lar.' "'But how about this cat hunt?" asks Dan Boggs. 'Which I don't aim to be introosive none, but I'm camped yere through the second drink waitin' for it, an' these procrastinations is makin' me kind o' batty.' "'That panther hunt is like this,' says the Colonel turnin' to Dan. 'At the age of seventeen, me an' eight or nine of my intimate brave comrades founds what we-all denom'nates as the "Chevy Chase Huntin' Club." Each of us maintains a passel of odds an' ends of dogs, an' at stated intervals we convenes on hosses, an' with these fourscore curs at our tails goes yellin' an' skally-hootin' up an' down the countryside allowin' we're shore a band of Nimrods. "'The Chevy Chasers ain't been in bein' as a institootion over long when chance opens a gate to ser'ous work. The deep snows in the Eastern mountains it looks like has done drove a panther into our neighbourhood. You could hear of him on all sides. Folks glimpses him now an' then. They allows he's about the size of a yearlin' calf; an' the way he pulls down sech feeble people as sheep or lays desolate some he'pless henroost don't bother him a bit. This panther spreads a horror over the county. Dances, pra'er meetin's, an' even poker parties is broken up, an' the social life of that region begins to bog down. Even a weddin' suffers; the bridesmaids stayin' away lest this ferocious monster should show up in the road an' chaw one of 'em while she's _en route_ for the scene of trouble. That's gospel trooth! the pore deserted bride has to heel an' handle herse'f an' never a friend to yoonite her sobs with hers doorin' that weddin' ordeal. The old ladies present shakes their heads a heap solemn. "'"It's a worse augoory," says one, "than the hoots of a score of squinch owls." "'When this reign of terror is at its height, the local eye is rolled appealin'ly towards us Chevy Chasers. We rises to the opportoonity. Day after day we're ridin' the hills an' vales, readin' the milk white snow for tracks. An' we has success. One mornin' I comes up on two of the Brackenridge boys an' five more of the Chevy Chasers settin' on their hosses at the Skinner cross roads. Bob Crittenden's gone to turn me out, they says. Then they p'ints down to a handful of close-wove bresh an' stunted timber an' allows that this maraudin' cat-o-mount is hidin' thar; they sees him go skulkin' in. "'Gents, I ain't above admittin' that the news puts my heart to a canter. I'm brave; but conflicts with wild an' savage beasts is to me a novelty an' while I faces my fate without a flutter, I'm yere to say I'd sooner been in pursoot of minks or raccoons or some varmint whose grievous cap'bilities I can more ackerately stack up an' in whose merry ways I'm better versed. However, the dauntless blood of my grandsire mounts in my cheek; an' as if the shade of that old Trojan is thar personal to su'gest it, I searches forth a flask an' renoos my sperit; thus qualified for perils, come in what form they may, I resolootely stands my hand. "'Thar's forty dogs if thar's one in our company as we pauses at the Skinner crossroads. An' when the Crittenden yooth returns, he brings with him the Rickett boys an' forty added dogs. Which it's worth a ten-mile ride to get a glimpse of that outfit of canines! Thar's every sort onder the canopy: thar's the stolid hound, the alert fice, the sapient collie; that is thar's individyool beasts wherein the hound, or fice, or collie seems to preedominate as a strain. The trooth is thar's not that dog a-whinin' about our hosses' fetlocks who ain't proudly descended from fifteen different tribes, an' they shorely makes a motley mass meetin'. Still, they're good, zealous dogs; an' as they're going to go for'ard an' take most of the resks of that panther, it seems invidious to criticise 'em. "'One of the Twitty boys rides down an' puts the eighty or more dogs into the bresh. The rest of us lays back an' strains our eyes. Thar he is! A shout goes up as we descries the panther stealin' off by a far corner. He's headin' along a hollow that's full of bresh an' baby timber an' runs parallel with the pike. Big an' yaller he is; we can tell from the slight flash we gets of him as he darts into a second clump of bushes. With a cry--what young Crittenden calls a "view halloo,"--we goes stampedin' down the pike in pursoot. "'Our dogs is sta'nch; they shore does themse'fs proud. Singin' in twenty keys, reachin' from growls to yelps an' from yelps to shrillest screams, they pushes dauntlessly on the fresh trail of their terrified quarry. Now an' then we gets a squint of the panther as he skulks from one copse to another jest ahead. Which he's goin' like a arrow; no mistake! As for us Chevy Chasers, we parallels the hunt, an' continyoos poundin' the Skinner turnpike abreast of the pack, ever an' anon givin' a encouragin' shout as we briefly sights our game. "'Gents,' says Colonel Sterett, as he ag'in refreshes himse'f, 'it's needless to go over that hunt in detail. We hustles the flyin' demon full eighteen miles, our faithful dogs crowdin' close an' breathless at his coward heels. Still, they don't catch up with him; he streaks it like some saffron meteor. "'Only once does we approach within strikin' distance; that's when he crosses at old Stafford's whiskey still. As he glides into view, Crittenden shouts: "'"Thar he goes!" "'For myse'f I'm prepared. I've got one of these misguided cap-an'-ball six-shooters that's built doorin' the war; an' I cuts that hardware loose! This weepon seems a born profligate of lead, for the six chambers goes off together. Which you should have seen the Chevy Chasers dodge! An' well they may; that broadside ain't in vain! My aim is so troo that one of the r'armost dogs evolves a howl an' rolls over; then he sets up gnawin' an' lickin' his off hind laig in frantic alternations. That hunt is done for him. We leaves him doctorin' himse'f an' picks him up two hours later on our triumphant return. "'As I states, we harries that foogitive panther for eighteen miles an' in our hot ardour founders two hosses. Fatigue an' weariness begins to overpower us; also our prey weakens along with the rest. In the half glimpses we now an' ag'in gets of him its plain that both pace an' distance is tellin' fast. Still, he presses on; an' as thar's no spur like fear, that panther holds his distance. "'But the end comes. We've done run him into a rough, wild stretch of country where settlements is few an' cabins roode. Of a sudden, the panther emerges onto the road an' goes rackin' along the trail. We pushes our spent steeds to the utmost. "'Thar's a log house ahead; out in the stump-filled lot in front is a frowsy woman an' five small children. The panther leaps the rickety worm-fence an' heads straight as a bullet for the cl'arin'! Horrors! the sight freezes our marrows! Mad an' savage, he's doo to bite a hunk outen that devoted household! Mutooally callin' to each other, we goads our hosses to the utmost. We gain on the panther! He may wound but he won't have time to slay that fam'ly. "'Gents, it's a soopreme moment! The panther makes for the female squatter an' her litter, we pantin' an' pressin' clost behind. The panther is among 'em; the woman an' the children seems transfixed by the awful spectacle an' stands rooted with open eyes an' mouths. Our emotions shore beggars deescriptions. "'Now ensooes a scene to smite the hardiest of us with dismay. No sooner does the panther find himse'f in the midst of that he'pless bevy of little ones, than he stops, turns round abrupt, an' sets down on his tail; an' then upliftin' his muzzle he busts into shrieks an' yells an' howls an' cries, a complete case of dog hysterics! That's what he is, a great yeller dog; his reason is now a wrack because we harasses him the eighteen miles. "'Thar's a ugly outcast of a squatter, mattock in hand, comes tumblin' down the hillside from some'ers out back of the shanty where he's been grubbin': "'"What be you-all eediots chasin' my dog for?" demands this onkempt party. Then he menaces us with the implement. "'We makes no retort but stands passive. The great orange brute whose nerves has been torn to rags creeps to the squatter an' with mournful howls explains what we've made him suffer. "'No, thar's nothin' further to do an' less to be said. That cavalcade, erstwhile so gala an' buoyant, drags itself wearily homeward, the exhausted dogs in the r'ar walkin' stiff an' sore like their laigs is wood. For more'n a mile the complainin' howls of the hysterical yeller dog is wafted to our y'ears. Then they ceases; an' we figgers his sympathizin' master has done took him into the shanty an' shet the door. "'No one comments on this adventure, not a word is heard. Each is silent ontil we mounts the Big Murray hill. As we collects ourse'fs on this eminence one of the Brackenridge boys holds up his hand for a halt. "Gents," he says, as--hosses, hunters an' dogs--we-all gathers 'round, "gents, I moves you the Chevy Chase Huntin' Club yereby stands adjourned _sine die_." Thar's a moment's pause, an' then as by one impulse every gent, hoss an' dog, says "Ay!" It's yoonanimous, an' from that hour till now the Chevy Chase Huntin' Club ain't been nothin' save tradition. But that panther shore disappears; it's the end of his vandalage; an' ag'in does quadrilles, pra'rs, an poker resoom their wonted sway. That's the end; an' now, gents, if Black Jack will caper to his dooties we'll uplift our drooped energies with the usual forty drops." CHAPTER III. How Faro Nell Dealt Bank. "Riches," remarked the Old Cattleman, "riches says you! Neither you-all nor any other gent is competent to state whether in the footure he amasses wealth or not. The question is far beyond the throw of your rope." My friend's tone breathed a note of strong contradiction while his glance was the glance of experience. I had said that I carried no hope of becoming rich; that the members of my tribe were born with their hands open and had such hold of money as a riddle has of water. It was this which moved him to expostulatory denial. "This matter of wealth, that a-way," he continued, "is a mighty sight a question of luck. Shore, a gent has to have capacity to grasp a chance an' savey sufficient to get his chips down right. But this chance, an' whether it offers itse'f to any specific sport, is frequent accident an' its comin' or failure to come depends on conditions over which the party about to be enriched ain't got no control. That's straight, son! You backtrack any fortune to its beginning an some'ers along the trail or at the farthest end you'll come up with the fact that it took a accident or two, what we-all darkened mortals calls 'luck,' to make good the play. It's like gettin' shot gettin' rich is; all you has to do is be present personal at the time, an' the bullet does the rest. "You distrusts these doctrines. You shore won't if you sets down hard an' thinks. Suppose twenty gents has made a surround an' is huntin' a b'ar. Only one is goin' to down him. An' in his clumsy blunderin' the b'ar is goin' to select his execootioner himse'f. That's a fact; the party who downs the b'ar, final, ain't goin' to pick the b'ar out; the b'ar's goin' to pick him out. An' it's the same about wealth; one gent gets the b'ar an' the other nineteen--an' they're as cunnin' an' industr'ous as the lucky party--don't get nothing--don't even get a shot. I repeats tharfore, that you-all settin' yere this evenin', firin' off aimless observations, don't know whether you'll quit rich or not." At the close of his dissertation, my talkative companion puffed a cloud which seemed to hang above his venerable head in a fashion of heavy blue approval. I paused as one impressed by the utter wisdom of the old gentleman. Then I took another tack. "Speaking of wealth," I said, "tell me concerning the largest money you ever knew to be won or lost at faro--tell me a gambling story." "Tell you-all a gamblin' tale," he repeated, and then mused as if lost in retrospection. "If I hesitates it's because of a multitoode of incidents from which to draw. I've beheld some mighty cur'ous doin's at the gamblin' tables. Once I knows a party who sinks his hopeless head on the layout an' dies as he loses his last chip. This don't happen in Wolfville none. No, I don't say folks ain't cashed in at farobank in that excellent hamlet an' gone singin' to their home above; but it ain't heart disease. Usual it's guns; the same bein' invoked by sech inadvertencies as pickin' up some other gent's bet. "Tell you-all a story about gamblin'! Now I reckons the time Faro Nell rescoos Cherokee Hall from rooin is when I sees the most _dinero_ changed in at one play. You can gamble that's a thrillin' eepisode when Faro Nell steps in between Cherokee an' the destroyer. It's the gossip of the camp for days, an' when Wolfville discusses anything for days that outfit's plumb moved. "This gent who crowds Cherokee to the wall performs the feat deliberate. He organises a sort o' campaign ag'in Cherokee; what you might term a fiscal dooel, an' at the finish he has Cherokee corralled for his last _peso_. It's at that p'int Nell cuts in an' redeems the sityooation a heap. It's all on the squar'; this invadin' sport simply outlucks the bank. That, an' the egreegious limit Cherokee gives him, is what does the trick. "In Wolfville, we-all allers recalls that sharp-set gent who comes after Cherokee with respect. In fact he wins our encomiums before he sets in ag'in Cherokee--before ever he gets his second drink at the Red Light bar. He comes ramblin' over with Old Monte from Tucson one evenin'; that's the first glimpse we has of him. An' for a hour, mebby, followin' his advent, seein' the gen'ral herd is busy with the mail, he has the Red Light to himse'f. "On this yere o'casion, thar's likewise present in Wolfville--he's been infringin' 'round some three days--a onsettled an' migratory miscreant who's name is Ugly Collins. He's in a heap of ill repoote in the territories, this Ugly Collins is; an' only he contreebutes the information when he arrives in camp that his visit is to be mighty temp'rary, Enright would have signed up Jack Moore to take his guns an' stampede him a lot. "At the time I'm talkin' of, as thar's no one who's that abandoned as to go writin' letters to Ugly Collins, it befalls he's plenty footloose. This leesure on the part of Ugly Collins turns out some disastrous for that party. Not havin' no missives to read leaves him free to go weavin' about permiscus an' it's while he's strayin' here an' thar that he tracks up on this stranger who's come after Cherokee. "Ugly Collins sees our pilgrim in the Red Light an', except Black Jack,--who of course is present offishul--the stranger's alone. He's weak an' meek an' shook by a cough that sounds like the overture to a fooneral. Ugly Collins, who's a tyrannizin' cowardly form of outcast, sizes him up as a easy prey. He figgers he'll have a heap of evil fun with him, Ugly Collins does. Tharupon he approaches the consumptive stranger: "'You-all seems plenty ailin', pard,' says Ugly Collins. "'Which I shore ain't over peart none,' retorts the stranger. "'An' you-all can put down a bet,' returns Ugly Collins, 'I learns of your ill-health with regrets. It's this a-way: I ain't had no exercise yet this evenin'; an' as I tracks in yere, I registers a vow to wallop the first gent I meets up with to whom I've not been introdooced ;--merely by way of stretchin' my muscles. Now I must say--an' I admits it with sorrow--that you-all is that onhappy sport. It's no use; I knows I'll loathe myse'f for crawlin' the hump of a gent who's totterin' on the brink of the grave; but whatever else can I do? Vows is vows an' must be kept, so you might as well prepare yourse'f for a cloud of sudden an' painful vicissitoodes.' "As Ugly Collins says this he kind o' reaches for the invalid gent where he's camped in a cha'r. It's a onfortunate gesture; the invalid--as quick as a rattlesnake,--prodooces a derringer, same as Doc Peets allers packs, from his surtoot an' the bullet carries away most of Ugly Collins' lower jaw. "'You-all is goin' to be a heap sight more of a audience than a orator yereafter, Collins,' says Doc Peets, as he ties up the villain's visage that a-way. 'Also, you oughter be less reckless an' get the address of your victims before embarkin' on them skelp-collectin' enterprises of yours. That gent you goes ag'inst is Doc Holliday; as hard a game as lurks anywhere between the Slope an' the Big Muddy.' "Does the Stranglers do anything to this Holliday? Why, no, not much; all they does is present him with a Colt's-44 along with the compliments of the camp. "'An' it's to be deplored,' says Enright, when he makes the presentation speech to Holliday, 'that you-all don't have this weepon when you cuts loose at Collins instead of said jimcrow derringer. In sech events, that hoss-thief's death would have been assured. Shore! shootin' off Collins' jaw is good as far as it goes, but it can't be regyarded as no sech boon as downin' him complete. "It's after supper when this Holliday encounters Cherokee; the two has a conference. This Holliday lays bar' his purpose. "'Which I'm yere,' says this Holliday, 'not only for your money, but I wants the camp.' Then he goes for'ard an' proposes that they plays till one is broke; an, if it's Cherokee who goes down, he is to vamos the outfit while Holliday succeeds to his game. 'An' the winner is to stake his defeated adversary to one thousand dollars wherewith to begin life anew,' concloodes this Holliday. "'Which what you states seems like agreeable offers,' says Cherokee, an' he smiles clever an' gentlemanly. 'How strong be you-all, may I ask?' "'Thirty thousand dollars in thirty bills,' replies this Holliday. 'An' now may I enquire how strong be you? I also likes to know how long a trail I've got to travel.' "'My roll is about forty thousand big,' says Cherokee. Then he goes on: 'It's all right; I'll open a game for you at second drink time sharp.' "'That's comfortin' to hear,' retorts this Holliday. 'The chances,--what with splits an' what with the ten thousand you oversizes me,--is nacherally with you; but I takes 'em. If I lose, I goes back with a even thousand; if I win, you-all hits the trail with a thousand, while I'm owner of your roll an' bank. Does that onderstandin' go?' "'It goes!' says Cherokee. Then he turns off for a brief powwow with Faro Nell. "'But thar's one thing you-all forgets, Cherokee,' says Nell. 'If he breaks you, he's got to go on an' break me. I've a bundle of three thousand; he's got to get it all before ever the play is closed. Tell this yere Holliday party that.' "Cherokee argues ag'in it; but Nell stamps 'round an' starts to weep some, an' at that, like every other troo gent, he gives in abject. "'Thar's a bet I overlooks,' observes Cherokee, when he resoomes his talk with this Holliday; 'it's my partner. It's only a little matter of three thousand, but the way the scheme frames itse'f up, after I'm down an' out, you'll have to break my partner before Wolfville's all your own.' "'That's eminent satisfactory,' returns this Holliday. 'An' I freely adds that your partner is a dead game sport to take so brief a fortune an'--win all, lose all--go after more'n twenty times as much. Your partner's a shore enough optimist that a-way.' "Cherokee don't make no retort. This Holliday ain't posted none that the partner Cherokee's mentionin' is Faro Nell, an' Cherokee allows he won't onbosom himse'f on that p'int onless his hand is forced. "When the time arrives to open the game, the heft of Wolfville's public is gathered at the Red Light. The word goes 'round as to the enterprisin' Holliday bein' out for Cherokee's entire game; an' the prospect of seein' a limit higher than a cat's back, an' a dooel to the death, proves mighty pop'lar. The play opens to a full house, shore! "'What limit do you give me?' says this Holliday, with a sort o' cough, at the same time settin' in opposite to Cherokee. 'Be lib'ral; I ain't more'n a year to live, an' I've got to play 'em high an' hard to get average action. If I'm in robust health now, with a long, useful life before me, the usual figgers would do. Considerin' my wasted health, however, I shore hopes you'll say something like the even thousand.' "'Which I'll do better than that,' returns Cherokee, as he snaps the deck in the box, 'I'll let you fix the limit to suit yourse'f. Make it the ceilin' if the sperit moves you.' "'That's gen'rous!' says Holliday. 'An' to mark my appreciation tharof, I'll jest nacherally take every resk of splits an' put ten thousand in the pot, coppered; ten thousand in the big squar'; an' ten thousand, coppered, on the high kyard.' "Son, we-all sports standin' lookin' on draws a deep breath. Thirty thousand in three ten thousand dollar bets, an' all on the layout at once, marks a epock in Wolfville business life wherefrom folks can onblushin'ly date time! Thar it lays however, an' the two sharps most onmoved tharby is Cherokee an' Holliday themse'fs. "'Turn your game!' says this Holliday, when his money is down, an' leanin' back to light a seegyar. "Cherokee makes the turn. Never does I witness action so sudden an' complete! It's shore the sharpest! The top kyard as the deck lays in the box is a ten-spot. An' as the papers is shoved forth, how do you-all reckon they falls! I'm a Mexican! if they don't come seven-king! This Holliday wins all along; Cherokee is out thirty thousand an' only three kyards showed! How's that for perishin' flesh an' blood! "I looks at Cherokee; his face is as ca'm as a Injun's; he's too finely fibred a sport to so much as let a eyelash quiver. This Holliday is equally onemotional. Cherokee shoves over three yaller chips. "'Call 'em ten thousand each,' says Cherokee. Then he waits for this Holliday to place his next bets. "'Since you-all has exackly that sum left in your treasury,' observes this Holliday, puffin' his seegyar, 'I reckons I'll let one of these yaller tokens go, coppered, on the high kyard ag'in. You-all doubles or breaks right yere.' "The turn falls trey-eight. Cherokee takes in that ten thousand dollar chip. "'Bein's that I'm still playin' on velvet,' remarks this Holliday, an' his tone is listless an' languid like he's only half interested, 'I'll go twenty thousand on the high kyard, open. This trip we omits the copper.' "The first kyard to show is a deuce. It's better than ten to one Cherokee will win. But disapp'intment chokes the camp; the next kyard is a ace, an' Cherokee's swept off his moccasins. The bank is broke; and to signify as much, Cherokee turns his box on its side, counts over forty thousand dollars to this Holliday an' gets up from the dealer's cha'r. "As Cherokee rises, Faro Nell slides off the lookout's stool an' into the vacated cha'r. When Cherokee loses the last bet I hears Nell's teeth come together with a click. I don't dare look towards her at the time; but now, when she turns the box back, takes out the deck, riffles an' returns it to its place I gives her a glance. Nell's as game as Cherokee. As she sets over ag'inst this lucky invalid her colour is high an' her eyes like two stars. "'An' now you've got to break me,' says Nell to this Holliday. 'Also, we restores the _statu quo_, as Colonel Sterett says in that _Coyote_ paper, an' the limit retreats to a even hundred dollars.' "'Be you-all the partner Mister Hall mentions?' asks this Holliday, at the same time takin' off his sombrero an' throwin' away his seegyar. "Nell says she is. "'Miss,' says this Holliday, 'I feels honoured to find myse'f across the layout from so much sperit an' beauty. A limit of one hundred, says you; an' your word is law! As a first step then, give me three thousand dollars worth of chips an' make 'em fifty dollars each. I'll take the same chance with you on that question of splits I does former, an' I wants a hundred on every kyard, middle to win ag'in the ends.' "The deal begins; Nell is winner from the jump; she takes in three bets to lose one plumb down to the turn. This Holliday calls the turn for the limit; an' loses. The kyards go into the box ag'in an' a next deal ensooes. So it continyoos; an' Nell beats this Holliday hard for half a hour. Nell sees she's in luck; an' she feels that strong she concloods to press it some. "'The limit's five hundred!' says Nell to this Holliday. 'Come after me!' "Holliday bows like he's complimented. 'I'm after you; an' I comes a-runnin',' he says. "Down goes his money all over the lay-out; only now its five hundred instead of one hundred. "It's no avail, this Holliday still loses. At the end of a hour Nell sizes up her roll; she's a leetle over forty thousand strong; jest where Cherokee stands at the start. "Nell pauses as she's about to put the deck in the box for a deal. She looks at this Holliday a heap thoughtful. That look excites Dan Boggs who's been on the brink of fits since ever the play begins, he's that 'motional. "'Don't raise the limit, Nell!' says Dan in a awful whisper. 'That's where Cherokee's weak at the go-off. He ought never to have thrown away the limit.' "Nell casts her eyes--they're burnin' like coals!--on Dan. I can see his bluff about Cherokee bein' weak has done decided her mind. "'Cherokee does right,' says Nell to Dan, 'like Cherokee allers does. An' I'll do the same as Cherokee. Stranger,' goes on Nell, turnin' from Dan to this Holliday; 'go as far as you likes. The bridle's off the hoss.' "'An' much obleeged to you, Miss!' says this Holliday, with another of them p'lite bows. 'As the kyards goes in the box, I makes you the same three bets I makes first to Mister Hall. Ten thousand, coppered, in the pot; ten thousand, open, in the big squar'; an' ten thousand on the high kyard, coppered.' "'An' now as then,' says Nell, sort o' catchin' her breath, 'the ten-spot's the soda kyard!' "Son, it won't happen ag'in in a billion years! Nell's right hand shakes a trifle--she's only a child, mind, an' ain't got the nerves that goes with case-hardened sports--as she shoves the ten-spot forth. But it's comin' her way; her luck holds; as certain as we all sets yere drinkin' toddy, the same two kyards shows for her as for Cherokee, but this time they falls 'king-seven'; the bank wins, an' pore Holliday is cleaned out. "'Thar, Cherokee,' says Nell, an' thar's a soft smile an' a sigh of deep content goes with the observation, 'thar's your bank ag'in; only it's thirty thousand stronger than it is four hours ago.' "'Your bank, ladybird, you means!' says Cherokee. "'Well, our bank, then,' retorts Nell. 'What's the difference? Don't you-all tell me we're partners?' Then Nell motions to Black Jack. 'The drinks is on me, Jack,' she says; 'see what the house will have.'" CHAPTER IV. How The Raven Died. "Which if you-all is out to hear of Injuns, son," observed the Old Cattleman, doubtfully, "the best I can do is shet my eyes an' push along regyardless, like a cayouse in a storm of snow. But I don't guarantee no facts; none whatever! I never does bend myse'f to severe study of savages an' what notions I packs concernin' 'em is the casual frootes of what I accidental hears an' what I sees. It's only now an' then, as I observes former, that Injuns invades Wolfville; an' when they does, we-all scowls 'em outen camp--sort o' makes a sour front, so as to break 'em early of habits of visitin' us. We shore don't hone none to have 'em hankerin' 'round. "Nacherally, I makes no doubt that if you goes clost to Injuns an' studies their little game you finds some of 'em good an' some bad, some gaudy an' some sedate, some cu'rous an' some indifferent, same as you finds among shore-enough folks. It's so with mules an' broncos; wherefore, then, may not these differences exist among Injuns? Come squar' to the turn, you-all finds white folks separated the same. Some gents follows off one waggon track an' some another; some even makes a new trail. "Speakin' of what's opposite in folks, I one time an' ag'in sees two white chiefs of scouts who frequent comes pirootin' into Wolfville from the Fort. Each has mebby a score of Injuns at his heels who pertains to him personal. One of these scout chiefs is all buck-skins, fringes, beads an' feathers from y'ears to hocks, while t'other goes garbed in a stiff hat with a little jim crow rim--one of them kind you deenom'nates as a darby--an' a diag'nal overcoat; one chief looks like a dime novel on a spree an' t'other as much like the far East as he saveys how. An' yet, son, this voylent person in buckskins is a Second Lootenent--a mere boy, he is--from West P'int; while that outcast in the reedic'lous hat is foaled on the plains an' never does go that clost to the risin' sun as to glimpse the old Missouri. The last form of maverick bursts frequent into Western bloom; it's their ambition, that a-way, to deloode you into deemin' 'em as fresh from the States as one of them tomatter airtights. "Thar's old gent Jeffords; he's that sort. Old Jeffords lives for long with the Apaches; he's found among 'em when Gen'ral Crook--the old 'Grey Fox'--an' civilisation and gatlin' guns comes into Arizona arm in arm. I used to note old Jeffords hibernatin' about the Oriental over in Tucson. I shore reckons he's procrastinatin' about thar yet, if the Great Sperit ain't done called him in. As I says, old Jeffords is that long among the Apaches back in Cochise's time that the mem'ry of man don't run none to the contrary. An' yet no gent ever sees old Jeffords wearin' anything more savage than a long-tail black surtoot an' one of them stove pipe hats. Is Jeffords dangerous? No, you-all couldn't call him a distinct peril; still, folks who goes devotin' themse'fs to stirrin' Jeffords up jest to see if he's alive gets disasterous action. He has long grey ha'r an' a tangled white beard half-way down his front; an' with that old plug hat an' black coat he's a sight to frighten children or sour milk! Still, Jeffords is all right. As long as towerists an' other inquisitive people don't go pesterin' Jeffords, he shore lets 'em alone. Otherwise, you might as well be up the same saplin' with a cinnamon b'ar; which you'd most likely hear something drop a lot! "For myse'f, I likes old Jeffords, an' considers him a pleasin' conundrum. About tenth drink time he'd take a cha'r an' go camp by himse'f in a far corner, an' thar he'd warble hymns. Many a time as I files away my nosepaint in the Oriental have I been regaled with, Jesus, Lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high, as emanatin' from Jeffords where he's r'ared back conductin' some personal services. Folks never goes buttin' in interferin' with these concerts; which it's cheaper to let him sing. "Speakin' of Injuns, as I su'gests, I never does see over-much of 'em in Wolfville. An' my earlier experiences ain't thronged with 'em neither, though while I'm workin' cattle along the Red River I does carom on Injuns more or less. Thar's one old hostile I recalls speshul; he's a fool Injun called Black Feather;--Choctaw, he is. This Black Feather's weakness is fire-water; he thinks more of it than some folks does of children. "Black Feather used to cross over to where Dick Stocton maintains a store an' licker house on the Upper Hawgthief. Of course, no gent sells these Injuns licker. It's ag'in the law; an' onless you-all is onusual eager to make a trip to Fort Smith with a marshal ridin' herd on you doorin' said visit, impartin' of nosepaint to aborigines is a good thing not to do. But Black Feather, he'd come over to Dick Stocton's an' linger 'round the bar'ls of Valley Tan, an' take a chance on stealin' a snifter or two while Stocton's busy. "At last Stocton gets tired an' allows he'll lay for Black Feather. This yere Stocton is a mighty reckless sport; he ain't carin' much whatever he does do; he hates Injuns an' shot guns, an' loves licker, seven-up, an' sin in any form; them's Stocton's prime characteristics. An' he gets mighty weary of the whiskey-thievin' Black Feather, an' lays for him. "One evenin' this aggravatin' Black Feather crosses over an' takes to ha'ntin' about Dick Stocton's licker room as is his wont. It looks like Black Feather has already been buyin' whiskey of one of them boot-laig parties who takes every chance an' goes among the Injuns an' sells 'em nosepaint on the sly. 'Fore ever he shows up on the Upper Hawgthief that time, this Black Feather gets nosepaint some'ers an' puts a whole quart of it away in the shade; an' he shore exhibits symptoms. Which for one thing he feels about four stories tall! "Stocton sets a trap for Black Feather. He fills up the tin cup into which he draws that Valley Tan with coal-oil--karoseen you-all calls it--an' leaves it, temptin' like, settin' on top a whiskey bar'l. Shore! it's the first thing Black Feather notes. He sees his chance an' grabs an' downs the karoseen; an' Stocton sort o' startin' for him, this Black Feather gulps her down plump swift. The next second he cuts loose the yell of that year, burns up about ten acres of land, and starts for Red River. No, I don't know whether the karoseen hurts him none or not; but he certainly goes squatterin' across the old Red River like a wounded wild-duck, an' he never does come back no more. "But, son, as you sees, I don't know nothin' speshul or much touchin' Injuns, an' if I'm to dodge the disgrace of ramblin' along in this desultory way, I might better shift to a tale I hears Sioux Sam relate to Doc Peets one time in the Red Light. This Sam is a Sioux, an a mighty decent buck, considerin' he's Injun; Sam is servin' the Great Father as a scout with the diag'nal-coat, darby-hat sharp I mentions. Peets gives this saddle-tinted longhorn a 4-bit piece, an' he tells this yarn. It sounds plenty childish; but you oughter b'ar in mind that savages, mental, ain't no bigger nor older than ten year old young-ones among the palefaces. "'This is the story my mother tells me,' says Sioux Sam, 'to show me the evils of cur'osity. "The Great Sperit allows to every one the right to ask only so many questions," says my mother, "an' when they ask one more than is their right, they die." "'This is the story of the fate of _Kaw-kaw-chee_, the Raven, a Sioux Chief who died long ago exackly as my mother told me. The Raven died because he asked too many questions an' was too cur'ous. It began when Sublette, who was a trader, came up the _Mitchi-zoor-rah_, the Big-Muddy, an' was robbed by the Raven's people. Sublette was mad at this, an' said next time he would bring the Sioux a present so they would not rob him. So he brought a little cask of fire-water an' left it on the bank of the Big-Muddy. Then Sublette went away, an' twenty of the Raven's young men found the little cask. An' they were greedy an' did not tell the camp; they drank the fire-water where it was found. "'The Raven missed his twenty young men an' when he went to spy for them, behold! they were dead with their teeth locked tight an' their faces an' bodies writhen an' twisted as the whirlwind twists the cottonwoods. Then the Raven thought an' thought; an' he got very cur'ous to know why his young men died so writhen an' twisted. The fire-water had a whirlwind in it, an' the Raven was eager to hear. So he sent for Sublette. "'Then the Raven an' Sublette had a big talk. They agreed not to hurt each other; an' Sublette was to come an' go an' trade with the Sioux; an' they would never rob him. "'At this, Sublette gave the Raven some of the whirlwind that so killed an' twisted the twenty young men. It was a powder, white; an' it had no smell. Sublette said its taste was bitter; but the Raven must not taste it or it would lock up his teeth an' twist an' kill him. For to swallow the white powder loosed the whirlwind on the man's heart an' it bent him an' twisted him like the storms among the willows. "'But the Raven could give the powder to others. So the Raven gave it in some deer's meat to his two squaws; an' they were twisted till they died; an' when they would speak they couldn't, for their teeth were held tight together an' no words came out of their mouths,--only a great foam. Then the Raven gave it to others that he did not love; they were twisted an' died. At last there was no more of the powder of the whirlwind; the Raven must wait till Sublette came up the Big-Muddy again an' brought him more. "'There was a man, the Gray Elk, who was of the Raven's people. The Gray Elk was a _Choo-ayk-eed_, a great prophet. And the Gray Elk had a wife; she was wise an' beautiful, an' her name was Squaw-who-has-dreams. But Gray Elk called her _Kee-nee-moo-sha_, the Sweetheart. "'While the Raven waited for Sublette to bring him more powder of the whirlwind, a star with a long tail came into the sky. This star with the tail made the Raven heap cur'ous. He asked Gray Elk to tell him about it, for he was a prophet. The Raven asked many questions; they fell from him like leaves from a tree in the month of the first ice. So the Gray Elk called _Chee-bee_, the Spirit; an' the Spirit told the Gray Elk. Then the Gray Elk told the Raven.' "'It was not a tail, it was blood--star blood; an' the star had been bit an' was wounded, but would get well. The Sun was the father of the stars, an' the Moon was their mother. The Sun, _Gheezis_, tried ever to pursue an' capture an' eat his children, the stars. So the stars all ran an' hid when the Sun was about. But the stars loved their mother who was good an' never hurt them; an' when the Sun went to sleep at night an' _Coush-ee-wan_, the Darkness, shut his eyes, the Moon an' her children came together to see each other. But the star that bled had been caught by the Sun; it got out of his mouth but was wounded. Now it was frightened, so it always kept its face to where the Sun was sleeping over in the west. The bleeding star, _Sch-coo-dah_, would get well an' its wound would heal. "'Then the Raven wanted to know how the Gray Elk knew all this. An' the Gray Elk had the Raven into the medicine lodge that night; an' the Raven heard the spirits come about an' heard their voices; but he could not understand. Also, the Raven saw a wolf all fire, with wings like the eagle which flew overhead. Also he heard the Thunder, _Boom-wa-wa_, talking with the Gray Elk; but the Raven couldn't understand. The Gray Elk told the Raven to draw his knife an' stab with it in the air outside the medicine lodge. An' when he did, the Raven's blade an' hand came back covered with blood. Still, the Raven was cur'ous an' kept askin' to be told how the Gray Elk knew these things. An' the Gray Elk at last took the Raven to the Great Bachelor Sycamore that lived alone, an' asked the Raven if the Bachelor Sycamore was growing. An' the Raven said it was. Then Gray Elk asked him how he knew it was growing. An' the Raven said he didn't know. Then Gray Elk said he did not know how he knew about _Sch-coo-dah_, the star that was bit. This made the Raven angry, for he was very cur'ous; an' he thought the Gray Elk had two tongues. "'Then it came the month of the first young grass an' Sublette was back for furs. Also he brought many goods; an' he gave to the Raven more of the powder of the whirlwind in a little box, At once the Raven made a feast of ducks for the Gray Elk; an' he gave him of the whirlwind powder; an' at once his teeth came together an' the Gray Elk was twisted till he died. "'Now no one knew that the Raven had the powder of the whirlwind, so they could not tell why all these people were twisted and went to the Great Spirit. But the Squaw-who-has-dreams saw that it was the Raven who killed her husband, the Gray Elk, in a vision. Then the Squaw-who-has-dreams went into the mountains four days an' talked with _Moh-kwa_, the Bear who is the wisest of the beasts. The Bear said it was the Raven who killed the Gray Elk an' told the Squaw-who-has-dreams of the powder of the whirlwind. "'Then the Bear an' the Squaw-who-has-dreams made a fire an' smoked an' laid a plot. The Bear did not know where to find the powder of the whirlwind which the Raven kept always in a secret place. But the Bear told the Squaw-who-has-dreams that she should marry the Raven an' watch until she found where the powder of the whirlwind was kept in its secret place; an' then she was to give some to the Raven, an' he, too, would be twisted an' die. There was a great danger, though; the Raven would, after the one day when they were wedded, want to kill the Squaw-who-has-dreams. So to protect her, the Bear told her she must begin to tell the Raven the moment she was married to him the Story-that-never-ends. Then, because the Raven was more cur'ous than even he was cruel, he would put off an' put off giving the powder of the whirlwind to the Squaw-who-has-dreams, hoping to hear the end of the Story-that-never-ends. Meanwhile the Squaw-who-has-dreams was to watch the Raven until she found the powder of the whirlwind in its secret place. "'Then the wise Bear gave the Squaw-who-has-dreams a bowlful of words as seed, so she might plant them an' raise a crop of talk to tell the Story-that-never-ends. An' the Squaw-who-has-dreams planted the seed-words, an' they grew an' grew an' she gathered sixteen bundles of talk an' brought them to her wigwam. After that she put beads in her hair, an' dyed her lips red, an' rubbed red on her cheeks, an' put on a new blanket; an' when the Raven saw her, he asked her to marry him. So they were wedded; an' the Squaw-who-has-dreams went to the teepee of the Raven an' was his wife. "'But the Raven was old an' cunning like _Yah-mee-kee_, the Beaver, an' he said, "He is not wise who keeps a squaw too long!" An' with that he thought he would kill the Squaw-who-has-dreams the next day with the powder of the whirlwind. But the Squaw-who-has-dreams first told the Raven that she hated _When-dee-goo_, the Giant; an' that she should not love the Raven until he had killed _When-dee-goo_. She knew the Giant was too big an' strong for the Raven to kill with his lance, an' that he must get his powder of the whirlwind; she would watch him an' learn its secret place. The Raven said he would kill the Giant as the sun went down next day. "'Then the Squaw-who-has-dreams told the Raven the first of the Story-that-never-ends an' used up one bundle of talk; an' when the story ended for that night, the Squaw-who-has-dreams was saying: "An' so, out of the lake that was red as the sun came a great fish that was green, with yellow wings, an' it walked also with feet, an' it came up to me an' said: "But then she would tell no more that night; nor could the Raven, who was crazy with cur'osity, prevail on her. "I must now sleep an' dream what the green fish with the yellow wings said," was the reply of the Squaw-who-has-dreams, an' she pretended to slumber. So the Raven, because he was cur'ous, put off her death. "'All night she watched, but the Raven did not go to the secret place where he had hidden the powder of the whirlwind. Nor the next day, when the sun went down, did the Raven kill the Giant. But the Squaw-who-has-dreams took up again the Story-that-never-ends an' told what the green fish with the yellow wings said; an' she used up the second bundle of talk. When she ceased for that time, the Squaw-who-has-dreams was saying: "An' as night fell, _Moh-kwa_, the Bear, called to me from his canyon, an' said for me to come an' he would show me where the great treasure of fire-water was buried for you who are the Raven. So I went into the canyon, an' _Moh-kwa_, the Bear, took me by the hand an' led me to the treasure of fire-water which was greater an' richer than was ever seen by any Sioux." "'Then the Squaw-who-has-dreams would tell no more that night, while the Raven eat his fingers with cur'osity. But he made up a new plan not to twist the Squaw-who-has-dreams until she showed him the treasure of fire-water an' told him the end of the Story-that-never-ends. On her part, however, the Squaw-who-has-dreams, as she went to sleep, wept an' tore the beads from her hair an' said the Raven did not love her; for he had not killed the Giant as he promised. She said she would tell no more of the Story-that-never-ends until the Giant was dead; nor would she show to a husband who did not love her the great treasure of fire-water which _Moh-kwa_, the Bear, had found. At this, the Raven who was hot to have the treasure of firewater an' whose ears rang with cur'osity to hear the end of the Story-that-never-ends saw that he must kill the Giant. Therefore, when the Squaw-who-has-dreams had ceased to sob and revile him, an' was gone as he thought asleep, the Raven went to his secret place where he kept the powder of the whirlwind an' took a little an' wrapped it in a leaf an' hid the leaf in the braids of his long hair. Then the Raven went to sleep. "'When the Raven was asleep the Squaw-who-has-dreams went also herself to the secret place an' got also a little of the powder of the whirlwind. An' the next morning she arose early an' gave the powder of the whirlwind to the Raven on the roast buffalo, the _Pez-hee-kee_, which was his food. "'When the Raven had eaten, the Squaw-who-has-dreams went out of the teepee among the people an' called all the Sioux to come an' see the Raven die. So the Sioux came gladly, and the Raven was twisted an' writhen with the power of the whirlwind wrenching at his heart; an' his teeth were tight like a trap; an' no words, but only foam, came from his mouth; an' at last the Spirit, the _Chee-bee_, was twisted out of the Raven; an' the Squaw-who-has-dreams was revenged for the death of the Gray Elk whom she loved an' who always called her _Kee-nee-moo-sha_, the Sweetheart, because it made her laugh. "'When the Raven was dead, the Squaw-who-has-dreams went to the secret place an' threw the powder of the whirlwind into the Big-Muddy; an' after that she distributed her fourteen bundles of talk that were left among all the Sioux so that everybody could tell how glad he felt because the Raven was twisted and died. An' for a week there was nothing but happiness an' big talk among the Sioux; an' _Moh-kwa_, the Bear, came laughing out of his canyon with the wonder of listening to it; while the Squaw-who-has-dreams now, when her revenge was done, went with _When-dee-goo_, the Giant, to his teepee and became his squaw. So now everything was ended save the Story-that-never-ends.' "When Sioux Sam gets this far," concluded the Old Cattleman, "he says, 'an' my mother's words at the end were: "An' boys who ask too many questions will die, as did the Raven whose cur'osity was even greater than his cruelty."'" CHAPTER V. The Queerness of Dave Tutt. "Which these queernesses of Dave's," observed the Old Cattleman, "has already been harrowin' an' harassin' up the camp for mighty likely she's two months, when his myster'ous actions one evenin' in the Red Light brings things to a climax, an' a over-strained public, feelin' like it can b'ar no more, begins to talk. "It's plumb easy to remember this Red Light o'casion, for jest prior to Dave alarmin' us by becomin' melodious, furtive--melody bein' wholly onnacheral to Dave, that a-way--thar's a callow pin-feather party comes caperin' in an' takin' Old Man Enright one side, asks can he yootilise Wolfville as a strategic p'int in a elopement he's goin' to pull off. "'Which I'm out to elope a whole lot from Tucson,' explains this pin-feather party to Enright, 'an' I aims to cinch the play. I'm a mighty cautious sport, an' before ever I hooks up for actooal freightin' over any trail, I rides her once or twice to locate wood and water, an' pick out my camps. Said system may seem timorous, but it's shore safer a heap. So I asks ag'in whether you-all folks has any objections to me elopin' into Wolfville with my beloved, like I suggests. I ain't out to spring no bridals on a onprotected outfit, wherefore I precedes the play with these queries.' "'But whatever's the call for you to elope at all?' remonstrates Enright. 'The simple way now would be to round up this lady's paternal gent, an' get his consent.' "'Seein' the old gent,' says the pin-feather party, ''speshully when you lays it smoothly off like that, shore does seem simplicity itse'f. But if you was to prance out an' try it some, it would be found plenty complex. See yere!' goes on the pin-feather party, beginnin' to roll up his sleeve, 'you-all impresses me as more or less a jedge of casyooalities. Whatever now do you think of this? 'An' the pin-feather party exhibits a bullet wound in his left fore-arm, the same bein' about half healed. "'Colt's six-shooter,' says Enright. "'That's straight,' says the pin-feather party, buttonin' up his sleeve; 'you calls the turn. I wins out that abrasion pleadin' with the old gent. Which I tackles him twice. The first time he opens on me with his 44-gun before ever I ends the sentence. But he misses. Nacherally, I abandons them marital intentions for what you-all might call the "nonce" to sort o' look over my hand ag'in an' see be I right. Do my best I can't on earth discern no reasons ag'in the nuptials. Moreover, the lady--who takes after her old gent a heap--cuts in on the play with a bluff that while she don't aim none to crowd my hand, she's doo to begin shootin' me up herse'f if I don't show more passionate anxiety about leadin' her to the altar. It's then, not seein' why the old gent should go entertainin' notions ag'in me, an' deemin' mebby that when he blazes away that time he's merely pettish and don't really mean said bullet none, that I fronts up ag'in.' "'An' then,' asks Enright, 'whatever does this locoed parent do?' "'Which I jest shows you what,' says the pin-feather party. 'He gets the range before ever I opens my mouth, an' plugs me. At that I begins to half despair of winnin' his indorsements. I leaves it to you-all; be I right?' "'Why,' says Enright, rubbin' his fore'erd some doobious, 'it would look like the old gent is a leetle set ag'in you. Still, as the responsible chief of this camp, I would like to hear why you reckons Wolfville is a good place to elope to. I don't s'ppose it's on account of them drunkards over in Tucson makin' free with our good repoote an' lettin' on we're light an' immoral that a-way?' "'None whatever!' says the pin-feather party. 'It's on account of you wolves bein' regyarded as peaceful, staid, an' law abidin' that I first considers you. Then ag'in, thar ain't a multitood of places clost about Tucson to elope to nohow; an' I can't elope far on account of my roll.' "The replies of this pin-feather party soothes Enright an' engages him on that side, so he ups an' tells the 'swain,' as Colonel Sterett calls him later in the Coyote, to grab off his inamorata an' come a-runnin'. "'Which, givin' my consent,' says Enright when explainin' about it later, 'is needed to protect this tempest-tossed lover in the possession of his skelp. The old gent an' that maiden fa'r has got him between 'em, an' onless we opens up Wolfville as a refooge, it looks like they'll cross-lift him into the promised land.' "But to go back to Dave." Here my old friend paused and called for refreshments. I seized the advantage of his silence over a glass of peach and honey, to suggest an eagerness for the finale of the Tucson love match. "No," responded my frosty friend, setting down his glass, "we'll pursoo the queernesses of Dave. That Tucson elopement 'is another story a heap,' as some wise maverick says some'ers, an' I'll onload it on you on some other day. "When Dave evolves the cadencies in the Red Light that evenin', thar's Enright, Moore an' me along with Dan Boggs, bein' entertained by hearin' Cherokee Hall tell us about a brace game he gets ag'inst in Las Vegas one time. "'This deadfall--this brace I'm mentionin',' says Cherokee, 'is over on the Plaza. Of course, I calls this crooked game a "brace" in speakin' tharof to you-all sports who ain't really gamblers none. That's to be p'lite. But between us, among a'credited kyard sharps, a brace game is allers allooded to as "the old thing." If you refers to a game of chance as "the old thing," they knows at once that every chance is 'liminated an' said deevice rigged for murder.' "'That's splendid, Cherokee,' says Faro Nell, from her lookout's roost by his shoulder; 'give 'em a lecture on the perils of gamblin' with strangers.' "Thar's no game goin' at this epock an' Cherokee signifies his willin'ness to become instructive. "'Not that I'm no beacon, neither,' says Cherokee, 'on the rocky wreck-sown shores of sport; an' not that I ever resorts to onderhand an' doobious deals myse'f; still, I'm cap'ble of p'intin' out the dangers. Scientists of my sort, no matter how troo an' faithful to the p'int of honour, is bound to savey all kyard dooplicities in their uttermost depths, or get left dead on the field of finance. Every gent should be honest. But more than honest--speshully if he's out to buck faro-bank or set in on casyooal games of short-kyards--every gent should be wise. In the amoosements I mentions to be merely honest can't be considered a complete equipment. Wherefore, while I never makes a crooked play an' don't pack the par'fernalia so to do, I'm plenty astoote as to how said tricks is turned. "'Which sports has speshulties same as other folks. Thar's Texas Thompson, his speshulty is ridin' a hoss; while Peets's speshulty is shootin' a derringer, Colonel Sterett's is pol'tics, Enright's is jestice, Dave's is bein' married, Jack Moore's is upholdin' law an' order, Boggs's is bein' sooperstitious, Missis Rucker's is composin' bakin' powder biscuits, an' Huggins's is strong drink.' "'Whatever is my speshulty, Cherokee?' asks Faro Nell, who's as immersed as the rest in these settin's forth; 'what do you-all reckon now is my speshulty?' "'Bein' the loveliest of your sex,' says Cherokee, a heap emphatic, an' on that p'int we-all strings our game with his. "'That puts the ambrosia on me,' says Faro Nell, blushin' with pleasure, an' she calls to Black Jack. "'As I observes,' goes on Cherokee, 'every sport has his speshulty. Thar's Casino Joe; his is that he can "tell the last four." Nacherally, bein' thus gifted, a game of casino is like so much money in the bank for Joe. Still, his gifts ain't crooked, they're genius; Joe's simply born able to "tell the last four." "'Which, you gents is familiar by repoote at least with the several plans for redoocin' draw-poker to the prosaic level of shore-things. Thar's the "bug" an' the "foot-move" an' the "sleeve holdout" an' dozens of kindred schemes for playin' a cold hand. An' thar's optimists, when the game is easy, who depends wholly on a handkerchief in their laps to cover their nefariousness. If I'm driven to counsel a gent concernin' poker it would be to never play with strangers; an' partic'lar to never spec'late with a gent who sneezes a lot, or turns his head an' talks of draughts of cold air invading' the place, or says his foot's asleep an' gets up to stampede about the room after a hand is dealt an' prior to the same bein' played. It's four to one this afflicted sharp is workin' a holdout. Then that's the "punch" to mark a deck, an' the "lookin' glass" to catch the kyards as they're dealt. Then thar's sech manoovers as stockin' a deck, an' shiftin' a cut, an' dealin' double. Thar's gents who does their work from the bottom of a deck---puts up a hand on the bottom, an' confers it on a pard or on themse'fs as dovetails with their moods. He's a one-arm party--shy his right arm, he is--who deals a hand from the bottom the best I ever beholds. "'No, I don't regyard crooked folks as dangerous at poker, only you've got to watch 'em. So long as your eye is on 'em a heap attentive they're powerless to perform their partic'lar miracle, an' as a result, since that's the one end an' aim of their efforts, they becomes mighty inocuous. As a roole, crooked people ain't good players on the squar', an' as long as you makes 'em play squar', they're yours. "'But speakin' of this devious person on the Las Vegas Plaza that time: The outfit is onknown to me--I'm only a pilgrim an' a stranger an' don't intend to tarry none--when I sets up to the lay-out. I ain't got a bet down, however, before I sees the gent who's dealin', sign-up the seven to the case-keep, an' instanter I feels like I'd known that bevy of bandits since long before the war. Also, I realises their methods after I takes a good hard look. That dealer's got what post gradyooates in faro-bank robbery calls a "end squeeze" box; the deck is trimmed--"wedges" is the name--to put the odds ag'in the evens, an' sanded so as to let two kyards come at a clatter whenever said pheenomenon is demanded by the exigencies of their crimes; an' thar you be. No, it's a fifty-two-kyard deck all right, an' the dealer depends on "puttin' back" to keep all straight. An' I'm driven to concede that the put-back work of said party is like a romance; puttin' back's his speshulty. His left hand would sort o' settle as light as a dead leaf over the kyard he's after that a-way--not a tenth part of a second--an' that pasteboard would come along, palmed, an' as his hand floats over the box as he's goin' to make the next turn the kyard would reassoome its cunnin' place inside. An' all as smoothly serene as pray'r meetin's.' "'An', nacherally, you denounces this felon,' says Colonel Sterett, who's come in an' who's integrity is of the active sort. "'Nacherally, I don't say a word,' retorts Cherokee. 'I ain't for years inhabited these roode an' sand-blown regions, remote as they be from best ideals an' high examples of the East, not to long before have learned the excellence of that maxim about lettin' every man kill his own snakes. I says nothin'; I merely looks about to locate the victim of them machinations with a view of goin' ag'inst his play.' "It's when Cherokee arrives at this place in his recitals that Dave evolves his interruptions. He's camped by himse'f in a reemote corner of the room, an' he ain't been noticin' nobody an' nobody's been noticin' him. All at once, in tones which is low but a heap discordant, Dave hums to himse'f something that sounds like: 'Bye O babe, lie still in slumber, Holy angels gyard thy bed.' "At this, Cherokee in a horrified way stops, an' we-all looks at each other. Enright makes a dispar'in' gesture towards Dave an' says: "'Gents, first callin' your attention to the fact that Dave ain't over-drinkt an' that no nosepaint theery is possible in accountin' for his acts, I asks you for your opinions. As you knows, this thing's been goin' for'ard for some time, an' I desires to hear if from any standp'int of public interest do you-all figger that steps should be took?' "In order to fully onderstand Enright in all he means, I oughter lay bar' that Dave's been conductin' himse'f in a manner not to be explained for mighty likely she's eight weeks. Yeretofore, thar's no more sociable sport an' none whose system is easier to follow in all Wolfville than Dave. While holdin' himse'f at what you might call 'par' on all o'casions, Dave is still plenty minglesome an' fraternal with the balance of the herd, an' would no more think of donnin' airs or puttin' on dog than he'd think of blastin' away at one of us with his gun. Yet eight weeks prior thar shorely dawns a change. "Which the first symptom--the advance gyard as it were of Dave's gettin' queer--is when Dave's standin' in front of the post-office. Thar's a faraway look to Dave at the time, like he's tryin' to settle whether he's behind or ahead on some deal. While thus wropped in this fit of abstraction Dan Boggs comes hybernatin' along an' asks Dave to p'int into the Red Light for a smell of Valley Tan. Dave sort o' rouses up at this an' fastens on Dan with his eyes, half truculent an' half amazed, same as if he's shocked at Dan's familiarity. Then he shakes his head decisive. "'Don't try to braid this mule's tail none!' says Dave, an' at that he strides off with his muzzle in the air. Boggs is abashed. "'Which these insultin' bluffs of Dave's,' says Boggs, as we canvasses the play a bit later, 'would cut me to the quick, but I knows it ain't on the level, Dave ain't himse'f when he declines said nosepaint--his intellects ain't in camp.' "This ontoward an' onmerited rebuke to Boggs is followed, by further breaks as hard to savey. Dave ain't no two days alike. One time he's that haughty he actooally passes Enright himse'f in the street an' no more heed or recognition than if Wolfville's chief is the last Mexican to come no'th of the line. Then later Dave is effoosive an' goes about riotin' in the s'ciety of every gent whereof he cuts the trail. One day he won't drink; an' the next he's tippin' the canteen from sun-up till he's claimed by sleep. Which he gets us mighty near distracted; no one can keep a tab on him. What with them silences an' volyoobilities, sobrieties an' days of drink, an' all in bewilderin' alternations, he's shore got us goin' four ways at once. "'In spite of the fact,' continyooes Dan Boggs when we're turnin' Dave's conduct over in our minds an' rummagin' about for reasons; 'in spite of the fact, I says, that I'm plenty posted in advance that I'm up ag'inst a gen'ral shout of derision on account of me bein' sooperstitious, I'm yere to offer two to one Dave's hoodooed. Moreover, I can name the hoodoo.' "'Whatever is it then?' asks Texas Thompson; 'cut her freely loose an' be shore of our solemn consid'ration.' "'It's opals,' says Boggs. 'Them gems as every well-instructed gent is aware is the very spent of bad luck. Dave's wearin' one in his shirt right now. It's that opal pin wherewith he decks himse'f recent while he's relaxin' with nosepaint in Tucson. I'm with him at the time an' I says to him: "Dave, I wouldn't mount that opal none. Which all opals is implacable hoodoos, an' it'll likely conjure up your rooin." But I might as well have addressed that counsel to a buffalo bull for all the respectful heed I gains. Dave gives me a grin, shets one eye plenty cunnin', an' retorts: "Dan, you're envious; you wants that ornament yourse'f an' you're out to try an make me diskyard it in your favour. Sech schemes, Dan, can't make the landin'. Opals that a-way is as harmless as bull snakes. Also, I knows what becomes my looks; an' while I ain't vain, still, bein' married as you're aware, it's wisdom in me to seize every openin' for enhancin' my pulcritoode. The better I looks, the longer Tucson Jennie loves me; an' I'm out to reetain that lady's heart at any cost." No, I don't onbend in no response,' goes on Boggs. 'Them accoosations of Dave about me honin' for said bauble is oncalled for. I'd no more pack a opal than I'd cut for deal an' embark on a game of seven-up with a ghost. As I states, the luck of opals is black.' "'I was wont to think so,' says Enright, 'but thar once chances a play, the same comin' off onder my personal notice, that shakes my convictions on that p'int. Thar's a broke-down sport--this yere's long ago while I'm briefly sojournin' in Socorro--who's got a opal, an' he one day puts it in hock with a kyard sharp for a small stake. The kyard gent says he ain't alarmed none by these charges made of opals bein' bad luck. It's a ring, an' he sticks it on his little finger. Two days later he goes broke ag'in four jacks. "'This terrifies him; he begins to believe in the evil innocences of opals. He presents the jewelry to a bar-keep, who puts it up, since his game limits itse'f to sellin' licker an', him bein' plenty careful not to drink none himse'f, his contracted destinies don't offer no field for opals an' their malign effects. In less time than a week, however, his wife leaves him; an' also that drink-shop wherein he officiates is blown down by a high wind. "'That bar-keep emerges from the rooms of his domestic hopes an' the desolation of that gin mill, an' endows a lady of his acquaintance with this opal ornament. It ain't twenty-four hours when she cuts loose an' weds a Mexican. "'Which by this time, excitement is runnin' high, an' you-all couldn't have found that citizen in Socorro with a search warrant who declines to believe in opals bein' bad luck. On the hocks of these catastrophes it's the common notion that nobody better own that opal; an' said malev'lent stone in the dooal capac'ty of a cur'osity an' a warnin' is put in the seegyar case at the Early Rose s'loon. The first day it's thar, a jeweller sharp come in for his daily drinks--he runs the jewelry store of that meetropolis an' knows about diamonds an' sim'lar jimcracks same as Peets does about drugs--an' he considers this talisman, scrootinisin' it a heap clost. "Do you-all believe in the bad luck of opals?" asks a pard who's with him. "This thing ain't no opal," says the jeweller sharp, lookin' up; "it's glass." "'An' so it is: that baleful gewgaw has been sailin' onder a alias; it ain't no opal more'n a Colt's cartridge is a poker chip. An', of course, it's plain the divers an' several disasters, from the loss of that kyard gent's bank-roll down to the Mexican nuptials of the ill-advised lady to whom I alloodes, can't be laid to its charge. The whole racket shocks an' shakes me to that degree,' concloods Enright, 'that to-day I ain't got no settled views on opals', none whatever.' "'Jest the same, I thinks it's opals that's the trouble with Dave,' declar's Boggs, plenty stubborn an' while the rest of us don't yoonite with him, we receives his view serious an' respectful so's not to jolt Boggs's feelin's. "Goin' back, however, to when Dave sets up the warble of 'Bye O baby!' that a-way, we-all, followin' Enright's s'licitation for our thoughts, abides a heap still an' makes no response. Enright asks ag'in: 'What do you-all think?' "At last Boggs, who as I sets forth frequent is a nervous gent, an' one on whom silence soon begins to prey, ag'in speaks up. Bein' doubtful an' mindful of Enright's argyment ag'in his opal bluff, however, Boggs don't advance his concloosions this time at all emphatic. In a tone like he's out ridin' for information himse'f, Boggs says: "'Mebby, if it ain't opals, it's a case of straight loco.' "'While I wouldn't want to readily think Dave locoed,' says Enright, 'seein' he's oncommon firm on his mental feet, still he's shore got something on his mind. An' bein' it is something, it's possible as you says that Dave's intellects is onhossed.' "'Whatever for a play would it be,' says Cherokee, 'to go an' ask Dave himse'f right now?' "'I'd be some slow about propoundin' sech surmises to Dave,' says Boggs. 'He might get hostile; you can put a wager on it, he'd turn out disagree'ble to a degree, if he did. No, you-all has got to handle a loonatic with gloves. I knows a gent who entangles himse'f with a loonatic, askin' questions, an' he gets all shot up.' "'I reckons, however,' says Cherokee, 'that I'll assoome the resk. Dave an' me's friends; an' I allows if I goes after him in ways both soft an' careless, so as not to call forth no suspicions, he'll take it good-humoured even if he is locoed.' "We-all sets breathless while Cherokee sa'nters down to where Dave's still wropped in them melodies. "'Whatever be you hummin' toones for, Dave?' asks Cherokee all accidental like. "'Which I'm rehearsin',' says Dave, an' he shows he's made impatient. 'Don't come infringin' about me with no questions,' goes on Dave. 'I'm like the ancient Romans, I've got troubles of my own; an' no sport who calls himse'f my friend will go aggravatin' me with ontimely inquis'tiveness.' Then Dave gets up an' pulls his freight an' leaves us more onsettled than at first. "For a full hour, we does nothin' but canvass this yere question of Dave's aberrations. At last a idee seizes us. Thar's times when Dave's been seen caucusin' with Missis Rucker an' Doc Peets. Most likely one of 'em would be able to shed a ray on Dave. By a excellent coincidence, an' as if to he'p us out, Peets comes in as Texas Thompson su'gests that mebby the Doc's qualified to onravel the myst'ry. "'Tell you-all folks what's the matter with Dave?' says Peets. 'Pards, it's simply not in the deck. Meanin' no disrespects--for you gents knows me too well to dream of me harborin' anything but feelin's of the highest regyards for one an' all--I'll have to leave you camped in original darkness. It would be breakin' professional confidences. Shore, I saveys Dave's troubles an' the causes of these vagaries of his; jest the same the traditions of the medical game forces me to hold 'em sacred an' secret.' "'Tell us at least, Doc,' says Enright, 'whether Dave's likely to grow voylent. If he is, it's only proper that we arranges to tie him down.' "'Dave may be boisterous later,' says Peets, an' his reply comes slow an' thoughtful, like he's considerin'; 'he may make a joyful uproar, but he won't wax dangerous.' This yere's as far as Peets'll go; he declines to talk longer, on professional grounds. "'Which suspense, this a-way,' says Boggs, after Peets is gone, 'an' us no wiser than when he shows in the door, makes me desp'rate. I'll offer the motion: Let's prance over in a bunch, an' demand a explanation of Missis Rucker. Dave's been talkin' to her as much as ever he has to Peets, an' thar's no professional hobbles on the lady; she's footloose, an' free to speak.' "'We waits on you, Marm,' says Enright, when ten minutes later Boggs, Cherokee, Texas Thompson an' he is in the kitchen of the O. K. Restauraw where Missis Rucker is slicin' salt hoss an' layin' the fragrant foundations of supper; 'we waits on you-all to ask your advice. Dave Tutt's been carryin' on in a manner an' form at once doobious an' threatenin'. It ain't too much to say that we-all fears the worst. We comes now to invite you to tell us all you knows of Dave an' whatever it is that so onsettles him. Our idee is that you onderstands a heap about it.' "'See yere, Sam Enright,' retorts Missis Rucker, pausin' over the salt hoss, 'you ain't doin' yourse'f proud. You better round up this herd of inebriates an' get 'em back to the Red Light. Thar's nothin' the matter with Dave; leastwise if it was the matter with you, you'd be some improved. Dave Tutt's a credit to this camp; never more so than now; the same bein' a mighty sight more'n I could say of any of you-all an' stick to the trooth.' "'Then you does know, Missis Rucker,' says Enright, 'the secret that's gnawin' at Dave.' "'Know it,' replies Misses Rucker, 'of course, I knows it. But I don't propose to discuss it none with you tarrapins. I ain't got no patience with sech dolts! Now that you-all is yere, however, I'll give you notice that to-morry you can begin to do your own cookin' till you hears further word from me. I'm goin' to be otherwise an' more congenially engaged. Most likely I'll be back in my kitchen ag'in in a day or two; but I makes no promises. An' ontil sech time as I shows up, you-all can go scuffle for yourse'fs. I've got more important dooties jest now on my hands than cookin' chuck for sots.' "As Missis Rucker speaks up mighty vigorous, an' as none of us has the nerve to ask her further an' take the resk of turnin' loose her temper, we lines out ag'in for the Red Light no cl'arer than what we was. "'I could ask her more questions,' says Enright, 'but, gents, I didn't deem it wise. Missis Rucker is a most admirable character; but I'm sooperstitious about crowdin' her too clost. Like Boggs says about opals, thar's plenty of bad luck lurkin' about Missis Rucker's environs if you only goes about its deevelopment the right way.' "'The sityooation is too many for me,' says Boggs, goin' up to the bar for a drink, 'I gives it up. I ain't got a notion left, onless it is that Dave's runnin' for office; that is, I might entertain sech a thought only thar ain't no office.' "'The next day Missis Rucker abandons her post; an' we tharupon finds that feedin' ourse'fs keeps us busy an' we don't have much time to discuss Dave. Also, Dave disappears;--in fact, both Dave an' Missis Rucker fades from view. "It's about fo'rth drink time the evenin' of the third day, an' most of us is in the Red Light. Thar's a gloom overhangs us like a fog. Mebby it's the oncertainties which envelops Dave, mebby it's because Missis Rucker's done deserted an' left us to rustle for ourse'fs or starve. Most of us is full of present'ments that something's due to happen. "All at once, an' onexpected, Dave walks in. A sigh of relief goes up, for the glance we gives him shows he's all right--sane as Enright--clothed an' in his right mind as set fo'th in holy writ. Also, his countenance is a wrinkle of glee. "'Gents,' says Dave, an' his air is that patronisin' it would have been exasperatin' only we're so relieved, 'gents, I'm come to seek congratyoolations an' set 'em up. Peets an' that motherly angel, Missis Rucker, allows I'll be of more use yere than in my own house, whereat I nacherally floats over. Coupled with a su'gestion that we drinks, I wants to say that he's a boy, an' that I brands him "Enright Peets Tutt."'" CHAPTER VI. With the Apache's Compliments. "Ondoubted," observed the Old Cattleman, during one of our long excursive talks, "ondoubted, the ways an' the motives of Injuns is past the white man's findin' out. He's shore a myst'ry, the Injun is! an' where the paleface forever fails of his s'lootion is that the latter ropes at this problem in copper-colour from the standp'int of the Caucasian. Can a dog onderstand a wolf? Which I should remark not! "It's a heap likely that with Injuns, the white man in his turn is jest as difficult to solve. An' without the Injun findin' onusual fault with 'em, thar's a triangle of things whereof the savage accooses the paleface. The Western Injuns at least--for I ain't posted none on Eastern savages, the same bein' happily killed off prior to my time--the Western Injuns lays the bee, the wild turkey, an' that weed folks calls the 'plantain,' at the white man's door. They-all descends upon the Injun hand in hand. No, the Injun don't call the last-named veg'table a 'plantain;' he alloodes to it as 'the White Man's Foot.' "Thar's traits dominant among Injuns which it wouldn't lower the standin' of a white man if he ups an' imitates a whole lot. I once encounters a savage--one of these blanket Injuns with feathers in his ha'r--an' bein' idle an' careless of what I'm about, I staggers into casyooal talk with him. This buck's been East for the first time in his darkened c'reer an' visited the Great Father in Washin'ton. I asks him what he regyards as the deepest game he in his travels goes ag'inst. At first he allows that pie, that a-way, makes the most profound impression. But I bars pie, an' tells him to su'gest the biggest thing he strikes, not on no bill of fare. Tharupon, abandonin' menoos an' wonders of the table, he roominates a moment an' declar's that the steamboat--now that pie is exclooded--ought to get the nomination. "'The choo-choo boat,' observes this intelligent savage, 'is the paleface's big medicine.' "'You'll have a list of marvels,' I says, 'to avalanche upon the people when you cuts the trail of your ancestral tribe ag'in?' "'No,' retorts the savage, shakin' his head ontil the skelp-lock whips his y'ears, an' all mighty decisive; 'no; won't tell Injun nothin'.' "'Why not?' I demands. "'If I tell,' he says, 'they no believe. They think it all heap lie.' "Son, consider what a example to travellers is set by that ontootered savage? That's what makes me say thar be traits possessed of Injuns, personal, which a paleface might improve himse'f by copyin'. "Bein' white myse'f, I'm born with notions ag'in Injuns. I learns of their deestruction with relief, an' never sees one pirootin' about, full of life an' vivacity, but the spectacle fills me with vain regrets. All the same thar's a load o' lies told East concernin' the Injun. I was wont from time to time to discuss these red folks with Gen'ral Stanton, who for years is stationed about in Arizona, an'--merely for the love he b'ars to fightin'--performs as chief of scouts for Gen'ral Crook. "'Our divers wars with the Apaches,' says Gen'ral Stanton, 'comes more as the frootes of a misdeal by a locoed marshal than anything else besides. When Crook first shows up in Arizona--this is in the long ago--an' starts to inculcate peace among the Apaches, he gets old Jeffords to bring Cochise to him to have a pow-wow. Jeffords rounds up Cochise an' herds him with soft words an' big promises into the presence of Crook. The Grey Fox--which was the Injun name for Crook--makes Cochise a talk. Likewise he p'ints out to the chief the landmarks an' mountain peaks that indicates the Mexican line. An' the Grey Fox explains to Cochise that what cattle is killed an' what skelps is took to the south'ard of the line ain't goin' to bother him a bit. But no'th'ard it's different; thar in that sacred region cattle killin' an' skelp collectin' don't go. The Grey Fox shoves the information on Cochise that every trick turned on the American side of the line has done got to partake of the characteristics of a love affair, or the Grey Fox with his young men in bloo--his walk-a-heaps an' his hoss-warriors--noomerous as the grass, they be--will come down on Cochise an' his Apaches like a coyote on a sage hen or a pan of milk from a top shelf an' make 'em powerful hard to find. "'Cochise smokes an' smokes, an' after considerin' the bluff of the Grey Fox plenty profound, allows he won't call it. Thar shall be peace between the Apache an' the paleface to the no'th'ard of that line. Then the Grey Fox an' Cochise shakes hands an' says "How!" an' Cochise, with a bolt or two of red calico wherewith to embellish his squaws, goes squanderin' back to his people, permeated to the toes with friendly intentions. "'Sech is Cochise's reverence for his word, coupled with his fear of the Grey Fox, that years float by an' every deefile an' canyon of the Southwest is as safe as the aisles of a church to the moccasins of the paleface. Thus it continyoos ontil thar comes a evenin' when a jimcrow marshal, with more six-shooters than hoss sense, allows he'll apprehend Cochise's brother a whole lot for some offense that ain't most likely deuce high in the category of troo crime. This ediot offishul reaches for the relative of Cochise; an' as the latter--bein' a savage an' tharfore plumb afraid of captivity--leaps back'ard like he's met up with a rattlesnake, the marshal puts his gun on him an' plugs him so good that he cashes in right thar. The marshal says later in explanation of his game that Cochise's brother turns hostile an' drops his hand on his knife. Most likely he does; a gent's hands--even a Apache's--has done got to be some'ers. "'But the killin' overturns the peaceful programmes built up between the Grey Fox an' Cochise. When the old chief hears of his brother bein' downed, he paints himse'f black an' red an' sends a bundle of arrows tied with a rattlesnake skin to the Grey Fox with a message to count his people an' look out for himse'f. The Grey Fox, who realises that the day of peace has ended an' the sun gone down to rise on a mornin' of trouble, fills the rattlesnake skin with cartridges an' sends 'em back with a word to Cochise to turn himse'f loose. From that moment the war-jig which is to last for years is on. After Cochise comes Geronimo, an' after Geronimo comes Nana; an' one an' all, they adds a heap of spice to life in Arizona. It's no exaggeration to put the number of palefaces who lose their ha'r as the direct result of that fool marshal layin' for Cochise's brother an' that Injun's consequent cuttin' off, at a round ten thousand. Shore! thar's scores an' scores who's been stood up an' killed in the hills whereof we never gets a whisper. I, myse'f, in goin' through the teepees of a Apache outfit, after we done wipes 'em off the footstool, sees the long ha'r of seven white women who couldn't have been no time dead. "'Who be they? Folks onknown who's got shot into while romancin' along among the hills with schemes no doubt of settlement in Californy. "'With what we saveys of the crooelties of the Apaches, thar's likewise a sperit of what book-sharps calls chivalry goes with 'em an' albeit on one ha'r-hung o'casion I profits mightily tharby, I'm onable to give it a reason. You wouldn't track up on no sim'lar weaknesses among the palefaces an' you-all can put down a stack on that. "'It's when I'm paymaster,' says the Gen'ral, reachin' for the canteen, 'an' I starts fo'th from Fort Apache on a expedition to pay off the nearby troops. I've got six waggons an' a escort of twenty men. For myse'f, at the r'ar of the procession, I journeys proudly in a amb'lance. Our first camp is goin' to be on top of the mesa out a handful of miles from the Fort. "'The word goes along the line to observe a heap of caution an' not straggle or go rummagin' about permiscus, for the mountains is alive with hostiles. It's five for one that a frownin' cloud of 'em is hangin' on our flanks from the moment we breaks into the foothills. No, they'd be afoot; the Apaches ain't hoss-back Injuns an' only fond of steeds as food. He never rides on one, a Apache don't, but he'll camp an' build a fire an' eat a corral full of ponies if you'll furnish 'em, an' lick his lips in thankfulness tharfore. But bein' afoot won't hinder 'em from keepin' up with my caravan, for in the mountains the snow is to the waggon beds an' the best we can do, is wriggle along the trail like a hurt snake at a gait which wouldn't tire a papoose. "'We've been pushin' on our windin' uphill way for mighty likely half a day, an' I'm beginnin'--so dooms slows is our progress--to despair of gettin' out on top the mesa before dark, when to put a coat of paint on the gen'ral trouble the lead waggon breaks down. I turns out in the snow with the rest, an' we-all puts in a heated an' highly profane half-hour restorin' the waggon to health. At last we're onder headway ag'in, an' I wades back through the snow to my amb'lance. "'As I arrives at the r'ar of my offishul waggon, it occurs to me that I'll fill a pipe an' smoke some by virchoo of my nerves, the same bein' torn and frayed with the many exasperations of the day. I gives my driver the word to wait a bit, an' searchin' forth my tobacco outfit loads an' lights my pipe. I'm planted waist deep in the mountain snows, but havin' on hossman boots the snow ain't no hardship. "'While I'm fussin' with my pipe, the six waggons an' my twenty men curves 'round a bend in the trail an' is hid by a corner of the canyon. I reflects at the time--though I ain't really expectin' no perils--that I'd better catch up with my escort, if it's only to set the troops a example. As I exhales my first puff of smoke and is on the verge of tellin' my driver to pull out--this yere mule-skinner is settin' so that matters to the r'ar is cut off from his gaze by the canvas cover of my waggon--a slight noise attracts me, an' castin' my eye along the trail we've been climbin', I notes with feelin's of disgust a full dozen Apaches comin'. An' it ain't no hyperbole to say they're shore comin' all spraddled out. "'In the lead for all the deep snow, an' racin' up on me like the wind, is a big befeathered buck, painted to the eyes; an' in his right fist, raised to hurl it, is a 12-foot lance. As I surveys this pageant, I realises how he'pless, utter, I be, an' with what ca'mness I may, adjusts my mind to the fact that I've come to the end of my trails. He'pless? Shore! I'm stuck as firm in the snow as one of the pines about me; my guns is in the waggon outen immediate reach; thar I stands as certain a prey to that Apache with the lance as he's likely to go up ag'inst doorin' the whole campaign. Why, I'm a pick-up! I remembers my wife an' babies, an' sort o' says "Goodbye!" to 'em, for I'm as certain of my finish as I be of the hills, or the snows beneath my feet. However, since it's all I can do, I continyoos to smoke an' watch my execootioners come on. "'The big lance Injun is the dominatin' sperit of the bunch. As he draws up to me--he's fifty foot in advance of the others--he makes his lance shiver from p'int to butt. It fairly sings a death song! I can feel it go through an' through me a score of times. But I stands thar facin' him; for, of course, I wants it to go through from the front. I don't allow to be picked up later with anything so onfashionable as a lance wound in my back. That would be mighty onprofessional! "'You onderstands that what now requires minutes in the recital don't cover seconds as a play. The lance Injun runs up to within a rod of me an' halts. His arm goes back for a mighty cast of the lance; the weepon is vibrant with the very sperit of hate an' malice. His eyes, through a fringe of ha'r that has fallen over 'em, glows out like a cat's eyes in the dark. "We stands thar--I still puffin my pipe, he with his lance raised--an' we looks on each other--I an' that paint-daubed buck! I can't say whatever is his notion of me, but on my side I never beholds a savage who appeals to me as a more evil an' forbiddin' picture! "'As I looks him over a change takes place. The fire in his eyes dies out, his face relaxes its f'rocity, an' after standin' for a moment an' as the balance of the band arrives, he turns the lance over his arm an' with the butt presented, surrenders it into my hand. You can gamble I don't lose no time in arguin' the question, but accepts the lance with all that it implies. Bringin' the weepon to a 'Right Shoulder' an' with my mind relieved, I gives the word to my mule-skinner--who's onconscious of the transactions in life an' death goin' on behind his back--an' with that, we-all takes up our march an' soon comes up on the escort where it's ag'in fixed firm in the snow about a furlong to the fore. My savages follows along with me, an' each of 'em as grave as squinch owls an' tame as tabby cats. "'Joke? no; them Apaches was as hostile as Gila monsters! But beholdin' me, as they regyards it--for they don't in their ontaught simplicity make allowance for me bein' implanted in the snow, gunless an' he'pless--so brave, awaitin' deestruction without a quiver, their admiration mounts to sech heights it drowns within 'em every thought of cancellin' me with that lance, an' tharupon they pays me their savage compliments in manner an' form deescribed. They don't regyard themse'fs as surrenderin' neither; they esteems passin' me the lance as inauguratin' a armistice an' looks on themse'fs as guests of honor an' onder my safegyard, free to say "How!" an' vamos back to the warpath ag'in whenever the sperit of blood begins to stir within their breasts. I knows enough of their ways to be posted as to what they expects; an' bein', I hopes, a gent of integrity, I accedes to 'em that exact status which they believes they enjoys. "'They travels with me that day, eats with me that evenin' when we makes our camp, has a drink with me all 'round, sings savage hymns to me throughout the night, loads up with chuck in the mornin', offers me no end of flattery as a dead game gent whom they respects, says _adios_; an' then they scatters like a flock of quail. Also, havin' resoomed business on old-time lines, they takes divers shots at us with their Winchesters doorin' the next two days, an' kills a hoss an' creases my sergeant. Why don't I corral an' hold 'em when they're in my clutch? It would have been breakin' the trooce as Injuns an' I onderstands sech things; moreover, they let me go free without conditions when I was loser by every roole of the game.'" CHAPTER VII. The Mills of Savage Gods. "Thar might, of course, be romances in the West," observed the Old Cattleman, reflectively, in response to my question, "but the folks ain't got no time. Romance that a-way demands leesure, an' a party has to be more or less idlin' about to get what you-all might style romantic action. Take that warjig whereof I recently relates an' wherein this yere Wild Bill Hickox wipes out the McCandlas gang--six to his Colt's, four to his bowie, an' one to his Hawkins rifle; eleven in all--I asks him myse'f later when he's able to talk, don't he regyard the eepisode as some romantic. An' Bill says, 'No, I don't notice no romance tharin; what impresses me most is that she's shore a zealous fight--also, mighty busy.' "Injuns would be romantic, only they're so plumb ignorant they never once saveys. Thar's no Injun word for 'romantic'; them benighted savages never tumblin' to sech a thing as romance bein' possible. An' yet said aborigines engages in plays which a eddicated Eastern taste with leesure on its hands an' gropin' about for entertainment would pass on as romantic. "When I'm pesterin' among the Osages on that one o'casion that I'm tryin' to make a round-up of my health, the old buck Strike Axe relates to me a tale which I allers looks on as possessin' elements. Shore; an' it's as simple an' straight as the sights of a gun. It's about a squaw an' three bucks, an' thar's enough blood in it to paint a waggon. Which I reckons now I'll relate it plain an' easy an' free of them frills wherewith a professional racontoor is so prone to overload his narratives. "The Black Cloud is a Osage medicine man an' has high repoote about Greyhoss where he's pitched his teepee an' abides. He's got a squaw, Sunbright, an' he's plenty jealous of this yere little Sunbright. The Black Cloud has three squaws, an' Sunbright is the youngest. The others is Sunbright's sisters, for a Osage weds all the sisters of a fam'ly at once, the oldest sister goin' to the front at the nuptials to deal the weddin' game for the entire outfit. "Now this Sunbright ain't over-enamoured of Black Cloud; he's only a half-blood Injun for one thing, his father bein' a buffalo-man (negro) who's j'ined the Osages, an' Sunbright don't take kindly to his nose which is some flatter than the best rools of Osage beauty demands; an' likewise thar's kinks in his ha'r. Still, Sunbright sort o' keeps her aversions to herse'f, an' if it ain't for what follows she most likely would have travelled to her death-blankets an' been given a seat on a hill with a house of rocks built 'round her--the same bein' the usual burial play of a Osage--without Black Cloud ever saveyin' that so far from interestin' Sunbright, he only makes her tired. "Over south from Black Cloud's Greyhoss camp an' across the Arkansaw an' some'ers between the Polecat an' the Cimmaron thar's livin' a young Creek buck called the Lance. He's straight an' slim an' strong as the weepon he's named for; an' he like Black Cloud is a medicine sharp of cel'bration an' stands way up in the papers. The Creeks is never weary of talkin' about the Lance an' what a marvel as a medicine man he is; also, by way of insultin' the Osages, they declar's onhesitatin' that the Lance lays over Black Cloud like four tens, an' offers to bet hosses an' blankets an' go as far as the Osages likes that this is troo. "By what Strike Axe informs me,--an' he ain't none likely to overplay in his statements--by what Strike Axe tells me, I says, the Lance must shore have been the high kyard as a medicine man. Let it get dark with the night an' no moon in the skies, an' the Lance could take you-all into his medicine lodge, an' you'd hear the sperits flappin' their pinions like some one flappin' a blanket, an' thar'd be whisperin's an' goin's on outside the lodge an' in, while fire-eyes would show an' burn an' glower up in the peak of the teepee; an' all plenty skeary an' mystifiyin'. Besides these yere accomplishments the Lance is one of them mesmerism sports who can set anamiles to dreamin'. He could call a coyote or a fox, or even so fitful an' nervous a prop'sition as a antelope; an' little by little, snuffin' an' snortin', or if it's a coyote, whinin', them beasts would approach the Lance ontil they're that clost he'd tickle their heads with his fingers while they stands shiverin' an' sweatin' with apprehensions. You can put a bet on it, son, that accordin' to this onbiassed buck, Strike Axe, the Lance is ondoubted the big medicine throughout the Injun range. "As might be assoomed, the Black Cloud is some heated ag'in the Lance an' looks on him with baleful eye as a rival. Still, Black Cloud has his nerve with him constant, an' tharfore one day when the Osages an' Creeks has been dispootin' touchin' the reespective powers of him an' the Lance, an' this latter Injun offers to come over to Greyhoss an' make medicine ag'in him, Black Cloud never hesitates or hangs back like a dog tied onder a waggon, but calls the bluff a heap prompt an' tells the Lance to come. "Which the day is set an' the Lance shows in the door, as monte sharps would say. Black Cloud an' the Lance tharupon expands themse'fs, an' delights the assembled Creeks an' Osages with their whole box of tricks, an' each side is braggin' an' boastin' an' puttin' it up that their gent is most likely the soonest medicine man who ever buys black paint. It's about hoss an' hoss between the two. "Black Cloud accompanies himse'f to this contest with a pure white pony which has eyes red as roobies--a kind o' albino pony--an' he gives it forth that this milk-coloured bronco is his 'big medicine' or familiar sperit. The Lance observes that the little red-eyed hoss is mighty impressive to the savages, be they Creeks or Osages. At last he says to Black Cloud: "'To show how my medicine is stronger than yours, to-morry I'll make your red-eyed big medicine bronco go lame in his off hind laig.' "Black Cloud grins scornful at this; he allows that no sport can make his white pony go lame. "He's plumb wrong; the next mornin' the white pony is limpin' an' draggin' his off hind hoof, an' when he's standin' still he p'ints the toe down like something's fetched loose. Black Cloud is sore; but he can't find no cactus thorn nor nothin' to bring about the lameness an' he don't know what to make of the racket. Black Cloud's up ag'inst it, an' the audience begins to figger that the Lance's' medicine is too strong for Black Cloud. "What's the trouble with the red-eyed pony? That's simple enough, son. The Lance done creeps over in the night an' ties a hossha'r tight about the pony's laig jest above the fetlock. Black Cloud ain't up to no sech move, the same bein' a trade secret of the Lance's an' bein' the hossha'r is hid in the ha'r on the pony's laig, no one notes its presence. "After Black Cloud looks his red-eyed big medicine pony all over an' can't onderstand its lameness, the Lance asks him will he cure it. Black Cloud, who's sc'owlin' like midnight by now, retorts that he will. So he gets his pipe an' fills it with medicine tobacco an' blows a mouthful of smoke in the red-eyed pony's nose. Sech remedies don't work; that pony still limps on three laigs, draggin' the afflicted member mighty pensive. "At last the Lance gives Black Cloud a patronisin' smile an' says that his medicine'll cure the pony sound an' well while you're crackin' off a gun. He walks up to the pony an' looks long in its red eyes; the pony's y'ears an' tail droops, its head hangs down, an' it goes mighty near to sleep. Then the Lance rubs his hand two or three times up an' down the lame laig above the fetlock an' elim'nates that hossha'r ligature an' no one the wiser. A moment after, he wakes up the red-eyed pony an' to the amazement of the Osages an' the onbounded delight of the Creeks, the pony is no longer lame, an' the laig so late afflicted is as solid an' healthy as a sod house. What's bigger medicine still, the red-eyed pony begins to follow the Lance about like a dog an' as if it's charmed; an' it likewise turns in to bite an' r'ar an' pitch an' jump sideways if Black Cloud seeks to put his paw on him. Then all the Injuns yell with one voice: 'The Lance has won the Black Cloud's big medicine red-eyed pony away from him.' "The Lance is shore the fashion, an' Black Cloud discovers he ain't a four-spot by compar'son. His repootation is gone, an' the Lance is regyarded as the great medicine along the Arkansaw. "Sunbright is lookin' on at these manoovers an' her heart goes out to the Lance; she falls more deeply in love with him than even the red-eyed bronco does. That evenin' as the Lance is goin' to his camp onder the cottonwoods, he meets up with Sunbright standin' still as a tree in his path with her head bowed like a flower that's gone to sleep. The Lance saveys; he knows Sunbright; likewise he knows what her plantin' herse'f in his way an' her droopin' attitoode explains. He looks at her, an' says; "'I am a guest of the Osages, an' to-night is not the night. Wait ontil the Lance is in his own teepee on the Polecat; then come.' "Sunbright never moves, never looks up; but she hears an' she knows this is right. No buck should steal a squaw while he's a guest. The Lance walks on an' leaves her standin', head bowed an' motionless. "Two days later the Lance is ag'in in his own teepee. Sunbright counts the time an' knows that he must be thar. She skulks from the camp of Black Cloud an' starts on her journey to be a new wife to a new husband. "Sunbright is a mile from camp when she's interrupted. It's Black Cloud who heads her off. Black Cloud may not be the boss medicine man, but he's no fool, an' his eyes is like a wolf's eyes an' can see in the dark. He guesses the new love which has stampeded Sunbright. "Injuns is a mighty cur'ous outfit. Now if Sunbright had succeeded in gettin' to the lodge of her new husband, the divorce between her an' Black Cloud would have been complete. Moreover, if on the day followin' or at any time Black Cloud had found her thar, he wouldn't so much as have wagged a y'ear or batted a eye in recognition. He wouldn't have let on he ever hears of a squaw called 'Sunbright.' This ca'mness would be born of two causes. It would be ag'in Injun etiquette to go trackin' about makin' a onseemly uproar an' disturbin' the gen'ral peace for purely private causes. Then ag'in it would be beneath the dignity of a high grade savage an' a big medicine sharp to conduct himse'f like he'd miss so trivial a thing as a squaw. "But ontil Sunbright fulfils her elopement projects an' establishes herse'f onder the protectin' wing of her new love, she's runnin' resks. She's still the Black Cloud's squaw; an' after she pulls her marital picket pin an' while she's gettin' away, if the bereaved Black Cloud crosses up with her he's free, onder the license permitted to Injun husbands, to kill her an' skelp her an' dispose of her as consists best with his moods. "Sunbright knows this; an' when she runs ag'in the Black Cloud in her flight, she seats herse'f in the long prairie grass an' covers her head with her blanket an' speaks never a word. "'Does Sunbright so love me,' says Black Cloud, turnin' aheap ugly, 'that she comes to meet me? Is it for me she has combed her h'ar an' put on a new feather an' beads? Does she wear her new blanket an' paint her face bright for Black Cloud? Or does she dress herse'f like the sun for that Creek coyote, the Lance?'" Sunbright makes no reply, Black Cloud looks at her a moment an' then goes on: "It's for the Lance! Good! I will fix the Sunbright so she will be a good squaw to my friend, the Lance, an' never run from his lodge as she does now from Black Cloud's.' With that he stoops down, an' a slash of his knife cuts the heel-tendons of Sunbright's right foot. She groans, and writhes about the prairie, while Black Cloud puts his knife back in his belt, gets into his saddle ag'in an' rides away. "The next day a Creek boy finds the body of Sunbright where she rolls herse'f into the Greyhoss an' is drowned. "When the Lance hears the story an' sees the knife slash on Sunbright's heel, he reads the trooth. It gives him a bad heart; he paints his face red an' black an thinks how he'll be revenged. Next day he sends a runner to Black Cloud with word that Black Cloud has stole his hoss. This is to arrange a fight on virtuous grounds. The Lance says that in two days when the sun is overhead Black Cloud must come to the three cottonwoods near the mouth of the Cimmaron an' fight, or the Lance on the third day an' each day after will hunt for him as he'd hunt a wolf ontil Black Cloud is dead. The Black Cloud's game, an' sends word that on the second day he'll be thar by the three cottonwoods when the sun is overhead; also, that he will fight with four arrows. "Then Black Cloud goes at once, for he has no time to lose, an' kills a dog near his lodge. He cuts out its heart an' carries it to the rocky canyon where the rattlesnakes have a village. Black Cloud throws the dog's heart among them an' teases them with it; an' the rattlesnakes bite the dog's heart ag'in an' ag'in ontil it's as full of p'isen as a bottle is of rum. After that, Black Cloud puts the p'isened heart in the hot sun an' lets it fret an' fester ontil jest before he goes to his dooel with the Lance. As he's about to start, Black Cloud dips the four steel arrowheads over an' over in the p'isened heart, bein' careful to dry the p'isen on the arrowheads; an' now whoever is touched with these arrows so that the blood comes is shore to die. The biggest medicine in the nation couldn't save him. "Thar's forty Osage and forty Creek bucks at the three cottonwoods to see that the dooelists get a squar' deal. The Lance an' Black Cloud is thar; each has a bow an' four arrows; each has made medicine all night that he may kill his man. "But the dooel strikes a obstacle. "Thar's a sombre, sullen sport among the Osages who's troo name is the 'Bob-cat,' but who's called the 'Knife Thrower.' The Bob-cat is one of the Osage forty. Onknown to the others, this yere Bob-cat--who it looks like is a mighty impressionable savage--is himse'f in love with the dead Sunbright. An' he's hot an' cold because he's fearful that in this battle of the bows the Lance'll down Black Cloud an' cheat him, the Bob-cat, of his own revenge. The chance is too much; the Bob-cat can't stand it an' resolves to get his stack down first. An' so it happens that as Black Cloud an' the Lance, painted in their war colours, is walkin' to their places, a nine-inch knife flickers like a gleam of light from the hand of the Bob-cat, an' merely to show that he ain't called the 'Knife Thrower' for fun, catches Black Cloud flush in the throat, an' goes through an' up to the gyard at the knife-haft. Black Cloud dies standin', for the knife p'int bites his spine. "No, son, no one gets arrested; Injuns don't have jails, for the mighty excellent reason that no Injun culprit ever vamoses an' runs away. Injun crim'nals, that a-way, allers stands their hands an' takes their hemlock. The Osages, who for Injuns is some shocked at the Bob-cat's interruption of the dooel--it bein' mighty onparliamentary from their standp'ints--tries the Bob-cat in their triboonals for killin' Black Cloud an' he's decided on as guilty accordin' to their law. They app'ints a day for the Bob-cat to be shot; an' as he ain't present at the trial none, leavin' his end of the game to be looked after by his reelatives, they orders a kettle-tender or tribe crier to notify the Bob-cat when an' where he's to come an' have said sentence execooted upon him. When he's notified, the Bob-cat don't say nothin'; which is satisfactory enough, as thar's nothin' to be said, an' every Osage knows the Bob-cat'll be thar at the drop of the handkerchief if he's alive. "It so turns out; the Bob-cat's thar as cool as wild plums. He's dressed in his best blankets an' leggin's; an' his feathers an' gay colours makes him a overwhelmin' match for peacocks. Thar's a white spot painted over his heart. "The chief of the Osages, who's present to see jestice done, motions to the Bob-cat, an' that gent steps to a red blanket an' stands on its edge with all the blanket spread in front of him on the grass. The Bob-cat stands on the edge, as he saveys when he's plugged that he'll fall for'ard on his face. When a gent gets the gaff for shore, he falls for'ard. If a party is hit an' falls back'ards, you needn't get excited none; he's only creased an' 'll get over it. "Wherefore, as I states, the Bob-cat stands on the edge of the blanket so it's spread out in front to catch him as he drops. Thar's not a word spoke by either the Bob-cat or the onlookers, the latter openin' out into a lane behind so the lead can go through. When the Bob-cat's ready, his cousin, a buck whose name is Little Feather, walks to the front of the blanket an' comes down careful with his Winchester on the white mark over the Bob-cat's heart. Thar's a moment's silence as the Bob-cat's cousin runs his eye through the sights; thar's a flash an' a hatful of gray smoke; the white spot turns red with blood; an' then the Bob-cat falls along on his face as soft as a sack of corn. "What becomes of the Lance? It's two weeks later when that scientist is waited on by a delegation of Osages. They reminds him that Sunbright has two sisters, the same bein' now widows by virchoo of the demise of that egreegious Black Cloud. Also, the Black Cloud was rich; his teepee was sumptuous, an' he's left a buckskin coat with ivory elk teeth sewed onto it plenty as stars at night. The coat is big medicine; moreover thar's the milk-white big medicine bronco with red eyes. The Osage delegation puts forth these trooths while the Lance sets cross-laiged on a b'arskin an' smokes willow bark with much dignity. In the finish, the Osage outfit p'ints up to the fact that their tribe is shy a medicine man, an' a gent of the Lance's accomplishments who can charm anamiles an' lame broncos will be a mighty welcome addition to the Osage body politic. The Lance lays down his pipe at this an' says, 'It is enough!' An' the next day he sallies over an' weds them two relicts of Black Cloud an' succeeds to that dead necromancer's estate an' both at one fell swoop. The two widows chuckles an' grins after the manner of ladies, to get a new husband so swift; an' abandonin' his lodge on the Polecat the Lance sets up his game at Greyhoss, an' onless he's petered, he's thar dealin' it yet." CHAPTER VIII. Tom and Jerry; Wheelers. "Obstinacy or love, that a-way, when folks pushes 'em to excess, is shore bad medicine. Which I'd be aheap loath to count the numbers them two attribootes harries to the tomb. Why, son, it's them sentiments that kills off my two wheel mules, Tom an' Jerry." The Old Cattleman appeared to be on the verge of abstract discussion. As a metaphysician, he was not to be borne with. There was one method of escape; I interfered to coax the currents of his volubility into other and what were to me, more interesting channels. "Tell me of the trail; or a story about animals," I urged. "You were saying recently that perfect systems of oral if not verbal communication existed among mules, and that you had listened for hours to their gossip. Give me the history of one of your freighting trips and what befell along the trail; and don't forget the comment thereon--wise, doubtless, it was--of your long-eared servants of the rein and trace-chain." "Tell you what chances along the trail? Son, you-all opens a wide-flung range for my mem'ry to graze over. I might tell you how I'm lost once, freightin' from Vegas into the Panhandle, an' am two days without water--blazin' Jooly days so hot you couldn't touch tire, chain, or bolt-head without fryin' your fingers. An' how at the close of the second day when I hauls in at Cabra Springs, I lays down by that cold an' blessed fountain an' drinks till I aches. Which them two days of thirst terrorises me to sech degrees that for one plumb year tharafter, I never meets up with water when I don't drink a quart, an' act like I'm layin' in ag'in another parched spell. "Or I might relate how I stops over one night from Springer on my way to the Canadian at a Triangle-dot camp called Kingman. This yere is a one-room stone house, stark an' sullen an' alone on the desolate plains, an' no scenery worth namin' but a half-grown feeble spring. This Kingman ain't got no windows; its door is four-inch thick of oak; an' thar's loopholes for rifles in each side which shows the sports who builds that edifice in the stormy long-ago is lookin' for more trouble than comfort an' prepares themse'fs. The two cow-punchers I finds in charge is scared to a standstill; they allows this Kingman's ha'nted. They tells me how two parties who once abides thar--father an' son they be--gets downed by a hold-up whose aim is pillage, an' who comes cavortin' along an' butchers said fam'ly in their sleep. The cow-punchers declar's they hears the spooks go scatterin' about the room as late as the night before I trails in. I ca'ms 'em--not bein' subject to nerve stampedes myse'f, an' that same midnight when the sperits comes ha'ntin' about ag'in, I turns outen my blankets an' lays said spectres with the butt of my mule whip--the same when we strikes a light an' counts 'em up bein' a couple of kangaroo rats. This yere would front up for a mighty thrillin' tale if I throws myse'f loose with its reecital an' daubs in the colour plenty vivid an' free. "Then thar's the time I swings over to the K-bar-8 ranch for corn--bein' I'm out of said cereal--an' runs up on a cow gent, spurs, gun-belt, big hat an' the full regalia, hangin' to the limb of a cottonwood, dead as George the Third, an' not a hundred foot from the ranch door. An' how inside I finds a half-dozen more cow folks, lookin' grave an' sayin' nothin'; an' the ranch manager has a bloody bandage about his for'ead, an' another holdin' up his left arm, half bandage an' half sling, the toot ensemble, as Colonel Sterett calls it, showin' sech recent war that the blood's still wet on the cloths an' drops on the floor as we talks. An' how none of us says a word about the dead gent in the cottonwood or of the manager who's shot up; an' how that same manager outfits me with ten sacks of mule-food an' I goes p'intin' out for the Southeast an' forgets all I sees an' never mentions it ag'in. "Then thar's Sim Booth of the Fryin' Pan outfit, who's one evenin' camped with me at Antelope Springs; an' who saddles up an' ropes onto the laigs of a dead Injun where they're stickin' forth--bein' washed free by the rains--an' pulls an' rolls that copper-coloured departed outen his sepulchre a lot, an' then starts his pony off at a canter an' sort o' fritters the remains about the landscape. Sim does this on the argyment that the obsequies, former, takes place too near the spring. This yere Sim's pony two months later steps in a dog hole when him an' Sim's goin' along full swing with some cattle on a stampede, an' the cayouse falls on Sim an' breaks everything about him incloosive of his neck. The other cow-punchers allers allow it's because Sim turns out that aborigine over by Antelope Springs. Now sech a eepisode, properly elab'rated, might feed your attention an' hold it spellbound some. "Son, if I was to turn myse'f loose on, great an' little, the divers incidents of the trail, it would consoome days in the relation. I could tell of cactus flowers, blazin' an' brilliant as a eye of red fire ag'in the brown dusk of the deserts; or of mile-long fields of Spanish bayonet in bloom; or of some Mexican's doby shinin' like a rooby in the sunlight a day's journey ahead, the same one onbroken mass from roof to ground of the peppers they calls _chili_, all reddenin' in the hot glare of the day. "Or, if you has a fancy for stirrin' incident an' lively scenes, thar's a time when the rains has raised the old Canadian ontil that quicksand ford at Tascosa--which has done eat a hundred teams if ever it swallows one!--is torn up complete an' the bottom of the river nothin' save b'ilin' sand with a shallow yere an' a hole deep enough to drown a house scooped out jest beyond. An' how since I can't pause a week or two for the river to run down an' the ford to settle, I goes spraddlin' an' tumblin' an' swimmin' across on Tom, my nigh wheeler, opens negotiations with the LIT ranch, an' Bob Roberson, has his riders round-up the pasture, an' comes chargin' down to the ford with a bunch of one thousand ponies, all of 'em dancin' an' buckin' an' prancin' like chil'en outen school. Roberson an' the LIT boys throws the thousand broncos across an' across the ford for mighty likely it's fifty times. They'd flash 'em through--the whole band together--on the run; an' then round 'em up on the opp'site bank, turn 'em an' jam 'em through ag'in. When they ceases, the bottom of the river is tramped an' beat out as hard an' as flat as a floor, an' I hooks up an' brings the waggons over like the ford--bottomless quicksand a hour prior--is one of these yere asphalt streets. "Or I might relate about a cowboy tournament that's held over in the flat green bottom of Parker's arroya; an' how Jack Coombs throws a rope an' fastens at one hundred an' four foot, while Waco Simpson rides at the herd of cattle one hundred foot away, ropes, throws an' ties down a partic'lar steer, frees his lariat an' is back with the jedges ag'in in forty-eight seconds. Waco wins the prize, a Mexican saddle--stamp-leather an' solid gold she is--worth four hundred dollars, by them onpreecedented alacrities. "Or, I might impart about a Mexican fooneral where the hearse is a blanket with two poles along the aige, the same as one of these battle litters; of the awful songs the mournful Mexicans sings about departed; of the candles they burns an' the dozens of baby white-pine crosses they sets up on little jim-crow stone-heaps along the trail to the tomb; meanwhiles, howlin' dirges constant. "Now I thinks of it I might bresh up the recollections of a mornin' when I rolls over, blankets an' all, onto something that feels as big as a boot-laig an' plenty squirmy; an' how I shows zeal a-gettin' to my feet, knowin' I'm reposin' on a rattlesnake who's bunked in ag'in my back all sociable to warm himse'f. It's worth any gent's while to see how heated an' indignant that serpent takes it because of me turnin' out so early and so swift. "Then thar's a mornin' when I finds myse'f not five miles down the wind from a prairie fire; an' it crackin' an' roarin' in flame-sheets twenty foot high an' makin' for'ard jumps of fifty foot. What do I do? Go for'ard down the wind, set fire to the grass myse'f, an' let her burn ahead of me. In two minutes I'm over on a burned deestrict of my own, an' by the time the orig'nal flames works down to my fire line, my own speshul fire is three miles ahead an I myse'f am ramblin' along cool an' saloobrious with a safe, shore area of burnt prairie to my r'ar. "An' thar's a night on the Serrita la Cruz doorin' a storm, when the lightnin' melts the tire on the wheel of my trail-waggon, an' me layin' onder it at the time. An' it don't even wake me up. Thar's the time, too, when I crosses up at Chico Springs with eighty Injuns who's been buffalo huntin' over to the South Paloduro, an' has with 'em four hundred odd ponies loaded with hides an' buffalo beef an' all headed for their home-camps over back of Taos. The bucks is restin' up a day or two when I rides in; later me an' a half dozen jumps a band of antelopes jest 'round a p'int of rocks. Son, you-all would have admired to see them savages shoot their arrows. I observes one young buck a heap clost. He holds the bow flat down with his left hand while his arrows in their cow-skin quiver sticks over his right shoulder. The way he would flash his right hand back, yank forth a arrow, slam it on his bow, pull it to the head an' cut it loose, is shore a heap earnest. Them missiles would go sailin' off for over three hundred yards, an' I sees him get seven started before ever the first one strikes the ground. The Injuns acquires four antelope by this archery an' shoots mebby some forty arrows; all of which they carefully reclaims when the excitement subsides. She's trooly a sperited exhibition an' I finds it mighty entertainin'. "I throws these hints loose to show what might be allooded to by way of stories, grave and gay, of sights pecooliar to the trail if only some gent of experience ups an' devotes himse'f to the relations. As it is, however, an' recurrin' to Tom an' Jerry--the same bein' as I informs you, my two wheel mules--I reckons now I might better set forth as to how they comes to die that time. It's his obstinacy that downs Jerry; while pore, tender Tom perishes the victim--volunteer at that--of the love he b'ars his contrary mate. "Them mules, Tom an' Jerry, is obtained by me, orig'nal in Vegas. They're the wheelers of a eight-mule team; an' I gives Frosty--who's a gambler an' wins 'em at monte of some locoed sport from Chaparita--twelve hundred dollars for the outfit. Which the same is cheap an' easy at double the _dinero_. "These mules evident has been part an' passel of the estates of some Mexican, for I finds a cross marked on each harness an' likewise on both waggons. Mexicans employs this formal'ty to run a bluff on any evil sperit who may come projectin' round. Your American mule skinner never makes them tokens. As a roole he's defiant of sperits; an' even when he ain't he don't see no refooge in a cross. Mexicans, on the other hand, is plenty strong on said symbol. Every mornin' you beholds a Mexican with a dab of white on his fore'erd an' on each cheek bone, an' also on his chin where he crosses himse'f with flour; shore, the custom is yooniversal an' it takes a quart of flour to fully fortify a full-blown Greaser household ag'inst the antic'pated perils of the day. "No sooner am I cl'ar of Vegas--I'm camped near the Plaza de la Concepcion at the time--when I rounds up the eight mules an' looks 'em over with reference to their characters. This is jest after I acquires 'em. It's allers well for a gent to know what he's ag'inst; an' you can put down a stack the disp'sitions of eight mules is a important problem. "The review is plenty satisfactory. The nigh leader is a steady practical person as a lead mule oughter be, an' I notes by his ca'm jedgmatical eye that he's goin' to give himse'f the benefit of every doubt, an' ain't out to go stampedin' off none without knowin' the reason why. His mate at the other end of the jockey-stick is nervous an' hysterical; she never trys to solve no riddles of existence herse'f, this Jane mule don't, but relies on her mate Peter an' plays Peter's system blind. The nigh p'inter is a deecorous form of mule with no bad habits; while his mate over the chain is one of these yere hard, se'fish, wary parties an' his little game is to get as much of everything except work an' trouble as the lay of the kyards permits. My nigh swing mule is a wit like I tells you the other day. Which this jocose anamile is the life of the team an' allers lettin' fly some dry, quaint observation. This mule wag is partic'lar excellent at a bad ford or a hard crossin', an his gay remarks, full of p'int as a bowie knife, shorely cheers an' uplifts the sperits of the rest. The off swing is a heedless creature who regyards his facetious mate as the very parent of fun, an' he goes about with his y'ear cocked an' his mouth ajar, ready to laugh them 'hah, hah!' laughs of his'n at every word his pard turns loose. "Tom an' Jerry is different from the others. Bein' bigger an' havin' besides the respons'bilities of the hour piled onto them as wheel mules must, they cultivates a sooperior air an is distant an' reserved in their attitoodes towards the other six. As to each other their pose needs more deescription. Tom, the nigh wheeler--the one I rides when drivin'--is infatyooated with Jerry. I hears a sky-sharp aforetime preach about Jonathan an' David. Yet I'm yere to assert, son, that them sacred people ain't on speakin' terms compared to the way that pore old lovin' Tom mule feels towards Jerry. "This affection of Tom's is partic'lar amazin' when you-all recalls the fashion in which the sullen Jerry receives it. Doorin' the several years I spends in their s'ciety I never once detects Jerry in any look or word of kindness to Tom. Jerry bites him an' kicks him an' cusses him out constant; he never tol'rates Tom closter than twenty foot onless at times when he orders Tom to curry him. Shore, the imbecile Tom submits. On sech o'casions when Jerry issues a summons to go over him, usin' his upper teeth for a comb an' bresh, Tom is never so happy. Which he digs an' delves at Jerry's ribs that a-way like it's a honour; after a half hour, mebby, when Jerry feels refreshed s'fficient, he w'irls on Tom an' dismisses him with both heels. "'I track up on folks who's jest the same,' says Dan Boggs, one time when I mentions this onaccountable infatyooation of Tom. 'This Jerry loves that Tom mule mate of his, only he ain't lettin' on. I knows a lady whose treatment of her husband is a dooplicate of Jerry's. She metes out the worst of it to that long-sufferin' shorthorn at every bend in the trail; it looks like he never wins a good word or a soft look from her once. An' yet when that party cashes in, whatever does the lady do? Takes a hooker of whiskey, puts in p'isen enough to down a dozen wolves, an' drinks off every drop. 'Far'well, vain world, I'm goin' home,' says the lady; 'which I prefers death to sep'ration, an' I'm out to jine my beloved husband in the promised land.' I knows, for I attends the fooneral of that family--said fooneral is a double-header as the lady, bein' prompt, trails out after her husband before ever he's pitched his first camp--an' later assists old Chandler in deevisin' a epitaph, the same occurrin' in these yere familiar words: "She sort o got the drop on him, In the dooel of earthly love; Let's hope he gets an even break When they meets in heaven above." "'Thar,' concloods Dan, 'is what I regyards as a parallel experience to this Tom an' Jerry. The lady plays Jerry's system from soda to hock, an' yet you-all can see in the lights of that thar sooicide how deep she loves him.' "'That's all humbug, Dan,' says Enright; 'the lady you relates of isn't lovin'. She's only locoed that a-way.' "'Whyever if she's locoed, then,' argues Dan, 'don't they up an' hive her in one of their madhouse camps? She goes chargin' about as free an' fearless as a cyclone.' "'All the same,' says Texas Thompson, 'her cashin' in don't prove no lovin' heart. Mebby she does it so's to chase him up an' continyoo onbroken them hectorin's of her's. I could onfold a fact or two about that wife of mine who cuts out the divorce from me in Laredo that would lead you to concloosions sim'lar. But she wasn't your wife; an' I don't aim to impose my domestic afflictions on this innocent camp, which bein' troo I mootely stands my hand.' "This Jerry's got one weakness however, I don't never take advantage of it. He's scared to frenzy if you pulls a gun. I reckons, with all them crimes of his'n preyin' on his mind, that he allows you're out, to shoot him up. Jerry is ca'm so long as your gun's in the belt, deemin' it as so much onmeanin' ornament. But the instant you pulls it like you're goin' to put it in play, he onbuckles into piercin' screams. I reaches for my six-shooter one evenin' by virchoo of antelopes, an' that's the time I discovers this foible of Jerry's. I never gets a shot. At the sight of the gun Jerry evolves a howl an' the antelopes tharupon hits two or three high places an' is miles away. Shore, they thinks Jerry is some new breed of demon. "When I turns to note the cause of Jerry's clamours he's loppin' his fore-laigs over Tom's back an' sobbin' an' sheddin' tears into his mane. Tom sympathises with Jerry an' says all he can to teach him that the avenger ain't on his trail. Nothin' can peacify Jerry, however, except jammin' that awful six-shooter back into its holster. I goes over Jerry that evenin' patiently explorin' for bullet marks, but thar ain't none. No one's ever creased him; an' I figgers final by way of a s'lootion of his fits that mighty likely Jerry's attended some killin' between hoomans, inadvertent, an' has the teeth of his apprehensions set on aige. "Jerry is that high an' haughty he won't come up for corn in the mornin' onless I petitions him partic'lar an' calls him by name. To jest whoop 'Mules!' he holds don't incloode him. Usual I humours Jerry an' shouts his title speshul, the others bein' called in a bunch. When Jerry hears his name he walks into camp, delib'rate an' dignified, an' kicks every mule to pieces who tries to shove in ahead. "Once, feelin' some malignant myse'f, I tries Jerry's patience out. I don't call 'Jerry,' merely shouts 'Mules' once or twice an' lets it go at that. Jerry, when he notices I don't refer to him partic'lar lays his y'ears back; an' although his r'ar elevation is towards me I can see he's hotter than a hornet. The faithful Tom abides with Jerry; though he tells him it's feed time an' that the others with a nosebag on each of 'em is already at their repasts. Jerry only gets madder an' lays for Tom an' tries to bite him. After ten minutes, sullen an' sulky, hunger beats Jerry an' he comes bumpin' into camp like a bar'l down hill an' eases his mind by wallopin' both hind hoofs into them other blameless mules, peacefully munchin' their rations. Also, after Jerry's let me put the nosebag onto him he reeverses his p'sition an' swiftly lets fly at me. But I ain't in no trance an' Jerry misses. I don't frale him; I saveys it's because he feels hoomiliated with me not callin' him by name. "As a roole me an' Jerry gets through our dooties harmonious. He can pull like a lion an' never flinches or flickers at a pinch. It's shore a vict'ry to witness the heroic way Jerry goes into the collar at a hard steep hill or some swirlin', rushin' ford. Sech bein' Jerry's work habits I'm prepared to overlook a heap of moral deeficiencies an' never lays it up ag'in Jerry that he's morose an' repellant when I flings him any kindnesses. "But while I don't resent 'em none by voylence, still Jerry has habits ag'inst which I has to gyard. You-all recalls how long ago I tells you of Jerry's, bein' a thief. Shore, he can't he'p it; he's a born kleptomaniac. Leastwise 'kleptomaniac' is what Colonel Sterett calls it when he's tellin' me of a party who's afflicted sim'lar. "'Otherwise this gent's a heap respectable,' says the Colonel. 'Morally speakin' thar's plenty who's worse. Of course, seein' he's crowdin' forty years, he ain't so shamefully innocent neither. He ain't no debyootanty; still, he ain't no crime-wrung debauchee. I should say he grades midway in between. But deep down in his system this person's a kleptomaniac, an' at last his weakness gets its hobbles off an' he turns himse'f loose, an' begins to jest nacherally take things right an' left. No, he don't get put away in Huntsville; they sees he's locoed an' he's corraled instead in one of the asylums where thar's nothin' loose an' little kickin' 'round, an' tharfore no temptations.' "Takin' the word then from Colonel Sterett, Jerry is a kleptomaniac. I used former to hobble Jerry but one mornin' I'm astounded to see what looks like snow all about my camp. Bein' she's in Joone that snow theery don't go. An' it ain't snow, it's flour; this kleptomaniac Jerry creeps to the waggons while I sleeps an' gets away, one after the other, with fifteen fifty-pound sacks of flour. Then he entertains himse'f an' Tom by p'radin' about with the sacks in his teeth, shakin' an' tossin' his head an' powderin' my 'Pride of Denver' all over the plains. Which Jerry shore frosts that scenery plumb lib'ral. "It's the next night an' I don't hobble Jerry; I pegs him out on a lariat. What do you-all reckon now that miscreant does? Corrupts pore Tom who you may be certain is sympathisin' 'round, an' makes Tom go to the waggons, steal the flour an' pack it out to him where he's pegged. The soopine Tom, who otherwise is the soul of integrity, abstracts six sacks for his mate an' at daybreak the wretched Jerry's standin' thar, white as milk himse'f, an' flour a foot deep in a cirkle whereof the radius is his rope Tom's gazin' on Jerry in a besotted way like he allows he's certainly the greatest sport on earth. "Which this last is too much an' I ropes up Jerry for punishment. I throws an' hawgties Jerry, an' he's layin' thar on his side. His eye is obdoorate an' thar's neither shame nor repentance in his heart. Tom is sort o' sobbin' onder his breath; Tom would have swapped places with Jerry too quick an' I sees he has it in his mind to make the offer, only he knows I'll turn it down." "The other six mules comes up an' loafs about observant an' respectful. They jestifies my arrangements; besides Jerry is mighty onpop'lar with 'em by reason of his heels. I can hear Peter the little lead mule sayin' to Jane, his mate: 'The boss is goin' to lam Jerry a lot with a trace-chain. Which it's shore comin' to him!' "I w'irls the chain on high an' lays it along Jerry's evil ribs, _kerwhillup_! Every other link bites through the hide an' the chain plows a most excellent an' wholesome furrow. As the chain descends, the sympathetic Tom jumps an' gives a groan. Tom feels a mighty sight worse than his _companero_. At the sixth wallop Tom can't b'ar no more, but with tears an' protests comes an' stands over Jerry an' puts it up he'll take the rest himse'f. This evidence of brotherly love stands me off, an' for Tom's sake I desists an' throws Jerry loose. That old scoundrel--while I sees he's onforgivin' an' a-harbourin' of hatreds ag'in me--don't forget the trace-chain an' comports himse'f like a law-abidin' mule for months. He even quits bitin' an' kickin' Tom, an' that lovin' beast seems like he's goin' to break his heart over it, 'cause he looks on it as a sign that Jerry's gettin' cold. "But thar comes a day when I loses both Tom an' Jerry. It's about second drink time one August mornin' an' me an' my eight mules goes scamperin' through a little Mexican plaza called Tramperos on our way to the Canadian. Over by a 'doby stands a old fleabitten gray mare; she's shore hideous. "Now if mules has one overmasterin' deloosion it's a gray mare; she's the religion an' the goddess of the mules. This knowledge is common; if you-all is ever out to create a upheaval in the bosom of a mule the handiest, quickest lever is a old gray mare. The gov'ment takes advantage of this aberration of the mules. Thar's trains of pack mules freightin' to the gov'ment posts in the Rockies. They figgers on three hundred pounds to the mule an' the freight is packed in panniers. The gov'ment freighters not bein' equal to the manifold mysteries of a diamond-hitch, don't use no reg'lar shore-enough pack saddle but takes refooge with their ignorance in panniers. "Speakin' gen'ral, thar's mebby two hundred mules in one of these gov'ment pack trains. An' in the lead, followed, waited on an' worshipped by the mules, is a aged gray mare. She don't pack nothin' but her virchoo an' a little bell, which last is hung 'round her neck. This old mare, with nothin' but her character an' that bell to encumber her, goes fa'rly flyin' light. But go as fast an' as far as she pleases, them long-y'eared locoed worshippers of her's won't let her outen their raptured sight. The last one of 'em, panniers, freight an' all, would go surgin' to the topmost pinnacle of the Rockies if she leads the way. "An' at that this gray mare don't like mules none; she abhors their company an' kicks an' abooses 'em to a standstill whenever they draws near. But the fool mules don't care; it's ecstacy to simply know she's livin' an' that mule's cup of joy is runnin' over who finds himse'f permitted to crop grass within forty foot of his old, gray bell-bedecked idol. "We travels all day, followin' glimpsin' that flea-bitten cayouse at Tramperos. But the mules can't think or talk of nothin' else. It arouses their religious enthoosiasm to highest pitch; even the cynic Jerry gets half-way keyed up over it. I looks for trouble that night; an' partic'lar I pegs out Jerry plenty deep and strong. The rest is hobbled, all except Tom. Gray mare or not, I'll gamble the outfit Tom wouldn't abandon Jerry, let the indoocement be ever so alloorin'. "Every well-organised mule team that a-way allers carries along a bronco. This little steed, saddled an' bridled, trots throughout the day by the side of the off-wheeler, his bridle-rein caught over the wheeler's hame. The bronco is used to round up the mules in event they strays or declines in the mornin' to come when called. Sech bein' the idee, the cayous is allers kept strictly in camp. "'James' is my bronco's name; an' the evenin', followin' the vision of that Tramperos gray mare I makes onusual shore 'that James stays with me. Not that gray mares impresses James--him bein' a boss an' bosses havin' religious convictions different from mules--or is doo to prove temptations to him; but he might conceal other plans an' get strayed prosecootin' of 'em to a finish. I ties James to the trail-waggon, an' followin' bacon, biscuits, airtights an' sech, the same bein' my froogal fare when on the trail, I rolls in onder the lead-waggon 'an' gives myse'f up to sleep. "Exactly as I surmises, when I turns out at sun-up thar's never a mule in sight. Every one of them idolaters goes poundin' back, as fast as ever he can with hobbles on, to confess his sins an' say his pray'rs at the shrine of that old gray mare. Even Jerry, whose cynicism should have saved him, pulls his picket-pin with the rest an', takin' Tom along, goes curvin' off. It ain't more than ten minutes, you can gamble! when James an' me is on their trails. "One by one, I overtakes the team strung all along between my camp an' Tramperos. Peter, the little lead mule, bein' plumb agile an' a sharp on hobbles, gets cl'ar thar; an' I finds him devourin' the goddess gray mare with heart an' soul an' eyes, an' singin' to himse'f the while in low, satisfied tones. "As one after the other I passes the pilgrim mules I turns an' lifts about a squar' inch of hide off each with the blacksnake whip I'm carryin', by way of p'intin' out their heresies an arousin' in 'em a eagerness to get back to their waggons an' a' upright, pure career. They takes the chastisement humble an' dootiful, an' relinquishes the thought of reachin' the goddess gray mare. "When I overtakes old Jerry I pours the leather into him speshul, an' the way him an' his pard Tom goes scatterin' for camp refreshes me a heap. An' yet after I rescoos Peter from the demoralisin' inflooences of the gray mare, an' begins to pick up the other members of the team on the journey back, I'm some deepressed when I don't see Tom or Jerry. Nor is either of them mules by the waggons when I arrives. "It's onadulterated cussedness! Jerry, with no hobbles an' merely draggin' a rope, can lope about free an' permiscus. Tom, with nothin' to hamper him but his love for Jerry, is even more lightsome an' loose. That Jerry mule, hatin' me an' allowin' to make me all the grief he can, sneakingly leaves the trail some'ers after I turns him an' touches him up with the lash. An' now Tom an' Jerry is shorely hid out an' lost a whole lot. It's nothin' but Jerry's notion of revenge on me. "I camps two days where I'm at, an rounds up the region for the trooants. I goes over it like a fine-tooth comb an' rides James to a show-down. That bronco never is so long onder the saddle since he's foaled; I don't reckon he knows before thar's so much hard work in the world as falls to him when we goes ransackin' in quest of Tom an' Jerry. "It's no use; the ground is hard an' dry an' I can't even see their hoof-marks. The country's so rollin', too, it's no trouble for 'em to hide. At last I quits an' throws my hand in the diskyard. Tom an' Jerry is shore departed an' I'm deeficient my two best mules. I hooks up the others, an' seein' it's down hill an' a easy trail I makes Tascosa an' refits. "I never crosses up on Tom an' Jerry in this yere life no more, but one day I learns their fate. It's a month later on my next trip back, an' I'm camped about a half day's drive of that same locoed plaza of Tramperos. As I'm settin' in camp with the sun still plenty high--I'm compilin' flapjacks at the time--I sees eight or ten ravens wheelin' an' cirklin' over beyond a swell about three miles to the left. "'Tom an' Jerry for a bloo stack!' I says to myse'f; an' with that I cinches the saddle onto James precip'tate. "Shore enough; I'm on the scene of the tragedy. Half way down a rocky slope where thar ain't grass enough to cover the brown nakedness of the ground lies the bones of Tom an' Jerry. This latter, who's that obstinate an' resentful he won't go back to camp when I wallops him on that gray mare mornin', allows he'll secrete himse'f an' Tom off to one side an' worrit me up. While he's manooverin' about he gets the half-inch rope he's draggin' tangled good an' fast in a mesquite bush. It shorely holds him; that bush is old Jerry's last picket---his last camp. Which he'd a mighty sight better played his hand out with me, even if I does ring in a trace-chain on him at needed intervals. Jerry jest nacherally starves to death for grass an' water. An' what's doubly hard the lovin' Tom, troo to the last, starves with him. Thar's water within two miles; but Tom declines it, stays an' starves with Jerry, an' the ravens an' the coyotes picks their frames." CHAPTER IX. The Influence of Faro Nell. "Thar's no doubt about it," observed the Old Cattleman, apropos of the fairer, better sex--for woman was the gentle subject of our morning's talk; "thar's no doubt about it, females is a refinin' an' ennoblin' inflooence; you-all can hazard your chips on that an' pile 'em higher than Cook's Peak! An' when Faro Nell prefers them requests, she's ondoubted moved of feelin's of mercy. They shore does her credit, said motives does, an' if she had asked Cherokee or Jack Moore, or even Texas Thompson, things would have come off as effective an' a mighty sight more discreet. But since he's standin' thar handy, Nell ups an' recroots Dan Boggs on the side of hoomanity, an' tharupon Dan goes trackin' in without doo reflection, an' sets the Mexicans examples which, to give 'em a best deescription, is shore some bad. It ain't Nell's fault, but Dan is a gent of sech onusual impulses that you-all don't know wherever Dan will land none, once you goes pokin' up his ha'r-hung sensibil'ties with su'gestions that is novel to his game. Still, Nell can't he'p it; an' in view of what we knows to be the female record since ever the world begins, I re-asserts onhesitatin' that the effects of woman is good. She subdooes the reckless, subjoogates the rebellious, sobers the friv'lous, burns the ground from onder the indolent moccasins of that male she's roped up in holy wedlock's bonds, an' p'ints the way to a higher, happier life. That's whatever! an' this dramy of existence, as I once hears Colonel Sterett say, would be a frost an' a failure an' bog plumb down at that, if you was to cut out the leadin' lady roles an' ring up the curtain with nothin' but bucks in the cast.' "Narrow an' contracted as you may deem said camp to be, Wolfville itse'f offers plenty proof on this head. Thar's Dave Tutt: Whatever is Dave, I'd like for to inquire, prior to Tucson Jennie runnin' her wifely brand on to him an' redoocin' him to domesticity? No, thar's nothin' so evil about Dave neither, an' yet he has his little ways. For one thing, Dave's about as extemporaneous a prop'sition as ever sets in a saddle, an' thar's times when you give Dave licker an' convince him it's a o'casion for joobilation, an' you-all won't have to leave no 'call' with the clerk to insure yourse'f of bein' out early in the mornin.' Son, Dave would keep that camp settin' up all night. "But once Dave comes onder the mitigatin' spells of Tucson Jennie, things is changed. Tucson Jennie knocks Dave's horns off doorin' the first two weeks; he gets staid an' circumspect an' tharby plays better poker an' grows more urbane. "Likewise does Benson Annie work mir'cles sim'lar in the conduct of that maverick French which Enright an' the camp, to allay the burnin' excitement that's rendin' the outfit on account of the Laundry War, herds into her lovin' arms. Tenderfoot as he is, when we-all ups an' marries him off that time, this French already shows symptoms of becomin' one of the most abandoned sports in Arizona. Benson Annie seizes him, purifies him, an' makes him white as snow. "An' thar's Missis Rucker;--as troo a lady as ever bakes a biscuit! Even with the burdens of the O.K. Restauraw upon her she still finds energy to improve old Rucker to that extent he ups an' rides off towards the hills one mornin' an' never does come back no more. "'Doc,' he says to Doc Peets, while he's fillin' a canteen in the Red Light prior to his start; 'I won't tell you what I'm aimin' to accomplish, because the Stranglers might regyard it as their dooty to round me up. But thar's something comin' to the public, Doc; so I yereby leaves word that next week, or next month, or mebby later, if doubts is expressed of my fate, I'm still flutterin' about the scenery some'ers an' am a long ways short of dead. An' as I fades from sight, Doc, I'll take a chance an' say that the clause in the Constitootion which allows that all gents is free an' equal wasn't meant to incloode no married man.' An' with these croode bluffs Rucker chases forth for the Floridas. "No, the camp don't do nothin'; the word gets passed 'round that old Rucker's gone prospectin' an' that he will recur in our midst whenever thar's a reg'lar roll-call. As for Missis Rucker, personal, from all we can jedge by lookin' on--for thar's shore none of us who's that locoed we ups an' asks--I don't reckon now she ever notices that Rucker's escaped. "Yere's how it is the time when Faro Nell, her heart bleedin' for the sufferin's of dumb an' he'pless brutes, employs Dan Boggs in errants of mercy an' Dan's efforts to do good gets ill-advised. Not that Dan is easily brought so he regyards his play as erroneous; Enright has to rebooke Dan outright in set terms an' assoome airs of severity before ever Dan allows he entertains a doubt. "'Suppose I does retire that Greaser's hand from cirk'lation?' says Dan, sort o' dispootatious with Enright an' Doc Peets, who's both engaged in p'intin' out Dan's faults. 'Mexicans ain't got no more need for hands than squinch owls has for hymn books. They won't work; they never uses them members except for dealin' monte or clawin' a guitar. I regyards a Mexican's hands that a-way, when considered as feachers in his makeup, as sooperfluous.' "'Dan, you shore is the most perverse sport!' says Enright, makin' a gesture of impatience an' at the same time refillin' his glass in hopes of a ca'mer frame. 'This ain't so much a question of hands as it's a question of taste. Nell's requests is right, an' you're bound to go about the rescoo of said chicken as the victim of crooelties. Where you-all falls down is on a system. The method you invokes is impertinent. Don't you say so, Doc?' "'Which I shore does,' says Peets. 'Dan's conduct is absolootely oncouth.' "Dan lays the basis for these strictures in the follow-in' fashion: It's a _fieste_ with the Mexicans--one of the noomerous saint's days they gives way to when every Greaser onbuckles an' devotes himse'f to merriments--an' over in Chihuahua, as the Mexican part of the camp is called, the sunburnt portion of Wolfville's pop'lation broadens into quite a time. Thar's hoss races an' monte an' mescal an' pulque, together with roode music sech as may be wrung from primitive instruments like the guitar, the fiddle, an' tin cans half filled with stones. "Faro Nell, who is only a child as you-all might say, an' ready to be engaged an' entertained with childish things, goes trippin' over to size up the gala scene. "Thar's a passel of young Mexicans who's Ridin' for the Chicken's Head. This yere is a sport something like a Gander Pullin', same as we-all engages in on Thanksgivin' days an' Christmas, back when I'm a boy in Tennessee. You saveys a Gander Pullin'? Son, you don't mean sech ignorance! Thar must have been mighty little sunshine in the life of a yooth in the morose regions where you was raised for you-all never to disport yourse'f, even as a spectator, at a Gander Pullin'! It wouldn't surprise me none after that if you ups an' informs me you never shakes a fetlock in that dance called money-musk. "To the end that you be eddicated,--for it's better late than never,"--I'll pause concernin' Boggs an' the Mexicans long enough to eloocidate of Gander Pullin's. "As I su'gests, we onbends in this pastime at sech epocks as Christmas an' Thanksgivin.' I don't myse'f take actooal part in any Gander Pullin's. Not that I'm too delicate, but I ain't got no hoss. Bein' a pore yooth, I spends the mornin' of my c'reer on foot, an' as a hoss is a necessary ingreedient to a Gander Pullin', I never does stand in personal on the festival, but is redooced to become a envy-bitten looker-on. "Gander Pullin's is conducted near a tavern or a still house so's the assembled gents won't want the inspiration befittin' both the season an' the scene, an' is commonly held onder the auspices of the proprietor tharof. Thar's a track marked out in a cirkle like a little racecourse for the hosses to gallop on. This course runs between two poles pinned into the ground; or mebby it's two trees. Thar's a rope stretched from pole to pole,--taut an' stiff she's stretched; an' the gander who's the object of the meetin', with his neck an' head greased a heap lavish, is hung from the rope by his two hind laigs. As the gander hangs thar, what Colonel Sterett would style 'the cynosure of every eye,' you'll notice that a gent by standin' high in the stirrups can get a grip of the gander's head. "As many as determines to distinguish themse'fs in the amoosement throws a two-bit piece into a hat. Most likely thar'll be forty partic'pants. They then lines up, Injun file, an' goes caperin' round the course, each in his place in the joyous procession. As a gent goes onder the rope he grabs for the gander's head; an' that party who's expert enough to bring it away in his hand, wins the hat full of two-bit pieces yeretofore deescribed. "Which, of course, no gent succeeds the first dash outen the box, as a gander's head is on some good and strong; an' many a saddle gets emptied by virchoo of the back'ard yanks a party gets. But it's on with the dance! They keeps whoopin' an' shoutin' an' ridin' the cirkle an' grabbin' at the gander, each in his cheerful turn, ontil some strong or lucky party sweeps away the prize, assoomes title to the two-bit pieces, goes struttin' to the licker room an' buys nosepaint for the pop'lace tharwith. "Shore, doorin' a contest a gent's got to keep ridin'; he's not allowed to pause an' dally with the gander an' delay the game. To see to this a brace of brawny sharps is stationed by each pole with clubs in their willin' hands to reemonstrate with any hoss or gent who slows down or stops as he goes onder the gander. "Thar you have it, son; a brief but lively picture of a Gander Pullin' as pulled former in blithe old Tennessee. An' you'll allow, if you sets down to a ca'm, onja'ndiced study of the sport, that a half hour of reasonable thrill might be expected to flow from it. Gander Pullin's is popular a lot when I'm a yearlin'; I knows that for shore; though in a age which grows effete it's mighty likely if we-all goes back thar now, we'd find it fallen into disuse as a reelaxation. "In Ridin' for the Chicken's Head, a Mexican don't hang up his prey none same as we-all does at Gander Pullin's. He buries it in the ground to sech degrees that nothin' but the head an' neck protroodes. An' as the Mexicans goes flashin' by on their broncos, each in turn swings down an' makes a reach for the chicken's head. The experiment calls for a shore-enough rider; as when a party is over on one side that a-way, an' nothin' to hold by but a left hand on the saddlehorn an' a left spur caught in the cantle, any little old pull will fetch him out on his head. "This day when Faro Nell comes bulgin' up to amoose her young an' idle cur'osity with the gayeties of Chihuahua, the Ridin' for the Chicken's Head is about to commence. Which they're jest plantin' the chicken. At first Nell don't savey, as she ain't posted deep on Mexican pastimes. But Nell is plenty quick mental; as, actin' look-out for Cherokee's bank, she's bound to be. Wherefore Nell don't study the preeliminaries long before she gets onto the roodiments of some idee concernin' the jocund plans of the Greasers. "At last the chicken is buried, an' thar's nothin' in sight but its anxious head. Except that it can turn an' twist its neck some, it's fixed in the ground as firm an' solid as the stumps of a mesquite bush. "The first Greaser--he's a gaudy party with more colours than you could count in any rainbow--is organisin' for a rush. He's pickin' up his reins an' pushin' his moccasins deep into his tappedaries, when, as he gives his cayouse the spur, the beauty of Ridin' for the Chicken's Head bursts full on Faro Nell. Comin' on her onexpected, Nell don't see no pleasure in it. It don't present the attractions which so alloores the heart of a Greaser. Without pausin' to think, an' feelin' shocked over the fate that's ridin' down on the buried chicken, Nell grips her little paws convulsive an' snaps her teeth. It's then her eye catches Dan Boggs, who's contemplatin' details an' awaitin' the finish with vivid interest. "'Oh, Dan!' says Nell, grabbin' Dan's arm, 'I don't want that chicken hurt none! Can't you-all make 'em stop?' "'Shore!' says Dan, prompt to Nell's cry. 'I preevails on 'em to cease easy.' "As Dan says this, that radiant cavalier is sweepin' upon the pore chicken like the breath of destiny. He's bendin' from the saddle to make a swoop as Dan speaks. Thar ain't a moment to lose an' Dan's hand goes to his gun. "'Watch me stop him,' says Dan; an' as he does, his bullet makes rags of the Mexican's hand not a inch from the chicken's head. "For what time you-all might need to slop out a drink, the onlookin' Mexicans stands still. Then the stoopefyin' impressions made by Dan's pistol practice wears off an' a howl goes up like a hundred wolves. At this Dan gets his number-two gun to b'ar, an' with one in each hand, confronts the tan-coloured multitoode. "'That's shore a nice shot, Nell!' says Dan over his shoulder, ropin' for the congratoolations he thinks is comin.' "But Nell don't hear him; she's one hundred yards away an' streakin' it for the Red Light like a shootin' star. She tumbles in on us with the brake off like a stage-coach downhill. "'Dan's treed Chihuahua!' gasps Nell, as she heads straight for Cherokee; 'you-all better rustle over thar plumb soon!' "Cherokee jumps an' grabs his hardware where they're layin' onder the table. Bein' daylight an' no game goin', an' the day some warm besides, he ain't been wearin' 'em, bein' as you-all might say in negligee. Cherokee buckles on his belts in a second an' starts; the rest of us, however, since we're more ackerately garbed, don't lose no time an' is already half way to Dan. "It ain't a two-minute run an' we arrives in time. Thar's no more blood, though thar might have been, for we finds Dan frontin' up to full two hundred Greasers, their numbers increasin' and excitement runnin' a heap high. We cuts in between Dan an' Mexican public opinion and extricates that over-vol'tile sport. "But Dan won't return ontil he exhoomes the chicken, which is still bobbin' an' twistin' its onharmed head where the Mexican buries it. Dan digs it up an' takes it by the laigs; Enright meanwhile cussin' him out, fervent an' nervous, for he fears some locoed Greaser will cut loose every moment an' mebby crease a gent, an' so leave it incumbent on the rest of us to desolate Chihuahua. "'It's for Nell,' expostulates Dan, replyin' to Enright's criticisms. 'I knows she wants it by the way she grabs my coat that time. Moreover, from the tones she speaks in, I reckons she wants it alive. Also, I don't discern no excoose for this toomult neither; which you-all is shore the most peevish bunch, Enright, an' that's whatever!' "'Peevish or no,' retorts Enright, 'as a jedge of warjigs I figgers that we gets here jest in time. Thar you be, up ag'inst the entire tribe, an' each one with a gun. It's one of the deefects of a Colt's six-shooter that it hits as hard an' shoots as troo for a Injun or a Greaser as it does for folks. Talk about us bein' peevish! what do you-all reckon would have been results if we hadn't cut in on the _baile_ at the time we does?' "'Nothin',' says Dan, with tones of soopreme vanity, at the same time dustin' the dirt off Nell's chicken, 'nothing except I'd hung crape on half the dobies in Chihuahua.' "About two hours after, when things ag'in simmers to the usual, an' Nell is makin' her chicken a coop out to the r'ar of the Red Light, Enright gives a half laugh. "'Dan,' says Enright, 'when I reflects on the hole we drug you out of, an' the way you-all gets in, you reminds me of that Thomas Benton dog I owns when I'm a yoothful child on the Cumberland. Which Thomas Benton that a-way is a mighty industrious dog an' would turn over a quarter-section of land any afternoon diggin' out a ground-hawg. But thar's this drawback to Thomas Benton which impairs his market valyoo. Some folks used to regyard it as a foible; but it's worse, it's a deefect. As I remarks, this Thomas Benton dog would throw his whole soul into the work, an' dig for a groundhawg like he ain't got another dollar. But thar's this pecooliarity: After that Thomas Benton dog has done dug out the ground-hawg for a couple of hours, you-all is forced to get a spade an' dig out that Thomas Benton dog. He's dead now these yere forty years, but if he's livin' I'd shore change his name an' rebrand him "Dan'l Boggs."'" CHAPTER X. The Ghost of the Bar-B-8. "Spectres? Never! I refooses 'em my beliefs utter"; and with these emphatic words the Old Cattleman tasted his liquor thoughtfully on his tongue. The experiment was not satisfactory; and he despatched his dark retainer Tom for lemons and sugar. "An' you-all might better tote along some hot water, too;" he commanded. "This nosepaint feels raw an' over-fervid; a leetle dilootion won't injure it none." "But about ghosts?" I persisted. "Ghosts?" he retorted. "I never does hear of but one; that's a apparition which enlists the attentions of Peets and Old Man Enright a lot. It's a spectre that takes to ha'ntin' about one of Enright's Bar-B-8 sign-camps, an' scarin' up the cattle an' drivin' 'em over a precipice, an' all to Enright's disaster an' loss. Nacherally, Enright don't like this spectral play; an' him an' Peets lays for the wraith with rifles, busts its knee some, an' Peets ampytates its laig. Then they throws it loose; allowin' that now it's only got one lai'g, the visitations will mighty likely cease. Moreover Enright regyards ampytation that a-way, as punishment enough. Which I should shore allow the same myse'f! "It ain't much of a tale. It turns out like all sperit stories; when you approaches plumb close an' jumps sideways at 'em an' seizes 'em by the antlers, the soopernacheral elements sort o' bogs down. "It's over mebby fifty miles to the southeast of Wolfville, some'ers in the fringes of the Tres Hermanas that thar's a sign-camp of Enright's brand. Thar's a couple of Enright's riders holdin' down this corner of the Bar-B-8 game, an' one evenin' both of 'em comes squanderin' in,--ponies a-foam an' faces pale as milk,--an' puts it up they don't return to that camp no more. "'Because she's ha'nted,' says one; 'Jim an' me both encounters this yere banshee an' it's got fire eyes. Also, itse'f and pony is constructed of bloo flames. You can gamble! I don't want none of it in mine; an' that's whatever!' "Any gent can see that these yooths is mighty scared. Enright elicits their yarn only after pourin' about a quart of nosepaint into 'em. "It looks like on two several o'casions that a handful of cattle gets run over a steep bluff from the _mesa_ above. The fall is some sixty feet in the cl'ar, an' when them devoted cattle strikes the bottom it's plenty easy to guess they're sech no longer, an' thar's nothin' left of 'em but beef. These beef drives happens each time in the night; an' the cattle must have been stampeded complete to make the trip. Cattle, that a-way, ain't goin' to go chargin' over a high bluff none onless their reason is onhinged. No, the coyotes an' the mountain lions don't do it; they never chases cattle, holdin' 'em in fear an' tremblin.' These mountain lions prounces down on colts like a mink on a settin' hen, but never calves or cattle. "It's after the second beef killin' when the two riders allows they'll do some night herdin' themse'fs an' see if they solves these pheenomenons that's cuttin' into the Bar-B-8. "'An' it's mebby second drink time after midnight,' gasps the cow-puncher who's relatin' the adventures, 'an' me an' Jim is experimentin' along the aige of the _mesa_, when of a suddent thar comes two steers, heads down, tails up, locoed absoloote they be; an' flashin' about in the r'ar of 'em rides this flamin' cow-sperit on its flamin' cayouse. Shore! he heads 'em over the cliff; I hears 'em hit the bottom of the canyon jest as I falls off my bronco in a fit. As soon as ever I comes to an' can scramble into that Texas saddle ag'in, me an' Jim hits the high places in the scenery, in a fervid way, an' yere we-all be! An' you hear me, gents, I don't go back to that Bar-B-8 camp no more. I ain't ridin' herd on apparitions; an' whenever ghosts takes to romancin' about in the cow business, that lets me out.' "'I reckons,' says Enright, wrinklin' up his brows, 'I'll take a look into this racket myse'f.' "'An' if you-all don't mind none, Enright,' says Peets, 'I'll get my chips in with yours. Thar's been no one shot for a month in either Red Dog or Wolfville an' I'm reedic'lous free of patients. An' if the boys'll promise to hold themse'fs an' their guns in abeyance for a week or so, an' not go framin' up excooses for my presence abrupt, I figgers that a few days idlin' about the ranges, an' mebby a riot or two roundin' up this cow-demon, will expand me an' do me good.' "'You're lookin' for trouble, Doc,' says Colonel Sterett, kind o' laughin' at Peets. 'You reminds me of a onhappy sport I encounters long ago in Looeyville.' "'An' wherein does this Bloo Grass party resemble me?' asks Peets. "'It's one evenin',' says Colonel Sterett, 'an' a passel of us is settin' about in the Gait House bar, toyin' with our beverages. Thar's a smooth, good-lookin' stranger who's camped at a table near. Final, he yawns like he's shore weary of life an' looks at us sharp an' cur'ous. Then he speaks up gen'ral as though he's addressin' the air. "This is a mighty dull town!" he says. "Which I've been yere a fortnight an' I ain't had no fight as yet." An' he continyoos to look us over plenty mournful. "'"You-all needn't gaze on us that a-way," says a gent named Granger; "you can set down a stack on it, you ain't goin' to pull on no war with none of us." "'"Shore, no!" says the onhappy stranger. Then he goes on apol'getic; "Gents, I'm onfort'nately constitootcd. Onless I has trouble at reasonable intervals it preys on me. I've been yere in your town two weeks an' so far ain't seen the sign. Gents, it's beginnin' to tell; an' if any of you-all could direct me where I might get action it would be kindly took." "'"If you're honin' for a muss," says Granger, "all you has to do is go a couple of blocks to the east, an' then five to the no'th, an' thar on the corner you'll note a mighty prosperous s'loon. You caper in by the side door; it says FAMILY ENTRANCE over this yere portal. Sa'nter up to the bar, call for licker, drink it; an' then you remark to the barkeep, casooal like, that you're thar to maintain that any outcast who'll sell sech whiskey ain't fit to drink with a nigger or eat with a dog. That's all; that barkeep'll relieve you of the load that's burdenin' your nerves in about thirty seconds. You'll be the happiest sport in Looeyville when he gets through." "'"But can't you come an' p'int out the place," coaxes the onhappy stranger of Granger. He's all wropped up in what Granger tells him. "I don't know my way about good, an' from your deescriptions I shorely wouldn't miss visitin' that resort for gold an' precious stones. Come an' show me, pard; I'll take you thar in a kerriage." "'At that Granger consents to guide the onhappy stranger. They drives over an' Granger stops the outfit, mebby she's fifty yards from the door. He p'ints it out to the onhappy stranger sport. "'Come with me," says the onhappy stranger, as he gets outen the kerriage. "Come on; you-all don't have to fight none. I jest wants you to watch me. Which I'm the dandiest warrior for the whole length of the Ohio!" "'But Granger is firm that he won't; he's not inquisitive, he says, an' will stay planted right thar on the r'ar seat an' await deevelopments. With that, the onhappy stranger sport goes sorrowfully for'ard alone, an' gets into the gin-mill by the said FAMILY ENTRANCE. Granger' sets thar with his head out an' y'ears cocked lookin' an' listenin'. "'Everything's plenty quiet for a minute. Then slam! bang! bing! crash! the most flagrant hubbub breaks forth! It sounds like that store's comin' down. The racket rages an' grows worse. Thar's a smashin' of glass. The lights goes out, while customers comes boundin' an' skippin' forth from the FAMILY ENTRANCE like frightened fawns. At last the uproars dies down ontil they subsides complete. "'Granger is beginnin' to upbraid himse'f for not gettin the onhappy stranger's address, so's he could ship home the remainder. In the midst of Granger's se'f-accoosations, the lights in the gin-mill begins to burn ag'in, one by one. After awhile, she's reilloominated an' ablaze with old-time glory. It's then the FAMILY ENTRANCE opens an' the onhappy stranger sport emerges onto the sidewalk. He's in his shirtsleeves, an' a satisfied smile wreathes his face. He shore looks plumb content! "'"Get out of the kerriage an' come in, pard," he shouts to Granger. "Come on in a whole lot! I'd journey down thar an' get you, but I can't leave; I'm tendin' bar!"' "'You're shore right, Colonel,' says Peets, when Colonel Sterett ends the anecdote, 'the feelin' of that onhappy stranger sport is parallel to mine. Ghosts is new to me; an' I'm goin' pirootin' off with Enright on this demon hunt an' see if I can't fetch up in the midst of a trifle of nerve-coolin' excitement.' "The ghost tales of the stampeded cow-punchers excites Dan Boggs a heap. After Enright an' Peets has organised an' gone p'inting out for the ha'nted Bar-B-8 sign-camp to investigate the spook, Dan can't talk of nothin' else. "'Them's mighty dead game gents, Enright an' Doc Peets is!' says Dan. 'I wouldn't go searchin' for no sperits more'n I'd write letters to rattlesnakes! I draws the line at intimacies with fiends.' "'But mebby this yere is a angel,' says Faro Nell, from her stool alongside of Cherokee Hall. "'Not criticisin' you none, Nell,' says Dan, 'Cherokee himse'f will tell you sech surmises is reedic'lous. No angel is goin' to visit Arizona for obvious reasons. An' ag'in, no angel's doo to go skally-hootin' about after steers an' stampeedin' 'em over brinks. It's ag'in reason; you bet! That blazin' wraith, that a-way, is a shore-enough demon! An' as for me, personal, I wouldn't cut his trail for a bunch of ponies! "'Be you-all scared of ghosts, Dan?' asks Faro Nell. "'Be I scared of ghosts?' says Dan. 'Which I wish, I could see a ghost an' show you! I don't want to brag none, Nellie, but I'll gamble four for one, an' go as far as you likes, that if you was to up an' show me a ghost right now, I wouldn't stop runnin' for a month. But what appals me partic'lar,' goes on Dan, 'about Peets an' Enright, is they takes their guns. Now a ghost waxes onusual indignant if you takes to shootin' him up with guns. No, it don't hurt him; but he regyards sech demonstrations as insults. It's like my old pap says that time about the Yankees. My old pap is a colonel with Gen'ral Price, an' on this evenin' is engaged in leadin' one of the most intrepid retreats of the war. As he's prancin' along at the head of his men where a great commander belongs, he's shore scandalised by hearin' his r'ar gyard firin' on the Yanks. So he rides back, my old pap does, an' he says: "Yere you-all eediots! Whatever do you mean by shootin' at them Yankees? Don't you know it only makes 'em madder?" An' that,' concloods Dan, 'is how I feels about spectres. I wouldn't go lammin' loose at 'em with no guns; it only makes 'em madder.' "It's the next day, an' Peets an' Enright is organised in the ha'nted sign-camp of the Bar-B-8. Also, they've been lookin' round. By ridin' along onder the face of the precipice, they comes, one after t'other, on what little is left of the dead steers. What strikes 'em as a heap pecooliar is that thar's no bones or horns. Two or three of the hoofs is kickin' about, an' Enright picks up one the coyotes overlooks. It shows it's been cut off at the fetlock j'int by a knife. "'This spectre,' says Enright, passin' the hoof to Peets, 'packs a bowie; an' he likewise butchers his prey. Also, ondoubted, he freights the meat off some'ers to his camp, which is why we don't notice no big bones layin' 'round loose.' Then Enright scans the grass mighty scroopulous; an' shore enough! thar's plenty of pony tracks printed into the soil. 'That don't look so soopernacheral neither,' says Enright, p'intin' to the hoof-prints. "'Them's shorely made by a flesh an' blood pony,' says Peets. 'An' from their goin' some deep into the ground, I dedooces that said cayouse is loaded down with what weight of beef an' man it can stagger onder.' "That evenin' over their grub Enright an' Peets discusses the business. Thar's a jimcrow Mexican plaza not three miles off in the hills. Both of 'em is aware of this hamlet, an' Peets, partic'lar, is well acquainted with a old Mexican sharp who lives thar--he's a kind o' schoolmaster among 'em--who's mighty cunnin' an' learned. His name is Jose Miguel. "'An' I'm beginnin' to figger,' says Peets, 'that this ghostly rider is the foxy little Jose Miguel. Which I've frequent talked with him; an' he saveys enough about drugs an' chemicals to paint up with phosphorus an' go surgin' about an' stampedin' cattle over bluffs. It's a mighty good idee from his standp'int. He can argue that the cattle kills themse'fs--sort o' commits sooicide inadvertent--an' if we-all trades up on him with the beef, he insists on his innocence, an' puts it up that his cuttin' in on the play after said cattle done slays themse'fs injures nobody but coyotes.' "'Doc,' coincides Enright, after roominatin' in silence, 'Doc, the longer I ponders, the more them theories seems sagacious. That enterprisin' Greaser is jest about killin' my beef an' sellin' it to the entire plaza. Not only does this ghost play opp'rate to stampede the cattle an' set 'em runnin' cimmaron an' locoed so they'll chase over the cliffs to their ends, but it serves to scare my cow-punchers off the range, which last, ondoubted, this Miguel looks on as a deesideratum. However, it's goin' to be good an' dark to-night, an' if we-all has half luck I reckons that we fixes him.' "It's full two hours after midnight an' while thar's stars overhead thar's no moon; along the top of the _mesa_ it's as dark as the inside of a jug. Peets an' Enright is Injunin' about on the prowl for the ghost. They don't much reckon it'll be abroad, as mebby the plaza has beef enough. "'However, by to-morry night,' says Enright in a whisper, 'or at the worst, by the night after, we're shore to meet up with this marauder.' "'Hesh!' whispers Peets, at the same time stoppin' Enright with his hand, 'he's out to-night!' "An' thar for shore is something like a dim bloo light movin' across the plains. Now an' then, two brighter lights shows in spots like the blazes of candles; them's the fire eyes the locoed cowboys tells of. Whatever it is, whether spook or Greaser, it's quarterin' the ground like one of these huntin' dogs. Its gait is a slow canter. "'He's on the scout,' says Enright,' 'tryin' to start a steer or two in the dark; but he ain't located none yet.' "Enright an' Peets slides to the ground an' hobbles their broncos. They don't aim to have 'em go swarmin' over no bluffs in any blindness of a first surprise. When the ponies is safe, they bends low an' begins makin' up towards the ground on which this bloo-shimmerin' shadow is ha'ntin' about. Things comes their way; they has luck. They've done crope about forty rods when the ghost heads for 'em. They can easy tell he's comin', for the fire eyes shows all the time an' not by fits an' starts as former. As the bloo shimmer draws nearer they makes out the vague shadows of a man on a hoss. Son, she's shore plenty ghostly as a vision, an' Enright allows later, it's no marvel the punchers vamoses sech scenes. "'How about it,' whispers Peets; 'shall I do the shootin'?' "'Which your eyes is younger,' says Enright. 'You cut loose; an' I'll stand by to back the play. Only aim plenty low. You can't he'p over-shootin' in the dark. Hold as low as his stirrup.' "Peets pulls himse'f up straight as a saplin' an' runs his left hand along the bar'l as far as his arm'll reach. An' he hangs long on the aim as shootin' in the dark ain't no cinch. If this ghost is a bright ghost it would be easy. But he ain't; he's bloo an' dim like washed out moonlight, or when it's jest gettin' to be dawn. Enright's twenty yards to one side so as to free himse'f of Peet's smoke in case he has to make a second shot. "But Peets calls the turn. With the crack of that Sharp's of his, the ghost sets up sech a screech it proves he ain't white an' also that he'll live through the evenin's events. As the spectre yelps, the bloo cayouse goes over on its head an' neck an' then falls dead on its side. The lead which only smashes the spectre's knee to splinters goes plumb through the pony's heart. "As Peets foresees, the ghost ain't none other than the wise little Jose Miguel, schoolmaster, who's up on drugs an' chemicals. The bloo glimmer is phosphorus; an' the fire eyes is two of these little old lamps like miners packs in their caps. "Enright an' Peets strolls up; this Miguel is groanin' an' mournin' an' cryin' 'Marie, Madre de Dios!' When he sees who downs him, he drags himse'f to Enright an' begs a heap abject for his life. With that, Enright silently lets down the hammer of his rifle. "Peets when the sun comes up enjoys himse'f speshul with the opp'ration. Peets is fond of ampytations, that a-way, and he lops off said limb with zest an' gusto. "'I shore deplores, Jose,' says Peets, 'to go shortenin' up a fellow scientist like this. But thar's no he'pin' it; fate has so decreed. Also, as some comfort to your soul, I'll explain to Sam Enright how you won't ride much when I gets you fairly trimmed. Leastwise, after I'm done prunin' you, thar won't be nothin' but these yere woman's saddles that you'll fit, an' no gent, be he white or be he Greaser, can work cattle from a side-saddle.' An' Peets, hummin' a roundelay, cuts merrily into the wounded member." CHAPTER XI. Tucson Jennie's Correction. "Doc Peets, son," said the Old Cattleman, while his face wore the look of decent gravity it ever donned when that man of medicine was named, "Doc Peets has his several uses. Aside from him bein' a profound sharp on drugs, an' partic'lar cowboy drugs, he's plenty learned in a gen'ral way, an' knows where every kyard lays in nacher's deck, from them star-flecked heavens above to the earth beneath, an'--as Scripter puts it--to the 'waters onder the earth.' It's a good scheme to have a brace of highly eddicated gents, same as Colonel Sterett an' Doc Peets, sort o' idlin' 'round your camp. Thar's times when a scientist, or say, a lit'rary sport comes bluffin' into Wolfville; an' sech folks is a mighty sight too deep for Boggs an' me an' Tutt. If we're left plumb alone with a band of them book-read shorthorns like I deescribes, you-all sees yourse'f, they're bound to go spraddlin' East ag'in, an' report how darkened Wolfville is. But not after they locks horns with Doc Peets or Colonel Sterett. Wherefore, whenever the camp's invaded by any over-enlightened people who's gone too far in schools for the rest of us to break even with, we ups an' plays Doc Peets or Colonel Sterett onto 'em; an' the way either of them gents would turn in an' tangle said visitors up mental don't bother 'em a bit. That's straight; Peets an' the Colonel is our refooge; they're our protectors; an' many a time an' oft, have I beheld 'em lay for some vain-glorious savant who's got a notion the Southwest, that a-way, is a region of savagery where the folks can't even read an' write none, an' they'd rope, throw, an' hawgtie him--verbal, I means--an' brand his mem'ry with the red-hot fact that he's wrong an' been wadin' in error up to the saddle-girths touchin' the intellectooal attainments of good old Arizona. Shore,--Doc Peets has other uses than drugs, an' he discharges 'em. "Now that I thinks of the matter, it's Doc Peets who restores Dave Tutt to full standin' with Tucson Jennie, the time she begins to neglect Dave. You see, the trouble is this a-way: It really starts--leastwise I allers so believes--in Dave's beginnin' wrong with Tucson Jennie. Troo, as I confesses to you frequent yeretofore, I ain't married none myse'f; still, I've been livin' a likely number of years, an' has nacherally witnessed a whole lot touchin' other gents an' their wives; an' sech experiences is bound to breed concloosions. An' while I may be wrong, for these yere views is nothin' more than a passel of ontested theeries with me, it's my beliefs that thar's two attitoodes, speakin' gen'ral, which a gent assoomes toward his bride. Either he deals with her on what we-all will call the buck-squaw system, or he turns the game about complete, an' organises his play on the gentleman-lady system. In the latter, the gent waits on his wife; he comes an' he goes, steps high or soft, exactly as she commands. She gives the orders; an' he rides a pony to death execootin' 'em, an' no reemonstrances nor queries. That wife is range an' round-up boss for her outfit. "But the buck-squaw system is after all more hooman an' satisfactory. It's opposite to the other. The gent is reesponsible for beef on the hook an' flour in the bar'l. He's got to provide the blankets, make good ag'in the household's hunger, an' see to it thar's allers wood an' water within easy throw of every camp he pitches. Beyond that, however, the gent who's playin' the buck-squaw system don't wander. When he's in camp, he distinguishes himse'f by doin' nothin'. He wrops himse'f in his blankets, camps down by the fire, while his wife rustles his chuck an' fills his pipe for him. At first glance, this yere buck-squaw system might strike a neeophyte as a mighty brootal scheme. Jest the same, it'll eemerge winner twenty times to the gentleman-lady system's once. The women folks like it. Which they'll pretend they prefers the gentleman-lady system, where they sets still an' the gent attends on 'em; but don't you credit it, none whatever. It's the good old patriarchal, buck-squaw idee, where the gent does nothin' an' the lady goes prancin' about like the ministerin' angel which she is, that tickles her to death. I states ag'in, that it's my notion, Dave who begins with Tucson Jennie--they bein' man an' wife--on the gentleman-lady system, tharby hatches cold neglect for himse'f. An' if it ain't for the smooth savey of Doc Peets, thar's no sport who could foretell the disastrous end. Dave, himse'f thinks he'd have had eventool to resign his p'sition as Jennie's husband an' quit. "Which I've onfolded to you prior of Jennie's gettin' jealous of Dave touchin' that English towerist female; but this yere last trouble ain't no likeness nor kin to that. Them gusts of jealousy don't do no harm nohow; nor last the day. They're like thunder showers; brief an' black enough, but soon over an' leavin' the world brighter. "This last attitoode of Jennie towards Dave is one of abandonment an' onthinkin' indifference that a-way. It begins hard on the fetlocks of that interestin' event, thrillin' to every proud Wolfville heart, the birth of Dave's only infant son, Enright Peets Tutt. Which I never does cross up with no one who deems more of her progeny than Jennie does of the yoothful Enright Peets. A cow's solicitoode concernin' her calf is chill regyard compared tharwith. Jennie hangs over Enright Peets like some dew-jewelled hollyhock over a gyarden fence; you'd think he's a roast apple; an' I don't reckon now, followin' that child's advent, she ever sees another thing in Arizona but jest Enright Peets. He's the whole check-rack--the one bet that wins on the layout of the possible--an' Jennie proceeds to conduct herse'f accordin'. It's a good thing mebby for Enright Peets; I won't set camped yere an' say it ain't; but it's mighty hard on Dave. "Jennie not only neglects Dave, she turns herse'f loose frequent an' assails him. If he shows up in his wigwam walkin' some emphatic, Jennie'll be down on him like a fallin' star an' accoose him of wakin' Enright Peets. "'An' if you-all wakes him,' says Jennie to Dave, sort o' domineerin' at him with her forefinger, 'he'll be sick; an' if he gets sick, he'll die; an' if he dies, you'll be a murderer--the heartless deestroyer of your own he'pless offspring,--which awful deed I sometimes thinks you're p'intin' out to pull off.' An' then Jennie would put her apron over her head an' shed tears a heap; while Dave--all harrowed up an' onstrung--would come stampedin' down to the Red Light an' get consolation from Black Jack by the quart. "That's the idee, son; it's impossible to go into painful details, 'cause I ain't in Dave's or Jennie's confidence enough to round 'em up; but you onderstands what I means. Jennie's forever hectorin' an' pesterin' Dave about Enright Peets; an' beyond that she don't pay no more heed, an' don't have him no more on her mind, than if he's one of these yere little jimcrow ground-owls you-all sees inhabitin' about dissoloote an' permiscus with prairie-dogs. What's the result? Dave's sperits begins to sink; he takes to droopin' about listless an' onregyardful; an' he's that low an' onhappy his nosepaint don't bring him no more of comfort than if he's a graven image. Why, it's the saddest thing I ever sees in Wolfville! "We-all observes how Dave's dwindlin' an' pinin' an' most of us has a foggy onderstandin' of the trooth. But what can we do? If thar's ever a aggregation of sports who's powerless, utter, to come to the rescoo of a comrade in a hole, it's Enright an' Moore an' Boggs an' Texas Thompson an' Cherokee an' me, doorin' them days when that neglect of Tucson Jennie's is makin' pore Dave's burdens more'n he can b'ar. Shore, we consults; but that don't come to nothin' ontil the o'casion when Doc Peets takes the tangle in ser'ous hand. "Thar's a day dawns when Missis Rucker gets exasperated over Dave's ill-yoosage. Missis Rucker is a sperited person an' she canters over an' onloads her opinions on Tucson Jennie. Commonly, these yere ladies can't think too much of one another; but on this one division of the house of Tutt, Missis Rucker goes out on Dave's angle of the game. An' you-all should have seen the terror it inspires when Missis Rucker declar's her hostile intentions. "It's in the O.K. restauraw, when Missis Rucker, who's feedin' us our mornin' flap-jacks an' salt hoss as usual, turns to Old Man Enright, an' says: "'As soon as ever I've got the last drunkard fed an' outen the house, I'm goin' to put on my shaker an' go an' tell that Tucson Jennie Tutt what's on my mind. I shore never sees a woman change more than Jennie since the days when she cooks for me in this yere very restauraw an' lays plans an' plots to lure Dave into wedlock. I will say that Jennie, nacheral, is a good wife; but the fashion, wherein she tromples on Dave an' his rights is a disgrace to her sex, an' I'm goin' to deevote a hour this mornin' to callin' Jennie's attention tharunto.' "'Missis Rucker is a mighty intrepid lady,' says Enright, when we goes over to the New York store followin' feed. 'I'd no more embrace them chances she's out to tackle than I'd go dallyin' about a wronged grizzly. But jest the same, I'd give a stack of reds if Peets is here! When did he say he'd be back from Tucson?' "'The Doc don't allow he'll come trailin' in ag'in,' says Dan Boggs, 'ontil day after to-morry. Which this female dooel will be plumb over by then, an' most likely the camp a wrack.' "While we-all stands thar gazin' on each other, enable to su'gest anything to meet the emergency, Texas Thompson's pony is brought up from the corral, saddled an' bridled, an' ready for the trail. "'Well, gents,' says Texas, when he sees his hoss is come, 'I reckons I'll say _adios_ an' pull my freight. I'll be back in a week.' "'Wherever be you p'intin' for?' asks Cherokee Hall. 'Ain't this goin' of yours some sudden?' "'It is a trifle hasty,' says Texas; 'but do you cimmarons think I'm goin' to linger yere after Missis Rucker gives notice she's preparin' to burn the ground around Tucson Jennie about Dave? Gents, I don't pack the nerve! I ain't lived three years with my former wife who gets that Laredo divorce I once or twice adverts to, an' not know enough not to get caught out on no sech limb as this. No, sir; I sees enough of woman an' her ways to teach me that now ain't no time to be standin' about irresoloote an' ondecided, an' I'm goin' to dig out for Tucson, you bet, ontil this uprisin' subsides.' "This example of Texas scares us up a whole lot; the fact is, it stampedes us; an' without a further word of argyment, the whole band makes a break for the corral, throws saddles onto the swiftest ponies, an' in two minutes we're lost in that cloud of alkali dust we kicks up down the trail toward the no'th. "'Which I won't say that this exodus is necessary,' observes Enright, when ten miles out we slows up to a road gait to breathe our ponies, 'but I thinks on the whole it's safer. Besides, I oughter go over to Tucson anyway on business.' "The rest of us don't make no remarks nor excooses; but every gent is feelin' like a great personal peril has blown by. "The next day, we rounds up Doc Peets, an' he encourages us so that we concloods to return an' make a size-up of results. "'I shore hopes we finds Dave safe.' says Dan Boggs. "'It's even money,' says Jack Moore, 'that Dave pulls through. Dave's a mighty wary sport when worst comes to worst; an' as game as redhead ants.' "'That's all right about Dave bein' game,' retorts Dan, 'but this yere's a time when Dave ain't got no show. I says ag'in, I trust he retains decision of character sufficient to go hide out doorin' the storm. It ain't no credit to us that we forgets to bring him along.' "'No; thar wasn't no harm done,' says Faro Nell, who reports progress to us after we rounds up in the Red Light followin' our return. Nell's a brave girl an' stands a pat hand when the rest of us vamosed that time. 'Thar ain't no real trouble. Missis Rucker merely sets fire to Jennie about the way she maltreats Dave; an' she says Jennie's drivin' him locoed, an' no wonder. Also, she lets on she don't see whatever Dave marries Jennie for anyhow! "'At that, Jennie comes back an' reminds Missis Rucker how she herse'f done treats Mister Rucker that turrible he goes cavortin' off an' seeks safety among the Apaches. An' so they keeps on slingin' it back'ards an' for'ards for mebby two hours, an' me ha'ntin' about to chunk in a word. Then, final, they cries an' makes up; an' then they both concedes that one way an' another they're the best two people each other ever sees. At this juncture,' concloods Nell, 'I declar's myse'f in on the play; an' we-all three sets down an' admires Enright Peets an' visits an' has a splendid afternoon.' "'An' wherever doorin' this emute is Dave?' asks Enright. "'Oh, Dave?' says Nell. 'Why he's lurkin' about outside som'ers in a furtive, surreptitious way; but he don't molest us none. Which, now I remembers, Dave don't even come near us none at all.' "'I should say not!' says Texas Thompson, plenty emphatic. 'Dave ain't quite that witless.' "'Now, gents,' remarks Doc Peets, when Nell is done, an' his tones is confident like he's certain of his foothold, 'since things has gone thus far I'll sa'nter into the midst of these domestic difficulties an' adjust 'em some. I've thought up a s'lootion; an' it's apples to ashes that inside of twenty-four hours I has Jennie pettin' an' cossetin' Dave to beat four of a kind. Leave this yere matter to me entire.' "We-all can't see jest how Peets is goin' to work these mir'cles; still, sech is our faith, we believes. We decides among ourse'fs, however, that if Peets does turn this pacific trick it'll ondoubted be the crownin' glory of his c'reer. "After Peets hangs up his bluff, we goes about strainin' eyes an' y'ears for any yells or signal smokes that denotes the advent of said changes. An', son, hard as it is to credit, it comes to pass like Peets prognosticates. By next evenin' a great current of tenderness for Dave goes over Jennie all at once. She begins to call him 'Davy'--a onheard of weakness!--an' hovers about him askin' whatever he thinks he needs; in fact, she becomes that devoted, it looks like the little Enright Peets'll want he'p next to play his hand for him. That's the trooth: Jennie goes mighty clost to forgettin' Enright Peets now an' then in her wifely anxieties concernin' Dave. "As for Dave himse'f, he don't onderstand his sudden an' onmerited pop'larity; but wearin' a dazed grin of satisfied ignorance, that a-way, he accepts the sityooation without askin' reasons, an' proceeds to profit tharby. That household is the most reeconciled model fam'ly outfit in all broad Arizona. An' it so continyoos to the end. "'Whatever did you do or say, Doc?' asks Enright a month later, as we-all from across the street observes how Jennie kisses Dave good-bye at the door an' then stands an' looks after him like she can't b'ar to have him leave her sight; 'what's the secret of this second honeymoon of Dave's?' "'Which I don't say much,' says Peets. 'I merely takes Jennie one side an' exhorts her to brace up an' show herse'f a brave lady. Then I explains that while I ain't told Dave none--as his knowin' wouldn't do no good--I regyards it as my medical dooty to inform her so's she'll be ready to meet the shock. "The trooth is, Missis Tutt," I says, "pore Dave's got heart disease, an' is booked to cash in any moment. I can't say when he'll die exactly; the only shore thing is he can't survive a year." She sheds torrents of tears; an' then I warns her she mustn't let Dave see her grief or bushwhack anything but smiles on her face, or mightly likely it'll stop his clock right thar. "Can't nothin' be done for Dave?" she asks. "Nothin'," I replies, "except be tender an' lovin' an' make Dave's last days as pleasant an' easy as you can. We must jump in an' smooth the path to his totterin' moccasins with gentleness an' love," I says, "an' be ready, when the blow does fall, to b'ar it with what fortitoode we may." That's all I tells her. However, it looks like it's becomin' a case of overplay in one partic'lar; our pore young namesake, Enright Peets, is himse'f gettin' a trifle the worst of it, an' I'm figgerin' that to-morry, mebby, I'll look that infant over, an' vouchsafe the news thar's something mighty grievous the matter with his lungs.'" CHAPTER XII. Bill Connors of the Osages. "Nacherally, if you-all is frettin' to hear about Injuns," observed the Old Cattleman in reply to my latest request, "I better onfold how Osage Bill Connors gets his wife. Not that thar's trouble in roundin' up this squaw; none whatever. She comes easy; all the same said tale elab'rates some of them savage customs you're so cur'ous concernin'." My companion arose and kicked together the logs in the fireplace. This fireplace was one of the great room's comforts as well as ornaments. The logs leaped into much accession of flame, and crackled into sparks, and these went gossiping up the mighty chimney, their little fiery voices making a low, soft roaring like the talk of bees. "This chimley draws plenty successful," commented my friend. "Which it almost breaks even with a chimley I constructs once in my log camp on the Upper Red. That Red River floo is a wonder! Draw? Son, it could draw four kyards an' make a flush. But that camp of mine on the Upper Red is over eight thousand foot above the sea as I'm informed by a passel of surveyor sports who comes romancin' through the hills with a spyglass on three pegs; an' high altitoods allers proves a heap exileratin' to a fire. "But speakin' of Bill Connors: In Wolfville--which them days is the only part of my c'reer whereof I'm proud an' reviews with onmixed satisfaction--Doc Peets is, like you, inquis'tive touchin' Injuns. Peets puts it up that some day he's doo to write books about 'em. Which in off hours, an' when we-all is more or less at leesure over our Valley Tan, Peets frequent comes explorin' 'round for details. Shore, I imparts all I saveys about Bill Connors, an' likewise sech other aborigines as lives in mem'ry; still, it shakes my estimates of Peets to find him eager over Injuns, they bein' low an' debasin' as topics. I says as much to Peets. "'Never you-all mind about me,' says Peets. 'I knows so much about white folks it comes mighty clost to makin' me sick. I seeks tales of Injuns as a relief an' to promote a average in favor of the species.' "This Bill Connors' is a good-lookin' young buck when I cuts his trail; straight as a pine an' strong an' tireless as a bronco. It's about six years after the philanthrofists ropes onto Bill an' drags him off to a school. You-all onderstands about a philanthrofist--one of these sports who's allers improvin' some party's condition in a way the party who's improved don't like. "'A philanthrofist,' says Colonel Sterett, one time when Dan Boggs demands the explanation at his hands; 'a philanthrofist is a gent who insists on you givin' some other gent your money.' "For myse'f, however, I regyards the Colonel's definition as too narrow. Troo philanthrofy has a heap of things to it that's jest as onreasonable an' which does not incloode the fiscal teachers mentioned by the Colonel. "As I'm sayin'; these well-meanin' though darkened sports, the philanthrofists, runs Bill down--it's mebby when he's fourteen, only Injuns don't keep tab on their years none--an' immures him in one of the gov'ment schools. It's thar Bill gets his name, 'Bill Connors.' Before that he cavorts about, free an' wild an' happy onder the Injun app'lation of the 'Jack Rabbit.' "Shore! Bill's sire--a savage who's 'way up in the picture kyards, an' who's called 'Crooked Claw' because of his left hand bein' put out of line with a Ute arrow through it long ago--gives his consent to Bill j'inin' that sem'nary. Crooked Claw can't he'p himse'f; he's powerless; the Great Father in Washin'ton is backin' the play of the philanthrofists. "'Which the Great Father is too many for Crooked Claw,' says this parent, commentin' on his helplessness. Bill's gone canterin' to his old gent to remonstrate, not hungerin' for learnin', an' Crooked Claw says this to Bill: 'The Great Father is too many for Crooked Claw; an' too strong. You must go to school as the Great Father orders; it is right. The longest spear is right.' "Bill is re-branded, 'Bill Connors,' an' then he's done bound down to them books. After four years Bill gradyooates; he's got the limit an' the philanthrofists takes Bill's hobbles off an' throws him loose with the idee that Bill will go back to his tribe folks an' teach 'em to read. Bill comes back, shore, an' is at once the Osage laughin'-stock for wearin' pale-face clothes. Also, the medicine men tells Bill he'll die for talkin' paleface talk an' sportin' a paleface shirt, an' these prophecies preys on Bill who's eager to live a heap an' ain't ready to cash in. Bill gets back to blankets an' feathers in about a month. "Old Black Dog, a leadin' sharp among the Osages, is goin' about with a dab of clay in his ha'r, and wearin' his most ornery blanket. That's because Black Dog is in mournin' for a squaw who stampedes over the Big Divide, mebby it's two months prior. Black Dog's mournin' has got dealt down to the turn like; an' windin' up his grief an' tears, Osage fashion, he out to give a war-dance. Shore; the savages rings in a war-dance on all sorts of cer'monies. It don't allers mean that they're hostile, an' about to spraddle forth on missions of blood. Like I states, Black Dog, who's gone to the end of his mournful lariat about the departed squaw, turns himse'f on for a war-dance; an' he nacherally invites the Osage nation to paint an' get in on the festiv'ties. "Accordin' to the rooles, pore Bill, jest back from school, has got to cut in. Or he has his choice between bein' fined a pony or takin' a lickin' with mule whips in the hands of a brace of kettle-tenders whose delight as well as dooty it is to mete out the punishment. Bill can't afford to go shy a pony, an' as he's loth to accept the larrupin's, he wistfully makes ready to shake a moccasin at the _baile_. An' as nothin' but feathers, blankets, an' breech-clouts goes at a war-dance--the same bein' Osage dress-clothes--Bill shucks his paleface garments an' arrays himse'f after the breezy fashion of his ancestors. Bill attends the war dance an' shines. Also, bein' praised by the medicine men an' older bucks for quittin' his paleface duds; an' findin' likewise the old-time blanket an' breech-clout healthful an' saloobrious--which Bill forgets their feel in his four years at that sem'nary--he adheres to 'em. This lapse into aboriginal ways brews trouble for Bill; he gets up ag'inst the agent. "It's the third day after Black Dog's war-dance, an' Bill, all paint an' blankets an' feathers, is sa'nterin' about Pawhusky, takin' life easy an' Injun fashion. It's then the agent connects with Bill an' sizes him up. The agent asks Bill does he stand in on this yere Black Dog war-dance. "'Don't they have no roast dog at that warjig?' asks Dan Boggs, when I'm relatin' these reminiscences in the Red Light. "'No,' I says; 'Osages don't eat no dogs.' "'It's different with Utes a lot,' says Dan, 'Which Utes regyards dogs fav'rable, deemin' 'em a mighty sucyoolent an' nootritious dish. The time I'm with the Utes they pulls off a shindig, "tea dance" it is, an', as what Huggins would call "a star feacher" they ups an' roasts a white dog. That canine is mighty plethoric an' fat, an' they lays him on his broad, he'pless back an' shets off his wind with a stick cross-wise of his neck, an' two bucks pressin' on the ends. When he's good an' dead an' all without no suffoosion of blood, the Utes singes his fur off in a fire an' bakes him as he is. I partakes of that dog--some. I don't nacherally lay for said repast wide-jawed, full-toothed an' reemorseless, like it's flapjacks--I don't gorge myse'f none; but when I'm in Rome, I strings my chips with the Romans like the good book says, an' so I sort o' eats baked dog with the Utes. Otherwise, I'd hurt their sens'bilities; an' I ain't out to harrow up no entire tribe an' me playin' a lone hand.' "That agent questions Bill as to the war-dance carryin's on of old Black Dog. Then he p'ints at Bill's blankets an' feathers an' shakes his head a heap disapprobative. "'Shuck them blankets an' feathers,' says the agent, 'an' get back into your trousers a whole lot; an' be sudden about it, too. I puts up with the divers an' sundry rannikabooisms of old an' case-hardened Injuns who's savage an' ontaught. But you're different; you've been to school an' learned the virchoos of pants; wherefore, I looks for you to set examples.' "It's then Bill gets high an' allows he'll wear clothes to suit himse'f. Bill denounces trousers as foolish in their construction an' fallacious in their plan. Bill declar's they're a bad scheme, trousers is; an' so sayin' he defies the agent to do his worst. Bill stands pat on blankets an' feathers. "'Which you will, will you!' remarks this agent. "Then he claps Bill in irons mighty decisive, an' plants him up ag'in the high face of a rock bluff which has been frownin' down on Bird River since Adam makes his first camp. Havin' got Bill posed to his notion, this earnest agent, puttin' a hammer into Bill's rebellious hand, starts him to breakin' rock. "'Which the issue is pants,' says the obdurate agent sport; 'an' I'll keep you-all whackin' away at them boulders while the cliff lasts onless you yields. Thar's none of you young bucks goin' to bluff me, an' that's whatever!' "Bill breaks rocks two days. The other Osages comes an' perches about, sympathetic, an' surveys Bill. They exhorts him to be firm; they gives it out in Osage he's a patriot. "Bill's willin' to be a patriot as the game is commonly dealt, but when his love of country takes the form of poundin' rocks, the noble sentiments which yeretofore bubbles in Bill's breast commences to pall on Bill an' he becomes none too shore but what trousers is right. By second drink time--only savages don't drink, a paternal gov'ment barrin' nosepaint on account of it makin' 'em too fitfully exyooberant--by second drink time the second evenin' Bill lays down his hand--pitches his hammer into the diskyard as it were--an' when I crosses up with him, Bill's that abject he wears a necktie. When Bill yields, the agent meets him half way, an' him an' Bill rigs a deal whereby Bill arrays himse'f Osage fashion whenever his hand's crowded by tribal customs. Other times, Bill inhabits trousers; an' blankets an' feathers is rooled out. "Shore, I talks with Bill's father, old Crooked Claw. This yere savage is the ace-kyard of Osage-land as a fighter. No, that outfit ain't been on the warpath for twenty years when I sees 'em then it's with Boggs' old pards, the Utes. I asks Crooked Claw if he likes war. He tells me that he dotes on carnage like a jaybird, an' goes forth to battle as joobilant as a drunkard to a shootin' match. That is, Crooked Claw used to go curvin' off to war, joyful, at first. Later his glee is subdooed because of the big chances he's takin'. Then he lugs out 'leven skelps, all Ute, an' eloocidates. "'This first maverick,' says Crooked Claw--of course, I gives him in the American tongue, not bein' equal to the reedic'lous broken Osage he talks--'this yere first maverick,' an' he strokes the braided ha'r of a old an' smoke-dried skelp, 'is easy. The chances, that a-way, is even. Number two is twice as hard; an' when I snags onto number three--I downs that hold-up over by the foot of Fisher's Peak--the chances has done mounted to be three to one ag'in me. So it goes gettin' higher an' higher, ontil when I corrals my 'leventh, it's 'leven to one he wins onless he's got killin's of his own to stand off mine. I don't reckon none he has though,' says Crooked Claw, curlin' his nose contemptuous. 'He's heap big squaw--a coward; an' would hide from me like a quail. He looks big an' brave an' strong, but his heart is bad--he is a poor knife in a good sheath. So I don't waste a bullet on him, seein' his fear, but kills him with my war-axe. Still, he raises the chances ag'inst me to twelve to one, an' after that I goes careful an' slow. I sends in my young men; but for myse'f I sort o' hungers about the suburbs of the racket, takin' no resks an' on the prowl for a cinch,--some sech pick-up as a sleeper, mebby. But my 'leventh is my last; the Great Father in Washin'ton gets tired with us an' he sends his walk-a-heaps an' buffalo soldiers'--these savages calls niggers 'buffalo soldiers,' bein' they're that woolly--'an' makes us love peace. Which we'd a-had the Utes too dead to skin if it ain't for the walk-a-heaps an' buffalo soldiers.' "An' at this Crooked Claw tosses the bunch of Ute top-knots to one of his squaws, fills up his red-stone pipe with kinnikinick an' begins to smoke, lookin' as complacent as a catfish doorin' a Joone rise. "Bill Connors has now been wanderin' through this vale of tears for mebby she's twenty odd years, an' accordin' to Osage tenets, Bill's doo to get wedded. No, Bill don't make no move; he comports himse'f lethargic; the reesponsibilities of the nuptials devolves on Bill's fam'ly. "It's one of the excellentest things about a Injun that he don't pick out no wife personal, deemin' himse'f as too locoed to beat so difficult a game. "Or mebby, as I observes to Texas Thompson one time in the Red Light when him an' me's discussin', or mebby it's because he's that callous he don't care, or that shiftless he won't take trouble. "'Whatever's the reason,' says Texas, on that o'casion, heavin' a sigh, 'thar's much to be said in praise of the custom. If it only obtains among the whites thar's one sport not onknown to me who would have shore passed up some heartaches. You can bet a hoss, no fam'ly of mine would pick out the lady who beats me for that divorce back in Laredo to be the spouse of Texas Thompson. Said household's got too much savey to make sech a break.' "While a Osage don't select that squaw of his, still I allers entertains a theery that he sort o' saveys what he's ag'inst an' no he'pmeet gets sawed off on him objectionable an' blind. I figgers, for all he don't let on, that sech is the sityooation in the marital adventures of Bill. His fam'ly picks the Saucy Willow out; but it's mighty likely he signs up the lady to some discreet member of his outfit before ever they goes in to make the play. "Saucy Willow for a savage is pretty--pretty as a pinto hoss. Her parent, old Strike Axe, is a morose but common form of Osage, strong financial, with a big bunch of cattle an' more'n two hundred ponies. Bill gets his first glimpse, after he comes back from school, of the lovely Saucy Willow at a dance. This ain't no war-dance nor any other ceremonious splurge; it's a informal merrymakin', innocent an' free, same as is usual with us at the Wolfville dance hall. Shore, Osages, lacks guitars an' fiddles, an' thar's no barkeep nor nosepaint--none, in trooth, of the fav'rable adjuncts wherewith we makes a evenin' in Hamilton's hurdygurdy a season of social elevation, an' yet they pulls off their fandangoes with a heap of verve, an' I've no doubt they shore enjoys themse'fs. "For two hours before sundown the kettle-tenders is howlin' an' callin' the dance throughout the Osage camp. Thar's to be a full moon, an' the dance--the _Ingraska_ it is; a dance the Osages buys from the Poncas for eight ponies--is to come off in a big, high-board corral called the 'Round House.' "Followin' the first yell of the kettle-tenders, the young bucks begins to paint up for the hilarity. You might see 'em all over camp, for it's August weather an' the walls of the tents an' teepees is looped up to let in the cool, daubin' the ocher on their faces an' braidin' the feathers into their ha'r. This organisin' for a _baile_ ain't no bagatelle, an' two hours is the least wherein any se'f-respectin' buck who's out to make a centre shot on the admiration of the squaws an' wake the envy of rival bucks, can lay on the pigments, so he paints away at his face, careful an' acc'rate, sizin' up results meanwhile in a jimcrow lookin' glass. At last he's as radiant as a rainbow, an' after garterin' each laig with a belt of sleigh-bells jest below the knee, he regyards himse'f with a fav'rable eye an' allows he's ondoubted the wildest wag in his set. "Each buck arrives at the Round House with his blanket wropped over his head so as not to blind the onwary with his splendours. It's mebby second drink time after sundown an' the full moon is swingin' above effulgent. The bucks who's doo to dance sets about one side of the Round House on a board bench; the squaws--not bein' in on the proposed activities--occupies the other half, squattin' on the ground. Some of 'em packs their papooses tied on to a fancy-ribboned, highly beaded board, an' this they makes a cradle of by restin' one end on the ground an' the other on their toe, rockin' the same meanwhile with a motion of the foot. Thar's a half hoop over the head-end of these papoose boards, hung with bells for the papoose to get infantile action on an' amoose his leesure. "The bucks settin' about their side of the Round House, still wrops themse'fs in their blankets so as not to dazzle the squaws to death preematoor. At last the music peals forth. The music confines itse'f to a bass drum--paleface drum it is--which is staked out hor'zontal about a foot high from the grass over in the centre. The orchestra is a decrepit buck with a rag-wropped stick; with this weepon he beats the drum, chantin' at the same time a pensive refrain. "Mebby a half-dozen squaws, with no papooses yet to distract 'em, camps 'round this virchuoso with the rag-stick, an' yoonites their girlish howls with his. You-all can put down a bet it don't remind you none of nightingales or mockin' birds; but the Injuns likes it. Which their simple sperits wallows in said warblin's! But to my notion they're more calc'lated to loco a henhawk than furnish inspiration for a dance. "'Tunk! tunk! tunk! tunk!' goes this rag-stick buck, while the squaws chorus along with, 'Hy-yah! hy-yah! hy-yah-yah-yah! Hy-yah! hy-yah! hy-yah-yah-yah!' an' all grievous, an' make no mistake! "At the first 'tunk!' the bucks stiffen to their feet and cast off the blankets. Feathers, paint, an' bells! they blaze an' tinkle in the moonlight with a subdooed but savage elegance. They skates out onto the grass, stilt-laig, an' each buck for himse'f. They go skootin' about, an' weave an' turn an' twist like these yere water-bugs jiggin' it on the surface of some pond. Sometimes a buck'll lay his nose along the ground while he dances--sleigh bells jinglin', feathers tossin'! Then he'll straighten up ontil he looks like he's eight foot tall; an' they shore throws themse'fs with a heap of heart an' sperit. "It's as well they does. If you looks clost you observes a brace of bucks, and each packin' a black-snake whip. Them's kettle-tenders,--floor managin' the _baile_ they be; an' if a buck who's dancin' gets preeoccupied with thinkin' of something else an' takes to prancin' an' dancin' listless, the way the kettle-tenders pours the leather into him to remind him his fits of abstraction is bad form, is like a religious ceremony. An' it ain't no bad idee; said kettle-tenders shore promotes what Colonel Sterett calls the _elan_ of the dancin' bucks no end. "After your eyes gets used to this whirlin' an' skatin' an' skootin' an' weavin' in an' out, you notes two bucks, painted to a finish an' feathered to the stars! who out-skoots an' out-whirls an' out-skates their fellow bucks like four to one. They gets their nose a little lower one time an' then stands higher in the air another, than is possible to the next best buck. Them enthoosiasts ain't Osages at all; which they're niggers--full-blood Senegambians they be, who's done j'ined the tribe. These Round House festivals with the paint, the feathers, an' the bells, fills their trop'cal hearts plumb full, an' forgettin' all about the white folks an' their gyarded ways, they're the biggest Injuns to warm a heel that night. "Saucy Willow is up by the damaged rag-stick buck lendin' a mouthful or two of cl'ar, bell-like alto yelps to the harmony of the evenin'. Bill who's a wonder in feathers an' bells, an' whose colour-scheme would drive a temp'rance lecturer to drink, while zippin' about in the moonlight gets his eye on her. Mighty likely Bill's smitten; but he don't let on, the fam'ly like I relates, allers ropin' up a gent's bride. It's good bettin' this yere Saucy Willow counts up Bill. If she does, however,--no more than Bill,--she never tips her hand. The Saucy Willow yelps on onconcerned, like her only dream of bliss is to show the coyotes what vocal failures they be. "It's a week after the _Ingraska_, an' Bill's fam'ly holds a round-up to pick Bill out a squaw. He ain't present, havin' the savey to go squanderin' off to play Injun poker with some Creek sports he hears has money over on the Polecat. Bill's fam'ly makes quite a herd, bucks an' squaws buttin' in on the discussion permiscus an' indiscrim'nate. Shore! the squaws has as much to say as the bucks among Injuns. They owns their own ponies an' backs their own play an' is as big a Injun as anybody, allowin' for that nacheral difference between squaw dooties an' buck dooties--one keeps camp while the other hunts, or doorin' war times when one protects the herds an' plunder while the other faces the foe. You hears that squaws is slaves? However is anybody goin' to be a slave where thar's as near nothin' to do in the way of work as is possible an' let a hooman live? Son, thar ain't as much hard labour done in a Injun camp in a week--ain't as much to do as gets transacted at one of them rooral oyster suppers to raise money for the preacher! "Bill's fam'ly comes trailin' in to this powwow about pickin' out a squaw for Bill. Besides Crooked Claw, thar's Bill's widow aunt, the Wild Cat--she's plumb cunnin', the Wild Cat is, an' jest then bein' cel'brated among the Osages for smokin' ponies with Black B'ar, a old buck, an' smokin' Black B'ar out of his two best cayouses. Besides these two, thar's The-man-who-bleeds, The-man-who-sleeps, Tom Six-killer, The-man-who-steps-high, an' a dozen other squaws an' bucks, incloosive of Bill's mother who's called the Silent Comanche, an' is takin' the play a heap steady an' livin' up to her name. "The folks sets 'round an' smokes Crooked Claw's kinnikinick. Then the Wild Cat starts in to deal the game. She says it's time Bill's married, as a onmarried buck is a menace; at this the others grunts agreement. Then they all turns in to overhaul the el'gible young squaws. Which they shore shows up them belles! One after the other they're drug over the coals. At last the Wild Cat mentions the Saucy Willow jest as every savage present knows will be done soon or late from the jump. The Saucy Willow obtains a speshul an' onusual run for her money. But it's settled final that while the Saucy Willow ain't none too good, she's the best they can do. The Saucy Willow belongs to the Elk clan, while Bill belongs to the B'ar clan, an' that at least is c'rrect. Injuns don't believe in inbreedin' so they allers marries out of their clan. "As soon as they settles on the Saucy Willow as Bill's squaw, they turns in to make up the 'price.' The Wild Cat, who's rich, donates a kettle, a side of beef, an' the two cayouses she smokes outen the besotted Black B'ar. The rest chucks in accordin' to their means, Crooked Claw comin' up strong with ten ponies; an' Bill's mother, the Silent Comanche, showin' down with a bolt of calico, two buffalo robes, a sack of flour an' a lookin' glass. This plunder is to go to the Saucy Willow's folks as a 'price' for the squaw. No, they don't win on the play; the Saucy Willow's parents is out _dinero_ on the nuptials when all is done. They has to give Bill their wickeyup. "When Bill's outfit's fully ready to deal for blood they picks out some bright afternoon. The Saucy Willow's fam'ly is goin' about lookin' partic'lar harmless an' innocent; but they're coony enough to be in camp that day. A procession starts from the Crooked Claw camp. Thar's The-man-who-steps-high at the head b'arin' a flag, union down, an' riotin' along behind is Tom Six-killer, The-man-who-sleeps, the Wild Cat and others leadin' five ponies an' packin' kettles, flour, beef, an' sim'lar pillage. They lays it all down an' stakes out the broncos about fifty yards from Strike Axe's camp an' withdraws. "Then some old squaw of the Strike Axe outfit issues forth an' throws the broncos loose. That's to show that the Saucy Willow is a onusual excellent young squaw an' pop'lar with her folks, an' they don't aim to shake her social standin' by acceptin' sech niggard terms. "But the Crooked Claw outfit ain't dismayed, an' takes this rebuff phlegmatic. It's only so much ettyquette; an' now it's disposed of they reorganise to lead ag'in to win. This time they goes the limit, an' brings up fifteen ponies an' stacks in besides with blankets, robes, beef, flour, calico, kettles, skillets, and looking-glasses enough to fill eight waggons. This trip the old Strike Axe squaw onties the fifteen ponies an' takin' 'em by their ropes brings 'em in clost to the Strike Axe camp, tharby notifyin' the Crooked Claw band that their bluff for the Saucy Willow is regyarded as feasible an' the nuptials goes. With this sign, the Crooked Claws comes caperin' up to the Strike Axes an' the latter fam'ly proceeds to rustle a profoosion of grub; an' with that they all turns in an' eats old Strike Axe outen house an' home. The 'price' is split up among the Strike Axe bunch, shares goin' even to second an' third cousins. "Mebby she's a week later when dawns the weddin' day. Bill, who's been lookin' a heap numb ever since these rites becomes acoote, goes projectin' off alone onto the prairie. The Saucy Willow is hid in the deepest corner of Strike Axe's teepee; which if she's visible, however, you'd be shore amazed at the foolish expression she wears, but all as shy an' artless as a yearlin' antelope. "But it grows time to wind it up, an' one of the Strike Axe bucks climbs into the saddle an' rides half way towards the camp of Crooked Claw. Strike Axe an' Crooked Claw in antic'pation of these entanglements has done pitched their camps about half a mile apart so as to give the pageant spread an' distances. When he's half way, the Strike Axe buck fronts up an' slams loose with his Winchester; it's a signal the _baile_ is on. "At the rifle crack, mounted on a pony that's the flower of the Strike Axe herd, the Saucy Willow comes chargin' for the Crooked Claws like a shootin' star. The Saucy Willow is a sunburst of Osage richness! an' is packin' about five hundred dollars' worth of blankets, feathers, beads, calicoes, ribbons, an' buckskins, not to mention six pounds of brass an' silver jewelry. Straight an' troo comes the Saucy Willow; skimmin' like a arrow an' as rapid as the wind! "As Saucy Willow embarks on this expedition, thar starts to meet her--afoot they be but on the run--Tom Six-killer an' a brace of squaw cousins of Bill's. Nacherally, bein' he out-lopes the cousins, Tom Six-killer runs up on the Saucy Willow first an' grabs her bronco by the bridle. The two young squaw cousins ain't far behind the Six-killer, for they can run like rabbits, an' they arrives all laughter an' cries, an' with one move searches the Saucy Willow outen the saddle. In less time than it takes to get action on a drink of licker the two young squaws has done stripped the Saucy Willow of every feather, bead an' rag, an' naked as when she's foaled they wrops her up, precious an' safe in a blanket an' packs her gleefully into the camp of Crooked Claw. Here they re-dresses the Saucy Willow an' piles on the gew-gaws an' adornments, ontil if anything she's more gorgeous than former. The pony which the Saucy Willow rides goes to the Six-killer, while the two she-cousins, as to the balance of her apparel that a-way, divides the pot. "An' now like a landslide upon the Crooked Claws comes the Strike Axe household. Which they're thar to the forty-'leventh cousin; savages keepin' exact cases on relatives a mighty sight further than white folks. The Crooked Claw fam'ly is ready. It's Crooked Claw's turn to make the feast, an' that eminent Osage goes the distance. Crooked Claw shorely does himse'f proud, while Bill's mother, the Silent Comanche, is hospitable, but dignified. It's a great weddin'. The Wild Cat is pirootin' about, makin' mean an' onfeelin' remarks, as becomes a widow lady with a knowledge of the world an' a bundle the size an' shape of a roll of blankets. The two fam'lies goes squanderin' about among each other, free an' fraternal, an' thar's never a cloud in the sky. "At last the big feed begins. Son, you should have beheld them fool Osages throw themse'fs upon the Crooked Claw's good cheer. It's a p'int of honour to eat as much as you can; an' b'arin' that in mind the revellers mows away about twenty pounds of beef to a buck--the squaws, not bein' so ardent, quits out on mighty likely it's the thirteenth pound. Tom Six-killer comes plenty clost to sacrificin' himse'f utter. "This last I knows, for the next day I sees the medicine men givin' some sufferer one of their aboriginal steam baths. They're on the bank of Bird River. They've bent down three or four small saplin's for the framework of a tent like, an' thar's piled on 'em blankets an' robes a foot deep so she's plumb airtight. Thar's a fire goin' an' they're heatin' rocks, same as Colonel Sterett tells about when they baptises his grandfather into the church. When the rocks is red-hot they takes 'em, one by one, an' drops 'em into a bucket of water to make her steam. Then they shoves this impromptoo cauldron inside the little robe house where as I'm aware--for I onderstands the signs from the start--thar's a sick buck quiled up awaitin' relief. This yere invalid buck stays in thar twenty minutes. The water boils an' bubbles an' the steam gets that abundant not to say urgent she half lifts the robes an' blankets at the aiges to escape. The ailin' buck in the sweat tent stays ontil he can't stay no more, an' then with a yowl, he comes burstin' forth, a reek of sweat an' goes splashin' into the coolin' waters of Bird River. It's the Six-killer; that weddin' feast comes mighty near to downin' him--gives him a 'bad heart,' an' he ondergoes the steam bath for relief. "But we're strayed from that weddin'. Bein' now re-arrayed in fullest feather the Saucy Willow is fetched into the ring an' receives a platter with the rest. Then one of the bucks, lookin' about like he's amazed, says: 'Wherever is the Jack Rabbit?' that bein' Bill's Osage title. Crooked Claw shakes his head an' reckons most likely the Jack Rabbit's rummagin' about loose some'ers, not knowin' enough to come in an' eat. A brace of bucks an' a young squaw starts up an' figgers they'll search about an' see if they can't round him up. They goes out an' thar's Bill settin' off on a rock a quarter of a mile with his back to the camp an' the footure. "The two sharps an' the squaw herds Bill into camp an' stakes him out, shoulder to shoulder, with the little Saucy Willow. Neither Bill nor the little Saucy Willow su'gests by word, screech or glance that they saveys either the game or the stakes, an' eats on, takin' no notice of themse'fs or any of the gluttons who surrounds 'em. Both Bill an' the little Saucy Willow looks that witless you-all would yearn to bat 'em one with the butt of a mule whip if onfortoonately you're present to be exasperated by sech exhibitions. At last, however, jest as the patience of the audience is plumb played, both Bill an' the little Saucy Willow gives a start of surprise. Which they're pretendin' to be startled to find they're feedin' off the same dish. Thar you be; that makes 'em 'buck an' squaw'--'man an' wife;' an' yereafter, in Osage circles they can print their kyards 'Mister an' Missis Bill Connors,' while Bill draws an' spends the little Saucy Willow's annooty on payment day instead of Strike Axe." CHAPTER XIII. When Tutt first saw Tucson. "An' speakin' of dooels," remarked the Old Cattleman, apropos of an anecdote of the field of honour wherewith I regaled his fancy, "speakin' of dooels, I reckons now the encounter Dave Tutt involves himse'f with when he first sees Tucson takes onchallenged preecedence for utter bloodlessness. She's shore the most lamb's-wool form of single combat to which my notice is ever drawn. Dave enlightens us concernin' its details himse'f, bein' incited tharunto by hearin' Texas Thompson relate about the Austin shootin' match of that Deaf Smith. "'Which this yere is 'way back yonder on the trail of time,' explains Dave, 'an' I'm hardened a heap since then. I've jest come buttin' into Tucson an' it's easy money I'm the tenderest an' most ontaught party that ever wears store-moccasins. What I misses knowin' would make as husky a library,--if it's printed down in books,--as ever lines up on shelves. Also, I'm freighted to the limit with the tenderfoot's usual outfit of misinformation. It's sad, yet troo! that as I casts my gaze r'arward I identifies myse'f as the balmiest brand of shorthorn who ever leaves his parents' shelterin' roof.' "'All the same,' says Dan Boggs, plenty conceited, 'I'll gamble a hoss I'm a bigger eediot when I quits Missouri to roam the cow country than ever you-all can boast of bein' in your most drivelin' hour.' "'Do they lock you up?' asks Dave. "'No,' says Dan, 'they don't lock me up none, but----' "'Then you lose,' insists Dave, mighty prompt. "'But hold on,' says Dan; 'don't get your chips down so quick. As I starts to explain, I ain't locked up; but it's because I'm in a camp like Wolfville yere that ain't sunk to the level of no calaboose. But what comes to be the same, I'm taken captive an' held as sech ontil the roodiments of Western sense is done beat into me. It takes the yoonited efforts of four of the soonest sharps that ever happens; an' final, they succeeds to a p'int that I'm deemed cap'ble of goin' about alone.' "'Well,' retorts Dave, 'I won't dispoote with you; an' even at that I regyards your present attitoode as one of bluff. I thinks you're shore the cunnin'est wolf in the territory, Dan, an' allers is. But, as I'm sayin', when I first begins to infest Tucson, I'm so ignorant it's a stain on that meetropolis. At this yere epock, Tucson ain't spraddled to its present proud dimensions. A gent might have thrown the loop of a lariat about the outfit an' drug it after him with a pony. No one, however, performs this labour, as the camp is as petyoolant as a t'rant'ler an' any onauthorised dalliance with its sensibilities would have led to vivid plays. Still, she ain't big, Tucson ain't; an' I learns my way about from centre to suburbs in the first ten minutes. "'At the beginnin' I'm a heap timid. I suffers from the common eastern theery an' looks on Arizona as a region where it's murder straight an' lynchin' for a place. You-all may jedge from that how erroneous is my idees. Then, as now, the distinguishin' feacher of Tucson existence is a heavenly ca'm. Troo, thar's moments when the air nacherally fills up with bullets like they're a passel of swallow-birds, an' they hums an' sings their merry madrigals. However, these busy seasons don't set in so often nor last so long but peaceful folks has ample chance to breathe. "'Never does I b'ar witness to as many as seven contemporaneous remainders but once; and then thar's cause. It's in a poker game; an' the barkeep brings the dealer a cold deck onder a tray whereon he purveys the drinks. Which the discovery of this yere solecism, as you-all well imagines, arouses interest, earnest an' widespread like I deescribes. I counts up when the smoke lifts an' finds that seven has sought eternal peace. Commonly two is the number; three bein' quite a shipment. Shore, it's speshul sickly when as many as seven quits out together! "'Bein' timid an' ignorant I takes good advice. It's in the Oriental. Thar's that old gray cimmaron hibernatin' about the bar whose name is Jeffords. "'"Be you-all conversant with that gun you packs?" asks Jeffords. "'I feels the hot blush mountin' in my tender cheeks, but I concedes I ain't. "Pard," I replies, "speakin' confidenshul an' between gent an' gent, this yere weepon is plumb novel to me." "'"Which I allows as much," he says, "from the egreegious way you fidges with it. Now let me pass you-all a p'inter from the peaks of experience. You caper back to the tavern an' take that weepon off. Or what's as well, you pass it across to the barkeep. If you-all goes romancin' 'round with hardware at your belt it's even money it'll get you beefed. Allers remember while in Arizona that you'll never get plugged--onless by inadvertence--as long as you wander about in onheeled innocence. No gunless gent gets downed; sech is the onbreakable roole." "'After that I goes guiltless of arms; I ain't hungerin' for immortality abrupt. "'Old Jeffords is shore right; in the Southwest if you aims to b'ar a charmed life, never wear a six-shooter. This maxim goes anywhere this side of the Mississippi; east of that mighty river it's the other way. "'Bein' nimble-blooded in them days, I'm a heap arduous about the dance-hall. I gets infatyooated with the good fellowship of that hurdygurdy; an' even after I leaves Tucson an' is camped some miles away, I saddles up every other evenin', rides in an', as says the poet, "shakes ontirin' laig even into the wee small hours." "'Right yere, gents,' an' Dave pauses like he's prounced on by a solemn thought, 'I don't reckon I has to caution none of you-all not to go repeatin' these mem'ries of gay days done an' gone, where my wife Tucson Jennie cuts their trail. I ain't afraid of Jennie; she's a kind, troo he'pmeet; but ever since that onfortunate entanglement with the English towerist lady her suspicions sets up nervous in their blankets at the mere mention of frivolities wherein she hears my name. I asks you, tharfore, not to go sayin' things to feed her doubts. With Tucson Jennie, my first business is to live down my past.' "'You-all can bet,' says Texas Thompson, while his brow clouds, 'that I learns enough while enjoyin' the advantages of livin' with my former wife to make sech requests sooperfluous in my case. Speshully since if it ain't for what the neighbours done tells the lady she'd never go ropin' 'round for that divorce. No Dave; your secrets is plumb safe with a gent who's suffered. "'Which I saveys I'm safe with all of you,' says Dave, his confidence, which the thoughts of Tucson Jennie sort o' stampedes, beginnin' to return. 'But now an' then them gusts of apprehensions frequent with married gents sweeps over me an' I feels weak. But comin' back to the dance-hall: As I su'gests thar's many a serene hour I whiles away tharin. Your days an' your _dinero_ shore flows plenty swift in that temple of merriment; an' chilled though I be with the stiff dignity of a wedded middle age, if it ain't for my infant son, Enright Peets Tutt, to whom I'm strivin' to set examples, I'd admire to prance out an' live ag'in them halcyon hours; that's whatever! "'Thar's quite a sprinklin' of the _elite_ of Tucson in the dance-hall the evenin' I has in mind. The bar is busy; while up an' down each side sech refreshin' pastimes as farobank, monte an' roulette holds prosperous sway. Thar's no quadrille goin' at the moment, an' a lady to the r'ar is carollin' "Rosalie, the Prairie Flower." "Fair as a lily bloomin' in May, Sweeter than roses, bright as the day! Everyone who knows her feels her gentle power, Rosalie the Prairie Flower." "'On this yere o'casion I'm so far fortunate as to be five drinks ahead an' tharfore would sooner listen to myse'f talk than to the warblin' of the cantatrice. As it is, I'm conversin' with a gent who's standin' hard by. "'At my elbow is posted a shaggy an' forbiddin' outlaw whose name is Yuba Tom, an' who's more harmonious than me. He wants to listen to "Rosalie the Prairie Flower." Of a sudden, he w'irls about, plenty peevish. "'Stick a period to that pow-wow," observes Yuba; "I wants to hear this prima donna sing." "'Bein' gala with the five libations, I turns on Yuba haughty. "If you're sobbin' to hear this songstress," I says, "go for'ard an' camp down at her feet. But don't come pawin' your way into no conversations with me. An' don't hang up no bluff." "'Which if you disturbs me further," retorts Yuba, "I'll turn loose for shore an' crawl your hump a lot." "'Them foolhardy sports," I replies, "who has yeretofore attempted that enterprise sleeps in onknown graves; so don't you-all pester me, for the outlook's dark." "'It's now that Yuba,--who's a mighty cautious sport, forethoughtful an' prone to look ahead,--regyards the talk as down to cases an' makes a flash for his gun. It's concealed by his surtoot an' I ain't noticed it none before. If I had, most likely I'd pitched the conversation in a lower key. However, by this time, I'm quarrelsome as a badger; an' a willin'ness for trouble subdooes an' sets its feet on my nacheral cowardice an' holds her down.' "'Dave, you-all makes me nervous,' says Boggs, with a flash of heat, 'settin' thar lyin' about your timidity that a-way. You're about as reluctant for trouble as a grizzly bar, an' you couldn't fool no gent yere on that p'int for so much as one white chip.' "'Jest the same,' says Dave, mighty dogmatic, 'I still asserts that in a concealed, inborn fashion, I'm timid absoloote. If you has ever beheld me stand up ag'in the iron it's because I'm 'shamed to quit. I'd wilt out like a jack-rabbit if I ain't held by pride. "'"You're plenty ready with that Colt's," I says to Yuba, an' my tones is severe. "That's because you sees me weeponless. If I has a gun now, I'd make you yell like a coyote." "'"S'pose you ain't heeled," reemonstrates Yuba, "that don't give you no license to stand thar aboosin' me. Be I to blame because your toilet ain't complete? You go frame yourse'f up, an' I'll wait;" an' with that, this Yuba takes his hand from his artillery. "'Thar's a footile party who keeps the dancehall an' who signs the books as Colonel Boone. He's called the "King of the Cowboys"; most likely in a sperit of facetiousness since he's more like a deuce than a king. This Boone's packin' a most excellent six-shooter loose in the waistband of his laiggin's. Boone's passin' by as Yuba lets fly his taunts an' this piece of ordnance is in easy reach. With one motion I secures it an' the moment followin' the muzzle is pressin' ag'inst a white pearl button on Yuba's bloo shirt. "'"Bein' now equipped," I says, "this war-dance may proceed." "'I'm that scared I fairly hankers for the privilege of howlin', but I realises acootely that havin' come this far towards homicide I must needs go through if Yuba crowds my hand. But he don't; he's forbearin' an' stands silent an' still. Likewise, I sees his nose, yeretofore the colour of a over-ripe violin, begin to turn sear an' gray. I recovers sperit at this as I saveys I'm saved. Still I keeps the artillery on him. It's the innocence of the gun that holds Yuba spellbound an' affects his nose, an' I feels shore if I relaxes he'll be all over me like a baggage waggon.' "'Which I should say so!' says Jack Moore, drawin' a deep breath. 'You takes every chance, Dave, when you don't cut loose that time!' "'When Boone beholds me,' says Dave, 'annex his gun he almost c'lapses into a fit. He makes a backward leap that shows he ain't lived among rattlesnakes in vain. Then he stretches his hand towards me an' Yuba, an' says, "Don't shoot! Let's take a drink; it's on the house!" "'Yuba, with his nose still a peaceful gray, turns from the gun an' sidles for the bar; I follows along, thirsty, but alert. When we-all is assembled, Boone makes a wailin' request for his six-shooter. "'"Get his," I says, at the same time, animadvertin' at Yuba with the muzzle. "'Yuba passes his weepons over the bar an' I follows suit with Boone's. Then we drinks with our eyes on each other in silent scorn. "'"Which we-all will see about this later,' growls Yuba, as he leaves the bar. "'"Go as far as you like, old sport," I retorts, for this last edition, as Colonel Sterett would term it, of Valley Tan makes me that brave I'm miseratin' for a riot. "'It's the next day before ever I'm firm enough, to come ag'in to Tucson. This stage-wait in the tragedy is doo to fear excloosive. I hears how Yuba is plumb bad; how he's got two notches on his stick; how he's filed the sights off his gun; an' how in all reespects he's a murderer of merit an' renown. Sech news makes me timid two ways: I'm afraid Yuba'll down me some; an' then ag'in I'm afraid he's so popular I'll be lynched if I downs him. Shore, that felon Yuba begins to assoome in my apprehensions the stern teachers of a whipsaw. At last I'm preyed on to that degree I'm desperate; an' I makes up my mind to invade Tucson, cross up with Yuba an' let him come a runnin'. The nervousness of extreme yooth doubtless is what goads me to this decision. "'It's about second drink time in the afternoon when, havin' donned my weepons, I rides into Tucson. After leavin' my pony at the corral, I turns into the main street. It's scorchin' hot an' barrin' a dead burro thar's hardly anybody in sight. Up in front of the Oriental, as luck has it, stands Yuba and a party of doobious morals who slays hay for the gov'ment, an' is addressed as Lon Gilette. As I swings into the causeway, Gilette gets his eye on me an' straightway fades into the Oriental leavin' Yuba alone in the street. This yere strikes me as mighty ominous; I feels the beads of water come onder my hatband, an' begins to crowd my gun a leetle for'ard on the belt. I'm walkin' up on the opp'site side from Yuba who stands watchin' my approach with a serene mien. "'"It's the ca'mness of the tiger crouchin' for a spring," thinks I. "'As I arrives opp'site, Yuba stretches out his hand. "Come on over," he sings out. "'"Which he's assoomin' airs of friendship," I roominates, "to get me off my gyard." "'I starts across to Yuba. I'm watchin' like a lynx; an' I'm that harrowed, if Yuba so much as sneezes or drops his hat or makes a r'arward move of his hand, I'm doo to open on him. But he stands still as a hill an' nothin' more menacin' than grins. As I comes clost he offers his hand. It's prior to my shootin' quick an' ackerate with my left hand, so I don't give Yuba my right, holdin' the same in reserve for emergencies an' in case thar's a change of weather. But Yuba, who can see it's fear that a-way, is too p'lite to make comments. He shakes my left hand with well-bred enthoosiasm an' turns an' heads the way into the Oriental. "'As we fronts the bar an' demands nosepaint Yuba gives up his arms; an' full of a jocund lightheartedness as I realises that I ain't marked for instant slaughter I likewise yields up mine. We then has four drinks in happy an' successful alternation, an' next we seeks a table an' subsides into seven-up. "'"Then thar ain't goin' to be no dooel between us?" I says to Yuba. It's at a moment when he's turned jack an' I figgers he'll be more soft an' leenient. "It's to be a evenin' of friendly peace?" "'"An' why not?" says Yuba. "I've shore took all the skelps that's comin' to me; an' as for you-all, you're young an' my counsel is to never begin. That pooerile spat we has don't count. I'm drinkin' at the time, an' I don't reckon now you attaches importance to what a gent says when he's in licker?" "'"Not to what he says," I replies; "but I does to what he shoots. I looks with gravity on the gun-plays of any gent, an' the drunker he is the more ser'ous I regyards the eepisode." "'"Well, she's a thing of the past now," explains Yuba, "an' this evenin' you're as pop'lar with me as a demijohn at a camp-meetin'." "'Both our bosoms so wells with joy, settin' thar as we do in a atmosphere of onexpected yet perfect fraternalism an' complete peace, that Yuba an' me drinks a whole lot. It gets so, final, I refooses to return to my own camp; I won't be sep'rated from Yuba. When we can no longer drink, we turns in at Yuba's wickeyup an' sleeps. The next mornin' we picks up the work of reeconciliation where it slips from our tired hands the evenin' before. I does intend to reepair to my camp when we rolls out; but after the third conj'int drink both me an' Yuba sees so many reasons why it's a fool play I gives up the idee utter. "'Gents, it's no avail to pursoo me an' Yuba throughout them four feverish days. We drifts from one drink-shop to the other, arm in arm, as peaceful an' pleased a pair of sots as ever disturbs the better element. Which we're the scandal of Tucson; we-all is that thickly amiable it's a insult to other men. Thus ends my first dooel; a conflict as bloodless as she is victorious. How long it would have took me an' Yuba to thoroughly cement our friendships will never be known. At the finish, we-all is torn asunder by the Tucson marshal an' I'm returned to my camp onder gyard. Me an' Yuba before nor since never does wax that friendly with any other gent; we'd be like brothers yet, only the Stranglers over to Shakespear seizes on pore Yuba one mornin' about a hoss an' heads him for his home on high.'" CHAPTER XIV. The Troubles of Dan Boggs. "This yere," remarked the Old Cattleman, at the heel of a half-hour lecture on life and its philosophy, "this yere is a evenin' when they gets to discussin' about luck. It's doorin' the progress of this dispoote when Cherokee Hall allows that luck don't alternate none, first good an' then bad, but travels in bunches like cattle or in flocks like birds. 'Whichever way she comes,' says Cherokee, 'good or bad, luck avalanches itse'f on a gent. That's straight!' goes on Cherokee. 'You bet! I speaks from a voloominous experience an' a life that, whether up or down, white or black, ain't been nothin' but luck. Which nacherally, bein' a kyard sharp that a-way, I studies luck the same as Peets yere studies drugs; an' my discov'ries teaches that luck is plumb gregar'ous. Like misery in that proverb, luck loves company; it shore despises to be lonesome.' "'Cherokee, I delights to hear you talk,' says Old Man Enright, as he signs up Black Jack for the Valley Tan. 'Them eloocidations is meant to stiffen a gent's nerve an' do him good. Shore; no one needs encouragement nor has to train for a conflict with good luck; but it's when he's out ag'inst the iron an' the bad luck's swoopin' an' stoopin' at him, beak an' claw like forty hawks, that your remarks is doo to come to his aid an' uplift his sperits some. An' as you says a moment back, thar's bound in the long run to be a equilibr'um. The lower your bad luck, the taller your good luck when it strikes camp. It's the same with the old Rockies, an' wherever you goes it's ever a never-failin' case of the deeper the valley, the higher the hill! "'As is frequent with me,' says Dan Boggs, after we sets quiet a moment, meanwhiles tastin' our nosepaint thoughtful--for these outbursts of Cherokee's an' Enright's calls for consid'rations,--'as is frequent with me,' says Dan, 'I reckons I'll string my chips with Cherokee. The more ready since throughout my own checkered c'reer--an' I've done most everything 'cept sing in the choir,--luck has ever happened bunched like he asserts. Which I gets notice of these pecooliarities of fortune early. While I'm simply doin' nothin' to provoke it, a gust of bad luck prounces on me an' thwarts me in a noble ambition, rooins my social standin' an busts two of my nigh ribs all in one week. "'I'm a colt at the time, an' jest about big enough to break. My folks is livin' in Missouri over back of the Sni-a-bar Hills. By nacher I'm a heap moosical; so I ups--givin' that genius for harmony expression--an' yoonites myse'f with the "Sni-a-bar Silver Cornet Band." Old Hickey is leader, an' he puts me in to play the snare drum, the same bein' the second rung on the ladder of moosical fame, an' one rung above the big drum. Old Hickey su'gests that I start with the snare drum an' work up. Gents, you-all should have heard me with that instrooment! I'd shore light into her like a storm of hail! "'For a spell the "Sni-a-bar Silver Cornet Band" used to play in the woods. This yere Sni-a-bar commoonity is a mighty nervous neighbourhood, an' thar's folks whose word is above reproach who sends us notice they'll shoot us up if we don't; so at first we practises in the woods. But as time goes on we improves an' plays well enough so we don't scare children; an' then the Sni-a-bar people consents to let us play now an' then along the road. All of us virchewosoes is locoed to do good work, so that Sni-a-bar would get reeconciled, an' recognise us as a commoonal factor. "'Well do I recall the day of our first public appearance. It's at a political meetin' an' everything, so far as we're concerned at least, depends on the impression we-all makes. If we goes to a balk or a break-down, the "Sni-a-bar Silver Cornet Band's" got to go back an' play in the woods. "'It's not needed that I tells you gents, how we-all is on aige. Old Hickey gets so perturbed he shifts me onto the big drum; an' Catfish Edwards, yeretofore custodian of that instrooment, is given the snare. This play comes mighty clost to breakin' my heart; for I'm ambitious, an' it galls my soul to see myse'f goin' back'ards that a-way. It's the beginnin' of my bad luck, too. Thar's no chance to duck the play, however, as old Hickey's word is law, so I sadly buckles on the giant drum. "'We're jest turnin' into the picnic ground where this meetin's bein' held an' I've got thoughts of nothin' but my art--as we moosicians says--an' elevatin' the local opinion of an' concernin' the meelodious merits of the band. We're playin' "Number Eighteen" at the time, an' I've got my eagle eye on the paper that tells me when to welt her; an' I'm shorely leatherin' away to beat a ace-flush. "'Bein' I'm new to the big drum, an' onduly eager to succeed, I've got all my eyes picketed on the notes. It would have been as well if I'd reeserved at least one for scenery. But I don't; an' so it befalls that when we-all is in the very heart of the toone, an' at what it's no exaggeration to call a crisis in our destinies, I walks straddle of a stump. An' sech is my fatal momentum that the drum rolls up on the stump, an' I rolls up on the drum. That's the finish; next day the Silver Cornet Band by edict of the Sni-a-bar pop'lace is re-exiled to them woods. But I don't go; old Hickey excloodes me, an' my hopes of moosical eminence rots down right thar. "'It's mebby two days later when I'm over by the postoffice gettin' the weekly paper for my old gent. Thar's goin' to be a Gander-Pullin' by torchlight that evenin' over to Hickman's Mills with a dance at the heel of the hunt. But I ain't allowin' to be present none. I'm too deeply chagrined about my failure with that big drum; an' then ag'in, I'm scared to ask a girl to go. You-all most likely has missed noticin' it a heap--for I frequent forces myse'f to be gala an' festive in company--but jest the same, deep down onder my belt, I'm bashful. An' when I'm younger I'm worse. I'm bashful speshul of girls; for I soon discovers that it's easier to face a gun than a girl, an' the glance of her eye is more terrifyin' than the glimmer of a bowie. That's the way I feels. It's a fact; I remembers a time when my mother, gettin' plumb desp'rate over my hoomility, offers me a runnin' hoss if I'd go co't a girl; on which o'casion I feebly urges that I'd rather walk. "'On the evenin' of this yer dance an' Gander-Pullin' I'm pirootin' about the Center when I meets up with Jule James;--Jule bein' the village belle. "Goin' to the dance?" says Jule. "No," says I. "Why ever don't you go?" asks Jule. "Thar ain't no girl weak-minded enough to go with me," I replies; "I makes a bid for two or three but gets the mitten." This yere last is a bluff. "Which I reckons now," says Jule, givin' me a look, "if you'd asked me, I'd been fool enough to go." Of course, with that I'm treed; I couldn't flicker, so I allows that if Jule'll caper back to the house with me I'll take her yet. "'We-all gets back to my old gent's an' I proceeds to hitch up a Dobbin hoss we has to a side-bar buggy. It's dark by now, an' we don't go to the house nor indulge in any ranikaboo uproar about it, as I figgers it's better not to notify the folks. Not that they'd be out to put the kybosh on this enterprize; but they're powerful fond of talk my folks is, an' their long suit is never wantin' you to do whatever you're out to execoote. Wherefore, as I ain't got no time for a j'int debate with my fam'ly over technicalities I puts Jule into the side-bar where it's standin' in the dark onder a shed; an' then, hookin' up old Dobbin a heap surreptitious, I gathers the reins an' we goes softly p'intin' forth for Hickman's. "'As we-all is sailin' thoughtlessly along the trail, Dobbin ups an' bolts. Sech flights is onpreeceedented in the case of Dobbin--who's that sedate he's jest alive--an' I'm shore amazed; but I yanks him up an' starts anew. It's twenty rods when Dobbin bolts ag'in. This time I hears a flutter, an' reaches 'round Jule some to see if her petticoats is whippin' the wheel. They ain't; but Jule--who esteems said gesture in the nacher of a caress--seemin' to favour the idee, I lets my arm stay 'round. A moment later an' this yere villain Dobbin bolts the third time, an' as I've sort o' got my one arm tangled up with Jule, he lams into a oak tree. "'It's then, when we're plumb to a halt, I does hear a flutter. At that I gets down to investigate. Gents, you-all may onderstand my horror when I finds 'leven of my shawl-neck game chickens roostin' on that side-bar's reach! They're thar when we pulls out. They've retired from the world an' its cares for the night an', in our ignorance of them chicken's domestic arrangements, we blindly takes 'em with us. Now an' then, as we goes rackin' along, one of 'em gets jolted off. Then he'd hang by his chin an' beat his wings; an' it's these frenzied efforts he makes to stay with the game that evolves them alarmin' flutterin's. "'Jule--who don't own chickens an' who ain't no patron of cockfights neither--is for settin' the shawl-necks on the fence an' pickin' 'em up as we trails back from the Gander-Pullin'. "'"As long as it's dark," says Jule, "they'll stay planted; an' we rounds 'em up on our return." "'But I ain't that optimistic. I knows these chickens an' they ain't so somnolent as all that. Besides it's a cinch that a mink or a fox comes squanderin' 'round an' takes 'em in like gooseberries. 'Leven shawl-necks! Why, it would be a pick-up for a fox! "'"You're a fine Injun to take a girl to a dance!" says Jule at last, an' she's full of scorn. "'"Injun or no Injun," I retorts a heap sullen, "thar ain't no Gander-Pullin' goin' to jestify me in abandonin' my 'leven shawl-necks an' me with a main to fight next month over on the Little Bloo!" "'At that I corrals the chickens an' imprisons 'em in the r'ar of the side-bar an' goes a-weavin' back for camp, an' I picks up three more shawl-necks where they sets battin' their he'pless eyes in the road. "'But I shore hears Jule's views of me as a beau! They're hot enough to fry meat! Moreover, Jule tells all Sni-a-bar an' I'm at once a scoff an' jeer from the Kaw to the Gasconade. Jule's old pap washes out his rifle an' signs a pledge to plug me if ever ag'in I puts my hand on his front gate. As I su'gests, it rooins my social c'reer in Sni-a-bar. "'While I'm ground like a toad that a-way beneath the harrow of this double setback of the drum an' Jule, thar's a circus shows up an' pitches its merry tent in Sni-a-bar. I knows this caravan of yore--for I'm a master-hand for shows in my yooth an' allers goes--an' bein' by virchoo of my troubles ready to plunge into dissipation's mad an' swirlin' midst, I sa'nters down the moment the waggons shows up; an' after that, while that circus stays, folks who wants to see me, day or night, has to come to the show. "'The outfit is one of them little old jim-crow shows that charges two-bits an' stays a month; an' by the end of the first day, me an' the clown gets wropped up like brothers; which I'm like one of the fam'iy! I fetches water an' he'ps rub hosses an', speakin' gen'ral, does more nigger work than I ever crosses up with prior endoorin' my entire life. But knowin' the clown pays for all; sech trivial considerations as pullin' on tent ropes an' spreadin' sawdust disappears before the honour of his a'quaintance. It's my knowin' the clown that leads to disaster. "'This merrymaker, who's a "jocund wight" as Colonel Sterett says, gets a heap drunk one evenin' 'an' sleeps out in the rain, an' he awakes as hoarse as bull-frogs. He ain't able to sing his song in the ring. It's jest before they begins. "'"Dan," he croaks, plenty dejected, "I wish you'd clown up an' go in an' sing that song." "'This cantata he alloodes to, is easy; it's "Roll Jurdan, Roll," an' I hears it so much at nigger camp meetin's an' sim'lar distractions, that I carols it in my sleep. As the clown throws out his bluff I considers awhile some ser'ous. I feels like mebby I've cut the trail of a cunnin' idee. When Jule an' old Hickey an' the balance of them Sni-a-bar outcasts sees me in a clown's yooniform, tyrannisin' about, singin' songs an' leadin' up the war-jig gen'ral, they'll regret the opinions they so freely expresses an' take to standin' about, hopin' I'll bow. They'll regyard knowin' me as a boon. With that, I tells the clown to be of good cheer. I'll prance in an' render that lay an' his hoarseness won't prove no setback to the gaiety of nations. "'But I don't sing after all; an' I don't pile up Jule an' old Hickey an' the sports of Sni-a-bar neither in any all 'round jumble of amazement at my genius. "'"Dan," says the ring master when we're in the dressin' room, "when the leapin' begins, you-all go on with the others an' do a somersault or two?" "'"Shore!" I says. "'I feels as confidant as a kangaroo! Which I never does try it none; but I supposes that all you has to do is hit the springboard an' let the springboard do the rest. That's where I'm barkin' at a knot! "'This yere leapin' comes first on the bill. I ain't been in the ring yet; the tumblin' business is where I makes my deeboo. I've got on a white clown soote with big red spots, an' my face is all flour. I'm as certain of my comin' pop'larity as a wet dog. I shore allows that when Jule an' old Hickey observes my graceful agility an' then hears me warble "Roll Jurdan, Roll," I'll make 'em hang their heads. "'The tumblin' is about to begin; the band's playin', an' all us athletes is ranged Injun file along a plank down which we're to run. I'm the last chicken on the roost. "'Even unto this day it's a subject of contention in circus cirkles as to where I hits that springboard. Some claims I hits her too high up; an' some says too low; for myse'f, I concedes I'm ignorant on the p'int. I flies down the plank like a antelope! I hears the snarl of the drums! I jumps an' strikes the springboard! "'It's at this juncture things goes queer. To my wonder I don't turn no flip-flap, but performs like a draw-shot in billiards. I plants my moccasins on the springboard; an' then instead of goin' on an' over a cayouse who's standin' thar awaitin' sech events, I shoots back'ard about fifteen foot an' lands in a ondistinguishable heap. An' as I strikes a plank it smashes a brace of my ribs. "'For a second I'm blurred in my intellects. Then I recovers; an' as I'm bein' herded back into the dressin' room by the fosterin' hands of the ring master an' my pard, the clown, over in the audience I hears Jule's silvery laugh an' her old pap allowin' he'd give a hoss if I'd only broke my neck. Also, I catches a remark of old Hickey; "Which that Boggs boy allers was a ediot!" says old Hickey.'" CHAPTER XV. Bowlegs and Major Ben. "Which this yere Major Ben," remarked the Old Cattleman, "taken in conjunction with his bosom pard, Billy Bowlaigs, frames up the only casooalty which gets inaug'rated in Wolfville." "What!" I interjected; "don't you consider the divers killings,--the death of the Stinging Lizard and the Dismissal of Silver Phil, to say nothing of the taking off of the Man from Red Dog--don't you, I say, consider such bloody matters casualties?" "No, sir," retorted my friend, emitting the while sundry stubborn puffs of smoke, "no, sir; I regyards them as results. Tharfore, I reiterates that this yere Major Ben an' Bowlaigs accomplishes between 'em the only troo casooalty whereof Wolfville has a record." At this he paused and surveyed me with an eye of challenge; after a bit, perceiving that I proposed no further contradiction, he went on: "This Billy Bowlaigs at first is a cub b'ar--a black cub b'ar: an' when he grows up to manhood, so to speak, he's as big, an' mighty near as strong physical, as Dan Boggs. Nacherally, however, Dan lays over Bowlaigs mental like a ace-full. "It's Dave Tutt who makes Bowlaigs captive; Dave rounds Bowlaigs up in his infancy one time when he's pesterin' about over in the foothills of the Floridas lookin' for blacktail deer. Dave meets up with Bowlaigs an' the latter's mother who's out, evident, on a scout for grub. Bowlaig's mother has jest upturned a rotten pine-log to give little Bowlaigs a chance to rustle some of these yere egreegious white worms which looks like bald catapillars, that a-way, when all at once around a p'int of rocks Dave heaves in view. This parent of Bowlaigs is as besotted about her son as many hooman mothers; for while Bowlaigs stands almost as high as she does an' weighs clost onto two hundred pounds, the mother b'ar still has the idee tangled up in her intelligence that Bowlaigs is that small an' he'pless, day-old kittens is se'f-sustainin' citizens by compar'son to him. Actin' on these yere errors, Bowlaig's mother the moment she glimpses Dave grabs young Bowlaigs by the scruff of the neck an' goes caperin' off up hill with him. An' to give that parent b'ar full credit, she's gettin' along all right an' conductin' herse'f as though Bowlaigs don't heft no more than one of them gooseha'r pillows, when, accidental, she bats pore Bowlaigs ag'in the bole of a tree--him hangin' outen her mouth about three foot--an' while the collision shakes that monarch of the forest some, Bowlaigs gets knocked free of her grip an' goes rollin' down the mountain-side ag'in like a sack of bran. It puts quite a crimp in Bowlaigs. The mother b'ar, full of s'licitoode to save her offspring turns, an' charges Dave; tharupon Dave downs her, an' young Bowlaigs becomes a orphan an' a pris'ner on the spot. "Followin' the demise of Bowlaig's mother, Dave sort o' feels reesponsible for the cub's bringin' up an' he ties him hand an' foot, an' after peelin' the pelt from the old mother b'ar, packs the entire outfit into camp. Dave's pony protests with green eyes ag'in carryin' sech a freight, but Dave has his way as he usually does with everything except Tucson Jennie. "At first Dave allows he'll let Bowlaigs live with him a whole lot an' keep him ontil he grows up, an' construct a pet of him. But as I more than once makes plain, Dave proposes but Tucson Jennie disposes; an' so it befalls that on the third day after the cub takes up his residence with her an' Dave, Jennie arms herse'f with a broom an' harasses the onfortunate Bowlaigs from her wickeyup. Jennie declar's that she discovers Bowlaigs organisin' to devour her child Enright Peets Tutt, who's at that epock comin' three the next spring round-up. "'I could read it in that Bowlaigs b'ar's eyes,' says Jennie, 'an' it's mighty lucky a parent's faculties is plumb keen. If I hadn't got in on the play with my broom, you can bet that inordinate Bowlaigs would have done eat little Enright Peets all up. "Shore, no one credits these yere apprehensions of Jennie's; Bowlaigs would no more have chewed up Enright Peets than he'd played table-stakes with him; but a fond mother's fears once stampeded is not to be headed off or ca'med, an' Bowlaigs has to shift his camp a heap. "Bowlaigs takes up his abode on the heels of him bein' run out by Tucson Jennie, over to the corral; that is, he bunks in thar temp'rary at least. An' he shore grows amazin', an' enlarges doorin' the next three months to sech a degree that when he stands up to the counter in the Red Light, acceptin' of some proffered drink, Bowlaigs comes clost to bein' as tall as folks. He early learns throughout his wakeful moments--what I'd deescribe as his business hours--to make the Red Light a hang-out; it's the nosepaint he's hankerin' after, for in no time at all Bowlaigs accoomulates a appetite for rum that's a fa'r match for that of either Huggins or Old Monte, an' them two sots is for long known as far west as the Colorado an' as far no'th as the Needles as the offishul drunkards of Arizona. No; Bowlaigs ain't equal to pourin' down the raw nosepaint; but Black Jack humours his weakness an' Bowlaigs is wont to take off his libations about two parts water to one of whiskey an' a lump of sugar in the bottom, outen one of these big tumbler glasses; meanwhiles standin' at the bar an' holdin' the glass between his two paws an' all as ackerate an' steady as the most talented inebriate. "'An' Bowlaigs has this distinction,' says Black Jack, alloodin' to the sugar an' water; 'he's shore the only gent for whom I so far onbends from reg'lar rools as to mix drinks.' "Existence goes flowin' onward like some glad sweet song for Bowlaigs for mighty likely it's two months an' nothin' remarkable eventuates. He camps in over to the corral, an' except that new ponies, who ain't onto Bowlaigs, commonly has heart-failure at the sight of him, he don't found no disturbances nor get in anybody's way. Throughout his wakin' hours, as I su'gests former, Bowlaigs ha'nts about the Red Light, layin' guileful an' cunnin' for invites to drink; an' he execootes besides small excursions to the O.K. Restauraw for chuck, with now an' then a brief journey to the Post Office or the New York store. These visits of Bowlaigs to the last two places, both because he don't get no letters at the post office an' don't demand no clothes at the store, I attribootes to motives of morbid cur'osity, that a-way. "The first real trouble that meets up with Bowlaigs--who's got to be a y'ar old by now--since Jennie fights the dooel with him with that broom, overtakes him at the O.K. Restauraw. Missis Rucker for one thing ain't over fond of Bowlaigs, allegin' as he grows older day by day he looks more an' more like Rucker. Of course, sech views is figments as much as the alarms of Tucson Jennie about Bowlaigs meditatin' gettin' away with little Enright Peets; but Missis Rucker, in spite of whatever we gent folks can say in Bowlaigs's behalf, believes firm in her own slanders. She asserts that Bowlaigs as he onfolds looks like Rucker; an' for her at least that settles the subject an' she assoomes towards Bowlaigs attitoodes which, would perhaps have been proper had her charge been troo. "Still, I'll say for that most esteemable lady, that Missis Rucker never lays for Bowlaigs or assaults him ontil one afternoon when he catches the dinin'-room deserted an' off its gyard an' goes romancin' over, cat-foot an' surreptitious, an' cleans up the tables of what chuck has been placed thar in antic'pation of supper. The first news Missis Rucker has of the raid is when Bowlaigs gets a half-hitch on the tablecloth an' winds up his play by yankin' the entire outfit of spoons, tin plates an' crockery off onto the floor. It's then Missis Rucker sallies from the kitchen an' puts Bowlaigs to flight. "Bowlaigs, who's plumb scared, comes lumberin' over to the Red Light an' puts himse'f onder our protection. Enright squar's it for him; for when Missis Rucker appears subsequent with a Winchester an' a knife an' gives it out cold she's goin' to get Bowlaig's hide an' tallow an' sell 'em to pay even for that dinin'-room desolation of which he's the architect, Enright counts up the damage an' pays over twenty-three dollars in full settlement. Does Bowlaigs know it? You can gamble the limit he knows it; for all the time Missis Rucker is prancin' about the Red Light denouncin' him, he secretes himse'f, shiverin', behind the bar; an' when that lady withdraws, mollified an' subdooed by the money, he creeps out, Bowlaigs does, an' cries an' licks Enright's hand. Oh, he's a mighty appreciative b'ar, pore Bowlaigs is; but his nerves is that onstrung by the perils he passes through with Missis Rucker it takes two big drinks to recover his sperits an' make him feel like the same b'ar. It's Texas Thompson who buys the drinks: "'For I, of all gents, Bowlaigs,' says Texas, as he invites the foogitive to the bar, 'onderstands what you-all's been through. It may be imagination, but jest the same thar's them times when Missis Rucker goes on the warpath when she reminds me a lot of my divorced Laredo wife.' With that Texas pours a couple of hookers of Willow Run into Bowlaigs, an' the latter is a heap cheered an' his pulse declines to normal. "It's rum, however, which final is the deestruction of Bowlaigs, same as it is of plenty of other good people who would have else lived in honour an' died respected an' been tearfully planted in manner an' form to do 'em proud. "Excloosive of that casooalty which marks his wind-up, an' which he combines with Major Ben to commit, thar's but one action of Bowlaigs a enemy might call a crime. He does prounce on a mail bag one evenin' when the post-master ain't lookin', an' shore rends an' worrits them letters scand'lous. "Yes, Bowlaigs gets arrested, an' the Stranglers sort o' convenes informal to consider it. I allers remembers that session of the Stranglers on account of Doc Peets an' Colonel William Greene Sterett entertain' opp'site views an' the awful language they indulges in as they expresses an' sets 'em forth. "'Which I claims that this Bowlaigs b'ar,' says Peets, combatin' a suggestion of Dan Boggs who's sympathisin' with an' urges that Bowlaigs is 'ignorant of law an' tharfore innocent of offence,' 'which I claims that this Bowlaig b'ar is guilty of rustlin' the mails an' must an' should be hanged. His ignorance is no defences, for don't each gent present know of that aphorism of the law, _Ignoratis legia non excusat_!' "Dan, nacherally, is enable to combat sech profound bluffs as this, an' I'm free to confess if it ain't for Colonel Sterett buttin' in with more Latin, the same bein' of equal cogency with that of Peet's, the footure would have turned plenty dark an' doobious for Bowlaigs. As Dan sinks back speechless an' played from Peet's shot, the Colonel, who bein' eddicated like Peets to a feather aige is ondismayed an' cool, comes to the rescoo. "'That law proverb you quotes, Doc,' says the Colonel, 'is dead c'rrect, an' if argyment was to pitch its last camp thar, your deductions that this benighted Bowlaigs must swing, would be ondeniable. But thar's a element lackin' in this affair without which no offence is feasible. The question is,--an' I slams it at you, Doc, as a thoughtful eddicated sharp--does this yere Bowlaigs open them letters an' bust into that mail bag _causa lucrae_? I puts this query up to you-all, Doc, for answer. It's obv'ous that Bowlaigs ain't got no notion of money bein' in them missives an' tharfore he couldn't have been moved by no thoughts of gain. Wherefore I asserts that the deed is not done _causa lucrae_, an' that the case ag'in this he'pless Bowlaigs falls to the ground.' "Followin' this yere collision of the classics between two sech scientists as Peets an' the Colonel, we-all can be considered as hangin' mighty anxious on what reply Doc Peets is goin' to make. But after some thought, Peets agrees with the Colonel. He admits that this _causa lucrae_ is a bet he overlooks, an' that now the Colonel draws his attention to it, he's bound to say he believes the Colonel to be right, an' that Bowlaigs should be made a free onfettered b'ar ag'in. We breathes easier at this, for the tension has been great, an' Dan himse'f is that relieved he comes a heap clost to sheddin' tears. The trial closes with the customary drinks; Bowlaigs gettin' his forty drops with the rest, on the hocks of which he signalises his reestoration to his rights an' freedom as a citizen by quilin' up in his corner an' goin' to sleep. "But the end is on its lowerin' way for Bowlaigs. Thar's a senile party who's packed his blankets into camp an' who's called 'Major Ben.' The Major, so the whisper goes, used to be quartermaster over to Fort Craig or Fort Apache, or mebby now it's Fort Cummings or some'ers; an' he gets himse'f dismissed for makin' away with the bank-roll. Be that as it may, the Major's plenty drunk an' military while he lasts among us; an' he likewise has _dinero_ for whatever nosepaint an' food an' farobank he sees fit to go ag'inst. From the jump the Major makes up to Bowlaigs an' the two become pards. The Major allows he likes Bowlaigs because he can't talk. "'Which if all my friends,' says the Major, no doubt alloodin' to them witnesses ag'in him when he's cashiered, 'couldn't have talked no more than Bowlaigs, I'd been happy yet.' "The Major's got a diminyootive wickeyup out to the r'ar of the corral, an' him an' Bowlaigs resides tharin. This habitat of the Major an' Bowlaigs ain't much bigger than a seegyar box; it's only eight foot by ten, is made of barn-boards an' has a canvas roof. That's the kind of ranch Bowlaigs an' the Major calls 'home'; the latter spreadin' his blankets on one side while Bowlaigs sleeps on t'other on the board floor, needin' no blankets, havin' advantage over the Major seein' he's got fur. "The dispoote between Bowlaigs an' the Major which results in both of 'em cashin' in, gets started erroneous. The Major--who's sometimes too indolent an' sometimes too drunk to make the play himse'f--instructs Bowlaig how to go over to the Red Light an' fetch a bottle of rum. The Major would chuck a silver dollar in a little basket, an' Bowlaigs would take it in his mouth same as you-all has seen dogs, an' report with the layout to Black Jack. That gent would make the shift, bottle for dollar, an' Bowlaigs would reepair back ag'in to the Major, when they'd both tank up ecstatic. "One mornin' after Bowlaigs an' the Major's been campin' together about four months, they wakes up mighty jaded. They've had a onusual spree the evenin' prior an' they feels like a couple of sore-head dogs. The Major who needs a drink to line up for the day, gropes about in his blankets, gets a dollar, pitches it into the basket an' requests Bowlaigs to caper over for the Willow Run. Bowlaigs is nothin' loth; but as he's about to pick up the basket, he observes that the dollar has done bounced out an' fell through a crack in the floor. Bowlaigs sees it through the same crack where it's layin' shinin' onder the house. "Now this yere Bowlaigs is a mighty sagacious b'ar, also froogal, an' so he goes wallowin' forth plenty prompt to recover the dollar. The Major, who's ignorant of what's happened, still lays thar groanin' in his blankets, feelin' like a loser an' nursin' his remorse. "The first p'inter the Major gets of a new deal in his destinies is a grand crash as the entire teepee upheaves an' goes over, kerwallop! on its side, hurlin' the Major out through the canvas. It's the thoughtless Bowlaigs does it. "When Bowlaigs gets outside, he finds he can't crawl onder the teepee none, seein' it's settin' too clost to the ground; an' tharupon, bein' a one-ideed b'ar, he sort o' runs his right arm in beneath that edifice an' up-ends the entire shebang, same as his old mother would a log when she's grub-huntin' in the hills. Bowlaigs is pickin' up the dollar when the Major comes swarmin' 'round the ruins of his outfit, a bowie in his hand, an' him fairly locoed with rage. "Shore, thar's a fight, an' the Major gets the knife plumb to Bowlaigs's honest heart with the first motion. But Bowlaigs quits game; he turns with a warwhoop an' confers on the Major a swat that would have broke the back of a bronco; an' then he dies with his teeth in the Major's neck. "The Major only lives a half hour after we gets thar. An' it's to his credit that he makes a statement exoneratin' Bowlaigs. 'I don't want you-all gents,' says the Major, 'to go deemin' hard of this innocent b'ar, for whatever fault thar is, is mine. Since Texas Thompson picks up that dollar, this thing is made plain. What I takes for gratooitous wickedness on Bowlaigs' part is nothin' but his efforts to execoote my desires. Pore Bowlaigs! it embitters my last moments as I pictures what must have been his opinions of me when I lams loose at him with that knife! Bury us in one grave, gents; it'll save trouble an' show besides that thar's no hard feelin's between me an' Bowlaigs over what--an' give it the worst name--ain't nothin' but a onfortunate mistake.'" CHAPTER XVI. Toad Allen's Elopement. "Four days after that pinfeather person," remarked the Old Cattleman, while refilling his pipe, "four days after that pinfeather person gains Old Man Enright's consent to make use of Wolfville as a pivotal p'int in a elopement, him an' his loved one comes bulgin' into camp. They floats over in one of these yere mountain waggons, what some folks calls a 'buckboard'; the pinfeather person's drivin'. Between him an' his intended--all three settin' on the one seat--perches a preacher gent, who it's plain from the look in his eyes is held in a sort o' captivity that a-way. What nacherally bolsters up this theory is that the maiden's got a six-shooter in her lap. "'Which if thar's a wearied hectored gent in Arizona,' observes the pinfeather party, as he descends outen the buckboard at the corral an' tosses the reins to a hoss-hustler, 'you-all can come weavin' up an' chance a yellow stack that I'm shore that gent.' "The preacher sharp, who's about as young an' new as the pinfeather party, looks like he yoonites with him in them views. As they onload themse'fs, the pinfeather person waves his hand to where we-all's gathered to welcome 'em, an' says by way of introduction: "'Gents, yere's Abby; or as this Bible sport will say later in the cer'mony, Abigail Glegg.' "Of course, we, who represents the Wolfville public, comports ourse'fs as becomes gents of dignity, an' after takin' off our sombreros, plumb p'lite, Enright su'gests the O.K. Restauraw as a base of op'rations. "'Don't you-all reckon,' says Enright to the pinfeather party, 'that pendin' hostilities, Abby had better go over to Missis Rucker's? Thar she gets combs an' breshes an' goes over her make-up an' straightens out her game.' "The pinfeather party allows this yere is a excellent notion, only him an' Abby don't seem cl'ar as to what oughter be done about the preacher sharp. "'You see, he don't want to come,' explains the pinfeather party, 'an' it's cost me an' Abby a heap of trouble to round him up. I ain't none shore but he seizes on the first chance to go stampedin'; an' without him these rites we-all is bankin' on would cripple down.' "'No, friends,' says the preacher sharp; 'I will promise to abide by you an' embrace no openin' to escape. Since I'm here I will yoonite you-all as you wish; the more readily because I trusts that as man an' wife you'll prove a mootual restraint one upon the other; an' also for that I deems you both in your single-footed capac'ty as a threat to the commoonity. Fear not; prepare yourse'fs an' I'll bring you together in the happy bonds of matrimony at the drop of the hat.' "'You notes, Dan,' says Texas Thompson, who's off to one side with Dan Boggs, 'you notes he talks like his heart's resentful. Them culprits has r'iled him up; an' now he allows that the short cut to play even is to marry 'em as they deserves. Which if you-all knows that former wife of mine, Dan, you'll appreciate what I says.' "Even after the preacher sharp gives his p'role, Abby acts plenty doobious. She ain't shore it's wise to throw him loose. It's Doc Peets who reasshores her. "'My dear young lady,' says Peets, at the same time bowin' to the ground, 'you may trust this maverick with me. I'll pledge my word to prodooce him at the moment when he's called for to make these nuptials win.' "'Which I'm aheap obleeged to you, Mister,' says Abby to Peets, sizing him up approvin'; 'an' now that I'm convinced thar's no chance of my footure sufferin' from any absenteeism on the part of this pastor, I reckons I better go over, like you-all hints, an' take a look or two in the glass. It ain't goin' to consoome a moment, however,--this yere titivation I plans; an' followin' said improvements we-all better pull off this play some prompt. My paw,--old Ben Glegg,--is on our trail not five miles behind; he'll land yere in half a hour an' I ain't none convinced he won't land shootin'.' An' with this bluff, an' confidin' the preacher sharp to Peets, Abby goes curvin' over to the O.K. Restauraw. "However does this yere virgin look? Son, I hes'tates to deescribe a lady onless the facts flows fav'rable for her. Which I'll take chances an' lie a lot to say that any lady's beautiful, if you-all will only give me so much as one good feacher to go on. But I'm powerless in the instance of Abby. That's a blizzard effect to her face; an' the best you can say is that if she don't look lovely, at least she looks convincin'. The gnurliest pineknot burns frequent the hottest, an' you can take my word for it, this Abby girl has sperit. Speakin' of her appearance, personal, Missis Rucker--who's a fair jedge--allows later to Enright that if Abby's a kyard in a faro game, she'd play her to lose. "'Which she looks like a sick cat in the face, an' a greyhoun' in the waist,' says Missis Rucker; 'an' I ain't got mortal use for no sech spindlin' trollops as this yere Abby girl is, nohow.' "'I don't know,' says Enright, shakin' his head; 'I ain't been enriched with much practical experience with women, but I reckons now it's love that does it. Whoever is that gent, Peets, who says, "love is blind"? He knows his business, that sport does, an' about calls the turn.' "'I ain't none so shore neither,' says Peets. 'Love may be blind, but somehow, I don't sign up the play that way. Thar's plenty of people, same as this pinfeather party, who discerns beauties in their sweethearts that's veiled to you an' me.' "Of course, these yere discussions concernin' Abby's charms takes place weeks later. On the weddin' day, Wolfville's too busy trackin' 'round an' backin' Abby's game to go makin' remarks. In this connection, however, it's only right to Abby to say that her pinfeather beau don't share Missis Rucker's views. Although Abby done threatens him with a gun-play to make him lead her to the altar that time her old paw creases him, an' he begins to wax low-sperited about wedlock, still, the pinfeather party's enamoured of Abby an' wropped up in her. "'Shore! says this pinfeather party to Texas Thompson, who, outen pity for him, takes the bridegroom over to the Red Light, to be refreshed; 'shore! while thar's no one that egreegious to go claimin' that my Abby's doo to grade as "cornfed," all the same she's one of the most fascinatin' ladies,--that is, an' give her a gun,--in all the len'th an' breadth of Arizona. I knows; for I've seen my Abby shoot.' "'Excoose me, pard,' says Texas, after surveyin' the pinfeather party plenty sympathetic; 'pardon my seemin' roodness, if I confers with the barkeep aside. On the level! now,' goes on Texas to Black Jack as he pulls him off to a corner an' whispers so the pinfeather party don't hear; 'on the level, Jack! ain't it my dooty--me who saveys what he's ag'inst--to go warn this victim ag'in matrimony in all its horrors?' "'Don't you do it!' remonstrates Black Jack, an' his voice trembles with the emphasis he feels; 'don't you do it none! You-all stand paws off! Which you don't know what you'll be answerable for! If this yere marriage gets broke off, who knows what new line of conduct this Abby maiden will put out. She may rope onto Boggs, or Peets, or mebby even me. As long as Abby ain't marryin' none of us, Wolfville's attitoode oughter be one of dignified nootrality.' "Texas sighs deep an' sad as he turns ag'in to the pinfeather party; but he sees the force of Black Jack's argyments an' yields without a effort to combat 'em. "'After all,' says Texas bitterly to himse'f, 'others has suffered; wherefore, then, should this jaybird gent escape?' An' with that, Texas hardens his heart an' gives up any notion of the pinfeather person's rescoo. "Which Abby now issues forth of the O.K. Restauraw an' j'ines the pinfeather party when he emerges from the Red Light. "'This sky pilot,' says Dan Boggs, approachin' the happy couple, 'sends word by me that he's over in the New York store. In deefault of a shore-enough sanchooary, he allows he yootilises that depot of trade as a headquarters; an' he's now waitin', all keyed up an' ready to turn his little game. Likewise, he's been complainin' 'round some querulous that you folks is harsh with him, an' abducts him an' threatens his skelp.' "'Now, see thar!' ejac'lates Abby, liftin' up her hands. 'Does mortal y'ears ever before listen to sech folly! I suppose he takes that gun I has as threats! I'm a onprotected young female, an' nacherally, when I embarks on this yere elopement, I packs one of paw's guns. Besides, this sweetheart of mine might get cold feet, an' try to jump the game, an' then I'd need said weepon to make good my p'sition. But it's never meant for that pastor! When I'm talkin' to him to prevail on him to come along, an' that gun in my hand at the time, I does sort o' make references to him with the muzzle. But he needn't go gettin' birdheaded over it; thar's nothin' hostile meant!' "'Enright explains to him satisfact'ry,' says Boggs. 'An' as you urges, it don't mean nothin'. Folks on the brink of bein' married that a-way gets so joyfully bewildered it comes mighty near the same as bein' locoed.' "'Well,' says the pinfeather party, who's been stackin' up a dust-cloud where some one's gallopin' along about three miles over on the trail, 'if I'm any dab at a guess that's your infuriated paw pirootin' along over yonder, an' we better get these matrimonial hobbles on without further onreasonable delays. That old murderer would plug me; an' no more hes'tation than if I'm a coyote! But once I'm moved up into p'sition as his son-in-law, a feelin' of nearness an' kinship mighty likely op'rates to stay his hand. Blood's thicker than water, an' I'm in a hurry to get reelated to your paw.' "But Enright has his notions of what's proper, an' he su'gests the services be delayed ontil old Glegg gets in. Meanwhile he despatches Jack Moore an' Dan Boggs as a gyard of honor to lead old Glegg to our trystin' place in the New York store. "'An' the first thing you-all do, Jack,' says Enright, as Jack an' Dan rides away, 'you get that outcast's guns.' "It ain't no more'n time for one drink when Jack an' Dan returns in company of this Glegg. He's a fierce, gray old gent with a eye like a wolf. Jest before he arrives, Enright advises the pinfeather person an' the bride Abby, to go camp in the r'ar room so the sudden sight of 'em won't exasp'rate this parent Glegg to madness. "'Whatever's the meanin' of this yere concourse?' demands old Glegg, as he comes into the New York store, an' p'intin' to where Peets an' Texas an' Cherokee Hall, along with Enright, is standin' about; 'an' why does these hold-ups'--yere he indicates Dan an' Jack,--'denoode me of my hardware, I'd like to know?' "'These gents,' says Enright, 'is a quorum of that respectable body known as the Wolfville Stranglers, otherwise a Vig'lance Committee; an' your guns was took so as to redooce the chances of hangin' you--the same bein' some abundant, nacheral,--to minimum. Now who be you? also, what's your little game?' "'My name's Benjamin Glegg,' responds old Glegg. 'I owns the Sunflower brand an' ranch. As for my game: thar's a member of my fam'ly escapes this mornin'--comes streamin' over yere, I onderstands--an' I'm in the saddle tryin' to round her up. Gents,' concloods old Glegg, an' he displays emotion, 'I'm simply a harassed parent on the trail of his errant offspring.' "Then Enright makes old Glegg a long, soft talk, an' seeks to imboo him with ca'mness. He relates how Abby an' the pinfeather sport dotes on each other; an' counsels old Glegg not to come pesterin' about with roode objections to the weddin'. "'Which I says this as your friend,' remarks Enright. "'It's as the scripter says,' replies old Glegg, who's mollified a lot, 'it's as the good book says: A soft answer turneth away wrath; but more speshully when the opp'sition's got your guns. I begins to see things different. Still, I hates to lose my Abby that a-way. Since my old woman dies, Abby, gents, has been the world an' all to me.' "'Is your wife dead?" asks Enright, like he sympathises. "'Shore!' says old Glegg; 'been out an' gone these two years. She's with them cherubim in glory. But folks, you oughter seen her to onderstand my loss. Five years ago we has a ranch over back of the Tres Hermanas by the Mexico line. The Injuns used to go lopin' by our ranch, no'th an' south, all the time. You-all recalls when they pays twenty-five dollars for skelps in Tucson? My wife's that thrifty them days that she buys all her own an' my child Abby's clothes with the Injuns she pots. Little Abby used to scout for her maw. "Yere comes another!" little Abby would cry, as she stampedes up all breathless, her childish face aglow. With that, my wife would take her hands outen the wash-tub, snag onto that savage with her little old Winchester, and quit winner twenty-five right thar.' "'Which I don't marvel you-all mourns her loss,' says Enright consolin'ly. "'She's shorely--Missis Glegg is--' says old Glegg, shakin' his grizzly head; 'she's shore the most meteoric married lady of which hist'ry says a word. My girl Abby's like her.' "'But whatever's your objection,' argues Enright, 'to this young an' trusty sport who's so eager to wed Abby?' "'I objects to him because he gambles,' says old Glegg. 'I can see he gambles by him pickin' up the salt cellar between his thumb an' middle finger with the forefinger over the top like it's a stack of chips, one evenin' when he stays to supper an' I asks him to "pass the salt." Then ag'in, he don't drink; he tells me so himse'f when I invites him to libate. I ain't goin' to have no teetotal son-in-law around, over-powerin' me in a moral way; I'd feel criticised an' I couldn't stand it, gents. Lastly, I don't like this yere felon's name none.' "'Whatever is his name, then?' asks Enright. 'So far he don't confide no title to us.' "'An' I don't wonder none!' says old Glegg. 'It shows he's decent enough to be ashamed. Thar's hopes of him yet. Gents, his name's Toad Allen. "Allen" goes, but, gents, I flies in the air at "Toad." Do you-all blame me? I asks you, as onbiased sports, would you set ca'mly down while a party named "Toad" puts himse'f in nom'nation to be your son-in-law?' "'None whatever!' says Jack Moore; an' Dan an' Cherokee an' Texas echoes the remark. "'You-all camp down yere with a tumbler of Valley Tan,' says Enright, 'an' make yourse'f comfortable with my colleagues, while I goes an' consults with our Gretna Green outfit in the r'ar room.' "Enright returns after a bit, an' his face has that air of se'f-satisfaction that goes with a gent who's playin' on velvet. "'Your comin' son-in-law,' says Enright to old Glegg, 'defends himse'f from them charges as follows: He agrees to quit gamblin'; he says he lies a whole lot when he tells you-all he don't drink none; an' lastly, deplorin' "Toad" as a cognomen, an' explainin' that he don't assoome it of free choice but sort o' has it sawed off on him in he'pless infancy, he offers--you consentin' to the weddin'--to reorganise onder the name of "Benjamin Glegg Allen."' "Son, this yere last proposal wins over old Glegg in a body. He not only withdraws all objections to the nuptials, but allows he'll make the pinfeather sport an' Abby full partners in the Sunflower. At this p'int, Enright notifies the preacher sharp that all depends on him; an' that excellent teacher at once acquits himse'f so that in two minutes Wolfville adds another successful weddin' to her list of triumphs. "'It 'lustrates too,' says Enright, when two days later the weddin' party has returned to Tucson, an' Wolfville ag'in sinks to a normal state of slumbrous ease, 'it sort o' 'lustrates how open to argyments a gent is when once he's lost his weepons. Now if he isn't disarmed that time, my eloquence wouldn't have had no more effect on old Glegg than throwin' water on a drowned rat.'" CHAPTER XVII. The Clients of Aaron Green. "And so there were no lawyers in Wolfville?" I said. The Old Cattleman filled his everlasting pipe, lighted it, and puffed experimentally. There was a handful of wordless moments devoted to pipe. Then, as one satisfied of a smoky success, he turned attention to me and my remark. "Lawyers in Wolfville?" he repeated. "Not in my day; none whatever! It's mighty likely though that some of 'em's done come knockin' along by now. Them jurists is a heap persistent, not to say diffoosive, an' soon or late they shore trails into every camp. Which we'd have had 'em among us long ago, but nacherally, an' as far as argyments goes, we turns 'em off. Se'f-preservation is a law of nacher, an' these maxims applies to commoonities as much as ever they does to gents personal. Wherefore, whenever we notices a law wolf scoutin' about an' tryin' to get the wind on us, we employs our talents for lyin', fills him up with fallacies, an' teaches him that to come to Wolfville is to put down his destinies on a dead kyard; an' he tharupon abandons whatever of plans he's harbourin' ag'in us, seein' nothin' tharin. "It's jest before I leaves for the East when one of these coyotes crosses up with Old Man Enright in Tucson, an' submits the idee of his professional invasion of our camp. "'Which I'm in the Oriental at the time,' says Enright, when he relates about his adventure, 'an' this maverick goes to jumpin' sideways at me in a friendly mood. Bein' I'm a easy-mannered sport with strangers, he has no trouble gettin' acquainted. At last he allows that he aims to pitch his teepee in Wolfville, hang out a shingle, an' plunge into joorisprudence. "I was thinkin'," says he, "of openin' a joint for the practice of law. As a condition prior advised by the barkeep, an' one which also recommends itse'f to me as dictated of the commonest proodence, I figgers on gainin' your views of these steps." "'"You does well," I replies, "to consult me on them p'ints. I sees you're shore a jo-darter of a lawyer; for you handles the language like a muleskinner does a blacksnake whip. But jest the same, don't for one moment think of breakin' in on Wolfville. That outfit don't practice law none; she practices facts. It offers no openin' for your game. Comin' to Wolfville onder any conditions is ever a movement of gravity, an onless a gent is out to chase cattle or dandle kyards or proposes to array himse'f in the ranks of commerce by foundin' a s'loon, Wolfville would not guarantee his footure any positive reward." "'"Then I jest won't come a whole lot," says this law sharp. Whereupon we engages in mootual drinks an' disperses to our destinies.' "'What you tells this sport,' says Texas Thompson, who's listenin' to Enright, 'echoes my sentiments exact. Anything to keep out law! It ain't alone the jedgments for divorce which my wife grabs off over in Laredo, but it comes to me as the frootes of a experience which has been as wide as it has been plenty soon, that law is only another word for trouble in egreegious forms.' "'So I decides,' retorts Enright. 'Still, I'm proud to be endorsed by as good a jedge of public disorder an' its preventives as Texas Thompson. Sech approvals ever tends to stiffen a gent's play. As I states, I reeverses this practitioner an' heads him t'other way. Wolfville is the home of friendly confidence; the throne of yoonity an' fraternal peace. It must not be jeopardised. We-all don't want to incur no resks by abandonin' ourse'fs to real shore-enough law. It would debauch us: we'd get plumb locoed an' take to racin' wild an' cimarron up an' down the range, an' no gent could foresee results. It's better than even money, that with the advent of a law sharp into our midst, historians of this hamlet would begin their last chapter. They would head her: "Wolfville's Last Days." "'It's twenty years ago,' goes on Enright, 'while I'm that season in Texas, that a sharp packs his blankets into Yellow City an' puts it up he'll practice some law. No; he ain't wanted, but he never does give no gent a chance to say so. He comes trackin' in onannounced, an' the first we-all saveys, thar's his sign a-swingin', an' ashoorin' the sports of Yellow City of the presence of AARON GREEN, ESQ. ATTORNEY-AT-LAW. "'Nobody gets excited; for while we agrees to prevail on him ultimately to shift his camp a heap, the sityooation don't call for nothin' preecipitate. In fact, the idee of him or any other besotted person turnin' loose that a-way in Yellow City, strikes us as loodicrous. Thar's nothing for a law-gent to do. I've met up with a heap of camps in my day; an' I've witnessed the work of many a vig'lance committee; but I'm yere to state that for painstakin' ardour an' a energy that never sleeps, the Stranglers of Yellow City is a even break with the best. They uses up a bale of half-inch rope a year; an' as for law an' order an' a scene of fragrant peace, that outfit is comparable only with flower gyardens on a quiet hazy August afternoon. "'This Aaron Green who prounces thus on Yellow City, intendin' to foment litigations an' go ropin' 'round for fees, is plenty young; but he's that grave an' dignified that owls is hilarious to him. One after the other, he tackles us in a severe onmitigated way, an' shoves his professional kyard onto each an' tells him that whenever he feels ill-used to come a-runnin' an' have his rights preserved. Shore! the boys meets this law person half way. They drinks with him an' fills him up with licker an' fictions alternate, an' altogether regyards him as a mighty yoomerous prop'sition. "'Also, observin' how tender he is, an' him takin' in their various lies like texts of holy writ, they names him "Easy Aaron." Which he don't look on "Easy Aaron" none too well as a title, an' insists on bein' called "Jedge Green" or even "Squar' Green." But Yellow City won't have it; she sticks to "Easy Aaron"; an' as callin' down the entire camp offers prospects full of fever an' oncertainty, he at last passes up the insult an' while he stays among us, pays no further heed. "'Doorin' the weeks he harbours with us, a gen'ral taste deevelops to hear this Easy Aaron's eloquence. Thar's a delegation waits on him an' requests Easy Aaron to come forth an' make a speech. We su'gests that he can yootilise the Burnt Boot Saloon as a auditorium, an' offers as a subject "Texas: her Glorious Past, her Glitterin' Present, an' her Transcendent Footure!" "'"Thar's a topic!" says Shoestring Griffith to Easy Aaron--Shoestring is the cha'rman of the committee,--"thar's a burnin' topic for you! An' if you-all will only come surgin' over to the Burnt Boot right now while you're warm for the event, I offers two to one you makes Cicero look like seven cents." "'But Easy Aaron waves 'em arrogantly away. He declines to go barkin' at a knot. He says it'll be soon enough to onbuckle an' swamp Yellow City with a flood of eloquence when proper legal o'casion enfolds. "'In the room to the r'ar of the apartments where this Easy Aaron holds forth as a practitioner, thar's a farobank as is nacheral enough. It's about second drink time in the afternoon, bein' a time of day when the faro game is dead. A passel of conspirators, with Shoestring Griffith in the lead, goes to this room an' reelaxes into a game of draw. Easy Aaron can hear the flutter of the chips through the partition--the same bein' plenty thin--where he's camped like a spider in its web an' waitin' for some sport who needs law to show up. Easy Aaron listens careless an' indifferent to Shoestring an' his fellow blacklaigs as they deals an' antes an' raises an' rakes in pots, an' everybody mighty joobilant as is frequent over poker. "'Of a suddent, roars an' yells an' reecriminations yoosurps the place of merriment. Then the guns! An' half the lead comes spittin' an' splittin' through that intervenin' partition like she's kyardboard. The bullets flies high enough to miss Easy Aaron, but low enough to invoke a gloomy frame of mind. "'This yere artillery practice don't continyoo long before Yellow City descends on Shoestring an' his band of homicides; an' when they've got 'em sorted out, thar's Billy Goodnight too defunct to skin, an' Shoestring Griffith does it. "'Thar's no time lost; the Stranglers convenes in the Burnt Boot, an' exact jestice stands on expectant tiptoe for its prey. But Shoestring raises objections. "'"Which before ever you-all reptiles takes my innocent life," says Shoestring, "I wants a lawyer. I swings off in style or I don't swing. You hear me! send across for Easy Aaron. You can gamble, I'm going to interpose a defense." "'"That's but right," says Waco Anderson who's the chief of the Stranglers. "Assembled as we be to revenge the ontimely pluggin' of the late Billy Goodnight, still this Shoestring may demand a even deal. If some gent will ramble over an' round up Easy Aaron, as Shoestring desires, it will be regyarded by the committee, an' this lynchin' can then proceed." "'Easy Aaron is onearthed from onder his desk where he's still quiled up, pale an' pantin', by virchoo of the bullets. Jim Wise, who goes for him, explains that the shower is over; an' also that he's in enormous demand to save Shoestring for beefin' Billy Goodnight. At this, Easy Aaron gets up an' coughs 'round for a moment or two, recoverin' his nerve; then he buttons his surtoot, assoomes airs of sagacity, tucks the Texas Statootes onder his arm, reepairs to the Burnt Boot an' allows he's ready to defend Shoestring from said charges. "'"But not onless my fees is paid in advance," says this Easy Aaron. "'At that, we-all passes the hat an' each chucks in a white chip or two, an' when Waco Anderson counts up results it shows wellnigh eighty-five dollars. Easy Aaron shakes his head like it's mighty small; but he takes it an' casts himse'f loose. An', gents, he's shore verbose! He pelts an' pounds that committee with a hailstorm of observations, ontil all they can do is set thar an' wag their y'ears an' bat their eyes. Waco Anderson himse'f allows, when discussin' said oration later, that he ain't beheld nothin' so muddy an' so much since the last big flood on the Brazos. "'After Easy Aaron holds forth for two hours, Waco preevails on him with a six-shooter to pause for breath. Waco's tried twenty times to get Easy Aaron to stop long enough to let the Stranglers get down a verbal bet, but that advocate declines to be restrained. He treats Waco's efforts with scorn an' rides him down like he, Easy Aaron, is a bunch of cattle on a stampede. Thar's no headin' or holdin' him ontil Waco, in desperation, takes to tyrannisin' at him with his gun. "'"It's this," says Waco, when Easy Aaron's subdooed. "If the eminent gent will quit howlin' right yere an' never another yelp, the committee is willin' to throw this villain Shoestring loose. Every one of us is a slave to dooty, but we pauses before personal deestruction in a awful form. Billy Goodnight is gone; ondoubted his murderer should win the doom meted out for sech atrocities; but dooty or no dooty, this committee ain't called on to be talked to death in its discharge. Yellow City makes no sech demands of its servants; wherefore, I repeats, that if this Easy Aaron sits mute where he is, we agrees to cut Shoestring's bonds an' restore him to that freedom whereof he makes sech florid use." "'At this, Easy Aaron stands up, puffs out his chest, bows to Waco an' the others, an' evolves 'em a patronisin' gesture signifyin' that their bluff is called. Shoestring Griffith is saved. "'Doorin' the subsequent line-up at the bar which concloods the ceremonies, Easy Aaron waxes indignant an' is harrowed to observe Billy Goodnight imbibin' with the rest. "'"I thought you-all dead!" says Easy Aaron, in tones of wrathful reproach. "'"Which I was dead," says Billy, sort o' apol'getic, "but them words of fire brings me to." "'Easy Aaron don't make no answer, but as he jingles the fee the sour look relaxes. "'As I remarks, Easy Aaron ain't with us over long. Yellow City is that much worse off than Wolfville that she has a little old 'doby calaboose that's been built since the old Mexico days. Thar's no shore-enough jedge an' jury ever comes to Yellow City; an' if the kyards was so run that we has a captive which the Stranglers deems beneath 'em, he would be drug 'way over yonder to some county seat. It's but fair to say that no sech contretemps presents itse'f up to the advent of Easy Aaron; an' while thar's now an' then a small accoomulation of felons doorin' sech seasons as the boys is off on the ranges or busy with the roundups, thar never fails to come a clean-up in plenty of time. The Stranglers comes back; jestice resoomes her sway, an' the calaboose is ag'in as empty as a church. "'It befalls, however, that doorin' the four or five weeks to follow the acquittal of that homicide Shoestring, an' while Waco Anderson an' a quorum of the committee is away teeterin' about in their own affairs, the calaboose gets filled up with two white men and either four or five Mexicans--I can't say the last for shore, as I ain't got a good mem'ry for Mexicans. These parties is held for divers malefactions from shootin' up a Greaser dance-hall to stealin' a cow over on the Honeymoon. "'To his joy, Easy Aaron is reetained to defend this crim'nal herd. It's shore pleasant to watch him! I never sees the sport who's that proudly content. Easy Aaron visits these yere clients of his every day; an' when he has time, he walks out onto the plains so far that you-all can't hear his tones, an' rehearses the speeches he's aimin' to make when he gets them cut-throats before a jury. We-all could see him prancin' up an' down, tossin' his hands an' all in the most locoed way. As I states, he's too far off to be heard none; but he's in plain view from the front windows of the Burnt Boot, an' we-all finds them antics plumb divertin.' "'"These cases," says Easy Aaron to me, for he's that happy an' enthoosiastic he's got to open up on some gent; "these cases is bound to fix my fame as the modern Demosthenes. You knows how eloquent I am about Shoestring? That won't be a marker to the oration I'll frame up for these miscreants in the calaboose. For why? Shoestring's time I ain't organised; also, I'm more or less shook by the late bullets buzzin' an' hummin' like a passel of bloo-bottle flies about my office. But now will be different. I'll be ready, an' I'll be in a cool frenzy, the same bein' a mood which is excellent, partic'lar if a gent is out to break records for rhetoric. I shore regyards them malefactors as so many rungs for my clamberin' up the ladder of fame." An' with that this Easy Aaron goes pirootin' forth upon the plains ag'in to resoome his talking at a mark. "'It's mebby a week after this exultation of Easy Aaron's, an' Waco Anderson an' the others is in from the ranges. Yellow City is onusual vivacious an' lively. You-all may jedge of the happy prosperity of local feelin' when I assoores you that the average changed in at farobank each evenin' ain't less than twenty thousand dollars. As for Easy Aaron, he's goin' about in clouds of personal an' speshul delight. It's now crowdin' along towards the time when him an' his clients will adjourn over to that county seat an' give Easy Aaron the opportoonity to write his name on the deathless calendars of fame. "'But black disapp'intment gets Easy Aaron squar' in the door. One morning he reepairs to the calaboose to consult with the felons on whose interests he's ridin' herd. Horror seizes him; he finds the cells as vacant as a echo. "'"Where's these clients?" asks Easy Aaron, while his face grows white. "'"Vamosed!" says the Mexican who carries the calaboose keys; an' with that he turns in mighty composed, to roll a cigarette. "'"Vamoosed, where at?" pursoos Easy Aaron. "'"_Por el inferno_!" says the Mexican; he's got his cigarette lighted, an' is puffin' as contented as hoss-thieves. "See thar, _Amigo_!" goes on the Greaser, indicatin' down the street. "'Easy Aaron gazes where the Mexican p'ints, an' his heart turns to water. Thar swayin' an' swingin' like tassels in the mornin' breeze, an' each as dead as Gen'ral Taylor, he beholds his entire docket hangin' to the windmill. Easy Aaron approaches an' counts 'em up. Which they're all thar! The Stranglers shorely makes a house cleanin'. As Easy Aaron looks upon them late clients, he wrings his hands. "'"Thar hangs fame!" says Easy Aaron; "thar hangs my chance of eminence! That eloquence, wherewith my heart is freighted, an' which would have else declar'd me the Erskine of the Brazos, is lynched with my clients." Then wheelin' on Waco Anderson who strolls over, Easy Aaron demands plenty f'rocious: "Whoever does this dastard deed?" "'"Which this agitated sport," observes Waco coldly to Shoestring Griffith, who comes loungin' up likewise, "asks whoever does these yere dastard deeds! Does you-all recall the fate, Shoestring, of the last misguided shorthorn who gives way to sech a query? My mem'ry is never ackerate as to trifles, an' I'm confoosed about whether he's shot or hung or simply burned alive." "'"That prairie dog is hanged a lot," says Shoestring. "Which the boys was goin' to burn him, but on its appearin' that he puts the question more in ignorance than malice, they softens on second thought to that degree they merely gets a rope, adds him to the windmill with the others, an' lets the matter drop." "'Easy Aaron don't crowd his explorations further. He can see thar's what you-all might call a substratum of seriousness to the observations of Waco an' Shoestring, an' his efforts to solve the mystery that disposes of every law case he has, an' leaves him to begin life anew, comes to a halt! "'But it lets pore Easy Aaron out. He borrys a hoss from the corral, packs the Texas Statootes an' his extra shirt in the war-bags, an' with that the only real law wolf who ever makes his lair in Yellow City, p'ints sadly no'thward an' is seen no more. As he's about to ride away, Easy Aaron turns to me. He's sort o' got the notion I ain't so bad as Waco, Shoestring, an' the rest. "I shall never return," says Easy Aaron, an' he shakes his head plenty disconsolate. "Genius has no show in Yellow City. This outfit hangs a gent's clients as fast as ever he's retained an' offers no indoocements--opens no opportoonities, to a ambitious barrister."'" CHAPTER XVIII Colonel Sterett Relates Marvels. "As I asserts frequent," observed the Old Cattleman, the while delicately pruning a bit of wood he'd picked up on his walk, "the funds of information, gen'ral an' speshul, which Colonel William Greene Sterett packs about would freight a eight-mule team. It's even money which of 'em saveys the most, him or Doc Peets. For myself, after careful study, I inclines to the theery that Colonel Sterett's knowledge is the widest, while Peets's is the most exact. Both is college gents; an' yet they differs as to the valyoo of sech sem'naries. The Colonel coppers colleges, while Peets plays 'em to win. "'Them temples of learnin',' says the Colonel, 'is a heap ornate; but they don't make good.' This is doubted by Peets. "One evenin' Dan Boggs, who's allers tantalisin' 'round askin' questions--it looks like a sleepless cur'osity is proned into Dan--ropes at Peets concernin' this topic: "'Whatever do they teach in colleges, Doc?' asks Dan. "'They teaches all of the branches," retorts Peets. "'An' none of the roots,' adds Colonel Sterett, 'as a cunnin' Yank once remarks on a o'casion sim'lar.' "No, the Colonel an' Peets don't go lockin' horns in these differences. Both is a mighty sight too well brought up for that; moreover, they don't allow to set the camp no sech examples. They entertains too high a regyard for each other to take to pawin' about pugnacious, verbal or otherwise. "The Colonel's information is as wide flung as a buzzard's wing. Thar's mighty few mysteries he ain't authorised to eloocidate. An' from time to time, accordin' as the Colonel's more or less in licker, he enlightens Wolfville on a multitoode of topics. Which the Colonel is a profound eddicational innocence; that's whatever! "It's one evenin' an' the moon is swingin' high in the bloo-black heavens an' looks like a gold doorknob to the portals of the eternal beyond. Texas Thompson fixes his eyes tharon, meditative an' pensive, an' then he wonders: "'Do you-all reckon, now, that folks is livin' up thar?' "'Whatever do you think yourse'f, Colonel?' says Enright, passin' the conundrum over to the editor of the _Coyote_. 'Do you think thar's folks on the moon?' "'Do I think thar's folks on the moon?' repeats the Colonel as ca'mly confident as a club flush. 'I don't think,--I knows.' "'Whichever is it then?' asks Dan Boggs, whose ha'r already begins to bristle, he's that inquisitive. 'Simply takin' a ignorant shot in the dark that away, I says, "No." That moon looks like a mighty lonesome loominary to me.' "'Jest the same,' retorts the Colonel, an' he's a lot dogmatic, 'that planet's fairly speckled with people. An' if some gent will recall the errant fancies of Black Jack to a sense of dooty, I'll onfold how I knows. "'It's when I'm crowdin' twenty,' goes on the Colonel, followin' the ministrations of Black Jack, 'an' I'm visitin' about the meetropolis of Looeyville. I've been sellin' a passel of runnin' hosses; an' as I rounds up a full peck of doubloons for the fourteen I disposes of, I'm feelin' too contentedly cunnin' to live. It's evenin' an' the moon is shinin' same as now. I jest pays six bits for my supper at the Galt House, an' lights a ten cent seegyar--Oh! I has the bridle off all right!--an' I'm romancin' leesurly along the street, when I encounters a party who's ridin' herd on one of these yere telescopes, the same bein' p'inted at the effulgent moon. Gents, she's shorely a giant spy-glass, that instrooment is; bigger an' longer than the smokestack of any steamboat between Looeyville an' Noo Orleans. She's swung on a pa'r of shears; each stick a cl'ar ninety foot of Norway pine. As I goes pirootin' by, this gent with the telescope pipes briskly up. "'"Take a look at the moon?" "'"No," I replies, wavin' him off some haughty, for that bag of doubloons has done puffed me up. "No, I don't take no interest in the moon." "'As I'm comin' back, mebby it's a hour later, this astronomer is still swingin' an' rattlin' with the queen of night. He pitches his lariat ag'in an' now he fastens. "'"You-all better take a look; they're havin' the time of their c'reers up thar." "'"Whatever be they doin'?" "'"Tellin' wouldn't do no good," says the savant; "it's one of them rackets a gent has to see to savey." "'"What's the ante?" I asks, for the fires of my cur'osity begins to burn. "'"Four bits! An' considerin' the onusual doin's goin' for'ard, it's cheaper than corn whiskey." "'No; I don't stand dallyin' 'round, tryin' to beat this philosopher down in his price. That ain't my style. When I'm ready to commit myse'f to a enterprise, I butts my way in, makes good the tariff, an' no delays. Tharfore, when this gent names four bits, I onpouches the _dinero_ an' prepares to take a astronomic peek. "'"How long do I gaze for four bits?" I asks, battin' my right eye to get it into piercin' shape. "'"Go as far as you likes," retorts the philosopher; "thar's no limit." "'Gents,' says the Colonel, pausin' to renoo his Valley Tan, while Dan an' Texas an' even Old Man Enright hitches their cha'rs a bit nearer, the interest is that intense; 'gents, you-all should have took a squint with me through them lenses. Which if you enjoys said privilege, you can gamble Dan an' Texas wouldn't be camped 'round yere none tonight, exposin' their ignorance an' lettin' fly croode views concernin' astronomy. That telescope actooally brings the moon plumb into Kaintucky;--brings her within the reach of all. You could stretch to her with your hand, she's that clost.' "'But is thar folks thar?' says Dan, who's excited by the Colonel's disclosures. 'Board the kyard, Colonel, an' don't hold us in suspense." "'Folks!' returns the Colonel. 'I wishes I has two-bit pieces for every one of 'em! The face of that orb is simply festered with folks! She teems with life; ant-hills on election day means desertion by compar'son. Thar's thousands an' thousands of people, mobbin' about indiscrim'nate; I sees 'em as near an' plain as I sees Dan.' "'An' whatever be they doin'?' asks Dan. "'They're pullin' off a hoss race,' says the Colonel, lookin' steady in Dan's eye. 'An' you hears me! I never sees sech bettin' in my life.' "Nacherally we-all feels refreshed with these experiences of Colonel Sterett's, for as Enright observes, it's by virchoo of sech casooal chunks of information that a party rounds out a eddication. "'It ain't what a gent learns in schools,' says Enright, 'that broadens him an' stiffens his mental grip; it's knowledge like this yere moon story from trustworthy sources that augments him an' fills him full. Go on, Colonel, an' onload another marvel or two. You-all must shore have witnessed a heap!' "'Them few sparse facts touchin' the moon,' returns Colonel Sterett, 'cannot be deemed wonders in any proper sense. They're merely interestin' details which any gent gets onto who brings science to his aid. But usin' the word "wonders," I does once blunder upon a mir'cle which still waits to be explained. That's a shore-enough marvel! An' to this day, all I can state is that I sees it with these yere eyes.' "'Let her roll!' says Texas Thompson. 'That moon story prepares us for anything.' "'Texas,' observes the Colonel, a heap severe, 'I'd hate to feel that your observations is the jeerin' offspring of distrust.' "'Me distrust!' replies Texas, hasty to squar' himse'f. 'I'd as soon think of distrustin' that Laredo divorce of my former he'pmeet! An' as the sheriff drives off two hundred head of my cattle by way of alimony, I deems the fact of that sep'ration as fixed beyond cavil. No, Colonel, you has my fullest confidence. I'd go doubtin' the evenhanded jestice of Cherokee's faro game quicker than distrustin' you.' "'An' I'm present to say,' returns the Colonel mighty complacent, 'that I looks on sech assoorances as complimentary. To show which I onhesitatin'ly reels off that eepisode to which I adverts. "'I'm only a child; but I retains my impressions as sharp cut an' cl'ar as though she happens yesterday. It's a time when one of these legerdemain sharps pastes up his bills in our village an' lets on he'll give a show in Liberty Hall on the comin' Saturday evenin'. An' gents, to simply read of the feats he threatens to perform would loco you! Besides, thar's a picture of Satan, black an' fiery an' frightful, where he's he'pin' this gifted person to foist said mir'cles upon the age. I don't exaggerate none when I asserts that the moment our village gets its eye on these three-sheets it comes to a dead halt. "'Old Squar' Alexanders is the war chief of the hamlet, an' him an' the two other selectmen c'llects themse'fs over their toddies an' canvasses whether they permits this wizard to give his fiendish exhibitions in our midst. They has it pro an' con ontil the thirteenth drink, when Squar' Alexanders who's ag'in the wizard brings the others to his views; an' as they staggers forth from the tavern it's the yoonanimous decision to bar that Satan-aided show. "'"Witches, wizards, elves, gnomes, bull-beggars, fiends, an' devils is debarred the Bloo Grass Country," says Squar' Alexanders, speakin' for himse'f an' his fellow selectmen, "an' they're not goin' to be allowed to hold their black an' sulphurous mass meetin's yere." "'It comes Saturday evenin' an' the necromancer is in the tavern eatin' his supper. Shore! he looks like common folks at that! Squar' Alexanders is waitin' for him in the bar. When he shows up, carelessly pickin' his teeth, it's mebby half a hour before the show, Squar' Alexanders don't fritter away no time, but rounds up the wizard. "'"Thar's no show which has Satan for a silent partner goin' to cut itse'f loose in this village," says Squar' Alexanders. "'"What's this talk about Satan?" responds the wizard. "I don't savey no more about Satan than I does about you." "'"Look at them bills," says Squar' Alexanders, an' he p'ints to where one is hangin' on the barroom wall. It gives a picture of the foul fiend, with pitchfork, spear-head tail an' all. "Whatever do you call that?" "'"That's a bluff," says the wizard. "If Kaintucky don't get tangled up with Satan ontil I imports him to her fertile shores, you cimmarons may regyard yourse'fs as saved." "'"Be you-all goin' to do the sundry deeds you sets forth in the programmes?" asks Squar' Alexanders after a pause. "'"Which I shorely be!" says the wizard, "an' if I falls down or fails you can call me a ab'litionist." "'"Then all I has to say is this," returns Squar' Alexanders; "no gent could do them feats an' do 'em on the level. You'd have to have the he'p of demons to pull em off. An' that brings us back to my first announcement; an' stranger, your show don't go." "'At this the wizard lets on he's lost patience with Squar' Alexanders an' declares he won't discuss with him no more. Also, he gives it out that, Satan, or no Satan, he'll begin to deal his game at eight o'clock. "'"Very well!" rejoins Squar' Alexanders. "Since you refooses to be warned I shall shore instruct the constable to collar you on the steps of Liberty Hall." As he says this, Squar' Alexanders p'ints across to Chet Kishler, who's the constable, where he's restin' hhnse'f in front of Baxter's store. "'This yere Chet is a giant an' clost onto eight foot high. It's a warm evenin', an' as the wizard glances over at Chet, he notices how that offishul is lazily fannin' himse'f with a barn-door which he's done lifted off the hinges for that coolin' purpose. The wizard don't say nothin', but he does turn a mite pale; he sees with half a eye that Satan himse'f would be he'pless once Chet gets his two paws on him. However, he assoomes that he's out to give the show as per schedoole. "'It's makin' toward eight when the wizard lights a seegyar, drinks four fingers of Willow Run, an' goes p'intin' out for Liberty Hall. Chet gets up, hangs the barn-door back on its hinges, an' sa'nters after. Squar' Alexanders has posted Chet as to his dooties an' his orders is to prounce on the necromancer if he offers to enter the hall. That's how the cavalcade lines up: first, the wizard; twenty foot behind is Chet; an' twenty foot behind our constable comes the public in a body. "'About half way to Liberty Hall the wizard begins to show nervous an' oncertain. He keeps lookin' back at Chet; an' even in my childish simplicity I sees that he ain't pleased with the outlook. At last he weakens an' abandons his idee of a show. Gents, as I fills my glass, I asks you-all however now do you reckon that wizard beats a retreat?' "Thar's no reply. Dan, Texas, an' the others, while Colonel Sterett acquires his licker, shakes their heads dumbly as showin' they gives it up. "'Which you'd shorely never guess!' retorts the Colonel, wipin' his lips. 'Of a sudden, this wizard tugs somethin' outen his pocket that looks like a ball of kyarpet-rags. Holdin' one end, quick as thought he tosses the ball of kyarpet-rags into the air. It goes straight up ontil lost to view, onwindin' itse'f in its flight because of the wizard holdin' on. "'Gents, that ball of kyarpet-rags never does come down no-more! An' it's all done as easy as a set-lock rifle! The wizard climbs the danglin' string of kyarpet-rags, hand over hand; then he drifts off an' up'ards ontil he don't look bigger than a bumble-bee; an' then he's lost in the gatherin' shadows of the Jooly night. "'Squar' Alexanders, Chet, an' the village stands strainin' their eyes for twenty minutes. But the wizard's vamosed; an' at last, when each is convinced tharof, the grown folks led by Squar' Alexanders reepairs back into the tavern an' takes another drink.' "'That's a mighty marvellous feat your necromancer performs, Colonel,' remarks Enright, an' the old chief is grave as becomes the Colonel's revelations; 'he's a shore-enough wonder-worker, that wizard is!' "But I ain't got to the wonders none as yet,' reemonstrates the Colonel, who spunks up a bit peevish for him. 'An' from the frequent way wherein I'm interrupted, it don't look much like I will. Goin' sailin' away into darklin' space with that ball of enchanted kyarpet-rags,--that ain't the sooper-nacheral part at all! Shore! ondoubted it's some hard to do as a feat, but still thar's other feachers which from the standp'int of the marvellous overpowers it like four kings an' a ace. That wonder is this: It's quarter to eight when the wizard takes his flight by means of the kyarpet-rags. Gents, at eight o'clock sharp the same evenin' he walks on the stage an' gives a show at St. Looey, hundreds of miles away.'" CHAPTER XIX. The Luck of Hardrobe. "Which I tells this yere narrative first, back in one of them good old Red Light evenin's when it's my turn to talk." The Old Cattleman following this remark, considered me for a moment in silence. I had myself been holding the floor of discussion in a way both rambling and pointless for some time. I had spoken of the national fortune of Indians, their superstitions, their ill-luck, and other savage subjects various and sundry. My discourse had been remarkable perhaps for emphasis rather than accuracy; and this too held a purpose. It was calculated to rouse my raconteur and draw him to a story. Did what I say lack energy, he might go to sleep in his chair; he had done this more than once when I failed of interest. Also, if what I told were wholly true and wanting in ripple of romantic error, even though my friend did me the compliment of wakefulness, he would make no comment. Neither was he likely to be provoked to any recital of counter experiences. At last, however, he gave forth the observation which I quote above and I saw that I had brought him out. I became at once wordless and, lighting a cigar, leaned back to listen. "As I observes," he resumed, following a considerable pause which I was jealous to guard against word or question of my own; "I tells this tale to Colonel Sterett, Old Man Enright, an' the others one time when we're restin' from them Wolfville labours of ours an' renooin' our strength with nosepaint in the Red Light bar. Jest as you does now, Dan Boggs takes up this question of luck where Cherokee Hall abandons it, an' likewise the subject of savages where Texas Thompson lays 'em down, an' after conj'inin' the two in fashions I deems a heap weak, allows that luck is confined strictly to the paleface; aborigines not knowin' sufficient to become the target of vicissitoodes, excellent or otherwise. "'Injuns is too ignorant to have what you-all calls "luck,"' says Dan. 'That gent who's to be affected either up or down by "luck" has got to have some mental cap'bilities. An' as Injuns don't answer sech deescriptions, they ain't no more open to "luck" than to enlight'ment. "Luck" an' Injuns when took together, is preepost'rous! It's like talkin' of a sycamore tree havin' luck. Gents, it ain't in the deck!' An' tharupon Dan seals his views by demandin' of Black Jack the bottle with glasses all 'round. "'When it comes to that, Boggs,' says Colonel Sterett, as he does Dan honour in four fingers of Valley Tan, 'an' talkin' of luck, I'm yere to offer odds that the most poignant hard-luck story on the list is the story of Injuns as a race. An' I won't back-track their game none further than Columbus at that. The savages may have found life a summer's dream prior to the arrival of that Eytalian mariner an' the ornery Spainiards he surrounds himse'f with. But from the looks of the tabs, the deal since then has gone ag'inst 'em. The Injuns don't win once. White folks, that a-way, is of themse'fs bad luck incarnate to Injuns. The savage never so much as touches 'em or listens to 'em or imitates 'em, but he rots down right thar. Which the pale-face shorely kills said Injuns on the nest! as my old grand-dad used to say.' "'When I recalls the finish of Hardrobe,' I remarks, sort o' cuttin' into the argyment, the same bein' free an' open to all, 'an' I might add by way of a gratootity in lines of proof, the finish of his boy, Bloojacket, I inclines to string my chips with Colonel Sterett.' "'Give us the details concernin' this Hardrobe,' says Doc Peets. 'For myse'f, I'm prone an' eager to add to my information touchin' Injuns at every openin'.' "As Enright an' the rest makes expression sim'lar, I proceeds to onbuckle. I don't claim much for the tale neither. Still, I wouldn't copper it none for it's the trooth, an' the trooth should allers be played 'open' every time. I'll tell you-all this Hardrobe story as I onfolds it to them." It was here my friend began looking about with a vaguely anxious eye. I saw his need and pressed the button. "I was aimin' to summon my black boy, Tom," he said. When a moment later his favourite decanter appeared in the hands of one of the bar-boys of the hostelry, who placed it on a little table at his elbow and withdrew, the necessity for "Tom" seemed to disappear, and recurring to Hardrobe, he went on. "Hardrobe is a Injun--a Osage buck an' belongs to the war clan of his tribe. He's been eddicated East an' can read in books, an' pow-wows American mighty near as flooent as I does myse'f. An' on that last p'int I'll take a chance that I ain't tongue-tied neither. "Which this yere is a long time ago. Them is days when I'm young an' lithe an' strong. I can heft a pony an' I'm six foot two in my moccasins. No, I ain't so tall by three inches now; old age shortens a gent up a whole lot. "My range is on the south bank of Red River--over on the Texas side. Across on the no'th is the Nation--what map folks call the 'Injun Territory.' In them epocks we experiences Injuns free an' frequent, as our drives takes us across the Nation from south to no'th the widest way. We works over the old Jones an' Plummer trail, which thoroughfare I alloodes to once or twice before. I drives cattle over it an' I freights over it,--me an' my eight-mule team. An' I shorely knows where all the grass an' wood an' water is from the Red River to the Flint Hills. "Speakin' of the Jones an' Plummer trail, I once hears a dance-hall girl who volunteers some songs over in a Tucson hurdygurdy, an' that maiden sort o' dims my sights some. First, she gives us _The Dying Ranger_, the same bein' enough of itse'f to start a sob or two; speshul when folks is, as Colonel Sterett says, 'a leetle drinkin'.' Then when the public clamours for more she sings something which begins: "'Thar's many a boy who once follows the herds, On the Jones an' Plummer trail; Some dies of drink an' some of lead, An' some over kyards, an' none in bed; But they're dead game sports, so with naught but good words, We gives 'em "Farewell an' hail."' "Son, this sonnet brings down mem'ries; and they so stirs me I has to _vamos_ that hurdygurdy to keep my emotions from stampedin' into tears. Shore, thar's soft spots in me the same as in oilier gents; an' that melody a-makin' of references to the old Jones an' Plummer days comes mighty clost to meltin' everything about me but my guns an' spurs. "This yere cattle business ain't what it used to be; no more is cow-punchers. Things is gettin' effete. These day it's a case of chutes an' brandin' pens an' wire fences an' ten-mile pastures, an' thar's so little ropin' that a boy don't have practice enough to know how to catch his pony. "In the times I'm dreamin' of all this is different. I recalls how we frequent works a month with a beef herd, say of four thousand head, out on the stark an' open plains, ropin' an' throwin' an' runnin' a road-brand onto 'em. Thar's a dozen different range brands in the bunch, mebby, and we needs a road-brand common to 'em all, so in case of stampedes on our trip to the no'th we knows our cattle ag'in an' can pick 'em out from among the local cattle which they takes to minglin' with. It's shorely work, markin' big strong steers that-away! Throwin' a thousand-pound longhorn with a six hundred-pound cayouse is tellin' on all involved an' a gent who's pitchin' his rope industrious will wear down five broncos by sundown. "It's a sharp winter an' cattle dies that fast they simply defies the best efforts of ravens an' coyotes to get away with the supply. It's been blowin' a blizzard of snow for weeks. The gales is from the no'th an' they lashes the plains from the Bad Lands to the Rio Grande. When the storm first prounces on the cattle up yonder in the Yellowstone country, the he'pless beasts turns their onprotestin' tails and begins to drift. For weeks, as I remarks, that tempest throws itse'f loose, an' night an' day, what cattle keeps their feet an' lives, comes driftin' on. "Nacherally the boys comes with 'em. Their winter sign-camps breaks up an' the riders turns south with the cattle. No, they can't do nothin'; you-all couldn't turn 'em or hold 'em or drive 'em back while the storm lasts. But it's the dooty of the punchers to keep abreast of their brands an' be thar the moment the blizzard abates. "It's shore a spectacle! For a wild an' tossin' front of five hundred miles, from west to east, the storm-beat herds comes driftin'. An' ridin' an' sw'arin' an' plungin' about comes with 'em the boys on their broncos. They don't have nothin' more'n the duds on their backs, an' mebby their saddle blankets an' slickers. But they kills beef to eat as they needs it, an' the ponies paws through the snow for grass, an' they exists along all right. For all those snow-filled, wind-swept weeks they're ridin' an' cussin'. They comes spatterin' through the rivers, an' swoopin' an' whoopin' over the divides that lays between. They crosses the Heart an' the Cannon Ball an' the Cheyenne an' the White an' the Niobrara an' the Platte an' the Republican an' the Solomon an' the Smoky an' the Arkansaw, to say nothin' of the hundreds of forks an' branches which flows an' twines an' twists between; an' final, you runs up on boys along the Canadian who's come from the Upper Missouri. An' as for cattle! it looks like it's one onbroken herd from Fort Elliot to where the Canadian opens into the Arkansaw! "The chuck waggons of a thousand brands ain't two days behind the boys, an' by no time after that blizzard simmers, thar's camp-fires burnin' an' blinkin' between the Canadian an' the Red all along from the Choctaw country as far west as the Panhandle. Shore, every cow-puncher makes for the nearest smoke, feeds up an' recooperates; and then he with the others begins the gatherin' of the cattle an' the slow northern drive of the return. Which the spring overtakes 'em an' passes 'em on it's way to the no'th, an' the grass is green an' deep before ever they're back on their ranges ag'in. "It's a great ride, says you? Son, I once attends where a lecture sharp holds forth as to Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. As was the proper thing I sets silent through them hardships. But I could, it I'm disposed to become a disturbin' element or goes out to cut loose cantankerous an' dispootatious in another gent's game, have showed him the French experiences that Moscow time is Sunday school excursions compared with these trips the boys makes when on the breath of that blizzard they swings south with their herds. Them yooths, some of 'em, is over eight hundred miles from their home-ranch; an' she's the first an' only time I ever meets up with a Yellowstone brand on the Canadian. "You-all can put down a bet I'm no idle an' listless looker-on that blizzard time; an' I grows speshul active at the close. It behooves us Red River gents of cattle to stir about. The wild hard-ridin' knight-errants of the rope an' spur who cataracts themse'fs upon us with their driftin' cattle doorin' said tempest looks like they're plenty cap'ble of drivin' our steers no'th with their own, sort o' makin' up the deeficiencies of the storm. "I brands over four thousand calves the spring before, which means I has at least twenty thousand head,--or five times what I brands--skallihootin' an' hybernatin' about the ranges. An' bein' as you-all notes some strong on cattle, an' not allowin' none for them Yellowstone adventurers to drive any of 'em no'th, I've got about 'leven outfits at work, overhaulin' the herds an' round-ups, an' ridin' round an' through 'em, weedin' out my brand an' throwin' 'em back on my Red River range. I has to do it, or our visitin' Yellowstone guests would have stole me pore as Job's turkey. "Whatever is a 'outfit' you asks? It's a range boss, a chuck waggon with four mules an' a range cook, two hoss hustlers to hold the ponies, eight riders an' a bunch of about seventy ponies--say seven to a boy. These yere 'leven outfits I speaks of is scattered east an' west mebby she's a-hundred miles along the no'th fringe of my range, a-combin' an' a-searchin' of the bunches an' cuttin' out all specimens of my brand when found. For myse'f, personal, I'm cavortin' about on the loose like, stoppin' some nights at one camp' an' some nights at another, keepin' cases on the deal. "It's at one of my camps one evenin' when I crosses up first with this yere Hardrobe. His boy, Bloojacket, is with him. Hardrobe himse'f is mebby goin' on fifty, while Bloojacket ain't more'n say twenty-one. Shore, they're out for cattle, too; them savages has a heap of cattle, an' since they finds their brands an' bunches same as the rest of us all tangled up with the Yellowstone aliens doorin' the blizzard, Hardrobe an' his boy Bloojacket rides up an' asks can they work partners with a outfit of mine. "As I explains previous I'm averse to Injuns, but this Hardrobe is a onusual Injun; an' as he's settin' in ag'inst a stiff game the way things is mixed up, an' bein' only him an' his boy he's too weak to protect himse'f, I yields consent, I yields the more pleasant for fear,--since I drives through the Osage country now an' then--this Hardrobe an' his heir plays even by stampedin' my cattle some evenin' if I don't. Thar's nothin' like a dash of se'f-interest to make a gent urbane, an' so I invites Hardrobe an' Bloojacket to make my camp their headquarters like I'd been yearnin' for the chance. "As you-all must have long ago tracked up on the information, it's sooperfluous for me to su'gest that a gent gets used to things. Moreover he gets used frequent to things that he's born with notions ag'inst; an' them aversions will simmer an' subside ontil he's friendly with folks he once honed to shoot on sight. It turns out that a-way about me an' this Hardrobe an' his boy Bloojacket. What he'ps, no doubt, is they're capar'soned like folks, with big hats, bloo shirts, trousers, cow-laiggin's, boots an' spurs, fit an' ready to enter a civilised parlour at the drop of the handkerchief. Ceasin' to rope for reasons, however, it's enough to say these savages an' me waxes as thick as m'lasses. Both of 'em's been eddicated at some Injun school which the gov'ment--allers buckin' the impossible, the gov'ment is,--upholds in its vain endeavours to turn red into white an' make folks of a savage. "Bloojacket is down from the Bad Land country himself not long prior, bein' he's been servin' his Great Father as one of Gen'ral Crook's scouts in the Sittin' Bull campaign. This young Bloojacket,--who's bubblin' over with sperits--has a heap of interestin' stories about the 'Grey Fox.' It's doo to Bloojacket to say he performs them dooties of his as a scout like a clean-strain sport, an' quits an' p'ints back for the paternal camp of Hardrobe in high repoote. Thar's one feat of fast hard ridin' that Injun performs, which I hears from others, an' which you-all might not find oninterestin' if I saws it onto you. "Merritt with three hundred cavalry marches twenty-five miles one mornin'. Thar's forty Injun scouts along, among 'em this Bloojacket; said copper-hued auxiliaries bein' onder the command of Gen'ral Stanton, as game an' good a gent as ever packs a gun. It's at noon; Merritt an' his outfit camps at the Rawhide Buttes. Thar's a courier from Crook overtakes 'em. He says that word comes trailin' in that the Cheyennes at the Red Cloud agency is makin' war medicine an' about to go swarmin' off to hook up with Sittin' Bull an' Crazy Hoss in the Sioux croosades. Crook tells Merritt to detach a band of his scouts to go flutterin' over to Red Cloud an' take a look at the Cheyennes's hand. "Stanton tells off four of his savages an' lines out with them for the Red Cloud agency; Bloojacket bein' one. From the Rawhide Buttes to the Red Cloud agency is one hundred even miles as a bullet travels. What makes it more impressive, them one hundred miles is across a trailless country, the same bein' as rocky as Red Dog whiskey an' rough as the life story of a mule. Which Stanton, Bloojacket an' the others makes her in twelve hours even, an' comes up, a crust of dust an' sweat, to the Red Cloud agency at midnight sharp. The Cheyennes has already been gone eight hours over the Great Northern trail. "Stanton, who's a big body of a man an' nacherally tharfore some road-weary, camps down the moment he's free of the stirrups an' writes a letter on the agency steps by the light of a lantern. He tells Merritt to push on to the War Bonnet an' he'll head the Cheyennes off. Then he sends the Red Cloud interpreter an' four local Injuns with lead hosses to pack this information back to Merritt who's waitin' the word at the Rawhide Buttes. Bloojacket, for all he's done a hundred miles, declar's himse'f in on this second excursion to show the interpreter the way. "'But you-all won't last through,' says Stanton, where he sets on the steps, quaffin' whiskey an' reinvig'ratin' himse'f. "'Which if I don't, I'll turn squaw!' says Bloojacket, an' gettin' fresh hosses with the others he goes squanderin' off into the midnight. "Son, them savages, havin' lead hosses, rides in on Merritt by fifth drink time or say, 'leven o'clock that mornin';--one hundred miles in 'leven hours! An' Bloojacket some wan an' weary for a savage is a-leadin' up the dance. Mighty fair ridin' that boy Bloojacket does! Two hundred miles in twenty-three hours over a clost country ain't bad! Which it's me who says so: an' one time an' another I shore shoves plenty of scenery onder the hoofs of a cayouse myse'f. "About the foogitive Cheyennes? Merritt moves up to the War Bonnet like Stanton su'gests, corrals 'em, kills their ponies an' drives 'em back to the agency on foot. Thar's nothin' so lets the whey outen a hoss-back Injun like puttin' him a-foot: an the Cheyennes settles down in sorrow an' peace immediate. "While Hardrobe an' his boy Bloojacket is with me, I'm impressed partic'lar by the love they b'ars each other. I never does cut the trail of a father an' son who gives themse'fs up to one another like this Hardrobe an' his Bloojacket boy. I can see that Bloojacket regyards old Hardrobe like he's the No'th Star; an' as for Hardrobe himse'f, he can't keep his eyes off that child of his. You'd have had his life long before he'd let you touch a braid of Bloojacket's long ha'r. Both of 'em's plenty handsome for Injuns; tall an' lean an' quick as coyotes, with hands an' feet as little as a woman's. "While I don't go pryin' 'round this Hardrobe's private affairs--savages is mighty sensitive of sech matters--I learns, incidental, that Hardrobe is fair rich. He's rich even for Osages; an' they're as opulent savages as ever makes a dance or dons a feather. Later, I finds out that Hardrobe's squaw--Bloojacket's mother--is dead. "'See thar?' says Hardrobe one day. We're in the southern border of the Osage country on the Grayhoss at the time, an' he p'ints to a heap of stones piled up like a oven an' chimley, an' about four foot high. I saveys thar's a defunct Osage inside. You-all will behold these little piles of burial stones on every knoll an' hill in the Osage country. 'See thar,' says this Hardrobe, p'intin'. 'That's my squaw. Mighty good squaw once; but heap dead now.' "Then Hardrobe an' Bloojacket rides over an' fixes a little flag they've got in their war-bags to a pole which sticks up'ards outen this tomb, flyin' the ensign as Injuns allers does, upside down. "It's six months later, mebby--an' it's now the hard luck begins--when I hears how Hardrobe weds a dance-hall girl over to Caldwell. This maiden's white; an' as beautiful as a flower an' as wicked as a trant'ler. Hardrobe brings her to his ranch in the Osage country. "The next tale I gets is that Bloojacket, likewise, becomes a victim to the p'isenous fascinations of this Caldwell dance-hall damsel, an' that him an' Hardrobe falls out; Hardrobe goin' on the warpath an' shootin' Bloojacket up a lot with a Winchester. He don't land the boy at that; Bloojacket gets away with a shattered arm. Also, the word goes that Hardrobe is still gunnin' for Bloojacket, the latter havin' gone onder cover some'ers by virchoo of the injured pinion. "As Colonel Sterett says, these pore aborigines experiences bad luck the moment ever they takes to braidin' in their personal destinies with a paleface. I don't blame 'em none neither. I sees this Caldwell seraph on one o'casion myse'f; she's shore a beauty! an' whenever she throws the lariat of her loveliness that a-way at a gent, she's due to fasten. "It's a month followin' this division of the house of Hardrobe when I runs up on him in person. I encounters him in one of the little jim-crow restauraws you-all finds now an' then in the Injun country. Hardrobe an' me shakes, an' then he camps down ag'in at a table where he's feedin' on fried antelope an' bakin' powder biscuit. "I'm standin' at the counter across the room. Jest as I turns my back, thar's the crack! of a rifle to the r'ar of the j'int, an' Hardrobe pitches onto the floor as dead as ever transpires in that tribe. In the back door, with one arm in a sling, an' a gun that still smokes, ca'm an' onmoved like Injuns allers is, stands Bloojacket. "'My hand is forced,' he says, as he passes me his gun; 'it's him or me! One of us wore the death-mark an' had to go.' "'Couldn't you-all have gone with Crook ag'in?' I says. 'Which you don't have to infest this yere stretch of country. Thar's no hobbles or sidelines on you; none whatever!' "Bloojacket makes no reply, an' his copper face gets expressionless an' inscrootable. I can see through, however; an' it's the hobbles of that Caldwell beauty's innocence that's holdin' him. "Bloojacket walks over to where Hardrobe's layin' dead an' straightens him round--laigs an' arms--an' places his big white cow hat over his face. Thar's no more sign of feelin', whether love or hate, in the eyes of Bloojacket while he performs these ceremonies than if Hardrobe's a roll of blankets. But thar's no disrespects neither; jest a great steadiness. When he has composed him out straight, Bloojacket looks at the remainder for mebby a minute. Then he shakes his head. "'He was a great man,' says Bloojacket, p'intin' at his dead father, with his good hand; 'thar's no more like him among the Osages.' "Tharupon Bloojacket wheels on the half-breed who runs the deadfall an' who's standin' still an' scared, an' says: "'How much does he owe?' Then he pays Hardrobe's charges for antelope steaks an' what chuck goes with it, an' at the close of these fiscal op'rations, remarks to the half-breed--who ain't sayin' no more'n he can he'p,--'Don't touch belt nor buckle on him; you-all knows me!' An' I can see that half-breed restauraw party is out to obey Bloojacket's mandates. "Bloojacket gives himse'f up to the Osages an' is thrown loose on p'role. But Bloojacket never gets tried. "A week rides by, an' he's standin' in front of the agency, sort o' makin' up some views concernin' his destinies. He's all alone; though forty foot off four Osage bucks is settin' together onder a cottonwood playin' Injun poker--the table bein' a red blanket spread on the grass,--for two bits a corner. These yere sports in their blankets an' feathers, an' rifflin' their greasy deck, ain't sayin' nothin to Bloojacket an' he ain't sayin' nothin' to them. Which jest the same these children of nacher don't like the idee of downin' your parent none, an' it's apparent Bloojacket's already half exiled. "As he stands thar roominatin,' with the hot August sun beatin' down, thar's a atmosphere of sadness to go with Bloojacket. But you-all would have to guess at it; his countenance is as ca'm as on that murderin' evenin' in the half-breed's restauraw. "Bloojacket is still thar, an' the sports onder the cottonwood is still gruntin' joyously over their poker, when thar comes the patter of a bronco's hoofs. Thar's a small dust cloud, an' then up sweeps the Caldwell beauty. She comes to a pull-up in front of Bloojacket. That savage glances up with a inquirin' eye an' the glance is as steady as the hills about him. The Caldwell beauty--it seems she disdains mournin'--is robed like a rainbow; an' she an' Bloojacket, him standin', she on her bronco, looks each other over plenty intent. "Which five minutes goes by if one goes by, an' thar the two stares into each other's eyes; an' never a word. The poker bucks keeps on with their gamble over onder the cottonwood, an' no one looks at the two or seems like they heeds their existence. The poker savages is onto every move; but they're troo to the Injun idee of p'liteness an' won't interfere with even so much as the treemor of a eyelash with other folks's plays. "Bloojacket an' the Caldwell beauty is still gazin'. At last the Caldwell beauty's hand goes back, an' slow an' shore, brings to the front a eight-inch six-shooter. Bloojacket, with his eye still on her an' never a flicker of feelin', don't speak or move. "The Caldwell beauty smiles an' shows her white teeth. Then she lays the gun across her left arm, an' all as solid as a church. Her pony's gone to sleep with his nose between his knees; an' the Caldwell beauty settles herse'f in the saddle so's to be ready for the plunge she knows is comin'. The Caldwell beauty lays out her game as slow an' delib'rate as trees; Bloojacket lookin' on with onwinkin' eye, while the red-blanket bucks plays along an' never a whisper of interest. "'Which this yere pistol overshoots a bit!' says the Caldwell beauty, as she runs her eye along the sights. 'I must aim low or I'll shore make ragged work.' "Bloojacket hears her, but offers no retort; he stands moveless as a stachoo. Thar's a flash an' a crash an' a cloud of bloo smoke; the aroused bronco makes a standin' jump of twenty foot. The Caldwell beauty keeps her saddle, an' with never a swerve or curve goes whirlin' away up the brown, burnt August trail, Bloojacket lays thar on his face; an' thar's a bullet as squar' between the eyes as you-all could set your finger-tip. Which he's dead--dead without a motion, while the poker bucks plays ca'mly on." My venerable friend came to a full stop. After a respectful pause, I ventured an inquiry. "And the Caldwell beauty?" I said. "It ain't a week when she's ag'in the star of that Caldwell hurdygurdy where she ropes up Hardrobe first. Her laugh is as loud an' as' free, her beauty as profoundly dazzlin' as before; she swings through twenty quadrilles in a evenin' from 'Bow-to-your-partners' to 'All-take-a-drink-at-the-bar'; an' if she's preyed on by them Osage tragedies you shore can't tell it for whiskey, nor see if for powder an' paint." CHAPTER XX. Colonel Coyote Clubbs. "Which as a roole," said the Old Cattleman, "I speaks with deference an' yields respects to whatever finds its source in nacher, but this yere weather simply makes sech attitoode reedic'lous, an' any encomiums passed thar-on would sound sarkastic." Here my friend waved a disgusted hand towards the rain-whipped panes and shook his head. "Thar's but one way to meet an' cope successful with a day like this," he ran on, "an' that is to put yourse'f in the hands of a joodicious barkeep--put yourse'f in his hands an' let him pull you through. Actin' on this idee I jest despatches my black boy Tom for a pitcher of peach an' honey, an', onless you-all has better plans afoot, you might as well camp an' wait deevelopments, same as old man Wasson does when he's treed by the b'ar." Promptly came the peach and honey, and with its appearance the pelting storm outside lost power to annoy. My companion beamingly did me honour in a full glass. After a moment fraught of silence and peach and honey, and possibly, too, from some notion of pleasing my host with a compliment, I said: "That gentleman with whom you were in converse last evening told me he never passed a more delightful hour than he spent listening to you. You recall whom I mean?" "Recall him? Shore," retorted my friend as he recurred to the pitcher for a second comforter. "You-all alloodes to the little gent who's lame in the nigh hind laig. He appeals to me, speshul, as he puts me in mind of old Colonel Coyote Clubbs who scares up Doc Peets that time. Old Coyote is lame same as this yere person." "Frighten Peets!" I exclaimed, with a great air; "you amaze me! Give me the particulars." "Why, of course," he replied, "I wouldn't be onderstood that Peets is terrorised outright. Still, old Colonel Coyote shore stampedes him an' forces Peets to fly. It's either _vamos_ or shoot up pore Coyote; an' as Peets couldn't do the latter, his only alternative is to go scatterin' as I states. "This yere Coyote has a camp some ten miles to the no'th an' off to one side of the trail to Tucson. Old Coyote lives alone an' has built himse'f a dugout--a sort o' log hut that's half in an' half outen the ground. His mission on earth is to slay coyotes--'Wolfin'' he calls it--for their pelts; which Coyote gets a dollar each for the furs, an' the New York store which buys 'em tells Coyote to go as far as he likes. They stands eager to purchase all he can peel offen them anamiles. "No; Coyote don't shoot these yere little wolves; he p'isens 'em. Coyote would take about twelve foot, say, of a pine tree he's cut down--this yere timber is mebby eight inches through--an' he'll bore in it a two-inch auger hole every two foot. These holes is some deep; about four inches it's likely. Old Coyote mixes his p'isen with beef tallow, biles them ingredients up together a lot, an' then, while she's melted that a-way, he pours it into these yere auger holes an' lets it cool. It gets good an' hard, this arsenic-tallow does, an' then Coyote drags the timber thus reg'lated out onto the plains to what he regyards as a elegible local'ty an' leaves it for the wolves to come an' batten on. Old Coyote will have as many as a dozen of these sticks of timber, all bored an' framed up with arsenic-tallow, scattered about. Each mornin' while he's wolfin', Coyote makes a round-up an' skins an' counts up his prey. An' son, you hear me! he does a flourishin' trade. "Why don't Coyote p'isen hunks of meat you asks? For obvious reasons. In sech events the victim bolts the piece of beef an' lopes off mebby five miles before ever he succumbs. With this yere augur hole play it's different. The wolf has to lick the arsenic-tallow out with his tongue an' the p'isen has time an' gets in its work. That wolf sort o' withers right thar in his tracks. At the most he ain't further away than the nearest water; arsenic makin' 'em plenty thirsty, as you-all most likely knows. "Old Coyote shows up in Wolfville about once a month, packin' in his pelts an' freightin' over to his wickeyup whatever in the way of grub he reckons he needs. Which, if you was ever to see Coyote once, you would remember him. He's shore the most egreegious person, an' in appearance is a cross between a joke, a disaster an' a cur'osity. I don't reckon now pore Coyote ever sees the time when he weighs a hundred pound; an' he's grizzled an' dried an' lame of one laig, while his face is like a squinch owl's face--kind o' wide-eyed an' with a expression of ignorant wonder, as if life is a never-endin' surprise party. "Most likely now what fixes him firmest in your mind is, he don't drink none. He declines nosepaint in every form; an' this yere abstinence, the same bein' yoonique in Wolfville, together with Coyote conductin' himse'f as the p'litest an' best-mannered gent to be met with in all of Arizona, is apt to introode on your attention. Colonel Sterett once mentions Coyote's manners. "'Which he could give Chesterfield, Coyote could, kyards an' spades,' observes the Colonel. I don't, myse'f, know this Chesterfield none, but I can see by the fashion in which Colonel Sterett alloodes to him that he's a Kaintuckian an' a jo-darter on manners an' etiquette. "As I says, a pecooliar trait of Coyote is that he won't drink nothin' but water. Despite this blemish, however, when the camp gets so it knows him it can't he'p but like him a heap. He's so quiet an' honest an' ignorant an' little an' lame, an' so plumb p'lite besides, he grows on you. I can almost see the weasened old outlaw now as he comes rockin' into town with his six or seven burros packed to their y'ears with pelts! "This time when Coyote puts Doc Peets in a toomult is when he's first pitched his dug-out camp an' begins to honour Wolfville with his visits. As yet none of us appreciates pore Coyote at his troo worth, an' on account of them guileless looks of his sech humourists as Dan Boggs an' Texas Thompson seizes on him as a source of merriment. "It's Coyote's third expedition into town, an' he's hoverin' about the New York store waitin' for 'em to figger up his wolf pelts an' cut out his plunder so he freights it back to his dug-out. Dan an' Texas is also procrastinatin' 'round, an' they sidles up allowin' to have their little jest. Old Coyote don't know none of 'em--quiet an' sober an' p'lite like I relates, he's slow gettin' acquainted--an' Dan an' Texas, as well as Doc Peets, is like so many onopened books to him. For that matter, while none of them pards of mine knows Coyote, they manages to gain a sidelight on some of his characteristics before ever they gets through. Doc Peets later grows ashamed of the part he plays, an' two months afterwards when Coyote is chewed an' clawed to a standstill by a infooriated badger which he mixes himse'f up with, Peets binds him up an' straightens out his game, an' declines all talk of recompense complete. "'It's merely payin' for that outrage I attempts on your feelin's when you rebookes me so handsome,' says Peets, as he turns aside Coyote's _dinero_ an' tells him to replace the same in his war-bags. "However does Coyote get wrastled by that badger? It's another yarn, but at least she's brief an' so I'll let you have it. Badgers, you saveys, is sour, sullen, an' lonesome. An' a badger's feelin's is allers hurt about something; you never meets up with him when he ain't hostile an' half-way bent for war. Which it's the habit of these yere morose badgers to spend a heap of their time settin' half in an' half outen their holes, considerin' the scenery in a dissatisfied way like they has some grudge ag'inst it. An' if you approaches a badger while thus employed he tries to run a blazer on you; he'll show his teeth an' stand pat like he meditates trouble. When you've come up within thirty feet he changes his mind an' disappears back'ard into his hole; but all malignant an' reluctant. "Now, while Coyote saveys wolves, he's a heap dark on badgers that a-way. An' also thar's a badger who lives clost to Coyote's dug-out. One day while this yere ill-tempered anamile is cocked up in the mouth of his hole, a blinkin' hatefully at surroundin' objects. Coyote cuts down on him with a Sharp's rifle he's got kickin' about his camp an' turns that weepon loose. "He misses the badger utter, but he don't know it none. Comin' to the hole, Coyote sees the badger kind o' quiled up at the first bend in the burrow, an' he exultin'ly allows he's plugged him an' tharupon reaches in to retrieve his game. That's where Coyote makes the mistake of his c'reer; that's where he drops his watermelon! "That badger's alive an' onhurt an' as hot as a lady who's lost money. Which he's simply retired a few foot into his house to reconsider Coyote an' that Sharp's rifle of his. Nacherally when the ontaught Coyote lays down on his face an' goes to gropin' about to fetch that badger forth the latter never hes'tates. He grabs Coyote's hand with tooth and claw, braces his back ag'in the ceilin' of his burrow an' stands pat. "Badgers is big people an' strong as ponies too. An' obdurate! Son, a badger is that decided an' set in his way that sech feather-blown things as hills is excitable an' vacillatin' by comparison. This yere particular badger has the fam'ly weaknesses fully deeveloped, an' the moment he cinches onto Coyote, he shore makes up his mind never to let go ag'in in this world nor the next. "As I tells you, Coyote is little an' weak, an' he can no more move that hardened badger, nor yet fetch himse'f loose, than he can sprout wings an' soar. That badger's got Coyote; thar he holds him prone an' flat ag'in the ground for hours. An' at last Coyote swoons away. "Which he'd shore petered right thar, a prey to badgers, if it ain't for a cowpuncher--he's one of Old Man Enright's riders--who comes romancin' along an' is attracted to the spot by some cattle who's prancin' an' waltzin' about, sizin' Coyote up as he's layin' thar, an' snortin' an' curvin' their tails in wonder at the spectacle. Which the visitin' cow sharp, seein' how matters is headed, shoves his six-shooter in along-side of Coyote's arm, drills this besotted badger, an' Coyote is saved. It's a case of touch an' go at that. But to caper back to where we leaves Dan an' Texas on the verge of them jocyoolarities. "'No, gentlemen,' Coyote is sayin', in response to some queries of Dan an' Texas; 'I've wandered hither an' yon a heap in my time, an' now I has my dug-out done, an' seein' wolves is oncommon plenty, I allows I puts in what few declinin' days remains to me right where I be. I must say, too, I'm pleased with Wolfville an' regyards myse'f as fortunate an' proud to be a neighbour to sech excellent folks as you-all." "'Which I'm shore sorry a lot,' says Dan, 'to hear you speak as you does. Thar's a rapacious sport about yere who the instant he finds how you makes them dug-out improvements sends on an' wins out a gov'ment patent an' takes title to that identical quarter-section which embraces your camp. Now he's allowin' to go squanderin' over to Tucson an' get a docyment or two from the jedge an' run you out.' "Son, this pore innocent Coyote takes in Dan's fictions like so much spring water; he believes 'em utter. But the wonder is to see how he changes. He don't say nothin', but his-eyes sort o' sparks up an' his face gets as gray as his ha'r. It's now that Doc Peets comes along. "'Yere is this devourin' scoundrel now,' says Texas Thompson, p'intin' to Peets. 'You-all had better talk to him some about it.' Then turnin' to Peets with a wink, Texas goes on: 'Me an' Mister Boggs is tellin' our friend how you gets a title to that land he's camped on, an' that you allows you'll take possession mebby next week.' "'Why, shore,' says Peets, enterin' into the sperit of the hoax, an' deemin' it a splendid joke; 'be you-all the maverick who's on that quarter-section of mine?' "'Which I'm Colonel Coyote Clubbs,' says Coyote, bowin' low while his lips trembles, 'an' I'm at your service.' "'Well,' says Peets, 'it don't make much difference about your name, all you has to do is hit the trail. I needs that location you've done squatted on because of the water.' "'An' do I onderstand, sir,' says Coyote some agitated, 'that you'll come with off'cers to put me outen my dug-out?' "'Shore,' says Peets, in a case-hardened, pitiless tone, 'an' why not? Am I to be debarred of my rights by some coyote-slaughterin' invader an' onmurmurin'ly accede tharto? Which I should shore say otherwise.' "'Then I yereby warns you, sir,' says Coyote, gettin' pale as paper. 'I advises you to bring your coffin when you comes for that land, for I'll down you the moment you're in range.' "'In which case,' says Peets, assoomin' airs of blood-thirsty trucyoolence, 'thar's scant use to wait. If thar's goin' to be any powder burnin' we might better burn it now.' "'I've no weepon, sir,' says Coyote, limpin' about in a circle, 'but if ary of these gentlemen will favour me with a gun I'll admire to put myse'f in your way.' "Which the appearance of Coyote when he utters this, an' him showin' on the surface about as war-like as a prairie-dog, convulses Dan an' Texas. It's all they can do to keep a grave front while pore Coyote in his ignorance calls the bluff of one of the most deadly an' gamest gents who ever crosses the Missouri--one who for nerve an' finish is a even break with Cherokee Hall. "'Follow me,' says Peets, frownin' on Coyote like a thunder cloud; 'I'll equip you with a weepon myse'f. I reckons now that your death an' deestruction that a-way is after all the best trail out. "Peets moves off a heap haughty, an' Coyote limps after him. Peets goes over where his rooms is at. 'Take a cha'r,' says Peets, as they walks in, an' Coyote camps down stiffly in a seat. Peets crosses to a rack an' searches down a 8-inch Colt's. Then he turns towards Coyote. 'This yere discovery annoys me,' says Peets, an' his words comes cold as ice, 'but now we're assembled, I finds that I've only got one gun.' "'Well, sir,' says Coyote, gettin' up an' limpin' about in his nervous way, his face workin' an' the sparks in his eyes beginnin' to leap into flames; 'well, sir, may I ask what you aims to propose?' "'I proposes to beef you right yere,' says Peets, as f'rocious as a grizzly. 'Die, you miscreant!' An' Peets throws the gun on Coyote, the big muzzle not a foot from his heart. "Peets, as well as Dan an' Texas, who's enjoyin' the comedy through a window, ondoubted looks for Coyote to wilt without a sigh. An' if he had done so, the joke would have been both excellent an' complete. But Coyote never wilts. He moves so quick no one ever does locate the darkened recess of his garments from which he lugs out that knife; the first p'inter any of 'em gets is that with the same breath wherein Peets puts the six-shooter on him, Coyote's organised in full with a bowie. "'Make a centre shot, you villyun!' roars Coyote, an' straight as adders he la'nches himse'f at Peets's neck. "Son, it's the first an' last time that Doc Peets ever runs. An' he don't run now, he flies. Peets comes pourin' through the door an' into the street, with Coyote frothin' after him not a yard to spar'. The best thing about the whole play is that Coyote's a cripple; it's this yere element of lameness that lets Peets out. He can run thirty foot to Coyote's one, an' the result occurs in safety by the breadth of a ha'r. "It takes two hours to explain to Coyote that this eepisode is humour, an' to ca'm him an' get his emotions bedded down. At last, yoonited Wolfville succeeds in beatin' the trooth into him, an' he permits Peets to approach an' apol'gise. "'An' you can gamble all the wolves you'll ever kill an' skin,' says Doc Peets, as he asks Coyote to forgive an' forget, 'that this yere is the last time I embarks in jests of a practical character or gives way to humour other than the strickly oral kind. Barkeep, my venerated friend, yere will have a glass of water; but you give me Valley Tan.'" CHAPTER XXI. Long Ago on the Rio Grande. "Which books that a-way," observed the Old Cattleman, "that is, story-books, is onfrequent in Wolfville." He was curiously examining Stevenson's "Treasure Island," that he had taken from my hand. "The nearest approach to a Wolfville cirk'latin' library I recalls is a copy of 'Robinson Crusoe,' an' that don't last long, as one time when Texas Thompson leaves it layin' on a cha'r outside while he enters the Red Light for the usual purpose, a burro who's loafin' loose about the street, smells it, tastes it, approoves of it, an' tharupon devours it a heap. After that I don't notice no volumes in the outfit, onless it's some drug books that Doc Peets has hived over where he camps. It's jest as well, for seein' a gent perusin' a book that a-way, operates frequent to make Dan Boggs gloomy; him bein' oneddicated like I imparts to you-all yeretofore. "Whatever do we do for amoosements? We visits the Dance Hall; not to dance, sech frivol'ties bein' for younger an' less dignified sports. We goes over thar more to give our countenance an' endorsements to Hamilton who runs the hurdy-gurdy, an' who's a mighty proper citizen. We says 'How!' to Hamilton, libates, an' mebby watches 'em 'balance all,' or 'swing your partners,' a minute or two an' then proceeds. Then thar's Huggins's Bird Cage Op'ry House, an' now an' then we-all floats over thar an' takes in the dramy. But mostly we camps about the Red Light; the same bein' a common stampin'-ground. It's thar we find each other; an' when thar's nothin' doin', we upholds the hours tellin' tales an' gossipin' about cattle an' killin's, an' other topics common to a cow country. Now an' then, thar's a visitin' gent in town who can onfold a story. In sech event he's made a lot of, an' becomes promptly the star of the evenin'. "Thar's a Major Sayres we meets up with once in Wolfville,--he's thar on cattle matters with old man Enright--an' I recalls how he grows absorbin' touchin' some of his adventures in that War. "Thar's a passel of us, consistin' of Boggs, Tutt, Cherokee, an' Texas Thompson, an' me, who's projectin' 'round the Red Light when Enright introdooces this Major Sayres. Him an' Enright's been chargin' about over by the Cow Springs an' has jest rode in. This Major is easy an' friendly, an' it ain't longer than the third drink before he shows symptoms of bein' willin' to talk. "'Which I ain't been in the saddle so long,' says the Major, while him an' Enright is considerin' how far they goes since sunup, 'since Mister Lee surrenders.' "'You takes your part, Major,' says Enright, who's ropin' for a reminiscence that a-way, 'in the battles of the late war, I believes.' "'I should shorely say so,' says the Major. 'I'm twenty-two years old, come next grass, when Texas asserts herse'f as part of the confed'racy, an' I picks up a hand an' plays it in common with the other patriotic yooths of my region. Yes, I enters the artillery, but bein' as we don't have no cannon none at the jump I gets detailed as a aide ontil something resemblin' a battery comes pokin' along. I goes through that carnage from soup to nuts, an' while I'm shot up some as days go by, it's allers been a source of felic'tation to me, personal, that I never slays no man myse'f. Shore, I orders my battery to fire, later when I gets a battery; an' ondoubted the bombardments I inaug'rates adds to an' swells the ghost census right along. But of my own hand it's ever been a matter of congratoolations to me that I don't down nobody an' never takes a skelp. "'As I turns the leaves of days that's gone I don't now remember but one individyooal openin' for blood that ever presents itse'f. An' after considerin' the case in all its b'arin's, I refooses the opportunity an' the chance goes glidin' by. As a result thar's probably one more Yank than otherwise; an' now that peace is yere an' we-all is earnestly settlin' to be brothers No'th and South, I regyards that extra Yank as a advantage. Shore, he's a commoonal asset.' "'Tell us how you fails to c'llect this Yankee, Major,' says Faro Nell: 'which I'm plumb interested every time that some one don't get killed.' "'I reecounts that exploit with pleasure,' says, the Major, bowin' p'lite as Noo Orleans first circles an' touchin' his hat to Nell. 'It's one day when we're in a fight. The line of battle is mebby stretched out half a mile. As I su'gests, I'm spraddlin' 'round permiscus with no stated arena of effort, carryin' despatches an' turnin' in at anything that offers, as handy as I can. I'm sent final with a dispatch from the left to the extreme right of our lines. "'When we goes into this skrimmage we jumps the Lincoln people somewhat onexpected. They has their blankets an' knapsacks on, an' as they frames themse'fs up for the struggle they casts off this yere baggage, an' thar it lays, a windrow of knapsacks, blankets an' haversacks, mighty near a half mile in length across the plain. As we-all rebs has been pushin' the Yankees back a lot, this windrow is now to our r'ar, an' I goes canterin' along it on my mission to the far right. "'Without a word of warnin' a Yank leaps up from where he's been burrowin' down among this plunder an' snaps a Enfield rifle in my face. I pulls my boss back so he's almost settin' on his hocks; an' between us, gents, that onexpected sortie comes mighty near surprisin' me plumb out of the saddle. But the Enfield don't go off none; an' with that the Yank throws her down an' starts to' run. He shorely does _vamos_ with the velocity of jackrabbits! "'As soon as me an' my hoss recovers our composure we gives chase. Bein' the pore Yank is afoot, I runs onto him in the first two hundred yards. As I comes up, I've got my six-shooter in my hand. I puts the muzzle on him, sort o' p'intin' between the shoulders for gen'ral results; but when it comes to onhookin' my weepon I jest can't turn the trick. It's too much like murder. Meanwhile, the flyin' Yank is stampedin' along like he ain't got a thing on his mind an' never turnin' his head. "'I calls on him to surrender. He makes a roode remark over his shoulder at this military manoover an' pelts ahead all onabated. Then I evolves a scheme to whack him on the head with my gun. I pushes my hoss up ontil his nose is right by that No'thern party's y'ear. Steadyin' myse'f, I makes a wallop at him an' misses. I invests so much soul in the blow that missin' that a-way, I comes within' a ace of clubs of goin' off my hoss an' onto my head. An' still that exasperatin' Yank goes rackin' along, an' if anything some faster than before. At that I begins to lose my temper ag'in. "'I reorganises,--for at the time I nearly makes the dive outen the stirrups, I pulls the hoss to a stop,--an' once more takes up the pursoot of my locoed prey. He's a pris'ner fair enough, only he's too obstinate to admit it. As I closes on him ag'in, I starts for the second time to drill him, but I can't make the landin'. I'm too young; my heart ain't hard enough; I rides along by him for a bit an' for the second time su'gests that he surrender. The Yank ignores me; he keeps on runnin'. "'Which sech conduct baffles me! It's absolootely ag'in military law. By every roole of the game that Yank's my captive; but defyin' restraint he goes caperin' on like he's free. "'As I gallops along about four foot to his r'ar I confess I begins to feel a heap he'pless about him. I'm too tender to shoot, an' he won't stop, an' thar we be. "'While I'm keepin' him company on this retreat, I reflects that even if I downs him, the war would go on jest the same; it wouldn't stop the rebellion none, nor gain the South her independence. The more I considers, too, the war looks bigger an' the life of this flyin' Yank looks smaller. Likewise, it occurs to me that he's headed no'th. If he keeps up his gait an' don't turn or twist he'll have quitted Southern territory by the end of the week. "'After makin' a complete round-up of the sityooation I begins to lose interest in this Yank; an' at last I leaves him, racin' along alone. By way of stim'lant, as I pauses I cracks off a couple of loads outen my six-shooter into the air. They has a excellent effect; from the jump the Yank makes at the sound I can see the shots puts ten miles more run into him shore. He keeps up his gallop ontil he's out of sight, an' I never after feasts my eyes on him. "'Which I regyards your conduct, Major, as mighty hoomane,' says Dan Boggs, raisin' his glass p'litely. 'I approves of it, partic'lar.' "The Major meets Dan's attentions in the sperit they're proposed. After a moment Enright speaks of them cannons. "But you-all got a battery final, Major?' says Enright. "'Six brass guns,' says the Major, an' his gray eyes beams an' he speaks of 'em like they was six beautiful women. 'Six brass guns, they be,' he says. We captured 'em from the enemy an' I'm put in command. Gents, I've witnessed some successes personal, but I never sees the day when I'm as satisfied an' as contentedly proud as when I finds myse'f in command of them six brass guns. I was like a lover to every one of 'em. "'I'm that headlong to get action--we're in middle Loosiana at the time--that I hauls a couple of 'em over by the Mississippi an' goes prowlin' 'round ontil I pulls on trouble with a little Yankee gun boat. It lasts two hours, an' I shore sinks that naval outfit an' piles the old Mississippi on top of 'em. I'm so puffed up with this yere exploit that a pigeon looks all sunk in an' consumptif beside me. "'Thar's one feacher of this dooel with the little gun boat which displeases me, however. Old Butler's got Noo Orleans at the time, an' among other things he's editin' the papers. I reads in one of 'em a month later about me sinkin' that scow. It says I'm a barb'rous villain, the story does, an' shoots up the boat after it surrenders, an' old Butler allows he'll hang me a whole lot the moment ever he gets them remarkable eyes onto me. I don't care none at the time much, only I resents this yere charge. I shore never fires a shot at that gunboat after it gives up; I ain't so opulent of amm'nition as all that. As time goes on, however, thar's a day when I'm goin' to take the determination of old Butler more to heart. "'Followin' the gun-boat eepisode I'm more locoed than ever to get my battery into a fight. An' at last I has my hopes entirely fulfilled. It's about four o'clock one evenin' when we caroms on about three brigades of Yanks. Thar's mebby twelve thousand of us rebs an' all of fourteen thousand of the Lincoln people. My battery is all the big guns we-all has, while said Yanks is strong with six full batteries. "'The battle opens up; we're on a old sugar plantation, an' after manooverin' about a while we settles down to work. It's that day I has my dreams of carnage realised in full. I turns loose my six guns with verve an' fervour, an' it ain't time for a second drink before I attracts the warmest attention from every one of the Yankee batteries. She's shore a scandal the way them gents in bloo does shoot me up! Jest to give you-all a idee: the Yankees slams away at me for twenty minutes; they dismounts two of my guns; they kills or creases forty of my sixty-six men; an' when they gets through you-all could plant cotton where my battery stands, it's that ploughed up. "'It's in the midst of the _baile_, an' I'm standin' near my number-one gun. Thar's a man comes up with a cartridge. A piece of a shell t'ars him open, an' he falls across the gun, limp as a towel, an' then onto the ground. I orders a party named Williams to the place. Something comes flyin' down outen the heavens above an' smites Williams on top the head; an' he's gone. I orders up another. He assoomes the responsibilities of this p'sition jest in time to get a rifle bullet through the jaw. He lives though; I sees him after the war. "'As that's no more men for the place, I steps for'ard myse'f. I'm not thar a minute when I sinks down to the ground. I don't feel nothin' an' can't make it out. "'While I'm revolvin' this yere phenomenon of me wiltin' that a-way an' tryin to form some opinions about it, thar's a explosion like forty battles all in one. For a moment, I reckons that somehow we-all has opened up a volcano inadvertent, an' that from now on Loosiana can boast a Hecla of her own. But it ain't no volcano. It's my ammunition waggons which, with two thousund rounds is standin' about one hundred yards to my r'ar. The Yanks done blows up the whole outfit with one of their shells. "'It's strictly the thing, however, which lets my battery out. The thick smoke of the two thousand cartridges drifts down an' blankets what's left of us like a fog. The Yanks quits us; they allows most likely they've lifted me an' my six brass guns plumb off the earth. Thar's some roodiments of trooth in the theery for that matter. "'These last interestin' details sort o' all happens at once. I've jest dropped at the time when my ammunition waggons enters into the sperit of the o'casion like I describes. As I lays thar one of my men comes gropin' along down to me in the smoke. "'"Be you hurt, Major?" he says. "'"I don't know," I replies: "my idee is that you better investigate an' see." "'He t'ars open my coat; thar's no blood on my shirt. He lifts one arm an' then the other; they're sound as gold pieces. Then I lifts up my left laig; I've got on high hoss-man boots. "'"Pull off this moccasin," I says. "'He pulls her off an' thar's nothin' the matter thar. I breaks out into a profoose sweat; gents, I'm scared speechless. I begins to fear I ain't plugged at all; that I've fainted away on a field of battle an' doo to become the scandal of two armies. I never feels so weak an' sick! "'I've got one chance left an' trembles as I plays it; I lifts up my right boot. I win; about a quart of blood runs out. Talk of reprievin' folks who's sentenced to death! Gents, their emotions is only imitations of what I feels when I finds that the Yanks done got me an' nary doubt. It's all right--a rifle bullet through my ankle! "'That night I'm mowed away, with twenty other wounded folks, in a little cabin off to one side, an' thar's a couple of doctors sizin' up my laig. "'"Joe," says one, that a-way, "we've got to cut it off." "'But I votes "no" emphatic; I'm too young to talk about goin shy a laig. With that they ties it up as well as ever they can, warnin' me meanwhile that I've got about one chance in a score to beat the game. Then they imparts a piece of news that's a mighty sight worse than my laig. "'"Joe," says this doctor, when he's got me bandaged, "our army's got to rustle out of yere a whole lot. She's on the retreat right now. Them Yanks outheld us an' out-played us an' we've got to go stampedin'. The worst is, thar's no way to take you along, an' we'll have to leave you behind." "'"Then the Yanks will corral me?" I asks. "'"Shore," he replies, "but thar's nothin' else for it." "'It's then it comes on me about that gunboat an' the promises old Butler makes himse'f about hangin' me when caught. Which these yere reflections infooses new life into me. I makes the doctor who's talkin' go rummagin' about ontil he rounds up a old nigger daddy, a mule an' a two-wheel sugar kyart. It's rainin' by now so's you-all could stand an' wash your face an' hands in it. As that medical sharp loads me in, he gives me a bottle of this yere morphine, an' between jolts an' groans I feeds on said drug until mornin.' "'That old black daddy is dead game. He drives me all night an' all day an' all night ag'n, an' I'm in Shreveport; my ankle's about the size of a bale of cotton. Thar's one ray through it all, however; I misses meetin' old man Butler an' I looks on that as a triumph which shore borders on relief.' "'An' I reckons now,' says Dan Boggs, 'you severs your relations with the war?' "'No,' goes on the Major; 'I keeps up my voylence to the close. When I grows robust enough to ride ag'in I'm in Texas. Thar's a expedition fittin' out to invade an' subdoo Noo Mexico, an' I j'ines dogs with it as chief of the big guns. Thar's thirty-eight hundred bold and buoyant sperits rides outen Austin on these military experiments we plans, an' as evincin' the luck we has, I need only to p'int out that nine months later we returns with a scant eight hundred. Three thousand of 'em killed, wounded an' missin' shows that efforts to list the trip onder the head of "picnics" would be irony. "'Comin', as we-all does, from one thousand miles away, thar ain't one of us who saveys, practical, as much about the sand-blown desert regions we invades as we does of what goes on in the moon. That Gen'ral Canby, who later gets downed by the Modocs, is on the Rio Grande at Fort Craig. While we're pirootin' about in a blind sort o' fashion we ropes up one of Canby's couriers who's p'intin' no'th for Fort Union with despatches. This Gen'ral Canby makes the followin' facetious alloosion: After mentionin' our oninvited presence in the territory, he says: "'"But let 'em alone. We'll dig the potatoes when they're ripe." "'Gents, we was the toobers!' An' yere the Major pauses for a drink. 'We was the potatoes which Canby's exultin' over! We don't onderstand it at the time, but it gets cl'arer as the days drifts by. "'I'm never in a more desolate stretch of what would be timber only thar ain't no trees. Thar's nothin' for the mules an' hosses; half the time thar ain't even water. An' then it's alkali. An' our days teems an' staggers with disgustin' experiences. Once we're shy water two days. It's the third day about fourth drink time in the evenin'. The sun has two hours yet to go. My battery is toilin' along, sand to the hubs of gun-carriages an' caissons, when I sees the mules p'int their y'ears for'ard with looks of happy surprise. Then the intelligent anamiles begins a song of praise; an' next while we-all is marvellin' thereat an' before ever a gent can stretch hand to bridle to stop 'em, the mules begins to fly. They yanks my field pieces over the desert as busy an' full of patriotic ardour as a drunkard on 'lection day. The whole battery runs away. Gents, the mules smells water. It's two miles away,--a big pond she is,--an' that locoed battery never stops, but rushes plumb in over its y'ears; an' I lose sixteen mules an' two guns before ever I'm safe ag'in on terry firmy. "'It's shore remarkable,' exclaims the Major, settin' down his glass, 'how time softens the view an' changes bitter to sweet that a-way. As I brings before me in review said details thar's nothin' more harassin' from soda to hock than that campaign on the Rio Grande. Thar's not one ray of sunshine to paint a streak of gold in the picture from frame to frame; all is dark an' gloom an' death. An' yet, lookin' back'ard through the years, the mem'ry of it is pleasant an' refreshing a heap more so than enterprises of greater ease with success instead of failure for the finish. "'Thar's one partic'lar incident of this explorin' expeditions into Noo Mexico which never recurs to my mind without leavin' my eyes some dim. I don't claim to be no expert on pathos an' I'm far from regyardin' myse'f as a sharp on tears, but thar's folks who sort o' makes sadness a speshulty, women folks lots of 'em, who allows that what I'm about to recount possesses pecooliar elements of sorrow. "'Thar's a young captain--he ain't more'n a boy--who's brought a troop of lancers along with us. This boy Captain hails from some'ers up 'round Waco, an' thar ain't a handsomer or braver in all Pres'dent Davis's army. This Captain--whose name is Edson,--an' me, bein' we-all is both young, works ourse'fs into a clost friendship for each other; I feels about him like he's my brother. Nacherally, over a camp fire an' mebby a stray bottle an' a piece of roast antelope, him an' me confides about ourse'fs. This Captain Edson back in Waco has got a old widow mother who's some rich for Texas, an' also thar's a sweetheart he aims to marry when the war's over an' done. I reckons him an' me talks of that mother an' sweetheart of his a hundred times. "'It falls out that where we fords the Pecos we runs up on a Mexican Plaza--the "Plaza Chico" they-all calls it--an' we camps thar by the river a week, givin' our cattle a chance to roll an' recooperate up on the grass an' water. "'Then we goes p'intin' out for the settin' sun ag'in, allowin' to strike the Rio Grande some'ers below Albuquerque. Captain Edson, while we're pesterin' 'round at the Plaza Chico, attaches to his retinoo a Mexican boy; an' as our boogles begins to sing an' we lines out for that west'ard push, this yere boy rides along with Edson an' the lancers. "'Our old war chief who has charge of our wanderin's is strictly stern an' hard. An' I reckons now he's the last gent to go makin' soft allowances for any warmth of yooth, or puttin' up with any primrose paths of gentle dalliance, of any an' all who ever buckles on a set of side arms. It thus befalls that when he discovers on the mornin' of the second day that this Mexican boy is a Mexican girl, he goes ragin' into the ambient air like a eagle. "'The Old Man claps Edson onder arrest an' commands the girl to saddle up an' go streakin' for the Plaza Chico. As it's only a slow day's march an' as these Mexicans knows the country like a coyote, it's a cinch the girl meets no harm an' runs no resks. But it serves to plant the thorns of wrath in the heart of Captain Edson. "'The Old Man makes him loose an' gives him back his lancers before ever we rides half a day, but it don't work no mollifications with the young Captain. He offers no remarks, bein' too good a soldier; but he never speaks to the Old Man no more, except it's business. "'"Joe," he says to me, as we rides along, or mebby after we're in camp at night, "I'll never go back to Texas. I've been disgraced at the head of my troop an' I'll take no sech record home." "'"You oughter not talk that a-way, Ed," I'd say, tryin' to get his sensibilities smoothed down. "If you don't care none for yourse'f or for your footure, you-all should remember thar's something comin' to the loved ones at home. Moreover, it's weak sayin' you-all ain't goin' back to Texas. How be you goin' to he'p it, onless you piles up shore-enough disgrace by desertin' them lancers of yours?" "'"Which if we has the luck," says this Captain Edson, "to cross up with any Yanks who's capable of aimin' low an' shootin' half way troo, I'll find a way to dodge that goin' back without desertin'." "'No, I don't make no argyments with him; it's hopeless talkin' to a gent who's melancholly an' who's pride's been jarred; thar's nothing but time can fix things up for him. An' I allers allows that this boy Captain would have emerged from the clouds eventooal, only it happens he don't get the time. His chance comes too soon; an' he shore plays it desperate. "'Our first offishul act after reachin' the Rio Grande is to lay for a passel of Yank cavalry--thar's two thousand of 'em I reckons. We rides up on these yere lively persons as we sounds a halt for the evenin'. It looks like our boogles is a summons, for they comes buttin' into view through a dry arroya an' out onto the wide green bottoms of the Rio Grande at the first call. They're about a mile away, an' at sight of us they begins in a fashion of idle indifference to throw out a line of battle. They fights on foot, them bloo folks do; dismounting with every fourth man to hold the hosses. They displays a heap of insolence for nothin' but cavalry an' no big guns; but as they fights like infantry an' is armed with Spencer seven-shooters besides, the play ain't so owdacious neither. "'Thar's mebby a hour of sun an' I'm feelin' mighty surly as I gets my battery into line. I'm disgusted to think we've got to fight for our night's camp, an' swearin' to myse'f in a low tone, so's not to set profane examples to my men, at the idee that these yere Yanks is that preecip'tate they can't wait till mornin' for their war-jig. But I can't he'p myse'f. That proverb about it takin' two to make a fight is all a bluff. It only takes one to make a fight. As far as we-all rebs is concerned that evenin' we ain't honin' for trouble, leastwise, not ontil mornin'; but them inordinate Yanks will have it, an' thar you be. The fight can't be postponed. "'Thar's no tumblin' hurry about how any of us goes to work. Both sides has got old at the game an' war ain't the novelty she is once. The Yanks is takin' their p'sition, an' we're locatin' our lines an' all as ca'mly an' with no more excitement than if it's dress p'rade. The Yanks is from Colorado. My sergeant speaks of 'em to me the next day an' gives his opinion touchin' their merits. "'"Where did you say them Yankees comes from, Major?" says my serjeant. "'"Colorado," I replies. "'"Which thar's about thirty minutes last evenin'," says my serjeant, "when I shorely thinks they're recrooted in hell," an' my serjeant shakes his head. "'While I'm linin' up my battery mighty discontented an' disgruntled, an orderly pulls my sleeve. "'"Look thar, Major!" he says. "'I turns, an' thar over on our right, all alone, goes Captain Edson an' his lancers. Without waiting an' without commands, Captain Edson has his boogler sound a charge; an' thar goes the lancers stampedin' along like they're a army corps an' cap'ble of sweepin' the two thousand cool an' c'llected Yankees off the Rio Grande. "'For a moment all we does is stand an' look; the surprise of it leaves no idee of action. The lancers swings across the grassy levels. Thar's not a shot fired; Edson's people ain't got nothin' but them reedic'lous spears, an' the Yanks, who seems to know it, stands like the rest of us without firin' an' watches 'em come. It's like a picture, with the thin bright air an' the settin' sun shinin' sideways over the gray line of mountains fifty miles to the west. "'I never sees folks more placid than the Yanks an' at the same time so plumb alert. Mountain lions is lethargic to 'em. When Captain Edson an' his lancers charges into 'em the Yanks opens right an' left, each sharp of 'em gettin' outen the way of that partic'lar lancer who's tryin' to spear him; but all in a steady, onruffled fashion that's as threatenin' as it is excellent. The lancers, with Captain Edson, goes through, full charge, twenty rods to the r'ar of the Yankee line. An', gents, never a man comes back. "'As Edson an' his troop goes through, the Yanks turns an' opens on 'em. The voices of the Spencers sounds like the long roll of a drum. Hoss an' man goes down, dead an' wounded; never a gent of 'em all rides back through that awful Yankee line. Pore Edson shore has his wish; he's cut the trail of folks who's cap'ble of aimin' low an' shootin' half way troo. "'These sperited moves I've been relatin' don't take no time in the doin'. The hairbrain play of Captain Edson forces our hands. The Old Man orders a charge, an' we pushes the Yanks back onto their hosses an' rescoos what's left of Edson an' his lancers. After skirmishin' a little the Yanks draws away an' leaves us alone on the field. They earns the encomiums of my serjeant, though, before ever they decides to _vamos_. "'Edson's been shot hard and frequent; thar's no chance for him. He looks up at me, when we're bringin' him off, an' says: "'"Joe," an' he smiles an' squeezes my hand, while his tones is plenty feeble, "Joe, you notes don't you that while I ain't goin' back to Texas, I don't have to desert." "'That night we beds down our boy Captain in a sol'tary Mexican 'doby. He's layin' on a pile of blankets clost by the door while the moon shines down an' makes things light as noonday. He's been talkin' to me an' givin' me messages for his mother an' the rest of his outfit at Waco, an' I promises to carry 'em safe an' deliver 'em when I rides in ag'in on good old Texas. Then he wants his mare brought up where he can pet her muzzle an' say _Adios_ to her. "'"For, Joe," he says, "I'm doo to go at once now, an' my days is down to minutes." "'"The medicine man, Ed," I says, "tells me that you-all has hours to live." "'"But, Joe," he replies, "I knows. I'm a mighty good prophet you recalls about my not goin' back, an' you can gamble I'm not makin' any mistakes now. It's down to minutes, I tells you, an' I wants to see my mare." "'Which the mare is brought up an' stands thar with her velvet nose in his face; her name's "Ruth," after Edson's sweetheart. The mare is as splendid as a picture; pure blood, an' her speed an' bottom is the wonder of the army. Usual a hoss is locoed by the smell of blood, but it don't stampede this Ruth; an' she stays thar with him as still an' tender as a woman, an' with all the sorrow in her heart of folks. As Edson rubs her nose with his weak hand an' pets her, he asks me to take this Ruth back to his sweetheart with all his love. "'"Which now I'm goin'," he whispers, "no one's to mention that eepisode of the Pecos an' the little Mexican girl of Plaza Chico!" "'Edson is still a moment; an' then after sayin' "Good-by," he lets on that he desires me to leave him alone with the mare. "'"I'll give Ruth yere a kiss an' a extra message for my sweetheart," he says, "an' then I'll sleep some." "'I camps down outside the 'doby an' looks up at the moon an' begins to let my own thoughts go grazin' off towards Texas. It's perhaps a minute when thar's the quick _crack_! of a six-shooter, an' the mare Ruth r'ars up an' back'ard ontil she's almost down. But she recovers herse'f an' stands sweatin' an' shiverin' an' her eyes burnin' like she sees a ghost. Shore, it's over; pore Edson won't wait; he's got to his guns, an' thar's a bullet through his head.'" THE END. 
19867	----	New Tip Top Weekly No. 11; October 12, 1912. FRANK MERRIWELL, JUNIOR's, GOLDEN TRAIL; Or, THE FUGITIVE PROFESSOR. By BURT L. STANDISH. CHAPTER I. DREAMS AND OMENS. "Look here, you fellows," cried Ballard, "if I don't get this out of my system I'm going to explode. It will only take a minute or two, and--" "Go on and explode," cut in Clancy unfeelingly. "Can't you see that Chip and I are busy?" "But this dream was a corker, Red, and I--" "For the love of Mike, Pink, I wish you'd _cork_. Wait till the work out there is wound up and then you can--wow! How was that for a tackle, Chip?" Three separate and distinct times, there in the grand stand, Billy Ballard had tried to tell his chums, young Frank Merriwell and Owen Clancy, of a dream he had the night before. It seemed to have occurred to suddenly, for the forenoon and part of the afternoon had slipped away without any attempt on Ballard's part to rehearse the fancies that had afflicted him in his sleep. But now he was feverishly eager, and the rebuffs he took from the annoyed Clancy only exasperated him. It was hardly an opportune moment, however, to talk dreams and omens. Merry was wrapped up in a practice game of football, and was alternately scrutinizing players and hastily jotting down notes with a pencil. Clancy was not making any memoranda, but snappy work on the gridiron was claiming his full attention. With a sigh of resignation, Ballard bottled up his remarks and sat back on the hard boards. Only Merry and his two chums were in the grand stand. The practice game was between the regular Ophir Athletic Club eleven and a scrub team. It had been put on for Frank's exclusive benefit. For two straight years the O. A. C. had gone down to inglorious defeat before their rivals from Gold Hill--thirty-six to nothing on last Thanksgiving Day--and the sting of those defeats had made Ophir pessimistic and their eleven a joke. Another Thanksgiving Day was less than two months ahead, and the Ophir fellows were turning to Merriwell for help. They felt that if any one could pick an eleven from the club members and round them, into winning form, it was he, and he alone. This was not the first practice game staged for Merriwell. The first one had degenerated into a farce, for the spirit of fun had taken untimely grip of the players and a promising exhibition had gone to pieces on a reef of horseplay. Spink and Handy, for the club, had waited upon Merry and tendered apologies, and a second game had been arranged. Circumstances over which Merry had had little control had kept him away from that second game; and now, four days later, the Ophir eleven were gallantly retrieving themselves. The two teams had ranged themselves across the field, and a scrub foot had booted the oval well down toward the regulars' goal. A nervous full back waited to receive that opening kick, while his teammates rushed at him to form their flying screen of interference. The ball evaded the arms that reached for it, while another back fell on it and kept it clear of the clutches of a scrub end. Frank scrawled a note on the paper that lay on his knee. "That's Leversee," he remarked, "but I think he'll steady down." "That scrub end is faster than a streak of greased lightning, Chip," commented the admiring Clancy. "Good material, what?" Presently came the first scrimmage, and a regular half back, all beef and brawn, went down in a flurry. The scrub defense was like a stone wall. It was the second down and four yards to gain. The regular interferers dashed to get around one end of the line, but were flung to right and left, and the runner, dropped more than a yard short of the required distance. The regular full back retreated for a punt. Fast and far the ball sailed into the scrub field, which proved that the back's feet were not nervous, no matter if his hands and arms had been a trifle unsteady. "Bully!" muttered Frank, and scrawled another notation. The scrubs, going up against the regulars' defense, found it impossible to make any decisive gains. Vigor and rocklike endurance marked the clashes, and both regulars and scrubs had to punt and punt again. Fake plays were riddled by swift and sagacious end rushes, for one side or the other, hurling attacks against the center were crushed and flung back; and, more and more as the battle raged, it became evident that the regular eleven, while good, were no whit better than the scrubs. The fight in the first half was carried into the last minute of the play. The whistle separated the combatants, and neither side had scored. During the interval that followed Ballard sought to tell his dream, Merriwell and Clancy, however, were in close and earnest conversation regarding the players and had no time for anything not connected with the game. "With material like that to choose from, Chip," said Clancy, "it ought not to be much of a trick to select an eleven that would put it all over Gold Hill." "From all I can hear, Clan," Merry answered, "the Gold Hill bunch is a fast one. I don't know what we can do. The Ophirites are liable to hit, their funny bone in the last half and turn the performance into a farce comedy." "Never again, Chip. Once was enough." "What happens once is always liable to happen again," Frank answered, "although I'm hoping for the best." His fears were not realized. The last half of the game, although faulty in spots, was, on the whole a creditable performance. Merriwell was more than pleased. When Spink and Handy, dusty and breathless, halted on their way to the showers and the dressing rooms to ask his opinion, Merry gave them the praise that was their due. "We can make up an eleven here that ought to do things to Gold Hill, fellows," said he. "They say that Gold Hill is so sure of getting our scalps for the third time," said Spink, "that they haven't begun their fall work." "Which makes everything look all the brighter for Ophir," laughed Frank. "Too much confidence is worse than not enough. You seem to think that I can help you, although I--" "It's a cinch you can help us!" broke in Handy. "Wasn't your father the star coach at Yale?" A slight frown crossed Frank's face. "Don't try to pin any of dad's medals on me, Handy," said Frank. "I didn't inherit any of his couching ability. Dad gave me a good, clean bringing-up. Ever since I've been old enough to waddle, he has made me stand on my own feet. If you fellows are bound that I can help you, I'll give some suggestions and do my best. I'll get the suggestions in shape and give them to you in a day or so." The regulars and scrubs, who had grouped themselves at a little distance behind Spink and Handy, gave a delighted cheer. Frank, putting away his pencil and paper, smiled as he watched them trot away toward the gym. "Now," said Ballard, with a show of injured dignity, "I wonder if you fellows can spare a little of your valuable time?" "What's biting you, Pink?" inquired Frank. "It's a dream," said Clancy derisively. "Pink has been seeing things at night, and he has been boiling over to tell us about it ever since this practice game started. Why don't you get a dream book, you crazy, chump," he added to Ballard, "and figure the visions out for yourself?" "Or a joke book," said Frank. "You can do about as much figuring from that as from anything else." "Oh, blazes!" exclaimed Ballard. "Don't make light of this dream. I just happened to remember, since we reached this grand stand, that I've had it three nights in succession. When a dream comes to you three times like that it's supposed to mean something." "Sure," agreed Clancy, wagging his head; "it means that for three nights you have--er--eaten not wisely but too well. How's that, Chip? Pretty good, eh?" He straightened up, looked grave, and went on to Ballard; "Dreams, William, are the result of tantrums in the tummy. You load up a suffering organ with grub that's so rich it affects the imagination; consequently, when the razmataz, in a state of coma, projects itself into the _medulla oblongata_--" Ballard, yelling wildly, made a jump for Clancy. Merry, however, had already taken hint in hand. "That sounds too much like Professor Phineas Borredaile," said Frank. "Call off the dog, Clan;" and he smothered his red-headed chum and pushed him down on the hard boards. "I'll be good, Chip," murmured Clancy, in a stilted voice. "Take your hands, off my face and let me breathe." Frank released him with a laugh, and Clancy smoothed himself out. "I was only expounding," explained the red-headed chap, "and now that the prof isn't around to do it, a substitute has to take hold." "Pink isn't the only one who has taken a foolish powder," said Merry. "And, talking about Phineas, what do you suppose the old fossil is up to?" Clancy went on, just a shade of anxiety sifting into his tones. "It's four days now, since he suddenly made up his mind to go over Gold Hill. What did he go for? And why is he staying away? We haven't heard a word from him since he left." Merriwell looked serious. "All that has been bothering me, Clan," he acknowledged "Since we found the prof in that deserted, mining camp, and helped him file a location on that mining claim, we're responsible for him, in a way. He need, looking after, and we have't been on the job at all." "After you disappeared mysteriously the other night," remarked Clancy, "Mr. Bradlaugh had an idea that you had gone over to Gold Hill to see the prof. Mr. Bradlaugh called up the Bristow Hotel, at the Hill, and talked with Borrodaile. He said he hadn't seen you, on--" "I know about that," Merry interrupted. "That was four days ago, and we haven't seen Borrodaile nor had a word from him since. Honest, fellows, I'm getting worried. Before we started out here this afternoon I asked Mr. Bradlaugh to try and get the prof on the phone, and to ask him when he intended coming back to Ophir. Until I hear from dad, in answer to that letter I sent the night I was taken out to the Bar Z Ranch, I won't know what we're expected to do with the prof. Meanwhile, we've got to keep an eye on him. He's the sole owner of a rich mining claim, and he's about as capable of looking after his interests as a blanket Indian." "That's right," assented Clancy. "Borrodaile can tell you all about the Jurassic Period, and can give you the complete history of the Neanderthal man from A to Izizard, but I'll guarantee to sell him a gold brick in five minutes. As for business--well, he doesn't know any more about ordinary, everyday business than a--er--troglodyte, whatever that is." "My dream was about the professor," struck in Ballard. Merry and Clancy turned at that and gave their chum some attention. "Come over with it, Pink," said Frank. "There's nothing in the dream, of course, but the fact that the professor figured in it proves you were fretting a little on his account yourself." "Well, it was like this," returned Ballard, glad that the opportunity had finally come to relieve his mind. "I seemed to be back in that pile of ruins that used to be Happenchance, the played-out mining camp. From that claim of the professor's stretched a row of nuggets, clear from the Picket Post Mountains to Gold Hill. They were big nuggets, too, running all the way from one the size of my hat to a whole lot as big as a washtub--" "Whew!" grinned Clancy. "Go on, Pink; don't mind me." "The nuggets," proceeded Ballard, frowning at Clancy, "were arranged like stepping-stones--one here, another a few feet beyond, and another beyond that, and so on." "Regular golden trail," laughed Clancy. "That was some dream, Pink." "The professor," resumed Ballard, "was running along the trail, hat off, his bald head glimmering in the sun, and the tails of his long coat flying out behind. Three or four nuggets behind him, running after him as fast as they could go, were several hard-looking citizens. That's about all. For three times, now, I've seen the prof chased over that golden trail by desperadoes. I've never be able to see how the chase came out, for always, just at the critical moment, I'd wake up. What do you think of it?" Before Frank could answer, some one appeared in the clubhouse door, across the athletic field from the grand stand, and trumpeted Merriwell's name through his hands. "Hello!" answered Frank, getting up and shouting. "Mr. Bradlaugh wants you on the phone," came the answer. Without delaying, Frank leaped the rail in front of him and sprinted for the clubhouse. Ballard and Clancy followed, but at a more leisurely pace. "That dream of yours, Pink," averred Clancy, on the way across the field, "was a 'happenchance'--like the old, played-out town we found in the Picket Posts." Ballard merely grunted. It was plain that he had his own ideas on the subject of that dream. On reaching the clubhouse the two lads found Merry just coming away from the telephone. His face was clouded, and there was an anxious light in his eyes. "What's wrong, Chip?" inquired Clancy. "Borrodaile isn't in Gold Hill," was the answer. "He left the Bristow Hotel three days ago, and hasn't been seen since." CHAPTER II. THE TELEGRAM FROM BLOOMFIELD. Professor Phineas Borrodaile had for years been an instructor in an academy in the middle West. His health failing, he was ordered to Arizona. The dry, invigorating climate had worked wonders in thousands of cases similar to the professor's, and there was every reason to believe that the professor would be greatly benefited, if not entirely cured of his malady. At the last moment before starting Borrodaile had happened to think of an old letter from a nephew of his who had been engaged in the mining business in a camp called Happenchance, in southern Arizona. The professor looked up the letter. The writer of it had died years before, and the camp of Happenchance had had its day and was now deserted and lost among the Picket Post Mountains. What made the letter of especial interest to the professor was the fact that it gave the location of a ledge of gold, not far from the old Happenchance placerings. A bee began buzzing in the professor's bonnet. It was this: He would get out of the world; in the old, lost camp he would recover his health by living the primitive life. Also, being next of kin to his late nephew, he would find and possess himself of the ledge of gold. Some months after Professor Borrodaile had put his plan into execution, young Merriwell received a letter from his father, in Bloomfield, rather mysteriously requesting him to pay a visit to the lost town of the Picket Posts and to report at length upon anything he might find in the only habitable building of the camp. Aided by a prospector named Nick Porter, Frank and his chums visited Happenchance and there found the professor. They had adventures in helping the professor get his location notice on file, and only Merry's fleetness of foot and good judgment saved a prospective bonanza mine for Borrodaile. Very strangely the professor had left Ophir for Gold Hill not many hours after he had come with Frank and his friends from Gold Hill to Ophir. The youngsters were not his guardians, however, and did not feel authorized to interfere too much in his affairs. Merry thought it best to go slow in the matter until a reply had been received to the report which he had sent to his father. Six days or a week would be required in forwarding a letter to Bloomfield and receiving a letter in reply. Meanwhile four days had elapsed, and Borrodaile had dropped completely out of sight. Knowing the professor to be inexperienced in business affairs, Merriwell had begun to worry about him. There were unscrupulous men in plenty who would not hesitate to take advantage of him with the idea of securing his very valuable mining claim. The telephone message from Mr. Bradlaugh, therefore, was quite disturbing. "Ah, ha!" exclaimed Ballard, when Merriwell reported the professor missing from Gold Hill, "so you think there's nothing in that dream of mine, eh? This news from Gold Hill shows that it amounts to something." "What the mischief do you think is going on, Chip?" asked Clancy. "I'm up in the air and haven't an idea," replied Frank. "Mr. Bradlaugh asked me to come over to his office in town for a conference." "We'll have to hit the golden trail," declared Ballard, "and run it out to a finish. We've got to be mighty quick about it, too, or there's no telling what will happen to the old prof." "Show us your nuggets as big as washtubs, Pink," grinned Clancy, "and I'm willing to begin to sprint." "The dream was only a warning. It didn't suggest what we were to do, or how we're to go about it, but just gives us a hunch that Borrodaile needs help." "That's the trouble with dreams--there's too much guesswork about 'em. If you have one, and something happens that seems to tally with it, why, you're apt to take it for granted that you had a hunch. I'll bet you've had thousands of dreams about things that never happened, and yet here you're picking out one that appears to jibe with the prof's absence from Gold hill, and trying to make us think it's a warning. Stuff!" "You're too free with your snap judgments, Red," said Ballard solemnly, "but wait a while and you'll change your tune." Merriwell was already on his way out of the clubhouse, Clancy and Ballard gave up their discussion and hurried after him. The clubhouse and athletic field were less than a mile from the town of Ophir, and the three friends were soon jogging along through the sand on their way to Mr. Bradlaugh's office. Bradlaugh was president of the O. A. C., and Western representative of the syndicate that owned the big mine and stamp mill to the south of town. It was the mine that had made the straggling settlement of Ophir a possibility. "It will be at least two days more before I can hear from dad," Merry remarked, just as they struck into the main street of the "camp," "and before we interfere too much with the professor I think we ought to learn from headquarters just how far we ought to go." "Oh, bother that!" exclaimed Clancy. "If the old boy's in danger, Chip, we can't hang back waiting to hear from Bloomfield." "Sure we can't. We're making a guess, though, when we figure that he is in any sort of trouble. Just because he can't be located is no sign he's shooting the trouble chutes." "Yes, it is!" averred Ballard stoutly. "That dream I--" "Oh, cut out the dreams and forebodings, Pink," broke in Frank, "We're dealing with facts now and not with a lot of bunk superstitions." That dream had become Ballard's hobby, and he was in a fair way of riding it to death. Although he was easy going, and rather lazy when circumstances gave him the chance to be, yet he straightened suddenly at Frank's sharp fling at his delusion, and was on the point of flashing a keen retort. Before he could speak, however, Frank had turned in at Bradlaugh's office. Mr. Bradlaugh sat at his desk, smoking a cigar. He welcomed the lads cordially and waved them to chair. "What do you think about Borrodaile, Frank?" he asked, coming right down to the main subject. "I think," was the prompt answer, "that he has a head that's stuffed with knowledge--but it's not the sort of knowledge that will help him hang on to that bonanza mining claim of his." "My motion to a t, y, ty. He can go back to Caesar's time and tell you how the old Romans used to do business, but he's as innocent as a babe in arms about the way business is done in this day and age of the world. He needs looking after, or some one will get that claim of his for a song--and then forget the singing part. Have you any idea why he went back to Gold Hill after he had just come from there." "No, sir. That was the night"--and a flicker of a smile crossed Merry's face--"when I went out to the Bar Z Ranch, and before I had left I didn't know he had gone." "Hum!" Mr. Bradlaugh sat back in his chair and peered into the vapor that floated above his head. "Boys," said he, when he finally lowered his eyes, "I have a feeling that some one is trying to victimize this professor of yours; in other words, that evil forces are at work to swindle him out of his claim, or, perhaps, to get it in some way even more desperate. I don't want to alarm you unnecessarily, but it's the part of wisdom to consider this matter in the worst light possible, and then to go to work alon g that line. If we're mistaken in our conclusions, well and good. Better that, you know, than to think nothing is wrong, to let matters drift, and then to find that the professor has been swindled or"--he hesitated--"or that he has disappeared, never to return." All three of the boys at that gave a jump of consternation. "Great Scott!" exclaimed Clancy, "you don't have any idea that the harmless old fossil has been put out of the way?" "No," was the reply; "and yet there are people who would put him out of the way, if, by so doing, they could show up with a quitclaim deed to that wonderfully rich gold mine. If the professor were gone for good, you see, no one would appear to question the validity of the legal document. Such things have been done. I mention it in this case merely as a possibility. Then, again, we have to consider it as a case of mere swindling The professor, I think, could easily he victimized. My most hopeful view is this: that Borradaile has simply gone off somewhere, without any plotters tagging to his heel, and that he will present himself in due course with the claim still in his possession. It is best, though, to put the worst construction on his absence; then, if my last theory proves correct, we shall all be happily disappointed." Frank drew a deep breath. "I haven't felt like butting into the prof's affairs too much," said he, "until I hear from dad." "I think you're amply warranted in going ahead and looking for him," said Bradlaugh. "Sure. What would you do, Mr. Bradlaugh? Go over to Gold Hill and try to pick up some clews there?" "That might be advisable; just at present, however, I have another line of investigation in mind. I don't suppose you have forgotten Nick Porter, the old prospector who took you out to the deserted camp in the Picket Posts?" Clancy began to laugh. "It's a cinch," said he, "that we'll never forget old Silent Porter and his whisky bottle. I suppose he used the fifty dollars Chip paid him to grubstake himself, and that he's now, in the deserts looking for a mine?" "That's what he wanted the fifty for," answered Bradlaugh, "but after he got it he seems to have delayed going into the hills. Next day after you lads got back from Happenchance, Porter went to Gold Hill. The spree he had there on that fifty has been the talk of the town. He's a disreputable old chap when in his cups, and I'm wondering if he knows anything about Borrodaile's disappearance." "By Jove!" exclaimed Merry. "I wouldn't put it past him any. He was with us when we came back from Happenchance, and I remember now just how he looked when he saw a sample of the wire-gold ore." "He was ready to throw a fit," said Ballard, "because he had been all through the Picket Post range and had never found any gold there. I'll bet a farm you can nail this thing to Nick Porter." "Don't be hasty about that," warned Bradlaugh. "It's only a theory, and I believe every man ought to be considered as honest until he proves himself otherwise. Porter is merely a subject for investigation, that's all." "Then," said Frank promptly, "we'll go over to Gold Hill this very night and begin investigating him." "You won't have to go to Gold Hill. I've heard from our super at the mine that Porter returned here this afternoon, looking a good deal the worse for wear. After supper you can visit the mine and have a talk with the prospector. You'll know what angle to give your investigations, Merriwell." "But he may pull out for the hills while we're delaying here in town!" "He'll have to get money for another grubstake before he goes any more prospecting. Even if he has the money--which is hardly possible--the super, on my orders, will delay him if he tries to leave." Here was a sample of Mr. Bradlaugh's thoughtfulness which Merry deeply appreciated. "We'll be at the mine this evening, Mr. Bradlaugh," said he, "and if Porter knows anything about the professor's absence, we'll do our best to find out what it is." "My car would be at your disposal, but just now it's in the repair shop," went on Mr. Bradlaugh. "There are a couple of motor cycles at the mine, though, if you find it necessary to go anywhere in a hurry. Pardo, the super, will be glad to let you take the machines." Frank thanked Mr. Bradlaugh for the offer, and started to leave. "Just a moment," said the older man. "How did the boys shape up in the practice game?" "Fine!" Merriwell answered. "I suppose after you have located the professor and extricated him from any troubles he may have fallen into, you'll do your best to give us an eleven that will make the Gold Hillers eat crow instead of turkey for Thanksgiving?" There was a twinkle in Mr. Bradlaugh's eyes as he spoke. "I'll do what I can, Mr. Bradlaugh," Merry answered; "you may depend on that." "I am depending on it. It seems to me that the son of the greatest baseball pitcher and football half back Yale ever produced is well qualified to give Ophir a winning eleven. Good luck to you and your friends, Merriwell. Wind tip this business of the professor's as soon as you can and then get back on the football job. If I can help you in any way, call on me." As Frank, after murmuring further thanks, was about to step through the office door, Woo Sing, roustabout Chinaman at the Ophir House, stepped up on the porch with a yellow envelope in his hand. "Whoosh!" gabbled Woo Sing, his parchmentlike face splitting in a wide grin, "my lookee fo' you, Missul Melliwell." "Is that telegram for me?" demanded Frank. "Allee same," answered the Chinaman, passing it over. Frank tore open the envelope and read the message then, with a long whistle, he returned to put it in Mr. Bradlaugh's hands. Mr. Bradlaugh read as follows: "FRANK MERRIWELL, JUNIOR, Care Ophir House, Ophir, Ariz., via Gold Hill: "Good work! Watch Borradaile carefully. Don't let him out of your sight. Important. Letter on the way. "YOUR FATHER." Mr. Bradlaugh also gave a long whistle as he sank back in his chair thoughtfully and with the message in his hand. CHAPTER III. PORTER SHOWS HIS TEETH. It was eight o'clock in the evening when Merry, Clancy, and Ballard reached the mine and went hunting for the office of Pardo, the superintendent. The surface activities of a big gold mine, in full operation at night, are as weird as they are interesting. The boys were deeply impressed as they looked down into the valley where the mining, milling, and cyaniding were going on. The stamp mill, where the ore was pounded to powder and robbed of its gold, was a huge, ramshackle structure. Although it had a framework of heavy timbers, yet the strong skeleton was but loosely covered with boards. Through wide cracks and many gaps in the sides of the building a flood of light poured out, and the thunder of a hundred stamps filled the camp. Glimmering lights dotted the shadowy depths of the valley--some shining through the windows of rough dwellings and others moving about in the hands of workers. From the open door of, a blacksmith shop poured a yellow glow from a forge, and against the roar of the stamps arose the musical clink of hammer on anvil. This blacksmith shop happened to be the first building the boy passed on entering the camp. They stopped and asked the smith where they would find the superintendent's office. The brawny fellow turned from the anvil, stepped to the door, and pointed. "There's the super's office, younker," he said to Frank, "where ye see them two lights close together. Mebby he's there, an' mebby he's over to town; anyways, the assistant super is on deck." A person had to shout in order to make himself heard in the steady tumult of the mill. Frank bawled his thanks, and he and his two comrades pressed on toward the twin lights indicated by the blacksmith. These lights, it was presently discovered, came through two windows of a small office building. A man was sitting out in front, tilted comfortably back in a chair and smoking a pipe. He was a vague figure in the shadows, and the visitors could not see very much of him. "Is this Mr. Pardo's office?" Frank inquired, stepping close to the man and lifting his voice. "You've struck it," was the sociable rejoinder. "Are you Mr. Pardo, the superintendent?" "Strike two, my lad." "Well, my name's Merriwell, and I--" "And you've come here for a talk with that old hassayamper, Nick Porter!" finished Pardo. "Mr. Bradlaugh has put me next." The super laughed. "I suppose you know what a brilliant talker the prospector is?" Unless violently agitated, about the only audible sound Porter ever made was a grunt. "We know all about that," Frank answered. "Well," continued the super, "after the way he went off the handle in Gold Hill he seems to be less talkative than usual. And less audible," he added. "Whenever he bobs up in Ophir he makes it a rule to hang out in this camp, mainly because one of our crusherman on the night shift is an old friend of his. But he's a crusty old curmudgeon, and I never hanker much to have him around. He's up in the head of the mill with Joe Bosley now. Come on, Merriwell, and I'll show you and your friends where to find this precious prospector." The obliging superintendent got out of his comfortable chair and started along a camp trail that led up a steep incline. Along the top of the rise showed one side of the mill glowing ruddily against the night sky. Here there was a long, elevated platform upon which ore from the mine was unloaded. A man could be seen moving spectrally around and shoveling ore into a crusher set in the mill wall. Pardo paused, halfway up the low hill and drew Merriwell toward him. "That's Bosley, the crusherman," said he. "He'll tell you where you can find Porter. Bring the prospector to my office, if you like. It isn't quite so noisy as the mill, and you can talk to better advantage." The super turned and went back. Frank and his friends moved on to the ore platform, jumped to the top of it, and yelled their query at Bosley. "Nick?" the crusherman bawled, leaning for a moment on his shovel, and appraising the boys as well as he could. "Oh, he's communin' with himself in the feed loft. Right through that hole," he finished, pointing to an opening in the wall, "and down the steps." Frank led the way through the opening, and, at the foot of the steps, he and his chums found themselves in a small inferno. The bright, shimmering stems of twenty batteries, each of five stamps, were marking time before their eyes like, a row of steel soldiers. Each stamp weighed eight hundred and fifty pounds, and it rose and fell ninety-five times to the minute. The uproar was steady and deafening. Ore feeders were shoveling crushed ore into the stamp hoppers. Frank's eyes ranged over the sweating, seminude, powerful figures as they worked. He could see nothing of Nick Porter. While Frank's eyes were searching the loft, Clancy nudged him with an elbow. Frank turned, and Clancy made signs and pointed. Looking in the direction indicated by Clancy's finger, Frank saw the slouching form of Porter, the prospector. He was sitting on a keg in an angle of the wall. He was leaning back against the boards behind him, a cob pipe between his teeth. His eyes, peering out of the jungle of beard that covered his face, were fixed speculatively on the three boys. Merry immediately stepped to the prospector's side. "Hello, Porter!" he yelled in his ear. The prospector probably grunted, although Frank could hear nothing. "I want to talk with you for a few minutes," Merry went on, in a manner calculated to disarm any suspicions Porter may have had. "Come up to the super's office, will you?" He stepped back. The prospector sat still on the keg for a moment, then slowly knocked the ashes from his pipe and stood up. Frank was congratulating himself that Porter was to make for Pardo's office without any further persuasion; but in this he was mistaken. Clancy stood on the prospector's right, Merry in front of him, and Ballard on the left--between the spot where, Porter was standing and the opening that led into the feed loft. The prospector slipped his pipe into his pocket, moving in a slow, sluggish way that suggested weariness. He was not weary, however. Suddenly, without warning of any sort, he put out one arm and threw Clancy sideways, so that he fell over a heap of crushed stone. Another moment and Porter had leaped for a flight of stairs and had vanished downward into the body of the mill. It was all so quickly done that Frank was taken by surprise. The thought flashed through his mind that Porter, unless he knew something about Professor Borrodaile and suspected why the boys were there, would not be showing his teeth in that fashion. An instant after the prospector had disappeared down the stairs, Frank jumped after him. Ballard followed close on Frank's heels; and Clancy, hastily picking himself up, stifled an exclamation of anger and rushed after Ballard. The stairs led down to the floor where the boxes were placed, and where the plates, whose silver recovered the gold from the ore, stretched the length of the mill. Amalgamators and batterymen were going and coming through all the pounding racket of this part of the establishment, but the prospector had somehow managed to lose himself. So suddenly and completely had Porter disappeared that it seemed little short of magical. Frank took three or four steps from the foot of the stairs, peering along the row of plates covered with dirty water from the battery boxes, and looking back into the shadowy recesses under the ore loft. He was asking himself if Porter would have had time to get away into the darkness back of the batteries, when a red-shirted amalgamator stepped to his side. "Lookin' fer Porter?" he yelled. Frank nodded. "He ducked out o' the door yonder," and the amalgamator, with a jerk of his thumb, indicated an opening that led out into the night. Ballard was nearest the door. He had heard the amalgamator, and whirled like lightning and dashed out of the mill and into the darkness. Frank was tight at his heels, while Clancy brought up the rear of the little file of pursuers. The noise was not so deafening outside the mill, but the boys were blinded temporarily by their quick transition from the bright glow of the mill to the outer gloom. They stared around them, but could see nothing of the prospector. Ballard, however, heard something or other which gave him a clew. "This way!" he shouted. Frank heard his chum's feet swiftly crunching the sand and gravel, and followed the sound. In a moment or two his vision cleared somewhat and he was able to see several rows of huge wooden tanks. A plank incline led to the top of one row, and Ballard could be distinguished racing up the incline. Beyond Ballard, traveling at speed over a plank gangway that spanned the tanktops, was a burly figure silhouetted against the lighter gloom of the night. With a shout to Clancy, Merriwell hustled after Ballard. Those tanks were part of the cyanide plant, wherein the refuse of the mill was treated with deadly cyanide of potassium for recovering what little gold was left after the refuse, or "tailings," had come from the stamp mill. The cyanide plant, presumably, was familiar ground to Porter, whereas the boys had never seen it before. In the gloom the prospector could navigate across the big vats with something like accuracy, while the boys carried on their pursuit at a tremendous disadvantage. Recklessly Ballard ran on. Merriwell called a warning to him, but Ballard either did not hear it or else paid no attention. The form of the prospector, leaping and plunging onward, sprang from one row of vats to another. Each row was a little lower than the row to the north, so that the tiers took on the form of a flight of giant steps. Porter gained the top tier, and stood for a moment on a plank spanning a vat that was three or four times as large as any of the others. Ballard climbed to the same plank. Porter dropped down with a savage, snarling cry. Clinging for a moment to the edge of the tank, he twisted the plank from under Ballard's feet. Ballard dropped with a splash. "Merciful powers!" yelled a voice in wild alarm. "Get him out, quick! That's the solution tank and is filled with cyanide!" Merriwell's heart almost stopped beating. In a gleam of light from the mill he saw the white, drawn face of Pardo peering toward the spot where Ballard was splashing in the deadly cyanide solution. An instant later he bounded to the rescue. CHAPTER IV. A CLOSE CALL. Just one thing saved Ballard from going over his head into the cyanide solution, and that was this: Porter had not twisted the plank off the rim of the tank, but had manipulated it in such a way as to cause Ballard to lose his footing and drop into the poisonous liquid beneath. As Ballard dropped, he flung out his arms, seized the plank, and so kept head and shoulders out of the cyanide. Had he gone under or swallowed even a few drops of the deadly stuff, that pursuit of the savage prospector would have had a tragic termination. Ballard, kicking around in the solution, was trying to drag himself up on the plank as Merry crept toward him. "Steady there, Pink!" called Frank. "Don't splash the stuff around, and keep out of it as much as you can. It's a deadly poison." "Never mind me," cried, Ballard. "Keep after that confounded prospector He'll get away if you don't." "You first, old chap," Frank answered. "It has a scurvy trick Porter played on you, and--and it might have resulted fatally. Now, then!" Gripping his chum by the arms, Frank heaved him upward until he was on his knees on the plank. "Want any help?" came the agitated voice of Clancy, from just below the solution tank. "No," answered Merriwell, "we're making it all right." "Drop him over the side," called Pardo, "here, over in this direction. There's a tank of clear water next to the solution vat, and the quicker your friend rinses that cyanide out of his clothes, the better." "Oh, hang the cyanide!" shouted Ballard. "I was only half into the stuff, anyhow. Stop Porter, if you can. The brute is guilty of something or he wouldn't act like that." "Drop into that tank of water, Pink," ordered Merry, "or I'll throw you in." Ballard, without further discussion, lowered himself down into the reservoir of water that supplied the mill and kicked around in it for a few moments; then, drawing himself up on the rim of the vat, he jumped off to the ground at the superintendent's side. Merry and Clany quickly joined him. "Say," cried the startled Pardo, grabbing Ballard by the arm, "did you swallow any of the solution?" "How could I?" was the answer. "I only went in to the waist." "Got any cuts or sores on the lower part of your body?" "No." "By gorry." declared Pardo, "you're a lucky kid all right. Cyanide of potassium is the most virulent poison known. If a person scratches his finger on the tin in opening a case, and gets some of the solution in the cut, in less than fifteen minutes he's a goner. You don't know, son, how much you've got to be thankful for." Now that it was all over, and Ballard was beginning to realize how deadly was the bath in which he had been plunged, a few cold shivers started up and down his spine. "My skin is getting up and walking all over me with cold feet," said he. "I've got to warm up, and right now there's only one thing I want, and that is to get my hands in Porter's whiskers and twist his neck. Let's hotfoot it around and see if we can find him." "This way, my lads," shouted Pardo. "If the thing has happened that I've got in my mind, there's no use in hunting around this camp for the prospector. We'll find out in a brace of shakes." With Pardo leading the way, the boys ran to a corral on the other side of the camp. Pardo stopped. The corral gate was swinging open. "That looks," he commented, "as though some one had taken out a horse in a hurry. I'll just go in and see if Porter's horse is tied in its usual place. If it isn't, why, we can make up our minds that--" Just at that moment a man approached from the corral. The boys jumped forward instinct spelled by the thought that it might be Porter. But it was not. "That you, Cummins?" called the super. "Yep, Pardo, it's Cummins," was the answer. "Seen anything of Nick Porter?" "Jest about. Say, Nick Porter stormed in here a minute ago, got the gear on his bronk in record time, an' was off and away afore I could git close enough to find out what was up." "Which way did he go?" demanded Frank. "Toward town?" "Nary. I rushed around the corral jest in time to see him p'intin' for Pete Loco's, which is right the other way from town." "He's made a get-away, boys," said Pardo, "and you might as well give him up." "We're not going to give him up," Frank answered decidedly. "We've got to keep after him, and run him down. It's--it's important." "Well, now," protested the super, "you'd better think twice about that. Porter has shown that he won't stop at anything. He don't want to talk with you, does he? He's shown his teeth once; next time he does that he'll probably bite, and bite hard." "We'll look out for ourselves," put in the impatient Clancy. "He's the fellow we want, Chip. Why did he turn on us as he did if he hasn't a guilty mind?" "You think," spoke up Pardo, "that he knows what has become of your friend, the professor? Mr. Bradlaugh told me, over the phone," he explained, "why you wanted to talk with Porter." "It's a cinch, strikes me," answered Merry, "that Porter can tell us something about the missing prof. Wouldn't you figure it out that way, Mr. Pardo?" "Well, yes," acknowledged the superintendent. "I don't know but I would. What I'm trying to get at is this: Old Nick Porter has proved that he isn't a safe proposition for you boys to tackle." "You don't know us, Mr. Pardo," laughed Clancy. "That wasn't a fair shake the prospector gave us on top of those cyanide tanks. We ought to keep right after him. If we come close, we'll land on him by strategy." "That's the talk, Red!" approved Ballard, through his chattering teeth. "I'll furnish the strategy, if Chip should fall down on it. Let's get to moving. Three horses, Mr. Pardo, if you can spare 'em." "You haven't the slightest notion where Porter is going," said the super, plainly disapproving the plan of the boys to follow Porter, and marshaling every argument he could against it. "Where can he go along that trail toward Pete Loco's?" returned Frank. "There are only two places the trail leads to--one is Loco's and the other is McGurvin's. The trail stops at McGurvin's." "We haven't a horse for you. All that's left in the corral is the prospector's pack burro." "How about the two motor cycles?" Frank asked. "Mr. Bradlaugh said you had a couple of the machines here, and that we would be welcome to them if we found they'd come handy." "Well, yes," said Pardo, "I've got the motor cycles. If you insist on going after the prospector, you can take them. But they'll only carry two--one of you will have to stay behind." "We'll draw straws, Red and I, to see who stays," chattered Ballard. "No, you won't," cut in Merry firmly. "Pink, you've done enough for one night, and have thrown a scare into me that I won't get over in a hurry. You want to warm up, and the best way for you to do that is to sprint for town, kick off those cyanide-soaked clothes, and get into bed." "Now look here," Ballard protested, "I'm just as able to go on with this chase as either you or Red. I've got an ax of my own to grind, too. Remember, Chip, I'm the one that Porter dropped into the solution tank. The prospector owes me something for that. Let Clancy go back to the hotel--" "You're as wet as a drowned rat, Pink," struck in Clancy, "and if you don't go back to town Chip and I will worry our heads off about you." "Oh, yes, you'll worry a lot," derided Ballard. "The excitement is just beginning, and I'm entitled to a little of it." "There are only two motor cycles, Pink," argued Merry, "so only two of us can go." "I'll ride the burro," suggested Ballard desperately. "And we'd go to the Picket Posts and back while you were getting to Loco's," laughed Clancy. "You for town, Pink. Don't hang back. Maybe you'll dream some more." "You go to blazes," growled Ballard, seeing that the argument was already decided against him and that his protests were only delaying the pursuit. "Where are the machines, Mr. Pardo?" asked Merry. "This way," the super answered, and led the boys to an adobe storehouse not far from the corral. The motor cycles proved to be twin-cylinder, highpowered machines. "They're loaded with gasoline and oil," said Pardo, "for we always keep them in trim for an emergency." The gas lamps attached to the front of the motor cycles were lighted, and two penciled gleams searched out the ground far in advance. "Porter has a good, long start of us," remarked Clancy, an exultant note in his voice, "but on these buzz buggies we ought to be able to travel a dozen yards to his one." "I don't know whether I ought to let you go," said Pardo. "I'd go on one of the machines myself if the assistant superintendent wasn't away so that I am needed here. What will Mr. Bradlaugh say?" Merriwell laughed at the super's foolish fears. "Mr. Bradlaugh knows us better than you do, Mr. Pardo," he answered, "and he'll say you did just right to let us have the machines and take up the chase where we dropped it at the cyanide tanks." Merry, astride his wheel, was cranking with the pedals. The engine began to pop and sputter and was finally crooning its steady song of speed. Clancy had likewise turned his own engine over. "I wish you luck, anyhow," said Pardo. "We'll find that golden trail of yours, Pink," joked Clancy, "and bring you one of the nuggets as a souvenir." "Just bring back your scalp, Red," answered Ballard. "That's all the souvenir I want." Frank dropped a foot and give his Machine a hunch forward. The pneumatic tires touched ground, the iron rests folded up automatically, and he started through the gloom toward the trail that led to Pete Loco's. A moment later Clancy darted after him. CHAPTER V. ON TO HAPPENCHANCE. The boys were not long in discovering that the two motor cycles they were riding were fine machines. With the searchlights boring long holes in the dark, Merry and Clancy seemed fairly to fly over the trail. It seemed to them as though they had hardly started before the mass of deep shadow which marked the location of Loco's adobe lay almost in front of them on the right. The house was dark. Frank, after getting out of the saddle, examined his watch under the lamp. "Ten o'clock," he announced to Clancy. "The Loco family must all be in bed, Clan." "Rout some one out, Chip," said Clan, "and see if you can pick up any news. While you're doing that I'll skirmish around and see if there is a recently ridden horse at Pete's hitching pole or in his corral." Frank crossed the open space that lay between the road and the adobe and drummed on the front door with his knuckles. After two or three attempts he succeeded in arousing some one who demanded to know what was wanted. "I want a word with Pete Loco." Frank called. The door was unbolted and drawn open, revealing a swarthy-visaged man in shirt and trousers, holding a candle. "What in blazes d'ye want?" asked the man with the candle in no very pleasant tone. "I'm Pete Loco." "Any visitors staying with you to-night, Mr. Loco," Frank inquired. "I reckon not! Think this here's a hotel?" "I'm looking for a prospector named Porter. The last we saw of him he was coming in this direction." "Nick Porter? He's over to the mine. Seen him there this afternoon." "He's not there now. He left the mine and came this way." "Well, I haven't seen him, an' he ain't here." With that Pete Loco shut the door, and Frank could hear him shoot the bolt. Turning away, Frank met Clancy just coming around the corner of the house. "Loco says he doesn't know anything about our man, Clancy," reported Frank. "I guess he's telling the truth, Chip," Clancy replied. "I can't find any extra live stock around, and it's hardly possible, anyhow, that Porter would stop such a short distance from the mine. It's a safe bet that he's gone on to McGurvin's." Frank was in a quandary. "This adobe," said he, "is at the forks of the trail. One branch goes to the mine and Ophir, and the other leads to Gold Hill. It's just possible that Porter took the Gold Hill fork and didn't go on to McGurvin's." "He wouldn't do that, Chip." Clancy answered. "If he had wanted to go to Gold Hill he would have turned north from the mine and taken the shorter road through Ophir." "Unless," Frank qualified, "he had reasons for not wanting to pass through Ophir. Porter might have thought that we would use the telephone if he went that way, and have some one stop him." "Tell you what we can do," Clancy suggested, taken somewhat with Merry's logic and yet not quite satisfied to recede from his own position, "we can go on to McGurvin's; then, if we don't overhaul Porter on the road, or pick up any clews at McGurvin's, we can come back and take the Gold Hill fork from here. We can get over the ground like an express train with these machines, and can ride circles all around that horse that carried the prospector away from the mine." "Good!" agreed Frank. "We'll see how long it will take us to get to McGurvin's. It's only seven or eight miles." "Hit 'er up, Chip," cried the red-headed chap; "you won't find me taking any of your dust." Once more they got their machines in motion along the trail. The going was none too good, and Merry got his machine going at a pace that might have been reckless had not the brilliant, far-flung rays of the searchlight laid the way so clearly before his eyes. "That the best you can do?" called Clancy, whirring along at his chum's side. "This will do," Frank answered. "We're not on a boulevard, remember." Clancy gave a laugh of sheer exhilaration, for the thrill of that wild dash through the night and across the desert was in his veins. "We'll be running Porter down before we can see him, Chip," he called, the wind of their flight casting his words behind him in splintering echoes. But Merriwell had no fear of that. If Nick Porter had ridden hard, he would already have had time to cover the distance between the mine and McGurvin's. McGurvin's ranch was the last place, short of Happenchance in the Picket Post Mountains, where water could be secured. Surely, if Porter had come that way, he would stop at the ranch. He had left the mine too hurriedly to equip himself with water canteens and rations for a prolonged stay in the desert. Frank's hopes were mounting high as the motor cycles devoured the distance that separated their riders front McGurvin's. At last, in fifteen or twenty minutes--certainly less than half an hour--the mad pace was slowed as the destination hove duskily into sight. A yellow gleam showed at one of the windows of the ranch house, and suggested that the proprietor might be entertaining a caller. The machines were halted at a little distance from the dwelling, and Merry stole forward to reconnoiter, ere announcing himself in person to McGurvin. There was no curtain at the window through which shone the lamp-light, and the lad crept up to it and looked into the room. Only one man was visible, and that was the ranch owner himself. He sat by a table, reading. "I guess we're off the track, Roper," said Frank, rejoining Clancy. "I can't see any one but McGurvin through the window, and he's spelling out the news in a paper. If Porter was there, he and McGurvin would certainly be together." "Not so certainly, Chip." answered Chancy. "Let's look in the corral for a tired horse. If we find one, then surely it's Porter's, and Porter has got into the house and gone to bed." Only one horse and a burro were found, and the horse showed no evidence of recent hard riding. Frank was deeply puzzled. "If the prospector came this way," said he, "there would be nothing else for it but for him to stop here. He wouldn't dare go on into the desert without foot and water." "Possibly he stopped, got what he wanted, and went on," Clancy hazarded. "No, Clan. We can't be much more than half an hour from the mine; if we suppose that Porter had a full hour the start of us--it couldn't have been more than that--then he had only an hour and a half to ride here, and no time to pick up food and water and push his tired horse on into the desert. We'd better go back to Loco's and take the fork to Gold Hill." "Let's not be in a rush, Chip. Now that we're here, we'd better find out what McGurvin has got to say." "Of course," Frank returned, "we'll have a word or two with the rancher before we turn back." The rancher was not surprised to have visitors drop in on him at that hour. The better part of his income was derived from the sale of water, brought up from his well by burro power, to prospectors and others who happened along that way. Such customers were liable to straggle in from any quarter at any hour. "'Pears mighty like I've seen you fellers some place before," said the rancher, staring hard at the boys. "Say," and his face cleared, "wasn't you along this way a few days ago with Barzy Blunt an' some more, runnin' some fool race or other." He referred to the "relay Marathon," which Frank and his chums had run against Blunt and his cowboy friends, to file in Gold Hill a location notice of Borrodaile's claim. "Yes," smiled Frank, "we're the fellows." "Well, sufferin' Mike!" guffawed McGurvin. "Sot down an' be sociable, can't ye?" "We're in something of a hurry, McGurvin," Frank went on, "and can't stop long. Do you know a prospector named Porter?" McGurvin's face went blank, and he dug his fingers into his tousled hair. "Not Andy Porter, from up Phoenix way?" he asked. "Squints with his off eye, and walks with a limp?" "No," Frank answered, "this man is a big fellow, whiskers, ropy hair, gray eyes." "New one on me," said McGurvin. "Then, you haven't seen anything of him?" "Nary a thing. What's he done? Stole a hoss?" "We don't know what he has done, McGurvin. All we want is to have a talk with him. Can you spare us a couple of canteens, full of water, and a bag of rations--enough for two or three meals?" "Shore," answered the rancher, "that's what I'm here fer. Dollar fer the water in the canteens, an' two dollars fer the canteens; then another two dollars fer the hand-out. Makes five, don't it?" McGurvin had the reputation of being more or less of a robber. Having a monopoly of the water in that locality, he set his own prices, and did not fear competition. "Five dollars is all right, McGurvin," said Frank. "Blunt was out this way this afternoon, with a couple his pards," remarked McGurvin, unaware of the bomb was exploding. "They watered up, rested a spell, an' hiked on to the Picket Posts." Merry was startled, but contrived not to show it. Clancy jumped, but his chum gave him a warning glance. "Hustle around and get those supplies for us, please," urged Frank. "We're in a hurry." "Hosses to water?" queried the rancher, starting for a rear door. "No horses, McGurvin. "Ottermobile, I reckon," deplored McCurvin. "If them things git too thick in the desert they'll be the ruination of me. I'll have yore stuff ready in ten minutes." He went out through the door, Clancy leaped excitedly toward Merriwell. "What's on your mind now, Chip?" he whispered. "Why the grub and water?" "I made up my mind, all of a sudden, to extend this of ours to Happenchance." "You're crazy!" gasped Clancy. "How can we find the way? It would be hard enough in broad daylight, but at night we'd get all twisted up, and end by losing ourselves in the foothills. If we're going to Happenchance, Chip, we'd better camp right here until morning, then cross the rough country when we can see what we're about." "I had made up my mind to go on to-night," Merry answered, "even before McGurvin told us that about Barzy Blunt." "Gee, but that was a bombshell! What do you suppose Blunt is doing out this way?" "It's possible he may know something about the professor. Why did he go on to the Picket Posts? What business has Barzy Blunt got around the old camp of Happenchance, where the professor's claim is located? Before McGurvin told us Blunt had gone in that direction, I had made up my mind that we ought to take a look at the deserted town; now that I know Blunt is there. I am more anxious than ever to get to the place." "But what about Porter?" "Where he has gone is a mystery," said Merriwell, "but I think Blunt and his cowboy friends offer a more promising clew to the prof's whereabouts. We'll forget about Porter for the present, and give our attention to Blunt." They talked in whispers for a short time longer, and then sat back suddenly in their chairs as McGurvin came into the room with two filled canteens and a small canvas bag of rations. Merry exchanged five silver dollars for the supplies, and then the rancher followed the boys out and watched them while they started their machines. "A couple o' gasoline go-devils, by thunder!" muttered McGurvin. "All kinds o' ways o' beatin' a man that sells water out o' his rights. If ye didn't have them contraptions, ye'd be shackin' along on a couple o' bronks, an my well 'u'd bring me in two bits a head fer each of 'em." The rancher was still sputtering as the boys raced off through the starlight, heading into the desert. As soon as they were well away. McGurvin's wrath died in his throat, and he gave vent to a husky chuckle. "On ter Happenchance, or I'm a Piute!" he muttered jubilantly. "Go it, you crazy galoots--but I 'opine ye won't find what ye're a-lookin' fer." Still chuckling, he turned back into the house and pounded on a stovepipe that ran through the ceiling and into a room overhead. "Have they gone, McGurvin?" came a muffled voice from above. "I reckon they have, Nick," laughed the rancher; "they went pippity-poppin' away, each of 'em on a couple o' wheels run by gasoline." "Where'd they go?" "Happenchance, I reckon. Leastways, they headed inter the desert, p'intin' thataway." A satisfied grunt echoed from above. "Lucky I hitched yore bronk out in the scrub," went on McGurvin complacently. "I'll bet a-plenty them kids was nosin' around afore they come in here. But they didn't find nothin', nary, they didn't." _"Buenas noches_, Mac," called down the man upstairs, "I'm turnin' in." The words were followed by a faint echo of hoarse laughter. McGurvin caught up the sound with some heartiness as he locked the door, blew out the light, and went groping through the dark for his own bed. CHAPTER VI. A STARTLING DISCOVERY. The entrance of Barzy Blunt into that mystifying tangle had been as sudden as it was unexpected. And yet, knowing Blunt as he did, Merry wondered that he had not thought of the fellow before. Blunt was a young cow-puncher, who boasted of being a "homemade" athlete, and would take a back seat for nobody, least of all young Merriwell. He was not exactly "cracked" on the subject of his prowess in athletic sports, but his views were certainly warped. Obsessed with the idea that it was his duty to take Merriwell down a peg. Blunt was continually, and in the most weird and wonderful ways, contriving to force Merry into tests of strength and skill. Merry had shown Blunt his heels in a hundred-yard dash, and at least once had put him on his back in a catch-as-catch-can wrestling bout. It was at Blunt's suggestion that the relay Marathon was run, with the professor's claim as the prize: and it was by a plot of Blunt's that Merry had been lured to the Bar Z Ranch, where, as Blunt had planned. Merry pitched against the cowboy in a baseball game. Frank and his chums had won the relay Marathon and Frank had pitched his cowboy team to victory. Yet Blunt still refused to be satisfied. The "Cowboy Wonder," as Blunt called himself, had been reared by a man who had implanted in his growing mind a vast array of false notions. By these, the Wonder regulated his conduct, with a result that was ludicrous at times, and at other times almost tragic. There was something about the queer fellow that young Merriwell liked. And yet, while he sympathized with Blunt to a certain extent, he was forced to condemn his rashness and dare-devil behavior. "Clan." said Merry, as he and his chums moved on into the trackless desert, "while I sat in McGurvin's adobe it flashed over me, all at once, that we had forgotten something about Professor Borrodaile which might possibly explain his absence." "What was that?" "Why, you remember how we left Happenchance in such a hurry, the time we went to the place and found the prof?" "We were chased out by Blunt and his puncher friends." "Not exactly. We were hurrying out ahead of them in order to reach the automobile and beat Blunt to Gold Hill with the professor's location notice. Well we were in such a rush that Professor Borrodaile had to leave his luggage behind. Now, wouldn't it be the natural thing to suppose that the prof returned to Happenchance after his goods and chattels?" "Holy mackerel!" exclaimed Clancy. "You've nicked it, Chip! That's just what the harmless old fossil has done. He wanted his trunk, and he slipped out of Gold Hill and went after it. We're thick, all right. It's a wonder that some of us didn't think of that earlier in the game. I shouldn't be surprised if we found the prof back in his old place in the only house left in Happenchance!" "It's possible," said Merry. "Anyhow, that's the idea that flashed through my mind as I sat talking with McGurvin. And that's the reason I contracted for the canteens, the water, and the rations. Then, when McGurvin said what he did about Blunt, I was more anxious than ever to keep on to Happenchance." "What do you think Blunt has got up his sleeve this time?" "He's so full of wild ideas that there's no telling. If the professor is in Happenchance, then Blunt has some reason for following him there." "And out of it all, Chip." declared Clancy, "there's going to come a contest of some sort between you and Blunt. The fellow's crazy on the subject of getting the better of you in some feat of strength and skill. Can't he ever be satisfied?" "Seems not," Frank answered. "Sometimes I have a hunch that I ought to hang back and let Blunt make a winning. If that's what he wants, why not humor him?" "Not on your life!" protested Clancy promptly. "You've got to meet Blunt at every point, and trim him well. I think he's 'yellow,' anyhow." "You and I will never agree on that," said Merry. "There's good stuff in Barzy Blunt, and some day he's going to see the error of his way, and reform. When that happens, you'll find he has the making of an all-round star athlete." Clancy muttered something under his breath. Whatever it was it certainty was not creditable to the Cowboy Wonder. "We're getting into the hills," observed Clancy, shifting the subject, "and now, if we don't get lost, it will be because your bump of location is a lot better than mine." Merry had the habit, at all times, of keen and careful observation, he had made but one trip to the old camp of Happenchance, but circumstances, at that time, had conspired to fix the route to it firmly in his mind. He had gone to the lost town of the Picket Posts in the Bradlaugh car, guided by Nick Porter, but he had ridden back to McGurvin's on a horse, accompanying the runners in the first lap of the relay race. So he had been able to use his faculty of observation to some purpose. Could he follow the course by night, with the mountains a constant guide by day, all but blotted out in the starlight? He believed he could; and now the test of his confidence was at hand. His keen eyes watched the ground as it ruffled into low foothills. Although he laid a zigzag course as his searchlight brought cactus clumps and thorn bushes into view, in the main he succeeded in dodging obstacles, and yet held to a fairly direct route. A mound of rocks, stark and almost shapeless in the gloom, guided him like a fingerboard; or a flat-topped hill, or a peculiar-shaped valley between two uplifts, set him on the right track. Mile by mile the black mountains came closer, and then Clancy himself began to pick up a landmark or two which he recognized. "Chip," he cried, "you're a wonder! Unless I'm badly mistaken, we just passed the valley where we left the car when Porter led you, and Ballard, and I into the gap that cuts through the mountain wall to Happenchance." "That was the valley, Clan," replied Merriwell, "and there's nothing very wonderful about getting back to it, either. It's just a matter of minding your P's and Q's, and remembering a thing or two. We couldn't take the car through the gap, but I believe we can make it with these machines. We'll go around the hills instead of over them." Then began a sinuous weaving back and forth, following the seams in the uplifts and mounting steadily toward the narrow gap. The pace was slow and labored, but Frank unerringly traced the way until the motor-cyle lamps flung their round, yellow eyes squarely into the fissure of the mountain wall. "Maybe there isn't anything wonderful about this," called Clancy, as Frank led the way into the narrow passage, "but--well, it gets my goat. Poor old Pink is missing the time of his life. Now, if we can find Borrodaile, and jog him into a realization of where he is and what he has done, we'll just about make a good night's work of it. It's a relief to know that the prof hasn't been in danger of being bunkoed out of his gold mine." "We don't know that yet," Frank called back over his shoulder. "Don't take too much for granted, Red. This move on Happenchance may be putting us clear off the scent." "I'll bet something it isn't," said Clancy, with supreme conviction. Emerging from the pass, the boys descended into a circular valley, in whose center shapeless ruins covered all the old-time glories--such as they were--of a once bustling mining camp. The searchlights pierced the vast heap of debris, and revealed the cluttered lane which had once been the town's main street. Carefully Frank steered through the passage and came at last to a halt in front of the only four walls in the place that remained standing. Here was the building in which they had discovered Professor Phineas Borrodaile, living alone in primitive surroundings and trying to imagine him self a troglodyte. "Hello, professor!" shouted Clancy. His voice echoed back and forth between the cliffs that rimmed the valley, but brought no answer. "Not here!" he exclaimed, in a voice of profound disappointment. "You really expected that yell would bring him?" Frank asked. "I really did. Hang the luck! Say, Chip, I guess the theory won't hold water. The prof is still mysteriously absent, after all." Merry had removed the lamp from his machine, and was standing in front of the old door. It was swinging by one rusty hinge, and he pushed it wide open. "Look out for snakes, Chip!" warned Clancy. Cautiously the boys pushed through the doorway and into the room that lay beyond. They looked around them, as Merry flashed the beam of light over the ruinous walls. Instinctively a gasp of surprise escaped them. A cot had once stood at the side of the room, and there had been an oil stove in the place, and a shelf with some books, a chair, a trunk, and a few other odds and ends of primitive housekeeping. But now there was nothing. Every object had been cleaned out of the place and only the bare walls remained. "Professor Borrodaile isn't here, Clan," said young Merriwell presently. "But he has been here, and made off with his plunder, that's plain. The question is where is the professor now?" It was a startling discovery the boys had made; not in itself alone, but in the question to which it had given rise. CHAPTER VII. WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE. Merry sat down on a chunk of adobe which had fallen out of the wall. Placing the lamp in the niche left by the chunk in its fall, he hooked up a knee between his hands, and grew thoughtful. Clancy found a seat for himself, and waited for the result of his chum's reflections. He waited so long that he became impatient. "What's at the back of your head, Chip?" he asked. "There isn't a thing at the back of mine." Frank dropped his knee, and looked at his watch. "It's one o'clock in the morning," said he. "Let's have lunch." "An ounce of grub is worth a pound of theory any old time," said the red-headed fellow cheerfully. "I'll lug in the canteens and the chuck bag." He went out and returned with them, and he and Frank got busy with some sardine sandwiches, crackers, and cheese which McGurvin had provided for a "hand-out." The water in the canteens was refreshing, and likewise the fare, rough though it was. "In the first place, Clan," reasoned Merry, "we've got to consider that it isn't exactly a cinch that Borrodaile has been here. It's probable, but not absolutely certain. Some desert Arab may have raided the place and carted away his stuff." "Not likely," returned Clancy, swallowing a mouthful of sandwich. As he was about to take another bite, he had a thought that caused him to look up quickly. "Unless," he added. "Blunt and his friends did the looting. They came this way during the afternoon. They're not here now. Where are they?" Frank shook his head. "You might just as well ask where Porter is, or the prof," said he. "It's hopeless to try to keep track of Barzy Blunt, or to figure out from what he's done, what he's going to do next. From what McGurvin said, I thought Blunt had come here with some of his friends. Maybe he did. Possibly he collected the professor's goods and chattels and rode off with them. It isn't likely, though. Cow-punchers wouldn't be apt to do all that freighting on horseback. Would they take the trouble to balance a cot across one of their horses and ride away with it? Or the professor's trunk? I guess Blunt and his friends wouldn't have much use for the professor's plunder; so it's a fair surmise they didn't take it. Some one else did, that's evident. The testimony all points to the professor himself." "He left Gold Hill to come to Happenchance," remarked Chancy. "Why didn't he tell us about it? It couldn't have been such an awful secret he had to keep it to himself." "It's a deuce of a hard thing to figure out," said Merry. "I don't think we ever will understand it until Borrodaile bobs up and clears away the mystery himself. I've a hunch that Blunt is the key to this riddle of the professor's whereabouts. The Wonder may be somewhere around--that is, if McGurvin wasn't lying." "You can bank on it, Chip, that a robber like McGurvin wouldn't tell the truth if it was to his interest to tell something else." "He said he didn't know Nick Porter, a man who has been roaming these deserts all his life. If that's the truth, it's remarkable." "Now you're getting back to Porter again. I thought we had agreed to let him go, and pin our faith to Barzy Blunt." "Blunt, I think, is our best bet. I merely rang in Porter to give you my estimate of McGurvin's truthfulness. Porter couldn't have been at the McGurvin place, or we'd have found his horse." "That's so." Clancy yawned. "I move we stay here all night and knock around a little in the morning. A good deal of the night has gone, anyway, and I guess we can stick out the rest of it in Happenchance. What do you say?" "It's important to locate the professor," said Merry. "Dad's telegram puts that right up to us. Now that we're here, we'd better wait until morning and see if anything develops. We'll bring in the machines, hunt a couple of soft rocks, and see if we can't get a little sleep." The motor cycles were trundled into the old house, the light put out, and the lads lay down on the old clay floor with lumps of broken adobe for pillows. In spite of the hard beds, the lack of even the most meager comforts, both Merry and Clancy were soon asleep. Merry awoke, with a beam of sun in his eyes. He sat up, staring incredulously around him, and could hardly believe that several hours had passed. The sun was shining into the old ruin through the hanging door. Merry looked over toward the spot where he had last seen his chum, and found that Clancy was also sitting up. "Top of the morning to you, Chip," grinned Clancy. "How many lumps on your backbone? I've counted a dozen on mine. This mattress was harder than the one in our room at Pophagan's--and that's going some. Any new theories this morning?" "Haven't had time to think up any," laughed Merry. "It doesn't seem more than a minute since I put out the light and--er--turned in. What's happened, since I closed my eyes, is a perfect blank. How about that spring? It isn't big enough for a cold plunge, but we can duck our heads. Maybe that will clear our brains a little." "Me for the spring!" cried Clancy, bounding to his feet. Leaving the old house, they hurried to the spring, which they had located on their previous visit to Happenchance. The water was cool and clear, and the pool into which the water dripped was big enough for a partial ducking. Handkerchiefs served for towels, and there was a lot of good-natured joshing as the chums dabbed away at their dripping faces. "On the way back to the grub bag," Clancy finally remarked, "I move that we make a detour by way of the ledge and the professor's mine. Let's make sure, Chip, that the claim is still there. Maybe it has vanished, like the prof." The claim was found where it had been left, although some of the ore had vanished. The shelf was gouged and disfigured as though some one had put down a blast, blown a hole in the vein, and then taken away a lot of the ore. "By Jove," exclaimed Merry, "here's something else we might lay to Blunt. I don't think, though, that he'd come here and steal any of the professor's ore." "I've got my own ideas about that," said Clancy. "Some one has been here, anyhow. Did the professor do this, when he came for his household goods?" "He wouldn't know how to drill a hole, cap a fuse, and touch off a stick of giant powder. No, Clan, it wasn't Professor Borrodaile. The deeper we get into this business, the more complicated it becomes." The outcropping of ore was wonderfully rich. It was of the sort known as wire gold, and the rock was covered with a fuzzy yellow web of pure metal. What ore had been blown out by? the blast had been gathered up slick and clean. "A bagful of that stuff," said Merry, "would mean a whole lot in dollars and cents. Somebody has been 'high grading.'" "And he dropped a little of his swag as he went off with it," added Clancy, stepping off a few yards from the ledge and pointing to a bit of ore that lay on the ground. "There is some of the fellow's loot," Clancy went on. "It lies gold side up, and shimmers in the sun like a double eagle." He looked at the sample for a few moments, and then slipped it into his pocket. "Finding is keeping," he grinned. "This ought to pay you back, Chip, for the five you gave McGurvin in exchange for stuff that was actually worth about ten cents." Frank ran past Clancy for a couple of rods straight out into the valley. "It was a thundering bad leak, Clan," he called, stooping down and gathering in another ore sample. "That makes two chunks of the stuff the thief lost. He was probably in a rush to get away, and didn't notice how the ore was dribbling out." "Wait a minute, Chip," said Clancy, "and let's figure this down as fine as we can. There are prints of a horse's hoofs along the course where this ore was dropped. Ballard ought to be here to do the Sherlock Holmes racket for us. I'm not very swift at this detective business, but I'll take my oath the thief loaded his bag of loot on a horse." "You don't think, do you," said Frank dryly, "that he'd carry a bag weighing two or three hundred pounds over his shoulder? Of course, he had a pack animal. It wasn't a horse, though, but a burro." "How did you guess it was a burro?" "Small hoofmarks." "Oh, scissors! Of course, of course! This claim of the professor's is too valuable to be left unguarded. He ought to begin working it, or else sell it to some one who'll see that it's taken care of. Let's take our gold ore and make tracks for the chuck sack. I fell hungry, somehow." As they started across the valley, at a distance of perhaps a hundred feet from the spot where Frank had picked up the second bit of ore, they found another. Fifty feet from that they found a fourth piece; and then as they paused at the lane leading through the heart of the ruined camp, their eyes, wandering toward the took-in one glittering point after another--each point a scrap of wire gold, glimmering in the sun. "The thief left a trail," exclaimed Merry, "from ledge directly to the gap." "And how much farther, Chip?" asked Clan excitedly. "Say, maybe we can follow that trail and find where the fellow went!" It was a startling proposition, and yet one that might be easily demonstrated. "We'll try it," said Frank, "but not till after breakfast. Come on, Clan, and we'll take another fall out of our rations; then ho, for the golden trail!" As Merry spoke, a queer idea popped suddenly into his mind. He stopped short and stared at Clancy. The latter evidently was fired with the same notion. "Ballard's dream!" muttered Clancy, rubbing a hand over his wet hair. "Hang it all, Chip, this is quite a jolt to a fellow who isn't at all superstitious. The golden trail! Why, Pink saw it three times hand running, in his sleep!" CHAPTER VIII. WHERE THE GOLDEN TRAIL LED. Merriwell was not superstitious, and had no patience with any one who was. He was forced to admit, however, that a strange coincidence had developed in the matter of Ballard's dream and the discovery that had just been made. "Pink dreamed of nuggets as big as washtubs," said the marveling Clancy, "and they were arranged like stepping-stones, and stretched from the professor's claim to Gold Hill." By that time, Merry had got himself in hand. He laughed softly. "Yes, Clan," said he, "I remember. These pieces of ore are not nuggets, however, and if the whole golden trail was raked together, I don't believe it would come anywhere near filling even a small-sized washtub. And I'll bet the trail doesn't lead from here to Gold Hill." "In the dream," went on Clancy, "Pink saw a gang of toughs chasing the prof along the row of nuggets." "Which is about as consistent as dreams usually are. If Professor Borrodaile wanted to get away from the toughs, why did he keep on his yellow stepping-stones? Why didn't he duck aside and hide in the bushes? All foolishness, Clan. Let's go and eat." Making their way back to Professor Borrodaile's old lodgings, the boys ate a hurried breakfast. They were thrilled with the novel idea of following the trail of ore, and, perhaps, of overtaking the thief. "The fellow, whoever he is," said Clancy, "may be able to tell us something about the professor." "Everybody we run across out here is liable to be mixed up with the prof's disappearance," answered Merry. Before starting, the two motor cycles were gone over carefully. Only a small amount of attention was needed to put them in trim for the morning's work. At last, with their canteens freshly filled and hung across their shoulders, and the dwindling bag of rations secured to Clancy's machine, they got clear of the old ruins and made their start along the golden trail. The scattered ore led upward and through the gap, then out on the farther side and into the foothills. Nor did the trail, after getting away from the circular valley, point toward Gold Hill. On the contrary, it bent in the opposite direction. "Here's where the facts knock another hole in Ballard's dream," said Frank. "Gold Hill is northwest of us, and the ore takes us southeast." "We haven't any gasoline to waste, Chip," remarked Clancy, "and if we go very far in this direction we're liable to get hung up in the desert with a couple of dead engines." "The reservoirs were still when we left the mine, Clan, and I guess, if were careful, we can make the round trip without having to walk part of the way. If the golden trail promises to lead us too far, we'll hide the machines somewhere and go over some of it on foot:" The man with the burro and the leaky ore bag had naturally hunted for the easiest way through the hills. His devious course bothered the boys a little in keeping track of the pieces of dropped ore. The pieces lay on the ground at irregular intervals. Sometimes there would be two samples within three or four yards of each other, and then perhaps the boys would have to go three or four hundred feet before they found another. At such times the hoofmarks of the burro served as a guide. "That thief is a mighty careless sort of a man," said Clancy. "It's a wonder he didn't notice what was going on, and stop the leak." "Strikes me," answered Merry, "that he walked, and led the burro. If that was the case he wasn't in a position to see that the loot was getting away from him." For at least a mile the golden trail zigzagged through the foothills. Finally it came out on a level stretch of ground, partly covered with a chaparral of greasewood, ironwood, and paloverde. Frank had been noticing for several minutes that the single set of burro tracks had grown into a veritable clutter of hoofprints. A good many of the prints were large enough to suggest that horses had passed over the golden trail. Merry and Clancy were discussing the additional tracks as they wheeled out upon the flat bit of desert. They could make nothing of them, and the anxiety they caused was presently lost in another discovery: They had reached the end of the line of ore! Try as hard as they could, not another piece of wire-gold ore could they find. The thief, it appeared, must have discovered the hole in the bag, at that point, and have repaired it. Still searching, and hoping against hope, the boys presently came close to the edge of the chaparral. Then, with stunning abruptness, a voice shouted from among the bushes. "Now, then, pards, make a surround!" It was a familiar voice. Merry as not so startled that he failed to realize that. The chaparral shook and rustled with the movements of horsemen. In a moment four riders plunged into view and drew rein on each side and in front and rear of Merriwell and Clancy. The surprised lads recognized the fellows at once. They were some of the cowboy athletes from the Bar Z Ranch--Blunt, the Cowboy Wonder, and his particular cronies, Ben Jordan, Bandy Harrison, and Aaron Lloyd. "Whoop!" exulted Blunt, his spirited black horse rearing under his firm grip on the reins. "Look who's here, pard! It's Merriwell, by glory! Chip Merriwell, the son of his dad! Merriwell, the silk-stocking athlete! We're diamonds in the rough, pards, but he's cut and polished until he dazzles the eyes. Well, well! What do you think of this?" Merry was conscious of one thing, and that was that the present meeting in the desert was due to chance alone, and not to any plotting on Blunt's part. "Whoop!" jubilated Blunt's three companions, put to it somewhat to curb their restive mounts. "Hold still, Frank, you crazy fool!" cried the Wonder, slapping his horse about the ears with his hat. "He's scared of those chug-chug bikes, same as the rest of the bronks. Whoa, I tell you!" Blunt was a master horseman, and soon had his plunging steed steadied down. Clancy looked up into the face of the Cowboy Wonder and scowled. "You're the limit," he grunted. "I guess Chip will believe you've got a yellow streak, after this." A smile, mirthless and ugly, crossed Blunt's bronzed face. Leaning forward along his horse's neck, he fixed his sloe-black eyes on Clancy's. "Yeller streak, eh?" he echoed. "What is there, in this, to make Merriwell think I've got a thing like that?" "Of course," flashed Clancy, "you touched up the professor's claim for the trail of ore we've been following front Happenchance." "That's a lie," snapped Blunt. "We're cow-punchers, and homemade athletes, but we're not sneak thieves. We were on our way to a ranch beyond the Picket Posts after, a bunch of Bar Z strays. We watered, late yesterday afternoon, at the spring by old Happenchance, and we reached the range we were bound for at ten o'clock last night: Couldn't find the cattle we were looking for, and we started back an hour before dawn this morning. We struck that trail of ore half a mile from here, and turned back to run it out. Right in this place she petered out. While we were thinking about continuing on to McGurvin's, we heard you two popping this way, and took to the brush in order to give you a little surprise. That's the truth of it, and you can believe it or not?" "I believe it, Blunt," Merry answered, with a restraining glance in his chum's direction. "Now that we have met you, possibly you can give us a little information. We're looking for the professor. He suddenly dropped out of sight, and we're anxious to locate him and get him back to Ophir." "Wow!" exclaimed Ben Jordan. "Do we all know anything about this perfesser? Well, I reckon. Why, he's--" "Cork!" shouted Blunt sharply. "You chaps keep still about the professor. I'll do the talking on that point." He turned in his saddle to face Merriwell, "We can tell you a whole lot about this professor of yours," he went on, "but I've an ax to grind, Merriwell, and the information is going to cost you something." "I thought that was your stripe," sneered Clancy. "Oh, you did? Say, if I wasn't so teetotally wrapped up in Merriwell, I'd give a little attention to you, my buck." "What is the information going to cost?" asked Frank. "It's going to cost you a fight--with me. Sabe? If you can put me down for the count, Merriwell, we'll not only tell, you what we know about Borrodaile, but we'll turn in, every man jack of us, and help you get hands on him." That was Barzy Blunt to a hair. He never allowed a chance for a contest with young Frank Merriwell to get past him. "Give him his wish, Chip--or let me," growled Clancy. "He ought to have a little sense pounded into that head of his, and here's an opening." "If you're hankerin' fer a go, Redhead," called Ben Jordan, "mebby I could oblige." "No," put in Frank. "This little matter is between Blunt and me. We've got the center of the stage, and were going to keep it. The rest of you can look on." He turned to the Cowboy Wonder. "Sparring is all right, Blunt," he continued, "but, if it is all the same to you, why not settle, the matter catch as catch can? I have already taken one fall out, of you, but you have always claimed you could have turned the tables on me if the bout hadn't been interrupted." "I'm agreeable!" answered Blunt cheerily. "Best two out of three," he added, slipping out of his saddle and handing his reins to Randy Harrison. "Hitch, pards, and gather 'round. A diamond in the rough is going up against this polished article from the East. Watch me juggle with him." He threw up his head and roared in a kind of chant: "I'm Barzy Blunt, of the Bar Z Ranch, known to fame as the Cowboy Wonder! Whoop!" "Whoop!" howled Blunt's three companions, leading the horses back toward the chaparral. Frank had already begun to strip to the gymnasium clothes which he wore beneath his ordinary apparel as under garments. His sleeveless shirt he took off as well, thus matching the Wonder who was also stripping to the buff. Merry knew that the cowboys would play fair, as they understood the word. They showed their sportsmanlike spirit by agreeing that Clancy should act as referee. "If you're ready," said Clancy, "get busy!" Warily the two wrestlers faced each other. Again, as in the relay Marathon, Merry was contesting with Blunt for the benefit of Borrodaile. And Merry, although the Wonder was a quick and powerful antagonist, was determined to win, and to do it handily. CHAPTER IX. A SHARP CLASH. Barzy Blunt was a splendid specimen of physical development. His shoulders were broad, his chest deep, and there was not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his whole body. Under his clear, white skin the muscles tensed and flowed, as he crouched, and approached and retreated warily, looking for an opening. His movements were swift and graceful, carried out with a precision and certainty that not only claimed, but received, Merriwell's silent admiration. But if Blunt was a fine specimen of a "homemade" athlete, Merriwell's more scientific training revealed him a shade better on every one of Blunt's points, admirable though they were. If Blunt's appearance suggested excellence, young Frank's spelled perfection. Even the cowboys, Blunt's partisans, could not refrain from exclamations that honored the "polished gem from the East." Nevertheless, the Bar Z fellows kept all their encouragement for their own champion. "He's got nothin' on ye in weight. Barzy!" called Aaron Lloyd. "Flop him! Jump in an' turn him over!" "For the honor of the ole Bar Z, Barzy!" whooped Ben Jordan. "It's yore bout, pard!" cried Bandy Harrison. Suddenly the two wrestlers rushed at each other. By a quick movement, Blunt secured a hold which Merry did not fancy, and he slipped out of his grasp. On the marble whiteness of Merriwell's bare back four livid streaks showed, and a flick of red oozed from one of them. "First blood fer Barzy!" howled Harrison. "Ye left the mark of yer claws on him, pard! Don't let him git away from ye." Again the two came together, and Blunt once more succeeded in getting under Merriwell and snapped, him over for a quick "flop." Merry, however, broke the hold as he went down, twisted to hands and knees, and bobbed up two feet away and again facing his antagonist. The cowboys were wildly exultant. They believed that Barzy Blunt was showing his superiority in these initial moves. But they were mistaken. Merry was merely trying out his adversary and calmly studying his weak and his strong points at the game. Blunt, through lack of proper training, was making the grave mistake of using all his strength on what might be termed nonessentials. In wrestling, no more strength should be used than the moment calls for, a reserve being held for the supreme moment. When the wrestlers came together for the third time, the time-honored hold of "one over and one under" was secured, and Merry was satisfied. From this, after a minute of squirming and twisting, Merry slipped to an arm-and-neck hold, his left hand about the back of Blunt's neck, right hand locked in his left elbow. Blunt began to kick. "Stop that!" Clancy ordered sternly. "Never mind, Clan," said Merry, "I've got him now." With a swiftness and ease beautiful to see, Merriwell thrust his left foot between Blunt's kicking extremities, pushed the left arm farther, and completely around his neck, clung like a leech to his left elbow, twisted on his toes, bent his knees, and heaved upward. Blunt was lifted clear of the ground on Merry's back. It was the old reliable hip lock. The next instant, Blunt had fallen. Merry was on top and Blunt's shoulders squarely on the ground. "First fall for Chip Merriwell," sang out Clancy. "He's a chip of the old block in more ways than one." Blunt got up, smiling. It was his old, mirthless smile, and, like a barometer, announced his rising temper. The second round was a little more exciting. Possibly Merriwell, wishing to encourage Blunt, gave him the initial advantage. A minute, or a minute and a half of fierce, silent struggling followed, Blunt blowing like a grampus and Merriwell taking it easily. With an arm clasped around Merriwell's neck, Blunt labored tremendously to turn him over. Merry, however, was like a rock, and all the cowboy's efforts failed. He expended a vast amount of strength, which was exactly what Merry wanted. Then, with startling suddenness, Merriwell from a rocklike, passive defense became the aggressor. He seemed to yield to Blunt's pushing and hauling, but that supposed yielding was a sorry disappointment to the cowboy. Somehow, Merry regained his feet; then, in a flash, Merry's right arm had Blunt's head in chancery, with Blunt at his back. With a marshaling of his reserve strength, Merry turned the Wonder a somersault and laid him stunned and flat on his back. "Well, I'll be blamed!" exclaimed Jordan, rubbing a dazed hand across his forehead. "That's the best I ever seen, an' no mistake." "How the jumpin' sand hills did he do it?" murmured the bewildered Harrison. "He's sure some on the wrestle!" exclaimed Aaron Lloyd. "Second fall," announced Clancy crisply. "Two straight for Chip Merriwell, and he wins." Frank, breathing a little hard, hurried to kneel at Blunt's side. "Didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked anxiously. Blunt sat up and stared at him, smiling wrathfully, and his jet-black eyes two points of flame. "No, you didn't hurt me," he answered. "I'm all rawhide and whalebone, and it isn't in you to hurt me. Confound you, I'll get you at something or other yet. Want to spar with bare knuckles?" "Not to-day," Frank answered. "A bargain is a bargain, Blunt. I won this set-to in a couple of straight falls. Now, tell me what you know about Professor Borrodaile." Jordan brought Blunt's shirt, and began pulling it over his head. Harrison rushed to the horses and returned with a canteen. Blunt took a long pull at the canteen, and got up. "If you're afraid to spar--" he began, but Clancy interrupted him. "You've lost out, Blunt, and Merriwell has bought and paid for the information about Professor Borrodaile. Give it to him." "That's right, old pard," put in Lloyd. "Come across, or let some o' the rest of us." "I'll do the talking." Blunt answered. "Yesterday afternoon," said he, "we stopped for a while at McGurvin's. While we were watering the bronks, I looked up and saw a man's face at an upstairs window. It was the face of this professor of yours." "Great Scott!" gulped Clancy, staring. "At McGurvin's?" demanded Merry, no less excited. "Yes, at McGurvin's. I asked Mac what the professor was doing in his house, and he answered that what I didn't know wouldn't bother me. It was none of my put-in, and so I let it go at that, There's something else to it, too. Tell what you found out in Gold Hill, Aaron, two days ago." Merry and Clancy turned their eyes on Lloyd. "I was there fer the ranch mail," began Lloyd, "an' Nick Porter was crookin' his elbow a-plenty. And talking a heap, too. In front of the Red Light he had a feller in flashy clothes with a sandy mustache, and the two was goin' it some in the gab line. I was leanin' against the front of the Red Light, at the time, a-readin' a letter, an' I couldn't help hear a little of what them two said. 'Sam'll put down a hole an' blow out a bag o' samples,' says Porter, 'an' bring 'em round about to Mac's. Turkeyfoot'll take the perfesser on from Mac's to the old camp the mornin' after Sam gits through. Arter loadin' up with the perfesser's plunder, he'll bring him back to Mac's, an' Mac'll hold him. Then you, Heppner, can go out to Mac's Tuesday arternoon an' make yer play.' That's all," finished Lloyd. "Aaron didn't remember all that until after I'd seen the professor at the window," interpolated Blunt. "Then, as we were riding on, he let it out." "Blazes!" exclaimed Clancy. "There's a scheme on to rob Borrodaile of that claim of his!" "Looks thataway," said Lloyd passively. "Who is this Sam that was to get the bag of samples and take it to McGurvin's by a roundabout way?" queried Merriwell. "No sabe." "He's the fellow that had the leaky bag and dropped this trail of ore! Who's Turkeyfoot?" "Feller that lives out o' Gold Hill a ways. Does freightin'." "The way I size it up," said Frank, "the professor hired this Turkeyfoot to came to Happenchance with him and get the goods he had left there. They halted at McGurvin's place long enough to give Sam time to do his blasting and make off with the samples. Then the professor and Turkeyfoot went to the claim, got the professor's goods, and went back to McGurvin's; and there, fellows, the professor is being held until this man in flashy clothes comes out and does something to beat Borrodaile out of the claim." "That's you," said Blunt. "To-day's Tuesday; and it's this afternoon that the business is to be pulled off. The thing to do is to hike for McGurvin's and nip the affair in the bud. Mac is on the side of the opposition, and so is Sam, and Turkeyfoot, and the flashily dressed juniper. That makes four, Merriwell, and there are only you and Clancy to see this game through. We'll help. That was part of the bargain, and we Bar Z fellows stand up to our agreements." "We were at McGurvin's, last night," remarked Frank, puzzled. "There wasn't any one there but the rancher himself." "Shucks," said Blunt, "you're easy. There might have been a houseful, and you none the wiser. McGurvin's so crooked he can't walk around his house without running into himself. Everybody knows that." Merry's dark eyes began to flash, "This is an outrage!" he exclaimed. "McGurvin, and all the rest who are working with him, ought to be arrested!" Blunt laughed. "What do you want to arrest him for?" he asked. "Beat him at his own game and let it go at that. Climb aboard your chug bikes, and we'll mount and hurry along with you. We can get to the ranch in time to make McGurvin and his bunch look two ways for comfort." Merriwell realized the need of hurry. The sun was climbing toward the zenith, and afternoon, and the working out of the plot against Borrodaile, would soon be at hand. Without further delay he got into his clothes; then he and Clancy started their machines and headed for McGurvin's. The cowboys galloped along just behind them. CHAPTER X. FOILING THE PLOTTERS. Merriwell and Clancy had to diminish their speed in order to let the cowboys keep them in sight. This was annoying, and Merry formed another plan and slowed to a halt in order to broach it to Blunt. "Clancy and I," said he, as Blunt and his friends galloped up, "can cover the ground between here and McGurvin's four times as quick as you fellows. I think we had better push on." "What's the use?" Blunt demanded. "We'll all get there before afternoon." "Suppose the man with the flashy clothes and the red mustache should take it into his head to come to McGurvin's before afternoon?" "Then maybe it's too late. Possibly he's there now." "We'll go on and see," said Merry. "You fellows can lope along and get there in time to help Clancy and me, if we find they're too many for us." "Correct, Merriwell. We'll come a-smoking." Frank and Owen ducked through the rough country like a couple of meteors. The daylight was all they needed to help them in their flight over a course so carefully covered the night before. Again, as once before, the professor's claim was at stake, and the motorcycles were pushed to, the utmost in an attempt to reach McGurvin's and head off the scoundrelly work of the plotters. It seemed almost no time at all until the verdant spot, irrigated by McGurvin's well, came into view in the distance across the bare sands. "We'll make a detour, Clan," said Merry, "and come up on the ranch from the rear. There are only two of us, you know, and we will have to proceed with care if we don't want to spoil everything." "Sure," Clancy promptly assented. "We'd better leave our machines in the brush somewhere, and move up on the adobe on foot. If we don't, McGurvin will hear us." This plan was carried out. The motor cycles were left at a safe distance, and the lads crept cautiously forward under the screen of McGurvin's corral. Corn was growing in the irrigated truck patch, and Merry and Clancy got into it and moved upon the house. Presently they began to hear voices; then, catching a glimpse of McGurvin's hitching pole, they saw a saddle horse secured there. "Looks like our man was here already," Merry whispered in his chum's ear. "Where is the talking coming from?" returned Clancy. "It seems pretty close." "We'll find out." On hands and knees the boys crept on, screened by the broad leaves of the corn. Presently Merry reached the edge of the cornfield, and paused. The shady side of the house was not over twenty feet from him, and there comfortably seated, was a florid, flashily dressed, red-mustached person. Opposite him, in another chair, was not less a personage than Professor Phineas Borrodaile. He was looking over his glasses in consternation at the man with the red mustache. Grouped in the background were McGurvin and two flannel-shirted, rough-looking Arizonians. It had been a happy inspiration of Merry's to hasten on ahead of the cowboys. It was not afternoon, yet already the stage was set and the play for the professor's claim was being made. Clancy gripped his chum tensely by the arm. They did not speak, even in whispers, but crouched at the edge of the corn and watched and listened. "Yes, indeed," the professor was saying, in his cracked voice, "you aver rightly, Mr. Heppner, that this is a remarkable country, most remarkable. Over in the Picket Post Mountains, if you please, I have seen misty island-like protuberances, resembling greatly the post-pliocene crannoges of the Roscommon loughs. Now--" "Call off the dog, professor," interrupted Heppner. "I'm a government agent, and I'm here on business. See? You didn't know you'd jumped a mining claim belonging to McGurvin, but such is the fact. This will have to be straightened out, or the responsibility will rest heavily upon you. Now, speaking personal, I'd hate a heap to see you sent to jail, seeing as how you're in this country for your health. Jails ain't a health resort, by any manner of means. What do you propose to do about this?" "Dear me!" murmured Borrodaile, taking off his hat and rubbing the top of his bald head. "I am not dishonest, gentlemen. I assure you that I want only to do what's right. The claim I located was discovered by my nephew; and I am his next of kin. I supposed, you understand, that it was rightfully mine." "Sure," answered the bogus government agent heartily, "I can see right where you made your mistake. How could you know that, in the years that followed your nephew's discovery, the claim was located again by McGurvin, there? When did you locate it, Mac?" he asked, turning on the rancher. "Night onto two year ago," asserted McGurvin solemnly. "There you are!" exclaimed Heppner triumphantly. "McGurvin has done the assessment work, so it belonged to him. And you jumped it. State's prison offense, professor." The professor shuddered. "I didn't intend to do any wrong," he answered. "Ignorance of the law," expounded Heppner, "excuses no one. Still, speaking personal, I'm here to let you off light. You've had a lot of trouble in this matter, and McGurvin is willing to give you a hundred dollars for that. You will have to sign a quitclaim deed, though, so as to clear up the title. I call that," beamed Heppner, "mighty generous." "A heap more'n I ort ter do," said McGurvin, in a burst of frankness. "More'n I'd do, Mac," said one of the two others. "Ye know, Sam," whimpered the rancher, "I allers was troubled with enlargement of the heart, I reckon, someday, it'll be the ruination o' me. Ain't that so, Turkeyfoot?" "Not as nobody can notice," replied the other bystander. "All I wants is to see the perfesser git his rights. I was totin' his stuff ter town, an' I'm in his pay. I stick fer the hunderd, an' you can whine all ye darn please." "Mr. Turkeyfoot," said the professor, casting a grateful look at that noble gentleman, "I shall never forget your loyalty and kindness to me. If you insist, I will accept the hundred dollars, and sign this quit claim. All I want is to do what is right. _Otium oum dignitate_, that is my motto, and what I am seeking. Such matters as this, in which I have unwittingly erred, distress me greatly." Heppner had pulled a paper and a fountain pen from his pocket. "There ain't no odium attached to this move, professor," he said reassuringly. "You have done wrong, but you are doing your best to make amends." He got up and handed the pen to the professor, and then opened out the paper. "Sign there," said he. "Mac," he added, "have your hundred dollars ready." McGurvin went down into his trousers, fished up a roll of bills, and held it in his hand, eying it hungrily. The professor, hunting for a place on which to write, stood up and laid the paper against the wall of the house. Merry was astounded to think that Borrodaile should prove so lacking in ordinary understanding as to take the words of that gang of tricksters in such a matter. But he was child, so far as business affairs were concerned. It was easy to make him believe anything, so long as his particular field of knowledge was not intruded upon. Something had to be done, and Merry was not long in doing it. A bold move was necessary. If Heppner ever got that signed quitclaim deed in his hands, the transaction would be badly complicated. Starting up, Merriwell jumped clear of the cornfield, dashed across the space separating him from the group of men in the shade of the house, and, before the astounded plotters could interfere, he had reached over the professor's shoulder, snatched the paper out of his hands, and torn it to bits. "Blast ye!" roared McGurvin, jumping forward savagely. "What right you got buttin' in?" Sam, Turkeyfoot, and Heppner likewise confronted Merry with flaming eyes and twitching, angry faces. The professor fell back, astounded. "Merriwell!" he gasped, lifting a hand to his forehead. Clancy, losing not a moment, jumped to place himself at his chum's side. "You're a pack of curs!" cried Merriwell, "and you're trying to swindle the professor out of a bonanza mining claim. You--" With a snarl of rage, all four of the plotters began closing in on Merry and Clancy. CHAPTER XI. THE COWBOYS SAVE THE DAY. For a few moments matters took on a serious aspect for the two boys. The quitclaim deed, however, had been destroyed, and there was no fear that Professor Borrodaile would again fall into Heppner's trap. Frank had counted upon this, and had even figured that he would have to take a few hard knocks in bringing it about. Heppner, fairly boiling, was rushing at Merry like an unleashed tornado. McGurvin, too, was plunging toward him from the right. Sam and Turkeyfoot were making Clancy the object of their attack. Merry felt that Heppner was entitled to a little something as a memorial of the plot that failed. So, dodging the bull-like rush of McGurvin, he jumped at Heppner, and his doubled fist shot out like a battering-ram. "Oof!" Heppner grunted, flinging up his arms. Frank's knuckles had landed on the point of his heavy, brutelike jaw, in just the place best calculated to make a man see stars, and, incidentally, to teach him a lesson. The "government agent" reeled back and staggered groggily. McGurvin, swearing furiously, flung his arms around Frank from behind. "I'll wring yer neck fer ye, you young terror!" threatened the rancher. And it was at that moment, when Merry and Clancy were hard beset, that a Bar Z yell floated down the breeze. It came with an accompaniment of wildly galloping hoofs. High above the tumult and the shouting arose the voice of Barzy Blunt: "Hang to it, Merriwell! We're on the way!" The coming of reenforcements had a dampening effect upon the ardor of McGurvin, Sam, and Turkeyfoot. The rancher released Frank and started at a hurried pace for the other side of his house. Sam and Turkeyfoot also attempted to decamp, but they were not quick enough. The cowboys, throwing themselves from their horses, rushed pell-mell to take a hand in the conflict. Such a ruction appealed to them, and they proceeded to wade into Sam and Turkey foot. Frank and Blunt went on a hurried search for McGurvin. The rancher was finally located, barricaded behind a locked door, and he was breathing fierce threats of ravage and slaughter. "Keep away from me, or I'll fill ye fuller o' holes than a pepperbox!" was one of the rancher's many remarks. Blunt, laughing loudly, threw himself against the door. With Frank's help, it was kicked open. And McGurvin did not shoot. It transpired that he had nothing to shoot with. He tried to fight, but Merry and Blunt got him in hand and dragged him out of doors. "Tell us about this, you blamed coyote," said Blunt, "and be quick. You've got about as much grit as a chipmunk, and if you don't talk we'll show you a trick or two that will make you wish you had." "What you a-tryin' to do, Barzy?" asked McGurvin in an injured tone. "Takin' the part o' this Eastern crowd agin' me?" "Pah!" exclaimed the Cowboy Wonder, in disgust. "I'm no friend of yours, you old tinhorn. What were you trying to do? Out with it." "It wasn't me, Barzy," whimpered McGurvin, "it was Heppner--Heppner from Tombstone. He put it all up--him an' Nick Porter." "Put what up?" "Why, this scheme to beat the perfesser out o' that claim o' his. I was drawed inter it innercent like." "Yes, you were mighty innocent!" put in Frank scathingly. "You pretended that you had located the professor's claim a long while ago, and that the professor had jumped it. Heppner professed to be a government agent sent here to straighten the matter out, and you were to give Borrodaile a hundred dollars for a quitclaim deed to the mine." "A hundred dollars?" gasped Blunt. "Great snakes! Why, that claim's worth thousands. The professor stood for that yarn?" "They had him scared stiff," said Merriwell. "He was signing the deed when I jumped out of the cornfield and grabbed it away from him." "It was Heppner's doin's," insisted McGurvin. "He was ter gi' me a hundred for helpin' him." "You were to sign the quitclaim over to him, eh?" asked Blunt. "That's the how o' it, Barzy. He's a villain, that Heppner person, but I was took in by his wiles." "How much was Sam to get?" asked Merry. "He was gittin' another hunderd fer the bag o' samples, an' fer helpin' in other ways." "And Turkeyfoot?" "Another hunderd was comin' ter him, same's to the rest o' us." "How about Nick Porter?" "Dunno how much he was ter git. He told Heppner about the perfesser an' the claim in the fust place, so I reckon he come higher. The perfesser is kinder weak in the headpiece. He'd b'leeve anythin'. Nick Porter tole me so when he was here last night." "Oh!" said Merry. "So Porter was here, was he, when Clancy and I came looking for him?" "Well, yes. I didn't say nothin' ter you about it, Merriwell, bec'us' I didn't dare. Porter would 'a' killed me, if I had." "You're a skunk!" gritted Barzy Blunt. "Where's Porter now?" demanded. Frank. "He hiked out early this mornin'. Say, Barzy, I heerd ye wasn't no friend o' Merriwell's." "I'm not," was the answer. "I made a bargain with him, and this is part of it." "Where are the professor's goods and Turkeyfoot's wagon?" Merry questioned. "Out in the scrub," was the rancher's reply. "So's Sam's burro, which he took when he went arter the ore t'other day. Sam was gittin' the ore ter show Heppner. He lost part o' it on the way here, but enough was left ter make Heppner open his eyes a whole lot. He allowed it was the richest claim he ever seen." "Yes," remarked Blunt, "we know all about Sam's losing the ore. But for that golden trail, Merriwell, you and I would never have got together out there in the desert, and this scheme against the professor might have worked to a fare you well. I'd never have butted in, if you hadn't bested me with two straight falls." "Have you been keeping the professor here against his will?" demanded Frank of McGurvin. "Nary, I wasn't. Turkeyfoot had him skeered. He tells the perfessor there's a gov'ment agent arter him, named Heppner, an' that the claim he thought he located he really jumped. That was Turkeyfoot's part a' it--purtendin' ter be the perfesser's friend an' goadin' him on ter fall in with Heppner's plan. Oh, Turkeyfoot's a missable skunk, all right." "The professor stayed here because Turkeyfoot told him to?" asked Frank, far gone with wonder on Borrodaile's account. "That's the how of it, an' I'm givin' it to ye straight." Clancy had come up during part of the talk with McGurvin, and presently Ben Jordan arrived with Turkeyfoot, and Harrison and Lloyd with Sam. The professor, dazed and bewildered, came pottering along presently, and stood off at a distance while he tried to adjust his wits to the sudden whirl of events. "Where's Heppner, Clan?" Merry asked. "Concluded he hadn't better stay, Chip," Clancy explained. "Just as the cowboys got here, Heppner jumped to the back of his horse and began hitting the high places. He took your mark along with him, though," the redheaded chap finished, with a laugh. Merry walked over to Borrodaile and laid a soothing hand on his shoulder. "Wake up, professor," said he. "It's all over, and you've still got your claim." "My boy," answered the professor, still a little "flighty," "I don't want that claim if it's not legally mine." "It is legally yours. Heppner was only pretending to be a government agent, and McGurvin never saw the claim." "Well, well!" murmured the professor, mildly surprised. "Then they were dishonest?" "I should say!" "But Mr. Turkeyfoot is my friend. He thought I had done wrong, and he fought loyally to get me off and to make McGurvin give me a hundred dollars." Clancy turned away to hide a laugh. "Turkeyfoot deceived you, just as the others did," Frank explained patiently. "You hired him to go to Happenchance after the stuff you had left there?" "Yes. We came thus far on our way, and Mr. Turkeyfoot explained how I had laid myself liable to fine and imprisonment for stealing a claim. He said I must remain here at McGurvin's for a time, and--er--keep shady. That is the term he used, I believe. Well, I kept shady until he came to go to the old town. Then, when we returned from there, I had to keep shady again. A little while ago Mr. Heppner arrived, saying he represented the government, and--and--Well," and the professor drew a long sigh, "I'm glad to know I haven't stolen anything from anybody." "Why did you leave Ophir for Gold Hill?" "Mr. Porter told me about Mr. Turkeyfoot, and said he was the one to go out and bring in my personal effects, You had had enough trouble on my account, Merriwell, and I did not want to bother you further. Yet it seems," he finished regretfully, "that I have done the very thing I tried not to do." "I'm going to take you back to Ophir," declared Merry, "and do what I can to look out for you." "I am quite capable of looking out for myself, Merriwell; nevertheless, I shall be glad to have you near me to offer advice. Your father had a very good business head, and I presume you are likewise gifted." His face brightened perceptibly as he went on: "While returning from Happenchance with my personal effects, I clipped a really excellent specimen of amorphous diapase from a reef among the hills. The cellular crystallization of the diapase is intensely interesting. It will give me pleasure to show it to you, Merriwell, and--" "Never mind that just now, professor," Frank answered. "Turkeyfoot is getting ready to take you on to Ophir. Clancy and I have a couple of motor cycles, but we're going to load them in Turkeyfooty's wagon and ride with you." "Just why do you inconvenience yourself in that manner?" "To make sure that nobody takes the mining claim away from you between here and the Ophir House," said Frank. The professor looked puzzled, but was wise enough not to ask Merriwell to explain. THE END. "Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Competitor; or, The Honor of the Game," is the title of the story that will be found in the next issue of this weekly. In this story, Barzy Blunt is defeated by young Merriwell in another feat of strength and skill, and he begins to see light. Frank gets a letter from his father which is full of interesting surprises. You will find this narrative of the doings of Chip Merriwell and his chums to be full of incident and sustained excitement. It is No. 12, and will be out October 19th. 
21841	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 21841-h.htm or 21841-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/1/8/4/21841/21841-h/21841-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/1/8/4/21841/21841-h.zip) THE SADDLE BOYS IN THE GRAND CANYON Or The Hermit of the Cave by CAPTAIN JAMES CARSON Author of "The Saddle Boys of the Rockies," "The Saddle Boys on the Plains," "The Saddle Boys at Circle Ranch," Etc. Illustrated New York Cupples & Leon Company Publishers * * * * * * BOOKS FOR BOYS BY CAPTAIN JAMES CARSON THE SADDLE BOYS SERIES 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. THE SADDLE BOYS OF THE ROCKIES Or, Lost On Thunder Mountain THE SADDLE BOYS IN THE GRAND CANYON Or, The Hermit of the Cave THE SADDLE BOYS ON THE PLAINS Or, After a Treasure of Gold THE SADDLE BOYS AT CIRCLE RANCH Or, In At The Grand Round-Up CUPPLES & LEON CO PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. * * * * * * Copyrighted 1913, by Cupples & Leon Company THE SADDLE BOYS IN THE GRAND CANYON Printed in U.S.A. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE WORK OF THE WOLF PACK 1 II. RIDDING THE RANGE OF A PEST 11 III. THE FLOATING BOTTLE 21 IV. THE LISTENER UNDER THE WINDOW 34 V. STARTING FOR THE GRAND CANYON 46 VI. BUCKSKIN ON GUARD 54 VII. STANDING BY THE LAW 62 VIII. THE MOQUI WHO WAS CAUGHT NAPPING 71 IX. "TALK ABOUT LUCK!" 79 X. THE COPPER-COLORED MESSENGER 87 XI. AT THE GRAND CANYON 98 XII. HOW THE LITTLE TRAP WORKED 105 XIII. GOING DOWN THE CANYON TRAIL 116 XIV. THE HOME OF THE CLIFF DWELLERS 124 XV. THE TREACHEROUS GUIDE 135 XVI. A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY 143 XVII. THE WINDOWS IN THE ROCKY WALLS 151 XVIII. FINDING A WAY UP 158 XIX. FORTUNE STILL FAVORS THE BRAVE 167 XX. ANOTHER SURPRISE 175 XXI. THE LITTLE OLD MAN OF ECHO CAVE 184 XXII. TURNING THE TABLES--CONCLUSION 195 THE SADDLE BOYS IN THE GRAND CANYON CHAPTER I THE WORK OF THE WOLF PACK "Hold up, Bob!" "Any signs of the lame yearling, Frank?" "Well, there seems to be something over yonder to the west; but the sage crops up, and interferes a little with my view." "Here, take the field glasses and look; while I cinch my saddle girth, which has loosened again." Frank Haywood adjusted the glasses to his eye. Then, rising in his saddle, he gazed long and earnestly in the direction he had indicated. Meanwhile his companion, also a lad, a native of Kentucky, and answering to the name of Bob Archer, busied himself about the band of his saddle, having leaped to the ground. Frank was the only son of a rancher and mine owner, Colonel Leonidas Haywood, who was a man of some wealth. Frank had blue eyes, and tawny-colored hair; and, since much of his life had been spent on the plains among the cattle men, he knew considerable about the ways of cowboys and hunters, though always ready to pick up information from veterans of the trail. Bob had come to the far Southwest as a tenderfoot; but, being quick to learn, he hoped to graduate from that class after a while. Having always been fond of outdoor sports in his Kentucky home, he was, at least, no greenhorn. When he came to the new country where his father was interested with Frank's in mining ventures, Bob had brought his favorite Kentucky horse, a coal-black stallion known as "Domino," and which vied with Frank's native "Buckskin" in good qualities. These two lads were so much abroad on horseback that they had become known as the "Saddle Boys." They loved nothing better than to ride the plains, mounted on their pet steeds, and go almost everywhere the passing whim tempted them. Of course, in that wonderland there was always a chance for adventure when one did much wandering; and that Frank and Bob saw their share of excitement can be readily understood. Some of the strange things that happened to them have already been narrated in the first volume of this series, "The Saddle Boys of the Rockies, Or, Lost on Thunder Mountain," and which, in a way, is an introduction to the present story. In the first book the boys cleared up a wonderful mystery concerning a great cavern. For several minutes Bob was busily engaged with the saddle girth that had been giving him considerable trouble on this gallop. "There," he remarked, finally, throwing down the flap as though satisfied with his work. "I reckon I've got it fixed now so that it will hold through the day; but I need a new girth, and when we pull up again at Circle Ranch I'll see about getting it. Oh! did you make out anything with the glasses, Frank?" He sprang into the saddle like one who had spent much of his time on horseback. Domino curvetted and pranced a little, being still full of mettle and spirits; but a very firm hand held him in. "Take the glass, and see if you can make out what it is," Frank remarked, as if he hardly knew himself, or felt like trusting his eyes. A minute later Bob lowered the glasses. "There's something on the ground, and I can catch a glimpse of what looks like a dun-colored hide through the tufts of buffalo grass. The yearling was red, you said, Frank? All right. Then I reckon we'll find her there; but not on her feet." "Come on!" As he said these curt words Frank let Buckskin have his head; and, accompanied by his chum, started at a full gallop over the level, in the direction of the spot where the dun-colored object had been sighted. Shortly afterward they topped a little rise, and pulled up. No need to doubt their eyes now. Just before them lay the mangled remains of the lame yearling, very little being left to tell the story of how the animal had met its fate. "Wolves!" said Frank, gloomily, as he sat looking down at the torn hide. "I don't know the signs as well as you, Frank, but I'd say the same from general indications. And they had a royal good feast, too. This makes a round half dozen head your father has lost in the last month, doesn't it?" asked Bob. "Seven, all told. When Bart Heminway told me he had noticed that one of those fine yearlings seemed lame, I wondered if something wasn't going to happen to it soon. And then, when we missed it from the herd last night, I guessed what had come about. They caught her behind the rest, and pulled her down. The poor thing didn't have a ghost of a show against that pack of savage wolf-dogs." "I'd like to have just one chance at them, that's all," grumbled Bob, as he let his hand fondle the butt of a modern repeating rifle, which he carried fastened to his saddle. "This is sure the limit, and it's just got to stop!" declared Frank, grimly. "Right now?" queried his chum, eagerly. Two pairs of flashing eyes met, the black ones sending a challenge toward the blue. "Why not?" said Frank, shutting his jaws hard, "the day is before us still; and we're well primed for the business of hunting that pack to their den. Look at that bunch of rocks a few miles off; that must be where they hang out, Bob! Queer that none of the boys have ever thought of hunting in this quarter for that old she-wolf Sallie, and her brood." "Then you think she did it, do you?" asked Bob. "Sure she did. You can see for yourself where her jaws closed on the throat of the poor yearling. Everybody knows her trademark. That sly beast has been the bane of the cattle ranches around here for several years. They got to calling her Sallie in fun; but it's been serious business lately; and many a cowboy'd ride two hundred miles for a chance to knock her over." "And yet none of the rough riders have even thought to search that rocky pile for her den, you say?" Bob continued. "Why, you see, the killings have always been in other directions," Frank explained. "Just as shrewd animals often do, up to now Sallie has never pulled down a calf anywhere near her den. I reckon she just knew it might cause a search. But this time she's either grown over-bold, or else the pack started to do the business in spite of her, and she was forced into the game." "Well, shall we head for that elevation, and see what we can find?" asked Bob, who was inclined to be a little impatient. "Wait a bit. It would be ten times better if we could only track the greedy pack direct; but that's a hard proposition, here on the open," Frank observed. "Well, what can we do then?" his chum asked. "Perhaps put it in the hands of the best trailer in Arizona," and with a laugh Frank pointed off to the left. The Kentucky boy turned his head in surprise, and then exclaimed: "Old Hank Coombs, on his pony, as sure as anything! You knew he was coming along all the while, and just kept mum. But I'm sure glad to see the old cowman right now. And it may turn out to be a day of reckoning for that cunning Sallie, and her half grown cubs." The two lads waved their range hats, and sent out a salute that was readily answered by the advancing cowman. Hank Coombs was indeed a veteran in the cattle line, having been one of the very first to throw a rope, and "mill" stampeding steers in Texas, and farther to the west. He was an angular old fellow, grim looking in his greasy leather "chaps;" but with a twinkle in his eyes that told of the spirit of fun that had never been quenched by the passage of time. "Howdy, boys," he called out, as he drew rein alongside the two lads. "What's this here yer lookin' at? Another dead calf? No, I swan if it ain't a yearling as has been pulled down now. Things seem t' be gittin' t' a warm pass when sech doin' air allowed. Huh! an' it looks like Sallie's work, too! That sly ole critter is goin' t' git t' the end of her rope some fine day." "Why not to-day, Hank?" demanded Frank, briskly. The veteran grinned, as though he had half anticipated having such a question asked. "So, that's the way the wind blows, hey?" he remarked, slowly; and then he nodded his small head approvingly. "Jest as you say, Frank, thar's no time like the present t' do things. The hull pack hes been here, I see, an' no matter how cunning old Sallie allers shows herself, a chain's only as strong as th' weakest link. One of her cubs will sure leave tracks we kin foller. All right, boys count on me t' back ye up. I'll go wharever ye say, Frank." "We'll follow the trail, if there is one," said Frank, instantly; "but the chances are that's where we'll bring up," and he pointed with his quirt in the direction of the rocky uplift that stood like a landmark in the midst of the great level sea of purple sage brush, marking the plain. After one good look the cowman nodded his head again in the affirmative. "Reckon as how y'r' right, Frank," he remarked; "but we'll see how the trail heads." Throwing himself from his saddle he bent down over the remains of the yearling that had been so unfortunate as to become lame, and thus, lagging far behind the rest of the herd, fallen a victim to the wolf pack. "Easy as fallin' off a log," announced old Hank, immediately. "Jest as I was sayin', thar's nearly allers one clumsy cub as don't hev half sense; an' I kin foller this trail on horseback, 'pears to me." He ran it out a little way; then, once more mounting, went on ahead, with his keen eyes fastened on the ground. Bob watched his actions with the greatest of interest. He knew Old Hank was discovering a dozen signs that would be utterly invisible to one who had not had many years of practice in tracking both wild animals and human beings. Now and then the trailer would draw in his horse, as though desirous of looking more carefully at the ground. Twice he even dropped off and bent low, to make positive his belief. "I reckon you were right, Frank," remarked Bob, after half an hour of this sort of travel "because, you see, even if the trail did lead away from the rocks at first, it's heading that way now on a straight line." "Thet was only the cuteness of the ole wolf," said Hank. "She's up t' all the dodges goin'. But that comes a day of reckonin' for all her kind; an' her's orter be showin' up right soon." When another half hour passed the three riders had reached the border of the strange pile of rocks. And as Frank looked up at the rough heap, with its many crevices and angles, he considered that it certainly must offer an ideal den to any wild beast wishing to hide through the daytime, and prowl forth when darkness and night lay upon the land. "Here's whar the trail ends at the rocks," said Hank, as he dismounted and threw the bridle over the head of his horse, cowboy fashion, knowing that under ordinary conditions the animal would remain there, just as if hobbled, or staked out. Both of the saddle boys followed his example, and, holding their rifles ready, prepared to search the rocks for some trace of the wolf den. Wild animals may be very cunning about locating their retreat in a place where it will be hidden from the eye of a casual passer; but, in course of time, they cannot prevent signs from accumulating, calculated to betray its presence to one who is keenly on the watch. The three searchers had not been moving back and forth among the piles of rocks more than ten minutes when Old Hank was observed to raise his head, smile, and sniff the air with more or less eagerness. "Must be close by, boys," he said, positively. "I kin git the rank odor that allers hangs 'round the den of wild animals as brings meat home, an' leaves the bones. The air is a-comin' from that quarter, an' chances are we'll find the hole sumwhar over yonder." "I think I see it," said Frank, eagerly. "Just above that little spur there's a black looking crevice in the rock." "As dark as my hat," added Hank; "an' I reckon as how that's whar Sallie lives when she's t' home. Now t' invite ourselves int' her leetle parlor, boys!" CHAPTER II RIDDING THE RANGE OF A PEST "Well, what do you think now, Frank?" asked Bob, as they stood in front of that gloomy looking crevice, and observed the marks of many claws upon the discolored rock, where hairy bodies had drawn themselves along countless times. "I'm wondering," the other replied; "what ails our boys at the ranch never to have suspected that old Sallie had her den, and raised her broods, so close to the Circle Ranch. Why, right now we're not more'n ten miles, as the crow flies, away from home. And for years this terrible she-wolf has lived on the calves and partly grown animals belonging to cattlemen in this neck of the land. It makes me tired to think of it!" "But Frank, it's a long lane that has no turning," remarked Bob; "and just now we've got to the bend. Sallie has invited her fate once too often. That lame yearling is going to spell her finish, if Old Hank here has his way." "It sure is," agreed Frank. "And when we get back home with the hide of that old pest fastened to a saddle, the boys will be some sore to think how anyone of the lot might have done the job, if they'd only turned this way." "But what's Hank going to do?" asked the Kentucky boy, watching the veteran cow-puncher searching on the ground under a stunted pinon tree that chanced to grow where there was a small bit of soil among the rocks. "I don't know for a dead certainty," replied the other; "but I rather think he's picking up some pieces of wood that might make good torches." "Whew! then he means that we're to go into the cave, and get our game--is that it, Frank?" demanded the other, unconsciously tightening his grip on his rifle, as he glanced once more toward that yawning crevice, leading to unknown depths, where the wolf pack lurked during the daytime to issue forth when night came around. "That would be just like the old chap, for he knows nothing of fear," Frank replied; "but of course there's no necessity for _both_ of us to go with him. One might remain here, so as to knock over any stray beast that managed to escape the attention of those who went in." "All right; where will you take up your stand, Frank?" asked Bob, instantly; at which his chum laughed, as though tickled. "So you think I'd consent to stay out here tamely, while you two were having a regular circus in there?" he remarked. "That would never suit me. And it's easy to see that you count on a ticket of admission to Sallie's parlor, too. Well, then, we'll all go, and share in the danger, as well as the sport. For to rid the range country of this pest I consider the greatest favor under the sun. But there comes Hank with a bundle of torches under his arm." "We're off, then!" chuckled Bob. "Make sure o' yer guns, lads," said the cowman, as he came up; "because, in a case like this, when ye want t' shoot it's apt t' be in a hurry. An' anybody as knows what a fierce critter ole Sallie is, kin tell ye it'll take an ounce of lead, put in the right place, t' down her fur keeps." "I'm ready," Frank assured the old hunter. "Then, jest as soon's I kin git this flare goin' we'll push in." Hank announced. "Will we be able to see the game with such a poor light?" asked Bob, a trifle nervously, as his mind went back to school days, to remember what he had read of that old Revolutionary patriot, Israel Putnam, entering a wolf's den alone, and killing the beast in open fight; truth to tell Bob had never seen a real den in which wild beasts hid from the sun; and imagination doubled its perils in his mind. "Fust thing ye see'll be some yaller eyes starin' at ye outen the dark," said Hank, obligingly. "Then, when I gives the word, both of ye let go, aimin' direct atween the yaller spots." "But what if we miss, and the beast attacks us?" Bob went on, wishing to be thoroughly posted before venturing into that hole. "In case of a mix-up," the veteran went on; "every feller is for hisself; only, recerlect thar mustn't be any shootin' at close quarters. Use yer knives, or else swat her over the head with yer clubbed guns. We're bound t' git Sallie this time, by hook er by crook! Ready, son?" Both boys declared that they had no reason for delaying matters. Since it had been decided as best to invade the wolf den, the sooner they started, the better. True, Bob thought that had it been left to him, he would have first tried to smoke out the occupants of the cleft, waiting near by to shoot them down as they rushed out of the depths. But then Hank was directing matters now, and whatever he said must be done. Besides, Hank had known wolves ever since he first "toted" a gun, now more than fifty-five years ago. Perhaps he understood how difficult it is to smoke out a pack of wolves, that invariably seek a cave with a depth sufficient to get away from all the influences of the smudge. Without the slightest hesitation Old Hank got down on hands and knees, and began to crawl into the gaping mouth of the crevice. It did not go straight in, but seemed to twist around more or less. All the while the two boys kept close at the heels of the guide who carried that flaring torch. They watched ahead to detect the first sign of the enemy; and had their ears on the alert with the same idea in view. Stronger grew the odor that invariably marks the den of carnivorous animals. "We ought to stir her up soon now, Frank," whispered Bob, on whom the strain was bearing hard, since he was not used to anything of this sort. "Yes, unless the sly old beast has a back door to her home; how about that, Hank?" asked the cattleman's son. "Don't reckon as how it's so," came the ready response. "In thet event, we'd feel a breath of fresh air; an' ye knows as how we don't. Stiddy boys, keep yer wits about ye! She's clost by, now!" "I heard a growl!" admitted Bob. "And there were whines too, from the half grown cubs," ventured Frank. "Once we turn this bend just ahead, likely enough we'll be in the mess," Bob remarked. "Range on both sides of me, boys," directed Hank, halting, so that they could overtake him; because he knew full well that the crisis of this bold invasion of the she-wolf's den was near at hand. In this fashion, then, the three turned the rocky corner. "I see the yellow eyes!" whispered Bob, beginning to bring his gun-stock nearer to his shoulder. "Say, there's a whole raft of 'em, Frank!" "Sure," came the quick reply, close to his ear. "Hank said there was about five of the brood. Hold your fire, Bob. Pick out the mother wolf first." "That's what I want to do; but how can I make sure?" demanded the Kentucky lad, trying his best to keep his hands from trembling with excitement. He had sunk down upon one knee. This allowed him to rest his elbow on the knee that was in position, always a favorite attitude with Bob when using a rifle. "Take the eyes that are above all the rest, and which seem so much larger and fiercer. Are you on, Bob?" continued the other, who was also handling his gun with all the eagerness of a sportsman. "Yes," came the firm reply. "Then let her go!" The last word was drowned in a terrific roar, for when a gun is fired in confined space the din is tremendous. Even as he pulled the trigger Bob knew that luck was against him; for the animal had moved at a time when he could not delay the pressure of his finger. He heard a second report close beside him. Frank had also fired, realizing what had occurred, and that in all probability the first bullet would only wound the savage beast, without putting an end to her activities. The torch went sputtering to the floor of the cave, having been knocked from the hand of Hank when the wolf struck him heavily. He could be heard trying to rescue it before it went completely out, all the while letting off a volley of whoops and directions. Fortunately Frank had kept his wits about him. And his rifle was still gripped firmly in his hands, he having instantly pumped a new cartridge into the chamber after firing. The half grown cubs showed an inclination to follow their mother in her headlong attack on the human invaders of the den; for the numerous gleaming pairs of eyes were undoubtedly advancing when Frank turned his gun loose on them. The din was simply terrific. Bob was more concerned with the possibility of an attack from the ferocious mother wolf then anything else. He had lost track of her after that first furious rush, and crouching there, was trying the best he knew how to locate the creature again. Meanwhile Old Hank had succeeded in picking up the torch, which, being held in an upright position, began to shed a fair amount of light once more. Not seeing anything else at which he could fire, Bob now started in to assist his chum get rid of the ugly whelps that were advancing, growling, snarling, and in various other ways proving how they had inherited the fearless nature of the beast that had nursed them in that den. Perhaps it was all one-sided, since the animals never had a chance to get in touch with the invaders. Neither of the boys ever felt very proud of the work; but in view of the tremendous amount of damage a pack of hungry wolves can do on a cattle ranch, or in a sheepfold, they had no scruples concerning the matter. Besides, every one along the Arizona border hated a wolf almost as badly as they did a cowardly coyote; for while the former may be bolder than the beast that slinks across the desert looking for carrion, its capacity for mischief is a good many times as great. "I don't see any more eyes, Frank!" called out Bob, presently, as he tried to penetrate the cloud of powder-smoke that surrounded both of them. "That's because we got 'em all, I reckon," replied his chum. "How about that, Hank?" "Cleaned the hull brood out, son," replied the other, chuckling; "an' no mistake about it either." "But where did the big one go to; has she escaped after all?" asked Bob, with a note of regret in his voice; for he thought the blame would be placed on him, for having made a poor shot when he had such a splendid chance to finish the animal. "Oh! I wouldn't worry myself about her, Bob," chuckled Frank, who had already made a discovery; and as he spoke he pointed to a spot close by, where, huddled in a heap, lay the heavy body of the fiercest cattle thief known for years along the border. "She was mortally hurted by the fust shot," said Hank, as they stood over the gaunt animal, and surveyed her proportions with almost a touch of awe; "but seemed like the critter had enough strength left t' make thet leap, as nigh knocked me flat. Then she jest keeled over, an' guv up the ghost. Arter this the young heifers kin stray away from their mother's sides, without bein' dragged off. Thar'll be a vote o' thanks sent ter ye, Bob, from every ranch inside of fifty mile, 'cause of what ye did when ye pulled trigger this day." Hank, being an experienced worker, did not take very long to secure the pelt of the dead terror of the desert. Then they left the rocks, finding their horses just where they had left them. All of the animals showed signs of alarm when they scented the skin of the wolf; and Domino in particular pranced and snorted at a great rate since his education had been neglected in this particular. So Hank, having the best trained steed in the bunch, insisted on carrying the pelt with him on their return trip to the ranch. Ten miles, as the crow flies, and they would be at home; and with comparatively fresh steeds, that should not count for more than an hour's gallop. Before they had gone three miles, however, Bob called the attention of his chum to a horseman who was galloping toward them. It was a cowboy, and he waved his broad-brimmed hat over his head as he came sweeping forward. "Is he doing stunts; or does he want us?" asked Bob. "It's Ted Conway," replied Frank, with a sudden look of anxiety; "one of the steadiest boys at the ranch; and he acts as if something had happened at home!" CHAPTER III THE FLOATING BOTTLE Waving his hat after the extravagant manner of his kind, the cowboy swept constantly nearer the little party. Indeed, it was impossible for them to guess whether Ted Conway bore a message, or was simply delighted to see the son of his employer, and his chum. Presently he reached the constantly advancing trio, and under the pull of the reins his pony reared upon its hind legs. "What's wrong, Ted?" asked Frank, immediately. "Wanted at the ranch, Frank," came the answer. "The boss has sent me out to look you up on the jump. Told me as how you started out on a gallop this way, an' I took chances. Reckon I was some lucky to strike you so easy." "But what has happened, Ted?" insisted the boy, trying to read the bronzed face of the other, and get a hint as to whether his mission verged on the serious or not. It was so very unusual for Colonel Haywood to send anyone out to find him, that Frank's suspicions were naturally aroused. "Well, the Colonel had a little tumble with that game leg of his--same one that the steer fell on, and broke two years back, in the big round-up--" began the cowboy, when Frank interrupted him. "Then he must have been seriously hurt this time, or he wouldn't send you out for me. Tell me the worst, Ted; you ought to realize that it's better for me to know it all in the start, than by degrees. Is my father dead?" "No. Last I seen of the Colonel, he was a real live man; only he had his leg done up agin in splints; an' the ole doc. from the Arrowhead Ranch was thar, 'tending to him. No, it ain't on count of his leetle trouble with that leg that made him send me out huntin' for you, Frank." "What then?" demanded the boy, curtly; but with a sigh of relief, for his father was very dear to him. "Thar come a messenger to the ranch a while ago, an' somethin' he fetched along with him, 'peared to excite the boss right from the word go," Ted admitted. "A messenger, Ted?" the boy echoed, wonderingly. "Never seen him afore, an' think he kim from town," the new arrival went on to say. "Leastwise, he looked like a stray maverick, an' had a b'iled shirt, with a collar that I reckoned sure would choke him. Atween you an' me I tried to get him to chuck the same; but he only grinned, an' allowed he could stand it." "Oh! a messenger from town, was it?" said Frank, with a relieved look. "Then the chances are it must have been some business connected with a shipment of cattle. Perhaps the railroad has had a bad wreck, and wants to settle for that last bunch we sent away." But Ted shook his head in the negative. "'T'wan't no railroad man; that I know," he affirmed, positively. "'Sides, the boss was holdin' of a bottle in his hand, an' seemed to set a heap of store by it." "A bottle, Ted?" cried Frank, deeply interested. "That's what," replied the cowboy, energetically. "But jest why he should reckon such a thing wuth shucks I can't tell ye. But he sent me out to bring you back to the ranch house like two-forty. I seen that he was plumb locoed, and some excited by the news, whatever it might be." Frank looked at his chum in a puzzled way, and shook his head. "I don't seem able to make head or tail of this business, Bob," he remarked; "but there's only one thing to be done, and that's to romp home on the gallop. So away we go with a rush. Who's after me! Hi! get long, Buckskin! It's a race for a treat of oats as a prize! Here you are, Bob; hit up the pace!" With the words Frank gave his horse free rein, and went tearing over the level plain, headed as straight for the distant ranch as though he were a bird far up in the clear air, and could see to make a direct line "as the crow flies!" And after a time, in the distance, they saw the whitewashed outbuildings of Circle Ranch. Frank never viewed the familiar and dearly loved scene with more anxiety than he did now; but so far as he could see there did not appear to be anything out of the ordinary taking place around the ranch house. "Looks all right, Bob!" exclaimed Frank, as though a great load had been taken from his heart. The sudden coming of Ted Conway, with that queer message that meant a hurried return, had mystified the boy not a little. But he knew that all would soon be made plain now, since they were nearly home. Dashing up in front of the house, the two lads jumped to the ground almost before their mounts had come to a halt. The door was open, and Frank led the way in a headlong rush. As they entered he saw his father seated in his comfortable easy-chair, with that unfortunate leg, that had given him more or less trouble for two years now, propped on another seat, and bound up. There was a stranger with him, but no sign of the Arrowhead Ranch cowboy doctor; which would indicate that, having done his duty, the roving physician and bone-setter had returned to his regular business, which was roping and branding cattle. Colonel Haywood was a man in the prime of life. Up to the time that clumsy steer had broken his leg he had been most active; but since then he had not been able to get around on his feet so well, though able to ride fairly comfortably. "Hello! Frank, my boy!" he exclaimed, as the two came rushing in. "So Ted managed to round you up in great style; did he? Well, I always said Ted was the sharpest fellow on the range when it came to finding things. Where have you been to-day?" "Doing a little missionary work for the country," replied Frank, smiling. "We came across that lame pet yearling, the dun-colored one you thought so much of; and there was mighty little left of the poor beast but a torn hide, not worth lifting." "Huh! wolves again!" exclaimed the stock-raiser, with a frown. "Sure thing, sir," Frank went on. "We saw a heap of signs that told us our old friend, Sallie, with the broken tooth, had been on the job again. But that was the last of our beef the old lady'll ever taste, or anybody else's, for that matter." "What's that? Did you sight her, and get a shot?" demanded the pleased rancher, forgetting his broken leg in his excitement, and making a movement that immediately caused him to give a grunt, and settle back again. "Old Hank happened to run across our trail just then," Frank continued; "and we made up our minds to track the beast to her lair. Where do you suppose we found it, dad, but in the big bunch of rocks that lies about ten miles to the west?" "You surprise me; but go on, tell me the rest, and then I'm going to let you in on something that will open your eyes a little," remarked the stockman. "Oh! there isn't much more to tell, dad," the boy hastened to say, for he was eager to learn what all this mystery meant. "We found the opening, easy enough, and made up our minds to crawl in after Sallie, the whole three of us. So Hank picked up some wood for a flare, and in we went." "And you found her home? You met with a warm reception, I warrant!" the other exclaimed, his eyes kindling with pride as he saw the quiet, confident air with which Frank rattled off his story. "Sallie was in, ditto five of her half-grown brood, and all full of fight," the boy continued. "But of course they didn't have a ghost of a show against our two repeating rifles. Hank held the torch, and Bob fired first. Then the brute jumped, and nearly got Hank, who lost the flare for a few seconds. We keeled over the ugly whelps as they started for us; and later on found old Sallie, just as she had dropped. That big jump was her last." "Well, I'm glad to hear that, son," declared the rancher, who had suffered long and seriously from the depredations of that sly animal and her various broods, despite all efforts to locate her, and put an end to her attacks. "I'm glad you're pleased with what we did," Frank remarked. "It will mean a lot to all honest ranchmen in this section," continued the cattleman. "With Sallie gone, we can hope to raise a record herd the coming season, without keeping men constantly on the watch, day and night, for a slinking thief that defied our best efforts. Shake hands, Bob, and let me congratulate you on making the shot that ended the loping of the worst pest this country has known in five years." "But when Ted came whirling along, shouting, and waving his hat, to tell us you wanted me back home on the jump, it gave me a bad feeling, dad; especially when I heard that you'd gone and hurt that leg again!" Frank cried, as he, too, seized the other hand of his father, and squeezed it affectionately. "But I told Ted to be sure and let you know that it was not on account of my new upset that I wanted you back," declared the ranchman, frowning. "Yes, he delivered the message all right, dad; but all the same I was bothered a heap, let me tell you," Frank went on. "And now, please, tell us what it's all about; won't you; and what this gentleman has to do with it; also the bottle Ted said you were handling?" At that Colonel Haywood smiled, and looked up at the stranger. "This is a Mr. Hinchman, Frank," he remarked. "He lives in a small place on the great Colorado River called Mohave City. And one day, not long ago, a man who was fishing on the river at a place where an eddy set in, found a curious bottle floating, that was sealed with red wax on the top, and seemed to contain only a piece of paper. This is the bottle," and as he spoke he opened a drawer of the desk, and drew out the flask in question. Frank took it, and turned it around. So far as he could see it was an ordinary bottle. It contained no cork, but there were signs of sealing wax around the top. "Mr. Hinchman, is, I believe," the ranchman went on, "though he has been too modest to say so himself, a gentleman of some importance in Mohave City, which accounted for the fisherman fetching his queer find to him. The bottle had evidently come down the great river, perhaps for one or two hundred miles, escaping destruction from contact with rocks in a marvelous manner, and finally falling into the hands of one who had both the time and the curiosity to examine its sealed contents." Colonel Haywood thereupon took up a small piece of paper from the pad of the desk. "This is what he found in the bottle, Frank," continued the stockman. "It bore my address, and the name of my ranch here; so thinking that it might be something more than a practical joke he concluded to journey all the way across the country to see me. It was a mighty nice thing for Mr. Hinchman to do, and something I am not apt to forget in a hurry, either." "Then the paper interested you, dad, it seems?" Frank remarked, eagerly. "It certainly did, son, and I rather think you will feel the same as I did when I tell you whose name is written at the bottom of this little communication," the cattleman went on. "All right, I'm ready to hear it," Frank remarked, laughingly. "Felix Oswald!" replied his father, quickly. The boy was indeed intensely surprised, if one could judge from his manner. "Your Uncle Felix, dad, who has been gone these three years, and whose mysterious disappearance set the whole scientific world guessing. And you say his name is there, signed to that paper found in the sealed bottle? Well, you sure have given me a surprise. Then he's still alive?" "He seemed to be when he wrote this," the cattleman said, reflectively; "but as he failed to put any date on it, we can only guess how long the bottle has been cruising down the Colorado, sucked into eddies that might hold it for weeks or months, until a rise in the river sent it forth again." "Say, doesn't that beat everything you ever heard of, Bob?" declared Frank, turning to his chum. "It certainly does," replied Bob, and then the ranchman's boy continued: "Perhaps you remember me telling you some things about this queer old uncle of dad's, Bob, and how, after he had made a name for himself, he suddenly vanished in a night, leaving word behind that he was going to study the biggest subject any man could ever tackle. And as he didn't want to be bothered, he said he would leave no address behind. They've looked for him all over Europe, Asia and Africa, but he was never heard from again. And now to think that he's sent word to dad; and in a sealed bottle too!" "That looks as if he must be somewhere on the Colorado River, don't it?" suggested Bob. "Undoubtedly," replied the stockman; "in fact, in this brief communication he admits that he is located somewhere along the Grand Canyon, in a place where travelers have as yet never penetrated. I can only guess that Uncle Felix must have been seized with a desire to unearth treasures that might tell the history of those strange old cliff dwellers, who occupied much of that country as long as eight hundred years ago. All he mentions about his hiding place is to call it Echo Cave. You never heard of such a place, did you, Mr. Hinchman; and you've lived on the lower river many years?" "I never did, Colonel," replied the man from Mohave City; "and perhaps few people have climbed through that wonderful gash in the surface of the Arizona desert as many times as I have." "In this brief note," continued Colonel Haywood, "Uncle Felix simply says that he has become aware of the passage of time; and since his labors are not yet completed, and he does not wish to allow his friends to believe him dead, he has concluded to communicate with me, his nephew. And as he knew of no other way of doing so, he resorted to the artifice of the floating bottle." "Mighty considerate of him, that's sure," chuckled Frank. "Been gone now two or three years, and suddenly remembers that there are people who might worry about his dropping out of sight." "But son," remarked the stockman, "don't forget that Uncle Felix is wrapped up in his profession, and cares very little about the ties of this world. I know him well enough for that. But it happens, singularly enough, that just now it is of the greatest importance he should be found, and communicated with. I would undertake the task myself, only for this unfortunate break that is bound to keep me laid up for another month or two. The doctor set my leg afresh, and tells me that this time I will really get perfectly well, given time. But it's hard to think that my cousin Janice, his only child, will lose so great a sum if some one fails to locate Uncle Felix, and get his signature to a paper inside of another month." "Why, how is that, father?" asked Frank. "Circumstances have arisen that will throw a fortune into her hands;" the stockman continued; "but the time limit approaches, and if his signature is not forthcoming others will reap the benefit, particularly that rascally cousin of mine, Eugene Warringford. You remember meeting him a year ago, Frank, when he came around asking many questions, as though he might have tracked his uncle out this way, and then lost the trail?" "Why not send us, dad?" demanded Frank, standing up in front of the stockman, with a smile of confidence on his face. CHAPTER IV THE LISTENER UNDER THE WINDOW "That was what I had in mind, Frank, when I hurried Ted Conway out to find you both," Colonel Haywood remarked, his face filled with pride and confidence. "Will you let me see the note, please?" asked Bob; who expected some day to study to be a lawyer, his father's family having had several Kentucky judges among their number. Just as the owner of the ranch had said, the communication was exceedingly brief, and to the point, not an unnecessary word having been written. It was in pencil, and the handwriting was crabbed; just what one might expect of an elderly man, given over heart and soul to scientific research. "I suppose you know the writing well enough to feel sure this came from your noted uncle, sir?" asked Bob, as he turned the paper over. "Certainly, Bob," replied the cattleman, promptly. "There is not the least possibility of it's being a practical joke. Nobody out here knows anything about my uncle, who disappeared so long ago. Yes, you can set it down as positive that the letter is genuine enough. He's located somewhere up in that most astonishing hole, the greatest wonder, most people admit, in the entire world. But just how you two boys are ever going to find him is another question." "We can try, dad; and that's all you could do if you were able to tramp. It happens that the Grand Canyon isn't more than a hundred and thirty miles from our ranch here, and we can ride that in a few days. How do you feel about it, Bob?" "Nothing would please me better," replied the other boy, quickly, his face lighting up with delight at the prospect of a long ride in the saddle, to be followed by days, and perhaps weeks, of roaming through that wonderland, where Nature had outdone all her other works in trying to heap up astonishing surprises. "So far as I'm concerned," Frank went on, "I've always wanted to visit the Grand Canyon, and meant to do it some day later on. Of course I've seen what the little Colorado has to show, because it's only a long day's ride off. Mr. Hinchman can, I reckon, give us some points about the place, and maybe even mention several smaller canyons where we might be likely to find Uncle Felix in Echo Cave." "Which I'll be only too happy to attempt," answered the gentleman from Mohave City; "and as I said before, I know considerable about the mysteries of the big hole in the desert, all of which is at your service. Somehow, the queer way that message in the floating bottle came to me, excited my curiosity; and I'll be satisfied if I can only have a hand in the finding of the noted gentleman who, as your father has been telling me, vanished in the midst of his fame." "And now, dad, please explain just what we are to do in case luck follows us in our hunt, and we run across the professor," said Frank. "You are to explain to him that the long option which he held on that San Bernardino mine will expire in one more month. The work had been going on in a listless way for three years. All at once some time back they struck a wonderfully rich lode, and vein has been followed far enough to show that it is bound to be a record breaker." "That sounds great!" declared the deeply interested Bob. "The mine couldn't be bought for a million to-day," continued the stockman; "and yet Uncle Felix is probably carrying around with him (for it couldn't be found at his home) a little legal document whereby it will become his sole property in case he chooses to plank down the modest sum of twenty thousand dollars by the thirtieth of next month!" "Whew! that's going some, eh, Bob?" exclaimed Frank, with a little whistle that accentuated his surprise. "Then if we are fortunate enough to find Uncle Felix before that time has expired, what shall we do, sir?" asked the precise Bob, who was always keeping an eye out for the legal aspect of things. "Coax him to accompany you to the nearest notary public, where he can sign his acceptance of the terms under which he holds the option on the San Bernardino. But if this happens after the thirtieth it is all wasted energy; for at midnight of that day, I happen to know, the option expires," the ranchman continued, somewhat impressively. Just as he finished speaking he suddenly turned toward the window, at which his keen vision had caught sight of a moving shadow, as though someone might have been crouching without, and listening. "Who is there at the window?" he called out, sternly. All eyes were turned that way. After several seconds had passed a figure rose up, and a head was thrust through the opening. It belonged to a dark-faced cow-puncher, named Abajo, who was supposed to be a half-breed Mexican. Although never a favorite with the owner of the Circle Ranch, Abajo was a first-class handler of the rope, and could ride a horse as well as anyone. He had been employed by Colonel Haywood for half a year. He talked "United States," as Frank was used to saying, as well as the average cowman. But Frank had never liked the fellow. There seemed something crafty in his ways that was foreign to the make-up of the boy. "It's only me, boss," said Abajo, with an attempt at a grin. "I wanted to ask you about that job you set me on yesterday. I took Pete along, and we found the lost bunch of stock in a valley ten mile away from Thunder Mountain in the Fox Canyon country. Got 'em all safe in but seven. Never seen hair nor hide of them; but after gettin' back it struck me there was one place they might a strayed to that we didn't look up. If so be you say the word I'll pick up Pete again, and make another try." "Why, of course you had better go, Abajo," remarked the stockman, looking keenly at the other, for he did not like the way in which the half-breed had been apparently loitering under that open window, as though listening to all that was passing in the room beyond. "I told you not to draw rein till you'd found all the missing stock; or knew what had become of them. That's all, Abajo." The Mexican cowboy hurried away. A minute later and they heard him shouting to Pete; and then the clatter of horses' hoofs told that the pair were galloping wildly across the open. "I wonder how much he heard?" said Frank; from which it would appear that he also suspected the other of having spied upon them for some purpose. "Much good it could have done him, even if he caught all we said," replied his father. "Because, of course, he doesn't know anything about Uncle Felix; and couldn't be interested in whether he is living or dead." "No," remarked Mr. Hinchman, "but the mention of a mine going a-begging that is worth a comfortable fortune, like a million or two, would interest Abajo. I know his type pretty well, and you can rest assured that they're always on the lookout for easy money." "But didn't it strike you, dad," ventured Frank, "that his excuse for being under that window was silly?" "Yes, because Abajo has always been able to understand, without asking what he should do under such conditions. He wanted some excuse for drawing near the open window, and he found it. Perhaps he's heard something about the coming of Mr. Hinchman here, and the queer finding of the bottle that floated down the Colorado for one or two hundred miles. I spoke to the foreman, Bart Heminway, about it." "When would you want us to make a start?" asked Bob, looking as though he might be ready to jump into his saddle then and there. "Oh! there is no such rushing hurry as all that," replied the cattleman, laughing at the eagerness of the two lads. "Your horses are a bit off, just now, and after all that fight in the wolf den you boys need a rest." "But when do we start?" asked Frank. "Suppose you get ready to move in the morning," Colonel Haywood replied, after reflecting a moment. "That will give me time to write a letter to Uncle Felix, so that you can deliver it, if you're lucky enough to find his Echo Cave; and at the same time you can make up your packs; for you will need blankets, and plenty of grub along." "Well, I reckon you're right, dad," admitted Frank; "only it seems as if we might be losing valuable time. All the same we're going to do just what you say. Now, if you haven't anything more to tell us, we'll just skip out, and begin looking up some of the supplies for our campaign in the Grand Canyon." "Get along with you, then," laughed the ranchman. "I want to ask Mr. Hinchman a few more questions that have occurred to me since you came home. And, boys, grub will be ready in a short time, now, for there's Ah Sin stepping to the door every little while, to look around and see if the boys are in sight. You know what that sign means." Frank and his chum went off, to make out a list of things they would take along with them on the strange expedition upon which they were about to start on the following morning. "What do you think of that slippery customer, Abajo?" Bob asked his chum, as the afternoon waned, and they were sitting on the long porch of the ranch house. "I've never liked him ever since he came here; but dad was in need of help, and the half-breed certainly knows his business to a dot," replied Frank, who was examining the new girth his chum had attached to his saddle, mentally deciding that whatever the young Kentuckian attempted, he did neatly and well. "Didn't I hear something about his being a relative to that Spanish Joe who gave us so much trouble a little while back, on Thunder Mountain?" Bob continued. "Well, I couldn't say for sure, but some say he is a nephew," Frank answered. "Both of them have Mexican blood in their veins; and, when you come to think of it, there is some resemblance in their faces." "But do you really think Abajo was listening?" the other asked. "It looked like it; that's as far as I've got," laughed Frank. "But," Bob protested, "even if he knew that there was a big fortune connected with the paper this queer old professor carries on his person, what good would that do Abajo?" Frank shrugged his broad shoulders as he replied: "Well, you never can tell what crazy notions some of these schemers after a fortune will hatch up. He might make up his mind to start a little hunt for the hermit of Echo Cave on his own hook; with the idea of getting a transfer of that valuable paper." "That's a fact!" declared Bob, looking interested. "Perhaps, after all, we won't have our work cut out for us as easy as we thought." "Small difference that will make," Frank went on, with a shutting of his teeth that told of the spirit animating the boy when difficulties hove in sight. "I agree with you, all right, Frank," his companion remarked. "And perhaps it'll only make the hunt all the more interesting if we believe we've got opposition. You know how it was when Peg Grant threw his hat in the ring, and tried to find out what made those queer sounds in the heart of Thunder Mountain?" "Sure I do," came the quick reply. "It stirred us up to doing bigger stunts than if we'd thought we had it all our own way. Nothing like competition to get the best out of any fellow." "Correct you are, Frank. But speaking of Abajo, perhaps that's him coming back now," and as he spoke the Kentucky boy pointed across to a point where a single rider could be seen heading for the ranch house. He was still far away, but the eyes of Frank Haywood were very keen. Besides, he knew the "style" of every cowboy who was in the employ of his father, and was able to pick them out almost as far as he could see them. "You're away off there, Bob," he remarked quietly. "Then it isn't the half-breed?" asked his chum. "I know the way that chap sits in the saddle," came the reply. "Only one man on the pay roll of Circle Ranch holds himself that way. It's Pete." "Pete Rawlings, the fellow who went with Abajo to round up the missing cattle?" asked Bob. "He's the one," Frank went on. "And from the fact that he rides alone, I take it he's bringing news." "Of the seven head of cattle that have disappeared, you mean, Frank?" "Perhaps. They may have found them, and Abajo is standing by, while Pete comes in to make some sort of report. There's that rustler bunch that comes from the other side of the Gila river once in a while, under Pedro Mendoza, you remember. But he'll soon be on deck, and then we'll know. Come along, Bob, and we'll let dad hear that Pete is sighted. He'll be interested some, I reckon." A short time later the single rider threw himself from his saddle after the usual impetuous manner of cowboys in general. "Back again, Pete; and did you see anything of that seven head?" asked Colonel Haywood, who had come outside. "Ain't run across hair nor hide of 'em, Colonel," replied the squatty cattleman, as he "waddled" up to the spot where the little group awaited his coming; for like many of his kind, Pete was decidedly bow-legged, possibly from riding a horse all his life; and his walk somewhat resembled that of a sailor ashore after a long cruise. "Where did you leave Abajo?" asked Frank, unable to restrain his curiosity. "Didn't leave him," replied the other, with a grin. "He gave me the merry ha! ha! and said as how he reckoned he'd had enough of the old Circle. Got his month's pay yesterday, you see, an' he's even. I reckoned somethin' was in the wind when I seen him talkin' with that feller." "Who was that, Pete?" questioned Colonel Haywood; and the prompt answer made Frank and Bob exchange significant looks, for it seemed to voice their worst fears. "A gent as you had avisitin' here some time back, Colonel. Reckon as how he don't feel any too warm toward you, accordin' to the way he used to bring them black brows of his'n down, when he thought you wa'n't lookin'. And his name was Eugene Warringford." CHAPTER V STARTING FOR THE GRAND CANYON No one appeared to be greatly surprised at this piece of news. Apparently it had been already discounted in the mind of Frank, his father, and even Bob Archer. "So, that's the way the wind sets, is it?" remarked the colonel, frowning. "Anyhow, dad, that proves one thing," declared Frank. "Meaning about that business of listening under the window?" observed the owner of Circle Ranch. "It certainly does. Abajo has been in the employ of Eugene Warringford from the start. But there must have been some other good reason why that schemer wanted to find Uncle Felix. He suspected that, sooner or later, the old gentleman would communicate with me, because I used to be quite a favorite of his, years ago." "Yes, and he sent the half-breed here to get employment from you just to spy around," declared Frank. "All the time he was accepting your money, he had a regular income from Eugene." "Oh! well, he earned all he got here," said the ranchman, quickly. "Say what I may about Abajo, he had no superior when it came to throwing the rope, and rounding up a herd. Those Mexicans make the finest of cowboys. They are at home in the saddle, every time." "Also in hanging around under windows, and listening to what is said," added Frank. "As for me, I have little use for their breed. And, dad, if ever you give me the reins here, no Mexican will ever get a job on old Circle Ranch." "Well," remarked the stockman, laughing at the vigor with which his son and heir made this assertion, "perhaps I'm leaning that way myself. After all, there's nothing like your own kind. We don't understand these fellows. Their ways are not the same as ours; and I reckon we puncture their pride often enough. But there's no trouble now about understanding why Abajo gave us the go-by to-day." "Huh! he had some news worth while carrying to his boss," said Frank. "And I can just imagine how Eugene's little eyes will sparkle when he hears about that valuable paper; eh, dad?" "You're right, son," the ranchman replied. "Because, it stands to reason he couldn't know anything about it before. The mine was a dead one up to a few months back, when that lucky-find lode was struck by accident. Eugene will put up a big chase to find this Echo Cave, now that he knows Uncle Felix is located somewhere in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado." "But it won't make a bit of difference in our plans, dad; will it?" asked Frank. "That depends on you two boys. If you think you can carry the game along, even with Eugene against you, I see no reason to make any change," the stockman replied, with a look that spoke of much confidence. The balance of the afternoon was spent in exchanging views, and much study of the map of the famous canyon of the Colorado, which it happened the ranch owner had in his desk. All sorts of theories were advanced by first one and then another of the group. It happened that Colonel Haywood himself had never as yet paid a visit to the strange gash in the soil of northwestern Arizona; and he admitted the fact with a rueful face. "Then just as soon as you get well, dad, make up your mind you're going to take a little vacation, and see the Grand Canyon," said Frank. "When we come back, perhaps what we have to say will set you wild to go. And we expect to bring news of old Uncle Felix too, if he's still in the land of the living." "Let's go over that ground again," remarked Bob. "Now you're referring to what was said about the funny old stone dwellings of the cliff dwellers, who used to live there centuries ago," remarked Frank. "And he's right, too," declared the ranchman. "I get the point Bob makes. It was about these wonderful people that Uncle Felix was so deeply interested, and he made up his mind to shut himself away from all the world, just to study up their history, as left in the holes in the rock." "And it would seem to follow, then," said Bob, readily, "that he will be found located in one of those series of terraces where these holes are discovered. I notice that there are a number of these villages connected with the map of the Grand Canyon; but the chances are your Uncle Felix wouldn't take up with any where tourist travel was common." "Now, that sounds all right," admitted Frank. "In the first place he would have been heard from long ago, if tourists ran across him; because they always talk, and send their accounts to be published in the papers." "Besides, these scientific men hate to be watched when they're wrapped up in work like this. I've known a couple back in Old Kentucky," Bob went on. "According to your idea, then," said the Colonel, nodding approvingly, "this Echo Cave he mentions will prove to be some new place that the ordinary tourist in the big canyon has never set eyes on?" "That's my opinion, sir," replied Bob. "And if that's so, then it wouldn't pay you boys to waste any time looking into these ruins of the homes of the cliff dwellers located around Grand View; and in Walnut Canyon, some nine miles from Flagstaff," the ranchman continued. "I think we'd save more or less time that way, sir," Bob declared. "And you still want to go on horseback; when you might reach the railroad, and take a train, easily enough?" asked Colonel Haywood. The boys exchanged glances. They were wedded to the saddle, and disliked the idea of leaving their favorite steeds behind them when embarking on this new venture. "We've picked out the trail we expect to follow, dad," Frank said, pleadingly; "and it seems to run pretty smooth, with only a few mountains to cross, and a couple of rivers to ford. If you don't object seriously, Bob and I would prefer to go mounted." "Oh! as far as that goes, I don't blame you, boys," the stockman hastened to say in reply; for he could understand the yearning one feels for a favorite horse; and how a seat in the saddle seems to be the finest thing in the world. "Thank you, dad!" exclaimed Frank. "I reckoned that you'd talk that way. Somehow or other I just don't feel more'n half myself out of the saddle. And when we start to go down into the canyon we can find some place to leave our mounts where they'll be 'tended decently enough." Ah Sin, the Chinese cook of the ranch, who generally accompanied the boys when the whole outfit went on the grand round-up, with the mess wagon in attendance, now came outdoors, and beat his gong to announce dinner. The cowboys were not far away, awaiting the summons with the customary range appetites held in check; and when they were seated at the table they presented a merry crowd. Frank's mother happened to be visiting East at this time. He had a maiden aunt, however, who looked after the household duties, and sat at the end of the long table to pour the coffee. Of course there was more or less talk about the sudden flitting of the half-breed, Abajo. Nobody had any regrets, for he had never been liked. And there were several who secretly felt pleased, because they had happened to quarrel with the dark-skinned Mexican at different times, and did not altogether fancy the way he had of scowling, while his finger felt the edge of the knife he carried in his gay sash, after the manner of his countrymen. Colonel Haywood did not see fit to explain the real cause for the going of Abajo, except to his foreman, Bart Heminway. But during the evening, when Frank and Bob were making up their packs so as to get an early start in the morning, the ranch owner might have been seen in earnest consultation with the foreman. Presently Bart went out, to return with Old Hank Coombs, and another cowman known as Chesty Lane; who had of course received this name on account of the way he thrust out his figure, rather than from any inclination on his part to boast of his wonderful deeds. "Chesty tells me, Colonel," said Bart, "that he used to be a guide in this same Grand Canyon, years ago. I never knowed it 'till right to-day. And if so be you intend to send Old Hank up thar to keep tabs on the doings of that ugly pair, Abajo and Warringford, thar couldn't be a better man to pick out than Chesty. You can depend on him every time." Then followed another conference, of which the two boys, wrapped up in their own plans in another room, were of course entirely ignorant. It was decided, however, that the two cowmen should wait until the boys were well on their way. Then, supplied with ample funds, they could ride to the nearest station, meet the first train bound north, and be at Flagstaff before night came around. In this way the Colonel figured that he was safeguarding the interests of Bob and Frank. Already had he begun to regret allowing them to go, and if it had not been for the high regard he had for his word, once given, he might have backed down. However, perhaps the sending of Hank and his companion might answer the purpose, and prove a valuable move. The night passed, and with early dawn there was a stir all about Circle Ranch. Every cowboy on the place accompanied Frank and Bob several miles on their long journey, every fellow wishing he had been asked to join them for the adventure. And when Bart Hemingway gave the word to turn back, the entire group waved their hats, and cheered as long as the two lads remained within hearing. CHAPTER VI BUCKSKIN ON GUARD "A good day's ride, all right, Bob!" "You never said truer words, Frank. And now, with night setting in, how far do you think we've covered since the start this morning?" The Kentucky boy sat in his saddle with a slight show of weariness, which was not to be wondered at, considering the steadiness with which they had kept on the move, hour after hour, heading in a general Westerly direction. The satin skin of Domino was flecked with foam. Even the tough little Buckskin mount of Frank showed signs of weariness; though ready to keep on if his master gave the word. "That would be hard to tell," replied the rancher's son; "but it must be all of sixty-five miles, I reckon." "Then that beats my record some," declared the other. "But it was a glorious gallop all the way through," asserted Frank. "That's what; and more to follow to-morrow," his chum hastened to remark. "But a different kind of travel, the chances are, Bob. To-day it happened that we were crossing the great mesa, and it was like a floor for being level. Over yonder, ahead, you can see the mountains we must cross. Then there are rivers to ford or swim. Yes, variety is the spice of life; and unless I miss my guess we're due for a big change to-morrow." "Think we can make Flagstaff by to-morrow night?" asked the Kentucky lad, who, at a time like this, seemed to depend very much upon the superior knowledge of his chum, who had been brought up on the plains. "We're going to make a try; that's as far as I've got," laughed Frank. "But what about camping here?" "As good as anywhere," answered Bob. "Fact is, I'm admitting to being ready to drop down in any old place, so long as I can stretch my legs, and roll. No wonder a horse likes to turn over as soon as you take the saddle off. Shall we call it a go, Frank?" The other jumped to the ground. Bob thought he heard him give a little grunt in doing so; but just then he was interested in repressing his own feelings. However, when they had moved about somewhat, both boys confessed to feeling considerably better. As for the horses, there was no danger of their straying after that gallop of many hours in the hot sun. They took their roll, and then began hunting for stray tufts of grass among the buffalo berry bushes. The sun had already set, and twilight told of the coming night. Around them lay the mesa, with the mountains cropping up like a crust along the edge. It was a familiar scene, to Frank in particular, and one of which he never tired. "I noticed some jack rabbits as we came along," remarked Bob, "and as they always come out of their burrows about dusk to play, suppose I try and knock over a couple right now." "Wouldn't object myself to a good dinner of rabbit, after that ride," Frank admitted, as he proceeded to get the little tent in position, a task that was only a pleasure to a boy fond of all outdoors. So Bob immediately sauntered off toward the spot where he had noticed the long-eared animals, calculated to make a good meal for hungry campers. "I heard gophers whistling," called out Frank, "and that means there's a village somewhere close by. Keep your eyes out for the rattlers; they are always found where prairie dogs live." "I never forget that, Frank," came back from the disappearing hunter. Frank went on with his preparations. A fire would be necessary, if they expected to cook fresh meat; and it is not always an easy thing to have such when out on the open plain or mesa. But Frank had already sighted a supply of fuel sufficient for their needs and it was indeed next door to a miracle to find the dead branch of a pine tree here, far away from the mountains, where the nearest trees seemed to grow. "I reckon it was just lifted up in some little tornado, and carried through the air, just to land where we needed it," he remarked, as he dragged the log closer to where he had quickly put up the tent; and then began chopping at it with his little camp hatchet. As he worked there came a quick report from a point not far away. "That means one jack," he remarked, raising his head to listen; but to his surprise no second shot followed. "Well, if he hopes to get a pair, he'll have to hurry up his cakes," Frank went on; "because the night's settling down on us fast. But then one will give us a taste all around, and help out." It was some little time before he heard Bob coming, and then the Kentuckian seemed to be walking rather unsteadily. Frank jumped to his feet, with the suspicion that possibly after all Bob had met with a misfortune. In the minute of time that he was waiting for his chum to appear, a number of things flashed through his head to give him uneasiness. Had Bob been unlucky enough to run across one of those aggressive little prairie rattlesnakes after all? Could he have wounded himself in any way when he fired his repeating rifle? Neither of these might prove to be the case; and yet Bob was certainly staggering as he came along. Now he could be seen by the light of the little fire. Frank stared, for his chum was certainly bending over, as though bearing a load. He had heard no outcry that would signify the presence of others in the neighborhood. Ah! surely those were the long slender legs of an antelope which Bob gripped in front of him. "Bully for you!" exclaimed Frank. "Where under the sun did you run across that fine game? Say, you sure take the cake, stepping out just to knock over a couple of long-ears; and then coming back ten minutes later with a fine antelope on your back. How did you do it, Bob?" "I don't know," laughed the other. "Happened to start up against the wind, and was creeping up behind some buffalo berry bushes to see if there were any jack rabbits beyond, when this little fellow jumped to his feet. Why he didn't light out when we came along, I never could tell you." "Oh! he just knew we wanted a good supper, I reckon," Frank remarked. "And now to get busy." It did not take them long to cut some choice bits from the antelope, which they began to cook at the fire, thrusting the meat through with long splinters of wood, which in turn were held in a slanting position in the ground. When one part gave evidence of being browned the novel spit was turned until all sides had been equally served. "Remember the way Old Hank showed us how to toll antelope for a shot, when you can't find cover to get near enough?" asked Frank, as they sat there, disposing of their supper, with the satisfaction hunger always brings in its train. "You mean with the red handkerchief waved over the top of a bush?" Bob went on. "Hank said there never was a more curious little beast than an antelope. If he didn't have a red rag a white one would do. Once he said he just lay down on his back and kicked his heels in the air. The game ran away, but came back; and each time just a little bit closer, till Hank could fire, and get his supper. I've done something the same for ducks, in a marsh back home, trying to draw their attention to the decoys I had out." A small stream ran near by, at which the boys and horses had quenched their thirst. Sometimes its gentle murmur floated to their ears as they sat there, chatting, and wondering whether their mission to the Grand Canyon was destined to bear fruit or not. "I can get the smell of some late wild roses," remarked Frank. "And it isn't often that you find such things up on one of these high mesas, or table lands. Do you know, I rather imagine this used to be a favorite stamping ground for buffalo in those good old days when herds of tens of thousands could be met with, rolling like the waves of a sea over the plains." "What makes you think so?" asked Bob, always seeking information. "The grass, for one thing," came the reply. "Then I noticed quite a few old sun-burned remnants of skulls as we came along. The bone hunter didn't gather his crop in this region, that means. Besides, didn't you see all those queer little indentations that looked as though they might have been pools away back years ago?" "Sure, I did; and wondered whatever could have made them," Bob admitted. "I may be wrong," Frank continued; "but somehow I've got an idea that those must be what they used to call buffalo wallows. Anyhow, that doesn't matter to us. We've made a good day of it; found a jim-dandy place for a camp; got some juicy fresh meat; and to-morrow we hope to land in Flagstaff." "And what then?" queried Bob. "We'll decide that while we ride along to-morrow," Frank answered. "Perhaps it may seem better that we leave our horses there, and take the train for the Grand Canyon; though I'm inclined to make another day of it, and follow the old wagon trail over the mesa, and through the pine forest past Red Butte, to Grand View." "Listen to Buckskin snorting; what d'ye suppose ails him?" asked Bob, as his chum stopped speaking. "I was just going to say that myself," remarked Frank, putting out his hand for his rifle; and at the same time scattering the brands of the dying fire so that darkness quickly fell upon the spot. "Too late, I'm afraid," muttered Bob. "Seems like it, because the horses are sure coming straight for us," said Frank; "but there are many people moving around in this section, and perhaps some tenderfeet from the East have lost themselves, and would be glad of a chance to sit by our blaze and taste antelope meat, fresh where it is grown. Step back, Bob, and let's wait to see what turns up!" CHAPTER VII STANDING BY THE LAW "What had we ought to do?" asked Bob. "They must have seen our fire, and that's what made them head this way. So, all we can do is to wait, and see what they want," replied Frank. "But there don't seem to be many in the party," his chum went on. "I think not more than two, Bob." "You can tell from the beat of their horses' hoofs--is that it?" inquired the boy who wanted to learn. "Yes, it's easy enough, Bob." By this time the sounds had grown quite loud, and both boys strained their eyes, trying to locate the approaching horsemen. In the old days on the plains every stranger was deemed an enemy until he had proven himself a friend. Nowadays it is hardly so positive as that; but nevertheless those who are wise take no chances. "I see them!" Bob announced; but although the other saddle boy had not said so, he had picked up the advancing figures several seconds before. "One thing sure," remarked Frank, as though relieved, "I reckon they can't be horse thieves or cattle rustlers." "You mean they wouldn't be so bold about coming forward?" ventured Bob. "That's about the size of it; but we'll soon know," Frank went on. As the strangers drew rapidly nearer he began to make out their "style" for the night was not intensely dark. And somehow Frank's curiosity increased in bounds. He discovered no signs of the customary cowboy outfit about them. They wore garments that savored of civilization, and sat their horses with the air of men accustomed to much riding. "Hold hard there, strangers; or you'll be riding us down!" Frank sang out, as the newcomers loomed up close at hand. At that the others drew rein, and brought their horses to a halt. Bending low in the saddle they seemed to be peering at the dimly-seen figures of the two boys. "Who is it--speak quick!" one of the strangers said; and Frank believed he heard a suspicious click accompanying the thrilling words. "Two boys bound for Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon," he answered, not wishing to take any unnecessary chances. "Where from, and what's your names?" continued the other, in his commanding voice, that somehow told Frank he must be one accustomed to demanding obedience. The ranch boy no longer felt any uneasiness. He believed that these men were not to be feared. "I am the son of Colonel Haywood, owner of the Circle Ranch; and this is my chum, Bob Archer, a Kentucky boy," he said, boldly. Then the other man, who as yet had not spoken, took occasion to remark: "'Taint them, after all, Stanwix! Perhaps we've been following the wrong trail." The name gave Frank an idea. He had heard more or less about the doings of a sheriff in a neighboring county, called Yavapai, and his name was the same as that mentioned by the second dimly seen rider. "Are you gentlemen from Prescott?" he asked. "That's where I hold out when I'm home," replied the one who had asked about their identity. "Are you Sheriff Stanwix?" pursued the boy, while his companion almost held his breath in suspense. "I am; and this is Hand, who holds the same office in this county of Coconino," replied the other, as he threw a leg over his saddle as though about to dismount. Both of them joined the boys, leaving their horses to stand with the bridles thrown over their heads, cowboy fashion. Frank meanwhile had picked up some small fuel, and thrown it on the still smouldering fire. It immediately started up into a blaze that continued to increase. They could now see that their visitors were two keen-eyed men. The evidence of their calling lay in the stars that decorated their left breasts. Both looked as though they could hold their own against odds. And of course they were armed as became their dangerous profession. Bob was especially interested. He had never really had anything to do with an officer of the law; and surveyed the pair with all the ardor of boyish curiosity. To see one sheriff was a treat; but to have two drop down upon them after this fashion must be an event worth remembering. "We had the good luck to knock over a young antelope just before dark," Frank remarked, after each of the men had insisted in gravely shaking hands with both himself and Bob. "Perhaps you haven't had any supper, and wouldn't mind taking pot luck with us?" "How about that, Hand?" questioned the taller man, turning with a laugh to the second sheriff. "Just suits me," came the reply, as the speaker threw himself down on the hard ground. "Half an hour's rest will do the hosses some good, too." "Thank you, boys, we accept, and with pleasure," Mr. Stanwix went on, turning again toward Frank. Bob immediately got busy, and started to cut further bits from the carcase of his small antelope. There would be plenty for even the healthy appetites of the two officers, and then leave enough for the boys' breakfast. "We're in something of a hurry to get on to Flagstaff ourselves, boys," the Yavapai sheriff remarked, as he sniffed the cooking venison with relish; "but the temptation to hold over a bit is too strong. You see, Hand and myself have just made up our minds to bag our birds this trip, no matter where it takes us, or how long we're on the job." "Then you're after some cattle rustlers or bad men, I reckon," Frank remarked. "A couple of the worst scoundrels ever known around these diggings," replied the officer. "They've been jumping from one county into another, when pushed; and in the end Hand, here, and myself concluded we'd just join our forces. We've got a posse to the south, and another working to the north; but we happened to strike the trail of our birds just before dusk, and we've been following it in hopes of reaching Flagstaff before they can get down into the gash, and hide." "A trail, you say?" Frank observed. "Could it have been the one I've been following just out of curiosity, and because it seemed to run in the very direction my chum and myself were bound?" "That's just what it was, Frank," the sheriff answered, as he accepted the hot piece of browned venison, stick and all, which Bob was holding out. "We saw that there had come into the trail the marks of two new hosses; and naturally enough we got the idea that it might mean our men were being followed by a couple of their own kind." "Then when you saw our little fire, you thought we were the kind of steers you wanted to round up?" the boy asked. "Oh! well," Mr. Stanwix replied with a little chuckle; "we kept a touch on our irons when I was asking you who you were; and if the reply hadn't been all that it was, I reckon we'd have politely asked you to throw up your hands, boys. But say, this meat is prime, and seems to go to the spot." "I don't know which spot you mean, Stanwix," remarked the other officer, who was also munching away like a half-starved man; "but mine suits me all right. I'm right glad we stopped. The rest will tone the nags up for a long pull; and as for me, I'll be in great shape after this feed." Bob was kept busy cooking more and more, for the two men seemed to realize, after once getting a taste, that they were desperately hungry. But he did it with pleasure. There was something genial about the manner of Mr. Stanwix that quite captured the heart of the Kentucky lad. He knew the tall man could be as gentle as a woman, if the occasion ever arose when he had a wounded comrade to nurse; and if his reputation did not speak wrongly his courage was decidedly great. While they sat there the two men talked of various subjects. Frank was curious to know something about those whom they were now banded together in a determined effort to capture, and so Mr. Stanwix told a few outlines of the case. The men were known as the Arizona Kid and Big Bill Guffey. They had been cattlemen, miners, and about every other thing known to the Southwest. By degrees they had acquired the reputation of being bad men; and all sorts of lawless doings were laid at their door. And finally it came to defying the sheriff, evading capture by flitting to another county, and playing a game of hide-and-seek, until their bold methods were the talk of the whole country. Then it was the Coconino sheriff had conceived the idea of an alliance with his brother officer in the adjoining county, of which the thriving city of Prescott was the seat of government. Frank even had Mr. Stanwix describe the two men whom the officers were pursuing. "We expect to be around the Grand Canyon for some weeks," the lad remarked; "and it might be we'd run across these chaps. To know who they were, would be putting us on our guard, and besides, perhaps we might be able to get notice to you, sir." "That sounds all right, Frank," the other had hastened to reply; "and believe me, I appreciate your friendly feelings. It's the duty of all good citizens to back up the man they've put in office, when he's trying to free the community of a bad crowd." Then he explained just how they might get word to him in case they had anything of importance to communicate. Although the Tarapai sheriff knew nothing about wireless telegraphy, he did understand some of the methods which savage tribes in many countries use in order to send news hundreds of miles; sometimes by a chain of drums stationed on the hill tops miles apart; or it may be by the waving of a red flag. "And I want to tell you, Frank," Mr. Stanwix concluded, "if so be you ever do have occasion to send me that message, just make up your minds that I'll come to you on the jump, with Hand at my heels. But for your own sakes I hope you won't run across these two hard cases. We've got an idea that they mean to do some hold-up game in the Grand Canyon, where hundreds of rich travelers gather. And if luck favors us we expect to put a spoke in their wheel before they run far!" CHAPTER VIII THE MOQUI WHO WAS CAUGHT NAPPING Sheriff Stanwix arose with a sigh. "Reckon we'd better be moving on, Hand," he said, evidently with reluctance; for it was very pleasant sitting there, taking his ease beside the camp fire of the two boys; but when duty called this man never let anything stand in the way. Their horses had not strayed far away. Like most animals they had sought the company of their kind, as various sounds indicated, Buckskin doubtless showing his prairie strain by sundry nips with his teeth at the strangers. Another shake of hands all around; then the sheriffs threw themselves into their saddles, and were off. The last the two lads saw of them was when their figures were swallowed up in the night-mists; and then it was a friendly wave of the arm that told how much they had appreciated the hospitality of the saddle boys. "Well, anyhow, it doesn't seem quite so lonely out here, after all," said Frank, laughing, as he and his chum settled down again. "Why, no," added Bob, "I thought we owned the whole coop; but I take it back. There are others abroad, it seems." "I only hope those two fly-by-night birds don't take a notion to double on their trail, and come back to pay us a visit," Frank remarked; and of course Bob understood that he meant the bad men who were being rounded up by Sheriff Stanwix, aided by the official of Coconino County. "Perhaps we'd better douse the glim, then?" Bob suggested. "Let it burn out," Frank remarked; "I don't believe there's much chance of anybody else seeing it now; because it's pretty low. Our tent shows up about as plain, come to think of it; but I don't mean to do without shelter." They sat there, chatting on various subjects, for some time. Of course their mission to the region of the greatest natural wonder in the world took a leading part in this conversation. But then they also spoke of their recent visitors; and as Bob showed signs of considerable interest, Frank told all he had ever heard about the valor of the Prescott sheriff. "I don't know how you feel about it, Bob," he said, at length, with a yawn, "but I'm getting mighty sleepy." "Same here; and I move we turn in," Bob immediately replied. Accordingly, as the idea had received unanimous approval, they took a look at the horses, now staked out with the ropes, and, finding them comfortable, both boys crawled under the canvas. Some hours later they were aroused suddenly by a shrill yell. As they sat up, and groped for their rifles, not realizing what manner of peril could be hanging over them, the loud snorting of the horses came to their ears. "Come on!" exclaimed Frank, in considerable excitement. "Sounds like somebody might be bothering our mounts!" Bob had not been so very long in the Western country; but he knew what that meant all right. Horses were supposed to be the most valuable possessions among men who spent their lives on the great plains and deserts of this region. In the old days it was deemed a capital crime to steal horses. So Bob, shivering with excitement, but not fear, hastened to follow at the heels of his chum, as Frank hastily crawled out of the tent. A rather battered looking moon was part way up in the Eastern heavens. Though the light she gave was none of the best, still, to the boys, coming from the interior of the tent, it seemed quite enough to enable them to see their way about, and even distinguish objects at a little distance. Frank lost no time heading in the direction where he knew the horses had been staked out. "Anyhow, they don't seem to have got them yet," remarked Bob, gleefully, as the sound of prancing and snorting came to their ears louder than ever. Frank stopped for a couple of seconds to listen. "Buckskin is carrying on something fierce," he muttered. "He seems to be furiously mad, too. Perhaps, after all, it may be a bear sniffing around; though I'd never expect to find such a thing out here, so far away from the mountains." He again started on, with Bob close at his elbow. The words of his chum had given the Kentucky lad new cause for other thrills. What if it should prove to be a grizzly bear? He had had one experience with such a monster, and was not particularly anxious for another, not being in the big game class. Now they were approaching the spot where the two roped horses were jumping restlessly about, making queer sounds that could only indicate alarm. Frank spoke to his animal immediately, thinking to reassure him. "Easy now, Buckskin; what's making you act this way? I don't see any enemy. If you've given a false alarm, it'll sure be for the first time!" "Frank!" ventured the other lad, just then. "What is it, Bob?" "I thought I heard a low groan!" continued the Kentucky boy, in awed tones. "You did?" ejaculated Frank, quickly. "Have you any idea where it came from?" As if to make it quite unnecessary for Bob to reply, there came just then a low but distinct grunt or groan. Frank could not tell which. "Over this way, Frank; he's in this direction!" exclaimed the impulsive Bob, as he started to move off. "Wait a minute," said the practical and cautious Frank. "You never know what sort of game you're up against, around here. Some of these horse thieves can toll a fellow away from his camp to beat the band, while a mate gets off with the saddle band. I've been warned against that very sort of play. Go slow, Bob, and keep a finger on your trigger, I tell you." They advanced slowly, looking all around in the dim moonlight. Twice more the strange sounds arose. Frank jumped to the conclusion that it was, after all, no attempt to draw them farther and farther away from the tent; because the groans seemed to come from the one spot, instead of gradually moving off in a tempting manner. "Here he is, Bob!" he said, presently; and the other, looking, saw a huddled-up figure lying upon the ground in the midst of the low buffalo berry bushes. Immediately they were bending over the form, which had moved at their approach. "Why, it's an Indian, Frank!" cried Bob, in surprise. "Yes, and unless I miss my guess, a Moqui Indian at that," Frank replied. "Three of them wandered down our way once, and gave us some interesting exhibitions of their customs. You know their home is up to the north. They are said to be the descendants of the old cliff dwellers who made all those holes high up in the rocks, to keep out of the reach of enemies." He was bending down over the other even while saying this; and feeling to see if the Indian could have been wounded in any way. "What seems to be the matter with him, Frank?" asked Bob, when this thing had been going on for a full minute, the stricken man grunting, and Frank appearing to continue his investigations. "I tell you what," Frank remarked, presently; "I honestly believe he's been kicked by the heels of my sassy little Buckskin; perhaps he's badly hurt; and then again, he may only have had the wind knocked out of him. That horse is as bad as any mule you ever saw, when it comes to planting his heels." "But what was he prowling around the camp for?" asked Bob, who had a hazy idea concerning the red men of the West, gained perhaps from early reading of the attacks on the wagon trains of the pioneers of the prairie. "Oh! these Moqui Indians wouldn't do a white man any harm, unless they happened to take too much juice of the agave plant, in the shape of mescal," Frank hastened to say; "and I don't seem to get the smell of that stuff. So the chances are that he had something of an eye to our horses." "And as he didn't know about Buckskin's ways he gave the little pony a chance to get in some dents. But he may be badly hurt, Frank," Bob went on, his natural kindness of heart cropping up above any feeling of animosity he might have experienced. "I suppose, then, we'll just have to tote the beggar to the tent, and start up that fire again, while we look him over. If those hind feet came slap against his ribs, the chances are we'll find a few of them broken." Swinging their rifles into one hand they managed to take hold of the grunting Moqui, and in this primitive fashion began hauling him along. Buckskin continued to prance and snort as though demanding whether he had not amply fulfilled his duty as guardian to the camp; but no one paid the least attention to him just then. Arriving at the tent the boys proceeded to rekindle the fire. "Why, he's coming to, Frank!" exclaimed Bob, as, having finished his task, he turned to see his chum bending over the victim of Buckskin's hoofs, and noted that the would-be horse thief was struggling to sit up. "I don't believe he's hurt very bad," Frank declared. "I've felt all over his body, and don't seem to find any signs of broken bones." "Listen to him gasp right now, as if the breath had been knocked out of him," remarked Bob. "He's going to speak, Frank, sure he is. I wonder can we understand what he says. Moqui wasn't included in my education at the Military Institution at Frankfort." The Indian was indeed trying to get enough air in his lungs to enable him to say something. CHAPTER IX "TALK ABOUT LUCK!" "No hurt Havasupai!" was what he managed to say, hoarsely. "We're not going to hurt you, old man," remarked Frank; for he had seen that the Indian was no stripling. "What we want to know is, how you came to get so close to the heels of my horse as to be kicked? Tell us that, Havasupai, if you please." There was no answer, although twice the exhausted red man opened his lips as if to speak. "That knocks the props out from under him, Frank," remarked Bob; "because he was bent on getting away with one or both mounts." "How about that, Havasupai; weren't you thinking of stealing a horse, when that animal just keeled you over so neatly?" Frank demanded. The Indian was sitting up now. His head was hanging low on his chest. Perhaps it was shame that caused this: or it might have been a desire to keep his face hidden from the searching eyes of the white boys. Then, as though realizing the utter folly of denying what must appear so evident, he nodded his head slowly. "It is true, white boy," he muttered, in fair English. "Havasupai meant to take a horse. He had looked upon the man who beckons, and he was afraid, because he had trouble at his village. He believed every man's hand was against him. And so he would flee to the desert where the white man's big medicine would not find him. There he might die with the poison snakes and the whooping birds." Bob was of course puzzled by some of the things the Indian said. "What does he mean, Frank?" he asked. "I take it the warrior has been in some sort of fuss at his village," the other replied. "Perhaps he even struck his chief in anger, and that made an offense punishable with death. These Moqui Indians are a queer lot, anyhow, I've heard. Then he must have skipped out, and by accident seeing our friend, Sheriff Stanwix, known to him as the 'man who beckons,' he just imagined they were looking for him." "And that locoed him so much that he just couldn't stand it any longer," Bob said. "Discovering our camp he got the notion in his head that a horse might take him out of the danger zone. So he was in the act of jumping on one of our mounts when your clever little beast took a hand, or rather a hoof, in the matter. But do you know what he means by whooping birds?" "Well, I can give a guess," replied Frank. "That must mean the little owl that lives with the prairie dogs in their holes, along with the poison snake, otherwise the rattler." "Looks like we've just got our hands full to-night, Frank!" "You're right, Bob. First we feed two hungry sheriffs, and pick up quite a little news about the bad men they're looking for. Next, along comes this Moqui, Havasupai he says his name is, and he gets in a bad fix by trying to run off our horses; and feeling sorry for the old chap we lug him to our tent, and look him over, ready to even bind up his wounds, if he has any." "Getting to be a habit, isn't it, Frank?" "Seems like it," returned the taller boy, as he once more turned toward the seated Indian. "Here, can you tell us where my horse kicked you?" "It matters not much. Havasupai get what he needs because he try to steal horse from good white boys," came the humble reply. "One thing sure," remarked Frank aside to his chum, "he's been in touch with the whites a heap, or he wouldn't know how to talk as he does. But then, that isn't so queer. You know that these Moquis pick up a lot of good coin from the travelers who come and go at the Grand Canyon." "Why, yes," Bob went on to say, "I've always heard that one of the sights of this wonderland was the snake dance of the Moquis. I read an account of it in a magazine once. It said that hundreds of people gathered from many quarters to be on hand and see it, because it occurs only once a year. Some of them were big guns in science, too." "They're getting more and more interested in these Indians of the Southwest," Frank continued; "and trying all the time to find out just where they fit in the long-ago past. That's what made old Uncle Felix, who had already made a name for himself, give up his happy home, and hide all these months down here. He wants to learn the long-buried secrets of the past history of the Zunis, the Moquis, and other tribes that might have sprung from the old cliff builders." "But what can we do with this fellow, Frank?" "Oh! well, nothing much, I reckon," the other answered, carelessly. "He must have been plum locoed at seeing the sheriff, and hardly knew what he was doing when he set out to grab Buckskin. We'll just have to let him sleep here till morning, and then give him a bite of breakfast." "Just as you say, Frank; you ought to know what's best," Bob hastened to declare. "Now I wonder what'll be the next thing on the programme? I hope we don't have the two men the sheriff is hunting, drop in to make us a call." "Little danger of that now," Frank remarked reassuringly. "By this time they're well on their way to Flagstaff. Here, Havasupai, as you call yourself; we don't mean to do you any harm, even if you did play us a mean trick when you tried to steal a mount. Understand?" The old Indian looked up at Frank through his masses of coarse black hair, just beginning to be streaked with gray. "Not do any harm," he repeated, as though hardly able to grasp the meaning of the words Frank spoke; then his brown face lighted up with a grim smile. "White boys good; Havasupai glad him not take horse. Bad Indian! But not always that way; him carry speaking paper tell how make good," and he thumped his breast as he said this. Again did Bob's eyes seek the face of his chum in a questioning manner. Frank, having been raised amid such scenes, could more readily understand what the Moqui meant when he referred to certain things which Bob had never heard mentioned before. "He means that he's got a letter of recommendation along with him, written by some tourist, I reckon. Perhaps this old fellow may have found a chance to do some one a good turn. He may have run across a greenhorn wandering on the desert; saved a fellow who had been stabbed by the fangs of a viper from the Gila; or helped him to camp when he broke a leg in climbing around the Grand Canyon." "Oh! I see what you mean, Frank; that this party wrote out a recommendation to all concerned, stating that in his opinion Havasupai was a fine fellow, and worth trusting. But then that was before he got into this trouble at this village. If he's a fugitive from justice at the hands of his own tribe, such a paper isn't worth much, I guess." "No more it isn't," agreed Frank. "But all the same he means to stick us with it," chuckled Bob; "for you can see he's got his hand in his shirt right now, as if searching for something so valuable that he won't even carry it in his ditty bag." "That's right, Bob." "And now he's got in touch with that old letter," grunted Bob. "I suppose we'll just have to read it to please him." "You can if you care to," remarked Frank. "As for me, I'm that sleepy I only want a chance to crawl back into the tent, and take up my interrupted nap where it broke off." "But good gracious! do you really mean it?" exclaimed the puzzled Bob. "Why not?" demanded his chum. "And leave him loose here, with the horses close by?" Bob went on, aghast. At that Frank laughed a little. "Well," he said, drily; "so far as the horses are concerned, I reckon our old friend Havasupai will go a long way on foot before he ever tries to steal a promising looking pony again. As long as he lives he'll remember how it feels to get a pair of hoofs fairly planted against his back. So long, Bob. Tell the old fraud he can lie down anywhere he pleases, and share our breakfast in the morning." "That's the way you rub it in, Frank; returning evil with good," the Kentucky boy remarked. "But since you want me to take him in hand, I'll be the victim, and read his letter of recommendation, though I can already guess what it will say." The old Moqui had meanwhile succeeded in getting out the paper which he seemed to set so much store by. Looking up, and seeing that Frank had turned away, he offered it to Bob, who took it gravely, and proceeded to hold it so that the light of the little fire would fall upon the writing. Frank was half way in the tent when he heard his chum give utterance to a shout. He backed out again, and turning, looked hastily, half expecting to see Bob engaged in a tussle with the old Indian. Nothing of the sort met his gaze. The Moqui was sitting there, staring at Bob, who had straightened up, and was starting to dance around, holding the paper in his extended hand. "What ails you, Bob?" demanded the other. "Haven't been taken with a sudden pain, after all that venison you stowed away, I hope." "Come out here, Frank!" called the lad by the fire. "Of all the luck! to think we'd strike such a piece as this! It's rich! It's the finest ever! We go to hunt for clues, and here they come straight to us. Talk to me about the favors of fortune, why, we're in it up to the neck!" "You seem to be tickled about something, Bob; has that paper any connection with it?" demanded Frank. "Well I should say, yes, by a big jugfull," replied the Kentucky boy. "And you'll agree with me when I tell you it's signed by Professor Felix Oswald, the very man we're going to search the Grand Canyon up and down to find!" CHAPTER X THE COPPER COLORED MESSENGER "Do you really mean it, Bob?" asked Frank, with the bewildered air of one who suspects a joke. "Take it yourself, and see," replied the other, holding out the discolored and wrinkled sheet on which the writing was still plainly to be read. Frank bent over, the better to allow the firelight to fall upon the queer document. This was what he read in a rather crabbed hand, though the writing could be read fairly well: _"To Whom it May Concern; Greeting!_ "This is to certify to the good character of the bearer, a Moqui Indian by the name of Havasupai, who has rendered me a very great service, which proves him to be the friend of the white man, and a believer in the pursuit of science. I cheerfully recommend him to all who may be in need of a trustworthy and capable guide to the Grand Canyon. "PROFESSOR OSWALD." Frank looked up to see the grinning face of his chum thrust close to him. "Think it's genuine, Frank?" demanded the other. "I can see no reason why it shouldn't be," answered the other, glancing down again at the crumpled paper he held, and which the old Moqui was regarding with the greatest of pride on his brown face. "Looks like that paper Mr. Hinchman brought to my dad; yes, I'd stake my word on it, Bob, that the same hand wrote both." "But how d'ye suppose this greasy old Indian ever got the document?" asked the young Kentuckian. "We'll have to put it up to him, and find out," came the reply. "He can speak United States all right; we've found that out already; and so you see, there's no reason under the sun why he shouldn't want to tell us." He turned to the Moqui. It was not the same sleepy boy apparently who, but a minute before, had started to creep into the comfortable tent, where the blankets lay; but a wide-awake fellow, eager to ascertain under what conditions this fugitive brave could have secured such a letter of recommendation from the man of science, who was supposed to have utterly vanished from the haunts of men without leaving a single trace behind, up to the hour that message came to Colonel Haywood. Holding the paper up, and shaking it slightly, Frank started to put the Moqui warrior on the rack. "This belong to you, Havasupai?" he demanded, trying to assume a stern manner, such as he believed would affect the other more or less, and be apt to bring out straight answers to his leading questions. "The white boy has said," answered the other, for an Indian seldom answers in a direct way. "Where did you get it?" Frank continued, slowly, as if feeling his way; for he did not wish to alarm the Indian, knowing how obstinate a Moqui may prove if he once suspects that he is being coaxed into betraying some secret or a friend. The black, bead-like eyes were on the face of Frank as he put these questions. Doubtless the old Moqui balanced every one well before venturing a reply. "He gave it," nodding in the direction of the paper Frank held. "Do you mean the man who signed his name here, Professor Oswald?" A nod of the head in the affirmative settled that question. "Was he a small man with a bald head, no hair on top, and wearing glasses over his eyes, big, staring glasses?" Frank aided comprehension by touching the top of his own head when speaking about the loss of hair on the part of the noted scientist; and then made rings with his fingers and thumbs which he clapped to his eyes as though looking through a pair of spectacles. Evidently the Moqui understood. Reading signs was a part of his early education. In fact it comprised nearly four-fifths of all the Indian knew. "White boy heap wise; he know that the man give Havasupai talking paper. Much great man; know all. Tell Havasupai about cliff men. Find much good cook pot, heap more stuff in cave. Find out how cave men live. Write all down in book. Send Havasupai one, promise. It is well!" "But where did you meet him?" asked Frank; and he saw at once that this was getting very near the danger line, judging from the manner in which the Moqui acted; for he seemed to draw back, just as the alarmed tortoise will hide its head in its shell at the first sign of peril. "In canyon where picture rocks laugh at sun," the Indian slowly said. "That ought to stand for the Grand Canyon," remarked the boy. The keen ears of the Moqui caught the words, although they were almost spoken in whispers, and only intended for Bob. He nodded violently, and Frank somehow found himself wondering whether, after all, the shrewd Indian might not be wanting to deceive him. He may have conceived the idea that these two white boys were the enemies of the queer old professor; and for that reason would be careful how he betrayed the man who trusted him. "Listen, Moqui," said Frank, putting on a serious manner, so as to impress the other; "we are the friends of the little-old-man who has no hair on top of his head. We want to see him, talk with him! It means much good to him. He will be glad if you help us find him. Do you understand that?" The Indian's black eyes roved from one to the other of those bright young faces. Apparently he would be foolish to suspect even for a minute that the two lads could have any evil design in their minds. Still, the crafty look on his brown face grew more intense. "He has some good reason for refusing to accommodate us, I'm afraid," Bob said just then, as if he too had read the signs of that set countenance. "Why don't you answer me, Moqui?" Frank insisted, bent on knowing the worst. "We are on the way now to find the man who gave you this letter that talks. We have some good news for him. And you can help us if you will only tell in what part of the Grand Canyon Echo Cave lies." The Indian seemed to ponder. Evidently his mind worked slowly, when it tried to grapple with secrets. But one thing he knew, and this must be some solemn promise he had made the man of science, never under any conditions to betray his hiding-place to a living soul. "No can say; in canyon where picture rocks lie; that all," he finally declared, and Frank knew Indians well enough to feel sure that no torture could be painful enough to induce Havasupai to betray one he believed his friend, and whose magic talking paper he carried inside his shirt, to prove his good character. "That settles it, Bob, I'm afraid," he remarked to his chum, who had been listening eagerly to all that was being said. "You might try all sorts of terrible things and he wouldn't whisper a word, even if he believed all we told him." "That's tough," observed Bob; "but anyhow, we've got something out of it all, because we know now that the silly old professor must be hiding in one of those cliff caves, trying to read up the whole life history of the queer people who dug their homes out of the solid rock, tier after tier, away up the face of the cliffs." "True for you, Bob, and I'm glad to see how you take it. I had hoped the Moqui might make our job easier, as he could do, all right, if only he wanted to tell us a few things. But we're no worse off than we were before, in all things, and some better in a few." "I wish I could talk Moqui," declared Bob; "and perhaps then I'd be able to make the old fellow understand. Perhaps, Frank, if you gave him a little note to Uncle Felix, he might promise to take it to him later on!" "Hello! that's a good idea, I declare," exclaimed Frank; "and I'll just do that same while I think of it." He immediately drew out a pad of paper, and a fountain pen which he often carried for business purposes, since there were times when he had to sign documents as a witness for his father. The old Moqui watched him closely. Evidently the spider-like handwriting was a deep mystery to him, and he must always feel a certain amount of respect for any white person who could communicate with another by means of the "talking paper." "There," said Frank, presently, "that ought to do the business, I reckon." "What did you say?" asked his comrade, who was busy at the fire just then, drawing some of the partly-burned wood aside, so that their supply might hold out in the morning. "Oh!" Frank went on, "I told him dad had his note, sent in that bottle. Then I mentioned the important fact that the mine paper he carried had increased in value thousands of dollars. And I wound up by telling him how much we wanted to see and talk with him. I signed my name, and yours, to the note." "And now to see whether the Moqui will promise to carry it to your great-uncle." Frank held the note up. "You will not tell us where we can find the little man without any hair on his head, Havasupai," he said. "But surely you will not say no when I ask you to carry this talking paper to him. It will please him very much. He will shake your hand, and many times thank you. How?" The cautious old Moqui seemed to be weighing chances in his suspicious mind. "Three to one he thinks we mean to spy on him, and find it all out that way," was Bob's quick opinion. "Just what was in my mind; I could read it in his sly old face. But all the same he's going to consent, Bob." The Kentucky boy wondered how Frank could tell this. He was even more surprised when the Indian stretched out a hand for the note, as he said solemnly: "Havasupai will carry the talking paper to the man who has no hair on his head. But no eye must see him do it. The white boys must say to Havasupai that they will not try to follow him." Frank looked at his chum, and nodded. "We'll just have to do it, I guess, to satisfy the suspicious old fraud, Bob," he remarked; and then raising his hand, while his chum did likewise Frank went on, addressing the Moqui, who watched every action with glittering black eyes: "We promise not to follow, Havasupai, and will hope that this talking paper may cause the man-who-hides to send you for us to take us to him. You understand all that I am saying, don't you?" The Moqui said something in his native language, which of course neither of them comprehended. But at the same time he reached out his hand and deliberately took the note intended for Uncle Felix. "Hurrah! he's going to act as our messenger!" exclaimed Bob, filled with anticipations of success. "Say, that was a pretty smart dodge on our part, after all. But it makes me hold my breath every time I think of our good luck in running across this chap the way we did. And Buckskin deserves all the credit. He did it with his wonderful little tap." "All right," said Frank; "me for the land of sleep now! Havasupai, you can lie down where you will. In the morning we promise you a share of our meat. How?" "It is well, white boy," replied the old Moqui, as he dropped in a heap, and evidently meant to sleep just as he was without any further preparations. Bob also crawled into the tent, although he had some misgivings, and wondered whether his chum were really doing a wise thing to trust one who had just confessed to a desire to raid their horses. But as Bob, too, was tired and sleepy, he soon forgot all his suspicions in slumber. When he awoke he could see the daylight peeping under the canvas. Without disturbing his companion, Bob immediately started to crawl out. He had suddenly remembered the old Moqui; and it seemed as though his fears must have returned two-fold, and nothing would do but that he must hasten to make sure all was well. Frank was just opening his eyes a little while later when he saw Bob's head thrust in at the opening of the tent. "Better get up, Frank," the other said. "I've started the fire, and after we've had breakfast we'll be on our way. It was just as you said, though; he had the good sense to keep clear of the heels of the horses." "Who are you talking about, the Moqui?" asked Frank, sitting up suddenly, as he caught a peculiar strain in the other's voice. "Yes, our friend, Havasupai; who vamoosed in the night!" laughed Bob. CHAPTER XI AT THE GRAND CANYON "Do you mean it?" asked Frank. "Come out, and see for yourself," Bob returned. "I've looked all around, and not a sign of the old fellow can I find." "And both horses are there?" Frank continued, making a break for the exit. "As fine as you please. Our friend didn't want a second try from those clever heels of Buckskin. He gave them a wide berth when he cleared out, I warrant. Oh! you can look everywhere, and you won't see a whiff of Havasupai. He's skipped by the light of the moon, all right." Bob backed off, as his chum walked this way and that. He grinned as though he really enjoyed the whole thing. In his mind he had figured that it would turn out something this way, so he was not very much surprised. "What d'ye think, Frank," he exclaimed, presently; "don't you remember promising to share our venison at breakfast with the Moqui?" "Why yes, to be sure I do; but what of that, Bob?" "Only that he didn't forget," laughed the other. Frank immediately glanced toward the carcase of the little antelope. "Ginger! he did go and cut himself a piece from it, sure enough," he admitted. "While he thought our company not as nice as our room, still, he didn't object to sharing our meat. And, Frank, he wasn't at all stingy about the amount he took, either," Bob complained. "Oh! well, I reckon there's still enough for us, and to spare. Besides, we've got heaps of other things along in our packs, for an emergency, you know. Suppose we make a pot of coffee, and start things." "That's all right, Frank; I'll attend to it," declared Bob; "but why under the sun do you suppose now, that sly old Moqui dodged out like that?" "Well, for one thing, he may have suspected us," replied Frank. "What! after all we did for him, took him in, and forgave his sins, even to offering to mend any broken ribs, if he'd had any, through that horse kick? I can't just understand that," Bob ventured, while he measured out enough ground coffee to make a pot of the tempting hot beverage. "He took the alarm, it seems," Frank went on, indifferently. "Knew we wanted to find the man who had given him the talking paper; and was afraid we might try to make him tell; or, that failing, stalk him when he went to deliver my note. And on the whole I can't much blame the old Indian. Suspicion is a part of their nature. He believed he was on the safe side in slipping away as he did. Forget it, Bob. We've learned a heap by his just dropping in on us, I think." "Sure we have," replied the other, being busily employed over the fire just then. "And I was thinking what he could have meant when he pointed off in the direction I calculate the Grand Canyon lies, and said in answer to one of your questions: 'Seek there! When the sun is red it shines in Echo Cave!'" "I've guessed that riddle, and it was easy," Frank remarked. "Then let me hear about it, because I'm pretty dull when it comes to understanding all this lovely sign language of the Indians," Bob remarked. "Listen, then. The sun is said to be red when its setting; that's plain enough; isn't it, Bob?" "All O.K. so far, Frank. I won't forget that in a hurry, either." "Then, when he said it looked into the cave at sunset, it was another way of telling us the cave faced the west!" Frank continued. "Well, what a silly chap I was not to guess that," chuckled the other. "And from what I know about the bigness of that canyon, Bob, I think that this unknown Echo Cave must be pretty high up on the face of a big cliff to the east of the river." "Why high up? I don't get on to any reason for your saying that?" inquired Bob. "You'll see it just as soon as I mention why," remarked his companion. "When the sun is going down in the west, far beyond the horizon, don't you see that it can only shine along the very upper part of the cliffs? The lower part is already lost in the shadows that drop late in the afternoon in all canyons." "Of course, and it's as plain to me now as the nose on my face," agreed Bob. "Queer, how easy we see these things after they've been explained." It did not take long to prepare breakfast, and still less time to eat it once the coffee and venison were ready. Just as Frank had said, there was plenty of the meat for the meal. "That was a mighty juicy little antelope, all right," remarked Bob, as he finished his last bite, and prepared to get up from the ground where he had been enjoying his ease during the meal. "And for one I don't care how soon you repeat the dose," remarked Frank; "only it will be a long day before you get one of the timid little beasts as easy as that accommodating chap fell to your gun. Why, he was just a gift, that's all you could call it, Bob." "That's what I've been thinking myself, though of course I don't know as much about them as you do, by a long shot," Bob admitted. "I suppose it's us to hit the saddle again now?" "We're going to try and make Flagstaff by night," Frank announced, as he picked up his saddle and bridle, and walked toward the spot where Buckskin was staked out. The horses had been able to drink all they wanted during the night, for the ropes by means of which they were tethered allowed of a range that took them to the little spring hole from which the water gushed, to run away, and, in the end, possibly unite with the wonderful Colorado. In ten minutes more the boys were off at a round gallop. There was no intention of pushing their mounts so soon in the day. Like most persons who have spent much time on horseback both lads knew the poor policy of urging an animal to its best speed in the early part of a journey, especially one that is to be prolonged for ten or twelve hours. At noon they were far enough advanced for Frank to declare he had no doubt about being able to make Flagstaff before sunset. "When we get there, and spend a night at the hotel, we must remember and ask if our friend Mr. Stanwix and his partner arrived in good time, and went on," Bob suggested. Just as Frank had expected, they made the town on the railroad before the sun had dropped out of sight; and the horses were in fair condition at that. Flagstaff only boasts of a normal population of between one and two thousand; but there are times, with the influx of tourists bound for the Grand Canyon, when it is a lively little place. The two boys only desired shelter and rest for themselves and their horses during the night. It was their intention to push on early the following day, keeping along the old wagon trail that at one time was the sole means of reaching the then little known Wonderland along the deeply sunk Colorado. After a fairly pleasant night, they had an early breakfast. The horses proved to be in fine fettle, and eager for the long gallop. So the two saddle boys once more started forth. The day promised to be still warmer than the preceding one; and the first part of the journey presented some rather difficult problems. They managed to put the San Francisco Mountains behind them, however, and from that on the dash was for the most part over a fairly level plateau. Now and then they were threading the trail through great pine forests, and again it was a mesa that opened up before them. Bob was especially delighted. "Think we'll make it, Frank?" he asked, about the middle of the afternoon, as they cantered along, side by side, the horses by this time having had pretty much all their "ginger" as Bob called it taken out of them, though still able to respond to a sudden emergency, had one arisen. "I reckon so," replied the other. "According to my map we're within striking distance right now. Given two more hours, and we'll possibly sight the border of the big hole. That was Red Horse Tank we just passed, you know," and he pointed out their position on the little chart to Bob. It was half an hour to sundown when the well known Grand View Hotel stood out in plain sight before them; and before the shades of night commenced to fall, the tired boys had thrown themselves from their saddles, seen to the comfort of the faithful steeds, and mounted to the porch of the hotel for a flitting view of the amazing spectacle that spread itself before them, ere darkness hid its wonderful and majestic beauty. CHAPTER XII HOW THE LITTLE TRAP WORKED "What do you think of it?" asked Frank, after they had stood there a short time, taking in the picture as seen in the late afternoon. "It's hard to tell," Bob replied slowly. "It's so terribly big, that a fellow ought to take his time letting the thing soak in. That further wall looks as if you could throw a stone over to it; and yet they say it's more than a mile from here." "Yes," Frank went on, "and all along in the Grand Canyon there are what seem to be little hills, every one of which is a mountain in itself. They only look small in comparison with the tremendous size of the biggest gap in the whole world." "And how far does this thing run--is it fifty miles in length?" Bob asked. "I understand that the river runs through this canyon over two hundred miles," the other replied. "And all the way there are scores, if not hundreds, of smaller canyons and 'washes,' reaching out like the fingers of a whopping big hand; or the feelers of a centipede." "That's what I read about it away back; but I had forgotten," Bob remarked. "And they say that it would be a year's trip to try and follow the Grand Canyon all the way down from beginning to end, only on one side." "I reckon it would, for you'd have to trace every one of these lateral gashes up to its source, so as to cross over. And that would mean thousands of miles to be covered." "Gee!" exclaimed Bob, throwing up his hands as he spoke; "when you say that, it makes a fellow have some little idea of the size of this hole. And to think it's come just by the river eating away the soil!" "They call that erosion," remarked Frank, who had of course posted himself on many of these facts, during his previous visit to the canyons of the Little Colorado. "It's been going on for untold thousands of years; and as the river with its tributaries has gradually eaten away the soil and rocks, it has left the grandest pictured and colored walls ever seen in any part of this old earth." "When that afternoon sun shines on the red rocks it makes them look almost like blood," declared Bob. "And already I'm glad we came. I think just now I could be happy spending months prowling around here, finding new pictures every day." "Then you don't blame old Uncle Felix for staying, do you?" laughed Frank. "Sure I don't," returned the other lad, with vehemence. "And besides, you must remember that he had another string to his bow." "Meaning his craze to be the fortunate man of science to unravel the mystery that has always hung over the homes of those cliff dwellers?" Frank went on. "I can understand how it must appeal to a man living as Professor Felix has all these years," mused Bob. "And think of those queer old fellows picking out this one place of all the wide country to build their homes." "That was because there could be no place that offered them a tenth of the advantages this did," Frank remarked, pointing across the wide chasm to the towering heights that could be seen. "Think of hundreds of miles of such cliffs to choose from! And as the softer rock was washed out by the action of floods countless ages ago, leaving the harder in the shape of astonishing shelves and buttes, these people took a lesson from nature, and carved their roomy homes by following the pliable stone." "Say," Bob exclaimed, "that makes me think of what I read about the catacombs of Rome; how, for hundreds of miles, they run in every direction, following the course of veins of earth in the rock, that were selected by those who dug 'em." "Of course," said Frank, "these people built their homes up in the cliffs in order to be safe. Nobody seems to know what they were afraid of, whether savage tribes, or great beasts that may have roamed this part of the country a thousand and more years ago." "And that's the bait that has drawn the old scientist here, to study it all out, and write up the history of the people who looked on this very picture so many hundreds of years back. Why, Frank, some of the cliffs they say are about a mile high! That's hard to believe, for a fact." "But it's been proved true," the other asserted. "The trouble is, that everything here is on such an awful big scale that a fellow fools himself. Actual measurement is the only way to prove things. The eye goes back on you. Why, I've looked out on a clear day in Colorado, and believed I could walk to a mountain in an hour. They told me it's base was fifty miles away; and there you are." "Well, we'll have to put off looking till morning," said Bob, regretfully; "because the sun's dropped out of sight, and it's getting pretty thick down there in the hole. And to think that to-morrow we'll be pushing along through that place, with the walls shutting us in on both sides." "Not only to-morrow, but for many days, perhaps," Frank added; for more than ever did he begin to realize the enormous task that confronted them; it was almost like looking for a needle in a haystack; but if one possesses a powerful magnet, even then the bit of steel may be recovered in time. Did they happen to know of any such magnet? Almost unconsciously Frank's thoughts went out toward that old Moqui brave, Havasupai, who had fled from his village because of some act which he had committed; but who was now determined to return, and take his punishment with the stoicism Indians have always shown. The Moqui might be the connecting link! He alone knew where the hermit had his lodging, possibly in one of those quaint series of cliff dwellers' homes, which for some reason he called Echo Cave. "We must ask if our friend Sheriff Stanwix has been here," Bob suggested, as they went to their room to prepare for supper. "Oh!" replied his chum, "I did that when I spoke with the clerk at the desk. You were looking after the ponies at the time, so as to make sure they'd be well taken care of for a week, or a month if necessary." "And what did he tell you, Frank?" "They got here, all right," came the reply. "If you'd looked sharp when you were out there in the hotel stables, you might have recognized both their mounts; for they left them here at noon to-day." "Noon!" echoed Bob; "then they made mighty good work of it, to get ahead of us all that time. I reckon you're going to tell me they've gone down into the canyon, and put in several hours looking for their birds, the two fellows who've given 'em the merry laugh more'n a few times." "Guessed right the first shot," Frank went on, "but all that doesn't concern us one half as much as some other information I struck." "And you've been keeping it back from me, while we stood there on the piazza, admiring the wonderful view," Bob remarked, with a touch of reproach in his voice. "There were people passing us, all the time," his chum explained; "and besides, I wanted to keep it until we were alone, so we could talk it over." "Is it about that scheming cousin of your father's--what did you say his name was--Eugene Warringford?" "You got it straight enough," Frank admitted; "and what I learned, was about him. I saw his name on the register, and he's somewhere about the hotel right now. I had a suspicion that I saw some one trying to get near us while we stood there, drinking in that picture; and Bob, while I couldn't just hold up my hand and say for sure, I think it was that tricky Abajo." "The half-breed cowboy who left Circle Ranch because he had some news for this Eugene that the fellow would be apt to consider mighty valuable, because it meant a stake of a million or two dollars; is that right, Frank?" "The same Abajo," his chum continued; "which proves that those two are bound up in a plot to win this game. If Eugene can only find Uncle Felix he intends to get that paper in his possession, by fair means or foul." "Then it's up to us to put a stopper in his little bottle!" declared Bob. "I'm wondering," Frank proceeded, "whether they've got any idea where to look for the man who has hidden himself away for three years. Perhaps they mean to keep tabs on us, and if we are lucky enough to discover Uncle Felix, they hope to jump in, and snatch away the prize before we can warn him." "Say, this is getting to be a pretty mix-up all around," laughed the Kentucky lad. "Here we are, meaning to try and follow the old Moqui; or failing that, wait for him to fetch us a message from the hermit of Echo Cave. Then Eugene, and his shadow, Abajo, are hanging around with the idea of beating us at our game. Havasupai on his part will be heading for the cave that lies in an unknown part of the Grand Canyon, and all the while dodging about for fear that he is followed." "Yes," added Frank, falling in with the idea; "and perhaps there are the Moquis from his village who may have had word somehow of his return, searching for Havasupai, and bent on bringing him to the bar of their tribal law. To finish the game, think of our friends, the two sheriffs, loose in the big gash, and hunting for the men who have snapped their fingers in their faces so often across the line!" "Well, it sure looks like there might be some warm times coming," remarked Bob. "I suppose we take our guns along with us when we're going the rounds of the sights?" "Wouldn't think of doing anything else," was Frank's reply. "No telling when we might need 'em. Suppose, now, those two rascals the sheriffs are after should learn in some way about the value of the paper Uncle Felix has with him, wouldn't they just make it the game of their lives to try and capture him? And I reckon Eugene, too, will be so dead in earnest that he won't stop at little things, backed up by such a reckless character as the Mexican. Yes, the repeating rifles go along, Bob!" "This water feels fine after that long, dusty and tiresome ride, eh?" remarked the young Kentuckian, as he splashed in the deep basin, and then proceeded to use the towel vigorously. "It certainly does," Frank admitted, as he did likewise. Shortly afterward the two boys went down to supper. The hotel had its usual number of guests, this being a favorite point for parties to start on the tour. "Don't look just now," said Frank, as they sat at a table; "but Abajo has taken his seat right back of you. And it wasn't accident, either, that made him do it; I believe he has been set to watch us!" From time to time, as they ate, Frank would report as to what the half-breed was doing; and while nothing occurred to actually prove the fact, still he saw no reason to change his mind. "And I'm going to find out if he's keeping an eye on us, so as to report to his employer, Eugene Warringford," Frank announced, as they were drawing near the end of the meal. "That sounds good to me," Bob remarked; "but how will you do it?" For answer Frank drew out a paper from an inner pocket. "You see this document," he observed, with a solemn look. "Well, it's only what you might call a dummy, being just an invitation I received a little while back to invest in some worthless mines over in the Hualpai Mountains of Mohave County. I kept it, meaning to figure out how these sharpers work their game. Now, when I hand you this, look deeply interested, as though it might be connected with the finding of Uncle Felix." "Oh! I see your move, and go you one better, Frank." For some little time they seemed to be conversing intently. Frank would occasionally tap the document, which he had sealed up in its envelope, as though he laid great stress on it. Finally he placed it on the table alongside his plate, and kept on talking. Shortly afterward the boys left the table in apparently such a hurry that they both forgot the envelope that lay there, half hidden by a napkin. Passing out of the room, they dodged back, and peered around the corner of the doorway. "There's the waiter at the table," said Bob. "Now he's found the fine tip you left there, and is putting it in his pocket, with a grin. If everybody treated him as well as that, he'd soon be owning one of these hotels himself, Frank." "Watch!" remarked his chum, in a low whisper. "Now he's discovered the document lying there where I left it. He takes it up. Perhaps he sees another dollar coming to him when he runs after us to return it." "But there's somebody at his elbow," Bob went on to say; "and it's Abajo, as sure as you live. He's saying something, and I reckon telling the waiter that you asked him to get the packet. There, he slips some money in the fellow's hand; and the waiter lets him take the envelope. And we'd better slip behind this coat rack here, for Abajo will be heading this way in a hurry." And hardly had they carried out that programme ere the half-breed glided past, one hand held in the pocket where he had thrust the "valuable" document! CHAPTER XIII GOING DOWN THE CANYON TRAIL "Was I right?" asked Frank, after the half-breed had disappeared. "I should say yes," replied his chum, who had followed the vanishing figure of Abajo with staring eyes. "He got the precious paper, all right, eh?" Frank went on, chuckling. "He sure did, and bribed our friend the waiter to let him carry it off. Shows how you can trust anybody in the tourist country, where they are nearly all out for the money," Bob declared, indignation struggling hard with a sense of humor. "But just stop and think how easy Abajo, sharp rascal that he is, rose to my little bait?" laughed Frank. "Just as I expected, he was watching us all the time we examined that wonderful paper, and of course he believed it to be something for which his employer would reward him heavily, if he could only lay hands on it." Bob himself was laughing now, as the full sense of the ridiculous character of Frank's little joke broke upon him. "Oh! my, think what will happen when Mr. Warringford tears open that envelope, and sees how his spy has been fooled!" he exclaimed. "There's only one bad thing about it, Bob!" "What is that?" inquired the other. "Eugene is, I take it, a clever fellow," said Frank, seriously; "and he'll understand that this was done with a purpose. It will make him suspect that we're onto the game, and that we know he has the half-breed watching our every move." "Well, what of that, Frank?" "Nothing, only after this we may expect they'll change their tactics more or less, and play on another string of the fiddle," the other saddle boy replied. "All right," Bob remarked. "Forewarned is forearmed, they say; and if we know Eugene is laying low for us, we can be on our guard." "Yes, that's all very good," Frank went on, shaking his head; "but once we get into the big canyon it may pay us to keep an eye out for overhanging rocks." "Say, you don't mean to tell me you think Eugene would go that far?" demanded Bob, startled at the very idea of such a thing. "I don't like to think he would; but you never can tell," Frank replied. "When a man like Eugene Warringford sells his soul, and with a chance of getting a big stake, he is generally ready to shut his eyes, and go the limit." "But, Frank, that would be terrible! One of those rocks, coming down from the face of a high cliff, would seriously injure us!" "Sure it would, and on that account we must keep on the watch all the time," Frank continued. "But I don't see Abajo anywhere about the piazza of the hotel; do you?" "He's gone, and I reckon to carry that wonderful find of his to the man who employs him," Bob remarked. "Wouldn't I give a dollar to be hiding close by when he runs across Eugene, and they open the envelope you sealed! Wow! it will be a regular circus! Can't you imagine that yellow face of the half-breed turning more like saffron then ever when he learns that we played him for a softy?" "Well, if you were near by, Bob, I wouldn't be surprised if you just had to stick your fingers in your ears," chuckled Frank. "I reckon they will have a heap to say about it; and Abajo, after this, won't take us for easy marks, will he?" Bob remarked, in a satisfied tone. A short time later they were in their room. "You don't suppose now, Frank, that we'll be bothered to-night?" Bob observed, as he stood there by the window looking out toward the Grand Canyon. At that the other laughed quite merrily. "Don't give yourself any uneasiness about that, Bob," he remarked. "In the first place nobody would bother trying to get up here, even if they could, when so many better chances of reaching us will crop up after we start into the canyon to-morrow. Then again, we haven't anything to be stolen but our rifles, and what little cash we brought along for expenses." "Oh! I suppose I am silly thinking about it," admitted Bob, "but some way that half-breed seems to be on my nerves. His face is so sly, and his black eyes just glitter as I've seen those of a snake do when he's going to strike. But, just as you say, it's foolish to borrow trouble, and I must get those notions out of my head." "That's the talk, Bob," his chum declared, heartily. "Morning will find us in fine trim to make a start into this big ditch. And before another night you'll be so filled with wonder over what you see that these other things will take a back seat." "But do you think we ever can find the hermit of Echo Cave?" asked Bob. "I think we've got a pretty good chance, if we're left alone," came the ready reply. "Meaning if this Eugene Warringford keeps his hands off; and nothing else turns up to balk us?" Bob asked. "Yes, all of that, and more," Frank admitted. "But already I find myself wishing we had somebody along with us, like Old Hank Coombs for instance, Frank." "Well, who knows what may happen?" said the other, a little mysteriously. "D'ye know, Bob, I saw my dad winking at Hank when he thought I wasn't looking; and on that account I've got half an idea he meant to send the old man, perhaps with a second cowboy, along on our trail. We may run across friends here when we least expect it." "I hope it turns out that way," declared the Kentucky boy; "because Hank is just what you might call a tower of strength when he's along. Remember how fortunate it was he turned up when he did, at the time we wanted to follow that plague of the cattle ranges, the wolf, Sallie? I reckon we'd have had a much harder time bagging our game if Hank hadn't been along." "Well, get to bed now," Frank counseled; "and let to-morrow look out for itself." "All right, I'll be with you in three shakes of a lamb's tail," declared Bob. But before he left the window Frank noticed that he thrust his head out, as if desirous of making sure that no one could climb up the face of the wall, and find entrance there while they slept. Bob was not a timid boy as a rule; in fact he was deemed rather bold; but just as he said, that dark face of Abajo had impressed him unfavorably; and he felt that the young half-breed would be furious when he learned how neatly he had been sold. Nor did anything happen during that night as they slept upon the border of the Wonderland. Both lads enjoyed a peaceful sleep, and awoke feeling as "fresh as fish," as Bob quaintly expressed it. Breakfast not being ready they walked about, viewing the astonishing features of the canyon as seen from the bluff on which the hotel stood. Down in the tremendous gap mists were curling up like little clouds, to vanish as they reached the line where the sunlight fell. It was a sight that appalled Bob, who declared that he felt as though looking into the crater of some vast volcano. "Well," remarked Frank, "they did have volcanos around here, after this canyon was pretty well formed, though perhaps thousands of years ago. Great beds of lava have been found down in the bottom of the hole, so my little guide book tells me. But look away off there, Bob, and see that peak standing up like the rim of a cloud. Do you know what that is?" "I heard one man say," Bob replied, quickly, "Navajo Peak could be seen on a clear morning, and perhaps that's the one; but Frank, just think, it's about a hundred and twenty miles off. Whew! they do things on a big scale around here; don't they? I'd call it the playground of giants." "And you'd about hit the bulls eye," his chum observed; "but there goes the call for breakfast." "I feel as if I could stow away enough for a crowd, this mountain air is so fresh and invigorating," Bob remarked, as they headed for the dining room. Half an hour later they were once more in front of the hotel, and interviewing a guide who had been recommended by the manager as an experienced canyon man. It ended in their making terms with John Henry, as the fellow gave his name; though of course Frank was too wise to tell him what their real object was in exploring the tremendous gap. That could come later on. At about nine o'clock they started down the trail that led from Grand View into the depths of the fearful dip. And as they descended, following their guide, Bob found himself realizing the colossal size of everything connected with the rainbow-hued canyon walls. Nor was his mind made any easier when Frank took occasion, half an hour later, to bend toward him, and say in the most natural manner possible, though in low tones: "They're on the job again, Bob--Abajo and Eugene--because I happened to see them watching us start down the trail; and they had some one along with them, perhaps a guide; so we'll have to take it for granted that they mean to dog us all the time, hoping to steal our thunder, if we make any lucky find!" CHAPTER XIV THE HOME OF THE CLIFF DWELLERS Although Bob had anticipated such a thing, still the knowledge that it was actually coming to pass gave him a thrill. For some little time he did not say anything; but Frank could see him look uneasily up at the walls that now arose sheer above their heads some hundreds of feet. Frank had studied the situation as well as he could, both from a map of the canyon which he found in the little guide book, and his own observations. All the while he kept before him that admission on the part of the old Moqui whom they had befriended, to the effect that the Westering sun shone full in Echo Cave. So he expected to find the home of the hermit-scientist high up in the wall on the Eastern side of the Grand Canyon. First he intended heading toward the East, and going just as far as they could. Days, and perhaps weeks, might be spent in the search for the strange cave that had once been the home of those mysterious cliff people, which cavern Professor Oswald was occupying while studying the lives and customs of the long departed people who had dug these dwellings out of the rock. At noon they had made good progress; but when the tremendous size of that two hundred mile canyon was taken into consideration, with its myriad of side "washes," and minor canyons, the distance that they had covered was, as Bob aptly declared, but a "flea-bite" compared with the whole. And Frank declared time and again it had been a lucky thought that caused his chum to suggest that they bring the field glasses along. They were in almost constant use. Far distant scenes were brought close, and high walls could be examined in a way that must have been impossible with the naked eye. Of course Frank was particularly anxious to scrutinize every colored wall that faced the West. The rainbow tints so plainly marked, tier above tier, called out expressions of deep admiration from the two lads; but all the while they were on the watch for something besides. When Frank ranged that powerful glass along the ragged face of a towering cliff he was looking eagerly for signs of openings such as marked the windows of the homes fashioned by the strange people of a past age. During the afternoon they actually discovered such small slits in the rock--at least they looked like pencil markings to them when the guide first pointed out the village of the ancient cliff dwellers; though on closer acquaintance they found that the openings were of generous size. "Shall we climb up that straggly path along the face of the wall, and see what the old things look like?" asked Bob, as the guide made motions upward. "Yes, we ought to have our first sight of such places," Frank replied, in a cautious tone. "Not that I expect we're going to find our hermit there, or in any other village that's known to tourist travel. But we ought to get an idea of what these places are like, you see. Then we'll know better what to expect. And perhaps the conditions will teach us how to discover _his_ hiding place." Accordingly they started to climb upward, just as many other tourists had been doing for years. There were even places, "aisles of safety," Bob called them, where one who was ascending, upon happening to meet a descending investigator, could squeeze into a hole in the rock until the other had slipped by. Of course it was a risky climb, and no lightheaded person could ever dream of taking it. But the two saddle boys were possessed of good nerves and able to look downward toward the bottom of the canyon, even when several hundred feet up in the air. Then they entered the first hole. It seemed to be a fair-sized apartment, and was connected with a string of others, all running along the face of the cliff; so that those who occupied them in the long ago might have air and light. The boys observed everything with the ordinary curiosity expected of newcomers. Frank even investigated to see if there were any signs to indicate that those old dwellers in the canyon knew about the use of fire; and soon decided that it was so. "Well, what do you think about this?" Bob asked, after they had roamed from one room to another. "For my part I think I'd fancy living in one of those three story adobe houses of the Hopi Indians, we saw pictures of at the hotel; or even a Navajo hogan. But one thing sure, these people never had to worry about leaking roofs." "No," added Frank, laughing; "and floods couldn't bother them, because the Colorado never rose three hundred feet since it began cutting out this canyon." "And think of the grand view they had before their doors, with the canyon in places as much as thirteen miles across, and mountains in their dooryard, looking like anthills," Bob went on impressively. "Makes a fellow feel mighty small; doesn't it?" Frank remarked, as he stepped to a window to look out again. "Makes me feel that I want to get down again to the trail," admitted Bob. "I'm wondering whether it's going to be much harder getting back than it was coming up." "That's always the case," Frank declared, "as I've found out myself when climbing up a steep cliff. But the guide is ready for you, Bob, if you show signs of getting dizzy. You have seen that he carries a rope along, just like the Swiss guides do." "Oh! come, Frank! Go easy with me; can't you?" the other exclaimed. "I hope I'm not quite so bad as that." "All the same, Bob, don't take any chances; and if you feel the least bit giddy, let me know. This is a case where an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. And a stout rope is a mighty good thing to feel when your foot slips." It turned out, however, that the Kentucky lad was as sure-footed as a mountain goat. He descended the trail, with its several ladders, placed there of course by modern investigators, without the least show of timidity. They continued along the bed of the wide canyon. At times they followed the ordinary trail. Then again Frank would express a desire to have a closer look at some high granite wall that hovered, for possibly a thousand feet, above the very river itself; and this meant that they must negotiate a passage for themselves. No doubt John Henry, the guide, must have thought them the queerest pair of tourists he had ever led through the mysteries of the Grand Canyon. But as yet Frank had not thought fit to enlighten him. He was not altogether pleased with the appearance of the guide, and wished to wait until he knew a little more about his ways, before entrusting him with their secret. More than a few times during that day Frank believed he had positive evidence that they were being watched. Of course they met frequent parties of pilgrims wandering this way and that, as they drank in the tremendous glories of the canyon; but occasionally the boy believed he had seen a head thrust out from behind some rock in their rear, and then hastily withdrawn again as he looked. Of course he could make a guess as to who was taking such a interest in the progress of his chum and himself. No one, save Eugene Warringford, would bother for even a minute about what they were doing, since richer quarry by far than a couple of boys would catch the eye of any lawless desperado, like those the two sheriffs were following, bent on making a haul. "Frank," said Bob, when the afternoon was drawing to a close, and they had begun to think of picking out the spot where they would spend the night; "tell me why you chose to head toward the East instead of the other way, where Bright Angel trail attracts so many tourists?" Frank cast one glance toward the guide, as if to make sure that John Henry was far enough in advance not to be able to catch what was said. "I had a reason, Bob," he remarked, seriously. "Before we got down into the canyon, so as to choose which way we would go, I talked with several men who were coming up. And Bob, I learned that an old Moqui Indian had been seen heading toward the East late last night!" "And you think it may have been our friend, Havasupai?" asked Bob. "I'm pretty sure of it, from the descriptions they gave me," came the answer. "But Frank, think how impossible it seems that he could have reached here almost as soon as we did; unless the old warrior was able to fly I don't see how it could be done." "I'm just as much up a tree as you are, Bob," laughed the other; "but, all the same, I believe the Moqui has arrived, and is on his way right now to where Echo Cave lies." "Then he must have an aeroplane to help him out, for I don't see how else he could make it," Bob insisted. "Think for a minute, and you'll see it isn't actually impossible," Frank continued. "He could have made Flagstaff that night, just as we did." "Yes," admitted Bob, "that's a fact; for while he said he was tired, and wanted a mount to fly from his people, who were looking for him, still I understand that these Moquis are wonderful runners, and game to the last drop of the hat. Oh! I grant you that he could have made Flagstaff that night sometime." "Well, Flagstaff is on the railroad, you know," Frank remarked. "Sure! I see now what you are hitting at," Bob observed; "the old Indian must have had money, as all his kind have, what with the tips given by tourists day after day. He could have come to Grand View on the train. Frank, once more I knuckle down to your superior wisdom. That's what Havasupai must have done, sure pop!" "Anyhow," the other continued, "it pleases me to believe so; and that the Moqui is even now hurrying to make connections with the hermit in this mysterious Echo Cave. There's still another reason, though, why I picked out this course up the river, instead of going down. It is connected with the fact that the Moquis have their homes in this quarter." "Oh!" exclaimed Bob, "I catch on now to what you mean. The chances are that the Moqui would be prowling around within fifty miles of his own shack when he ran across the man-with-the-shining-spot-in-his-head, otherwise the bald Professor Oswald." "That's the point, Bob." "It sure beats everything how you can get on to these things, Frank. Here I'm going to be a lawyer some day, so they tell me; and yet I don't seem to grab the fine points of this game of hide-and-seek as you do." "Oh! well," Frank remarked, consolingly; "a lawyer isn't supposed to know much about trails, and all such things. That comes to a fellow who has spent years outdoors, studying things around him, and keeping his wits on edge all the while." "I hope to keep on learning more and more right along," said Bob. "Here comes John Henry back, to tell us he has found a good place for camping to-night; so no more at present, Bob." It proved just as Frank had said. The guide declared that as the sun was low down, the canyon would soon be darkening; and they ought to make a halt while the chance was still good to see what lay around them. Accordingly they made a camp, and not a great distance away from the border of the swirling river that rolled on to pass through all the balance of that wonderful gulch, the greatest in the known world. They had come prepared for this, carrying quite a number of things along that would prove welcome at supper time. A cheery fire was soon blazing, and the guide busied himself in preparations for a meal; while the two boys wandered down to the edge of the river, to throw a few rocks into the current, and talk undisturbed. "There are several other camps not far away," remarked Frank. "I could see the smoke rising in two places further on." "Yes," added Bob, "and there's one behind us too, for I saw smoke rising soon after we halted. Perhaps that may be Eugene's stopping place; eh, Frank?" "I wouldn't be surprised one little bit. Just look at the river, how silently it pushes along right here. It's deep too; and yet below a mile or so it frets and foams among the boulders that have dropped into its great bed from the high cliffs." "And they do say some bold explorers have gone all the way through the canyon in a boat; but I reckon it must be a terrible trip," Bob ventured to say. "Excuse us from trying to make it," laughed Frank; "by the time we'd reach Mohave City, where that bottle was picked up, there wouldn't be much left of us. But let's go back to camp now. John Henry must have grub ready." Three minutes later he suddenly caught Bob's sleeve. "Wait up!" he whispered. "There's somebody talking to our guide right now; and say, Bob, don't you recognize the fellow?" "If I didn't think it was silly I'd say it was old Spanish Joe, the cowboy we had so much trouble with on Thunder Mountain," Bob declared, crouching down. "Well, think again," said Frank; "and you'll remember that Abajo is his nephew!" [Illustration: "THERE'S SOMEBODY TALKING TO OUR GUIDE RIGHT NOW." _Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon_ _Page 134_] CHAPTER XV THE TREACHEROUS GUIDE "Why, of course he is," declared Bob; "and it looks as if our old enemies had cropped up again, to join forces with the new ones. That will make three against us; won't it, Frank?" "The more the merrier," replied the other, but Bob could see that he was inwardly worried over the new phase of the situation. "Look at the way Spanish Joe is arguing with John Henry!" said Bob. "The guide keeps pointing this way, as if he might be afraid we'd come back, and see him talking with Old Joe. Now they shake hands, Frank. Do you think any bargain has been struck between them?" "I'm afraid it has," replied his comrade, gritting his teeth with displeasure. "John Henry has sold us out, and gone over to the enemy for cash. I saw him hide something in his pocket." "Then what will we do about him?" asked Bob, clenching his fist, as if it might give him considerable pleasure to take the treacherous guide personally in hand, and teach him the needed lesson. "That's easy," chuckled Frank. "We'll keep on guard to-night, and when he sees how we hang to our guns he won't try any tricks, you may be sure." "And in the morning?" Bob went on. "Why," declared Frank, firmly; "there's only one thing to be done--we must fire John Henry, even if we have to pay him the whole sum agreed on for the week." "I'm glad to hear you say that, Frank; because I'd hate to have him along. Why, he might take a notion to step on my fingers when I was climbing up after him, and claim it was only an accident, but if I had a broken leg, or a cracked skull, that wouldn't do me any good, I take it." "There, Joe is moving off, and we can head for camp," Frank remarked, as they still hovered behind the spur of rocks that had concealed them, though allowing a view of the little camp. "But you don't want to tell John Henry that we saw him making a bargain with Spanish Joe, I take it?" Bob questioned. "That's right, we don't; and try to keep from looking as if you suspected him. Now his back is turned, come along," and Frank, rising, led the way. The preparations for supper went on apace. The guide was unusually talkative, Bob thought, and he wondered whether it was not the result of a disturbed conscience. Perhaps John Henry might not be wholly bad, and was worried over having entered into an arrangement to betray his generous young employers. "What are we going to do for a guide when we let him go?" asked Bob, later on, after they had eaten supper, and John Henry had wandered down to the river for a dip, as he said. "We'll have to trust to luck to pick up another," Frank declared. "And if it comes to the worst, we can go it alone, I reckon. I've never been up against such a big job as this, but I think I'd tackle it, if I had to. But wait and see what another day brings out." When it came time for them to retire they began talking about their ranch habit of standing guard. The guide laughed at the idea of any harm coming to pass while they were there in the canyon. "Lots of other tourists are camping inside of three mile from here," he said; "and I heard the sheriff of the county himself is somewhere down in the canyon; so it don't look as how there could anything happen. But just as you says, boys; if it makes you feel better to stand guard, I ain't got a thing agin it." The night passed without any sort of attack. Either Frank or Bob sat up all the time, with a trusty rifle ready; but there was no occasion to make use of the weapon. With the coming of morning they made ready to eat a hasty breakfast. After this was over Frank found himself compelled to discharge the guide. "We've concluded to do without your services, John Henry," he said, as the man stood ready to start forth on the way along the canyon, heading East. "Me? Let me go? What for?" stammered the fellow; turning red and then white as a consciousness of his guilt broke upon him. "Here's what we promised to pay you for the week," continued Frank. "We want no hard feelings about it. Never mind why we let you go. You can think what you like. But next time you hire out to a party, John Henry, be careful how you let anybody hand you over a few dollars to make you turn against your friends." The man tried to speak, and his voice failed him. They left him standing there, holding the bills Frank had thrust into his hand, and looking "too cheap for anything," as Bob said. Perhaps he feared that the boys might tell what they knew about him, and in this way destroy his usefulness as a canyon guide ever afterwards. "Good riddance to bad rubbish!" declared Bob, after they had gone on half a mile, and on looking back saw John Henry still standing there as if hardly knowing whether to be sorry, or glad over having received full pay for a week after only working a single day. "And here we are cut loose from everybody, and going it on our own hook," laughed Frank. "But it would be foolish for us to think of doing without a guide if so be we can find one. We'll ask every party we meet, and perhaps in that way we can strike the right man." During the morning they came upon several parties making the rounds of the Wonderland along the beaten channels. Sometimes women were in the company, for the strange sights that awaited the bold spirit capable of enduring ordinary fatigue tempted others besides men to undertake one of the trips. Just at noon the two boys came upon a lone Chinaman sitting at a little fire he had kindled, cooking a fish, evidently pulled from the river by means of a hook and line. "Well, what do you think!" exclaimed Frank, as he stared at the Oriental; "Bob, don't you recognize that cousin of our ranch cook, Ah Sin, the same fellow who was down at our place five months ago? Hello! Charley Moi, what are you doing in the big canyon, tell me?" The Chinaman jumped up, and manifested more or less joy at the sight of Frank. He insisted on shaking hands with both the boys. "How do? Glad see Flank, Blob! Me, I cook for plarties in Gland Canyon. Hear of chance gettee job up Gland View Hotel. Go there now. Alle samee like see boys from Circle Lanch. How Ah Sin? Him berry veil last time hear samee." Frank had an idea. "See here, Charley Moi," he said; "you say you've been about the big canyon a long time now, serving as a cook to parties who go up and down. Perhaps we might engage you to stay with us!" "Me cook velly fine much all timee. You tly Charley Moi, you never say solly do samee!" declared the Oriental, his moon-like face illuminated with a childlike and bland smile. "But we want you for a guide too, Charley; you ought to know a heap about the place by this time," Frank went on. "Alle light, me do," replied the other, glibly. "No matter, cookee or guide, alle samee. Lucky we meet. Tly flish. Just ketchee from water. Cook to turnee. Plentee for all. Then go like Flank, Blob say. Sabe?" As it was nearly noon the boys were quite satisfied to make a little halt, and taste the fresh fish which the Chinaman had succeeded in coaxing from the rushing waters of the nearby Colorado. Later on they once again made a start. Charley Moi did everything in his power to prove his fidelity and faithfulness. He seemed proud of the fact that the son of the big owner of Circle Ranch, where his cousin worked as cook for the mess, trusted him, and had employed him as a guide. Never before in the history of the Grand Canyon had a Chinaman held such an exalted office; and Charley believed he had cause to feel proud. "Can we trust him?" Bob asked, as evening came on again. "I've always heard that Chinamen are treacherous fellows." "Then you've heard what isn't true," Frank replied. "A Chinaman never breaks his word. Over in the Far East I've read that all the merchants of British cities are Chinese. The Japs are a different kind of people. Yes, we can trust Charley Moi. He would never betray us to our enemies." Nevertheless, that night the boys also slept on their arms, so to speak. One of them remained on guard at different times, the entire night. Frank had learned caution on the range. He did not mean to be taken by surprise; though he really believed that nothing would be done to injure them until after they had found some trace of the hidden hermit of Echo Cave. Before another twelve hours had passed he had occasion to change his opinion. The night did not bring any alarm in its train. Charley Moi was up several times, shuffling around, looking at the fire, and sitting there smoking his little pipe, as though in satisfaction over having struck such a profitable job so easily; but he gave no sign of holding any intercourse with outsiders. With the coming of morning they were once more on the way. Frank noticed with considerable satisfaction that now they seemed to be beyond the ordinary limit of the various trails taken by the regular tourist parties. They were walking along, about the middle of the morning, when they found themselves in a lonely region, where the dim trail led along the foot of rugged walls stretching up, red and apparently unscalable, to the height of hundreds of feet. Frank was craning his neck as he looked up overhead, wondering if it could be possible that there was any sign of an abandoned cliff dwellers' village there, when he saw something move, and at the same instant he jumped forward to pull his chum violently back. CHAPTER XVI A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY Bob opened his mouth to call out, and ask what was the matter, that his chum had seized upon him so fiercely. But he held his breath, for something came to pass just then that made words entirely unnecessary. A huge rock seemed to slip from its notch up on the side of the cliff, and come crashing down, loosening others on the way, until finally the rush and roar almost partook of the nature of a small avalanche. Charley Moi had skipped out in a lively manner, and thus managed to avoid being caught. Bob stared at the pile of broken rock, about which hung a little cloud of dust. "Wow! that was as close a call as I ever hope to have, Frank!" he exclaimed, with a little quiver to his voice. Frank himself was a bit white, and his hand trembled as he laid it on that of his chum. "I just happened to be looking up, and saw it trembling on the break," he said. "Only for that we might have been underneath all that stuff." "But did you notice the clever way Charley Moi avoided the deluge?" said Bob, trying to smile, though he found it hard work. "Yes, it's hard to catch a Chinaman napping, they say," Frank went on. "Three times this very day I've heard the thunder of falling rocks, and that was what kept me nervous; so I watched out above. And, Bob, it seemed as though I must have seen that big rock just trembling as it started to leave the face of the cliff." "Well, all I can say then, is, that you jumped to the occasion mighty well. Some fellows would have been scared just stiff, and couldn't have thrown out a hand to save a chum. But look here, Frank, you don't imagine that thing was done on purpose, do you?" Frank looked at his companion, with a wrinkle on his forehead. "I don't want to think anybody could be so mean and low as to want to hurt boys who'd never done them any harm," he said; "but all the same I seem to have an idea that I got a glimpse of a man's arm when that rock started to drop." "Whew! you give me a cold chill, Frank," muttered Bob, gazing helplessly upward toward the spot from which the descending rock had started on its riotous tumble. "Yes, and I hope I was mistaken," Frank went on. "I don't see anything up there now; and perhaps it was only a delusion. All these bright colors affect the eyes, you see. Then, again, it might have been some goat jumping, that started that rock on its downward plunge." "But you didn't see any goat, Frank, did you?" Bob asked, anxiously. "No, I didn't," admitted the other; "but then there may be a shelf up there, and any animal on it would be hidden from the eyes of those right below." They passed on; but more than once Bob craned his neck in the endeavor to look up to that spot, from whence the loose rock had plunged. He could not get it out of his head that foes were hovering about, who thought so little of human life that they would conspire to accomplish a death if possible. The day passed without any further peril confronting them. Charley Moi seemed to fill the bill as a guide, very well. He also knew the different points of interest, and chattered away like a magpie or a monkey as they kept pushing on. Bob became curious to know just how the Chinaman could tell about so many things when they were now above the trails used ordinarily by tourists, who gave two or three days to seeing the Grand Canyon, and then rushed away, thinking they had exhausted its wonders, when in fact they had barely seen them. He put the question to Charley Moi, and when the smiling-faced Chinaman replied, Frank caught his breath. "That easy, bloss," said Charley, nodding. "Happen this way. Long time black me 'gage with sahib, like one know out in Canton. Think have samee big joss some bit up here in canlon. Me to bling grub to certain place evly two month. Him give me list what buy, and put cash in hand. Know can trust Chinaman ebery time. Many time now me do this; so know how make trail up-river, much far past same tourist use. Sabe, Flank, Blob?" The two boys stared at each other, unable to say a word at first. It was as if the same tremendous thought had come to each. "Gee whiz! did you get on to that, Frank?" finally ejaculated Bob. "I sure did," replied his chum, allowing his pent-up breath full play. "Charley says he engaged himself to a gentleman long ago; perhaps it was as much as three years back, the time that the professor disappeared from the haunts of men. And, Frank, his part of the contract was to come to a certain point away up here in the Grand Canyon, once every two months, at a time agreed on, bringing a load of food, as per the list given him by this mysterious party." "It must be Professor Oswald!" exclaimed Frank. "I've been wondering all the time how under the sun he could have supplied himself with food these long months if he'd cut loose from the world, as he said in that note he had. Now the puzzle begins to show an answer. Charley Moi is the missing link. He has kept the professor in grub all the time. Did you ever hear of such luck? First we run across that old Moqui, who has been in touch with the man we want to find; and now here's the one who comes up here every little while to deliver his goods, and get a new list, as well as money to pay for the same. It's just the limit, that's what!" He turned to the Chinaman, and continued: "Did you happen to notice, Charley, whether this party you are working for is a bald-headed man? Has he a shining top when he takes his hat off; and does he bend over, as if he might be hunting for diamonds all the time?" The Chinese guide smirked, and bobbed his head in the affirmative. "That him, velly much, just same say. Shiny head, and blob this away alle time," with which he walked slowly forward, bending over as though trying to discover a rich vein of gold in the seamed rock under his feet. "Shake hands, Bob," said Frank. "We're getting hot on the trail. Now we needn't have any doubt at all about the choice of the eastern route. It's the right one; and somewhere further on we're just bound to find Echo Cave." "Then all we've got to fear, Frank, is the work of Eugene and his crowd. Let us keep clear of that bad lot, and we're going to succeed. Any time, now, we may glimpse our old Moqui, returning with a message from the professor, if he sees fit to reply to your appeal. He may, though, be so set and stubborn that nothing will move him from his game of hiding. Then we'll have to get that paper, with his signature, and save the mine for his family." "That's what I mean to do," replied the other, with grim determination. "If he's so wrapped up in his scheme that he just won't come out, we're going to do the best we can to save his fortune in spite of him. There's his daughter Janice to think of. Above all, we mustn't let that schemer, Eugene Warringford, get his fingers on the document." That night they made camp in a little cave that offered an asylum. The boys rather fancied the idea for a change. And they passed a very comfortable night without any alarm. Once, Bob being on duty near the mouth of the opening, heard a shuffling sound without. He could not make out whether it was caused by the passage of a human being, or a bear. Half believing that they were about to be attacked by some animal that fancied the cave as a den, he had drawn back the hammer of his rifle, and watched the round opening that was plainly seen at the time, as it was near morning, and the small remnant of a moon was shining without. But he waited in vain, and, as the minutes passed without any further alarm, Bob heaved a sigh of relief. It was all very well to think of shooting big game; but under such conditions he did not much fancy a close battle. When morning came, and he had told Frank about it, the other immediately went out to look for traces of the animal. As he came back Bob saw by the expression on his chum's face that Frank had made some sort of discovery. "How about it?" he asked. "It was no bear," replied the other, decidedly. "But sure I heard something moving, Frank, and I was wide-awake at the time, too," Bob protested. "I guess you were, all right," Frank admitted. "A man passed by, not far from the mouth of the cave. He even stooped down, and looked in, though careful not to let his head show against the bright background. Then he went off again up the canyon." "Since you know so much, Frank, perhaps you could give a guess as to who he was," said Bob, eagerly. "No guess about it," came the reply. "I've examined his track before, and ought to know it like a book. It was Abajo, Bob!" "Then ten to one, Spanish Joe and Eugene were close by!" declared Bob. "Say, do you really believe he knew we were in here?" "Of course he did," Frank asserted. "Perhaps they saw us enter. But Abajo also knows that both of us are fair shots. He did not dare take the chance of trying to creep in. It would be more dangerous than our going into that wolf den." "The plot seems to be thickening, Frank. It won't be long now before something is bound to happen. If we could only run across the old Moqui now, and hear that he carried a message in answer to your note, that would clear the air a heap, wouldn't it?" "Well, we must live in hopes," replied Frank, cheerfully. "And now, after a bite which Charley Moi is getting ready for us, we'll be off again, and tackle the roughest traveling in the whole canyon, so he says. But he knows the way, because he was led up here by the old professor, and told to come back every two months." CHAPTER XVII THE WINDOWS IN THE ROCKY WALLS "Well, here it's the fourth day we've been out, and nothing doing yet, Frank!" Bob spoke gloomily, as though the unsuccessful search was beginning to pall upon him a little. Boys' natures differ so much; and while the young Kentuckian had many fine qualities that his chum admired, still he was not so persistent as Frank. Nothing could ever daunt the boy from Circle Ranch. Difficulties, he believed, were only thrown in his way to bring out the better parts of his nature. The more a fellow found himself "up against it," as Frank called meeting trouble half-way, the stronger became his character. "Oh! well, now, Bob, I wouldn't say that," he answered the complaint of his chum. "Just think what tremendous progress we've been making right along. And if the very worst comes, didn't Charley Moi say that it was only a week now before he must get another stock of things to eat, and won't he have to wait at the place of meeting, for the 'learned sahib' to appear, and take them from him, as he has done so often? Why, we can be in hiding nearby, and meet the professor, even against his will." "That's so," Bob admitted, the argument proving a clincher; "and I reckon I'm a silly clown to think anything else." "No, you're only tired, after a pretty tough day, that's all," Frank declared. "When you've had a rest you'll feel better. I'm more used to this sort of thing than you are, old fellow; but all the same we must admit that we're getting the greatest view ever of this old canyon." "That's so, Frank, and it's worth all the climbing and sliding, too. But every time we've discovered signs of any of those old deserted homes of the cliff dwellers, why, we find they've been visited time and again by curious folks hoping to discover some treasure, or keepsakes of the extinct people. No chance for the old professor to hide away there." "But pretty soon we're going to discover a new batch of those caves in the face of the rock, something unknown to all other searchers. We'll find it by the aid of this same glass; and because we're looking for it, high up. In all these other cases you see, Bob, there were shelves of rock above shelves; and new ladders have been made by the guides, so that anybody with nerve could climb up and up. Now these ladders give the thing away. And I've somehow got the notion in my head that in the case of the rock dwellings where the professor is hiding himself, there is no outward sign in the shape of ladders." "But in that case, Frank, how under the sun could the old fellows ever get up to their dens, which you said must be near the top of a high cliff?" "Well, that's something we're going to find out later on, you see," replied the other, serenely. "Perhaps they had some way of lowering themselves from the top by means of a rope, or a stout, wide grape vine. Then, again, there may be some cleft in the rock farther away, that no one would notice; but which was used as a trail, running up into the cliff, and to the rock houses." "It does take you to figure out these things," declared Bob, in admiration, as they trudged along, with Charley Moi in advance. "Then we haven't yet got to the place where the Chinese buyer meets his employer with the eatables?" Bob remarked after a little silence. "The last time I asked him he kept saying it was only a little farther along," replied Frank. "There, look at him stopping right now; and Frank, he's grinning at us in a way that can only mean one thing. That must be where he always waits for the queer old gentleman to show up." "How about that, Charley; is this the place where you hang out?" asked Frank, as they hastened to join the guide. "Allee samee place," replied Charley Moi, waving his yellow hand around him. "Not know where shaib come fromee, always turn roundee rock," and he pointed to a large outlying mass that had, ages ago, become detached from the towering cliff overhead, and fallen in such a fashion as to partly obstruct the canyon trail. Frank looked around him eagerly. "We must be getting warmer all the time," he remarked; "and if you just take a look at that river right now, you'll see that up yonder the rock rises up almost from its very flood. When the water is high it must sweep along against the face of that big cliff. And Bob, something seems to tell me that somewhere inside of a mile or so, we're going to find what we're looking for." "Oh! I hope so!" echoed Bob, with a look of expectancy on his face; for he always put great reliance on the common sense of his chum; and when Frank said a thing in that steady tone, the Kentucky boy believed it must be so. Frank called a halt then and there. "We're tired, anyway," he said, "and might as well spend the night here. Besides, I just want to find a place were I can take a good look through the glass up at that cliff near the top. It faces the West, all right, you see; and the indications are that somewhere or other I'll find signs of the queer windows belonging to some of those cave houses." The camp was made, and Charley Moi busied himself with his fire. Bob had some things he wished to attend to; while Frank took the glass, and, settling down in a place where he believed he could get a fair view of the upper strata of colored rock, began carefully scrutinizing the cliff. "The time is right, because the old Indian said the Westering sun shone in the mouth of Echo Cave," Frank mused, as he pursued his work, not disappointed because failure came in the beginning. Frank had been at work possibly six or eight minutes when he gave utterance to a low exclamation. Then he fixed his field glasses upon a certain spot as though something had caught his attention there. "Bob!" he called out. "Want me?" asked his chum from the spot where the fire was burning. "Yes, come here please," Frank continued. Bob quickly complied with the request. He knew that although his camp-mate spoke in such a quiet tone, he had evidently made a discovery. Frank could repress his feelings even in a moment of great excitement, which was something beyond the ability of the more impetuous Kentucky lad. "What have you found, Frank?" he asked, as he reached the side of the other. "Here, take the glass," said Frank. "Point it toward that little cone that seems to rise up like a chimney above the level of the cliff top. Got it now? Well, let your glass slowly drop straight down the face of the rock. Never mind the glint of the sun, and the fine rich color. I know it's just glorious, and all that; but we're after something more important now than pictures and color effects. What do you see, Bob?" "Honest now, I believe you've hit the bulls-eye this time, Frank." "Then you think they're windows, about after the same style as those holes in the rock where we climbed up the ladders to the deserted homes of the old time cliff dwellers?" asked the other. "Sure they are; no mistake about it, either," replied Bob, and then he gave a low exclamation. "What did you see?" demanded Frank, as if suspecting the truth. "I don't know," came the reply; "but something seemed to move just inside one of those openings. It may have been a garment fluttering in the breeze that must be blowing so far up the heights; and then, again, perhaps some hawk, or other bird, has its nest there, and just flew past. I couldn't say, Frank; but I saw _something_, and it moved!" Frank took the glass, and looked long and earnestly. "Whatever it was," he remarked, "it doesn't mean to repeat the act. But all the same, Bob, I've got a hunch we've found the place, and that Echo Cave lies far up yonder in that beetling cliff." "It's a fierce reach up there," remarked Bob, as he scanned the height. "How under the sun d'ye suppose that old professor could ever get up and down? Too far for him to have a rope ladder; and even if he had, how could he reach the place at first? Frank, all the way up, I can't see the first sign of any rock shelves, where ladders might have rested long ago." "That's so," replied the other, reflectively. "The face of the cliff is as even and smooth as a floor. Nobody would ever look to find a cluster of cliff dwellers' homes up there; that is, nobody but a man like Professor Oswald, who has made a life study of such things, and knows all the indications. But something tells me we're pretty near the end of our long trail. The only question now is, how can we get in touch with the hermit of Echo Cave?" As night settled down the two boys returned to the fire, still perplexed. CHAPTER XVIII FINDING A WAY UP That night they kept no fire going. Frank seemed to think it best that they remain quiet, so as not to announce their presence in the neighborhood. Though for that matter, it would seem that if any one were perched aloft in one of those slits in the face of the cliff, that represented the windows of the cave dwellings, the entire canyon below must be spread out like a book. Nothing happened to disturb them. Once Frank thought he heard a distant shout, and this excited his curiosity not a little. According to what Charley Moi said they were now in a neighborhood where ordinary tourists never visited. He thought of the two sheriffs and the lawless men they were pursuing. Could it be possible that they were destined to run across those desperate characters sooner or later? The thought was a disquieting one. It served to make Frank wakeful, and his restlessness was communicated to Bob, although the latter did not know what caused it. But if the fugitives from justice were loitering around in that particular part of the Grand Canyon, either hiding from the determined sheriffs, or looking for rich quarry, neither they or anyone else disturbed the camp of the saddle boys. Again, in the morning, Charley Moi lighted a fire, and made ready to prepare a modest breakfast. As Bob had said, their supplies were running low, and unless something happened very soon the Chinaman would have to be dispatched to the nearest store to replenish the food. Still thinking of the sound he had heard during the night, and which he believed must have been a human voice, rather than the cry of some wild animal, Frank, while they sat cross-legged around the fire, eating the scanty meal, addressed himself to the Chinaman. "How many times have you come up this far, Charley Moi?" he asked. The other commenced to figure on his fingers. Having no counting board, used so frequently by his countrymen in laundries, until they get accustomed to the habits of the white man, he took this means of tabulating. "Allee fingers and this much over," and he held up the first and second fingers of one hand. "Ten and two, making twelve in all," declared Bob. "Well, you have served the man-with-the-bald-head faithfully and long, Charley." "And in all these times I suppose you've never known anybody to be around here?" Frank went on. Charley shook his head in the negative. "White man, no. Sometime Moqui come 'long, make for stlore down canlon get glub. See same two, thlee times. Charley Moi see old Moqui last night," the Chinaman replied. "What's that you say?" demanded Frank, hastily. "That you saw a Moqui last night, and after we had come to halt right here?" "Thatee so," grinned the other, as though pleased to feel that he was able to interest Frank so readily. "Just when did this happen, Charley Moi?" pursued the other. "Flank, Blob, down by river, make muchee look-look in glass," answered Charley. "Now, what d'ye think of that?" ejaculated Bob, in disgust. "While we were away from camp for ten minutes, something happened. Why couldn't it have come about when we were on deck? There's a fine chance lost to get track of Havasupai; for I reckon you believe the same as I do, Frank, and that the old Moqui whom Charley saw was _our_ Indian?" "Seems like it, Bob," replied the other, "but don't cry yet. Perhaps it may not be too late to remedy matters. See here, Charley Moi, could you show me just where you saw this Moqui last?" The yellow-skinned guide smirked, and nodded his head until his pigtail bobbed up and down like a bell rope. "Easy do," he observed, beginning to get upon his feet. "Come along Bob," remarked Frank. "We'd all better be present. Three heads are better than one when it comes to a question of deciding what's to be done." "Do you think you can track him, Frank?" questioned the Kentucky boy, eagerly. "I'm going to try," was all Frank would say; for he was very modest with regard to his accomplishments as a son of the prairie. Charley Moi was as good as his word. He seemed to remember just where he had happened to spy the passing Indian when looking up from the making of the fire. The Moqui had paid no attention to him; indeed, at the time he was creeping past as though taking advantage of the absence of the two boys in order to make a circuit of the camp near the big cliff. "Find 'em Frank?" asked Bob, after he had seen his chum bending down over the ground for half a minute. "Yes, and they are the tracks of an Indian too, for they toe in," Frank replied. "Besides, they are made by moccasins instead of shoes or boots with heels. And if I needed any further proof to tell me our friend Havasupai made these tracks, and not a strange Moqui, I have it in the queer patch across the toe of his right moccasin, which I noticed when he was with us before." "That's just fine!" Bob exclaimed, filled with pride over the way in which his chum seemed able to fix the facts so that they could not be questioned. "And will you start after him right away, Frank?" "Watch me; that's all," came the reply, as Frank began to move away, still bending low in order to follow the faint traces of footprints on the rock and scanty soil. The others came close at his heels, Bob with a look of assurance on his face, because he felt positive that the game would now be tracked to its hiding place; and Charley Moi picturing his wonder on his moon-like countenance. So the prairie lad led them in and out among the rocks, and the scrub that grew close to the verge of the river. Several times he seemed a little in doubt, as the marks faded entirely away; but on such occasions his common-sense came to the rescue, and, after a look around, Frank was able to once more find the trail. "Here's where it ends!" When Frank made this remark Bob could not keep from expressing his surprise. He gaped upward at the bare-faced wall that arose for hundreds of feet, without any particular ledge or outcropping where even a nimble Indian could find safe lodgment for his moccasined feet. "But, Frank, however could the old Moqui get up there to see Uncle Felix?" he asked. "D'ye suppose he made some sort of signal, and the hermit lowered a long rope with a noose at the end, which would draw him up? Wow! excuse me from ever trying to fly in that way! It would make me so dizzy I'd be sure to drop, and get smashed." "You're beating on the wrong track, Bob," remarked the other. "No rope could be lowered all that distance; and even if it could no one man would be able to pull another all the way up." "But there must be some way of getting to the place where the slits in the face of the cliff tell of windows. However do you think he did it, Frank?" "Just because you don't happen to see a ladder, Bob, is no evidence there isn't a way to mount upward. One thing about this great cliff I guess you didn't happen to notice. That shows you pass things by. Look again, and you'll see that it seems to have been split by some volcanic smash, ages ago. There's a regular crevice running slantingly up the face of the rock. You see it now, don't you?" "Sure I do; and I was blind not to take notice of the same before," Bob replied. "Fact is, I did see that uneven mark, but just thought it was a fault in the make of the cliff, as a miner would say." "Well, that crack extends four-fifths of the way up to the top; and far enough to reach the place where we noticed all those dark marks, which we believed must be windows of the many rooms or houses of the cliff dwellers. Get that, Bob?" "Sure I do, Frank, and after your explanation I can see what you're aiming at. But where does that ragged crevice start from down here, do you think?" Frank stepped forward. Just as if he had it all figured out, he bent down, and with his hand drew aside the bushes that grew against the base of the cliff. "Well, I declare, there it is for a fact!" exclaimed Bob, as he saw a rough opening before him, which came almost together five feet from the ground, leaving only a dark, uneven, slanting line that crawled up the face of the cliff like the photograph of a zigzag bolt of lightning taken with a snapshot camera. "There you are," said Frank, with a broad smile. "Unless all signs fail, here's the entrance to the mysterious Echo Cave. We have been more than lucky to find it with so little trouble." "Just to think of it," remarked Bob, as he bent over to look up into the gap as well as he was able; "here's where the queer old Professor has been hiding for all this time, and no one any the wiser. But Frank, however in the wide world do you suppose he found out the way to get up there?" "We would have found it sooner or later, even if Charley Moi had not seen the old Indian moving along," replied Frank, with the confidence of one who knows what he is talking about. "Y--yes, I reckon we would, after you'd prowled around a little, and had some chance to look the ground over. Then you believe he must have found the presence of those windows looking out of the cliff just like we did; by using a powerful glass? And, thinking that here was the very place for him to hide and study, he set about looking for the road up, and found it, very likely." "He did it by using common sense, and applying all he knew about the ways of these people of the long ago," replied Frank. "And you can see that if he chose, he could have thrown that bottle out of one of the openings up there, so that it would drop in the passing current of the Colorado, to be carried down-stream until somebody saw it; and finding the message to my father, sent or carried it to Circle Ranch." "Well," observed Bob, with a gleam in his eye, "now that we've found a way to get up to Echo Cave, have we the nerve to start in?" CHAPTER XIX FORTUNE STILL FAVORS THE BRAVE Instead of replying at once to this question, as Bob undoubtedly thought his chum would do, Frank seemed to give a start. He dropped to his hands and knees, and seemed to be examining some marks on the ground. If ever the fair knowledge of reading tracks which Frank possessed was called upon to do duty, it was now. Bob, of course, could not understand what possessed his comrade; but simply stood there and stared, wondering what Frank had found to cause him to exhibit such breathless interest, and all the signs of unusual excitement. When finally the lad on his knees did look up, Bob saw a grave expression on his face. "There's something wrong, Frank; tell me what it is?" he demanded. "I've made an unpleasant discovery, Bob," replied the other. "Charley!" he added turning to the wondering Celestial, "go back to our camp, and bring our guns right away, both of them, see?" "Yep, bloss, me unelstand. Charley Moi gettee gluns light away quick!" and as he said this the obliging Chinaman went on a run, his pigtail and blue blouse flying out behind him. "Say, whatever does all this mystery mean, Frank?" asked Bob, almost helplessly. "Just what you might imagine; that there's danger hanging about us, Bob." The eyes of the astonished Bob sought the ground at the point where his chum had been so deeply interested. "Then it must be something you just discovered there, and that's a fact," he declared; "because you didn't act this way three minutes ago." "I happened to discover footprints coming from another quarter," Frank went on, calmly; "and they headed into this crevice, just as those of the moccasined Moqui did from that side. And they came after old Havasupai had gone up, for I found where they wiped out a part of one of his tracks." "Footprints, and were they made by the old professor, do you think?" asked Bob. "Not any. Fact is," observed Frank, as though deciding to have the worst over, "they were the tracks of three persons, all men!" "Oh! my! three, you said, Frank; and that would mean Eugene, Spanish Joe, and Abajo, wouldn't it?" "Just the very ones I meant," replied Frank. "Then they must have been hiding some place near here, and saw the Moqui pass in?" suggested Bob, fully aroused by now. "That seems to be what happened," Frank observed. "But here comes Charley Moi with the guns. See how he dodges about, so as to keep hidden from the view of anybody up in those windows above, which we can't glimpse from here." When Bob eagerly took his repeating rifle from the hands of the Chinaman he exhibited all the evidence of great satisfaction; for he heaved a sigh of relief, and fondled his weapon in a way that caused his comrade to smile. "I feel better now," Bob confessed; "because, to tell the honest truth, when you broke the news so suddenly it nearly gave me heart failure, Frank, to think that if those rascals sprang out at us we would be next door to helpless. Now let 'em be careful how they play their little game. But what does it all mean, do you suppose, Frank?" "I can only make a guess, and that may be wide of the truth," the other admitted. "By some accident they managed to get on the track of the Moqui. Though Havasupai thought himself smart, he was no match for such a cunning rascal as Spanish Joe, who is said to be the best trailer along the Arizona border. And they followed him right here." "That was last evening, just when you and I stood there down by the river, looking through the glasses up at the windows of the rock houses above," remarked Bob. "Yes. Perhaps they didn't go up right then." Frank went on. "I admit that I can't just make out how long ago these tracks were made. A better trailer might, you see, Bob. If Old Hank Coombs were only here now I'd be glad to turn the whole business over to him, and play second fiddle." "But some time between dark and morning these three rascals went in here, and surprised the hermit of Echo Cave--is that it, Frank?" "It covers the case all right," came the reply. "Say, do you think they are up there yet?" asked the Kentucky lad, in an anxious tone. "I think they must be, Bob, because all the tracks point one way, showing that the three men never came back. If they left the cave it must have been by some other way." "No use asking why they would want to get in touch with Uncle Felix!" continued Bob, as if bent on finding out everything he could in connection with the case. "We know what their reason was," Frank made answer. "When Abajo, hanging about the window of our ranch house, heard what we had to say about the message that came floating down the Colorado in that bottle, and carried the wonderful news to his employer, Eugene Warringford, he set the game going that must end right here. He has come with the intention of making Professor Oswald turn over that option to him; and he'll do it unless something we can offer prevents." "But Frank, if the Moqui carried that note of yours to Uncle Felix, he would be on his guard, and absolutely refuse to sign away the papers?" "I hope he will, but I fear that those three scamps are up there right now, trying to coax or bulldoze him into signing," Frank said, with a tightening of his lips, and a flash of his clear eyes. "Then we go up, and put a spoke in their wheel, do we?" asked Bob, looking as if he were ready to make the start instantly, if his comrade but gave the word. Frank glanced around him a little uncertainly. "I've got a good notion to try it," he muttered as if talking to himself. "What's that you say, Frank?" asked his companion, who had caught the words, and did not know what to make of them. "I didn't tell you, Bob," Frank remarked; "but during the night I thought I heard a voice calling far away yonder. And somehow it struck me at the time that there was a familiar cowboy yell about it." "Old Hank Coombs, perhaps, Frank?" suggested the other lad, quickly. "That was on my mind, Bob. You know history often repeats itself. Once before, just when we seemed to need Hank the worst way, he came riding along as if he had heard us call. And I was wondering whether he might not be somewhere around here right now." "That would be just prime, if only we could get in touch with him," Bob declared. "And, as your father wouldn't send Hank alone, there'd be one more cowboy along. That would make a party of four. Why, those three rascals would just shrivel, and throw up the sponge, if they saw us break in on 'em. But Frank, how about making the old range call?" "D'ye know, I was just thinking it might do to try it," remarked the other. "Then start in and give the whoop," Bob observed. "No harm done anyhow; even if they hear it up there. And while you're doing all that, I'll just drop on one knee here, and cover the crack in the wall. Suppose one of the lot should try and come out while we were off our guard. I'll make him surrender quicker than he can say 'Jack Robinson'!" Presently there sounded upon the morning air the clear "cooee" of the range, particularly well known to every cowboy who had worked at Circle Ranch. Frank and Bob listened eagerly to learn whether there would come any response. If not, then they must take up the task of climbing that singular crevice by themselves; and finding out how affairs stood above. Their suspense was short-lived, for quickly there floated to their waiting ears a responsive call. Turning toward the quarter from whence it seemed to come they saw a hat waving. "It's Old Hank, sure it is!" exclaimed Bob, with a thrill of delight; for the burden of going up against three desperate characters was more than boy nature could stand without more or less uneasiness. "That's Chesty with him," announced Frank, as two figures were discovered coming toward them. "Why, if we'd made all the arrangements ourselves we couldn't have done better, Bob. Here comes our reinforcements just in the nick of time. And if Eugene and his backers are still up yonder in the cliff dwellers' homes, they have stayed a little while too long, that's all." In another three minutes the boys were shaking hands with Old Hank and Chesty; the latter with a cheerful grin on his face, as though he considered it quite a joke to break in on Frank's game at the finishing point. Of course they were ignorant as to how matters stood. And Frank took upon himself the task of explaining all that had happened. "Ther up yonder yet, then," announced Hank, after he had carefully inspected the footprints, and noted that they all pointed one way; "that is to say, if they ain't got an airyplane along as would allow of them flying off. An' Frank, when ye sez the word we'uns are goin' t' walk up this rock ladder t' see what sorter place the ole perfessor keeps." "Then I say it now," declared Frank, anxious to have the thing settled one way or the other without further delay. "Foller arter me, all of ye!" called the old plainsman, as he plunged into the gap. CHAPTER XX ANOTHER SURPRISE "One thing, we won't need torches this time, Hank!" remarked Bob as he prepared to follow after the leader. "I reckons not, Bobby," chuckled the veteran cowman, who knew that something about the situation must have recalled their entering that cave that day where sly old Sallie and her half-grown whelps awaited their coming with bared teeth. Just back of Hank came Chesty, who was a very ambitious young fellow, and always to be counted on with regard to obtaining his proper share in every little excitement that happened. Then Frank filed along; and at his heels Bob climbed; while Charley Moi brought up the rear, bent on seeing all that might come to pass. The crevice immediately began to mount upward, just as Frank had anticipated it would. There were times when the climbing was pretty steep, and Frank began to wonder what sort of agile man this old and stubborn Professor Oswald could be, to overcome such difficulties so often, while in the pursuit of his hobby. Bob was soon panting, but no less bent on "keeping up with the procession," as he himself put it. They had been going back from the face of the cliff pretty much all the time, so that there was really no chance to take an observation, in order to tell just how far up they had come. Frank felt sure, however, after this labor had kept up for quite a long time, that they must now be getting near the top of the break, or where the crooked crack in the face of the rock ended. He tried to picture what they would find. If Eugene and his reckless backers had been in possession of the place for some hours now, they must have tried all sorts of expedients in order to compel the professor to reveal the secret hiding place of the valuable document, and make it over to them. Nor would such heartless men hesitate long about adopting torture in order to force a confession from the unwilling victim. Then Frank wondered if the three rascals would attempt any tactics looking to holding the attacking force at bay. They were well armed, no doubt, and having such a rich treasure hanging in the scales, it might be expected that they would hate to let it slip from their covetous grasp without putting up some sort of fight. But all that could be left to Old Hank. For many years he had been the leading figure in all the affairs that centered around Circle Ranch. Did the rustlers run off part of the herd, the veteran was put in charge of the pursuing force. Sometimes the sly marauders got off scot free; but more often they paid dearly for their audacity in picking out Colonel Haywood's ranch as the scene of their foray. Frank really had no fears as to the result, now that Hank had arrived on the scene to direct operations. The three schemers might give them some trouble, but they could not carry the day. "Please let a fellow rest up a little, Hank!" came from Bob, finally. The old cow puncher understood that the pace had been too warm for the tenderfoot; and he considerately halted. Perhaps none of the climbers were averse to a breathing spell before the final round. It would put them in better condition for the wind-up, whatever that might prove to be. "Frank," whispered Bob, as he pulled at the trouser leg of his chum so as to induce him to bend down closer. "What's the row?" asked the other, in somewhat the same guarded tone, as he managed to double over, and bring his face close to that of his friend. "Charley Moi has just told me something," Bob went on. "You know we found out before now that he's got the greatest pair of ears ever for hearing things? Well, he says there's something or some one following us up this old crack!" "Whew! that's nice, now. A regular procession, it seems," remarked Frank. "Who d'ye think it can be; and would a bear or a mountain lion pick up our tracks this way?" continued Bob, who was trying to work his rifle around, so as to cover the rear. "Wait! Let's all listen, after I send the word along to Hank and Chesty," remarked Frank. When this had been done even the old cowman thought well enough of the idea to wait until they could find out the nature of the sounds that had reached the keen hearing of the wide-awake Chinaman. It was only half light in the break of the rock, and the passage they had been following thus far was so very crooked that no one could see more than twenty feet down the trail. Still every eye was fastened on that point where the advancing man or animal would first appear. Frank, too, had his rifle bearing on the spot; and taken as a whole the appearance of the little company, flattened out against the break in the mighty rock wall, was rather threatening. All of them could catch the sounds below now. Whoever came up the rock ladder must be unused to negotiating such a stairway, for they rattled small bits of loose shale down at times; and Frank felt sure he could hear a panting sound, very much like that which tired Bob had been making a minute ago. And, as he listened, Frank made a discovery that caused him to tighten his grip on that reliable repeating rifle. There were two of the pursuers! And he anticipated that the leader must come in sight ere another dozen seconds passed! There was some sort of movement now, down in the region of the little twist where the steep stairway of the old cliff dwellers made a turn. Then a head and shoulders came into view. Frank chuckled aloud. Just in almost that last second of time he had suddenly guessed the truth, when, in this clinging figure that was staring upward, as though filled with genuine surprise, he recognized an old friend. It was Mr. Stanwix, the sheriff of the county! He and his mate from the adjoining division of Coconino must have just had a glimpse of Charley Moi disappearing in the dark hole at the base of the cliff; and, being in pursuit of two shrewd law breakers, who had been known to appear in other dress than that of cowmen, perhaps the officers had concluded that here was something that ought to be investigated. Frank immediately made a friendly gesture with one hand. He did not want to risk the chances of being fired upon by the officers of the law, who might take the little party for bad men. Then he beckoned in a fashion that the sheriff must readily understand to mean caution, and silence. They saw Mr. Stanwix bend down as though he might be explaining to his fellow officer what an astonishing thing had happened. After that he came on, climbing the steep rock ladder as an exhausted person might. Yet his nature was like that of the bulldog; and once he had started to do a thing, nothing could make him stop. When he arrived at a point where he could make his way alongside Frank, squeezing past Charley Moi and Bob, the sheriff of Yavapai County turned an inquiring look upon his young friend. Whereupon Frank started in to tell him just who the other three in the party happened to be; and that they were bent upon foiling the lawless game of three rascals plotting for a big stake. In return Mr. Stanwix intimated that they had suspected something wrong when they saw from a little distance two persons, and one of them a Chinaman, disappearing in a cleft of the rocks. Further explanations must await a better opportunity, however. They were now too near the series of chambers connecting with one another to hesitate longer. Besides, who could say what might not be going on up there a little further, in those holes in the wall where, ages ago, the singular people whom Professor Oswald loved to study about, had their homes, and lived on from year to year? Old Hank, when he once more started upward, seemed to have become much more cautious. Frank could easily guess the reason. There was a strong possibility that the three schemers might have learned of their presence in the vicinity ere now. And of course Eugene knew full well why Frank and Bob had come to the Grand Canyon from their ranch home. Suspecting that sooner or later the two boys might discover the way up to the cliff house, they would be apt to lay a trap of some sort, thinking to catch them napping when they ascended. Old Hank could not be taken unawares any easier than might the wary weasel that has never been seen asleep by mortal eyes. Frank, keeping well up by the heels of the little cowboy's boots, was ready to draw himself upward at the first sign of trouble. He knew when Hank had reached the top of the singular stairway fashioned by Nature for the benefit of those who built their habitations near the top of the cliff, far beyond the reach of enemies in the valley below. A few seconds of suspense followed, while Chesty was following the veteran into the first hollowed-out apartment. Nothing followed where Frank had been expecting all manner of evil things. "Perhaps they're asleep," was the new thought that flashed through his brain. He did not know what manner of man Uncle Felix was. Now they were all gathered there in that outer chamber that might be called an ante-room of the various apartments running along the face of the cliff for some distance. Even Charley Moi was there, full of curiosity, and willing to lend a hand after a fashion. Bob looked around; just as his chum had done as soon as he entered. He saw that some one had certainly been there recently. There were plenty of evidences to that effect. Old Hank raised his hand with the forefinger elevated. It was recognized as a signal for absolute silence by all the others. Even Bob restrained his desire to ask questions; and every one listened, as if expecting to catch sounds. Was that a human voice? Frank started a trifle as the idea came to him. Still, it might only have been an additionally strong movement of the breeze; turning some angle that caused it to give forth a sound. He turned to see if any of the others had heard, and judged from the way old Hank had his head raised that he, too, had caught the sound; also that it appealed to him as full of significance. Again the veteran waved his hand. This time it meant not only caution, but an invitation to advance. Hank was about to pass into the next apartment, and wished the others to keep close at his heels. Bob was quivering all over with the fever of suspense, as well as pent-up eagerness. He did not know just how much longer he could hold in; for he wanted to yell. Still, he did not do it. Since coming to this wonderland country of the Southwest he had learned many lessons in the way of self control; and every day he was gaining more and more of a mastery over himself. Now Hank was in the second room, and still heading onward toward another hole in the wall, evidently the only means of communication between the various houses forming the little community. When he reached this, voices were plainly heard beyond. Hank kept right on, heading for yet a third doorway; and whoever was doing the talking, he or they must be in that further apartment; so that in another minute Frank expected to have his curiosity fully satisfied. CHAPTER XXI THE LITTLE OLD MAN OF ECHO CAVE "You admit you have carried the document with you, and that it's only a question of refusing to produce it, Professor?" Frank recognized that drawling voice. He had heard his father's cousin, Eugene Warringford, speak many times, and generally in this slow way. But Frank also knew that back of his apparently careless manner there was more or less venom. Eugene could hate, and hide his feelings in a masterly manner. He could smile, and then strike behind the back of the one with whom he was dealing. And somehow his very drawling voice always made Frank quiver with instinctive dislike. "I admit nothing, sir," came another voice, quick and nervous, yet with a firmness that told of considerable spirit. "You come upon me in my retreat without an invitation, and at first claim to be a warm admirer of my work, which you seem to have studied fairly well. But now you are taking the mask off, sir; and I can recognize the wolf under the sheep's clothing." Frank had heard that the old scientist, though a small man, was full of grit; and he could well believe it after hearing him speak. And Bob, who crouched close at the side of his chum, gave Frank a nudge as if to say: "What do you think of that for nerve; isn't he the limit, though?" Eugene laughed in his lazy way at being accused of evil intentions. Apparently he had about made up his mind that there was no use in longer beating about the bush. He had the old gentleman cooped up in this isolated place, where no assistance could possibly reach him. And backed up himself by a couple of reckless rascals, no doubt Eugene considered himself in a position to demand obedience. "Well, my dear old gentleman," he remarked, and by the sound Frank imagined the fellow must be lighting a fresh cigarette, for he seemed to puff between the words; "just as you say, what's the use of carrying the joke on any longer. Let's be brutally frank with each other from now on." "Very well," replied the other, quickly. "Here's the situation then, in a nutshell. You suddenly appear before me, with a couple of men you claim are guides, but whom I have every reason to believe are low minions who are simply in your pay." "Careful, Professor," Eugene broke in. "I'd advise you to go a bit slow. These men talk English, if they do look like Mexicans; and they may resent being called rascals." "Let that pass," continued the hermit of Echo Cave, as though waving the matter aside contemptuously. "At any rate, you come suddenly into my habitation here, where I have spent many happy months in solitude, wrapped up in my studies of the people of the cliffs, who spent their lives in this very place, and who have left many traces of their customs behind. My work is almost finished, and in another week I expected leaving here for civilization, with a masterly book on the subject that has mystified the world for a century." "Come to the point, Professor," broke in the man with the drawl; "and keep all this about your studies for those of your kind, who may appreciate them. We are concerned only about one thing; and that is a certain paper which you will presently take from its hiding-place, sign over to me, and then finish your labors here in peace. Understand that?" "By good luck I was forewarned," the sharp voice went on; "and hence I made sure not to carry that document on my person. You have taken the liberty of searching every inch of these cliff houses since you arrived here, but without success. And allow me to inform you, sir, that you might hunt until the day of doom without the slightest chance of finding that paper. It will never be yours!" "Oh! I am not worrying in the least, Professor," Eugene remarked, coolly. "You will see a great light presently, I imagine." "I have already done so, sir," came the snappy reply. "I am awakening to the fact that too long have I been neglecting my daughter; and that since this investment of mine has turned out so happily, it must become her property." "Very nice and thoughtful of you, Professor," sneered Eugene; "and while I dislike to spoil such delightful plans, I fear I must do so. It is my nature to persist in anything I undertake. And I have made up my mind to possess that document; or make you pay dearly for my disappointment." "Now you begin to descend to low threats, sir," cried the scientist, who did not seem to be a particle afraid; which proved the truth of the old saying that courage does not necessarily need a big tenement. "We have hunted high and low through this series of ratholes, and without any success," observed Eugene, beginning to bite off his words, as though unable to much longer keep up the pretense of being calm. "What have you done with that old Moqui who came up here ahead of us?" "Ah! you saw him enter the hidden stairway, then, and that was how you learned the way to reach these cliff dwellings?" exclaimed the other, as though one thing that had bothered him was now explained. "Yes, that was how it came about," answered Eugene. "We have followed him like his own shadow for days, and yet he knew it not. Age must have dimmed the sight and hearing of the warrior. After we saw him pass upward, on investigating, we found the stone ladder in the crevice, and we waited several hours for him to come down, for we wanted to make sure of him first. As he did not appear, we finally could stand it no longer, and began to creep up here, inches at a time. Then we surprised you, and announced our intention of stopping with you." "Yes," declared the scientist, bitterly. "First you pretended that you were sent out by a magazine to search for me, and get some points as to my great work here among the Zunis, the Hopis and the Moquis. But I soon discovered that you had another motive in trying to find Professor Oswald. You began to hint about your desire to possess stock in certain mines, and especially in one, the ownership of which I had carried in my hand for some years. Besides, I had been warned of your real intentions, and was on my guard." "What became of that old Moqui Indian?" went on Eugene. "He climbed up, but he did not come down. We guarded that stairway closely every minute of the time. We have searched every room in this rabbit burrow that we could discover; but still he does not show up. Have you put him away in some place, the entrance to which is hidden from our eyes?" The only reply to this question was a scornful laugh. As Bob would say, it was as if the defiant little professor had flashed out. "Don't you wish you knew?" "Well, as the document and the Moqui have both vanished mysteriously, there's only one thing I can conclude," went on Eugene, between his teeth; "and that is they must be together at this very moment. Produce the one, and the other will be found not far away." "What a wise man you are, sir!" remarked the little scientist, with a sneer. "Perhaps I may prove a more successful one than you imagine," returned Eugene, between furious puffs. "Now, all the time I have been turning this old lot of rabbit burrows upside down I've been thinking a whole lot, Professor." "Bravo!" exclaimed the other clapping his hands vigorously; "it will certainly do you a great amount of good, sir, for I imagine you seldom treat yourself to such a luxury as a good hard think. And may I inquire concerning the result of your labors in that line?" "First of all, I sized you up as a mighty stubborn little bit of humanity." "Oh! thank you, sir. Really, I am disposed to accept that as a compliment; for you see, a man of my profession could never succeed unless he had mastered his inclination for an easy life, and had become a stoic. And what else did you happen to decide after this wonderful fit of thinking, may I ask, sir?" "This: I made up my mind that once you declined to produce that document, to secure which I have come a great distance, and undergone considerable fatigue, that no threat of bodily harm would induce you to alter your decision!" "It is really very interesting to hear you say this, sir," remarked the one who had lived in that lofty cave for many months, poring over the queer things that he unearthed from time to time in the ruins of the cliff dwellers' homes. "And after reaching such a conclusion as that, how comes it you persisted in trying to carry out your original intention?" "Because I had another arrow in my quiver, Professor!" remarked Eugene, in a penetrating voice, that had a ring of anticipated triumph in it. "H'm! torture, perhaps?" suggested the other; "but my dear sir, nothing of that nature could make me open my lips. I would die rather than submit to your proposals." "But wait a bit, my old friend," chuckled Eugene; "there are two kinds of torture, that of the body, and of the mind!" "I suppose you are right, sir," the little scientist remarked; "but honestly, now, I fail to understand the drift of your remarks." "Then it shall be my pleasure to enlighten you, Professor," Eugene continued. "Pay attention to me now, and you will quickly have the cataract removed from your eyes. Is there anything in the world that you value above that document which you know by this time has suddenly increased in value many times over?" "I can think of but one thing--my daughter Janice!" replied the other, quickly. "And she is far beyond your reach in the East." "Ah yes, quite true, Professor," the schemer went on; "more's the pity. But I think you make a mistake when you say that your daughter is the only thing on earth you value above the million that has suddenly dropped at your feet. How about this, Professor?" He evidently held something up, for the other immediately uttered a startled cry. "The manuscript of my forthcoming book on the mysteries of the cliff dwellers of the Grand Canyon! The hard work of three long years of exile! A labor of love that I expected will place my name among the front ranks of scientists!" "Exactly!" sneered Eugene. "Just keep back, Professor, please. My men are not in any too pleasant a mood, and I would not answer for what they might do to you if you made the first effort to snatch this thing from my hands. Sit down again, and let us reason together." "You wretch! Now I begin to see your game. You would threaten to destroy all my precious work of years, in order to obtain a miserable paper." At that Eugene laughed loudly. "It may be all you say, Professor," he remarked; "but it represents a snug little fortune that I'd like to possess. The future would be mighty pleasant, once I made that fine hit. And if it appears like so much trash in your eyes, my dear man, there should no longer be any hesitation about giving it up to me. Think of the work you have done. It couldn't be replaced, Professor, I imagine? If now I should deliberately take a match out of my pocket like this, strike the same, and apply the busy little flame to these papers, the history of the Zunis, the Hopis, the Moquis, and their ancestors the cliff dwellers, would be forever lost to the world, wouldn't it?" "Stop, you wretch!" cried the excited hermit, who was apparently greatly alarmed at seeing his precious manuscript in peril. "Ah! do you then consent to open your mouth, and tell what I want to know?" demanded his tormentor. "Is there no other way out?" asked the prisoner of the cave, hopelessly. "None," replied Eugene, harshly. "My men are watching for the Moqui to show up every second, and with orders to shoot him on sight. So don't indulge in any hope that he can save you. There, the match has burned itself out; but remember, Professor, there are others, plenty of them, where that came from. I will give you one minute to produce that paper." The scientist uttered a sigh that was plainly heard. "I suppose I must yield to fate then," he said, dismally. "But you promise to return my papers to me after I have complied with your outrageous demands?" "To be sure I will, and only too gladly," replied the other, eagerly. "I don't want to make the terms too hard on you, old man. Only you must choose now between losing either the fortune, or your work of years. And perhaps we'd find the document after all, too. Speak up; where is it?" "Examine that rock stool on which you are seated, and you will find that it can be moved," the voice of the hermit went on, steadily. "There, now that you have over-turned the seat, you discover something in the cavity. Keep your word, and place in my hands my precious packet of manuscript. Threats of taking my life might not move me; but when you place in peril that on which my reputation as a scientist must be based, it is too much. Thank you, sir; I see you are a man of your word. And I will sign the papers just as you may wish to have done." CHAPTER XXII TURNING THE TABLES--CONCLUSION "Come on in, boys!" Old Hank Coombs had stood all the while this intensely interesting dialogue was going on, as though glued to the spot. Indeed, not one of the party in the adjoining apartment of the cliff dwellers' cave but who had kept drinking in the conversation as though it fairly fascinated them. But when the old cow puncher realized that to all appearances the outrageous scheme of Eugene had worked only too well, and that the precious document was even then in the hands of the smooth-tongued plotter, he suddenly awoke to the fact that perhaps they had waited a little too long. Through the opening that served as a doorway between the apartments he jumped, followed immediately by Chesty, the two sheriffs, and finally the saddle boys, with Charley Moi bringing up the rear. Of course their unexpected coming created quite a breeze among those whom they thus surprised. The little man who wore the goggles seemed delighted, and immediately started to place himself, and his precious manuscript, in a position where he might be covered by these welcome allies. Spanish Joe and Abajo had started to draw their weapons; but when they discovered that they had already been covered, and recognized several among the newcomers as old companions on Circle Ranch, they promptly elevated their hands. Eugene looked just as ugly as he felt. The prize had apparently been about to fall into his hands, like a ripe apple, when this change of front had to occur. He kept his wits about him, however, and like the shrewd fox that he was, played the game to the limit for his own safety. "Keep your friends back, Professor Oswald!" he shouted, as he managed to interpose what looked like a stone table between himself and the two sheriffs, who had their hungry eyes on him. "See here, unless you promise on your word of honor not to proceed against me for this little game that didn't work, I'll tear this paper that's worth a million into little bits, no matter what happens to me afterwards! Do you hear, Professor?" Frank caught his breath. After all the hard work which he and Bob had put in to save that precious document for Janice, was it to be lost? He wanted to fly at the man, and snatch it from his hands; but did not dare; for only too well did he know that at the first hostile move Eugene would proceed to put his threat into execution. To his intense surprise the little man with the big glasses seemed to be shaking as with a convulsion of laughter. It did not seem as though he worried about the fate of the document Eugene held so rigidly, while awaiting an answer to his demand. "Do just as you please about that, my friend," chuckled the scientist. "If it would afford you any enjoyment to destroy the paper you are holding, I wouldn't cheat you out of it for the world." "But--" stammered the defeated plotter, "it would render void all your right to taking possession of the San Bernardino mine, if this document were destroyed!" "Oh! dear no, not at all," exclaimed the other, cheerily. "The fact is, that paper is even now on the way to the nearest post office, addressed to my friend and relative, Colonel Haywood, and is to go by registered mail." "That Moqui Indian--" gasped Eugene, falling back helplessly. "Exactly, he carries the packet, with orders to let nothing divert him from his one purpose," observed the scientist; while Bob nudged his chum in the side, unable to restrain his delight over the wonderful outcome of the knotty problem. "How did he get out of here?" asked Eugene. "We watched the stone stairway every minute of the time, and he didn't go down that way." "Oh! well, in my prowling around here, month after month," explained the hermit, "I managed to find a way the old cliff dwellers had for reaching the summit of the rocks, in case of necessity. The Moqui possessed the nerve required to crawl along the face of the cliff on a narrow ledge, and make the exit. He is miles away by now, and my daughter's inheritance is safe!" "But--this paper here," asked Eugene, faintly; yet with curiosity governing his actions; "it seems to be a legal document, transferring a majority of the shares of the San Bernardino mine over to you if the further conditions are fulfilled within a certain time?" "To be sure," laughed the other, "that was the first copy, you might say. There was some little defect about it, which we discovered after it was signed; so a second copy was made. If you had examined that one closer you would have found that the stamp necessary to make it legal was lacking. Somehow I happened to keep both copies, never dreaming how valuable this bogus one might prove." Eugene threw the paper angrily to the floor. "I'm done!" he cried, shaking his head. "Come on, Mr. Stanwix, if you are after me, and put the irons on; though I don't think you've got any show of convicting me of any unlawful game. I claim to have come here to interview this famous old gentleman about the wonderful discoveries he has made connected with these people of the cliffs. I expected to make a big sum in selling the article to a magazine. Perhaps you might give me more or less trouble if you cared; but then it's another thing to show proof. And the professor wouldn't like to stay out here long months, waiting for the case to come on." "That's where you're right, my tall friend," chirped the little scientist; "and as my work is almost finished I do not mean to let anything detain me from getting my book in the hands of the printers." "Hear that, Mr. Stanwix; he says we're going to get off easy, and you might as well wish us good day right now?" exclaimed Eugene, nodding to the Yavapai sheriff, whom he appeared to know. "Well, there's no hurry," remarked that official, pleasantly. "On the whole, my opinion is that it would be good policy to keep you locked up until we know that the document has reached the hands of the one to whom it was sent, and who is, I believe, the father of our friend, Frank, here." "I agree with you, Mr. Sheriff!" declared the old hermit of the cave. "Because if he were set free I fear he would chase after the United States mail, if a single hope remained of stealing my property. Yes, kindly keep him by you until I come around with news." Then he turned to the two cow punchers, who had stood moodily by, listening to all that was being said. "I have no use for either of you men," he remarked, shaking a finger at them; "so the sooner you get down out of this place, the better. And while I continue to remain here a few days, I'm going to ask these brave lads to keep me company as a guard of honor. I've many things to show that may interest them. And I want to accompany Frank to his home a little later, if possible." And so it was arranged. Old Hank and Chesty declared that their orders had been to stay as long as Frank and Bob did; so they also took up their quarters in the apartments that went to make up what the little old gentleman had called Echo Cave. The two sheriffs took their prisoner away, to place him in some secure nook while they continued their search for the pair of scoundrels whom they had hunted so long, and were determined to get this time. As they will not be seen again in this story it may only be right to say that Frank afterwards read an account in a paper of how the sheriffs finally rounded up the Arizona Kid and Big Bill Guffey, arresting them after a warm resistance in which all of the participants were wounded. And in due time doubtless the bad men who had so long defied the law, paid the penalty for their various crimes. The saddle boys certainly did enjoy the few days they spent with the queer little hermit, while he completed his odd business in the rock dwellings of the ancient cliff men. They found the echo which had caused him to give the place its name, and spent many an hour amusing themselves with its astonishing power to send back sounds. Finally Havasupai made his appearance, bearing with him a receipt, which proved that the precious packet had been sent by registered mail to Circle Ranch. And then the professor announced himself as ready to take his departure from the scene of his two years' labors as a hermit, working in the interests of science. "It's a wonderful old place," Bob declared as they took their last look at the Grand Canyon from the bluff in front of the hotel, ere mounting their horses and starting back home across the many miles that lay to the south and east before Circle Ranch might be reached. "Yes, and we'll never forget what we've seen here," added Frank. "Not to speak of the adventures that have come our way," remarked Bob. "Tell you the truth, Frank, I'll be mighty sorry when our trip is over, because I reckon it'll be a long time before we have another chance for such a great gallop." But although of course he did not know it just then, Bob was very much mistaken when he made this prophecy. It happened that events were shaping themselves at that very hour in a way calculated to call upon the saddle boys to make another venture into the realms of chance, and mounted upon their prized horses too. What these events were, and how well Frank and Bob acquitted themselves when brought face to face with new adventures, will be found set forth in the next volume of this series, under the title of, "The Saddle Boys on the Plains; Or, After a Treasure of Gold." Old Hank and Chesty accompanied Professor Oswald by way of the railroad to a point nearest the ranch, where a vehicle would be awaiting them. He had been greatly interested in hearing how one of the bottles that he had thrown into the swift current of the Colorado had been eventually picked up in far distant Mohave City; and thus his note came into the hands of his relatives. Of course Frank and his chum enjoyed the return gallop even more than when on the way to the Grand Canyon. They no longer had anything weighing on their minds, since the plans of Eugene Warringford had been broken up. And besides, the recollection of the astounding wonders they had gazed upon in that great canyon were bound to haunt them forever. The little professor was waiting to see them at the ranch, before starting East to join his daughter, and get his wonderful book under way. "I owe you boys more than I can tell," he declared, when he was saying good-bye; "and you needn't be at all surprised if a nice little bunch of gold mine stock comes this way for each of you, just as soon as my deal goes through, which will be in one more week." He was as good as his word, and when the mine came under his authority he did send both Frank and Bob some stock, on which they could collect dividends four times a year. Frank looked in vain for the coming of the old Moqui. Charley Moi did indeed turn up a little later, anxious to again meet the boys whom he had served in the Grand Canyon. But Havasupai came not to Circle Ranch; and remembering how he had apparently been fleeing from the wrath of his people at the time they first met him, Frank and Bob could not but wonder whether the old warrior had gone back to his native village only to meet his fate at the hands of his people, according to Moqui law. Here we may leave our two young friends, the saddle boys, for a short time, enjoying a well earned rest. But the lure of the great outdoors was so strongly rooted in their natures that it may be readily understood they could not remain inactive long; but would soon be galloping over the wide reaches, following the cowboys as they rounded up the herds, branded mavericks and young cattle, and picked out those intended for shipment to the great marts at Kansas City. But while new scenes would likely interest Frank and Bob from time to time, they could never forget the magnificent views that had been stamped upon their memories forever while in the Grand Canyon of the mighty Colorado. THE END * * * * * * THE BOYS' OUTING LIBRARY _12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full color. Price, per volume, 65 cents, postpaid._ [Illustration] THE SADDLE BOYS SERIES BY CAPT. JAMES CARSON The Saddle Boys of the Rockies The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon The Saddle Boys on the Plains The Saddle Boys at Circle Ranch The Saddle Boys on Mexican Trails THE DAVE DASHAWAY SERIES BY ROY ROCKWOOD Dave Dashaway the Young Aviator Dave Dashaway and His Hydroplane Dave Dashaway and His Giant Airship Dave Dashaway Around the World Dave Dashaway: Air Champion THE SPEEDWELL BOYS SERIES BY ROY ROCKWOOD The Speedwell Boys on Motorcycles The Speedwell Boys and Their Racing Auto The Speedwell Boys and Their Power Launch The Speedwell Boys in a Submarine The Speedwell Boys and Their Ice Racer THE TOM FAIRFIELD SERIES By ALLEN CHAPMAN Tom Fairfield's School Days Tom Fairfield at Sea Tom Fairfield in Camp Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck Tom Fairfield's Hunting Trip THE FRED FENTON ATHLETIC SERIES By ALLEN CHAPMAN Fred Fenton the Pitcher Fred Fenton in the Line Fred Fenton on the Crew Fred Fenton on the Track Fred Fenton: Marathon Runner _Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._ CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers New York THE JEWEL SERIES BY AMES THOMPSON _12mo. 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With him as guide, they set out to find it, escape various traps set for them by jealous Peruvians, and are much amused by Pedro all through the experience. 3. THE ADVENTURE BOYS AND THE LAGOON OF PEARLS This time the group starts out on a cruise simply for pleasure, but their adventuresome spirits lead them into the thick of things on a South Sea cannibal island. _Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_ CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, PUBLISHERS New York THE BOMBA BOOKS BY ROY ROCKWOOD _12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. With colored jacket_ Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid [Illustration] _Bomba lived far back in the jungles of the Amazon with a half-demented naturalist who told the lad nothing of his past. The jungle boy was a lover of birds, and hunted animals with a bow and arrow and his trusty machete. He had a primitive education in some things, and his daring adventures will be followed with breathless interest by thousands._ 1. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY _or The Old Naturalist's Secret_ In the depth of the jungle Bomba lives a life replete with thrilling situations. Once he saves the lives of two American rubber hunters who ask him who he is, and how he had come into the jungle. He sets off to solve the mystery of his identity. 2. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AT THE MOVING MOUNTAIN _or The Mystery of the Caves of Fire_ Bomba travels through the jungle, encountering wild beasts and hostile natives. At last he trails the old man of the burning mountain to his cave and learns more concerning himself. 3. BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AT THE GIANT CATARACT _or Chief Nascanora and His Captives_ From the Moving Mountain Bomba travels to the Giant Cataract, still searching out his parentage. Among the Pilati Indians he finds some white captives, and an aged opera singer who is the first to give Bomba real news of his forebears. 4. 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Colored jacket_ Price per volume, $1.00 Net [Illustration] _Every boy who knows the lure of exploring, and who loves to rig up huts and caves and tree-houses to fortify himself against imaginary enemies will enjoy these books, for they give a vivid chronicle of the doings and inventions of a group of boys who are shipwrecked, and have to make themselves snug and safe in tropical islands where the dangers are too real for play._ 1. CRUSOE ISLAND Dick, Alf and Fred find themselves stranded on an unknown island with the old seaman Josh. Their ship destroyed by fire, their friends lost, they have to make shift for themselves for a whole exciting year before being rescued. 2. THE ISLAND TREASURE With much ingenuity these boys fit themselves into the wild life of the island they are cast upon in storm. They build various kinds of strongholds and spend most of their time outwitting their enemies. 3. 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THE BOY RANCHERS IN CAMP _or The Water Fight at Diamond X_ Returning for a visit, the two eastern lads learn, with delight, that they are to become boy ranchers. 3. THE BOY RANCHERS ON THE TRAIL _or The Diamond X After Cattle Rustlers_ Our boy heroes take the trail after Del Pinzo and his outlaws. 4. THE BOY RANCHERS AMONG THE INDIANS _or Trailing the Yaquis_ Rosemary and Floyd are captured by the Yaqui Indians but the boy ranchers trailed them into the mountains and effected the rescue. 5. THE BOY RANCHERS AT SPUR CREEK _or Fighting the Sheep Herders_ Dangerous struggle against desperadoes for land rights brings out heroic adventures. 6. THE BOY RANCHERS IN THE DESERT _or Diamond X and the Lost Mine_ One night a strange old miner almost dead from hunger and hardship arrived at the bunk house. The boys cared for him and he told them of the lost desert mine. 7. THE BOY RANCHERS ON ROARING RIVER _or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers_ The boy ranchers help capture Delton's gang who were engaged in smuggling Chinese across the border. _Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_ CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers New York THE WEBSTER SERIES By FRANK V. WEBSTER [Illustration] Mr. WEBSTER'S style is very much like that of the boys' favorite author, the late lamented Horatio Alger, Jr., but his tales are thoroughly up-to-date. Cloth. 12mo. Over 200 pages each. Illustrated. Stamped in various colors. Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid. Only A Farm Boy _or Dan Hardy's Rise in Life_ The Boy From The Ranch _or Roy Bradner's City Experiences_ The Young Treasure Hunter _or Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska_ The Boy Pilot of the Lakes _or Nat Morton's Perils_ Tom The Telephone Boy _or The Mystery of a Message_ Bob The Castaway _or The Wreck of the Eagle_ The Newsboy Partners _or Who Was Dick Box_? 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Illustrated. Price per volume, $1.00, postpaid. [Illustration] FOUR BOY HUNTERS _Or, The Outing of the Gun Club_ A fine, breezy story of the woods and waters, of adventures in search of game, and of great times around the campfire, told in Captain Bonehill's best style. In the book are given full directions for camping out. GUNS AND SNOWSHOES _Or, The Winter Outing of the Young Hunters_ In this volume the young hunters leave home for a winter outing on the shores of a small lake. They hunt and trap to their hearts' content, and have adventures in plenty, all calculated to make boys "sit up and take notice." A good healthy book; one with the odor of the pine forests and the glare of the welcome campfire in every chapter. YOUNG HUNTERS OF THE LAKE _Or, Out with Rod and Gun_ Another tale of woods and waters, with some strong hunting scenes and a good deal of mystery. The three volumes make a splendid outdoor series. 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Price per volume, $1.00, postpaid_ [Illustration] THE MOTOR BOYS _or Chums Through Thick and Thin_ THE MOTOR BOYS OVERLAND _or A Long Trip for Fun and Fortune_ THE MOTOR BOYS IN MEXICO _or The Secret of the Buried City_ THE MOTOR BOYS ACROSS THE PLAINS _or The Hermit of Lost Lake_ THE MOTOR BOYS AFLOAT _or The Cruise of the Dartaway_ THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE ATLANTIC _or The Mystery of the Lighthouse_ THE MOTOR BOYS IN STRANGE WATERS _or Lost in a Floating Forest_ THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE PACIFIC _or The Young Derelict Hunters_ THE MOTOR BOYS IN THE CLOUDS _or A Trip for Fame and Fortune_ THE MOTOR BOYS OVER THE ROCKIES _or A Mystery of the Air_ THE MOTOR BOYS OVER THE OCEAN _or A Marvelous Rescue in Mid-Air_ THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE WING _or Seeking the Airship Treasure_ THE MOTOR BOYS AFTER A FORTUNE _or The Hut on Snake Island_ THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE BORDER _or Sixty Nuggets of Gold_ THE MOTOR BOYS UNDER THE SEA _or From Airship to Submarine_ THE MOTOR BOYS ON ROAD AND RIVER _or Racing to Save a Life_ THE MOTOR BOYS AT BOXWOOD HALL _or Ned, Bob and Jerry as Freshmen_ THE MOTOR BOYS ON A RANCH _or Ned, Bob and Jerry Among the Cowboys_ THE MOTOR BOYS IN THE ARMY _or Ned, Bob and Jerry as Volunteers_ THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE FIRING LINE _or Ned, Bob and Jerry Fighting for Uncle Sam_ THE MOTOR BOYS BOUND FOR HOME _or Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Wrecked Troopship_ THE MOTOR BOYS ON THUNDER MOUNTAIN _or The Treasure Box of Blue Rock_ CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY. Publishers New York 
21219	----	A VOICE in the WILDERNESS A NOVEL BY GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL AUTHOR OF MARCIA SCHUYLER, ETC. GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK Published by Arrangement with Harper and Brothers Made in the United States of America ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A Voice in the Wilderness Copyright, 1916, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published September, 1916 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS CHAPTER I With a lurch the train came to a dead stop and Margaret Earle, hastily gathering up her belongings, hurried down the aisle and got out into the night. It occurred to her, as she swung her heavy suit-case down the rather long step to the ground, and then carefully swung herself after it, that it was strange that neither conductor, brakeman, nor porter had come to help her off the train, when all three had taken the trouble to tell her that hers was the next station; but she could hear voices up ahead. Perhaps something was the matter with the engine that detained them and they had forgotten her for the moment. The ground was rough where she stood, and there seemed no sign of a platform. Did they not have platforms in this wild Western land, or was the train so long that her car had stopped before reaching it? She strained her eyes into the darkness, and tried to make out things from the two or three specks of light that danced about like fireflies in the distance. She could dimly see moving figures away up near the engine, and each one evidently carried a lantern. The train was tremendously long. A sudden feeling of isolation took possession of her. Perhaps she ought not to have got out until some one came to help her. Perhaps the train had not pulled into the station yet and she ought to get back on it and wait. Yet if the train started before she found the conductor she might be carried on somewhere and be justly blame her for a fool. There did not seem to be any building on that side of the track. It was probably on the other, but she was standing too near the cars to see over. She tried to move back to look, but the ground sloped and she slipped and fell in the cinders, bruising her knee and cutting her wrist. In sudden panic she arose. She would get back into the train, no matter what the consequences. They had no right to put her out here, away off from the station, at night, in a strange country. If the train started before she could find the conductor she would tell him that he must back it up again and let her off. He certainly could not expect her to get out like this. She lifted the heavy suit-case up the high step that was even farther from the ground than it had been when she came down, because her fall had loosened some of the earth and caused it to slide away from the track. Then, reaching to the rail of the step, she tried to pull herself up, but as she did so the engine gave a long snort and the whole train, as if it were in league against her, lurched forward crazily, shaking off her hold. She slipped to her knees again, the suit-case, toppled from the lower step, descending upon her, and together they slid and rolled down the short bank, while the train, like an irresponsible nurse who had slapped her charge and left it to its fate, ran giddily off into the night. The horror of being deserted helped the girl to rise in spite of bruises and shock. She lifted imploring hands to the unresponsive cars as they hurried by her--one, two, three, with bright windows, each showing a passenger, comfortable and safe inside, unconscious of her need. A moment of useless screaming, running, trying to attract some one's attention, a sickening sense of terror and failure, and the last car slatted itself past with a mocking clatter, as if it enjoyed her discomfort. Margaret stood dazed, reaching out helpless hands, then dropped them at her sides and gazed after the fast-retreating train, the light on its last car swinging tauntingly, blinking now and then with a leer in its eye, rapidly vanishing from her sight into the depth of the night. She gasped and looked about her for the station that but a short moment before had been so real to her mind; and, lo! on this side and on that there was none! The night was wide like a great floor shut in by a low, vast dome of curving blue set with the largest, most wonderful stars she had ever seen. Heavy shadows of purple-green, smoke-like, hovered over earth darker and more intense than the unfathomable blue of the night sky. It seemed like the secret nesting-place of mysteries wherein no human foot might dare intrude. It was incredible that such could be but common sage-brush, sand, and greasewood wrapped about with the beauty of the lonely night. No building broke the inky outlines of the plain, nor friendly light streamed out to cheer her heart. Not even a tree was in sight, except on the far horizon, where a heavy line of deeper darkness might mean a forest. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the blue, deep, starry dome above and the bluer darkness of the earth below save one sharp shaft ahead like a black mast throwing out a dark arm across the track. As soon as she sighted it she picked up her baggage and made her painful way toward it, for her knees and wrist were bruised and her baggage was heavy. A soft drip, drip greeted her as she drew nearer; something plashing down among the cinders by the track. Then she saw the tall column with its arm outstretched, and looming darker among the sage-brush the outlines of a water-tank. It was so she recognized the engine's drinking-tank, and knew that she had mistaken a pause to water the engine for a regular stop at a station. Her soul sank within her as she came up to the dripping water and laid her hand upon the dark upright, as if in some way it could help her. She dropped her baggage and stood, trembling, gazing around upon the beautiful, lonely scene in horror; and then, like a mirage against the distance, there melted on her frightened eyes a vision of her father and mother sitting around the library lamp at home, as they sat every evening. They were probably reading and talking at this very minute, and trying not to miss her on this her first venture away from the home into the great world to teach. What would they say if they could see their beloved daughter, whom they had sheltered all these years and let go forth so reluctantly now, in all her confidence of youth, bound by almost absurd promises to be careful and not run any risks. Yet here she was, standing alone beside a water-tank in the midst of an Arizona plain, no knowing how many miles from anywhere, at somewhere between nine and ten o'clock at night! It seemed incredible that it had really happened! Perhaps she was dreaming! A few moments before in the bright car, surrounded by drowsy fellow-travelers, almost at her journey's end, as she supposed; and now, having merely done as she thought right, she was stranded here! She rubbed her eyes and looked again up the track, half expecting to see the train come back for her. Surely, surely the conductor, or the porter who had been so kind, would discover that she was gone, and do something about it. They couldn't leave her here alone on the prairie! It would be too dreadful! That vision of her father and mother off against the purple-green distance, how it shook her! The lamp looked bright and cheerful, and she could see her father's head with its heavy white hair. He turned to look at her mother to tell her of something he read in the paper. They were sitting there, feeling contented and almost happy about her, and she, their little girl--all her dignity as school-teacher dropped from her like a garment now--she was standing in this empty space alone, with only an engine's water-tank to keep her from dying, and only the barren, desolate track to connect her with the world of men and women. She dropped her head upon her breast and the tears came, sobbing, choking, raining down. Then off in the distance she heard a low, rising howl of some snarling, angry beast, and she lifted her head and stood in trembling terror, clinging to the tank. That sound was coyotes or wolves howling. She had read about them, but had not expected to experience them in such a situation. How confidently had she accepted the position which offered her the opening she had sought for the splendid career that she hoped was to follow! How fearless had she been! Coyotes, nor Indians, nor wild cowboy students--nothing had daunted her courage. Besides, she told her mother it was very different going to a town from what it would be if she were a missionary going to the wilds. It was an important school she was to teach, where her Latin and German and mathematical achievements had won her the place above several other applicants, and where her well-known tact was expected to work wonders. But what were Latin and German and mathematics now? Could they show her how to climb a water-tank? Would tact avail with a hungry wolf? The howl in the distance seemed to come nearer. She cast frightened eyes to the unresponsive water-tank looming high and dark above her. She must get up there somehow. It was not safe to stand here a minute. Besides, from that height she might be able to see farther, and perhaps there would be a light somewhere and she might cry for help. Investigation showed a set of rude spikes by which the trainmen were wont to climb up, and Margaret prepared to ascend them. She set her suit-case dubiously down at the foot. Would it be safe to leave it there? She had read how coyotes carried off a hatchet from a camping-party, just to get the leather thong which was bound about the handle. She could not afford to lose her things. Yet how could she climb and carry that heavy burden with her? A sudden thought came. Her simple traveling-gown was finished with a silken girdle, soft and long, wound twice about her waist and falling in tasseled ends. Swiftly she untied it and knotted one end firmly to the handle of her suit-case, tying the other end securely to her wrist. Then slowly, cautiously, with many a look upward, she began to climb. It seemed miles, though in reality it was but a short distance. The howling beasts in the distance sounded nearer now and continually, making her heart beat wildly. She was stiff and bruised from her falls, and weak with fright. The spikes were far apart, and each step of progress was painful and difficult. It was good at last to rise high enough to see over the water-tank and feel a certain confidence in her defense. But she had risen already beyond the short length of her silken tether, and the suit-case was dragging painfully on her arm. She was obliged to steady herself where she stood and pull it up before she could go on. Then she managed to get it swung up to the top of the tank in a comparatively safe place. One more long spike step and she was beside it. The tank was partly roofed over, so that she had room enough to sit on the edge without danger of falling in and drowning. For a few minutes she could only sit still and be thankful and try to get her breath back again after the climb; but presently the beauty of the night began to cast its spell over her. That wonderful blue of the sky! It hadn't ever before impressed her that skies were blue at night. She would have said they were black or gray. As a matter of fact, she didn't remember to have ever seen so much sky at once before, nor to have noticed skies in general until now. This sky was so deeply, wonderfully blue, the stars so real, alive and sparkling, that all other stars she had ever seen paled before them into mere imitations. The spot looked like one of Taylor's pictures of the Holy Land. She half expected to see a shepherd with his crook and sheep approaching her out of the dim shadows, or a turbaned, white-robed David with his lifted hands of prayer standing off among the depths of purple darkness. It would not have been out of keeping if a walled city with housetops should be hidden behind the clumps of sage-brush farther on. 'Twas such a night and such a scene as this, perhaps, when the wise men started to follow the star! But one cannot sit on the edge of a water-tank in the desert night alone and muse long on art and history. It was cold up there, and the howling seemed nearer than before. There was no sign of a light or a house anywhere, and not even a freight-train sent its welcome clatter down the track. All was still and wide and lonely, save that terrifying sound of the beasts; such stillness as she had not ever thought could be--a fearful silence as a setting for the awful voices of the wilds. The bruises and scratches she had acquired set up a fine stinging, and the cold seemed to sweep down and take possession of her on her high, narrow seat. She was growing stiff and cramped, yet dared not move much. Would there be no train, nor any help? Would she have to sit there all night? It looked so very near to the ground now. Could wild beasts climb, she wondered? Then in the interval of silence that came between the calling of those wild creatures there stole a sound. She could not tell at first what it was. A slow, regular, plodding sound, and quite far away. She looked to find it, and thought she saw a shape move out of the sage-brush on the other side of the track, but she could not be sure. It might be but a figment of her brain, a foolish fancy from looking so long at the huddled bushes on the dark plain. Yet something prompted her to cry out, and when she heard her own voice she cried again and louder, wondering why she had not cried before. "Help! Help!" she called; and again: "Help! Help!" The dark shape paused and turned toward her. She was sure now. What if it were a beast instead of a human! Terrible fear took possession of her; then, to her infinite relief, a nasal voice sounded out: "Who's thar?" But when she opened her lips to answer, nothing but a sob would come to them for a minute, and then she could only cry, pitifully: "Help! Help!" "Whar be you?" twanged the voice; and now she could see a horse and rider like a shadow moving toward her down the track. CHAPTER II The horse came to a standstill a little way from the track, and his rider let forth a stream of strange profanity. The girl shuddered and began to think a wild beast might be preferable to some men. However, these remarks seemed to be a mere formality. He paused and addressed her: "Heow'd yeh git up thar? D'j'yeh drap er climb?" He was a little, wiry man with a bristly, protruding chin. She could see that, even in the starlight. There was something about the point of that stubby chin that she shrank from inexpressibly. He was not a pleasant man to look upon, and even his voice was unprepossessing. She began to think that even the night with its loneliness and unknown perils was preferable to this man's company. "I got off the train by mistake, thinking it was my station, and before I discovered it the train had gone and left me," Margaret explained, with dignity. "Yeh didn't 'xpect it t' sit reound on th' plain while you was gallivantin' up water-tanks, did yeh?" Cold horror froze Margaret's veins. She was dumb for a second. "I am on my way to Ashland station. Can you tell me how far it is from here and how I can get there?" Her tone was like icicles. "It's a little matter o' twenty miles, more 'r less," said the man protruding his offensive chin. "The walkin's good. I don't know no other way from this p'int at this time o' night. Yeh might set still till th' mornin' freight goes by an' drap atop o' one of the kyars." "Sir!" said Margaret, remembering her dignity as a teacher. The man wheeled his horse clear around and looked up at her impudently. She could smell bad whisky on his breath. "Say, you must be some young highbrow, ain't yeh? Is thet all yeh want o' me? 'Cause ef 'tis I got t' git on t' camp. It's a good five mile yet, an' I 'ain't hed no grub sence noon." The tears suddenly rushed to the girl's eyes as the horror of being alone in the night again took possession of her. This dreadful man frightened her, but the thought of the loneliness filled her with dismay. "Oh!" she cried, forgetting her insulted dignity, "you're not going to leave me up here alone, are you? Isn't there some place near here where I could stay overnight?" "Thur ain't no palace hotel round these diggin's, ef that's what you mean," the man leered at her. "You c'n come along t' camp 'ith me ef you ain't too stuck up." "To camp!" faltered Margaret in dismay, wondering what her mother would say. "Are there any ladies there?" A loud guffaw greeted her question. "Wal, my woman's thar, sech es she is; but she ain't no highflier like you. We mostly don't hev ladies to camp, But I got t' git on. Ef you want to go too, you better light down pretty speedy, fer I can't wait." In fear and trembling Margaret descended her rude ladder step by step, primitive man seated calmly on his horse, making no attempt whatever to assist her. "This ain't no baggage-car," he grumbled, as he saw the suit-case in her hand. "Well, h'ist yerself up thar; I reckon we c'n pull through somehow. Gimme the luggage." Margaret stood appalled beside the bony horse and his uncouth rider. Did he actually expect her to ride with him? "Couldn't I walk?" she faltered, hoping he would offer to do so. "'T's up t' you," the man replied, indifferently. "Try 't an' see!" He spoke to the horse, and it started forward eagerly, while the girl in horror struggled on behind. Over rough, uneven ground, between greasewood, sage-brush, and cactus, back into the trail. The man, oblivious of her presence, rode contentedly on, a silent shadow on a dark horse wending a silent way between the purple-green clumps of other shadows, until, bewildered, the girl almost lost sight of them. Her breath came short, her ankle turned, and she fell with both hands in a stinging bed of cactus. She cried out then and begged him to stop. "L'arned yer lesson, hev yeh, sweety?" he jeered at her, foolishly. "Well, get in yer box, then." He let her struggle up to a seat behind himself with very little assistance, but when she was seated and started on her way she began to wish she had stayed behind and taken any perils of the way rather than trust herself in proximity to this creature. From time to time he took a bottle from his pocket and swallowed a portion of its contents, becoming fluent in his language as they proceeded on their way. Margaret remained silent, growing more and more frightened every time the bottle came out. At last he offered it to her. She declined it with cold politeness, which seemed to irritate the little man, for he turned suddenly fierce. "Oh, yer too fine to take a drap fer good comp'ny, are yeh? Wal, I'll show yeh a thing er two, my pretty lady. You'll give me a kiss with yer two cherry lips before we go another step. D'yeh hear, my sweetie?" And he turned with a silly leer to enforce his command; but with a cry of horror Margaret slid to the ground and ran back down the trail as hard as she could go, till she stumbled and fell in the shelter of a great sage-bush, and lay sobbing on the sand. The man turned bleared eyes toward her and watched until she disappeared. Then sticking his chin out wickedly, he slung her suit-case after her and called: "All right, my pretty lady; go yer own gait an' l'arn yer own lesson." He started on again, singing a drunken song. Under the blue, starry dome alone sat Margaret again, this time with no friendly water-tank for her defense, and took counsel with herself. The howling coyotes seemed to be silenced for the time; at least they had become a minor quantity in her equation of troubles. She felt now that man was her greatest menace, and to get away safely from him back to that friendly water-tank and the dear old railroad track she would have pledged her next year's salary. She stole softly to the place where she had heard the suit-case fall, and, picking it up, started on the weary road back to the tank. Could she ever find the way? The trail seemed so intangible a thing, her sense of direction so confused. Yet there was nothing else to do. She shuddered whenever she thought of the man who had been her companion on horseback. When the man reached camp he set his horse loose and stumbled into the door of the log bunk-house, calling loudly for something to eat. The men were sitting around the room on the rough benches and bunks, smoking their pipes or stolidly staring into the dying fire. Two smoky kerosene-lanterns that hung from spikes driven high in the logs cast a weird light over the company, eight men in all, rough and hardened with exposure to stormy life and weather. They were men with unkempt beards and uncombed hair, their coarse cotton shirts open at the neck, their brawny arms bare above the elbow, with crimes and sorrows and hard living written large across their faces. There was one, a boy in looks, with smooth face and white skin healthily flushed in places like a baby's. His face, too, was hard and set in sternness like a mask, as if life had used him badly; but behind it was a fineness of feature and spirit that could not be utterly hidden. They called him the Kid, and thought it was his youth that made him different from them all, for he was only twenty-four, and not one of the rest was under forty. They were doing their best to help him get over that innate fineness that was his natural inheritance, but although he stopped at nothing, and played his part always with the ease of one old in the ways of the world, yet he kept a quiet reserve about him, a kind of charm beyond which they had not been able to go. He was playing cards with three others at the table when the man came in, and did not look up at the entrance. The woman, white and hopeless, appeared at the door of the shed-room when the man came, and obediently set about getting his supper; but her lifeless face never changed expression. "Brung a gal 'long of me part way," boasted the man, as he flung himself into a seat by the table. "Thought you fellers might like t' see 'er, but she got too high an' mighty fer me, wouldn't take a pull at th' bottle 'ith me, 'n' shrieked like a catamount when I kissed 'er. Found 'er hangin' on th' water-tank. Got off 't th' wrong place. One o' yer highbrows out o' th' parlor car! Good lesson fer 'er!" The Boy looked up from his cards sternly, his keen eyes boring through the man. "Where is she now?" he asked, quietly; and all the men in the room looked up uneasily. There was that tone and accent again that made the Boy alien from them. What was it? The man felt it and snarled his answer angrily. "Dropped 'er on th' trail, an' threw her fine-lady b'longin's after 'er. 'Ain't got no use fer thet kind. Wonder what they was created fer? Ain't no good to nobody, not even 'emselves." And he laughed a harsh cackle that was not pleasant to hear. The Boy threw down his cards and went out, shutting the door. In a few minutes the men heard two horses pass the end of the bunk-house toward the trail, but no one looked up nor spoke. You could not have told by the flicker of an eyelash that they knew where the Boy had gone. She was sitting in the deep shadow of a sage-bush that lay on the edge of the trail like a great blot, her suit-case beside her, her breath coming short with exertion and excitement, when she heard a cheery whistle in the distance. Just an old love-song dating back some years and discarded now as hackneyed even by the street pianos at home; but oh, how good it sounded! From the desert I come to thee! The ground was cold, and struck a chill through her garments as she sat there alone in the night. On came the clear, musical whistle, and she peered out of the shadow with eager eyes and frightened heart. Dared she risk it again? Should she call, or should she hold her breath and keep still, hoping he would pass her by unnoticed? Before she could decide two horses stopped almost in front of her and a rider swung himself down. He stood before her as if it were day and he could see her quite plainly. "You needn't be afraid," he explained, calmly. "I thought I had better look you up after the old man got home and gave his report. He was pretty well tanked up and not exactly a fit escort for ladies. What's the trouble?" Like an angel of deliverance he looked to her as he stood in the starlight, outlined in silhouette against the wide, wonderful sky: broad shoulders, well-set head, close-cropped curls, handsome contour even in the darkness. There was about him an air of quiet strength which gave her confidence. "Oh, thank you!" she gasped, with a quick little relieved sob in her voice. "I am so glad you have come. I was--just a little--frightened, I think." She attempted to rise, but her foot caught in her skirt and she sank wearily back to the sand again. The Boy stooped over and lifted her to her feet. "You certainly are some plucky girl!" he commented, looking down at her slender height as she stood beside him. "A 'little frightened,' were you? Well, I should say you had a right to be." "Well, not exactly frightened, you know," said Margaret, taking a deep breath and trying to steady her voice. "I think perhaps I was more mortified than frightened, to think I made such a blunder as to get off the train before I reached my station. You see, I'd made up my mind not to be frightened, but when I heard that awful howl of some beast--And then that terrible man!" She shuddered and put her hands suddenly over her eyes as if to shut out all memory of it. "More than one kind of beasts!" commented the Boy, briefly. "Well, you needn't worry about him; he's having his supper and he'll be sound asleep by the time we get back." "Oh, have we got to go where he is?" gasped Margaret. "Isn't there some other place? Is Ashland very far away? That is where I am going." "No other place where you could go to-night. Ashland's a good twenty-five miles from here. But you'll be all right. Mom Wallis 'll look out for you. She isn't much of a looker, but she has a kind heart. She pulled me through once when I was just about flickering out. Come on. You'll be pretty tired. We better be getting back. Mom Wallis 'll make you comfortable, and then you can get off good and early in the morning." Without an apology, and as if it were the common courtesy of the desert, he stooped and lifted her easily to the saddle of the second horse, placed the bridle in her hands, then swung the suit-case up on his own horse and sprang into the saddle. CHAPTER III He turned the horses about and took charge of her just as if he were accustomed to managing stray ladies in the wilderness every day of his life and understood the situation perfectly; and Margaret settled wearily into her saddle and looked about her with content. Suddenly, again, the wide wonder of the night possessed her. Involuntarily she breathed a soft little exclamation of awe and delight. Her companion turned to her questioningly: "Does it always seem so big here--so--limitless?" she asked in explanation. "It is so far to everywhere it takes one's breath away, and yet the stars hang close, like a protection. It gives one the feeling of being alone in the great universe with God. Does it always seem so out here?" He looked at her curiously, her pure profile turned up to the wide dome of luminous blue above. His voice was strangely low and wondering as he answered, after a moment's silence: "No, it is not always so," he said. "I have seen it when it was more like being alone in the great universe with the devil." There was a tremendous earnestness in his tone that the girl felt meant more than was on the surface. She turned to look at the fine young face beside her. In the starlight she could not make out the bitter hardness of lines that were beginning to be carved about his sensitive mouth. But there was so much sadness in his voice that her heart went out to him in pity. "Oh," she said, gently, "it would be awful that way. Yes, I can understand. I felt so, a little, while that terrible man was with me." And she shuddered again at the remembrance. Again he gave her that curious look. "There are worse things than Pop Wallis out here," he said, gravely. "But I'll grant you there's some class to the skies. It's a case of 'Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile.'" And with the words his tone grew almost flippant. It hurt her sensitive nature, and without knowing it she half drew away a little farther from him and murmured, sadly: "Oh!" as if he had classed himself with the "man" he had been describing. Instantly he felt her withdrawal and grew grave again, as if he would atone. "Wait till you see this sky at the dawn," he said. "It will burn red fire off there in the east like a hearth in a palace, and all this dome will glow like a great pink jewel set in gold. If you want a classy sky, there you have it! Nothing like it in the East!" There was a strange mingling of culture and roughness in his speech. The girl could not make him out; yet there had been a palpitating earnestness in his description that showed he had felt the dawn in his very soul. "You are--a--poet, perhaps?" she asked, half shyly. "Or an artist?" she hazarded. He laughed roughly and seemed embarrassed. "No, I'm just a--bum! A sort of roughneck out of a job." She was silent, watching him against the starlight, a kind of embarrassment upon her after his last remark. "You--have been here long?" she asked, at last. "Three years." He said it almost curtly and turned his head away, as if there were something in his face he would hide. She knew there was something unhappy in his life. Unconsciously her tone took on a sympathetic sound. "And do you get homesick and want to go back, ever?" she asked. His tone was fairly savage now. "No!" The silence which followed became almost oppressive before the Boy finally turned and in his kindly tone began to question her about the happenings which had stranded her in the desert alone at night. So she came to tell him briefly and frankly about herself, as he questioned--how she came to be in Arizona all alone. "My father is a minister in a small town in New York State. When I finished college I had to do something, and I had an offer of this Ashland school through a friend of ours who had a brother out here. Father and mother would rather have kept me nearer home, of course, but everybody says the best opportunities are in the West, and this was a good opening, so they finally consented. They would send post-haste for me to come back if they knew what a mess I have made of things right at the start--getting out of the train in the desert." "But you're not discouraged?" said her companion, half wonderingly. "Some nerve you have with you. I guess you'll manage to hit it off in Ashland. It's the limit as far as discipline is concerned, I understand, but I guess you'll put one over on them. I'll bank on you after to-night, sure thing!" She turned a laughing face toward him. "Thank you!" she said. "But I don't see how you know all that. I'm sure I didn't do anything particularly nervy. There wasn't anything else to do but what I did, if I'd tried." "Most girls would have fainted and screamed, and fainted again when they were rescued," stated the Boy, out of a vast experience. "I never fainted in my life," said Margaret Earle, with disdain. "I don't think I should care to faint out in the vast universe like this. It would be rather inopportune, I should think." Then, because she suddenly realized that she was growing very chummy with this stranger in the dark, she asked the first question that came into her head. "What was your college?" That he had not been to college never entered her head. There was something in his speech and manner that made it a foregone conclusion. It was as if she had struck him forcibly in his face, so sudden and sharp a silence ensued for a second. Then he answered, gruffly, "Yale," and plunged into an elaborate account of Arizona in its early ages, including a detailed description of the cliff-dwellers and their homes, which were still to be seen high in the rocks of the cañons not many miles to the west of where they were riding. Margaret was keen to hear it all, and asked many questions, declaring her intention of visiting those cliff-caves at her earliest opportunity. It was so wonderful to her to be actually out here where were all sorts of queer things about which she had read and wondered. It did not occur to her, until the next day, to realize that her companion had of intention led her off the topic of himself and kept her from asking any more personal questions. He told her of the petrified forest just over some low hills off to the left; acres and acres of agatized chips and trunks of great trees all turned to eternal stone, called by the Indians "Yeitso's bones," after the great giant of that name whom an ancient Indian hero killed. He described the coloring of the brilliant days in Arizona, where you stand on the edge of some flat-topped mesa and look off through the clear air to mountains that seem quite near by, but are in reality more than two hundred miles away. He pictured the strange colors and lights of the place; ledges of rock, yellow, white and green, drab and maroon, and tumbled piles of red boulders, shadowy buttes in the distance, serrated cliffs against the horizon, not blue, but rosy pink in the heated haze of the air, and perhaps a great, lonely eagle poised above the silent, brilliant waste. He told it not in book language, with turn of phrase and smoothly flowing sentences, but in simple, frank words, as a boy might describe a picture to one he knew would appreciate it--for her sake, and not because he loved to put it into words; but in a new, stumbling way letting out the beauty that had somehow crept into his heart in spite of all the rough attempts to keep all gentle things out of his nature. The girl, as she listened, marveled more and more what manner of youth this might be who had come to her out of the desert night. She forgot her weariness as she listened, in the thrill of wonder over the new mysterious country to which she had come. She forgot that she was riding through the great darkness with an utter stranger, to a place she knew not, and to experiences most dubious. Her fears had fled and she was actually enjoying herself, and responding to the wonderful story of the place with soft-murmured exclamations of delight and wonder. From time to time in the distance there sounded forth those awful blood-curdling howls of wild beasts that she had heard when she sat alone by the water-tank, and each time she heard a shudder passed through her and instinctively she swerved a trifle toward her companion, then straightened up again and tried to seem not to notice. The Boy saw and watched her brave attempts at self-control with deep appreciation. But suddenly, as they rode and talked, a dark form appeared across their way a little ahead, lithe and stealthy and furry, and two awful eyes like green lamps glared for an instant, then disappeared silently among the mesquite bushes. She did not cry out nor start. Her very veins seemed frozen with horror, and she could not have spoken if she tried. It was all over in a second and the creature gone, so that she almost doubted her senses and wondered if she had seen aright. Then one hand went swiftly to her throat and she shrank toward her companion. "There is nothing to fear," he said, reassuringly, and laid a strong hand comfortingly across the neck of her horse. "The pussy-cat was as unwilling for our company as we for hers. Besides, look here!"--and he raised his hand and shot into the air. "She'll not come near us now." "I am not afraid!" said the girl, bravely. "At least, I don't think I am--very! But it's all so new and unexpected, you know. Do people around here always shoot in that--well--unpremeditated fashion?" They laughed together. "Excuse me," he said. "I didn't realize the shot might startle you even more than the wildcat. It seems I'm not fit to have charge of a lady. I told you I was a roughneck." "You're taking care of me beautifully," said Margaret Earle, loyally, "and I'm glad to get used to shots if that's the thing to be expected often." Just then they came to the top of the low, rolling hill, and ahead in the darkness there gleamed a tiny, wizened light set in a blotch of blackness. Under the great white stars it burned a sickly red and seemed out of harmony with the night. "There we are!" said the Boy, pointing toward it. "That's the bunk-house. You needn't be afraid. Pop Wallis 'll be snoring by this time, and we'll come away before he's about in the morning. He always sleeps late after he's been off on a bout. He's been gone three days, selling some cattle, and he'll have a pretty good top on." The girl caught her breath, gave one wistful look up at the wide, starry sky, a furtive glance at the strong face of her protector, and submitted to being lifted down to the ground. Before her loomed the bunk-house, small and mean, built of logs, with only one window in which the flicker of the lanterns menaced, with unknown trials and possible perils for her to meet. CHAPTER IV When Margaret Earle dawned upon that bunk-room the men sat up with one accord, ran their rough, red hands through their rough, tousled hair, smoothed their beards, took down their feet from the benches where they were resting. That was as far as their etiquette led them. Most of them continued to smoke their pipes, and all of them stared at her unreservedly. Such a sight of exquisite feminine beauty had not come to their eyes in many a long day. Even in the dim light of the smoky lanterns, and with the dust and weariness of travel upon her, Margaret Earle was a beautiful girl. "That's what's the matter, father," said her mother, when the subject of Margaret's going West to teach had first been mentioned. "She's too beautiful. Far too beautiful to go among savages! If she were homely and old, now, she might be safe. That would be a different matter." Yet Margaret had prevailed, and was here in the wild country. Now, standing on the threshold of the log cabin, she read, in the unveiled admiration that startled from the eyes of the men, the meaning of her mother's fears. Yet withal it was a kindly admiration not unmixed with awe. For there was about her beauty a touch of the spiritual which set her above the common run of women, making men feel her purity and sweetness, and inclining their hearts to worship rather than be bold. The Boy had been right. Pop Wallis was asleep and out of the way. From a little shed room at one end his snoring marked time in the silence that the advent of the girl made in the place. In the doorway of the kitchen offset Mom Wallis stood with her passionless face--a face from which all emotions had long ago been burned by cruel fires--and looked at the girl, whose expression was vivid with her opening life all haloed in a rosy glow. A kind of wistful contortion passed over Mom Wallis's hopeless countenance, as if she saw before her in all its possibility of perfection the life that she herself had lost. Perhaps it was no longer possible for her features to show tenderness, but a glow of something like it burned in her eyes, though she only turned away with the same old apathetic air, and without a word went about preparing a meal for the stranger. Margaret looked wildly, fearfully, around the rough assemblage when she first entered the long, low room, but instantly the boy introduced her as "the new teacher for the Ridge School beyond the Junction," and these were Long Bill, Big Jim, the Fiddling Boss, Jasper Kemp, Fade-away Forbes, Stocky, Croaker, and Fudge. An inspiration fell upon the frightened girl, and she acknowledged the introduction by a radiant smile, followed by the offering of her small gloved hand. Each man in dumb bewilderment instantly became her slave, and accepted the offered hand with more or less pleasure and embarrassment. The girl proved her right to be called tactful, and, seeing her advantage, followed it up quickly by a few bright words. These men were of an utterly different type from any she had ever met before, but they had in their eyes a kind of homage which Pop Wallis had not shown and they were not repulsive to her. Besides, the Boy was in the background, and her nerve had returned. The Boy knew how a lady should be treated. She was quite ready to "play up" to his lead. It was the Boy who brought the only chair the bunk-house afforded, a rude, home-made affair, and helped her off with her coat and hat in his easy, friendly way, as if he had known her all his life; while the men, to whom such gallant ways were foreign, sat awkwardly by and watched in wonder and amaze. Most of all they were astonished at "the Kid," that he could fall so naturally into intimate talk with this delicate, beautiful woman. She was another of his kind, a creature not made in the same mold as theirs. They saw it now, and watched the fairy play with almost childish interest. Just to hear her call him "Mr. Gardley"!--Lance Gardley, that was what he had told them was his name the day he came among them. They had not heard it since. The Kid! Mr. Gardley! There it was, the difference between them! They looked at the girl half jealously, yet proudly at the Boy. He was theirs--yes, in a way he was theirs--had they not found him in the wilderness, sick and nigh to death, and nursed him back to life again? He was theirs; but he knew how to drop into her world, too, and not be ashamed. They were glad that he could, even while it struck them with a pang that some day he would go back to the world to which he belonged--and where they could never be at home. It was a marvel to watch her eat the coarse corn-bread and pork that Mom Wallis brought her. It might have been a banquet, the pleasant way she seemed to look at it. Just like a bird she tasted it daintily, and smiled, showing her white teeth. There was nothing of the idea of greediness that each man knew he himself felt after a fast. It was all beautiful, the way she handled the two-tined fork and the old steel knife. They watched and dropped their eyes abashed as at a lovely sacrament. They had not felt before that eating could be an art. They did not know what art meant. Such strange talk, too! But the Kid seemed to understand. About the sky--their old, common sky, with stars that they saw every night--making such a fuss about that, with words like "wide," "infinite," "azure," and "gems." Each man went furtively out that night before he slept and took a new look at the sky to see if he could understand. The Boy was planning so the night would be but brief. He knew the girl was afraid. He kept the talk going enthusiastically, drawing in one or two of the men now and again. Long Bill forgot himself and laughed out a hoarse guffaw, then stopped as if he had been choked. Stocky, red in the face, told a funny story when commanded by the Boy, and then dissolved in mortification over his blunders. The Fiddling Boss obediently got down his fiddle from the smoky corner beside the fireplace and played a weird old tune or two, and then they sang. First the men, with hoarse, quavering approach and final roar of wild sweetness; then Margaret and the Boy in duet, and finally Margaret alone, with a few bashful chords on the fiddle, feeling their way as accompaniment. Mom Wallis had long ago stopped her work and was sitting huddled in the doorway on a nail-keg with weary, folded hands and a strange wistfulness on her apathetic face. A fine silence had settled over the group as the girl, recognizing her power, and the pleasure she was giving, sang on. Now and then the Boy, when he knew the song, would join in with his rich tenor. It was a strange night, and when she finally lay down to rest on a hard cot with a questionable-looking blanket for covering and Mom Wallis as her room-mate, Margaret Earle could not help wondering what her mother and father would think now if they could see her. Would they not, perhaps, almost prefer the water-tank and the lonely desert for her to her present surroundings? Nevertheless, she slept soundly after her terrible excitement, and woke with a start of wonder in the early morning, to hear the men outside splashing water and humming or whistling bits of the tunes she had sung to them the night before. Mom Wallis was standing over her, looking down with a hunger in her eyes at the bright waves of Margaret's hair and the soft, sleep-flushed cheeks. "You got dretful purty hair," said Mom Wallis, wistfully. Margaret looked up and smiled in acknowledgment of the compliment. "You wouldn't b'lieve it, but I was young an' purty oncet. Beats all how much it counts to be young--an' purty! But land! It don't last long. Make the most of it while you got it." Browning's immortal words came to Margaret's lips-- Grow old along with me, The best is yet to be, The last of life for which the first was made-- but she checked them just in time and could only smile mutely. How could she speak such thoughts amid these intolerable surroundings? Then with sudden impulse she reached up to the astonished woman and, drawing her down, kissed her sallow cheek. "Oh!" said Mom Wallis, starting back and laying her bony hands upon the place where she had been kissed, as if it hurt her, while a dull red stole up from her neck over her cheeks and high forehead to the roots of her hay-colored hair. All at once she turned her back upon her visitor and the tears of the years streamed down her impassive face. "Don't mind me," she choked, after a minute. "I liked it real good, only it kind of give me a turn." Then, after a second: "It's time t' eat. You c'n wash outside after the men is done." That, thought Margaret, had been the scheme of this woman's whole life--"After the men is done!" So, after all, the night was passed in safety, and a wonderful dawning had come. The blue of the morning, so different from the blue of the night sky, was, nevertheless, just as unfathomable; the air seemed filled with straying star-beams, so sparkling was the clearness of the light. But now a mountain rose in the distance with heliotrope-and-purple bounds to stand across the vision and dispel the illusion of the night that the sky came down to the earth all around like a close-fitting dome. There were mountains on all sides, and a slender, dark line of mesquite set off the more delicate colorings of the plain. Into the morning they rode, Margaret and the Boy, before Pop Wallis was yet awake, while all the other men stood round and watched, eager, jealous for the handshake and the parting smile. They told her they hoped she would come again and sing for them, and each one had an awkward word of parting. Whatever Margaret Earle might do with her school, she had won seven loyal friends in the camp, and she rode away amid their admiring glances, which lingered, too, on the broad shoulders and wide sombrero of her escort riding by her side. "Wal, that's the end o' him, I 'spose," drawled Long Bill, with a deep sigh, as the riders passed into the valley out of their sight. "H'm!" said Jasper Kemp, hungrily. "I reck'n _he_ thinks it's jes' th' beginnin'!" "Maybe so! Maybe so!" said Big Jim, dreamily. The morning was full of wonder for the girl who had come straight from an Eastern city. The view from the top of the mesa, or the cool, dim entrance of a cañon where great ferns fringed and feathered its walls, and strange caves hollowed out in the rocks far above, made real the stories she had read of the cave-dwellers. It was a new world. The Boy was charming. She could not have picked out among her city acquaintances a man who would have done the honors of the desert more delightfully than he. She had thought him handsome in the starlight and in the lantern-light the night before, but now that the morning shone upon him she could not keep from looking at him. His fresh color, which no wind and weather could quite subdue, his gray-blue eyes with that mixture of thoughtfulness and reverence and daring, his crisp, brown curls glinting with gold in the sunlight--all made him good to look upon. There was something about the firm set of his lips and chin that made her feel a hidden strength about him. When they camped a little while for lunch he showed the thoughtfulness and care for her comfort that many an older man might not have had. Even his talk was a mixture of boyishness and experience and he seemed to know her thoughts before she had them fully spoken. "I do not understand it," she said, looking him frankly in the eyes at last. "How ever in the world did one like _you_ get landed among all those dreadful men! Of course, in their way, some of them are not so bad; but they are not like you, not in the least, and never could be." They were riding out upon the plain now in the full afternoon light, and a short time would bring them to her destination. A sad, set look came quickly into the Boy's eyes and his face grew almost hard. "It's an old story. I suppose you've heard it before," he said, and his voice tried to take on a careless note, but failed. "I didn't make good back there"--he waved his hand sharply toward the East--"so I came out here to begin again. But I guess I haven't made good here, either--not in the way I meant when I came." "You can't, you know," said Margaret. "Not here." "Why?" He looked at her earnestly, as if he felt the answer might help him. "Because you have to go back where you didn't make good and pick up the lost opportunities. You can't really make good till you do that _right where you left off_." "But suppose it's too late?" "It's never too late if we're in earnest and not too proud." There was a long silence then, while the Boy looked thoughtfully off at the mountains, and when he spoke again it was to call attention to the beauty of a silver cloud that floated lazily on the horizon. But Margaret Earle had seen the look in his gray eyes and was not deceived. A few minutes later they crossed another mesa and descended to the enterprising little town where the girl was to begin her winter's work. The very houses and streets seemed to rise briskly and hasten to meet them those last few minutes of their ride. Now that the experience was almost over, the girl realized that she had enjoyed it intensely, and that she dreaded inexpressibly that she must bid good-by to this friend of a few hours and face an unknown world. It had been a wonderful day, and now it was almost done. The two looked at each other and realized that their meeting had been an epoch in their lives that neither would soon forget--that neither wanted to forget. CHAPTER V Slower the horses walked, and slower. The voices of the Boy and girl were low when they spoke about the common things by the wayside. Once their eyes met, and they smiled with something both sad and glad in them. Margaret was watching the young man by her side and wondering at herself. He was different from any man whose life had come near to hers before. He was wild and worldly, she could see that, and unrestrained by many of the things that were vital principles with her, and yet she felt strangely drawn to him and wonderfully at home in his company. She could not understand herself nor him. It was as if his real soul had looked out of his eyes and spoken, untrammeled by the circumstances of birth or breeding or habit, and she knew him for a kindred spirit. And yet he was far from being one in whom she would have expected even to find a friend. Where was her confidence of yesterday? Why was it that she dreaded to have this strong young protector leave her to meet alone a world of strangers, whom yesterday at this time she would have gladly welcomed? Now, when his face grew thoughtful and sad, she saw the hard, bitter lines that were beginning to be graven about his lips, and her heart ached over what he had said about not making good. She wondered if there was anything else she could say to help him, but no words came to her, and the sad, set look about his lips warned her that perhaps she had said enough. He was not one who needed a long dissertation to bring a thought home to his consciousness. Gravely they rode to the station to see about Margaret's trunks and make inquiries for the school and the house where she had arranged to board. Then Margaret sent a telegram to her mother to say that she had arrived safely, and so, when all was done and there was no longer an excuse for lingering, the Boy realized that he must leave her. They stood alone for just a moment while the voluble landlady went to attend to something that was boiling over on the stove. It was an ugly little parlor that was to be her reception-room for the next year at least, with red-and-green ingrain carpet of ancient pattern, hideous chromos on the walls, and frantically common furniture setting up in its shining varnish to be pretentious; but the girl had not seen it yet. She was filled with a great homesickness that had not possessed her even when she said good-by to her dear ones at home. She suddenly realized that the people with whom she was to be thrown were of another world from hers, and this one friend whom she had found in the desert was leaving her. She tried to shake hands formally and tell him how grateful she was to him for rescuing her from the perils of the night, but somehow words seemed so inadequate, and tears kept crowding their way into her throat and eyes. Absurd it was, and he a stranger twenty hours before, and a man of other ways than hers, besides. Yet he was her friend and rescuer. She spoke her thanks as well as she could, and then looked up, a swift, timid glance, and found his eyes upon her earnestly and troubled. "Don't thank me," he said, huskily. "I guess it was the best thing I ever did, finding you. I sha'n't forget, even if you never let me see you again--and--I hope you will." His eyes searched hers wistfully. "Of course," she said. "Why not?" "I thank you," he said in quaint, courtly fashion, bending low over her hand. "I shall try to be worthy of the honor." And so saying, he left her and, mounting his horse, rode away into the lengthening shadows of the afternoon. She stood in the forlorn little room staring out of the window after her late companion, a sense of utter desolation upon her. For the moment all her brave hopes of the future had fled, and if she could have slipped unobserved out of the front door, down to the station, and boarded some waiting express to her home, she would gladly have done it then and there. Try as she would to summon her former reasons for coming to this wild, she could not think of one of them, and her eyes were very near to tears. But Margaret Earle was not given to tears, and as she felt them smart beneath her lids she turned in a panic to prevent them. She could not afford to cry now. Mrs. Tanner would be returning, and she must not find the "new schoolma'am" weeping. With a glance she swept the meager, pretentious room, and then, suddenly, became aware of other presences. In the doorway stood a man and a dog, both regarding her intently with open surprise, not unmixed with open appraisement and a marked degree of admiration. The man was of medium height, slight, with a putty complexion; cold, pale-blue eyes; pale, straw-colored hair, and a look of self-indulgence around his rather weak mouth. He was dressed in a city business suit of the latest cut, however, and looked as much out of place in that crude little house as did Margaret Earle herself in her simple gown of dark-blue crêpe and her undeniable air of style and good taste. His eyes, as they regarded her, had in them a smile that the girl instinctively resented. Was it a shade too possessive and complacently sure for a stranger? The dog, a large collie, had great, liquid, brown eyes, menacing or loyal, as circumstances dictated, and regarded her with an air of brief indecision. She felt she was being weighed in the balance by both pairs of eyes. Of the two the girl preferred the dog. Perhaps the dog understood, for he came a pace nearer and waved his plumy tail tentatively. For the dog she felt a glow of friendliness at once, but for the man she suddenly, and most unreasonably, of course, conceived one of her violent and unexpected dislikes. Into this tableau bustled Mrs. Tanner. "Well, now, I didn't go to leave you by your lonesome all this time," she apologized, wiping her hands on her apron, "but them beans boiled clean over, and I hed to put 'em in a bigger kettle. You see, I put in more beans 'count o' you bein' here, an' I ain't uset to calca'latin' on two extry." She looked happily from the man to the girl and back again. "Mr. West, I 'spose, o' course, you interjuced yerself? Bein' a preacher, you don't hev to stan' on ceremony like the rest of mankind. You 'ain't? Well, let me hev the pleasure of interjucin' our new school-teacher, Miss Margaret Earle. I 'spect you two 'll be awful chummy right at the start, both bein' from the East that way, an' both hevin' ben to college." Margaret Earle acknowledged the bow with a cool little inclination of her head. She wondered why she didn't hate the garrulous woman who rattled on in this happy, take-it-for-granted way; but there was something so innocently pleased in her manner that she couldn't help putting all her wrath on the smiling man who came forward instantly with a low bow and a voice of fulsome flattery. "Indeed, Miss Earle, I assure you I am happily surprised. I am sure Mrs. Tanner's prophecy will come true and we shall be the best of friends. When they told me the new teacher was to board here I really hesitated. I have seen something of these Western teachers in my time, and scarcely thought I should find you congenial; but I can see at a glance that you are the exception to the rule." He presented a soft, unmanly white hand, and there was nothing to do but take it or seem rude to her hostess; but her manner was like icicles, and she was thankful she had not yet removed her gloves. If the reverend gentleman thought he was to enjoy a lingering hand-clasp he was mistaken, for the gloved finger-tips merely touched his hand and were withdrawn, and the girl turned to her hostess with a smile of finality as if he were dismissed. He did not seem disposed to take the hint and withdraw, however, until on a sudden the great dog came and stood between them with open-mouthed welcome and joyous greeting in the plumy, wagging tail. He pushed close to her and looked up into her face insistently, his hanging pink tongue and wide, smiling countenance proclaiming that he was satisfied with his investigation. Margaret looked down at him, and then stooped and put her arms about his neck. Something in his kindly dog expression made her feel suddenly as if she had a real friend. It seemed the man, however, did not like the situation. He kicked gingerly at the dog's hind legs, and said in a harsh voice: "Get out of the way, sir. You're annoying the lady. Get out, I say!" The dog, however, uttered a low growl and merely showed the whites of his menacing eyes at the man, turning his body slightly so that he stood across the lady's way protectingly, as if to keep the man from her. Margaret smiled at the dog and laid her hand on his head, as if to signify her acceptance of the friendship he had offered her, and he waved his plume once more and attended her from the room, neither of them giving further attention to the man. "Confound that dog!" said Rev. Frederick West, in a most unpreacher-like tone, as he walked to the window and looked out. Then to himself he mused: "A pretty girl. A _very pretty_ girl. I really think it'll be worth my while to stay a month at least." Up in her room the "very pretty girl" was unpacking her suit-case and struggling with the tears. Not since she was a wee little girl and went to school all alone for the first time had she felt so very forlorn, and it was the little bare bedroom that had done it. At least that had been the final straw that had made too great the burden of keeping down those threatening tears. It was only a bare, plain room with unfinished walls, rough woodwork, a cheap wooden bed, a bureau with a warped looking-glass, and on the floor was a braided rug of rags. A little wooden rocker, another small, straight wooden chair, a hanging wall-pocket decorated with purple roses, a hanging bookshelf composed of three thin boards strung together with maroon picture cord, a violently colored picture-card of "Moses in the Bulrushes" framed in straws and red worsted, and bright-blue paper shades at the windows. That was the room! How different from her room at home, simply and sweetly finished anew for her home-coming from college! It rose before her homesick vision now. Soft gray walls, rose-colored ceiling, blended by a wreath of exquisite wild roses, whose pattern was repeated in the border of the simple curtains and chair cushions, white-enamel furniture, pretty brass bed soft as down in its luxurious mattress, spotless and inviting always. She glanced at the humpy bed with its fringed gray spread and lumpy-looking pillows in dismay. She had not thought of little discomforts like that, yet how they loomed upon her weary vision now! The tiny wooden stand with its thick, white crockery seemed ill substitute for the dainty white bath-room at home. She had known she would not have her home luxuries, of course, but she had not realized until set down amid these barren surroundings what a difference they would make. Going to the window and looking out, she saw for the first tune the one luxury the little room possessed--a view! And such a view! Wide and wonderful and far it stretched, in colors unmatched by painter's brush, a purple mountain topped by rosy clouds in the distance. For the second time in Arizona her soul was lifted suddenly out of itself and its dismay by a vision of the things that God has made and the largeness of it all. CHAPTER VI For some time she stood and gazed, marveling at the beauty and recalling some of the things her companion of the afternoon had said about his impressions of the place; then suddenly there loomed a dark speck in the near foreground of her meditation, and, looking down annoyed, she discovered the minister like a gnat between the eye and a grand spectacle, his face turned admiringly up to her window, his hand lifted in familiar greeting. Vexed at his familiarity, she turned quickly and jerked down the shade; then throwing herself on the bed, she had a good cry. Her nerves were terribly wrought up. Things seemed twisted in her mind, and she felt that she had reached the limit of her endurance. Here was she, Margaret Earle, newly elected teacher to the Ashland Ridge School, lying on her bed in tears, when she ought to be getting settled and planning her new life; when the situation demanded her best attention she was wrought up over a foolish little personal dislike. Why did she have to dislike a minister, anyway, and then take to a wild young fellow whose life thus far had been anything but satisfactory even to himself? Was it her perverse nature that caused her to remember the look in the eyes of the Boy who had rescued her from a night in the wilderness, and to feel there was far more manliness in his face than in the face of the man whose profession surely would lead one to suppose he was more worthy of her respect and interest? Well, she was tired. Perhaps things would assume their normal relation to one another in the morning. And so, after a few minutes, she bathed her face in the little, heavy, iron-stone wash-bowl, combed her hair, and freshened the collar and ruffles in her sleeves preparatory to going down for the evening meal. Then, with a swift thought, she searched through her suit-case for every available article wherewith to brighten that forlorn room. The dainty dressing-case of Dresden silk with rosy ribbons that her girl friends at home had given as a parting gift covered a generous portion of the pine bureau, and when she had spread it out and bestowed its silver-mounted brushes, combs, hand-glass, and pretty sachet, things seemed to brighten up a bit. She hung up a cobweb of a lace boudoir cap with its rose-colored ribbons over the bleary mirror, threw her kimono of flowered challis over the back of the rocker, arranged her soap and toothbrush, her own wash-rag and a towel brought from home on the wash-stand, and somehow felt better and more as if she belonged. Last she ranged her precious photographs of father and mother and the dear vine-covered church and manse across in front of the mirror. When her trunks came there would be other things, and she could bear it, perhaps, when she had this room buried deep in the home belongings. But this would have to do for to-night, for the trunk might not come till morning, and, anyhow, she was too weary to unpack. She ventured one more look out of her window, peering carefully at first to make sure her fellow-boarder was not still standing down below on the grass. A pang of compunction shot through her conscience. What would her dear father think of her feeling this way toward a minister, and before she knew the first thing about him, too? It was dreadful! She must shake it off. Of course he was a good man or he wouldn't be in the ministry, and she had doubtless mistaken mere friendliness for forwardness. She would forget it and try to go down and behave to him the way her father would want her to behave toward a fellow-minister. Cautiously she raised the shade again and looked out. The mountain was bathed in a wonderful ruby light fading into amethyst, and all the path between was many-colored like a pavement of jewels set in filigree. While she looked the picture changed, glowed, softened, and changed again, making her think of the chapter about the Holy City in Revelation. She started at last when some one knocked hesitatingly on the door, for the wonderful sunset light had made her forget for the moment where she was, and it seemed a desecration to have mere mortals step in and announce supper, although the odor of pork and cabbage had been proclaiming it dumbly for some time. She went to the door, and, opening it, found a dark figure standing in the hall. For a minute she half feared it was the minister, until a shy, reluctant backwardness in the whole stocky figure and the stirring of a large furry creature just behind him made her sure it was not. "Ma says you're to come to supper," said a gruff, untamed voice; and Margaret perceived that the person in the gathering gloom of the hall was a boy. "Oh!" said Margaret, with relief in her voice. "Thank you for coming to tell me. I meant to come down and not give that trouble, but I got to looking at the wonderful sunset. Have you been watching it?" She pointed across the room to the window. "Look! Isn't that a great color there on the tip of the mountain? I never saw anything like that at home. I suppose you're used to it, though." The boy came a step nearer the door and looked blankly, half wonderingly, across at the window, as if he expected to see some phenomenon. "Oh! _That!_" he exclaimed, carelessly. "Sure! We have them all the time." "But that wonderful silver light pouring down just in that one tiny spot!" exclaimed Margaret. "It makes the mountain seem alive and smiling!" The boy turned and looked at her curiously. "Gee!" said he, "I c'n show you plenty like that!" But he turned and looked at it a long, lingering minute again. "But we mustn't keep your mother waiting," said Margaret, remembering and turning reluctantly toward the door. "Is this your dog? Isn't he a beauty? He made me feel really as if he were glad to see me." She stooped and laid her hand on the dog's head and smiled brightly up at his master. The boy's face lit with a smile, and he turned a keen, appreciative look at the new teacher, for the first time genuinely interested in her. "Cap's a good old scout," he admitted. "So his name is Cap. Is that short for anything?" "Cap'n." "Captain. What a good name for him. He looks as if he were a captain, and he waves that tail grandly, almost as if it might be a badge of office. But who are you? You haven't told me your name yet. Are you Mrs. Tanner's son?" The boy nodded. "I'm just Bud Tanner." "Then you are one of my pupils, aren't you? We must shake hands on that." She put out her hand, but she was forced to go out after Bud's reluctant red fist, take it by force in a strange grasp, and do all the shaking; for Bud had never had that experience before in his life, and he emerged from it with a very red face and a feeling as if his right arm had been somehow lifted out of the same class with the rest of his body. It was rather awful, too, that it happened just in the open dining-room door, and that "preacher-boarder" watched the whole performance. Bud put on an extra-deep frown and shuffled away from the teacher, making a great show of putting Cap out of the dining-room, though he always sat behind his master's chair at meals, much to the discomfiture of the male boarder, who was slightly in awe of his dogship, not having been admitted into friendship as the lady had been. Mr. West stood back of his chair, awaiting the arrival of the new boarder, an expectant smile on his face, and rubbing his hands together with much the same effect as a wolf licking his lips in anticipation of a victim. In spite of her resolves to like the man, Margaret was again struck with aversion as she saw him standing there, and was intensely relieved when she found that the seat assigned to her was on the opposite side of the table from him, and beside Bud. West, however, did not seem to be pleased with the arrangement, and, stepping around the table, said to his landlady: "Did you mean me to sit over here?" and he placed a possessive hand on the back of the chair that was meant for Bud. "No, Mister West, you jest set where you ben settin'," responded Mrs. Tanner. She had thought the matter all out and decided that the minister could converse with the teacher to the better advantage of the whole table if he sat across from her. Mrs. Tanner was a born match-maker. This she felt was an opportunity not to be despised, even if it sometime robbed the Ridge School of a desirable teacher. But West did not immediately return to his place at the other side of the table. To Margaret's extreme annoyance he drew her chair and waited for her to sit down. The situation, however, was somewhat relieved of its intimacy by a sudden interference from Cap, who darted away from his frowning master and stepped up authoritatively to the minister's side with a low growl, as if to say: "Hands off that chair! That doesn't belong to you!" West suddenly released his hold on the chair without waiting to shove it up to the table, and precipitately retired to his own place. "That dog's a nuisance!" he said, testily, and was answered with a glare from Bud's dark eyes. Bud came to his seat with his eyes still set savagely on the minister, and Cap settled down protectingly behind Margaret's chair. Mrs. Tanner bustled in with the coffee-pot, and Mr. Tanner came last, having just finished his rather elaborate hair-comb at the kitchen glass with the kitchen comb, in full view of the assembled multitude. He was a little, thin, wiry, weather-beaten man, with skin like leather and sparse hair. Some of his teeth were missing, leaving deep hollows in his cheeks, and his kindly protruding chin was covered with scraggy gray whiskers, which stuck out ahead of him like a cow-catcher. He was in his shirt-sleeves and collarless, but looked neat and clean, and he greeted the new guest heartily before he sat down, and nodded to the minister: "Naow, Brother West, I reckon we're ready fer your part o' the performance. You'll please to say grace." Mr. West bowed his sleek, yellow head and muttered a formal blessing with an offhand manner, as if it were a mere ceremony. Bud stared contemptuously at him the while, and Cap uttered a low rumble as of a distant growl. Margaret felt a sudden desire to laugh, and tried to control herself, wondering what her father would feel about it all. The genial clatter of knives and forks broke the stiffness after the blessing. Mrs. Tanner bustled back and forth from the stove to the table, talking clamorously the while. Mr. Tanner joined in with his flat, nasal twang, responding, and the minister, with an air of utter contempt for them both, endeavored to set up a separate and altogether private conversation with Margaret across the narrow table; but Margaret innocently had begun a conversation with Bud about the school, and had to be addressed by name each time before Mr. West could get her attention. Bud, with a boy's keenness, noticed her aversion, and put aside his own backwardness, entering into the contest with remarkably voluble replies. The minister, if he would be in the talk at all, was forced to join in with theirs, and found himself worsted and contradicted by the boy at every turn. Strange to say, however, this state of things only served to make the man more eager to talk with the lady. She was not anxious for his attention. Ah! She was coy, and the acquaintance was to have the zest of being no lightly won friendship. All the better. He watched her as she talked, noted every charm of lash and lid and curving lip; stared so continually that she finally gave up looking his way at all, even when she was obliged to answer his questions. Thus, at last, the first meal in the new home was concluded, and Margaret, pleading excessive weariness, went to her room. She felt as if she could not endure another half-hour of contact with her present world until she had had some rest. If the world had been just Bud and the dog she could have stayed below stairs and found out a little more about the new life; but with that oily-mouthed minister continually butting in her soul was in a tumult. When she had prepared for rest she put out her light and drew up the shade. There before her spread the wide wonder of the heavens again, with the soft purple of the mountain under stars; and she was carried back to the experience of the night before with a vivid memory of her companion. Why, just _why_ couldn't she be as interested in the minister down there as in the wild young man? Well, she was too tired to-night to analyze it all, and she knelt beside her window in the starlight to pray. As she prayed her thoughts were on Lance Gardley once more, and she felt her heart go out in longing for him, that he might find a way to "make good," whatever his trouble had been. As she rose to retire she heard a step below, and, looking down, saw the minister stalking back and forth in the yard, his hands clasped behind, his head thrown back raptly. He could not see her in her dark room, but she pulled the shade down softly and fled to her hard little bed. Was that man going to obsess her vision everywhere, and must she try to like him just because he was a minister? So at last she fell asleep. CHAPTER VII The next day was filled with unpacking and with writing letters home. By dint of being very busy Margaret managed to forget the minister, who seemed to obtrude himself at every possible turn of the day, and would have monopolized her if she had given him half a chance. The trunks, two delightful steamer ones, and a big packing-box with her books, arrived the next morning and caused great excitement in the household. Not since they moved into the new house had they seen so many things arrive. Bud helped carry them up-stairs, while Cap ran wildly back and forth, giving sharp barks, and the minister stood by the front door and gave ineffectual and unpractical advice to the man who had brought them. Margaret heard the man and Bud exchanging their opinion of West in low growls in the hall as they entered her door, and she couldn't help feeling that she agreed with them, though she might not have expressed her opinion in the same terms. The minister tapped at her door a little later and offered his services in opening her box and unstrapping her trunks; but she told him Bud had already performed that service for her, and thanked him with a finality that forbade him to linger. She half hoped he heard the vicious little click with which she locked the door after him, and then wondered if she were wicked to feel that way. But all such compunctions were presently forgotten in the work of making over her room. The trunks, after they were unpacked and repacked with the things she would not need at once, were disposed in front of the two windows with which the ugly little room was blessed. She covered them with two Bagdad rugs, relics of her college days, and piled several college pillows from the packing-box on each, which made the room instantly assume a homelike air. Then out of the box came other things. Framed pictures of home scenes, college friends and places, pennants, and flags from football, baseball, and basket-ball games she had attended; photographs; a few prints of rare paintings simply framed; a roll of rose-bordered white scrim like her curtains at home, wherewith she transformed the blue-shaded windows and the stiff little wooden rocker, and even made a valance and bed-cover over pink cambric for her bed. The bureau and wash-stand were given pink and white covers, and the ugly walls literally disappeared beneath pictures, pennants, banners, and symbols. When Bud came up to call her to dinner she flung the door open, and he paused in wide-eyed amazement over the transformation. His eyes kindled at a pair of golf-sticks, a hockey-stick, a tennis-racket, and a big basket-ball in the corner; and his whole look of surprise was so ridiculous that she had to laugh. He looked as if a miracle had been performed on the room, and actually stepped back into the hall to get his breath and be sure he was still in his father's house. "I want you to come in and see all my pictures and get acquainted with my friends when you have time," she said. "I wonder if you could make some more shelves for my books and help me unpack and set them up?" "Sure!" gasped Bud, heartily, albeit with awe. She hadn't asked the minister; she had asked _him_--_Bud!_ Just a boy! He looked around the room with anticipation. What wonder and delight he would have looking at all those things! Then Cap stepped into the middle of the room as if he belonged, mouth open, tongue lolling, smiling and panting a hearty approval, as he looked about at the strangeness for all the world as a human being might have done. It was plain he was pleased with the change. There was a proprietary air about Bud during dinner that was pleasant to Margaret and most annoying to West. It was plain that West looked on the boy as an upstart whom Miss Earle was using for the present to block his approach, and he was growing most impatient over the delay. He suggested that perhaps she would like his escort to see something of her surroundings that afternoon; but she smilingly told him that she would be very busy all the afternoon getting settled, and when he offered again to help her she cast a dazzling smile on Bud and said she didn't think she would need any more help, that Bud was going to do a few things for her, and that was all that was necessary. Bud straightened up and became two inches taller. He passed the bread, suggested two pieces of pie, and filled her glass of water as if she were his partner. Mr. Tanner beamed to see his son in high favor, but Mrs. Tanner looked a little troubled for the minister. She thought things weren't just progressing as fast as they ought to between him and the teacher. Bud, with Margaret's instructions, managed to make a very creditable bookcase out of the packing-box sawed in half, the pieces set side by side. She covered them deftly with green burlap left over from college days, like her other supplies, and then the two arranged the books. Bud was delighted over the prospect of reading some of the books, for they were not all school-books, by any means, and she had brought plenty of them to keep her from being lonesome on days when she longed to fly back to her home. At last the work was done, and they stood back to survey it. The books filled up every speck of space and overflowed to the three little hanging shelves over them; but they were all squeezed in at last except a pile of school-books that were saved out to take to the school-house. Margaret set a tiny vase on the top of one part of the packing-case and a small brass bowl on the top of the other, and Bud, after a knowing glance, scurried away for a few minutes and brought back a handful of gorgeous cactus blossoms to give the final touch. "Gee!" he said, admiringly, looking around the room. "Gee! You wouldn't know it fer the same place!" That evening after supper Margaret sat down to write a long letter home. She had written a brief letter, of course, the night before, but had been too weary to go into detail. The letter read: DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER,--I'm unpacked and settled at last in my room, and now I can't stand it another minute till I talk to you. Last night, of course, I was pretty homesick, things all looked so strange and new and different. I had known they would, but then I didn't realize at all how different they would be. But I'm not getting homesick already; don't think it. I'm not a bit sorry I came, or at least I sha'n't be when I get started in school. One of the scholars is Mrs. Tanner's son, and I like him. He's crude, of course, but he has a brain, and he's been helping me this afternoon. We made a bookcase for my books, and it looks fine. I wish you could see it. I covered it with the green burlap, and the books look real happy in smiling rows over on the other side of the room. Bud Tanner got me some wonderful cactus blossoms for my brass bowl. I wish I could send you some. They are gorgeous! But you will want me to tell about my arrival. Well, to begin with, I was late getting here [Margaret had decided to leave out the incident of the desert altogether, for she knew by experience that her mother would suffer terrors all during her absence if she once heard of that wild adventure], which accounts for the lateness of the telegram I sent you. I hope its delay didn't make you worry any. A very nice young man named Mr. Gardley piloted me to Mrs. Tanner's house and looked after my trunks for me. He is from the East. It was fortunate for me that he happened along, for he was most kind and gentlemanly and helpful. Tell Jane not to worry lest I'll fall in love with him; he doesn't live here. He belongs to a ranch or camp or something twenty-five miles away. She was so afraid I'd fall in love with an Arizona man and not come back home. Mrs. Tanner is very kind and motherly according to her lights. She has given me the best room in the house, and she talks a blue streak. She has thin, brown hair turning gray, and she wears it in a funny little knob on the tip-top of her round head to correspond with the funny little tuft of hair on her husband's protruding chin. Her head is set on her neck like a clothes-pin, only she is squattier than a clothes-pin. She always wears her sleeves rolled up (at least so far she has) and she always bustles around noisily and apologizes for everything in the jolliest sort of way. I would like her, I guess, if it wasn't for the other boarder; but she has quite made up her mind that I shall like him, and I don't, of course, so she is a bit disappointed in me so far. Mr. Tanner is very kind and funny, and looks something like a jack-knife with the blades half-open. He never disagrees with Mrs. Tanner, and I really believe he's in love with her yet, though they must have been married a good while. He calls her "Ma," and seems restless unless she's in the room. When she goes out to the kitchen to get some more soup or hash or bring in the pie, he shouts remarks at her all the time she's gone, and she answers, utterly regardless of the conversation the rest of the family are carrying on. It's like a phonograph wound up for the day. Bud Tanner is about fourteen, and I like him. He's well developed, strong, and almost handsome; at least he would be if he were fixed up a little. He has fine, dark eyes and a great shock of dark hair. He and I are friends already. And so is the dog. The dog is a peach! Excuse me, mother, but I just must use a little of the dear old college slang somewhere, and your letters are the only safety-valve, for I'm a schoolmarm now and must talk "good and proper" all the time, you know. The dog's name is Captain, and he looks the part. He has constituted himself my bodyguard, and it's going to be very nice having him. He's perfectly devoted already. He's a great, big, fluffy fellow with keen, intelligent eyes, sensitive ears, and a tail like a spreading plume. You'd love him, I know. He has a smile like the morning sunshine. And now I come to the only other member of the family, the boarder, and I hesitate to approach the topic, because I have taken one of my violent and naughty dislikes to him, and--awful thought--mother! father! _he's a minister!_ Yes, he's a _Presbyterian minister_! I know it will make you feel dreadfully, and I thought some of not telling you, but my conscience hurt me so I had to. I just can't _bear_ him, so there! Of course, I may get over it, but I don't see how ever, for I can't think of anything that's more like him than _soft soap_! Oh yes, there is one other word. Grandmother used to use it about men she hadn't any use for, and that was "squash." Mother, I can't help it, but he does seem something like a squash. One of that crook-necked, yellow kind with warts all over it, and a great, big, splurgy vine behind it to account for its being there at all. Insipid and thready when it's cooked, you know, and has to have a lot of salt and pepper and butter to make it go down at all. Now I've told you the worst, and I'll try to describe him and see what you think I'd better do about it. Oh, he isn't the regular minister here, or missionary--I guess they call him. He's located quite a distance off, and only comes once a month to preach here, and, anyhow, _he's_ gone East now to take his wife to a hospital for an operation, and won't be back for a couple of months, perhaps, and this man isn't even taking his place. He's just here for his health or for fun or something, I guess. He says he had a large suburban church near New York, and had a nervous breakdown; but I've been wondering if he didn't make a mistake, and it wasn't the church had the nervous breakdown instead. He isn't very big nor very little; he's just insignificant. His hair is like wet straw, and his eyes like a fish's. His hand feels like a dead toad when you have to shake hands, which I'm thankful doesn't have to be done but once. He looks at you with a flat, sickening grin. He has an acquired double chin, acquired to make him look pompous, and he dresses stylishly and speaks of the inhabitants of this country with contempt. He wants to be very affable, and offers to take me to all sorts of places, but so far I've avoided him. I can't think how they ever came to let him be a minister--I really can't! And yet, I suppose it's all my horrid old prejudice, and father will be grieved and you will think I am perverse. But, really, I'm sure he's not one bit like father was when he was young. I never saw a minister like him. Perhaps I'll get over it. I do sometimes, you know, so don't begin to worry yet. I'll try real hard. I suppose he'll preach Sunday, and then, perhaps, his sermon will be grand and I'll forget how soft-soapy he looks and think only of his great thoughts. But I know it will be a sort of comfort to you to know that there is a Presbyterian minister in the house with me, and I'll really try to like him if I can. There's nothing to complain of in the board. It isn't luxurious, of course, but I didn't expect that. Everything is very plain, but Mrs. Tanner manages to make it taste good. She makes fine corn-bread, almost as good as yours--not quite. My room is all lovely, now that I have covered its bareness with my own things, but it has one great thing that can't compare with anything at home, and that is its view. It is wonderful! I wish I could make you see it. There is a mountain at the end of it that has as many different garments as a queen. To-night, when sunset came, it grew filmy as if a gauze of many colors had dropped upon it and melted into it, and glowed and melted until it turned to slate blue under the wide, starred blue of the wonderful night sky, and all the dark about was velvet. Last night my mountain was all pink and silver, and I have seen it purple and rose. But you can't think the wideness of the sky, and I couldn't paint it for you with words. You must see it to understand. A great, wide, dark sapphire floor just simply ravished with stars like big jewels! But I must stop and go to bed, for I find the air of this country makes me very sleepy, and my wicked little kerosene-lamp is smoking. I guess you would better send me my student-lamp, after all, for I'm surely going to need it. Now I must turn out the light and say good night to my mountain, and then I will go to sleep thinking of you. Don't worry about the minister. I'm very polite to him, but I shall never--_no, never_--fall in love with _him_--tell Jane. Your loving little girl, MARGARET. CHAPTER VIII Margaret had arranged with Bud to take her to the school-house the next morning, and he had promised to have a horse hitched up and ready at ten o'clock, as it seemed the school was a magnificent distance from her boarding-place. In fact, everything seemed to be located with a view to being as far from everywhere else as possible. Even the town was scattering and widespread and sparse. When she came down to breakfast she was disappointed to find that Bud was not there, and she was obliged to suffer a breakfast tête-à-tête with West. By dint, however, of asking him questions instead of allowing him to take the initiative, she hurried through her breakfast quite successfully, acquiring a superficial knowledge of her fellow-boarder quite distant and satisfactory. She knew where he spent his college days and at what theological seminary he had prepared for the ministry. He had served three years in a prosperous church of a fat little suburb of New York, and was taking a winter off from his severe, strenuous pastoral labors to recuperate his strength, get a new stock of sermons ready, and possibly to write a book of some of his experiences. He flattened his weak, pink chin learnedly as he said this, and tried to look at her impressively. He said that he should probably take a large city church as his next pastorate when his health was fully recuperated. He had come out to study the West and enjoy its freedom, as he understood it was a good place to rest and do as you please unhampered by what people thought. He wanted to get as far away from churches and things clerical as possible. He felt it was due himself and his work that he should. He spoke of the people he had met in Arizona as a kind of tamed savages, and Mrs. Tanner, sitting behind her coffee-pot for a moment between bustles, heard his comments meekly and looked at him with awe. What a great man he must be, and how fortunate for the new teacher that he should be there when she came! Margaret drew a breath of relief as she hurried away from the breakfast-table to her room. She was really anticipating the ride to the school with Bud. She liked boys, and Bud had taken her fancy. But when she came down-stairs with her hat and sweater on she found West standing out in front, holding the horse. "Bud had to go in another direction, Miss Earle," he said, touching his hat gracefully, "and he has delegated to me the pleasant task of driving you to the school." Dismay filled Margaret's soul, and rage with young Bud. He had deserted her and left her in the hands of the enemy! And she had thought he understood! Well, there was nothing for it but to go with this man, much as she disliked it. Her father's daughter could not be rude to a minister. She climbed into the buckboard quickly to get the ceremony over, for her escort was inclined to be too officious about helping her in, and somehow she couldn't bear to have him touch her. Why was it that she felt so about him? Of course he must be a good man. West made a serious mistake at the very outset of that ride. He took it for granted that all girls like flattery, and he proceeded to try it on Margaret. But Margaret did not enjoy being told how delighted he was to find that instead of the loud, bold "old maid" he had expected, she had turned out to be "so beautiful and young and altogether congenial"; and, coolly ignoring his compliments, she began a fire of questions again. She asked about the country, because that was the most obvious topic of conversation. What plants were those that grew by the wayside? She found he knew greasewood from sage-brush, and that was about all. To some of her questions he hazarded answers that were absurd in the light of the explanations given her by Gardley two days before. However, she reflected that he had been in the country but a short time, and that he was by nature a man not interested in such topics. She tried religious matters, thinking that here at least they must have common interests. She asked him what he thought of Christianity in the West as compared with the East. Did he find these Western people more alive and awake to the things of the Kingdom? West gave a startled look at the clear profile of the young woman beside him, thought he perceived that she was testing him on his clerical side, flattened his chin in his most learned, self-conscious manner, cleared his throat, and put on wisdom. "Well, now, Miss Earle," he began, condescendingly, "I really don't know that I have thought much about the matter. Ah--you know I have been resting absolutely, and I really haven't had opportunity to study the situation out here in detail; but, on the whole, I should say that everything was decidedly primitive; yes--ah--I might say--ah--well, crude. Yes, _crude_ in the extreme! Why, take it in this mission district. The missionary who is in charge seems to be teaching the most absurd of the old dogmas such as our forefathers used to teach. I haven't met him, of course. He is in the East with his wife for a time. I am told she had to go under some kind of an operation. I have never met him, and really don't care to do so; but to judge from all I hear, he is a most unfit man for a position of the kind. For example, he is teaching such exploded doctrines as the old view of the atonement, the infallibility of the Scriptures, the deity of Christ, belief in miracles, and the like. Of course, in one sense it really matters very little what the poor Indians believe, or what such people as the Tanners are taught. They have but little mind, and would scarcely know the difference; but you can readily see that with such a primitive, unenlightened man at the head of religious affairs, there could scarcely be much broadening and real religious growth. Ignorance, of course, holds sway out here. I fancy you will find that to be the case soon enough. What in the world ever led you to come to a field like this to labor? Surely there must have been many more congenial places open to such as you." He leaned forward and cast a sentimental glance at her, his eyes looking more "fishy" than ever. "I came out here because I wanted to get acquainted with this great country, and because I thought there was an opportunity to do good," said Margaret, coldly. She did not care to discuss her own affairs with this man. "But, Mr. West, I don't know that I altogether understand you. Didn't you tell me that you were a Presbyterian minister?" "I certainly did," he answered, complacently, as though he were honoring the whole great body of Presbyterians by making the statement. "Well, then, what in the world did you mean? All Presbyterians, of course, believe in the infallibility of the Scriptures and the deity of Jesus--and the atonement!" "Not necessarily," answered the young man, loftily. "You will find, my dear young lady, that there is a wide, growing feeling in our church in favor of a broader view. The younger men, and the great student body of our church, have thrown to the winds all their former beliefs and are ready to accept new light with open minds. The findings of science have opened up a vast store of knowledge, and all thinking men must acknowledge that the old dogmas are rapidly vanishing away. Your father doubtless still holds to the old faith, perhaps, and we must be lenient with the older men who have done the best they could with the light they had; but all younger, broad-minded men are coming to the new way of looking at things. We have had enough of the days of preaching hell-fire and damnation. We need a religion of love to man, and good works. You should read some of the books that have been written on this subject if you care to understand. I really think it would be worth your while. You look to me like a young woman with a mind. I have a few of the latest with me. I shall be glad to read and discuss them with you if you are interested." "Thank you, Mr. West," said Margaret, coolly, though her eyes burned with battle. "I think I have probably read most of those books and discussed them with my father. He may be old, but he is not without 'light,' as you call it, and he always believed in knowing all that the other side was saying. He brought me up to look into these things for myself. And, anyhow, I should not care to read and discuss any of these subjects with a man who denies the deity of my Saviour and does not believe in the infallibility of the Bible. It seems to me you have nothing left--" "Ah! Well--now--my dear young lady--you mustn't misjudge me! I should be sorry indeed to shake your faith, for an innocent faith is, of course, a most beautiful thing, even though it may be unfounded." "Indeed, Mr. West, that would not be possible. You could not shake my faith in my Christ, because _I know Him_. If I had not ever felt His presence, nor been guided by His leading, such words might possibly trouble me, but having seen 'Him that is invisible,' _I know_." Margaret's voice was steady and gentle. It was impossible for even that man not to be impressed by her words. "Well, let us not quarrel about it," he said, indulgently, as to a little child. "I'm sure you have a very charming way of stating it, and I'm not sure that it is not a relief to find a woman of the old-fashioned type now and then. It really is man's place to look into these deeper questions, anyway. It is woman's sphere to live and love and make a happy home--" His voice took on a sentimental purr, and Margaret was fairly boiling with rage at him; but she would not let her temper give way, especially when she was talking on the sacred theme of the Christ. She felt as if she must scream or jump out over the wheel and run away from this obnoxious man, but she knew she would do neither. She knew she would sit calmly through the expedition and somehow control that conversation. There was one relief, anyway. Her father would no longer expect respect and honor and liking toward a minister who denied the very life and foundation of his faith. "It can't be possible that the school-house is so far from the town," she said, suddenly looking around at the widening desert in front of them. "Haven't you made some mistake?" "Why, I thought we should have the pleasure of a little drive first," said West, with a cunning smile. "I was sure you would enjoy seeing the country before you get down to work, and I was not averse myself to a drive in such delightful company." "I would like to go back to the school-house at once, please," said Margaret, decidedly, and there was that in her voice that caused the man to turn the horse around and head it toward the village. "Why, yes, of course, if you prefer to see the school-house first, we can go back and look it over, and then, perhaps, you will like to ride a little farther," he said. "We have plenty of time. In fact, Mrs. Tanner told me she would not expect us home to dinner, and she put a very promising-looking basket of lunch under the seat for us in case we got hungry before we came back." "Thank you," said Margaret, quite freezingly now. "I really do not care to drive this morning. I would like to see the school-house, and then I must return to the house at once. I have a great many things to do this morning." Her manner at last penetrated even the thick skin of the self-centered man, and he realized that he had gone a step too far in his attentions. He set himself to undo the mischief, hoping perhaps to melt her yet to take the all-day drive with him. But she sat silent during the return to the village, answering his volubility only by yes or no when absolutely necessary. She let him babble away about college life and tell incidents of his late pastorate, at some of which he laughed immoderately; but he could not even bring a smile to her dignified lips. He hoped she would change her mind when they got to the school building, and he even stooped to praise it in a kind of contemptuous way as they drew up in front of the large adobe building. "I suppose you will want to go through the building," he said, affably, producing the key from his pocket and putting on a pleasant anticipatory smile, but Margaret shook her head. She simply would not go into the building with that man. "It is not necessary," she said again, coldly. "I think I will go home now, please." And he was forced to turn the horse toward the Tanner house, crestfallen, and wonder why this beautiful girl was so extremely hard to win. He flattered himself that he had always been able to interest any girl he chose. It was really quite a bewildering type. But he would win her yet. He set her down silently at the Tanner door and drove off, lunch-basket and all, into the wilderness, vexed that she was so stubbornly unfriendly, and pondering how he might break down the dignity wherewith she had surrounded herself. There would be a way and he would find it. There was a stubbornness about that weak chin of his, when one observed it, and an ugliness in his pale-blue eye; or perhaps you would call it a hardness. CHAPTER IX She watched him furtively from her bedroom window, whither she had fled from Mrs. Tanner's exclamations. He wore his stylish derby tilted down over his left eye and slightly to one side in a most unministerial manner, showing too much of his straw-colored back hair, which rose in a cowlick at the point of contact with the hat, and he looked a small, mean creature as he drove off into the vast beauty of the plain. Margaret, in her indignation, could not help comparing him with the young man who had ridden away from the house two days before. And he to set up to be a minister of Christ's gospel and talk like that about the Bible and Christ! Oh, what was the church of Christ coming to, to have ministers like that? How ever did he get into the ministry, anyway? Of course, she knew there were young men with honest doubts who sometimes slid through nowadays, but a mean little silly man like that? How ever did he get in? What a lot of ridiculous things he had said! He was one of those described in the Bible who "darken counsel with words." He was not worth noticing. And yet, what a lot of harm he could do in an unlearned community. Just see how Mrs. Tanner hung upon his words, as though they were law and gospel! How _could_ she? Margaret found herself trembling yet over the words he had spoken about Christ, the atonement, and the faith. They meant so much to her and to her mother and father. They were not mere empty words of tradition that she believed because she had been taught. She had lived her faith and proved it; and she could not help feeling it like a personal insult to have him speak so of her Saviour. She turned away and took her Bible to try and get a bit of calmness. She fluttered the leaves for something--she could not just tell what--and her eye caught some of the verses that her father had marked for her before she left home for college, in the days when he was troubled for her going forth into the world of unbelief. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.... How the verses crowded upon one another, standing out clearly from the pages as she turned them, marked with her father's own hand in clear ink underlinings. It almost seemed as if God had looked ahead to these times and set these words down just for the encouragement of his troubled servants who couldn't understand why faith was growing dim. God knew about it, had known it would be, all this doubt, and had put words here just for troubled hearts to be comforted thereby. For I know whom I have believed [How her heart echoed to that statement!], and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. And on a little further: Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. There was a triumphant look to the words as she read them. Then over in Ephesians her eye caught a verse that just seemed to fit that poor blind minister: Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. And yet he was set to guide the feet of the blind into the way of life! And he had looked on her as one of the ignorant. Poor fellow! He couldn't know the Christ who was her Saviour or he never would have spoken in that way about Him. What could such a man preach? What was there left to preach, but empty words, when one rejected all these doctrines? Would she have to listen to a man like that Sunday after Sunday? Did the scholars in her school, and their parents, and the young man out at the camp, and his rough, simple-hearted companions have to listen to preaching from that man, when they listened to any? Her heart grew sick within her, and she knelt beside her bed for a strengthening word with the Christ who since her little childhood had been a very real presence in her life. When she arose from her knees she heard the kitchen door slam down-stairs and the voice of Bud calling his mother. She went to her door and opened it, listening a moment, and then called the boy. There was a dead silence for an instant after her voice was heard, and then Bud appeared at the foot of the stairs, very frowning as to brow, and very surly as to tone: "What d'ye want?" It was plain that Bud was "sore." "Bud,"--Margaret's voice was sweet and a bit cool as she leaned over the railing and surveyed the boy; she hadn't yet got over her compulsory ride with that minister--"I wanted to ask you, please, next time you can't keep an appointment with me don't ask anybody else to take your place. I prefer to pick out my own companions. It was all right, of course, if you had to go somewhere else, but I could easily have gone alone or waited until another time. I'd rather not have you ask Mr. West to go anywhere with me again." Bud's face was a study. It cleared suddenly and his jaw dropped in surprise; his eyes fairly danced with dawning comprehension and pleasure, and then his brow drew down ominously. "I never ast him," he declared, vehemently. "He told me you wanted him to go, and fer me to get out of the way 'cause you didn't want to hurt my feelings. Didn't you say nothing to him about it at all this morning?" "No, indeed!" said Margaret, with flashing eyes. "Well, I just thought he was that kind of a guy. I told ma he was lying, but she said I didn't understand young ladies, and, of course, you didn't want me when there was a man, and especially a preacher, round. Some preacher he is! This 's the second time I've caught him lying. I think he's the limit. I just wish you'd see our missionary. If he was here he'd beat the dust out o' that poor stew. _He's_ some man, he is. He's a regular white man, _our missionary_! Just you wait till _he_ gets back." Margaret drew a breath of relief. Then the missionary was a real man, after all. Oh, for his return! "Well, I'm certainly very glad it wasn't your fault, Bud. I didn't feel very happy to be turned off that way," said the teacher, smiling down upon the rough head of the boy. "You bet it wasn't my fault!" said the boy, vigorously. "I was sore's a pup at you, after you'd made a date and all, to do like that; but I thought if you wanted to go with that guy it was up to you." "Well, I didn't and I don't. You'll please understand hereafter that I'd always rather have your company than his. How about going down to the school-house some time to-day? Have you time?" "Didn't you go yet?" The boy's face looked as if he had received a kingdom, and his voice had a ring of triumph. "We drove down there, but I didn't care to go in without you, so we came back." "Wanta go now?" The boy's face fairly shone. "I'd love to. I'll be ready in three minutes. Could we carry some books down?" "Sure! Oh--gee! That guy's got the buckboard. We'll have to walk. Doggone him!" "I shall enjoy a walk. I want to find out just how far it is, for I shall have to walk every day, you know." "No, you won't, neither, 'nless you wanta. I c'n always hitch up." "That'll be very nice sometimes, but I'm afraid I'd get spoiled if you babied me all the time that way. I'll be right down." They went out together into the sunshine and wideness of the morning, and it seemed a new day had been created since she got back from her ride with the minister. She looked at the sturdy, honest-eyed boy beside her, and was glad to have him for a companion. Just in front of the school-house Margaret paused. "Oh, I forgot! The key! Mr. West has the key in his pocket! We can't get in, can we?" "Aw, we don't need a key," said her escort. "Just you wait!" And he whisked around to the back of the building, and in about three minutes his shock head appeared at the window. He threw the sash open and dropped out a wooden box. "There!" he said, triumphantly, "you c'n climb up on that, cantcha? Here, I'll holdya steady. Take holta my hand." And so it was through the front window that the new teacher of the Ridge School first appeared on her future scene of action and surveyed her little kingdom. Bud threw open the shutters, letting the view of the plains and the sunshine into the big, dusty room, and showed her the new blackboard with great pride. "There's a whole box o' chalk up on the desk, too; 'ain't never been opened yet. Dad said that was your property. Want I should open it?" "Why, yes, you might, and then we'll try the blackboard, won't we?" Bud went to work gravely opening the chalk-box as if it were a small treasure-chest, and finally produced a long, smooth stick of chalk and handed it to her with shining eyes. "You try it first, Bud," said the teacher, seeing his eagerness; and the boy went forward awesomely, as if it were a sacred precinct and he unworthy to intrude. Shyly, awkwardly, with infinite painstaking, he wrote in a cramped hand, "William Budlong Tanner," and then, growing bolder, "Ashland, Arizona," with a big flourish underneath. "Some class!" he said, standing back and regarding his handiwork with pride. "Say, I like the sound the chalk makes on it, don't you?" "Yes, I do," said Margaret, heartily, "so smooth and business-like, isn't it? You'll enjoy doing examples in algebra on it, won't you?" "Good night! Algebra! Me? No chance. I can't never get through the arithmetic. The last teacher said if he'd come back twenty years from now he'd still find me working compound interest." "Well, we'll prove to that man that he wasn't much of a judge of boys," said Margaret, with a tilt of her chin and a glint of her teacher-mettle showing in her eyes. "If you're not in algebra before two months are over I'll miss my guess. We'll get at it right away and show him." Bud watched her, charmed. He was beginning to believe that almost anything she tried would come true. "Now, Bud, suppose we get to work. I'd like to get acquainted with my class a little before Monday. Isn't it Monday school opens? I thought so. Well, suppose you give me the names of the scholars and I'll write them down, and that will help me to remember them. Where will you begin? Here, suppose you sit down in the front seat and tell me who sits there and a little bit about him, and I'll write the name down; and then you move to the next seat and tell me about the next one, and so on. Will you?" "Sure!" said Bud, entering into the new game. "But it ain't a 'he' sits there. It's Susie Johnson. She's Bill Johnson's smallest girl. She has to sit front 'cause she giggles so much. She has yellow curls and she ducks her head down and snickers right out this way when anything funny happens in school." And Bud proceeded to duck and wriggle in perfect imitation of the small Susie. Margaret saw the boy's power of imitation was remarkable, and laughed heartily at his burlesque. Then she turned and wrote "Susie Johnson" on the board in beautiful script. Bud watched with admiration, saying softly under his breath; "Gee! that's great, that blackboard, ain't it?" Amelia Schwartz came next. She was long and lank, with the buttons off the back of her dress, and hands and feet too large for her garments. Margaret could not help but see her in the clever pantomime the boy carried on. Next was Rosa Rogers, daughter of a wealthy cattleman, the pink-cheeked, blue-eyed beauty of the school, with all the boys at her feet and a perfect knowledge of her power over them. Bud didn't, of course, state it that way, but Margaret gathered as much from his simpering smile and the coy way he looked out of the corner of his eyes as he described her. Down the long list of scholars he went, row after row, and when he came to the seats where the boys sat his tone changed. She could tell by the shading of his voice which boys were the ones to look out for. Jed Brower, it appeared, was a name to conjure with. He could ride any horse that ever stood on four legs, he could outshoot most of the boys in the neighborhood, and he never allowed any teacher to tell him what to do. He was Texas Brower's only boy, and always had his own way. His father was on the school board. Jed Brower was held in awe, even while his methods were despised, by some of the younger boys. He was big and powerful, and nobody dared fool with him. Bud did not exactly warn Margaret that she must keep on the right side of Jed Brower, but he conveyed that impression without words. Margaret understood. She knew also that Tad Brooks, Larry Parker, Jim Long, and Dake Foster were merely henchmen of the worthy Jed, and not negligible quantities when taken by themselves. But over the name of Timothy Forbes--"Delicate Forbes," Bud explained was his nickname--the boy lingered with that loving inflection of admiration that a younger boy will sometimes have for a husky, courageous older lad. The second time Bud spoke of him he called him "Forbeszy," and Margaret perceived that here was Bud's model of manhood. Delicate Forbes could outshoot and outride even Jed Brower when he chose, and his courage with cattle was that of a man. Moreover, he was good to the younger boys and wasn't above pitching baseball with them when he had nothing better afoot. It became evident from the general description that Delicate Forbes was not called so from any lack of inches to his stature. He had a record of having licked every man teacher in the school, and beaten by guile every woman teacher they had had in six years. Bud was loyal to his admiration, yet it could be plainly seen that he felt Margaret's greatest hindrance in the school would be Delicate Forbes. Margaret mentally underlined the names in her memory that belonged to the back seats in the first and second rows of desks, and went home praying that she might have wisdom and patience to deal with Jed Brower and Timothy Forbes, and through them to manage the rest of her school. She surprised Bud at the dinner-table by handing him a neat diagram of the school-room desks with the correct names of all but three or four of the scholars written on them. Such a feat of memory raised her several notches in his estimation. "Say, that's going some! Guess you won't forget nothing, no matter how much they try to make you." CHAPTER X The minister did not appear until late in the evening, after Margaret had gone to her room, for which she was sincerely thankful. She could hear his voice, fretful and complaining, as he called loudly for Bud to take the horse. It appeared he had lost his way and wandered many miles out of the trail. He blamed the country for having no better trails, and the horse for not being able to find his way better. Mr. Tanner had gone to bed, but Mrs. Tanner bustled about and tried to comfort him. "Now that's too bad! Dearie me! Bud oughta hev gone with you, so he ought. Bud! _Oh_, Bud, you 'ain't gonta sleep yet, hev you? Wake up and come down and take this horse to the barn." But Bud declined to descend. He shouted some sleepy directions from his loft where he slept, and said the minister could look after his own horse, he "wasn'ta gonta!" There was "plentya corn in the bin." The minister grumbled his way to the barn, highly incensed at Bud, and disturbed the calm of the evening view of Margaret's mountain by his complaints when he returned. He wasn't accustomed to handling horses, and he thought Bud might have stayed up and attended to it himself. Bud chuckled in his loft and stole down the back kitchen roof while the minister ate his late supper. Bud would never leave the old horse to that amateur's tender mercies, but he didn't intend to make it easy for the amateur. Margaret, from her window-seat watching the night in the darkness, saw Bud slip off the kitchen roof and run to the barn, and she smiled to herself. She liked that boy. He was going to be a good comrade. The Sabbath morning dawned brilliantly, and to the homesick girl there suddenly came a sense of desolation on waking. A strange land was this, without church-bells or sense of Sabbath fitness. The mountain, it is true, greeted her with a holy light of gladness, but mountains are not dependent upon humankind for being in the spirit on the Lord's day. They are "continually praising Him." Margaret wondered how she was to get through this day, this dreary first Sabbath away from her home and her Sabbath-school class, and her dear old church with father preaching. She had been away, of course, a great many times before, but never to a churchless community. It was beginning to dawn upon her that that was what Ashland was--a churchless community. As she recalled the walk to the school and the ride through the village she had seen nothing that looked like a church, and all the talk had been of the missionary. They must have services of some sort, of course, and probably that flabby, fish-eyed man, her fellow-boarder, was to preach; but her heart turned sick at thought of listening to a man who had confessed to the unbeliefs that he had. Of course, he would likely know enough to keep such doubts to himself; but he had told her, and nothing he could say now would help or uplift her in the least. She drew a deep sigh and looked at her watch. It was late. At home the early Sabbath-school bells would be ringing, and little girls in white, with bunches of late fall flowers for their teachers, and holding hands with their little brothers, would be hurrying down the street. Father was in his study, going over his morning sermon, and mother putting her little pearl pin in her collar, getting ready to go to her Bible class. Margaret decided it was time to get up and stop thinking of it all. She put on a little white dress that she wore to church at home and hurried down to discover what the family plans were for the day, but found, to her dismay, that the atmosphere below-stairs was just like that of other days. Mr. Tanner sat tilted back in a dining-room chair, reading the weekly paper, Mrs. Tanner was bustling in with hot corn-bread, Bud was on the front-door steps teasing the dog, and the minister came in with an air of weariness upon him, as if he quite intended taking it out on his companions that he had experienced a trying time on Saturday. He did not look in the least like a man who expected to preach in a few minutes. He declined to eat his egg because it was cooked too hard, and poor Mrs. Tanner had to try it twice before she succeeded in producing a soft-boiled egg to suit him. Only the radiant outline of the great mountain, which Margaret could see over the minister's head, looked peaceful and Sabbath-like. "What time do you have service?" Margaret asked, as she rose from the table. "Service?" It was Mr. Tanner who echoed her question as if he did not quite know what she meant. Mrs. Tanner raised her eyes from her belated breakfast with a worried look, like a hen stretching her neck about to see what she ought to do next for the comfort of the chickens under her care. It was apparent that she had no comprehension of what the question meant. It was the minister who answered, condescendingly: "Um! Ah! There is no church edifice here, you know, Miss Earle. The mission station is located some miles distant." "I know," said Margaret, "but they surely have some religious service?" "I really don't know," said the minister, loftily, as if it were something wholly beneath his notice. "Then you are not going to preach this morning?" In spite of herself there was relief in her tone. "Most certainly not," he replied, stiffly. "I came out here to rest, and I selected this place largely because it was so far from a church. I wanted to be where I should not be annoyed by requests to preach. Of course, ministers from the East would be a curiosity in these Western towns, and I should really get no rest at all if I had gone where my services would have been in constant demand. When I came out here I was in much the condition of our friend the minister of whom you have doubtless heard. He was starting on his vacation, and he said to a brother minister, with a smile of joy and relief, 'No preaching, no praying, no reading of the Bible for six whole weeks!'" "Indeed!" said Margaret, freezingly. "No, I am not familiar with ministers of that sort." She turned with dismissal in her manner and appealed to Mrs. Tanner. "Then you really have no Sabbath service of any sort whatever in town?" There was something almost tragic in her face. She stood aghast at the prospect before her. Mrs. Tanner's neck stretched up a little longer, and her lips dropped apart in her attempt to understand the situation. One would scarcely have been surprised to hear her say, "Cut-cut-cut-ca-daw-cut?" so fluttered did she seem. Then up spoke Bud. "We gotta Sunday-school, ma!" There was pride of possession in Bud's tone, and a kind of triumph over the minister, albeit Bud had adjured Sunday-school since his early infancy. He was ready now, however, to be offered on the altar of Sunday-school, even, if that would please the new teacher--and spite the minister. "I'll take you ef you wanta go." He looked defiantly at the minister as he said it. But at last Mrs. Tanner seemed to grasp what was the matter. "Why!--why!--why! You mean preaching service!" she clucked out. "Why, yes, Mr. West, wouldn't that be fine? You could preach for us. We could have it posted up at the saloon and the crossings, and out a ways on both trails, and you'd have quite a crowd. They'd come from over to the camp, and up the cañon way, and roundabouts. They'd do you credit, they surely would, Mr. West. And you could have the school-house for a meeting-house. Pa, there, is one of the school board. There wouldn't be a bit of trouble--" "Um! Ah! Mrs. Tanner, I assure you it's quite out of the question. I told you I was here for absolute rest. I couldn't think of preaching. Besides, it's against my principles to preach without remuneration. It's a wrong idea. The workman is worthy of his hire, you know, Mrs. Tanner, the Good Book says." Mr. West's tone took on a self-righteous inflection. "Oh! Ef that's all, that 'u'd be all right!" she said, with relief. "You could take up a collection. The boys would be real generous. They always are when any show comes along. They'd appreciate it, you know, and I'd like fer Miss Earle here to hear you preach. It 'u'd be a real treat to her, her being a preacher's daughter and all." She turned to Margaret for support, but that young woman was talking to Bud. She had promptly closed with his offer to take her to Sunday-school, and now she hurried away to get ready, leaving Mrs. Tanner to make her clerical arrangements without aid. The minister, meantime, looked after her doubtfully. Perhaps, after all, it would have been a good move to have preached. He might have impressed that difficult young woman better that way than any other, seeing she posed as being so interested in religious matters. He turned to Mrs. Tanner and began to ask questions about the feasibility of a church service. The word "collection" sounded good to him. He was not averse to replenishing his somewhat depleted treasury if it could be done so easily as that. Meantime Margaret, up in her room, was wondering again how such a man as Mr. West ever got into the Christian ministry. West was still endeavoring to impress the Tanners with the importance of his late charge in the East as Margaret came down-stairs. His pompous tones, raised to favor the deafness that he took for granted in Mr. Tanner, easily reached her ears. "I couldn't, of course, think of doing it every Sunday, you understand. It wouldn't be fair to myself nor my work which I have just left; but, of course, if there were sufficient inducement I might consent to preach some Sunday before I leave." Mrs. Tanner's little satisfied cluck was quite audible as the girl closed the front door and went out to the waiting Bud. The Sunday-school was a desolate affair, presided over by an elderly and very illiterate man, who nursed his elbows and rubbed his chin meditatively between the slow questions which he read out of the lesson-leaf. The woman who usually taught the children was called away to nurse a sick neighbor, and the children were huddled together in a restless group. The singing was poor, and the whole of the exercises dreary, including the prayer. The few women present sat and stared in a kind of awe at the visitor, half belligerently, as if she were an intruder. Bud lingered outside the door and finally disappeared altogether, reappearing when the last hymn was sung. Altogether the new teacher felt exceedingly homesick as she wended her way back to the Tanners' beside Bud. "What do you do with yourself on Sunday afternoons, Bud?" she asked, as soon as they were out of hearing of the rest of the group. The boy turned wondering eyes toward her. "Do?" he repeated, puzzled. "Why, we pass the time away, like 'most any day. There ain't much difference." A great desolation possessed her. No church! Worse than no minister! No Sabbath! What kind of a land was this to which she had come? The boy beside her smelled of tobacco smoke. He had been off somewhere smoking while she was in the dreary little Sunday-school. She looked at his careless boy-face furtively as they walked along. He smoked, of course, like most boys of his age, probably, and he did a lot of other things he ought not to do. He had no interest in God or righteousness, and he did not take it for granted that the Sabbath was different from any other day. A sudden heart-sinking came upon her. What was the use of trying to do anything for such as he? Why not give it up now and go back where there was more promising material to work upon and where she would be welcome indeed? Of course, she had known things would be discouraging, but somehow it had seemed different from a distance. It all looked utterly hopeless now, and herself crazy to have thought she could do any good in a place like this. And yet the place needed somebody! That pitiful little Sunday-school! How forlorn it all was! She was almost sorry she had gone. It gave her an unhappy feeling for the morrow, which was to be her first day of school. Then, all suddenly, just as they were nearing the Tanner house, there came one riding down the street with all the glory of the radiant morning in his face, and a light in his eyes at seeing her that lifted away her desolation, for here at last was a friend! She wondered at herself. An unknown stranger, and a self-confessed failure so far in his young life, and yet he seemed so good a sight to her amid these uncongenial surroundings! CHAPTER XI This stranger of royal bearing, riding a rough Western pony as if it were decked with golden trappings, with his bright hair gleaming like Roman gold in the sun, and his blue-gray eyes looking into hers with the gladness of his youth; this one who had come to her out of the night-shadows of the wilderness and led her into safety! Yes, she was glad to see him. He dismounted and greeted her, his wide hat in his hand, his eyes upon her face, and Bud stepped back, watching them in pleased surprise. This was the man who had shot all the lights out the night of the big riot in the saloon. He had also risked his life in a number of foolish ways at recent festal carouses. Bud would not have been a boy had he not admired the young man beyond measure; and his boy worship of the teacher yielded her to a fitting rival. He stepped behind and walked beside the pony, who was following his master meekly, as though he, too, were under the young man's charm. "Oh, and this is my friend, William Tanner," spoke Margaret, turning toward the boy loyally, (Whatever good angel made her call him William? Bud's soul swelled with new dignity as he blushed and acknowledged the introduction by a grin.) "Glad to know you, Will," said the new-comer, extending his hand in a hearty shake that warmed the boy's heart in a trice. "I'm glad Miss Earle has so good a protector. You'll have to look out for her. She's pretty plucky and is apt to stray around the wilderness by herself. It isn't safe, you know, boy, for such as her. Look after her, will you?" "Right I will," said Bud, accepting the commission as if it were Heaven-sent, and thereafter walked behind the two with his head in the clouds. He felt that he understood this great hero of the plains and was one with him at heart. There could be no higher honor than to be the servitor of this man's lady. Bud did not stop to question how the new teacher became acquainted with the young rider of the plains. It was enough that both were young and handsome and seemed to belong together. He felt they were fitting friends. The little procession walked down the road slowly, glad to prolong the way. The young man had brought her handkerchief, a filmy trifle of an excuse that she had dropped behind her chair at the bunk-house, where it had lain unnoticed till she was gone. He produced it from his inner pocket, as though it had been too precious to carry anywhere but over his heart, yet there was in his manner nothing presuming, not a hint of any intimacy other than their chance acquaintance of the wilderness would warrant. He did not look at her with any such look as West had given every time he spoke to her. She felt no desire to resent his glance when it rested upon her almost worshipfully, for there was respect and utmost humility in his look. The men had sent gifts: some arrow-heads and a curiously fashioned vessel from the cañon of the cave-dwellers; some chips from the petrified forest; a fern with wonderful fronds, root and all; and a sheaf of strange, beautiful blossoms carefully wrapped in wet paper, and all fastened to the saddle. Margaret's face kindled with interest as he showed them to her one by one, and told her the history of each and a little message from the man who had sent it. Mom Wallis, too, had baked a queer little cake and sent it. The young man's face was tender as he spoke of it. The girl saw that he knew what her coming had meant to Mom Wallis. Her memory went quickly back to those few words the morning she had wakened in the bunk-house and found the withered old woman watching her with tears in her eyes. Poor Mom Wallis, with her pretty girlhood all behind her and such a blank, dull future ahead! Poor, tired, ill-used, worn-out Mom Wallis! Margaret's heart went out to her. "They want to know," said the young man, half hesitatingly, "if some time, when you get settled and have time, you would come to them again and sing? I tried to make them understand, of course, that you would be busy, your time taken with other friends and your work, and you would not want to come; but they wanted me to tell you they never enjoyed anything so much in years as your singing. Why, I heard Long Jim singing 'Old Folks at Home' this morning when he was saddling his horse. And it's made a difference. The men sort of want to straighten up the bunk-room. Jasper made a new chair yesterday. He said it would do when you came again." Gardley laughed diffidently, as if he knew their hopes were all in vain. But Margaret looked up with sympathy in her face, "I'll come! Of course I'll come some time," she said, eagerly. "I'll come as soon as I can arrange it. You tell them we'll have more than one concert yet." The young man's face lit up with a quick appreciation, and the flash of his eyes as he looked at her would have told any onlooker that he felt here was a girl in a thousand, a girl with an angel spirit, if ever such a one walked the earth. Now it happened that Rev. Frederick West was walking impatiently up and down in front of the Tanner residence, looking down the road about that time. He had spent the morning in looking over the small bundle of "show sermons" he had brought with him in case of emergency, and had about decided to accede to Mrs. Tanner's request and preach in Ashland before he left. This decision had put him in so self-satisfied a mood that he was eager to announce it before his fellow-boarder. Moreover, he was hungry, and he could not understand why that impudent boy and that coquettish young woman should remain away at Sunday-school such an interminable time. Mrs. Tanner was frying chicken. He could smell it every time he took a turn toward the house. It really was ridiculous that they should keep dinner waiting this way. He took one more turn and began to think over the sermon he had decided to preach. He was just recalling a particularly eloquent passage when he happened to look down the road once more, and there they were, almost upon him! But Bud was no longer walking with the maiden. She had acquired a new escort, a man of broad shoulders and fine height. Where had he seen that fellow before? He watched them as they came up, his small, pale eyes narrowing under their yellow lashes with a glint of slyness, like some mean little animal that meant to take advantage of its prey. It was wonderful how many different things that man could look like for a person as insignificant as he really was! Well, he saw the look between the man and maiden; the look of sympathy and admiration and a fine kind of trust that is not founded on mere outward show, but has found some hidden fineness of the soul. Not that the reverend gentleman understood that, however. He had no fineness of soul himself. His mind had been too thoroughly taken up with himself all his life for him to have cultivated any. Simultaneous with the look came his recognition of the man or, at least, of where he had last seen him, and his little soul rejoiced at the advantage he instantly recognized. He drew himself up importantly, flattened his chin upward until his lower lip protruded in a pink roll across his mouth, drew down his yellow brows in a frown of displeasure, and came forward mentor-like to meet the little party as it neared the house. He had the air of coming to investigate and possibly oust the stranger, and he looked at him keenly, critically, offensively, as if he had the right to protect the lady. They might have been a pair of naughty children come back from a forbidden frolic, from the way he surveyed them. But the beauty of it was that neither of them saw him, being occupied with each other, until they were fairly upon him. Then, there he stood offensively, as if he were a great power to be reckoned with. "Well, well, well, Miss Margaret, you have got home at last!" he said, pompously and condescendingly, and then he looked into the eyes of her companion as if demanding an explanation of _his_ presence there. Margaret drew herself up haughtily. His use of her Christian name in that familiar tone annoyed her exceedingly. Her eyes flashed indignantly, but the whole of it was lost unless Bud saw it, for Gardley had faced his would-be adversary with a keen, surprised scrutiny, and was looking him over coolly. There was that in the young man's eye that made the eye of Frederick West quail before him. It was only an instant the two stood challenging each other, but in that short time each knew and marked the other for an enemy. Only a brief instant and then Gardley turned to Margaret, and before she had time to think what to say, he asked: "Is this man a friend of yours, Miss _Earle_?" with marked emphasis on the last word. "No," said Margaret, coolly, "not a friend--a boarder in the house." Then most formally, "Mr. West, my _friend_ Mr. Gardley." If the minister had not been possessed of the skin of a rhinoceros he would have understood himself to be dismissed at that; but he was not a man accustomed to accepting dismissal, as his recent church in New York State might have testified. He stood his ground, his chin flatter than ever, his little eyes mere slits of condemnation. He did not acknowledge the introduction by so much as the inclination of his head. His hands were clasped behind his back, and his whole attitude was one of righteous belligerence. Gardley gazed steadily at him for a moment, a look of mingled contempt and amusement gradually growing upon his face. Then he turned away as if the man were too small to notice. "You will come in and take dinner with me?" asked Margaret, eagerly. "I want to send a small package to Mrs. Wallis if you will be so good as to take it with you." "I'm sorry I can't stay to dinner, but I have an errand in another direction and at some distance. I am returning this way, however, and, if I may, will call and get the package toward evening." Margaret's eyes spoke her welcome, and with a few formal words the young man sprang on his horse, said, "So long, Will!" to Bud, and, ignoring the minister, rode away. They watched him for an instant, for, indeed, he was a goodly sight upon a horse, riding as if he and the horse were utterly one in spirit; then Margaret turned quickly to go into the house. "Um! Ah! Miss Margaret!" began the minister, with a commandatory gesture for her to stop. Margaret was the picture of haughtiness as she turned and said, "Miss _Earle_, if you please!" "Um! Ah! Why, certainly, Miss--ah--_Earle_, if you wish it. Will you kindly remain here for a moment? I wish to speak with you. Bud, you may go on." "I'll go when I like, and it's none of your business!" muttered Bud, ominously, under his breath. He looked at Margaret to see if she wished him to go. He had an idea that this might be one of the times when he was to look after her. She smiled at him understandingly. "William may remain, Mr. West," she said, sweetly. "Anything you have to say to me can surely be said in his presence," and she laid her hand lightly on Bud's sleeve. Bud looked down at the hand proudly and grew inches taller enjoying the minister's frown. "Um! Ah!" said West, unabashed. "Well, I merely wished to warn you concerning the character of that person who has just left us. He is really not a proper companion for you. Indeed, I may say he is quite the contrary, and that to my personal knowledge--" "He's as good as you are and better!" growled Bud, ominously. "Be quiet, boy! I wasn't speaking to you!" said West, as if he were addressing a slave. "If I hear another word from your lips I shall report it to your father!" "Go 's far 's you like and see how much I care!" taunted Bud, but was stopped by Margaret's gentle pressure on his arm. "Mr. West, I thought I made you understand that Mr. Gardley is my friend." "Um! Ah! Miss Earle, then all I have to say is that you have formed a most unwise friendship, and should let it proceed no further. Why, my dear young lady, if you knew all there is to know about him you would not think of speaking to that young man." "Indeed! Mr. West, I suppose that might be true of a good many people, might it not, _if we knew all there is to know about them_? Nobody but God could very well get along with some of us." "But, my dear young lady, you don't understand. This young person is nothing but a common ruffian, a gambler, in fact, and an habitué at the saloons. I have seen him myself sitting in a saloon at a very late hour playing with a vile, dirty pack of cards, and in the company of a lot of low-down creatures--" "May I ask how you came to be in a saloon at that hour, Mr. West?" There was a gleam of mischief in the girl's eyes, and her mouth looked as if she were going to laugh, but she controlled it. The minister turned very red indeed. "Well, I--ah--I had been called from my bed by shouts and the report of a pistol. There was a fight going on in the room adjoining the bar, and I didn't know but my assistance might be needed!" (At this juncture Bud uttered a sort of snort and, placing his hands over his heart, ducked down as if a sudden pain had seized him.) "But imagine my pain and astonishment when I was informed that the drunken brawl I was witnessing was but a nightly and common occurrence. I may say I remained for a few minutes, partly out of curiosity, as I wished to see all kinds of life in this new world for the sake of a book I am thinking of writing. I therefore took careful note of the persons present, and was thus able to identify the person who has just ridden away as one of the chief factors in that evening's entertainment. He was, in fact, the man who, when he had pocketed all the money on the gaming-table, arose and, taking out his pistol, shot out the lights in the room, a most dangerous and irregular proceeding--" "Yes, and you came within an ace of being shot, pa says. The Kid's a dead shot, he is, and you were right in the way. Served you right for going where you had no business!" "I did not remain longer in that place, as you may imagine," went on West, ignoring Bud, "for I found it was no place for a--for--a--ah--minister of the gospel; but I remained long enough to hear from the lips of this person with whom you have just been walking some of the most terrible language my ears have ever been permitted to--ah--witness!" But Margaret had heard all that she intended to listen to on that subject. With decided tone she interrupted the voluble speaker, who was evidently enjoying his own eloquence. "Mr. West, I think you have said all that it is necessary to say. There are still some things about Mr. Gardley that you evidently do not know, but I think you are in a fair way to learn them if you stay in this part of the country long. William, isn't that your mother calling us to dinner? Let us go in; I'm hungry." Bud followed her up the walk with a triumphant wink at the discomfited minister, and they disappeared into the house; but when Margaret went up to her room and took off her hat in front of the little warped looking-glass there were angry tears in her eyes. She never felt more like crying in her life. Chagrin and anger and disappointment were all struggling in her soul, yet she must not cry, for dinner would be ready and she must go down. Never should that mean little meddling man see that his words had pierced her soul. For, angry as she was at the minister, much as she loathed his petty, jealous nature and saw through his tale-bearing, something yet told her that his picture of young Gardley's wildness was probably true, and her soul sank within her at the thought. It was just what had come in shadowy, instinctive fear to her heart when he had hinted at his being a "roughneck," yet to have it put baldly into words by an enemy hurt her deeply, and she looked at herself in the glass half frightened. "Margaret Earle, have you come out to the wilderness to lose your heart to the first handsome sower of wild oats that you meet?" her true eyes asked her face in the glass, and Margaret Earle's heart turned sad at the question and shrank back. Then she dropped upon her knees beside her gay little rocking-chair and buried her face in its flowered cushions and cried to her Father in heaven: "Oh, my Father, let me not be weak, but with all my heart I cry to Thee to save this young, strong, courageous life and not let it be a failure. Help him to find Thee and serve Thee, and if his life has been all wrong--and I suppose it has--oh, make it right for Jesus' sake! If there is anything that I can do to help, show me how, and don't let me make mistakes. Oh, Jesus, Thy power is great. Let this young man feel it and yield himself to it." She remained silently praying for a moment more, putting her whole soul into the prayer and knowing that she had been called thus to pray for him until her prayer was answered. She came down to dinner a few minutes later with a calm, serene face, on which was no hint of her recent emotion, and she managed to keep the table conversation wholly in her own hands, telling Mr. Tanner about her home town and her father and mother. When the meal was finished the minister had no excuse to think that the new teacher was careless about her friends and associates, and he was well informed about the high principles of her family. But West had retired into a sulky mood and uttered not a word except to ask for more chicken and coffee and a second helping of pie. It was, perhaps, during that dinner that he decided it would be best for him to preach in Ashland on the following Sunday. The young lady could be properly impressed with his dignity in no other way. CHAPTER XII When Lance Gardley came back to the Tanners' the sun was preparing the glory of its evening setting, and the mountain was robed in all its rosiest veils. Margaret was waiting for him, with the dog Captain beside her, wandering back and forth in the unfenced dooryard and watching her mountain. It was a relief to her to find that the minister occupied a room on the first floor in a kind of ell on the opposite side of the house from her own room and her mountain. He had not been visible that afternoon, and with Captain by her side and Bud on the front-door step reading _The Sky Pilot_ she felt comparatively safe. She had read to Bud for an hour and a half, and he was thoroughly interested in the story; but she was sure he would keep the minister away at all costs. As for Captain, he and the minister were sworn enemies by this time. He growled every time West came near or spoke to her. She made a picture standing with her hand on Captain's shaggy, noble head, the lace of her sleeve falling back from the white arm, her other hand raised to shade her face as she looked away to the glorified mountain, a slim, white figure looking wistfully off at the sunset. The young man took off his hat and rode his horse more softly, as if in the presence of the holy. The dog lifted one ear, and a tremor passed through his frame as the rider drew near; otherwise he did not stir from his position; but it was enough. The girl turned, on the alert at once, and met him with a smile, and the young man looked at her as if an angel had deigned to smile upon him. There was a humility in his fine face that sat well with the courage written there, and smoothed away all hardness for the time, so that the girl, looking at him in the light of the revelations of the morning, could hardly believe it had been true, yet an inner fineness of perception taught her that it was. The young man dismounted and left his horse standing quietly by the roadside. He would not stay, he said, yet lingered by her side, talking for a few minutes, watching the sunset and pointing out its changes. She gave him the little package for Mom Wallis. There was a simple lace collar in a little white box, and a tiny leather-bound book done in russet suède with gold lettering. "Tell her to wear the collar and think of me whenever she dresses up." "I'm afraid that'll never be, then," said the young man, with a pitying smile. "Mom Wallis never dresses up." "Tell her I said she must dress up evenings for supper, and I'll make her another one to change with that and bring it when I come." He smiled upon her again, that wondering, almost worshipful smile, as if he wondered if she were real, after all, so different did she seem from his idea of girls. "And the little book," she went on, apologetically; "I suppose it was foolish to send it, but something she said made me think of some of the lines in the poem. I've marked them for her. She reads, doesn't she?" "A little, I think. I see her now and then read the papers that Pop brings home with him. I don't fancy her literary range is very wide, however." "Of course, I suppose it is ridiculous! And maybe she'll not understand any of it; but tell her I sent her a message. She must see if she can find it in the poem. Perhaps you can explain it to her. It's Browning's 'Rabbi Ben Ezra.' You know it, don't you?" "I'm afraid not. I was intent on other things about the time when I was supposed to be giving my attention to Browning, or I wouldn't be what I am to-day, I suppose. But I'll do my best with what wits I have. What's it about? Couldn't you give me a pointer or two?" "It's the one beginning: "Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith, 'A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'" He looked down at her still with that wondering smile. "Grow old along with you!" he said, gravely, and then sighed. "You don't look as if you ever would grow old." "That's it," she said, eagerly. "That's the whole idea. We don't ever grow old and get done with it all, we just go on to bigger things, wiser and better and more beautiful, till we come to understand and be a part of the whole great plan of God!" He did not attempt an answer, nor did he smile now, but just looked at her with that deeply quizzical, grave look as if his soul were turning over the matter seriously. She held her peace and waited, unable to find the right word to speak. Then he turned and looked off, an infinite regret growing in his face. "That makes living a different thing from the way most people take it," he said, at last, and his tone showed that he was considering it deeply. "Does it?" she said, softly, and looked with him toward the sunset, still half seeing his quiet profile against the light. At last it came to her that she must speak. Half fearfully she began: "I've been thinking about what you said on the ride. You said you didn't make good. I--wish you would. I--I'm sure you could--" She looked up wistfully and saw the gentleness come into his face as if the fountain of his soul, long sealed, had broken up, and as if he saw a possibility before him for the first time through the words she had spoken. At last he turned to her with that wondering smile again. "Why should you care?" he asked. The words would have sounded harsh if his tone had not been so gentle. Margaret hesitated for an answer. "I don't know how to tell it," she said, slowly. "There's another verse, a few lines more in that poem, perhaps you know them?-- 'All I never could be, All, men ignored in me, This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.' I want it because--well, perhaps because I feel you are worth all that to God. I would like to see you be that." He looked down at her again, and was still so long that she felt she had failed miserably. "I hope you will excuse my speaking," she added. "I--It seems there are so many grand possibilities in life, and for you--I couldn't bear to have you say you hadn't made good, as if it were all over." "I'm glad you spoke," he said, quickly. "I guess perhaps I have been all kinds of a fool. You have made me feel how many kinds I have been." "Oh no!" she protested. "You don't know what I have been," he said, sadly, and then with sudden conviction, as if he read her thoughts: "You _do_ know! That prig of a parson has told you! Well, it's just as well you should know. It's right!" A wave of misery passed over his face and erased all its brightness and hope. Even the gentleness was gone. He looked haggard and drawn with hopelessness all in a moment. "Do you think it would matter to me--_anything_ that man would say?" she protested, all her woman's heart going out in pity. "But it was true, all he said, probably, and more--" "It doesn't matter," she said, eagerly. "The other is true, too. Just as the poem says, 'All that man ignores in you, just that you are worth to God!' And you _can_ be what He meant you to be. I have been praying all the afternoon that He would help you to be." "Have you?" he said, and his eyes lit up again as if the altar-fires of hope were burning once more. "Have you? I thank you." "You came to me when I was lost in the wilderness," she said, shyly. "I wanted to help _you_ back--if--I might." "You will help--you have!" he said, earnestly. "And I was far enough off the trail, too, but if there's any way to get back I'll get there." He grasped her hand and held it for a second. "Keep up that praying," he said. "I'll see what can be done." Margaret looked up. "Oh, I'm so glad, so glad!" He looked reverently into her eyes, all the manhood in him stirred to higher, better things. Then, suddenly, as they stood together, a sound smote their ears as from another world. "Um! Ah!--" The minister stood within the doorway, barred by Bud in scowling defiance, and guarded by Cap, who gave an answering growl. Gardley and Margaret looked at each other and smiled, then turned and walked slowly down to where the pony stood. They did not wish to talk here in that alien presence. Indeed, it seemed that more words were not needed--they would be a desecration. So he rode away into the sunset once more with just another look and a hand-clasp, and she turned, strangely happy at heart, to go back to her dull surroundings and her uncongenial company. "Come, William, let's have a praise service," she said, brightly, pausing at the doorway, but ignoring the scowling minister. "A praise service! What's a praise service?" asked the wondering Bud, shoving over to let her sit down beside him. She sat with her back to West, and Cap came and lay at her feet with the white of one eye on the minister and a growl ready to gleam between his teeth any minute. There was just no way for the minister to get out unless he jumped over them or went out the back door; but the people in the doorway had the advantage of not having to look at him, and he couldn't very well dominate the conversation standing so behind them. "Why, a praise service is a service of song and gladness, of course. You sing, don't you? Of course. Well, what shall we sing? Do you know this?" And she broke softly into song: "When peace like a river attendeth my way; When sorrows like sea-billows roll; Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul." Bud did not know the song, but he did not intend to be balked with the minister standing right behind him, ready, no doubt, to jump in and take the precedence; so he growled away at a note in the bass, turning it over and over and trying to make it fit, like a dog gnawing at a bare bone; but he managed to keep time and make it sound a little like singing. The dusk was falling fast as they finished the last verse, Margaret singing the words clear and distinct, Bud growling unintelligibly and snatching at words he had never heard before. Once more Margaret sang: "Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide! When other refuge fails and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!" Out on the lonely trail wending his way toward the purple mountain--the silent way to the bunk-house at the camp--in that clear air where sound travels a long distance the traveler heard the song, and something thrilled his soul. A chord that never had been touched in him before was vibrating, and its echoes would be heard through all his life. On and on sang Margaret, just because she could not bear to stop and hear the commonplace talk which would be about her. Song after song thrilled through the night's wideness. The stars came out in thick clusters. Father Tanner had long ago dropped his weekly paper and tilted his chair back against the wall, with his eyes half closed to listen, and his wife had settled down comfortably on the carpet sofa, with her hands nicely folded in her lap, as if she were at church. The minister, after silently surveying the situation for a song or two, attempted to join his voice to the chorus. He had a voice like a cross-cut saw, but he didn't do much harm in the background that way, though Cap did growl now and then, as if it put his nerves on edge. And by and by Mr. Tanner quavered in with a note or two. Finally Margaret sang: "Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear, It is not night if Thou art near, Oh, may no earth-born cloud arise To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes." During this hymn the minister had slipped out the back door and gone around to the front of the house. He could not stand being in the background any longer; but as the last note died away Margaret arose and, bidding Bud good night, slipped up to her room. There, presently, beside her darkened window, with her face toward the mountain, she knelt to pray for the wanderer who was trying to find his way out of the wilderness. CHAPTER XIII Monday morning found Margaret at the school-house nerved for her new task. One by one the scholars trooped in, shyly or half defiantly, hung their hats on the hooks, put their dinner-pails on the shelf, looked furtively at her, and sank into their accustomed seats; that is, the seats they had occupied during the last term of school. The big boys remained outside until Bud, acting under instructions from Margaret--after she had been carefully taught the ways of the school by Bud himself--rang the big bell. Even then they entered reluctantly and as if it were a great condescension that they came at all, Jed and "Delicate" coming in last, with scarcely a casual glance toward the teacher's desk, as if she were a mere fraction in the scheme of the school. She did not need to be told which was Timothy and which was Jed. Bud's description had been perfect. Her heart, by the way, instantly went out to Timothy. Jed was another proposition. He had thick, overhanging eyebrows, and a mouth that loved to make trouble and laugh over it. He was going to be hard to conquer. She wasn't sure the conquering would be interesting, either. Margaret stood by the desk, watching them all with a pleasant smile. She did not frown at the unnecessary shuffling of feet nor the loud remarks of the boys as they settled into their seats. She just stood and watched them interestedly, as though her time had not yet come. Jed and Timothy were carrying on a rumbling conversation. Even after they took their seats they kept it up. It was no part of their plan to let the teacher suppose they saw her or minded her in the least. They were the dominating influences in that school, and they wanted her to know it, right at the start; then a lot of trouble would be saved. If they didn't like her and couldn't manage her they didn't intend she should stay, and she might as well understand that at once. Margaret understood it fully. Yet she stood quietly and watched them with a look of deep interest on her face and a light almost of mischief in her eyes, while Bud grew redder and redder over the way his two idols were treating the new teacher. One by one the school became aware of the twinkle in the teacher's eyes, and grew silent to watch, and one by one they began to smile over the coming scene when Jed and Timothy should discover it, and, worst of all, find out that it was actually directed against them. They would expect severity, or fear, or a desire to placate; but a twinkle--it was more than the school could decide what would happen under such circumstances. No one in that room would ever dare to laugh at either of those two boys. But the teacher was almost laughing now, and the twinkle had taken the rest of the room into the secret, while she waited amusedly until the two should finish the conversation. The room grew suddenly deathly still, except for the whispered growls of Jed and Timothy, and still the silence deepened, until the two young giants themselves perceived that it was time to look up and take account of stock. The perspiration by this time was rolling down the back of Bud's neck. He was about the only one in the room who was not on a broad grin, and he was wretched. What a fearful mistake the new teacher was making right at the start! She was antagonizing the two boys who held the whole school in their hands. There was no telling what they wouldn't do to her now. And he would have to stand up for her. Yes, no matter what they did, he would stand up for her! Even though he lost his best friends, he must be loyal to her; but the strain was terrible! He did not dare to look at them, but fastened his eyes upon Margaret, as if keeping them glued there was his only hope. Then suddenly he saw her face break into one of the sweetest, merriest smiles he ever witnessed, with not one single hint of reproach or offended dignity in it, just a smile of comradeship, understanding, and pleasure in the meeting; and it was directed to the two seats where Jed and Timothy sat. With wonder he turned toward the two big boys, and saw, to his amazement, an answering smile upon their faces; reluctant, 'tis true, half sheepish at first, but a smile with lifted eyebrows of astonishment and real enjoyment of the joke. A little ripple of approval went round in half-breathed syllables, but Margaret gave no time for any restlessness to start. She spoke at once, in her pleasantest partnership tone, such as she had used to Bud when she asked him to help her build her bookcase. So she spoke now to that school, and each one felt she was speaking just to him especially, and felt a leaping response in his soul. Here, at least, was something new and interesting, a new kind of teacher. They kept silence to listen. "Oh, I'm not going to make a speech now," she said, and her voice sounded glad to them all. "I'll wait till we know one another before I do that. I just want to say how do you do to you, and tell you how glad I am to be here. I hope we shall like one another immensely and have a great many good times together. But we've got to get acquainted first, of course, and perhaps we'd better give most of the time to that to-day. First, suppose we sing something. What shall it be? What do you sing?" Little Susan Johnson, by virtue of having seen the teacher at Sunday-school, made bold to raise her hand and suggest, "Thar-thpangle Banner, pleath!" And so they tried it; but when Margaret found that only a few seemed to know the words, she said, "Wait!" Lifting her arm with a pretty, imperative gesture, and taking a piece of chalk from the box on her desk, she went to the new blackboard that stretched its shining black length around the room. The school was breathlessly watching the graceful movement of the beautiful hand and arm over the smooth surface, leaving behind it the clear, perfect script. Such wonderful writing they had never seen; such perfect, easy curves and twirls. Every eye in the room was fastened on her, every breath was held as they watched and spelled out the words one by one. "Gee!" said Bud, softly, under his breath, nor knew that he had spoken, but no one else moved. "Now," she said, "let us sing," and when they started off again Margaret's strong, clear soprano leading, every voice in the room growled out the words and tried to get in step with the tune. They had gone thus through two verses when Jed seemed to think it was about time to start something. Things were going altogether too smoothly for an untried teacher, if she _was_ handsome and unabashed. If they went on like this the scholars would lose all respect for him. So, being quite able to sing a clear tenor, he nevertheless puckered his lips impertinently, drew his brows in an ominous frown, and began to whistle a somewhat erratic accompaniment to the song. He watched the teacher closely, expecting to see the color flame in her cheeks, the anger flash in her eyes; he had tried this trick on other teachers and it always worked. He gave the wink to Timothy, and he too left off his glorious bass and began to whistle. But instead of the anger and annoyance they expected, Margaret turned appreciative eyes toward the two back seats, nodding her head a trifle and smiling with her eyes as she sang; and when the verse was done she held up her hand for silence and said: "Why, boys, that's beautiful! Let's try that verse once more, and you two whistle the accompaniment a little stronger in the chorus; or how would it do if you just came in on the chorus? I believe that would be more effective. Let's try the first verse that way; you boys sing during the verse and then whistle the chorus just as you did now. We really need your voices in the verse part, they are so strong and splendid. Let's try it now." And she started off again, the two big astonished fellows meekly doing as they were told, and really the effect was beautiful. What was their surprise when the whole song was finished to have her say, "Now everybody whistle the chorus softly," and then pucker up her own soft lips to join in. That completely finished the whistling stunt. Jed realized that it would never work again, not while she was here, for she had turned the joke into beauty and made them all enjoy it. It hadn't annoyed her in the least. Somehow by that time they were all ready for anything she had to suggest, and they watched again breathlessly as she wrote another song on the blackboard, taking the other side of the room for it, and this time a hymn--"I Need Thee Every Hour." When they began to sing it, however, Margaret found the tune went slowly, uncertainly. "Oh, how we need a piano!" she exclaimed. "I wonder if we can't get up an entertainment and raise money to buy one. How many will help?" Every hand in the place went up, Jed's and Timothy's last and only a little way, but she noted with triumph that they went up. "All right; we'll do it! Now let's sing that verse correctly." And she began to sing again, while they all joined anxiously in, really trying to do their best. The instant the last verse died away, Margaret's voice took their attention. "Two years ago in Boston two young men, who belonged to a little group of Christian workers who were going around from place to place holding meetings, sat talking together in their room in the hotel one evening." There was instant quiet, a kind of a breathless quiet. This was not like the beginning of any lesson any other teacher had ever given them. Every eye was fixed on her. "They had been talking over the work of the day, and finally one of them suggested that they choose a Bible verse for the whole year--" There was a movement of impatience from one back seat, as if Jed had scented an incipient sermon, but the teacher's voice went steadily on: "They talked it over, and at last they settled on II Timothy ii:15. They made up their minds to use it on every possible occasion. It was time to go to bed, so the man whose room adjoined got up and, instead of saying good night, he said, 'Well, II Timothy ii:15,' and went to his room. Pretty soon, when he put out his light, he knocked on the wall and shouted 'II Timothy ii:15,' and the other man responded, heartily, 'All right, II Timothy ii:15.' The next morning when they wrote their letters each of them wrote 'II Timothy ii:15' on the lower left-hand corner of the envelope, and sent out a great handful of letters to all parts of the world. Those letters passed through the Boston post-office, and some of the clerks who sorted them saw that queer legend written down in the lower left-hand corner of the envelope, and they wondered at it, and one or two wrote it down, to look it up afterward. The letters reached other cities and were put into the hands of mail-carriers to distribute, and they saw the queer little sentence, 'II Timothy ii:15,' and they wondered, and some of them looked it up." By this time the entire attention of the school was upon the story, for they perceived that it was a story. "The men left Boston and went across the ocean to hold meetings in other cities, and one day at a little railway station in Europe a group of people were gathered, waiting for a train, and those two men were among them. Pretty soon the train came, and one of the men got on the back end of the last car, while the other stayed on the platform, and as the train moved off the man on the last car took off his hat and said, in a good, loud, clear tone, 'Well, take care of yourself, II Timothy ii:15,' and the other one smiled and waved his hat and answered, 'Yes, II Timothy ii:15.' The man on the train, which was moving fast now, shouted back, 'II Timothy ii:15,' and the man on the platform responded still louder, waving his hat, 'II Timothy ii:15,' and back and forth the queer sentence was flung until the train was too far away for them to hear each other's voices. In the mean time all the people on the platform had been standing there listening and wondering what in the world such a strange salutation could mean. Some of them recognized what it was, but many did not know, and yet the sentence was said over so many times that they could not help remembering it; and some went away to recall it and ask their friends what it meant. A young man from America was on that platform and heard it, and he knew it stood for a passage in the Bible, and his curiosity was so great that he went back to his boarding-house and hunted up the Bible his mother had packed in his trunk when he came away from home, and he hunted through the Bible until he found the place, 'II Timothy ii:15,' and read it; and it made him think about his life and decide that he wasn't doing as he ought to do. I can't tell you all the story about that queer Bible verse, how it went here and there and what a great work it did in people's hearts; but one day those Christian workers went to Australia to hold some meetings, and one night, when the great auditorium was crowded, a man who was leading the meeting got up and told the story of this verse, how it had been chosen, and how it had gone over the world in strange ways, even told about the morning at the little railway station when the two men said good-by. Just as he got to that place in his story a man in the audience stood up and said: 'Brother, just let me say a word, please. I never knew anything about all this before, but I was at that railway station, and I heard those two men shout that strange good-by, and I went home and read that verse, and it's made a great difference in my life.' "There was a great deal more to the story, how some Chicago policemen got to be good men through reading that verse, and how the story of the Australia meetings was printed in an Australian paper and sent to a lady in America who sent it to a friend in England to read about the meetings. And this friend in England had a son in the army in India, to whom she was sending a package, and she wrapped it around something in that package, and the young man read all about it, and it helped to change his life. Well, I thought of that story this morning when I was trying to decide what to read for our opening chapter, and it occurred to me that perhaps you would be interested to take that verse for our school verse this term, and so if you would like it I will put it on the blackboard. Would you like it, I wonder?" She paused wistfully, as if she expected an answer, and there was a low, almost inaudible growl of assent; a keen listener might almost have said it had an impatient quality in it, as if they were in a hurry to find out what the verse was that had made such a stir in the world. "Very well," said Margaret, turning to the board; "then I'll put it where we all can see it, and while I write it will you please say over where it is, so that you will remember it and hunt it up for yourselves in your Bibles at home?" There was a sort of snicker at that, for there were probably not half a dozen Bibles, if there were so many, represented in that school; but they took her hint as she wrote, and chanted, "II Timothy ii:15, II Timothy ii:15," and then spelled out after her rapid crayon, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed." They read it together at her bidding, with a wondering, half-serious look in their faces, and then she said, "Now, shall we pray?" The former teacher had not opened her school with prayer. It had never been even suggested in that school. It might have been a dangerous experiment if Margaret had attempted it sooner in her program. As it was, there was a shuffling of feet in the back seats at her first word; but the room, grew quiet again, perhaps out of curiosity to hear a woman's voice in prayer: "Our Heavenly Father, we want to ask Thee to bless us in our work together, and to help us to be such workmen that we shall not need to be ashamed to show our work to Thee at the close of the day. For Christ's sake we ask it. Amen." They did not have time to resent that prayer before she had them interested in something else. In fact, she had planned her whole first day out so that there should not be a minute for misbehavior. She had argued that if she could just get time to become acquainted with them she might prevent a lot of trouble before it ever started. Her first business was to win her scholars. After that she could teach them easily if they were once willing to learn. She had a set of mental arithmetic problems ready which she propounded to them next, some of them difficult and some easy enough for the youngest child who could think, and she timed their answers and wrote on the board the names of those who raised their hands first and had the correct answers. The questions were put in a fascinating way, many of them having curious little catches in them for the scholars who were not on the alert, and Timothy presently discovered this and set himself to get every one, coming off victorious at the end. Even Jed roused himself and was interested, and some of the girls quite distinguished themselves. When a half-hour of this was over she put the word "TRANSFIGURATION" on the blackboard, and set them to playing a regular game out of it. If some of the school-board had come in just then they might have lifted up hands of horror at the idea of the new teacher setting the whole school to playing a game. But they certainly would have been delightfully surprised to see a quiet and orderly room with bent heads and knit brows, all intent upon papers and pencils. Never before in the annals of that school had the first day held a full period of quiet or orderliness. It was expected to be a day of battle; a day of trying out the soul of the teacher and proving whether he or she were worthy to cope with the active minds and bodies of the young bullies of Ashland. But the expected battle had been forgotten. Every mind was busy with the matter in hand. Margaret had given them three minutes to write as many words as they could think of, of three letters or more, beginning with T, and using only the letters in the word she had put on the board. When time was called there was a breathless rush to write a last word, and then each scholar had to tell how many words he had, and each was called upon to read his list. Some had only two or three, some had ten or eleven. They were allowed to mark their words, counting one for each person present who did not have that word and doubling if it were two syllables, and so on. Excitement ran high when it was discovered that some had actually made a count of thirty or forty, and when they started writing words beginning with R every head was bent intently from the minute time was started. Never had three minutes seemed so short to those unused brains, and Jed yelled out: "Aw, gee! I only got three!" when time was called next. It was recess-time when they finally finished every letter in that word, and, adding all up, found that Timothy had won the game. Was that school? Why, a barbecue couldn't be named beside it for fun! They rushed out to the school-yard with a shout, and the boys played leap-frog loudly for the first few minutes. Margaret, leaning her tired head in her hands, elbows on the window-seat, closing her eyes and gathering strength for the after-recess session, heard one boy say: "Wal, how d'ye like 'er?" And the answer came: "Gee! I didn't think she'd be that kind of a guy! I thought she'd be some stiff old Ike! Ain't she a peach, though?" She lifted up her head and laughed triumphantly to herself, her eyes alight, herself now strengthened for the fray. She wasn't wholly failing, then? After recess there was a spelling-match, choosing sides, of course, "Because this is only the first day, and we must get acquainted before we can do real work, you know," she explained. The spelling-match proved an exciting affair also, with new features that Ashland had never seen before. Here the girls began to shine into prominence, but there were very few good spellers, and they were presently reduced to two girls--Rosa Rogers, the beauty of the school, and Amanda Bounds, a stolid, homely girl with deep eyes and a broad brow. "I'm going to give this as a prize to the one who stands up the longest," said Margaret, with sudden inspiration as she saw the boys in their seats getting restless; and she unpinned a tiny blue-silk bow that fastened her white collar. The girls all said "Oh-h-h!" and immediately every one in the room straightened up. The next few minutes those two girls spelled for dear life, each with her eye fixed upon the tiny blue bow in the teacher's white hands. To own that bow, that wonderful, strange bow of the heavenly blue, with the graceful twist to the tie! What delight! The girl who won that would be the admired of all the school. Even the boys sat up and took notice, each secretly thinking that Rosa, the beauty, would get it, of course. But she didn't; she slipped up on the word "receive," after all, putting the i before the e; and her stolid companion, catching her breath awesomely, slowly spelled it right and received the blue prize, pinned gracefully at the throat of her old brown gingham by the teacher's own soft, white fingers, while the school looked on admiringly and the blood rolled hotly up the back of her neck and spread over her face and forehead. Rosa, the beauty, went crestfallen to her seat. It was at noon, while they ate their lunch, that Margaret tried to get acquainted with the girls, calling most of them by name, to their great surprise, and hinting of delightful possibilities in the winter's work. Then she slipped out among the boys and watched their sports, laughing and applauding when some one made a particularly fine play, as if she thoroughly understood and appreciated. She managed to stand near Jed and Timothy just before Bud rang the bell. "I've heard you are great sportsmen," she said to them, confidingly. "And I've been wondering if you'll teach me some things I want to learn? I want to know how to ride and shoot. Do you suppose I could learn?" "Sure!" they chorused, eagerly, their embarrassment forgotten. "Sure, you could learn fine! Sure, _we'll learn_ you!" And then the bell rang and they all went in. The afternoon was a rather informal arrangement of classes and schedule for the next day, Margaret giving out slips of paper with questions for each to answer, that she might find out just where to place them; and while they wrote she went from one to another, getting acquainted, advising, and suggesting about what they wanted to study. It was all so new and wonderful to them! They had not been used to caring what they were to study. Now it almost seemed interesting. But when the day was done, the school-house locked, and Bud and Margaret started for home, she realized that she was weary. Yet it was a weariness of success and not of failure, and she felt happy in looking forward to the morrow. CHAPTER XIV The minister had decided to preach in Ashland, and on the following Sabbath. It became apparent that if he wished to have any notice at all from the haughty new teacher he must do something at once to establish his superiority in her eyes. He had carefully gone over his store of sermons that he always carried with him, and decided to preach on "The Dynamics of Altruism." Notices had been posted up in saloons and stores and post-office. He had made them himself after completely tabooing Mr. Tanner's kindly and blundering attempt, and they gave full information concerning "the Rev. Frederick West, Ph.D., of the vicinity of New York City, who had kindly consented to preach in the school-house on 'The Dynamics of Altruism.'" Several of these elaborately printed announcements had been posted up on big trees along the trails, and in other conspicuous places, and there was no doubt but that the coming Sabbath services were more talked of than anything else in that neighborhood for miles around, except the new teacher and her extraordinary way of making all the scholars fall in love with her. It is quite possible that the Reverend Frederick might not have been so flattered at the size of his audience when the day came if he could have known how many of them came principally because they thought it would be a good opportunity to see the new teacher. However, the announcements were read, and the preacher became an object of deep interest to the community when he went abroad. Under this attention he swelled, grew pleased, bland, and condescending, wearing an oily smile and bowing most conceitedly whenever anybody noticed him. He even began to drop his severity and silence at the table, toward the end of the week, and expanded into dignified conversation, mainly addressed to Mr. Tanner about the political situation in the State of Arizona. He was trying to impress the teacher with the fact that he looked upon her as a most insignificant mortal who had forfeited her right to his smiles by her headstrong and unseemly conduct when he had warned her about "that young ruffian." Out on the trail Long Bill and Jasper Kemp paused before a tree that bore the Reverend Frederick's church notice, and read in silence while the wide wonder of the desert spread about them. "What d'ye make out o' them cuss words, Jap?" asked Long Bill, at length. "D'ye figger the parson's goin' to preach on swearin' ur gunpowder?" "Blowed ef I know," answered Jasper, eying the sign ungraciously; "but by the looks of him he can't say much to suit me on neither one. He resembles a yaller cactus bloom out in a rain-storm as to head, an' his smile is like some of them prickles on the plant. He can't be no 'sky-pilot' to me, not just yet." "You don't allow he b'longs in any way to _her_?" asked Long Bill, anxiously, after they had been on their way for a half-hour. "B'long to _her_? Meanin' the schoolmarm?" "Yes; he ain't sweet on her nor nothin'?" "Wal, I guess not," said Jasper, contentedly. "She's got eyes sharp's a needle. You don't size her up so small she's goin' to take to a sickly parson with yaller hair an' sleek ways when she's seen the Kid, do you?" "Wal, no, it don't seem noways reasonable, but you never can tell. Women gets notions." "She ain't that kind! You mark my words, _she ain't that kind_. I'd lay she'd punch the breeze like a coyote ef he'd make up to her. Just you wait till you see him. He's the most no-'count, measleyest little thing that ever called himself a man. My word! I'd like to see him try to ride that colt o' mine. I really would. It would be some sight for sore eyes, it sure would." "Mebbe he's got a intellec'," suggested Long Bill, after another mile. "That goes a long ways with women-folks with a education." "No chance!" said Jasper, confidently. "'Ain't got room fer one under his yaller thatch. You wait till you set your lamps on him once before you go to gettin' excited. Why, he ain't one-two-three with our missionary! Gosh! I wish _he'd_ come back an' see to such goin's-on--I certainly do." "Was you figgerin' to go to that gatherin' Sunday?" "I sure was," said Jasper. "I want to see the show, an', besides, we might be needed ef things got too high-soundin'. It ain't good to have a creature at large that thinks he knows all there is to know. I heard him talk down to the post-office the day after that little party we had when the Kid shot out the lights to save Bunchy from killin' Crapster, an' it's my opinion he needs a good spankin'; but I'm agoin' to give him a fair show. I ain't much on religion myself, but I do like to see a square deal, especially in a parson. I've sized it up he needs a lesson." "I'm with ye, Jap," said Long Bill, and the two rode on their way in silence. Margaret was so busy and so happy with her school all the week that she quite forgot her annoyance at the minister. She really saw very little of him, for he was always late to breakfast, and she took hers early. She went to her room immediately after supper, and he had little opportunity for pursuing her acquaintance. Perhaps he judged that it would be wise to let her alone until after he had made his grand impression on Sunday, and let her "make up" to him. It was not until Sunday morning that she suddenly recalled that he was to preach that day. She had indeed seen the notices, for a very large and elaborate one was posted in front of the school-house, and some anonymous artist had produced a fine caricature of the preacher in red clay underneath his name. Margaret had been obliged to remain after school Friday and remove as much of this portrait as she was able, not having been willing to make it a matter of discipline to discover the artist. In fact, it was so true to the model that the young teacher felt a growing sympathy for the one who had perpetrated it. Margaret started to the school-house early Sunday morning, attended by the faithful Bud. Not that he had any more intention of going to Sunday-school than he had the week before, but it was pleasant to be the chosen escort of so popular a teacher. Even Jed and Timothy had walked home with her twice during the week. He did not intend to lose his place as nearest to her. There was only one to whom he would surrender that, and he was too far away to claim it often. Margaret had promised to help in the Sunday-school that morning, for the woman who taught the little ones was still away with her sick neighbor, and on the way she persuaded Bud to help her. "You'll be secretary for me, won't you, William?" she asked, brightly. "I'm going to take the left-front corner of the room for the children, and seat them on the recitation-benches, and that will leave all the back part of the room for the older people. Then I can use the blackboard and not disturb the rest." "Secretary?" asked the astonished Bud. He was, so to speak, growing accustomed to surprises. "Secretary" did not sound like being "a nice little Sunday-school boy." "Why, yes! take up the collection, and see who is absent, and so on. I don't know all the names, perhaps, and, anyhow, I don't like to do that when I have to teach!" Artful Margaret! She had no mind to leave Bud floating around outside the school-house, and though she had ostensibly prepared her lesson and her blackboard illustration for the little children, she had hidden in it a truth for Bud--poor, neglected, devoted Bud! The inefficient old man who taught the older people that day gathered his forces together and, seated with his back to the platform, his spectacles extended upon his long nose, he proceeded with the questions on the lesson-leaf, as usual, being more than ordinarily unfamiliar with them; but before he was half through he perceived by the long pauses between the questions and answers that he did not have the attention of his class. He turned slowly around to see what they were all looking at, and became so engaged in listening to the lesson the new teacher was drawing on the blackboard that he completely forgot to go on, until Bud, very important in his new position, rang the tiny desk-bell for the close of school, and Margaret, looking up, saw in dismay that she had been teaching the whole school. While they were singing a closing hymn the room began to fill up, and presently came the minister, walking importantly beside Mr. Tanner, his chin flattened upward as usual, but bent in till it made a double roll over his collar, his eyes rolling importantly, showing much of their whites, his sermon, in an elaborate leather cover, carried conspicuously under his arm, and the severest of clerical coats and collars setting out his insignificant face. Walking behind him in single file, measured step, just so far apart, came the eight men from the bunk-house--Long Bill, Big Jim, Fiddling Boss, Jasper Kemp, Fade-away Forbes, Stocky, Croaker, and Fudge; and behind them, looking like a scared rabbit, Mom Wallis scuttled into the back seat and sank out of sight. The eight men, however, ranged themselves across the front of the room on the recitation-bench, directly in front of the platform, removing a few small children for that purpose. They had been lined up in a scowling row along the path as the minister entered, looking at them askance under his aristocratic yellow eyebrows, and as he neared the door the last man followed in his wake, then the next, and so on. Margaret, in her seat half-way back at the side of the school-house near a window, saw through the trees a wide sombrero over a pair of broad shoulders; but, though she kept close watch, she did not see her friend of the wilderness enter the school-house. If he had really come to meeting, he was staying outside. The minister was rather nonplussed at first that there were no hymn-books. It almost seemed that he did not know how to go on with divine service without hymn-books, but at last he compromised on the long-meter Doxology, pronounced with deliberate unction. Then, looking about for a possible pipe-organ and choir, he finally started it himself; but it is doubtful whether any one would have recognized the tune enough to help it on if Margaret had not for very shame's sake taken it up and carried it along, and so they came to the prayer and Bible-reading. These were performed with a formal, perfunctory style calculated to impress the audience with the importance of the preacher rather than the words he was speaking. The audience was very quiet, having the air of reserving judgment for the sermon. Margaret could not just remember afterward how it was she missed the text. She had turned her eyes away from the minister, because it somehow made her feel homesick to compare him with her dear, dignified father. Her mind had wandered, perhaps, to the sombrero she had glimpsed outside, and she was wondering how its owner was coming on with his resolves, and just what change they would mean in his life, anyway. Then suddenly she awoke to the fact that the sermon had begun. CHAPTER XV "Considered in the world of physics," began the lordly tones of the Reverend Frederick, "dynamics is that branch of mechanics that treats of the effects of forces in producing motion, and of the laws of motion thus produced; sometimes called kinetics, opposed to statics. It is the science that treats of the laws of force, whether producing equilibrium or motion; in this sense including both statics and kinetics. It is also applied to the forces producing or governing activity or movement of any kind; also the methods of such activity." The big words rolled out magnificently over the awed gathering, and the minister flattened his chin and rolled his eyes up at the people in his most impressive way. Margaret's gaze hastily sought the row of rough men on the front seat, sitting with folded arms in an attitude of attention, each man with a pair of intelligent eyes under his shaggy brows regarding the preacher as they might have regarded an animal in a zoo. Did they understand what had been said? It was impossible to tell from their serious faces. "Philanthropy has been called the dynamics of Christianity; that is to say, it is Christianity in action," went on the preacher. "It is my purpose this morning to speak upon the dynamics of altruism. Now altruism is the theory that inculcates benevolence to others in subordination to self-interest; interested benevolence as opposed to disinterested; also, the practice of this theory." He lifted his eyes to the audience once more and nodded his head slightly, as if to emphasize the deep truth he had just given them, and the battery of keen eyes before him never flinched from his face. They were searching him through and through. Margaret wondered if he had no sense of the ridiculous, that he could, to such an audience, pour forth such a string of technical definitions. They sounded strangely like dictionary language. She wondered if anybody present besides herself knew what the man meant or got any inkling of what his subject was. Surely he would drop to simpler language, now that he had laid out his plan. It never occurred to her that the man was trying to impress _her_ with his wonderful fluency of language and his marvelous store of wisdom. On and on he went in much the same trend he had begun, with now and then a flowery sentence or whole paragraph of meaningless eloquence about the "brotherhood of man"--with a roll to the r's in brotherhood. Fifteen minutes of this profitless oratory those men of the wilderness endured, stolidly and with fixed attention; then, suddenly, a sentence of unusual simplicity struck them and an almost visible thrill went down the front seat. "For years the church has preached a dead faith, without works, my friends, and the time has come to stop preaching faith! I repeat it--fellow-men. I repeat it. The time has come _to stop preaching faith_ and begin to do good works!" He thumped the desk vehemently. "Men don't need a superstitious belief in a Saviour to save them from their sins; they need to go to work and save themselves! As if a man dying two thousand years ago on a cross could do any good to you and me to-day!" It was then that the thrill passed down that front line, and Long Bill, sitting at their head, leaned slightly forward and looked full and frowning into the face of Jasper Kemp; and the latter, frowning back, solemnly winked one eye. Margaret sat where she could see the whole thing. Immediately, still with studied gravity, Long Bill cleared his throat impressively, arose, and, giving the minister a full look in the eye, of the nature almost of a challenge, he turned and walked slowly, noisily down the aisle and out the front door. The minister was visibly annoyed, and for the moment a trifle flustered; but, concluding his remarks had been too deep for the rough creature, he gathered up the thread of his argument and proceeded: "We need to get to work at our duty toward our fellow-men. We need to down trusts and give the laboring-man a chance. We need to stop insisting that men shall believe in the inspiration of the entire Bible and get to work at something practical!" The impressive pause after this sentence was interrupted by a sharp, rasping sound of Big Jim clearing his throat and shuffling to his feet. He, too, looked the minister full in the face with a searching gaze, shook his head sadly, and walked leisurely down the aisle and out of the door. The minister paused again and frowned. This was becoming annoying. Margaret sat in startled wonder. Could it be possible that these rough men were objecting to the sermon from a theological point of view, or was it just a happening that they had gone out at such pointed moments. She sat back after a minute, telling herself that of course the men must just have been weary of the long sentences, which no doubt they could not understand. She began to hope that Gardley was not within hearing. It was not probable that many others understood enough to get harm from the sermon, but her soul boiled with indignation that a man could go forth and call himself a minister of an evangelical church and yet talk such terrible heresy. Big Jim's steps died slowly away on the clay path outside, and the preacher resumed his discourse. "We have preached long enough of hell and torment. It is time for a gospel of love to our brothers. Hell is a superstition of the Dark Ages. _There is no hell!_" Fiddling Boss turned sharply toward Jasper Kemp, as if waiting for a signal, and Jasper gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. Whereupon Fiddling Boss cleared his throat loudly and arose, faced the minister, and marched down the aisle, while Jasper Kemp remained quietly seated as if nothing had happened, a vacancy each side of him. By this time the color began to rise in the minister's cheeks. He looked at the retreating back of Fiddling Boss, and then suspiciously down at the row of men, but every one of them sat with folded arms and eyes intent upon the sermon, as if their comrades had not left them. The minister thought he must have been mistaken and took up the broken thread once more, or tried to, but he had hopelessly lost the place in his manuscript, and the only clue that offered was a quotation of a poem about the devil; to be sure, the connection was somewhat abrupt, but he clutched it with his eye gratefully and began reading it dramatically: "'Men don't believe in the devil now As their fathers used to do--'" But he had got no further when a whole clearing-house of throats sounded, and Fade-away Forbes stumbled to his feet frantically, bolting down the aisle as if he had been sent for. He had not quite reached the door when Stocky clumped after him, followed at intervals by Croaker and Fudge, and each just as the minister had begun: "Um! Ah! To resume--" And now only Jasper Kemp remained of the front-seaters, his fine gray eyes boring through and through the minister as he floundered through the remaining portion of his manuscript up to the point where it began, "And finally--" which opened with another poem: "'I need no Christ to die for me.'" The sturdy, gray-haired Scotchman suddenly lowered his folded arms, slapping a hand resoundingly on each knee, bent his shoulders the better to pull himself to his feet, pressing his weight on his hands till his elbows were akimbo, uttered a deep sigh and a, "Yes--well--_ah_!" With that he got to his feet and dragged them slowly out of the school-house. By this time the minister was ready to burst with indignation. Never before in all the bombastic days of his egotism had he been so grossly insulted, and by such rude creatures! And yet there was really nothing that could be said or done. These men appeared to be simple creatures who had wandered in idly, perhaps for a few moments' amusement, and, finding the discourse above their caliber, had innocently wandered out again. That was the way it had been made to appear. But his plans had been cruelly upset by such actions, and he was mortified in the extreme. His face was purple with his emotions, and he struggled and spluttered for a way out of his trying dilemma. At last he spoke, and his voice was absurdly dignified: "Is there--ah--any other--ah--auditor--ah--who is desirous of withdrawing before the close of service? If so he may do so now, or--ah--" He paused for a suitable ending, and familiar words rushed to his lips without consciousness for the moment of their meaning--"or forever after hold their peace--ah!" There was a deathly silence in the school-house. No one offered to go out, and Margaret suddenly turned her head and looked out of the window. Her emotions were almost beyond her control. Thus the closing eloquence proceeded to its finish, and at last the service was over. Margaret looked about for Mom Wallis, but she had disappeared. She signed to Bud, and together they hastened out; but a quiet Sabbath peace reigned about the door of the school-house, and not a man from the camp was in sight; no, nor even the horses upon which they had come. And yet, when the minister had finished shaking hands with the worshipful women and a few men and children, and came with Mr. Tanner to the door of the school-house, those eight men stood in a solemn row, four on each side of the walk, each holding his chin in his right hand, his right elbow in his left hand, and all eyes on Jasper Kemp, who kept his eyes thoughtfully up in the sky. "H'w aire yeh, Tanner? Pleasant 'casion. Mind steppin' on a bit? We men wanta have a word with the parson." Mr. Tanner stepped on hurriedly, and the minister was left standing nonplussed and alone in the doorway of the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "Um! Ah!" began the minister, trying to summon his best clerical manner to meet--what? He did not know. It was best to assume they were a penitent band of inquirers for the truth. But the memory of their recent exodus from the service was rather too clearly in his mind for his pleasantest expression to be uppermost toward these rough creatures. Insolent fellows! He ought to give them a good lesson in behavior! "Um! Ah!" he began again, but found to his surprise that his remarks thus far had had no effect whatever on the eight stolid countenances before him. In fact, they seemed to have grown grim and menacing even in their quiet attitude, and their eyes were fulfilling the promise of the look they had given him when they left the service. "What does all this mean, anyway?" he burst forth, suddenly. "Calm yourself, elder! Calm yourself," spoke up Long Bill. "There ain't any occasion to get excited." "I'm not an elder; I'm a minister of the gospel," exploded West, in his most pompous tones. "I should like to know who you are and what all this means?" "Yes, parson, we understand who you are. We understand quite well, an' we're agoin' to tell you who we are. We're a band of al-tru-ists! That's what we are. We're _altruists_!" It was Jasper Kemp of the keen eyes and sturdy countenance who spoke. "And we've come here in brotherly love to exercise a little of that dynamic force of altruism you was talkin' about. We just thought we'd begin on you so's you could see that we got some works to go 'long with our faith." "What do you mean, sir?" said West, looking from one grim countenance to another. "I--I don't quite understand." The minister was beginning to be frightened, he couldn't exactly tell why. He wished he had kept Brother Tanner with him. It was the first time he had ever thought of Mr. Tanner as "brother." "We mean just this, parson; you been talkin' a lot of lies in there about there bein' no Saviour an' no hell, ner no devil, an' while we ain't much credit to God ourselves, bein' just common men, we know all that stuff you said ain't true about the Bible an' the devil bein' superstitions, an' we thought we better exercise a little of that there altruism you was talkin' about an' teach you better. You see, it's real brotherly kindness, parson. An' now we're goin' to give you a sample of that dynamics you spoke about. Are you ready, boys?" "All ready," they cried as one man. There seemed to be no concerted motion, nor was there warning. Swifter than the weaver's shuttle, sudden as the lightning's flash, the minister was caught from where he stood pompously in that doorway, hat in hand, all grandly as he was attired, and hurled from man to man. Across the walk and back; across and back; across and back; until it seemed to him it was a thousand miles all in a minute of time. He had no opportunity to prepare for the onslaught. He jammed his high silk hat, wherewith he had thought to overawe the community, upon his sleek head, and grasped his precious sermon-case to his breast; the sermon, as it well deserved, was flung to the four winds of heaven and fortunately was no more--that is, existing as a whole. The time came when each of those eight men recovered and retained a portion of that learned oration, and Mom Wallis, not quite understanding, pinned up and used as a sort of shrine the portion about doubting the devil; but as a sermon the parts were never assembled on this earth, nor could be, for some of it was ground to powder under eight pairs of ponderous heels. But the minister at that trying moment was too much otherwise engaged to notice that the child of his brain lay scattered on the ground. Seven times he made the round up and down, up and down that merciless group, tossed like a thistle-down from man to man. And at last, when his breath was gone, when the world had grown black before him, and he felt smaller and more inadequate than he had ever felt in his whole conceited life before, he found himself bound, helplessly bound, and cast ignominiously into a wagon. And it was a strange thing that, though seemingly but five short minutes before the place had been swarming with worshipful admirers thanking him for his sermon, now there did not seem to be a creature within hearing, for he called and cried aloud and roared with his raucous voice until it would seem that all the surrounding States might have heard that cry from Arizona, yet none came to his relief. They carried him away somewhere, he did not know where; it was a lonely spot and near a water-hole. When he protested and loudly blamed them, threatening all the law in the land upon them, they regarded him as one might a naughty child who needed chastisement, leniently and with sorrow, but also with determination. They took him down by the water's side and stood him up among them. He began to tremble with fear as he looked from one to another, for he was not a man of courage, and he had heard strange tales of this wild, free land, where every man was a law unto himself. Were they going to drown him then and there? Then up spoke Jasper Kemp: "Mr. Parson," he said, and his voice was kind but firm; one might almost say there was a hint of humor in it, and there surely was a twinkle in his eye; but the sternness of his lips belied it, and the minister was in no state to appreciate humor--"Mr. Parson, we've brought you here to do you good, an' you oughtn't to complain. This is altruism, an' we're but actin' out what you been preachin'. You're our brother an' we're tryin' to do you good; an' now we're about to show you what a dynamic force we are. You see, Mr. Parson, I was brought up by a good Scotch grandmother, an' I know a lie when I hear it, an' when I hear a man preach error I know it's time to set him straight; so now we're agoin' to set you straight. I don't know where you come from, nor who brang you up, nor what church set you afloat, but I know enough by all my grandmother taught me--even if I hadn't been a-listenin' off and on for two years back to Mr. Brownleigh, our missionary--to know you're a dangerous man to have at large. I'd as soon have a mad dog let loose. Why, what you preach ain't the gospel, an' it ain't the truth, and the time has come for you to know it, an' own it and recant. Recant! That's what they call it. That's what we're here to see 't you do, or we'll know the reason why. That's the _dynamics_ of it. See?" The minister saw. He saw the deep, muddy water-hole. He saw nothing more. "Folks are all too ready to believe them there things you was gettin' off without havin' 'em _preached_ to justify 'em in their evil ways. We gotta think of those poor ignorant brothers of ours that might listen to you. See? That's the _altruism_ of it!" "What do you want me to do?" The wretched man's tone was not merely humble--it was abject. His grand Prince Albert coat was torn in three places; one tail hung down dejectedly over his hip; one sleeve was ripped half-way out. His collar was unbuttoned and the ends rode up hilariously over his cheeks. His necktie was gone. His sleek hair stuck out in damp wisps about his frightened eyes, and his hat had been "stove in" and jammed down as far as it would go until his ample ears stuck out like sails at half-mast. His feet were imbedded in the heavy mud on the margin of the water-hole, and his fine silk socks, which had showed at one time above the erstwhile neat tyings, were torn and covered with mud. "Well, in the first place," said Jasper Kemp, with a slow wink around at the company, "that little matter about hell needs adjustin'. Hell ain't no superstition. I ain't dictatin' what kind of a hell there is; you can make it fire or water or anything else you like, but _there is a hell_, an' _you believe in it_. D'ye understand? We'd just like to have you make that statement publicly right here an' now." "But how can I say what I don't believe?" whined West, almost ready to cry. He had come proudly through a trial by Presbytery on these very same points, and had posed as being a man who had the courage of his convictions. He could not thus easily surrender his pride of original thought and broad-mindedness. He had received congratulations from a number of noble martyrs who had left their chosen church for just such reasons, congratulating him on his brave stand. It had been the first notice from big men he had ever been able to attract to himself, and it had gone to his head like wine. Give that up for a few miserable cowboys! It might get into the papers and go back East. He must think of his reputation. "That's just where the dynamics of the thing comes in, brother," said Jasper Kemp, patronizingly. "We're here to _make_ you believe in a hell. We're the force that will bring you back into the right way of thinkin' again. Are you ready, boys?" The quiet utterance brought goose-flesh up to West's very ears, and his eyes bulged with horror. "Oh, that isn't necessary! I believe--yes, I believe in hell!" he shouted, as they seized him. But it was too late. The Rev. Frederick West was plunged into the water-hole, from whose sheep-muddied waters he came up spluttering, "Yes, I believe in _hell_!" and for the first time in his life, perhaps, he really did believe in it, and thought that he was in it. The men were standing knee-deep in the water and holding their captive lightly by his arms and legs, their eyes upon their leader, waiting now. Jasper Kemp stood in the water, also, looking down benevolently upon his victim, his chin in his hand, his elbow in his other hand, an attitude which carried a feeling of hopelessness to the frightened minister. "An' now there's that little matter of the devil," said Jasper Kemp, reflectively. "We'll just fix that up next while we're near his place of residence. You believe in the devil, Mr. Parson, from now on? If you'd ever tried resistin' him I figger you'd have b'lieved in him long ago. But _you believe in him_ from _now on_, an' you _don't preach against him any more_! We're not goin' to have our Arizona men gettin' off their guard an' thinkin' their enemy is dead. There _is_ a devil, parson, and you believe in him! Duck him, boys!" Down went the minister into the water again, and came up spluttering, "Yes, I--I--I--believe--in-the--devil." Even in this strait he was loath to surrender his pet theme--no devil. "Very well, so far as it goes," said Jasper Kemp, thoughtfully. "But now, boys, we're comin' to the most important of all, and you better put him under about three times, for there mustn't be no mistake about this matter. You believe in the Bible, parson--_the whole Bible_?" "Yes!" gasped West, as he went down the first time and got a mouthful of the bitter water, "I believe--" The voice was fairly anguished. Down he went again. Another mouthful of water. "_I believe in the whole Bible!_" he screamed, and went down the third time. His voice was growing weaker, but he came up and reiterated it without request, and was lifted out upon the mud for a brief respite. The men of the bunk-house were succeeding better than the Presbytery back in the East had been able to do. The conceit was no longer visible in the face of the Reverend Frederick. His teeth were chattering, and he was beginning to see one really needed to believe in something when one came as near to his end as this. "There's just one more thing to reckon with," said Jasper Kemp, thoughtfully. "That line of talk you was handin' out about a man dyin' on a cross two thousand years ago bein' nothin' to you. You said you _an' me_, but you can speak for _yourself_. We may not be much to look at, but we ain't goin' to stand for no such slander as that. Our missionary preaches all about that Man on the Cross, an' if you don't need Him before you get through this little campaign of life I'll miss my guess. Mebbe we haven't been all we might have been, but we ain't agoin' to let you ner no one else go back on that there Cross!" Jasper Kemp's tone was tender and solemn. As the minister lay panting upon his back in the mud he was forced to acknowledge that at only two other times in his life had a tone of voice so arrested his attention and filled him with awe; once when as a boy he had been caught copying off another's paper at examination-time, and he had been sent to the principal's office; and again on the occasion of his mother's funeral, as he sat in the dim church a few years ago and listened to the old minister. For a moment now he was impressed with the wonder of the Cross, and it suddenly seemed as if he were being arraigned before the eyes of Him with Whom we all have to do. A kind of shame stole into his pale, flabby face, all the smugness and complacence gone, and he a poor wretch in the hands of his accusers. Jasper Kemp, standing over him on the bank, looking down grimly upon him, seemed like the emissary of God sent to condemn him, and his little, self-centered soul quailed within him. "Along near the end of that discourse of yours you mentioned that sin was only misplaced energy. Well, if that's so there's a heap of your energy gone astray this mornin', an' the time has come for you to pay up. Speak up now an' say what you believe or whether you want another duckin'--an' it'll be seven times this time!" The man on the ground shut his eyes and gasped. The silence was very solemn. There seemed no hint of the ridiculous in the situation. It was serious business now to all those men. Their eyes were on their leader. "Do you solemnly declare before God--I s'pose you still believe in a God, as you didn't say nothin' to the contrary--that from now on you'll stand for that there Cross and for Him that hung on it?" The minister opened his eyes and looked up into the wide brightness of the sky, as if he half expected to see horses and chariots of fire standing about to do battle with him then and there, and his voice was awed and frightened as he said: "I do!" There was silence, and the men stood with half-bowed heads, as if some solemn service were being performed that they did not quite understand, but in which they fully sympathized. Then Jasper Kemp said, softly: "Amen!" And after a pause: "I ain't any sort of a Christian myself, but I just can't stand it to see a parson floatin' round that don't even know the name of the firm he's workin' for. Now, parson, there's just one more requirement, an' then you can go home." The minister opened his eyes and looked around with a frightened appeal, but no one moved, and Jasper Kemp went on: "You say you had a church in New York. What was the name and address of your workin'-boss up there?" "What do you mean? I hadn't any boss." "Why, him that hired you an' paid you. The chief elder or whatever you called him." "Oh!" The minister's tone expressed lack of interest in the subject, but he answered, languidly, "Ezekiel Newbold, Hazelton." "Very good. Now, parson, you'll just kindly write two copies of a letter to Mr. Ezekiel Newbold statin' what you've just said to us concernin' your change of faith, sign your name, address one to Mr. Newbold, an' give the duplicate to me. We just want this little matter put on record so you can't change your mind any in future. Do you get my idea?" "Yes," said the minister, dispiritedly. "Will you do it?" "Yes," apathetically. "Well, now I got a piece of advice for you. It would be just as well for your health for you to leave Arizona about as quick as you can find it convenient to pack, but you won't be allowed to leave this town, day or night, cars or afoot, until them there letters are all O.K. Do you get me?" "Yes," pathetically. "I might add, by way of explainin', that if you had come to Arizona an' minded your own business you wouldn't have been interfered with. You mighta preached whatever bosh you darned pleased so far as we was concerned, only you wouldn't have had no sorta audience after the first try of that stuff you give to-day. But when you come to Arizona an' put your fingers in other folks' pie, when you tried to 'squeal' on the young gentleman who was keen enough to shoot out the lights to save a man's life, why, we 'ain't no further use for you. In the first place, you was all wrong. You thought the Kid shot out the lights to steal the gamin'-money; but he didn't. He put it all in the hands of the sheriff some hours before your 'private information' reached him through the mail. You thought you were awful sharp, you little sneak! But I wasn't the only man present who saw you put your foot out an' cover a gold piece that rolled on the floor just when the fight began. You thought nobody was a-lookin', but you'll favor us, please, with that identical gold piece along with the letter before you leave. Well, boys, that'll be about all, then. Untie him!" In silence and with a kind of contemptuous pity in their faces the strong men stooped and unbound him; then, without another word, they left him, tramping solemnly away single file to their horses, standing at a little distance. Jasper Kemp lingered for a moment, looking down at the wretched man. "Would you care to have us carry you back to the house?" he asked, reflectively. "No!" said the minister, bitterly. "No!" And without another word Jasper Kemp left him. Into the mesquite-bushes crept the minister, his glory all departed, and hid his misery from the light, groaning in bitterness of spirit. He who had made the hearts of a score of old ministers to sorrow for Zion, who had split in two a pleasantly united congregation, disrupted a session, and brought about a scandalous trial in Presbytery was at last conquered. The Rev. Frederick West had recanted! CHAPTER XVII When Margaret left the school-house with Bud she had walked but a few steps when she remembered Mom Wallis and turned back to search for her; but nowhere could she find a trace of her, and the front of the school-house was as empty of any people from the camp as if they had not been there that morning. The curtain had not yet risen for the scene of the undoing of West. "I suppose she must have gone home with them," said the girl, wistfully. "I'm sorry not to have spoken with her. She was good to me." "You mean Mom Wallis?" said the boy. "No, she ain't gone home. She's hiking 'long to our house to see you. The Kid went along of her. See, there--down by those cottonwood-trees? That's them." Margaret turned with eagerness and hurried along with Bud now. She knew who it was they called the Kid in that tone of voice. It was the way the men had spoken of and to him, a mingling of respect and gentling that showed how much beloved he was. Her cheeks wore a heightened color, and her heart gave a pleasant flutter of interest. They walked rapidly and caught up with their guests before they had reached the Tanner house, and Margaret had the pleasure of seeing Mom Wallis's face flush with shy delight when she caught her softly round the waist, stealing quietly up behind, and greeted her with a kiss. There had not been many kisses for Mom Wallis in the later years, and the two that were to Margaret Earle's account seemed very sweet to her. Mom Wallis's eyes shone as if she had been a young girl as she turned with a smothered "Oh!" She was a woman not given to expressing herself; indeed, it might be said that the last twenty years of her life had been mainly of self-repression. She gave that one little gasp of recognition and pleasure, and then she relapsed into embarrassed silence beside the two young people who found pleasure in their own greetings. Bud, boy-like, was after a cottontail, along with Cap, who had appeared from no one knew where and was attending the party joyously. Mom Wallis, in her big, rough shoes, on the heels of which her scant brown calico gown was lifted as she walked, trudged shyly along between the two young people, as carefully watched and helped over the humps and bumps of the way as if she had been a princess. Margaret noticed with a happy approval how Gardley's hand was ready under the old woman's elbow to assist her as politely as he might have done for her own mother had she been walking by his side. Presently Bud and Cap returned, and Bud, with observant eye, soon timed his step to Margaret's on her other side and touched her elbow lightly to help her over the next rut. This was his second lesson in manners from Gardley. He had his first the Sunday before, watching the two while he and Cap walked behind. Bud was learning. He had keen eyes and an alert brain. Margaret smiled understandingly at him, and his face grew deep red with pleasure. "He was bringin' me to see where you was livin'," explained Mom Wallis, suddenly, nodding toward Gardley as if he had been a king. "We wasn't hopin' to see you, except mebbe just as you come by goin' in." "Oh, then I'm so glad I caught up with you in time. I wouldn't have missed you for anything. I went back to look for you. Now you're coming in to dinner with me, both of you," declared Margaret, joyfully. "William, your mother will have enough dinner for us all, won't she?" "Sure!" said Bud, with that assurance born of his life acquaintance with his mother, who had never failed him in a trying situation so far as things to eat were concerned. Margaret looked happily from one of her invited guests to the other, and Gardley forgot to answer for himself in watching the brightness of her face, and wondering why it was so different from the faces of all other girls he knew anywhere. But Mom Wallis was overwhelmed. A wave of red rolled dully up from her withered neck in its gala collar over her leathery face to the roots of her thin, gray hair. "Me! Stay to dinner! Oh, I couldn't do that nohow! Not in these here clo'es. 'Course I got that pretty collar you give me, but I couldn't never go out to dinner in this old dress an' these shoes. I know what folks ought to look like an' I ain't goin' to shame you." "Shame me? Nonsense! Your dress is all right, and who is going to see your shoes? Besides, I've just set my heart on it. I want to take you up to my room and show you the pictures of my father and mother and home and the church where I was christened, and everything." Mom Wallis looked at her with wistful eyes, but still shook her head. "Oh, I'd like to mighty well. It's good of you to ast me. But I couldn't. I just couldn't. 'Sides, I gotta go home an' git the men's grub ready." "Oh, can't she stay this time, Mr. Gardley?" appealed Margaret. "The men won't mind for once, will they?" Gardley looked into her true eyes and saw she really meant the invitation. He turned to the withered old woman by his side. "Mom, we're going to stay," he declared, joyously. "She wants us, and we have to do whatever she says. The men will rub along. They all know how to cook. Mom, _we're going to stay_." "That's beautiful!" declared Margaret. "It's so nice to have some company of my own." Then her face suddenly sobered. "Mr. Wallis won't mind, will he?" And she looked with troubled eyes from one of her guests to the other. She did not want to prepare trouble for poor Mom Wallis when she went back. Mom Wallis turned startled eyes toward her. There was contempt in her face and outraged womanhood. "Pop's gone off," she said, significantly. "He went yist'day. But he 'ain't got no call t' mind. I ben waitin' on Pop nigh on to twenty year, an' I guess I'm goin' to a dinner-party, now 't I'm invited. Pop 'd better _not_ mind, I guess!" And Margaret suddenly saw how much, how very much, her invitation had been to the starved old soul. Margaret took her guests into the stiff little parlor and slipped out to interview her landlady. She found Mrs. Tanner, as she had expected, a large-minded woman who was quite pleased to have more guests to sit down to her generous dinner, particularly as her delightful boarder had hinted of ample recompense in the way of board money; and she fluttered about, sending Tanner after another jar of pickles, some more apple-butter, and added another pie to the menu. Well pleased, Margaret left Mrs. Tanner and slipped back to her guests. She found Gardley making arrangements with Bud to run back to the church and tell the men to leave the buckboard for them, as they would not be home for dinner. While this was going on she took Mom Wallis up to her room to remove her bonnet and smooth her hair. It is doubtful whether Mom Wallis ever did see such a room in her life; for when Margaret swung open the door the poor little woman stopped short on the threshold, abashed, and caught her breath, looking around with wondering eyes and putting out a trembling hand to steady herself against the door-frame. She wasn't quite sure whether things in that room were real, or whether she might not by chance have caught a glimpse into heaven, so beautiful did it seem to her. It was not till her eyes, in the roving, suddenly rested on the great mountain framed in the open window that she felt anchored and sure that this was a tangible place. Then she ventured to step her heavy shoe inside the door. Even then she drew her ugly calico back apologetically, as if it were a desecration to the lovely room. But Margaret seized her and drew her into the room, placing her gently in the rose-ruffled rocking-chair as if it were a throne and she a queen, and the poor little woman sat entranced, with tears springing to her eyes and trickling down her cheeks. Perhaps it was an impossibility for Margaret to conceive what the vision of that room meant to Mom Wallis. The realization of all the dreams of a starved soul concentrated into a small space; the actual, tangible proof that there might be a heaven some day--who knew?--since beauties and comforts like these could be real in Arizona. Margaret brought the pictures of her father and mother, of her dear home and the dear old church. She took her about the room and showed her the various pictures and reminders of her college days, and when she saw that the poor creature was overwhelmed and speechless she turned her about and showed her the great mountain again, like an anchorage for her soul. Mom Wallis looked at everything speechlessly, gasping as her attention was turned from one object to another, as if she were unable to rise beyond her excitement; but when she saw the mountain again her tongue was loosed, and she turned and looked back at the girl wonderingly. "Now, ain't it strange! Even that old mounting looks diffrunt--it do look diffrunt from a room like this. Why, it looks like it got its hair combed an' its best collar on!" And Mom Wallis looked down with pride and patted the simple net ruffle about her withered throat. "Why, it looks like a picter painted an' hung up on this yere wall, that's what that mounting looks like! It kinda ain't no mounting any more; it's jest a picter in your room!" Margaret smiled. "It is a picture, isn't it? Just look at that silver light over the purple place. Isn't it wonderful? I like to think it's mine--my mountain. And yet the beautiful thing about it is that it's just as much yours, too. It will make a picture of itself framed in your bunk-house window if you let it. Try it. You just need to let it." Mom Wallis looked at her wonderingly. "Do you mean," she said, studying the girl's lovely face, "that ef I should wash them there bunk-house winders, an' string up some posy caliker, an' stuff a chair, an' have a pin-cushion, I could make that there mounting come in an' set fer me like a picter the way it does here fer you?" "Yes, that's what I mean," said Margaret, softly, marveling how the uncouth woman had caught the thought. "That's exactly what I mean. God's gifts will be as much to us as we will let them, always. Try it and see." Mom Wallis stood for some minutes looking out reflectively at the mountain. "Wal, mebbe I'll try it!" she said, and turned back to survey the room again. And now the mirror caught her eye, and she saw herself, a strange self in a soft white collar, and went up to get a nearer view, laying a toil-worn finger on the lace and looking half embarrassed at sight of her own face. "It's a real purty collar," she said, softly, with a choke in her voice. "It's too purty fer me. I told him so, but he said as how you wanted I should dress up every night fer supper in it. It's 'most as strange as havin' a mounting come an' live with you, to wear a collar like that--me!" Margaret's eyes were suddenly bright with tears. Who would have suspected Mom Wallis of having poetry in her nature? Then, as if her thoughts anticipated the question in Margaret's mind, Mom Wallis went on: "He brang me your little book," she said. "I ain't goin' to say thank yeh, it ain't a big-'nuf word. An' he read me the poetry words it says. I got it wropped in a hankercher on the top o' the beam over my bed. I'm goin' to have it buried with me when I die. Oh, I _read_ it. I couldn't make much out of it, but I read the words thorough. An' then _he_ read 'em--the Kid did. He reads just beautiful. He's got education, he has. He read it, and he talked a lot about it. Was this what you mean? Was it that we ain't really growin' old at all, we're jest goin' on, _gettin_' there, if we go right? Did you mean you think Him as planned it all wanted some old woman right thar in the bunk-house, an' it's _me_? Did you mean there was agoin' to be a chanct fer me to be young an' beautiful somewheres in creation yit, 'fore I git through?" The old woman had turned around from looking into the mirror and was facing her hostess. Her eyes were very bright; her cheeks had taken on an excited flush, and her knotted hands were clutching the bureau. She looked into Margaret's eyes earnestly, as though her very life depended upon the answer; and Margaret, with a great leap of her heart, smiled and answered: "Yes, Mrs. Wallis, yes, that is just what I meant. Listen, these are God's own words about it: 'For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.'" A kind of glory shone in the withered old face now. "Did you say them was God's words?" she asked in an awed voice. "Yes," said Margaret; "they are in the Bible." "But you couldn't be sure it meant _me_?" she asked, eagerly. "They wouldn't go to put _me_ in the Bible, o' course." "Oh yes, you could be quite sure, Mrs. Wallis," said Margaret, gently. "Because if God was making you and had a plan for you, as the poem says, He would be sure to put down something in His book about it, don't you think? He would want you to know." "It does sound reasonable-like now, don't it?" said the woman, wistfully. "Say them glory words again, won't you?" Margaret repeated the text slowly and distinctly. "Glory!" repeated Mom Wallis, wonderingly. "Glory! Me!" and turned incredulously toward the glass. She looked a long tune wistfully at herself, as if she could not believe it, and pulled reproachfully at the tight hair drawn away from her weather-beaten face. "I useta have purty hair onct," she said, sadly. "Why, you have pretty hair now!" said Margaret, eagerly. "It just wants a chance to show its beauty, Here, let me fix it for dinner, will you?" She whisked the bewildered old woman into a chair and began unwinding the hard, tight knot of hair at the back of her head and shaking it out. The hair was thin and gray now, but it showed signs of having been fine and thick once. "It's easy to keep your hair looking pretty," said the girl, as she worked. "I'm going to give you a little box of my nice sweet-smelling soap-powder that I use to shampoo my hair. You take it home and wash your hair with it every two or three weeks and you'll see it will make a difference in a little while. You just haven't taken time to take care of it, that's all. Do you mind if I wave the front here a little? I'd like to fix your hair the way my mother wears hers." Now nothing could have been further apart than this little weather-beaten old woman and Margaret's gentle, dove-like mother, with her abundant soft gray hair, her cameo features, and her pretty, gray dresses; but Margaret had a vision of what glory might bring to Mom Wallis, and she wanted to help it along. She believed that heavenly glory can be hastened a good deal on earth if one only tries, and so she set to work. Glancing out the window, she saw with relief that Gardley was talking interestedly with Mr. Tanner and seemed entirely content with their absence. Mom Wallis hadn't any idea what "waving" her hair meant, but she readily consented to anything this wonderful girl proposed, and she sat entranced, looking at her mountain and thrilling with every touch of Margaret's satin fingers against her leathery old temples. And so, Sunday though it was, Margaret lighted her little alcohol-lamp and heated a tiny curling-iron which she kept for emergencies. In a few minutes' time Mom Wallis's astonished old gray locks lay soft and fluffy about her face, and pinned in a smooth coil behind, instead of the tight knot, making the most wonderful difference in the world in her old, tired face. "Now look!" said Margaret, and turned her about to the mirror. "If there's anything at all you don't like about it I can change it, you know. You don't have to wear it so if you don't like it." The old woman looked, and then looked back at Margaret with frightened eyes, and back to the vision in the mirror again. "My soul!" she exclaimed in an awed voice. "My soul! It's come a'ready! Glory! I didn't think I could look like that! I wonder what Pop 'd say! My land! Would you mind ef I kep' it on a while an' wore it back to camp this way? Pop might uv come home an' I'd like to see ef he'd take notice to it. I used to be purty onct, but I never expected no sech thing like this again on earth. Glory! Glory! Mebbe I _could_ get some glory, _too_." "'The glory that shall be revealed' is a great deal more wonderful than this," said Margaret, gently. "This was here all the time, only you didn't let it come out. Wear it home that way, of course, and wear it so all the time. It's very little trouble, and you'll find your family will like it. Men always like to see a woman looking her best, even when she's working. It helps to make them good. Before you go home I'll show you how to fix it. It's quite simple. Come, now, shall we go down-stairs? We don't want to leave Mr. Gardley alone too long, and, besides, I smell the dinner. I think they'll be waiting for us pretty soon. I'm going to take a few of these pictures down to show Mr. Gardley." She hastily gathered a few photographs together and led the bewildered little woman down-stairs again, and out in the yard, where Gardley was walking up and down now, looking off at the mountain. It came to Margaret, suddenly, that the minister would be returning to the house soon, and she wished he wouldn't come. He would be a false note in the pleasant harmony of the little company. He would be disagreeable to manage, and perhaps hurt poor Mom Wallis's feelings. Perhaps he had already come. She looked furtively around as she came out the door, but no minister was in sight, and then she forgot him utterly in the look of bewildered astonishment with which Gardley was regarding Mom Wallis. He had stopped short in his walk across the little yard, and was staring at Mom Wallis, recognition gradually growing in his gaze. When he was fully convinced he turned his eyes to Margaret, as if to ask: "How did you do it? Wonderful woman!" and a look of deep reverence for her came over his face. Then suddenly he noticed the shy embarrassment on the old woman's face, and swiftly came toward her, his hands outstretched, and, taking her bony hands in his, bowed low over them as a courtier might do. "Mom Wallis, you are beautiful. Did you know it?" he said, gently, and led her to a little stumpy rocking-chair with a gay red-and-blue rag cushion that Mrs. Tanner always kept sitting by the front door in pleasant weather. Then he stood off and surveyed her, while the red stole into her cheeks becomingly. "What has Miss Earle been doing to glorify you?" he asked, again looking at her earnestly. The old woman looked at him in awed silence. There was that word again--glory! He had said the girl had glorified her. There was then some glory in her, and it had been brought out by so simple a thing as the arrangement of her hair. It frightened her, and tears came and stood in her tired old eyes. It was well for Mom Wallis's equilibrium that Mr. Tanner came out just then with the paper he had gone after, for the stolidity of her lifetime was about breaking up. But, as he turned, Gardley gave her one of the rarest smiles of sympathy and understanding that a young man can give to an old woman; and Margaret, watching, loved him for it. It seemed to her one of the most beautiful things a young man had ever done. They had discussed the article in the paper thoroughly, and had looked at the photographs that Margaret had brought down; and Mrs. Tanner had come to the door numberless times, looking out in a troubled way down the road, only to trot back again, look in the oven, peep in the kettle, sigh, and trot out to the door again. At last she came and stood, arms akimbo, and looked down the road once more. "Pa, I don't just see how I can keep the dinner waitin' a minute longer, The potatoes 'll be sp'iled. I don't see what's keepin' that preacher-man. He musta been invited out, though I don't see why he didn't send me word." "That's it, likely, Ma," said Tanner. He was growing hungry. "I saw Mis' Bacon talkin' to him. She's likely invited him there. She's always tryin' to get ahead o' you, Ma, you know, 'cause you got the prize fer your marble cake." Mrs. Tanner blushed and looked down apologetically at her guests. "Well, then, ef you'll just come in and set down, I'll dish up. My land! Ain't that Bud comin' down the road, Pa? He's likely sent word by Bud. I'll hurry in an' dish up." Bud slid into his seat hurriedly after a brief ablution in the kitchen, and his mother questioned him sharply. "Bud, wher you be'n? Did the minister get invited out?" The boy grinned and slowly winked one eye at Gardley. "Yes, he's invited out, all right," he said, meaningly. "You don't need to wait fer him. He won't be home fer some time, I don't reckon." Gardley looked keenly, steadily, at the boy's dancing eyes, and resolved to have a fuller understanding later, and his own eyes met the boy's in a gleam of mischief and sympathy. It was the first time in twenty years that Mom Wallis had eaten anything which she had not prepared herself, and now, with fried chicken and company preserves before her, she could scarcely swallow a mouthful. To be seated beside Gardley and waited on like a queen! To be smiled at by the beautiful young girl across the table, and deferred to by Mr. and Mrs. Tanner as "Mrs. Wallis," and asked to have more pickles and another helping of jelly, and did she take cream and sugar in her coffee! It was too much, and Mom Wallis was struggling with the tears. Even Bud's round, blue eyes regarded her with approval and interest. She couldn't help thinking, if her own baby boy had lived, would he ever have been like Bud? And once she smiled at him, and Bud smiled back, a real boy-like, frank, hearty grin. It was all like taking dinner in the Kingdom of Heaven to Mom Wallis, and getting glory aforetime. It was a wonderful afternoon, and seemed to go on swift wings. Gardley went back to the school-house, where the horses had been left, and Bud went with him to give further particulars about that wink at the dinner-table. Mom Wallis went up to the rose-garlanded room and learned how to wash her hair, and received a roll of flowered scrim wherewith to make curtains for the bunk-house. Margaret had originally intended it for the school-house windows in case it proved necessary to make that place habitable, but the school-room could wait. And there in the rose-room, with the new curtains in her trembling hands, and the great old mountain in full view, Mom Wallis knelt beside the little gay rocking-chair, while Margaret knelt beside her and prayed that the Heavenly Father would show Mom Wallis how to let the glory be revealed in her now on the earth. Then Mom Wallis wiped the furtive tears away with her calico sleeve, tied on her funny old bonnet, and rode away with her handsome young escort into the silence of the desert, with the glory beginning to be revealed already in her countenance. Quite late that evening the minister returned. He came in slowly and wearily, as if every step were a pain to him, and he avoided the light. His coat was torn and his garments were mud-covered. He murmured of a "slight accident" to Mrs. Tanner, who met him solicitously in a flowered dressing-gown with a candle in her hand. He accepted greedily the half a pie, with cheese and cold chicken and other articles, she proffered on a plate at his door, and in the reply to her query as to where he had been for dinner, and if he had a pleasant time, he said: "Very pleasant, indeed, thank you! The name? Um--ah--I disremember! I really didn't ask--That is--" The minister did not get up to breakfast, In fact, he remained in bed for several days, professing to be suffering with an attack of rheumatism. He was solicitously watched over and fed by the anxious Mrs. Tanner, who was much disconcerted at the state of affairs, and couldn't understand why she could not get the school-teacher more interested in the invalid. On the fourth day, however, the Reverend Frederick crept forth, white and shaken, with his sleek hair elaborately combed to cover a long scratch on his forehead, and announced his intention of departing from the State of Arizona that evening. He crept forth cautiously to the station as the shades of evening drew on, but found Long Bill awaiting him, and Jasper Kemp not far away. He had the two letters ready in his pocket, with the gold piece, though he had entertained hopes of escaping without forfeiting them, but he was obliged to wait patiently until Jasper Kemp had read both letters through twice, with the train in momentary danger of departing without him, before he was finally allowed to get on board. Jasper Kemp's parting word to him was: "Watch your steps spry, parson. I'm agoin' to see that you're shadowed wherever you go. You needn't think you can get shy on the Bible again. It won't pay." There was menace in the dry remark, and the Reverend Frederick's professional egotism withered before it. He bowed his head, climbed on board the train, and vanished from the scene of his recent discomfiture. But the bitterest thing about it all was that he had gone without capturing the heart or even the attention of that haughty little school-teacher. "And she was such a pretty girl," he said, regretfully, to himself. "Such a _very_ pretty girl!" He sighed deeply to himself as he watched Arizona speed by the window. "Still," he reflected, comfortably, after a moment, "there are always plenty more! What was that remarkably witty saying I heard just before I left home? 'Never run after a street-car or a woman. There'll be another one along in a minute.' Um--ah--yes--very true--there'll be another one along in a minute." CHAPTER XVIII School had settled down to real work by the opening of the new week. Margaret knew her scholars and had gained a personal hold on most of them already. There was enough novelty in her teaching to keep the entire school in a pleasant state of excitement and wonder as to what she would do next, and the word had gone out through all the country round about that the new teacher had taken the school by storm. It was not infrequent for men to turn out of their way on the trail to get a glimpse of the school as they were passing, just to make sure the reports were true. Rumor stated that the teacher was exceedingly pretty; that she would take no nonsense, not even from the big boys; that she never threatened nor punished, but that every one of the boys was her devoted slave. There had been no uprising, and it almost seemed as if that popular excitement was to be omitted this season, and school was to sail along in an orderly and proper manner. In fact, the entire school as well as the surrounding population were eagerly talking about the new piano, which seemed really to be a coming fact. Not that there had been anything done toward it yet, but the teacher had promised that just as soon as every one was really studying hard and doing his best, she was going to begin to get them ready for an entertainment to raise money for that piano. They couldn't begin until everybody was in good working order, because they didn't want to take the interest away from the real business of school; but it was going to be a Shakespeare play, whatever that was, and therefore of grave import. Some people talked learnedly about Shakespeare and hinted of poetry; but the main part of the community spoke the name joyously and familiarly and without awe, as if it were milk and honey in their mouths. Why should they reverence Shakespeare more than any one else? Margaret had grown used to seeing a head appear suddenly at one of the school-room windows and look long and frowningly first at her, then at the school, and then back to her again, as if it were a nine days' wonder. Whoever the visitor was, he would stand quietly, watching the process of the hour as if he were at a play, and Margaret would turn and smile pleasantly, then go right on with her work. The visitor would generally take off a wide hat and wave it cordially, smile back a curious, softened smile, and by and by he would mount his horse and pass on reflectively down the trail, wishing he could be a boy and go back again to school--such a school! Oh, it was not all smooth, the way that Margaret walked. There were hitches, and unpleasant days when nothing went right, and when some of the girls got silly and rebellious, and the boys followed in their lead. She had her trials like any teacher, skilful as she was, and not the least of them became Rosa Rogers, the petted beauty, who presently manifested a childish jealousy of her in her influence over the boys. Noting this, Margaret went out of her way to win Rosa, but found it a difficult matter. Rosa was proud, selfish, and unprincipled. She never forgave any one who frustrated her plans. She resented being made to study like the rest. She had always compelled the teacher to let her do as she pleased and still give her a good report. This she found she could not do with Margaret, and for the first time in her career she was compelled to work or fall behind. It presently became not a question of how the new teacher was to manage the big boys and the bad boys of the Ashland Ridge School, but how she was to prevent Rosa Rogers and a few girls who followed her from upsetting all her plans. The trouble was, Rosa was pretty and knew her power over the boys. If she chose she could put them all in a state of insubordination, and this she chose very often during those first few weeks. But there was one visitor who did not confine himself to looking in at the window. One morning a fine black horse came galloping up to the school-house at recess-time, and a well-set-up young man in wide sombrero and jaunty leather trappings sprang off and came into the building. His shining spurs caught the sunlight and flashed as he moved. He walked with the air of one who regards himself of far more importance than all who may be watching him. The boys in the yard stopped their ball-game, and the girls huddled close in whispering groups and drew near to the door. He was a young man from a ranch near the fort some thirty miles away, and he had brought an invitation for the new school-teacher to come over to dinner on Friday evening and stay until the following Monday morning. The invitation was from his sister, the wife of a wealthy cattleman whose home and hospitality were noted for miles around. She had heard of the coming of the beautiful young teacher, and wanted to attach her to her social circle. The young man was deference itself to Margaret, openly admiring her as he talked, and said the most gracious things to her; and then, while she was answering the note, he smiled over at Rosa Rogers, who had slipped into her seat and was studiously preparing her algebra with the book upside down. Margaret, looking up, caught Rosa's smiling glance and the tail end of a look from the young man's eyes, and felt a passing wonder whether he had ever met the girl before. Something in the boldness of his look made her feel that he had not. Yet he was all smiles and deference to herself, and his open admiration and pleasure that she was to come to help brighten this lonely country, and that she was going to accept the invitation, was really pleasant to the girl, for it was desolate being tied down to only the Tanner household and the school, and she welcomed any bit of social life. The young man had light hair, combed very smooth, and light-blue eyes. They were bolder and handsomer than the minister's, but the girl had a feeling that they were the very same cold color. She wondered at her comparison, for she liked the handsome young man, and in spite of herself was a little flattered at the nice things he had said to her. Nevertheless, when she remembered him afterward it was always with that uncomfortable feeling that if he hadn't been so handsome and polished in his appearance he would have seemed just a little bit like that minister, and she couldn't for the life of her tell why. After he was gone she looked back at Rosa, and there was a narrowing of the girl's eyes and a frown of hate on her brows. Margaret turned with a sigh back to her school problem--what to do with Rosa Rogers? But Rosa did not stay in the school-house. She slipped out and walked arm in arm with Amanda Bounds down the road. Margaret went to the door and watched. Presently she saw the rider wheel and come galloping back to the door. He had forgotten to tell her that an escort would be sent to bring her as early on Friday afternoon as she would be ready to leave the school, and he intimated that he hoped he might be detailed for that pleasant duty. Margaret looked into his face and warmed to his pleasant smile. How could she have thought him like West? He touched his hat and rode away, and a moment later she saw him draw rein beside Rosa and Amanda, and presently dismount. Bud rang the bell just then, and Margaret went back to her desk with a lingering look at the three figures in the distance. It was full half an hour before Rosa came in, with Amanda looking scared behind her; and troubled Margaret watched the sly look in the girl's eyes and wondered what she ought to do about it. As Rosa was passing out of the door after school she called her to the desk. "You were late in coming in after recess, Rosa," said Margaret, gently. "Have you any excuse?" "I was talking to a friend," said Rosa, with a toss of her head which said, as plainly as words could have done, "I don't intend to give an excuse." "Were you talking to the gentleman who was here?" "Well, if I was, what is that to you, Miss Earle?" said Rosa, haughtily. "Did you think you could have all the men and boys to yourself?" "Rosa," said Margaret, trying to speak calmly, but her voice trembling with suppressed indignation, "don't talk that way to me. Child, did you ever meet Mr. Forsythe before?" "I'm not a child, and it's none of your business!" flouted Rosa, angrily, and she twitched away and flung herself out of the school-house. Margaret, trembling from the disagreeable encounter, stood at the window and watched the girl going down the road, and felt for the moment that she would rather give up her school and go back home than face the situation. She knew in her heart that this girl, once an enemy, would be a bitter one, and this her last move had been a most unfortunate one, coming out, as it did, with Rosa in the lead. She could, of course, complain to Rosa's family, or to the school-board, but such was not the policy she had chosen. She wanted to be able to settle her own difficulties. It seemed strange that she could not reach this one girl--who was in a way the key to the situation. Perhaps the play would be able to help her. She spent a long time that evening going over the different plays in her library, and finally, with a look of apology toward a little photographed head of Shakespeare, she decided on "Midsummer-Night's Dream." What if it was away above the heads of them all, wouldn't a few get something from it? And wasn't it better to take a great thing and try to make her scholars and a few of the community understand it, rather than to take a silly little play that would not amount to anything in the end? Of course, they couldn't do it well; that went without saying. Of course it would be away beyond them all, but at least it would be a study of something great for her pupils, and she could meantime teach them a little about Shakespeare and perhaps help some of them to learn to love his plays and study them. The play she had selected was one in which she herself had acted the part of Puck, and she knew it by heart. She felt reasonably sure that she could help some of the more adaptable scholars to interpret their parts, and, at least, it would be good for them just as a study in literature. As for the audience, they would not be critics. Perhaps they would not even be able to comprehend the meaning of the play, but they would come and they would listen, and the experiment was one worth trying. Carefully she went over the parts, trying to find the one which she thought would best fit Rosa Rogers, and please her as well, because it gave her opportunity to display her beauty and charm. She really was a pretty girl, and would do well. Margaret wondered whether she were altogether right in attempting to win the girl through her vanity, and yet what other weak place was there in which to storm the silly little citadel of her soul? And so the work of assigning parts and learning them began that very week, though no one was allowed a part until his work for the day had all been handed in. At noon Margaret made one more attempt with Rosa Rogers. She drew her to a seat beside her and put aside as much as possible her own remembrance of the girl's disagreeable actions and impudent words. "Rosa," she said, and her voice was very gentle, "I want to have a little talk with you. You seem to feel that you and I are enemies, and I don't want you to have that attitude. I hoped we'd be the best of friends. You see, there isn't any other way for us to work well together. And I want to explain why I spoke to you as I did yesterday. It was not, as you hinted, that I want to keep all my acquaintances to myself. I have no desire to do that. It was because I feel responsible for the girls and boys in my care, and I was troubled lest perhaps you had been foolish--" Margaret paused. She could see by the bright hardness of the girl's eyes that she was accomplishing nothing. Rosa evidently did not believe her. "Well, Rosa," she said, suddenly, putting an impulsive, kindly hand on the girl's arm, "suppose we forget it this time, put it all away, and be friends. Let's learn to understand each other if we can, but in the mean time I want to talk to you about the play." And then, indeed, Rosa's hard manner broke, and she looked up with interest, albeit there was some suspicion in the glance. She wanted to be in that play with all her heart; she wanted the very showiest part in it, too; and she meant to have it, although she had a strong suspicion that the teacher would want to keep that part for herself, whatever it was. But Margaret had been wise. She had decided to take time and explain the play to her, and then let her choose her own part. She wisely judged that Rosa would do better in the part in which her interest centered, and perhaps the choice would help her to understand her pupil better. And so for an hour she patiently stayed after school and went over the play, explaining it carefully, and it seemed at one time as though Rosa was about to choose to be Puck, because with quick perception she caught the importance of that character; but when she learned that the costume must be a quiet hood and skirt of green and brown she scorned it, and chose, at last, to be Titania, queen of the fairies. So, with a sigh of relief, and a keen insight into the shallow nature, Margaret began to teach the girl some of the fairy steps, and found her quick and eager to learn. In the first lesson Rosa forgot for a little while her animosity and became almost as one of the other pupils. The play was going to prove a great means of bringing them all together. Before Friday afternoon came the parts had all been assigned and the plans for the entertainment were well under way. Jed and Timothy had been as good as their word about giving the teacher riding-lessons, each vying with the other to bring a horse and make her ride at noon hour, and she had already had several good lessons and a long ride or two in company with both her teachers. The thirty-mile ride for Friday, then, was not such an undertaking as it might otherwise have been, and Margaret looked forward to it with eagerness. CHAPTER XIX The little party of escort arrived before school was closed on Friday afternoon, and came down to the school-house in full force to take her away with them. The young man Forsythe, with his sister, the hostess herself, and a young army officer from the fort, comprised the party. Margaret dismissed school ten minutes early and went back with them to the Tanners' to make a hurried change in her dress and pick up her suit-case, which was already packed. As they rode away from the school-house Margaret looked back and saw Rosa Rogers posing in one of her sprite dances in the school-yard, saw her kiss her hand laughingly toward their party, and saw the flutter of a handkerchief in young Forsythe's hand. It was all very general and elusive, a passing bit of fun, but it left an uncomfortable impression on the teacher's mind. She looked keenly at the young man as he rode up smiling beside her, and once more experienced that strange, sudden change of feeling about him. She took opportunity during that long ride to find out if the young man had known Rosa Rogers before; but he frankly told her that he had just come West to visit his sister, was bored to death because he didn't know a soul in the whole State, and until he had seen her had not laid eyes on one whom he cared to know. Yet while she could not help enjoying the gay badinage, she carried a sense of uneasiness whenever she thought of the young girl Rosa in her pretty fairy pose, with her fluttering pink fingers and her saucy, smiling eyes. There was something untrustworthy, too, in the handsome face of the man beside her. There was just one shadow over this bit of a holiday. Margaret had a little feeling that possibly some one from the camp might come down on Saturday or Sunday, and she would miss him. Yet nothing had been said about it, and she had no way of sending word that she would be away. She had meant to send Mom Wallis a letter by the next messenger that came that way. It was all written and lying on her bureau, but no one had been down all the week. She was, therefore, greatly pleased when an approaching rider in the distance proved to be Gardley, and with a joyful little greeting she drew rein and hailed him, giving him a message for Mom Wallis. Only Gardley's eyes told what this meeting was to him. His demeanor was grave and dignified. He acknowledged the introductions to the rest of the party gracefully, touched his hat with the ease of one to the manner born, and rode away, flashing her one gleam of a smile that told her he was glad of the meeting; but throughout the brief interview there had been an air of question and hostility between the two men, Forsythe and Gardley. Forsythe surveyed Gardley rudely, almost insolently, as if his position beside the lady gave him rights beyond the other, and he resented the coming of the stranger. Gardley's gaze was cold, too, as he met the look, and his eyes searched Forsythe's face keenly, as though they would find out what manner of man was riding with his friend. When he was gone Margaret had the feeling that he was somehow disappointed, and once she turned in the saddle and looked wistfully after him; but he was riding furiously into the distance, sitting his horse as straight as an arrow and already far away upon the desert. "Your friend is a reckless rider," said Forsythe, with a sneer in his voice that Margaret did not like, as they watched the speck in the distance clear a steep descent from the mesa at a bound and disappear from sight in the mesquite beyond. "Isn't he fine-looking? Where did you find him, Miss Earle?" asked Mrs. Temple, eagerly. "I wish I'd asked him to join us. He left so suddenly I didn't realize he was going." Margaret felt a wondering and pleasant sense of possession and pride in Gardley as she watched, but she quietly explained that the young stranger was from the East, and that he was engaged in some kind of cattle business at a distance from Ashland. Her manner was reserved, and the matter dropped. She naturally felt a reluctance to tell how her acquaintance with Gardley began. It seemed something between themselves. She could fancy the gushing Mrs. Temple saying, "How romantic!" She was that kind of a woman. It was evident that she was romantically inclined herself, for she used her fine eyes with effect on the young officer who rode with her, and Margaret found herself wondering what kind of a husband she had and what her mother would think of a woman like this. There was no denying that the luxury of the ranch was a happy relief from the simplicity of life at the Tanners'. Iced drinks and cushions and easy-chairs, feasting and music and laughter! There were books, too, and magazines, and all the little things that go to make up a cultured life; and yet they were not people of Margaret's world, and when Saturday evening was over she sat alone in the room they had given her and, facing herself in the glass, confessed to herself that she looked back with more pleasure to the Sabbath spent with Mom Wallis than she could look forward to a Sabbath here. The morning proved her forebodings well founded. Breakfast was a late, informal affair, filled with hilarious gaiety. There was no mention of any church service, and Margaret found it was quite too late to suggest such a thing when breakfast was over, even if she had been sure there was any service. After breakfast was over there were various forms of amusement proposed for her pleasure, and she really felt very much embarrassed for a few moments to know how to avoid what to her was pure Sabbath-breaking. Yet she did not wish to be rude to these people who were really trying to be kind to her. She managed at last to get them interested in music, and, grouping them around the piano after a few preliminary performances by herself at their earnest solicitation, coaxed them into singing hymns. After all, they really seemed to enjoy it, though they had to get along with one hymn-book for the whole company; but Margaret knew how to make hymn-singing interesting, and her exquisite voice was never more at its best than when she led off with "My Jesus, as Thou Wilt," or "Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me." "You would be the delight of Mr. Brownleigh's heart," said the hostess, gushingly, at last, after Margaret had finished singing "Abide With Me" with wonderful feeling. "And who is Mr. Brownleigh?" asked Margaret. "Why should I delight his heart?" "Why, he is our missionary--that is, the missionary for this region--and you would delight his heart because you are so religious and sing so well," said the superficial little woman. "Mr. Brownleigh is really a very cultured man. Of course, he's narrow. All clergymen are narrow, don't you think? They have to be to a certain extent. He's really _quite_ narrow. Why, he believes in the Bible _literally_, the whale and Jonah, and the Flood, and making bread out of stones, and all that sort of thing, you know. Imagine it! But he does. He's sincere! Perfectly sincere. I suppose he has to be. It's his business. But sometimes one feels it a pity that he can't relax a little, just among us here, you know. We'd never tell. Why, he won't even play a little game of poker! And he doesn't smoke! _Imagine_ it--_not even when he's by himself_, and _no one would know_! Isn't that odd? But he can preach. He's really very interesting; only a little too Utopian in his ideas. He thinks everybody ought to be good, you know, and all that sort of thing. He really thinks it's possible, and he lives that way himself. He really does. But he is a wonderful person; only I feel sorry for his wife sometimes. She's quite a cultured person. Has been wealthy, you know. She was a New York society girl. Just imagine it; out in these wilds taking gruel to the dirty little Indians! How she ever came to do it! Of course she adores him, but I can't really believe she is happy. No woman could be quite blind enough to give up everything in the world for one man, no matter how good he was. Do you think she could? It wasn't as if she didn't have plenty of other chances. She gave them all up to come out and marry him. She's a pretty good sport, too; she never lets you know she isn't perfectly happy." "She _is_ happy; mother, she's happier than _anybody_ I ever saw," declared the fourteen-year-old daughter of the house, who was home from boarding-school for a brief visit during an epidemic of measles in the school. "Oh yes, she manages to make people think she's happy," said her mother, indulgently; "but you can't make me believe she's satisfied to give up her house on Fifth Avenue and live in a two-roomed log cabin in the desert, with no society." "Mother, you don't know! Why, _any_ woman would be satisfied if her husband adored her the way Mr. Brownleigh does her." "Well, Ada, you're a romantic girl, and Mr. Brownleigh is a handsome man. You've got a few things to learn yet. Mark my words, I don't believe you'll see Mrs. Brownleigh coming back next month with her husband. This operation was all well enough to talk about, but I'll not be surprised to hear that he has come back alone or else that he has accepted a call to some big city church. And he's equal to the city church, too; that's the wonder of it. He comes of a fine family himself, I've heard. Oh, people can't keep up the pose of saints forever, even though they do adore each other. But Mr. Brownleigh _certainly is_ a good man!" The vapid little woman sat looking reflectively out of the window for a whole minute after this deliverance. Yes, certainly Mr. Brownleigh was a good man. He was the one man of culture, education, refinement, who had come her way in many a year who had patiently and persistently and gloriously refused her advances at a mild flirtation, and refused to understand them, yet remained her friend and reverenced hero. He was a good man, and she knew it, for she was a very pretty woman and understood her art well. Before the day was over Margaret had reason to feel that a Sabbath in Arizona was a very hard thing to find. The singing could not last all day, and her friends seemed to find more amusements on Sunday that did not come into Margaret's code of Sabbath-keeping than one knew how to say no to. Neither could they understand her feeling, and she found it hard not to be rude in gently declining one plan after another. She drew the children into a wide, cozy corner after dinner and began a Bible story in the guise of a fairy-tale, while the hostess slipped away to take a nap. However, several other guests lingered about, and Mr. Temple strayed in. They sat with newspapers before their faces and got into the story, too, seeming to be deeply interested, so that, after all, Margaret did not have an unprofitable Sabbath. But altogether, though she had a gay and somewhat frivolous time, a good deal of admiration and many invitations to return as often as possible, Margaret was not sorry when she said good night to know that she was to return in the early morning to her work. Mr. Temple himself was going part way with them, accompanied by his niece, Forsythe, and the young officer who came over with them. Margaret rode beside Mr. Temple until his way parted from theirs, and had a delightful talk about Arizona. He was a kindly old fellow who adored his frivolous little wife and let her go her own gait, seeming not to mind how much she flirted. The morning was pink and silver, gold and azure, a wonderful specimen of an Arizona sunrise for Margaret's benefit, and a glorious beginning for her day's work in spite of the extremely early hour. The company was gay and blithe, and the Eastern girl felt as if she were passing through a wonderful experience. They loitered a little on the way to show Margaret the wonders of a fern-plumed cañon, and it was almost school-time when they came up the street, so that Margaret rode straight to the school-house instead of stopping at Tanners'. On the way to the school they passed a group of girls, of whom Rosa Rogers was the center. A certain something in Rosa's narrowed eyelids as she said good morning caused Margaret to look back uneasily, and she distinctly saw the girl give a signal to young Forsythe, who, for answer, only tipped his hat and gave her a peculiar smile. In a moment more they had said good-by, and Margaret was left at the school-house door with a cluster of eager children about her, and several shy boys in the background, ready to welcome her back as if she had been gone a month. In the flutter of opening school Margaret failed to notice that Rosa Rogers did not appear. It was not until the roll was called that she noticed her absence, and she looked uneasily toward the door many times during the morning, but Rosa did not come until after recess, when she stole smilingly in, as if it were quite the thing to come to school late. When questioned about her tardiness she said she had torn her dress and had to go home and change it. Margaret knew by the look in her eyes that the girl was not telling the truth, but what was she to do? It troubled her all the morning and went with her to a sleepless pillow that night. She was beginning to see that life as a school-teacher in the far West was not all she had imagined it to be. Her father had been right. There would likely be more thorns than roses on her way. CHAPTER XX The first time Lance Gardley met Rosa Rogers riding with Archie Forsythe he thought little of it. He knew the girl by sight, because he knew her father in a business way. That she was very young and one of Margaret's pupils was all he knew about her. For the young man he had conceived a strong dislike, but as there was no reason whatever for it he put it out of his mind as quickly as possible. The second time he met them it was toward evening and they were so wholly absorbed in each other's society that they did not see him until he was close upon them. Forsythe looked up with a frown and a quick hand to his hip, where gleamed a weapon. He scarcely returned the slight salute given by Gardley, and the two young people touched up their horses and were soon out of sight in the mesquite. But something in the frightened look of the girl's eyes caused Gardley to turn and look after the two. Where could they be going at that hour of the evening? It was not a trail usually chosen for rides. It was lonely and unfrequented, and led out of the way of travelers. Gardley himself had been a far errand for Jasper Kemp, and had taken this short trail back because it cut off several miles and he was weary. Also, he was anxious to stop in Ashland and leave Mom Wallis's request that Margaret would spend the next Sabbath at the camp and see the new curtains. He was thinking what he should say to her when he saw her in a little while now, and this interruption to his thoughts was unwelcome. Nevertheless, he could not get away from that frightened look in the girl's eyes. Where could they have been going? That fellow was a new-comer in the region; perhaps he had lost his way. Perhaps he did not know that the road he was taking the girl led into a region of outlaws, and that the only habitation along the way was a cabin belonging to an old woman of weird reputation, where wild orgies were sometimes celebrated, and where men went who loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Twice Gardley turned in his saddle and scanned the desert. The sky was darkening, and one or two pale stars were impatiently shadowing forth their presence. And now he could see the two riders again. They had come up out of the mesquite to the top of the mesa, and were outlined against the sky sharply. They were still on the trail to old Ouida's cabin! With a quick jerk Gardley reined in his horse and wheeled about, watching the riders for a moment; and then, setting spurs to his beast, he was off down the trail after them on one of his wild, reckless rides. Down through the mesquite he plunged, through the darkening grove, out, and up to the top of the mesa. He had lost sight of his quarry for the time, but now he could see them again riding more slowly in the valley below, their horses close together, and even as he watched the sky took on its wide night look and the stars blazed forth. Suddenly Gardley turned sharply from the trail and made a detour through a grove of trees, riding with reckless speed, his head down to escape low branches; and in a minute or two he came with unerring instinct back to the trail some distance ahead of Forsythe and Rosa. Then he wheeled his horse and stopped stock-still, awaiting their coming. By this time the great full moon was risen and, strangely enough, was at Gardley's back, making a silhouette of man and horse as the two riders came on toward him. They rode out from the cover of the grove, and there he was across their path. Rosa gave a scream, drawing nearer her companion, and her horse swerved and reared; but Gardley's black stood like an image carved in ebony against the silver of the moon, and Gardley's quiet voice was in strong contrast to the quick, unguarded exclamation of Forsythe, as he sharply drew rein and put his hand hastily to his hip for his weapon. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Forsythe"--Gardley had an excellent memory for names--"but I thought you might not be aware, being a new-comer in these parts, that the trail you are taking leads to a place where ladies do not like to go." "Really! You don't say so!" answered the young man, insolently. "It is very kind of you, I'm sure, but you might have saved yourself the trouble. I know perfectly where I am going, and so does the lady, and we choose to go this way. Move out of the way, please. You are detaining us." But Gardley did not move out of the way. "I am sure the lady does not know where she is going," he said, firmly. "I am sure that she does not know that it is a place of bad reputation, even in this unconventional land. At least, if she knows, I am sure that _her father_ does not know, and I am well acquainted with her father." "Get out of the way, sir," said Forsythe, hotly. "It certainly is none of your business, anyway, whoever knows what. Get out of the way or I shall shoot. This lady and I intend to ride where we please." "Then I shall have to say you _cannot_," said Gardley; and his voice still had that calm that made his opponent think him easy to conquer. "Just how do you propose to stop us?" sneered Forsythe, pulling out his pistol. "This way," said Gardley, lifting a tiny silver whistle to his lips and sending forth a peculiar, shrilling blast. "And this way," went on Gardley, calmly lifting both hands and showing a weapon in each, wherewith he covered the two. Rosa screamed and covered her face with her hands, cowering in her saddle. Forsythe lifted his weapon, but looked around nervously. "Dead men tell no tales," he said, angrily. "It depends upon the man," said Gardley, meaningly, "especially if he were found on this road. I fancy a few tales could be told if you happened to be the man. Turn your horses around at once and take this lady back to her home. My men are not far off, and if you do not wish the whole story to be known among your friends and hers you would better make haste." Forsythe dropped his weapon and obeyed. He decidedly did not wish his escapade to be known among his friends. There were financial reasons why he did not care to have it come to the ears of his brother-in-law just now. Silently in the moonlight the little procession took its way down the trail, the girl and the man side by side, their captor close behind, and when the girl summoned courage to glance fearsomely behind her she saw three more men riding like three grim shadows yet behind. They had fallen into the trail so quietly that she had not heard them when they came. They were Jasper Kemp, Long Bill, and Big Jim. They had been out for other purposes, but without question followed the call of the signal. It was a long ride back to Rogers's ranch, and Forsythe glanced nervously behind now and then. It seemed to him that the company was growing larger all the time. He half expected to see a regiment each time he turned. He tried hurrying his horse, but when he did so the followers were just as close without any seeming effort. He tried to laugh it all off. Once he turned and tried to placate Gardley with a few shakily jovial words: "Look here, old fellow, aren't you the man I met on the trail the day Miss Earle went over to the fort? I guess you've made a mistake in your calculations. I was merely out on a pleasure ride with Miss Rogers. We weren't going anywhere in particular, you know. Miss Rogers chose this way, and I wanted to please her. No man likes to have his pleasure interfered with, you know. I guess you didn't recognize me?" "I recognized you," said Gardley. "It would be well for you to be careful where you ride with ladies, especially at night. The matter, however, is one that you would better settle with Mr. Rogers. My duty will be done when I have put it into his hands." "Now, my good fellow," said Forsythe, patronizingly, "you surely don't intend to make a great fuss about this and go telling tales to Mr. Rogers about a trifling matter--" "I intend to do my duty, Mr. Forsythe," said Gardley; and Forsythe noticed that the young man still held his weapons. "I was set this night to guard Mr. Rogers's property. That I did not expect his daughter would be a part of the evening's guarding has nothing to do with the matter. I shall certainly put the matter into Mr. Rogers's hands." Rosa began to cry softly. "Well, if you want to be a fool, of course," laughed Forsythe, disagreeably; "but you will soon see Mr. Rogers will accept my explanation." "That is for Mr. Rogers to decide," answered Gardley, and said no more. The reflections of Forsythe during the rest of that silent ride were not pleasant, and Rosa's intermittent crying did not tend to make him more comfortable. The silent procession at last turned in at the great ranch gate and rode up to the house. Just as they stopped and the door of the house swung open, letting out a flood of light, Rosa leaned toward Gardley and whispered: "Please, Mr. Gardley, don't tell papa. I'll do _anything_ in the world for you if you won't tell papa." He looked at the pretty, pitiful child in the moonlight. "I'm sorry, Miss Rosa," he said, firmly. "But you don't understand. I must do my duty." "Then I shall hate you!" she hissed. "Do you hear? I shall _hate_ you forever, and you don't know what that means. It means I'll take my _revenge_ on you and on _everybody you like_." He looked at her half pityingly as he swung off his horse and went up the steps to meet Mr. Rogers, who had come out and was standing on the top step of the ranch-house in the square of light that flickered from a great fire on the hearth of the wide fireplace. He was looking from one to another of the silent group, and as his eyes rested on his daughter he said, sternly: "Why, Rosa, what does this mean? You told me you were going to bed with a headache!" Gardley drew his employer aside and told what had happened in a few low-toned sentences; and then stepped down and back into the shadow, his horse by his side, the three men from the camp grouped behind him. He had the delicacy to withdraw after his duty was done. Mr. Rogers, his face stern with sudden anger and alarm, stepped down and stood beside his daughter. "Rosa, you may get down and go into the house to your own room. I will talk with you later," he said. And then to the young man, "You, sir, will step into my office. I wish to have a plain talk with you." A half-hour later Forsythe came out of the Rogers house and mounted his horse, while Mr. Rogers stood silently and watched him. "I will bid you good evening, sir," he said, formally, as the young man mounted his horse and silently rode away. His back had a defiant look in the moonlight as he passed the group of men in the shadow; but they did not turn to watch him. "That will be all to-night, Gardley, and I thank you very much," called the clear voice of Mr. Rogers from his front steps. The four men mounted their horses silently and rode down a little distance behind the young man, who wondered in his heart just how much or how little Gardley had told Rosa's father. The interview to which young Forsythe had just been subjected had been chastening in character, of a kind to baffle curiosity concerning the father's knowledge of details, and to discourage any further romantic rides with Miss Rosa. It had been left in abeyance whether or not the Temples should be made acquainted with the episode, dependent upon the future conduct of both young people. It had not been satisfactory from Forsythe's point of view; that is, he had not been so easily able to disabuse the father's mind of suspicion, nor to establish his own guileless character as he had hoped; and some of the remarks Rogers made led Forsythe to think that the father understood just how unpleasant it might become for him if his brother-in-law found out about the escapade. This is why Archie Forsythe feared Lance Gardley, although there was nothing in the least triumphant about the set of that young man's shoulders as he rode away in the moonlight on the trail toward Ashland. And this is how it came about that Rosa Rogers hated Lance Gardley, handsome and daring though he was; and because of him hated her teacher, Margaret Earle. An hour later Lance Gardley stood in the little dim Tanner parlor, talking to Margaret. "You look tired," said the girl, compassionately, as she saw the haggard shadows on the young face, showing in spite of the light of pleasure in his eyes. "You look _very_ tired. What in the world have you been doing?" "I went out to catch cattle-thieves," he said, with a sigh, "but I found there were other kinds of thieves abroad. It's all in the day's work. I'm not tired now." And he smiled at her with beautiful reverence. Margaret, as she watched him, could not help thinking that the lines in his face had softened and strengthened since she had first seen him, and her eyes let him know that she was glad he had come. "And so you will really come to us, and it isn't going to be asking too much?" he said, wistfully. "You can't think what it's going to be to the men--to _us_! And Mom Wallis is so excited she can hardly get her work done. If you had said no I would be almost afraid to go back." He laughed, but she could see there was deep earnestness under his tone. "Indeed I will come," said Margaret. "I'm just looking forward to it. I'm going to bring Mom Wallis a new bonnet like one I made for mother; and I'm going to teach her how to make corn gems and steamed apple dumplings. I'm bringing some songs and some music for the violin; and I've got something for you to help me do, too, if you will?" He smiled tenderly down on her. What a wonderful girl she was, to be willing to come out to the old shack among a lot of rough men and one uncultured old woman and make them happy, when she was fit for the finest in the land! "You're _wonderful_!" he said, taking her hand with a quick pressure for good-by. "You make every one want to do his best." He hurried out to his horse and rode away in the moonlight. Margaret went up to her "mountain window" and watched him far out on the trail, her heart swelling with an unnamed gladness over his last words. "Oh, God, keep him, and help him to make good!" she prayed. CHAPTER XXI The visit to the camp was a time to be remembered long by all the inhabitants of the bunk-house, and even by Margaret herself. Margaret wondered Friday evening, as she sat up late, working away braiding a lovely gray bonnet out of folds of malines, and fashioning it into form for Mom Wallis, why she was looking forward to the visit with so much more real pleasure than she had done to the one the week before at the Temples'. And so subtle is the heart of a maid that she never fathomed the real reason. The Temples', of course, was interesting and delightful as being something utterly new in her experience. It was comparatively luxurious, and there were pleasant, cultured people there, more from her own social class in life. But it was going to be such fun to surprise Mom Wallis with that bonnet and see her old face light up when she saw herself in the little folding three-leaved mirror she was taking along with her and meant to leave for Mom Wallis's log boudoir. She was quite excited over selecting some little thing for each one of the men--books, pictures, a piece of music, a bright cushion, and a pile of picture magazines. It made a big bundle when she had them together, and she was dubious if she ought to try to carry them all; but Bud, whom she consulted on the subject, said, loftily, it "wasn't a flea-bite for the Kid; he could carry anything on a horse." Bud was just a little jealous to have his beloved teacher away from home so much, and rejoiced greatly when Gardley, Friday afternoon, suggested that he come along, too. He made quick time to his home, and secured a hasty permission and wardrobe, appearing like a footman on his father's old horse when they were half a mile down the trail. Mom Wallis was out at the door to greet her guest when she arrived, for Margaret had chosen to make her visit last from Friday afternoon after school, until Monday morning. It was the generosity of her nature that she gave to her utmost when she gave. The one fear she had entertained about coming had been set at rest on the way when Gardley told her that Pop Wallis was off on one of his long trips, selling cattle, and would probably not return for a week. Margaret, much as she trusted Gardley and the men, could not help dreading to meet Pop Wallis again. There was a new trimness about the old bunk-house. The clearing had been cleaned up and made neat, the grass cut, some vines set out and trained up limply about the door, and the windows shone with Mom Wallis's washing. Mom Wallis herself was wearing her best white apron, stiff with starch, her lace collar, and her hair in her best imitation of the way Margaret had fixed it, although it must be confessed she hadn't quite caught the knack of arrangement yet. But the one great difference Margaret noticed in the old woman was the illuminating smile on her face. Mom Wallis had learned how to let the glory gleam through all the hard sordidness of her life, and make earth brighter for those about her. The curtains certainly made a great difference in the looks of the bunk-house, together with a few other changes. The men had made some chairs--three of them, one out of a barrel; and together they had upholstered them roughly. The cots around the walls were blazing with their red blankets folded smoothly and neatly over them, and on the floor in front of the hearth, which had been scrubbed, Gardley had spread a Navajo blanket he had bought of an Indian. The fireplace was piled with logs ready for the lighting at night, and from somewhere a lamp had been rigged up and polished till it shone in the setting sun that slanted long rays in at the shining windows. The men were washed and combed, and had been huddled at the back of the bunk-house for an hour, watching the road, and now they came forward awkwardly to greet their guest, their horny hands scrubbed to an unbelievable whiteness. They did not say much, but they looked their pleasure, and Margaret greeted every one as if he were an old friend, the charming part about it all to the men being that she remembered every one's name and used it. Bud hovered in the background and watched with starry eyes. Bud was having the time of his life. He preferred the teacher's visiting the camp rather than the fort. The "Howdy, sonny!" which he had received from the men, and the "Make yourself at home, Bill" from Gardley, had given him great joy; and the whole thing seemed somehow to link him to the teacher in a most distinguishing manner. Supper was ready almost immediately, and Mom Wallis had done her best to make it appetizing. There was a lamb stew with potatoes, and fresh corn bread with coffee. The men ate with relish, and watched their guest of honor as if she had been an angel come down to abide with them for a season. There was a tablecloth on the old table, too--a _white_ tablecloth. It looked remarkably like an old sheet, to be sure, with a seam through the middle where it had been worn and turned and sewed together; but it was a tablecloth now, and a marvel to the men. And the wonder about Margaret was that she could eat at such a table and make it seem as though that tablecloth were the finest damask, and the two-tined forks the heaviest of silver. After the supper was cleared away and the lamp lighted, the gifts were brought out. A book of Scotch poetry for Jasper Kemp, bound in tartan covers of the Campbell clan; a small illustrated pamphlet of Niagara Falls for Big Jim, because he had said he wanted to see the place and never could manage it; a little pictured folder of Washington City for Big Jim; a book of old ballad music for Fiddling Boss; a book of jokes for Fade-away Forbes; a framed picture of a beautiful shepherd dog for Stocky; a big, red, ruffled denim pillow for Croaker, because when she was there before he was always complaining about the seats being hard; a great blazing crimson pennant bearing the name HARVARD in big letters for Fudge, because she had remembered he was from Boston; and for Mom Wallis a framed text beautifully painted in water-colors, done in rustic letters twined with stray forget-me-nots, the words, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Margaret had made that during the week and framed it in a simple raffia braid of brown and green. It was marvelous how these men liked their presents; and while they were examining them and laughing about them and putting their pictures and Mom Wallis's text on the walls, and the pillow on a bunk, and the pennant over the fireplace, Margaret shyly held out a tiny box to Gardley. "I thought perhaps you would let me give you this," she said. "It isn't much; it isn't even new, and it has some marks in it; but I thought it might help with your new undertaking." Gardley took it with a lighting of his face and opened the box. In it was a little, soft, leather-bound Testament, showing the marks of usage, yet not worn. It was a tiny thing, very thin, easily fitting in a vest-pocket, and not a burden to carry. He took the little book in his hand, removed the silken rubber band that bound it, and turned the leaves reverently in his fingers, noting that there were pencil-marks here and there. His face was all emotion as he looked up at the giver. "I thank you," he said, in a low tone, glancing about to see that no one was noticing them. "I shall prize it greatly. It surely will help. I will read it every day. Was that what you wanted? And I will carry it with me always." His voice was very earnest, and he looked at her as though she had given him a fortune. With another glance about at the preoccupied room--even Bud was busy studying Jasper Kemp's oldest gun--he snapped the band on the book again and put it carefully in his inner breast-pocket. The book would henceforth travel next his heart and be his guide. She thought he meant her to understand that, as he put out his hand unobtrusively and pressed her fingers gently with a quick, low "Thank you!" Then Mom Wallis's bonnet was brought out and tied on her, and the poor old woman blushed like a girl when she stood with meek hands folded at her waist and looked primly about on the family for their approval at Margaret's request. But that was nothing to the way she stared when Margaret got out the threefold mirror and showed her herself in the new headgear. She trotted away at last, the wonderful bonnet in one hand, the box in the other, a look of awe on her face, and Margaret heard her murmur as she put it away: "Glory! _Me!_ Glory!" Then Margaret had to read one or two of the poems for Jasper Kemp, while they all sat and listened to her Scotch and marveled at her. A woman like that condescending to come to visit them! She gave a lesson in note-reading to the Fiddling Boss, pointing one by one with her white fingers to the notes until he was able to creep along and pick out "Suwanee River" and "Old Folks at Home" to the intense delight of the audience. Margaret never knew just how it was that she came to be telling the men a story, one she had read not long before in a magazine, a story with a thrilling national interest and a keen personal touch that searched the hearts of men; but they listened as they had never listened to anything in their lives before. And then there was singing, more singing, until it bade fair to be morning before they slept, and the little teacher was weary indeed when she lay down on the cot in Mom Wallis's room, after having knelt beside the old woman and prayed. The next day there was a wonderful ride with Gardley and Bud to the cañon of the cave-dwellers, and a coming home to the apple dumplings she had taught Mom Wallis to make before she went away. All day Gardley and she, with Bud for delighted audience, had talked over the play she was getting up at the school, Gardley suggesting about costumes and tree boughs for scenery, and promising to help in any way she wanted. Then after supper there were jokes and songs around the big fire, and some popcorn one of the men had gone a long ride that day to get. They called for another story, too, and it was forthcoming. It was Sunday morning after breakfast, however, that Margaret suddenly wondered how she was going to make the day helpful and different from the other days. She stood for a moment looking out of the clear little window thoughtfully, with just the shadow of a sigh on her lips, and as she turned back to the room she met Gardley's questioning glance. "Are you homesick?" he asked, with a sorry smile. "This must all be very different from what you are accustomed to." "Oh no, it isn't that." She smiled, brightly. "I'm not a baby for home, but I do get a bit homesick about church-time. Sunday is such a strange day to me without a service." "Why not have one, then?" he suggested, eagerly. "We can sing and--you could--do the rest!" Her eyes lighted at the suggestion, and she cast a quick glance at the men. Would they stand for that sort of thing? Gardley followed her glance and caught her meaning. "Let them answer for themselves," he said quickly in a low tone, and then, raising his voice: "Speak up, men. Do you want to have church? Miss Earle here is homesick for a service, and I suggest that we have one, and she conduct it." "Sure!" said Jasper Kemp, his face lighting. "I'll miss my guess if she can't do better than the parson we had last Sunday. Get into your seats, boys; we're goin' to church." Margaret's face was a study of embarrassment and delight as she saw the alacrity with which the men moved to get ready for "church." Her quick brain turned over the possibility of what she could read or say to help this strange congregation thus suddenly thrust upon her. It was a testimony to her upbringing by a father whose great business of life was to preach the gospel that she never thought once of hesitating or declining the opportunity, but welcomed it as an opportunity, and only deprecated her unreadiness for the work. The men stirred about, donned their coats, furtively brushing their hair, and Long Bill insisted that Mom Wallis put on her new bonnet; which she obligingly did, and sat down carefully in the barrel-chair, her hands neatly crossed in her lap, supremely happy. It really was wonderful what a difference that bonnet made in Mom Wallis. Gardley arranged a comfortable seat for Margaret at the table and put in front of her one of the hymn-books she had brought. Then, after she was seated, he took the chair beside her and brought out the little Testament from his breast-pocket, gravely laying it on the hymn-book. Margaret met his eyes with a look of quick appreciation. It was wonderful the way these two were growing to understand each other. It gave the girl a thrill of wonder and delight to have him do this simple little thing for her, and the smile that passed between them was beautiful to see. Long Bill turned away his head and looked out of the window with an improvised sneeze to excuse the sudden mist that came into his eyes. Margaret chose "My Faith looks up to Thee" for the first hymn, because Fiddling Boss could play it, and while he was tuning up his fiddle she hastily wrote out two more copies of the words. And so the queer service started with a quaver of the old fiddle and the clear, sweet voices of Margaret and Gardley leading off, while the men growled on their way behind, and Mom Wallis, in her new gray bonnet, with her hair all fluffed softly gray under it, sat with eyes shining like a girl's. So absorbed in the song were they all that they failed to hear the sound of a horse coming into the clearing. But just as the last words of the final verse died away the door of the bunk-house swung open, and there in the doorway stood Pop Wallis! The men sprang to their feet with one accord, ominous frowns on their brows, and poor old Mom Wallis sat petrified where she was, the smile of relaxation frozen on her face, a look of fear growing in her tired old eyes. Now Pop Wallis, through an unusual combination of circumstances, had been for some hours without liquor and was comparatively sober. He stood for a moment staring amazedly at the group around his fireside. Perhaps because he had been so long without his usual stimulant his mind was weakened and things appeared as a strange vision to him. At any rate, he stood and stared, and as he looked from one to another of the men, at the beautiful stranger, and across to the strangely unfamiliar face of his wife in her new bonnet, his eyes took on a frightened look. He slowly took his hand from the door-frame and passed it over his eyes, then looked again, from one to another, and back to his glorified wife. Margaret had half risen at her end of the table, and Gardley stood beside her as if to reassure her; but Pop Wallis was not looking at any of them any more. His eyes were on his wife. He passed his hand once more over his eyes and took one step gropingly into the room, a hand reached out in front of him, as if he were not sure but he might run into something on the way, the other hand on his forehead, a dazed look in his face. "Why, Mom--that ain't really--_you_, now, _is_ it?" he said, in a gentle, insinuating voice like one long unaccustomed making a hasty prayer. The tone made a swift change in the old woman. She gripped her bony hands tight and a look of beatific joy came into her wrinkled face. "Yes, it's really _me_, Pop!" she said, with a kind of triumphant ring to her voice. "But--but--you're right _here_, ain't you? You ain't _dead_, an'--an'--gone to--gl-oo-ry, be you? You're right _here_?" "Yes, I'm right _here_, Pop. I ain't dead! Pop--glory's _come to me_!" "Glory?" repeated the man, dazedly. "Glory?" And he gazed around the room and took in the new curtains, the pictures on the wall, the cushions and chairs, and the bright, shining windows. "You don't mean it's _heav'n_, do you, Mom? 'Cause I better go back--_I_ don't belong in heav'n. Why, Mom, it can't be glory, 'cause it's the same old bunk-house outside, anyhow." "Yes, it's the same old bunk-house, and it ain't heaven, but it's _goin_' to be. The glory's come all right. You sit down, Pop; we're goin' to have church, and this is my new bonnet. _She_ brang it. This is the new school-teacher, Miss Earle, and she's goin' to have church. She done it _all_! You sit down and listen." Pop Wallis took a few hesitating steps into the room and dropped into the nearest chair. He looked at Margaret as if she might be an angel holding open the portal to a kingdom in the sky. He looked and wondered and admired, and then he looked back to his glorified old wife again in wonder. Jasper Kemp shut the door, and the company dropped back into their places. Margaret, because of her deep embarrassment, and a kind of inward trembling that had taken possession of her, announced another hymn. It was a solemn little service, quite unique, with a brief, simple prayer and an expository reading of the story of the blind man from the sixth chapter of John. The men sat attentively, their eyes upon her face as she read; but Pop Wallis sat staring at his wife, an awed light upon his scared old face, the wickedness and cunning all faded out, and only fear and wonder written there. In the early dawning of the pink-and-silver morning Margaret went back to her work, Gardley riding by her side, and Bud riding at a discreet distance behind, now and then going off at a tangent after a stray cottontail. It was wonderful what good sense Bud seemed to have on occasion. The horse that Margaret rode, a sturdy little Western pony, with nerve and grit and a gentle common sense for humans, was to remain with her in Ashland, a gift from the men of the bunk-house. During the week that followed Archie Forsythe came riding over with a beautiful shining saddle-horse for her use during her stay in the West; but when he went riding back to the ranch the shining saddle-horse was still in his train, riderless, for Margaret told him that she already had a horse of her own. Neither had Margaret accepted the invitation to the Temples' for the next week-end. She had other plans for the Sabbath, and that week there appeared on all the trees and posts about the town, and on the trails, a little notice of a Bible class and vesper-service to be held in the school-house on the following Sabbath afternoon; and so Margaret, true daughter of her minister-father, took up her mission in Ashland for the Sabbaths that were to follow; for the school-board had agreed with alacrity to such use of the school-house. CHAPTER XXII Now when it became noised abroad that the new teacher wanted above all things to purchase a piano, and that to that end she was getting up a wonderful Shakespeare play in which the scholars were to act upon a stage set with tree boughs after the manner of some new kind of players, the whole community round about began to be excited. Mrs. Tanner talked much about it. Was not Bud to be a prominent character? Mr. Tanner talked about it everywhere he went. The mothers and fathers and sisters talked about it, and the work of preparing the play went on. Margaret had discovered that one of the men at the bunk-house played a flute, and she was working hard to teach him and Fiddling Boss and Croaker to play a portion of the elfin dance to accompany the players. The work of making costumes and training the actors became more and more strenuous, and in this Gardley proved a fine assistant. He undertook to train some of the older boys for their parts, and did it so well that he was presently in the forefront of the battle of preparation and working almost as hard as Margaret herself. The beauty of the whole thing was that every boy in the school adored him, even Jed and Timothy, and life took on a different aspect to them in company with this high-born college-bred, Eastern young man who yet could ride and shoot with the daringest among the Westerners. Far and wide went forth the fame of the play that was to be. The news of it reached to the fort and the ranches, and brought offers of assistance and costumes and orders for tickets. Margaret purchased a small duplicator and set her school to printing tickets and selling them, and before the play was half ready to be acted tickets enough were sold for two performances, and people were planning to come from fifty miles around. The young teacher began to quake at the thought of her big audience and her poor little amateur players; and yet for children they were doing wonderfully well, and were growing quite Shakespearian in their manner of conversation. "What say you, sweet Amanda?" would be a form of frequent address to that stolid maiden Amanda Bounds; and Jed, instead of shouting for "Delicate" at recess, as in former times, would say, "My good Timothy, I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow; by his best arrow with the golden head"--until all the school-yard rang with classic phrases; and the whole country round was being addressed in phrases of another century by the younger members of their households. Then Rosa Rogers's father one day stopped at the Tanners' and left a contribution with the teacher of fifty dollars toward the new piano; and after that it was rumored that the teacher said the piano could be sent for in time to be used at the play. Then other contributions of smaller amounts came in, and before the date of the play had been set there was money enough to make a first payment on the piano. That day the English exercise for the whole school was to compose the letter to the Eastern piano firm where the piano was to be purchased, ordering it to be sent on at once. Weeks before this Margaret had sent for a number of piano catalogues beautifully illustrated, showing by cuts how the whole instruments were made, with full illustrations of the factories where they were manufactured, and she had discussed the selection with the scholars, showing them what points were to be considered in selecting a good piano. At last the order was sent out, the actual selection itself to be made by a musical friend of Margaret's in New York, and the school waited in anxious suspense to hear that it had started on its way. The piano arrived at last, three weeks before the time set for the play, which was coming on finely now and seemed to the eager scholars quite ready for public performance. Not so to Margaret and Gardley, as daily they pruned, trained, and patiently went over and over again each part, drawing all the while nearer to the ideal they had set. It could not be done perfectly, of course, and when they had done all they could there would yet be many crudities; but Margaret's hope was to bring out the meaning of the play and give both audience and performers the true idea of what Shakespeare meant when he wrote it. The arrival of the piano was naturally a great event in the school. For three days in succession the entire school marched in procession down to the incoming Eastern train to see if their expected treasure had arrived, and when at last it was lifted from the freight-car and set upon the station platform the school stood awe-struck and silent, with half-bowed heads and bated breath, as though at the arrival of some great and honorable guest. They attended it on the roadside as it was carted by the biggest wagon in town to the school-house door; they stood in silent rows while the great box was peeled off and the instrument taken out and carried into the school-room; then they filed in soulfully and took their accustomed seats without being told, touching shyly the shining case as they passed. By common consent they waited to hear its voice for the first time. Margaret took the little key from the envelope tied to the frame, unlocked the cover, and, sitting down, began to play. The rough men who had brought it stood in awesome adoration around the platform; the silence that spread over that room would have done honor to Paderewski or Josef Hoffman. Margaret played and played, and they could not hear enough. They would have stayed all night listening, perhaps, so wonderful was it to them. And then the teacher called each one and let him or her touch a few chords, just to say they had played on it. After which she locked the instrument and sent them all home. That was the only afternoon during that term that the play was forgotten for a while. After the arrival of the piano the play went forward with great strides, for now Margaret accompanied some of the parts with the music, and the flute and violin were also practised in their elfin dance with much better effect. It was about this time that Archie Forsythe discovered the rehearsals and offered his assistance, and, although it was declined, he frequently managed to ride over about rehearsal time, finding ways to make himself useful in spite of Margaret's polite refusals. Margaret always felt annoyed when he came, because Rosa Rogers instantly became another creature on his arrival, and because Gardley simply froze into a polite statue, never speaking except when spoken to. As for Forsythe, his attitude toward Gardley was that of a contemptuous master toward a slave, and yet he took care to cover it always with a form of courtesy, so that Margaret could say or do nothing to show her displeasure, except to be grave and dignified. At such times Rosa Rogers's eyes would be upon her with a gleam of hatred, and the teacher felt that the scholar was taking advantage of the situation. Altogether it was a trying time for Margaret when Forsythe came to the school-house. Also, he discovered to them that he played the violin, and offered to assist in the orchestral parts. Margaret really could think of no reason to decline this offer, but she was sadly upset by the whole thing. His manner to her was too pronounced, and she felt continually uncomfortable under it, what with Rosa Rogers's jealous eyes upon her and Gardley's eyes turned haughtily away. She planned a number of special rehearsals in the evenings, when it was difficult for Forsythe to get there, and managed in this way to avoid his presence; but the whole matter became a source of much vexation, and Margaret even shed a few tears wearily into her pillow one night when things had gone particularly hard and Forsythe had hurt the feelings of Fiddling Boss with his insolent directions about playing. She could not say or do anything much in the matter, because the Temples had been very kind in helping to get the piano, and Mr. Temple seemed to think he was doing the greatest possible kindness to her in letting Forsythe off duty so much to help with the play. The matter became more and more of a distress to Margaret, and the Sabbath was the only day of real delight. The first Sunday after the arrival of the piano was a great day. Everybody in the neighborhood turned out to the Sunday-afternoon class and vesper service, which had been growing more and more in popularity, until now the school-room was crowded. Every man from the bunk-house came regularly, often including Pop Wallis, who had not yet recovered fully from the effect of his wife's new bonnet and fluffy arrangement of hair, but treated her like a lady visitor and deferred to her absolutely when he was at home. He wasn't quite sure even yet but he had strayed by mistake into the outermost courts of heaven and ought to get shooed out. He always looked at the rose-wreathed curtains with a mingling of pride and awe. Margaret had put several hymns on the blackboard in clear, bold printing, and the singing that day was wonderful. Not the least part of the service was her own playing over of the hymns before the singing began, which was listened to with reverence as if it had been the music of an angel playing on a heavenly harp. Gardley always came to the Sunday services, and helped her with the singing, and often they two sang duets together. The service was not always of set form. Usually Margaret taught a short Bible lesson, beginning with the general outline of the Bible, its books, their form, substance, authors, etc.--all very brief and exceedingly simple, putting a wide space of music between this and the vesper service, into which she wove songs, bits of poems, passages from the Bible, and often a story which she told dramatically, illustrating the scripture read. But the very Sunday before the play, just the time Margaret had looked forward to as being her rest from all the perplexities of the week, a company from the fort, including the Temples, arrived at the school-house right in the midst of the Bible lesson. The ladies were daintily dressed, and settled their frills and ribbons amusedly as they watched the embarrassed young teacher trying to forget that there was company present. They were in a distinct sense "company," for they had the air, as they entered, of having come to look on and be amused, not to partake in the worship with the rest. Margaret found herself trembling inwardly as she saw the supercilious smile on the lips of Mrs. Temple and the amused stares of the other ladies of the party. They did not take any notice of the other people present any more than if they had been so many puppets set up to show off the teacher; their air of superiority was offensive. Not until Rosa Rogers entered with her father, a little later, did they condescend to bow in recognition, and then with that pretty little atmosphere as if they would say, "Oh, you've come, too, to be amused." Gardley was sitting up in front, listening to her talk, and she thought he had not noticed the strangers. Suddenly it came to her to try to keep her nerve and let him see that they were nothing to her; and with a strong effort and a swift prayer for help she called for a hymn. She sat coolly down at the piano, touching the keys with a tender chord or two and beginning to sing almost at once. She had sent home for some old hymn-books from the Christian Endeavor Society in her father's church, so the congregation were supplied with the notes and words now, and everybody took part eagerly, even the people from the fort condescendingly joining in. But Gardley was too much alive to every expression on that vivid face of Margaret's to miss knowing that she was annoyed and upset. He did not need to turn and look back to immediately discover the cause. He was a young person of keen intuition. It suddenly gave him great satisfaction to see that look of consternation on Margaret's face. It settled for him a question he had been in great and anxious doubt about, and his soul was lifted up with peace within him. When, presently, according to arrangement, he rose to sing a duet with Margaret, no one could have possibly told by so much as the lifting of an eyelash that he knew there was an enemy of his in the back of the room. He sang, as did Margaret, to the immediate audience in front of him, those admiring children and adoring men in the forefront who felt the school-house had become for them the gate of heaven for the time being; and he sang with marvelous feeling and sympathy, letting out his voice at its best. "Really," said Mrs. Temple, in a loud whisper to the wife of one of the officers, "that young man has a fine voice, and he isn't bad-looking, either. I think he'd be worth cultivating. We must have him up and try him out." But when she repeated this remark in another stage whisper to Forsythe he frowned haughtily. The one glimpse Margaret caught of Forsythe during that afternoon's service was when he was smiling meaningly at Rosa Rogers; and she had to resolutely put the memory of their look from her mind or the story which she was about to tell would have fled. It was the hunger in Jasper Kemp's eyes that finally anchored Margaret's thoughts and helped her to forget the company at the back of the room. She told her story, and she told it wonderfully and with power, interpreting it now and then for the row of men who sat in the center of the room drinking in her every word; and when the simple service was concluded with another song, in which Gardley's voice rang forth with peculiar tenderness and strength, the men filed forth silently, solemnly, with bowed heads and thoughtful eyes. But the company from the fort flowed up around Margaret like flood-tide let loose and gushed upon her. "Oh, my dear!" said Mrs. Temple. "How beautifully you do it! And such attention as they give you! No wonder you are willing to forego all other amusements to stay here and preach! But it was perfectly sweet the way you made them listen and the way you told that story. I don't see how you do it. I'd be scared to death!" They babbled about her awhile, much to her annoyance, for there were several people to whom she had wanted to speak, who drew away and disappeared when the new-comers took possession of her. At last, however, they mounted and rode away, to her great relief. Forsythe, it is true, tried to make her go home with them; tried to escort her to the Tanners'; tried to remain in the school-house with her awhile when she told him she had something to do there; but she would not let him, and he rode away half sulky at the last, a look of injured pride upon his face. Margaret went to the door finally, and looked down the road. He was gone, and she was alone. A shade of sadness came over her face. She was sorry that Gardley had not waited. She had wanted to tell him how much she liked his singing, what a pleasure it was to sing with him, and how glad she was that he came up to her need so well with the strangers there and helped to make it easy. But Gardley had melted away as soon as the service was over, and had probably gone home with the rest of the men. It was disappointing, for she had come to consider their little time together on Sunday as a very pleasant hour, this few minutes after the service when they would talk about real living and the vital things of existence. But he was gone! She turned, and there he was, quite near the door, coming toward her. Her face lighted up with a joy that was unmistakable, and his own smile in answer was a revelation of his deeper self. "Oh, I'm so glad you are not gone!" she said, eagerly. "I wanted to tell you--" And then she stopped, and the color flooded her face rosily, for she saw in his eyes how glad he was and forgot to finish her sentence. He came up gravely, after all, and, standing just a minute so beside the door, took both her hands in both his. It was only for a second that he stood so, looking down into her eyes. I doubt if either of them knew till afterward that they had been holding hands. It seemed the right and natural thing to do, and meant so much to each of them. Both were glad beyond their own understanding over that moment and its tenderness. It was all very decorous, and over in a second, but it meant much to remember afterward, that look and hand-clasp. "I wanted to tell you," he said, tenderly, "how much that story did for me. It was wonderful, and it helped me to decide something I have been perplexed over--" "Oh, I am glad!" she said, half breathlessly. So, talking in low, broken sentences, they went back to the piano and tried over several songs for the next Sunday, lingering together, just happy to be there with each other, and not half knowing the significance of it all. As the purple lights on the school-room wall grew long and rose-edged, they walked slowly to the Tanner house and said good night. There was a beauty about the young man as he stood for a moment looking down upon the girl in parting, the kind of beauty there is in any strong, wild thing made tame and tender for a great love by a great uplift. Gardley had that look of self-surrender, and power made subservient to right, that crowns a man with strength and more than physical beauty. In his fine face there glowed high purpose, and deep devotion to the one who had taught it to him. Margaret, looking up at him, felt her heart go out with that great love, half maiden, half divine, that comes to some favored women even here on earth, and she watched him down the road toward the mountain in the evening light and marveled how her trust had grown since first she met him; marveled and reflected that she had not told her mother and father much about him yet. It was growing time to do so; yes--_it was growing time_! Her cheeks grew pink in the darkness and she turned and fled to her room. That was the last time she saw him before the play. CHAPTER XXIII The play was set for Tuesday. Monday afternoon and evening were to be the final rehearsals, but Gardley did not come to them. Fiddling Boss came late and said the men had been off all day and had not yet returned. He himself found it hard to come at all. They had important work on. But there was no word from Gardley. Margaret was disappointed. She couldn't get away from it. Of course they could go on with the rehearsal without him. He had done his work well, and there was no real reason why he had to be there. He knew every part by heart, and could take any boy's place if any one failed in any way. There was nothing further really for him to do until the performance, as far as that was concerned, except be there and encourage her. But she missed him, and an uneasiness grew in her mind. She had so looked forward to seeing him, and now to have no word! He might at least have sent her a note when he found he could not come. Still she knew this was unreasonable. His work, whatever it was--he had never explained it very thoroughly to her, perhaps because she had never asked--must, of course, have kept him. She must excuse him without question and go on with the business of the hour. Her hands were full enough, for Forsythe came presently and was more trying than usual. She had to be very decided and put her foot down about one or two things, or some of her actors would have gone home in the sulks, and Fiddling Boss, whose part in the program meant much to him, would have given it up entirely. She hurried everything through as soon as possible, knowing she was weary, and longing to get to her room and rest. Gardley would come and explain to-morrow, likely in the morning on his way somewhere. But the morning came and no word. Afternoon came and he had not sent a sign yet. Some of the little things that he had promised to do about the setting of the stage would have to remain undone, for it was too late now to do it herself, and there was no one else to call upon. Into the midst of her perplexity and anxiety came the news that Jed on his way home had been thrown from his horse, which was a young and vicious one, and had broken his leg. Jed was to act the part of Nick Bottom that evening, and he did it well! Now what in the world was she to do? If only Gardley would come! Just at this moment Forsythe arrived. "Oh, it is you, Mr. Forsythe!" And her tone showed plainly her disappointment. "Haven't you seen Mr. Gardley to-day? I don't know what I shall do without him." "I certainly have seen Gardley," said Forsythe, a spice of vindictiveness and satisfaction in his tone. "I saw him not two hours ago, drunk as a fish, out at a place called Old Ouida's Cabin, as I was passing. He's in for a regular spree. You'll not see him for several days, I fancy. He's utterly helpless for the present, and out of the question. What is there I can do for you? Present your request. It's yours--to the half of my kingdom." Margaret's heart grew cold as ice and then like fire. Her blood seemed to stop utterly and then to go pounding through her veins in leaps and torrents. Her eyes grew dark, and things swam before her. She reached out to a desk and caught at it for support, and her white face looked at him a moment as if she had not heard. But when in a second she spoke, she said, quite steadily: "I thank you, Mr. Forsythe; there is nothing just at present--or, yes, there is, if you wouldn't mind helping Timothy put up those curtains. Now, I think I'll go home and rest a few minutes; I am very tired." It wasn't exactly the job Forsythe coveted, to stay in the school-house and fuss over those curtains; but she made him do it, then disappeared, and he didn't like the memory of her white face. He hadn't thought she would take it that way. He had expected to have her exclaim with horror and disgust. He watched her out of the door, and then turned impatiently to the waiting Timothy. Margaret went outside the school-house to call Bud, who had been sent to gather sage-brush for filling in the background, but Bud was already out of sight far on the trail toward the camp on Forsythe's horse, riding for dear life. Bud had come near to the school-house door with his armful of sage-brush just in time to hear Forsythe's flippant speech about Gardley and see Margaret's white face. Bud had gone for help! But Margaret did not go home to rest. She did not even get half-way home. When she had gone a very short distance outside the school-house she saw some one coming toward her, and in her distress of mind she could not tell who it was. Her eyes were blinded with tears, her breath was constricted, and it seemed to her that a demon unseen was gripping her heart. She had not yet taken her bearings to know what she thought. She had only just come dazed from the shock of Forsythe's words, and had not the power to think. Over and over to herself, as she walked along, she kept repeating the words: "I _do not_ believe it! It is _not_ true!" but her inner consciousness had not had time to analyze her soul and be sure that she believed the words wherewith she was comforting herself. So now, when she saw some one coming, she felt the necessity of bringing her telltale face to order and getting ready to answer whoever she was to meet. As she drew nearer she became suddenly aware that it was Rosa Rogers coming with her arms full of bundles and more piled up in front of her on her pony. Margaret knew at once that Rosa must have seen Forsythe go by her house, and had returned promptly to the school-house on some pretext or other. It would not do to let her go there alone with the young man; she must go back and stay with them. She could not be sure that if she sent Rosa home with orders to rest she would be obeyed. Doubtless the girl would take another way around and return to the school again. There was nothing for it but to go back and stay as long as Rosa did. Margaret stooped and, hastily plucking a great armful of sage-brush, turned around and retraced her steps, her heart like lead, her feet suddenly grown heavy. How could she go back and hear them laugh and chatter, answer their many silly, unnecessary questions, and stand it all? How could she, with that great weight at her heart? She went back with a wonderful self-control. Forsythe's face lighted, and his reluctant hand grew suddenly eager as he worked. Rosa came presently, and others, and the laughing chatter went on quite as Margaret had known it would. And she--so great is the power of human will under pressure--went calmly about and directed here and there; planned and executed; put little, dainty, wholly unnecessary touches to the stage; and never let any one know that her heart was being crushed with the weight of a great, awful fear, and yet steadily upborne by the rising of a great, deep trust. As she worked and smiled and ordered, she was praying: "Oh, God, don't let it be true! Keep him! Save him! Bring him! Make him true! I _know_ he is true! Oh, God, bring him safely _soon_!" Meantime there was nothing she could do. She could not send Forsythe after him. She could not speak of the matter to one of those present, and Bud--where was Bud? It was the first time since she came to Arizona that Bud had failed her. She might not leave the school-house, with Forsythe and Rosa there, to go and find him, and she might not do anything else. There was nothing to do but work on feverishly and pray as she had never prayed before. By and by one of the smaller boys came, and she sent him back to the Tanners' to find Bud, but he returned with the message that Bud had not been home since morning; and so the last hours before the evening, that would otherwise have been so brief for all there was to be done, dragged their weary length away and Margaret worked on. She did not even go back for supper at the last, but sent one of the girls to her room for a few things she needed, and declined even the nice little chicken sandwich that thoughtful Mrs. Tanner sent back along with the things. And then, at last, the audience began to gather. By this time her anxiety was so great for Gardley that all thought of how she was to supply the place of the absent Jed had gone from her mind, which was in a whirl. Gardley! Gardley! If only Gardley would come! That was her one thought. What should she do if he didn't come at all? How should she explain things to herself afterward? What if it had been true? What if he were the kind of man Forsythe had suggested? How terrible life would look to her! But it was not true. No, it was not true! She trusted him! With her soul she trusted him! He would come back some time and he would explain all. She could not remember his last look at her on Sunday and not trust him. He was true! He would come! Somehow she managed to get through the terrible interval, to slip into the dressing-room and make herself sweet and comely in the little white gown she had sent for, with its delicate blue ribbons and soft lace ruffles. Somehow she managed the expected smiles as one and another of the audience came around to the platform to speak to her. There were dark hollows under her eyes, and her mouth was drawn and weary, but they laid that to the excitement. Two bright-red spots glowed on her cheeks; but she smiled and talked with her usual gaiety. People looked at her and said how beautiful she was, and how bright and untiring; and how wonderful it was that Ashland School had drawn such a prize of a teacher. The seats filled, the noise and the clatter went on. Still no sign of Gardley or any one from the camp, and still Bud had not returned! What could it mean? But the minutes were rushing rapidly now. It was more than time to begin. The girls were in a flutter in one cloak-room at the right of the stage, asking more questions in a minute than one could answer in an hour; the boys in the other cloak-room wanted all sorts of help; and three or four of the actors were attacked with stage-fright as they peered through a hole in the curtain and saw some friend or relative arrive and sit down in the audience. It was all a mad whirl of seemingly useless noise and excitement, and she could not, no, she _could not_, go on and do the necessary things to start that awful play. Why, oh, _why_ had she ever been left to think of getting up a play? Forsythe, up behind the piano, whispered to her that it was time to begin. The house was full. There was not room for another soul. Margaret explained that Fiddling Boss had not yet arrived, and caught a glimpse of the cunning designs of Forsythe in the shifty turning away of his eyes as he answered that they could not wait all night for him; that if he wanted to get into it he ought to have come early. But even as she turned away she saw the little, bobbing, eager faces of Pop and Mom Wallis away back by the door, and the grim, towering figure of the Boss, his fiddle held high, making his way to the front amid the crowd. She sat down and touched the keys, her eyes watching eagerly for a chance to speak to the Boss and see if he knew anything of Gardley; but Forsythe was close beside her all the time, and there was no opportunity. She struck the opening chords of the overture they were to attempt to play, and somehow got through it. Of course, the audience was not a critical one, and there were few real judges of music present; but it may be that the truly wonderful effect she produced upon the listeners was due to the fact that she was playing a prayer with her heart as her fingers touched the keys, and that instead of a preliminary to a fairy revel the music told the story of a great soul struggle, and reached hearts as it tinkled and rolled and swelled on to the end. It may be, too, that Fiddling Boss was more in sympathy that night with his accompanist than was the other violinist, and that was why his old fiddle brought forth such weird and tender tones. Almost to the end, with her heart sobbing its trouble to the keys, Margaret looked up sadly, and there, straight before her through a hole in the curtain made by some rash youth to glimpse the audience, or perhaps even put there by the owner of the nose itself, she saw the little, freckled, turned-up member belonging to Bud's face. A second more and a big, bright eye appeared and solemnly winked at her twice, as if to say, "Don't you worry; it's all right!" She almost started from the stool, but kept her head enough to finish the chords, and as they died away she heard a hoarse whisper in Bud's familiar voice: "Whoop her up, Miss Earle. We're all ready. Raise the curtain there, you guy. Let her rip. Everything's O. K." With a leap of light into her eyes Margaret turned the leaves of the music and went on playing as she should have done if nothing had been the matter. Bud was there, anyway, and that somehow cheered her heart. Perhaps Gardley had come or Bud had heard of him--and yet, Bud didn't know he had been missing, for Bud had been away himself. Nevertheless, she summoned courage to go on playing. Nick Bottom wasn't in this first scene, anyway, and this would have to be gone through with somehow. By this time she was in a state of daze that only thought from moment to moment. The end of the evening seemed now to her as far off as the end of a hale old age seems at the beginning of a lifetime. Somehow she must walk through it; but she could only see a step at a time. Once she turned half sideways to the audience and gave a hurried glance about, catching sight of Fudge's round, near-sighted face, and that gave her encouragement. Perhaps the others were somewhere present. If only she could get a chance to whisper to some one from the camp and ask when they had seen Gardley last! But there was no chance, of course! The curtain was rapidly raised and the opening scene of the play began, the actors going through their parts with marvelous ease and dexterity, and the audience silent and charmed, watching those strangers in queer costumes that were their own children, marching around there at their ease and talking weird language that was not used in any class of society they had ever come across on sea or land before. But Margaret, watching her music as best she could, and playing mechanically rather than with her mind, could not tell if they were doing well or ill, so loudly did her heart pound out her fears--so stoutly did her heart proclaim her trust. And thus, without a flaw or mistake in the execution of the work she had struggled so hard to teach them, the first scene of the first act drew to its close, and Margaret struck the final chords of the music and felt that in another minute she must reel and fall from that piano-stool. And yet she sat and watched the curtain fall with a face as controlled as if nothing at all were the matter. A second later she suddenly knew that to sit in that place calmly another second was a physical impossibility. She must get somewhere to the air at once or her senses would desert her. With a movement so quick that no one could have anticipated it, she slipped from her piano-stool, under the curtain to the stage, and was gone before the rest of the orchestra had noticed her intention. CHAPTER XXIV Since the day that he had given Margaret his promise to make good, Gardley had been regularly employed by Mr. Rogers, looking after important matters of his ranch. Before that he had lived a free and easy life, working a little now and then when it seemed desirable to him, having no set interest in life, and only endeavoring from day to day to put as far as possible from his mind the life he had left behind him. Now, however, all things became different. He brought to his service the keen mind and ready ability that had made him easily a winner at any game, a brave rider, and a never-failing shot. Within a few days Rogers saw what material was in him, and as the weeks went by grew to depend more and more upon his advice in matters. There had been much trouble with cattle thieves, and so far no method of stopping the loss or catching the thieves had been successful. Rogers finally put the matter into Gardley's hands to carry out his own ideas, with the men of the camp at his command to help him, the camp itself being only a part of Rogers's outlying possessions, one of several such centers from which he worked his growing interests. Gardley had formulated a scheme by which he hoped eventually to get hold of the thieves and put a stop to the trouble, and he was pretty sure he was on the right track; but his plan required slow and cautious work, that the enemy might not suspect and take to cover. He had for several weeks suspected that the thieves made their headquarters in the region of Old Ouida's Cabin, and made their raids from that direction. It was for this reason that of late the woods and trails in the vicinity of Ouida's had been secretly patrolled day and night, and every passer-by taken note of, until Gardley knew just who were the frequenters of that way and mostly what was their business. This work was done alternately by the men of the Wallis camp and two other camps, Gardley being the head of all and carrying all responsibility; and not the least of that young man's offenses in the eyes of Rosa Rogers was that he was so constantly at her father's house and yet never lifted an eye in admiration of her pretty face. She longed to humiliate him, and through him to humiliate Margaret, who presumed to interfere with her flirtations, for it was a bitter thing to Rosa that Forsythe had no eyes for her when Margaret was about. When the party from the fort rode homeward that Sunday after the service at the school-house, Forsythe lingered behind to talk to Margaret, and then rode around by the Rogers place, where Rosa and he had long ago established a trysting-place. Rosa was watching for his passing, and he stopped a half-hour or so to talk to her. During this time she casually disclosed to Forsythe some of the plans she had overheard Gardley laying before her father. Rosa had very little idea of the importance of Gardley's work to her father, or perhaps she would not have so readily prattled of his affairs. Her main idea was to pay back Gardley for his part in her humiliation with Forsythe. She suggested that it would be a great thing if Gardley could be prevented from being at the play Tuesday evening, and told what she had overheard him saying to her father merely to show Forsythe how easy it would be to have Gardley detained on Tuesday. Forsythe questioned Rosa keenly. Did she know whom they suspected? Did she know what they were planning to do to catch them, and when? Rosa innocently enough disclosed all she knew, little thinking how dishonorable to her father it was, and perhaps caring as little, for Rosa had ever been a spoiled child, accustomed to subordinating everything within reach to her own uses. As for Forsythe, he was nothing loath to get rid of Gardley, and he saw more possibilities in Rosa's suggestion than she had seen herself. When at last he bade Rosa good night and rode unobtrusively back to the trail he was already formulating a plan. It was, therefore, quite in keeping with his wishes that he should meet a dark-browed rider a few miles farther up the trail whose identity he had happened to learn a few days before. Now Forsythe would, perhaps, not have dared to enter into any compact against Gardley with men of such ill-repute had it been a matter of money and bribery, but, armed as he was with information valuable to the criminals, he could so word his suggestion about Gardley's detention as to make the hunted men think it to their advantage to catch Gardley some time the next day when he passed their way and imprison him for a while. This would appear to be but a friendly bit of advice from a disinterested party deserving a good turn some time in the future and not get Forsythe into any trouble. As such it was received by the wretch, who clutched at the information with ill-concealed delight and rode away into the twilight like a serpent threading his secret, gliding way among the darkest places, scarcely rippling the air, so stealthily did he pass. As for Forsythe, he rode blithely to the Temple ranch, with no thought of the forces he had set going, his life as yet one round of trying to please himself at others' expense, if need be, but please himself, _anyway_, with whatever amusement the hour afforded. At home in the East, where his early life had been spent, a splendid girl awaited his dilatory letters and set herself patiently to endure the months of separation until he should have attained a home and a living and be ready for her to come to him. In the South, where he had idled six months before he went West, another lovely girl cherished mementoes of his tarrying and wrote him loving letters in reply to his occasional erratic epistles. Out on the Californian shore a girl with whom he had traveled West in her uncle's luxurious private car, with a gay party of friends and relatives, cherished fond hopes of a visit he had promised to make her during the winter. Innumerable maidens of this world, wise in the wisdom that crushes hearts, remembered him with a sigh now and then, but held no illusions concerning his kind. Pretty little Rosa Rogers cried her eyes out every time he cast a languishing look at her teacher, and several of the ladies of the fort sighed that the glance of his eye and the gentle pressure of his hand could only be a passing joy. But the gay Lothario passed on his way as yet without a scratch on the hard enamel of his heart, till one wondered if it were a heart, indeed, or perhaps only a metal imitation. But girls like Margaret Earle, though they sometimes were attracted by him, invariably distrusted him. He was like a beautiful spotted snake that was often caught menacing something precious, but you could put him down anywhere after punishment or imprisonment and he would slide on his same slippery way and still be a spotted, deadly snake. When Gardley left the camp that Monday morning following the walk home with Margaret from the Sabbath service, he fully intended to be back at the school-house Monday by the time the afternoon rehearsal began. His plans were so laid that he thought relays from other camps were to guard the suspected ground for the next three days and he could be free. It had been a part of the information that Forsythe had given the stranger that Gardley would likely pass a certain lonely crossing of the trail at about three o'clock that afternoon, and, had that arrangement been carried out, the men who lay in wait for him would doubtless have been pleased to have their plans mature so easily; but they would not have been pleased long, for Gardley's men were so near at hand at that time, watching that very spot with eyes and ears and long-distance glasses, that their chief would soon have been rescued and the captors be themselves the captured. But the men from the farther camp, called "Lone Fox" men, did not arrive on time, perhaps through some misunderstanding, and Gardley and Kemp and their men had to do double time. At last, later in the afternoon, Gardley volunteered to go to Lone Fox and bring back the men. As he rode his thoughts were of Margaret, and he was seeing again the look of gladness in her eyes when she found he had not gone yesterday; feeling again the thrill of her hands in his, the trust of her smile! It was incredible, wonderful, that God had sent a veritable angel into the wilderness to bring him to himself; and now he was wondering, could it be that there was really hope that he could ever make good enough to dare to ask her to marry him. The sky and the air were rare, but his thoughts were rarer still, and his soul was lifted up with joy. He was earning good wages now. In two more weeks he would have enough to pay back the paltry sum for the lack of which he had fled from his old home and come to the wilderness. He would go back, of course, and straighten out the old score. Then what? Should he stay in the East and go back to the old business wherewith he had hoped to make his name honored and gain wealth, or should he return to this wild, free land again and start anew? His mother was dead. Perhaps if she had lived and cared he would have made good in the first place. His sisters were both married to wealthy men and not deeply interested in him. He had disappointed and mortified them; their lives were filled with social duties; they had never missed him. His father had been dead many years. As for his uncle, his mother's brother, whose heir he was to have been before he got himself into disgrace, he decided not to go near him. He would stay as long as he must to undo the wrong he had done. He would call on his sisters and then come back; come back and let Margaret decide what she wanted him to do--that is, if she would consent to link her life with one who had been once a failure. Margaret! How wonderful she was! If Margaret said he ought to go back and be a lawyer, he would go--yes, even if he had to enter his uncle's office as an underling to do it. His soul loathed the idea, but he would do it for Margaret, if she thought it best. And so he mused as he rode! When the Lone Fox camp was reached and the men sent out on their belated task, Gardley decided not to go with them back to meet Kemp and the other men, but sent word to Kemp that he had gone the short cut to Ashland, hoping to get to a part of the evening rehearsal yet. Now that short cut led him to the lonely crossing of the trail much sooner than Kemp and the others could reach it from the rendezvous; and there in cramped positions, and with much unnecessary cursing and impatience, four strong masked men had been concealed for four long hours. Through the stillness of the twilight rode Gardley, thinking of Margaret, and for once utterly off his guard. His long day's work was done, and though he had not been able to get back when he planned, he was free now, free until the day after to-morrow. He would go at once to her and see if there was anything she wanted him to do. Then, as if to help along his enemies, he began to hum a song, his clear, high voice reaching keenly to the ears of the men in ambush: "'Oh, the time is long, mavourneen, Till I come again, O mavourneen--'" "And the toime 'll be longer thun iver, oim thinkin', ma purty little voorneen!" said an unmistakable voice of Erin through the gathering dusk. Gardley's horse stopped and Gardley's hand went to his revolver, while his other hand lifted the silver whistle to his lips; but four guns bristled at him in the twilight, the whistle was knocked from his lips before his breath had even reached it, some one caught his arms from behind, and his own weapon was wrenched from his hand as it went off. The cry which he at once sent forth was stifled in its first whisper in a great muffling garment flung over his head and drawn tightly about his neck. He was in a fair way to strangle, and his vigorous efforts at escape were useless in the hands of so many. He might have been plunged at once into a great abyss of limitless, soundless depths, so futile did any resistance seem. And so, as it was useless to struggle, he lay like one dead and put all his powers into listening. But neither could he hear much, muffled as he was, and bound hand and foot now, with a gag in his mouth and little care taken whether he could even breathe. They were leading him off the trail and up over rough ground; so much he knew, for the horse stumbled and jolted and strained to carry him. To keep his whirling senses alive and alert he tried to think where they might be leading him; but the darkness and the suffocation dulled his powers. He wondered idly if his men would miss him and come back when they got home to search for him, and then remembered with a pang that they would think him safely in Ashland, helping Margaret. They would not be alarmed if he did not return that night, for they would suppose he had stopped at Rogers's on the way and perhaps stayed all night, as he had done once or twice before. _Margaret!_ When should he see Margaret now? What would she think? And then he swooned away. When he came somewhat to himself he was in a close, stifling room where candle-light from a distance threw weird shadows over the adobe walls. The witch-like voices of a woman and a girl in harsh, cackling laughter, half suppressed, were not far away, and some one, whose face was covered, was holding a glass to his lips. The smell was sickening, and he remembered that he hated the thought of liquor. It did not fit with those who companied with Margaret. He had never cared for it, and had resolved never to taste it again. But whether he chose or not, the liquor was poured down his throat. Huge hands held him and forced it, and he was still bound and too weak to resist, even if he had realized the necessity. The liquid burned its way down his throat and seethed into his brain, and a great darkness, mingled with men's wrangling voices and much cursing, swirled about him like some furious torrent of angry waters that finally submerged his consciousness. Then came deeper darkness and a blank relief from pain. Hours passed. He heard sounds sometimes, and dreamed dreams which he could not tell from reality. He saw his friends with terror written on their faces, while he lay apathetically and could not stir. He saw tears on Margaret's face; and once he was sure he heard Forsythe's voice in contempt: "Well, he seems to be well occupied for the present! No danger of his waking up for a while!" and then the voices all grew dim and far away again, and only an old crone and the harsh girl's whisper over him; and then Margaret's tears--tears that fell on his heart from far above, and seemed to melt out all his early sins and flood him with their horror. Tears and the consciousness that he ought to be doing something for Margaret now and could not. Tears--and more darkness! CHAPTER XXV When Margaret arrived behind the curtain she was aware of many cries and questions hurled at her like an avalanche, but, ignoring them all, she sprang past the noisy, excited group of young people, darted through the dressing-room to the right and out into the night and coolness. Her head was swimming, and things went black before her eyes. She felt that her breath was going, going, and she must get to the air. But when she passed the hot wave of the school-room, and the sharp air of the night struck her face, consciousness seemed to turn and come back into her again; for there over her head was the wideness of the vast, starry Arizona night, and there, before her, in Nick Bottom's somber costume, eating one of the chicken sandwiches that Mrs. Tanner had sent down to her, stood Gardley! He was pale and shaken from his recent experience; but he was undaunted, and when he saw Margaret coming toward him through the doorway with her soul in her eyes and her spirit all aflame with joy and relief, he came to meet her under the stars, and, forgetting everything else, just folded her gently in his arms! It was a most astonishing thing to do, of course, right there outside the dressing-room door, with the curtain just about to rise on the scene and Gardley's wig was not on yet. He had not even asked nor obtained permission. But the soul sometimes grows impatient waiting for the lips to speak, and Margaret felt her trust had been justified and her heart had found its home. Right there behind the school-house, out in the great wide night, while the crowded, clamoring audience waited for them, and the young actors grew frantic, they plighted their troth, his lips upon hers, and with not a word spoken. Voices from the dressing-room roused them. "Come in quick, Mr. Gardley; it's time for the curtain to rise, and everybody is ready. Where on earth has Miss Earle vanished? Miss Earle! Oh, Miss Earle!" There was a rush to the dressing-room to find the missing ones; but Bud, as ever, present where was the most need, stood with his back to the outside world in the door of the dressing-room and called loudly: "They're comin', all right. Go on! Get to your places. Miss Earle says to get to your places." The two in the darkness groped for each other's hands as they stood suddenly apart, and with one quick pressure and a glance hurried in. There was not any need for words. They understood, these two, and trusted. With her cheeks glowing now, and her eyes like two stars, Margaret fled across the stage and took her place at the piano again, just as the curtain began to be drawn; and Forsythe, who had been slightly uneasy at the look on her face as she left them, wondered now and leaned forward to tell her how well she was looking. He kept his honeyed phrase to himself, however, for she was not heeding him. Her eyes were on the rising curtain, and Forsythe suddenly remembered that this was the scene in which Jed was to have appeared--and Jed had a broken leg! What had Margaret done about it? It was scarcely a part that could be left out. Why hadn't he thought of it sooner and offered to take it? He could have bluffed it out somehow--he had heard it so much--made up words where he couldn't remember them all, and it would have been a splendid opportunity to do some real love-making with Rosa. Why hadn't he thought of it? Why hadn't Rosa? Perhaps she hadn't heard about Jed soon enough to suggest it. The curtain was fully open now, and Bud's voice as Peter Quince, a trifle high and cracked with excitement, broke the stillness, while the awed audience gazed upon this new, strange world presented to them. "Is all our company here?" lilted out Bud, excitedly, and Nick Bottom replied with Gardley's voice: "You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip." Forsythe turned deadly white. Jasper Kemp, whose keen eye was upon him, saw it through the tan, saw his lips go pale and purple points of fear start in his eyes, as he looked and looked again, and could not believe his senses. Furtively he darted a glance around, like one about to steal away; then, seeing Jasper Kemp's eyes upon him, settled back with a strained look upon his face. Once he stole a look at Margaret and caught her face all transfigured with great joy; looked again and felt rebuked somehow by the pureness of her maiden joy and trust. Not once had she turned her eyes to his. He was forgotten, and somehow he knew the look he would get if she should see him. It would be contempt and scorn that would burn his very soul. It is only a maid now and then to whom it is given thus to pierce and bruise the soul of a man who plays with love and trust and womanhood for selfishness. Such a woman never knows her power. She punishes all unconscious to herself. It was so that Margaret Earle, without being herself aware, and by her very indifference and contempt, showed the little soul of this puppet man to himself. He stole away at last when he thought no one was looking, and reached the back of the school-house at the open door of the girls' dressing-room, where he knew Titania would be posing in between the acts. He beckoned her to his side and began to question her in quick, eager, almost angry tones, as if the failure of their plans were her fault. Had her father been at home all day? Had anything happened--any one been there? Did Gardley come? Had there been any report from the men? Had that short, thick-set Scotchman with the ugly grin been there? She must remember that she was the one to suggest the scheme in the first place, and it was her business to keep a watch. There was no telling now what might happen. He turned, and there stood Jasper Kemp close to his elbow, his short stature drawn to its full, his thick-set shoulders squaring themselves, his ugly grin standing out in bold relief, menacingly, in the night. The young man let forth some words not in a gentleman's code, and turned to leave the frightened girl, who by this time was almost crying; but Jasper Kemp kept pace with Forsythe as he walked. "Was you addressing me?" he asked, politely; "because I could tell you a few things a sight more appropriate for you than what you just handed to me." Forsythe hurried around to the front of the school-house, making no reply. "Nice, pleasant evening to be _free_," went on Jasper Kemp, looking up at the stars. "Rather onpleasant for some folks that have to be shut up in jail." Forsythe wheeled upon him. "What do you mean?" he demanded, angrily, albeit he was white with fear. "Oh, nothing much," drawled Jasper, affably. "I was just thinking how much pleasanter it was to be a free man than shut up in prison on a night like this. It's so much healthier, you know." Forsythe looked at him a moment, a kind of panic of intelligence growing in his face; then he turned and went toward the back of the school-house, where he had left his horse some hours before. "Where are you going?" demanded Jasper. "It's 'most time you went back to your fiddling, ain't it?" But Forsythe answered him not a word. He was mounting his horse hurriedly--his horse, which, all unknown to him, had been many miles since he last rode him. "You think you have to go, then?" said Jasper, deprecatingly. "Well, now, that's a pity, seeing you was fiddling so nice an' all. Shall I tell them you've gone for your health?" Thus recalled, Forsythe stared at his tormentor wildly for a second. "Tell her--tell her"--he muttered, hoarsely--"tell her I've been taken suddenly ill." And he was off on a wild gallop toward the fort. "I'll tell her you've gone for your health!" called Jasper Kemp, with his hands to his mouth like a megaphone. "I reckon he won't return again very soon, either," he chuckled. "This country's better off without such pests as him an' that measley parson." Then, turning, he beheld Titania, the queen of the fairies, white and frightened, staring wildly into the starry darkness after the departed rider. "Poor little fool!" he muttered under his breath as he looked at the girl and turned away. "Poor, pretty little fool!" Suddenly he stepped up to her side and touched her white-clad shoulder gently. "Don't you go for to care, lassie," he said in a tender tone. "He ain't worth a tear from your pretty eye. He ain't fit to wipe your feet on--your pretty wee feet!" But Rosa turned angrily and stamped her foot. "Go away! You bad old man!" she shrieked. "Go away! I shall tell my father!" And she flouted herself into the school-house. Jasper stood looking ruefully after her, shaking his head. "The little de'il!" he said aloud; "the poor, pretty little de'il. She'll get her dues aplenty afore she's done." And Jasper went back to the play. Meantime, inside the school-house, the play went gloriously on to the finish, and Gardley as Nick Bottom took the house by storm. Poor absent Jed's father, sent by the sufferer to report it all, stood at the back of the house while tears of pride and disappointment rolled down his cheeks--pride that Jed had been so well represented, disappointment that it couldn't have been his son up there play-acting like that. The hour was late when the play was over, and Margaret stood at last in front of the stage to receive the congratulations of the entire countryside, while the young actors posed and laughed and chattered excitedly, then went away by two and threes, their tired, happy voices sounding back along the road. The people from the fort had been the first to surge around Margaret with their eager congratulations and gushing sentiments: "So sweet, my dear! So perfectly wonderful! You really have got some dandy actors!" And, "Why don't you try something lighter--something simpler, don't you know. Something really popular that these poor people could understand and appreciate? A little farce! I could help you pick one out!" And all the while they gushed Jasper Kemp and his men, grim and forbidding, stood like a cordon drawn about her to protect her, with Gardley in the center, just behind her, as though he had a right there and meant to stay; till at last the fort people hurried away and the school-house grew suddenly empty with just those two and the eight men behind; and by the door Bud, talking to Pop and Mom Wallis in the buckboard outside. Amid this admiring bodyguard at last Gardley took Margaret home. Perhaps she wondered a little that they all went along, but she laid it to their pride in the play and their desire to talk it over. They had sent Mom and Pop Wallis home horseback, after all, and put Margaret and Gardley in the buckboard, Margaret never dreaming that it was because Gardley was not fit to walk. Indeed, he did not realize himself why they all stuck so closely to him. He had lived through so much since Jasper and his men had burst into his prison and freed him, bringing him in hot haste to the school-house, with Bud wildly riding ahead. But it was enough for him to sit beside Margaret in the sweet night and remember how she had come out to him under the stars. Her hand lay beside him on the seat, and without intending it his own brushed it. Then he laid his gently, reverently, down upon hers with a quiet pressure, and her smaller fingers thrilled and nestled in his grasp. In the shadow of a big tree beside the house he bade her good-by, the men busying themselves with turning about the buckboard noisily, and Bud discreetly taking himself to the back door to get one of the men a drink of water. "You have been suffering in some way," said Margaret, with sudden intuition, as she looked up into Gardley's face. "You have been in peril, somehow--" "A little," he answered, lightly. "I'll tell you about it to-morrow. I mustn't keep the men waiting now. I shall have a great deal to tell you to-morrow--if you will let me. Good night, _Margaret_!" Their hands lingered in a clasp, and then he rode away with his bodyguard. But Margaret did not have to wait until the morrow to hear the story, for Bud was just fairly bursting. Mrs. Tanner had prepared a nice little supper--more cold chicken, pie, doughnuts, coffee, some of her famous marble cake, and preserves--and she insisted on Margaret's coming into the dining-room and eating it, though the girl would much rather have gone with her happy heart up to her own room by herself. Bud did not wait on ceremony. He began at once when Margaret was seated, even before his mother could get her properly waited on. "Well, we had _some ride_, we sure did! The Kid's a great old scout." Margaret perceived that this was a leader. "Why, that's so, what became of you, William? I hunted everywhere for you. Things were pretty strenuous there for a while, and I needed you dreadfully." "Well, I know," Bud apologized. "I'd oughta let you know before I went, but there wasn't time. You see, I had to pinch that guy's horse to go, and I knew it was just a chance if we could get back, anyway; but I had to take it. You see, if I could 'a' gone right to the cabin it would have been a dead cinch, but I had to ride to camp for the men, and then, taking the short trail across, it was some ride to Ouida's Cabin!" Mrs. Tanner stepped aghast as she was cutting a piece of dried-apple pie for Margaret. "Now, Buddie--mother's boy--you don't mean to tell me _you_ went to _Ouida's Cabin_? Why, sonnie, that's an _awful place_! Don't you know your pa told you he'd whip you if you ever went on that trail?" "I should worry, Ma! I _had_ to go. They had Mr. Gardley tied up there, and we had to go and get him rescued." "_You_ had to go, Buddie--now what could _you_ do in that awful place?" Mrs. Tanner was almost reduced to tears. She saw her offspring at the edge of perdition at once. But Bud ignored his mother and went on with his tale. "You jest oughta seen Jap Kemp's face when I told him what that guy said to you! Some face, b'lieve me! He saw right through the whole thing, too. I could see that! He ner the men hadn't had a bite o' supper yet; they'd just got back from somewheres. They thought the Kid was over here all day helping you. He said yesterday when he left 'em here's where he's a-comin'"--Bud's mouth was so full he could hardly articulate--"an' when I told 'em, he jest blew his little whistle--like what they all carry--three times, and those men every one jest stopped right where they was, whatever they was doin'. Long Bill had the comb in the air gettin' ready to comb his hair, an' he left it there and come away, and Big Jim never stopped to wipe his face on the roller-towel, he just let the wind dry it; and they all hustled on their horses fast as ever they could and beat it after Jap Kemp. Jap, he rode alongside o' me and asked me questions. He made me tell all what the guy from the fort said over again, three or four times, and then he ast what time he got to the school-house, and whether the Kid had been there at all yest'iday ur t'day; and a lot of other questions, and then he rode alongside each man and told him in just a few words where we was goin' and what the guy from the fort had said. Gee! but you'd oughta heard what the men said when he told 'em! Gee! but they was some mad! Bimeby we came to the woods round the cabin, and Jap Kemp made me stick alongside Long Bill, and he sent the men off in different directions all in a _big_ circle, and waited till each man was in his place, and then we all rode hard as we could and came softly up round that cabin just as the sun was goin' down. Gee! but you'd oughta seen the scairt look on them women's faces; there was two of 'em--an old un an' a skinny-looking long-drink-o'-pump-water. I guess she was a girl. I don't know. Her eyes looked real old. There was only three men in the cabin; the rest was off somewheres. They wasn't looking for anybody to come that time o' day, I guess. One of the men was sick on a bunk in the corner. He had his head tied up, and his arm, like he'd been shot, and the other two men came jumping up to the door with their guns, but when they saw how many men _we_ had they looked awful scairt. _We_ all had _our_ guns out, too!--Jap Kemp gave me one to carry--" Bud tried not to swagger as he told this, but it was almost too much for him. "Two of our men held the horses, and all the rest of us got down and went into the cabin. Jap Kemp, sounded his whistle and all our men done the same just as they went in the door--some kind of signals they have for the Lone Fox Camp! The two men in the doorway aimed straight at Jap Kemp and fired, but Jap was onto 'em and jumped one side and our men fired, too, and we soon had 'em tied up and went in--that is, Jap and me and Long Bill went in, the rest stayed by the door--and it wasn't long 'fore their other men came riding back hot haste; they'd heard the shots, you know--and some more of _our_ men--why, most twenty or thirty there was, I guess, altogether; some from Lone Fox Camp that was watching off in the woods came and when we got outside again there they all were, like a big army. Most of the men belonging to the cabin was tied and harmless by that time, for our men took 'em one at a time as they came riding in. Two of 'em got away, but Jap Kemp said they couldn't go far without being caught, 'cause there was a watch out for 'em--they'd been stealing cattle long back something terrible. Well, so Jap Kemp and Long Bill and I went into the cabin after the two men that shot was tied with ropes we'd brung along, and handcuffs, and we went hunting for the Kid. At first we couldn't find him at all. Gee! It was something fierce! And the old woman kep' a-crying and saying we'd kill her sick son, and she didn't know nothing about the man we was hunting for. But pretty soon I spied the Kid's foot stickin' out from under the cot where the sick man was, and when I told Jap Kemp that sick man pulled out a gun he had under the blanket and aimed it right at me!" "Oh, mother's little Buddie!" whimpered Mrs. Tanner, with her apron to her eyes. "_Aw, Ma_, cut it out! _he_ didn't _hurt_ me! The gun just went off crooked, and grazed Jap Kemp's hand a little, not much. Jap knocked it out of the sick man's hand just as he was pullin' the trigger. Say, Ma, ain't you got any more of those cucumber pickles? It makes a man mighty hungry to do all that riding and shooting. Well, it certainly was something fierce--Say, Miss Earle, you take that last piece o' pie. Oh, g'wan! _Take_ it! _You_ worked hard. No, I don't want it, really! Well, if you won't take it _anyway_, I might eat it just to save it. Got any more coffee, Ma?" But Margaret was not eating. Her face was pale and her eyes were starry with unshed tears, and she waited in patient but breathless suspense for the vagaries of the story to work out to the finish. "Yes, it certainly was something fierce, that cabin," went on the narrator. "Why, Ma, it looked as if it had never been swept under that cot when we hauled the Kid out. He was tied all up in knots, and great heavy ropes wound tight from his shoulders down to his ankles. Why, they were bound so tight they made great heavy welts in his wrists and shoulders and round his ankles when we took 'em off; and they had a great big rag stuffed into his mouth so he couldn't yell. Gee! It was something fierce! He was 'most dippy, too; but Jap Kemp brought him round pretty quick and got him outside in the air. That was the worst place I ever was in myself. You couldn't breathe, and the dirt was something fierce. It was like a pigpen. I sure was glad to get outdoors again. And then--well, the Kid came around all right and they got him on a horse and gave him something out of a bottle Jap Kemp had, and pretty soon he could ride again. Why, you'd oughta seen his nerve. He just sat up there as straight, his lips all white yet and his eyes looked some queer; but he straightened up and he looked those rascals right in the eye, and told 'em a few things, and he gave orders to the other men from Lone Fox Camp what to do with 'em; and he had the two women disarmed--they had guns, too--and carried away, and the cabin nailed up, and a notice put on the door, and every one of those men were handcuffed--the sick one and all--and he told 'em to bring a wagon and put the sick one's cot in and take 'em over to Ashland to the jail, and he sent word to Mr. Rogers. Then we rode home and got to the school-house just when you was playing the last chords of the ov'rtcher. Gee! It was some fierce ride and some _close shave_! The Kid he hadn't had a thing to eat since Monday noon, and he was some hungry! I found a sandwich on the window of the dressing-room, and he ate it while he got togged up--'course I told him 'bout Jed soon's we left the cabin, and Jap Kemp said he'd oughta go right home to camp after all he had been through; but he wouldn't; he said he was goin' to _act_. So 'course he had his way! But, gee! You could see it wasn't any cinch game for him! He 'most fell over every time after the curtain fell. You see, they gave him some kind of drugged whisky up there at the cabin that made his head feel queer. Say, he thinks that guy from the fort came in and looked at him once while he was asleep. He says it was only a dream, but I bet he did. Say, Ma, ain't you gonta give me another doughnut?" In the quiet of her chamber at last, Margaret knelt before her window toward the purple, shadowy mountain under the starry dome, and gave thanks for the deliverance of Gardley; while Bud, in his comfortable loft, lay down to his well-earned rest and dreamed of pirates and angels and a hero who looked like the Kid. CHAPTER XXVI The Sunday before Lance Gardley started East on his journey of reparation two strangers slipped quietly into the back of the school-house during the singing of the first hymn and sat down in the shadow by the door. Margaret was playing the piano when they came in, and did not see them, and when she turned back to her Scripture lesson she had time for but the briefest of glances. She supposed they must be some visitors from the fort, as they were speaking to the captain's wife----who came over occasionally to the Sunday service, perhaps because it afforded an opportunity for a ride with one of the young officers. These occasional visitors who came for amusement and curiosity had ceased to trouble Margaret. Her real work was with the men and women and children who loved the services for their own sake, and she tried as much as possible to forget outsiders. So, that day everything went on just as usual, Margaret putting her heart into the prayer, the simple, storylike reading of the Scripture, and the other story-sermon which followed it. Gardley sang unusually well at the close, a wonderful bit from an oratorio that he and Margaret had been practising. But when toward the close of the little vesper service Margaret gave opportunity, as she often did, for others to take part in sentence prayers, one of the strangers from the back of the room stood up and began to pray. And such a prayer! Heaven seemed to bend low, and earth to kneel and beseech as the stranger-man, with a face like an archangel, and a body of an athlete clothed in a brown-flannel shirt and khakis, besought the Lord of heaven for a blessing on this gathering and on the leader of this little company who had so wonderfully led them to see the Christ and their need of salvation through the lesson of the day. And it did not need Bud's low-breathed whisper, "The missionary!" to tell Margaret who he was. His face told her. His prayer thrilled her, and his strong, young, true voice made her sure that here was a man of God in truth. When the prayer was over and Margaret stood once more shyly facing her audience, she could scarcely keep the tremble out of her voice: "Oh," said she, casting aside ceremony, "if I had known the missionary was here I should not have dared to try and lead this meeting to-day. Won't you please come up here and talk to us for a little while now, Mr. Brownleigh?" At once he came forward eagerly, as if each opportunity were a pleasure. "Why, surely, I want to speak a word to you, just to say how glad I am to see you all, and to experience what a wonderful teacher you have found since I went away; but I wouldn't have missed this meeting to-day for all the sermons I ever wrote or preached. You don't need any more sermon than the remarkable story you've just been listening to, and I've only one word to add; and that is, that I've found since I went away that Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is just the same Jesus to me to-day that He was the last time I spoke to you. He is just as ready to forgive your sin, to comfort you in sorrow, to help you in temptation, to raise your body in the resurrection, and to take you home to a mansion in His Father's house as He was the day He hung upon the cross to save your soul from death. I've found I can rest just as securely upon the Bible as the word of God as when I first tested its promises. Heaven and earth may pass away, but His word shall _never_ pass away." "_Go to it!_" said Jasper Kemp under his breath in the tone some men say "Amen!" and his brows were drawn as if he were watching a battle. Margaret couldn't help wondering if he were thinking of the Rev. Frederick West just then. When the service was over the missionary brought his wife forward to Margaret, and they loved each other at once. Just another sweet girl like Margaret. She was lovely, with a delicacy of feature that betokened the high-born and high-bred, but dressed in a dainty khaki riding costume, if that uncompromising fabric could ever be called dainty. Margaret, remembering it afterward, wondered what it had been that gave it that unique individuality, and decided it was perhaps a combination of cut and finish and little dainty accessories. A bit of creamy lace at the throat of the rolling collar, a touch of golden-brown velvet in a golden clasp, the flash of a wonderful jewel on her finger, the modeling of the small, brown cap with its two eagle quills--all set the little woman apart and made her fit to enter any well-dressed company of riders in some great city park or fashionable drive. Yet here in the wilderness she was not overdressed. The eight men from the camp stood in solemn row, waiting to be recognized, and behind them, abashed and grinning with embarrassment, stood Pop and Mom Wallis, Mom with her new gray bonnet glorifying her old face till the missionary's wife had to look twice to be sure who she was. "And now, surely, Hazel, we must have these dear people come over and help us with the singing sometimes. Can't we try something right now?" said the missionary, looking first at his wife and then at Margaret and Gardley. "This man is a new-comer since I went away, but I'm mighty sure he is the right kind, and I'm glad to welcome him--or perhaps I would better ask if he will welcome me?" And with his rare smile the missionary put out his hand to Gardley, who took it with an eager grasp. The two men stood looking at each other for a moment, as rare men, rarely met, sometimes do even on a sinful earth; and after that clasp and that look they turned away, brothers for life. That was a most interesting song rehearsal that followed. It would be rare to find four voices like those even in a cultivated musical center, and they blended as if they had been made for one another. The men from the bunk-house and a lot of other people silently dropped again into their seats to listen as the four sang on. The missionary took the bass, and his wife the alto, and the four made music worth listening to. The rare and lovely thing about it was that they sang to souls, not alone for ears, and so their music, classical though it was and of the highest order, appealed keenly to the hearts of these rough men, and made them feel that heaven had opened for them, as once before for untaught shepherds, and let down a ladder of angelic voices. "I shall feel better about leaving you out here while I am gone, since they have come," said Gardley that night when he was bidding Margaret good night. "I couldn't bear to think there were none of your own kind about you. The others are devoted and would do for you with their lives if need be, as far as they know; but I like you to have _real friends_--real _Christian_ friends. This man is what I call a Christian. I'm not sure but he is the first minister that I have ever come close to who has impressed me as believing what he preaches, and living it. I suppose there are others. I haven't known many. That man West that was here when you came was a mistake!" "He didn't even preach much," smiled Margaret, "so how could he live it? This man is real. And there are others. Oh, I have known a lot of them that are living lives of sacrifice and loving service and are yet just as strong and happy and delightful as if they were millionaires. But they are the men who have not thrown away their Bibles and their Christ. They believe every promise in God's word, and rest on them day by day, testing them and proving them over and over. I wish you knew my father!" "I am going to," said Gardley, proudly. "_I_ am going to him just as soon as I have finished my business and straightened out my affairs; and I am going to tell him _everything_--with your permission, Margaret!" "Oh, how beautiful!" cried Margaret, with happy tears in her eyes. "To think you are going to see father and mother. I have wanted them to know the real you. I couldn't half _tell_ you, the real you, in a letter!" "Perhaps they won't look on me with your sweet blindness, dear," he said, smiling tenderly down on her. "Perhaps they will see only my dark, past life--for I mean to tell your father everything. I'm not going to have any skeletons in the closet to cause pain hereafter. Perhaps your father and mother will not feel like giving their daughter to me after they know. Remember, I realize just what a rare prize she is." "No, father is not like that, Lance," said Margaret, with her rare smile lighting up her happy eyes. "Father and mother will understand." "But if they should not?" There was the shadow of sadness in Gardley's eyes as he asked the question. "I belong to you, dear, anyway," she said, with sweet surrender. "I trust you though the whole world were against you!" For answer Gardley took her in his arms, a look of awe upon his face, and, stooping, laid his lips upon hers in tender reverence. "Margaret--you wonderful Margaret!" he said. "God has blessed me more than other men in sending you to me! With His help I will be worthy of you!" Three days more and Margaret was alone with her school work, her two missionary friends thirty miles away, her eager watching for the mail to come, her faithful attendant Bud, and for comfort the purple mountain with its changing glory in the distance. A few days before Gardley left for the East he had been offered a position by Rogers as general manager of his estate at a fine salary, and after consultation with Margaret he decided to accept it, but the question of their marriage they had left by common consent unsettled until Gardley should return and be able to offer his future wife a record made as fair and clean as human effort could make it after human mistakes had unmade it. As Margaret worked and waited, wrote her charming letters to father and mother and lover, and thought her happy thoughts with only the mountain for confidant, she did not plan for the future except in a dim and dreamy way. She would make those plans with Gardley when he returned. Probably they must wait some time before they could be married. Gardley would have to earn some money, and she must earn, too. She must keep the Ashland School for another year. It had been rather understood, when she came out, that if at all possible she would remain two years at least. It was hard to think of not going home for the summer vacation; but the trip cost a great deal and was not to be thought of. There was already a plan suggested to have a summer session of the school, and if that went through, of course she must stay right in Ashland. It was hard to think of not seeing her father and mother for another long year, but perhaps Gardley would be returning before the summer was over, and then it would not be so hard. However, she tried to put these thoughts out of her mind and do her work happily. It was incredible that Arizona should have become suddenly so blank and uninteresting since the departure of a man whom she had not known a few short months before. Margaret had long since written to her father and mother about Gardley's first finding her in the desert. The thing had become history and was not likely to alarm them. She had been in Arizona long enough to be acquainted with things, and they would not be always thinking of her as sitting on stray water-tanks in the desert; so she told them about it, for she wanted them to know Gardley as he had been to her. The letters that had traveled back and forth between New York and Arizona had been full of Gardley; and still Margaret had not told her parents how it was between them. Gardley had asked that he might do that. Yet it had been a blind father and mother who had not long ago read between the lines of those letters and understood. Margaret fancied she detected a certain sense of relief in her mother's letters after she knew that Gardley had gone East. Were they worrying about him, she wondered, or was it just the natural dread of a mother to lose her child? So Margaret settled down to school routine, and more and more made a confidant of Bud concerning little matters of the school. If it had not been for Bud at that time Margaret would have been lonely indeed. Two or three times since Gardley left, the Brownleighs had ridden over to Sunday service, and once had stopped for a few minutes during the week on their way to visit some distant need. These occasions were a delight to Margaret, for Hazel Brownleigh was a kindred spirit. She was looking forward with pleasure to the visit she was to make them at the mission station as soon as school closed. She had been there once with Gardley before he left, but the ride was too long to go often, and the only escort available was Bud. Besides, she could not get away from school and the Sunday service at present; but it was pleasant to have something to look forward to. Meantime the spring Commencement was coming on and Margaret had her hands full. She had undertaken to inaugurate a real Commencement with class day and as much form and ceremony as she could introduce in order to create a good school spirit; but such things are not done with the turn of a hand, and the young teacher sadly missed Gardley in all these preparations. At this time Rosa Rogers was Margaret's particular thorn in the flesh. Since the night that Forsythe had quit the play and ridden forth into the darkness Rosa had regarded her teacher with baleful eyes. Gardley, too, she hated, and was only waiting with smoldering wrath until her wild, ungoverned soul could take its revenge. She felt that but for those two Forsythe would still have been with her. Margaret, realizing the passionate, untaught nature of the motherless girl and her great need of a friend to guide her, made attempt after attempt to reach and befriend her; but every attempt was met with repulse and the sharp word of scorn. Rosa had been too long the petted darling of a father who was utterly blind to her faults to be other than spoiled. Her own way was the one thing that ruled her. By her will she had ruled every nurse and servant about the place, and wheedled her father into letting her do anything the whim prompted. Twice her father, through the advice of friends, had tried the experiment of sending her away to school, once to an Eastern finishing school, and once to a convent on the Pacific coast, only to have her return shortly by request of the school, more wilful than when she had gone away. And now she ruled supreme in her father's home, disliked by most of the servants save those whom she chose to favor because they could be made to serve her purposes. Her father, engrossed in his business and away much of the time, was bound up in her and saw few of her faults. It is true that when a fault of hers did come to his notice, however, he dealt with it most severely, and grieved over it in secret, for the girl was much like the mother whose loss had emptied the world of its joy for him. But Rosa knew well how to manage her father and wheedle him, and also how to hide her own doings from his knowledge. Rosa's eyes, dimples, pink cheeks, and coquettish little mouth were not idle in these days. She knew how to have every pupil at her feet and ready to obey her slightest wish. She wielded her power to its fullest extent as the summer drew near, and day after day saw a slow torture for Margaret. Some days the menacing air of insurrection fairly bristled in the room, and Margaret could not understand how some of her most devoted followers seemed to be in the forefront of battle, until one day she looked up quickly and caught the lynx-eyed glance of Rosa as she turned from smiling at the boys in the back seat. Then she understood. Rosa had cast her spell upon the boys, and they were acting under it and not of their own clear judgment. It was the world-old battle of sex, of woman against woman for the winning of the man to do her will. Margaret, using all the charm of her lovely personality to uphold standards of right, truth, purity, high living, and earnest thinking; Rosa striving with her impish beauty to lure them into _any_ mischief so it foiled the other's purposes. And one day Margaret faced the girl alone, looking steadily into her eyes with sad, searching gaze, and almost a yearning to try to lead the pretty child to finer things. "Rosa, why do you always act as if I were your enemy?" she said, sadly. "Because you are!" said Rosa, with a toss of her independent head. "Indeed I'm not, dear child," she said, putting out her hand to lay it on the girl's shoulder kindly. "I want to be your friend." "I'm not a child!" snapped Rosa, jerking her shoulder angrily away; "and you can _never_ be my friend, because I _hate_ you!" "Rosa, look here!" said Margaret, following the girl toward the door, the color rising in her cheeks and a desire growing in her heart to conquer this poor, passionate creature and win her for better things. "Rosa, I cannot have you say such things. Tell me why you hate me? What have I done that you should feel that way? I'm sure if we should talk it over we might come to some better understanding." Rosa stood defiant in the doorway. "We could never come to any better understanding, Miss Earle," she declared in a cold, hard tone, "because I understand you now and I hate you. You tried your best to get my friend away from me, but you couldn't do it; and you would like to keep me from having any boy friends at all, but you can't do that, either. You think you are very popular, but you'll find out I always do what I like, and you needn't try to stop me. I don't have to come to school unless I choose, and as long as I don't break your rules you have no complaint coming; but you needn't think you can pull the wool over my eyes the way you do the others by pretending to be friends. I won't be friends! I hate you!" And Rosa turned grandly and marched out of the school-house. Margaret stood gazing sadly after her and wondering if her failure here were her fault--if there was anything else she ought to have done--if she had let her personal dislike of the girl influence her conduct. She sat for some time at her desk, her chin in her hands, her eyes fixed on vacancy with a hopeless, discouraged expression in them, before she became aware of another presence in the room. Looking around quickly, she saw that Bud was sitting motionless at his desk, his forehead wrinkled in a fierce frown, his jaw set belligerently, and a look of such, unutterable pity and devotion in his eyes that her heart warmed to him at once and a smile of comradeship broke over her face. "Oh, William! Were you here? Did you hear all that? What do you suppose is the matter? Where have I failed?" "You 'ain't failed anywhere! You should worry 'bout her! She's a nut! If she was a boy I'd punch her head for her! But seeing she's only a girl, _you should worry_! She always was the limit!" Bud's tone was forcible. He was the only one of all the boys who never yielded to Rosa's charms, but sat in glowering silence when she exercised her powers on the school and created pandemonium for the teacher. Bud's attitude was comforting. It had a touch of manliness and gentleness about it quite unwonted for him. It suggested beautiful possibilities for the future of his character, and Margaret smiled tenderly. "Thank you, dear boy!" she said, gently. "You certainly are a comfort. If every one was as splendid as you are we should have a model school. But I do wish I could help Rosa. I can't see why she should hate me so! I must have made some big mistake with her in the first place to antagonize her." "Naw!" said Bud, roughly. "No chance! She's just a _nut_, that's all. She's got a case on that Forsythe guy, the worst kind, and she's afraid somebody 'll get him away from her, the poor stew, as if anybody would get a case on a tough guy like that! Gee! You should worry! Come on, let's take a ride over t' camp!" With a sigh and a smile Margaret accepted Bud's consolations and went on her way, trying to find some manner of showing Rosa what a real friend she was willing to be. But Rosa continued obdurate and hateful, regarding her teacher with haughty indifference except when she was called upon to recite, which she did sometimes with scornful condescension, sometimes with pert perfection, and sometimes with saucy humor which convulsed the whole room. Margaret's patience was almost ceasing to be a virtue, and she meditated often whether she ought not to request that the girl be withdrawn from the school. Yet she reflected that it was a very short time now until Commencement, and that Rosa had not openly defied any rules. It was merely a personal antagonism. Then, too, if Rosa were taken from the school there was really no other good influence in the girl's life at present. Day by day Margaret prayed about the matter and hoped that something would develop to make plain her way. After much thought in the matter she decided to go on with her plans, letting Rosa have her place in the Commencement program and her part in the class-day doings as if nothing were the matter. Certainly there was nothing laid down in the rules of a public school that proscribed a scholar who did not love her teacher. Why should the fact that one had incurred the hate of a pupil unfit that pupil for her place in her class so long as she did her duties? And Rosa did hers promptly and deftly, with a certain piquant originality that Margaret could not help but admire. Sometimes, as the teacher cast a furtive look at the pretty girl working away at her desk, she wondered what was going on behind the lovely mask. But the look in Rosa's eyes, when she raised them, was both deep and sly. Rosa's hatred was indeed deep rooted. Whatever heart she had not frivoled away in wilfulness had been caught and won by Forsythe, the first grown man who had ever dared to make real love to her. Her jealousy of Margaret was the most intense thing that had ever come into her life. To think of him looking at Margaret, talking to Margaret, smiling at Margaret, walking or riding with Margaret, was enough to send her writhing upon her bed in the darkness of a wakeful night. She would clench her pretty hands until the nails dug into the flesh and brought the blood. She would bite the pillow or the blankets with an almost fiendish clenching of her teeth upon them and mutter, as she did so: "I hate her! I _hate_ her! I could _kill_ her!" The day her first letter came from Forsythe, Rosa held her head high and went about the school as if she were a princess royal and Margaret were the dust under her feet. Triumph sat upon her like a crown and looked forth regally from her eyes. She laid her hand upon her heart and felt the crackle of his letter inside her blouse. She dreamed with her eyes upon the distant mountain and thought of the tender names he had called her: "Little wild Rose of his heart," "No rose in all the world until you came," and a lot of other meaningful sentences. A real love-letter all her own! No sharing him with any hateful teachers! He had implied in her letter that she was the only one of all the people in that region to whom he cared to write. He had said he was coming back some day to get her. Her young, wild heart throbbed exultantly, and her eyes looked forth their triumph malignantly. When he did come she would take care that he stayed close by her. No conceited teacher from the East should lure him from her side. She would prepare her guiles and smile her sweetest. She would wear fine garments from abroad, and show him she could far outshine that quiet, common Miss Earle, with all her airs. Yet to this end she studied hard. It was no part of her plan to be left behind at graduating-time. She would please her father by taking a prominent part in things and outdoing all the others. Then he would give her what she liked--jewels and silk dresses, and all the things a girl should have who had won a lover like hers. The last busy days before Commencement were especially trying for Margaret. It seemed as if the children were possessed with the very spirit of mischief, and she could not help but see that it was Rosa who, sitting demurely in her desk, was the center of it all. Only Bud's steady, frowning countenance of all that rollicking, roistering crowd kept loyalty with the really beloved teacher. For, indeed, they loved her, every one but Rosa, and would have stood by her to a man and girl when it really came to the pinch, but in a matter like a little bit of fun in these last few days of school, and when challenged to it by the school beauty who did not usually condescend to any but a few of the older boys, where was the harm? They were so flattered by Rosa's smiles that they failed to see Margaret's worn, weary wistfulness. Bud, coming into the school-house late one afternoon in search of her after the other scholars had gone, found Margaret with her head down upon the desk and her shoulders shaken with soundless sobs. He stood for a second silent in the doorway, gazing helplessly at her grief, then with the delicacy of one boy for another he slipped back outside the door and stood in the shadow, grinding his teeth. "Gee!" he said, under his breath. "Oh, gee! I'd like to punch her fool head. I don't care if she is a girl! She needs it. Gee! if she was a boy wouldn't I settle her, the little darned mean sneak!" His remarks, it is needless to say, did not have reference to his beloved teacher. It was in the atmosphere everywhere that something was bound to happen if this strain kept up. Margaret knew it and felt utterly inadequate to meet it. Rosa knew it and was awaiting her opportunity. Bud knew it and could only stand and watch where the blow was to strike first and be ready to ward it off. In these days he wished fervently for Gardley's return. He did not know just what Gardley could do about "that little fool," as he called Rosa, but it would be a relief to be able to tell some one all about it. If he only dared leave he would go over and tell Jasper Kemp about it, just to share his burden with somebody. But as it was he must stick to the job for the present and bear his great responsibility, and so the days hastened by to the last Sunday before Commencement, which was to be on Monday. CHAPTER XXVII Margaret had spent Saturday in rehearsals, so that there had been no rest for her. Sunday morning she slept late, and awoke from a troubled dream, unrested. She almost meditated whether she would not ask some one to read a sermon at the afternoon service and let her go on sleeping. Then a memory of the lonely old woman at the camp, and the men, who came so regularly to the service, roused her to effort once more, and she arose and tried to prepare a little something for them. She came into the school-house at the hour, looking fagged, with dark circles under her eyes; and the loving eyes of Mom Wallis already in her front seat watched her keenly. "It's time for _him_ to come back," she said, in her heart. "She's gettin' peeked! I wisht he'd come!" Margaret had hoped that Rosa would not come. The girl was not always there, but of late she had been quite regular, coming in late with her father just a little after the story had begun, and attracting attention by her smiles and bows and giggling whispers, which sometimes were so audible as to create quite a diversion from the speaker. But Rosa came in early to-day and took a seat directly in front of Margaret, in about the middle of the house, fixing her eyes on her teacher with a kind of settled intention that made Margaret shrink as if from a danger she was not able to meet. There was something bright and hard and daring in Rosa's eyes as she stared unwinkingly, as if she had come to search out a weak spot for her evil purposes, and Margaret was so tired she wanted to lay her head down on her desk and cry. She drew some comfort from the reflection that if she should do so childish a thing she would be at once surrounded by a strong battalion of friends from the camp, who would shield her with their lives if necessary. It was silly, of course, and she must control this choking in her throat, only how was she ever going to talk, with Rosa looking at her that way? It was like a nightmare pursuing her. She turned to the piano and kept them all singing for a while, so that she might pray in her heart and grow calm; and when, after her brief, earnest prayer, she lifted her eyes to the audience, she saw with intense relief that the Brownleighs were in the audience. She started a hymn that they all knew, and when they were well in the midst of the first verse she slipped from the piano-stool and walked swiftly down the aisle to Brownleigh's side. "Would you please talk to them a little while?" she pleaded, wistfully. "I am so tired I feel as if I just couldn't, to-day." Instantly Brownleigh followed her back to the desk and took her place, pulling out his little, worn Bible and opening it with familiar fingers to a beloved passage: "'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'" The words fell on Margaret's tired heart like balm, and she rested her head back against the wall and closed her eyes to listen. Sitting so away from Rosa's stare, she could forget for a while the absurd burdens that had got on her nerves, and could rest down hard upon her Saviour. Every word that the man of God spoke seemed meant just for her, and brought strength, courage, and new trust to her heart. She forgot the little crowd of other listeners and took the message to herself, drinking it in eagerly as one who has been a long time ministering accepts a much-needed ministry. When she moved to the piano again for the closing hymn she felt new strength within her to bear the trials of the week that were before her. She turned, smiling and brave, to speak to those who always crowded around to shake hands and have a word before leaving. Hazel, putting a loving arm around her as soon as she could get up to the front, began to speak soothingly: "You poor, tired child!" she said; "you are almost worn to a frazzle. You need a big change, and I'm going to plan it for you just as soon as I possibly can. How would you like to go with us on our trip among the Indians? Wouldn't it be great? It'll be several days, depending on how far we go, but John wants to visit the Hopi reservation, if possible, and it'll be so interesting. They are a most strange people. We'll have a delightful trip, sleeping out under the stars, you know. Don't you just love it? I do. I wouldn't miss it for the world. I can't be sure, for a few days yet, when we can go, for John has to make a journey in the other direction first, and he isn't sure when he can return; but it might be this week. How soon can you come to us? How I wish we could take you right home with us to-night. You need to get away and rest. But your Commencement is to-morrow, isn't it? I'm so sorry we can't be here, but this other matter is important, and John has to go early in the morning. Some one very sick who wants to see him before he dies--an old Indian who didn't know a thing about Jesus till John found him one day. I suppose you haven't anybody who could bring you over to us after your work is done here to-morrow night or Tuesday, have you? Well, we'll see if we can't find some one to send for you soon. There's an old Indian who often comes this way, but he's away buying cattle. Maybe John can think of a way we could send for you early in the week. Then you would be ready to go with us on the trip. You would like to go, wouldn't you?" "Oh, so much!" said Margaret, with a sigh of wistfulness. "I can't think of anything pleasanter!" Margaret turned suddenly, and there, just behind her, almost touching her, stood Rosa, that strange, baleful gleam in her eyes like a serpent who was biding her time, drawing nearer and nearer, knowing she had her victim where she could not move before she struck. It was a strange fancy, of course, and one that was caused by sick nerves, but Margaret drew back and almost cried out, as if for some one to protect her. Then her strong common sense came to the rescue and she rallied and smiled at Rosa a faint little sorry smile. It was hard to smile at the bright, baleful face with the menace in the eyes. Hazel was watching her. "You poor child! You're quite worn out! I'm afraid you're going to be sick." "Oh no," said Margaret, trying to speak cheerfully; "things have just got on my nerves, that's all. It's been a particularly trying time. I shall be all right when to-morrow night is over." "Well, we're going to send for you very soon, so be ready!" and Hazel followed her husband, waving her hand in gay parting. Rosa was still standing just behind her when Margaret turned back to her desk, and the younger girl gave her one last dagger look, a glitter in her eyes so sinister and vindictive that Margaret felt a shudder run through her whole body, and was glad that just then Rosa's father called to her that they must be starting home. Only one more day now of Rosa, and she would be done with her, perhaps forever. The girl was through the school course and was graduating. It was not likely she would return another year. Her opportunity was over to help her. She had failed. Why, she couldn't tell, but she had strangely failed, and all she asked now was not to have to endure the hard, cold, young presence any longer. "Sick nerves, Margaret!" she said to herself. "Go home and go to bed. You'll be all right to-morrow!" And she locked the school-house door and walked quietly home with the faithful Bud. The past month had been a trying time also for Rosa. Young, wild, and motherless, passionate, wilful and impetuous, she was finding life tremendously exciting just now. With no one to restrain her or warn her she was playing with forces that she did not understand. She had subjugated easily all the boys in school, keeping them exactly where she wanted them for her purpose, and using methods that would have done credit to a woman of the world. But by far the greatest force in her life was her infatuation for Forsythe. The letters had traveled back and forth many times between them since Forsythe wrote that first love-letter. He found a whimsical pleasure in her deep devotion and naïve readiness to follow as far as he cared to lead her. He realized that, young as she was, she was no innocent, which made the acquaintance all the more interesting. He, meantime, idled away a few months on the Pacific coast, making mild love to a rich California girl and considering whether or not he was ready yet to settle down. In the mean time his correspondence with Rosa took on such a nature that his volatile, impulsive nature was stirred with a desire to see her again. It was not often that once out of sight he looked back to a victim, but Rosa had shown a daring and a spirit in her letters that sent a challenge to his sated senses. Moreover, the California heiress was going on a journey; besides, an old enemy of his who knew altogether too much of his past had appeared on the scene; and as Gardley had been removed from the Ashland vicinity for a time, Forsythe felt it might be safe to venture back again. There was always that pretty, spirited little teacher if Rosa failed to charm. But why should Rosa not charm? And why should he not yield? Rosa's father was a good sort and had all kinds of property. Rosa was her father's only heir. On the whole, Forsythe decided that the best move he could make next would be to return to Arizona. If things turned out well he might even think of marrying Rosa. This was somewhat the train of thought that led Forsythe at last to write to Rosa that he was coming, throwing Rosa into a panic of joy and alarm. For Rosa's father had been most explicit about her ever going out with Forsythe again. It had been the most relentless command he had ever laid upon her, spoken in a tone she hardly ever disobeyed. Moreover, Rosa was fearfully jealous of Margaret. If Forsythe should come and begin to hang around the teacher Rosa felt she would go wild, or do something terrible, perhaps even kill somebody. She shut her sharp little white teeth fiercely down into her red under lip and vowed with flashing eyes that he should never see Margaret again if power of hers could prevent it. The letter from Forsythe had reached her on Saturday evening, and she had come to the Sunday service with the distinct idea of trying to plan how she might get rid of Margaret. It would be hard enough to evade her father's vigilance if he once found out the young man had returned; but to have him begin to go and see Margaret again was a thing she could not and would not stand. The idea obsessed her to the exclusion of all others, and made her watch her teacher as if by her very concentration of thought upon her some way out of the difficulty might be evolved; as if Margaret herself might give forth a hint of weakness somewhere that would show her how to plan. To that intent she had come close in the group with the others around the teacher at the close of meeting, and, so standing, had overheard all that the Brownleighs had said. The lightning flash of triumph that she cast at Margaret as she left the school-house was her own signal that she had found a way at last. Her opportunity had come, and just in time. Forsythe was to arrive in Arizona some time on Tuesday, and wanted Rosa to meet him at one of their old trysting-places, out some distance from her father's house. He knew that school would just be over, for she had written him about Commencement, and so he understood that she would be free. But he did not know that the place he had selected to meet her was on one of Margaret's favorite trails where she and Bud often rode in the late afternoons, and that above all things Rosa wished to avoid any danger of meeting her teacher; for she not only feared that Forsythe's attention would be drawn away from her, but also that Margaret might feel it her duty to report to her father about her clandestine meeting. Rosa's heart beat high as she rode demurely home with her father, answering his pleasantries with smiles and dimples and a coaxing word, just as he loved to have her. But she was not thinking of her father, though she kept well her mask of interest in what he had to say. She was trying to plan how she might use what she had heard to get rid of Margaret Earle. If only Mrs. Brownleigh would do as she had hinted and send some one Tuesday morning to escort Miss Earle over to her home, all would be clear sailing for Rosa; but she dared not trust to such a possibility. There were not many escorts coming their way from Ganado, and Rosa happened to know that the old Indian who frequently escorted parties was off in another direction. She could not rest on any such hope. When she reached home she went at once to her room and sat beside her window, gazing off at the purple mountains in deep thought. Then she lighted a candle and went in search of a certain little Testament, long since neglected and covered with dust. She found it at last on the top of a pile of books in a dark closet, and dragged it forth, eagerly turning the pages. Yes, there it was, and in it a small envelope directed to "Miss Rosa Rogers" in a fine angular handwriting. The letter was from the missionary's wife to the little girl who had recited her texts so beautifully as to earn the Testament. Rosa carried it to her desk, secured a good light, and sat down to read it over carefully. No thought of her innocent childish exultation over that letter came to her now. She was intent on one thing--the handwriting. Could she seize the secret of it and reproduce it? She had before often done so with great success. She could imitate Miss Earle's writing so perfectly that she often took an impish pleasure in changing words in the questions on the blackboard and making them read absurdly for the benefit of the school. It was such good sport to see the amazement on Margaret's face when her attention would be called to it by a hilarious class, and to watch her troubled brow when she read what she supposed she had written. When Rosa was but a little child she used to boast that she could write her father's name in perfect imitation of his signature; and often signed some trifling receipt for him just for amusement. A dangerous gift in the hands of a conscienceless girl! Yet this was the first time that Rosa had really planned to use her art in any serious way. Perhaps it never occurred to her that she was doing wrong. At present her heart was too full of hate and fear and jealous love to care for right or wrong or anything else. It is doubtful if she would have hesitated a second even if the thing she was planning had suddenly appeared to her in the light of a great crime. She seemed sometimes almost like a creature without moral sense, so swayed was she by her own desires and feelings. She was blind now to everything but her great desire to get Margaret out of the way and have Forsythe to herself. Long after her father and the servants were asleep Rosa's light burned while she bent over her desk, writing. Page after page she covered with careful copies of Mrs. Brownleigh's letter written to herself almost three years before. Finally she wrote out the alphabet, bit by bit as she picked it from the words, learning just how each letter was habitually formed, the small letters and the capitals, with the peculiarities of connection and ending. At last, when she lay down to rest, she felt herself capable of writing a pretty fair letter in Mrs. Brownleigh's handwriting. The next thing was to make her plan and compose her letter. She lay staring into the darkness and trying to think just what she could do. In the first place, she settled it that Margaret must be gotten to Walpi at least. It would not do to send her to Ganado, where the mission station was, for that was a comparatively short journey, and she could easily go in a day. When the fraud was discovered, as of course it would be when Mrs. Brownleigh heard of it, Margaret would perhaps return to find out who had done it. No, she must be sent all the way to Walpi if possible. That would take at least two nights and the most of two days to get there. Forsythe had said his stay was to be short. By the time Margaret got back from Walpi Forsythe would be gone. But how manage to get her to Walpi without her suspicions being aroused? She might word the note so that Margaret would be told to come half-way, expecting to meet the missionaries, say at Keams. There was a trail straight up from Ashland to Keams, cutting off quite a distance and leaving Ganado off at the right. Keams was nearly forty miles west of Ganado. That would do nicely. Then if she could manage to have another note left at Keams, saying they could not wait and had gone on, Margaret would suspect nothing and go all the way to Walpi. That would be fine and would give the school-teacher an interesting experience which wouldn't hurt her in the least. Rosa thought it might be rather interesting than otherwise. She had no compunctions whatever about how Margaret might feel when she arrived in that strange Indian town and found no friends awaiting her. Her only worry was where she was to find a suitable escort, for she felt assured that Margaret would not start out alone with one man servant on an expedition that would keep her out overnight. And where in all that region could she find a woman whom she could trust to send on the errand? It almost looked as though the thing were an impossibility. She lay tossing and puzzling over it till gray dawn stole into the room. She mentally reviewed every servant on the place on whom she could rely to do her bidding and keep her secret, but there was some reason why each one would not do. She scanned the country, even considering old Ouida, who had been living in a shack over beyond the fort ever since her cabin had been raided; but old Ouida was too notorious. Mrs. Tanner would keep Margaret from going with her, even if Margaret herself did not know the old woman's reputation. Rosa considered if there were any way of wheedling Mom Wallis into the affair, and gave that up, remembering the suspicious little twinkling eyes of Jasper Kemp. At last she fell asleep, with her plan still unformed but her determination to carry it through just as strong as ever. If worst came to worst she would send the half-breed cook from the ranch kitchen and put something in the note about his expecting to meet his sister an hour's ride out on the trail. The half-breed would do anything in the world for money, and Rosa had no trouble in getting all she wanted of that commodity. But the half-breed was an evil-looking fellow, and she feared lest Margaret would not like to go with him. However, he should be a last resort. She would not be balked in her purpose. CHAPTER XXVIII Rosa awoke very early, for her sleep had been light and troubled. She dressed hastily and sat down to compose a note which could be altered slightly in case she found some one better than the half-breed; but before she was half through the phrasing she heard a slight disturbance below her window and a muttering in guttural tones from a strange voice. Glancing hastily out, she saw some Indians below, talking with one of the men, who was shaking his head and motioning to them that they must go on, that this was no place for them to stop. The Indian motioned to his squaw, sitting on a dilapidated little moth-eaten burro with a small papoose in her arms and looking both dirty and miserable. He muttered as though he were pleading for something. We believe that God's angels follow the feet of little children and needy ones to protect them; does the devil also send his angels to lead unwary ones astray, and to protect the plan's of the erring ones? If so then he must have sent these Indians that morning to further Rosa's plans, and instantly she recognized her opportunity. She leaned out of her window and spoke in a clear, reproving voice: "James, what does he want? Breakfast? You know father wouldn't want any hungry person to be turned away. Let them sit down on the bench there and tell Dorset I said to give them a good hot breakfast, and get some milk for the baby. Be quick about it, too!" James started and frowned at the clear, commanding voice. The squaw turned grateful animal eyes up to the little beauty in the window, muttering some inarticulate thanks, while the stolid Indian's eyes glittered hopefully, though the muscles of his mask-like countenance changed not an atom. Rosa smiled radiantly and ran down to see that her orders were obeyed. She tried to talk a little with the squaw, but found she understood very little English. The Indian spoke better and gave her their brief story. They were on their way to the Navajo reservation to the far north. They had been unfortunate enough to lose their last scanty provisions by prowling coyotes during the night, and were in need of food. Rosa gave them a place to sit down and a plentiful breakfast, and ordered that a small store of provisions should be prepared for their journey after they had rested. Then she hurried up to her room to finish her letter. She had her plan well fixed now. These strangers should be her willing messengers. Now and then, as she wrote she lifted her head and gazed out of the window, where she could see the squaw busy with her little one, and her eyes fairly glittered with satisfaction. Nothing could have been better planned than this. She wrote her note carefully: DEAR MARGARET [she had heard Hazel call Margaret by her first name, and rightly judged that their new friendship was already strong enough to justify this intimacy],--I have found just the opportunity I wanted for you to come to us. These Indians are thoroughly trustworthy and are coming in just the direction to bring you to a point where we will meet you. We have decided to go on to Walpi at once, and will probably meet you near Keams, or a little farther on. The Indian knows the way, and you need not be afraid. I trust him perfectly. Start at once, please, so that you will meet us in time. John has to go on as fast as possible. I know you will enjoy the trip, and am so glad you are coming. Lovingly, HAZEL RADCLIFFE BROWNLEIGH. Rosa read it over, comparing it carefully with the little yellow note from her Testament, and decided that it was a very good imitation. She could almost hear Mrs. Brownleigh saying what she had written. Rosa really was quite clever. She had done it well. She hastily sealed and addressed her letter, and then hurried down to talk with the Indians again. The place she had ordered for them to rest was at some distance from the kitchen door, a sort of outshed for the shelter of certain implements used about the ranch. A long bench ran in front of it, and a big tree made a goodly shade. The Indians had found their temporary camp quite inviting. Rosa made a detour of the shed, satisfied herself that no one was within hearing, and then sat down on the bench, ostensibly playing with the papoose, dangling a red ball on a ribbon before his dazzled, bead-like eyes and bringing forth a gurgle of delight from the dusky little mummy. While she played she talked idly with the Indians. Had they money enough for their journey? Would they like to earn some? Would they act as guide to a lady who wanted to go to Walpi? At least she wanted to go as far as Keams, where she might meet friends, missionaries, who were going on with her to Walpi to visit the Indians. If they didn't meet her she wanted to be guided all the way to Walpi? Would they undertake it? It would pay them well. They would get money enough for their journey and have some left when they got to the reservation. And Rosa displayed two gold pieces temptingly in her small palms. The Indian uttered a guttural sort of gasp at sight of so much money, and sat upright. He gasped again, indicating by a solemn nod that he was agreeable to the task before him, and the girl went gaily on with her instructions: "You will have to take some things along to make the lady comfortable. I will see that those are got ready. Then you can have the things for your own when you leave the lady at Walpi. You will have to take a letter to the lady and tell her you are going this afternoon, and she must be ready to start at once or she will not meet the missionary. Tell her you can only wait until three o'clock to start. You will find the lady at the school-house at noon. You must not come till noon--" Rosa pointed to the sun and then straight overhead. The Indian watched her keenly and nodded. "You must ask for Miss Earle and give her this letter. She is the school-teacher." The Indian grunted and looked at the white missive in Rosa's hand, noting once more the gleam of the gold pieces. "You must wait till the teacher goes to her boarding-house and packs her things and eats her dinner. If anybody asks where you came from you must say the missionary's wife from Ganado sent you. Don't tell anybody anything else. Do you understand? More money if you don't say anything?" Rosa clinked the gold pieces softly. The strange, sphinx-like gaze of the Indian narrowed comprehensively. He understood. His native cunning was being bought for this girl's own purposes. He looked greedily at the money. Rosa had put her hand in her pocket and brought out yet another gold piece. "See! I give you this one now"--she laid one gold piece in the Indian's hand--"and these two I put in an envelope and pack with some provisions and blankets on another horse. I will leave the horse tied to a tree up where the big trail crosses this big trail out that way. You know?" Rosa pointed in the direction she meant, and the Indian looked and grunted, his eyes returning to the two gold pieces in her hand. It was a great deal of money for the little lady to give. Was she trying to cheat him? He looked down at the gold he already held. It was good money. He was sure of that. He looked at her keenly. "I shall be watching and I shall know whether you have the lady or not," went on the girl, sharply. "If you do not bring the lady with you there will be no money and no provisions waiting for you. But if you bring the lady you can untie the horse and take him with you. You will need the horse to carry the things. When you get to Walpi you can set him free. He is branded and he will likely come back. We shall find him. See, I will put the gold pieces in this tin can." She picked up a sardine-tin that lay at her feet, slipped the gold pieces in an envelope from her pocket, stuffed it in the tin, bent down the cover, and held it up. "This can will be packed on the top of the other provisions, and you can open it and take the money out when you untie the horse. Then hurry on as fast as you can and get as far along the trail as possible to-night before you camp. Do you understand?" The Indian nodded once more, and Rosa felt that she had a confederate worthy of her need. She stayed a few minutes more, going carefully over her directions, telling the Indian to be sure his squaw was kind to the lady, and that on no account he should let the lady get uneasy or have cause to complain of her treatment, or trouble would surely come to him. At last she felt sure she had made him understand, and she hurried away to slip into her pretty white dress and rose-colored ribbons and ride to school. Before she left her room she glanced out of the window at the Indians, and saw them sitting motionless, like a group of bronze. Once the Indian stirred and, putting his hand in his bosom, drew forth the white letter she had given him, gazed at it a moment, and hid it in his breast again. She nodded her satisfaction as she turned from the window. The next thing was to get to school and play her own part in the Commencement exercises. The morning was bright, and the school-house was already filled to overflowing when Rosa arrived. Her coming, as always, made a little stir among admiring groups, for even those who feared her admired her from afar. She fluttered into the school-house and up the aisle with the air of a princess who knew she had been waited for and was condescending to come at all. Rosa was in everything--the drills, the march, the choruses, and the crowning oration. She went through it all with the perfection of a bright mind and an adaptable nature. One would never have dreamed, to look at her pretty dimpling face and her sparkling eyes, what diabolical things were moving in her mind, nor how those eyes, lynx-soft with lurking sweetness and treachery, were watching all the time furtively for the appearance of the old Indian. At last she saw him, standing in a group just outside the window near the platform, his tall form and stern countenance marking him among the crowd of familiar faces. She was receiving her diploma from the hand of Margaret when she caught his eye, and her hand trembled just a quiver as she took the dainty roll tied with blue and white ribbons. That he recognized her she was sure; that he knew she did not wish him to make known his connection with her she felt equally convinced he understood. His eye had that comprehending look of withdrawal. She did not look up directly at him again. Her eyes were daintily downward. Nevertheless, she missed not a turn of his head, not a glance from that stern eye, and she knew the moment when he stood at the front door of the school-house with the letter in his hand, stolid and indifferent, yet a great force to be reckoned with. Some one looked at the letter, pointed to Margaret, called her, and she came. Rosa was not far away all the time, talking with Jed; her eyes downcast, her cheeks dimpling, missing nothing that could be heard or seen. Margaret read the letter. Rosa watched her, knew every curve of every letter and syllable as she read, held her breath, and watched Margaret's expression. Did she suspect? No. A look of intense relief and pleasure had come into her eyes. She was glad to have found a way to go. She turned to Mrs. Tanner. "What do you think of this, Mrs. Tanner? I'm to go with Mrs. Brownleigh on a trip to Walpi. Isn't that delicious? I'm to start at once. Do you suppose I could have a bite to eat? I won't need much. I'm too tired to eat and too anxious to be off. If you give me a cup of tea and a sandwich I'll be all right. I've got things about ready to go, for Mrs. Brownleigh told me she would send some one for me." "H'm!" said Mrs. Tanner, disapprovingly. "Who you goin' with? Just _him_? I don't much like _his_ looks!" She spoke in a low tone so the Indian would not hear, and it was almost in Rosa's very ear, who stood just behind. Rosa's heart stopped a beat and she frowned at the toe of her slipper. Was this common little Tanner woman going to be the one to balk her plans? Margaret raised her head now for her first good look at the Indian, and it must be admitted a chill came into her heart. Then, as if he comprehended what was at stake, the Indian turned slightly and pointed down the path toward the road. By common consent the few who were standing about the door stepped back and made a vista for Margaret to see the squaw sitting statue-like on her scraggy little pony, gazing off at the mountain in the distance, as if she were sitting for her picture, her solemn little papoose strapped to her back. Margaret's troubled eyes cleared. The family aspect made things all right again. "You see, he has his wife and child," she said. "It's all right. Mrs. Brownleigh says she trusts him perfectly, and I'm to meet them on the way. Read the letter." She thrust the letter into Mrs. Tanner's hand, and Rosa trembled for her scheme once more. Surely, surely Mrs. Tanner would not be able to detect the forgery! "H'm! Well, I s'pose it's all right if she says so, but I'm sure I don't relish them pesky Injuns, and I don't think that squaw wife of his looks any great shakes, either. They look to me like they needed a good scrub with Bristol brick. But then, if you're set on going, you'll go, 'course. I jest wish Bud hadn't 'a' gone home with that Jasper Kemp. He might 'a' gone along, an' then you'd 'a' had somebody to speak English to." "Yes, it would have been nice to have William along," said Margaret; "but I think I'll be all right. Mrs. Brownleigh wouldn't send anybody that wasn't nice." "H'm! I dun'no'! She's an awful crank. She just loves them Injuns, they say. But I, fer one, draw the line at holdin' 'em in my lap. I don't b'lieve in mixin' folks up that way. Preach to 'em if you like, but let 'em keep their distance, I say." Margaret laughed and went off to pick up her things. Rosa stood smiling and talking to Jed until she saw Margaret and Mrs. Tanner go off together, the Indians riding slowly along behind. Rosa waited until the Indians had turned off the road down toward the Tanners', and then she mounted her own pony and rode swiftly home. She rushed up to her room and took off her fine apparel, arraying herself quickly in a plain little gown, and went down to prepare the provisions. There was none too much time, and she must work rapidly. It was well for her plans that she was all-powerful with the servants and could send them about at will to get them out of her way. She invented a duty for each now that would take them for a few minutes well out of sight and sound; then she hurried together the provisions in a basket, making two trips to get them to the shelter where she had told the Indian he would find the horse tied. She had to make a third trip to bring the blankets and a few other things she knew would be indispensable, but the whole outfit was really but carelessly gotten together, and it was just by chance that some things got in at all. It was not difficult to find the old cayuse she intended using for a pack-horse. He was browsing around in the corral, and she soon had a halter over his head, for she had been quite used to horses from her babyhood. She packed the canned things, tinned meats, vegetables, and fruit into a couple of large sacks, adding some fodder for the horses, a box of matches, some corn bread, of which there was always plenty on hand in the house, some salt pork, and a few tin dishes. These she slung pack fashion over the old horse, fastened the sardine-tin containing the gold pieces where it would be easily found, tied the horse to a tree, and retired behind a shelter of sage-brush to watch. It was not long before the little caravan came, the Indians riding ahead single file, like two graven images, moving not a muscle of their faces, and Margaret a little way behind on her own pony, her face as happy and relieved as if she were a child let out from a hard task to play. The Indian stopped beside the horse, a glitter of satisfaction in his eyes as he saw that the little lady had fulfilled her part of the bargain. He indicated to the squaw and the lady that they might move on down the trail, and he would catch up with them; and then dismounted, pouncing warily upon the sardine-tin at once. He looked furtively about, then took out the money and tested it with his teeth to make sure it was genuine. He grunted his further satisfaction, looked over the pack-horse, made more secure the fastenings of the load, and, taking the halter, mounted and rode stolidly away toward the north. Rosa waited in her covert until they were far out of sight, then made her way hurriedly back to the house and climbed to a window where she could watch the trail for several miles. There, with a field-glass, she kept watch until the procession had filed across the plains, down into a valley, up over a hill, and dropped to a farther valley out of sight. She looked at the sun and drew a breath of satisfaction. She had done it at last! She had got Margaret away before Forsythe came! There was no likelihood that the fraud would be discovered until her rival was far enough away to be safe. A kind of reaction came upon Rosa's overwrought nerves. She laughed out harshly, and her voice had a cruel ring to it. Then she threw herself upon the bed and burst into a passionate fit of weeping, and so, by and by, fell asleep. She dreamed that Margaret had returned like a shining, fiery angel, a two-edged sword in her hand and all the Wallis camp at her heels, with vengeance in their wake. That hateful little boy, Bud Tanner, danced around and made faces at her, while Forsythe had forgotten her to gaze at Margaret's face. CHAPTER XXIX To Margaret the day was very fair, and the omens all auspicious. She carried with her close to her heart two precious letters received that morning and scarcely glanced at as yet, one from Gardley and one from her mother. She had had only time to open them and be sure that all was well with her dear ones, and had left the rest to read on the way. She was dressed in the khaki riding-habit she always wore when she went on horseback; and in the bag strapped on behind she carried a couple of fresh white blouses, a thin, white dress, a little soft dark silk gown that folded away almost into a cobweb, and a few other necessities. She had also slipped in a new book her mother had sent her, into which she had had as yet no time to look, and her chessmen and board, besides writing materials. She prided herself on having got so many necessaries into so small a compass. She would need the extra clothing if she stayed at Ganado with the missionaries for a week on her return from the trip, and the book and chessmen would amuse them all by the way. She had heard Brownleigh say he loved to play chess. Margaret rode on the familiar trail, and for the first hour just let herself be glad that school was over and she could rest and have no responsibility. The sun shimmered down brilliantly on the white, hot sand and gray-green of the greasewood and sage-brush. Tall spikes of cactus like lonely spires shot up now and again to vary the scene. It was all familiar ground to Margaret around here, for she had taken many rides with Gardley and Bud, and for the first part of the way every turn and bit of view was fraught with pleasant memories that brought a smile to her eyes as she recalled some quotation of Gardley's or some prank of Bud's. Here was where they first sighted the little cottontail the day she took her initial ride on her own pony. Off there was the mountain where they saw the sun drawing silver water above a frowning storm. Yonder was the group of cedars where they had stopped to eat their lunch once, and this water-hole they were approaching was the one where Gardley had given her a drink from his hat. She was almost glad that Bud was not along, for she was too tired to talk and liked to be alone with her thoughts for this few minutes. Poor Bud! He would be disappointed when he got back to find her gone, but then he had expected she was going in a few days, anyway, and she had promised to take long rides with him when she returned. She had left a little note for him, asking him to read a certain book in her bookcase while she was gone, and be ready to discuss it with her when she got back, and Bud would be fascinated with it, she knew. Bud had been dear and faithful, and she would miss him, but just for this little while she was glad to have the great out-of-doors to herself. She was practically alone. The two sphinx-like figures riding ahead of her made no sign, but stolidly rode on hour after hour, nor turned their heads even to see if she were coming. She knew that Indians were this way; still, as the time went by she began to feel an uneasy sense of being alone in the universe with a couple of bronze statues. Even the papoose had erased itself in sleep, and when it awoke partook so fully of its racial peculiarities as to hold its little peace and make no fuss. Margaret began to feel the baby was hardly human, more like a little brown doll set up in a missionary meeting to teach white children what a papoose was like. By and by she got out her letters and read them over carefully, dreaming and smiling over them, and getting precious bits by heart. Gardley hinted that he might be able very soon to visit her parents, as it looked as though he might have to make a trip on business in their direction before he could go further with what he was doing in his old home. He gave no hint of soon returning to the West. He said he was awaiting the return of one man who might soon be coming from abroad. Margaret sighed and wondered how many weary months it would be before she would see him. Perhaps, after all, she ought to have gone home and stayed them out with her mother and father. If the school-board could be made to see that it would be better to have no summer session, perhaps she would even yet go when she returned from the Brownleighs'. She would see. She would decide nothing until she was rested. Suddenly she felt herself overwhelmingly weary, and wished that the Indians would stop and rest for a while; but when she stirred up her sleepy pony and spurred ahead to broach the matter to her guide he shook his solemn head and pointed to the sun: "No get Keams good time. No meet Aneshodi." "Aneshodi," she knew, was the Indians' name for the missionary, and she smiled her acquiescence. Of course they must meet the Brownleighs and not detain them. What was it Hazel had said about having to hurry? She searched her pocket for the letter, and then remembered she had left it with Mrs. Tanner. What a pity she had not brought it! Perhaps there was some caution or advice in it that she had not taken note of. But then the Indian likely knew all about it, and she could trust to him. She glanced at his stolid face and wished she could make him smile. She cast a sunny smile at him and said something pleasant about the beautiful day, but he only looked her through as if she were not there, and after one or two more attempts she fell back and tried to talk to the squaw; but the squaw only looked stolid, too, and shook her head. She did not seem friendly. Margaret drew back into her old position and feasted her eyes upon the distant hills. The road was growing unfamiliar now. They were crossing rough ridges with cliffs of red sandstone, and every step of the way was interesting. Yet Margaret felt more and more how much she wanted to lie down and sleep, and when at last in the dusk the Indians halted not far from a little pool of rainwater and indicated that here they would camp for the night, Margaret was too weary to question the decision. It had not occurred to her that she would be on the way overnight before she met her friends. Her knowledge of the way, and of distances, was but vague. It is doubtful if she would have ventured had she known that she must pass the night thus in the company of two strange savage creatures. Yet, now that she was here and it was inevitable, she would not shrink, but make the best of it. She tried to be friendly once more, and offered to look out for the baby while the squaw gathered wood and made a fire. The Indian was off looking after the horses, evidently expecting his wife to do all the work. Margaret watched a few minutes, while pretending to play with the baby, who was both sleepy and hungry, yet held his emotions as stolidly as if he were a grown person. Then she decided to take a hand in the supper. She was hungry and could not bear that those dusky, dirty hands should set forth her food, so she went to work cheerfully, giving directions as if the Indian woman understood her, though she very soon discovered that all her talk was as mere babbling to the other, and she might as well hold her peace. The woman set a kettle of water over the fire, and Margaret forestalled her next movement by cutting some pork and putting it to cook in a little skillet she found among the provisions. The woman watched her solemnly, not seeming to care; and so, silently, each went about her own preparations. The supper was a silent affair, and when it was over the squaw handed Margaret a blanket. Suddenly she understood that this, and this alone, was to be her bed for the night. The earth was there for a mattress, and the sage-brush lent a partial shelter, the canopy of stars was overhead. A kind of panic took possession of her. She stared at the squaw and found herself longing to cry out for help. It seemed as if she could not bear this awful silence of the mortals who were her only company. Yet her common sense came to her aid, and she realized that there was nothing for it but to make the best of things. So she took the blanket and, spreading it out, sat down upon it and wrapped it about her shoulders and feet. She would not lie down until she saw what the rest did. Somehow she shrank from asking the bronze man how to fold a blanket for a bed on the ground. She tried to remember what Gardley had told her about folding the blanket bed so as best to keep out snakes and ants. She shuddered at the thought of snakes. Would she dare call for help from those stolid companions of hers if a snake should attempt to molest her in the night? And would she ever dare to go to sleep? She remembered her first night in Arizona out among the stars, alone on the water-tank, and her first frenzy of loneliness. Was this as bad? No, for these Indians were trustworthy and well known by her dear friends. It might be unpleasant, but this, too, would pass and the morrow would soon be here. The dusk dropped down and the stars loomed out. All the world grew wonderful, like a blue jeweled dome of a palace with the lights turned low. The fire burned brightly as the man threw sticks upon it, and the two Indians moved stealthily about in the darkness, passing silhouetted before the fire this way and that, and then at last lying down wrapped in their blankets to sleep. It was very quiet about her. The air was so still she could hear the hobbled horses munching away in the distance, and moving now and then with the halting gait a hobble gives a horse. Off in the farther distance the blood-curdling howl of the coyotes rose, but Margaret was used to them, and knew they would not come near a fire. She was growing very weary, and at last wrapped her blanket closer and lay down, her head pillowed on one corner of it. Committing herself to her Heavenly Father, and breathing a prayer for father, mother, and lover, she fell asleep. It was still almost dark when she awoke. For a moment she thought it was still night and the sunset was not gone yet, the clouds were so rosy tinted. The squaw was standing by her, touching her shoulder roughly and grunting something. She perceived, as she rubbed her eyes and tried to summon back her senses, that she was expected to get up and eat breakfast. There was a smell of pork and coffee in the air, and there was scorched corn bread beside the fire on a pan. Margaret got up quickly and ran down to the water-hole to get some water, dashing it in her face and over her arms and hands, the squaw meanwhile standing at a little distance, watching her curiously, as if she thought this some kind of an oblation paid to the white woman's god before she ate. Margaret pulled the hair-pins out of her hair, letting it down and combing it with one of her side combs; twisted it up again in its soft, fluffy waves; straightened her collar, set on her hat, and was ready for the day. The squaw looked at her with both awe and contempt for a moment, then turned and stalked back to her papoose and began preparing it for the journey. Margaret made a hurried meal and was scarcely done before she found her guides were waiting like two pillars of the desert, but watching keenly, impatiently, her every mouthful, and anxious to be off. The sky was still pink-tinted with the semblance of a sunset, and Margaret felt, as she mounted her pony and followed her companions, as if the day was all turned upside down. She almost wondered whether she hadn't slept through a whole twenty-four hours, and it were not, after all, evening again, till by and by the sun rose clear and the wonder of the cloud-tinting melted into day. The road lay through sage-brush and old barren cedar-trees, with rabbits darting now and then between the rocks. Suddenly from the top of a little hill they came out to a spot where they could see far over the desert. Forty miles away three square, flat hills, or mesas, looked like a gigantic train of cars, and the clear air gave everything a strange vastness. Farther on beyond the mesas dimly dawned the Black Mountains. One could even see the shadowed head of "Round Rock," almost a hundred miles away. Before them and around was a great plain of sage-brush, and here and there was a small bush that the Indians call "the weed that was not scared." Margaret had learned all these things during her winter in Arizona, and keenly enjoyed the vast, splendid view spread before her. They passed several little mud-plastered hogans that Margaret knew for Indian dwellings. A fine band of ponies off in the distance made an interesting spot on the landscape, and twice they passed bands of sheep. She had a feeling of great isolation from everything she had ever known, and seemed going farther and farther from life and all she loved. Once she ventured to ask the Indian what time he expected to meet her friends, the missionaries, but he only shook his head and murmured something unintelligible about "Keams" and pointed to the sun. She dropped behind again, vaguely uneasy, she could not tell why. There seemed something so altogether sly and wary and unfriendly in the faces of the two that she almost wished she had not come. Yet the way was beautiful enough and nothing very unpleasant was happening to her. Once she dropped the envelope of her mother's letter and was about to dismount and recover it. Then some strange impulse made her leave it on the sand of the desert. What if they should be lost and that paper should guide them back? The notion stayed by her, and once in a while she dropped other bits of paper by the way. About noon the trail dropped off into a cañon, with high, yellow-rock walls on either side, and stifling heat, so that she felt as if she could scarcely stand it. She was glad when they emerged once more and climbed to higher ground. The noon camp was a hasty affair, for the Indian seemed in a hurry. He scanned the horizon far and wide and seemed searching keenly for some one or something. Once they met a lonely Indian, and he held a muttered conversation with him, pointing off ahead and gesticulating angrily. But the words were unintelligible to Margaret. Her feeling of uneasiness was growing, and yet she could not for the life of her tell why, and laid it down to her tired nerves. She was beginning to think she had been very foolish to start on such a long trip before she had had a chance to get rested from her last days of school. She longed to lie down under a tree and sleep for days. Toward night they sighted a great blue mesa about fifty miles south, and at sunset they could just see the San Francisco peaks more than a hundred and twenty-five miles away. Margaret, as she stopped her horse and gazed, felt a choking in her heart and throat and a great desire to cry. The glory and awe of the mountains, mingled with her own weariness and nervous fear, were almost too much for her. She was glad to get down and eat a little supper and go to sleep again. As she fell asleep she comforted herself with repeating over a few precious words from her Bible: "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him and delivereth them. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee because he trusteth in Thee. I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for Thou Lord only makest me to dwell in safety...." The voice of the coyotes, now far, now near, boomed out on the night; great stars shot dartling pathways across the heavens; the fire snapped and crackled, died down and flickered feebly; but Margaret slept, tired out, and dreamed the angels kept close vigil around her lowly couch. She did not know what time the stars disappeared and the rain began to fall. She was too tired to notice the drops that fell upon her face. Too tired to hear the coyotes coming nearer, nearer, yet in the morning there lay one dead, stretched not thirty feet from where she lay. The Indian had shot him through the heart. Somehow things looked very dismal that morning, in spite of the brightness of the sun after the rain. She was stiff and sore with lying in the dampness. Her hair was wet, her blanket was wet, and she woke without feeling rested. Almost the trip seemed more than she could bear. If she could have wished herself back that morning and have stayed at Tanners' all summer she certainly would have done it rather than to be where and how she was. The Indians seemed excited--the man grim and forbidding, the woman appealing, frightened, anxious. They were near to Keams Cañon. "Aneshodi" would be somewhere about. The Indian hoped to be rid of his burden then and travel on his interrupted journey. He was growing impatient. He felt he had earned his money. But when they tried to go down Keam's Cañon they found the road all washed away by flood, and must needs go a long way around. This made the Indian surly. His countenance was more forbidding than ever. Margaret, as she watched him with sinking heart, altered her ideas of the Indian as a whole to suit the situation. She had always felt pity for the poor Indian, whose land had been seized and whose kindred had been slaughtered. But this Indian was not an object of pity. He was the most disagreeable, cruel-looking Indian Margaret had ever laid eyes on. She had felt it innately the first time she saw him, but now, as the situation began to bring him out, she knew that she was dreadfully afraid of him. She had a feeling that he might scalp her if he got tired of her. She began to alter her opinion of Hazel Brownleigh's judgment as regarded Indians. She did not feel that she would ever send this Indian to any one for a guide and say he was perfectly trustworthy. He hadn't done anything very dreadful yet, but she felt he was going to. He had a number of angry confabs with his wife that morning. At least, he did the confabbing and the squaw protested. Margaret gathered after a while that it was something about herself. The furtive, frightened glances that the squaw cast in her direction sometimes, when the man was not looking, made her think so. She tried to say it was all imagination, and that her nerves were getting the upper hand of her, but in spite of her she shuddered sometimes, just as she had done when Rosa looked at her. She decided that she must be going to have a fit of sickness, and that just as soon as she got in the neighborhood of Mrs. Tanner's again she would pack her trunk and go home to her mother. If she was going to be sick she wanted her mother. About noon things came to a climax. They halted on the top of the mesa, and the Indians had another altercation, which ended in the man descending the trail a fearfully steep way, down four hundred feet to the trading-post in the cañon. Margaret looked down and gasped and thanked a kind Providence that had not made it necessary for her to make that descent; but the squaw stood at the top with her baby and looked down in silent sorrow--agony perhaps would be a better name. Her face was terrible to look upon. Margaret could not understand it, and she went to the woman and put her hand out sympathetically, asking, gently: "What is the matter, you poor little thing? Oh, what is it?" Perhaps the woman understood the tenderness in the tone, for she suddenly turned and rested her forehead against Margaret's shoulder, giving one great, gasping sob, then lifted her dry, miserable eyes to the girl's face as if to thank her for her kindness. Margaret's heart was touched. She threw her arms around the poor woman and drew her, papoose and all, comfortingly toward her, patting her shoulder and saying gentle, soothing words as she would to a little child. And by and by the woman lifted her head again, the tears coursing down her face, and tried to explain, muttering her queer gutturals and making eloquent gestures until Margaret felt she understood. She gathered that the man had gone down to the trading-post to find the "Aneshodi," and that the squaw feared that he would somehow procure firewater either from the trader or from some Indian he might meet, and would come back angrier than he had gone, and without his money. If Margaret also suspected that the Indian had desired to get rid of her by leaving her at that desolate little trading-station down in the cañon until such time as her friends should call for her, she resolutely put the thought out of her mind and set herself to cheer the poor Indian woman. She took a bright, soft, rosy silk tie from her own neck and knotted it about the astonished woman's dusky throat, and then she put a silver dollar in her hand, and was thrilled with wonder to see what a change came over the poor, dark face. It reminded her of Mom Wallis when she got on her new bonnet, and once again she felt the thrill of knowing the whole world kin. The squaw cheered up after a little, got sticks and made a fire, and together they had quite a pleasant meal. Margaret exerted herself to make the poor woman laugh, and finally succeeded by dangling a bright-red knight from her chessmen in front of the delighted baby's eyes till he gurgled out a real baby crow of joy. It was the middle of the afternoon before the Indian returned, sitting crazily his struggling beast as he climbed the trail once more. Margaret, watching, caught her breath and prayed. Was this the trustworthy man, this drunken, reeling creature, clubbing his horse and pouring forth a torrent of indistinguishable gutturals? It was evident that his wife's worst fears were verified. He had found the firewater. The frightened squaw set to work putting things together as fast as she could. She well knew what to expect, and when the man reached the top of the mesa he found his party packed and mounted, waiting fearsomely to take the trail. Silently, timorously, they rode behind him, west across the great wide plain. In the distance gradually there appeared dim mesas like great fingers stretching out against the sky; miles away they seemed, and nothing intervening but a stretch of varying color where sage-brush melted into sand, and sage-brush and greasewood grew again, with tall cactus startling here and there like bayonets at rest but bristling with menace. The Indian had grown silent and sullen. His eyes were like deep fires of burning volcanoes. One shrank from looking at them. His massive, cruel profile stood out like bronze against the evening sky. It was growing night again, and still they had not come to anywhere or anything, and still her friends seemed just as far away. Since they had left the top of Keams Cañon Margaret had been sure all was not right. Aside from the fact that the guide was drunk at present, she was convinced that there had been something wrong with him all along. He did not act like the Indians around Ashland. He did not act like a trusted guide that her friends would send for her. She wished once more that she had kept Hazel Brownleigh's letter. She wondered how her friends would find her if they came after her. It was then she began in earnest to systematically plan to leave a trail behind her all the rest of the way. If she had only done it thoroughly when she first began to be uneasy. But now she was so far away, so many miles from anywhere! Oh, if she had not come at all! And first she dropped her handkerchief, because she happened to have it in her hand--a dainty thing with lace on the edge and her name written in tiny script by her mother's careful hand on the narrow hem. And then after a little, as soon as she could scrawl it without being noticed, she wrote a note which she twisted around the neck of a red chessman, and left behind her. After that scraps of paper, as she could reach them out of the bag tied on behind her saddle; then a stocking, a bedroom slipper, more chessmen, and so, when they halted at dusk and prepared to strike camp, she had quite a good little trail blazed behind her over that wide, empty plain. She shuddered as she looked into the gathering darkness ahead, where those long, dark lines of mesas looked like barriers in the way. Then, suddenly, the Indian pointed ahead to the first mesa and uttered one word--"Walpi!" So that was the Indian village to which she was bound? What was before her on the morrow? After eating a pretense of supper she lay down. The Indian had more firewater with him. He drank, he uttered cruel gutturals at his squaw, and even kicked the feet of the sleeping papoose as he passed by till it awoke and cried sharply, which made him more angry, so he struck the squaw. It seemed hours before all was quiet. Margaret's nerves were strained to such a pitch she scarcely dared to breathe, but at last, when the fire had almost died down, the man lay quiet, and she could relax and close her eyes. Not to sleep. She must not go to sleep. The fire was almost gone and the coyotes would be around. She must wake and watch! That was the last thought she remembered--that and a prayer that the angels would keep watch once again. When she awoke it was broad daylight and far into the morning, for the sun was high overhead and the mesas in the distance were clear and distinct against the sky. She sat up and looked about her, bewildered, not knowing at first where she was. It was so still and wide and lonely. She turned to find the Indians, but there was no trace of them anywhere. The fire lay smoldering in its place, a thin trickle of smoke curling away from a dying stick, but that was all. A tin cup half full of coffee was beside the stick, and a piece of blackened corn bread. She turned frightened eyes to east, to west, to north, to south, but there was no one in sight, and out over the distant mesa there poised a great eagle alone in the vast sky keeping watch over the brilliant, silent waste. CHAPTER XXX When Margaret was a very little girl her father and mother had left her alone for an hour with a stranger while they went out to make a call in a strange city through which they were passing on a summer trip. The stranger was kind, and gave to the child a large green box of bits of old black lace and purple ribbons to play with, but she turned sorrowfully from the somber array of finery, which was the only thing in the way of a plaything the woman had at hand, and stood looking drearily out of the window on the strange, new town, a feeling of utter loneliness upon her. Her little heart was almost choked with the awfulness of the thought that she was a human atom drifted apart from every other atom she had ever known, that she had a personality and a responsibility of her own, and that she must face this thought of herself and her aloneness for evermore. It was the child's first realization that she was a separate being apart from her father and mother, and she was almost consumed with the terror of it. As she rose now from her bed on the ground and looked out across that vast waste, in which the only other living creature was that sinister, watching eagle, the same feeling returned to her and made her tremble like the little child who had turned from her box of ancient finery to realize her own little self and its terrible aloneness. For an instant even her realization of God, which had from early childhood been present with her, seemed to have departed. She could not grasp anything save the vast empty silence that loomed about her so awfully. She was alone, and about as far from anywhere or anything as she could possibly be in the State of Arizona. Would she ever get back to human habitations? Would her friends ever be able to find her? Then her heart flew back to its habitual refuge, and she spoke aloud and said, "God is here!" and the thought seemed to comfort her. She looked about once more on the bright waste, and now it did not seem so dreary. "God is here!" she repeated, and tried to realize that this was a part of His habitation. She could not be lost where God was. He knew the way out. She had only to trust. So she dropped upon her knees in the sand and prayed for trust and courage. When she rose again she walked steadily to a height a little above the camp-fire, and, shading her eyes, looked carefully in every direction. No, there was not a sign of her recent companions. They must have stolen away in the night quite soon after she fell asleep, and have gone fast and far, so that they were now beyond the reach of her eyes, and not anywhere was there sign of living thing, save that eagle still sweeping in great curves and poising again above the distant mesa. Where was her horse? Had the Indians taken that, too? She searched the valley, but saw no horse at first. With sinking heart she went back to where her things were and sat down by the dying fire to think, putting a few loose twigs and sticks together to keep the embers bright while she could. She reflected that she had no matches, and this was probably the last fire she would have until somebody came to her rescue or she got somewhere by herself. What was she to do? Stay right where she was or start out on foot? And should she go backward or forward? Surely, surely the Brownleighs would miss her pretty soon and send out a search-party for her. How could it be that they trusted an Indian who had done such a cruel thing as to leave a woman unprotected in the desert? And yet, perhaps, they did not know his temptation to drink. Perhaps they had thought he could not get any firewater. Perhaps he would return when he came to himself and realized what he had done. And now she noticed what she had not seen at first--a small bottle of water on a stone beside the blackened bread. Realizing that she was very hungry and that this was the only food at hand, she sat down beside the fire to eat the dry bread and drink the miserable coffee. She must have strength to do whatever was before her. She tried not to think how her mother would feel if she never came back, how anxious they would be as they waited day by day for her letters that did not come. She reflected with a sinking heart that she had, just before leaving, written a hasty note to her mother telling her not to expect anything for several days, perhaps even as much as two weeks, as she was going out of civilization for a little while. How had she unwittingly sealed her fate by that! For now not even by way of her alarmed home could help come to her. She put the last bit of hard corn bread in her pocket for a further time of need, and began to look about her again. Then she spied with delight a moving object far below her in the valley, and decided it was a horse, perhaps her own. He was a mile away, at least, but he was there, and she cried out with sudden joy and relief. She went over to her blanket and bags, which had been beside her during the night, and stood a moment trying to think what to do. Should she carry the things to the horse or risk leaving them here while she went after the horse and brought him to the things? No, that would not be safe. Some one might come along and take them, or she might not be able to find her way back again in this strange, wild waste. Besides, she might not get the horse, after all, and would lose everything. She must carry her things to the horse. She stooped to gather them up, and something bright beside her bag attracted her. It was the sun shining on the silver dollar she had given to the Indian woman. A sudden rush of tears came to her eyes. The poor creature had tried to make all the reparation she could for thus hastily leaving the white woman in the desert. She had given back the money--all she had that was valuable! Beside the dollar rippled a little chain of beads curiously wrought, an inanimate appeal for forgiveness and a grateful return for the kindness shown her. Margaret smiled as she stooped again to pick up her things. There had been a heart, after all, behind that stolid countenance, and some sense of righteousness and justice. Margaret decided that Indians were not all treacherous. Poor woman! What a life was hers--to follow her grim lord whither he would lead, even as her white sister must sometimes, sorrowing, rebelling, crying out, but following! She wondered if into the heart of this dark sister there ever crept any of the rebellion which led some of her white sisters to cry aloud for "rights" and "emancipation." But it was all a passing thought to be remembered and turned over at a more propitious time. Margaret's whole thoughts now were bent on her present predicament. The packing was short work. She stuffed everything into the two bags that were usually hung across the horse, and settled them carefully across her shoulders. Then she rolled the blanket, took it in her arms, and started. It was a heavy burden to carry, but she could not make up her mind to part with any of her things until she had at least made an effort to save them. If she should be left alone in the desert for the night the blanket was indispensable, and her clothes would at least do to drop as a trail by which her friends might find her. She must carry them as far as possible. So she started. It was already high day, and the sun was intolerably hot. Her heavy burden was not only cumbersome, but very warm, and she felt her strength going from her as she went; but her nerve was up and her courage was strong. Moreover, she prayed as she walked, and she felt now the presence of her Guide and was not afraid. As she walked she faced a number of possibilities in the immediate future which were startling, and to say the least, undesirable. There were wild animals in this land, not so much in the daylight, but what of the night? She had heard that a woman was always safe in that wild Western land; but what of the prowling Indians? What of a possible exception to the Western rule of chivalry toward a decent woman? One small piece of corn bread and less than a pint of water were small provision on which to withstand a siege. How far was it to anywhere? It was then she remembered for the first time that one word--"Walpi!" uttered by the Indian as he came to a halt the night before and pointed far to the mesa--"Walpi." She lifted her eyes now and scanned the dark mesa. It loomed like a great battlement of rock against the sky. Could it be possible there were people dwelling there? She had heard, of course, about the curious Hopi villages, each village a gigantic house of many rooms, called pueblos, built upon the lofty crags, sometimes five or six hundred feet above the desert. Could it be that that great castle-looking outline against the sky before her, standing out on the end of the mesa like a promontory above the sea, was Walpi? And if it was, how was she to get up there? The rock rose sheer and steep from the desert floor. The narrow neck of land behind it looked like a slender thread. Her heart sank at thought of trying to storm and enter, single-handed, such an impregnable fortress. And yet, if her friends were there, perhaps they would see her when she drew near and come to show her the way. Strange that they should have gone on and left her with those treacherous Indians! Strange that they should have trusted them so, in the first place! Her own instincts had been against trusting the man from the beginning. It must be confessed that during her reflections at this point her opinion of the wisdom and judgment of the Brownleighs was lowered several notches. Then she began to berate herself for having so easily been satisfied about her escort. She should have read the letter more carefully. She should have asked the Indians more questions. She should, perhaps, have asked Jasper Kemp's advice, or got him to talk to the Indian. She wished with all her heart for Bud, now. If Bud were along he would be saying some comical boy-thing, and be finding a way out of the difficulty. Dear, faithful Bud! The sun rose higher and the morning grew hotter. As she descended to the valley her burdens grew intolerable, and several times she almost cast them aside. Once she lost sight of her pony among the sage-brush, and it was two hours before she came to him and was able to capture him and strap on her burdens. She was almost too exhausted to climb into the saddle when all was ready; but she managed to mount at last and started out toward the rugged crag ahead of her. The pony had a long, hot climb out of the valley to a hill where she could see very far again, but still that vast emptiness reigned. Even the eagle had disappeared, and she fancied he must be resting like a great emblem of freedom on one of the points of the castle-like battlement against the sky. It seemed as if the end of the world had come, and she was the only one left in the universe, forgotten, riding on her weary horse across an endless desert in search of a home she would never see again. Below the hill there stretched a wide, white strip of sand, perhaps two miles in extent, but shimmering in the sun and seeming to recede ahead of her as she advanced. Beyond was soft greenness--something growing--not near enough to be discerned as cornfields. The girl drooped her tired head upon her horse's mane and wept, her courage going from her with her tears. In all that wide universe there seemed no way to go, and she was so very tired, hungry, hot, and discouraged! There was always that bit of bread in her pocket and that muddy-looking, warm water for a last resort; but she must save them as long as possible, for there was no telling how long it would be before she had more. There was no trail now to follow. She had started from the spot where she had found the horse, and her inexperienced eyes could not have searched out a trail if she had tried. She was going toward that distant castle on the crag as to a goal, but when she reached it, if she ever did, would she find anything there but crags and lonesomeness and the eagle? Drying her tears at last, she started the horse on down the hill, and perhaps her tears blinded her, or because she was dizzy with hunger and the long stretch of anxiety and fatigue she was not looking closely. There was a steep place, a sharp falling away of the ground unexpectedly as they emerged from a thicket of sage-brush, and the horse plunged several feet down, striking sharply on some loose rocks, and slipping to his knees; snorting, scrambling, making brave effort, but slipping, half rolling, at last he was brought down with his frightened rider, and lay upon his side with her foot under him and a sensation like a red-hot knife running through her ankle. Margaret caught her breath in quick gasps as they fell, lifting a prayer in her heart for help. Then came the crash and the sharp pain, and with a quick conviction that all was over she dropped back unconscious on the sand, a blessed oblivion of darkness rushing over her. When she came to herself once more the hot sun was pouring down upon her unprotected face, and she was conscious of intense pain and suffering in every part of her body. She opened her eyes wildly and looked around. There was sage-brush up above, waving over the crag down which they had fallen, its gray-greenness shimmering hotly in the sun; the sky was mercilessly blue without a cloud. The great beast, heavy and quivering, lay solidly against her, half pinning her to earth, and the helplessness of her position was like an awful nightmare from which she felt she might waken if she could only cry out. But when at last she raised her voice its empty echo frightened her, and there, above her, with wide-spread wings, circling for an instant, then poised in motionless survey of her, with cruel eyes upon her, loomed that eagle--so large, so fearful, so suggestive in its curious stare, the monarch of the desert come to see who had invaded his precincts and fallen into one of his snares. With sudden frenzy burning in her veins Margaret struggled and tried to get free, but she could only move the slightest bit each time, and every motion was an agony to the hurt ankle. It seemed hours before she writhed herself free from that great, motionless horse, whose labored breath only showed that he was still alive. Something terrible must have happened to the horse or he would have tried to rise, for she had coaxed, patted, cajoled, tried in every way to rouse him. When at last she crawled free from the hot, horrible body and crept with pained progress around in front of him, she saw that both his forelegs lay limp and helpless. He must have broken them in falling. Poor fellow! He, too, was suffering and she had nothing to give him! There was nothing she could do for him! Then she thought of the bottle of water, but, searching for it, found that her good intention of dividing it with him was useless, for the bottle was broken and the water already soaked into the sand. Only a damp spot on the saddle-bag showed where it had departed. Then indeed did Margaret sink down in the sand in despair and begin to pray as she had never prayed before. CHAPTER XXXI The morning after Margaret's departure Rosa awoke with no feelings of self-reproach, but rather a great exultation at the way in which she had been able to get rid of her rival. She lay for a few minutes thinking of Forsythe, and trying to decide what she would wear when she went forth to meet him, for she wanted to charm him as she had never charmed any one before. She spent some time arraying herself in different costumes, but at last decided on her Commencement gown of fine white organdie, hand-embroidered and frilled with filmy lace, the product of a famous house of gowns in the Eastern city where she had attended school for a while and acquired expensive tastes. Daintily slippered, beribboned with coral-silk girdle, and with a rose from the vine over her window in her hair, she sallied forth at last to the trysting-place. Forsythe was a whole hour late, as became a languid gentleman who had traveled the day before and idled at his sister's house over a late breakfast until nearly noon. Already his fluttering fancy was apathetic about Rosa, and he wondered, as he rode along, what had become of the interesting young teacher who had charmed him for more than a passing moment. Would he dare to call upon her, now that Gardley was out of the way? Was she still in Ashland or had she gone home for vacation? He must ask Rosa about her. Then he came in sight of Rosa sitting picturesquely in the shade of an old cedar, reading poetry, a little lady in the wilderness, and he forgot everything else in his delight over the change in her. For Rosa had changed. There was no mistake about it. She had bloomed out into maturity in those few short months of his absence. Her soft figure had rounded and developed, her bewitching curls were put up on her head, with only a stray tendril here and there to emphasize a dainty ear or call attention to a smooth, round neck; and when she raised her lovely head and lifted limpid eyes to his there was about her a demureness, a coolness and charm that he had fancied only ladies of the city could attain. Oh, Rosa knew her charms, and had practised many a day before her mirror till she had appraised the value of every curving eyelash, every hidden dimple, every cupid's curve of lip. Rosa had watched well and learned from all with whom she had come in contact. No woman's guile was left untried by her. And Rosa was very sweet and charming. She knew just when to lift up innocent eyes of wonder; when to not understand suggestions; when to exclaim softly with delight or shrink with shyness that nevertheless did not repulse. Forsythe studied her with wonder and delight. No maiden of the city had ever charmed him more, and withal she seemed so innocent and young, so altogether pliable in his hands. His pulses beat high, his heart was inflamed, and passion came and sat within his handsome eyes. It was easy to persuade her, after her first seemingly shy reserve was overcome, and before an hour was passed she had promised to go away with him. He had very little money, but what of that? When he spoke of that feature Rosa declared she could easily get some. Her father gave her free access to his safe, and kept her plentifully supplied for the household use. It was nothing to her--a passing incident. What should it matter whose money took them on their way? When she went demurely back to the ranch a little before sunset she thought she was very happy, poor little silly sinner! She met her father with her most alluring but most furtive smile. She was charming at supper, and blushed as her mother used to do when he praised her new gown and told her how well she looked in it. But she professed to be weary yet from the last days of school--to have a headache--and so she went early to her room and asked that the servants keep the house quiet in the morning, that she might sleep late and get really rested. Her father kissed her tenderly and thought what a dear child she was and what a comfort to his ripening years; and the house settled down into quiet. Rosa packed a bag with some of her most elaborate garments, arrayed herself in a charming little outfit of silk for the journey, dropped her baggage out of the window; and when the moon rose and the household were quietly sleeping she paid a visit to her father's safe, and then stole forth, taking her shadowy way to the trail by a winding route known well to herself and secure from the watch of vigilant servants who were ever on the lookout for cattle thieves. Thus she left her father's house and went forth to put her trust in a man whose promises were as ropes of sand and whose fancy was like a wave of the sea, tossed to and fro by every breath that blew. Long ere the sun rose the next morning the guarded, beloved child was as far from her safe home and her father's sheltering love as if alone she had started for the mouth of the bottomless pit. Two days later, while Margaret lay unconscious beneath the sage-brush, with a hovering eagle for watch, Rosa in the streets of a great city suddenly realized that she was more alone in the universe than ever she could have been in a wide desert, and her plight was far worse than the girl's with whose fate she had so lightly played. Quite early on the morning after Rosa left, while the household was still keeping quiet for the supposed sleeper, Gardley rode into the inclosure about the house and asked for Rogers. Gardley had been traveling night and day to get back. Matters had suddenly arranged themselves so that he could finish up his business at his old home and go on to see Margaret's father and mother, and he had made his visit there and hurried back to Arizona, hoping to reach Ashland in time for Commencement. A delay on account of a washout on the road had brought him back two days late for Commencement. He had ridden to camp from a junction forty miles away to get there the sooner, and this morning had ridden straight to the Tanners' to surprise Margaret. It was, therefore, a deep disappointment to find her gone and only Mrs. Tanner's voluble explanations for comfort. Mrs. Tanner exhausted her vocabulary in trying to describe the "Injuns," her own feeling of protest against them, and Mrs. Brownleigh's foolishness in making so much of them; and then she bustled in to the old pine desk in the dining-room and produced the letter that had started Margaret off as soon as commencement was over. Gardley took the letter eagerly, as though it were something to connect him with Margaret, and read it through carefully to make sure just how matters stood. He had looked troubled when Mrs. Tanner told how tired Margaret was, and how worried she seemed about her school and glad to get away from it all; and he agreed that the trip was probably a good thing. "I wish Bud could have gone along, though," he said, thoughtfully, as he turned away from the door. "I don't like her to go with just Indians, though I suppose it is all right. You say he had his wife and child along? Of course Mrs. Brownleigh wouldn't send anybody that wasn't perfectly all right. Well, I suppose the trip will be a rest for her. I'm sorry I didn't get home a few days sooner. I might have looked out for her myself." He rode away from the Tanners', promising to return later with a gift he had brought for Bud that he wanted to present himself, and Mrs. Tanner bustled back to her work again. "Well, I'm glad he's got home, anyway," she remarked, aloud, to herself as she hung her dish-cloth tidily over the upturned dish-pan and took up her broom. "I 'ain't felt noways easy 'bout her sence she left, though I do suppose there ain't any sense to it. But I'm _glad he's back_!" Meantime Gardley was riding toward Rogers's ranch, meditating whether he should venture to follow the expedition and enjoy at least the return trip with Margaret, or whether he ought to remain patiently until she came back and go to work at once. There was nothing really important demanding his attention immediately, for Rogers had arranged to keep the present overseer of affairs until he was ready to undertake the work. He was on his way now to report on a small business matter which he had been attending to in New York for Rogers. When that was over he would be free to do as he pleased for a few days more if he liked, and the temptation was great to go at once to Margaret. As he stood waiting beside his horse in front of the house while the servant went to call Rogers, he looked about with delight on the beauty of the day. How glad he was to be back in Arizona again! Was it the charm of the place or because Margaret was there, he wondered, that he felt so happy? By all means he must follow her. Why should he not? He looked at the clambering rose-vine that covered one end of the house, and noticed how it crept close to the window casement and caressed the white curtain as it blew. Margaret must have such a vine at her window in the house he would build for her. It might be but a modest house that he could give her now, but it should have a rose-vine just like that; and he would train it round her window where she could smell the fragrance from it every morning when she awoke, and where it would breathe upon her as she slept. Margaret! How impatient he was to see her again! To look upon her dear face and know that she was his! That her father and mother had been satisfied about him and sent their blessing, and he might tell her so. It was wonderful! His heart thrilled with the thought of it. Of course he would go to her at once. He would start as soon as Rogers was through with him. He would go to Ganado. No, Keams. Which was it? He drew the letter out of his pocket and read it again, then replaced it. The fluttering curtain up at the window blew out and in, and when it blew out again it brought with it a flurry of papers like white leaves. The curtain had knocked over a paper-weight or vase or something that held them and set the papers free. The breeze caught them and flung them about erratically, tossing one almost at his feet. He stooped to pick it up, thinking it might be of value to some one, and caught the name "Margaret" and "Dear Margaret" written several times on the sheet, with "Walpi, Walpi, Walpi," filling the lower half of the page, as if some one had been practising it. And because these two words were just now keenly in his mind he reached for the second paper just a foot or two away and found more sentences and words. A third paper contained an exact reproduction of the letter which Mrs. Tanner had given him purporting to come from Mrs. Brownleigh to Margaret. What could it possibly mean? In great astonishment he pulled out the other letter and compared them. They were almost identical save for a word here and there crossed out and rewritten. He stood looking mutely at the papers and then up at the window, as though an explanation might somehow be wafted down to him, not knowing what to think, his mind filled with vague alarm. Just at that moment the servant appeared. "Mr. Rogers says would you mind coming down to the corral. Miss Rosa has a headache, and we're keeping the house still for her to sleep. That's her window up there--" And he indicated the rose-bowered window with the fluttering curtain. Dazed and half suspicious of something, Gardley folded the two letters together and crushed them into his pocket, wondering what he ought to do about it. The thought of it troubled him so that he only half gave attention to the business in hand; but he gave his report and handed over certain documents. He was thinking that perhaps he ought to see Miss Rosa and find out what she knew of Margaret's going and ask how she came in possession of this other letter. "Now," said Rogers, as the matter was concluded, "I owe you some money. If you'll just step up to the house with me I'll give it to you. I'd like to settle matters up at once." "Oh, let it go till I come again," said Gardley, impatient to be off. He wanted to get by himself and think out a solution of the two letters. He was more than uneasy about Margaret without being able to give any suitable explanation of why he should be. His main desire now was to ride to Ganado and find out if the missionaries had left home, which way they had gone, and whether they had met Margaret as planned. "No, step right up to the house with me," insisted Rogers. "It won't take long, and I have the money in my safe." Gardley saw that the quickest way was to please Rogers, and he did not wish to arouse any questions, because he supposed, of course, his alarm was mere foolishness. So they went together into Rogers's private office, where his desk and safe were the principal furniture, and where no servants ventured to come without orders. Rogers shoved a chair for Gardley and went over to his safe, turning the little nickel knob this way and that with the skill of one long accustomed, and in a moment the thick door swung open and Rogers drew out a japanned cash-box and unlocked it. But when he threw the cover back he uttered an exclamation of angry surprise. The box was empty! CHAPTER XXXII Mr. Rogers strode to the door, forgetful of his sleeping daughter overhead, and thundered out his call for James. The servant appeared at once, but he knew nothing about the safe, and had not been in the office that morning. Other servants were summoned and put through a rigid examination. Then Rogers turned to the woman who had answered the door for Gardley and sent her up to call Rosa. But the woman returned presently with word that Miss Rosa was not in her room, and there was no sign that her bed had been slept in during the night. The woman's face was sullen. She did not like Rosa, but was afraid of her. This to her was only another of Miss Rosa's pranks, and very likely her doting father would manage to blame the servants with the affair. Mr. Rogers's face grew stern. His eyes flashed angrily as he turned and strode up the stairs to his daughter's room, but when he came down again he was holding a note in his trembling hand and his face was ashen white. "Read that, Gardley," he said, thrusting the note into Gardley's hands and motioning at the same time for the servants to go away. Gardley took the note, yet even as he read he noticed that the paper was the same as those he carried in his pocket. There was a peculiar watermark that made it noticeable. The note was a flippant little affair from Rosa, telling her father she had gone away to be married and that she would let him know where she was as soon as they were located. She added that he had forced her to this step by being so severe with her and not allowing her lover to come to see her. If he had been reasonable she would have stayed at home and let him give her a grand wedding; but as it was she had only this way of seeking her happiness. She added that she knew he would forgive her, and she hoped he would come to see that her way had been best, and Forsythe was all that he could desire as a son-in-law. Gardley uttered an exclamation of dismay as he read, and, looking up, found the miserable eyes of the stricken father upon him. For the moment his own alarm concerning Margaret and his perplexity about the letters was forgotten in the grief of the man who had been his friend. "When did she go?" asked Gardley, quickly looking up. "She took supper with me and then went to her room, complaining of a headache," said the father, his voice showing his utter hopelessness. "She may have gone early in the evening, perhaps, for we all turned in about nine o'clock to keep the house quiet on her account." "Have you any idea which way they went, east or west?" Gardley was the keen adviser in a crisis now, his every sense on the alert. The old man shook his head. "It is too late now," he said, still in that colorless voice. "They will have reached the railroad somewhere. They will have been married by this time. See, it is after ten o'clock!" "Yes, if he marries her," said Gardley, fiercely. He had no faith in Forsythe. "You think--you don't think he would _dare_!" The old man straightened up and fairly blazed in his righteous wrath. "I think he would dare anything if he thought he would not be caught. He is a coward, of course." "What can we do?" "Telegraph to detectives at all points where they would be likely to arrive and have them shadowed. Come, we will ride to the station at once; but, first, could I go up in her room and look around? There might be some clue." "Certainly," said Rogers, pointing hopelessly up the stairs; "the first door to the left. But you'll find nothing. I looked everywhere. She wouldn't have left a clue. While you're up there I'll interview the servants. Then we'll go." As he went up-stairs Gardley was wondering whether he ought to tell Rogers of the circumstance of the two letters. What possible connection could there be between Margaret Earle's trip to Walpi with the Brownleighs and Rosa Rogers's elopement? When you come to think of it, what possible explanation was there for a copy of Mrs. Brownleigh's letter to blow out of Rosa Rogers's bedroom window? How could it have got there? Rosa's room was in beautiful order, the roses nodding in at the window, the curtain blowing back and forth in the breeze and rippling open the leaves of a tiny Testament lying on her desk, as if it had been recently read. There was nothing to show that the owner of the room had taken a hasty flight. On the desk lay several sheets of note-paper with the peculiar watermark. These caught his attention, and he took them up and compared them with the papers in his pocket. It was a strange thing that that letter which had sent Margaret off into the wilderness with an unknown Indian should be written on the same kind of paper as this; and yet, perhaps, it was not so strange, after all. It probably was the only note-paper to be had in that region, and must all have been purchased at the same place. The rippling leaves of the Testament fluttered open at the fly-leaf and revealed Rosa's name and a date with Mrs. Brownleigh's name written below, and Gardley took it up, startled again to find Hazel Brownleigh mixed up with the Rogers. He had not known that they had anything to do with each other. And yet, of course, they would, being the missionaries of the region. The almost empty waste-basket next caught his eye, and here again were several sheets of paper written over with words and phrases, words which at once he recognized as part of the letter Mrs. Tanner had given him. He emptied the waste-basket out on the desk, thinking perhaps there might be something there that would give a clue to where the elopers had gone; but there was not much else in it except a little yellowed note with the signature "Hazel Brownleigh" at the bottom. He glanced through the brief note, gathered its purport, and then spread it out deliberately on the desk and compared the writing with the others, a wild fear clutching at his heart. Yet he could not in any way explain why he was so uneasy. What possible reason could Rosa Rogers have for forging a letter to Margaret from Hazel Brownleigh? Suddenly Rogers stood behind him looking over his shoulder. "What is it, Gardley? What have you found? Any clue?" "No clue," said Gardley, uneasily, "but something strange I cannot understand. I don't suppose it can possibly have anything to do with your daughter, and yet it seems almost uncanny. This morning I stopped at the Tanners' to let Miss Earle know I had returned, and was told she had gone yesterday with a couple of Indians as guide to meet the Brownleighs at Keams or somewhere near there, and take a trip with them to Walpi to see the Hopi Indians. Mrs. Tanner gave me this letter from Mrs. Brownleigh, which Miss Earle had left behind. But when I reached here and was waiting for you some papers blew out of your daughter's window. When I picked them up I was startled to find that one of them was an exact copy of the letter I had in my pocket. See! Here they are! I don't suppose there is anything to it, but in spite of me I am a trifle uneasy about Miss Earle. I just can't understand how that copy of the letter came to be here." Rogers was leaning over, looking at the papers. "What's this?" he asked, picking up the note that came with the Testament. He read each paper carefully, took in the little Testament with its fluttering fly-leaf and inscription, studied the pages of words and alphabet, then suddenly turned away and groaned, hiding his face in his hands. "What is it?" asked Gardley, awed with the awful sorrow in the strong man's attitude. "My poor baby!" groaned the father. "My poor little baby girl! I've always been afraid of that fatal gift of hers. Gardley, she could copy any handwriting in the world perfectly. She could write my name so it could not be told from my own signature. She's evidently written that letter. Why, I don't know, unless she wanted to get Miss Earle out of the way so it would be easier for her to carry out her plans." "It can't be!" said Gardley, shaking his head. "I can't see what her object would be. Besides, where would she find the Indians? Mrs. Tanner saw the Indians. They came to the school after her with the letter, and waited for her. Mrs. Tanner saw them ride off together." "There were a couple of strange Indians here yesterday, begging something to eat," said Rogers, settling down on a chair and resting his head against the desk as if he had suddenly lost the strength to stand. "This won't do!" said Gardley. "We've got to get down to the telegraph-office, you and I. Now try to brace up. Are the horses ready? Then we'll go right away." "You better question the servants about those Indians first," said Rogers; and Gardley, as he hurried down the stairs, heard groan after groan from Rosa's room, where her father lingered in agony. Gardley got all the information he could about the Indians, and then the two men started away on a gallop to the station. As they passed the Tanner house Gardley drew rein to call to Bud, who hurried out joyfully to greet his friend, his face lighting with pleasure. "Bill, get on your horse in double-quick time and beat it out to camp for me, will you?" said Gardley, as he reached down and gripped Bud's rough young paw. "Tell Jasper Kemp to come back with you and meet me at the station as quick as he can. Tell him to have the men where he can signal them. We may have to hustle out on a long hunt; and, Bill, keep your head steady and get back yourself right away. Perhaps I'll want you to help me. I'm a little anxious about Miss Earle, but you needn't tell anybody that but old Jasper. Tell him to hurry for all he's worth." Bud, with his eyes large with loyalty and trouble, nodded understandingly, returned the grip of the young man's hand with a clumsy squeeze, and sprang away to get his horse and do Gardley's bidding. Gardley knew he would ride as for his life, now that he knew Margaret's safety was at stake. Then Gardley rode on to the station and was indefatigable for two hours hunting out addresses, writing telegrams, and calling up long-distance telephones. When all had been done that was possible Rogers turned a haggard face to the young man. "I've been thinking, Gardley, that rash little girl of mine may have got Miss Earle into some kind of a dangerous position. You ought to look after her. What can we do?" "I'm going to, sir," said Gardley, "just as soon as I've done everything I can for you. I've already sent for Jasper Kemp, and we'll make a plan between us and find out if Miss Earle is all right. Can you spare Jasper or will you need him?" "By all means! Take all the men you need. I sha'n't rest easy till I know Miss Earle is safe." He sank down on a truck that stood on the station platform, his shoulders slumping, his whole attitude as of one who was fatally stricken. It came over Gardley how suddenly old he looked, and haggard and gray! What a thing for the selfish child to have done to her father! Poor, silly child, whose fate with Forsythe would in all probability be anything but enviable! But there was no time for sorrowful reflections. Jasper Kemp, stern, alert, anxious, came riding furiously down the street, Bud keeping even pace with him. CHAPTER XXXIII While Gardley briefly told his tale to Jasper Kemp, and the Scotchman was hastily scanning the papers with his keen, bright eyes, Bud stood frowning and listening intently. "Gee!" he burst forth. "That girl's a mess! 'Course she did it! You oughta seen what all she didn't do the last six weeks of school. Miss Mar'get got so she shivered every time that girl came near her or looked at her. She sure had her goat! Some nights after school, when she thought she's all alone, she just cried, she did. Why, Rosa had every one of those guys in the back seat acting like the devil, and nobody knew what was the matter. She wrote things on the blackboard right in the questions, so's it looked like Miss Mar'get's writing; fierce things, sometimes; and Miss Mar'get didn't know who did it. And she was as jealous as a cat of Miss Mar'get. You all know what a case she had on that guy from over by the fort; and she didn't like to have him even look at Miss Mar'get. Well, she didn't forget how he went away that night of the play. I caught her looking at her like she would like to murder her. _Good night!_ Some look! The guy had a case on Miss Mar'get, all right, too, only she was onto him and wouldn't look at him nor let him spoon nor nothing. But Rosa saw it all, and she just hated Miss Mar'get. Then once Miss Mar'get stopped her from going out to meet that guy, too. Oh, she hated her, all right! And you can bet she wrote the letter! Sure she did! She wanted to get her away when that guy came back. He was back yesterday. I saw him over by the run on that trail that crosses the trail to the old cabin. He didn't see me. I got my eye on him first, and I chucked behind some sage-brush, but he was here, all right, and he didn't mean any good. I follahed him awhile till he stopped and fixed up a place to camp. I guess he must 'a' stayed out last night--" A heavy hand was suddenly laid from behind on Bud's shoulder, and Rogers stood over him, his dark eyes on fire, his lips trembling. "Boy, can you show me where that was?" he asked, and there was an intensity in his voice that showed Bud that something serious was the matter. Boylike he dropped his eyes indifferently before this great emotion. "Sure!" "Best take Long Bill with you, Mr. Rogers," advised Jasper Kemp, keenly alive to the whole situation. "I reckon we'll all have to work together. My men ain't far off," and he lifted his whistle to his lips and blew the signal blasts. "The Kid here 'll want to ride to Keams to see if the lady is all safe and has met her friends. I reckon mebbe I better go straight to Ganado and find out if them mission folks really got started, and put 'em wise to what's been going on. They'll mebbe know who them Injuns was. I have my suspicions they weren't any friendlies. I didn't like that Injun the minute I set eyes on him hanging round the school-house, but I wouldn't have stirred a step toward camp if I'd 'a' suspected he was come fur the lady. 'Spose you take Bud and Long Bill and go find that camping-place and see if you find any trail showing which way they took. If you do, you fire three shots, and the men 'll be with you. If you want the Kid, fire four shots. He can't be so fur away by that time that he can't hear. He's got to get provisioned 'fore he starts. Lead him out, Bud. We 'ain't got no time to lose." Bud gave one despairing look at Gardley and turned to obey. "That's all right, Bud," said Gardley, with an understanding glance. "You tell Mr. Rogers all you know and show him the place, and then when Long Bill comes you can take the cross-cut to the Long Trail and go with me. I'll just stop at the house as I go by and tell your mother I need you." Bud gave one radiant, grateful look and sprang upon his horse, and Rogers had hard work to keep up with him at first, till Bud got interested in giving him a detailed account of Forsythe's looks and acts. In less than an hour the relief expedition had started. Before night had fallen Jasper Kemp, riding hard, arrived at the mission, told his story, procured a fresh horse, and after a couple of hours, rest started with Brownleigh and his wife for Keams Cañon. Gardley and Bud, riding for all they were worth, said little by the way. Now and then the boy stole glances at the man's face, and the dead weight of sorrow settled like lead, the heavier, upon his heart. Too well he knew the dangers of the desert. He could almost read Gardley's fears in the white, drawn look about his lips, the ashen circles under his eyes, the tense, strained pose of his whole figure. Gardley's mind was urging ahead of his steed, and his body could not relax. He was anxious to go a little faster, yet his judgment knew it would not do, for his horse would play out before he could get another. They ate their corn bread in the saddle, and only turned aside from the trail once to drink at a water-hole and fill their cans. They rode late into the night, with only the stars and their wits to guide them. When they stopped to rest they did not wait to make a fire, but hobbled the horses where they might feed, and, rolling quickly in their blankets, lay down upon the ground. Bud, with the fatigue of healthy youth, would have slept till morning in spite of his fears, but Gardley woke him in a couple of hours, made him drink some water and eat a bite of food, and they went on their way again. When morning broke they were almost to the entrance of Keams Cañon and both looked haggard and worn. Bud seemed to have aged in the night, and Gardley looked at him almost tenderly. "Are you all in, kid?" he asked. "Naw!" answered Bud, promptly, with an assumed cheerfulness. "Feeling like a four-year-old. Get on to that sky? Guess we're going to have some day! Pretty as a red wagon!" Gardley smiled sadly. What would that day bring forth for the two who went in search of her they loved? His great anxiety was to get to Keams Cañon and inquire. They would surely know at the trading-post whether the missionary and his party had gone that way. The road was still almost impassable from the flood; the two dauntless riders picked their way slowly down the trail to the post. But the trader could tell them nothing comforting. The missionary had not been that way in two months, and there had been no party and no lady there that week. A single strange Indian had come down the trail above the day before, stayed awhile, picked a quarrel with some men who were there, and then ridden back up the steep trail again. He might have had a party with him up on the mesa, waiting. He had said something about his squaw. The trader admitted that he might have been drunk, but he frowned as he spoke of him. He called him a "bad Indian." Something unpleasant had evidently happened. The trader gave them a good, hot dinner, of which they stood sorely in need, and because they realized that they must keep up their strength they took the time to eat it. Then, procuring fresh horses, they climbed the steep trail in the direction the trader said the Indian had taken. It was a slender clue, but it was all they had, and they must follow it. And now the travelers were very silent, as if they felt they were drawing near to some knowledge that would settle the question for them one way or the other. As they reached the top at last, where they could see out across the plain, each drew a long breath like a gasp and looked about, half fearing what he might see. Yes, there was the sign of a recent camp-fire, and a few tin cans and bits of refuse, nothing more. Gardley got down and searched carefully. Bud even crept about upon his hands and knees, but a single tiny blue bead like a grain of sand was all that rewarded his efforts. Some Indian had doubtless camped here. That was all the evidence. Standing thus in hopeless uncertainty what to do next, they suddenly heard voices. Something familiar once or twice made Gardley lift his whistle and blow a blast. Instantly a silvery answer came ringing from the mesa a mile or so away and woke the echoes in the cañon. Jasper Kemp and his party had taken the longer way around instead of going down the cañon, and were just arriving at the spot where Margaret and the squaw had waited two days before for their drunken guide. But Jasper Kemp's whistle rang out again, and he shot three times into the air, their signal to wait for some important news. Breathlessly and in silence the two waited till the coming of the rest of the party, and cast themselves down on the ground, feeling the sudden need of support. Now that there was a possibility of some news, they felt hardly able to bear it, and the waiting for it was intolerable, to such a point of anxious tension were they strained. But when the party from Ganado came in sight their faces wore no brightness of good news. Their greetings were quiet, sad, anxious, and Jasper Kemp held out to Gardley an envelope. It was the one from Margaret's mother's letter that she had dropped upon the trail. "We found it on the way from Ganado, just as we entered Steamboat Cañon," explained Jasper. "And didn't you search for a trail off in any other direction?" asked Gardley, almost sharply. "They have not been here. At least only one Indian has been down to the trader's." "There was no other trail. We looked," said Jasper, sadly. "There was a camp-fire twice, and signs of a camp. We felt sure they had come this way." Gardley shook his head and a look of abject despair came over his face. "There is no sign here," he said. "They must have gone some other way. Perhaps the Indian has carried her off. Are the other men following?" "No, Rogers sent them in the other direction after his girl. They found the camp all right. Bud tell you? We made sure we had found our trail and would not need them." Gardley dropped his head and almost groaned. Meanwhile the missionary had been riding around in radiating circles from the dead camp-fire, searching every step of the way; and Bud, taking his cue from him, looked off toward the mesa a minute, then struck out in a straight line for it and rode off like mad. Suddenly there was heard a shout loud and long, and Bud came riding back, waving something small and white above his head. They gathered in a little knot, waiting for the boy, not speaking; and when he halted in their midst he fluttered down the handkerchief to Gardley. "It's hers, all right. Gotter name all written out on the edge!" he declared, radiantly. The sky grew brighter to them all now. Eagerly Gardley sprang into his saddle, no longer weary, but alert and eager for the trail. "You folks better go down to the trader's and get some dinner. You'll need it! Bud and I'll go on. Mrs. Brownleigh looks all in." "No," declared Hazel, decidedly. "We'll just snatch a bite here and follow you at once. I couldn't enjoy a dinner till I know she is safe." And so, though both Jasper Kemp and her husband urged her otherwise, she would take a hasty meal by the way and hurry on. But Bud and Gardley waited not for others. They plunged wildly ahead. It seemed a long way to the eager hunters, from the place where Bud had found the handkerchief to the little note twisted around the red chessman. It was perhaps nearly a mile, and both the riders had searched in all directions for some time before Gardley spied it. Eagerly he seized upon the note, recognizing the little red manikin with which he had whiled away an hour with Margaret during one of her visits at the camp. The note was written large and clear upon a sheet of writing-paper: "I am Margaret Earle, school-teacher at Ashland. I am supposed to be traveling to Walpi, by way of Keams, to meet Mr. and Mrs. Brownleigh of Ganado. I am with an Indian, his squaw and papoose. The Indian said he was sent to guide me, but he is drunk now and I am frightened. He has acted strangely all the way. I do not know where I am. Please come and help me." Bud, sitting anxious like a statue upon his horse, read Gardley's face as Gardley read the note. Then Gardley read it aloud to Bud, and before the last word was fairly out of his mouth both man and boy started as if they had heard Margaret's beloved voice calling them. It was not long before Bud found another scrap of paper a half-mile farther on, and then another and another, scattered at great distances along the way. The only way they had of being sure she had dropped them was that they seemed to be the same kind of paper as that upon which the note was written. How that note with its brave, frightened appeal wrung the heart of Gardley as he thought of Margaret, unprotected, in terror and perhaps in peril, riding on she knew not where. What trials and fears had she not already passed through! What might she not be experiencing even now while he searched for her? It was perhaps two hours before he found the little white stocking dropped where the trail divided, showing which way she had taken. Gardley folded it reverently and put it in his pocket. An hour later Bud pounced upon the bedroom slipper and carried it gleefully to Gardley; and so by slow degrees, finding here and there a chessman or more paper, they came at last to the camp where the Indians had abandoned their trust and fled, leaving Margaret alone in the wilderness. It was then that Gardley searched in vain for any further clue, and, riding wide in every direction, stopped and called her name again and again, while the sun grew lower and lower and shadows crept in lurking-places waiting for the swift-coming night. It was then that Bud, flying frantically from one spot to another, got down upon his knees behind a sage-bush when Gardley was not looking and mumbled a rough, hasty prayer for help. He felt like the old woman who, on being told that nothing but God could save the ship, exclaimed, "And has it come to that?" Bud had felt all his life that there was a remote time in every life when one might need to believe in prayer. The time had come for Bud. * * * * * Margaret, on her knees in the sand of the desert praying for help, remembered the promise, "Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear," and knew not that her deliverers were on the way. The sun had been hot as it beat down upon the whiteness of the sand, and the girl had crept under a sage-bush for shelter from it. The pain in her ankle was sickening. She had removed her shoe and bound the ankle about with a handkerchief soaked with half of her bottle of witch-hazel, and so, lying quiet, had fallen asleep, too exhausted with pain and anxiety to stay awake any longer. When she awoke again the softness of evening was hovering over everything, and she started up and listened. Surely, surely, she had heard a voice calling her! She sat up sharply and listened. Ah! There it was again, a faint echo in the distance. Was it a voice, or was it only her dreams mingling with her fancies? Travelers in deserts, she had read, took all sorts of fancies, saw mirages, heard sounds that were not. But she had not been out long enough to have caught such a desert fever. Perhaps she was going to be sick. Still that faint echo made her heart beat wildly. She dragged herself to her knees, then to her feet, standing painfully with the weight on her well foot. The suffering horse turned his anguished eyes and whinnied. Her heart ached for him, yet there was no way she could assuage his pain or put him out of his misery. But she must make sure if she had heard a voice. Could she possibly scale that rock down which she and her horse had fallen? For then she might look out farther and see if there were any one in sight. Painfully she crawled and crept, up and up, inch by inch, until at last she gained the little height and could look afar. There was no living thing in sight. The air was very clear. The eagle had found his evening rest somewhere in a quiet crag. The long corn waved on the distant plain, and all was deathly still once more. There was a hint of coming sunset in the sky. Her heart sank, and she was about to give up hope entirely, when, rich and clear, there it came again! A voice in the wilderness calling her name: "Margaret! Margaret!" The tears rushed to her eyes and crowded in her throat. She could not answer, she was so overwhelmed; and though she tried twice to call out, she could make no sound. But the call kept coming again and again: "Margaret! Margaret!" and it was Gardley's voice. Impossible! For Gardley was far away and could not know her need. Yet it was his voice. Had she died, or was she in delirium that she seemed to hear him calling her name? But the call came clearer now: "Margaret! Margaret! I am coming!" and like a flash her mind went back to the first night in Arizona when she heard him singing, "From the Desert I Come to Thee!" Now she struggled to her feet again and shouted, inarticulately and gladly through her tears. She could see him. It was Gardley. He was riding fast toward her, and he shot three shots into the air above him as he rode, and three shrill blasts of his whistle rang out on the still evening air. She tore the scarf from her neck that she had tied about it to keep the sun from blistering her, and waved it wildly in the air now, shouting in happy, choking sobs. And so he came to her across the desert! He sprang down before the horse had fairly reached her side, and, rushing to her, took her in his arms. "Margaret! My darling! I have found you at last!" She swayed and would have fallen but for his arms, and then he saw her white face and knew she must be suffering. "You are hurt!" he cried. "Oh, what have they done to you?" And he laid her gently down upon the sand and dropped on his knees beside her. "Oh no," she gasped, joyously, with white lips. "I'm all right now. Only my ankle hurts a little. We had a fall, the horse and I. Oh, go to him at once and put him out of his pain. I'm sure his legs are broken." For answer Gardley put the whistle to his lips and blew a blast. He would not leave her for an instant. He was not sure yet that she was not more hurt than she had said. He set about discovering at once, for he had brought with him supplies for all emergencies. It was Bud who came riding madly across the mesa in answer to the call, reaching Gardley before any one else. Bud with his eyes shining, his cheeks blazing with excitement, his hair wildly flying in the breeze, his young, boyish face suddenly grown old with lines of anxiety. But you wouldn't have known from his greeting that it was anything more than a pleasure excursion he had been on the past two days. "Good work, Kid! Whatcha want me t' do?" It was Bud who arranged the camp and went back to tell the other detachments that Margaret was found; Bud who led the pack-horse up, unpacked the provisions, and gathered wood to start a fire. Bud was everywhere, with a smudged face, a weary, gray look around his eyes, and his hair sticking "seven ways for Sunday." Yet once, when his labors led him near to where Margaret lay weak and happy on a couch of blankets, he gave her an unwonted pat on her shoulder and said in a low tone: "Hello, Gang! See you kept your nerve with you!" and then he gave her a grin all across his dirty, tired face, and moved away as if he were half ashamed of his emotion. But it was Bud again who came and talked with her to divert her so that she wouldn't notice when they shot her horse. He talked loudly about a coyote they shot the night before, and a cottontail they saw at Keams, and when he saw that she understood what the shot meant, and there were tears in her eyes, he gave her hand a rough, bear squeeze and said, gruffly: "You should worry! He's better off now!" And when Gardley came back he took himself thoughtfully to a distance and busied himself opening tins of meat and soup. In another hour the Brownleighs arrived, having heard the signals, and they had a supper around the camp-fire, everybody so rejoiced that there were still quivers in their voices; and when any one laughed it sounded like the echo of a sob, so great had been the strain of their anxiety. Gardley, sitting beside Margaret in the starlight afterward, her hand in his, listened to the story of her journey, the strong, tender pressure of his fingers telling her how deeply it affected him to know the peril through which she had passed. Later, when the others were telling gay stories about the fire, and Bud lying full length in their midst had fallen fast asleep, these two, a little apart from the rest, were murmuring their innermost thoughts in low tones to each other, and rejoicing that they were together once more. CHAPTER XXXIV They talked it over the next morning at breakfast as they sat around the fire. Jasper Kemp thought he ought to get right back to attend to things. Mr. Rogers was all broken up, and might even need him to search for Rosa if they had not found out her whereabouts yet. He and Fiddling Boss, who had come along, would start back at once. They had had a good night's rest and had found their dear lady. What more did they need? Besides, there were not provisions for an indefinite stay for such a large party, and there were none too many sources of supply in this region. The missionary thought that, now he was here, he ought to go on to Walpi. It was not more than two hours' ride there, and Hazel could stay with the camp while Margaret's ankle had a chance to rest and let the swelling subside under treatment. Margaret, however, rebelled. She did not wish to be an invalid, and was very sure she could ride without injury to her ankle. She wanted to see Walpi and the queer Hopi Indians, now she was so near. So a compromise was agreed upon. They would all wait in camp a couple of days, and then if Margaret felt well enough they would go on, visit the Hopis, and so go home together. Bud pleaded to be allowed to stay with them, and Jasper Kemp promised to make it all right with his parents. So for two whole, long, lovely days the little party of five camped on the mesa and enjoyed sweet converse. It is safe to say that never in all Bud's life will he forget or get away from the influences of that day in such company. Gardley and the missionary proved to be the best of physicians, and Margaret's ankle improved hourly under their united treatment of compresses, lotions, and rest. About noon on Saturday they broke camp, mounted their horses, and rode away across the stretch of white sand, through tall cornfields growing right up out of the sand, closer and closer to the great mesa with the castle-like pueblos five hundred feet above them on the top. It seemed to Margaret like suddenly being dropped into Egypt or the Holy Land, or some of the Babylonian excavations, so curious and primitive and altogether different from anything else she had ever seen did it all appear. She listened, fascinated, while Brownleigh told about this strange Hopi land, the strangest spot in America. Spanish explorers found them away back years before the Pilgrims landed, and called the country Tuscayan. They built their homes up high for protection from their enemies. They lived on the corn, pumpkins, peaches, and melons which they raised in the valley, planting the seeds with their hands. It is supposed they got their seeds first from the Spaniards years ago. They make pottery, cloth, and baskets, and are a busy people. There are seven villages built on three mesas in the northern desert. One of the largest, Orabi, has a thousand inhabitants. Walpi numbers about two hundred and thirty people, all living in this one great building of many rooms. They are divided into brotherhoods, or phratries, and each brotherhood has several large families. They are ruled by a speaker chief and a war chief elected by a council of clan elders. Margaret learned with wonder that all the water these people used had to be carried by the women in jars on their backs five hundred feet up the steep trail. Presently, as they drew nearer, a curious man with his hair "banged" like a child's, and garments much like those usually worn by scarecrows--a shapeless kind of shirt and trousers--appeared along the steep and showed them the way up. Margaret and the missionary's wife exclaimed in horror over the little children playing along the very edge of the cliffs above as carelessly as birds in trees. High up on the mesa at last, how strange and weird it seemed! Far below the yellow sand of the valley; fifteen miles away a second mesa stretching dark; to the southwest, a hundred miles distant, the dim outlines of the San Francisco peaks. Some little children on burros crossing the sand below looked as if they were part of a curious moving-picture, not as if they were little living beings taking life as seriously as other children do. The great, wide desert stretching far! The bare, solid rocks beneath their feet! The curious houses behind them! It all seemed unreal to Margaret, like a great picture-book spread out for her to see. She turned from gazing and found Gardley's eyes upon her adoringly, a tender understanding of her mood in his glance. She thrilled with pleasure to be here with him; a soft flush spread over her cheeks and a light came into her eyes. They found the Indians preparing for one of their most famous ceremonies, the snake dance, which was to take place in a few days. For almost a week the snake priests had been busy hunting rattlesnakes, building altars, drawing figures in the sand, and singing weird songs. On the ninth day the snakes are washed in a pool and driven near a pile of sand. The priests, arrayed in paint, feathers, and charms, come out in line and, taking the live snakes in their mouths, parade up and down the rocks, while the people crowd the roofs and terraces of the pueblos to watch. There are helpers to whip the snakes and keep them from biting, and catchers to see that none get away. In a little while the priests take the snakes down on the desert and set them free, sending them north, south, east, and west, where it is supposed they will take the people's prayers for rain to the water serpent in the underworld, who is in some way connected with the god of the rain-clouds. It was a strange experience, that night in Walpi: the primitive accommodations; the picturesque, uncivilized people; the shy glances from dark, eager eyes. To watch two girls grinding corn between two stones, and a little farther off their mother rolling out her dough with an ear of corn, and cooking over an open fire, her pot slung from a crude crane over the blaze--it was all too unreal to be true. But the most interesting thing about it was to watch the "Aneshodi" going about among them, his face alight with warm, human love; his hearty laugh ringing out in a joke that the Hopis seemed to understand, making himself one with them. It came to Margaret suddenly to remember the pompous little figure of the Rev. Frederick West, and to fancy him going about among these people and trying to do them good. Before she knew what she was doing she laughed aloud at the thought. Then, of course, she had to explain to Bud and Gardley, who looked at her inquiringly. "Aw! Gee! _Him?_ _He_ wasn't a minister! He was a _mistake_! Fergit him, the poor simp!" growled Bud, sympathetically. Then his eyes softened as he watched Brownleigh playing with three little Indian maids, having a fine romp. "Gee! he certainly is a peach, isn't he?" he murmured, his whole face kindling appreciatively. "Gee! I bet that kid never forgets that!" The Sunday was a wonderful day, when the missionary gathered the people together and spoke to them in simple words of God--their god who made the sky, the stars, the mountains, and the sun, whom they call by different names, but whom He called God. He spoke of the Book of Heaven that told about God and His great love for men, so great that He sent His son to save them from their sin. It was not a long sermon, but a very beautiful one; and, listening to the simple, wonderful words of life that fell from the missionary's earnest lips and were translated by his faithful Indian interpreter, who always went with him on his expeditions, watching the faces of the dark, strange people as they took in the marvelous meaning, the little company of visitors was strangely moved. Even Bud, awed beyond his wont, said, shyly, to Margaret: "Gee! It's something fierce not to be born a Christian and know all that, ain't it?" Margaret and Gardley walked a little way down the narrow path that led out over the neck of rock less than a rod wide that connects the great promontory with the mesa. The sun was setting in majesty over the desert, and the scene was one of breathless beauty. One might fancy it might look so to stand on the hills of God and look out over creation when all things have been made new. They stood for a while in silence. Then Margaret looked down at the narrow path worn more than a foot deep in the solid rock by the ten generations of feet that had been passing over it. "Just think," she said, "of all the feet, little and big, that have walked here in all the years, and of all the souls that have stood and looked out over this wonderful sight! It must be that somehow in spite of their darkness they have reached out to the God who made this, and have found a way to His heart. They couldn't look at this and not feel Him, could they? It seems to me that perhaps some of those poor creatures who have stood here and reached up blindly after the Creator of their souls have, perhaps, been as pleasing to Him as those who have known about Him from childhood." Gardley was used to her talking this way. He had not been in her Sunday meetings for nothing. He understood and sympathized, and now his hand reached softly for hers and held it tenderly. After a moment of silence he said: "I surely think if God could reach and find me in the desert of my life, He must have found them. I sometimes think I was a greater heathen than all these, because I knew and would not see." Margaret nestled her hand in his and looked up joyfully into his face. "I'm so glad you know Him now!" she murmured, happily. They stood for some time looking out over the changing scene, till the crimson faded into rose, the silver into gray; till the stars bloomed out one by one, and down in the valley across the desert a light twinkled faintly here and there from the camps of the Hopi shepherds. They started home at daybreak the next morning, the whole company of Indians standing on the rocks to send them royally on their way, pressing simple, homely gifts upon them and begging them to return soon again and tell the blessed story. A wonderful ride they had back to Ganado, where Gardley left Margaret for a short visit, promising to return for her in a few days when she was rested, and hastened back to Ashland to his work; for his soul was happy now and at ease, and he felt he must get to work at once. Rogers would need him. Poor Rogers! Had he found his daughter yet? Poor, silly child-prodigal! But when Gardley reached Ashland he found among his mail awaiting him a telegram. His uncle was dead, and the fortune which he had been brought up to believe was his, and which he had idly tossed away in a moment of recklessness, had been restored to him by the uncle's last will, made since Gardley's recent visit home. The fortune was his again! Gardley sat in his office on the Rogers ranch and stared hard at the adobe wall opposite his desk. That fortune would be great! He could do such wonderful things for Margaret now. They could work out their dreams together for the people they loved. He could see the shadows of those dreams--a beautiful home for Margaret out on the trail she loved, where wildness and beauty and the mountain she called hers were not far away; horses in plenty and a luxurious car when they wanted to take a trip; journeys East as often as they wished; some of the ideal appliances for the school that Margaret loved; a church for the missionary and convenient halls where he could speak at his outlying districts; a trip to the city for Mom Wallis, where she might see a real picture-gallery, her one expressed desire this side of heaven, now that she had taken to reading Browning and had some of it explained to her. Oh, and a lot of wonderful things! These all hung in the dream-picture before Gardley's eyes as he sat at his desk with that bit of yellow paper in his hand. He thought of what that money had represented to him in the past. Reckless days and nights of folly as a boy and young man at college; ruthless waste of time, money, youth; shriveling of soul, till Margaret came and found and rescued him! How wonderful that he had been rescued! That he had come to his senses at last, and was here in a man's position, doing a man's work in the world! Now, with all that money, there was no need for him to work and earn more. He could live idly all his days and just have a good time--make others happy, too. But still he would not have this exhilarating feeling that he was supplying his own and Margaret's necessities by the labor of hand and brain. The little telegram in his hand seemed somehow to be trying to snatch from him all this material prosperity that was the symbol of that spiritual regeneration which had become so dear to him. He put his head down on his clasped hands upon the desk then and prayed. Perhaps it was the first great prayer of his life. "O God, let me be strong enough to stand this that has come upon me. Help me to be a man in spite of money! Don't let me lose my manhood and my right to work. Help me to use the money in the right way and not to dwarf myself, nor spoil our lives with it." It was a great prayer for a man such as Gardley had been, and the answer came swiftly in his conviction. He lifted up his head with purpose in his expression, and, folding the telegram, put it safely back into his pocket. He would not tell Margaret of it--not just yet. He would think it out--just the right way--and he did not believe he meant to give up his position with Rogers. He had accepted it for a year in good faith, and it was his business to fulfil the contract. Meantime, this money would perhaps make possible his marriage with Margaret sooner than he had hoped. Five minutes later Rogers telephoned to the office. "I've decided to take that shipment of cattle and try that new stock, provided you will go out and look at them and see that everything is all O. K. I couldn't go myself now. Don't feel like going anywhere, you know. You wouldn't need to go for a couple of weeks. I've just had a letter from the man, and he says he won't be ready sooner. Say, why don't you and Miss Earle get married and make this a wedding-trip? She could go to the Pacific coast with you. It would be a nice trip. Then I could spare you for a month or six weeks when you got back if you wanted to take her East for a little visit." Why not? Gardley stumbled out his thanks and hung up the receiver, his face full of the light of a great joy. How were the blessings pouring down upon his head these days? Was it a sign that God was pleased with his action in making good what he could where he had failed? And Rogers! How kind he was! Poor Rogers, with his broken heart and his stricken home! For Rosa had come home again a sadder, wiser child; and her father seemed crushed with the disgrace of it all. Gardley went to Margaret that very afternoon. He told her only that he had had some money left him by his uncle, which would make it possible for him to marry at once and keep her comfortably now. He was to be sent to California on a business trip. Would she be married and go with him? Margaret studied the telegram in wonder. She had never asked Gardley much about his circumstances. The telegram merely stated that his uncle's estate was left to him. To her simple mind an estate might be a few hundred dollars, enough to furnish a plain little home; and her face lighted with joy over it. She asked no questions, and Gardley said no more about the money. He had forgotten that question, comparatively, in the greater possibility of joy. Would she be married in ten days and go with him? Her eyes met his with an answering joy, and yet he could see that there was a trouble hiding somewhere. He presently saw what it was without needing to be told. Her father and mother! Of course, they would be disappointed! They would want her to be married at home! "But Rogers said we could go and visit them for several weeks on our return," he said; and Margaret's face lighted up. "Oh, that would be beautiful," she said, wistfully; "and perhaps they won't mind so much--though I always expected father would marry me if I was ever married; still, if we can go home so soon and for so long--and Mr. Brownleigh would be next best, of course." "But, of course, your father must marry you," said Gardley, determinedly. "Perhaps we could persuade him to come, and your mother, too." "Oh no, they couldn't possibly," said Margaret, quickly, a shade of sadness in her eyes. "You know it costs a lot to come out here, and ministers are never rich." It was then that Gardley's eyes lighted with joy. His money could take this bugbear away, at least. However, he said nothing about the money. "Suppose we write to your father and mother and put the matter before them. See what they say. We'll send the letters to-night. You write your mother and I'll write your father." Margaret agreed and sat down at once to write her letter, while Gardley, on the other side of the room, wrote his, scratching away contentedly with his fountain-pen and looking furtively now and then toward the bowed head over at the desk. Gardley did not read his letter to Margaret. She wondered a little at this, but did not ask, and the letters were mailed, with special-delivery stamps on them. Gardley awaited their replies with great impatience. He filled in the days of waiting with business. There were letters to write connected with his fortune, and there were arrangements to be made for his trip. But the thing that occupied the most of his time and thought was the purchase and refitting of a roomy old ranch-house in a charming location, not more than three miles from Ashland, on the road to the camp. It had been vacant for a couple of years past, the owner having gone abroad permanently and the place having been offered for sale. Margaret had often admired it in her trips to and from the camp, and Gardley thought of it at once when it became possible for him to think of purchasing a home in the West. There was a great stone fireplace, and the beams of the ceilings and pillars of the porch and wide, hospitable rooms were of tree-trunks with the bark on them. With a little work it could be made roughly but artistically habitable. Gardley had it cleaned up, not disturbing the tangle of vines and shrubbery that had had their way since the last owner had left them and which had made a perfect screen from the road for the house. Behind this screen the men worked--most of them the men from the bunk-house, whom Gardley took into his confidence. The floors were carefully scrubbed under the direction of Mom Wallis, and the windows made shining. Then the men spent a day bringing great loads of tree-boughs and filling the place with green fragrance, until the big living-room looked like a woodland bower. Gardley made a raid upon some Indian friends of his and came back with several fine Navajo rugs and blankets, which he spread about the room luxuriously on the floor and over the rude benches which the men had constructed. They piled the fireplace with big logs, and Gardley took over some of his own personal possessions that he had brought back from the East with him to give the place a livable look. Then he stood back satisfied. The place was fit to bring his bride and her friends to. Not that it was as it should be. That would be for Margaret to do, but it would serve as a temporary stopping-place if there came need. If no need came, why, the place was there, anyway, hers and his. A tender light grew in his eyes as he looked it over in the dying light of the afternoon. Then he went out and rode swiftly to the telegraph-office and found these two telegrams, according to the request in his own letter to Mr. Earle. Gardley's telegram read: Congratulations. Will come as you desire. We await your advice. Have written.--FATHER. He saddled his horse and hurried to Margaret with hers, and together they read: Dear child! So glad for you. Of course you will go. I am sending you some things. Don't take a thought for us. We shall look forward to your visit. Our love to you both.--MOTHER. Margaret, folded in her lover's arms, cried out her sorrow and her joy, and lifted up her face with happiness. Then Gardley, with great joy, thought of the surprise he had in store for her and laid his face against hers to hide the telltale smile in his eyes. For Gardley, in his letter to his future father-in-law, had written of his newly inherited fortune, and had not only inclosed a check for a good sum to cover all extra expense of the journey, but had said that a private car would be at their disposal, not only for themselves, but for any of Margaret's friends and relatives whom they might choose to invite. As he had written this letter he was filled with deep thanksgiving that it was in his power to do this thing for his dear girl-bride. The morning after the telegrams arrived Gardley spent several hours writing telegrams and receiving them from a big department store in the nearest great city, and before noon a big shipment of goods was on its way to Ashland. Beds, bureaus, wash-stands, chairs, tables, dishes, kitchen utensils, and all kinds of bedding, even to sheets and pillow-cases, he ordered with lavish hand. After all, he must furnish the house himself, and let Margaret weed it out or give it away afterward, if she did not like it. He was going to have a house party and he must be ready. When all was done and he was just about to mount his horse again he turned back and sent another message, ordering a piano. "Why, it's _great_!" he said to himself, as he rode back to his office. "It's simply great to be able to do things just when I need them! I never knew what fun money was before. But then I never had Margaret to spend it for, and she's worth the whole of it at once!" The next thing he ordered was a great easy carriage with plenty of room to convey Mother Earle and her friends from the train to the house. The days went by rapidly enough, and Margaret was so busy that she had little time to wonder and worry why her mother did not write her the long, loving, motherly good-by letter to her little girlhood that she had expected to get. Not until three days before the wedding did it come over her that she had had but three brief, scrappy letters from her mother, and they not a whole page apiece. What could be the matter with mother? She was almost on the point of panic when Gardley came and bundled her on to her horse for a ride. Strangely enough, he directed their way through Ashland and down to the station, and it was just about the time of the arrival of the evening train. Gardley excused himself for a moment, saying something about an errand, and went into the station. Margaret sat on her horse, watching the oncoming train, the great connecting link between East and West, and wondered if it would bring a letter from mother. The train rushed to a halt, and behold some passengers were getting off from a private car! Margaret watched them idly, thinking more about an expected letter than about the people. Then suddenly she awoke to the fact that Gardley was greeting them. Who could they be? There were five of them, and one of them looked like Jane! Dear Jane! She had forgotten to write her about this hurried wedding. How different it all was going to be from what she and Jane had planned for each other in their dear old school-day dreams! And that young man that Gardley was shaking hands with now looked like Cousin Dick! She hadn't seen him for three years, but he must look like that now; and the younger girl beside him might be Cousin Emily! But, oh, who were the others? _Father!_ And MOTHER! Margaret sprang from her horse with a bound and rushed into her mother's arms. The interested passengers craned their necks and looked their fill with smiles of appreciation as the train took up its way again, having dropped the private car on the side track. Dick and Emily rode the ponies to the house, while Margaret nestled in the back seat of the carriage between her father and mother, and Jane got acquainted with Gardley in the front seat of the carriage. Margaret never even noticed where they were going until the carriage turned in and stopped before the door of the new house, and Mrs. Tanner, furtively casting behind her the checked apron she had worn, came out to shake hands with the company and tell them supper was all ready, before she went back to her deserted boarding-house. Even Bud was going to stay at the new house that night, in some cooked-up capacity or other, and all the men from the bunk-house were hiding out among the trees to see Margaret's father and mother and shake hands if the opportunity offered. The wonder and delight of Margaret when she saw the house inside and knew that it was hers, the tears she shed and smiles that grew almost into hysterics when she saw some of the incongruous furnishings, are all past describing. Margaret was too happy to think. She rushed from one room to another. She hugged her mother and linked her arm in her father's for a walk across the long piazza; she talked to Emily and Dick and Jane; and then rushed out to find Gardley and thank him again. And all this time she could not understand how Gardley had done it, for she had not yet comprehended his fortune. Gardley had asked his sisters to come to the wedding, not much expecting they would accept, but they had telegraphed at the last minute they would be there. They arrived an hour or so before the ceremony; gushed over Margaret; told Gardley she was a "sweet thing"; said the house was "dandy for a house party if one had plenty of servants, but they should think it would be dull in winter"; gave Margaret a diamond sunburst pin, a string of pearls, and an emerald bracelet set in diamond chips; and departed immediately after the ceremony. They had thought they were the chief guests, but the relief that overspread the faces of those guests who were best beloved by both bride and groom was at once visible on their departure. Jasper Kemp drew a long breath and declared to Long Bill that he was glad the air was growing pure again. Then all those old friends from the bunk-house filed in to the great tables heavily loaded with good things, the abundant gift of the neighborhood, and sat down to the wedding supper, heartily glad that the "city lady and her gals"--as Mom Wallis called them in a suppressed whisper--had chosen not to stay over a train. The wedding had been in the school-house, embowered in foliage and all the flowers the land afforded, decorated by the loving hands of Margaret's pupils, old and young. She was attended by the entire school marching double file before her, strewing flowers in her way. The missionary's wife played the wedding-march, and the missionary assisted the bride's father with the ceremony. Margaret's dress was a simple white muslin, with a little real lace and embroidery handed down from former generations, the whole called into being by Margaret's mother. Even Gardley's sisters had said it was "perfectly dear." The whole neighborhood was at the wedding. And when the bountiful wedding-supper was eaten the entire company of favored guests stood about the new piano and sang "Blest Be the Tie that Binds"--with Margaret playing for them. Then there was a little hurry at the last, Margaret getting into the pretty traveling dress and hat her mother had brought, and kissing her mother good-by--though happily not for long this time. Mother and father and the rest of the home party were to wait until morning, and the missionary and his wife were to stay with them that night and see them to their car the next day. So, waving and throwing kisses back to the others, they rode away to the station, Bud pridefully driving the team from the front seat. Gardley had arranged for a private apartment on the train, and nothing could have been more luxurious in traveling than the place where he led his bride. Bud, scuttling behind with a suit-case, looked around him with all his eyes before he said a hurried good-by, and murmured under his breath: "Gee! Wisht I was goin' all the way!" Bud hustled off as the train got under way, and Margaret and Gardley went out to the observation platform to wave a last farewell. The few little blurring lights of Ashland died soon in the distance, and the desert took on its vast wideness beneath a starry dome; but off in the East a purple shadow loomed, mighty and majestic, and rising slowly over its crest a great silver disk appeared, brightening as it came and pouring a silver mist over the purple peak. "My mountain!" said Margaret, softly. And Gardley, drawing her close to him, stooped to lay his lips upon hers. "My darling!" he answered. THE END 
2382	----	MEMOIR OF THE PROPOSED TERRITORY OF ARIZONA. BY SYLVESTER MOWRY, U. S. A., DELEGATE ELECT. WASHINGTON: HENRY POLKINHORN, PRINTER. 1857. "The NEW TERRITORY of ARIZONA, better known as the GADSDEN PURCHASE, lies between the thirty-first and thirty-third parallels of latitude, and is bounded on the north by the Gila River, which separates it from the territory of New Mexico; on the east by the Rio Bravo del Norte, (Rio Grande), which separates it from Texas; on the south by Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexican provinces; and on the west by the Colorado River of the West, which separates it from Upper and Lower California. This great region is six hundred miles long by about fifty miles wide, and embraces an area of about thirty thousand square miles. It was acquired by purchase from Mexico, during the mission of General Gadsden, at a cost of ten millions of dollars. In the original treaty, as negotiated by General Gadsden, a more southern boundary than the one adopted by the Senate of the United States in confirming the treaty, was conceded by Santa Anna. The line at present is irregular in its course, and cuts off from our Territory the head of the Santa Cruz river and valley, the Sonoita valley, the San Bernardino valley, the whole course of the Colorado river from a point twenty miles below the mouth of the Gila river, and, worse than all, the control of the head of the Gulf of California, and the rich and extensive valley of Lake Guzman, besides a large and extremely valuable silver region, well known both to Mexicans and Americans--the planchas de la Platte. General Gadsden's line included nearly all the territory south of the Gila river to the thirty-first parallel of latitude--all the advantages above mentioned--gave us the mouth of the Colorado river, and probably a port near the head of the gulf at Adair's Bay. We have no accurate survey of the west coast of the Gulf of California, but I am strongly of opinion that the original line conceded by Mexico would have thrown a portion of the gulf into American hands, by cutting off an arm of it extending east and north from the main body of water. A port on the gulf is of great and immediate necessity to our Pacific possessions. Of this hereafter. The proposed boundaries, of the Territory of Arizona, are the 34th parallel of latitude, with New Mexico on the north, from the 103d meridian west to the Colorado; Texas on the east; Texas, and the Mexican provinces of New Mexico and Sonora on the south; and California on the west. The new Territory would thus contain within its borders the three largest rivers on the Continent, west of the Mississippi--the Rio Grande, Gila, and Colorado of the west, and embrace 90,000 square miles. The Gadsden purchase is attached by act of Congress to the Territory of New Mexico. At the time of its acquisition there was scarcely any population except a few scattering Mexicans in the Mesilla valley, and at the old town of Tucson, in the centre of the territory. The Apache Indian, superior in strength to the Mexican, had gradually extirpated every trace of civilization, and roamed uninterrupted and unmolested, sole possessor of what was once a thriving and populous Spanish province. Except the report of Col. A. B. Gray, there is scarcely anything in print with reference to the early history of Arizona, beyond the scanty but valuable notes of Major Emory and Hon. John R. Bartlett, in their reports, and in the appendix to Wilson's late book, "Mexico and its Religion." To this last I beg to refer any reader who desires accurate information respecting the Northern Mexican provinces, presented in a straightforward common-sense style. In the possession of the writer of these notes is a map drawn in 1757, just one hundred years ago, presented by the Society of Jesuits to the King of Spain. The original of this map is now in the archives of the Mexican Government. It was copied, with the notes relating to the Territory, and to Sonora, Chihuahua, and Sinaloa, by Capt. C. P. Stone, late of the United States Army. The map bears the inscription, "Carte levee par la Societe des Jesuites, dediee au Roi d'Espagne en 1757." The copy of the map and the accompanying notes are certified as accurate by the officer of the Mexican Government in charge of the archives. My information, therefore, upon the early history of this comparatively unknown domain, is accurate and reliable. As early as 1687, a Jesuit missionary from the province of Sonora, which, in its southern portion, bore already the impress of Spanish civilization, descended the valley of Santa Cruz river to the Gila. Passing down the Gila to its mouth, after exploring the country, he retraced his steps, penetrated the country north of the Gila river for some distance, and ascended the Salinas or Salt river, and other northern branches of the Gila. The explorations of this energetic priest did not stop here. Proceeding east, he explored the valley of the San Pedro and its branches, thence along the Gila to the Mimbres, and probably to the Rio Grande and the Mesilla valley. Filled with the enthusiasm of his sect, he procured authority from the head of the order in Mexico, and established missions and settlements at every available point. In a report to the government of the viceroy of Spain, made during the early settlement of the province, I find the following language: "A scientific exploration of Sonora, with reference to mineralogy, along with the introduction of families, will lead to a discovery of gold and silver so marvellous that the result will be such as has never yet been seen in the world." The reports of the immense mineral wealth of the new country, made by the Jesuits, induced a rapid settlement. There are laid down on the map before me more than forty towns and villages. Many of these were of considerable size. There were a few north of the Gila, and several on the lower Gila, near the Colorado. The Santa Cruz and its tributary valleys teemed with an agricultural and mining population. Thousands of enterprising Spaniards cultivated the rich valley of the San Pedro, and scattered settlements flourished at every suitable stream and spring at the foot of the mountains towards the Rio Grande. The notes before me say: "All these settlements and missions were founded in fertile valleys, and by streams and springs, which produced luxuriant crops of wheat, corn, and beans, and in many parts grapes and other foreign fruits were cultivated." In the western part of the Territory were the missions of St. Pierre, St. Paul, St. Matthias, St. Simond, St. Francisco, Merci, the ranches of Eau Cheri, Eau de la Lune, and others; on the Santa Cruz the missions of San Xavier del Bac, Santiago, San Cayetano, and San Philipe, the towns of Tueson, Tubac, Reges, San Augusta, and many others. San Xavier del Bac is still in existence. It is a mission church of great size and beauty, magnificently ornamented within; forty thousand dollars in solid silver served to adorn the altar. Upon the San Pedro river were the missions of St. Mark, San Salvadore, San Pantaleon, Santa Cruz, and the towns of Quiduria, Rosario, Eugenia, Victoria, and San Fernando--the latter at the mouth--with many more. To the east some small settlements were found on the Valle del Sauz, on the Mimbres, at the copper mines north of the Mimbres, and to the south the immense grazing and stock-raising establishment of San Bernardino, where since have been raised hundreds of thousands of cattle and horses. The Indians in the vicinity of the missions were reduced first to obedience by the Jesuits, and then to slavery by the Spaniards. The notes referred to above contain the names and localities of more than a hundred silver and gold mines which were worked with great success by the Spaniards. The survey of the Jesuit priest about 1687 was repeated in 1710 with renewed discoveries, and consequent accession of population. From this time up to 1757 the conquest and settlement of the country was prosecuted with vigor, both by the Jesuits' Society and Spanish government. The missions and settlements were repeatedly destroyed by the Apaches, and the priests and settlers massacred or driven off. As often were they re-established. The Indians at length, thoroughly aroused by the cruelties of the Spaniards, by whom they were deprived of their liberty, forced to labor in the silver mines with inadequate food, and barbarously treated, finally rose, joined with tribes who had never been subdued, and gradually drove out or massacred their oppressors. A superior civilization disappeared before their devastating career, and to day there is scarcely a trace of it left, except scarcely visible ruins, evidence everywhere, of extensive and hastily-deserted mining operations, and the tradition of the country. The mission of San Xavier del Bac, and the old towns of Tueson and Tubac, are the most prominent of these remains. The labors of the Jesuits to civilize the Indians are still evident in the mission Indians, the Papagos and Pimas, who live in villages, cultivate crops of corn and wheat, and who, in the Christian and human elements of good faith and charity, are, to say the least, in no way inferior to the Mexicans. After the massacre of four of Crabbe's unfortunate party near Sonoita by the Mexicans, the Papago Indians buried carefully the bodies to which Mexican inhumanity had denied this last charitable office. It is a curious and suggestive fact that the latitude of places upon Gila, Santa Cruz, and San Pedro, determined by the Jesuits about 1750, has lately been verified by the observations of Park Michler, and Emory. The instruments used by the Jesuits were constructed by them, the lenses being made from pebbles. From 1757 down to 1820, the Spaniards and Mexicans continued to work many valuable mines near Barbacora, and the notes in my possession speak of many silver mines, most of which contained a percentage of gold. "The San Pedro gold mine in 1748 was worked with extraordinary success." Among the mines anciently worked, as laid down in the authorities heretofore referred to, were the Dolores, San Antonio, Casa Gordo, Cabrisa, San Juan Batista, Santa Anna, (which was worked to the depth of one hundred and twenty yards,) Rosario, Cata de Agua, Guadaloupe, Connilla, Prieta, Santa Catarina, Guzopa, Huratano, Arpa, Descuhidara, Nacosare, Arguage, Churinababi, Huacal, Pinal, and a great number of others which it would only be tedious to mention. The most celebrated modern localities are Arivaca, (also anciently famous as Aribac,) Sopori, the Arizona mountains, the Santa Rita range, the Cerro Colorado, the entire vicinity of Tubac, the Del Ajo, or Arizona copper mine, the Gadsonia copper mine, and the Gila river copper mines. These last are situated directly upon the Gila, only twenty-five miles from its mouth. The writer assures the public that there is no room for doubt as to the authenticity of these statements, or the immense resources of the new Territory in silver, copper, and probably gold. As late as 1820, the Mina Cobre de la Plata, (silver copper mines,) near Fort Webster, north of the Gila, were worked to great advantage; and so rich was the ore that it paid for transportation on muleback more than a thousand miles to the city of Mexico. Every exploration within the past few years has confirmed the statements of the ancient records. The testimony of living Mexicans, and the tradition of the country, all tend to the same end. Col. A. B. Gray, Col. Emory, Lt. Michler, Lt. Parke, the Hon. John R. Bartlett, late of the United States Boundary Commission, all agree in the statement that the Territory has immense resources in silver and copper. Col. Emory says in his report: "On account of the Gold Mania in California I kept the search for gold and other precious metals as much out of view as possible, scarcely allowing it to be a matter of conversation, much less of actual search. Yet, enough was ascertained to convince us that the whole region was teeming with the precious metals. We everywhere saw the remains of mining operations, conducted by the Spaniards, and more recently by the Mexicans." The report enumerates at considerable length the various localities examined by Col. Emory's party, and others, of which there could be no doubt. In view of these authorities, it is hoped that those who will not believe upon any evidence, will be content in their own incredulity. The most authentic reports of these immense mineral resources have been used as authorities against their existence. The authors of these denials either have never read what they pretend to quote, or think no one else has. The Hon. T. Butler King, who was the first to reveal to an incredulous public the wonders of the California gold mines, has had the singular good fortune to be also among the first to publish correct and authentic information relating to the silver treasures of Arizona. His report upon the resources of the new Territory has all the charm to the reader that his California report had, and its brilliant predictions will be as fully realized. To Gray and Emory is the country most indebted for the earliest and most important discoveries. The agricultural resources of Arizona, are sufficient to sustain a large mining population, and afford abundant supplies for the great immigration which will follow the development of its mineral resources. The whole valley of the Gila, more than four hundred miles in length, can be made with proper exertion to yield plentiful crops. The Pimos Indians, who live in villages on the Gila, one hundred and seventy miles from its mouth, raise large crops of cotton, wheat, and corn, and have for years supplied the thousands of emigrants who traverse the Territory en route to California. These Indians manufacture their cotton into blankets of fine texture and beautiful pattern, which command a high price. They also grind their corn and wheat, and make bread. In fact, the Pimos realize in their everyday life something of our ideas of Aztec civilization. A town will probably grow up just above the Pimos villages, as there is a rich back country, and the streams afford a valuable water power for running mills. The valley of the Santa Cruz traverses the territory from South to North, sinking near the town of Tueson, and probably finding its way to the Gila, as a subterranean stream. This valley, of the richest land, is about one hundred miles long, in many places of great width, and has on each side of it many rich valleys of limited extent, watered by streams from the mountains, which flow into the Santa Cruz. The valleys and Ranches of Arivaca, Sopori, Calabazas, and Tueson, are those at present most thickly settled. These produce all the fruits known to a Southern clime--grapes, wheat, corn, and cotton in great abundance. The San Pedro river and valley is also one of great richness, and is reported by Lieut. Parke as capable of sustaining a large population. The Valle de Sauz, still farther East, more limited than the San Pedro or Santa Cruz, can be made available for a considerable population. The Mimbres River also can, by a small outlay, be made to irrigate a large surface and supply a moderate settlement. The various springs laid down by Gray, Emory, Parke, and Bartlett, will all afford water for small settlements, and their supply can be much increased by a judicious outlay of money. The Rio Grande valley is very rich, and in places of great width. The Mesilla valley already contains a population of about five thousand souls, and there is ample room for many more. If, as proposed, the Northern boundary of the Arizona Territory should enclose the Northern branches of the Gila, an agricultural region will be opened to settlement sufficient in itself to sustain the population of an immense agricultural State. Col. Bonneville, who is now at the head of a large force exploring this region, writes to the Secretary of War that it is the finest country he has ever seen, "valleys capable of sustaining a population of twenty thousand each, teeming at every step with evidences of an immense population long ago-and an ancient and superior civilization." The Hon. John R. Bartlett says of the "Salinas," one of the Northern branches of the Gila, that it alone will supply food for a great State. It must be recollected, in this connection, that the great mineral wealth of Arizona will call for and amply repay for the redemption and expensive cultivation of all the available lands, and that irrigation produces immensely greater crops than the other method of planting. Throughout the whole of Utah, irrigation has been resorted to with the greatest success. The soil in Utah, in no place that the writer saw it, could in any way be compared to that of the bottom lands of Arizona. Captain Whipple in his valuable report of exploration for the Pacific Railroad, published by order of Congress, crossed the upper part of the region alluded to, and which is watered by the Rio Verde and Salinas. He fully sustains me in my remarks on those rich valleys. "We are in the pleasantest region we have seen since leaving the Choctaw country. Here are clear rivulets, with fertile valleys and forest trees. The wide belt of country that borders the Black Forest, and probably extends along the Rio Verde to the Salinas and Gila, bears every indication of being able to support a large agricultural and pastoral population. The valley of the Rio Verde is magnificently wooded with furs and oaks, affording excellent timber. Ancient ruins are said by trappers to be scattered over its whole length to the confluence with the Salinas. We, therefore, seem to have skirted the boundary of a country once populous, and worthy of becoming so again. Besides the advantages already enumerated, the mountains in this vicinity bear indications of mineral wealth. Vol. 3, p. 93." The notes before referred to, in the possession of the writer, speak of great farming and grazing establishments scattered over the whole face of the Territory, between 1610 and 1800, which produced abundant crops of cereals, fruits, and grapes. These statements are confirmed by the testimony of Major Emory and his report, where he enumerates several of the most extensive--by Gray, Bartlett, Parke, and Col. Bonneville. Many of the Ranches, deserted by the Mexicans on account of the Apache Indians, have upon them large, well-built adobe houses which must have cost the builders thousands of dollars. Many of these have been occupied under squatter titles by emigrants within the last few years. Of others, only the ruins remain, having been destroyed by the depredations of the Indians, or by the heavy rains of the succeeding years. The greater portion of these lands on the Santa Cruz and San Pedro are covered by Mexican titles--and many of these again by squatter claims. It is absolutely necessary that Congress should by some wise and speedy legislation settle, upon some definite basis, the land titles of Arizona. Until this is done, disorder and anarchy will reign supreme over the country. The present condition of California is in a great degree to be attributed to the want of any title to the most valuable real property in the State, and the millions which have been spent in fruitless litigation should teach a lesson of great practical value. Let those Spanish grants and Mexican titles which have been occupied in good faith be affirmed in the most expeditious and economical manner to the claimants, and they will immediately pass into American hands, and become productive. The remainder of the country should then be thrown open to settlers. No better code of mining law exists than the Spanish, adopted in the Senate bill introduced by the late General Rusk, and passed at the last session of Congress. A judicious and liberal donation law, giving to the actual settler a homestead, and to the enterprising miner and "prospector" a fair security for the fruit of his labors, will at once make of Arizona a popular, thriving and wealthy State, affording new markets for the productions of our Atlantic States, and yielding annually millions in silver and copper. In addition to the produce of Arizona, the immediate vicinity of the agricultural region of Sonora affords an abundant market for all necessary supplies, including sugar, which is manufactured by the Mexicans in great quantities from the cane. Guyamas, which one day will be ours, is one of the largest ports for the export of flour on the Pacific coast north of Chili. She also exports several millions in silver annually, which finds its way direct to the English market. Under an intelligent system, the Sonora mines would yield a hundred millions a year, and the supply is inexhaustible. If any reader doubts this statement, refer him to the statistics of Humboldt, Ward, and Wilson, most unquestioned and valuable authorities. Both Humboldt and Ward note the fact that the silver deposites grow richer as they are traced farther North. There can be no doubt that the most extensive and valuable mines, both of pure silver and silver mixed with copper and lead, are within the limits of Arizona. The yield of the silver mines of Mexico, as computed by Ward and Humboldt from the actual official returns to the Government, from the conquest to 1803, amounts to the enormous sum of $2,027,955,000, or more than two BILLIONS Of dollars. Again, Ward says: "I am aware that many of the statements in this and the preceding books respecting the mineral riches of the North of New Spain, (Sonora, including the 'Gadsden Purchase,' Chihuahua, and Durango,) will be thought exaggerated. THEY ARE NOT SO; they will be confirmed by every future report, and in after years, the public, FAMILIARIZED WITH facts which are only questioned because they are new, will wonder at its present incredulity, and regret the loss of advantages which may not always be within its reach." Of the present mining operations in the Territory of Arizona, the most considerable, in point of labor performed and results, is "The Arizona Copper Mining Co." This company is incorporated by the California Legislature, with a capital of one million of dollars. The President is Major Robert Allen, U. S. A. The mines are old, and very celebrated in Mexico under the name of El-Ajo. This company, at an expense of $100,000, have supplied their mines with an abundance of water, extracted several hundred tons of ore, and erected buildings, smelting furnaces, and other appliances to facilitate their operations. They employ about one hundred men, mostly Mexican miners. Their supplies of breadstuffs and beef are obtained by contract from Sonora. These mines are situated one hundred and thirty miles from the mouth of the Gila River, and about sixty miles south of it. The ore varies in richness from thirty to sixty per cent, and the proceeds of some sales in London were quoted as being the highest prices ever paid for ore in that market. A portion of this mine is owned by English capitalists, and it is without doubt one of the most valuable in the world. The profits may be easily calculated, when it is known that the ore costs delivered in Swansea, England, not exceeding $125 per ton, and is worth from $200 to $375 per ton. Of course these profits will be greatly increased when the company is in a position to smelt its ores at the mine. The Sonora Exploring and Mining Company was organized in 1856, with a capital of two million dollars ($2,000,000). Its principal office is in Cincinnati, Ohio, and its seat of operations at Tubac, in the Santa Cruz valley. This company is managed in its mining operations by Chas. D. Poston, Esq., a gentleman of much experience on the Pacific coast, and of great energy of character. The Rancho of Arivaca, containing several valuable silver mines, and seventeen thousand acres of valuable land, has been purchased by this company. It has also acquired the titles to a number of other valuable mines of galena ore, and copper containing silver and gold. Hitherto, the exertions of the company have been directed principally to explorations and cleaning out the old mines, but they have at present above ground, ready for smelting, several thousand dollars worth of their ores. Prof. Booth, U. S. Assayer, as well as other distinguished authorities, have, after thorough experiment, given to the company certificates of the great richness of the ores already shipped to the east. The annual report of the Sonora Mining Co. is full of interest to the general reader. The Sopori mine is another very valuable property. It is owned by Messrs. Douglass, Aldrich, and another. Want of capital has prevented the extensive development of this mine. It affords its proprietors a handsome profit, worked in the smallest and cheapest manner. The vein is of great size, has been traced several rods in length, and pays about one dollar to the pound of ore. The writer has examined specimens from the "Sopori," taken at random, and so rich is the ore that the native silver can be cut out of it with a penknife, as out of a Mexican dollar. Undoubtedly the Sopori mine is destined to yield hundreds of millions. It is a peculiarity of the ores in this district that they run near the surface, making mining of comparative small cost. The Sopori mine is surrounded by a fine country, well watered and wooded. The "Gadsonia Copper Mining Co.," after taking out a few tons of exceedingly rich ore--averaging over eighty per cent.--was obliged to suspend operations on account of the cost of transportation. When the Territory shall be organized and capital protected by law, these mines will be worked to advantage. "The Gila River Copper Mines" are more favorably situated than any other yet opened, being directly on the Gila River, only twenty-five miles from its mouth. The ores can be taken from the mine, immediately shipped upon flat boats or a light draft steamer, and transported down the Colorado River to the head of the Gulf of California, when they can be transhipped to England at small cost. Upwards of twenty veins of copper ore have been opened, and the assays give results varying from 30 to 70 per cent. These mines are owned by Messrs. Hooper, Hinton, Halstead, and another. Several thousand dollars have been already expended in prospecting and opening veins, and it was anticipated by the proprietors that the first cargo would be shipped to Swansea, England, this year. Smelting works will eventually be built at the mines, or at Colorado City, opposite Fort Yuma, and the profits of this company must be very great. The vicinity of the Colorado, and the abundance of wood and water, give the proprietors facilities for conducting their operations at small cost. Silver mining is also carried on in the vicinity of Mesilla Valley, and near the Rio Grande. Many other mining operations are constantly being commenced; but the depredations of the Apache Indians have almost entirely snatched success from the hard-working miner, who, besides losing his all, is often massacred in some ferocious manner. No protection, either civil or military, is extended over the greater portion of Arizona. This checks the development of all her resources--not only to her own injury, but that of California and the Atlantic States--by withholding a market for their productions, and the bullion which she is fully able to supply to an extent corresponding to the labor employed in obtaining it. A. B. Gray, Esq., late U. S. Surveyor under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, for running the Mexican Boundary, and subsequently Exploring Engineer and Surveyor of the Southern Pacific Railroad, has probably seen more of the proposed Territory of Arizona than any other person, his statements in reference to that region, embodied in a report to the Hon., the Secretary of the Interior, from actual field reconnoissances six years ago, will be read with much interest, particularly as since then, repeated developments in that country have proved the correctness of his judgment; his opinions are, therefore, of much importance, as expressed in his able report. It will be recollected that this was then Mexican Territory. Colonel Gray says: "The public, I think have been misled by misrepresentations made in regard to the resources of the region of country lying along the Gila and upon the line proposed for a railroad at or near the parallel of 32 degrees north latitude. That portion of country east of the Rio Grande I can say but little of from personal observation, having been over but apart of the ground near the eastern division in Texas, and that in the vicinity of El Paso. At both these points, however, a fine country exists. Upon the Gila river grows cotton of the most superior kind. Its nature is not unlike that of the celebrated Sea Island cotton, possessing an equally fine texture, and, if anything, more of a silky fibre. The samples I procured at the Indian villages, from the rudely cultivated fields of the Pimas and Maricopas, have been spoken of as an extraordinary quality. Wheat, corn, and tobacco, together with beans, melons, etc., grow likewise upon the banks and in the valleys bordering the Gila and its tributaries. The sugar cane, too, I believe, will be found to thrive in this section of the country west of the Rio San Pedro. A sort of candied preserve and molasses, expressed from the fruit of the cereus giganteus and agave Americana was found by our party in 1851, as we passed through the Pinal Llano camps and among the Gila tribes, to be most acceptable. The candied preserve was a most excellent substitute for sugar. It is true that there are extensive wastes to be encountered west of the Rio Grande, yet they are not deserts of sand, but plains covered at certain seasons of the year with luxuriant grass, exhibiting green spots and springs not very remote from each other at all times. There is sufficient water in the Gila and its branches for all the purposes of irrigation when it is wanted, the streams being high during the season most needed. The Rio Salado, a tributary of the Gila, is a bold and far more beautiful river than the Gila itself, and, from the old ruins now seen there, must have had formerly a large settlement upon its banks. "To many persons merely travelling or emigrating across the country, with but one object in view, and that the reaching their destination on the Pacific, the country would generally present a barren aspect. But it will be recollected that the most productive fields in California, before American enterprise introduced the plough, and a different mode of cultivation from that of the natives of the country, presented somewhat similar appearance. Many believed, at first, from the cold and sterile look of the hills, and the parched appearance of the fields and valleys, over which the starving coyote is often seen prowling in search of something to subsist on, that California could never become an agricultural district, but must depend upon her other resources for greatness, and trust to distant regions for the necessaries of life required for her increased population. It was natural enough, too, that this impression should be created in those accustomed to a different State of things, and particularly when it is considered that the very season of blossom and bloom of our Atlantic States was the winter of California; but these same fields and hills have a very different appearance in January, February, and March, clothed as they are in the brightest verdure and no one now will pretend to say that California does not possess within herself great agricultural as well as mineral wealth. This, I believe, will some day be the case with the country from the Rio Grande to the Gulf of California, adjacent to the Gila. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 55, 33rd Congress, 2nd Session." * * * * * * * * In speaking of the resources of this region for a railroad, in the same report, Gray says: "The valley of Mesilla, extending from about twelve miles above the true boundary of the treaty to the parallel of 32 degrees 22 minutes north latitude, lies wholly within the disputed district, and is, for its extent, one of the most beautiful and fertile along the whole course of the Rio Grande. The town of Mesilla, only a few years old, contains several thousand people, and is a prosperous little place. It was not settled until after the cession of this territory to us by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Portions of the valley are highly cultivated, and produce the grains and fruits of our most thriving States. In connexion with the land on the east side of the river, the valley of the Messilla is capable of sustaining a considerable population. It is situated centrally with regard to a large district of country of lesser agricultural capacity. The section of the Rio Grande in the vicinity of El Paso and the valley of Mesilla, is proverbial for the production of fine vegetables and fruits. Indeed, about El Paso, it is a complete garden with flourishing vineyards, equalling in excellence those of the most celebrated grape growing countries. "By a judicious disposition of military stations along this line, only a few troops would be required to protect the great northern frontier of Sonora and Chihuahua, and enable us to carry out the 11th article of our late treaty with Mexico more effectually, and at the same time prevent any depredations which the Indians might be disposed to commit on the road. Soon after, the settlement of the country would make the presence of the military unnecessary, either for the safety of a railway of the security of the frontier. The strong holds of the Apaches, and their pathway to Mexico, would be cut off. "A wagon road established from the Gulf of California would enable supplies to be transported along this line at one-half of the present cost. The saving of one-third or more distance, through a comparatively unsettled country, in transportation is an important consideration in the construction of a railway, more especially when men and materials, to a great extent, must be brought from very remote points. The navigation of the Gulf of California is said to be very good. The trade-winds from the northwest, encountering the highlands of the peninsula of Lower California, and forming a counter current under its lee, enable sailing vessels to proceed advantageously along that coast. Returning, by keeping on the eastern aide, or along the shore of Sonora, they could avail themselves of the prevailing winds, which regain their usual direction after sweeping across the wide expanse of water. The trade of the Gulf, with its pearl fisheries and other resources, would be speedily developed. * * * * * * * * "The advantages of such a thoroughfare are obvious. Five years would hardly elapse before inestimable benefits would be realized; and, should war threaten our Pacific possessions, a few days would suffice to send from the Mississippi valley an army that would defy any force that the most formidable power could array against us. The fine cotton region of the Gila, the rich copper, silver, and gold mines of New Mexico and Sonora would be at once developed, bringing a vast district of country into cultivation which now presents a fruitless waste, owing to Indian depredations and the absence of means of communication and protection. Mexico has tried for a century past to insure safety to her inhabitants in this region, but notwithstanding the expense she has incurred in keeping up her garrisons, she has failed to afford them protection. "The deserted appearance of the country from El Paso to the Colorado is no criterion by which to judge of its value. The beautiful valley of San Xavier, or Santa Cruz, some two years ago when I passed through it, was entirely deserted. The once thriving towns of Tumacacori and Tubac had not the sign of a living soul about them except the recent moccasin track of the Apaches. The orchards and vineyards of the once highly cultivated fields and gardens bore the marks of gradual decay and destruction. The ranchos of Calabazas, of San Bernardino, and numerous other places on this frontier, presented the same melancholy aspect, the result of the inability of Mexico to protect this portion of territory from the inroads of the savages. There are now but a few settlements throughout this district of country, but were it protected by a power that could and would defend it, what is now a waste in the hands of the savages might become a thriving country, with safety insured to its inhabitants." Senate Ex. Doc. No. 55, 33rd Congress, 2nd Sess. I quote the following language of Gray, from subsequent explorations made by him, three years after his first expedition, and contained in his report to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. It was chiefly from the discoveries made by Gray, in this adventurous expedition, through regions unknown for many years past, between the Rio Grande and Gulf of California, together with the Gadsden Treaty, that induced parties at great expense to emigrate there, and commence working the vast mineral deposites, such as the Arabac silver mines, the Ajo copper mountain, and others, but which, through lack of proper protection and means of communication, have been greatly retarded in their development. After crossing the dividing ridge of the continent west of the Rio Grande, Gray thus alludes to the country: "There were large haciendas and fine cattle ranches in this neighborhood, until a war of extermination was declared by the Apaches against the Mexicans. Remains of the old San Pedro ranch are seen at this day; also the "Tres Alamos;" and the ruins of the hacienda of Babacomeri, whose walls and towers are still standing. These were among the wealthiest of Sonora in horses, cattle, sheep, etc., but it has been many years since. It is a fine grazing region, with wild cattle and mustangs constantly seen roaming over the plains. The district from San Pedro to Santa Cruz valley, nearly due west from our present crossing (latitude 31 degrees 34 minutes), will be to the Pacific slope what the region of Fort Chadbourne, in Texas, will be to the Atlantic. The mountains and hills are covered with splendid timber of the largest size, and for all purposes; and the valleys are full of springs, and the finest grass. To Tubac, a town in the valley of Santa Cruz, it is 69 miles. This is by following the San Pedro about a league, passing over a few insignificant spurs, and ascending the Rio Babacomeri; thence continuing westward by a gradual rise over delightful plains to the divide between that and the Sonoita or Clover creek, and along the latter, until it loses itself in the porous earth, a mile from the Santa Cruz river, and by the broad valley of that stream to Tubac." * * * * * * * * Of the line of Gray's exploration from the Rio San Pedro, he says: "It passes through the most desirable region, with the hills and mountains for forty miles, containing inexhaustible quantities of timber. We noticed tall cedar and oaks of every description; one kind more interesting than the others, being a white oak from twenty to forty feet in the body. Pine and spruce, with superior white ash and walnut, were found, and the most gigantic cotton-woods, particularly on the Sonoita. * * * * "The mountains in the neighborhood are filled with minerals, and the precious metals are said to abound. The famous Planchas de Plata and Arizona silver mines, which the Count Raouset de Boulbon attempted to take possession of, are in this section of country, not many miles below the present limits, and at several of the old ranchos and deserted mining villages which we visited, were found the argentiferous galena ore and gold. The Sierra Santa Rita runs along to the east of the Santa Cruz valley, and forms a part of this interesting region. It is very high and bold, filled with fertile valleys and flowing rivulets, and covered with a dense growth of timber. I saw much of this district, when here in 1851, on the survey of the boundary." * * * * * * * * The country bordering immediately the head of the Gulf of California, through which Gray was probably the first to penetrate, lies adjacent to the proposed Arizona Territory, but not a part of the same, being a portion of the State of Sonora. He thus describes that section: "The Indians represent rich Placers existing throughout this region, and large numbers of them had lately come in with considerable quantities of the dust. They were trading it for trifles to the Mexicans. I got some specimens of it which was the same as the California Gold. This was not the time of year (June) for them to work the mines, but in the fall, after the rain has commenced. The greatest drawback to the profitable working of the Placers of this district, is the scarcity of water. If artesian wells succeed, there is little doubt that it will create an important change. West from Tuseon and Tubac, towards the Gulf of California, the country presents more the appearance of a barren waste or desert than any district I have seen. It nevertheless has occasional oases, with fine grazing lands about them, and the mountains, which are more broken and detached, have distinct marks of volcanic origin. The ranges though short, have generally the same parallel direction as those further east. It is the country of the Papago Indians, a peaceful and friendly tribe, extending down to the Gulf coast, where they are mixed up somewhat with the Cocopas of the Colorado. From Sonoita I explored to the Gulf shore, near the mouth of Adair Bay. It was 62 miles, following a dry arroya most of the way, and the point at which I struck the Gulf was in latitude 31 degrees 36 minutes 34 minutes. The "Bay" is about 15 miles across, and from all I could learn, 15 miles long, and represented as having four fathoms of water. It is completely encircled by a range of sand hills, reaching north-west to the Colorado river and south-east as far as the eye could discover. These "sables" are probably eighty or ninety miles in extent, by five to ten broad. "Notwithstanding it appears to be the most desolate and forlorn-looking spot for eighty miles around the head of the Gulf, the sand hills looking like a terrible desert, nature seems even here, where no rain had fallen for eight months, to have provided for the sustenance of man, one of the most nutritious and palatable vegetables. "East of the Tinaja Alta or high tank range, lie the famous Sierras del Ajo, now United States territory. These mountains derive their name from the vast deposits of red oxide and green carbonate of copper found about them, and which the Indians have made use of to paint (ajo) themselves with. The mines are unquestionably of great value, and must become important, more particularly from their being situated in the neighborhood of the contemplated railway. The tall Cereus Giganteus and Agave Americana are found in abundance. From the latter plant the natives make the pulque, mezcal and agua-diente; and the petahaya or cereus, produces a fruit from which is made a very pleasant preserve. At the Pimo and Maricopa villages are found wheat, corn, tobaco, and cotton, besides melons, pumpkins, beans, etc. The nature of the soil for great distances in the Gila valley is of a reddish loam; some parts coated with a beautiful crystallization of salt, a quarter to half an inch thick. This seems to be more particularly the case below the Maricopa villages and toward the Rio Salado. The cotton, of which I procured specimens, though cultivated by the Indians in the most primitive manner, exhibited a texture not unlike the celebrated Sea Island cotton. Its fibre is exceedingly soft and silky, but not of the longest staple. Large tracts of land on the Gila and in other portions of this district, appear to possess the same properties of soil; and where, I have no doubt, the finest cotton will soon be extensively raised and brought to its highest state of perfection by proper cultivation." The climate is thus referred to by Gray: "One of the most favorable features upon the route in the vicinity of the 32nd degree proposed for the Pacific railway is, its accessibility at all times, admitting of labor being performed in the open air at each season. The nature of the climate through Texas to the Rio Grande has already been referred to, and from thence to the Santa Cruz valley half way to the Colorado, over the elevated plateau of the Sierra Madra, it is equally salubrious and temperate. The rainy season falls in the summer months, and but seldom is snow seen even upon the mountain tops. Towards the Colorado river it is much drier and more torrid, but by no means unhealthy; nor does it prevent out door work the whole of the day during the heated term of summer. "The great riches of the country, however, are a total waste at the present time, but which the Pacific railroad will at once develop, and make to itself the foundation of a vast revenue. I refer to its metallic wealth, the silver, gold, and copper mines that abound in almost every mountain and valley, between the Rio Grande and the Gulf of California. "The ores of Chihuahua and Sonora [now Arizona. S. M.] are chiefly sulphuret (lead or iron), or native silver in porphyritic or stratified limestone rocks passing at greater depths into igneous rocks. From loose piles lying upon the surface and evidently picked over, I procured specimens of silver and copper. Three samples representing points on the line of our exploration about equi-distant from each other, viz.: the Rio Grande, the neighborhood of Tubac, and within 90 miles of the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers, were submitted to Dr. I. K. Chilton, of New York, for analysis. He found in one sample of lead ore (argentiferous galena), by fire assay 71 per cent. of lead, and the "LEAD YIELDED SILVER EQUIVALENT to 128 ounces, 1 dwt. to the ton" (of 2000 pounds). "In another, he found the lead obtained from it to yield silver in the proportion of 72 ounces 5 dwts. to the ton or 2000 pounds. "The copper specimen was the red oxide, and yielded as follows: Copper,............ 71.80 Iron,.............. 7.84 Oxygen,............ 12.34 Silicia, Alumina,.. 8.02 ------ 100 parts. "The Papagos and Pimas Indians, by proper management, might be made very useful, in working upon the road where there is not much rock excavation. They are unlike the Indians of Texas, or the Apaches, living in villages and cultivating the soil, besides manufacturing blankets, baskets, pottery, etc. Quiet and peaceable, they have no fears except from their enemies, the Apaches, and are very industrious, much more so than the lower order of Mexicans, and live far more comfortably. It is astonishing with what precision they construct their acequias--irrigating canals--some of them, the acequias madre, of very large size, and without the use of levelling apparatus, but simply by the eye. Their gardens and farms too are regularly ditched and fenced off into rectangles and circles, with hedges and trees planted as if done by more enlightened people." The population of the new Territory of Arizona is at present not far from eight thousand, and is rapidly increasing. The Mesilla Valley and the Rio Grande are probably the most thickly populated, containing about five thousand people. A majority of the Mesilla inhabitants are Mexicans, but they will be controlled by the American residents, whose number and influence is constantly on the increase. The Santa Cruz Valley, in which are situated the towns of Tueson, Tubac, Tumacacari, and the mining settlement of Sopori and others, is, next to Mesilla, the most thickly settled. Tueson was formerly a town of three thousand inhabitants; but the majority have been driven off by the Apache Indians. It is fast becoming a thriving American town, and will before long be a place of more importance than ever before. Real estate is already held at high rates, and the erection of buildings shows that American energy is about to change the face of the last half century. Tubac had been completely deserted by the Mexicans. It has been reoccupied by the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company, and now boasts a population of several hundred. The Calabazas valley is also fast filling up with an American population, and another year will see the whole centre of the Territory dotted with settlements. Many of the fine claims on the San Pedro River have already been located by emigrants under the general pre-emption law, but until protection is afforded to the settlers, but little progress will be made in agricultural pursuits. The Apache Indian regards the soil as his own, and having expelled the Spanish and Mexican invader, he feels little inclination to submit to the American. A small settlement of Americans is growing up at Colorado city, opposite Fort Yuma, at the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers. This point is destined to be one of great commercial and pecuniary importance. Situated at the present head of navigation, at the point where the overland mail route crosses the Colorado, and where the Southern Pacific Railroad must bridge the stream, it is a necessary stopping place for all travel across the country. Here are transhipped all the ores coming from the Territory, which find their way to market down the Colorado to the Gulf of California, thence by steamer or sailing vessel to their destination. Here all supplies of merchandise for the Territory are landed, and from this point forwarded to their various owners. A thriving commerce has already sprung up between Arizona and San Francisco. In almost any daily paper in San Francisco may be seen vessels advertised for the mouth of the Colorado. Two steamers find active employment in transporting government stores from the head of the Gulf of California to Fort Yuma, and goods to Colorado city for the merchants of Tueson, Tubac, Calabazas, and for the mining companies. Should the exploration of the Upper Colorado by Lieutenant Ives, United States Army, now in progress, prove successful, Colorado city will become still more important, as the surplus products of the rich valleys of New Mexico, Utah, and California to the north, will all find a market down the Colorado. Property in this new city is held at high rates, and by the last San Francisco News Letter is quoted at an advance. The population of Arizona Territory has much increased within a few months by emigration from California. The massacre of Henry A. Crabbe and his party by the Mexicans at Cavorca created a desire for revenge throughout all California. Companies have been formed, and large parties are settling in Arizona, near the Mexican line, with the ulterior object of overrunning Sonora, and revenging the tragedy in which was shed some of the best blood of the State. The appropriation by the last Congress of two hundred thousand dollars for the construction of a wagon road from El Paso to Fort Yuma, and the two mail contracts, semi-monthly and semi-weekly, which involve an expenditure of nine hundred thousand dollars per annum, will afford employment to a host of people, and draw at once to the neighborhood of the route an active and energetic population. The new wagon and mail route traverses the Territory of Arizona throughout its entire length. Along the mail route, at intervals, military posts will be established. These and the necessary grazing stations will create points around which settlements will at once grow up, and the country, now bare, will show everywhere thriving villages. The Southern Pacific Railroad, which will be built because it is necessary to the country, will find its way easily through Arizona. It is no exaggeration to say that the mining companies, in their own interest, will be forced to subscribe enough to the stock of the company to insure its success. The Arizona Copper Mining Company is now paying $100 per ton for the transportation of its ores from the mines to Colorado city. One year's freight money at this rate would build many miles of the road. The silver mining companies will be only too glad to get their ores to market at so cheap a rate, as their proportion of the subscription to the railroad. Iron and coal are both found in the Territory,--the former especially in great abundance. Texas has guaranteed the road to El Paso, by her generous legislation; Arizona will build it, with her mineral wealth, to Fort Yuma, the eastern boundary of California, and California will do the rest. The first terminus of the Southern Pacific Railroad will doubt less be on the Gulf of California, at the Island of Tiburon, or more probably Guyamas. A steam ferry across the Gulf, a short railroad across the peninsula of Lower California to a secure harbor on the Pacific, (where a steamer will take passengers and freight in four days to San Francisco,) is the most natural course of this route. In view of this probability, all the available points for such a terminus on the Gulf have been, or are in progress of being, secured by capitalists, either by obtaining grants from the Mexican Government, or by purchase from private individuals. Already Guyamas is owned in great part by English and American capitalists. A port on the Gulf of California is necessary to our Pacific possessions, and must be ours sooner or later. The longer it is delayed, the worse for American progress on the Pacific. Arizona needs it at once, as a depot for the export of her ores, and for the import of goods for the supply of her population. The Mormon war has closed for years the great emigrant road to California and Oregon, over the South Pass and Salt Lake valley, leaving open only the route along the 32d parallel of latitude, through Arizona. This route is by far the most practicable at all seasons of the year, and the closing of the South Pass route by the Mormon difficulty is an additional and urgent argument in favor of the early organization of this Territory. Fifty thousand souls will move towards the Pacific early in the spring, if the route is opened to a secure passage. The present condition of Arizona Territory is deplorable in the extreme. Throughout the whole country there is no redress for crimes or civil injuries--no courts, no law, no magistrates. The Territory of New Mexico, to which it is attached by an act of Congress, affords it neither protection nor sustenance. The following extracts from letters received by the writer tell the story of the necessity for early action on the part of Congress, in urgent terms. TUBAC, GADSDEN PURCHASE, August 15, 1857. Affairs in the Territory have not improved. A party of Americans (our countrymen) had made an "excursion" into Sonora, captured a train of mules, and killed several Mexicans. Upon their return to the Territory with their ill-gotten booty, the citizens formed a company and took the property away from them, and returned it to the owners in Magdalena, [a town of Sonora--Ed.] and delivered the robbers up to Major Steen, commanding first dragoons, to be held in custody until Courts should be organized. They have again been turned loose upon the community. In justice to Major Fitzgerald I must say he was in favor of retaining them in custody, and has generally maintained favoring law and order in the Territory, but as he is only second in command he has no absolute authority. We have no remedy but to follow the example so wide spread in the Union, and form a "Vigilance Committee"--contrary to all good morals, law, order, and society. Can you do nothing to induce the government to establish authority and law in this country, and avert this unhappy alternative? It is not desired by any good citizens, and tends to anarchy and mobocracy, causing disloyalty in our own citizens and bringing the reproach of foreigners upon our republican institutions. It is impossible to progress in developing the resources of the country under this state of affairs. The greatest objection the capitalists of San Francisco have to aiding me in the development of silver mines, is the insecurity of property, want of protection from government, and general distrust of fair and honest legislation. They have no confidence that the guarantees of the GADSDEN TREATY will be respected by the United States, in regard to land titles under the Mexican government. The silver ore brought to San Francisco from our mines, has been tested by a dozen different officers, in as many different ways, and no result falls BELOW FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER TON OF ORE. Senator Gwin goes on to Washington soon, and will corroborate my statements. He has a piece of the silver, the first smelted in San Francisco, showing $8,735 20--EIGHT THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIVE 20-100 DOLLARS PER TON OF ORE. Mr. Dunbar is getting the petition to Congress signed--and moving in the affairs of the Territory in connection with Mr. Ehrenberg and our friends--but the government came near "crushing us out" by sending a Custom House Collector to consume and destroy what little we had saved from the Apaches. Can nothing be done to rid us of a Custom House? It is no protection. The Territory (as yet) produces nothing but minerals--and we have to pay duty upon every article of consumption. This is a very onerous tax upon our first feeble efforts to develop the resources of this remote and unprotected country. Very truly yours, C. D. Poston. To Lieut. Mowry, U. S. A., Washington, D. C. "We are living without the protection of law or the ameliorations of society. New Mexico affords us no protection. We have not even received an order for election. Every one goes armed to the teeth, and a difficulty is sure to prove fatal. In this state of affairs it is impossible to hold a convention." Tueson, Oct. 1, 1857. We are pleased to hear that the prospect for Arizona is so bright. If you should succeed in getting a separate organization for Arizona, you will lay the people under many obligations to you. You have no doubt received many petitions for Congress, and also your certificate of election as delegate for this purchase. You received the entire vote; there was no difference of opinion among the voters. Your ob't serv't, J. A. Douglas. Lt. Mowry, U. S. A. Tucson, Oct. 25, 1857. I send you the last petition from the Territory. The work is now in your hands, and we say, God speed it. G. H. Oury. Tueson, Arizona Territory, Oct. 17, 1857. Every thing begins to look up in the Territory notwithstanding the difficulties we labor under. The Indians the other day came within eight hundred yards of Fort Buchanan and remained some time, and when they left carried off with them all the horses and mules in the valley for six or eight miles below. Try your hand in this matter of our Territory, and see if some change cannot be wrought to some benefit--we need it greatly. Very truly yours, G. H. Oury. Tueson, Oct. 2, 1857. We have heard from Mesilla and they fully concur with us in all we have done, showing that you are the person chosen to act for them and to represent their interest in this matter. The people here are very much elated at the turn things are taking, and every one seems to be highly pleased with the course you have pursued. An election was held on the first Monday in September, at which you received all the votes given, and a certificate of your election, signed by the judges and clerks, has been forwarded to you. The country is being settled very fast, and there is somewhat of a stir to obtain cultivated lands. The lands already under cultivation are now fifty per cent. higher than a short time back. The great misfortune we labor under is want of protection. Thousands and thousands of acres of land, as rich and fertile as any on the face of the globe, lie idle and useless because they are not protected from the Apaches. We want only one thing besides the Territorial organization, and that is PROTECTION. Very truly yours, S. Warner. Oct. 8, 1857. The guerilla warfare on the Sonora frontier continues with increased aggravation. We look for the happiest result from the exploration of this interesting region of the Colorado, about to be explored by Lieut. Ives, U. S. A. The ores from the Heintzelman mine took the premium at the mechanics' fair in San Francisco, just closed, where the ores from California and the western coast were on exhibition. So, Arizona leads California, the great mineral State. All we need is good government and honest, liberal legislation to make Arizona equal in production of precious metals, if not exceed, California. Yours truly, C. D. Poston. Lt. Mowry, U. S. A. Fort Yuma, June 2, 1857. News has just come in from the Arizona which represent an awful state of affairs. During the time Mr. Belknap was below at Sonora it was unsafe for him to go out unless accompanied by his friend, Don Gaudaloupe Orosco, and even then it was very dangerous. No news from Sonora nor even an arrival for the last twenty days. God knows what is going on; though of one thing we are certain--no American, never mind whatsoever he may be, can go into Sonora, with or without a passport. Very sincerely yours, P. R. Brady. Aug. 5, 1850. The condition of the purchase has been extremely bad since the unfortunate and injudicious expedition of Crabbe into Sonora, and at the present time is but little better than a field of guerilla warfare, robbery and plunder. The exasperated state of feeling between the Mexicans and Americans prevents intercourse and commerce, upon which the Territory is dependent. Americans are afraid to venture into Sonora for supplies, and Mexicans afraid to venture over the line. Americans who had nothing to do with the fillibustering invasion have been treated badly in Sonora and driven out of the country, and Mexicans coming into the purchase with supplies and animals have been robbed and plundered by the returned fillibusters. The Americans in the Territory are by no means harmonious on these subjects--some in favor of filibustering and others opposed to it; some in favor of murdering and robbing Mexicans wherever found, and others opposed to it. It results that we are in a state of anarchy, and there is no government, no protection to life, property, or business; no law and no self-respect or morality among the people. We are living in a perfect state of nature, without the restraining influence of civil or military law, or the amelioration of society. There have not been many conflicts and murders, because every man goes armed to the teeth, and a difficulty is always fatal on one side or the other. In the midst of all this, the Government has blessed us with a custom house at Calabazos to collect duties upon the necessaries of life which, by chance and "running the gauntlet," we may get from Sonora. God send that we had been left alone with the Apaches. We should have been a thousand times better off in every respect. In this state of affairs it is scarcely to be expected that the people will meet together in a convention; there was no arrangement for that purpose up to the time of my leaving, and none could be made. We have never had any orders of election from Santa Fe, nor heard of any convention. Yours truly, C. D. Poston. Major Fitzgerald, U. S. A., whose long experience on the Pacific coast makes his opinion very valuable, in a letter dated Fort Buchanan, Arizona, Sept. 17th, 1854, says: "The citizens of this country are very desirous of a territorial organization, with its courts, &c. Murders are committed and stock is stolen by white men with impunity. There is no court nearer than the Rio Grande (300 miles) to take cognizance of crime. Some few of the emigrants of this year have remained in the Santa Cruz valley. More would have done so, no doubt, if they had not started from the States originally with stock for the California market. The country around us is now beautiful. It has been raining almost daily since the 1st of July, and the vegetation is most luxuriant. Many of the Mexican citizens come over the line for purposes of trade, bringing flour, fruit, and leather. If there was no custom house at Calabazas, these articles could be had very cheaply. We have very excellent gardens, and plenty of vegetables. There is said to be a good deal of cultivable land on the upper Gila, and if a territory is created, it should embrace this. This would also include a large part of the Colorado valley above the junction of the Gila. That you may succeed in your wishes with regard to Arizona, is the sincere desire of Your friend and obliged serv't, E. H. Fitzgerald." Lt. Mowry, U. S. A. A subsequent letter from Major Fitzgerald dated Oct. 1st, says Tueson contains rising five hundred inhabitants, the remainder of the Santa Cruz altogether enough to make considerable over a thousand, independent of the population towards and upon the Gila and Colorado, of which he remarks, "You know more than I." "There is not a doubt but that upon the location of the mail route, there will be a considerable emigration to this country, and if a portion of Sonora be organized, large numbers will come both from the East and West. The country is an excellent one for stock of all kinds, of which there were great numbers where the Apaches were gathered under the wing of the Catholic church. The valleys of Santa Cruz, San Pedro, and Upper Gila, and also that of Messilla, contain large bodies of productive lands, and all the cereals grow luxuriantly therein. THAT THERE IS MUCH SILVER IN THE TERRITORY THERE IS NO DOUBT, but it requires capital to develop it. As yet but little progress has been made in mining. Evidences of old works are seen on many of the water courses, but operations have not yet been recommenced, except at Arizona, Sopori, and Ariaola, principally because the country is very partially settled, and it is not safe to be at any distance from the mass of the population, and the troops. Copper ore is found in many localities, but little gold is yet discovered. If the road from El Paso to Fort Yuma be located by Parke's route, as many suppose, A FINE COUNTRY WILL BE OPENED on the Gila and Lower San Pedro, which will produce ample supplies. The Territory presents no difficulties of importance to the successful establishment of the road. Frequent stations and PROPER PROTECTION ARE ONLY REQUISITE TO ENSURE SUCCESS AS COMPLETELY AS THE MOST SANGUINE ANTICIPATE. Should Sonora, or even a portion of it be organized, this will be one of the most pleasant localities of our country. A delightful climate, plenty of fine fruit, facility of supply by a port on the Pacific, semi-weekly mails from the east and west,--are only some of the attractions which it would possess. Sonora is quiet. Many of the wealthy men there are in favor of annexation, it is said, but they have to keep silent on the subject for fear of noisy patriots, who would proclaim them traitors at once, if they made a parade of their inclinations. The San Antonio and San Deigo mail passes through Tueson once a fortnight, and seems to have met with no important obstacle yet. A drove of mules accompanies it, which are harnessed in turn. When regular stations are established its speed will be much increased. My last letter was not written with a view of the use being made of it you mentioned, yet if it answers a good purpose, I have no objection. It was but a careless note, but its contents were truths, nevertheless." (This note demonstrated the facility of supply for the Territory from the Pacific.) "Most truly your friend, (Signed,) E. H. Fitzgerald." Tubac, Gadsden's Purchase, 22d Oct., 1857. "We have of late been seriously annoyed by the Apaches. Nearly all the animals belonging to the citizens residing around Fort Buchanan have been driven off by the Apaches. They are very impudent, and commit their depredations in broad day-light, talk to the people while they are driving off the animals, and always escape without being molested. The other day they came within 800 yards of the Fort and looked down upon it. In order to bring them to terms the Government ought to enlist 1000 Pinos and Papagos to accompany the military. Indians are the only persons who can successfully traverse these mountains and hunt up their hiding places. If this is not done, they will surely break up our settlements here. Forts ought to be established in the very heart of the Apache country, in the places fit, and used by them for cultivation. If this is done we will soon bring them to terms. Until now, our mining establishments have not been molested by them, and we are going on in high glee. This is undoubtedly the richest silver mining country in the world. If the United States will make just and liberal laws for us; give us protection; remove those trifling and unprofitable custom houses on the frontier, at least for 5 or 6 years; procure us a transit through Sonora to Guaymas, and hasten along the rail-road to California, this will indeed be a prosperous country, and will astonish the world with its production of silver and copper. But with such terrible obstacles as those mentioned above and the great length of transit to transport goods over the roads which we have to take at present, progress only is possible for such as find mines of the extraordinary and incredible richness of the Heintzelman vein. If the present promises of few of these mines are realized, by working them on a scale commensurate with their extent and richness, I have no doubt but that they will equal in production the whole silver exports of Mexico. I think an appropriation ought to be made to sink artesian wells through the Papagos country, between San Xavier and the lower Gila. This route cuts off about 100 miles from the best route via the Pinos villages. It is laid down on my map, as a rail-road route, now at the office of the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company, at Cincinnati, Ohio. The country consists of a succession of plains and isolated mountain ridges, none of which need to be crossed. In fact it is a dead level to Fort Yuma, and, in consequence, no grading is necessary. There is scarcity of water, but the soil in general is excellent and grass abounds all along the line, while the mountains teem with minerals of the richest description. The oxides and the sulphurets of copper are the most beautiful and richest in the world. Silver undoubtedly exists of equal richness. All the foothills contain gold, but I hardly think it will be extracted by the whites, as the localities are devoid of water, and they are not probably rich enough to pay without sluicing on an extensive scale." I am, sir, very respectfully, your most obedient servant, Herman Ehrenberg. To Lieut. S. Mowry, U. S. A., Delegate elect from Arizona, Washington, D. C. The only comment the writer has to make upon these statements is, that two years' residence among and acquaintance with the people of Arizona, has convinced him of their absolute truth. At the last session of Congress a petition was presented, praying for a separate Territorial organization. The necessity for some legislation was admitted by both Senate and House; and bills creating a separate judicial district and land offices, passed both Houses, but owing to some minor differences and the lateness of the session, the bills failed to become a law. With an increased population and prolonged grievances, the people of Arizona are again about to present themselves as supplicants for that right inherent in the American heart--the right of self-government--and of protection under the law. Their petition sets forth in brief, plain terms, their situation and necessities, and prays simply for a separation from New Mexico and a Territorial organization under the name of Arizona. As a matter of necessity for the successful carriage of the mail across the country, this Territorial organization is imperative. No contract for labor or supplies can be enforced in the present condition of the country. Courts of law must be established, with officers to enforce their mandates, or the contractors will be utterly unable to carry out their contract. The great necessity of a safe and speedy overland communication with the Pacific, has directed public attention to the organization of Arizona as a separate Territory, and the desired legislation has received the unanimous endorsement of the press of the whole country. Petitions with thousands of signatures from leading citizens of the majority of the states of the Union, will be presented to Congress asking for the immediate organization of the new Territory as the best means to at once open a highway to the Pacific; and so important has this view of the question been deemed as to call from the President of the United States a recommendation in his message to Congress. No opposition has been made to the most just prayer of the people of Arizona, and it is believed that none will be made, unless it comes from New Mexico. It must be born in mind that the Gadsden Purchase was not originally an integral part of New Mexico; that it was acquired years after the treaty of Gaudaloupe Hidalgo, and was only attached to the territory of New Mexico as a temporary expedient. It must also be remembered that the Gadsden Purchase, with the portion of New Mexico which it is proposed to include within the limits of the territory of Arizona, is separated from New Mexico proper by natural boundaries; that it derives no benefit from the present connection, and that any opposition to the desired legislation arises from the Mexican population, which fears the influence of a large American emigration. Moreover, that New Mexico contains upwards of 200,000 square miles, and that its organic act provides for its partition; showing clearly that Congress anticipated, at no remote day, the settlement of the country by an American population, and its erection into several territories and states. The only effect of the present connection of Arizona with New Mexico is to crush out the voice and sentiment of the American people in the territory; and years of emigration, under present auspices, would not serve to counterbalance or equal the influence of the 60,000 Mexican residents of New Mexico. New Mexico has never encouraged American population. She is thoroughly Mexican in sentiment, and desires to remain so. As a matter of State policy, the organization of Arizona is of the first importance. Situated between New Mexico and Sonora, it is possible now to make it a thoroughly American State, which will constantly exert its influence in both directions, to nationalize the other two. New Mexico is at present thoroughly Mexican in its character and vote. Sonora, if we acquire it at once, will be the same. By separating Arizona from it, and encouraging an American emigration, it will become "the leaven which shall leaven the whole lump." By allowing it to remain attached to New Mexico, or by attaching it to Sonora when acquired, the American influence will be swallowed up in the great preponderance of the Mexican vote. The Apache Indian is preparing Sonora for the rule of a higher civilization than the Mexican. In the past half century, the Mexican element has disappeared from what is now called Arizona, before the devastating career of the Apache. It is every day retreating further South, leaving to us, when it is ripe for our possession, the territory without the population. The incentives to emigration to Arizona, in addition to the charm which the discovery of mineral wealth carries to every mind, are very great. The writer, in an extended tour through the Southern States, found many people, mostly young men of moderate means, ready and anxious to emigrate. The movement is still stronger in Southwestern States, and already many a train of wagons is on its way. It will have no end for years, for so mild and healthy is the climate that emigration is practicable at all seasons. Snow never lies on the soil, and frost is almost unknown. The contracts already authorized by Congress involve the expenditure of six millions of dollars in the next six years; the troops in the Territory will cost as much more. Here is enough money in hard sub-treasury coin, to draw a large population, independent of other considerations. All ready in many places the enterprising merchant exposes his stock of goods only two months from San Francisco, but he does it with the prayer that the Apache may pass him by, and too often he sees his hard-earned profits disappear before the Indian's successful foray. The establishment of a firm government in Arizona will extend the protection of the United States over American citizens resident in the adjoining Mexican provinces. This protection is most urgently demanded. Englishmen in Sonora enjoy not only perfect immunity in the pursuit of business, but also encouragement. Americans are robbed openly by Mexican officials, insulted, thrown into prison, and sometimes put to death. No redress is ever demanded or received. This state of things has so long existed that the name of American has become a byword and a reproach in northern Mexico, and the people of that frontier believe that we have neither the power nor the inclination to protect our own citizens. The influence of a Territorial government, with the tide of American emigration which will surely follow it, must entirely change the tone and temper of these Mexican States. The population of Arizona to-day, exceeds that of Washington Territory, and is far greater than was that of Minnesota, Kansas or Nebraska, at the time of their organization. An election for a Delegate has been held, at which several hundred votes were polled, and the writer returned without opposition. The unsettled and dangerous condition of the country prevented a convention being held, but letters have been received from all parts of the Territory, expressing a hearty concurrence in the election on the part of those unable to vote, and an earnest desire for the Territorial organization. A number of gentlemen at present in Washington, can testify from actual observation, to the truth of the statements here made in reference to Arizona--among them I am permitted to name General Anderson, late U. S. Senator from Tennessee, who almost alone, with rare perseverance and courage, explored, in 1850, the whole length of the Territory, Major Heintzelman, U. S. A., whose long station at Fort Yuma made him acquainted with the resources of the country, and who has shown at once his intelligence and foresight and his faith in the prospective wealth of the silver region, by large investments of capital, Col. A. B. Gray, late U. S. Surveyor of the Mexican Boundary line, I. Smith McMicken, Esq., whose residence for many years on the Mexican frontier has entitled his opinion to some weight, and A. H. Campbell, Esq., Superintendent of Wagon Roads, whose information is full and reliable. To these names it may not be improper to add that of the writer, who has for two years past, while residing at the junction of the Gila and Colorado Rivers, made the new Territory and its resources, an object of constant observation and study, and whose experience on the Pacific coast, and in the frontier Territories, and on the route across the continent, during the past five years, has enabled him to speak understandingly of the capabilities and necessities of a new country, and of a frontier people. In five years a great State may be built upon this remote frontier, and a population gathered, such as will, when we make further acquisition of territory, spread at once over it, diffusing national sentiment and extending the area of American principles. Aside from these considerations, justice and humanity, imperatively demand that Congress shall bear and at once answer the prayer of the people of Arizona for protection. If these considerations fail, then they offer INTEREST; for the organization of the Territory is the guarantee of a supply of silver, which will create as great a revolution in the commercial world as has the gold of California. Arizona will be known as the silver State, and the prediction of Humboldt, that the balance between gold and silver, destroyed by the California discoveries, would one day be restored, will be made good, from the resources of the Gadsden purchase. TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED: The undersigned, your humble petitioners, citizens of the United States, and residents of the Territory known as the Gadsden Purchase, respectfully represent: That since the annexation of their Territory to the United States, they have been totally unprotected from Indian depredations and civil crimes. That the protection of the Mexican Government has been with drawn, and that it has not been replaced by any visible protection from the United States. That the annexation of the Purchase to New Mexico, carried with it no protection for life or property. That the present force of United States troops, four companies of dragoons, reduced by desertion and death to about one half, is entirely inadequate to protect us against the depredations of the Apaches. That many of your petitioners have expended their time and means in opening and prospecting rich mines of Copper and Silver, and have been driven from them by the Indians--losing their all, and also many valuable lives. That the Territory is immensely rich in minerals, especially Silver and Copper; and, as your petitioners most firmly believe, the development of these mines will make a change in the currency of the world, only equalled by that caused by the gold mines of California. That a great part of the Territory, between the Rio Grande and Tueson, is susceptible of cultivation and will support a large agricultural population. That this portion of the Territory is in the hands of the Apaches, and useless, unless redeemed from their grasp and protected to the farmer. That the highways of the Territory are stained with the blood of citizens of the United States, shed by Indians and by public marauders, who commit their crimes in open day, knowing there is no law to restrain and no magistrate to arrest them. That this Territory, under a separate organization, would attract a large population and become immediately developed: and, that its isolation--its large Indian population--its proximity to a semi-civilized Mexican province, and its peculiar and wonderful resources, demand protection from the Government more emphatically than any other territory yet recognised. That our soil has been stained with the blood of American citizens, shed by Mexican hands, in an armed invasion of our Territory near Sonoita, and that there is no civil magistrate or officer here to even protest against such an outrage. That throughout their whole Territory, from the Rio Grande to the Rio Colorado, six hundred miles, there is no Court of Record, and no redress except that inefficiently administered in a Justice's Court, for civil injuries or crimes. That the population of the Territory is much greater than was that of Kansas or Nebraska or Washington Territory, at the time of their organization, and that it is steadily increasing, and will, under the influence of the Road and Mail Bills of the last Congress, be greatly augmented. That there are no post routes or mail facilities throughout the Territory, and that finally, we are cut off from all the comforts of civilization--and that we claim, as a right, that protection which the United States should everywhere extend to her humblest citizen. Wherefore your petitioners humbly pray that the Gadsden Purchase may be separated from New Mexico and erected into a separate Territory under the name of Arizona, with such boundaries as may seem proper to your honorable bodies, and that such other legislation may be made as shall be best calculated to place us on the same footing as our more fortunate brethren of Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington, that we may be enabled to build up a prosperous and thriving State, and to nourish on this extreme frontier a healthy national sentiment. And we, as in duty bound, will ever pray. [Signed by more than five hundred resident voters.] 
16889	----	THE ENCHANTED CANYON by HONORÉ WILLSIE Author of "The Forbidden Trail," "Still Jim," "The Heart of the Desert," "Lydia of the Pines," etc. A. L. Burt Company Publishers -------- New York Published by arrangement with William Morrow and Company, Inc. Copyright, 1921, by Honoré Willsie Morrow All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS BOOK I BRIGHT ANGEL Chapter I MINETTA LANE II BRIGHT ANGEL BOOK II THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR III TWENTY-TWO YEARS LATER IV DIANA ALLEN V A PHOTOGRAPHER OF INDIANS VI A NEWSPAPER REPORTER BOOK III THE ENCHANTED CANYON VII THE DESERT VIII THE COLORADO IX THE CLIFF DWELLING X THE EXPEDITION BEGINS XI THE PERFECT ADVENTURE XII THE END OF THE CRUISE XIII GRANT'S CROSSING XIV LOVE IN THE DESERT BOOK IV THE PHANTASM DESTROYED XV THE FIRING LINE AGAIN XVI CURLY'S REPORT XVII REVENGE IS SWEET BOOK I BRIGHT ANGEL CHAPTER I MINETTA LANE "A boy at fourteen needs a mother or the memory of a mother as he does at no other period of his life."--_Enoch's Diary_. Except for its few blocks that border Washington Square, MacDougal Street is about as squalid as any on New York's west side. Once it was aristocratic enough for any one, but that was nearly a century ago. Alexander Hamilton's mansion and Minetta Brook are less than memories now. The blocks of fine brick houses that covered Richmond Hill are given over to Italian tenements. Minetta Brook, if it sings at all, sings among the sewers far below the dirty pavements. But Minetta Lane still lives, a short alley that debouches on MacDougal Street. Edgar Allan Poe once strolled on summer evenings through Minetta Lane with his beautiful Annabel Lee. But God pity the sweethearts to-day who must have love in its reeking precincts! It is a lane of ugliness, now; a lane of squalor; a lane of poverty and hopelessness spelled in terms of filth and decay. About midway in the Lane stands a two-story, red-brick house with an exquisite Georgian doorway. The wrought-iron handrail that borders the crumbling stone steps is still intact. The steps usually are crowded with dirty, quarreling children and a sore-eyed cat or two. Nobody knows and nobody cares who built the house. Enough that it is now the home of poverty and of ways that fear the open light of day. Just when the decay of the old dwelling began there is none to say. But New Yorkers of middle age recall that in their childhood the Lane already had been claimed by the slums, with the Italian influx just beginning. One winter afternoon a number of years ago a boy stood leaning against the iron newel post of the old house, smoking a cigarette. He was perhaps fourteen or fifteen years of age, but he might have been either older or younger. The city gives even to children a sophisticated look that baffles the casual psychologist. The children playing on the steps behind the boy were stocky, swarthy Italians. But he was tall and loosely built, with dark red hair and hard blue eyes. He was thin and raw boned. Even his smartly cut clothes could not hide his extreme awkwardness of body, his big loose joints, his flat chest and protruding shoulder blades. His face, too, could not have been an Italian product. The cheek bones were high, the cheeks slightly hollowed, the nose and lips were rough hewn. The suave lines of the three little Latins behind him were entirely alien to this boy's face. It was warm and thawing so that the dead horse across the street, with the hugely swollen body, threw off an offensive odor. "Smells like the good ol' summer time," said the boy, nodding his head toward the horse and addressing the rag picker who was pulling a burlap sack into the basement. "Like ta getta da skin. No good now though," replied Luigi. "You gotta da rent money, Nucky?" "Got nuttin'," Nucky's voice was bitter. "That brown Liz you let in last night beats the devil shakin' dice." "We owe three mont' now, Nucky," said the Italian. "Yes, and how much trade have I pulled into your blank blank second floor for you durin' the time, you blank blank! If I hear any more about the rent, I'll split on you, you--" But before Nucky could continue his cursing, the Italian broke in with a volubility of oaths that reduced the boy to sullen silence. Having eased his mind, Luigi proceeded to drag the sack into the basement and slammed the door. "Nucky! Nucky! He's onlucky!" sang one of the small girls on the crumbling steps. "You dry up, you little alley cat!" roared the boy. "You're just a bastard!" screamed the child, while her playmates took up the cry. Nucky lighted a fresh cigarette and moved hurriedly up toward MacDougal Street. Once having turned the corner, he slackened his gait and climbed into an empty chair in the bootblack stand that stood in front of the Café Roma. The bootblack had not finished the first shoe when a policeman hoisted himself into the other chair. "How are you, Nucky?" he grunted. "All right, thanks," replied the boy, an uneasy look softening his cold eyes for the moment. "Didn't keep the job I got you, long," the officer said. "What was the rip this time?" "Aw, I ain't goin' to hold down ho five-dollar-a-week job. What do you think I am?" "I think you are a fool headed straight for the devil," answered the officer succinctly. "Now listen to me, Nucky. I've knowed you ever since you started into the school over there. I mind how the teacher told me she was glad to see one brat that looked like an old-fashioned American. And everything the teachers and us guys at the police station could do to keep you headed right, we've done. But you just won't have it. You've growed up with just the same ideas the young toughs have 'round here. All you know about earnin' money is by gambling." Nucky stirred, but the officer put out his hand. "Hold on now, fer I'm servin' notice on you. You've turned down every job we got you. You want to keep on doing Luigi's dirty work for him. Very well! Go to it! And the next time we get the goods on you, you'll get the limit. So watch yourself!" "Everybody's against a guy!" muttered the boy, "Everybody's against a fool that had rather be crooked than straight," returned the officer. Nucky, his face sullen, descended from the chair, paid the boy and headed up MacDougal Street toward the Square. A tall, dark woman, dressed in black entered the Square as Nucky crossed from Fourth Street. Nucky overtook her. "Are you comin' round to-night, Liz?" he asked. She looked at him with liquid brown eyes over her shoulder. "Anything better there than there was last night?" she asked. Nucky nodded eagerly. "You'll be surprised when you see the bird I got lined up." Liz looked cautiously round the park, at the children shouting on the wet pavements, at the sparrows quarreling in the dirty snow drifts. Then she started, nervously, along the path. "There comes Foley!" she exclaimed. "What's he doin' off his beat?" "He's seen us now," said Nucky. "We might as well stand right here." "Oh, I ain't afraid of that guy!" Liz tossed her head. "I got things on him, all right." "Why don't you use 'em?" Nucky's voice was skeptical. "He's going down Waverly Place, the blank, blank!" Liz grunted. "He's got too much on me! I ain't hopin' to start trouble. You go chase yourself, Nucky. I'll be round about midnight." Nucky's chasing himself consisted of the purchase of a newspaper which he read for a few minutes in the sunshine of the park. Even as he sat on the park bench, apparently absorbed in the paper, there was an air of sullen unhappiness about the boy. Finally, he tossed the paper aside, and sat with folded arms, his chin on his breast. Officer Foley, standing on the corner of Washington Place and MacDougal Street waved a pleasant salute to a tall, gray-haired man whose automobile drew up before the corner apartment house. "How are you, Mr. Seaton?" he asked. "Rather used up, Foley!" replied the gentleman, "Rather used up! Aren't you off your beat?" The officer nodded. "Had business up here and started back. Then I stopped to watch that red-headed kid over there." He indicated the bench on which Nucky sat, all unconscious of the sharp eyes fastened on his back. "I see the red hair, anyway,"--Mr. Seaton lighted a cigar and puffed it slowly. He and Foley had been friends during Seaton's twenty years' residence on the Square. "I know you ain't been keen on boys since you lost Jack," the officer said, slowly, "but--well, I can't get this young Nucky off my mind, blast the little crook!" "So he's a crook, is he? How old is the boy?" "Oh, 'round fourteen! He's as smart as lightning and as crooked as he is smart. He turned up here when he was a little kid, with a woman who may or may not have been his mother. She lived with a Dago down in Minetta Lane. Guess the boy mighta been six years old when she died and Luigi took him on. We were all kind of proud of him at first. Teachers in school all said he was a wonder. But for two or three years he's been going wrong, stealing and gambling, and now this fellow Luigi's started a den on his second floor that we gotta clean out soon. His rag-picking's a stall. And he's using Nucky like a kid oughtn't to be used." "Why don't you people have him taken away from the Italian and a proper guardian appointed?" "Well, he's smart and we kinda hoped he'd pull up himself. We got a settlement worker interested in him and we got jobs for him, but nothing works. Judge Harmon swears he's out of patience with him and'll send him to reform school at his next offense. That'll end Nucky. He'll be a gunman by the time he's twenty." "You seem fond of the boy in spite of his criminal tendencies," said Seaton. "Aw, we all have criminal tendencies, far as that goes," growled Foley; "you and I and all of us. Don't know as I'm what you'd call fond of the kid. Maybe it's his name. Yes, I guess it's his name. Now what is your wildest guess for that little devil's name, Mr. Seaton?" The gray-hatred man shook his head. "Pat Donahue, by his hair." "But not by his face, if you could see it. His name is Enoch Huntingdon. Yes, sir, Enoch Huntingdon! What do you think of that?" The astonishment expressed in Seaton's eyes was all that the officer could desire. "Enoch Huntingdon! Why, man, that gutter rat has real blood in him, if he didn't steal the name." "No kid ever stole such a name as that," said Foley. "And for all he's homely enough to stop traffic, his face sorta lives up to his name. Want a look at him?" Mr. Seaton hesitated. The tragic death of his own boy a few years before had left him shy of all boys. But his curiosity was roused and with a sigh he nodded. Foley crossed the street, Seaton following. As they turned into the Square, Nucky saw them out of the tail of his eye. He rose, casually, but Foley forestalled his next move by calling in a voice that carried above the street noises, "Nucky! Wait a moment!" The boy stopped and stood waiting until the two men came up. Seaton eyed the strongly hewn face while the officer said, "That person you were with a bit ago, Nucky--I don't think much of her. Better cut her out." "I can't help folks talking to me, can I?" demanded the boy, belligerently. "Especially the ladies!" snorted Foley. "Regular village cut-up, you are! Well, just mind what I say," find he strolled on, followed by Seaton. "He'll never be hung for his beauty," said Seaton. "But, Foley, I'll wager you'll find that lad breeds back to Plymouth Rock!" Foley nodded. "Thought you'd be interested. Every man who's seen him is. But there's nothing doing. Nucky is a hard pill." "Maybe he needs a woman's hand," suggested Seaton, "Sometimes these hard characters are clay with the right kind of a woman." "Or the wrong kind," grunted the officer. "No, the right kind," insisted Mr. Seaton. "I'm telling you, Foley, a good woman is the profoundest influence a man can have. There's a deep within him he never gives over to a bad woman." Foley's keen gray eyes suddenly softened. He looked for a moment above the tree tops to the clouds sailing across the blue. "I guess you're right, Mr. Seaton," he said, "I guess you're right! Well, poor Nucky! And I must be getting back. Good day, Mr. Seaton." "Good day, Foley!" And Nucky, staring curiously from the Square, saw the apartment house door close on the tall, well-dressed stranger, and saw a taxi-cab driver offer a lift to his ancient enemy, Officer Foley. "Thinks he's smart, don't he!" he muttered aloud, starting slowly back toward the Café Roma. "I wonder what uplifter he's got after me now?" In the Café Roma, Nucky sat down at a little table and ordered a bowl of ministrone with red wine. He did not devour his food as the normal boy of his age would have done. He ate slowly and without appetite. When he was about half through the meal, a young Irishman in his early twenties sat down opposite him. "Hello, Nucky! What's doin'?" "Nothin' worth talking about. What's doin' with you?" "O, I been helping Marty, the Dude, out. He's going to be alderman from this ward, some day." "That's the idea!" cried Nucky. "That's what I'd like to be, a politician. I'd rather be Mayor of N' York than king of the world." "I thought you wanted to be king o' the dice throwers," laughed the young Irishman. "If I was, I'd buy myself the job of Mayor," returned Nucky. "Coming over to-night?" "I might, 'long about midnight. Anything good in sight?" "I hope so," Nucky's hard face looked for a moment boyishly worried. "Business ain't been good, eh?" "Not for me," replied Nucky. "Luigi seems to be goin' to the bank regular. You bet that guy don't risk keepin' nothin' in the house." "I shouldn't think he would with a wonder like you around," said the young Irishman with a certain quality of admiration in his voice. Nucky's thin chest swelled and he paid the waiter with an air that exactly duplicated the café manner of Marty, the Dude. Then, with a casual nod at Frank, he started back toward Luigi's, for his evening's work. It began to snow about ten o'clock that night. The piles of dirty ice and rubbish on MacDougal Street turned to fairy mountains. The dead horse in Minetta Lane might have been an Indian mound in miniature. An occasional drunken man or woman, exuding loathsome, broken sentences, reeled past Officer Foley who stood in the shadows opposite Luigi's house. He was joined silently and one at a time by half a dozen other men. Just before midnight, a woman slipped in at the front door. And on the stroke of twelve, Foley gave a whispered order. The group of officers crossed the street and one of them put a shoulder against the door which yielded with a groan. When the door of the large room on the second floor burst open, Nucky threw down his playing cards and sprang for the window. But Foley forestalled him and slipped handcuffs on him, while Nucky cursed and fought with all the venom that did the eight or ten other occupants of the room. Tables were kicked over. A small roulette board smashed into the sealed fire-place. Brown Liz broke a bottle of whiskey on an officer's helmet and the reek of alcohol merged with that of cigarette smoke and snow-wet clothes. Luigi freed himself for a moment and turned off the gas light roaring as he did so. "Get out da back room! Da backa room!" But it was a well-planned raid. No one escaped, and shortly, Nucky was climbing into the patrol wagon that had appeared silently before the door. That night he was locked in a cell with a drunken Greek. It was his first experience in a cell. Hitherto, Officer Foley had protected him from this ignominy. But Officer Foley, as he told Nucky, was through with him. The Greek, except for an occasional oath, slept soddenly. The boy crouched in a corner of the cell, breathing rapidly and staring into black space. At dawn he had not changed his position or closed his eyes. It was two days later that Officer Foley found a telephone message awaiting him in the police station. "Mr. John Seaton wants you to call him up, Foley." Foley picked up the telephone. Mr. Seaton answered at once. "It was nothing in particular, Foley, except that I wanted to tell you that the red-headed boy and his name, particularly that name, in Minetta Lane, have haunted me. If he gets in trouble again, you'd better let me know." "You're too late, Mr. Seaton! He's in up to his neck, now." The officer described the raid. "The judge has given him eighteen months at the Point and we're taking him there this afternoon." "You don't mean it! The young whelp! Foley, what he needs is a licking and a mother to love him, not reform school." "Sure, but no matter how able a New York policeman is, Mr. Seaton, he can't be a mother! And it's too late! The judge is out o' patience." "Look here, Foley, hasn't he any friends at all?" "There's several that want to be friends, but he won't have 'em. He's sittin' in his cell for all the world like a bull pup the first time he's tied." Mr. Seaton cleared his throat. "Foley, let me come round and see him before you send him over the road, will you?" "Sure, that can be fixed up. Only don't get sore when the kid snubs you." "Nothing a boy could do could hurt me, Foley. You remember that Jack was not exactly an angel." "No, that's right, but Jack was always a good sport, Mr. Seaton. That's why it's so hard to get hold of these young toughs down here! They ain't sports!" And Foley hung up the receiver with a sigh. Mr. Seaton preferred to introduce himself to Nucky. The boy was sitting on the edge of his bunk, his red hair a beautiful bronze in the dim daylight that filtered through the high window. "How are you, Enoch?" said Mr. Seaton. "My name is John Seaton. Officer Foley pointed you out to me the other day as a lad who was making bad use of a good name. That's a wonderful name of yours, do you realize it?" "Every uplifter I ever met's told me so," replied Nucky, ungraciously, without looking up. Mr. Seaton smiled. "I'm no uplifter! I'm a New York lawyer! Supposing you take a look at me so's to recognize me when we meet again." Nucky still kept his gaze on the floor. "I know what you look like. You got gray hair and brown eyes, you're thin and tall and about fifty years old." "Good work!" exclaimed Enoch's caller. "Now, look here, Enoch, can't I help you out of this scrape?" "Don't want to be helped out. I was doin' a man's job and I'll take my punishment like a man." Seaton spoke quickly. "It wasn't a man's job. It was a thief's job. You're taking your sentence like a common thief, not like a man." "Aw, dry up and get out o' here!" snarled Nucky, jumping to his feet and looking his caller full in the face. Seaton did not stir. In spite of its immaturity, its plainness and its sullenness, there was a curious dignity in Nucky's face, that made a strong appeal to his dignified caller. "You guys always preachin' to me!" Nucky went on, his boyish voice breaking with weariness and excitement. "Why don't you look out for your own kids and let me alone?" "My only boy is beyond my care. He was killed three years ago," returned Seaton. "I've had nothing to do with boys since. And I don't give a hang about you. It's your name I'm interested in. I hate to see a fine name in the hands of a prospective gunman." "And you can't get me with the sob stuff, either," Nucky shrugged his shoulders. Seaton scowled, then he laughed. "You're a regular tough, eh, Enoch? But you know even toughs occasionally use their brains. Do you want to go to reform school?" "Yes, I do! Go on, get out o' here!" "You infernal little fool!" blazed Seaton, losing his temper. "Do you think you can handle me the way you have the others? Well, it can't be done! Huntingdon is a real name in this country and if you think any pig-headed, rotten-minded boy can carry that name to the pen, without me putting up a fight, you're mistaken! You've met something more than your match this time, you are pretty sure to find out sooner or later, my sweet young friend. My hair was red, too, before--up to three years ago." Seaton turned and slammed out of the cell. When Foley came to the door a half hour later, Nucky was again sitting on the edge of the bunk, staring sullenly at the floor. "Come out o' this, Nucky," said the officer. Nucky rose, obediently, and followed Foley into the next room. Mr. Seaton was leaning against the desk, talking with Captain Blackly. "Look here, Nucky," said Blackly, "this gentleman has been telephoning the judge and the judge has paroled you once more in this gentleman's hands. I think you're a fool, Mr. Seaton, but I believe in giving a kid as young as Huntingdon the benefit of the doubt. We've all failed to find a spark of decent ambition in him. Maybe you can. Just one word for you, young fellow. If you try to get away from Mr. Seaton, we'll get you in a way you'll never forget." Nucky said nothing. His unboyish eyes traveled from one face to another, then he shrugged his shoulders and dropped his weight to the other hip. John Seaton, whose eyes were still smoldering, tapped Nucky on the arm. "All right, Enoch! I'm going to take you up to my house to meet Mrs. Seaton. See that you behave like a gentleman," and he led the way into the street. Nucky followed without any outward show of emotion. His new guardian did not speak until they reached the door of the apartment house, then he turned and looked the boy in the eye. "I'm obstinate, Enoch, and quick tempered. No one but Mrs. Seaton thinks of me as a particularly likable chap. You can do as you please about liking me, but I want you to like my wife. And if I have any reason to think you've been anything but courteous to her, I'll break every bone in your body. You say you don't want sob stuff. You'll get none of it from me." Not a muscle of Nucky's face quivered. Mr. Seaton did not wait for a reply, but led the way into the elevator. It shot up to the top floor and Nucky followed into the long, dark hall of the apartment. "Put your hat and coat here," said his guardian, indicating the hat rack on which he was hanging his own overcoat. "Now follow me." He led the boy into the living room. A small woman sat by the window that overlooked the Square. Her brown hair was just touched with gray. Her small round face was a little faded, with faint lines around eyes and lips. It was not an intellectual face, but it was sweet and patient, from the delicate curve of the lips to the slight downward droop of the eyebrows above the clear blue eyes. All the sweetness and patience was there with which the wives of high tempered, obstinate men are not infrequently blessed. "Mary, this is young Enoch Huntingdon," said Seaton. Mrs. Seaton offered her hand, which Nucky took awkwardly and unsmilingly. "How do you do, Enoch! Mr. Seaton told me about your red hair and your fine old name. Are you going to stay with us a little while?" "I don't know, ma'am," replied Enoch. "Sit down, Enoch! Sit down!" Seaton waved Enoch impatiently toward a seat while he took the arm chair beside his wife. "Mary, I've got to take that trip to San Francisco, after all. Houghton and Company insist on my looking into that Jameson law-suit for them." Mary Seaton looked up, a little aghast. "But mercy, John! I can't get away now, with Sister Alice coming!" "I know that. So I'm going to take Enoch with me." "Oh!" Mary looked from her husband to Enoch, sitting awkwardly on the edge of the Chippendale chair. His usually pale face was a little flushed and his thin lips were set firmly together. From her scrutiny of Enoch's face, she turned to his hands. They were large and bony and the thumb and first two fingers of his right hand were yellow. "You don't look as if you'd been eating the right kind of things, Enoch," she said, kindly. "And it's cigarettes that give your lips that bad color. You must let me help you about that. When do you start, John dear?" "To-morrow night, and I'm afraid I'll be gone the best part of three weeks. By that time, I ought to know something about Enoch, eh?" For the first time Enoch grinned, a little sheepishly, to be sure, and a little cynically. Nevertheless it was the first sign of tolerance he had shown and Mr. Seaton was cheered by it. "That will give time to get Enoch outfitted," said Mary. "We'll go up to Best's to-morrow morning." "This suit is new," said Nucky. "It looks new," agreed Mrs. Seaton, "but a pronounced check like that isn't nice for traveling. And you'll need other things." "I got plenty of clothes at home, and I paid for 'em myself," Nucky's voice was resentful. "Well, drop a line to that Italian you've been living with, and tell him--" began Mr. Seaton. "Aw, he'll be doin' time in Sing Sing by the time I get back," interrupted Nucky, "and he can't read anyhow. I always 'tended to everything but going to the bank for him." "Did you really?" There was a pleasant note of admiration in Mrs. Seaton's voice. "You must try to look out for Mr. Seaton then on this trip. He is so absent-minded! Come and I'll show you your room, Enoch. You must get ready for dinner." She rose, and led the boy down the hall to a small room. It was furnished in oak and chintz. Enoch thought it must have been the dead boy's room for there was a gun over the bureau and photographs of a football team and a college crew on the walls. "Supper will be ready in ten or fifteen minutes," said Mrs. Seaton, as she left him. A moment later, he heard her speaking earnestly in the living-room. He brushed his hair, then amused himself by examining the contents of the room. The supper bell rang just as he opened the closet door. He closed it, hastily and silently, and a moment later, Mr. Seaton spoke from the hall: "Come, Enoch!" and the boy followed into the dining-room. His table manners were bad, of course, but Mrs. Seaton found these less difficult to endure than the boy's unresponsive, watchful ways. At last, as the pudding was being served, she exclaimed: "What in the world are you watching for, Enoch? Do you expect us to rob you, or what?" "I dunno, ma'am," answered Nucky, "Do you enjoy your supper?" asked Mrs. Seaton. "It's all right, I guess. I'm used to wine with my supper." "Wine, you young jack-donkey!" cried John Seaton. "And don't you appreciate the difference between a home meal like this and one you pick up in Minetta Lane?" "I dunno!" Nucky's face darkened sullenly and he pushed his pudding away. There was silence around the table for a few moments. Mrs. Seaton, quietly watching the boy, thought of what her husband had told her of Officer Foley's account. The boy did act not unlike a bull pup put for the first time on the lead chain. She was relieved and so was Mr. Seaton when Nucky, immediately after the meal was finished, said that he was sleepy, and went to bed. "I don't envy you your trip, John," said Mary Seaton, as she settled to her embroidery again. "What on earth possesses you to do it? The boy isn't even interesting in his badness." "He's got the face either of a great leader or a great criminal," said Seaton, shaking out his paper. "He makes me so mad I could tan his hide every ten minutes, but I'm going to see the thing through. It's the first time in three years I've felt interested in anything." Quick tears sprang to his wife's eyes. "I'm so glad to have you feel that way, John, that I'll swallow even this impossible boy. What makes him so ugly? Did he want to go to reform school?" "God knows what any boy of his age wants!" replied John briefly. "But I'm going to try in the next three weeks to find out what's frozen him up so." "Well, I'll dress him so that he won't disgrace you." Mrs. Seaton smiled and sighed and went on with her careful stitching. Nobody tried to talk to Nucky at the breakfast table. After the meal was over and Mr. Seaton had left for the office, the boy sat looking out of the window until Mrs. Seaton announced herself ready for the shopping expedition. Then he followed her silently to the waiting automobile. The little woman took great care in buying the boy's outfit. The task must Have been painful to her. Only three years before she had been buying clothes for Jack from this same clerk. But Mary Seaton was a good soldier and she did a good job. When they reached home in mid-afternoon Nucky was well equipped for his journey. To Mary's surprise and pleasure he took care of her, helping her in and out of the automobile, and waiting on her vigilantly. He was awkward, to be sure, and silent, but Mary was secretly sure that he was less resentful toward her than he had been the day before. And she began to understand her husband's interest in the strong, immature, sullen face. The train left at six o'clock. Mrs. Seaton went with them to the very train gates. "You'll really try to look out for Mr. Seaton, won't you, Enoch?" she said, taking the boy's limp hand, after she had kissed her husband good-by. "Yes, ma'am," replied Nucky. "Good-by, Enoch! I truly hope you'll enjoy the trip. Run now, or you'll miss the train. See, Mr. Seaton's far down the platform!" Nucky turned and ran. Mr. Seaton waited for him at the door of the Pullman. His jaw was set and he looked at Nucky with curiosity not untinged with resentment. Nucky had not melted after a whole day with Mary! Perhaps there were no deeps within the boy. But as the train moved through the tunnel something lonely back of the boy's hard stare touched him and he smiled. "Well, Enoch, old man, are you glad to go?" "I dunno," replied Nucky. CHAPTER II BRIGHT ANGEL "I was sure, when I was eighteen, that if I could but give to the world a picture of Boyhood, flagellated by the world's stupidity and brutality, the world would heed. At thirty, I gave up the hope."--_Enoch's Diary_. No one could have been a less troublesome traveling companion than Nucky. He ate what was set before him, without comment. He sat for endless hours on the observation platform, smoking cigarettes, his keen eyes on the flying landscape. His blue Norfolk suit and his carefully chosen cap and linen restored a little of the adolescent look of which the flashy clothing of his own choosing had robbed him. No one glanced askance at Mr. Seaton's protegé or asked the lawyer idle questions regarding him. And yet Nucky was very seldom out of John Seaton's thoughts: Over and over he tried to get the boy into conversation only to be checked by a reply that was half sullen, half impertinent. Finally, the lawyer fell back on surmises. Was Nucky laying some deep scheme for mischief when they reached San Francisco? John had believed fully that he and Nucky would be friends before Chicago was passed. But he had been mistaken. What in the world was he to do with the young gambler in San Francisco, that paradise of gamblers? He could employ a detective to dog Nucky, but that was to acknowledge defeat. If there were only some place along the line where he could leave the boy, giving him a taste of out of door life, such as only the west knows! For a long time Seaton turned this idea over in his mind. The train was pulling out of Albuquerque when he had a sudden inspiration. He knew Nucky too well by now to ask him for information or for an expression of opinion. But that night, at dinner, he said, casually, "We're going to leave the main line, at Williams, Enoch, and go up to the Grand Canyon. There's a guide at Bright Angel that I camped with two years ago. It's such bad weather that I don't suppose there'll be many people up there and I telegraphed him this afternoon to give me a week or so. I'm going to turn you over to him and I'll go on to the Coast. I'll pick you up on my way back." "All right," said Nucky, casually. Mr. Seaton ground his teeth with impatience and thought of what Jack's enthusiasm would have been over such a program. But he said nothing and strolled out to the observation car. It was raining and sleeting at Williams. They had to wait for hours in the little station for the connecting train to the Canyon. It came in, finally, and Seaton and Nucky climbed aboard, the only visitors for the usually popular side trip. It was a wild and lonely run to the Canyon's rim. Nucky, sitting with his face pressed against the window, saw only vague forms of cactus and evergreens through the sleet which, as the grade rose steadily, changed to snow. It was mid-afternoon when they reached the rim. A porter led them at once into the hotel and after they were established, Seaton went into Nucky's room. The boy was standing by the window, staring at the storm. "We can't see the Canyon from our windows," said John. "I took care of that! It isn't a thing you want staring at you day and night! Nucky, I want you to get your first look at the Canyon, alone. One always should. You'd better put on your coat and go out now before the storm gets any worse. Don't wander away. Stick to the view in front of the hotel. I'll be out in a half hour." Nucky pulled on his overcoat, picked up his cap and went out. A porter was sweeping the walk before the main entrance. "Say, mister, I want to see the Canyon," said Nucky. "Nothin' to hinder. Yonder she lies, waiting for you, son!" jerking his thumb over his shoulder. Nucky looked in the direction indicated. Then he took a deep, shocked breath. The snow flakes were falling into nothingness! A bitter wind was blowing but Nucky felt the sweat start to his forehead. Through the sifting snow flakes, disappearing before his gaze, he saw a void, silver gray, dim in outline, but none the less a void. The earth gaped to its center, naked, awful, before his horrified eyes. Yet, the same urgent need to know the uttermost that forces one to the edge of the skyscraper forced Nucky to the rail. He clutched it. A great gust of wind came up from the Canyon, clearing the view of snow for the moment, and Nucky saw down, down for a mile to the black ribbon of the Colorado below. "I can't stand it!" he muttered. "I can't stand it!" and turning, he bolted for the hotel. He stopped before the log fire in the lobby. A little group of men and women were sitting before the blaze, reading or chatting. One of the women looked up at the boy and smiled. It seemed impossible to Nucky that human beings could be sitting so calmly, doing quite ordinary things, with that horror lying just a few feet away. For perhaps five minutes he struggled with his sense of panic, then he went slowly out and forced himself to the railing again. While he had been indoors, it had ceased to storm and the view lay clear and clean before him. Although there was a foot of level snow on the rim, so vast were the ledges and benches below that the drifts served only as high lights for their crimson and black and orange. Just beneath Nucky were tree tops, heavy laden with white. Far, far below were tiny shrubs that the porter said were trees and below these,--orderly strips of brilliant colors and still below, and below--! Nucky moistened his dry lips and once more bolted to the hotel. Just within the door, John Seaton met him. "Well, Enoch?" There was no coldness in Nucky's eyes now. They were the frightened eyes of a child. "I can't stand that thing!" he panted. "I gotta get back to N' York, now!" Seaton looked at Nucky curiously. "For heaven's sake, Enoch! Where's your nerve?" "What good would nerve do a guy lookin' at hell!" gasped Nucky. "Hell? Why the Canyon is one of the beautiful sights of the world! You're crazy, Enoch! Come out with me and look again." "Not on your life!" cried Nucky. "I'm going back to little old N' York." "It can't be done, my boy. There'll be no trains out of here for at least twelve hours, because of the storm. And listen, Enoch! No nonsense! Remember that if you wander away from the hotel, you're lost. There are no trolleys in this neck of the woods, and no telephones and no police. Wait a moment, Enoch, there's Frank Allen, the guide." Seaton hailed a tall, rather heavily built man in corduroys and high laced boots, who had lounged up to the cigar stand. As he approached, Nucky saw that he was middle aged, with a heavily tanned face out of which the blue of his eyes shone conspicuously. "Here he is, Frank!" exclaimed Seaton. "Nucky, this is the man who is going to look out for you while I'm gone." "Well, young New York! What're you going to do with the Canyon?" Frank slapped the boy on the shoulder. Nucky grinned uncertainly. "I dunno!" he said. "Had a look at it?" demanded the guide. "Yes!" Nucky spoke with sudden firmness. "And I don't like it. I want to go back to New York." "Come on out with Frank and me and get used to it," suggested John Seaton. "I'm not going near it again," returned Nucky. Allen looked at the boy with deliberate interest. He noted the pasty skin, the hollow chest, the strong, unformed features, the thin lips that were trembling, despite the cigarette stained fingers that pressed against them. "Did you ever talk to Indians?" asked Allen, suddenly. "No," said Nucky. "Well, let's forget the Canyon and go over to the hogan, yonder. Is that the best you two can do on shoes? I'm always sorry for you lady-like New Yorkers. Come over here a minute. I guess we can rent some boots to fit you." "I'm going to write letters, Frank," said Seaton. "You and Enoch'll find me over at one of the desks. Fit the boy out as you think best." Not long after, Nucky trailed the guide through the lobby. He was wearing high laced boots, with a very self-conscious air. Once outside, in the glory of the westering sun, Frank took a deep breath. "Great air, boy! Get all you can of it into those flabby bellows of yours. Before we go to the hogan, come over to the corral. My Tom horse has got a saddle sore. A fool tourist rode him all day with a fold in the blanket as big as your fist." "Is he a bronco?" asked Nucky, with sudden animation. "He was a bronco. You easterners have the wrong idea. A bronco is a plains pony before he's broken. After he's busted he's a horse. See?" "Aw, you're dead wrong, Frank!" drawled a voice. Nucky looked up in astonishment to see a tall man, whose skin was a rich bronze, offering a cigarette to the guide. "Dry up, Mike!" returned Frank with a grin. "What does a Navaho know about horses! Enoch, this is a sure enough Indian. Mike, let me introduce Mr. Enoch Huntingdon of New York City." The Navaho nodded and smiled. "You look as if a little Canyon climbing would do you good," said he. "I was looking at Tom horse, Frank. He's in bad shape. How much did that tender-foot weigh that rode him?" "I don't know. I wasn't here the day they hired him out. I know the cuss would have weighed a good deal less if I'd been here when that saddle was taken off! Going down to-morrow with Miss Planer?" "Not unless some one breaks trail for us. Are you going to try it?" "Not unless my young friend here gets his nerve up. Want to try it, Enoch?" "Try what?" asked Nucky. "The trip down Bright Angel." "Not on your life!" cried Nucky. Both men laughed, the Indian moving off through the snow in the direction of a dim building among the cedars, while Frank led on to the corral fence. Fifteen or twenty horses and mules were moving about the enclosure. Allen crossed swiftly among them, with Nucky following, apprehensively, close behind him. Frank's horse was in the stable, but while he seemed to examine the sore spot on the animal's back, Frank's real attention was riveted on Nucky. The boy was obviously ill at ease and only half interested in the horse. "These are the lads that take us down the trail," said Allen finally, slapping a velvety black mule on the flank. "We can't trust the horses. A mule knows more in a minute than a horse knows all his life." "Will you go with me to take another look at it?" asked Nucky. An expression of understanding crossed Frank's weather-beaten face. "Sure I will, boy! Let's walk up the rim a little and see if you can steady your nerves." "I'd rather stay by the rail," replied Nucky, doggedly. "All right, old man! Don't take this thing too hard, you know! After all, it's only a crack in the earth." Nucky grinned feebly, and trudged steadily up to the rail. The sun was setting and the Canyon was like the infinite glory of God. Untiring as was his love for the view Allen preferred, this time, to watch the strange young face beside him. Nucky's pallor was still intense in spite of the stinging wind. His deep set eyes were strained like a child's, listening to a not-to-be-understood explanation of something that frightens him. For a full five minutes he gazed without speaking. Then the sun sank and the Canyon immediately was filled with gloom. Nucky's lips quivered. "I can't stand it!" he muttered again, "I can't stand it!" and once more he bolted. This time he went directly to his room. Neither Allen nor Seaton attempted to follow him. "He is some queer kid!" said Frank, taking the cigar Seaton offered him. "He may be a born crook or he may not, but believe me, there's something in him worth finding out about." "Just what I say!" agreed Seaton. "But don't be sure you're the one that can unlock him. Mrs. Seaton couldn't and if she failed, any woman on earth would. And I still believe that a chap that's got any good in him will open up to a good woman." "_His_ woman, man! _His_! Not to somebody else's woman." Allen's tone was impatient. "_His_ woman! Don't talk like a chump, Frank! Enoch's only fourteen." "Makes no difference. Your wife is an angel as I learned two years ago, but she may not have Enoch's number, just the same. If I were you, I'd mooch up to the kid's room if he doesn't come down promptly to supper. His nerves are in rotten shape and he oughtn't to be alone too long." Seaton nodded, and shortly after seven he knocked softly on Nucky's door. There was an inarticulate, "Come in!" Nucky was standing by the window in the dark room. "Supper's ready, old man. You'd better have it now and get to bed early. Jumping from sea level to a mile in the air makes a chap sleepy. Are you washed up?" "I'm all ready," mumbled Nucky. He went to bed shortly after eight. Something forlorn and childish about the boy's look as he said good night moved John Seaton to say, "Tell a bell boy to open the door between our rooms, will you, Enoch?" and he imagined that a relieved look flickered in Nucky's eyes. Seaton himself went to bed and to sleep early. He was wakened about midnight by a soft sound from Nucky's room and he lay for a few moments listening. Then he rose and turned on the light in his room, and in Nucky's. The boy hastily jerked the covers over his head. Seaton pulled the extra blanket at the bed foot over his own shoulders, then he sat down on the edge of the bed and put his hand on Nucky's heaving back. "Don't you think, if it's bad enough to make you cry, that it's time you told a friend about it, Enoch?" he said, his voice a little husky. For a moment sobs strangled the boy's utterance entirely. Finally, he pulled the covers down but still keeping his head turned away, he said, "I want to go home!" "Home, Enoch? Where's your home?" "N' York's my home. This joint scares me." "Whom do you want to see in New York, Enoch?" "Anybody! Nobody! Even the police station'd look better'n that thing. I can feel it out there now, waitin' and listenin'!" Seaton stared blankly at the back of Nucky's head. His experiment was not turning out at all as he had planned. Jack often had puzzled him but there had always been something to grasp with Jack. His own boy had been such a good sport! A good sport! Suddenly Seaton cleared his throat. "Enoch, among the men you know, what is the opinion of a squealer?" "We hate him," replied the boy, shortly. "And the other night when you were arrested, you were rather proud of standing up and taking your punishment without breaking down. If one of the men arrested at that time had broken down, you'd all have despised him, I suppose?" "Sure thing," agreed Nucky, turning his head ever so little toward the man. "Enoch, why are you breaking down now?" "Aw, what difference does it make?" demanded the boy. "You despise me anyhow!" "Oh!" ejaculated Seaton as a sudden light came to his groping mind. "Oh, I see! What a chump you are, old man! Of course, I despise the kind of life you've led, but I blame Minetta Lane for that, not you. And I believe there is so much solid fine stuff in you that I'm giving you this trip to show you that there are people and things outside of Minetta Lane that are more worth a promising boy's time than gambling. But, you won't play the game. You are so vain and ignorant, you refuse to see over your nose." "I told you, you despised me," said Nucky, sullenly. The man smiled to himself. Suddenly he took the boy's hand in both his own. "I suppose if Jack had been reared in Minetta Lane, he'd have been just as wrong in his ideas as you are. Look here, Enoch, I'll make a bargain with you. I want you to try the Canyon for a week or so, until I get back from the Coast. If, at the end of that time, you still want Minetta Lane, I'll land you back there with fifty dollars in your pocket, and you can go your own gait." Nucky for the first time turned and looked Seaton in the face. "Honest?" he gasped. Seaton nodded. "Do I have to go down the Canyon?" asked Nucky. "You don't have to do anything except play straight, till I get back." "I--I guess I could stand it,"--the boy's eyes were a little pitiful in their fear. "That isn't enough. I want your promise, Enoch!" Nucky stared into Seaton's steady eyes. "All right, I'll promise. And--and, Mr. Seaton, would you sit with me till I get to sleep?" Seaton nodded. Nucky had made no attempt to free his hand from the kindly grasp that imprisoned it. He lay staring at the ceiling for a long moment, then his eyelids fluttered, dropped, and he slept. He did not stir when Seaton rose and went back to his own bed. It did not snow during the night and the train that had brought Nucky and Mr. Seaton up announced itself as ready for the return trip to Williams, immediately after breakfast. Nucky slept late and only opened his eyes when Frank Allen clumped into the room about nine o'clock. "Hello, New York! Haven't died, have you? Come on, we're going to break trail down the Canyon, you and I." "Not on your life!" Nucky roused at once and sat up in bed, his face very pale under its thatch of dark red hair. "John Seaton turned you over to me. Said to tell you he thought you needed the sleep more than you did to say good-by to him." "He told me last night," exclaimed Nucky; "that I didn't have to go down the Canyon." "And you don't, you poor sissy! You aren't afraid to get up and dress, are you?" Allen's grin took away part of the sting of his speech. "Meet me in the lobby in twenty minutes, Enoch," and he turned on his heel. Nucky was down in less than the time allotted. As he leaned against the office desk, waiting for the guide, the room clerk said, "So you're the kid that's afraid to go down the trail. Usually it's the old ladies that kick up about that. Most boys your age are crazy for the trip." Nucky muttered something and moved away. In front of the fire the woman who had smiled at him the day before, smiled again. "Afraid too, aren't you! They can't get me onto that trail, either." Nucky smiled feebly then looked about a little wildly for Frank Allen. When he espied the guide at the cigar-stand, he crossed to him hurriedly. "Say now, Mr. Allen, listen!" "I'm all ears, son!" "Now don't tell everybody I'm afraid of the trail!" "Oh, you're the kid!" exclaimed a bell boy. "Say, there was an old lady here once that used to go out every morning and pray to the Lord to close the earth's gap, it made her so nervous! Why don't you try that, kid? Maybe the Lord would take a suggestion from a New Yorker." Nucky rushed to the dining room. He was too angry and resentful to eat much. He drank two cups of coffee, however, and swallowed some toast. "Ain't you going to eat your eggs?" demanded the waitress. "What's the matter with you? Folks always stuff themselves, here. Say, don't let the trail scare you. I was that way at first, but finally I got my nerve up and there's nothing to it. Say, let me give you some advice. There's only a few folks here now, so the guides and the hotel people have got plenty of time on their hands. They're awful jokers and they'll tease the life out of you, till you take the trip. You just get on a mule, this morning, and start. Every day you wait, you'll hate it more." Nucky's vanity had been deeply wounded. Greater than his fear, which was very great indeed, was Nucky's vanity. He gulped the second cup of coffee, then with the air of bravado which belonged to Marty the Dude, he sauntered up to the cigar stand where the guide still lounged. "All right, Frank," said Nucky. "I'm ready for Bright Angel when you are." The guide looked at the boy carefully. Two bright red spots were burning in Nucky's cheeks. He was biting his lips, nervously. But his blue eyes were hard and steady. "I'll be ready in half an hour, Enoch. Meet me at the corral. We'll camp down below for a night or two if you hold out and I'll have to have the grub put up. You go over to the store room yonder and get a flannel shirt and a pair of denim pants to pull on over those you're wearing. Mr. Seaton left his camera for you. I put it on your bureau. Bring that along. Skip now!" Nucky's cheeks were still burning when he met Allen at the corral. Three mules, one a well loaded pack mule, the others saddled, were waiting. Frank leaned against the bars. "Enoch," said the man, "there's no danger at all, if you let your mule alone. Don't try to guide him. He knows the trail perfectly. All you have to do is to sit in the saddle and look up, not down! Remember, up, not down! I shall lead. You follow, on Spoons. Old Foolish Face brings up the rear with the pack. Did you ever ride, before?" "I never touched a horse in my life," replied Nucky, trying to curb the chattering of his teeth. "You had better mount and ride round the road here, for a bit. Take the reins, so. Stand facing the saddle, so. Now put this foot in the stirrup, seize the pommel, and swing the other leg over as you spring. That's the idea!" Nucky was awkward, but he landed in the saddle and found the other stirrup, the mule standing fast as a mountain while he did so. Spoons moved off at Allen's bidding, and Nucky grasped at the pommel. But only for a moment. "Don't he shake any worse than this?" he cried. "No, but it's not so easy to stay in the saddle when the grade's steep. Pull on your right rein, Enoch, and bring old Spoons in behind me. Well done! We're off! See the bunch on the hotel steps! Guess you fooled 'em this time, New York!" Half a dozen people, including the clerk were standing on the steps, watching the little cavalcade. As the mules filed by, somebody began to clap. "What's the excitement, Frank?" demanded Nucky. Frank turned in his saddle to smile at the boy. "Out in this country we admire physical nerve because we need a lot of it. And you're showing a good quality, old chap. Just sit easy now and when you want me to stop, yell." Nucky was sitting very straight with his thin chest up, and he managed to maintain this posture as the trail turned down over the rim. Then he grasped the pommel in both hands. It was a wonderful trail, carved with infinite patience and ingenuity out of the canyon wall. To Allen it was as safe and easy as a flight of stairs. Nucky, trembling in the saddle would have felt quite as comfortable standing on the topmost window ledge of the Flat Iron building, in New York. And, to Nucky, there was no trail! Only a narrow, corkscrew shelf, deep banked with snow into which the mules set their small feet gingerly. For many minutes, the boy saw only this trackless ledge, and the sickening blue depths below. "I can never stand it!" he muttered. "I can never stand it! If this mule makes just one mis-step, I'm dead." He felt a little nauseated. "I can never stand it! 'Twould have been better if I'd just let 'em tease me. Hey, Frank!" The guide looked back. The red spots were gone from Nucky's cheeks now. "We got to go back! I can't get away with it!" cried the boy. "It's impossible to turn here, Enoch! Look up, man! Look up! And just trust old Spoons! Are you cold? It was only eight above zero, when we left the top. But the snow'll disappear as we go down and when we reach the river it'll be summer. See that lone pine up on the rim to your right? They say an Indian girl jumped from the top of that because she bore a cross-eyed baby. Look up, Enoch, as we round this curve and see that streak of red in the wall. An Indian giant bled to death on the rim and his blood seeped through the solid rock to this point. Watch how the sky gets a deeper blue, the farther down we go. And now, Enoch look out, not down. You may come down Bright Angel a thousand times and never see the colors you see to-day. The snowfall has turned the world into a rainbow, by heck!" Slowly, very slowly, Nucky turned his head and clinging to the pommel, he stared across the canyon. White of snow; sapphire of sky; black of sharp cut shadow. Mountains rising from the canyon floor thrust scarlet and yellow heads across his line of vision. Close to his left, as the trail curved, a wall of purest rose color lifted from a bank of snow that was as blue as Allen's eyes. Beyond and beyond and ever beyond, the vast orderliness of the multi-colored canyon strata melted into delicate white clouds that now revealed, now concealed the mountain tops. Nucky gazed and gazed, shuddering, yet enthralled. Another sharp twist in the trail and his knee scraped against the wall. He cried out sharply. Frank turned to look but he did not stop the mules. "Spoons thinks it's better to amputate your leg, once in a while than to risk getting too close to the outer edge of the trail in all this snow. He's an old warrior, is Spoons! He could carry a grand piano down this trail and never scrape the varnish. Look up, Enoch! We'll soon reach a broad bench where I'll let you rest." "Don't you think I'll ever get off this brute till we reach bottom!" shuddered Nucky. The guide laughed and silence fell again. The mules moved as silently through the snow as the mists across the mountain tops. In careful gradation the trail zigzagged downward. The snow lessened in depth with each foot of drop. The bitter cold began to give way to the increasing warmth of the sun. Sensation crept back into Nucky's feet and hands. By a supreme effort for many moments he managed to fix his eyes firmly on Frank's broad back, and though he could not give up his hold on the pommel, he sat a little straighter. Then, of a sudden, Spoons stopped in his tracks, and as suddenly a little avalanche of snow shot down the canyon wall, catching the mule's forelegs. Spoons promptly threw himself inward, against the wall. Nucky gave a startled look at the sickening depths below and when Frank turned in his saddle, Nucky had fainted, half clinging to Spoons' neck, half supported against the wet, rocky wall. With infinite care, and astonishing speed, Frank slid from his mule and made his way back to the motionless Spoons. "Always said you were more than human, old chap," said Allen, kicking the snow away from the mule's fore legs. "Easy now! Don't lose your passenger!" The mule regained his balance and stepped carefully forward out of the drift, while the guide, balanced perilously on the outer edge of the trail, kept a supporting hand on Nucky's shoulders. But there was no need of the flask Frank pulled from his pocket. Nucky opened his eyes almost immediately. Whatever emotion Frank may have felt, he kept to himself. "I told you Spoons was better than a life insurance policy, Enoch." Enoch slowly pushed himself erect. He looked from Frank's quizzical eyes to Spoons' twitching ears, then at his own shaking hands. "I fainted, didn't I?" he asked. Allen nodded, and something in the twist of the man's lips maddened Nucky. He burst forth wildly: "You think I'm a blank blank sissy! Well, maybe I am. But if New York couldn't scare me, this blank blank hole out here in this blank blank jumping off place can't. I'm going on down this trail and if I fall and get killed, it's up to you and Mr. Seaton." "Good work, New York!" responded Allen briefly. He edged his way carefully back to his mule and the cavalcade moved onward. Perhaps five minutes afterward, as they left the snow line, the guide looked back. Nucky was huddled in the saddle, his eyes closed tight, but his thin lips were drawn in a line that caused Allen to change his purpose. He did not speak as he had planned, but led the way on for a long half hour, in silence, his eyes thoughtful. But Nucky did not keep his eyes closed long. The pull of horror, of mystery, of grandeur was too great. And after the avalanche, his confidence in Spoons was established. He was little more than a child and under his bravado and his watchfulness there was a child's recklessness. If he were to fall, at least he must see whither he was to fall. He forced himself to look from time to time into the depths below. The trail dropped steadily, while higher and higher soared canyon wall and mountain peak. It was still early when the trail met the plateau on which lie the Indian gardens. Frank's mule suddenly quickened his stride as did Spoons. But Nucky, although he was weary and saddle sore had no intention of crying a halt, now that the trail was level. His pulse began to subside and once more he sat erect in the saddle. When the mules rushed forward to bury their noses in a cress-grown spring, he grinned at Frank. "Well, here I am, after all!" Frank grinned in return. "If I could put through a few more stunts like this, you'd look almost like a boy, instead of a potato sprout. Get down and limber up." Nucky half scrambled, half fell off his mule. "Must be spring down here," he cried, staring about at grass and cottonwood. "Just about. And it'll be summer when we reach the river." "That was some trail, wasn't it, Frank! Do many kids take it?" "Lots of 'em, but only with guides, and you were the worst case of scared boy I've ever seen." Nucky flushed. "Well, you might give me credit for hanging to it, even if I was scared." "I'll give you a lot of credit for that, old man. But if the average New York boy has nerves like yours, I'm glad many of them don't come to the Canyon, that's all. Your nerves would disgrace a girl." "The guys I gamble with never complained of my lack of nerves," cried Nucky, angrily. "Gambling! Thunder! What nerve does it take to stack the cards against a dub? But this country out here, let me tell you, it takes a man to stand up to it." "And I've been through police raids too, and never squealed and I know two gunmen and they say I'm as hard as steel." "They should have seen you with your arms around Spoons' neck, back up the trail there," said Allen dryly. "Come! Mount again, Enoch! I want to have lunch at the river." Enoch was sullen as they started on but his sullenness did not last long. As his fear receded, his curiosity increased. He gazed about him with absorbed interest, and he began to bombard the guide with questions in genuine boy fashion. "How far is it to the river? Do we have any steeper trails than the ones we've been on, already? Did any one ever swim across the river? Was any one ever killed when he minded what the guide told him? What guys camp in the Indian gardens? How much does it cost? Did any one ever climb up the side of the Canyon, say like one yonder where it looked like different colored stair steps going up? Did any one ever find gold in the canyon? How did they know it when they found it? Did Frank ever do any mining? What was placer mining?" And on and on, only the intermittently returning fear of the trail silencing him until Frank ordered him to dismount in a narrow chasm within sight of the roaring, muddy Colorado. "One of the ways Seaton employed to persuade me to take care of you for a week was by telling me you were a very silent kid," added the guide. Nucky grinned sheepishly, and turned to stare wonderingly at the black walls that here closed in upon them breathlessly. Their lunch had been prepared at the hotel. Frank fed the mules, then handed Nucky his box lunch and proceeded to open his own. "Does it make you sore to have me ask you questions?" asked the boy. "No! I guess it's more natural for a kid than the sulks you've been keeping up with Seaton." "I'm not such a kid. I'm going on fifteen and I've earned my own way since I was twelve. And I earn it with men, too." Nucky jerked his head belligerently. Frank ate a hard boiled egg before speaking. Then, with one eyebrow raised, he grunted, "What'd you work at?" "Cards and dice!" this very proudly. "You poor nut!" Frank's voice was a mixture of contempt and compassion. Nucky immediately turned sulky and the meal was finished in silence. When the last doughnut had been devoured, Frank stretched himself in the warm sand left among the rocks by the river at flood. "Must be eighty degrees down here," he yawned. "We'll rest for a half hour, then we'll make the night camp. It's after two now and it will be dark in this narrow rift by four." Nucky looked about him apprehensively. The Canyon here was little more than a gorge whose walls rose sheer and menacing toward the narrow patch of blue sky above. He could not make up his mind to lie down and relax as Frank had done. All was too new and strange. "Are there snakes round here?" he demanded. Frank's grunt might have been either yes or no. Nucky glanced impatiently at the guide's closed eyes, then he began to clamber aimlessly and languidly over the rocks to the river edge. At a distance of perhaps a hundred feet from Frank he stopped, looked at the bleak, blank wall of the river opposite, bit his nails and shuddering turned back. He crouched on a rock, near the guide, smoking one cigarette after another until Frank jumped to his feet. "Three o'clock, New York! Time to get ready for the night." "I don't want to stay in this hole all night!" protested Nucky, "I couldn't sleep." "You'll like it. You've no idea how comfortable I'm going to make you. Now, your job is to gather drift wood and pile it on that flat topped rock yonder. Keep piling till I tell you to quit. The nights are cold and I'll keep a little blaze going late, for you." "What's the idea?" demanded Nucky. "Why stay down here, like lost dogs, when there's a first class hotel back up there?" Frank sighed. "Well, the idea is this! A real he man likes camping in the wilds better'n he likes anything on earth. Seaton thought maybe somewhere in that pindling carcass of yours there was the making of a he man and that you'd like the experience. I promised him I'd try you out and I'm trying you, hang you for an ungrateful, cowardly cub." Nucky turned on his heel and began to pick up drift wood. He was in poor physical trim but the pile, though it grew slowly, grew steadily. By the time Frank announced the camp ready, Nucky's fuel pile was of really imposing dimensions. And dusk was thickening in the gorge. Before a great flat faced rock that looked toward the river, was a stretch of clean dry sand. Against this rock, the guide had placed a rubber air-mattress and a plentiful supply of blankets. A small folding table stood before a rough stone fire place. A canvas shelter stretched vertically on two strips of driftwood, shut off the night wind that was beginning to sweep through the Canyon. The mules were tethered close to the camp. "Where'd that mattress come from?" exclaimed Nucky. "Partly off old Funny Face's back and part out of a bicycle pump. Didn't want to risk your sickly bones on the ground until you harden up a bit. Pretty good pile of timber for an amateur, New York." Frank looked up from the fire he was kindling into Nucky's thin, tired face. "Now, son, you sit down on the end of your bed and take it easy. I'm an old hand at this game and before we've had our week together I'm banking on you being glad to help me. But to-day you've had enough." "Thanks," mumbled Nucky, as he eagerly followed the guide's suggestions. The early supper tasted delicious to the boy although every muscle in his body ached. Bacon and flap jacks, coffee and canned peaches he devoured with more appetite than he ever had brought to ministrone and red wine. A queer and inexplicable sense of comfort and a desire to talk came over him after the meal was finished, the camp in order, and the fire replenished. "This ain't so bad," he said. "I wish some of the guys that used to come to Luigi's could see me now." "And who was Luigi?" asked Frank, lighting his pipe and stretching himself on a blanket before the fire. "He was the guy I lived with after my mother died. He ran a gambling joint, and we was fixing the place up for women, too, when we all got pinched." This very boastfully. "Who were your folks, Enoch?" "Never heard of none of 'em. Luigi's a Dago. He wouldn't have been so bad if he didn't pinch the pennies so. Were you ever in New York, Frank?" This in a patronizing voice. "Born there," replied the guide. Nucky gasped with surprise. "How'd you ever happen to come out here?" "I can't live anywhere else because of chronic asthma. I don't know now that I'd want to live anywhere else. I used to kick against the pricks, but you get more sense as you grow older--after it's too late." "I should think you'd rather be dead," said Nucky sincerely. "If I thought I couldn't get back to MacDougal Street I'd want to die." "MacDougal Street and the dice, I suppose, eh? Enoch, you're on the wrong track and I know, because that's the track I tried myself. And I got stung." "But--" began Nucky. "No but about it. It's the wrong track and you can't get to decency or happiness or contentment on it. There's two things a man can never make anything real out of; cards or women." "I didn't want to make anything out of women. I want to get even with 'em, blank blank 'em all," cried Nucky with sudden fury. And he burst into an obscene tirade against the sex that utterly astonished the guide. He lay with his chin supported on his elbow, staring at the boy, at his thin, strongly marked features, and at the convulsive working of his throat as he talked. "Here! Dry up!" Frank cried at last. "I'll bet these canyon walls never looked down on such a rotten little cur as you are in all their history. You gambling, indecent little gutter snipe, isn't there a clean spot in you?" "You were a gambler yourself!" shrieked Nucky. "Yes, sir, I know cards and I know women, and that's why I know just what a mess of carrion your lovely young soul is. Any kid that can see the glory o' God that you've seen to-day and then sit down and talk like an overflowing sewer isn't fit to live. I didn't know that before I came out to this country, but I know it now. You get to bed. I don't want to hear another word out of you to-night. Pull your boots off. That's all." Half resentful, half frightened, Nucky obeyed. For a while, with nerves and over-tired muscles twitching, he lay watching the fire. Then he fell asleep. It was about midnight when he awoke. He had kicked the blankets off and was cold. The fire was out but the full moon sailed high over the gorge. Frank, rolled in his blankets, his feet to the dead fire, slept noisily. Nucky sat up and pulled his blankets over him, but he did not lie down again. He sat staring at the wonder of the Canyon. For a long half hour he was motionless save for the occasional moistening of his lips and turning of his head as he followed the unbelievable contour of the distant silvered peaks. Then of a sudden he jumped from his bed and, stooping over Frank, shook him violently. "Wake up!" he cried. "Wake up! I gotta tell somebody or the Canyon'll drive me crazy. I'll tell you why I'm bad. It's because my mother was bad before me. She was Luigi's mistress. She was a bad lot. It was born in me." Frank sat up, instantly on the alert. "How old were you when she died?" he demanded. "Six," replied Nucky. "Shucks! you don't know anything about it, then! Who told you she was bad?" "Luigi! I guess he'd know, wouldn't he?" "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't. At any rate, I wouldn't take the oath on his deathbed of a fellow who ran a joint like Luigi's and taught a kid what he's taught you. He told you that, of course, to keep a hold on you." "But she lived with him. I remember that myself." "I can't help that. I'll bet you my next year's pay, she wasn't your mother!" "Not my mother?" Nucky drew himself up with a long breath. "Certainly she was my mother." Frank uncovered some embers from the ashes and threw on wood. "I'll bet she wasn't your mother," he repeated firmly. "Seaton told me that that policeman friend of yours said she might and might not be your mother. Seaton and the policeman both think she wasn't, and I'm with 'em." "But why? Why?" cried Nucky in an agony of impatience. "For the simple reason that a fellow with a face like your's doesn't have a bad mother." In the light of the leaping flames Nucky's face fell. "Aw, what you giving us! Sob stuff?" "I'm telling you something that's as true as God. You can't see Him or talk to Him, but you know He made this Canyon, don't you?" Nucky nodded quickly. "All right, then I'm telling you, every line of your face and head says you didn't come of a breed like the woman that lived with Luigi. I'll bet if you show you have any decent promise, Seaton will clear that point up. A good detective could do it." "I never thought of such a thing," muttered Nucky. He continued to stare at Frank, his pale boy's face tense with conflicting hope and fear. The guide picked up his blanket, but Nucky cried out: "Don't go to sleep for a minute, please! I can't stand it alone in this moonlight. I never thought such thoughts in my life as I have down here, about God and who I am and what a human being is. I tell you, I'm going crazy." Frank nodded, and began to fill his pipe. "Sit down close to the fire, son. That's what the Canyon does to anybody that's thin skinned. I went through it too. I tell you, Nucky, this life here in the Canyon and the thoughts you think here, are the only real things. New York and all that, is just the outer shell of living. Understand me?" The boy nodded, his eyes fixed on Frank's with pitiful eagerness. "It's clean out here. This country isn't all messed up with men and women's badness. Everybody starts even and with a clean slate. Lord knows, I was a worthless bunch when I struck here, fifteen years ago. I'd been expelled from Yale in my senior year for gambling. I'd run through the money my father'd left me. I'd gotten into a woman scrape and I'd alienated every member of my family. Just why I thought a deck of cards was worth all that, I can't tell you. But I did. Then I came down here to see what the Canyon could do for my asthma and it cured that, and by the Eternal, it cured my soul, too. Now listen to me, son! You go back and lie down and put yourself to sleep thinking about your real mother. Boys are apt to take their general build from their mothers, so she was probably a big woman, not pretty, but with an intellectual face full of character. Go on, now, Enoch! You need the rest and we've got a full day to-morrow." Nucky passed his hand unsteadily over his eyes, but rose without a word, and Frank tucked him into his blankets, then sat quietly waiting by the fire. It was not long before deep breaths that were pathetically near to sobs told the guide that Nucky was asleep. Then he rolled himself in his own blankets. The moon passed the Canyon wall and utter darkness enwrapped the Canyon and the river which murmured harshly as it ran. Nucky wakened the next morning to the smell of coffee. He sat up and eyed Frank soberly. "Hello, New York! This is the Grand Canyon!" Frank grinned as he lifted the coffee pot from the fire. Nucky grinned in response. Shortly after, when he sat down to his breakfast the grin had disappeared, but with it had gone the look of sullenness that had seemed habitual. "Frank," said Nucky, when breakfast was over, "do you care if I talk to you some more about--you know--you know what you said last night? I never talked about it to any one but Luigi, and it makes me feel better." "Sure, go ahead!" said Frank. "My mother--" began Nucky. "You mean Luigi's wife," corrected the guide. "Luigi's wife was crazy about me. She loved me just as much as any mother could. Luigi's always been jealous about it. That's why he treated me so rotten." "Bad women can be just as fond of kids as good women," was Frank's comment. "What did she look like? Can you remember?" "I don't know whether I remember it or if it's just what folks told me. She had dark blue eyes and dark auburn hair. Luigi said she was Italian." "If she was, she was North Italian," mused the guide. "Did any one ever give you any hints about your father?" A slow, painful red crept over Nucky's pale face. "I never asked but once. Maybe you can guess what Luigi said." "If Luigi were in this part of the country," growled Allen, "I'd lead a lynching party to call on him." He paused, eying Nucky's boyish face closely, then he asked, "Did you love your mother?" "I suppose I did. But Luigi kept at me so that now I hate her and all other women. Mrs. Seaton seemed kind of nice, but I suppose she is like the rest of 'em." "Don't you think it! And did you know that Seaton thinks you were kidnapped?" Nucky drew a quick breath and the guide went on, "I think so too. You never belonged to an Italian. I can't tell you just why I feel so certain. But I'd take my oath you are of New England stock. John Seaton is a first-class lawyer. As I said to you last night, if you show some decent spirit, he'd try to clear the matter up for you." Nucky's blue eyes were as eager and as wistful as a little child's. His thin, mobile lips quivered. "I never thought of such a thing, Frank!" "Well, you'd better think of it! Now then, you clean up these dishes for me while I attend to the stock. I want to be off in a half hour." During the remainder of that very strenuous day, Nucky did not refer again to the matter so near his heart. He was quiet, but no longer sullen, and he was boyishly interested in the wonders of the Canyon. The sun was setting when they at last reached the rim. For an hour Nucky had not spoken. When Allen had turned in the saddle to look at the boy, Nucky had nodded and smiled, then returned to his absorbed watching of the lights and shadows in the Canyon. They dismounted at the corral. "Now, old man," said Frank, "I want you to go in and tuck away a big supper, take a hot bath and go to bed. To-morrow we'll ride along the rim just long enough to fight off the worst of the saddle stiffness." "All right!" Nucky nodded. "I'm half dead, that's a fact. But I've got to tell the clerk and the bell boy a thing or two before I do anything." "Go to it!" Frank laughed, as he followed the mules through the gate. Nucky did not open his eyes until nine o'clock the next morning. When he had finished breakfast, he found the guide waiting for him in the lobby. "Hello, Frank!" he shouted. "Come on! Let's start!" All that day, prowling through the snow after Allen, Nucky might have been any happy boy of fourteen. It was only when Frank again left him at dusk that his face lengthened. "Can't I be with you this evening, Frank?" he asked. Frank shook his head. "I've got to be with my wife and little girl." "But why can't I--" Nucky hesitated as he caught the look in Frank's face. "You'll never forget what I said about women, I suppose!" "Why should I forget it?" demanded Allen. The sullen note returned to Nucky's voice. "I wouldn't harm 'em!" "No, I'll bet you wouldn't!" returned Allen succinctly. Nucky turned to stare into the Canyon. It seemed to the guide that it was a full five minutes that the boy gazed into the drifting depths before he turned with a smile that was as ingenuous as it was wistful. "Frank, I guess I made an awful dirty fool of myself! I--I can't like 'em, but I'll take your word that lots of 'em are good. And nobody will ever hear me sling mud at 'em again, so help me God--and the Canyon!" Frank silently held out his hand and Nucky grasped it. Then the guide said, "You'd better go to bed again as soon as you've eaten your supper. By to-morrow you'll be feeling like a short trip down Bright Angel. Good-night, old top!" When Nucky came out of the hotel door the next morning, Frank, with a cavalcade of mules, was waiting for him. But he was not alone. Seated on a small mule was a little girl of five or six. "Enoch," said Frank, "this is my daughter, Diana. She is going down the trail with us." Nucky gravely doffed his hat, and the little girl laughed, showing two front teeth missing and a charming dimple. "You've got red hair!" she cried. Nucky grunted, and mounted his mule. "Diana will ride directly behind me," said Frank. "You follow her, Enoch." "Can that kid go all the way to the river?" demanded Nucky. "She's been there a good many times," replied Frank, looking proudly at his little daughter. She was not an especially pretty child, but had Nucky been a judge of feminine charms he would have realized that Diana gave promise of a beautiful womanhood. Her chestnut hair hung in thick curls on her shoulders. Her eyes were large and a clear hazel. Her skin, though tanned, was peculiarly fine in texture. But the greatest promise of her future beauty lay in a sweetness of expression in eye and lip that was extraordinary in so young a child. For the rest, she was thin and straight and wore a boy's corduroy suit. Diana feared the trail no more than Nucky feared MacDougal Street. She was deeply interested in Nucky, turning and twisting constantly in her saddle to look at him. "Do you like your mule, Enoch? He's a very nice mule." "Yes, but don't turn round or you'll fall." "How can I talk if I don't turn round? Do you like little girls?" "I don't know any little girls. Turn round, Diana!" "But you know me!" "I won't know you long if you don't sit still in that saddle, Miss." "Do you like me, Enoch?" Nucky groaned. "Frank, if Diana don't quit twisting, I'll fall myself, even if she don't!" "Don't bother Enoch, daughter!" "I'm not bothering Enoch, Daddy. I'm making conversation. I like him, even if he has red hair." Nucky sighed, and tried to turn the trend of the small girl's ideas. "I'll bet you don't know what kind of stone that is yonder where the giant dripped blood." "There isn't any giant's blood!" exclaimed Diana scornfully. "That is just red quartz!" "Oh, and what's the layer next to it?" demanded Nucky skeptically. "That's black basalt," answered the little girl. Then, leaning far out of the saddle to point to the depths below, "and that--" "Frank!" shouted Nucky. "Diana is bound to fall! I just can't stand looking at her." This time Frank spoke sternly. "Diana, don't turn to look at Enoch again!" and the little girl obeyed. Had Nucky been other than he was, he might have been amused and not a little charmed by Diana's housewifely ways when they made camp that afternoon. She helped to kindle the fire and to unpack the provisions. She lent a hand at arranging the beds and set the table, all with eager docility and intelligence. But Nucky, after doing the chores Frank set him, wandered off to a seat that commanded a wide view of the trail, where he remained in silent contemplation of the wonders before him until called to supper. He was silent during the meal, giving no heed to Diana's small attempts at conversation, and wandered early to his blankets. In the morning, however, he was all boy again, even attempting once or twice to tease Diana, in a boy's offhand manner. That small person, however, had become conscious of the fact that Enoch was not interested in her, and she had withdrawn into herself with a pride and self-control that was highly amusing to her father. Nor did she unbend during the day. The return trip was made with but one untoward incident. This occurred after they had reached the snow line. Much of the snow had thawed and by late afternoon there was ice on the trail. Frank led the way very gingerly and the mules often stopped of their own accord, while the guide roughened the path for them with the axe. In spite of this care, as they rounded one last upper curve, Diana's mule slipped, and it was only Diana's lightning quickness in dismounting and the mule's skill in throwing himself inward that saved them both. Diana did not utter a sound, but Nucky gave a hoarse oath and, before Frank could accomplish it, Nucky had dismounted, had rushed up the trail and stood holding Diana in his lank, boyish arms, while the mule regained his foothold. "Now look here, Frank, Diana rides either in your lap or mine!" said Nucky shortly, his face twitching. Frank raised his eyebrows at the boy's tone. "Set her down, Enoch! We'll all walk to the top. It's only a short distance, and the ice is getting pretty bad." Nucky obediently set the little girl on her feet, and Diana tossed her curls and followed her father without a word. And Frank, as he led the procession, wore a puzzled grin on his genial face. * * * * * * Exactly ten days after Nucky's first trip down Bright Angel trail, John Seaton descended somewhat wearily from the Pullman that had landed him once more at the Canyon's rim. He had telegraphed the time of his arrival and Nucky ran up to meet him. "Hello, Mr. Seaton!" he said. Seaton's jaw dropped. "What on earth--?" Then he grinned. Nucky was wearing high laced boots, a blue flannel shirt, gauntlet gloves and a huge sombrero. "Some outfit, Enoch! Been down Bright Angel yet?" "Three times," replied the boy, with elaborate carelessness. "Say, Mr. Seaton, can't we stay one more day and you take the trip with us?" "I think I can arrange it." Seaton was trying not to look at the boy too sharply. "I'll be as sore as a dog, for I haven't been in a saddle since I was out here before. But Bright Angel's worth it." "Sore!" Nucky laughed. "Say, Mr. Seaton, I just don't try to sit down any more!" They had reached the hotel desk now and as Seaton signed the register the clerk said, with a wink: "If you'll leave young Huntingdon behind, we'll take him on as a guide, Mr. Seaton." Nucky tossed his head. "Huh! and you might get a worse guide than me, too. Frank says I got the real makings in me and I'll bet Frank knows more about guiding than any white in these parts. Navaho Mike told me so. And Navaho Mike says he knows I could make money out here even at fourteen." "How, Enoch?" asked Seaton, as they followed the bell boy upstairs. He was not looking at Nucky, for fear he would show surprise. "How? at cards?" "Aw, no! Placer mining! It don't cost much to outfit and there's millions going to waste in the Colorado! Millions! Frank and Mike say so. You skip, Billy,"--this to the bell boy,--"I'm Mr. Seaton's bell hop." The boy pocketed the tip Nucky handed him, and closed the door after himself. Nucky opened Seaton's suitcase. "Shall I unpack for you?" he asked. "No, thanks, I shan't need anything but my toilet case, for I'm going to get into an outfit like yours, barring the hat and gloves." "Ain't it a pippin!" giving the hat an admiring glance. "Frank gave it to me. He has two, and I rented the things for you, Mr. Seaton. Here they are," opening the closet door. "Shall I help you with 'em? Will you take a ride along the rim now? Shall I get the horses? Now? I'll be waiting for you at the main entrance with the best pony in the bunch." He slammed out of the room. John Seaton scratched his head after he had shaken it several times, and made himself ready for his ride. Frank rapped on the door before he had finished and came in, smiling. "Well, I understand you're to be taken riding!" he said. "For the love of heaven, Frank, what have you done to the boy?" "Me? Nothing! It was the Canyon. Let me tell you about that first trip." And he told rapidly but in detail, the story of Nucky's first two days in the Canyon. Seaton listened with an absorbed interest. "Has he spoken of his mother to you since?" he asked, when Frank had finished. "No, and he probably never will again. Do you think you can clear the matter up for him?" "I'll certainly try! Do you like the boy, Frank?" "Yes, I do. I think he's got the real makings in him. Better leave him out here with me, Seaton." Seaton's face fell. "I--I hoped he'd want to stick by me. But the decision is up to the boy. If he wants to stay out here, I'll raise no objections." "I'm sure it would be better for him," said Frank. "Gambling is a persistent disease. He's got years of struggle ahead of him, no matter where he goes." "I know that, of course. Well, we'll take the trip down the trail to-morrow before we try to make any decisions. I must go along now. He's waiting for me." "Better put cotton in one ear," suggested Allen, with a smile. The ride was a long and pleasant one. John Seaton gave secondary heed to the shifting grandeur of the views, for he was engrossed by his endeavor to replace the sullen, unboyish Nucky he had known with this voluble, high strung and entirely adolescent person who bumped along the trail regardless of weariness or the hour. The trip down Bright Angel the next day was an unqualified success. They took old Funny Face and camped for the night. After supper, Frank muttered an excuse and wandered off toward the mules, leaving Nucky and Seaton by the fire. "Frank thinks you ought to stay out here with him, Enoch," said Seaton. "What did you say to him when he told you that?" asked Nucky eagerly. "I said I hoped you'd go back to New York with me, but that the decision was up to you." Nucky said nothing for the moment. Seaton watched the fire glow on the boy's strong face. When Nucky looked up at his friend, his eyes were embarrassed and a little miserable. "Did Frank tell you about our talk down here?" Seaton nodded. "Do you know?" the boy's voice trembled with eagerness. "Was she my mother?" "Foley thinks not. He says she spoke with an accent he thought was Italian. When I get back to New York I'll do what I can to clear the matter up for you. Queer, isn't it, that human beings crave to know even the worst about their breed." "I got to know! I got to know! Mr. Seaton, I ran away from Luigi one time. I guess I was about eight. I wanted to live in the country. And I got as far as Central Park before they found me. He got the police on my trail right off. And when he had me back in Minetta Lane, first he licked me and then he told me how bad my mother was, and he said if folks knew it, they'd spit on me and throw me out of school, and that I was lower than any low dog. And he told me if I did exactly what he said he'd never let any one know, but if I didn't he'd go over and tell Miss Brannigan. She was a teacher I was awful fond of, and he'd tell the police, and he'd tell all the kids. And after that he was always telling me awful low things about my mother--" Seaton interrupted firmly. "Not your mother. Call her Luigi's wife." Nucky moistened his lips. "Luigi's wife. And it used to drive me crazy. And he told me all women was like that only some less and some worse. Mr. Seaton, is that true?" "Enoch, it's a contemptible, unspeakable lie! The majority of women are pure and sweet as no man can hope to be. I'd like to kill Luigi, blast his soul!" "Maybe you don't know!" persisted Nucky. "I know! And what's more, when we get back to New York, I'll prove it to you. The world is full of clean, honest, kindly people, Enoch. I'll prove it to you, old man, if you'll give me the chance." "But if she was my mother, how can I help being rotten?" "Look here, Enoch, a fellow might have the rottenest mother and rottenest father on earth, but the Lord will start the fellow out with a clean slate, just the same. Folks aren't born bad. You can't inherit your parents' badness. You could inherit their weak wills, for instance, and if you live in Minetta Lane where there's only badness about you, your weak will wouldn't let you stand out against the badness. But you can't inherit evil. If that were possible, humanity would have degenerated to utter brutality long ago. And, Enoch, you haven't inherited even a weak will. You're as obstinate as old Funny Face!" "Then you think--" faltered the boy. "I don't think! I know that you come of fine, upstanding stock! And it's about time you moved out of Minetta Lane and gave your good blood a chance!" Enoch's lips quivered, and he turned his head toward the fire. Seaton waited, patiently. After a while he said, "Enoch, the most important thing in a man's life is his philosophy. What do you think life is for? By what principles do you think a man ought to be guided? Do you think that the underlying purpose of life is dog eat dog, every man for himself, by whatever method? That's your gambler's philosophy. Or do you think we're put here to make life better than we found it? That was Abraham Lincoln's philosophy. Before you decide for the Grand Canyon or for New York, you ought to discover your philosophy. Do you see what I'm driving at?" "Yes," said Nucky, "and I don't have to wait to discover it, for I've done that this week. I want to go into politics so I can clean out Minetta Lane." Seaton looked at the lad keenly. "Good work, Nucky, old man!" The boy spoke quickly. "Don't call me Nucky! I'm Enoch, from now on!" "From now on, where?" asked Frank, strolling into the firelight. "New York!" replied Enoch. "I'd rather stay here, but I got to go back." "Mr. Seaton, have you been using bribery?" Frank was half laughing, half serious. "Well, nothing as attractive as guiding on Bright Angel trail!" exclaimed John. "And that's the only job I was ever offered I really wanted!" cried Enoch ruefully. The men both laughed, and suddenly the boy joined them, laughing long and a little hysterically. "O gee!" he said at last, "I feel as free and light as air! I got to take a run up and down the sand," and a moment later they heard his whistle above the endless rushing of the Colorado. "Ideas are important things," said Seaton, thoughtfully. "Such a one as that beast Luigi has planted in Enoch's mind can warp his entire life. He evidently is of a morbidly sensitive temperament, proud to a fault, high strung and introspective. Until some one can prove to him that his mother was not a harlot, he'll never be entirely normal. And it's been my observation that one of the most fundamentally weakening things for a boy's character is his not being able to respect his father or mother. Luigi caught Enoch when his mind was like modeling clay." "Do you think you can clear the matter up?" asked Frank. "I'll try my utmost. It's going to be hard, for Foley's no fool, and he's done a lot of work on it with no results. If I don't settle the matter, Enoch is going to be hag-ridden by Minetta Lane all his life. I know of a chap who was lame for twenty years because when he was about ten, he had a series of extraordinarily vivid dreams portraying a curious accident that he was not able to distinguish from actual happenings. It was not until he was a man and had accidentally come in contact with a psychologist who analyzed the thing down to facts for him that he was cured. I could cite you a hundred cases like this where the crippling was mental as well as physical. And nothing but an absolute and tangible proof of the falsity of the idea will make a cure. Some day there are going to be doctors who will handle nothing but ideas." "The boy's worth saving!" Frank lighted his pipe thoughtfully. "There's a power of will there for good or evil that can't be ignored. And I have faith in any one the Canyon gets a real grip on. It sure has got this boy. I never saw a more marked case." The lawyer nodded and both men sat smoking, their eyes on the distant rim. BOOK II THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR CHAPTER III TWENTY-TWO YEARS LATER "It sometimes seemed to me that the Colorado said as it rushed through the Canyon, 'Nothing matters! Nothing! Nothing!'"--_Enoch's Diary_. One burning morning in July, Jonas, in a cool gray seersucker suit, his black face dripping with perspiration, was struggling with the electric fan in the private office of the Secretary of the Interior. The windows were wide open and the hideous uproar of street traffic filled the room. It was a huge, high-ceilinged apartment, with portraits of former Secretaries on the walls. The Secretary's desk, a large, polished conference table, and various leather chairs, with a handsome Oriental rug, completed the furnishings. As Jonas struggled vainly with the fan, a door from the outer office opened and a young man appeared with the day's mail. Charley Abbott was nearing thirty but he looked like a college boy. He was big and broad and blonde, with freckles disporting themselves frankly on a nose that was still upturned. His eyes were set well apart and his lips were frank. He placed a great pile of opened letters on Enoch's desk. "Better peg along, Jonas," he said. "The Secretary's due in a minute!" Jonas gathered the fan to his breast and scuttled out the side door as Enoch Huntingdon came in at the Secretary's private entrance. The years had done much for Enoch. He stood six feet one in his socks. He was not heavy but still had something of the rangy look of his boyhood. He was big boned and broad chested. College athletics had developed his lungs and flattened his shoulder blades. His hair was copper-colored, vaguely touched with gray at the temples and very thick and unruly. His features were still rough hewn but time had hardened their immaturity to a rugged incisiveness. His cheek bones were high and his cheeks were slightly hollowed. His eyes were a burning, brilliant blue, deep set under overhanging brows. His mouth was large, thin lipped and exceedingly sensitive; the mouth of the speaker. He wore a white linen suit. "Good morning, Mr. Abbott," he said, dropping his panama hat on a corner of the conference table. "Good morning, Mr. Secretary! I hope you are rested after yesterday. Seems to me that was as hard a day as we ever had." Enoch dropped into his chair. "Was it really harder, Abbott, or was it this frightful weather?" "Well, we didn't have more appointments than usual, but some of them were unusually trying. That woman who wanted to be reappointed to the Pension Office, for example." Enoch nodded. "I'd rather see Satan come into this office than a woman. Try to head them off, Abbott, whenever you can." "I always do, sir! Will you run through this correspondence, Mr. Huntingdon, before I call in the Idaho contingent?" Enoch began rapidly to read letters and to dictate terse replies. They were not more than a third of the way down the pile when a buzzer sounded. Enoch looked up inquiringly. "I told Jonas to buzz for me at 9:20," explained young Abbott. "I don't dare keep the people in the waiting-room watching the clock longer than that. We'll fit this in at odd times, as usual. Remember, Mr. Secretary, you can't give these people more than fifteen minutes. Shall I come in and speak to you, at that time?" "Perhaps you'd better," replied Enoch. Abbott opened the door into the outer room. "Gentlemen, the Secretary will receive you," he said. "Mr. Secretary, allow me to present Mr. Reeves, Mr. Carleton, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Dunkel, Mr. Street, Mr. Swiftwater and Mr. Manges." The men filing into the room bowed and mumbled. Enoch looked after Abbott's retreating back admiringly. "I've been hearing Abbott do that sort of thing for two years, but it never fails to rouse my admiration," he said. "A wonderful memory!" commented one of the visitors. "Abbott is going into politics later," Enoch went on. "A memory such as his will carry him far." "Not as far as a silver tongue," suggested another man, with a twinkle in his eye. "That remains to be seen," smiled Enoch. He had a very pleasant smile, showing even, white teeth. "Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you?" "Mr. Secretary," said the spokesman of the delegation, "as you know, we represent the business men of the State of Idaho. There is a very bitter controversy going on in our State over your recent ruling on the matter of Water Power Control. We believe your ruling works an injustice on the business men of our state and as nothing came of correspondence, we thought we'd come along East and have a talk with you." "I'm glad you did," said Enoch. "You see, my work is of such a nature that unless you people on the firing line keep in touch with me, I may go astray on the practical, human side. You are all States' Rights men, of course." The delegation nodded. "My ideas on Water Power are simple enough," said Enoch. "The time is approaching when oil, gas, and coal will not supply the power needed in America. We shall have to turn more and more to electricity produced by water power. There is enough water in the streams of this country to turn every wheel in every district. But it must be harnessed, and after it is harnessed it must be sold to the people at a just price. What I want to do is to produce all the available water power latent in our waterways. Then I want the poorest people in America to have access to it. There is enough power at a price possible even to the poorest." "We all agree with you so far, Mr. Secretary," said the chair-man of the delegation. "I thought you would!" Enoch's beautiful voice had a curious dignity for all its geniality. "Now my policy aims to embody the idea that the men who develop the water power of America shall not develop for themselves and their associates a water power monopoly." "We fear that as much as you do, Mr. Secretary," said one of the delegates. "But let the state control that. We fear too much bureaucracy and centralization of authority here in Washington. And don't forget, if it came to a scratch, we could say to Uncle Sam, you own the stream, but you shan't use a street or a town facility reaching it." Enoch raised his eyebrows. "Uncle Sam doesn't want more power. If the states had not been so careless and so corrupt in regard to their public lands and their waters, there would be no need now for the Department of the Interior to assert its authority. Show me, Mr. Delegate, that there are neither politics nor monopolistic dreams in Idaho's attitude toward her Water Power problem and I'd begin to de-centralize our policy toward your state." Abbott opened the door and tip-toed to Enoch's desk. "I'm sorry, Mr. Secretary," he said softly, "but Senator Far has been waiting five minutes." "I'm sorry too," replied Enoch. "Gentlemen, we have used up the time allotted. Will you make arrangements with Mr. Abbott for a longer conference, to-morrow? Come back with the proofs!" He smiled, and the gentlemen from Idaho smiled in return, but a little ruefully. The last one had not turned his back when Enoch began an attack on the pile of letters. A ruddy-faced, much wrinkled man appeared in the door. "Senator Far, Mr. Secretary," announced Abbott. Enoch rose and held out his hand. "Senator, you look warm. Oh, Abbott, tell Jonas to turn on the fan. What can I do for Arkansas, Senator?" Jonas came in hurriedly. "Mr. Secretary, that fan's laid down on me. How come it to do it, I haven't found out yet. I tried to borrow one from a friend of mine, but--" "Never mind, Jonas," said Enoch. "I don't expect you to be an electrician. Perhaps the power's still off in the building. I noticed there were no lights when I came in." Jonas' eyes grew as big as saucers. "It sure takes brains to be a Secretary," he muttered, as he turned to hurry from the room. The two men grinned at each other. "What I wanted was an appointment for a friend of mine," said Senator Far. "He's done a lot for the party and I want to get him into the Reclamation Service." "He's an engineer?" asked Enoch, lighting the cigar the Senator gave him. "I don't think so. He's been playing politics ever since I knew him. He has a good following in the state." "Why the Reclamation Service then! By the eternal, Senator, can't you fellows leave one department clear of the spoils system? I'm here to tell you, I'm proud of the Service. It's made up of men with brains. They get their jobs on pure ability. And you fellows--" "Oh, all right, Mr. Huntingdon!" interrupted Senator Far, rising, "I'm always glad to know where you stand! Good morning!" He hurried from the room and Enoch sighed, looked out the window, then read a half dozen letters before Abbott announced the next caller, a man who wanted his pension increased and who had managed to reach the Secretary through a letter from the president of a great college. Then followed at five and ten minute intervals a man from Kansas who had ideas on the allotment of Indian lands; a Senator who wanted light on a bill the Secretary wished introduced; a man from Alaska who objected to the government's attitude on Alaskan coal mines; the chairman of a State Central Committee who wanted three appointments, and a well known engineer who had a grievance against the Patent Office. Followed these, an hour's conference with the Attorney General regarding the New Pension Bill, and at noon a conference with the head of the Reclamation Service on the matter of a new dam. When this conference was over, Enoch once more attacked the correspondence pile which, during the morning, having been constantly fed by the indefatigable Abbott, was now of overwhelming proportions. It was nearly two o'clock when Jonas, having popped his head in and out of the door a half dozen times, evidently waiting for the Boss to look up, entered the room with a tray. "Luncheon is served, sir," he said. "Put it right here, Jonas." Enoch did not raise his head. Jonas set the tray firmly on the conference table. "No, sir, Mr. Secretary, I ain't goin' to sit it there. You're going to git up and come over here and keep your mind on your food. How come you think you got iron insides?" Enoch sighed. "All right, Jonas, I'm coming." He rose, stretched and moved over to the table. The man ceremoniously pulled out a chair for him, then lifted the towel from the tray and hung it over his arm. On the tray were a bottle of milk, a banana and some shredded wheat biscuit, with two cigars. "Any time you want me to change your lunch, Mr. Secretary, you say so," said Jonas. Enoch laughed. "Jonas, old man, how long have I been eating this fodder for lunch?" "Ever since you was Secretary to the Mayor, boss!" "And how many times do you suppose you've told me you were willing to change it, Jonas?" "Every time, boss. How come you think I like to see a smart man like you living on baby food?" Enoch grunted. "And how many times have I told you the only way for me to live through the banquets I have to attend is to keep to this sort of thing when I am alone?" Jonas did not reply. Enoch's simple lunches never ceased to trouble him. "Where do I go to-night, Jonas?" "The British Ambassador's, Mr. Secretary." Enoch finished his lunch rapidly and had just lighted the first of the cigars when Abbott appeared. "There's a woman out here from the Sunday Times, Mr. Secretary. She wants to interview you on your ideas on marriage. She has a letter from Senator Brownlee or I wouldn't have disturbed you. She looks as if she could make trouble, if she wanted to." "Tell her I'm sorry, but that I have no ideas about marriage and that Jonas is as near a wife as I care to get. He henpecks me enough, don't you, Jonas, old man! Abbott, just remember, once for all, I won't see the women." "Very well," replied Abbott. "Will you dictate a few moments on your report to the President on the Pension controversy?" "Yes!" Enoch pulled a handful of notes out of his pocket and began to dictate clearly and rapidly. For ten minutes his voice rose steadily above the raucous uproar that floated in at the window. Then the telephone rang. Abbott answered it. "The White House, Mr. Secretary," he said. Enoch picked up the receiver. After a few moments' conversation he rose, his face eager. "Abbott, the Mexican trouble appears to be coming to a crisis and the President has called a cabinet meeting. I doubt if I can get back here until after five. Will you express my regrets to the Argentine delegation and make a new appointment? Is there any one in the waiting-room?" "Six people. I can get rid of them all except Alton of the Bureau of Mines. I think you must see him." "Send him in," said Enoch. "I'll ask him to ride as far as the White House with me. And I'll be back to finish the letters, Abbott. I dare not let them accumulate a single day." Abbott nodded and hurried out. A tall, bronzed man, wiping the sweat from his bald head, came in just as Jonas announced, "The carriage, Mr. Secretary." "Come along, Alton," said Enoch. "We'll talk your model coal mine as we go." It was six o'clock when Enoch appeared again in his office. His linen suit was wrinkled and sweat stained between the shoulders. He tossed his hat on a chair. "Abbott, will you telephone Señor Juan Cadiz and ask him to meet me at my house at ten thirty to-night? He is at the Willard. Tell Jonas to interrupt us promptly at seven, I mustn't be late to dinner. Now, for this mess." Once more he began the attack on the day's mail, which Abbott had already reduced to its lowest dimensions. Enoch worked with a power of concentration and a quick decisiveness that were ably seconded by Charley Abbott. It was a quarter before seven when Enoch picked up the last letter. He read it through rapidly, then laid it down slowly, and stared out of the window for a long moment. Abbott gave his chief's face a quick glance, then softly shoved under his hand the pile of letters that were waiting signature. The letter that Enoch had just read was dated at the Grand Canyon. "Dear Mr. Secretary," it ran, "it is twenty-two years since I took a red-headed New York boy down Bright Angel trail. You and I have never heard from each other since, but, naturally I have followed your career with interest. And now I'm going to ask a favor of you. My daughter Diana wants a job in the Indian Bureau and she's coming to Washington to see you. Don't give her a job! She doesn't have to work. I can take care of her. I'm an old man and selfish and I don't like to be deprived of my daughter for my few remaining years. "With heart-felt congratulations on your great career, "I am yours most respectfully, "FRANK ALLEN." Enoch drew a deep breath and took up his fountain pen. He signed with a rapid, illegible scrawl that toward the end of the pile became a mere hieroglyphic. Jonas put his black face in at the door just as he finished the last. "Coming, Jonas!" said the Secretary. "By the way, Abbott, I'll answer that letter from Frank Allen the first thing in the morning. Good night, old man! Rather a lighter day than yesterday, eh?" "Yes, indeed, Mr. Secretary!" agreed Abbott, as Enoch picked up his hat and went hastily out the door Jonas held open for him. It was seven twenty when Enoch reached home. His house was small, with a lawn about the size of a saucer in front, and a back yard entirely monopolized by a tiny magnolia tree. Enoch rented the house furnished and it was full of the home atmosphere created by the former diplomat's wife from whom he leased it. Jonas was his steward and his valet. While other servants came and went, Jonas was there forever. He followed Enoch upstairs and turned on the bath water, then hurried to lay out evening clothes. During the entire process of dressing the two men did not exchange a word but Jonas heaved a sigh of satisfaction when at ten minutes before eight he opened the hall door. Enoch smiled, patted him on the shoulders and ran down the stairs. A dinner at the British Ambassador's was always exceedingly formal as to food and service, exceedingly informal as to conversation. Enoch took in a woman novelist, a woman a little past middle age who was very small and very famous. "Well," she said, as she pulled off her gloves, "I've been wanting to meet you for a long time." "I'm not difficult to meet," returned Enoch, with a smile. "As to that I've had no personal experience but three; several friends of mine have been trampled upon by your secretary. They all were women, of course." "Why, of course?" demanded Enoch. "One of the qualities that is said to make you so attractive to my sex is that you are a woman hater. Now just why do you hate us?" "I don't hate women." Enoch spoke with simple sincerity. "I'm afraid of them." "Why?" "I don't think I really know. Do you like men?" "Yes, I do," replied Mrs. Rotherick promptly. "Why?" asked Enoch. "They aren't such cats as women," she chuckled. "Perhaps cat fear is your trouble! What are you going to do about Mexico, Mr. Huntingdon?" Enoch smiled. "I told the President at great length, this afternoon, what I thought we ought to do. He gave no evidence, however, that he was going to take my advice, or any one else's for that matter." "Of course, I'm not trying to pick your confidence. Mr. Secretary!" Mrs. Rotherick spoke quickly. "You know, I've lived for years in Germany. I say to you, beware of Germany in Mexico, Mr. Huntingdon." "What kind of people did you know in Germany?" asked Enoch. "Many kinds! But my most intimate friend was an American woman who was married to a German General, high in the confidence of the Kaiser. I know the Kaiserin well. I know that certain German diplomats are deeply versed in Mexican lore--its geography, its geology, its people. I know that Germany must have more land or burst. Mr. Secretary, remember what I say, Germany is deeply interested in Mexico and she is the cleverest nation in the world to-day." "What nation is that, Mrs. Rotherick?" asked the Ambassador. "Germany!" replied the little woman. "Possibly you look at Germany through the eyes of a fiction writer," suggested the Englishman. "It's impossible to fictionize Germany," laughed Mrs. Rotherick. "One could much more easily write a rhapsody on--" "On the Secretary of the Interior," interrupted the Ambassador. "Or on the Bank of England," laughed Mrs. Rotherick. "Very well, gentlemen! I hope you never will have cause to remember my warning!" It was just as the ladies were leaving the table that Enoch said to Mrs. Rotherick: "Will you be so kind as to write me a letter telling me of your suspicions of Germany in Mexico? I shall treat it as confidential." Mrs. Rotherick nodded, and he did not see her again that evening. Just before Enoch departed for his engagement with Señor Cadiz, the Ambassador buttonholed him. "Look here, Huntingdon," he said, "that little Mrs. Rotherick knows a thing or two. She's better informed on international relations than many chaps in the diplomatic service. If I were you I'd pump her." "Thanks, Mr. Johns-Eaton," replied Enoch. "Look here, just how much of a row are you fellows going to make about those mines in the Alaskan border country? Why shouldn't Canada take that trouble on?" "Just how much trouble are you going to make about the seal misunderstanding?" demanded Johns-Eaton. "Well," replied Enoch, with a wide smile, "I have a new gelding I'd like to try out, to-morrow morning. If you'll join me at seven-thirty on that rack of bones you call a bay mare, I'll tell you all I know." "You will, like thunder!" laughed Johns-Eaton. "But I'll be there and jolly well give you the opportunity!" Señor Juan Cadiz was prompt and so was Enoch. For a long hour the two sat in the breathless heat of the July night while the Mexican answered Enoch's terse questions with a flow of dramatic speech, accentuated by wild gestures. Shortly after eleven-thirty Jonas appeared in the doorway with two tinkling glasses. "You are sure as to your facts about this bandit leader?" asked Enoch in a low voice. "Of an absolute sureness. If I--" The Secretary interrupted. "Could you go to Mexico for me, in entire secrecy?" "Yes! Yes! Yes! If you could but see him and he you! If he could but know an American of your type, your fairness, your kindness, your justice! We have been taught to despise and hate Americans, you must know." "Who has taught you?" "Sometimes, I think partly by the Germans who have come among the people. But why should Germany do so?" "Why indeed?" returned Enoch, and the two men stared at each other, deep intelligence in the gaze of each. Jonas tinkled the glasses again and Señor Cadiz jumped to his feet. "I know, Señor Jonas!" he laughed. "That is the good night cap, eh!" Jonas grinned acquiescence, and five minutes later he turned off the lights in the library. Enoch climbed the stairs, somewhat wearily. His room was stifling despite the wide-flung windows and the electric fan. He slowly and thoughtfully got himself into his pajamas, lighted a cigarette, and walked over to the table that stood in the bay window. He unlocked the table drawer and took out a large blank book of loose leafed variety, opened it, and seating himself he picked up his pen and began to write. "July 17.--Rather an easier day than usual, Lucy, which was fortunate, for the heat has been almost unbearable and at the end of the office day came that which stirred old memories almost intolerably. A letter from Frank Allen! You remember him, Lucy? I told you about him, when I first began my diary. Well, he has written that his daughter, Diana, is coming to Washington to ask me for a job which he does not wish me to give her. I cannot see her! Only you know the pain that such a meeting could give me! It would be like going to Bright Angel again. And while the thought of going back to the Grand Canyon has intrigued me for twenty-two years, I must go in my own way and in my own time. And I am not ready yet. I had forgotten, by the way, that Frank had a daughter. There was, now that I think of it, a little thing of five or six who went down Bright Angel with us. I have only the vaguest recollection of what she looked like. "Minetta Lane and the Grand Canyon! What a hideous, what a grotesque coupling of names! I have never seen the one of them since I was fourteen and the other but once, yet these two have absolutely made my life. Don't scold me, Lucy! I know you have begged me never to mention Minetta Lane again. But to you, I must. Do you know what I thought to-night after I left the British Ambassador? I thought that I'd like to be in Luigi's second floor again, with a deck of cards and the old gang. The old gang! They've all except Luigi been in Sing-Sing or dead, these many years. Yet the desire was so strong that only the thought of you and your dear, faithful eyes kept me from charging like a wild elephant into a Pullman office and getting a berth to New York." Enoch dropped his pen and stared long at the only picture in his room, a beautiful Moran painting of Bright Angel trail. Finally, he rose and turned off the light. When Jonas listened at the door at half after midnight, the sound of Enoch's steady, regular breathing sent that faithful soul complacently to bed. CHAPTER IV DIANA ALLEN "If only someone had taught me ethics as Christ taught them, while I was still a little boy, I would be a finer citizen, now."--_Enoch's Diary_. It rained the next day and the Secretary of the Interior and the British Ambassador did not attempt the proposed ride. Enoch did his usual half hour's work with the punching bag and reached his office punctual to the minute, with his wonted air of lack of haste and general physical fitness. Before he even glanced at his morning's mail, he dictated a letter to Frank Allen. "Dear Frank: Your letter roused a host of memories. Some day I shall come to Bright Angel again and you and I will camp once more in the bottom of the Canyon. Whatever success I have had in after life is due to you and John Seaton. I wonder if you know that he has been dead for twenty years and that his devoted wife survived him only by a year? "I will do my best to carry out your request in regard to your daughter. "Cordially and gratefully yours, "ENOCH HUNTINGDON." After he had finished dictating this, the Secretary stared out of the window thoughtfully. Then he said, "Let me have that at once, Mr. Abbott. Who is waiting this morning?" "Mr. Reeves of Idaho. I made an appointment yesterday for the delegation to meet you at nine-fifteen. Reeves has turned up alone. He says the committee decided it would get further if you saw him alone." "Reeves was the short, stout man with small eyes set close together!" "Yes, Mr. Secretary." Enoch grunted. "Any one else there you want to tell me about before the procession begins?" "Do you recall the man Armstrong who was here six months ago with ideas on the functions of the Bureau of Education? I didn't let him see you, but I sent you a memorandum of the matter. He is back to-day and I've promised him ten minutes. I think he's the kind of a man you want in the Bureau. He doesn't want a job, by the way." "I'll see him," said Enoch. "It you can, let us have fifteen minutes." Abbott sighed. "It's impossible, Mr. Secretary. I'll bring Reeves in now." The delegate from Idaho shook hands effusively. "The rain is a great relief, Mr. Secretary." "Yes, it is. Washington is difficult to endure, in the summer, isn't it? Well, did you bring in the proofs, Mr. Reeves?" Enoch seated himself and his caller sank into the neighboring chair. "Mr. Secretary," he began, with a smile, "has it ever occurred to you that we have been stupid in the number and kind of Bureaus we have accumulated in Department of the Interior?" "Yes," replied Enoch. "I suppose you are thinking of Patents, Pensions, Parks, Geological Survey, Land, Indians and Education. Do you know that beside these we have, American Antiquities, the Superintendent of Capitol Buildings, the Government Hospital for the Insane, Freedman's Hospital, Howard University, and the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb?" Reeves laughed. "No, I didn't. But it only goes to prove what I say. It's impossible for the Secretary of the Interior to find time to understand local conditions. Why not let the states manage the water and land problems?" "It would be illegal," replied Enoch briefly. "Oh, illegal! You're too good a lawyer, Mr. Secretary, to let that thought hamper your acts!" "On the contrary," returned Enoch, succinctly, "I was a poor lawyer. In some ways of course it is impossible for me to understand local conditions in Idaho. I am told, though, that your present state administration is corrupt as Tammany understands corruption." Reeves cleared his throat and would have spoken, but Enoch pushed on. "I have found, as the head of this complex Department that I must limit myself as much as possible to formulating simple, basic policies and putting these policies into the hands of men who will carry them out. In general, my most important work is to administer the public domain. That is, I must discover how best the natural resources that the Federal Government still controls can be put into public service and public service that is the highest and best. I believe that the water, the land, the mines, ought to be given to the use of the average citizen. I do not think that a corrupt politician nor a favor-seeking business man has the best good of the plain citizen at heart." "That is very interesting from the dreamer's point of view," said Reeves. "But a government to be successful must be practical. Who's going to develop the water power in our Idaho streams?" "The people of Idaho, if they show a desire to make a fair interest on their investment. The government of the United States, if the people of Idaho fail to show the proper spirit." "And who is to be the judge in the matter?" demanded Reeves. "The Secretary of the Interior will be the judge. And he is not one whit interested in you and your friends growing wealthy. He is interested in Bill Jones getting electricity up on that lonely ranch of his. Never forget, Mr. Reeves, that the ultimate foundations of this nation rest on the wise distribution of its natural resources. The average citizen, Mr. Reeves, must have reason to view the future with hope. If he does not, the nation cannot endure." "And why do you consider yourself competent to deal with these problems?" asked the caller, with a half-concealed sneer. "Any man with education and horse sense can handle them, provided that his philosophy is sound. You have come to Washington with the idea, Mr. Reeves, of getting at me, of tempting me with some sort of share in the wealth you see in your streams. Other men have come to the Capitol with the same purpose. I have my temptations, Mr. Reeves, but they do not lie in the desire to graft. I think there are jobs more interesting in life than the job of getting rich. All the grafting in the world couldn't touch in interest the job of directing America's inland destiny. And I have a foolish notion that a man owes his country public service, that he owes it for no reward beyond a living and for no other reason than that he is a man with a brain." Reeves, whose face had grown redder and redder, half rose from his chair. "One moment," said Enoch. "Have you a sound, fair, policy for Idaho water power, that will help Bill Jones in the same proportion that it helps you?" "I had no policy. I came down here to get yours. I've got it all right, and I'm going back and tell my folks they'd better give up any idea of water power during the present administration." "I wouldn't tell them that," said Enoch, "because it wouldn't be true. I am considering a most interesting proposition from Idaho farmers. I thought perhaps you had something better." Reeves jumped to his feet. "I'll not be made a monkey of any longer!" he shouted. "But I'll get you for this yet," and he rushed from the office. Enoch shrugged his shoulders as he turned to the inevitable pile of letters. Abbott came in with a broad smile. "Mr. Secretary, Miss Diana Allen is in the outer office." Enoch scowled. "Have I got to see her?" "Well, she's mighty easy to look at, Mr. Secretary! And more than that, she announces that if you're engaged, she'll wait, a day, a week, or a month." Enoch groaned. "Show her in, Abbott, and be ready to show her out in five minutes." Abbott showed her in. She entered the room slowly, a tall woman in a brown silk suit. Everything about her it seemed to Enoch at first was brown, except her eyes. Even her skin was a rich, even cream tint. But her eyes were hazel, the largest, frankest, most intelligent eyes Enoch ever had seen in a woman's head. And with the eyes went an expression of extraordinary sweetness, a sweetness to which every feature contributed, the rather short, straight nose, the full, sensitive lips, with deep, upturned corners, the round chin. True beauty in a woman is something far deeper, far less tangible than mere perfection of feature. One grows unutterably weary of the Venus de Milo type of face, with its expressionless perfection. And yet, so careless is nature that not twice in a lifetime does one see a woman's face in which are combined fineness of intelligence and of character, and beauty of feature. But Diana was the thrice fortunate possessor of this combination. She was so lovely that one's heart ached while it exulted in looking at her. For it seemed a tragic thing that beauty so deep and so rare should embody itself in a form so ephemeral as the human body. She was very slender. She was very erect. Her small head with the masses of light brown hair shining beneath the simple hat, was held proudly. Yet there was a matchless simplicity and lack of self-consciousness about Diana that impressed even the careless observer: if there was a careless observer of Diana! Enoch stood beside his desk in his usual dignified calm. His keen eyes swept Diana from head to foot. "You are kind to see me so quickly, Mr. Secretary," said Diana, holding out her hand. Enoch smiled, but only slightly. It seemed to Diana that she never had seen so young a man with so stern a face. "You must have arrived on the same train with your father's note, Miss Allen. Is this your first trip east?" "Yes, Mr. Huntingdon," replied Diana, sinking into the chair opposite Enoch's. "If he had had his way, bless his heart, I wouldn't have had even a first trip. Isn't it strange that he should have such an antipathy to New York and Washington!" The Secretary looked at the girl thoughtfully. "As I recall your father, he usually had a good reason for whatever he felt or did. You're planning to stay in Washington, are you, Miss Allen?" "If I can get work in the Indian Bureau!" replied Diana. "Why the Indian Bureau?" asked Enoch. "I'm a photographer of Indians," answered Diana simply. "I've been engaged for years in trying to make a lasting pictorial record of the Indians and their ways. I've reached the limit of what I can do without access to records and books and I can't afford a year of study in Washington unless I work. That's why I want work in the Indian Bureau. Killing two birds with one stone, Mr. Secretary." Enoch did not shift his thoughtful gaze from the sweet face opposite his for a long moment after she had ceased to speak. Then he pressed the desk button and Abbott appeared. He glanced at his chief, then his eyes fastened themselves on Diana's profile. "Mr. Abbott, will you ask the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to come in? I believe he is with the Assistant Secretary this morning." Charley nodded and disappeared. "I brought a little portfolio of some of my prints," Diana spoke hesitatingly. "I left them in the other room. Mr. Abbott thought you might like to see them, but perhaps--you seem so very busy and I think there must be at least a thousand people waiting to see you!" "There always are," said Enoch, without a smile as he pressed another button. Jonas' black head appeared. "Bring in the portfolio Miss Allen left in the other room, please, Jonas!" "Yes, Mr. Secretary," replied Jonas, withdrawing his eyes slowly from Diana's eager face. The portfolio and the Indian Commissioner arrived together. After the introduction had been made, Enoch said: "Watkins, do you know anything about Indians?" "Very little, Mr. Secretary," with a smile. "Would you be interested in looking at some photographs of Indian life?" "Made by this young lady?" asked Watkins, looking with unconcealed interest at Diana. "Yes," said Enoch. "And shown and explained by her?" asked the Indian Commissioner, a twinkle in his brown eyes. Diana laughed, and so did Abbott. Enoch's even white teeth flashed for a moment. "I wish I had time to join you," he said. "What I want to suggest, Mr. Watkins, is that you see if Miss Allen will qualify to take care of some of the research work you received an appropriation for the other day. You were speaking to Abbott, I think, of the difficulty of finding people with authentic knowledge of the Indians." The Indian Commissioner nodded and tucked Diana's portfolio under his arm. "Come along, Miss Allen!" Diana rose. "If we don't leave now, I have an idea we will be asked to do so," she said, the corners of her mouth deepening suddenly. "What happens if one doesn't leave when requested?" "One is cast in a dungeon, deep under the Capitol building," replied Enoch, holding out his hand. Diana laughed. "Thank you for seeing me and helping me, Mr. Huntingdon," she said, and a moment later Jonas closed the door behind her and the Commissioner. "How come that young lady to stay so long, Mr. Abbott?" Jonas asked Charley in a low voice, as he helped the young man bring in a huge pile of Reclamation reports. "Did you get a good look at her, Jonas?" demanded Abbott in the same tone. "Yes," replied Jonas. "Then why ask foolish questions?" "The boss don't like 'em, no matter what they look like." "Every man has his breaking point, Jonas," smiled Charley. Enoch turned from the window where he had been standing for a moment in unprecedented idleness. "I think you'd better let me have ten or fifteen minutes on that report to the President, Abbott." "I will, Mr. Secretary. By the way, here is the data you asked me to get for your speech at the Willard to-night." Enoch nodded, pocketed the notes and began to dictate. The day went on as usual, but it seemed to Jonas, when he helped the Secretary to dress for dinner that night that he was unusually weary. "How come you to be so tired to-night, boss?" he asked finally. "I don't know, old man! Jonas, how long since I've had a vacation?" "Seven years, boss." "Sometimes I think I need one, Jonas." "Need one! Boss, they work you to death! They all say so. Your own work's enough to kill three men. And now they do say the President is calling on you for all the hard jobs he don't dare trust nobody else to do. How come he don't do 'em hisself?" "Oh, I'm not doing more than my share, Jonas! But you and I'll have to have a vacation one of these days, sure. Maybe we'll go to Japan. I'll be home early, if I can make it, Jonas." Jonas nodded, and looked out the window. "Carriage's here, sir," and Enoch ran quickly down the stairs. It was only eleven o'clock when he reached home. The rain had ceased at sundown and the night was humid and depressing. When Enoch was once more in his pajamas, he unlocked the desk drawer and, taking out the journal, he turned to the first page and began to read with absorbed interest. "May 12.--This is my eighteenth birthday. I've had a long ride on the top of the bus, thinking about Mr. Seaton. He was a fine chap. He gave me a long lecture once on women. He said a guy must have a few clean, straight women friends to keep normal. Of course he was right, but I couldn't tell him or anybody else how it is with me. He said that if you can share your worries with your friends they're finished. And he was right again. But they're some things a guy can't share. I did it once, back there in the Canyon, and I'll always be glad I did. But I was just a kid then. The hunch that pulled me up straight then wouldn't work now. They never did prove she was not my mother. They never found out a thing about me, except what Luigi and the neighbors had to tell. She was my mother, all right. And I don't feel as if I ever can believe in any of them. I don't want to. All I want of women is for them to let me alone and I'll let them alone. But a few weeks ago I had a fine idea--to invent a girl of my own! I got the idea in English Literature class, from a poem of Wordsworth's. "Three years she grew in sun and shower; Then nature said, A lovelier flower On earth was never sown; This child I to myself will take, She shall be mine and I will make A lady of my own." "I've invented her and I'm going to keep a journal to her and I'll tell her all the things I'd tell my mother, if she'd been decent, and to my sweetheart, if I could believe in them. I don't know just how old she is. Somewhere in her twenties, I guess. She's tall and slim and she has a creamy kind of skin. Her hair is light brown, almost gold. It's very thick. She has it in braids wound all round her head. Her eyes are hazel and she has a sweet mouth and she is very beautiful. And she is good, and tender, and she understands everything about me. She knows just how bad I've been and the fight I'm putting up to keep straight. And every night before I go to bed, I'll tell her what my day has been. I'll begin to-night by telling her about myself. "I don't know where I was born, Lucy, or who my father was. My mother was the mistress of an Italian called Luigi Giuseppi. She died a rotten death, leaving me at six to Luigi. He treated me badly but he needed me in his gambling business, and he kept me by telling me how bad my mother was and threatening to tell other people. From the time I was eight till I was fourteen, I don't suppose a day passed without his telling me of the rot I had inherited from my mother. I began gambling for him when I was about ten. "When I was fourteen I was arrested in a gambling raid and paroled in the care of John Seaton, a lawyer. He took me to the Grand Canyon. He and Frank Allen, a guide, suggested to me the idea that Luigi's mistress was not my mother. Such an idea never had occurred to me before. They first gave it to me in the bottom of the Canyon. "I can't put into writing what that suggestion, coupled with my first view of the Canyon meant to me. But it was as if I had met God face to face and He had taken pity on a dirty little street mucker and He had lifted me in His great hands and had told me to try to be good and He would help me. I never had believed in God before. And I came back from that trip resolved to put up a fight. "Mr. Seaton began the search for my folks right off, but he didn't find anything before he died, which was only a year later. But I made him a solemn promise I'd go through college and study law and I'm going to do it. He was not a rich man but he left me enough money to see me through college. In one more year I'll finish the High School. I still play cards once in a while in a joint on Sixth Avenue. I know it's wrong and I'm trying hard to quit. But sometimes I just can't help it, especially when I'm worried. "Luigi will be in the pen another seven years. When he comes out I am going to beat him up till he tells me about my mother and father. Though perhaps he's been telling the truth!" "May 13.--Lucy, I made a speech in third year rhetoric to-day and the teacher kept me after class. He said he'd been watching me for some time and he wanted to tell me he thought I'd make a great orator, some day. He's going to give me special training out of school hours, for nothing. I'm darned lucky. If a guy's going into politics, oratory's the biggest help. But to be famous as a speaker isn't why I'm going into politics. I'm going to clean Minetta Lane up. I'm going to try to fix it in New York so's a fellow couldn't have a mother and a stepfather like mine. You know what I mean, don't you? Darn it, a kid suffers so! You know that joint on Sixth Avenue where I go and play cards once in a while? Well, it was raided to-day. I wonder what Mr. Seaton would have said if he'd been alive and I'd been there and got pinched again! "I'm going to throw no bluffs with you, Lucy. Gambling's in my blood. Luigi used to say I came by my skill straight. And I get the same kind of craving for it that a dope fiend does for dope. I don't care to tell anybody about it, or they'd send me to an insane asylum. When I first came from the Canyon and moved out of Minetta Lane, I swore I'd never put foot in it again until I went in to clean it up. And I haven't and I won't. But for the first year my nails were bitten to the quick. If my mother--but what's the use of that! Mr. Seaton said every man has to have a woman to whom he opens up the deep within him. I have you and you know you've promised to help me." "June 1.--Lucy, I've got a job tutoring for the summer. The rhetoric teacher got it for me. It's the son of an Episcopal vicar. He is a boy of twelve and they want him taught English and declamation. Lord! If they knew all about me! But the kid is safe in my hands. I know how kids of twelve feel. At least, the Minetta Lane variety. So I'll be at the sea shore all summer. Going some, for Minetta Lane, eh? "Lucy, I made fifty dollars last night at poker from a Senior in the Student's Club. This morning I made him take it back." Enoch closed the book and leaned back in his chair as Jonas appeared at the door with a pitcher of ice water. "How come you don't try to get a little rest, boss?" asked Jonas, glancing disapprovingly at the black book. "I am resting, old man! Don't bother your good old head about me, but tumble off to sleep yourself!" "I don't never sleep before you do. I ain't for thirteen years, and I don't calculate to begin now." Jonas turned the bed covers back and marched out of the room. Enoch smiled and, opening the book again, he turned the pages slowly till another entry struck his eye. "February 6.--If I could only see you, touch you, cling to your tender hand to-night, Lucy! You know that I was chosen to represent Columbia in the dedication of the Lincoln statue. It was to have taken place next Wednesday. But the British Ambassador, who was to be the chief Mogul there, was called home to England for some reason or other and they shoved the dedication forward to to-day, so as to catch him before he sailed. And some of the speakers weren't prepared, so it came about that I, an unknown Columbia senior, had to give the chief speech of the day. Not that anybody, let alone myself, realized that it was going to be the chief speech. It just turned out that way. Lucy dear, they went crazy over it! And all the papers to-night gave it in full. It was only a thousand words. Why in the name of all the fiends in Hades do you suppose nothing relieves me in moments of great mental stress but gambling? You notice, don't you, that I talk to you of Minetta Lane only when something tremendous, either good or bad, has happened to me? Other men with the same weakness, you say, turn to drink. I suppose so, poor devils. Oh, Lucy, I wish I were in the Grand Canyon to-night! I wish you and I were together in Frank's camp at the foot of Bright Angel. It is sunset and the Canyon is full of unspeakable wonder. Even the thought of it rests me and makes me strong. . . . Those stars mean that I've torn into a million pieces a hundred-dollar bill I won in Sixth Avenue to-night." Enoch turned many pages and then paused. "March 28.--There is a chance, Lucy, that I may be appointed secretary to the reform Mayor of New York. I would be very glad to give up the practice of law. Beyond my gift for pleading and a retentive memory, I have no real talents for a successful legal career. You look at me with those thoughtful, tender gray eyes of yours. Ah, Lucy, you are so much wiser than I, wise with the brooding, mystical wisdom of the Canyon in the starlight. You have intimated to me several times that law was not my end. You are right, as usual. Law has its face forever turned backward. It is searching always for precedent rather than justice. A man who is going into politics should be ever facing the future. He should use the past only in helping him to avoid mistakes in going forward. And, perhaps I am wrong. I am willing to admit that my unfortunate boyhood may have made me over inclined to brood, but it seems to me very difficult to stick to the law, make money, and be morally honest, in the best sense. If I clear Bill Jones, who is, as I know, ethically as guilty as Satan, though legally within his rights, can I face you as a man who is steel true and blade straight? I hope I get that appointment! I was tired to-night, Lucy, but this little talk with you has rested me, as usual." "March 29.--I have the appointment, Lucy. This is the beginning of my political career--the beginning of the end of Minetta Lane. You have a heavy task before you, dear, to keep me, eyes to the goal, running the race like a thoroughbred. Some day, Lucy, we'll go back to the Canyon, chins up, work done, gentlemen unafraid!" Enoch turned more pages, covering a year or so of the diary. "March 30.--I've been in the City Hall two years today. Lucy, the only chance on earth I'll ever have to clean out the rookeries of New York would be to be a Tammany Police Commissioner. And Tammany would certainly send its best gunman after a Police Commissioner who didn't dote on rookeries. Lucy, can't city governments be clean? Is human nature normally and habitually corrupt when it comes to governing a city? The Mayor and all his appointees are simply wading through the vast quagmire of the common citizen's indifference, fought every step by the vile creatures who batten on the administration of the city's affairs. Do you suppose that if the schools laid tremendous stress on clean citizenship and began in the kindergarten to teach children how to govern in the most practical way, it would help? I believe it would. I'm going to tuck that thought in the back of my head and some day I may have opportunity to use it. I wish I could do something for the poor boys of New York. I wish the Grand Canyon were over in Jersey!" "Sept. 4.--I am unfit to speak to you, but oh, I need you as I never did before. Don't turn those kind, clear-seeing eyes away from me, Lucy! Lucy! It happened this way. I wanted, if possible to make our Police Commissioner see Minetta Lane through my eyes. And I took him down there, three days ago. It's unchanged, in all these years, except for the worse. And Luigi was dragging a sack of rags into his basement. He was gray and bent but it was Luigi. And he recognized me and yelled 'Bastard!' after me. Lucy, I went back and beat him, till the Commissioner hauled me off. And the dirty, spluttering little devil roared my story to all that greedy, listening crowd! I slipped away, Lucy, and I hid myself in a place I know in Chinatown. No! No! I don't drink and I don't hit the pipe. I _gamble_. My luck is unbelievable. And when the fit is on me, I'd gamble my very soul away. Jonas found me. Jonas is a colored porter in the City Hall who has rather adopted me. And Jonas said, 'Boss, how come you to do a stunt like this? The Police Commissioner say to the Mayor and I hear 'em, an Italian black hander take you for somebody else and he have him run in. I tell 'em you gone down to Atlantic City. You come home with me, Boss.' He put his kind black hand on my shoulder, and Lucy, his eyes were full of tears. I left my winnings with the Chinaman, and came back here with Jonas. Lucy! Oh, if I could really hear your voice!" "Sept. 5.--I had a long talk with the Police Commissioner to-day. I can trust him the way I used to trust Mr. Seaton, Lucy. I told him the truth about Luigi and me and he promised to do what he could to ferret out the truth about my people. If I could only know that my father was half-way decent, no matter what my mother was, it would make an enormous difference to me." Enoch turned another year of pages. "Oct. 12.--Lucy, the Police Commissioner says he has to believe that Luigi's mistress was my mother. He advises me to close that part of my life for good and all and give myself to politics. Easy advice! But I am going to play the game straight in spite of Minetta Lane." Enoch paused long over this entry, then turned on again. "Nov. 6.--Well, my dear, shake hands with Congressman Huntingdon. Yes, ma'am! It's true! Aren't you proud of me? And, Lucy, listen! Don't have any illusions on how I got there. It wasn't brains. It wasn't that the people wanted me to put over any particular idea or ideal for them. I simply so intrigued them with flights of oratory that they decided I was a natural born congressman! Well, bless 'em for doing it, anyhow, and I'll play the game for them. If I ever had had a father I'd like to talk politics with him. He must have had some decency in him, or I'd have been all bad, like my mother. Or maybe I'm a throw-back from two degenerate parents. Well, we'll end the breed with me. "Lucy, it would have been romantic if I could have cleaned out Minetta Lane and other New York rookeries. But it would have been about like satisfying one's self with washing a boy's face when his body was a mass of running sores. We've got to cure the sores and in order to do that we've got to find the cause. No one thing is going to prove a panacea. I wonder if it's possible to teach children so thoroughly that each one owes a certain amount of altruistic, clean service to his local and his federal government that an honest, responsible citizenry would result?" Enoch drank of the ice water and continued to turn the close-written pages. "April 12.--I don't boast much about my career as a Congressman. I've been straight and I've gabbed a good deal. That about sums up my history. If I go back as Police Commissioner, I shall feel much more useful. "Lucy, love is a very important thing in a man's life. Sometimes, I think that the less he has of it, the more important it becomes. I had thought that as I grew older my career would more and more fill my life, that youth and passion were synonymous and that with maturity would come calm and surcease. This is not the truth. The older I grow the more difficult it becomes for me to feel that work can fully satisfy a man. Nor will merely caring for a woman be sufficient. A man must care for a woman whom he knows to be fine, who can meet his mental needs, or love becomes merely physical and never satisfies him. Well, I must not whimper. I have talent and tremendous opportunities, many friends and splendid health. And I have you. And each year you become a more intrinsic part of my life. How patient you have been with me all these years! I've been wondering, lately, if you haven't rather a marked sense of humor. It seems to me that nothing else could make you so patient, so tender and so keen! I'm sure I'm an object of mirth to Jonas at times, so I must be to you. All right! Laugh away! I laugh at myself! "Lucy, it has been over eighteen months since I touched a card." Jonas put his head in at the door, but Enoch turned on to the middle of the book. "Dec. 1.--They won't let me keep it up long, Lucy, but Lord, Lord, hasn't the going been good, my dear, while it lasted! I've twisted Tammany's tail till its head's dropped off! I've 'got long poles and poked out the nests and blocked up the holes. I shall consult with the carpenters and builders and leave in our town not even a trace of the rats.' I've routed out hereditary grafters and looters. I've run down wealthy gunmen and I've turned men's fame to a notoriety that carried a stench. But they'll get me, Lucy! They'll either kill me or send me back to Congress." Enoch turned more pages. "Nov. 1.--Congress again, eh, Lucy? And you care for Washington as little as I! Dear, this has been a hard day. I've been saying good-by to the force! By the eternal, but they are men! And now all that wonderful machine, built up, really, by the men themselves, must fall apart! What a waste of human energy! Yet, I've come to the conclusion that the man who devotes himself to public service loses much of his usefulness if he allows himself to grow pessimistic about human nature. If there were not more good than bad in the world, we'd still be monkeys! I have ceased to search for some great single ideal for which I can fight. Whatever abilities I have in me I shall devote to helping to administer government cleanly. After all, we gave New York a great object lesson in the possibilities of cleaning out Tammany's pest house. Perhaps somebody's great-grandchild, inspired by the history of my attempt will try again and be successful for a longer period. And oh, woman! It was a gorgeous fight! "Jonas is delighted that we are returning to Washington. He says we are to keep house. I am a great responsibility to Jonas. He is very firm with me, but I think he's as fond of me as I am of him. "Lucy, how am I to go on, year after year like this, with only my dream of you? How am I to do my work like a man, with only half a man's life to live? What can all the admiring plaudits mean to me when I know that you are only a dream, only a dream?" Enoch sat forward in his chair, laid the book on the desk, opened to the last entry and seized his pen. "So your name is not Lucy, but Diana! Oh, my dearest, and you did not recognize me at all, while my very heart was paralyzed with emotion! You must have been a very lovely little girl that the memory of you should have been so impressed on my subconsciousness. Oh, how beautiful you are! How beautiful! And to think that I must never let you know what you are to me. Never! Never! The strain stops with me." He dropped his pen abruptly and, turning off the light, flung himself down on his bed. Jonas, listening long at the door, waited for the full, even breathing that would mark the end of his day's work. But it did not come, and dawn struggling through the hall window found Jonas sitting on the floor beside the half-opened door, his black head drooping on his breast, but his eyes open. Enoch reached his office on the stroke of nine, as usual. His face was a little haggard and set but he came in briskly and spoke cheerfully to Charley Abbott. "A little hotter than ever, eh, Abbott? I think you're looking dragged, my boy. When are you going to take your vacation?" "In the fall, after you have had yours, Mr. Secretary." The two men grinned at each other. "Did the Indian Commissioner find work for Miss Allen?" asked Enoch abruptly. "Oh, yes! And she was as surprised and pleased as a child." "How do you know that?" demanded the Secretary. Charley looked a little confused. "I took her out to lunch, Mr. Huntingdon. Jove, she's the most beautiful woman I ever saw!" "Well, let's finish off that report to the President, Mr. Abbott. That must go to him to-morrow, regardless of whom or what I have to neglect to-day." Abbott opened his note book. But the dictation hardly had begun when the telephone rang and Enoch was summoned to the White House. It was noon when he left the President. Washington lay as if scorching under a burning glass. The dusty leaves drooped on the trees. Even the carefully cherished White House lawn seemed to have forgotten the recent rains. Enoch dismissed his carriage and crossed slowly to Pennsylvania Avenue. It had occurred to him suddenly that it had been many weeks since he had taken the noon hour outside of his office. He had found that luncheon engagements broke seriously into his day's work. He strolled slowly along the avenue, watching the sweltering noon crowds unseeingly, entirely unconscious of the fact that many people turned to look at him. He paused before a Johnstown Lunch sign, wondering whimsically what Jonas would say if it were reported that the boss had eaten here. And as he paused, the incessantly swinging door emitted Miss Diana Allen. Enoch's pause became a full stop. "How do you do, Miss Allen?" he said. Diana flushed a little. "How do you do, Mr. Secretary! Were you looking for a cheap lunch?" "Jonas provides the cheapest lunch known to Washington," said Enoch. "I was looking for some one to walk up Pennsylvania Avenue with me." "You seem to be well provided with company." Diana glanced at the knot of people who were eagerly watching the encounter. Enoch did not follow her glance. His eyes were fastened on Diana's lovely curving lips. "And I want to hear about the work in the Indian Bureau." Diana fell into step with him. "I think the work is going to be interesting. Mr. Watkins is more than kind about my pictures. I'm to send home for the best of my collection and he is going to give an exhibition of them." "Is he giving you a decent salary?" asked Enoch. "Ample for all my needs," replied Diana. "Do your needs stop with the Johnstown Lunch?" demanded Enoch. "Well," replied Diana, "if you'd lived on the trail as much as I have, you'd not complain of the Johnstown Lunch. I've made worse coffee myself, and I've seen more flies, too." Enoch chuckled. "What does Watkins call your job?" "I'm a special investigator for the Indian Bureau." Enoch chuckled again. "Right! And that title Watkins counts as worth at least five dollars a week. The remainder is the equivalent of a stenographer's salary. I know him!" "He is quite all right," said Diana quickly. "It must be extremely difficult to manage a budget. No matter how large they are, they're always too small. To administer the affairs of a dying race with inadequate funds--" Diana hesitated. "And in entire ignorance of the race itself," added Enoch quietly. "I know! But I had to choose between a rattling good administrator and a rattling good ethnologist." Diana nodded slowly. "Your choice was inevitable, I suppose. And Mr. Watkins seems very efficient." "Well, and where does your princely salary permit you to live?" Enoch concluded. "On New Jersey Avenue, in a brown stone front with pansies in front and cats in the rear, an old Confederate soldier in the basement and rats in the attic. As for odors and furniture, any kind whatever, provided one is not too particular." "My word! how you are going to miss the Canyon!" exclaimed Enoch. Diana nodded. "Yes, but after all one's avocation is the most important thing in life."' "Is it?" asked Enoch. "I've tried to make myself believe that, but so far I've failed." "You mean," Diana spoke quickly, "that I ought to have stayed with my father?" "No, I don't!" returned Enoch, quite as quickly. "At least, I mean that I know nothing whatever about that. I would say as a general principle, though, that parents who have adequate means, are selfish to hang on the necks of their grown children." "Father misses mother so," murmured Diana, with apparent irrelevance. Enoch said nothing. They were opposite the Post Office now and Diana paused. "I must go to the Post Office! Good-by, Mr. Secretary." "Good-by, Miss Allen," said Enoch, taking off his hat and holding out his hand. "Let me know if there is anything further I can do for you!" "Oh, I'm quite all right and shall not bother you again, thank you," replied Diana cheerfully. Enoch was very warm when he reached his office. Jonas and the bottle of milk were awaiting him. "How come you to be so hot, boss?" demanded Jonas. "I walked back. It was very foolish," replied Enoch meekly. "I don't dare to let you out o' my sight," said Jonas severely. "I think I do need watching," sighed Enoch, beginning his belated luncheon. That night the Secretary wrote to Diana's father. "My dear Frank: Diana came and I found a job for her in the Indian office. I feel like a dog to have broken my word with you, but her work is very interesting and very important, and I feel that she ought to have her few months of study in Washington. She is very beautiful, Frank, and very fine. You must try to forgive me. Faithfully yours, "ENOCH HUNTINGDON." CHAPTER V A PHOTOGRAPHER OF INDIANS "When I tutored boys I wondered most at their selfishness and their generosity. They had so much of both! And I believe that as men they lose none of either."--_Enoch's Diary_. Enoch knew what it was to fight himself. Perhaps he knew more about such lonely, unlovely battles than any man of his acquaintance. The average man is usually too vain and too spiritually lazy to fight his inner devils to the death. But Enoch had fought so terribly that it seemed to him that he could surely win this new struggle. Nothing should induce him to break his vow of celibacy. He cursed himself for a weak fool in not obeying Frank Allen's request. Then he gathered together all his resources, to protect Diana from himself. A week or so went by, during which Enoch made no attempt to see Diana or to hear from her. The office routine ground on and on. The Mexican cloud thickened. Alaska developed a threatening attitude over her coal fields. The farmers of Idaho suddenly withdrew their proposals regarding water power. Calmly and with clear vision, Enoch met each day's problems. But the lines about his mouth deepened. One day, early in August, Charley Abbott came to the Secretary's desk. "Miss Diana Allen would like to see you for a few moments, Mr. Secretary." Enoch did not look up. "Ask her to excuse me, Mr. Abbott, I am very busy." Charley hesitated for an instant, then went quickly out. "Luncheon is served, boss," said Jonas, shortly after. "Is Abbott gone?" asked Enoch. "Yes, sir! He's took that Miss Allen to lunch, I guess. He's sure gone on that young lady. How come everybody thinks she's so beautiful, boss?" "Because she is beautiful, Jonas, very, very beautiful." The faithful steward looked keenly at the Secretary. He had not missed the appearance of a line in the face that was the whole world to him. "Boss," he said, "don't you ever think you ought to marry?" Enoch looked up into Jonas' face. "A man with my particular history had best leave women alone, Jonas." Jonas' mouth twitched. "They ain't the woman ever born fit to darn your socks, boss." Enoch smiled and finished his lunch in silence. He would have given a month of his life to know what errand had brought Diana to his office. But Charley Abbott, returning at two o'clock with the complacent look of a man who has lunched with a beautiful girl, showed no intention of mentioning the girl's name. And Enoch went on with his conferences. But it was many days before he opened the black book again. Diana's exhibition must have been of unusual quality, for jaded and cynical Washington learned of its existence, spoke of it and went to see it. It seemed to Enoch that every one he met took special delight in mentioning it to him. Even Jonas, one night, as he brought in the bed-time pitcher of ice water, said, "Boss, I saw Miss Allen's pictures this evening. They sure are queersome. That must be hotter'n Washington out there. How come you ain't been, Boss?" "How do you know I haven't seen them, Jonas?" asked Enoch quickly. "Don't I know every place you go, boss? Didn't you tell me that was my job, years ago? How come you think I'd forget?" Jonas was eyeing the Secretary warily. "Mr. Abbott, he's got a bad case on that Miss Allen. He's give me at least a dollar's worth of ten cent cigars lately so's I'll stand and smoke and let him talk to me about her." Enoch grunted. "He says she--" Jonas rambled on. Enoch looked up quickly. "I don't want to hear it, Jonas." Jonas drew himself up stiffly. The Secretary laid his own broad palm over the black hand that still held the handle of the water pitcher. "Spare me that, old friend," he said. Jonas put his free hand on Enoch's shoulder. "Are you sure you're right, boss?" he asked huskily. "I know I'm right, Jonas." "Well, I don't see it your way, boss, but what's right for you is right for me. Good night, sir," and shaking his head, Jonas slowly left the room. But Enoch was destined to see the pictures after all. One day, after Cabinet meeting, the President, in his friendly way, clapped Enoch on the shoulder. "First time in a great many years, Huntingdon, that the Indian Bureau has distinguished itself for anything but trouble! I saw Miss Allen's pictures last night. My word! What a sense of heat and peace and, yes, by jove, passion! those photographs tell. The Bureau ought to own those pictures, old man. Especially the huge enlargement of Bright Angel trail and the Navaho hunters. Eh?" "Well, to tell the truth, Mr. President," said Enoch slowly, "I haven't seen the pictures." "Not seen them! Why some one said you discovered Miss Allen!" "In a way I did, but I don't deserve any credit for that." "Not if he saw her first!" exclaimed the Secretary of State, who had loitered behind the others. The President nodded. "She is very lovely. I saw her at a distance, and I want to meet her. Now, Mr. Huntingdon, it's very painful for me to have to chide you for dereliction in office. But a man who will neglect those pictures for the--well, the coal fields of Alaska, should be dealt with severely." "Hear! Hear!" cried the Secretary of State. The President laughed. "And so I must ask you, Mr. Huntingdon, to bring Miss Allen to see me, after you have gone carefully over the pictures. Jokes aside, you know my keen interest in Indian ethnology?" Enoch nodded, and the President went on. "If this girl has the brains and breadth of vision I'm sure she must have to produce a series of photographs like those, I want to know her and do what I can to push her work. So neglect Mexico and Alaska for a little while, tomorrow, will you, Huntingdon?" Enoch's laughter was a little grim, but with a quick leap of his heart, he answered. "A man can but obey the Commander in Chief, I suppose!" As the door swung to behind him, the President said to the Secretary of State, "Huntingdon is working too hard, I'm afraid. Does he ever play?" "Horseback riding and golf. But he's a woman hater. At least, if not a hater, an avoider!" "I like him," said the President. "I want him to play." That evening Enoch went to see the pictures. There were perhaps a hundred of them, telling the story of the religion of the Navahos. Only one whom the Indians loved and trusted could have procured such intimate, such dramatic photographs. They were as unlike the usual posed portraits of Indian life as is a stage shower unlike an actual thunder storm. There was indeed a subtle passion and poignancy about the pictures that it seemed to Enoch as well as to the President, only a fine mind could have found and captured. He had made the rounds of the little room twice, threading his way abstractedly through the crowd, before he came upon Diana. She was in white, standing before one of the pictures, answering questions that were being put to her by a couple of reporters. She bowed to Enoch and he bowed in return, then stood so obviously waiting for the reporters to finish that they actually withdrew. Enoch came up and held out his hand. "These are very fine, Miss Allen." "I thought you were not coming to see them," said Diana. "It makes me very happy to have you here!" "Does it?" asked Enoch quickly. "Why?" "Because--" here Diana hesitated and looked from Enoch's stern lips to his blue eyes. "Yes, go on, do!" urged Enoch. "For heaven's, sake, treat me as if I were a human being and not--" It was his turn to hesitate. "Not the Washington Monument?" suggested Diana. Enoch laughed. "Am I as bad as that?" he asked. Diana nodded. "Very nearly! Nevertheless, for some reason I don't understand, I've had the feeling that you would like the pictures and get what I was driving at, better than any one." "Thank you," said Enoch slowly. "I do like them. So much so that I wish that I might own them, instead of the Indian Bureau. The President, to-day, told me the Indian Bureau ought to buy them. And also, he asked me to bring you to see him to-morrow." A sudden flush made roses in Diana's beautifully modeled cheeks. "Did he! Mr. Huntingdon, how am I ever going to thank you?" "I deserve no thanks at all. It was entirely the President's own idea. In fact, I had not intended to come to your exhibition." "No? Why not? Do you dislike me so much as that? And, after all, Mr. Secretary, if the pictures are interesting, the fact that a woman took them should not prejudice you against them." "Abbott's been giving me a bad reputation, I see," said Enoch. "I'll have to get Jonas to tell you what a really gentle and affectionate and er--mild, person I am. I've a notion to reduce Abbott's salary." "Charley Abbott is a dear, and he's a devoted admirer of yours," Diana exclaimed. "And of yours," rejoined Enoch. "He's very discerning," said Diana, her eyes twinkling and the corners of her mouth deepening. "But you shall not evade me this way, Mr. Huntingdon. Why didn't you want to see my pictures?" "I didn't say that I didn't want to see them. Women are always inaccurate, or at least, so I have heard." "I would say that Mr. Abbott had a great deal more data on the general subject of women than you, Mr. Secretary. You really ought to get him to check you up! Please, why didn't you intend to come to my exhibition?" "I have been swamped with extra work of late," answered Enoch. "Yes?" Diana's eyebrows rose and her intelligent great eyes were fastened on Enoch's with an expression so discerning and so sympathetic, that he bit his lip and turned from her to the Navaho, who prayed in the burning desert before him. The reporters, who had been hovering in the offing, closed in on Diana immediately. When she was free once more, Enoch turned back and held out his hand. "Good night, Miss Allen. If you don't mind coming over to my office at twelve to-morrow, I can take you to the White House then." "I shall not mind!--too much! Good night, Mr. Secretary," replied Diana, with the deepening of the corners of her mouth that Enoch now recalled had belonged to the little girl Diana. Enoch made an entry in the black book that night. "I wonder, Diana, how much Frank has told you of me and my unhappy history. I wonder how you would feel if a man whose mother was a harlot who died of an unspeakable disease were to ask you to marry him. Oh, my dear, don't be troubled! I shall never, never, ask you. Your pictures moved me more than I dared try to express to you. It was as if you had carried me in a breath to the Canyon and once more I beheld the wonder, the kindliness, the calm, the inevitableness of God's ways. I'm going to try, Diana, to make a friend of you. I believe that I have the strength. What I am very sure of is that I have not the strength to know that you are in Washington and never see you." The clock struck twelve the next day, when Abbott came to the Secretary's desk. Enoch was deep in a conference with the Attorney General. "Miss Allen is here," he said softly. "Give me five minutes!" exclaimed the Attorney General. "I'm sorry." Enoch rose from his desk. "I'm very sorry, old fellow, but this is an appointment with the President. Can you come about three, if that suits Abbott's schedule?" "Not till to-morrow, I'm afraid," said the Attorney General. Enoch nodded. "It's just as well. I think I'll have some private advices from Mexico by then that may somewhat change our angle of attack. All right, Jonas! I'm coming. Ask Miss Allen to meet me at the carriage." But he overtook Diana in the elevator. She wore the brown silk suit, and Enoch thought she looked a little flushed and a little more lovely than usual. "I'm a marked person, Mr. Secretary," she said, with a twinkle in her eyes. "You'd scarcely believe how many total strangers have asked me to introduce them to you, since you walked up Pennsylvania Avenue with me." "I'm glad you have an appreciative mind," returned Enoch. "I hope that you are circumspect also, and won't impose on me because of my condescension." "I'll try not to," Diana answered meekly, as Enoch followed her into the carriage. They smiled at each other, and Enoch went on, "Of course, I've been feeling rather proud of the opportunity to display myself before Washington with you. I've been called indifferent to women. I'm hoping now that the gossips will say, 'Aha! Huntingdon's a deep one! No wonder he's been indifferent to the average woman!'" Diana eyed him calmly. "That doesn't sound at all like Washington Monument," she murmured. "More like Charley Abbott, I suppose!" retorted Enoch. "No," answered Diana thoughtfully, "hardly like Mr. Abbott's method. I would say that he belonged to a different school from you." "Yes? What school does Abbott represent?" "Well, he has a dash, an ease, that shows long and varied experience. Charley Abbott is a finished ladies' man. It almost discourages me when I contemplate the serried ranks of women that must have contributed to his perfect finesse." "Discourages you?" queried Enoch. Diana did not answer. "But," she went on, "while Charley is a graduate of the school of experience and you--" She paused. "Yes, and I--," pressed Enoch. "I won't impose on your condescension by telling you," said Diana. "Pshaw!" muttered the Secretary of the Interior. Suddenly Diana laughed. Enoch, after a moment, laughed with her, and they entered the White House grounds still chuckling. The President did not keep them waiting. "I may not be able to order my wife and daughter about," he said, as he shook hands with Enoch, "but I certainly have my official family well under control. Did you see the pictures, Huntingdon?" "I saw and was conquered, Mr. President," replied Enoch. "What would you say, Miss Allen, if I tell you that I had to force this fellow into going to see your wonderful pictures?" the President asked. "It wouldn't surprise me," replied Diana, in an enigmatical voice that made both men smile. "I see you understand our Secretary of the Interior," the President said complacently. "Sit down, children, and Miss Allen, talk to me. How long did it take you to make that collection of photographs?" "I began that particular collection ten years ago. Those pictures have been sifted out of nearly two thousand prints." "Did you take any other pictures during that period?" asked the President. "Oh, yes! I was, I think, fourteen or fifteen when I first determined to give my life to Indian photography. I didn't at that time think of making a living out of it. I had a dream of making a photographic history of the spiritual life of some of the South-western tribes. It didn't occur to me that anything but a museum or possibly a library would care for such a collection. But to my surprise there was a ready market for really good prints of Indians and Indian subjects. So while I have kept always at work on my ultimate idea, I've made and sold many, many pictures of Indians on all sorts of themes." Enoch looked from Diana's half eager, half abashed eyes, to the President's keen, hawk-like face, then back to Diana. "What gave you the idea to begin with?" asked the President. Diana looked thoughtfully out of the window. Both men watched her with interest. Enoch's rough hewn face, with its unalterably somber expression, was set in an almost painful concentration. The President's eyes were cool, yet eager. "It is hard for me to put into words just what first led me into the work," said Diana slowly. "I was born in a log house on the rim of the Grand Canyon. My father was a canyon guide." "Yes, Frank Allen, an old Yale man. I know him." "Do you remember him?" cried Diana. "He'll be so delighted! He took you down Bright Angel years ago." "Of course I remember him. Give him my regards when you write to him. And go on with your story." "My mother was a California woman, a very good geologist. My nurse was a Navajo woman. Somehow, by the time I was into my teens, I was conscious of the great loss to the world in the disappearance of the spiritual side of Indian life. I knew the Canyon well by then and I knew the Indians well and the beauty of their ceremonies was even then more or less merged in my mind with the beauty of the Canyon. Their mysticism was the Canyon's mysticism. I tried to write it and I couldn't, and I tried to paint it, and I couldn't. And then one day my mother said to me, 'Diana, nobody can interpret Indian or Canyon philosophy. Take your camera and let the naked truth tell the story!'" Diana paused. "I'm not clever at talking. I'm afraid I've given you no real idea of my purpose." "One gets your purpose very clearly, when one recalls your Death and the Navajo, for instance, eh, Huntingdon?" "Yes, Mr. President!" "I suppose the two leading Indian ethnologists are Arkwind and Sherman, of the Smithsonian, are they not, Miss Allen?" asked the President. "Oh, without doubt! And they have been very kind to me." The President nodded. "They both tell me that your work is of extraordinary value. They tell me that you have actually photographed ceremonies so secret, so mystical, that they themselves had only heard vaguely of their existence. And not only, they say, have you photographed them, but you have produced works of art, pictures 'pregnant with celestial fire.'" Diana's cheeks were a deep crimson. "Oh, I deserve so little credit, after all!" she exclaimed. "I was born in the midst of these things. And the Indians love me for my old nurse's sake! But human nature is weak and what you tell me makes me very happy, sir." The men glanced at each other and smiled. "Suppose, Miss Allen," said the President, "that you had the means to outfit an expedition. How long would it take you to complete the entire collection you have in mind?" Diana's eyes widened. "Why, I could do nothing at all with an expedition! I simply wander about canyon and desert, sometimes with old nurse Na-che, sometimes alone. The Indians have always known me. I'm as much a part of their lives as their own daughters. I--I believe much of their inner hidden religion and so--oh, Mr. President, an expedition would be absurd, for me!" "Well, then, without an expedition?" insisted the President. Diana sighed. "You see, I'm not able to give all my time to the work. Mother died five years ago, and father is lonely and, while he thinks his little income is enough for both of us, it's enough only if I stay at home and play about the desert with my camera, cheaply as I do, and keep the house. It does not permit me to leave home. It seems to me, that working as I have in the past, it would take me at least ten years more to complete my work." "The patience of the artist! It always astounds me!" exclaimed the President. "Miss Allen, I am not a rich man, but I have some wealthy friends. I have one friend in particular, a self-made man, of enormous wealth. The interest he and I have in common is American history in all its aspects. It seems to me that you are doing a truly important work. I want you to let this friend of mine fund you so that you may give all your time to your photography." "Oh, Mr. President, I don't need funds!" protested Diana. "There is no hurry. This is my life work. Let me take a life-time for it, if necessary." "That is all very well, Miss Allen, but what if you die, before you have finished? No one could complete your work because no one has your peculiar combination of information and artistic ability. People like you, my dear, belong not to themselves, but to the country." Enoch spoke suddenly. "Why not arrange the matter with the Indian Bureau, Mr. President?" "Why not arrange it with the Circumlocution Office!" exclaimed the President. "I'm surprised at you, Huntingdon! You know what the budget and red tape of Washington does to a temperament like Miss Allen's. On the other hand, here is my friend, who would give her absolutely free rein and take an intense pride in providing the money." Diana laughed. "You speak, sir, as if I needed some vast fund. It costs a dollar a day in the desert to keep a horse and another dollar to keep a man. Camera plates and clothing--why a hundred dollars a month would be luxury! And I don't need help, truly I don't! The mere fact of your interest is help enough for me." "A hundred dollars a month for your expenses," said the President, making a memorandum in his notebook, "and what is your time worth?" "My time? You mean what would I charge somebody for doing this work? Why, Mr. President, this is not a job! It's an avocation! I wouldn't take money for it. It's a labor of love." The chief executive suddenly rose and Diana, rising too, was surprised at the look that suddenly burned in the hawk-like eyes. "You are an unusual woman, Miss Allen! Your angle on life is one seldom found in Washington." He took a restless turn up and down the room, glanced at Enoch, who stood beside the desk, utterly absorbed in contemplation of Diana's protesting eyes, then said, "This friend of mine is a disappointed man. He had believed that in amassing a great fortune he would find satisfaction. He has found that money of itself is dust and ashes and it is too late for him to take up a new work. Miss Allen, I too am a disappointed man. I had believed that the President of a great nation was a full man, a contented man. I find myself an automaton, whirled about by the selfish desires of a politically stupid and indifferent constituency. One of the few consolations I find in my high office is that once in a while I come upon some one who is contributing something permanent to this nation's real advancement, and I am able to help that person. Miss Allen, will you not share your great good fortune with my friend and me?" "Gladly!" exclaimed Diana quickly. Then she added, with a little laugh, "I think I understand now, why you are President of the United States!" Enoch and the President joined in the laugh, and Diana was still smiling when they descended the steps to the waiting carriage. But the smile faded with a sudden thought. "The President mustn't think I will take more than expense money!" she exclaimed. Enoch laughed again as he replied, "I don't think that need bother you, Miss Allen. I imagine a yearly sum will be placed at your disposal. You will use what you wish." Diana shook her head uneasily. "I don't more than half like the idea. But the President made it very difficult to refuse." Enoch nodded. The carriage stopped before the Willard Hotel. "Miss Allen, will you lunch with me?" he asked. Diana hesitated. "I'll be late getting back to the office," she said. "I'll ask Watkins not to dock you," said Enoch soberly. "Docking my salary," touching Enoch's proffered hand lightly as she sprang to the curb, "would be almost like taking something from nothing. I've never lunched in the Willard, Mr. Secretary." "The Johnstown lunch still holds sway, I suppose!" said Enoch, following Diana down the stairs to Peacock Row. They were a rather remarkable pair together. At least the occupants of the Row evidently felt so, for there was a breathless craning of necks and a hush in conversations as they passed, Diana, with her heart-searching beauty, Enoch with his great height and his splendid, rugged head. The head waiter did not actually embrace Enoch in welcoming him, but he managed to convey to the dining-room that here was a personal and private god of his own on whom the public had the privilege of gazing only through his generosity. Finally he had them seated to his satisfaction in the quietest and most conspicuous corner of the room. "Now, my dear Mr. Secretary, what may we give you?" he asked, rubbing his hands together. Enoch glanced askance at Diana, who shook her head. "This is entirely out of my experience, Mr. Secretary," she said. "Gustav," said Enoch, "it's not yet one o'clock. We must leave here at five minutes before two. Something very simple, Gustav." He checked several items on the card and gave it to the head waiter with a smile. Gustav smiled too. "Yes, Mr. Secretary!" he exclaimed, and disappeared. "And that's settled," said Enoch, "and we can forget it. Miss Allen, when shall you go back to the Canyon?" "Why," answered Diana, looking a little startled, "not till I've finished the work for Mr. Watkins, and that will take six months, at least." "I think the President's idea will be that you must get to your own work, at once. Some one else can carry on Watkins' researches." "I ought to do some studying in the Congressional library," protested Diana. "Don't you think Washington can endure me a few months longer, Mr. Secretary?" "Endure you!" Enoch's voice broke a little, and he gave Diana a glance in which he could not quite conceal the anguish. A sudden silence fell between the two that was broken by the waiter's appearance with the first course. Then Diana said, casually: "My father is going to be very happy when I write him about this. Do you remember him at all clearly, Mr. Secretary?" "Yes," replied Enoch. Then with a quick, direct look, he asked, "Did your father, ever give you the details of his experience with me in the Canyon?" Diana's voice was low but very steady as she replied, "Yes, Mr. Secretary. He told me long ago, when you made your famous Boyhood on the Rack speech in Congress. It was the first word he had heard of you in all the years and he was deeply moved." "I'm glad he told you," said Enoch. "I'm glad, because I'd like to ask you to be my friend, and I would want the sort of friend you would make to know the worst as well as the best about me." "If that is the worst of you--" Diana began quickly, then paused. "As father told me, it was a story of a boy's suffering and the final triumph of his mind and his body." Enoch stared at Diana with astonishment in every line of his face. Then he sighed. "He couldn't have told you all," he muttered. "Yes, he did, all! And nothing, not even what the President said to-day, can mean as much to me as your asking me to be your friend." Enoch continued to stare at the lovely, tender face opposite him. Diana smiled. "Don't look so incredulous, Mr. Secretary! It's not polite. You are a very famous person. I am nobody. We are lunching together in a wonderful hotel. I don't even vaguely surmise the names of the things we are eating. Don't look at me doubtingly. Look complacent because you can give a lady so much joy." Enoch laughed with a quick relief that made his cheeks burn. "And so you are nobody! Curious, then, that you should have impressed yourself on me so deeply even when you were a child!" It was Diana's turn to laugh. "Oh, come, Mr. Secretary! Of course I don't recall it myself, but Dad has always said that you were bored to death at having a small girl taking the trail with you." "Do you remember that your mule slipped on the home trail and that I saved your life?" demanded Enoch. Diana shook her head. "I was too small and there were too many canyon trips and too many tourists. I wish--" She did not finish her sentence, but Enoch said, with a thread of earnestness in his deep voice that made Diana look at him keenly, "I wish you did remember!" There was a moment's silence, then Enoch went on, "Shall you carry on your work with the Indians alone as you always have done? I believe I can quite understand your father's uneasiness." "Oh, yes!" exclaimed Diana, glad of an opportunity to redirect the conversation. "Just as I always have done. I shall have no trouble unless I get soft, living at the Johnstown Lunch! Then I may have to waste time till I get fit again. Have you ever lived on the trail, excepting on your trip to the Grand Canyon, Mr. Secretary?" "Yes, in Canada and Maine, while I was in college. I used to tutor rich boys, and they had glorious summers, lucky kids! But since getting into national politics, I've had no time for real play." "Some day," said Diana, "you ought to get up an outfit and go down the Colorado from the Green River to the Needles. That's a real adventure! Only a few men have done it since the Powell expeditions." Enoch's eyes brightened. "I know! Some day, perhaps I shall, if Jonas will let me! How long do you suppose such a trip would take?" Diana plunged into a description of a recent expedition down the canyons of the Colorado, and she managed to keep the remainder of the luncheon conversation on this topic. But as far as Enoch was concerned, Diana's effort was merely a conversational detour. The luncheon finished and the Gulf of California safely reached, he said as he handed Diana into the carriage: "I've never had a friendship with a woman before," he said. "What do I do next?" Diana sighed, while her lips curled at the corners. "Well, Mr. Secretary, I think the next move is to think the matter over for a few days, quietly and alone." "Do you?" Enoch smiled enigmatically. "I don't know that it's safe for me to rely on your experience after all!" But he said no more. Enoch spent the evening in his living-room with Señor Juan Cadiz and a small, lean, brown man in an ill-fitting black suit. The latter did not speak English, and Señor Cadiz acted as interpreter. The stranger was uneasy and suspicious, until the very last of the evening. Then, after a long half hour spent in silent scowling while he stared at Enoch and listened to the Secretary's replies to Cadiz's eager questions, he suddenly burst into a passionate torrent of Spanish. A look of great relief came to Cadiz's face, as he said to Enoch: "Now he says he trusts you and will tell you the names of the Americans who are paying him." Enoch began to jot down notes. When Cadiz's translation was finished Enoch said: "This in brief, then, is the situation. A group of Americans own vast oil fields in Mexico. They have enormous difficulty policing and controlling the fields. The Mexican method of concession making is exceedingly expensive and uncertain. They wish the United States to take Mexico over, either through actual conquest or by mandate. They have hired a group of bandits to keep trouble brewing until the United States is forced by England, Germany, or France, to interfere. This group of men is partly German though all dwell in the United States. Your friend here, and several of his associates, if I personally swear to take care of them, will give me information under oath whenever I wish." "Yes! Yes! Yes! That is the story!" cried Señor Cadiz. "Oh, Mr. Secretary, if you could only undo the harm that your cursed American method of making the public opinion has done, both here and in Mexico. Why should neighbors hate each other? Mr. Secretary, tell these Americans to get out of Mexico and stay out! We are foolish in many ways, but we want to learn to govern ourselves. There will be much trouble while we learn but for God's sake, Mr. Secretary, force American money to leave us alone while we struggle in our birth throes!" Enoch stood up to his great height, tossing the heavy copper-colored hair off his forehead. He looked at the two Mexicans earnestly, then he said, holding out his hand, "Señor Cadiz, I'll help you to the best of my ability. I believe in you and in the ultimate ability of your country to govern itself. Now will you let me make an appointment for you with the Secretary of State? Properly, you know, you should have gone to him with this." The Mexican shook his head. "No! No! Please, Mr. Secretary! We do not know him well. He has shown no willingness to understand us. You! you are the one we believe in! We have watched you for years. We know that you are honest and disinterested." "But I shall have to give both the President and the Secretary of State this information," insisted Enoch. "That is in your hands," said Señor Cadiz. "Then," Enoch nodded as Jonas appeared with the inevitable tinkling glasses, "remain quietly in Washington until you hear from me again." Jonas held the door open on the departing callers with disapproval in every line of his face. "How come that colored trash to be setting in the parlors of the government, boss?" asked he. "They are Mexicans, Jonas," replied Enoch. "Just a new name for niggers, boss," snapped Jonas, following Enoch up the stairs. "Don't you trust any colored man that ain't willing to call hisself black." Enoch laughed and settled himself to an entry in the journal. "This was the happiest day of my life, Diana. We are going to be great friends, are we not! And the philosophers tell us that friendship is the most soul-satisfying of all human relationships. I have been very vacillating in my attitude to you, since you came to Washington. But I cannot lose the feeling that those wise, wistful eyes of yours have seen my trouble and understood. I wonder how soon I can see you again. I'm rather proud of my behavior to-day, Diana, dearest." CHAPTER VI A NEWSPAPER REPORTER "I wonder if Christ ever cared for a woman. He may have, for God wished Him to know and suffer all that men know and suffer, and all love must have been noble in His eyes."--_Enoch's Diary_. "Abbott," said Enoch the next day, "do you recall that I have commented to you several times on the fact that some of the southwestern states did not back the Geological Survey in its search for oil fields as we had expected they would?" "Yes, Mr. Secretary," answered Charley, looking up from his notebook with keen interest in eye and voice. "I have wondered just why the matter bothered you so." "It has bothered me for several different reasons. It has, to begin with, conflicted with my idea of the fundamental purpose of this office. What could be a stronger reason for being for the Geological Survey than to find and show the public the resources of the public lands? When the Bureau of Mines reports to me that certain oil fields are diminishing at an alarming rate, and when any fool knows that a vital part of our future history is to be written in terms of oil, it behooves the Secretary of the Interior to look for remedial steps. Certain sections of our Southwest are saturated with oil and yet, Abbott, the states resent our locating oil fields. As far as I know now, no open hostility has been shown, unless"--Enoch interrupted himself suddenly,--"do you recall last year that some Indians drove a Survey group out of Apache Canyon and that young Rice was killed and all his data lost?" "Certainly, I recall it. I knew Rice." Enoch nodded. "Do you recall that a number of newspapers took occasion then to sneer at government attempts to usurp State and commercial functions?" "Now you speak of it, I do remember. The Brown papers were especially nasty." "Yes," agreed Enoch. "Now listen closely, Abbott. When my suspicions had been sufficiently roused, I went to the Secretary of State, and he laughed at me. Then, the Mexico trouble began to come to a head and I told the President what I feared. This was after I'd had that letter from Juan Cadiz. Last night, as you know, I had a session with Cadiz and one of his bandit friends. Here is what I drew from them." Enoch reviewed rapidly his conversation of the night before. Abbott listened with snapping eyes. "It looks as if Secretary Fowler would have to stop laughing," he said, when Enoch had finished. "Abbott," Enoch's voice was very low, "John Fowler, the Secretary of State, always will laugh at it." "Why?" asked Charley. "I don't know," replied Enoch. The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Then Abbott said, "I've known for a long time that he was jealous of you, politically. Also he may own Mexican oil stock or he may merely wish to have the political backing of the Brown newspapers." "Can you think of any method of persuading him that I am not a political rival, that I merely want to go to the Senate, when I have finished here?" asked Enoch earnestly. Abbott shook his head, "He might be convinced that you want to be a Senator. But he's a clever man. And even a fool knows that you are America's man on horseback." Charley's voice rose a little. "Why, even in this rotten, cynical city of Washington, they believe in you, they feel that you are the man of destiny. Mr. Fowler is just clever enough to be jealous of you." A look of sadness came into Enoch's keen gaze. "I wonder if the game is worth it, after all," murmured he. "Abbott, I'd swap it all for--" he stopped abruptly, looked broodingly out of the window, then said, "Charley, my boy, why are you going into political life?" The younger man's eyes deepened and he cleared his throat. "A few years ago, if I'd answered that question truthfully, I'd have said for personal aggrandizement! But my intimate association with you, Mr. Huntingdon, has given me a different ideal. I'm going into politics to serve this country in the best way I can." "Thanks, Abbott," said Enoch. "I've been wanting to say to you for some time that I thought you had served your apprenticeship as a secretary. How would you like an appointment as a special investigator?" Charley shook his head. "As long as you are Secretary of the Interior, I prefer this job; not only because of my personal feeling for you but because I can learn more here about the way a clean political game can be played than I can anywhere else." "All right, Abbott! I'm more than grateful and more than satisfied at having you with me. See if I can have a conference with first the Secretary of State and then the President. Now let me finish this report before the Attorney General arrives." Enoch's conference with Secretary Fowler was inconclusive. The Secretary of State chose to take a humorous attitude toward what he termed the Secretary of the Interior's midnight conference with bandits. Enoch laughed with him and then departed for his audience with the chief executive. The President listened soberly. When the report was finished, he scowled. "What attitude does Mr. Fowler take in this?" "He thinks I'm making mountains out of mole hills. It seems to me, Mr. President, that I must be extremely careful not to encroach on the domain of the Secretary of State. My idea is very deliberately to push the work of the Geological Survey and to follow very carefully any activities against its work." "All very well, of course," agreed the President, "but what of the big game back of it all--what's the means of fighting that?" "Publicity," replied Enoch briefly. "Exactly!" exclaimed the President, "There are other newspapers. Brown does not own them all. As fast as evidence is produced, let the story be told. By Jove, if this war talk grows much more menacing, Huntingdon, I think I'll ask you to go across the country and make a few speeches,--on the Geological Survey!" "I'm willing!" replied Enoch, with a little sigh. The President looked at him keenly. "Huntingdon, we're working you too hard! You look tired. I try not to overload you, but--" "But you are so overloaded yourself that you have to shift some of the load," said Enoch, with a smile. "I'm not seriously tired, Mr. President." "I hope not, old man. By the way, what did you think of Miss Allen yesterday?" "I thought her a very interesting young woman," replied Enoch. "My heavens, man!" exclaimed the chief executive. "What do you want! Why, Diana Allen is as rare as--as a great poem. Look here, Huntingdon, you make a mistake to cut all women out of your life. It's not normal." "Perhaps not," agreed Enoch briefly. "I would be very glad," he added, as if fearing that he had been too abrupt, "I would be very glad to see more of Miss Allen." "You ought to make a great effort to do," said the President. "Keep me informed on this Mexican matter, please, and take care of yourself, my boy. Good-by, Mr. Secretary. Think seriously of a speaking tour, won't you?" "I will," replied Enoch obediently, as he left the room. The remainder of the day was crowded to the utmost. It was not until midnight that Enoch achieved a free moment. This was when in the privacy of his own room Jonas had bidden him a final good night. Enoch did not open his journal. Instead he scrawled a letter. "Dear Miss Allen: After deliberating on the matter a somewhat shorter time, I'll admit, than you suggested, but still having deliberated on it, I have decided that friendship is an art that needs attention and study. Will you not dine with me to-morrow, or rather, this evening, at the Ashton, at eight o'clock? Jonas, who will bring you this, can bring your answer. Sincerely yours, Enoch Huntingdon." He gave the note to Jonas the next morning. Jonas' black eyes, when he saw the superscription, nearly started from their sockets: for during all the years of his service with Enoch, he never had carried a note to a woman. It was mid-morning when he tip-toed to the Secretary's desk and laid a letter on it. Enoch was in conference at the time with Bill Timmins, perhaps the foremost newspaper correspondent in America. He excused himself for a moment and opened the envelope. "Dear Mr. Secretary: Thank you, yes. Sincerely, Diana Allen." He slipped the letter into his breast pocket and went on with the interview, his face as somber as ever. But all that day it seemed to the watchful Jonas that the Secretary seemed less tired than he had been for weeks. There was a little balcony at the Ashton, just big enough for a table for two, and shielded from the view of the main dining-room by palms. It was set well out from the second floor, overlooking a quiet park. Enoch was in the habit of dining here with various men with whom he wished semi-privacy yet whom he did not care to entertain at his own home. Diana was more than charmed by the arrangement. The corners of her mouth deepened as if she were also amused, but Enoch, engrossed in seating her where the light exactly suited him, did not note the curving lips. He did not know much about women's dress, but he liked Diana's soft white gown, and the curious turquoise necklace she wore interested him. He asked her about it. "Na-che gave it to me," she said. "It was her mother's. It has no special significance beyond the fact that the workmanship is very fine and that the tracery on the silver means joy." "Joy? What sort of joy?" asked Enoch. "Is there more than one sort?" countered Diana, in the bantering voice that Enoch always fancied was half tender. "Oh, yes!" replied the Secretary. "There's joy in work, play, friends. There are as many kinds of joy as there are kinds of sorrow. Only sorrow is so much more persistent than joy! A sorrow can stay by one forever. But joys pass. They are always short lived." "Joy in work does not pass, Mr. Secretary," said Diana. Enoch laid down his spoon. "Please, Miss Allen, don't Mr. Secretary me any more." Diana merely smiled. "Granted that one has a real friend, I believe joy in friendship is permanent," she went on. "I hope you're right," said Enoch quietly. "We'll see, you and I." Diana did not reply. She was, perhaps, a little troubled by Enoch's calm and persistent declaration of principles. It is not easy for a woman even of Diana's poise and simple sincerity to keep in order a gentleman as distinguished and as courteous and as obviously in earnest as Enoch. Finally, "Do you mind talking your own shop, Mr. Huntingdon?" she asked. "Not at all," replied Enoch eagerly. "Is there some aspect of my work that interests you?" "I imagine that all of it would," said Diana. "But I was not thinking of your work as a Cabinet Official. I was thinking of you as Police Commissioner of New York." Enoch looked surprised. "Father wrote to me the other day," Diana went on, "and asked me to send him the collection of your speeches. I bought it at Brentano's and I don't mind telling you that it pinched the Johnstown lunches a good bit to do so, but it was worth it, for I read the book before mailing it." "You're not hinting that I ought to reimburse you, are you?" demanded Enoch, with a delighted chuckle. "Well, no--we'll consider that the luncheon and this dinner square the Johnstown pinching, perhaps a trifle more. What I wanted to say was that it struck me as worth comment that after you ceased being Police Commissioner, you never again talked of the impoverished boyhood of America. And yet you were a very successful Commissioner, were you not?" Enoch looked from Diana out over the balcony rail to the fountain that twinkled in the little park. "One of the most difficult things in public life," he said slowly, "is to hew straight to the line one laid out at the beginning." "I should think," Diana suggested, "that the difficulty would depend on what the line was. A man who goes into politics to make himself rich, for example, might easily stick to his original purpose." "Exactly! But money of itself never interested me!" Here Enoch stopped with a quick breath. There flashed across his inward vision the picture of a boy in Luigi's second story, throwing dice with passionate intensity. Enoch took a long sip of water, then went on. "I wanted to be Police Commissioner of New York because I wanted to make it impossible for other boys to have a boyhood like mine. I don't mean that, quite literally, I thought one man or one generation could accomplish the feat. But I did truly think I could make a beginning. Miss Allen, in spite of the beautiful fights I had, in spite of the spectacular clean-ups we made, I did nothing for the boys that my successor did not wipe out with a single stroke of his pen, his first week in office." Diana drew a long breath. "I wonder why," she said. "I think that lack of imagination, poor memory, personal selfishness, is the answer. There is nothing people forget quite so quickly as the griefs of their own childhood. There is nothing more difficult for people to imagine than how things affect a child's mind. And yet, nothing is so important in America to-day as the right kind of education for boys. It has not been found as yet." "Have you a theory about it?" asked Diana. "Yes, I have. Have you?" Diana nodded. "I don't think boys and girls should be educated from the same angle." "No? Why not?" Enoch's blue eyes were eager. "Wandering about the desert among the Indians, one has leisure to think and to observe the workings of life under frank and simple conditions. It has seemed to me that the boy approaches life from an entirely different direction from a girl and that our system of education should recognize that. Both are primarily guided by sex, their femaleness or their maleness is always their impelling force. I'm talking now on the matter of the spiritual and moral training, not book education." "Why not include the mental training? I think you'd be quite right in doing so." "Perhaps so," replied Diana. They were silent for a moment, then Enoch said, with a quiet vehemence, "Some day they'll dare to defy the creeds and put God into the public schools. I don't know about girls, but, Miss Allen, the growing boys need Him, more than they need a father. Something to cling to, something high and noble and permanent while sex with all its thousand varied impulses flagellates them! Something to go to with those exquisite, generous fancies that even the worst boy has and that even the best boy will not share even with the best mother. The homes today don't have God in them. The churches with their hide-bound creeds frighten away most men. Think, Miss Allen, think of the travesty of our great educational system which ignores the two great facts of the universe, God and sex." "You've never put any of this into your public utterances." "No," replied Enoch, "I've been saving it for you," and he looked at her with a quiet smile. Diana could but smile in return. "And so," said Enoch, "returning to the answer to your original question, I have found it hard to keep to any sort of fine idealism, partly because of my own inward struggles and partly because politics is a vile game anyhow." "We Americans," Diana lifted her chin and looked into Enoch's eyes very directly, "feel that at least one politician has played a clean game. It is a very great privilege for me to know you, Mr. Huntingdon." "Miss Allen," half whispered Enoch, "if you really knew me, with all my inward devils and my half-achieved dreams, you would realize that it's no privilege at all. Nevertheless, I wish that you did know all about me. It would make me feel that the friendship which we are forming could stand even 'the wreckful siege of battering days'!" "There was a man who understood friendships!" said Diana quickly. "He said in his sonnets all that could be said about it." "Now don't disappoint me by agreeing with the idiots who try to prove that Shakespeare wrote the sonnets to a man!" cried Enoch. "Only a woman could have brought forth that beauty of song." Diana rose nobly to do battle. "What nonsense, Mr. Huntingdon! As if a man like Shakespeare--" She paused as if struck by a sudden thought. "That's a curious attitude for a notorious woman hater to take, Mr. Secretary." Enoch laid down his fork. "Do you think I'm a woman hater, Miss Allen?" looking steadily into Diana's eyes. "I didn't mean to be so personal. Just like a woman!" sighed Diana. "But do you think I'm a woman hater?" insisted Enoch. Diana looked up earnestly. "Please, Mr. Huntingdon, if our friendship is to ripen, you must not force it." Enoch's face grew suddenly white. There swept over him with bitter realism a conception of the falseness of the position into which he was permitting himself to drift. He answered his own question with an attempted lightness of tone. "I can never marry, but I don't hate women." Diana's chin lifted and Enoch leaned forward quickly. All the aplomb won through years of suffering and experience deserted him. For the moment he was again the boy in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. "Oh, I am stupid, but let me explain. I want you to--" "Please don't!" said Diana coldly. "I need no warning, Mr. Huntingdon." "Oh, my dear Miss Allen, you must not be offended! What can I say?" "You might ask me if it's not time to go home," suggested Diana, coolly. "You mustn't forget that I'm a wage earner." Enoch bit his lip and turned to sign the check. Then he followed Diana to the door. Here they came upon the Indian Commissioner and his wife, and all opportunity for explanations was gone for the two invited themselves to walk along to Diana's rooming place. Enoch went up the steps with Diana, however, and asked her tensely: "Will you lunch with me to-morrow, Miss Allen, that I may explain myself?" "Thank you, no. I shall be very busy to-morrow, Mr. Huntingdon." "Let me call here in the evening, then." "I'd rather you wouldn't," answered the girl, coldly. "Good night, Mr. Secretary," and she was gone. Enoch stood as if struck dumb, then he made an excuse to Mr. and Mrs. Watkins, and started homeward. The night was stifling. When Jonas let him into the house, his collar was limp and his hair lay wet on his forehead. "I'm going to New York to-night, Jonas," he said huskily. "What's happened, boss?" asked Jonas breathlessly, as he followed Enoch up the stairs. "Nothing! I'm going to give myself a day's rest. Give me something to travel in," pulling off his coat. "I'm going with you, boss," not stirring, his black eyes rolling. "No, I'm going alone, Jonas. Here, I'll pack my own grip. You go on out." This in a voice that sent Jonas, however reluctantly, into the hall, where he walked aimlessly up and down, wringing his hands. "He ain't been as bad as this in years," he muttered. "I wonder what she did to him!" Enoch came out of his room shortly. "Tell every one I'm in New York, Jonas," he said, and was gone. But Enoch did not go to New York. There was, he found on reaching the station, no train for an hour. He checked his suitcase, and the watching Jonas followed him out into the dark streets. He knew exactly whither the boss was heading, and when Enoch had been admitted into a brick house on a quiet street not a stone's throw from the station, Jonas entered nimbly through the basement. He had a short conference with a colored man in the kitchen, then he went up to the second floor and sat down in a dark corner of the hall where he could keep an eye on all who entered the rear room. Well dressed men came and went from the room all night. It was nearing six o'clock in the morning when Jonas stopped a waiter who was carrying in a tray of coffee. "How many's there now?" he demanded. "Only four," replied the waiter. "That red-headed guy's winning the shirts off their backs. I've seen this kind of a game before. It's good for another day." "Are any of 'em drinking?" asked Jonas. "Nothing but coffee. Lord, I'm near dead!" "Let me take that tray in for you. I want to get word to my boss." The waiter nodded and, sinking into Jonas' chair, closed his eyes. Jonas carried the tray into a handsome, smoke filled room, where four men with intent faces were gathered around a card table. Enoch, in his shirt sleeves, was dealing as Jonas set a steaming cup at his elbow. Perhaps the intensity of the colored man's gaze distracted Enoch's attention for a moment from the cards. He looked up and when he met Jonas' eyes he deliberately laid down the deck, rose, took Jonas by the arm and led him to the door. "Don't try this again, Jonas," he said, and he closed the door after his steward. Once more Jonas took up his vigil. He left his chair at nine o'clock to telephone Charley Abbott that the Secretary had gone to New York, then he returned to his place. Noon came, afternoon waned. As dusk drew on again, Jonas went once more to the telephone. "That you, Miss Allen? . . . This is Jonas. . . . Yes, ma'am, I'm well, but the boss is in a dangerous condition. . . . Yes, ma'am, I thought you'd feel bad because you see, it's your fault. . . . No, ma'am, I can't explain over the telephone, but if you'll come to the station and meet me at the news-stand on the corner, I'll tell you. . . . Miss Allen, for God's sake, just trust me and come along. Come now, in a cab, and I'll pay for it. . . . Thank you! Thank you, ma'am! Thank you!" He banged up the receiver and flew out the basement door. When he reached the news-stand, he stood with his hands twitching, talking to himself for a half hour before Diana appeared. She walked up to him as directly as a man would have done. "What's happened, Jonas?" "You and the boss must have quarreled last night. When anything strikes the boss deep, he wants to gamble. Of late years he's mostly fought it off, but once in a while it gets him. He's been at it since last night over yonder, and for the first time in years I can't do anything with him. And if it gets out, you know, Miss Allen, he's ruined. I don't dast to leave him long, that's why I got you to come here." Diana's chin lifted. "Do you mean to tell me that a man of Mr. Huntingdon's reputation and ability, still stoops to that sort of thing?" "Stoop! What do you mean, stoop? O Lord, I thought, seeing he sets the world by you, that you was different from the run of women and would understand." Jonas twisted his brown hands together. "Understand what?" asked Diana, her great eyes fastened on Jonas with pity and scorn struggling in them. "Understand what it means to him. How it's like a conjur that Luigi wished on him when he was a little boy. How he's pulled himself away from it and he didn't have anybody on earth to help him till I come along. What do you women folks know about how a strong man like him fights Satan? I've seen him walk the floor all night and win, and I've seen him after he's given in, suffer sorrow and hate of himself like a man the Almighty's forgot. That's why he's so good, because he sins and then suffers for it." As Jonas' husky voice subsided, a sudden gleam of tears shone in Diana's eyes. "I'll send him a note, Jonas, and wait here for the answer. If that doesn't bring him, I'll go after him myself." "The note'll bring him," said Jonas, "and he'll give me thunder for telling." "Let me have a pencil and get me some paper from the news-stand." She wrote rapidly. "Dear Mr. Huntingdon: "I must see you at once on urgent business. I am in the railway station. Could you come to me here? "DIANA ALLEN." Jonas all but snatched the note and dashed away. Enoch was scowling at the cards before him when Jonas thrust the note into his hand. Enoch stared at the address, laid the cards down slowly, and read the note. "All right, gentlemen," he said quietly. "I've had my fun! Good night!" He took his hat from Jonas and strode out of the room. He did not speak as the two walked rapidly to the station. Diana was standing by a cab near the main entrance. "This is good of you, Mr. Huntingdon," she said gravely, shaking hands. "Thank you, Jonas!" She entered the cab and Enoch followed her. "Let me have your suitcase check, boss." Jonas held out a black hand that still shook a little. "I'll get Miss Allen to drop me at the house, Jonas," said Enoch. Jonas nodded and heaved a great sigh as the cab started off. "How did you come to do it?" asked Enoch, looking strangely at Diana. "I heard you were in New York, Mr. Secretary. Jonas called me up!" "Jonas had no business to do so. I am humiliated beyond words!" Enoch spoke with a dreary sort of hopelessness. "I thought we were friends," said Diana calmly. "It isn't as if we hadn't known each other and all about each other since childhood. You must not say a word against Jonas." "How could I? He is my guardian angel," said Enoch. Diana went on still in the commonplace tone of the tea table. "I want to apologize for my fit of temper, Mr. Secretary. I was very stupid and I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself. You may tell me anything you please!" "I don't deserve it!" Enoch spoke abruptly. Diana's voice suddenly deepened and softened. "Ah, but you do deserve it, dear Mr. Secretary. You deserve all that grateful citizens can do for you, and even then we cannot expect to discharge our full debt to you. Here's my house. Perhaps when you're not too busy, you'll ask me to dine again with you." Enoch did not reply. He stood with bared head while she ran up the steps. Then he reentered the cab and was driven home. But it was not till two weeks later that Enoch sent a note to Diana, asking her to take dinner with him. Even his diary during that period showed no record of his inward flagellations. He did not receive an answer until late in the afternoon. It had been an exceptionally hectic day. Enoch had been summoned before the Senate Committee on appropriations, and with the director of the Reclamation Service had endured a grilling that had had some aspects of the third degree. After some two hours of it the Director had lost his temper. "Gentlemen!" he had cried, "treat me as if I were a common thief, attempting to loot the public funds, if you find satisfaction in it, but at least do not humiliate the Secretary of the Interior in the same manner!" "These people can't humiliate me, Whipple." Enoch had spoken quietly. The blow had struck home and the Senator who was acting as chairman had apologized. Enoch had nodded. "I know! You are in the position of having to appropriate funds for the carrying on of a highly specialized business about which you are utterly ignorant. You are uneasy and you mistake impertinent questioning for keen investigation." "I move we adjourn until to-morrow," a member had said hastily. The motion had carried and Enoch, as though it was already past six o'clock, had started for his office, Whipple accompanying him. "After all this howl over the proposed Paloma Dam," said Whipple, "we may not be able to build it. There's a bunch of Mexicans both this and the other side of the border that have made serious trouble with the preliminary survey, and I have the feeling that there is some power behind that wants to start something." "Is that so?" asked Enoch with interest. "Come in and talk to me a few moments about it." Whipple followed to the Secretary's office. A sealed letter was lying on the desk. Enoch opened it, and read it without ceremony. "Dear Mr. Huntingdon: I find that some old friends are starting for the Grand Canyon this afternoon and they have given me an opportunity to make one of their party. I have been able to arrange my work to Mr. Watkins' satisfaction and so, I'm off. I want to thank you very deeply for the wonderful openings you have made for me and for the very great personal kindness you have shown me. When I return in the winter, I hope I may see you again. "Very sincerely yours, "DIANA ALLEN." Enoch folded the note and slipped it into his pocket, then he looked at the waiting Director. "I hope you'll excuse me, Whipple, but this is something to which I must give my personal attention," and without a word further, he put on his hat and walked out of the office. He did not go to his waiting carriage but, leaving the building by another door, he walked quickly to the drug store on the corner and, entering a telephone booth, called the railroad station. The train connecting for the Southwest had left an hour before. Enoch hung up the receiver and walked out to the curb, scowling and striking his walking stick against his trouser leg. Finally he got aboard a trolley. It was a little after three o'clock in the morning when Jonas located him. Enoch was leaning against the wall watching the roulette table. "Good evening, boss," said Jonas. Enoch looked round at him. "That you, Jonas? I haven't touched a card or a dollar this evening, Jonas." Jonas, who had already ascertained this from the owner of the gambling house, nodded. "Have you had your supper yet, boss?" Enoch hesitated, thinking heavily. "Why, no, Jonas, I guess not." Then he added irritably, "A man must rest, Jonas. I can't slave all the time." "Sure!" returned the colored man, holding his trembling hands behind him. "But how come you to think this was rest, boss? You better come back now and let me fix you a bite to eat." "Jonas, what's the use? Who on earth but you cares what I do? What's the use?" "Miss Diana Allen," said Jonas softly, "she told Mr. Abbott this noon, at lunch, that you was one of the great men of this country and that he was a lucky dog to spend all his time with you." Enoch stood, his arms folded on his chest, his massive head bowed. Finally he said, "All right, old man, I'll try again. But I'm lonely, Jonas, lonely beyond words, and all the greatness in the world, Jonas, can't fill an empty heart." "I know it, boss! I know it!" said Jonas huskily, as he led the way to the street. There, Enoch insisted on walking the three or four miles home. "All right," agreed Jonas, cheerfully. "I guess ghosteses don't mind travel, and that's all I am, just a ghost." Enoch stopped abruptly, put a hand on Jonas' shoulder and hailed a passing night prowler. Once in the cab, Jonas said: "The White House done called you twice to-night. Mr. Secretary. I told 'em you'd call first thing in the morning." "Thanks!" replied Enoch briefly. The house was silent when they reached it. Jonas never employed servants who could not sleep in their own homes. By the time the Secretary was ready for bed, Jonas appeared with a tray, Enoch silently and obediently ate and then turned in. The White House called before the Secretary had finished breakfast. "You saw last night's papers?" asked the President. "No! I'm sorry. I--I took a rest last evening." "I'm glad you did. Well, I think you'd better plan--come up here, will you, at once? I won't try to talk to you over the telephone." Enoch, in the carriage, glanced over the paper. The Brown paper of the evening before contained a nasty little story of innuendo about the work of the Survey near Paloma. The morning paper declared in glaring headlines that the President by his pacifist policy toward Mexico was tainting the nation's honor and that it would shortly bring England, France and Germany about our ears. The President was still at breakfast when Enoch was shown in to him. The chief executive insisted that Enoch have a cup of coffee. "You don't look to me, my boy, like a man who had enjoyed his rest. And I'm going to ask you to add to your burdens. Could you leave next week for a speaking trip?" The tired lines around Enoch's mouth deepened. "Yes, Mr. President. Have you a general route planned?" "Yes, New York, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco and in between as can be arranged. Take two months to it." "I shall be glad to be free of office routine for a while," said Enoch. He sipped his coffee slowly, then rose as he added: "I shall stick strictly to the work of my department, Mr. President, in the speech making." "Oh! Absolutely! And let me be of any help to you I may." "Thank you," Enoch smiled a little grimly. "You might come along and supply records for the phonograph." "By Jove, I would if it were necessary!" said the President. Jonas and Abbott each was perfect in his own line. In five days' time Enoch was aboard the private car, with such paraphernalia as was needed for carrying on office work en route. The itinerary had been arranged to the last detail. A few carefully chosen newspaper correspondents were aboard and one hot September evening, a train with the Secretary's car hitched to it, pulled out of Washington. Of Enoch's speeches on that trip little need be said here. Never before had he spoken with such fire and with such simple eloquence. The group of speeches he made are familiar now to every schoolboy. One cannot read them to-day without realizing that the Secretary was trying as never before to interpret for the public his own ideals of service to the common need. He seemed to Abbott and to the newspaper men who for six weeks were so intimately associated with him to draw inspiration and information from the free air. And there was to all of his speeches an almost wistful persuasiveness, as if, Abbott said, he picked one listener in each audience, each night, and sought anew to make him feel the insidious peril to the nation's soul that lay in personal complacency and indifference to the nation's spiritual welfare. Only Jonas, struggling to induce the Secretary to take a decent amount of sleep, nodded wisely to himself. He knew that Enoch made each speech to a lovely, tender face, that no man who saw ever forgot. Little by little, the newspapers of the country began to take Enoch's point of view. They not only gave his speeches in full, but they commented on them editorially, at great length, and with the exception of the Brown papers, favorably. By the time Enoch was on his way home, with but two weeks more of speech making before him, it looked as though the thought of war with Mexico had been definitely quashed. And Enoch was tired to the very marrow of his bones. But the Brown papers were not finished. One evening, in Arizona, shortly after the train had pulled out of a station, Enoch asked for the newspapers that had been brought aboard from the desert city. Charley Abbott, who had been with the newspaper men on the observation platform for an hour or so, answered the Secretary's request with a curiously distraught manner. "I--that is--Mr. Huntingdon, Jonas says you slept worse than ever last night. Why not save the papers till morning and try to sleep now?" Enoch looked at his secretary keenly. "Picked up some Brown papers here, eh! Nothing that bunch can say can hurt me, old man." "Don't you ever think it!" exclaimed Charley vehemently. "You might as well say you were immune to rattler bites, Mr. Huntingdon--" here his voice broke. "Look here, Abbott," said Enoch, "if it's bad, I've got to fight it, haven't I?" "But this sort of thing, a man--" Charley suddenly steadied himself. "Mr. Secretary, they've put some nasty personal lies about you in the paper. The country at large and all of us who know you, scorn the lies as much as they do Brown. In a day or so, it we ignore them, the stuff will have been forgotten. I beg of you, don't read any newspapers until I tell you all's clear." Enoch smiled. "Why, my dear old chap, I've weathered all sorts of mud slinging!" "But never this particular brand," insisted Charley. "Let's have the papers, Abbott. I'm not afraid of anything Brown can say." Charley grimly handed the papers to the Secretary and returned to the observation platform. A reporter had seen Enoch in the gambling house on the evening of Diana's departure for the Canyon. He had learned something from the gambling house keeper of the Secretary's several trips there. The reporter had then, with devilish ingenuity, followed Enoch back to Minetta Lane, where he had found Luigi. Then followed eight or ten paragraphs in Luigi's own words, giving an account of Enoch and Enoch's mother. The whole story was given with a deadly simplicity, that it seemed to the Secretary must carry conviction with it. As Enoch had told Abbott, he had weathered much political mud slinging, but even his worst political enemies had spared him this. His adherents had made much of the fact that Enoch was slum bred and self made. That was the sort of story which the inherent democracy of America loved. But the Brown account made of Enoch a creature of the underworld, who still loved his early haunts and returned to them in all their vileness. And in all the years of his political life, no newspaper but this had ever mentioned Enoch's mother. The tale closed with a comment on the fact that Enoch, who shunned all women, had been seen several times in Washington giving marked attention to Miss Diana Allen. Diana and her work were fully identified. Enoch read the account to the last word, a flush of agonizing humiliation deepening on his face as he did so. When he had finished, he doubled the paper carefully, and laid it on the chair next to his. Then he lighted a cigarette and sat with folded arms, unseeing eyes on the newspaper. When Jonas came in an hour later, the cigarette, unsmoked, was cold between the Secretary's lips. With trembling hands, the colored man picked up the paper and with unbelievable venom gleaming in his black eyes, he carried it to the rear door, spat upon it and flung it out into the desert night. Then he returned to Enoch. "Mr. Secretary," he said huskily, "let me take your keys." Mechanically Enoch obeyed. Jonas selected a small key from the bunch and, opening a large leather portfolio, he took out the black diary. This he placed carefully on the folding table which stood at Enoch's elbow. Then he started toward the door. The Secretary did not look up. Nor did he heed the colloquy which took place at the door between Jonas and Abbott. "How is he, Jonas?" "I ain't asked him. He's a sick man." "God! Let me come in, Jonas." "No, sir, you ain't! How come you think you kin talk to him when even I don't dast to?" "But he mustn't be alone, Jonas." "He ain't alone. I left him with his Bible. Ain't nobody going to trouble him this night." "I didn't know he read the Bible that way." Abbott's voice was doubtful. "I don't mean the regular Lord's Bible. It's a book he's been writing for years and he always turns to it when he's in trouble. I don't know nothing about it. What he don't want me to know, I don't know," and Jonas slammed the door behind him. It was late when Enoch suddenly straightened himself up and, with an air of resolution, opened the black book. He uncapped his fountain pen and wrote: "Diana, how could I know, how could I dream that such a thing could happen to you, through me! You must never come back to Washington. Perhaps they will forget. As for myself, I can't seem to think clearly just what I must do. I am so very tired. One thing is certain, you never must see me again. For one wild moment the desire to return to the Canyon, now I am in its neighborhood overwhelmed me. I decided to go up there and see if I could find the peace that I found in my boyhood. Then I realized that you were at home, that all the world would see me go down Bright Angel, and I gave up the idea. But somehow, I must find rest, before I return to Washington. Oh, Diana, Diana!" It was midnight when Enoch finally lay down in his berth. To Jonas' delight, he fell asleep almost immediately, and the faithful steward, after reporting to the anxious group on the platform, was soon asleep himself. But it was not one o'clock when the Secretary awoke. The train was rumbling slowly, and he looked from the window. Only the moonlit flats of the desert were to be seen. Enoch rose with sudden energy and dressed himself. He chucked his toilet case, with his diary and a change of underwear, into a satchel, and scrawled a note to Abbott: "Dear Charley: I'm slipping off into the desert for a little rest. You'll hear from me when I feel better. Give out that I'm sick--I am--and cancel the few speaking engagements left. Tell Jonas he is not to worry. Yours, E. H." He sealed this note, then he pulled on a soft hat and, as the train stopped at a water tank, he slipped off the platform and stood in the shadow of an old shed. It seemed to him a long time before the engine, with violent puffing and jolting, started the long train on again. But finally the tail lights disappeared in the distance and Enoch was alone in the desert. For a few moments he stood beside the track, drawing in deep breaths of the warm night air. Then he started slowly westward along the railway tracks. He had noted a cluster of adobe houses a mile or so back, and toward these he was headed. In spite of the agony of the blow he had sustained Enoch, gazing from the silver flood of the desert, to the silver arch of the heavens, was conscious of a thrill of excitement and not unpleasant anticipation. Somewhere, somehow, in the desert, he would find peace and sufficient spiritual strength to sustain him when once more he faced Washington and the world. BOOK III THE ENCHANTED CANYON CHAPTER VII THE DESERT "If I had a son, I would teach him obedience as heaven's first law, for so only can a man be trained to obey his own better self."--_Enoch's Diary_. The Secretary had no intention of waking the strange little village at night. He thought that, once he had relocated it, he would wait until dawn before rousing any one. But he had not counted on the village dogs. These set up such an outcry that, while Enoch leaned quietly against a rude corral fence waiting for the hullaballoo to cease, the door of the house nearest opened, and a man came out. He stood for a moment very deliberately staring at the Secretary, whose polite "Good morning" could not be heard above the dogs' uproar. Enoch, with a half grin, dropped his satchel and held up both hands. The man, half smiling in response, kicked and cursed the dogs into silence. Then he approached Enoch. He was a small, swarthy chap, clad in overalls and an undershirt. "You're a Pueblo Indian?" asked the Secretary. The Indian nodded. "What you want?" "I want to buy a horse." "Where you come from?" "Off that train that went through a while ago." "This not Ash Fork," said the Indian. "You make mistake. Ash Fork that way," jerking his thumb westward. "You pass through Ash Fork." Enoch nodded. "You sell me a horse?" "I rent you horse. You leave him at Hillers' in Ash Fork. I get him." "No, I want to buy a horse. Now I'm in the desert I guess I'll see a little of it. Maybe I'll ride up that way," waving a careless arm toward the north. "Maybe you'll sell me some camping things, blankets and a coffee pot." "All right," said the Indian. "When you want 'em?" "Now, if I can get them." "All right! I fix 'em." He spoke to one of the other Indians who were sticking curious heads out of black doorways. In an incredibly short time Enoch was the possessor of a thin, muscular pony, well saddled, two blankets, one an Army, the other a Navajo, a frying pan, a coffee pot, a canteen and enough flour, bacon and coffee to see him through the day. He also achieved possession of a blue flannel shirt and a pair of overalls. He paid without question the price asked by the Indians. Dawn was just breaking when he mounted his horse. "Where does that trail lead?" he asked, pointing to one that started north from the corral. "To Eagle Springs, five miles," answered the Indian. "And after that?" "East to Allman's ranch, north to Navajo camp." "Thanks," said Enoch. "Good-by!" and he turned his pony to the trail. The country became rough and broken almost at once. The trail led up and down through draws and arroyos. There was little verdure save cactus and, when the sun was fully up, Enoch began to realize that a strenuous day was before him. The spring boasted a pepper tree, a lovely thing of delicate foliage, gazing at itself in the mirrored blue of the spring. Enoch allowed the horse to drink its fill, then he unrolled the blankets and clothing and dropped them into the water below the little falls that gushed over the rocks, anchoring them with stones. After this, awkwardly, but recalling more and more clearly his camping lore, he prepared a crude breakfast. He sat long at this meal. His head felt a little light from the lack of sleep and he was physically weary. But he could not rest. For days a jingling couplet had been running through his mind: "Rest is not quitting this busy career. Rest is the fitting of self to one's sphere." Enoch muttered this aloud, then smiled grimly to himself. "That's the idea!" he added. "There's a bad spot somewhere in my philosophy that'll break me yet. Well, we'll see if I can locate it." The sun was climbing high and the shade of the pepper tree was grateful. The spring murmured for a few feet beyond the last quivering shadow of the feathery leaves, then was swallowed abruptly by the burning sand. Enoch lifted his tired eyes. Far on every side lay the uneven, rock strewn desert floor, dotted with cactus and greasewood. To the east, vivid against the blue sky, rose a solitary mountain peak, a true purple in color, capped with snow. To the north, a green black shadow was etched against the horizon. Except for the slight rustle of the pepper tree, the vague murmur of the water, the silence was complete. "It's not a calming atmosphere," thought Enoch, "as I remember the Canyon to have been. It's feverish and restless. But I'll give it a try. For to-day, I'll not think. I'll concern myself entirely with getting to this Navajo camp. First of all, I'll dry the blankets and clothing." He had pulled off his tweed coat some time before. Now he hung his vest on the pepper tree and went about his laundry work. He draped blankets and garments over the greasewood, then moved by a sudden impulse, undressed himself and lay down under the tiny falls. The water, warmed by its languid trip through the pool above, was refreshing only in its cleansing quality. But Enoch, lying at length in the sand, the water trickling ceaselessly over him, felt his taut muscles relax and a great desire to sleep came upon him. But he was still too close to the railroad and possible discovery to allow himself this luxury. By the time he had finished his bath the overalls were dry and the blue flannel shirt enough so for him to risk donning it. He rolled up his tweed suit and tied it to the saddle, fastened the blankets on in an awkward bunch, the cooking utensils dangling anywhere, the canteen suspended from the pommel. Then he smiled at his reflection in the morning pool. The overalls, a faded brown, were patched and, of course, wrinkled and drawn. The blue shirt was too small across the chest and Enoch found it impossible to button the collar. The soft hat was in keeping with costume, but the Oxford ties caused him to shake his head. "A dead give-away! I'll have to negotiate for something else when I find the Navajos. All right, Pablo," to the horse, "we're off," and the pony started northward at a gentle canter. The desert was new to Enoch. Neither his Grand Canyon experience nor his hunting trips in Canada and Maine had prepared him for the hardships and privations of desert travel. Sitting at ease on the Indian pony, his hat well over his eyes, his pots and pans clanging gently behind him, he was entirely oblivious to the menace that lay behind the intriguing beauty of the burning horizon. He was giving small heed, too, to the details of the landscape about him. He was conscious of the heat and of color, color that glowed and quivered and was ever changing, and he told himself that when he was rested he would find the beauty in the desert that Diana's pictures had said was there. But for now, he was conscious only of pain and shame, the old, old shame that the Canyon had tried to teach him to forget. He was determined that he would stay in the desert until this shame was gone forever. It was a fall and not a summer sun, so the pony was able to keep a steady pace until noon. Gradually the blur of green that Enoch had observed to the north had outlined itself more and more vividly, and at noon he rode into the shade of a little grove of stunted piñon and juniper. He could find no water but there was a coarse dried grass growing among the trees that the horse cropped eagerly. Enoch removed the saddle and pack from Pablo, and spread his half dried blankets on the ground. Then he threw himself down to rest before preparing his midday meal. In a moment slumber overwhelmed him. He was wakened at dusk by the soft nuzzling of the pony against his shoulder. "By Jove!" he exclaimed softly. "What a sleep!" He jumped to his feet and began to gather wood for his fire. He was stiff and his unaccustomed fingers made awkward work of cooking, but he managed, after an hour's endeavor, to produce an unsavory meal, which he devoured hungrily. He wiped out the frying pan with dried grass, repacked his outfit, and hung it on the horse. "It's up to you, Pablo, old boy, to get us to water, if you want any to-night," he said, as he mounted, and headed Pablo north on the trail. The pony was quite of Enoch's opinion, and he started forward at an eager trot. The trail was discernible enough in the starlight, but Enoch made no attempt to guide Pablo, who obviously knew the country better than his new owner. Enoch had dreamed of Diana, and now, the reins drooping limply from his hands, he gave his mind over to thought of her. There was no one on earth whom he desired to see so much or so little as Diana! No one else to whom in his trouble his whole heart and mind turned with such unutterable longing or such iron determination never to see again. He had no intention of searching for her in the desert. He knew that her work would keep her in the Grand Canyon country. He knew that it would be easy to avoid her. And, in spite of the fact that every fiber of his being yearned for her, he had not the slightest desire to see her! She would, he knew, see the Brown story. No matter what her father may have told her, the newspaper story, with its vile innuendoes concerning his adult life, must sicken her. There was one peak of shame which Enoch refused to achieve. He would not submit himself either to Diana's pity or to her scorn. But there was, he was finding, a peculiar solace in merely traveling in Diana's desert. He had complete faith that here he would find something of the sweet philosophy that had written itself in Diana's face. For Enoch had not come to middle life without learning that on a man's philosophy rests his ultimate chance for happiness, or if not for happiness, content. He knew that until he had sorted and separated from each other the things that mattered and the things that did not matter, he must be the restless plaything of circumstance. In his younger days he had been able to persuade himself that if his point of view on his life work were right and sane, nothing else could hurt him too much. But now, easing himself to the pony's gentle trot and staring into the exquisite blue silence of the desert night, he told himself that he had been a coward, and that his cowardice had made him shun the only real experience of life. Public service? Yes, it had been right for him to make that his life work. And such service from such men as himself he knew to be the only vital necessity in a nation's life. But the one vital necessity in a man's spiritual life he had missed. If he had had this, he told himself, life's bludgeons, however searching, however devastating, he could have laughed at. A man must have the thought of some good woman's love to sustain him. But for Enoch, the thought of any woman's love, Luigi had tainted at its source. He had neither mother nor mate, and until he had evolved some philosophy which would reconcile him to doing without both, his days must be feverish and at the mercy of the mob. Pablo broke into a canter and Enoch roused himself to observe a glow of fire far ahead on the trail. His first impulse was to pull the horse in. He did not want either to be identified or to mingle with human beings. Then he smiled ruefully as he recalled the poverty of his outfit and he gave Pablo his way again. In a short time Pablo had reached a spring at a little distance from the fire. As the horse buried his nose in the water, a man came up. Enoch judged by the long hair that he was an Indian. "Good evening," said Enoch. "Can you tell me where I can buy some food?" "What kind of grub?" asked the Indian. "Anything I can cook and eat," replied Enoch, dismounting stiffly. "What kind of camp is this?" "Navajo. What your name?" "Smith. What's yours?" "John Red Sun. How much you pay for grub?" "Depends on what kind and how much. Which way are you folks going?" "We take horses to the railroad," replied John Red Sun. "Me and my brother, that's all, so we haven't got much grub. You come over by the fire." Enoch dropped the reins over Pablo's head and followed to the fire. An Indian, who was boiling coffee at the little blaze, looked up with interest in his black eyes. "Good evening," said Enoch. "My name is Smith." The Indian nodded. "You like a cup of coffee? Just done." "Thanks, yes." Enoch sat down gratefully by the fire. The desert night was sharp. "Where you going, Mr. Smith?" asked John Red Sun. "I'm an Easterner, a tenderfoot," replied Enoch. "I am very tired and I thought I'd like to rest in the desert. I was on the train when the idea struck me, and I got off just as I was. I bought the horse and these clothes from an Indian." "Where you going?" repeated John's brother. "To see Injun villages?" "No, I don't think so. I just want to be by myself." "It's foolish for tenderfoot to go alone in desert," said John. "You don't know where to get water, get grub." "Oh, I'll pick it up as I go." The Indians stared at Enoch in the firelight. His ruddy hair was tumbled by the night wind. His face was deep lined with fatigue that was mental as well as physical. "You mustn't go alone in desert." John Red Sun's voice was earnest. "You sleep here to-night. We'll talk it over." "You're very kind," said Enoch. "I'll unsaddle my pony. Ought I to hobble him or stake him out?" "I fix 'im. You drink your coffee." The brother handed Enoch a tin cup as he spoke. "Then you go to sleep. You mucho tired." Their hospitality touched Enoch. "You're very kind," he repeated gratefully, and he drank the vile coffee without blinking. Then, conscious that he was trembling with weariness, he rolled himself in his blankets. But he slept only fitfully. The sand was hard, and his long afternoon's nap had taken the edge from his appetite for sleep. He spent much of the night wondering what Washington, what the President was saying about him. And his sunburned face was new dyed with his burning sense of shame. At the first peep of dawn, John Red Sun rose from the other side of the fire, raked the ashes and started a blaze going. Enoch discovered that the camp lay at the foot of a mesa, close in whose shadow a small herd of scraggly, unkempt ponies was staked. The two Indians moved about deftly. They watered the horses, made coffee and cakes and fried bacon. By the time Enoch had shaved, a pie tin was waiting for him in the ashes. "We sell you two days' grub," said John. "One day north on this trail go two men up to the Canyon, to placer mine. They're good men. I know 'em many years. They got good outfit, but burros go slow, so you can easy overtake 'em to-day. You tell 'im you want a job. Tell 'im John Red Sun send you. Then you get rested in the desert. Not good for any white man to go alone and do nothing in the desert. He'll go loco. See?" Enoch suddenly smiled. "I do see, yes. And I must say you're mighty kind and sensible. I'll do as you suggest. By the way, will you sell me those boots of yours? I'll swap you mine and anything you say, beside. I believe our feet are the same size." Red Sun's brother was wearing Navajo moccasins reaching to the knee, but Red Sun was resplendent in a pair of high laced boots, into which were tucked his corduroy pants. The Indians both looked at Enoch's smart Oxford ties with eagerness. Then without a word, Red Sun began rapidly to unlace his boots. It would be difficult to say which made the exchange with the greater satisfaction, Enoch or the Indian. When it was done Enoch, as far as his costume was concerned, might have been a desert miner indeed, looking for a job. The sun was not over an hour high when Pablo and Enoch started north once more, the little horse loaded with supplies and Enoch loaded with such trail lore as the two Indians could impress upon him in the short time at their command. Enoch was not deeply impressed by their advice except as to one point, which they repeated so often that it really penetrated his distraught and weary mind. He was to keep to the trail. No matter what or whom he thought he saw in the distance, he was to keep to the trail. If a sand storm struck him, he was to camp immediately and on the trail. If he needed water, he was to keep to the trail in order to find it. At night, he must camp on the trail. The trail! It was, they made him understand, a tenderfoot's only chance of life in this section. And, thus equipped, Enoch rode away into the lonely, shimmering, intriguing morning light of the desert. He rode all the morning without dismounting. The trail was very crooked. It seemed to him at such moments as he took note of this fact, he would save much time by riding due north, but he could not forget the Indian brothers' reiterated warnings. And, although he could not throw off a sense of being driven, the desire to arrive somewhere quickly, still he was strangely content to let Pablo set the pace. At noon he dismounted, fed Pablo half the small bag of oats John had given him, and ate the cold bacon and biscuits John's brother had urged on him. There was no water for the horse, but Enoch drank deeply from the canteen and allowed Pablo an hour's rest. Then he mounted and pushed on, mindful of the necessity of overtaking the miners. His mind was less calm than it had been the day before, and his thinking less orderly. He had begun to be nagged by recollections of office details that he should have settled, of important questions that awaited his decision. And something deep within him began to tell him that he was not playing a full man's part in running away. But to this he replied grimly that he was only seeking for strength to go back. And finally he muttered that give him two weeks' respite and he would go back, strength or no strength. And over and about all his broken thinking played an unceasing sense of loss. The public had invaded his last privacy. The stronghold wherein a man fights his secret weakness should be sacred. Not even a clergyman nor a wife should invade its precincts uninvited. Enoch's inner sanctuary had been laid open to the idle view of all the world. The newspaper reporter had pried where no real man would pry. The Brown papers had published that from which a decent editor would turn away for very compassion. Only a very dirty man will with no excuse whatever wantonly and deliberately break another man. When toward sundown Enoch saw a thread of smoke rising far ahead of him, again his first thought was to stop and make camp. He wished that it were possible for him to spend the next few weeks without seeing a white man. But he did not yield to the impulse and Pablo pushed on steadily. The camp was set in the shelter of a huge rock pile, purple, black, yellow and crimson in color, with a single giant ocotilla growing from the top. A man in overalls was bending over the fire, while another was bringing a dripping coffee pot from a little spring that bubbled from under the rocks. A number of burros were grazing among the cactus roots. Enoch rode up slowly and dismounted stiffly. "Good evening," he said. The two men stared at him frankly. "Good evening, stranger!" "John Red Sun told me to ask you people for work in return for permission to trail with your outfit." "Oh, he did, did he!" grunted the older man, eying Enoch intently. "My name is Mackay, and my pardner's is Field." "Mine is Smith," said Enoch. "Just Smith?" grinned the man Field. "Just Smith," repeated Enoch firmly. "Well, Mr. Just Smith," Mackay nodded affably, as though pleased by his appraisal of the newcomer, "wipe your feet on the door mat and come in and have supper with us. We'll talk while we eat." "You're very kind," murmured Enoch. "I--er--I'm a tenderfoot, so perhaps you'd tell me, shall I hobble this horse or--" "I'll take care of him for you," said Field. "You look dead tuckered. Sit down till supper's ready." Enoch sat down on a rock and eyed his prospective bosses. Mackay was a tall, thin man of perhaps fifty. He was smooth shaven except for an iron gray mustache. His face was thin, tanned and heavily lined, and his keen gray eyes were deep set under huge, shaggy eyebrows. He wore a gray flannel shirt and a pair of well worn brown corduroys, tucked into the tops of a pair of ordinary shoes. Field was younger, probably about Enoch's own age. He was as tall as Mackey but much heavier. He was smooth shaven and ruddy of skin, with a heavy thatch of curly black hair and fine brown eyes. His clothing was a replica of his partner's. Mackay gave his whole attention to the preparation of the supper, while Field unpacked Pablo and hobbled him. "You're just in time for a darn good meal, Mr. Smith," said Field. "Mack is a great cook. If he was as good a miner as he is cook--" "Dry up, Curly, and get Mr. Smith's cup and plate for him. We're shy on china. Grub's ready, folks. Draw up." They ate sitting in the sand, with their backs against the rocks, their feet toward the fire, for the evening was cold. Curly had not exaggerated Mack's ability. The hot biscuits, baked in a dutch oven, the fried potatoes, stewed tomatoes, the bacon, the coffee were each deliciously prepared. Enoch ate as though half starved, then helped to wash the dishes. After this was finished, the three established themselves with their pipes before the fire. "Now," said Mack, "we're in a condition to consider your proposition, Mr. Smith. Just where was you aiming for?" "I have a two or three weeks' vacation on my hands," replied Enoch, "and I'm pretty well knocked up with office work. I wanted to rest in the desert. I thought I could manage it alone, but it looks as if I were too green. I don't know why John Red Sun thought I could intrude on you folks, unless--" he hesitated. "John an old friend of yours?" asked Curly. "No, I met him on the trail. He was exceedingly kind and hospitable." Curly whistled softly. "You must have been in bad shape. John's not noted for kindness, or hospitality either." "I wasn't in bad shape at all!" protested Enoch. The two men, eying Enoch steadily, each suppressed a smile. "Field and I are on a kind of vacation too," said Mack. "I'm a superintendent of a zinc mine, and he's running the mill for me. We had to shut down for three months--bottom's dropped clean out of the price of zinc. We've been talking about prospecting for placer gold up on the Colorado, for ten years. Now we're giving her a try." He paused, and both men looked at Enoch expectantly. "In other words," said Enoch, refilling his pipe, "you two fellows are off for the kind of a trip you don't want an utter stranger in on. Well, I don't blame you." "Depends altogether on what kind of a chap the stranger is," suggested Curly. "I have no letters of recommendation." Enoch's smile was grim. "I'd do my share of the work, and pay for my board. I might not be the best of company, for I'm tired. Very tired." His massive head drooped as he spoke and his thin fine lips betrayed a pain and weariness that even the fitful light of the fire could not conceal. There was a silence for a moment, then a burro screamed, and Mackay got to his feet. "There's Mamie burro making trouble again. Come and help me catch her, Curly." Enoch sat quietly waiting while a low voiced colloquy that did not seem related to the obstreperous Mamie went on in the shadow beyond the rocks. Then the two men came back. "All right, Smith," said Mack. "We're willing to give it a try. A camping trip's like marriage, you know, terrible trying on the nerves. So if we don't get on together, it's understood you'll turn back, eh?" "Yes," Enoch nodded. "All right! We'll charge you a dollar and a half a day for yourself and your horse. We're to share and share alike in the work." "I'm exceedingly grateful!" exclaimed Enoch. "All right! We hope you'll get rested," said Curly. "And I advise you to begin now. Have you been sleeping well? How long have you been out?" "Three nights. I've slept rottenly." "I thought so. Let me show you how to scoop out sand so's to make a hollow for your hips and your shoulders, and I'll bet you'll sleep." And Enoch did sleep that night better than for several weeks. He was stiff and muscle sore when he awoke at dawn, but he felt clearer headed and less mentally feverish than he had the previous day. Curly and Mack were still asleep when he stole over to the spring to wash and shave. It was biting cold, but he felt like a new man when he had finished his toilet and stood drawing deep breaths while he watched the dawn approach through the magnificent desert distances. He gathered some greasewood and came back to build the fire, but his camp mates had forestalled him. While he was at the spring the men had both wakened and the fire was blazing merrily. Breakfast was quickly prepared and eaten. Enoch established himself as the camp dish washer, much to the pleasure of Curly, who hitherto had borne this burden. After he had cleaned and packed the dishes, Enoch went out for Pablo, who had strayed a quarter of a mile in his search for pasturage. After a half hour of futile endeavor Mack came to his rescue, and in a short time the cavalcade was ready to start. They were not an unimposing outfit. Mack led. The half dozen burros, with their packs followed, next came Curly, and Enoch brought up the rear. There was little talking on the trail. The single file, the heavy dust, and the heat made conversation too great an effort. And Enoch was grateful that this was so. To-day he made a tremendous endeavor to keep his mind off Luigi and the Brown papers. He found he could do this by thinking of Diana. And so he spent the day with her, and resolved that if opportunity arose that night, to write to her, in the black diary. The trail, which gradually ascended as they drew north, grew rougher and rougher. During the latter part of the day sand gave way to rock, and the desert appeared full of pot holes which Mack claimed led to subterranean rivers. They left these behind near sunset, and came upon a huge, rude, cave-like opening in a mesa side. A tiny pool at the back and the evidence of many camp fires in the front announced that this was one of the trail's established oases. There was no possible grazing for the animals, so they were watered, staked, and fed oats from the packs. "Well, Mr. Just Smith," said Curly, after the supper had been dispatched and cleared up and the trio were established around the fire, pipes glowing, "well, Mr. Just Smith, are you getting rested?" He grinned as he spoke, but Mack watched their guest soberly. Enoch's great head seemed to fascinate him. "I'm feeling better, thanks. And I'm trying hard to behave." "You're doing very well," returned Curly. "I can't recommend you yet as a horse wrangler, but if I permit you to bring Mamie in every morning, perhaps you'll sabez better." "This is sure one devil of a country," said Mack. "The Spanish called it the death trail. Wow! What it must have been before they opened up these springs! Even the Indians couldn't live here." "I'd like to show it to old Parsons," said Curly. "He claims there ain't a spot in Arizona that couldn't grow crops if you could get water to it. He's a fine old liar! Why, this country don't even grow cactus! I'd like to hobble him out here for a week." "Those Survey fellows were up here a few years back trying to fix it to get water out of those pot holes," said Mack. "Nuts! Sounds like a government bunch!" grunted Curly. "What came of it?" asked Enoch. "It ended in a funny kind of a row," replied Mack. "Some folks think there's oil up here, and there was a bunch here drilling for wells, when the government men came along. They got interested in the oil idea, and they began to study the country and drill for oil too. And that made these other chaps mad. This was government land, of course, but they didn't want the government to get interested in developing oil wells. Government oil would be too cheap. So they got some Mexicans to start a fight with these Survey lads. But the Survey boys turned out to be well armed and good fighters and, by Jove, they drove the whole bunch of oil prospectors out of here. Everybody got excited, and then it turned out there was no oil here anyhow. That was Fowler's bunch, by the way, that got run out. Nobody ever thought he'd be Secretary of State!" "But Fowler is not an Arizona man!" exclaimed Enoch. "No," said Curly, "but he came out here for his health for a few years when he was just out of college. He and my oldest brother were law pardners in Phoenix. I always thought he was crooked. All lawyers are." Enoch smiled to himself. "Fowler sent his prospectors into Mexico after that," Mack went on reminiscently. "Curly and I were in charge of the silver mine near Rio Chacita where they struck some gushers. They were one tough crowd. We all slept in tents those days, and I remember none of us dared to light a lamp or candle because if one of those fellows saw it, they'd take a pot shot at it. One of my foremen dug a six-foot pit and set his tent over it. Then he let 'em shoot at will. Those were the days!" "Government ought to keep out of business," said Curly. "Let the States manage their own affairs." "What's Field sore about?" asked Enoch of Mack. "He's just ignorant," answered Mack calmly. "Hand me some tobacco, Curly, and quit your beefing. When you make your fortune washing gold up in the Colorado, you can get yourself elected to Congress and do Fowler up. In the meantime--" "Aw, shut up, Mack," drawled Curly good-naturedly. "What are you trying to do, ruin my reputation with Just Smith here? By the way, Just, you haven't told us what your work is." "I'm a lawyer," said Enoch solemnly. The three men stared at each other in the fire glow. Suddenly Enoch burst into a hearty laugh, in which the others joined. "What was the queerest thing you've ever seen in the desert, Mack?" asked Enoch, when they had sobered down. Mack sat in silence for a time. "That's hard to judge," he said finally. "Once, in the Death Valley country, I saw a blind priest riding a burro fifty miles from anywhere. He had no pack, just a canteen. He said he was doing a penance and if I tried to help him, he'd curse me. So I went off and left him. And once I saw a fat woman in a kimono and white satin high heeled slippers chasing her horse over the trackless desert. Lord!" "Was that any queerer sight than Just Smith chasing Pablo this morning?" demanded Curly. "Or than Field tying a stone to Mamie's tail to keep her from braying to-night?" asked Enoch. "You're improving!" exclaimed Curly, "Dignity's an awful thing to take into the desert for a vacation." "Let's go to bed," suggested Mack, and in the fewest possible minutes the camp was at rest. The trail for the next two days grew rougher and rougher, while the brilliancy of color in rock and sand increased in the same ratio as the aridity. Enoch, pounding along at the rear of the parade, hour after hour, was still in too anguished and abstracted a frame of mind to heed details. He knew only that the vast loveliness and the naked austerity of the desert were fit backgrounds, the first for this thought of Diana, the second for his bitter retrospects. Mid-morning on the third day, after several hours of silent trekking, Curly turned in his saddle: "Just, have you noticed the mirage?" pointing to the right. Far to the east where the desert was most nearly level appeared the sea, waters of brilliant cobalt blue lapping shores clad in richest verdure, waves that broke in foam and ran softly up on quiet shores. Upon the sea, silhouetted against the turquoise sky were ships with sails of white, of crimson, of gold. Then, as the men stared with parted lips, the picture dimmed and the pitiless, burning desert shimmered through. The unexpected vision lifted Enoch out of himself for a little while and he listened, interested and amused, while Curly, half turned in his saddle, discanted on mirages and their interpretations. Nor did Enoch for several hours after meditate on his troubles. Not an hour after the mirage had disappeared the sky darkened almost to black, then turned a sullen red. Lightning forked across the zenith and the thunder reverberated among the thousand mesas, the entangled gorges, until it seemed almost impossible to endure the uproar. Rain did not begin to fall until noon. There was not a place in sight that would provide shelter, so the men wrapped their Navajos about them and forced the reluctant animals to continue the journey. The storm held with fury until late in the afternoon. The wind, the lightning and the rain vied with one another in punishing the travelers. Again and again, the burros broke from trail. "Get busy, Just!" Curly would roar. "Come out of your trance!" and Enoch would ride Pablo after the impish Mamie with a skill that developed remarkably as the afternoon wore on. Enoch could not recall ever having been so wretchedly uncomfortable in his life. He was sodden to the skin, aching with weariness, shivering with cold. But he made no murmur of protest. It was Curly who, about five o'clock, called: "Hey, Mack! I've gone my limit!" Mack pulled up and seemed to hesitate. As he did so, the storm, with a suddenness that was unbelievable, stopped. A last flare of lightning seemed to blast the clouds from the sky. The rain ceased and the sun enveloped mesas, gorges, trail in a hundred rainbows. "How about a fire?" asked Mack, grinning, with chattering teeth. "It must be done somehow," replied Curly. "Come on, Just, shake it up!" "Look here, Curly," exclaimed Mack, pausing in the act of throwing his leg over the saddle, "I think you ought to treat Mr. Smith with more respect. He ain't your hired help." "The dickens he isn't!" grinned Curly. "It's all right, Mack! I enjoy it," said Enoch, dismounting stiffly. "If you do," Mack gave him a keen look, "you aren't enjoying it the way Curly thinks you do." Enoch returned Mack's gaze, smiled, but said nothing further. Mack, however, continued to grumble. "I'm as good as the next fellow, but I don't believe in giving everybody a slap on the back or a kick in the pants to prove it. You may be a lawyer, all right, Mr. Smith, but I'll bet you're on the bench. You've got that way with you. Not that it's any of my business!" He was leading the way, as he spoke, toward the face of a mesa that abutted almost on the trail. Curly apparently had not paid the slightest attention to the reproof. He was already hobbling his horse. They made no attempt to look for a spring. The hollows of the rocks were filled with rain water. But the search for wood was long and arduous. In fact, it was nearly dusk before they had gathered enough to last out the evening. But here and there a tiny cedar or mesquite yielded itself up and at last a good blaze flared up before the mesa. The men shifted to dry underwear, wrung out their outer clothing and put it on again, and drank copiously of the hot coffee. In spite of damp clothing and blankets Enoch slept deeply and dreamlessly, and rose the next day none the worse for the wetting. Even in this short time his physical tone was improving and he felt sure that his mind must follow. CHAPTER VIII THE COLORADO "We had a particularly vile place to raid to-day, and as I listened with sick heart to the report of it, suddenly I saw the Canyon and F.'s broad back on his mule and the glorious line of the rim lifting from opalescent mists."--_Enoch's Diary_. They had been a week on the trail when they made camp one night at a spring surrounded by dwarf junipers. Mack, who had taken the trip before, greeted the spring with a shout of satisfaction. "Ten miles from the river, boys! To-morrow afternoon should see us panning gold." And to-morrow did, indeed, bring the river. There was a wide view of the Colorado as they approached it. The level which had gradually lifted during the entire week, making each day cooler, rarer, as it came, now sloped downward, while mesa and headland grew higher, the way underfoot more broken, the trail fainter and fainter, and the thermometer rose steadily. By now deep fissures appeared in the desert floor, and to the north lifted great mountains that were banded in multi-colored strata, across which drifted veils of mist, lavender, blue and gauzy white. Enoch's heart began to beat heavily. It was the Canyon country, indeed! The country of enchantment to which his spirit had returned for so many years. They ate lunch in a little canyon opening north and south. "At the north end of this," said Mack, "we make our first sharp drop a thousand feet straight down. She's a devil of a trail, made by Indians nobody knows when. Then we cross a plateau, about a mile wide, as I remember, then it's an easy grade to the river. We've got to go over the girths careful. If anything slips now it's farewell!" The trail was a nasty one, zig-zagging down the over-hanging face of the wall. Enoch, to his deep-seated satisfaction, felt no sense of panic, although in common with Mack and Curly, he was apprehensive and at times a little giddy. It required an hour to compass the drop. At the bottom was a tiny spring where men and beasts drank deeply, then started on. The plateau was rough, deep covered with broken rock, but the trail, though faint, held to the edge. At this edge the men paused. The Colorado lay before them. Fifty feet below them was a wide stretch of sand. Next, the river, smooth brown, slipping rapidly westward. Beyond the water, on the opposite side, a chaos of rocks greater than any Enoch had yet seen, a pile huge as if a mountain had fallen to pieces at the river's edge. Behind the broken rock rose the canyon wall, sheer black, forbidding, two thousand feet into the air. Its top cut straight and sharp across the sky line, the sky line unbroken save where rising behind the wall a mountain peak, snow capped, flecked with scarlet and gold, towered in the sunlight. "There you are, Curly!" exclaimed Mack. "There's a spring in the cave beneath us. There's drift wood, enough to run a factory with. Have I delivered the goods, or not?" "Everything is as per advertisement except the gold," replied Curly. "Oh, well, I don't vouch for the gold!" said Mack. "I just said the Indians claim they get it here. There's some grazing for the critters up here on the plateau, you see, and not a bit below. So we'll drive 'em back up here and leave 'em. With a little feed of oats once in a while, they'll do. Come ahead! It'll be dark in the Canyon inside of two hours." The cave proved to be a hollow overhang of the plateau ten or fifteen feet deep, and twice as wide. The floor was covered with sand. "All ready to go to housekeeping!" exclaimed Curly. "Judge, you wrangle firewood while Mack and I just give this placer idea a ten minutes' trial, will you?" "Go ahead!" said Enoch, "all the gold in the Colorado couldn't tempt me like something to eat. If you aren't ready by the time the fire's going, Mack, I shall start supper." "Go to it! I can stand it if you can!" returned Mack, who had already unpacked his pan. From that moment Enoch became the commissary and steward for the expedition. Curly and Mack, whom he had known as mild and jovial companions of many interests and leisurely manners, changed in a twinkling to monomaniacs who during every daylight hour except for the short interim which they snatched for eating, sought for gold. At first Enoch laughed at them and tried to get them to take an occasional half day off in which to explore with him. But they curtly refused to do this, so he fell back on his own resources. And he discovered that the days were all too short. Curly had a gun. There was plenty of ammunition. Quail and cottontails were to be found on the plateau where the stock was grazing. Sometimes on Pablo, sometimes afoot, Enoch with the gun, and sometimes with the black diary rolled in his coat, scoured the surrounding country. One golden afternoon he edged his way around the shoulder of a gnarled and broken peak, in search of rabbits for supper. Just at the outermost point of the shoulder he came upon a cedar twisting itself about a broad, flat bowlder. Enoch instantly stopped the search for game and dropped upon the rock, his back against the cedar. Lighting his pipe, he gave himself up to contemplation of the view. Below him yawned blue space, flecked with rose colored mists. Beyond this mighty blue chasm lay a mountain of purest gold, banded with white and silhouetted against a sky of palest azure. An eagle dipped lazily across the heavens. When he had gazed his fill, Enoch put his pipe in his pocket, unrolled the diary and, balancing it oh his knee, began to write: "Oh, Diana, no wonder you are lovely! No wonder you are serene and pure and reverent! 'And her's shall be the breathing balm And her's the silence and the calm'-- "You remember how it goes, Diana. "I heard Curly curse yesterday. A thousand echoes sent his words back to him and he looked at the glory of the canyon walls and was ashamed. I saw shame in his eyes. "It was not cowardice that drove me away for this interval, Diana. Never believe that of me! I was afraid, yes, but of myself, not of the newspapers. If I had stayed on the train, I would have returned at once to Washington and have shot the reporter who wrote the stuff. Perhaps I shall do it yet. But if I do, it will be after the Canyon and I have come to agreement on the subject. I am very sure I shall shoot Brown. Some one should have done it, long ago. "I wonder what you are doing this afternoon. Somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and fifty miles we are from Bright Angel, Mack says, via the river. And only a handful of explorers, you told me, ever have completed the trip down the Colorado. I would like to try it. "Diana, you look at me with your gentle, faithful eyes, the corners of your lips a little uncertain as if you want to tell me that I am disappointing you and yet, because you are so gentle, you did not want to hurt me. Diana, don't be troubled about me. I shall go back, long enough at least to discharge my pressing duties. After that, who knows or cares! Oh, Diana! Diana! What is the use? There is nothing left in my life. I am empty--empty! "Even all this is make believe, for, as soon as you saw that I was beginning to care for you,--beginning is a good word here!--you went away. "Good-by, Diana." Enoch's gun made no contribution to the larder that night. Curly uttered loud and bitter comment on the fact. "You're getting spoiled by high living," said Enoch severely. "What would you have done if I hadn't come along and taken pity on you? Why, you and Mack would have starved to death here in the Canyon, for it's morally certain neither of you would have stopped panning gold long enough to prepare your food." "Right you are, Judge," replied Curly meekly. "I'm going to try to get Mack to rebate two bits a day on your board, as a token of our appreciation." "Not when his biscuits have to be broken open with a stone," objected Mack, as he sopped in his coffee one of the gray objects Enoch had served as rolls. "They say when a woman that's done her own cooking first gets a hired girl, she becomes right picky about her food," rejoined Curly. "I'd give notice if I had any place to go," said Enoch. "What was the luck to-day, boys?" "Well, I've about come to the conclusion," replied Mack, "that by working eight hours a day you can just about wash wages out of this sand, and that's all." "You aren't going to give it up now, are you, Mack?" asked Curly, in alarm. "No, I'll stay this week out, if you want to, and then move on up to Devil's Canyon." They were silently smoking around the fire, a little later, when Curly said: "I have a hunch that you and I're not going to get independent wealth out of this expedition, Mack." "What would you do with it, if you had it, Curly?" asked Enoch. "A lot of things!" Curly ruminated darkly for a few moments, then he looked at Enoch long and keenly. "Smith, you're a lawyer, but I believe you're straight. There's something about you a man can't help trusting, and I think you've been successful. You have that way with you. Do you know what I'd do if I was taken suddenly rich? Well, I'd hire you, at your own price, to give all your time to breaking two men, Fowler and Brown." "Easy now, Curly!" Mack spoke soothingly. "Don't get het up. What's the use?" "I'm not het up. I want to get the Judge's opinion of the matter." "Go ahead. I'm much interested," said Enoch. "By Brown, I mean the fellow that owns the newspapers. When my brother and Fowler were in law together--" "You should make an explanation right there," interrupted Mack. "You said all lawyers was crooks." "My brother Harry was straight and I've just given my opinion of Smith here. I never liked Fowler, but he had great personal charm and Harry never would take any of my warnings about him. Brown was a short-legged Eastern college boy who worked on the local paper for his health. How he and Fowler ever met up, I don't know, but they did, and the law office was Brown's chief hang-out. Now all three of 'em were as poor as this desert. Nobody was paying much for law in Arizona in those days. Our guns was our lawyers. But by some fluke, Harry was made trustee of a big estate--a smelting plant that had been left to a kid. After a few years, the courts called for an accounting, and it turned out that my brother was short about a hundred thousand dollars. He seemed totally bewildered when this was discovered, swore he knew nothing about it and was terribly upset. And this devil of a Fowler turns round and says Harry made way with it and produces Brown as a witness. And, by the lord, the court believed them! My brother killed himself." Curly cleared his throat. "It wasn't six months after that that Fowler and Brown, who left the state right after the tragedy, bought a couple of newspapers. They claimed they got the money from some oil wells they'd struck in Mexico." "How is it the country at large doesn't know of Fowler's association with Brown?" asked Enoch. "Oh, they didn't stay pardners as far as the public knows, but a few years. They were too clever! They gave out that they'd had a split and they say nobody ever sees them together. All the same, even when they were seeming to ignore him, the Brown papers have been making Fowler." "And you want to clear your brother's name," said Enoch thoughtfully. "That ought not to be difficult. You could probably do it yourself, if you could give the time, and were clever at sleuthing. The papers in the case should be accessible to you." "Shucks!" exclaimed Curly. "I wouldn't go at it that way at all. I got something real on Fowler and Brown and I want to use it to make them confess." "Sounds like blackmail," said Enoch. "Sure! That's where I need a lawyer! Now, I happen to know a personal weakness of Fowler's--" "Don't go after him on that!" Enoch's voice was peremptory. "If he's done evil to some one else, throw the light of day on his crime, but if by his weakness you mean only some sin he commits against himself, keep off. A man, even a crook, has a right to that much privacy." "Did Brown ever have decency toward a man's seclusion?" demanded Curly. "No!" half shouted Enoch. "But to punish him don't turn yourself into the same kind of a skunk he is. Kill him if you have to. Don't be a filthy scandal monger like Brown!" "You speak as if you knew the gentleman," grunted Mack. "I don't know him," retorted Enoch, "except as the world knows him." "Then you don't know him, or Fowler either," said Curly. "But I happen to have discovered something that both those gentlemen have been mixed up in, in Mexico, something--oh, by Jove, but it's racy!" "You've managed to keep it to yourself, so far," said Mack. "Meaning I'd better continue to do so! Only so long as it serves my purpose, Mack. When I get ready to raise hell about Fowler's and Brown's ears, no consideration for decency will stop me. I'll be just as merciful to them as they were to Harry. No more! I'll string their dirty linen from the Atlantic to the Pacific. His and Brown's! But I want money enough to do it right. No little piker splurge they can buy up! I'll have those two birds weeping blood!" Enoch moistened his lips. "What's the story, Curly?" he asked evenly. Curly filled and lighted his pipe. But before he could answer Enoch, Mack said; "Sleep on it, Curly. Mud slinging's bad business. Sleep on it!" "I've a great contempt for Brown," said Enoch. "I'm a good deal tempted to help you out, that is, if it is to the interest of the public that the story be told." "It will interest the public. You can bet on that!" Curly laughed sardonically. Then he rose, with a yawn. "But it's late and we'll finish the story to-morrow night. Judge, I have a hunch you're my man! I sabez there's heap devil in you, if we could once get you mad." Enoch shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps!" he said, and he unrolled his blankets for bed. But it was long before he slept. The hand of fate was on him, he told himself. How else could he have been led in all the wide desert to find this man who held Brown's future in his hands? Suddenly Enoch saw himself returning to Washington with power to punish as he had been punished. His feeble protests to Curly were swept away. He felt the blood rush to his temples. And anger that had so far been submerged by pain and shame suddenly claimed its hour. His rage was not only at Brown. Luigi, his mother, most of all this woman who had been his mother, claimed his fury. The bitterness and humiliation of a lifetime burst through the gates of his self-control. He stole from the cave to the sandy shore and there he strode up and down like a madman. He was physically exhausted long before the tempest subsided. But gradually he regained his self-control and slipped back into his blankets. There, with the thought of vengeance sweet on his lips, he fell asleep. Curly was, of course, entirely engrossed the next day by his mining operations. Enoch had not expected or wished him to be otherwise. He felt that he needed the day alone to get a grip on himself. That afternoon he climbed up the plateau to the entering trail, up the trail to the desert. He was full of energy. He was conscious of a purposefulness and a keen interest in life to which he had long been a stranger. As he filled the gunny sack which he carried for a game bag with quail and rabbits, he occasionally laughed aloud. He was thinking of the expression that would appear on Curly's face if he learned into whose hands he was putting his dynamite? The sun was setting when he reached the head of the trail on his way campward. All the world to the west, sky, peaks, mesas, sand and rock had turned to a burning rose color. The plateau edge, near his feet, was green. These were the only two colors in all the world. Enoch stood absorbed by beauty when a sound of voices came faintly from behind him. His first thought was that Mack and Curly had stolen a march on him. His next was that strangers, who might recognize him, were near at hand. He started down the trail as rapidly as he dared. It was dusk when he reached the foot. For the last half of the trip voices had been floating down to him, as the newcomers threaded their way slowly but steadily. Enoch stood panting at the foot of the trail, listening acutely. A voice called. Another voice answered. Enoch suddenly lost all power to move. The full moon sailed silently over the plateau wall. Enoch, grasping his gun and his game bag, stood waiting. A mule came swiftly down the last turn of the trail and headed for the spring. The man who was riding him pulled him back on his haunches with a "Whoa, you mule!" that echoed like a cannon shot. Then he flung himself off with another cry. "Oh, boss! Oh, boss! Here he is, Miss Diana! O dear Lord, here he is! Boss! Boss! How come you to treat me so!" And Jonas threw his arms around Enoch with a sob that could not be repressed. Enoch put a shaking hand on Jonas' shoulder. "So you found your bad charge, old man, didn't you?" "Me find you? No, boss, Miss Diana, she found you. Here she is!" Diana dropped from her horse, slender and tall in her riding clothes. "So Jonas' pain is relieved, eh, Mr. Huntingdon! Are you having a good holiday?" "Great!" replied Enoch huskily. "I told Jonas it was the most sensible thing a man could do, who was as tired as you are, but he would have it you'd die without him. If you don't want him, I'll take him away." "You'd have to take me feet first, Miss Diana," said Jonas, with a grin. "Where's that Na-che?" "Here she comes!" laughed Diana. "Poor Na-che! She hates to hurry! She's got a real grievance against you, Jonas." Two pack mules lunged down the trail, followed by a squat figure on an Indian pony. "This is Na-che, Mr. Huntingdon," said Diana. Enoch shook hands with the Indian woman, whose face was as dark as Jonas' in the moonlight. "Where's your camp, Mr. Huntingdon?" Diana went on. "Just a moment!" Enoch had recovered his composure. "I am with two miners, Mackay and Field. To them, I am a lawyer named Smith. I would like very much to remain unknown to them during the remaining two weeks of my vacation." Jonas heaved a great sigh that sounded curiously like an expression of vast and many sided relief. Then he chuckled. "Easy enough for me. You can't never be nothing but Boss to me." But Diana was troubled. "I thought we'd camp with your outfit to-night. But we'd better not. I'd be sure to make a break. Are you positive that these men don't know you?" "Positive!" exclaimed Enoch. "Why, just look at me, Miss Allen!" Diana glanced at boots, overalls and flannel shirt, coming to pause at the fine lion-like head. "Of course, your disguise is very impressive," she laughed. "But I would say that it was impressive in that it accents your own peculiarities." "That outfit is something fierce, boss. I brung you some riding breeches," exclaimed Jonas. "I don't want 'em," said Enoch. "Miss Allen, Field calls me Judge. How would that do?" "Well, I'll try it," agreed Diana reluctantly. "I know both the men, by the way. Mack, especially, is well known among the Indians. What explanation shall we make them?" "Why not the truth?" asked Enoch. "I mean, tell them that I slipped away from my friends and that Jonas tagged." "Very well!" Diana and Jonas both nodded. "And now," Enoch lifted his game bag, "let's get on. My partners are going to be worried. And I'm the cook for the outfit, too." "Boss," Jonas took the game bag, "you take my mule and go on with Miss Diana and Na-che and I'll come along with the rest of the cattle." Enoch obediently mounted, Diana fell in beside him, and looked anxiously into his face. "Please, Judge, are you very cross with me for breaking in on you? But poor Jonas was consumed with fear for you." Enoch put his hand on Diana's as it rested on her knee. "You must know!" he said, and was silent. "Then it's all right," sighed Diana, after a moment. "Yes, it's quite all right! How did Jonas find you?" "It seems that he and Charley concluded that you must have headed toward Bright Angel. Charley went on to Washington to keep things in order there. Jonas went up to El Tovar. I had just outfitted for a trip into the Hopi country when Jonas came to me. He had talked to no one. He is wonderfully circumspect, but he was frantic beneath his calm. He begged me to find you for him and--well, I was a little anxious myself--so I didn't need much urging. We had only been out a week when we met John Red Sun. The rest was easy. If a person sticks to the trails in Arizona it's difficult not to trace them. Look, Judge, your friends have lighted a signal fire." "Poor chaps! They're starved and worried!" Enoch quickened his mule's pace and Diana fell in behind him. Mack and Curly were standing beside the blaze at the edge of the plateau. Enoch jumped from the saddle. "I'm awfully sorry, fellows! But you see, I was detained by a lady!" "For heaven's sake, Diana!" cried Mack. "Where did you come from?" "Hello, Mack! Hello, Curly!" Diana dismounted and shook hands. "Well, the Judge gave his friends the slip. Everybody was satisfied but his colored man, Jonas. He was absolutely certain the Judge wouldn't keep his face clean or his feet dry and he so worked on my feelings that I trailed you people. I was going into the Hopi country anyhow." Curly gave Enoch a knowing glance. "We thought he was putting something over on us. What is he, Diana, a member of the Supreme Bench?" "Huh! Hardly!" Everybody laughed at Diana's derisive tone and Curly added, "Anyhow, he's a rotten cook. I was thinking of putting Mack back on his old job." "Don't intrude, Curly," said Enoch. "I've been out and brought in an assistant who's an expert." "That's you, I suppose, Diana!" Mack chuckled. "No, it's Jonas, the colored man. He'll be along with Na-che in a moment. This isn't your camp?" "Come along, Miss Allen!" exclaimed Enoch. "I'll show you a camp that's run by an expert." Mack and Curly groaned and followed Enoch and Diana down to the cave, Jonas and Na-che appearing shortly. Jonas, hobbling to the cave opening stood for a moment, gazing at the group around the fire in silent despair. Finally he said: "When I get back to Washington, if I live to get there, they'll put me out of the Baptist Church as a liar, if I try to tell 'em what I been through. Boss, what you trying to do?" "Dress these quail," grunted Enoch. Jonas gave Curly and Mack a withering glance, started to speak, swallowed something and said, "How come you to think you was a butcher, boss? Leave me get my hands on those birds. I should think you done enough, killing 'em." "No," said Enoch, "I'm the cook for to-night. But, Jonas, old man, if you aren't too knocked up, you might make some biscuit." "Jonas looks to me," suggested Mack, "like a cup of coffee and a seat by the fire was about his limit to-night. I'll get the rest of the grub, if you'll tend to the quail, Judge. Curly, you go out and unpack for Diana. We'll turn the cave over to you and Na-che to-night, Diana." Diana, who was sitting on a rock by the fire, long, slender legs crossed, hands clasping one knee, an amused spectator of the scene, looked up at Mack with a smile. "Indeed you won't, Mack. Na-che and I have our tent. We'll put it up in the sand, as usual. And tomorrow, having delivered our prize package, we'll be on our way." Enoch looked up quickly. "Don't be selfish, Miss Allen!" he exclaimed. "That's the idea!" Mack joined in vehemently. Then he added, with a grin, "The Judge has plumb ruined our quiet little expedition anyhow. And after two weeks of him and Curly, I'm darn glad to see you, Diana. How's your Dad?" "Very well, indeed! If he had had any idea that I was going on this sort of trip, though, I think he'd have insisted on coming with me. Judge, let me finish those birds. You're ruining them." "Whose quail are these, I'd like to know?" demanded Enoch. "Yours," replied Diana meekly, "but I had thought that some edible portion besides the pope's nose and the neck ought to be left on them." Jonas, who had been crouching uneasily on a rock, a disapproving spectator of the scene, groaned audibly. Na-che now came into the glow of the fire. She was a comely-faced woman, of perhaps forty-five, neatly dressed in a denim suit. Her black eyes twinkled as she took in the situation. "Na-che, you come over here and sit down by me," said Jonas. "If I can't help, neither can you." Na-che smiled, showing strong white teeth. "You feel sick from the saddle, eh, Jonas?" "Don't you worry about that, woman! I'll show you I'm as good as any Indian buck that ever lived!" Na-che grunted incredulously, but sat down beside Jonas nevertheless. In spite of the gibes, supper was ready eventually and was devoured with approval. When the meal was finished, Na-che and Jonas cleared up, then Jonas took his blanket and retired to a corner of the cave, whence emerged almost immediately the sound of regular snoring. The others sat around the fire only a short time. "You'll stick around for a little while, won't you, Diana?" said Curly, as he filled his first pipe. "I really ought to pull out in the morning," replied Diana. "There are some very special pictures I want to get at Oraibai about now." "There is a cliff dwelling down the river about three miles," said Enoch. "I haven't found the trail into it yet, but I saw the dwelling distinctly from a curve on the top of the Canyon wall. It's a huge construction." "Is that so?" exclaimed Diana eagerly. "Why, those must be the Gray ruins. I didn't realize we were so close to them. Well, you've tempted me and I've fallen. I really must give a day to those remains. Only one or two whites have ever gone through them." Enoch smiled complacently. "How long have you and the Judge known each other, Diana?" asked Curly suddenly. Diana hesitated but Enoch spoke quickly. "The first time I saw Miss Allen she was a baby of five or six on Bright Angel trail." Curly whistled. "Then you've got it on the rest of us. I first saw her when she was a sassy miss in school at Tucson." "Nothing on me!" said Mack. "I held her in my arms when she was ten days old, and my wife was with her mother and Na-che when she was born. You were a red-faced, squalling brat, Diana." "She was a beautiful baby! She never cried," contradicted Na-che flatly. Diana laughed and rose. "This is getting too personal. I'm going to bed," she said. The men looked at her, admiration in every face. "Anything any of us can do for your comfort, Diana?" asked Curly. "Na-che seemed satisfied with the place I put your tent in." "Everything is fine, thank you," Diana held out her hand, "Good night, Curly. I really think you're handsomer than ever." "Lots of good that'll do me," retorted Curly. Diana made a little grimace at him and turned to Mack. "Good night, Mack. I'll bet you're homesick for Mrs. Mack this minute." "She's a pretty darned fine old woman!" Mack nodded soberly. "Old!" said Diana scornfully. "You ought to have your ears boxed! Good night, Judge!" "Good night, Miss Allen!" The three men watched the tall figure swing out into the moonlight. "There goes the most beautiful human being I ever hope to see," said Curly, turning to unroll his blankets. "If I was a painter and wanted to tell what this here country was really like, at its best, I'd paint Diana." Mack's voice was very earnest. "Shucks!" sniffed Curly, "that isn't saying anything, is it, Judge?" "It's hard to put her into words," replied Enoch carefully. "Curly, are you too tired to continue our last night's talk?" "Oh, let's put it over till to-morrow! We've lots of time!" Curly gave a great yawn. Enoch said nothing more but rolled himself in his blankets, with the full intention of formulating his line of conduct toward Diana before going to sleep. He stretched himself luxuriously in the sand and the next thing he heard was Diana's laugh outside. He opened his eyes in bewilderment. It was dawn without the cave. Jonas was hobbling down toward the river. "Oh, Jonas, you poor thing! Do let Na-che give you a good rubdown before you try to do anything!" "No, Miss Diana. If the boss can stand these goings on, I can. How come he ever thought this was sport, I don't know. I'll never live to get him back home!" "Where are you going, Jonas?" called Curly. Jonas paused. "I ain't going to turn myself round, unless I have to. What's wanted?" "I just wanted to warn you that the Colorado's no place for a morning swim," Curly said. "I'm just going to get the boss's shaving water." "There's a hint for you, Judge," Curly turned to Enoch. "I hope you plan to give more attention to your toilet after this." "You go to blazes, Curly," said Enoch amiably. "I haven't got the reputation for pulchritude to live up to that you have." "Diana's imagination was in working order last night," volunteered Mack. "To my positive knowledge Curly ain't washed or shaved for three days." "You've drunk of the Hassayampa too, Mack!" Curly ran the comb through his black locks vindictively. "What's the effect of that draught?" asked Enoch. "You never tell the truth again," said Curly. Na-che's voice floated in. "Jonas, you tell the men I got breakfast already for 'em. Tell 'em to bring their own cups and plates." "Sounds rotten, huh?" Curly sauntered out of the cave. It was a very pleasant meal. To Enoch it was all a dream. It seemed impossible for him to absorb the fact that he and Diana were together in the Colorado Canyon. When the last of the coffee was gone, Curly looked at his watch, then turned severely to Enoch. "We're an hour earlier than we've ever been, and all because of women! Aren't you ashamed?" "Run along and wash dirt," returned Enoch. "For two cents I'd tell how long it took me to get you up yesterday morning." "What's your program, Diana?" asked Mack. "Na-che and I are going over to the cliff dwelling. We'll be gone all day." "I'll act as guide," said Enoch with alacrity. "It's not necessary!" exclaimed Diana. "I don't want to interrupt your camp routine at all. You just give us directions, Judge. Na-che and I are old hands at this, you know." "Oh, take him along, Diana! He'll be crying in a minute," sniffed Curly. "Jonas, you'll stay and give us a feed, won't you?" "I got to look out for the boss," Jonas spoke anxiously. A shout went up. "Jonas, old boy," said Enoch, "you stay in camp to-day and er--look over my clothes." "I will, boss," with intense relief, "and I'll make you a stew out of those rabbits nobody'll forget in a hurry." Mack and Curly hurried off to the river's edge. Na-che and Jonas went into the cave. Enoch looked at Diana. She was standing by the breakfast fire slender and straight in her brown corduroy riding suit, her wide, intelligent eyes studying Enoch's face. There was a glow of crimson in the cream of her cheeks, for the morning air held frost in its touch. "May I go with you?" repeated Enoch. "I'll be very good!" Diana did not reply at first. Moonlight and firelight had not permitted her before to read clearly the story of suffering that was in Enoch's face. During breakfast he had been laughing and chatting constantly. But now, as he stood before her, she was appalled by what she saw in the rugged face. There were two straight, deep lines between his brows. The lines from nostril to lip corner were doubly pronounced. The thin, sensitive lips were compressed. The clear, kindly blue eyes were contracted as if Enoch were enduring actual physical pain. Tall and powerful, his dark red hair tossed back from his forehead, his look of trouble did not detract from the peculiar forcefulness of his personality. "If you hesitate so long," he said, "I shall--" Diana laughed. "Begin to cry, as Curly said? Oh, don't do that! I shall be very happy to have you with me, but before we start, I think I shall develop some of the films I exposed on the way over. A ten o'clock start will be early enough, won't it? I have a developing machine with me. It may not take me even until ten." Enoch nodded. "How does the work go?" he asked eagerly. "Did you attend the ceremony Na-che sent word to you about?" "Yes! Out of a hundred exposures I made there, I think I got one fairly satisfactory picture." Diana sighed. "After all, the camera tells the story no better than words, and words are futile. Look! What medium could one use to tell the world of that?" She swept her arm to embrace the view before them. The tiny sandy beach was on a curve of the river so sharp that above and below them the rushing waters seemed to drive into blind canyon walls. To the right, the Canyon on both sides was so sheer, the river bed so narrow that nothing but sky was to be seen above and beyond. But to the left, the south canyon wall terraced back at perhaps a thousand feet in a series of magnificent strata, yellow, purple and crimson. Still south of this, lifted great weathered buttes and mesas, fortifications of the gods against time itself. The morning sun had not yet reached the camp, but it shone warm and vivid on the peaks to the south, burning through the drifting mists from the river, in colors that thrilled the heart like music. Enoch's eyes followed Diana's gesture. "I know," he said, softly. "It's impossible to express it. I've thought of you and your work so often, down here. Somehow, though, you do suggest the unattainable in your pictures. It's what makes them great." Diana shook her head and turned toward her tent, while Enoch lighted his pipe and began his never-ending task of bringing in drift wood. He paused, a log on his shoulder, before Curly, who was squatting beside his muddy pan. "Curly," he said, "is that stuff you have on Fowler and Brown, political, financial, or a matter of personal morals?" "Personal morals and worse!" grunted Curly. "It's some story!" Enoch turned away without comment. But the lines between his eyes deepened. CHAPTER IX THE CLIFF DWELLING "Love! that which turns the meanest man to a god in some one's eyes! Yet I must not know it! Suppose I cast my responsibility to the winds and . . . and yet that sense of responsibility is all that differentiates me from Minetta Lane."--_Enoch's Diary_. Diana began work on her films on a little folding table beside the spring. Enoch, throwing down his log close to the cave opening, paused to watch her. Jonas and Na-che, putting the cave in order, talked quietly to each other. Suddenly from the river, to the right, there rose a man's half choking, agonized shout and around the curve shot a skiff, bottom up, a man clinging to the gunwale. The water was too wild and swift for swimming. "The rope, Judge, the rope!" cried Mack. Enoch picked up a coil of rope, used for staking the horses, and ran to Mack who snatched it, twirled it round his head and as the boat rushed by him, the noosed end shot across the gunwale. The man caught it over his wrist and it was the work of but a few moments to pull him ashore. He was a young man, with a two days' beard on his face, clad in the universal overalls and blue flannel shirt. He lay on the sand, too exhausted to move for perhaps five minutes, while Jonas pulled off his sodden shoes, and Na-che ran to kindle a fire and heat water. After a moment, however the stranger began to talk. "Almost got me that time! Forgot to put my life preserver on. Don't bother about me. I'm drowned every day. Another boat with the rest of us should be along shortly. Hope they salvaged some of the stuff." "What in time are you trying to do on the river, anyhow?" demanded Curly. "There's simpler ways of committing suicide." The young man laughed. "Oh, we're some more fools trying to get from Green River to Needles!" "On a bet?" asked Mack. "Hardly! On a job! Geological Survey! Four of us! There they come! Whoo--ee!" He staggered to his feet, as another boat shot around the curve. But this one came through in proper style, right side up, two men manning the oars and a third with a steering paddle. With an answering shout, they ran quickly up on the shore. They were a rough-bearded, overalled lot, young men, all of them. "Gee whiz, Harden! We thought you were finished!" exclaimed the tallest of the trio. "I would have been, but for these folks," replied Harden. "Here, let's make some introductions!" They were stalwart fellows. Milton, the leader, was sandy-haired and freckled, a University of California man. Agnew was stocky and swarthy, an old Princeton graduate and Forrester, a thin, blonde chap had worked in New York City before he joined the Geological Survey. They were astonished by this meeting in the Canyon, but delighted beyond measure. They had been on the river for seven months and up to this time had met no one except when they went out for supplies. "We camped up above those rapids, last night," said Milton. "Of course we didn't know of this spot. We really had nothing but a ledge, up there. This morning Harden undertook to patch his boat, with this result." He nodded toward the shivering cast-a-way, who had crowded himself to Na-che's fire. "Have you folks any objection to our stopping here to make repairs?" "Lord, no! Glad to have you!" said Mack. Enoch laughed. "Mack, it's no use! You and Curly are doomed to take on guests as surely as a dog takes on fleas. They started out alone, Milton, for a little vacation prospecting trip. I caught them a few days out and made them take me on. Then Miss Allen came along last night, and now your outfit! I'm sorry for you, Mack." "I'll try to live through it," grinned Mack. "Did you fellows find any pay gravel, coming down?" asked Curly. "We didn't look for any," answered Agnew, "But a few years ago, I picked this out of the river bed." He showed Curly a nugget as large as a pea. "Where the devil did you find that?" exclaimed Curly, eagerly. "I can show you on our map," replied Agnew. "I'll go fifty-fifty with you," proffered Curly. "Me to do all the work." "No, you won't," laughed Agnew. "Say, old man, I put in four years, trying to make money out of the Colorado and I swear, the only real cash I've ever made on it has been the magnificent wages the Secretary of the Interior allows me. I'll keep the nugget. You can have whatever else you find there. Believe me, you'll earn it, before you get it!" "You're foolish but I'm on! Mack, when shall we move?" "I want to know a lot more before I break up my happy home." Mack's voice was dry. "In the meantime you fellows make yourselves comfortable. Come on, Curly. Let's get back to work!" "Mr. Curly," said Jonas, "will you let me see that nugget?" "Sure, Jonas, here it is!" Jonas turned it over on his brown palm. "You mean to say you pick up gold like that, down here?" "That's what I did," replied Agnew. "Kin any one do it?" "Yes, sir!" "How come it everybody ain't down here doing it right now?" "The going is pretty stiff," said Harden, with a grin, glancing at his steaming legs. "Boss," Jonas turned the nugget over and over, "let's have a try at these ructions, before we go back!" "Are you game to take to the boats, Jonas?" asked Enoch. "No, boss, we'll just go over the hills, like Miss Diana does. For the Lord's sake, who'd want to go back to--" "Jonas," interrupted Diana. "If you and Na-che will put together a lunch for us, the Judge and I will get started." "I didn't quite get your name, sir," said Milton to Enoch. "Just Smith," called Curly, from over his pan of gravel. "Mr. Just Smith! Judge, for short." "Oh!" Milton continued to stare at Enoch in a puzzled way. "I beg your pardon! Come on, Harden, you're pretty well steamed out. Let's go back and see what we can salvage, while Ag and Forr begin to overhaul the stuff we've already pulled out." Not a half hour later, Enoch, Diana and Na-che were making their way slowly up the plateau trail, not however, to climb up the old trail to the main land. They turned midway toward their right. There was no trail, but Enoch knew the way by the distant peaks. They traveled afoot, single file, each with a canteen, a little packet of food and Na-che with the camera tripod, while Enoch insisted on toting the camera and the coil of rope. The sun was hot on the plateau and the way very rough. They climbed constantly over ragged boulders, and chaotic rock heaps, or rounded deep fissures that cut the plateau like spider webs. Muscular and in good form as was the trio, frequent rests were necessary. They had one mishap. Na-che, lagging behind, slipped into a fissure. Enoch and Diana blanched at her sudden scream and ran back as she disappeared. Mercifully a great rock had tumbled into the crevice some time before and Na-che landed squarely on this, six feet below the surface. When Diana and Enoch peered over, she was sitting calmly on the rock, still clinging to the tripod. "I lost my lunch!" she grumbled as she looked up at them. Diana laughed. "You may have mine! Better no lunch than no Na-che. Give us hold of the end of the tripod, honey, and we'll help you out." A few moments of strenuous scrambling and pulling and Na-che was on the plateau brushing the sand from her clothes. "Sit down and get your breath, Na-che," said Enoch. "I'm fine! I don't need to sit," answered Na-che. "Let's get along." She started on briskly. "I suppose things like that are of daily occurrence!" exclaimed Enoch. "Miss Allen, don't you think you could be more careful!" Again Diana laughed. "It wasn't I who slipped into the crevice!" "No, but I'll wager you've had many an accident." "That's where part of the fun comes in. Why, only yesterday we had the most thrilling escape. We--" "Please! I don't want to hear it!" protested Enoch, "Pshaw! There's no more daily risk here, than there is in the streets of a large city." Enoch grunted and followed as Diana hurried after Na-che. The course now led along the edge of the plateau which here hung directly above the river. The water twisted far below like a sinuous brown ribbon. The nooning sky was bronze blue and burning hot. The world seemed very huge, to Enoch; the three of them, toiling so carefully over the yellow plateau, very small and insignificant. He did not talk much during the rest intervals. He would light his pipe and smoke as if in physical contentment, but his deep blue eyes were burning and somber as they rested on the vast emptiness about them. Na-che always dozed during the stops. Diana, after she had observed the look in Enoch's eyes, occupied herself in writing up her note book. It was just noon when they came to an old trail which Enoch believed dropped to the cliff dwelling. Before descending it, they ate their lunch, Enoch and Diana sharing with Na-che. This done, they began to work carefully down the faint old trail. For ten or fifteen minutes, they wormed zig-zag downward, the angle of descent so great that frequently they were obliged to sit down and slide, controlling their speed by clinging to the rocks on either side. They could not see the cliff dwelling; only the river winding so remotely below. But at the end of the fifteen minutes the trail stopped abruptly. So unexpectedly, in fact, that Enoch clung to a rock while his legs dangled over the abyss. He shouted to the others to wait while he peered dizzily below. A great section of the wall had broken away and the trail could not be taken up again until a sheer gap of twenty feet had been bridged. Diana crept close behind Enoch and peered over his shoulders. "If we tie the rope to this pointed rock, I think we can lower ourselves, don't you?" he asked. "Easily!" agreed Diana. "I'll go first." "Well, hardly! I'll go first and Na-che can bring up the rear, as usual." They knotted the rope around the rock and Enoch and Diana quickly and easily made the descent. Na-che lowered the camera and tripod to them, then examined, with a sudden exclamation, the rock to which the rope was tied. "That rock will give way any minute," she cried. "Your weight has cracked it." Even as she spoke, the rock suddenly tilted and slid, then bounded out to the depths below, carrying the rope with it. For a moment no one spoke, then Na-che, her round brown face wrinkled with amusement, said, "Almost no Na-che, no Diana, no Judge, eh?" "Jove, what an escape!" breathed Enoch. "Na-che," said Diana, "you'll just have to return to the camp for another rope. You'd better ride back here. In the meantime, the Judge and I'll explore the dwelling." Na-che nodded and without another word, disappeared. Diana turned to Enoch. "Lead ahead, Judge!" The trail now led around a curve in the wall. Enoch edged gingerly beyond this and paused. The trail again was broken, but they were in full view of the cliff dwelling, which was snuggled in an inward curve of the Canyon, filling entirely a gigantic gap in the gray wall. Diana exclaimed over its mute beauty. "I must see it!" she said. "But we can't bridge this gap without more ropes and more people to help." "It looks to me," Enoch spoke with a sudden smile, "as though the Lord intended me to have a few moments alone with you!" Diana smiled in return. "It does, indeed," she agreed. "Let's try to settle ourselves comfortably here in view of the dwelling. I like to look at it. We can hear Na-che when she calls." The trail was several feet wide at this point. Diana sat down on a rock, her back to the wall, clasping one knee with her brown fingers. For a little while Enoch stood looking from the dwelling to Diana, then far out to the glowing peaks across the Canyon to the north. Finally, he turned to silent contemplation of the lovely, slender figure against the wall. Diana's dignity, her utter sweetness, the something quieting and steadying in her personality never had seemed more pronounced to Enoch than in this country of magnificent heights and depths. "Well," said Diana, finally, "after you've finished your inspection, perhaps you'll sit down and talk." Enoch smiled and established himself beside her. He refilled his pipe, lighted it and laid it down. "Miss Allen," he said abruptly, "you saw the article in the Brown papers?" "Yes," replied Diana. "What did you think of it?" "I thought what others think, that Brown is an unspeakable cur." "I can't tell you how keenly I feel for you in the matter, Miss Allen. I would have given anything to have saved you from it." "Would you? I'm not so sure that I would! You see, I'm just enough of a hero worshiper to be proud to have my name coupled in friendship with that of a great man." "A great man!" repeated Enoch quietly, yet with a bitterness in his voice that wrung Diana's heart. "Yes, Mr. Huntingdon," Diana's voice broke a little and she turned her head away. The utter silence of the Canyon enveloped them. At last Enoch said, "You have a big soul, Miss Allen, but you shall not sacrifice one smallest fragment of--of your perfection for me. If it is necessary for me to kill Brown, I shall do so." Diana gasped, "Enoch!" Enoch, at the sound of his name on her lips, touched her hand quickly and softly with his own, and as quickly drew it away, jumped to his feet and began to pace the trail. "Yes, kill him, the cur! Diana, he did not even leave me a mother in the public mind! He maligned you. The burdens that I have carried for all the years, the horrors that I've wrestled with, the secret shames that I've hidden, he's exposed them all in the open marketplace. And he dragged you into my mire! Diana, each man must be broken in a different way. Some are broken by money, some by physical fear, some by spiritual fear, some--" Diana interrupted. "Enoch, are you a friend of mine?" Enoch turned his tortured eyes to hers. "I shall never tell you how much a friend I am to you, Diana. But my friendship is a fact you may draw on all the days of your life, as heavily as you will." "And I am your friend. Though I know you so little, no friend is as dear to me as you are." She rose and coming to his side, she took his hand in both of hers. "Dear Enoch, what a man like Brown can say of you in an article or two, has no permanent weight with the public. Scurrilous stories of that type kill themselves by their very scurrility. No matter how eagerly the public may lap up the stuff, it cannot really heed it for, Enoch, America knows you and your service. America loves you. Brown cannot dislodge you by slandering your mother. The real importance and danger of that story lies in its reaction on you. I--I could not help recalling the story of that tormented, red-haired boy who went down Bright Angel trail with my father and I had to come to help him, if I could. O Enoch, if the Canyon could only, once more, wipe Luigi Guiseppi out of your life!" Enoch watched Diana's wide gray eyes with a look of painful eagerness. "Nothing matters, nothing can matter, Enoch, except that you find the strength in the Canyon to go back to your work and that you leave Brown alone. That is what I want to demand of your friendship, that you promise me to do those two things." "I shall go back, of course," replied Enoch, gravely. "I had no thought of doing otherwise. But about Brown, I cannot promise." "Then will you agree not to go back until you have talked to me again?" "Again? But I expect to talk to you many times, Diana! You are not going away, are you?" Diana nodded. "I'm using another person's money and I must get on, to-morrow, with the work I agreed to do. Promise me, Enoch." "But, Diana--O Diana! Diana! Let me go with you!" Diana turned to face the dwelling. "The Canyon can do more for you than I can, Enoch. But we'll meet, say at El Tovar before you go back to Washington. Promise me, Enoch." "Of course, I promise. But, Diana, how can I let you go!" Enoch put his arm across Diana's shoulders and stood beside her, staring at the silent, deserted dwelling. It seemed to Enoch, standing so, that this was the sweetest and saddest moment of his life; saddest because he felt that in nothing more than friendship must he ever touch her hand with his: sweetest because for the first time in his history he was beginning to understand the depth and beauty that can exist in a friendship between a man and a woman. "Diana," he said at last, "you may take yourself away from me, but nevertheless, I shall carry with me the thought of your loveliness, like a rod and a staff to sustain me." When Diana turned to look at him there were tears in her eyes. "I've always been glad that I was not ugly," she said, "but now,"--smiling through wet lashes--"you make me proud of it, though I can't see how the thought of it can--" She paused and Enoch went on eagerly: "It's a seamy, rough world, Diana, all higgledy-piggledy. The beautiful souls are misplaced in ugly carcasses and the ugly souls in beautiful. Those who might be friends and lovers too often meet only to grieve that it is too late for their joy. In such a world, when one beholds a body that nature has chiseled and molded and polished to loveliness like yours and discovers that that loveliness is a true index of the intelligence and fineness of the character dwelling in the body--well, Diana, it gives one a new thought about God. It does, indeed!" "Enoch, I don't deserve it! I truly don't!" looking at him with that curious mingling of tenderness and courtesy and understanding in her wide eyes that made Diana unique. Enoch only smiled and again silence fell between them. Finally, Enoch said, "I would like to go down the river with Milton and his crowd." Diana's voice was startled. "O no, Enoch! It's a frightfully dangerous trip! You risk your life every moment." "I want to risk my life," returned Enoch. "I want a real man's adventure. I've got a battle inside of me to fight that will rend me unless I have one of equal proportions to fight, externally." A loud halloo sounded from above. "There's Na-che!" exclaimed Diana. "We'll talk this over later, Enoch." But Enoch shook his head. "No, Diana, please! I've dreamed all my life of this canyon trip. You mustn't dissuade me. Milton will be starting to-morrow and I'm going to crowd in, somehow." Na-che called again. Diana turned silently and in silence they returned to the end of the broken trail. Here they explained to Na-che the conditions of the trail beyond and that they had determined to give up the expedition for that day. "I doubt if I try to investigate it at all, on this trip," said Diana, when they had made the difficult ascent to the plateau. "I really ought to get into the Hopi country. My conscience is troubling me." Na-che looked disappointed. "That is a good camp, by the river," she said. "But maybe," eagerly, "the Judge and Jonas will come with us." "You like Jonas, don't you, Na-che?" asked Enoch. The Indian woman laughed and tossed her head, but did not answer. It was only four o'clock when they reached camp, but already dusk was settling in the Canyon. A good fire was going in front of the cave and Jonas was guarding his stew which simmered over a smaller blaze near Diana's tent. Na-che lifted the lid of the kettle, sniffed and turned away with a shrug of her shoulders. "What's troubling you, woman?" demanded Jonas. "I thought you was making stew," replied Na-che. "Oh, you did! Well, what do you think now?" "Oh, I guess you're just boiling the mud out of the river water. You give me the kettle and I'll show you how to make rabbit stew." "I'll give you a piece of my mind, Miss Na-che, that's what I'll give you. How come you to think you can sass a Washington man, huh, a government man, huh? How come you suppose I don't know women, huh? Why child, I was taking girls to fancy dress balls when you Indians was still wearing nothing but strings. I was--" "O Jonas!" called Enoch, who had been standing by the cave fire, an amused auditor of Jonas' tirade; "treat Na-che gently. She's leaving to-morrow." "Leaving? Don't we go, too, boss?" asked Jonas. "No, I'm going to see if I can go down river with the boats." Curly, who was cleaning up in the cave, came out, comb in hand. "You haven't gone crazy, have you, Judge?" "No more than usual, Curly. How about it, Milton?" as that sturdy personage came up from the river and dropped wearily down by the fire. "Don't you need another man?" "Yes, Judge, we're two short. One of our fellows broke an arm a week ago and we had to send him out, with another chap to help him." "Will you let me work my passage as far as Bright Angel?" asked Enoch. Milton scowled thoughtfully. "It's a god-awful job. You realize that, do you?" Enoch nodded. Milton turned to Harden and the other two men. "What do you fellows think?" "We're awful short-handed," replied Harden, cautiously. "Can you swim, Judge?" "I'm a strong swimmer." "But gee willikums, Judge, what're we going to do without you?" demanded Mack. "Ain't that just the usual luck? You get a cook trained and off he goes!" "And how about that deal of ours, Smith?" asked Curly, in a low voice. "I haven't forgotten it for a moment, Curly," Enoch replied. "I'll talk to you about it, to-night. How about it, Milton?" "Can you stand rotten hard luck without belly-aching?" asked Agnew. "Yes, he can!" exclaimed Mack, "but he's a darn fool to think of going. It's as risky as the devil and nobody that's got a family dependent on 'em ought to consider it for a moment." "I have no one," said Enoch quietly. "And I'm strong and hard as nails." "What fool ever sent you folks out?" asked Curly. "It's not a fool trip, really," expostulated Milton. "It's very necessary for a good many reasons that the government have more accurate geographical and geological knowledge of this section." "What part of the government do you work for?" asked Mack. "The Geological Survey. It's a bureau in the Department of the Interior." "Oh, then Huntingdon's your Big Boss!" exclaimed Mack. "Do you know him?" "Never met him," replied Milton. "He doesn't know the small fry in his department." "He sits in Washington and gets the glory while you guys do the work, eh!" said Curly. "I don't think you should put it that way, Curly," protested Mack. "Enoch Huntingdon's a big man and he's done more real solid work for his country than any man in Washington to-day and I'll bet you on it." "Right you are!" exclaimed Forrester. "My oldest brother was in college with Huntingdon. Says he was a good fellow, a brilliant student and even then he could make a speech that would break your heart. His one vice was gambling. He--" "My father knew Huntingdon!" Diana spoke quickly. "He knew him when he was a long-legged, red-headed boy of fourteen. My father was his guide down Bright Angel trail. Dad always said that he never met as interesting a human being as that boy." "Queer thing about personal charm," contributed Agnew. "I heard Huntingdon make one of his great speeches when he was Police Commissioner. I was just a little kid and he was a big, homely, red-headed chap, but I remember how my kid heart warmed to him and how I wished I could get up on the stage and get to know him." "So he was a gambler, was he?" Curly spoke in a musing voice. "Well, if he was once, he is now. It's a worse vice than drink." "How come you say that, Mr. Curly?" demanded Jonas. "In the meantime," interrupted Enoch, gruffly, "how about my trip down the Canyon?" "Well," replied Milton, "if you go at it with your eyes open, I don't see why you can't try it as far as Grant's Crossing. That's seventy-five miles west of here. Barring accidents, we should reach there in a week, cleaning up the survey as we go along. If you live to reach there, you can either go out or come along, as you wish. But understand that from the time we leave here till we reach Grant's Crossing, there's no way out of the Canyon, at least as far as the maps indicate." "Say, the placer where I found my nugget is just above Grant's!" exclaimed Harden. "Why don't you placer fans start on west and we'll all try to meet there in a week's time. I couldn't tell Field where it was in a hundred years." "Suits me!" exclaimed Curly. "Me too!" echoed Mack. "Then," said Enoch, "will you take Jonas along as cook, Mack?" "You bet!" cried Mack. "Does that suit you, Jonas?" asked Enoch. "No, boss, it don't suit me. I've gotta go with you. I ain't never going to live through it, but I'll die praying." A shout went up of laughter and expostulation, but Jonas, though grim with terror, was entirely unmoved. Nothing, not even mortal horror of the Colorado could break his determination never to be separated from Enoch again. His agitation was so deep and so obvious that Enoch and Milton finally gave in to him. "All right!" said Milton. "A daylight start will about suit us all, I guess. I don't think I can give you much previous instruction, Judge, that will help you. We'll put Jonas in Harden's boat and you in mine. You must wear your life preserver all the time that we are on the water. When we are in the boat, do as I tell you, instantly, and you'll soon pick up what small technique we have. It's mostly horse sense and brute strength that we use. No two rapids are alike and the portages are nearly all difficult beyond words." "My Gawd!" muttered Jonas. "You go over to the Hopi country with us," said Na-che, softly. "I dassen't do it!" groaned Jonas. "You'll have to serve that stew, Na-che. My nerves is just too upset. I gotta go off and sit down somewhere." "Don't you worry," whispered Na-che, "I'll give you a Navajo charm. You can't drown if you wear it." Jonas' black face grew less tense. "Honest, Na-che?" Na-che nodded emphatically. "Well," said Jonas, "I had a warming of my heart to you the minute I laid eyes on you, up there at the Grand Canyon. Any woman as handsome as you is, Na-che, is bound to be a comfort to a man in his hours of trouble." Again Na-che nodded and began to dish the stew, which came quite up to Jonas' estimate of it. After supper, the big fire was replenished and Mack produced a deck of cards. "Who said draw-poker?" he inquired. "Most any of our crowd will shout," said Agnew. "Judge?" Mack looked at Enoch, who was sitting before the fire, arms clasped about his knees. Enoch pulled his pipe out of his mouth to answer. "No!" with a look of repugnance that caused Milton to exclaim, "Got conscientious scruples against cards, Judge?" "Yes, but don't stop your game for me," replied Enoch, harshly. Then his voice softened. "Miss Allen, the moon is shining, up on the plateau. While these chaps play, will you take a walk with me?" "I'd like to very much!" Diana spoke quickly. "Well, don't be gone over an hour, children," said Curly. "Cards don't draw me like a good gab round the fire. And Diana's our best gabber." "An hour's the bargain then," said Enoch. "Come along, Miss Allen!" It was, indeed, glorious moonlight on the plateau. The two did not speak until they reached the upper level, then Enoch laughed. "Jove! This is the greatest luck a game of cards ever brought me! Think, Diana, three days ago I was fighting my despair at the thought that I must never see you again and that you despised me. And here I am, with moonlight and you and a whole hour. Are you a little bit glad, Diana?" "A little bit! I'd be gladder if I weren't so disturbed at the thought of the trip you are to begin to-morrow!" "Nonsense, Diana! I'm learning more about my own Department every day. Aren't they a fine lot of fellows? Milton scares me to death. I don't doubt for a moment that if he tells me to dash to destruction in a whirlpool, I shall do so. There's a chap that could exact obedience from a mule. I'll look up his record when I get back to Washington." "Shall you reveal your identity before you leave them?" asked Diana. "No, certainly not! Not for worlds would I have them know who I am. And now tell me, Diana, just what are your plans?" "Oh, nothing at all exciting! I am going to make some studies of Indian children's games. They are picturesque and ethnologically, very interesting. I shall come home across the Painted Desert and take some pictures in color. My adventures will be very mild compared with yours." "And you and Na-che will be quite alone, out in this trackless country! I shall worry about you, Diana." Diana laughed. "Enoch, you have no idea of what you are undertaking! You'll have no time to give me a thought. For a week you're going to struggle as you never did before to keep breath in your body." "Oh, it'll not be that bad!" exclaimed Enoch. "Are you cold, Diana? I thought you shivered. What a strange, ghostlike country it is! It would be horrible up here alone, wouldn't it!" They paused to gaze out over the fantastic landscape. In the gray light the strangely weathered mesas were ruined castles, stupendous in bulk; the mighty buttes and crumbled peaks were colossal cities overthrown by the cataclysm of time. It seemed to Enoch, that nowhere else in the world could one behold such epic loneliness. The excitement that had buoyed him up since Diana's arrival suddenly departed, and his life with all its ugly facts was vividly in his consciousness again. "Diana," he said, abruptly, "when you were talking to me this afternoon, you spoke of the Brown matter in the plural. Was there more than one article about me?" Diana turned her tender eyes to Enoch's. "Let's not spoil this beautiful evening," she pleaded. "I don't want to bother you, Diana. Just tell me the facts and we'll drop it." "I'd rather not talk about it," replied Diana. "Please, Diana! Whatever fight I have down here, whatever conclusion I reach, I want to work with my eyes open, so that my decisions shall be final. I don't want to have to revamp and revise when I get out." "As far as I know," said Diana, in a low voice, "there was but one other reference to the matter. The day after the first article appeared, Brown published a photograph of you and me in front of a Johnstown lunch place. There was a long caption, which said that you had always been proud that you were slum-reared and a woman hater. That you had persisted in keeping some of your early habits, perhaps out of bravado. That Miss Allen was an intimate friend, the only woman friend you had made and kept. That was all." "All!" echoed Enoch. The pale, silver landscape danced in a crimson mist before him. He stood, clenching and unclenching his fists, breathing rapidly. "Oh, Enoch! Enoch! Since you had to know, it was better for you to know from me than any one else. And as far as I am concerned, as I told you before, I'm only amused. It's only for the reaction on you that I'm troubled." "You mustn't be troubled, Diana." said Enoch, huskily. "But I'd be less than a man, if I didn't pay that yellow cur up. You see that, don't you?" "A Dutch family I have heard of has this family motto: 'Eagles do not see flies.'" Enoch gave a dry, mirthless laugh. For a long time they tramped in silence. Then Diana said, "We've been out half an hour, Enoch." Enoch turned at once, taking Diana's hand as he did so. He did not release it until they had reached the edge of the trail and the sound of men's voices floated up to them. Then taking off his hat, he lifted the slender fingers to his lips. "This is our real good-by, Diana, for we'll not be alone, again. If anything should happen to me, I want you to have my diary, if they save it. I'll have it with me, on the trip." Diana's lips quivered. "God keep you, Enoch, and help you." Then she turned and led the way to the cave. CHAPTER X THE EXPEDITION BEGINS "After all, there is a place still untouched by humanity, where skies are unmarred and the way leads through uncharted beauty. When I have earned the right, I shall go there again."--_Enoch's Diary_. Before dawn the camp fires were lighted and the various breakfasts were in preparation. When these had been eaten there was light from the pale sky above by which to complete the packing of the boats. These were strongly built, wooden skiffs with three water tight compartments in each; one amidships, one fore and one aft, with decks flush with the gunwales. There was room between the middle and end compartments for the oarsmen to sit. The man who worked the steersman's oar sat on the rear compartment. In these compartments were packed all the dunnage, clothing, food, tools, surveying and geological instruments and cameras. Each man was allowed about fifty pounds of personal luggage. Everything that water could hurt was packed in rubber bags. Milton was troubled when he found that Enoch had no change of shoes. "You'll reach camp each night," said he, "soaked to the skin. You must have warm, dry clothing to change to. Shoes are especially important. Jonas must have them, too." "How about Indian moccasins, Mr. Milton?" asked Jonas. "I bought three pairs while I was with Miss Diana." "Well, they're better than nothing," grumbled Milton. "Are you ready, Harden?" "Aye! Aye! sir!" said Harden, pulling his belt in tightly. "Are you all set, Ag and Jonas?" "All set, Harden," Agnew picked up his oar. "Are you ready, Matey?" to Jonas, who was saying good-by in a whisper to Na-che. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be, Mr. Agnew," groaned Jonas. "Good-by, everybody!" stepping gingerly into the boat. "All aboard then, Judge and Forr," cried Milton. "I'll shove off." "Good-by, Diana! Good-by, Curly and Mack!" Enoch waved his hand and took his place, and the racing water seized the boats. Hardly had Enoch turned to look once more at the four watching on the beach, when the boats shot round the curving western wall. For the first half hour, the water was smooth and swift, sweeping between walls that were abrupt and verdureless and offered not so much as a finger hold for a landing place. Enoch, following instruction did not try to row at first. He sat quietly watching the swift changing scenery, feeling awkward and a little helpless in his life preserver. "We're due, sometime this morning, to strike some pretty stiff cataracts," said Milton, "but the records show that we can shoot most of them. Keep in to the left wall, Forr, I want to squint at that bend in the strata." They swung across the stream, and as they did so they caught a glimpse of Jonas. He was crouched in the bottom of the boat, his eyes rolling above his life preserver. "Didn't Na-che give you that Navaho charm, Jonas?" called Forrester. "It'll take more than a charm to help poor old Jonas," said Enoch. "I really think he'll like it in a day or so. He's got good pluck." "He's only showing what all of us felt on our maiden trip," chuckled Milton. Then he added, quickly, "Listen, Forr!" Above the splash of the oars and the swift rush of the river rose a sound like the far roar of street traffic. "Our little vacation is over," commented Forrester. "Easy now, Forr! We'll land for observation before we tackle a racket like that. Let the current carry us. Be ready to back water when I shout." He raised his voice. "Harden, don't follow too closely! You know your failing!" They rounded a curving wall, the current carrying them, Milton said, at least ten miles an hour. A short distance now, and they saw spray breaking high in the middle of the stream. "We'll land here," said Milton, steering to a great pile of bowlders against the right wall. Enoch watched with keen interest the preparation for the descent. First sticks were thrown into the water, to catch the trend of the main current. Milton pointed out to Enoch that if the stick were deflected against one wall or another, great care had to be exercised to prevent the boats being dashed against the walls in like manner. But, he said, if the current seemed to run a fairly unobstructed course, it was hopeful that the boats would go through. There were a number of rocks protruding from the water, but the current appeared to round these cleanly and Milton gave the order to proceed. They worked back upstream a short distance so as to catch the current straight prow on, and in a moment they were dashing through a sea of roaring waves that drenched them to the skin. Forrester and Milton steered a zigzag course about the menacing rocks, grazing and bumping them now and again, but emerging finally, without accident, in quieter waters. Here they hugged the shore and waited for Harden's boat, the Mary, to come down. And come it did, balancing uncannily on the top of the waves, with Jonas' yells sounding even above the uproar of the waters. "More of it below, Harden," said Milton as the Mary shot alongside. More indeed! It seemed to Enoch that the first rapid was child's play to the one that followed. The jutting rocks were more frequent. The fall greater. The waves more menacing. But they shot it safely until they reached its foot and there an eddy caught them and carried them back upstream in spite of all that could be done. Enoch seized the oars that were in readiness beside him and pulled with all his might but to no avail. And suddenly the Mary rushed out of the mist striking them fairly amidship. The Ida half turned over, but righted herself and the Mary darted off. Milton shouted hoarsely, Forrester and Enoch obeyed blindly and after what seemed to Enoch an endless struggle, spray and waves suddenly ceased and they found themselves in quieter waters where the Mary awaited them. Harden and Agnew were laughing. "Thought you knew an eddy when you saw one, Milt!" cried Agnew. "I don't know anything!" grinned Milton, "except that Jonas is going to be too scared to cook." "If ever I get to land," retorted Jonas, "I'll cook something for a thanksgiving to the Lord that you all will never forget." They examined the next fall and passed through it successfully. The Canyon was widening now and an occasional cedar tree could be seen. Enoch was vaguely conscious, too, that the colors of the walls were more brilliant. But the ardors of the rapids gave small opportunity for aesthetic observations. Curiously enough, after the passage of this last fall the waters did not subside in speed, though the waves disappeared. The spray of another fall was to be seen beyond. "We mustn't risk shooting her without observation," cried Milton. "Make for that spit of sand with the cedars on it, fellows." Enoch and Forrester put their backs into their strokes in their endeavor to guide the Ida to the place indicated, which appeared to be the one available landing spot. But the current carried them at such velocity that when within half a dozen feet of the shore it seemed impossible to stop and make the landing. "Overboard!" shouted Milton. All three plunged into the water, clinging to the gunwale. The water was waist deep. For a few feet boat and men were dragged onward. Then they found secure foothold on the rocky river bottom and, with huge effort, beached the Ida. Scarcely was this done, when the Mary hove in view and with Milton shouting directions, they rushed once more into the current to help with the landing. "The cook and the bacon both are in your boat, Harden!" chuckled Milton, "or you'd be getting no such delicate attentions from the Ida." Jonas crawled stiffly out of his compartment. Enoch began preparation for a fire, white the others busied themselves with notes and observations. It was 90 degrees on the little sandy beach and the wet clothing was not chilling. They ate enormously of Jonas's dinner, then the Survey men scattered to their work for an hour or so, while Enoch explored the region. There was no getting to the top of the walls, so he contented himself with crawling gingerly over the rocks to a point where a little spring bubbled out of a narrow cave opening. Peering through this, Enoch saw that it was dimly lighted, and he crawled through the water. To his astonishment, he was in a great circular amphitheater, a hundred feet in diameter, domed to an enormous height, with the blue sky showing through a rift at the top. The little spring trickled down the wall, now dropping sheer in spray, now trickling in a delicate, glistening sheet. But the greatest wonder of the cave was in the texture of its walls, which appeared to Enoch to be of purest marble of a deep shell pink and translucent creamy white. Moisture had collected on the walls and each tiny globule of water seemed to hold a miniature rainbow in its heart. There was a holy sort of loveliness about the spot, and before he returned to the rugged adventure outside, Enoch pulled off his hat and christened the place Diana's Chapel. Nor did he, on his arrival at the camp, tell of his find. Shortly after two o'clock Milton ordered all hands aboard. But before this he had shown them all the map, adding a rough sketch of his own. The next rapid appeared to be no more dangerous than the previous one. But below it the river widened out into a circular bay, a great tureen within which the waters moved with an oil-like smoothness. But when Milton threw a stick into this strange basin, it was whirled the entire circumference of the bay with a velocity that all the men agreed boded ill for any boat that did not cling to the wall. The west end of the bay, where it was all but blocked by the closing in of the Canyon sides, could not be seen from the rocks where the men stood. But the old maps reported a steep fall which must be portaged. "Cling to the right-hand wall," ordered Milton. "If you steer out, Harden, for the sake of the short cut, you may be lost. The reports show that two other boats were lost here. Cling to the wall! When we reach the mouth we must go ashore again and examine the falls. Be sure your life preservers are strapped securely." "Mr. Milton," said Jonas, "you better let me get my hands on a oar. If I got to die, I'm going to die fighting." "Good stuff, Jonas!" exclaimed Harden. "Can you row?" "Brought up on the Potomac," replied Jonas. "All right, folks," cried Milton. "We're off." The Ida would have shot the rapid successfully, but for one important point. It was necessary, in order to land on the right side of the whirlpool, to steer to the right of a tall, finger-like rock, that protruded from the water at the bottom of the rapids. About a boat's length from this rock, however, a sudden wave shot six feet into the air, throwing the Ida off its course, and drenching the crew, so that they entered the churning tureen at a speed of twenty miles an hour and almost at the middle of the stream. "Pull to the right wall! To the right!" roared Milton. But he might as well have roared to the wind. Enoch and Forrester rose from their seats and threw the whole weight of their bodies on their oars. But the noiseless power of the whirlpool thrust the Ida mercilessly toward the center. "Harder!" panted Milton, straining with all his might at the steering oar. "Put your back into her, Judge! Bend to it, Forr!" Enoch's breath came in gasps. His palms, the cords of his wrists felt powerless. His toe muscles cramped in agony. As in a mist he saw the right wall recede, felt the boat twist under his knees like a disobedient horse. Suddenly there was a crack as of a pistol shot behind him. One of Forrester's oars had snapped. Forrester drew in the other and crawled back to add his weight to the steering oar. "It's up to you, Judge!" cried Milton. They were in the center of the bay now and the boat began to spin. For one terrible moment it seemed as if an overturn were imminent. Out of the tail of his eyes, Enoch saw the Mary hugging the right wall. "Judge!" shouted Milton. "If you can back water into that rough spot six feet to your right, I think we can stop the spin." Enoch was too spent to reply but he gathered every resource in his body to make one more effort. The boat slowly edged into the rough spot and for a moment the spin ceased. "Now shoot her downstream! We'll have to trust to the Mary to keep us from entering the falls," Milton shouted. With Enoch giving all that was left in him to the oars, and Forrester and Milton steering with their united strength and skill, the Ida slowly worked toward the narrow opening which marked the head of the falls. The crew of the Mary had landed and Harden stood on the outermost rock at the opening, swinging a coil of rope, while Agnew crawled up behind him with another. Jonas hung onto the Mary's rope. Perhaps a half dozen boat lengths from the falls the whirling motion of the water ceased, and it leaped ferociously toward the narrow opening. When the Ida felt this straight pull, Milton roared: "Back her, Judge, back her! Now the rope, Harden! You too, Ag!" Her prow was beyond the opening before the speed of the Ida was stopped by the ropes. A moment later her crew had dropped flat on the rocks, panting and exhausted. "Well, Milt, of all the darn fools!" exclaimed Harden. "After telling us to keep to the right, what did you try to do yourself? If you'd gone inside that big finger rock at the end of the rapid you'd have had no trouble." "I never had a chance to go inside that rock," panted Milton. "A pot-hole spouted a boat's length ahead and threw me clear to the left." "Say," said Agnew, "we got some crew in our boat now. Jonas, you are some little oarsman!" "Scared as ever, Jonas?" asked Enoch. "I wasn't never so much scared, you know, boss, as I was nervous. But this charm is sure a good one. If we can live through this here day, we can live through anything. I want you to wear it, to-morrow, boss. Seems like the head boat needs it more'n us folks." Jonas' liquid black eyes twinkled. Enoch laughed. "If I hadn't known you were a good sport, Jonas, I'd never have let you come with us. Keep your charm, old man. I don't expect ever to gather together enough strength to get into the boat again!" "Nobody's going to try to get in to-night," said Milton, without lifting his head from the rocks on which he lay. "We camp right here. It's four o'clock anyhow." "Then I've something still left to be thankful for!" Enoch closed his eyes with a deep sigh of relief. When he next opened them it was dusk. Above him, on the narrow canyon top, gleamed the wonder of the desert stars. There was a glow of firelight on the rocks about him. Enoch sat up. It was an inhospitable spot for a camp. The roar of the falls was harsh and menacing. The canyon walls shot two thousand feet into the air on either side of the sliding waters. Enoch was suddenly oppressed by a vague sense of suffocation. He realized, fully, for the first time that the menace of the Canyon was very real; that should a sudden rise of the waters come at this point, there was no climbing out, no going back; that should the boats be lost---- He shook himself, rose stiffly and joined the group around the fire. "Ship ahoy, Judge!" cried Harden. "Are you still traveling in circles?" "Humph!" grunted Milton. "The Judge may be a tenderfoot in the Canyon, but he's no tenderfoot in a boat. Ever on a college crew, Judge?" "Yes, Columbia," replied Enoch. "I thought you'd raced! Jove, how you did heave the old tub round! Jonas, how about grub for the Judge?" "How come you to think you have to tell me to look out for my boss, Mr. Milton?" grumbled Jonas, coming up with a pie tin loaded with beans and bacon. "Hello, Jonas, old man! What do you think of this parlor, bedroom and bath?" asked Enoch. "I feel like Joseph in the pit, boss! Folks back home wouldn't never believe me if Mr. Agnew hadn't promised to take some pictures of me and my boat. That's an awful good boat, the Mary, boss. She is some boat! Did you see me jerk her round?" "No, I missed that, Jonas. I was a little preoccupied at the time. Is to-day a fair sample of every day, you fellows?" "Lately, yes," replied Forrester. "To-morrow'll be a bell ringer too, from the looks of that portage. Need any help on those dishes, Jonas, before I go to bed?" "All done, thanks," answered Jonas. "Say, Mr. Milton, you know what I was thinking? Mary's no name for a sassy, gritty boat like ours. Let me give her a good name." "What name, for instance?" demanded Harden. Jonas cleared his throat. "I was thinking of the Na-che." "My word!" exclaimed Harden. "Say, Ag, would you want our boat renamed the Na-che?" "Who'd repaint the name?" asked Agnew carefully. "That's the point with me." "The trouble with you, Ag," said Harden, "is that you haven't any soul." "I'd do the painting," Jonas went on eagerly. "I was thinking of getting her all fixed up with that can of paint I see to-day. Red paint, it was." "Do you think that Na-che would mind our making free with her name?" Milton's tone was serious. "Mind!" cried Jonas. "Well, if you knew women like I do you'd never ask a question like that! A woman would rather have a boat or a race horse named after her any time than have a baby named for her. I know women!" "In that case, let's rename the Mary," said Milton. "Everybody ready to turn in?" "I am, sir," replied Harden. "Jonas, you turn off the lights and put the cat down cellar. Good night, everybody!" Jonas chuckled and hobbled off to his blankets. It was not seven o'clock when the rude camp was silent and every soul in it in profound slumber. Enoch was stiff and muscle-sore in the morning but he ate breakfast with a ravenous appetite and with a keen interest in the day's program. In response to his questions Milton said: "We unload the boats and make the dunnage up into fifty pound loads. Then we look over the trail. Sometimes we have merely to get up on our two legs and walk it. Other times we have to make trail even for ourselves, let alone for the boats. Sometimes we can portage the freight and lower the boats through the water by tow ropes. But for this falls, there's nothing to do but to make trail and drag the boats over it." "It's no trip for babes!" exclaimed Enoch. "That's certain! Do you like the work, Milton?" "It's a work no one would do voluntarily without liking it," replied the young man. "I like it. I wouldn't want to give my life to it, but--" he paused to look over toward the others busily unloading the Na-che,--"but nothing will ever do again for me what this experience has." "And may I ask what that is?" Enoch's voice was eager. Milton searched Enoch's face carefully, then answered slowly. "Sometime when we are having a rest, I'll tell you, if you really want to know." "Thanks! And now set me to work, Captain," said Enoch. The way beside the falls was nothing more than a narrow ledge completely covered with giant bowlders. Beyond the falls, the river hurled itself for a quarter of a mile against broken rocks that made the passage of a boat impossible. It was a long portage. After the bowlder-strewn ledge was passed, however, it was not necessary to make trail, for although the shore was strewn with broken rock and driftwood, the way was fairly open. After the contents of the boats had been made up into rough packs, both crews attacked the trail-making. It was mid-morning before pick-ax, shovel and crowbar had opened up a way which Jonas claimed was fit only for kangaroos or elephants. Rough as it was, when Milton declared it fit for their purposes, the rest without protest heaved the packs to their shoulders. It was hot at midday in the Canyon. The thermometer registered 98 degrees in the shade. Enoch, following Milton, dropped his third pack at the end of the quarter mile portage and sat down beside it. "Old man!" he groaned, "you've got to give me a ten minutes' rest." Milton grinned and nodded sympathetically. "Take all the time you want, Judge!" "I'm ashamed," said Enoch, "but don't forget you fellows have had ten months of this, as against my two days." "I don't forget for a minute, Judge. And just let me tell you that if ever I were on trial for a serious offense of any kind I'd be perfectly satisfied to be tried before a real he-man, like you." And Milton disappeared over the trail, leaving Enoch with a warm glow in his heart, such as he had scarcely felt since his first public speech won the praise of the newspapers. For a quarter of an hour he sat with his back against a half buried mesquite log smoking, and now eying the magnificent sheer crimson wall which lay across the river, now wondering where Diana was and now contemplating curiously the sense of his own unimportance which the Canyon was thrusting into his consciousness more persistently every hour. Jonas joined him for the last part of his rest, but when Milton announced that they had finished the packing and must now portage the boats, Jonas was on the alert. "That name isn't dry yet!" he exclaimed. "I got to watch the prow of my boat myself," and he started hurriedly back over the trail, Enoch following him more slowly. Sometimes lifting, sometimes skidding on drift logs, sometimes dragging by main strength, the six men finally landed the Ida and the Na-che in quiet waters. Jonas and Agnew prepared a simple dinner and immediately after they embarked. For two hours the river flowed swiftly and quietly between sheer walls of stratified granite, white and pale yellow, shot with rose. Now and again a cedar, dwarfed and distorted, found toe hold between the strata and etched its deep green against the white and yellow. About four o'clock the river widened and the walls were broken by lateral canyons that led back darkly and mysteriously into the bowels of the desert. For half an hour more Milton guided the Ida onward. Then Enoch cried, "Milton, see that brook!" and he pointed to a tumbling little stream that issued from one of the side canyons. Milton at once called for a landing on the grassy shore beside the brook. Never was there a sweeter spot than this. Willows bent over the brook and long grass mirrored itself within its pebbly depths for a moment before the crystal water joined the muddy Colorado. The Canyon no longer overhung the river suffocatingly, but opened widely, showing behind the fissured white granite peaks, crimson and snow capped and appalling in their bigness. "Here's where we put in a day, boys!" exclaimed Milton. "I'm sure we can scramble to the top here, somehow, and get a general idea of the country." His crew cheered this statement enthusiastically. The landing was easily made and the boats were beached and unloaded. "Never thought I could unload a boat again without bursting into tears," said Enoch, grunting under three bed rolls he was carrying up to the willows, "but here I am, full of enthusiasm!" "You need a lot of it down here, I can tell you," growled Forrester, who had skinned his chin badly in a fall that morning. "You look like a goat, Forr," said Harden, sympathetically, as he set a folding table close to the spot where Jonas was kindling a fire. "I'd rather look like a goat than a jack-ass," returned Forrester with an edge to his voice. "Forr," said Milton, "don't you want to try your luck at some fish for supper? The salmon ought to be interested in a spot like this." Forrester's voice cleared at once. "Sure! I'd be glad to," he said, and went off to unload his fishing tackle. When he was out of hearing, Milton said sharply to Harden: "Why can't you let him alone, Hard! You know how touchy he is when anything's the matter with him." "I'm sorry," replied Harden shortly. Enoch glanced with interest from one man to the other, but said nothing, not even when, Milton's back being turned, Harden winked at him. And when Forrester returned with a four-pound river salmon, there was no sign of irritation in his face or manner. This night, for the first time, they sat around the fire, luxuriating in the thought that for the next twenty-four hours they were free of the terrible demands of the river. Forrester possessed a good tenor voice and sang, Jonas joining with his mellow baritone. Harden, lying close to the flames, read a chapter from "David Harum," the one book of the expedition. Agnew, on request, told a long and involved story of a Chinese laundryman and a San Francisco broker which evoked much laughter. Then Milton, as master of ceremonies, turned to Enoch: "Now then, Judge, do your duty!" "I haven't a parlor trick to my name," protested Enoch. "I like what you call our efforts!" cried Harden. "Hit him for me, Ag! He's closest to you." "Not after the way he wallops the Ida," grunted Agnew. "Let Milt do it." "Boss," said Jonas suddenly, "tell 'em that poem about mercy I heard you give at--at that banquet at our house." Enoch smiled, took his pipe from his lips, and began: "'The quality of mercy is not strained, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven, Upon the place beneath--'" Enoch paused a moment. The words held a new and soul-shattering significance for him. Then as the others waited breathlessly, he went on. His beautiful, mellow voice, his remarkable enunciation, the magnetism of his personality stirred his little audience, just as thousands of greater audiences had been stirred by these same qualities. When he had finished, there was a profound silence until Milton said: "That's the only thing I have heard said in the Canyon that didn't sound paltry." "If any of the rest of us had repeated it, though, it might have sounded so." Harden's tone was dry. "Shakespeare couldn't sound paltry anywhere!" exclaimed Enoch. "Hum!" sniffed Agnew. "Depends on what and when you're quoting. Give us another, Judge." Enoch gazed thoughtfully at the fire for a moment, then slowly and quietly he gave them the prayer of Habakkuk. The liquid phrases rolled from his lips, echoed in the Canyon, then dropped into silence. Enoch sat with his great head bowed, his sensitive mouth compressed as if with pain. His friends stared from him to one another, then one by one slipped away to their blankets. When Enoch looked up, only Milton was left. "And so," said Enoch, "the Canyon has been a great experience for you, Milton!" "Yes, Judge. I became engaged to a girl who is a Catholic. I am a Protestant, one of the easy going kind that never goes to church. Yet, do you know, when she insisted that I turn Catholic, I wouldn't do it? We had a fearful time! I didn't have any idea there was so much creed in me as I discovered I had. In the midst of it the opportunity came for this Canyon work, and this trip has changed the whole outlook of life for me. Judge, creeds don't matter any more than bridges do to a stream. They are just a way of getting across, that's all. Creeds may come and creeds may go, but God goes on forever. Nothing changes true religion. Christ promulgated the greatest system of ethics the world has known. The ethics of God. He put them into practical working form for human beings. Whatever creed helps you to live the teachings of Christ most truly, that's the true creed for you. That's what the Canyon's done for me. And when I get out, I'm going back to Alice and let her make of me whatever will help her most. I'm safe. I've got the creed of the Colorado Canyon!" Enoch looked at the freckled, ruddy face and smiled. "Thank you, Milton. You've given me something to think about." "I doubt if you lack subjects," replied Milton drily. "But--well, I have an idea you came out here looking for something. There are lines around your eyes that say that. So I just thought I'd hand on to you what I got." Enoch nodded and the two smoked for a while in silence. Then Enoch said in a low voice: "Do you have trouble with Forrester and Harden?" "Yes, constant friction. They're both fine fellows, but naturally antagonistic to each other." "A fellow may be ever so fine," said Enoch, "yet lack the sense of team play that is absolutely essential in a job like this." "Exactly," replied Milton. "The great difficulty is that you can't judge men until they're undergoing the trial. Then it's too late. In Powell's first expedition, soon after the Civil War, there was constant friction between Powell and three of his men. At last, although they had signed a contract to stick by him, they deserted him." "How was that?" asked Enoch with interest. "They simply insisted on being put ashore and they climbed out of the Canyon with the idea of getting to some of the Mormon settlements. But the Indians killed them almost at once, poor devils! Powell got the story of it on his second expedition. The history of those two expeditions, I think, are as glorious as any chapter in our American annals." "Was it so much harder than the work you are doing?" "There is no comparison! We're simply following the trail that Powell blazed. Think of his superb courage! These terrible waters were enshrouded in mystery and fear. He did not know even what kind of boats could live in them. Hostile Indians marauded on either hand. And as near as I recall the only settlements he could call on, if he succeeded in clambering out of the Canyon, were Ft. Defiance in New Mexico, and Mormon settlements, miles across the desert in Utah." "Hum!" said Enoch slowly, "it doesn't seem to me that things are so much better now, that we need to boast about them. There are no Indians, to be sure, but the river is about all human endurance and ingenuity can cope with, just as it was in Powell's day." "She's a bird, all right!" sighed Milton. "Well, Judge, I'm going to turn in. To-morrow's another day! Good night." "Good night, Captain!" replied Enoch. He threw another stick of driftwood on the fire and after a moment's thought fetched the black diary from his rubber dunnage bag. When the fire was clear and bright, he began to write. "Diana, you were wrong. No matter how strenuous the work is, you are never out of the background of my thoughts. But at least I am having surcease from grieving for you. I have had no time to dwell on the fact that you cannot belong to me. I am afraid to come out of the Canyon. Afraid that when these wonderful days of adventure are over, the knowledge that I must not ask you to marry me will descend on me like a stifling fog. As for Brown! Diana, why not let me kill him! I'd be willing to stand before any jury in the world with his blood on my hands. What he has done to me is typical of Brown and all his works. He is unclean and clever, a frightful combination. Consider the class of readers he has! The majority of the people who read Brown, read only Brown. His readers are the great commonalty of America, the source, once, of all that was best in our life. Brown tells them nasty stories, not about people alone, but about systems; systems of money, systems of work, systems of government. And because nasty stories are always luscious reading, and because it is easier to believe evil than good about anything, twice every day, as he produces his morning and evening editions, Brown is polluting the head waters of our national existence. I say, why not let me kill him? What more useful and direct thing could I do than rid the nation of him? And O Diana, when I think of the smut to which he coupled your loveliness, I feel that I am less than a man to have hesitated this long." Enoch closed the book, replaced it in the bag, and sat for a long hour staring into the fire. Then he went to bed. CHAPTER XI THE PERFECT ADVENTURE "Who cares whether or not my hands are clean? Does God? Wouldn't God expect me to punish evil? God is mercilessly just, is He not? Else why disease and grief in the world? If you could only tell me!"--_Enoch's Diary_. It was nipping cold in the morning. Ice encrusted the edges of the little brook. But by the time breakfast was finished, the sun had appeared over the distant mountain peaks and the long warm rays soon brought the thermometer up to summer heat. Milton expounded his program at breakfast. Jonas was to keep the camp. Enoch and Milton were to climb to the rim for topographical information. Harden was to look for fossils. Agnew and Forrester were to make a geological report on the strata of the section. Jonas was extraordinarily well pleased with his assignment. "I'm going to finish painting the Na-che," he said. "Mr. Milton, have you got anything I can mend the tarpaulins with that go over the decks?" "Needles and twine in the bag labeled Repairs," replied Milton. "How about giving the Ida the once over, too, Jonas." "All right! If I get around to it!" Jonas' manner was vague. "Can't love but one boat at a time, eh, Jonas?" asked Enoch. "I always wanted to have a boat to fix up," said Jonas. "When I was a kid my folks had an old flat-bottom tub, but I never earned enough for a can of paint. Will you folks be home by twelve for dinner?" There was a chorus of assent as the crew scattered to its several tasks. Milton and Enoch started at once up the edge of the brook, hoping that the ascent might be made more easily thus. But the crevice, out of which the little stream found its way to the Colorado, narrowed rapidly to the point where it became impossible for the two men to work their way into it. They were obliged, after a half hour's struggle, to return to the camp and start again. A very steep slope of bright orange sand led from the shore to a scarcely less oblique terrace of sharp broken rock. There were several hundred feet of the sand and, as it was dry and loose, it caused a constant slipping and falling that consumed both time and strength. The rocky terrace was far easier to manage, and they covered that rapidly, although Enoch had a nasty fall, cutting his knee. They were brought to pause, however, when the broken rock gave way to a sheer hard wall, which offered neither crack nor projection for hand or foot hold. Milton led the way carefully along its foot for a quarter of a mile until they reached a fissure wide enough for them to enter. The walls of this were crossed by transverse cracks. By utilizing these, now pulling, now boosting each other, they finally emerged on a flat, smooth tableland, of which fissures had made a complete island. At the southern end of the island rose an abrupt black peak. "If we can get to the top of that," said Milton, "it ought to bring us to the general desert level. Is your knee bothering you, Judge?" "Not enough to stop the parade," replied Enoch. "How high do you think that peak is, Milton?" "Not less than a thousand feet, I would guess. I bet it's as easy to climb as a greased pole, too." The pinnacle, when they reached it, appeared very little less difficult than Milton had guessed it would be. The north side offered no hope whatever. It rose smooth and perpendicular toward the heavens. But the south side was rough and though a yawning fissure at its base added five hundred feet to its southern height they determined to try their fortunes here. Ledges and jutting rocks, cracks and depressions finally made the ascent possible. The top, when they achieved it, was not twenty feet in diameter. They dropped on it, panting. The view which met their eyes was superb. To the south lay the desert, rainbow colored. Rising abruptly from its level were isolated peaks of bright purple, all of them snow capped, many of them with crevices marked by the brilliant white of snow. Miles to the south of the isolated peaks lay a long range of mountains, dull black against the blue sky, but with the white of snow caps showing even at this distance. To the north, the river gorge wound like a snake; the gorge and one huge mountain dominating the entire northern landscape. Satiated by wonders as Milton was, he exclaimed over the beauty of this giant, sleeping in the desert sun. A sprawling cone in outline, there was nothing extraordinary about it in contour, but its size and color surpassed anything that Enoch had as yet seen. From base to apex it was a perfect rose tint, deepening where its great shoulders bent, to crimson. As if still not satisfied with her work, nature had sent a recent snow storm to embellish the verdureless rock, and the mountain was lightly powdered with white which here was of a gauze-like texture permitting pale rose to glimmer through, there lay in drifts, white defined against crimson. Enoch sat gazing about him while Milton worked rapidly with his note book and instruments. Finally he slipped his pencil into his pocket with a sigh. "And that's done! What do you say to a return for lunch, Judge?" "I'm very much with you," replied Enoch. "Here! Hold up, old man! What's the matter?" For Milton was swaying and would have fallen if Enoch had not caught him. Milton clung to Enoch's broad shoulder for a moment, then straightened himself with a jerk. "Sorry, Judge. It's that infernal vertigo again!" "What's the cause of it?" asked Enoch. "Might be rather serious, might it not, on a trip such as yours?" "I think the water we have to drink must be affecting my kidneys," replied Milton. "I never had anything of the sort before this trip, but I've been troubled this way a dozen times lately. It only lasts for a minute." "But in that minute," Enoch's voice was grave, "you might fall down a mountain or out of the boat." "Oh, I don't get it that bad! And anyhow, I haven't gone off alone since these things began. When we get to El Tovar I'll try to locate a doctor." Enoch looked admiringly at the grim young freckled face beneath the faded hat. "I see I shall have to appoint myself bodyguard," he said. "I'd suggest Jonas, only he's deserted me for the Na-che, and I doubt if you could win him from her." Milton laughed. "Nothing on earth can equal the joy of puddling about in boats, to the right kind of a chap, as the _Wind in the Willows_ has it. And Jonas certainly is the right kind of a chap!" "Jonas is a man, every inch of him," agreed Enoch. "Shall we try the descent now, Milton?" "I'm ready," replied the young man, and the slow and arduous task was begun. Jonas was just lifting the frying pan from the fire when they slid down the orange sand bank. The rest of the crew was ready and waiting around the flat rock that served as dining table. "What's the matter with your knee, boss?" cried Jonas, standing with the coffee pot in his hand. Enoch laughed as he glanced down at his torn and blood-stained overalls. "Of course, if you were giving me half the care you give your boat, Jonas, these things wouldn't happen to me!" "You better let me fix you up, before you eat, boss," said Jonas. "Not on your life, old man! Food will do this knee more good than a bandage." "It's a wonder you wouldn't offer to help the rest of us out once in a while, Jonas!" Harden looked up from his plate of fish. "Look at this scratch on my cheek! I might get blood poisoning, but lots you care if my fatal beauty was destroyed! As it is, I look as much like an inmate of a menagerie as old goat Forrester here." "Too bad the scratch didn't injure your tongue, Harden," returned Forrester, sarcastically. "Nothing seems able to stop your chin, though, Forr! Why do you have to get sore every time I speak to you?" "Because you're always going out of your way to say something insulting to me." "Don't make a mountain out of a mole hill, Forr," said Milton. "If you fellows aren't careful you'll have a real quarrel, and that's the last thing I'm going to stand for, I warn you." "Very well, Milt," replied Forrester, "if you don't want trouble make Harden keep his tongue off me." "The fault is primarily yours, Hard," Milton went on. "You know Forrester is foolishly sensitive and you can't control your love of teasing. Now, once for all, I ask you not to speak to Forrester except on the business of the survey." Harden shrugged his shoulders and Forrester scowled a little sheepishly. Agnew, a serene, kindly fellow, began one of his endless Irish stories, and the incident appeared to be closed. The work assigned for the day was accomplished in shorter order than Milton had anticipated. By two o'clock all hands were back in camp and Milton decided to embark and move on as far as possible before nightfall. But scarcely had they finished loading the boats and tied on the tarpaulins when a heavy rain began to fall, accompanied by lightning and tremendous peals of thunder that echoed through the Canyon deafeningly. Milton, in his anxiety to get on with his task, would have continued in spite of the rain, but the others protested so vigorously that he gave in and the whole party crawled under a sheltering ledge beside the brook. For an hour the storm raged. A few flakes of snow mingled with the descending rain drops. Then with a superb flash of lightning and crash of thunder the storm passed as suddenly as it had come, though for hours after they heard it reverberate among the distant peaks. At last they embarked and proceeded along a smooth, swift-flowing river for a short time. Then, however, the familiar roar of falls was heard, the current increased rapidly in velocity and Milton made a landing for observation. They were at the head of the wildest falls that Enoch had yet seen. The Canyon walls were smooth and perpendicular. There was no possibility of a portage. The river was full of rocks against which dashed waves ten to twelve feet high. "We'll have to run it!" shouted Milton above the din of the waters. "Powell did it and so can we. Give the Ida five minutes' start, Hard. Then profit by the mistakes you see us make. All ready, Judge and Forr!" Under Milton's directions, they rowed back upstream far enough to gain complete control of the boat before entering the falls. Then they shot forward. Instantly the oars became useless. They were carried upward on the crest of a wave that seemed about to drop them down an unbelievable depth to a jagged rock. But at this point, another wave seized them and hurled them sidewise, half rolled them over, then uptilted them until the Ida's nose was deep in the water. They bailed like mad but to little avail for the waves broke over the sides constantly. They could see little for the air was full of blinding spray. Suddenly, after what had seemed an eternity but was really five minutes of time, there was a rending crash and the Ida slid into quieter water, turning completely over as she did so. Enoch, as the sucking current seized him, was convinced that his hour had come, and a quick relief was his first sensation. Then Diana's wistful eyes flashed before him and he began to fight the Colorado. As his head emerged from the water, he saw the Na-che land on all fours from the top of a wave upon the overturned Ida, then whirl away. He began to swim with all his strength. The mud forever suspended in the Colorado weighed down his clothing. But little by little he drew near the Ida, to which he could see two dark bodies clinging. The Na-che, struggling to cross a whirlpool toward him, made slow progress. He had, indeed, dizzily grasped the Ida, before the other boat came up. "We can hang on, Hard!" gasped Milton. "Give us a tow to that sand spit yonder." They reached the sand spit and staggered to land, while Harden and his crew turned the Ida over and beached her. She had a six-inch gap in her side. "Well," panted Enoch, "I'm glad we managed to keep dry during the rainstorm!" "My Lord, Judge!" exclaimed Milton, "your own mother wouldn't own you now! I don't see how one human being could carry so much mud on his face!" "I'll bet it's not as bad as yours at that," returned Enoch. "Jonas, as long as it's not the Na-che that's hurt--" "Coming, boss, coming!" cried Jonas. "Here's your moccasins and here's your suit. Sure you aren't hurt any?" "Jonas," replied Enoch in a low voice that the others might not hear, "Jonas, I'm having the greatest time of my life!" "So am I, Mr. Secretary! Honest, I'm so paralyzed afraid that I enjoy it!" And Jonas hurried away to inspect the Ida. It was so biting cold, now that the afternoon was late, that all the wrecked crew changed clothing before attempting to make camp or unload the Ida. "How many miles have we made by this venture, Milton?" called Enoch, as he pulled on his moccasins. "One and a half!" Enoch grinned, then he began to laugh. The others looked at him, then joined him, and Homeric laughter echoed for a long minute above the snarl of the water. Fortunately the hole in the Ida did not open into one of the compartments, so there was no damage done to the baggage. It was too dark by the time this had been ascertained to attempt repairs that night, so Milton agreed to call it a day, and after supper was over every one but Enoch and Milton went to bed. These two sat long in silence before the fire, smoking and enjoying the sense of companionship that was developing between them. Finally Enoch spoke in a low voice: "You're going to have trouble between Forrester and Harden." "It certainly looks like it, I've tried every sort of appeal to each of them, but trouble keeps on smoldering." Milton shook his head. "That's one of the trivial things that can wreck an expedition like this; just incompatibility among the men. What would you do about it, Judge?" "I'd put it to them that they could either keep the peace or draw lots to see which of them should leave the expedition at the Ferry. In fact, I don't believe I'd temporize even that much. I'd certainly set one of them ashore. My experience with men leads me to believe that with a certain type of men, there is no appeal. As you say, they're both nice chaps but they have a childish streak in them. The majority of men have. A leader must not be too patient." "You're right," agreed Milton. "Judge, couldn't you complete the trip with us?" "How long will you be out?" asked Enoch. "Another six months!" Enoch laughed, then said slowly: "There's nothing I'd like to do better, but I must go home, from the Ferry." Milton gazed at Enoch for a time without speaking. Then he said, a little wistfully, "I suppose that while this is the most important experience so far in my life, to you it is the merest episode, that you'll forget the moment you get into the Pullman for the East." "Why should you think that?" asked Enoch. "I can't quite tell you why. But there's something about you that makes me believe that in your own section of the country, you're a power. Perhaps it's merely your facial expression. I don't know--you look like some one whom I can't recall. Perhaps that some one has the power and I confuse the two of you, but--I beg your pardon, Judge!" as Enoch's eyebrows went up. "You have nothing to beg it for, Milton. But you're wrong when you think this trip is merely an episode to me. All my life I have longed for just such an experience in the Canyon. It's like enchantment to really find myself here." Milton smiled. "Well, we all have our Carcasonnes." "What's yours?" demanded Enoch. The younger man hesitated. "It's so absurd--but--well, I've always wanted to be Chief of the Geological Survey." "Why?" "Why did you dream of a wild trip down the Colorado as the realization of your greatest desire?" asked Milton. "I couldn't put it into words," answered Enoch. "But I suppose it's the pioneer in me or something elemental that never quite dies in any of us, of Anglo-Saxon blood." Milton nodded. "The Chief of the Geological Survey's job is to administer nature in the raw. I'd like to have a chance at it." "I believe you'd get away with it, too, Milton," Enoch replied thoughtfully. Milton laughed. "Too bad you aren't Secretary of the Interior! Well, I'm all in! Let's go to bed." "You go ahead. I'll sit here with my pipe a bit longer." But, after all, Enoch did not write in his diary that night. Before Milton had established himself in his blankets, Harden rose and went to a canteen for a drink of water. On his return he stumbled over Forrester's feet. Instantly Forrester sat erect. "What're you doing, you clumsy dub foot?" he shouted. "Oh, dry up, Forr; I didn't mean to hurt you, you great boob!" "We'll settle this right now!" Forrester was on his feet and his fist had landed on Harden's cheek before Enoch could cross the camp. And before he or Milton could separate the combatants, Harden had returned the blow with interest, and with a muttered: "Take that, you sore-headed dog, you!" Forrester tried to twist away from Enoch, but could not do so. Harden freed himself from Milton's grasp, but did not attempt to go on with the fight. "One or the other of you," said Milton briefly, "leaves the expedition at the Ferry. I'll tell you later which it will be. I'm ashamed of both of you." "I'd like to know what's made a tin god of you, Jim Milton!" shouted Forrester. "You don't own us, body and soul. I've been in the Survey longer than you! I joined this expedition before you did. And I'll leave it when I get ready!" "You'll leave it at the Ferry, Forrester!" Milton's voice was quiet, but his nostrils dilated. "And I'm telling you, I'll leave it when I please, which will be at Needles! If any one goes, it'll be that skunk of a Harden." Harden laughed, turned on his heel and deliberately rolled himself in his blankets. Forrester stood for a moment, muttering to himself, then he took his blankets off to an obscure corner of the sand. And Enoch forgot his diary and went to bed, to ponder until shortly sleep overtook him, on the perversity of the male animal. In the morning Jonas constituted himself ship's carpenter and mended the Ida very creditably. Forrester was surly and avoided every one. Harden was cheerful, as usual, but did not speak to his adversary. The sun was just entering the Canyon when the two boats were launched and once more faced the hazards of the river. During the morning the going was easy. The river was swift and led through a long series of broken buttes, between which one caught wild views of a tortured country; twisted strata, strange distorted cedar and cactus, uncanny shapes of rock pinnacles, in colors somber and strange. They stopped at noon in the shadow of a weathered overhanging rock, with the profile of a witch. The atmosphere of dissension had by this time permeated the crew and this meal, usually so jovial, was eaten with no general conversation and all were glad to take to the boats as soon as the dishes were washed. The character of the river now changed again. It grew broader and once more smooth canyon walls closed it in. As the river broadened, however, it became more shallow and rocks began to appear above the surface at more and more frequent intervals. At last the Na-che went aground amid-stream on a sharp rock. The Ida turned back to her assistance but Enoch and Milton had to go overboard, along with the crew of the Na-che, in order to drag and lift her into clear water. Then for nearly two hours, all thought of rowing must be given up. Both crews remained in the water, pushing the boats over the rough bottom. It was heartbreaking work. For a few moments the boats would float, plunging the men beyond their depths. They would swim and flounder perhaps a boat's length, clinging to the gunwale, before the boat would once more run aground. Again they would drag their clumsy burden a hundred yards over sand that sucked hungrily at their sodden boots. This passed, came many yards of smooth rock a few inches below the surface of the water, which was so muddy that it was impossible to see the pot holes into which some one of the crew plunged constantly. Jonas suffered agonies during this period; not for himself, though he took his full share of falls. His agony was for the Na-che, whose freshly painted bottom was abraded, scraped, gorged and otherwise defaced almost beyond Jonas's power of endurance. "Look out! Don't drag her! Lift her! Lift her!" he would shout. "Oh, my Lord, see that sharp rock you drag her onto, Mr. Hard! Ain't you got any heart?" Once, when all three of the Na-che's crew had taken a bad plunge, and Jonas had come up with an audible crack of his black head against the gunwale, he began to scold while the others were still fighting for breath. "You shouldn't ship her full of water like that! All that good paint I put on her insides is gone! Hey, Mr. Agnew, don't drip that blood off your hand on her!" "Shut up, Jonas," coughed Agnew good-naturedly. "Let him alone, Ag!" exclaimed Harden, between a strangling cough and a sneeze. "What do you want to divulge your cold-heartedness for? Go to it, Jonas! You're some lover, all right!" The shallows ended in a rapid which they shot without more than the usual difficulties. They then had an hour of quiet rowing through gorges that grew more narrow and more dusky as they proceeded. About four o'clock snow began to fall. It was a light enough powder, at first, but shortly it thickened until it was impossible to guide the boats. They edged in shore where a ledge overhanging a heap of broken rock offered a meager shelter. Here they planned to spend the night. The shore was too precipitous to beach the boats. Much to Jonas' sorrow, they could only anchor them before the ledge. There was plenty of driftwood, and a brisk fire dispelled some of the discomfort of the snow, while a change to dry clothing did the rest. To Enoch it was a strange evening. The foolish quarrel between Harden and Forrester was sufficient to upset the equanimity of the whole group which before had seemed so harmonious. The situation was keenly irritating to Enoch. He wanted nothing to intrude on the wild beauty of the trip, save his own inward struggle. The snow continued to fall long after the others had gone to sleep. Enoch, with his diary on his knees, wrote slowly, pausing long between sentences to watch the snow and to listen to the solemn rush of waters so close to his feet. "I've been sitting before the fire, Diana, thinking of our various conversations. How few they have been, after all! And I've concluded that in your heart you must look on me as presumptuous and stupid. You never have given me the slightest indication that you cared for me. You have been, even in the short time we have known each other, a gallant and tender friend. A wonderful friend! And you are as unconscious of my passion for you, of the rending agony of my giving you up as the Canyon is of the travail of Milton and his little group. And I'm glad that this is so. If I can go on through life feeling that you are serene and happy it will help me to keep my secret. Strange that with every natural inclination within me to be otherwise, I should be the custodian of ugly secrets; secrets that are only the uglier because they are my own. It seems a sacrilegious thing to add my beautiful love for you to the sinister collection. But it must be so. "I am so glad that I am going to see you so soon after I emerge from the Canyon. There will be much to tell you. I thought I knew men. But I am learning them anew. And I thought I had a fair conception of the wonders of the Colorado. Diana, it is beyond human imagination to conceive or human tongue to describe." Enoch had looked forward with eager pleasure to seeing the Canyon snowbound. But he was doomed to disappointment. During the night the snow turned to rain. The rain, in turn, ceased before dawn and the camp woke to winding mists that whirled with the wind up and out of the Canyon top. The going, during the morning, offered no great difficulties. But toward noon, as the boats rounded a curve, a reef presented itself with the water of the river boiling threateningly on either side. As the Canyon walls offered no landing it was necessary to make one here and Forrester volunteered to jump with a rope to a flat rock which projected from the near end of the reef. "Leap just before we are opposite the rock, Forr," directed Milton. "When that rough water catches us, we're going to rip through at top speed." Forrester nodded and, after shipping his oars, he clambered up onto the forward compartment. "Now," shouted Milton. Forrester leaped, jumped a little short, and splashed into the boiling river. The Ida, in spite of Enoch madly backing water, shot forward, dragging Forrester, who had not let go the rope, with her. Milton relinquished the steering oar, dropped on his stomach on the compartment deck, his arms over the stern, and began to haul with might and main on the rope. Now and again Forrester, red and fighting for breath, showed a distorted face above the waves. The Na-che shot by at uncontrollable speed, her crew shouting directions as she passed. Milton at last, just as the Ida entered a roaring fall, brought Forrester to the gunwale, but having achieved this, the end of the rope dropped from his fingers and he lay inert, his eyes closed. Forrester clung to the edge of the boat and roared to Enoch: "Milt's fainted!" But Enoch, fighting to guide the Ida, dared not stop rowing. The falls were short, with a vicious whirlpool at the foot. One glance showed the Na-che broken and inverted, dancing in this. Enoch bent to his right oar and by a miracle of luck this, with a wave from a pot hole, threw them clear of the sucking whirlpool, but dashed them so violently against the rocky shore that the Ida's stern was stove in and Milton rolled off into the water. Enoch dropped his oars, seized the stern rope, jumped for the rocks and sprawled upon one. He made a quick turn of the rope, then leaped back for Milton, whose head showed a boat's length downstream. Forrester staggered ashore, then with a life preserver on the end of a rope, he started along the river's edge. Half a dozen strokes brought Enoch to Milton. He lifted the unconscious man's mouth out of water and caught the life preserver that Forrester threw him. It seemed for a moment as if poor Forrester had reached the limit of his strength, but Enoch, after a violent effort, brought Milton into a quiet eddy and here Forrester was able to give help and Milton was dragged up on the rocks. At this moment, Jonas, his eyes rolling, clothes torn and dripping, clambered round a rocky projection, just beyond where they were placing Milton. "Got 'em ashore!" he panted, "but they can't walk yet." "Anybody hurt?" asked Enoch. "Nobody but the Na-che. I gotta take the Ida out after her." "She's beyond help, Jonas," said Enoch. "Go up to the Ida and bring me the medicine chest." He was unbuttoning Milton's shirt as he spoke, and feeling for his heart. "He's alive!" exclaimed Forrester, who was holding Milton's wrist. "Yes, thank God! But I don't like that!" pointing to Milton's left leg. "It's broken!" cried Forrester. "Poor old Milt!" Poor old Milt, indeed! When he finally opened his eyes, he was lying on his blankets on a flat rock, and Jonas and Harden, still dripping, were finishing the fastenings of a rude splint around his left leg. Enoch was kindling a fire. Forrester and Agnew were unloading the Ida. He tried to sit up. "What the deuce happened?" he demanded. "That's what we want to know!" exclaimed Harden cheerfully. "You had a dizzy attack after you pulled Forr in," said Enoch, "and rolled off the boat. Just how you broke your leg, we don't know." "Broke my leg!" Dismay and disbelief struggled in Milton's face. "Broke my leg! Why, but I can't break my leg!" "That's good news," said Agnew unsmilingly, "and it would be important if it were only true." "But I can't!" insisted Milton. "What becomes of the work?" "The work stops till you get well." Harden stood up to survey his and Jonas's surgical job with considerable satisfaction. "We'll hurry on down to the Ferry and get you to a doctor." Milton sank back with a groan, then hoisted himself to his elbow to say: "You fellows change your clothes quick, now." The men looked at each other, half guilty. "What is it!" cried Milton. "What are you keeping from me." "The Na-che's gone!" Jonas spoke huskily. "How'd she go?" demanded Milton. "A sucking whirlpool up there took her, after we struck a rock at the bottom of the falls," answered Harden. "We struck at such speed that it stove in her bottom and threw us clear of the whirlpool. But she's gone and everything in her." "How about the Ida?" Milton's face was white and his lips were compressed. "She'll do, with some patching," replied Enoch. "Some leader, I am, eh?" Milton lay back on his blanket. "I think I've heard of a number of other leaders losing boats on this trip," said Enoch. "Now, you fellows can dry off piecemeal. This fire would dry anything. We've got to shift Milton's clothes somehow. Lucky for you your clothes were in the Ida, Milt. Mine were in the Na-che." "And two thirds of the grub in the Na-che, too!" exclaimed Agnew. Jonas had rooted out Milton's change of clothing and very tenderly, if awkwardly, Agnew and Harden helping, he was made dry and propped up where he could direct proceedings. "Forrester, I wish you'd bring the whole grub supply here," Milton said, when his nurses had finished. It was a pitifully small collection that was placed on the edge of the blanket. "I wonder how many times," said Milton, "I've told you chaps to load the grub half and half between the boats? Somebody blundered. I'm not going to ask who because I'm the chief blunderer myself, for neglecting to check you over, at every loading. With care, we've about two days' very scanty rations here, and only beans and coffee, at that. With the best of luck and no stops for Survey work we're five days from the Ferry." "Guess I'd better get busy with my fishing tackle!" exclaimed Forrester. "Ain't any fishing tackle," said Jonas succinctly. "She must 'a' washed out of the hole in the Ida. I was just looking for it myself." "Suppose you put us on half rations," suggested Enoch, "and one of us will try to get to the top, with the gun." Milton nodded. "Judge, are you any good with a gun?" "Yes, I've hunted a good deal," replied Enoch. "Very well, we'll make you the camp hunter. The rest understand the river work better than you. Forrester, you and Agnew and Jonas, patch up the Ida; and Harden, you stay with me and let's see what the maps say about the chances of our getting out before we reach the Ferry. When the rest have finished the patch, you and Agnew row downstream and see if you can pick up any wreckage from the Na-che." Jonas made some coffee and Enoch, after resting for a half hour, took the gun and started slowly along the river's edge. His course was necessarily downstream for, above the heap of stones where he had tied the Ida, the river washed against a wall on which a fly could scarcely have found foothold. There was a depression in the wall, where the camp was set. Enoch worked out of this depression and found a foothold on the bottom-most of the deep weathered, narrow strata that here formed a fifty-foot terrace. These terraced strata gave back for half a mile in uneven and brittle striations that were not unlike rude steps. Above them rose a sheer orange wall, straight to the sky. Far below a great shale bank sloped from the river's edge up to a gigantic black butte, whose terraced front seemed to Enoch to offer some hope of his reaching the top. He slung the gun across his back and began gingerly to clamber along the stratified terrace. He found the rock extremely brittle and he was a long hour reaching the green shale. He was panting and weary and his hands were bleeding when he finally flung himself down to rest at the foot of the black butte. A near view of this massive structure was not encouraging; terraces, turrets, fortifications, castles and above Enoch's head a deep cavern, out of which the wind rushed with a mighty blast of sound that drowned the sullen roar of the falls. Beyond a glance in at the black void, Enoch did not attempt to investigate the cave. He crept past the opening on a narrow shelf of rock, into a crevice up which he climbed to the top of the terrace above the cavern. Here a stratum of dull purple projected horizontally from the black face of the butte. With his face inward, his breast hard pressed against the rock, hands and feet feeling carefully for each shift forward, Enoch passed on this slowly around the sharp western edge of the butte. Here he nearly lost his balance, for there was a rush of wings close to the back of his head. He started, then looked up carefully. Far above him an eagle's nest clung to the lonely rock. The purple stratum continued its way to a depression wide enough to give Enoch sitting room. Here he rested for a short moment. The back of the depression offered an easy assent for two or three hundred feet, to the top of another terrace along whose broad top Enoch walked comfortably for a quarter of a mile to the point where the butte projected from the main canyon wall. The slope here was not too steep to climb and Enoch made fair speed to the top. The view here was superb but Enoch gave small heed to this. To his deep disappointment, there was no sign of life, either animal or vegetable, as far as his eye could reach. He stood, gun in hand, the wind tossing his ruddy hair, his great shoulders drooping with weariness, his keen eyes sweeping the landscape until he became conscious that the sun was low in the west. With a start, he realized that dusk must already be peering into the bottom of the Canyon. Then he bethought himself of the eagle's nest. It was a terrible climb, before he lay on a ledge peering ever into the guano-stained structure of sticks from which the eagle soared again at his approach. As he looked, he laughed. The forequarters of a mountain goat lay in the nest. Hanging perilously by one hand, Enoch grasped the long, bloody hair and then, rolling back on to the ledge, he stuffed his loot into his game bag and started campward. The way back was swifter but more nerve wracking than the upward climb had been. By the time he reached the green shale, Enoch was trembling from muscle and nerve strain. It was purple dusk now, by the river, with the castellated tops of butte and mountain molten gold in the evening sun. When he reached the brittle strata, the water reflected firelight from the still unseen camp blaze. Enoch, clinging perilously to the breaking rock, half faint with hunger, his fingers numb with the cold, laughed again, to himself, and said aloud: "'. . . . . . . . . . . . . And yet Dauntless the slug horn to my lips I set And blew, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.'" CHAPTER XII THE END OF THE CRUISE "Christ could forgive the unforgivable, but the Colorado in the Canyon is like the voice of God, inevitable, inexorable."--_Enoch's Diary_. Jonas stood on a projecting rock peering anxiously down the river. Enoch, staggering wearily into the firelight, called to him cheerfully: "Ship ahoy, Jonas!" "My Gawd, boss!" exclaimed Jonas, running up to take the gunny sack and the gun. "Don't you never go off like that alone again. How come you stayed so late?" "Now the Na-che's gone I suppose I'll have a few attentions again!" said Enoch. "How are you, Milton?" He turned toward the stalwart figure that lay on the shadowy rock beyond the fire. "Better than I deserve, Judge," replied Milton. "What luck, Judge?" cried Harden, who had been watching a game of poker between Agnew and Forrester. "My Lawdy Lawd!" shouted Jonas, emptying the gunny sack on the rock which served as table. There was a chorus of surprise. "What happened, Judge! Did you eat the rest raw?" "A goat, by Jove! Where on earth did it come from?" "What difference does that make? Get it into the pot, Jonas, for the love of heaven!" "As a family provider, Judge, you are to be highly recommended." Enoch squatted against Milton's rock and complacently lighted his pipe, then told his story. "There are goats still here, then! I wish we'd see some," said Milton, when Enoch had finished. "But what would they live on?" asked Enoch. "That's easy," replied Milton. "There are hidden canyons and gulches in this Colorado country that are veritable little paradises, with all the verdure any one could ask for." "Wish we could locate one," sighed Forrester. "That wouldn't help me much," grunted Milton. "What luck with the Ida?" Enoch turned to Agnew who, next to Jonas, took the greatest interest in ship repair and building. "The forward compartment was pretty well smashed, but another hour's work in the morning will make the old girl as good as ever." "She'll never be the boat the Na-che was," groaned Jonas mournfully from his fire. "What are we all going to do now, with just one boat?" For a moment no one spoke, then Enoch said drily, "Well, Jonas, seeing that you and I don't really belong to the expedition anyhow and that we invited ourselves, I think it's up to us to walk." There was a chorus of protests at this. But Enoch silenced the others by saying with great earnestness: "Milton, you know I'm right, don't you?" Milton, who had been saying nothing, now raised himself on his elbow. "Two of you fellows will have to walk it; which two we'd better decide by lot. We're up against a rotten situation. It would be bad, even if I weren't hurt. But with a cripple on your hands, well--it's awful for you chaps! Simply awful!" "With good luck, and no Survey work, how many days are we from the Ferry?" asked Enoch. "Between four and five, is what Milton and I calculated this afternoon," replied Harden. "What's the nearest help by way of land?" "There's a ranch, about eighty miles south of here. I guess the traveling would be about as bad as anybody would hope for. The fellows that go out have got to be used to desert work, like me." Harden scratched a match and by its unsteady light scrutinized the detail map spread open on his knee. "Isn't Miss Allen working nearer than eighty miles from here?" asked Agnew. "She's in the Hopi country, whatever distance that may be," replied Enoch. "I should suppose it would be rather risky trying to catch some one who is moving about, as she is." "I guess maybe she's on her way to the Ferry now." Jonas straightened up from his stew pot. "Leastways, Na-che kind of promised to kind of see if maybe they couldn't reach there about the time we did." The other men laughed. "I guess we won't gamble too heavily on the women folks," exclaimed Forrester. "I guess Miss Allen's the kind you don't connect gambling with," retorted Agnew. Enoch cut in hastily. "Then two of us are to go out. What about those who stay?" "Well, you have to get my helpless carcass aboard the Ida and we'll make our way to the Ferry, as rapidly as we can. The food problem is serious, but we won't starve in four days. We won't attempt any more hunting expeditions but we may pot something as we go along. It's the fellows who go out who'll have the worst of it." Enoch had been eying Milton closely. "Look here, Milton, I believe you're running a good deal of temperature. Why don't you lie down and rest both mind and body until supper's ready? After you've eaten, we'll make the final decisions." "I don't want any food," replied Milton, dropping back on his blankets, nevertheless. "The beans is done but you only get a handful of them in the stew, to-night," said Jonas, firmly. "I'm cooking all the meat, 'cause it won't keep, but you only get half of that now." Agnew groaned. "Well, there doesn't seem much to look forward to. Let's finish that game of poker, Forr. Take a hand, Judge and Hard?" "No, thanks," replied Enoch. "I'll just rest my old bones right here." "I'll help you out, if Forr won't pick on me." Harden glanced at Milton, but the freckled face gave no sign that Harden's remark had been heeded. Enoch quietly took the injured man's pulse. It was rapid and weak. Enoch shook his head, laid the sturdy hand down and gave his attention to his pipe and the card game. It was not long before an altercation between Forrester and Harden began. Several times Agnew interfered but finally Forrester sprang to his feet with an oath. "No man on earth can call me that!" shouted Harden, "Take it back and apologize, you rotter!" "A rotter, am I?" sneered Forrester. "And what are you? You come of a family of rotters. I know your sister's history! I know--" Enoch laid a hand on Agnew's arm. "Don't interfere! Nothing but blood will wipe that out." But Milton roared suddenly, "Stop that fight! Stop it! Judge! Agnew! I'm still head of this expedition!" Reluctantly the two moved toward the swaying figures. It was not an easy matter to stop the battle. Forrester and Harden were clinched but Enoch and Agnew were larger than either of the combatants and at a word from Enoch, Jonas seized Forrester, with Agnew. After a scuffle, Harden stood silent and scowling beside Enoch, while Forrester panted between Agnew and Jonas. "I'm ashamed of you fellows," shouted Milton. "Ashamed! You know the chief's due in the morning." He stopped abruptly. "I'm ashamed of you. You know what I mean. The chief--God, fellows, I'm a sick man!" He fell back heavily on his blankets. Enoch and Harden hurried to his side. "Quit your fighting, Judge! Quit your fighting!" muttered Milton. "Here! I'll make you stop!" He tried to rise and Jonas rushed to hold the injured leg while Harden and Enoch pressed the broad shoulders back against the flinty bed. It was several moments before he ceased to struggle and dropped into a dull state of coma. "It doesn't seem as if a broken leg ought to do all that to a man as husky as Milt!" said Agnew, who had joined them with a proffer of water. "I'm afraid he was sickening with something before the accident," Enoch shook his head. "Those dizzy spells were all wrong, you know." "We'd better get this boy to a doctor as soon as we can," said Agnew. "Poor old Milton! I swear it's a shame! His whole heart was set on putting this trip through." "He'll do it yet," Enoch patted the sick man's arm. "Yes, but he'll be laid up for months and his whole idea was to put it through without a break. The Department never condones accidents, you know." "I guess I can give you all some supper now," said Jonas. "Better get it while he's laying quiet." "Where's Forrester?" asked Enoch as they gathered round the stew pot. "He mumbled something about going outside to cool down," replied Agnew. "Better let him alone for a while." "Too bad you couldn't have kept the peace, under the circumstances, Harden," said Enoch. "You heard what he said to me?" demanded Harden fiercely. "Yes, I did and I heard you deliberately tease him into a fury. Of course, after what he finally said there was nothing left to do but to smash him," said Enoch. "I don't see why," Agnew spoke in his calm way. "I never could understand why a bloody nose wiped out an insult. A thing that's said is said. Shooting a man even doesn't unsay a dirty speech. It's not common sense. Why ruin your own life in the effort to punish a man for something that's better forgotten?" "So you would swallow an insult and smile?" sneered Harden. "Not at all! I wouldn't hear the alleged insult, in most cases. But if the thing was so raw that the man had to be punished, I'd really hurt him." "How?" asked Enoch. "I'd do him a favor." "Slush!" grunted Harden. Agnew shrugged his shoulders and the scanty meal was finished in silence. When Jonas had collected the pie tins and cups, Enoch said, "While you're outside with those, Jonas, you'd better persuade Forrester to come in to supper. Tell him no one will bother him. Boys, I think we ought to sit up with Milton for a while. I'll take the first watch, if you'll take the second, Harden." Harden nodded. "I'll get to bed at once. Call me when you want me." He rolled himself in his blanket, Agnew following his example. A moment or so later Jonas could be heard calling, "Mr. Forrester! Ohee! Mr. Forrester!" The Canyon echoed the call, but there was no answer, Enoch strolled down to the river's edge where Jonas was standing with his arms full of dishes. "What's up, Jonas?" he asked. "Boss, I think he's lit out!" "Lit out? Where, Jonas?" "Well, there's only one way, like you went this afternoon. But his canteen's gone. And he had his shoes drying by the fire. He must have sneaked 'em while we was working over Mr. Milton, because they're gone, and so's his coat that was lying by the Ida, with the rest of the clothes." Enoch lifted his great voice. "Forrester! Forrester!" A thousand echoes replied while Agnew joined them and in a moment, Harden. Jonas repeated his story. "No use yelling!" exclaimed Enoch. "Let's build a fire out here." "Do you suppose he's had an accident?" Enoch's voice was apprehensive. "No, I don't," replied Agnew, stoutly. "He's told me two or three times that if he had any real trouble with Hard, he'd get out. What a fool to start off, this way!" "You fellows go to bed," Harden spoke abruptly. "I'll keep a fire going and if Milt needs more than me, I'll call. The Judge had a heavy afternoon and I was resting. And this row is mine anyhow." Enoch, who was dropping with fatigue needed no urging. He rolled himself in his blanket and instantly was deep in the marvelous slumber that had blessed him since the voyage began. It was dawn when he woke. He started to his feet, contritely, wondering who of the others had sacrificed sleep for him. But Enoch was the only one awake. Milton was tossing and muttering but his eyes were closed. Jonas lay with his feet in last night's ashes. Agnew was curled up at Milton's feet. Harden was not to be seen. Enoch hurried to the river's edge. A sheet of paper fluttered from the split end of a stake that had been stuck in a conspicuous spot. It was unaddressed and Enoch opened it. "I have gone to find Forrester, and help him out. I took one-third of the grub and one of the guns and a third of the shells. If we have good luck, you'll hear of us at the Ferry. I have the detail map of this section. "C. L. HARDEN." Enoch looked from the note up to the golden pink of the sky. Far above the butte an eagle soared. The dawn wind ruffled his hair. He drew a deep breath and turned to wake Jonas and Agnew, and show them the note. "Did you folks go to sleep when I did?" asked Enoch when they had read the note in silence. Jonas and Agnew nodded. "Then he must have left at once. No fire has been built out in front." "Well, it's solved the problem of who walks," remarked Agnew, drily. "How come Mr. Harden to think he could find him?" demanded Jonas, excitedly. "Well, they both will have had to start where I did, yesterday. And neither could have gone very far in the dark." Enoch spoke thoughtfully. "If they don't kill each other!" "They won't," interrupted Agnew comfortingly. "Neither of them is the killing kind." "Then I suggest," said Enoch, "that with all the dispatch possible we get on our way. You two tackle the Ida and I'll take care of Milton and the breakfast." "Aye! Aye, sir!" Agnew turned quickly toward the boat, followed eagerly by Jonas. Milton opened his eyes when Enoch bent over him. "Let me give you a sip of this hot broth, old man," said Enoch. "Come! just to please me!" as Milton shook his head. "You've got to keep your strength and a clear head in order to direct the voyage." Milton sipped at the warm decoction, and in a moment his eyes brightened. "Tastes pretty good. Too bad we haven't several gallons of it. Tell the bunch to draw lots for who goes out." Enoch shook his head. "That's all settled!" and he gave Milton the details of the trouble of the night before. "Well, can you beat that?" demanded Milton. "The two fools! Why, there were a hundred things I had to tell the pair who went out. Judge, they'll never make it!" "They've got as good a fighting chance as we have," insisted Enoch, stoutly. "Quit worrying about them, Milton. You've got your hands full keeping the rest of us from being too foolish." But try as he would, Milton could do little in the way of directing his depleted crew. His leg and his back pained him excruciatingly, and the vertigo was with him constantly. Enoch after trying several times to get coherent commands from the sufferer finally gave up. As soon as the scanty breakfast of coffee and a tiny portion of boiled beans was over, Enoch divided the rations into four portions and stowed away all but that day's share, in the Ida. Then he discussed with Agnew and Jonas the best method of placing Milton on the boat. They finally built a rough but strong framework on the forward compartment against which Milton could recline while seated on the deck, the broken leg supported within the rower's space. They padded this crude couch with blankets. This finished, they made a stretcher of the blanket on which Milton lay, by nailing the sides to two small cedar trunks which they routed out of the drift wood. When they had lifted him carefully and had placed him in the Ida, stretcher and all, he was far more comfortable, he said, than he had been on his rigid bed of stone. By eight o'clock, all was ready and they pushed slowly out into the stream. Agnew took the steering oar, Enoch, his usual place, with Jonas behind him. The river was wild and swift here, but, after they had worked carefully and painfully out of the aftermath of the falls, the current was unobstructed for several hours. All the morning, Jonas watched eagerly for traces of the Na-che but up to noon, none appeared. The sky was cloudy, threatening rain. The walls, now smooth, now broken by pinnacles and shoulders, were sad and gray in color. Milton sometimes slept uneasily, but for the most part he lay with lips compressed, eyes on the gliding cliffs. About an hour before noon, the familiar warning roar of rapids reached their ears. Rounding a curve, carefully, they snubbed the Ida to a rock while Agnew clambered ashore for an observation. Just below them a black wall appeared to cut at right angles across the river bed. The river sweeping round the curve which the Ida had just compassed, rushed like the waters of a mill race against the unexpected obstacle and waves ten to twenty feet high told of the force of the meeting. Agnew with great difficulty crawled along the shore until he could look down on this turmoil of waters. Then, with infinite pains, he returned. "It's impossible to portage," he reported, "but the waves simply fill the gorge for two hundred feet." "Tie me in the boat," said Milton. "The rest of you get out on the rocks and let the boat down with ropes." Agnew looked questioningly at Enoch, who shook his head. "Agnew," he said, "can you and Jonas manage to let the Ida down, with both Milton and me aboard?" "No, sir, we can't!" exclaimed Jonas. "That ain't to be thought of!" "Right you are, Jonas!" agreed Agnew, while Milton nodded in agreement. "Then," said Enoch, "let's land Milton and the loose dunnage on this rock, let the boat down, come back and carry Milton round." "It's the only way," agreed Agnew, "but I think we can take a hundred feet off the portage, if you fellows are willing to risk rowing down to a bench of rock below here. You take the steering oar, Judge. I'll stay ashore and catch a rope from you at the bench." Cautiously, Jonas backing water and Enoch keeping the Ida almost scraping the shore, they made their way to the spot where Agnew caught the rope, throwing the whole weight of his body back against the pull of the boat, even then being almost dragged from the ledge. Milton was lifted out as carefully as possible, the loose dunnage was piled beside him, then the three men, each with a rope attached to the Ida, began their difficult climb. There was nothing that could be called a trail. They made their way by clinging to projecting rocks, or stepping perilously from crack to crevice, from shelf to hollow. The pull of the helpless Ida was tremendous, and they snubbed her wherever projecting rocks made this possible. She danced dizzily from crest to crest of waves. She slid helplessly into whirlpools, she twisted over and under and fought like a wild thing against the straining ropes. But at the end of a half hour, she was moored in safe water, on a spit of sand on which a cotton wood grew. "Agnew," said Enoch, "I think we were fools not to have broken a rough trail before we attempted this. It's obviously impossible to carry Milton over that wall as it is." "I thought the three of us might make it, taking turns carrying Milt on our backs. It wastes a lot of time making trail and time is a worse enemy to us now than the Colorado." "That's true," agreed Enoch, "but I'm not willing to risk Milton's vertigo on our backs." He took a pick-ax out of the rear compartment of the boat, as he spoke and began to break trail. The others followed suit. The rock proved unexpectedly easy to work and in another hour, Enoch announced himself willing to risk Milton and the stretcher on the rude path they had hacked out. Milton did not speak during his passage. His fortitude and endurance were very touching to Enoch whose admiration for the young leader increased from hour to hour. Jonas boiled the coffee and heated the noon portions of beans and goat. It was entirely inadequate for the appetites of the hard working crew. Enoch wondered if the others felt as hollow and uncertain-kneed, as he did, but he said nothing nor did they. There was considerable drift wood lodged against the spit of sand and from it, Jonas, with a shout that was half a sob, dragged a broken board on which appeared in red letters, "-a-che." "All that's left of the prettiest, spunkiest little boat that ever fought a dirty river!" he mourned. "I'm going to put this in my dunnage bag and if we ever do get home, I'll have it framed." The others smiled in sympathy. "I wonder if Hard has found Forr, yet?" said Milton, uneasily. "I can't keep them off my mind." "I wouldn't be surprised if they both had run on Curly and Mack's outfit by this time," Agnew answered cheerfully. "It's funny we didn't think of them instead of Diana Allen, last night." "Not so very funny, either," returned Milton with an attempt at a smile. "I'll bet most of us have thought of Miss Allen forty times to once of the men, ever since we met her." "She's the most beautiful woman I ever saw," said Agnew, dreamily. "Lawdy!" groaned Jonas, suddenly, "if I only had something to fish with! When we make camp to-night, I'm a-going to try to rig up some kind of a line." "I'm glad the tobacco supply was in the Ida." Enoch rose with a yawn and knocked the ashes from his pipe. "Well, boys, shall we move?" Again they embarked. The river behaved in a most friendly manner until afternoon, when she offered by way of variety a series of sand bars, across which they were obliged to drag the Ida by main strength. These continued at intervals for several miles. In the midst of them, the rain that had been threatening all day began to fall while the wind that never left the Canyon, rose to drive the icy waters more vehemently through their sodden clothing. Milton, snugly covered with blankets, begged them feverishly to go into camp. "I'll have you all sick, to-night!" he insisted. "You can't take the risk of pneumonia on starvation rations that you did on plenty of grub." "I'm willing," said Agnew, finally, as he staggered to his feet after a ducking under the Ida's side. "Oh, let's keep going, as long as there's any light to see by," begged Enoch. As if to reward his persistence, just as dusk settled fully upon them, a little canyon opened from the main wall at the right, a small stream, tumbling eagerly from it into the Colorado. They turned the Ida quickly into this and managed to push upward on it for several minutes. Then they put ashore under some dim cottonwoods, where grass was ankle deep. The mere feeling of vegetation about them was cheering, and the trees, with a blanket stretched between made a partial shelter from the rain. "I'll sure cook grass for you all for breakfast!" said Jonas. "How come folks not to bile grass for greens, I don't see. Maybe birds here, too. Whoever's the fancy shot, put the gun close to his hand." "I've done some fair shooting in my day," said Agnew, "but I never potted a goat in an eagle's nest. You'd better give the gun to the Judge." He polished off his pie tin, scraped the last grain of sugar from his tin cup and lighted a cigarette. "I'm trying to bear my blushing honors modestly," grinned Enoch, crowding closer to the great fire. "Milton, I've a bone to pick with you." "Where'd you get it?" demanded Agnew. Enoch smiled but went on. "I accuse you of deliberately starving yourself for the rest of us. It won't do, sir. I'm going to set your share aside and by Jove, if you refuse it, I'll throw it in the river!" Milton rose indignantly on one elbow. "Judge, I forbid you to do anything of the kind! You fellows have got to have food to work on. All I need is plenty of water." "Especially as you think the water is making you sick," returned Enoch drily. "You can't get away with it, Milton. Am I not right, Agnew and Jonas?" "Absolutely!" Agnew exclaimed, while Jonas nodded, vigorously. "So, beginning to-morrow morning, you're to do your share of eating," Enoch concluded, cheerfully. But in spite of all efforts to keep a stiff upper lip, the night was wretched. The rain fell in torrents. The only way to keep the fire alight was by keeping it under the blanket shelter, and Milton was half smothered with smoke. He insisted on the others going to sleep, but in spite of their utter weariness, the men would not do this. Hunger made them restless and the rain crept through their blankets. Enoch finally gave up the attempt to sleep. He crouched by Milton, feeding the fire and trying as best he could to ease the patient's misery of mind and body. It was long after midnight when Milton said, "Judge, I've been thinking it over and I've come to a conclusion. I want you folks to go on for help and leave me here." "I don't like to hear you talk suicide, Milton." Enoch shook his head. "As far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't consider such a suggestion for a minute." "But don't you see," insisted Milton, "I'm imperilling all your lives. Without me, you could have made twice the distance you did to-day." "That's probably true," agreed Enoch. "What of it? Would you leave me in your fix, thinking you might bring help back?" "That's different! You're a tenderfoot and I'm not. Moreover, greater care on my part would probably have prevented this whole series of accidents." "Now you are talking nonsense!" Enoch threw another log on the fire. "Your illness is undermining your common sense, Milton. We've got a tough few days ahead of us but we'll tackle it together. If we fail we fail together. But I can see no reason why if we run as few risks as we did to-day, we should get into serious trouble. We're going to lose strength for lack of food, so we've got to move more and more slowly and carefully, and we'll be feeling weak and done up when we reach the Ferry. But I anticipate nothing worse than that." Milton sighed and was silent, for a time. Then he said, "I could have managed Forr and Harden better, if I'd been willing to believe they were the pair of kids they proved to be. As it is--" "As it is," interrupted Enoch, firmly, "both chaps are learning a lesson that will probably cure them for all time of their foolishness." Milton looked long at Enoch's tired face; then he lifted himself on one elbow. "All right, Judge, I'm through belly-aching! We'll put it through somehow and if I have decent luck, early Spring will see me right here, beginning where I left off. After all, Powell had to take two trials at it." "That's more like you, Milton! Is that dawn breaking yonder?" "Yes," replied Milton. "Keep your ear and eye out for any sort of critters in this little spot, Judge." But, though Enoch, and the others, when he had roused them, beat the tiny blind alley thoroughly, not so much as a cottontail reward their efforts. "Curious!" grumbled Enoch, "up at Mack's camp where we really needed nothing, I found all the game in the world. The perversity of nature is incomprehensible. Even the fish have left this part of the river," as Jonas with a sigh of discouragement tossed his improvised fishing tackle into the fire. Agnew pulled his belt a notch tighter. His brown face was beginning to look sagged and lined. "Well," cheerfully, "there are some advantages in being fat. I've still several days to go before I reach your's and Jonas' state of slats, Judge." "Don't get sot up about it, Ag," returned Enoch. "You look a good deal like a collapsed balloon, you know! Shall we launch the good ship Ida, fellows?" "She ain't anything to what the Na-che was," sighed Jonas, "but she's pretty good at that. If I ain't too tired, to-night, I may clean her up a little." Even Milton joined in the laughter at this and the day's journey was begun with great good humor. It was the easiest day's course that had been experienced since Enoch had joined the expedition. There were three rapids during the day but they rode these with no difficulties. Enoch and Jonas rowed fairly steadily in the morning, but in the afternoon, they spelled each other. The light rations were making themselves felt. The going was so smooth that dusk was upon them before they made camp. Milton had been wretchedly sick, all day, but he made no complaint and forced down the handful of boiled beans and the tin cup of pale coffee that was his share of each meal. They made camp languidly. Enoch found the task of piling fire wood arduous and as the camp was in dry sand and the blankets had dried out during the day, they did not attempt the usual great blaze. Jonas insisted on acting as night nurse for Milton, and Enoch was asleep before he had more then swallowed his supper. He had bad dreams and woke with a dull headache, and wondered if Jonas and Agnew felt as weak and light-headed as he did. But although both the men moved about slowly and Jonas made no attempt to clean up the Ida, they uttered no complaints. Milton was feeling a little better. Before the day's journey was begun, he and Agnew plotted their position on the map. "Well, does to-morrow see us at the Ferry?" asked Enoch, cheerfully, when Agnew put up his pencil with an abstracted air. "No, Judge," sighed Milton, "that rotten first day after the wreck, cost us a good many miles. I thought we'd make up for it, yesterday. But we're a full day behind." "That is," exclaimed Enoch, "we must take that grub pile and redivide it, stretching it over three days instead of two!" "Yes," replied Milton, grimly. "Jove, Agnew, you're going to be positively fairy like, before we're through with this," said Enoch. "Jonas, get out the grub supply, will you?" Jonas, standing on a rock that projected over the water, did not respond. He was watching eagerly as his new fishline of ravelled rope pulled taut in the stream. Suddenly he gave a roar and jerked the line so violently that the fish landed on Milton's blanket. "Must weigh two pounds!" cried Agnew. "You start her broiling, Mr. Agnew!" shouted Jonas, "while I keep on a-fishing." "What changed your luck, Jonas?" asked Enoch. "You're using beans and bent wire, just as you did yesterday." "Aha! not just as I did yesterday, boss! This time I tied Na-che's charm just above the hook. No fish could stand that, once they got an eye on it." But evidently no second fish cast an eye on the irresistible charm, and Enoch was unwilling to wait for further luck longer than was necessary to cook the fish and eat it. But during the day Jonas trolled whenever the water made trolling possible, hopefully spitting on the hook each time he cast it over, casting always from the right hand and muttering Fish! Fish! Fish! three times for each venture. Yet no other fish responded to Na-che's charm that day. But the river treated them kindly. If their strength had been equal to hard and steady rowing they might have made up for the lost miles. As it was they knocked off at night with just the number of miles for the day that Milton had planned on in the beginning, and were still a day behind their schedule. Milton grew no worse, though he was weaker and obviously a very sick man. A light snow fell during the night but the next morning was clear and invigorating. They encountered two difficult rapids on the fourth day. The first one they portaged. The trail was not difficult but in their weakened condition the boat and poor Milton were heavy burdens and it took them three times as long to accomplish the portage as it would have taken had they been in normal condition. The second rapids, they shot easily in the afternoon. The waves were high and every one was saturated with the icy water. Enoch dared not risk Milton's remaining wet and as soon as they found a likely place for the camp they went ashore. The huge pile of drift wood had helped them to decide on this rather unhospitable ledge for what they hoped would be their last night out. They kindled a big fire and sat about it, steaming and silent, but with the feeling that the worst was behind them. They rose in a cold driving rain the next morning, ate the last of the beans, drank the last of the coffee, covered Milton as well as could be with blankets and launched the boat. It was a day of unspeakable misery. They made one portage, and one let down, and dragged the boat with almost impossible labor over a long series of shallows. By mid-afternoon they had made up their minds to another night of wretchedness and Agnew was beginning to watch for a camping place, when suddenly he exclaimed, "Fellows, there's the Ferry!" "How do you know?" demanded Enoch. "I've been here before, Judge. Yes, by Jove, there's old Grant's cabin. I wonder if any one's reached here yet!" "Well, Milton, old man, here's thanks and congratulations," cried Enoch. "You'd better thank the Almighty," returned Milton. "I certainly had very little to do with our getting here." The rain had prevented Agnew's recognizing their haven until they were fairly upon it. Even now all that Enoch could see was a wide lateral canyon with a rough unpainted shack above the waterline. A group of cottonwoods loomed dimly through the mist beside a fence that surrounded the house. Jonas, who had seemed overcome with joy at Agnew's announcement, recovered his power of speech by the time the boat was headed shoreward and he raised a shout that echoed from wall to wall. "Na-che! Ohee, Na-che! Here we are, Na-che!" Agnew opened his lips to comment, but before he uttered the first syllable there rose a shrill, clear call from the mists. "Jonas! Ohee, Jonas!" Enoch's pulse leaped. With sudden strength, he bent to his oars, and the Ida slid softly upon the sandy shore. As she did so, two figures came running through the rain. "Diana!" cried Enoch, making no attempt for a moment to step from the boat. "Oh, what has happened!" exclaimed Diana, putting a hand under Milton's head as he struggled to raise it. "Just a broken leg, Miss Allen," he said, his parched lips parting in a smile. "Have Forr and Hard turned up?" "No! And Curly and Mack aren't here, either! O you poor things! Here, let me help! Na-che, take hold of this stretcher, there, on the other side with the Judge and Jonas. Finished short of grub, didn't you! Let's bring Mr. Milton right up to the cabin." The cabin consisted of but one room with an adobe fireplace at one end and bunks on two sides. There was a warm glow of fire and the smell of meat cooking. They laid Milton tenderly on a bunk and as they did so Jonas gave a great sob: "Welcome home, I say, boss, welcome home!" CHAPTER XIII GRANT'S CROSSING "Perfect memories! They are more precious than hope, more priceless than dreams of the future."--_Enoch's Diary_. "Now, every one of you get into dry clothes as quickly as you can," said Diana. "No! Don't one of you try to stir from the cabin! Come, Na-che, we'll bring the men's bags up and go out to our tent while they shift." The two women were gone before the men could protest. They were back with the bags in a few moments and in almost less time than it takes to tell, the crew of the Ida was reclothed, Enoch in the riding suit that Jonas had left with some of his own clothes in Na-che's care. When this was done, Na-che put on the coffee pot, while Diana served each of them with a plate of hot rabbit stew. "Don't try to talk," she said, "until you get this down. You'd better help Mr. Milton, Na-che. Here, it will take two of us. Oh, you poor dear! You're burning with fever." "Don't you worry about me," protested Milton, weakly, as, with his head resting on Diana's arm, he sipped the teaspoonsful of stew Na-che fed him. "This is as near heaven as I want to get." "I should hope so!" grunted Agnew. "Jonas, don't ever try to put up a stew in competition with Na-che again." "Not me, sir!" chuckled Jonas. "That gal can sure cook!" "And make charms," added Enoch. "Don't fail to realize that you're still alive, Jonas." "I'm going to bathe Mr. Milton's face for him," said Na-che, with a fine air of indifference. "I can set a broken leg, too." "It's set," said Agnew and Enoch together, "but," added Enoch, "that isn't saying that Milton mustn't be gotten to a doctor with all speed." Diana nodded. "Where are Mr. Forrester and Mr. Harden?" she asked. "We lost the Na-che--" said Agnew. "The what?" demanded Diana. "Jonas rechristened the Mary, the Na-che," Agnew replied. "We lost her in a whirlpool six days back. Most of the food was in her. Two of us had to go out and Harden and Forrester volunteered. We are very much worried about them." "And when did Mr. Milton break his leg?" "On that same black day! The water's been disagreeing with him, making him dizzy, and he took a header from the Ida, after rescuing Forrester from some rapids," said Enoch. "Doesn't sound much, when you tell it, does it!" Agnew smiled as he sighed. "But it really has been quite a busy five days." "One can look at your faces and read much between the lines," said Diana, quietly. "Now, while Na-che works with Mr. Milton, I'm going to give you each some coffee." "Diana, how far are we from the nearest doctor?" asked Enoch. "There's one over on the Navajo reservation," replied Diana. "Wouldn't it be better to keep Milton right here and one of us go for the doctor?" "Much better," agreed Diana and Agnew. "Lord," sighed Milton, "what bliss!" "Then," said Enoch, "I'm going to start for the doctor, now." "Nonsense!" exclaimed Diana, "that's my job. We've been here two days and we and our outfit are as fresh as daisies." "I'm going, myself," Agnew rose as firmly as his weak and weary legs would permit. It was Na-che who settled the matter. "That's an Indian's job," she said. "You take care of Mr. Milton, Diana, while I go." "That's sensible," agreed Diana. "Start now, Na-che. You should reach Wilson's by to-morrow night and telephone to the Agent's house. That'll save you forty miles." Jonas' face which had fallen greatly suddenly brightened. "Somebody's coming!" he cried. "I hope it's our folks!" The door opened abruptly and in walked Curly and Mack. "Here's the whole family!" exclaimed Curly. "Well, if you folks don't look like Siberian convicts, whiskers and all! Some trip, eh?" Mack, shaking hands all round, stopped beside Milton's bunk. "What went wrong, bud? and where's the rest of the bunch?" Enoch told the story, this time. Mack shook his head as the final plans were outlined. "Na-che had better stay and nurse Milton. I'm feeling fine. We just loafed along down here. I'll start out right away. I should reach Wilson's to-morrow night, as you say, and telephone the doctor. Then I'll load up with grub at Wilson's and turn back. Do you find much game round here?" Diana nodded. "Plenty of rabbit and quail, and we have some bacon and coffee." "I guess I'd better go out and look for the two foot-passengers," suggested Curly. "I'll stay out to-night and report to-morrow evening." "We'll be in shape by morning to start on the search," said Enoch. Curly turned to his former cook with a grin. "Well, Judge, is your little vacation giving you the rest you wanted?" Enoch, gaunt, unshaven, exhausted, his blue eyes blood-shot, nodded contentedly. "I'm having the time of my life, Curly." "I had a bull dog once," said Curly. "If I'd take a barrel stave and pound him with it, saying all the time, 'Nice doggie, isn't this fun! Isn't this a nice little stick! Don't you like these little love pats?' he'd wag his tail and slobber and tell me how much he enjoyed it and beg for more. But, if I took a straw and tapped him with it, telling him he was a poor dog, that nobody loved him, that I was breaking his ribs which he richly deserved, why that bull pup nearly died of suffering of body and anguish of mind." Enoch shook his head sadly. "A great evangelist was lost when you took to placer mining, Curly." Mack had been talking quietly to Milton. "I don't believe it was the river water, that upset you. I think you have drunk from some poison spring. I did that once, up in this country, and it took me six months to get over it, because I couldn't get to a doctor. But I believe a doctor could fix you right up. Do you recall drinking water the other men didn't?" "Any number of times, on exploring trips to the river!" Milton looked immensely cheered. "I think you may be right, Mack." "I'll bet you two bits that's all that ails you, son!" Mack rose from the edge of the bunk. "Well, folks, I'm off! Look for me when you see me!" "I'll mooch along too," Curly rose and stretched himself. "I'm not going to try to thank all you folks!" Milton's weak voice was husky. "That's what us Arizonians always wait for before we do the decent thing," said Mack, with a smile. "Come along, Curly, you lazy chuckawalla you!" And the door slammed behind them. "They're stem winders, both of them!" exclaimed Agnew. "Diana," said Enoch, "I wish you'd sit down. You've done enough for us." Diana smiled and shook her head. "I struck the camp first, so I'm boss. Na-che and I are going out to see that everything's all right for the night and that Mack and Curly get a good start. While we're out, you're all going to bed. Then Na-che is coming in to make Mr. Milton as comfortable as she can. Our tent is under the cottonwoods and if you want anything during the night, Mr. Milton, all you have to do is to call through the window. Neither of us will undress so we can be on duty, instantly. There is plenty of stew still simmering in the pot, and cold biscuit on the table. Good night, all of you." "Na-che, she don't need to bother. I'll look out for Mr. Milton," said Jonas, suddenly rousing from his chair where he had been dozing. "You go to bed and to sleep, Jonas," ordered Diana. "Good night, Judge." "Good night, Diana!" The door closed softly and Diana was seen no more that night. The rain ceased at midnight and the stars shone forth clear and cold, but Milton was the only person in the camp to be conscious of the fact. Just as the dawn wind was rising, though, and the cottonwoods were outlining themselves against the eastern sky, stumbling footsteps near the tent wakened both Diana and Na-che, and they opened the tent flap, hastily. Forrester was clinging to a cottonwood tree. At least it was a worn, bleached, ragged counterfeit of Forrester. "Hard's back on the trail apiece. I came on for help," he said huskily. "Is he sick or hurt?" cried Diana. "No, just all in." "I'll take a horse for him, right off," said Na-che. "You help Mr. Forrester into the house, Diana." "Call Jonas!" said Diana, supporting Forrester against the tree. "One of the men had better go for Mr. Harden." "Then they got here!" exclaimed Forrester. "Thank God! How's Milton? Any other accident?" "Everything's all right! Here they all come!" For Jonas, then Agnew and Enoch were rushing from the door and amid the hubbub of exclamations, Forrester was landed in a bunk while Agnew started up the trail indicated by Forrester. But he hardly had set out before he met Curly, leading his horse with Harden clinging to the saddle. Both the wanderers were fed and put to bed and told to sleep, before they tried to tell their story. The day was warm and clear and Na-che and Jonas prepared breakfast outside, serving it on the rough table, under the cottonwoods. Enoch and Agnew, washed and shaved, were new men, though still weak, Enoch, particularly, being muscle sore and weary. Harden and Forrester woke for more food, at noon, then slept again. Milton dozed and woke, drank feverishly of the water brought from the spring near the cabin, and gazed with a look of complete satisfaction on the unshaved dirty faces in the bunks across the room. Agnew and Curly played poker all day long. Jonas and Na-che found endless small tasks around the camp that required long consultations between them and much laughter. When Enoch returned after breakfast from a languid inspection of the Ida, Diana was not to be seen. She had gone out to get some quail, Na-che said. She returned in an hour or so, with a good bag of rabbit and birds. "To-morrow, that will be my job," said Enoch. "If she wouldn't let me go, she mustn't let you!" called Curly, from his poker game, under the trees. "Yes, I'll let any of you take it over, to-morrow," replied Diana, giving Na-che gun and bag. "To-morrow, Na-che and I turn the rescue mission over to you men and start for Bright Angel." "Oh, where's your heart, Miss Allen!" cried Agnew. "Aren't you going to wait to learn what the doctor says about Milton?" "And Diana," urged Enoch, "Jonas and I want to go up to Bright Angel with you and Na-che. Won't you wait a day longer, just till we're a little more fit?" Diana, in her worn corduroy habit, her soft hat pulled well over her great eyes, looked from Agnew to Enoch, smiled and did not reply. Enoch waited impatiently without the door while she made a call on Milton. "Diana!" he exclaimed, when she came out, "aren't you going to talk to me even? Do come down by the Ida and see if we can't be rid of this horde of people for a while." "I've been wanting to see just how badly you'd treated the poor old boat," said Diana, following Enoch toward the shore. But Enoch had not the slightest intention of holding an inquest on the Ida. In the shade of a gnarled cedar to which the boat was tied as a precaution against high water, he had placed a box. Thither he led Diana. "Do sit down, Diana, and let me sit here at your feet. I'll admit it should be unexpected joy enough just to find you here. But I'm greedy. I want you to myself, and I want to tell you a thousand things." "All right, Judge, begin," returned Diana amiably, as she clasped her knee with both hands and smiled at him. But Enoch could not begin, immediately. Sitting in the sand with his back against the cedar he looked out at the Colorado flowing so placidly, at the pale gray green of the far canyon walls and a sense of all that the river signified to him, all that it had brought to him, all that it would mean to him to leave it and with it Diana,--Diana who had been his other self since he was a lad of eighteen,--made him speechless for a time. Diana waited, patiently. At last, Enoch turned to her, "All the things I want to say most, can't be said, Diana!" "Are you glad you took the trip down the river, Judge?" "Glad! Was Roland glad he made his adventure in search of the Dark Tower?" "Yes, he was, only, Judge--" Enoch interrupted. "Has our friendship grown less since we camped at the placer mine?" Diana flushed slightly and went on, "Only, Enoch, surely the end of your adventure is not a Dark Tower ending!" "Yes, it is, Diana! It can never be any other." Enoch's fingers trembled a little as he toyed with his pipe bowl. Diana slowly looked away from him, her eyes fastening themselves on a buzzard that circled over the peaks across the river. After a moment, she said, "Then you are going to shoot Brown?" Enoch started a little. "I'm not thinking of Brown just now. I'm thinking of you and me." He paused again and again Diana waited until she felt the silence becoming too painful. Then she said, "Aren't you going to tell me some of the details of your trip?" "I want to, Diana, but hang it, words fail me! It was as you warned me, an hourly struggle with death. And we fought, I think, not because life was so unutterably sweet to any of us, but because there was such wonderful zest to the fighting. The beauty of the Canyon, the awfulness of it, the unbelievable rapidity with which event piled on event. Why, Diana, I feel as if I'd lived a lifetime since I first put foot on the Ida! And the glory of the battle! Diana, we were so puny, so insignificant, so stupid, and the Canyon was so colossal and so diabolically quick and clever! What a fight!" Enoch laughed joyfully. "You're a new man!" said Diana, softly. Enoch nodded. "And now I'm to have the ride back to El Tovar with you and the trip down Bright Angel with you and your father! For once Diana, Fate is minding her own business and letting me mind mine." Jonas approached hesitatingly. "Na-che said I had to tell you, boss, though I didn't want to disturb you, she said I had to though she wouldn't do it herself. Dinner is on the table. And you know, boss, you ain't like you was when a bowl of cereal would do you." "I shouldn't have tempted fate, Diana!" Enoch sighed, as he rose and followed her to the cottonwood. Try as he would, during the afternoon, he could not bring about another tête-a-tête with Diana. Finally as dusk drew near, he threw himself down, under the cedar tree, his eyes sadly watching the evening mists rise over the river. His dark figure merged with the shadow of the cedar and Na-che and Jonas, establishing themselves on the gunwale of the Ida for one of their confidential chats did not perceive him. He himself gave them no heed until he heard Jonas say vehemently: "You're crazy, Na-che! I'm telling you the boss won't never marry." "How do you know what's in your boss's mind?" demanded Na-che. "I know all right. And I know he thinks a lot of Miss Diana, too, but I know he won't marry her. He won't marry anybody." "But why?" urged the Indian woman, sadly, "Why should things be so wrong? When he loves her and she loves him and they were made for each other!" "How come you to think she loves him?" demanded Jonas. "Don't I know the mind of my Diana? Isn't she my little child, even if her mother did bear her. Don't I see her kiss that little picture she has of him in her locket every night when she says her prayers?" "Well--" began Jonas, but he was interrupted by a call from Curly. "Whoever's minding the stew might be interested in knowing that it's boiling over!" "Coming! Coming!" cried Jonas and Na-che. Darkness had now settled on the river. Enoch lay motionless until they called him in to supper. When he entered the cabin where the table was set, Curly cried, "Hello, Judge! Where've you been? I swear you look as if you'd been walking with a ghost." "Perhaps I have," Enoch replied, grimly, as he took his seat. Harden and Forrester, none too energetic, but shaven and in order, were at the table, where their story was eagerly picked from them. Forrester had slept the first night in the cavern Enoch had noted. Harden never even saw the cavern but had spent the night crawling steadily toward the rim. At dawn, Forrester had made his way to the top of the butte by the same route Enoch had followed, and had seen Harden, a black speck moving laboriously on the southern horizon. He had not recognized him, and set out to overtake him. It was not until noon that he had done so. Even after he realized whom he was pursuing, he had not given up, for by that time he was rueing bitterly his hasty and ill-equipped departure. None of the auditors of the two men needed detailed description either of the ardors of that trip nor of the embarrassment of the meeting. Nor did Forrester or Harden attempt any. After they had met they tried to keep a course that moved southwest. There were no trails. For endless miles, fissures and buttes, precipices to be scaled, mountains to be climbed, canyons to be crossed. For one day they were without water, but the morning following they found a pot hole, full of water. Weakness from lack of food added much to the peril of the trip, one cottontail being the sole contribution of the gun to their larder. They did not strike the trail until the day previous to their arrival in the camp. "Have you had enough desert to last you the rest of your life?" asked Curly as Harden ended the tale. "Not I!" said Forrester, "nor Canyon either! I'm going to find some method of getting Milt to let me finish the trip with him." "Me too," added Harden. "How much quarreling did you do?" asked Milton, abruptly, from the bunk. Neither man answered for a moment, then Forrester, flushing deeply, said, "All we ask of you, Milt, is to give us a trial. Set us ashore if you aren't satisfied with us." Milton grunted and Diana said, quickly, "What are you people going to do until Mr. Milton gets well?" All of the crew looked toward the leader's bunk. "Wait till we get the doctor's report," said Milton. "Hard, you were going to show Curly a placer claim around here, weren't you?" "Yes, if I can be spared for a couple of days. We can undertake that, day after to-morrow." "You're on!" exclaimed Curly. "Judge, don't forget you and I are due to have a little conversation before we separate." "I haven't forgotten it," replied Enoch. "Sometime to-morrow then. To-night I've got to get my revenge on Agnew. He's a wild cat, that's what he is. Must have been born in a gambling den. Sit in with us, Judge or anybody!" "Not I," said Enoch, shortly. "Still disapprove, don't you, Judge!" gibed Curly. "How about the rest of you? Diana, can you play poker?" "Thanks, Curly! My early education in that line was neglected." Diana smiled and turned to Enoch. "Judge, do you think you'll feel up to starting to-morrow afternoon? There's a spring five miles west that we could make if we leave here at two o'clock and I'd like to feel that I'd at least made a start, to-morrow. My father is going to be very much worried about me. I'm nearly a week overdue, now." "I'll be ready whenever you are, Diana. How about you, Jonas?" "I'm always on hand, boss. Mr. Milton, can I have the broken oar blade we kept to patch the Ida with?" "What do you want it for, Jonas?" asked Milton. "I'm going to have it framed. And Mr. Harden and Mr. Agnew, don't forget those fillums!" "Lucky for you the films were stored in the Ida, Jonas!" exclaimed Agnew. "I'll develop some of those in the morning, and see what sort of a show you put up." Diana rose. "Well, good night to you all! Mr. Milton, is there anything Na-che or I can do for you?" "No, thank you, Miss Allen, I think I'm in good hands." Enoch rose to open the door for Diana. "Thank you, Judge," she said, "Good night!" "Diana," said Enoch, under cover of the conversation at the table, "before we start to-morrow, will you give me half an hour alone with you?" There was pain and determination both in Enoch's voice. Diana glanced at him a little anxiously as she answered, "Yes, I will, Enoch." "Good night, Diana," and Enoch retired to his bunk, where he lay wide awake long after the card game was ended and the room in darkness save for the dull glow of the fire. He made no attempt the next day to obtain the half hour Diana had promised him. He helped Jonas with their meager preparations for the trip, then took a gun and started along the trail which led up the Ferry canyon to the desert. But he had not gone a hundred yards, when Diana called. "Wait a moment, Judge! I'll go with you." She joined him shortly with her gun and game bag. "We'll have Na-che cook us a day's supply of meat before we start," she said. "The hunting is apt to be poor on the trail we're to take home." Enoch nodded but said nothing. Something of the old grim look was in his eyes again. He paused at the point where the canyon gave place to the desert. Here a gnarled mesquite tree and an old half-buried log beneath it, offered mute evidence of a gigantic flooding of the river. "Let's sit here for a little while, Diana," he said. They put their guns against the mesquite tree and sat down facing the distant river. "Diana," Enoch began abruptly, "in spite of what your father and John Seaton believed and wanted me to believe, the things that the Brown papers said about my mother are true. Only, Brown did not tell all. He did not give the details of her death. I suppose even Luigi hesitated to tell that because I almost beat him to death the last time he tried it. "Seaton and I never talked much about the matter. He tried to ferret out facts, but had no luck. By the time I was seventeen or eighteen I realized that no man with a mother like mine had a right to marry. But I missed the friendship of women, I suppose, for when I was perhaps eighteen or nineteen I made a discovery. I found that somewhere in my heart I was carrying the image of a girl, a slender girl, with braids of light brown hair wrapped round her head, a girl with the largest, most intelligent, most tender gray eyes in the world, and a lovely curving mouth, with deep corners. I named her Lucy, because I'd been reading Wordsworth and I began to keep a diary to her. I've kept it ever since. "You can have no idea, how real, how vivid, how vital a part of my life Lucy became to me. She was in the very deepest truth my better self, for years. And then this summer, a miracle occurred! Lucy walked into my office! Beauty, serenity, intelligence, sweetness, gaiety, and gallantry--these were Lucy's in the flesh as I could not even dream for Lucy of the spirit. Only in one particular though had I made an actual error. Her name was not Lucy, it was Diana! Diana! the little girl of Bright Angel who had entered my turbulent boyish heart, all unknown to me, never to leave it! . . . Diana! Lucy! I love you and God help me, I must not marry!" Enoch, his nails cutting deep into his palms turned from the river, at which he had been staring steadily while speaking, to Diana. Her eyes which had been fastened on Enoch's profile, now gazed deep into his, pain speaking to pain, agony to agony. "If," Enoch went on, huskily, "there is no probability of your growing to care for me, then I think our friendship can endure. I can crowd back the lover and be merely your friend. But if you might grow to care, even ever so little, then, I think at the thought of your pain, my heart would break. So, I thought before it is too late--" Suddenly Diana's lips which had grown white, trembled a little. "It is too late!" she whispered. "It is too late!" and she put her slender, sunburned hands over her face. "Don't! Oh, don't!" groaned Enoch. He took her hands down, gently. Diana's eyes were dry. Her cheeks were burning. Enoch looked at her steadily, his breath coming a little quickly, then he rose and with both her hands in his lifted her to her feet. "Do you love me, Diana?" he whispered. She looked up into his eyes. "Yes, Enoch! Oh, yes!" she answered, brokenly. "How much do you love me, dear?" he persisted. She smiled with a tragic beauty in droop of lips and anguish of eyes. "With all there is in me to give to love, Enoch." "Then," said Enoch, "this at least may be mine," and he laid his lips to hers. When he lifted his head, he smoothed her hair back from her face. "Remember, I am not deceiving myself, Diana," he said huskily. "I have acted like a selfish, unprincipled brute. If I had not, in Washington, let you see that I cared, you would have escaped all this." "I did not want to escape it, Enoch," she said, smiling again while her lips quivered. "Yet I thought I would have strength enough to go away, without permitting you to tell me about it. But I was not strong enough. However," stepping away from Enoch, "now we both understand, and I'll go home. And we must never see each other again, Enoch." "Never see each other again!" he repeated. Then his voice deepened. "Go about our day's work year after year, without even a memory to ease the gnawing pain. God, Diana, do you think we are machines to be driven at will?" Diana drew a long breath and her voice was very steady as she answered. "Don't let's lose our grip on ourselves, Enoch. It only makes a hard situation harder. Now that we understand each other, let us kiss the cross, and go on." Enoch, arms folded on his chest, great head bowed, walked up and down under the trees slowly for a moment. When he paused before her, it was to speak with his customary calm and decision, though his eyes smoldered. "Diana, I want to take the trip with you, just as we planned, and go down Bright Angel with your father and you. I want those few days in the desert with you to carry me through the rest of my life. You need not fear, dear, that for one moment I will lose grip on myself." Diana looked at him as if she never had seen him before. She looked at the gaunt, strong features, the massive chin, the sensitive, firm mouth, the lines of self-control and purposefulness around eyes and lips, and over all the deep-seated sadness that made Enoch's face unforgettable. Slowly she turned from him to the desert, and after a moment, as if she had gathered strength from the far horizon, she answered him, still with the little note of steadiness in her voice: "I think we'll have to have those last few days, together, Enoch." Enoch heaved a deep sigh then smiled, brilliantly. "And now," he said, "I dare not go back to camp without at least discharging my gun, do you?" "No, Judge!" replied Diana, picking up her gun, with a little laugh. "Don't call me Judge, when we're alone!" protested Enoch. Diana with something sweeter than tenderness shining in her great eyes, touched his hand softly with hers. "No, dear!" she whispered. Enoch looked at her, drew a deep breath, then put his gun across his arm and followed Diana to the yucca thicket where quail was to be found. They were very silent during the hour of hunting. They bagged a pair of cottontails and a number of quail, and when they did speak, it was only regarding the hunt or the preparations for the coming exodus. They reached camp, just before dinner, Diana disappearing into the tent, and Enoch tramping prosaically and wearily into the cabin to throw himself down on his bunk. He had not yet recovered from the last days in the Canyon. "You shouldn't have tackled that tramp this morning, Judge," said Milton. "You should have saved yourself for this afternoon." "You saw who his side pardner was, didn't you?" asked Curly. "Yes," replied Milton, grinning. "Then why make foolish comments?" "I am a fool!" agreed Milton. "Judge," asked Curly, "how about you and me having our conflab right after dinner?" "That will suit me," replied Enoch, "if you can drag yourself from Agnew and poker that long." "I'll make a superhuman effort," returned Curly. The conference, which took place under the cedar near the Ida, did not last long. "Curly," said Enoch, lighting his pipe, "I haven't made up my mind yet, whether I want you to give me the information about Fowler and Brown or not." "What's the difficulty?" demanded Curly. "Well, there's a number of personal reasons that I don't like to go into. But I've a suggestion to make. You say you're trying to get money together with which to retain a lawyer and carry out a campaign, so you aren't in a hurry, anyway. Now you write down in a letter all that you know about the two men, and send the letter to me, I'll treat it as absolutely confidential, and will return the material to you without reading it if I decide not to use it." Curly puffed thoughtfully at his cigarette. "That's fair enough, Judge. As you say there's no great hurry and I always get het up, anyhow, when I talk about it. I'd better put it down in cool black and white. Where can I reach you?" "No. 814 Blank Avenue, Washington, D. C.," replied Enoch. Curly pulled an old note book out of his hip pocket and set down the address: "All right, Judge, you'll hear from me sometime in the next few weeks. I'll go back now and polish Agnew off." And he hurried away, leaving Enoch to smoke his pipe thoughtfully as he stared at the Ida. CHAPTER XIV LOVE IN THE DESERT "While I was teaching my boy obedience, I would teach him his next great obligation, service. So only could his manhood be a full one."--_Enoch's Diary_. Shortly after two o'clock, Diana announced that she was ready to start. But the good-bys consumed considerable time and it was nearly three before they were really on their way. Enoch's eyes were a little dim as he shook hands with Milton. "Curly has my address, Milton," he said, "drop me a line once in a while. I shall be more deeply interested in your success than you can realize." "I'll do it, Judge, and when I get back East, I'll look you up. You're a good sport, old man!" "You're more than that, Milton! Good-by!" and Enoch hurried out in response to Jonas' call. They were finally mounted and permitted to go. Na-che rode first, leading a pack mule, Jonas second, leading two mules, Diana followed, Enoch bringing up the rear. Much to Jonas' satisfaction, Enoch had been obliged to abandon the overalls and flannel shirt which he had worn into the Canyon. Even the tweed suit was too ragged and shrunk to be used again. So he was clad in the corduroy riding breeches and coat that Jonas had brought. But John Red Sun's boots were still doing notable service and the soft hat, faded and shapeless, was pulled down over his eyes in comfort if not in beauty. There was a vague trail to the spring which lay southwest of the Ferry. It led through the familiar country of fissures and draws that made travel slow and heavy. The trail rose, very gradually, wound around a number of multi-colored peaks and paused at last at the foot of a smooth-faced, purple butte. Here grew a cottonwood, sheltering from sun and sand a lava bowl, eroded by time and by the tiny stream of water that dripped into it gently. There was little or no view from the spring, for peaks and buttes closely hemmed it in. The November shadows deepened early on the strange, winding, almost subterranean trail, and although when they reached the cottonwood, it was not sundown, they made camp at once. Diana's tent was set up in the sand to the right of the spring. Enoch collected a meager supply of wood and before five o'clock supper had been prepared and eaten. For a time, after this was done, Enoch and Diana sat before the tiny eye of fire, listening to the subdued chatter with which Jonas and Na-che cleared up the meal. Suddenly, Enoch said, "Diana, how brilliant the stars are, to-night! Why can't we climb to the top of the butte for a little while? I feel smothered here. It's far worse than the river bottom." "Aren't you too tired?" asked Diana. "Not too tired for as short a climb as that, unless you are feeling done up!" "I!" laughed Diana. "Why, Na-che will vouch for it that I've never had such a lazy trip before! Na-che, the Judge and I are going up the butte. Just keep a little glow of fire for us, will you, so that we can locate the camp easily." "Yes, Diana, and don't be frightened if you hear noises. I'm going to teach Jonas a Navajo song." "We'll try not to be," replied Diana, laughing as she rose. It was an ascent of several hundred feet, but easily made and the view from the top more than repaid them for the effort. In all his desert nights, Enoch never had seen the stars so vivid. For miles about them the shadowy peaks and chasms were discernible. And Diana's face was delicately clear cut as she seated herself on a block of stone and looked up at him. "Diana," said Enoch, abruptly, "you make me wish that I were a poet, instead of a politician." "But you aren't a politician!" protested Diana. "You shall not malign yourself so." "A pleasant comment on our American politics!" exclaimed Enoch. "Well, whatever I am, words fail me utterly when I try to describe the appeal of your beauty." "Enoch," there was a note of protest in Diana's voice, "you aren't going to make love to me on this trip, are you?" Enoch's voice expressed entire astonishment. "Why certainly I am, Diana!" "You'll make it very hard for me!" sighed Diana. Enoch knelt in the sand before her and lifted her hands against his cheek. "Sweetheart," he said softly, his great voice, rich and mellow although it hardly rose above a whisper, "my only sweetheart, not for all the love in the world would I make it hard for you. Not for all your love would I even attempt to leave you with one memory that is not all that is sweet and noble. Only in these days I want you to learn all there is in my heart, as I must learn all that is in yours. For, after that, Diana, we must never see each other again." Diana freed one of her hands and brushed the tumbled hair from Enoch's forehead. "Do you realize," he said, quietly, "that in all the years of my memory no woman has caressed me so? I am starved, Diana, for just such a gentle touch as that." "Then you shall be starved no more, dearest. Sit down in the sand before me and lean your head against my knee. There!" as Enoch turned and obeyed her. "Now we can both look out at the stars and I can smooth your hair. What a mass of it you have, Enoch! And you must have been a real carrot top when you were a little boy." "I was an ugly brat," said Enoch, comfortably. "A red-headed, freckled-faced, awkward brat! And unhappy and disagreeable as I was ugly." "It seems so unfair!" Diana smoothed the broad forehead, tenderly. "I had such a happy childhood. I didn't go to school until I was twelve. Until then I lived the life of a little Indian, out of doors, taking the trail trips with dad or geologizing with mother. I don't know how many horses and dogs I had. Their number was limited only by what mother and father felt they could afford to feed." "There was nothing unfair in your having had all the joy that could be crammed into your childhood," protested Enoch. "Nature and circumstance were helping to make you what you are. I don't see that anything could have been omitted. Listen, Diana." Plaintively from below rose Na-che's voice in a slow sweet chant. Jonas's baritone hesitatingly repeated the strain, and after a moment they softly sang it together. "Oh, this is perfect!" murmured Enoch. "Perfect!" Then he drew Diana's hand to his lips. How long they sat in silence listening to the wistful notes that floated up to them, neither could have told. But when the singing finally ceased, Diana, with a sudden shiver said, "Enoch, I want to go back to the camp." Enoch rose at once, with a rueful little laugh. "Our first precious evening is ended, and we've said nothing!" "Nothing!" exclaimed Diana. "Enoch, what was there left to say when I could touch your hair and forehead so? We can talk on the trail." "Starlight and you and Na-che's little song," murmured Enoch; "I am hard to satisfy, am I not?" He put his arms about Diana and kissed her softly, then let her lead the way down to the spring. And shortly, rolled in his blankets, his feet to the dying fire, Enoch was deep in sleep. Sun-up found them on the trail again. All day the way wound through country that had been profoundly eroded. Na-che led by instinct, it seemed, to Enoch, for when they were a few miles from the spring, as far as he, at least, could observe, the trail disappeared, entirely. During the morning, they walked much, for the over-hanging ledges and sudden chasms along which Na-che guided them made even the horses hesitate. They were obliged to depend on their canteens for water and there was no sign of forage for the horses and mules. Every one was glad when the noon hour came. "It will be better, to-night," explained Diana. "There are water holes known as Indian's Cups that we should reach before dark. They're sure to be full of water, for it has rained so much lately. The way will be far easier to-morrow, Enoch, so that we can talk as we go." They were standing by the horses, waiting for Jonas and Na-che to put the dishes in one of the packs. "Diana, do you realize that you made no comment whatever on what I told you yesterday? Didn't the story of Lucy seem wonderful to you?" "I was too deeply moved to make any very sane comment," replied Diana. "Enoch, will you let me see the diary?" "When I die, it is to be yours, but--" he hesitated, "it tells so many of my weaknesses, that I wouldn't like to be alive and feel that you know so much about them." He laughed a little sadly. "Yet you told Lucy them, didn't you?" insisted Diana with a smile. "Don't make me jealous of that person, Enoch!" "She was you!" returned Enoch, briefly. "To-night, I'll tell you, Lucy, some of the things you have forgotten." "You're a dear," murmured Diana, under her breath, turning to mount as Jonas and Na-che clambered into their saddles. All the afternoon, Enoch, riding under the burning sun, through the ever shifting miracles of color, rested in his happy dream. The past and the future did not exist for him. It was enough that Diana, straight and slender and unflagging rode before him. It was enough that that evening after the years of yearning he would feel the touch of Lucy's hand on his burning forehead. For the first time in his life, Enoch's spirit was at peace. The pools were well up on the desert, where pinnacles and buttes had given way at last to a roughly level country, with only occasional fissures as reminders of the canyon. Bear grass and yucca, barrel and fish-hook cactus as well as the ocotilla appeared. The sun was sinking when the horses smelled water and cantered to the shallow but grateful basins. Far to the south, the chaos out of which they had labored was black, and mysterious with drifting vapors. The wind which whirled forever among the chasms was left behind. They had entered into silence and tranquillity. After supper and while the last glow of the sunsets still clung to the western horizon, Na-che said, "Jonas, you want to see the great Navajo charm, made by Navajo god when he made these waterholes?" Jonas pricked up his ears. "Is it a good charm or a hoo-doo?" "If you come at it right, it means you never die," Na-che nodded her head solemnly. Jonas put a cat's claw root on the fire. "All right! You see, woman, that I come at it right." Na-che smiled and led the way eastward. "Bless them!" exclaimed Enoch. "They're doing the very best they can for us!" "And they're having a beautiful time with each other," added Diana. "I think Jonas loves you as much as Na-che loves me." "I don't deserve that much love," said Enoch, watching the fire glow on Diana's face. "But he is the truest friend I have on earth." Diana gave him a quick, wide-eyed glance. "Ah, but you don't know me, as Jonas does! I wouldn't want you to know me as he does!" exclaimed Enoch. "I'll not admit either Lucy or Jonas as serious rivals," protested Diana. Enoch laughed. "Dearest, I have told you things that Jonas would not dream existed. I have poured out my heart to you, night after night. All a boy's aching dreams, all a man's hopes and fears, I've shared with you. Jonas was not that kind of friend. I first met him when I became secretary to the Mayor of New York. He was a sort of porter or doorman at the City Hall. He gradually began to do little personal things for me and before I realized just how it was accomplished, he became my valet and steward, and was keeping house for me in a little flat up on Fourth Avenue. "And then, when I was still in the City Hall I had a row with Luigi. He spoke of my mother to a group of officials I was taking through Minetta Lane. "Diana, it was Luigi who taught me to gamble when I was not over eight years old. I took to it with devilish skill. What drink or dope or women have been to other men, gambling has been to me. After I came back from the Grand Canyon with John Seaton, I began to fight against it. But, although I waited on table for my board, I really put myself through the High School on my earnings at craps and draw poker. As I grew older I ceased to gamble as a means of subsistence but whenever I was overtaxed mentally I was drawn irresistibly to a gambling den. And so after the fight with Luigi--" Enoch paused, his face knotted. His strong hands, clasping his knees as he sat in the sand, opposite Diana, were tense and hard. Diana, looking at him thought of what this man meant to the nation, of what his service had been and would be: she thought of the great gifts with which nature had endowed him and she could not bear to have him humble himself to her. She sprang to her feet. "Enoch! Enoch!" she cried. "Don't tell me any more! You are entitled to your personal weaknesses. Even I must not intrude! I asked you about them because, oh, because, Enoch, you are letting your only real weakness come between you and me." Enoch had risen with Diana, and now he came around the fire and put his hands on her shoulders. "No! No! Diana! not my weaknesses keep us apart, bitterly as they mortify me." Diana looked up at him steadily. "Enoch, your great weakness is not gambling. Who cares whether you play cards or not? No one but Brown! But your weakness is that you have let those early years and Luigi's vicious stories warp your vision of the sweetest thing in life." "Diana! I thought you understood. My mother--" "Don't!" interrupted Diana, quickly. "Don't! I understand and because I do, I tell you that you are warped. You are America's only real statesman, the man with a vision great enough to mold ideals for the nation. Still you are not normal, not sane, about yourself." Enoch dropped his hands from her shoulders and stood staring at her sadly. "I thought you understood!" he whispered, brokenly. Diana wrung her hands, turned and walked swiftly toward a neighboring heap of rocks whose shadows swallowed her. Enoch breathed hard for a moment, then followed. He found Diana, a vague heap on a great stone, her face buried in her hands. Enoch sat down beside her and took her in his arms. "Sweetheart," he whispered, "what have I done?" Diana, shaken by dry sobs, did not reply. But she put her arms about his neck and clung to him as though she could never let him go. Enoch sat holding her in an ecstasy that was half pain. Dusk thickened into night and the stars burned richly above them. Enoch could see that Diana's face against his breast was quiet, her great eyes fastened on the desert. He whispered again, "Diana, what have I done?" "You have made me love you so that I cannot bear to think of the future," she replied. "It was not wise of us to take this trip together, Enoch." Enoch's arms tightened about her. "We'll be thankful all our lives for it, Diana. And you haven't really answered my question, darling!" Diana drew herself away from him. "Enoch, let's never mention the subject again. The things you understand by weakness--why, I don't care if you have a thousand of them! But, dear, I want the diary. When you leave El Tovar, leave that much of yourself with me." Enoch's voice was troubled. "I have been so curiously lonely! You can have no idea of what the diary has meant to me." "I won't ask you for it, Enoch!" exclaimed Diana. Suddenly she leaned forward in the moonlight and kissed him softly on the lips. Enoch drew her to him and kissed her fiercely. "The diary! It is yours, Diana, yours in a thousand ways. When you read it, you will understand why I hesitated to give it to you." "I'll find some way to thank you," breathed Diana. "I know a way. Give me some of your desert photographs. Choose those that you think tell the most. And don't forget Death and the Navajo." "Oh, Enoch! What a splendid suggestion! You've no idea how I shall enjoy making the collection for you. It will take several months to complete it, you know." "Don't wait to complete the collection. Send the prints one at a time, as you finish them. Send them to my house, not my office." Soft voices sounded from the camping place. "We must go back," said Diana. "Another evening gone, forever," said Enoch. "How many more have we, Diana?" "Three or four. One never knows, in the Canyon country." They moved slowly, hand in hand, toward the firelight. Just before they came within its zone, Enoch lifted Diana's hand to his lips. "Good night, Diana!" "Good night, Enoch!" Jonas and Na-che, standing by the fire like two brown genii of the desert, looked up smiling as the two appeared. "Ain't they a handsome pair, Na-che?" asked Jonas, softly. "Ain't he a grand looking man?" Na-che assented. "I wish I could get each of 'em to wear a love ring. I could get two the best medicine man in the desert country made." "Where are they?" demanded Jonas eagerly. "Up near Bright Angel." "You get 'em and I'll pay for 'em," urged Jonas. "We can't buy 'em! They got to be taken." "Well, how come you to think I couldn't take 'em, woman? You show me where they are. I'll do the rest." "All right," said Na-che. "Diana, don't you feel tired?" "Tired enough to go to bed, anyway," replied Diana. "It's going to be a very cold night. Be sure that you and the Judge have plenty of blankets, Jonas. Good night!" and she disappeared into the tent. The night was stinging cold. Ice formed on the rain pools and they ate breakfast with numbed hands. As usual, however, the mercury began to climb with the sun and when at mid-morning, they entered a huge purple depression in the desert, coats were peeled and gloves discarded. The depression was an ancient lava bed, deep with lavender dust that rose chokingly about them. There was a heavy wind that increased as they rode deeper into the great bowl and this, with the swirling sand, made the noon meal an unpleasant duty. But, in spite of these discomforts, Enoch managed to ride many miles, during the day, with his horse beside Diana's. And he talked to her as though he must in the short five days make up for a life time of reticence. He told her of the Seatons and all that John Seaton had done for him. He told her of his years of dreaming of the Canyon and of his days as Police Commissioner. He told of dreams he had had as a Congressman and as a Senator and of the great hopes with which he had taken up the work of the Secretary of the Interior. And finally, as the wind began to lessen with the sinking sun, and the tired horses slowed to the trail's lifting from the bowl, he told her of his last speaking trip, of its purpose and of its results. "The more I know you," said Diana, "the more I am confirmed in the opinion I had of you years before I met you. And that is that however our great Departments need men of your administrative capacity and integrity--and I'm perfectly willing to admit that their need is dire--your place, Enoch Huntingdon, is in the Senate. Yet I suppose your party will insist on pushing you on into the White House. And it will be a mistake." "Why?" asked Enoch quickly. "Because," replied Diana, brushing the lavender dust from her brown hands thoughtfully, "your gift of oratory, your fundamental, sane dreams for the nation, your admirable character, impose a particular and peculiar duty on you. It has been many generations since the nation had a spokesman. Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, have been dead a long time. Most of our orators since have killed their own influence by fanatical clinging to some partisan cause. You should be bigger than any party, Enoch. And in the White House you cannot be. Our spoils system has achieved that. But in the Senate is your great, natural opportunity." Enoch smiled. "Without the flourishes of praise, I've reached about the same conclusion that you have," he said. "I have been told," he hesitated, "that I could have the party nomination for the presidency, if I wished it. You know that practically assures election." Diana nodded. "And it's a temptation, of course!" "Yes and no!" replied Enoch. "No man could help being moved and flattered, yes, and tempted by the suggestion. And yet when I think of the loneliness of a man like me in the White House, the loneliness, and the gradual disillusionment such as the President spoke of you, the temptation has very little effect on me." "How kind he was that day!" exclaimed Diana, "and how many years ago it seems!" They rode on in silence for a few moments, then Diana exclaimed, "Look, Enoch dear!" Ahead of them, along the rim of the bowl, an Indian rode. His long hair was flying in the wind. Both he and his horse were silhouetted sharply against the brilliant western sky. "Make a picture of it, Diana!" cried Enoch. Diana shook her head. "I could make nothing of it!" Na-che gave a long, shrill call, which the Indian returned, then pulled up his horse to wait for them. When Enoch and Diana reached the rim, the others already had overtaken him. "It's Wee-tah!" exclaimed Diana, then as she shook hands, she added: "Where are you going so fast, Wee-tah?" The Indian, a handsome young buck, his hair bound with a knotted handkerchief, glanced at Enoch and answered Diana in Navajo. Diana nodded, then said: "Judge, this is Wee-tah, a friend of mine." Enoch and the Indian shook hands gravely, and Diana said, "Can't you take supper with us, Wee-tah?" "You stay, Wee-tah," Na-che put in abruptly. "Jonas and I want you to help us with a charm." "Na-che says you know a heap about charms, Mr. Wee-tah!" exclaimed Jonas. Wee-tah grinned affably. "I stay," he said. "Only the whites have to hurry. Good water hole right there." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, then turned his pony and led the way a few hundred yards to a low outcropping of stones, the hollowed top of which held a few precious gallons of rain water. "My Lordy!" exclaimed Jonas, as he and Enoch were hobbling their horses, "if I don't have some charms and hoo-doos to put over on those Baptist folks back home! Why, these Indians have got even a Georgia nigger beat for knowing the spirits." "Jonas, you're an old fool, but I love you!" said Enoch. Jonas chuckled, and hurried off to help Na-che with the supper. The stunted cat's claw and mesquite which grew here plentifully made possible a glorious fire that was most welcome, for the evening was cold. Enoch undertook to keep the big blaze going while Wee-tah prepared a small fire at a little distance for cooking purposes. After supper the two Indians and Jonas gathered round this while Enoch and Diana remained at what Jonas designated as the front room stove. "What solitary trip was Wee-tah undertaking?" asked Enoch. "Or mustn't I inquire?" "On one of the buttes in the canyon country," replied Diana, "Wee-tah's grandfather, a great chief, was killed, years ago. Wee-tah is going up to that butte to pray for his little son who has never been born." "Ah!" said Enoch, and fell silent. Diana, in her favorite attitude, hands clasping her knees, watched the fire. At last Enoch roused himself. "Shall you come to Washington this winter, Diana?" "I ought to, but I may not. I may go into the Havesupai country for two months, after you go East, and put Washington off until late spring." "Don't fear that I shall disturb you, when you come, dear." Enoch looked at Diana with troubled eyes. She looked at him, but said nothing, and again there was silence. Enoch emptied his pipe and put it in his pocket. "After you have finished this work for the President, then what, Diana?" She shook her head. "There is plenty of time to plan for that. If I go into the angle of the children's games and their possible relations to religious ceremonies, there's no telling when I shall wind up! Then there are their superstitions that careful study might separate clearly from their true spiritism. The great danger in work like mine is that it is apt to grow academic. In the pursuit of dry ethnological facts one forgets the artistry needed to preserve it and present it to the world." "Whew!" sighed Enoch. "I'm afraid you're a fearful highbrow, Diana! Hello, Jonas, what can I do for you?" "We all are going down the desert a piece with Wee-tah. They's a charm down there he knows about. They think we'll be gone about an hour. But don't worry about us." "Don't let the ghosts get you, old man,", said Enoch. "After all you've lived through, that would be too simple." Jonas grinned, and followed the Indians out into the darkness. "Now," inquired Enoch, "is that tact or superstition?" "Both, I should say," replied Diana. "We'll have to agree that Na-che and Jonas are doing all they can to make the match. I gather from what Na-che says that they're working mostly on love charms for us." "More power to 'em," said Enoch grimly. "Diana, let's walk out under the stars for a little while. The fire dims them." They rose, and Enoch put his arm about the girl and said, with a tenderness in his beautiful voice that seemed to Diana a very part of the harmony of the glowing stars: "Diana! Oh, Diana! Diana!" She wondered as they moved slowly away from the fire, if Enoch had any conception of the beauty of his voice. It seemed to her to express the man even more fully than his face. All the sweetness, all the virility, all the suffering, all the capacity for joy that was written in Enoch's face was expressed in his voice, with the addition of a melodiousness that only tone could give. Although she never had heard him make a speech she knew how even his most commonplace sentence must wing home to the very heart of the hearer. They said less, in this hour alone together, than they said in any evening of their journey. And yet they both felt as if it was the most nearly perfect of their hours. Perhaps it was because the sky was more magnificent than it had been before; the stars larger and nearer and the sky more deeply, richly blue. Perhaps it was because after the dusk and heat of the day, the uproar of the sand and wind, the cool silence was doubly impressive and thrice grateful. And perhaps it was because of some wordless, intangible reason, that only lovers know, which made Diana seem more beautiful, more pure, her touch more sacred, and Enoch stronger, finer, tenderer than ever before. At any rate, walking slowly, with their arms about each other, they were deeply happy. And Enoch said, "Diana, I know now that not one moment of the loneliness and the bitterness of the years, would I part with. All of it serves to make this moment more perfect." And suddenly Diana said, "Enoch, hold me close to you again, here, under the stars, so that I may never again look at them, when I'm alone in the desert, without feeling your dear arms about me, and your dear cheek against mine." And when they were back by the fire again, Enoch once more leaned against Diana's knee and felt the soft touch of her hand on his hair and forehead. The three magic-makers returned, chanting softly, as magic-makers should. Faint and far across the desert sounded the intriguing rhythm long before the three dark faces were caught by the firelight. When they finally appeared, Jonas was bearing an eagle's feather. "Miss Diana," he said solemnly, "will you give me one of your long hairs?" Quite as solemnly, Diana plucked a long chestnut spear and Jonas wrapped it round the stem of the feather. Then he joined the other two at the water hole. Enoch and Diana looked at each other with a smile. "Do you think it will work, Diana?" asked Enoch. "Eagle feather magic is strong magic," replied Diana. "I shall go to sleep believing in it. Good night, Enoch." "Good night, Diana." Wee-tah left them after breakfast, cantering away briskly on his pony, his long hair blowing, Na-che and Jonas shouting laughingly after him. It was a brisk, clear morning, with ribbons of mist blowing across the distant ranges. By noon, their way was leading through scattered growths of stunted cedar and juniper with an occasional gnarled, undersized oak in which grew mistletoe thick-hung with ivory berries. Bear grass and bunch grass dotted the sand. Orioles and robins sang as they foraged for the blue cedar berry. All the afternoon the trees increased in size and when they made camp at night, it was under a giant pine whose kindred stretched in every direction as far as the eye could pierce through the dusk. There was water in a tiny rivulet near by. "It's heavenly, Diana!" exclaimed Enoch, as he returned from hobbling the horses. "We must be getting well up as to elevation. There is a tang to the air that says so." Diana nodded a little sadly. "One night more, after this, then you'll sleep at El Tovar, Enoch." "I'm not thinking even of to-morrow, Diana. This moment is enough. Are you tired?" "Tired? No!" but the eyes she lifted to Enoch's were faintly shadowed. "Perhaps," she suggested, "I'm not living quite so completely in the present as you are." "Necessity hasn't trained you during the years, as it has me," said Enoch. "If the trail had not been so bad to-day and I could have ridden beside you, I think I could have kept your thoughts here, sweetheart." "I think you could have, Enoch," agreed Diana, with a wistful smile. The hunting had been good that day. Amongst them, the travelers had bagged numerous quail and cottontails, and Jonas had brought in at noon a huge jack rabbit. This they could not eat but its left hind foot, Jonas claimed, would make a sensation in Washington. Supper was a festive meal, Na-che producing a rabbit soup, and Jonas broiling the quail, which he served with hot biscuit that the most accomplished chef might have envied. After the meal was finished and Enoch and Diana were standing before the fire, debating the feasibility of a walk under the pines, Jonas and Na-che approached them solemnly. Jonas cleared his throat. "Boss and Miss Diana, Na-che and me, we want you to do something for us. We know you all trust us both and so we don't want you to ask the why or the wherefore, but just go ahead and do it." "What is it, Jonas?" asked Diana. "Well, up ahead a spell in these woods, there's a round open space and in the middle of it under a big rock an Injun and his sweetheart is buried. Something like a million years ago he stole her from over yonder from the--" he hesitated, and Na-che said softly: "Hopis." "Yes, the Hopis. And her tribe come lickety-cut after her, and overtook 'em at that spot yonder, and her father give her the choice of coming back or both of 'em dying right there. They chose to die, and there they are. Wee-tah and Na-che and all the Injuns believe--" Na-che pulled at his sleeve. "Oh, I forgot! We ain't going to tell you what they believe, because whites don't never have the right kind of faith. Let me alone, Na-che. How come you think I can't tell this story? But what we ask of you is, will you and Miss Allen, boss, go up to that stone yonder, and lay this eagle's feather beside it, then sit on the stone until a star falls." Enoch and Diana looked at each other, half smiling. "Don't say no," urged Na-che. "You want to take a walk, anyhow." "And what happens, if the star falls?" asked Diana. "Something mighty good," replied Jonas. "It's pretty cold for sitting still so long, isn't Jonas?" asked Enoch. "You can take a blanket to wrap round yourselves. Do it, boss! You know you and Miss Diana don't care where you are as long as you get a little time alone together." Enoch laughed. "Come along, Diana! Who knows what Indian magic might do for us!" "That's right," Na-che nodded approval. "There's an old trail to it, see!" she led Diana beyond the camp pine, and pointed to the faint black line, that was traceable in the sand under the trees. The pine forest was absolutely clear of undergrowth. "Come on, Enoch," laughed Diana, and Enoch, chuckling, joined her, while the two magicians stood by the fire, interest and satisfaction showing in every line of their faces. Diana had little difficulty following the trail. To Enoch's unaccustomed eyes and feet, the ease with which she led the way was astonishing. She walked swiftly under the trees for ten minutes, then paused on the edge of a wide amphitheater, rich in starlight. In the center lay a huge flat stone. They made their way through the sand to this. Dimly they could discern that the sides of the rock were covered with hieroglyphics. Diana laid the eagle's feather in a crevice at the end of the rock. "See!" exclaimed Enoch. "Other lovers have been here before!" He pointed to feathers at different points in the rock. "It must indeed be strong magic!" He folded one blanket for a seat, another he pulled over their shoulders, for in spite of the brisk walk, they both were shivering with the cold. "What do you suppose the world at large would say," chuckled Diana, "if it would see the Secretary of the Interior, at this moment." "I think it would say that as a human being, it was beginning to have hope of him," replied Enoch. Then they fell silent. The great trees that widely encircled them were motionless. The heavens seemed made of stars. Enoch drew Diana close against him, and leaned his cheek upon her hair. Slowly a jack rabbit loped toward the ancient grave, stopped to gaze with burning eyes at the two motionless figures, twitched his ears and slowly hopped away. Shortly a cottontail deliberately crossed the circle, then another and another. Suddenly Diana touched Enoch's hand softly. "In the trees, opposite!" she breathed. Two pairs of fiery eyes moved slowly out until the starlight revealed two tiny antelope, gray, graceful shadows of the desert night. The pair stared motionless at the ancient grave, then gently trotted away. Now came a long interval in which neither sound nor motion was perceptible in the silvery dusk. Then like little gray ghosts with glowing eyes half a dozen antelope moved tranquilly across the amphitheater. Enoch and Diana watched breathlessly but for many moments more there was no sign of living creature. And suddenly a great star flashed across the radiant heavens. "The magic!" whispered Diana, "the desert magic!" "Diana," murmured Enoch in reply, "this is as near heaven as mortals may hope to reach." "Desert magic!" repeated Diana softly. "Come, dear, we must go back to camp." Enoch rose reluctantly and put his hands on Diana's shoulders. "Those lovers, long ago," he said, his deep voice tender and wistful, "those lovers long ago were not far wrong in their decision. I'm sure, in the years to come, when I think of this evening, and this journey, I shall feel so." Diana touched his cheek softly with her hand. "I love you, Enoch," was all she said, and they returned in silence to the camp. "We saw the star fall!" exclaimed Jonas, waiting by the fire with Na-che. Enoch nodded and, after a glance at his face, Jonas said nothing more. All the next day they penetrated deeper and deeper into the mighty forest. All day long the trail lifted gradually, the air growing rarer and colder as they went. It was biting cold when they made their night camp deep in the woods. But a glorious fire before a giant tree trunk made the last evening on the trail one of comfort. Na-che and Jonas had run out of excuses for leaving the lovers alone, but nothing daunted, after supper was cleared off they made their own camp fire at a distance and sat before it, singing and laughing even after Diana had withdrawn to her tent. "Enoch," said Diana, "I have something that I want to say to you, but I'll admit that it takes more courage than I've been able to gather together until now. But this is our last evening and I must relieve my mind." Enoch, surprised by the earnestness of Diana's voice, laid down his pipe and put his hand over hers. "I don't see why you need courage to say anything under heaven to me!" "But I do on this subject," returned Diana, raising wide, troubled eyes to his. "Enoch, you have made me love you and then have told me that you cannot marry me. I think that I have the right to tell you that you are abnormal toward marriage. You are spoiling our two lives and I am entering a most solemn protest against your doing so." "But, Diana--" began Enoch. "No!" interrupted Diana. "You must hear me through in silence, Enoch. I remember my father telling me that Seaton believed that you had been made the victim of almost hypnotic suggestion by that beast, Luigi. Not that Luigi knew anything about auto-suggestion or anything of the sort! He simply wanted to enslave a boy who was a clever gambler. And so he planted the vicious suggestion in your mind that you were necessarily bad because your mother was. And all these years, that suggestion has held, not to make you bad but to make you fear that your children would be or that disease, mental or physical, is latent in you which marriage would uncover. Enoch, have you never talked your case over with a psychologist?" "No!" replied Enoch. "I've always felt that I was perfectly normal and I still feel so. Moreover, I've wanted to bury my mother's history a thousand fathoms deep. Consider too, that I've never wanted to marry any woman till I met you." "And having met me," said Diana bitterly, "you allow a preconceived idea to wreck us both. You astonish me almost as much as you make me suffer. Enoch, did you ever try to trace your father?" "Diana, what chance would I have of finding my father when you consider what my mother was? Nevertheless, I have tried." And Enoch told in detail both Seaton's and the Police Commissioner's efforts in his behalf. Diana rose and paced restlessly up and down before the fire. Enoch rose with her and stood leaning against the tree trunk, watching her with tragic eyes. Finally Diana said: "I'm not clever at argument, but every woman has a right to fight for her mate. I insist that your reasons for not marrying are chimeras. And if I'm willing to risk marrying the man who may or may not be the son of Luigi's mistress, he should be willing to risk marrying me." "But, you see, you do admit it's a risk!" exclaimed Enoch. "No more a risk than marriage always is," declared Diana, with a smile that had no humor in it. "Enoch, let's not be cowardly. Let's 'set the slug horn dauntless to our lips.'" Enoch covered his eyes with his hands. Cold sweat stood on his brow. All the ugly, menacing suggestions of thirty years crowded his answer to his lips. "Diana, we must not!" he groaned. Diana drew a quick breath, then said, "Enoch, I cannot submit tamely to such a decision. I have a friend in Boston who is one of the great psycho-analysts of the country. When I return to Washington in the spring I shall go to see him." "God! Shall I never be able to bury Minetta Lane?" cried Enoch. "Not until you dig the grave yourself, my dear! Yours has been a case for a mind specialist, all these years, not a detective. I, for one, refuse to let Minetta Lane hag ride me if it is possible to escape it." Suddenly she smiled again. "I'll admit I'm not at all Victorian in my attitude." "You couldn't be anything that was not fine," returned Enoch sadly. "But I cannot bear to have you buoy yourself with false hopes." "A drowning woman grasps at straws, I suppose," said Diana, a little brokenly. "Good night, my dearest," and Diana went into the tent, leaving Enoch to ponder heavily over the fire until the cold drove him to his blankets. Breaking camp the next morning was dreary and arduous enough. Snow was still falling, the mules were recalcitrant and a bitter wind had piled drifts in every direction. The four travelers were in a subdued mood, although Enoch heartened himself considerably by urging Diana to remember that they had still to look forward to the trip down Bright Angel. They floundered through the snow for two heavy hours before Diana looked back at Enoch to say, "We're only a mile from the cabin now, Enoch!" "Only a mile!" exclaimed Enoch. "Diana, I wonder what your father will say when he sees me!" "He thinks you are two thousand miles from here!" laughed Diana. "We'll see what he will say." "And so," murmured Enoch to himself, "any perfect journey is ended." BOOK IV THE PHANTASM DESTROYED CHAPTER XV THE FIRING LINE AGAIN "When I shall have given you up, Diana, I shall love my own solitude as never before. For you will dwell there and he who has lovely thoughts is never lonely."--_Enoch's Diary_. The cabin was built of cedar logs. Frank had added to it as necessity arose or his means permitted, and it sprawled pleasantly under the pines, as if it belonged there and enjoyed being there. Na-che gave her peculiar, far-carrying call, some moments before the cabin came into view, and when the little cavalcade jingled up to the door, it was wide open, a ruddy faced, white-haired man standing before it. "Hello, Diana!" he shouted. "Where in seven thunders have you been! You're a week late!" Then his eyes fastened wonderingly on Enoch's face. He came slowly across the porch and down the steps. Enoch did not speak, and for a long moment the two men stared at each other while time turned back its hands for a quarter of a century. Suddenly Frank's hand shot out. "My God! It's Enoch Huntingdon!" "Yes, Frank, it's he," replied Enoch. "Where on earth did you come from? Come in, Mr. Secretary! Come in! Or do you want to go up to the hotel?" "Hotel! Frank, don't try to put on dog with me or snub me either!" exclaimed Enoch, dismounting. "And I am Enoch to you, just as that cowardly kid was, twenty-two years ago!" "Cowardly!" roared Frank. "Well, come in! Come in before I get started on that." "This is Jonas," said Na-che gravely. "I know who Jonas is," said Frank, shaking hands. "Come in! Come in! Before I burst with curiosity! Diana girl, I've been worried sick about you. I swear once more this is the last trip you shall take without me." The living-room was huge and beautiful. A fire roared in the great fireplace. Indian blankets and rugs covered the floor. There were some fine paintings on the walls and books and photographs everywhere. After Enoch and Diana had removed their snowy coats, Frank impatiently forced them into the arm-chairs before the fire, while he stood on the bearskin before them. "For the love of heaven, Diana, where did you folks meet?" "You begin, Enoch," said Diana quietly. At the use of the Secretary's name, Frank glanced at Diana quickly, then turned back to Enoch. "Well, Frank, I was on a speaking trip, and the pressure of things got so bad that I decided to slip away from everybody and give myself a trip to the Canyon. That was about a month ago. I outfitted at a little village on the railroad, and shortly after that I joined some miners who were going up to the Canyon to placer prospect. We had been at the Canyon several days when Jonas and Diana and Na-che found us. Diana stayed a day or so, then Jonas and I went with a Geological Survey crew for a boating trip down the river. We had sundry adventures, finally landing at Grant's Ferry, our leader, Milton, with a broken leg. Here we found Diana and Na-che. Jonas and I left the others and came on here because I want to go down the trail with you. That, in brief, is my story." "Devilish brief!" snorted Frank. "Thank you for nothing! Diana, suppose you pad the skeleton a little." "Yes, I will, Dad, if you'll let Enoch go to his room and get into some dry clothes. I told Na-che to help herself for him from your supply." "Surely! Surely! What a rough bronco, I am! Let me show you to the guest room, Mr. Secretary--Enoch, I should say," and Frank led the way to a comfortable room whose windows gave a distant view of the Canyon rim. When Enoch returned to the living-room after a bath and some strenuous grooming at Jonas' hands, Diana had disappeared and Frank was standing before the fire, smoking a cigarette. He tossed it into the flames at Enoch's approach. "Enoch, my boy!" he said, then his voice broke, and the two men stood silently grasping each other's hands. Enoch was the first to find his voice. "Except for the white hair, Frank, the years have forgotten you." "Not quite, Enoch! Not quite! I don't take those trails as easily as I did once. You, yourself are changed, but one would expect that! Fourteen to thirty-six, isn't it?" Enoch nodded. "Will the snow make Bright Angel too difficult for you, Frank?" "Me? My Lord, no! Do I look a tenderfoot? We'll start to-morrow morning and take two days to it. Sit down, do! I've a thousand questions to ask you." "Before I begin to answer them, Frank, tell me if there is any way in which I can send a telegram. I must let my office know where I am, much as I regret the necessity." "You can telephone a message to the hotel," replied Frank. "They'll take care of it. But you realize that your traveling incog. will be all out if you do that?" "Not necessarily!" Enoch chuckled. Frank called the hotel on the telephone and handed the instrument to Enoch, who smiled as he gave the message. "Mr. Charles Abbott, 8946 Blank Street, Washington, D. C. The boss can be reached now at El Tovar, Jonas." "But won't Abbott wire you?" asked Frank. "No, he'll wire Jonas. See if he doesn't," replied Enoch. "And now for the questions. Oh, Diana!" rising as Diana, in a brown silk house frock, came into the room. "How lovely you look! Doesn't she, Frank?" "She looks like her mother," said Frank. "Only she'll never be quite as beautiful as Helen was." "'Whose beauty launched a thousand ships'!" Enoch exclaimed, smiling at Diana. "My boyish memoir of Mrs. Allen is that she was dark." "She was darker than Diana, and not so tall. Just as high as my breast; a fine mind in a lovely body!" Frank sighed deeply and stared at the fire. Enoch, lying back in the great arm-chair, watched Diana with thoughtful, wistful eyes, until Frank roused himself, saying abruptly, "And now once more for the questions. Enoch, what started you in politics?" "Well," replied Enoch, "that's a large order, but I'll try to tell the story." He began the tale, but was so constantly interrupted by Frank's questions that luncheon was announced by Na-che, just as he finished. After luncheon they returned again to the fire, and Frank, urged on by Enoch, told the story of his early days at the Canyon. Perhaps Frank guessed that Enoch and Diana were in no mood for speech themselves, for he talked on and on, interrupted only by Enoch's laughter, or quick word of sympathy. Diana, her hands clasped loosely in her lap, watched the fire or stared at the snow drifts that the wind was piling against the window. It seemed to Enoch that the shadows about her great eyes were deepening as the hours went on. Suddenly Frank looked at his watch. "Four o'clock! I must go out to the corral. Want to come along, Enoch?" "I think not, Frank. I'll sit here with Diana, if you don't mind." "I can stand it, if Diana can," chuckled Frank, and a moment later a door slammed after him. Enoch turned at once to Diana. "Are you happy, dear?" "Happy and unhappy; unbearably so!" replied Diana. "Don't forget for a moment," said Enoch quickly, "that we have two whole days after to-day." "I don't," Diana smiled a little uncertainly. "Enoch, I wonder if you know how well you look! You are so tanned and so clear-eyed! I'm going to be jealous of the women at every dinner party I imagine you attending!" Enoch laughed. "Diana, my reputation as a woman hater is going to be increased every year. See if it's not!" The telephone rang and Diana answered the call. "Yes! Yes, Jonas is here, Fred Jonas--I'll take the message." There was a pause, then Diana said steadily, "See if I repeat correctly. Tell the Boss the President wishes him to take first train East, making all possible speed. Wire at once date of arrival. Signed Abbott." Diana hung up the receiver and turned to Enoch, who had risen and was standing beside her. "Orders, eh, Enoch?" she said, trying to smile with white lips. Enoch did not answer. He stood staring at the girl's quivering mouth, while his own lips stiffened. Then he said quietly: "Will you tell me where I can find Jonas, Diana?" "He's in the kitchen with Na-che. I'll go bring him in." "No, stay here, Diana, sweetheart. Your face tells too much. I'll be back in a moment." Jonas looked up from the potatoes he was peeling, as Enoch came into the kitchen. "Jonas, I've just had a reply from the wire I sent Abbott this morning. The President wants me at once. Will you go up to the hotel and arrange for transportation out of here tonight? Remember, I don't want it known who I am." "Yes, Mr. Secretary!" exclaimed Jonas. Hastily wiping his hands, he murmured to Na-che, as Enoch turned away: "No trip down Bright Angel, Na-che. Ain't it a shame to think that love ring--" But Enoch heard no more. Diana stood before the fire in the gathering twilight. "Is there anything Dad or I can do to facilitate your start, Enoch?" "Nothing, Diana. Jonas is a past master in this sort of thing, and he prefers to do it all himself. You and I have only to think of each other until I have to leave." He took Diana's face between his hands and gazed at it hungrily. "How beautiful, how beautiful you are!" he said, his rich voice dying in a sigh. "Don't sigh, Enoch!" exclaimed Diana. "We must not make this last moment sad. You are going back into the arena, fit for the fight. That makes me very, very glad. And while you have told me nothing as to your intentions concerning Brown, I know that your decision, when it comes, will be right." "I don't know what that decision will be, Diana. I have given my whole mind to you for many days. But I shall do nothing rash, nor without long thought. My dearest, I wish I could make you understand what you mean to me. I had thought when we were in the Canyon to-morrow I could tell you something of my boyhood, so that you would understand me, and what you mean to me. But all that must remain unsaid. Perhaps it's just as well." Enoch sighed again and, turning to the table, picked up the flat package he had laid there on entering the room. "This is my diary, Diana," placing it in her hands. "Be as gentle as you can in judging me, as you read it. If we were to be married, I think I would not have let you see it, but as it is, I am giving to you the most intimate thing in my possession, and I feel somehow as if in so doing I am tying myself to you forever." Diana clasped the book to her heart, and laid her burning cheek against Enoch's. But she did not speak. Enoch held her slender body against his and the firelight flickered on the two motionless forms. "Diana," said Enoch huskily, "you are going on with your work, as earnestly as ever, are you not?" "Not quite so earnestly because, after I reach the East again, Minetta Lane will be my job." "Oh, Diana, I beg of you, don't soil your hands with that!" groaned Enoch. "I must! I must, Enoch!" Then Diana's voice broke and again the room was silent. They stood clinging to each other until Frank's voice was heard in the rear of the house. "It's an infernal shame, I say. President or no President!" "I'm going to my room for a little while," whispered Diana. And when Frank stamped into the room, Enoch was standing alone, his great head bowed in the firelight. "Can't you stall 'em off a little while?" demanded Frank. Enoch shook his head with a smile. "I've played truant too long to dictate now. Jonas and I must pull out to-night. Perhaps it's best, after all, Frank, and yet, it seemed for a moment as if it were physically impossible for me to give up that trip down Bright Angel. I've dreamed of it for twenty-two years. And to go down with Diana and you--" "It's life!" said Frank briefly. He sank into an armchair and neither man spoke until Na-che announced supper. Diana appeared then, her cheeks and eyes bright and her voice steady. Enoch never had seen her in a more whimsical mood and the meal, which he had dreaded, passed off quickly and pleasantly. Not long after dinner, Frank announced the buck-board ready for the drive to the station. He slammed the door after this announcement, and Enoch took Diana in his arms and kissed her passionately. "Good-by, Diana." "Good-by, Enoch!" and the last golden moment was gone. Enoch had no very clear recollection of his farewells to Na-che and Frank. Outwardly calm and collected, within he was a tempest. He obeyed Jonas automatically, went to his berth at once, and toward dawn fell asleep to the rumble of the train. The trip across the continent was accomplished without untoward incident. Enoch was, of course, recognized by the trainmen, but he kept to the stateroom that Jonas had procured and refused to see the reporters who boarded the train at Kansas City and again at Chicago. After the first twenty-four hours of grief over the parting with Diana, Enoch began to recover his mental poise. He was able to crowd back some of his sorrow and to begin to contemplate his whole adventure. Nor could he contemplate it without beginning to exult, and little by little his spirits lifted and even the tragedy of giving up Diana became a sacred and a beautiful thing. His grief became a righteous part of his life, a thing he would not give up any more than he would have given up a joy. Undoubtedly Jonas enjoyed this trip more than any railway journey of his experience. Certainly he was a marked man. He wore the broadest brimmed hat in Frank Allen's collection, and John Red Sun's high laced boots. Strapped to his suitcase were the Ida's broken paddle and the battered board with "a-che" on it. These stood conspicuously in his seat in the Pullman, where he held a daily reception to all the porters on the train. True to his orders, he never mentioned Enoch's name in connection with his tale of the Canyon, but his own adventures lost nothing by that. Enoch did not wire the exact time of his arrival in Washington, as he wished no one to meet the train. It was not quite three o'clock of a cold December day when Charley Abbott, arranging the papers in Enoch's private office, looked up as the inner door opened. Enoch, tanned and vigorous, came in, followed by Jonas, in all his western glory. Charley sprang forward to meet Enoch's extended hand. "Mr. Huntingdon! Thank the Lord!" "All set, Abbott!" exclaimed Enoch, "and ready to steam ahead. Let me introduce old Canyon Bill, formerly known as Jonas!" Charley clasped Jonas' hand, burst out laughing, and slapped him on the back. "Some story goes with that outfit, eh, Jonas, old boy! Say! if you let the rest of the doormen and messengers see you, there won't be a stroke of work done for the rest of the day." "I'm going to look Harry up, right now, if you don't need me, boss!" exclaimed Jonas. "Take the rest of the day, Jonas!" "No, I'll be back prompt at six, boss!" and Jonas, with his luggage, disappeared. Enoch pulled off his overcoat and seated himself at the desk, then looked up at Charley with a smile. "I had a great trip, Abbott. I went with a mining outfit up to the Canyon country. With Miss Allen's help, Jonas located me at the placer mine, and after several adventures, we came back with her to El Tovar, where I wired you." Abbott looked at Enoch keenly. "You're a new man, Mr. Secretary." Enoch nodded. "I'm in good trim. What happens first, Abbott?" "I didn't know what time you'd be in to-day, so your appointments don't begin until to-morrow. But the President wants you to call him at your earliest convenience. Shall I get in touch with the White House?" "If you please. In the meantime, I may as well begin to go through these letters." "I kept them down pretty well, I think," said Abbott, with justifiable pride, as he picked up the telephone. After several moments he reported that the President would see Enoch at five o'clock. "Very well," Enoch nodded. "Then you'd better tell me the things I need to know." Abbott went into the outer office for his note book and, returning with it, for an hour he reported to Enoch on the business of the Department. Enoch, puffing on a cigar, asked questions and made notes himself. When Charley had finished, he said: "Thank you, Abbott! I don't see but what I could have remained away indefinitely. Matters seem in excellent shape." "Not everything, Mr. Secretary. Your oil bill has been unaccountably blocked in the Senate. The intervention in Mexico talk has begun again. The Geological Survey is in a mix-up and it looks as if a scandal were about to burst on poor old Cheney's head. I'm afraid he's outlived his usefulness anyhow. The newspapers in California are starting a new states-rights campaign for water power control and, every day since I've returned, Secretary Fowler's office has called and asked for the date of your return." "Interested in me, aren't they!" smiled Enoch. "Why is the President in such a hurry to see me, Abbott?" "I don't know, sir. I promised his secretary that the moment I heard from you I'd send such a message as I did send you." "All right, Abbott, I'll start along. Don't wait or let Jonas wait after six. I'll go directly home if I'm detained after that." The President looked at Enoch intently as he crossed the long room. "Wherever you've been, Huntingdon, it has done you good." "I took a trip through the Canyon country, Mr. President. I've always wanted it." The President waited as if he expected Enoch to say more, but the younger man stood silently contemplating the open fire. "How about this tale of Brown's?" the Chief Executive asked finally. "I dislike mentioning it to you, Huntingdon, but you are the most trusted member of my Cabinet, and you have issued no denial to a very nasty scandal about yourself." Enoch turned grave eyes toward the President. "I shall issue no denial, Mr. President. But there is one man in the world I wish to know the whole truth. If you have the time, sir, will you permit me to go over the whole miserable story?" The President studied the Secretary's face. "It will be a painful thing for both of us, Huntingdon," he said after a moment, "but for the sake of our future confidential relationship, I think I shall have to ask you to go over it with me. Sit down, won't you?" Enoch shook his head and, standing with his back to the fire, his burning eyes never leaving the President's face, he told the story of Minetta Lane. He ceased only at the moment when he dropped off the train into the desert. He did not spare himself. And yet when the quiet, eloquent voice stopped, there were tears in the President's eyes. He made no comment until Enoch turned to the fire, then he said, with a curious smile: "A public man cannot afford private vices." "I know that now," replied Enoch. "You may have my resignation whenever you wish it. I think it probable that I'll never touch a card again. But I dare not promise." "I'm told," said the Chief Executive drily, "that you were not without good company in Blank Street; that a certain famous person from the British Legation, a certain Admiral of our own navy and an Italian prince contributed their share to the entertainment." Enoch flushed slightly, but did not speak. "I don't want your resignation, Huntingdon. It's a most unfortunate affair, but we cannot afford to lose you. Brown is a whelp, also he's a power that must be reckoned with. That article turned Washington over for a while. The talk has quieted now. It was the gambling that the populace rolled under its tongue. Only he and the scandal mongers like Brown gave any but a pitying glance at the other story. The fears that I have about the affair are first as to its reaction on you and second as to the sort of capital the opposite party will make of it. I think you let it hit you too hard, Huntingdon." Enoch lifted sad eyes to the chief executive. His lips were painfully compressed and the President said, huskily: "I know, my boy! I sensed long ago that you were a man who had drunk of a bitter cup. I wish I could have helped you bear it!" There was silence for a moment, then the President went on: "What are you going to do to Brown, Huntingdon?" "I haven't decided yet," replied Enoch slowly. "But I shall not let him go unpunished." The President shook his head and sighed. "You must feel that way, of course, but before we talk about that let's review the political situation. I'm ending my second term. For years, as you know, a large portion of the party has had its eye on you to succeed me. In fact, as the head of the party, I may modestly claim to have been your first endorser! Long ago I recognized the fact that unless youth and virility and sane idealism were injected into the old machine, it would fall apart and radicalism would take its place." "Or Tammanyism!" interjected Enoch. "They are equally menacing in my mind," said the older man. "As you know, too, Huntingdon, there has been a quiet but very active minority very much against you. They have spent years trying to get something on you, and they've never succeeded. But--well, you understand mob psychology better than I do--if Brown evolves a slogan, a clever phrase, built about your gambling propensities, it will damn you far more effectively than if he had proved that you played crooked politics or did something really harmful to the country." Enoch nodded. "Whom do you think Brown is for, Mr. President?" "Has it ever occurred to you that Brown often picks up Fowler's policies and quietly pushes them?" Again Enoch nodded and the President went on, "Brown never actively plays Fowler's game. There's an old story that an ancient quarrel separates them. But word has been carefully passed about that there is to be a dinner at the Willard to-morrow night, of the nature of a love feast, at which Fowler and Brown are to fall on each other's necks with tears." Enoch got up from his chair and prowled about the great room restlessly, then he stood before the chief executive. "Mr. President, why shouldn't Fowler go to the White House? He's a brilliant man. He's done notable service as Secretary of State. I don't think the cabinet has contained his equal for twenty-five years. He has given our diplomatic service a distinction in Europe that it never had before. He has a good following in the party. Perhaps the best of the old conservatives are for him. I don't like his attitude on the Mexican trouble and sometimes I have felt uneasy as to his entire loyalty to you. Yet, I am not convinced that he would not make a far more able chief executive than I?" "Suppose that he openly ties to Brown, Huntingdon?" "In that case," replied Enoch slowly, "I would feel in duty bound to interfere." "And if you do interfere," persisted the President, "you realize fully that it will be a nasty fight?" "Perhaps it would be!" Enoch's lips tightened as he shrugged his shoulders. The President's eyes glowed as he watched the grim lines deepen in Enoch's face. Then he said, "Huntingdon, I'm giving a dinner to-morrow night too! The British Ambassador and the French Ambassador want to meet Señor Juan Cadiz. Did you know that your friend Cadiz is the greatest living authority on Aztec worship and a hectic fan for bullfighting as a national sport? My little party is entirely informal, one of the things the newspapers ordinarily don't comment on. You know I insist on my right to cease to be President on occasions when I can arrange for three or four real people to meet each other. This is one of those occasions. You are to come to the dinner too, Huntingdon. And if the conversation drifts from bullfighting and Aztec gods to Mexico and England's and France's ideas about your recent speeches, I shall not complain." "Thank you, Mr. President," said Enoch. "I would do as much for you personally, of course," the older man nodded, as he rose, "but in this instance, I'm playing politics even more than I'm putting my hand on your shoulder. It's good to have you back, Huntingdon! Good night!" and a few minutes later Enoch was out on the snowy street. It was after six and he went directly home. He spent the evening going over accumulated reports. At ten o'clock Jonas came to the library door. "Boss, how would you feel about going to bed? You know we got into early hours in the Canyon." "I feel that I'm going immediately!" Enoch laughed. "Jonas, what have your friends to say about your trip?" as he went slowly up the stairs. "Boss, I'm the foremost colored man in Washington to-night. I'm invited to give a lecture on my trip in the Baptist Church. They offered me five bones for it and I laughed at 'em. How come you to think, I asked 'em, that money could make me talk about my life blood's escape. No, sir, I give my services for patriotism. I can't have the paddle nor the name board framed till I've showed 'em at the lecture. I'm requested to wear my costume." "Good work, Jonas! Remember one thing, though! Leave me and Miss Diana absolutely out of the story." Jonas nodded. "I understand, Mr. Secretary." When Enoch reached his office the next morning he said to Charley Abbott: "When or if Secretary Fowler's office calls with the usual inquiry, make no reply but connect whomever calls directly with me." Charley grinned. "Very well, Mr. Secretary. Shall we go after those letters?" "Whenever you say so. You'd better make an appointment as soon as possible with Cheney. He--" The telephone interrupted and Abbott took the call, then silently passed the instrument to Enoch. "Yes, this is the Secretary's office," said Enoch. "Who is wanted? . . . This is Mr. Huntingdon speaking. Please connect me with Mr. Fowler. . . . Good morning, Mr. Fowler! I'm sorry to have made your office so much trouble. I understand you've been calling me daily. . . . Oh, yes, I thought it was a mistake. . . . Late this afternoon, at the French Ambassador's? Yes, I'll look you up there. Good-by." Enoch hung up the receiver. "Was I to go to tea at Madame Foret's this afternoon, Abbott?" "Yes, Mr. Secretary. Madame Foret called me up a few days ago and was so kind and so explicit--" "It's quite all right, Abbott. Mr. Fowler wondered, he said, if I was to be invited!" The two men looked at each other, then without further comment Enoch began to dictate his long-delayed letters. The day was hectic but Enoch turned off his work with zest. Shortly after lunch the Director of the Geological Survey appeared. Enoch greeted him cordially, and after a few generalities said, "Mr. Cheney, what bomb are they preparing to explode now?" Cheney ran his fingers through his white hair and sighed. "I guess I'm getting too old for modern politics, Mr. Secretary. You'd better send me back into the field. Neither you nor I knew it, but it seems that I've been using those fellows out in the field for my own personal ends. I have a group mining for me in the Grand Canyon and another group locating oil fields for me in Texas." Enoch laughed, then said seriously: "What's the idea, Mr. Cheney? Have you a theory?" Cheney shook his head. "Just innate deviltry, I suppose, on the part of Congress." "You've been chief of the Survey fifteen years, haven't you, Mr. Cheney?" "Yes, too long for my own good. Times have changed. People realized once that men who go high in the technical world very seldom are crooked. But your modern politician would believe evil of the Almighty." "What sort of timber are you developing among your field men, Cheney?" "Only so-so! Young men aren't what they were in my day." Enoch eyed the tired face under the white hair sympathetically. "Mr. Cheney, you're letting these people get under your skin. And that is exactly what they are aiming to do. You aren't the man you were a few months ago. My advice to you is, take a vacation. When you come back turn over the field work to a younger man and devote yourself to finding who is after you and why. I have an idea that the gang is not interested in you, personally." Cheney suddenly sat up very straight. "You think that you--" then he hesitated. "No, Mr. Secretary, this is a young man's fight. I'd better resign." "Perhaps, later on, but not now. After years of such honorable service as yours, go because you have reached the fullness of years and have earned your rest. Don't let these fellows smirch your name and the name of the Service. Clear both before you go." "What do I care for what they say of me!" cried Cheney with sudden fire. "I know what I've given to the government since I first ran surveys in Utah! You're an eastern man and a city man, Mr. Secretary. If you had any idea of what a field man, in Utah, for example, or New Mexico, or Arizona endures, of the love he has for his work, you'd see why my pride won't let me justify my existence to a Congressional Committee." "And yet," insisted Enoch, "I am going to ask you to do that very thing, Mr. Cheney. I am asking you to do it not for me or for yourself, but for the good of the Survey. Find out who, what and why. And tell me. Will you do it, Mr. Cheney?" There was something winning as well as compelling in Enoch's voice. The director of the Survey rose slowly, and with a half smile held out his hand to the Secretary. "I'll do it, Mr. Secretary, but for just one reason, because of my admiration and friendship for you." Enoch smiled. "Not the best of reasons, I'm afraid, but I'm grateful anyhow. Will you let me know facts as you turn them up?" Cheney nodded. "Good day, Mr. Secretary!" and Enoch turned to meet his next visitor. Shortly before six o'clock Enoch shook hands with Madame Foret in her crowded drawing-room. He seemed to be quite unconscious of the more than usually interested and inquiring glances that were directed toward him. "You had a charming vacation, so your smile says, Mr. Huntingdon!" exclaimed Madame Foret. "I am so glad! Where did you go?" "Into the desert, Madame Foret." "Oh, into the desert of that beautiful Miss Allen! She and her pictures together made me feel that that was one part of America I must not miss. She promised me that she would show me what she called the Painted Desert, and I shall hold her to the promise!" "No one could show you quite so wonderfully as Miss Allen, I'm sure," said Enoch. "Now, just what did you do to kill time in the desert, Huntingdon?" asked Mr. Johns-Eaton, the British Ambassador. "Why didn't you go where there was some real sport?" "Oh, I found sport of a sort!" returned Enoch solemnly. Johns-Eaton gave Enoch a keen look. "I'll wager you did!" he exclaimed. "Any hunting?" "Some small game and a great deal of boating!" "Boating! Now you are spoofing me! Listen, Mr. Fowler, here's a man who says he was boating in the desert!" Fowler and Enoch bowed and, after a moment's more general conversation, they drew aside. "About this Mexican trouble, Huntingdon," said Fowler slowly. "I said nothing as to your speaking trip, until your return, for various reasons. But I want to tell you now, that I considered it an intrusion upon my prerogatives." "Have you told the President so?" asked Enoch. "The President did not make the tour," replied Fowler. "Just why," Enoch sipped his cup of tea calmly, "did you choose this occasion to tell me of your resentment?" "Because," replied Fowler, in a voice tense with repressed anger, "it is my express purpose never to set foot in your office again, nor to permit you to appear in mine. When we are forced to meet, we will meet on neutral ground." "Well," said Enoch mildly, "that's perfectly agreeable to me. But, excepting on cabinet days, why meet at all?" "You are agreed that it shall be war between us, then?" demanded Fowler eagerly. "Oh, quite so! Only not exactly the kind of war you think it will be, Mr. Secretary!" said Enoch, and he walked calmly back to the tea table for his second cup. He stayed for some time longer, chatting with different people, taking his leave after the Secretary of State had driven away. Then he went home, thoughtfully, to prepare for the President's dinner. The chief executive was a remarkable host, tactful, resourceful, and witty. The dinner was devoted entirely at first to Juan Cadiz and his wonderful stories of Aztec gods and of bullfighting. Gradually, however, Cadiz turned to modern conditions in Mexico, and Mr. Johns-Eaton, with sudden fire, spoke of England's feeling about the chaos that reigned beyond the Texan border lines. Monsieur Foret did not fully agree with the Englishman's general attitude, but when Cadiz quoted from one of Enoch's speeches, the ambassadors united in praise of the sanity of Enoch's arguments. The President did not commit himself in any way. But when he said good night to Enoch, he added in the hearing of the others: "Thank you, old man! I wish I had a hundred like you!" Enoch walked home through a light snow that was falling. And although his mind grappled during the entire walk with the new problem at hand, he was conscious every moment of the fact that a week before he had tramped through falling snow with Diana always within hand touch. Jonas, brushing the snow from Enoch's broad shoulders, said casually: "I had a telegram from Na-che this evening, boss. She and Miss Diana start for Havasu canyon to-morrow." Enoch started. "Why, how'd she happen to wire you, Jonas?" "I done told her to," replied Jonas coolly, "and moreover, I left the money for her to do it with." Enoch said nothing until he was standing in his dressing-gown before his bedroom fire. Then he turned to Jonas and said: "Old man, it won't do. I can't stand it. I must not be able to follow her movements or I shall not be able to keep my mind on matters here. I shall never marry, Jonas. All the charms and all the affectionate desires of you and Na-che cannot change that." Jonas gave Enoch a long, reproachful look that was at the same time well-tinctured with obstinacy. Without a word he left the room. CHAPTER XVI CURLY'S REPORT "And now my house-mate is Grief. But she is wise and beautiful as the Canyon is wise and beautiful and I claim both as my own."--_Enoch's Diary_. The Washington papers, the next morning, contained the accounts of two very interesting dinner parties. One was a detailed story of the President's dinner. The other told of the public meeting and reconciliation of Secretary Fowler and Hancock Brown. The evening papers contained, as did the morning editions the day following, widely varied comment on the two episodes. Enoch did not see the President for nearly a week after the dinner party, excepting at the cabinet meeting. Then, in response to a telephone call one evening, he went to the White House and told the President of his break with Fowler. "That was a curious thing for him to do," commented the chief executive. "It looks to me like a plain case of losing his temper." "It struck me so," agreed Enoch. "Do you think that he had anything to do with the publishing of that canard about you, Huntingdon?" "I would not be surprised if he had. If I find that he was mixed up in it, Mr. President, I shall have to punish him as well as Brown." "Horsewhipping is what Brown deserves," growled the President. "Huntingdon, why are they after Cheney?" "I've told him to find out," replied Enoch. "I want him to put himself in the position of being able to give them the lie direct, and then resign." "Who is after him?" "I believe, if we can probe far enough, we'll find this same Mexican controversy at the bottom of it. Cheney has been immensely interested in the fuel problem. He's given signal help to the Bureau of Mines." The telephone rang, and the President answered it. He returned to his arm-chair shortly, with a curious smile on his face. "Secretary Fowler wants to see me. I did not tell him that you are calling. As far as he has informed me, you and he are still on a friendly basis. He will be along shortly, and I shall be keenly interested in observing the meeting." Enoch smoked his cigar in silence for some moments before he said, with a chuckle: "I like a fight, if only it's in the open." "So do I!" exclaimed the President. The conversation was desultory until the door opened, admitting the Secretary of State. He gave Enoch a glance and greeted the chief executive, then bowed formally to Enoch, and stood waiting. "Sit down, Fowler! Try one of those cigars! They haven't killed Huntingdon yet." "I beg your pardon, Mr. President," stiffly, "it is quite impossible for me to make any pretense of friendship for the present Secretary of the Interior." The President raised his eyebrows. "What's the trouble, Fowler?" "You may have heard," Fowler's voice was sardonic, "that your Secretary of the Interior swung around the circle on a speech-making trip this fall!" "I heard of it," replied the chief executive, "probably before you did, because I asked Mr. Huntingdon to make the trip." "And may I ask, Mr. President, why you asked this gentleman to interfere with my prerogatives?" "Come! Come, Fowler! You are too clever a man to attempt the hoity-toity manner with me! You undoubtedly read all of Huntingdon's speeches with care, and you observed that his entire plea was for the states to allow the Federal Government to proceed in its normal function of developing the water power and oil resources of this country; that a few American business men should not be permitted to hog the water power of the state for private gain, nor to embroil us in war with Mexico because of private oil holdings there. You will recall that whatever information he used, he procured himself and, before using, laid it in your hands. You laughed at it. You will recall that I asked you, a month before Huntingdon went out, if you would not swing round the circle, and you begged to be excused." Still standing, the Secretary of State bowed and said, "Mr. Huntingdon has too distinguished an advocate to permit me to argue the matter here." Enoch spoke suddenly. "Although I'm grateful to the President, Mr. Fowler, I need no advocate. What in thunder are you angry about? If you and I are to quarrel, why not let me know the _casus belli_!" "I've stated my grievance," said Fowler flatly. "Your new attitude toward me has nothing to do, I suppose," suggested Enoch, lighting a fresh cigar, "with the fact that you dined with Hancock Brown the other evening?" Fowler tapped his foot softly on the rug, but did not reply. Enoch went on. "I don't want to quarrel with you, Fowler. I'm a sincere admirer of yours. But I'm going to tell you frankly, that I don't like Brown and that Brown must keep his tongue off of me. And I'm deeply disappointed in you. You did not need Brown to add to your prestige in America." "I don't know what the idea is, Fowler," said the President suddenly, "but I do know that the aplomb and finesse with which you conduct your official business are entirely lacking in this affair. It looks to me as if you had a personal grievance here. Come, Fowler, old man, you are too brilliant, too valuable--" The Secretary of State interrupted by bowing once more. "I very much appreciate my scolding, Mr. President. With your permission, I'll withdraw until you feel more kindly toward me." The President and Enoch did not speak for several minutes after Fowler had left. Then the President said, "Enoch, how are you going to handle Brown?" "I haven't fully made up my mind," replied Enoch. "The bitterest pill you could make him swallow would be to put yourself in the White House at the next election." "I'm afraid Brown would look on that as less a punishment than a misfortune." Enoch smiled, as he rose and said-good night. Nearly a month passed before Enoch heard from Cheney. During that time neither from Fowler nor from the Brown papers was there any intimation of consciousness of Enoch's existence. He believed that as long as he chose to remain silent on the Mexican situation that they would continue to ignore him. There could be little doubt that both Brown and the public looked on Enoch's sudden silence following the Luigi statement as complete rout. Enoch knew this and writhed under the knowledge as he bided his time. On a morning early in January, Charley Abbott answered a telephone call which interrupted him while was taking the Secretary's dictation. "It's Mr. Cheney!" he said, "He's very anxious to see you for ten minutes, Mr. Secretary." "Crowd him in, Abbott," replied Enoch. Abbott nodded, and in less than half an hour the director of the Survey came in. "Mr. Secretary," he began without preliminaries, "I took your advice and began investigating the trouble spots. Among other steps I took, I detached two men temporarily from a Colorado River expedition and sent them into Texas to discover if possible what the ordinary oil prospectors felt toward the Survey." Enoch's face brightened. "That was an interesting move!" he exclaimed. "Were these experienced oil men?" "One of them, Harden, knew something of drilling. Well, they struck up some sort of a pseudo partnership with a man, a miner, name Field, and the three of them undertook to locate some wells in southern Texas. They were near the Mexican border and were heckled constantly by bands of Mexicans. Finally, as the man Field, Curly, Harden calls him in his report, was standing guard over the horses one night, he was shot through the abdomen. Three days later, he died." "Died!" exclaimed Enoch. "Are you sure of that?" "So Harden reports. Field knew that his wound was fatal. He was perfectly cool and conscious to the last, and he spent the greater part of the period before his death, dictating to Harden a long story about Hancock Brown's early activities in Mexico. He swore Harden to absolute secrecy as to details and made him promise to send the story to some lawyer here in Washington, who seems to have taken a small portion of the Canyon trip with the expedition and who had prospected with Field." "And Curly Field is dead!" repeated Enoch. "Yes, poor fellow! Now then, here's the point, both Harden and Forrester, the other Survey man, are morally certain that there is a well-organized gang whose business is to make oil prospecting on the border unhealthy. They have several lists of names they want investigated, and they suggest that Secret Service men be put on the job, at once. There was a small item in Texas papers about the killing and a New York paper was after me this morning for the story. That's why I hurried to you." "Did you gather that Field's story had anything to do with the present trouble with Mexico?" asked Enoch. The Director shook his head. "No, Mr. Secretary. I merely brought that detail in because Brown is known to be your enemy and--" He hesitated as he saw the grim lines deepening around Enoch's mouth. The Secretary tapped the desk thoughtfully with his pencil, then said: "Keep it all out of the papers, Mr. Cheney, if you please. Or, rather if you are willing, let the publicity end be handled from this office. Send the newspaper men to Mr. Abbott." "That will be a relief!" exclaimed Cheney. "Shall I go ahead on the lines indicated?" "Yes, and bring me your next budget of news!" As Cheney went out, Enoch rang for Jonas. "Jonas, I wish you'd go home and see if there is any mail there for Judge Smith. If there is, lock it in the desk in my room," tossing Jonas the key. "Yes, Mr. Secretary," exclaimed Jonas, disappearing out the door. He returned shortly to report that mail had arrived for Judge Smith, and that it was safely locked away. Enoch had no engagement that evening. When he had finished his solitary dinner he went to his room and took out of the desk drawer a large document envelope and a letter. The letter he opened. "My dear Judge: Forrester and I have just completed a sad bit of work, the taking of poor Curly's body back to Arizona for burial. Soon after you left, we took Milton over to Wilson's ranch and left Ag to look out for him. He's coming along fine, by the way. We wired our dilemma to our Chief in Washington and he told us to go into southern Texas and investigate some conditions there for him. To our surprise, Curly wanted to go along, as soon as he found we were later going into Mexico to an old stamping ground of his. Well, we had a great time on the Border. It wasn't so bad until the hombres began to get nasty, and as you may recall, neither Curly nor my now good pal Forr stand well under sniping. It got so finally that we had to stand watch over our outfit at night, and Curly got a bullet in his bladder. He bled so we couldn't move him and Forr went out, thirty miles, after a doctor. While we waited, Curly got me to set down the stuff I am sending you under separate cover. He also made his will and left you his mining claims, all merely prospects so far. He says you know how he came to feel as he does about Brown and Fowler. However that may be, it certainly is the dirtiest story I ever heard one man tell on others and, dying though he was, I begged Curly to let me tear the paper up and let the story go into the grave with him. But he held me to my promise, so I'm sending it to you, with this apology for contaminating either of us with the dope. Poor old Curly! He was a man who'd been a little embittered by some early trouble, but he was a good scout, for all that. "We all missed you and Jonas,--don't forget Jonas!--very much, after you left. Milton said half a dozen times that when he gets in shape to go on with the work in the spring, he was going to try to persuade you to finish the trip with us. So say we all! With best wishes, sincerely yours, C. L. Harden." After Enoch had finished Harden's letter he replaced it in its envelope slowly and dropped it into the desk drawer. Next, as slowly, he picked up the bulkier envelope and placed it on edge on the mantel under the Moran painting. Then he began to walk the floor. He knew that, in that dingy envelope, lay the whip by which he could drive Brown to public apology. As far as fearing any publicity with which Brown could retaliate, Enoch felt immune. He believed that he had sounded the uttermost depths of humiliation. And at first he gloated over the thought that now Brown could be made to suffer as he had suffered. He would give the story to the newspapers, exactly as it had come to him. And what a setting! Curly shot from ambush, by creatures, it was highly probable, who were ignorantly actuated by Brown's own crooked Mexican policy. Curly flinging, with his dying hands, the boomerang that was to strike Brown down. That incidentally it would pull Fowler down, moved Enoch little. Fowler too would be hoist by his own petard. For a long hour Enoch paced the floor. Then he came to a sudden pause before the mantel and turned on the light above the painting of Bright Angel trail. Outside the room sounded the clatter of Washington's streets. Enoch did not hear it. Once more a passionate, sullen boy, he was clinging to his mule on the twisting trail. Once more swept over him the horror of the Canyon and of human beings that had tortured the soul of the boy, Enoch, on that first visit into the Canyon's depths. The sweat started to his forehead and, as he stared, he grasped the mantel with both hands. Then he picked up the envelope. His hand shook as he inserted a finger under the flap, lifting his eyes as he did so, once more to the painting. He paused. Unearthly calm, drifting mists, colors too ephemeral, too subtle for words--drawn in the Canyon! The lift of the Ida under his knees, the eager welter of the whirlpool, the sting of the icy Colorado dragging him under, the flash of Diana's face and his winning fight with death. The chaos of the river and two tiny figures staggering hour after hour over the hopeless, impossible chasms and buttes; Harden going to the rescue of Forrester. Starlight on the desert. Diana's touch on his forehead, her tender, gentle fingers smoothing his hair as they gazed together at the mysterious shadowy depth beyond which flowed the Colorado; that tender touch on his hair and forehead and the desert stars thrilling near, infinitely remote. Suddenly Enoch, resting his arm on the mantel, dropped his forehead upon it and stood so, the wonderful glowing colors of the painting seeming to shimmer on his bronze hair. At last, at the sound of Jonas's footstep in the hall, he lifted his head, turned off the light above the painting, crossed to his desk and, dropping the still unopened envelope into a secret drawer, locked it and put the key in his pocket. The following morning Senator Havisham came to see Enoch. He was one of the leading members of Enoch's party, a virile, progressive man, very little older than the Secretary himself. After shaking hands with Enoch and taking one of his cigars, he sat staring at him as if he scarcely knew how to begin. Enoch smiled half sadly. "Go ahead, Senator," he said. "You and I have known each other a long time." The Senator smiled in return. "Yes, we have, Huntingdon, and I'm proud of the fact. That is why I was asked to undertake this errand which has an unpleasant as well as a pleasant side. We want you to run as our presidential nominee. But before we pass the word around, we want you to issue a denial of the Brown canard that will settle that kind of mud slinging at you for good and all." Enoch's face was a cold mask. "I can't deny it, Havisham. The facts stated are true. The inferences drawn as to my character are false. The bringing of Miss Allen into the story was a blasphemy. All things considered, as far as publicity goes, utter silence is my only recourse. As for my private retaliation on Brown, that's another and a personal matter." Senator Havisham looked at Enoch through half-shut eyes. "Huntingdon, let me issue that statement, exactly as you have made it." "No," replied Enoch flatly. "The less reference made by us to the Brown canard, the better chance of its being forgotten." The Senator puffed silently, then said, "Why does Brown hate you?" "I have fought his Mexican policy." "Yes, I know, but is that the only reason?" "As far as my knowledge goes," replied Enoch. "Of course, now that he's openly committed to Fowler, he has an added grievance." "There is nothing personal between you?" "I never laid eyes on the man in my life. I never did him an intentional injury. I am merely in his way. I always have despised his papers and now I despise him. Understand, Senator, that, without regard to diplomacy, Brown and I must have it out." Havisham shook his head. "You'd better let him alone, Huntingdon. He has an awful weapon in his papers and he can smear you in the public mind no matter how obviously false his stories may be." Enoch's lips tightened. "I'm not afraid of Brown. But all things considered, Havisham, you'd better leave me out of your list of presidential possibilities." "There is no list! Or, at least, you're the list!" The Senator's laugh was a little rueful. "And," Enoch went on, "strange as it may seem, I'm not sure that I want the Presidency. It seems to me that I might be far more useful in the Capitol than in the White House." "Not to the party!" exclaimed Havisham quickly. "No, to the country!" "Perhaps, but it's a debatable matter, which I don't intend to debate. You are our man. If you won't deny the Brown canard, then we must go ahead without the denial." Enoch looked thoughtfully from the window, then turned back to the Senator. "There is no great hurry, is there? Give me a month to get matters clear in my own mind." "There is no hurry, except that the Brown papers work while others sleep, and Fowler is Brown's nominee. However, take your month, old man. I don't doubt that you have troubles of your own!" Enoch nodded. Havisham shook hands heartily and departed, and the Secretary turned to his loaded desk. The Alaskan situation was causing him keen anxiety. The old war between private ownership, with all its greed and unfairness to the common citizen, and government control, with all its cumbersome and often inefficient methods, had reached acute proportions in the great northern province. Enoch was faced with the necessity of deciding between the two. It must be a long distance decision and any verdict he rendered was predestined to have in it elements of injustice. For days Enoch thrust, as far as possible, his personal problem into the background while he struggled with this greater one. It was only at night that the thought of Diana overwhelmed all else to torture him and yet to fill him with the joy of perfect memories. It was on the morning after he had given his Alaskan decision that Charley Abbott, eyebrows raised, laid a Brown paper before the Secretary, with the comment: "Either Cheney or some one in Cheney's office has leaked." It was a twisted story of Curly's death. Curly, according to this version, had been doing his utmost to keep two Survey men, Harden and Forrester, from hogging for obscure government purposes, certain oil lands, belonging to Curly. In the ill feeling that had resulted, Curly had been shot. Before his death, however, he had been able to write a statement of the affair which had been sent to a well-known lawyer in Washington. He also had left sufficient property to the lawyer to enable him to expose the workings of the Geological Survey to its bones. Enoch's face reddened. "I don't know what there is about a piece of work like this that gets under my skin so intolerably!" he exclaimed. "Whether it's the cruelty of it, or the dishonesty or the brute selfishness, I don't know. But we are going to answer this, Abbott." "How shall we go about it, sir? We might find out if Cheney knows these men personally and have him make a statement." "Have him tell of their previous records," said Enoch. "Let the world know the heroism and the self-sacrifice of those men. And at the end let him give the lie direct to the Brown papers. Tell him I'll sign it for him." "That will give Brown just the opening he's looking for, Mr. Secretary, I'm afraid," said Abbott, doubtfully. "I mean, your signature." "I'm ready for Brown," replied Enoch shortly. Still Charley hesitated. "What is it, Abbott?" asked the Secretary. "It's Miss Allen I'm thinking about," blurted out the younger man. "You've gone through the worst that they can hand to a man, so you've nothing more to fear. But if they bring her into it again, Mr. Secretary, I'll go crazy!" The veins stood up on Enoch's forehead, and he said, with a cold vehemence that made Abbott recoil, "If Miss Allen's name is brought up with mine in that manner again, I shall kill Brown." Charley moistened his lips. "Well, but after all, Mr. Huntingdon, Harden and Forrester are just a couple of unknown chaps. Is your championing them worth the risk to Miss Allen?" "Miss Allen would be the last person to desire that kind of shielding. I've reached my limit, Abbott, as far as the Brown papers are concerned. They've got to keep their foul pens off the Department of the Interior. I'd a little rather kill Brown than not. Why should decent citizens live in fear of his dirty newsmongers? Life is not so sweet to me, Abbott, nor the future so full of promise that I greatly mind sacrificing either." "It's just--it's just that I care so much about Miss Allen," reiterated Charley, miserably and doggedly. Enoch drew a quick breath. The two men stared at each other, pain and hopelessness in both faces. Enoch recovered himself quickly. "I'm sorry, my boy," he said gently, "but life, particularly public life, is full of bitter situations like this. Brown must be stopped somewhere by somebody. Let's not count the cost. Get in touch with Cheney and have that statement ready for the morning paper." He turned back to his letters and Abbott left the room. Before he went home that night, Enoch had signed the very readable account of some of Harden's and Forrester's exploits in the Survey and had added, before signing, a line to the effect that the slurs and insinuations regarding the two men which had appeared in the morning papers were entirely untrue. For several days there was no reply from the Brown camp. Enoch's friends commented to him freely on his temerity in deliberately drawing Brown on, but Enoch only smiled and shrugged his shoulders, while Curly's statement lay unopened in his drawer. But underneath his calm, the still raw wound of Brown's earlier attack tingled as it awaited the rubbing in of the salt. Finally, one morning, Charley laid a Brown paper on Enoch's desk. The Secretary of the Interior, said the account, had denied the truth of certain statements made by the publication. A repetition of the story followed. A careful reinvestigation of the facts, the account went on, showed the case to be as originally stated. The well-known lawyer had been interviewed. He had told the reporter that the contents of Field's letter were surprising beyond words and that as soon as he had made full preparations some arrests would follow that would startle the country. The lawyer, whose name was withheld for obvious reasons, was a man whose integrity was beyond question. He had no intention of using the funds willed him by Field, for he and Field had grown up together in a little New England town. The money would be put in trust for Field's son, who would be sent to college with the lawyer's own boy. In the meantime, the Secretary of the Interior would not be beyond a most respectful and discriminating investigation himself. It was known that he had cut short an unsuccessful speaking tour for very good reasons, and had disappeared into the desert country for a month. Where had he been? Enoch suddenly laughed as he laid the paper down. "It is so childish, so preposterous, that even a fool wouldn't swallow it!" he exclaimed. "It's just the sort of thing that people swallow whole," returned Abbott. "Even at that, it's absolutely unimportant," said Enoch. Again Charley disagreed with him. "Mr. Secretary, it's very important, for it's a threat. It says that if you don't keep still, they will investigate your desert trip. And you know what they could make of that!" "Let them keep their tongues off my Department, then," said Enoch, sternly. Nevertheless when Abbott had left him alone he did not turn immediately to his work. His cigar grew cold, and the ink dried on his pen, while he sat with the look of grim determination in his eyes and lips, deepening. He dined out that night and was tired and depressed when he returned home. Jonas was smiling when he let the Secretary in and took his coat. "Boss, they's a nice little surprise waiting for you up on your desk." "Who'd be surprising me, Jonas? No one on earth but you, I'm afraid." Jonas chuckled. "You're a bad guesser, boss! A bad guesser! How come you to think I could do anything to surprise you?" Enoch went into his brightly lighted room and stopped before his desk with a low exclamation of pleasure. A large photograph stood against the book rack. Three little naked Indian children with feathers in their hair were dancing in the foreground. Behind them lay an ancient cliff dwelling half in ruins. To the left an Indian warrior, arms folded on his broad chest stood watching the children, his face full of an inscrutable sadness. The children were extraordinarily beautiful. Diana had worked with a very rapid lens and had caught them atilt, in the full abandonment of the child to joy in motion. The shadowed, mysterious, pathetic outline of the cliff dwelling, the somber figure of the chief only enhanced the vivid sense of motion and glee in the children. The picture was intrinsically lovely even without that haunting sense of the desert's significance that made Diana's work doubly intriguing. Enoch's depression dropped from him as if it had never been. "Oh, my dearest!" he murmured, "you did not forget, did you! It is your very self you have sent me, your own whimsical joyousness!" Jonas tapped softly on the door. "Come in, Jonas! Isn't it fine! How do you suppose a photograph can tell so much!" "It's Miss Diana, it ain't the camera!" exclaimed Jonas, with a chuckle. "Na-che says she ain't never seen her when she couldn't smile. That buck looks like that fellow Wee-tah. Boss, do you remember the night he took me out to see that desert charm?" "Tell me about it, Jonas. It will rest me more than sleep." Enoch sank back in his chair where he could face the photograph, and Jonas established himself on the hearth rug and told his story with gusto. "I got a lot of faith in Injun charms," he said, when he had finished. "They didn't get us our trip down Bright Angel," sighed Enoch, even as he smiled. "We'll get it yet, see if we don't!" protested Jonas stoutly. "Na-che and I ain't give up for a minute. Don't laugh about it, boss." "I'm not laughing," replied Enoch gravely. "I'm thinking how fortunate I am in my friends, you being among those present, Jonas." "As I always aim to be," agreed Jonas. "Do you think you could maybe sleep now, boss?" "Yes, I think so, Jonas," and Enoch was as good as his word. Nearly two weeks passed before the attack on the Department of the Interior was renewed. This time it was a deliberate assault on Enoch's honesty. The Alaskan decision served as a text. This was held up as a model of corruption and an example of the type of decision to be expected from a gambling lawyer. Followed a list of half a dozen of Enoch's rulings on water power control, on forest conservation and on coal mining, each one interpreted in the light of Enoch's mania for gambling. A man, the article said in closing, may, if he wishes, take chances with his own fortune or his own reputation, but what right has he to risk the public domain? Several days went by after the appearance of this edifying story, but Enoch made no move. Then the President summoned him to the White House. "Enoch, shall you let that screed go unchallenged?" he demanded. "What can I say, Mr. President?" asked Enoch. "And really, that sort of thing doesn't bother me much. It is only the usual political mud slinging. They are feeling me out. They want more than anything to get me into a newspaper controversy with them. I am going to be difficult to get." "So I see!" retorted the President. "If you are not careful, old man, people will begin to think Brown is right and you are afraid." Enoch laughed. "I am not afraid of him or any other skunk. But also, in spite of my red hair, I have a good deal of patience. I am waiting for our friends to trot out their whole bag of tricks." "What do you hear from Fowler?" asked the President. "Nothing. I am desperately sorry that he has got mixed up with Brown. He is a brilliant man and the party needs him. I hope his attitude toward me has made no break in the pleasant relationship between you and him, Mr. President." "It did for a short time. But we got together over the Dutch Guiana matter and he's quite himself again. As you say, the party can ill afford to lose him. But a man who works with Brown I consider lost to the party, no matter if he keeps the name." "Fowler used to like me," said Enoch, thoughtfully. "He certainly did. But the reason that Fowler will always be a politician and not a statesman is that he is still blind to the fact that the biggest thing a man can do for himself politically is to forget himself and work for the party." "You mean for the country, do you not?" asked Enoch. "It should be the same thing. If Fowler can get beyond himself, he'll be a statesman. But he's fifty and characters solidify at fifty. He's been a first rate Secretary of State, because he's a first rate international lawyer, because his tact is beyond reproach and because he is forced by the nature of his work to think nationally and not personally." "I'm sorry he's taken up with Brown," repeated Enoch. "There never was such a dearth of good men in national politics before." "I've known him for many years," the President said thoughtfully, "and I never knew him to do a dishonest thing. He's full of horse sense. I've heard rumors that in his early days in the Far West he got in with a bad crowd, but he threw them off and any one that knew details has decently forgotten them. I've tried several times to speak to him about this new alliance but although he's never shown temper as he did that night when you were here, I get nowhere with him. His ideas for the party are sane and sound and constructive." "You mean for the country, do you not, sir?" asked Enoch again with a smile. The older man smiled too. "Hanged if I don't mean both!" he exclaimed. "What do you think of Havisham as presidential material?" asked Enoch. "Too good-natured! A splendid fellow but not quite enough chin! By the way, I understand you refused to commit yourself to him the other day." Enoch rose with a sigh. "Life to some people seems to be a simple aye! aye! nay! nay! proposition. It never has been to me. Each problem of my life presents many facets, and the older I grow the more I realize that most of my decisions concerning myself have been made for one facet and not for all. This time I'm trying to make a multiple decision, as it were." "I think I understand," said the Chief executive. "Good night, Enoch." And Enoch went home to the waiting Jonas. CHAPTER XVII REVENGE IS SWEET "And then, after that day on the Colorado was ended, after the agony of toil, the wrestling with death while our little boats withstood the shock of destiny itself, oh, then, the wonder and the peace of the night's camp. Rest! Rest at last!"--_Enoch's Diary_. January slipped swiftly by and February, with its alternate rain and snow came on. The splendid mental and physical poise that Enoch had brought back with him from the Canyon stood him in good stead under the pressure of office business which never had been so heavy. One morning, late in February, Cheney came to see the Secretary. "Well, Mr. Cheney, have you made your discovery?" asked Enoch. Cheney nodded slowly. "But I didn't make it until last night, Mr. Huntingdon. I've followed up all sorts of leads that landed me nowhere. Last night, a newspaper reporter came to my house. He's with the News now, but he used to be with Brown. He came round to learn something about our men finding gold in the Grand Canyon. He wanted the usual fool thing, an expression of opinion from me as Director. As soon as he let slip that he'd been on the Brown papers, I began to question him and I found that he'd been fired because he'd refused to go out to Arizona and follow up your vacation trip. But, he said, two weeks ago they started another fellow on the job." Enoch did not stir by so much as an eye wink. "I thought you ought to know this, although, personally, it may be a matter of indifference to you." Enoch nodded. "And what are your conclusions, Mr. Cheney?" "That Brown is determined to discredit the Department of the Interior and you, until you are ousted and a man in sympathy with his Mexican policy is put in." "I agree with you, entirely. And what are your plans?" "I shall stick by my Bureau until we lick him. I haven't the slightest desire to desert my Chief. When I thought it was I they were after, I felt differently." "Thanks, Mr. Cheney! Will you give me the name of the reporter of whom you were speaking." "James C. Capp. He's not a bad chap, I think." Enoch nodded and Cheney took his departure. There were several important conferences after this which Enoch cleared off rapidly and with his usual efficiency. When, however, Jonas announced luncheon, Abbott asked for a little delay. "Here is an interesting item from this morning's Brown," he said. Enoch read the clipping carefully. "The visitor to El Tovar, the rim hotel of the Grand Canyon receives some curious impressions of our governmental prerogatives. Recently a government expedition down the Colorado was too well equipped with spirits and had some severe smash-ups. Two of the men became disgusted and quit, but nothing daunted, Milton, the leader took on two fugitives from justice in Utah and proceeded on his way. A week later, however, there was a complete smash-up both moral and material. The boats were lost and the expedition disbanded. The expensive equipment lies in the bottom of the Colorado. So much for the efficiency and morale of the U. S. Geological Survey." Enoch laughed, but there was an unpleasant twist to his mouth as he did it. "Abbott," he said, "will you please find out if Brown is in New York. Wherever he is, I am going to see him, immediately and I want you to go with me. No, don't be alarmed! There will be no personal violence, yet." The locating of the newspaper publisher was a simple task. An hour after lunch, Charley reported Brown as in his New York office. "Very well," said Enoch, "telegraph him that we will meet him at his office at nine to-night. We will take the three o'clock train and return at midnight." It was not quite nine o'clock when Enoch and Charley entered Hancock Brown's office. The building was buzzing with newspaper activities, but the publisher's office was quiet. A sleepy office attendant was awaiting them. With considerable ceremony he ushered the two across the elaborate reception room and throwing open a door, said: "The Secretary of the Interior, sir." A small man, with a Van Dyke beard and gentle brown eyes crossed the room with his hand outstretched. "Mr. Huntingdon! this is a pleasure and an honor!" "It is neither, sir," said Enoch, giving no heed to the outstretched hand. Brown raised his eyebrow. "Will you be seated, Mr. Huntingdon?" "Not in your office, sir. Mr. Brown, I have endured from your hands that which no _man_ would think to make another endure." Enoch's beautiful voice was low but its resonance filled the office. His eyes were like blue ice. "I have remained silent, for reasons of my own, under your personal attacks on me, but now I have come to tell you that the attacks on the Department of the Interior and on my personal life must cease." Hancock Brown looked at Enoch with gentle reproach in his eyes. "Surely you don't want to muzzle the press, Mr. Huntingdon?" "We're not speaking of the press," returned Enoch, "I have sincere admiration for the press of this country." Brown flushed a little at this. "I shall continue on exactly the line I have laid down," he said quietly. "If," said Enoch, clearly, "Miss Allen is brought into your publication again either directly or by implication, I shall come to your office, Mr. Brown, and shoot you. Abbott, you are the witness to what I say and to the conversation that has led to it." "I am, Mr. Secretary," said Charley. "And if for any reason you should be unable to attend to the matter, I would do the shooting for you." "This will make interesting copy," said Brown. "I have within my control," Enoch went on, steadily, "the means to force you to cease to put out lies concerning the Department of the Interior and me. I seriously consider not waiting for your next move, but of making use of this in retaliation for what you have done to me. As to that, I have reached no conclusion. This is all I have to say." Enoch turned on his heel and closely followed by Charley left the office. As they entered the taxicab, Abbott said, "Gee, that did me more good than getting my salary doubled! I thought you were going to use this morning's item as a text!" "You'd better have Cheney prepare a reply to that, for me to sign," said Enoch and he lapsed into silence. They went directly to their train and to bed and the next morning office routine began promptly at nine as usual. February slipped into March. One cold, rainy morning Abbott, with a broad smile on his face, came in to take dictation. "What's happened, Abbott?" asked Enoch. "Some one left you some money?" "Better than that!" exclaimed Charley. "I dined at the Indian Commissioner's last night and whom do you think I took out? Miss Allen!" A slow red suffused Enoch's forehead and died out. "When did she return to Washington?" he asked, quietly. "A day or so ago. She is studying at the Smithsonian. She says she'll be here two months." "She is well, I hope," said Enoch. "She looks simply glorious!" Enoch nodded. "Instead of dictating letters, this morning, Abbott, suppose you start the visitors this way. Somehow, the thought of wading through that pile, right now, sickens me." Charley's face showed surprise, but he rose at once. "Mr. Cheney's been waiting for an hour out there with an interesting chap from the western field. Perhaps you'd better see them before I let the committee from California in." Cheney came first. "Mr. Secretary, one of my men is in from Arizona. He is very much worked up over Brown's last effort and he's got so much to say that I thought you'd better meet him. Incidentally, he's a very fine geologist." "Bring him in," said Enoch. The Director swung open the door and moving slowly on a cane, Milton came into the room. "Mr. Secretary, Mr. Milton," said Cheney. "He--" then he stopped with his mouth open for Milton had turned white and the Secretary was laughing. "Judge!" gasped Milton. Enoch left his desk and crossing the room seized both Milton's hands, cane and all. "Milton, old boy, there's no man in the world I'd rather see than you." "Why, are you two old friends?" asked Cheney. "Intimate friends!" exclaimed Enoch. "Cheney, I'll remember the favor all my life, if you'll leave me alone with Milton for a little while." "Why certainly! Certainly! I didn't know Milton was trying to spring a surprise on you. I'll be just outside when I'm needed." "Sit down, Milton," said Enoch, soberly, when they were alone. "Don't hold my deception against me. I was not spying. It was the blindest fate in the world that brought me to the Canyon and to your expedition." Milton's freckled face was still pale. "Hold it against you! Of course not! But you've rattled me, Judge,--Mr. Secretary." "No one but Abbott knows of my trip and he in baldest outline. Keep my secret for me, old man, as long as you possibly can. I suppose it will leak out eventually." Milton was staring at Enoch. "Think of all we said and did!" he gasped. "Especially what we did! Oh, it was glorious! Glorious!" cried Enoch. "It did all for me that you thought it might, Milton. Do you remember?" "Yes, I remember. And I remember telling you my personal ambitions! I'd rather have cut out my tongue!" "And once you all told what you thought of Enoch Huntingdon!" The Secretary burst out laughing, and Milton joined him with a great "Ha! ha!" "So you were the fugitive from justice, that joined my drunken crew," chuckled Milton, wiping the tears from his eyes. "And I came over to try to put myself straight as to that with the Big Boss!" "The best part of it all is that excepting Abbott and Jonas and now you, not a living soul knew it was the Secretary of the Interior who took the trip." "Of course, there was Miss Allen!" added Milton. "Don't forget her! But she's as safe as the Canyon itself at keeping a secret." "How about the reporter who's said to be on my trail?" asked Enoch. "He's prowling round on the river, running up an expense account twenty-three hours and making up lies on the twenty-fourth. Capp told Mr. Cheney that this reporter, whose name is Ames, I believe, was to write nothing until his return to New York. Mr. Secretary, can't something be done to shut him off?" "Yes," replied Enoch, sternly. The two men were silent for a moment, then Enoch said with a sudden lighting of his blue eyes. "Where are you stopping, old man." "I haven't located the cheapest hotel in Washington yet. When I do, that'll be where I'll stop. You remember we used to speak our minds on the salaries the Department paid." "I remember," chuckled Enoch. "Well, Milton, the cheapest stopping place in Washington is over at Judge Smith's place. I believe you have the address. By the way, have you seen Jonas?" "No, but I want to," replied Milton. Enoch pressed the button, and Jonas' black head popped in at the door. As his eyes fell on Milton, they began to bulge. "The Lord have mercy! How come you didn't tell me, boss--" he began. Then he rushed across the room and shook hands. "Mr. Milton, I'd rather see you than my own brother. Did you find any pieces of the Na-che?" "No, Jonas, but I've got some fine pictures in my trunk of you shooting rapids in the old boat." "No! My Lordy! Where's your trunk, Mr. Milton?" "Jonas," said Enoch, "you get Mr. Milton's trunk check and--but he says he's going to a hotel." Jonas looked at Milton, indignantly. "Going to a hotel! How come you to try to insult the boss' and my house, Mr. Milton? Huh! Hotel! Huh!" He took the check and left the room, still snorting. Milton rose. "I mustn't intrude any longer, Mr. Secretary." "Luckily I'm free, to-night," said Enoch. "We'll have a great talk. Ask Cheney to come in, please." "Mr. Cheney," asked Enoch, when Milton had gone, "do you think you could find out whether or not that fellow Ames has returned from Arizona?" "Yes, we can do that without much trouble. Was Milton able to straighten matters up with you, Mr. Secretary?" "He didn't have to. I'm an ardent admirer of Milton's. He's going to stop at my house, while he's in Washington. Why don't you take him out of the field and begin to groom him for your job, Mr. Cheney? He should be ready for it in a few years." Cheney nodded. "He's a good man. I'll think it over. And I will telephone Abbott about Ames." It was fortunate for Enoch that Milton was with him that evening, for the knowledge that Diana was in Washington and that he could not see her was quite as agonizing as he had suspected it would be. Yet it was impossible not to enjoy Milton's continual surprise and pleasure at the change in the Judge's identity and it was a real delight to make once more the voyage to the Ferry not only for its own sake but because with the landing at the Ferry came much conversation on the part of Jonas and Milton about Diana. But Enoch did not sleep well that night and reached his office in the morning, heavy-eyed and grim. Abbott, standing beside the Secretary's desk was even more grim. "Mr. Cheney was too slow getting us the information about Ames," he said, pointing to the newspaper that lay on the desk. Enoch lighted a cigar very deliberately, then began to read. It was a detailed account of the vacation trip of the Secretary of the Interior. It was written with devilish ingenuity, purporting to show that Enoch in his hours of relaxation was a thorough-going good fellow. The account said that Enoch had picked up a mining outfit made up of two notorious gamblers. That the three had then annexed two Indian bucks and a squaw and had slowly made their way into the Grand Canyon, ostensibly to placer mine, actually to play cards and hunt. The story was witty, and contained some good word pictures of the Canyon country. It was subtle in its wording, but it was from first to last an unforgettable smirching of Enoch's character. Enoch laid the paper down. "Abbott," he said slowly, "the time has come to act. I want Mr. Fowler, Mr. Brown, this fellow Ames, or whatever reporter wrote the first article about me to come to my office tomorrow afternoon at five o'clock. If it is necessary to ask the President for authority to bring them here, I shall ask for it." Abbott's eyes glowed. "Thank God, at last!" he exclaimed. "Shall I prepare a denial of this stuff." "No! At least they have left Miss Allen out. We may be thankful and let it stand at that. Now, start the procession in, Abbott. I'm in no mood to dictate letters." Enoch threw himself into the day's work with burning intensity. About three o'clock, he told Abbott to deny all visitors that he might devote himself to an Alaskan report. "Mr. Milton just rushed in. Will you let him have a moment?" asked Charley. "Yes, but--" here Milton came in unceremoniously. "Mr. Huntingdon," he said, "I've just finished lunching with Miss Allen. We are both nearly frantic over this morning's paper. You must let us publish the truth." "No," thundered Enoch. "You know the Brown papers. If they discovered what Miss Allen did for us all at the Ferry, how she led me back to El Tovar, what would they do with it?" Abbott looked from Enoch to Milton in astonishment. Milton started to speak, but Enoch interrupted, "You are, of course, thinking that I should have thought of that long before, when I asked her to let me go back to El Tovar with her. But I didn't! I had been in the Canyon long enough to have forgotten what could be made of my adventure by bad minds. I was a cursed fool, moving in a fool's paradise and I must take my punishment. If ever--" Jonas opened the door from the outer office. "The President, Mr. Secretary," he said. Enoch started toward the telephone, but Jonas spoke impatiently--"No! No! not that." "The President of what, Jonas!" asked Abbott. Jonas lifted his chest and flung the door wide. "The President of the United States of America," he announced, and the President came in. Enoch rose. "Don't let me disturb you, Mr. Secretary. I can wait," said the chief executive. "We were quite finished, Mr. President. May I, I wonder, introduce Mr. Milton to you, the geologist whom Brown said headed the drunken expedition down the Colorado." The President looked keenly at Milton as they shook hands. "Mr. Huntingdon took great pains to deny that story, publicly," he said. "Can't you persuade him, Mr. Milton, to do as much for himself, to-day." "That's exactly why I'm here, Mr. President!" exclaimed Milton. "But he's absolutely obdurate!" Jonas came into the room and spoke to Enoch softly. "Mr. Fowler's office is on the outside wire, Mr. Secretary. I wouldn't connect in here while the President was here. Mr. Fowler wants to speak to you, hisself, before he catches a train." "I'll go into your office to get it, Abbott," said Enoch. "May I detain you, a moment, Mr. President? Mr. Fowler wants to speak to me." The President raised his eyebrows with a little smile. "Yes, if you tell me what's happened to Fowler." Enoch's smile was twisted as he went out. Milton immediately began to speak. "Mr. President, can't you make Mr. Huntingdon tell about his vacation?" The chief executive shook his head. "Perhaps it's not best. Perhaps he did have a lapse into his boyhood habits. Not that it makes any difference to me." "No! No! Mr. President. I know--" began Charley. But Milton interrupted, "Mr. President, he was with me and part of the time Miss Diana Allen, a wonderful woman, was with us. And Mr. Huntingdon is afraid they'll turn their dirty tongues on her." The President's face lighted as if he had received good news. "Really! With you!" "Yes, with me for a week and more. And I want to tell you, sir, that for nerve and endurance and skill in a boat and as a pal and friend under life and death conditions I've never seen any one to surpass him. He scorned cards while he was with us. We had no liquor. We admired him beyond words and had no idea who he was." "No!" cried the President, delightedly. "Why, there must be a real story in this! Go on with it, Milton! Enoch," as the Secretary came in, "I'm winning the truth out of your old cruising pal, here!" "I can't help it, Mr. Huntingdon!" cried Milton as Enoch turned toward him indignantly. "Miss Diana said this noon that if you didn't tell the story, she would." "There you are!" exclaimed the President. "Wouldn't you know she'd take it that way? And on second thoughts I think I'd rather hear the story from her than any one else." "But she can't tell you about the voyage, sir," protested Milton. "That's true," agreed the President. "I shall have to arrange one of my choice little dinners and have you and Miss Diana Allen there to pad out the Secretary's account." Then, with a sudden change of voice, he walked over to Enoch and put his hand on the younger man's shoulder. Abbott nodded to Milton and the two slipped out. "You are a bit twisted about women, dear old man! Come, you must let Milton put out the right kind of a denial of Brown's story." "Brown will put the denial out for himself," said Enoch sternly. "I've reached my limit. Mr. President, I have asked Mr. Fowler, Brown, and the reporter who's been maligning me to come to my office to-morrow afternoon. I think I shall be able to settle this matter. I would perhaps have done it before but I could not settle in my own mind just how I wanted to go about it. Fowler refused to come until I told him the purpose of the meeting." "And you know now how to end this miserable affair?" asked the President, wonderingly. "Yes," replied Enoch. "And now, Mr. President, what can I do for you?" "Exactly what you are doing, Enoch. Clear up this disgusting matter." "You came to see me for that, sir?" The President smiled. "You do not seem to realize that a great many people, people who never saw you, are deeply troubled about you. You do not belong to yourself but to us, Mr. Secretary." "Perhaps you are right, sir," said Enoch humbly. "I thank you most sincerely for coming." "Will you come to me as soon as you have finished, to-morrow, Enoch?" "Yes, Mr. President! Abbott, will you show the President out?" Then when Charley had returned, he said, "Abbott, the Secretary of State will be here. How about Brown?" "He will be here," replied Charley. "I used the President's name pretty freely, but I think I finally got him curious enough and worried enough." Enoch nodded. "Abbott, for the first time since I've been in this office, I'm going to quit early and go for a ride." "It's what you ought to do every day," said Abbott. "Look here, Abbott, if I get this beastly matter settled to-morrow, I want you to go away for two months' vacation." "Well," said Charley, doubtfully, "if you get it settled!" "Don't let that worry you," said Enoch grimly as he pulled on his overcoat and left the office. "I'll settle it." Promptly at three o'clock, the next day, Abbott ushered three men into the Secretary's office. Enoch rose and bowed to Secretary Fowler, to Hancock Brown, and to Ames, the reporter. The last was a clear cut young fellow with a nose a little too sharp and eyes set a trifle too close together. "If you will be seated, gentlemen, I'll tell you the object of this call upon your time. Mr. Abbott, please remain in the room. "On the third of November, Mr. Brown, you published in one of your evening papers an article about me written under your direction by Ames. The facts in that article were in the main true. The deductions you drew from them were vilely false. It is not, Mr. Brown, a pleasant knowledge for a man to carry through life that his mother was what my mother was. I have suffered from that knowledge as it is obviously quite beyond your power to comprehend. I say obviously, because no men with decency or the most ordinary imagination would have dared to harrow a man's secret soul as you harrowed mine. Even in my many battles with Tammany, my unfortunate birth has been respected. It remained for you to write the unwriteable. "As for my gambling, that too is true, to a certain extent. I have played cards perhaps half a dozen times in as many years. I was taught to play by the Luigi whom you interviewed. I have a gambler's instinct, but since I was fourteen I have fought as men can fight and latterly I have been winning the battle. "Your insinuations as to my adult relationship to the underworld and to women are lies. And your dragging Miss Allen into the dirty tale was a gratuitous insult which it is fortunate for both of you, her father has not yet seen. It happened that while I was on the vacation recently in which you have taken so impertinent an interest, that I joined the camp of two miners. One of them, Curly Field, told me an interesting story. He probably would not have told me had I not been calling myself Smith and had he not discovered that I am a lawyer." The smile suddenly disappeared from Brown's face. "That fellow Curly always was a liar," he said. Enoch shrugged his shoulders. "You should be a good judge of liars, Brown. Curly told me that Mr. Fowler was his brother-in-law's partner." Fowler spoke, his face drawn. "Spare me that story, Mr. Huntingdon, I beg of you." "Did you beg Brown to spare me?" demanded Enoch, sternly. "Pshaw!" exclaimed Brown, "that is old stuff. It couldn't be proved that we had anything to do with it." "No?" queried Enoch. "What would you say to my taking the fund left Judge Smith by Curly and employing a first-class lawyer and a detective to go on the trail of those mis-appropriated funds?" Brown did not answer and Enoch went on: "Curly's idea was to get even with Fowler. It was, in fact, a type of mania with him. He told me that for years he had been in possession of facts concerning certain doings of Brown and Fowler in Mexico, which if they were properly blazed across the country would utterly ruin both of them. He wanted to put me in possession of those facts." Suddenly Fowler rose and went to stand at a window, his back to the group around the Secretary's desk. Enoch continued, clearly and firmly: "I could scarcely believe my good fortune. Here was my chance to pay Brown in kind." "Did Curly give you the facts?" asked Brown, who had grown a little white around the mouth. Enoch did not heed him. "I asked Curly if the story was a reflection on these two men morally or financially. He said, morally; that it was bad beyond words. At this point I weakened and told him that I had no desire to display any man's weakness in the market place. And Curly laughed at me and asked me what mercy Fowler had shown his brother? But still I could not make up my mind to take those facts from Curly." Mr. Brown eased back in his chair with a sneering smile. Young Ames sat sickly pale, his mouth open. "But when I left him," the calm, rich voice went on, "I told him that he could write down the story and send it to my house in Washington. Now the chances are that having drifted so many years without telling it, he would have drifted on indefinitely. But fate intervened. Curly went to the Mexican border. Certain gentlemen have seen to it that the Mexican border is not safe. Curly was shot and he made it his death-bed duty to dictate this delectable tale to a friend. In due course of time, the document reached my house in Washington, and here it is!" He tapped the upper drawer of his desk. There was utter silence in the room while Enoch lighted a cigarette. "Have you told any one the er--tale?" demanded Brown, hoarsely. "I can prove that not a word of it is true!" "Can you?" Enoch squared round on him. "Are you willing to risk having the story told with the idea of disproving it, afterward? Isn't your system of scandal mongering built on the idea that mud once slung always leaves a stain in the public mind? And Curly was an eye witness. He is dead, but I do not believe all the other eye witnesses are dead. At any rate--" Brown suddenly leaned forward in his chair. "Mr. Huntingdon, I'll give you my check for $100,000, if you will give me that document and swear to keep your mouth shut." "Your bribe is not large enough," Enoch answered tersely. "Five hundred thousand! I'll agree to make a public retraction of everything I said about you and to work for you with all the power of my newspapers." "Not enough!" repeated Enoch, watching Brown's white face, keenly. "What do you want?" demanded the newspaper publisher. "First," Enoch threw his cigarette away, "I want Secretary Fowler to break with you, absolutely and completely." "Curly can't implicate me, in that Mexican affair!" cried Fowler. "Why, my whole attitude was one of disapproval and disgust. I told Brown over and over, that he was a fool and after the shooting I broke with him, absolutely, for years. I am--" Enoch interrupted. "Brown, was Fowler in on the trouble?" "No!" replied Brown, sullenly. "I'm very glad to hear it," Enoch exclaimed. "Mr. Fowler, as far as I am concerned all that I learned from Field regarding you is a closed book and forgotten if you will break with Brown." "I'd break with him, gladly, if he'd cease to blackmail me about the Field matter," said Fowler. "Good God! How many of us are there who've not committed sins that we never forgive ourselves?" "None of us!" said Enoch. "Mr. Fowler, why did you break with me?" "Didn't you do your best to undermine me with the President? Didn't you go to Ambassador Johns-Eaton and tell him--" Here, catching a curious flickering of young Ames' eyelids, Fowler interrupted himself to demand, "Or was that more of your dirty work, Ames?" "Answer, Ames!" Enoch's voice was not to be ignored. "Brown paid me for it," muttered Ames. Fowler groaned and looked at Enoch, who was lighting a fresh cigarette. "Will you agree, Brown, to an absolute break with Fowler and no come backs?" asked Enoch. "Yes," said Brown eagerly. "What else?" "You are to go out of the newspaper business." There was another silence. Then Brown said, "I'll not do it!" "Very well," returned Enoch, "then the Mexican affair will be published as Curly has written it with all the attendant circumstances." Again there was silence, with all the eyes in the room focused on the pale, gentle face, opposite Enoch. The noise of street traffic beat against the windows. Telephones sounded remotely in the outer office. For ten minutes this was all. Then Brown in a husky voice said, "Very well! Give me the document!" "Not at all," returned Enoch, coolly. "This document goes into my safety deposit box. In case of my death, it will be left to responsible parties. When you die, it will be destroyed. I am not a rich man, Mr. Brown, but I shall devote a part of my income to having you watched; watched lest indirectly and by the underhand methods you know so well you again attempt to influence public opinion. After to-morrow, you are through." "To-morrow! Impossible!" gasped Brown. "Nothing is impossible except decency to a man of your capacity," said Enoch. "To-morrow you publish a complete denial of your lies about me and this Department and then you are no longer a newspaper publisher. That is all I have to say to you, Mr. Brown." He pressed a button, "Jonas, please show Mr. Brown out." Jonas' black eyes snapped. "How come you think I'd soil my shadow letting that viper trail it, boss? I never disobeyed you before, Mr. Secretary, but that trash can show hisself out!" and Jonas withdrew to his own office, while Brown, shrugging his shoulders, opened and closed the door for himself. Ames would have followed him, but Enoch said, "One moment, Ames! What assurance are you going to give me that you will keep your mouth shut as to what you've heard this afternoon?" "I give you my word," began Ames, eagerly. Enoch raised his hand. "Don't be silly, Ames. Do you know that I can make serious legal trouble for you for your part in libelling me and the Department?" "But Brown said his lawyers--" "Brown's lawyers? Do you think Brown's lawyers will fight for you now?" "No, Mr. Secretary," muttered the reporter. "Very well! Keep your mouth shut and you'll have no trouble from this, but let me trace one syllable to you and I shall have no bowels of compassion. One word more, Ames. You are clever or Brown would not have used you as he did. Get a job on a clean paper. There is no finer profession in the world than that of being a good newspaper man. Newspaper men wield a more potent influence in our American life than any other single factor. Use your talent nobly, not ignobly, Ames. And above all things never tell a vile tale about any man's mother. Don't do it, Ames!" and here Enoch's voice for the first time broke. Ames, his hands trembling, picked up his hat. His face had turned an agonized red. Biting his lips, he made his way blindly from the room. "And now," said Enoch, "if you'll leave Mr. Fowler and me alone for a few minutes, Abbott, I'll appreciate it." As the door closed after Charley he said, "Sit down, Fowler. I'm sorry to have put you through such an ordeal, but I knew no other way." "I deserve it, I guess." Fowler sat down wearily. "I was an unlicked whelp in my youth, Huntingdon, but though I got into rotten company, I never did anything actually crooked." "I believe you," Enoch nodded. "Let the guiltless throw the first stone. We both have paid in our heart's blood, I guess, for all that we wrought in boyhood." "A thousand-fold," agreed Fowler. "Huntingdon, let me try to express my regret for--" "Don't!" interrupted Enoch. "If you are half as eager as I am to forget it all you'll never mention it even to yourself. But I do want to talk candidly to you about our political aspirations. Mr. Fowler, I don't want to go to the White House! I have a number of reasons that I don't think would interest you particularly. But I want to go back to the Senate when I finish here. Fowler, if you were not so jealous and so personal in your ambitions I would be glad to see you get the party nomination." Fowler's fine, tired face expressed incredulity mingled with bewilderment. Enoch went on, "You and I are talking frankly as men rarely talk and as we probably never shall again. So perhaps you will forgive me if I make some personal comments. It seems to me that the only permanent satisfaction a man gets out of public life is the feeling that he has added in greater or less degree to the sum total of his country's progress and stability. I think your weakness is that you place yourself first and your country second." "No!" said Fowler, eagerly. "You don't understand me, Huntingdon! My own aim in life is to make my service to my country compensate for the selfishness and foolishness of my youth. My methods may, as you say, have been open to misinterpretation. But God knows my impulses have been disinterested. And you must realize now, Huntingdon, that it has been the business of certain people to see that you and I misunderstand each other." "That's true," said Enoch, thoughtfully. "Well, I doubt if that is possible again." "It is absolutely impossible!" exclaimed Fowler. "I am yours to command!" "No, you're not!" laughed Enoch. "Brown is finished and you're your own man. I look for great things from you, Fowler. I wanted to tell you that and to tell you that in me you have no rival." "No," Fowler spoke slowly, "no, because no one can win, no one deserves to win the place in the hearts of America that you have. Huntingdon, your kindness and courtesy is the most exquisite punishment you could visit upon me." Enoch looked quickly from the Secretary of State to the opposite wall. But he did not see the wall. He saw a crude camp in the bottom of the Canyon. He heard the epic rush of waters and the sigh of eternal winds and he saw again the picture of Harden fighting his way up the menacing walls to rescue Forrester. It seemed to Fowler that the silence had lasted five minutes before Enoch turned to him with his flashing smile. "We are friends, Fowler, are we not?" The older man rose and held out his hand. "Yes, Huntingdon, as long as we live," and he slowly left the room. Enoch sank back on his chair, wearily, and opening the top drawer of his desk, took out the familiar envelope. _The seal was still unbroken_! He placed it in a heavy document envelope, sealed this and wrote a memorandum on it, and dropped it on the desk. Then for a long time he sat staring into the dusk. At last, as if the full realization of the loneliness of his life had swept over him he dropped his head on his desk with a groan. "O Diana! Diana!" He did not hear the door open softly. Abbott with Ames just behind him, stood on the threshold. The two young men looked at each other, abashed, and Abbott would have withdrawn, but Ames went doggedly into the room. "Mr. Secretary!" he said, hesitatingly. Enoch sat erect. Abbott flashed on the light. "Mr. Ames insists on seeing you again, Mr. Huntingdon," Charley spoke hesitatingly. "Come in, Ames," said Enoch, coldly. "Abbott, see that this envelope is put in a safe place." Abbott left them alone. Ames advanced to the desk, where he stood, his face eager. "Mr. Secretary, you've been so decent. You,--you--well, you're such a man! I--I want to tell you something but I don't know how you'll take it. The truth is, I believe that I could prove that Luigi's mistress was not your mother!" Enoch clutched his desk and his face turned to stone. "Don't you think you went far enough with that matter before?" he asked sternly. Ames stumbled on, doggedly. "This last trip out West I just thought I'd go down to Brown's early stamping grounds and see what kind of a reputation he had there. I was getting a little fed up on him and I thought it couldn't hurt me to have a little something on him against a rainy day, as it were. You see I never did know what this Curly Field stuff was, but it didn't take me long to run that story down, even if it was a generation old. Of course, I don't know what Curly told you, but certainly the official reports of the Field scandal never proved anything on either Brown or Fowler." Enoch moved impatiently. But young Ames, standing rigidly before his desk exclaimed, "Just a moment longer, please, Mr. Secretary! Some of these facts you know unless Field was so obsessed with the thought of his brother's alleged wrongs that he did not mention them, but I'll state them anyhow. The mining and smelting property that caused the whole row was originally owned by an old timer named Post who struck it rich late in life, married and died soon after, leaving everything to his son, a little chap named Arthur. This is the child Field was supposed to have robbed. Little Arthur died a couple of years after Field's suicide but by that time there was nothing left of the property and no one paid any attention to the child's death. But in reading old Post's will, something piqued my curiosity. In the event of Arthur's death, the property was to go to old Post's baby nephew, Huntingdon Post." Enoch knit his brows quickly but he did not speak and Ames went on, "Being, of course, in a suspicious state of mind, it struck me as an unusual coincidence that this child should have died, too. So I made some inquiries. It was difficult to trace the facts because there were no relatives. Old Post seemed to have been just a solitary prowler, coming from nowhere, like so many of the old timers. But finally, I found an old fellow in the back country who had known old Post. He told me that little Hunt Post, as he called him, had been killed with his father and mother in a railway accident. I asked where they got the child's name and he said the mother's name was Huntingdon. He knew her when she was a girl living alone with her father in the Kanab country, north of the Grand Canyon. He said her father died when she was ten or eleven and a family named Smith sort of brought her up and she was known as Mary Smith. But when she married, she named the boy after her father who was a raw boned, red headed man named Enoch Huntingdon." Enoch gave Ames a long steady look and the younger man relaxed a little. "Now," Ames went on, "knowing Brown as I do, I wonder if little Hunt Post, who, like his mother was red headed and blue eyed, was burned up in a railroad accident. Did Field speak of the child?" Enoch pressed the desk button and Abbott came. "Give me the Field envelope, please, Abbott." When the envelope was in his hands, Enoch tore the flap up and began to read the close written pages. When he had finished, he put the manuscript back with steady hands. "Most of the letter," he said quietly, "is taken up by the recital of Brown's shady moral career in Mexico. At the end he speaks of a Mexican woman with red hair and violet eyes who lived with Brown for some months. She left to act as nurse to little Hunt Post. Some time after the railroad accident, Curly was the unsuspected witness to a secret meeting between this Anita and Brown. The woman demanded money and Brown demanded proof that little Hunt was dead. The conference ended only when Anita produced a box containing the child's body. Curly did not know how much Brown paid her or where she went." Ames gave an ugly laugh. "Hoist with his own petard! Think of him starting me after the Luigi scandal!" "Tell Abbott what you've just told me," said Enoch. He did not stir while Ames repeated the story. Charley's eyes blazed. When Ames finished, Charley started to speak but the young reporter interrupted. "Mr. Secretary, I want you to let me tie up the loose ends for you. We've got to put the screws on Luigi and I'll take another trip West." "Wait a bit!" exclaimed Charley. "Mr. Secretary, I'm going to claim that long deferred vacation. Let me spend it with Ames clearing this matter up for you." Enoch drew a quick breath. "When could you begin, you two?" "Now!" the two young men said together. Enoch smiled. "Wait until to-morrow. I've more important work to-night, and I want to go over every detail with you before you start out. In the meantime, Abbott, guard this envelope as you would your life." "What won't we do to Brown!" exclaimed Charley. "I've punished Brown," said Enoch. "He'll never hurt me again. As soon as this thing is cleared, we'll forget him." Again Ames laughed. "Believe me, he's going to be good the rest of his life. Think of your reading that stuff about little Hunt, Mr. Secretary, and never realizing its import!" "God knows, I didn't want to read the story of another man's ignominy!" said Enoch, earnestly, "and I never would have, had not--" he paused, then said as if to himself, "God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform!" The two younger men stood in silence. Then Enoch said, "Thank you, Ames, I'll see you at nine o'clock to-morrow morning. Abbott, get the White House for me and then go home to dinner." A few minutes later Enoch was speaking to the President. "I have to report victory, Mr. President, all along the line. . . . Yes, sir, it's a long story and I want to tell it to you to-morrow, not to-night. Mr. President, I'm going to find Miss Allen and dine with her, to-night, if I have to take her from a state function. . . . Yes, you may chuckle if you wish. I thought you'd understand. . . . Thank you! Good night, Mr. President." Enoch hung up the receiver and sat looking at the floor, his face as white as marble. For five minutes he did not stir, then he heaved a great sigh and the tense muscles of his face relaxed. He tossed back the hair from his forehead, sprang to his feet and began to pace the floor. After a short time of this, he rang for Jonas. "Jonas, do you know where Miss Diana is stopping?" Jonas did not seem to hear the question. He stood staring at Enoch with eyes that seemed to start from their sockets. "My Lordy, boss, what's happened? You look like I never hoped to see you look!" Then he paused for he could not express what he saw in the Secretary's shining eyes. "Jonas, old man, I've had the greatest news of my life, but I can't tell even you, first." "Miss Diana!" ejaculated Jonas. "Boss, she's at the Larson; one of these boarding houses that calls themselves a name. Didn't I tell you Injun charms was strong? Tell me! Huh!" "All right, Jonas! I won't be home to dinner. Better sit up for me though, for I'll want to talk to you." "Did I ever not sit up for you?" demanded Jonas as he gave Enoch his coat. Enoch paced the floor of the Larson while a slatternly maid went in search of Diana. When, a little pale and breathless, Diana appeared in the doorway, Enoch did not stir for a moment from under the chandelier. Nor did he speak. Diana gazed at him as if she never had seen him before. His eyes were blazing. His lips quivered. He was very pale. Suddenly, tossing his hat and cane to a chair, he crossed the room. He tried to smile. "Diana, have you seen your friend, the psychologist yet?" "No, Enoch, but I have an appointment with him for next week." Enoch seized her hands and held them both against his heart. "You need never see him, Diana, I have been made whole. I--" his voice broke hoarsely--"I have something to tell you. Diana, you are going to dine with me." "Yes, Enoch!" "Diana! Oh, how lovely you are! Diana, it's a wonderful night, with a full moon. I want you to walk with me to the Eastern Club. I have something to tell you. And while I'm telling you, no four walls must hem us in." Diana, her great eyes shining in response to Enoch's, turned without a word and went back upstairs. She returned at once, clad for the walk. Enoch opened the street door and paused to look down into her face with a trembling smile. Then they descended the steps into the moonlight together. 
19723	----	images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) (http://gallica.bnf.fr/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 19723-h.htm or 19723-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/9/7/2/19723/19723-h/19723-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/9/7/2/19723/19723-h.zip) This document is taken from the _Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution_, 1894-95, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1897, pages 73-198. Images of the original pages are available through the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) (http://gallica.bnf.fr/). Transcriber's Note: Typographical errors are listed at the end of the text. Brackets within quotations are in the original. THE CLIFF RUINS OF CANYON DE CHELLY, ARIZONA by COSMOS MINDELEFF CONTENTS Page Introduction 79 History and literature 79 Geography 82 Classification and descriptions 89 Ruins of the pueblo region 89 I--Old villages on open sites 93 II--Home villages on bottom lands 94 III--Home villages located for defense 111 IV--Cliff outlooks or farming shelters 142 Details 153 Sites 153 Masonry 159 Openings 164 Roofs, floors, and timber work 165 Storage and burial cists (Navaho) 166 Defensive and constructive expedients 170 Kivas or sacred chambers 174 Chimney-like structures 182 Traditions 190 Conclusions 191 ILLUSTRATIONS Plate Page XLI. Map of the ancient pueblo region, showing location of Canyon de Chelly 79 XLII. Map of Canyon de Chelly and its branches 85 XLIII. Detailed map of part of Canyon de Chelly, showing areas of cultivable land 93 XLIV. Section of old walls, Canyon de Chelly 95 XLV. General view of ruin on bottom land, Canyon del Muerto 97 XLVI. Village ruin in Canyon de Chelly 103 XLVII. Casa Blanca ruin, Canyon de Chelly 105 XLVIII. Mummy cave, central and eastern part 112 XLIX. Eastern cove of Mummy cave 115 L. Reservoir in ruin No. 10 127 LI. Small village, ruin No. 16, Canyon de Chelly 129 LII. Walls resting on refuse in ruin No. 16 131 LIII. Cliff outlook in lower Canyon de Chelly 149 LIV. Cliff ruin No. 14 151 LV. Site marked by pictographs 153 LVI. Site difficult of approach 159 LVII. Masonry in Canyon de Chelly 161 LVIII. Chinked walls in Canyon de Chelly 163 LIX. A partly plastered wall 165 LX. Plastered wall in Canyon de Chelly 167 LXI. Storage cist in Canyon de Chelly 169 LXII. Navaho burial cists 171 LXIII. Kivas in ruin No. 10, showing second-story walls 173 Figure Page 1. Ground plan of an old ruin in Canyon del Muerto 95 2. Ground plan of a ruin on bottom land in Canyon del Muerto 96 3. Ground plan of small ruin in Canyon de Chelly 96 4. Granary in the rocks, connected with a ruin 97 5. Ground plan of a ruin in a cave 98 6. Ground plan of Pakashi-izini ruin, Canyon del Muerto 99 7. Ground plan of a ruin in Canyon del Muerto 100 8. Ground plan of a ruin in Tseonitsosi canyon 100 9. Ground plan of a much obliterated ruin 101 10. Ground plan of a ruin in Canyon de Chelly 101 11. Ground plan of a village ruin 103 12. Ground plan of kivas in Canyon de Chelly 103 13. Ground plan of a small ruin on bottom land 104 14. Ground plan of the upper part of Casa Blanca ruin 105 15. Ground plan of the lower part of Casa Blanca ruin 106 16. Ground plan of Mummy Cave ruin 113 17. Ruin in a rock cove 117 18. Ground plan of a ruin in a rock cove 117 19. Ground plan of a ruin on a ledge 118 20. Ground plan of ruin No. 31, Canyon de Chelly 119 21. Ground plan of ruin No. 32, Canyon de Chelly 120 22. Section of a kiva wall 122 23. Ruin No. 10 on a ledge in a cove 123 24. Ground plan of ruin No. 10 124 25. Oven-like structure in ruin No. 10 127 26. Plan of oven-like structure 128 27. Ground plan of a small village, ruin No. 16 129 28. Ruins on a large rock 130 29. Ground plan of ruins No. 49 131 30. Ruins on an almost inaccessible site 133 31. Ground plan of a large ruin in Canyon del Muerto 134 32. Ground plan of a small ruin in Canyon del Muerto 135 33. Ground plan of a small ruin 135 34. Plan of a ruin of three rooms 136 35. Ground plan of a small ruin, with two kivas 136 36. Ground plan of a small ruin, No. 44 137 37. Ground plan of a ruin on a rocky site 137 38. Rock with cups and petroglyphs 138 39. Ground plan of a ruin in Canyon de Chelly 139 40. Site showing recent fall of rock 140 41. Ruin No. 69 in a branch canyon 140 42. Ground plan of a small ruin in Canyon del Muerto 140 43. Ground plan of a small ruin 141 44. Plan of a ruin with curved inclosing wall 141 45. Ground plan of ruin No. 34 142 46. Ground plan of cliff outlook No. 35 143 47. Plan of a cliff outlook 143 48. Plan of cliff ruin No. 46 144 49. Plan of cliff room with partitions 145 50. Plan of a large cliff outlook in Canyon del Muerto 145 51. Plan of a cluster of rooms in Canyon del Muerto 146 52. White House ruin in Tseonitsosi canyon 146 53. Ground plan of a ruin in Tseonitsosi canyon 147 54. Plan of rooms against a convex cliff 147 55. Small ruin with curved wall 147 56. Ground plan of a cliff outlook 148 57. Plan of cliff outlook No. 14, in Canyon de Chelly 148 58. Ground plan of outlooks in a cleft 149 59. Plan of a single-room outlook 149 60. Three-room outlook in Canyon del Muerto 150 61. Plan of a two-room outlook 150 62. Plan of outlook and burial cists, No. 64 150 63. Plan of rectangular room, No. 45 151 64. Rectangular single room 151 65. Single-room remains 152 66. Site apparently very difficult of access 158 67. Notched doorway in Canyon de Chelly 164 68. Cist composed of upright slabs 169 69. Retaining walls in Canyon de Chelly 172 70. Part of a kiva in ruin No. 31 175 71. Plan of part of a kiva in ruin No. 10 176 72. Kiva decoration in white 177 73. Pictograph in white 178 74. Markings on cliff wall, ruin No. 37 178 75. Decorative band in kiva in Mummy Cave ruin 179 76. Design employed in decorative band 180 77. Pictographs in Canyon de Chelly 181 78. Plan of chimney-like structure in ruin No. 15 182 79. Section of chimney-like structure in ruin No. 15 183 80. Plan of chimney-like structure in ruin No. 16 184 81. Section of chimney-like structure in ruin No. 16 185 82. Plan of the principal kiva in Mummy Cave ruin 186 83. Chimney-like structure in Mummy Cave ruin 187 [Illustration: Plate XLI (Map) Ancient Pueblo Region Showing Location of Canyon De Chelly] THE CLIFF RUINS OF CANYON DE CHELLY, ARIZONA By Cosmos Mindeleff INTRODUCTION HISTORY AND LITERATURE Although Canyon de Chelly is one of the best cliff-ruin regions of the United States, it is not easily accessible and is practically unknown. At the time of the conquest of this country by the "Army of the West" in 1846, and of the rush to California in 1849, vague rumors were current of wonderful "cities" built in the cliffs, but the position of the canyon in the heart of the Navaho country apparently prevented exploration. In 1849 it was found necessary to make a demonstration against these Indians, and an expedition was sent out under the command of Colonel Washington, then governor of New Mexico. A detachment of troops set out from Santa Fé, and was accompanied by Lieutenant (afterward General) J. H. Simpson, of the topographical engineers, to whose indefatigable zeal for investigation and carefulness of observation much credit is due. He was much interested in the archeology of the country passed over and his descriptions are remarkable for their freedom from the exaggerations and erroneous observations which characterize many of the publications of that period. His journal was published by Congress the next year[1] and was also printed privately. [Footnote 1: Thirty-first Congress, first session, Senate Ex. Doc. No. 64, Washington, 1850.] The expedition camped in the Chin Lee valley outside of Canyon de Chelly, and Lieutenant Simpson made a side trip into the canyon itself. He mentions ruins noticed by him at 4½, 5, and 7 miles from the mouth; the latter, the ruin subsequently known as Casa Blanca, he describes at some length. He also gives an illustration drawn by R. H. Kern, which is very bad, and pictures some pottery fragments found near or in the ruin. The name De Chelly was apparently used before this time. Simpson obtained its orthography from Vigil, secretary of the province (of New Mexico), who told him it was of Indian origin and was pronounced _chay-e_. Possibly it was derived from the Navaho name of the place, Tsé-gi. Simpson's description, although very brief, formed the basis of all the succeeding accounts for the next thirty years. The Pacific railroad surveys, which added so much to our knowledge of the Southwest, did not touch this field. In 1860 the Abbé Domenech published his "Deserts of North America," which contains a reference to Casa Blanca ruin, but his knowledge was apparently derived wholly from Simpson. None of the assistants of the Hayden Survey actually penetrated the canyon, but one of them, W. H. Jackson, examined and described some ruins on the Rio de Chelly, in the lower Chin Lee valley. But in an article in Scribner's Magazine for December, 1878, Emma C. Hardacre published a number of descriptions and illustrations derived from the Hayden corps, among others figures one entitled "Ruins in Cañon de Chelly," from a drawing by Thomas Moran. The ruin can not be identified from the drawing. This article is worth more than a passing notice, as it not only illustrates the extent of knowledge of the ruins at that time (1878), but probably had much to do with disseminating and making current erroneous inferences which survive to this day. In an introductory paragraph the author says: Of late, blown over the plains, come stories of strange newly discovered cities of the far south-west; picturesque piles of masonry, of an age unknown to tradition. These ruins mark an era among antiquarians. The mysterious mound-builders fade into comparative insignificance before the grander and more ancient cliff-dwellers, whose castles lift their towers amid the sands of Arizona and crown the terraced slopes of the Rio Mancos and the Hovenweap. Of the Chaco ruins it is said: In size and grandeur of conception, they equal any of the present buildings of the United States, if we except the Capitol at Washington, and may without discredit be compared to the Pantheon and the Colosseum of the Old World. In the same year Mr J. H. Beadle gave an account[2] of a visit he made to the canyon. He entered it over the Bat trail, near the junction of Monument canyon, and saw several ruins in the upper part. His descriptions are hardly more than a mention. Much archeologic data were secured by the assistants of the Wheeler Survey, but it does not appear that any of them, except the photographer, visited Canyon de Chelly. In the final reports of the Survey there is an illustration of the ruin visited by Lieutenant Simpson about thirty years before.[3] The illustration is a beautiful heliotype from a fine photograph made by T. H. O'Sullivan, but one serious defect renders it useless; through some blunder of the photographer or the engraver, the picture is reversed, the right and left sides being interchanged, so that to see it properly it must be looked at in a mirror. The illustration is accompanied by a short text, apparently prepared by Prof. F. W. Putnam, who edited the volume. The account by Simpson is quoted and some additional data are given, derived from notes accompanying the photograph. The ruin is said to have "now received the name of the Casa Blanca, or White House," but the derivation of the name is not stated. [Footnote 2: Western Wilds, and the Men who Redeem Them: Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Chicago, Memphis, 1878.] [Footnote 3: U.S. Geog. Surveys West of the 100th Meridian, Lieutenant George M. Wheeler in charge; reports, vol. VII, Archæology; Washington, 1879, pp. 372-373, pl. xx.] In 1882 Bancroft could find no better or fuller description than Simpson's, which he uses fully, and reproduces also Simpson's (Kern's) illustration. In the same year investigation by the assistants of the Bureau of Ethnology was commenced. Colonel James Stevenson and a party visited the canyon, and a considerable amount of data was obtained. In all, 46 ruins were visited, 17 of which were in Del Muerto; and sketches, ground plans, and photographs were obtained. The report of the Bureau for that year contains an account of this expedition, including a short description of a large ruin in Del Muerto, subsequently known as Mummy Cave. A brief account of the trip was also published elsewhere.[4] The next year a map of the canyon was made by the writer and many new ruins were discovered, making the total number in the canyon and its branches about 140. Since 1883 two short visits have been made to the place, the last late in 1893, and on each trip additional material was obtained. In 1890 Mr F. T. Bickford[5] published an account of a visit to the canyon, illustrated with a series of woodcuts made from the photographs of the Bureau. The illustrations are excellent and the text is pleasantly written, but the descriptions of ruins are too general to be of much value to the student. [Footnote 4: Bull. Am. Geog. Soc., 1886, No. 4; Ancient Habitations of the Southwest, by James Stevenson.] [Footnote 5: Century Magazine, October, 1890, vol. XL, No. 6, p. 806 et seq.] In recent years several publications have appeared which, while not bearing directly on the De Chelly ruins, are of great interest, as they treat of analogous remains--the cliff ruins of the Mancos canyon and the Mesa Verde. These ruins were discovered in 1874 by W. H. Jackson and were visited and described in 1875 by W. H. Holmes,[6] both of the Hayden Survey. This region was roamed over by bands of renegade Ute and Navaho, who were constantly making trouble, and for fifteen years was apparently not visited by whites. Recent exploration appears to have been inaugurated by Mr F. H. Chapin, who spent two summers in the Mesa Verde country. Subsequently he published the results of some of his observations in a handsome little volume.[7] In 1891 Dr W. R. Birdsall made a flying trip to this region and published an account[8] of the ruins he saw the same year. At the time of this visit a more elaborate exploration was being carried on by the late G. Nordenskiöld, who made some excavations and obtained much valuable data which formed the basis of a book published in 1893.[9] This is the most important treatise on the cliff ruins that has ever been published, and the illustrations can only be characterized as magnificent. All of these works, and especially the last named, are of great value to the student of the cliff ruins wherever located, or of pueblo architecture. [Footnote 6: U.S. Geol. Survey, F. V. Hayden in charge; 10th Ann. Rept. (for 1876), Washington, 1878.] [Footnote 7: The Land of the Cliff Dwellers, by Frederick H. Chapin; Boston, 1892.] [Footnote 8: Bull. Am. Geog. Soc., vol. XXIII, No. 4, 1891; The Cliff Dwellings of the Cañons of the Mesa Verde.] [Footnote 9: The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, by G. Nordenskiöld; Stockholm and Chicago, 1894.] GEOGRAPHY The ancient pueblo culture was so intimately connected with and dependent on the character of the country where its remains are found that some idea of this country is necessary to understand it. The limits of the region are closely coincident with the boundaries of the plateau country except on the south, so much so that a map of the latter,[10] slightly extended around its margin, will serve to show the former. The area of the ancient pueblo region may be 150,000 square miles; that of the plateau country, approximately, 130,000. [Footnote 10: See Major C. E. Dutton's map of the plateau country in 6th Ann. Rept. U.S. Geol. Survey, pl. xi. His report on "Mount Taylor and the Zuñi plateau," of which this map is a part, presents a vivid picture of the plateau country, and his descriptions are so clear and expressive that any attempt to better them must result in failure. The statement of the geologic and topographic features which is incorporated herein is derived directly from Major Dutton's description, much of it being taken bodily.] The plateau country is not a smooth and level region, as its name might imply; it is extremely rugged, and the topographic obstacles to travel are greater than in many wild mountain regions. It is a country of cliffs and canyons, often of considerable magnitude and forming a bar to extended progress in any direction. The surface is generally smooth or slightly undulating and apparently level, but it is composed of a series of platforms or mesas, which are seldom of great extent and generally terminate at the brink of a wall, often of huge dimensions. There are mesas everywhere; it is the mesa country. Although the strata appear to be horizontal, they are slightly tilted. The inclination, although slight, is remarkably persistent, and the thickness of the strata remains almost constant. The beds, therefore, extend from very high altitudes to very low ones, and often the formation which is exposed to view at the summit of an incline is lost to view after a few miles, being covered by some later formation, which in turn is covered by a still later one. Each formation thus appears as a terrace, bounded on one side by a descending cliff carved out of the edges of its own strata and on the other by an ascending cliff carved out of the strata which overlie it. This is the more common form, although isolated mesas, bits of tableland completely engirdled by cliffs, are but little less common. The courses of the margins of the mesas are not regular. The cliffs sometimes maintain an average trend through great distances, but in detail their courses are extremely crooked; they wind in and out, forming alternate alcoves and promontories in the wall, and frequently they are cut through by valleys, which may be either narrow canyons or interspaces 10 or even 20 miles wide. The whole region has been subjected to many displacements, both flexures of the monoclinal type and faults. Some of these flexures attain a length of over 80 miles and a displacement of 3,000 feet, and the faults reach even a greater magnitude. There is also an abundance of volcanic rocks and extinct volcanoes, and while the principal eruptions have occurred about the borders of the region, extending but slightly into it, traces of lesser disturbances can be found throughout the country. It has been said that if a geologist should actually make the circuit of the plateau country, he could so conduct his route that for three-fourths of the time he would be treading upon volcanic materials and could pitch his camp upon them every night. The oldest eruptions do not go back of Tertiary time, while some are so recent as probably to come within the historic period--within three or four centuries. The strata of the plateau country are remarkable for their homogeneity, when considered with reference to their horizontal extensions; hardly less so for their diversity when considered in their vertical relation. Although the groups differ radically from each other, still each preserves its characteristics with singularly slight degrees of variation from place to place. Hence we have a certain amount of similarity and monotony in the landscape which is aided rather than diminished by the vegetation; for the vegetation, like the human occupants of this country, has come under its overpowering influence. The characteristic landscape consists of a wide expanse of featureless plains, bounded by far-off cliffs in gorgeous colors; in the foreground a soil of bright yellow or ashy gray; over all the most brilliant sunlight, while the distant features are softened by a blue haze. The most conspicuous formation of the whole region is a massive bright-red sandstone out of which have been carved "the most striking and typical features of those marvelous plateau landscapes which will be subjects of wonder and delight to all coming generations of men. The most superb canyons of the neighboring region, the Canyon de Chelly and the Del Muerto, the lofty pinnacles and towers of the San Juan country, the finest walls in the great upper chasms of the Colorado, are the vertical edges of this red sandstone." Of the climate of the plateau country it has been said that in the large valleys it is "temperate in winter and insufferable in summer; higher up the summers are temperate and the winters barely sufferable." It is as though there were two distinct regions covering the same area, for there are marked differences throughout, except in topographic configuration, between the lowlands and the uplands or high plateaus. The lowlands present an appearance which is barren and desolate in the extreme, although the soil is fertile and under irrigation yields good crops. Vegetation is limited to a scanty growth of grass during a small part of the year, with small areas here and there scantily covered by the prickly greasewood and at intervals by clumps of sagebrush; but even these prefer a higher level, and develop better on the neighboring mesas than in the valleys proper. The arborescent growth consists of sparsely distributed cottonwoods and willows, closely confined to the river bottoms. On intermediate higher levels junipers and cedars appear, often standing so closely together as to seriously impede travel, but they are confined to the tops of mesas and other high ground, the valleys being generally clear or covered with sagebrush. Still higher up yellow pines become abundant and in places spread out into magnificent forests, while in some mountain regions scrub oak, quaking asp, and even spruce trees are abundant. In the mountain regions there is often a reasonable amount of moisture, and some crops, potatoes for example, are grown there without irrigation; but the season is short. In the Tunicha mountains the Navaho raise corn at an altitude of nearly 8,000 feet, but they often lose the crop from drought or from frost. On the intermediate levels and in the lowlands cultivation by modern methods is practically impossible without irrigation, except in a few favored localities, where a crop can be obtained perhaps two years or three years in five. But with a minute knowledge of the climatic conditions, and with methods adapted to meet these conditions, scanty crops can be and are raised by the Indians without irrigation throughout the whole region; but everywhere that water can be applied the product of the soil is increased many fold. Near the center of the plateau country, in the northeastern corner of Arizona, a range of mountains crosses diagonally from northwest to southeast, extending into New Mexico. In the north an irregular cluster of considerable size, separated from the remainder of the range, is called the Carrizo; and the range proper has no less than three names applied to different parts of it. The northern end is known as the Lukachukai, the central part as the Tunicha, and the southern part as the Chuska or Choiskai mountains, all Navaho names. The two former clusters attain an altitude of 9,500 feet; the Tunicha and the Chuska are about 9,000 feet high, the latter having a flat top of considerable area. On the east these mountains break down rather abruptly into the broad valley of the Chaco river, or the Chaco wash, as it is more commonly designated; on the west they break down gradually, through a series of slopes and mesas, into the Chin Lee valley. Canyon de Chelly has been cut in the western slope by a series of small streams, which, rising near the crest of the mountain, combine near its head and flow in a general westerly direction. The mouth of the canyon is on the eastern border of the Chin Lee valley. It is 60 miles south of the Utah boundary and 25 miles west of that of New Mexico; hence it is 60 miles east and a little north from the old province of Tusayan, the modern Moki, and 85 miles northwest from the old province of Cibola, the modern Zuñi. Its position is almost in the heart of the ancient pueblo region; the Chaco ruins lie about 80 miles east, and the ruins of the San Juan from 60 to 80 miles north and northeast. [Illustration: Plate XLII Map of Canyon De Chelly and Its Branches Surveyed by Cosmos Mindeleff] The geographic position of Canyon de Chelly has had an important effect on its history, forming as it does an available resting place in any migratory movement either on the north and south line or east and west. The Tunicha mountains are a serious obstacle to north and south movement at the present day, but less so than the arid valleys which border them. Except at one place, and that place is difficult, it is almost impossible to cross the mountains with a wheeled vehicle, but there are innumerable trails running in all directions, and these trails are in constant use by the Navaho, except in the depths of winter. The mountain route is preferable, however, to the valley roads, where the traveler for several days is without wood, with very little water and forage, and his movements are impeded by deep sand. To the traveler on foot, or even on horseback, Canyon de Chelly is easily accessible from almost any direction. Good trails run northward to the San Juan and northeastward over the Tunicha mountains to the upper part of that river; Fort Defiance is but half a day's journey to the southeast; Tusayan and Zuñi are but three days distant to the traveler on foot; the Navaho often ride the distance in a day or a day and a half. The canyon is accessible to wagons, however, only at its mouth. The main canyon, shown on the map (plate XLII) as Canyon de Chelly and known to the Navaho as Tsé-gi, is about 20 miles long. It heads near Washington pass, within a few miles of the crest of the mountain, and extends almost due west to the Chin Lee valley. The country descends by a regular slope from an altitude of about 7,500 feet at the foot of the main crest to about 5,200 feet in the Chin Lee valley, 25 miles west, and is so much cut up locally by ravines and washes that it is impassable to wagons, but it preserves throughout its mesa-like character. About 3 miles from its mouth De Chelly is joined by another canyon almost as long, which, heading also in the Tunicha mountains, comes in from the northeast. It is over 15 miles long, and is called on the map Canyon del Muerto; the Navaho know it as Én-a-tsé-gi. About 13 miles above the mouth of the main canyon a small branch comes in from the southeast. It is about 10 miles long, and has been called Monument canyon, on account of the number of upright natural pinnacles of rock in it. In addition to those named there are innumerable small branches, ranging in size from deep coves to real canyons a mile or two long. Outside of De Chelly, and independent of it, there is a little canyon about 4 miles long, called Tse-on-i-tso-si by the Navaho. At one point near its head it approaches so near to De Chelly that but a few feet of rock separate them. On the western side of the mountains there are a number of small perennial streams fed by springs on the upper slopes. Several of these meet in the upper part of De Chelly, others in Del Muerto, and in the upper parts of these canyons there is generally water. But, except at the time of the autumn and winter rains and in the spring when the mountain snows are melting, the streams are not powerful enough to carry the water to the mouth of the canyon. The flow is absorbed by the deep sand which forms the stream bed. Ordinarily it is difficult to procure enough water to drink less than 8 or 10 miles from the mouth of De Chelly, but occasionally the whole stream bed, at places over a quarter of a mile wide, is occupied by a raging torrent impassable to man or beast. Such ebullitions, however, seldom last more than a few hours. Usually water can be obtained anywhere in the bottom by sinking a shallow well in the sand, and it is by this method that the Navaho, the present occupants of the canyon, obtain their supply. The walls of the canyon are composed of brilliant red sandstone, discolored everywhere by long streaks of black and gray coming from above. At its mouth it is about 500 feet wide. Higher up the walls sometimes approach to 300 feet of each other, elsewhere broadening out to half a mile or more; but everywhere the wall line is tortuous and crooked in the extreme, and, while the general direction of De Chelly is east and west, the traveler on the trail which runs through it is as often headed north or south. Del Muerto is even more tortuous than De Chelly, and in places it is so narrow that one could almost throw a stone across it. At its mouth the walls of Canyon de Chelly are but 20 to 30 feet high, descending vertically to a wide bed of loose white sand, and absolutely free from talus or débris. Three miles above Del Muerto comes in, but its mouth is so narrow it appears like an alcove and might easily be overlooked. Here the walls are over 200 feet high, but the rise is so gradual that it is impossible to appreciate its amount. At the point where Monument canyon comes in, 13 miles above the mouth of De Chelly, the walls reach a height of over 800 feet, about one-third of which consists of talus. The rise in the height of the walls is so gradual that when the canyon is entered at its mouth the mental scale by which we estimate distances and magnitudes is lost and the wildest conjectures result. We fail at first to realize the stupendous scale on which the work was done, and when we do finally realize it we swing to the opposite side and exaggerate. At the junction of Monument canyon there is a beautiful rock pinnacle or needle standing out clear from the cliff and not more than 165 feet on the ground. It has been named, in conjunction with a somewhat similar pinnacle on the other side of the canyon, "The Captains," and its height has been variously estimated at from 1,200 to 2,500 feet. It is less than 800. A curious illustration of the effects of the scenery in connection with this pinnacle may not be amiss. The author of Western Wilds (Cincinnati, 1878) thus describes it: But the most remarkable and unaccountable feature of the locality is where the canyons meet. There stands out 100 feet from the point, entirely isolated, a vast leaning rock tower at least 1,200 feet high and not over 200 thick at the base, as if it had originally been the sharp termination of the cliff and been broken off and shoved farther out. It almost seems that one must be mistaken; that it must have some connection with the cliff, until one goes around it and finds it 100 feet or more from the former. It leans at an angle from the perpendicular of at least 15 degrees; and lying down at the base on the under side, by the best sighting I could make, it seemed to me that the opposite upper edge was directly over me--that is to say, mechanically speaking, its center of gravity barely falls with the base, and a heave of only a yard or two more would cause it to topple over. (Page 257.) The dimensions have already been given. The pinnacle is perfectly plumb. The rock of which the canyon walls are formed is a massive sandstone in which the lines of bedding are almost completely obliterated. It is rather soft in texture, and has been carved by atmospheric erosion into grotesque and sometimes beautiful forms. In places great blocks have fallen off, leaving smooth vertical surfaces, extending sometimes from the top nearly to the stream bed, 400 feet or more in height and as much in breadth. In the lower parts of the canyons the walls, sometimes of the character described, sometimes with the surfaces and angles smoothed by the flying sand, are generally vertical and often overhang, descending sheer to the canyon bottom without talus or intervening slopes of débris. The talus, where there is any, is slight and consists of massive sandstone of the same character as the walls, but much rounded by atmospheric erosion. The enlarged map (plate XLIII) shows something of this character. Near its mouth the whole bottom of the canyon consists of an even stretch of white sand extending from cliff to cliff. A little higher up there are small areas of alluvium, or bottom land, in recesses and coves in the walls and generally only a foot or two above the stream bed. Still higher up these areas become more abundant and of greater extent, forming regular benches or terraces, generally well raised above the stream bed. At the Casa Blanca ruin, 7 miles up the canyon, the bench is 8 or 10 feet above the stream. Each little branch canyon and deep cove in the cliffs is fronted by a more or less extended area of this cultivable bottom land. Ten miles up the talus has become a prominent feature. It consists of broken rock, sand, and soil, generally overlying a slope of massive sandstone, such as has been described, and which occasionally crops out on the surface. With the development of the talus the area of bottom land dwindles, and the former encroaches more and more until a little above the junction of Monument canyon the bottom land is limited to narrow strips and small patches here and there. These bottom lands are the cultivable areas of the canyon bottom, and their occurrence and distribution have dictated the location of the villages now in ruins. They are also the sites of all the Navaho settlements in the canyon. The Navaho hogans are generally placed directly on the bottoms; the ruins are always so located as to overlook them. Only a very small proportion of the available land is utilized by the Navaho, and not all of it was used by the old village builders. The Navaho sites, as a whole, are far superior to the village sites. The horticultural conditions here, while essentially the same as those of the whole pueblo region, present some peculiar features. Except for a few modern examples there are no traces of irrigating works, and the Navaho work can not be regarded as a success. The village builders probably did not require irrigation for the successful cultivation of their crops, and under the ordinary Indian methods of planting and cultivation a failure to harvest a good crop was probably rare. After the Harvest season it is the practice of the Navaho to abandon the canyon for the winter, driving their flocks and carrying the season's produce to more open localities in the neighboring valleys. The canyon is not a desirable place of residence in the winter to a people who live in the saddle and have large flocks of sheep and goats, but there is no evidence that the old inhabitants followed the Navaho practice. During most of the year there is no water in the lower 10 miles of the canyons, where most of the cultivable land is situated. The autumn rains in the mountains, which occur late in July or early in August, sometimes send down a little stream, which, however, generally lasts but a few days and fails to reach the mouth of the canyon. Late in October, or early in November, a small amount comes down and is fairly permanent through the winter and spring. The stream bed is even more tortuous than the canyon it occupies, often washing the cliffs on one side, then passing directly across the bottom and returning again to the same side, the stream bed being many times wider than the stream, which constantly shifts its channel. In December it becomes very cold and so much of the stream is in shade during a large part of the day that much of the water becomes frozen and, as it were, held in place. In the warm parts of the day, and in the sunshine, the ice is melted, the stream resumes its flow, and so gradually pushes its way farther and farther down the canyon. But some sections, less exposed to warmth than others, retain their ice during the day. These points are flooded by the water from above, which is again frozen during the night and again flooded the next day, and so on. In a short time great fields of smooth ice are formed, which render travel on horseback very difficult and even dangerous. This, and the scant grazing afforded by the bottom lands in winter, doubtless is the cause of the annual migration of the Navaho; but these conditions would not materially affect a people living in the canyon who did not possess or were but scantily supplied with horses and sheep. The stream when it is flowing is seldom more than a foot deep, generally only a few inches, except in times of flood, when it becomes a raging torrent, carrying everything before it. Hence irrigation would be impracticable, even if its principles were known, nor is it essential here to successful horticulture. One of the characteristic features of the canyons at the present day is the immense number of peach trees within them. Wherever there is a favorable site, in some sheltered cove or little branch canyon, there is a clump of peach trees, in some instances perhaps as many as 1,000 in one "orchard." When the peaches ripen, hundreds and even thousands of Navaho flock to the place, coming from all over the reservation, like an immense flock of vultures, and with disastrous results to the food supply. A few months after it is difficult to procure even a handful of dried fruit. The peach trees are, of course, modern. They were introduced into this country originally by the Spanish monks, but in De Chelly there are not more than two or three trees which are older than the last Navaho war. At that time, it is said, the soldiers cut down every peach tree they could find. But, aside from the peaches, De Chelly was until recently the great agricultural center of the Navaho tribe, and large quantities of corn, melons, pumpkins, beans, etc, were and are raised there every year. Under modern conditions many other localities now vie with it, and some surpass it in output of agricultural products, but not many years ago De Chelly was regarded as the place par excellence. It will be clear, therefore, that prior to very recent times De Chelly would be selected by almost any tribe moving across the country, and, barring a hostile prior occupancy, would be the most desirable place for the pursuit of horticultural operations for many miles in any direction. The vicinity of the Tunicha mountains, which could be reached in half a day from any part of the canyons, and which must have abounded in game, for even now some is found there, would be a material advantage. The position of the canyon in the heart of the plateau country and of the ancient pueblo region would make it a natural stopping place during any migratory movement either north and south or east and west, and its settlement was doubtless due to this favorable position and to the natural advantages it offered. This settlement was effected probably not by one band or tribe, nor at one time, but by many bands at many times. Probably the first settlements were very old; certainly the last were very recent. CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTIONS RUINS OF THE PUEBLO REGION No satisfactory general classification of the ruins of the ancient pueblo region has yet been made; possibly because the material in hand is not sufficiently abundant. There are thousands of ruins scattered over the southwest, of many different types which merge more or less into each other. In 1884 Mr A. F. Bandelier, whose knowledge of the archeology of the southwest is very extensive, formulated a classification, and in 1892, in his final report,[11] he announces that he has nothing to change in it. The classification is as follows: I. Large communal houses several stories high. (_a_) Composed of one or two, seldom three, extensive buildings, generally so disposed as to surround an interior court. (_b_) Polygonal pueblos. (_c_) Scattered pueblos, composed of a number of large many-storied houses, disposed in a more or less irregular manner; sometimes in irregular squares or on a line. (_d_) Artificial caves, resembling in number, size, and disposition of the cells the many-storied communal dwelling. (_e_) Many-storied dwellings, with artificial walls, erected inside of natural caves of great size. II. Detached family dwellings, either isolated or in groups forming villages. [Footnote 11: Arch. Inst. of America, 5th Ann. Rept., p. 55; and Arch. Inst. of America, Papers, American series, IV, p. 27.] Many hundreds of ruins have been examined by Mr Bandelier, and doubtless the classification above afforded a convenient working basis for the region with which he is most familiar, the basin of the Rio Grande and its tributaries. It does not apply very well to the western part of the pueblo region. The distinguishing characteristics of the first group (of five classes)--houses several stories high--are as follows: Each building consisted of an agglomeration of a great number of small cells, without any larger halls of particularly striking dimensions. All the buildings, except outhouses or additions, were at least two stories high, and the lower story was entered only from the roof. The various stories receded from the bottom to the top. The prevalence of the estufa (kiva) generally, or often, circular in form. Ruins of class II--detached family dwellings--consist sometimes of a single room; more often of several rooms. The rooms are generally built of stone, although examples constructed of mud and adobe are also found in certain regions. The average size of the room is larger than in the communal building, and there is a gradual increase in size of rooms from north to south. There are front doorways and light and air holes are larger than in the communal houses. Mr Bandolier suggests that the detached family dwelling was the early type, and that only when enemies began to threaten were the communal houses resorted to for purposes of defense. This classification is apparently based on external form alone, without taking into account the numerous influences which modify or produce form; and while no doubt it was sufficient for field use, it is not likely to be permanently adopted; for there does not appear to be any essential or radical difference between the various classes. Moreover, there does not appear to be any place in the scheme for the cliff ruins of the variety especially abundant in De Chelly and found in many other localities, unless indeed such ruins come under class II--detached family dwellings; yet this would imply precedence in time, and the ruins themselves will not permit such an inference. The essential uniformity of types which prevails over the immense area covered by the ancient pueblo ruins is a noteworthy feature, and any system of classification which does not take it into account must be considered as only tentative. What elements should be considered and what weight assigned to each in preparing a scheme of classification is yet to be determined, but probably one of the most important elements is the character of the site occupied, with reference to its convenience and defensibility. There are great differences in kind between the great valley pueblos, located without reference to defense and depending for security on their size and the number of their population, of which Zuñi and Taos are examples, and the villages which are located on high mesas and projecting tongues of rock; in other words, on defensive sites where reliance for security was placed on the character of the site occupied, such as the Tusayan villages of today. Within each of these classes there are varieties, and there are also secondary types which pertain sometimes to one, sometimes to the other, and sometimes to both. Such are the cliff ruins, the cavate lodges, and the single house remains. The unit of pueblo architecture is the single cell, and in its development the highest point reached is the aggregation of a great number of such cells into one or more clusters, either connected with or adjacent to each other. These cells were all the same, or essentially so; for while differentiation in use or function had been or was being developed at the time of the Spanish conquest, differentiation in form had not been reached. The kiva, of circular or rectangular shape, is a survival and not a development. Large aggregations of many cells into one cluster are the latest development of pueblo architecture. They were immediately preceded by a type composed of a larger number of smaller villages, located on sites selected with reference to their ease of defense, and apparently the change from the latter to the former type was made at one step, without developing any intermediate forms. The differences between the largest examples of villages on defensive sites and the smallest appear to be only differences of size. Doubtless in the early days of pueblo architecture small settlements were the rule. Probably these settlements were located in the valleys, on sites most convenient for horticulture, each gens occupying its own village. Incursions by neighboring wild tribes, or by hostile neighbors, and constant annoyance and loss at their hands, gradually compelled the removal of these little villages to sites more easily defended, and also forced the aggregation of various related gentes into one group or village. At a still later period the same motive, considerably emphasized perhaps, compelled a further removal to even more difficult sites. The Tusayan villages at the time of the Spanish discovery were located on the foothills of the mesas, and many pueblo villages at that period occupied similar sites. Actuated by fear of the Ute and Comanche, and perhaps of the Spaniards, the inhabitants soon after moved to the top of the mesa, where they now are. Many villages stopped at this stage. Some were in this stage at the time of the discovery--Acoma, for example. Finally, whole villages whose inhabitants spoke the same language combined to form one larger village, which, depending now on size and numbers for defense, was again located on a site convenient for horticulture. The process sketched above was by no means continuous. The population was in slow but practically constant movement, much the same as that now taking place in the Zuñi country; it was a slow migration. Outlying settlements were established at points convenient to cultivable fields, and probably were intended to be occupied only during the summer. Sometimes these temporary sites might be found more convenient than that of the parent village, and it would gradually come about that some of the inhabitants would remain there all the year. Eventually the temporary settlement might outgrow the parent, and would in turn put out other temporary settlements. This process would be possible only during prolonged periods of peace, but it is known to have taken place in several regions. Necessarily hundreds of small settlements, ranging in size from one room to a great many, would be established, and as the population moved onward would be abandoned, without ever developing into regular villages occupied all the year. It is believed that many of the single house remains of Mr Bandelier's classification[12] belong to this type, as do also many cavate lodges, and in the present paper it will be shown that some at least of the cliff ruins belong to the same category. [Footnote 12: See a paper by the author on "Aboriginal remains in Verde valley, Arizona," in 13th Ann. Rept. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 179 et seq.] The cliff ruins are a striking feature, and the ordinary traveler is apt to overlook the more important ruins which sometimes, if not generally, are associated with them. The study of the ruins in Canyon de Chelly has led to the conclusion that the cliff ruins there are generally subordinate structures, connected with and inhabited at the same time as a number of larger home villages located on the canyon bottom, and occupying much the same relation to the latter that Moen-kapi does to Oraibi, or that Nutria, Pescado, and Ojo Caliente do to Zuñi; and that they are the functional analogues of the "watch towers" of the San Juan and of Zuñi, and the brush shelters or "kisis" of Tusayan: in other words, they were horticultural outlooks occupied only during the farming season. Mr G. Nordenskiöld, who examined a number of cliff and other ruins in the Mancos canyon and the Mesa Verde region, adopts[13] a very simple classification, as follows: I. Ruins in the valleys, on the plains, or on the plateaus. II. Ruins in caves in the walls of the canyons, subdivided as follows: (a) Cave dwellings, or caves inhabited without the erection of any buildings within them. (b) Cliff dwellings, or buildings erected in caves. [Footnote 13: The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, pp. 9 and 114.] From its topographic character it might be expected that the Canyon de Chelly ruins would hardly come within a scheme of classification based upon those found in the open country; and here, if anywhere, we should find corroboration of the old idea that the cliff ruins were the homes and last refuge of a race harassed by powerful enemies and finally driven to the construction of dwellings in inaccessible cliffs, where a last ineffectual stand was made against their foes; or the more recent theory that they represent an early stage in the development of pueblo architecture, when the pueblo builders were few in number and surrounded by numerous enemies. Neither of these theories are in accord with the facts of observation. The still later idea that the cliff dwellings were used as places of refuge by various pueblo tribes who, when the occasion for such use was passed, returned to their original homes, or to others constructed like them, may explain some of the cliff ruins, but if applicable at all to those of De Chelly, it applies only to a small number of them. [Illustration: Plate XLIII Detailed Map of Part of Canyon De Chelly Showing Areas of Cultivatable Land] The ruins of De Chelly show unmistakably several periods of occupancy, extending over considerable time and each fairly complete. They fall easily into the classification previously suggested, and exhibit various types, but the earliest and the latest forms are not found. In the descriptions which follow the classification below has been employed: I--Old villages on open sites. II--Home villages on bottom lands. III--Home villages located for defense. IV--Cliff outlooks or farming shelters. I--OLD VILLAGES ON OPEN SITES In the upper part of the canyon, and extending into what we may call the middle region, there are a number of ruins that seem to be out of place in this locality. They are exactly similar to hundreds of ruins found in the open country; such, for example, as the older villages of Tusayan, located on low foothills at the foot of the mesa, and the peculiar topographic characteristics of the location have not made the slightest impression on them. These ruins are located on gentle slopes, the foothills of the talus, as it were, away from the cliffs, and are now marked only by scattered fragments of building stone and broken pottery. The ground plans are in all cases indistinguishable; in only a few instances can even a short wall line be traced. They seem to have been located without special reference to large areas of cultivable land, although they always command small areas of such land. There is a remarkable uniformity in ruins of this type in character of site occupied, outlook, and general appearance. They are always close to the stream bed, seldom more than 10 or 12 feet above it, and the sites were chosen apparently without any reference to their defensibility. A typical example occurs at the point marked 60 on the detailed map (plate XLIII), another occurs at 58, and another at 52. One of the largest examples is in the lower part of the canyon. At the junction of Del Muerto there is a large mass of rock standing out alone and extending nearly to the full height of the canyon walls. On the south it is connected with the main wall back of it by a low tongue of rock, sparsely covered in places by soil and sand, and on the top of this tongue or saddle there is a large ruin of the type described, but no ground plan can now be made out. Possibly the obliterated appearance of this ruin and of others of the same class is due to the use of the material, ready to hand and of the proper size, in later structures. It is known that a similar appearance was produced in Tusayan by such a cause. The old village of Walpi, on a foothill below the mesa point and the site of the village at the time of the Spanish conquest, presents an appearance of great antiquity, although it was partly occupied so late as fifty years ago. When the movement to the summit of the mesa became general, the material of the old houses was utilized in the construction of the new ones, and at the present day it can almost be said that not one stone remains above another. So complete is the obliteration that no ground plan can be made out. If similar conditions prevailed in De Chelly, there might be many more ruins of this class than those so far discovered. Even those found are not easily distinguished and might easily be passed over. Possibly there were small ruins of this type scattered over the whole canyon bottom. An example which occurs at the point marked 12 on the map, and shown in plate XLIV, presents no trace on the surface except some potsherds, which in this locality mean nothing. The site is a low hill or end of a slope, the top of which is perhaps 25 feet above the stream bed, but separated from it by a belt of recent alluvium carpeted with grass. The hill itself was formed of talus, covered with alluvium, all but a small portion of which was subsequently cut away, leaving an almost vertical face 15 or 18 feet high. In this face the ends or vertical sections of several walls can be seen; one of them is nearly 3 feet thick and extends 4 feet below the present ground surface. The filling of these ruins to a depth of 4 or 5 feet and the almost complete absence of surface remains or indications does not necessarily imply a remote antiquity, although it suggests it. During the fall and early winter months tremendous sand storms rage in the canyon; the wind sweeps through the gorge with an almost irresistible power, carrying with it such immense quantities of sand that objects a few hundred feet distant can not be distinguished. These sand storms were and are potent factors in producing the picturesque features of the red cliffs forming the canyon walls; but they are constructive as well as destructive, and cavities and hollow places in exposed situations such as the canyon bottom are soon filled up. The stream itself is also a powerful agent of destruction and construction; during flood periods banks of sand and alluvium are often cut away and sometimes others are formed. Yet there are reasons for believing that the old village ruins on open sites, now almost obliterated, mark the first period in the occupancy of the canyon, perhaps even a period distinctly separated from the others. Excavation on these sites would probably yield valuable results. II--HOME VILLAGES ON BOTTOM LANDS Ruins comprised in the second class are located on the bottom lands, generally at the base of a cliff, and without reference to the defensibility of the site. They are, as a rule, much broken down, and might perhaps be classed with the ruins already described, but there are some distinctive features which justify us in separating them. Ruins of this class are always located either at the base of a cliff or in a cove under it, on the level or raised but slightly above the bottom land, and sometimes at a considerable distance from the stream. The ground plans can generally be distinguished, and in many instances walls are still standing--sometimes to a height of three stories. The ground plans reflect more or less the character of the site they occupy, and we would be as much surprised to find plans of their character in the open country as we are to see plans of class I within the canyon. Unlike the ground plans of class I, those of this group were laid out with direct reference to the cliff behind them, and which formed, as it were, a part of them. [Illustration: Plate XLIV Section of Old Walls, Canyon De Chelly] In point of size, long period of occupancy, and position these villages were the most important in the canyon. The ruins often cover considerable areas and almost invariably show the remains of one or more circular kivas. Sometimes they are located directly upon the bottom land, more often they occupy low swells next the cliff, rising perhaps 10 feet above the general level and affording a fine view over it. Sometimes they are found in alcoves at the base of the cliff, but they always rest on the bottom land which extends into them; these merge insensibly into the next class--village ruins on defensible sites--and the distinction between them is partly an arbitrary one, as is also that between the last mentioned and the cliff ruins proper. [Illustration: Fig. 1--Ground plan of an old ruin in Canyon del Muerto.] Figure 1 is a ground plan of a small ruin located in Del Muerto, on the bottom lands near its mouth. No standing walls now remain, but there is no doubt that the village at one time covered much more ground than that shown on the plan. There are now remains of sixteen rooms on the ground, in addition to two kivas. There is a shallow alcove in the cliff at the ground level, and the overhanging cliff gave the village some protection overhead. Plate XLV shows another example in Del Muerto, the largest in that canyon. The walls are still standing to a height of three stories in one place, and the masonry is of high class. The back cliff has not entered into the plan here to the same extent that it generally does. Figure 2, a ground plan, exhibits only that portion of the area of the ruin on which walls are still standing. It shows about 20 rooms on the ground, exclusive of three or perhaps four kivas. The rooms are small as a rule, rectangular, and arranged with a more than ordinary degree of regularity. One room still carries its roof intact, as shown on the plan. In the center of the ruin are the remains of a very large kiva, over 36 feet in diameter. It is now so much broken down that but little can be inferred as to its former condition, except that there was probably no interior bench, as no remains of such a structure can now be distinguished. The size of this kiva is exceptional, and it is very probable that it was never roofed. The structures within the kiva, shown on the ground plan, are Navaho burial cists. West of the large kiva there were two others, less than 20 feet in diameter. One of these was circular; the other was irregular in shape, perhaps more nearly approaching an oval form. At no fewer than five places within the ruin there are comparatively recent Navaho burials. [Illustration: Fig. 2--Ground plan of a ruin on bottom land in Canyon del Muerto.] [Illustration: Fig. 3--Ground plan of a small ruin in Canyon de Chelly.] Figure 3 is a ground plan of a small and very compact village, situated on the south side of the canyon at the point marked 28 on the detailed map. It is located on a slightly raised part of the bottom, commanding an outlook over a large area now under cultivation by the Navaho. The wall lines are remarkably, although not perfectly, regular, and show at least 25 rooms; there were probably others to the northward and eastward. The rooms are now almost filled with débris, but two of them are still intact, being kept in order by the Navaho and used for the storage of corn. The roofs of both these rooms are now on the ground level. The covered room nearest the cliff, shown on the plan, has been divided into two small compartments by a wall through the middle; access to each of these is obtained by a framed trapdoor in the roof about a foot square. This dividing wall is probably of Navaho origin, as the separate rooms formed by it are too small for habitation and the masonry is very rough. A short distance to the north along the cliff there is a Navaho house, roughly rectangular in plan, which was constructed of stone obtained from this site. The masonry of the ruin presents a very good face, not due to chinking, however, which was but slightly practiced, but to the careful selection of material. Some of the stones show surface pecking. [Illustration: Plate XLV General View of Ruin on Bottom Land, Canyon Del Muerto] About 300 feet above or southeast of this ruin there are the remains of two small rooms which were placed against the cliff. They are of the same general character as those described, and doubtless formed part of the same settlement. Between the two occurs a curious feature. A large slab of rock, 280 feet long and not more than 12 feet thick at any point, has split off from the cliff and dropped down to the ground, where it remains on edge. This slab is triangular in elevation and about 50 feet high at the apex. Between it and the cliff, in the upper part, there is a space from 2 to 2½ feet wide. This is easily accessible from the north, on the edge of the slab, and can be reached from the southern end, but with much difficulty. Figure 4 shows this feature and its relation to the ruin. There is no doubt that this was a granary or huge storage bin, and probably the two rooms on the south were placed there to guard that end; the northern end, of more easy access, being protected by the village itself. It was well adapted to this purpose--a fact that the Navaho have not been slow to appreciate. They have constructed small bins near the northern end, shown on the plan, and beyond this timbers have been wedged in so as to furnish a means of closing the cleft. In the cleft itself cross walls have been constructed, dividing it into several compartments. The interior forms a convenient dry, airy space, and at the time it was visited the floor was covered with a litter of cornhusks. [Illustration: Fig. 4--Granary in the rocks, connected with a ruin.] Almost directly opposite this ruin, on the other side of the canyon, are the remains of a village that might properly be called a cave village. At this point a large rock stands out from the cliff and in it there is a cavity shaped almost like a quarter sphere. Its greatest diameter is 45 feet and its height about 20 feet. The bottom land here is 10 or 12 feet above the stream bed and slopes up gradually toward the cliff, forming the bottom of the cave, which is perhaps 18 or 20 feet above the stream and some distance from it. The cave commands an extensive outlook over the cultivable lands below it and those extending up a branch canyon a little above. The whole bottom of the cave is covered by remains of rooms, shown in plan in figure 5. The population could not have been greater than 10 or 12 persons, yet the remains of two kivas are clearly shown. Both were in the front of the cave, adjoining but not connected with each other, and were about 12 feet in diameter. Both had interior benches, extending in one perhaps completely around, in the other only partly around. The rooms are very irregular in shape and in size, ranging from 8 by 10 feet to 3 by 4 feet, but the latter could be used only for storage. The masonry is not of fine grade, although good; but not much detail can be made out, as the place has been used as a sheepfold by the Navaho and the ground surface has been filled up and smoothed over. [Illustration: Fig. 5--Ground plan of a ruin in a cave.] The largest ruin in the canyons is that shown in plan in figure 6. It is situated in Del Muerto, on the canyon bottom at the base of a cliff, and is known to the Navaho as Pakashi-izini (the blue cow). The name was derived probably from a pictograph of a cow done in blue paint on the canyon wall back of the ruin. Traces of walls extend over a narrow belt against the cliffs about 400 feet long and not over 40 feet wide, and over this area many walls are still standing. Scattered over the site are a number of large bowlders. No attempt to remove these was made, but walls were carried over and under them, and in some cases the direction of a wall was modified to correspond with a face of a bowlder. The settlement may have consisted of two separate portions, divided by a row or cluster of large bowlders. The group shown on the right of the plan was very compactly built, in one place being four rooms deep, but no traces of a kiva can be seen in it, nor does there appear to be any place where a kiva could be built within the house area or immediately adjacent to it. At present 14 or 15 rooms may be traced on the ground and the whole structure may have comprised 30 rooms. The wall lines are not regular. In the western end of the structure there is a narrow passageway into a large room in the center. Such passageways, while often seen in the valley pueblos, are rare in these canyons. The three rooms to the south of the passageway appear to have been added after the rest of the structure was completed, and diminished in size regularly by a series of steps or insets in the northern or passage wall. [Illustration: Fig. 6--Ground plan of Pakashi-izini ruins, Canyon del Muerto.] The other portion of the ruin shows the remains of about 40 rooms on the ground, in addition to three kivas; there may have been 60 rooms in this part of the settlement, or 85 or 90 rooms altogether. The population could not have been over 55 or 60 persons, or about 12 families. In other words, it appears that, owing to the peculiarities of conditions under which they lived, and of the ground plan which resulted, the largest settlement of this class in the canyons, extending over 400 feet in one direction, provided homes for a very limited number of people. As it is probable that each family had one or more outlooks, occupied in connection with their horticultural operations, it will readily be seen that only a small number of inhabitants might leave a large number of house remains, and that it is not necessary to assume either a large population or a long period of occupancy. The kivas are clustered in the lower end of the settlement, and all appear to have been inclosed within walls or other buildings. Two of them are fairly well preserved; of the third only a fragment remains. The inclosure of the kivas is a suggestive feature, which will be discussed later, as will also the square shaft shown on the plan as attached to the principal kiva. It will be noticed that in several places where bowlders occur within the limits of the settlement they have been incorporated into the walls and form part of them. In two places they have altered the direction of walls and produced irregularities in the plan. Elsewhere the face of a rock has been prolonged by a wall carried out to continue it, as in the front wall of the principal kiva apartment. This apartment appears to have been entered from the west through a passageway. This is an anomalous feature and suggests modernness. [Illustration: Fig. 7--Ground plan of a ruin in Canyon del Muerto.] Figure 7 is a ground plan of another ruin in Del Muerto. There is a slight cove or bay in the cliff at the point where the ruin occurs, and the ground, which is on the level of the bottom lands, is strewn with large bowlders, as in the example last described. But few remains of walls are now observable, and there are traces of only one kiva. This was situated near the outer edge of the settlement. The wall lines are irregular and the disposition and size of the bowlders are such that it is improbable that this site was ever occupied by a large cluster of rooms. On the left of the plan will be seen a small room or storage cist still intact. At the point marked > in the center of the site a burial cist was found and excavated in 1884 by Mr Thomas V. Keam. It contained the remains of a child, almost perfectly desiccated. It is said that when the remains were first removed the color of the iris could be distinguished. The specimen was subsequently deposited in the National Museum. [Illustration: Fig. 8--Ground plan of a ruin in Tseonitsosi canyon.] A ruin which occurs in Tse-on-i-tso-si canyon, near the mouth of De Chelly, is shown in plan in figure 8. There were two kivas, one of which was benched. The number of rooms connected with them is remarkably small--there could not have been more than six, if there were that many--and the character of the site is such as to preclude the possibility of other rooms in the immediate vicinity. Some of the walls are still standing, and exhibit a fair degree of skill in masonry. [Illustration: Fig. 9--Ground plan of a much obliterated ruin.] A type of which there are many examples is shown in plan in figure 9. These ruins occur on the flat, next the cliff, which is seldom bayed and overhangs but slightly. They are usually so much obliterated that only careful scrutiny reveals the presence of wall lines, and walls standing to a height of 6 inches above the ground are rare. In the example illustrated no traces of a kiva can be found, but the almost complete destruction of the walls might account for this. There is every reason to suppose that these ruins are of the same class as those described above, the remains of home villages located without reference to defense, and no reason to suppose otherwise. They are probably instances where, owing to exposed situation, early abandonment, and possibly also proximity to later establishments, destruction has proceeded at a greater rate than in other examples. [Illustration: Fig. 10--Ground plan of a ruin in Canyon de Chelly.] Ruins of the class under discussion were not confined to any part of the canyons, but were located wherever the conditions were favorable. An example which occurs in the lower part of the canyon, at the point marked 3 on the map, is shown in plan in figure 10. It occurs at the back of a deep cove in a little branch canyon, and was at one time quite an extensive village. It was located on a slight slope or raised place next the cliffs and overhung by them. A stone dropped from the top of the cliffs would fall 45 or 50 feet out from their base. There are remains of three kivas. The central one, which was 12 feet in diameter, still shows nearly all its periphery, and the wall is in one place 3 feet high. The western kiva is now almost obliterated, but it can still be made out, and shows a diameter of 15 feet. It is 50 feet west of the central kiva and on a level about 8 feet below it, being only about 3 feet above the bottom land. East of the central kiva, and between it and a large bowlder, there was another, of which only a part now remains. North of the central kiva, and extending nearly to the cliff behind, there are remains of rooms. One corner is still standing to a height of 3 to 4 feet. The western wall was smoothly plastered outside and was pierced by a narrow notched doorway. The northern wall has an opening still intact, shown in plate LVIII; it is 2 feet high and 14 inches wide, with a lintel composed of six small sticks about an inch in diameter, laid side by side. The sticks are surmounted by a flat stone, very roughly shaped and separated from them by an inch of mud plaster or mortar. The masonry is exceptionally well executed, that of the northern wall being composed of large stones carefully chinked and rubbed down. The chinking appears to have been carried through in bands, producing a decorative effect, resembling some of the masonry of the Chaco ruins. The western wall is composed of larger stones laid up more roughly with less chinking, and appears to have been a later addition. On the back wall of the cave are marks of walls showing a number of additional rooms, and there is no doubt that at one time there was quite an extensive settlement here. Around the corner from the last example, as it were (at the point marked 4 on the map), and at the mouth of a little canyon that opens out from the head of the cove, the ruin shown in plate XLVI occurs. The village was located on the canyon bottom, in a shallow cove hardly 25 feet deep, but the view over the bottom is almost closed by a large sand dune, bare on top and but scantily covered on the sides with grass and weeds. Were it not for this dune, the site of the ruin would command one of the best areas of cultivable land in the canyon, but apparently an extensive outlook was not a desideratum. The slight elevation of the site above the level of the bottom lands is shown in the illustration. [Illustration: Plate XLVI Village Ruin in Canyon De Chelly] The village was not a large one, having been occupied probably by only two families, yet there are traces of two kivas. That on the west is so far obliterated that its outline can be made out only with difficulty. That on the east still shows a part of its wall to a height of about a foot. The plan, figure 11, shows the general arrangement. Some of the walls are still standing to a height of 2 or 3 feet, and at the eastern end of the ruin there is a room with walls 6 feet high. More than the usual amount of mud mortar was used in the construction of the walls of this room, and the interstices were filled with this, chinking with small stones being but slightly practiced. The masonry of the other walls is rougher, with even less chinking, and some of them show later additions which did not follow the main lines. The eastern room had two openings and the tops of the walls are apparently finished, for there are no marks of roof timbers. The room may have been roofless, but the same effect might have been produced by recent Navaho repairs and alterations. In the exterior wall, at the southeastern corner, there is a series of hand-holes, as though access to the interior were sometimes had in this way, but the hand-holes are later than the wall. On the back wall of the cove there are a number of pictographs. [Illustration: Fig. 11--Ground plan of a village ruin.] [Illustration: Fig. 12--Ground plan of kivas in Canyon de Chelly.] Just above the mouth of Del Muerto and on the opposite side of the main canyon, at the point marked 17 on the map, there was a village on the canyon bottom. It overlooked a fine stretch of cultivable land on both sides of the canyon. There is a large isolated mass of rock here, nearly as high as the cliffs on either side, and connected with those back of it by a slope of talus and débris, partly bare rock, partly covered with sand dunes. At the point where the ruin occurs the rock is bare and about 40 feet high, partly overhanging the site. The remains, shown in plan in figure 12, occupy the summit of a hill about 10 feet high, composed principally of débris of walls. Only a few faint traces now remain, but two kivas are still clearly distinguishable. The one on the south had an interior bench, which apparently extended around it. The other shows walls 2 feet high, and has been plastered with a number of successive coats. The small wall on the extreme right of the plan is composed of almost pure mud. There are a number of ruins in the canyons of the type shown in figure 13. They are generally located directly on the bottom, and seldom as much as 5 feet above it, within coves or under overhanging cliffs; they are always of small area, and generally so far obliterated that no walls or wall remains are now visible. The obliteration is due not so much to antiquity, which may or may not have been a cause, but to the character of the site they occupied. They are always in sheltered situations, and being on the canyon bottom are much used by the Navaho as sheepfolds and have been so used for years. Sometimes, although rarely, faint traces of kivas can be made out. [Illustration: Fig. 13--Ground plan of a small ruin on bottom land.] The example illustrated occurs at the point marked 43 on the map. It is situated in a cove in a point of rock jutting out from the main cliff. The rock is about 60 feet high and the cove about 30 feet deep, and the remains are but a few feet above the level of the bottom land outside. The walls are composed of rather small stones; the interstices were chinked with spawls, and the masonry was laid up with an abundance of mud mortar. The back wall of the cove is considerably blackened by smoke. One of the most striking and most important ruins in the canyon is shown in plan in figures 14 and 15. This is the ruin seen by Lieutenant Simpson in 1849 and subsequently called Casa Blanca. It is also known under the equivalent Navaho term, Kini-na e-kai or White House. The general character of the ruin is shown in plate XLVII, which is from a photograph. At first sight this ruin appears not to belong to this class, or rather to belong both to this class and the succeeding one composed of villages located with reference to defense; but, as will appear later, it has nothing in common with the latter. [Illustration: Plate XLVII Casa Blanca Ruin, Canyon De Chelly] In its present condition the ruin consists of two distinct parts--a lower part, comprising a large cluster of rooms on the bottom land against the vertical cliff, and an upper part which was much smaller and occupied a cave directly over the lower portion and was separated from it only by some 35 feet of vertical cliff. There is evidence, however, that some of the houses in the lower settlement were four stories high against the cliff, and in fact that the structures were practically continuous; but for convenience of description we may regard the ruin as composed of two. The lower ruin covers an area of about 150 by 50 feet, raised but a few feet above the bottom land, probably by its own debris. Within this area there are remains of 45 rooms on the ground, in addition to a circular kiva. On the east side there are walls still standing to a height of 12 and 14 feet. It is probable that the lower ruin comprised about 60 rooms, which, with a liberal allowance for the rooms in the cave, would make a total of 80. This would furnish accommodations for a maximum of 10 or 12 families or a total population of 50 or 60 persons. It is probable, however, that this estimate is excessive and that the total population at any one time did not exceed 30 or 40 persons. [Illustration: Fig. 14--Ground plan of the lower part of Casa Blanca ruin.] The ground plans shown are the result of a very careful survey, plotted on the ground on a large scale (10 feet to 1 inch--1:120), and the irregularities shown were carefully noted and put down at the time. These irregularities, which are commonly ignored in the preparation of plans of ruins, are of the highest importance. From them the sequence of construction can often be determined. [Illustration: Fig. 15--Ground plan of the upper part of Casa Blanca ruin.] The walls of the lower ruin are somewhat obscured by loose débris, of which a large amount is lying about. Roof débris is especially abundant; it consists of small twigs and lumps of clay, with ends of beams projecting here and there. The principal walls occur in the eastern part, where some of them are 2 feet thick and still standing to a height of 10 and 12 and in one place of 14 feet. An inspection of the plan will show that, as is invariably the case where a wall rises to a height of more than one story, the lower part is massive and the upper wall sets back 5 or 6 inches, reducing its thickness by that amount. All the heavy walls occur either about the kiva or east of it. Apparently these walls were built first especially heavy and massive, and afterward, when upper stories were added, it was not found necessary to carry them up the full thickness. It will be noticed that the wall extending eastward from the corner of the kiva, and which is from a foot to 6 feet high at the present time, extends through the heavy wall which crosses it 33 feet to the east, and is continuous to its termination about 50 feet east, against another heavy wall. The last-mentioned wall is also continuous from the cliff out to the front of the ruin, a distance of about 46 feet. The heavy walls of the lower ruin are immediately under the upper cave. Back of them the cliff presents an almost smooth face of rock, 35 feet high and slightly overhanging. On this rock face there are marks which show that formerly there were upper stories, the rooms of which are outlined upon it. The rock surface was coated in places with a thin wash of clay, doubtless to correspond with the other walls of the rooms, but this coating was necessarily omitted where the partition walls and roofs and floors abutted on the rock. This is shown in plate XLVII. Although the marks are now so faint as to be easily overlooked, at a certain hour in the day, when the light falls obliquely on the rock, they can be clearly made out. At a point about 50 feet east of the kiva the structure was three stories higher than it is now. The roof of the upper story was within 4 feet of the floor of the cave, and under the gap or gateway in front of the main room above. West of this point there are the marks of but two stories additional. Farther west the structure rose again, but not to the height attained on the east. The kiva was placed directly against the cliff. This is an unusual arrangement; but it will be noticed that the walls in front of it are of a different character from those on the east, and it is probable that when the kiva was built it opened to the air. The kiva is also anomalous in its construction. It presents the usual features of the inner circular chamber and an inclosing rectangular wall, but in this case the intermediate space was filled in solidly, and perhaps was so constructed. The kiva is still 6 feet deep inside, which must be nearly its maximum depth, and the roof was probably placed at a level not more than a foot or two above the present top. Whether the village was placed on a slight raise, or on the flat, level with the bottom land about it, and subsequently filled up with the debris of masonry, etc, can not be determined without excavation; but the top of the kiva is now 16 feet above the general level of the bottom land, and its bottom 10 feet above that level. It is possible that the kiva was much deeper than now appears, as no sign of the usual interior bench can be seen above the present ground surface, nor can any connection with the chimney-like structure to the south of it be determined, yet such connection must have existed. Probably not only this kiva but the whole ruin would well repay excavation. The interior of the kiva was not exactly circular, being a little elongated northeast and southwest. The inclosing wall on the east is still standing in one place to a height of 5 feet above the top of the kiva structure, and about a foot above that level is marked by a setback, which reduces its thickness. Apparently the upper part was added at a date some time subsequent to the completion of the kiva structure, as the wall on the south, now some 3 feet above the level mentioned, does not conform to the lower exterior wall on which it was placed. On the western side there is another fragment of the upper inclosing wall. Both this wall and the one on the south are less than 15 inches in thickness. West of the kiva there are remains of other stone walls which differ in character from those on the east. They are now usually less than 3 feet high; they were 12 to 15 inches thick, and the lines are very irregular. South of the kiva, in the center of the ruin, there are other stone walls even thinner and more irregularly placed than those on the west, but most of the walls here are of adobe. As the use of adobe blocks is not an aboriginal feature, the occurrence of these walls is a matter of much interest, especially as they are so intimately associated with the stonework that it is not always an easy matter to separate them. The occurrence and distribution of adobe walls is shown on the ground plan. They are not found as subordinate walls, dividing larger rooms, except perhaps in one instance; but apparently this method of construction was employed when it was desired to add new rooms to those already constructed. No room with walls constructed wholly of adobe can be made out, but walls of this character closing one side of a room are common, and rooms with two or even three sides of adobe are not uncommon. There are some instances in which part of a wall is stone and part adobe, and also instances in which the lower wall, complete in itself, is of stone, while the upper part, evidently a later addition, is of adobe; such, for example, is the cross wall in the eastern tier, about 30 feet from the cliff. The mere occurrence of adobe here is evidence of the occupancy of this site at a period subsequent to the sixteenth century--we might almost say subsequent to the middle of the seventeenth; but its occurrence in this way and in such intimate association with the stone walls indicates that the occupancy was continuous from a time prior to the introduction of adobe construction to a period some time subsequent to it. This hypothesis is supported by other evidence, which will appear later. Attention may here be directed to the fact that there are four chimney-like structures in the lower ruin, all of adobe, and all, except the one which pertains to the kiva, attached to adobe walls. On the western margin of the ruin, and nowhere else within it, there are traces of another kind of construction which was not found elsewhere within the canyon. This method is known to the Mexicans as "jacal," and much used by them. It consists of a row of sticks or thin poles set vertically in the ground and heavily plastered with mud. At present not one of these walls remains to a height of 6 inches above the ground, but the lines of poles broken off at the ground level are still visible. The ground at this point is but 3 or 4 feet above the general level of the bottom. The ground plan shows the occurrence of these wall remains on the western edge of the site. They are all outside of but attached to what was formerly the exterior wall on that side. There are remains of four Navaho burial cists in the lower ruin, at the points shown on the ground plan. These are constructed of stones and mud roughly put together in the ordinary manner, forming thin, rounded walls; but these can not be confounded with the other methods of construction described. Three of the cists have long been in ruins and broken down; the one on the east is but a few years old. Access to the upper ruin can now be had only with much difficulty. In the western end of the cave there is a single room placed on the cliff edge, and between this and the end of a wall to the right a small stick has been embedded in the masonry at a height of about 2 feet from the rock. The cliff here is vertical and affords no footing, but by throwing a rope over the stick a man can ascend hand over hand. During the period when the houses were occupied, access was had in another and much easier way, through a doorway or passageway nearly in the center of the ruin and directly over the point where the lower village was four stories high. The roof of the lower structure was less than 4 feet below the floor of the cave; yet there is no doubt that a doorway or passageway existed also at the western end of the cave, as the western end of the wall on the right of the stick is neatly finished and apparently complete. The principal room in the upper ruin is situated nearly in the center of the cave, and is the one that has given the whole ruin its name. The walls are 2 feet thick, constructed of stone, 12 feet high in front and 7 feet high on the sides and inside. The exterior was finished with a coat of whitewash, with a decorative band in yellow; hence the name of Casa Blanca or White House. West of the principal room there is a smaller one, which appears to be a later addition. The walls of this room are only 7 inches thick, of adobe on the sides and back and of small stones in front. The top of the wall is about 2 feet below the top of the wall on the east. The coat of whitewash and the yellow decorative band are continuous over both rooms, but the white coat was also applied to the exterior western wall of the main room. In the main room there is a series of small sticks, about half an inch in diameter, projecting 8 inches from the wall and on a line 3 or 4 inches under where the roof was. The small room in the eastern end of the cave was located on a kind of bench or upper level, and was constructed partly of stone and partly of adobe. The stone part is the upper portion of the eastern half. On the west there is a small opening or window, with an appliance for closing it. It is probable that this room was used only for storage. In the western end of the cave there is another single room, which is clearly shown in plate XLVII. The front wall is 11 feet high outside and 5 feet high inside. The lower portion is stone, the upper part and sides are adobe, and the side walls rest on nearly 2 feet of straw, ashes, etc. The buttress shown in the illustration is of stone and the front wall that it supports is slightly battened. A close inspection of the illustration will show that this wall rests partly on horizontal timber work, a feature which is repeated in several walls in the main cluster of the ruins. The use of timber laid horizontally under a wall is not uncommon, and as it will be discussed at greater length in another place, it may be dismissed here with the statement that as a rule it failed to accomplish the purpose intended. But the use of the buttress is an anomalous feature which it is difficult to believe was of aboriginal conception. Its occurrence in this ruin together with so many other unaboriginal features is suggestive. The walls of the principal room and of the rooms immediately in front of it are constructed of stone; all the other walls in the upper ruin are of adobe or have adobe in them. The two rooms on the east and two walls of the room adjoining on the west are wholly of adobe, about 7 inches thick and now 3 and 4 feet high. In the southeast corner of the second room from the east there is an opening through the front wall which may have been a drain. It is on the floor level, round, 5 inches in diameter, and smoothly plastered. In the fourth room from the east there is a similar hole. Both of these discharge on the edge of the cliff, and it is difficult to imagine their purpose unless they were expedients for draining the rooms; but this would imply that the rooms were not roofed. Although the cliff above is probably 500 feet high, and overhangs to the degree that a rock pushed over its edge falls 15 feet or more outside of the outermost wall remains, and over 70 feet from the foot of the cliff, still a driving storm of rain or snow would leave considerable quantities of water in the front rooms if they were not roofed, and some means would have to be provided to carry it off. In the same room, the fourth from the east, there are the remains of a chimney-like structure, the only one in the upper ruin. It is in the northeast corner, at a point where the wall has fallen and been replaced by a Navaho burial cist also fallen in ruin, and was constructed of stone. There is no doubt that it was added some time after the walls were built, as it has cracked off from the wall on the east, which shows at that point its original finish. In the eastern wall of this room there is a well-finished opening, and at the corresponding point in the wall of the room on the right, the third wall from the east, there is another. The latter wall is of adobe, or rather there are two adobe walls built side by side; one, the eastern, considerably thinner than the other. The opening extends through both walls; it was neatly finished and was closed by a thin slab of stone plastered in with mud. It has the appliance for closing mentioned above and described later (page 165). Most of the openings in the walls appear to have been closed up at the time the houses were abandoned. The front wall of the main room is 12 feet high in front and was stepped back 6 inches at half its height from the ground. The stepback is continued through the front wall of the small room on the west. Near the center of the main room there is a well-finished doorway, directly over the point where a cross wall in front of it comes in. This opening was originally a double-notched or T-shape doorway, but at a later period was filled up so as to leave only a rectangular orifice. The principal entrance to the upper ruin was in front of this opening and a little to the left of it. It will be noticed from an inspection of the plan that the room into which this entrance opened was divided at a point about 4 feet back from the cliff edge by a stone wall not more than half the thickness of the walls on either side of it. This cross wall is still 6 feet high on the side nearest the cliff, but there is no evidence of a doorway or opening through it. The back rooms must have been reached by a ladder in front, thence over the roof of the room. The cliff entrance was a narrow doorway left in the front wall. The ends of the walls on either side were smoothly finished, as in the western doorway. There are many lumps of clay scattered about on the ground, some showing impressions of small sticks. Apparently they are the debris of roofs. There are also some fragments of pottery, principally corrugated ware. The adobe walls in the upper ruin rest generally on rock, sometimes on ashes and loose debris; in the lower ruin they rest usually on stone foundations. The occurrence in this ruin of many features that are not aboriginal suggests that it was one of the last to be abandoned in the canyon, but there are certain features which make it seem probable that the upper portion continued to be inhabited for some time after the lower portion. The contrivance for closing openings is identical with examples found in the Mesa Verde region, and it is probable that an intimate connection between the two existed. III--HOME VILLAGES LOCATED FOR DEFENSE The distinction between home villages located on bottom lands absolutely without reference to the defensive value of the site, and other villages located on defensive sites, is to some extent an arbitrary one. The former, which are always located at the base of or under an overhanging cliff, sometimes occupy slightly raised ground which overlooks the adjacent land, and the latter are sometimes so slightly raised above the bottoms they overlook as hardly to come within the classification. Moreover, ruins in their present condition sometimes belong to both classes, as in the example last described. Yet a general distinction may be drawn between the classes, in that the former are generally located directly upon the bottom land and invariably without thought or regard to the defensive value of the site, while in the latter the effect of this requirement is always apparent. The class of ruins which has been designated as the remains of villages located for defense comprises all the most striking remains in the canyon, many of which may properly be termed cliff ruins. The characteristics of the class are: A site more or less difficult of access--generally an elaborate ground plan, although sometimes they consist of only a few rooms--and the invariable presence of the kiva or estufa, here always circular in form. The largest ruin of this class occurs in Del Muerto, and is known as Mummy Cave ruin. It is called by the Navajo Tse-i-ya-kin. It is situated in the upper part of the canyon, near the junction of a small branch, and has an extensive outlook. At a height of about 80 feet above the top of a gentle slope of earth and loose rock, and perhaps 300 feet above the stream bed, there are two coves in the rock, connected by a narrow bench. The western cove is about 100 feet across and its back is perhaps 75 feet from the front wall of the cliff. The eastern cove is over 200 feet across and perhaps 100 feet deep, while the connecting ledge is about 110 feet long. Ruins occur on the central ledge and on similar ledges in the back parts of both coves. The western or smaller cove is accessible only from the ledge, which in turn can be approached only from the eastern cove. The smaller cove had a row of little rooms across the back and there are traces of walls on the slope in front of these. Fourteen rooms can now be made out on the ground; altogether there may have been 20 rooms in this portion. Practically all the available space on the ledge was occupied by rooms, and 10, all of considerable size, can now be traced. The total number in this portion was 14 or 15. The eastern cove contained the largest part of the settlement. The back part is occupied by a ledge about 50 feet wide entirely covered by remains of walls. Some 44 rooms can now be made out on the ground, in addition to 3 or perhaps 4 circular kivas, and the whole number of rooms may have been 55. Assuming, then, that the various portions of the ruin were inhabited at the same time, we would have a total of 90 rooms; but, as many of them could be used only for storage, the population could not have been more than 60 persons. The rooms in the western cove are fairly uniform in size and were probably habitations, for they are all too large to be classed as storage rooms. There was no kiva in this portion, however, nor any unoccupied place where a kiva might have been placed. It seems clear, therefore, that this portion was either an appendage of the other or was occupied at a later period; in either case it was constructed at a date subsequent to the remains in the eastern cove. [Illustration: Plate XLVIII Mummy Cave, Central and Eastern Part] The intermediate ledge, which is about 110 feet long and about 30 feet wide, was practically all occupied by a row of seven rooms, some of them of more than one story. These rooms are exceptionally large--larger than any group of rooms in the canyon or in this part of the country. The outside or front wall is more than 20 feet from the cliff back of it, and the rooms are from 10 to 15 feet wide. Figure 16, which is a ground plan of the ruin, shows the exceptional size of these rooms. All of them were at least two stories high; some were three. The walls in this portion are generally 2 feet or more thick and exceptionally well constructed. Its eastern end is still standing to a height of three stories, and carries a roof intact, giving a tower-like effect to that portion. Originally this portion rose but one story above the other rooms. Throughout nearly all its length the front wall shows part of the upper story, which is also marked on the cliff wall by a thin wash of clay, in the same manner as in the Casa Blanca ruin. The two rooms west of the tower were surmounted by a single large room. The cliff wall is coated with a thin wash of yellowish clay, and no mark of a cross wall or partition can be seen upon it. There are no openings between the three eastern rooms on the ground floor. The first room to the west of the tower has a square chimney-like shaft, and a niche or alcove connected with it. The second room also has a niche and a rounded shaft. The third room has neither niche nor shaft. [Illustration: Fig. 16--Ground plan of Mummy Cave ruin.] The front wall was exceptionally heavy, but the upper portion has fallen inward, forming a heavy mass of debris against it. The east and south sides of the tower, for about 5 feet of its height, are decorated by inlaying small stones 1 to 2 inches long and half an inch thick. The same decoration occurs at intervals down the front wall, but irregularly. This feature is not chinking, such as has been described, and has no constructive value, but is purely decorative. Back of the rooms west of the tower there are some old pictographs on the cliff wall at the place where the roof abutted on it. Here the wash of clay before mentioned was necessarily omitted. In the first room there is a pictograph of a man, in the second a semicircle, both done in light-green paint. The lower part of the outer corner of the tower has fallen out. At this point there was a small doorway or opening, which was the only entrance on the south or east. The corner which has fallen was apparently supported by three or four sticks laid horizontally on the rock at an angle of 45 degrees with either wall. The giving way of the timber support apparently caused the fall of the corner, but why a structure otherwise so substantial should be placed on such frail support, when a filling of masonry was both easy and practicable, is not clear. The doorway mentioned is the only opening into the ground-floor room in the tower. Connection with the rooms on the west was through a large doorway in the western wall of the second story, and in the story above there was a similar opening. These are shown in plate XLVIII, which is a general view of the central portion of the eastern cove. The lintels of the openings in the central part are formed of round sticks, about 3 inches in diameter, matched, and bound together with withes. These withes may be seen in places where the mud plaster has fallen away. The stick lintels occur only in the central portion; the windows and doorways of the other portions of the ruin, some fine examples of which remain, are always finished with stone lintels and sometimes with stone jambs. A little east of the center of the front wall there is a large rock, or rather a pile of large rocks, near the outer edge of the ledge. This is shown in the illustration. Instead of removing this obstruction the wall was built under and over it. Near the western end of the front wall there is a large doorway or opening. Access to the western cove was along the narrow edge of the ledge under the front wall, thence through this doorway. The doorway gave entrance to a very narrow space, less than 4 feet square, surrounded by a heavy wall with a doorway through the left or western wall into the last apartment of the series. Through the western wall of this apartment a doorway opened on the end of the ledge and the western cove. This principal entrance is shown in plate XLVIII. Its size is exceptional, it being about 6 feet high. A little below the top there is a single stick across it, and a similar contrivance was found in place in the openings in the tower, but it does not occur in the opening in the cross wall. The same feature is found in the modern pueblos, where the stick forms the support of a blanket draped to close the opening. [Illustration: Plate XLIX Eastern Cove of Mummy Cave] A little east of the doorway in the front wall there is a small opening near the ground, through which can be seen what appears to be a roof. It is but 2 feet above the ground, however, and very roughly constructed. It consists of a layer of cedar logs; above this a layer of small sticks, and above this again slabs of stone and mud. It occurs under a narrow room or passage, shown on the plan, and seems to have been the floor of that room rather than a roof of a space below. Roofing or flooring beams project from the tower on three sides. They are all rounded and carefully selected or matched. Those of the lower story or first roof are 4½ inches in diameter, those of the story above about 3 inches, while those of the roof, which occur in pairs, are about 2½ inches. They all, except those of the lower story, project about 2 feet from the wall. All the beams are from 18 inches to 2 feet apart, and the roof is formed of canes or willow sticks less than half an inch in diameter laid very neatly in patterns. The work here is by far the best in any part of the canyon. The beams of the first floor are represented only by the ends which pass through the walls, the middle portion being gone. The cliff wall forming one side of the rooms in the tower was coated with a wash of yellowish clay to correspond with the other sides. It shows bare rock at the points where the floors abutted against it. The roof of the second story or middle room was 10 inches thick, and the marks are on the same level as those of the rooms over the west of the tower. There are also beam holes in the third story about 4 feet above its floor, but extending only from the cliff out to its opening. A singular feature occurs in the tower, which is difficult to explain. The upper part of the third-story room was coated in the interior with whitewash, which appears to have been carelessly applied. Small quantities struck the setback at the floor level and spattered over the wall below--that of the second-story room. In one case a considerable quantity of the whitewash struck the top of a beam in what would be the roof of the second story and scattered over the wall surface below it. It is therefore clear that at the time when the whitewash was applied, which was either at the time or subsequent to the habitation of the rooms, there was no floor to the third-story room nor roof to the second story. The stains of whitewash never go below the floor level of the second story. The house remains in the eastern cove are partly shown in plate XLIX, which is from a photograph. The point of view is from the ledge in front of the tower. The ruins rest on a ledge in the back of the cove formed of debris well compacted and apparently consisting partly of sheep dung. The rooms are small, sometimes three deep against the back of the cove, and many of them could only have been used for storage. The principal structure is the western kiva, with its chimney-like attachments. This is described at length on pages 177, 179, 186, and 187. Adjoining it on the east is another kiva, part of whose wall is still two stories high, and clearly shown in the illustration. Some 50 or 60 feet to the east or southeast there is another circular structure, which apparently had no interior bench. The small semicircular structure shown on the plan and in the illustration, which rests against and is roofed by the rock, is a Navaho burial cist, and another of these cists, of large size, occurs west of the principal kiva; but the ruin as a whole contains much less evidence of Navaho work than those farther down the canyon. Many of the walls are built entirely of small pieces of stone, not more than 3 or 4 inches long by 2 inches wide and half an inch to an inch and a half thick. This construction is especially noticeable in inner walls. The joints are carefully plastered, evidently with the hand, but the mud is seldom allowed to cover the stone. It appears to have been applied externally, in pellets about the size of a walnut. The general thickness of walls is about 15 inches, although on the intermediate ledge they are over 2 feet, but some of the less important walls consist of a single layer, 6 to 8 inches thick. Walls are sometimes seen here supported by vertical timbers incorporated in them after the manner later described at some length. Ends of logs project here and there from the debris on the slope, but probably many of them are the débris of roofs. The peculiar and anomalous features presented by the remains on the intermediate ledge seem to require some explanation. This portion of the ruin is not only different from the other portions, but different also from anything else in the canyon, and the difference is not one of degree only. Doubtless systematic excavation in the various parts of the ruin would afford an explanation. In the absence of such work we can only speculate on the problem. The occurrence of two chimney-like shafts in connection with the rectangular rooms west of the tower is significant. Nowhere else in the canyons, except in the Casa Blanca ruin, do these structures occur, so far as known, except in connection with circular kivas. As regards the ruin named, it is almost certain that it was occupied in the historic period, probably in the seventeenth century. The division of the ruin into three separate parts, the absence of kivas in the western cove, and the method of access to that portion all attract attention. If there were monks or other Spaniards in the settlement, the explanation would be plain; they and those of the natives allied with them would occupy the central ledge, and the anomalous features would be natural under the circumstances. Such a hypothesis would explain also the source of the many unaboriginal features which are found in other parts of the canyon, but there is no direct evidence to support it. It should be mentioned, however, that the walls here rest on about half an inch of substance which resembles compacted sheep dung. If the substance is really such, the walls must have been built within the historic period. [Illustration: Fig. 17--Ruin in a rock cove.] At the point marked 48 on the map there is a ruin which resembles somewhat in its location an example previously described (page 98). It is situated in a cove in a jutting point of rock, forming part of the talus slope, and is about 20 feet above the bottom, which it overlooks. Figure 17 shows the character of the site, and figure 18 is a ground plan. At the back of the cove a row of small rooms, five or six in number, was built against the rock. In front of these there were two kivas and perhaps other rooms. Only fragments of these now remain, but it can still be seen that both kivas had interior benches, and that the western one has been plastered with several successive coats--at least four. There are no pictographs on the back wall, and but little staining by smoke. The masonry is rather rough, consisting of large stones, pretty well chinked with small spawls. [Illustration: Fig. 18--Ground plan of a ruin in a rock cove.] Some of the walls were plastered. The western end of the ruin has been partially restored by the Navaho and used for burial cists, and other cists have been built on the site independent of the old walls, as shown on the plan. Figure 19 is a ground plan of a ruin on a ledge near the mouth of Del Muerto, at the point marked 15 on the map. It is situated at the back of a considerable bay, directly opposite a large rock at the mouth of Del Muerto, and overlooked the whole of the bottom land in the bay. The houses were built on a bench or ledge, about 30 feet wide, overhung by the cliff above and dropping down almost vertically to the bottom land, about 40 feet below, but on the east access to the bench was easy by a slope of talus extending up to it. The site was covered with bowlders, and walls have been built over and under them. The masonry is good, and was composed of larger stones than usual, carefully chinked with spalls, the work being well done. There were but 10 rooms on the ground, in addition to one circular kiva; some of these rooms are too small for habitation, and one of them appears to have been a rectangular kiva. On the same bench, about 100 feet westward, however, there are traces of other rooms, the walls of which were very thin. The cliffs back of the ruin and for 200 feet west of it are covered with pictographs in white and colors. [Illustration: Fig. 19--Ground plan of a ruin on a ledge.] Near the center of that portion of the ruin shown on the ground plan there is a large room which may have been a rectangular kiva. The walls are over 2 feet thick in the first story, diminishing at the roof level by a step or setback to the ordinary thickness of about a foot. These walls, as usual in such structures, were about 2 feet thick; they are slightly curved, the front wall markedly so, and the interior corners are well rounded. No reason for this curvature is apparent, and it is certainly not dictated by the occurrence of the rock over which the wall is built, as only the point of this rock comes through the wall in the western side of the front wall. There may have been an opening into the room through the eastern wall connecting it with the room on that side, as the masonry is there broken down; but this is doubtful, as the eastern room itself has no exterior opening. It is more probable that the large room was entered through the roof, for the thin wall of the second story shows in front one side of a well-finished doorway. Just outside of the heavy front wall there is a round hole in the ground, the remains of a vertical shaft connected with the interior of the room. The hole is about a foot in diameter, and is neatly plastered inside, and appears to have been a chimney or a chimney-like structure such as occur in connection with the kivas in other ruins. It will later be discussed in detail. The circular kiva occupies the western end of that part of the room shown in the plan. It was 15 feet in diameter, and is exceptionally well built. The wall is standing for about half of its circumference, and was so neatly finished that the interior coating of plaster was apparently omitted. There are no traces of inclosing rectangular walls; the thickness of the kiva walls and the exceptionally large stones used in parts of it suggest that the kiva stood alone. So far as the walls remain standing, an interior bench can be traced, about 2 feet wide and 6 feet below the top of the outside wall. On the southeastern side, in the interior, there is a buttress or projection, which terminates the bench at this point. [Illustration: Fig. 20--Ground plan of ruin No. 31, Canyon de Chelly.] The walls between the rectangular room described and the circular kiva are thin and very irregularly laid out. In front of the rectangular room and on the edge of the bench, which is here but a few feet above the talus, a rather heavy wall has been built over the top of a rock, and inside or to the north of it another wall has been placed, hardly 2 feet distant. These walls are connected at the eastern end by a thin cross wall, now but slightly above the ground surface and notched like a doorway. Below the notch a slab of stone has been placed and was apparently used as a step. The purpose of these walls is not clear, but they may have constituted an entrance or passageway to the village. If so, we have here a very efficient defensive expedient and a decided anomaly in cliff-village architecture. At the point marked 31 on the map there is a small ruin on a ledge about 150 feet above the bottom and difficult of access. The site overlooks considerable areas of bottom land on both sides of the canyon, and was probably connected with and formed part of a larger ruin on the same ledge and east of it, which will next be described. On this site there are remains of half a dozen rooms or more and of one circular kiva, which was 20 feet in diameter. (See ground plan, figure 20.) The site has been much filled up, and the kiva appears as a cylindrical depression, flush with the ground outside, but 3 to 5 feet deep inside. The walls are rather thin and smoothly plastered inside. On the south side there is an opening extending down to the floor level and opening directly on the sharply sloping rock. This feature will later be discussed at some length. The walls to the west of the kiva are still 14 or 15 feet high, showing two stories, and were well constructed and smoothly plastered. The interior of the kiva shows a number of successive coats of plastering--at least eight. [Illustration: Fig. 21--Ground plan of ruin No. 32, Canyon de Chelly.] Immediately above the last-mentioned ruin, and on the same ledge, occur the remains of a large settlement, shown in plan in figure 21. It will be noticed that here, as in some of the previous examples described, the general arrangement consists of a row of rooms against the cliff, with the kivas in front. There were at least 17 rooms in line, and there may have been as many as 30 to 50 rectangular rooms in the village, scattered over an area nearly 200 feet long by 65 feet wide, but not all of this area was covered. Three kivas are still clearly shown. This ruin is especially interesting on account of the site it occupies. The walls were placed on sharply sloping rock and in some cases on loose debris, and numerous expedients were resorted to to prevent them from slipping down the slope. The fact that these expedients were not successful makes them more interesting. Upright logs were inclosed in the walls and anchored in holes drilled in the rock below; horizontal logs were built into the masonry as ties and placed below it, and heavy retaining walls were erected. These constructive expedients will later be discussed at greater length. The whole slope is more or less covered with debris, and there is no doubt that this was at one time a considerable settlement. The cliff walls near the east end show traces of two stories, and in one place of three stories, which formerly rested against them. Moreover, the number of successive coats of plaster in the kiva shows an extended occupancy, an inference which is further supported by the variety of expedients which were adopted to hold the walls in place. The marked irregularity of the five eastern rooms as compared with the regular series west of them will be noticed on the plan. These eastern rooms must have been added at a period subsequent to the completion of the others. The marks of a second and third story occur on the cliff back of this cluster, and there is no doubt that it was an important part of the settlement. West of the area shown on the plan traces of walls occur on the slope and among the debris for a distance of over 100 feet. Parts of three kivas can now be seen on the ground, and this was probably the total number in the settlement. The fronts of all of them have fallen out, notwithstanding various expedients that were employed to hold them in place. The western wall of the western kiva is part of the rectangular system and was apparently in place before the kiva was built. A triangular block which formed the junction in front of this kiva and the central one has slipped down and new walls were afterward built to restore the kivas to their original shape. The central kiva has an interior bench, which was, however, added after the structure was completed, and in fact after the front had been replaced. The second falling off of the front has left a fine section of the wall, and the changes which have taken place are plainly shown in it. That the interior bench was added long after the original kiva had been completed and occupied is shown by the occurrence between it and the wall of nearly an inch of plaster composed of separate coatings, each smoke-blackened, varying from the thickness of a piece of heavy paper up to an eighth of an inch or more. If one of these coatings were added each year, twelve or fifteen years at least must have elapsed between the building of the kiva and the construction of the interior bench. The original floor of the kiva was composed of a layer of mud mortar about an inch thick, and extends through under the bench, the top of which is about 3 feet above it; Under this floor there is a straight wall at right angles to the cliff and extending some 4 feet toward the center of the kiva; what is left of it is just under the floor level. There is a suggestion in this that the site of the kiva was originally occupied by rectangular rooms, and there is a further suggestion, in the end sections referred to, that the kiva had at some period fallen into decay and was subsequently rebuilt. All this occurred before the first falling out of the front. The section shows that the original walls were not so thick as the present ones, and that there was formerly a slight setback in the wall of 2½ or 3 inches at the level of the present bench, reducing the thickness of the wall by that amount. The original outside wall on the east extends only 6 inches above this setback. The upper portion of the exterior wall was added at the same time that the bench was constructed and is the same thickness as the lower part of the original wall. Figure 22 will make clear the changes which have taken place. There was a recess of some kind in the original wall on the east and a similar one on the west side, but they have been filled up by the later additions. The upright logs which were built into the masonry are incorporated in the older walls. Under the floor, and apparently under the walls themselves, there is a layer nearly a foot thick of loose débris consisting of cornstalks, corn leaves, ashes, and loose dirt. The floor of the east circular room, which still covers about half the interior, rests similarly on a layer of ashes. The expedients employed to hold the front walls of these kivas in place are later discussed at some length. [Illustration: Fig. 22--Section of a kiva wall.] Figure 23 shows the character of site occupied by a village ruin of some size situated in the first cove in the cliff wall below the mouth of Canyon del Muerto. The cliff here is about 300 feet high and the ruin is located on a ledge in a cove about 70 feet above the stream bed. Although seemingly very difficult to reach, the ruin is of comparatively easy access without artificial aid. The cavity was caused apparently by the occurrence of a pocket of material softer than that about it, and this softer material has weathered out, showing very strongly the lines of cross bedding, which, in the massive rock on either side, have been almost entirely obliterated. The strata are inclined at an angle and the edges project from a few inches to about a foot, forming a series of little benches tilted up at an angle of about 45 degrees. By the exercise of some agility, one can ascend along these benches. About halfway between the site of the ruin and the stream bed there is a narrow horizontal bench, and again halfway between this bench and the ruin there is another, about 55 feet above the stream. Access to the ruins is greatly facilitated by these intermediate ledges. The bench on which the ruin occurs is about 250 feet long and generally about 20 feet wide, the surface being almost flat. There are structures on the extreme northern and on the extreme southern ends, but a considerable part of the intermediate area was not occupied. Reference to the ground plan (figure 24) will show that most of the buildings occur on the northern half of the ledge, which was fairly well filled by them. Many of the walls in this portion are apparently underlaid by a foot or more of ashes, sheep dung, domestic refuse, cornhusks, etc. [Illustration: Fig. 23--Ruin No. 10 on a ledge in a cove.] The room which is shown in the center of the plan, at the southern end of the main group, stood alone and was the largest rectangular room in the village. It covered an area 15 feet by 9 feet inside the walls, which are now 5 or 6 feet high. The masonry is very good, although chinking with spalls was but slightly employed to finish the exterior; inside it is more apparent. The western wall was built over the edge of the sloping rock forming the back of the cove, as shown on the plan, and this rock projects below the wall into the room. There were apparently no openings in the walls, except some very small ones on the eastern side, near the floor level. In the southern wall a piece of rough timber was inlaid in the masonry, about 5 feet above the floor, flush with the wall inside and extending nearly through it. This piece of timber was crooked and its bend determined the wall line, which is bowed outward, as shown on the ground plan. This feature will be discussed later. There were two circular kivas in the village, one of which was unusually small, being only about 10 feet in diameter north and south; the east-and-west diameter is a trifle smaller. There was apparently no bench in the interior, but on the western or northwestern side there is a bench-like recess of about a foot which occupies 7 feet of the circumference. The whole interior was covered with a number of washes of clay, applied one over another, forming a coating now nearly three-quarters of an inch thick. This is cracked and peeled off in places, and in the section eighteen coats, generally about one thirty-second of an inch thick, may be counted. Each coat or plastering is defined by a film of smoke-blackened surface. [Illustration: Fig. 24--Ground plan of ruin No. 10.] On a level about 2 feet above the bench and about 5 feet above the present ground surface, there seems to have been some kind of roof. The stones here project into the interior slightly beyond the wall surface, and the plaster seems to curve inward. This point or level is from 6 to 18 inches below the top of the wall, and here there are remains of occasional small sticks, about an inch in diameter, which projected into the kiva. They are irregularly disposed and probably had no connection with the roof, but there are no traces of heavier timbers above them. In the interior a white band with points completely encircled the kiva. The top of this band is about a foot above the present ground surface and about 18 inches below the bench on the western side. It is illustrated in figure 72. The exterior wall of the kiva was very roughly laid up, and some of the lower stones were set on edge, which is rather an anomalous feature. There is no evidence that the structure was ever inclosed in rectangular walls, as was the usual custom; in fact, the occurrence of other walls near it would apparently preclude such an arrangement. The wall which runs north or northwest from the kiva, joining it to the cliff wall behind, is pierced by a doorway some feet above the ground, and in front of or below this doorway there is a buttress or step of solid masonry, shown on the plan. There was apparently an open space between this doorway and the next wall to the north. The room entered through the doorway was very small, and its roof, formed by the overhanging cliff, is much blackened by smoke. The main or north kiva was 15 feet in diameter on the floor, with a bench a foot wide extending around it. The external diameter is over 20 feet. The interior was decorated by bands and dots in white, which are described at length in another place (page 178). The roof was 5½ feet above the bench, and there is a suggestion that it rested on a series of beams extending north and south, but this is not certain. On the southeastern side, at the point where the kiva comes nearest the edge of the cliff, there was a narrow opening or doorway not more than 15 inches wide. This was the only entrance to the interior, except through the roof, and it opens directly on the edge of the cliff, so that it is very difficult, although not impossible, to pass it. In front of the opening a little platform was built on the sloping edge of the cliff, as though entrance was had from the lower bench by artificial means, but it is more probable that this feature is all that remains of a chimney-like structure. Above this kiva there was apparently a living room, the walls of which, where they still remain on the north and west sides, were approximately straight, but the corners were rounded. The roof was formed by the overhanging cliff and the interior walls were whitewashed. The kiva walls were about 18 inches thick, but on the west side, in the small room between the kiva and the cliff, the masonry is much heavier, the lower part extending into the room a foot farther than the upper. This is caused by the wall of the second-story room above setting in toward the east or center of the kiva. This upper wall was supported by a beam, part of which is still in place. The small room behind is much blackened by smoke. The exterior wall of the main kiva on the northwest side is very rough. On the northeast and southeast, however, it is covered by straight walls which are well finished. The western end of the north wall is joined to the exterior circular wall of the kiva, at the point shown on the plan, by a short flying wall whose purpose is not clear. It extends to what may have been the roof of the kiva, but underneath it is open. The triangular cavity formed by it is too small to permit the passage of a person, and was available only from the second story. The site of these ruins commands an extensive prospect, including several small areas of good bottom land, one of which lies directly in front of it; but the number of other ruins in the cove suggests that there was once a much larger area of bottom land here, and this suggestion is supported by the presence of several large cottonwood trees, now standing out in the midst of the sand, in the bed of the stream, where these trees never grow. Some of these trees are not yet entirely dead, indicating that the change in the bed of the stream was a recent one. Against the foot of the talus, just above the ruin, there is a narrow strip of bottom land, about 3 feet above the stream bed, and on it a single tree, still alive, but inclined at an angle. In the stream bed, above and below the ruin, there are large trees, of which only one or a few branches are still alive. The position of the cove with reference to the stream bed made the bottom lands here especially subject to erosion when the stream assumed its present channel and they were gradually worn away. The western end of the ledge was occupied by a structure whose use at first sight is not apparent. The wall, as shown on the plan, is curved, very thick and heavy, and built partly over the sloping rock forming the back of the cave. The front wall is 3 feet thick, and its top, now level, is about 5 feet above a narrow bench in front of it. There is no doorway or other opening into it, and access into its interior was had over the steep sloping rock to the north by means of hand-holes in the rock. These are shown in plate L. The interior appears to have been plastered. This structure measures 15 by 5 feet inside, there being no wall on the north, as the east wall merges into the sloping rock. The foot-holes in the rock, before referred to, are at this end, nearest the village, and appear to be in several series. The structure is so situated that the sun shines on it only a few hours each day, and it seems more than probable that it was a reservoir. The bed of the stream, the channel followed in low water, sweeps against the base of the cliff below this point, and by carrying water 20 feet it would be directly beneath and about 50 feet below it. Finally, the cliff wall above this point is decorated with pictographs of tadpoles and other water symbols in common use among the pueblos, and these do not occur elsewhere on this site. In the southwestern corner of the structure, near the bottom, there was an opening about 18 inches high, which was carefully filled up from the inside and plastered. This may have been an outlet by which the water was discharged when the reservoir was cleaned out. The wall has caved in slightly above it. The mud mortar used in building this structure and the other walls was necessarily brought from below. [Illustration: Plate L Reservoir in Ruin No. 10 ] About 25 feet east of the reservoir there are remains of a small single room, rectangular, with a circular addition, shown on the ground plan. The walls are well chinked and well constructed, the mud mortar being used when about the consistency of modeling clay. In front of this room, about 5 feet distant and on the edge of the sloping rock, a hole has been pecked into the solid rock of the ledge. This hole is 12 inches wide on top, slightly tapering, 10 inches deep on the upper side, and 4 inches on the lower. Twelve feet to the northeast there is a similar hole, and below it, distant 10 inches, another, and beyond this others, distributed generally along the foot of the sloping rock forming the back of the ledge, but sometimes farther out on the flat floor. Probably these holes mark the sites of upright posts supporting a drying scaffold or frame, the horizontal poles of which extended backward to the wall of the cliff. [Illustration: Fig. 25--Oven-like structure in ruin No. 10.] Near the center of the ledge, at the point shown on the plan, there are some remains which strongly suggest the Mexican oven. The bed rock, which is here nearly flat, was removed to a depth of about 4 inches over a rectangular area measuring 4 feet north, and south by 3½ feet. There were natural fissures in the rock on the north and west sides which left clean edges. The southern edge appears to have been smashed off with a rock. The eastern side required no dressing, as it was at a slightly lower level, and it was to reach this level that the rock was removed. In the rectangular space described there was a circular, dome-shape structure, about 3 feet in diameter, composed of mud and sticks, with a scant admixture of small stones. This is shown in figure 25, and in plan in figure 26. The walls were about 3 inches thick, and from their slope the structure could not have been over 3 feet high. The mud which composed the walls was held together by thin sticks or branches, incorporated in it and curved with the wall--apparently some kind of a vine twisted together and incorporated bodily. On the edge of the rectangular space there is a drilled hole, 3 inches in diameter, shown in the illustration. Three feet to the south there is another, 6 inches in diameter. If this structure was a dome-shape oven, and it is difficult to imagine it anything else, its occurrence here is important. It is well known that the dome-shape oven, which is very common in all the pueblos, in some villages being numbered by hundreds, is not an aboriginal feature, but was borrowed outright from the Mexicans. If the structure above described was an oven, it is clear evidence of the occupancy of these ruins within the historic period--it might almost be said within the last century. No other structure of the kind was found in the canyon, however, and it should be stated that the ovens of the pueblos are as a rule rather larger in size than this and usually constructed of small stones and mud--sometimes of regular masonry plastered. There is a suggestion here, which is further borne out by the chimney-like structures to be discussed later, that only the idea of these structures was brought here, without detailed knowledge of how to carry it out--as if, for example, they were built by novices from description only. Figure 27 is the ground plan of a small village ruin situated at the mouth of Del Muerto at the point marked 16 on the map. The site, which is an excellent one, but rather difficult of access, overlooks the bottom land at the junction of the canyons and a long strip on the opposite side, together with a considerable area above. The approach is over smooth sandstone inclined at such an angle as to make it difficult to maintain a footing, but the ruin can be reached without artificial aid. [Illustration: Fig. 26--Plan of oven-like structure.] The village was not of large extent and contained but one kiva, but the walls were well constructed and the masonry throughout is exceptionally good. The exterior wall of the western rooms was constructed of small stones neatly laid. The eastern room of the two was built after the other, and entrance was had by an almost square opening 2 feet from the ground. To facilitate ingress, a notch was dug in the wall about 8 inches from the ground. There was no communication between the rooms, the western room being entered by a small doorway on the western side, about 8 inches from the ground, 3 feet high and 14 inches wide. There was no plastering in the interior of these rooms. [Illustration: Plate LI Small Village, Ruin No. 16, Canyon De Chelly] The kiva is 15 feet in diameter on the floor, and about 23 feet in its exterior diameter. The walls are 3 feet thick above the bench level and 4 feet thick below it. The interior was plastered with a number of successive coats, probably four or five in all; but although the wall is still standing to a height of 4 feet or more above the bench, there are gaps on the eastern and western sides which render it impossible to say whether doorways were there or not. The eastern break exposes the western side of the inclosing wall, which is smoothly finished as though there were originally a recess here. There are rectangular inclosing walls on the east and south; the northern side was formed by the cliff against which the kiva rests, while on the west there are no traces of an inclosing wall. The triangular spaces formed by the inclosing walls on the northeast and southeast sides of the kiva were not filled up in the customary manner, but appear to have been preserved as storerooms. The southeastern space was connected with the kiva by a narrow doorway, shown in the plan, and another doorway, completely sealed, led from this space into the room adjoining on the east. The latter doorway had not been used for a long time prior to the abandonment of the ruin, and its opening into the rectangular room was carefully concealed from that side by several successive coats of plaster. [Illustration: Fig. 27--Ground plan of a small village, ruin No. 16.] On the south side of the kiva and outside the rectangular wall is a square buttress or chimney-like construction, 4 by 3 feet, inclosing a shaft 10 by 5 inches. This feature will be discussed in another place. It was added after the wall was completed, and embedded in it, about a foot from the ground, is a heavy beam about 5 inches in diameter. Plate LI, which shows the whole front of the village, will make this feature clear. The beam projects from the kiva wall at or under the floor level, and seems to have no reference to the shaft, which is, however, shouldered to accommodate it. Similar beams project from the walls to the east, about 8 inches above the bed rock. In the room east of the kiva no doorway was found. The walls are still intact to a minimum height of 6 feet from the floor, except in the southeast corner, where they are 3 feet. The opening described, which occurs in the southwest corner of the room, was 4 feet from the floor; and in the southeast corner, where the wall is broken down, there now are remains of one side of a similar opening on the same level. No stains of smoke are found on the exterior coat of plaster in this room, but the coats underneath were much blackened. The room north of the one described, and adjoining the kiva, was also without a doorway, unless it existed in the northeast corner, next the cliff, where no trace of walls now remains. The walls of this room, now 6 feet high, were plastered and show old smoke stains. The wall on the western side of the kiva is very rough, as though at one time another wall existed outside of it. This is shown in plate LII, which shows also the débris, consisting of ashes, sheep dung, and refuse, well compacted, upon which the wall rests. [Illustration: Fig. 28--Ruins on a large rock.] West of the kiva and on the extreme edge of the cliff are the remains of two small apartments, a trifle below the surface of the ledge and with a 3-foot wall on the south. These are too small for habitations, and were used probably for the storage of corn. About 100 feet west of the group described, on the same bench, there are remains of a large room, divided into two, and of quite rough construction. It contains several Navaho dead and may be of Navaho origin. [Illustration: Plate LII Walls Resting on Refuse in Ruin No. 16] A type of site which is abundant in the San Juan country and is found in other regions, but is very rare in this, is shown in figure 28. This example, which occurs in the upper part of Del Muerto, is the only one of its kind in the canyons. A large mass of rock, smoothed and rounded by atmospheric erosion, but still connected with the cliff at one point, juts out into the bottom, a large area of which is commanded by it. At three different levels there are remains of rooms, the group on the summit being the largest. It is doubtful whether any of these remains represent permanent villages, but it is possible that the uppermost one did. It is therefore included in this place. [Illustration: Fig. 29--Ground plan of ruins No. 49] At the point marked 49 on the map there is a ruin or group of ruins which presents some anomalous features. Figure 29 shows in detail the distribution of the remains. The rooms were located on narrow benches in the cliff, the principal part on a high, narrow bench, 40 or 50 feet above the top of the talus and over 300 feet above the canyon bottom. Access to the upper ledge from the top of the talus is exceedingly difficult, requiring a climb over almost vertical rock for 40 feet. Above the ledge there is massive sandstone, but below it for 100 feet or more there is an area of cross bedding, and the rock has an almost vertical cleavage, apparently standing upright in thin slabs 2 to 6 inches thick. Access was had by aid of the rough projections of the slabs, aided where necessary by hand and foot holes pecked in the rock. At several places little platforms of masonry have been built. At the northern end of the upper ledge there are five small cells occupying its whole width, and whose front wall follows the winding ledge. The walls are about 5 feet high, and their tops bear the marks of the poles which carried the roof. There are no exterior openings, nor is there any evidence of a means of communication between the rooms; but in the second room from the south two stones project from the wall inside, near the southeastern corner, forming rude steps, doubtless to a trapdoor in the roof. These cells could hardly have been used as habitations. The floors are covered with many lumps of clay, which apparently formed part of the roof. To the south of this cluster of cells there was a large room of irregular shape on a level about 8 feet higher. The remainder of the ledge, which is about on the same level as this large room, is almost covered with large bowlders, but at several points on it other remains of walls occur. The largest room of all was near its center. It was built against the cliff, which formed one of its sides, and measured about 16 by 6 feet. There are no evidences of any partitions or roof, the latter probably being formed by the overhanging rock. As the room was built partly on the sloping rock, the floor is very uneven. It could hardly have been used as a habitation, but may have been employed for the storage of water. The southern end of the lower ledge merges into the head of the talus, the northern part drops down by a sharply sloping and in places an almost vertical wall of about 30 feet; thence it descends to the bottom by a long slope of bare rock, generally passable on foot. The lower ledge is about 50 feet above the upper. Upon it are scattered the remains of a few rooms of the same general character as those above, but smaller. Many of these have been utilized for modern Navaho burials, and perhaps some of them were constructed for that purpose. If these rooms were used as habitations, it must have been under very peculiar circumstances; moreover, the site is hardly suited for such a purpose, having the sunshine less than half of the day. In this respect it is anomalous. At the southern end of the ledge there is a large angular bowlder, one edge of which rests against the cliff wall and is free from the ground. Under this the walls of a small room can be seen. The cliff formed one side of the room and the bowlder acted as a roof. On the extreme northern end of the ledge, 200 feet distant from the nearest room, there are remains of a structure standing alone. The masonry is much rougher than that of the other rooms, and, although the walls are now about 6 feet high, there is no evidence of any doorway or opening into the room. On the surface of the sloping rock, at this point nearly flat, there are traces of a circular kiva 18 or 20 feet in diameter. These traces occur at a point about midway between the southern and northern ends of the lower ledge and some 30 feet below it. The cliff walls, both of the lower and upper ledges, are covered with pictographs in white, red, and yellow. [Illustration: Fig. 30--Ruin on an almost inaccessible site.] The location and character of this site and the character of the remains suggest that most if not all of the rooms which can now be traced were used for storage only. For this purpose the site is well adapted. But the remains of the circular kiva at the foot of the lower ledge show plainly that there were at one time some habitations here. Doubtless these were located on the smooth rock at the foot of the cliff, and the disappearance of all traces of walls may be due to the subsequent use of the material by the Navaho for the construction of burial cists, in which the site abounds. There still remains on the ground a fair amount of broken stone, suitable for building, but no lines of wall are now traceable. Figure 30 shows one of the most inaccessible sites in the canyon. It occurs at the point marked 62 on the map, where there is a narrow ledge nearly 400 feet above the stream. The approach is over bare rock, sharply sloping, but passable at two points by an active man accustomed to climbing. Both of these points are near the western or left-hand end of the ruin; toward the right the rock becomes vertical. Immediately below this ruin there are the remains of a large settlement on a low spur near the stream, now much obliterated, and above and below it on suitable sites there were a number of small settlements which may have been connected with it. [Illustration: Fig. 31--Ground plan of a large ruin in Canyon del Muerto.] There were a number of rooms scattered along the ledge which appear to have been used as habitations. The overhanging cliff is so close that in a number of cases it formed the roof of the room, and the whole site was an inconvenient and dangerous one. The rooms on the east rest on a large block which has split off from the wall since the walls were built, and now hangs apparently ready to drop at any moment. At the time this site was inhabited access was had over the smooth rounded rock on the west. Here hand and foot holes have been pecked in the steep places, but as the rock is much exposed to atmospheric erosion these holes are now almost obliterated. After ascending the rock the village was entered through a doorway in a wall of exceptional thickness, shown on the left of the drawing. The room which was entered through this doorway appears to have been placed at this point to command the entrance to the village. The wall is exceptionally heavy and was pierced with oblique loopholes commanding a narrow bench immediately in front of it. This appears to have been a purely defensive expedient, and as such is unique. The site commands an extensive outlook over the canyon bottom, including several areas of cultivable land, and while it may have been occupied as a regular village, such occupancy could not have been long continued. Altogether the site and the character of the house remains are anomalous and doubtless resulted from anomalous conditions. [Illustration: Fig. 32--Ground plan of a small ruin in Canyon del Muerto.] Figure 31 is a ground plan of a large ruin in Del Muerto. It occupied almost the whole available area of the ledge on which it is situated, and over 40 rooms can now be made out on the ground, in addition to 3 circular kivas. The settlement may have comprised between 80 and 100 rooms, which would accommodate 15 to 20 families. The size is very unusual, and the presence of but 3 kivas would indicate that the families were closely related. There are other examples of this character in the canyons, but not so large as the one illustrated. [Illustration: Fig. 33--Ground plan of a small ruin.] Figure 32 illustrates a type which is more common. Here we have the usual arrangement of rooms along the cliff, with a kiva in front of them. There were altogether not over 10 or 12 rooms, and they were probably occupied by one family. Figure 33 shows a kind rather more abundant than the last, and consisting like it of one circular kiva with rooms back of and between it and the cliff. Ruins of this type are generally well protected by an overhanging cliff. Figure 34 is another example, in which only three rectangular rooms can be made out. The site here is almost covered with large bowlders. All these examples occur in Del Muerto. [Illustration: Fig. 34--Plan of a ruin of three rooms.] [Illustration: Fig. 35--Ground plan of a small ruin, with two kivas.] Figure 35 is a ground plan of a small ruin which occurs at the point marked 36 on the map. It is situated in a shallow cove at the head of the talus, 200 or 300 feet above the bottom, and is of comparatively easy access. There is but a small amount of cultivable bottom land immediately below it, but it commands extensive areas on the opposite site of the canyon and in the lower part of a branch on that side. There are but few remains of rooms other than parts of two kivas, but there is no question that there was at one time a considerable number here. Both kivas had interior benches, and were of small size, plastered in the interior. The masonry is fair to good. On the highest point of the bowlder shown on the right of the plan there is a fragment of compacted sheep dung and soil, which is now 6 feet above the ground. It is all that remains of a layer of some thickness which must have been deposited when the surface was filled up to or nearly to the top of the rock. Possibly there was a wall outside and only the intermediate space was filled. [Illustration: Fig. 36--Ground plan of a small ruin, No. 44.] [Illustration: Fig. 37--Ground plan of a ruin on a rocky site.] Figure 36 is the ground plan of a somewhat similar ruin which occurs at the point marked 44 on the map. It is situated on the top of the talus, against the cliff, and commands a fine outlook over the cultivable lands in the cove below it and on the canyon bottom proper. There are but few wall remains, but two kivas can still be made out. There is no ledge here, and the walls were built on loose debris of rocks and talus. The builders had some trouble in holding the walls in place, and only partly succeeded in doing so. About one-half of the principal kiva is standing, showing masonry composed of exceptionally large stones, roughly chinked. The other, or western kiva, was similarly constructed, and both had interior benches. The front of the western kiva fell out, the builders being unable to tie it or to hold it in place on its loose foundation, and other walls were constructed inside of it, as shown on the plan. There were other walls outside the main kiva, apparently rectangular inclosing walls. This example is interesting because the masonry was constructed on a foundation of loose debris, not on bed rock, and the knowledge possessed by the builders was not sufficient to enable them to overcome the natural difficulties of the site. Although ultimately the village had to be abandoned as a failure, it was certainly occupied for some years, and this occupancy suggests that there was some strong objection to the lower part of the canyon. It illustrates, moreover, the importance which was attached to a command or outlook over extensive cultivable areas, as to obtain such an outlook the builders were content to occupy even such an unsuitable site as the one described. Figure 37 shows a small ruin similar to those described, but located on a site almost covered with large bowlders. The principal structure now remaining is a circular kiva, which, contrary to the usual plan, was placed close up against the cliff; possibly the cliff formed part of the back wall. Large bowlders so closely hemmed in the structure that there was neither space nor necessity for an inclosing wall. The kiva was benched for about half of its circumference. Under the large bowlder to the right of the kiva a complete room had been built, with a doorway of the usual type through the front wall. Scattered remnants of other walls may be seen here and there, but none show well-defined rooms. Petroglyphs are quite numerous, and one small bowlder to the left of and next to the kiva is covered with cups, dots, and carvings. It is shown in figure 38. [Illustration: Fig. 38--Rock with cups and petroglyphs] Figure 39 shows a ruin where the site was not so restricted. One well-defined room and two kivas still remain, and there are traces of other chambers. The main kiva formed part of a compact little group of rooms, of which it occupied the front, and appears to have been inclosed by a curved wall of rough construction. A curved inclosing wall is an anomalous feature, and it is not at all certain that it occurs here, as the wall is so much broken down that its lines can not now be clearly made out. Excavation would doubtless determine this, as the whole site has been much filled up with sand and loose earth. The second kiva, which was about the same size as the first, was situated some little distance from the other, and on the outer edge of the little platform or bench on which the settlement was located. It still shows about half of its wall. The rectangular room near the main kiva still stands to a height of 3 and 4 feet. The wall nearest the kiva is pierced by a number of small openings, and by a neatly finished double-notched doorway, which is illustrated in another place (figure 67). The whole front of the site has been filled up to a probable depth of several feet, and a number of Navaho burials have been made on it. These are shown on the plan by shaded spots. Owing to the soft ground underneath, it was easier to excavate a hole and wall it up than to construct the regular surface cist, and the former plan was followed. Although many of the sites are covered with bowlders and blocks of stone fallen from above, which often occur among and even over walls, close inspection generally shows that the walls were constructed after the rocks fell. There are two instances, however, which are doubtful, and in one (shown in figure 40) it appears that large blocks of rock have fallen since the walls were constructed. Such falls of rock are not uncommon now in the fall and winter months, when frost and seepage from the melting snow sometimes split off huge fragments. [Illustration: Fig. 39--Ground plan of a ruin in Canyon de Chelly.] The site mentioned occurs at the point marked 47 on the map. It is in a cove under a mass of rock which juts out from the cliff, and is about 30 feet above the bottom, on the edge of a slope of loose rock which extends some distance above it. At the top of the talus, over 200 feet above, there is another ruin, which was probably only an outlook, as no trace of a kiva can be found, and it is possible that the lower site was connected with and formed part of the upper one. The lower site contained a circular kiva, only a small portion of which now remains, and the ground is covered with blocks of rock which must have fallen since the walls were built. They appear to have fallen quite recently. It can still be seen that the kiva had an interior bench, and that there was a room, or perhaps rooms, between it and the back of the cove; but beyond this nothing can now be made out. [Illustration: Fig. 40--Site showing recent fall of rock.] There are many favorable sites in the branch canyons, but not many of them are occupied, possibly because in the upper parts of these canyons the bottom land is of small area and is sometimes rough, being composed of numerous small hillocks. The flat bottom lands of the canyon proper are much easier to cultivate, but the sites in the side canyons offered much better facilities for defense. Figure 41 shows the plan of a ruin which occurs at the point marked 69 on the map, on the western side of a branch canyon through which passes the trail to Fort Defiance. It is situated in a shallow cove at the top of the talus and overlooks an extensive area of fine bottom land below it. At the eastern end there is a single room about 10 feet long; its front wall extends up to the overhanging rock, which forms the roof of the room. A small cist has been built against it on the west. [Illustration: Fig. 41--Ruin No. 69, in a branch canyon.] About 60 feet west, on the same ledge, there are remains of other rooms which rested probably on the talus. Several rooms can be made out, but only one shows standing walls. This is on the western end, and the walls are now about 5 feet high. Four feet from the top of the wall there is a clear line of demarcation extending horizontally across it. Below this line the masonry consists of large flat slabs of rock laid in mud mortar, which was used nearly dry and stuffed into the cracks to some extent. Above the line the stones were carefully selected and the work was well done, the whole being finished by a thin coat of plaster. There is no opening in the lower part, but in the upper part there is a neatly finished doorway 3 feet high and slightly tapering. The bottom of this opening extends 2 inches below the line, and the lintel is composed of a large slab of stone a trifle wider than the thickness of the wall, but fitted flush on the outside. [Illustration: Fig. 42--Ground plan of a small ruin in Canyon del Muerto.] On a bench about 100 feet higher than the ruin described there are two small rooms, extending up to the overhanging rock above them. These rooms, which may be of Navaho origin, were reached by means of a narrow ledge extending from the top of a slope of loose rock and debris about 300 yards to the southward, or up the canyon. Figure 42 is a ground plan of a small ruin in Del Muerto in which the usual preponderance of rectangular rooms is illustrated. The site was restricted, but there is an apparent attempt to carry out the usual arrangement of a row of rooms against the cliff, with a kiva in front. Probably only three of the rooms shown were used as habitations. The plan of the kiva, which occurs in the center, was somewhat marred by a large bowlder, which must have projected into it, but apparently no attempt was made to dress off the projecting point. [Illustration: Fig. 43--Ground plan of a small ruin.] Figure 43 is the plan of a ruin located on a more open site. Only a few walls now remain, but there is no doubt that at one time more of the site was covered than now appears. There are remains of two, and perhaps of three, circular kivas. [Illustration: Fig. 44--Plan of a ruin with curved inclosing wall.] Figure 44 shows a ruin in which the plan is somewhat more elaborated. There are remains of several well-defined rooms, and two kivas are still fairly well preserved. The ledge is narrow and the rooms are stretched along it, with kivas at either end. That on the east was benched nearly all around its interior, and the outside inclosing wall, on the east, apparently follows the curve. An example in which this feature occurs has been mentioned above (page 138). It is very rare, but in this case the evidence is clearer than in the one previously described. The western kiva, somewhat smaller than the other, was also benched, and had an exterior shaft, like those mentioned above and later described at length. [Illustration: Fig. 45--Ground plan of ruin No. 34.] Figure 45 is a plan of a small ruin of the same type, which occurs in the middle region of De Chelly. It occupies the site marked 34 on the map, and is situated in a niche in a deep cove, where the outlook is almost completely obscured by a large sand dune in front of it. It comprised one circular kiva and four rectangular rooms, but, contrary to the usual result, the latter are fairly well preserved, while the former is almost completely obliterated. This may be due to the use of the rectangular rooms as sites for Navaho burial cists, of which there are no fewer than six here, and possibly the kiva walls furnished the necessary building material for the construction of the cists. The old masonry is of good quality, the outside wall being formed of selected stones of medium size, well laid and carefully chinked. Most of the walls were plastered inside. In a cleft in the rock to the right of this ruin there is a kind of cave, with foot-holes leading up the rock to it, and quite difficult of access. It formerly may have been used for storage, but at present contains only some remains of Navaho burials. IV--CLIFF OUTLOOKS OR FARMING SHELTERS Ruins comprised in the class of cliff outlooks, or farming shelters, are by far the most numerous in the canyon. They were located on various kinds of sites, but always with reference to some area of cultivable land which they overlooked, and seldom, if ever, was the site selected under the influence of the defensive motive. It is not to be understood that such motive was wholly absent; it may have been present in some cases, but the dominating motive was always convenience to some adjacent area of cultivable land. The separation of this class of ruins from the preceding village ruins, while clear and definite enough in the main, is far from absolute. The sole criterion we have is the presence or absence of the kiva, as the sites occupied are essentially the same; but this test is in a general way sufficient. It is possible that in certain cases the kiva is so far obliterated as to be no longer distinguishable, but the number of cases in which this might have occurred is comparatively small. The kivas, as a rule, were more solidly constructed than the other rooms, and, as the preceding ground plans show, sometimes survived when the rectangular rooms connected with them have entirely disappeared. [Illustration: Fig. 46--Ground plan of cliff outlook No. 35.] Figure 46 is the plan of an outlook in the same cove as the last example of village ruin illustrated, and only 200 or 300 yards south of it. It may have been connected with that ruin, but could not in itself have been a village, as there are no traces of a kiva on the site, and hardly room enough for one on the bench proper. At the extreme northern end there are traces of walls on the rocks at a lower level. [Illustration: Fig. 47--Plan of a cliff outlook.] The walls which were at right angles to the cliff were not carried back to it after the usual manner, but stopped about 3 feet from it, and the rooms were closed by a back wall running parallel to the cliff, and about 3 feet from it. This wall rises to a height of about 4 feet before it meets the overhanging cliff, and consequently there is a long narrow passageway, about 3 feet high and 3 feet wide on the bottom, between it and the cliff. A small man might wriggle through, but with difficulty. The ruin commands a fine outlook over the cove. The masonry is good, being composed of selected stone well chinked with small spalls, and sometimes with bits of clay pressed in with the fingers. Figure 47 shows a ruin located at the point marked 37 on the map. There is a high slope of talus here, the top of which is flat and of considerable area. The ruin is invisible from below in its present condition, but the site commands a fine outlook over several considerable areas of bottom land. The walls are now much obliterated and worked over by the Navaho, but the remains are scattered over quite an extensive area and may have been at one time an extensive settlement; however, no traces of a kiva can now be seen. Marks on the cliff show that some of the houses had been three stories high. Some places on the cliff, which were apparently back-walls of rooms, were plastered and coated with white, and there are many pictographs on the rock. The masonry is of fair quality, but the stones were laid with more mortar than usual. [Illustration: Fig. 48--Plan of cliff ruin No. 46.] Figure 48 is a ground plan of a ruin which occurs at the point marked 46 on the map. It is situated in a cove in the rock at the top of the talus, 300 or 400 feet above the bottom, and immediately above the rectangular single room described and illustrated on page 151. It commands an extensive outlook over the bottom lands on both sides of the canyon and above. The cove is about 40 feet deep, and, though so high up, has been used as a sheep close, and doubtless some of the walls have been covered up. Four rooms are still standing in two little clusters of two rooms each. The walls of the rooms on the west are composed of large stones laid in plenty of mud mortar and plastered inside and out; those of the eastern portion were built of small stones, chinked but not plastered. One of the rooms is blackened by smoke in the corner only, as though there had been some chimney structure here, which subsequently had fallen away. The cliff walls back of the eastern part are heavily smoke-blackened; back of the western portion there are no stains. There is now no trace of a circular kiva, but there is a heavy deposit of sheep dung on the ground which might cover up such traces if they existed. This site commands one of the best outlooks in the canyon, but access, while not very difficult, is inconvenient on account of the great height above the bottom. [Illustration: Fig. 49--Plan of cliff room with partitions.] Figure 49 shows a common type of ruin in this class. The original structure appears to have contained one or two good rooms, which by subsequent additions have been divided into several. These later additions may have been made by the Navaho, who used the building material on the ground; at any rate the structure is now merely a cluster of storage cists. [Illustration: Fig. 50--Plan of a large cliff outlook in Canyon del Muerto.] One of the most extensive ruins of the cliff-outlook type situated in Canyon del Muerto is shown in figure 50. The plan shows at least eight rooms stretched along the cliff at the top of the talus. Figure 51 shows five rooms arranged in a cluster. One of these is still complete, the walls extending to the overhanging rock above which formed the roof. It will be noticed that the front room was set back far enough to allow access to the central room through a doorway in the corner. This was a convenience, rather than a necessity, for many of the rooms in ruins of this class were entered only through other rooms or through the roof, and a direct opening to the outer air was not considered a necessity; probably because these rooms in the cliff, which have been termed outlooks, were not in any sense watch towers, but rather places of abode during the harvest season, where the workers in the field lived when not actually employed in labor, and where the fields tinder cultivation could always be kept in view--an arrangement quite as necessary and quite as extensively practiced now as it was formerly. Figure 52 shows a cluster of rooms in the little canyon called Tseonitsosi. This is another Casa Blanca, or White House, and, oddly enough, it resembles its namesake in De Chelly, not only in the coat of whitewash applied to the front of the main room, but in having a subordinate room to the left, over which the wash extends, and in the character of the site it occupies. The principal part of the structure was built in a cave, 18 or 20 feet from the ground, across the front of which walls extended as in the other Casa Blanca, and, like that ruin, there are also some ruins at the foot of the cliff, on the flat. Figure 53 is a ground plan. The resemblance to the other Casa Blanca, however, goes no further. The ruin here illustrated represents a very small settlement, hardly more than half a dozen rooms in all, and there is no trace of a circular kiva, or other evidence of permanent habitation. It is possible that the space between the edge of the floor of the cave above and the whitened house back of it was occupied by some sort of structure, but no evidence now remains which would warrant such a hypothesis, except that the door of the white house is now about 4 feet above the ground. The cave is only 40 feet long and a little over 10 feet deep, and there is not room on the floor for more than three or four rooms, in addition to those shown on the plan. The room on the right still preserves its roof intact, showing the typical pueblo roof construction. It has a well-preserved doorway, and three other openings may be seen in the main room. [Illustration: Fig. 51--Plan of a cluster of rooms In Canyon del Muerto.] [Illustration: Fig. 52--White House ruin in Tseonitsosi canyon.] Apparently some effort at ornamentation was made here. The whitewash was not applied to the fronts of the two back rooms so as to cover all of them, but in a broad belt, leaving the natural yellowish-gray color of the plastering in a narrow band above and a broad band below it. Moreover, the principal opening of the larger room was specially treated; in the application of the whitewash a narrow border or frame of the natural color was left surrounding it. The attempt to apply decoration not utilitarian in character is rare among the ruins here. It implies either a late period in the occupancy of this region, or an occupancy of the site by a people who had practiced this method of house-building longer or under more favorable conditions than the others. [Illustration: Fig. 53--Ground plan of a ruin in Tseonitsosi canyon.] [Illustration: Fig. 54--Plan of rooms against a convex cliff.] [Illustration: Fig. 55--Small ruin with curved wall.] Figure 54 shows an arrangement of rooms along a narrow ledge at the top of the talus, where the cliff wall is not coved or concave, but convex. Some of these little rooms may have been used only for storage, but others were undoubtedly habitations. Figure 55 shows an example in which the back wall is curved, as though it was either built over an old kiva or an attempt was made to convert a rectangular room into a kiva. There were originally three rooms in the cluster, only one of which remains, but that one is of unusual size, measuring about 15 by 10 feet. If the room was used solely as a habitation, there was no necessity for the back wall, as the side walls continue back to the cliff. Including the little cove on the left, there are seven Navaho burial places on this site. [Illustration: Fig. 56--Ground plan of a cliff outlook.] Plate LIII shows an outlook in the lower part of De Chelly, at the point marked 6 on the map. The lower part of the cliff here flares out slightly, forming a sharp slope; where it meets the vertical rock there is a small bench, on which the ruin is situated. It is apparently inaccessible, but close examination shows a long series of hand and foot holes extending up a cleft in the rock, and forming an easy ascent. The site commands a good outlook over the bottom lands. The ruin consists of three rectangular rooms arranged side by side against the cliff, and a kind of curved addition on the east. Figure 56 is a ground plan. The walls are still standing from a foot to 4 feet high, and produce the impression of being unfinished; although carefully chinked, they were neither plastered nor rubbed down. The two western rooms were built first, and the eastern wall extends through the front. East of these rooms there is a small rectangular chamber, and east of this again a low curved wall forming a little chamber or cist of irregular form (not shown in the plan). The front wall was extended beyond this and brought in again to the cliff on a curve, forming another small cist of irregular shape. This and the little chamber west of it were doubtless used for storage. They resemble in plan Navaho cists, but the masonry, which is exactly like the other walls here, will not permit the hypothesis of Navaho construction. Except for some slight traces in the northwest corner of the west room, there are no smoke stains about, nor are there any pictographs on the cliff walls. The western room was pierced by a window opening which was subsequently filled up, possibly by the Navaho, who have five burial cists here. [Illustration: Fig. 57--Plan of cliff outlook No. 14, in Canyon de Chelly.] Figure 57 is the plan of a small outlook which occurs at the point marked 14 on the map. Opposite the mouth of Del Muerto there is an elevated rocky area of considerable extent, perhaps 50 feet above the bottom, but shelving off around the edges. Near the cliff this is covered by sand dunes and piles of broken rock; farther out there is a more level area covered thinly with sand and soil, and here there is a large ruin of the old obliterated type already described (page 93). [Illustration: Plate LIII Cliff Outlook in Lower Canyon De Chelly] Near the edges the rock becomes bare again, and is 20 to 30 feet high, descending sheer or with an overhang to the bottoms or to the stream bed. On the western side, facing north, the ruin illustrated occurs. It is a mere cubby hole, and was evidently located for the area of cultivable land which lies before it, and which it almost completely commands. The cavity is about 12 feet above the ground and appears to have been divided by cross walls into three rooms, two of which were quite small. The back room was small, dark, and not large enough to contain a human body unless it was carefully packed in, and at various points along the back wall there are seeps of water. The interior of the little room was very wet and moldy at the time when it was examined, in winter, but in the summer time is probably dry enough. [Illustration: Fig. 58--Ground plan of outlooks in a cleft.] The masonry is fair and the surface is finished with plaster. The open space in front of the small back room and the outer wall of the room itself are much blackened by smoke, as though the inhabitant lived here and used the small room only to store his utensils and implements. A small room on the east must have been used for a similar purpose. Both of these rooms were entered through narrow doorways opening on the principal space. The site is an ideal one for a lookout, but not well suited for a habitation. Plate LIV shows its character. [Illustration: Fig. 59--Plan of a single-room outlook.] Cliff outlooks are often found on sites whose restricted areas preclude all possibility that they formed parts of larger settlements since obliterated. The ruin just described is an example. Another instance which occurs in Del Muerto is shown in figure 58. Here a deep cleft in the rock was partly occupied by two or three rooms. There was room for more, but apparently no more were built. There was not room, however, for even a small village. There are several other examples in the canyon almost identical with these, but this type is not nearly so abundant as the succeeding. Figure 59 is a plan of a ruin near the mouth of Del Muerto. It was a single room, situated on a ledge perhaps 30 or 40 feet above the bottom land which it overlooked and of easy access. This is the most common type of outlook or cliff ruin, and it might almost be said that they number hundreds, sometimes consisting of one room alone, sometimes of two or even three The general appearance of these outlooks is shown in figure 60, which shows an example containing three rooms. [Illustration: Fig. 60--Three-room outlook in Canyon del Muerto.] [Illustration: Fig. 61--Plan of a two-room outlook.] Figure 61 is a ground plan of an example containing two rooms, which occurs below the large ruin described before (No. 31, page 119), and figure 62 shows an example with one room, obscured and built over with Navaho cists. This site is located in the upper part of the canyon, on top of the talus, about 100 feet above the stream, and commands an outlook over several areas of bottom land on both sides. The walls are built about 10 feet high, and are composed of medium-size stones laid in courses and carefully chinked with small spalls. The southwestern corner of the room is broken down, but the eastern wall is still standing, and shows a well-finished opening on that side. There are several Navaho burial cists on this site. [Illustration: Fig. 62--Plan of outlook and burial cists, No. 64.] [Illustration: Plate LIV Cliff Ruin No. 14] [Illustration: Fig. 63--Plan of rectangular room No. 45.] Figure 63 is the plan of a type of ruin which is rather anomalous in the canyon. It occurs at the point marked 45 on the map, and occupies a small flat area almost on top of the talus 300 feet or more above the stream bed. It is just below the ruin described and illustrated on page 144 (figure 48), and hardly 20 feet distant from it, and yet it does not appear to have been connected with it. It consists of a single large room, 20 feet long by 11½ feet wide outside, and the site commands an extensive prospect over bottom lands on both sides of the canyon, and above, but the only opening in the wall on that side is a little peephole 6 inches square and 2 feet from the ground. This is sufficient, however, to command nearly the whole outlook. There is a doorway on the eastern side, one side of which, fairly well finished, remains. There was apparently no other opening, unless one existed on the western side, where, in the center, the wall is broken down to within 2 feet of the ground. Along the western side of the room, at the present ground surface, there are remains of a bench about a foot wide; the eastern side is covered above this level. [Illustration: Fig. 64--Rectangular single room.] The masonry is very rough and chinked only with large stones. The interior is roughly plastered in places, and small pieces of stone are stuck on flat. The corners are rounded. Externally the masonry has the appearance of stones laid without mortar, like a Navaho stone corral, and were it not for the occurrence of other similar remains, it might be regarded as of Navaho or white man's construction, as the size, site, plan, and masonry are all anomalous. Figure 64 shows an example, however, closely resembling the one described in these features, and figure 65 shows another. Altogether there are four or five examples, distributed over a considerable area. Somewhat similar wall remains are seen in places on the canyon bottom, where they are always of modern Navaho origin, and it is quite possible that the ruins above mentioned should be placed in the same category. It will be noticed that in the plan the doorway or entrance opening is on the eastern side--an invariable requirement of Navaho house constructions; but it is only within recent times that the Navaho have constructed permanent, rectangular abodes, and even now such houses are rarely built. It is difficult to understand, moreover, why recourse should be had to such inconvenient sites, if the structures are of Navaho origin, as these Indians always locate their hogans on the bottom lands, or on some slight rise overlooking them. [Illustration: Fig. 65--Single-room remains.] Distributed throughout the canyons, wherever a favorable situation could be found, there are a great number of sites resembling those of the cliff outlooks, but showing now no standing wall. There is always some evidence of human occupancy, often many pictographs on the back wall, as in an example in the lower part of the canyon shown in plate LV. This occurs at point 2 on the map, in a cove perhaps 100 feet across, with caves on the northern and southern sides. [Illustration: Plate LV Site Marked by Pictographs] In the southern cave there are no traces of masonry, but the back of the cave is covered with hand prints and pictographs of deer, as shown in the plate. In the northern cave there are traces of walls. Many of the sites do not show the faintest trace of house structures; some of them have remains of storage cists, and many have remains of Navaho burial cists, associated with pictographs not of Navaho origin. Some idea of the number and distribution of these sites may be obtained from the following list, wherein the numbers represent the location shown on the detailed map: 2, 8, 9, 11, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 30, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 53, 54, 57, and 66--in all 21 sites which occur between the mouth of De Chelly and the junction of Monument canyon, 13 miles above. Beyond this point they are rare, as the areas of cultivable land become scarce. A similar distribution prevails in Del Muerto. DETAILS SITES The character of the site occupied by a ruin is a very important feature where the response to the physical environment is as ready and complete as it is in the ancient pueblo region. This feature has not received the attention it deserves, for it is more than probable that in the ultimate classification of ruins that will some day be formulated the site occupied will be one of the principal elements considered, if not the most important. The site is not so important per se, but must be considered with reference to the specific character of the ruin upon it, its ground plan, the character of other ruins in the vicinity which may have been connected with it, and its topographic environment. The character and ground plan of a cliff ruin would be so much out of place on an open valley site that it would immediately attract attention. The reverse is equally remarkable. Considering all that has been written about the cliff ruins as defensive structures, it is strange how little direct evidence there is to support the hypothesis; how few examples can be cited which show anything that can be construed as the result of the defensive motive except the general impression produced on the observer. Nor, on the other hand, do these ruins as a whole give any support to the theory that they represent an intermediate stage in the development of the pueblo people. Some few may, perhaps those examined by Mr F. H. Cushing south and east of Zuñi do; but more than 99 per cent of them give more support to a theory that they are the ultimate development of pueblo architecture than to the other hypothesis, for they contain in themselves evidence of a knowledge of construction equal and even superior to that shown in many of the modern pueblo villages. The only thing anomalous or distinctive about the cliff ruins, considered as an element of pueblo architecture, is the character of site occupied. If this were dictated by the defensive motive, it would seem reasonable to suppose that the same motive would have some direct influence on the structures, yet examples where it has affected the arrangement of rooms or ground plan or the character of the masonry are exceedingly rare and generally doubtful. It is well to specify that in the preceding remarks the term cliff ruin has been applied to small settlements, comprising generally less than four rooms, sometimes only one or two, and usually located on high and almost inaccessible sites. These are comprised in class IV of the classification here followed. Regular villages located in the cliffs or on top of the talus (class III) are a different matter. These have nothing in common with the small ruins, except that sometimes there is a similarity of site. Doubtless in some of these ruins the defensive motive operated to a certain extent. In classes I and II, however, the influence of the defensive motive, in so far as it affected the character of site chosen, is conspicuous by its absence. As there is no evidence that the cliff ruins of class IV were separate and distinct from the other ruins, but the contrary, the defensive motive may be assigned a very subordinate place among the causes which produced that phase of pueblo architecture found in Canyon de Chelly. An hypothesis as to the order in which sites of the various classes were occupied can not be based on the present condition of the ruins. It is more than likely that the older ruins served as quarries of building material for succeeding structures erected near them, and probably some of the cliff ruins themselves served in this way for the erection of others, for there are many sites from which the building stone has been almost entirely removed; yet there is no doubt that these sites were formerly occupied. The Navaho also have contributed to the destruction. Notwithstanding their horror of contact with the remains of the dead, quite a number of buildings have been erected by these Indians with material derived from adjacent ruins. It is evident that the gathering of this material would be a much lighter task than to quarry and prepare it, no matter how roughly the latter might be done. In a study of some ruins in the valley of the Rio Verde, made a few years ago, a suggestion was made of the order in which ruins of various kinds succeeded one another--a sort of chronologic sequence, of which the beginning in time could not be determined. Studies of the ruins and inhabited villages of the old province of Tusayan (Moki) and Cibola (Zuñi), and a cursory examination of ruins on Gila river, show that they all fall easily into the same general order, which is somewhat as follows: 1. The earliest form of pueblo house is doubtful. As a rule, in most localities the earliest forms are already well advanced. As it is now known that the ancient pueblo region was not inhabited by a vast number of people, but by a comparatively small number of little bands, each in constant though slow movement, this condition is what we would expect to find. It is probable that the earliest settlements consisted of single houses or small clusters located in valleys convenient to areas of cultivable land and on streams or near water. 2. The next step gives us villages, generally of small size, located on the foothills of mesas and overlooking large areas of good land which were doubtless under cultivation. This class comprises more examples perhaps than any other, and many of them come well within the historic period, such as six of the seven villages of Tusayan at the time of the Spanish conquest in 1540, all of the Cibolan villages of the same date, and some of the Rio Grande pueblos of that time. 3. In some localities, though not in all, the small villages were at a later period moved to higher and more inaccessible sites. This change has taken place in Tusayan within the historic period, and in fact was not wholly completed even fifty years ago. The pueblo of Acoma was in this stage at the time of the conquest, and has remained so to the present day. As a rule each of the small villages preserved its independence, but in some cases they combined together to occupy together a high defensive site. Such combination is, however, unusual. 4. The final stage in the development of pueblo architecture is the large, many-storied, or beehive village, located generally in the midst of broad valleys, depending on its size and population for defense, and usually adjacent to some stream. In this class of structure the defensive motive, in so far as it affected the choosing of the site, entirely disappears. The largest existing pueblo, Zuñi, made this step early in the eighteenth century; the next largest, Taos, was probably in this stage in 1540, and has remained so since. In some cases ruins on foothill sites (2) have merged directly into many-storied pueblos on open sites (4), without passing through an intermediate stage. There is another step in the process of development which is now being taken by many pueblos, which, although an advance from the industrial point of view, is to the student of architecture degeneration. This consists of a return to single houses located in the valleys and on the bottom lands wherever convenience to the fields under cultivation required. This movement is hardly twenty years old, but is proceeding at a steadily accelerating pace, and its ultimate result is the complete destruction of pueblo architecture. Whatever we wish to know of this phase of Indian culture must be learned now, for two generations hence probably nothing will remain of it. This hasty sketch will illustrate some of the difficulties that lie in the way of a complete classification of the ruins of the pueblo country. It is impossible to arrange them in chronologic sequence, because they are the product of different tribes who at different times came under the influence of analogous causes, and results were produced which are similar in themselves but different in time. It is believed, however, that the classification suggested exhibits a cultural sequence and probably within each tribe a chronologic order. In this classification no mention has been made of the cliff and cave ruins. These structures belong partly to class III, villages on defensive sites, and partly to a subclass which pertained to a certain extent to all the others. In the early stages of pueblo architecture the people lived directly on the laud they tilled. Later the villages were located on low foothills overlooking the land, but in this stage some of the villages had already attained considerable size and the lands overlooked by them were not sufficient for their needs. As a consequence some of the inhabitants had to work fields at a distance from the home village, and as a matter of convenience small temporary shelters were erected near by. In a still later stage, when the villages were removed to higher and more easily defended sites, the number of farming shelters must have largely increased, as suitable sites which also commanded large areas of good land could not often be found. At a still later stage, when the inhabitants of a number of small villages combined to form one large one, this difficulty was increased still more, and it is probable that in this stage the construction of outlying farming settlements attained its maximum development. Often whole villages of considerable size, sometimes many miles from the home pueblo, were nothing more than farming shelters. These villages, like the single-room shelters, were occupied only during the farming season; in the winter the inhabitants abandoned them completely and retired to the home village. Some farming villages, such as those described above, are still in use among the pueblos. The little village of Moen-Kapi, attached to Oraibi, but 75 miles distant from it, is an example. There are also no fewer than three villages in the Zuñi country of the same class. Nutria, Pescado, and Ojo Caliente are summer villages of the Zuñi, although distant from that pueblo from 15 to 25 miles. It is significant that none of these subordinate villages possess a kiva. It is believed that the cliff ruins and cavate lodges, which are merely variants of each other due to geological conditions, were simply farming shelters of another type, produced by a certain topographic environment. The importance which it is believed should attach to the site on which a ruin is found will be apparent from the above. It was certainly a prominent element in the De Chelly group. A study of the detailed map here published will illustrate how completely the necessity for proximity to an area of cultivable land has dominated the location of the settlements, large and small; and a visit to the place itself would show how little influence the defensive motive has exercised. Near the mouth of the canyon, where cultivable areas of land are not many, there are few ruins, but those which do occur overlook such lands. In the middle portion, where good lands are most abundant, ruins also are most abundant; while above this, as the rocky talus develops more and more, the ruins become fewer and fewer; and in the upper parts of the canyon, beyond the area shown on the map, they are located at wide distances apart, corresponding to little areas of good land so located. Not all of the available land was utilized, and only a small percentage of the available sites were built upon. Between the mouth of De Chelly and the junction of Monument canyon, 13 miles above, there are seventy-one ruins. A fair idea of their distribution may be obtained from a study of the detailed map (plate XLIII), in conjunction with the following figures: I. Old villages on open sites occur at the points marked 12, 41, 52, 17_a_, 55, 60, 61, and 67; in all, nine sites; principally in the upper part of the canyon. II. Home villages on bottom lands, located without reference to defense, occupy sites 3, 4, 17, 20, 28, 48, and 51; in all, seven sites. Probably there are many more ruins of this class and the preceding, now so far obliterated as to be overlooked or indistinguishable. III. Home villages on defensive sites occur at the points marked 5, 10, 13, 15, 16, 27, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 40, 44, 47, 59, 62, and 66; in all, seventeen. This includes many sites where the settlements were very small, often only a few rooms, but there is always at least one kiva. IV. Cliff outlooks and farming shelters occupy sites 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 33, 35, 38, 39, 42, 43, 45, 46, 49, 50, 53, 54, 56, 57, 64, 63, 65, 68, 69, and 70; in all, thirty-seven, or more than half. Some of these sites are now marked only by Navaho remains, and possibly a small percentage of them are of Navaho making, but the sites which are clearly and unmistakably Navaho are not mentioned here. Of all the sites only one (No. 7) is actually inaccessible without artificial aid. The absence of any attempt to improve the natural advantages of the sites is remarkable. No expedients were employed to make access either easier or more difficult, except that here and there series of hand and foot holes have been pecked in the rock. Steps, either constructed of masonry or cut in the rock, such as those found in the Mancos canyon and the Mesa Verde region, are never seen here. The cavities in which the ruins occur are always natural; they are never enlarged or curtailed or altered in the slightest degree, and very rarely is the cavity itself treated as a room, although there are some excellent sites for such treatment. The back wall of a cove is often the back wall of a village, but aside from this the natural advantages of the sites were seldom realized. The settlements were always located with reference to the canyon bottom, and access was never had from above, notwithstanding that in some cases access from above was easier than from below. Yet the inhabitants must necessarily have obtained their supply of firewood from above, as the quantity in the canyons, especially in that part where most of the ruins occur, is very limited. The Navaho throw the wood over the cliffs, afterward gathering up the fragments below and carrying them on their backs to their hogans at various points on the canyon bottom. The crash of falling logs, dropped or pushed over the edge of a cliff, sometimes 400 or 500 feet high, is not an infrequent sound in the canyon, and is at first very puzzling to the visitor. The canyon walls are so nearly vertical, or rather so large a proportion is vertical, that egress or ingress, except at the mouth of the canyon, is a matter of great difficulty. Near the junction of Monument canyon, 13 miles above the mouth of De Chelly, there is a practicable horse trail ascending a narrow gorge to the southeast. The Navaho call it the Bat trail, on account of its difficulties. Another horse trail crosses Del Muerto some 8 or 10 miles above its mouth. With these exceptions there is no point where a horse can get into the canyons or out of them, but there are dozens of places where an active man, accustomed to it, can scale the walls by the aid of foot-holes which have been pecked in the rock at the most difficult places. These foot trails are in constant use by the Navaho, who ascend and descend by them with apparent ease, but it is doubtful whether a white man could be induced to climb them, except perhaps under the stress of necessity. There are even some trails over which sheep and goats are driven in and out of the canyon, but anyone who had not seen the flocks actually passing over the rocks would declare such a feat impossible. Some of these trails at least are of Navaho origin. Whether any of them were used by the former dwellers in the canyon can not now be determined; it seems probable that some of them were. [Illustration: Fig. 66--Site apparently very difficult of access.] [Illustration: Plate LVI Site Difficult of Approach] Plate LVI shows a characteristic site in the lower part of the canyon. It occurs at the point marked 8 on the map, and is now quite difficult of approach, owing to the wearing away or weathering of a long line of foot-holes in the sloping rock, but formerly access was easy enough. It is now marked by a cluster of Navaho burial cists. Figure 66 shows an example that occurs in De Chelly, about 8 miles above the junction, of Monument canyon. At first glance, and at a distance, this site appears to be really inaccessible, but a close inspection of the figure will show that it could be reached with comparative little difficulty over the rounded mass of rock shown to the left. By cutting off that side of the figure it could be made to serve as an illustration of a wholly inaccessible ruin. MASONRY The ancient pueblo builder, like his modern successor, was so closely in touch with nature, so dependent on his immediate physical surroundings, that variations in some at least of his arts are more natural and to be expected than uniformity. Especially is this true of the art of construction, and variations in masonry are more often than not the result of variations in the material employed, which is nearly always that most convenient to hand. Yet there were other conditions that necessarily influenced it, such, for example, as the character of the structure to be erected, whether permanent or temporary. The summer village of Ojo Caliente presents a type of masonry much ruder than any found in the home village of Zuñi, although both were built and occupied by the same people at the same time. Within the limits of Canyon de Chelly, where the physical conditions and the character of material are essentially uniform, a considerable variation in the masonry is found, implying that some conditions other than the usual ones have influenced it. Were the masonry of one class of ruins inferior or superior throughout to that of another it might be easily explained, but variations within each class are greater than those between classes. Conditions analogous to those which prevailed in the case of Ojo Caliente and Zuñi may have governed here, or there may have been other conditions of which we now know nothing. It may be that sites originally occupied as farming shelters subsequently became regular villages, as has happened in other regions. The position of the kivas in many of the ruins suggests this. As a whole the masonry is inferior to that found in the Mancos canyon and the Chaco, and superior to that of Tusayan, but, as in Tusayan, where the masonry is sometimes very roughly constructed, the builders were well acquainted with the methods which produced the finer and better work. The highest type of masonry in the pueblo system of architecture consists of small blocks of stone of nearly uniform size, dressed, and laid in courses, and rubbed down in situ. No attempt was made to break joints. This system requires the careful preparation of the material beforehand, and examples of it are not very common in Canyon de Chelly. As a variant we have walls composed of stones of fairly uniform size, laid with the best face out and with the interstices chinked with small spalls. The chinking is carried to such an extent in some places, as in the Chaco ruins, that the walls present the effect of a mosaic composed of small spalls. Chinking is almost a universal practice, and in some localities had passed, or was passing, from a mere constructive to a real decorative feature. Here we have the beginning of that architecture which has been defined by Ferguson as "ornamental and ornamented construction"--in other words, of architecture as an art rather than as a craft. The use of an exterior finish of plaster was conducive to poor masonry. Such plastering is found throughout the region, but it is much more abundant in the modern than in the ancient work. Perhaps we may find in this a suggestion of relative age; not in the use of plastering, but in its prevalence. Pueblo masonry is composed of very small units, and the results obtained testify to the patience and industry of the builders rather than to their knowledge and skill. In fact, their knowledge of construction was far more limited than would at first sight be supposed. The marked tabular character of the stone used rendered but a small amount of preparation necessary for even the best masonry. For over 90 per cent of it there was no preparation other than the selection of material. The walls and buildings were always modified to suit the ground, never the reverse, and instances in which the site was prepared are very rare, if not indeed unknown. There are no such instances in De Chelly, where sites were often irregular, and a small amount of work would have rendered them much more desirable. Plate LVII shows a type of masonry which is quite common in De Chelly. It is the west room of ruin 16, near the mouth of Del Muerto. An attempt at regularity, and possibly at decorative effect, is apparent in the use of courses of fairly uniform thickness, alternating with other courses or belts composed of small thin fragments. Beautiful examples of masonry constructed on this method occur in the Chaco ruins, but here, while the method was known, the execution was careless or faulty. Chinking with small spalls has been extensively practiced and gives the wall an appearance of smoothness and finish. A similar wall, rather better constructed, occurs at the point marked 3 on the map, and in this case the stones composing the wall were rubbed down in situ. Another wall, which occurs in the same ruin, is shown in plate LVIII. In places very large stones have been used, larger than one man could handle conveniently, but the general effect of the wall face is very good. This effect was obtained by placing the best face of the stone outward and by careful chinking. [Illustration: Plate LVII Masonry in Canyon De Chelly] Chinking was sometimes done, not with slips of stone driven in with a hammer, after the usual style, but with bits of mud pressed in with the fingers. The mud was used when about the consistency of modeling clay, and bears the imprints of the fingers that applied it; even the skin markings show clearly and distinctly. From this use of mud to its use as an exterior plaster there is but a short step; in fact, examples which are intermediate can be seen throughout the canyon. In places mud has been applied to small cracks and cavities in larger quantities than was necessary, and the excess has been smoothed over the adjacent stones forming a wall partly plastered, or plastered in patches. Plate LIX, which shows the interior of a room in ruin 10, will illustrate this. Here the process has been carried so far that the wall is almost plastered, but not quite. In plastered walls the process was carried a step farther, and the surface was finished by the application of a final coat of mud made quite liquid. The interior plastering of kivas was always much more carefully done than that of any other walls. Owing to blackening by smoke and recoating, the thickness of the plastering in kivas can be easily made out. Often it is as thin as ordinary paper. Plate LX shows walls in which an abundance of mud mortar was used, and the effect is that of a plastered wall. The difference between these walls and those shown in plate LVII is only one of degree, the wall shown in plate LIX being of an intermediate type. No instance occurs in the canyon where a coating of mud was evenly applied to the whole surface of a wall, in the way, for example, that stucco is used by us. It seems probable, therefore, that the application of plaster as a finish grew out of the use of stone spalls for chinking, and its prevalence in modern as compared with old structures is suggestive. It is not claimed, however, that because we have examples of the intermediate stages in De Chelly that the process was developed there. The step is such a slight one that it might have been made in a hundred different localities at a hundred different times or at one time; but it is well to note that in any given group of ruins or locality it is likely to be later than masonry chinked with stones. Surface finishing in mud plaster is the prevailing method at the present day, and well-executed masonry of stone carefully chinked is almost invariably ancient. The use of surface plaster is largely responsible for the deterioration of stonework that has taken place since the beginning of the historic period. The modern village of Zuñi, which dates from the beginning of the eighteenth century, although built on the site of an older village, is essentially a stone-built village, though that fact would never appear from a cursory examination, so completely is the stonework covered by surface plaster. In Tusayan (Moki) walls have been observed in progress of erection. The stones were laid up dry, and some time after, when the rains came and pools of water stood here and there in pockets on the mesa top, mud mortar was mixed and the interstices were filled. This method saved the transportation of water from the wells below up to the top of the mesa, a task entailing much labor. Doubtless a similar method was followed in De Chelly, where the stream bed carries water only during a part of the year. But stone was also actually laid in mud mortar, as shown in plate LII, which illustrates a rough type of masonry. It is probable that the practice of chinking grew up out of the scarcity of water, when walls were erected during the dry season and finished when the rains made the manufacture of mud mortar less of a task. The rough wall shown in the illustration is the outside of an interior wall of a kiva, and it was probably covered by the rectangular inclosing wall that came outside of it. It will be noticed that chinking, both with mud and with spalls, was extensively practiced and seems here to have been an essential part of the construction. In this example it could have no relation to the finish of the wall, for the wall was not finished. Much of the masonry in the canyon is of the type described, but examples differ widely in degree of finish and in material selected. Some of the walls appear very rough and even crude, so much so that they almost appear to be the first efforts of a people at an unknown art, but a closer inspection shows that even the rudest walls were erected with a knowledge of the principles which were followed in the best ones, and that the difference resulted only from the care or lack of care employed. The rudest walls are much superior to the masonry of the Navaho cists which are found in conjunction with them and which are constructed on a different method. Although walls were often built on sloping rock, and the builders had experience and at times disastrous experience to guide them, the necessity for a fiat and solid foundation was never appreciated. Walls were sometimes built on loose debris; even refuse which had been covered and formed an artificial soil was considered sufficient. There are many instances in the canyon where lack of foresight or lack of knowledge in this respect has brought about the destruction of walls. Walls resting on foreign material occur throughout the region; they are not confined to anyone class of ruins or to any part of the canyon, but are found as much or more in the most recent as in the most ancient examples. Mummy Cave ruin and Casa Blanca are good examples. In the latter the small room on the left of the upper group (plate XLVII) is especially interesting. The side walls appear to rest on a deposit of refuse nearly 2 feet thick, which in turn rests on the sloping rock. The front wall is supported by a buttress as shown; without this support it would certainly have been pushed out. The buttress appears to have been built at the same time as the front wall, although its use in this way is not aboriginal. The whole arrangement is such as would result if this room, originally represented by a low front wall perhaps, were constructed when the site became inadequate and consequently at a late period in its occupancy. The character of the refuse and debris upon which some of the walls rest is worth notice. It is well known that sheep were introduced into this country by the Spaniards, and the presence in the ruins of sheep dung, or of a material which closely resembles it, is important. Much of this is due to subsequent Navaho occupancy, and many ruins are used today by these Indians as sheepfolds. It is said, moreover, that at the time of the Navaho war, when the soldiers bayoneted all the sheep they could find, large flocks were driven up into some cliff ruins that are almost inaccessible, and kept there for a time in security. But many instances are found where the walls rest directly upon layers of compacted dung. An example is shown in plate LII, and others are mentioned in the text under the descriptions of various ruins. [Illustration: Plate LVIII Chinked Walls in Canyon De Chelly] It has been suggested that the compacted dung found in the ruins was the product not of sheep, but of some other domesticated animal which existed in this country at the time of the first Spanish invasion, but the evidence to support this hypothesis is so very slight that so far the suggestion is only a suggestion. Not the slightest trace of this animal has been found, although it is alleged that it was domesticated among the pueblos three hundred and fifty years ago. Although the idea of a strengthening or supporting buttress is thought to be a foreign introduction, a hypothesis that is strengthened by the occurrence of other features, the masonry itself is aboriginal in its principles and probably also in execution. The conservatism of the Indian mind in such matters is well known. The Zuñi today use stone more than adobe, although for a hundred years or more there has been an adobe church in the midst of the village. Adobe construction in this region is only partially successful. North of the Gila river, in the plateau country, the climate is not suited to it; the rains are too heavy and the frosts are destructive. Constant vigilance and prompt repairs are necessary, and even then the adobe work is not satisfactory. Certainly in the northern part of the country the aborigines would not have developed this method of construction in the face of the difficulties with which it is surrounded; yet there are examples of adobe work in some of the most important ruins in De Chelly, as has already been stated. The fact that the only previously known examples of adobe work occur in ruins which are known to have been inhabited subsequent to the Spanish conquest, such as the ruin of Awatobi, in Tusayan, is suggestive. Moreover, adobe construction in this region belongs to a late period; for the walls are almost always very thin, usually 6 or 7 inches. The old type of massive walls, 2 or even 3 feet thick, are seldom or never found constructed of adobe, although such thickness is more necessary in this material than in stone. There is another method of construction which, although not masonry, should be noticed here. This is the equivalent of the Mexican "jacal" construction, and consists of series of poles or logs planted vertically in the ground close to each other and plastered with mud either outside or on both sides. The only example of this found in the canyon occurs in the western part of the lower Casa Blanca ruin, and has already been mentioned. Did it not occur elsewhere it could be dismissed here as simply another item of evidence of the modern occupancy of the ruin, but Dr W. R. Birdsall mentions walls in the Mesa Verde ruins which are "continued upward upon a few tiers of stone by wickerwork heavily plastered inside and outside"[14] and Nordenskiöld mentions a similar construction in the interior of a kiva. Whether a similar foundation or lower part of stone existed in the Casa Blanca ruin could not be determined without excavation. [Footnote 14: Bull. Am. Geog. Soc., vol. xxiii, p. 598.] OPENINGS The ruins in De Chelly are so much broken down that few examples of openings now remain; still fewer are yet intact; but there is no doubt that they are of the regular pueblo types. Most of the openings in the De Chelly ruins are rectangular, of medium size, neither very large nor very small, with unfinished jambs and sills, and with a lintel such as that shown in plate LVIII, composed of one or two series of light sticks, sometimes surmounted by a flat stone slab. This example occurs at the point marked 3 on the map, in what was formerly an extensive village. The wall on the left, now covered by loosely piled rocks, was pierced by a narrow notched doorway. The opening shown in the illustration, which is in the northern wall, is 2 feet high and 14 inches wide; its sill is about 18 inches from the ground. The lintel is composed of six small sticks, about an inch in diameter, surmounted by a flat slab of stone, very roughly shaped, and separated from the sticks by 2 inches of mud mortar. [Illustration: Fig. 67--Notched doorway in Canyon de Chelly.] Plate LVII shows an opening which occurs in ruin No. 16. The building consisted of two rooms, between which there was no communication. The eastern room was entered by the doorway shown in the illustration, which is 2 feet above the ground and 2 feet high. To facilitate ingress a notch was dug in the wall about 8 inches from the ground. The western room was entered through a large doorway, shown in plate LI. The sill is about 8 inches above the ground; the opening is 3 feet high and 14 inches wide. The lintel is composed of small sticks, with a slab of stone above them, and the top of the opening and perhaps the sides were plastered. [Illustration: Plate LIX A Partly Plastered Wall] The notched or T-shape doorway, which is quite common in the Mesa Verde ruins and in Tusayan, is not abundant in De Chelly, but some examples can be seen there. One is shown in figure 67, which illustrates the type. There is no doubt that doorways of this kind developed at a time when no means existed for closing the opening, except blankets or skins, and when loads were carried on the backs of men. It often happened that doorways originally constructed of this style were afterward changed by partial filling to square or rectangular openings. The principal doorway in the front wall of the White House proper was originally of T-shape; at some later period, but before the white coating was applied, the left-hand wing and the standard below it were filled in, leaving an almost square opening. This later filling is not uncommon in De Chelly, and is often found in Tusayan, where openings are sometimes reduced for the winter season and enlarged again in the summer. Many openings are completely closed, either by filling in with masonry or by a stone slab, and examples of both of these methods are found in De Chelly. In the third wall from the east, in the upper part of Casa Blanca ruin, there is a well-finished doorway sealed by a thin slab of stone set in mud. On the right side of the opening, about the middle, a loop or staple of wood has been built into the wall, and in the corresponding place on the left side a stick about half an inch in diameter projects. An opening into the small room west of the White House proper has a similar contrivance, and another example occurs in the front wall of the small single room in the eastern end of the ruin. Oddly enough the three examples that occur in this ruin are all found in adobe walls. This feature appears to have been a contrivance for temporarily closing openings which were provided with stone slabs, and the latter were sealed in place with mud mortar when it was desired to close the room permanently. Examples, identical even in details, have been found in the Mancos canyon, and one is described and illustrated by Chapin,[15] who states that the slab was 14½ inches wide at one end, 15½ at the other, and 25 inches high, with an average thickness of an inch. He mentions staples on both sides. Nordenskiöld[16] illustrates another or possibly the same example. He notes, however, an inner frame composed of small sticks and mud against which the slab rested. He thinks the notched doorways belonged to rooms most frequented in daily life, while the others belonged in general to storerooms or other chambers requiring a door to close them. [Footnote 15: Land of the Cliff Dwellers, pp. 149-150, pl. opp. p. 155.] [Footnote 16: Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, pp. 52-53, fig. 28.] Taken as a whole, the settlements in De Chelly appear to have been well provided with doorways and other openings, and there is no perceptible difference in this respect between the various classes of ruins. Openings were freely left in the walls, wherever convenience dictated, and without regard to the defensive motive, which, in the large valley pueblos, brought about the requirement that all the first-story rooms should be entered from the roof, a requirement which has only recently given way to the greater convenience of an entrance on the ground level. ROOFS, FLOORS, AND TIMBER WORK In the pueblo system of construction roofs and floors are the same; in other words, the roof of one room is the floor of the room above, and where a room or house is but one story high no change in the method of construction is made. The erection of walls was only a question of time, as the unit of the masonry is small; but the construction of a roof was a much harder task, as the beams were necessarily brought from a distance, sometimes a very long distance. The Tusayan claim that some of the timbers used in the construction of the mission buildings, which were established prior to the insurrection of 1680, were brought on the backs of men from San Francisco mountains, a distance of over 100 miles, and references to the transportation of timber over long distances are not uncommon in Pueblo traditions. In De Chelly great difficulty must have been experienced in procuring an adequate supply, as in that portion of the canyon where most of the ruins occur no suitable trees grow. Doubtless in many cases, where the location, under overhanging cliffs permitted, roofs were dispensed with, but this alone would not account for the dearth of timber found in the ruins. If we suppose the canyon to have been the scene of a number of occupancies instead of one, the absence of timber work, as well as the much obliterated appearance of some of the ruins, would be explained, for the material would be used more than once, perhaps several times. The Navaho would not use the timber in cliff ruins under any circumstances, and they would rather starve than eat food cooked with it. Many of the cliff outlooks, being occupied only during the farming season and being also fairly well sheltered, were probably roofless. Timber was used as an aid to masonry construction in two ways--as a foundation and as a tie. Many instances can be seen where the walls rest on beams, running, not with them, but across them. These beams were placed directly on the rock, and the front walls rested partly on their ends and partly on the rock itself. Plate LII shows the end of one of these beams. In nine cases out of ten the beams do not appear to have served any useful end, but perhaps if the walls were removed down to the foundations the purpose would be clear. Sometimes a beam was placed on the rock in the line of the wall above it. The single or separate room occupying the western end of the upper cave in the Casa Blanca ruin is an example of this use. The front wall rests on beams, as shown in plate XLVI. Some of the back adobe walls in the eastern part of the upper ruin rest on timbers, and instances of this feature are not uncommon in other parts of the canyon. The southeastern corner of the tower in Mummy Cave ruin in Del Muerto rested on timbers apparently laid over a small cavity or hole in the rock. The timber was not strong enough to support the weight placed upon it, and consequently gave way, letting the corner of the tower fall out. Cross walls were sometimes tied to front or back walls by timbers built into them, but this method, of which fine examples can be seen in the Chaco ruins, was but slightly practiced here. Timber was used also to prevent the slipping of walls on sloping sites, being placed vertically and built into the masonry; but as this use is a constructive expedient it is discussed under that head. STORAGE AND BURIAL CISTS Facilities for the storage of grain and other produce are essential in the pueblo system of horticulture, as in any other. As a result, storage cists are found everywhere. In the modern pueblos the inner dark rooms, which would otherwise be useless, provide the necessary space, but in the settlements in De Chelly, which were very small as a rule, there were few such rooms, and special structures had to be erected. These differed from the dwelling rooms only in size, although as a rule, perhaps, the openings by which they were entered were not so large as those of the dwellings and were sometimes, possibly always, provided with some means by which they could be closed. [Illustration: Plate LX Plastered Wall in Canyon De Chelly] Immense numbers of these storage cists are found in the canyon, some of them with masonry so roughly executed that it is difficult to discriminate between the old pueblo and the modern Navaho work. Sometimes these cists or small rooms form part of a village, more often they are attached to the cliff outlooks, and not infrequently they stand alone on sites overlooking the lands whose product they contained. It is probable that many of the cliff outlooks themselves were used quite as much for temporary storage as for habitations during the farming season. These two uses, although quite distinct, do not conflict with each other. Doubtless many excellent sites, now marked only by the remains of storage cists, were occupied also during the summer as outlooks without the erection of any house structures. Some of the modern pueblos now use temporary shelters of brush for outlooks. It is not meant that the crops when gathered were placed in these cists and kept there until used. The harvest was, as a rule, permanently stored in the home villages, and the cists were used only for temporary storage. Doubtless the old practice resembled somewhat that followed by the Navaho today. The harvest is gathered at the proper time and what is not eaten at once is hidden away in cists of old or modern construction. If it is well hidden, the grain may remain in the cists for a long time if not withdrawn for consumption; but as a rule it is taken away a few months later. The annual emigration of the Navaho commences soon after the harvest, and at intervals during the winter and spring, and in summer, if the supply is not then exhausted, visits are paid to the cists and portions of the grain are carried away. A large proportion of the cists are of modern Navaho work, but that some of them were used by the pueblo people who preceded them seems probable from the similarity in horticultural methods, and from the small size of many of the villages. A village inhabited by half a dozen people was not uncommon; one which could accommodate more than fifty was rare. Moreover, some of the storage cists that occur in conjunction with dwellings differ from the latter only in size and in their separation from the other rooms. The masonry is quite as good as that of the houses, and much superior to the Navaho work. Plate LXI shows an example which occurs in the lower part of the canyon, at the point marked 1 on the map. It is placed on a little ledge or block of rock, 12 feet above the stream and about 8 feet above the bottom land below it. This is the first considerable area of bottom land in the canyon. The cist is 2 feet square inside and occupies the whole width of the rock. An exceptionally large amount of mud plaster was used on the walls, which are better finished outside than inside. Access was had by hand-holes in the rock, now almost obliterated. Originally the structure consisted of two or more rooms. A little below this site there are some well-executed pictographs, and on some rocks immediately to the right some crude work of the Navaho of the same sort. To the left of the cist a round hole 6 or 8 inches in diameter has been pecked into the almost vertical face of the rock. The purpose of this is not clear. The storage of water was so seldom attempted, or perhaps so seldom necessary, that only one example of a reservoir was found. This has already been described (page 126). If the cliff ruins were defensive structures, a supply of water must have been kept in them, and where this requirement was common, as it would be under the hypothesis, certainly some receptacle other than jars of pottery would be provided. Few, if any, of the cliff outlooks are so situated that a supply of water could be procured without descending to the stream bed, and without a supply of water the most impregnable site in the canyon would have little value. The number of burial cists in the canyon is remarkable; there are hundreds of them. Practically every ruin whose walls are still standing contains one or more, some have eight or ten. They are all of Navaho origin and in many of them the remains of Navaho dead may still be seen. Possibly the Navaho taboo of their own dead has brought about the partial taboo of the cliff dwellers' remains which prevails, and which is an element that must be taken into account in any discussion of the antiquity of the ruins. The burial cists are built usually in a corner or against a wall of a cliff dweller's house, but sometimes they are built against a cliff wall, and occasionally stand out alone. The masonry is always rough, much inferior to the old walls against which it generally rests, and usually very flimsy. The structures are dome-shape when standing alone, or in the shape of a section of a dome when placed against other walls. The natural bedding of the stone is sometimes wholly ignored, and in some cases the walls consist merely of thin slabs of stone on edge, held together with masses of mud, the whole presenting an average thickness of less than 3 inches. Such structures on ordinary sites would not last six months; protected as they are they might last for many years. [Illustration: Plate LXI Storage Cist in Canyon De Chelly] Not all the Navaho dead in the canyon find their last resting place in the ruins. Graves can be seen under bowlders and rocks high up on the talus; and in one place in De Chelly a number of little piles of stones are pointed out as the burial places of "many Americans," who, it is said, were killed by the Navaho in their last war. It is also said that in the olden days, when the Navaho considered De Chelly their stronghold and the heart of their country, the remains of prominent men of the tribe were often brought to the canyon for interment in the ruins. Such burials are still made, both in the ruins themselves and in cists on similar sites. As a whole the Navaho burial cists are much more difficult of access than the ruins, and some of them appear to be now really inaccessible, a statement which can be made of but few ruins. Some of them appear to have been reached from above. The agility and dexterity of the Navaho in climbing the cliffs is remarkable, and possibly some of the sites now apparently inaccessible are not so considered by them. As before stated, there are a number of Navaho foot trails out of the canyon, where shallow pits or holes have been pecked in the rock as an aid in the more difficult places, and similar aids were often employed to afford access to storage and burial cists. Plate LVI shows a site in the lower part of the canyon where such means have been employed. The pits in the rock are so much worn by atmospheric erosion that the ascent now is very dangerous. The cove or ledge to which they lead is about halfway up the cliff, and on it are a number of cists, one of them still intact, with a doorway. The masonry consists of large slabs of sandstone set on edge, sometimes irregularly one above another, the whole being roughly plastered inside and out. About 200 yards farther up the cove, on the same side, there is a series of foot holes leading to a small cave about halfway up, and thence upward and probably out of the canyon. They are probably of Navaho origin. [Illustration: Fig. 68--Cist composed of upright slabs.] The use of stone on edge is apparently confined to these cists. Figure 68 shows a structure which occurs a little above the ruin marked 37 on the map. The walls consist of thin slabs of stone set upright and roughly plastered where they meet. Instances of the use of stone in this way are not uncommon in the pueblo country, and there are a number of examples in De Chelly. As before stated, the typical Navaho burial cist is of dome shape. The roof or upper portion is supported on sticks so arranged as to leave a small square opening in the top. Apparently at some stage in its existence this hole is closed and sealed, but examples were examined which were very old and one which was but twenty-four hours old, but in neither case was the opening closed. Doubtless the opening has some ceremonial significance; it is not of any actual use, as it is too small to permit the passage of a human body. Plate LXII shows a typical cist in good order and another such broken down. These examples occur at the point marked 6 on the map, in the ruin shown in plate LIII. This site is of comparatively easy access, and there are many others equally easy or even more so, but, on the other hand, there are many Sites which now seem to be wholly inaccessible. DEFENSIVE AND CONSTRUCTIVE EXPEDIENTS The cliff ruins have always been regarded as defensive structures, sometimes even as fortresses, but in De Chelly whatever value they have in this respect is due solely to the sites they occupy. There are many places here where slight defensive works on the approaches to sites would increase their value a hundredfold, but such works were apparently never constructed. Furthermore, the ruins themselves never show even a suggestion of the influence of the defensive motive, except in the two possible instances already mentioned. The ordinary or dwelling-house plan has not been at all modified, not even to the extent that it has in the modern pueblos. If the cliff ruins were defensive structures it would certainly seem that an influence strong enough to bring about the occupancy of such inconvenient and unsuitable sites would also be strong enough to bring about some modifications in the architecture, modifications which would render more suitable sites available. The influence of the physical environment on pueblo architecture, and the sensitiveness of the latter to such influence, has already been commented on. Moreover, it also has been stated that, so far as known, but one instance occurs in the canyon where provision was made for the storage of water; yet without water the strongest "fortress" in the canyon could not withstand a siege of forty-eight hours. Further, assuming that the structures were defensive, and well prepared to resist attack, if necessary, for several days, only a few such attacks would be required to cause their abandonment, for the crops on the canyon bottom, practically the sole possessions of the dwellers in the canyon, would necessarily be lost. [Illustration: Plate LXII Navaho Burial Cists] These are some of the difficulties that stand in the way of the assumption that the cliff ruins were defensive structures or permanent homes. If, however, we adopt the hypothesis that they were farming outlooks occupied only during the farming season, and then only for a few days or weeks at a time, after the manner that such outlooks are used by the Pueblo Indians at the present time, most of the difficulties vanish. The apparent inaccessibility of many of the sites disappears on close examination, and we must not forget that places really difficult of access to us would not necessarily be so regarded by a people accustomed to that manner of life. Many locations which could not be surpassed as defensive sites were not occupied, while others much inferior in this respect were built upon. It was very seldom that the natural conditions were modified, even to the extent of selecting a route of access other than that which, would naturally be followed, and, of course, the easiest route for the cliff dwellers would be also the easiest route for their enemies. In many cases the easiest way of access, which was the one used by the cliff dwellers, was not direct. It was not commanded by the immediate site of the dwellings, except in its upper part, and in some cases not at all. Enemies could climb to the very doors of the houses before they could be seen or attacked. The absence of military knowledge and skill, and of any attempt to fortify or strengthen a site, or even to fully utilize its natural defensive advantages, is characteristic of the cliff ruins of De Chelly. If the cliff dwellers were driven to the use of such places by a necessity for defense, this absence is remarkable, especially as there is evidence that the settlements were occupied for a number of, perhaps a great many, years. Under the head of constructive expedients we have a different result. The difficulties which came from the occupancy of exceptional sites were promptly reflected in the construction, and unusual ways and methods were adopted to overcome them. These methods are the more interesting in that they were not always successful. It sometimes happened that walls had to be placed on a foundation of smooth, sloping rock. In such cases the rock was never cut away, but timbers were employed to hold the wall in place. In some instances the timbers were laid at right angles to the line of front wall, at points where cross walls joined it inside. The front wall thus rested partly on the ends of timbers and partly on rock, while the other ends of the timbers were held in place by the cross walls built upon them. An example of this construction is shown in plate LII. In other instances, where the surface was irregular but did not slope much, timbers were laid on the wall lines and the masonry rested partly upon them. An example of this occurs in the Casa Blanca ruin, shown in plate XLVII. Still another method of using timber in masonry occurs in a number of ruins. It was seldom effective and apparently was confined to this region. This consists of the incorporation into the masonry of upright logs. Figure 69 shows an example that occurs at the point marked 32 on the map. The site here is an especially difficult one, as the builders were compelled to place walls not only on sloping rock foundations, but also on loose débris, and the vertical timber support is quite common. The three kivas which are shown on the plan occupied the front of the village, and their front walls have fallen out. Apparently the same accident has happened at least once, if not several times, before, and a fragment of a previous front wall has slipped down 3 or 4 feet, and was left there when the kiva was repaired. The round dots shown on the plan, two in the wall of the central kiva and one on the east, represent vertical timbers incorporated in the masonry. The tops of these logs reach the level of the top of the bench in the kiva, and their lower ends rest in cavities in the rocks. The eastern one was removed and was found to be about 2 feet long. The upper half was charred, although formerly inclosed completely in the masonry, as though it had been burned off to the required length. The lower end was hacked off with some blunt implement, and as nearly squared as it could be done with such means. It was set into a socket or hole pecked in the solid rock and plastered in with clay. In the outer portion of the eastern wall of the central kiva there are many marks of sticks, 3 to 4 inches in diameter and placed vertically. [Illustration: Fig. 69--Retaining walls in Canyon de Chelly.] Although timbers as an aid to masonry occur in many ruins, they predominate in those which have been suggested as the sites most recently occupied; but in the Chaco ruins timber has been used extensively and much more skillfully than here. Instances occur where a cross wall has been tied into a front wall with timber, and so effective was the device that in one instance a considerable section of cross wall can be seen suspended in the air, being completely broken out below and now supported wholly by the ties. Instances can also be seen where partition walls are supported on crossbeams at some distance from the ground, forming large and convenient openings between rooms; but nothing of that kind was seen in De Chelly. In the latter region wherever horizontal timbers are used for the support of masonry they rest on the bed rock. [Illustration: Plate LXIII Kiva in Ruin No. 10, Showing Second-Story Walls] The same ruin (No. 32) contains an elaborate system of retaining avails, which are shown partly in figure 69. At first a retaining wall was built immediately in front of the main kiva, which is now 5 feet high outside. Apparently this did not serve the purpose intended, for another and much heavier wall was built immediately next to it. This wall is 4 feet thick, flush on top and inside, but 10 feet high outside. At half its height it has a step back of 6 inches. It would seem that even this heavy construction did not suffice, and still another wall was built outside of and next to it. This wall is nearly or quite as heavy as the one described, and its top is on the level of the foot of that wall, but it is 12 feet high outside. Something of the character of the site may be inferred from the arrangement of these walls, which have a combined vertical fall of 27 feet in a horizontal distance of less than 15 feet. The outer or lower wall has a series of very heavy timbers projecting from its face; these are placed irregularly. It should be noted that access to this village was from the bench on either side, and that it could not be reached from the front, where these walls occur. There are other walls on the lower slope, similarly reinforced. A little to the right of the point where these retaining walls occur there is a room in which horizontal beams have been incorporated in the masonry. A similar use of timber occurs in ruin No. 16 and is shown in plate LX. Why timber should be used in this way is not clear. It may be that when the supply was placed on the ground the builders found that they had more timber than was needed for a roof and used the excess in the wall rather than bring up more stone. The posts which were placed vertically and built into the wall were always short; perhaps they were fragments or ends cut from roofing timbers that were found to be too long. In many instances they failed to hold the walls, and possibly the pit holes in sloping rock, which are numerous on some sites, indicate places where this expedient was formerly employed. It is singular that the necessity for such expedients did not develop the idea of a buttress. On this site such an expedient would have saved an immense amount of work. In only one place in the canyon was a buttress found. This was in the Casa Blanca ruin, shown in plate XLVII. There is no doubt that in this place the buttress was used with a full knowledge of its principles, and but little doubt that the idea was imported at a late, perhaps the latest, period in the occupancy of that site. Had it been known before, it would have been used in other places where there was great need for it, not so much to prevent the slipping of walls as to supersede the construction of walls 4 feet thick or more, and to strengthen outside walls which were likely to give way at any time from the outward thrust upon them. Altogether the constructive expedients employed in De Chelly suggest the introduction of plans and methods adapted to other regions and other conditions into a new region with different requirements, and that occupancy of the latter region did not continue long enough to conform the methods to the new conditions. KIVAS OR SACRED CHAMBERS The kivas, or estufas as they formerly were called, are sacred chambers in which the civil and religious affairs of the tribe are transacted, and they also form a place of resort, or club, as it were, for the men. Their functions are many and varied, but as this subject has already been discussed at length[17] it need not be enlarged upon here. In Tusayan the kivas are rectangular and separated from the houses; in Zuñi and in some other pueblos they are also rectangular, but are incorporated in the house clusters--a feature doubtless brought about by the repressive policy of the Spanish monks. In some of the pueblos, as in Taos, they are circular, and in many of the older ruins the same form is found. In the large ruins of Chaco canyon the kivas occur in groups arranged along the inner side of the rooms; always, where the ground plan is such as to permit it, arranged on the border of an inner court. In Canyon de Chelly the kivas are always circular and are placed generally on the outer edge of the settlement, which is usually the front. [Footnote 17: 8th Ann. Rept. Bur. Eth., "A study of Pueblo architecture in Tusayan and Cibola," by Victor Mindeleff; Washington, 1891.] As the function of the kivas is principally a religious one, they are found only in permanent villages where religious ceremonies were performed. They are never found in subordinate settlements, or farming villages, or outlooks, unless such settlements came to be inhabited all the year--in other words, until they became permanent villages. The habits and requirements of the Pueblo people make it essential that a permanent village should have one or more kivas, and we have in the presence of these structures a criterion by which the character of a village or ruin may be determined. As the kivas in De Chelly are always circular, they can generally be easily distinguished. The circular kiva is unquestionably a survival in architecture--a relic of the time when the Pueblo people dwelt in circular lodges or huts--and its use in conjunction with a rectangular system entailed many difficulties and some awkward expedients to overcome them. The main problem, how to use the two systems together, was solved by inclosing the circular chamber in a rectangular cell, and this expedient aided in the solution of the hardly less important problem of roofing. The roof of the kiva was the roof of the chamber that inclosed it. It seems to have been a common requirement throughout the pueblo country that the kiva should be wholly or partly underground. So strong was this requirement in Tusayan that the occurrence of natural clefts and fissures in the rock of the mesa top has dictated the location of the kivas often at some distance from the houses. But in De Chelly there were some sites where the requirement could not be filled without extensive rock excavation wholly beyond the power of the builders. Here then it seems that other requirements were strong enough to overcome the ceremonial necessity for partly subterranean structures, for examples of that kind are comparatively rare. In all of the ruins on the canyon bottom the requirement could be filled, and as many of the villages on defensive sites were constructed after the site itself had been partly filled up with loose débris, it could also be filled in those cases. There are also instances where the bottom of the kiva rests directly on the rock, while outside the walls the site was covered deep with artificial débris. But it would be difficult to determine what was the surface of the ground when the kiva was in use. The size and character of the kivas in De Chelly, and their relations to the other rooms about them, are shown in the ground plans preceding. Some have walls still standing to a height of 6 feet above the ground, but this could not have been the total height. Dr H. C. Yarrow, U.S.A., in 1874 examined one of the five large circular kivas in Taos. He states[18] that it was 25 or 30 feet in diameter, arched above, and 20 feet high. Around the wall, 2 feet from the ground, there was a hard earthen bench, and in the center a fireplace about 2 by 3 feet. [Illustration: Fig. 70--Part of a kiva in ruin No. 31.] Entrance to the kivas is invariably from the roof by a ladder. This appears to be a ceremonial requirement. Doorways at the ground level are not only unknown, but also impracticable; but in De Chelly there are some puzzling features which might easily be mistaken for such doorways. The principal kiva in the ruin, which occurs at the point marked 10 on the map, and described above (page 123, figure 24), is on the edge of the ledge, and its outer wall is so close as to make a passage difficult, although not impossible. At the point where the curved wall comes nearest the cliff there is a narrow gap or opening, not more than 15 inches wide. In front of this there appears to be a little platform on the sloping rock, 2 feet long, 10 inches wide, and now about a foot high. At first sight this would be taken for a doorway so arranged that access to the kiva could be obtained only from below; but a closer examination shows that this was probably only what remains of a chimney-like structure, such as those described later. [Footnote 18: Wheeler Survey Reports, vol. VII, Archæology, p. 327.] In ruin 31 there is another example. The kiva here was about 20 feet in diameter, with rather thin walls smoothly plastered inside. On the inner side the walls are from 3 to 5 feet high; outside they are generally flush with the ground. The kiva is not a true circle, but is slightly elongated north and south. On the south side, nearest the edge of the ledge, there is an opening, shown in figure 70. The opening is 6 feet 3 inches wide, and the ends of the curved walls terminate in smoothly finished surfaces. In front of it there are remains of two walls, about a foot apart, and so arranged as to form an apparent passageway into the interior of the kiva. These seem to be a kind of platform, like that just described, but close inspection shows the walls, which can be traced to within 6 inches of the inner wall of the kiva. This also may be the remains of a chimney-like structure. There are other points in the canyon where the same feature occurs, but in none of them is the evidence of an opening or doorway more definite than in the examples described. [Illustration: Fig. 71--Plan of part of a kiva in ruin No. 10.] The masonry of the kivas is always as good as that of any other structure on the site, and generally much better. The walls are usually massive; sometimes they are 3 feet thick in the upper part and 4 feet in the lower portion, where the bench occurs. In a few cases the kiva has an upper or second story, but when this occurs no attempt is made to preserve the circular form, and the upper rooms are really rectangular with much rounded corners. Plate XLIX shows a second-story kiva wall in Mummy Cave ruin, and plate LXIII one in ruin No. 10 in De Chelly. The latter occurs over the principal kiva, and the walls which are still standing on the north and west sides are approximately straight, but the corners are much rounded. Figure 71 is a detailed plan of part of the kiva, showing the arrangement of the upper walls. The kiva walls are about 18 inches thick. On the north side the upper wall is supported by a heavy beam, part of which is still in place. Under the north-east corner of the upper room there is a little triangular space formed by a short connecting wall, shown on the plan. This is really a flying wall, covering only the upper portion of the space, and its purpose is not clear, as the opening left is not large enough to permit the passage of a person, and was available only from the second story. Apparently the greatest care was bestowed on the construction and finish of the kivas. The exterior of the circular wall is often rough and unfinished, but this is probably because the whole structure was generally inclosed within rectangular walls. The interior was plastered, often with a number of coats. The southern kiva in ruin No. 10 shows a number of these on its interior surface, applied one after another, and now forming a plastering nearly three-quarters of an inch thick. In its section 18 distinct coats can be counted, separated one from the other by a thin film of smoke-blackened surface. The kiva in ruin No. 16 has 4 or 5 coats, that in ruin No. 31 shows at least 8. In the last example the last coat was not decorated, but some of the underlying ones were. Kivas are used, principally in the autumn and winter, when the farming season is over and the ceremonies and dances take place. It is probable, therefore, that each coat of plaster means at least a year in the history of the kiva, which would indicate that some of the sites were occupied about twenty years. But Mr Frank H. Cushing has observed in Zuñi a ceremony, part of which is the refinishing of the kiva interior, and this occurs only once in four years. This would give a maximum occupancy of about eighty years to some of the kivas; the ruins as a whole would hardly justify an hypothesis of a longer occupancy than this. In Tusayan the interior of the kiva is plastered by the women once every year at the feast of Powamu (the fructifying moon). [Illustration: Fig. 72--Kiva decoration in white.] The kivas are seldom true circles, being usually elongated one way or another. Some instances occur which are rectangular, such as the room shown in figure 19, which was apparently a kiva. Nordenskiöld[19] illustrates an example which appears to have been oval by design, differing in this respect from anything found in De Chelly. Most of the kivas have an interior bench, about a foot wide and 2 feet above the floor. This bench is sometimes continuous around the whole interior, sometimes extends only partly around. Wherever the chimney-like structure is attached to a kiva the bench is omitted or broken at that point. The kiva wall on the floor level is always continuous except before the chimney-like feature. The most elaborate system of benches and buttresses seen in the canyon occurs in the principal kiva of the Mummy Cave ruin. This is shown in the ground plan, figure 16, and also in figures 82 and 83. In the ruins of the Mancos, Nordenskiöld found kivas in which this feature is carried much further. He illustrates[20] an example with a complete bench regularly divided into six equal parts by an equal number of buttresses or pillars (properly pilasters) extending out flush with the front of the bench. This is said to be a typical example, to which practically all the kivas conform. It has also the chimney-like structure, to be described later. Like the rectangular kivas of Tusayan the circular structures of De Chelly have little niches in the walls. Probably these were places of deposit for certain paraphernalia used in the ceremonies. [Footnote 19: Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, p. 63, fig. 36.] [Footnote 20: Loc. cit., figs. 6 and 7, pp. 15-16.] Some of the kivas have an interior decoration consisting of a band with points. Figure 72 shows an example that occurs in ruin No. 10 in De Chelly, in the north kiva. The band, done in white, is about 18 inches below the bench, and its top is broken at intervals into groups of points rising from it, four points in each group. In the north kiva the interior wall is decorated by a series of vertical bands in white. One series occurs on the vertical face of the bench; the bands are 2 inches wide and 8 inches apart. Another series occurs on the wall, and consists of bands 2½ to 3 inches wide, about 2 feet high and 12 to 14 inches apart. The bands were observed only on the southern and western sides of the kiva, but originally there may have been others on the north and east. [Illustration: Fig. 73--Pictograph in white.] [Illustration: Fig. 74--Markings on cliff wall, ruin No. 37.] [Illustration: Fig. 75--Decorative band in kiva in Mummy Cave ruin.] In ruin No. 4 there is a similar series of bars, but in this instance they occur on the cliff wall back of the rooms. They are shown in figure 73. There are four bars or upright bands, done in white paint, and surmounted by four round dots or spots. To the left of the four bars, level with their tops, there is a small triangle, also in white. The bars are 30 inches long and 4 inches wide. The upper dots are nearly 2 feet above, the tops of the bars. It is evident that this figure was designed to be seen from a distance. Figure 74 shows some markings on the cliff wall back of ruin No. 37. [Illustration: Fig. 76--Design employed in decorative band.] Examples almost identical with those shown here are abundant in the Mancos ruins. It was probable they are of ceremonial rather than of decorative origin, and in this connection it may be stated that Mr Frank H. Cushing has observed in Zuñi the ceremony of marking the sides of a kiva hatchway with white bars closely resembling those shown in figure 73. This ceremony occurs once in four years, and the purpose of the marks is said to be to indicate the cardinal directions. In the ceremonials of the Pueblo Indians it is necessary to know where the cardinal points are; a prayer, for instance, is often addressed to the north, west, south, and east, and when such ceremonials were performed in a circular chamber some means by which the direction could be determined was essential. [Illustration: Fig. 77--Pictographs in Canyon de Chelly.] In the principal kiva in Mummy Cave ruin, however, there is a painted band on the front of the bench which appears to be really an attempt at decoration. Over the white there is a band 4 or 5 inches wide, consisting of a meander done in red. This is shown in figure 75, and in detail in figure 76. The design is similar to that used today. Its importance arises not so much from this as from the fact that it is difficult to regard this as other than ornamentation, and the Pueblo architect had not yet reached the stage of ornamented construction. The ruins in the Mancos canyon and the Mesa Verdé country obviously represent a later stage in development than those in De Chelly, yet nowhere in that region do we find the counterpart of the decoration in Mummy Cave kiva. Bands with points occur, sometimes on walls of rectangular rooms. One such is illustrated by Chapin,[21] who also shows a variety of the meander, treated, however, as a pictograph and without reference to its decorative value. Similar bands are shown also by Nordenskiöld,[22] but always with three points, instead of four, which were done in red. Figure 77 shows some pictographs somewhat resembling the Mancos examples. These occur at the point marked 1 on the map, in connection with a small storage cist already described. [Footnote 21: Land of the Cliff Dwellers, illustration, pp. 143, 152.] [Footnote 22: Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, figs. 6, 7, 76, 77, and 78.] No kiva has been found in De Chelly with a roof in place. Nearly all of them are inclosed in rectangular chambers, and it seems more than probable that the roofing of the kiva was simply the roofing of the inclosing chamber. As a rule the inclosing rectangular walls were erected at the same time as the kiva proper, and the outside of the inner circular wall was not finished at all. In a few instances the space between the outer rectangular and inner circular wall was filled in solid, or perhaps was so constructed, but usually the walls are separate and distinct. CHIMNEY-LIKE STRUCTURES There are peculiar structures found in some of the ruins, whose use and object are not clear. Reference has already been made to them in the descriptions of several ruins, and for want of a better name they have been designated chimney-like structures. At the time that they were examined they were supposed to be new, and the first hypothesis formed was that they were abortive chimneys, but further examination showed that this idea was not tenable. Subsequently Nordenskiöld's book on the Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde was published, and it appears therefrom that this feature is very common in the region treated; so common as to constitute the type. [Illustration: Fig. 78--Plan of chimney-like structure in ruin No. 15.] Figure 78 is a plan of one of these structures which occurs in ruin No. 15 in Canyon de Chelly. This ruin has already been described in detail (page 118). The chimney-like structure is attached to a rectangular room with rounded corners, which is supposed to have been a kiva, and which was two stories high. Excavation revealed the floor level about 7½ feet below where the roof was placed. In the center of the south wall there is an opening 1.5 feet high and eighty-five one-hundredths of a foot (10.2 inches) wide. The south wall is built over a large bowlder, and a tunnel or opening passes under this to a rounded vertical shaft, about a foot in diameter, which opens to the air. This perhaps is better shown in the section (figure 79). At first sight this would appear to be a chimney, but there are several objections to the idea. The interior of the shaft is not blackened by smoke, and while the tunnel is somewhat smoke-stained, the deposit is not so pronounced as on the walls of the room. The front of the tunnel in the room has a lintel composed of a single stick about an inch in diameter, as shown in the section. The roof of the tunnel was the underside of the large bowlder mentioned, and the stick lintel was of no use except to show that no fire could have been built under it. The roof of the southern end of the tunnel, where it opens into the shaft, is considerably lower than at the other end. The floor of the tunnel and the sides were smoothly plastered, but the plastering does not appear to have been subjected to the action of fire. The interior of the room, like the circular kivas already described, appears to have been plastered with a number of successive coats, all except the last being heavily stained by smoke. If the structure were a chimney, it was a dismal failure. The tunnel was made at the time the wall was erected, and passes under the bowlder over which the wall was built. A little east of the opening, inside the room, the bowlder shows through the wall, projecting slightly beyond its face. [Illustration: Fig. 79--Section of chimney-like structure in ruin 15.] Outside of the room the corner of the bowlder was chipped off, as shown on the plan, to permit the rounding of the shaft, the east, west, and south sides of which were built up with small pieces of stone, a kind of lining of masonry. There was also an outside structure of masonry, but how high above the ground it extended can not now be determined. A small fragment of this masonry is still left on the upper surface of the bowlder and is shown in the section. Figure 80 is a plan of another example, which is attached to the circular kiva in ruin No. 16. This ruin is described on page 129. The kiva had an interior bench and the floor is 2 feet above its top. On the south side nearest the cliff edge the bench is interrupted to give place to a structure much like that described above. In this case, however, there was no convenient bowlder, and the roof of the tunnel has broken down so that the method of support can not be accurately determined. Probably it consisted of slabs of rock, as the span is small, and a number of large flat stones were removed from the tunnel in excavating. The top of the tunnel is on the level of the top of the bench, as shown in figure 81, which is a vertical section. An inspection of the plan will show that the circular wall of the kiva is complete and that the inclosing rectangular wall was added later. The shaft was built at a still later period, and the line or junction marking its inner surface shows plainly in the interior of the tunnel. The general view of the ruin (plate LI) shows the exterior of the shaft, and the horizontal timbers on which the masonry is supported are shown in plate LII. In front of the tunnel a flat piece of stone was placed on the floor, and in front of this again, about 2 feet from the mouth of the tunnel, there was an upright mass of masonry composed of stone and mud, and forming a curtain or screen before the opening. The original height of this structure was the same as that of the interior bench. The inner surface of the rectangular inclosing wall is marked by a line in the interior of the tunnel. Inside of this line, toward the center of the kiva, the stones composing the wall are large; outside of it they are small. The interior plastering of the kiva is not smoke-blackened, but the coat next the surface is stained, as is also the third coat underneath. The interior of the tunnel is not much smoke-blackened, but it appears probable that part of its roof fell while the structure was still in use, as there are a number of little cavities in the masonry above its roof level filled with soot. A similar effect might result from leaks or cavities between the flat roofing stones. In excavating the tunnel a number of large lumps of clay were found in it, and there is no doubt that they formed part of the roof. Some of these had considerable quantities of grass mixed into them or stuck to the clay on one side. Apparently dry grass was used in the construction. A large fire could not have been built within the tunnel. [Illustration: Fig. 80--Plan of chimney-like structure in ruin No. 16.] The principal kiva in Mummy Cave ruin has an elaborate structure of the kind under discussion. Figure 82 shows a plan of this kiva, of which a general view has already been given (figure 75). The bench extended only partly around the interior, which had a continuous surface at the floor level, except on the southwest. At this point it is interrupted to give place to an elaborate chimney-like structure. Figure 83 is a general view. The wall surface on the southern side of the kiva has been extended inward, as shown on the plan by a lighter shaded area. This was done at some period subsequent to the completion of the kiva, but whether it had any connection with the chimney-like structure could not be determined. The curtain or screen before the opening, which seems to be an invariable feature, is shown in both figures. In this example the tunnel does not pass through the masonry as in those previously described, but occurs in the form of a covered trough, shown in the illustration with the covering removed. It occupies the middle third of a large recess in the main wall of the kiva, and is connected at its outer end with a vertical square shaft about a foot wide. This shaft is separated from the recess above the bench level by a wall only a few inches thick, composed of a single layer of stones. That portion of it which is above the tunnel is supported by a single round stick of wood, as shown in figure 83. The south or inner opening of the tunnel is reduced to two-thirds, of the width elsewhere by a framing composed of bundles of sticks bound together with withes and heavily coated with mud mortar. This was not placed flush with the inner face, but a few inches back, and the whole structure gives an effect of unusual neatness and good workmanship. [Illustration: Fig. 81--Section of chimney-like structure in ruin No. 16] At various other points in the canyons examples of chimney-like structures occur, none, however, constructed on the elaborate plan of that last described. Two examples were found in the large rooms west of the tower in the central portion of Mummy Cave ruin, and these are especially worthy of attention because they are attached to rectangular rooms, which there is no reason to suppose were kivas. The first room appears to have had a shaft only, without a niche or recess; the second room west of the tower had a recess and a rounded shaft, while the third-room had neither recess nor shaft. The usual form of this feature is that shown in figures 80 and 81, and consists only of a tunnel and shaft. There are not many examples in the canyons: altogether there may be a dozen now visible, but excavations in the village ruins would doubtless reveal others. Except the two in Mummy Cave ruin last mentioned, and some doubtful examples to be described later, they occur always as attachments to kivas, never to houses. Some of them, like the Mummy Cave example, were certainly built at the same time as the kivas, of which they formed a part; others were added to kivas after those structures had been completed and used. [Illustration: Fig. 82--Plan of the principal kiva in Mummy Cave ruin.] The kiva in Casa Blanca ruin (shown in figure 14) appears to have had an appendage of this sort, not constructed after the usual manner, but added outside the rectangular wall and composed of mud or adobe. At three other places in the lower ruin these structures are found, all constructed of mud or adobe and all attached to adobe walls. It is doubtful whether these three examples should be classed with the preceding, but as they may have been used in the same manner they should be mentioned here. Another doubtful example occurs in the upper part of the same ruin and has already been described (page 110). It was constructed of stone at some time subsequent to the completion of the wall against which it rests. [Illustration: Fig. 83--Chimney-like structure in Mummy Cave ruin.] Over twenty ago Mr W. H. Holmes found a structure in Mancos canyon which it now appears may be of this type. He illustrates it by a ground plan and thus describes it: The most striking feature of this structure [ruin] is the round room, which occurs about the middle of the ruin and inside of a large rectangular apartment.... Its walls are not high and not entirely regular, and the inside is curiously fashioned with offsets and box-like projections. It is plastered smoothly and bears considerable evidence of having been used, although I observed no traces of tire. The entrance to this chamber is rather extraordinary, and further attests the peculiar importance attached to it by the builders and their evident desire to secure it from all possibility of intrusion. A walled and covered passageway of solid masonry, 10 feet of which is still intact, leads from an outer chamber through the small intervening apartments into the circular one. It is possible that this originally extended to the outer wall and was entered from the outside. If so, the person desiring to visit the estufa [kiva] would have to enter an aperture about 22 inches high by 30 wide and crawl in the most abject manner possible through a tube-like passageway nearly 20 feet in length. My first impression was that this peculiarly constructed doorway was a precaution against enemies and that it was probably the only means of entrance to the interior of the house, but I am now inclined to think this hardly probable, and conclude that it was rather designed to render a sacred chamber as free as possible from profane intrusion.[23] [Footnote 23: 10th Ann. Rept. U.S. Geol. and Geog. Survey of the Territories, F. V. Hayden in charge (Washington, 1878); report on the "Ancient ruins of Southwestern Colorado," by W. H. Holmes; p. 395, pl. xxxvii.] In this example the tunnel was much larger than usual and the vertical shaft, if there were one, has been so much broken down that it is no longer distinguishable. Nordenskiöld mentions a considerable number of kivas with this attachment, and one which is described and figured is said to be a type of all the kivas in that region, but an inspection of his ground plans shows more kivas without this feature than with it. In his description of a small ruin in Cliff canyon he speaks of-- ... a circular room still in a fair state of preservation. The wall that lies nearest the precipice is for the most part in ruins; the rest of the room is well preserved. After about half a meter of dust and rubbish had been removed, we were able to ascertain that the walls formed a cylinder 4.3 meters in diameter. The thickness of the wall is throughout considerable, and varies, the spaces between the points where the cylinder touches the walls of adjoining rooms[24] having been filled up with masonry. The height of the room is 2 meters. The roof has long since fallen in, and only one or two beams are left among the rubbish. To a height of 1.2 meters from the floor the wall is perfectly even and has the form of a cylinder, or rather of a truncate cone, as it leans slightly inward. The upper portion, on the other hand, is divided by six deep niches into the same number of pillars. The floor is of clay, hard, and perfectly even. Near the center is a round depression or hole, five-tenths of a meter deep and eight-tenths of a meter in diameter. This hole was entirely full of white ashes. It was undoubtedly the hearth. Between the hearth and the outer wall stands a narrow, curved wall, eight-tenths of a meter high. Behind this wall, in the same plane as the floor, a rectangular opening, 1 meter high and six-tenths of a meter broad, has been constructed in the outer wall. This opening forms the mouth of a narrow passage or tunnel of rectangular shape, which runs 1.8 meters in a horizontal direction and then goes straight upward, out into the open air. The tunnel lies under one of the six niches, which is somewhat deeper than the others. The walls are built of carefully hewn blocks of sandstone, the inner surface being perfectly smooth and lined with a thin, yellowish plaster. On closer examination of this plaster it is found to consist of several thin layers, each of them black with soot. The plaster has evidently been repeatedly restored as the walls became blackened with smoke. A few smaller niches and holes in the walls, irregularly scattered here and there, have presumably served as places of deposit for different articles; a bundle of pieces of hide, tied with a string, was found in one of them. The lower part of the wall, to a height of four-tenths of a meter, is painted dark red around the whole room. This red paint projects upward in triangular points, arranged in threes, and above them is a row of small round dots of red.... Circular rooms, built and arranged on exactly the same plan as that described above, reappear with exceedingly slight variations in size and structure in every cliff dwelling except the very smallest ones.... The number of estufas [kivas] varies in proportion to the size of the buildings and the number of rooms, ... [The ruin described contained two kivas.] ... The description of the first estufa applies in every respect to the second, with the single exception that the whole wall is coated with yellow plaster without any red painting. The wall between the hearth and the singular passage or tunnel described above is replaced by a large slab of stone set on end. It is difficult to say for what purpose this tunnel has been constructed and the slab of stone or the wall erected in front of it. As I have mentioned above, this arrangement is found in all the estufas.[25] [Footnote 24: In the ground plan given there is no point shown where the walls of the kiva touch adjoining rooms.] [Footnote 25: Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, pp. 15-17, figs. 6 and 7.] The general similarity between the kivas of De Chelly and those of the Mesa Verde region will be apparent from the above description. It should be added that in the section which accompanies it the roof of the tunnel appears to be supported by a series of small cross sticks, although no information on this point is afforded by the test. The examples which occur in De Chelly are apparently much ruder and more primitive than those of the Mancos, and only one of them approaches the latter in finish and elaboration. In another place[26] Nordenskiöld mentions an example in which two small sticks were incorporated in the masonry of the upper part of the tunnel in a diagonal position. From this he rejects Holmes' explanation that the passageway was used as an entrance to the kiva, nor does he find the chimney hypothesis satisfactory. He states, further, that the use of this feature as a ventilator seems highly improbable. In one place he found the curtain or screen constructed not of masonry, but-- ... of thick stakes, driven into the ground close to each other, and fastened together at the top with osiers. On the side nearest to the hearth this wooden screen was covered with a thick layer of mortar, probably to protect the timber from the heat.[27] [Footnote 26: Loc. cit., p. 32.] [Footnote 27: Loc. cit., p. 70.] As stated elsewhere, the first hypothesis formed in the field as to the purpose of these chimney-like structures was that they were abortive chimneys, but this was found untenable. The next hypothesis, formed also in the field, was that they were ceremonial in origin and use, but why they should connect with the open air is not clear. If we could assume that they were ventilators, the problem would be solved, but it is a far cry from pueblo architecture to ventilation; a stride, as it were, over many centuries. Ventilation according to this method--the introduction of fresh air on a low level, striking on a screen a little distance from the inlet and being thereby evenly distributed over the whole chamber--is a development in house architecture reached only by our own civilization within the last few decades. If the shaft and tunnel were in place, however, the screen might follow as a matter of necessity. Entrance to the kivas is always through the roof, a ceremonial requirement quite as rigidly adhered to today among the Pueblos as it was formerly among their ancestors. The same opening which gives access also provides an exit to the smoke from the fire, which is invariably placed in the center of the kiva below it. This fire is a ceremonial rather than a necessary feature, for in the coldest weather the presence of a dozen men in a small chamber, air-tight except for a small opening in the roof, very soon raises the temperature to an uncomfortable degree, and the air becomes so fetid that a white man, not accustomed to it, is nauseated in half an hour or less. Such are the conditions in the modern kivas of Tusayan. In the smaller structures of De Chelly they must have been worse. The fire is, therefore, made very small and always of very dry wood, so as to diminish as far as possible the output of smoke. Frank H. Cushing states that in certain ceremonials which occur in the kivas it is considered very necessary that the fire should burn brightly and that the flame should rise straight from it. If this requirement prevailed in De Chelly, a screen of some sort would surely follow the construction of a shaft and tunnel. More or less smoke is generally present in the kivas when a fire is burning, notwithstanding the care taken to prevent it. That a similar condition prevailed in the kivas of De Chelly is shown by the smoke-blackened plaster of the interiors. In some cases there was a room over the kivas which must have increased the difficulty very much. There can be little doubt that the chimney-like structures were not chimneys, and no doubt at all that they did provide an efficient means of ventilation, no matter what the intention of the builders may have been. When we know more of the ceremonials of the Pueblo Indians, and when extensive excavations have developed the various types and varieties of these structures in the ruins, we may be able to determine their object and use. TRADITIONS It has often been stated concerning some given ruin or region that the traditions of the present inhabitants of the country do not reach them. In the case of Canyon de Chelly the same statement might be made, for more than 99 Navaho in 100, when asked what became of the people who built the old houses in De Chelly, will state that a great wind arose and swept them all away, which is equivalent to saying that they do not know. There is a tradition in the Navaho tribe, however, now very difficult to get, as it is confined to a few of the old priests. It recites the occupancy of the canyon before the Navaho obtained possession of it, but, curiously enough, this period is placed after the Spanish invasion. It is even asserted that there were monks in De Chelly, and Mummy Cave, Casa Blanca, and one other ruin have been pointed out as the places where they were stationed. No version of this tradition definite and complete enough for publication could be obtained by the writer, but Dr. Washington Matthews, U.S.A., whose knowledge of Navaho myths and traditions is so great that it can almost be termed exhaustive, has obtained one and doubtless will publish it. The Hopi or Moki Indians, whose villages are some three days' journey to the west, have also very definite traditions bearing on the occupancy of De Chelly.[28] This tribe, like others, is composed of a number of related clans who reached their present location from various directions and at various times; but, with a few exceptions, each of these clans claims to have lived at one time or another in Canyon de Chelly. How much truth there is in these claims can be determined only when the entire region has been examined and thoroughly studied. In the meantime it will probably be safe to assume that some, at least, of the ruins in De Chelly are of Hopi origin. [Footnote 28: A résumé of the Hopi traditions was prepared by the writer from material collected by the late A. M. Stephen, and published as chapter iii of "A study of Pueblo architecture," op. cit.] CONCLUSIONS To understand the ruins so profusely scattered over the ancient pueblo country we must have some knowledge of the conditions under which their inhabitants lived. Were nothing at all known, however, we would be justified in inferring, from the results that have been produced, a similarity of conditions with those prevailing among the pueblo tribes, both formerly and now; and all the evidence so far obtained would support that inference. There is no warrant whatever for the old assumption that the "cliff dwellers" were a separate race, and the cliff dwellings must be regarded as only a phase of pueblo architecture. More or less speculation regarding the origin of pueblo culture is the usual and perhaps proper accompaniment of nearly all treatises bearing on that subject. Early writers on the Aztec culture, aided by a vague tradition of that tribe that they came from the north, pushed the point of emigration farther and farther and still farther north, until finally the pueblo country was reached. Pueblo ruins are even now known locally as "Aztec ruins." Logically the inhabited villages should be classed as "Aztec colonies," and such classification was not unusual when the country came into the possession of the United States some fifty years ago. As our knowledge of the pueblo culture increased, a gradual separation between the old and the new took place, and we have as an intermediate hypothesis many "Aztec ruins," but no "Aztec colonies." Finally, as a result of still further knowledge, the ruins and the inhabited pueblos are again brought together; several lines of investigation have combined to show the continuity of the old and the present culture, and the connection may be considered well established. But there is still a disposition to regard the cliff ruins as a thing apart. The old idea of a separate race of cliff dwellers now finds little credence, but the cliff ruins are almost universally explained as the results of extraordinary, primitive, or unusual causes. The intimate relation between the savage and his physical environment has already been alluded to. Nature, or that part of nature which we term physical environment, enters into and becomes part of the life of the savage in a way and to an extent that we can hardly conceive. A change of physical environment does not produce an immediate change in the man or in his arts, but in time such must inevitably result. Twenty-five years ago the savage of the plains and the savage of the pueblo country were regarded as distinct races, "as different from each other as light is from darkness;" yet the differences which appeared so striking at first have become fewer and fewer as our knowledge of the Indian tribes increased, and those which remain today can almost all be attributed to a difference in physical environment. Linguistic researches have shown the close connection which exists between the Hopi (Moki) and some of the plains (or so called "wild") Indians. There is no doubt that at the time of the Spanish discovery, some three hundred and fifty years ago, the Hopi were quite as far advanced as the other pueblo tribes, and the conclusion is irresistible that since it may reasonably be inferred that one tribe has made the change from a nomadic to a sedentary life, other tribes also may have done so. We may go even farther than this, and assume that a nomadic tribe driven into the pueblo country, or drifting into it, would remain as before under the direct influence of its physical environment, although the environment would be a new one. Granting this, and the element of time, and we will have no difficulty with the origin of pueblo architecture. The complete adaptation of pueblo architecture to the country in which it is found has been commented on. Ordinarily such adaptation would imply two things--origin within the country, and a long period of time for development--but there are several factors that must be taken into consideration. If the architecture did not originate in the country where it is found it would almost certainly bear, traces of former conditions. Such survivals are common in all arts, and instances of it are so common in architecture that no examples need be cited. Only one of these survivals has been found in pueblo architecture, but that one is very instructive; it is the presence of circular chambers in groups of rectangular rooms, which occur in certain regions. These chambers are called estufas or kivas and are the council houses and temples of the people, in which the governmental and religious affairs of the tribe are transacted. It is owing to their religious connection that the form has been preserved to the present day, carrying with it the record of the time when the people lived in round chambers or huts, In opposition to the hypothesis of local origin it might be stated that there is no evidence of forms intermediate in development. The oldest remains of pueblo architecture known are but little different from recent examples. But it must be borne in mind that pueblo architecture is of a very low order, so low that it hardly comes within a definition of architecture as an art, as opposed to a craft. Except for a few examples, some of which have already been mentioned, it was strictly utilitarian in character; the savage had certain needs to supply, and he supplied them in the easiest and most direct manner and with material immediately at hand. The whole pueblo country is covered with the remains of single rooms and groups of rooms, put up to meet some immediate necessity. Some of these may have been built centuries ago, some are only a few years or a few months old, yet the structures do not differ from one another; nor, on the other hand, does the similarity imply that the builder of the oldest example knew less or more than his descendant today--both utilized the material at hand and each accomplished his purpose in the easiest way. In both cases the result is so rude that no sound inference of sequence can be drawn from the study of individual examples, but in the study of large aggregations of rooms we find some clues. The aggregation of many single rooms into one great structure was produced by causes which have been discussed. It must not be forgotten that the unit of pueblo construction is the single room, even in the large, many-storied villages. This unit is often quite as rude in modern work as in ancient, and both modern and ancient examples are very close to the result which would be produced by any Indian tribe who came into the country and were left free to work out their own ideas. Starting with this unit the whole system of pueblo architecture is a natural product of the country in which it is found and the conditions of life known to have affected the people by whom it was practiced. Granting the local origin of pueblo architecture it would appear at first sight that a very long period of time must have elapsed between the erection of the first rude rooms and the building of the many-storied pueblos, yet the evidence now available--that derived from the ruins themselves, documentary evidence, and traditions--all suggest that such was not necessarily the case. As a record of events, or rather of a sequence of events, tradition, when unsupported, has practically no value; but as a picture of life and of the conditions under which a people lived it is very instructive and full of suggestions, which, when followed out, often lead to the uncovering of valuable evidence. The traditions of the pueblo tribes record a great number of movements or migrations from place to place, the statements being more or less obscured by mythologic details and accounts of magic or miraculous occurrences. When numbers of such movements are recorded, it is safe to infer that the conditions dictating the occupancy of sites were unstable or even that the tribes were in a state of slow migration. When this inference is supported by other evidence, it becomes much stronger, and when the supporting evidence becomes more abundant, with no discordant elements, the statement may be accepted as proved until disproved. The evident inferiority of the modern pueblos to some of the old ruins has been urged as an argument against their connection. While degeneration in culture is yet to be proved, degeneration of some particular art under adverse conditions, such as war, continued famine, or pestilence, is not an uncommon incident in history, and it can be shown that under the peculiar conditions which prevailed in the pueblo country such degeneration would naturally take place. One of the peculiarities of pueblo architecture is that its results were obtained always by the employment of the material immediately at hand. In the whole pueblo region no instance is known where the material (other than timber) was transported to any distance; on the contrary, it was usually obtained within a few feet of the site where it was used. Hence, it comes about that difference in character of masonry is often only a difference in material. Starting with a tribe or several tribes of plains Indians, who came into the pueblo country, we should probably see them at first building houses such as they were accustomed to build--round huts of skin or brush, perhaps partly covered with earth, such as were found all over middle and eastern United States. Supposing the tribe to have been not very warlike in character and subsisting principally by horticulture, these settlements would necessarily be confined to the vicinity of springs and to little valleys where the crops could be grown. The general character of the country is arid in the extreme, and only in favored spots is horticulture possible. In a very short time these people would be forced to the use of stone for buildings, for the whole country is covered with tabular sandstone, often broken up into blocks and flakes ready for immediate use without any preparation whatever. Timber and brush could be procured only with difficulty, and often had to be carried great distances. It has been suggested that the rectangular form of rooms might have been developed from the circular form by the crowding together upon restricted sites of many circular chambers; but such a supposition seems unnecessary. A structure of masonry designed to be roofed would naturally be rectangular; in fact, the placing of a flat roof upon a circular chamber was a problem whose solution was beyond the ability of these people, as has already been shown. Along with this advance, or perhaps preceding it, the social organization of the tribe, or its division into clans and phratries, would manifest itself, and those who "belong together" would build together. This requirement was a very common one and was closely adhered to even a few years ago. Although degeneration in arts is common enough, a peculiar condition prevailed in the pueblo region. So far as the architecture was concerned war and a hostile human environment produced not degeneration but development. This came about partly by reason of the peculiarities of the country, and partly through the methods of war. The term war is rather a misnomer in this connection, as it does not express the idea. The result was not brought about by armed bodies of men animated by hostile intentions or bent on extermination, although forays of this kind are too common in later pueblo history, but rather by predatory bands, bent on robbery and not indisposed to incidental killing. The pueblos, with their fixed habitations and their stores of food, were the natural prey of such bands, and they suffered, just as did, at a later period, the Mexican settlements on the Rio Grande, with their immense, flocks of sheep. It was constant annoyance and danger, rather than war and pitched battles. The pueblo country is exceptionally rich in building material suited to the knowledge and capacity of the pueblo builders. Had suitable material been less abundant, military knowledge would have developed and defensive structures would have been erected; but as such material could be obtained everywhere, and there was no lack of sites, almost if not quite equal to those occupied at any given time, the easiest and most natural thing to do was to move. Owing to the nature of the hostile pressure, such movements were generally gradual, not en masse; although there is no doubt that movements of the latter kind have sometimes taken place. These conclusions are not based on a study of the ruins in Canyon de Chelly alone, which illustrate only one phase of the subject, but of all the pueblo remains, or rather of the remains so far as they are now known. They imply a rather sparsely settled country, occupied by a comparatively small number of tribes and subtribes, moving from place to place under the influence of various motives, some of which we know, others we can only surmise. It was a slow but practically constant migratory movement with no definite end or direction in view. The course of this movement in a geographical way does not as yet reveal a preponderance in any one direction; tribes and subtribes moved from east to west and from west to east, from north to south and from south to north, and many were irregular in their course, but the movements, so far as they can now be discerned, were all within a circumscribed area. There is no evidence of any movement from without into the pueblo group, unless the close relation of the Hopi (Moki) language to the other Shoshonean dialects be such evidence, and none of a movement from within this area out of it, although such movements must have taken place, at least in the early history of the region. It must be borne in mind in this discussion that while we can assign approximate boundaries to the ancient pueblo region on the north, east, and west, no limit can as yet be fixed on the south. The arid country southward of Gila river and northward of the Mexican boundary would be a great obstacle to a movement either north or south, but little as we know about that region we do know that it was not an insurmountable obstacle. The Casas Grandes of Janos, in Chihuahua, closely resemble the type of ruins on the Gila river, in Arizona, of which the best example we now have is the well-known Casa Grande ruin. We know that there are cliff ruins in the Sierra Madre, but beyond this we know little. Concerning the immense region which stretches from Gila river to the valley of Mexico, over 1300 miles in length, we know practically nothing. In that portion of the pueblo region lying within the United States migratory movements have, as a rule, been confined to very small areas, each linguistic family moving within its own circumscribed region. Some instances of movement away from the home region have taken place even in historic times, as, for example, the migration of a considerable band of Tewas from the Rio Grande to Tusayan, where they now are, and moreover, this movement probably occurred en masse and over a considerable distance; but there is little doubt that the usual procedure was different. Canyon de Chelly was occupied because it was the best place in that vicinity for the practice of horticulture. The cliff ruins there grew out of the natural conditions, as they have in other places. It is not meant that a type of house structure developed here and was transferred subsequently to other places. When the geological and topographical environment favored their construction, cliff outlooks were built; from a different geological structure in certain regions cavate lodges resulted; in other places there were "watch towers;" in still others single rooms were built, either lone or in clusters, and these results obtained quite as often if not oftener within the historic period as in prehistoric times. Notwithstanding the possible division of the De Chelly ruins into four well defined types, there is no warrant for the assumption of a large population. The types are interrelated and to a large extent were inhabited not contemporaneously but conjointly. There are about 140 ruins in Canyon de Chelly and its branches, but few of them could accommodate more than a very small population. Settlements large enough to furnish homes for 50 or 60 people were rare. As not all of the sites were occupied at one time, the maximum population of the canyon could hardly have exceeded 400; it is more likely to have been 300. The character of the site occupied is one of the most important elements to be studied in the examination of ruins in the pueblo country. In De Chelly whatever defensive value the settlements had was due to the character of the sites selected. It is believed, however, that other considerations dictated the selection of the sites, and that the defensive motive, if present at all, exercised very little influence in this region. The sites here are always selected with a view to an outlook over some adjacent area of cultivable land, and the structures erected on them were industrial or horticultural, rather than military or defensive. The masonry of the ruins and the constructive expedients employed by the builders are an insurmountable obstacle in the way of the hypothesis that the cliff ruins represent a primitive or intermediate stage in the growth of pueblo architecture. The builders were well acquainted with the principles and methods of construction employed in the best work found in other regions; the inferiority of their work is due to special conditions and to the locality. The presence of a number of extraneous features, both in methods and principles employed, is further evidence in the same line. These features are certainly foreign to this region, some of them suggest even Spanish or Mexican origin, which implies comparatively recent occupancy. The openings--doorways and windows--found in the ruins are of the regular pueblo types. They are arranged as convenience dictated, without any reference to the defensive motive, which, if it existed at all, exercised less influence here than it did in the modern pueblos. There is no evidence of the use of very modern features, such as the paneled wooden doors found in the pueblos; nor, on the other hand, are there any very primitive expedients or methods--none which can not be found today in the modern villages. The roof, floors, and timber work are also essentially the same as the examples found in the modern pueblos. The notable scarcity of roofing timbers in the ruins can probably be explained by the hypothesis of successive occupancies and subsequent or repeated use of material difficult to obtain. So far as regards the use of timber as an element of masonry construction the results obtained in De Chelly are rude and primitive as compared with the work found in other regions. The immense number of storage cists found in De Chelly are a natural outgrowth of the conditions there and support the hypothesis that the cliff outlooks were merely farming shelters. The small size of many of the settlements made the construction of storage cists a necessity. The storage of water was very seldom attempted. A large proportion of the cists found in De Chelly were burial places and of Navaho origin. As a rule they are far more difficult of access than the ruins. There is no evidence of the influence of the defensive motive. Defensive works on the approaches to sites are never found, nor can such influence be detected in the arrangement of openings, in the character of masonry, or in the ground plan. If the cliff ruins were defensive structures, an influence strong enough to bring about the occupancy of such inconvenient and unsuitable sites would certainly be strong enough also to bring about some slight modifications in the architecture, such as would render more suitable sites available. If we assume that the cliff ruins were farming outlooks, occupied only during the farming season, and then only for a few days or weeks at a time, the character of the sites occupied by them, seems natural enough, for the same sites are used by the Navaho today in connection with farming operations. The distribution of kivas in the ruins of De Chelly affords another indication that the occupancy of that region was quiet and little disturbed, and that the ruins were in no sense defensive structures. Kivas are found only in permanent settlements, and the presence of two or three of them in a small settlement comprising a total of five or six rooms implies, first, that the little village was the home of two or more families, and, second, that there was comparative if not entire immunity from hostile incursions. If the conditions were otherwise, these small settlements would have combined into larger ones, as was done in other regions. Probably these small settlements with several kivas mark a late period in the use of outlying sites. The position of the kivas in some of the settlements on defensive sites, and their arrangement across the front of the cove, suggest that such sites were first used for outlooks, and that their occupancy by regular villages came at a later period. All of the now available traditions of the Navaho and of the Hopi Indians support the conclusions reached from a study of the intrinsic evidence of the ruins, that they represent a comparatively late period in the history of pueblo architecture. It appears that some at least of the ruins are of Hopi origin. It is certain that the ruins were not occupied at one time, nor by one tribe or band. As criteria in development or in time the cliff ruins are valueless, except in a certain restricted way. They represent simply a phase of pueblo life, due more to the geological character of the region occupied than to extraordinary conditions, and they pertain partly to the old villages, partly to the more modern. Apparently they reached their greatest (not their highest) development in the period immediately preceding the last well-defined stage in the growth of pueblo architecture, a stage in which most of the pueblos were at the time of their discovery by the Spaniards, and in which some of them are now. Reliance for defense was had on the site occupied, and outlying settlements for horticultural purposes were very numerous, as they must necessarily be also in the last stage--the aggregation of many related villages into one great cluster. The cliff outlooks in Canyon de Chelly and in other regions, the cavate lodges of New Mexico and Arizona, the "watch towers" of the San Juan and of the Zuñi country, the summer villages attached to many of the pueblos, the single-room remains found everywhere, even the brush shelters or "kisis" of Tusayan, are all functionally analogous, and all are the outgrowth of certain industrial requirements, which were essentially the same throughout the pueblo country, but whose product was modified by geological and topographical conditions. In the cliff ruins of De Chelly we have an interesting and most instructive example of the influence of a peculiar and sometimes adverse environment on a primitive people, who entered the region with preconceived and, as it were, fully developed ideas of house construction, and who left it before those ideas were brought fully in accord with the environment, but not before they were influenced by it. INDEX [Transcriber's Note: The term "Cliff dwellings" does not occur as an Index entry. The cross-references are probably an error for "Cliff ruins."] Access to cliff Villages 144, 157, 158 Acoma, structural development of 155 Adobe blocks not aboriginal 108 -- construction in pueblo region 163 -- walls in Casa Blanca 108, 109, 111 Age of ruin determined by plastering 121 Agriculture of the Navaho 87 Architecture of cliff ruins 153 --, pueblo, character of 193 --, pueblo, development of 91, 193 Arizona, cliff ruins of Canyon de Chelly 73-198 --, _see_ Cliff dwellings. Army of the West, conquest by 79 Aztecs, cliff ruins attributed to 191 Bancroft, H. H., cliff ruins described by 81 Bandelier, A. F., on classification of pueblo ruins 89 Bat trail in Canyon de Chelly 157 Beadle, J. H., Canyon de Chelly visited by 80 --, quoted on Canyon de Chelly 86 Bench around cliff kivas 121, 136, 137, 138, 177 -- in cliff outlook 151 Bench-like recess in cliff kiva 124 Bickford, F. T., cliff ruins described by 81 Birdsall, W. R., cliff ruins described by 81, 163 Bottom lands, home villages on 94 Bowlders used in cliff-dwelling masonry 98, 100 Burial cists in Casa Blanca 109 -- in cliff ruins discussed 166 --, _see_ Cists; Navaho. Buttress in Casa Blanca 110, 162 -- in cliff ruins 119, 125, 129 -- in kivas 177 Canyon de Chelly, accessibility of 85 --, memoir on cliff ruins of 73-198 --, location of 84 --, _see_ Cliff dwellings. Canyon del Muerto, location of 85 --, ruins in, described 81 Casa Blanca, a name of two cliff dwellings 145 -- described 104-111 -- described by Simpson 79 --, jacal construction in 163 --, notched doorway in 164 Casas Grandes, resemblance of, to Gila river remains 196 Cave ruins, classification of 155 -- village in Canyon de Chelly 97 Ceremonial chamber, _see_ Kiva. Chaco and old-world ruins compared 80 Chapin, F. H., cliff ruins visited by 81 -- on openings in Mancos ruins 165 -- on kiva decoration 181 Chelly, origin of name of 79 --, _see_ Canyon de Chelly. Chimney-like structures discussed 182-190 -- in Casa Blanca 110 -- in cliff kiva 125, 129 -- in cliff outlook 144 -- in cliff ruins 119 -- in Mummy Cave ruin 113, 115, 116 Chinking of cliff-dwelling masonry 102, 103, 104, 117, 118, 123, 127, 142, 144, 148, 150, 151, 159, 160 Chin Lee valley, ruins in 80 Cist, burial, excavation of 101 --, burial, in cliff ruins 96, 130 --, _see_ Burial cist; Navajo; Storage cist. Clans, localization of, in pueblos 194 Classification of canyon ruins 92, 93 -- of pueblo ruins 89, 154 Cliff ruins, classification of 155 Climate of cliff ruin region 83 Constructive expedients in cliff dwelling 170 Corn cultivated by the Navaho 84 Cups pecked in rock 138 Cushing, F. H. --, on ceremonial fire 190 --, on ceremonial renewal of kivas 177 --, on cliff ruins 153 --, on marking of kiva hatchway 180 Decoration of cliff house walls 102, 109, 113, 125, 147, 160, 177-181 Defense, absence of motive for, in cliff ruins 101, 142, 153, 154, 170, 196, 197 --, home villages located for 111 --, loopholes an evidence of 135 --, expedients for, in cliff dwellings 170 Defensive sites, to what attributed 91 Development of cliff dwellings 198 -- of pueblo architecture 155 Distribution of cliff ruins in De Chelly 156-157 --, _see_ Classification. Domenech, _Abbe_ Em., reference by, to Casa Blanca 80 Doorways in cliff dwellings 102, 111, 125, 128, 134, 140, 145, 151 --, notched, in cliff dwellings 138, 164 -- partially closed 165 --, _see_ Openings. Drain in Casa Blanca 110 Dutton, C. E., cliff-ruin region described by 82 Én-a-tsé-gi, Navaho name of Canyon de Chelly 95 Environment, village sites influenced by 153 Farming shelters discussed 142 Farming villages, cliff ruins classed as 156 -- of the pueblos 156 Fireplace, _see_ Chimney-like structure. Floors of cliff dwellings discussed 165, 197 Foot-holes, access to cliff houses by means of 132, 134, 142, 148, 158 Geography of cliff-ruin region 82 Geology of cliff-ruin region 82, 86 Granary structure in cliff ruin 97 --, _see_ Cist. Hardacre, E. C., on ruins in Canyon de Chelly 80 Holmes, W. H., cliff ruins described by 81 --, on chimney-like structures 188 Hopi origin of certain cliff ruins 198 -- tradition regarding cliff ruins 191 --, _see_ Tusayan. Jacal construction in Casa Blanca 108 -- construction in pueblo region 163 Jackson, W. H., cliff ruins described by 80, 81 Keam, T. V., burial cist excavated by 101 Kern, E. H., Casa Blanca sketched by 79 Kini-na-e-kai, Navaho name of Casa Blanca 104 Kisi and cliff dwelling analogous 198 -- or brush shelter 92 Kivas, absence of, in farming villages 150 --, distribution of, in cliff ruins 197 --, function of 193 --, how entered 190 --, how-plastered 161 -- in cliff ruins 102, 103, 118, 119, 121, 124, 135, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 174-182 -- in Mummy Cave ruin 115 -- in Pakashi-izini ruin 99 -- in Tse-on-i-tso-si canyon 101 -- of Casa Blanca described 107 -- of unusual size 95 --, origin of 91 --, prevalence of, in pueblo ruins 90 Lintels of cliff-ruin openings 102, 114, 140, 164 Loopholes in cliff houses 135 Mancos canyon, cliff ruins in 81 Masonry deteriorated by plastering 161 -- of cliff houses 95, 98, 101, 102, 104, 128, 136, 137, 140, 142, 143, 144, 148, 149, 150, 159, 197 --, rude, in cliff houses 132, 151 --, _see_ Chinking; Mortar; Walls. Matthews, Washington, on Navaho traditions regarding cliff ruins 191 Mesa Verde, cliff ruins of 81 Moen-kapi, a Hopi summer village 92, 156 Monument canyon, location of 85 Moran, Thomas, Canyon de Chelly ruins visited by 80 Mortar, character of, in cliff house 127, 140, 160 --, source of, in cliff-house building 126 --, _see_ Masonry; Plastering. Mummy Cave ruin, benches and buttresses in 177 -- described 81, 112 --, kiva in 176 Navaho, agriculture of the 81 --, building material from cliff dwellings used by 154 -- burials in cliff villages 109, 110, 115, 117, 130, 132, 134, 138, 142, 148, 150, 152, 158, 167-170, 197 -- burials, _see_ Cists. --, cliff ruins utilized by 96, 104, 152 --, expedition against the 79 -- granaries in cliff ruins 97 -- house sites in Canyon de Chelly 87 -- houses, sites of 152 --, peaches cultivated by the 88 -- structures in cliff dwellings 140 -- tradition of cliff dwellings 191, 198 -- trails in Canyon de Chelly 157 -- walls in cliff outlooks 152 New Mexico, _see_ Cliff dwellings. Niches in kiva walls 178 Nordenskiöld, G., cliff ruins classified by 92 --, cliff ruins described by 81 --, on an oval kiva 177 --, on chimney-like structures 188, 189 --, on kiva decoration 181 --, on Mesa Verde masonry 163 --, on openings in Mancos ruins 165 Nutria, a Zuñi summer village 92, 156 Ojo Caliente, a Zuñi summer village 92, 158 --, masonry of 159 Openings, absence of, in cliff houses 132 -- in Casa Blanca walls 109 -- in cliff kivas 125, 129, 175 -- in cliff-dwelling walls 123-124, 164, 197 -- in Mummy Cave ruin walls 114 O'Sullivan, T. H., Casa Blanca photographed by 80 Outlooks on restricted areas 149 -- or farming shelters discussed 142 Oven-like structure in cliff ruin 127 Ovens not an aboriginal feature 128 Pakashi-izini ruin in Del Muerto 98 Passageway in Casa Blanca 109 -- in cliff dwelling 100 Peaches, groves of, in Canyon de Chelly 88 -- introduced by Spaniards 88 Pescado, a Zuñi summer village 92, 156 Petroglyphs in cliff villages 138 Pictographs in cliff ruins 98, 103, 113, 118, 126, 133, 144, 152, 178-181 Plastering, effect of, on stonework 161 -- of cliff ruin-walls 118, 120, 121, 129, 140, 144, 149, 151, 160 -- of kiva walls 121, 176 Platforms of masonry connected with cliff ruins 132 Population of Casa Blanca 105 -- of cliff dwellings 98, 135, 196 -- of Pakashi-izini ruin 99 Pottery fragments iu Casa Blanca 111 Pueblo ruins classified 89 --, _see_ Cliff Dwellings. Putnam, F. W., cliff ruins described by 80 Reservoir structure connected with cliff village 126 Roof construction of Casa Blanca 106, 111 Roofs of cliff dwellings discussed 165, 197 Rooms, character of, in cliff dwellings 95, 132 Ruins, pueblo, classified 89 --, _see_ Cliff dwellings; Pueblo. Sandstorms in Canyon de Chelly 91 Sheep introduced by Spaniards 162 Simpson, J. H., Casa Blanca visited by 104 --, on Navaho expedition 79 Sites, inaccessible, of cliff houses 93, 111, 133, 134, 153, 196 -- of pueblos, how determined 91 Spanish influence in cliff-dwelling masonry 197 -- monks in Canyon de Chelly 191 --, sheep introduced by 162 Stephen, A. M., on Hopi tradition of cliff ruins 191 Steps, absence of, in cliff villages 157 Stevenson, James, Canyon de Chelly visited by 81 Storage cists in cliff ruins discussed 166, 197 -- rooms in cliff village 130, 132 --, _see_ Cist; Granary. Streams in the cliff-ruin region 84 Summer villages of pueblos 92, 156 Symbolism, water, in pueblo pictography 126 Taboo of cliff-ruin timber by Navaho 166 Taos, a many-storied pueblo 155 --, circular kivas at 175 Timber, source of, of the Hopi 166 -- used in cliff-dwelling construction 111, 113, 116, 121, 122, 124, 165, 171, 197 Traditions regarding cliff dwellings 190-191 Trails in Canyon de Chelly 157 Tse-gi, Navaho name of Canyon de Chelly 79, 85 Tse-i-ya-kin, Navaho name of Mummy Cave ruin 112 Tse-on-i-tso-si canyon, location of 85 --, ruin in 101 Tunicha mountains, reference to 84, 85 Tusayan, masonry at 101 --, migration to, of Tewas 196 -- villages, location of, when discovered 91 Vegetation of cliff-ruin region 83 Walls, finish of, in cliff ruins 107, 113, 116, 124 --, retaining, in Canyon de Chelly 172 Walpi, former location of 93 Washington, Col., Navaho expedition under 79 Watch towers and cliff dwellings analogous 198 -- of pueblos 92 Water -- supply of Canyon de Chelly 86, 88 Wheeler Survey, archeological work under 80 White House, _see_ Casa Blanca. Whitewash used in Casa Blanca 109 -- used in Mummy Cave ruin 115 -- used on cliff houses 146 Window opening in cliff outlook 148 --, _see_ Opening. Yarrow, H. C., on kivas at Taos 175 Zuñi, a many-storied pueblo 155 --, character of masonry of 163 --, farming villages of 92, 156 * * * * * Errors and Anomalies bowlder _standard spelling for this publication_ among others figures one entitled ... _wording unchanged: "other figures" or omit "figures"_ the interstices were / chinked with spawls pretty well chinked with small spawls _spelling in original: more often "spalls"_ numerous expedients were resorted to to prevent _duplication "to to" not an error_ the Mesa Verdé country _"é" in original_ Over twenty ago Mr W. H. Holmes found _missing word in original: probably "years"_ 
20382	----	[Illustration: ONE OF THE "BOYS." (Portrait. See p. 125.) Frontispiece.] RANCHING, SPORT AND TRAVEL BY THOMAS CARSON, F.R.G.S. WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS T. FISHER UNWIN LONDON LEIPSIC Adelphi Terrace Inselstrasse 20 1911 [_All Rights Reserved_] INTRODUCTORY NOTE This book is somewhat in the nature of an autobiography, covering as it does almost the whole of the Author's life. The main portion of the volume is devoted to cattle ranching in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The Author has also included a record of his travels abroad, which he hopes will prove to be not uninteresting; and a chapter devoted to a description of tea planting in India. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. TEA PLANTING 13 In Cachar--Apprenticeship--Tea Planting described--Polo --In Sylhet--Pilgrims at Sacred Pool--Wild Game--Amusements--Rainfall--Return to Cachar--Scottpore --Snakes--A Haunted Tree--Hill Tribes--Selecting a Location--Return to England. II. CATTLE RANCHING IN ARIZONA 42 Leave for United States of America--Iowa--New Mexico--Real Estate Speculation--Gambling--Billy the Kid--Start Ranching in Arizona--Description of Country--Apache and other Indians--Fauna--Branding Cattle--Ranch Notes--Mexicans--Politics--Summer Camp--Winter Camp--Fishing and Shooting--Indian Troubles. III. CATTLE RANCHING IN ARIZONA (_continued_) 81 The Cowboy--Accoutrements and Weapons--Desert Plants--Politics and Perjury--Mavericks--Mormons--Bog Riding. IV. ODDS AND ENDS 103 Scent and Instinct--Mules--Roping Contests--Antelopes --The Skunk--Garnets--Leave Arizona. V. RANCHING IN NEW MEXICO 117 The Scottish Company--My Difficulties and Dangers--Mustang Hunting--Round-up described--Shipping Cattle--Railroad Accidents--Close out Scotch Company's Interests. VI. ODDS AND ENDS 152 Summer Round-up Notes--Night Guarding--Stampedes--Bronco Busting--Cattle Branding, etc. VII. ON MY OWN RANCH 170 Locating--Plans--Prairie Fires and Guards--Bulls--Trading --Successful Methods--Loco-weed--Sale of Ranch. VIII. ODDS AND ENDS 198 The "Staked Plains"--High Winds--Lobo Wolves--Branding --Cows--Black Jack--Lightning and Hail--Classing Cattle--Conventions--"Cutting" versus Polo--Bull-Fight--Prize-Fights--River and Sea Fishing--Sharks. IX. IN AMARILLO 226 Purchase of Lots--Building--Boosting a Town. X. FIRST TOUR ABROAD 234 Mexico--Guatemala--Salvador--Panama--Colombia--Venezuela --Jamaica--Cuba--Fire in Amarillo--Rebuilding. XI. SECOND TOUR ABROAD 250 Bermudas--Switzerland--Italy--Monte Carlo--Algiers --Morocco--Spain--Biarritz and Pau. XII. THIRD TOUR ABROAD 256 Salt Lake City--Canada--Vancouver--Hawaii--Fiji --Australia--New Zealand--Tasmania--Summer at Home. XIII. FOURTH TOUR ABROAD 270 Yucatan--Honduras--Costa Rica--Panama--Equador--Peru --Chile--Argentina--Brazil--Teneriffe. XIV. FIFTH TOUR ABROAD 287 California--Honolulu--Japan--China--Singapore--Burmah --India--Ceylon--The End. APPENDIX 317 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ONE OF THE "BOYS" (_see_ page 125) _Frontispiece_ PLUCKING TEA LEAF 20 NAGAS 37 ROPING A GRIZZLY 70 A SHOOTING SCRAPE 76 ONE OF OUR MEN, TO SHOW HANG OF SIX-SHOOTER 78 1883 IN ARIZONA, AUTHOR AND PARTY 80 WOUND UP, HORSE TANGLED IN ROPE 106 WATERING A HERD 116 HERD ON TRAIL, SHOWING LEAD STEER 137 CHANGING HORSES 153 A REAL BAD ONE 164 BREAKING THE PRAIRIE 230 FIRST CROP--MILO MAIZE 230 LLAMAS AS PACK ANIMALS 279 DRIFTING SAND DUNE, ONE OF THOUSANDS 279 PERUVIAN RUINS. NOTE DIMENSIONS OF STONES AND LOCKING SYSTEM 281 PALACE OF MAHARANA OF UDAIPUR 310 RANCHING, SPORT AND TRAVEL CHAPTER I TEA PLANTING In Cachar--Apprenticeship--Tea Planting described--Polo--In Sylhet--Pilgrims at Sacred Pool--Wild Game--Amusements--Rainfall--Return to Cachar--Scottpore--Snakes--A Haunted Tree--Hill Tribes--Selecting a Location--Return to England. Having no inclination for the seclusion and drudgery of office work, determined to lead a country life of some kind or other, and even then having a longing desire to roam the world and see foreign countries, I had arranged to accompany a friend to the Comoro Islands, north of Madagascar; but changing my mind and accepting the better advice of friends, my start was made, not to the Comoro Islands, but to India and the tea district of Cachar. Accordingly the age of twenty-two and the year 1876 saw me on board a steamer bound for Calcutta. Steamers were slow sailers in those days, and it was a long trip via Gibraltar, Suez, Malta, the Canal and Point de Galle; but it was all very interesting to me. Near Point de Galle we witnessed from the steamer a remarkable sight, a desperate fight, it seemed to be a fight and not play, between a sea-serpent, which seemed to be about fifteen feet long, and a huge ray. The battle was fought on the surface of the water and even out of it, as the ray several times threw himself into the air. How it ended we could not see. Anyway we had seen the sea-serpent, though not the fabulous monster so often written about, and yet whose existence cannot be disproved. The sea-serpent's tail is flattened. At Calcutta I visited a tea firm, who sent me up to Cachar to help at one of the gardens till a vacancy should occur. Calcutta, by the way, is or was overrun by jackals at night. They are the scavengers of the town and hunt in packs through the streets, their wolfish yelling being a little disconcerting to a stranger. It was a long twelve days, but again a very interesting journey, in a native river boat, four rowers (or towers), to my destination. I had a servant with me, who proved a good, efficient cook and attendant. It was rather trying to the "griffin" to notice, floating in the river, corpses of natives, frequently perched upon by hungry vultures. The tea-garden selected for me was Narainpore, successfully managed by a fellow-countryman, who proved to be a capital chap and who made my stay with him very pleasant. Narainpore was one of the oldest gardens, on teelah (hilly) land and quite healthy. There I gave what little help I could, picked up some of the lingo, and learned a good deal about the planting, growth and manufacture of tea. Neighbours were plentiful and life quite sociable. Twice a week in the cold weather we played polo, sometimes with Munipoories, a hill tribe whose national game it is, and who were then the undoubted champions. The Regent Senaputti was a keen player, and very picturesque in his costume of green velvet zouave jacket, salmon-pink silk dhotee and pink silk turban. In Munipoor even the children have their weekly polo matches. They breed ponies specially for the game, and use them for nothing else, nor would they sell their best. Still, we rode Munipoor "tats" costing us from 50 rupees to 100. They were exceedingly small, averaging not eleven hands high, but wiry, active, speedy, full of grit, and seemed to love the game. As the game was there played, seven formed a side, the field was twice as large as now and there were no goals. The ball had to be simply driven over the end line to count a score. It may be remarked here that the great Akbar was so fond of polo, but otherwise so busy, that he played the game at night with luminous balls. These Munipoories were a very fine race of people, much lighter of colour than their neighbouring tribes, very stately and dignified in their bearing, and thorough sportsmen. Many of their women were really handsome, and the girls, with red hibiscus blossoms stuck in their jet-black hair, and their merry, laughing faces and graceful figures, were altogether quite attractive to the Sahib Log. But to return to tea. Our bungalow was of the usual type, consisting of cement floor, roof of crossed bamboos and two feet of sun-grass thatch, supported by immense teak posts, hard as iron and bidding defiance to the white ants. The walls were of mats. Tea-gardens usually had a surface of 300 to 1000 acres; some were on comparatively level ground, some on hilly (teelah) land. These teelahs were always carefully terraced to prevent the wash of soil and permit cultivation. The plants were spaced about three to six feet apart, according to whether they were of the Chinese, the hybrid, or the pure indigenous breed, the last being the largest, in its native state developing to the dimensions of a small tree. I may as well here at once give a short sketch of the principal features of tea planting and manufacture, which will show what the duties of a planter are, and how various are the occupations and operations embraced. One must necessarily first have labour (coolies). These are recruited in certain districts of India, usually by sending good reliable men, already in your employ, to their home country, under a contract to pay them so much a head for every coolie they can persuade (by lies or otherwise) to come to your garden. The coolies must then bind themselves to work for you for, say, three to four years. They are paid for their work, not much it is true, but enough to support them with comfort; the men about three annas (or fourpence) a day, the women two annas (or threepence). As they get to know their work and become expert, the good men will earn as much as six annas a day, and some of the women, when plucking leaf, about the same. This is more than abundant for these people. They not only have every comfort, but they become rich, so that in a few years they are able to rest on their earnings, and work only at their convenience and when they feel like it. They are supplied with nothing, neither food nor clothing; medicine alone is free to them. The native staff of a garden consists of, say, two baboos, or book-keepers and clerks, a doctor baboo, sirdars or overseers, and chowkidars or line watchmen. A sirdar accompanies and has charge of each gang of coolies on whatever branch of work. One is also in charge of the factory or tea-house. Plant growth ceases about the end of October. Then cold-weather work begins, including the great and important operation of pruning, which requires a large force and will occupy most of the winter. Also charcoal-burning for next season's supply; road-making, building and repairing, jungle-cutting, bridge-building, and nursery-making: that is, preparing with great care beds in which the seed will be planted early in spring. Cultivation is also, of course, carried on; it can never be overdone. In the factory, some men are busy putting together or manufacturing new tea-boxes, lining them carefully with lead, which needs close attention, as the smallest hole in the lining of a tea-chest will cause serious injury to the contents. When spring opens and the first glorious "flush" is on the bushes, there is a readjustment of labour. Pluckers begin to gather the leaf, and as the season advances more pluckers are needed, till possibly every man, woman and child may be called on for this operation alone, it being so important that the leaf flush does not get ahead and out of control, so that the leaf would get tough and hard and less fit for manufacture; but cultivation is almost equally important, and every available labourer is kept hard at it. What a pleasure it is to watch a good expert workman, be he carpenter, bricklayer, ploughman, blacksmith, or only an Irish navvy. In even the humblest of these callings the evidence of much training, practice or long apprenticeship is noticeable. To an amateur who has tried such work himself it will soon be apparent how crude his efforts are, how little he knows of the apparently simple operation. The navvy seems to work slowly; but he knows well, because his task is a day-long one, that his forces must be economised, that over-exertion must be avoided. This lesson was brought home to me when exasperated by the seeming laziness of the coolie cultivators, I would seize a man's hoe and fly at the work, hoe vigorously for perhaps five minutes, swear at the man for his lack of strenuousness, then retire and find myself puffing and blowing and almost in a state of collapse. If an addition or extension is being made to the garden, the already cut jungle has to be burnt and the ground cleared in early spring, the soil broken up and staked: that is, small sticks put in regular rows and intervals to show where the young plants are to be put. Then when the rains have properly set in the actual planting begins. This is a work that requires a lot of labour and close and careful superintendence. Imagine what it means to plant out 100 acres of ground, the plants set only three or four feet apart! The right plucking of the leaf calls for equally careful looking after. The women are paid by the amount or weight they pluck, so they are very liable to pluck carelessly and so damage the succeeding flush, or they may gather a lot of old leaf unsuited for manufacturing purposes. In short, every detail of work, even cultivation, demands close supervision and the whole attention of the planter. When the new-plucked leaf is brought home it is spread out to wither in suitably-built sheds. (Here begins the tea-maker's responsibility.) Then it must be rolled, by hand or by machinery; fermented, and fired or dried over charcoal ovens; separated in its different classes, the younger the leaf bud the more valuable the tea. It is then packed in boxes for market, and sampled by the planter. He does this by weighing a tiny quantity of each class or grade of tea into separate cups, pouring boiling water on them, and then tasting the liquor by sipping a little into the mouth, not to be swallowed, but ejected again. [Illustration: PLUCKING TEA LEAF.] All this will give an idea of the variety of duties of a tea-planter. He has no time for shooting, polo, or visiting during the busy season. But at mid-winter the great annual Mela takes place at the station, the local seat of Government. The Mela lasts a couple of weeks, and it is a season of fun and jollity with both planters and natives. There were two or three social clubs in Silchar; horse and pony racing, polo, cricket and football filled the day, dinner and sociability the night; and what nights! The amount of liquor consumed at these meetings was almost incredible. Nothing can look more beautiful or more gratifying to the eye of the owner than a tract of tea, pruned level as a table and topped with new fresh young leaf-shoots, four to eight inches high, in full flush, ready for the pluckers' nimble fingers. At the end of one year I was offered and accepted the position of assistant at a Sylhet garden, called Kessoregool, the property consisting of three distinct gardens, the principal one being directly overseered by the manager, an American. He, of course, was my superior. My charge was the Lucky Cherra Gardens, some few miles away. There I spent two years, learning what I could of the business, but without the advantage of European society; in fact, the Burra Sahib and myself were almost the only whites in the district, and as he was drunk quite half the time, and we did not pull very well together, I was left to my own resources. I found amusement in various ways. There was no polo, but some of the native zemindars (landed proprietors) were always ready to get up a beat for leopards, tigers, deer and pig. Their method was simply to drive the game into a net corral and spear them to death. The Government Keddas, under Colonel Nuttal, were also not far away in hill Tipperah, and it was intensely interesting to watch operations. Close to my garden also was a sacred pool and a very beautiful waterfall. This was visited twice a year by immense numbers of natives, some from great distances, for it was a famous and renowned place of pilgrimage. It could only be approached through my garden; and as there was no wagon road, the pilgrims were always open to inspection, so to speak; and they were well worth inspection, as among them were many races, all ages, both sexes, every caste or jat; robes, turbans and cupras of every shape and colour; fakirs and wonder-workers, and beggars galore. Here, and on such an occasion only, could the sahib see face to face the harems of the wealthy natives, consisting of women who at no other time showed themselves out of doors. Being the only sahib present I had all the "fun of the fair" to myself, but always regretted the want of a companion to share it with me. As to wild game, there were lots of jungle fowl (original stock of our familiar barn-door cocks and hens), a few pigeons, Argus pheasants, small barking deer, pigs, sambur, barrasingha, metnas, crocodiles, leopards, tigers, bears and elephants; but I had little time for shooting and it was expensive work, the jungle being so thick that riding elephants were quite necessary. If keen enough, one could sit all night on a machan in a tree near a recent "kill," on the chance of Stripes showing himself; but it never appealed to me much, that kind of sport. If a tiger was raiding the cattle I would poison the "kill" with strychnine. In this way I secured several very fine animals, getting two at one time, so successfully poisoned that their bodies actually lay on the dead bullock. One time I shot an enormous python, some eighteen feet in length, which took several men to carry home. Monkeys were plentiful and of several kinds. I was very fond of wandering amongst the high-tree jungle and quietly watching their antics. In the dense forest there is little undergrowth, so that one can move about freely and study the extraordinary forms of vegetation displayed. Ticks and leeches are to be dreaded--a perfect nuisance. If you sit down or pause for a few moments where no leeches are in sight, suddenly and quickly they will appear marching on you, or at you, at a gallop. The popular idea of a wealth of flowers in tropical jungles is a misconception. In tree jungle no flowers are to be found, or at any rate they are not visible. But if one can by some means attain an elevation and so be able to overlook the tree-tops, he will probably be rewarded with a wonderful display, as many jungle trees are glorified with crowns of gorgeous colours. There will he also discover the honey-suckers, moths, butterflies, the beetles, and all the other insect brood which he had also vainly looked for before. The fruits are likewise borne aloft, and therefore at the proper time these tree-tops will be the haunt of the monkeys, the parrots, the bats, the toucans, and all frugivorous creation. Of all fruits the durian is the most delicious. Such is the universal opinion of men, including A. R. Wallace, who have had the opportunity of becoming familiar with it. It is purely tropical, grows on a lofty tree, is round and nearly as large as a cocoanut. A thick and tough rind protects the delicacy contained within. When opened five cells are revealed, satiny white, containing masses of cream-coloured pulp. This pulp is the edible portion and has an indescribable flavour and consistence. You can safely eat all you want of it, and the more you eat the more you will want. To eat durian, as Mr Wallace says, is alone worth a voyage to the East. But it has one strange quality--it smells so badly as to be at first almost nauseating; some people even can never bring themselves to touch it. Once this repulsion is mastered the fruit will probably be preferred to all other foods. The natives give it honourable titles, exalt it, and even wax poetical over it. Of course we all know the multitudinous uses of the bamboo. This grass is one of the most wonderful, beautiful and useful of Nature's gifts to uncivilized man. And yet one more use has been found for it. In the East a new industry has sprung up, viz., the making of "Panama" hats of bamboo strips or threads. In texture and pliability these hats are said to even surpass the genuine "Panamas," are absolutely impervious to rain, and can be produced at a much lower cost. The Looshais killed pigs, and even tigers, by ingeniously setting poisoned arrows in the woods, which were released by the animals pressing on a string. One of my coolies was unfortunate enough to be shot and killed in this way. Growing on decayed tree stumps I frequently found a saprophyte (_hymenophallus_), much larger than its English representative, indeed a monster in comparison, and possessing a vile and most odious smell, yet attractive to certain depraved insects. I made a very fine collection of butterflies, moths and beetles, which, however, was entirely destroyed by worms or ants during its passage to England. The magnificent Atlas moth was common in Sylhet and Cachar. What an extraordinarily beautiful creature it is, sometimes so large as to cover a dinner-plate. I never was privileged to see it fly. It seemed to be always in a languid or torpid condition. Thunderstorms occur almost daily during the wet season. By lightning I lost several people. In one case, whilst standing watching a man remove seedlings from a nursery bed, standing indeed immediately behind and close to him, there came a thrilling flash of lightning. It shook myself as well as several women who stood by. The man in front of me, who had been sitting on his haunches with a steel-ribbed umbrella over him, remained silent and still. At last I called on him to continue his work and pulled back the umbrella to see his face. He was stone dead. Examination showed a small blackish spot where the steel rib had rested and conveyed the fatal shock. The approach of the daily rainstorm, usually about noon, was a remarkable sight. Immense fan-shaped, thunderous-looking clouds would come rolling up, billow upon billow, travelling at great speed and accompanied by terrific wind. A flash of lightning and a crashing peal of thunder and the deluge began, literally a deluge. The rainfall averaged about 180 inches in seven months. At Cherrapunji, in the Kassia Hills, within sight of my place and only about twenty miles distant, the rainfall was and is the greatest in the world, no other district approaching it in this respect, viz., averaging per annum 450 inches; greatest recorded over 900 inches; and there is a record of _one_ month, July, of a fall of nearly 400 inches; yet all this precipitation takes place during the six or seven wet months, the rest of the year being absolutely dry and rainless. These measurements are recorded at the Government Observatory Station and need not be disputed. It may readily be supposed that the wet season, summer, with its high temperature and damp atmosphere, was very trying to the European, and even to the imported coolies. Imagine living for six continuous months in the hottest palm-house in Kew Gardens; yet the planter is out and about all day long; nearly always on pony back, however, an enormously thick solah toppee hat or a heavy white umbrella protecting his head. The dry, or cold season, however, was delightful. Close to Lucky Cherra Garden was a tract of bustee land on which some Bengali cultivators grew rice and other crops. Our Company's boundary line in some way conflicted with theirs, and a dispute arose which soon developed into a series of, first, most comical mix-ups, and afterwards into desperate "lathi" fights. The land in dispute was being hurriedly ploughed by buffalo teams belonging to the Bengalis; to uphold our claim I also secured teams and put them to ploughing on the same piece of ground. This could only lead to one thing--as said before, terrific lathi fights between the teamsters. For several days I went down to see the fun, taking with me a number of the stoutest coolies on the garden. The men seemed to rather enjoy the sport, though a lick from a lathi (a formidable tough, hard and heavy cane) was far from a joke. Finally the bustee-wallahs agreed to stop operations and await legal judgment. After eighteen months I was suddenly left in sole charge of all the Company's gardens, the Burra Sahib having finally succumbed to drink; but I was not long left in charge, being soon relieved by a more experienced man. Shortly after I was ordered to Scottpore Garden in Cachar, the manager of which, a particularly fine man and a great friend of mine, had suffered the awful death of being pierced by the very sharp end of a heavy, newly-cut bamboo, which he seems to have ridden against in the dark. He always rode at great speed, and he too, in this way, was a victim of drink. The tremendously high death-rate amongst planters was directly due to this fatal habit. Scottpore was a new (young) garden, not teelah, but level land, having extremely rich soil. The bushes showed strong growth and there were no "vacancies"; indeed it was a model plantation. Unfortunately, it had the character of extreme unhealthiness. Of my three predecessors two had died of fever and one as before mentioned. The coolie death-rate was shocking; so bad that, during my management, a Government Commission was sent to look into the situation, and the absolute closing of the garden was anticipated. The result was that I was debarred from recruiting and importing certain coolies from certain districts in India, they being peculiarly susceptible to fever and dysentery. Almost every day at morning muster the doctor reported so and so, or so many, dead, wiped off the roll. Naturally the place suffered from lack of labour, a further draining of the force being the absconding of coolies, running off, poor devils, to healthier places, and the stealing of my people by unscrupulous planters. On several occasions, when riding home on dark nights, have I detected white objects on the side of the road. Not a movement would be seen, not a sound or a breath heard, only an ominous, suspicious silence reigned; it meant that these were some of my people absconding, being perhaps led off by a pimp from another garden--and woe betide the pimp if caught. I would call out to them, and if they did not respond would go after them; but generally they were too scared to resist or to attempt further to escape; so I would drive them in front of me back to the garden, inspect them and take their names, try to find out who had put them up to it, etc., and dismiss them to the lines in charge of the night-watchman. You could not well punish them, though a good caning was administered sometimes to the men. Thus the plantation, instead of presenting a clean, well-cultivated appearance, had often that of an enormous hayfield; nevertheless the output and manufacture of tea was large and the quality good. All that I myself could and did take credit for was this "quality," as the prices obtained in Calcutta were the best of all the Company's gardens. At Scottpore there was no lack of neighbours. My bungalow was on two cross-roads, a half-way house so to speak; consequently someone was continually dropping in. Frequently three or four visitors would arrive unannounced for dinner; the house was always "wide open." Whisky, brandy and beer were always on the sideboard, and in my absence the bearer or khansamah was expected, as a matter of course, to offer refreshments to all comers. The planter's code of hospitality demanded this, but it was the financial ruin of the Chota Sahib, depending solely on his modest salary. At Scottpore I went in strong for vegetable, fruit and flower gardening, and not without success. Visitors came from a distance to view the flower-beds and eat my green peas, and I really think that I grew as fine pineapples and bananas as were produced anywhere. The pineapple of good stock and ripened on the plant is, I think, the most exquisite of all fruits. A really ripe pine contains no fibre. You cut the top off and sup the delicious mushy contents with a spoon. In such a hot, steamy climate as we had in these tea districts, the rapidity of growth of vegetation is, of course, remarkable. Bamboos illustrate this better than other plants, their growth being so much more noticeable, that of a young shoot amounting to as much as four inches in one night. It sometimes appeared to my imagination that the weeds and grass grew one foot in a like period, especially when short of labour. The planter usually takes a pride in the well-cultivated appearance of the garden in his charge; but how can one be proud if the weeds overtop the bushes? It may be appropriate here to note that eighty-five per cent. of the twenty-four hours' growth of plants occurs between 12 p.m. and 6 a.m.; during the noon hours the apparent growth almost entirely ceases. Garden coolies are generally Hindoos and are imported from far-off districts. The local peasantry of Bengal are mostly Mohammedans and do not work on tea-gardens, except on such jobs as cutting jungle, building, etc. They speak a somewhat different tongue, so that we had to understand Bengali as well as Hindustani. I may mention here that as Hindoos regard an egg as defiling, and Mohammedans despise an eater of pork, our love for ham and eggs alienates us from both these classes; what beasts we must be! The Hindoos and the Bengal Mussulmans are characterized by cringing servility, open insolence, or rude indifference. Contrast with this the Burmese agreeableness and affability, or the bearing of the Rajput and the Sikh. In those days the natives cringed before the Sahib Log much more than they do now. Then all had to put their umbrellas down on passing a sahib, and all had to leave the side-walk on the white man's approach; not that the law compelled them to do so, it was simply a custom enforced by their masters, in the large cities as well as in the mofussil. We thought it advisable at all costs to keep the coolies in a proper state of subjection. Thus, when on a certain occasion a coolie of mine raised his kodalie (hoe) to strike me I had to give him a very severe thrashing. Another time a man appeared somewhat insolent in his talk to me and I unfortunately hit him a blow on the body, from the effects of which he died next day. Some of these people suffer from enlarged spleens and even a slight jar on that part of their anatomy may prove fatal. A few more notes. Among the Sontals in Bengal the snake stone, found within the head of the Adjutant-bird, is applied to a snake bite exactly in the same way and with the same supposed results as the Texas madstone, an accretion found, it is said, in the system of a white stag. Many natives of India die from purely imaginary snake bites. In Oude there have been many instances verified, or at least impossible of contradiction, of so-called wolf-children, infants stolen by wolves and suckled by them, that go on all fours, eat only raw meat, and, of course, speak no language. The Nagas, a hill tribe and not very desirable neighbours, practise the refined custom of starving a dog, then supplying it with an enormous feed of rice; and when the stomach is properly distended, killing it, the half-digested mess forming the _bonne-bouche_ of the tribal feast. Snake stories are always effective. I have none to tell. My bungalow roof, the thatch, was at all times infested by snakes, some quite large. At night one frequently heard them gliding between the bamboos and grass, chasing mice, beetles, or perhaps lizards, and sometimes falling on the top of the mosquito bar, or even on the dinner-table; but these were probably harmless creatures, as most snakes are. The cobra was not common in Cachar. It may be said here that a snake's mouth opens crossways as well as vertically, and each side has the power of working independently, the teeth being re-curved backwards. Prey once in the jaws cannot escape, and the snake itself can only dispose of it in one way--downwards. At Scottpore I employed an elephant for certain work, such as hauling heavy posts out of the jungle. Sometimes his "little Mary" would trouble him, when a dose of castor oil would be effectively administered. Unfortunately, he misbehaved, ran amok, and tried to kill his mahout, and so that hatthi (elephant) had to be disposed of. When clearing jungle for a tea-garden the workmen sometimes come on a certain species of tree, of which they are in great dread. They cannot be induced to cut it down and so the tree remains. Such a one stood opposite my bungalow, a stately, handsome monarch of the forest. It was a sacred, or rather a haunted tree, but as its shade was injurious to tea-plant growth I was determined to have it destroyed. None of my people would touch it; so I sent over to a neighbour and explained the facts to him, requesting him to send over a gang of his men to do the deed. I was to see that they had no communication with my own people. Well, his men came and were put to work with axes. The result? Two of them died that day and the rest bolted. Yet this is not more extraordinary than people dying of imaginary snake bites. Shortly afterwards an incident occurred to still further strengthen the native belief that the tree was haunted. I had a very fine bull terrier which slept in the porch at night, the night-watchman also sleeping there. One time I was aroused by terrific yells from the dog, and called to the watchman to know the trouble. After apparently recovering from his fright he told me the devil had come from the tree and carried off the dog. The morning showed traces of a tiger's or leopard's pugs, and my poor terrier was of course never seen again. The hill tribes surrounding the valley of Cachar were the Kassias, Nagas, Kookies, Munipoories and Looshais, all of very similar type, except that the Munipoories were of somewhat lighter skin, were more civilized and handsomer. The Kassias were noted for their wonderful muscular development, no doubt accounted for by their being mountaineers, their poonjes (villages) being situated on the sides of high and steep mountains. All their market products, supplies, etc., were packed up and down these hills in thoppas, a sort of baskets or chairs slung on the back by a band over the forehead. In this way even a heavy man would be carried up the steep mountain-side, and generally by a woman. Once, in later years, whilst in Mexico, near Crizaba, I was intensely surprised to meet in the forest a string of Indios going to market and using this identical thoppa; the similar cut of the hair across the forehead, the blanket and dress, the physical features, even the peculiar grunt emitted when carrying a weight, settled for me the long-disputed question of the origin of the Aztecs. In Venezuela I saw exactly the same type in Castro's Indian troops, as also in the Indian natives of Peru. [Illustration: NAGAS] The Kassias were fond of games, such as tossing the caber, putting the weight and throwing the hammer, apparently a tribal institution. The Kookies and Nagas were restless, warlike and troublesome, and addicted to head hunting. They periodically raided some tea-gardens to secure lead for bullets, and incidentally heads as trophies. Several planters had been thus massacred, and at outlying gardens there was always this dread and danger. On one occasion an urgent message was brought to me from such a garden, whose manager happened to be in Calcutta. His head baboo begged me to come over and take charge, if only to reassure the coolies, who had been running off into the jungle on the report of a threatened Naga raid. On going over I found the people tremendously excited, and most of them scared nearly to death. My presence seemed to allay their fright, though if the savages had come we could have done nothing, having only a few rifles in the place and the coolies totally demoralized. Luckily Mr Naga did not appear. The Looshais were a particularly warlike race, and gardens situated near their territory were supplied by Government with stands of arms and had stockades for defence in case of attack. The tea-planter's life was to me a very enjoyable one. There was lots of interesting work to be done, lots of sport and amusement, and lots of good fellows. The life promised to be an ideal one. For its enjoyment, however, indeed for its possibility, there is one essential--good health. Unfortunately that, during the whole period at Scottpore, was not mine; for the whole eighteen months fever had its grip on me; appetite was quite gone, and I subsisted on nothing but eggs, milk and whisky. Six months more would have done me up; but just at this time came the announcement of my father's death. For this reason and on account of my health I resigned the position and prepared to visit home, meaning to return, however, to India. I determined before going to look out a piece of land suitable for a small plantation; and, after much consideration, decided to hunt for it in Eastern Sylhet. So bidding adieu to friends I hied me down to the selected district, secured a good man as guide (a man of intelligence and intimate knowledge of the country was essential), and hired an elephant to carry us and break a way through the jungle. In the course of our search we came to a piece of seemingly swampy ground; the high reeds which had once covered it had been eaten down and the surface of the bog trodden on till it became caked, firm and almost solid. Our path was across it, but on coming to the edge the elephant refused to proceed. On the mahout urging him he roared and protested in every way, so much so that I was somewhat alarmed and suggested to the mahout that the elephant knew better than he the danger of proceeding. Finally, however, the elephant decided to try the ground, and carefully and slowly he made his way across, his great feet at every step depressing the surface, which perceptibly waved like thin ice all around him. I was prepared and ready to jump clear at the first sign of danger, for had we broken through we should have probably all disappeared in the bog. Hatthi was as much relieved as myself on reaching terra firma. My guide told me that this land had no bottom, that under the packed surface there was twenty feet of soft, black, loamy mud. This set me thinking. I was after something of this nature. In the course of the next day we came upon a somewhat similar piece of ground, some 300 acres in extent, still covered with the original reeds and other vegetation. The soil was in places exposed and was of a rich, dark brown loamy character. Taking a long ten-foot bamboo and pressing it firmly on the ground it could be forced nearly out of sight. That was enough for me. The object sought for was found. Further tests with a spade and bamboo were made at different points; deep drainage seemed practicable, and, what was quite important, a small navigable river bounded the property. Then I hunted up a native surveyor, traced the proposed boundaries, got numbers and data, etc., to enable me to send my application to the proper quarter, which I soon afterwards did, making a money deposit in part payment to the Government. My task was completed, and I at once started for Calcutta and home. As things turned out I never returned to the country and so had to abandon my rights, etc.; but in support of my judgment I was very much gratified to learn years afterwards that someone else had secured and developed this particular piece of land as a tea-garden, and that it had turned out to be the most valuable, much the most valuable, piece of tea land, acre for acre, in the whole country. Often and bitterly since then have I regretted not being able to return and develop and operate this ideal location. More than that, I had learned the tea-growing business, had devoted over three years to its careful study, felt myself in every way competent, and had found a life in many ways suited to my tastes. All this had to be abandoned. In India the white man lives in great luxury. He has a great staff of servants, his every whim and wish is anticipated and satisfied, his comfort watched over. To leave _this_, to go straight out to the West, the wild and woolly West, where servants were not! The very suggestion of such a thing to me on leaving India would have received no consideration whatever. It would have seemed utterly impossible, but "El Hombre propone y el Deos depone" as the Mexicans say. During the whole four years' stay in India I was practically barred from ladies' society, nearly all the planters being unmarried men. Alas! for twenty years longer of my life this very unfortunate and demoralizing condition was to continue. There were no railroads then to Cachar and no steamers, so I again performed the journey to Calcutta in a native boat, and there, by-the-bye, I witnessed the sight for the first time of an apparent lunatic playing a game called Golf; a game which later was to be more familiar to me, and myself to become one of the greatest lunatics of all. The run home was in no way remarkable, except for the intense anticipated pleasure of again seeing the old country. CHAPTER II CATTLE RANCHING IN ARIZONA Leave for United States of America--Iowa--New Mexico--Real Estate Speculation--Gambling--Billy the Kid--Start Ranching in Arizona--Description of Country--Apache and other Indians--Fauna--Branding Cattle--Ranch Notes--Mexicans--Politics--Summer Camp--Winter Camp--Fishing and Shooting--Indian Troubles. My health seemed to have reached a more serious condition than imagined; and so on the advice of my friends, but with much regret, I decided to henceforth cast my lot in a more bracing climate. Having no profession, and hating trade in any form, the choice was limited and confined to live stock or crop farming of one kind or another. Accordingly, after six months at home and on complete recovery of health, I took my way to the United States of America, first to Lemars in Iowa, where was a well-known colony of Britishers, said Britishers consisting almost entirely of the gentlemen class, some with much money, some with little, none of them with much knowledge of practical business life or affairs, all of them with the idea of social superiority over the natives, which they very foolishly showed. Sport, not work, occupied their whole time and attention. Altogether it seemed that this was no place for one who had to push his fortunes. The climate, too, seemed to be far from agreeable, in summer being very hot, in winter very cold; so, with another man, I decided to go further west and south, to the sheep and cattle country of New Mexico; not that I had any knowledge of sheep or cattle, hardly knowing the one from the other; but the nature of Ranch life (Ranch with a big R) and the romance attaching to it had much to do with my determination. Arrived in New Mexico I went to live with a sheepman--a practical sheepman from Australia--to study the industry and see how I liked it. In the neighbourhood was a cattle ranch and a lot of cowboys. I saw much of _their_ life, and was so attracted by it that the sheep proposition was finally abandoned as unsuitable. Still, I was very undecided, knew little of the ways of the country and still less of the cattle business. I moved to the small town of Las Vegas, then about the western end of the Santa Fé railroad. Here I stayed six months, making acquaintances and listening to others' experiences. Las Vegas was then a true frontier town. It was "booming," full of life and all kinds of people, money plentiful, saloons, gambling-dens and dance-halls "wide open." Real Estate was moving freely, prices advancing, speculation rife, and--I caught the infection! A few successful deals gave me courage and tempted me further. I became a real gambler. On some deals I made tremendous profits. I even owned a saloon and gambling-hall, which paid me a huge rental and gave me my drinks free! The world looked "easy." Not content with Las Vegas, I followed the road to Albuquerque and Socorro, had some deals there and spent my evenings playing poker, faro and monte with the best and "toughest" of them. Santa Fé, the capital, was then as much a "hell" as Las Vegas. Let me try to describe one of these gambling resorts. A long, low room, probably a saloon, with the pretentious bar in front; tables on either side of the room, and an eager group round each one, the game being roulette, faro, highball, poker, crapps or monte. The dealers, or professional gamblers, are easily distinguished. Their dress consists invariably of a well-laundered "biled" (white) shirt, huge diamond stud in front, no collar or tie, perhaps a silk handkerchief tied loosely round the neck, and an open unbuttoned waistcoat. They are necessarily cool, wide-awake, self-possessed men. All in this room are chewing tobacco and distributing the results freely on the floor. Now and then the dealers call for drinks all round, perhaps to keep the company together and encourage play. But poker, the royal game, the best of all gambling games, is generally played in a retired room, where quietness and some privacy are secured. Mere idlers and "bums" are not wanted around; perhaps the room is a little cleaner, but the floor is littered, if the game has lasted long, with dozens of already used and abandoned packs of cards. At Las Vegas the majority of the players were cowboys and cattlemen; at Socorro miners and prospectors; at Albuquerque all kinds; at Santa Fé politicians and officials and Mexicans, but Chinamen, always a few Chinamen, everywhere; and what varied types of men one rubs shoulders with! The cowpunchers, probably pretty well "loaded" (tipsy), the "prominent" lawyer, the horny-handed miner, the inscrutable "John"; the scout, or frontier man, with hair long as a woman's; the half-breed Mexican or greaser elbowing a don of pure Castilian blood; the men all "packing" guns (six-shooters), some in the pocket, some displayed openly. The dealer, of course, has his lying handy under the table; but shooting scrapes are rare. If there is any trouble it will be settled somewhere else afterwards. But things took a turn; slackness, then actual depression in Real Estate values set in, and oh! how quickly. Like many others, I got scared and hastened to "get out." It was almost too late, not quite. On cleaning up, my financial position was just about the same as at the beginning of the campaign. It was a lesson, a valuable experience; but I admit that Real Estate speculation threw a glamour over me that still remains. It is the way to wealth for the man who knows how to go about it. About this time two Englishmen arrived in Las Vegas, and we soon got acquainted. One could easily see that they were not tenderfeet. On the contrary, they appeared to be shrewd, practical men of affairs. They had been cattle ranching up north for some years, had a good knowledge of the business, and were "good fellows." They had come south to look out a cattle ranch and continue in the business. They wanted a little more capital, which seemed my opportunity, and the upshot was that we formed a partnership, for good or for ill, which lasted for many years (over twelve), but which was never financially successful. Considering my entire ignorance of cattle affairs, and having abounding confidence in my two partners, I agreed to leave the entire control and management in their hands. It was about this time (1883) that I was fortunate enough to meet at Fort Sumner the then great Western celebrity, "Billy the Kid." Billy was a young cowboy who started wrong by using his gun on some trivial occasion. Like all, or at least many, young fellows of his age he wanted to appear a "bad man." One shooting scrape led to another; he became an outlaw; cattle troubles, and finally the Lincoln County War, in which he took a leading part, gave him every opportunity for his now murdering propensities, so that soon the tally of his victims amounted to some twenty-five lives. The Lincoln County New Mexico "War," in which it is believed that first to last over 200 men were killed, was purely a cattleman's war, but the most terrible and bloody that ever took place in the West. New Mexico was at that time probably the most lawless country in the world. Only a month after my meeting Billy in Fort Sumner he was killed there, not in his "boots," but in his stockings, by Sheriff Pat Garret. He was shot practically in his bed and given no "show." His age when killed was only twenty-three years. There were afterwards many other "kids" emulous of Billy's renown, because of which, and their youthfulness, they were always the most dangerous of men. Our senior partner, not satisfied with New Mexico, went out to Arizona for a look round, liked the prospect, and decided to locate there, so we moved out accordingly. Arizona (Arida Zona) was at this time a practically new and unoccupied territory; that is, though there were a few Mexicans, a few Mormons and a great many Indians, a few sheep and fewer cattle, it could not be called a settled country, and most of the grazing land was in a virgin state. My partner had bought out a Mexican's rights, his cattle, water-claims, ranches, etc., located at the Cienega in Apache county, near the head-waters of the Little Colorado River. To close the deal part payment in advance had to be made; and to ensure promptness the paper was given to my care to be delivered to the seller as quickly as possible. Accordingly I travelled by train to the nearest railroad point, Holbrook, found an army ambulance about to convey the commanding officer to Camp Apache, and he was good enough to allow me to accompany him part of the way. It was a great advantage to me, as otherwise there was no conveyance, nor had I a horse or any means of getting to the ranch, about eighty miles. Judging from the colonel's armed guard and the fact of travelling at night, it occurred to me that something was wrong, and on questioning him he told me that he would not take any "chances," that the Apaches were "out" on the war-path, but that they never attacked in the dark. This lent more interest to the trip, though it was interesting enough to me simply to see the nature of the country where we had decided to make our home. We got through all right. Next morning I hired a horse and reached the ranch the same day. As this was to be our country for many years to come, it will be well to describe its physical features, etc. Arizona, of course, is a huge territory, some 400 by 350 miles. It embraces pure unadulterated desert regions in the west; a large forest tract in the centre; the rest has a semi-arid character, short, scattering grass all over it; to the eye of a stranger a dreary and desolate region! The east central part, where we were, has a general elevation of 4000 to 6000 feet above sea-level, so that the fierce summer heat is tempered to some extent, especially after sundown. In winter there were snowstorms and severe cold, but the snow did not lie long, except in the mountains, where it reached a depth of several feet. The Little Colorado River (Colorado Chiquito), an affluent of the Greater River, had its headquarters in the mountains, south of our ranch. It was a small stream, bright and clear, and full of speckled trout in its upper part; lower down most of the time dry; at other times a flood of red muddy water, or a succession of small, shallow pools of a boggy, quicksandy nature, that ultimately cost us many thousands of cattle. The western boundary of Arizona is the Big Colorado River. Where the Santa Fé railroad crosses it at the Needles is one of the hottest places in North America. In summer the temperature runs up to as high as 120 degrees Fahr., and I have even heard it asserted to go to 125 degrees in the shade; and I cannot doubt it, as even on our own ranch the thermometer often recorded 110 degrees; that at an elevation of 4000 feet, whereas the Needles' elevation above sea-level is only a few hundreds. At Jacobabad, India, the greatest heat recorded is 126 degrees, and at Kashan, in Persia, a month--August--averaged 127 degrees, supposed to be the hottest place on earth. Above the Needles begins or ends the very wonderful Grand Cañon, extending north for 270 miles, its depth in places being as much as 6000 feet, and that at certain points almost precipitously. The wonderful colouring of the rocks, combined with the overpowering grandeur of it, make it one of the most impressive and unique sights of the world. Now, stop and think what that is--2000 yards! say a mile; and imagine the effect on a stranger when he first approaches it, which he will generally do without warning--nothing, absolutely nothing, to indicate the presence of this wonderful gorge till he arrives at its very brink. Its aspect is always changing according to the hour of day, the period of the year, the atmospheric conditions. The air is dry and bracing at all times; and as pure, clear and free from dust or germs as probably can be found anywhere on earth. The panorama may be described as "_wunderschön_." Anyone of sensibility will sit on the rock-rim for hours, possibly days, in dumb contemplation of the beauty and immensity. No one has yet, not even the most eloquent writer, been quite able to express his feelings and sentiments, though many have attempted to do so in the hotel register; some of the greatest poets and thinkers admitting in a few lines their utter inability. Our Colorado Chiquito in its lower parts has an equally romantic aspect. Close to our ranch was another of Nature's wonders, a petrified forest, quite unique in that the exposed tree trunks are solid masses of agate, chalcedony, jasper, opal and other silicate crystals, the variety of whose colouring, with their natural brilliancy, makes a wonderfully beautiful combination. These trees are supposed to have been the Norfolk Island pine, a tree now extinct, are of large dimensions, all prostrate, lying in no particular order, and all broken up into large or smaller sections. Many carloads have been removed and shipped to Eastern factories, where the sections are sawn through and polished, and the most lovely table tops, etc., imaginable produced. One must beware of rattlesnakes when prowling about these "ruins." To complete the physical description of Arizona territory something must be said of the pine-clad mountain range to the south of us. The bulk of this area constituted the Apache Indian Reservation. It was reserved for these Indians as a hunting-ground as well as a home. No one else was allowed to settle within its boundaries, or graze their sheep or cattle there. It was truly a hunter's paradise, being largely covered with forest trees, broken here and there by open parks and glades and meadow lands, drained by streams of clear cool water, which combining, produced a few considerable-sized rivers, "hotching" with trout, unsophisticated and so simple in their natures that it seemed a positive shame to take advantage of them. These mountains were the haunt of the elk, the big-horned sheep, black-and white-tailed deer, grizzly, cinnamon, silver tip, and brown and black bears; the porcupine, racoon and beaver; also the prong-horned antelope, though it is more of a plains country animal. But more of this some other time. The Apache Indians (Apache is not their proper name, but Tinneh; the former was given to them by the Mexicans and signifies "enemy") were and are the most dreaded of all the redskin tribes. They always have been warlike and perhaps naturally cruel, and at the time of our arrival in the country they had about attained their most bloodthirsty and murderous character. Shocking ill-treatment by white skalawags and United States officials had changed their nature; but more about them also by-and-by. North of us were the numerous and powerful Navajo Indians. They were not so much dreaded by us, their Reservation being further away, and they then being of a peaceful disposition, devoted to horse and sheep breeding and the manufacture of blankets. These are the famous Navajo blankets so often seen in English homes, valued for the oddness of their patterns and colours, but used in Arizona mainly as saddle blankets. The majority of them are coarsely made and of little intrinsic value; but others, made for the chiefs or other special purposes, are finely woven, very artistic, and sell for large sums of money. Rain will not penetrate them and they make excellent bed coverings. These Navajoes used to declare that they would never quit the war-path till a certain "Dancing Man" appeared, and that they would never be conquered till then. An American officer, named Backus, at Fort Defiance, constructed a dummy man, who danced by the pulling of wires, and showed him to the Indians. They at once accepted him as their promised visitor, and have since then never gone on the war-path. This may seem an incredible tale, but is a fact. Also near us were the Zuni Indians, who, like the Pueblo Indians, lived in stone-built communal houses, had entirely different customs to those of the Apaches and Navajoes, and are perhaps the debased descendants of a once powerful and advanced nation. Whilst speaking of Indians, it may be said that the plains tribes, such as the Comanches, believe in the immortality of the soul and the future life. All will attain it, all will reach the Happy Hunting-Ground, unless prevented by such accidents as being scalped, which results in annihilation of the soul. Is it not strange that though these barbarians believe in the immortality of the soul yet our materialistic Old Testament never even suggests a future life; and it seems that no Jew believes or ever was taught to believe in it. Indian self-torture is to prove one's endurance of pain. A broad knife is passed through the pectoral muscles, and a horse-hair rope inserted, by which they must swing from a post till the flesh is torn through. Indians will never scalp a negro; it is "bad medicine." By the way, is not scalping spoken of in the Book of Maccabees as a custom of the Jews and Syrians? The tit-bits of a butchered carcass are, to the Indians, the intestines, a speciality being the liver with the contents of the gall bladder sprinkled over it! Horses, dogs, wolves and skunks are greatly valued for food. Amongst certain tribes Hiawatha was a Messiah of divine origin, but born on earth. He appeared long ago as a teacher and prophet, taught them picture-writing, healing, etc.; gave them the corn plant and pipe; he was an ascetic; told them of the Isles of the Blessed and promised to come again. In Mexico Quetzalcohuatl was a similar divine visitor, prophet and teacher. But to return to our own immediate affairs. At a reasonable price we bought out another cattleman, his ranches, cattle and saddle horses. As required by law, we also adopted and recorded a cattle brand. Our first business was to brand our now considerable herd, which entailed an immense amount of very hard work. This in later years would have been no very great undertaking, but at that time "squeezers" and branding "chutes" were not known. Our corrals were primitive and not suited for the work, and our cattle extraordinarily wild and not accustomed to control of any kind. Indeed, the men we had bought out had sold to us for the simple reason that they could not properly handle them. The four-legged beasties had got beyond their control, and many of them had almost become wild animals. These cattle, too, had very little of the "improved" character in them. Well-bred bulls had never been introduced. Some of the bulls we found had almost reached their allotted span--crusty old fellows indeed and scarred in many a battle; "moss-heads" we called them, and the term was well applied, for their hoary old heads gave the idea of their being covered with moss. Most of the cattle had never been in a corral in their lives, and some of the older steers were absolute "outlaws," magnificent creatures, ten to twelve years of age, with immense spreading horns, sleek and glossy sides, and quite unmanageable. They could not be got into a herd, or if got in, would very soon walk out again. Eventually some had to be shot on the range like any wild animal, simply to get rid of them; but they at least afforded us many a long and wild gallop. There was one great steer in particular, reckoned to be ten or twelve years old, quite a celebrity in fact on account of his unmanageableness, his independence and boldness, which we had frequently seen and tried to secure, but hitherto without success. He had a chum, another outlaw, and they grazed in a particular part of the range far from the haunts of their kin and of man. Three of us undertook to make one more effort to secure him. At the headquarters ranch we had gathered a herd of cattle and we proposed to try and run the steer in that direction, where the other boys would be on the lookout and would head him into the round-up. Two of us were to go out and find the steer and start him homewards; I myself undertook to wait about half-way, and when they came in sight to take up the running and relieve them. They found him all right about twenty miles out, turned him and started him. No difficulty so far. He ran with the ease of a horse, and he was still going as he willed, without having the idea of being coerced. Meantime I had been taking it easy, lolling on the ground, my horse beside me with bridle down. Suddenly the sound of hoof-beats and a succession of yells warned me to "prepare to receive cavalry." Through a cleft in a hill I could see the quarry coming at a mad gallop directly for me, the two men pounding along behind. I had just time and no more to tighten girth and get into the saddle when he was on me, and my horse being a bit drowsy it needed sharp digging of the spurs to get out of the way. I forget how many miles the boys said they had already run him, but it was a prodigious distance and we were still eight miles from the ranch. The steer was getting hot, it began to suspect something, and to feel the pressure. As he came down on me he looked like a mountain, his eyes were bright, he was blowing a bit, and looked particularly nasty. When in such a condition it does not do to overpress, as, if you do, the chances are the steer will wheel round, challenge you and get on the fight. Much circumspection is needed. He will certainly charge you if you get too near, and on a tired horse he would have the advantage. So you must e'en halt and wait--not get down, that would be fatal--wait five minutes it may be, ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, till the gentleman cools off a bit. Then you start him off again, not so much driving him now, he won't be driven, but guiding his course towards the herd. In this case we succeeded beautifully, though at the end he had to be raced once more. And so he was finally headed into the round-up; but dear me, he only entered it from curiosity. No round-up for him indeed! no corral and no going to market! He entered the herd, took a look round, a sniff and a smell, and was off again out at the other side as if the devil was after him, and indeed he wasn't far wrong. The chase was abandoned and his majesty doomed later on to a rifle bullet wherever found. Our principal and indeed only corral at that time was of solid stone walls, a "blind" corral, and most difficult to get any kind of cattle into. While pushing them in, each man had his "rope" down ready to at once drop it over the horns of any animal attempting to break back. Thus half our force would sometimes be seen tying down these truants, which were left lying on the ground to cool their tempers till we had time to attend to them; and it is a fact that some of these individuals, especially females, died where they lay, apparently of broken hearts or shame at their subjection. They showed no sign of injury by rough usage, only their damnable tempers, rage and chagrin were responsible for their deaths. Inside the corral everything, of course, had to be roped and thrown to be branded. It was rough and even dangerous work, and individual animals, again generally cows, would sometimes make desperate charges, and even assist an unfortunate "puncher" in scaling the walls. In after years we built proper corrals, and in the course of time, by frequent and regular handling, the cattle became more docile and better-mannered. For one thing, they were certainly easily gathered. When we wanted to round them up we had only to ride out ten or twenty miles, swing round and "holler," when all the cattle within sight or hearing would at once start on the run for the ranch. These were not yet domesticated cattle in that they always wanted to run and never to walk. Indeed, once started it was difficult to hold them back. This was not very conducive to the accumulation of tallow on their generally very bare bones. I well remember the first bunch of steers sold off the ranch, which were driven to Fort Wingate, to make beef for the soldiers. About two hundred head of steers, from six to twelve years of age, all black, brown, brindle or yellow, ne'er a red one amongst them; magnificently horned, in fair flesh, perfect health and spirits; such steers you could not "give away" to-day; but we got sixty dollars apiece for them and were well rid of them; and how they walked! The ponies could hardly keep up with them; and what cowman does not know the pleasure of driving fast walking beef cattle? Ne'er a "drag" amongst them! You had only to "point" them and let them "hit the trail"; but a stampede at night was all the more a terrific affair, though even in such a case if they got away they would keep together, and when you found one you found them all. Such a bunch of magnificent, wild, proud-looking steer creatures will never be seen again, in America at least, because you cannot get them now of such an age, nor of such primitive colours; colours that, I believe, the best-bred cattle would in course of long years and many generations' neglect revert to. The method adopted when an obstreperous steer made repeated attempts to leave the herd was to send a bullet through his horn, which gave him something to think about and shake his head over. No doubt it hurt him terribly, but it generally was an effective check to his waywardness. And when some old hoary-headed bull wanted to "gang his ain gait" a piece of cactus tossed on to his back, whence it was difficult to shake off, would give him also something to think about. Another small herd we some time later disposed of were equally good travellers, and indeed were driven from the ranch in one day to Camp Apache, another military post, a distance of over 40 miles. In this case the trail was through forest country where there was no "holding" ground, so they had to be pushed through. Our herd increased and throve fairly well for a number of years till other "outfits" began to throw cattle into the country, and sheepmen began to dispute our right to certain grazing lands. We did not quite realize it at the time, but it was the beginning of the end. We had gone into a practically virgin country, controlled an immense area, and the stock throve accordingly. But others were jealous of our success, threw in their cattle as already said, and their sheep, and ultimately we swamped one another. The grass was eaten down, over-grazed, droughts came, prices broke, and so the end. From 500 our annual calf brand mounted to 4000; halted there, and gradually dropped back to the original tally. Our cattle, from poverty, bogged in the river, or perished from hunger. This was all due to the barbarous grazing system under which we worked, the United States refusing to sell or lease land for grazing purposes; consequently, except at the end of a gun, one had no control over his range. Cattle versus sheep wars resulted, stealing became rampant and success impossible. Among other sales made was that of some 1500 steers, of all ages, which we drove right up to the heart of Colorado and disposed of at good prices. This drive was marked by a serious stampede, on a dark night in rough country, by which two of the boys got injured, though happily not seriously. Then another time we made an experimental shipment of 500 old steers to California, to be grazed and fattened on alfalfa. They were got through all right and put in an alfalfa field, and I remained in charge of them. Our cattle were not accustomed to wire fences, or being penned up in a small enclosure, and of course had never seen alfalfa; so for a week or more they did nothing but walk round the fence, trampling the belly-high lucerne to the ground. Gradually, however, they got to eating it, and in six weeks began to pick up. Briefly stated, this adventure was a financial failure. Like the cattle I had been myself an entire stranger to the wonderful alfalfa plant, and I never tired marvelling at its exuberance of growth and its capacity for supporting animal life. The heat in San Joachin Valley in high summer is almost overpowering, and vegetable growth under irrigation quite phenomenal. Alfalfa was cut some six or seven times in the season; each time a heavy crop. After taking cattle out of one pasture, then grazed bare, it was only three weeks till the plant was in full growth again, in full flower, two feet high and ready for the reception of more live stock. The variety of animal life subsisting on alfalfa was extraordinary. All kinds of domestic stock throve on it and liked it. In our field, besides cattle, were geese, ducks, turkeys, rabbits and hares in thousands, doves and quails in flocks, and gophers innumerable; frogs, toads, rats and mice; while bees, wasps, butterflies and moths, and myriads of other insects were simply pushing one another out of the way. It was a wonderful study. In Utah much difficulty was found in growing clover. This was accounted for by the fact that there were no old maids in that polygamous country. Old maids naturally were not allowed! And there being none, there were of course no cats to kill the mice that eat the bumble-bees' nests; thus, no bumble-bees to fertilize it, therefore no clover. Old maids have found their function. Figs could not be grown successfully in California till the Smyrna wasp had been imported to fertilize the flower. And while talking of bees: on the Mississippi River bee-keepers are in the habit of drifting their broods on rafts up the river, following the advance of spring and thus securing fresh fields and pastures new of the young spring blossoms; which is somewhat similar to the Chinaman's habit of carrying his ducks (he does love ducks), thousands of them, on rafts and boats up and down the broad Yangtse to wherever the richest grazing and grub-infested beds may be found. I should not forget to say that care must be used in putting cattle on alfalfa. At some seasons it is more dangerous than at others. A number of these steers "bloated," and I had to stick them with a knife promptly to save their lives. A new experience to me, but I soon "caught on." But something must be said about our little county town, San Juan, county seat of Apache County in which we were located. St Johns consisted of one general store, three or four saloons, a drug store, a newspaper office, court-house, jail, etc. A small settlement of Mormons, who confined themselves to farming on the narrow river bottom, and an equal number of Mexicans, an idle and mischievous riffraff, though one or two of them had considerable herds of sheep, and others were county officials. County affairs were dreadfully mismanaged and county funds misused. For our own protection we had to take part in politics, form an Opposition, and after a long struggle, in which my partners did noble service, we carried an election, put in our own officials, secured control of the county newspaper, and had things as we wanted them. But it was a bitter fight, and the old robber gang, who had run the county for years, were desperate in their resentment. Unfortunately, this resentment was basely and maliciously shown by an attempt, successful but happily not fatal, to poison one of my partners. He had a long and grim fight with death, but his indomitable will pulled him through. I myself, though I had little to do with politics, had a narrow escape from a somewhat similar fate. Living at that time, in winter, at what was called the Meadows Camp, I usually had a quarter of beef hung in the porch. Frost kept it sweet and sound for a long period, and every day it was my practice to cut off a steak for consumption. There were two cats, fortunately, and a slice was often thrown to them. One morning I first gave them their portion, then cut my own. In a few minutes the unfortunate animals were in the throes of strychnine poisoning and died in short order. It was a shock to me and a warning. The Mexicans continued for some time to be mean and threatening. Bush-whacking at night was attempted, and they even threatened an attack on our headquarters ranch; but we were a pretty strong outfit, had our own sheriff, and by-and-by a number of good friends. In our district rough country and timber prevented the cattle drifting very much. In winter they naturally sought the lower range; in summer they went to the mountains. Headquarters was about half-way between. It was finally arranged that I should take charge of the lower winter camp during winter and the mountain camp during summer. My partners mostly remained at headquarters. In summer time, from April to the end of October, this arrangement suited me very well indeed; in fact, it was made at my own suggestion; and the life, though a solitary one for long periods, suited me to the ground and I enjoyed it immensely. Practically I lived alone, which was also my own wish, as it was disagreeable to have anyone coming into my one-roomed cottage, turning things over and making a mess. I did my own cooking, becoming almost an expert, and have ever since continued to enjoy doing so. Of course I could have had one of the boys to live with me; but no matter what good fellows cowboys generally are, their being in very close companionship is not agreeable, some of their habits being beastly. Thus it came about that my life was a very solitary one, as it had been in India, and as it afterwards continued to be in New Mexico and Texas. Few visitors came to my camp in summer or winter. Now and then I was gladdened by a visit of one or other of my partners, one of whom, however, cared nothing for fishing or shooting, and the other was much of the time entirely absent from the country. During our short periodical round-ups of course I attended the "work" with the rest; but to spend one whole month, as I did once, without not only not conversing with, but absolutely not seeing a human being, is an experience that has probably come to very few men indeed. However, as said before, life in the White Mountains of Arizona was very enjoyable. Peaks ran up to 10,000 feet; and the elevation of my camp was about 8000 feet. Round about were extensive open parks and meadows, delightfully clear creeks and streams; grass a foot high, vast stretches of pine timber, deep and rocky cañons, etc., etc. When we first shoved our cattle up there the whole country was a virgin one, no settlements or houses, no roads of any kind, except one or two Indian hunting trails, no cattle, sheep or horses. There were, as already stated, elk, mountain sheep, antelope, deer, bears, panthers, porcupines, coons, any amount of wild turkey, spruce grouse, green pigeons, quail, etc., etc. There were virgin rivers of considerable size, swarming with trout, many of which it was my luck to first explore and cast a fly into. Most of this lovely country, as said before, was part of the Apache Indian Reservation, on which no one was allowed to trespass; but the boundary line was ill-defined and it was difficult to keep our cattle out of the forbidden territory. Indeed, we did not try to do so. The Indian settlement was at Fort Apache, some thirty miles from my camp. These people, having such an evil reputation, are worthy of a few more notes. Such tales of cruelty and savagery were told of them as to be almost incredible. They were the terror of Arizona and New Mexico, yet they were not entirely to blame. Government ill-treatment of Cochise, the great chief of the Chiricaua Apaches, had set the whole tribe on the war-path for ten years. A military company, called the Tombstone Toughs, was organized in Southern Arizona to wipe them out, but accomplished nothing. Finally, America's greatest Indian fighter, General Crook, was sent to campaign in Arizona in 1885. The celebrated chiefs, Geronimo and Natchez, broke out again and killed some twenty-nine white people in New Mexico and thirty-six in Arizona before Crook pushed them into the Sierra Madre Mountains in Sonora, where at last Geronimo surrendered. Victorio was an equally celebrated Apache war-chief and was out about the same time. Fortunately these last raids were always made on the south side of the Reservation. We were happily on the north side, and though we had frequent scares they never gave us serious trouble. So here were my duties and my pleasures. The saddle horses when not in use were in my care. The cattle also, of course, needed looking after. I was in the saddle all day. Frequently it would be my delight to take a pack-horse and go off for a week or two into the wildest parts of the Reservation, camp, and fish and shoot everything that came along, but the shooting was chiefly for the pot. Young wild turkeys are a delicacy unrivalled, and I became so expert in knowing their haunts that I could at any time go out and get a supply. One of my ponies was trained to turkey hunting. He seemed to take a delight in it. As soon as we sighted a flock, off he would go and take me up to shooting range, then stop and let me get two barrels in, and off again after them if more were needed. Turkeys run at a great rate and will not rise unless you press them. Big game shooting never appealed to me much. My last bear, through lack of cartridges to finish him, went off with a broken back, dragging himself some miles to where I found him again next morning. It so disgusted me as to put me off wishing to kill for killing's sake ever afterwards. A wounded deer or antelope, or a young motherless fawn, is a most pitiable sight. There was, and perhaps still is, no better bear country in America than the Blue River district on the border of Arizona and New Mexico. On these shooting and fishing trips I was nearly always alone, and many times experienced ridiculous scares. Camping perhaps in a deep cañon, a rapid stream rushing by, the wind blowing through the tall pines, the horses tethered to tree stumps, a menagerie-like smell of bears frequently quite apparent, your bed on Mother Earth without tent or covering, if your sleep be not very sound you will conjure up all sorts of amazing things. Perhaps the horses take fright and run on their ropes. [Illustration: ROPING A GRIZZLY. (By C. M. Russell.)] You get up to soothe them and find them in a lather of sweat and scared to a tremble. What they saw, or, like men, imagined they saw or heard in the black darkness, you cannot tell. Still you are in an Indian country and perhaps thirty miles from anywhere. Many a night I swore I should pack up and go home at daylight, but when daylight came and all again seemed serene and beautiful--how beautiful!--all fear would be forgotten; I would cook my trout or fry the breast of a young turkey, and with hot fresh bread and bacon grease, and strong coffee.--Why, packing up was unthought of! One of my nearest neighbours was an old frontiers-man and Government scout. He had married an Apache squaw, been adopted into the tribe (White Mountain Apaches) and possessed some influence. He liked trout-fishing, so once or twice I accompanied him with his party, said party consisting of his wife and all her relatives--indeed most of the tribe. The young bucks scouted and cut "sign" for us (another branch of the Apaches being then on the war-path), the women washed clothes, did the cooking, cleaned and smoked the fish, etc. These Indians were rationed with beef by the Government, while they killed no doubt quite a number of our cattle, and even devoured eagerly any decomposed carcass found on the range; but they preferred the flesh of horses, mules and donkeys, detesting pork and fish. In these mountains in summer a serious pest was a green-headed fly, which worried the cattle so much that about noon hour they would all congregate in a very close herd out in the open places for self-protection. No difficulty then in rounding up; even antelope and deer would mix with them. When off on a fishing and hunting trip it was my custom to set fire to a dead tree trunk, in the smoke of which my horses would stand for hours at a time, even scorching their fetlocks. In these mountains, too, was a place generally called the "Boneyard," its history being that some cattleman, stranger to the country, turned his herd loose there and tried to hold them during the winter. A heavy snowfall of several feet snowed the cattle in so that they could not be got out or anything be done with them. The whole herd was lost and next spring nothing but a field of bones was visible. At another time and place a lot of antelope were caught in deep snow and frozen to death. A more remarkable case was that of a bunch of horses which became snowed in, the snow being so deep they could not break a way out. The owner with great difficulty managed to rescue them, when it was found they had actually chawed each other's tails and manes off. Indian dogs have a great antipathy to white men, likewise our own dogs towards Indians, which our horses also share in. Horses also have a dread of bears. Once when riding a fine and high-strung horse a bear suddenly appeared in front. Knowing that my mount, as soon as he smelt the bear, would become uncontrollable, I quickly shot the bear from the saddle, and immediately the scared horse bolted. To preserve trout I sometimes kippered them and hung them up to dry. Quickly the wasps would attack them, and, if not prevented, would in a short space of time leave absolutely nothing but a skeleton hanging to the string. It was later demonstrated that cattle, too, thought them a delicacy, no doubt for the salt or sugar ingredients. Snakes also have a weakness for fish, and I have seen them approach my trout when thrown on the river bank and drag them off for their own consumption. While fishing or shooting one must always be on the careful lookout for rattlesnakes. In the rough cañons and river banks the biggest rattlers are found, and you may jump, tumble or scramble on the back of one and run great chance of being bitten. On the open prairie, where smaller rattlers are very plentiful, they always give you warning with their unique, unmistakable rattle. Once, on stooping down to tear up by the roots a dangerous poison weed, in grasping the plant my hand also grasped a rattlesnake. I dropped it quick enough to escape injury, but the cold sweat fairly broke out all over me. The bite is always painful, but not always necessarily fatal. "Rustlers" is the common name given to cattle or horse thieves. Arizona had her full share of them. That territory was the last resort of outlaws from other and more civilized states. Many of our own "hands" were such men. Few of them dare use their own proper names; having committed desperate crimes in other states, such as Texas, they could not return there. Strange to say, the worst of these "bad" men often made the best of ranch hands. Cowboys as a class, that is, the genuine cowboys of days gone by, were a splendid lot of fellows, smart, intelligent, self-reliant and resourceful, also hard and willing workers. If they liked you, they would stay with you in any kind of trouble and be thoroughly loyal. No such merry place on earth as the cow camp, where humour, wit and repartee abounded. The fact of every man being armed, and in these far-off days probably a deadly shot, tended to keep down rowdyism and quarrelling. If serious trouble did come up, it was settled then and there quickly and decisively, wrongly or rightly. Let me instance a case. In round-up camp one day a few hot words were suddenly heard, guns began to play, result--one man killed outright and two wounded. The case of one of the wounded boys was rather peculiar. His wound was in the thigh and amputation was necessary. Being a general favourite, we, myself and partners, took turns nursing him, dressing his wounds and cheering him up as well as we could. He rapidly recovered, put on flesh and was in high spirits, and, as the doctor said, quite out of danger; but one day this big strong young fellow took it into his foolish head that he was going to die. Nothing would persuade him to the contrary, and so die he did, and that without any waste of time. In preparing a body for burial it is the custom, a burial rite indeed, not to wrap the corpse in a shroud, but to dress it in a complete ordinary costume, a brand-new suit of black clothes, white shirt, socks, etc., etc.--whether boots or not I forget, but rather think so--dress him probably better than the poor fellow was ever dressed before, and in this manner he was laid in the ground. The man who started the shooting was named "Windy M'Gee," already an outlaw, but then cook for our mess wagon. Shortly afterwards he killed a prominent lawyer in our little town, or at least we suspected him strongly, though another man suffered for the crime; but such incidents as these were too common to attract world-wide attention. On another occasion one of our men got shot in the thigh, by whom or how I do not now remember, but he was a different sort of man from the boy just mentioned. We knew him to be quite a brave, nervy man in action, having been in one of our fighting scrapes with rustlers; but as a patient he showed a most cowardly disposition, developing a ferocious temper, rejecting medical advice, cursing everybody who came around, so that he lay for months at our charge, until we really got to wish that he would carry out his threat of self-destruction. He did not, but he was crippled for life and did not leave a friend behind. [Illustration: A SHOOTING SCRAPE. (By C. M. Russell.)] Then, too, the cowboy, in matter of accoutrements, was a very splendid fellow indeed. His saddle was gaily decorated with masses of silver, in the shape of buttons, buckles and trimmings, etc. Likewise his bridle and bit; his spurs were works of loving art from the hands of the village metal-worker, and likewise heavily plated with silver. The rowels were huge but blunt-pointed, and had little metal bells attached. His boots cost him near a month's pay, always made to careful order, with enormously high and narrow heels, as high as any fashionable woman's; his feet were generally extremely small, because of his having lived in the saddle from early boyhood up. He wore a heavy woollen shirt, with a gorgeous and costly silk handkerchief tied loosely round his neck. His head-covering was a very large grey felt hat, a "genuine Stetson," which cost him from five to twenty dollars, never less. To keep the big hat in place a thong or cord is tied around and below the back of the head instead of under the chin, experience having proved it to be much more effective in that position. His six-shooter had plates of silver on the handle, and his scabbard was covered with silver buttons. It should be said that a saddle, such as we all used, cost from forty to sixty dollars, and weighed generally about forty pounds, not counting saddle blankets. Sometimes the saddle had only one "cinch" or girth, generally two, one of which reached well back under the flank. Such heavy saddles were necessary for heavy work, roping big cattle, etc. The stirrups were then generally made of wood, very big and broad in sole and very heavy, sometimes covered with tapaderos, huge leather caps to save the feet from thorns in heavy brush, and protect them from cold in severe weather. To protect our legs we wore over the trousers heavy leather chaparejos, sometimes of bear or buffalo hide. Let it be noted that a genuine cowpuncher never rolls his shirt sleeves up, as depicted in romancing novels. Indeed he either protects his wrists with leather wristlets, or wears long gauntlet gloves. Mounted on his favourite horse, his was a gay cavalier figure, and at the "Baillie" he felt himself to be irresistible to the shy and often very pretty Mexican señoritas. There you have a pretty faithful picture of the cowboy of twenty-five years ago. It remains to say something of the "shooting irons." In the days of which I write there was no restriction to the bearing of arms. Every man carried a six-shooter. We, and most of our outfit, habitually carried a carbine or rifle as well as the smaller weapon. The carbine was carried in a scabbard, slung from the horn, under the stirrup flap, and so under the leg. This method kept the weapon steady and left both arms free. By raising the leg it was easily got at, and it interfered in no way with the use of the lariat (La Riata). The hang of the six-shooter required more particular consideration; when needed it would be needed _badly_, and therefore must be easily drawn, with no possible chance of a hitch. The butt of a revolver must point forwards and not backwards, as shown in the accompanying illustration, a portrait of one of our men as he habitually appeared at work. We ourselves did not go the length of wearing three belts of cartridges and two six-shooters; but two belts were needed, one for the rifle and the other for the smaller weapon. Some of the boys were always getting into scrapes and seemed to enjoy protracted fights with the Mexicans. There must be no flap to the scabbard, and the point must be tied by a leather thong around the thigh to keep it in correct position; and of course it was hung on the right side and low down on the hip, so as to be easily got at. Only when riding fast was a small loop and silver button passed through the trigger guard to prevent the gun from jolting out and being lost. The chambers were always kept full and the weapons themselves in perfect working order. Very "bad" men tied back or removed the trigger altogether, cocking and releasing the hammer with the thumb, or "fanning" it with the left hand. This permitted of very rapid firing, so that the "aar would be plumb full of lead." [Illustration: ONE OF OUR MEN. (To show the hand of six-shooter.)] As an instance of quick shooting, two of our neighbours had threatened to kill each other at sight: and we were all naturally interested in the results. When the meeting did take place, quite unpremeditated, no doubt, each man saw the other about the same instant, but one of them was just a little the quicker, and put a bullet through his enemy's heart. It was a mortal wound of course; but before the unlucky man fell he was also able to "get his work in," and both fell dead at the same instant. This was no duel. The first to fire had the advantage, but the "dead" man was too quick for him, and he did not escape. If I remember right, a good riddance. There was one other way of "packing a gun." It was called the Arizona way. Legal gentlemen, some gamblers, and others who for various reasons wished to appear unarmed, simply put the pistol in the coat side pocket, and in use fired from that position through the pocket. It was not often so used, but I have known cases of it. In this way it was difficult to know whether a man was "heeled" (armed) or not. Of course our usual weapon, the long Colt 45° six-shooter could not be so used, being too cumbrous. [Illustration: 1883 IN ARIZONA. AUTHOR AND PARTY.] CHAPTER III CACTUS RANCHING IN ARIZONA--_continued_ The Cowboy--Accoutrements and Weapons--Desert Plants--Politics and Perjury--Mavericks--Mormons--Bog Riding. The "rustling" of cattle was very common in Arizona in these days. By "rustling" is not meant the petty burning out of a brand, or stealing of calves or odd beef cattle. It was carried on on the grand scale. Bands of rustlers operated together in large bodies. Between our range and the old Mexican border extended the Apache Reservation, a very large tract of exceedingly rough country, without roads of any description, the only signs of human presence being an occasional Indian trail and abandoned wickyups. Beyond the Reservation lay certain mining towns and camps, such as Clifton, Camp Thomas, Tombstone, and others; and then the Mexican frontier. The rustlers' business was to steal cattle, butcher them in the mountains, and sell the beef to the mining towns; or drive them over into Old Mexico for disposal, and then again drive Mexican cattle or horses back into Arizona. Some of these gangs were very powerful and terrorized the whole country, so much so that decent citizens were afraid "to give them away." Our cattle ranged well into the mountains, and up to a certain period we had no occasion to think that any "dirty" work was going on; but at last we "tumbled" to the fact that a gang was operating on our range. Word was brought us that a bunch of some 200 cattle had been "pulled" (Scotch, lifted). I was off the ranch at the time, but one of my partners at once started on the trail with three of the men. After some days very hard riding they caught up on the thieves at early dawn, in fact when still too dark to see very well. Shooting began at once. None of our men were hurt. Two of the enemy were badly wounded, but managed in the darkness to scramble off into the rocks, or were carried off by their companions. Our party captured their saddle horses and camp outfit, but did not feel themselves strong enough to continue the chase in such a country. The cattle were found close to the camp, but so footsore that it was impossible to move them homewards. They then returned to the ranch, and we at once organized a strong force of some seventeen men, well mounted and abundantly supplied with ammunition, etc. Again taking the trail we met the cattle on their way home, and gave them a push for a mile or so; and thinking them safe enough we prepared to continue south. On arriving at the scene of last week's fight we noticed that the big pine trees under which the rustlers camped had gun-rests notched in the sides of them, not newly made, but showing that they had been cut a long while ago, probably in anticipation of just what had happened. That day in camp, a horseman, the most innocent-looking of individuals, appeared, took dinner with us, and gave some plausible reason for his presence in that out-of-the-way place. It is strictly against cowboy etiquette to question a guest as to his personality, his movements or his occupation. We, however, felt very suspicious, especially as after he had gone we stumbled on to a coffee-pot and frying-pan, still warm, which had evidently been thrown into the bushes in great haste. In fact, this confirmed our suspicions that our visitor was one of the gang, and we thereafter stood careful guard round our horses every night. The cattle we decided to leave alone to take their chances of getting home, thinking the rustlers would not have the "gall", in face of our near presence, to again try to get off with them; but they did! These cattle never reached the ranch. Had they been left alone their wonderful homing instinct would certainly have got them there just as quick as they could travel. However, we did not realize the fact of the second raid till on our return no sign of these cattle could be found. So we continued south, passing through the roughest country I ever set eyes on, the vegetation in some places being of the most extraordinary nature, cacti of all kinds forming so thick a jungle that one could hardly dismount. Such enormous and freakish-looking growths of this class of plant few can have ever looked on before. The prickly pear "nopal" was the most common, and bore delicious, juicy and refreshing fruit. Indeed, being out of water and short of "chuck," we were glad to accept Nature's offering, but at a dreadful cost, for in a little while our mouths and tongues were a mass of tiny, almost invisible spines, which the most careful manipulation of the fruit could not prevent. But the most astonishing of these growths was the pitahaya (correct name saguarro), or gigantic columnar cactus, growing to a height of thirty to fifty feet, bearing the fruit on their crowns; a favourite fruit of the Pima Indians, though by what means they pluck it it would be interesting to know. Besides an infinite variety of others of the cactus family, there were yuccas, agaves and larreas; the fouquiera and koberlinia, long and thorny leafless rods; artemisias and the algarrobbas or mesquite bean-trees, another principal food of the Indians and valuable for cattle and horses. The yucca when in full bloom, its gigantic panicles bearing a profusion of large white bells, is one of Nature's most enchanting sights. Besides all these were massive biznagas, cholas, bear-grass or palmilla, and the mescal, supplying the principal vegetable food of the Apaches. Never in Texas, Arizona, or even Old Mexico, have I seen such a combination of varieties of such plants growing in such profusion and perfection; but being no botanist, and quite incompetent to give a proper appreciation of these wonders, we will return to the trail. At one place, hidden in a cañon, we ran on to a stone-built and fortified butchering establishment, but without sign of life around. Continuing, we finally came to Clifton, the copper-mining town, then perhaps the "hardest" town in Arizona. The townspeople appeared pleased to see us. Martial law was prevailing, and they seemed to think we were a posse deputized to assist in restoring order. Anyway, the sheriff informed us that nearly thirty men had left the town that day for their camp, a fortified position some ten or fifteen miles away. They were all rustlers, and somehow or other had heard of our coming. Mr Sheriff was also kind enough to advise us that we were not nearly strong enough to tackle them; so adopting his advice, after securing supplies, we rode off, and by travelling all night and working round avoided the enemy's "position." Next day we unexpectedly ran on to a large bunch of our own cattle quietly grazing on the hillside. We rounded them up, but our brands were so completely burned out and effaced that, when we put them in the corral at Camp Thomas and claimed ownership, the sheriff refused to acknowledge it, and we had to draw his attention to a small jaw brand lately adopted by us but unnoticed by the thieves, and therefore not "monkeyed" with. This was proof enough, and so our long and tedious trip was to some extent compensated for. The particular rustlers we were after we could hear nothing of, except one man, who was lying wounded at a certain establishment, but who was carefully removed before we got to the place. On returning home there were only two possible passes through the mountains. It was lucky we took the one, as the other, we afterwards learned, had been put into a state of defence and manned by the outlaws, who in such a place could have shot us all down without danger to themselves. This short narrative will give some sort of idea of the state of the country at that period. Thereafter it became necessary that the cattle in the mountains should be more carefully guarded and looked after, and the duty fell to me to "cut sign." By "cutting sign" is meant, in this instance, the riding round and outside of all our cattle, pushing back any that had strayed too far, and carefully looking out for fresh sign (footprints) of cattle or horses leading beyond our range limits. Such sign was always suspicious, and the trail must be followed till the stock was found and accounted for. If horse tracks accompanied the cattle it would be a dead sure proof that something was wrong. I continued this work for a long time, but nothing suspicious occurred. At last, one day when searching the open country with my field-glasses, I was gratified and at the same time alarmed to see three or four men driving a considerable herd of cattle in the direction, and on exactly the same trail as before taken by the rustlers. Convinced that all was not right, and quite realizing that there was the prospect of serious trouble for myself, I lit out for them, keeping as well under cover as possible, till, on mounting a small tree-covered knoll, I found myself directly overlooking their camp. There were the cattle, from four to five hundred, and there the men, preparing their mid-day meal, four of them in all, and all strangers to me. It was necessary at all costs to know who they were, so I was obliged to disclose myself by going into their camp. The number of saddle horses they had with them led me to think that they were not real professional cattle thieves. Had they been indeed rustlers it would have been a risky thing to do, as they would have had to dispose of me in some way or other. By my horse brand they at once knew what "outfit" I belonged to. Their brands, however, were strange to me. They asked me to eat, of course; and I soon found out that their party was headed by one Pete----, whose reputation I had often heard of as being of the worst. He said he had been grazing these cattle in some outlying park, and was now taking them home to his ranches somewhere in New Mexico. That was all right; but since he had passed through part of our range it was necessary to inspect the herd. This he resisted by every means he could think of, asserting that they were a "clean" bunch, with no "strays," and that he was in a great hurry to push on. I insisted, however, on riding through them, when, not much to my surprise, I found about twenty large unbranded calves, apparently without their "mammies." On asking Pete for an explanation: "Oh," he said, "the mammies were shore in the herd" and he "warn't no cow thief," but on my persisting he finally exclaimed, "Well, take your damned _caves_ and let's get on," or some such words; so I started in and cut out nearly twenty big unbranded calves, which certainly did not have their mothers with them; which, therefore, were clearly not his property; were probably ours, but whether they were or not did not matter to me. Pete and his men pulled out home, but I caught and branded over half of these calves before turning them loose, and it is probable we got the rest of them at the next round-up. When a man is single-handed and has to make his fire up as well as catch and tie down the calves he has his hands pretty full. In this case I used only one fire and so had to drag the calves up close to it; every bit of tie rope in my pocket, thongs cut off the saddle, even my pocket-handkerchief, were all brought into service; as at one time there were as many as four calves tied down at once. I had only the one little branding-iron, a thin bent iron rod, generally carried tied to the saddle alongside the carbine. The branding-iron must be, if not quite red-hot, very nearly so. Then the calf has to be ear-marked and altered. When the mothers are near by the bellowing of the young ones as the hot iron burns into the hide makes them wild with fear and anxiety, and the motherly instinct to charge is strained to the utmost, though they seldom dare to do it. The calves themselves, if big and stout enough, will often charge you on being released, and perhaps knock you over with a painfully hard punch. This was merely an adventure which lent some excitement and interest to the regular work. Happily no more serious raid on our cattle occurred in that direction, but one never knew when a little "pulling" might take place and so had to be constantly on the alert. About this time certain ill-disposed individuals tried "to get their work in on us" by asserting land frauds on our part. They tried every possible way to give us "dirt," that is, to put us to trouble and expense, and even send us to the pen if they could. They succeeded in having me indicted for perjury by the Grand Jury at Prescott, the then capital of Arizona. It cost us some money, but no incriminating evidence was forthcoming and the trial was a farce. The trial jury consisted of miners, cattlemen, saloon-keepers and others, and by mixing freely with them, standing drinks, etc., we managed to "correct" any bad feeling there might have been against us. Certainly these jurymen might have made trouble for me, but they did not. This notwithstanding that my friend, a special land agent sent out from Washington and principal witness against me, swore that I had assaulted him at a lonely place (and I well remember the occasion), and that he felt his life in such danger that he had to travel with a guard, etc. This came from politics. Having described summer life and occupations, and before going to winter camp, something must be said about our headquarters ranch, situated some twenty miles off. Here were the grain-house, the hay stacks, wagon sheds, corrals, the kitchen, general messroom, the bunk house and private rooms for ourselves. There was a constant succession of visitors. Nearly every day some stranger or neighbour "happened" in for a meal. Everyone was welcome, or at least got free board and lodging and horse feed. There being a paid cook made things different. But it was hot down here in summer-time, hot and dry and hardly attractive. The lower part of the range was much of it sandy country. With the temperature at 110° in the shade the sand would get so hot as to be almost painful to walk on, certainly disagreeable to sit on. And when one wanted to rest the only shade you could find would be in the shadow of your horse, which at noon meant your sitting right under him; and your saddle, on remounting, would be so hot as to be really very uncomfortable. Between round-ups there was not much work to do. Before round-up a general shoeing of the horses had to be gone through. I shod my own, except in cases of young ones undergoing the operation for the first time, when assistance was needed. Except poker every night we had few amusements. It was almost a daily programme, however, to get our carbines and six-shooters out and practise at targets, firing away box after box of ammunition. No wonder we were pretty expert shots, but indeed it needs much practice to become so. It should be said that amongst our visitors there were, no doubt, many angels whom we entertained unawares; but also, and no doubt of this, many blackguards and desperadoes, "toughs" and horse-thieves. An old English sailor, who had farmed a little in the mountains, was on one occasion left alone at our headquarters to take charge of it during our absence on the work. Two men came along and demanded something which the old man would not give and they deliberately shot him dead. We caught the miscreants, but could not convict them, their plea being self-defence. They really should have been hung without trial. Lynchings of cattle and horse thieves and other criminals were not then uncommon. I have twice come on corpses swinging in the wind, hung from trees or telegraph posts. But the most distressing sight witnessed was in Denver's fair city when a man, still alive, was dragged to death all through the streets by a rope round his neck, followed by a howling mob! By the way, a strange couple once surprised me at my mountain camp, viz., two individuals dressed much alike, both wearing the hair in a long pigtail, both dressed in leather "chaps," high-heeled boots, woollen shirts, big felt hats, rifles and six-shooters, and both as "hard"-looking as they ever make them. One was a man, the other a woman! They volunteered to me nothing of their business, but I watched the horses a little closer. And I may as well here give another little incident that occurred in my summer camp. A United States cavalry officer appeared one day at my door and demanded that I at once move the cattle off the Reservation. This was a sudden and rather big order. I told him that I was alone and could not possibly do it at once, or for several days. "Oh," he said, he "would help me," he having some forty nigger troopers with him. "All right," I said, and took the men along with me, got back behind the cattle, spread these novel cowboys out and began to drive, when such a shouting and shooting of guns took place as never was heard before in these parts. We drove the cattle, really only a thousand head or so, back to the supposed Reservation border, quite unmarked and vague, and so left them, only to wander back again at their leisure to where they had been. The officer made all kinds of threats that he would turn the Indians loose on them, but nothing more was then done. At my winter camp, some thirty-five miles below headquarters, there was a good three-roomed frame house, a corral, etc., and the Little Colorado River flowed past near by. It was to these lower parts of the range that most of our cattle drifted in winter time. Two or three other large cattle-ranches marched with us there. A small Mormon settlement was not far off. These Mormons were a most venturesome people and daring settlers. Certainly they are the most successful colonists and a very happy people. Living in close community, having little or no money and very little live stock to tempt Providence (rustlers), theirs is a peaceable, though possibly dull, existence. They had frequent dances, but we Gentiles were not admitted to them.[1] [Footnote 1: _See_ Appendix, Note 1.] In winter one lives better than in the hot weather, table supplies being more varied. In summer, excepting during the round-ups, we never had butcher meat, and in my camp butter, eggs and milk were not known; but in winter I always had lots of good beef, potatoes, butter and some eggs from the Mormons, but still no milk. This was varied, too, by wild duck, teal and snipe shot along the river bottom. Talking of snipe, it is very wonderful how a wounded bird will carefully dress and apply down and feathers to the injury, and even apply splints and ligatures to a broken limb. My principal duties at this season consisted in riding the range on the lookout for unbranded calves, many calves always being missed on the round-up. This was really rather good sport. Such calves are generally big, strong, fat, and run like jack-rabbits, and it takes a fast and keen pony to catch them. Occasionally you would be lucky enough to find a maverick, a calf or a yearling so old as to have left its mother and be still running loose without a brand and therefore without an owner. It was particular satisfaction to get one's rope, and therefore one's brand, on to such a rover, though it might really not be the progeny of your own cattle at all. It was no easy job either for one man alone to catch and brand such a big and wild creature, especially if among the brush and cedar trees. A certain stimulant to your work was the fact that you were not the only one out on a maverick hunt. There were others, such as your neighbours, or even independent gentlemen, expert with the rope and branding-iron, who never bought a cow critter in their lives, but started their herds by thus stealing all the calves they could lay hands on. A small crooked iron rod, an iron ring, or even an old horseshoe, did duty as branding-iron on these occasions. The ring was favoured by the latter class of men, as it could be carried in the pocket and not excite suspicion. Of course we branded, marked and altered these calves wherever we found them. "Hair branding" was a method resorted to by dishonest cowboys; by burning the hair alone, and not the hide, they would apparently brand the calf with its rightful owner's brand; but later, when the calf had grown bigger and left its mother, they would slap on their own brand with comparative safety. One had to be constantly on the lookout for such tricks. The Mexicans, too, were fond of butchering a beef now and then, so they too required watching; but my busiest time came with early spring, when the cattle were in a poor and weak condition. The river-bed, too, was then in its boggiest state. Cattle went in to drink, stuck, and could not get out again, and thus some seasons we lost enormous numbers of them. Therefore I "rode bog" every day up and down the river. When I found an animal in the mud I had to rope it by the horns or feet and drag it by main force to solid ground. A stout, well-trained horse was needed. It was hard, dirty work and exasperating, as many of those you pulled out never got up again, and if they did would invariably charge you. No special tackle was used; you remain in the saddle, wrap the rope round the horn and dig the spurs in. Of course, on your own beat, you dragged out all you could, no matter of what brand; but when, as often happened, you failed to get them out, and they belonged to someone else, you were not allowed to shoot them; so that there the poor creatures lay for days, and perhaps even weeks, dying a lingering, but I am glad to think and believe not a painful, death. What an awful death for a reasoning, conscious man. Dumb animals, like cattle, happily seem to anticipate and hope for nothing one way or another. Once I found a mare in the river in such a position under a steep bank that nothing could be done for her. Her young colt was on the bank waiting and wondering. Very regretfully I had to leave them and carefully avoided passing that way for some days to come till the tragedy had terminated. The Little Colorado River, and afterwards the Pecos River in New Mexico, I have often seen so thick with dead and dying cattle that a man might walk up and down the river on the bodies of these unfortunate creatures. The stench would become horrible, till the spring flood came to sweep the carcasses to the sea or covered them up with deposit. Quicksand is much more holding than mere river mud. If only the tip of the tail or one single foot of the animal is covered by the stuff, then even two stout horses will not pull it out. The Pecos River is particularly dangerous on account of its quicksandy nature, and it was my custom, when having to cross the mess wagon, to send across the ramuda of two or three hundred saddle horses to tramp the river-bed solid beforehand. On one occasion when crossing quite a small stream my two driving ponies went down to their hocks, so that I had to cut the traces and belabour them hard to get them out. Had they not got out at once they never would have done so. My ambulance remained in the river-bed all night and till a Mexican with a bull-team luckily came along next day. At the Meadows, my winter camp, I had to fill a contract of two or three fat steers for the town butcher every week. With a man to help me we had to go far afield and scour the range to get suitable animals, the best and fattest beeves being always the furthest out. After corralling, which might mean a tremendous amount of hard galloping and repeated failures, the most difficult part of the job was the actual killing, which I accomplished by shooting them with a six-shooter, not a carbine. Only when a big steer has its head down to charge can you plant a bullet in exactly the right spot, a very small one, too, on the forehead, when he will drop like a stone. It was very pretty practice, but risky, as to get them to charge you must be afoot and inside the corral. The butcher was rather astonished when I first accomplished this trick, but it saved time and a lot of trouble. Such were my winter duties. Sometimes neighbours would look in, and the weekly mail and home papers helped to pass the time. I read a great deal, and so the solitariness of the position was not so trying as one might suppose. Indeed, books were more to me than the neighbours' society. "Incidents" occurred, of course, but I will only mention one. In winter I only kept up two saddle horses, picked ponies, favourites and almost friends. They were fed with grain night and morning, and, to save hay, were allowed to graze out at night. They regularly returned at early morning for their feed, so I never had to go after them. One morning, however, they did not appear. It was quite unaccountable to me and very awkward, as it left me afoot and unable to do anything. Not till about 10 a.m. did they come galloping in, greatly excited, their tails in the air, puffing and snorting. It did not look quite right. Someone had been chasing them. At noon, while preparing early dinner, a man, a stranger, rode up to the house, and of course was invited to eat. He was very reticent, in fact would hardly speak at all, and gave no hint as to who he was or anything about himself. While eating there was suddenly a rapid succession of rifle-shots heard outside. We both rushed to the door and saw a man riding for life straight to the house, with half a dozen others shooting at him from horseback. He was not touched, only his horse being killed at the door. The new-comer and my strange guest at once showed that they were very intimate indeed, so that I quickly and easily put two and two together. The following party in the meantime had stopped and spread out, taking positions behind the low hills and completely commanding the house. Only their big hats showed and I could not make out whether they were Mexicans or white men. My two guests would tell me nothing, except to assert that they knew nothing of their followers, or why they began shooting. Realizing that these two had me at their mercy, that they could make me do chores for them, fetch water, cook, feed and attend to the horses till nightfall, when with my own two fresh mounts they might possibly make a bolt for it, I got a bit anxious, and determined to find out who the larger party were. So walking out and waving my hat I caught their attention and, on advancing further, one of the party came out and met me. They were neighbouring cattlemen, and explained that the two men in my house were rustlers, and they were determined to take them dead or alive. They asked me to join their party as they were going to "shoot up" the house if necessary. To this I would not consent and went back. After a deal of talk and persuasion the two men finally agreed to give me their guns, preliminary to meeting two of the other party, who were also asked to approach unarmed. They met, much to my relief, and when, somehow or other, the two men allowed themselves to be surrounded by the rest they saw the game was up and surrendered. Then the funny thing happened and the one reason for the telling of this story. They all came down to the house, had dinner together, chatted and cracked jokes, and not a word was said about the immediate trouble. They were all "punchers," had worked together, knew each other's affairs, etc., etc. The one party was about to send the other to the penitentiary, or perhaps the gallows; but you would have thought it was only a pleasant gathering of long-separated friends. The two rustlers were lodged in the county jail, quickly broke out, and soon afterwards died in their "boots," one at the hands of the sheriff. For tracking jail-breakers Indians, Navajoes or Apaches were sometimes employed, and the marvellous skill they showed was simply astonishing and inexplicable; all done by reading the "sign" left by the escaping party, but "sign" often quite unnoticeable to the white man. Indeed, an Indian would follow a trail by sign much as a hound will do by scent. Talking of scent, the homing instinct of horses and cattle is very wonderful and mysterious; but it is not generally known that a horse has also great power of scent. A horse will follow its mate (nearly all horses have their chums) many miles merely by sense of smell, as my long experience of them has amply proved to me. On one occasion I for some reason displaced the near horse of my driving team and hitched up another. After driving a distance of fifteen miles and returning homewards on the same road, soon in the distance could be seen said near horse busy with nose on the ground picking up the trail, and so absorbed in it that even when we got up quite close he did not notice us. When he did recognize his chum and companion his evident satisfaction was affecting. CHAPTER IV ODDS AND ENDS Scent and Instinct--Mules--Roping Contests--Antelopes--The Skunk--Garnets--Leave Arizona. This shall be a sketchy chapter of odds and ends, but more or less interesting according to the individual reader. The horse's intelligence is nothing compared to that of the mule, and as riding animal in rough country a mule should always be used. In Mexico, Central American States and the Andes mules are alone used; and what splendid, even handsome, reliable creatures they are on roads, or rather trails, such as it would be hazardous to take horses over. I once saw the unusual sight of two big strong mules (our ammunition pack animals) roll together down a very steep hillside. Happily neither mules nor loads were at all damaged, but it was a steepish hill, as on our returning and trying to climb it we had to dismount and hang on to the horses' tails. Another good point about mules is that they will not founder themselves. Put an open sack of grain before a hungry mule and he will eat what he wants, but never in excess, whereas a horse would gorge and founder himself at once. As said before, the homing instinct of horses and cattle is very remarkable. I have known horses "shipped" by a railway train in closed cars to a distance of over 400 miles, some of which on being turned loose found their way back to their old range. Cattle, too, may be driven a hundred or two hundred miles through the roughest country, without roads or trails of any kind, and even after being held there for several weeks will at once start home and take exactly the same route as that they were driven over, even though there be no "sign" of any kind to guide them and certainly no scent. On my shooting and fishing trips I rode one horse and packed another. The packed horse, on going out, had to be led, of course, unless indeed he was my saddle-horse's chum. But on going home, after even a couple of weeks' absence, I simply turned the pack-horse loose, hit him a lick with the rope, and off he would go with the utmost confidence as to the route, and follow the trail we had come out on, each time a different trail be it remembered, with ridiculous exactitude; yet there was no visible track or sign of any kind. Indeed, I would often find myself puzzled as to our whereabouts and feel quite confident we were at fault, when suddenly some familiar tree or landmark, noticed on going out, would be recognized. Parts of our Arizona range were covered with great beds of broken malpais rock, really black lava, hard as iron, with edges sharp and jagged. Over such ground we would gallop at full speed and with little hesitation, trusting absolutely to our locally-bred ponies to see us through. English horses could never have done it, and probably no old-country horseman would have taken the chances. We got bad falls now and then, but very seldom indeed considering conditions. The bits used then were murderous contrivances, being of the kind called spade or ring bits. By means of them a horse could be thrown on his haunches with slight effort, even his jaw may be broken. Luckily the bit is little used by the cowboy. His horse knows its painful character, and so obeys the slightest raising of the rider's hand. It should also be remarked that the cow-pony is guided, not by pulling either the right or left rein, but by the rider carrying his bridle hand over to the _left_ if he wants to go to the left, and vice versa. There is no pulling on the mouth. The pony does not understand that; it is the slight pressure of the right rein on the _right_ side of the neck that turns him to the _left_. The reata in those days was nearly always made of plaited raw hide, and often made by the boys themselves, though a good reata required a long time to complete and peculiar skill in the making of it. Quirts (quadras) and horse hobbles were also made of raw hide. As everyone knows, the horn of the saddle is used in America to hold roped cattle with. In South America a ring fixed to the surcingle is used; while in Guatemala and Costa Rica the reata is tied to the end of the horse's tail! It is a very pretty sight to see a skilled roper (the best are often Mexicans) at work in a corral or in a herd; or better still, when after a wild steer on the prairie. But roping is hardly ever used nowadays, one reason of the "passing" of the old-time cowboy. We used to have great annual roping competitions in New Mexico and Texas, when handsome prizes were given to the men who would rope and tie down a big steer in quickest time. I once or twice went in myself to these competitions and was lucky enough to do fairly well, being mounted on a thoroughly trained roping horse; but it is a chancy affair, as often the best man may unluckily get a lazy sort of steer to operate on, and it is much more difficult to throw down such an animal than a wild, active, fast-galloping one; for this reason, that on getting the rope over his horns you must roll him over, or rather _flop_ him over, on to his back by a sudden and skilful action of your horse on the rope. If properly thrown, or flopped hard enough, the steer will lie dazed or stunned for about half a minute. During that short period, and only during that short period, you must slip off your horse, run up to the steer and quickly tie his front and hind feet together, so tightly and in such a way that he cannot get up. Then you throw up your hands or your hat, and your time is taken. While you are out of your saddle your horse will, if well trained, himself hold the steer down by carefully adjusting the strain on the rope which still connects the animal's horns with the horn on the saddle. [Illustration: WOUND UP. (Horse tangled in rope.) (By C. M. Russell.)] I may here tell a wonderful story of a "buck" nigger who sometimes attended these gatherings. He was himself a cowboy, and indeed worked in my neighbourhood and so I knew him well. He was a big, strong, husky negro, with a neck and shoulders like a bull's. You cannot hurt a nigger any way. Well, this man's unique performance was to ride after a steer, the bigger and wilder the better, and on getting up to him to jump off his horse, seize the steer by a horn and the muzzle, then stoop down and grip the animal's upper lip with his teeth, turn his hands loose, and so by means of his powerful jaws and neck alone throw down and topple the steer over. The negro took many chances, and often the huge steer would fall on him in such a way as would have broken the neck or ribs of any ordinary white man. In this case also the steer must be an active one and going at a good pace, otherwise he could not be thrown properly. Stock-whips were never allowed. Useful as they may be at times, still the men are liable to ill-treat the cattle, and we got on quite well without them. Dogs, too, of course, were never used and never allowed on the range. They so nearly resemble the wolf that their presence always disturbs the cattle. This deprivation of canine society, as it may be imagined, was keenly felt by us all, perhaps more especially by myself. Had I only then had the companionship of certain former doggy friends life would have been much better worth living. As a protection at night too, when out on long journeys across the country, during the hunting and fishing trips, or even at the permanent camps, the presence of a faithful watch-dog would probably have saved me from many a restless night. The Navajo Indian's method of hunting antelope was to strew cedar branches or other brush in the form of a very long wing to a corral, lying loose and flat on the ground. The antelope on being driven against it will never cross an obstruction of such a nature, though it only be a foot high, but will continue to run along it and so be finally driven into the corral. And antelope are such inquisitive animals! On the Staked Plains of New Mexico the Mexicans approach them by dressing themselves up in any ridiculous sort of fashion, so as least to resemble a human being. In this way they would not approach the antelope, but the antelope would approach them, curious to find out the nature of such an unusual monstrosity. Antelope, there, were still very plentiful, and even in my own little pasture there was a band of some 300 head. Only at certain times of the year did they bunch up together; at other times they, though still present, were hardly noticeable. I would like to make note of the curious misnaming of wild animals in North America. Thus, the antelope or pronghorn is not a true antelope, the buffalo is not a buffalo, the Rocky Mountain goat is not a goat, and the elk is not an elk. By the same token the well-known "American aloe," or century plant, is not an aloe, but an agave. While in Arizona I used to carry in a saddle pocket a small sketch-book and pencil, and on finding one of the beautiful wild flowers the Rocky Mountains are so famous for, that is, a new kind, I would at once get down and take a sketch of it, with notes as to colour, etc. The boys were at first a bit surprised, and no doubt wondered how easily an apparent idiot could amuse himself. I was considerably surprised myself once when busy sketching on the banks of a brawling stream in the mountains. A sudden grunt as of a bear at my elbow nearly scared me into the river. On turning round, there was an armed Apache brave standing close behind me; but he was only one of a hunting party. What sentiment that grunt expressed I never learnt. It is remarkable how a range or tract of country that has been overstocked or over-grazed will rapidly produce an entirely new flora, of a class repugnant to the palate of cattle and horses. In this way our mountain range in particular, when in course of a very few years it became eaten out, quickly decked itself in a gorgeous robe of brilliant blossoms; weeds we called them, and weeds no doubt they were, as our cattle refused to touch them. Certain nutritious plants, natives of the soil, such as the mescal, quite common when we first entered the country, were so completely killed out by the cattle that later not a single plant of the kind could be found. Amongst the fauna of Arizona was, of course, the ubiquitous prairie dog; and as a corollary, so to speak, the little prairie owl (_Athene cunicularis_), which inhabits deserted dog burrows and is the same bird as occupies the Biscacha burrows in Argentina. Rattlesnakes, so common around dog-towns, enter the burrows to secure the young marmots. Another animal frequently seen was the chaparral-cock or road-runner, really the earth cuckoo (_Geococcyx Mexicanus_), called paisano or pheasant, or Correcamino, by the Mexicans. It is a curious creature, with a very long tail, and runs at a tremendous rate, seldom taking to flight. Report says that it will build round a sleeping rattlesnake an impervious ring of cactus spines. Its feathers are greatly valued by Indians as being "good medicine," and being as efficacious as the horseshoe is with us. A still more curious animal, not often seen, was the well-named Gila monster or Escorpion (_Heloderma suspectum_), the only existing animal that fills the description of the Basilisk or Cockatrice of mediæval times; not the _Basilicus Americanus_, which is an innocent herbivorous lizard. This Gila monster is a comparatively small, but very hideous creature, in appearance like a lizard, very sluggish in its movements, and rightly owning the worst of reputations. Horned toads, also hideous in appearance, and tarantulas (_Mygales_), very large centipedes and scorpions, were common, and lived on, or rather were killed because of their reputation, but they seldom did anyone harm. But the most highly appreciated, that is the most feared and detested, of wild creatures was the common skunk, found everywhere, mostly a night wanderer and a hibernator. He is a most fearless animal, having such abundant and well-reasoned confidence in his mounted battery, charged with such noxious gases as might well receive the attention of our projectile experts. The first time I ever saw one he came into my mountain hut. Knowing only that he was "varmint" I endeavoured to kill him quickly with a spade. Alas! the spade fell just a moment too late and henceforth that hut was uninhabitable for a month. The only way to get one out of the house is to pour buckets of cold water on it. That keeps the tail down (unlike a horse, which cannot kick when his tail is up); but when his tail goes up, then look out! The skunk is also more dreaded by the cowboy and the frontiers-man than the rattlesnake. It is their belief that a bite from this creature will always convey hydrophobia. Being a night prowler it frequents cow camps, and often crawls over the beds spread on the ground, and it certainly has a habit of biting any exposed part of the human body. When it does so, the bitten man at once starts off to Texas, where at certain places one can hire the use of a madstone. The madstone is popularly supposed to be an accretion found somewhere in the system of a white stag. It is of a porous nature, and if applied to a fresh wound will extract and absorb the poison serum. Texans swear that it "sticks" only if there be poison present--does not stick otherwise. A fanciful suggestion! And yet, no doubt, the skunk does sometimes convey hydrophobia through its bite. I have myself often had the pleasant experience of feeling and knowing that a skunk was crawling over my carefully-covered-up body. But enough of this very objectionable creature. In Texas some of the boys used to carry in their pockets a piece of "rattlesnake root," which when scraped and swallowed after a bite was held to be an antidote, though otherwise a virulent poison. In this placid land of ours, so free of pests, mosquitoes, fleas and leeches, we are also free of the true skunk; but we do have, as perhaps you are aware, a small creature armed and protected in much the same way. This is the bombardier-beetle, common in certain other countries, but also found in England, which if chased will discharge from its stern a puff of bluish-white smoke, accompanied by a slight detonation. It can fire many shots from its stern chasers. It is said that a highly volatile liquid is secreted by glands, which when it meets the air passes into vapour so suddenly as to produce the explosion. The Mexicans of the United States deserve more than a passing notice. Many of them have Indian blood and are called Greasers, but the majority are of fairly pure Spanish descent. Contact with the Americans has made them vicious and treacherous. They have been robbed of their lands, their cattle and their horses, bullied and ill-treated in every possible way. But even now many of them retain their character, almost universal amongst their compatriots in Old Mexico, for hospitality, unaffected kindness, good breeding and politeness. A Mexican village in autumn is picturesque with crimson "rastras" of Chile pepper hung on the walls of the adobe houses. To the Mexicans we owe, or rather through them to the Aztecs, the delightfully tasty and delicious enchiladas and tamales. Among native animals should not be forgotten the common jacket-rabbit (hare). She affords capital coursing, and someone has said runs faster than an ice boat, or a note maturing at a bank, so she must indeed be speedy. It is interesting to recall that puss in Shakespeare's time was _he_ and not _she_. Among our feathered friends the humming-bird was not uncommon. These lovely but so tiny little morsels are migrants. Indeed one of the family, and one of the tiniest and most beautiful, is known to summer in Alaska and winter in Central America; thus accomplishing a flight twice a year of over two thousand miles. An interesting little note too may be made of the fact that the garnets of Arizona are principally found on ant-heaps, being brought to the surface by the ants and thrown aside as obstructions only fit for the waste-basket. But they are very beautiful gems and are regularly collected by the Indians. There was little or no gold mining in our part of the territory; but there were current many tales of fabulously rich lost Claims, lost because of the miners having been massacred by the Indians or other causes. In likely places I have myself used the pan with the usual enthusiasm, but luckily never with much success. The practice of that very curious custom, the "couvade," seems to be still in force among some of the Arizona Indian tribes, among whom so many other mysterious rites and customs prevail. The loco-weed (yerba-loco) was common in our country and ruined many of our horses, but more about it hereafter. After ten years, a long period of this life in Arizona, an offer came to me which, my partners consenting, was gladly accepted, viz., to take charge of and operate certain cattle-ranches in New Mexico in the interests of a Scottish Land and Mortgage Company. Things had not been going well with us and the future held out no prospects of improvement. Also I had been loyal to my agreement not to take or seek any share in the management of affairs, and the natural desire came to me to assume the responsibility and position of a boss. But dear me! had I foreseen the nature of the work before me, and the troubles in store, my enthusiasm would not have been quite so great. [Illustration: WATERING A HERD.] CHAPTER V RANCHING IN NEW MEXICO The Scottish Company--My Difficulties and Dangers--Mustang Hunting--Round-up described--Shipping Cattle--Railroad Accidents--Close out Scotch Company's Interests. Bidding good-bye to Arizona I travelled to Las Vegas, New Mexico, now quite an important place. Calling on Mr L----, the manager of the Mortgage Company, and the Company's lawyers, the position of affairs was thus stated to me. The Company had loaned a large sum of money to a cattleman named M----, who owned a large ranch with valuable water-claims and a very fine though small herd of cattle. M---- had paid no interest for several years and attempted to repudiate the loan, so the Company decided to foreclose and take possession. Well, that seemed all right; so after getting power of attorney papers, etc., from the Company, I started down to the ranch, some eighty miles and near Fort Sumner, and introduced myself to M----, who at once refused to turn over the property to me or to anyone else, and sent me back to Las Vegas in a somewhat puzzled state of mind. Recounting my experience to Mr L---- and the lawyers, after a long confab they decided that I should go down again and _take_ possession. They refused me the services of a sheriff or a deputy to serve the papers and represent the law. No, I was to take possession in any way my wits might suggest; they merely proposing that everything I did I should put on paper and make affidavit to and send up to them. By this time I had learned that M---- was very much stirred up about it, was quite determined to give nothing up, and that really he was a dangerous man who, if pushed to extremities, might do something desperate. The lawyers told me there was another, a right, usual and legal way of taking possession, but for private reasons they did not wish to proceed in that way; and so I finally agreed to go down again and do what I could. Buying some horses and hiring a Mexican vaquero to show me the country, and especially to be a witness to whatever took place, we pulled out for Fort Sumner. The spring round-up was about to begin, and near by I found M----'s "outfit" wagon, "cavayad" of horses, his full force of "hands" and the foreman H----. After dining with them I pulled out my papers to show H---- who I was and told him I had come there to take possession of M----- 's saddle horses, the whole "ramuda" in fact of nearly a hundred head. Oh, no! he had no instructions to give them up; he did not know anything of the matter and he certainly would not let me touch them! I said I had come to carry out my orders and meant to do so; and mounting, rode out to gather up the grazing ponies. At once they came after me, not believing that anyone would dare do such a thing in their presence, and began to jostle me, with more evil intentions in their eyes. Desisting at once, and before they had gone too far, I told them that that was all I wanted, said good-bye in as friendly a way as possible, and went before a Justice of the Peace and made affidavit of having attempted to take possession of the horses till resisted by force, in fact, that physical violence had been used against me. This was sent to Las Vegas, and in due course the lawyers advised me that it was satisfactory and recommended me to adopt similar methods when attempting to get possession of the ranches, cattle, stock horses, etc. This was a funny position to be in! M----was a popular man; the other cattlemen would certainly side with him and resent such novel and apparently high-handed proceedings. Myself was an entire stranger in the whole of that huge country, devoted solely to cattle interests, and of course did not have a friend nor did expect to have any. In fact M---- 's appellation of me as that "damned Scotsman" became disagreeably familiar. The round-up was then a long way off down the river, some 100 miles, working up towards Fort Sumner; so I decided to visit the ranches. We rode out to one where was a house (unoccupied) and a spring, there stayed one night, and on departing left an old coffee-pot, some flour, etc., as proof of habitation and so gave myself the right to claim having taken possession. From there to the headquarters ranch was some thirty-five miles. On our route we came across a number of M----'s stock horses (he claimed about four to five hundred) and, taking the opportunity, we got together some 200 head, inspected them, and in this way, the only way open to me, claimed having taken possession. But now with fear and trembling we approached the ranch where M---- and his family, as I knew, were residing. A hundred yards from the house was the main spring of water, to which and at which we went and camped for dinner. Somehow or other M---- heard of our presence and out he came, a shot-gun in his hand, fury in his eyes, and his wife clinging to his coat-tails. No doubt he meant to shoot, but I was quite ready for him and put a bold face on it. Things looked nasty indeed and I was determined to fire should he once raise his gun. Perhaps this boldness made him think a bit, and I was very much relieved indeed when he resorted to expressive language instead of any more formidable demonstration. Though it was necessary to tell him that I was come to take possession of the ranch, he was not on to the affidavit game, and the result was that on returning to Fort Sumner I swore to having attempted to take possession but had been resisted by force. As explained before, such an affidavit was, in the eye of the law, a strong point in our contention of having taken possession. At least, so our legal advisers affirmed. From Fort Sumner I then started for the round-up, taking with me a white man, the Mexican having got scared and quit. Having bought more horses, enough to fully mount two men, we joined the work. Fortunately M----'s outfit had gone up the river with a large herd of cattle, and was during their absence represented by the foreman of another ranch. What I did was to get all the foremen together (there were some ten wagons on the work) and explain to them who I was, that I was there to work and handle the M---- cattle, that if they would help me I should be obliged, but they were to understand that they would be regarded as doing it for my Company. They only said they were going to help in the usual way to gather the cattle and brand the calves; that I could work or not as I liked; that, in fact, it was none of their business as to whose the cattle were. So after working on a bit an affidavit was sent in that I had "worked" the cattle and had _met no resistance_. But mine was an extremely disagreeable position. During this round-up I noticed that M----was carefully gathering all the steers and bulls of any age he could find. I notified my people and asked them to send the sheriff down to help me. Things were coming to a point as it were; it was evidently M----'s intention to drive the steers out of the territory, knowing that once over the Texas line we could no longer enjoin him. His whole force of men depended on this to get their wages out of these steers, as every one of them was at least three months in arrears, some of them six, twelve, and even eighteen months. Thus I knew they would make every effort to succeed in the drive and would be desperate men to interfere with. The last day of the round-up was over, and in the evening I was careful to note the direction taken by the herd. In the meantime L---- had sent me a restraining paper to serve and I was of course determined to do it; but late that night my relief was great to see the sheriff, a Mexican, drive into camp. Here was a proper representative of the law at last, though I do not think he himself liked the job overmuch, officers of his breed being habitually treated with contempt by the white men. We agreed to take up the trail early next morning, knowing that the distance to the line was forty miles straight across the Staked Plains, no fences, no roads or trails, and no water for thirty miles at least. So up and off before daybreak, he driving a smart pair of horses, I with only my saddle pony, at as quick a gait as a wheeled vehicle could move; drove till his team began to play out, when luckily we came upon a mustang-hunter's camp and were supplied with two fresh mounts. Pushing on we at last spied in the far distance what was unmistakably a herd of cattle. Experience told me that the cattle had been watered, a fact which was thankfully noted. Watered cattle cannot be driven except at a very slow walk, and the herd was still seven or eight miles from the Texas line. M----'s foreman had made a fatal mistake! Had he not watered them they might have escaped us. They must have thought they had hoodwinked me and were probably then rejoicing at their success. They had certainly made a noble effort, having travelled all night and on till noon next day at a speed I had not thought possible. (There were even bulls in the herd.) One can imagine the feelings of the party when they at last saw us two riding at top speed directly on their trail. Cuss words must have flown freely, and no doubt the more desperate ones talked resistance. I was really anxious myself as to what course they would decide on, M---- not being with them, and they thinking of nothing but the settlement of their wages. On coming up to them they looked about as "mad" as any men could be. But they decided rightly; and seeing the game was up, merely tried to get me to promise to pay their back wages. This I would not do, but said there was time enough to talk that over afterwards; that meantime the herd must be driven back to its proper range, and to this they finally agreed. Word was brought in that M---- was lying out on the prairie, prostrated by the sun, helped no doubt by his realizing that his little scheme had been defeated. We had him brought into camp, but I declined to see him and returned to Fort Sumner. Soon afterwards M---- threw up the sponge, so to speak, and agreed to turn the property over to us. These M---- cattle, numbering only 2000, did not justify the running of a mess wagon and full outfit, so I made arrangements with a very strong neighbouring ranch company to run the cattle for us, only myself attending the round-ups to see that our interests were properly protected. Meantime the stock horses must be looked after. Fraudulently M---- had started new brands on the last two crops of colts, the pick of them going into his wife's brand; and her mares ranged with M----'s, now ours. The band ran apparently anywhere. They had the whole Staked Plains of New Mexico to wander over, there being then absolutely no fences for a distance of 200 miles. Some 200 head of the gentler stock ranged near home; the balance, claimed to number some 300 more, were mixed up with the mustangs and were practically wild creatures, some of them having never been rounded up for over two years. By this time some of M----'s old hands had come over to my side. They knew the country, knew how best to handle these horses, and by favourable promise I got them to undertake to help in discriminating as to which colts were the Company's property and which Mrs M----'s. So I put up an "outfit," wagon, cook, mounts for seven or eight men, etc., and set out on a very big undertaking indeed, and one that M----himself had not successfully accomplished for several years--a clean round-up of all the stock horses in the country. These Staked Plains (Llanos Estacados) were so called because the first road or trail across them had to be staked out with poles at more or less long intervals to show direction, there being no visible landmarks in that immense level country. They are one continuous sweep of slightly undulating, almost level land, well grassed, almost without living water anywhere, but dotted all over with depressions in the ground, generally circular, some of great size, some deeper than others, which we called "dry lakes," from the fact that for most of the year they were nearly all dry, only here and there, and at long distances apart, a few would hold sufficient muddy water to carry wild horses and antelope through the dry season. But which lakes held water and which not was only known to these wild mustang bands and our mares that ran with them. We took out with us some hundred of the gentler mares, the idea being to graze these round camp, and on getting round a bunch of the outlaws to drive them into this herd and so hold them. Nearly every bunch we found had mustangs amongst them. The mustang stallions we shot whenever possible. They were the cause of all our trouble. These stallions did not lead the bands, but fell behind, driving the mares in front and compelling them to gallop. When pressed, the stud would wheel round as if to challenge his pursuers. He presented a fine spectacle, his eyes blazing and his front feet pawing the ground. What a picture subject for an artist! The noble stallion, for he does look noble, no matter how physically poor a creature he may chance to be, wheeling round to challenge and threaten his pursuer, his mane and tail sweeping the ground, fury breathing from his nostrils and his eyes flashing fire! Is he not gaining time for his mares and progeny to get out of danger? A noble object and a gallant deed! Then was the time to shoot. But, yourself being all in a sweat and your horse excited, straight shooting was difficult to accomplish. We worked on a system; on finding a band, one man would do the running for six or eight miles, then another would relieve him, and so on, the idea being to get outside of them and so gradually round them in to the grazing herd. We had special horses kept and used for this purpose, fast and long-winded, as the pace had to be great and one must be utterly regardless of dog and badger holes, etc. This kind of work we kept up for a couple of weeks, some days being successful, some days getting a run but securing nothing. We made a satisfactory gathering of all the gentler and more tractable mares, but some of the wilder ones we could not hold. At night we stood guard over the band, and it was amusing, and even alarming, how the stallions would charge out and threaten any rider who approached too near his ladies. A good deal of fighting went on too between these very jealous gentlemen. As illustrating what the wild stallions are capable of, I may relate here how, one night when we had a small bunch of quite gentle mares and colts in a corral, a mustang stallion approached it, tore down the gate poles, took the mares out and forced them to his own range, some thirty miles away; and he must have driven them at a great pace, as when we followed next morning it was quite that distance before we saw any sign of them. The story is told of M---- himself who one dark night saw what he supposed was one of these depredators, shot it with his rifle, and found he had killed the only highly-bred stud he possessed. At last we started homewards, meaning to separate the properties of the two claimants; but M---- owned the only proper horse-separating corral in the whole country, and from obstinacy and cussedness would not let us use it. Here was a pretty go! To drive to any other corral would mean taking M----'s horses off their proper range and the law forbade us doing so, and he knew it. So we were compelled to do what I reckon had never been done or attempted before--separate the horses on the open prairie! First we cut out and pushed some half a mile away all mares and young unbranded colts to which the Company's title could not be disputed; also the stallions and geldings of like nature; then came the critical and difficult part of the operation--to cut out and separate mothers from their unbranded colts, and branded colts, some even one or two years old, from their mothers. And not only cut them out, but hold them separate for a full couple of hours! No one can know what this means but one who has tried it. I had done a fair amount of yearling steer-cutting; but hard as that work is, it is nothing compared with the separating of colts from their dams. The only way was to suddenly scare the colt out and race him as hard as you could go to the other bunch. But if by bad luck its mother gave a whinny, back the colt would come like a shot bullet, and nothing on earth could stop him. Fortunately I had kept a fresh horse in reserve, a very fine fast and active cutting pony. I rode him myself, and but for him we would never have accomplished what we did. When we got through our best horses were all played out. But it was absolutely necessary to move our own mare band to the nearest corral at Fort Sumner, a distance of thirty miles, which we did that evening. To night-herd them would have been impossible. The title to many of these colts, branded and unbranded, was very much mixed up, and indeed still in the Courts. Nevertheless I prepared next morning to brand them for the Company. The fire was ready, the irons nearly hot, when up drove M----in a furious rage. I do not think I ever saw a man look so angry and mean. He held a shot-gun in his hand and, presenting it at me, swore he would kill me if I dared to proceed any further. My foreman, who knew him well, warned me to be careful; there seemed no doubt that he meant what he said; he was too mad to dispute with, and so! well, his bluff, if it were a bluff, carried the day and I ordered the mares to be turned loose. As it turned out afterwards it was well I did so, as further legal complications would have resulted. But as I began to think of and remember the time that had been spent and the amount of hard work in collecting these horses, I felt rather ashamed of my action. And yet, can one be expected to practically throw his life away, not for a principle, but for a few head of young colts not even his own property? But, as said before, the disputed title influenced me to some extent; that, and the muzzle of the shot-gun together certainly did. A word about mustangs. They were very wary, cunning animals, keen of scent and sharp of eye. Invariably, when one first sighted them, they would be one or two miles away, going like the wind, their tails and manes flying behind them; and be it noted that when walking or standing these manes as well as tails swept the ground. Few of them were of any value when captured; many of them were so vicious and full of the devil generally that you could do nothing with them, and they never seemed to lose that character. Like the guanaco of South America, the wild stallion always dungs in one particular spot, near the watering-place, so that when hunting them we always looked out for and inspected these little hillocks. It may also be mentioned here that guanacos, like wild elephants and wild goats, have their dying ground, so to speak, where immense quantities of their bones are always found. Cattle when about to die select if possible a bush, tree or rocky place, perhaps for privacy, quietness, or some other reason unknown to us. The next and last time we rounded up the stock horses I left the wilder ones alone, and gave a contract to some professional mustangers to gather them at so much per head. These men never attempt to run them down. They "walk" them down. A light wagon, two mules to pull it, lots of grain, some water and supplies, are what you need. On sighting a band you simply walk your team after them, walk all day and day after day, never giving them a rest. Keep their attention occupied and they will neglect to feed or drink. Gradually they become accustomed to your nearer presence, and finally you can get up quite close and even drive them into your camp, where your companions are ready with snare ropes to secure them, or at least the particular ones you want to catch. Prince, a horse I used to ride when mustang hunting, once accidentally gave me a severe tumble. He was running at full speed when suddenly a foreleg found a deep badger hole; over he went of course, head over heels, and it is a miracle it did not break his leg off. These badger holes, especially abandoned ones, go right down to a great depth, and the grass grows over them so that they are hardly visible. Dog holes always have a surrounding pile of earth carefully patted firm and trod on, no doubt to prevent entrance of rain flood-water; thus they are nearly always noticeable. Dog towns are sometimes of great extent, one in my pasture being two miles long and about a mile wide. They are generally far from water, many miles indeed, often on the highest and driest parts of the plain and where the depth to water may be 500 feet or more. They must therefore depend entirely on the juices of the green grass, though in dry seasons they cannot even have that refreshment; and they never scrape for roots. But even the small bunnies (called cotton-tails) are found in like places and must subsist absolutely without water, as they do not, or dare not, on account of wolves, etc., get far away from their holes. No sooner was the M---- trouble well over than my Company saw fit to foreclose on two other cattle outfits, one of which bowed to the law at once. The other gave us, or rather me, a lot of unnecessary trouble, and I had again "to take chances" of personal injury. All these cattle were thrown on to the M---- range, and this increased the herd so much as to justify the running of our own wagon and outfit. Eastern New Mexico, the country over which our cattle ranged, was a huge strip of territory some 250 miles by 100 miles, no fences, no settlers, occupied only by big cattle outfits owning from 8000 to 75,000 cattle each. The range was, however, much too heavily stocked, the rains irregular, severe droughts frequent, and the annual losses yearly becoming heavier; so heavy in fact that owners only waited a slight improvement in prices to sell out or drive their cattle out of the country. The way the cattle were worked was thus. The spring round-up began in March, far down the river, and slowly worked north to our range. Our wagon, one of many more, would join the work some 110 miles south of our range, but I sent individual men to much greater distances. The work continued slowly through the range, branding the spring calves, and each outfit separating its own cattle and driving its own herd. Twelve or more wagons meant some 300 riders and about 3000 saddle horses. So the operation was done on a grand scale; thousands of cattle were handled every day, and altogether such a big round-up was a very busy and interesting scene. Intricate and complicated work it was, too, though not perhaps apparent to an outsider; but under a good round-up boss, who was placed over the bosses of all the wagons, it was wonderful how smoothly the work went on. A general round-up took a long time and was no sooner over than another was begun at the far south border (the Mexico line) and the thing repeated. Our own cattle had got into the habit of drifting south whenever winter set in. It took us all summer to get them back again, and no sooner back than a cold sleet or rain would start them south. In fact, in winter few of our own cattle were at home, the cattle on our range being then mostly those drifted from the northern part of the territory. Such were the conditions in a "free range" country, and these conditions broke nearly all these big outfits, or at least compelled them to market their stuff for whatever it would bring. Partly on account of long-drawnout lawsuits we held on for seven or eight years, when on a recovery of prices our Company also closed out its live-stock interests. During the turning-over of these, the Company's cattle, to the purchasers, of course they had to be all branded, not with a recorded brand, but simply with a tally brand, thus /**, on the hip. Had there been a convenient separate pasture to put the tallied cattle into as they were tallied, much work would have been saved and no opportunity offered for fraud, such as will now be suggested and explained. The method adopted was to begin gathering at one end of the range, tally the herd collected, and then necessarily turn them loose. But we had bad stormy weather and these tallied cattle drifted and scattered all over the country and mixed up with those still not rounded up. This at once gave the opportunity for an evilly-inclined man to do just as was soon rumoured and reported to me. It was even positively asserted to me by certain cowmen (this was while I was confined in bed from an accident) that the buyer had a gang of men out operating on the far end of the range, catching and tally-branding for him the still untallied cattle. A simple operation enough, in such an immense district, where four men with their ropes could, in a few undisturbed days' work, cheat the Company out of enough cattle at $20 a head to be well worth some risk. Several men were positive in their assertions to me. But I knew these gentlemen pretty well--cattle-thieves themselves and utterly unprincipled; perhaps having a grudge against the said buyer, perhaps wanting merely to annoy me, and also possibly hating to see such a fine opportunity not taken advantage of. In the end, when brought to the scratch, not one of these informers would testify under oath. Whether afraid to, as they would undoubtedly have run strong chances of being killed, or whether they were just mischief-makers, as I myself have always believed, it is impossible to know accurately. The buyer, being a man of means and having many other interests in the district, would certainly hesitate long before he took such a very dangerous risk of discovery. All that can be said about it is that though I employed detectives for some time to try to get evidence bearing on the subject, no such evidence was ever obtained. The shortage in the turnover was due simply to the usual miscalculation of the herd; the herd which never before had been counted and could not, under range conditions, be counted. These were still "trailing" days, which means that steers sold or for sale were driven out of the country, not shipped by rail cars. One great trail passed right through our ranch (a great nuisance too), and by it herd after herd, each counting, maybe, 2500 cattle, was continually being trailed northwards, some going to Kansas or the Panhandle, most of them going as far north as Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana. These latter herds would be on the trail continuously for two or three months. Our own steers were always driven to the Panhandle of Texas, where, if not already contracted to buyers, they were held till sold. [Illustration: HERD ON TRAIL. SHOWING LEAD STEER.] A herd of breeding-stock when on the trail must be accompanied by one or more calf wagons, wagons with beds well boxed up, in which the youngest or new-born calves are carried, they being lifted out and turned over to their mother's care at night or during stoppages. In the old days, when such calves had no value, they were knocked on the head or carelessly and cruelly abandoned. It is a strange fact to note that when a herd is on the trail there is always a particular steer which, day after day and week after week, occupies a self-assigned position at the head of the herd, and is therefore called the "lead steer." I have often wondered what his thoughts might be, if any; why he so regularly placed himself at the head of affairs and was apparently so jealous of his commanding position. Yes, the lead steer is a mysterious creature, yet if displaced by death or some such cause, another long-legged, keen traveller will at once take his place. It should be explained that a herd on the trail travels naturally best in an extended form, two deep, seldom more than three or six, except towards the tail end, called the "drag": so that a herd of 2000 steers will form a much-attenuated line a mile in length from one end to the other. Which reminds me of an incident in this connection. I was moving a small lot of steers, some 400 head in all, to pasture in the Panhandle of Texas. The force consisted only of the wagon driver, one cowboy and myself. But the cowboy turned out to be quite ignorant of the art of driving cattle, did more harm than good, and so annoyed me that I dismissed him to the rear to ride in the wagon if he so chose, and myself alone undertook to drive, or rather not so much to drive, that being hardly necessary, as to guide the herd on its course. I got them strung out beautifully half a mile long, and they were making good time, when suddenly a confounded sheep herder and his dog met the lead steers and the procession was at once a scene of the most utter confusion. It should be explained here that, in the case of a small herd thus strung out, its guidance, if left to only one man, may be done from the rear by simply riding out sharply to one side or the other and calling to the lead cattle. How I did curse that wretch and his dog. A man on foot was bad enough; but a man on foot with a dog! Horrors! Yet, perhaps, barring the delay in getting the cattle started again, the incident had its uses, as it had just previously occurred to me that the line was getting a bit too long and might soon be out of control. Such are the uses of adversity. It can be understood that even a small herd of 400 lusty young steers can keep a man, or even two or three men, busy enough, especially if there are any cattle on the range you are passing through. In this case there were fortunately few. Amarillo, being the southern end of the Kansas railroad, was a great cattle market. Buyers and sellers met there; and there, immediately around the town, were congregated at any time in spring as many as 40,000 cattle, all under herd. Amarillo was then the greatest cattle town in the world. She was the successor of such towns as Wichita and Fort Dodge, simply because she was at the western terminus of the railway. Though a pretty rowdy town her manners were an improvement on such places as Dodge, where in the height of her wickedness a gambling dispute, rivalry for the smile of a woman, or the slightest discourtesy, was sufficient ground for the shedding of blood. My life during these eight years had its pleasures and its troubles; certainly much discomfort and a lot of disagreeable work. During the working season, April to November, my time was mostly spent with the round-up or on the trail, with occasional visits to our head office in Las Vegas, and also to Amarillo on business matters. To cover these immense distances, near 300 miles (there were few or no desirable stopping-places), I used a light spring wagon or ambulance, holding my bedding, mess-box, grain for the team, some water, stake ropes, and a hundred other things. I nearly always camped out on the prairie, of course cooked my own meals, was out in all kinds of weather--sun, rain, heat and drought, blizzards and frightful lightning storms. My favourite team was a couple of grey ponies. From being so much together we got to understand each other pretty thoroughly, and we had our adventures as well. Once on going up a very steep hill the ponies lost their footing. The wagon backed and turned over, and ponies and wagon rolled over and over down the hill among the rocks till hung up on a cedar stump. I was not much hurt, but found the ponies half covered with stones and rocks that had rolled on to them, the wagon upside down and camping material scattered everywhere. Cutting the tugs and rolling the stones away the ponies jumped up miraculously little injured, and even the wagon still serviceable, but I had to walk a long way to get assistance. Then we have fallen through rotten bridges, stuck in rivers and quicksands, and all sorts of things. One pony of this team, "Punch," was really the hardiest, best-built, best-natured and most intelligent of any I have ever known. Many a time, on long trips, has the other pony played completely out and actually dropped on the road. But Punch seemed to be never tired. He was a great pet too, and could be fondled to your heart's content. He had no vice, yet was as full of mischief as he could possibly pack. His mischief, or rather playfulness, finally cost him his life, as he once got to teasing a bull, the bull charged, and that was his end. It was with this team too that when driving in New Mexico through a district where white men were seldom seen, but on a road which I had often selected as a shorter route to my destination, I came on a Mexican ill-treating his donkey. His actions were so deliberate as to rouse my ire, and I got down, took the club from him and threatened castigation. On proceeding on the road I passed another Mexican mounted on a horse and carrying a rifle. Happening by-and-by to look back much was my surprise, or perhaps not very much, to see the gun and horse handed over to the first man, and himself mounted and galloping after me. Knowing at once what it meant, that his game was to bushwhack me in the rough cañon immediately in front, I put the whip to my team to such good purpose that we galloped through that cañon as it had never been galloped through before. I would have had no show whatever in such a place, and so was extremely glad to find myself again in the open country. Another time I hitched up another team, one of which, a favourite mustang-chaser, had never been driven. We made some ten miles all right till we came to the "jumping-off" place of the plains, a very steep, long and winding descent. Just as we started down, Prince, the horse mentioned, got his tail over the lines, and the ball began. We went down that hill at racing speed, I having absolutely no control over the terrified animals, which did not stop for many miles. Again, with the same team I once started to Amarillo, being half a day ahead of the steer herd. First evening I camped out at a water-hole and staked out Prince with a long heavy rope and strong iron stake pin. The other horse was hobbled with a rope hobble. Some wolves came in to water, and I was lying on my bed looking at them when the horses suddenly stampeded, the strong stake rope and pin not even checking Prince. They were gone and I was afoot! Prince ran for forty miles to the ranch. The hobbled horse we never saw again for more than twelve months, but when found was fat and none the worse. Next day the trail outfit came along and so I hitched up another team. But the worst trouble I used to have was with a high-strung and almost intractable pair of horses, Pintos, or painted, which means piebald, a very handsome team indeed, whose former owner simply could not manage them. Every time we came to a gate through which we had to pass I, being alone, had to get down and throw the gate open. Then after taking the team through I had of course to go back to shut the gate again. Then was the opportunity apparently always watched for by these devils, and had I not tied a long rope to the lines and trailed it behind the wagon they would many times have succeeded in getting away. Yet it is only such a team that one can really care to drive for pleasure; a team that you "feel" all the time, one that will keep you "interested" every minute, as these Pintos did. How often nowadays does one ever see a carriage pair, or fours in the park or elsewhere that really needs "driving"? "Shipping" cattle means loading them into railroad cars and despatching them to their destination. The cattle are first penned in a corral and then run through chutes into the cars. One year I sold the Company's steers, a train-load, to a Jew dealer in Kansas. They were loaded in the Panhandle and I went through with them, having a man to help me to look after them, our duty being to prod them up when any were found lying down so they would not be trodden to death. At a certain point our engine "played out" and was obliged to leave us to get coal and water. While gone the snow (a furious blizzard was blowing) blew over the track and blocked it so effectively that the engine could not get back. The temperature was about zero and the cattle suffered terribly; but there we remained stuck for nearly two days. When we finally got through, of course the buyer refused to receive them, and I turned them over to the railway company and brought suit for their value. The case was thrice tried and we won each time; and oh, how some of these railroad men did damn themselves by perjury! But it is bad business to "buck" against a powerful railway corporation. This will serve to give an idea as to what shipping cattle means. Many hundreds of thousands, or even millions, are now shipped every year. Trail work is abandoned, being no longer possible on account of fences, etc. Such great towns as Chicago and Kansas City will each receive and dispose of in one day as many as ten to twenty thousand cattle, not counting sheep or hogs. It was when returning to Amarillo after this trip that I was fortunate enough to save the lives of a whole train-load of people. One night our passenger train came to a certain station, and the conductor went to get his orders. Nearly all the passengers were asleep. When he returned I happened to hear him read his orders over to the brakeman. These orders were to go on to a certain switch and "side track" till _three_ cattle trains had passed. At that point there was a very heavy grade and cattle trains came down it at sixty miles an hour. Two trains swung past us, and to my surprise the conductor then gave the signal to go ahead. We did start, when I at once ventured to remark to him that only two trains had so far gone by. He pooh-poohed my assertion; but after a few minutes began to think that he himself might just possibly be wrong. Meantime I got out on the platform and was ready to jump. The conductor most fortunately reversed the order, and the train was backed on to the siding again, none too soon, for just then the head-light of the third cattle train appeared round a curve and came tearing past us. It was a desperately narrow escape and I did not sleep again that night. Writing afterwards to the general manager of the railway company about it my letter was not even acknowledged, and of course no thanks were received. While on the subject of railroad accidents it has been my misfortune to have been in many of them, caused by collisions, spreading of rails, open switches, etc., etc., but I will only detail one or two. Once when travelling to Amarillo from a Convention at Fort Worth the train was very crowded and I occupied an upper berth in the Pullman. As American trains are always doing, trying to make up lost time, we were going at a pretty good lick when I felt the coach begin to sway. It swayed twice and then turned completely over and rolled down a high embankment. Outside was pitch dark and raining. There was a babel of yells and screams and callings for help. I had practically no clothes on, no shoes, and of course could find nothing. Everything inside, mattresses, bedding, curtains, baggage, clothing, babies, women and men were mixed up in an extraordinary way. Above me I noticed a broken window, through which I managed to scramble, and on finding out how things were returned to the coach to help other passengers. Underneath me seemed to be a dying man. He was in a dreadful condition and at his last gasp, etc., and he made more row than the rest put together. Reaching down and removing mattresses, he grasped my hand, jumped up and thanked me profusely for _saving_ his life. He was not hurt a bit, indeed was the only man in the lot who escaped serious injury. The men behaved much worse than the women. However we soon had everybody out and the injured laid on blankets. Meantime a relief train had arrived with the doctor, etc. He examined us all, asked me if I was all right, to which I replied that I was, as I really felt so at the time. But in half an hour I was myself lying on a stretcher and unable to move, with a sprained back and bruised side, etc., and a claim for damages against the railway company. Another time, when riding in the caboose (the rear car) of a long freight train, with the conductor and brakeman, the train in going down a grade broke in three. The engine and a few cars went right on and left us; the centre part rushed down the hill, our section followed and crashed into it, and some seven or eight cars were completely telescoped. I had been seated beside the stove, my arm stretched round it, when, noticing our great speed, I drew the conductor's attention to it. He opened the side door to look out. Just then the shock came and he got a frightful lick on the side of the head, and myself was thrown on top of the hot stove; but none of us were seriously hurt. Again, once when making a trip to Kansas City and back, the whole Pullman train went off the track and down the embankment; and on the return journey we ran into an open switch and were derailed and one man killed. Both might have been very serious affairs. With the closing out of the Mortgage Company's interests of course my salaried employment came to an end. But before closing this chapter it should be mentioned that I had in the meantime suffered a nasty accident by a pony falling back on me and fracturing one leg. It occurred at the round-up, and I was driven some thirty miles, the leg not even splinted or put in a box, to my ranch. I sent off a mounted man to Las Vegas, 130 miles, for a surgeon, but it was a week before he got down to me and the leg was then in a pretty bad shape. He hinted at removing it, but finally decided to set it and put it in plaster, which he did. He then left me. The leg gave me little trouble, but unfortunately peritonitis set in. The agony then suffered will not soon be forgotten. There was a particularly ignorant woman, my foreman's wife, in the house; but I had practically no nursing, no medicine of any kind, and the diet was hardly suited for a patient. The pain became so great that I was not able to open my mouth, dared not move a muscle, and was reduced to a mere skeleton. Then it occurred to my "guardians" to send once more for the doctor. Another week went by, and when he came I had just succeeded in passing the critical stage and was on the mend. In after years this attack led to serious complications and a most interesting operation, which left me, in my doctor's words, "practically without a stomach"; and without a stomach I have jogged on comfortably for nearly ten years. How a little thing may lead to serious consequences! I had previously, and have since, had more or less serious physical troubles, but a good sound constitution has always pulled me through safely. Among minor injuries may be mentioned a broken rib, a knee-cap damaged at polo, and another slightly-fractured leg, caused again by a pony just purchased, and being tried, falling back on me; not to mention the _sigillum diavoli_ (don't be alarmed or shocked) which occasionally develops, and always at the same spot. While the round-up and turnover of the Company's cattle was proceeding, I thought it well to keep lots of whisky on hand to show hospitality (the only way) to whomsoever it was due. On receiving a large keg of it I put it in my buggy and drove out of camp seven or eight miles to some rough ground, and having, in Baden-Powell way, made myself sure no one was in view and no one spying on my movements I placed it amongst some rocks and brush in such a way that no ordinary wanderer could possibly see it. From this store it was my intention to fill a bottle every other day and so always have a stock on hand. But Kronje or De Wett was too "slim" for me; a few days afterwards on my going there, like a thief in the night--and indeed it was at night--I found the keg gone. Someone must have loaded up on it, someone who had deliberately watched me, and his joy can be easily pictured. So someone was greatly comforted, but not a hint ever came to me as to who the culprit was. My intercourse with M---- provided some of the closest "calls" I ever had (a call means a position of danger); still not so close as on a certain occasion, at my summer camp in Arizona, when one of the men and myself were playing cards together. We were alone. The man was our best "hand," and a capital fellow, though a fugitive from justice, like some of the others. It became apparent to me that he was cheating, and I was rash enough to let him understand that I knew it, without however absolutely accusing him of it. At once he pulled out his gun, leant over, and pointed it at me. What can one do in such a case? He had the "drop" on me; and demanded that I should take back what I had said. Well, I wriggled out of it somehow, told him he was very foolish to make such a "break" as that, and talked to him till he cooled down. It was an anxious few minutes, and I am very proud to think he did not "phase" me very much, as he afterwards admitted. Peace was secured with honour. I was lucky to be able to leave the West and the cattle business with a hide free from perforations and punctures of any kind. CHAPTER VI ODDS AND ENDS Summer Round-up Notes--Night Guarding--Stampedes--Bronco Busting--Cattle Branding, etc. Round-up and trail work had many agreeable aspects, and though it was at times very hard work, still I look back to it all with fond memories. The hours were long--breakfast was already cooked and "chuck" called long before sunrise; horses were changed, the night horses turned loose and a fresh mount for the morning's work caught out of the ramuda. By the time breakfast was over it was generally just light enough to see dimly the features of the country. The boss then gave his orders to the riders as to where to go and what country to round-up, also the round-up place at noon. He started the day-herd off grazing towards the same place, and finally saw the wagon with its four mules loaded up and despatched. There was generally a "circus" every morning on the men starting out to their work. On a cold morning a cow-horse does not like to be very tightly cinched or girthed up. He resents it by at once beginning to buck furiously as soon as his rider gets into his saddle. [Illustration: CHANGING HORSES.] Even staid old horses will do it on a very cold morning. But the "young uns," the broncos, are then perfect fiends. Thus there is nearly always some sport to begin the day with. By noon the round-up has been completed and a large herd of cattle collected. Separating begins at once, first cows and calves, then steers and "dry" cattle, the property of the different owners represented. Dinner is ready by twelve, horses changed again and the day-herd is watered, and then the branding of the calves begins. But wait. _Such_ a dinner! With few appliances it is really wonderful how a mess-wagon cook feeds the crowd so well. His fuel is "chips" (_bois des vaches_); with a spade he excavates a sunken fireplace, and over this erects an iron rod on which to hang pots, etc. He will make the loveliest fresh bread and rolls at least once a day, often twice; make most excellent coffee (and what a huge coffee-pot is needed for twenty or thirty thirsty cowpunchers), serve potatoes, stewed or fried meat, baked beans and stewed dried fruit, etc. Everything was good, so cleanly served and served so quickly. True, any kind of a mess tastes well to the hungry man, but I think that even a dyspeptic's appetite would become keen when he approached the cattleman's chuck wagon. Dinner over the wagon is again loaded up, the twenty or more beds thrown in, the team hitched and started for the night camping-ground, some place where there is lots of good grass for the cattle and saddle horses, and at the same time far enough away from all the other herds. The saddle horses in charge of the horse "wrangler" accompany the wagon. The men are either grazing and drifting the day-herd towards the camp, or branding morning calves, not in a corral but on the open prairie. The calves, and probably some grown cattle to be branded, must be caught with the rope, and here is where the roper's skill is shown to most advantage. At sundown all the men have got together again, night horses are selected, supper disposed of, beds prepared and a quiet smoke enjoyed. If a horse-hair rope be laid on the ground around one's bed no snake will ever cross it. But during work the beds are seldom made down till after sunset, by which time rattlesnakes have all retired into holes or amongst brush, and so there is little danger from them. First "guard" goes out to take charge of the herd. The herd has already been "bedded" down carefully at convenient distance from the wagon. Bedding down means bunching them together very closely, just leaving them enough room to lie down comfortably. They, if they have been well grazed and watered, will soon all be lying resting, chewing their cuds and at peace with the world. Each night-guard consists of two to four men according to the size of the herd, and "stands" two to four hours. The horse herd is also guarded by "reliefs." In fine weather it is no great hardship to be called out at any hour of the night, but if it should be late in autumn and snow falling, or, what is worse still, if there be a cold rain and a bitter wind it is very trying to be compelled to leave your warm bed at twelve or three in the morning, get on to your poor shivering horse and stand guard for three hours. It should be explained that "standing" means not absolute inaction but slowly riding round and round the herd. Yes, it is trying, especially in bad weather and after working hard all day long from before sun-up. How well one gets to know the stars and their positions! The poor night-herders know that a certain star will set or be in such and such a position at the time for the next relief. Often when dead tired, sleepy and cold, how eagerly have I watched my own star's apparently very slow movement. The standard watch is at the wagon, and must not be "monkeyed" with, a trick sometimes played on tenderfeet. Immediately time for relief is up the next is called, and woe betide them if they delay complying with the summons. Of course the owner or manager does not have to take part in night-herding, but the boys think more of him if he does, and certainly the man he relieves appreciates it. In continued wet and cold weather such as we were liable to have late in October or November, when it might rain and drizzle for a week or two at a time, our beds would get very wet and there would be no sun to dry them. Consequently we practically slept in wet, not damp, blankets for days at a time; and to return from your guard about two in the morning and get into such an uninviting couch was trying to one's temper, of course. Even one's "goose haar piller," as the boys called their feather pillow, might be sodden. To make your bed in snow or be snowed over is not nearly so bad. No tents were ever seen on the round-up. Everyone slept on the open bare ground. But for use during my long drives across country I got to using a small Sibley tent, nine feet by nine feet, which had a canvas floor attached to the walls, and could be closed up at night so as to effectually prevent the entrance of skunks and other vermin. This tent had no centre pole whatever. You simply drove in the four corner stake-pins, raised the two light rods over it triangularwise, and by a pulley and rope hoist up the peak. The two rods were very thin, light and jointed; and in taking the tent down you simply loosed the rope, knocked out the stake-pins, and that was all. During these long guarding spells you practically just sit in your saddle for four hours at a stretch. You cannot take exercise and you dare not get down to walk or you will stampede the cattle. But, yes, you may gallop to camp if you know the direction, and drink a cup of hot strong coffee, which in bad weather is kept on the fire all night, re-light your pipe and return to "sing" to the cattle. Then the quiet of these huge animals is impressive. About midnight they will get a bit restless, many will get on their feet, have a stretch and a yawn, puff, cough and blow and in other ways relieve themselves, and if allowed will start out grazing; but they are easily driven back and will soon be once more resting quietly. The stampeding of the herd on such a night is almost a relief. It at once effectually wakes you up, gets you warm, and keeps you interested for the rest of your spell, even if it does not keep you out for the rest of the night. I should explain that "singing" to the cattle refers to the habit cowboys have, while on night-guard, of singing (generally a sing-song refrain) as they slowly ride round the herd. It relieves the monotony, keeps the cattle quiet and seems to give them confidence, for they certainly appear to rest quieter while they know that men are guarding them, and are not so liable to stampede. Stampeding is indeed a very remarkable bovine characteristic. Suppose a herd of cattle, say 2000 steers, to be quietly and peacefully lying down under night-guard. The air is calm and clear. It may be bright moonlight, or it may be quite dark; nothing else is moving. Apparently there is nothing whatever to frighten them or even disturb them; most of them are probably sound asleep, when suddenly like a shot they, the whole herd, are on their feet and gone--gone off at a more or less furious gallop. All go together. The guard are of course at once all action; the men asleep in camp are waked by the loud drumming of the thousands of hoofs on the hard ground and at once rush for their horses to assist. The stampede must be stopped and there is only one way to do it--to get up to the lead animals and try to swing them round with the object of getting them to move in a circle, to "mill" as we called it. But the poor beasts meantime are frantic with fear and excitement and you must ride hard at your level best, and look out you don't get knocked over and perhaps fatally trampled on. You must know your business and work on one plan with your fellow-herders. On a pitch dark night in a rough country it is very dangerous indeed. The cattle may run only a short distance or they may run ten miles, and after being quieted again may once more stampede. Indeed, I took a herd once to Amarillo and they stampeded the first night on the trail and kept it up pretty near every night during the drive. But, as said before, the remarkable part of the performance is the instantaneous nature of the shock or whatever it is that goes through the slumbering herd, and the quickness of their getting off the bed-ground. Cow and calf herds are not so liable to stampede, but horses are distinctly bad and will run for miles at terrific speed. Then you must just try and stay with them and bring them back when they stop, as you can hardly expect to outrun them. Still, I do not think that stampeded horses are quite so crazy as cattle, and they get over their fright quicker. Let me try to illustrate a little better an actual stampede. The night was calm, clear, but very dark--no moon, and the stars dimmed by fleecy cloud strata. The herd of some 2000 steers was bedded down, and had so far given no trouble. Supper was over and the first guard on duty, the rest of the men lying on their beds chatting and smoking. Each man while not on duty has his saddled horse staked close by. Soon everyone has turned in for the night. A couple of hours later the first guard come in, their spell being over, and the second relief takes their place. The cattle are quiet; not a sound breaks the silence except the low crooning of some of the boys on duty. But suddenly, what is that noise?--like the distant rumbling of guns on the march, or of a heavy train crossing a wooden bridge! To one with his head on the ground the earth seems almost to tremble. Oh, we know it well! It is the beating of 8000 hoofs on the hard ground. The cowboy recognizes the dreaded sound instantly: it wakens him quicker than anything else. The boss is already in his saddle, has summoned the other men, and is off at full gallop. The cook gets up, re-trims his lamp, and hangs it as high on the wagon top as he can, to be visible as far as possible. It is good two miles before we catch up on the stampeded herd, still going at a mad gallop. The men are on flank trying to swing them round. But someone seems to be in front, as we soon can hear pistol-shots fired in a desperate endeavour to stop the lead steers. But even that is no avail, and indeed is liable to split the herd in two and so double the work. So the thundering race continues, and it is only after many miles have been covered that the cattle have run themselves out and we finally get them quietened down and turned homewards. Someone is sent out scouting round to try to get a view of the cook's lantern and so know our whereabouts. But have we got all the cattle? The men are questioned. Where's Pete? and where's Red? There must be cattle gone and these two men are staying with them. Well, we'll take the herd on anyway, bed them down again, get fresh horses, and then hunt up the missing bunch. So, the cattle once more "bedded," and every spare hand left with them, as they are liable to run again, two of us start out to find if possible the missing men. We first take a careful note of the position of any stars that may be visible, then start out at an easy lope or canter. It is so dark that it seems a hopeless task to find them. Good luck alone may guide us right; and good luck serves us well, for after having come some eight or nine miles we hear a man "hollering" to us. He had heard our horses' tread, and was no doubt mightily relieved at our coming, as of course he was completely lost in the darkness and had wisely not made any attempt to find his way. But there he was, good fellow, Red! with his little bunch of 200 steers. Yes, the herd had split, that's how it was. But where is Pete? Oh! he doesn't know; last saw him heading the stampede; never saw him since. Can he be lost and still wandering round? That is not likely, and we begin to suspect trouble. The small herd is directed campwards, and some of us again scout round, halloing and shouting, but keeping our eyes well "skinned" for anything on the ground. At last, by the merest chance, we come on something; no doubt what it is--the body of a man. "Hallo, Pete! What's the matter?" He stirs. "Are you badly hurt?" "Dog-gone it, fellows, glad to see you! My horse fell and some cattle ran over me. No! I ain't badly hurt; but I guess you'll have to carry me home." The poor fellow had several ribs broken, was dreadfully bruised, and his left cheek was nearly sliced off. There we had to leave him till morning, one of us staying by. Happily Pete got all right again. Breaking young colts was a somewhat crude process. Not being of the same value as better bred stock they were rather roughly treated. If you have a number to break you will hire a professional "bronco-buster"; for some five dollars a head he will turn them back to you in a remarkably short time, bridle-wise, accustomed to the saddle and fairly gentle. But he does not guarantee against pitching. Some colts never pitch at all during the process, do not seem to know how; but the majority do know, and know well! The colt is roped in a corral by the forefeet, jerked down, and his head held till bridled; or he is roped round the neck, snubbed to a post and so held till he chokes himself by straining on the running loop. As soon as he falls a man jumps on to his head and holds it firmly in such a way that he cannot get up, and someone slips on the Hackamore bridle. Thus you will see that a horse lying on its side requires his muzzle as a lever to get him on his feet. Then he is allowed to rise and to find, though he may not then realize it, that his wild freedom is gone from him for ever. He is trembling with fright and excitement, and sweating from every pore. To get the saddle on him he is next blindfolded. A strong man grasps the left ear and another man slowly approaches and, after quietly and kindly rubbing and patting him, gently puts the saddle blanket in place; then the huge and heavy saddle with all its loose strings and straps is carefully hoisted and adjusted, and the cinch drawn up. In placing the blanket and the saddle there will likely be several failures. He will be a poor-spirited horse that does not resent it. Now take off the blinders and let him pitch till he is tired. Then comes the mounting. He is blinded again, again seized by the ear, the cinch pulled very tight, and the rider mounts into the saddle. It may be best first to lead him outside the corral, so that he can run right off with his man if he wants to. But he won't run far, as he soon exhausts himself in his rage and with his tremendous efforts to dismount his rider. A real bad one will squeal like a pig, fall back, roll over, kick and apparently tie himself into knots. If mastered the first time it is a great advantage gained. But should he throw his rider once, twice or several times he never forgets that the thing is at least possible, and so he may repeat his capers for a long time to come. All cow-horses have ever afterwards a holy dread of the rope, never forgetting its power and effect experienced during the breaking process. Thus, in roping a broken horse on the open or in a corral, if your rope simply lies _over_ his neck, and yet not be round it, he will probably stop running and resign himself to capture. Even the commonly-used single rope corral, held up by men at the corners, they will not try to break through. Bronco-busters only last a few years, the hard jarring affects their lungs and other organs so disastrously. One of our men, with the kindest consideration, much appreciated, confidentially showed me a simple method of tying up a bronco's head with a piece of thin rope, adjusted in a particular way, which made pitching or bucking almost, but not always, an impossibility. He was perhaps a little shamefaced in doing so, but such sensibility was not for me; anything to save one from the horrible shaking up and jarring of a pitching horse! And yet there was always the inclination to fix the string surreptitiously. Much better that the boys should _not_ see it. [Illustration: A REAL BAD ONE.] It may be said here that a horse has a lightning knowledge as to whether his rider be afraid of him or not, and acts accordingly. In branding my method was to simply tie up one forefoot and blindfold the colt, when a small and properly-hot stamp-iron can be quickly and effectively applied before he quite knows what is hurting him. In early days we used only Spanish Mexican broncos for cow-ponies. They were broken bridle-wise, and perhaps had been ridden a few times. Bands of them were driven north to our country, and for about fifteen dollars apiece you might make a selection of the number wanted, say twenty to fifty head. Some of these ponies would turn out very well, some of little use. You took your chances, and in distributing them amongst the men very critical eyes were cast over them, you may be sure, as the boys had to ride them no matter what their natures might turn out to be. Such ponies were hardy, intelligent, active, and stood a tremendous amount of work. Later a larger stamp of cow-horse came into use, even horses with perhaps a distant and minute drop of Diomede's blood in them--Diomede, who won the first Derby stakes, run for in the Isle of Man by the way, and who was sold to America to become the father of United States thoroughbreds and progenitor of the great Lexington. But such "improved" horses could never do the cow work so well as the old original Spanish cayuse. In a properly-organized cattle country all cattle brands must be recorded at the County seat. Because of the prodigious number and variety of brands of almost every conceivable pattern and device it is difficult to adopt a quite new and safe one that does not conflict in some way with others. This for the honest man; the crooked man, the thief, the brand-burner is not so troubled. _He_ will select a brand such as others already in use may be easily changed into. To give a very few instances. If his own brand be 96 and another's 91 the conversion is easy. If it be [**#] and another's [**-II-] it is equally easy; or if it be [**3--E], as was one of our own brands, the conversion of it into [**d--B] is too temptingly simple. It was only after much consideration that I adopted for my own personal brand [**U]--a mule shoe on the left hip and jaw. It was small and did not damage the hide too much, was easily stamped on, looked well and was pretty safe. Among brands I have seen was HELL in large letters covering the animal's whole side. With a band of horses a bell-mare (madrina) is sometimes used. The mare is gentle, helps to keep the lot together, and the bell lets you know on a dark night where they are. With a lot of mules a madrina is always used, as her charges will never leave her. All the grooming cow-ponies get is self-administered. After a long ride, on pulling the saddle off, the pony is turned loose, when he at once proceeds to roll himself from one side to another, finishing up with a "shake" before he goes off grazing. If he has been overridden he may not succeed in rolling completely over. This is regarded as a sure sign that he has been overridden, and you know that he will take some days, or even maybe weeks, to recover from it. I have seen horses brought in absolutely staggering and trembling and so turned loose. A favourite mount is seldom so mistreated; and if the boss is present the rider knows he will take a note of it. One can imagine how delightful and refreshing this roll and shake must be, quite as refreshing as a cold bath (would be) to the tired and perspiring rider. Alas! cold or hot baths are not obtainable by the cattleman for possibly months at a time. The face and hands alone can receive attention. The new and modern idea of bodily self-cleansing is here effectually put in force and apparently with good health results. The rivers when in flood are extremely muddy; when not they are very shallow, and the water is usually alkaline and undrinkable, as well as quite useless for bathing purposes. Cow-ponies generally have sound feet and durable hoofs, but in very sandy countries the hoofs will spread out in a most astonishing way and need constant trimming. In droughty countries like Arizona and New Mexico we were frequently reduced to serious straits to find decent drinking-water. On many occasions I have drunk, and drunk with relief and satisfaction, such filthy, slimy, greenish-looking stuff as would disgust a frog and give the _Lancet_ a fit, though that discriminating journal would probably call it soup. Sometimes even water, and I well remember the places, that was absolutely a struggling mass of small red creatures that yet really tasted not at all badly. Anyway it was better than the green slime. Thirst is a sensation that must be satisfied at any cost. Once when travelling in the South Arizona country, we being all strung out in Indian file, over a dozen of us, the lead man came on a most enticing-looking pool of pure water. Of course he at once jumped off, took a hearty draught, spat it out and probably made a face, but saying nothing rode quietly on. The next man did the same, and so it went on till our predecessors had each and all the satisfaction of knowing that he was not the only man fooled. The water was so hot, though showing no sign of it, that it was quite undrinkable--a very hot spring. In the alkali district on the Pecos River the dust raised at a round-up is so dense that the herd cannot even be seen at 200 yards distance. This dust is most irritating to the eyes; and many of the men, including myself, were sometimes so badly affected that they had to stop work for weeks at a time. In circuses and Wild-West shows one frequently sees cowgirls on the bill. Of course, on actual work on the range there is no such thing as a cowgirl. At least I never saw one. CHAPTER VII ON MY OWN RANCH Locating--Plans--Prairie Fires and Guards--Bulls--Trading--Successful Methods--Loco-weed--Sale of Ranch. A year before selling out the Company's cattle I had started a small ranch for myself. Seeing that it was quite hopeless to run cattle profitably on the open-range system, and having longing eyes on a certain part of the plains which was covered with very fine grass and already fenced on one side by the Texas line--knowing also quite well that fencing of public land in New Mexico was strictly against the law (land in the territories is the property of the Federal Government, which will neither lease it nor sell it, but holds it for home-steading)--I yet went to work, bought a lot of wire and posts, gave a contract to a fence-builder and boldly ran a line over thirty miles long enclosing something like 100,000 acres. The location was part of the country where our stock horses used to run with the mustangs, and so I knew every foot of it pretty well. There was practically no limit to the acreage I might have enclosed; and I had then the choice of all sorts of country--country with lots of natural shelter for cattle, and even country where water in abundance could be got close to the surface. In my selected territory I knew quite well that it was very deep to water and that it would cost a lot of money in the shape of deep wells and powerful windmills to get it out; yet it was for this very reason that I so selected it. Would not the country in a few years swarm with settlers ("nesters" as we called small farmers), and would they not of course first select the land where water was shallow? They could not afford to put in expensive wells and windmills. Thus I argued, and thus it turned out exactly as anticipated. The rest of the country became settled up by these nesters, but I was left alone for some eight years absolutely undisturbed and in complete control of this considerable block of land. More than that the County Assessor and collector actually missed me for two years, not even knowing of my existence; and for the whole period of eight years I never paid one cent for rent. On my windmill locations I put "Scrip" in blocks of forty acres. Otherwise I owned or rented not a foot. Just a line or two here. I happen to have known the man who invented barbed wire and who had his abundant reward. Blessings on him! though one is sometimes inclined to add cursings too. It is dangerous stuff to handle. Heavy gloves should always be worn. The flesh is so torn by the ragged barb that the wound is most irritating and hard to heal. When my fence was first erected it was a common thing to find antelope hung up in it, tangled in it, and cut to pieces. Once we found a mustang horse with its head practically cut completely off. The poor brutes had a hard experience in learning the nature of this strange, almost invisible, death-trap stretched across what was before their own free, open and boundless territory. And what frightful wounds some of the ponies would occasionally suffer by perhaps trying to jump over such a fence or even force their way through it; ponies from the far south, equally ignorant with the antelope of the dangers of the innocent-looking slender wire. In another way these fences were sometimes the cause of loss of beast life, as for instance when some of my cattle drifted against the fence during a thunder and rain storm and a dozen of them were killed by one stroke of lightning. Into this preserve my cattle-breeding stock were put: very few in number to begin with, yet as many as my means afforded. My Company job and salary would soon be a thing of the past and my future must depend entirely on the success of this undertaking. Once before I had boldly, perhaps rashly, taken a lease of a celebrated steer pasture in Carson County, Texas, and gone to Europe to try and float a company, the proposition being to use the pasture, then, and still, the very best in Texas, for wintering yearling steers. No sounder proposition or more promising one could have been put forward. But all my efforts to get the capital needed failed and it was fortunate for me that at the end of one year I succeeded in getting a cancellation of the lease. On first securing the lease the season was well advanced and it became an anxiety to me as to where I should get cattle to put in the pasture, if only enough to pay the year's rent--some 7000 dollars. One man, a canny Scotsman, had been holding and grazing a large herd of 4000 two-year-old steers, all in one straight brand, on the free range just outside. He knew I wanted cattle and I knew he wanted grass, as he could not find a buyer and the season was late. We both played "coon," but I must say I began to feel a bit uncomfortable. At last greatly to my relief and joy, he approached me, and after a few minutes' dickering I had the satisfaction of counting into pasture this immense herd of 4000 cattle. Meantime, I had also been corresponding with another party and very soon afterwards closed a deal with him for some 3700 more two-year-old steers. Thus with 7700 head the pasture was nearly fully stocked, the rent for the first year was assured, and I prepared to go to the Old Country to form the company before mentioned. But before going I found it necessary to throw in a hundred or so old cows to keep the steers quiet. The steers had persisted in walking the fences, travelling in great strings round and round the pasture. They had lots of grass, water and salt, but something else was evidently lacking. Immediately the cows were turned loose all the uneasiness and dissatisfaction ceased. No more fence walking and no more danger (for me) of them breaking out. The family life seemed complete. The suddenness of the effect was very remarkable. This pasture has ever since been used solely for my proposed purpose and every year has been a tremendous success. First of all a word about my house and home. Built on what may be called the Spanish plan, of adobes (sun-dried bricks), the walls were 2-1/2 feet thick, and there was a courtyard in the centre. Particular attention was paid to the roof, which was first boarded over, then on the boards three inches of mud, and over that sheets of corrugated iron. The whole idea of the adobes and the mud being to secure a cool temperature in summer and warmth in winter. No other materials are so effective. As explained before, there were no trees or shrubs of any kind within a radius of many miles. So to adorn this country seat I cut and threw into my buggy one day a young shoot of cotton-wood tree, hauled it fifty miles to the ranch, and stuck it in the centre of the court. Water was never too plentiful; so why not make use of the soap-suddy washings which the boys and all of us habitually threw out there? When the tree did grow up, and it thrived amazingly, its shade became the recognized lounging-place. With a few flowering shrubs added the patio assumed quite a pretty aspect. Another feature of the house was that the foundations were laid so deep, and of rock, that skunks could not burrow underneath, which is quite a consideration. Under my winter cottage at the Meadows Ranch in Arizona skunks always denned and lay up during the cold weather, selecting a point immediately under the warm hearthstone. There, as one sat reading over the fire, these delightful animals, within a foot of you, would carry on their family wrangles and in their excitement give evidence of their own nature; but happily the offence was generally a very mild one and evidently not maliciously intended. Around the house was planted a small orchard and attempts were made at vegetable-growing. But water was too scarce to do the plants justice. Everything must be sacrificed to the cattle. One lesson it taught me, however, and that is that no matter how much water you irrigate with, one good downpour from Nature's fertilizing watering-can is worth more than weeks of irrigation. Rain water has a quality of its own which well or tank water cannot supply. Plants respond to it at once by adopting a cheery, healthy aspect. It had another equally valuable character in that it destroyed the overwhelming bugs. How it destroyed them I don't know: perhaps it drowned them; anyway they disappeared at once. In my own pasture in New Mexico I for various reasons decided to "breed," instead of simply handle steers. Steers were certainly safer and surer, and the life was an easy one. But there appeared to me greater possibilities in breeding if the cows were handled right and taken proper care of. It will be seen by-and-by that my anticipations were more than justified, so that the success of this little ranch has been a source of pride to me. The ranch was called "Running Water," because situated on Running Water Draw, a creek that never to my knowledge "ran" except after a very heavy rain. Prairie fires were the greatest danger in this level range country, there being no rivers, cañons, or even roads to check their advance. Lightning might set the grass afire; a match carelessly dropped by the cigarette-smoker; a camp fire not properly put out; or any mischievously-inclined individual might set the whole country ablaze. Indeed, the greatest prairie fire I have record of was maliciously started to windward of my ranch by an ill-disposed neighbour (one of the men whose cattle the Scotch Company had closed out and who ever after had a grudge against me) purposely to burn me out. He did not quite succeed, as by hard fighting all night we managed to save half the grass; but the fire extended 130 miles into Texas, burning out a strip from thirty to sixty miles wide. On account of a very high wind blowing that fire jumped my "guard," a term which needs explanation. All round my pasture, on the outside of the fence, for a distance of over forty miles was ploughed a fire-guard thus: two or three ploughed furrows and, 100 feet apart, other two or three ploughed furrows, there being thus a strip of land forty miles long and 100 feet wide. Between these furrows we burnt the grass, an operation that required great care and yet must be done as expeditiously as possible to save time, labour and expense. A certain amount of wind must be blowing so as to insure a clean and rapid burn; but a high gusty wind is most dangerous, as the flames are pretty sure to jump the furrows, enter the pasture, and get away from you. The excitement at such a critical time is of course very great. In such cases it was at first our practice to catch and kill a yearling, split it open and hitch ropes to the hind feet, when two of us mounted men would drag the entire carcass over the line of fire. It was effective but an expensive and cumbrous method. Later I adopted a device called a "drag," composed of iron chains, in the nature of a harrow, covered by a raw hide for smothering purposes. This could be dragged quite rapidly and sometimes had to be used over miles and miles of encroaching fire. The horses might get badly burnt, and in very rank grass where the fierce flames were six to eight feet high it was useless. Sometimes we worked all night, and no doubt it formed a picturesque spectacle and a scene worthy of an artist's brush. Across the centre of the pasture for further safety, as also around the bull and horse pasture, was a similar fire-guard, so that I had in all some fifty-five miles of guard to plough and burn. It is such critical and dangerous, yet necessary, work that I always took care to be present myself and personally boss the operation. Without such a fire-guard one is never free from anxiety. Many other ranchers who were careless in this matter paid dearly for it. These fires were dangerous in other ways. A dear old friend of mine was caught by and burnt to death in one. Another man, a near neighbour, when driving a team of mules, got caught likewise, and very nearly lost his life. He was badly burnt and lost his team. Hitherto it had been the universal custom of cattlemen to use "grade" bulls, many of them, alas! mere "scrubs" of no breeding at all. No one used pure-bred registered bulls except to raise "grade" bulls with. I determined to use "registered" pure-bred bulls alone, and no others, to raise _steers_ with, and was the first man to my knowledge to do so. Neighbours ridiculed the idea, saying that they would not get many calves, that they could not or would not "rustle"--that is, they would not get about with the cows--that they would need nursing and feeding and would not stand the climate. Well, I went east, selected and bought at very reasonable figures the number needed, all very high bred, indeed some of them fashionably so, and took them to the ranch. By the way, bulls were not called bulls in "polite" society: you must call them "males." Very shortly afterwards there was a rise in value of cattle, a strong demand for such bulls, and prices went "out of sight." Thus the bulls that cost me some 100 dollars apiece in a little while were worth 200 or even 300 dollars. The young bulls "rustled" splendidly, and as next spring came along there was much interest felt as to results. To my great delight almost every cow had a calf, and nearly every calf was alike red body and white face, etc. (Hereford). I kept and used these same bulls six or seven seasons; every year got the highest calf-brand or crop amongst all my neighbours; and soon, with prudent culling of the cows, my small herd (some 2000) was the best in the country; and my young steers topped the market, beating even the crack herds that had been established for twenty years and had great reputations. To give an instance: my principle was to work with little or no borrowed money. Thus my position was such that I did not always _have_ to market my steers to pay running expenses; and as I hate trading and dickering, as it is called, my independence gave me a strong position. Well, once when travelling to the ranch I met on the train two "feeders" from the north, who told me they wanted to buy two or three hundred choice two-year-old, high-bred, even, well-coloured and well-shaped steers. Having by chance some photos in my pocket of my steers (as yearlings taken the year before) I produced them. They seemed pleased with them and asked the price, which I told them; but they said no ranch cattle were worth that money and ridiculed the idea of my asking it. "Oh," I said, "it is nothing to me; that is the price of the cattle," but I carefully also told them how to get to my place and invited them to come and see me. Oh, no! they said it was too ridiculous! We travelled on to Amarillo and I at once went out to Running Water. Only two days afterwards, on coming in to dinner, I found my two gentlemen seated on the porch waiting for me. After dinner we saddled up and went out to see the steers. The dealers were evidently surprised and made a long and careful inspection. Evidently they were well pleased, and on returning to the house it was also evident that they were going to adopt the usual tactics of whittling a small piece of wood (a seemingly necessary accompaniment to a trade) and "dickering"; so I again told them my terms, same as before, and hinted that they might take or leave them as they liked. The deal was closed without further ado, some money put up, and next day I started for England, leaving to the foreman the duty and responsibility of delivering the steers at the date specified. These men, like most other operators, were dealing with borrowed money got from commission houses in Kansas City. I learnt afterwards that their Kansas City friends, on hearing of the trade, refused to supply the funds till they had sent a man out specially to see the two-year-old steers that could possibly be worth so much money. He came out, saw them, and reported them to be well worth the price; and they were acknowledged to be the finest small bunch of steers ever shipped out of the south-west country. This was very gratifying indeed. Another revolution in ranch practice was the keeping up of my bulls in winter-time and not putting them out with the cows till the middle of July. This also met with the ridicule of all the "old-timers"; but it was entirely successful! The calf crop was not only a very large one but the calves were dropped all about the same time, were thus of an even age (an important matter for dealers), and they "came" when their mothers were strong and had lots of milk. Young cows and heifers having their first calves had to be watched very closely, and we had often to help them in delivery. It may also be mentioned here that the sight of a green, freshly-skinned hide, or a freshly-skinned carcass, will frequently cause cows to "slink" their calves. The smell of blood too creates a tremendous commotion amongst the cattle generally; why, is not quite known. I also made a practice in early spring of taking up weak or poor cows that looked like needing it, putting them in a separate pasture and feeding them on just two pounds of cotton-seed meal once a day; no hay, only the dry, wild grass in the small pasture. The good effect of even such a pittance of meal was simply astounding. Thereafter I do not think I ever lost a single cow from poverty or weakness. This use of meal on a range ranch was in its way also a novelty. Afterwards it became general and prices of cotton-seed and cotton-seed meal doubled and more. When a very large number of range cattle, say 2000 or so, required feeding on account of poverty, hay in our country not being obtainable, cotton-seed (whole) would be fed to them by the simple and effective method of loading a large wagon with it, driving it over the pasture, and scattering thinly, not dumping, the seed on to the grass sod. The cattle would soon get so fond of it that they would come running as soon as the wagon appeared and follow it up in a long string, the strongest and greediest closest to the wagon, the poor emaciated, poverty-stricken ones tailing off in the rear. But not one single seed was wasted, everyone being gleaned and picked up in a very short time. It is the best, easiest and most effective way: indeed, the only possible way with such a large number of claimants. And as said before, the recuperating effect of this cotton-seed is simply astonishing. It may be noted, however, that if fed in bulk and to excess the animals will sometimes go blind, which must be guarded against. In the matter of salt it had become the common practice to use sacked stuff (pulverized) for cattle. There was a strong prejudice against rock salt; so much so that when I decided to buy a carload or two it had to be specially ordered. Another laugh was raised at my proposed use of it. The cattle would get sore tongues, or they would spend so long a time licking it they would have no time to graze, etc., etc. Meantime I had lost some cows by their too quick lapping of the pulverized stuff. Thereafter I never lost one from such a cause and the cattle throve splendidly. Besides, the rock salt was much easier handled and considerably more economical. My wells were deep, none less than 250 feet, the iron casing 10-inch diameter, the pipe 6-inch or 8-inch, and the mill-wheels 20 feet in diameter; this huge wind power being necessary to pump up from such a depth a sufficiency of water. The water was pumped directly into very large shallow drinking wooden tubs, thence into big reserve earthen tanks (fenced in), and thence again led by pipe to other large drinking-tubs outside and below the tanks, supplied with floating stop-valves. This arrangement, arrived at after much deliberation, worked very well indeed; no water was wasted, and it was always clean; and in very cold weather the cattle always got warm, freshly-pumped well water in the upper tub, an important matter and one reason why my cattle always did so well. But oh, dear! the trouble and work we often had with these wells! Perhaps in zero temperature something would go wrong with the pump valve or the piston leather would wear out, or in a new well the quicksand would work in. Neither myself, foreman nor boy was an expert or had any mechanical knowledge; though continued troubles, much hard work, accompanied by, alas! harder language, was a capital apprenticeship. In bitter cold freezing weather I well remember we once had to pull out the rods and the piping three times in succession before we got the damned thing into shape, and then we did not know what had been the matter. To pull up first 250 feet of heavy rod, disjoint it, and lay it carefully aside; then pull up 250 feet of 6-inch or 8-inch iron piping, in 20-feet lengths, clamp and disjoint it, and put it carefully aside; then to use the sand-bucket to get the sand out of the well if necessary; repair and put into proper shape the valve and cylinder, etc.; then (and these are all parts of one operation), re-lower and connect the 250 feet of heavy piping, the equally long rods, and attach to the mill itself--oh, what anxiety to know if it was going to work or not! On this particular occasion, as stated, we--self, foreman and one boy--actually had to go through this tedious and dangerous performance three times in succession! To pull out the piping great power is needed, and we at first used a capstan made on the ranch and worked by hand. But it was slow work, very slow, and very hard work too; afterwards we used a stout, steady team of horses, with double tackle, and found it to work much more expeditiously. But there was always a great and ever-present danger of the pipe slipping, or a clamp, a bolt, or a hook, or even the rope breaking with disastrous results. These wells and mills afforded any disgruntled cowhand or "friendly" neighbour a simple and convenient opportunity of "getting even," as a single small nail dropped down a pipe at once clogged the valve and rendered the tedious operation necessary. I had altogether five of such wells. A little more "brag," if it may be called so, and I shall have done. But it will need some telling, and perhaps credulity on the reader's part. A certain wild plant called "loco" grows profusely in many parts of the Western States; but nowhere more profusely than it did in my pasture. Indeed it looked like this particular spot must have been its place of origin and its stronghold in time of adversity. Certainly, although it was common all over the plains, I never saw in any place such a dense and vigorous growth of it, covering like an alfalfa field solid blocks of hundreds of acres. This is no exaggeration. It had killed a few of our cattle in Arizona and ruined some of our best horses. The Scotch Company lost many hundreds of cattle by it, and also some horses. The plant seems to flourish in cycles of about seven years; that is, though some of it may be present every year it only comes in abundance, overwhelming abundance, once in the period stated. The peculiarity about it, too, is that it grows in the winter months and has flowered and seeded and died down by midsummer. Thus it is the only green and succulent-looking plant to be seen in winter-time on the brown plains. It is very conspicuous and in appearance much resembles clover or alfalfa. Cattle as a rule will avoid it, but for some unknown reason the time comes when you hear the expression the "cattle are eating loco." If so they will continue to eat it, to eat nothing else, till it is all gone; and those eating it will set the example to others, and all that have eaten it will go stark staring mad and the majority of them die. Horses are even more liable to take to it, and are affected exactly in the same way; they go quite crazy, refuse to drink water, cannot be led, and have a dazed, stupid appearance and a tottering gait, till finally they decline and die for want of nourishment. I have seen locoed horses taken up and fed on grain, when some of them recovered and quite got over the habit even of eating the weed; but these were exceptions. Most locoed horses remained too stupid to do anything with and were never of much value. There is one strange fact, however, about them; saddle horses, slightly locoed, just so bad that they cannot be led, and therefore useless as saddlers, do, when hitched up to a wagon or buggy, though never driven before, make splendid work horses. They go like automatons; will trot if allowed till they fall down, and never balk. The worst outlaw horse we ever had, one that had thrown all the great riders of the country and had never been mastered, this absolute devilish beast got a pretty bad dose of the weed; and, to experiment, we hitched him up in a wagon, when lo! he went off like any old steady team horse. This is all very interesting; but that is enough as to its effect on live stock. At the request of the Department of Agriculture I sent to Washington some specimens of a grub which, when the plant reaches its greatest exuberance and abundance, infests it, eating out its heart and so killing it. It destroys the plant, but alas! generally too late to prevent the seed maturing and falling to earth. The plant itself has been several times carefully examined, its juices tested and experimentally administered to various animals. But no absolutely satisfactory explanation of its effects has been given out; and certainly no antidote or cure of its effects suggested. Well, in a certain year the seven years' cycle came round; faithfully the loco plant cropped up all over the plains, the seed that had lain dormant for many years germinated and developed everywhere. As winter approached (in October) my fall round-up was due. Calves had to be branded, some old cows sold, and some steers delivered. I had sold nothing that year. On rounding-up the horses many of them showed signs of the weed. The neighbours flocked in and the work began. Only one round-up was made, when the idea seized me that if these cattle were "worked" in the usual way--that is, jammed round, chased about and "milled" for several hours--they would get tired and hungry, and on being turned loose would be inclined to eat whatever was nearest to them--probably the loco plant. It seemed so reasonable a fear, and I was so anxious about the cattle, that I ordered the foreman there and then to turn the herd quietly loose, explained to the neighbours my reasons for doing so, but allowed them to cut out what few cattle they had in the herd: and the year's work was thus at once abandoned. All that winter was a very anxious time. Reports came in from neighbouring ranches that their cattle were dying in hundreds. On driving through their pastures the loco appeared eaten to the ground; all the cattle were after it, and poor, staggering, crazy animals were met on the road without sense enough to get out of your way. By the end of next spring some of my neighbours had few cattle left to round-up. One neighbour, the largest cattle-ranch in the world, owning some 200,000 head, was estimated to have lost at least 20,000. And meantime how were affairs going in my little place? It will seem incredible, but what is here written is absolute truth. The loco was belly high; the self-weaned calves could be seen wading through it; but ne'er a nibbled or eaten plant could be found. I often searched carefully for such dreaded signs but happily always failed: and I did not lose a single cow, calf or steer, nor were any found showing the slightest signs of being affected. Many reasons were advanced for the miraculous escape of these cattle; people from a hundred miles away came to see and learn the reason. No satisfactory explanation was suggested, and finally they were compelled to accept my own one, and agree that leaving the cattle undisturbed by abandoning the fall round-up was the real solution of the problem. The only work my men did that winter was to keep the fences up and in good shape, and whenever they saw stray cattle in my pasture to turn them out at once, fearing the danger of bad example. Next winter, the loco being still very bad, the same tactics were adopted and only one solitary yearling of mine was affected. So ended the worst loco visitation probably ever experienced in the West; not perhaps that the plant was more abundant than at some other periods, though I think it was, but for some unknown reason the cattle ate it more freely. The temperature on these plains sometimes went so low as 20° below zero, with wind blowing. There was no natural shelter, literally nothing as big as your hat in the pasture, and several men advised the building of sheds, wind-breaks, etc. But experience told me just the opposite. I had seen cattle (well fed and carefully tended) freeze to death inside sheds and barns. Also I had seen whole bunches of cattle standing shivering behind open sheds and wind-breaks till they practically froze to death or became so emaciated as to eventually die of poverty. If you give cattle shelter they will be always hanging around it. So I built no sheds or anything else. When a blizzard came my cattle had to travel, and the continued travelling backwards and forwards kept the blood in circulation. There were a few cases of horns, feet, ears and mammæ frozen off, but I never had a cow frozen to death and never lost any directly from the severity of the weather. More than that, I never fed a pound of hay. Our name for calves that had lost their mothers, and therefore the nourishment obtained from milk, was "dogies." These dogies were ever afterwards unmistakable in appearance, and remained stunted, "runty" little animals of no value. Yet, if taken up early enough and fed on nourishing diet, they would develop into as large and well-grown cattle as their more fortunate fellows.[2] [Footnote 2: Appendix, Note III.] My foreman was an ordinary cowboy, but he was a thorough cattleman, had already been in my employ for seven years, and his "little peculiarities" were pretty well known to me. He became desperately jealous of his position (as foreman), resenting interference. It is a good characteristic, this desire for independence, if also accompanied by no fear of responsibility; and on these lines my ranch was run. I allowed him great independence, never interfered so long as he carried out general orders and "ran straight"; but I also put on him full responsibility. More than that, I allowed him to run his own small bunch of cattle, some hundred head, in my pasture, and gave him the use of my bulls; his grass, salt and water cost him nothing. This was a very unusual policy to adopt. But the idea was that it would thus be as much his interest as mine to see the fences kept up and in good repair, to see that the windmills and wells were kept in order, that the cattle had salt, were not stolen, etc., and prairie fires guarded against. Well, it all turned out right. My presence at the ranch during a year would not perhaps amount to a month of days; I could live in Denver, San Francisco or Mexico, and only come to the place at round-ups and branding-times. I do not think that a calf was ever stolen from me. The fact was I knew cattle in general and my own cattle in particular so well (and he knew it) that he had no opportunity, and perhaps was afraid to take advantage of me. It must be here mentioned that on selling out, and in tallying my cattle over to the buyer, the count was disappointingly short; not nearly so short as the Scotch Company's cattle, it is true, but still, considering that my cattle were inside a good fence, were well looked after, the huge calf crop and apparently small death loss, there was a shortage. Then there is no wonder at the greater shortage of the Company's cattle, where almost no care could be taken of them, where the calf tallies were in the hands of, and returned by, the foremen of other outfits, where the range was overstocked, the boggy rivers a death-trap, where wolves and thieves had free range, and where blackleg, mismothering of calves and loco made a big hole in the number of yearlings. In my pasture were also wolves and blackleg; and the loss in calves by these, difficult to detect, is invariably greater than suspected. Only one case of cattle-thieving occurred at my own ranch and I lost nothing by it. Two men stopped in for supper one day; they were strangers, but of course received every attention. They rode on afterwards, coolly picked up some thirty head of my cattle, drove them all night into Texas and sold them to a farmer there. Of course they were not missed out of so many cattle; but someone in Texas had seen them at their new home, noticed my brand and sent word to me. On going after them I found they had been sold to an innocent man who had paid cash for them and taken no bill of sale. It was not a pleasant duty to demand the cattle back from such a man, but he ought to have known better. Some rustlers in Arizona once detached from a train at a small station a couple of carloads of beef cattle, ran them back down the track to the corral, there unloaded the cattle and drove them off. This very smart trick of course was done during the night and while the crew were at supper. For all these reasons it will be seen why my small ranch was such a success and such a profitable and money-making institution. But alas! it was to be short-lived! As explained before, I was paying no rent and my fences were illegal. "Kind" friends, and I had lots of them, reported the fences to Washington; a special agent was sent out to inspect, ordered the fence down and went away again. I disregarded the order. To take the fence down meant my getting out of the business or the ruin of the herd. Next year another agent came out, said my fence was an enclosure and must come down. Seeing still some daylight I took down some few miles of it, so that it could not be defined as an enclosure, but only a drift-fence. During the winter, however, I could not resist closing the gap again. Next season once more appeared a Government agent, who in a rage ordered the fence down under pains and penalties which could not well be longer disregarded. Cattle were up in price; a neighbour had long been anxious to buy me out; he was somewhat of a "smart Alick" and thought _he_ could keep the fence up; he knew all the circumstances; so I went over and saw him, made a proposition, and in a few minutes the ranch, cattle, fences and mills were his. Poor man! in six months his fence was down and the cattle scattered all over the country. He eventually lost heavily by the deal; but being a man of substance I got my money all right. So closed my cattle-ranching experiences some eight years ago (1902). It may be noted that experience showed that polled black bulls were no good for ranch purposes. They get few calves, are lazy, and have not the "rustling" spirit. Durhams or Shorthorns also compared poorly in these respects with Herefords, and besides are not nearly so hardy. The white face is therefore king of the range. And bulls with red rings round the eyes by preference, as they can stand the bright glare of these hot, dry countries better. It used to be my keen delight to attend the annual cattle shows and auction sales of pure-bred bulls, and I would feel their hides and criticize their points till I almost began to imagine myself as competent as the ring judges. The ranch was in the heart of the great buffalo range. (Indeed the Comanche Indians, and even some white men, used to believe firmly that the buffaloes each spring came up out of the ground like ants somewhere on these Staked Plains, and from thence made their annual pilgrimage north.) It seems these animals were not loco eaters. On my first coming to New Mexico there were still some buffaloes on the plain, the last remnant of the uncountable, inconceivable numbers that not long before had swarmed over the country. Even when the first railroads were built trains were sometimes held up for hours to let the herds pass. As late as 1871 Colonel Dodge relates that he rode for twenty-five miles directly through an immense herd, the whole country around him and in view being like a solid mass of buffaloes, all moving north. In fact, during these years the migrating herd was declared to have a front of thirty to forty miles wide, while the length or depth was unknown. An old buffalo hunter loves nothing better than to talk of the wonderful old times. One of the oldest living ranchmen still has a private herd near Amarillo and has made many experiments in breeding the bulls to domestic Galloway cows. The progeny, which he calls cattalo, make excellent beef, and he gets a very big price for the hides as robes. CHAPTER VIII ODDS AND ENDS The "Staked Plains"--High Winds--Lobo Wolves--Branding--Cows--Black Jack--Lightning and Hail--Classing Cattle--Conventions--"Cutting" versus Polo--Bull-Fight--Prize-Fights--River and Sea Fishing--Sharks. More odds and ends! and more apologies for the disconnected character of this chapter. It must be remembered that these notes are only jotted down as they have occurred to me. Of their irrelativeness one to another I am quite conscious, but the art of bringing them together in more proper order is beyond my capacity. Possibly it might not be advisable anyway. In my pasture of some 100,000 acres there was not a tree, a bush, or a shrub, or object of any nature bigger than a jack-rabbit; yet no sight was so gladsome to the eyes, no scenery (save the mark!) so beautiful as the range when clothed in green, the grass heading out, the lakes filled with water and the cattle fat, sleek and contented. Yet in after years, when passing through this same country by the newly-built railway in winter-time, it came as a wonder to me how one could have possibly passed so many years of his life in such a dreary, desolate, uninteresting-looking region. To-day the whole district, even my own old and familiar ranch, is desecrated (in the cattleman's eyes) by little nesters' (settlers) cottages, and fences so thick and close together as to resemble a Boer entanglement. I had done a bit of farming and some years raised good crops of Milo maize, Kafir corn, sorghum, rye, and even Indian corn. But severe droughts come on, when, as a nester once told me, for two years nothing was raised, not even umbrellas! These plains are, it may be safely said, the windiest place on earth, especially in early spring, when the measured velocity sometimes shows eighty miles per hour. When the big circular tumble weeds are bounding over the plains then is the time to look out for prairie fires; and woe betide the man caught in a blizzard in these lonely regions. Once when driving from a certain ranch to another, a distance of fifty miles, my directions were to "follow the main road." Fifty miles was no great distance and my team was a good one. I knew there were no houses between the two points. After driving what long experience told me was more than fifty miles, and still no ranch, I became a bit anxious; but there was nothing for it but to keep going. Black clouds in the north warned me of danger. I pushed the team along till they were wet with sweat; some snow fell; it grew dark as night; and a regular blizzard set in and I was in despair. I had a good bed in the buggy, so would myself probably have got through the night all right, but my horses were bound to freeze to death if staked out or tied up. As a last resource I threw the reins down and left it to the team to go wherever they pleased. For some time they kept on the road, but soon the jolting told me that they had left it and we began to go down a hill; in a little while great was my joy to see a light and to find ourselves soon in the hospitable shelter of a Mexican sheep-herder's hut. The Mexican unhitched the team and put them in a warm shed. For myself, he soon had hot coffee and tortillas on the table. I never felt so thankful in my life for such accommodation and such humble fare. The horses had never been in that part of the country before, that I knew; it was pitch dark, and yet they must have known in some mysterious way that in that direction was shelter and safety, as when I threw the lines down they even then continued to face the storm. It may be noted here that buffaloes always face the storm and travel against it; cattle and horses never. Before entirely leaving the cattle business a few more notes may be of interest. Plagues of grasshoppers and locusts sometimes did awful damage to the range. When visiting at a neighbour's one must not dismount till invited to do so; also in saluting anyone the gloves must be removed before shaking hands. This is cowboy etiquette and must be duly regarded. At public or semi-private dances there is always a master of ceremonies, who is also prompter and calls out all the movements. He will announce a "quardreele," or maybe a "shorteesche," and keeps the company going with his "Get your partners!" "Balance all!" "Swing your partners!" "Hands across!" "How do you do?" and "How are you?" "Swing somewhere," and "Don't forget the bronco-buster," etc. etc., as someone has described it. The Mexicans are always most graceful dancers; cowboys, with their enormously high heels, and probably spurs, are a bit clumsy. At purely Mexican dances (Bailies) the two sexes do not speak, each retiring at the end of a dance to its own side of the room. Most cowboys have the peculiar faculty of "humming," produced by shaping the mouth and tongue in a certain way. The "hum" can be made to exactly represent the bagpipes; no one else did I ever hear do it but cowpunchers. I have tried for hours but never quite succeeded in the art. Besides coyotes, which are everywhere common, the plains were infested by lobo wolves, a very large and powerful species; they denned in the breaks of the plains and it was then easiest to destroy them. They did such enormous damage amongst cattle that a reward of as high as thirty dollars per scalp was frequently offered for them, something less for the pups. The finding of a nest with a litter of perhaps six to eight young ones meant considerable money to the scalp-hunter. The wolves were plentiful and hunted in packs; and I have seen the interesting sight of a small bunch of mixed cattle rounded up and surrounded by a dozen of them, sitting coolly on their haunches till some unwary yearling left the protecting horns of its elders. Every time, when riding the range, that we spotted a lobo ropes were down at once and a more or less long chase ensued, the result depending much whether Mr Wolf had dined lately or not. But they were more addicted to horse and donkey flesh if obtainable. For purposes of poisoning them I used to buy donkeys at a dollar apiece and cut them up for bait. With hounds they gave good sport in a suitable country. But it is expensive work, as many dogs get killed, and no dog of any breed, unless maybe the greyhound, can or will singly and twice tackle a lobo wolf. In the springtime, when the calves are dropping pretty thick, it is exceedingly interesting to note the protective habits of the mother cows. For instance, when riding you will frequently come on a two or three days' old baby snugly hidden in a bunch of long grass while the mother has gone to water. When calves get a little older you may find at mid-day, out on the prairie, some mile or two from water, a bunch of maybe forty calves. Their mammies have gone to drink; but not all of them! No, never all of them at the same time. One cow is always left to guard the helpless calves, and carries out her trust faithfully until relieved. This was and is still a complete mystery to me. Does this individual cow select and appoint herself to the office; or is she balloted for, or how otherwise is the selection made? This might be another picture subject--the gallant cow on the defensive, even threatening and aggressive, and the many small helpless calves gathering hastily around her for protection. Her! The self-appointed mother of the brood. When branding calves, suppose you have 400 cows and calves in the corral. First all calves are separated into a smaller pen. Then the branding begins. But what an uproar of bellows and "baas" takes place! My calves were all so very like one another in colour and markings that one was hardly distinguishable from another. The mothers can only recognize their hopeful offspring by their scent and by their "baa," although amongst 400 it must be rather a nice art to do so--400 different and distinct scents and 400 differently-pitched baas. Among these notes I should not forget to mention a brush plant that grows on the southern plains. It is well named the "wait-a-bit" thorn. Its hooks or claws are sharper than a cat's, very strong and recurve on the stems: so that a man afoot cannot possibly advance through it, and even on a horse it will tear the trousers off you in a very few minutes. Is the name not appropriate? Nothing so far has been said on the subject of "hold-ups." Railway train hold-ups were a frequent occurrence, and were only undertaken by the most desperate of men. One celebrated gang, headed by the famous outlaw, Black Jack, operated mostly on a railway to the north of us and another railway to the south, the distance between being about 400 miles. Their line of travel between these two points was through Fort Sumner; and in our immediate neighbourhood they sometimes rested for a week or two, hiding out as it were, resting horses and laying plans. No doubt they cost us some calves for beef, though they were not the worst offenders. What annoyed me most was that Black Jack himself, when evading pursuit, raided my horse pasture one night, caught up the very best horse I ever owned, rode him fifty miles, and cut his throat. In New Mexico, where at first it seemed everybody's hand was against me, I was gratified to find that I had got a reputation as a fist-fighter, and as I never practised boxing in my life, never had the gloves on, never had a very serious fist fight with anyone, the idea of having such a reputation was too funny; but why should one voluntarily repudiate it? It was useful. The men had also somehow heard that I could hold a six-shooter pretty straight. Such a reputation was even more useful. I was not surprised therefore that a plan should be hatched to test my powers in that line. It came at the round-up dinner-hour on the Company's range (New Mexico). A small piece of board was nailed to a fence post and the boys began shooting at it. In a casual way someone asked me to try my hand. Knowing how much depended on it I got out my faithful old 45° six-shooter that I had carried for fifteen years, and taking quick aim, as much to my own surprise as to others', actually hit the centre of the mark! It was an extraordinarily good shot (could not do it again perhaps in twenty trials) but it saved my reputation. Of course no pressure could have persuaded me to fire again. That reminds me of another such occasion. Once when camped alone on the Reservation in Arizona, a party of officers from Camp Apache turned up. They had a bite to eat with me and the subject of shooting came up. Someone stuck an empty can in a tree at a considerable distance from us and they began shooting at it with carbines. When my turn came I pulled out the old 45° pistol and by lucky chance knocked the bottom out at the first shot. My visitors were amazed that a six-shooter had such power and could be used with such accuracy at that distance. In this case it was also a lucky shot; but constant practice at rabbits, prairie dogs and targets had made me fairly proficient. In New Mexico I had a cowboy working for me who was a perfect marvel, a "born" marksman such as now and then appears in the West. With a carbine he could keep a tin can rolling along the ground by hitting, never the can, but just immediately behind and under it with the greatest accuracy. If one tossed nickel pieces (size of a shilling) in succession in front of him he would hit almost without fail every one of them with his carbine--a bullet not shot! He left me to give exhibition shooting at the Chicago Exposition. On my ranch, at Running Water Draw, was unearthed during damming operations, a vast quantity of bones of prehistoric age; which calls for the remark that not only the horse but also the camel was at one time indigenous to North America. Nothing has been said yet about hail or lightning storms. Some of the latter were indescribably grand, when at night the whole firmament would be absolutely ablaze with flashes, sheets and waves so continuous as to be without interval. Once when lying on my bed on the open prairie such a storm came on. It opened with loud thunder and some brilliant flashes, then the rain came down and deluged us, the water running two inches deep over the grass; and when the rain ceased the wonderful electric storm as described continued for an hour longer. The danger was over; but the sight was awe-inspiring in the extreme. Night-herding too during such a storm was a strange experience. No difficulty to see the cattle; the whole herd stood with tails to the wind; the men lined out in front, each well covered by his oilskin slicker, and his horse's tail likewise turned to the storm; the whole outfit in review order so to speak, the sole object of the riders being to prevent the cattle from "drifting." This book contains no fiction or exaggeration; yet it will be hardly believed when I state that hail actually riddled the corrugated iron roof of my ranch house--new iron, not old or rusty stuff. The roof was afterwards absolutely useless as a protection against rain. Mirages in the hot dry weather were a daily occurrence. We did not see imaginary castles and cities turned upside down and all that sort of thing, but apparent lakes of water were often seen, so deceptive as to puzzle even the oldest plainsman. Cattle appeared as big as houses and mounted men as tall as church steeples. In all the vicious little cow-towns scattered about the country, whose attractions were gambling and "tarantula juice," there was always to be found a Jew trader running the chief and probably only store in the place. I have known such a man arrive in the country with a pack on his back who in comparatively few years would own half the county. What a remarkable people the Jews are! We find them all over the world (barring Scotland) successful in almost everything they undertake, a prolific race, and good citizens, yet carrying with them in very many cases the characteristics of selfishness, greed and ostentation. Something should be said about "classing" cattle. "Classing" means separating or counting the steers or she cattle of a herd into their ages as yearlings, "twos," "threes," etc. It used to be done in old days by simply stringing the herd out on the open plain and calling out and counting each animal as it passed a certain point. But later it became the custom to corral the herd and run them through a chute, where each individual could be carefully inspected and its age agreed on by both parties. Even that might not prove quite satisfactory, as will be shown in the following instance. I had sold to a certain gentleman (a Scotchman again), manager for two large cattle companies, a string of some 1000 steers, one, two and three years old. I drove them to his ranch, some 300 miles, and we began classing them on the prairie, cutting each class separately. It is difficult in many cases to judge a range steer's age. Generally it is or should be a case of give-and-take. But my gentleman was not satisfied and expressed his dissatisfaction in not very polite language. So to satisfy him I agreed to put them through the chute and "tooth" them, the teeth being an infallible test (or at least the accepted test) of an animal's age. To my surprise this man, the confident, trusted manager of long years' experience, could not tell a yearling from a "two" or a "two" from a "three," but sat on the fence and cussed, and allowed his foreman to do the classing for him. The Texas Cattlemen's Annual Convention was a most important event in our lives. It was held sometimes in El Paso, sometimes in San Antonio, but oftenest in Fort Worth, and was attended by ranchmen from all over the State, as well as by many from New Mexico, and by buyers from Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas and elsewhere. Being held early in spring the sales then made generally set the prices for the year. Much dickering was gone through and many deals made, some of enormous extent. Individual sales of 2000, 5000 or even 10,000 steers were effected, and individual purchases of numbers up to 20,000 head; even whole herds of 30,000 to 50,000 cattle were sometimes disposed of. It was a meeting where old friends and comrades, cattle kings and cowboys, their wives, children and sweethearts, met and had a glorious old time. It brought an immense amount of money into the place, and hence the strenuous efforts made by different towns (the saloons) "to get the Convention." Among the celebrities to be met there might be Buffalo Jones, a typical plainsman of the type of Buffalo Bill (Cody). Jones some years ago went far north to secure some young musk oxen. None had ever before been captured. He and his men endured great hardships and privations, but finally, by roping, secured about a dozen yearlings. The Indians swore that he should not take them out of their territory. On returning he had got as far as the very edge of the Indian country and was a very proud and well-pleased man. But that last fatal morning he woke up to find all the animals with their throats cut. Only last year Jones, with two New Mexican cowboys and a skilled photographer, formed the daring and apparently mad plan of going to Africa and roping and so capturing any wild animal they might come across, barring, of course, the elephant. His object was to secure for show purposes cinematograph pictures. He took some New Mexican cow-ponies out with him, and he and his men succeeded in all they undertook to do, capturing not only the less dangerous animals, such as antelope, buck and giraffe, but also a lioness and a rhinoceros, surely a very notable feat. Amarillo in the Panhandle was then purely a cattleman's town. It was a great shipping point--at one time the greatest in the world--and was becoming a railroad centre. I was there a good deal, and for amusement during the slack season went to work to fix up a polo ground. No one in the town had ever even seen the game played, so the work and expense all fell on myself. I was lucky to find a capital piece of ground close to the town, absolutely level and well grassed. After measuring and laying off, with a plough I ran furrows for boundary lines, stuck in the goalposts, filled up the dog-holes, etc., and there we were. At first only three or four men came forward, out of mere curiosity perhaps. After expounding the game and the rules, etc., as well as possible we started in to play. The game soon "caught on," and in a little while a number more joined, nearly all cattlemen and cowpunchers. They became keen and enthusiastic, too keen sometimes, for in their excitement they disregarded the rules. The horses, being cow-ponies, were of course as keen and as green as the players, and the game became a most dangerous one to take part in. Still we kept on, no one was very badly hurt, and we had lots of glorious gallops--fast games in fact. The word "polo" is derived from Tibetan pulu, meaning a knot of willow wood. In Cachar, and also at Amarillo, we used bamboo-root balls. The game originated in Persia, passed to Tibet, and thence to the Munipoories, and from the Munipoories the English learnt it. The first polo club ever organized was the Cachar Kangjai Club, founded in 1863. It may be remarked here that, hard as the riding is in polo, in my opinion it does not demand nearly such good riding as does the "cutting" of young steers. In polo your own eye is on the ball, and when another player or yourself hits it you know where to look for it, and rule your horse accordingly. In "cutting," on the other hand, your horse, if a good one, does nearly all the work; just show it the animal you want to take out and he will keep his eye on it and get it out of the herd without much guidance. But there is this great difference: you never can tell what a steer is going to do! You may be racing or "jumping" him out of the herd when he will suddenly flash round before you have time to think and break back again. Herein your horse is quicker than yourself, knowing apparently instinctively the intention of the rollicky youngster, so that both steer and your mount have wheeled before you are prepared for it. You must therefore try to be always prepared, sit very tight, and profit by past experiences. It is very hard work and, as said before, needs better horsemanship than polo. To watch, or better still to ride, a first-class cutting horse is a treat indeed. During these last few years of ranch life my leisure gave me time to make odd excursions here and there. Good shooting was to be had near Amarillo--any amount of bobwhite quail, quantities of prairie-chickens, plovers, etc. And, by-the-bye, at Fort Sumner I had all to myself the finest kind of sport. There was a broad avenue of large cotton-wood trees some miles in length. In the evening the doves, excellent eating, and, perhaps for that reason, tremendously fast fliers, would flash by in twos or threes up or down this avenue, going at railroad speed. But my pleasure was marred by having no companion to share the sport. Then I made many trips to the Rocky Mountains to fish for rainbow trout in such noble streams as the Rio Grande del Norte, the Gunnison, the Platte and others. In the early days these rivers were almost virgin streams, hotching with trout of all sizes up to twelve and even fifteen pounds. The monsters could seldom be tempted except with spoon or live bait, but trout up to six or seven pounds were common prizes. Out of a small, a ridiculously small, tributary of the Gunnison River I one day took more fish than I could carry home, each two to three pounds in weight. But that was murdering--mere massacre and not sport. During a cattle convention held at El Paso I first attended a bull-fight in Juarez and I have since seen others in the city of Mexico and elsewhere. The killing of the poor blindfolded horses is a loathsome, disgusting sight, and so affected me that I almost prayed that the gallant, handsome matadors would be killed. Indeed, at Mexico City, I afterwards saw Bombita, a celebrated Spanish matador, tossed and gored to death. The true ring-bull of fighting breed is a splendid animal; when enraged he does not seem to suffer much from the insertion of banderillas, etc., and his death stab is generally instantaneously fatal. Certainly the enthusiasm of the ring, the presence of Mexican belles and their cavalleros, the picturesqueness and novelty of the whole show are worth experiencing. It should be remembered that the red cloth waved in front of him is the main cause of Toro's irritation. Why it should so irritate him we don't know. When a picador and his horse are down they are absolutely at the mercy of the bull; and the onlooker naturally thinks that he will proceed to gore man and horse till they are absolutely destroyed. But the cloth being at once flaunted near him he immediately attacks it instead and is thus decoyed to another part of the ring. Thus, too, the apparent danger to the swordsman who delivers the _coup de grâce_ is not really very great if he show the necessary agility and watchfulness. When a bull charges he charges not his real enemy, but that exasperating red cloth; and the man has only to step a little to the side, but _still hold the cloth in front_ of the bull, to escape all danger. Without this protecting cloth no matador would dare to enter the ring. The banderilleros, too, thus escape danger because they do their work while the bull's whole attention is on the red cloth operated by another man in front. The man I saw gored, tossed and killed must have made some little miscalculation, or been careless, and stood not quite out of the bull's way, so that the terrible sharp horns caught him, as one may say, _by mistake_. The Mexicans, too, like my coolies in India, were great cock-fighters. It is a national sport and also a cruel one. Matadors are paid princely sums. The most efficient, the great stars, come from Spain. Many of them are extremely handsome men and their costume a handsome and picturesque one. As a mark of their profession they wear a small pigtail, not artificial but of their own growing hair. I travelled with one once but did not know it till he removed his hat. Denver and San Francisco were great centres of prize-fighting. In both places I saw many of the great ring men of the day, in fact never missed an opportunity of attending such meetings. It was mostly, however, "goes" between the "coming" men, such as Jim Corbett and other aspirants. A real champion fight between heavyweights I was never lucky enough to witness. Base-ball games always appealed to me, and to witness a first-class match only a very great distance would prevent my attendance. To appreciate the game one must thoroughly understand its thousand fine points. It absorbs the onlooker's interest as no other game can do. Every player must be constantly on the alert and must act on his own judgment. The winning or losing of the match may at any moment lie with him. The game only lasts some two hours; but for the onlookers every moment of these two hours is pregnant with interest and probably intense excitement. Here is no sleeping and dozing on the stands for hours at a time as witnessed at popular cricket matches. Time is too valuable in America for that, and men's brains are too restless. At a ball-game the sight of a man slumbering on the benches is inconceivable. Sea-fishing also attracted me very much. On the California coast, around Catalina and other islands, great sport is to be had among the yellow-tails, running up to 50 lbs. weight. They are a truly game fish and put up a capital fight. Jew-fish up to 400 lbs. are frequently caught with rod and line, but are distinctly not a game fish. Albacores can be taken in boat-loads; they are game enough but really too common. The tuna is _par excellence_ the game fish of the coast. At one time you might reasonably expect to get a fish (nothing under 100 lbs. counted), but lately, and while I was there, a capture was so rare as to make the game not worth the candle. A steam or motor launch is needed and that costs money. I hired such a boat once or twice; but the experience of some friends who had fished every day for two months and not got one single blessed tuna damped my ambition. Tunas there run up to 300 lbs., big enough, and yet tiny compared with the monsters of the Mediterranean, the Morocco coast and the Japanese seas; there they run up to 2000 lbs. The tuna is called the "leaping" tuna because he plays and hunts his prey on the surface of the water; but he never "leaps" as does the tarpon. Once hooked he goes off to sea and will tow your boat maybe fifteen miles; that is to say, he partly tows the boat, but the heavy motor launch must also use its power to keep up or the line will at once be snapped. The tuna belongs to the mackerel family, is built like a white-head torpedo, and for gameness, speed and endurance is hard to beat. Only the pala of the South Pacific Seas, also a mackerel, may, according to Louis Becke, be his rival. Becke indeed claims it to be the gamest of all fish. But its manoeuvres are different from a tuna's and similar to those of the tarpon. What is finer sport, I think, and perhaps not quite so killing to the angler, is tarpon-fishing. Most of our ambitious tarpon fishers go to Florida, where each fish captured will probably cost you some fifty dollars. My tarpon ground was at Aransas Pass, on the Gulf Coast of Texas. There in September the fish seem to congregate preparatory to their migration south. I have seen them there in bunches of fifty to seventy, swimming about in shallow, clear water, their great dorsal fins sticking out, for all the world like a lot of sharks. My first experience on approaching in a small row boat such an accumulation of fish muscle, grit and power will never be forgotten. It was one of _the_ events of my chequered life. The boatman assured me I should get a "strike" of a certainty as soon as the bait was towed within sight of them. My state of excitement was so great that really all nerve force was gone. My muscles, instead of being tense and strong, seemed to be relaxed and feeble; my whole body was in a tremble. To see these monster fish of 150 to 200 lbs. swimming near by, and to know that next moment a tremendous rush and fight would begin, was to the novice almost a painful sensation. Not quite understanding the mechanism of the powerful reel and breaks, and being warned that thumbs or fingers had sometimes been almost torn off the hand, I grasped the rod very gingerly. But I need not say what my first fish or any particular fish did or what happened. I will only say that I got all I wanted--enough to wear me out physically till quite ready to be gaffed myself. It is tremendously hard work. To rest myself and vary the sport I would leave the tarpon and tackle the red-fish, an equally game and fighting fish, but much smaller, scaling about 15 to 20 lbs. There was a shoal of them visible, or at least a bunch of about 100, swimming right on the edge of the big breaking surf. Like the tarpon they thus keep close company on account of the sharks (supposition). It was dangerous and difficult to get the boat near enough to them; but when you did succeed there was invariably a rush for your bait and a game fight to follow. They are splendid chaps. Then I would return to the tarpon and have another battle royal; and so it went on. But sometimes you would hook a jack fish (game, and up to 25 lbs.), and sometimes get into a shark of very big proportions. Indeed, the sharks are a nuisance, and will sometimes cut your tarpon in two close to your boat, and they eagerly await the time when you land your fish and unhook him to turn him loose. Another noble fish, of which I was lucky enough to get several, was the king-fish, long, pike-shaped and silvery, a most beautiful creature, and probably the fastest fish that swims. I had not realized just how quick any fish could swim till I hooked one of these. He acts much as the tarpon does. But I have not yet told how the latter, the king of the herring race, does act. On being hooked he makes a powerful rush for a hundred yards or so; then he springs straight up high out of the water, as much as six to ten feet, shakes his head exactly as a terrier does with a rat, falls back to make another rush and another noble spring. He will make many springs before you dare take liberties and approach the landing shore. But the peculiarity of this fish is that his runs are not all in one direction. His second run may take quite a different line; and at any time he may run and spring into or over your boat. When two anglers have fish on at the same time, and in close neighbourhood, the excitement and fun are great. The tarpon's whole mouth, palate and jaws have not a suspicion of muscle or cartilage about them; all is solid bone, with only a few angles and corners where it is possible for the hook to take good hold. Unless the hook finds such a fold in the bones you are pretty sure to lose your fish--three out of four times. Probably by letting him gorge the bait you will get him all right, but it would entail killing him to get the hook out. In winter the tarpons go south, and perhaps the best place to fish them is at Tempico in Mexico. But let me strongly recommend Aransas Pass in September. There is good quail-shooting, rabbits, and thousands of water-fowl of every description; also a very fair little hotel where I happened to be almost the only visitor. At Catalina Islands, by the way, whose climate is absolutely delightful, where there are good hotels, and where the visitors pass the whole day in the water or on land in their bathing-suits, one can hire glass-bottom boats, whereby to view the wonderful and exquisitely beautiful flora of the sea, and watch the movements of the many brilliantly-coloured fish and other creatures that inhabit it. The extraordinary clearness of the water there is particularly favourable for the inspection of these fairy bowers. One day I determined to try for a Jew-fish, just to see how such a huge, ungainly monster would act. Anchoring, we threw the bait over, and in a short time I pulled in a rock cod of nearly 7 lbs. weight. My boatman coolly threw the still hooked fish overboard again, telling me it would be excellent bait for the big ones we were after. Well, I did not get the larger fish; but the sight on looking overboard into the depths was so astonishing as to be an ample reward for any other disappointment. On the surface was a dense shoal of small mullet or other fish; below them, six or eight feet, another shoal of an entirely different kind; below these another shoal of another kind, and so on as far down as the eye could penetrate. It was a most marvellous sight indeed, and showed what a teeming life these waters maintain. It seemed that a large fish had only to lie still with its huge mouth open, and close it every now and then when he felt hungry, to get a dinner or a luncheon fit for any fishy alderman. It must be a fine field for the naturalist, the ichthyologist, probably as fine as that round Bermudas' coral shores, as illustrated by the new aquarium at Hamilton. But I can hardly think that the fish of any other climate can compare for brilliancy of colouring and fantastic variety of shape with those captured on the Hawaiian coast and well displayed in the aquarium at Honolulu. I must not forget to mention that at Aransas Pass one may sometimes see very large whip or sting-rays. They may easily be harpooned, but the wonderful stories told me of their huge size (I really dare not give the dimensions), their power and ferocity, quite scared me off trying conclusions with them. There one may also capture blue-fish, white-fish, sheepheads and pompanos; all delicious, the pompanos being the most highly-prized and esteemed, and most expensive, of America's many fine table fishes. Order a pompano the first opportunity. Having already mentioned sharks, it may be stated here that one captured in a net on the California coast four years ago was authoritatively claimed to be the largest ever taken, yet his length was only some 36 feet; although it is true that the _Challenger_ Expedition dredged up shark teeth so large that it was judged that the owner must have been 80 to 90 feet long. The Greynurse shark of the South Seas is the most dreaded of all its tribe; it fears nothing but the Killer, a savage little whale which will attack and whip any shark living, and will not hesitate to tackle even a sperm whale. Shark stories are common and every traveller has many horrible ones to recount. Yet the greatest and best authorities assert that sharks are mere scavengers (as they are, and most useful ones) and will never attack an active man, or any man, unless he be in extremities--that is, dead, wounded or disabled; though, as among tigers, there probably are some man-eaters. A large still-standing reward has been offered for a fully-certified case of a shark voluntarily attacking a man, other than exceptions as above noted, and that reward has not yet been claimed. Whenever I hear a thrilling shark story I ask if the teller is prepared to swear to having himself witnessed the event; invariably the experience is passed on to someone else and the responsibility for the tale is laid on other shoulders. On a quite recent voyage a talkative passenger confidently stated having seen a shark 70 feet long. I ventured to measure out that distance on the ship's deck, and asked him and his credulous listeners to regard and consider it. It gained me an enemy for life. One of the most famous and historical sharks was San José Joe, who haunted the harbour of Corinto, a small coast town in Salvador. Every ship that entered the harbour was sure to have some bloodthirsty fiend on board to empty his cartridges into this unfortunate creature. His carcass was reckoned to be as full of lead as a careful housewife's pin-cushion of pins. But all this battering had no effect on him. Finally, and after my own visit to that chief of all yellow-fever-stricken dens, a British gun-boat put a shell into Joe and blew him into smithereens. In many shark-infested waters, such as around Ocean Island, the natives swim fearlessly among them. This ocean island, by the way, is probably the most intrinsically valuable spot of land on earth, consisting of a solid mass of coral and phosphate. "Pelorus Jack," who gave so much interest to the Cook Channel in New Zealand, was not a shark. CHAPTER IX IN AMARILLO Purchase of Lots--Building--Boosting a Town. Enough of odds and ends. To return to purely personal affairs. After selling the cattle and ranch the question at once came up--What now? I had enough to live on, but not enough to allow me to live quite as I wished, though never ambitious of great wealth. What had been looked forward to for many years was to have means enough to permit me to travel over the world; and at the same time to have my small capital invested in such a way as would secure not only as big a per cent. interest as possible, with due security, but also a large probability of unearned increment, so to speak; and above all to require little personal attention. Dozens of schemes presented themselves, many with most rosy outlooks. I was several times on the very verge of decision, and how easily and differently one's whole future may be affected! Perhaps by now a millionaire!--perhaps a pauper! At one time I was on the point of buying a cotton plantation in the South. The only obstacle was the shortage of convict labour! A convict negro _must_ work; the free negro won't. Finally I bought some city lots in the town of Amarillo--the most valuable lots I could find, right at the city's pulse, the centre of business; in my judgment they would in all probability always be at the centre, and that as the city grew so would their value grow, and thus the unearned increment would be secured. I bought these lots by sheer pressure; the owner did not want to sell, but I made him name his own price, and closed the deal, to his astonishment. It was a record price and secured me some ridicule. But the funniest part has to come. In a little while I became dissatisfied with my deal, and actually approached the seller and asked him if he would cancel it. He too had regretted parting with the property, and to my relief assented. Once more I spent nearly a year ranging about the whole western country, looking into different propositions, and again I came back to Amarillo, again was impressed with the desirability of the same lots, and actually demanded of the still more astonished owner if he would sell them to me. No! no! he did not want to part with them; and I knew he spoke the truth. Again I forced him, and so hard that at last he put on what he considered a prohibitory price, a much higher one than before asked, but I snapped him up at once. The news soon got all over town, it could not be kept quiet. Once more the supposed knowing ones and "cute" business men eyed me askance, and no doubt thought me a fool, or worse. Only one man approved of my action, but I valued his opinion more than that of all the rest. This deal again made a stir amongst the Real Estate offices, and lot values went soaring; and when I had erected a handsome business block on the property a regular "boom" set in. It gave the little town a lift and the people confidence. One man was good enough to tell me that I had more "nerve" than anyone he had ever met. Did he mean rashness? Well, my nerve simply came from realizing what a fine outlook lay before the town. It seemed to me to be bound to be a great distributing centre, also a railroad centre; that the illimitable acreage of plains-lands was bound in time to be settled on, and that thus the population would rapidly increase; which anticipations have happily come true. My whole capital, and more, was now sunk and disposed of. My mind at least in that respect was at rest; and it certainly looked as if the long-nursed scheme was about to be realized. In a few years the unearned increment was at least 100 per cent.; rents also went up surprisingly, and also, alas! the taxes. Unfortunately, within a year after completion of the building, and while I was in Caracas, Venezuela, an incendiary, a drunken gambler who had been running a "game" illicitly in one of the rooms, and who had been therefore turned out, deliberately used kerosene oil and set fire to the building. Result, a three-quarters' loss! Luckily I was well insured; even in the rentals, to the surprise of many people who had never heard of rental insurance before. The insurance settlement and payment was effected between myself and the agent in less than half an hour, and just as soon as I could get at it an architect was working on plans for a new structure. With the three months' loss on account of my absence, it was more than a year before the new building was ready for occupancy. It was, and is, a better-arranged and handsomer one than the old block, and its total rental is much greater. The town has grown very much and seems to be permanently established. The building, and my affairs, are entirely in the hands of a responsible agent; and I am free to go where inclination calls. Nothing shall be said about the worries, the delays, the wage disputes, the lawsuits, etc., seemingly always in attendance on the erection of any building. Well, it is over now, and too sickening to think about! Nor shall much be said about the frequent calls on the property-owner to subscribe, to "put up," for any bonus the city may have decided to offer to secure the placing in "oor toon" of a State Methodist College, a State Hospital, a State Federal Building; or to induce a new railroad to build in; not to mention the securing for your own particular district of the town the site of a new court-house, a new post-office, etc. etc. The enmity caused by this latter contest is always bitter. But always anything to boost the town! This little town actually last year paid a large sum to the champion motor-car racer of America to give an exhibition in Amarillo. Even a flying-machine meeting was consummated, one of the first in the whole West. In this plains country, such as surrounds Amarillo, during the land boom, immense tracts were bought by speculators, who then proceeded to dispose of it to farmers and small settlers. They do this on a methodical and grand scale. One such man chartered special trains to bring out from the middle States his proposed clients or victims. To meet the trains he owned as many as twenty-five motor-cars, in which at once on arrival these people were driven all over the property to make their selection. The first breaking of this prairie country is done with huge steam ploughs, having each twelve shares, so that the breaking is done very rapidly, the depth cultivated being only some two inches or three inches. The thick close sod folds over most beautifully and exactly, and it was always a fascinating sight, if a sad one, to watch this operation--the first opening up of this soil that had lain uncultivated for so many æons of time. The seed may be simply scattered on the sod before the breaking, and often a splendid crop is thus obtained. Simplicity of culture, truly! [Illustration: BREAKING THE PRAIRIE.] [Illustration: FIRST CROP--MILO MAIZE.] Before leaving the United States of America a few notes about that country. Though as a rule physically unpicturesque, it has some great wonder-places and beauty spots, such as the Yosemite Valley, the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, the Yellowstone Park, the Falls of Niagara, and the big trees of California, which trees it may be now remarked are conifers (Sequoia gigantea and Sequoia sempervirens), which attain a height of 400 feet. Sempervirens is so called because young trees develop from the roots of a destroyed parent. If the reader has never seen these enormous trees he cannot well appreciate their immense altitude and dimensions. Remember that our own tallest and noblest trees in England do not attain more than 100 feet or so in height; then try to imagine those having four times that height and stems or trunks proportionately huge. It is like comparing our five-storey buildings with the forty-storey buildings of New York, eight times their altitude. Yet these big trees are not so big as the gums of Australia; the Yellowstone Geysers are, or were, inferior to the like in New Zealand; and Niagara is surpassed by the Zambesi Falls, still more so by the waterfall in Paraguay, and infinitely so by the recently-discovered falls in British Guiana. The Guayra Falls, on the Paraná River, in Paraguay, though not so high in one leap as Niagara, have twice as great a bulk of water, which rushes through a gorge only 200 feet wide. Its cities, such as San Francisco, Chicago, St Louis, New Orleans and others, are not as a rule beautiful; even Washington, the capital, was a tremendous disappointment to my expectant gaze; though my judgment might possibly be affected by the following incident. While standing at the entrance of the extremely beautiful New Union Railway Station a cab drove up, out of which a woman stepped, followed by a man. He hurried after her, and right in front of me drew a pistol and shot her dead, and even again fired twice into her body as she lay on the ground. Then he quickly but coolly put the gun to his own head and killed himself. This city seems badly planned and some of its great federal buildings are monstrous. The Pennsylvania Avenue is an eyesore and a disgrace to the nation. Boston, I believe, is all that it should be. Denver is a delightful town. New York, incomparable for its fabulous wealth, its unequalled shops, its magnificently and boldly-conceived office buildings and apartment blocks, its palatial and perfectly-appointed hotels, its dirty and ill-paved streets, is the marvel of the age and is every year becoming more so. Its growth continues phenomenal. If not now it will soon be the pulse of the world. There is never occasion in American hotels, as there is in English, in my own experience, to order your table waiter to go and change his greasy, filthy coat or to clean his finger-nails! No, in the smallest country hotel in the United States the proprietor knows that his guests actually prefer a table servant to have clean hands, a clean coat, etc., and waiters in restaurants are obliged to wear thin, light and noiseless boots or shoes, not clodhoppers. That phenomenon and much-criticized individual, the American child, is blessed with such bright intelligence that at the age of ten he or she is as companionable to the "grown-up" as the youth of twenty of other countries, and much more interesting. English people are inclined to think Americans brusque and even not very polite. Let me assure them that they are the politest of people, though happily not effusive. They are also the most sympathetic and, strange as it may appear, the most sentimental. Their sympathy I have tested and experienced. Their brusqueness may arise from the fact that they have no time to give to formalities. But a civil question will always be civilly answered, and answered intelligently. Nor are Americans toadies or snobs; they are independent, self-reliant and self-respecting people. CHAPTER X FIRST TOUR ABROAD Mexico--Guatemala--Salvador--Panama--Colombia--Venezuela--Jamaica --Cuba--Fire in Amarillo--Rebuilding. Among the many long trips leisure has permitted, the first was a tour through Mexico, Guatemala and Salvador to Panama; thence through Colombia and Venezuela; Jamaica and Cuba; needless to say a most interesting tour. Mexico has a most delightful climate at any time of the year, except on the Gulf Coast, the Tierra Caliente, where the heat in summer is tropical and oppressive. She has many interesting and beautiful towns. The city itself is rapidly becoming a handsome one, indeed an imperial one. Accommodation for visitors, however, leaves much to be desired. The country's history is of course absorbingly interesting, and the many remains of Aztec and older origin appeal much to one's curiosity. There is a capital golf-course, a great bull-ring, and a pelota court. There is much wealth, and every evening a fine display of carriages and horses. The little dogs called Perros Chinos of Mexico, also "Pelon" or hairless, have absolutely no hair on the body. They are handsome, well-built little creatures, about the size of a small terrier. They are said to be identical with one of the Chinese edible dogs. Cortez found them in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru. How did they get there? Popocatepetl, a magnificent conical volcano, overlooks the city and plain. I tried to ascend it but a damaged ankle failed me. A trip to Oaxaca to see wonderful Mitla should not be missed. There also is the tree of Tuli, a cypress, said to measure 154 feet round its trunk. Also a trip to Orizaba city is equally interesting, if only for the view of the magnificent Pico de Orizaba, a gigantic and most beautiful cone 18,000 feet high; but also for the beautiful scenery displayed in the descent from the high plateau of Mexico, a very sudden descent of several thousand feet in fifteen miles, with a railroad grade of one in fourteen, from a temperate climate at once into a tropical one. More than that, it leads you to the justly-celebrated little Hotel de France in Orizaba, the only good hotel in all Mexico. The imposing grandeur of a mountain peak depends of course greatly on its elevation above its base; for instance, Pike's peak, to the top of which I have been, is some 15,000 feet above sea-level, but only 8000 above its base. The great peaks of the Andes likewise suffer, such as Volcan Misti at Arequipa, nearly 20,000 feet above the sea, but from its base only 12,000 feet. Then imagine Orizaba peak at once soaring 16,000 feet above the city, not one of a chain or range, but proudly standing alone in her radiant beauty. From Orizaba I went on to Cordova, where it is the custom of the citizens of all ranks and ages to assemble in the evenings in the plaza to engage in the game of keeno or lotto. Many tables are laid out for the purpose. The prizes are small, but apparently enough to amuse the people. Of course I joined in the game, happened to be very successful, and as my winnings were turned over to some small boys, beautiful little black-eyed rascals, my seat was soon surrounded by a merry crowd and great was the fun. How beautiful and captivating are these Spanish and even Mestizo children, the boys even more so than their sisters. From this point I took train, over the worst-built and coggliest railroad track I ever travelled on, to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, to see the famous Eads Route, over which he proposed to transport bodily, without breaking cargo, ocean-going sailing ships and steamers from the Gulf to the Pacific Ocean. Also to visit the Tehuana tribe of Indians, whose women have the reputation of being the finest-looking of native races in the Western world. They wear a most extraordinary and unique combined headdress and shawl. In the markets could certainly be seen wonderfully beautiful faces, quite beautiful enough to justify the claim mentioned. At Rincon is the starting-point of the projected and begun Pan-American railroad, which will eventually reach to Buenos Ayres. At Salina Cruz, the Pacific end of the isthmus, and I should think one of the windiest places on earth, perhaps beating even Amarillo, I met a young American millionaire, a charming man who had large interests in Guatemala. We sailed together from Salina Cruz on a small coasting steamer bound for Panama. Except only at Salina Cruz, where a terrific wind blows most of the year, the weather was calm, but the heat very great. Not even bed-sheets were provided, nor were they needed. Sailing by night we made some port and stopping-place every day. The view of the coast is most interesting. You are practically never out of sight of volcanoes, some of them of great height and many of them active. One particularly, Santa Maria, attracted our attention because of its erupting regularly at intervals of half an hour; regularly as your watch marked the stated period a great explosion occurred and a cloud of smoke, steam and dust was vomited out and floated away slowly landwards. In the clear calm air it was a magnificent spectacle and I never tired watching it. Another volcanic peak had recently been absolutely shattered, one whole side as it were blown off it. On arriving at San José, the port of Guatemala city, we had a great reception, my friend being the owner of the railroad--the only railroad in this State. A special train took us up to the capital, splendidly-horsed carriages were put at our disposal, and we were banqueted and entertained at the Opera, my friend insisting that I should share in all this hospitality. The American minister joined our party and made himself agreeable and useful. Guatemala city was once the Paris of America, was rich, gay and prosperous; to-day it is--different, but still very interesting. You are there in a bygone world, an age of the past. Revolutions and inter-State wars have driven capital from the country; progress is at a standstill; confidence in anybody does not exist. As in the Central American States, "Ote toi de la que m'y mette" is on the standard of every ambitious general, colonel or politician. It is the direct cause of all the revolutions. At Corinto a lady, whom we became intimate with, landed for the professed purpose of "revoluting." Yet the country is a naturally rich one, having on the highlands a splendid temperate climate, and everywhere great mineral and agricultural resources. We were fortunate to see a parade of some of the State troops; and such a comical picture of military imbecility and inefficiency could surely not be found elsewhere. The officers swaggered in the gayest of uniforms; the men were shoeless, dirty and slovenly. On approaching the city one passes near by the famous volcanoes Fuego, Aqua and Picaya (14,000 feet), and mysterious Lake Anatitlan. A shooting-trip had been arranged for us: a steam launch on the lake, Indians as carriers, mules, etc. etc., but my friend declined for want of time. Among the fauna of the country are common and black jaguars, tapirs, manatees, peccaries, boas, cougars or pumas, and alligators. Also the quetzal, the imperial bird of the great Indian Quiche race, and the Trogan resplendens. Poinciana regia and P. pulcherrima are common garden shrubs or trees, but the finest Poinciana I ever saw was in Honolulu. Vampire bats are more common in Nicaragua, but also exist in Guatemala. They have very sharp incisors and bite cattle and horses on the back or withers, men on the toes if exposed, and roosters on the comb. They live in caves, and not as the large fruit bats of India, which repose head downwards, hanging from trees in great colonies. Vampires live on blood, having no teeth suitable for mastication. It is a strange fact that Germans, who now have the great bulk of the trade throughout Central America, are very unpopular. Nor are the Americans popular. "Los Americanos son Bestias," "Esos Hombres son Demonios" express the feeling. I was told that in Guatemala there exists a tribe of Indians which does not permit the use of alcoholic drink and actually pays the State compensation instead. Among other places we called at were Esquintla, Acajutla, and La Libertad, from which point we got a magnificent view of the Atatlan volcano in full activity; also at San Juan del Sur. From Leon, in Nicaragua, some fourteen active volcanoes can be seen. In Salvador only two of the eleven great volcanoes of the State are now "_vivo_," viz., San Miguel and Izalco. The latter is called the Lighthouse of Salvador, because it explodes regularly every twenty minutes. The lesser living vents are called infernillos--little hells. Altogether it looks like Central America, as a whole, with its revolutions and its physical and political instability, must be a very big hell. Salvador, though the smallest of the Central American States, is the most prosperous, enterprising and densely-populated. She was the first to become independent and the first to defy the Church of Rome. It had been my intention to sail through Lake Nicaragua and down the river San Juan to San Juan del Norte. But accommodation at that port and steamer communication with Colon was so bad and irregular that the trip was regretfully abandoned, and I went on to Panama with my friend. This gentleman possessed a personal letter from President Roosevelt addressed to the canal officials, ordering (not begging) them to permit a full inspection of the works, and to tell the "truth and the whole truth." Consequently we saw the works under unusual and most favourable conditions. The Americans have made remarkable progress, assisted by their wonderful labour-saving appliances, chief among which are the 100-ton shovels, the Lidgerwood car-unloaders, and the track-shifters. But chiefly, of course, by their sanitary methods, the protection afforded the employees against mosquitoes, and the abolition of mosquito conditions. The natives and negroes are immune to yellow fever, but not to malaria. As most of us know, Major Ross of the I.M.S., in 1896, proved the connection of malaria with the anopheles mosquito; and in 1902 Mr Reed of the U.S. Health Commission tracked the yellow fever to the stegomyia mosquito. Yellow fever requires six days to develop. It should be noted that the stegomyia insect is common in India, but luckily has not yet been infected with the germ of yellow fever. And it may also be here mentioned that the connection between bubonic plague and rats, and the fleas that infest them, was discovered by the Japanese scientist, Kitasato. The history of the canal may be touched on, if only to show the American method of securing a desired object, certainly a quick, effective and, after all, the only practical method. The Panama railway was built by Americans in 1855 to meet the rush to California gold-fields. The De Lesseps Company bought the road for an enormous figure, and started the canal works, to be abandoned later on, but again taken up by a new French Company. In 1901 Uncle Sam got his "fine work" in when he bluffed the new French Panama Company into selling it to him for 40,000,000 dollars, simply by threatening to adopt the Nicaragua route. Yet the Company's property was well worth the 100,000,000 dollars asked for it. To carry out the bluff, the Isthmian Canal Commission (U.S.) actually reported to Congress that the Nicaragua route was the most "practical and feasible" one, when it was well known to the Commission that the route was so impracticable as not to be worthy of consideration. At least common report had it so. In 1903 Colombia refused the United States offer to purchase the enlarged canal zone. At once Panama province seceded from the State, and sold the desired zone to the United States for 10,000,000 dollars, conditionally on the United States recognizing and guaranteeing the young Republic. The deal was cleverly arranged, and was again perhaps the only effective method to obtain possession. The tide at Panama measures 20 feet, at Colon only 2 feet. In 1905 the International Board of Consulting Engineers, summoned by President Roosevelt, recommended, by eight to five, a sea-level canal (two locks). But Congress adopted the minority's 85-feet-level plan (6 locks), with an immense dam at Gatun, which dam will not be founded on rock, but have a central puddled core extending 40 feet below the bottom of the lake, and sheet piling some 40 feet still deeper. At least that is as I then understood it. De Lesseps was not an engineer and knew little of science. His Company's failure was directly due to his ignorance and disregard of the advice of competent men. Manual labour on the canal has been done mostly by Jamaica negroes. As said before, they are immune to yellow fever; and, speaking of the negro, it may be said here that his susceptibility to pain, compared to that of the white man, is as one to three, but the effect of a fair education is to increase it by one-third. What then is that of the monkey, the bird, the reptile or the fish? May I dare the statement, though most of us perhaps know it, that the sensitiveness of woman to that of man is as fifty-three to sixty-four. Even the woman's sense of touch, as in the finger-tips, being twice as obtuse as man's. The Bouquet D'Afrique, of course, is perceptible to us and offensive, but it is said that to the Indians of South America both black and white men are in this respect offensive. The "Foetor Judaiicus" must be noticeable also to have deserved the term. But this is sad wandering from the subject in hand and not exactly "reminiscences." I only hope that this and other departures, necessary for stuffing purposes, may be excused, especially as they are probably the most entertaining part of the book. To return to the town of Panama. In the bay and amongst the islands were quite a number of whales and flocks of pelicans. More curious to observe was an enormous number of small reddish-brown-coloured snakes, swimming freely on the surface of the sea, yet not seemingly heading in any particular direction. I could get no information regarding them. The famous Pearl Islands lie forty miles off Panama. The pearls are large and lustrous. On reaching harbour the health officials came on board, and to my surprise selected me alone among the passengers for quarantine. The explanation was that I had gone ashore at Corinto. So I was ordered to take up my abode during the period of incubation in the detention house, a building in an isolated position; there I was instructed, much to my relief, that I might go to town or anywhere else during daylight, but must, under severe penalty, be back and inside the protecting screens before the mosquitoes got to work. The object was that no mosquito after biting me should be able to bite anyone else. We had been some two and a half days out of Corinto, so my period of detention was not of long duration. I also got infinitely better messing than any hotel in Panama afforded. The seas on either side of Darien Isthmus were at one time the scene of the many brave but often cruel deeds of the great adventurers and explorers like Drake, buccaneers like Morgan, pirates like Kidd and Wallace. Morgan, a Welshman, sacked and destroyed old Panama, a rich and palatial city, in 1670. He also captured the strong fortress town, Porto Bello. Drake captured the rich and important Cartagena. Captain Kidd, native of Greenock, was commissioned by George III. to stamp out piracy, but turned pirate himself and became the greatest of them all. It had been my intention to sail from Panama to Guayaquil, cross the Andes, and take canoe and steamer down the Amazon to Para. But the reports of yellow fever at Guayaquil, the unfinished state of the Quito railroad, and the disturbed state of the Trans-Andean Indians, through whose country there would be a week's mule ride, decided me to alter my plans once more. So, bidding good-bye to my very kind New York friend, who went home direct, I myself took steamer for a Colombian port and thence trained to Baranquillo, a considerable town on the Magdalena River. It was a novel experience to there find oneself a real live millionaire! The Colombian paper dollar (no coin used) was worth just the hundredth part of a gold dollar; so that a penny street car ride cost the alarming sum of five dollars, and dinner a perfectly fabulous amount. By Royal Mail steamer the next move was to La Guayra, the seaport of Caracas, a most romantic-looking place, where the mountains, some 9000 feet high, descend almost precipitously to the sea. There we saw the castle where Kingsley's Rose of Devon was imprisoned. At that time President Castro was so defying France that war and a French fleet were expected every day. Consequently his orders were that no one whomsoever should be allowed to enter the country. All the passengers of course, and for that very reason perhaps, were hoping to be allowed to land, if only to make the short run up to the capital and back. At Colon, assisted by my American friend and the United States consul, we "worked" the Venezuela Consul into giving me a passport (how it was done does not matter), which at La Guayra I, of course, produced. Of no avail! No one must land. But just when the steamer was about to sail a boat full of officials appeared at the steamer's side, called out my name, and lo! to the wonder of the other passengers, I was allowed to go ashore. This was satisfactory, and I at once took train to the capital, climbing or soaring as in a flying-machine the steep graded but excellent road (most picturesque) to Caracas. There I found that the Mardi Gras Carnival was just beginning. In my hotel was the war correspondent of the _New York Herald_, just convalescing from an attack of yellow fever and still incapable of active work. He was good enough to ask me to fill his place should hostilities ensue. No other correspondent was in the country and he himself had to put up a 10,000 dollar bond. I willingly agreed, and so stayed nearly two weeks in Caracas awaiting eventualities. During this time, owing to the Carnival, the town was "wide open"; every night some twenty thousand people danced in the Plaza Bolivar, a huge square beautifully paved with tiling. The dancers were so crowded together that waltzing simply meant revolving top-wise. A really splendid band provided the music. What a gay, merry people they are! And how beautiful these Venezuela women, and how handsome the men! In the streets presents of great value were tossed from the carriages to the signoras on the balconies. At a ball the men, the fashionables, wore blue velvet coats, not because of the season, but because it is the customary male festive attire. Caracas was delightful and extraordinarily interesting. What splendid saddle mules one here sees! Castro every day appeared with his staff all mounted on mules. All the traffic of the country is done with them, there being no feasible wagon roads. Castro had a most evil reputation. The people hated but feared him. His whole army consisted of Andean Indians, and he himself had Indian blood in his veins. The climate at Caracas is delightful. After two weeks and nothing developing, and not feeling quite well, I returned to La Guayra and took steamer back to Colon. Feeling worse on the steamer I called in the doctor, and was greatly alarmed when he pronounced yellow fever. On arriving at Colon, of course, I was not permitted to land so had to continue on the ship to Jamaica. The attack must have been a very mild one, as when we reached Jamaica I was nearly all right again. Jamaica is a beautiful island with a delightful winter climate. Also very good roads. Among other places visited was Constant Spring Hotel, once the plantation residence and property of one of my uncles. At Port Antonio, on the north side of the island, is a very fine up-to-date American hotel, which of course was greatly appreciated after the vile caravanserais of Central America. Thence on to Cuba, the steamer passing through the famous narrows leading to Santiago. A pleasant daylight railroad run through the whole island brought me to the great city of Havana, not, as it appeared to me, a handsome or attractive city, but possessing a good climate and a polite and agreeable population. The principal shopping street in Havana is so narrow that awnings can be, and are, stretched completely across it. In the centre of the harbour was visible the wreck of the United States battleship _Maine_. Here in Havana, on calling at the Consulate for letters, or rather for cablegrams, as I had instructed my Amarillo agent not to write but to cable, and only in the case of urgent consequence, I found a message awaiting me. No need to open it therefore to know the contents! Yes, my building had been burnt to the ground two months ago. A cable to Caracas had not been delivered to me. So, back to Amarillo to view the ruins. In the United States of America one cannot insure for the full value of a building; or at least only three-quarters can be recovered. So my loss amounted to 8000 or 10,000 dollars. But no need of repining, and time is money, especially in such a case. So a new building was at once started, rushed and completed, in almost record time. CHAPTER XI SECOND TOUR ABROAD Bermudas--Switzerland--Italy--Monte Carlo--Algiers--Morocco--Spain--Biarritz and Pau. In November 1907 I again left Amarillo bound for Panama and the Andes. But the only steamer offering from New Orleans was so small, and the messing arrangements so primitive, that I abandoned the idea, railed to New York, saw a steamer starting for the Bermudas and joined her. For honeymoon and other trips the Bermudas are a favourite resort of New Yorkers. Fourteen honeymoon couples were reckoned to be on board. The climate of these islands is very delightful. The hotels are quite good; English society pretty much confined to the Army and Navy; two golf-courses; the best of bathing, boating and sea-fishing. The Marine Aquarium is most interesting. The roads are good and not a motor-car in the land! The islands are composed solely of coralline limestone. It can be quarried almost anywhere. Blasting is not necessary, the stone being so soft that it can be sawn out in blocks of any size to meet the architect's needs. It is beautifully white and hardens after exposure. After staying two weeks I returned to New York and took passage to Cherbourg, crossed France to Lausanne, saw some friends and then went on to St Moritz, which we all know is so famous for its wonderful winter climate, intensely cold but clear skies and bright sunshine. Curling, hockey, skiing, tobogganing and bobbing were in full swing; the splendid hotels crowded; dinners and dances every day. A very jolly place indeed. After ten days' stay a sledge took me over the mountains to Chiavenna, thence steamer over the lake to Como, and train to Milan. It was very cold and foggy there, but the city is a handsome one; I saw the Cathedral, the arcade, etc., and visited the famous Scala Opera House and its wonderful ballet. Thence to Genoa--very cold--and on to Monte Carlo, at once entering a balmy, delicious climate. The season was just beginning, but the play-rooms were pretty full. With its splendid shops, fine hotels, gardens, Casino, pigeon-shooting, etc. etc., Monte Carlo is unrivalled. It is distinctly a place to wear "clothes," and the women's costumes in the play-rooms and Casino are enough to make the marrying man think twice. After visiting Monaco, Nice and Cannes, at Marseilles I took steamer to Algiers. Barring its agreeable winter climate there is not much attraction there. Here I was told that the marriageable Jewess is kept in a dark room, fed on rich foods and allowed no exercise; treated, in fact, as a goose for a fat liver. So I went on to Blida, where is a French Army Remount Depot. A large number of beautiful Arab horses were being inspected and shown by their picturesque owners. They were not the type for cow-ponies and seemed a bit light for cavalry purposes. From Blida I went by train to Oran, a considerable port in Algiers. There was nothing particular to see or do except visit a certain Morocco chief who had started the late troubles at Fez and was here in durance vile (chains). Among the few tourists I met a Hungarian and his English wife and we became fairly intimate. His wife told me he was the dread of her life, being scorching mad on motor-cars. It happened there was one and only one car in the town for hire, and the Baron must needs hire it and invite me, with his wife, to a trip up a certain hill or mountain overlooking the city. A holy man, or marabout, denned on the top and we must pay our respects. The road proved to be exceedingly steep, and zigzagged in a remarkable way, with very sharp, angular turns. No car had ever been up it, and few carriages. We reached the top in due time, saluted the old man and started back. My friend was at the wheel and did a few turns all right, till we came to a straight shoot, very narrow, a ditch on one side, trees on the other, and just here the brake refused to work. Reaching over I touched his shoulder and suggested that he should go slower. No reply; he was speechless, and we knew at once that he had lost control, and realized our horrible position. On we rushed, he guiding it straight all right, till we approached the bend, the worst on the road, and quite impossible to manipulate at great speed. Right in front was an unguarded cliff, with a drop of 500 feet over practically a precipice. But--well, there was no "terrible accident" to be reported. Most fortunately a pile of rocks had been accumulated for the purpose of building a parapet wall, and on to the top of this pile the car jumped and lodged, without even turning over. The jar and shock were bad enough, but no one was much hurt. It reminded me of another occasion when I got a jar of a different kind. Once, after playing golf with a man in America, he offered to drive me to town in his motor-car. Knowing him to be a scorcher I excused myself by saying that I was not ready to go. He started; very soon afterwards word came back that he had run into a telegraph post and killed himself and his driver. Such things tend to cool one's motor ambition. At Oran I boarded a small French steamer for Mellilla, in Spanish Morocco, a Spanish convict station and a considerable military post. This was just before Spain's recent Riff Campaign. The table fare on the steamer was not British! Cuttle-fish soup or stew was prominent on the bill; a huge dish of snails was always much in demand, and the other delicacies were not tempting, to me at least. Eggs, always eggs! How often in one's travels does one have to resort to them. In Mellilla itself there was no hotel. We messed at the strangest restaurant it was ever my ill-luck to enter. The troops reminded me somewhat of those of Guatemala, slovenly, slouching, and poorly dressed. Their officers were splendid in gold braid, feathers and gaudy uniforms. Around the town were circular block-houses, beyond which even then no one was allowed to go. Indeed, mounted tribesmen could be seen sometimes riding up to the line and flourishing their guns in apparent defiance. Curiosity made me venture forward till warned back by the guard. These Riffians were certainly picturesque-looking rascals. Mellilla was then not on the tourist's track, so was all the more interesting and novel. From there by steamer to Gibraltar, stopping at Ceuta on the way. At Gibraltar a friend, Capt. B----, took me all over the rock, the galleries, and certain fortifications. A meeting of hounds near Algeciras was attended. Thence by train to Granada to visit the marvellously lovely Alhambra, and of course to meet the King of the Gipsies; Ronda, romantic and picturesque; Cordova and its immense mosque and old Roman bridge; and so on to Madrid by a most comfortable and fast train; but the temperature all through Central Spain is extremely cold in winter. The country is inhospitable-looking, and the natives seem to have abandoned their picturesque national dress. One must now go to Mexico to see the cavalier in his gay and handsome costume. In Madrid I of course visited the splendid Armoury; also the National Art Gallery with its Velasquezs and Murillos. From Madrid to San Sebastian, the season not yet begun, and Biarritz. Here I spent a most enjoyable month: dry, bracing climate, good golf-course, good hotels, etc. It was the English season; the Spanish season being in summer. On King Edward's arrival with his entourage and fashionable followers golf became impossible, so I went on to Pau and played there. From Pau a short run took me to Lourdes, with its grotto, chapel, etc. From Pau to Bordeaux, a handsome, busy town. Then Paris and home. CHAPTER XII THIRD TOUR ABROAD Salt Lake City--Canada--Vancouver--Hawaii--Fiji--Australia--New Zealand--Tasmania--Summer at Home. The fall of 1908 saw me off on a tour which finally took me round the world. Space will only permit of its itinerary and a few of my impressions and experiences. From Amarillo I trained north to Salt Lake City, passing through the wonderful gorge of the Arkansas River and the cañon of the Grand; scenery extremely wild and impressive. At Salt Lake found a large, busy, up-to-date city. Visited the tabernacle, and heard the great organ, the largest in the world; and a very fine choir. The acoustics of this immense and peculiarly-shaped building are most perfect. The Temple Gentiles are not allowed to enter. Outside the irrigation limits the country has a most desolate, desert, hopeless aspect. What nerve the Mormons had to penetrate to such a spot.[3] [Footnote 3: _See_ Appendix.] It may be noted here that one Sidney Rigdon was the compiling genius of Mormonism; and it was he who concocted the Mormon Bible, not Joe Smith. And what a concoction! No greater fraud was ever perpetrated. Hence by Butte, Montana, the great copper-mining city, to Great Falls, where we crossed the Missouri River, there 4000 miles from the sea, yet twice as large as the Thames at Windsor. On entering Canadian territory a remarkable change in the character of the people, the towns and the Press was at once noticeable. From Calgary by the C.P.R. the trip through the Selkirk range to Vancouver was one of continuous wonder and delight--noble peaks, dense pine forests, rushing rivers and peaceful lakes. Arrived at Vancouver city, a city of illimitable ambition and bright prospects. I there met in the lobby of the hotel two very old friends whom I had not seen for many years. They dined with me, or rather wined and dined, and we afterwards spent a probably uproarious evening. I say probably, because the end was never evident to me till I woke up in my bed, whither someone had carried me, with my stockinged foot burning in a candle; another such illuminant had been lighted and placed at my head. My waking (and I was "waked" in two senses) endangered, and at the same time prevented, the probable burning down of the building. Next morning I was taken suddenly ill, but not due to the evening's carousal, so went across the bay to Victoria and hunted up a doctor, who immediately ordered me into hospital (the Victoria Jubilee) and operated on me the very same day. The operation was the most painful that I have ever undergone but was entirely successful, though it detained me in the hospital for over a month. From Victoria I trained to San Francisco, passing through lovely Washington and Oregon States, and Northern California; and from San Francisco took steamer to Honolulu. San Francisco was rising from its ashes, but still presented a terrible aspect, and gave a good idea of how appalling the catastrophe must have been. At Honolulu I spent a most enjoyable two weeks, golfing a little, surf riding, etc. The climate is ideal, hotels are good, parts of the islands lovely. They are all volcanic, and indeed some are nothing but an agglomeration of defunct craters. On one of the islands, Maui, is the largest crater on earth (unless perhaps a certain one in Japan), its dimensions being 2000 feet in depth, eight miles wide, and situated on the top of a mountain, Haleakala, 10,000 feet high. Its surface, seen from the rock-rim, exactly resembles that of the moon. I of course also visited the largest island of the group--Hawaii--passing _en route_ Molokai, the leper settlement. Hawaii has two very high volcanic mountains, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, some 13,000 feet. The land is very prolific, the soil consisting of pulverized lava and volcanic dust, whose extreme fertility is due to a triple proportion of phosphates and nitrogen. On the slope of Mauna Loa is the crater of Kilauea, and in its centre the "pit," called Haleamaumau, the most awe-inspiring and in other ways the most remarkable volcano in the world. Landing at Hilo, by train and stage we went to see it. My visit was made at night when the illumination is greatest. Traversing the huge crater, four miles in diameter, the surface devoid of all vegetation, seamed and cracked, and in places steam issuing from great fissures, we suddenly arrived at the brink of the famous pit, and what an astonishing sight met our gaze! The sheer walls of the circular pit were some 200 feet deep: the diameter of the pit one quarter of a mile: the contents a mass of (not boiling, for what could the temperature be!) restless, seething, molten, red-hot lava, rising from the centre and spreading to the sides, where its waves broke against the walls like ocean billows, being a most brilliant red in colour! Flames and yet not flames. Now and then geysers of fire would burst through the surface, shoot into the air and fall back again. The sight was to some people too awful for prolonged contemplation, myself feeling relieved as from a threat when returning to the hotel, but still with a desire to go back and again gaze into that awful maelstrom. The surface of the pit is not stationary, at one time being, as then, sunk 200 feet; another time flush with the brim and threatening destruction; and again almost disappearing out of sight. At any time and in whatever condition it is an appalling spectacle and one never to be forgotten. Sugar and pineapples are the main products of the islands; but one should not miss visiting the aquarium at Honolulu to see the collection of beautiful and even comical-looking native fishes; some of extravagant colouring, brilliant as humming-birds, gay as butterflies; of shapes unsuspected, and in some cases indescribable, having neither length nor breadth, depth nor thickness; hard to distinguish head from tail, upside from underside; speed being apparently the least desirable of characteristics. Do they depend for protection and safety on their grotesque appearance? or do their gaudy robes disarm and enchant their ferocious and cannibalistic brethren? One of the funniest sights I ever saw was a base-ball game played here between Chinese and Japanese youngsters. What a commanding position these islands occupy in ocean navigation, as a coaling or naval station, or as a distributing point. America was quick to realize this; and now splendid harbours and docks are being constructed, and the place strongly fortified so as to rival Gibraltar. In January 1909 I joined the new and delightful New Zealand Steamship Company's steamer _Makura_ bound for Sydney. On board was, amongst a very agreeable company, a gentleman bound for New Zealand on a fishing-trip, who told me such marvellous tales of his fishing prowess in Scotland that I put him down for one of the biggest liars on earth. More of him afterwards. Also on board was a young English peer, Earl S----, a very agreeable man, whose company I continued to enjoy for the greater part of this tour. We had a delightful passage, marred for me, however, by a severe attack of neuritis, which continued for three solid months, the best doctors in Sydney and Melbourne failing to give relief. Our ship first called at Fanning Island, a cable station (delivering four months' mail), a mere coral atoll with its central lagoon, fringe of cocoanut trees and reef. The heavy swell breaking on the reef, and the wonderful blue of the water, the peaceful lagoon, the bright, clear sky, and the cocoanut trees, formed a picture never to be forgotten. A picture typical of all the many thousands of such Pacific islets. After passing the Union and Wallace groups we crossed the 180° meridian, and so lost a day, Sunday being no Sunday but Monday. Then arrived at Suva, Fiji Islands. The rainy season having just begun it was very hot and disagreeable. The Fijians are Papuans, but tall and not bad-looking. Maoris, Hawaiians and Samoans are Polynesians, a much handsomer race. The Fijians were remarkable for their quick conversion to devout Christianity. So late as 1870 cannibalism was general. Prisoners were deliberately fattened to kill. The dead were even dug up when in such a condition that only puddings could be made of them. Limbs were cut off living victims and cooked in their presence; and even more horrible acts were committed. The islands are volcanic, mountainous, and covered by forests. Our visit was about the time of the Balolo worm season. The Balolo worm appears on the coast punctually twice a year, once in October (the Little Balolo) and once about the 20th November (the Great Balolo). They rise to the sea surface in writhing masses, only stay twelve hours and are gone. The natives make a great feast of them. The worm measures 2 ins. to 2 ft. long, is thin as vermicelli and has many legs. Never is a single worm seen at any other time. Leaving Fiji, we passed the Isle of Pines, called at Brisbane, and arrived at Sydney on the 25th November. Of the beauties and advantages of Sydney Harbour we have all heard, and I can only endorse the glowing descriptions of other writers. Hotels in Australia and New Zealand are very poor, barring perhaps one in Sydney and a small one in Melbourne. A great cricket match was "on"--Victoria versus New South Wales--so I must needs go to see, not so much the game itself as the very famous club ground, said to be the finest in the world. In the Botanical Gardens, near a certain tree, the familiar, and I thought the unmistakable, odour of a skunk was most perceptible. Hailing a gardener and drawing his attention to it, he replied that the smell came from the tree ("malotus" he called it), but the crushed leaves, the bark and the blossom certainly gave no sign of it and I remained mystified. Fruit of many kinds is cheap, abundant and good. Sydney is not a prohibition town! Far from it. Drink conditions are as bad as in Scotland. Many of the people, especially from the country, have a pure Cockney accent and drop their h's freely; indeed I met boys and girls born in the colony, and never out of it, whose Cockney pronunciation was quite comical. It struck me that Australians and New Zealanders are certainly not noted for strenuousness. Of course the tourist must see the Blue Mountains, and my trip there was enjoyable enough, I being greatly impressed with the Leura and other waterfalls (not as falls) and the wonderful and beautiful caves of Janolan. Wild wallabies were plentiful round about, and the "laughing jackass" first made himself known to me. February 2nd.--S---- and myself took passage to New Zealand, the fish-story man being again a fellow-traveller. During the crossing numerous albatrosses were seen. In New Zealand we visited all the great towns, Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and others, all of them pleasant, agreeable places, Christchurch being especially attractive. What a grand, healthy, well-fed and physically fit-looking people the New Zealanders are. Scotch blood predominates, and really there is a great similarity between the two peoples. At Rotorua we met the Premier and other celebrities, S---- being very interested in Colonial politics. Rotorua is a very charming place; I did some fishing in the lake, where trout were so numerous that it was not much sport catching them. Illness unfortunately prevented my going further afield and fishing for larger trout in the rivers. A Colonel M---- and sister who were in New Zealand at that time claimed to have beaten the record, their catch averaging over 20 lbs. per fish (rainbows), as they told me on again meeting them in the Hebrides. We did the Wanganui River of course; and the geysers at Whakarewarewa, under the charge of Maggie, the Maori guide. As you no doubt are aware, the Maori fashion of salutation is to rub noses together. As long as they are pretty noses there cannot be much objection; but some of the Maori girls are themselves so pretty that mere rubbing is apt to degenerate and one's nose is liable to slip out of place. Maggie, the Maori guide, a very pretty woman and now at Shepherd's Bush, can tell all about it and even give a demonstration. Here in Whakarewarewa one is impressed with the fact that this little settlement is built on what is a mere shallow crust, under which, at the depth of only a few feet, is a vast region of boiling mud and water. Everywhere around are bubbling and spluttering mud-wells, some in the form of miniature geysers; steam is issuing everywhere from clefts and crannies in the ground; and one almost expects a general upheaval or sinking of the whole surface. The principal geyser was not and had not been for some weeks in action. It can be forced into action, however, by the singular method of dropping a bar of soap down the orifice, when a tremendous rush of steam and water is vomited out with terrific force. Sir Joseph Ward, the Premier, is the only person authorized to permit this operation: but though he was at our hotel, and we were personally intimate with him, he declined to favour us with the permission, it being explained that the too-frequent dosing of the geyser had seemed to have a relaxing effect on the activity. At Dunedin S---- left me to visit Milford Sound. Too unwell to accompany him, I continued on to the Bluff and then took steamer to Hobart, Tasmania. New Zealand has a great whale-fishery and it was my hope to see something of it by a short trip on one of the ships employed; but the opportunity did not present itself. May I here offer a few notes picked up on the subject of whales, etc. The sperm or cachalot whale is a dangerous and bold fighter and is perhaps the most interesting of all cetaceans. His skin, like that of the porpoise, is as thin as gold-beaters' leaf. Underneath it is a coating of fine hair or fur, not attached to the skin, and then the blubber. He has enormous teeth or tushes in the lower jaw, but has no baleen. He devours very large fish, even sharks, but his principal food seems to be cuttle-fish and squids, some of them of as great bulk as himself. These cuttle-fish's tentacle discs are as big as soup-plates, and surrounded by hooks as large and sharp as tiger claws; while their mouths are armed with a parrot-like beak capable of rending anything held to them by the tentacles. These disc hooks are often found in ambergris, an excretion of the sperm whale. The sperm whale spouts diagonally, other whales upwards. So-called porpoise leather is made of the skin of the white whale. The porpoise is the true dolphin, the sailor's dolphin being a fish with vertical tail, scales and gills. Bonitoes are a species of mackerel, but warm-blooded and having beef-like flesh. Near Hobart I saw the famous fruit and hop lands on the Derwent River. It was midsummer here and extremely hot, hotter than in Melbourne or anywhere else on this trip. From Hobart I railed to Launceston and thence steamer to Melbourne. Melbourne is a very handsome city as we all know. It was my hope to continue on with S---- north by the Barrier Reef, or rather between the reef and the mainland, and so on to China, Japan, Corea, and home by Siberia; but my doctor advised me not to attempt it, so I booked passage for Colombo instead, and S---- and myself necessarily parted. But it was with much regret that I missed this wonderful coasting trip, long looked forward to and now probably never to be accomplished. On my way home I visited beautiful Adelaide, and the younger city, Perth, which reminded me much of the West American mining towns. Colombo needs no call for notice. At Messina we saw the ruined city, the devastation seeming to have been very terrible; but it presented no such awful spectacle of absolutely overwhelming destruction as did San Francisco. Etna was smoking; Stromboli also. Then Marseilles, Paris, and home. During that summer at home I was fortunate enough to see the polo test matches between Hurlingham and Meadowbrook teams, otherwise England versus America. It was a disheartening spectacle. The English could neither drive a ball with accuracy nor distance; they "dwelt" at the most critical time, were slow in getting off, overran the ball, and in fact were beaten with ease, as they deserved to be. An even more interesting experience was a visit to the aviation meeting at Rheims, the first ever held in the world, and a most successful one. Yet the British Empire was hardly represented even by visitors. Such great filers as Curtis, Lefevre, Latham, Paulhan, Bleriot and Farman were all present. In the autumn I had a week's salmon-fishing at Garynahine in the Lews. The weather was not favourable and the sport poor considering the place. Close by is the Grimersta river and lodge, perhaps the finest rod salmon fishery in Scotland. A young East Indian whom I happened to know had a rod there, and was then at the lodge. On asking him about fishing, etc., he told me, and showed me by the lodge books, that the record for this river was fifty-four salmon in one day to one rod, all caught by the fly! The fortunate fisherman's name? Mr Naylor! the very man I had travelled with to New Zealand! I have vainly tried for three seasons now to get a rod on this river, if only for a week, and at £30 a week that would be long enough for me. I also this autumn had a rod on the Dee, but only fished twice; no fish and no water. During this summer I golfed very determinedly, buoyed up by the vain hope of becoming a first-class player--a "scratch" man. Alas! alas! but it is all vanity anyway! What does the angler care for catching a large basket of trout if there be no one by to show them to? And what does the golfer care about his game if he have not an opponent or a crowd to witness his prowess? At Muirfield I enjoyed the amateur championship--R. Maxwell's year. CHAPTER XIII FOURTH TOUR ABROAD Yucatan--Honduras--Costa Rica--Panama--Equador--Peru--Chile--Argentina--Brazil--Teneriffe. October 1909 saw me on board the steamer _Lusitania_, bound for New York and another long trip somewhere. What a leviathan! What luxury! Think of the Spanish dons who crossed the same ocean in mere cobble boats of fifty tons, and our equally intrepid discoverers and explorers. What methods did they adopt to counteract the discomfort of _mal de mer_? Which reminds me that on this same _Lusitania_ was the Viscomte D----, Portuguese Ambassador or Minister to the United States of America, who confidentially told me that he at one time was the worst of sailors, but since adopting a certain belt which supports the diaphragm the idea of sea-sickness never even suggests itself to him. For the public benefit it may be said that this belt is manufactured by the Anti Mal de Mer Belt Co., National Drug and Chemical Co., St Gabriel Street, Montreal, Canada. Bad sailors take note! On this steamer were also, as honoured guests, Jim Jeffries, the redoubtable, going to his doom; "Tay Pay" O'Connor; and Kessler, the "freak" Savoy Hotel dinner-giver; also, by the way, a certain London Jew financier, who gave me a commission to go to and report on the Quito railroad. When travelling west from New York in the fall one is filled with admiration for the wonderful colour of the maple and other trees. Europe has nothing at all comparable. This wonderful display is alone worth crossing the Atlantic to see. I found that the past summer had been a record hot one for Texas. The thermometer went to 115° in the shade. Eggs were cooked (fried, it is to be supposed) on the side-walk, and popcorn popped in the stalks. In November I sailed from New Orleans for Yucatan to visit at Merida a Mexican friend, who turned out to be the King of Yucatan, as he was popularly called, he being an immense landed proprietor and practically monopolist of the henequin industry. Henequin, or Sisal hemp, is the fibre of _Agave Sisalensis_, a plant very like the _Agave Americana_, from which pulque is extracted. Thence round the corner, so to speak, to British Honduras, where we called in at Belize, whose trade is in mahogany and chicklee gum, combined with a deal of quiet smuggling done with the Central American States. Quite near Belize, among the innumerable islands and reefs, was the stronghold of the celebrated pirate Wallace (Scotchman). Many man-o'-war birds and pelicans were in the harbour. From Belize to Porto Barrios, the eastern terminus of the Guatemala railway. Here we are close to the scene of that wonderful and mysterious Central American prehistoric civilization, which has left for our antiquarians and learned men a life-work to decipher the still dumb symbols carved on its stupendous ruins. In Guatemala, and near this railway, are Copan and Quiriguá, and probably other still undiscovered dead cities. Some of these Guatemala structures show a quite extraordinary resemblance to those at Angkor in Cambodia. Mitla and Palenque are in Mexico and are equally remarkable. The latter is still difficult to get to. Here again (Palenque) the temple shows a strange similarity to that at Boro Budoer in Java. Was it Stamford Raffles who said that, as far as the expenditure of human labour and skill goes, the pyramids of Egypt sink into insignificance when compared with this sculptured temple of Boro Budoer. Chichen-Itza, Labna, Sayil and Uxmal are all in Yucatan and approached from Merida. How many more of such very wonderful ruins are still hidden in the dense jungle of these countries it will be many years yet before we may know. Some I have seen myself, and it is still my hope very soon to visit others. Among the wild animals of Yucatan and Honduras are the jaguar (_Felis onça_) with spots, ocellated or eyed; and the panther (_Felis concolor_) called puma in Arizona; the vaca de aqua or manatee, shaped like a small whale but with two paddles; the howling monkey, largest in America, and the spider monkey; the iguana, largest land lizard known to history, and alligators. Alligators are confined to the Western Hemisphere; crocodiles were supposed to be peculiar to the East, but lately a true crocodile (_Crocodilus Americanus_) has been identified in Florida. The alligator covers its eggs with a heap of rubbish for warmth and so leaves them; the African crocodile, on the contrary, buries them in the sand and then sits over them. The cardinal bird and the ocellated turkey must not be forgotten. Here may be found the leaf-cutting ants, which store the leaf particles in order to grow a fungus on, and which they are very particular shall be neither too damp nor too dry. Also another ant, the _Polyergus Rufescens_, a pure slave-hunter, absolutely dependent on its slaves for all the comforts of life and being even fed by them. In Honduras there are many Caribs, still a strong race of Indians, having a strict and severe criminal law of their own. They are employed mostly as mahogany cutters, and are energetic, intelligent and thoroughly reliable workmen. Puerto Cortez in Honduras has the finest harbour on the whole Atlantic coast of Central America. Note.--St Thomas is supposed to have visited and civilized the Central American Indians, as Quetzalcohuatl did in Mexico. On leaving New Orleans it had been my intention to enter Nicaragua and report to a certain New Orleans newspaper on the conditions in that most distressful country; said paper having commissioned me to do so. Entrance to the State could only be made from Guatemala, but that country's consul in New Orleans refused to issue the necessary passport. Had I gone as an Englishman, and not as an American, there might have been no difficulty. As said before, Central American States have a dread and suspicion of Yankees. This was at the time that two Yankee revolutionists had been shot by the President of Nicaragua. The next place of call was Limon, the port of Costa Rica. Every foot of land on these coasts, suitable for the growth of bananas, has been bought up by the great American Fruit Co., a company of enormous resources and great enterprise. Limon is a delightful little town from whence the railway runs to San José, the capital, which stands some 4000 feet above sea-level. Costa Rica is a peace-loving little state, prosperous, and enjoying a delightful climate. Much coffee and cocoa is grown, shaded by the Bois immortel or madre de Cacao. The live-stock industry is also a large one, and the animals seen on the high grassy plains are well grown and apparently well bred enough. I visited Cartago, a city which soon afterwards was destroyed by an earthquake. On the railroad trip up to and back from the capital we passed through lovely and romantic scenery, high hills, deep ravines and virgin tropical forest. The rainy season was at its height, and how it rained! The river was a raging torrent, and from the railway "cut" alongside continuous land-slides of loose gravelly soil were threatening the track with demolition. Indeed, at some points this had actually occurred, and the train several times had to be stopped to allow the gangs of workmen to clear the way. A bad slide, had it hit the train, would have pushed the whole thing into the deep and turbulent river. All the passengers were much alarmed, and I stood on the car platform ready to jump, though the jump would necessarily have been into the seething water. November 27th.--Colon once more! Went on to Panama. The Chagres River was in the highest state of flood known in twenty years. November 30th.--Sailed on steamship _Chile_ with about thirty passengers, all Spanish Americans, bound for Equador, Peru or Chile. December 3rd.--Reached the Equator, and I donned warmer clothes. We saw whales, sharks, porpoises, rays and thrashers. Entered the Guayaquil River. Here was where Pizarro first landed and obtained a footing. The steamer anchored in quarantine a mile below the city. Yellow fever was raging as usual, and the Quito railroad was blocked by the revolutionists, so my projected visit again for the second time fell through. Guayaquil has the highest permanent death-rate of all cities. The state produces much cocoa and mangrove wood. The town is the centre of the Panama hat trade, which hats are made of the sheaths of the unexpanded leaves of the jaraca palm, or of the long sheaths protecting the flower-cone of the hat palm (_taquilla_); and they can only be made in a favourable damp atmosphere. Here on the mangrove roots and submerged branches enormous quantities of oysters may be found. Oysters on trees at last! Belonging to Equador State are the Galapagos Islands, 500 miles westward. Of course we did not visit them, but they are remarkable for their giant tortoises and their wild cattle, donkeys and dogs. It is said that these dogs do not bark, having forgotten how to; but they develop the power after contact with domestic ones. The Guayaquil River swarms with alligators, but luckily the alligator never attacks man. We sailed south down the coast, calling at many ports. From Guayaquil south to Valparaiso, a distance of 2000 miles, we enjoyed bright, clear weather, a pleasant, sometimes an even too low temperature, and peaceful seas, a condition which the captain assured me was constant, the low temperature being due to the South Polar or Humboldt current. The absolute barren condition of this whole coast is also indirectly due to this current, the temperature of the sea being so much below that of the land that evaporation and condensation do not take place. After passing some guano islands on December 9th we landed at Callao, the port of Lima. Went on to Lima, a city founded by Pizarro, and once a very gay, luxurious and licentious capital. It is celebrated for its handsome churches. Its streets are narrow and the whole population seemingly devoted to peddling lottery tickets. There are many Chinamen amongst its 150,000 inhabitants. The Roman Catholics control the country, which is absolutely priest-ridden, Reformed or other churches not being permitted in Peru. A revolution was attempted only a few days ago, the President having been seized and dragged out of his office to be shot. The military, however, rescued him and the revolution was over in twenty-four hours. Peru's resources, outside of the very rich mining districts, will eventually be found in the Montaña country, on the lower eastern slopes of the Andes. Her people are backward, and, at least in Cuzco and Arequipa, I should say the dirtiest in the world. There is as yet little or no tourist traffic on this coast; and there will not be much till better steamers are put on and hotels improved. In Lima, however, the Hotel Maury is quite good, though purely Spanish. It never rains on this coast, yet Lima is foggy and cold. I took a trip up to Oroya over the wonderful Meiggs railway. M. Meiggs was an American, who had to leave his country on account of certain irregularities. We reached a height of 16,000 feet, the country being absolutely barren and devoid of vegetation, but very grand and imposing. December 16th.--Sailed from Callao for Mollendo, calling at Pisco. Here, close to the harbour, are wonderful guano islands, on two of which were dense solid masses of birds covering what seemed to be hundreds of acres of ground. How many millions or billions must there have been! And yet, it being the evening, millions more were flighting home to the islands. With glasses they could be seen in continuous files coming from all directions. These birds are principally cormorants and pelicans. There are also very many seals, and we saw some whales. These islands presented one of the most marvellous sights I ever saw. And what enormous, still undeveloped, fisheries there must be here to support this bird-life. To-day we also passed a field of "Red Sea," confervæ or infusoria. We were favoured for once with a grand view of the Andean peaks, which are seldom well seen from the coast, being wrapped in haze and clouds. [Illustration: LLAMAS AS PACK ANIMALS.] [Illustration: DRIFTING SAND DUNE. (One of thousands.)] Arrived at Mollendo, port of Arequipa and Bolivia, I at once took train and rose rapidly to an elevation of 8000 feet, arriving in the evening at Arequipa. The whole country is desolate in the extreme. On the high plains we passed through an immense field of moving sand-hills, all of crescent shape, the sand being white and of a very fine grain. On approaching Arequipa the sunset effect on the bright and vari-hued rock strata and scoriæ, backed by the grand Volcan Misti, 19,000 feet high, made a marvellously beautiful picture, the most beautiful of its kind ever seen by me, and showing how wonderfully coloured landscapes may be without the presence of vegetation of any kind. Hotels in Arequipa are very primitive, and after a glance at the market and its filthy people you will confine your table fare to eggs and English biscuits as I did. Arequipa has been thrice destroyed by earthquakes and is indeed considered the quakiest spot on earth. Priests, monks, ragged soldiers and churches almost compose the town; yet it has a very beautiful Plaza de Armas, where in the evenings Arequipa fashion promenades to the music of a quite good band. I seemed to be the only tourist here. On the 20th I took train to Juliaca, rising to 15,000 feet; thence two days to Cuzco, the celebrated southern capital of the Incas, whose history I will not here touch on. Not only are there abandoned Inca remains, but also in high Peru and Bolivia remains of structures erected, as it is now supposed, 5000 years ago. The pottery recently found would suggest this, it being as gracefully moulded and decorated as that of Egypt of the same period; authority even declaring it to be undistinguishable from the latter, and they also testify to evidence of an extremely high and cultivated civilization, not barbaric in any sense, in these remote periods. Indeed, the civilization of the country at that far-off time must have been quite as advanced as in the Nile Valley. Cyclopean walls and other remains show a marvellous skill in construction; individual blocks of granite-stone, measuring as much as fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, being placed in these walls with such skill that even to-day a pen-knife blade cannot be inserted between them. No mortar was used, but the blocks are keyed together in a peculiar way. How this stone was so skilfully cut and transported we cannot imagine; even with iron and all our modern appliances it is doubtful if we could produce such exactitude. [Illustration: PERUVIAN RUINS. (Note dimensions of stones and locking system)] At Puna one gets a good view of Lake Titicaca, still a large lake, but once of much greater dimensions. Sailing over and among the high peaks it was here my good fortune to view for the first time that majestic bird, the condor, which, it is declared, has never been seen to flap its wings. Thus in the South Seas I had been privileged to see the albatross, and here the condor. Lucky, indeed, to have viewed these monarchs of the air, free in their proper element, in all their pride, grace and beauty. How often, as a boy, or even as a man, has one anticipated "some day" seeing these noble birds in their native haunts! Also many llamas and alpacas, the former very handsome animals. The vicuñas and guanacos are the wild representatives of this family, and are also very abundant. In Arequipa I suffered somewhat from "nevada," due to electric conditions, and distinct from "saroche." Saroche never affected me. December 27th.--Sailed for Valparaiso, calling at Iquique, Antofagasta and Coquimbo. The coast country is so desolate and arid that at some of these purely nitrate towns school-children's knowledge of trees and other plants is derived solely from painted representations on boardings erected for the purpose. This may seem libellous, but is not so. We arrived at Valparaiso on New Year's Day. The city showed few signs of its late disaster. The harbour is poor, and the place has few attractions. Society was attending a race meeting at Viño del Mar. Went on to Santiago, the capital, 1500 feet elevation, population claimed 300,000; our route lying through rich, well-cultivated valleys. The climate and general appearance of the country are much like those of California, the temperature being quite hot at mid-day but cool always in the shade, the nights being chilly. This was midsummer. Santiago has some handsome buildings and a very attractive Plaza Mayor; the hotels are poor. The Chilians are an active, intelligent, wide-awake people; are great fighters and free from the religious trammels of Peru. From here I took train to Los Andes; then by narrow gauge line, the grade being 7 per cent. on the cog track, through barren rough gorges to the Cumbre, or summit, 13,000 feet high. The most commanding peak that we saw was Aconcagua, over 23,000 feet high, and the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere. At Lago del Inca, at the entrance to the incompleted tunnel, we left the train and took mules or carts to the summit, where is an immense, surprising and commanding figure of the Christ. On the Argentina side we again took train to Mendoza, an important town and centre of the fruit and wine country. Thence a straight run over the immense level pampas, now pastures grazed by innumerable cattle, sheep and horses, to Buenos Ayres. Many rheas (ostriches) were seen from the train. These birds, the hens, lay in each other's nests, and the male incubates--perhaps to save the time of the hens; which reminds one of the cuckoo, who mates often, and whose stay is so limited that she has no time to incubate. Yet she does not lay in nests, but on the ground, and the eggs are deposited by the male in the nests of birds whose eggs they most resemble, and only one in each. By-the-by, whilst in Santiago a quite severe quake occurred, but there were few casualties, only two people being killed. It was at night, and my bedroom being on the third floor of the only three-storey building in town, I continued to lie in bed, not indeed knowing what to do, and resigning myself to fate. I distinctly do not want to live in quaking countries! The sensation produced on one by an earthquake is peculiar and different from all others. One is not so much alarmed as overawed; one feels so helpless, so insignificant; you know you can do nothing. What may happen next at any moment is beyond your ken; only when you realize that the disturbance has actually shaken these immense mountain masses and these boundless plains do you appreciate the forces that have caused it. The Krakatoa outbreak raised the water in our Thames four inches. A great Peruvian earthquake sent a tidal wave into the Red Sea. Buenos Ayres is a city of some 1,200,000 people, half Italians (the working and go-ahead half) and half Spanish Americans. But there is also a very mixed population. There are many fine buildings and palatial residences, but the business streets are ridiculously narrow, save and except the Avenida de Mayo, which is one of the handsomest streets in the world. The new boulevards, the parks and race-tracks all deserve admiration. The hotels are not quite good enough--not even the palatial "Plaza." Prices, and indeed the cost of living, are quite as great as in New York. It was too hot to remain long, so I crossed to Montevideo, went all over the town; but beyond seeing (not meeting, alas!) one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw in my life, there was not much to interest. So, on the White Star Liner _Athenic_, I hastened to England. It may be remarked here that though Buenos Ayres and Santiago claim, and offer, wonderful displays of horsed carriages in their parks, if one watches them critically he will seldom see a really smart turn-out. The coachman's badly-made boots, or a strap out of place, or a buckle wanting, or blacking needed, all detract from the desirable London standard. January 24th.--We entered beautiful Rio harbour. In the town the temperature was unbearable. The city is in the same transformation condition as Buenos Ayres; the streets are narrow, except the very handsome new Avenida Central. The esplanade on the bay is quite unequalled anywhere else. Surely a great future awaits Rio! A trip up Corcovada, a needle-like peak, some 2000 feet high, overlooking the bay, should not be missed. We sailed again for Teneriffe to coal, which gave us an opportunity to admire the grand peak and get some idea of the nature of the country. Thence home. Perhaps a short note on the great historical personages of Central and South America may be of interest. Among these the greatest was Simon Bolivar, who with Miranda, the Apostle of Liberty, freed the Northern States of South America from Spanish dominion. It was Bolivar who in 1826 summoned the first International Peace Congress at Panama. San Martin, an equally great man, born in Argentina, freed the southern half of the Continent. Lopez, president in 1862 of Paraguay, has secured notoriety for having had the worst character in all American history. Petion, almost a pure negro, deserves also a prominent place. He was born in 1770, was a great, good and able man, and freed Haiti; he also assisted and advised Bolivar. May I also remind you here that Peru is the home of the Peruvian bark tree (cinchona) and the equally valuable coca plant, which gives us cocaine. Paraguay is the country of the yerba-mate, universally drunk there, supplanting tea, coffee, cocoa and coca. Like coca it has very stimulating qualities. El Dorado, the much-sought-for and fabulous, was vouched for by Juan Martinez, the chief of liars, who located it somewhere up the Orinoco River. The Spaniards, and also the Portuguese, were wonderful colonizers and administrators. Just think what enormous territories their civilization influenced, and influenced for good. Certainly the torch of the Inquisition accompanied them; but even under that dreadful blight their colonies prospered and the conquered races became Iberianized, such was their masters' power of impressing their language, religion and manners on even barbarous tribes. CHAPTER XIV FIFTH TOUR ABROAD California--Honolulu--Japan--China--Singapore--Burmah --India--Ceylon--The End. I hope these hasty notes, so hurriedly and scantily given, may have interested my readers enough to secure their company for one more globe-trot, which shall be rushed through in order to bring these reminiscences to a close. A momentous event of 1910 was the death of King Edward VII., which threw everybody into deep mourning; and it seemed to me Englishwomen never looked so well as when dressed in black. In the autumn I started for New York and Amarillo. Never before was I so impressed with the growth and improvement and possibilities of New York city, soon to be the most populous, wealthiest and greatest city the world has ever seen. The incomparable beauty of the American woods and forests in the fall again attracted me and afforded much pleasure. From Amarillo I went on to San Francisco, stopping off to have yet one more sight of the Grand Cañon of the Colorado River. San Francisco was now almost completely restored, and much on the old plan. Her Knob-hill palaces are gone, but her hotels are better and more palatial than ever. November 22nd.--Sailed on a Japanese steamer for Yokohama, via Honolulu. These Japanese steamers are first-class, and noted for cleanliness and the politeness of the entire ship's company. We coaled at Honolulu and then proceeded. On approaching Yokohama we got a fine view of Fuji-San, the great national volcano, as it may be called, its perfect cone rising sheer from the low plain to a height of 12,700 feet. Fuji is at present quiescent; but Japan has some active volcanoes, and earthquakes are very frequent. My visit was at the least favourable time of the year, viz., in winter. The country should be seen in spring, during the cherry-blossom season, or in the autumn, when the tree foliage is almost more beautiful. From Yokohama I went on to Tokio, formerly Jeddo, and now the capital. It is a large and busy city with some fine Government modern buildings. The palace, parks and temples form the sights. In the city proper as in all Japanese towns, the streets are very narrow and crowded with rickshaws, the only means of passenger conveyance. At the Anglo-Japanese dinner, given at my hotel, I had an opportunity of seeing Japanese men and women in full-dress attire, and to notice the extreme formalities of their greetings. A Japanese gentleman bows once, then again, and, as if he had forgotten something, after a short interval a third time. From Tokio I went to Kioto, formerly the residence of the Mikado, now purely a native city, with no modern buildings and still narrower streets; but it is the centre of the cloisonné, damascening and embroidery industries. Hotels in Japan are everywhere quite good. Here I visited the fencing and jiu-jitsu schools, which are attended by a large number of pupils, women as well as men. Also the geisha school, and saw girls taught dancing, music and tea ceremony. What perfectly delightful and charming little ladies Japanese girls of apparently all classes are. The smile of the geisha girl may be professional, but is very seductive and penetrating; so that the mere European man is soon a willing worshipper. The plump little waitresses in hotels and tea-houses, charmingly costumed, smiling as only they can smile, are incomparable. The Japanese, too, are the cleanest of all nations; the Chinese and Koreans among the dirtiest. They are extremely courteous as well as polite. A drunken man is hardly ever seen in Japan, a woman never. An angry word is hardly ever heard; indeed, the language has no "swear" words. All the people are artistic, even æsthetic. Arthur Diosy in his book declares that the Japanese are the most cheerful, peaceable, law-abiding and kindliest of all peoples. Up till the "Great Change," 1871, trade was considered unsuitable for, and degrading to, a gentleman. Women here, by-the-by, shave or have shaven the whole face, including the nose and ears, though not the eyebrows. How these Japs worship the beauties of Nature! Few of us might see much beauty in a purple cabbage; yet in my hotel purple cabbages were put in prominent places to decorate the dining-hall, and were really quite effective. From Kioto I went to Nara, once the capital of the Empire, a pretty place with large park and interesting museum. A great religious festival was on, including a procession of men in ancient armour and costumes. There was also some horse-racing, which was quite comical. Apparently no European but myself was present. On travelling to Nara I passed through the tea district of Oji. The gardens are very beautiful and carefully tended. It was a great treat to me this first opportunity to see something of Japanese peasant life, and to admire the intensive and thorough cultivation. Not a foot of productive soil is wasted. The landscape of rice-fields, succeeded by tea-gardens, bamboo groves, up to the forest or brush-clad hills, and the very picturesque villages and farmhouses and rustic temples, form many a delightful picture. In the growing season the whole country must be very beautiful. Excellent trout and salmon fishing may then be had. The adopted national game for youths seems to be base-ball, and not cricket as in China. Next I went to Kobe, via Osaka, the great manufacturing centre of the Empire. At Kobe took another Japanese steamer for Shanghai, calling at Moji, Shimonoseki and Nagasaki, and traversing the wonderfully beautiful inland Sea of Japan, a magnified, and quite as beautiful, Loch Lomond. This sea was dotted with innumerable fishing-boats. Indeed, Japan's sea-fisheries must be one of her most valuable assets. Moji harbour is a beautiful one, has an inlet and an outlet, but appears land-locked. On the mainland side is Shimonoseki, where Li Hung Chang signed the Peace Treaty with Japan, and where he was later wounded by an assassin. Nagasaki has also a fine harbour. From here I took a rickshaw ride over the hills to a lovely little summer coast-resort, passing through a most picturesque country. Japan has, among many others, one particular curiosity in the shape of a domestic cock, possessing a tail as much as fifteen feet in length, and which tail receives its owner's, or rather its owner's owner's, most careful consideration. The unfortunate bird is kept in a very small wicker cage, so small that he can't turn round, the long tail feathers escaping through an aperture and drooping to the ground. Once a day the bird is taken out and allowed to exercise for a short time on a spotlessly clean floor-mat. While in Japan I was told that her modern cultured men are satisfied with a simple work-a-day system of Ethics, priestly guidance being unnecessary, and they regard religion as being for the ignorant, superstitious or thoughtless. Thus they "emancipate their consciences from the conventional bonds of traditional religions." It has been remarked that the Japanese will probably never again be such heroes, or at least will never be such reckless, fanatical fighters as they were in the late war, as civilization and property rights will make life more worth living and therefore preserving. The same might apply to the Fuzzy Wuzzies, to Cromwell's Ironsides, and to some extent our own Highlanders and others of a like fanatical tendency. It had been my intention and hope to visit Korea, Port Arthur, Mukden and Peking; but was advised very strongly, on account of the extreme cold and almost Arctic conditions said to be prevailing in North China, not to go there. But at Shanghai I had better information, contradicting these reports and describing the weather as delightful at the capital. Shanghai has an immense river and ocean trade, and in the waterway are swung river gun-boats of all nations, as well as queer-looking Chinese armed junks, used in putting down piracy. I visited the city club, the country club, and the racecourse, and took a stroll at night through Soochow Road, among the native tea-houses, theatres, etc. Someone advised me to visit a town up the river on a certain day to witness the execution of some dozen river pirates and other criminals, a common occurrence; but such an attraction did not appeal to me. In China, as in Japan and other countries, the German, often gross, selfish and vulgar, is ever present. But he is resourceful and determined, and threatens to push the placid Englishman to the wall. Though the practice is not now permitted, Chinese women's bound and deformed feet are still to the stranger a constant source of wonder. It is said the custom arose in the desire of Court ladies to emulate the very tiny feet of a certain royal princess; but it is also suggested that the custom was instituted to stop the female gadding-about propensity! Here in Shanghai I first observed edible swallow-nests in the market for sale. They did not look nice, but why should they not be so, knowing as we do that the young of swallows, unlike those of other birds, vent their ordure over the sides, so that the nests are not in any way defiled. Here I also learned that Pidgin, as in the expression "Pidgin" English, is John's attempt to pronounce "business." From Shanghai to Soochow city, a typical Chinese walled town, still quite unmodernized, and no doubt the same as it was 2000 years ago. Tourists seldom enter it, and no European dwells within its walls, inside of which are crowded and jammed 500,000 souls. The main street was not more than six to eight _feet_ wide, and so filled with such a jostling, busy crowd of people as surely could not be seen anywhere else on earth. Even rickshaws are not allowed to enter, there being no room for them. Progress can only be made on a donkey, and then with much shouting and discomfort. What a busy people the Chinese are! Some day they may people the earth. They seem to be even more intelligent than the Japanese, more honest and more industrious; and have an almost lovable disposition. And what giants they are compared to their neighbours!--the men from the north being especially so. I also went by narrow and vile-smelling streets to visit a celebrated leaning pagoda near Soochow, and on returning took the opportunity offered of inspecting with much interest a mandarin's rock-garden, purely Chinese and entirely different from Japanese similar retreats. In Shanghai I visited the original tea-house depicted on the well-known willow-pattern china ware. January 1st.--Arrived at Hong-Kong and admired its splendid harbour and surroundings. This is one of the greatest seaports in the world, with an enormous trade. The whole island belongs to Great Britain; unlike Shanghai, where different nationalities merely have concessions. In the famous Happy Valley I had several days' golfing with a naval friend, and we played very badly. A trip up the river to Canton, the southern capital of China, an immense city with 2,000,000 population, was full of interest. Half the population seemingly live in boats. What indefatigable workers the Chinese are. They seem to work all night and they seem to work all day. They are busy as ants. If one cannot find employment otherwise he will make it! Barring the beggars, there are no unemployed and no unemployables. What a mighty force they must become in the world's economy. We estimate China's population by millions, but forget to properly scale their energy and industry. What is the future of such a people to be! Yet they seem to be incapable of any general national movement: each is absorbed in his immediate work and contented to be so; so unlike the Japanese, with equal energy and industry, plus boundless ambition and patriotism.[4] [Footnote 4: Appendix, Note I.] The Chinaman's pigtail calls for explanation. The Manchus, on conquering China in 1644, decreed that all Chinese should shave the rest of the head but wear the pigtail. The Chinese would not submit to this; so the politic Manchu emperor further decreed that only loyal subjects might adopt the custom, criminals to be debarred. This ruse was so successful that now the Chinaman is even proud of his adornment, and little advantage is being taken of a recent relaxation of the decree. Sailing for Singapore I was blessed with a cabin all to myself, and what a blessing it is! In all my travels I have been singularly fortunate in securing privacy in this way. There is not much to interest in Singapore. It is one of the hottest places on earth, the same in winter and summer, purely tropical. It has, however, fine parks, streets and open places. The principal hotel is the "Raffles," which I should imagine is also the worst. The most notable feature of Singapore is the variety of "natives" domiciled there--Ceylonese, Burmese, Chinese, Japanese, Siamese, Hindoos and Malays. After leaving Singapore we looked in at Penang, where we had time to inspect a famous Chinese temple. An American Army General, D----, and his wife were among the passengers, and I found much pleasure in their company; indeed, we travelled thereafter much together in Burmah and India. Rangoon, where we arrived next, is a large, well-laid-out city, as cosmopolitan as Singapore. The bazaars are well worth visiting, and the working of elephants in the great teak yards is one of the tourist's principal sights. But the great Shwe Dagon pagoda is of course the centre of interest, and indeed it is one of the most astonishing places of worship it has been my fortune to visit. The pagoda itself is of the typical bell shape, solidly built of brick, gilded from base to summit, and crowned with a golden Ti. The shrines, too, which surround and jostle it, hold the attention and wonder of the visitor. There are very many of these, mostly of graceful design, with delicate and intricate wood carvings and other decorations. The pagoda is the most venerated of all Buddhist places of worship, containing as it does not only the eight sacred hairs of Gautama, but also relics of the three Buddhas who preceded him. It is also from its great height, 370 feet (higher than St Paul's Cathedral), and graceful shape, extremely imposing and sublime. From Rangoon I trained to Mandalay, on the Irawadi River, not a large town, but rich in historical associations, and famous for its Buddhist pagodas, such as The Incomparable and the Arakan; also the Queen's Golden Monastery. King Theebaw's palace remains much as it was, and well worth examination. The population here is almost purely Burmese; in fact you see the Burmese at their best, and the impression is always favourable. What brilliant but beautiful colours they affect in their head-clothes, jackets and silken gowns. They are a cheerful, light-hearted and good-natured people, lazy perhaps, but all apparently well enough to do. The boys and the young men play the national game of football, the ball, made simply of lightly-plaited bamboo strips, being kicked and tossed into the air with wonderful skill and activity, never being allowed to touch the ground. The way they can "take" the ball from behind, and with the heel or side of the foot toss it upwards and forwards, would be a revelation even to the Newcastle United. The women and girls have utmost freedom and are to be seen everywhere, often smoking enormous cigarettes: merry and careless, but always well, and often charmingly, dressed. A fine view, and good idea, of the great Irawadi River may be obtained from Mandalay; but time was pressing, so I railed back to Rangoon instead of making the river trip, which my friends, the D----s, did. The steamer to Calcutta was unusually crowded, but I was again fortunate enough to secure the use of the pilot's cabin all to myself. The Hugli River was familiar even after thirty-four years' absence, and in Calcutta I noticed little change. The hotels, including the Grand and Continental, are quite unworthy of the city, only the very old and well-known Great Eastern approaching the first-class character. Calcutta was getting hot, so I at once went on to Darjeeling, hoping to get a view of what my eyes had ever longed to see--the glorious high peaks of the Himalayas, and the roof of the world. After a few hours' run through the celebrated Terai jungle, the haunt, and probably final sanctuary, of the big game of India, the track ascends rapidly and picturesquely through the tea district of Kangra, and arrives at Darjeeling, elevation 7500 feet, the summer home of the Bengal Government and the merchant princes of Calcutta and elsewhere. I had been forewarned that the chances of seeing the high peaks at this time of the year were extremely slim; but my experience and disappointment in connection with Korea and Peking taught me to disregard such warnings; and, as it turned out, I was rewarded with a perfect day and magnificent views of Mounts Kinchinjunga and Everest, and all the other majestic heights; seen, too, in all their phases of cloud and mist, of perfectly clear blue sky, and of sunrise and sunset effects. It was indeed a most satisfying and absorbing twenty-four hours' visit, as I had also time, under the guidance of an official friend, to visit the picturesque weekly market or bazaar, where natives from Sikkim, Nepal, Butan and Tibet may be seen in all their dirt and strangeness. Also the quite beautiful Botanic Gardens, the Club House, the prayer-wheels, etc. More than that, I was privileged to pay my respects to the Dalai Lama, who had but recently left his kingdom and taken refuge here. The acknowledged spiritual head of the Buddhists of Mongolia and China is a young man with a dreamy, absorbed expression of countenance, perhaps not of much intellectuality, but who is approachable even to the merely curious. My friend and kind cicerone was Commissioner of the Bengal police, and was extremely busy laying guards along the railroad and taking all other necessary precautions for the safety of the German Imperial Crown Prince during his projected visit to Darjeeling, a visit ultimately abandoned. I can imagine his chagrin at the waste of all his labours, expense to the Indian Government, etc. etc., due to the caprice of this apparently frivolous and not quite courteous young hopeful. Indeed, the Crown Prince, though a popular young fellow enough, was the source of trouble and tribulation to his hosts, breaking conventions and scandalizing Society by his disregard of its usages. Returning to Calcutta I thence took train to Agra via Allahabad, purposely, on account of the great discomfort and poor hotel accommodation due to the large tourist traffic, avoiding Lucknow, Benares and Cawnpore. At Allahabad the Aga Khan, temporal head of the Mohammedans of India, and a man of great authority and influence, joined our train, and part of the way I was lucky enough to be in his company and had an opportunity of speaking with him. In appearance he is a Turk, quite European in dress, and seems capable, energetic, sociable and agreeable. At every stopping-place he received an ovation, crowds of his Mussulman supporters and friends, among them apparently being chiefs and rajahs and other men of high degree, greeting him with much enthusiasm, which enthusiasm I learned was aroused by His Highness' endeavour towards the raising of the status of the Mohammedan College of Aligarh to that of a university. I should say here that, on Indian railways, the first-class carriages are divided into compartments, containing each four beds, but in which it is customary to put only two passengers, at least during sleeping hours, and unless an unusual crowd requires otherwise. It was also on this train I made the acquaintance of a gentleman on his way to visit the Maharaja of Gwalior, and who was kind enough to ask me to accompany him. I told him that if he would secure me an invitation from the Maharaja I would be only too pleased to do so. Gwalior was a place on my itinerary anyway; to go there as a guest would secure me many advantages not attainable by the ordinary tourist. My friend said he would see the Maharaja at once and have my visit arranged for. A few days afterwards I received advice that it had been done, so on arrival at Gwalior I was met by one of the State carriages and conveyed to the Guest House, formerly the zenana, close to the palace, a very beautiful and handsome building, where an excellent staff of servants, capital meals, choice liquors and cigars, were at our free disposal. His Highness does not eat with his guests, but they are all put up in this building; and during big shoots, durbars, or festive occasions, the house is always full. At the time of my visit the few guests included two Scotch manufacturers, who had just effected large sales of machinery to the Maharaja, the one securing from him an order worth £60,000 for steam-breaking ploughs, the other an order of some £20,000 for pumping appliances. The Maharaja is a thoroughly progressive man, has an enormous revenue, and devotes a large part of it to the bringing into cultivation tracts of hitherto unbroken and unoccupied land, which no doubt will eventually increase his revenue and provide homesteads for his people. Sindia, as his name is, is a keen soldier, a keen sportsman, and most loyal to the British Raj. He moves about freely, wearing a rough tweed suit, is busy and occupied all day long, and though he has ministers and officials of all degrees, and keeps great state on occasion, his army numbering some 5000 men, he finds time to superintend the various departments of his Government, and to administer his State with a thoroughness uncommon among Indian potentates. The new palace is very beautiful and furnished in European manner, apparently quite regardless of expense. The crystal chandeliers in the reception-rooms are magnificent, and must alone represent fabulous sums. Near by the palace are a number of lions, now kept in proper cages, but I must say from the smell and filth not under very sanitary conditions. These lions he had imported from abroad and turned loose to furnish sport to his shooting friends; but they killed so many of the peasantry that they had to be recaptured and confined. The town of Lashkar, the State capital city, being reported full of plague, I was naturally careful in passing through. Nothing in it calls for comment, however. Gwalior Fort, on a high rocky plateau, has much historic interest. In it are the ancient palaces, still in fair condition but long ago abandoned, certain Jain temples covered with bas-relief carvings, tanks and many old ruins. The entrance is handsome and impressive. My friend and myself were supplied with an elephant, so we rode all over the immense fort, now almost silent, having only a small guard and a few other occupants. Altogether I enjoyed the visit very much, and after three or four days' stay returned to Agra. Everyone knows Agra, with its heavenly Taj-Mahal, its great fortress, its pearl mosque, its beautiful halls of audience and its palaces. It is truly sad to know that one of our former Governor-Generals actually proposed to tear down the Taj-Mahal so that he could use the marble for other purposes! Among these delights of architecture one could wander for days, ever with an unquenched greed for the charm of their beauties. One sees marbled trellis-work of exquisite design and execution, and inlaid flower wreaths and scrolls of red cornelian and precious stone, as beautiful in colour as graceful in form. Agra's cantonment avenues and parks are kept in excellent order. The temperature at the time of my visit was delightfully cool, and the hotel the best I had yet found in India. Fatepur Sikri, a royal city built by Akbar, only to be abandoned by him again, is near Agra, and possesses enough deserted palaces, mosques and other beautiful buildings to make it well worth a visit. There is, for instance, the great mosque, rival to the Taj-Mahal, the inside of which is entirely overlaid with mother-of-pearl. From Agra I went to Delhi, India's imperial city. In and around it are innumerable palaces, mosques, tombs and forts, each and all worthy of careful inspection; but I will only mention the Jama Musjid; inside the fort the Diwan-i-Am, wherein formerly stood the famous peacock throne; and the Diwan-i-Kas, at either end of which, over the outer arches, is the famous Persian inscription, "If Heaven can be on the face of the earth it is this! Oh, it is this! Oh, it is this!" In the city itself is the famous street called Chandni Chauk. North of the city is a district where the principal incidents of the siege took place, and there also is the plain devoted to imperial durbars and assemblages. South of the city are many celebrated tombs, such as those of Emperor Humayun, and of Tughlak; and the majestic Kutab Minar. Mutiny recollections of course enormously add to one's interest in Delhi, and many days may be agreeably passed in company with her other historic, tragic and romantic associations. At the time of my visit preparations were already beginning for the great Coronation Durbar to be held next winter. Most hotels and private houses have already been leased. What the general public will do for accommodation I do not know. One will almost necessarily, like the King, have to go under canvas. The Circuit House will only be used by His Majesty should bad weather prevail. The native rulers of every grade are going to make such a display of Oriental magnificence as was never seen before. To many it will be their ruin, or at least a serious crippling of their resources; but it is a chance for display that does not often occur and they seem determined to make the most of it. Here at Delhi the General and myself again joined forces, he and his wife having visited Lucknow and Cawnpore. We took train direct to Peshawar, via Rawal Pindi and Lahore. I never knew anyone who enjoyed foreign travel so much as my American friend. He was in a constant state of delight, finding interest and pleasure in small matters that never even attracted my attention, though as a rule my faculty for observation is by no means obtuse. In Burmah the bright-hued cupras of the natives filled him with intense joy, and the presence of some closely-screened native ladies on a ferryboat so held his gaze that his wife (and I suspect they were not long married) must have felt pangs of jealousy. But he was a keen soldier, and had frequently represented his country at the German and other manoeuvres, and had been Adjutant-General at the inauguration of President Roosevelt, a very honourable position indeed. So he was intensely interested in old forts and battlefields, and his enthusiasm while in Peshawar and the Khaiber Pass was boundless. More than that he was a strong Anglo-Phile, and amused me by his disparaging criticism on how his own Government did things in the Philippines and elsewhere, compared with what he saw in India and other British possessions. Peshawar is a very delightful place, or so at least it appeared to me. We lodged in a capital though small hotel. The climate was then very agreeable; the cantonment gardens and avenues are a paradise of beauty, at least compared with the surrounding dry and semi-barren country. In the native city one mixed with new races of people, Afghans and Asians, and picturesque and fierce-looking tribesmen from the hills. Also an immense number of camels, the only means of traffic communication with western and northern native states. But before arriving at Peshawar one must not forget to mention the magnificent view obtained from the car windows of the glorious range of Cashmere Snowy Mountains, showing peaks of 20,000 to 25,000 feet elevation; nor the crossing by a fortified railway bridge of the historic Indus River, near Attock, at the very spot where the Greek Alexander entered India on his campaign of conquest A mile above this point the Kabul River joins the Indus. Here too is a romantic-looking town and fortress built by the Emperor Akbar, still unimpaired and in occupation by British troops. The approaches to the bridge and fort are strongly guarded, emplacements for guns being noticeable at every vantage point on the surrounding hills, while ancient round towers and other fortifications tell of the troublous times and martial deeds this important position has been witness to. For our visit to the Khaiber Pass General Nixon, Commandant at Peshawar, put a carriage at our disposal, in which we drove as far as Jamrud, the isolated fort so often pictured in our illustrated papers, where we exchanged into tongas, in which to complete the journey through the pass as far as Ali Musjid. The pass is now patrolled by the Afridi Rifles, a corps composed of Afridi tribesmen commanded by British officers. At frequent intervals along the route these Afridi sentinels can be seen standing on silent guard on all commanding points of the hills. One sees numerous Afridi hamlets, though what the occupants find to support themselves with it is difficult to understand. A good carriage road continues all the way, in places steep enough and tortuous, as the rough broken nature of the country necessitates. By another road or trail, paralleling our own, a continuous string of camel caravans proceeds in single file at a leisurely gait, the animals loaded with merchandise for the Kabul market and others in Central Asia. It is a rough, desolate and uninteresting country, yet grand and beautiful in its way, and one is at once struck with the difficulties to be encountered by troops endeavouring to force their way through, commanded as the pass is at every turn by positions so admirably suited for guerrilla warfare and delightful possibilities for an enemy with sniping propensities. At Ali Musjid the camel and carriage tracks come together. Here at this little mosque was the point beyond which we were not allowed to proceed; so after a most interesting visit we returned to Peshawar. We were most fortunate in the weather, as the strong wind which always blows down the pass is in winter time generally excessively cold. At Peshawar I bade good-bye to my most agreeable American friends, the General being keen on visiting Quetta; whither, had it not been so much out of my own proposed line of travel, I would gladly have accompanied him. So my next move was back to Delhi, and thence by train via Jeypore to Udaipur, one of the most delightfully picturesque and interesting of all Indian native capitals. There is a tiny little hotel at Udaipur, outside the walls, showing that visiting tourists are few and far between. The Maharana holds by his old and established customs, and has none of the modern spirit shown by such princes as Sindia, the Nizam, and certain other native chiefs. He has, however, gone so far as to furnish his new palace in a most gorgeous manner, the chairs, tables, mirror frames, bedsteads seen in the State apartments being composed of crystal glass. The show attraction of the palace, in the eyes of the attendants, who were ever at one's beck and call, was a Teddy dog with wagging head, which miracle of miracles one seemed to be expected to properly marvel at. The old palace, adjoining the new, is a much finer building, being mostly of marble, and is purely Oriental in its stairways, doorways, closets, balconies and delightful roof-gardens, as one's preconceived notions expect an Eastern potentate's palace to be. The new palace showed no sign of occupancy, and I imagined the Maharana, then absent, really favours the older building, and small blame to him! Around in various places the State elephants are stabled, or rather chained, in the open air, and looked after by their numerous attendants. In the grand court in front were several of these animals, and a myriad of pigeons, protected by their sanctity, flew about in clouds, or perched on the projections of the palace walls. From a boat on the large and lovely lake, on whose very edge the commanding palace stands, a beautiful view is obtained. On islands in the lake two delightful little summer palaces are built, of white marble and luxuriously furnished within. Elephants were bathing themselves at the water's edge, and the roar of caged lions was heard from the neighbouring royal garden. Pea-fowl perched on the marble colonnade, and pigeons were circling and sailing in the glorious sunshine. What a sight! especially when evening drew in, and the setting sun lighted up the graceful cupolas and domes, and threw shadows round the towers and battlements, the whole reflected in the glassy surface of the water. At one place near by the wild pigs approached to be fed and some grand old fellows may be seen amongst them. [Illustration: PALACE OF MAJARANA OF UDAIPUR.] It is still the custom of nearly all men here above the rank of coolie to carry swords or other weapons. For are these Rajputs not of a proud and warlike race, as may be seen by their bearing; and is not their Maharana of the longest lineage in India, and the highest in rank of all the Rajput princes? A few miles from the capital is Chitorgarh. Here I saw the wonderful old fortress, with its noble entrance gate, and the ancient town of Chitor, once the capital of Mewar. Also the two imposing towers of Fame and Victory. Throughout the state one is struck by the great number of wild pea-fowl picking their way through the stubble just as pheasants do. The flesh of pea-fowl, which I have tasted, is excellent eating, surpassing that of the pheasant. One also sees numbers of a large grey, long-tailed monkey, which seem to preferably attach themselves to old and ruined temples or tombs. From here, Chitorgarh, I next took train to Bombay, passing through Rutlam, a great poppy-producing centre. At Baroda I received into my compartment the brother of the late Gaikwar (uncle of the present?). It had often occurred to me before to wonder how the high-class natives travel on the railways. Never had I yet seen a native enter a first-class compartment where there happened to be any Europeans. In this instance, at Baroda, I had noticed a man, apparently of consequence, judging by his attendants, evidently wanting to travel by this train. Soon one of the party approached, and almost humbly, it seemed more than politely, asked if I would have no objection to the company of the brother of the Gaikwar. Of course I said I could have no objection, and so we travelled together to Bombay. But what is the feeling between the two races that keeps them thus apart? Bombay surprised me more by the delightfully cold breeze then blowing than by anything else. I took a drive over Malabar Hill and saw the Parsee Towers of Silence, as they are popularly called. The immense Taj Hotel, where I stayed one night, by no means justifies its pretensions. Indeed, it is one of the poorest or worst in all India. Next day I started out for Hyderabad, and had a long, hot, slow twenty-four hours' journey; the principal crop noticed being to me the familiar Kafir corn. Yes, it was very hot and dusty. As usual, the train was packed with natives, but myself seemed to be the only European on board. Arrived at Hyderabad, I at once drove over to Secunderabad, a very large British cantonment and station. From here, missing the friends I had come to see, and there being nothing to specially interest otherwise, I again took train to Madras. A letter of introduction in my pocket to the Nizam's Prime Minister might have been useful in seeing the city had I presented it, but pressure of time induced me to push on; nor did I stop in Madras longer than to allow of a drive round the city, the heat being very great. Indeed, I was getting very tired of such hurried travel and sight-seeing, and was longing for a week's rest and quietude in the cool and pleasant highlands of Ceylon. My health also was now giving me some concern; so on again to Madura, _en route_ to Tuticorin, from whence a steamer would take me across to the land of spicy breezes. Madura has a wonderful old temple of immense size, surrounded by gopuras of pyramidal form, in whose construction huge stones of enormous dimensions were utilized; the temple also has much fine carving, etc. The old palace is of great beauty and interest. Colombo was, as usual, uncomfortably warm; only on the seashore at Galle Face could one get relief, and Galle Face with its excellent hotel is certainly a very delightful place. I did not stay in Colombo, but at once took train to visit Anauradapura and the dead cities of Ceylon. Here was the heart of a district ten miles in diameter, practically covered by the site and remains of the ancient city, which in its prime, about the beginning of the Christian era, ranked with Babylon and Nineveh in its dimensions, population and magnificence. Its walls included an area of 260 square miles. Among its ruins the most notable are the dagobas (pagodas), some of such enormous size that the number of bricks used in their construction baffles conception. One of the dagobas has a diameter of 327 feet and a height of 270. It is solidly built of bricks, and contains material enough to build a complete modern town of 50,000 people. These Buddhist dagobas of Ceylon have the bell-shape form, and serve the same purpose as the Shwe Dagon in Rangoon, viz., to shelter relics of the Buddhas. Close by, within the walls of a Buddhist temple, or monastery, still grows the famous Bo or Pipal tree, the oldest living historical tree in the world, brought here 250 B.C. from Buddh Gaya in India. Only a fragment of the original main trunk now exists, the various offshoots growing vigorously in the surrounding compound, all still guarded and attended by the priests as lovingly as when done 2200 years ago. At Anauradapura is a quite charming little Rest House, shaded and surrounded by beautiful tropical trees of great variety. From here I went to Kandy, the former capital of the native kings of that name. In the fourteenth century a temple was erected here to contain a tooth of Buddha and other relics. Later, the temple was sacked and the sacred tooth destroyed, but another to which was given similar attributes was put in its place. Kandy is a pretty spot, with a good hotel and agreeable climate, its elevation being 1800 feet above sea-level. Near by is Paradenia and the beautiful Botanical Gardens, in which it is a perfect delight to wander. We had already passed through a most lovely and picturesque country; but the grandest and most impressive scenery of Ceylon lies between Kandy and Newara Elia. Tea-gardens extend everywhere, and the cosy, neat-looking bungalows of the planters have a most attractive appearance. Newara Elia stands very high, some 7000 feet. Its vegetation is that of a temperate climate, and in the winter months the climate itself is ideal. The bracing atmosphere suggests golf and all other kinds of sport, and golfing there is of the very best kind. There is an excellent hotel, though I myself put up at the Hill Club. All Ceylon is beautiful, the roads are good, and many delightful excursions can be made. I do not think I ever saw a more beautiful country. But the sailing date draws near, so I must hurry down again to Colombo, and thus practically complete my second tour round the world. A P. & O. steamer brought us to Aden, the canal, Messina and Marseilles. We enjoyed lovely cool and calm weather all the way till near the end, when off the "balmy" coast of the Riviera we encountered bitter cold winds and stormy seas. And so through France to England, to the best country of them all, even though it be the land of coined currency bearing no testimony to its value; where registered letters may be receipted for by others than the addressee; and where butcher meat is freely exposed in the shops, and even outside, to all the filth that flies--my last fling at the dear old country. Someone has asked me which was the most beautiful place I had ever seen? It was impossible to answer. The whole world is beautiful! The barren desert, the boundless ocean, the mountain region and the flat country, even these monotonous Staked Plains of New Mexico, under storm or sunshine, all equally compel us to admiration and wonderment. In closing this somewhat higgledy-piggledy narrative, let me once more express my hope that readers will have found in it some entertainment, perhaps instruction, and possibly amusement. APPENDIX _Note I._--An outcry against Mormonism has been raised lately in this country. It is its polygamous character that has been attacked. But does polygamy deserve all that is said about it? It is not immoral and should not be criminal. Compare it with the very vicious modern custom of restricted families, which is immoral and should be criminal. Where is our population going to come from? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians and negroes are swarming all over the earth; while our race is almost stagnant, yet owning and claiming continents and islands practically unpeopled. Some day, possibly, polygamy will have to be permitted, even by the most civilized of nations. _Note II._--In this present year there is much writing and much talking about arbitration treaties and preferential tariffs. A general arbitration on _all_ matters between the United States and Great Britain is probably quite impracticable. Preferential tariff within the Empire would be highly advantageous to the Mother Country. If so, let us go for it while the opportunity offers. But it does seem to me there is a much-mistaken idea prevalent at home as to the loyalty of the Colonies and Dominions. One travels for information and should be allowed to give his conclusions. What holds these offshoots to the mother stem? Loyalty? I think not. Simply the realization that they are not (not yet) strong enough to stand alone: and it is the opinion of many that, as soon as they are, loyalty will be thrown to the winds; and naturally! (Since the above was written has it not been abundantly verified?) There is also even a belief (the wish being father to the thought) that the United States of America have a sentimental feeling for the Old Country; and one frequently hears the platform or banquet stock phrase, "Blood is thicker than water." It would be well if our people were enlightened with the truth. After twenty-five years' residence in the United States I will dare to say that the two nations are entirely foreign and antagonistic one to another. And it is a fortunate thing that between them few "Questions" remain to be arbitrated either by pen or sword. The two peoples do not understand one another, and do not try to. The ordinary English traveller does not meet or mix with the real American people, who are rapidly developing a civilization entirely their own, in social customs, in civil government, and even in fashions of dress. _Note III._--Might a just comparison not be drawn between these "dogies" and the type of men we now recruit for our standing Army? Are they not dogies? Is it not a fact that many of them never had a square meal in their lives! At least they look like it. But when taken up, if not while yet babies at least when they are still at a critical age of development, say eighteen years, and fed substantially and satisfyingly, as is now done in the Army, what an almost miraculous physical change takes place! And not only physical, but mental and moral, due to the influence of discipline and athletic exercises. If such be the effect on our few annual recruits, why not submit the whole young manhood of the nation to such beneficial conditions by the introduction of compulsory national military service? And not only that! Is not the private soldier of this country, alone of all others, refused admission to certain places of entertainment open to the public? Why? Because he is a hireling. Because no man of character or independence will adopt such a calling. He would degrade himself by doing so. But make the service compulsory to all men, and at once the calling becomes an honourable one. Can it be imagined for a moment that any of our raw recruits enter the service from a love for King and country? No; they sell their birthright for a red coat and a pittance, renounce their independence and stultify the natural ambition that should stimulate every man worthy of the name. Though our men do not have the initiative and self-resource of the Americans, still they are the smartest and best-set-up troops in the world. Many of them are of splendid physique and look like they could go anywhere and do anything. The whole world _was_ open to them; yet here they still are in the ranks, dummies and automatons, devoid of ambition and self-assertiveness. Only national service will rid us of the army of unemployables. It will develop them physically and mentally, and make men of them such as our Colonies will be glad and proud to admit to citizenship. EDINBURGH COLSTONS LIMITED PRINTERS 
2070	----	To The Last Man by Zane Grey FOREWORD It was inevitable that in my efforts to write romantic history of the great West I should at length come to the story of a feud. For long I have steered clear of this rock. But at last I have reached it and must go over it, driven by my desire to chronicle the stirring events of pioneer days. Even to-day it is not possible to travel into the remote corners of the West without seeing the lives of people still affected by a fighting past. How can the truth be told about the pioneering of the West if the struggle, the fight, the blood be left out? It cannot be done. How can a novel be stirring and thrilling, as were those times, unless it be full of sensation? My long labors have been devoted to making stories resemble the times they depict. I have loved the West for its vastness, its contrast, its beauty and color and life, for its wildness and violence, and for the fact that I have seen how it developed great men and women who died unknown and unsung. In this materialistic age, this hard, practical, swift, greedy age of realism, it seems there is no place for writers of romance, no place for romance itself. For many years all the events leading up to the great war were realistic, and the war itself was horribly realistic, and the aftermath is likewise. Romance is only another name for idealism; and I contend that life without ideals is not worth living. Never in the history of the world were ideals needed so terribly as now. Walter Scott wrote romance; so did Victor Hugo; and likewise Kipling, Hawthorne, Stevenson. It was Stevenson, particularly, who wielded a bludgeon against the realists. People live for the dream in their hearts. And I have yet to know anyone who has not some secret dream, some hope, however dim, some storied wall to look at in the dusk, some painted window leading to the soul. How strange indeed to find that the realists have ideals and dreams! To read them one would think their lives held nothing significant. But they love, they hope, they dream, they sacrifice, they struggle on with that dream in their hearts just the same as others. We all are dreamers, if not in the heavy-lidded wasting of time, then in the meaning of life that makes us work on. It was Wordsworth who wrote, "The world is too much with us"; and if I could give the secret of my ambition as a novelist in a few words it would be contained in that quotation. My inspiration to write has always come from nature. Character and action are subordinated to setting. In all that I have done I have tried to make people see how the world is too much with them. Getting and spending they lay waste their powers, with never a breath of the free and wonderful life of the open! So I come back to the main point of this foreword, in which I am trying to tell why and how I came to write the story of a feud notorious in Arizona as the Pleasant Valley War. Some years ago Mr. Harry Adams, a cattleman of Vermajo Park, New Mexico, told me he had been in the Tonto Basin of Arizona and thought I might find interesting material there concerning this Pleasant Valley War. His version of the war between cattlemen and sheepmen certainly determined me to look over the ground. My old guide, Al Doyle of Flagstaff, had led me over half of Arizona, but never down into that wonderful wild and rugged basin between the Mogollon Mesa and the Mazatzal Mountains. Doyle had long lived on the frontier and his version of the Pleasant Valley War differed markedly from that of Mr. Adams. I asked other old timers about it, and their remarks further excited my curiosity. Once down there, Doyle and I found the wildest, most rugged, roughest, and most remarkable country either of us had visited; and the few inhabitants were like the country. I went in ostensibly to hunt bear and lion and turkey, but what I really was hunting for was the story of that Pleasant Valley War. I engaged the services of a bear hunter who had three strapping sons as reserved and strange and aloof as he was. No wheel tracks of any kind had ever come within miles of their cabin. I spent two wonderful months hunting game and reveling in the beauty and grandeur of that Rim Rock country, but I came out knowing no more about the Pleasant Valley War. These Texans and their few neighbors, likewise from Texas, did not talk. But all I saw and felt only inspired me the more. This trip was in the fall of 1918. The next year I went again with the best horses, outfit, and men the Doyles could provide. And this time I did not ask any questions. But I rode horses--some of them too wild for me--and packed a rifle many a hundred miles, riding sometimes thirty and forty miles a day, and I climbed in and out of the deep canyons, desperately staying at the heels of one of those long-legged Texans. I learned the life of those backwoodsmen, but I did not get the story of the Pleasant Valley War. I had, however, won the friendship of that hardy people. In 1920 I went back with a still larger outfit, equipped to stay as long as I liked. And this time, without my asking it, different natives of the Tonto came to tell me about the Pleasant Valley War. No two of them agreed on anything concerning it, except that only one of the active participants survived the fighting. Whence comes my title, TO THE LAST MAN. Thus I was swamped in a mass of material out of which I could only flounder to my own conclusion. Some of the stories told me are singularly tempting to a novelist. But, though I believe them myself, I cannot risk their improbability to those who have no idea of the wildness of wild men at a wild time. There really was a terrible and bloody feud, perhaps the most deadly and least known in all the annals of the West. I saw the ground, the cabins, the graves, all so darkly suggestive of what must have happened. I never learned the truth of the cause of the Pleasant Valley War, or if I did hear it I had no means of recognizing it. All the given causes were plausible and convincing. Strange to state, there is still secrecy and reticence all over the Tonto Basin as to the facts of this feud. Many descendents of those killed are living there now. But no one likes to talk about it. Assuredly many of the incidents told me really occurred, as, for example, the terrible one of the two women, in the face of relentless enemies, saving the bodies of their dead husbands from being devoured by wild hogs. Suffice it to say that this romance is true to my conception of the war, and I base it upon the setting I learned to know and love so well, upon the strange passions of primitive people, and upon my instinctive reaction to the facts and rumors that I gathered. ZANE GREY. AVALON, CALIFORNIA, April, 1921 CHAPTER I At the end of a dry, uphill ride over barren country Jean Isbel unpacked to camp at the edge of the cedars where a little rocky canyon green with willow and cottonwood, promised water and grass. His animals were tired, especially the pack mule that had carried a heavy load; and with slow heave of relief they knelt and rolled in the dust. Jean experienced something of relief himself as he threw off his chaps. He had not been used to hot, dusty, glaring days on the barren lands. Stretching his long length beside a tiny rill of clear water that tinkled over the red stones, he drank thirstily. The water was cool, but it had an acrid taste--an alkali bite that he did not like. Not since he had left Oregon had he tasted clear, sweet, cold water; and he missed it just as he longed for the stately shady forests he had loved. This wild, endless Arizona land bade fair to earn his hatred. By the time he had leisurely completed his tasks twilight had fallen and coyotes had begun their barking. Jean listened to the yelps and to the moan of the cool wind in the cedars with a sense of satisfaction that these lonely sounds were familiar. This cedar wood burned into a pretty fire and the smell of its smoke was newly pleasant. "Reckon maybe I'll learn to like Arizona," he mused, half aloud. "But I've a hankerin' for waterfalls an' dark-green forests. Must be the Indian in me.... Anyway, dad needs me bad, an' I reckon I'm here for keeps." Jean threw some cedar branches on the fire, in the light of which he opened his father's letter, hoping by repeated reading to grasp more of its strange portent. It had been two months in reaching him, coming by traveler, by stage and train, and then by boat, and finally by stage again. Written in lead pencil on a leaf torn from an old ledger, it would have been hard to read even if the writing had been more legible. "Dad's writin' was always bad, but I never saw it so shaky," said Jean, thinking aloud. GRASS VALLY, ARIZONA. Son Jean,--Come home. Here is your home and here your needed. When we left Oregon we all reckoned you would not be long behind. But its years now. I am growing old, son, and you was always my steadiest boy. Not that you ever was so dam steady. Only your wildness seemed more for the woods. You take after mother, and your brothers Bill and Guy take after me. That is the red and white of it. Your part Indian, Jean, and that Indian I reckon I am going to need bad. I am rich in cattle and horses. And my range here is the best I ever seen. Lately we have been losing stock. But that is not all nor so bad. Sheepmen have moved into the Tonto and are grazing down on Grass Vally. Cattlemen and sheepmen can never bide in this country. We have bad times ahead. Reckon I have more reasons to worry and need you, but you must wait to hear that by word of mouth. Whatever your doing, chuck it and rustle for Grass Vally so to make here by spring. I am asking you to take pains to pack in some guns and a lot of shells. And hide them in your outfit. If you meet anyone when your coming down into the Tonto, listen more than you talk. And last, son, dont let anything keep you in Oregon. Reckon you have a sweetheart, and if so fetch her along. With love from your dad, GASTON ISBEL. Jean pondered over this letter. Judged by memory of his father, who had always been self-sufficient, it had been a surprise and somewhat of a shock. Weeks of travel and reflection had not helped him to grasp the meaning between the lines. "Yes, dad's growin' old," mused Jean, feeling a warmth and a sadness stir in him. "He must be 'way over sixty. But he never looked old.... So he's rich now an' losin' stock, an' goin' to be sheeped off his range. Dad could stand a lot of rustlin', but not much from sheepmen." The softness that stirred in Jean merged into a cold, thoughtful earnestness which had followed every perusal of his father's letter. A dark, full current seemed flowing in his veins, and at times he felt it swell and heat. It troubled him, making him conscious of a deeper, stronger self, opposed to his careless, free, and dreamy nature. No ties had bound him in Oregon, except love for the great, still forests and the thundering rivers; and this love came from his softer side. It had cost him a wrench to leave. And all the way by ship down the coast to San Diego and across the Sierra Madres by stage, and so on to this last overland travel by horseback, he had felt a retreating of the self that was tranquil and happy and a dominating of this unknown somber self, with its menacing possibilities. Yet despite a nameless regret and a loyalty to Oregon, when he lay in his blankets he had to confess a keen interest in his adventurous future, a keen enjoyment of this stark, wild Arizona. It appeared to be a different sky stretching in dark, star-spangled dome over him--closer, vaster, bluer. The strong fragrance of sage and cedar floated over him with the camp-fire smoke, and all seemed drowsily to subdue his thoughts. At dawn he rolled out of his blankets and, pulling on his boots, began the day with a zest for the work that must bring closer his calling future. White, crackling frost and cold, nipping air were the same keen spurs to action that he had known in the uplands of Oregon, yet they were not wholly the same. He sensed an exhilaration similar to the effect of a strong, sweet wine. His horse and mule had fared well during the night, having been much refreshed by the grass and water of the little canyon. Jean mounted and rode into the cedars with gladness that at last he had put the endless leagues of barren land behind him. The trail he followed appeared to be seldom traveled. It led, according to the meager information obtainable at the last settlement, directly to what was called the Rim, and from there Grass Valley could be seen down in the Basin. The ascent of the ground was so gradual that only in long, open stretches could it be seen. But the nature of the vegetation showed Jean how he was climbing. Scant, low, scraggy cedars gave place to more numerous, darker, greener, bushier ones, and these to high, full-foliaged, green-berried trees. Sage and grass in the open flats grew more luxuriously. Then came the pinyons, and presently among them the checker-barked junipers. Jean hailed the first pine tree with a hearty slap on the brown, rugged bark. It was a small dwarf pine struggling to live. The next one was larger, and after that came several, and beyond them pines stood up everywhere above the lower trees. Odor of pine needles mingled with the other dry smells that made the wind pleasant to Jean. In an hour from the first line of pines he had ridden beyond the cedars and pinyons into a slowly thickening and deepening forest. Underbrush appeared scarce except in ravines, and the ground in open patches held a bleached grass. Jean's eye roved for sight of squirrels, birds, deer, or any moving creature. It appeared to be a dry, uninhabited forest. About midday Jean halted at a pond of surface water, evidently melted snow, and gave his animals a drink. He saw a few old deer tracks in the mud and several huge bird tracks new to him which he concluded must have been made by wild turkeys. The trail divided at this pond. Jean had no idea which branch he ought to take. "Reckon it doesn't matter," he muttered, as he was about to remount. His horse was standing with ears up, looking back along the trail. Then Jean heard a clip-clop of trotting hoofs, and presently espied a horseman. Jean made a pretense of tightening his saddle girths while he peered over his horse at the approaching rider. All men in this country were going to be of exceeding interest to Jean Isbel. This man at a distance rode and looked like all the Arizonians Jean had seen, he had a superb seat in the saddle, and he was long and lean. He wore a huge black sombrero and a soiled red scarf. His vest was open and he was without a coat. The rider came trotting up and halted several paces from Jean "Hullo, stranger!" he said, gruffly. "Howdy yourself!" replied Jean. He felt an instinctive importance in the meeting with the man. Never had sharper eyes flashed over Jean and his outfit. He had a dust-colored, sun-burned face, long, lean, and hard, a huge sandy mustache that hid his mouth, and eyes of piercing light intensity. Not very much hard Western experience had passed by this man, yet he was not old, measured by years. When he dismounted Jean saw he was tall, even for an Arizonian. "Seen your tracks back a ways," he said, as he slipped the bit to let his horse drink. "Where bound?" "Reckon I'm lost, all right," replied Jean. "New country for me." "Shore. I seen thet from your tracks an' your last camp. Wal, where was you headin' for before you got lost?" The query was deliberately cool, with a dry, crisp ring. Jean felt the lack of friendliness or kindliness in it. "Grass Valley. My name's Isbel," he replied, shortly. The rider attended to his drinking horse and presently rebridled him; then with long swing of leg he appeared to step into the saddle. "Shore I knowed you was Jean Isbel," he said. "Everybody in the Tonto has heerd old Gass Isbel sent fer his boy." "Well then, why did you ask?" inquired Jean, bluntly. "Reckon I wanted to see what you'd say." "So? All right. But I'm not carin' very much for what YOU say." Their glances locked steadily then and each measured the other by the intangible conflict of spirit. "Shore thet's natural," replied the rider. His speech was slow, and the motions of his long, brown hands, as he took a cigarette from his vest, kept time with his words. "But seein' you're one of the Isbels, I'll hev my say whether you want it or not. My name's Colter an' I'm one of the sheepmen Gass Isbel's riled with." "Colter. Glad to meet you," replied Jean. "An' I reckon who riled my father is goin' to rile me." "Shore. If thet wasn't so you'd not be an Isbel," returned Colter, with a grim little laugh. "It's easy to see you ain't run into any Tonto Basin fellers yet. Wal, I'm goin' to tell you thet your old man gabbed like a woman down at Greaves's store. Bragged aboot you an' how you could fight an' how you could shoot an' how you could track a hoss or a man! Bragged how you'd chase every sheep herder back up on the Rim.... I'm tellin' you because we want you to git our stand right. We're goin' to run sheep down in Grass Valley." "Ahuh! Well, who's we?" queried Jean, curtly. "What-at? ... We--I mean the sheepmen rangin' this Rim from Black Butte to the Apache country." "Colter, I'm a stranger in Arizona," said Jean, slowly. "I know little about ranchers or sheepmen. It's true my father sent for me. It's true, I dare say, that he bragged, for he was given to bluster an' blow. An' he's old now. I can't help it if he bragged about me. But if he has, an' if he's justified in his stand against you sheepmen, I'm goin' to do my best to live up to his brag." "I get your hunch. Shore we understand each other, an' thet's a powerful help. You take my hunch to your old man," replied Colter, as he turned his horse away toward the left. "Thet trail leadin' south is yours. When you come to the Rim you'll see a bare spot down in the Basin. Thet 'll be Grass Valley." He rode away out of sight into the woods. Jean leaned against his horse and pondered. It seemed difficult to be just to this Colter, not because of his claims, but because of a subtle hostility that emanated from him. Colter had the hard face, the masked intent, the turn of speech that Jean had come to associate with dishonest men. Even if Jean had not been prejudiced, if he had known nothing of his father's trouble with these sheepmen, and if Colter had met him only to exchange glances and greetings, still Jean would never have had a favorable impression. Colter grated upon him, roused an antagonism seldom felt. "Heigho!" sighed the young man, "Good-by to huntin' an' fishing'! Dad's given me a man's job." With that he mounted his horse and started the pack mule into the right-hand trail. Walking and trotting, he traveled all afternoon, toward sunset getting into heavy forest of pine. More than one snow bank showed white through the green, sheltered on the north slopes of shady ravines. And it was upon entering this zone of richer, deeper forestland that Jean sloughed off his gloomy forebodings. These stately pines were not the giant firs of Oregon, but any lover of the woods could be happy under them. Higher still he climbed until the forest spread before and around him like a level park, with thicketed ravines here and there on each side. And presently that deceitful level led to a higher bench upon which the pines towered, and were matched by beautiful trees he took for spruce. Heavily barked, with regular spreading branches, these conifers rose in symmetrical shape to spear the sky with silver plumes. A graceful gray-green moss, waved like veils from the branches. The air was not so dry and it was colder, with a scent and touch of snow. Jean made camp at the first likely site, taking the precaution to unroll his bed some little distance from his fire. Under the softly moaning pines he felt comfortable, having lost the sense of an immeasurable open space falling away from all around him. The gobbling of wild turkeys awakened Jean, "Chuga-lug, chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug-chug." There was not a great difference between the gobble of a wild turkey and that of a tame one. Jean got up, and taking his rifle went out into the gray obscurity of dawn to try to locate the turkeys. But it was too dark, and finally when daylight came they appeared to be gone. The mule had strayed, and, what with finding it and cooking breakfast and packing, Jean did not make a very early start. On this last lap of his long journey he had slowed down. He was weary of hurrying; the change from weeks in the glaring sun and dust-laden wind to this sweet coot darkly green and brown forest was very welcome; he wanted to linger along the shaded trail. This day he made sure would see him reach the Rim. By and by he lost the trail. It had just worn out from lack of use. Every now and then Jean would cross an old trail, and as he penetrated deeper into the forest every damp or dusty spot showed tracks of turkey, deer, and bear. The amount of bear sign surprised him. Presently his keen nostrils were assailed by a smell of sheep, and soon he rode into a broad sheep, trail. From the tracks Jean calculated that the sheep had passed there the day before. An unreasonable antipathy seemed born in him. To be sure he had been prepared to dislike sheep, and that was why he was unreasonable. But on the other hand this band of sheep had left a broad bare swath, weedless, grassless, flowerless, in their wake. Where sheep grazed they destroyed. That was what Jean had against them. An hour later he rode to the crest of a long parklike slope, where new green grass was sprouting and flowers peeped everywhere. The pines appeared far apart; gnarled oak trees showed rugged and gray against the green wall of woods. A white strip of snow gleamed like a moving stream away down in the woods. Jean heard the musical tinkle of bells and the baa-baa of sheep and the faint, sweet bleating of lambs. As he road toward these sounds a dog ran out from an oak thicket and barked at him. Next Jean smelled a camp fire and soon he caught sight of a curling blue column of smoke, and then a small peaked tent. Beyond the clump of oaks Jean encountered a Mexican lad carrying a carbine. The boy had a swarthy, pleasant face, and to Jean's greeting he replied, "BUENAS DIAS." Jean understood little Spanish, and about all he gathered by his simple queries was that the lad was not alone--and that it was "lambing time." This latter circumstance grew noisily manifest. The forest seemed shrilly full of incessant baas and plaintive bleats. All about the camp, on the slope, in the glades, and everywhere, were sheep. A few were grazing; many were lying down; most of them were ewes suckling white fleecy little lambs that staggered on their feet. Everywhere Jean saw tiny lambs just born. Their pin-pointed bleats pierced the heavier baa-baa of their mothers. Jean dismounted and led his horse down toward the camp, where he rather expected to see another and older Mexican, from whom he might get information. The lad walked with him. Down this way the plaintive uproar made by the sheep was not so loud. "Hello there!" called Jean, cheerfully, as he approached the tent. No answer was forthcoming. Dropping his bridle, he went on, rather slowly, looking for some one to appear. Then a voice from one side startled him. "Mawnin', stranger." A girl stepped out from beside a pine. She carried a rifle. Her face flashed richly brown, but she was not Mexican. This fact, and the sudden conviction that she had been watching him, somewhat disconcerted Jean. "Beg pardon--miss," he floundered. "Didn't expect, to see a--girl.... I'm sort of lost--lookin' for the Rim--an' thought I'd find a sheep herder who'd show me. I can't savvy this boy's lingo." While he spoke it seemed to him an intentness of expression, a strain relaxed from her face. A faint suggestion of hostility likewise disappeared. Jean was not even sure that he had caught it, but there had been something that now was gone. "Shore I'll be glad to show y'u," she said. "Thanks, miss. Reckon I can breathe easy now," he replied, "It's a long ride from San Diego. Hot an' dusty! I'm pretty tired. An' maybe this woods isn't good medicine to achin' eyes!" "San Diego! Y'u're from the coast?" "Yes." Jean had doffed his sombrero at sight of her and he still held it, rather deferentially, perhaps. It seemed to attract her attention. "Put on y'ur hat, stranger.... Shore I can't recollect when any man bared his haid to me." She uttered a little laugh in which surprise and frankness mingled with a tint of bitterness. Jean sat down with his back to a pine, and, laying the sombrero by his side, he looked full at her, conscious of a singular eagerness, as if he wanted to verify by close scrutiny a first hasty impression. If there had been an instinct in his meeting with Colter, there was more in this. The girl half sat, half leaned against a log, with the shiny little carbine across her knees. She had a level, curious gaze upon him, and Jean had never met one just like it. Her eyes were rather a wide oval in shape, clear and steady, with shadows of thought in their amber-brown depths. They seemed to look through Jean, and his gaze dropped first. Then it was he saw her ragged homespun skirt and a few inches of brown, bare ankles, strong and round, and crude worn-out moccasins that failed to hide the shapeliness, of her feet. Suddenly she drew back her stockingless ankles and ill-shod little feet. When Jean lifted his gaze again he found her face half averted and a stain of red in the gold tan of her cheek. That touch of embarrassment somehow removed her from this strong, raw, wild woodland setting. It changed her poise. It detracted from the curious, unabashed, almost bold, look that he had encountered in her eyes. "Reckon you're from Texas," said Jean, presently. "Shore am," she drawled. She had a lazy Southern voice, pleasant to hear. "How'd y'u-all guess that?" "Anybody can tell a Texan. Where I came from there were a good many pioneers an' ranchers from the old Lone Star state. I've worked for several. An', come to think of it, I'd rather hear a Texas girl talk than anybody." "Did y'u know many Texas girls?" she inquired, turning again to face him. "Reckon I did--quite a good many." "Did y'u go with them?" "Go with them? Reckon you mean keep company. Why, yes, I guess I did--a little," laughed Jean. "Sometimes on a Sunday or a dance once in a blue moon, an' occasionally a ride." "Shore that accounts," said the girl, wistfully. "For what?" asked Jean. "Y'ur bein' a gentleman," she replied, with force. "Oh, I've not forgotten. I had friends when we lived in Texas.... Three years ago. Shore it seems longer. Three miserable years in this damned country!" Then she bit her lip, evidently to keep back further unwitting utterance to a total stranger. And it was that biting of her lip that drew Jean's attention to her mouth. It held beauty of curve and fullness and color that could not hide a certain sadness and bitterness. Then the whole flashing brown face changed for Jean. He saw that it was young, full of passion and restraint, possessing a power which grew on him. This, with her shame and pathos and the fact that she craved respect, gave a leap to Jean's interest. "Well, I reckon you flatter me," he said, hoping to put her at her ease again. "I'm only a rough hunter an' fisherman-woodchopper an' horse tracker. Never had all the school I needed--nor near enough company of nice girls like you." "Am I nice?" she asked, quickly. "You sure are," he replied, smiling. "In these rags," she demanded, with a sudden flash of passion that thrilled him. "Look at the holes." She showed rips and worn-out places in the sleeves of her buckskin blouse, through which gleamed a round, brown arm. "I sew when I have anythin' to sew with.... Look at my skirt--a dirty rag. An' I have only one other to my name.... Look!" Again a color tinged her cheeks, most becoming, and giving the lie to her action. But shame could not check her violence now. A dammed-up resentment seemed to have broken out in flood. She lifted the ragged skirt almost to her knees. "No stockings! No Shoes! ... How can a girl be nice when she has no clean, decent woman's clothes to wear?" "How--how can a girl..." began Jean. "See here, miss, I'm beggin' your pardon for--sort of stirrin' you to forget yourself a little. Reckon I understand. You don't meet many strangers an' I sort of hit you wrong--makin' you feel too much--an' talk too much. Who an' what you are is none of my business. But we met.... An' I reckon somethin' has happened--perhaps more to me than to you.... Now let me put you straight about clothes an' women. Reckon I know most women love nice things to wear an' think because clothes make them look pretty that they're nicer or better. But they're wrong. You're wrong. Maybe it 'd be too much for a girl like you to be happy without clothes. But you can be--you axe just as nice, an'--an' fine--an', for all you know, a good deal more appealin' to some men." "Stranger, y'u shore must excuse my temper an' the show I made of myself," replied the girl, with composure. "That, to say the least, was not nice. An' I don't want anyone thinkin' better of me than I deserve. My mother died in Texas, an' I've lived out heah in this wild country--a girl alone among rough men. Meetin' y'u to-day makes me see what a hard lot they are--an' what it's done to me." Jean smothered his curiosity and tried to put out of his mind a growing sense that he pitied her, liked her. "Are you a sheep herder?" he asked. "Shore I am now an' then. My father lives back heah in a canyon. He's a sheepman. Lately there's been herders shot at. Just now we're short an' I have to fill in. But I like shepherdin' an' I love the woods, and the Rim Rock an' all the Tonto. If they were all, I'd shore be happy." "Herders shot at!" exclaimed Jean, thoughtfully. "By whom? An' what for?" "Trouble brewin' between the cattlemen down in the Basin an' the sheepmen up on the Rim. Dad says there'll shore be hell to pay. I tell him I hope the cattlemen chase him back to Texas." "Then-- Are you on the ranchers' side?" queried Jean, trying to pretend casual interest. "No. I'll always be on my father's side," she replied, with spirit. "But I'm bound to admit I think the cattlemen have the fair side of the argument." "How so?" "Because there's grass everywhere. I see no sense in a sheepman goin' out of his way to surround a cattleman an' sheep off his range. That started the row. Lord knows how it'll end. For most all of them heah are from Texas." "So I was told," replied Jean. "An' I heard' most all these Texans got run out of Texas. Any truth in that?" "Shore I reckon there is," she replied, seriously. "But, stranger, it might not be healthy for y'u to, say that anywhere. My dad, for one, was not run out of Texas. Shore I never can see why he came heah. He's accumulated stock, but he's not rich nor so well off as he was back home." "Are you goin' to stay here always?" queried Jean, suddenly. "If I do so it 'll be in my grave," she answered, darkly. "But what's the use of thinkin'? People stay places until they drift away. Y'u can never tell.... Well, stranger, this talk is keepin' y'u." She seemed moody now, and a note of detachment crept into her voice. Jean rose at once and went for his horse. If this girl did not desire to talk further he certainly had no wish to annoy her. His mule had strayed off among the bleating sheep. Jean drove it back and then led his horse up to where the girl stood. She appeared taller and, though not of robust build, she was vigorous and lithe, with something about her that fitted the place. Jean was loath to bid her good-by. "Which way is the Rim?" he asked, turning to his saddle girths. "South," she replied, pointing. "It's only a mile or so. I'll walk down with y'u.... Suppose y'u're on the way to Grass Valley?" "Yes; I've relatives there," he returned. He dreaded her next question, which he suspected would concern his name. But she did not ask. Taking up her rifle she turned away. Jean strode ahead to her side. "Reckon if you walk I won't ride." So he found himself beside a girl with the free step of a Mountaineer. Her bare, brown head came up nearly to his shoulder. It was a small, pretty head, graceful, well held, and the thick hair on it was a shiny, soft brown. She wore it in a braid, rather untidily and tangled, he thought, and it was tied with a string of buckskin. Altogether her apparel proclaimed poverty. Jean let the conversation languish for a little. He wanted to think what to say presently, and then he felt a rather vague pleasure in stalking beside her. Her profile was straight cut and exquisite in line. From this side view the soft curve of lips could not be seen. She made several attempts to start conversation, all of which Jean ignored, manifestly to her growing constraint. Presently Jean, having decided what he wanted to say, suddenly began: "I like this adventure. Do you?" "Adventure! Meetin' me in the woods?" And she laughed the laugh of youth. "Shore you must be hard up for adventure, stranger." "Do you like it?" he persisted, and his eyes searched the half-averted face. "I might like it," she answered, frankly, "if--if my temper had not made a fool of me. I never meet anyone I care to talk to. Why should it not be pleasant to run across some one new--some one strange in this heah wild country?" "We are as we are," said Jean, simply. "I didn't think you made a fool of yourself. If I thought so, would I want to see you again?" "Do y'u?" The brown face flashed on him with surprise, with a light he took for gladness. And because he wanted to appear calm and friendly, not too eager, he had to deny himself the thrill of meeting those changing eyes. "Sure I do. Reckon I'm overbold on such short acquaintance. But I might not have another chance to tell you, so please don't hold it against me." This declaration over, Jean felt relief and something of exultation. He had been afraid he might not have the courage to make it. She walked on as before, only with her head bowed a little and her eyes downcast. No color but the gold-brown tan and the blue tracery of veins showed in her cheeks. He noticed then a slight swelling quiver of her throat; and he became alive to its graceful contour, and to how full and pulsating it was, how nobly it set into the curve of her shoulder. Here in her quivering throat was the weakness of her, the evidence of her sex, the womanliness that belied the mountaineer stride and the grasp of strong brown hands on a rifle. It had an effect on Jean totally inexplicable to him, both in the strange warmth that stole over him and in the utterance he could not hold back. "Girl, we're strangers, but what of that? We've met, an' I tell you it means somethin' to me. I've known girls for months an' never felt this way. I don't know who you are an' I don't care. You betrayed a good deal to me. You're not happy. You're lonely. An' if I didn't want to see you again for my own sake I would for yours. Some things you said I'll not forget soon. I've got a sister, an' I know you have no brother. An' I reckon ..." At this juncture Jean in his earnestness and quite without thought grasped her hand. The contact checked the flow of his speech and suddenly made him aghast at his temerity. But the girl did not make any effort to withdraw it. So Jean, inhaling a deep breath and trying to see through his bewilderment, held on bravely. He imagined he felt a faint, warm, returning pressure. She was young, she was friendless, she was human. By this hand in his Jean felt more than ever the loneliness of her. Then, just as he was about to speak again, she pulled her hand free. "Heah's the Rim," she said, in her quaint Southern drawl. "An' there's Y'ur Tonto Basin." Jean had been intent only upon the girl. He had kept step beside her without taking note of what was ahead of him. At her words he looked up expectantly, to be struck mute. He felt a sheer force, a downward drawing of an immense abyss beneath him. As he looked afar he saw a black basin of timbered country, the darkest and wildest he had ever gazed upon, a hundred miles of blue distance across to an unflung mountain range, hazy purple against the sky. It seemed to be a stupendous gulf surrounded on three sides by bold, undulating lines of peaks, and on his side by a wall so high that he felt lifted aloft on the run of the sky. "Southeast y'u see the Sierra Anchas," said the girl pointing. "That notch in the range is the pass where sheep are driven to Phoenix an' Maricopa. Those big rough mountains to the south are the Mazatzals. Round to the west is the Four Peaks Range. An' y'u're standin' on the Rim." Jean could not see at first just what the Rim was, but by shifting his gaze westward he grasped this remarkable phenomenon of nature. For leagues and leagues a colossal red and yellow wall, a rampart, a mountain-faced cliff, seemed to zigzag westward. Grand and bold were the promontories reaching out over the void. They ran toward the westering sun. Sweeping and impressive were the long lines slanting away from them, sloping darkly spotted down to merge into the black timber. Jean had never seen such a wild and rugged manifestation of nature's depths and upheavals. He was held mute. "Stranger, look down," said the girl. Jean's sight was educated to judge heights and depths and distances. This wall upon which he stood sheered precipitously down, so far that it made him dizzy to look, and then the craggy broken cliffs merged into red-slided, cedar-greened slopes running down and down into gorges choked with forests, and from which soared up a roar of rushing waters. Slope after slope, ridge beyond ridge, canyon merging into canyon--so the tremendous bowl sunk away to its black, deceiving depths, a wilderness across which travel seemed impossible. "Wonderful!" exclaimed Jean. "Indeed it is!" murmured the girl. "Shore that is Arizona. I reckon I love THIS. The heights an' depths--the awfulness of its wilderness!" "An' you want to leave it?" "Yes an' no. I don't deny the peace that comes to me heah. But not often do I see the Basin, an' for that matter, one doesn't live on grand scenery." "Child, even once in a while--this sight would cure any misery, if you only see. I'm glad I came. I'm glad you showed it to me first." She too seemed under the spell of a vastness and loneliness and beauty and grandeur that could not but strike the heart. Jean took her hand again. "Girl, say you will meet me here," he said, his voice ringing deep in his ears. "Shore I will," she replied, softly, and turned to him. It seemed then that Jean saw her face for the first time. She was beautiful as he had never known beauty. Limned against that scene, she gave it life--wild, sweet, young life--the poignant meaning of which haunted yet eluded him. But she belonged there. Her eyes were again searching his, as if for some lost part of herself, unrealized, never known before. Wondering, wistful, hopeful, glad--they were eyes that seemed surprised, to reveal part of her soul. Then her red lips parted. Their tremulous movement was a magnet to Jean. An invisible and mighty force pulled him down to kiss them. Whatever the spell had been, that rude, unconscious action broke it. He jerked away, as if he expected to be struck. "Girl--I--I"--he gasped in amaze and sudden-dawning contrition--"I kissed you--but I swear it wasn't intentional--I never thought...." The anger that Jean anticipated failed to materialize. He stood, breathing hard, with a hand held out in unconscious appeal. By the same magic, perhaps, that had transfigured her a moment past, she was now invested again by the older character. "Shore I reckon my callin' y'u a gentleman was a little previous," she said, with a rather dry bitterness. "But, stranger, yu're sudden." "You're not insulted?" asked Jean, hurriedly. "Oh, I've been kissed before. Shore men are all alike." "They're not," he replied, hotly, with a subtle rush of disillusion, a dulling of enchantment. "Don't you class me with other men who've kissed you. I wasn't myself when I did it an' I'd have gone on my knees to ask your forgiveness.... But now I wouldn't--an' I wouldn't kiss you again, either--even if you--you wanted it." Jean read in her strange gaze what seemed to him a vague doubt, as if she was questioning him. "Miss, I take that back," added Jean, shortly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. It was a mean trick for me to kiss you. A girl alone in the woods who's gone out of her way to be kind to me! I don't know why I forgot my manners. An' I ask your pardon." She looked away then, and presently pointed far out and down into the Basin. "There's Grass Valley. That long gray spot in the black. It's about fifteen miles. Ride along the Rim that way till y'u cross a trail. Shore y'u can't miss it. Then go down." "I'm much obliged to you," replied Jean, reluctantly accepting what he regarded as his dismissal. Turning his horse, he put his foot in the stirrup, then, hesitating, he looked across the saddle at the girl. Her abstraction, as she gazed away over the purple depths suggested loneliness and wistfulness. She was not thinking of that scene spread so wondrously before her. It struck Jean she might be pondering a subtle change in his feeling and attitude, something he was conscious of, yet could not define. "Reckon this is good-by," he said, with hesitation. "ADIOS, SENOR," she replied, facing him again. She lifted the little carbine to the hollow of her elbow and, half turning, appeared ready to depart. "Adios means good-by?" he queried. "Yes, good-by till to-morrow or good-by forever. Take it as y'u like." "Then you'll meet me here day after to-morrow?" How eagerly he spoke, on impulse, without a consideration of the intangible thing that had changed him! "Did I say I wouldn't?" "No. But I reckoned you'd not care to after--" he replied, breaking off in some confusion. "Shore I'll be glad to meet y'u. Day after to-morrow about mid-afternoon. Right heah. Fetch all the news from Grass Valley." "All right. Thanks. That'll be--fine," replied Jean, and as he spoke he experienced a buoyant thrill, a pleasant lightness of enthusiasm, such as always stirred boyishly in him at a prospect of adventure. Before it passed he wondered at it and felt unsure of himself. He needed to think. "Stranger shore I'm not recollectin' that y'u told me who y'u are," she said. "No, reckon I didn't tell," he returned. "What difference does that make? I said I didn't care who or what you are. Can't you feel the same about me?" "Shore--I felt that way," she replied, somewhat non-plussed, with the level brown gaze steadily on his face. "But now y'u make me think." "Let's meet without knowin' any more about each other than we do now." "Shore. I'd like that. In this big wild Arizona a girl--an' I reckon a man--feels so insignificant. What's a name, anyhow? Still, people an' things have to be distinguished. I'll call y'u 'Stranger' an' be satisfied--if y'u say it's fair for y'u not to tell who y'u are." "Fair! No, it's not," declared Jean, forced to confession. "My name's Jean--Jean Isbel." "ISBEL!" she exclaimed, with a violent start. "Shore y'u can't be son of old Gass Isbel.... I've seen both his sons." "He has three," replied Jean, with relief, now the secret was out. "I'm the youngest. I'm twenty-four. Never been out of Oregon till now. On my way--" The brown color slowly faded out of her face, leaving her quite pale, with eyes that began to blaze. The suppleness of her seemed to stiffen. "My name's Ellen Jorth," she burst out, passionately. "Does it mean anythin' to y'u?" "Never heard it in my life," protested Jean. "Sure I reckoned you belonged to the sheep raisers who 're on the outs with my father. That's why I had to tell you I'm Jean Isbel.... Ellen Jorth. It's strange an' pretty.... Reckon I can be just as good a--a friend to you--" "No Isbel, can ever be a friend to me," she said, with bitter coldness. Stripped of her ease and her soft wistfulness, she stood before him one instant, entirely another girl, a hostile enemy. Then she wheeled and strode off into the woods. Jean, in amaze, in consternation, watched her swiftly draw away with her lithe, free step, wanting to follow her, wanting to call to her; but the resentment roused by her suddenly avowed hostility held him mute in his tracks. He watched her disappear, and when the brown-and-green wall of forest swallowed the slender gray form he fought against the insistent desire to follow her, and fought in vain. CHAPTER II But Ellen Jorth's moccasined feet did not leave a distinguishable trail on the springy pine needle covering of the ground, and Jean could not find any trace of her. A little futile searching to and fro cooled his impulse and called pride to his rescue. Returning to his horse, he mounted, rode out behind the pack mule to start it along, and soon felt the relief of decision and action. Clumps of small pines grew thickly in spots on the Rim, making it necessary for him to skirt them; at which times he lost sight of the purple basin. Every time he came back to an opening through which he could see the wild ruggedness and colors and distances, his appreciation of their nature grew on him. Arizona from Yuma to the Little Colorado had been to him an endless waste of wind-scoured, sun-blasted barrenness. This black-forested rock-rimmed land of untrodden ways was a world that in itself would satisfy him. Some instinct in Jean called for a lonely, wild land, into the fastnesses of which he could roam at will and be the other strange self that he had always yearned to be but had never been. Every few moments there intruded into his flowing consciousness the flashing face of Ellen Jorth, the way she had looked at him, the things she had said. "Reckon I was a fool," he soliloquized, with an acute sense of humiliation. "She never saw how much in earnest I was." And Jean began to remember the circumstances with a vividness that disturbed and perplexed him. The accident of running across such a girl in that lonely place might be out of the ordinary--but it had happened. Surprise had made him dull. The charm of her appearance, the appeal of her manner, must have drawn him at the very first, but he had not recognized that. Only at her words, "Oh, I've been kissed before," had his feelings been checked in their heedless progress. And the utterance of them had made a difference he now sought to analyze. Some personality in him, some voice, some idea had begun to defend her even before he was conscious that he had arraigned her before the bar of his judgment. Such defense seemed clamoring in him now and he forced himself to listen. He wanted, in his hurt pride, to justify his amazing surrender to a sweet and sentimental impulse. He realized now that at first glance he should have recognized in her look, her poise, her voice the quality he called thoroughbred. Ragged and stained apparel did not prove her of a common sort. Jean had known a number of fine and wholesome girls of good family; and he remembered his sister. This Ellen Jorth was that kind of a girl irrespective of her present environment. Jean championed her loyally, even after he had gratified his selfish pride. It was then--contending with an intangible and stealing glamour, unreal and fanciful, like the dream of a forbidden enchantment--that Jean arrived at the part in the little woodland drama where he had kissed Ellen Jorth and had been unrebuked. Why had she not resented his action? Dispelled was the illusion he had been dreamily and nobly constructing. "Oh, I've been kissed before!" The shock to him now exceeded his first dismay. Half bitterly she had spoken, and wholly scornful of herself, or of him, or of all men. For she had said all men were alike. Jean chafed under the smart of that, a taunt every decent man hated. Naturally every happy and healthy young man would want to kiss such red, sweet lips. But if those lips had been for others--never for him! Jean reflected that not since childish games had he kissed a girl--until this brown-faced Ellen Jorth came his way. He wondered at it. Moreover, he wondered at the significance he placed upon it. After all, was it not merely an accident? Why should he remember? Why should he ponder? What was the faint, deep, growing thrill that accompanied some of his thoughts? Riding along with busy mind, Jean almost crossed a well-beaten trail, leading through a pine thicket and down over the Rim. Jean's pack mule led the way without being driven. And when Jean reached the edge of the bluff one look down was enough to fetch him off his horse. That trail was steep, narrow, clogged with stones, and as full of sharp corners as a crosscut saw. Once on the descent with a packed mule and a spirited horse, Jean had no time for mind wanderings and very little for occasional glimpses out over the cedar tops to the vast blue hollow asleep under a westering sun. The stones rattled, the dust rose, the cedar twigs snapped, the little avalanches of red earth slid down, the iron-shod hoofs rang on the rocks. This slope had been narrow at the apex in the Rim where the trail led down a crack, and it widened in fan shape as Jean descended. He zigzagged down a thousand feet before the slope benched into dividing ridges. Here the cedars and junipers failed and pines once more hid the sun. Deep ravines were black with brush. From somewhere rose a roar of running water, most pleasant to Jean's ears. Fresh deer and bear tracks covered old ones made in the trail. Those timbered ridges were but billows of that tremendous slope that now sheered above Jean, ending in a magnificent yellow wall of rock, greened in niches, stained by weather rust, carved and cracked and caverned. As Jean descended farther the hum of bees made melody, the roar of rapid water and the murmur of a rising breeze filled him with the content of the wild. Sheepmen like Colter and wild girls like Ellen Jorth and all that seemed promising or menacing in his father's letter could never change the Indian in Jean. So he thought. Hard upon that conclusion rushed another--one which troubled with its stinging revelation. Surely these influences he had defied were just the ones to bring out in him the Indian he had sensed but had never known. The eventful day had brought new and bitter food for Jean to reflect upon. The trail landed him in the bowlder-strewn bed of a wide canyon, where the huge trees stretched a canopy of foliage which denied the sunlight, and where a beautiful brook rushed and foamed. Here at last Jean tasted water that rivaled his Oregon springs. "Ah," he cried, "that sure is good!" Dark and shaded and ferny and mossy was this streamway; and everywhere were tracks of game, from the giant spread of a grizzly bear to the tiny, birdlike imprints of a squirrel. Jean heard familiar sounds of deer crackling the dead twigs; and the chatter of squirrels was incessant. This fragrant, cool retreat under the Rim brought back to him the dim recesses of Oregon forests. After all, Jean felt that he would not miss anything that he had loved in the Cascades. But what was the vague sense of all not being well with him--the essence of a faint regret--the insistence of a hovering shadow? And then flashed again, etched more vividly by the repetition in memory, a picture of eyes, of lips--of something he had to forget. Wild and broken as this rolling Basin floor had appeared from the Rim, the reality of traveling over it made that first impression a deceit of distance. Down here all was on a big, rough, broken scale. Jean did not find even a few rods of level ground. Bowlders as huge as houses obstructed the stream bed; spruce trees eight feet thick tried to lord it over the brawny pines; the ravine was a veritable canyon from which occasional glimpses through the foliage showed the Rim as a lofty red-tipped mountain peak. Jean's pack mule became frightened at scent of a bear or lion and ran off down the rough trail, imperiling Jean's outfit. It was not an easy task to head him off nor, when that was accomplished, to keep him to a trot. But his fright and succeeding skittishness at least made for fast traveling. Jean calculated that he covered ten miles under the Rim before the character of ground and forest began to change. The trail had turned southeast. Instead of gorge after gorge, red-walled and choked with forest, there began to be rolling ridges, some high; others were knolls; and a thick cedar growth made up for a falling off of pine. The spruce had long disappeared. Juniper thickets gave way more and more to the beautiful manzanita; and soon on the south slopes appeared cactus and a scrubby live oak. But for the well-broken trail, Jean would have fared ill through this tough brush. Jean espied several deer, and again a coyote, and what he took to be a small herd of wild horses. No more turkey tracks showed in the dusty patches. He crossed a number of tiny brooklets, and at length came to a place where the trail ended or merged in a rough road that showed evidence of considerable travel. Horses, sheep, and cattle had passed along there that day. This road turned southward, and Jean began to have pleasurable expectations. The road, like the trail, led down grade, but no longer at such steep angles, and was bordered by cedar and pinyon, jack-pine and juniper, mescal and manzanita. Quite sharply, going around a ridge, the road led Jean's eye down to a small open flat of marshy, or at least grassy, ground. This green oasis in the wilderness of red and timbered ridges marked another change in the character of the Basin. Beyond that the country began to spread out and roll gracefully, its dark-green forest interspersed with grassy parks, until Jean headed into a long, wide gray-green valley surrounded by black-fringed hills. His pulses quickened here. He saw cattle dotting the expanse, and here and there along the edge log cabins and corrals. As a village, Grass Valley could not boast of much, apparently, in the way of population. Cabins and houses were widely scattered, as if the inhabitants did not care to encroach upon one another. But the one store, built of stone, and stamped also with the characteristic isolation, seemed to Jean to be a rather remarkable edifice. Not exactly like a fort did it strike him, but if it had not been designed for defense it certainly gave that impression, especially from the long, low side with its dark eye-like windows about the height of a man's shoulder. Some rather fine horses were tied to a hitching rail. Otherwise dust and dirt and age and long use stamped this Grass Valley store and its immediate environment. Jean threw his bridle, and, getting down, mounted the low porch and stepped into the wide open door. A face, gray against the background of gloom inside, passed out of sight just as Jean entered. He knew he had been seen. In front of the long, rather low-ceiled store were four men, all absorbed, apparently, in a game of checkers. Two were playing and two were looking on. One of these, a gaunt-faced man past middle age, casually looked up as Jean entered. But the moment of that casual glance afforded Jean time enough to meet eyes he instinctively distrusted. They masked their penetration. They seemed neither curious nor friendly. They saw him as if he had been merely thin air. "Good evenin'," said Jean. After what appeared to Jean a lapse of time sufficient to impress him with a possible deafness of these men, the gaunt-faced one said, "Howdy, Isbel!" The tone was impersonal, dry, easy, cool, laconic, and yet it could not have been more pregnant with meaning. Jean's sharp sensibilities absorbed much. None of the slouch-sombreroed, long-mustached Texans--for so Jean at once classed them--had ever seen Jean, but they knew him and knew that he was expected in Grass Valley. All but the one who had spoken happened to have their faces in shadow under the wide-brimmed black hats. Motley-garbed, gun-belted, dusty-booted, they gave Jean the same impression of latent force that he had encountered in Colter. "Will somebody please tell me where to find my father, Gaston Isbel?" inquired Jean, with as civil a tongue as he could command. Nobody paid the slightest attention. It was the same as if Jean had not spoken. Waiting, half amused, half irritated, Jean shot a rapid glance around the store. The place had felt bare; and Jean, peering back through gloomy space, saw that it did not contain much. Dry goods and sacks littered a long rude counter; long rough shelves divided their length into stacks of canned foods and empty sections; a low shelf back of the counter held a generous burden of cartridge boxes, and next to it stood a rack of rifles. On the counter lay open cases of plug tobacco, the odor of which was second in strength only to that of rum. Jean's swift-roving eye reverted to the men, three of whom were absorbed in the greasy checkerboard. The fourth man was the one who had spoken and he now deigned to look at Jean. Not much flesh was there stretched over his bony, powerful physiognomy. He stroked a lean chin with a big mobile hand that suggested more of bridle holding than familiarity with a bucksaw and plow handle. It was a lazy hand. The man looked lazy. If he spoke at all it would be with lazy speech, yet Jean had not encountered many men to whom he would have accorded more potency to stir in him the instinct of self-preservation. "Shore," drawled this gaunt-faced Texan, "old Gass lives aboot a mile down heah." With slow sweep of the big hand he indicated a general direction to the south; then, appearing to forget his questioner, he turned his attention to the game. Jean muttered his thanks and, striding out, he mounted again, and drove the pack mule down the road. "Reckon I've ran into the wrong folds to-day," he said. "If I remember dad right he was a man to make an' keep friends. Somehow I'll bet there's goin' to be hell." Beyond the store were some rather pretty and comfortable homes, little ranch houses back in the coves of the hills. The road turned west and Jean saw his first sunset in the Tonto Basin. It was a pageant of purple clouds with silver edges, and background of deep rich gold. Presently Jean met a lad driving a cow. "Hello, Johnny!" he said, genially, and with a double purpose. "My name's Jean Isbel. By Golly! I'm lost in Grass Valley. Will you tell me where my dad lives?" "Yep. Keep right on, an' y'u cain't miss him," replied the lad, with a bright smile. "He's lookin' fer y'u." "How do you know, boy?" queried Jean, warmed by that smile. "Aw, I know. It's all over the valley thet y'u'd ride in ter-day. Shore I wus the one thet tole yer dad an' he give me a dollar." "Was he glad to hear it?" asked Jean, with a queer sensation in his throat. "Wal, he plumb was." "An' who told you I was goin' to ride in to-day?" "I heerd it at the store," replied the lad, with an air of confidence. "Some sheepmen was talkin' to Greaves. He's the storekeeper. I was settin' outside, but I heerd. A Mexican come down off the Rim ter-day an' he fetched the news." Here the lad looked furtively around, then whispered. "An' thet greaser was sent by somebody. I never heerd no more, but them sheepmen looked pretty plumb sour. An' one of them, comin' out, give me a kick, darn him. It shore is the luckedest day fer us cowmen." "How's that, Johnny?" "Wal, that's shore a big fight comin' to Grass Valley. My dad says so an' he rides fer yer dad. An' if it comes now y'u'll be heah." "Ahuh!" laughed Jean. "An' what then, boy?" The lad turned bright eyes upward. "Aw, now, yu'all cain't come thet on me. Ain't y'u an Injun, Jean Isbel? Ain't y'u a hoss tracker thet rustlers cain't fool? Ain't y'u a plumb dead shot? Ain't y'u wuss'ern a grizzly bear in a rough-an'-tumble? ... Now ain't y'u, shore?" Jean bade the flattering lad a rather sober good day and rode on his way. Manifestly a reputation somewhat difficult to live up to had preceded his entry into Grass Valley. Jean's first sight of his future home thrilled him through. It was a big, low, rambling log structure standing well out from a wooded knoll at the edge of the valley. Corrals and barns and sheds lay off at the back. To the fore stretched broad pastures where numberless cattle and horses grazed. At sunset the scene was one of rich color. Prosperity and abundance and peace seemed attendant upon that ranch; lusty voices of burros braying and cows bawling seemed welcoming Jean. A hound bayed. The first cool touch of wind fanned Jean's cheek and brought a fragrance of wood smoke and frying ham. Horses in the Pasture romped to the fence and whistled at these newcomers. Jean espied a white-faced black horse that gladdened his sight. "Hello, Whiteface! I'll sure straddle you," called Jean. Then up the gentle slope he saw the tall figure of his father--the same as he had seen him thousands of times, bareheaded, shirt sleeved, striding with long step. Jean waved and called to him. "Hi, You Prodigal!" came the answer. Yes, the voice of his father--and Jean's boyhood memories flashed. He hurried his horse those last few rods. No--dad was not the same. His hair shone gray. "Here I am, dad," called Jean, and then he was dismounting. A deep, quiet emotion settled over him, stilling the hurry, the eagerness, the pang in his breast. "Son, I shore am glad to see you," said his father, and wrung his hand. "Wal, wal, the size of you! Shore you've grown, any how you favor your mother." Jean felt in the iron clasp of hand, in the uplifting of the handsome head, in the strong, fine light of piercing eyes that there was no difference in the spirit of his father. But the old smile could not hide lines and shades strange to Jean. "Dad, I'm as glad as you," replied Jean, heartily. "It seems long we've been parted, now I see you. Are You well, dad, an' all right?" "Not complainin', son. I can ride all day same as ever," he said. "Come. Never mind your hosses. They'll be looked after. Come meet the folks.... Wal, wal, you got heah at last." On the porch of the house a group awaited Jean's coming, rather silently, he thought. Wide-eyed children were there, very shy and watchful. The dark face of his sister corresponded with the image of her in his memory. She appeared taller, more womanly, as she embraced him. "Oh, Jean, Jean, I'm glad you've come!" she cried, and pressed him close. Jean felt in her a woman's anxiety for the present as well as affection for the past. He remembered his aunt Mary, though he had not seen her for years. His half brothers, Bill and Guy, had changed but little except perhaps to grow lean and rangy. Bill resembled his father, though his aspect was jocular rather than serious. Guy was smaller, wiry, and hard as rock, with snapping eyes in a brown, still face, and he had the bow-legs of a cattleman. Both had married in Arizona. Bill's wife, Kate, was a stout, comely little woman, mother of three of the children. The other wife was young, a strapping girl, red headed and freckled, with wonderful lines of pain and strength in her face. Jean remembered, as he looked at her, that some one had written him about the tragedy in her life. When she was only a child the Apaches had murdered all her family. Then next to greet Jean were the little children, all shy, yet all manifestly impressed by the occasion. A warmth and intimacy of forgotten home emotions flooded over Jean. Sweet it was to get home to these relatives who loved him and welcomed him with quiet gladness. But there seemed more. Jean was quick to see the shadow in the eyes of the women in that household and to sense a strange reliance which his presence brought. "Son, this heah Tonto is a land of milk an' honey," said his father, as Jean gazed spellbound at the bounteous supper. Jean certainly performed gastronomic feats on this occasion, to the delight of Aunt Mary and the wonder of the children. "Oh, he's starv-ved to death," whispered one of the little boys to his sister. They had begun to warm to this stranger uncle. Jean had no chance to talk, even had he been able to, for the meal-time showed a relaxation of restraint and they all tried to tell him things at once. In the bright lamplight his father looked easier and happier as he beamed upon Jean. After supper the men went into an adjoining room that appeared most comfortable and attractive. It was long, and the width of the house, with a huge stone fireplace, low ceiling of hewn timbers and walls of the same, small windows with inside shutters of wood, and home-made table and chairs and rugs. "Wal, Jean, do you recollect them shootin'-irons?" inquired the rancher, pointing above the fireplace. Two guns hung on the spreading deer antlers there. One was a musket Jean's father had used in the war of the rebellion and the other was a long, heavy, muzzle-loading flintlock Kentucky, rifle with which Jean had learned to shoot. "Reckon I do, dad," replied Jean, and with reverent hands and a rush of memory he took the old gun down. "Jean, you shore handle thet old arm some clumsy," said Guy Isbel, dryly. And Bill added a remark to the effect that perhaps Jean had been leading a luxurious and tame life back there in Oregon, and then added, "But I reckon he's packin' that six-shooter like a Texan." "Say, I fetched a gun or two along with me," replied Jean, jocularly. "Reckon I near broke my poor mule's back with the load of shells an' guns. Dad, what was the idea askin' me to pack out an arsenal?" "Son, shore all shootin' arms an' such are at a premium in the Tonto," replied his father. "An' I was givin' you a hunch to come loaded." His cool, drawling voice seemed to put a damper upon the pleasantries. Right there Jean sensed the charged atmosphere. His brothers were bursting with utterance about to break forth, and his father suddenly wore a look that recalled to Jean critical times of days long past. But the entrance of the children and the women folk put an end to confidences. Evidently the youngsters were laboring under subdued excitement. They preceded their mother, the smallest boy in the lead. For him this must have been both a dreadful and a wonderful experience, for he seemed to be pushed forward by his sister and brother and mother, and driven by yearnings of his own. "There now, Lee. Say, 'Uncle Jean, what did you fetch us?' The lad hesitated for a shy, frightened look at Jean, and then, gaining something from his scrutiny of his uncle, he toddled forward and bravely delivered the question of tremendous importance. "What did I fetch you, hey?" cried Jean, in delight, as he took the lad up on his knee. "Wouldn't you like to know? I didn't forget, Lee. I remembered you all. Oh! the job I had packin' your bundle of presents.... Now, Lee, make a guess." "I dess you fetched a dun," replied Lee. "A dun!--I'll bet you mean a gun," laughed Jean. "Well, you four-year-old Texas gunman! Make another guess." That appeared too momentous and entrancing for the other two youngsters, and, adding their shrill and joyous voices to Lee's, they besieged Jean. "Dad, where's my pack?" cried Jean. "These young Apaches are after my scalp." "Reckon the boys fetched it onto the porch," replied the rancher. Guy Isbel opened the door and went out. "By golly! heah's three packs," he called. "Which one do you want, Jean?" "It's a long, heavy bundle, all tied up," replied Jean. Guy came staggering in under a burden that brought a whoop from the youngsters and bright gleams to the eyes of the women. Jean lost nothing of this. How glad he was that he had tarried in San Francisco because of a mental picture of this very reception in far-off wild Arizona. When Guy deposited the bundle on the floor it jarred the room. It gave forth metallic and rattling and crackling sounds. "Everybody stand back an' give me elbow room," ordered Jean, majestically. "My good folks, I want you all to know this is somethin' that doesn't happen often. The bundle you see here weighed about a hundred pounds when I packed it on my shoulder down Market Street in Frisco. It was stolen from me on shipboard. I got it back in San Diego an' licked the thief. It rode on a burro from San Diego to Yuma an' once I thought the burro was lost for keeps. It came up the Colorado River from Yuma to Ehrenberg an' there went on top of a stage. We got chased by bandits an' once when the horses were gallopin' hard it near rolled off. Then it went on the back of a pack horse an' helped wear him out. An' I reckon it would be somewhere else now if I hadn't fallen in with a freighter goin' north from Phoenix to the Santa Fe Trail. The last lap when it sagged the back of a mule was the riskiest an' full of the narrowest escapes. Twice my mule bucked off his pack an' left my outfit scattered. Worst of all, my precious bundle made the mule top heavy comin' down that place back here where the trail seems to drop off the earth. There I was hard put to keep sight of my pack. Sometimes it was on top an' other times the mule. But it got here at last.... An' now I'll open it." After this long and impressive harangue, which at least augmented the suspense of the women and worked the children into a frenzy, Jean leisurely untied the many knots round the bundle and unrolled it. He had packed that bundle for just such travel as it had sustained. Three cloth-bound rifles he laid aside, and with them a long, very heavy package tied between two thin wide boards. From this came the metallic clink. "Oo, I know what dem is!" cried Lee, breaking the silence of suspense. Then Jean, tearing open a long flat parcel, spread before the mute, rapt-eyed youngsters such magnificent things, as they had never dreamed of--picture books, mouth-harps, dolls, a toy gun and a toy pistol, a wonderful whistle and a fox horn, and last of all a box of candy. Before these treasures on the floor, too magical to be touched at first, the two little boys and their sister simply knelt. That was a sweet, full moment for Jean; yet even that was clouded by the something which shadowed these innocent children fatefully born in a wild place at a wild time. Next Jean gave to his sister the presents he had brought her--beautiful cloth for a dress, ribbons and a bit of lace, handkerchiefs and buttons and yards of linen, a sewing case and a whole box of spools of thread, a comb and brush and mirror, and lastly a Spanish brooch inlaid with garnets. "There, Ann," said Jean, "I confess I asked a girl friend in Oregon to tell me some things my sister might like." Manifestly there was not much difference in girls. Ann seemed stunned by this munificence, and then awakening, she hugged Jean in a way that took his breath. She was not a child any more, that was certain. Aunt Mary turned knowing eyes upon Jean. "Reckon you couldn't have pleased Ann more. She's engaged, Jean, an' where girls are in that state these things mean a heap.... Ann, you'll be married in that!" And she pointed to the beautiful folds of material that Ann had spread out. "What's this?" demanded Jean. His sister's blushes were enough to convict her, and they were mightily becoming, too. "Here, Aunt Mary," went on Jean, "here's yours, an' here's somethin' for each of my new sisters." This distribution left the women as happy and occupied, almost, as the children. It left also another package, the last one in the bundle. Jean laid hold of it and, lifting it, he was about to speak when he sustained a little shock of memory. Quite distinctly he saw two little feet, with bare toes peeping out of worn-out moccasins, and then round, bare, symmetrical ankles that had been scratched by brush. Next he saw Ellen Jorth's passionate face as she looked when she had made the violent action so disconcerting to him. In this happy moment the memory seemed farther off than a few hours. It had crystallized. It annoyed while it drew him. As a result he slowly laid this package aside and did not speak as he had intended to. "Dad, I reckon I didn't fetch a lot for you an' the boys," continued Jean. "Some knives, some pipes an' tobacco. An' sure the guns." "Shore, you're a regular Santa Claus, Jean," replied his father. "Wal, wal, look at the kids. An' look at Mary. An' for the land's sake look at Ann! Wal, wal, I'm gettin' old. I'd forgotten the pretty stuff an' gimcracks that mean so much to women. We're out of the world heah. It's just as well you've lived apart from us, Jean, for comin' back this way, with all that stuff, does us a lot of good. I cain't say, son, how obliged I am. My mind has been set on the hard side of life. An' it's shore good to forget--to see the smiles of the women an' the joy of the kids." At this juncture a tall young man entered the open door. He looked a rider. All about him, even his face, except his eyes, seemed old, but his eyes were young, fine, soft, and dark. "How do, y'u-all!" he said, evenly. Ann rose from her knees. Then Jean did not need to be told who this newcomer was. "Jean, this is my friend, Andrew Colmor." Jean knew when he met Colmor's grip and the keen flash of his eyes that he was glad Ann had set her heart upon one of their kind. And his second impression was something akin to the one given him in the road by the admiring lad. Colmor's estimate of him must have been a monument built of Ann's eulogies. Jean's heart suffered misgivings. Could he live up to the character that somehow had forestalled his advent in Grass Valley? Surely life was measured differently here in the Tonto Basin. The children, bundling their treasures to their bosoms, were dragged off to bed in some remote part of the house, from which their laughter and voices came back with happy significance. Jean forthwith had an interested audience. How eagerly these lonely pioneer people listened to news of the outside world! Jean talked until he was hoarse. In their turn his hearers told him much that had never found place in the few and short letters he had received since he had been left in Oregon. Not a word about sheepmen or any hint of rustlers! Jean marked the omission and thought all the more seriously of probabilities because nothing was said. Altogether the evening was a happy reunion of a family of which all living members were there present. Jean grasped that this fact was one of significant satisfaction to his father. "Shore we're all goin' to live together heah," he declared. "I started this range. I call most of this valley mine. We'll run up a cabin for Ann soon as she says the word. An' you, Jean, where's your girl? I shore told you to fetch her." "Dad, I didn't have one," replied Jean. "Wal, I wish you had," returned the rancher. "You'll go courtin' one of these Tonto hussies that I might object to." "Why, father, there's not a girl in the valley Jean would look twice at," interposed Ann Isbel, with spirit. Jean laughed the matter aside, but he had an uneasy memory. Aunt Mary averred, after the manner of relatives, that Jean would play havoc among the women of the settlement. And Jean retorted that at least one member of the Isbels; should hold out against folly and fight and love and marriage, the agents which had reduced the family to these few present. "I'll be the last Isbel to go under," he concluded. "Son, you're talkin' wisdom," said his father. "An' shore that reminds me of the uncle you're named after. Jean Isbel! ... Wal, he was my youngest brother an' shore a fire-eater. Our mother was a French creole from Louisiana, an' Jean must have inherited some of his fightin' nature from her. When the war of the rebellion started Jean an' I enlisted. I was crippled before we ever got to the front. But Jean went through three Years before he was killed. His company had orders to fight to the last man. An' Jean fought an' lived long enough just to be that last man." At length Jean was left alone with his father. "Reckon you're used to bunkin' outdoors?" queried the rancher, rather abruptly. "Most of the time," replied Jean. "Wal, there's room in the house, but I want you to sleep out. Come get your beddin' an' gun. I'll show you." They went outside on the porch, where Jean shouldered his roll of tarpaulin and blankets. His rifle, in its saddle sheath, leaned against the door. His father took it up and, half pulling it out, looked at it by the starlight. "Forty-four, eh? Wal, wal, there's shore no better, if a man can hold straight." At the moment a big gray dog trotted up to sniff at Jean. "An' heah's your bunkmate, Shepp. He's part lofer, Jean. His mother was a favorite shepherd dog of mine. His father was a big timber wolf that took us two years to kill. Some bad wolf packs runnin' this Basin." The night was cold and still, darkly bright under moon and stars; the smell of hay seemed to mingle with that of cedar. Jean followed his father round the house and up a gentle slope of grass to the edge of the cedar line. Here several trees with low-sweeping thick branches formed a dense, impenetrable shade. "Son, your uncle Jean was scout for Liggett, one of the greatest rebels the South had," said the rancher. "An' you're goin' to be scout for the Isbels of Tonto. Reckon you'll find it 'most as hot as your uncle did.... Spread your bed inside. You can see out, but no one can see you. Reckon there's been some queer happenin's 'round heah lately. If Shepp could talk he'd shore have lots to tell us. Bill an' Guy have been sleepin' out, trailin' strange hoss tracks, an' all that. But shore whoever's been prowlin' around heah was too sharp for them. Some bad, crafty, light-steppin' woodsmen 'round heah, Jean.... Three mawnin's ago, just after daylight, I stepped out the back door an' some one of these sneaks I'm talkin' aboot took a shot at me. Missed my head a quarter of an inch! To-morrow I'll show you the bullet hole in the doorpost. An' some of my gray hairs that 're stickin' in it!" "Dad!" ejaculated Jean, with a hand outstretched. "That's awful! You frighten me." "No time to be scared," replied his father, calmly. "They're shore goin' to kill me. That's why I wanted you home.... In there with you, now! Go to sleep. You shore can trust Shepp to wake you if he gets scent or sound.... An' good night, my son. I'm sayin' that I'll rest easy to-night." Jean mumbled a good night and stood watching his father's shining white head move away under the starlight. Then the tall, dark form vanished, a door closed, and all was still. The dog Shepp licked Jean's hand. Jean felt grateful for that warm touch. For a moment he sat on his roll of bedding, his thought still locked on the shuddering revelation of his father's words, "They're shore goin' to kill me." The shock of inaction passed. Jean pushed his pack in the dark opening and, crawling inside, he unrolled it and made his bed. When at length he was comfortably settled for the night he breathed a long sigh of relief. What bliss to relax! A throbbing and burning of his muscles seemed to begin with his rest. The cool starlit night, the smell of cedar, the moan of wind, the silence--an were real to his senses. After long weeks of long, arduous travel he was home. The warmth of the welcome still lingered, but it seemed to have been pierced by an icy thrust. What lay before him? The shadow in the eyes of his aunt, in the younger, fresher eyes of his sister--Jean connected that with the meaning of his father's tragic words. Far past was the morning that had been so keen, the breaking of camp in the sunlit forest, the riding down the brown aisles under the pines, the music of bleating lambs that had called him not to pass by. Thought of Ellen Jorth recurred. Had he met her only that morning? She was up there in the forest, asleep under the starlit pines. Who was she? What was her story? That savage fling of her skirt, her bitter speech and passionate flaming face--they haunted Jean. They were crystallizing into simpler memories, growing away from his bewilderment, and therefore at once sweeter and more doubtful. "Maybe she meant differently from what I thought," Jean soliloquized. "Anyway, she was honest." Both shame and thrill possessed him at the recall of an insidious idea--dare he go back and find her and give her the last package of gifts he had brought from the city? What might they mean to poor, ragged, untidy, beautiful Ellen Jorth? The idea grew on Jean. It could not be dispelled. He resisted stubbornly. It was bound to go to its fruition. Deep into his mind had sunk an impression of her need--a material need that brought spirit and pride to abasement. From one picture to another his memory wandered, from one speech and act of hers to another, choosing, selecting, casting aside, until clear and sharp as the stars shone the words, "Oh, I've been kissed before!" That stung him now. By whom? Not by one man, but by several, by many, she had meant. Pshaw! he had only been sympathetic and drawn by a strange girl in the woods. To-morrow he would forget. Work there was for him in Grass Valley. And he reverted uneasily to the remarks of his father until at last sleep claimed him. A cold nose against his cheek, a low whine, awakened Jean. The big dog Shepp was beside him, keen, wary, intense. The night appeared far advanced toward dawn. Far away a cock crowed; the near-at-hand one answered in clarion voice. "What is it, Shepp?" whispered Jean, and he sat up. The dog smelled or heard something suspicious to his nature, but whether man or animal Jean could not tell. CHAPTER III The morning star, large, intensely blue-white, magnificent in its dominance of the clear night sky, hung over the dim, dark valley ramparts. The moon had gone down and all the other stars were wan, pale ghosts. Presently the strained vacuum of Jean's ears vibrated to a low roar of many hoofs. It came from the open valley, along the slope to the south. Shepp acted as if he wanted the word to run. Jean laid a hand on the dog. "Hold on, Shepp," he whispered. Then hauling on his boots and slipping into his coat Jean took his rifle and stole out into the open. Shepp appeared to be well trained, for it was evident that he had a strong natural tendency to run off and hunt for whatever had roused him. Jean thought it more than likely that the dog scented an animal of some kind. If there were men prowling around the ranch Shepp, might have been just as vigilant, but it seemed to Jean that the dog would have shown less eagerness to leave him, or none at all. In the stillness of the morning it took Jean a moment to locate the direction of the wind, which was very light and coming from the south. In fact that little breeze had borne the low roar of trampling hoofs. Jean circled the ranch house to the right and kept along the slope at the edge of the cedars. It struck him suddenly how well fitted he was for work of this sort. All the work he had ever done, except for his few years in school, had been in the open. All the leisure he had ever been able to obtain had been given to his ruling passion for hunting and fishing. Love of the wild had been born in Jean. At this moment he experienced a grim assurance of what his instinct and his training might accomplish if directed to a stern and daring end. Perhaps his father understood this; perhaps the old Texan had some little reason for his confidence. Every few paces Jean halted to listen. All objects, of course, were indistinguishable in the dark-gray obscurity, except when he came close upon them. Shepp showed an increasing eagerness to bolt out into the void. When Jean had traveled half a mile from the house he heard a scattered trampling of cattle on the run, and farther out a low strangled bawl of a calf. "Ahuh!" muttered Jean. "Cougar or some varmint pulled down that calf." Then he discharged his rifle in the air and yelled with all his might. It was necessary then to yell again to hold Shepp back. Thereupon Jean set forth down the valley, and tramped out and across and around, as much to scare away whatever had been after the stock as to look for the wounded calf. More than once he heard cattle moving away ahead of him, but he could not see them. Jean let Shepp go, hoping the dog would strike a trail. But Shepp neither gave tongue nor came back. Dawn began to break, and in the growing light Jean searched around until at last he stumbled over a dead calf, lying in a little bare wash where water ran in wet seasons. Big wolf tracks showed in the soft earth. "Lofers," said Jean, as he knelt and just covered one track with his spread hand. "We had wolves in Oregon, but not as big as these.... Wonder where that half-wolf dog, Shepp, went. Wonder if he can be trusted where wolves are concerned. I'll bet not, if there's a she-wolf runnin' around." Jean found tracks of two wolves, and he trailed them out of the wash, then lost them in the grass. But, guided by their direction, he went on and climbed a slope to the cedar line, where in the dusty patches he found the tracks again. "Not scared much," he muttered, as he noted the slow trotting tracks. "Well, you old gray lofers, we're goin' to clash." Jean knew from many a futile hunt that wolves were the wariest and most intelligent of wild animals in the quest. From the top of a low foothill he watched the sun rise; and then no longer wondered why his father waxed eloquent over the beauty and location and luxuriance of this grassy valley. But it was large enough to make rich a good many ranchers. Jean tried to restrain any curiosity as to his father's dealings in Grass Valley until the situation had been made clear. Moreover, Jean wanted to love this wonderful country. He wanted to be free to ride and hunt and roam to his heart's content; and therefore he dreaded hearing his father's claims. But Jean threw off forebodings. Nothing ever turned out so badly as it presaged. He would think the best until certain of the worst. The morning was gloriously bright, and already the frost was glistening wet on the stones. Grass Valley shone like burnished silver dotted with innumerable black spots. Burros were braying their discordant messages to one another; the colts were romping in the fields; stallions were whistling; cows were bawling. A cloud of blue smoke hung low over the ranch house, slowly wafting away on the wind. Far out in the valley a dark group of horsemen were riding toward the village. Jean glanced thoughtfully at them and reflected that he seemed destined to harbor suspicion of all men new and strange to him. Above the distant village stood the darkly green foothills leading up to the craggy slopes, and these ending in the Rim, a red, black-fringed mountain front, beautiful in the morning sunlight, lonely, serene, and mysterious against the level skyline. Mountains, ranges, distances unknown to Jean, always called to him--to come, to seek, to explore, to find, but no wild horizon ever before beckoned to him as this one. And the subtle vague emotion that had gone to sleep with him last night awoke now hauntingly. It took effort to dispel the desire to think, to wonder. Upon his return to the house, he went around on the valley side, so as to see the place by light of day. His father had built for permanence; and evidently there had been three constructive periods in the history of that long, substantial, picturesque log house. But few nails and little sawed lumber and no glass had been used. Strong and skillful hands, axes and a crosscut saw, had been the prime factors in erecting this habitation of the Isbels. "Good mawnin', son," called a cheery voice from the porch. "Shore we-all heard you shoot; an' the crack of that forty-four was as welcome as May flowers." Bill Isbel looked up from a task over a saddle girth and inquired pleasantly if Jean ever slept of nights. Guy Isbel laughed and there was warm regard in the gaze he bent on Jean. "You old Indian!" he drawled, slowly. "Did you get a bead on anythin'?" "No. I shot to scare away what I found to be some of your lofers," replied Jean. "I heard them pullin' down a calf. An' I found tracks of two whoppin' big wolves. I found the dead calf, too. Reckon the meat can be saved. Dad, you must lose a lot of stock here." "Wal, son, you shore hit the nail on the haid," replied the rancher. "What with lions an' bears an' lofers--an' two-footed lofers of another breed--I've lost five thousand dollars in stock this last year." "Dad! You don't mean it!" exclaimed Jean, in astonishment. To him that sum represented a small fortune. "I shore do," answered his father. Jean shook his head as if he could not understand such an enormous loss where there were keen able-bodied men about. "But that's awful, dad. How could it happen? Where were your herders an' cowboys? An' Bill an' Guy?" Bill Isbel shook a vehement fist at Jean and retorted in earnest, having manifestly been hit in a sore spot. "Where was me an' Guy, huh? Wal, my Oregon brother, we was heah, all year, sleepin' more or less aboot three hours out of every twenty-four--ridin' our boots off--an' we couldn't keep down that loss." "Jean, you-all have a mighty tumble comin' to you out heah," said Guy, complacently. "Listen, son," spoke up the rancher. "You want to have some hunches before you figure on our troubles. There's two or three packs of lofers, an' in winter time they are hell to deal with. Lions thick as bees, an' shore bad when the snow's on. Bears will kill a cow now an' then. An' whenever an' old silvertip comes mozyin' across from the Mazatzals he kills stock. I'm in with half a dozen cattlemen. We all work together, an' the whole outfit cain't keep these vermints down. Then two years ago the Hash Knife Gang come into the Tonto." "Hash Knife Gang? What a pretty name!" replied Jean. "Who're they?" "Rustlers, son. An' shore the real old Texas brand. The old Lone Star State got too hot for them, an' they followed the trail of a lot of other Texans who needed a healthier climate. Some two hundred Texans around heah, Jean, an' maybe a matter of three hundred inhabitants in the Tonto all told, good an' bad. Reckon it's aboot half an' half." A cheery call from the kitchen interrupted the conversation of the men. "You come to breakfast." During the meal the old rancher talked to Bill and Guy about the day's order of work; and from this Jean gathered an idea of what a big cattle business his father conducted. After breakfast Jean's brothers manifested keen interest in the new rifles. These were unwrapped and cleaned and taken out for testing. The three rifles were forty-four calibre Winchesters, the kind of gun Jean had found most effective. He tried them out first, and the shots he made were satisfactory to him and amazing to the others. Bill had used an old Henry rifle. Guy did not favor any particular rifle. The rancher pinned his faith to the famous old single-shot buffalo gun, mostly called needle gun. "Wal, reckon I'd better stick to mine. Shore you cain't teach an old dog new tricks. But you boys may do well with the forty-fours. Pack 'em on your saddles an' practice when you see a coyote." Jean found it difficult to convince himself that this interest in guns and marksmanship had any sinister propulsion back of it. His father and brothers had always been this way. Rifles were as important to pioneers as plows, and their skillful use was an achievement every frontiersman tried to attain. Friendly rivalry had always existed among the members of the Isbel family: even Ann Isbel was a good shot. But such proficiency in the use of firearms--and life in the open that was correlative with it--had not dominated them as it had Jean. Bill and Guy Isbel were born cattlemen--chips of the old block. Jean began to hope that his father's letter was an exaggeration, and particularly that the fatalistic speech of last night, "they are goin' to kill me," was just a moody inclination to see the worst side. Still, even as Jean tried to persuade himself of this more hopeful view, he recalled many references to the peculiar reputation of Texans for gun-throwing, for feuds, for never-ending hatreds. In Oregon the Isbels had lived among industrious and peaceful pioneers from all over the States; to be sure, the life had been rough and primitive, and there had been fights on occasions, though no Isbel had ever killed a man. But now they had become fixed in a wilder and sparsely settled country among men of their own breed. Jean was afraid his hopes had only sentiment to foster them. Nevertheless, be forced back a strange, brooding, mental state and resolutely held up the brighter side. Whatever the evil conditions existing in Grass Valley, they could be met with intelligence and courage, with an absolute certainty that it was inevitable they must pass away. Jean refused to consider the old, fatal law that at certain wild times and wild places in the West certain men had to pass away to change evil conditions. "Wal, Jean, ride around the range with the boys," said the rancher. "Meet some of my neighbors, Jim Blaisdell, in particular. Take a look at the cattle. An' pick out some hosses for yourself." "I've seen one already," declared Jean, quickly. "A black with white face. I'll take him." "Shore you know a hoss. To my eye he's my pick. But the boys don't agree. Bill 'specially has degenerated into a fancier of pitchin' hosses. Ann can ride that black. You try him this mawnin'.... An', son, enjoy yourself." True to his first impression, Jean named the black horse Whiteface and fell in love with him before ever he swung a leg over him. Whiteface appeared spirited, yet gentle. He had been trained instead of being broken. Of hard hits and quirts and spurs he had no experience. He liked to do what his rider wanted him to do. A hundred or more horses grazed in the grassy meadow, and as Jean rode on among them it was a pleasure to see stallions throw heads and ears up and whistle or snort. Whole troops of colts and two-year-olds raced with flying tails and manes. Beyond these pastures stretched the range, and Jean saw the gray-green expanse speckled by thousands of cattle. The scene was inspiring. Jean's brothers led him all around, meeting some of the herders and riders employed on the ranch, one of whom was a burly, grizzled man with eyes reddened and narrowed by much riding in wind and sun and dust. His name was Evans and he was father of the lad whom Jean had met near the village. Everts was busily skinning the calf that had been killed by the wolves. "See heah, y'u Jean Isbel," said Everts, "it shore was aboot time y'u come home. We-all heahs y'u hev an eye fer tracks. Wal, mebbe y'u can kill Old Gray, the lofer thet did this job. He's pulled down nine calves as' yearlin's this last two months thet I know of. An' we've not hed the spring round-up." Grass Valley widened to the southeast. Jean would have been backward about estimating the square miles in it. Yet it was not vast acreage so much as rich pasture that made it such a wonderful range. Several ranches lay along the western slope of this section. Jean was informed that open parks and swales, and little valleys nestling among the foothills, wherever there was water and grass, had been settled by ranchers. Every summer a few new families ventured in. Blaisdell struck Jean as being a lionlike type of Texan, both in his broad, bold face, his huge head with its upstanding tawny hair like a mane, and in the speech and force that betokened the nature of his heart. He was not as old as Jean's father. He had a rolling voice, with the same drawling intonation characteristic of all Texans, and blue eyes that still held the fire of youth. Quite a marked contrast he presented to the lean, rangy, hard-jawed, intent-eyed men Jean had begun to accept as Texans. Blaisdell took time for a curious scrutiny and study of Jean, that, frank and kindly as it was, and evidently the adjustment of impressions gotten from hearsay, yet bespoke the attention of one used to judging men for himself, and in this particular case having reasons of his own for so doing. "Wal, you're like your sister Ann," said Blaisdell. "Which you may take as a compliment, young man. Both of you favor your mother. But you're an Isbel. Back in Texas there are men who never wear a glove on their right hands, an' shore I reckon if one of them met up with you sudden he'd think some graves had opened an' he'd go for his gun." Blaisdell's laugh pealed out with deep, pleasant roll. Thus he planted in Jean's sensitive mind a significant thought-provoking idea about the past-and-gone Isbels. His further remarks, likewise, were exceedingly interesting to Jean. The settling of the Tonto Basin by Texans was a subject often in dispute. His own father had been in the first party of adventurous pioneers who had traveled up from the south to cross over the Reno Pass of the Mazatzals into the Basin. "Newcomers from outside get impressions of the Tonto accordin' to the first settlers they meet," declared Blaisdell. "An' shore it's my belief these first impressions never change, just so strong they are! Wal, I've heard my father say there were men in his wagon train that got run out of Texas, but he swore he wasn't one of them. So I reckon that sort of talk held good for twenty years, an' for all the Texans who emigrated, except, of course, such notorious rustlers as Daggs an' men of his ilk. Shore we've got some bad men heah. There's no law. Possession used to mean more than it does now. Daggs an' his Hash Knife Gang have begun to hold forth with a high hand. No small rancher can keep enough stock to pay for his labor." At the time of which Blaisdell spoke there were not many sheepmen and cattlemen in the Tonto, considering its vast area. But these, on account of the extreme wildness of the broken country, were limited to the comparatively open Grass Valley and its adjacent environs. Naturally, as the inhabitants increased and stock raising grew in proportion the grazing and water rights became matters of extreme importance. Sheepmen ran their flocks up on the Rim in summer time and down into the Basin in winter time. A sheepman could throw a few thousand sheep round a cattleman's ranch and ruin him. The range was free. It was as fair for sheepmen to graze their herds anywhere as it was for cattlemen. This of course did not apply to the few acres of cultivated ground that a rancher could call his own; but very few cattle could have been raised on such limited area. Blaisdell said that the sheepmen were unfair because they could have done just as well, though perhaps at more labor, by keeping to the ridges and leaving the open valley and little flats to the ranchers. Formerly there had been room enough for all; now the grazing ranges were being encroached upon by sheepmen newly come to the Tonto. To Blaisdell's way of thinking the rustler menace was more serious than the sheeping-off of the range, for the simple reason that no cattleman knew exactly who the rustlers were and for the more complex and significant reason that the rustlers did not steal sheep. "Texas was overstocked with bad men an' fine steers," concluded Blaisdell. "Most of the first an' some of the last have struck the Tonto. The sheepmen have now got distributin' points for wool an' sheep at Maricopa an' Phoenix. They're shore waxin' strong an' bold." "Ahuh! ... An' what's likely to come of this mess?" queried Jean. "Ask your dad," replied Blaisdell. "I will. But I reckon I'd be obliged for your opinion." "Wal, short an' sweet it's this: Texas cattlemen will never allow the range they stocked to be overrun by sheepmen." "Who's this man Greaves?" went on Jean. "Never run into anyone like him." "Greaves is hard to figure. He's a snaky customer in deals. But he seems to be good to the poor people 'round heah. Says he's from Missouri. Ha-ha! He's as much Texan as I am. He rode into the Tonto without even a pack to his name. An' presently he builds his stone house an' freights supplies in from Phoenix. Appears to buy an' sell a good deal of stock. For a while it looked like he was steerin' a middle course between cattlemen an' sheepmen. Both sides made a rendezvous of his store, where he heard the grievances of each. Laterly he's leanin' to the sheepmen. Nobody has accused him of that yet. But it's time some cattleman called his bluff." "Of course there are honest an' square sheepmen in the Basin?" queried Jean. "Yes, an' some of them are not unreasonable. But the new fellows that dropped in on us the last few year--they're the ones we're goin' to clash with." "This--sheepman, Jorth?" went on Jean, in slow hesitation, as if compelled to ask what he would rather not learn. "Jorth must be the leader of this sheep faction that's harryin' us ranchers. He doesn't make threats or roar around like some of them. But he goes on raisin' an' buyin' more an' more sheep. An' his herders have been grazin' down all around us this winter. Jorth's got to be reckoned with." "Who is he?" "Wal, I don't know enough to talk aboot. Your dad never said so, but I think he an' Jorth knew each other in Texas years ago. I never saw Jorth but once. That was in Greaves's barroom. Your dad an' Jorth met that day for the first time in this country. Wal, I've not known men for nothin'. They just stood stiff an' looked at each other. Your dad was aboot to draw. But Jorth made no sign to throw a gun." Jean saw the growing and weaving and thickening threads of a tangle that had already involved him. And the sudden pang of regret he sustained was not wholly because of sympathies with his own people. "The other day back up in the woods on the Rim I ran into a sheepman who said his name was Colter. Who is he? "Colter? Shore he's a new one. What'd he look like?" Jean described Colter with a readiness that spoke volumes for the vividness of his impressions. "I don't know him," replied Blaisdell. "But that only goes to prove my contention--any fellow runnin' wild in the woods can say he's a sheepman." "Colter surprised me by callin' me by my name," continued Jean. "Our little talk wasn't exactly friendly. He said a lot about my bein' sent for to run sheep herders out of the country." "Shore that's all over," replied Blaisdell, seriously. "You're a marked man already." "What started such rumor?" "Shore you cain't prove it by me. But it's not taken as rumor. It's got to the sheepmen as hard as bullets." "Ahuh! That accunts for Colter's seemin' a little sore under the collar. Well, he said they were goin' to run sheep over Grass Valley, an' for me to take that hunch to my dad." Blaisdell had his chair tilted back and his heavy boots against a post of the porch. Down he thumped. His neck corded with a sudden rush of blood and his eyes changed to blue fire. "The hell he did!" he ejaculated, in furious amaze. Jean gauged the brooding, rankling hurt of this old cattleman by his sudden break from the cool, easy Texan manner. Blaisdell cursed under his breath, swung his arms violently, as if to throw a last doubt or hope aside, and then relapsed to his former state. He laid a brown hand on Jean's knee. "Two years ago I called the cards," he said, quietly. "It means a Grass Valley war." Not until late that afternoon did Jean's father broach the subject uppermost in his mind. Then at an opportune moment he drew Jean away into the cedars out of sight. "Son, I shore hate to make your home-comin' unhappy," he said, with evidence of agitation, "but so help me God I have to do it!" "Dad, you called me Prodigal, an' I reckon you were right. I've shirked my duty to you. I'm ready now to make up for it," replied Jean, feelingly. "Wal, wal, shore thats fine-spoken, my boy.... Let's set down heah an' have a long talk. First off, what did Jim Blaisdell tell you?" Briefly Jean outlined the neighbor rancher's conversation. Then Jean recounted his experience with Colter and concluded with Blaisdell's reception of the sheepman's threat. If Jean expected to see his father rise up like a lion in his wrath he made a huge mistake. This news of Colter and his talk never struck even a spark from Gaston Isbel. "Wal," he began, thoughtfully, "reckon there are only two points in Jim's talk I need touch on. There's shore goin' to be a Grass Valley war. An' Jim's idea of the cause of it seems to be pretty much the same as that of all the other cattlemen. It 'll go down a black blot on the history page of the Tonto Basin as a war between rival sheepmen an' cattlemen. Same old fight over water an' grass! ... Jean, my son, that is wrong. It 'll not be a war between sheepmen an' cattlemen. But a war of honest ranchers against rustlers maskin' as sheep-raisers! ... Mind you, I don't belittle the trouble between sheepmen an' cattlemen in Arizona. It's real an' it's vital an' it's serious. It 'll take law an' order to straighten out the grazin' question. Some day the government will keep sheep off of cattle ranges.... So get things right in your mind, my son. You can trust your dad to tell the absolute truth. In this fight that 'll wipe out some of the Isbels--maybe all of them--you're on the side of justice an' right. Knowin' that, a man can fight a hundred times harder than he who knows he is a liar an' a thief." The old rancher wiped his perspiring face and breathed slowly and deeply. Jean sensed in him the rise of a tremendous emotional strain. Wonderingly he watched the keen lined face. More than material worries were at the root of brooding, mounting thoughts in his father's eyes. "Now next take what Jim said aboot your comin' to chase these sheep-herders out of the valley.... Jean, I started that talk. I had my tricky reasons. I know these greaser sheep-herders an' I know the respect Texans have for a gunman. Some say I bragged. Some say I'm an old fool in his dotage, ravin' aboot a favorite son. But they are people who hate me an' are afraid. True, son, I talked with a purpose, but shore I was mighty cold an' steady when I did it. My feelin' was that you'd do what I'd do if I were thirty years younger. No, I reckoned you'd do more. For I figured on your blood. Jean, you're Indian, an' Texas an' French, an' you've trained yourself in the Oregon woods. When you were only a boy, few marksmen I ever knew could beat you, an' I never saw your equal for eye an' ear, for trackin' a hoss, for all the gifts that make a woodsman.... Wal, rememberin' this an' seein' the trouble ahaid for the Isbels, I just broke out whenever I had a chance. I bragged before men I'd reason to believe would take my words deep. For instance, not long ago I missed some stock, an', happenin' into Greaves's place one Saturday night, I shore talked loud. His barroom was full of men an' some of them were in my black book. Greaves took my talk a little testy. He said. 'Wal, Gass, mebbe you're right aboot some of these cattle thieves livin' among us, but ain't they jest as liable to be some of your friends or relatives as Ted Meeker's or mine or any one around heah?' That was where Greaves an' me fell out. I yelled at him: 'No, by God, they're not! My record heah an' that of my people is open. The least I can say for you, Greaves, an' your crowd, is that your records fade away on dim trails.' Then he said, nasty-like, 'Wal, if you could work out all the dim trails in the Tonto you'd shore be surprised.' An' then I roared. Shore that was the chance I was lookin' for. I swore the trails he hinted of would be tracked to the holes of the rustlers who made them. I told him I had sent for you an' when you got heah these slippery, mysterious thieves, whoever they were, would shore have hell to pay. Greaves said he hoped so, but he was afraid I was partial to my Indian son. Then we had hot words. Blaisdell got between us. When I was leavin' I took a partin' fling at him. 'Greaves, you ought to know the Isbels, considerin' you're from Texas. Maybe you've got reasons for throwin' taunts at my claims for my son Jean. Yes, he's got Indian in him an' that 'll be the worse for the men who will have to meet him. I'm tellin' you, Greaves, Jean Isbel is the black sheep of the family. If you ride down his record you'll find he's shore in line to be another Poggin, or Reddy Kingfisher, or Hardin', or any of the Texas gunmen you ought to remember.... Greaves, there are men rubbin' elbows with you right heah that my Indian son is goin' to track down!'" Jean bent his head in stunned cognizance of the notoriety with which his father had chosen to affront any and all Tonto Basin men who were under the ban of his suspicion. What a terrible reputation and trust to have saddled upon him! Thrills and strange, heated sensations seemed to rush together inside Jean, forming a hot ball of fire that threatened to explode. A retreating self made feeble protests. He saw his own pale face going away from this older, grimmer man. "Son, if I could have looked forward to anythin' but blood spillin' I'd never have given you such a name to uphold," continued the rancher. "What I'm goin' to tell you now is my secret. My other sons an' Ann have never heard it. Jim Blaisdell suspects there's somethin' strange, but he doesn't know. I'll shore never tell anyone else but you. An' you must promise to keep my secret now an' after I am gone." "I promise," said Jean. "Wal, an' now to get it out," began his father, breathing hard. His face twitched and his hands clenched. "The sheepman heah I have to reckon with is Lee Jorth, a lifelong enemy of mine. We were born in the same town, played together as children, an' fought with each other as boys. We never got along together. An' we both fell in love with the same girl. It was nip an' tuck for a while. Ellen Sutton belonged to one of the old families of the South. She was a beauty, an' much courted, an' I reckon it was hard for her to choose. But I won her an' we became engaged. Then the war broke out. I enlisted with my brother Jean. He advised me to marry Ellen before I left. But I would not. That was the blunder of my life. Soon after our partin' her letters ceased to come. But I didn't distrust her. That was a terrible time an' all was confusion. Then I got crippled an' put in a hospital. An' in aboot a year I was sent back home." At this juncture Jean refrained from further gaze at his father's face. "Lee Jorth had gotten out of goin' to war," went on the rancher, in lower, thicker voice. "He'd married my sweetheart, Ellen.... I knew the story long before I got well. He had run after her like a hound after a hare.... An' Ellen married him. Wal, when I was able to get aboot I went to see Jorth an' Ellen. I confronted them. I had to know why she had gone back on me. Lee Jorth hadn't changed any with all his good fortune. He'd made Ellen believe in my dishonor. But, I reckon, lies or no lies, Ellen Sutton was faithless. In my absence he had won her away from me. An' I saw that she loved him as she never had me. I reckon that killed all my generosity. If she'd been imposed upon an' weaned away by his lies an' had regretted me a little I'd have forgiven, perhaps. But she worshiped him. She was his slave. An' I, wal, I learned what hate was. "The war ruined the Suttons, same as so many Southerners. Lee Jorth went in for raisin' cattle. He'd gotten the Sutton range an' after a few years he began to accumulate stock. In those days every cattleman was a little bit of a thief. Every cattleman drove in an' branded calves he couldn't swear was his. Wal, the Isbels were the strongest cattle raisers in that country. An' I laid a trap for Lee Jorth, caught him in the act of brandin' calves of mine I'd marked, an' I proved him a thief. I made him a rustler. I ruined him. We met once. But Jorth was one Texan not strong on the draw, at least against an Isbel. He left the country. He had friends an' relatives an' they started him at stock raisin' again. But he began to gamble an' he got in with a shady crowd. He went from bad to worse an' then he came back home. When I saw the change in proud, beautiful Ellen Sutton, an' how she still worshiped Jorth, it shore drove me near mad between pity an' hate.... Wal, I reckon in a Texan hate outlives any other feelin'. There came a strange turn of the wheel an' my fortunes changed. Like most young bloods of the day, I drank an' gambled. An' one night I run across Jorth an' a card-sharp friend. He fleeced me. We quarreled. Guns were thrown. I killed my man.... Aboot that period the Texas Rangers had come into existence.... An', son, when I said I never was run out of Texas I wasn't holdin' to strict truth. I rode out on a hoss. "I went to Oregon. There I married soon, an' there Bill an' Guy were born. Their mother did not live long. An' next I married your mother, Jean. She had some Indian blood, which, for all I could see, made her only the finer. She was a wonderful woman an' gave me the only happiness I ever knew. You remember her, of course, an' those home days in Oregon. I reckon I made another great blunder when I moved to Arizona. But the cattle country had always called me. I had heard of this wild Tonto Basin an' how Texans were settlin' there. An' Jim Blaisdell sent me word to come--that this shore was a garden spot of the West. Wal, it is. An' your mother was gone-- "Three years ago Lee Jorth drifted into the Tonto. An', strange to me, along aboot a year or so after his comin' the Hash Knife Gang rode up from Texas. Jorth went in for raisin' sheep. Along with some other sheepmen he lives up in the Rim canyons. Somewhere back in the wild brakes is the hidin' place of the Hash Knife Gang. Nobody but me, I reckon, associates Colonel Jorth, as he's called, with Daggs an' his gang. Maybe Blaisdell an' a few others have a hunch. But that's no matter. As a sheepman Jorth has a legitimate grievance with the cattlemen. But what could be settled by a square consideration for the good of all an' the future Jorth will never settle. He'll never settle because he is now no longer an honest man. He's in with Daggs. I cain't prove this, son, but I know it. I saw it in Jorth's face when I met him that day with Greaves. I saw more. I shore saw what he is up to. He'd never meet me at an even break. He's dead set on usin' this sheep an' cattle feud to ruin my family an' me, even as I ruined him. But he means more, Jean. This will be a war between Texans, an' a bloody war. There are bad men in this Tonto--some of the worst that didn't get shot in Texas. Jorth will have some of these fellows.... Now, are we goin' to wait to be sheeped off our range an' to be murdered from ambush?" "No, we are not," replied Jean, quietly. "Wal, come down to the house," said the rancher, and led the way without speaking until he halted by the door. There he placed his finger on a small hole in the wood at about the height of a man's head. Jean saw it was a bullet hole and that a few gray hairs stuck to its edges. The rancher stepped closer to the door-post, so that his head was within an inch of the wood. Then he looked at Jean with eyes in which there glinted dancing specks of fire, like wild sparks. "Son, this sneakin' shot at me was made three mawnin's ago. I recollect movin' my haid just when I heard the crack of a rifle. Shore was surprised. But I got inside quick." Jean scarcely heard the latter part of this speech. He seemed doubled up inwardly, in hot and cold convulsions of changing emotion. A terrible hold upon his consciousness was about to break and let go. The first shot had been fired and he was an Isbel. Indeed, his father had made him ten times an Isbel. Blood was thick. His father did not speak to dull ears. This strife of rising tumult in him seemed the effect of years of calm, of peace in the woods, of dreamy waiting for he knew not what. It was the passionate primitive life in him that had awakened to the call of blood ties. "That's aboot all, son," concluded the rancher. "You understand now why I feel they're goin' to kill me. I feel it heah." With solemn gesture he placed his broad hand over his heart. "An', Jean, strange whispers come to me at night. It seems like your mother was callin' or tryin' to warn me. I cain't explain these queer whispers. But I know what I know." "Jorth has his followers. You must have yours," replied Jean, tensely. "Shore, son, an' I can take my choice of the best men heah," replied the rancher, with pride. "But I'll not do that. I'll lay the deal before them an' let them choose. I reckon it 'll not be a long-winded fight. It 'll be short an bloody, after the way of Texans. I'm lookin' to you, Jean, to see that an Isbel is the last man!" "My God--dad! is there no other way? Think of my sister Ann--of my brothers' wives--of--of other women! Dad, these damned Texas feuds are cruel, horrible!" burst out Jean, in passionate protest. "Jean, would it be any easier for our women if we let these men shoot us down in cold blood?" "Oh no--no, I see, there's no hope of--of.... But, dad, I wasn't thinkin' about myself. I don't care. Once started I'll--I'll be what you bragged I was. Only it's so hard to-to give in." Jean leaned an arm against the side of the cabin and, bowing his face over it, he surrendered to the irresistible contention within his breast. And as if with a wrench that strange inward hold broke. He let down. He went back. Something that was boyish and hopeful--and in its place slowly rose the dark tide of his inheritance, the savage instinct of self-preservation bequeathed by his Indian mother, and the fierce, feudal blood lust of his Texan father. Then as he raised himself, gripped by a sickening coldness in his breast, he remembered Ellen Jorth's face as she had gazed dreamily down off the Rim--so soft, so different, with tremulous lips, sad, musing, with far-seeing stare of dark eyes, peering into the unknown, the instinct of life still unlived. With confused vision and nameless pain Jean thought of her. "Dad, it's hard on--the--the young folks," he said, bitterly. "The sins of the father, you know. An' the other side. How about Jorth? Has he any children?" What a curious gleam of surprise and conjecture Jean encountered in his father's gaze! "He has a daughter. Ellen Jorth. Named after her mother. The first time I saw Ellen Jorth I thought she was a ghost of the girl I had loved an' lost. Sight of her was like a blade in my side. But the looks of her an' what she is--they don't gibe. Old as I am, my heart--Bah! Ellen Jorth is a damned hussy!" Jean Isbel went off alone into the cedars. Surrender and resignation to his father's creed should have ended his perplexity and worry. His instant and burning resolve to be as his father had represented him should have opened his mind to slow cunning, to the craft of the Indian, to the development of hate. But there seemed to be an obstacle. A cloud in the way of vision. A face limned on his memory. Those damning words of his father's had been a shock--how little or great he could not tell. Was it only a day since he had met Ellen Jorth? What had made all the difference? Suddenly like a breath the fragrance of her hair came back to him. Then the sweet coolness of her lips! Jean trembled. He looked around him as if he were pursued or surrounded by eyes, by instincts, by fears, by incomprehensible things. "Ahuh! That must be what ails me," he muttered. "The look of her--an' that kiss--they've gone hard me. I should never have stopped to talk. An' I'm to kill her father an' leave her to God knows what." Something was wrong somewhere. Jean absolutely forgot that within the hour he had pledged his manhood, his life to a feud which could be blotted out only in blood. If he had understood himself he would have realized that the pledge was no more thrilling and unintelligible in its possibilities than this instinct which drew him irresistibly. "Ellen Jorth! So--my dad calls her a damned hussy! So--that explains the--the way she acted--why she never hit me when I kissed her. An' her words, so easy an' cool-like. Hussy? That means she's bad--bad! Scornful of me--maybe disappointed because my kiss was innocent! It was, I swear. An' all she said: 'Oh, I've been kissed before.'" Jean grew furious with himself for the spreading of a new sensation in his breast that seemed now to ache. Had he become infatuated, all in a day, with this Ellen Jorth? Was he jealous of the men who had the privilege of her kisses? No! But his reply was hot with shame, with uncertainty. The thing that seemed wrong was outside of himself. A blunder was no crime. To be attracted by a pretty girl in the woods--to yield to an impulse was no disgrace, nor wrong. He had been foolish over a girl before, though not to such a rash extent. Ellen Jorth had stuck in his consciousness, and with her a sense of regret. Then swiftly rang his father's bitter words, the revealing: "But the looks of her an' what she is--they don't gibe!" In the import of these words hid the meaning of the wrong that troubled him. Broodingly he pondered over them. "The looks of her. Yes, she was pretty. But it didn't dawn on me at first. I--I was sort of excited. I liked to look at her, but didn't think." And now consciously her face was called up, infinitely sweet and more impelling for the deliberate memory. Flash of brown skin, smooth and clear; level gaze of dark, wide eyes, steady, bold, unseeing; red curved lips, sad and sweet; her strong, clean, fine face rose before Jean, eager and wistful one moment, softened by dreamy musing thought, and the next stormily passionate, full of hate, full of longing, but the more mysterious and beautiful. "She looks like that, but she's bad," concluded Jean, with bitter finality. "I might have fallen in love with Ellen Jorth if--if she'd been different." But the conviction forced upon Jean did not dispel the haunting memory of her face nor did it wholly silence the deep and stubborn voice of his consciousness. Later that afternoon he sought a moment with his sister. "Ann, did you ever meet Ellen Jorth?" he asked. "Yes, but not lately," replied Ann. "Well, I met her as I was ridin' along yesterday. She was herdin' sheep," went on Jean, rapidly. "I asked her to show me the way to the Rim. An' she walked with me a mile or so. I can't say the meetin' was not interestin', at least to me.... Will you tell me what you know about her?" "Sure, Jean," replied his sister, with her dark eyes fixed wonderingly and kindly on his troubled face. "I've heard a great deal, but in this Tonto Basin I don't believe all I hear. What I know I'll tell you. I first met Ellen Jorth two years ago. We didn't know each other's names then. She was the prettiest girl I ever saw. I liked her. She liked me. She seemed unhappy. The next time we met was at a round-up. There were other girls with me and they snubbed her. But I left them and went around with her. That snub cut her to the heart. She was lonely. She had no friends. She talked about herself--how she hated the people, but loved Arizona. She had nothin' fit to wear. I didn't need to be told that she'd been used to better things. Just when it looked as if we were goin' to be friends she told me who she was and asked me my name. I told her. Jean, I couldn't have hurt her more if I'd slapped her face. She turned white. She gasped. And then she ran off. The last time I saw her was about a year ago. I was ridin' a short-cut trail to the ranch where a friend lived. And I met Ellen Jorth ridin' with a man I'd never seen. The trail was overgrown and shady. They were ridin' close and didn't see me right off. The man had his arm round her. She pushed him away. I saw her laugh. Then he got hold of her again and was kissin' her when his horse shied at sight of mine. They rode by me then. Ellen Jorth held her head high and never looked at me." "Ann, do you think she's a bad girl?" demanded Jean, bluntly. "Bad? Oh, Jean!" exclaimed Ann, in surprise and embarrassment. "Dad said she was a damned hussy." "Jean, dad hates the Jorths." "Sister, I'm askin' you what you think of Ellen Jorth. Would you be friends with her if you could?" "Yes." "Then you don't believe she's bad." "No. Ellen Jorth is lonely, unhappy. She has no mother. She lives alone among rough men. Such a girl can't keep men from handlin' her and kissin' her. Maybe she's too free. Maybe she's wild. But she's honest, Jean. You can trust a woman to tell. When she rode past me that day her face was white and proud. She was a Jorth and I was an Isbel. She hated herself--she hated me. But no bad girl could look like that. She knows what's said of her all around the valley. But she doesn't care. She'd encourage gossip." "Thank you, Ann," replied Jean, huskily. "Please keep this--this meetin' of mine with her all to yourself, won't you?" "Why, Jean, of course I will." Jean wandered away again, peculiarly grateful to Ann for reviving and upholding something in him that seemed a wavering part of the best of him--a chivalry that had demanded to be killed by judgment of a righteous woman. He was conscious of an uplift, a gladdening of his spirit. Yet the ache remained. More than that, he found himself plunged deeper into conjecture, doubt. Had not the Ellen Jorth incident ended? He denied his father's indictment of her and accepted the faith of his sister. "Reckon that's aboot all, as dad says," he soliloquized. Yet was that all? He paced under the cedars. He watched the sun set. He listened to the coyotes. He lingered there after the call for supper; until out of the tumult of his conflicting emotions and ponderings there evolved the staggering consciousness that he must see Ellen Jorth again. CHAPTER IV Ellen Jorth hurried back into the forest, hotly resentful of the accident that had thrown her in contact with an Isbel. Disgust filled her--disgust that she had been amiable to a member of the hated family that had ruined her father. The surprise of this meeting did not come to her while she was under the spell of stronger feeling. She walked under the trees, swiftly, with head erect, looking straight before her, and every step seemed a relief. Upon reaching camp, her attention was distracted from herself. Pepe, the Mexican boy, with the two shepherd dogs, was trying to drive sheep into a closer bunch to save the lambs from coyotes. Ellen loved the fleecy, tottering little lambs, and at this season she hated all the prowling beast of the forest. From this time on for weeks the flock would be besieged by wolves, lions, bears, the last of which were often bold and dangerous. The old grizzlies that killed the ewes to eat only the milk-bags were particularly dreaded by Ellen. She was a good shot with a rifle, but had orders from her father to let the bears alone. Fortunately, such sheep-killing bears were but few, and were left to be hunted by men from the ranch. Mexican sheep herders could not be depended upon to protect their flocks from bears. Ellen helped Pepe drive in the stragglers, and she took several shots at coyotes skulking along the edge of the brush. The open glade in the forest was favorable for herding the sheep at night, and the dogs could be depended upon to guard the flock, and in most cases to drive predatory beasts away. After this task, which brought the time to sunset, Ellen had supper to cook and eat. Darkness came, and a cool night wind set in. Here and there a lamb bleated plaintively. With her work done for the day, Ellen sat before a ruddy camp fire, and found her thoughts again centering around the singular adventure that had befallen her. Disdainfully she strove to think of something else. But there was nothing that could dispel the interest of her meeting with Jean Isbel. Thereupon she impatiently surrendered to it, and recalled every word and action which she could remember. And in the process of this meditation she came to an action of hers, recollection of which brought the blood tingling to her neck and cheeks, so unusually and burningly that she covered them with her hands. "What did he think of me?" she mused, doubtfully. It did not matter what he thought, but she could not help wondering. And when she came to the memory of his kiss she suffered more than the sensation of throbbing scarlet cheeks. Scornfully and bitterly she burst out, "Shore he couldn't have thought much good of me." The half hour following this reminiscence was far from being pleasant. Proud, passionate, strong-willed Ellen Jorth found herself a victim of conflicting emotions. The event of the day was too close. She could not understand it. Disgust and disdain and scorn could not make this meeting with Jean Isbel as if it had never been. Pride could not efface it from her mind. The more she reflected, the harder she tried to forget, the stronger grew a significance of interest. And when a hint of this dawned upon her consciousness she resented it so forcibly that she lost her temper, scattered the camp fire, and went into the little teepee tent to roll in her blankets. Thus settled snug and warm for the night, with a shepherd dog curled at the opening of her tent, she shut her eyes and confidently bade sleep end her perplexities. But sleep did not come at her invitation. She found herself wide awake, keenly sensitive to the sputtering of the camp fire, the tinkling of bells on the rams, the bleating of lambs, the sough of wind in the pines, and the hungry sharp bark of coyotes off in the distance. Darkness was no respecter of her pride. The lonesome night with its emphasis of solitude seemed to induce clamoring and strange thoughts, a confusing ensemble of all those that had annoyed her during the daytime. Not for long hours did sheer weariness bring her to slumber. Ellen awakened late and failed of her usual alacrity. Both Pepe and the shepherd dog appeared to regard her with surprise and solicitude. Ellen's spirit was low this morning; her blood ran sluggishly; she had to fight a mournful tendency to feel sorry for herself. And at first she was not very successful. There seemed to be some kind of pleasure in reveling in melancholy which her common sense told her had no reason for existence. But states of mind persisted in spite of common sense. "Pepe, when is Antonio comin' back?" she asked. The boy could not give her a satisfactory answer. Ellen had willingly taken the sheep herder's place for a few days, but now she was impatient to go home. She looked down the green-and-brown aisles of the forest until she was tired. Antonio did not return. Ellen spent the day with the sheep; and in the manifold task of caring for a thousand new-born lambs she forgot herself. This day saw the end of lambing-time for that season. The forest resounded to a babel of baas and bleats. When night came she was glad to go to bed, for what with loss of sleep, and weariness she could scarcely keep her eyes open. The following morning she awakened early, bright, eager, expectant, full of bounding life, strangely aware of the beauty and sweetness of the scented forest, strangely conscious of some nameless stimulus to her feelings. Not long was Ellen in associating this new and delightful variety of sensations with the fact that Jean Isbel had set to-day for his ride up to the Rim to see her. Ellen's joyousness fled; her smiles faded. The spring morning lost its magic radiance. "Shore there's no sense in my lyin' to myself," she soliloquized, thoughtfully. "It's queer of me--feelin' glad aboot him--without knowin'. Lord! I must be lonesome! To be glad of seein' an Isbel, even if he is different!" Soberly she accepted the astounding reality. Her confidence died with her gayety; her vanity began to suffer. And she caught at her admission that Jean Isbel was different; she resented it in amaze; she ridiculed it; she laughed at her naive confession. She could arrive at no conclusion other than that she was a weak-minded, fluctuating, inexplicable little fool. But for all that she found her mind had been made up for her, without consent or desire, before her will had been consulted; and that inevitably and unalterably she meant to see Jean Isbel again. Long she battled with this strange decree. One moment she won a victory over, this new curious self, only to lose it the next. And at last out of her conflict there emerged a few convictions that left her with some shreds of pride. She hated all Isbels, she hated any Isbel, and particularly she hated Jean Isbel. She was only curious--intensely curious to see if he would come back, and if he did come what he would do. She wanted only to watch him from some covert. She would not go near him, not let him see her or guess of her presence. Thus she assuaged her hurt vanity--thus she stifled her miserable doubts. Long before the sun had begun to slant westward toward the mid-afternoon Jean Isbel had set as a meeting time Ellen directed her steps through the forest to the Rim. She felt ashamed of her eagerness. She had a guilty conscience that no strange thrills could silence. It would be fun to see him, to watch him, to let him wait for her, to fool him. Like an Indian, she chose the soft pine-needle mats to tread upon, and her light-moccasined feet left no trace. Like an Indian also she made a wide detour, and reached the Rim a quarter of a mile west of the spot where she had talked with Jean Isbel; and here, turning east, she took care to step on the bare stones. This was an adventure, seemingly the first she had ever had in her life. Assuredly she had never before come directly to the Rim without halting to look, to wonder, to worship. This time she scarcely glanced into the blue abyss. All absorbed was she in hiding her tracks. Not one chance in a thousand would she risk. The Jorth pride burned even while the feminine side of her dominated her actions. She had some difficult rocky points to cross, then windfalls to round, and at length reached the covert she desired. A rugged yellow point of the Rim stood somewhat higher than the spot Ellen wanted to watch. A dense thicket of jack pines grew to the very edge. It afforded an ambush that even the Indian eyes Jean Isbel was credited with could never penetrate. Moreover, if by accident she made a noise and excited suspicion, she could retreat unobserved and hide in the huge rocks below the Rim, where a ferret could not locate her. With her plan decided upon, Ellen had nothing to do but wait, so she repaired to the other side of the pine thicket and to the edge of the Rim where she could watch and listen. She knew that long before she saw Isbel she would hear his horse. It was altogether unlikely that he would come on foot. "Shore, Ellen Jorth, y'u're a queer girl," she mused. "I reckon I wasn't well acquainted with y'u." Beneath her yawned a wonderful deep canyon, rugged and rocky with but few pines on the north slope, thick with dark green timber on the south slope. Yellow and gray crags, like turreted castles, stood up out of the sloping forest on the side opposite her. The trees were all sharp, spear pointed. Patches of light green aspens showed strikingly against the dense black. The great slope beneath Ellen was serrated with narrow, deep gorges, almost canyons in themselves. Shadows alternated with clear bright spaces. The mile-wide mouth of the canyon opened upon the Basin, down into a world of wild timbered ranges and ravines, valleys and hills, that rolled and tumbled in dark-green waves to the Sierra Anchas. But for once Ellen seemed singularly unresponsive to this panorama of wildness and grandeur. Her ears were like those of a listening deer, and her eyes continually reverted to the open places along the Rim. At first, in her excitement, time flew by. Gradually, however, as the sun moved westward, she began to be restless. The soft thud of dropping pine cones, the rustling of squirrels up and down the shaggy-barked spruces, the cracking of weathered bits of rock, these caught her keen ears many times and brought her up erect and thrilling. Finally she heard a sound which resembled that of an unshod hoof on stone. Stealthily then she took her rifle and slipped back through the pine thicket to the spot she had chosen. The little pines were so close together that she had to crawl between their trunks. The ground was covered with a soft bed of pine needles, brown and fragrant. In her hurry she pricked her ungloved hand on a sharp pine cone and drew the blood. She sucked the tiny wound. "Shore I'm wonderin' if that's a bad omen," she muttered, darkly thoughtful. Then she resumed her sinuous approach to the edge of the thicket, and presently reached it. Ellen lay flat a moment to recover her breath, then raised herself on her elbows. Through an opening in the fringe of buck brush she could plainly see the promontory where she had stood with Jean Isbel, and also the approaches by which he might come. Rather nervously she realized that her covert was hardly more than a hundred feet from the promontory. It was imperative that she be absolutely silent. Her eyes searched the openings along the Rim. The gray form of a deer crossed one of these, and she concluded it had made the sound she had heard. Then she lay down more comfortably and waited. Resolutely she held, as much as possible, to her sensorial perceptions. The meaning of Ellen Jorth lying in ambush just to see an Isbel was a conundrum she refused to ponder in the present. She was doing it, and the physical act had its fascination. Her ears, attuned to all the sounds of the lonely forest, caught them and arranged them according to her knowledge of woodcraft. A long hour passed by. The sun had slanted to a point halfway between the zenith and the horizon. Suddenly a thought confronted Ellen Jorth: "He's not comin'," she whispered. The instant that idea presented itself she felt a blank sense of loss, a vague regret--something that must have been disappointment. Unprepared for this, she was held by surprise for a moment, and then she was stunned. Her spirit, swift and rebellious, had no time to rise in her defense. She was a lonely, guilty, miserable girl, too weak for pride to uphold, too fluctuating to know her real self. She stretched there, burying her face in the pine needles, digging her fingers into them, wanting nothing so much as that they might hide her. The moment was incomprehensible to Ellen, and utterly intolerable. The sharp pine needles, piercing her wrists and cheeks, and her hot heaving breast, seemed to give her exquisite relief. The shrill snort of a horse sounded near at hand. With a shock Ellen's body stiffened. Then she quivered a little and her feelings underwent swift change. Cautiously and noiselessly she raised herself upon her elbows and peeped through the opening in the brush. She saw a man tying a horse to a bush somewhat back from the Rim. Drawing a rifle from its saddle sheath he threw it in the hollow of his arm and walked to the edge of the precipice. He gazed away across the Basin and appeared lost in contemplation or thought. Then he turned to look back into the forest, as if he expected some one. Ellen recognized the lithe figure, the dark face so like an Indian's. It was Isbel. He had come. Somehow his coming seemed wonderful and terrible. Ellen shook as she leaned on her elbows. Jean Isbel, true to his word, in spite of her scorn, had come back to see her. The fact seemed monstrous. He was an enemy of her father. Long had range rumor been bandied from lip to lip--old Gass Isbel had sent for his Indian son to fight the Jorths. Jean Isbel--son of a Texan--unerring shot--peerless tracker--a bad and dangerous man! Then there flashed over Ellen a burning thought--if it were true, if he was an enemy of her father's, if a fight between Jorth and Isbel was inevitable, she ought to kill this Jean Isbel right there in his tracks as he boldly and confidently waited for her. Fool he was to think she would come. Ellen sank down and dropped her head until the strange tremor of her arms ceased. That dark and grim flash of thought retreated. She had not come to murder a man from ambush, but only to watch him, to try to see what he meant, what he thought, to allay a strange curiosity. After a while she looked again. Isbel was sitting on an upheaved section of the Rim, in a comfortable position from which he could watch the openings in the forest and gaze as well across the west curve of the Basin to the Mazatzals. He had composed himself to wait. He was clad in a buckskin suit, rather new, and it certainly showed off to advantage, compared with the ragged and soiled apparel Ellen remembered. He did not look so large. Ellen was used to the long, lean, rangy Arizonians and Texans. This man was built differently. He had the widest shoulders of any man she had ever seen, and they made him appear rather short. But his lithe, powerful limbs proved he was not short. Whenever he moved the muscles rippled. His hands were clasped round a knee--brown, sinewy hands, very broad, and fitting the thick muscular wrists. His collar was open, and he did not wear a scarf, as did the men Ellen knew. Then her intense curiosity at last brought her steady gaze to Jean Isbel's head and face. He wore a cap, evidently of some thin fur. His hair was straight and short, and in color a dead raven black. His complexion was dark, clear tan, with no trace of red. He did not have the prominent cheek bones nor the high-bridged nose usual with white men who were part Indian. Still he had the Indian look. Ellen caught that in the dark, intent, piercing eyes, in the wide, level, thoughtful brows, in the stern impassiveness of his smooth face. He had a straight, sharp-cut profile. Ellen whispered to herself: "I saw him right the other day. Only, I'd not admit it.... The finest-lookin' man I ever saw in my life is a damned Isbel! Was that what I come out heah for?" She lowered herself once more and, folding her arms under her breast, she reclined comfortably on them, and searched out a smaller peephole from which she could spy upon Isbel. And as she watched him the new and perplexing side of her mind waxed busier. Why had he come back? What did he want of her? Acquaintance, friendship, was impossible for them. He had been respectful, deferential toward her, in a way that had strangely pleased, until the surprising moment when he had kissed her. That had only disrupted her rather dreamy pleasure in a situation she had not experienced before. All the men she had met in this wild country were rough and bold; most of them had wanted to marry her, and, failing that, they had persisted in amorous attentions not particularly flattering or honorable. They were a bad lot. And contact with them had dulled some of her sensibilities. But this Jean Isbel had seemed a gentleman. She struggled to be fair, trying to forget her antipathy, as much to understand herself as to give him due credit. True, he had kissed her, crudely and forcibly. But that kiss had not been an insult. Ellen's finer feeling forced her to believe this. She remembered the honest amaze and shame and contrition with which he had faced her, trying awkwardly to explain his bold act. Likewise she recalled the subtle swift change in him at her words, "Oh, I've been kissed before!" She was glad she had said that. Still--was she glad, after all? She watched him. Every little while he shifted his gaze from the blue gulf beneath him to the forest. When he turned thus the sun shone on his face and she caught the piercing gleam of his dark eyes. She saw, too, that he was listening. Watching and listening for her! Ellen had to still a tumult within her. It made her feel very young, very shy, very strange. All the while she hated him because he manifestly expected her to come. Several times he rose and walked a little way into the woods. The last time he looked at the westering sun and shook his head. His confidence had gone. Then he sat and gazed down into the void. But Ellen knew he did not see anything there. He seemed an image carved in the stone of the Rim, and he gave Ellen a singular impression of loneliness and sadness. Was he thinking of the miserable battle his father had summoned him to lead--of what it would cost--of its useless pain and hatred? Ellen seemed to divine his thoughts. In that moment she softened toward him, and in her soul quivered and stirred an intangible something that was like pain, that was too deep for her understanding. But she felt sorry for an Isbel until the old pride resurged. What if he admired her? She remembered his interest, the wonder and admiration, the growing light in his eyes. And it had not been repugnant to her until he disclosed his name. "What's in a name?" she mused, recalling poetry learned in her girlhood. "'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet'.... He's an Isbel--yet he might be splendid--noble.... Bah! he's not--and I'd hate him anyhow." All at once Ellen felt cold shivers steal over her. Isbel's piercing gaze was directed straight at her hiding place. Her heart stopped beating. If he discovered her there she felt that she would die of shame. Then she became aware that a blue jay was screeching in a pine above her, and a red squirrel somewhere near was chattering his shrill annoyance. These two denizens of the woods could be depended upon to espy the wariest hunter and make known his presence to their kind. Ellen had a moment of more than dread. This keen-eyed, keen-eared Indian might see right through her brushy covert, might hear the throbbing of her heart. It relieved her immeasurably to see him turn away and take to pacing the promontory, with his head bowed and his hands behind his back. He had stopped looking off into the forest. Presently he wheeled to the west, and by the light upon his face Ellen saw that the time was near sunset. Turkeys were beginning to gobble back on the ridge. Isbel walked to his horse and appeared to be untying something from the back of his saddle. When he came back Ellen saw that he carried a small package apparently wrapped in paper. With this under his arm he strode off in the direction of Ellen's camp and soon disappeared in the forest. For a little while Ellen lay there in bewilderment. If she had made conjectures before, they were now multiplied. Where was Jean Isbel going? Ellen sat up suddenly. "Well, shore this heah beats me," she said. "What did he have in that package? What was he goin' to do with it?" It took no little will power to hold her there when she wanted to steal after him through the woods and find out what he meant. But his reputation influenced even her and she refused to pit her cunning in the forest against his. It would be better to wait until he returned to his horse. Thus decided, she lay back again in her covert and gave her mind over to pondering curiosity. Sooner than she expected she espied Isbel approaching through the forest, empty handed. He had not taken his rifle. Ellen averted her glance a moment and thrilled to see the rifle leaning against a rock. Verily Jean Isbel had been far removed from hostile intent that day. She watched him stride swiftly up to his horse, untie the halter, and mount. Ellen had an impression of his arrowlike straight figure, and sinuous grace and ease. Then he looked back at the promontory, as if to fix a picture of it in his mind, and rode away along the Rim. She watched him out of sight. What ailed her? Something was wrong with her, but she recognized only relief. When Isbel had been gone long enough to assure Ellen that she might safely venture forth she crawled through the pine thicket to the Rim on the other side of the point. The sun was setting behind the Black Range, shedding a golden glory over the Basin. Westward the zigzag Rim reached like a streamer of fire into the sun. The vast promontories jutted out with blazing beacon lights upon their stone-walled faces. Deep down, the Basin was turning shadowy dark blue, going to sleep for the night. Ellen bent swift steps toward her camp. Long shafts of gold preceded her through the forest. Then they paled and vanished. The tips of pines and spruces turned gold. A hoarse-voiced old turkey gobbler was booming his chug-a-lug from the highest ground, and the softer chick of hen turkeys answered him. Ellen was almost breathless when she arrived. Two packs and a couple of lop-eared burros attested to the fact of Antonio's return. This was good news for Ellen. She heard the bleat of lambs and tinkle of bells coming nearer and nearer. And she was glad to feel that if Isbel had visited her camp, most probably it was during the absence of the herders. The instant she glanced into her tent she saw the package Isbel had carried. It lay on her bed. Ellen stared blankly. "The--the impudence of him!" she ejaculated. Then she kicked the package out of the tent. Words and action seemed to liberate a dammed-up hot fury. She kicked the package again, and thought she would kick it into the smoldering camp-fire. But somehow she stopped short of that. She left the thing there on the ground. Pepe and Antonio hove in sight, driving in the tumbling woolly flock. Ellen did not want them to see the package, so with contempt for herself, and somewhat lessening anger, she kicked it back into the tent. What was in it? She peeped inside the tent, devoured by curiosity. Neat, well wrapped and tied packages like that were not often seen in the Tonto Basin. Ellen decided she would wait until after supper, and at a favorable moment lay it unopened on the fire. What did she care what it contained? Manifestly it was a gift. She argued that she was highly incensed with this insolent Isbel who had the effrontery to approach her with some sort of present. It developed that the usually cheerful Antonio had returned taciturn and gloomy. All Ellen could get out of him was that the job of sheep herder had taken on hazards inimical to peace-loving Mexicans. He had heard something he would not tell. Ellen helped prepare the supper and she ate in silence. She had her own brooding troubles. Antonio presently told her that her father had said she was not to start back home after dark. After supper the herders repaired to their own tents, leaving Ellen the freedom of her camp-fire. Wherewith she secured the package and brought it forth to burn. Feminine curiosity rankled strong in her breast. Yielding so far as to shake the parcel and press it, and finally tear a corner off the paper, she saw some words written in lead pencil. Bending nearer the blaze, she read, "For my sister Ann." Ellen gazed at the big, bold hand-writing, quite legible and fairly well done. Suddenly she tore the outside wrapper completely off. From printed words on the inside she gathered that the package had come from a store in San Francisco. "Reckon he fetched home a lot of presents for his folks--the kids--and his sister," muttered Ellen. "That was nice of him. Whatever this is he shore meant it for sister Ann.... Ann Isbel. Why, she must be that black-eyed girl I met and liked so well before I knew she was an Isbel.... His sister!" Whereupon for the second time Ellen deposited the fascinating package in her tent. She could not burn it up just then. She had other emotions besides scorn and hate. And memory of that soft-voiced, kind-hearted, beautiful Isbel girl checked her resentment. "I wonder if he is like his sister," she said, thoughtfully. It appeared to be an unfortunate thought. Jean Isbel certainly resembled his sister. "Too bad they belong to the family that ruined dad." Ellen went to bed without opening the package or without burning it. And to her annoyance, whatever way she lay she appeared to touch this strange package. There was not much room in the little tent. First she put it at her head beside her rifle, but when she turned over her cheek came in contact with it. Then she felt as if she had been stung. She moved it again, only to touch it presently with her hand. Next she flung it to the bottom of her bed, where it fell upon her feet, and whatever way she moved them she could not escape the pressure of this undesirable and mysterious gift. By and by she fell asleep, only to dream that the package was a caressing hand stealing about her, feeling for hers, and holding it with soft, strong clasp. When she awoke she had the strangest sensation in her right palm. It was moist, throbbing, hot, and the feel of it on her cheek was strangely thrilling and comforting. She lay awake then. The night was dark and still. Only a low moan of wind in the pines and the faint tinkle of a sheep bell broke the serenity. She felt very small and lonely lying there in the deep forest, and, try how she would, it was impossible to think the same then as she did in the clear light of day. Resentment, pride, anger--these seemed abated now. If the events of the day had not changed her, they had at least brought up softer and kinder memories and emotions than she had known for long. Nothing hurt and saddened her so much as to remember the gay, happy days of her childhood, her sweet mother, her, old home. Then her thought returned to Isbel and his gift. It had been years since anyone had made her a gift. What could this one be? It did not matter. The wonder was that Jean Isbel should bring it to her and that she could be perturbed by its presence. "He meant it for his sister and so he thought well of me," she said, in finality. Morning brought Ellen further vacillation. At length she rolled the obnoxious package inside her blankets, saying that she would wait until she got home and then consign it cheerfully to the flames. Antonio tied her pack on a burro. She did not have a horse, and therefore had to walk the several miles, to her father's ranch. She set off at a brisk pace, leading the burro and carrying her rifle. And soon she was deep in the fragrant forest. The morning was clear and cool, with just enough frost to make the sunlit grass sparkle as if with diamonds. Ellen felt fresh, buoyant, singularly full of, life. Her youth would not be denied. It was pulsing, yearning. She hummed an old Southern tune and every step seemed one of pleasure in action, of advance toward some intangible future happiness. All the unknown of life before her called. Her heart beat high in her breast and she walked as one in a dream. Her thoughts were swift-changing, intimate, deep, and vague, not of yesterday or to-day, nor of reality. The big, gray, white-tailed squirrels crossed ahead of her on the trail, scampered over the piny ground to hop on tree trunks, and there they paused to watch her pass. The vociferous little red squirrels barked and chattered at her. From every thicket sounded the gobble of turkeys. The blue jays squalled in the tree tops. A deer lifted its head from browsing and stood motionless, with long ears erect, watching her go by. Thus happily and dreamily absorbed, Ellen covered the forest miles and soon reached the trail that led down into the wild brakes of Chevelon Canyon. It was rough going and less conducive to sweet wanderings of mind. Ellen slowly lost them. And then a familiar feeling assailed her, one she never failed to have upon returning to her father's ranch--a reluctance, a bitter dissatisfaction with her home, a loyal struggle against the vague sense that all was not as it should be. At the head of this canyon in a little, level, grassy meadow stood a rude one-room log shack, with a leaning red-stone chimney on the outside. This was the abode of a strange old man who had long lived there. His name was John Sprague and his occupation was raising burros. No sheep or cattle or horses did he own, not even a dog. Rumor had said Sprague was a prospector, one of the many who had searched that country for the Lost Dutchman gold mine. Sprague knew more about the Basin and Rim than any of the sheepmen or ranchers. From Black Butte to the Cibique and from Chevelon Butte to Reno Pass he knew every trail, canyon, ridge, and spring, and could find his way to them on the darkest night. His fame, however, depended mostly upon the fact that he did nothing but raise burros, and would raise none but black burros with white faces. These burros were the finest bred in all the Basin and were in great demand. Sprague sold a few every year. He had made a present of one to Ellen, although he hated to part with them. This old man was Ellen's one and only friend. Upon her trip out to the Rim with the sheep, Uncle John, as Ellen called him, had been away on one of his infrequent visits to Grass Valley. It pleased her now to see a blue column of smoke lazily lifting from the old chimney and to hear the discordant bray of burros. As she entered the clearing Sprague saw her from the door of his shack. "Hello, Uncle John!" she called. "Wal, if it ain't Ellen!" he replied, heartily. "When I seen thet white-faced jinny I knowed who was leadin' her. Where you been, girl?" Sprague was a little, stoop-shouldered old man, with grizzled head and face, and shrewd gray eyes that beamed kindly on her over his ruddy cheeks. Ellen did not like the tobacco stain on his grizzled beard nor the dirty, motley, ragged, ill-smelling garb he wore, but she had ceased her useless attempts to make him more cleanly. "I've been herdin' sheep," replied Ellen. "And where have y'u been, uncle? I missed y'u on the way over." "Been packin' in some grub. An' I reckon I stayed longer in Grass Valley than I recollect. But thet was only natural, considerin'--" "What?" asked Ellen, bluntly, as the old man paused. Sprague took a black pipe out of his vest pocket and began rimming the bowl with his fingers. The glance he bent on Ellen was thoughtful and earnest, and so kind that she feared it was pity. Ellen suddenly burned for news from the village. "Wal, come in an' set down, won't you?" he asked. "No, thanks," replied Ellen, and she took a seat on the chopping block. "Tell me, uncle, what's goin' on down in the Valley?" "Nothin' much yet--except talk. An' there's a heap of thet." "Humph! There always was talk," declared Ellen, contemptuously. "A nasty, gossipy, catty hole, that Grass Valley!" "Ellen, thar's goin' to be war--a bloody war in the ole Tonto Basin," went on Sprague, seriously. "War! ... Between whom?" "The Isbels an' their enemies. I reckon most people down thar, an' sure all the cattlemen, air on old Gass's side. Blaisdell, Gordon, Fredericks, Blue--they'll all be in it." "Who are they goin' to fight?" queried Ellen, sharply. "Wal, the open talk is thet the sheepmen are forcin' this war. But thar's talk not so open, an' I reckon not very healthy for any man to whisper hyarbouts." "Uncle John, y'u needn't be afraid to tell me anythin'," said Ellen. "I'd never give y'u away. Y'u've been a good friend to me." "Reckon I want to be, Ellen," he returned, nodding his shaggy head. "It ain't easy to be fond of you as I am an' keep my mouth shet.... I'd like to know somethin'. Hev you any relatives away from hyar thet you could go to till this fight's over?" "No. All I have, so far as I know, are right heah." "How aboot friends?" "Uncle John, I have none," she said, sadly, with bowed head. "Wal, wal, I'm sorry. I was hopin' you might git away." She lifted her face. "Shore y'u don't think I'd run off if my dad got in a fight?" she flashed. "I hope you will." "I'm a Jorth," she said, darkly, and dropped her head again. Sprague nodded gloomily. Evidently he was perplexed and worried, and strongly swayed by affection for her. "Would you go away with me?" he asked. "We could pack over to the Mazatzals an' live thar till this blows over." "Thank y'u, Uncle John. Y'u're kind and good. But I'll stay with my father. His troubles are mine." "Ahuh! ... Wal, I might hev reckoned so.... Ellen, how do you stand on this hyar sheep an' cattle question?" "I think what's fair for one is fair for another. I don't like sheep as much as I like cattle. But that's not the point. The range is free. Suppose y'u had cattle and I had sheep. I'd feel as free to run my sheep anywhere as y'u were to ran your cattle." "Right. But what if you throwed your sheep round my range an' sheeped off the grass so my cattle would hev to move or starve?" "Shore I wouldn't throw my sheep round y'ur range," she declared, stoutly. "Wal, you've answered half of the question. An' now supposin' a lot of my cattle was stolen by rustlers, but not a single one of your sheep. What 'd you think then?" "I'd shore think rustlers chose to steal cattle because there was no profit in stealin' sheep." "Egzactly. But wouldn't you hev a queer idee aboot it?" "I don't know. Why queer? What 're y'u drivin' at, Uncle John?" "Wal, wouldn't you git kind of a hunch thet the rustlers was--say a leetle friendly toward the sheepmen?" Ellen felt a sudden vibrating shock. The blood rushed to her temples. Trembling all over, she rose. "Uncle John!" she cried. "Now, girl, you needn't fire up thet way. Set down an' don't--" "Dare y'u insinuate my father has--" "Ellen, I ain't insinuatin' nothin'," interrupted the old man. "I'm jest askin' you to think. Thet's all. You're 'most grown into a young woman now. An' you've got sense. Thar's bad times ahead, Ellen. An' I hate to see you mix in them." "Oh, y'u do make me think," replied Ellen, with smarting tears in her eyes. "Y'u make me unhappy. Oh, I know my dad is not liked in this cattle country. But it's unjust. He happened to go in for sheep raising. I wish he hadn't. It was a mistake. Dad always was a cattleman till we came heah. He made enemies--who--who ruined him. And everywhere misfortune crossed his trail.... But, oh, Uncle John, my dad is an honest man." "Wal, child, I--I didn't mean to--to make you cry," said the old man, feelingly, and he averted his troubled gaze. "Never mind what I said. I'm an old meddler. I reckon nothin' I could do or say would ever change what's goin' to happen. If only you wasn't a girl! ... Thar I go ag'in. Ellen, face your future an' fight your way. All youngsters hev to do thet. An' it's the right kind of fight thet makes the right kind of man or woman. Only you must be sure to find yourself. An' by thet I mean to find the real, true, honest-to-God best in you an' stick to it an' die fightin' for it. You're a young woman, almost, an' a blamed handsome one. Which means you'll hev more trouble an' a harder fight. This country ain't easy on a woman when once slander has marked her. "What do I care for the talk down in that Basin?" returned Ellen. "I know they think I'm a hussy. I've let them think it. I've helped them to." "You're wrong, child," said Sprague, earnestly. "Pride an' temper! You must never let anyone think bad of you, much less help them to." "I hate everybody down there," cried Ellen, passionately. "I hate them so I'd glory in their thinkin' me bad.... My mother belonged to the best blood in Texas. I am her daughter. I know WHO AND WHAT I AM. That uplifts me whenever I meet the sneaky, sly suspicions of these Basin people. It shows me the difference between them and me. That's what I glory in." "Ellen, you're a wild, headstrong child," rejoined the old man, in severe tones. "Word has been passed ag'in' your good name--your honor.... An' hevn't you given cause fer thet?" Ellen felt her face blanch and all her blood rush back to her heart in sickening force. The shock of his words was like a stab from a cold blade. If their meaning and the stem, just light of the old man's glance did not kill her pride and vanity they surely killed her girlishness. She stood mute, staring at him, with her brown, trembling hands stealing up toward her bosom, as if to ward off another and a mortal blow. "Ellen!" burst out Sprague, hoarsely. "You mistook me. Aw, I didn't mean--what you think, I swear.... Ellen, I'm old an' blunt. I ain't used to wimmen. But I've love for you, child, an' respect, jest the same as if you was my own.... An' I KNOW you're good.... Forgive me.... I meant only hevn't you been, say, sort of--careless?" "Care-less?" queried Ellen, bitterly and low. "An' powerful thoughtless an'--an' blind--lettin' men kiss you an' fondle you--when you're really a growed-up woman now?" "Yes--I have," whispered Ellen. "Wal, then, why did you let them? "I--I don't know.... I didn't think. The men never let me alone--never--never! I got tired everlastingly pushin' them away. And sometimes--when they were kind--and I was lonely for something I--I didn't mind if one or another fooled round me. I never thought. It never looked as y'u have made it look.... Then--those few times ridin' the trail to Grass Valley--when people saw me--then I guess I encouraged such attentions.... Oh, I must be--I am a shameless little hussy!" "Hush thet kind of talk," said the old man, as he took her hand. "Ellen, you're only young an' lonely an' bitter. No mother--no friends--no one but a lot of rough men! It's a wonder you hev kept yourself good. But now your eyes are open, Ellen. They're brave an' beautiful eyes, girl, an' if you stand by the light in them you will come through any trouble. An' you'll be happy. Don't ever forgit that. Life is hard enough, God knows, but it's unfailin' true in the end to the man or woman who finds the best in them an' stands by it." "Uncle John, y'u talk so--so kindly. Yu make me have hope. There seemed really so little for me to live for--hope for.... But I'll never be a coward again--nor a thoughtless fool. I'll find some good in me--or make some--and never fail it, come what will. I'll remember your words. I'll believe the future holds wonderful things for me.... I'm only eighteen. Shore all my life won't be lived heah. Perhaps this threatened fight over sheep and cattle will blow over.... Somewhere there must be some nice girl to be a friend--a sister to me.... And maybe some man who'd believe, in spite of all they say--that I'm not a hussy." "Wal, Ellen, you remind me of what I was wantin' to tell you when you just got here.... Yestiddy I heerd you called thet name in a barroom. An' thar was a fellar thar who raised hell. He near killed one man an' made another plumb eat his words. An' he scared thet crowd stiff." Old John Sprague shook his grizzled head and laughed, beaming upon Ellen as if the memory of what he had seen had warmed his heart. "Was it--y'u?" asked Ellen, tremulously. "Me? Aw, I wasn't nowhere. Ellen, this fellar was quick as a cat in his actions an' his words was like lightnin'.' "Who? she whispered. "Wal, no one else but a stranger jest come to these parts--an Isbel, too. Jean Isbel." "Oh!" exclaimed Ellen, faintly. "In a barroom full of men--almost all of them in sympathy with the sheep crowd--most of them on the Jorth side--this Jean Isbel resented an insult to Ellen Jorth." "No!" cried Ellen. Something terrible was happening to her mind or her heart. "Wal, he sure did," replied the old man, "an' it's goin' to be good fer you to hear all about it." CHAPTER V Old John Sprague launched into his narrative with evident zest. "I hung round Greaves' store most of two days. An' I heerd a heap. Some of it was jest plain ole men's gab, but I reckon I got the drift of things concernin' Grass Valley. Yestiddy mornin' I was packin' my burros in Greaves' back yard, takin' my time carryin' out supplies from the store. An' as last when I went in I seen a strange fellar was thar. Strappin' young man--not so young, either--an' he had on buckskin. Hair black as my burros, dark face, sharp eyes--you'd took him fer an Injun. He carried a rifle--one of them new forty-fours--an' also somethin' wrapped in paper thet he seemed partickler careful about. He wore a belt round his middle an' thar was a bowie-knife in it, carried like I've seen scouts an' Injun fighters hev on the frontier in the 'seventies. That looked queer to me, an' I reckon to the rest of the crowd thar. No one overlooked the big six-shooter he packed Texas fashion. Wal, I didn't hev no idee this fellar was an Isbel until I heard Greaves call him thet. "'Isbel,' said Greaves, 'reckon your money's counterfeit hyar. I cain't sell you anythin'.' "'Counterfeit? Not much,' spoke up the young fellar, an' he flipped some gold twenties on the bar, where they rung like bells. 'Why not? Ain't this a store? I want a cinch strap.' "Greaves looked particular sour thet mornin'. I'd been watchin' him fer two days. He hedn't hed much sleep, fer I hed my bed back of the store, an' I heerd men come in the night an' hev long confabs with him. Whatever was in the wind hedn't pleased him none. An' I calkilated thet young Isbel wasn't a sight good fer Greaves' sore eyes, anyway. But he paid no more attention to Isbel. Acted jest as if he hedn't heerd Isbel say he wanted a cinch strap. "I stayed inside the store then. Thar was a lot of fellars I'd seen, an' some I knowed. Couple of card games goin', an' drinkin', of course. I soon gathered thet the general atmosphere wasn't friendly to Jean Isbel. He seen thet quick enough, but he didn't leave. Between you an' me I sort of took a likin' to him. An' I sure watched him as close as I could, not seemin' to, you know. Reckon they all did the same, only you couldn't see it. It got jest about the same as if Isbel hedn't been in thar, only you knowed it wasn't really the same. Thet was how I got the hunch the crowd was all sheepmen or their friends. The day before I'd heerd a lot of talk about this young Isbel, an' what he'd come to Grass Valley fer, an' what a bad hombre he was. An' when I seen him I was bound to admit he looked his reputation. "Wal, pretty soon in come two more fellars, an' I knowed both of them. You know them, too, I'm sorry to say. Fer I'm comin' to facts now thet will shake you. The first fellar was your father's Mexican foreman, Lorenzo, and the other was Simm Bruce. I reckon Bruce wasn't drunk, but he'd sure been lookin' on red licker. When he seen Isbel darn me if he didn't swell an' bustle all up like a mad ole turkey gobbler. "'Greaves,' he said, 'if thet fellar's Jean Isbel I ain't hankerin' fer the company y'u keep.' An' he made no bones of pointin' right at Isbel. Greaves looked up dry an' sour an' he bit out spiteful-like: 'Wal, Simm, we ain't hed a hell of a lot of choice in this heah matter. Thet's Jean Isbel shore enough. Mebbe you can persuade him thet his company an' his custom ain't wanted round heah!' "Jean Isbel set on the counter an took it all in, but he didn't say nothin'. The way he looked at Bruce was sure enough fer me to see thet thar might be a surprise any minnit. I've looked at a lot of men in my day, an' can sure feel events comin'. Bruce got himself a stiff drink an' then he straddles over the floor in front of Isbel. "'Air you Jean Isbel, son of ole Gass Isbel?' asked Bruce, sort of lolling back an' givin' a hitch to his belt. "'Yes sir, you've identified me,' said Isbel, nice an' polite. "'My name's Bruce. I'm rangin' sheep heahaboots, an' I hev interest in Kurnel Lee Jorth's bizness.' "'Hod do, Mister Bruce,' replied Isbel, very civil ant cool as you please. Bruce hed an eye fer the crowd thet was now listenin' an' watchin'. He swaggered closer to Isbel. "'We heerd y'u come into the Tonto Basin to run us sheepmen off the range. How aboot thet?' "'Wal, you heerd wrong,' said Isbel, quietly. 'I came to work fer my father. Thet work depends on what happens.' "Bruce began to git redder of face, an' he shook a husky hand in front of Isbel. 'I'll tell y'u this heah, my Nez Perce Isbel--' an' when he sort of choked fer more wind Greaves spoke up, 'Simm, I shore reckon thet Nez Perce handle will stick.' An' the crowd haw-hawed. Then Bruce got goin' ag'in. 'I'll tell y'u this heah, Nez Perce. Thar's been enough happen already to run y'u out of Arizona.' "'Wal, you don't say! What, fer instance?, asked Isbel, quick an' sarcastic. "Thet made Bruce bust out puffin' an' spittin': 'Wha-tt, fer instance? Huh! Why, y'u darn half-breed, y'u'll git run out fer makin' up to Ellen Jorth. Thet won't go in this heah country. Not fer any Isbel.' "'You're a liar,' called Isbel, an' like a big cat he dropped off the counter. I heerd his moccasins pat soft on the floor. An' I bet to myself thet he was as dangerous as he was quick. But his voice an' his looks didn't change even a leetle. "'I'm not a liar,' yelled Bruce. 'I'll make y'u eat thet. I can prove what I say.... Y'u was seen with Ellen Jorth--up on the Rim--day before yestiddy. Y'u was watched. Y'u was with her. Y'u made up to her. Y'u grabbed her an' kissed her! ... An' I'm heah to say, Nez Perce, thet y'u're a marked man on this range.' "'Who saw me?' asked Isbel, quiet an' cold. I seen then thet he'd turned white in the face. "'Yu cain't lie out of it,' hollered Bruce, wavin' his hands. 'We got y'u daid to rights. Lorenzo saw y'u--follered y'u--watched y'u.' Bruce pointed at the grinnin' greaser. 'Lorenzo is Kurnel Jorth's foreman. He seen y'u maulin' of Ellen Jorth. An' when he tells the Kurnel an' Tad Jorth an' Jackson Jorth! ... Haw! Haw! Haw! Why, hell 'd be a cooler place fer yu then this heah Tonto.' "Greaves an' his gang hed come round, sure tickled clean to thar gizzards at this mess. I noticed, howsomever, thet they was Texans enough to keep back to one side in case this Isbel started any action.... Wal, Isbel took a look at Lorenzo. Then with one swift grab he jerked the little greaser off his feet an' pulled him close. Lorenzo stopped grinnin'. He began to look a leetle sick. But it was plain he hed right on his side. "'You say you saw me?' demanded Isbel. "'Si, senor,' replied Lorenzo. "What did you see?' "'I see senor an' senorita. I hide by manzanita. I see senorita like grande senor ver mooch. She like senor keese. She--' "Then Isbel hit the little greaser a back-handed crack in the mouth. Sure it was a crack! Lorenzo went over the counter backward an' landed like a pack load of wood. An' he didn't git up. "'Mister Bruce,' said Isbel, 'an' you fellars who heerd thet lyin' greaser, I did meet Ellen Jorth. An' I lost my head. I 'I kissed her.... But it was an accident. I meant no insult. I apologized--I tried to explain my crazy action.... Thet was all. The greaser lied. Ellen Jorth was kind enough to show me the trail. We talked a little. Then--I suppose--because she was young an' pretty an' sweet--I lost my head. She was absolutely innocent. Thet damned greaser told a bare-faced lie when he said she liked me. The fact was she despised me. She said so. An' when she learned I was Jean Isbel she turned her back on me an' walked away."' At this point of his narrative the old man halted as if to impress Ellen not only with what just had been told, but particularly with what was to follow. The reciting of this tale had evidently given Sprague an unconscious pleasure. He glowed. He seemed to carry the burden of a secret that he yearned to divulge. As for Ellen, she was deadlocked in breathless suspense. All her emotions waited for the end. She begged Sprague to hurry. "Wal, I wish I could skip the next chapter an' hev only the last to tell," rejoined the old man, and he put a heavy, but solicitous, hand upon hers.... Simm Bruce haw-hawed loud an' loud.... 'Say, Nez Perce,' he calls out, most insolent-like, 'we air too good sheepmen heah to hev the wool pulled over our eyes. We shore know what y'u meant by Ellen Jorth. But y'u wasn't smart when y'u told her y'u was Jean Isbel! ... Haw-haw!' "Isbel flashed a strange, surprised look from the red-faced Bruce to Greaves and to the other men. I take it he was wonderin' if he'd heerd right or if they'd got the same hunch thet 'd come to him. An' I reckon he determined to make sure. "'Why wasn't I smart?' he asked. "'Shore y'u wasn't smart if y'u was aimin' to be one of Ellen Jorth's lovers,' said Bruce, with a leer. 'Fer if y'u hedn't give y'urself away y'u could hev been easy enough.' "Thar was no mistakin' Bruce's meanin' an' when he got it out some of the men thar laughed. Isbel kept lookin' from one to another of them. Then facin' Greaves, he said, deliberately: 'Greaves, this drunken Bruce is excuse enough fer a show-down. I take it that you are sheepmen, an' you're goin' on Jorth's side of the fence in the matter of this sheep rangin'.' "'Wal, Nez Perce, I reckon you hit plumb center,' said Greaves, dryly. He spread wide his big hands to the other men, as if to say they'd might as well own the jig was up. "'All right. You're Jorth's backers. Have any of you a word to say in Ellen Jorth's defense? I tell you the Mexican lied. Believin' me or not doesn't matter. But this vile-mouthed Bruce hinted against thet girl's honor.' "Ag'in some of the men laughed, but not so noisy, an' there was a nervous shufflin' of feet. Isbel looked sort of queer. His neck had a bulge round his collar. An' his eyes was like black coals of fire. Greaves spread his big hands again, as if to wash them of this part of the dirty argument. "'When it comes to any wimmen I pass--much less play a hand fer a wildcat like Jorth's gurl,' said Greaves, sort of cold an' thick. 'Bruce shore ought to know her. Accordin' to talk heahaboots an' what HE says, Ellen Jorth has been his gurl fer two years.' "Then Isbel turned his attention to Bruce an' I fer one begun to shake in my boots. "'Say thet to me!' he called. "'Shore she's my gurl, an' thet's why Im a-goin' to hev y'u run off this range.' "Isbel jumped at Bruce. 'You damned drunken cur! You vile-mouthed liar! ... I may be an Isbel, but by God you cain't slander thet girl to my face! ... Then he moved so quick I couldn't see what he did. But I heerd his fist hit Bruce. It sounded like an ax ag'in' a beef. Bruce fell clear across the room. An' by Jinny when he landed Isbel was thar. As Bruce staggered up, all bloody-faced, bellowin' an' spittin' out teeth Isbel eyed Greaves's crowd an' said: 'If any of y'u make a move it 'll mean gun-play.' Nobody moved, thet's sure. In fact, none of Greaves's outfit was packin' guns, at least in sight. When Bruce got all the way up--he's a tall fellar--why Isbel took a full swing at him an' knocked him back across the room ag'in' the counter. Y'u know when a fellar's hurt by the way he yells. Bruce got thet second smash right on his big red nose.... I never seen any one so quick as Isbel. He vaulted over thet counter jest the second Bruce fell back on it, an' then, with Greaves's gang in front so he could catch any moves of theirs, he jest slugged Bruce right an' left, an' banged his head on the counter. Then as Bruce sunk limp an' slipped down, lookin' like a bloody sack, Isbel let him fall to the floor. Then he vaulted back over the counter. Wipin' the blood off his hands, he throwed his kerchief down in Bruce's face. Bruce wasn't dead or bad hurt. He'd jest been beaten bad. He was moanin' an' slobberin'. Isbel kicked him, not hard, but jest sort of disgustful. Then he faced thet crowd. 'Greaves, thet's what I think of your Simm Bruce. Tell him next time he sees me to run or pull a gun.' An' then Isbel grabbed his rifle an' package off the counter an' went out. He didn't even look back. I seen him nount his horse an' ride away.... Now, girl, what hev you to say?" Ellen could only say good-by and the word was so low as to be almost inaudible. She ran to her burro. She could not see very clearly through tear-blurred eyes, and her shaking fingers were all thumbs. It seemed she had to rush away--somewhere, anywhere--not to get away from old John Sprague, but from herself--this palpitating, bursting self whose feet stumbled down the trail. All--all seemed ended for her. That interminable story! It had taken so long. And every minute of it she had been helplessly torn asunder by feelings she had never known she possessed. This Ellen Jorth was an unknown creature. She sobbed now as she dragged the burro down the canyon trail. She sat down only to rise. She hurried only to stop. Driven, pursued, barred, she had no way to escape the flaying thoughts, no time or will to repudiate them. The death of her girlhood, the rending aside of a veil of maiden mystery only vaguely instinctively guessed, the barren, sordid truth of her life as seen by her enlightened eyes, the bitter realization of the vileness of men of her clan in contrast to the manliness and chivalry of an enemy, the hard facts of unalterable repute as created by slander and fostered by low minds, all these were forces in a cataclysm that had suddenly caught her heart and whirled her through changes immense and agonizing, to bring her face to face with reality, to force upon her suspicion and doubt of all she had trusted, to warn her of the dark, impending horror of a tragic bloody feud, and lastly to teach her the supreme truth at once so glorious and so terrible--that she could not escape the doom of womanhood. About noon that day Ellen Jorth arrived at the Knoll, which was the location of her father's ranch. Three canyons met there to form a larger one. The knoll was a symmetrical hill situated at the mouth of the three canyons. It was covered with brush and cedars, with here and there lichened rocks showing above the bleached grass. Below the Knoll was a wide, grassy flat or meadow through which a willow-bordered stream cut its rugged boulder-strewn bed. Water flowed abundantly at this season, and the deep washes leading down from the slopes attested to the fact of cloudbursts and heavy storms. This meadow valley was dotted with horses and cattle, and meandered away between the timbered slopes to lose itself in a green curve. A singular feature of this canyon was that a heavy growth of spruce trees covered the slope facing northwest; and the opposite slope, exposed to the sun and therefore less snowbound in winter, held a sparse growth of yellow pines. The ranch house of Colonel Jorth stood round the rough corner of the largest of the three canyons, and rather well hidden, it did not obtrude its rude and broken-down log cabins, its squalid surroundings, its black mud-holes of corrals upon the beautiful and serene meadow valley. Ellen Jorth approached her home slowly, with dragging, reluctant steps; and never before in the three unhappy years of her existence there had the ranch seemed so bare, so uncared for, so repugnant to her. As she had seen herself with clarified eyes, so now she saw her home. The cabin that Ellen lived in with her father was a single-room structure with one door and no windows. It was about twenty feet square. The huge, ragged, stone chimney had been built on the outside, with the wide open fireplace set inside the logs. Smoke was rising from the chimney. As Ellen halted at the door and began unpacking her burro she heard the loud, lazy laughter of men. An adjoining log cabin had been built in two sections, with a wide roofed hall or space between them. The door in each cabin faced the other, and there was a tall man standing in one. Ellen recognized Daggs, a neighbor sheepman, who evidently spent more time with her father than at his own home, wherever that was. Ellen had never seen it. She heard this man drawl, "Jorth, heah's your kid come home." Ellen carried her bed inside the cabin, and unrolled it upon a couch built of boughs in the far corner. She had forgotten Jean Isbel's package, and now it fell out under her sight. Quickly she covered it. A Mexican woman, relative of Antonio, and the only servant about the place, was squatting Indian fashion before the fireplace, stirring a pot of beans. She and Ellen did not get along well together, and few words ever passed between them. Ellen had a canvas curtain stretched upon a wire across a small triangular corner, and this afforded her a little privacy. Her possessions were limited in number. The crude square table she had constructed herself. Upon it was a little old-fashioned walnut-framed mirror, a brush and comb, and a dilapidated ebony cabinet which contained odds and ends the sight of which always brought a smile of derisive self-pity to her lips. Under the table stood an old leather trunk. It had come with her from Texas, and contained clothing and belongings of her mother's. Above the couch on pegs hung her scant wardrobe. A tiny shelf held several worn-out books. When her father slept indoors, which was seldom except in winter, he occupied a couch in the opposite corner. A rude cupboard had been built against the logs next to the fireplace. It contained supplies and utensils. Toward the center, somewhat closer to the door, stood a crude table and two benches. The cabin was dark and smelled of smoke, of the stale odors of past cooked meals, of the mustiness of dry, rotting timber. Streaks of light showed through the roof where the rough-hewn shingles had split or weathered. A strip of bacon hung upon one side of the cupboard, and upon the other a haunch of venison. Ellen detested the Mexican woman because she was dirty. The inside of the cabin presented the same unkempt appearance usual to it after Ellen had been away for a few days. Whatever Ellen had lost during the retrogression of the Jorths, she had kept her habits of cleanliness, and straightway upon her return she set to work. The Mexican woman sullenly slouched away to her own quarters outside and Ellen was left to the satisfaction of labor. Her mind was as busy as her hands. As she cleaned and swept and dusted she heard from time to time the voices of men, the clip-clop of shod horses, the bellow of cattle. And a considerable time elapsed before she was disturbed. A tall shadow darkened the doorway. "Howdy, little one!" said a lazy, drawling voice. "So y'u-all got home?" Ellen looked up. A superbly built man leaned against the doorpost. Like most Texans, he was light haired and light eyed. His face was lined and hard. His long, sandy mustache hid his mouth and drooped with a curl. Spurred, booted, belted, packing a heavy gun low down on his hip, he gave Ellen an entirely new impression. Indeed, she was seeing everything strangely. "Hello, Daggs!" replied Ellen. "Where's my dad?" "He's playin' cairds with Jackson an' Colter. Shore's playin' bad, too, an' it's gone to his haid." "Gamblin'?" queried Ellen. "Mah child, when'd Kurnel Jorth ever play for fun?" said Daggs, with a lazy laugh. "There's a stack of gold on the table. Reckon yo' uncle Jackson will win it. Colter's shore out of luck." Daggs stepped inside. He was graceful and slow. His long' spurs clinked. He laid a rather compelling hand on Ellen's shoulder. "Heah, mah gal, give us a kiss," he said. "Daggs, I'm not your girl," replied Ellen as she slipped out from under his hand. Then Daggs put his arm round her, not with violence or rudeness, but with an indolent, affectionate assurance, at once bold and self-contained. Ellen, however, had to exert herself to get free of him, and when she had placed the table between them she looked him square in the eyes. "Daggs, y'u keep your paws off me," she said. "Aw, now, Ellen, I ain't no bear," he remonstrated. "What's the matter, kid?" "I'm not a kid. And there's nothin' the matter. Y'u're to keep your hands to yourself, that's all." He tried to reach her across the table, and his movements were lazy and slow, like his smile. His tone was coaxing. "Mah dear, shore you set on my knee just the other day, now, didn't you?" Ellen felt the blood sting her cheeks. "I was a child," she returned. "Wal, listen to this heah grown-up young woman. All in a few days! ... Doon't be in a temper, Ellen.... Come, give us a kiss." She deliberately gazed into his eyes. Like the eyes of an eagle, they were clear and hard, just now warmed by the dalliance of the moment, but there was no light, no intelligence in them to prove he understood her. The instant separated Ellen immeasurably from him and from all of his ilk. "Daggs, I was a child," she said. "I was lonely--hungry for affection--I was innocent. Then I was careless, too, and thoughtless when I should have known better. But I hardly understood y'u men. I put such thoughts out of my mind. I know now--know what y'u mean--what y'u have made people believe I am." "Ahuh! Shore I get your hunch," he returned, with a change of tone. "But I asked you to marry me?" "Yes y'u did. The first day y'u got heah to my dad's house. And y'u asked me to marry y'u after y'u found y'u couldn't have your way with me. To y'u the one didn't mean any more than the other." "Shore I did more than Simm Bruce an' Colter," he retorted. "They never asked you to marry." "No, they didn't. And if I could respect them at all I'd do it because they didn't ask me." "Wal, I'll be dog-goned!" ejaculated Daggs, thoughtfully, as he stroked his long mustache. "I'll say to them what I've said to y'u," went on Ellen. "I'll tell dad to make y'u let me alone. I wouldn't marry one of y'u--y'u loafers to save my life. I've my suspicions about y'u. Y'u're a bad lot." Daggs changed subtly. The whole indolent nonchalance of the man vanished in an instant. "Wal, Miss Jorth, I reckon you mean we're a bad lot of sheepmen?" he queried, in the cool, easy speech of a Texan. "No," flashed Ellen. "Shore I don't say sheepmen. I say y'u're a BAD LOT." "Oh, the hell you say!" Daggs spoke as he might have spoken to a man; then turning swiftly on his heel he left her. Outside he encountered Ellen's father. She heard Daggs speak: "Lee, your little wildcat is shore heah. An' take mah hunch. Somebody has been talkin' to her." "Who has?" asked her father, in his husky voice. Ellen knew at once that he had been drinking. "Lord only knows," replied Daggs. "But shore it wasn't any friends of ours." "We cain't stop people's tongues," said Jorth, resignedly "Wal, I ain't so shore," continued Daggs, with his slow, cool laugh. "Reckon I never yet heard any daid men's tongues wag." Then the musical tinkle of his spurs sounded fainter. A moment later Ellen's father entered the cabin. His dark, moody face brightened at sight of her. Ellen knew she was the only person in the world left for him to love. And she was sure of his love. Her very presence always made him different. And through the years, the darker their misfortunes, the farther he slipped away from better days, the more she loved him. "Hello, my Ellen!" he said, and he embraced her. When he had been drinking he never kissed her. "Shore I'm glad you're home. This heah hole is bad enough any time, but when you're gone it's black.... I'm hungry." Ellen laid food and drink on the table; and for a little while she did not look directly at him. She was concerned about this new searching power of her eyes. In relation to him she vaguely dreaded it. Lee Jorth had once been a singularly handsome man. He was tall, but did not have the figure of a horseman. His dark hair was streaked with gray, and was white over his ears. His face was sallow and thin, with deep lines. Under his round, prominent, brown eyes, like deadened furnaces, were blue swollen welts. He had a bitter mouth and weak chin, not wholly concealed by gray mustache and pointed beard. He wore a long frock coat and a wide-brimmed sombrero, both black in color, and so old and stained and frayed that along with the fashion of them they betrayed that they had come from Texas with him. Jorth always persisted in wearing a white linen shirt, likewise a relic of his Southern prosperity, and to-day it was ragged and soiled as usual. Ellen watched her father eat and waited for him to speak. It occured to her strangely that he never asked about the sheep or the new-born lambs. She divined with a subtle new woman's intuition that he cared nothing for his sheep. "Ellen, what riled Daggs?" inquired her father, presently. "He shore had fire in his eye." Long ago Ellen had betrayed an indignity she had suffered at the hands of a man. Her father had nearly killed him. Since then she had taken care to keep her troubles to herself. If her father had not been blind and absorbed in his own brooding he would have seen a thousand things sufficient to inflame his Southern pride and temper. "Daggs asked me to marry him again and I said he belonged to a bad lot," she replied. Jorth laughed in scorn. "Fool! My God! Ellen, I must have dragged you low--that every damned ru--er--sheepman--who comes along thinks he can marry you." At the break in his words, the incompleted meaning, Ellen dropped her eyes. Little things once never noted by her were now come to have a fascinating significance. "Never mind, dad," she replied. "They cain't marry me." "Daggs said somebody had been talkin' to you. How aboot that?" "Old John Sprague has just gotten back from Grass Valley," said Ellen. "I stopped in to see him. Shore he told me all the village gossip." "Anythin' to interest me?" he queried, darkly. "Yes, dad, I'm afraid a good deal," she said, hesitatingly. Then in accordance with a decision Ellen had made she told him of the rumored war between sheepmen and cattlemen; that old Isbel had Blaisdell, Gordon, Fredericks, Blue and other well-known ranchers on his side; that his son Jean Isbel had come from Oregon with a wonderful reputation as fighter and scout and tracker; that it was no secret how Colonel Lee Jorth was at the head of the sheepmen; that a bloody war was sure to come. "Hah!" exclaimed Jorth, with a stain of red in his sallow cheek. "Reckon none of that is news to me. I knew all that." Ellen wondered if he had heard of her meeting with Jean Isbel. If not he would hear as soon as Simm Bruce and Lorenzo came back. She decided to forestall them. "Dad, I met Jean Isbel. He came into my camp. Asked the way to the Rim. I showed him. We--we talked a little. And shore were gettin' acquainted when--when he told me who he was. Then I left him--hurried back to camp." "Colter met Isbel down in the woods," replied Jorth, ponderingly. "Said he looked like an Indian--a hard an' slippery customer to reckon with." "Shore I guess I can indorse what Colter said," returned Ellen, dryly. She could have laughed aloud at her deceit. Still she had not lied. "How'd this heah young Isbel strike you?" queried her father, suddenly glancing up at her. Ellen felt the slow, sickening, guilty rise of blood in her face. She was helpless to stop it. But her father evidently never saw it. He was looking at her without seeing her. "He--he struck me as different from men heah," she stammered. "Did Sprague tell you aboot this half-Indian Isbel--aboot his reputation?" "Yes." "Did he look to you like a real woodsman?" "Indeed he did. He wore buckskin. He stepped quick and soft. He acted at home in the woods. He had eyes black as night and sharp as lightnin'. They shore saw about all there was to see." Jorth chewed at his mustache and lost himself in brooding thought. "Dad, tell me, is there goin' to be a war?" asked Ellen, presently. What a red, strange, rolling flash blazed in his eyes! His body jerked. "Shore. You might as well know." "Between sheepmen and cattlemen?" "Yes." "With y'u, dad, at the haid of one faction and Gaston Isbel the other?" "Daughter, you have it correct, so far as you go." "Oh! ... Dad, can't this fight be avoided?" "You forget you're from Texas," he replied. "Cain't it be helped?" she repeated, stubbornly. "No!" he declared, with deep, hoarse passion. "Why not?" "Wal, we sheepmen are goin' to run sheep anywhere we like on the range. An' cattlemen won't stand for that." "But, dad, it's so foolish," declared Ellen, earnestly. "Y'u sheepmen do not have to run sheep over the cattle range." "I reckon we do." "Dad, that argument doesn't go with me. I know the country. For years to come there will be room for both sheep and cattle without overrunnin'. If some of the range is better in water and grass, then whoever got there first should have it. That shore is only fair. It's common sense, too." "Ellen, I reckon some cattle people have been prejudicin' you," said Jorth, bitterly. "Dad!" she cried, hotly. This had grown to be an ordeal for Jorth. He seemed a victim of contending tides of feeling. Some will or struggle broke within him and the change was manifest. Haggard, shifty-eyed, with wabbling chin, he burst into speech. "See heah, girl. You listen. There's a clique of ranchers down in the Basin, all those you named, with Isbel at their haid. They have resented sheepmen comin' down into the valley. They want it all to themselves. That's the reason. Shore there's another. All the Isbels are crooked. They're cattle an' horse thieves--have been for years. Gaston Isbel always was a maverick rustler. He's gettin' old now an' rich, so he wants to cover his tracks. He aims to blame this cattle rustlin' an' horse stealin' on to us sheepmen, an' run us out of the country." Gravely Ellen Jorth studied her father's face, and the newly found truth-seeing power of her eyes did not fail her. In part, perhaps in all, he was telling lies. She shuddered a little, loyally battling against the insidious convictions being brought to fruition. Perhaps in his brooding over his failures and troubles he leaned toward false judgments. Ellen could not attach dishonor to her father's motives or speeches. For long, however, something about him had troubled her, perplexed her. Fearfully she believed she was coming to some revelation, and, despite her keen determination to know, she found herself shrinking. "Dad, mother told me before she died that the Isbels had ruined you," said Ellen, very low. It hurt her so to see her father cover his face that she could hardly go on. "If they ruined you they ruined all of us. I know what we had once--what we lost again and again--and I see what we are come to now. Mother hated the Isbels. She taught me to hate the very name. But I never knew how they ruined you--or why--or when. And I want to know now." Then it was not the face of a liar that Jorth disclosed. The present was forgotten. He lived in the past. He even seemed younger 'in the revivifying flash of hate that made his face radiant. The lines burned out. Hate gave him back the spirit of his youth. "Gaston Isbel an' I were boys together in Weston, Texas," began Jorth, in swift, passionate voice. "We went to school together. We loved the same girl--your mother. When the war broke out she was engaged to Isbel. His family was rich. They influenced her people. But she loved me. When Isbel went to war she married me. He came back an' faced us. God! I'll never forget that. Your mother confessed her unfaithfulness--by Heaven! She taunted him with it. Isbel accused me of winnin' her by lies. But she took the sting out of that. "Isbel never forgave her an' he hounded me to ruin. He made me out a card-sharp, cheatin' my best friends. I was disgraced. Later he tangled me in the courts--he beat me out of property--an' last by convictin' me of rustlin' cattle he run me out of Texas." Black and distorted now, Jorth's face was a spectacle to make Ellen sick with a terrible passion of despair and hate. The truth of her father's ruin and her own were enough. What mattered all else? Jorth beat the table with fluttering, nerveless hands that seemed all the more significant for their lack of physical force. "An' so help me God, it's got to be wiped out in blood!" he hissed. That was his answer to the wavering and nobility of Ellen. And she in her turn had no answer to make. She crept away into the corner behind the curtain, and there on her couch in the semidarkness she lay with strained heart, and a resurging, unconquerable tumult in her mind. And she lay there from the middle of that afternoon until the next morning. When she awakened she expected to be unable to rise--she hoped she could not--but life seemed multiplied in her, and inaction was impossible. Something young and sweet and hopeful that had been in her did not greet the sun this morning. In their place was a woman's passion to learn for herself, to watch events, to meet what must come, to survive. After breakfast, at which she sat alone, she decided to put Isbel's package out of the way, so that it would not be subjecting her to continual annoyance. The moment she picked it up the old curiosity assailed her. "Shore I'll see what it is, anyway," she muttered, and with swift hands she opened the package. The action disclosed two pairs of fine, soft shoes, of a style she had never seen, and four pairs of stockings, two of strong, serviceable wool, and the others of a finer texture. Ellen looked at them in amaze. Of all things in the world, these would have been the last she expected to see. And, strangely, they were what she wanted and needed most. Naturally, then, Ellen made the mistake of taking them in her hands to feel their softness and warmth. "Shore! He saw my bare legs! And he brought me these presents he'd intended for his sister.... He was ashamed for me--sorry for me.... And I thought he looked at me bold-like, as I'm used to be looked at heah! Isbel or not, he's shore..." But Ellen Jorth could not utter aloud the conviction her intelligence tried to force upon her. "It'd be a pity to burn them," she mused. "I cain't do it. Sometime I might send them to Ann Isbel." Whereupon she wrapped them up again and hid them in the bottom of the old trunk, and slowly, as she lowered the lid, looking darkly, blankly at the wall, she whispered: "Jean Isbel! ... I hate him!" Later when Ellen went outdoors she carried her rifle, which was unusual for her, unless she intended to go into the woods. The morning was sunny and warm. A group of shirt-sleeved men lounged in the hall and before the porch of the double cabin. Her father was pacing up and down, talking forcibly. Ellen heard his hoarse voice. As she approached he ceased talking and his listeners relaxed their attention. Ellen's glance ran over them swiftly--Daggs, with his superb head, like that of a hawk, uncovered to the sun; Colter with his lowered, secretive looks, his sand-gray lean face; Jackson Jorth, her uncle, huge, gaunt, hulking, with white in his black beard and hair, and the fire of a ghoul in his hollow eyes; Tad Jorth, another brother of her father's, younger, red of eye and nose, a weak-chinned drinker of rum. Three other limber-legged Texans lounged there, partners of Daggs, and they were sun-browned, light-haired, blue-eyed men singularly alike in appearance, from their dusty high-heeled boots to their broad black sombreros. They claimed to be sheepmen. All Ellen could be sure of was that Rock Wells spent most of his time there, doing nothing but look for a chance to waylay her; Springer was a gambler; and the third, who answered to the strange name of Queen, was a silent, lazy, watchful-eyed man who never wore a glove on his right hand and who never was seen without a gun within easy reach of that hand. "Howdy, Ellen. Shore you ain't goin' to say good mawnin' to this heah bad lot?" drawled Daggs, with good-natured sarcasm. "Why, shore! Good morning, y'u hard-working industrious MANANA sheep raisers," replied Ellen, coolly. Daggs stared. The others appeared taken back by a greeting so foreign from any to which they were accustomed from her. Jackson Jorth let out a gruff haw-haw. Some of them doffed their sombreros, and Rock Wells managed a lazy, polite good morning. Ellen's father seemed most significantly struck by her greeting, and the least amused. "Ellen, I'm not likin' your talk," he said, with a frown. "Dad, when y'u play cards don't y'u call a spade a spade?" "Why, shore I do." "Well, I'm calling spades spades." "Ahuh!" grunted Jorth, furtively dropping his eyes. "Where you goin' with your gun? I'd rather you hung round heah now." "Reckon I might as well get used to packing my gun all the time," replied Ellen. "Reckon I'll be treated more like a man." Then the event Ellen had been expecting all morning took place. Simm Bruce and Lorenzo rode around the slope of the Knoll and trotted toward the cabin. Interest in Ellen was relegated to the background. "Shore they're bustin' with news," declared Daggs. "They been ridin' some, you bet," remarked another. "Huh!" exclaimed Jorth. "Bruce shore looks queer to me." "Red liquor," said Tad Jorth, sententiously. "You-all know the brand Greaves hands out." "Naw, Simm ain't drunk," said Jackson Jorth. "Look at his bloody shirt." The cool, indolent interest of the crowd vanished at the red color pointed out by Jackson Jorth. Daggs rose in a single springy motion to his lofty height. The face Bruce turned to Jorth was swollen and bruised, with unhealed cuts. Where his right eye should have been showed a puffed dark purple bulge. His other eye, however, gleamed with hard and sullen light. He stretched a big shaking hand toward Jorth. "Thet Nez Perce Isbel beat me half to death," he bellowed. Jorth stared hard at the tragic, almost grotesque figure, at the battered face. But speech failed him. It was Daggs who answered Bruce. "Wal, Simm, I'll be damned if you don't look it." "Beat you! What with?" burst out Jorth, explosively. "I thought he was swingin' an ax, but Greaves swore it was his fists," bawled Bruce, in misery and fury. "Where was your gun?" queried Jorth, sharply. "Gun? Hell!" exclaimed Bruce, flinging wide his arms. "Ask Lorenzo. He had a gun. An' he got a biff in the jaw before my turn come. Ask him?" Attention thus directed to the Mexican showed a heavy discolored swelling upon the side of his olive-skinned face. Lorenzo looked only serious. "Hah! Speak up," shouted Jorth, impatiently. "Senor Isbel heet me ver quick," replied Lorenzo, with expressive gesture. "I see thousand stars--then moocho black--all like night." At that some of Daggs's men lolled back with dry crisp laughter. Daggs's hard face rippled with a smile. But there was no humor in anything for Colonel Jorth. "Tell us what come off. Quick!" he ordered. "Where did it happen? Why? Who saw it? What did you do?" Bruce lapsed into a sullen impressiveness. "Wal, I happened in Greaves's store an' run into Jean Isbel. Shore was lookin' fer him. I had my mind made up what to do, but I got to shootin' off my gab instead of my gun. I called him Nez Perce--an' I throwed all thet talk in his face about old Gass Isbel sendin' fer him---an' I told him he'd git run out of the Tonto. Reckon I was jest warmin' up.... But then it all happened. He slugged Lorenzo jest one. An' Lorenzo slid peaceful-like to bed behind the counter. I hadn't time to think of throwin' a gun before he whaled into me. He knocked out two of my teeth. An' I swallered one of them." Ellen stood in the background behind three of the men and in the shadow. She did not join in the laugh that followed Bruce's remarks. She had known that he would lie. Uncertain yet of her reaction to this, but more bitter and furious as he revealed his utter baseness, she waited for more to be said. "Wal, I'll be doggoned," drawled Daggs. "What do you make of this kind of fightin'?" queried Jorth, "Darn if I know," replied Daggs in perplexity. "Shore an' sartin it's not the way of a Texan. Mebbe this young Isbel really is what old Gass swears he is. Shore Bruce ain't nothin' to give an edge to a real gun fighter. Looks to me like Isbel bluffed Greaves an' his gang an' licked your men without throwin' a gun." "Maybe Isbel doesn't want the name of drawin' first blood," suggested Jorth. "That 'd be like Gass," spoke up Rock Wells, quietly. "I onct rode fer Gass in Texas." "Say, Bruce," said Daggs, "was this heah palaverin' of yours an' Jean Isbel's aboot the old stock dispute? Aboot his father's range an' water? An' partickler aboot, sheep?" "Wal--I--I yelled a heap," declared Bruce, haltingly, "but I don't recollect all I said--I was riled.... Shore, though it was the same old argyment thet's been fetchin' us closer an' closer to trouble." Daggs removed his keen hawklike gaze from Bruce. "Wal, Jorth, all I'll say is this. If Bruce is tellin' the truth we ain't got a hell of a lot to fear from this young Isbel. I've known a heap of gun fighters in my day. An' Jean Isbel don't ran true to class. Shore there never was a gunman who'd risk cripplin' his right hand by sluggin' anybody." "Wal," broke in Bruce, sullenly. "You-all can take it daid straight or not. I don't give a damn. But you've shore got my hunch thet Nez Perce Isbel is liable to handle any of you fellars jest as he did me, an' jest as easy. What's more, he's got Greaves figgered. An' you-all know thet Greaves is as deep in--" "Shut up that kind of gab," demanded Jorth, stridently. "An' answer me. Was the row in Greaves's barroom aboot sheep?" "Aw, hell! I said so, didn't I?" shouted Bruce, with a fierce uplift of his distorted face. Ellen strode out from the shadow of the tall men who had obscured her. "Bruce, y'u're a liar," she said, bitingly. The surprise of her sudden appearance seemed to root Bruce to the spot. All but the discolored places on his face turned white. He held his breath a moment, then expelled it hard. His effort to recover from the shock was painfully obvious. He stammered incoherently. "Shore y'u're more than a liar, too," cried Ellen, facing him with blazing eyes. And the rifle, gripped in both hands, seemed to declare her intent of menace. "That row was not about sheep.... Jean Isbel didn't beat y'u for anythin' about sheep.... Old John Sprague was in Greaves's store. He heard y'u. He saw Jean Isbel beat y'u as y'u deserved.... An' he told ME!" Ellen saw Bruce shrink in fear of his life; and despite her fury she was filled with disgust that he could imagine she would have his blood on her hands. Then she divined that Bruce saw more in the gathering storm in her father's eyes than he had to fear from her. "Girl, what the hell are y'u sayin'?" hoarsely called Jorth, in dark amaze. "Dad, y'u leave this to me," she retorted. Daggs stepped beside Jorth, significantly on his right side. "Let her alone Lee," he advised, coolly. "She's shore got a hunch on Bruce." "Simm Bruce, y'u cast a dirty slur on my name," cried Ellen, passionately. It was then that Daggs grasped Jorth's right arm and held it tight, "Jest what I thought," he said. "Stand still, Lee. Let's see the kid make him showdown." "That's what jean Isbel beat y'u for," went on Ellen. "For slandering a girl who wasn't there.... Me! Y'u rotten liar!" "But, Ellen, it wasn't all lies," said Bruce, huskily. "I was half drunk--an' horrible jealous.... You know Lorenzo seen Isbel kissin' you. I can prove thet." Ellen threw up her head and a scarlet wave of shame and wrath flooded her face. "Yes," she cried, ringingly. "He saw Jean Isbel kiss me. Once! ... An' it was the only decent kiss I've had in years. He meant no insult. I didn't know who he was. An' through his kiss I learned a difference between men.... Y'u made Lorenzo lie. An' if I had a shred of good name left in Grass Valley you dishonored it.... Y'u made him think I was your girl! Damn y'u! I ought to kill y'u.... Eat your words now--take them back--or I'll cripple y'u for life!" Ellen lowered the cocked rifle toward his feet. "Shore, Ellen, I take back--all I said," gulped Bruce. He gazed at the quivering rifle barrel and then into the face of Ellen's father. Instinct told him where his real peril lay. Here the cool and tactful Daggs showed himself master of the situation. "Heah, listen!" he called. "Ellen, I reckon Bruce was drunk an' out of his haid. He's shore ate his words. Now, we don't want any cripples in this camp. Let him alone. Your dad got me heah to lead the Jorths, an' that's my say to you.... Simm, you're shore a low-down lyin' rascal. Keep away from Ellen after this or I'll bore you myself.... Jorth, it won't be a bad idee for you to forget you're a Texan till you cool off. Let Bruce stop some Isbel lead. Shore the Jorth-Isbel war is aboot on, an' I reckon we'd be smart to believe old Gass's talk aboot his Nez Perce son." CHAPTER VI From this hour Ellen Jorth bent all of her lately awakened intelligence and will to the only end that seemed to hold possible salvation for her. In the crisis sure to come she did not want to be blind or weak. Dreaming and indolence, habits born in her which were often a comfort to one as lonely as she, would ill fit her for the hard test she divined and dreaded. In the matter of her father's fight she must stand by him whatever the issue or the outcome; in what pertained to her own principles, her womanhood, and her soul she stood absolutely alone. Therefore, Ellen put dreams aside, and indolence of mind and body behind her. Many tasks she found, and when these were done for a day she kept active in other ways, thus earning the poise and peace of labor. Jorth rode off every day, sometimes with one or two of the men, often with a larger number. If he spoke of such trips to Ellen it was to give an impression of visiting the ranches of his neighbors or the various sheep camps. Often he did not return the day he left. When he did get back he smelled of rum and appeared heavy from need of sleep. His horses were always dust and sweat covered. During his absences Ellen fell victim to anxious dread until he returned. Daily he grew darker and more haggard of face, more obsessed by some impending fate. Often he stayed up late, haranguing with the men in the dim-lit cabin, where they drank and smoked, but seldom gambled any more. When the men did not gamble something immediate and perturbing was on their minds. Ellen had not yet lowered herself to the deceit and suspicion of eavesdropping, but she realized that there was a climax approaching in which she would deliberately do so. In those closing May days Ellen learned the significance of many things that previously she had taken as a matter of course. Her father did not run a ranch. There was absolutely no ranching done, and little work. Often Ellen had to chop wood herself. Jorth did not possess a plow. Ellen was bound to confess that the evidence of this lack dumfounded her. Even old John Sprague raised some hay, beets, turnips. Jorth's cattle and horses fared ill during the winter. Ellen remembered how they used to clean up four-inch oak saplings and aspens. Many of them died in the snow. The flocks of sheep, however, were driven down into the Basin in the fall, and across the Reno Pass to Phoenix and Maricopa. Ellen could not discover a fence post on the ranch, nor a piece of salt for the horses and cattle, nor a wagon, nor any sign of a sheep-shearing outfit. She had never seen any sheep sheared. Ellen could never keep track of the many and different horses running loose and hobbled round the ranch. There were droves of horses in the woods, and some of them wild as deer. According to her long-established understanding, her father and her uncles were keen on horse trading and buying. Then the many trails leading away from the Jorth ranch--these grew to have a fascination for Ellen; and the time came when she rode out on them to see for herself where they led. The sheep ranch of Daggs, supposed to be only a few miles across the ridges, down in Bear Canyon, never materialized at all for Ellen. This circumstance so interested her that she went up to see her friend Sprague and got him to direct her to Bear Canyon, so that she would be sure not to miss it. And she rode from the narrow, maple-thicketed head of it near the Rim down all its length. She found no ranch, no cabin, not even a corral in Bear Canyon. Sprague said there was only one canyon by that name. Daggs had assured her of the exact location on his place, and so had her father. Had they lied? Were they mistaken in the canyon? There were many canyons, all heading up near the Rim, all running and widening down for miles through the wooded mountain, and vastly different from the deep, short, yellow-walled gorges that cut into the Rim from the Basin side. Ellen investigated the canyons within six or eight miles of her home, both to east and to west. All she discovered was a couple of old log cabins, long deserted. Still, she did not follow out all the trails to their ends. Several of them led far into the deepest, roughest, wildest brakes of gorge and thicket that she had seen. No cattle or sheep had ever been driven over these trails. This riding around of Ellen's at length got to her father's ears. Ellen expected that a bitter quarrel would ensue, for she certainly would refuse to be confined to the camp; but her father only asked her to limit her riding to the meadow valley, and straightway forgot all about it. In fact, his abstraction one moment, his intense nervousness the next, his harder drinking and fiercer harangues with the men, grew to be distressing for Ellen. They presaged his further deterioration and the ever-present evil of the growing feud. One day Jorth rode home in the early morning, after an absence of two nights. Ellen heard the clip-clop of, horses long before she saw them. "Hey, Ellen! Come out heah," called her father. Ellen left her work and went outside. A stranger had ridden in with her father, a young giant whose sharp-featured face appeared marked by ferret-like eyes and a fine, light, fuzzy beard. He was long, loose jointed, not heavy of build, and he had the largest hands and feet Ellen bad ever seen. Next Ellen espied a black horse they had evidently brought with them. Her father was holding a rope halter. At once the black horse struck Ellen as being a beauty and a thoroughbred. "Ellen, heah's a horse for you," said Jorth, with something of pride. "I made a trade. Reckon I wanted him myself, but he's too gentle for me an' maybe a little small for my weight." Delight visited Ellen for the first time in many days. Seldom had she owned a good horse, and never one like this. "Oh, dad!" she exclaimed, in her gratitude. "Shore he's yours on one condition," said her father. "What's that?" asked Ellen, as she laid caressing hands on the restless horse. "You're not to ride him out of the canyon." "Agreed.... All daid black, isn't he, except that white face? What's his name, dad? "I forgot to ask," replied Jorth, as he began unsaddling his own horse. "Slater, what's this heah black's name?" The lanky giant grinned. "I reckon it was Spades." "Spades?" ejaculated Ellen, blankly. "What a name! ... Well, I guess it's as good as any. He's shore black." "Ellen, keep him hobbled when you're not ridin' him," was her father's parting advice as he walked off with the stranger. Spades was wet and dusty and his satiny skin quivered. He had fine, dark, intelligent eyes that watched Ellen's every move. She knew how her father and his friends dragged and jammed horses through the woods and over the rough trails. It did not take her long to discover that this horse had been a pet. Ellen cleaned his coat and brushed him and fed him. Then she fitted her bridle to suit his head and saddled him. His evident response to her kindness assured her that he was gentle, so she mounted and rode him, to discover he had the easiest gait she had ever experienced. He walked and trotted to suit her will, but when left to choose his own gait he fell into a graceful little pace that was very easy for her. He appeared quite ready to break into a run at her slightest bidding, but Ellen satisfied herself on this first ride with his slower gaits. "Spades, y'u've shore cut out my burro Jinny," said Ellen, regretfully. "Well, I reckon women are fickle." Next day she rode up the canyon to show Spades to her friend John Sprague. The old burro breeder was not at home. As his door was open, however, and a fire smoldering, Ellen concluded he would soon return. So she waited. Dismounting, she left Spades free to graze on the new green grass that carpeted the ground. The cabin and little level clearing accentuated the loneliness and wildness of the forest. Ellen always liked it here and had once been in the habit of visiting the old man often. But of late she had stayed away, for the reason that Sprague's talk and his news and his poorly hidden pity depressed her. Presently she heard hoof beats on the hard, packed trail leading down the canyon in the direction from which she had come. Scarcely likely was it that Sprague should return from this direction. Ellen thought her father had sent one of the herders for her. But when she caught a glimpse of the approaching horseman, down in the aspens, she failed to recognize him. After he had passed one of the openings she heard his horse stop. Probably the man had seen her; at least she could not otherwise account for his stopping. The glimpse she had of him had given her the impression that he was bending over, peering ahead in the trail, looking for tracks. Then she heard the rider come on again, more slowly this time. At length the horse trotted out into the opening, to be hauled up short. Ellen recognized the buckskin-clad figure, the broad shoulders, the dark face of Jean Isbel. Ellen felt prey to the strangest quaking sensation she had ever suffered. It took violence of her new-born spirit to subdue that feeling. Isbel rode slowly across the clearing toward her. For Ellen his approach seemed singularly swift--so swift that her surprise, dismay, conjecture, and anger obstructed her will. The outwardly calm and cold Ellen Jorth was a travesty that mocked her--that she felt he would discern. The moment Isbel drew close enough for Ellen to see his face she experienced a strong, shuddering repetition of her first shock of recognition. He was not the same. The light, the youth was gone. This, however, did not cause her emotion. Was it not a sudden transition of her nature to the dominance of hate? Ellen seemed to feel the shadow of her unknown self standing with her. Isbel halted his horse. Ellen had been standing near the trunk of a fallen pine and she instinctively backed against it. How her legs trembled! Isbel took off his cap and crushed it nervously in his bare, brown hand. "Good mornin', Miss Ellen!" he said. Ellen did not return his greeting, but queried, almost breathlessly, "Did y'u come by our ranch?" "No. I circled," he replied. "Jean Isbel! What do y'u want heah?" she demanded. "Don't you know?" he returned. His eyes were intensely black and piercing. They seemed to search Ellen's very soul. To meet their gaze was an ordeal that only her rousing fury sustained. Ellen felt on her lips a scornful allusion to his half-breed Indian traits and the reputation that had preceded him. But she could not utter it. "No," she replied. "It's hard to call a woman a liar," he returned, bitterly. But you must be--seein' you're a Jorth. "Liar! Not to y'u, Jean Isbel," she retorted. "I'd not lie to y'u to save my life." He studied her with keen, sober, moody intent. The dark fire of his eyes thrilled her. "If that's true, I'm glad," he said. "Shore it's true. I've no idea why y'u came heah." Ellen did have a dawning idea that she could not force into oblivion. But if she ever admitted it to her consciousness, she must fail in the contempt and scorn and fearlessness she chose to throw in this man's face. "Does old Sprague live here?" asked Isbel. "Yes. I expect him back soon.... Did y'u come to see him?" "No.... Did Sprague tell you anythin' about the row he saw me in?" "He--did not," replied Ellen, lying with stiff lips. She who had sworn she could not lie! She felt the hot blood leaving her heart, mounting in a wave. All her conscious will seemed impelled to deceive. What had she to hide from Jean Isbel? And a still, small voice replied that she had to hide the Ellen Jorth who had waited for him that day, who had spied upon him, who had treasured a gift she could not destroy, who had hugged to her miserable heart the fact that he had fought for her name. "I'm glad of that," Isbel was saying, thoughtfully. "Did you come heah to see me?" interrupted Ellen. She felt that she could not endure this reiterated suggestion of fineness, of consideration in him. She would betray herself--betray what she did not even realize herself. She must force other footing--and that should be the one of strife between the Jorths and Isbels. "No--honest, I didn't, Miss Ellen," he rejoined, humbly. "I'll tell you, presently, why I came. But it wasn't to see you.... I don't deny I wanted ... but that's no matter. You didn't meet me that day on the Rim." "Meet y'u!" she echoed, coldly. "Shore y'u never expected me?" "Somehow I did," he replied, with those penetrating eyes on her. "I put somethin' in your tent that day. Did you find it?" "Yes," she replied, with the same casual coldness. "What did you do with it?" "I kicked it out, of course," she replied. She saw him flinch. "And you never opened it?" "Certainly not," she retorted, as if forced. "Doon't y'u know anythin' about--about people? ... Shore even if y'u are an Isbel y'u never were born in Texas." "Thank God I wasn't!" he replied. "I was born in a beautiful country of green meadows and deep forests and white rivers, not in a barren desert where men live dry and hard as the cactus. Where I come from men don't live on hate. They can forgive." "Forgive! ... Could y'u forgive a Jorth?" "Yes, I could." "Shore that's easy to say--with the wrongs all on your side," she declared, bitterly. "Ellen Jorth, the first wrong was on your side," retorted Jean, his voice fall. "Your father stole my father's sweetheart--by lies, by slander, by dishonor, by makin' terrible love to her in his absence." "It's a lie," cried Ellen, passionately. "It is not," he declared, solemnly. "Jean Isbel, I say y'u lie!" "No! I say you've been lied to," he thundered. The tremendous force of his spirit seemed to fling truth at Ellen. It weakened her. "But--mother loved dad--best." "Yes, afterward. No wonder, poor woman! ... But it was the action of your father and your mother that ruined all these lives. You've got to know the truth, Ellen Jorth.... All the years of hate have borne their fruit. God Almighty can never save us now. Blood must be spilled. The Jorths and the Isbels can't live on the same earth.... And you've got to know the truth because the worst of this hell falls on you and me." The hate that he spoke of alone upheld her. "Never, Jean Isbel!" she cried. "I'll never know truth from y'u.... I'll never share anythin' with y'u--not even hell." Isbel dismounted and stood before her, still holding his bridle reins. The bay horse champed his bit and tossed his head. "Why do you hate me so?" he asked. "I just happen to be my father's son. I never harmed you or any of your people. I met you ... fell in love with you in a flash--though I never knew it till after.... Why do you hate me so terribly?" Ellen felt a heavy, stifling pressure within her breast. "Y'u're an Isbel.... Doon't speak of love to me." "I didn't intend to. But your--your hate seems unnatural. And we'll probably never meet again.... I can't help it. I love you. Love at first sight! Jean Isbel and Ellen Jorth! Strange, isn't it? ... It was all so strange. My meetin' you so lonely and unhappy, my seein' you so sweet and beautiful, my thinkin' you so good in spite of--" "Shore it was strange," interrupted Ellen, with scornful laugh. She had found her defense. In hurting him she could hide her own hurt. "Thinking me so good in spite of-- Ha-ha! And I said I'd been kissed before!" "Yes, in spite of everything," he said. Ellen could not look at him as he loomed over her. She felt a wild tumult in her heart. All that crowded to her lips for utterance was false. "Yes--kissed before I met you--and since," she said, mockingly. "And I laugh at what y'u call love, Jean Isbel." "Laugh if you want--but believe it was sweet, honorable--the best in me," he replied, in deep earnestness. "Bah!" cried Ellen, with all the force of her pain and shame and hate. "By Heaven, you must be different from what I thought!" exclaimed Isbel, huskily. "Shore if I wasn't, I'd make myself.... Now, Mister Jean Isbel, get on your horse an' go!" Something of composure came to Ellen with these words of dismissal, and she glanced up at him with half-veiled eyes. His changed aspect prepared her for some blow. "That's a pretty black horse." "Yes," replied Ellen, blankly. "Do you like him?" "I--I love him." "All right, I'll give him to you then. He'll have less work and kinder treatment than if I used him. I've got some pretty hard rides ahead of me." "Y'u--y'u give--" whispered Ellen, slowly stiffening. "Yes. He's mine," replied Isbel. With that he turned to whistle. Spades threw up his head, snorted, and started forward at a trot. He came faster the closer he got, and if ever Ellen saw the joy of a horse at sight of a beloved master she saw it then. Isbel laid a hand on the animal's neck and caressed him, then, turning back to Ellen, he went on speaking: "I picked him from a lot of fine horses of my father's. We got along well. My sister Ann rode him a good deal.... He was stolen from our pasture day before yesterday. I took his trail and tracked him up here. Never lost his trail till I got to your ranch, where I had to circle till I picked it up again." "Stolen--pasture--tracked him up heah?" echoed Ellen, without any evidence of emotion whatever. Indeed, she seemed to have been turned to stone. "Trackin' him was easy. I wish for your sake it 'd been impossible," he said, bluntly. "For my sake?" she echoed, in precisely the same tone, Manifestly that tone irritated Isbel beyond control. He misunderstood it. With a hand far from gentle he pushed her bent head back so he could look into her face. "Yes, for your sake!" he declared, harshly. "Haven't you sense enough to see that? ... What kind of a game do you think you can play with me?" "Game I ... Game of what?" she asked. "Why, a--a game of ignorance--innocence--any old game to fool a man who's tryin' to be decent." This time Ellen mutely looked her dull, blank questioning. And it inflamed Isbel. "You know your father's a horse thief!" he thundered. Outwardly Ellen remained the same. She had been prepared for an unknown and a terrible blow. It had fallen. And her face, her body, her hands, locked with the supreme fortitude of pride and sustained by hate, gave no betrayal of the crashing, thundering ruin within her mind and soul. Motionless she leaned there, meeting the piercing fire of Isbel's eyes, seeing in them a righteous and terrible scorn. In one flash the naked truth seemed blazed at her. The faith she had fostered died a sudden death. A thousand perplexing problems were solved in a second of whirling, revealing thought. "Ellen Jorth, you know your father's in with this Hash Knife Gang of rustlers," thundered Isbel. "Shore," she replied, with the cool, easy, careless defiance of a Texan. "You know he's got this Daggs to lead his faction against the Isbels?" "Shore." "You know this talk of sheepmen buckin' the cattlemen is all a blind?" "Shore," reiterated Ellen. Isbel gazed darkly down upon her. With his anger spent for the moment, he appeared ready to end the interview. But he seemed fascinated by the strange look of her, by the incomprehensible something she emanated. Havoc gleamed in his pale, set face. He shook his dark head and his broad hand went to his breast. "To think I fell in love with such as you!" he exclaimed, and his other hand swept out in a tragic gesture of helpless pathos and impotence. The hell Isbel had hinted at now possessed Ellen--body, mind, and soul. Disgraced, scorned by an Isbel! Yet loved by him! In that divination there flamed up a wild, fierce passion to hurt, to rend, to flay, to fling back upon him a stinging agony. Her thought flew upon her like whips. Pride of the Jorths! Pride of the old Texan blue blood! It lay dead at her feet, killed by the scornful words of the last of that family to whom she owed her degradation. Daughter of a horse thief and rustler! Dark and evil and grim set the forces within her, accepting her fate, damning her enemies, true to the blood of the Jorths. The sins of the father must be visited upon the daughter. "Shore y'u might have had me--that day on the Rim--if y'u hadn't told your name," she said, mockingly, and she gazed into his eyes with all the mystery of a woman's nature. Isbel's powerful frame shook as with an ague. "Girl, what do you mean?" "Shore, I'd have been plumb fond of havin' y'u make up to me," she drawled. It possessed her now with irresistible power, this fact of the love he could not help. Some fiendish woman's satisfaction dwelt in her consciousness of her power to kill the noble, the faithful, the good in him. "Ellen Jorth, you lie!" he burst out, hoarsely. "Jean, shore I'd been a toy and a rag for these rustlers long enough. I was tired of them.... I wanted a new lover.... And if y'u hadn't give yourself away--" Isbel moved so swiftly that she did not realize his intention until his hard hand smote her mouth. Instantly she tasted the hot, salty blood from a cut lip. "Shut up, you hussy!" he ordered, roughly. "Have you no shame? ... My sister Ann spoke well of you. She made excuses--she pitied you." That for Ellen seemed the culminating blow under which she almost sank. But one moment longer could she maintain this unnatural and terrible poise. "Jean Isbel--go along with y'u," she said, impatiently. "I'm waiting heah for Simm Bruce!" At last it was as if she struck his heart. Because of doubt of himself and a stubborn faith in her, his passion and jealousy were not proof against this last stab. Instinctive subtlety inherent in Ellen had prompted the speech that tortured Isbel. How the shock to him rebounded on her! She gasped as he lunged for her, too swift for her to move a hand. One arm crushed round her like a steel band; the other, hard across her breast and neck, forced her head back. Then she tried to wrestle away. But she was utterly powerless. His dark face bent down closer and closer. Suddenly Ellen ceased trying to struggle. She was like a stricken creature paralyzed by the piercing, hypnotic eyes of a snake. Yet in spite of her terror, if he meant death by her, she welcomed it. "Ellen Jorth, I'm thinkin' yet--you lie!" he said, low and tense between his teeth. "No! No!" she screamed, wildly. Her nerve broke there. She could no longer meet those terrible black eyes. Her passionate denial was not only the last of her shameful deceit; it was the woman of her, repudiating herself and him, and all this sickening, miserable situation. Isbel took her literally. She had convinced him. And the instant held blank horror for Ellen. "By God--then I'll have somethin'--of you anyway!" muttered Isbel, thickly. Ellen saw the blood bulge in his powerful neck. She saw his dark, hard face, strange now, fearful to behold, come lower and lower, till it blurred and obstructed her gaze. She felt the swell and ripple and stretch--then the bind of his muscles, like huge coils of elastic rope. Then with savage rude force his mouth closed on hers. All Ellen's senses reeled, as if she were swooning. She was suffocating. The spasm passed, and a bursting spurt of blood revived her to acute and terrible consciousness. For the endless period of one moment he held her so that her breast seemed crushed. His kisses burned and braised her lips. And then, shifting violently to her neck, they pressed so hard that she choked under them. It was as if a huge bat had fastened upon her throat. Suddenly the remorseless binding embraces--the hot and savage kisses--fell away from her. Isbel had let go. She saw him throw up his hands, and stagger back a little, all the while with his piercing gaze on her. His face had been dark purple: now it was white. "No--Ellen Jorth," he panted, "I don't--want any of you--that way." And suddenly he sank on the log and covered his face with his hands. "What I loved in you--was what I thought--you were." Like a wildcat Ellen sprang upon him, beating him with her fists, tearing at his hair, scratching his face, in a blind fury. Isbel made no move to stop her, and her violence spent itself with her strength. She swayed back from him, shaking so that she could scarcely stand. "Y'u--damned--Isbel!" she gasped, with hoarse passion. "Y'u insulted me!" "Insulted you?..." laughed Isbel, in bitter scorn. "It couldn't be done." "Oh! ... I'll KILL y'u!" she hissed. Isbel stood up and wiped the red scratches on his face. "Go ahead. There's my gun," he said, pointing to his saddle sheath. "Somebody's got to begin this Jorth-Isbel feud. It'll be a dirty business. I'm sick of it already.... Kill me! ... First blood for Ellen Jorth!" Suddenly the dark grim tide that had seemed to engulf Ellen's very soul cooled and receded, leaving her without its false strength. She began to sag. She stared at Isbel's gun. "Kill him," whispered the retreating voices of her hate. But she was as powerless as if she were still held in Jean Isbel's giant embrace. "I--I want to--kill y'u," she whispered, "but I cain't.... Leave me." "You're no Jorth--the same as I'm no Isbel. We oughtn't be mixed in this deal," he said, somberly. "I'm sorrier for you than I am for myself.... You're a girl.... You once had a good mother--a decent home. And this life you've led here--mean as it's been--is nothin' to what you'll face now. Damn the men that brought you to this! I'm goin' to kill some of them." With that he mounted and turned away. Ellen called out for him to take his horse. He did not stop nor look back. She called again, but her voice was fainter, and Isbel was now leaving at a trot. Slowly she sagged against the tree, lower and lower. He headed into the trail leading up the canyon. How strange a relief Ellen felt! She watched him ride into the aspens and start up the slope, at last to disappear in the pines. It seemed at the moment that he took with him something which had been hers. A pain in her head dulled the thoughts that wavered to and fro. After he had gone she could not see so well. Her eyes were tired. What had happened to her? There was blood on her hands. Isbel's blood! She shuddered. Was it an omen? Lower she sank against the tree and closed her eyes. Old John Sprague did not return. Hours dragged by--dark hours for Ellen Jorth lying prostrate beside the tree, hiding the blue sky and golden sunlight from her eyes. At length the lethargy of despair, the black dull misery wore away; and she gradually returned to a condition of coherent thought. What had she learned? Sight of the black horse grazing near seemed to prompt the trenchant replies. Spades belonged to Jean Isbel. He had been stolen by her father or by one of her father's accomplices. Isbel's vaunted cunning as a tracker had been no idle boast. Her father was a horse thief, a rustler, a sheepman only as a blind, a consort of Daggs, leader of the Hash Knife Gang. Ellen well remembered the ill repute of that gang, way back in Texas, years ago. Her father had gotten in with this famous band of rustlers to serve his own ends--the extermination of the Isbels. It was all very plain now to Ellen. "Daughter of a horse thief an' rustler!" she muttered. And her thoughts sped back to the days of her girlhood. Only the very early stage of that time had been happy. In the light of Isbel's revelation the many changes of residence, the sudden moves to unsettled parts of Texas, the periods of poverty and sudden prosperity, all leading to the final journey to this God-forsaken Arizona--these were now seen in their true significance. As far back as she could remember her father had been a crooked man. And her mother had known it. He had dragged her to her ruin. That degradation had killed her. Ellen realized that with poignant sorrow, with a sudden revolt against her father. Had Gaston Isbel truly and dishonestly started her father on his downhill road? Ellen wondered. She hated the Isbels with unutterable and growing hate, yet she had it in her to think, to ponder, to weigh judgments in their behalf. She owed it to something in herself to be fair. But what did it matter who was to blame for the Jorth-Isbel feud? Somehow Ellen was forced to confess that deep in her soul it mattered terribly. To be true to herself--the self that she alone knew--she must have right on her side. If the Jorths were guilty, and she clung to them and their creed, then she would be one of them. "But I'm not," she mused, aloud. "My name's Jorth, an' I reckon I have bad blood.... But it never came out in me till to-day. I've been honest. I've been good--yes, GOOD, as my mother taught me to be--in spite of all.... Shore my pride made me a fool.... An' now have I any choice to make? I'm a Jorth. I must stick to my father." All this summing up, however, did not wholly account for the pang in her breast. What had she done that day? And the answer beat in her ears like a great throbbing hammer-stroke. In an agony of shame, in the throes of hate, she had perjured herself. She had sworn away her honor. She had basely made herself vile. She had struck ruthlessly at the great heart of a man who loved her. Ah! That thrust had rebounded to leave this dreadful pang in her breast. Loved her? Yes, the strange truth, the insupportable truth! She had to contend now, not with her father and her disgrace, not with the baffling presence of Jean Isbel, but with the mysteries of her own soul. Wonder of all wonders was it that such love had been born for her. Shame worse than all other shame was it that she should kill it by a poisoned lie. By what monstrous motive had she done that? To sting Isbel as he had stung her! But that had been base. Never could she have stopped so low except in a moment of tremendous tumult. If she had done sore injury to Isbel what bad she done to herself? How strange, how tenacious had been his faith in her honor! Could she ever forget? She must forget it. But she could never forget the way he had scorned those vile men in Greaves's store--the way he had beaten Bruce for defiling her name--the way he had stubbornly denied her own insinuations. She was a woman now. She had learned something of the complexity of a woman's heart. She could not change nature. And all her passionate being thrilled to the manhood of her defender. But even while she thrilled she acknowledged her hate. It was the contention between the two that caused the pang in her breast. "An' now what's left for me?" murmured Ellen. She did not analyze the significance of what had prompted that query. The most incalculable of the day's disclosures was the wrong she had done herself. "Shore I'm done for, one way or another.... I must stick to Dad.... or kill myself?" Ellen rode Spades back to the ranch. She rode like the wind. When she swung out of the trail into the open meadow in plain sight of the ranch her appearance created a commotion among the loungers before the cabin. She rode Spades at a full run. "Who's after you?" yelled her father, as she pulled the black to a halt. Jorth held a rifle. Daggs, Colter, the other Jorths were there, likewise armed, and all watchful, strung with expectancy. "Shore nobody's after me," replied Ellen. "Cain't I run a horse round heah without being chased?" Jorth appeared both incensed and relieved. "Hah! ... What you mean, girl, runnin' like a streak right down on us? You're actin' queer these days, an' you look queer. I'm not likin' it." "Reckon these are queer times--for the Jorths," replied Ellen, sarcastically. "Daggs found strange horse tracks crossin' the meadow," said her father. "An' that worried us. Some one's been snoopin' round the ranch. An' when we seen you runnin' so wild we shore thought you was bein' chased." "No. I was only trying out Spades to see how fast he could run," returned Ellen. "Reckon when we do get chased it'll take some running to catch me." "Haw! Haw!" roared Daggs. "It shore will, Ellen." "Girl, it's not only your runnin' an' your looks that's queer," declared Jorth, in dark perplexity. "You talk queer." "Shore, dad, y'u're not used to hearing spades called spades," said Ellen, as she dismounted. "Humph!" ejaculated her father, as if convinced of the uselessness of trying to understand a woman. "Say, did you see any strange horse tracks?" "I reckon I did. And I know who made them." Jorth stiffened. All the men behind him showed a sudden intensity of suspense. "Who?" demanded Jorth. "Shore it was Jean Isbel," replied Ellen, coolly. "He came up heah tracking his black horse." "Jean--Isbel--trackin'--his--black horse," repeated her father. "Yes. He's not overrated as a tracker, that's shore." Blank silence ensued. Ellen cast a slow glance over her father and the others, then she began to loosen the cinches of her saddle. Presently Jorth burst the silence with a curse, and Daggs followed with one of his sardonic laughs. "Wal, boss, what did I tell you?" he drawled. Jorth strode to Ellen, and, whirling her around with a strong hand, he held her facing him. "Did y'u see Isbel?" "Yes," replied Ellen, just as sharply as her father had asked. "Did y'u talk to him?" "Yes." "What did he want up heah?" "I told y'u. He was tracking the black horse y'u stole." Jorth's hand and arm dropped limply. His sallow face turned a livid hue. Amaze merged into discomfiture and that gave place to rage. He raised a hand as if to strike Ellen. And suddenly Daggs's long arm shot out to clutch Jorth's wrist. Wrestling to free himself, Jorth cursed under his breath. "Let go, Daggs," he shouted, stridently. "Am I drunk that you grab me?" "Wal, y'u ain't drunk, I reckon," replied the rustler, with sarcasm. "But y'u're shore some things I'll reserve for your private ear." Jorth gained a semblance of composure. But it was evident that he labored under a shock. "Ellen, did Jean Isbel see this black horse?" "Yes. He asked me how I got Spades an' I told him." "Did he say Spades belonged to him?" "Shore I reckon he, proved it. Y'u can always tell a horse that loves its master." "Did y'u offer to give Spades back?" "Yes. But Isbel wouldn't take him." "Hah! ... An' why not?" "He said he'd rather I kept him. He was about to engage in a dirty, blood-spilling deal, an' he reckoned he'd not be able to care for a fine horse.... I didn't want Spades. I tried to make Isbel take him. But he rode off.... And that's all there is to that." "Maybe it's not," replied Jorth, chewing his mustache and eying Ellen with dark, intent gaze. "Y'u've met this Isbel twice." "It wasn't any fault of mine," retorted Ellen. "I heah he's sweet on y'u. How aboot that?" Ellen smarted under the blaze of blood that swept to neck and cheek and temple. But it was only memory which fired this shame. What her father and his crowd might think were matters of supreme indifference. Yet she met his suspicious gaze with truthful blazing eyes. "I heah talk from Bruce an' Lorenzo," went on her father. "An' Daggs heah--" "Daggs nothin'!" interrupted that worthy. "Don't fetch me in. I said nothin' an' I think nothin'." "Yes, Jean Isbel was sweet on me, dad ... but he will never be again," returned Ellen, in low tones. With that she pulled her saddle off Spades and, throwing it over her shoulder, she walked off to her cabin. Hardly had she gotten indoors when her father entered. "Ellen, I didn't know that horse belonged to Isbel," he began, in the swift, hoarse, persuasive voice so familiar to Ellen. "I swear I didn't. I bought him--traded with Slater for him.... Honest to God, I never had any idea he was stolen! ... Why, when y'u said 'that horse y'u stole,' I felt as if y'u'd knifed me...." Ellen sat at the table and listened while her father paced to and fro and, by his restless action and passionate speech, worked himself into a frenzy. He talked incessantly, as if her silence was condemnatory and as if eloquence alone could convince her of his honesty. It seemed that Ellen saw and heard with keener faculties than ever before. He had a terrible thirst for her respect. Not so much for her love, she divined, but that she would not see how he had fallen! She pitied him with all her heart. She was all he had, as he was all the world to her. And so, as she gave ear to his long, illogical rigmarole of argument and defense, she slowly found that her pity and her love were making vital decisions for her. As of old, in poignant moments, her father lapsed at last into a denunciation of the Isbels and what they had brought him to. His sufferings were real, at least, in Ellen's presence. She was the only link that bound him to long-past happier times. She was her mother over again--the woman who had betrayed another man for him and gone with him to her ruin and death. "Dad, don't go on so," said Ellen, breaking in upon her father's rant. "I will be true to y'u--as my mother was.... I am a Jorth. Your place is my place--your fight is my fight.... Never speak of the past to me again. If God spares us through this feud we will go away and begin all over again, far off where no one ever heard of a Jorth.... If we're not spared we'll at least have had our whack at these damned Isbels." CHAPTER VII During June Jean Isbel did not ride far away from Grass Valley. Another attempt had been made upon Gaston Isbel's life. Another cowardly shot had been fired from ambush, this time from a pine thicket bordering the trail that led to Blaisdell's ranch. Blaisdell heard this shot, so near his home was it fired. No trace of the hidden foe could be found. The 'ground all around that vicinity bore a carpet of pine needles which showed no trace of footprints. The supposition was that this cowardly attempt had been perpetrated, or certainly instigated, by the Jorths. But there was no proof. And Gaston Isbel had other enemies in the Tonto Basin besides the sheep clan. The old man raged like a lion about this sneaking attack on him. And his friend Blaisdell urged an immediate gathering of their kin and friends. "Let's quit ranchin' till this trouble's settled," he declared. "Let's arm an' ride the trails an' meet these men half-way.... It won't help our side any to wait till you're shot in the back." More than one of Isbel's supporters offered the same advice. "No; we'll wait till we know for shore," was the stubborn cattleman's reply to all these promptings. "Know! Wal, hell! Didn't Jean find the black hoss up at Jorth's ranch?" demanded Blaisdell. "What more do we want?" "Jean couldn't swear Jorth stole the black." "Wal, by thunder, I can swear to it!" growled Blaisdell. "An' we're losin' cattle all the time. Who's stealin' 'em?" "We've always lost cattle ever since we started ranchin' heah." "Gas, I reckon yu want Jorth to start this fight in the open." "It'll start soon enough," was Isbel's gloomy reply. Jean had not failed altogether in his tracking of lost or stolen cattle. Circumstances had been against him, and there was something baffling about this rustling. The summer storms set in early, and it had been his luck to have heavy rains wash out fresh tracks that he might have followed. The range was large and cattle were everywhere. Sometimes a loss was not discovered for weeks. Gaston Isbel's sons were now the only men left to ride the range. Two of his riders had quit because of the threatened war, and Isbel had let another go. So that Jean did not often learn that cattle had been stolen until their tracks were old. Added to that was the fact that this Grass Valley country was covered with horse tracks and cattle tracks. The rustlers, whoever they were, had long been at the game, and now that there was reason for them to show their cunning they did it. Early in July the hot weather came. Down on the red ridges of the Tonto it was hot desert. The nights were cool, the early mornings were pleasant, but the day was something to endure. When the white cumulus clouds rolled up out of the southwest, growing larger and thicker and darker, here and there coalescing into a black thundercloud, Jean welcomed them. He liked to see the gray streamers of rain hanging down from a canopy of black, and the roar of rain on the trees as it approached like a trampling army was always welcome. The grassy flats, the red ridges, the rocky slopes, the thickets of manzanita and scrub oak and cactus were dusty, glaring, throat-parching places under the hot summer sun. Jean longed for the cool heights of the Rim, the shady pines, the dark sweet verdure under the silver spruces, the tinkle and murmur of the clear rills. He often had another longing, too, which he bitterly stifled. Jean's ally, the keen-nosed shepherd clog, had disappeared one day, and had never returned. Among men at the ranch there was a difference of opinion as to what had happened to Shepp. The old rancher thought he had been poisoned or shot; Bill and Guy Isbel believed he had been stolen by sheep herders, who were always stealing dogs; and Jean inclined to the conviction that Shepp had gone off with the timber wolves. The fact was that Shepp did not return, and Jean missed him. One morning at dawn Jean heard the cattle bellowing and trampling out in the valley; and upon hurrying to a vantage point he was amazed to see upward of five hundred steers chasing a lone wolf. Jean's father had seen such a spectacle as this, but it was a new one for Jean. The wolf was a big gray and black fellow, rangy and powerful, and until he got the steers all behind him he was rather hard put to it to keep out of their way. Probably he had dogged the herd, trying to sneak in and pull down a yearling, and finally the steers had charged him. Jean kept along the edge of the valley in the hope they would chase him within range of a rifle. But the wary wolf saw Jean and sheered off, gradually drawing away from his pursuers. Jean returned to the house for his breakfast, and then set off across the valley. His father owned one small flock of sheep that had not yet been driven up on the Rim, where all the sheep in the country were run during the hot, dry summer down on the Tonto. Young Evarts and a Mexican boy named Bernardino had charge of this flock. The regular Mexican herder, a man of experience, had given up his job; and these boys were not equal to the task of risking the sheep up in the enemies' stronghold. This flock was known to be grazing in a side draw, well up from Grass Valley, where the brush afforded some protection from the sun, and there was good water and a little feed. Before Jean reached his destination he heard a shot. It was not a rifle shot, which fact caused Jean a little concern. Evarts and Bernardino had rifles, but, to his knowledge, no small arms. Jean rode up on one of the black-brushed conical hills that rose on the south side of Grass Valley, and from there he took a sharp survey of the country. At first he made out only cattle, and bare meadowland, and the low encircling ridges and hills. But presently up toward the head of the valley he descried a bunch of horsemen riding toward the village. He could not tell their number. That dark moving mass seemed to Jean to be instinct with life, mystery, menace. Who were they? It was too far for him to recognize horses, let alone riders. They were moving fast, too. Jean watched them out of sight, then turned his horse downhill again, and rode on his quest. A number of horsemen like that was a very unusual sight around Grass Valley at any time. What then did it portend now? Jean experienced a little shock of uneasy dread that was a new sensation for him. Brooding over this he proceeded on his way, at length to turn into the draw where the camp of the sheep-herders was located. Upon coming in sight of it he heard a hoarse shout. Young Evarts appeared running frantically out of the brush. Jean urged his horse into a run and soon covered the distance between them. Evarts appeared beside himself with terror. "Boy! what's the matter?" queried Jean, as he dismounted, rifle in hand, peering quickly from Evarts's white face to the camp, and all around. "Ber-nardino! Ber-nardino!" gasped the boy, wringing his hands and pointing. Jean ran the few remaining rods to the sheep camp. He saw the little teepee, a burned-out fire, a half-finished meal--and then the Mexican lad lying prone on the ground, dead, with a bullet hole in his ghastly face. Near him lay an old six-shooter. "Whose gun is that?" demanded Jean, as he picked it up. "Ber-nardino's," replied Evarts, huskily. "He--he jest got it--the other day." "Did he shoot himself accidentally?" "Oh no! No! He didn't do it--atall." "Who did, then?" "The men--they rode up--a gang-they did it," panted Evarts. "Did you know who they were?" "No. I couldn't tell. I saw them comin' an' I was skeered. Bernardino had gone fer water. I run an' hid in the brush. I wanted to yell, but they come too close.... Then I heerd them talkin'. Bernardino come back. They 'peared friendly-like. Thet made me raise up, to look. An' I couldn't see good. I heerd one of them ask Bernardino to let him see his gun. An' Bernardino handed it over. He looked at the gun an' haw-hawed, an' flipped it up in the air, an' when it fell back in his hand it--it went off bang! ... An' Bernardino dropped.... I hid down close. I was skeered stiff. I heerd them talk more, but not what they said. Then they rode away.... An' I hid there till I seen y'u comin'." "Have you got a horse?" queried Jean, sharply. "No. But I can ride one of Bernardino's burros." "Get one. Hurry over to Blaisdell. Tell him to send word to Blue and Gordon and Fredericks to ride like the devil to my father's ranch. Hurry now!" Young Evarts ran off without reply. Jean stood looking down at the limp and pathetic figure of the Mexican boy. "By Heaven!" he exclaimed, grimly "the Jorth-Isbel war is on! ... Deliberate, cold-blooded murder! I'll gamble Daggs did this job. He's been given the leadership. He's started it.... Bernardino, greaser or not, you were a faithful lad, and you won't go long unavenged." Jean had no time to spare. Tearing a tarpaulin out of the teepee he covered the lad with it and then ran for, his horse. Mounting, he galloped down the draw, over the little red ridges, out into the valley, where he put his horse to a run. Action changed the sickening horror that sight of Bernardino had engendered. Jean even felt a strange, grim relief. The long, dragging days of waiting were over. Jorth's gang had taken the initiative. Blood had begun to flow. And it would continue to flow now till the last man of one faction stood over the dead body of the last man of the other. Would it be a Jorth or an Isbel? "My instinct was right," he muttered, aloud. "That bunch of horses gave me a queer feelin'." Jean gazed all around the grassy, cattle-dotted valley he was crossing so swiftly, and toward the village, but he did not see any sign of the dark group of riders. They had gone on to Greaves's store, there, no doubt, to drink and to add more enemies of the Isbels to their gang. Suddenly across Jean's mind flashed a thought of Ellen Jorth. "What 'll become of her? ... What 'll become of all the women? My sister? ... The little ones?" No one was in sight around the ranch. Never had it appeared more peaceful and pastoral to Jean. The grazing cattle and horses in the foreground, the haystack half eaten away, the cows in the fenced pasture, the column of blue smoke lazily ascending, the cackle of hens, the solid, well-built cabins--all these seemed to repudiate Jean's haste and his darkness of mind. This place was, his father's farm. There was not a cloud in the blue, summer sky. As Jean galloped up the lane some one saw him from the door, and then Bill and Guy and their gray-headed father came out upon the porch. Jean saw how he' waved the womenfolk back, and then strode out into the lane. Bill and Guy reached his side as Jean pulled his heaving horse to a halt. They all looked at Jean, swiftly and intently, with a little, hard, fiery gleam strangely identical in the eyes of each. Probably before a word was spoken they knew what to expect. "Wal, you shore was in a hurry," remarked the father. "What the hell's up?" queried Bill, grimly. Guy Isbel remained silent and it was he who turned slightly pale. Jean leaped off his horse. "Bernardino has just been killed--murdered with his own gun." Gaston Isbel seemed to exhale a long-dammed, bursting breath that let his chest sag. A terrible deadly glint, pale and cold as sunlight on ice, grew slowly to dominate his clear eyes. "A-huh!" ejaculated Bill Isbel, hoarsely. Not one of the three men asked who had done the killing. They were silent a moment, motionless, locked in the secret seclusion of their own minds. Then they listened with absorption to Jean's brief story. "Wal, that lets us in," said his father. "I wish we had more time. Reckon I'd done better to listen to you boys an' have my men close at hand. Jacobs happened to ride over. That makes five of us besides the women." "Aw, dad, you don't reckon they'll round us up heah?" asked Guy Isbel. "Boys, I always feared they might," replied the old man. "But I never really believed they'd have the nerve. Shore I ought to have figgered Daggs better. This heah secret bizness an' shootin' at us from ambush looked aboot Jorth's size to me. But I reckon now we'll have to fight without our friends." "Let them come," said Jean. "I sent for Blaisdell, Blue, Gordon, and Fredericks. Maybe they'll get here in time. But if they don't it needn't worry us much. We can hold out here longer than Jorth's gang can hang around. We'll want plenty of water, wood, and meat in the house." "Wal, I'll see to that," rejoined his father. "Jean, you go out close by, where you can see all around, an' keep watch." "Who's goin' to tell the women?" asked Guy Isbel. The silence that momentarily ensued was an eloquent testimony to the hardest and saddest aspect of this strife between men. The inevitableness of it in no wise detracted from its sheer uselessness. Men from time immemorial had hated, and killed one another, always to the misery and degradation of their women. Old Gaston Isbel showed this tragic realization in his lined face. "Wal, boys, I'll tell the women," he said. "Shore you needn't worry none aboot them. They'll be game." Jean rode away to an open knoll a short distance from the house, and here he stationed himself to watch all points. The cedared ridge back of the ranch was the one approach by which Jorth's gang might come close without being detected, but even so, Jean could see them and ride to the house in time to prevent a surprise. The moments dragged by, and at the end of an hour Jean was in hopes that Blaisdell would soon come. These hopes were well founded. Presently he heard a clatter of hoofs on hard ground to the south, and upon wheeling to look he saw the friendly neighbor coming fast along the road, riding a big white horse. Blaisdell carried a rifle in his hand, and the sight of him gave Jean a glow of warmth. He was one of the Texans who would stand by the Isbels to the last man. Jean watched him ride to the house--watched the meeting between him and his lifelong friend. There floated out to Jean old Blaisdell's roar of rage. Then out on the green of Grass Valley, where a long, swelling plain swept away toward the village, there appeared a moving dark patch. A bunch of horses! Jean's body gave a slight start--the shock of sudden propulsion of blood through all his veins. Those horses bore riders. They were coming straight down the open valley, on the wagon road to Isbel's ranch. No subterfuge nor secrecy nor sneaking in that advance! A hot thrill ran over Jean. "By Heaven! They mean business!" he muttered. Up to the last moment he had unconsciously hoped Jorth's gang would not come boldly like that. The verifications of all a Texan's inherited instincts left no doubts, no hopes, no illusions--only a grim certainty that this was not conjecture nor probability, but fact. For a moment longer Jean watched the slowly moving dark patch of horsemen against the green background, then he hurried back to the ranch. His father saw him coming--strode out as before. "Dad--Jorth is comin'," said Jean, huskily. How he hated to be forced to tell his father that! The boyish love of old had flashed up. "Whar?" demanded the old man, his eagle gaze sweeping the horizon. "Down the road from Grass Valley. You can't see from here." "Wal, come in an' let's get ready." Isbel's house had not been constructed with the idea of repelling an attack from a band of Apaches. The long living room of the main cabin was the one selected for defense and protection. This room had two windows and a door facing the lane, and a door at each end, one of which opened into the kitchen and the other into an adjoining and later-built cabin. The logs of this main cabin were of large size, and the doors and window coverings were heavy, affording safer protection from bullets than the other cabins. When Jean went in he seemed to see a host of white faces lifted to him. His sister Ann, his two sisters-in-law, the children, all mutely watched him with eyes that would haunt him. "Wal, Blaisdell, Jean says Jorth an' his precious gang of rustlers are on the way heah," announced the rancher. "Damn me if it's not a bad day fer Lee Jorth!" declared Blaisdell. "Clear off that table," ordered Isbel, "an' fetch out all the guns an' shells we got." Once laid upon the table these presented a formidable arsenal, which consisted of the three new .44 Winchesters that Jean had brought with him from the coast; the enormous buffalo, or so-called "needle" gun, that Gaston Isbel had used for years; a Henry rifle which Blaisdell had brought, and half a dozen six-shooters. Piles and packages of ammunition littered the table. "Sort out these heah shells," said Isbel. "Everybody wants to get hold of his own." Jacobs, the neighbor who was present, was a thick-set, bearded man, rather jovial among those lean-jawed Texans. He carried a .44 rifle of an old pattern. "Wal, boys, if I'd knowed we was in fer some fun I'd hev fetched more shells. Only got one magazine full. Mebbe them new .44's will fit my gun." It was discovered that the ammunition Jean had brought in quantity fitted Jacob's rifle, a fact which afforded peculiar satisfaction to all the men present. "Wal, shore we're lucky," declared Gaston Isbel. The women sat apart, in the corner toward the kitchen, and there seemed to be a strange fascination for them in the talk and action of the men. The wife of Jacobs was a little woman, with homely face and very bright eyes. Jean thought she would be a help in that household during the next doubtful hours. Every moment Jean would go to the window and peer out down the road. His companions evidently relied upon him, for no one else looked out. Now that the suspense of days and weeks was over, these Texans faced the issue with talk and act not noticeably different from those of ordinary moments. At last Jean espied the dark mass of horsemen out in the valley road. They were close together, walking their mounts, and evidently in earnest conversation. After several ineffectual attempts Jean counted eleven horses, every one of which he was sure bore a rider. "Dad, look out!" called Jean. Gaston Isbel strode to the door and stood looking, without a word. The other men crowded to the windows. Blaisdell cursed under his breath. Jacobs said: "By Golly! Come to pay us a call!" The women sat motionless, with dark, strained eyes. The children ceased their play and looked fearfully to their mother. When just out of rifle shot of the cabins the band of horsemen halted and lined up in a half circle, all facing the ranch. They were close enough for Jean to see their gestures, but he could not recognize any of their faces. It struck him singularly that not one of them wore a mask. "Jean, do you know any of them?" asked his father "No, not yet. They're too far off." "Dad, I'll get your old telescope," said Guy Isbel, and he ran out toward the adjoining cabin. Blaisdell shook his big, hoary head and rumbled out of his bull-like neck, "Wal, now you're heah, you sheep fellars, what are you goin' to do aboot it?" Guy Isbel returned with a yard-long telescope, which he passed to his father. The old man took it with shaking hands and leveled it. Suddenly it was as if he had been transfixed; then he lowered the glass, shaking violently, and his face grew gray with an exceeding bitter wrath. "Jorth!" he swore, harshly. Jean had only to look at his father to know that recognition had been like a mortal shock. It passed. Again the rancher leveled the glass. "Wal, Blaisdell, there's our old Texas friend, Daggs," he drawled, dryly. "An' Greaves, our honest storekeeper of Grass Valley. An' there's Stonewall Jackson Jorth. An' Tad Jorth, with the same old red nose! ... An', say, damn if one of that gang isn't Queen, as bad a gun fighter as Texas ever bred. Shore I thought he'd been killed in the Big Bend country. So I heard.... An' there's Craig, another respectable sheepman of Grass Valley. Haw-haw! An', wal, I don't recognize any more of them." Jean forthwith took the glass and moved it slowly across the faces of that group of horsemen. "Simm Bruce," he said, instantly. "I see Colter. And, yes, Greaves is there. I've seen the man next to him--face like a ham...." "Shore that is Craig," interrupted his father. Jean knew the dark face of Lee Jorth by the resemblance it bore to Ellen's, and the recognition brought a twinge. He thought, too, that he could tell the other Jorths. He asked his father to describe Daggs and then Queen. It was not likely that Jean would fail to know these several men in the future. Then Blaisdell asked for the telescope and, when he got through looking and cursing, he passed it on to others, who, one by one, took a long look, until finally it came back to the old rancher. "Wal, Daggs is wavin' his hand heah an' there, like a general aboot to send out scouts. Haw-haw! ... An' 'pears to me he's not overlookin' our hosses. Wal, that's natural for a rustler. He'd have to steal a hoss or a steer before goin' into a fight or to dinner or to a funeral." "It 'll be his funeral if he goes to foolin' 'round them hosses," declared Guy Isbel, peering anxiously out of the door. "Wal, son, shore it 'll be somebody's funeral," replied his father. Jean paid but little heed to the conversation. With sharp eyes fixed upon the horsemen, he tried to grasp at their intention. Daggs pointed to the horses in the pasture lot that lay between him and the house. These animals were the best on the range and belonged mostly to Guy Isbel, who was the horse fancier and trader of the family. His horses were his passion. "Looks like they'd do some horse stealin'," said Jean. "Lend me that glass," demanded Guy, forcefully. He surveyed the band of men for a long moment, then he handed the glass back to Jean. "I'm goin' out there after my hosses," he declared. "No!" exclaimed his father. "That gang come to steal an' not to fight. Can't you see that? If they meant to fight they'd do it. They're out there arguin' about my hosses." Guy picked up his rifle. He looked sullenly determined and the gleam in his eye was one of fearlessness. "Son, I know Daggs," said his father. "An' I know Jorth. They've come to kill us. It 'll be shore death for y'u to go out there." "I'm goin', anyhow. They can't steal my hosses out from under my eyes. An' they ain't in range." "Wal, Guy, you ain't goin' alone," spoke up Jacobs, cheerily, as he came forward. The red-haired young wife of Guy Isbel showed no change of her grave face. She had been reared in a stern school. She knew men in times like these. But Jacobs's wife appealed to him, "Bill, don't risk your life for a horse or two." Jacobs laughed and answered, "Not much risk," and went out with Guy. To Jean their action seemed foolhardy. He kept a keen eye on them and saw instantly when the band became aware of Guy's and Jacobs's entrance into the pasture. It took only another second then to realize that Daggs and Jorth had deadly intent. Jean saw Daggs slip out of his saddle, rifle in hand. Others of the gang did likewise, until half of them were dismounted. "Dad, they're goin' to shoot," called out Jean, sharply. "Yell for Guy and Jacobs. Make them come back." The old man shouted; Bill Isbel yelled; Blaisdell lifted his stentorian voice. Jean screamed piercingly: "Guy! Run! Run!" But Guy Isbel and his companion strode on into the pasture, as if they had not heard, as if no menacing horse thieves were within miles. They had covered about a quarter of the distance across the pasture, and were nearing the horses, when Jean saw red flashes and white puffs of smoke burst out from the front of that dark band of rustlers. Then followed the sharp, rattling crack of rifles. Guy Isbel stopped short, and, dropping his gun, he threw up his arms and fell headlong. Jacobs acted as if he had suddenly encountered an invisible blow. He had been hit. Turning, he began to run and ran fast for a few paces. There were more quick, sharp shots. He let go of his rifle. His running broke. Walking, reeling, staggering, he kept on. A hoarse cry came from him. Then a single rifle shot pealed out. Jean heard the bullet strike. Jacobs fell to his knees, then forward on his face. Jean Isbel felt himself turned to marble. The suddenness of this tragedy paralyzed him. His gaze remained riveted on those prostrate forms. A hand clutched his arm--a shaking woman's hand, slim and hard and tense. "Bill's--killed!" whispered a broken voice. "I was watchin'.... They're both dead!" The wives of Jacobs and Guy Isbel had slipped up behind Jean and from behind him they had seen the tragedy. "I asked Bill--not to--go," faltered the Jacobs woman, and, covering her face with her hands, she groped back to the corner of the cabin, where the other women, shaking and white, received her in their arms. Guy Isbel's wife stood at the window, peering over Jean's shoulder. She had the nerve of a man. She had looked out upon death before. "Yes, they're dead," she said, bitterly. "An' how are we goin' to get their bodies?" At this Gaston Isbel seemed to rouse from the cold spell that had transfixed him. "God, this is hell for our women," he cried out, hoarsely. "My son--my son! ... Murdered by the Jorths!" Then he swore a terrible oath. Jean saw the remainder of the mounted rustlers get off, and then, all of them leading their horses, they began to move around to the left. "Dad, they're movin' round," said Jean. "Up to some trick," declared Bill Isbel. "Bill, you make a hole through the back wall, say aboot the fifth log up," ordered the father. "Shore we've got to look out." The elder son grasped a tool and, scattering the children, who had been playing near the back corner, he began to work at the point designated. The little children backed away with fixed, wondering, grave eyes. The women moved their chairs, and huddled together as if waiting and listening. Jean watched the rustlers until they passed out of his sight. They had moved toward the sloping, brushy ground to the north and west of the cabins. "Let me know when you get a hole in the back wall," said Jean, and he went through the kitchen and cautiously out another door to slip into a low-roofed, shed-like end of the rambling cabin. This small space was used to store winter firewood. The chinks between the walls had not been filled with adobe clay, and he could see out on three sides. The rustlers were going into the juniper brush. They moved out of sight, and presently reappeared without their horses. It looked to Jean as if they intended to attack the cabins. Then they halted at the edge of the brush and held a long consultation. Jean could see them distinctly, though they were too far distant for him to recognize any particular man. One of them, however, stood and moved apart from the closely massed group. Evidently, from his strides and gestures, he was exhorting his listeners. Jean concluded this was either Daggs or Jorth. Whoever it was had a loud, coarse voice, and this and his actions impressed Jean with a suspicion that the man was under the influence of the bottle. Presently Bill Isbel called Jean in a low voice. "Jean, I got the hole made, but we can't see anyone." "I see them," Jean replied. "They're havin' a powwow. Looks to me like either Jorth or Daggs is drunk. He's arguin' to charge us, an' the rest of the gang are holdin' back.... Tell dad, an' all of you keep watchin'. I'll let you know when they make a move." Jorth's gang appeared to be in no hurry to expose their plan of battle. Gradually the group disintegrated a little; some of them sat down; others walked to and fro. Presently two of them went into the brush, probably back to the horses. In a few moments they reappeared, carrying a pack. And when this was deposited on the ground all the rustlers sat down around it. They had brought food and drink. Jean had to utter a grim laugh at their coolness; and he was reminded of many dare-devil deeds known to have been perpetrated by the Hash Knife Gang. Jean was glad of a reprieve. The longer the rustlers put off an attack the more time the allies of the Isbels would have to get here. Rather hazardous, however, would it be now for anyone to attempt to get to the Isbel cabins in the daytime. Night would be more favorable. Twice Bill Isbel came through the kitchen to whisper to Jean. The strain in the large room, from which the rustlers could not be seen, must have been great. Jean told him all he had seen and what he thought about it. "Eatin' an' drinkin'!" ejaculated Bill. "Well, I'll be--! That 'll jar the old man. He wants to get the fight over. "Tell him I said it'll be over too quick--for us--unless are mighty careful," replied Jean, sharply. Bill went back muttering to himself. Then followed a long wait, fraught with suspense, during which Jean watched the rustlers regale themselves. The day was hot and still. And the unnatural silence of the cabin was broken now and then by the gay laughter of the children. The sound shocked and haunted Jean. Playing children! Then another sound, so faint he had to strain to hear it, disturbed and saddened him--his father's slow tread up and down the cabin floor, to and fro, to and fro. What must be in his father's heart this day! At length the rustlers rose and, with rifles in hand, they moved as one man down the slope. They came several hundred yards closer, until Jean, grimly cocking his rifle, muttered to himself that a few more rods closer would mean the end of several of that gang. They knew the range of a rifle well enough, and once more sheered off at right angles with the cabin. When they got even with the line of corrals they stooped down and were lost to Jean's sight. This fact caused him alarm. They were, of course, crawling up on the cabins. At the end of that line of corrals ran a ditch, the bank of which was high enough to afford cover. Moreover, it ran along in front of the cabins, scarcely a hundred yards, and it was covered with grass and little clumps of brush, from behind which the rustlers could fire into the windows and through the clay chinks without any considerable risk to themselves. As they did not come into sight again, Jean concluded he had discovered their plan. Still, he waited awhile longer, until he saw faint, little clouds of dust rising from behind the far end of the embankment. That discovery made him rush out, and through the kitchen to the large cabin, where his sudden appearance startled the men. "Get back out of sight!" he ordered, sharply, and with swift steps he reached the door and closed it. "They're behind the bank out there by the corrals. An' they're goin' to crawl down the ditch closer to us.... It looks bad. They'll have grass an' brush to shoot from. We've got to be mighty careful how we peep out." "Ahuh! All right," replied his father. "You women keep the kids with you in that corner. An' you all better lay down flat." Blaisdell, Bill Isbel, and the old man crouched at the large window, peeping through cracks in the rough edges of the logs. Jean took his post beside the small window, with his keen eyes vibrating like a compass needle. The movement of a blade of grass, the flight of a grasshopper could not escape his trained sight. "Look sharp now!" he called to the other men. "I see dust.... They're workin' along almost to that bare spot on the bank.... I saw the tip of a rifle ... a black hat ... more dust. They're spreadin' along behind the bank." Loud voices, and then thick clouds of yellow dust, coming from behind the highest and brushiest line of the embankment, attested to the truth of Jean's observation, and also to a reckless disregard of danger. Suddenly Jean caught a glint of moving color through the fringe of brush. Instantly he was strung like a whipcord. Then a tall, hatless and coatless man stepped up in plain sight. The sun shone on his fair, ruffled hair. Daggs! "Hey, you -- -- Isbels!" he bawled, in magnificent derisive boldness. "Come out an' fight!" Quick as lightning Jean threw up his rifle and fired. He saw tufts of fair hair fly from Daggs's head. He saw the squirt of red blood. Then quick shots from his comrades rang out. They all hit the swaying body of the rustler. But Jean knew with a terrible thrill that his bullet had killed Daggs before the other three struck. Daggs fell forward, his arms and half his body resting over, the embankment. Then the rustlers dragged him back out of sight. Hoarse shouts rose. A cloud of yellow dust drifted away from the spot. "Daggs!" burst out Gaston Isbel. "Jean, you knocked off the top of his haid. I seen that when I was pullin' trigger. Shore we over heah wasted our shots." "God! he must have been crazy or drunk--to pop up there--an' brace us that way," said Blaisdell, breathing hard. "Arizona is bad for Texans," replied Isbel, sardonically. "Shore it's been too peaceful heah. Rustlers have no practice at fightin'. An' I reckon Daggs forgot." "Daggs made as crazy a move as that of Guy an' Jacobs," spoke up Jean. "They were overbold, an' he was drunk. Let them be a lesson to us." Jean had smelled whisky upon his entrance to this cabin. Bill was a hard drinker, and his father was not immune. Blaisdell, too, drank heavily upon occasions. Jean made a mental note that he would not permit their chances to become impaired by liquor. Rifles began to crack, and puffs of smoke rose all along the embankment for the space of a hundred feet. Bullets whistled through the rude window casing and spattered on the heavy door, and one split the clay between the logs before Jean, narrowly missing him. Another volley followed, then another. The rustlers had repeating rifles and they were emptying their magazines. Jean changed his position. The other men profited by his wise move. The volleys had merged into one continuous rattling roar of rifle shots. Then came a sudden cessation of reports, with silence of relief. The cabin was full of dust, mingled with the smoke from the shots of Jean and his companions. Jean heard the stifled breaths of the children. Evidently they were terror-stricken, but they did not cry out. The women uttered no sound. A loud voice pealed from behind the embankment. "Come out an' fight! Do you Isbels want to be killed like sheep?" This sally gained no reply. Jean returned to his post by the window and his comrades followed his example. And they exercised extreme caution when they peeped out. "Boys, don't shoot till you see one," said Gaston Isbel. "Maybe after a while they'll get careless. But Jorth will never show himself." The rustlers did not again resort to volleys. One by one, from different angles, they began to shoot, and they were not firing at random. A few bullets came straight in at the windows to pat into the walls; a few others ticked and splintered the edges of the windows; and most of them broke through the clay chinks between the logs. It dawned upon Jean that these dangerous shots were not accident. They were well aimed, and most of them hit low down. The cunning rustlers had some unerring riflemen and they were picking out the vulnerable places all along the front of the cabin. If Jean had not been lying flat he would have been hit twice. Presently he conceived the idea of driving pegs between the logs, high up, and, kneeling on these, he managed to peep out from the upper edge of the window. But this position was awkward and difficult to hold for long. He heard a bullet hit one of his comrades. Whoever had been struck never uttered a sound. Jean turned to look. Bill Isbel was holding his shoulder, where red splotches appeared on his shirt. He shook his head at Jean, evidently to make light of the wound. The women and children were lying face down and could not see what was happening. Plain is was that Bill did not want them to know. Blaisdell bound up the bloody shoulder with a scarf. Steady firing from the rustlers went on, at the rate of one shot every few minutes. The Isbels did not return these. Jean did not fire again that afternoon. Toward sunset, when the besiegers appeared to grow restless or careless, Blaisdell fired at something moving behind the brush; and Gaston Isbel's huge buffalo gun boomed out. "Wal, what 're they goin' to do after dark, an' what 're WE goin' to do?" grumbled Blaisdell. "Reckon they'll never charge us," said Gaston. "They might set fire to the cabins," added Bill Isbel. He appeared to be the gloomiest of the Isbel faction. There was something on his mind. "Wal, the Jorths are bad, but I reckon they'd not burn us alive," replied Blaisdell. "Hah!" ejaculated Gaston Isbel. "Much you know aboot Lee Jorth. He would skin me alive an' throw red-hot coals on my raw flesh." So they talked during the hour from sunset to dark. Jean Isbel had little to say. He was revolving possibilities in his mind. Darkness brought a change in the attack of the rustlers. They stationed men at four points around the cabins; and every few minutes one of these outposts would fire. These bullets embedded themselves in the logs, causing but little anxiety to the Isbels. "Jean, what you make of it?" asked the old rancher. "Looks to me this way," replied Jean. "They're set for a long fight. They're shootin' just to let us know they're on the watch." "Ahuh! Wal, what 're you goin' to do aboot it?" "I'm goin' out there presently." Gaston Isbel grunted his satisfaction at this intention of Jean's. All was pitch dark inside the cabin. The women had water and food at hand. Jean kept a sharp lookout from his window while he ate his supper of meat, bread, and milk. At last the children, worn out by the long day, fell asleep. The women whispered a little in their corner. About nine o'clock Jean signified his intention of going out to reconnoitre. "Dad, they've got the best of us in the daytime," he said, "but not after dark." Jean buckled on a belt that carried shells, a bowie knife, and revolver, and with rifle in hand he went out through the kitchen to the yard. The night was darker than usual, as some of the stars were hidden by clouds. He leaned against the log cabin, waiting for his eyes to become perfectly adjusted to the darkness. Like an Indian, Jean could see well at night. He knew every point around cabins and sheds and corrals, every post, log, tree, rock, adjacent to the ranch. After perhaps a quarter of an hour watching, during which time several shots were fired from behind the embankment and one each from the rustlers at the other locations, Jean slipped out on his quest. He kept in the shadow of the cabin walls, then the line of orchard trees, then a row of currant bushes. Here, crouching low, he halted to look and listen. He was now at the edge of the open ground, with the gently rising slope before him. He could see the dark patches of cedar and juniper trees. On the north side of the cabin a streak of fire flashed in the blackness, and a shot rang out. Jean heard the bullet bit the cabin. Then silence enfolded the lonely ranch and the darkness lay like a black blanket. A low hum of insects pervaded the air. Dull sheets of lightning illumined the dark horizon to the south. Once Jean heard voices, but could not tell from which direction they came. To the west of him then flared out another rifle shot. The bullet whistled down over Jean to thud into the cabin. Jean made a careful study of the obscure, gray-black open before him and then the background to his rear. So long as he kept the dense shadows behind him he could not be seen. He slipped from behind his covert and, gliding with absolutely noiseless footsteps, he gained the first clump of junipers. Here he waited patiently and motionlessly for another round of shots from the rustlers. After the second shot from the west side Jean sheered off to the right. Patches of brush, clumps of juniper, and isolated cedars covered this slope, affording Jean a perfect means for his purpose, which was to make a detour and come up behind the rustler who was firing from that side. Jean climbed to the top of the ridge, descended the opposite slope, made his turn to the left, and slowly worked up behind the point near where he expected to locate the rustler. Long habit in the open, by day and night, rendered his sense of direction almost as perfect as sight itself. The first flash of fire he saw from this side proved that he had come straight up toward his man. Jean's intention was to crawl up on this one of the Jorth gang and silently kill him with a knife. If the plan worked successfully, Jean meant to work round to the next rustler. Laying aside his rifle, he crawled forward on hands and knees, making no more sound than a cat. His approach was slow. He had to pick his way, be careful not to break twigs nor rattle stones. His buckskin garments made no sound against the brush. Jean located the rustler sitting on the top of the ridge in the center of an open space. He was alone. Jean saw the dull-red end of the cigarette he was smoking. The ground on the ridge top was rocky and not well adapted for Jean's purpose. He had to abandon the idea of crawling up on the rustler. Whereupon, Jean turned back, patiently and slowly, to get his rifle. Upon securing it he began to retrace his course, this time more slowly than before, as he was hampered by the rifle. But he did not make the slightest sound, and at length he reached the edge of the open ridge top, once more to espy the dark form of the rustler silhouetted against the sky. The distance was not more than fifty yards. As Jean rose to his knee and carefully lifted his rifle round to avoid the twigs of a juniper he suddenly experienced another emotion besides the one of grim, hard wrath at the Jorths. It was an emotion that sickened him, made him weak internally, a cold, shaking, ungovernable sensation. Suppose this man was Ellen Jorth's father! Jean lowered the rifle. He felt it shake over his knee. He was trembling all over. The astounding discovery that he did not want to kill Ellen's father--that he could not do it--awakened Jean to the despairing nature of his love for her. In this grim moment of indecision, when he knew his Indian subtlety and ability gave him a great advantage over the Jorths, he fully realized his strange, hopeless, and irresistible love for the girl. He made no attempt to deny it any longer. Like the night and the lonely wilderness around him, like the inevitableness of this Jorth-Isbel feud, this love of his was a thing, a fact, a reality. He breathed to his own inward ear, to his soul--he could not kill Ellen Jorth's father. Feud or no feud, Isbel or not, he could not deliberately do it. And why not? There was no answer. Was he not faithless to his father? He had no hope of ever winning Ellen Jorth. He did not want the love of a girl of her character. But he loved her. And his struggle must be against the insidious and mysterious growth of that passion. It swayed him already. It made him a coward. Through his mind and heart swept the memory of Ellen Jorth, her beauty and charm, her boldness and pathos, her shame and her degradation. And the sweetness of her outweighed the boldness. And the mystery of her arrayed itself in unquenchable protest against her acknowledged shame. Jean lifted his face to the heavens, to the pitiless white stars, to the infinite depths of the dark-blue sky. He could sense the fact of his being an atom in the universe of nature. What was he, what was his revengeful father, what were hate and passion and strife in comparison to the nameless something, immense and everlasting, that he sensed in this dark moment? But the rustlers--Daggs--the Jorths--they had killed his brother Guy--murdered him brutally and ruthlessly. Guy had been a playmate of Jean's--a favorite brother. Bill had been secretive and selfish. Jean had never loved him as he did Guy. Guy lay dead down there on the meadow. This feud had begun to run its bloody course. Jean steeled his nerve. The hot blood crept back along his veins. The dark and masterful tide of revenge waved over him. The keen edge of his mind then cut out sharp and trenchant thoughts. He must kill when and where he could. This man could hardly be Ellen Jorth's father. Jorth would be with the main crowd, directing hostilities. Jean could shoot this rustler guard and his shot would be taken by the gang as the regular one from their comrade. Then swiftly Jean leveled his rifle, covered the dark form, grew cold and set, and pressed the trigger. After the report he rose and wheeled away. He did not look nor listen for the result of his shot. A clammy sweat wet his face, the hollow of his hands, his breast. A horrible, leaden, thick sensation oppressed his heart. Nature had endowed him with Indian gifts, but the exercise of them to this end caused a revolt in his soul. Nevertheless, it was the Isbel blood that dominated him. The wind blew cool on his face. The burden upon his shoulders seemed to lift. The clamoring whispers grew fainter in his ears. And by the time he had retraced his cautious steps back to the orchard all his physical being was strung to the task at hand. Something had come between his reflective self and this man of action. Crossing the lane, he took to the west line of sheds, and passed beyond them into the meadow. In the grass he crawled silently away to the right, using the same precaution that had actuated him on the slope, only here he did not pause so often, nor move so slowly. Jean aimed to go far enough to the right to pass the end of the embankment behind which the rustlers had found such efficient cover. This ditch had been made to keep water, during spring thaws and summer storms, from pouring off the slope to flood the corrals. Jean miscalculated and found he had come upon the embankment somewhat to the left of the end, which fact, however, caused him no uneasiness. He lay there awhile to listen. Again he heard voices. After a time a shot pealed out. He did not see the flash, but he calculated that it had come from the north side of the cabins. The next quarter of an hour discovered to Jean that the nearest guard was firing from the top of the embankment, perhaps a hundred yards distant, and a second one was performing the same office from a point apparently only a few yards farther on. Two rustlers close together! Jean had not calculated upon that. For a little while he pondered on what was best to do, and at length decided to crawl round behind them, and as close as the situation made advisable. He found the ditch behind the embankment a favorable path by which to stalk these enemies. It was dry and sandy, with borders of high weeds. The only drawback was that it was almost impossible for him to keep from brushing against the dry, invisible branches of the weeds. To offset this he wormed his way like a snail, inch by inch, taking a long time before he caught sight of the sitting figure of a man, black against the dark-blue sky. This rustler had fired his rifle three times during Jean's slow approach. Jean watched and listened a few moments, then wormed himself closer and closer, until the man was within twenty steps of him. Jean smelled tobacco smoke, but could see no light of pipe or cigarette, because the fellow's back was turned. "Say, Ben," said this man to his companion sitting hunched up a few yards distant, "shore it strikes me queer thet Somers ain't shootin' any over thar." Jean recognized the dry, drawling voice of Greaves, and the shock of it seemed to contract the muscles of his whole thrilling body, like that of a panther about to spring. CHAPTER VIII "Was shore thinkin' thet same," said the other man. "An', say, didn't thet last shot sound too sharp fer Somers's forty-five?" "Come to think of it, I reckon it did," replied Greaves. "Wal, I'll go around over thar an' see." The dark form of the rustler slipped out of sight over the embankment. "Better go slow an' careful," warned Greaves. "An' only go close enough to call Somers.... Mebbe thet damn half-breed Isbel is comin' some Injun on us." Jean heard the soft swish of footsteps through wet grass. Then all was still. He lay flat, with his cheek on the sand, and he had to look ahead and upward to make out the dark figure of Greaves on the bank. One way or another he meant to kill Greaves, and he had the will power to resist the strongest gust of passion that had ever stormed his breast. If he arose and shot the rustler, that act would defeat his plan of slipping on around upon the other outposts who were firing at the cabins. Jean wanted to call softly to Greaves, "You're right about the half-breed!" and then, as he wheeled aghast, to kill him as he moved. But it suited Jean to risk leaping upon the man. Jean did not waste time in trying to understand the strange, deadly instinct that gripped him at the moment. But he realized then he had chosen the most perilous plan to get rid of Greaves. Jean drew a long, deep breath and held it. He let go of his rifle. He rose, silently as a lifting shadow. He drew the bowie knife. Then with light, swift bounds he glided up the bank. Greaves must have heard a rustling--a soft, quick pad of moccasin, for he turned with a start. And that instant Jean's left arm darted like a striking snake round Greaves's neck and closed tight and hard. With his right hand free, holding the knife, Jean might have ended the deadly business in just one move. But when his bared arm felt the hot, bulging neck something terrible burst out of the depths of him. To kill this enemy of his father's was not enough! Physical contact had unleashed the savage soul of the Indian. Yet there was more, and as Jean gave the straining body a tremendous jerk backward, he felt the same strange thrill, the dark joy that he had known when his fist had smashed the face of Simm Bruce. Greaves had leered--he had corroborated Bruce's vile insinuation about Ellen Jorth. So it was more than hate that actuated Jean Isbel. Greaves was heavy and powerful. He whirled himself, feet first, over backward, in a lunge like that of a lassoed steer. But Jean's hold held. They rolled down the bank into the sandy ditch, and Jean landed uppermost, with his body at right angles with that of his adversary. "Greaves, your hunch was right," hissed Jean. "It's the half-breed.... An' I'm goin' to cut you--first for Ellen Jorth--an' then for Gaston Isbel!" Jean gazed down into the gleaming eyes. Then his right arm whipped the big blade. It flashed. It fell. Low down, as far as Jean could reach, it entered Greaves's body. All the heavy, muscular frame of Greaves seemed to contract and burst. His spring was that of an animal in terror and agony. It was so tremendous that it broke Jean's hold. Greaves let out a strangled yell that cleared, swelling wildly, with a hideous mortal note. He wrestled free. The big knife came out. Supple and swift, he got to his, knees. He had his gun out when Jean reached him again. Like a bear Jean enveloped him. Greaves shot, but he could not raise the gun, nor twist it far enough. Then Jean, letting go with his right arm, swung the bowie. Greaves's strength went out in an awful, hoarse cry. His gun boomed again, then dropped from his hand. He swayed. Jean let go. And that enemy of the Isbels sank limply in the ditch. Jean's eyes roved for his rifle and caught the starlit gleam of it. Snatching it up, he leaped over the embankment and ran straight for the cabins. From all around yells of the Jorth faction attested to their excitement and fury. A fence loomed up gray in the obscurity. Jean vaulted it, darted across the lane into the shadow of the corral, and soon gained the first cabin. Here he leaned to regain his breath. His heart pounded high and seemed too large for his breast. The hot blood beat and surged all over his body. Sweat poured off him. His teeth were clenched tight as a vise, and it took effort on his part to open his mouth so he could breathe more freely and deeply. But these physical sensations were as nothing compared to the tumult of his mind. Then the instinct, the spell, let go its grip and he could think. He had avenged Guy, he had depleted the ranks of the Jorths, he had made good the brag of his father, all of which afforded him satisfaction. But these thoughts were not accountable for all that he felt, especially for the bittersweet sting of the fact that death to the defiler of Ellen Jorth could not efface the doubt, the regret which seemed to grow with the hours. Groping his way into the woodshed, he entered the kitchen and, calling low, he went on into the main cabin. "Jean! Jean!" came his father's shaking voice. "Yes, I'm back," replied Jean. "Are--you--all right?" "Yes. I think I've got a bullet crease on my leg. I didn't know I had it till now.... It's bleedin' a little. But it's nothin'." Jean heard soft steps and some one reached shaking hands for him. They belonged to his sister Ann. She embraced him. Jean felt the heave and throb of her breast. "Why, Ann, I'm not hurt," he said, and held her close. "Now you lie down an' try to sleep." In the black darkness of the cabin Jean led her back to the corner and his heart was full. Speech was difficult, because the very touch of Ann's hands had made him divine that the success of his venture in no wise changed the plight of the women. "Wal, what happened out there?" demanded Blaisdell. "I got two of them," replied Jean. "That fellow who was shootin' from the ridge west. An' the other was Greaves." "Hah!" exclaimed his father. "Shore then it was Greaves yellin'," declared Blaisdell. "By God, I never heard such yells! Whad 'd you do, Jean?" "I knifed him. You see, I'd planned to slip up on one after another. An' I didn't want to make noise. But I didn't get any farther than Greaves." "Wal, I reckon that 'll end their shootin' in the dark," muttered Gaston Isbel. "We've got to be on the lookout for somethin' else--fire, most likely." The old rancher's surmise proved to be partially correct. Jorth's faction ceased the shooting. Nothing further was seen or heard from them. But this silence and apparent break in the siege were harder to bear than deliberate hostility. The long, dark hours dragged by. The men took turns watching and resting, but none of them slept. At last the blackness paled and gray dawn stole out of the east. The sky turned rose over the distant range and daylight came. The children awoke hungry and noisy, having slept away their fears. The women took advantage of the quiet morning hour to get a hot breakfast. "Maybe they've gone away," suggested Guy Isbel's wife, peering out of the window. She had done that several times since daybreak. Jean saw her somber gaze search the pasture until it rested upon the dark, prone shape of her dead husband, lying face down in the grass. Her look worried Jean. "No, Esther, they've not gone yet," replied Jean. "I've seen some of them out there at the edge of the brush." Blaisdell was optimistic. He said Jean's night work would have its effect and that the Jorth contingent would not renew the siege very determinedly. It turned out, however, that Blaisdell was wrong. Directly after sunrise they began to pour volleys from four sides and from closer range. During the night Jorth's gang had thrown earth banks and constructed log breastworks, from behind which they were now firing. Jean and his comrades could see the flashes of fire and streaks of smoke to such good advantage that they began to return the volleys. In half an hour the cabin was so full of smoke that Jean could not see the womenfolk in their corner. The fierce attack then abated somewhat, and the firing became more intermittent, and therefore more carefully aimed. A glancing bullet cut a furrow in Blaisdell's hoary head, making a painful, though not serious wound. It was Esther Isbel who stopped the flow of blood and bound Blaisdell's head, a task which she performed skillfully and without a tremor. The old Texan could not sit still during this operation. Sight of the blood on his hands, which he tried to rub off, appeared to inflame him to a great degree. "Isbel, we got to go out thar," he kept repeating, "an' kill them all." "No, we're goin' to stay heah," replied Gaston Isbel. "Shore I'm lookin' for Blue an' Fredericks an' Gordon to open up out there. They ought to be heah, an' if they are y'u shore can bet they've got the fight sized up." Isbel's hopes did not materialize. The shooting continued without any lull until about midday. Then the Jorth faction stopped. "Wal, now what's up?" queried Isbel. "Boys, hold your fire an' let's wait." Gradually the smoke wafted out of the windows and doors, until the room was once more clear. And at this juncture Esther Isbel came over to take another gaze out upon the meadows. Jean saw her suddenly start violently, then stiffen, with a trembling hand outstretched. "Look!" she cried. "Esther, get back," ordered the old rancher. "Keep away from that window." "What the hell!" muttered Blaisdell. "She sees somethin', or she's gone dotty." Esther seemed turned to stone. "Look! The hogs have broken into the pasture! ... They'll eat Guy's body!" Everyone was frozen with horror at Esther's statement. Jean took a swift survey of the pasture. A bunch of big black hogs had indeed appeared on the scene and were rooting around in the grass not far from where lay the bodies of Guy Isbel and Jacobs. This herd of hogs belonged to the rancher and was allowed to run wild. "Jane, those hogs--" stammered Esther Isbel, to the wife of Jacobs. "Come! Look! ... Do y'u know anythin' about hogs?" The woman ran to the window and looked out. She stiffened as had Esther. "Dad, will those hogs--eat human flesh?" queried Jean, breathlessly. The old man stared out of the window. Surprise seemed to hold him. A completely unexpected situation had staggered him. "Jean--can you--can you shoot that far?" he asked, huskily. "To those hogs? No, it's out of range." "Then, by God, we've got to stay trapped in heah an' watch an awful sight," ejaculated the old man, completely unnerved. "See that break in the fence! ... Jorth's done that.... To let in the hogs!" "Aw, Isbel, it's not so bad as all that," remonstrated Blaisdell, wagging his bloody head. "Jorth wouldn't do such a hell-bent trick." "It's shore done." "Wal, mebbe the hogs won't find Guy an' Jacobs," returned Blaisdell, weakly. Plain it was that he only hoped for such a contingency and certainly doubted it. "Look!" cried Esther Isbel, piercingly. "They're workin' straight up the pasture!" Indeed, to Jean it appeared to be the fatal truth. He looked blankly, feeling a little sick. Ann Isbel came to peer out of the window and she uttered a cry. Jacobs's wife stood mute, as if dazed. Blaisdell swore a mighty oath. "-- -- --! Isbel, we cain't stand heah an' watch them hogs eat our people!" "Wal, we'll have to. What else on earth can we do?" Esther turned to the men. She was white and cold, except her eyes, which resembled gray flames. "Somebody can run out there an' bury our dead men," she said. "Why, child, it'd be shore death. Y'u saw what happened to Guy an' Jacobs.... We've jest got to bear it. Shore nobody needn't look out--an' see." Jean wondered if it would be possible to keep from watching. The thing had a horrible fascination. The big hogs were rooting and tearing in the grass, some of them lazy, others nimble, and all were gradually working closer and closer to the bodies. The leader, a huge, gaunt boar, that had fared ill all his life in this barren country, was scarcely fifty feet away from where Guy Isbel lay. "Ann, get me some of your clothes, an' a sunbonnet--quick," said Jean, forced out of his lethargy. "I'll run out there disguised. Maybe I can go through with it." "No!" ordered his father, positively, and with dark face flaming. "Guy an' Jacobs are dead. We cain't help them now." "But, dad--" pleaded Jean. He had been wrought to a pitch by Esther's blaze of passion, by the agony in the face of the other woman. "I tell y'u no!" thundered Gaston Isbel, flinging his arms wide. "I WILL GO!" cried Esther, her voice ringing. "You won't go alone!" instantly answered the wife of Jacobs, repeating unconsciously the words her husband had spoken. "You stay right heah," shouted Gaston Isbel, hoarsely. "I'm goin'," replied Esther. "You've no hold over me. My husband is dead. No one can stop me. I'm goin' out there to drive those hogs away an' bury him." "Esther, for Heaven's sake, listen," replied Isbel. "If y'u show yourself outside, Jorth an' his gang will kin y'u." "They may be mean, but no white men could be so low as that." Then they pleaded with her to give up her purpose. But in vain! She pushed them back and ran out through the kitchen with Jacobs's wife following her. Jean turned to the window in time to see both women run out into the lane. Jean looked fearfully, and listened for shots. But only a loud, "Haw! Haw!" came from the watchers outside. That coarse laugh relieved the tension in Jean's breast. Possibly the Jorths were not as black as his father painted them. The two women entered an open shed and came forth with a shovel and spade. "Shore they've got to hurry," burst out Gaston Isbel. Shifting his gaze, Jean understood the import of his father's speech. The leader of the hogs had no doubt scented the bodies. Suddenly he espied them and broke into a trot. "Run, Esther, run!" yelled Jean, with all his might. That urged the women to flight. Jean began to shoot. The hog reached the body of Guy. Jean's shots did not reach nor frighten the beast. All the hogs now had caught a scent and went ambling toward their leader. Esther and her companion passed swiftly out of sight behind a corral. Loud and piercingly, with some awful note, rang out their screams. The hogs appeared frightened. The leader lifted his long snout, looked, and turned away. The others had halted. Then they, too, wheeled and ran off. All was silent then in the cabin and also outside wherever the Jorth faction lay concealed. All eyes manifestly were fixed upon the brave wives. They spaded up the sod and dug a grave for Guy Isbel. For a shroud Esther wrapped him in her shawl. Then they buried him. Next they hurried to the side of Jacobs, who lay some yards away. They dug a grave for him. Mrs. Jacobs took off her outer skirt to wrap round him. Then the two women labored hard to lift him and lower him. Jacobs was a heavy man. When he had been covered his widow knelt beside his grave. Esther went back to the other. But she remained standing and did not look as if she prayed. Her aspect was tragic--that of a woman who had lost father, mother, sisters, brother, and now her husband, in this bloody Arizona land. The deed and the demeanor of these wives of the murdered men surely must have shamed Jorth and his followers. They did not fire a shot during the ordeal nor give any sign of their presence. Inside the cabin all were silent, too. Jean's eyes blurred so that he continually had to wipe them. Old Isbel made no effort to hide his tears. Blaisdell nodded his shaggy head and swallowed hard. The women sat staring into space. The children, in round-eyed dismay, gazed from one to the other of their elders. "Wal, they're comin' back," declared Isbel, in immense relief. "An' so help me--Jorth let them bury their daid!" The fact seemed to have been monstrously strange to Gaston Isbel. When the women entered the old man said, brokenly: "I'm shore glad.... An' I reckon I was wrong to oppose you ... an' wrong to say what I did aboot Jorth." No one had any chance to reply to Isbel, for the Jorth gang, as if to make up for lost time and surcharged feelings of shame, renewed the attack with such a persistent and furious volleying that the defenders did not risk a return shot. They all had to lie flat next to the lowest log in order to keep from being hit. Bullets rained in through the window. And all the clay between the logs low down was shot away. This fusillade lasted for more than an hour, then gradually the fire diminished on one side and then on the other until it became desultory and finally ceased. "Ahuh! Shore they've shot their bolt," declared Gaston Isbel. "Wal, I doon't know aboot that," returned Blaisdell, "but they've shot a hell of a lot of shells." "Listen," suddenly called Jean. "Somebody's yellin'." "Hey, Isbel!" came in loud, hoarse voice. "Let your women fight for you." Gaston Isbel sat up with a start and his face turned livid. Jean needed no more to prove that the derisive voice from outside had belonged to Jorth. The old rancher lunged up to his full height and with reckless disregard of life he rushed to the window. "Jorth," he roared, "I dare you to meet me--man to man!" This elicited no answer. Jean dragged his father away from the window. After that a waiting silence ensued, gradually less fraught with suspense. Blaisdell started conversation by saying he believed the fight was over for that particular time. No one disputed him. Evidently Gaston Isbel was loath to believe it. Jean, however, watching at the back of the kitchen, eventually discovered that the Jorth gang had lifted the siege. Jean saw them congregate at the edge of the brush, somewhat lower down than they had been the day before. A team of mules, drawing a wagon, appeared on the road, and turned toward the slope. Saddled horses were led down out of the junipers. Jean saw bodies, evidently of dead men, lifted into the wagon, to be hauled away toward the village. Seven mounted men, leading four riderless horses, rode out into the valley and followed the wagon. "Dad, they've gone," declared Jean. "We had the best of this fight.... If only Guy an' Jacobs had listened!" The old man nodded moodily. He had aged considerably during these two trying days. His hair was grayer. Now that the blaze and glow of the fight had passed he showed a subtle change, a fixed and morbid sadness, a resignation to a fate he had accepted. The ordinary routine of ranch life did not return for the Isbels. Blaisdell returned home to settle matters there, so that he could devote all his time to this feud. Gaston Isbel sat down to wait for the members of his clan. The male members of the family kept guard in turn over the ranch that night. And another day dawned. It brought word from Blaisdell that Blue, Fredericks, Gordon, and Colmor were all at his house, on the way to join the Isbels. This news appeared greatly to rejuvenate Gaston Isbel. But his enthusiasm did not last long. Impatient and moody by turns, he paced or moped around the cabin, always looking out, sometimes toward Blaisdell's ranch, but mostly toward Grass Valley. It struck Jean as singular that neither Esther Isbel nor Mrs. Jacobs suggested a reburial of their husbands. The two bereaved women did not ask for assistance, but repaired to the pasture, and there spent several hours working over the graves. They raised mounds, which they sodded, and then placed stones at the heads and feet. Lastly, they fenced in the graves. "I reckon I'll hitch up an' drive back home," said Mrs. Jacobs, when she returned to the cabin. "I've much to do an' plan. Probably I'll go to my mother's home. She's old an' will be glad to have me." "If I had any place to go to I'd sure go," declared Esther Isbel, bitterly. Gaston Isbel heard this remark. He raised his face from his hands, evidently both nettled and hurt. "Esther, shore that's not kind," he said. The red-haired woman--for she did not appear to be a girl any more--halted before his chair and gazed down at him, with a terrible flare of scorn in her gray eyes. "Gaston Isbel, all I've got to say to you is this," she retorted, with the voice of a man. "Seein' that you an' Lee Jorth hate each other, why couldn't you act like men? ... You damned Texans, with your bloody feuds, draggin' in every relation, every friend to murder each other! That's not the way of Arizona men.... We've all got to suffer--an' we women be ruined for life--because YOU had differences with Jorth. If you were half a man you'd go out an' kill him yourself, an' not leave a lot of widows an' orphaned children!" Jean himself writhed under the lash of her scorn. Gaston Isbel turned a dead white. He could not answer her. He seemed stricken with merciless truth. Slowly dropping his head, he remained motionless, a pathetic and tragic figure; and he did not stir until the rapid beat of hoofs denoted the approach of horsemen. Blaisdell appeared on his white charger, leading a pack animal. And behind rode a group of men, all heavily armed, and likewise with packs. "Get down an' come in," was Isbel's greeting. "Bill--you look after their packs. Better leave the hosses saddled." The booted and spurred riders trooped in, and their demeanor fitted their errand. Jean was acquainted with all of them. Fredericks was a lanky Texan, the color of dust, and he had yellow, clear eyes, like those of a hawk. His mother had been an Isbel. Gordon, too, was related to Jean's family, though distantly. He resembled an industrious miner more than a prosperous cattleman. Blue was the most striking of the visitors, as he was the most noted. A little, shrunken gray-eyed man, with years of cowboy written all over him, he looked the quiet, easy, cool, and deadly Texan he was reputed to be. Blue's Texas record was shady, and was seldom alluded to, as unfavorable comment had turned out to be hazardous. He was the only one of the group who did not carry a rifle. But he packed two guns, a habit not often noted in Texans, and almost never in Arizonians. Colmor, Ann Isbel's fiance, was the youngest member of the clan, and the one closest to Jean. His meeting with Ann affected Jean powerfully, and brought to a climax an idea that had been developing in Jean's mind. His sister devotedly loved this lean-faced, keen-eyed Arizonian; and it took no great insight to discover that Colmor reciprocated her affection. They were young. They had long life before them. It seemed to Jean a pity that Colmor should be drawn into this war. Jean watched them, as they conversed apart; and he saw Ann's hands creep up to Colmor's breast, and he saw her dark eyes, eloquent, hungry, fearful, lifted with queries her lips did not speak. Jean stepped beside them, and laid an arm over both their shoulders. "Colmor, for Ann's sake you'd better back out of this Jorth-Isbel fight," he whispered. Colmor looked insulted. "But, Jean, it's Ann's father," he said. "I'm almost one of the family." "You're Ann's sweetheart, an', by Heaven, I say you oughtn't to go with us!" whispered Jean. "Go--with--you," faltered Ann. "Yes. Dad is goin' straight after Jorth. Can't you tell that? An' there 'll be one hell of a fight." Ann looked up into Colmor's face with all her soul in her eyes, but she did not speak. Her look was noble. She yearned to guide him right, yet her lips were sealed. And Colmor betrayed the trouble of his soul. The code of men held him bound, and he could not break from it, though he divined in that moment how truly it was wrong. "Jean, your dad started me in the cattle business," said Colmor, earnestly. "An' I'm doin' well now. An' when I asked him for Ann he said he'd be glad to have me in the family.... Well, when this talk of fight come up, I asked your dad to let me go in on his side. He wouldn't hear of it. But after a while, as the time passed an' he made more enemies, he finally consented. I reckon he needs me now. An' I can't back out, not even for Ann." "I would if I were you," replied jean, and knew that he lied. "Jean, I'm gamblin' to come out of the fight," said Colmor, with a smile. He had no morbid fears nor presentiments, such as troubled jean. "Why, sure--you stand as good a chance as anyone," rejoined Jean. "It wasn't that I was worryin' about so much." "What was it, then?" asked Ann, steadily. "If Andrew DOES come through alive he'll have blood on his hands," returned Jean, with passion. "He can't come through without it.... I've begun to feel what it means to have killed my fellow men.... An' I'd rather your husband an' the father of your children never felt that." Colmor did not take Jean as subtly as Ann did. She shrunk a little. Her dark eyes dilated. But Colmor showed nothing of her spiritual reaction. He was young. He had wild blood. He was loyal to the Isbels. "Jean, never worry about my conscience," he said, with a keen look. "Nothin' would tickle me any more than to get a shot at every damn one of the Jorths." That established Colmor's status in regard to the Jorth-Isbel feud. Jean had no more to say. He respected Ann's friend and felt poignant sorrow for Ann. Gaston Isbel called for meat and drink to be set on the table for his guests. When his wishes had been complied with the women took the children into the adjoining cabin and shut the door. "Hah! Wal, we can eat an' talk now." First the newcomers wanted to hear particulars of what had happened. Blaisdell had told all he knew and had seen, but that was not sufficient. They plied Gaston Isbel with questions. Laboriously and ponderously he rehearsed the experiences of the fight at the ranch, according to his impressions. Bill Isbel was exhorted to talk, but he had of late manifested a sullen and taciturn disposition. In spite of Jean's vigilance Bill had continued to imbibe red liquor. Then Jean was called upon to relate all he had seen and done. It had been Jean's intention to keep his mouth shut, first for his own sake and, secondly, because he did not like to talk of his deeds. But when thus appealed to by these somber-faced, intent-eyed men he divined that the more carefully he described the cruelty and baseness of their enemies, and the more vividly he presented his participation in the first fight of the feud the more strongly he would bind these friends to the Isbel cause. So he talked for an hour, beginning with his meeting with Colter up on the Rim and ending with an account of his killing Greaves. His listeners sat through this long narrative with unabated interest and at the close they were leaning forward, breathless and tense. "Ah! So Greaves got his desserts at last," exclaimed Gordon. All the men around the table made comments, and the last, from Blue, was the one that struck Jean forcibly. "Shore thet was a strange an' a hell of a way to kill Greaves. Why'd you do thet, Jean?" "I told you. I wanted to avoid noise an' I hoped to get more of them." Blue nodded his lean, eagle-like head and sat thoughtfully, as if not convinced of anything save Jean's prowess. After a moment Blue spoke again. "Then, goin' back to Jean's tellin' aboot trackin' rustled Cattle, I've got this to say. I've long suspected thet somebody livin' right heah in the valley has been drivin' off cattle an' dealin' with rustlers. An' now I'm shore of it." This speech did not elicit the amaze from Gaston Isbel that Jean expected it would. "You mean Greaves or some of his friends?" "No. They wasn't none of them in the cattle business, like we are. Shore we all knowed Greaves was crooked. But what I'm figgerin' is thet some so-called honest man in our settlement has been makin' crooked deals." Blue was a man of deeds rather than words, and so much strong speech from him, whom everybody knew to be remarkably reliable and keen, made a profound impression upon most of the Isbel faction. But, to Jean's surprise, his father did not rave. It was Blaisdell who supplied the rage and invective. Bill Isbel, also, was strangely indifferent to this new element in the condition of cattle dealing. Suddenly Jean caught a vague flash of thought, as if he had intercepted the thought of another's mind, and he wondered--could his brother Bill know anything about this crooked work alluded to by Blue? Dismissing the conjecture, Jean listened earnestly. "An' if it's true it shore makes this difference--we cain't blame all the rustlin' on to Jorth," concluded Blue. "Wal, it's not true," declared Gaston Isbel, roughly. "Jorth an' his Hash Knife Gang are at the bottom of all the rustlin' in the valley for years back. An' they've got to be wiped out!" "Isbel, I reckon we'd all feel better if we talk straight," replied Blue, coolly. "I'm heah to stand by the Isbels. An' y'u know what thet means. But I'm not heah to fight Jorth because he may be a rustler. The others may have their own reasons, but mine is this--you once stood by me in Texas when I was needin' friends. Wal, I'm standin' by y'u now. Jorth is your enemy, an' so he is mine." Gaston Isbel bowed to this ultimatum, scarcely less agitated than when Esther Isbel had denounced him. His rabid and morbid hate of Jorth had eaten into his heart to take possession there, like the parasite that battened upon the life of its victim. Blue's steely voice, his cold, gray eyes, showed the unbiased truth of the man, as well as his fidelity to his creed. Here again, but in a different manner, Gaston Isbel had the fact flung at him that other men must suffer, perhaps die, for his hate. And the very soul of the old rancher apparently rose in Passionate revolt against the blind, headlong, elemental strength of his nature. So it seemed to Jean, who, in love and pity that hourly grew, saw through his father. Was it too late? Alas! Gaston Isbel could never be turned back! Yet something was altering his brooding, fixed mind. "Wal," said Blaisdell, gruffly, "let's get down to business.... I'm for havin' Blue be foreman of this heah outfit, an' all of us to do as he says." Gaston Isbel opposed this selection and indeed resented it. He intended to lead the Isbel faction. "All right, then. Give us a hunch what we're goin' to do," replied Blaisdell. "We're goin' to ride off on Jorth's trail--an' one way or another--kill him--KILL HIM! ... I reckon that'll end the fight." What did old Isbel have in his mind? His listeners shook their heads. "No," asserted Blaisdell. "Killin' Jorth might be the end of your desires, Isbel, but it 'd never end our fight. We'll have gone too far.... If we take Jorth's trail from heah it means we've got to wipe out that rustier gang, or stay to the last man." "Yes, by God!" exclaimed Fredericks. "Let's drink to thet!" said Blue. Strangely they turned to this Texas gunman, instinctively recognizing in him the brain and heart, and the past deeds, that fitted him for the leadership of such a clan. Blue had all in life to lose, and nothing to gain. Yet his spirit was such that he could not lean to all the possible gain of the future, and leave a debt unpaid. Then his voice, his look, his influence were those of a fighter. They all drank with him, even Jean, who hated liquor. And this act of drinking seemed the climax of the council. Preparations were at once begun for their departure on Jorth's trail. Jean took but little time for his own needs. A horse, a blanket, a knapsack of meat and bread, a canteen, and his weapons, with all the ammunition he could pack, made up his outfit. He wore his buckskin suit, leggings, and moccasins. Very soon the cavalcade was ready to depart. Jean tried not to watch Bill Isbel say good-by to his children, but it was impossible not to. Whatever Bill was, as a man, he was father of those children, and he loved them. How strange that the little ones seemed to realize the meaning of this good-by? They were grave, somber-eyed, pale up to the last moment, then they broke down and wept. Did they sense that their father would never come back? Jean caught that dark, fatalistic presentiment. Bill Isbel's convulsed face showed that he also caught it. Jean did not see Bill say good-by to his wife. But he heard her. Old Gaston Isbel forgot to speak to the children, or else could not. He never looked at them. And his good-by to Ann was as if he were only riding to the village for a day. Jean saw woman's love, woman's intuition, woman's grief in her eyes. He could not escape her. "Oh, Jean! oh, brother!" she whispered as she enfolded him. "It's awful! It's wrong! Wrong! Wrong! ... Good-by! ... If killing MUST be--see that y'u kill the Jorths! ... Good-by!" Even in Ann, gentle and mild, the Isbel blood spoke at the last. Jean gave Ann over to the pale-faced Colmor, who took her in his arms. Then Jean fled out to his horse. This cold-blooded devastation of a home was almost more than he could bear. There was love here. What would be left? Colmor was the last one to come out to the horses. He did not walk erect, nor as one whose sight was clear. Then, as the silent, tense, grim men mounted their horses, Bill Isbel's eldest child, the boy, appeared in the door. His little form seemed instinct with a force vastly different from grief. His face was the face of an Isbel. "Daddy--kill 'em all!" he shouted, with a passion all the fiercer for its incongruity to the treble voice. So the poison had spread from father to son. CHAPTER IX Half a mile from the Isbel ranch the cavalcade passed the log cabin of Evarts, father of the boy who had tended sheep with Bernardino. It suited Gaston Isbel to halt here. No need to call! Evarts and his son appeared so quickly as to convince observers that they had been watching. "Howdy, Jake!" said Isbel. "I'm wantin' a word with y'u alone." "Shore, boss, git down an' come in," replied Evarts. Isbel led him aside, and said something forcible that Jean divined from the very gesture which accompanied it. His father was telling Evarts that he was not to join in the Isbel-Jorth war. Evarts had worked for the Isbels a long time, and his faithfulness, along with something stronger and darker, showed in his rugged face as he stubbornly opposed Isbel. The old man raised his voice: "No, I tell you. An' that settles it." They returned to the horses, and, before mounting, Isbel, as if he remembered something, directed his somber gaze on young Evarts. "Son, did you bury Bernardino?" "Dad an' me went over yestiddy," replied the lad. "I shore was glad the coyotes hadn't been round." "How aboot the sheep?" "I left them there. I was goin' to stay, but bein' all alone--I got skeered.... The sheep was doin' fine. Good water an' some grass. An' this ain't time fer varmints to hang round." "Jake, keep your eye on that flock," returned Isbel. "An' if I shouldn't happen to come back y'u can call them sheep yours.... I'd like your boy to ride up to the village. Not with us, so anybody would see him. But afterward. We'll be at Abel Meeker's." Again Jean was confronted with an uneasy premonition as to some idea or plan his father had not shared with his followers. When the cavalcade started on again Jean rode to his father's side and asked him why he had wanted the Evarts boy to come to Grass Valley. And the old man replied that, as the boy could run to and fro in the village without danger, he might be useful in reporting what was going on at Greaves's store, where undoubtedly the Jorth gang would hold forth. This appeared reasonable enough, therefore Jean smothered the objection he had meant to make. The valley road was deserted. When, a mile farther on, the riders passed a group of cabins, just on the outskirts of the village, Jean's quick eye caught sight of curious and evidently frightened people trying to see while they avoided being seen. No doubt the whole settlement was in a state of suspense and terror. Not unlikely this dark, closely grouped band of horsemen appeared to them as Jorth's gang had looked to Jean. It was an orderly, trotting march that manifested neither hurry nor excitement. But any Western eye could have caught the singular aspect of such a group, as if the intent of the riders was a visible thing. Soon they reached the outskirts of the village. Here their approach bad been watched for or had been already reported. Jean saw men, women, children peeping from behind cabins and from half-opened doors. Farther on Jean espied the dark figures of men, slipping out the back way through orchards and gardens and running north, toward the center of the village. Could these be friends of the Jorth crowd, on the way with warnings of the approach of the Isbels? Jean felt convinced of it. He was learning that his father had not been absolutely correct in his estimation of the way Jorth and his followers were regarded by their neighbors. Not improbably there were really many villagers who, being more interested in sheep raising than in cattle, had an honest leaning toward the Jorths. Some, too, no doubt, had leanings that were dishonest in deed if not in sincerity. Gaston Isbel led his clan straight down the middle of the wide road of Grass Valley until he reached a point opposite Abel Meeker's cabin. Jean espied the same curiosity from behind Meeker's door and windows as had been shown all along the road. But presently, at Isbel's call, the door opened and a short, swarthy man appeared. He carried a rifle. "Howdy, Gass!" he said. "What's the good word?" "Wal, Abel, it's not good, but bad. An' it's shore started," replied Isbel. "I'm askin' y'u to let me have your cabin." "You're welcome. I'll send the folks 'round to Jim's," returned Meeker. "An' if y'u want me, I'm with y'u, Isbel." "Thanks, Abel, but I'm not leadin' any more kin an' friends into this heah deal." "Wal, jest as y'u say. But I'd like damn bad to jine with y'u.... My brother Ted was shot last night." "Ted! Is he daid?" ejaculated Isbel, blankly. "We can't find out," replied Meeker. "Jim says thet Jeff Campbell said thet Ted went into Greaves's place last night. Greaves allus was friendly to Ted, but Greaves wasn't thar--" "No, he shore wasn't," interrupted Isbel, with a dark smile, "an' he never will be there again." Meeker nodded with slow comprehension and a shade crossed his face. "Wal, Campbell claimed he'd heerd from some one who was thar. Anyway, the Jorths were drinkin' hard, an' they raised a row with Ted--same old sheep talk an' somebody shot him. Campbell said Ted was thrown out back, an' he was shore he wasn't killed." "Ahuh! Wal, I'm sorry, Abel, your family had to lose in this. Maybe Ted's not bad hurt. I shore hope so.... An' y'u an' Jim keep out of the fight, anyway." "All right, Isbel. But I reckon I'll give y'u a hunch. If this heah fight lasts long the whole damn Basin will be in it, on one side or t'other." "Abe, you're talkin' sense," broke in Blaisdell. "An' that's why we're up heah for quick action." "I heerd y'u got Daggs," whispered Meeker, as he peered all around. "Wal, y'u heerd correct," drawled Blaisdell. Meeker muttered strong words into his beard. "Say, was Daggs in thet Jorth outfit?" "He WAS. But he walked right into Jean's forty-four.... An' I reckon his carcass would show some more." "An' whar's Guy Isbel?" demanded Meeker. "Daid an' buried, Abel," replied Gaston Isbel. "An' now I'd be obliged if y'u 'll hurry your folks away, an' let us have your cabin an' corral. Have yu got any hay for the hosses?" "Shore. The barn's half full," replied Meeker, as he turned away. "Come on in." "No. We'll wait till you've gone." When Meeker had gone, Isbel and his men sat their horses and looked about them and spoke low. Their advent had been expected, and the little town awoke to the imminence of the impending battle. Inside Meeker's house there was the sound of indistinct voices of women and the bustle incident to a hurried vacating. Across the wide road people were peering out on all sides, some hiding, others walking to and fro, from fence to fence, whispering in little groups. Down the wide road, at the point where it turned, stood Greaves's fort-like stone house. Low, flat, isolated, with its dark, eye-like windows, it presented a forbidding and sinister aspect. Jean distinctly saw the forms of men, some dark, others in shirt sleeves, come to the wide door and look down the road. "Wal, I reckon only aboot five hundred good hoss steps are separatin' us from that outfit," drawled Blaisdell. No one replied to his jocularity. Gaston Isbel's eyes narrowed to a slit in his furrowed face and he kept them fastened upon Greaves's store. Blue, likewise, had a somber cast of countenance, not, perhaps, any darker nor grimmer than those of his comrades, but more representative of intense preoccupation of mind. The look of him thrilled Jean, who could sense its deadliness, yet could not grasp any more. Altogether, the manner of the villagers and the watchful pacing to and fro of the Jorth followers and the silent, boding front of Isbel and his men summed up for Jean the menace of the moment that must very soon change to a terrible reality. At a call from Meeker, who stood at the back of the cabin, Gaston Isbel rode into the yard, followed by the others of his party. "Somebody look after the hosses," ordered Isbel, as he dismounted and took his rifle and pack. "Better leave the saddles on, leastways till we see what's comin' off." Jean and Bill Isbel led the horses back to the corral. While watering and feeding them, Jean somehow received the impression that Bill was trying to speak, to confide in him, to unburden himself of some load. This peculiarity of Bill's had become marked when he was perfectly sober. Yet he had never spoken or even begun anything unusual. Upon the present occasion, however, Jean believed that his brother might have gotten rid of his emotion, or whatever it was, had they not been interrupted by Colmor. "Boys, the old man's orders are for us to sneak round on three sides of Greaves's store, keepin' out of gunshot till we find good cover, an' then crawl closer an' to pick off any of Jorth's gang who shows himself." Bill Isbel strode off without a reply to Colmor. "Well, I don't think so much of that," said Jean, ponderingly. "Jorth has lots of friends here. Somebody might pick us off." "I kicked, but the old man shut me up. He's not to be bucked ag'in' now. Struck me as powerful queer. But no wonder." "Maybe he knows best. Did he say anythin' about what he an' the rest of them are goin' to do?" "Nope. Blue taxed him with that an' got the same as me. I reckon we'd better try it out, for a while, anyway." "Looks like he wants us to keep out of the fight," replied Jean, thoughtfully. "Maybe, though ... Dad's no fool. Colmor, you wait here till I get out of sight. I'll go round an' come up as close as advisable behind Greaves's store. You take the right side. An' keep hid." With that Jean strode off, going around the barn, straight out the orchard lane to the open flat, and then climbing a fence to the north of the village. Presently he reached a line of sheds and corrals, to which he held until he arrived at the road. This point was about a quarter of a mile from Greaves's store, and around the bend. Jean sighted no one. The road, the fields, the yards, the backs of the cabins all looked deserted. A blight had settled down upon the peaceful activities of Grass Valley. Crossing the road, Jean began to circle until he came close to several cabins, around which he made a wide detour. This took him to the edge of the slope, where brush and thickets afforded him a safe passage to a line directly back of Greaves's store. Then he turned toward it. Soon he was again approaching a cabin of that side, and some of its inmates descried him, Their actions attested to their alarm. Jean half expected a shot from this quarter, such were his growing doubts, but he was mistaken. A man, unknown to Jean, closely watched his guarded movements and then waved a hand, as if to signify to Jean that he had nothing to fear. After this act he disappeared. Jean believed that he had been recognized by some one not antagonistic to the Isbels. Therefore he passed the cabin and, coming to a thick scrub-oak tree that offered shelter, he hid there to watch. From this spot he could see the back of Greaves's store, at a distance probably too far for a rifle bullet to reach. Before him, as far as the store, and on each side, extended the village common. In front of the store ran the road. Jean's position was such that he could not command sight of this road down toward Meeker's house, a fact that disturbed him. Not satisfied with this stand, he studied his surroundings in the hope of espying a better. And he discovered what he thought would be a more favorable position, although he could not see much farther down the road. Jean went back around the cabin and, coming out into the open to the right, he got the corner of Greaves's barn between him and the window of the store. Then he boldly hurried into the open, and soon reached an old wagon, from behind which he proposed to watch. He could not see either window or door of the store, but if any of the Jorth contingent came out the back way they would be within reach of his rifle. Jean took the risk of being shot at from either side. So sharp and roving was his sight that he soon espied Colmor slipping along behind the trees some hundred yards to the left. All his efforts to catch a glimpse of Bill, however, were fruitless. And this appeared strange to Jean, for there were several good places on the right from which Bill could have commanded the front of Greaves's store and the whole west side. Colmor disappeared among some shrubbery, and Jean seemed left alone to watch a deserted, silent village. Watching and listening, he felt that the time dragged. Yet the shadows cast by the sun showed him that, no matter how tense he felt and how the moments seemed hours, they were really flying. Suddenly Jean's ears rang with the vibrant shock of a rifle report. He jerked up, strung and thrilling. It came from in front of the store. It was followed by revolver shots, heavy, booming. Three he counted, and the rest were too close together to enumerate. A single hoarse yell pealed out, somehow trenchant and triumphant. Other yells, not so wild and strange, muffled the first one. Then silence clapped down on the store and the open square. Jean was deadly certain that some of the Jorth clan would show themselves. He strained to still the trembling those sudden shots and that significant yell had caused him. No man appeared. No more sounds caught Jean's ears. The suspense, then, grew unbearable. It was not that he could not wait for an enemy to appear, but that he could not wait to learn what had happened. Every moment that he stayed there, with hands like steel on his rifle, with eyes of a falcon, but added to a dreadful, dark certainty of disaster. A rifle shot swiftly followed by revolver shots! What could, they mean? Revolver shots of different caliber, surely fired by different men! What could they mean? It was not these shots that accounted for Jean's dread, but the yell which had followed. All his intelligence and all his nerve were not sufficient to fight down the feeling of calamity. And at last, yielding to it, he left his post, and ran like a deer across the open, through the cabin yard, and around the edge of the slope to the road. Here his caution brought him to a halt. Not a living thing crossed his vision. Breaking into a run, he soon reached the back of Meeker's place and entered, to hurry forward to the cabin. Colmor was there in the yard, breathing hard, his face working, and in front of him crouched several of the men with rifles ready. The road, to Jean's flashing glance, was apparently deserted. Blue sat on the doorstep, lighting a cigarette. Then on the moment Blaisdell strode to the door of the cabin. Jean had never seen him look like that. "Jean--look--down the road," he said, brokenly, and with big hand shaking he pointed down toward Greaves's store. Like lightning Jean's glance shot down--down--down--until it stopped to fix upon the prostrate form of a man, lying in the middle of the road. A man of lengthy build, shirt-sleeved arms flung wide, white head in the dust--dead! Jean's recognition was as swift as his sight. His father! They had killed him! The Jorths! It was done. His father's premonition of death had not been false. And then, after these flashing thoughts, came a sense of blankness, momentarily almost oblivion, that gave place to a rending of the heart. That pain Jean had known only at the death of his mother. It passed, this agonizing pang, and its icy pressure yielded to a rushing gust of blood, fiery as hell. "Who--did it?" whispered Jean. "Jorth!" replied Blaisdell, huskily. "Son, we couldn't hold your dad back.... We couldn't. He was like a lion.... An' he throwed his life away! Oh, if it hadn't been for that it 'd not be so awful. Shore, we come heah to shoot an' be shot. But not like that.... By God, it was murder--murder!" Jean's mute lips framed a query easily read. "Tell him, Blue. I cain't," continued Blaisdell, and he tramped back into the cabin. "Set down, Jean, an' take things easy," said Blue, calmly. "You know we all reckoned we'd git plugged one way or another in this deal. An' shore it doesn't matter much how a fellar gits it. All thet ought to bother us is to make shore the other outfit bites the dust--same as your dad had to." Under this man's tranquil presence, all the more quieting because it seemed to be so deadly sure and cool, Jean felt the uplift of his dark spirit, the acceptance of fatality, the mounting control of faculties that must wait. The little gunman seemed to have about his inert presence something that suggested a rattlesnake's inherent knowledge of its destructiveness. Jean sat down and wiped his clammy face. "Jean, your dad reckoned to square accounts with Jorth, an' save us all," began Blue, puffing out a cloud of smoke. "But he reckoned too late. Mebbe years; ago--or even not long ago--if he'd called Jorth out man to man there'd never been any Jorth-Isbel war. Gaston Isbel's conscience woke too late. That's how I figger it." "Hurry! Tell me--how it--happen," panted Jean. "Wal, a little while after y'u left I seen your dad writin' on a leaf he tore out of a book--Meeker's Bible, as yu can see. I thought thet was funny. An' Blaisdell gave me a hunch. Pretty soon along comes young Evarts. The old man calls him out of our hearin' an' talks to him. Then I seen him give the boy somethin', which I afterward figgered was what he wrote on the leaf out of the Bible. Me an' Blaisdell both tried to git out of him what thet meant. But not a word. I kept watchin' an' after a while I seen young Evarts slip out the back way. Mebbe half an hour I seen a bare-legged kid cross, the road an' go into Greaves's store.... Then shore I tumbled to your dad. He'd sent a note to Jorth to come out an' meet him face to face, man to man! ... Shore it was like readin' what your dad had wrote. But I didn't say nothin' to Blaisdell. I jest watched." Blue drawled these last words, as if he enjoyed remembrance of his keen reasoning. A smile wreathed his thin lips. He drew twice on the cigarette and emitted another cloud of smoke. Quite suddenly then he changed. He made a rapid gesture--the whip of a hand, significant and passionate. And swift words followed: "Colonel Lee Jorth stalked out of the store--out into the road--mebbe a hundred steps. Then he halted. He wore his long black coat an' his wide black hat, an' he stood like a stone. "'What the hell!' burst out Blaisdell, comin' out of his trance. "The rest of us jest looked. I'd forgot your dad, for the minnit. So had all of us. But we remembered soon enough when we seen him stalk out. Everybody had a hunch then. I called him. Blaisdell begged him to come back. All the fellars; had a say. No use! Then I shore cussed him an' told him it was plain as day thet Jorth didn't hit me like an honest man. I can sense such things. I knew Jorth had trick up his sleeve. I've not been a gun fighter fer nothin'. "Your dad had no rifle. He packed his gun at his hip. He jest stalked down thet road like a giant, goin' faster an' faster, holdin' his head high. It shore was fine to see him. But I was sick. I heerd Blaisdell groan, an' Fredericks thar cussed somethin' fierce.... When your dad halted--I reckon aboot fifty steps from Jorth--then we all went numb. I heerd your dad's voice--then Jorth's. They cut like knives. Y'u could shore heah the hate they hed fer each other." Blue had become a little husky. His speech had grown gradually to denote his feeling. Underneath his serenity there was a different order of man. "I reckon both your dad an' Jorth went fer their guns at the same time--an even break. But jest as they drew, some one shot a rifle from the store. Must hev been a forty-five seventy. A big gun! The bullet must have hit your dad low down, aboot the middle. He acted thet way, sinkin' to his knees. An' he was wild in shootin'--so wild thet he must hev missed. Then he wabbled--an' Jorth run in a dozen steps, shootin' fast, till your dad fell over.... Jorth run closer, bent over him, an' then straightened up with an Apache yell, if I ever heerd one.... An' then Jorth backed slow--lookin' all the time--backed to the store, an' went in." Blue's voice ceased. Jean seemed suddenly released from an impelling magnet that now dropped him to some numb, dizzy depth. Blue's lean face grew hazy. Then Jean bowed his head in his hands, and sat there, while a slight tremor shook all his muscles at once. He grew deathly cold and deathly sick. This paroxysm slowly wore away, and Jean grew conscious of a dull amaze at the apparent deadness of his spirit. Blaisdell placed a huge, kindly hand on his shoulder. "Brace up, son!" he said, with voice now clear and resonant. "Shore it's what your dad expected--an' what we all must look for.... If yu was goin' to kill Jorth before--think how -- -- shore y'u're goin' to kill him now." "Blaisdell's talkin'," put in Blue, and his voice had a cold ring. "Lee Jorth will never see the sun rise ag'in!" These calls to the primitive in Jean, to the Indian, were not in vain. But even so, when the dark tide rose in him, there was still a haunting consciousness of the cruelty of this singular doom imposed upon him. Strangely Ellen Jorth's face floated back in the depths of his vision, pale, fading, like the face of a spirit floating by. "Blue," said Blaisdell, "let's get Isbel's body soon as we dare, an' bury it. Reckon we can, right after dark." "Shore," replied Blue. "But y'u fellars figger thet out. I'm thinkin' hard. I've got somethin' on my mind." Jean grew fascinated by the looks and speech and action of the little gunman. Blue, indeed, had something on his mind. And it boded ill to the men in that dark square stone house down the road. He paced to and fro in the yard, back and forth on the path to the gate, and then he entered the cabin to stalk up and down, faster and faster, until all at once he halted as if struck, to upfling his right arm in a singular fierce gesture. "Jean, call the men in," he said, tersely. They all filed in, sinister and silent, with eager faces turned to the little Texan. His dominance showed markedly. "Gordon, y'u stand in the door an' keep your eye peeled," went on Blue. "... Now, boys, listen! I've thought it all out. This game of man huntin' is the same to me as cattle raisin' is to y'u. An' my life in Texas all comes back to me, I reckon, in good stead fer us now. I'm goin' to kill Lee Jorth! Him first, an' mebbe his brothers. I had to think of a good many ways before I hit on one I reckon will be shore. It's got to be SHORE. Jorth has got to die! Wal, heah's my plan.... Thet Jorth outfit is drinkin' some, we can gamble on it. They're not goin' to leave thet store. An' of course they'll be expectin' us to start a fight. I reckon they'll look fer some such siege as they held round Isbel's ranch. But we shore ain't goin' to do thet. I'm goin' to surprise thet outfit. There's only one man among them who is dangerous, an' thet's Queen. I know Queen. But he doesn't know me. An' I'm goin' to finish my job before he gets acquainted with me. After thet, all right!" Blue paused a moment, his eyes narrowing down, his whole face setting in hard cast of intense preoccupation, as if he visualized a scene of extraordinary nature. "Wal, what's your trick?" demanded Blaisdell. "Y'u all know Greaves's store," continued Blue. "How them winders have wooden shutters thet keep a light from showin' outside? Wal, I'm gamblin' thet as soon as it's dark Jorth's gang will be celebratin'. They'll be drinkin' an' they'll have a light, an' the winders will be shut. They're not goin' to worry none aboot us. Thet store is like a fort. It won't burn. An' shore they'd never think of us chargin' them in there. Wal, as soon as it's dark, we'll go round behind the lots an' come up jest acrost the road from Greaves's. I reckon we'd better leave Isbel where he lays till this fight's over. Mebbe y'u 'll have more 'n him to bury. We'll crawl behind them bushes in front of Coleman's yard. An' heah's where Jean comes in. He'll take an ax, an' his guns, of course, an' do some of his Injun sneakin' round to the back of Greaves's store.... An', Jean, y'u must do a slick job of this. But I reckon it 'll be easy fer you. Back there it 'll be dark as pitch, fer anyone lookin' out of the store. An' I'm figgerin' y'u can take your time an' crawl right up. Now if y'u don't remember how Greaves's back yard looks I'll tell y'u." Here Blue dropped on one knee to the floor and with a finger he traced a map of Greaves's barn and fence, the back door and window, and especially a break in the stone foundation which led into a kind of cellar where Greaves stored wood and other things that could be left outdoors. "Jean, I take particular pains to show y'u where this hole is," said Blue, "because if the gang runs out y'u could duck in there an' hide. An' if they run out into the yard--wal, y'u'd make it a sorry run fer them.... Wal, when y'u've crawled up close to Greaves's back door, an' waited long enough to see an' listen--then you're to run fast an' swing your ax smash ag'in' the winder. Take a quick peep in if y'u want to. It might help. Then jump quick an' take a swing at the door. Y'u 'll be standin' to one side, so if the gang shoots through the door they won't hit y'u. Bang thet door good an' hard.... Wal, now's where I come in. When y'u swing thet ax I'll shore run fer the front of the store. Jorth an' his outfit will be some attentive to thet poundin' of yours on the back door. So I reckon. An' they'll be lookin' thet way. I'll run in--yell--an' throw my guns on Jorth." "Humph! Is that all?" ejaculated Blaisdell. "I reckon thet's all an' I'm figgerin' it's a hell of a lot," responded Blue, dryly. "Thet's what Jorth will think." "Where do we come in?" "Wal, y'u all can back me up," replied Blue, dubiously. "Y'u see, my plan goes as far as killin' Jorth--an' mebbe his brothers. Mebbe I'll get a crack at Queen. But I'll be shore of Jorth. After thet all depends. Mebbe it 'll be easy fer me to get out. An' if I do y'u fellars will know it an' can fill thet storeroom full of bullets." "Wal, Blue, with all due respect to y'u, I shore don't like your plan," declared Blaisdell. "Success depends upon too many little things any one of which might go wrong." "Blaisdell, I reckon I know this heah game better than y'u," replied Blue. "A gun fighter goes by instinct. This trick will work." "But suppose that front door of Greaves's store is barred," protested Blaisdell. "It hasn't got any bar," said Blue. "Y'u're shore?" "Yes, I reckon," replied Blue. "Hell, man! Aren't y'u takin' a terrible chance?" queried Blaisdell. Blue's answer to that was a look that brought the blood to Blaisdell's face. Only then did the rancher really comprehend how the little gunman had taken such desperate chances before, and meant to take them now, not with any hope or assurance of escaping with his life, but to live up to his peculiar code of honor. "Blaisdell, did y'u ever heah of me in Texas?" he queried, dryly. "Wal, no, Blue, I cain't swear I did," replied the rancher, apologetically. "An' Isbel was always sort of' mysterious aboot his acquaintance with you." "My name's not Blue." "Ahuh! Wal, what is it, then--if I'm safe to ask?" returned Blaisdell, gruffly. "It's King Fisher," replied Blue. The shock that stiffened Blaisdell must have been communicated to the others. Jean certainly felt amaze, and some other emotion not fully realized, when he found himself face to face with one of the most notorious characters ever known in Texas--an outlaw long supposed to be dead. "Men, I reckon I'd kept my secret if I'd any idee of comin' out of this Isbel-Jorth war alive," said Blue. "But I'm goin' to cash. I feel it heah.... Isbel was my friend. He saved me from bein' lynched in Texas. An' so I'm goin' to kill Jorth. Now I'll take it kind of y'u--if any of y'u come out of this alive--to tell who I was an' why I was on the Isbel side. Because this sheep an' cattle war--this talk of Jorth an' the Hash Knife Gang--it makes me, sick. I KNOW there's been crooked work on Isbel's side, too. An' I never want it on record thet I killed Jorth because he was a rustler." "By God, Blue! it's late in the day for such talk," burst out Blaisdell, in rage and amaze. "But I reckon y'u know what y'u're talkin' aboot.... Wal, I shore don't want to heah it." At this juncture Bill Isbel quietly entered the cabin, too late to hear any of Blue's statement. Jean was positive of that, for as Blue was speaking those last revealing words Bill's heavy boots had resounded on the gravel path outside. Yet something in Bill's look or in the way Blue averted his lean face or in the entrance of Bill at that particular moment, or all these together, seemed to Jean to add further mystery to the long secret causes leading up to the Jorth-Isbel war. Did Bill know what Blue knew? Jean had an inkling that he did. And on the moment, so perplexing and bitter, Jean gazed out the door, down the deserted road to where his dead father lay, white-haired and ghastly in the sunlight. "Blue, you could have kept that to yourself, as well as your real name," interposed Jean, with bitterness. "It's too late now for either to do any good.... But I appreciate your friendship for dad, an' I'm ready to help carry out your plan." That decision of Jean's appeared to put an end to protest or argument from Blaisdell or any of the others. Blue's fleeting dark smile was one of satisfaction. Then upon most of this group of men seemed to settle a grim restraint. They went out and walked and watched; they came in again, restless and somber. Jean thought that he must have bent his gaze a thousand times down the road to the tragic figure of his father. That sight roused all emotions in his breast, and the one that stirred there most was pity. The pity of it! Gaston Isbel lying face down in the dust of the village street! Patches of blood showed on the back of his vest and one white-sleeved shoulder. He had been shot through. Every time Jean saw this blood he had to stifle a gathering of wild, savage impulses. Meanwhile the afternoon hours dragged by and the village remained as if its inhabitants had abandoned it. Not even a dog showed on the side road. Jorth and some of his men came out in front of the store and sat on the steps, in close convening groups. Every move they, made seemed significant of their confidence and importance. About sunset they went back into the store, closing door and window shutters. Then Blaisdell called the Isbel faction to have food and drink. Jean felt no hunger. And Blue, who had kept apart from the others, showed no desire to eat. Neither did he smoke, though early in the day he had never been without a cigarette between his lips. Twilight fell and darkness came. Not a light showed anywhere in the blackness. "Wal, I reckon it's aboot time," said Blue, and he led the way out of the cabin to the back of the lot. Jean strode behind him, carrying his rifle and an ax. Silently the other men followed. Blue turned to the left and led through the field until he came within sight of a dark line of trees. "Thet's where the road turns off," he said to Jean. "An' heah's the back of Coleman's place.... Wal, Jean, good luck!" Jean felt the grip of a steel-like hand, and in the darkness he caught the gleam of Blue's eyes. Jean had no response in words for the laconic Blue, but he wrung the hard, thin hand and hurried away in the darkness. Once alone, his part of the business at hand rushed him into eager thrilling action. This was the sort of work he was fitted to do. In this instance it was important, but it seemed to him that Blue had coolly taken the perilous part. And this cowboy with gray in his thin hair was in reality the great King Fisher! Jean marveled at the fact. And he shivered all over for Jorth. In ten minutes--fifteen, more or less, Jorth would lie gasping bloody froth and sinking down. Something in the dark, lonely, silent, oppressive summer night told Jean this. He strode on swiftly. Crossing the road at a run, he kept on over the ground he had traversed during the afternoon, and in a few moments he stood breathing hard at the edge of the common behind Greaves's store. A pin point of light penetrated the blackness. It made Jean's heart leap. The Jorth contingent were burning the big lamp that hung in the center of Greaves's store. Jean listened. Loud voices and coarse laughter sounded discord on the melancholy silence of the night. What Blue had called his instinct had surely guided him aright. Death of Gaston Isbel was being celebrated by revel. In a few moments Jean had regained his breath. Then all his faculties set intensely to the action at hand. He seemed to magnify his hearing and his sight. His movements made no sound. He gained the wagon, where he crouched a moment. The ground seemed a pale, obscure medium, hardly more real than the gloom above it. Through this gloom of night, which looked thick like a cloud, but was really clear, shone the thin, bright point of light, accentuating the black square that was Greaves's store. Above this stood a gray line of tree foliage, and then the intensely dark-blue sky studded with white, cold stars. A hound bayed lonesomely somewhere in the distance. Voices of men sounded more distinctly, some deep and low, others loud, unguarded, with the vacant note of thoughtlessness. Jean gathered all his forces, until sense of sight and hearing were in exquisite accord with the suppleness and lightness of his movements. He glided on about ten short, swift steps before he halted. That was as far as his piercing eyes could penetrate. If there had been a guard stationed outside the store Jean would have seen him before being seen. He saw the fence, reached it, entered the yard, glided in the dense shadow of the barn until the black square began to loom gray--the color of stone at night. Jean peered through the obscurity. No dark figure of a man showed against that gray wall--only a black patch, which must be the hole in the foundation mentioned. A ray of light now streaked out from the little black window. To the right showed the wide, black door. Farther on Jean glided silently. Then he halted. There was no guard outside. Jean heard the clink of a cap, the lazy drawl of a Texan, and then a strong, harsh voice--Jorth's. It strung Jean's whole being tight and vibrating. Inside he was on fire while cold thrills rippled over his skin. It took tremendous effort of will to hold himself back another instant to listen, to look, to feel, to make sure. And that instant charged him with a mighty current of hot blood, straining, throbbing, damming. When Jean leaped this current burst. In a few swift bounds he gained his point halfway between door and window. He leaned his rifle against the stone wall. Then he swung the ax. Crash! The window shutter split and rattled to the floor inside. The silence then broke with a hoarse, "What's thet?" With all his might Jean swung the heavy ax on the door. Smash! The lower half caved in and banged to the floor. Bright light flared out the hole. "Look out!" yelled a man, in loud alarm. "They're batterin' the back door!" Jean swung again, high on the splintered door. Crash! Pieces flew inside. "They've got axes," hoarsely shouted another voice. "Shove the counter ag'in' the door." "No!" thundered a voice of authority that denoted terror as well. "Let them come in. Pull your guns an' take to cover!" "They ain't comin' in," was the hoarse reply. "They'll shoot in on us from the dark." "Put out the lamp!" yelled another. Jean's third heavy swing caved in part of the upper half of the door. Shouts and curses intermingled with the sliding of benches across the floor and the hard shuffle of boots. This confusion seemed to be split and silenced by a piercing yell, of different caliber, of terrible meaning. It stayed Jean's swing--caused him to drop the ax and snatch up his rifle. "DON'T ANYBODY MOVE!" Like a steel whip this voice cut the silence. It belonged to Blue. Jean swiftly bent to put his eye to a crack in the door. Most of those visible seemed to have been frozen into unnatural positions. Jorth stood rather in front of his men, hatless and coatless, one arm outstretched, and his dark profile set toward a little man just inside the door. This man was Blue. Jean needed only one flashing look at Blue's face, at his leveled, quivering guns, to understand why he had chosen this trick. "Who're---you?" demanded Jorth, in husky pants. "Reckon I'm Isbel's right-hand man," came the biting reply. "Once tolerable well known in Texas.... KING FISHER!" The name must have been a guarantee of death. Jorth recognized this outlaw and realized his own fate. In the lamplight his face turned a pale greenish white. His outstretched hand began to quiver down. Blue's left gun seemed to leap up and flash red and explode. Several heavy reports merged almost as one. Jorth's arm jerked limply, flinging his gun. And his body sagged in the middle. His hands fluttered like crippled wings and found their way to his abdomen. His death-pale face never changed its set look nor position toward Blue. But his gasping utterance was one of horrible mortal fury and terror. Then he began to sway, still with that strange, rigid set of his face toward his slayer, until he fell. His fall broke the spell. Even Blue, like the gunman he was, had paused to watch Jorth in his last mortal action. Jorth's followers began to draw and shoot. Jean saw Blue's return fire bring down a huge man, who fell across Jorth's body. Then Jean, quick as the thought that actuated him, raised his rifle and shot at the big lamp. It burst in a flare. It crashed to the floor. Darkness followed--a blank, thick, enveloping mantle. Then red flashes of guns emphasized the blackness. Inside the store there broke loose a pandemonium of shots, yells, curses, and thudding boots. Jean shoved his rifle barrel inside the door and, holding it low down, he moved it to and fro while he worked lever and trigger until the magazine was empty. Then, drawing his six-shooter, he emptied that. A roar of rifles from the front of the store told Jean that his comrades had entered the fray. Bullets zipped through the door he had broken. Jean ran swiftly round the corner, taking care to sheer off a little to the left, and when he got clear of the building he saw a line of flashes in the middle of the road. Blaisdell and the others were firing into the door of the store. With nimble fingers Jean reloaded his rifle. Then swiftly he ran across the road and down to get behind his comrades. Their shooting had slackened. Jean saw dark forms coming his way. "Hello, Blaisdell!" he called, warningly. "That y'u, Jean?" returned the rancher, looming up. "Wal, we wasn't worried aboot y'u." "Blue?" queried Jean, sharply. A little, dark figure shuffled past Jean. "Howdy, Jean!" said Blue, dryly. "Y'u shore did your part. Reckon I'll need to be tied up, but I ain't hurt much." "Colmor's hit," called the voice of Gordon, a few yards distant. "Help me, somebody!" Jean ran to help Gordon uphold the swaying Colmor. "Are you hurt--bad?" asked Jean, anxiously. The young man's head rolled and hung. He was breathing hard and did not reply. They had almost to carry him. "Come on, men!" called Blaisdell, turning back toward the others who were still firing. "We'll let well enough alone.... Fredericks, y'u an' Bill help me find the body of the old man. It's heah somewhere." Farther on down the road the searchers stumbled over Gaston Isbel. They picked him up and followed Jean and Gordon, who were supporting the wounded Colmor. Jean looked back to see Blue dragging himself along in the rear. It was too dark to see distinctly; nevertheless, Jean got the impression that Blue was more severely wounded than he had claimed to be. The distance to Meeker's cabin was not far, but it took what Jean felt to be a long and anxious time to get there. Colmor apparently rallied somewhat. When this procession entered Meeker's yard, Blue was lagging behind. "Blue, how air y'u?" called Blaisdell, with concern. "Wal, I got--my boots--on--anyhow," replied Blue, huskily. He lurched into the yard and slid down on the grass and stretched out. "Man! Y'u're hurt bad!" exclaimed Blaisdell. The others halted in their slow march and, as if by tacit, unspoken word, lowered the body of Isbel to the ground. Then Blaisdell knelt beside Blue. Jean left Colmor to Gordon and hurried to peer down into Blue's dim face. "No, I ain't--hurt," said Blue, in a much weaker voice. "I'm--jest killed! ... It was Queen! ... Y'u all heerd me--Queen was--only bad man in that lot. I knowed it.... I could--hev killed him.... But I was--after Lee Jorth an' his brothers...." Blue's voice failed there. "Wal!" ejaculated Blaisdell. "Shore was funny--Jorth's face--when I said--King Fisher," whispered Blue. "Funnier--when I bored--him through.... But it--was--Queen--" His whisper died away. "Blue!" called Blaisdell, sharply. Receiving no answer, he bent lower in the starlight and placed a hand upon the man's breast. "Wal, he's gone.... I wonder if he really was the old Texas King Fisher. No one would ever believe it.... But if he killed the Jorths, I'll shore believe him." CHAPTER X Two weeks of lonely solitude in the forest had worked incalculable change in Ellen Jorth. Late in June her father and her two uncles had packed and ridden off with Daggs, Colter, and six other men, all heavily armed, some somber with drink, others hard and grim with a foretaste of fight. Ellen had not been given any orders. Her father had forgotten to bid her good-by or had avoided it. Their dark mission was stamped on their faces. They had gone and, keen as had been Ellen's pang, nevertheless, their departure was a relief. She had heard them bluster and brag so often that she had her doubts of any great Jorth-Isbel war. Barking dogs did not bite. Somebody, perhaps on each side, would be badly wounded, possibly killed, and then the feud would go on as before, mostly talk. Many of her former impressions had faded. Development had been so rapid and continuous in her that she could look back to a day-by-day transformation. At night she had hated the sight of herself and when the dawn came she would rise, singing. Jorth had left Ellen at home with the Mexican woman and Antonio. Ellen saw them only at meal times, and often not then, for she frequently visited old John Sprague or came home late to do her own cooking. It was but a short distance up to Sprague's cabin, and since she had stopped riding the black horse, Spades, she walked. Spades was accustomed to having grain, and in the mornings he would come down to the ranch and whistle. Ellen had vowed she would never feed the horse and bade Antonio do it. But one morning Antonio was absent. She fed Spades herself. When she laid a hand on him and when he rubbed his nose against her shoulder she was not quite so sure she hated him. "Why should I?" she queried. "A horse cain't help it if he belongs to--to--" Ellen was not sure of anything except that more and more it grew good to be alone. A whole day in the lonely forest passed swiftly, yet it left a feeling of long time. She lived by her thoughts. Always the morning was bright, sunny, sweet and fragrant and colorful, and her mood was pensive, wistful, dreamy. And always, just as surely as the hours passed, thought intruded upon her happiness, and thought brought memory, and memory brought shame, and shame brought fight. Sunset after sunset she had dragged herself back to the ranch, sullen and sick and beaten. Yet she never ceased to struggle. The July storms came, and the forest floor that had been so sear and brown and dry and dusty changed as if by magic. The green grass shot up, the flowers bloomed, and along the canyon beds of lacy ferns swayed in the wind and bent their graceful tips over the amber-colored water. Ellen haunted these cool dells, these pine-shaded, mossy-rocked ravines where the brooks tinkled and the deer came down to drink. She wandered alone. But there grew to be company in the aspens and the music of the little waterfalls. If she could have lived in that solitude always, never returning to the ranch home that reminded her of her name, she could have forgotten and have been happy. She loved the storms. It was a dry country and she had learned through years to welcome the creamy clouds that rolled from the southwest. They came sailing and clustering and darkening at last to form a great, purple, angry mass that appeared to lodge against the mountain rim and burst into dazzling streaks of lightning and gray palls of rain. Lightning seldom struck near the ranch, but up on the Rim there was never a storm that did not splinter and crash some of the noble pines. During the storm season sheep herders and woodsmen generally did not camp under the pines. Fear of lightning was inborn in the natives, but for Ellen the dazzling white streaks or the tremendous splitting, crackling shock, or the thunderous boom and rumble along the battlements of the Rim had no terrors. A storm eased her breast. Deep in her heart was a hidden gathering storm. And somehow, to be out when the elements were warring, when the earth trembled and the heavens seemed to burst asunder, afforded her strange relief. The summer days became weeks, and farther and farther they carried Ellen on the wings of solitude and loneliness until she seemed to look back years at the self she had hated. And always, when the dark memory impinged upon peace, she fought and fought until she seemed to be fighting hatred itself. Scorn of scorn and hate of hate! Yet even her battles grew to be dreams. For when the inevitable retrospect brought back Jean Isbel and his love and her cowardly falsehood she would shudder a little and put an unconscious hand to her breast and utterly fail in her fight and drift off down to vague and wistful dreams. The clean and healing forest, with its whispering wind and imperious solitude, had come between Ellen and the meaning of the squalid sheep ranch, with its travesty of home, its tragic owner. And it was coming between her two selves, the one that she had been forced to be and the other that she did not know--the thinker, the dreamer, the romancer, the one who lived in fancy the life she loved. The summer morning dawned that brought Ellen strange tidings. They must have been created in her sleep, and now were realized in the glorious burst of golden sun, in the sweep of creamy clouds across the blue, in the solemn music of the wind in the pines, in the wild screech of the blue jays and the noble bugle of a stag. These heralded the day as no ordinary day. Something was going to happen to her. She divined it. She felt it. And she trembled. Nothing beautiful, hopeful, wonderful could ever happen to Ellen Jorth. She had been born to disaster, to suffer, to be forgotten, and die alone. Yet all nature about her seemed a magnificent rebuke to her morbidness. The same spirit that came out there with the thick, amber light was in her. She lived, and something in her was stronger than mind. Ellen went to the door of her cabin, where she flung out her arms, driven to embrace this nameless purport of the morning. And a well-known voice broke in upon her rapture. "Wal, lass, I like to see you happy an' I hate myself fer comin'. Because I've been to Grass Valley fer two days an' I've got news." Old John Sprague stood there, with a smile that did not hide a troubled look. "Oh! Uncle John! You startled me," exclaimed Ellen, shocked back to reality. And slowly she added: "Grass Valley! News?" She put out an appealing hand, which Sprague quickly took in his own, as if to reassure her. "Yes, an' not bad so far as you Jorths are concerned," he replied. "The first Jorth-Isbel fight has come off.... Reckon you remember makin' me promise to tell you if I heerd anythin'. Wal, I didn't wait fer you to come up." "So Ellen heard her voice calmly saying. What was this lying calm when there seemed to be a stone hammer at her heart? The first fight--not so bad for the Jorths! Then it had been bad for the Isbels. A sudden, cold stillness fell upon her senses. "Let's sit down--outdoors," Sprague was saying. "Nice an' sunny this--mornin'. I declare--I'm out of breath. Not used to walkin'. An' besides, I left Grass Valley, in the night--an' I'm tired. But excoose me from hangin' round thet village last night! There was shore--" "Who--who was killed?" interrupted Ellen, her voice breaking low and deep. "Guy Isbel an' Bill Jacobs on the Isbel side, an' Daggs, Craig, an' Greaves on your father's side," stated Sprague, with something of awed haste. "Ah!" breathed Ellen, and she relaxed to sink back against the cabin wall. Sprague seated himself on the log beside her, turning to face her, and he seemed burdened with grave and important matters. "I heerd a good many conflictin' stories," he said, earnestly. "The village folks is all skeered an' there's no believin' their gossip. But I got what happened straight from Jake Evarts. The fight come off day before yestiddy. Your father's gang rode down to Isbel's ranch. Daggs was seen to be wantin' some of the Isbel hosses, so Evarts says. An' Guy Isbel an' Jacobs ran out in the pasture. Daggs an' some others shot them down." "Killed them--that way?" put in Ellen, sharply. "So Evarts says. He was on the ridge an' swears he seen it all. They killed Guy an' Jacobs in cold blood. No chance fer their lives--not even to fight! ... Wall, hen they surrounded the Isbel cabin. The fight last all thet day an' all night an' the next day. Evarts says Guy an' Jacobs laid out thar all this time. An' a herd of hogs broke in the pasture an' was eatin' the dead bodies ..." "My God!" burst out Ellen. "Uncle John, y'u shore cain't mean my father wouldn't stop fightin' long enough to drive the hogs off an' bury those daid men?" "Evarts says they stopped fightin', all right, but it was to watch the hogs," declared Sprague. "An' then, what d' ye think? The wimminfolks come out--the red-headed one, Guy's wife, an' Jacobs's wife--they drove the hogs away an' buried their husbands right there in the pasture. Evarts says he seen the graves." "It is the women who can teach these bloody Texans a lesson," declared Ellen, forcibly. "Wal, Daggs was drunk, an' he got up from behind where the gang was hidin', an' dared the Isbels to come out. They shot him to pieces. An' thet night some one of the Isbels shot Craig, who was alone on guard.... An' last--this here's what I come to tell you--Jean Isbel slipped up in the dark on Greaves an' knifed him." "Why did y'u want to tell me that particularly?" asked Ellen, slowly. "Because I reckon the facts in the case are queer--an' because, Ellen, your name was mentioned," announced Sprague, positively. "My name--mentioned?" echoed Ellen. Her horror and disgust gave way to a quickening process of thought, a mounting astonishment. "By whom?" "Jean Isbel," replied Sprague, as if the name and the fact were momentous. Ellen sat still as a stone, her hands between her knees. Slowly she felt the blood recede from her face, prickling her kin down below her neck. That name locked her thought. "Ellen, it's a mighty queer story--too queer to be a lie," went on Sprague. "Now you listen! Evarts got this from Ted Meeker. An' Ted Meeker heerd it from Greaves, who didn't die till the next day after Jean Isbel knifed him. An' your dad shot Ted fer tellin' what he heerd.... No, Greaves wasn't killed outright. He was cut somethin' turrible--in two places. They wrapped him all up an' next day packed him in a wagon back to Grass Valley. Evarts says Ted Meeker was friendly with Greaves an' went to see him as he was layin' in his room next to the store. Wal, accordin' to Meeker's story, Greaves came to an' talked. He said he was sittin' there in the dark, shootin' occasionally at Isbel's cabin, when he heerd a rustle behind him in the grass. He knowed some one was crawlin' on him. But before he could get his gun around he was jumped by what he thought was a grizzly bear. But it was a man. He shut off Greaves's wind an' dragged him back in the ditch. An' he said: 'Greaves, it's the half-breed. An' he's goin' to cut you--FIRST FOR ELLEN JORTH! an' then for Gaston Isbel!' ... Greaves said Jean ripped him with a bowie knife.... An' thet was all Greaves remembered. He died soon after tellin' this story. He must hev fought awful hard. Thet second cut Isbel gave him went clear through him.... Some of the gang was thar when Greaves talked, an' naturally they wondered why Jean Isbel had said 'first for Ellen Jorth.' ... Somebody remembered thet Greaves had cast a slur on your good name, Ellen. An' then they had Jean Isbel's reason fer sayin' thet to Greaves. It caused a lot of talk. An' when Simm Bruce busted in some of the gang haw-hawed him an' said as how he'd get the third cut from Jean Isbel's bowie. Bruce was half drunk an' he began to cuss an' rave about Jean Isbel bein' in love with his girl.... As bad luck would have it, a couple of more fellars come in an' asked Meeker questions. He jest got to thet part, 'Greaves, it's the half-breed, an' he's goin' to cut you--FIRST FOR ELLEN JORTH,' when in walked your father! ... Then it all had to come out--what Jean Isbel had said an' done--an' why. How Greaves had backed Simm Bruce in slurrin' you!" Sprague paused to look hard at Ellen. "Oh! Then--what did dad do?" whispered Ellen. "He said, 'By God! half-breed or not, there's one Isbel who's a man!' An' he killed Bruce on the spot an' gave Meeker a nasty wound. Somebody grabbed him before he could shoot Meeker again. They threw Meeker out an' he crawled to a neighbor's house, where he was when Evarts seen him." Ellen felt Sprague's rough but kindly hand shaking her. "An' now what do you think of Jean Isbel?" he queried. A great, unsurmountable wall seemed to obstruct Ellen's thought. It seemed gray in color. It moved toward her. It was inside her brain. "I tell you, Ellen Jorth," declared the old man, "thet Jean Isbel loves you--loves you turribly--an' he believes you're good." "Oh no--he doesn't!" faltered Ellen. "Wal, he jest does." "Oh, Uncle John, he cain't believe that!" she cried. "Of course he can. He does. You are good--good as gold, Ellen, an' he knows it.... What a queer deal it all is! Poor devil! To love you thet turribly an' hev to fight your people! Ellen, your dad had it correct. Isbel or not, he's a man.... An' I say what a shame you two are divided by hate. Hate thet you hed nothin' to do with." Sprague patted her head and rose to go. "Mebbe thet fight will end the trouble. I reckon it will. Don't cross bridges till you come to them, Ellen.... I must hurry back now. I didn't take time to unpack my burros. Come up soon.... An', say, Ellen, don't think hard any more of thet Jean Isbel." Sprague strode away, and Ellen neither heard nor saw him go. She sat perfectly motionless, yet had a strange sensation of being lifted by invisible and mighty power. It was like movement felt in a dream. She was being impelled upward when her body seemed immovable as stone. When her blood beat down this deadlock of an her physical being and rushed on and on through her veins it gave her an irresistible impulse to fly, to sail through space, to ran and run and ran. And on the moment the black horse, Spades, coming from the meadow, whinnied at sight of her. Ellen leaped up and ran swiftly, but her feet seemed to be stumbling. She hugged the horse and buried her hot face in his mane and clung to him. Then just as violently she rushed for her saddle and bridle and carried the heavy weight as easily as if it had been an empty sack. Throwing them upon him, she buckled and strapped with strong, eager hands. It never occurred to her that she was not dressed to ride. Up she flung herself. And the horse, sensing her spirit, plunged into strong, free gait down the canyon trail. The ride, the action, the thrill, the sensations of violence were not all she needed. Solitude, the empty aisles of the forest, the far miles of lonely wilderness--were these the added all? Spades took a swinging, rhythmic lope up the winding trail. The wind fanned her hot face. The sting of whipping aspen branches was pleasant. A deep rumble of thunder shook the sultry air. Up beyond the green slope of the canyon massed the creamy clouds, shading darker and darker. Spades loped on the levels, leaped the washes, trotted over the rocky ground, and took to a walk up the long slope. Ellen dropped the reins over the pommel. Her hands could not stay set on anything. They pressed her breast and flew out to caress the white aspens and to tear at the maple leaves, and gather the lavender juniper berries, and came back again to her heart. Her heart that was going to burst or break! As it had swelled, so now it labored. It could not keep pace with her needs. All that was physical, all that was living in her had to be unleashed. Spades gained the level forest. How the great, brown-green pines seemed to bend their lofty branches over her, protectively, understandingly. Patches of azure-blue sky flashed between the trees. The great white clouds sailed along with her, and shafts of golden sunlight, flecked with gleams of falling pine needles, shone down through the canopy overhead. Away in front of her, up the slow heave of forest land, boomed the heavy thunderbolts along the battlements of the Rim. Was she riding to escape from herself? For no gait suited her until Spades was running hard and fast through the glades. Then the pressure of dry wind, the thick odor of pine, the flashes of brown and green and gold and blue, the soft, rhythmic thuds of hoofs, the feel of the powerful horse under her, the whip of spruce branches on her muscles contracting and expanding in hard action--all these sensations seemed to quell for the time the mounting cataclysm in her heart. The oak swales, the maple thickets, the aspen groves, the pine-shaded aisles, and the miles of silver spruce all sped by her, as if she had ridden the wind; and through the forest ahead shone the vast open of the Basin, gloomed by purple and silver cloud, shadowed by gray storm, and in the west brightened by golden sky. Straight to the Rim she had ridden, and to the point where she had watched Jean Isbel that unforgetable day. She rode to the promontory behind the pine thicket and beheld a scene which stayed her restless hands upon her heaving breast. The world of sky and cloud and earthly abyss seemed one of storm-sundered grandeur. The air was sultry and still, and smelled of the peculiar burnt-wood odor caused by lightning striking trees. A few heavy drops of rain were pattering down from the thin, gray edge of clouds overhead. To the east hung the storm--a black cloud lodged against the Rim, from which long, misty veils of rain streamed down into the gulf. The roar of rain sounded like the steady roar of the rapids of a river. Then a blue-white, piercingly bright, ragged streak of lightning shot down out of the black cloud. It struck with a splitting report that shocked the very wall of rock under Ellen. Then the heavens seemed to burst open with thundering crash and close with mighty thundering boom. Long roar and longer rumble rolled away to the eastward. The rain poured down in roaring cataracts. The south held a panorama of purple-shrouded range and canyon, canyon and range, on across the rolling leagues to the dim, lofty peaks, all canopied over with angry, dusky, low-drifting clouds, horizon-wide, smoky, and sulphurous. And as Ellen watched, hands pressed to her breast, feeling incalculable relief in sight of this tempest and gulf that resembled her soul, the sun burst out from behind the long bank of purple cloud in the west and flooded the world there with golden lightning. "It is for me!" cried Ellen. "My mind--my heart--my very soul.... Oh, I know! I know now! ... I love him--love him--love him!" She cried it out to the elements. "Oh, I love Jean Isbel--an' my heart will burst or break!" The might of her passion was like the blaze of the sun. Before it all else retreated, diminished. The suddenness of the truth dimmed her sight. But she saw clearly enough to crawl into the pine thicket, through the clutching, dry twigs, over the mats of fragrant needles to the covert where she had once spied upon Jean Isbel. And here she lay face down for a while, hands clutching the needles, breast pressed hard upon the ground, stricken and spent. But vitality was exceeding strong in her. It passed, that weakness of realization, and she awakened to the consciousness of love. But in the beginning it was not consciousness of the man. It was new, sensorial life, elemental, primitive, a liberation of a million inherited instincts, quivering and physical, over which Ellen had no more control than she had over the glory of the sun. If she thought at all it was of her need to be hidden, like an animal, low down near the earth, covered by green thicket, lost in the wildness of nature. She went to nature, unconsciously seeking a mother. And love was a birth from the depths of her, like a rushing spring of pure water, long underground, and at last propelled to the surface by a convulsion. Ellen gradually lost her tense rigidity and relaxed. Her body softened. She rolled over until her face caught the lacy, golden shadows cast by sun and bough. Scattered drops of rain pattered around her. The air was hot, and its odor was that of dry pine and spruce fragrance penetrated by brimstone from the lightning. The nest where she lay was warm and sweet. No eye save that of nature saw her in her abandonment. An ineffable and exquisite smile wreathed her lips, dreamy, sad, sensuous, the supremity of unconscious happiness. Over her dark and eloquent eyes, as Ellen gazed upward, spread a luminous film, a veil. She was looking intensely, yet she did not see. The wilderness enveloped her with its secretive, elemental sheaths of rock, of tree, of cloud, of sunlight. Through her thrilling skin poured the multiple and nameless sensations of the living organism stirred to supreme sensitiveness. She could not lie still, but all her movements were gentle, involuntary. The slow reaching out of her hand, to grasp at nothing visible, was similar to the lazy stretching of her limbs, to the heave of her breast, to the ripple of muscle. Ellen knew not what she felt. To live that sublime hour was beyond thought. Such happiness was like the first dawn of the world to the sight of man. It had to do with bygone ages. Her heart, her blood, her flesh, her very bones were filled with instincts and emotions common to the race before intellect developed, when the savage lived only with his sensorial perceptions. Of all happiness, joy, bliss, rapture to which man was heir, that of intense and exquisite preoccupation of the senses, unhindered and unburdened by thought, was the greatest. Ellen felt that which life meant with its inscrutable design. Love was only the realization of her mission on the earth. The dark storm cloud with its white, ragged ropes of lightning and down-streaming gray veils of rain, the purple gulf rolling like a colored sea to the dim mountains, the glorious golden light of the sun--these had enchanted her eyes with her beauty of the universe. They had burst the windows of her blindness. When she crawled into the green-brown covert it was to escape too great perception. She needed to be encompassed by close, tangible things. And there her body paid the tribute to the realization of life. Shock, convulsion, pain, relaxation, and then unutterable and insupportable sensing of her environment and the heart! In one way she was a wild animal alone in the woods, forced into the mating that meant reproduction of its kind. In another she was an infinitely higher being shot through and through with the most resistless and mysterious transport that life could give to flesh. And when that spell slackened its hold there wedged into her mind a consciousness of the man she loved--Jean Isbel. Then emotion and thought strove for mastery over her. It was not herself or love that she loved, but a living man. Suddenly he existed so clearly for her that she could see him, hear him, almost feel him. Her whole soul, her very life cried out to him for protection, for salvation, for love, for fulfillment. No denial, no doubt marred the white blaze of her realization. From the instant that she had looked up into Jean Isbel's dark face she had loved him. Only she had not known. She bowed now, and bent, and humbly quivered under the mastery of something beyond her ken. Thought clung to the beginnings of her romance--to the three times she had seen him. Every look, every word, every act of his returned to her now in the light of the truth. Love at first sight! He had sworn it, bitterly, eloquently, scornful of her doubts. And now a blind, sweet, shuddering ecstasy swayed her. How weak and frail seemed her body--too small, too slight for this monstrous and terrible engine of fire and lightning and fury and glory--her heart! It must burst or break. Relentlessly memory pursued Ellen, and her thoughts whirled and emotion conquered her. At last she quivered up to her knees as if lashed to action. It seemed that first kiss of Isbel's, cool and gentle and timid, was on her lips. And her eyes closed and hot tears welled from under her lids. Her groping hands found only the dead twigs and the pine boughs of the trees. Had she reached out to clasp him? Then hard and violent on her mouth and cheek and neck burned those other kisses of Isbel's, and with the flashing, stinging memory came the truth that now she would have bartered her soul for them. Utterly she surrendered to the resistlessness of this love. Her loss of mother and friends, her wandering from one wild place to another, her lonely life among bold and rough men, had developed her for violent love. It overthrew all pride, it engendered humility, it killed hate. Ellen wiped the tears from her eyes, and as she knelt there she swept to her breast a fragrant spreading bough of pine needles. "I'll go to him," she whispered. "I'll tell him of--of my--my love. I'll tell him to take me away--away to the end of the world--away from heah--before it's too late!" It was a solemn, beautiful moment. But the last spoken words lingered hauntingly. "Too late?" she whispered. And suddenly it seemed that death itself shuddered in her soul. Too late! It was too late. She had killed his love. That Jorth blood in her--that poisonous hate--had chosen the only way to strike this noble Isbel to the heart. Basely, with an abandonment of womanhood, she had mockingly perjured her soul with a vile lie. She writhed, she shook under the whip of this inconceivable fact. Lost! Lost! She wailed her misery. She might as well be what she had made Jean Isbel think she was. If she had been shamed before, she was now abased, degraded, lost in her own sight. And if she would have given her soul for his kisses, she now would have killed herself to earn back his respect. Jean Isbel had given her at sight the deference that she had unconsciously craved, and the love that would have been her salvation. What a horrible mistake she had made of her life! Not her mother's blood, but her father's--the Jorth blood--had been her ruin. Again Ellen fell upon the soft pine-needle mat, face down, and she groveled and burrowed there, in an agony that could not bear the sense of light. All she had suffered was as nothing to this. To have awakened to a splendid and uplifting love for a man whom she had imagined she hated, who had fought for her name and had killed in revenge for the dishonor she had avowed--to have lost his love and what was infinitely more precious to her now in her ignominy--his faith in her purity--this broke her heart. CHAPTER XI When Ellen, utterly spent in body and mind, reached home that day a melancholy, sultry twilight was falling. Fitful flares of sheet lightning swept across the dark horizon to the east. The cabins were deserted. Antonio and the Mexican woman were gone. The circumstances made Ellen wonder, but she was too tired and too sunken in spirit to think long about it or to care. She fed and watered her horse and left him in the corral. Then, supperless and without removing her clothes, she threw herself upon the bed, and at once sank into heavy slumber. Sometime during the night she awoke. Coyotes were yelping, and from that sound she concluded it was near dawn. Her body ached; her mind seemed dull. Drowsily she was sinking into slumber again when she heard the rapid clip-clop of trotting horses. Startled, she raised her head to listen. The men were coming back. Relief and dread seemed to clear her stupor. The trotting horses stopped across the lane from her cabin, evidently at the corral where she had left Spades. She heard him whistle. From the sound of hoofs she judged the number of horses to be six or eight. Low voices of men mingled with thuds and cracking of straps and flopping of saddles on the ground. After that the heavy tread of boots sounded on the porch of the cabin opposite. A door creaked on its hinges. Next a slow footstep, accompanied by clinking of spurs, approached Ellen's door, and a heavy hand banged upon it. She knew this person could not be her father. "Hullo, Ellen!" She recognized the voice as belonging to Colter. Somehow its tone, or something about it, sent a little shiver clown her spine. It acted like a revivifying current. Ellen lost her dragging lethargy. "Hey, Ellen, are y'u there?" added Colter, louder voice. "Yes. Of course I'm heah," she replied. "What do y'u want?" "Wal--I'm shore glad y'u're home," he replied. "Antonio's gone with his squaw. An' I was some worried aboot y'u." "Who's with y'u, Colter?" queried Ellen, sitting up. "Rock Wells an' Springer. Tad Jorth was with us, but we had to leave him over heah in a cabin." "What's the matter with him?" "Wal, he's hurt tolerable bad," was the slow reply. Ellen heard Colter's spurs jangle, as if he had uneasily shifted his feet. "Where's dad an' Uncle Jackson?" asked Ellen. A silence pregnant enough to augment Ellen's dread finally broke to Colter's voice, somehow different. "Shore they're back on the trail. An' we're to meet them where we left Tad." "Are yu goin' away again?" "I reckon.... An', Ellen, y'u're goin' with us." "I am not," she retorted. "Wal, y'u are, if I have to pack y'u," he replied, forcibly. "It's not safe heah any more. That damned half-breed Isbel with his gang are on our trail." That name seemed like a red-hot blade at Ellen's leaden heart. She wanted to fling a hundred queries on Colter, but she could not utter one. "Ellen, we've got to hit the trail an' hide," continued Colter, anxiously. "Y'u mustn't stay heah alone. Suppose them Isbels would trap y'u! ... They'd tear your clothes off an' rope y'u to a tree. Ellen, shore y'u're goin'.... Y'u heah me!" "Yes--I'll go," she replied, as if forced. "Wal--that's good," he said, quickly. "An' rustle tolerable lively. We've got to pack." The slow jangle of Colter's spurs and his slow steps moved away out of Ellen's hearing. Throwing off the blankets, she put her feet to the floor and sat there a moment staring at the blank nothingness of the cabin interior in the obscure gray of dawn. Cold, gray, dreary, obscure--like her life, her future! And she was compelled to do what was hateful to her. As a Jorth she must take to the unfrequented trails and hide like a rabbit in the thickets. But the interest of the moment, a premonition of events to be, quickened her into action. Ellen unbarred the door to let in the light. Day was breaking with an intense, clear, steely light in the east through which the morning star still shone white. A ruddy flare betokened the advent of the sun. Ellen unbraided her tangled hair and brushed and combed it. A queer, still pang came to her at sight of pine needles tangled in her brown locks. Then she washed her hands and face. Breakfast was a matter of considerable work and she was hungry. The sun rose and changed the gray world of forest. For the first time in her life Ellen hated the golden brightness, the wonderful blue of sky, the scream of the eagle and the screech of the jay; and the squirrels she had always loved to feed were neglected that morning. Colter came in. Either Ellen had never before looked attentively at him or else he had changed. Her scrutiny of his lean, hard features accorded him more Texan attributes than formerly. His gray eyes were as light, as clear, as fierce as those of an eagle. And the sand gray of his face, the long, drooping, fair mustache hid the secrets of his mind, but not its strength. The instant Ellen met his gaze she sensed a power in him that she instinctively opposed. Colter had not been so bold nor so rude as Daggs, but he was the same kind of man, perhaps the more dangerous for his secretiveness, his cool, waiting inscrutableness. "'Mawnin', Ellen!" he drawled. "Y'u shore look good for sore eyes." "Don't pay me compliments, Colter," replied Ellen. "An' your eyes are not sore." "Wal, I'm shore sore from fightin' an' ridin' an' layin' out," he said, bluntly. "Tell me--what's happened," returned Ellen. "Girl, it's a tolerable long story," replied Colter. "An' we've no time now. Wait till we get to camp." "Am I to pack my belongin's or leave them heah?" asked Ellen. "Reckon y'u'd better leave--them heah." "But if we did not come back--" "Wal, I reckon it's not likely we'll come--soon," he said, rather evasively. "Colter, I'll not go off into the woods with just the clothes I have on my back." "Ellen, we shore got to pack all the grab we can. This shore ain't goin' to be a visit to neighbors. We're shy pack hosses. But y'u make up a bundle of belongin's y'u care for, an' the things y'u'll need bad. We'll throw it on somewhere." Colter stalked away across the lane, and Ellen found herself dubiously staring at his tall figure. Was it the situation that struck her with a foreboding perplexity or was her intuition steeling her against this man? Ellen could not decide. But she had to go with him. Her prejudice was unreasonable at this portentous moment. And she could not yet feel that she was solely responsible to herself. When it came to making a small bundle of her belongings she was in a quandary. She discarded this and put in that, and then reversed the order. Next in preciousness to her mother's things were the long-hidden gifts of Jean Isbel. She could part with neither. While she was selecting and packing this bundle Colter again entered and, without speaking, began to rummage in the corner where her father kept his possessions. This irritated Ellen. "What do y'u want there?" she demanded. "Wal, I reckon your dad wants his papers--an' the gold he left heah--an' a change of clothes. Now doesn't he?" returned Colter, coolly. "Of course. But I supposed y'u would have me pack them." Colter vouchsafed no reply to this, but deliberately went on rummaging, with little regard for how he scattered things. Ellen turned her back on him. At length, when he left, she went to her father's corner and found that, as far as she was able to see, Colter had taken neither papers nor clothes, but only the gold. Perhaps, however, she had been mistaken, for she had not observed Colter's departure closely enough to know whether or not he carried a package. She missed only the gold. Her father's papers, old and musty, were scattered about, and these she gathered up to slip in her own bundle. Colter, or one of the men, had saddled Spades, and he was now tied to the corral fence, champing his bit and pounding the sand. Ellen wrapped bread and meat inside her coat, and after tying this behind her saddle she was ready to go. But evidently she would have to wait, and, preferring to remain outdoors, she stayed by her horse. Presently, while watching the men pack, she noticed that Springer wore a bandage round his head under the brim of his sombrero. His motions were slow and lacked energy. Shuddering at the sight, Ellen refused to conjecture. All too soon she would learn what had happened, and all too soon, perhaps, she herself would be in the midst of another fight. She watched the men. They were making a hurried slipshod job of packing food supplies from both cabins. More than once she caught Colter's gray gleam of gaze on her, and she did not like it. "I'll ride up an' say good-by to Sprague," she called to Colter. "Shore y'u won't do nothin' of the kind," he called back. There was authority in his tone that angered Ellen, and something else which inhibited her anger. What was there about Colter with which she must reckon? The other two Texans laughed aloud, to be suddenly silenced by Colter's harsh and lowered curses. Ellen walked out of hearing and sat upon a log, where she remained until Colter hailed her. "Get up an' ride," he called. Ellen complied with this order and, riding up behind the three mounted men, she soon found herself leaving what for years had been her home. Not once did she look back. She hoped she would never see the squalid, bare pretension of a ranch again. Colter and the other riders drove the pack horses across the meadow, off of the trails, and up the slope into the forest. Not very long did it take Ellen to see that Colter's object was to hide their tracks. He zigzagged through the forest, avoiding the bare spots of dust, the dry, sun-baked flats of clay where water lay in spring, and he chose the grassy, open glades, the long, pine-needle matted aisles. Ellen rode at their heels and it pleased her to watch for their tracks. Colter manifestly had been long practiced in this game of hiding his trail, and he showed the skill of a rustler. But Ellen was not convinced that he could ever elude a real woodsman. Not improbably, however, Colter was only aiming to leave a trail difficult to follow and which would allow him and his confederates ample time to forge ahead of pursuers. Ellen could not accept a certainty of pursuit. Yet Colter must have expected it, and Springer and Wells also, for they had a dark, sinister, furtive demeanor that strangely contrasted with the cool, easy manner habitual to them. They were not seeking the level routes of the forest land, that was sure. They rode straight across the thick-timbered ridge down into another canyon, up out of that, and across rough, rocky bluffs, and down again. These riders headed a little to the northwest and every mile brought them into wilder, more rugged country, until Ellen, losing count of canyons and ridges, had no idea where she was. No stop was made at noon to rest the laboring, sweating pack animals. Under circumstances where pleasure might have been possible Ellen would have reveled in this hard ride into a wonderful forest ever thickening and darkening. But the wild beauty of glade and the spruce slopes and the deep, bronze-walled canyons left her cold. She saw and felt, but had no thrill, except now and then a thrill of alarm when Spades slid to his haunches down some steep, damp, piny declivity. All the woodland, up and down, appeared to be richer greener as they traveled farther west. Grass grew thick and heavy. Water ran in all ravines. The rocks were bronze and copper and russet, and some had green patches of lichen. Ellen felt the sun now on her left cheek and knew that the day was waning and that Colter was swinging farther to the northwest. She had never before ridden through such heavy forest and down and up such wild canyons. Toward sunset the deepest and ruggedest canyon halted their advance. Colter rode to the right, searching for a place to get down through a spruce thicket that stood on end. Presently he dismounted and the others followed suit. Ellen found she could not lead Spades because he slid down upon her heels, so she looped the end of her reins over the pommel and left him free. She herself managed to descend by holding to branches and sliding all the way down that slope. She heard the horses cracking the brush, snorting and heaving. One pack slipped and had to be removed from the horse, and rolled down. At the bottom of this deep, green-walled notch roared a stream of water. Shadowed, cool, mossy, damp, this narrow gulch seemed the wildest place Ellen had ever seen. She could just see the sunset-flushed, gold-tipped spruces far above her. The men repacked the horse that had slipped his burden, and once more resumed their progress ahead, now turning up this canyon. There was no horse trail, but deer and bear trails were numerous. The sun sank and the sky darkened, but still the men rode on; and the farther they traveled the wilder grew the aspect of the canyon. At length Colter broke a way through a heavy thicket of willows and entered a side canyon, the mouth of which Ellen had not even descried. It turned and widened, and at length opened out into a round pocket, apparently inclosed, and as lonely and isolated a place as even pursued rustlers could desire. Hidden by jutting wall and thicket of spruce were two old log cabins joined together by roof and attic floor, the same as the double cabin at the Jorth ranch. Ellen smelled wood smoke, and presently, on going round the cabins, saw a bright fire. One man stood beside it gazing at Colter's party, which evidently he had heard approaching. "Hullo, Queen!" said Colter. "How's Tad?" "He's holdin' on fine," replied Queen, bending over the fire, where he turned pieces of meat. "Where's father?" suddenly asked Ellen, addressing Colter. As if he had not heard her, he went on wearily loosening a pack. Queen looked at her. The light of the fire only partially shone on his face. Ellen could not see its expression. But from the fact that Queen did not answer her question she got further intimation of an impending catastrophe. The long, wild ride had helped prepare her for the secrecy and taciturnity of men who had resorted to flight. Perhaps her father had been delayed or was still off on the deadly mission that had obsessed him; or there might, and probably was, darker reason for his absence. Ellen shut her teeth and turned to the needs of her horse. And presently, returning to the fire, she thought of her uncle. "Queen, is my uncle Tad heah?" she asked. "Shore. He's in there," replied Queen, pointing at the nearer cabin. Ellen hurried toward the dark doorway. She could see how the logs of the cabin had moved awry and what a big, dilapidated hovel it was. As she looked in, Colter loomed over her--placed a familiar and somehow masterful hand upon her. Ellen let it rest on her shoulder a moment. Must she forever be repulsing these rude men among whom her lot was cast? Did Colter mean what Daggs had always meant? Ellen felt herself weary, weak in body, and her spent spirit had not rallied. Yet, whatever Colter meant by his familiarity, she could not bear it. So she slipped out from under his hand. "Uncle Tad, are y'u heah?" she called into the blackness. She heard the mice scamper and rustle and she smelled the musty, old, woody odor of a long-unused cabin. "Hello, Ellen!" came a voice she recognized as her uncle's, yet it was strange. "Yes. I'm heah--bad luck to me! ... How 're y'u buckin' up, girl?" "I'm all right, Uncle Tad--only tired an' worried. I--" "Tad, how's your hurt?" interrupted Colter. "Reckon I'm easier," replied Jorth, wearily, "but shore I'm in bad shape. I'm still spittin' blood. I keep tellin' Queen that bullet lodged in my lungs—but he says it went through." "Wal, hang on, Tad!" replied Colter, with a cheerfulness Ellen sensed was really indifferent. "Oh, what the hell's the use!" exclaimed Jorth. "It's all--up with us--Colter!" "Wal, shut up, then," tersely returned Colter. "It ain't doin' y'u or us any good to holler." Tad Jorth did not reply to this. Ellen heard his breathing and it did not seem natural. It rasped a little--came hurriedly--then caught in his throat. Then he spat. Ellen shrunk back against the door. He was breathing through blood. "Uncle, are y'u in pain?" she asked. "Yes, Ellen--it burns like hell," he said. "Oh! I'm sorry.... Isn't there something I can do?" "I reckon not. Queen did all anybody could do for me--now--unless it's pray." Colter laughed at this--the slow, easy, drawling laugh of a Texan. But Ellen felt pity for this wounded uncle. She had always hated him. He had been a drunkard, a gambler, a waster of her father's property; and now he was a rustler and a fugitive, lying in pain, perhaps mortally hurt. "Yes, uncle--I will pray for y'u," she said, softly. The change in his voice held a note of sadness that she had been quick to catch. "Ellen, y'u're the only good Jorth--in the whole damned lot," he said. "God! I see it all now.... We've dragged y'u to hell!" "Yes, Uncle Tad, I've shore been dragged some--but not yet--to hell," she responded, with a break in her voice. "Y'u will be--Ellen--unless--" "Aw, shut up that kind of gab, will y'u?" broke in Colter, harshly. It amazed Ellen that Colter should dominate her uncle, even though he was wounded. Tad Jorth had been the last man to take orders from anyone, much less a rustler of the Hash Knife Gang. This Colter began to loom up in Ellen's estimate as he loomed physically over her, a lofty figure, dark motionless, somehow menacing. "Ellen, has Colter told y'u yet--aboot--aboot Lee an' Jackson?" inquired the wounded man. The pitch-black darkness of the cabin seemed to help fortify Ellen to bear further trouble. "Colter told me dad an' Uncle Jackson would meet us heah," she rejoined, hurriedly. Jorth could be heard breathing in difficulty, and he coughed and spat again, and seemed to hiss. "Ellen, he lied to y'u. They'll never meet us--heah!" "Why not?" whispered Ellen. "Because--Ellen--" he replied, in husky pants, "your dad an'--uncle Jackson--are daid--an' buried!" If Ellen suffered a terrible shock it was a blankness, a deadness, and a slow, creeping failure of sense in her knees. They gave way under her and she sank on the grass against the cabin wall. She did not faint nor grow dizzy nor lose her sight, but for a while there was no process of thought in her mind. Suddenly then it was there--the quick, spiritual rending of her heart--followed by a profound emotion of intimate and irretrievable loss--and after that grief and bitter realization. An hour later Ellen found strength to go to the fire and partake of the food and drink her body sorely needed. Colter and the men waited on her solicitously, and in silence, now and then stealing furtive glances at her from under the shadow of their black sombreros. The dark night settled down like a blanket. There were no stars. The wind moaned fitfully among the pines, and all about that lonely, hidden recess was in harmony with Ellen's thoughts. "Girl, y'u're shore game," said Colter, admiringly. "An' I reckon y'u never got it from the Jorths." "Tad in there--he's game," said Queen, in mild protest. "Not to my notion," replied Colter. "Any man can be game when he's croakin', with somebody around.... But Lee Jorth an' Jackson--they always was yellow clear to their gizzards. They was born in Louisiana--not Texas.... Shore they're no more Texans than I am. Ellen heah, she must have got another strain in her blood." To Ellen their words had no meaning. She rose and asked, "Where can I sleep?" "I'll fetch a light presently an' y'u can make your bed in there by Tad," replied Colter. "Yes, I'd like that." "Wal, if y'u reckon y'u can coax him to talk you're shore wrong," declared Colter, with that cold timbre of voice that struck like steel on Ellen's nerves. "I cussed him good an' told him he'd keep his mouth shut. Talkin' makes him cough an' that fetches up the blood.... Besides, I reckon I'm the one to tell y'u how your dad an' uncle got killed. Tad didn't see it done, an' he was bad hurt when it happened. Shore all the fellars left have their idee aboot it. But I've got it straight." "Colter--tell me now," cried Ellen. "Wal, all right. Come over heah," he replied, and drew her away from the camp fire, out in the shadow of gloom. "Poor kid! I shore feel bad aboot it." He put a long arm around her waist and drew her against him. Ellen felt it, yet did not offer any resistance. All her faculties seemed absorbed in a morbid and sad anticipation. "Ellen, y'u shore know I always loved y'u--now don't y 'u?" he asked, with suppressed breath. "No, Colter. It's news to me--an' not what I want to heah." "Wal, y'u may as well heah it right now," he said. "It's true. An' what's more--your dad gave y'u to me before he died." "What! Colter, y'u must be a liar." "Ellen, I swear I'm not lyin'," he returned, in eager passion. "I was with your dad last an' heard him last. He shore knew I'd loved y'u for years. An' he said he'd rather y'u be left in my care than anybody's." "My father gave me to y'u in marriage!" ejaculated Ellen, in bewilderment. Colter's ready assurance did not carry him over this point. It was evident that her words somewhat surprised and disconcerted him for the moment. "To let me marry a rustler--one of the Hash Knife Gang!" exclaimed Ellen, with weary incredulity. "Wal, your dad belonged to Daggs's gang, same as I do," replied Colter, recovering his cool ardor. "No!" cried Ellen. "Yes, he shore did, for years," declared Colter, positively. "Back in Texas. An' it was your dad that got Daggs to come to Arizona." Ellen tried to fling herself away. But her strength and her spirit were ebbing, and Colter increased the pressure of his arm. All at once she sank limp. Could she escape her fate? Nothing seemed left to fight with or for. "All right--don't hold me--so tight," she panted. "Now tell me how dad was killed ... an' who--who--" Colter bent over so he could peer into her face. In the darkness Ellen just caught the gleam of his eyes. She felt the virile force of the man in the strain of his body as he pressed her close. It all seemed unreal--a hideous dream--the gloom, the moan of the wind, the weird solitude, and this rustler with hand and will like cold steel. "We'd come back to Greaves's store," Colter began. "An' as Greaves was daid we all got free with his liquor. Shore some of us got drunk. Bruce was drunk, an' Tad in there--he was drunk. Your dad put away more 'n I ever seen him. But shore he wasn't exactly drunk. He got one of them weak an' shaky spells. He cried an' he wanted some of us to get the Isbels to call off the fightin'.... He shore was ready to call it quits. I reckon the killin' of Daggs--an' then the awful way Greaves was cut up by Jean Isbel--took all the fight out of your dad. He said to me, 'Colter, we'll take Ellen an' leave this heah country--an' begin life all over again--where no one knows us.'" "Oh, did he really say that? ... Did he--really mean it?" murmured Ellen, with a sob. "I'll swear it by the memory of my daid mother," protested Colter. "Wal, when night come the Isbels rode down on us in the dark an' began to shoot. They smashed in the door--tried to burn us out--an' hollered around for a while. Then they left an' we reckoned there'd be no more trouble that night. All the same we kept watch. I was the soberest one an' I bossed the gang. We had some quarrels aboot the drinkin'. Your dad said if we kept it up it 'd be the end of the Jorths. An' he planned to send word to the Isbels next mawnin' that he was ready for a truce. An' I was to go fix it up with Gaston Isbel. Wal, your dad went to bed in Greaves's room, an' a little while later your uncle Jackson went in there, too. Some of the men laid down in the store an' went to sleep. I kept guard till aboot three in the mawnin'. An' I got so sleepy I couldn't hold my eyes open. So I waked up Wells an' Slater an' set them on guard, one at each end of the store. Then I laid down on the counter to take a nap." Colter's low voice, the strain and breathlessness of him, the agitation with which he appeared to be laboring, and especially the simple, matter-of-fact detail of his story, carried absolute conviction to Ellen Jorth. Her vague doubt of him had been created by his attitude toward her. Emotion dominated her intelligence. The images, the scenes called up by Colter's words, were as true as the gloom of the wild gulch and the loneliness of the night solitude--as true as the strange fact that she lay passive in the arm of a rustler. "Wall, after a while I woke up," went on Colter, clearing his throat. "It was gray dawn. All was as still as death.... An' somethin' shore was wrong. Wells an' Slater had got to drinkin' again an' now laid daid drunk or asleep. Anyways, when I kicked them they never moved. Then I heard a moan. It came from the room where your dad an' uncle was. I went in. It was just light enough to see. Your uncle Jackson was layin' on the floor--cut half in two--daid as a door nail.... Your dad lay on the bed. He was alive, breathin' his last.... He says, 'That half-breed Isbel--knifed us--while we slept!' ... The winder shutter was open. I seen where Jean Isbel had come in an' gone out. I seen his moccasin tracks in the dirt outside an' I seen where he'd stepped in Jackson's blood an' tracked it to the winder. Y'u shore can see them bloody tracks yourself, if y'u go back to Greaves's store.... Your dad was goin' fast.... He said, 'Colter--take care of Ellen,' an' I reckon he meant a lot by that. He kept sayin', 'My God! if I'd only seen Gaston Isbel before it was too late!' an' then he raved a little, whisperin' out of his haid.... An' after that he died.... I woke up the men, an' aboot sunup we carried your dad an' uncle out of town an' buried them.... An' them Isbels shot at us while we were buryin' our daid! That's where Tad got his hurt.... Then we hit the trail for Jorth's ranch.... An now, Ellen, that's all my story. Your dad was ready to bury the hatchet with his old enemy. An' that Nez Perce Jean Isbel, like the sneakin' savage he is, murdered your uncle an' your dad.... Cut him horrible--made him suffer tortures of hell--all for Isbel revenge!" When Colter's husky voice ceased Ellen whispered through lips as cold and still as ice, "Let me go ... leave me--heah--alone!" "Why, shore! I reckon I understand," replied Colter. "I hated to tell y'u. But y'u had to heah the truth aboot that half-breed.... I'll carry your pack in the cabin an' unroll your blankets." Releasing her, Colter strode off in the gloom. Like a dead weight, Ellen began to slide until she slipped down full length beside the log. And then she lay in the cool, damp shadow, inert and lifeless so far as outward physical movement was concerned. She saw nothing and felt nothing of the night, the wind, the cold, the falling dew. For the moment or hour she was crushed by despair, and seemed to see herself sinking down and down into a black, bottomless pit, into an abyss where murky tides of blood and furious gusts of passion contended between her body and her soul. Into the stormy blast of hell! In her despair she longed, she ached for death. Born of infidelity, cursed by a taint of evil blood, further cursed by higher instinct for good and happy life, dragged from one lonely and wild and sordid spot to another, never knowing love or peace or joy or home, left to the companionship of violent and vile men, driven by a strange fate to love with unquenchable and insupportable love a' half-breed, a savage, an Isbel, the hereditary enemy of her people, and at last the ruthless murderer of her father--what in the name of God had she left to live for? Revenge! An eye for an eye! A life for a life! But she could not kill Jean Isbel. Woman's love could turn to hate, but not the love of Ellen Jorth. He could drag her by the hair in the dust, beat her, and make her a thing to loathe, and cut her mortally in his savage and implacable thirst for revenge--but with her last gasp she would whisper she loved him and that she had lied to him to kill his faith. It was that--his strange faith in her purity--which had won her love. Of all men, that he should be the one to recognize the truth of her, the womanhood yet unsullied--how strange, how terrible, how overpowering! False, indeed, was she to the Jorths! False as her mother had been to an Isbel! This agony and destruction of her soul was the bitter Dead Sea fruit--the sins of her parents visited upon her. "I'll end it all," she whispered to the night shadows that hovered over her. No coward was she--no fear of pain or mangled flesh or death or the mysterious hereafter could ever stay her. It would be easy, it would be a last thrill, a transport of self-abasement and supreme self-proof of her love for Jean Isbel to kiss the Rim rock where his feet had trod and then fling herself down into the depths. She was the last Jorth. So the wronged Isbels would be avenged. "But he would never know--never know--I lied to him!" she wailed to the night wind. She was lost--lost on earth and to hope of heaven. She had right neither to live nor to die. She was nothing but a little weed along the trail of life, trampled upon, buried in the mud. She was nothing but a single rotten thread in a tangled web of love and hate and revenge. And she had broken. Lower and lower she seemed to sink. Was there no end to this gulf of despair? If Colter had returned he would have found her a rag and a toy--a creature degraded, fit for his vile embrace. To be thrust deeper into the mire--to be punished fittingly for her betrayal of a man's noble love and her own womanhood--to be made an end of, body, mind, and soul. But Colter did not return. The wind mourned, the owls hooted, the leaves rustled, the insects whispered their melancholy night song, the camp-fire flickered and faded. Then the wild forestland seemed to close imponderably over Ellen. All that she wailed in her despair, all that she confessed in her abasement, was true, and hard as life could be--but she belonged to nature. If nature had not failed her, had God failed her? It was there--the lonely land of tree and fern and flower and brook, full of wild birds and beasts, where the mossy rocks could speak and the solitude had ears, where she had always felt herself unutterably a part of creation. Thus a wavering spark of hope quivered through the blackness of her soul and gathered light. The gloom of the sky, the shifting clouds of dull shade, split asunder to show a glimpse of a radiant star, piercingly white, cold, pure, a steadfast eye of the universe, beyond all understanding and illimitable with its meaning of the past and the present and the future. Ellen watched it until the drifting clouds once more hid it from her strained sight. What had that star to do with hell? She might be crushed and destroyed by life, but was there not something beyond? Just to be born, just to suffer, just to die--could that be all? Despair did not loose its hold on Ellen, the strife and pang of her breast did not subside. But with the long hours and the strange closing in of the forest around her and the fleeting glimpse of that wonderful star, with a subtle divination of the meaning of her beating heart and throbbing mind, and, lastly, with a voice thundering at her conscience that a man's faith in a woman must not be greater, nobler, than her faith in God and eternity--with these she checked the dark flight of her soul toward destruction. CHAPTER XII A chill, gray, somber dawn was breaking when Ellen dragged herself into the cabin and crept under her blankets, there to sleep the sleep of exhaustion. When she awoke the hour appeared to be late afternoon. Sun and sky shone through the sunken and decayed roof of the old cabin. Her uncle, Tad Jorth, lay upon a blanket bed upheld by a crude couch of boughs. The light fell upon his face, pale, lined, cast in a still mold of suffering. He was not dead, for she heard his respiration. The floor underneath Ellen's blankets was bare clay. She and Jorth were alone in this cabin. It contained nothing besides their beds and a rank growth of weeds along the decayed lower logs. Half of the cabin had a rude ceiling of rough-hewn boards which formed a kind of loft. This attic extended through to the adjoining cabin, forming the ceiling of the porch-like space between the two structures. There was no partition. A ladder of two aspen saplings, pegged to the logs, and with braces between for steps, led up to the attic. Ellen smelled wood smoke and the odor of frying meat, and she heard the voices of men. She looked out to see that Slater and Somers had joined their party--an addition that might have strengthened it for defense, but did not lend her own situation anything favorable. Somers had always appeared the one best to avoid. Colter espied her and called her to "Come an' feed your pale face." His comrades laughed, not loudly, but guardedly, as if noise was something to avoid. Nevertheless, they awoke Tad Jorth, who began to toss and moan on the bed. Ellen hurried to his side and at once ascertained that he had a high fever and was in a critical condition. Every time he tossed he opened a wound in his right breast, rather high up. For all she could see, nothing had been done for him except the binding of a scarf round his neck and under his arm. This scant bandage had worked loose. Going to the door, she called out: "Fetch me some water." When Colter brought it, Ellen was rummaging in her pack for some clothing or towel that she could use for bandages. "Weren't any of y'u decent enough to look after my uncle?" she queried. "Huh! Wal, what the hell!" rejoined Colter. "We shore did all we could. I reckon y'u think it wasn't a tough job to pack him up the Rim. He was done for then an' I said so." "I'll do all I can for him," said Ellen. "Shore. Go ahaid. When I get plugged or knifed by that half-breed I shore hope y'u'll be round to nurse me." "Y'u seem to be pretty shore of your fate, Colter." "Shore as hell!" he bit out, darkly. "Somers saw Isbel an' his gang trailin' us to the Jorth ranch." "Are y'u goin' to stay heah--an' wait for them?" "Shore I've been quarrelin' with the fellars out there over that very question. I'm for leavin' the country. But Queen, the damn gun fighter, is daid set to kill that cowman, Blue, who swore he was King Fisher, the old Texas outlaw. None but Queen are spoilin' for another fight. All the same they won't leave Tad Jorth heah alone." Then Colter leaned in at the door and whispered: "Ellen, I cain't boss this outfit. So let's y'u an' me shake 'em. I've got your dad's gold. Let's ride off to-night an' shake this country." Colter, muttering under his breath, left the door and returned to his comrades. Ellen had received her first intimation of his cowardice; and his mention of her father's gold started a train of thought that persisted in spite of her efforts to put all her mind to attending her uncle. He grew conscious enough to recognize her working over him, and thanked her with a look that touched Ellen deeply. It changed the direction of her mind. His suffering and imminent death, which she was able to alleviate and retard somewhat, worked upon her pity and compassion so that she forgot her own plight. Half the night she was tending him, cooling his fever, holding him quiet. Well she realized that but for her ministrations he would have died. At length he went to sleep. And Ellen, sitting beside him in the lonely, silent darkness of that late hour, received again the intimation of nature, those vague and nameless stirrings of her innermost being, those whisperings out of the night and the forest and the sky. Something great would not let go of her soul. She pondered. Attention to the wounded man occupied Ellen; and soon she redoubled her activities in this regard, finding in them something of protection against Colter. He had waylaid her as she went to a spring for water, and with a lunge like that of a bear he had tried to embrace her. But Ellen had been too quick. "Wal, are y'u goin' away with me?" he demanded. "No. I'll stick by my uncle," she replied. That motive of hers seemed to obstruct his will. Ellen was keen to see that Colter and his comrades were at a last stand and disintegrating under a severe strain. Nerve and courage of the open and the wild they possessed, but only in a limited degree. Colter seemed obsessed by his passion for her, and though Ellen in her stubborn pride did not yet fear him, she realized she ought to. After that incident she watched closely, never leaving her uncle's bedside except when Colter was absent. One or more of the men kept constant lookout somewhere down the canyon. Day after day passed on the wings of suspense, of watching, of ministering to her uncle, of waiting for some hour that seemed fixed. Colter was like a hound upon her trail. At every turn he was there to importune her to run off with him, to frighten her with the menace of the Isbels, to beg her to give herself to him. It came to pass that the only relief she had was when she ate with the men or barred the cabin door at night. Not much relief, however, was there in the shut and barred door. With one thrust of his powerful arm Colter could have caved it in. He knew this as well as Ellen. Still she did not have the fear she should have had. There was her rifle beside her, and though she did not allow her mind to run darkly on its possible use, still the fact of its being there at hand somehow strengthened her. Colter was a cat playing with a mouse, but not yet sure of his quarry. Ellen came to know hours when she was weak--weak physically, mentally, spiritually, morally--when under the sheer weight of this frightful and growing burden of suspense she was not capable of fighting her misery, her abasement, her low ebb of vitality, and at the same time wholly withstanding Colter's advances. He would come into the cabin and, utterly indifferent to Tad Jorth, he would try to make bold and unrestrained love to Ellen. When he caught her in one of her unresisting moments and was able to hold her in his arms and kiss her he seemed to be beside himself with the wonder of her. At such moments, if he had any softness or gentleness in him, they expressed themselves in his sooner or later letting her go, when apparently she was about to faint. So it must have become fascinatingly fixed in Colter's mind that at times Ellen repulsed him with scorn and at others could not resist him. Ellen had escaped two crises in her relation with this man, and as a morbid doubt, like a poisonous fungus, began to strangle her mind, she instinctively divined that there was an approaching and final crisis. No uplift of her spirit came this time--no intimations--no whisperings. How horrible it all was! To long to be good and noble--to realize that she was neither--to sink lower day by day! Must she decay there like one of these rotting logs? Worst of all, then, was the insinuating and ever-growing hopelessness. What was the use? What did it matter? Who would ever think of Ellen Jorth? "O God!" she whispered in her distraction, "is there nothing left--nothing at all?" A period of several days of less torment to Ellen followed. Her uncle apparently took a turn for the better and Colter let her alone. This last circumstance nonplused Ellen. She was at a loss to understand it unless the Isbel menace now encroached upon Colter so formidably that he had forgotten her for the present. Then one bright August morning, when she had just begun to relax her eternal vigilance and breathe without oppression, Colter encountered her and, darkly silent and fierce, he grasped her and drew her off her feet. Ellen struggled violently, but the total surprise had deprived her of strength. And that paralyzing weakness assailed her as never before. Without apparent effort Colter carried her, striding rapidly away from the cabins into the border of spruce trees at the foot of the canyon wall. "Colter--where--oh, where are Y'u takin' me?" she found voice to cry out. "By God! I don't know," he replied, with strong, vibrant passion. "I was a fool not to carry y'u off long ago. But I waited. I was hopin' y'u'd love me! ... An' now that Isbel gang has corralled us. Somers seen the half-breed up on the rocks. An' Springer seen the rest of them sneakin' around. I run back after my horse an' y'u." "But Uncle Tad! ... We mustn't leave him alone," cried Ellen. "We've got to," replied Colter, grimly. "Tad shore won't worry y'u no more--soon as Jean Isbel gets to him." "Oh, let me stay," implored Ellen. "I will save him." Colter laughed at the utter absurdity of her appeal and claim. Suddenly he set her down upon her feet. "Stand still," he ordered. Ellen saw his big bay horse, saddled, with pack and blanket, tied there in the shade of a spruce. With swift hands Colter untied him and mounted him, scarcely moving his piercing gaze from Ellen. He reached to grasp her. "Up with y'u! ... Put your foot in the stirrup!" His will, like his powerful arm, was irresistible for Ellen at that moment. She found herself swung up behind him. Then the horse plunged away. What with the hard motion and Colter's iron grasp on her Ellen was in a painful position. Her knees and feet came into violent contact with branches and snags. He galloped the horse, tearing through the dense thicket of willows that served to hide the entrance to the side canyon, and when out in the larger and more open canyon he urged him to a run. Presently when Colter put the horse to a slow rise of ground, thereby bringing him to a walk, it was just in time to save Ellen a serious bruising. Again the sunlight appeared to shade over. They were in the pines. Suddenly with backward lunge Colter halted the horse. Ellen heard a yell. She recognized Queen's voice. "Turn back, Colter! Turn back!" With an oath Colter wheeled his mount. "If I didn't run plump into them," he ejaculated, harshly. And scarcely had the goaded horse gotten a start when a shot rang out. Ellen felt a violent shock, as if her momentum had suddenly met with a check, and then she felt herself wrenched from Colter, from the saddle, and propelled into the air. She alighted on soft ground and thick grass, and was unhurt save for the violent wrench and shaking that had rendered her breathless. Before she could rise Colter was pulling at her, lifting her to her feet. She saw the horse lying with bloody head. Tall pines loomed all around. Another rifle cracked. "Run!" hissed Colter, and he bounded off, dragging her by the hand. Another yell pealed out. "Here we are, Colter!". Again it was Queen's shrill voice. Ellen ran with all her might, her heart in her throat, her sight failing to record more than a blur of passing pines and a blank green wall of spruce. Then she lost her balance, was falling, yet could not fall because of that steel grip on her hand, and was dragged, and finally carried, into a dense shade. She was blinded. The trees whirled and faded. Voices and shots sounded far away. Then something black seemed to be wiped across her feeling. It turned to gray, to moving blankness, to dim, hazy objects, spectral and tall, like blanketed trees, and when Ellen fully recovered consciousness she was being carried through the forest. "Wal, little one, that was a close shave for y'u," said Colter's hard voice, growing clearer. "Reckon your keelin' over was natural enough." He held her lightly in both arms, her head resting above his left elbow. Ellen saw his face as a gray blur, then taking sharper outline, until it stood out distinctly, pale and clammy, with eyes cold and wonderful in their intense flare. As she gazed upward Colter turned his head to look back through the woods, and his motion betrayed a keen, wild vigilance. The veins of his lean, brown neck stood out like whipcords. Two comrades were stalking beside him. Ellen heard their stealthy steps, and she felt Colter sheer from one side or the other. They were proceeding cautiously, fearful of the rear, but not wholly trusting to the fore. "Reckon we'd better go slow an' look before we leap," said one whose voice Ellen recognized as Springer's. "Shore. That open slope ain't to my likin', with our Nez Perce friend prowlin' round," drawled Colter, as he set Ellen down on her feet. Another of the rustlers laughed. "Say, can't he twinkle through the forest? I had four shots at him. Harder to hit than a turkey runnin' crossways." This facetious speaker was the evil-visaged, sardonic Somers. He carried two rifles and wore two belts of cartridges. "Ellen, shore y'u ain't so daid white as y'u was," observed Colter, and he chucked her under the chin with familiar hand. "Set down heah. I don't want y'u stoppin' any bullets. An' there's no tellin'." Ellen was glad to comply with his wish. She had begun to recover wits and strength, yet she still felt shaky. She observed that their position then was on the edge of a well-wooded slope from which she could see the grassy canyon floor below. They were on a level bench, projecting out from the main canyon wall that loomed gray and rugged and pine fringed. Somers and Cotter and Springer gave careful attention to all points of the compass, especially in the direction from which they had come. They evidently anticipated being trailed or circled or headed off, but did not manifest much concern. Somers lit a cigarette; Springer wiped his face with a grimy hand and counted the shells in his belt, which appeared to be half empty. Colter stretched his long neck like a vulture and peered down the slope and through the aisles of the forest up toward the canyon rim. "Listen!" he said, tersely, and bent his head a little to one side, ear to the slight breeze. They all listened. Ellen heard the beating of her heart, the rustle of leaves, the tapping of a woodpecker, and faint, remote sounds that she could not name. "Deer, I reckon," spoke up Somers. "Ahuh! Wal, I reckon they ain't trailin' us yet," replied Colter. "We gave them a shade better 'n they sent us." "Short an' sweet!" ejaculated Springer, and he removed his black sombrero to poke a dirty forefinger through a buffet hole in the crown. "Thet's how close I come to cashin'. I was lyin' behind a log, listenin' an' watchin', an' when I stuck my head up a little--zam! Somebody made my bonnet leak." "Where's Queen?" asked Colter. "He was with me fust off," replied Somers. "An' then when the shootin' slacked--after I'd plugged thet big, red-faced, white-haired pal of Isbel's--" "Reckon thet was Blaisdell," interrupted Springer. "Queen--he got tired layin' low," went on Somers. "He wanted action. I heerd him chewin' to himself, an' when I asked him what was eatin' him he up an' growled he was goin' to quit this Injun fightin'. An' he slipped off in the woods." "Wal, that's the gun fighter of it," declared Colter, wagging his head, "Ever since that cowman, Blue, braced us an' said he was King Fisher, why Queen has been sulkier an' sulkier. He cain't help it. He'll do the same trick as Blue tried. An' shore he'll get his everlastin'. But he's the Texas breed all right." "Say, do you reckon Blue really is King Fisher?" queried Somers. "Naw!" ejaculated Colter, with downward sweep of his hand. "Many a would-be gun slinger has borrowed Fisher's name. But Fisher is daid these many years." "Ahuh! Wal, mebbe, but don't you fergit it--thet Blue was no would-be," declared Somers. "He was the genuine article." "I should smile!" affirmed Springer. The subject irritated Colter, and he dismissed it with another forcible gesture and a counter question. "How many left in that Isbel outfit?" "No tellin'. There shore was enough of them," replied Somers. "Anyhow, the woods was full of flyin' bullets.... Springer, did you account for any of them?" "Nope--not thet I noticed," responded Springer, dryly. "I had my chance at the half-breed.... Reckon I was nervous." "Was Slater near you when he yelled out?" "No. He was lyin' beside Somers." "Wasn't thet a queer way fer a man to act?" broke in Somers. "A bullet hit Slater, cut him down the back as he was lyin' flat. Reckon it wasn't bad. But it hurt him so thet he jumped right up an' staggered around. He made a target big as a tree. An' mebbe them Isbels didn't riddle him!" "That was when I got my crack at Bill Isbel," declared Colter, with grim satisfaction. "When they shot my horse out from under me I had Ellen to think of an' couldn't get my rifle. Shore had to run, as yu seen. Wal, as I only had my six-shooter, there was nothin' for me to do but lay low an' listen to the sping of lead. Wells was standin' up behind a tree about thirty yards off. He got plugged, an' fallin' over he began to crawl my way, still holdin' to his rifle. I crawled along the log to meet him. But he dropped aboot half-way. I went on an' took his rifle an' belt. When I peeped out from behind a spruce bush then I seen Bill Isbel. He was shootin' fast, an' all of them was shootin' fast. That war, when they had the open shot at Slater.... Wal, I bored Bill Isbel right through his middle. He dropped his rifle an', all bent double, he fooled around in a circle till he flopped over the Rim. I reckon he's layin' right up there somewhere below that daid spruce. I'd shore like to see him." "I Wal, you'd be as crazy as Queen if you tried thet," declared Somers. "We're not out of the woods yet." "I reckon not," replied Colter. "An' I've lost my horse. Where'd y'u leave yours?" "They're down the canyon, below thet willow brake. An' saddled an' none of them tied. Reckon we'll have to look them up before dark." "Colter, what 're we goin' to do?" demanded Springer. "Wait heah a while--then cross the canyon an' work round up under the bluff, back to the cabin." "An' then what?" queried Somers, doubtfully eying Colter. "We've got to eat--we've got to have blankets," rejoined Colter, testily. "An' I reckon we can hide there an' stand a better show in a fight than runnin' for it in the woods." "Wal, I'm givin' you a hunch thet it looked like you was runnin' fer it," retorted Somers. "Yes, an' packin' the girl," added Springer. "Looks funny to me." Both rustlers eyed Colter with dark and distrustful glances. What he might have replied never transpired, for the reason that his gaze, always shifting around, had suddenly fixed on something. "Is that a wolf?" he asked, pointing to the Rim. Both his comrades moved to get in line with his finger. Ellen could not see from her position. "Shore thet's a big lofer," declared Somers. "Reckon he scented us." "There he goes along the Rim," observed Colter. "He doesn't act leary. Looks like a good sign to me. Mebbe the Isbels have gone the other way." "Looks bad to me," rejoined Springer, gloomily. "An' why?" demanded Colter. "I seen thet animal. Fust time I reckoned it was a lofer. Second time it was right near them Isbels. An' I'm damned now if I don't believe it's thet half-lofer sheep dog of Gass Isbel's." "Wal, what if it is?" "Ha! ... Shore we needn't worry about hidin' out," replied Springer, sententiously. "With thet dog Jean Isbel could trail a grasshopper." "The hell y'u say!" muttered Colter. Manifestly such a possibility put a different light upon the present situation. The men grew silent and watchful, occupied by brooding thoughts and vigilant surveillance of all points. Somers slipped off into the brush, soon to return, with intent look of importance. "I heerd somethin'," he whispered, jerking his thumb backward. "Rollin' gravel--crackin' of twigs. No deer! ... Reckon it'd be a good idee for us to slip round acrost this bench." "Wal, y'u fellars go, an' I'll watch heah," returned Colter. "Not much," said Somers, while Springer leered knowingly. Colter became incensed, but he did not give way to it. Pondering a moment, he finally turned to Ellen. "Y'u wait heah till I come back. An' if I don't come in reasonable time y'u slip across the canyon an' through the willows to the cabins. Wait till aboot dark." With that he possessed himself of one of the extra rifles and belts and silently joined his comrades. Together they noiselessly stole into the brush. Ellen had no other thought than to comply with Colter's wishes. There was her wounded uncle who had been left unattended, and she was anxious to get back to him. Besides, if she had wanted to run off from Colter, where could she go? Alone in the woods, she would get lost and die of starvation. Her lot must be cast with the Jorth faction until the end. That did not seem far away. Her strained attention and suspense made the moments fly. By and by several shots pealed out far across the side canyon on her right, and they were answered by reports sounding closer to her. The fight was on again. But these shots were not repeated. The flies buzzed, the hot sun beat down and sloped to the west, the soft, warm breeze stirred the aspens, the ravens croaked, the red squirrels and blue jays chattered. Suddenly a quick, short, yelp electrified Ellen, brought her upright with sharp, listening rigidity. Surely it was not a wolf and hardly could it be a coyote. Again she heard it. The yelp of a sheep dog! She had heard that' often enough to know. And she rose to change her position so she could command a view of the rocky bluff above. Presently she espied what really appeared to be a big timber wolf. But another yelp satisfied her that it really was a dog. She watched him. Soon it became evident that he wanted to get down over the bluff. He ran to and fro, and then out of sight. In a few moments his yelp sounded from lower down, at the base of the bluff, and it was now the cry of an intelligent dog that was trying to call some one to his aid. Ellen grew convinced that the dog was near where Colter had said Bill Isbel had plunged over the declivity. Would the dog yelp that way if the man was dead? Ellen thought not. No one came, and the continuous yelping of the dog got on Ellen's nerves. It was a call for help. And finally she surrendered to it. Since her natural terror when Colter's horse was shot from under her and she had been dragged away, she had not recovered from fear of the Isbels. But calm consideration now convinced her that she could hardly be in a worse plight in their hands than if she remained in Colter's. So she started out to find the dog. The wooded bench was level for a few hundred yards, and then it began to heave in rugged, rocky bulges up toward the Rim. It did not appear far to where the dog was barking, but the latter part of the distance proved to be a hard climb over jumbled rocks and through thick brush. Panting and hot, she at length reached the base of the bluff, to find that it was not very high. The dog espied her before she saw him, for he was coming toward her when she discovered him. Big, shaggy, grayish white and black, with wild, keen face and eyes he assuredly looked the reputation Springer had accorded him. But sagacious, guarded as was his approach, he appeared friendly. "Hello--doggie!" panted Ellen. "What's--wrong--up heah?" He yelped, his ears lost their stiffness, his body sank a little, and his bushy tail wagged to and fro. What a gray, clear, intelligent look he gave her! Then he trotted back. Ellen followed him around a corner of bluff to see the body of a man lying on his back. Fresh earth and gravel lay about him, attesting to his fall from above. He had on neither coat nor hat, and the position of his body and limbs suggested broken bones. As Ellen hurried to his side she saw that the front of his shirt, low down, was a bloody blotch. But he could lift his head; his eyes were open; he was perfectly conscious. Ellen did not recognize the dusty, skinned face, yet the mold of features, the look of the eyes, seemed strangely familiar. "You're--Jorth's--girl," he said, in faint voice of surprise. "Yes, I'm Ellen Jorth," she replied. "An' are y'u Bill Isbel?" "All thet's left of me. But I'm thankin' God somebody come--even a Jorth." Ellen knelt beside him and examined the wound in his abdomen. A heavy bullet had indeed, as Colter had avowed, torn clear through his middle. Even if he had not sustained other serious injury from the fall over the cliff, that terrible bullet wound meant death very shortly. Ellen shuddered. How inexplicable were men! How cruel, bloody, mindless! "Isbel, I'm sorry--there's no hope," she said, low voiced. "Y'u've not long to live. I cain't help y'u. God knows I'd do so if I could." "All over!" he sighed, with his eyes looking beyond her. "I reckon--I'm glad.... But y'u can--do somethin' for or me. Will y'u?" "Indeed, Yes. Tell me," she replied, lifting his dusty head on her knee. Her hands trembled as she brushed his wet hair back from his clammy brow. "I've somethin'--on my conscience," he whispered. The woman, the sensitive in Ellen, understood and pitied him then. "Yes," she encouraged him. "I stole cattle--my dad's an' Blaisdell's--an' made deals--with Daggs.... All the crookedness--wasn't on--Jorth's side.... I want--my brother Jean--to know." "I'll try--to tell him," whispered Ellen, out of her great amaze. "We were all--a bad lot--except Jean," went on Isbel. "Dad wasn't fair.... God! how he hated Jorth! Jorth, yes, who was--your father.... Wal, they're even now." "How--so?" faltered Ellen. "Your father killed dad.... At the last--dad wanted to--save us. He sent word--he'd meet him--face to face--an' let thet end the feud. They met out in the road.... But some one shot dad down--with a rifle--an' then your father finished him." "An' then, Isbel," added Ellen, with unconscious mocking bitterness, "Your brother murdered my dad!" "What!" whispered Bill Isbel. "Shore y'u've got--it wrong. I reckon Jean--could have killed--your father.... But he didn't. Queer, we all thought." "Ah! ... Who did kill my father?" burst out Ellen, and her voice rang like great hammers at her ears. "It was Blue. He went in the store--alone--faced the whole gang alone. Bluffed them--taunted them--told them he was King Fisher.... Then he killed--your dad--an' Jackson Jorth.... Jean was out--back of the store. We were out--front. There was shootin'. Colmor was hit. Then Blue ran out--bad hurt.... Both of them--died in Meeker's yard." "An' so Jean Isbel has not killed a Jorth!" said Ellen, in strange, deep voice. "No," replied Isbel, earnestly. "I reckon this feud--was hardest on Jean. He never lived heah.... An' my sister Ann said--he got sweet on y'u.... Now did he?" Slow, stinging tears filled Ellen's eyes, and her head sank low and lower. "Yes--he did," she murmured, tremulously. "Ahuh! Wal, thet accounts," replied Isbel, wonderingly. "Too bad! ... It might have been.... A man always sees--different when--he's dyin'.... If I had--my life--to live over again! ... My poor kids--deserted in their babyhood--ruined for life! All for nothin'.... May God forgive--" Then he choked and whispered for water. Ellen laid his head back and, rising, she took his sombrero and started hurriedly down the slope, making dust fly and rocks roll. Her mind was a seething ferment. Leaping, bounding, sliding down the weathered slope, she gained the bench, to run across that, and so on down into the open canyon to the willow-bordered brook. Here she filled the sombrero with water and started back, forced now to walk slowly and carefully. It was then, with the violence and fury of intense muscular activity denied her, that the tremendous import of Bill Isbel's revelation burst upon her very flesh and blood and transfiguring the very world of golden light and azure sky and speaking forestland that encompassed her. Not a drop of the precious water did she spill. Not a misstep did she make. Yet so great was the spell upon her that she was not aware she had climbed the steep slope until the dog yelped his welcome. Then with all the flood of her emotion surging and resurging she knelt to allay the parching thirst of this dying enemy whose words had changed frailty to strength, hate to love, and, the gloomy hell of despair to something unutterable. But she had returned too late. Bill Isbel was dead. CHAPTER XIII Jean Isbel, holding the wolf-dog Shepp in leash, was on the trail of the most dangerous of Jorth's gang, the gunman Queen. Dark drops of blood on the stones and plain tracks of a rider's sharp-heeled boots behind coverts indicated the trail of a wounded, slow-traveling fugitive. Therefore, Jean Isbel held in the dog and proceeded with the wary eye and watchful caution of an Indian. Queen, true to his class, and emulating Blue with the same magnificent effrontery and with the same paralyzing suddenness of surprise, had appeared as if by magic at the last night camp of the Isbel faction. Jean had seen him first, in time to leap like a panther into the shadow. But he carried in his shoulder Queen's first bullet of that terrible encounter. Upon Gordon and Fredericks fell the brunt of Queen's fusillade. And they, shot to pieces, staggering and falling, held passionate grip on life long enough to draw and still Queen's guns and send him reeling off into the darkness of the forest. Unarmed, and hindered by a painful wound, Jean had kept a vigil near camp all that silent and menacing night. Morning disclosed Gordon and Fredericks stark and ghastly beside the burned-out camp-fire, their guns clutched immovably in stiffened hands. Jean buried them as best he could, and when they were under ground with flat stones on their graves he knew himself to be indeed the last of the Isbel clan. And all that was wild and savage in his blood and desperate in his spirit rose to make him more than man and less than human. Then for the third time during these tragic last days the wolf-dog Shepp came to him. Jean washed the wound Queen had given him and bound it tightly. The keen pang and burn of the lead was a constant and all-powerful reminder of the grim work left for him to do. The whole world was no longer large enough for him and whoever was left of the Jorths. The heritage of blood his father had bequeathed him, the unshakable love for a worthless girl who had so dwarfed and obstructed his will and so bitterly defeated and reviled his poor, romantic, boyish faith, the killing of hostile men, so strange in its after effects, the pursuits and fights, and loss of one by one of his confederates--these had finally engendered in Jean Isbel a wild, unslakable thirst, these had been the cause of his retrogression, these had unalterably and ruthlessly fixed in his darkened mind one fierce passion--to live and die the last man of that Jorth-Isbel feud. At sunrise Jean left this camp, taking with him only a small knapsack of meat and bread, and with the eager, wild Shepp in leash he set out on Queen's bloody trail. Black drops of blood on the stones and an irregular trail of footprints proved to Jean that the gunman was hard hit. Here he had fallen, or knelt, or sat down, evidently to bind his wounds. Jean found strips of scarf, red and discarded. And the blood drops failed to show on more rocks. In a deep forest of spruce, under silver-tipped spreading branches, Queen had rested, perhaps slept. Then laboring with dragging steps, not improbably with a lame leg, he had gone on, up out of the dark-green ravine to the open, dry, pine-tipped ridge. Here he had rested, perhaps waited to see if he were pursued. From that point his trail spoke an easy language for Jean's keen eye. The gunman knew he was pursued. He had seen his enemy. Therefore Jean proceeded with a slow caution, never getting within revolver range of ambush, using all his woodcraft to trail this man and yet save himself. Queen traveled slowly, either because he was wounded or else because he tried to ambush his pursuer, and Jean accommodated his pace to that of Queen. From noon of that day they were never far apart, never out of hearing of a rifle shot. The contrast of the beauty and peace and loneliness of the surroundings to the nature of Queen's flight often obtruded its strange truth into the somber turbulence of Jean's mind, into that fixed columnar idea around which fleeting thoughts hovered and gathered like shadows. Early frost had touched the heights with its magic wand. And the forest seemed a temple in which man might worship nature and life rather than steal through the dells and under the arched aisles like a beast of prey. The green-and-gold leaves of aspens quivered in the glades; maples in the ravines fluttered their red-and-purple leaves. The needle-matted carpet under the pines vied with the long lanes of silvery grass, alike enticing to the eye of man and beast. Sunny rays of light, flecked with dust and flying insects, slanted down from the overhanging brown-limbed, green-massed foliage. Roar of wind in the distant forest alternated with soft breeze close at hand. Small dove-gray squirrels ran all over the woodland, very curious about Jean and his dog, rustling the twigs, scratching the bark of trees, chattering and barking, frisky, saucy, and bright-eyed. A plaintive twitter of wild canaries came from the region above the treetops--first voices of birds in their pilgrimage toward the south. Pine cones dropped with soft thuds. The blue jays followed these intruders in the forest, screeching their displeasure. Like rain pattered the dropping seeds from the spruces. A woody, earthy, leafy fragrance, damp with the current of life, mingled with a cool, dry, sweet smell of withered grass and rotting pines. Solitude and lonesomeness, peace and rest, wild life and nature, reigned there. It was a golden-green region, enchanting to the gaze of man. An Indian would have walked there with his spirits. And even as Jean felt all this elevating beauty and inscrutable spirit his keen eye once more fastened upon the blood-red drops Queen had again left on the gray moss and rock. His wound had reopened. Jean felt the thrill of the scenting panther. The sun set, twilight gathered, night fell. Jean crawled under a dense, low-spreading spruce, ate some bread and meat, fed the dog, and lay down to rest and sleep. His thoughts burdened him, heavy and black as the mantle of night. A wolf mourned a hungry cry for a mate. Shepp quivered under Jean's hand. That was the call which had lured him from the ranch. The wolf blood in him yearned for the wild. Jean tied the cowhide leash to his wrist. When this dark business was at an end Shepp could be free to join the lonely mate mourning out there in the forest. Then Jean slept. Dawn broke cold, clear, frosty, with silvered grass sparkling, with a soft, faint rustling of falling aspen leaves. When the sun rose red Jean was again on the trail of Queen. By a frosty-ferned brook, where water tinkled and ran clear as air and cold as ice, Jean quenched his thirst, leaning on a stone that showed drops of blood. Queen, too, had to quench his thirst. What good, what help, Jean wondered, could the cold, sweet, granite water, so dear to woodsmen and wild creatures, do this wounded, hunted rustler? Why did he not wait in the open to fight and face the death he had meted? Where was that splendid and terrible daring of the gunman? Queen's love of life dragged him on and on, hour by hour, through the pine groves and spruce woods, through the oak swales and aspen glades, up and down the rocky gorges, around the windfalls and over the rotting logs. The time came when Queen tried no more ambush. He gave up trying to trap his pursuer by lying in wait. He gave up trying to conceal his tracks. He grew stronger or, in desperation, increased his energy, so that he redoubled his progress through the wilderness. That, at best, would count only a few miles a day. And he began to circle to the northwest, back toward the deep canyon where Blaisdell and Bill Isbel had reached the end of their trails. Queen had evidently left his comrades, had lone-handed it in his last fight, but was now trying to get back to them. Somewhere in these wild, deep forest brakes the rest of the Jorth faction had found a hiding place. Jean let Queen lead him there. Ellen Jorth would be with them. Jean had seen her. It had been his shot that killed Colter's horse. And he had withheld further fire because Colter had dragged the girl behind him, protecting his body with hers. Sooner or later Jean would come upon their camp. She would be there. The thought of her dark beauty, wasted in wantonness upon these rustlers, added a deadly rage to the blood lust and righteous wrath of his vengeance. Let her again flaunt her degradation in his face and, by the God she had forsaken, he would kill her, and so end the race of Jorths! Another night fell, dark and cold, without starlight. The wind moaned in the forest. Shepp was restless. He sniffed the air. There was a step on his trail. Again a mournful, eager, wild, and hungry wolf cry broke the silence. It was deep and low, like that of a baying hound, but infinitely wilder. Shepp strained to get away. During the night, while Jean slept, he managed to chew the cowhide leash apart and run off. Next day no dog was needed to trail Queen. Fog and low-drifting clouds in the forest and a misty rain had put the rustler off his bearings. He was lost, and showed that he realized it. Strange how a matured man, fighter of a hundred battles, steeped in bloodshed, and on his last stand, should grow panic-stricken upon being lost! So Jean Isbel read the signs of the trail. Queen circled and wandered through the foggy, dripping forest until he headed down into a canyon. It was one that notched the Rim and led down and down, mile after mile into the Basin. Not soon had Queen discovered his mistake. When he did do so, night overtook him. The weather cleared before morning. Red and bright the sun burst out of the east to flood that low basin land with light. Jean found that Queen had traveled on and on, hoping, no doubt, to regain what he had lost. But in the darkness he had climbed to the manzanita slopes instead of back up the canyon. And here he had fought the hold of that strange brush of Spanish name until he fell exhausted. Surely Queen would make his stand and wait somewhere in this devilish thicket for Jean to catch up with him. Many and many a place Jean would have chosen had he been in Queen's place. Many a rock and dense thicket Jean circled or approached with extreme care. Manzanita grew in patches that were impenetrable except for a small animal. The brush was a few feet high, seldom so high that Jean could not look over it, and of a beautiful appearance, having glossy, small leaves, a golden berry, and branches of dark-red color. These branches were tough and unbendable. Every bush, almost, had low branches that were dead, hard as steel, sharp as thorns, as clutching as cactus. Progress was possible only by endless detours to find the half-closed aisles between patches, or else by crashing through with main strength or walking right over the tops. Jean preferred this last method, not because it was the easiest, but for the reason that he could see ahead so much farther. So he literally walked across the tips of the manzanita brush. Often he fell through and had to step up again; many a branch broke with him, letting him down; but for the most part he stepped from fork to fork, on branch after branch, with balance of an Indian and the patience of a man whose purpose was sustaining and immutable. On that south slope under the Rim the sun beat down hot. There was no breeze to temper the dry air. And before midday Jean was laboring, wet with sweat, parching with thirst, dusty and hot and tiring. It amazed him, the doggedness and tenacity of life shown by this wounded rustler. The time came when under the burning rays of the sun he was compelled to abandon the walk across the tips of the manzanita bushes and take to the winding, open threads that ran between. It would have been poor sight indeed that could not have followed Queen's labyrinthine and broken passage through the brush. Then the time came when Jean espied Queen, far ahead and above, crawling like a black bug along the bright-green slope. Sight then acted upon Jean as upon a hound in the chase. But he governed his actions if he could not govern his instincts. Slowly but surely he followed the dusty, hot trail, and never a patch of blood failed to send a thrill along his veins. Queen, headed up toward the Rim, finally vanished from sight. Had he fallen? Was he hiding? But the hour disclosed that he was crawling. Jean's keen eye caught the slow moving of the brush and enabled him to keep just so close to the rustler, out of range of the six-shooters he carried. And so all the interminable hours of the hot afternoon that snail-pace flight and pursuit kept on. Halfway up the Rim the growth of manzanita gave place to open, yellow, rocky slope dotted with cedars. Queen took to a slow-ascending ridge and left his bloody tracks all the way to the top, where in the gathering darkness the weary pursuer lost them. Another night passed. Daylight was relentless to the rustler. He could not hide his trail. But somehow in a desperate last rally of strength he reached a point on the heavily timbered ridge that Jean recognized as being near the scene of the fight in the canyon. Queen was nearing the rendezvous of the rustlers. Jean crossed tracks of horses, and then more tracks that he was certain had been made days past by his own party. To the left of this ridge must be the deep canyon that had frustrated his efforts to catch up with the rustlers on the day Blaisdell lost his life, and probably Bill Isbel, too. Something warned Jean that he was nearing the end of the trail, and an unaccountable sense of imminent catastrophe seemed foreshadowed by vague dreads and doubts in his gloomy mind. Jean felt the need of rest, of food, of ease from the strain of the last weeks. But his spirit drove him implacably. Queen's rally of strength ended at the edge of an open, bald ridge that was bare of brush or grass and was surrounded by a line of forest on three sides, and on the fourth by a low bluff which raised its gray head above the pines. Across this dusty open Queen had crawled, leaving unmistakable signs of his condition. Jean took long survey of the circle of trees and of the low, rocky eminence, neither of which he liked. It might be wiser to keep to cover, Jean thought, and work around to where Queen's trail entered the forest again. But he was tired, gloomy, and his eternal vigilance was failing. Nevertheless, he stilled for the thousandth time that bold prompting of his vengeance and, taking to the edge of the forest, he went to considerable pains to circle the open ground. And suddenly sight of a man sitting back against a tree halted Jean. He stared to make sure his eyes did not deceive him. Many times stumps and snags and rocks had taken on strange resemblance to a standing or crouching man. This was only another suggestive blunder of the mind behind his eyes--what he wanted to see he imagined he saw. Jean glided on from tree to tree until he made sure that this sitting image indeed was that of a man. He sat bolt upright, facing back across the open, hands resting on his knees--and closer scrutiny showed Jean that he held a gun in each hand. Queen! At the last his nerve had revived. He could not crawl any farther, he could never escape, so with the courage of fatality he chose the open, to face his foe and die. Jean had a thrill of admiration for the rustler. Then he stalked out from under the pines and strode forward with his rifle ready. A watching man could not have failed to espy Jean. But Queen never made the slightest move. Moreover, his stiff, unnatural position struck Jean so singularly that he halted with a muttered exclamation. He was now about fifty paces from Queen, within range of those small guns. Jean called, sharply, "QUEEN!" Still the figure never relaxed in the slightest. Jean advanced a few more paces, rifle up, ready to fire the instant Queen lifted a gun. The man's immobility brought the cold sweat to Jean's brow. He stopped to bend the full intense power of his gaze upon this inert figure. Suddenly over Jean flashed its meaning. Queen was dead. He had backed up against the pine, ready to face his foe, and he had died there. Not a shadow of a doubt entered Jean's mind as he started forward again. He knew. After all, Queen's blood would not be on his hands. Gordon and Fredericks in their death throes had given the rustler mortal wounds. Jean kept on, marveling the while. How ghastly thin and hard! Those four days of flight had been hell for Queen. Jean reached him--looked down with staring eyes. The guns were tied to his hands. Jean started violently as the whole direction of his mind shifted. A lightning glance showed that Queen had been propped against the tree--another showed boot tracks in the dust. "By Heaven, they've fooled me!" hissed Jean, and quickly as he leaped behind the pine he was not quick enough to escape the cunning rustlers who had waylaid him thus. He felt the shock, the bite and burn of lead before he heard a rifle crack. A bullet had ripped through his left forearm. From behind the tree he saw a puff of white smoke along the face of the bluff--the very spot his keen and gloomy vigilance had descried as one of menace. Then several puffs of white smoke and ringing reports betrayed the ambush of the tricksters. Bullets barked the pine and whistled by. Jean saw a man dart from behind a rock and, leaning over, run for another. Jean's swift shot stopped him midway. He fell, got up, and floundered behind a bush scarcely large enough to conceal him. Into that bush Jean shot again and again. He had no pain in his wounded arm, but the sense of the shock clung in his consciousness, and this, with the tremendous surprise of the deceit, and sudden release of long-dammed overmastering passion, caused him to empty the magazine of his Winchester in a terrible haste to kill the man he had hit. These were all the loads he had for his rifle. Blood passion had made him blunder. Jean cursed himself, and his hand moved to his belt. His six-shooter was gone. The sheath had been loose. He had tied the gun fast. But the strings had been torn apart. The rustlers were shooting again. Bullets thudded into the pine and whistled by. Bending carefully, Jean reached one of Queen's guns and jerked it from his hand. The weapon was empty. Both of his guns were empty. Jean peeped out again to get the line in which the bullets were coming and, marking a course from his position to the cover of the forest, he ran with all his might. He gained the shelter. Shrill yells behind warned him that he had been seen, that his reason for flight had been guessed. Looking back, he saw two or three men scrambling down the bluff. Then the loud neigh of a frightened horse pealed out. Jean discarded his useless rifle, and headed down the ridge slope, keeping to the thickest line of pines and sheering around the clumps of spruce. As he ran, his mind whirled with grim thoughts of escape, of his necessity to find the camp where Gordon and Fredericks were buried, there to procure another rifle and ammunition. He felt the wet blood dripping down his arm, yet no pain. The forest was too open for good cover. He dared not run uphill. His only course was ahead, and that soon ended in an abrupt declivity too precipitous to descend. As he halted, panting for breath, he heard the ring of hoofs on stone, then the thudding beat of running horses on soft ground. The rustlers had sighted the direction he had taken. Jean did not waste time to look. Indeed, there was no need, for as he bounded along the cliff to the right a rifle cracked and a bullet whizzed over his head. It lent wings to his feet. Like a deer he sped along, leaping cracks and logs and rocks, his ears filled by the rush of wind, until his quick eye caught sight of thick-growing spruce foliage close to the precipice. He sprang down into the green mass. His weight precipitated him through the upper branches. But lower down his spread arms broke his fall, then retarded it until he caught. A long, swaying limb let him down and down, where he grasped another and a stiffer one that held his weight. Hand over hand he worked toward the trunk of this spruce and, gaining it, he found other branches close together down which he hastened, hold by hold and step by step, until all above him was black, dense foliage, and beneath him the brown, shady slope. Sure of being unseen from above, he glided noiselessly down under the trees, slowly regaining freedom from that constriction of his breast. Passing on to a gray-lichened cliff, overhanging and gloomy, he paused there to rest and to listen. A faint crack of hoof on stone came to him from above, apparently farther on to the right. Eventually his pursuers would discover that he had taken to the canyon. But for the moment he felt safe. The wound in his forearm drew his attention. The bullet had gone clear through without breaking either bone. His shirt sleeve was soaked with blood. Jean rolled it back and tightly wrapped his scarf around the wound, yet still the dark-red blood oozed out and dripped down into his hand. He became aware of a dull, throbbing pain. Not much time did Jean waste in arriving at what was best to do. For the time being he had escaped, and whatever had been his peril, it was past. In dense, rugged country like this he could not be caught by rustlers. But he had only a knife left for a weapon, and there was very little meat in the pocket of his coat. Salt and matches he possessed. Therefore the imperative need was for him to find the last camp, where he could get rifle and ammunition, bake bread, and rest up before taking again the trail of the rustlers. He had reason to believe that this canyon was the one where the fight on the Rim, and later, on a bench of woodland below, had taken place. Thereupon he arose and glided down under the spruces toward the level, grassy open he could see between the trees. And as he proceeded, with the slow step and wary eye of an Indian, his mind was busy. Queen had in his flight unerringly worked in the direction of this canyon until he became lost in the fog; and upon regaining his bearings he had made a wonderful and heroic effort to surmount the manzanita slope and the Rim and find the rendezvous of his comrades. But he had failed up there on the ridge. In thinking it over Jean arrived at a conclusion that Queen, finding he could go no farther, had waited, guns in hands, for his pursuer. And he had died in this position. Then by strange coincidence his comrades had happened to come across him and, recognizing the situation, they had taken the shells from his guns and propped him up with the idea of luring Jean on. They had arranged a cunning trick and ambush, which had all but snuffed out the last of the Isbels. Colter probably had been at the bottom of this crafty plan. Since the fight at the Isbel ranch, now seemingly far back in the past, this man Colter had loomed up more and more as a stronger and more dangerous antagonist then either Jorth or Daggs. Before that he had been little known to any of the Isbel faction. And it was Colter now who controlled the remnant of the gang and who had Ellen Jorth in his possession. The canyon wall above Jean, on the right, grew more rugged and loftier, and the one on the left began to show wooded slopes and brakes, and at last a wide expanse with a winding, willow border on the west and a long, low, pine-dotted bench on the east. It took several moments of study for Jean to recognize the rugged bluff above this bench. On up that canyon several miles was the site where Queen had surprised Jean and his comrades at their campfire. Somewhere in this vicinity was the hiding place of the rustlers. Thereupon Jean proceeded with the utmost stealth, absolutely certain that he would miss no sound, movement, sign, or anything unnatural to the wild peace of the canyon. And his first sense to register something was his keen smell. Sheep! He was amazed to smell sheep. There must be a flock not far away. Then from where he glided along under the trees he saw down to open places in the willow brake and noticed sheep tracks in the dark, muddy bank of the brook. Next he heard faint tinkle of bells, and at length, when he could see farther into the open enlargement of the canyon, his surprised gaze fell upon an immense gray, woolly patch that blotted out acres and acres of grass. Thousands of sheep were grazing there. Jean knew there were several flocks of Jorth's sheep on the mountain in the care of herders, but he had never thought of them being so far west, more than twenty miles from Chevelon Canyon. His roving eyes could not descry any herders or dogs. But he knew there must be dogs close to that immense flock. And, whatever his cunning, he could not hope to elude the scent and sight of shepherd dogs. It would be best to go back the way he had come, wait for darkness, then cross the canyon and climb out, and work around to his objective point. Turning at once, he started to glide back. But almost immediately he was brought stock-still and thrilling by the sound of hoofs. Horses were coming in the direction he wished to take. They were close. His swift conclusion was that the men who had pursued him up on the Rim had worked down into the canyon. One circling glance showed him that he had no sure covert near at hand. It would not do to risk their passing him there. The border of woodland was narrow and not dense enough for close inspection. He was forced to turn back up the canyon, in the hope of soon finding a hiding place or a break in the wall where he could climb up. Hugging the base of the wall, he slipped on, passing the point where he had espied the sheep, and gliding on until he was stopped by a bend in the dense line of willows. It sheered to the west there and ran close to the high wall. Jean kept on until he was stooping under a curling border of willow thicket, with branches slim and yellow and masses of green foliage that brushed against the wall. Suddenly he encountered an abrupt corner of rock. He rounded it, to discover that it ran at right angles with the one he had just passed. Peering up through the willows, he ascertained that there was a narrow crack in the main wall of the canyon. It had been concealed by willows low down and leaning spruces above. A wild, hidden retreat! Along the base of the wall there were tracks of small animals. The place was odorous, like all dense thickets, but it was not dry. Water ran through there somewhere. Jean drew easier breath. All sounds except the rustling of birds or mice in the willows had ceased. The brake was pervaded by a dreamy emptiness. Jean decided to steal on a little farther, then wait till he felt he might safely dare go back. The golden-green gloom suddenly brightened. Light showed ahead, and parting the willows, he looked out into a narrow, winding canyon, with an open, grassy, willow-streaked lane in the center and on each side a thin strip of woodland. His surprise was short lived. A crashing of horses back of him in the willows gave him a shock. He ran out along the base of the wall, back of the trees. Like the strip of woodland in the main canyon, this one was scant and had but little underbrush. There were young spruces growing with thick branches clear to the grass, and under these he could have concealed himself. But, with a certainty of sheep dogs in the vicinity, he would not think of hiding except as a last resource. These horsemen, whoever they were, were as likely to be sheep herders as not. Jean slackened his pace to look back. He could not see any moving objects, but he still heard horses, though not so close now. Ahead of him this narrow gorge opened out like the neck of a bottle. He would run on to the head of it and find a place to climb to the top. Hurried and anxious as Jean was, he yet received an impression of singular, wild nature of this side gorge. It was a hidden, pine-fringed crack in the rock-ribbed and canyon-cut tableland. Above him the sky seemed a winding stream of blue. The walls were red and bulged out in spruce-greened shelves. From wall to wall was scarcely a distance of a hundred feet. Jumbles of rock obstructed his close holding to the wall. He had to walk at the edge of the timber. As he progressed, the gorge widened into wilder, ruggeder aspect. Through the trees ahead he saw where the wall circled to meet the cliff on the left, forming an oval depression, the nature of which he could not ascertain. But it appeared to be a small opening surrounded by dense thickets and the overhanging walls. Anxiety augmented to alarm. He might not be able to find a place to scale those rough cliffs. Breathing hard, Jean halted again. The situation was growing critical again. His physical condition was worse. Loss of sleep and rest, lack of food, the long pursuit of Queen, the wound in his arm, and the desperate run for his life--these had weakened him to the extent that if he undertook any strenuous effort he would fail. His cunning weighed all chances. The shade of wall and foliage above, and another jumble of ruined cliff, hindered his survey of the ground ahead, and he almost stumbled upon a cabin, hidden on three sides, with a small, bare clearing in front. It was an old, ramshackle structure like others he had run across in the canons. Cautiously he approached and peeped around the corner. At first swift glance it had all the appearance of long disuse. But Jean had no time for another look. A clip-clop of trotting horses on hard ground brought the same pell-mell rush of sensations that had driven him to wild flight scarcely an hour past. His body jerked with its instinctive impulse, then quivered with his restraint. To turn back would be risky, to run ahead would be fatal, to hide was his one hope. No covert behind! And the clip-clop of hoofs sounded closer. One moment longer Jean held mastery over his instincts of self-preservation. To keep from running was almost impossible. It was the sheer primitive animal sense to escape. He drove it back and glided along the front of the cabin. Here he saw that the cabin adjoined another. Reaching the door, he was about to peep in when the thud of hoofs and voices close at hand transfixed him with a grim certainty that he had not an instant to lose. Through the thin, black-streaked line of trees he saw moving red objects. Horses! He must run. Passing the door, his keen nose caught a musty, woody odor and the tail of his eye saw bare dirt floor. This cabin was unused. He halted--gave a quick look back. And the first thing his eye fell upon was a ladder, right inside the door, against the wall. He looked up. It led to a loft that, dark and gloomy, stretched halfway across the cabin. An irresistible impulse drove Jean. Slipping inside, he climbed up the ladder to the loft. It was like night up there. But he crawled on the rough-hewn rafters and, turning with his head toward the opening, he stretched out and lay still. What seemed an interminable moment ended with a trample of hoofs outside the cabin. It ceased. Jean's vibrating ears caught the jingle of spurs and a thud of boots striking the ground. "Wal, sweetheart, heah we are home again," drawled a slow, cool, mocking Texas voice. "Home! I wonder, Colter--did y'u ever have a home--a mother--a sister--much less a sweetheart?" was the reply, bitter and caustic. Jean's palpitating, hot body suddenly stretched still and cold with intensity of shock. His very bones seemed to quiver and stiffen into ice. During the instant of realization his heart stopped. And a slow, contracting pressure enveloped his breast and moved up to constrict his throat. That woman's voice belonged to Ellen Jorth. The sound of it had lingered in his dreams. He had stumbled upon the rendezvous of the Jorth faction. Hard indeed had been the fates meted out to those of the Isbels and Jorths who had passed to their deaths. But, no ordeal, not even Queen's, could compare with this desperate one Jean must endure. He had loved Ellen Jorth, strangely, wonderfully, and he had scorned repute to believe her good. He had spared her father and her uncle. He had weakened or lost the cause of the Isbels. He loved her now, desperately, deathlessly, knowing from her own lips that she was worthless--loved her the more because he had felt her terrible shame. And to him--the last of the Isbels--had come the cruelest of dooms--to be caught like a crippled rat in a trap; to be compelled to lie helpless, wounded, without a gun; to listen, and perhaps to see Ellen Jorth enact the very truth of her mocking insinuation. His will, his promise, his creed, his blood must hold him to the stem decree that he should be the last man of the Jorth-Isbel war. But could he lie there to hear--to see--when he had a knife and an arm? CHAPTER XIV Then followed the leathery flop of saddles to the soft turf and the stamp, of loosened horses. Jean heard a noise at the cabin door, a rustle, and then a knock of something hard against wood. Silently he moved his head to look down through a crack between the rafters. He saw the glint of a rifle leaning against the sill. Then the doorstep was darkened. Ellen Jorth sat down with a long, tired sigh. She took off her sombrero and the light shone on the rippling, dark-brown hair, hanging in a tangled braid. The curved nape of her neck showed a warm tint of golden tan. She wore a gray blouse, soiled and torn, that clung to her lissome shoulders. "Colter, what are y'u goin' to do?" she asked, suddenly. Her voice carried something Jean did not remember. It thrilled into the icy fixity of his senses. "We'll stay heah," was the response, and it was followed by a clinking step of spurred boot. "Shore I won't stay heah," declared Ellen. "It makes me sick when I think of how Uncle Tad died in there alone--helpless--sufferin'. The place seems haunted." "Wal, I'll agree that it's tough on y'u. But what the hell CAN we do?" A long silence ensued which Ellen did not break. "Somethin' has come off round heah since early mawnin'," declared Colter. "Somers an' Springer haven't got back. An' Antonio's gone.... Now, honest, Ellen, didn't y'u heah rifle shots off somewhere?" "I reckon I did," she responded, gloomily. "An' which way?" "Sounded to me up on the bluff, back pretty far." "Wal, shore that's my idee. An' it makes me think hard. Y'u know Somers come across the last camp of the Isbels. An' he dug into a grave to find the bodies of Jim Gordon an' another man he didn't know. Queen kept good his brag. He braced that Isbel gang an' killed those fellars. But either him or Jean Isbel went off leavin' bloody tracks. If it was Queen's y'u can bet Isbel was after him. An' if it was Isbel's tracks, why shore Queen would stick to them. Somers an' Springer couldn't follow the trail. They're shore not much good at trackin'. But for days they've been ridin' the woods, hopin' to run across Queen.... Wal now, mebbe they run across Isbel instead. An' if they did an' got away from him they'll be heah sooner or later. If Isbel was too many for them he'd hunt for my trail. I'm gamblin' that either Queen or Jean Isbel is daid. I'm hopin' it's Isbel. Because if he ain't daid he's the last of the Isbels, an' mebbe I'm the last of Jorth's gang.... Shore I'm not hankerin' to meet the half-breed. That's why I say we'll stay heah. This is as good a hidin' place as there is in the country. We've grub. There's water an' grass." "Me--stay heah with y'u--alone!" The tone seemed a contradiction to the apparently accepted sense of her words. Jean held his breath. But he could not still the slowly mounting and accelerating faculties within that were involuntarily rising to meet some strange, nameless import. He felt it. He imagined it would be the catastrophe of Ellen Jorth's calm acceptance of Colter's proposition. But down in Jean's miserable heart lived something that would not die. No mere words could kill it. How poignant that moment of her silence! How terribly he realized that if his intelligence and his emotion had believed her betraying words, his soul had not! But Ellen Jorth did not speak. Her brown head hung thoughtfully. Her supple shoulders sagged a little. "Ellen, what's happened to y'u?" went on Colter. "All the misery possible to a woman," she replied, dejectedly. "Shore I don't mean that way," he continued, persuasively. "I ain't gainsayin' the hard facts of your life. It's been bad. Your dad was no good.... But I mean I can't figger the change in y'u." "No, I reckon y'u cain't," she said. "Whoever was responsible for your make-up left out a mind--not to say feeling." Colter drawled a low laugh. "Wal, have that your own way. But how much longer are yu goin' to be like this heah?" "Like what?" she rejoined, sharply. "Wal, this stand-offishness of yours?" "Colter, I told y'u to let me alone," she said, sullenly. "Shore. An' y'u did that before. But this time y'u're different.... An' wal, I'm gettin' tired of it." Here the cool, slow voice of the Texan sounded an inflexibility before absent, a timber that hinted of illimitable power. Ellen Jorth shrugged her lithe shoulders and, slowly rising, she picked up the little rifle and turned to step into the cabin. "Colter," she said, "fetch my pack an' my blankets in heah." "Shore," he returned, with good nature. Jean saw Ellen Jorth lay the rifle lengthwise in a chink between two logs and then slowly turn, back to the wall. Jean knew her then, yet did not know her. The brown flash of her face seemed that of an older, graver woman. His strained gaze, like his waiting mind, had expected something, he knew not what--a hardened face, a ghost of beauty, a recklessness, a distorted, bitter, lost expression in keeping with her fortunes. But he had reckoned falsely. She did not look like that. There was incalculable change, but the beauty remained, somehow different. Her red lips were parted. Her brooding eyes, looking out straight from under the level, dark brows, seemed sloe black and wonderful with their steady, passionate light. Jean, in his eager, hungry devouring of the beloved face, did not on the first instant grasp the significance of its expression. He was seeing the features that had haunted him. But quickly he interpreted her expression as the somber, hunted look of a woman who would bear no more. Under the torn blouse her full breast heaved. She held her hands clenched at her sides. She was' listening, waiting for that jangling, slow step. It came, and with the sound she subtly changed. She was a woman hiding her true feelings. She relaxed, and that strong, dark look of fury seemed to fade back into her eyes. Colter appeared at the door, carrying a roll of blankets and a pack. "Throw them heah," she said. "I reckon y'u needn't bother coming in." That angered the man. With one long stride he stepped over the doorsill, down into the cabin, and flung the blankets at her feet and then the pack after it. Whereupon he deliberately sat down in the door, facing her. With one hand he slid off his sombrero, which fell outside, and with the other he reached in his upper vest pocket for the little bag of tobacco that showed there. All the time he looked at her. By the light now unobstructed Jean descried Colter's face; and sight of it then sounded the roll and drum of his passions. "Wal, Ellen, I reckon we'll have it out right now an' heah," he said, and with tobacco in one hand, paper in the other he began the operations of making a cigarette. However, he scarcely removed his glance from her. "Yes?" queried Ellen Jorth. "I'm goin' to have things the way they were before--an' more," he declared. The cigarette paper shook in his fingers. "What do y'u mean?" she demanded. "Y'u know what I mean," he retorted. Voice and action were subtly unhinging this man's control over himself. "Maybe I don't. I reckon y'u'd better talk plain." The rustler had clear gray-yellow eyes, flawless, like, crystal, and suddenly they danced with little fiery flecks. "The last time I laid my hand on y'u I got hit for my pains. An' shore that's been ranklin'." "Colter, y'u'll get hit again if y'u put your hands on me," she said, dark, straight glance on him. A frown wrinkled the level brows. "Y'u mean that?" he asked, thickly. "I shore, do." Manifestly he accepted her assertion. Something of incredulity and bewilderment, that had vied with his resentment, utterly disappeared from his face. "Heah I've been waitin' for y'u to love me," he declared, with a gesture not without dignified emotion. "Your givin' in without that wasn't so much to me." And at these words of the rustler's Jean Isbel felt an icy, sickening shudder creep into his soul. He shut his eyes. The end of his dream had been long in coming, but at last it had arrived. A mocking voice, like a hollow wind, echoed through that region--that lonely and ghost-like hall of his heart which had harbored faith. She burst into speech, louder and sharper, the first words of which Jean's strangely throbbing ears did not distinguish. "-- -- you! ... I never gave in to y'u an' I never will." "But, girl--I kissed y'u--hugged y'u--handled y'u--" he expostulated, and the making of the cigarette ceased. "Yes, y'u did--y'u brute--when I was so downhearted and weak I couldn't lift my hand," she flashed. "Ahuh! Y'u mean I couldn't do that now?" "I should smile I do, Jim Colter!" she replied. "Wal, mebbe--I'll see--presently," he went on, straining with words. "But I'm shore curious.... Daggs, then--he was nothin' to y'u?" "No more than y'u," she said, morbidly. "He used to run after me--long ago, it seems..... I was only a girl then--innocent--an' I'd not known any but rough men. I couldn't all the time--every day, every hour--keep him at arm's length. Sometimes before I knew--I didn't care. I was a child. A kiss meant nothing to me. But after I knew--" Ellen dropped her head in brooding silence. "Say, do y'u expect me to believe that?" he queried, with a derisive leer. "Bah! What do I care what y'u believe?" she cried, with lifting head. "How aboot Simm Brace?" "That coyote! ... He lied aboot me, Jim Colter. And any man half a man would have known he lied." "Wal, Simm always bragged aboot y'u bein' his girl," asserted Colter. "An' he wasn't over--particular aboot details of your love-makin'." Ellen gazed out of the door, over Colter's head, as if the forest out there was a refuge. She evidently sensed more about the man than appeared in his slow talk, in his slouching position. Her lips shut in a firm line, as if to hide their trembling and to still her passionate tongue. Jean, in his absorption, magnified his perceptions. Not yet was Ellen Jorth afraid of this man, but she feared the situation. Jean's heart was at bursting pitch. All within him seemed chaos--a wreck of beliefs and convictions. Nothing was true. He would wake presently out of a nightmare. Yet, as surely as he quivered there, he felt the imminence of a great moment--a lightning flash--a thunderbolt--a balance struck. Colter attended to the forgotten cigarette. He rolled it, lighted it, all the time with lowered, pondering head, and when he had puffed a cloud of smoke he suddenly looked up with face as hard as flint, eyes as fiery as molten steel. "Wal, Ellen--how aboot Jean Isbel--our half-breed Nez Perce friend--who was shore seen handlin' y'u familiar?" he drawled. Ellen Jorth quivered as under a lash, and her brown face turned a dusty scarlet, that slowly receding left her pale. "Damn y'u, Jim Colter!" she burst out, furiously. "I wish Jean Isbel would jump in that door--or down out of that loft! ... He killed Greaves for defiling my name! ... He'd kill Y'U for your dirty insult.... And I'd like to watch him do it.... Y'u cold-blooded Texan! Y'u thieving rustler! Y'u liar! ... Y'u lied aboot my father's death. And I know why. Y'u stole my father's gold.... An' now y'u want me--y'u expect me to fall into your arms.... My Heaven! cain't y'u tell a decent woman? Was your mother decent? Was your sister decent? ... Bah! I'm appealing to deafness. But y'u'll HEAH this, Jim Colter! ... I'm not what yu think I am! I'm not the--the damned hussy y'u liars have made me out.... I'm a Jorth, alas! I've no home, no relatives, no friends! I've been forced to live my life with rustlers--vile men like y'u an' Daggs an' the rest of your like.... But I've been good! Do y'u heah that? ... I AM good--so help me God, y'u an' all your rottenness cain't make me bad!" Colter lounged to his tall height and the laxity of the man vanished. Vanished also was Jean Isbel's suspended icy dread, the cold clogging of his fevered mind--vanished in a white, living, leaping flame. Silently he drew his knife and lay there watching with the eyes of a wildcat. The instant Colter stepped far enough over toward the edge of the loft Jean meant to bound erect and plunge down upon him. But Jean could wait now. Colter had a gun at his hip. He must never have a chance to draw it. "Ahuh! So y'u wish Jean Isbel would hop in heah, do y'u?" queried Colter. "Wal, if I had any pity on y'u, that's done for it." A sweep of his long arm, so swift Ellen had no time to move, brought his hand in clutching contact with her. And the force of it flung her half across the cabin room, leaving the sleeve of her blouse in his grasp. Pantingly she put out that bared arm and her other to ward him off as he took long, slow strides toward her. Jean rose half to his feet, dragged by almost ungovernable passion to risk all on one leap. But the distance was too great. Colter, blind as he was to all outward things, would hear, would see in time to make Jean's effort futile. Shaking like a leaf, Jean sank back, eye again to the crack between the rafters. Ellen did not retreat, nor scream, nor move. Every line of her body was instinct with fight, and the magnificent blaze of her eyes would have checked a less callous brute. Colter's big hand darted between Ellen's arms and fastened in the front of her blouse. He did not try to hold her or draw her close. The unleashed passion of the man required violence. In one savage pull he tore off her blouse, exposing her white, rounded shoulders and heaving bosom, where instantly a wave of red burned upward. Overcome by the tremendous violence and spirit of the rustler, Ellen sank to her knees, with blanched face and dilating eyes, trying with folded arms and trembling hand to hide her nudity. At that moment the rapid beat of hoofs on the hard trail outside halted Colter in his tracks. "Hell!" he exclaimed. "An' who's that?" With a fierce action he flung the remnants of Ellen's blouse in her face and turned to leap out the door. Jean saw Ellen catch the blouse and try to wrap it around her, while she sagged against the wall and stared at the door. The hoof beats pounded to a solid thumping halt just outside. "Jim--thar's hell to pay!" rasped out a panting voice. "Wal, Springer, I reckon I wished y'u'd paid it without spoilin' my deals," retorted Colter, cool and sharp. "Deals? Ha! Y'u'll be forgettin'--your lady love in a minnit," replied Springer. "When I catch--my breath." "Where's Somers?" demanded Colter. "I reckon he's all shot up--if my eyes didn't fool me." "Where is he?" yelled Colter. "Jim--he's layin' up in the bushes round thet bluff. I didn't wait to see how he was hurt. But he shore stopped some lead. An' he flopped like a chicken with its--haid cut off." "Where's Antonio?" "He run like the greaser he is," declared Springer, disgustedly. "Ahuh! An' where's Queen?" queried Colter, after a significant pause. "Dead!" The silence ensuing was fraught with a suspense that held Jean in cold bonds. He saw the girl below rise from her knees, one hand holding the blouse to her breast, the other extended, and with strange, repressed, almost frantic look she swayed toward the door. "Wal, talk," ordered Colter, harshly. "Jim, there ain't a hell of a lot," replied Springer; drawing a deep breath, "but what there is is shore interestin'.... Me an' Somers took Antonio with us. He left his woman with the sheep. An' we rode up the canyon, clumb out on top, an' made a circle back on the ridge. That's the way we've been huntin' fer tracks. Up thar in a bare spot we run plump into Queen sittin' against a tree, right out in the open. Queerest sight y'u ever seen! The damn gunfighter had set down to wait for Isbel, who was trailin' him, as we suspected---an' he died thar. He wasn't cold when we found him.... Somers was quick to see a trick. So he propped Queen up an' tied the guns to his hands--an', Jim, the queerest thing aboot that deal was this--Queen's guns was empty! Not a shell left! It beat us holler.... We left him thar, an' hid up high on the bluff, mebbe a hundred yards off. The hosses we left back of a thicket. An' we waited thar a long time. But, sure enough, the half-breed come. He was too smart. Too much Injun! He would not cross the open, but went around. An' then he seen Queen. It was great to watch him. After a little he shoved his rifle out an' went right fer Queen. This is when I wanted to shoot. I could have plugged him. But Somers says wait an' make it sure. When Isbel got up to Queen he was sort of half hid by the tree. An' I couldn't wait no longer, so I shot. I hit him, too. We all begun to shoot. Somers showed himself, an' that's when Isbel opened up. He used up a whole magazine on Somers an' then, suddenlike, he quit. It didn't take me long to figger mebbe he was out of shells. When I seen him run I was certain of it. Then we made for the hosses an' rode after Isbel. Pretty soon I seen him runnin' like a deer down the ridge. I yelled an' spurred after him. There is where Antonio quit me. But I kept on. An' I got a shot at Isbel. He ran out of sight. I follered him by spots of blood on the stones an' grass until I couldn't trail him no more. He must have gone down over the cliffs. He couldn't have done nothin' else without me seein' him. I found his rifle, an' here it is to prove what I say. I had to go back to climb down off the Rim, an' I rode fast down the canyon. He's somewhere along that west wall, hidin' in the brush, hard hit if I know anythin' aboot the color of blood." "Wal! ... that beats me holler, too," ejaculated Colter. "Jim, what's to be done?" inquired Springer, eagerly. "If we're sharp we can corral that half-breed. He's the last of the Isbels." "More, pard. He's the last of the Isbel outfit," declared Colter. "If y'u can show me blood in his tracks I'll trail him." "Y'u can bet I'll show y'u," rejoined the other rustler. "But listen! Wouldn't it be better for us first to see if he crossed the canyon? I reckon he didn't. But let's make sure. An' if he didn't we'll have him somewhar along that west canyon wall. He's not got no gun. He'd never run thet way if he had.... Jim, he's our meat!" "Shore, he'll have that knife," pondered Colter. "We needn't worry about thet," said the other, positively. "He's hard hit, I tell y'u. All we got to do is find thet bloody trail again an' stick to it--goin' careful. He's layin' low like a crippled wolf." "Springer, I want the job of finishin' that half-breed," hissed Colter. "I'd give ten years of my life to stick a gun down his throat an' shoot it off." "All right. Let's rustle. Mebbe y'u'll not have to give much more 'n ten minnits. Because I tell y'u I can find him. It'd been easy--but, Jim, I reckon I was afraid." "Leave your hoss for me an' go ahaid," the rustler then said, brusquely. "I've a job in the cabin heah." "Haw-haw! ... Wal, Jim, I'll rustle a bit down the trail an' wait. No huntin' Jean Isbel alone--not fer me. I've had a queer feelin' about thet knife he used on Greaves. An' I reckon y'u'd oughter let thet Jorth hussy alone long enough to--" "Springer, I reckon I've got to hawg-tie her--" His voice became indistinguishable, and footfalls attested to a slow moving away of the men. Jean had listened with ears acutely strung to catch every syllable while his gaze rested upon Ellen who stood beside the door. Every line of her body denoted a listening intensity. Her back was toward Jean, so that he could not see her face. And he did not want to see, but could not help seeing her naked shoulders. She put her head out of the door. Suddenly she drew it in quickly and half turned her face, slowly raising her white arm. This was the left one and bore the marks of Colter's hard fingers. She gave a little gasp. Her eyes became large and staring. They were bent on the hand that she had removed from a step on the ladder. On hand and wrist showed a bright-red smear of blood. Jean, with a convulsive leap of his heart, realized that he had left his bloody tracks on the ladder as he had climbed. That moment seemed the supremely terrible one of his life. Ellen Jorth's face blanched and her eyes darkened and dilated with exceeding amaze and flashing thought to become fixed with horror. That instant was the one in which her reason connected the blood on the ladder with the escape of Jean Isbel. One moment she leaned there, still as a stone except for her heaving breast, and then her fixed gaze changed to a swift, dark blaze, comprehending, yet inscrutable, as she flashed it up the ladder to the loft. She could see nothing, yet she knew and Jean knew that she knew he was there. A marvelous transformation passed over her features and even over her form. Jean choked with the ache in his throat. Slowly she put the bloody hand behind her while with the other she still held the torn blouse to her breast. Colter's slouching, musical step sounded outside. And it might have been a strange breath of infinitely vitalizing and passionate life blown into the well-springs of Ellen Jorth's being. Isbel had no name for her then. The spirit of a woman had been to him a thing unknown. She swayed back from the door against the wall in singular, softened poise, as if all the steel had melted out of her body. And as Colter's tall shadow fell across the threshold Jean Isbel felt himself staring with eyeballs that ached--straining incredulous sight at this woman who in a few seconds had bewildered his senses with her transfiguration. He saw but could not comprehend. "Jim--I heard--all Springer told y'u," she said. The look of her dumfounded Colter and her voice seemed to shake him visibly. "Suppose y'u did. What then?" he demanded, harshly, as he halted with one booted foot over the threshold. Malignant and forceful, he eyed her darkly, doubtfully. "I'm afraid," she whispered. "What of? Me?" "No. Of--of Jean Isbel. He might kill y'u and--then where would I be?" "Wal, I'm damned!" ejaculated the rustler. "What's got into y'u?" He moved to enter, but a sort of fascination bound him. "Jim, I hated y'u a moment ago," she burst out. "But now--with that Jean Isbel somewhere near--hidin'--watchin' to kill y'u--an' maybe me, too--I--I don't hate y'u any more.... Take me away." "Girl, have y'u lost your nerve?" he demanded. "My God! Colter--cain't y'u see?" she implored. "Won't y'u take me away?" "I shore will--presently," he replied, grimly. "But y'u'll wait till I've shot the lights out of this Isbel." "No!" she cried. "Take me away now.... An' I'll give in--I'll be what y'u--want.... Y'u can do with me--as y'u like." Colter's lofty frame leaped as if at the release of bursting blood. With a lunge he cleared the threshold to loom over her. "Am I out of my haid, or are y'u?" he asked, in low, hoarse voice. His darkly corded face expressed extremest amaze. "Jim, I mean it," she whispered, edging an inch nearer him, her white face uplifted, her dark eyes unreadable in their eloquence and mystery. "I've no friend but y'u. I'll be--yours.... I'm lost.... What does it matter? If y'u want me--take me NOW--before I kill myself." "Ellen Jorth, there's somethin' wrong aboot y'u," he responded. "Did y'u tell the truth--when y'u denied ever bein' a sweetheart of Simm Bruce?" "Yes, I told y'u the truth." "Ahuh! An' how do y'u account for layin' me out with every dirty name y'u could give tongue to?" "Oh, it was temper. I wanted to be let alone." "Temper! Wal, I reckon y'u've got one," he retorted, grimly. "An' I'm not shore y'u're not crazy or lyin'. An hour ago I couldn't touch y'u." "Y'u may now--if y'u promise to take me away--at once. This place has got on my nerves. I couldn't sleep heah with that Isbel hidin' around. Could y'u?" "Wal, I reckon I'd not sleep very deep." "Then let us go." He shook his lean, eagle-like head in slow, doubtful vehemence, and his piercing gaze studied her distrustfully. Yet all the while there was manifest in his strung frame an almost irrepressible violence, held in abeyance to his will. "That aboot your bein' so good?" he inquired, with a return of the mocking drawl. "Never mind what's past," she flashed, with passion dark as his. "I've made my offer." "Shore there's a lie aboot y'u somewhere," he muttered, thickly. "Man, could I do more?" she demanded, in scorn. "No. But it's a lie," he returned. "Y'u'll get me to take y'u away an' then fool me--run off--God knows what. Women are all liars." Manifestly he could not believe in her strange transformation. Memory of her wild and passionate denunciation of him and his kind must have seared even his calloused soul. But the ruthless nature of him had not weakened nor softened in the least as to his intentions. This weather-vane veering of hers bewildered him, obsessed him with its possibilities. He had the look of a man who was divided between love of her and hate, whose love demanded a return, but whose hate required a proof of her abasement. Not proof of surrender, but proof of her shame! The ignominy of him thirsted for its like. He could grind her beauty under his heel, but he could not soften to this feminine inscrutableness. And whatever was the truth of Ellen Jorth in this moment, beyond Colter's gloomy and stunted intelligence, beyond even the love of Jean Isbel, it was something that held the balance of mastery. She read Colter's mind. She dropped the torn blouse from her hand and stood there, unashamed, with the wave of her white breast pulsing, eyes black as night and full of hell, her face white, tragic, terrible, yet strangely lovely. "Take me away," she whispered, stretching one white arm toward him, then the other. Colter, even as she moved, had leaped with inarticulate cry and radiant face to meet her embrace. But it seemed, just as her left arm flashed up toward his neck, that he saw her bloody hand and wrist. Strange how that checked his ardor--threw up his lean head like that striking bird of prey. "Blood! What the hell!" he ejaculated, and in one sweep he grasped her. "How'd yu do that? Are y'u cut? ... Hold still." Ellen could not release her hand. "I scratched myself," she said. "Where?... All that blood!" And suddenly he flung her hand back with fierce gesture, and the gleams of his yellow eyes were like the points of leaping flames. They pierced her--read the secret falsity of her. Slowly he stepped backward, guardedly his hand moved to his gun, and his glance circled and swept the interior of the cabin. As if he had the nose of a hound and sight to follow scent, his eyes bent to the dust of the ground before the door. He quivered, grew rigid as stone, and then moved his head with exceeding slowness as if searching through a microscope in the dust--farther to the left--to the foot of the ladder--and up one step--another--a third--all the way up to the loft. Then he whipped out his gun and wheeled to face the girl. "Ellen, y'u've got your half-breed heah!" he said, with a terrible smile. She neither moved nor spoke. There was a suggestion of collapse, but it was only a change where the alluring softness of her hardened into a strange, rapt glow. And in it seemed the same mastery that had characterized her former aspect. Herein the treachery of her was revealed. She had known what she meant to do in any case. Colter, standing at the door, reached a long arm toward the ladder, where he laid his hand on a rung. Taking it away he held it palm outward for her to see the dark splotch of blood. "See?" "Yes, I see," she said, ringingly. Passion wrenched him, transformed him. "All that--aboot leavin' heah--with me--aboot givin' in--was a lie!" "No, Colter. It was the truth. I'll go--yet--now--if y'u'll spare--HIM!" She whispered the last word and made a slight movement of her hand toward the loft. "Girl!" he exploded, incredulously. "Y'u love this half-breed--this ISBEL! ... Y'u LOVE him!" "With all my heart! ... Thank God! It has been my glory.... It might have been my salvation.... But now I'll go to hell with y'u--if y'u'll spare him." "Damn my soul!" rasped out the rustler, as if something of respect was wrung from that sordid deep of him. "Y'u--y'u woman! ... Jorth will turn over in his grave. He'd rise out of his grave if this Isbel got y'u." "Hurry! Hurry!" implored Ellen. "Springer may come back. I think I heard a call." "Wal, Ellen Jorth, I'll not spare Isbel--nor y'u," he returned, with dark and meaning leer, as he turned to ascend the ladder. Jean Isbel, too, had reached the climax of his suspense. Gathering all his muscles in a knot he prepared to leap upon Colter as he mounted the ladder. But, Ellen Jorth screamed piercingly and snatched her rifle from its resting place and, cocking it, she held it forward and low. "COLTER!" Her scream and his uttered name stiffened him. "Y'u will spare Jean Isbel!" she rang out. "Drop that gun-drop it!" "Shore, Ellen.... Easy now. Remember your temper.... I'll let Isbel off," he panted, huskily, and all his body sank quiveringly to a crouch. "Drop your gun! Don't turn round.... Colter!--I'LL KILL Y'U!" But even then he failed to divine the meaning and the spirit of her. "Aw, now, Ellen," he entreated, in louder, huskier tones, and as if dragged by fatal doubt of her still, he began to turn. Crash! The rifle emptied its contents in Colter's breast. All his body sprang up. He dropped the gun. Both hands fluttered toward her. And an awful surprise flashed over his face. "So--help--me--God!" he whispered, with blood thick in his voice. Then darkly, as one groping, he reached for her with shaking hands. "Y'u--y'u white-throated hussy!... I'll ..." He grasped the quivering rifle barrel. Crash! She shot him again. As he swayed over her and fell she had to leap aside, and his clutching hand tore the rifle from her grasp. Then in convulsion he writhed, to heave on his back, and stretch out--a ghastly spectacle. Ellen backed away from it, her white arms wide, a slow horror blotting out the passion of her face. Then from without came a shrill call and the sound of rapid footsteps. Ellen leaned against the wall, staring still at Colter. "Hey, Jim--what's the shootin'?" called Springer, breathlessly. As his form darkened the doorway Jean once again gathered all his muscular force for a tremendous spring. Springer saw the girl first and he appeared thunderstruck. His jaw dropped. He needed not the white gleam of her person to transfix him. Her eyes did that and they were riveted in unutterable horror upon something on the ground. Thus instinctively directed, Springer espied Colter. "Y'u--y'u shot him!" he shrieked. "What for--y'u hussy? ... Ellen Jorth, if y'u've killed him, I'll..." He strode toward where Colter lay. Then Jean, rising silently, took a step and like a tiger he launched himself into the air, down upon the rustler. Even as he leaped Springer gave a quick, upward look. And he cried out. Jean's moccasined feet struck him squarely and sent him staggering into the wall, where his head hit hard. Jean fell, but bounded up as the half-stunned Springer drew his gun. Then Jean lunged forward with a single sweep of his arm--and looked no more. Ellen ran swaying out of the door, and, once clear of the threshold, she tottered out on the grass, to sink to her knees. The bright, golden sunlight gleamed upon her white shoulders and arms. Jean had one foot out of the door when he saw her and he whirled back to get her blouse. But Springer had fallen upon it. Snatching up a blanket, Jean ran out. "Ellen! Ellen! Ellen!" he cried. "It's over!" And reaching her, he tried to wrap her in the blanket. She wildly clutched his knees. Jean was conscious only of her white, agonized face and the dark eyes with their look of terrible strain. "Did y'u--did y'u..." she whispered. "Yes--it's over," he said, gravely. "Ellen, the Isbel-Jorth feud is ended." "Oh, thank--God!" she cried, in breaking voice. "Jean--y'u are wounded... the blood on the step!" "My arm. See. It's not bad.... Ellen, let me wrap this round you." Folding the blanket around her shoulders, he held it there and entreated her to get up. But she only clung the closer. She hid her face on his knees. Long shudders rippled over her, shaking the blanket, shaking Jean's hands. Distraught, he did not know what to do. And his own heart was bursting. "Ellen, you must not kneel--there--that way," he implored. "Jean! Jean!" she moaned, and clung the tighter. He tried to lift her up, but she was a dead weight, and with that hold on him seemed anchored at his feet. "I killed Colter," she gasped. "I HAD to--kill him! ... I offered--to fling myself away...." "For me!" he cried, poignantly. "Oh, Ellen! Ellen! the world has come to an end! ... Hush! don't keep sayin' that. Of course you killed him. You saved my life. For I'd never have let you go off with him .... Yes, you killed him.... You're a Jorth an' I'm an Isbel ... We've blood on our hands--both of us--I for you an' you for me!" His voice of entreaty and sadness strengthened her and she raised her white face, loosening her clasp to lean back and look up. Tragic, sweet, despairing, the loveliness of her--the significance of her there on her knees--thrilled him to his soul. "Blood on my hands!" she whispered. "Yes. It was awful--killing him.... But--all I care for in this world is for your forgiveness--and your faith that saved my soul!" "Child, there's nothin' to forgive," he responded. "Nothin'... Please, Ellen..." "I lied to y'u!" she cried. "I lied to y'u!" "Ellen, listen--darlin'." And the tender epithet brought her head and arms back close-pressed to him. "I know--now," he faltered on. "I found out to-day what I believed. An' I swear to God--by the memory of my dead mother--down in my heart I never, never, never believed what they--what y'u tried to make me believe. NEVER!" "Jean--I love y'u--love y'u--love y'u!" she breathed with exquisite, passionate sweetness. Her dark eyes burned up into his. "Ellen, I can't lift you up," he said, in trembling eagerness, signifying his crippled arm. "But I can kneel with you! ..." 
23691	----	ARCHEOLOGICAL EXPEDITION TO ARIZONA IN 1895 BY JESSE WALTER FEWKES CONTENTS Page Introductory note 527 Plan of the expedition 529 Ruins in Verde valley 536 Classification of the ruins 536 Cavate dwellings 537 Montezuma Well 546 Cliff houses of the Red-rocks 548 Ruins near Schürmann's ranch 550 Palatki 553 Honanki 558 Objects found at Palatki and Honanki 569 Conclusions regarding the Verde valley ruins 573 Ruins in Tusayan 577 General features 577 The Middle Mesa ruins 582 Shuñopovi 582 Mishoñinovi 582 Chukubi 583 Payüpki 583 The East Mesa ruins 585 Küchaptüvela and Kisakobi 585 Küküchomo 586 Kachinba 589 Tukinobi 589 Jeditoh valley ruins 589 Awatobi 592 Characteristics of the ruin 592 Nomenclature of Awatobi 594 Historical knowledge of Awatobi 595 Legend of the destruction of Awatobi 603 Evidences of fire in the destruction 606 The ruins of the mission 606 The kivas of Awatobi 611 Old Awatobi 614 Rooms of the western mound 614 Smaller Awatobi 617 Mortuary remains 617 Shrines 619 Pottery 621 Stone implements 625 Bone objects 627 Miscellaneous objects 628 Ornaments in the form of birds and shells 628 Clay bell 628 Textile fabrics 629 Prayer-sticks--Pigments 630 Objects showing Spanish influence 631 The ruins of Sikyatki 631 Traditional knowledge of the pueblo 631 Nomenclature 636 Former inhabitants of Sikyatki 636 General features 637 The acropolis 643 Modern gardens 646 The cemeteries 646 Pottery 650 Characteristics--Mortuary pottery 650 Coiled and indented ware 651 Smooth undecorated ware 652 Polished decorated ware 652 Paleography of the pottery 657 General features 657 Human figures 660 The human hand 666 Quadrupeds 668 Reptiles 671 Tadpoles 677 Butterflies or moths 678 Dragon-flies 680 Birds 682 Vegetal designs 698 The sun 699 Geometric figures 701 Interpretation of the figures 701 Crosses 702 Terraced figures 703 The crook 703 The germinative symbol 704 Broken lines 704 Decorations on the exterior of food bowls 705 Pigments 728 Stone objects 729 Obsidian 732 Necklaces, gorgets, and other ornaments 733 Tobacco pipes 733 Prayer-sticks 736 Marine shells and other objects 739 Perishable contents of mortuary food bowls 741 FOOTNOTES APPENDIX 743 INDEX 745 ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE Page XCI_a_. Cavate dwellings--Rio Verde 537 XCI_b_. Cavate dwellings--Oak creek 539 XCII. Entrances to cavate ruins 541 XCIII. Bowlder with pictographs near Wood's ranch 545 XCIV. Montezuma Well 547 XCV. Cliff house, Montezuma Well 549 XCVI. Ruin on the brink of Montezuma Well 551 XCVII. Pictographs near Cliff ranch, Verde valley 553 XCVIII. The Red-rocks; Temple canyon 555 XCIX. Palatki (Ruin I) 557 C. Palatki (Ruin I) 559 CI. Front wall of Palatki (Ruin II) 561 CII Honanki (Ruin II) 563 CIII. Walls of Honanki 565 CIV. Approach to main part of Honanki 567 CV. Map of the ruins of Tusayan 583 CVI. The ruins of Küküchomo 587 CVII. Ground plan of Awatobi 603 CVIII. Ruins of San Bernardino de Awatobi 607 CIX. Excavations in the western mound of Awatobi 615 CX. Excavated room in the western mound of Awatobi 617 CXI. Vase and mugs from the western mounds of Awatobi 618 CXII. Paint pots, vase, and dipper from Awatobi 620 CXIII. Pottery from intramural burial at Awatobi 622 CXIV. Bone implements from Awatobi and Sikyatki 626 CXV. Sikyatki mounds from the Kanelba trail 637 CXVI. Ground plan of Sikyatki 639 CXVII. Excavated rooms on the acropolis of Sikyatki 643 CXVIII. Plan of excavated rooms on the acropolis of Sikyatki 644 CXIX. Coiled and indented pottery from Sikyatki 650 CXX. Saucers and slipper bowls from Sikyatki 652 CXXI. Decorated pottery from Sikyatki 654 CXXII. Decorated pottery from Sikyatki 654 CXXIII. Decorated pottery from Sikyatki 657 CXXIV. Decorated pottery from Sikyatki 660 CXXV. Flat dippers and medicine box from Sikyatki 662 CXXVI. Double-lobe vases from Sikyatki 664 CXXVII. Unusual forms of vases from Sikyatki 666 CXXVIII. Medicine box and pigment pots from Sikyatki 668 CXXIX. Designs on food bowls from Sikyatki 670 CXXX. Food bowls with figures of quadrupeds from Sikyatki 672 CXXXI. Ornamented ladles from Sikyatki 674 CXXXII. Food bowls with figures of reptiles from Sikyatki 676 CXXXIII. Bowls and dippers with figures of tadpoles, birds, etc., from Sikyatki 676 CXXXIV. Food bowls with figures of sun, butterfly, and flower, from Sikyatki 676 CXXXV. Vases with figures of butterflies from Sikyatki 678 CXXXVI. Vases with figures of birds and feathers from Sikyatki 678 CXXXVII. Vessels with figures of human hand, birds, turtle, etc., from Sikyatki 680 CXXXVIII. Food bowls with figures of birds from Sikyatki 682 CXXXIX. Food bowls with figures of birds from Sikyatki 684 CXL. Figures of birds from Sikyatki 686 CXLI. Food bowls with figures of birds and feathers from Sikyatki 688 CXLII. Vases, bowls, and ladle with figures of feathers from Sikyatki 688 CXLIII. Vase with figures of birds from Sikyatki 690 CXLIV. Vase with figures of birds from Sikyatki 690 CXLV. Vases with figures of birds from Sikyatki 690 CXLVI. Bowls and potsherd with figures of birds from Sikyatki 692 CXLVII. Food bowls with figures of birds from Sikyatki 692 CXLVIII. Food bowls with symbols of feathers from Sikyatki 694 CXLIX. Food bowls with symbols of feathers from Sikyatki 694 CL. Figures of birds and feathers from Sikyatki 696 CLI. Figures of birds and feathers from Sikyatki 696 CLII. Food bowls with bird, feather, and flower symbols from Sikyatki 698 CLIII. Food bowls with figures of birds and feathers from Sikyatki 698 CLIV. Food bowls with figures of birds and feathers from Sikyatki 700 CLV. Food bowls with figures of birds and feathers from Sikyatki 700 CLVI. Food bowls with figures of birds and feathers from Sikyatki 700 CLVII. Figures of birds and feathers from Sikyatki 702 CLVIII. Food bowls with figures of sun and related symbols from Sikyatki 702 CLIX. Cross and related designs from Sikyatki 704 CLX. Cross and other symbols from Sikyatki 704 CLXI. Star, sun, and related symbols from Sikyatki 704 CLXII. Geometric ornamentation from Sikyatki 706 CLXIII. Food bowls with geometric ornamentation from Sikyatki 708 CLXIV. Food bowls with geometric ornamentation from Sikyatki 710 CLXV. Food bowls with geometric ornamentation from Sikyatki 714 CLXVI. Linear figures on food bowls from Sikyatki 718 CLXVII. Geometric ornamentation from Awatobi 722 CLXVIII. Geometric ornamentation from Awatobi 726 CLXIX. Arrowshaft smoothers, selenite, and symbolic corn from Sikyatki 728 CLXX. Corn grinder from Sikyatki 730 CLXXI. Stone implements from Palatki, Awatobi, and Sikyatki 732 CLXXII. Paint grinder, fetish, lignite, and kaolin disks from Sikyatki 734 CLXXIII. Pipes, bell, clay birds, and shells from Awatobi and Sikyatki 736 CLXXIV. Pahos or prayer-sticks from Sikyatki 738 CLXXV. Pahos or prayer-sticks from Sikyatki 738 FIGURE 245. Plan of cavate dwelling on Rio Verde 540 246. Casa Montezuma on Beaver creek 552 247. Ground plan of Palatki (Ruins I and II) 554 248. Ground plan of Honanki 559 249. The main ruin of Honanki 562 250. Structure of wall of Honanki 564 251. Stone implement from Honanki 571 252. Tinder tube from Honanki 572 253. Küküchomo 587 254. Defensive wall on the East Mesa 588 255. Ground plan of San Bernardino de Awatobi 608 256. Structure of house wall of Awatobi 615 257. Alosaka shrine at Awatobi 620 258. Shrine at Awatobi 621 259. Shrine at Awatobi 621 260. Shrine at Awatobi 621 261. Clay bell from Awatobi 629 262. The acropolis of Sikyatki 644 263. War god shooting an animal (fragment of food bowl) 665 264. Mountain sheep 669 265. Mountain lion 670 266. Plumed serpent 672 267. Unknown reptile 674 268. Unknown reptile 675 269. Unknown reptile 676 270. Outline of plate CXXXV, _b_ 678 271. Butterfly design on upper surface of plate CXXXV, _b_ 679 272. Man-eagle 683 273. Pendent feather ornaments on a vase 690 274. Upper surface of vase with bird decoration 691 275. Kwataka eating an animal 692 276. Decoration on the bottom of plate CXLVI, _f_ 694 277. Oblique parallel line decoration 706 278. Parallel lines fused at one point 706 279. Parallel lines with zigzag arrangement 706 280. Parallel lines connected by middle bar 707 281. Parallel lines of different width; serrate margin 707 282. Parallel lines of different width; median serrate 707 283. Parallel lines of different width; marginal serrate 707 284. Parallel lines and triangles 708 285. Line with alternate triangles 708 286. Single line with alternate spurs 708 287. Single line with hourglass figures 708 288. Single line with triangles 709 289. Single line with alternate triangles and ovals 709 290. Triangles and quadrilaterals 709 291. Triangle with spurs 709 292. Rectangle with single line 709 293. Double triangle; multiple lines 710 294. Double triangle; terraced edges 710 295. Single line; closed fret 710 296. Single line; open fret 711 297. Single line; broken fret 711 298. Single line; parts displaced 711 299. Open fret; attachment displaced 711 300. Simple rectangular design 711 301. Rectangular S-form 712 302. Rectangular S-form with crooks 712 303. Rectangular S-form with triangles 712 304. Rectangular S-form with terraced triangles 712 305. S-form with interdigitating spurs 713 306. Square with rectangles and parallel lines 713 307. Rectangles, triangles, stars, and feathers 713 308. Crook, feathers, and parallel lines 713 309. Crooks and feathers 714 310. Rectangle, triangles, and feathers 714 311. Terraced crook, triangle, and feathers 714 312. Double key 715 313. Triangular terrace 715 314. Crook, serrate end 715 315. Key pattern; rectangle and triangles 716 316. Rectangle and crook 716 317. Crook and tail-feathers 716 318. Rectangle, triangle, and serrate spurs 717 319. W-pattern; terminal crooks 717 320. W-pattern; terminal rectangles 717 321. W-pattern; terminal terraces and crooks 718 322. W-pattern; terminal spurs 718 323. W-pattern; bird form 719 324. W-pattern; median triangle 719 325. Double triangle; two breath feathers 720 326. Double triangle; median trapezoid 720 327. Double triangle; median rectangle 720 328. Double compound triangle; median rectangle 720 329. Double triangle; median triangle 721 330. Double compound triangle 721 331. Double rectangle; median rectangle 721 332. Double rectangle; median triangle 721 333. Double triangle with crooks 722 334. W-shape figure; single line with feathers 722 335. Compound rectangles, triangles, and feathers 722 336. Double triangle 722 337. Double triangle and feathers 723 338. Twin triangles 723 339. Triangle with terraced appendages 723 340. Mosaic pattern 723 341. Rectangles, stars, crooks, and parallel lines 724 342. Continuous crooks 724 343. Rectangular terrace pattern 724 344. Terrace pattern with parallel lines 725 345. Terrace pattern 725 346. Triangular pattern with feathers 725 347. S-pattern 726 348. Triangular and terrace figures 726 349. Crook, terrace, and parallel lines 726 350. Triangles, squares, and terraces 726 351. Bifurcated rectangular design 727 352. Lines of life and triangles 727 353. Infolded triangles 727 354. Human hand 728 355. Animal paw, limb, and triangle 728 356. Kaolin disk 729 357. Mortuary prayer-stick 736 ARCHEOLOGICAL EXPEDITION TO ARIZONA IN 1895 By JESSE WALTER FEWKES INTRODUCTORY NOTE About the close of May, 1895, I was invited to make a collection of objects for the National Museum, illustrating the archeology of the Southwest, especially that phase of pueblo life pertaining to the so-called cliff houses. I was specially urged to make as large a collection as possible, and the choice of locality was generously left to my discretion. Leaving Washington on the 25th of May, I obtained a collection and returned with it to that city on the 15th of September, having spent three months in the field. The material brought back by the expedition was catalogued under 966 entries, numbering somewhat over a thousand specimens. The majority of these objects are fine examples of mortuary pottery of excellent character, fully 500 of which are decorated. I was particularly fortunate in my scientific collaborators. Mr F. W. Hodge, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, joined me at Sikyatki, and remained with the expedition until it disbanded, at the close of August. Much of my success in the work at that ruin was due to his advice and aid. He was constantly at the excavations, and the majority of the beautiful specimens were taken out of the graves by him. It is with the greatest pleasure that I am permitted to express my appreciation of his assistance in my archeological investigations at Sikyatki. Mr G. P. Winship, now librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Providence, visited our camp at the ruin mentioned, and remained with us a few weeks, rendering important aid and adding an enthusiastic student to our number. Mr James S. Judd was a volunteer assistant while we were at Sikyatki, aiding me in many ways, especially in the management of our camp. I need only to refer to the beautiful drawings which accompany this memoir to show how much I am indebted to Mrs Hodge for faithful colored figures of the remarkable pottery uncovered from the Tusayan sands. My party included Mr S. Goddard, of Prescott, Arizona, who served as cook and driver, and Mr Erwin Baer, of the same city, as photographer. The manual work at the ruins was done by a number of young Indians from the East Mesa, who very properly were employed on the Moki reservation. An all too prevalent and often unjust criticism that Indians will not work if paid for their labor, was not voiced by any of our party. They gave many a weary hour's labor in the hot sun, in their enthusiasm to make the collection as large as possible. On my return to Washington I was invited to prepare a preliminary account of my work in the field, which the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution did me the honor to publish in his report for 1895. This report was of a very general character, and from necessity limited in pages; consequently it presented only the more salient features of my explorations. The following account was prepared as a more exhaustive discussion of the results of my summer's work. The memoir is much more extended than I had expected to make it when I accepted the invitation to collect archeological objects for the Museum, and betrays, I fear, imperfections due to the limited time spent in the field. The main object of the expedition was a collection of specimens, the majority of which, now on exhibition in the National Museum, tell their own story regarding its success. I am under deep obligations to the officers of the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum, and the Bureau of American Ethnology for many kindnesses, and wish especially to express my thanks to Mr S. P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, for the opportunity to study the ancient ruins of Tusayan. Nothing had a greater influence on my final decision to abandon other congenial work and undertake this, than my profound respect for the late Dr G. Brown Goode, who suggested the expedition to me and urged me to plan and undertake it. JESSE WALTER FEWKES. _Washington, May, 1897._ PLAN OF THE EXPEDITION It seemed to me in making a plan for archeological field work in 1895, that the prehistoric cliff houses, cave dwellings, and ruined pueblos of Arizona afforded valuable opportunities for research, and past experience induced me to turn my steps more especially to the northern and northeastern parts of the territory.[1] The ruins of ancient habitations in these regions had been partially, and, I believe, unsatisfactorily explored, especially those in a limited area called Tusayan, now inhabited by the Moki or Hopi Indians. These agricultural people claim to be descendants of those who once lived in the now deserted villages of that province. I had some knowledge of the ethnology of the Hopi, derived from several summers' field work among them, and I believed this information could be successfully utilized in an attempt to solve certain archeological questions which presented themselves.[2] I desired, among other things, to obtain new information on the former extension, in one direction, of the ancestral abodes of certain clans of the sedentary people of Tusayan which are now limited to six pueblos in the northeastern part of the territory. In carrying out this general plan I made an examination of cliff dwellings and other ruins in Verde valley, and undertook an exploration of two old pueblos near the Hopi villages. The reason which determined my choice of the former as a field for investigation was a wish to obtain archeological data bearing on certain Tusayan traditions. It is claimed by the traditionists of Walpi, especially those of the Patki[3] or Water-house phratry, that their ancestors came from a land far to the south of Tusayan, to which they give the name Palatkwabi. The situation of this mythic place is a matter of considerable conjecture, but it was thought that an archeological examination of the country at or near the headwaters of the Rio Verde and its tributaries might shed light on this tradition. It is not claimed, however, that all the ancestors of the Tusayan people migrated from the south, nor do I believe that those who came from that direction necessarily passed through Verde valley. Some, no doubt, came from Tonto Basin, but I believe it can be shown that a continuous line of ruins, similar in details of architecture, extend along this river from its junction with Salt river to well-established prehistoric dwelling places of the Hopi people. Similar lines may likewise be traced along other northern tributaries of the Salt or the Gila, which may be found to indicate early migration stages. The ruins of Verde valley were discovered in 1854 by Antoine Leroux, a celebrated guide and trapper of his time, and were thus described by Whipple, Ewbank, and Turner in the following year: The river banks were covered with ruins of stone houses and regular fortifications; which, he [Leroux] says, appeared to have been the work of civilized men, but had not been occupied for centuries. They were built upon the most fertile tracts of the valley, where were signs of acequias and of cultivation. The walls were of solid masonry, of rectangular form, some twenty or thirty paces in length, and yet remaining ten or fifteen feet in height. The buildings were of two stories, with small apertures or loopholes for defence when besieged.... In other respects, however, Leroux says that they reminded him of the great pueblos of the Moquinos.[4] A fragment of folklore, which is widely distributed among both the aboriginal peoples of Gila valley and the modern Tusayan Indians, recounts how the latter were at one time in communication with the people of the south, and traditions of both distinctly connect the sedentary people of Tusayan with those who formerly inhabited the great pueblos, now in ruins, dotting the plain in the delta between Gila and Salt rivers. That archeology might give valuable information on this question had long been my conviction, and was the main influence which led me to the studies recorded in the following pages. An examination of a map of Arizona will show that one of the pathways or feasible routes of travel possible to have been used in any connection between the pueblos of the Gila and those of northern Arizona would naturally be along Rio Verde valley. Its tributaries rise at the foot of San Francisco mountains, and the main river empties into the Salt, traversing from north to south a comparatively fertile valley, in the main advantageous for the subsistence of semisedentary bands in their migrations. Here was a natural highway leading from the Gila pueblos, now in ruins, to the former villages in the north. The study of the archeology of Verde valley had gone far enough to show that the banks of the river were formerly the sites of many and populous pueblos, while the neighboring mesas from one end to another are riddled with cavate dwellings or crowned with stone buildings. Northward from that famous crater-like depression in the Verde region, the so-called Montezuma Well on Beaver creek, one of the affluents of the Rio Verde, little archeological exploration had been attempted. There was, in other words, a break in the almost continuous series of ruins from Tusayan as far south as the Gila. Ruined towns had been reported as existing not far southward from San Francisco mountains,[5] and from there by easy stages the abodes of a former race had been detected at intervals all the way to the Tusayan pueblos. At either end the chain of ruins between the Tusayan towns and the Gila ruins was unbroken, but middle links were wanting. All conditions imply former habitations in this untrodden hiatus, the region between the Verde and the Tusayan series, ending near the present town of Flagstaff, Arizona; but southward from that town the country was broken and impassable, a land where the foot of the archeologist had not trodden. Remains of human habitations had, however, been reported by ranchmen, but these reports were vague and unsatisfactory. So far as they went they confirmed my suspicions, and there were other significant facts looking the same way. The color of the red cliffs fulfilled the Tusayan tradition of Palatkwabi, or their former home in the far south. Led by all these considerations, before I took to the field I had long been convinced that this must have been one of the homes of certain Hopi clans, and when the occasion presented itself I determined to follow the northward extension of the ancient people of the Verde into these rugged rocks. By my discoveries in this region of ruins indicative of dwellings of great size in ancient times I have supplied the missing links in the chain of ancient dwellings extending from the great towns of the Gila to the ruins west of the modern Tusayan towns. If this line of ruins, continuous from Gila valley to Tusayan and beyond, be taken in connection with legends ascribing Casa Grande to the Hopi and those of certain Tusayan clans which tell of the homes of their ancestors in the south, a plausible explanation is offered for the many similarities between two apparently widely different peoples, and the theory of a kinship between southern and northern sedentary tribes of Arizona does not seem as unlikely as it might otherwise appear. The reader will notice that I accept without question the belief that the so-called cliff dwellers were not a distinct people, but a specially adaptive condition of life of a race whose place of habitation was determined by its environment. We are considering a people who sometimes built dwellings in caverns and sometimes in the plains, but often in both places at the same epoch. Moreover, as long ago pointed out by other students, the existing Pueblo Indians are descendants of a people who at times lived in cliffs, and some of the Tusayan clans have inhabited true cliff houses in the historic period. By intermarriage with nomadic races and from other causes the character of Pueblo consanguinity is no doubt somewhat different from that of their ancient kin, but the character of the culture, as shown by a comparison of cliff-house and modern objects, has not greatly changed. While recognizing the kinship of the Pueblos and the Cliff villagers, this resemblance is not restricted to any one pueblo or group of modern pueblos to the exclusion of others. Of all modern differentiations of this ancient substratum of culture of which cliff villages are one adaptive expression, the Tusayan Indians are the nearest of all existing people of the Southwest[6] to the ancient people of Arizona. The more southerly ruins of Tusayan, which I have been able satisfactorily to identify and to designate by a Hopi name, are those called Homolobi, situated not far from Winslow, Arizona, near where the railroad crosses the Little Colorado. These ruins are claimed by the Hopi as the former residences of their ancestors, and were halting places in the migration of certain clans from the south. They were examined by Mr Cosmos Mindeleff, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, in 1893,[7] but no report on them has yet been published. While, however, the Homolobi group of ruins is the most southerly to which I have been able to affix a Hopi name, others still more to the southward are claimed by certain of their traditions.[8] The Hopi likewise regard as homes of their ancestors certain habitations, now in ruins, near San Francisco mountains. In a report on his exploration of Zuñi and Little Colorado rivers in 1852, Captain L. Sitgreaves called attention to several interesting ruins, one of which was not far from the "cascades" of the latter river. After ascending the plateau, which he found covered with volcanic detritus, he discovered that "all the prominent points" were "occupied by the ruins of stone houses, which were in some instances three stories in height. They are evidently," he says, "the remains of a large town, as they occurred at intervals for an extent of eight or nine miles, and the ground was thickly strewn with fragments of pottery in all directions." In 1884 a portion of Colonel James Stevenson's expedition, under F. D. Bickford, examined the cliff houses in Walnut canyon, and in 1886 Major J. W. Powell and Colonel Stevenson found scattered ruins north of San Francisco mountains having one, two, or three rooms, each "built of basaltic cinders and blocks of lava." These explorers likewise reported ruins of extensive dwellings in the same region made of sandstone and limestone. At about 25 miles north of the mountains mentioned they discovered a small volcanic cone of cinders and basalt, which was formerly the site of a village or pueblo built around a crater, and estimated that this little pueblo contained 60 or 70 rooms, with a plaza occupying one-third of an acre of surface.[9] Twelve miles eastward from San Francisco mountains they found another cinder cone resembling a dome, and on its southern slope, in a coherent cinder mass, were many chambers, of which one hundred and fifty are said to have been excavated. They mention the existence on the summit of this cone of a plaza inclosed by a rude wall of volcanic cinders, with a carefully leveled floor. The former inhabitants of these rooms apparently lived in underground chambers hewn from the volcanic formation. Eighteen miles farther eastward was another ruined village built about the crater of a volcanic cone. Several villages were discovered in this locality and many natural caves which had been utilized as dwellings by inclosing them in front with walls of volcanic rocks and cinders. These cavate rooms were arranged tier above tier in a very irregular way. At this place three distinct kinds of ruins were found--cliff villages, cave dwellings, and pueblos. Eight miles southeastward from Flagstaff, in Oak creek canyon, a cliff house of several hundred rooms was discovered. It was concluded that all these ruins were abandoned at a comparatively recent date, or not more than three or four centuries ago, and the Havasupai Indians of Cataract canyon were regarded as descendants of the former inhabitants of these villages. The situation of some of these ruins and the published descriptions would indicate that some of them were similar to those described and figured by Sitgreaves,[10] to which reference has already been made. In 1896 two amateur explorers, George Campbell and Everett Howell, of Flagstaff, reported that they had found, about eighteen miles from that place, several well-preserved cliff towns and a remarkable tunnel excavation. The whole region in the immediate neighborhood of San Francisco mountains appears, therefore, to have been populated in ancient times by an agricultural people, and legends ascribe some of these ruins to ancestors of the Hopi Indians. There are several ruins due south of Tusayan which have not been investigated, but which would furnish important contributions to a study of Hopi migrations. Near Saint Johns, Arizona, likewise, there are ruins of considerable size, possibly referable to the Cibolan series; and south of Holbrook, which lies about due south of Walpi, there are ruins, the pottery from which I have examined and found to be of the black-and-white ware typical of the Cliff people. Perhaps, however, no ruined pueblo presents more interesting problems than the magnificent Pueblo Grande or Kintiel, about 20 miles north of Navaho Springs. This large ruin, lying between the Cibolan and Tusayan groups, has been referred to both of these provinces, and would, if properly excavated, shed much light on the archeology of the two provinces.[11] Kinnazinde lies not far from Kintiel. The ruins reported from Tonto Basin, of which little is known, may later be found to be connected with early migrations of those Hopi clans which claim southern origin. From what I can judge by the present appearance of ruins just north of the Mogollon mountains, in a direct line between Tonto Basin and the present Tusayan towns, there is nothing to show the age of these ruined villages, and it is quite likely that they may have been inhabited in the middle of the sixteenth century. While it is commonly agreed that the province of "Totonteac," which figures extensively in certain early Spanish narratives, was the same as Tusayan, the linguistic similarity of the word to "tonto" has been suggested by others. In the troublesome years between 1860 and 1870 the Hopi, decimated by disease and harried by nomads, sent delegates to Prescott asking to be removed to Tonto Basin, and it is not improbable that in making this reasonable request they simply wished to return to a place which they associated with their ancestors, who had been driven out by the Apache. Totonteac[12] is ordinarily thought to be the same as Tusayan, but it may have included some of the southern pueblos now in ruins west of Zuñi. Having determined that the line of Verde ruins was continued into the Red-rock country, it was desirable to see how the latter compared with those nearer Tusayan. This necessitated reexamination of many ruins in Verde valley, which was my aim during the most of June. I followed this valley from the cavate dwellings near Squaw mountain past the great ruin in the neighborhood of Old Camp Verde, the unique Montezuma Well, to the base of the Red-rocks. Throughout this region I saw, as had been expected, no change in the character of the ruins great enough to indicate that they originally were inhabited by peoples racially different. Stopped from further advance by a barrier of rugged cliffs, I turned westward along their base until I found similar ruins, which were named Palatki and Honanki. Having satisfied myself that there was good evidence that the numbers of ancient people were as great here as at any point in the Verde valley and that their culture was similar, I continued the work with an examination of the ruins north of the Red-rocks, where there is substantial evidence that these were likewise of the same general character. The last two months of the summer, July and August, 1895, were devoted to explorations of two Tusayan ruins, called Awatobi and Sikyatki. In this work, apparently unconnected with that already outlined, I still had in mind the light to be shed on the problem of Tusayan origin. The question which presented itself was: How are these ruins related to the modern pueblos? Awatobi was a historic ruin, destroyed in 1700, and therefore somewhat influenced by the Spaniards. Many of the survivors became amalgamated with pueblos still inhabited. Its kinship with the surviving villagers was clear. Sikyatki, however, was overthrown in prehistoric times, and at its destruction part of its people went to Awatobi. Its culture was prehistoric. The discovery of what these two ruins teach, by bringing prehistoric Tusayan culture down to the present time and comparing them with the ruins of Verde valley and southern Arizona, is of great archeological interest. While engaged in preparing this report, having in fact written most of it, I received Mr Cosmos Mindeleff's valuable article on the Verde ruins,[13] in which special attention is given to the cavate lodges and villages of this interesting valley. This contribution anticipates many of my observations on these two groups of aboriginal habitations, and renders it unnecessary to describe them in the detailed manner I had planned. I shall therefore touch but briefly on these ruins, paying special attention to the cliff houses of Verde valley, situated in the Red-rock country. This variety of dwelling was overlooked in both Mearns' and Mindeleff's classifications, from the fact that it seems to be confined to the region of the valley characterized by the red-rock formation, which appears not to have been explored by them. The close resemblance of these cliff houses to those of the region north of Tusayan is instructive, in view of the ground, well taken, I believe, by Mr Mindeleff, that there is a close likeness between the Verde ruins and those farther north, especially in Tusayan. RUINS IN VERDE VALLEY CLASSIFICATION OF THE RUINS The ruined habitations in the valley of the Rio Verde may be considered under three divisions or types, differing in form, but essentially the same in character. In adopting this classification, which is by no means restricted to this single valley, I do not claim originality, but follow that used by the best writers on this subject. My limitation of the types and general definitions may, however, be found to differ somewhat from those of my predecessors. The three groups of ruins in our Southwest are the following: I--Pueblos, or Independent habitations. II--Cliff Houses } III--Cavate Dwellings } Dependent habitations. In the first group are placed those ancient or modern habitations which are isolated, on all sides, from cliffs. They may be situated in valleys or on elevations or mesas; they may be constructed of clay, adobe, or stone of various kinds, but are always isolated from cliffs. They are single or multiple chambered, circular or rectangular in shape, and may have been built either as permanent habitations or as temporary outlooks. Their main feature is freedom, on all sides except the foundation, from cliffs or walls of rock in place. The second group includes those not isolated from natural cliffs, but with some part of their lateral walls formed by natural rock in situ, and are built ordinarily in caverns with overhanging roofs, which the highest courses of their walls do not join. Generally erected in caves, their front walls never close the entrances to those caverns. This kind of aboriginal buildings may, like the former, vary in structural material; but, so far as I know, they are not, for obvious reasons, made of adobe alone. The third kind of pueblo dwellings are called cavate dwellings or lodges, a group which includes that peculiar kind of aboriginal dwelling where the rooms are excavated from the cliff wall, forming caves, where natural rock is a support or more often serves as the wall itself of the dwelling. The entrance may be partially closed by masonry, the floor laid with flat stones, and the sides plastered with clay; but never in this group is there a roof distinct from the top of the cave. Naturally cavate dwellings grade into cliff houses, but neither of these types can be confounded with the first group, which affords us no difficulty in identification. All these kinds of dwellings were made by people of the same culture, the character of the habitation depending on geological environment. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCI^_a_ CAVATE DWELLINGS--RIO VERDE] In Verde valley, villages, cliff houses, and cavate dwellings exist together, and were, I believe, contemporaneously inhabited by a people of the same culture. These types of ancient habitations are not believed to stand in the relationship of sequence in development; nor is one simpler or less difficult of construction than the others. Cliff houses display no less skill and daring than do the villages in the plain, called pueblos. The cavate dwellings are likewise a form of habitation which shows considerable workmanship, and are far from caves like those inhabited by "cave men." These dwellings were laboriously excavated with rude implements; had floors, banquettes, windows, walled recesses, and the like. It is hardly proper to regard them, as less difficult to construct than pueblos or cliff houses. Cavate dwellings, like villages or cliff houses, may be single or multiple, single or many chambered, and a cluster of these troglodytic dwellings was, in fact, as truly a village as a pueblo or cliff house. The same principle of seeking safety by crowding together held in all three instances; and this very naturally, for the culture of the inhabitants was identical. I shall consider only two of the three types of dwellings in Verde valley, namely, the second and third groups. It has, I think, been conclusively shown by Mr Cosmos Mindeleff, so far as types of the first group of ruins on the Verde are concerned, that they practically do not differ from the modern Tusayan pueblos. The remaining types, when rightly interpreted, furnish evidence of no less important character. Notwithstanding Mindeleff's excellent descriptions of the cavate dwellings of this region, already cited, I have thought it well to bring into prominence certain features which seem to me to indicate that this form of aboriginal dwelling was high in its development, showing considerable skill in its construction, and was fashioned on the same general plan as the others. For this demonstration I have chosen one of the most striking clusters in Verde valley. CAVATE DWELLINGS The most accessible cavate dwellings in Verde valley (plate XCI _a_) are situated on the left bank of the river, about eight miles southward from Camp Verde and three miles from the mouth of Clear creek. The general characteristics of this group have been well described by Mr Mindeleff in the Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau, so that I need but refer to a few additional observations made on these interesting habitations.[14] These cavate lodges afford a fair idea of the best known of these prehistoric dwellings in this part of Arizona. Although Verde valley has many fine ranches, the land in immediate proximity to these ruins is uncultivated. The nearest habitation, however, is not far away, and it is not difficult to find guides to these caves, so well known are they to the inhabitants of this part of the valley. It did not take long to learn that any investigations which I might attempt there had been anticipated by other archeologists and laymen, for many of the rooms had been rifled of their contents and their walls thrown down, while it was also evident that some careful excavations had been made. There is, however, abundant opportunity for more detailed scientific work than has yet been attempted on these ruins, and what has thus far been accomplished has been more in the nature of reconnoissance. The cemeteries and burial places of the prehistoric people of the cavate dwellings are yet to be discovered, and it is probable, judging from experience gained at other ruins, that when they are found and carefully investigated much light will be thrown on the character of ancient cave life. The entrances to the cavate dwellings opposite Squaw mountain are visible from the road for quite a distance, appearing as rows of holes in the steep walls of the cliff on the opposite or left bank of the Rio Verde. Owing to their proximity to the river, from which the precipice in which they are situated rises almost vertically, we were unable to camp under them, but remained on the right bank of the river, where a level plain extends for some distance, bordering the river and stretching back to the distant cliffs. We pitched our camp on a bluff, about 30 feet above the river, in full sight of the cave entrances, near a small stone inclosure which bears quite a close resemblance to a Tusayan shrine. Aboriginal people had evidently cultivated the plain where we camped, for there are many evidences of irrigating ditches and even walls of former houses. At present, however, this once highly cultivated field lies unused, and is destitute of any valuable plants save the scanty grass which served to eke out the fodder of our horses. At the time of my visit the water of Rio Verde at this point was confined to a very narrow channel under the bluff near its right bank, but the appearance of its bed showed that in heavy freshets during the rainy season the water filled the interval between the base of the cliffs in which the cavate dwellings are situated and the bluffs which form the right bank. In visits to the caves it was necessary, on account of the site of the camp, to ford the stream each time and to climb to their level over fallen stones, a task of no slight difficulty. The water in places was shallow and the current only moderately rapid. Considering the fact that it furnished potable liquid for ourselves and horses, and that the line of trees which skirted the bluff was available for firewood, our camp compared well with many which we subsequently made in our summer's explorations. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCI^_b_ CAVATE DWELLINGS--OAK CREEK] The section of the cliff which was examined embraced the northern series of these caves, extending from a promontory forming one side of a blind or box canyon to nearly opposite our camp. Adjacent to this series of rooms, but farther down the river, on the same side, there are two narrow side canyons, in both of which are also numerous caves, in all respects similar to the series we chose for examination. At several points on the summit of the cliffs, above the caves, large rectangular ruins, with fallen walls, were discovered; these ruins are, however, in no respect peculiar, but closely resemble those ordinarily found in a similar position throughout this region and elsewhere in Arizona and New Mexico. From their proximity to the caves it would seem that the cavate dwellings, and the pueblos on the summits of the mesas in which they are found, had been inhabited by one people; but better evidence that such is true is drawn from the character of the architecture and the nature of the art remains common to both. Let us first consider the series of caves from a point opposite our camp to the promontory which forms a pinnacle at the mouth of the first of the two side caverns--a row of caves the entrances to which are shown in the accompanying illustration (plate XCII). I have lettered these rooms, as indicated by their entrances, _a_ to _l_, beginning with the opening on the left. The rock in which these caves have been hewn is very soft, and almost white in color, save for a slightly reddish brown stratum just below the line of entrances to the cavate chambers. Although, as a general thing, the wall of the cliff is almost perpendicular, and the caves at points inaccessible, entrance to the majority of them can be effected by mounting the heaps of small stones forming the débris, which has fallen even to the bed of the river at various places, and by following a ledge which connects the line of entrances. The easiest approach mounts a steep decline, not far from the promontory at the lower level of the line, which conducts to a ledge running along in front of the caves about 150 feet above the bed of the stream. Roughly speaking, this ledge is about 100 feet below the summit of the cliff. It was impossible to reach several of the rooms, and it is probable that when the caves were inhabited access to any one of them was even more difficult than at present. Judging from the number of rooms, the cliffs on the left bank of the Verde must have had a considerable population when inhabited. These caverns, no doubt, swarmed with human beings, and their inaccessible position furnished the inhabitants with a safe refuge from enemies, or an advantageous outlook or observation shelter for their fields on the opposite side of the stream. The soft rock of which the mesa is formed is easily worked, and there are abundant evidences, from the marks of tools employed, that the greater part of each cave was pecked out by hand. Fragments of wood were very rarely seen in these cliff dugouts; and although there is much adobe plastering, only in a few instances were the mouths of the caves walled or a doorway of usual shape present. The last room at the southern end, near the promontory at the right of the entrance to a side canyon, has walls in front resembling those of true cliff houses and pueblos in the Red-rock country farther northward, as will be shown in subsequent pages. This group of cavate dwellings, while a good example of the cavern type of ruins, is so closely associated, both in geographical position and in archeological remains, with other types in Verde valley, that we are justified in referring them to one and the same people. The number of these troglodytic dwelling places on the Verde is very large; indeed the mesas may be said to be fairly honeycombed with subterranean habitations. Confined as a general thing to the softer strata of rock, which from its character was readily excavated, they lie side by side at the same general level, and are entered from a projecting ledge, formed by the top of the talus which follows the level of their entrances. [Illustration: FIG. 245--Plan of cavate dwelling on Rio Verde] This ledge is easily accessible in certain places from the river bed, where stones have fallen to the base of the cliff; but at most points no approach is possible, and in their impregnable position the inhabitants could easily defend themselves from hostile peoples. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCII ENTRANCES TO CAVATE RUINS] Whether the rock had recesses in it before the caves were enlarged would seem to be answered in the affirmative, for similar caves without evidences of habitations were observed. These, however, are as a rule small, and wherever available the larger caverns have been appropriated and enlarged by stone implements, as shown by the pecking on the walls. The enlargement of these caverns, however, would not be a difficult task, for the rock is very soft and easily worked. Entering one of these cavate rooms the visitor finds himself in a dark chamber, as a rule with side openings or passageways into adjoining rooms. Broad lateral banquettes are prominent features in the most complicated caves, and there are many recesses and small closets or cists. The ramifications formed by lateral rooms are often extensive, and the chambers communicate with others so dark that we can hardly regard them as once inhabited. In these dimly lighted rooms the walls were blackened with smoke, as if from former fires, and in many of the largest the position of fireplaces could plainly be discovered. As a type of one of the more complicated I have chosen that figured to illustrate the arrangement of these cavate dwellings (figure 245). Many are smaller, others have more lateral chambers, but one type is characteristic of all. A main room (_A_, figure 245), or that first entered from outside, is roughly rectangular in shape, 12 feet long by 6 feet wide, and about 6 feet high. The floor, however, was covered with very dry débris which had blown in from the exterior or, in some instances, fallen from the roof. That part of the floor which was exposed shows that it was roughly plastered, sometimes paved or formed of solid rock. On three sides of this room there is a step 2 feet high, to platforms, three in number, one in the rear and one on each side. These platforms are 5, 6, and 6 feet 6 inches wide, respectively, and of the same length as the corresponding sides of the central room. It would appear that these platforms are characteristic architectural features of these habitations, and we find them reproduced in some of the rooms of the cliff houses of the Red-rocks, while Nordenskiöld has described a kindred feature in the kivas of the Mesa Verde ruins. A somewhat similar elevation of the floor in modern Tusayan kivas forms what may be called the spectator's part, in front of the ladder as one descends, and the same feature is common to many older Hopi dwellings.[15] Beginning with the lateral platforms (_B_, figure 245) we first note, as we step upon it at _c_, about midway of its length, a small circular depression in the floor of the central room extending slightly beneath the platform, as indicated by the dotted line. It is possible that this niche was a receptacle for important household objects, although it may have been a fireplace. In a corner of the right platform a round cist, partially hewn out of the rock, was found, but its walls (_a_, figure 245) were badly broken down by some former explorer. The floor of this recess lies below that of the platform, while the cist itself (_D_) reminds one of the closed or walled structures, so commonly found in the Verde, attached to the side of the cliff. On the lateral wall of this chamber, at about the height of the head, a row of small holes had been drilled into the solid wall. These holes (_d_, _d_, _d_) are almost too small for the insertion of roof beams, and were probably made for pegs on which to rest a beam for hanging blankets and other textile fabrics when not in use. The roof of the cave was the natural rock, and showed over its whole surface marks of a pecking implement. The left chamber is 6 feet 6 inches broad, and from one corner, opposite the doorway, a low passageway leads into a circular chamber, 6 feet in diameter, with its floor below the platform of the lateral room. Between the chamber, on the left of the entrance, and the open air, the wall of solid rock is broken by a slit-like crevice, which allows the light to enter, and no doubt served as a window. A recess, the floor of which is elevated, on a platform opposite the doorway, is 5 feet broad, and has a small circular depression in one corner. The floor and upraise of this recess is plastered with adobe, which in several places is smooth and well made. In comparing the remaining cavate dwellings of this series with that described, we find every degree of complication in the arrangement of rooms, from a simple cave, or irregular hole in the side of the cliff, to squared chambers with lateral rooms. The room _I_,[16] for instance, is rectangular, 6 feet long by 3 feet wide, with an entrance the same width as that of the room itself. In room _III_, however, the external opening is very small, and there is a low, narrow ledge, or platform, opposite the doorway. There is likewise in this room a small shelf in the left-hand wall. In _IV_ there is a raised platform on two adjacent sides of the square room, and the doorway is an irregular orifice broken through the wall to the open air. Room _IV_ is a subterranean chamber, most of the floor of which is littered with large fragments of rock which have fallen from the roof. It has numerous small recesses in the wall resembling cubby-holes where household utensils of various kinds were undoubtedly formerly kept. This room is instructive, in that the entrance is partially closed by two walls of masonry, which do not join. The stones are laid in adobe in which fragments of pottery were detected. These unjoined walls leave a doorway which is thus flanked on each side by stone masonry, recalling in every particular the well-known walls of cliff houses. Here, in fact, we have so close a resemblance to the masonry of true cliff houses that we can hardly doubt that the excavators of the cavate dwellings were, in reality, people similar to those who built the cliff houses of Verde valley. Room _VIII_ is a simple cave hewn out of the rock, with a chamber behind it, entered by a passageway made of masonry, which partially fills a larger opening. The doorway through this masonry is small below, but broadens above in much the same manner as some of the doorways in Tusayan of today. Continuing along the left bank of the river, from the row of cavate rooms, just described, on the first mesa, we round a promontory and enter a small canyon,[17] which is perforated on each side with numerous other cavate dwellings, large and small, all of the same general character as the type described. Here, likewise, are small external openings which evidently communicated with subterranean chambers, but many of them are so elevated that access to them from the floor of the canyon or from the cliff above is not possible. A marked feature of the whole series is the existence here and there of small, often inaccessible, stone cists of masonry plastered to the side of the rocky cliff like swallows' nests. All of these cists which are accessible had been opened and plundered before my visit, but there yet remain a few which are still intact and would repay examination and study. Similar walled-up cists are likewise found, as we shall see later, in the cliff-houses of the Red-rock country, hence are not confined to the Verde system of ruins. Cavate dwellings similar to those here described are reported to exist in the canyons of upper Salado, Gala, and Zuñi rivers, and we may with reason suspect that the distribution[18] of cavate dwellings is as wide as that of the pueblos themselves, the sole requisite being a soft tufaceous rock, capable of being easily worked by people with stone implements. In none of the different regions in which they exist is there any probability that these caves were made by people different in culture from pueblo or cliff dwellers. They are much more likely to have been permanent than temporary habitations of the same culture stock of Indians who availed themselves of rock shelters wherever the nature of the cliff permitted excavation in its walls. That the cavate lodges are simple "horticultural outlooks" is an important suggestion, but one might question whether they were conveniently placed for that purpose. So far as overlooking the opposite plain (which had undoubtedly been cultivated in ancient times) is concerned, the position of some of them may be regarded good for that purpose, but certainly not so commanding as that of the hill or mesa above, where well-marked ruins still exist. The position of the cavate dwellings is a disadvantageous one to reach any cultivated fields if defenders were necessary. When the Tusayan Indian today moves to his _kisi_ or summer brush house shelter he practically camps in his corn or near it, in easy reach to drive away crows, or build wind-breaks to shelter the tender sprouts; but to go to their cornfields the inhabitants of the cavate dwellings I have described were forced to cross a river before the farm was reached. That these cavate dwellings were lookouts none can deny, but I incline to a belief that this does not tell the whole story if we limit them to such use. It is not wholly clear to me that they were not likewise an asylum for refuge, possibly not inhabited continuously, but a very welcome retreat when the agriculturist was sorely pressed by enemies. Following the analogy of a Hopi custom of building temporary booths near their fields, may we not suppose that the former inhabitants of Verde valley may have erected similar shelters in their cornfields during summer months, retiring to the cavate dwellings and the mesa tops in winter? All available evidence would indicate that the cavate dwellings were permanent habitations.[19] There are several square ruins on top of the mesa above the cavate dwellings. The walls of these were massive, but they are now very much broken down, and the adobe plastering is so eroded from the masonry that I regard them of considerable antiquity. They do not differ from other similar ruins, so common elsewhere in New Mexico and Arizona, and are identical with others in the Verde region. I visited several of these ruins, but made no excavations in them, nor added any new data to our knowledge of this type of aboriginal buildings. The pottery picked up on the surface resembles that of the ruins of the Little Colorado and Gila. The dwellings which I have mentioned above are said[20] to be duplicated at many other points in the watershed of the Verde, and many undescribed ruins of this nature were reported to me by ranchmen. I do not regard them as older than the adjacent ruins on the mesa above or the plains below them, much less as productions of people of different stages of culture, for everything about them suggests contemporaneous occupancy. From what little I saw of the village sites on the Verde I believe that Mindeleff is correct in considering that these ruins represent a comparatively late period of pueblo architecture. The character of the cliff houses of the Red-rocks shows no very great antiquity of occupancy. While it is not possible to give any approximate date when they were inhabited, their general appearance indicates that they are not more than two centuries old. There is, however, no reference to them in the early Spanish history of the Southwest. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCIII BOWLDER WITH PICTOGRAPHS NEAR WOOD'S RANCH] Few pictographs were found in the immediate neighborhood of the cavate dwellings; indeed the rock in their vicinity is too soft to preserve for any considerable time any great number of these rock etchings. Examples of ancient paleography were, however, discovered a short distance higher up the river on malpais rock, which is harder and less rapidly eroded. A half-buried bowlder (plate XCIII) near Wood's ranch was found to be covered with the well-known spirals with zigzag attachments, horned animals resembling antelopes, growing corn, rain clouds, and similar figures. These pictographs occur on a black, superficial layer of lava rock, or upon lighter stone with a malpais layer, which had been pecked through, showing a lighter color beneath. There is little doubt that many examples of aboriginal pictography exist in this neighborhood, which would reward exploration with interesting data. The Verde pictographs can not be distinguished, so far as designs are concerned, from many found elsewhere in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. An instructive pictograph, different from any which I have elsewhere seen, was discovered on the upturned side of a bowlder not far from Hance's ranch, near the road from Camp Verde to the cavate dwellings. The bowlder upon which they occur lies on top of a low hill, to the left of the road, near the river. It consists of a rectangular network of lines, with attached key extensions, crooks, and triangles, all pecked in the surface. This dædalus of lines arises from grooves, which originate in two small, rounded depressions in the rock, near which is depicted the figure of a mountain lion. The whole pictograph is 3-1/2 feet square, and legible in all its parts. The intent of the ancient scribe is not wholly clear, but it has been suggested that he sought to represent the nexus of irrigating ditches in the plain below. It might have been intended as a chart of the neighboring fields of corn, and it is highly suggestive, if we adopt either of these explanations or interpretations, that a figure of the mountain lion is found near the depressions, which may provisionally be regarded as representing ancient reservoirs. Among the Tusayan Indians the mountain lion is looked on as a guardian of cultivated fields, which he is said to protect, and his stone image is sometimes placed there for the same purpose. In the vicinity of the pictograph last described other bowlders, of which there are many, were found to be covered with smaller rock etchings in no respect characteristic, and there is a remnant of an ancient shrine a few yards away from the bowlder upon which they occur. MONTEZUMA WELL One of the most interesting sites of ancient habitation in Verde valley is known as Montezuma Well, and it is remarkable how little attention has been paid to it by archeologists.[21] Dr Mearns, in his article on the ancient dwellings of Verde valley, does not mention the well, and Mindeleff simply refers to the brief description by Dr Hoffman in 1877. These ruins are worthy of more study than I was able to give them, for like many other travelers I remained but a short time in the neighborhood. It is possible, however, that some of my hurried observations at this point may be worthy of record. Montezuma Well (plate XCIV) is an irregular, circular depression, closely resembling a volcanic crater, but evidently, as Dr Hoffman well points out, due to erosion rather than to volcanic agencies. As one approaches it from a neighboring ranch the road ascends a low elevation, and when on top the visitor finds that the crater occupies the whole interior of the hill. The exact dimensions I did not accurately determine, but the longest diameter of the excavation is estimated at about 400 feet; its depth possibly 70 feet. On the eastern side this depression is separated from Beaver creek by a precipitous wall which can not be scaled from that side. At the time of my visit there was considerable water in the "well," which was reported to be very deep, but did not cover the whole bottom. It is possible to descend to the water at one point on the eastern side, where a trail leads to the water's edge. There appears to be a subterranean waterway under the eastern rim of the well, and the water from the spring rushes through this passage into Beaver creek. At the time of my visit this outflow was very considerable, and in the rainy season it must be much greater. The well is never dry, and is supplied by perennial subterranean springs rather than by surface drainage. The geological agency which has been potent in giving the remarkable crater-like form to Montezuma Well was correctly recognized by Dr Hoffman[22] and others as the solvent or erosive power of the spring. There is no evidence of volcanic formation in the neighborhood, and the surrounding rocks are limestones and sandstones. Not far from Navaho springs there is a similar circular depression, called Jacob's Well, but which was dry when visited by me. This may later be found to have been formed in a similar way. At several places in Arizona there are formations of like geological character. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCIV MONTEZUMA WELL] The walls of Montezuma Well are so nearly perpendicular that descent to the edge of the water is difficult save by a single trail which follows the detritus to a cave on one side. In this cave, the roof of which is not much higher than the water level, there are fragments of masonry, as if structures of some kind had formerly been erected in it. I have regarded this cave rather as a place of religious rites than of former habitation, possibly a place of retreat for ancient priests when praying for rain or moisture, or a shrine for the deposit of prayer offerings to rain or water gods. Several isolated cliff dwellings are built at different levels in the sides of the cliffs. One of the best of these is diametrically opposite the cave mentioned above, a few feet below the rim of the depression. While this house was entered with little difficulty, there were others which I did not venture to visit. The accompanying illustration (plate XCV) gives an idea of the general appearance of one of these cliff houses of Montezuma Well. It is built under an overhanging archway of rock in a deep recess, with masonry on three sides. The openings are shown, one of which overlooks the spring; the other is an entrance at one side. The face of masonry on the front is not plastered, and if it was formerly rough cast the mud has been worn away, leaving the stones exposed. The side wall, which has been less exposed to the elements, still retains the plastering, which is likewise found on the inner walls where it is quite smooth in places. The number of cliff rooms in the walls of the well is small and their capacity, if used as dwellings, very limited. There are, however, ruins of pueblos of some size on the edge of the well. One of the largest of these, shown in the accompanying illustration (plate XCVI), is situated on the neck of land separating the well from the valley of Beaver creek. This pueblo was rectangular in form, of considerable size, built of stones, and although at present almost demolished, shows perfectly the walls of former rooms. Fragments of ancient pottery would seem to indicate that the people who once inhabited this pueblo were in no respect different from other sedentary occupants of Verde valley. From their housetops they had a wide view over the creek on one side and the spring on the other, defending, by the site of their village, the one trail by which descent to the well was possible. The remarkable geological character of Montezuma Well, and the spring within it, would have profoundly impressed itself on the folklore of any people of agricultural bent who lived in its neighborhood after emigrating to more arid lands. About a month after my visit to this remarkable spring I described the place to some of the old priests at Walpi and showed them sketches of the ruins. These priests seemed to have legendary knowledge of a place somewhat like it where they said the Great Plumed Snake had one of his numerous houses. They reminded me of a legend they had formerly related to me of how the Snake arose from a great cavity or depression in the ground, and how, they had heard, water boiled out of that hole into a neighboring river. The Hopi have personal knowledge of Montezuma Well, for many of their number have visited Verde valley, and they claim the ruins there as the homes of their ancestors. It would not be strange, therefore, if this marvelous crater was regarded by them as a house of Palülükoñ, their mythic Plumed Serpent. Practically little is known of the pictography of this part of the Verde valley people, although it has an important bearing on the distribution of the cliff dwellers of the Southwest. There is evidence of at least two kinds of petroglyphs, indicative of two distinct peoples. One of these was of the Apache Mohave; the other, the agriculturists who built the cliff homes and villages of the plain. Those of the latter are almost identical with the work of the Pueblo peoples in the cliff dweller stage, from southern Utah and Colorado to the Mexican boundary. It is not a difficult task to distinguish the pictography of these two peoples, wherever found. The pictographs of the latter are generally pecked into the rock with a sharpened implement, probably of stone, while those of the former are usually scratched or painted on the surface of the rocks. Their main differences, however, are found in the character of the designs and the objects represented. This difference can be described only by considering individual rock drawings, but the practiced eye may readily distinguish the two kinds at a glance. The pictographs which are pecked in the cliff are, as a rule, older than those which are drawn or scratched, and resemble more closely those widely spread in the Pueblo area, for if the cliff-house people ever made painted pictographs, as there is every reason to believe they did, time has long ago obliterated them. The pictured rocks (plate XCVII) near Cliff's ranch, on Beaver creek, four miles from Montezuma Well, have a great variety of objects depicted upon them. These rocks, which rise from the left bank of the creek opposite Cliff's ranch, bear over a hundred different rock pictures, figures of which are seen in the accompanying illustration. The rock surface is a layer of black malpais, through which the totem signatures have been pecked, showing the light stone beneath, and thus rendering them very conspicuous. Among these pictographs many familiar forms are recognizable, among them being the crane or blue heron, bears' and badgers' paws, turtles, snakes, antelopes, earth symbols, spirals, and meanders. Among these many totems there was an unusual pictograph in the form of the figure 8, above which was a bear's paw accompanied by a human figure so common in southwestern rock etchings. A square figure with interior parallel squares extending to the center is also found, as elsewhere, in cliff-dweller pictography. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCV CLIFF HOUSE, MONTEZUMA WELL] CLIFF HOUSES OF THE RED-ROCKS After the road from old Camp Verde to Flagstaff passes a deserted cabin at Beaver Head, it winds up a steep hill of lava or malpais to the top of the Mogollones. If, instead of ascending this hill, one turns to the left, taking an obscure road across the river bed, which is full of rough lava blocks, and in June, when I traveled its course, was without water, he soon finds himself penetrating a rugged country with bright-red cliffs on his right (plate XCVIII). Continuing through great parks and plains he finally descends to the well-wooded valley of Oak creek, an affluent of Rio Verde. Here he finds evidences of aboriginal occupancy on all sides--ruins of buildings, fortified hilltops, pictographs, and irrigating ditches--testifying that there was at one time a considerable population in this valley. The fields of the ancient inhabitants have now given place to many excellent ranches, one of the most flourishing of which is not far from a lofty butte of red rock called the Court-house, which from its great size is a conspicuous object for miles around. In many of these canyons there are evidences of a former population, but the country is as yet almost unexplored; there are many difficult places to pass, yet once near the base of the rocks a way can be picked from the mouth of one canyon to another. It does not take long to discover that this now uninhabited region contains, like that along the Verde and its tributaries, many ancient dwellings, for there is scarcely a single canyon leading into these red cliffs in which evidences of former human habitations are not found in the form of ruins. There is little doubt that these unfrequented canyons have many and extensive cliff houses, the existence of which has thus far escaped the explorer. The sandstone of which they are composed is much eroded into caves with overhanging roofs, forming admirable sites for cliff houses as distinguished from cavate dwellings like those we have described. They are the only described ruins of a type hitherto thought to be unrepresented in the valley of the Verde.[23] In our excursion into the Red-rock country we were obliged to make our own wagon road, as no vehicle had ever penetrated the rugged canyons visited by us. It was necessary to carry our drinking water with us from Oak creek, which fact impeded our progress and limited the time available in our reconnoissance. There was, however, in the pool near the ruins of Honanki enough water for our horses, and at the time we were there a limited amount of grass for fodder was found. I was told that later in the season both forage and water are abundant, so that these prime necessities being met, there is no reason why successful archeological investigations may not be successfully conducted in this part of the Verde region. The limited population of this portion of the country rendered it difficult to get laborers at the time I made my reconnoissance, so that it would be advisable for one who expects to excavate the ruins in this region to take with him workmen from the settled portions of the valley. RUINS NEAR SCHÜRMANN'S RANCH The valley of Oak creek, near Court-house butte, especially in the vicinity of Schürmann's ranch, is dotted with fortifications, mounds indicative of ruins, and like evidences of aboriginal occupancy. There is undoubted proof that the former occupants of this plain constructed elaborate irrigating ditches, and that the waters of Oak creek were diverted from the stream and conducted over the adjoining valleys. There are several fortified hills in this locality. One of the best of these defensive works crowned a symmetrical mountain near Schürmann's house. The top of this mesa is practically inaccessible from any but the southern side, and was found to have a flat surface covered with scattered cacti and scrub cedar, among which were walls of houses nowhere rising more than two feet. The summit is perhaps 200 feet above the valley, and the ground plan of the former habitations extends over an area 100 feet in length, practically occupying the whole of the summit. Although fragments of pottery are scarce, and other evidences of long habitation difficult to find, the house walls give every evidence of being extremely ancient, and most of the rooms are filled with red soil out of which grow trees of considerable age. Descending from this ruin-capped mesa, I noticed on the first terrace the remains of a roundhouse, or lookout, in the middle of which a cedar tree had taken root and was growing vigorously. Although the walls of this structure do not rise above the level of the ground, there is no doubt that they are the remains of either a lookout or circular tower formerly situated at this point. Many similar ruins are found throughout this vicinity, yet but little more is known of them than that they antedate the advent of white men. The majority of them were defensive works, built by the house dwellers, and their frequency would indicate either considerable population or long occupancy. Although many of those on the hilltops differ somewhat from the habitations in the valleys, I think there is little doubt that both were built by the same people.[24] There are likewise many caves in this region, which seem to have been camping places, for their walls are covered with soot and their floors strewn with charred mescal, evidences, probably, of Apache occupancy. This whole section of country was a stronghold of this ferocious tribe within the last few decades, which may account for the modern appearance of many of the evidences of aboriginal habitation. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCVI RUIN ON THE BRINK OF MONTEZUMA WELL] There are some good pictographs on the foundation rocks of that great pinnacle of red rock, called the Court-house, not far from Schürmann's ranch.[25] Some of these are Apache productions, and the neighboring caves evidently formed shelters for these nomads, as ash pit and half-burnt logs would seem to show. This whole land was a stronghold of the Apache up to a recent date, and from it they were dislodged, many of the Indians being killed or removed by authority of the Government. From the geological character of the Red-rocks I was led to suspect that cavate dwellings were not to be expected. The stone is hard and not readily excavated by the rude implements with which the aborigines of the region were supplied. But the remarkable erosion shown in this rock elsewhere had formed many deep caverns or caves, with overreaching roofs, very favorable for the sites of cliff houses. My hurried examination confirmed my surmises, for we here found dwellings of this kind, so similar to the type best illustrated in Mancos canyon of southern Colorado. There were several smoke-blackened caves without walls of masonry, but with floors strewn with charred wood, showing Apache occupancy. No cavate dwellings were found in the section of the Red-rocks visited by our party. The two largest of the Red-rock cliff houses to which I shall refer were named Honanki or Bear-house and Palatki or Red-house. The former of these, as I learned from the names scribbled on its walls, had previously been visited by white men, but so far as I know it has never been mentioned in archeological literature. My attention was called to it by Mr Schürmann, at whose hospitable ranch I outfitted for my reconnoissance into the Red-rock country. The smaller ruin, Palatki, we discovered by chance during our visit, and while it is possible that some vaquero in search of a wild steer may have visited the neighborhood before us, there is every reason to believe that the ruin had escaped even the notice of these persons, and, like Honanki, was unknown to the archeologist. The two ruins, Honanki and Palatki, are not the only ones in the lone canyon where we encamped. Following the canyon a short distance from its entrance, there was found to open into it from the left a tributary, or so-called box canyon, the walls of which are very precipitous. Perched on ledges of the cliffs there are several rows of fortifications or walls of masonry extending for many yards. It was impossible for us to enter these works, even after we had clambered up the side of the precipice to their level, so inaccessible were they to our approach. These "forts" were probably for refuge, but they are ill adapted as points of observation on account of the configuration of the canyon. Their masonry, as examined at a distance with a field glass, resembles that of Palatki and Honanki. I was impressed by the close resemblance between the large cliff houses of the Red-rocks, with their overhanging roof of rock, and those of the San Juan and its tributaries in northern New Mexico. While it is recognized that cliff houses have been reported from Verde valley, I find them nowhere described, and our lack of information about them, so far as they are concerned, may have justified Nordenskiöld's belief that "the basin of the Colorado actually contains almost all the cliff dwellings of the United States." As the Gila flows into the Colorado near its mouth, the Red-rock ruins may in a sense be included in the Colorado basin, but there are many and beautiful cliff houses higher up near the sources of the Gila and its tributary, the Salt. In calling attention to the characteristic cliff dwellings of the Red-rocks I am making known a new region of ruins closely related to those of Canyon de Tségi, or Chelly, the San Juan and its tributaries. Although the cliff houses of Verde valley had been known for many years, and the ruins here described are of the same general character, anyone who examines Casa Montezuma, on Beaver creek, and compares it with Honanki, will note differences of an adaptive nature. The one feature common to Honanki and the "Cliff Palace" of Mancos canyon is the great overhanging roof of the cavern, which, in that form, we miss in Casa Montezuma (figure 246).[26] [Illustration: FIG. 246--Casa Montezuma on Beaver creek] We made two camps in the Red-rock country, one at the mouth of a wild canyon near an older camp where a well had been dug and the cellar of an American house was visible. This camp was fully six miles from Schürmann's ranch and was surrounded by some of the wildest scenery that I had ever witnessed. The accompanying view (plate XCVIII) was taken from a small elevation near by, and gives a faint idea of the magnificent mountains by which we were surrounded. The colors of the rocks are variegated, so that the gorgeous cliffs appear to be banded, rising from 800 to 1,000 feet sheer on all sides. These rocks had weathered into fantastic shapes suggestive of cathedrals, Greek temples, and sharp steeples of churches extending like giant needles into the sky. The scenery compares very favorably with that of the Garden of the Gods, and is much more extended. This place, I have no doubt, will sooner or later become popular with the sightseer, and I regard the discovery of these cliffs one of the most interesting of my summer's field work. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCVII PICTOGRAPHS NEAR CLIFF RANCH, VERDE VALLEY] On the sides of these inaccessible cliffs we noticed several cliff houses, but so high were they perched above us that they were almost invisible. To reach them at their dizzy altitude was impossible, but we were able to enter some caves a few hundred feet above our camp, finding in them nothing but charred mescal and other evidences of Apache camps. Their walls and entrances are blackened with smoke, but no sign of masonry was detected. We moved our camp westward from this canyon (which, from a great cliff resembling the Parthenon, I called Temple canyon), following the base of the precipitous mountains to a second canyon, equally beautiful but not so grand, and built our fire in a small grove of scrub oak and cottonwood. In this lonely place Lloyd had lived over a winter, watching his stock, and had dug a well and erected a corral. We adopted his name for this camp and called it Lloyd canyon. There was no water in the well, but a few rods beyond it there was a pool, from which we watered our horses. On the first evening at this camp we sighted a bear, which gave the name Honanki, "Bear-house," to the adjacent ruined dwellings. The enormous precipice of red rock west of our camp at Lloyd's corral hid Honanki from view at first, but we soon found a trail leading directly to it, and during our short stay in this neighborhood we remained camped near the cottonwoods at the entrance to the canyon, not far from the abandoned corral. Our studies of Honanki led to the discovery of Palatki (figure 247), which we investigated on our return to Temple canyon. I will, therefore, begin my description of the Red-rock cliff houses with those last discovered, which, up to the visit which I made, had never been studied by archeologists. PALATKI There are two neighboring ruins which I shall include in my consideration of Palatki, and these for convenience may be known as Ruin I and Ruin II, the former situated a little eastward from the latter. They are but a short distance apart, and are in the same box canyon. Ruin I (plate XCIX) is the better preserved, and is a fine type of the compact form of cliff dwellings in the Red-rock country. This ruin is perched on the top of a talus which has fallen from the cliff above, and is visible for some distance above the trees, as one penetrates the canyon. It is built to the side of a perpendicular wall of rock which, high above its tallest walls, arches over it, sheltering the walls from rain or eroding influences. From the dry character of the earth on the floors I suspect that for years not a drop of water has penetrated the inclosures, although they are now roofless. A highly characteristic feature of Ruin I is the repetition of rounded or bow-shape front walls, occurring several times in their length, and arranged in such a way as to correspond roughly to the inclosures behind them. By this arrangement the size of the rooms was increased and possibly additional solidity given to the wall itself. This departure from a straight wall implies a degree of architectural skill, which, while not peculiar to the cliff dwellings of the Red-rocks, is rarely found in southern cliff houses. The total length of the front wall of the ruin, including the part which has fallen, is approximately 120 feet, and the altitude of the highest wall is not far from 30 feet. [Illustration: FIG. 247--Ground plan of Palatki (Ruins I and II)] From the arrangement of openings in the front wall at the highest part there is good evidence of the former existence of two stories. At several points the foundation of the wall is laid on massive bowlders, which contribute to the height of the wall itself. The masonry is made up of irregular or roughly squared blocks of red stone laid in red clay, both evidently gathered in the immediate neighborhood of the ruin. The building stones vary in size, but are as a rule flat, and show well directed fractures as if dressed by hammering. In several places there still remains a superficial plastering, which almost conceals the masonry. The blocks of stone in the lower courses are generally more massive than those higher up; this feature, however, whether considered as occurring here or in the cliff houses of Mesa Verde, as pointed out by Nordenskiöld, seems to me not to indicate different builders, but is due simply to convenience. There appears to be no regularity in the courses of component blocks of stone, and when necessity compelled, as in the courses laid on bowlders, which serve as a foundation, thin wedges of stone, or spalls, were inserted in the crevices. The walls are vertical, but the corners are sometimes far from perpendicular. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCVIII THE RED ROCKS; TEMPLE CANYON] The interior of the ruin is divided into a number of inclosures by partitions at right angles to the front wall, fastening it to the face of the cliff. This I have lettered, beginning at the extreme right inclosure with _A_. The inclosure has bounding walls, built on a bowlder somewhat more than six feet high. It has no external passageway, and probably the entrance was from the roof. This inclosure communicates by a doorway directly with the adjoining chamber, _B_. The corner of this room, or the angle made by the lateral with the front walls, is rounded, a constant feature in well-built cliff houses. No windows exist, and the upper edge of both front and lateral walls is but slightly broken. The front wall of inclosure _B_ bulges into bow-shape form, and was evidently at least two stories high. This wall is a finely laid section of masonry, composed of large, rough stones in the lower courses, upon which smaller, roughly hewn stones are built. It is probable, from the large amount of débris in the neighborhood, that formerly there were rows of single-story rooms in front of what are now the standing walls, but the character of their architecture is difficult to determine with certainty. Their foundations, although partially covered, are not wholly concealed. The front wall of inclosure _B_ is pierced by three openings, the largest of which is a square passageway into the adjoining room, and is situated in the middle of the curved wall. A wooden lintel, which had been well hewn with stone implements, still remains in place above this passageway, and under it the visitor passes through a low opening which has the appearance of having been once a doorway. Above this entrance, on each side, in the wall, is a square hole, which originally may have been the points of support of floor beams. Formerly, likewise, there was a large square opening above the middle passageway, but this has been closed with masonry, leaving in place the wooden beam which once supported the wall above. The upper edge of the front wall of inclosure _B_ is level, and is but little broken except in two places, where there are notches, one above each of the square holes already mentioned. It is probable that these depressions were intended for the ends of the beams which once supported a combined roof and floor. On the perpendicular wall which forms the rear of inclosure _B_, many feet above the top of the standing front walls, there are several pictographs of Apache origin. The height of these above the level of the former roof would appear to indicate the existence of a third story, for the hands which drew them must have been at least 15 feet above the present top of the standing wall. The front of _C_ is curved like that of inclosure _B_, and is much broken near the foundations, where there is a passageway. There is a small hole on each side of a middle line, as in _B_, situated at about the same level as the floor, indicating the former position of a beam. Within the ruin there is a well-made partition separating inclosures _B_ and _C_. The size of room _D_ is much less than that of _B_ or _C_, but, with the exception of a section at the left, the front wall has fallen. The part which remains upright, however, stands like a pinnacle, unconnected with the face of the cliff or with the second-story wall of inclosure _C_. It is about 20 feet in height, and possibly its altitude appears greater than it really is from the fact that its foundations rest upon a bowlder nearly six feet high (plate CX). The foundations of rooms _E_ and _F_ (plate C) are built on a lower level than those of _B_ and _C_ or _D_, and their front walls, which are really low, are helped out by similar bowlders, which serve as foundations. The indications are that both these inclosures were originally one story in height, forming a wing to the central section of the ruin, which had an additional tier of rooms. There is an entrance to _F_ at the extreme left, and the whole room was lower than the floor of the lower stories of _B_, _C_, and _D_. The most conspicuous pictograph on the cliff above Ruin I of Palatki, is a circular white figure, seen in the accompanying illustration. This pictograph is situated directly above the first room on the right, _A_, and was apparently made with chalk, so elevated that at present it is far above the reach of a person standing on any of the walls. From its general character I am led to believe that it was made by the Apache and not by the builders of the pueblo. There were no names of white visitors anywhere on the walls of Palatki, which, so far as it goes, affords substantial support of my belief that we were the first white men to visit this ruin. While it can not be positively asserted that we were the original discoverers of this interesting building, there is no doubt that I was the first to describe it and to call attention to its highly characteristic architectural plan. The walls of Palatki are not so massive as those of the neighboring Honanki, and the number of rooms in both ruins which form Palatki is much smaller. Each of these components probably housed not more than a few families, while several phratries could readily be accommodated in Honanki. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCIX PALATKI (RUIN I)] The second Palatki ruin is well preserved, and as a rule the rooms, especially those in front, have suffered more from vandalism and from the elements than have those of Ruin I. The arrangement of the rooms is somewhat different from that of the more exposed eastern ruin, to which it undoubtedly formerly belonged. Ruin II lies in a deep recess or cave, the roof of which forms a perfect arch above the walls. It is situated a few hundred feet to the west, and is easily approached by following the fallen débris at the foot of a perpendicular cliff. The front walls have all fallen, exposing the rear wall of what was formerly a row of rooms, as shown in the accompanying illustration (plate CI). There are evidences that this row of rooms was but a single story in height, while those behind it have indications of three stories. Ruin II is more hidden by the trees and by its obscure position in a cavern than the former, but the masonry in both is of the same general character. On approaching Ruin II from Ruin I there is first observed a well-made though rough wall, as a rule intact, along which the line of roof and flooring can readily be traced (plate CI). In front of this upright wall are fragments of other walls, some standing in unconnected sections, others fallen, their fragments extending down the sides of the talus among the bushes. It was observed that this wall is broken by an entrance which passes into a chamber, which may be called _A_, and two square holes are visible, one on each side, above it. These holes were formerly filled by two logs, which once supported the floor of a second chamber, the line of which still remains on the upright wall. The small square orifice directly above the entrance is a peephole. In examining the character of the wall it will be noticed that its masonry is in places rough cast, and that there was little attempt at regularity in the courses of the component stones, which are neither dressed nor aligned, although the wall is practically vertical. At one point, in full view of the observer, a log is apparently inserted in the wall, and if the surrounding masonry be examined it will be found that an opening below it had been filled in after the wall was erected. It is evident, from its position relatively to the line indicating the roof, that this opening was originally a passageway from one room to another. Passing back of the standing wall an inclosure (room _A_) is entered, one side of which is the rock of the cliff, while the other three bounding walls are built of masonry, 20 feet high. This inclosure was formerly divided into an upper and a lower room by a partition, which served as the roof of the lower and the floor of the upper chambers. Two beams stretched across this inclosure about six feet above the débris of the present floor, and the openings in the walls, where these beams formerly rested, are readily observed. In the same way the beam-holes of the upper story may also be easily seen on the top of the wall. Between the rear wall of this inclosure and the perpendicular cliff there was a recess which appears to have been a dark chamber, probably designed for use as a storage room or granary. The configuration of the cliff, which forms the major part of the inclosing wall of this chamber, imparts to it an irregular or roughly triangular form. The entire central portion of the ruin is very much broken down, and the floor is strewn to a considerable depth with the débris of fallen walls. On both sides there are nicely aligned, smoothly finished walls, with traces of beams on the level of former floors. Some of these bounding walls are curved; others are straight, and in places they rise 20 feet. Marks of fire are visible everywhere; most of the beams have been wrenched from their places, as a result of which the walls have been much mutilated, badly cracked, or thrown down. There are no pictographs near this ruin, and no signs of former visits by white men. Midway between Honanki and the second Palatki ruin a small ancient house of the same character as the latter was discovered. This ruin is very much exposed, and therefore the walls are considerably worn, but six well-marked inclosures, indicative of former rooms, were readily made out. No overarching rock shielded this ruin from the elements, and rubble from fallen walls covers the talus upon which it stands. The adobe mortar between the stones is much worn, and no fragment of plastering is traceable within or without. This evidence of the great weathering of the walls of the ruin is not considered indicative of greater age than the better preserved ruins in the neighborhood, but rather of exposure to the action of the elements. Not only are the walls in a very poor condition, but also the floors show, from the absence of dry soil upon them, that the whole ruin has suffered greatly from the same denudation. There are no fragments of pottery about it, and small objects indicating former habitation are also wanting. A cedar had taken root where the floor once was, and its present great size shows considerable age. If any pictographs formerly existed in the adjacent cliff they have disappeared. There is likewise no evidence that the Apache had ever sought it for shelter, or if they had, their occupancy occurred so long ago that time has effaced all evidence of their presence. HONANKI The largest ruin visited in the Red-rock country was called, following Hopi etymology, Honanki; but the nomenclature was adopted not because it was so called by the Hopi, but following the rule elsewhere suggested. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. C PALATKI (RUIN I)] This ruin lies under a lofty buttress of rock westward from Lloyd's canyon, which presented the only available camping place in its neighborhood. At the time of my visit there was but scanty water in the canyon and that not potable except for stock. We carried with us all the water we used, and when this was exhausted were obliged to retrace our steps to Oak creek. There are groves of trees in the canyon and evidences that at some seasons there is an abundant water supply. A corral had been made and a well dug near its mouth, but with these exceptions there were no evidences of previous occupancy by white men. We had hardly pitched our camp before tracks of large game were noticed, and before we left we sighted a bear which had come down to the water to drink, but which beat a hasty retreat at our approach. As previously stated, the knowledge of this ruin was communicated to me by Mr Schürmann. [Illustration: FIG. 248--Ground plan of Honanki] The Honanki ruin (figure 248) extends along the base of the cliff for a considerable distance, and may for convenience of description be divided into two sections, which, although generally similar, differ somewhat in structural features. The former is lineal in its arrangement, and consists of a fringe of houses extending along the base of the cliff at a somewhat lower level than the other. The walls of this section were for the greater part broken, and at no place could anything more than the foundation of the front wall be detected, although fragments of masonry strewed the sides of the declivity near its base. The house walls which remain are well-built parallel spurs constructed at right angles to the cliff, which served as the rear of all the chambers. At the extreme right end of this row of rooms, situated deep in a large cavern with overhanging roof, portions of a rear wall of masonry are well preserved, and the lateral walls of one or two chambers in this portion of the ruin are still intact. Straggling along from that point, following the contour of the base of the cliff under which it lies, there extends a long row of rooms, all destitute of a front wall. The first division (plate CII), beginning with the most easterly of the series, is quite hidden at one end in a deep cavern. At this point the builders, in order to obtain a good rear wall to their rooms, constructed a line of masonry parallel with the face of the cliff. At right angles to this construction, at the eastern extremity, there are remnants of a lateral wall, but the remainder had tumbled to the ground. The standing wall of _z_ is not continuous with that of the next room, _y_, and apparently was simply the rear of a large room with the remains of a lateral wall at right angles to it. The other walls of this chamber had tumbled into a deep gorge, overgrown with bushes which conceal the fragments. This building is set back deeply in the cave, and is isolated from the remaining parts of the ruin, although at the level which may have been its roof there runs a kind of gallery formed by a ledge of rock, plastered with adobe, which formerly connected the roof with the rest of the pueblo. This ledge was a means of intercommunication, and a continuation of the same ledge, in rooms _s_, _t_, and _u_, supported the rafters of these chambers. At _u_ there are evidences of two stories or two tiers of rooms, but those in front have fallen to the ground. The standing wall at _u_ is about five feet high, connected with the face of the cliff by masonry. The space between it and the cliff was not large enough for a habitable chamber, and was used probably as a storage place. In front of the standing wall of room _u_ there was another chamber, the walls of which now strew the talus of the cliff. The highest and best preserved room of the second series of chambers at Honanki is that designated _p_, at a point where the ruin reached an elevation of 20 feet. Here we have good evidence of rooms of two stories, as indicated by the points of insertion of the beams of a floor, at the usual levels above the ground. In fact, it is probable that the whole section of the ruin was two stories high throughout, the front walls having fallen along the entire length. From the last room on the left to the eastern extremity of the line of houses which leads to the main ruin of Honanki, no ground plans were detected at the base of the cliffs, but fallen rocks and scattered débris are strewn over the whole interval. The eastern part of the main ruin of Honanki, however, lies but a short distance west of that described, and consists of many similar chambers, arranged side by side. These are lettered in the diagram _h_ to _u_, beginning with _h_, which is irregularly circular in form, and ends with a high wall, the first to be seen as one approaches the ruin from Lloyd canyon. This range of houses is situated on a lower foundation and at a lower level than that of the main quarter of Honanki, and a trail runs along so close to the rooms that the whole series is easily visited without much climbing. No woodwork remains in any of these rooms, and the masonry is badly broken in places either by natural agencies or through vandalism. Beginning with _h_, the round room, which adjoins the main quarter of Honanki, we find much in its shape to remind us of a kiva. The walls are in part built on foundations of large bowlders, one of which formed the greater part of the front wall. This circular room was found to be full of fallen débris, and could not be examined without considerable excavation. If it were a kiva, which I very much doubt, it is an exception among the Verde valley ruins, where no true kiva has yet been detected.[27] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CI FRONT WALL OF PALATKI (RUIN II)] Following _h_ there is an inclosure which originally may have been a habitable room, as indicated by the well-constructed front wall, but it is so filled with large stones that it is difficult to examine its interior. On one side the wall, which is at right angles to the face of the cliff, is 10 feet high, and the front wall follows the surface of a huge bowlder which serves as its foundation. Room _i_ is clearly defined, and is in part inclosed by a large rock, on top of which there still remains a fragment of a portion of the front wall. A spur of masonry connects this bowlder with the face of the cliff, indicating all that remains of the former division between rooms _i_ and _j_. An offshoot from this bowlder, in the form of a wall 10 feet high, formerly inclosed one side of a room. In the rear of chamber _j_ there are found two receptacles or spaces left between the rear wall and the face of the cliff, while the remaining wall, which is 10 feet high, is a good specimen of pueblo masonry. The two side walls of room _k_ are well preserved, but the chamber resembles the others of the series in the absence of a front wall. In this room, however, there remains what may have been the fragment of a rear wall parallel with the face of the cliff. This room has also a small cist of masonry in one corner, which calls to mind certain sealed cavities in the cavate dwellings. The two side walls of _m_ and _n_ are respectively eight and ten feet high. There is nothing exceptional in the standing walls of room _o_, one of which, five feet in altitude, still remains erect. Room _p_ has a remnant of a rear wall plastered to the face of the cliff. Room _r_ (plate CIII) is a finely preserved chamber, with lateral walls 20 feet high, of well-constructed masonry, that in the rear, through which there is an opening leading into a dark chamber, occupying the space between it and the cliff. It is braced by connecting walls at right angles to the face of the solid rock. At _s_, the face of the cliff forms a rear wall of the room, and one of the side walls is fully 20 feet high. The points of insertion of the flooring are well shown, about 10 feet from the ground, proving that the ruin at this point was at least two stories high. Two walled inclosures, one within the other, characterize room _u_. On the cliff above it there is a series of simple pictographs, consisting of short parallel lines pecked into the rock, and are probably of Apache origin. This room closes the second series, along the whole length of which, in front of the lateral walls which mark different chambers, there are, at intervals, piles of débris, which enabled an approximate determination of the situation of the former front wall, fragments of the foundations of which are traceable in situ in several places. The hand of man and the erosion of the elements have dealt harshly with this portion of Honanki, for not a fragment of timber now remains in its walls. This destruction, so far as human agency is concerned, could not have been due to white men, but probably to the Apache, or possibly to the cliff villagers themselves at the time of or shortly after the abandonment of the settlement. From the second section of Honanki we pass to the third and best-preserved portion of the ruins (figure 249), indicated in the diagram from _a_ to _g_. To this section I have referred as the "main ruin," for it was evidently the most populous quarter of the ancient cliff dwelling. It is better preserved than the remainder of Honanki, and is the only part in which all four walls of the chambers still remain erect. Built at a higher level than the series of rooms already considered, it must have towered above them, and possibly served as a place of retreat when danger beset the more exposed quarters of the village. [Illustration: FIG. 249--The main ruin of Honanki] Approaching the main ruin of Honanki (plate CIV) from the east, or the parts already described, one passes between the buttress on which the front wall of the rounded room _h_ is built and a fragment of masonry on the left, by a natural gateway through which the trail is very steep. On the right there towers above the visitor a well-preserved wall of masonry, the front of room _a_, and he soon passes abreast of the main portion of the ruin of Honanki. This section is built in a huge cavern, the overhanging roof of which, is formed by natural rock, arching far above the tops of the highest walls of the pueblo and suggesting the surroundings of the "Cliff Palace" of Mesa Verde, so well described by the late Baron G. Nordenskiöld in his valuable monograph on the ruins of that section of southern Colorado. The main ruin of Honanki is one of the largest and best preserved architectural monuments of the former people of Verde valley that has yet been described. Although somewhat resembling its rival, the well-known "Casa Montezuma" of Beaver creek, its architecture is dissimilar on account of the difference in the form of the cavern in which it is built and the geological character of the surrounding cliffs. Other Verde ruins may have accommodated more people, when inhabited, but none of its type south of Canyon de Chelly have yet been described which excel it in size and condition of preservation. I soon found that our party were not the first whites who had seen this lonely village, as the names scribbled on its walls attested; but so far as I know it had not previously been visited by archeologists. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CII HONANKI (RUIN II)] In the main portion of Honanki we found that the two ends of the crescentic row of united rooms which compose it are built on rocky elevations, with foundations considerably higher than those of the rooms in the middle portion of the ruins. The line of the front wall is, therefore, not exactly crescentic, but irregularly curved (figure 249), conforming to the rear of the cavern in which the houses are situated. About midway in the curve of the front walls two walls indicative of former rooms extend at an angle of about 25° to the main front wall. All the component rooms of the main part of Honanki can be entered, some by external passageways, others by doorways communicating with adjacent chambers. None of the inclosures have roofs or upper floors, although indications of the former existence of both these structural features may readily be seen in several places. Although wooden beams are invariably wanting, fragments of these still project from the walls, almost always showing on their free ends, inside the rooms, the effect of fire. I succeeded in adding to the collection a portion of one of these beams, the extremity of which had been battered off, evidently with a stone implement. In the alkaline dust which covered the floor several similar specimens were seen. The stones which form the masonry of the wall (figure 250) were not, as a rule, dressed or squared before they were laid with adobe mortar, but were generally set in place in the rough condition in which they may still be obtained anywhere under the cliff. All the mortar used was of adobe or the tenacious clay which serves so many purposes among the Pueblos. The walls of the rooms were plastered with a thick layer of the same material. The rear wall of each room is the natural rock of the cliff, which rises vertically and has a very smooth surface. The great natural archway which covers the whole pueblo protects it from wind and rain, and as a consequence, save on the front face, there are few signs of natural erosion. The hand of man, however, has dealt rudely with this venerable building, and many of the walls, especially of rooms which formerly stood before the central portion, lie prone upon the earth; but so securely were the component stones held together by the adobe that even after their fall sections of masonry still remain intact. [Illustration: FIG. 250--Structure of wall of Honanki] There are seven walled inclosures in the main part of Honanki, and as each of these was formerly at least two stories high there is substantial evidence of the former existence of fourteen rooms in this part of the ruin. There can be little doubt that there were other rooms along the front of the central portion, and the fallen walls show them to have been of large size. It would likewise appear that the middle part was higher than the two wings, which would increase the number of chambers, so that with these additions it may safely be said that this part of Honanki alone contained not far from twenty rooms. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CIII WALLS OF HONANKI] The recess in the cliff in which the ruin is situated is lower in the middle than at either side, where there are projecting ledges of rock which were utilized by the builders in the construction of the foundations, the line of the front wall following the inequalities of the ground. It thus results that rooms _g_, _a_, _b_, and a part of _c_, rise from a foundation about breast high, or a little higher than the base of rooms _d_, _e_, and _f_. The front wall of _a_ has for its foundation a spur or ledge of rock, which is continued under _b_ and a part of _c_. The corner or angle of this wall, facing the round chamber, is curved in the form of a tower, a considerable section of its masonry being intact. Near the foundation and following the inequalities of the rock surface the beginning of a wall at right angles to the face of the ruin at this point is seen. A small embrasure, high above the base of the front wall, on the side by which one approaches the ruin from the east, and two smaller openings on the same level, looking out over the valley, suggest a floor and lookouts. The large square orifice in the middle of the face of the wall has a wooden lintel, still in place; the opening is large enough for use as a door or passageway. The upper edge of the front wall is somewhat irregular, but a notch in it above the square opening is conspicuous. The rear wall of room _a_ was the face of the cliff, formed of solid rock without masonry and very much blackened by smoke from former fires. As, however, there is evidence that since its destruction or abandonment by its builders this ruin has been occupied as a camping place by the Apache, it is doubtful to which race we should ascribe this discoloration of the walls by soot. On the ground floor there is a passageway into chamber _b_, which is considerably enlarged, although the position of the lintel is clearly indicated by notches in the wall. The beam which was formed there had been torn from its place and undoubtedly long ago used for firewood by nomadic visitors. The open passageway, measured externally, is about 15 feet above the foundation of the wall, through which it is broken, and about 8 feet below the upper edge of the wall. Room _b_ is an irregular, square chamber, two stories high, communicating with _a_ and _c_ by passages which are enlarged by breakage in the walls. A small hole in the front wall, about 6 feet from the floor, opens externally to the air. The walls are, in general, about 2 feet thick, and are composed of flat red stones laid in clay of the same color. The cliff forms the rear wall of the chamber. The clay at certain places in the walls, especially near the insertions of the beams and about the window openings, appears to have been mixed with a black pitch, which serves to harden the mixture. Room _c_ is the first of a series of chambers, with external passageways, but its walls are very much broken down, and the openings thereby enlarged. The front wall is almost straight and in one place stands 30 feet, the maximum height of the standing wall of the ruins. In one corner a considerable quantity of ashes and many evidences of fire, some of which may be ascribed to Apache occupants, was detected. A wooden beam, marking the line of the floor of a second story, was seen projecting from the front wall, and there are other evidences of a floor at this level. Large beams apparently extended from the front wall to the rear of the chamber, where they rested on a ledge in the cliff, and over these smaller sticks were laid side by side and at right angles to the beams. These in turn supported either flat stones or a layer of mud or clay. The method of construction of one of these roofs is typical of a Tusayan kiva, where ancient architectural forms are adhered to and best preserved. The entrance to room _d_ is very much enlarged by the disintegration of the wall, and apparently there was at this point a difference in level of the front wall, for there is evidence of rooms in advance of those connected with the chambers described, as shown by a line of masonry, still standing, parallel to the front face of inclosures _c_ and _d_. Room _e_ communicates by a doorway with the chamber marked _f_, and there is a small window in the same partition. This room had a raised banquette on the side toward the cliff, recalling an arrangement of the floor similar to that in the cavate dwellings opposite Squaw mountain which I have described. This platform is raised about three feet above the remainder of the floor of _f_, and, like it, is strewn with large slabs of stone, which have fallen from the overhanging roof. In the main floor, at one corner, near the platform, there is a rectangular box-like structure made of thin slabs of stone set on edge, suggesting the grinding bins of the Pueblos. Room _f_ communicates with _g_ by a passageway which has a stone lintel. The holes in the walls, in which beams were once inserted, are seen in several places at different levels above the floor. The ends of several beams, one extremity of which is invariably charred, were found set in the masonry, and others were dug from the débris in the floor. As a result of the curve in the front wall of the ruin at that point, the shape of room _f_ is roughly quadrate, with banquettes on two sides. There are six large beam holes in the walls, and the position of the first floor is well shown on the face of the partition, separating _f_ from _g_. The passageway from one of these rooms to the other is slightly arched. Room _g_ is elongated, without an external entrance, and communicates with _f_ by a small opening, through which it is very difficult to crawl. Its longest dimension is almost at right angles to the front face of the remaining rooms, and it is raised above them by its foundation on an elevated rock like that of _a_, _b_, and _c_. There is a small, square, external opening which may have served as the position of a former beam or log. The upper level of the front wall is more or less broken down in places, and formerly may have been much higher. Beyond _g_ a spur of masonry is built at right angles to the cliff, inclosing a rectangular chamber at the end of the ruin which could not be entered. Possibly in former times it was accessible by means of a ladder from the roof, whence communication with other portions of the structure was also had. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CIV APPROACH TO MAIN PART OF HONANKI] A short distance beyond the westernmost rooms of Honanki, almost covered with bushes and adjoining the base of the cliff, there is a large ash heap in which are many fragments of pottery and the bones of various animals. It is probable that excavation in this quarter would reveal many interesting objects. In the cliffs above this ash heap, far beyond reach, there is a walled niche which has never been disturbed. This structure is similar to those near the cavate dwellings, and when opened will probably be found to contain buried mortuary objects of interesting character. I did not disturb this inclosure, inasmuch as I had no ladders or ropes with which to approach it. It is very difficult to properly estimate, from the number of rooms in a cliff house, the former population, and as a general thing the tendency is rather to overstate than to fall short of the true total. In a pueblo like Hano, on the first or east mesa of Tusayan, for instance, there are many uninhabited rooms, and others serve as storage chambers, while in places the pueblo has so far fallen into ruin as to be uninhabitable. If a pueblo is very much concentrated the population varies at different seasons of the year. In summer it is sparsely inhabited; in winter it is rather densely populated. While Palatki and Honanki together had rooms sufficient to house 500 people, I doubt whether their aggregate population, ever exceeded 200. This estimate, of course, is based on the supposition that these villages were contemporaneously inhabited. The evidences all point to a belief, however, that they were both permanent dwelling places and not temporary resorts at certain seasons of the year. The pictographs on the face of the cliff above Honanki are for the greater part due to the former Apache occupants of the rooms, and are situated high above the tops of the walls of the ruin. They are, as a rule, drawn with white chalk, which shows very clearly on the red rock, and are particularly numerous above room _g_. The figure of a circle, with lines crossing one another diametrically and continued as rays beyond the periphery, possibly represent the sun. Many spiral figures, almost constant pictographs in cliff ruins, are found in several places. Another strange design, resembling some kind of insect, is very conspicuous. A circle painted green and inclosed in a border of yellow is undoubtedly of Apache origin. There is at one point a row of small pits, arranged in line, suggesting a score or enumeration of some kind, and a series of short parallel lines of similar import was found not far away. This latter method of recording accounts is commonly used at the present time in Tusayan, both in houses and on cliffs; and one of the best of these, said to enumerate the number of Apache killed by the Hopi in a raid many years ago, may be seen above the trail by which the visitor enters the pueblo of Hano on the East Mesa. The names of several persons scratched on the face of the cliff indicate that Americans had visited Honanki before me. The majority of the paleoglyphs at both Palatki and Honanki are of Apache origin, and are of comparatively modern date, as would naturally be expected. In some instances their colors are as fresh as if made a few years ago, and there is no doubt that they were drawn after the building was deserted by its original occupants. The positions of the pictographs on the cliffs imply that they were drawn before the roofs and flooring had been destroyed, thus showing how lately the ruin preserved its ancient form. In their sheltered position there seems to be no reason why the ancient pictographs should not have been preserved, and the fact that so few of the figures pecked in the cliff now remain is therefore instructive. One of the first tendencies of man in visiting a ruin is to inscribe his name on its walls or on neighboring cliffs. This is shared by both Indians and whites, and the former generally makes his totem on the rock surface, or adds that of his gods, the sun, rain-cloud, or katcinas. Inscriptions recording events are less common, as they are more difficult to indicate with exactitude in this system of pictography. The majority of ancient pictographs in the Red-rock country, like those I have considered in other parts of Verde valley, are identical with picture writings now made in Tusayan, and are recognized and interpreted without hesitation by the Hopi Indians. In their legends, in which the migrations of their ancestors are recounted, the traditionists often mention the fact that their ancestors left their totem signatures at certain points in their wanderings. The Patki people say that you will find on the rocks of Palatkwabi, the "Red Land of the South" from which they came, totems of the rain-cloud, sun, crane, parrot, etc. If we find these markings in the direction which they are thus definitely declared to exist, and the Hopi say similar pictures were made by their ancestors, there seems no reason to question such circumstantial evidence that some of the Hopi clans once came from this region.[28] One of the most interesting of the pictographs pecked in the rock is a figure which, variously modified, is a common decoration on cliff-dweller pottery from the Verde valley region to the ruins of the San Juan and its tributaries. This figure has the form of two concentric spirals, the ends of which do not join. As this design assumes many modifications, it may be well to consider a few forms which it assumes on the pottery of the cliff people and on that of their descendants, the Pueblos. The so-called black-and-white ware, or white pottery decorated with black lines, which is so characteristic of the ceramics of the cliff-dwellers, is sometimes, as we shall see, found in ruins like Awatobi and Sikyatki; but it is so rare, as compared with other varieties, that it may be regarded as intrusive. One of the simplest forms of the broken-line motive is a Greek fret, in which there is a break in the component square figures or where the line is noncontinuous. In the simplest form, which appears prominently on modern pottery, but which is rare or wanting on true black-and-white ware, we have two crescentic figures, the concavities of which face in different directions, but the horns overlap. This is a symbol which the participants in the dance called the Húmiskatcina still paint with pigments on their breasts, and which is used on shields and various religious paraphernalia. A study of any large collection of decorated Pueblo ware, ancient or modern, will show many modifications of this broken line, a number of which I shall discuss more in detail when pottery ornamentation is considered. A design so distinctive and so widespread as this must certainly have a symbolic interpretation. The concentric spirals with a broken line, the Hopi say, are symbols of the whirlpool, and it is interesting to find in the beautiful plates of Chavero's _Antigüedades Mexicanas_ that the water in the lagoon surrounding the ancient Aztec capital was indicated by the Nahuatl Indians with similar symbols. OBJECTS FOUND AT PALATKI AND HONANKI The isolation of these ruins and the impossibility of obtaining workmen, combined with the brief visit which I was able to make to them, rendered it impossible to collect very many specimens of ancient handiwork. The few excavations which were made were limited almost wholly to Honanki, and from their success I can readily predict a rich harvest for anyone who may attempt systematic work in this virgin field. We naturally chose the interior of the rooms for excavation, and I will say limited our work to these places. Every chamber was more or less filled with débris--fragments of overturned walls, detached rock from the cliff above, dry alkaline soil, drifted sand, dust, and animal excreta. In those places where digging was possible we found the dust and guano so dry and alkaline that it was next to impossible to work for any length of time in the rooms, for the air became so impure that the workmen could hardly breathe, especially where the inclosing walls prevented ventilation. Notwithstanding this obstacle, however, we removed the accumulated débris down to the floor in one or two chambers, and examined with care the various objects of aboriginal origin which were revealed. In studying the specimens found in cliff-houses due attention has not always been given to the fact that occupants have oftentimes camped in them subsequently to their abandonment by the original builders. As a consequence of this temporary habitation objects owned by unrelated Indians have frequently been confused with those of the cliff-dwellers proper. We found evidences that both Honanki and Palatki had been occupied by Apache Mohave people for longer or shorter periods of time, and some of the specimens were probably left there by these inhabitants. The ancient pottery found in the rooms, although fragmentary, is sufficiently complete to render a comparison with known ceramics from the Verde ruins. Had we discovered the cemeteries, for which we zealously searched in vain, no doubt entire vessels, deposited as mortuary offerings, would have been found; but the kind of ware of which they were made would undoubtedly have been the same as that of the fragments. No pottery distinctively different from that which has already been reported from the Verde valley ruins was found, and the majority resembled so closely in texture and symbolism that of the cliff houses of the San Juan, in northern New Mexico and southern Utah, that they may be regarded as practically identical. The following varieties of pottery were found at Honanki: I. Coiled ware. II. Indented ware. III. Smooth ware. IV. Smooth ware painted white, with black geometric figures. V. Smooth red ware, with black decoration. By far the largest number of fragments belong to the first division, and these, as a rule, are blackened by soot, as if used in cooking. The majority are parts of large open-mouth jars with flaring rims, corrugated or often indented with the thumb-nail or some hard substance, the coil becoming obscure on the lower surface. The inside of these jars is smooth, but never polished, and in one instance the potter used the corrugations of the coil as an ornamental motive. The paste of which this coiled ware was composed is coarse, with argillaceous grains scattered through it; but it was well fired and is still hard and durable. When taken in connection with its tenuity, these features show a highly developed potter's technique. A single fragment is ornamented with an S-shape coil of clay fastened to the corrugations in much the same way as in similar ware from the ruins near the Colorado Chiquito. The fragments of smooth ware show that they, too, had been made originally in the same way as coiled ware, and that their outer as well as their inner surface had been rubbed smooth before firing. As a rule, however, they are coarse in texture and have little symmetry of form. Fragments identified as parts of bowls, vases, jars, and dippers are classed under this variety. As a rule they are badly or unevenly fired, although evidently submitted to great heat. There was seldom an effort made to smooth the outer surface to a polish, and no attempt at pictorial ornamentation was made. The fragments represented in classes IV and V were made of a much finer clay, and the surface bears a gloss, almost a glaze. The ornamentation on the few fragments which were found is composed of geometric patterns, and is identical with the sherds from other ruins of Verde valley. A fragment each of a dipper and a ladle, portions of a red bowl, and a rim of a large vase of the same color were picked up near the ruin. Most of the fragments, however, belong to the first classes--the coiled and indented wares. There was no evidence that the former inhabitants of these buildings were acquainted with metals. The ends of the beams had been hacked off evidently with blunt stone axes, aided by fire, and the lintels of the houses were of split logs which showed no evidence that any metal implement was used in fashioning them. We found, however, several stone tools, which exhibit considerable skill in the art of stone working. These include a single ax, blunt at one end, sharpened at the other, and girt by a single groove. The variety of stone from which the ax was made does not occur in the immediate vicinity of the ruin. There were one or two stone hammers, grooved for hafting, like the ax. A third stone maul, being grooveless, was evidently a hand tool for breaking other stones or for grinding pigments. [Illustration: FIG. 251--Stone implement from Honanki] Perhaps the most interesting stone implement which was found was uncovered in the excavation of one of the middle rooms of the western part of the ruin, about three feet below the surface. It consists of a wooden handle rounded at each end and slightly curved, with a sharpened stone inserted midway of its length and cemented to the wood with pitch or asphaltum. The stone of this implement would hardly bear rough usage, or sustain, without fracture, a heavy blow. The edge is tolerably sharp, and it therefore may have been used in skinning animals. Judging from the form of the handle, the implement is better suited for use as a scraper than for any other purpose which has occurred to me (figure 251). The inhabitants of the two ruins of the Red-rocks used obsidian arrowpoints with shafts of reeds, and evidently highly regarded fragments of the former material for knives, spearheads, and one or two other purposes. The stone metates from these ruins are in no respect characteristic, and several fine specimens were found in place on the floors of the rooms. One of these was a well-worn specimen of lava, which must have been brought from a considerable distance, since none of that material occurs in the neighborhood. The existence of these grinding stones implies the use of maize as food, and this evidence was much strengthened by the finding of corncobs, kernels of corn, and charred fragments at several points below the surface of the débris in the chambers of Honanki. One of these grinding stones was found set in the floor of one of the rooms in the same way that similar metates may be seen in Walpi today. Of bone implements, our limited excavations revealed only a few fragments. Leg bones of the turkey were used for awls, bodkins, needles, and similar objects. In general character the implements of this kind which were found are almost identical in form with the bone implements from Awatobi and Sikyatki, which are later figured and described. Although the bone implements unearthed were not numerous, we were well repaid for our excavations by finding an ancient fireboard, identical with those now used at Tusayan in the ceremony of kindling "new fire," and probably universally used for that purpose in former times. The only shell was a fragment of a bracelet made from a _Pectunculus_, a Pacific coast mollusk highly esteemed in ancient times among prehistoric Pueblos. The majority of the wooden objects found showed marks of fire, which were especially evident on the ends of the roof and floor beams projecting from the walls. [Illustration: FIG. 252--Tinder tube from Honanki] A considerable collection of objects made of wickerwork and woven vegetal fiber was found in the alkaline dust and ashes of the Red-rock cliff houses, and while there is some difficulty here as elsewhere, in deciding whether certain specimens belonged to the original builders or to later temporary occupants, there is little doubt that most of them were the property of the latter. There were many specimens of basketry found on the surface of the rubbish of the floors which, from the position of their occurrence and from their resemblance to the wickerwork still used by the Apache, seem without doubt to have been left there by temporary occupants of the rooms. There were likewise many wisps of yucca fiber tied in knots which must probably be regarded as of identical origin. The _Yucca baccata_ affords the favorite fiber used by the natives at the present time, and it appears to have been popular for that purpose among the ancients. Several specimens of sandals, some of which are very much worn on the soles, were found buried at the floor level. These are all of the same kind, and are made of yucca leaves plaited in narrow strips. The mode of attachment to the foot was evidently by a loop passing over the toes. Hide and cloth sandals have as yet not been reported from the Red-rock ruins of Verde valley. These sandals belonged to the original occupants of the cliff houses. Fabrics made of cotton are common in the ruins of the Red-rocks, and at times this fiber was combined with yucca. Some of the specimens of cotton cloth were finely woven and are still quite strong, although stained dark or almost black. Specimens of netting are also common, and an open-mesh legging, similar to the kind manufactured in ancient times by the Hopi and still worn by certain personators in their sacred dances, were taken from the western room of Honanki. There were also many fragments of rope, string, cord, and loosely twisted bands, resembling head bands for carrying burdens. A reed (figure 252) in which was inserted a fragment of cotton fiber was unlike anything yet reported from cliff houses, and as the end of the cotton which projected beyond the cavity of the reed was charred, it possibly was used as a slow-match or tinder-box. Several shell and turquois beads were found, but my limited studies of the cliff-houses revealed only a few other ornaments, among them being beads of turkey-bone and a single wristlet fashioned from a _Pectunculus_. One or two fragments of prayer-sticks were discovered in a rock inclosure in a cleft to the west of the ruin. CONCLUSIONS REGARDING THE VERDE VALLEY RUINS The ruins of the Verde region closely resemble those of Tusayan, and seem to support the claim of the Hopi that some of their ancestors formerly lived in that region. This is true more especially of the villages of the plains and mesa tops, for neither cave-houses nor cavate dwellings are found in the immediate vicinity of the inhabited Tusayan pueblos. The objects taken from the ruins are similar to those found universally over the pueblo area, and from them alone we can not say more than that they probably indicate the same substratum of culture as that from which modern pueblo life with its many modifications has sprung. The symbolism of the decorations on the fragments of pottery found in the Verde ruins is the same as that of the ancient pueblos of the Colorado Chiquito, and it remains to be shown whether the ancestors of these were Hopi or Zuñi. I believe it will be found that they were both, or that when the villages along the Colorado Chiquito[29] were abandoned part of the inhabitants went to the mesas of Tusayan and others migrated farther up the river to the Zuñi villages. Two centers of distribution of cliff houses occur in our Southwest: those of the upper tributaries of the Colorado in the north and the cliff houses of the affluents of the Salt and the Gila in the south. The watershed of the Rio Grande is, so far as is known, destitute of this kind of aboriginal dwellings. Between the two centers of distribution lie the pueblos of the Little Colorado and its tributaries, the home of the ancestors of the Hopi and the Zuñi. The many resemblances between the cliff houses of the north and those of the south indicate that the stage of culture of both was uniform, and probably the same conditions of environment led both peoples to build similar dwellings. All those likenesses which can be found between the modern Zuñi and the Hopi to the former cliff peoples of the San Juan region in the north, apply equally to those of the upper Salado and the Gila and their tributaries to the south; and so far as arguments of a northern origin of either, built on architectural or technological resemblances, are concerned, they are not conclusive, since they are also applicable to the cliff peoples of the south. The one important difference between the northern and the southern tier of cliff houses is the occurrence of the circular kiva, which has never been reported south of the divide between the Little Colorado and the Gila-Salado drainage. If a kiva was a feature in southern cliff houses, which I doubt, it appears to have been a rectangular chamber similar to a dwelling room. The circular kiva exists in neither the modern Hopi nor the Zuñi pueblos, and it has not been found in adjacent Tusayan ruins; therefore, if these habitations were profoundly influenced by settlers from the north, it is strange that such a radical change in the form of this room resulted. The arguments advanced that one of the two component stocks of the Zuñi, and that the aboriginal, came from the cliff peoples of the San Juan, are not conclusive, although I have no doubt that the Zuñi may have received increment from that direction. Cushing has, I believe, furnished good evidence that some of the ancestors of the Zuñi population came from the south and southwest; and that some of these came from pueblos now in ruins on the Little Colorado is indicated by the great similarity in the antiquities of ancient Zuñi and the Colorado Chiquito ruins. Part of the Patki people of the Hopi went to Zuñi and part to Tusayan, from the same abandoned pueblo, and the descendants of this family in Walpi still recognize this ancient kinship; but I do not know, and so far as can be seen there is no way of determining, the relative antiquity of the pueblos in Zuñi valley and those on the lower Colorado. The approximate date of the immigration of the Patki people to Tusayan is as yet a matter of conjecture. It may have been in prehistoric times, or more likely at a comparatively late period in the history of the people. It seems well substantiated, however, that when this Water-house people joined the other Hopi, the latter inhabited pueblos and were to all intents a pueblo people. If this hypothesis be a correct one, the Snake, Horn, and Bear peoples, whom the southern colonists found in Tusayan, had a culture of their own similar to that of the people from the south. Whence that culture came must be determined by studies of the component clans of the Hopi before the arrival of the Patki people.[30] The origin of the round shape of the estufa, according to Nordenskiöld (p. 168), is most easily explained on the hypothesis that it is a reminiscence of the cliff-dwellers' nomadic period. "There must be some very cogent reason for the employment of this shape," he says, "for the construction of a cylindrical chamber within a block of rectangular rooms involves no small amount of labor. We know how obstinately primitive nations cling to everything connected with their religious ideas. Then what is more natural than the retention, for the room where religious ceremonies were performed, of the round shape characteristic of the original dwelling place, the nomadic hut? This assumption is further corroborated by the situation of the hearth and the structure of the roof of the estufa, when we find points of analogy to the method employed by certain nomadic Indians in the erection of their huts." This theory of the origin of the round form of dwelling and its retention in the architecture of the kiva, advanced by Nordenskiöld in 1893, has much in its favor, but the rectangular form, which, so far as known, is the only shape of these sacred rooms in the Tusayan region, is still unexplained. From Castañeda's narrative of the Coronado expedition it appears that in the middle of the sixteenth century the eastern pueblos had both square and round estufas or kivas, and that these kivas belonged to the men while the rooms of the pueblo were in the possession of the women. The apparent reason why we find no round rooms or kivas in the southern cliff houses and in Tusayan may be due to several causes. Local conditions, including the character of the building sites on the Hopi mesa, made square rooms more practical, or the nomadic stage was so far removed that the form of the inclosure in which the ancients held their rites had not been preserved. Moreover, some of the most ancient and secret observances at Walpi, as the Flute ceremony, are not performed in special kivas, but take place in ordinary living rooms. As in all the other ruins of Verde valley, circular kivas are absent in the Red-rock country, and this fact, which has attracted the attention of several observers, is, I believe, very significant. Although as yet our knowledge of the cliff houses of the upper Gila and Salado and their numerous tributaries is very fragmentary, and generalization on that account unsafe, it may be stated provisionally that no circular kivas have yet been found in any ruins of the Gila-Salado watershed. This form of kiva, however, is an essential feature of the cliff dwellings of Rio Colorado, especially of those along its affluents in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. Roughly speaking, then, the circular kiva is characteristic of the ruins of this region and of certain others in the valley of the Rio Grande, where they still survive in inhabited pueblos. Circular ruins likewise are limited in their distribution in the Southwest, and it is an interesting fact that the geographic distribution of ancient pueblos of this form is in a general way the same as that of circular kivas. There are, of course, many exceptions, but so far as I know these can readily be explained. No ruins of circular dwellings occur in the Gila-Salado drainage area, where likewise no circular kivas have been observed. Moreover, the circular form of dwelling and kiva is distinctively characteristic of prehistoric peoples east of Tusayan, and the few instances of their occurrence on its eastern border can readily be explained as extra-Hopi. The explanation of these circular kivas advanced by Nordenskiöld and the Mindeleffs, that they are survivals of round habitations of nomads, has much to commend it; but whether sufficient or not, the geographic limitation of these structures tells in favor of the absence of any considerable migration of the prehistoric peoples of the upper Colorado and Rio Grande watersheds southward into the drainage area of the Gila-Salado. Had the migration been in that direction it may readily be believed that the round kiva and the circular form of dwelling would have been brought with it. The round kiva has been regarded as a survival of the form of the original homes of the nomad, when he became a sedentary agriculturist by conquest and marriage. The presence of rectangular kivas in the same areas in which round kivas occur does not necessarily militate against this theory, nor does it oblige us to offer an explanation of a necessarily radical change in architecture if we would derive it from a circular form. It would indeed be very unusual to find such a change in a structure devoted to religious purposes where conservatism is so strong. The rectangular kiva is the ancient form, or rather the original form; the round kiva is not a development from it, but an introduction from an alien people. It never penetrated southward of the Colorado and upper Rio Grande drainage areas because the element which introduced it in the north was never strong enough to influence the house builders of the Gila-Salado and tributary valleys. RUINS IN TUSAYAN GENERAL FEATURES No region of our Southwest presents more instructive antiquities than the ancient province of Tusayan, more widely known as the Moki reservation. In the more limited use of the term, Tusayan is applied to the immediate surroundings of the Hopi pueblos, to which "province" it was given in the middle of the sixteenth century. In a broader sense the name would include an as yet unbounded country claimed by the component clans of this people as the homes of their ancestors. The general character and distribution of Tusayan ruins (plate XVI) has been ably presented by Mr Victor Mindeleff in a previous report.[31] While this memoir is not regarded as exhaustive, it considers most of the large ruins in immediate proximity to the three mesas on which the pueblos inhabited by the Hopi are situated. It is not my purpose here to consider all Tusayan ruins, even if I were able to do so, but to supplement with additional data the observations already published on two of the most noteworthy pueblo settlements. Broadly speaking, I have attempted archeological excavations in order to obtain more light on the nature of prehistoric life in Tusayan. It may be advantageous, however, to refer briefly to some of the ruins thus far discovered in the Tusayan region as preliminary to more systematic descriptions of the two which I have chosen for special description. The legends of the surviving Hopi contain constant references to former habitations of different clans in the country round about their present villages. These clans, which by consolidation make up the present population of the Hopi pueblos, are said to have originally entered Tusayan from regions as far eastward as the Rio Grande, and from the southern country included within the drainage of the Gila, the Salt, and their affluents. Other increments are reputed to have come from the northward and the westward, so that the people we now find in Tusayan are descendants from an aggregation of stocks from several directions, some of them having migrated from considerable distances. Natives of other regions have settled among the ancient Hopi, built pueblos, and later returned to their former homes; and the Hopi in turn have sent colonists into the eastern pueblo country. These legends of former movements of the tribal clans of Tusayan are supplemented and supported by historical documents, and we know from this evidence that there has been a continual interchange between the people of Tusayan and almost every large pueblo of New Mexico and Arizona. Some of the ruins of this region were abandoned in historic times; others are prehistoric; many were simply temporary halting places in Hopi migrations, and were abandoned as the clans drifted together in friendship or destroyed as a result of internecine conflicts. There is documentary evidence that in the years following the great rebellion of the Pueblo tribes in 1680, which were characterized by catastrophes of all kinds among the Rio Grande villagers, many Tanoan people fled to Tusayan to escape from their troubles. According to Niel, 4,000 Tanoan refugees, under Frasquillo, loaded with booty which they had looted from the churches, went to Oraibi by way of Zuñi, and there established a "kingdom," with their chief as ruler. How much reliance may be placed on this account is not clear to me, but there is no doubt that many Tanoan people joined the Hopi about this time, and among them were the Asa people, the ancestors of the present inhabitants of Hano pueblo, and probably the accolents of Payüpki. The ease with which two Franciscan fathers, in 1742, persuaded 441 of these to return to the Rio Grande, implies that they were not very hostile to Christianity, and it is possible that one reason they sought Tusayan in the years after the Spaniards were expelled may have been their friendship for the church party. With the exception of Oraibi, not one of the present inhabited pueblos of Tusayan occupies the site on which it stood in the sixteenth century, and the majority of them do not antedate the beginning of the eighteenth century. The villages have shifted their positions but retained their names. At the time of the advent of Tobar, in 1540, there was but one of the present three villages of East Mesa. This was Walpi, and at the period referred to it was situated on the terrace below the site of the present town, near the northwestern base of the mesa proper. Two well-defined ruins, called Kisakobi and Küchaptüvela, are now pointed out as the sites of Old Walpi. Of these Küchaptüvela is regarded as the older. Judging by their ruins these towns were of considerable size. From their exposed situation they were open to the inroads of predatory tribes, and from these hostile raids their abandonment became necessary. From Küchaptüvela the ancient Walpians moved to a point higher on the mesa, nearer its western limit, and built Kisakobi, where the pueblo stood in the seventeenth century. There is evidence that a Spanish mission was erected at this point, and the place is sometimes called Nüshaki, a corruption of "Missa-ki," Mass-house. From this place the original nucleus of Walpians moved to the present site about the close of the seventeenth century. Later the original population was joined by other phratries, some of which, as the Asa, had lived in the cliff-houses of Tségi, or Canyon de Chelly, as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century. This, however, is not the place to trace the composition of the different modern villages. Sichomovi was a colony from Walpi, founded about 1750, and Hano was built not earlier than 1700. The former was settled by the Badger people, later joined by a group of Tanoan clans called the Asa, from the Rio Grande, who were invited to Tusayan to aid the Hopi in resisting the invasions of northern nomads. By the middle of the eighteenth century the population of the province of Tusayan was for the first time distributed in the seven pueblos now inhabited. No village has been deserted since that time, nor has any new site been occupied. In order that the reader may have an idea of the Tusayan pueblos at the time mentioned, an account of them from a little-known description by Morfi in 1782 is introduced:[32] _Morfi's account of the Tusayan pueblos_ Quarenta y seis leguas al Poniente de Zuñi, con alguna inclinacion al N. O. están los tres primeros pueblos de la provincia de Moqui, que en el dia en el corto distrito de 4-1/2 leguas (112 recto) tiene siete pueblos en tres mesas ó peñoles que corren linea recta de Oriente á Poniente. _Tanos_[33] En la punta occidental de la primera, y en la mas estrecho de su eminencia están situados tres de los quales el primero es el de Tanos (alli dicen Tegüas), cuyas moradores tienen idioma particular y distinto del Moquino. Es pueblo regular con un plaza en el centro, y un formacion de calles. Tendrá 110 familias. El segundo[34] pueblo dista del precedente como un tiro de piedra, es de fundacion moderna, y se compondrá de mas 15 familias que se retiraron aqui de: _Gualpi_ Gualpi que dista del anterior un tiro de fusil, es mas grande y populoso que los dos anteriores, puede tener hasta 200 familias. Estas tres pueblos tienen poco caballada, y algunas vacas; pero mucho ganado lanar. _Mosasnabi_[35] Al poniente de esta mesa, y á legua y media de distancia está la segunda, cuyo intermedio es un (112 v.) arenal, que ertrando un poco en ella la divide en dos brazas. En el septentrional, que es el mas inmediata á Gualpi hay dos anillos distantes entre si un tiro de piedra. En la cima del primero está situado el pueblo de Mosasnabi compuesto de 50 familias poco mas ó menos. _Xipaolabi_[36] En la cumbre del secundo cerrito se fundó el quinto pueblo llamado Xipaolabi, que tendrá solo 14 familias: está casi arruinado, porque sus vecinos se han trasladado al brazo austral de la mesa y formaron el sexto pueblo llamado: _Xongopabi_[37] Xongopabi goza mejor situacion que todos los demas, tienen tres quarteles mui bien dispuestos y en ellas unas 60 familias. Estos tres pueblos tienen mas caballada que los primeros y mucho ganado menor. _Oraybe_ Dos y media leguas al Poniente de esta mesa, está la tercera, y en sucima el septimo pueblo que llaman Oraybe. Es como la capital de la provincia, el mayor y mas bien formado de toda ella, y acaso de todas las provincias internas. Tiene once quarteles ó manzanas bien largas y dispuestos con calles á cordel yá (113 r.) todos vientos, y puede llegar su poblacion á 800 familias. Tienen buena caballada, mucho ganado menor y algun vacuno. Aunque no gozan sino una pequeña fuente de buena agua, distante del pueblo mas de una milla al Norte, han construido para suplir esta escasez, en la misma mesa, y mui inmediato à las casas seis cisternas grandes donde recoger la agua de las lluvias y nieves. The distribution of the population of Tusayan in the seven pueblos mentioned above remained practically the same during the century between 1782 and 1882. Summer settlements for farming purposes were inhabited by the Oraibi for brief periods. Between the years 1880 and 1890 a beginning of a new distribution of Hopi families began, when one or two of the less timid erected houses near Coyote spring, at the East Mesa. The Tewa, represented by Polaka and Jakwaina, took the lead in this movement. From 1890 to the present time a large number of Walpi, Sichomovi, and Hano families have built houses in the foothills of the East Mesa and in the plain beyond the "wash." A large schoolhouse has been erected at Sun spring and a considerable number of East Mesa villagers have abandoned their mesa dwellings. In this shifting of the population the isolated house is always adopted and the aboriginal method of roof building is abandoned. The indications are that in a few years the population of the East Mesa will be settled in unconnected farmhouses with little resemblance to the ancient communal pueblo. This movement is shared to a less extent by the Middle Mesa and Oraibi people. On my first visit to the pueblos of these mesas, in 1890, there was not a single permanent dwelling save in the ancient pueblos; but now numerous small farmhouses have been erected at or near the springs in the foothills. I mention these facts as a matter of record of progress in the life of these people in adapting themselves to the new conditions or influences by which they are surrounded. I believe that if this exodus of Hopi families from the old pueblo to the plain continues during the next two decades as it has in the last ten years, there are children now living in Walpi who will some day see it uninhabited. This disintegration of the Hopi phratries, by which families are separated from one another, is, I believe, a return to the prehistoric distribution of the clans, and as Walpi grew into a pueblo by a union of kindred people, so now it is again being divided and distributed, still preserving family ties in new clusters or groupings. It is thus not impossible that the sites of certain old ruins, as Sikyatki, deserted for many years, will again be built upon if better suited for new modes of life. The settlement near Coyote spring, for instance, is not far from the old site of a former home of the Tanoan families, who went to Tusayan in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and the people who inhabit these new houses are all Tanoan descendants of the original contingent. In order to become familiar with the general character of Tusayan ruins, I made a brief reconnoissance of those mentioned in the following list, from which I selected Awatobi and Sikyatki as places for a more exhaustive exploration. This list is followed by a brief mention of those which I believe would offer fair opportunities for a continuation of the work inaugurated. The ruins near Oraibi were not examined and are therefore omitted, not that they are regarded as less important, but because I was unable to undertake a study of them in the limited time at my disposal. There are also many ruins in Tusayan, north of the inhabited pueblos, which have never been described, and would well repay extended investigation. Some of these, as the ruins at the sacred spring called Kishuba, are of the utmost traditional importance. I. _Middle Mesa ruins_--(1) Old Shuñopovi; (2) Old Mishoñinovi; (3) Shitaumû; (4) Chukubi; (5) Payüpki. II. _East Mesa ruins_--(1) Kisakobi; (2) Küchaptüvela; (3) Küküchomo; (4) Tukinobi; (5) Kachinba; (6) Sikyatki. III. _Ruins in Keam's canyon_. IV. _Jeditoh valley ruins_--(1) Bat-house; (2) Jeditoh, Kawaika; (3) Horn-house; (4) Awatobi; Smaller Awatobi. This method of classification is purely geographical, and is adopted simply for convenience; but there are one or two facts worthy of mention in regard to the distribution of ruins in these four sections. The inhabited pueblos, like the ruins, are, as a rule, situated on the eastern side of their respective mesas, or on the cliffs or hills which border the adjacent plains on the west. This uniformity is thought to have resulted from a desire to occupy a sunny site for warmth and for other reasons. The pueblos at or nearest the southern ends of the mesas were found to be best suited for habitation, consequently the present towns occupy those sites, or, as in the case of the Jeditoh series, the pueblo at that point was the last abandoned. The reason for this is thought to be an attempt to concentrate on the most inaccessible sites available, which implies inroads of hostile peoples. For the same reason, likewise, the tendency was to move from the foothills to the mesa tops when these invasions began. Early settlers near East Mesa appeared to have chosen exposed sites for their pueblos. This would imply that they feared no invasion, and legendary history indicates that the first pueblos were erected before the hostile Ute, Apache, and Navaho appeared. The early settlements on Middle Mesa were also apparently not made with an absorbing idea of inaccessibility. All the Jeditoh villages, however, were on the mesa tops, these sites having been selected evidently with a view to protection, since they were not convenient to the farms. For many reasons it would seem that the people who occupied the now ruined Jeditoh villages were later arrivals in Tusayan than those of East and Middle Mesas, and that, as a rule, they came from the eastward, while those of Middle Mesa arrived from the south. The first colonists of all, however, appear to have been the East Mesa clans, the Bear and Snake families. If this conjecture be true, we may believe that the oldest pueblos in Tusayan were probably the house groups of the Snake clan of East Mesa, for whom their traditionists claim a northern origin. THE MIDDLE MESA RUINS SHUÑOPOVI The site of Old Shuñopovi (plate CV) at the advent of the first Spaniards, and for a century or more afterward, was at the foot of the mesa on which the present village stands. The site of the old pueblo is easily detected by the foundations of the ancient houses and their overturned walls, surrounded by mounds of soil filled with fragments of the finest pottery. The old village was situated on a ridge of foothills east of the present town and near the spring, which is still used. On the highest point of the ridge there rise to a considerable height the massive walls of the old Spanish mission church, forming an inclosure, now used as a sheep corral. The cemeteries are near by, close to the outer walls, and among a clump of peach trees about half a mile east of the old houses. The pottery,[38] as shown by the fragments, is of the finest old Tusayan ware, cream and red being the predominating colors, while fragments of coiled and black-and-white ware are likewise common. MISHOÑINOVI The ruins of Old Mishoñinovi lie west of the present pueblo in the foothills, not far from the two rocky pinnacles at that point and adjacent to a spring. In strolling over the site of the old town I have noted its ground plan, and have picked up many sherds which indicate that the pottery made at that place was the fine cream-color ware for which Tusayan has always been famous. The site offers unusual opportunities for archeological studies, but excavation there is not practicable on account of the opposition of the chiefs. Old Mishoñinovi was a pueblo of considerable size, and was probably inhabited up to the close of the seventeenth century. It was probably on this site that the early Spanish explorers found the largest pueblo of the Middle Mesa. The ruin of Shitaimovi, in the foothills near Mishoñinovi, mentioned by Mindeleff, was not visited by our party. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY. SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CV. SKETCH MAP OF THE MESA COUNTRY OCCUPIED BY THE HOPI INDIANS] CHUKUBI The ruin of Chukubi bears every evidence of antiquity. It is situated on one of the eastward projecting spurs of Middle Mesa, midway between Payüpki and Shipaulovi, near an excellent spring at the base of the mesa. Chukubi was built in rectangular form, with a central plaza surrounded by rooms, two deep. There are many indications of outlying chambers, some of which are arranged in rows. The house walls are almost wholly demolished, and in far poorer state of preservation than those of the neighboring ruin of Payüpki. The evidence now obtainable indicates that it was an ancient habitation of a limited period of occupancy. It is said to have been settled by the Patuñ or Squash people, whose original home was far to the south, on Little Colorado river. A fair ground plan is given by Mindeleff in his memoir on Pueblo Architecture; but so far as known no studies of the pottery of this pueblo have ever been made. PAYÜPKI One of the best-preserved ruins on Middle Mesa is called Payüpki by the Hopi, and is interesting in connection with the traditions of the migration of peoples from the Rio Grande, which followed the troublesome years at the close of the seventeenth century. In the reconquest of New Mexico by the Spaniards we can hardly say that Tusayan was conquered; the province was visited and nominally subjugated after the great rebellion, but with the exception of repeated expeditions, which were often repulsed, the Hopi were practically independent and were so regarded. No adequate punishment was inflicted on the inhabitants of Walpi for the destruction of the town of Awatobi, and although there were a few military expeditious to Tusayan no effort at subjugation was seriously made. Tusayan was regarded as an asylum for the discontented or apostate, and about the close of the seventeenth century many people from the Rio Grande fled there for refuge. Some of these refugees appear to have founded pueblos of their own; others were amalgamated with existing villages. Payüpki seems to have been founded about this period, for we find no account of it before this time, and it is not mentioned in connection with ancient migrations. In 1706 Holguin is said to have attacked the "Tanos" village between Walpi and Oraibi and forced the inhabitants to give hostages, but he was later set upon by the Tano and driven back to Zuñi. It would hardly seem possible that the pueblo mentioned could have been Hano, for this village does not lie between Oraibi and Walpi and could not have been surrounded in the way indicated in the account. Payüpki, however, not only lay on the trail between Walpi and Oraibi--about midway, as the chronicler states--but was so situated on a projecting promontory that it could easily have been surrounded and isolated from the other pueblos. The Hopi legends definitely assert that the Payüpki people came from the "great river," the Rio Grande, and spoke a language allied to that of the people of Hano. They were probably apostates, who came from the east about 1680, but did not seem to agree well with the people of the Middle Mesa, and about 1750 returned to the river and were domiciled in Sandia, where their descendants still live. The name Payüpki is applied by the Hopi to the pueblo of Sandia as well as to the ruin on the Middle Mesa. The general appearance of the ruin of Payüpki indicates that it was not long inhabited, and that it was abandoned at a comparatively recent date. The general plan is not that common to ancient Tusayan ruins, but more like that of Hano and Sichomovi, which were erected about the time Payüpki was built. Many fragments of a kind of pottery which in general appearance is foreign to Tusayan, but which resembles the Rio Grande ware, were found on the mounds, and the walls are better preserved than those of the ancient Tusayan ruins. A notable absence of fragments of obsidian, the presence of which in abundance is characteristic of ancient ruins, was observed on the site of Payüpki. All these evidences substantiate the Hopi legend that the Tanoan inhabitants of the village of Middle Mesa, above the trail from Walpi to Oraibi, made but a short stay in Tusayan.[39] There is good documentary evidence that Sandia was settled by Tanoan people from Tusayan. Morfi in 1782 so states,[40] and in a copy of the acts of possession of the pueblo grants of 1748 we find still further proof of the settlement of "Moquinos" in Sandia.[41] When Otermin returned to New Mexico in his attempted reconquest, in 1681, he reached Isleta on December 6, and on the 8th Dominguez encamped in sight of Sandia, but found the inhabitants had fled. The discord following this event drove the few surviving families of the Tiwa on their old range to Tusayan, for they were set upon by Keres and Jemez warriors on the plea that they received back the Spaniards. Possibly these families formed the nucleus of Payüpki. It was about this time, also, if we can believe Niel's story, that 4,000 Tanos went to Tusayan. It would thus appear that the Hopi Payüpki was settled in the decade 1680-1690. THE EAST MESA RUINS KÜCHAPTÜVELA AND KISAKOBI The two ruins of Küchaptüvela and Kisakobi mark the sites of Walpi during the period of Spanish exploration and occupancy between 1540 and 1700. The former was the older. In all probability the latter had a mission church and was inhabited at the time of the great rebellion in 1680, having been founded about fifty years previously. The former or more ancient[42] pueblo was situated on the first or lowest terrace of East Mesa, below the present pueblo, on the northern and western sides. The name Küchaptüvela signifies "Ash-hill terrace," and probably the old settlement, like the modern, was known as Walpi, "Place-of-the-gap," referring to the gap or notch (_wala_) in the mesa east of Hano. Old Walpi is said to have been abandoned because it was in the shade of the mesa, but doubtless the true cause of its removal was that the site was too much exposed, commanded as it was by the towering mesa above it, and easily approached on three sides. The Walpi which was contemporary with Sikyatki was built in an exposed location, for at that time the Hopi were comparatively secure from invaders. Later, however, Apache, Ute, and Navaho began to raid their fields, and the Spaniards came in their midst again and again, forcing them to work like slaves. A more protected site was necessary, and late in the seventeenth century the Walpians began to erect houses on the mesa, which formed the nucleus of the present town. The standing walls of Old Walpi are buried in the débris, but the plans of the rooms may readily be traced. Comparatively speaking, it was a large, compact, well-built pueblo, and, from the great piles of débris in the neighborhood, would seem to have been occupied during several generations. The pottery found in the neighborhood is the fine, ancient Tusayan ware, like that of Sikyatki and Shuñopovi. Extended excavations would reveal, I am sure, many beautiful objects and shed considerable light on the obscure history of Walpi and its early population. After moving from Old Walpi it seems that the people first built houses on the terrace above, or on the platform extending westward from the western limits of the summit of East Mesa. The whole top of that part of the mesa is covered with house walls, showing the former existence of a large pueblo. Here, no doubt, if we can trust tradition, the mission of Walpi was built, and I have found in the débris fragments of pottery similar to that used in Mexico, and very different from ancient or modern Pueblo ware. But even Kisakobi[43] was not a safe site for the Walpians to choose for their village, so after they destroyed the mission and killed the priest they moved up to their present site and abandoned both of their former villages. It is said that with this removal of the villagers there were found to be no easy means of climbing the precipitous walls, and that the stairway trails were made as late as the beginning of the present century. In those early days there was a ladder near where the stairway trail is now situated, and some of the older men of Walpi have pointed out to me where this ladder formerly stood. The present plan of Walpi shows marked differences from that made twenty years ago, and several houses between the stairway trail and the Wikwaliobi kiva, on the edge of the mesa, which have now fallen into ruin, were inhabited when I first visited Walpi in 1890. The buildings between the Snake kiva and the Nacab kiva are rapidly becoming unsafe for habitation, and most of these rooms will soon be deserted. As many Walpi families are building new houses on the plain, it needs no prophet to predict that the desertion of the present site of Walpi will progress rapidly in the next few years, and possibly by the end of our generation the pueblo may be wholly deserted--one more ruin added to the multitudes in the Southwest. The site of Old Walpi, at Küchaptüvela, is the scene of an interesting rite in the New-fire ceremony at Walpi, for not far from it is a shrine dedicated to a supernatural being called Tüwapoñtumsi, "Earth-altar-woman." This shrine, or house, as it is called, is about 230 feet from the ruin, among the neighboring bowlders, and consists of four flat slabs set upright, forming an inclosure in which stands a log of fossil wood. The ceremonials at Old Walpi in the New-fire rites are described in my account[44] of this observance, and from their nature I suspect that the essential part of this episode is the deposit of offerings at this shrine. The circuits about the old ruin are regarded as survivals of the rites which took place in former times at Old Walpi. The ruin was spoken of in the ceremony as the _Sipapüni_, the abode of the dead who had become _katcinas_, to whom the prayers said in the circuits were addressed. KÜKÜCHOMO The two conical mounds on the mesa above Sikyatki are often referred to that ancient pueblo, but from their style of architecture and from other considerations I am led to connect them with other phratries of Tusayan. From limited excavations made in these mounds in 1891, I was led to believe that they were round pueblos, similar to those east of Tusayan, and that they were temporary habitations, possibly vantage points, occupied for defense. Plate CVI illustrates their general appearance, while the rooms of which they are composed are shown in figure 253. At the place where the mesa narrows between these mounds and the pueblos to the west, a wall was built from one edge of the mesa to the other to defend the trail on this side. This wall appears to have had watch towers or houses at intervals, which are now in ruins, as shown in figure 254. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CVI THE RUINS OF KÜKÜCHOMO] [Illustration: FIG. 253--Küküchomo] The legends concerning the ancient inhabitants of Küküchomo are conflicting. The late A. M. Stephen stated that tradition ascribes them to the Coyote and Pikya (Corn) peoples, with whom the denizens of Sikyatki made friendship, and whom the latter induced to settle there to protect them from the Walpians. He regarded them as the last arrivals of the Water-house phratry, while the Coyote people came from the north at nearly the same time. From his account it would appear that the twin mounds, Küküchomo, were abandoned before the destruction of Sikyatki. The Coyote people were, I believe, akin to the Kokop or Firewood phratry, and as the pueblo of Sikyatki was settled by the latter, it is highly probable that the inhabitants of the two villages were friendly and naturally combined against the Snake pueblo of Walpi. I believe, however, there is some doubt that any branch of the Patki people settled in Küküchomo, and the size of the town as indicated by the ruin was hardly large enough to accommodate more than one clan. Still, as there are two Küküchomo ruins, there may have been a different family in each of the two house clusters. [Illustration: FIG. 254--Defensive wall on the East Mesa] It has been said that in ancient times, before the twin mounds of Küküchomo were erected, the people of Sikyatki were greatly harassed by the young slingers and archers of Walpi, who would come across to the edge of the high cliff and assail them with impunity. Anyone, however, who contemplates the great distance from Sikyatki to the edge of the mesa may well doubt whether it was possible for the Walpi bowmen to inflict much harm in that way. Moreover, if the word "slingers" is advisedly chosen, it introduces a kind of warfare which is not mentioned in other Tusayan legends, although apparently throwing stones at their enemies was practiced among Pueblos of other stocks in early historic times.[45] We may suppose, however, that the survivors of both Küküchomo and Sikyatki sought refuge in Awatobi after the prehistoric destruction of their pueblos, for both were peopled by clans which came from the east, and naturally went to that village, the founders of which migrated from the same direction. KACHINBA The small ruin at Kachinba, the halting place of the Kachina people, seems to have escaped the attention of students of Tusayan archeology. It lies about six miles from Sikyatki, about east of Walpi, and is approached by following the trail at the foot of the same mesa upon which Küküchomo is situated. The ruin is located on a small foothill and has a few standing walls. It was evidently diminutive in size and only temporarily inhabited. The best wall found at this ruin lies at the base of the hill, where the spring formerly was. This spring is now filled in, but a circular wall of masonry indicates its great size in former times. TUKINOBI There are evidences that the large hill on top of East Mesa, not far from the twin mounds, was once the site of a pueblo of considerable size, but I have not been able to gather any definite legend about it. Near this ruin is the "Eagle shrine" in which round wooden imitations of eagle eggs are ceremonially deposited, and in the immediate vicinity of which is another shrine near which tracks are cut in the rock, and which were evidently considered by the Indian who pointed them out to me as having been made by some bird.[46] It is probably from these footprints, which are elsewhere numerous, that the two ruins called Küküchomo ("footprints mound") takes its name. JEDITOH VALLEY RUINS As one enters Antelope valley, following the Holbrook road, he finds himself in what was formerly a densely populated region of Tusayan. This valley in former times was regarded as a garden spot, and the plain was covered with patches of corn, beans, squashes, and chile. The former inhabitants lived in pueblos on the northern side, high up on the mesa which separates Jeditoh valley from Keam's canyon. All of these pueblos are now in ruins, and only a few Navaho and Hopi families cultivate small tracts in the once productive fields. The majority of the series of ruins along the northern rim of Antelope valley resemble Awatobi, which is later described in detail. It is interesting to note that in the abandonment of villages the same law appears to have prevailed here as in the other Tusayan mesas, for in the shrinkage of the Hopi people they concentrated more and more to the points of the mesas. Thus, at East Mesa, Sikyatki, Kachinba, and Küküchomo were destroyed, while Walpi remained. At Middle Mesa, Chukubi and Payüpki became ruins, and in Antelope valley Awatobi was the last of the Jeditoh series to fall. There has thus been a gradual tendency to drift from readily accessible locations to the most impregnable sites, which indicates how severely the Hopi must have been harassed by their foes. It is significant that some of the oldest pueblos were originally built in the most exposed positions, and it may rightly be conjectured that the pressure on the villagers came long after these sites were chosen. The ancient or original Hopi had a sense of security when they built their first houses, and they, therefore, did not find it necessary to seek the protection of cliffs. Many of them lived in the valley of the Colorado Chiquito, others at Kishuba. As time went on, however, they were forced, as were their kindred in other pueblos, to move to inaccessible mesas guarded by vertical cliffs. Of the several ruins of Antelope valley, that on the mesa above Jeditoh or Antelope spring is one of the largest and most interesting. Stephen calls this ruin Mishiptonga, and a plan of the old house is given by Mindeleff. The spring called Kawaika, situated near the former village of the same name, was evidently much used by the ancient accolents of Antelope valley. From this neighborhood there was excavated a few years ago a beautiful collection of ancient mortuary pottery objects, which was purchased by Mrs Mary Hemenway, of Boston, and is now in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge. These objects have never been adequately described, although a good illustration of some of the specimens, with a brief reference thereto, was published by James Mooney[47] a few years ago. Among the most striking objects in this collection are clay models of houses, dishes, and small vases with rims pierced with holes, and rectangular vessels ornamented with pictures of birds. There are specimens of cream, yellow, red, and white pottery in the collection which, judging by the small size of most of the specimens, was apparently votive in character. The ruins called by Stephen "Horn-house" and "Bat-house," as well as the smaller ruin between them, have been described by Mindeleff, who has likewise published plans of the first two. From their general appearance I should judge they were not occupied for so long a time as Awatobi, and by a population considerably smaller. If all these Jeditoh pueblos were built by peoples from the Rio Grande, it is possible that those around Jeditoh spring were the first founded and that Awatobi was of later construction; but from the data at hand the relative age of the ruins of this part of Tusayan can not be determined. There are many ruins situated on the periphery of Tusayan which are connected traditionally with the Hopi, but are not here mentioned. Of these, the so-called "Fire-house" is said to have been the home of the ancestors of Sikyatki, and Kintiel of certain Zuñi people akin to the Hopi. Both of the ruins mentioned differ in their architectural features from characteristic prehistoric Tusayan ruins, for they are circular in form, as are many of the ruins in the middle zone of the pueblo area. With these exceptions there are no circular ruins within the area over which the Hopi lay claim, and it is probable that the accolents of Kintiel were more Zuñi than Hopi in kinship. Many ruins north of Oraibi and in the neighborhood of the farming village of Moenkopi are attributed to the Hopi by their traditionists. The ruins about Kishyuba, connected with the Kachina people, also belong to Tusayan. These and many others doubtless offer most important contributions to an exact knowledge of the prehistoric migrations of this most interesting people. Among the many Tusayan ruins which offer good facilities for archeological work, the two which I chose for that purpose are Awatobi and Sikyatki. My reasons for this choice may briefly be stated. Awatobi is a historic pueblo of the Hopi, which was more or less under Spanish influence between the years 1540 and 1700. When properly investigated, in the light of archeology, it ought to present a good picture of Tusayan life before the beginning of the modifications which appear in the modern villages of that isolated province. While I expected to find evidences of Spanish occupancy, I also sought facts bearing on the character of Tusayan life in the seventeenth century. Sikyatki, however, showed us the character of Tusayan life in the fifteenth century, or the unmodified aboriginal pueblo culture of this section of the Southwest. Here we expected to find Hopi culture unmodified by Spanish influence. The three pueblos of Sikyatki, Awatobi, and Walpi, when properly studied, will show the condition of pueblo culture in three centuries--in Sikyatki, pure, unmodified pueblo culture; in Awatobi, pueblo life as slightly modified by the Spaniards, and in Walpi, those changes resulting from the advent of Americans superadded. While special attention has thus far been given by ethnologists mainly to the last-mentioned pueblo, a study of the ruins of the other two villages is of great value in showing how the modern life developed and what part of it is due to foreign influence. A knowledge of the inner life of the inhabitants of Tusayan as it exists today is a necessary prerequisite to the interpretation of the ancient culture of that province; but we must always bear in mind the evolution of society and the influences of foreign origin which have been exerted on it. Many, possibly the majority, of modern customs at Walpi are inherited, but others are incorporated and still others, of ancient date, have become extinct. As much stress is laid in this memoir on the claim that objects from Sikyatki indicate a culture uninfluenced by the Spaniards, it is well to present the evidence on which this assertion is based. (1) Hopi legends all declare that Sikyatki was destroyed before the Spaniards, called the "long-gowned" and "iron-shirted" men, came to Tusayan. (2) Sikyatki is not mentioned by name in any documentary account of Tusayan, although the other villages are named and are readily identifiable with existing pueblos. (3) No fragment of glass, metal, or other object indicative of the contact of European civilization was found anywhere in the ruin. If we add to the above the general appearance of age in the mounds and the depth of the débris which has accumulated in the rooms and over the graves, we have the main facts on which I have relied to support my belief that Sikyatki is a prehistoric ruin. AWATOBI CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RUIN No Tusayan ruin offers to the archeologist a better picture of the character of Hopi village life in the seventeenth century than that known as Awatobi (plate CVII).[48] It is peculiarly interesting as connecting the prehistoric culture of Sikyatki and modern Tusayan life, with which we have become well acquainted through recent research. Awatobi was one of the largest Tusayan pueblos in the middle of the sixteenth century, and continued to exist to the close of the seventeenth. It was therefore a historic pueblo. It had a mission, notices of which occur in historical documents of the period. From its preponderance in size, no less than from its position, we may suspect that it held relatively the same leadership among the other Antelope valley ruins that Walpi does today to Sichomovi and Hano. The present condition of the ruins of Awatobi is in no respect peculiar or different from that of the remains of prehistoric structures, except that its mounds occupy a position on a mesa top commanding a wide outlook over a valley. On its east it is hemmed in by extensive sand dunes, which also stretch to the north and west, receding from the village all the way from a few hundred yards to a quarter of a mile. On the south the ruins overlook the plain, and the sands on the west separate it from a canyon in which there are several springs, some cornfields, and one or two modern Hopi houses. There is no water in the valley which stretches away from the mesa on which Awatobi is situated, and the foothills are only sparingly clothed with desert vegetation. The mounds of the ruin have numerous clumps of _sibibi_ (_Rhus trilobata_), and are a favorite resort of Hopi women for the berries of this highly prized shrub. There is a solitary tree midway between the sand dunes west of the village and the western mounds, near which we found it convenient to camp. The only inhabitants of the Awatobi mesa are a Navaho family, who have appropriated, for the shade it affords, a dwarf cedar east of the old mission walls. No land is cultivated, save that in the canyons above mentioned, west of the sand hills; some fair harvests are, however, still gathered from Antelope valley by the Navaho, especially in the section higher up, near Jeditoh spring. The ruin may be approached from the road between Holbrook and Keam's Canyon, turning to the left after climbing the mesa. This road, however, is not usually traveled, since it trends through the difficult sand hills. As Keam's Canyon is the only place in this region at which to provision an expedition, it is usual to approach Awatobi from that side, the road turning to the right shortly after one ascends the steep hill out of the canyon near Keam's trading post. My archeological work at Awatobi began on July 6, 1895, and was continued for two weeks, being abandoned on account of the defection of my Hopi workmen, who left their work to attend the celebration of the _Niman_ or "Farewell" _katcina_,[49] a July festival in which many of them participated. The ruin is conveniently situated for the best archeological results; it has a good spring near by, and is not far from Keam's Canyon, the base of supplies. The soil covering the rooms, however, is almost as hard as cement, and fragile objects, such as pottery, were often broken before their removal from the matrix. A considerable quantity of débris had to be removed before the floors were reached, and as this was firmly impacted great difficulty was encountered in successful excavations. With a corps of trained workmen much better results than those we obtained might have been expected, and the experience which the Indians subsequently had at Sikyatki would have made my excavations at Awatobi, had they been carried on later in the season, more remunerative. While my archeological work at certain points in these interesting mounds of Awatobi was more or less superficial, it was in other places thorough, and revealed many new facts in regard to the culture of the inhabitants of this most important pueblo. I found it inexpedient to dig in the burial places among the sand dunes, on account of the religious prejudices of my workmen. This fear they afterward overcame to a certain extent, but never completely outgrew, although the cemeteries at Sikyatki were quite thoroughly excavated, yielding some of the most striking results of the summer's exploration. The sand hills west of Sikyatki are often swept by violent gales, by which the surface is continually changing, and mortuary pottery is frequently exposed. This has always been a favorite place for the collector, and many a beautiful food bowl has been carried by the Indians from this cemetery to the trading store, for the natives do not seem to object to selling a vase or other object which they find on the surface, but rarely dig in the ground for the purpose of obtaining specimens. NOMENCLATURE OF AWATOBI The name Awatobi is evidently derived from _awata_, a bow (referring to the Bow clan, one of the strongest in the ancient pueblo), and _obi_, "high place of." A derivation from _owa_, rock, has also been suggested, but it seems hardly distinctive enough to be applicable, and is not accepted by the Hopi themselves. While the different pueblos of Tusayan were not specially mentioned until forty years after they were first visited, the name Awatobi is readily recognized in the account of Espejo in 1583, where it is called Aguato,[50] which appears as Zaguato and Ahuato in Hakluyt.[51] In the time of Oñate (1598) the same name is written Aguatuybá.[52] Vetancurt,[53] about 1680, mentions the pueblo under the names Aguatobi and Ahuatobi, and in 1692, or twelve years after the great rebellion, Vargas visited "San Bernardo de Aguatuvi," ten leagues from Zuñi. The name appears on maps up to the middle of the eighteenth century, several years after its destruction. In more modern times various older spellings have been adopted or new ones introduced. Among these may be mentioned: AGUATUVÍ. Buschmann, Neu-Mexico, 231, 1858. AGUATUYA. Bandelier in Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology, III, 85, 1892 (misquoting Oñate). AGUITOBI. Bandelier in Archæological Institute Papers, Am. series, III, pt. 1, 115, 1890. AHUATU. Bandelier, ibid., 115, 135. AHUATUYBA. Bandelier, ibid., 109. AH-WAT-TENNA. Bourke, Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona, 195, 1884 (so called by a Tusayan Indian). AQUATASI. Walch, Charte America, 1805. AQUATUBI. Davis, Spanish Conquest of New Mexico, 368, 1869. ATABI-HOGANDI. Bourke, op. cit., 84, 1884 (Navaho name). AUA-TU-UI. Bandelier in Archæological Institute Papers, op. cit., IV, pt. 2, 368, 1892. A-WA-TE-U. Cushing in Atlantic Monthly, 367, September, 1882. AWATÚBI. Bourke, op. cit., 91, 1884. Á WAT U I. Cushing in Fourth Report Bureau of Ethnology, 493, 1886 (or Aguatóbi). ZAGNATO. Brackenridge, Early Spanish Discoveries, 19, 1857 (misprint of Hakluyt's Zaguato). ZAGUATE. Prince, New Mexico, 34, 1883 (misquoting Hakluyt). ZUGUATO. Hinton, Handbook to Arizona, 388, 1878 (misquoting Hakluyt). The Navaho name of the ruin, as is well known, is Talla-hogan, ordinarily translated "Singing-house," and generally interpreted to refer to the mass said by the padres in the ancient church. It is probable, however, that kivas were used as chambers where songs were sung in ceremonials prior to the introduction of Christianity. Therefore why Awatobi should preeminently be designated as the "Singing-house" is not quite apparent. The name of the mission, San Bernardino,[54] or San Bernardo, refers to its patron saint, and was first applied by Porras in honor of the natal day of this saint, on which day, in 1629, he and his companions arrived in Tusayan. HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE OF AWATOBI The identification of Tusayan with the present country of the Hopi depends in great measure on the correct determination of the situation of Cibola. I have regarded as conclusive Bandelier's argument that Cibola comprised the group of pueblos inhabited by the Zuñi in the sixteenth century.[55] Regarding this as proven, Tusayan corresponds with the Hopi villages, of which Awatobi was one of the largest. It lies in the same direction and about the same distance from Zuñi as stated in Castañeda's narrative. The fact that Cardenas passed through Tusayan when he went from Cibola to the Grand Canyon in 1540 is in perfect harmony with the identification of the Hopi villages with Tusayan, and Zuñi with Cibola. Tobar, in Tusayan, heard of the great river to the west, and when he returned to the headquarters of Coronado at Cibola the general dispatched Cardenas to investigate the truth of the report. Cardenas naturally went to Tusayan where Tobar had heard the news, and from there took guides who conducted him to the Grand Canyon. Had the general been in any Hopi town at the time he sent Tobar, and later Cardenas, it is quite impossible to find any cluster of ruins which we can identify as Tusayan in the direction indicated. There can be no doubt that Tusayan was the modern Hopi country, and with this in mind the question as to which Hopi pueblo was the one first visited by Tobar is worthy of investigation. In order to shed what light is possible on this question, I have examined the account by Castañeda, the letter of Coronado to Mendoza, and the description in the "Relacion del Suceso," but find it difficult to determine that point definitely. In Hakluyt's translation of Coronado's letter, it is stated that the houses of the "cities" which Tobar was sent to examine were "of earth," and the "chiefe" of these towns is called "Tucano." As this letter was written before Coronado had received word from Tobar concerning his discoveries, naturally we should not expect definite information concerning the new province. Capt. Juan Jaramillo's account speaks of "Tucayan" as a province composed of seven towns, and states that the houses are terraced. In the "Relacion del Suceso" we likewise find the province called "Tuzan" (Tusayan), and the author notes the resemblance of the villages to Cibola, but he distinctly states that the inhabitants cultivated cotton. Castañeda's account, which is the most detailed, is that on which I have relied in my identification of Awatobi as the first Hopi pueblo seen by the Spaniards. It seems that Don Pedro de Tobar was dispatched by Coronado to explore a province called Tusayan which was reported to be twenty-five leagues from Cibola. He had in his command seventeen horsemen and one or two foot-soldiers, and was accompanied by Friar Juan de Padilla. They arrived in the new province after dark and concealed themselves under the edge of the mesa, so near that they heard the voices of the Indians in their houses. The natives, however, discovered them at daylight drawn up in order, and came out to meet them armed with wooden clubs, bow and arrows, and carrying shields. The chief drew a line of sacred meal across the trail, and in that way symbolized that the entrance to their pueblo was closed to the intruders. During a parley, however, one of the men made a move to cross the line of meal, and an Indian struck his horse on the bridle. This opened hostilities, in which the Hopi were worsted, but apparently without loss of life. The vanquished brought presents of various kinds--cotton cloth, cornmeal, birds, skins, piñon nuts, and a few turquoises--and finding a good camping place near their pueblo, Tobar established headquarters and received homage from all the province. They allowed the Spaniards to enter their villages and traded with them.[56] Espejo's reference to Awatobi in 1583 leaves no doubt that the pueblo was in existence in that year, and while, of course, we can not definitely say that it was not built between 1540 and 1583, the indications are that it was not. Hopi traditions assert that it was in existence when the Spaniards came, and the statement of the legendists whom I have consulted are definite that the survivors of Sikyatki went to Awatobi after the overthrow of the former pueblo. It would not appear, however, that Awatobi was founded prior to Sikyatki, nor is it stated that the refugees from Sikyatki built Awatobi, which is within the bounds of possibility, but it seems to be quite generally conceded that the Sikyatki tragedy antedated the arrival of the first Spaniards. There can, I think, be no doubt that the Hopi pueblo first entered by Pedro de Tobar, in 1540, was Awatobi, and that the first conflict of Spanish soldiers and Hopi warriors, which occurred at that time, took place on the well-known Zuñi trail in Antelope valley, not far from Jeditoh or Antelope spring. This pueblo is the nearest village to Cibola (Zuñi), from which Tobar came, and as he took the Zuñi trail he would naturally first approach this village, even if the other pueblos on the rim of this valley were inhabited. It is interesting to consider a few lines from Castañeda, describing the event of that episode, to see how closely the site of Awatobi conforms to the narrative. In Castañeda's account of Tobar's visit we find that the latter with his command entered Tusayan so secretly that their presence was unknown to the inhabitants, and they traversed a cultivated plain without being seen, so that, we are told, they approached the village near enough to hear the voices of the Indians without being discovered. Moreover, the Indians, the narrative says, had a habit of descending to their cultivated fields, which implies that they lived on a mesa top. Awatobi was situated on a mesa, and the cultivated fields were in exactly the position indicated. The habit of retiring to their pueblo at night is still observed, or was to within a few years. Tobar arrived at the edge of Antelope valley after dark (otherwise he would have been discovered), crossed the cultivated fields under cover of night, and camped under the town at the base of the mesa. The soldiers from that point could readily hear the voices of the villagers above them. Even at the base of the lofty East Mesa I have often heard the Walpi people talking, while the words of the town crier are intelligible far out on the plain. From the configuration of the valley it would not, however, have been easier for Awatobians to have seen the approaching Spaniards than for the Walpians; still it was possible for the invaders to conceal their approach to Walpi in the same way. If, however, the first pueblo approached was Walpi, and Tobar followed the Zuñi trail, I think he would have been discovered by the Awatobi people before nightfall if he entered the cultivated fields early in the evening. It would be incredible to believe that he wandered from the trail; much more likely he went directly to Awatobi, the first village en route, and then encamped until the approach of day before entering the pueblo. At sunrise the inhabitants, early stirring, detected the presence of the intruders, and the warriors went down the mesa to meet them. They had already heard from Cibola of the strange beings, men mounted on animals which were said to devour enemies. It may seem strange that the departure of an expedition against Tusayan was unknown to the Hopi, but the narrative leads us to believe that such was the fact. The warriors descended to the plain, and their chief drew a line of sacred meal across the trail to symbolize that the way to their pueblo was closed; whoever crossed it was an enemy, and punishment should be meted out to him. This custom is still preserved in several ceremonials at the present day, as, for instance, in the New-fire rites[57] in November and in the Flute observance in July.[58] The priests say that in former times whoever crossed a line of meal drawn on the trail at that festival was killed, and even now they insist that no one is allowed to pass a closed trail. The Awatobi warriors probably warned Tobar and his comrades not to advance, but the symbolic barrier was not understood by them. The Spaniards were not there to parley long, and it is probable that their purpose was to engage in a quarrel with the Indians. Urged on by the priest, Juan de Padilla, "who had been a soldier in his youth," they charged the Indians and overthrew a number, driving the others before them. The immediate provocation for this, according to the historian, was that an Indian struck one of the horses on the bridle, at which the holy father, losing patience, exclaimed to his captain, "Why are we here?" which was interpreted as a sign for the assault. It must, however, be confessed that if the pueblo of Walpi was the first discovered an approach by stealth without being seen would have been easier for Tobar if the village referred to was Walpi then situated on the Ash-hill terrace, with the East Mesa between it and the Zuñi trail. To offset this probability, however, is the fact that the Zuñi trail now runs through Awatobi, or in full view of it and there is hardly a possibility that Tobar left that trail to avoid Awatobi. He would naturally visit the first village, and not go out of his way seven miles beyond it, seeking a more distant pueblo. The effect of this onslaught on men armed with spears, clubs, and leather shields can be imagined, and the encounter seems to have discouraged the Awatobi warriors from renewed resistance. They fled, but shortly afterward brought presents as a sign of submission, when Tobar called off his men. Thus was the entry of the Spaniards into Tusayan marked with bloodshed for a trifling offense. Shortly afterward Tobar entered the village and received the complete submission of the people. The names of the Tusayan pueblos visited by Tobar in this first entrance are nowhere mentioned in the several accounts which have come down to us. Forty years later, however, the Spaniards returned and found the friendly feeling of Awatobi to the visitors had not lapsed. When Espejo approached the town in 1583, over the same Zuñi trail, the multitudes with their caciques met him with great joy and poured maize (sacred meal?) on the ground for the horses to walk upon. This was symbolic of welcome; they "made" the trail, a ceremony which is still kept up when entrance to the pueblo is formally offered.[59] The people, considering their poverty, were generous, and gave Espejo "hand towels with tassels" at the corners. These were probably dance kilts and ceremonial blankets, which then, as now, the Hopi made of cotton. The pueblo, called "Aguato" in the account of that visit, was without doubt Awatobi. The name Aguatuybá, mentioned by Oñate, is also doubtless the same, although, as pointed out to me by Mr Hodge, "through an error probably of the copyist or printer, the name Aguatuybá is inadvertently given by Oñate among his list of Hopi chiefs, while Esperiez is mentioned among the pueblos." In Oñate's list we recognize Oraibi in "Naybi," and Shuñopovi in "Xumupamí" and "Comupaví," the most westerly town of the Middle Mesa. "Cuanrabi" and "Esperiez" are not recognizable as pueblos. Espejo, therefore, appears to have been the first to mention Awatobi as "Aguato," which is metamorphosed in Hakluyt into "Zaguato or "Ahuzto,"[60] although evidently Oñate's "Aguatuybá" was intended as a name of a pueblo. I have not been able to determine satisfactorily the date of the erection of the mission building of San Bernardino at Awatobi, but the name is mentioned as early as 1629. In that year three friars went to Tusayan and began active efforts to convert the Hopi.[61] It is recorded[62] that Padre Porras, with Andres Gutierrez, Cristoval de la Concepcion, and ten soldiers, arrived in Tusayan, "dia del glorioso San Bernardo (que és el apellido que aora tiene aquel pueblo)," which leaves no doubt why the mission at Awatobi was so named. Although an apostate Indian had spread the report, previously to the advent of these priests in Tusayan, that the Spaniards were coming among them to burn their pueblos, rob their homes, and devour[63] their children, the zealous missionaries in 1629 converted many of the chiefs and baptized their children. The cacique, Don Augustin, who appears to have been baptized at Awatobi, apparently lived in Walpi or at the Middle Mesa, and returning to his pueblo, prepared the way for a continuation of the apostolic work in the villages of the other mesas. But the missionary labors of Porras came to an untimely end. It is written that by 1633 he had made great progress in converting the Hopi, but in that year, probably at Awatobi, he was poisoned. Of the fate of his two companions and the success of their work little is known, but it is recorded that the succession of padres was not broken up to the great rebellion in 1680. Figueroa, who was massacred at Awatobi in that year, went to Tusayan in 1674 with Aug. Sta. Marie. Between the death of Porras and the arrival of Figueroa there was an interval of eleven years, during which time the two comrades of Porras or Espeleta, who went to Tusayan in 1650, took charge of the spiritual welfare of the Hopi. Espeleta and Aug. Sta. Marie were killed in 1680 at San Francisco de Oraibi and Walpi, respectively, and José Trujillo probably lost his life at Old Shuñopovi at the same time. As there is no good reason to suppose that Awatobi, one of the most populous Tusayan pueblos, was neglected by the Spanish missionaries after the death of Porras in 1633, and as it was the first pueblo encountered on the trail from Zuñi, doubtless San Bernardino was one of the earliest missions erected in Tusayan. From 1680 until 1692, the period of independence resulting from the great Pueblo revolt, there was no priest in Tusayan, nor, indeed, in all New Mexico. Possibly the mission was repaired between 1692 and 1700, but it is probable that it was built as early as the time Porras lived in Awatobi. It is explicitly stated that in the destruction of Awatobi in 1700 no missionaries were killed, although it is recorded that early in that year Padre Garaycoechea made it a visit. The disputes between the Jesuits and Franciscans to obtain the Hopi field for missionary work during the eighteenth century naturally falls in another chapter of Spanish-Tusayan history. Aside from sporadic visits to the pueblos, nothing tangible appears to have resulted from the attempts at conversion in this epoch. True, many apostates were induced to return to their old homes on the Rio Grande and some of the Hopi frequently asked for resident priests, making plausible offers to protect them; but the people as a whole were hostile, and the mission churches were never rebuilt, nor did the fathers again live in this isolated province. In 1692 Awatobi was visited by Don Diego de Vargas, the reconquerer of New Mexico, who appears to have had no difficulty bringing to terms the pueblos of Awatobi, Walpi, Mishoñinovi, and Shuñopovi.[64] He found, however, that Awatobi was "fortified," and the entrance so narrow that but one man could enter at a time. The description leads us to conclude that the fortification was the wall at the eastern end, and the entrance the gateway, the sides of which are still to be seen. The plaza in which the cross was erected was probably just north of the walls of the mission. There would seem to be no doubt that a mission building was standing at Awatobi before 1680, for Vetancurt, writing about the year named, states that in the uprising it was burned.[65] At the time of the visit of Garaycoechea, in the spring of 1700, he found that the mission had been rebuilt. In this connection it is instructive, as bearing on the probable cause of the destruction of Awatobi, to find that while the inhabitants of this pueblo desired to have the mission rehabilitated, the other Tusayan pueblos were so hostile that the friends of the priest in Awatobi persuaded him not to attempt to visit the other villages. This warning was no doubt well advised, and the tragic fate which befell Awatobi before the close of the year shows that the trouble was brewing when the padre was there, and possibly Garaycoechea's visit hastened the catastrophe or intensified the hatred of the other pueblos. At the time of Garaycoechea's visit he baptized, it is said, 73 persons. This rite was particularly obnoxious[66] to the Hopi, as indeed to the other Pueblo Indians, notwithstanding they performed practically the same ceremony in initiations into their own secret societies. The Awatobians, however, or at least some of them, allowed this rite of the Christians, thus intensifying the hatred of the more conservative of their own village and of the neighboring pueblos. These and other facts seem to indicate that the real cause of the destruction of Awatobi was the reception of Christianity by its inhabitants, which the other villagers regarded as sorcery. The conservative party, led by Tapolo, opened the gate of the town to the warriors of Walpi and Mishoñinovi, who slaughtered the liberals, thus effectually rooting out the new faith from Tusayan, for after that time it never again obtained a foothold. The visit of Padre Juan Garaycoechea to Tusayan was at the invitation of Espeleta, chief of Oraibi, but he went no farther than Awatobi, where he baptized the 73 Hopi. He then returned to the "governor," and arrived at Zuñi in June. According to Bancroft (p. 222), "In the 'Moqui Noticias' MS., 669, it is stated that the other Moquis, angry that Aguatuvi had received the padres, came and attacked the pueblo, killed all the men, and carried off all the women and children, leaving the place for many years deserted." Although I have not been able to consult the document quoted, this conclusion corresponds so closely with Hopi tradition that I believe it is practically true, although Bancroft unfortunately closes the quotation I have made from his account with the words, "I think this must be an error." Espeleta, the Oraibi chief, and 20 companions were in Santa Fé in October, 1700, and proposed a peace in which the Hopi asked for religious toleration, which Governor Cubero refused. As a final appeal he desired that the fathers should not permanently reside with them, but should visit one pueblo each year for six years; but this request was also rejected. Espeleta returned to Oraibi, and immediately on his appearance an unsuccessful attempt was made to destroy Awatobi, followed, as recounted in the legend, by a union with Walpi and Mishoñinovi, by which the liberal-minded villagers of the Antelope mesa were overthrown. Documentary and legendary accounts are thus in strict accord regarding the cause of the destruction. The meager fragmentary historical evidence that can be adduced shows that the destruction of Awatobi occurred in the autumn or early winter of 1700. In May of that year we have the account of the visiting padre, and in the summer when Espeleta was at Santa Fé, the pueblo was flourishing. The month of November would have been a favorable one for the destruction of the town for the reason that during this time the warriors would all be engaged in secret kiva rites. The legend relates that the overthrow of the pueblo was at the _Naacnaiya_,[67] which now takes place in November. For many years after its destruction the name of Awatobi was still retained on maps including the Tusayan province, and there exist several published references to the place as if still inhabited; but these appear to be compilations, as no traveler visited the site subsequently to 1700. It is never referred to in writings of the eighteenth or first half of the nineteenth centuries, and its site attracted no attention. The ruins remained unidentified until about 1884, when the late Captain J. G. Bourke published his book on the "Snake Dance of the Moquis," in which he showed that the ruin called by the Navaho Tally-hogan was the old Awatobi which played such a prominent part in early Tusayan history. The ruin was described and figured a few years later by Mr Victor Mindeleff in his valuable memoir on Cibola and Tusayan architecture. Bourke's reference is very brief and Mindeleff's plan deficient, as it includes only a portion of the ruin, namely, the conspicuous mission walls and adjacent buildings, overlooking entirely the older or western mounds, which are the most characteristic. In 1892 I published the first complete ground-plan of the ruins of Awatobi, including both eastern and western sections. As Mindeleff's plan is defective, his characterization of the architectural features of the pueblo is consequently faulty. He says: "The plan suggests that the original pueblo was built about three sides of a rectangular court, the fourth or southeast side, later occupied by the mission buildings, being left open or protected by a low wall." While the eastern portion undoubtedly supports this conclusion, had he examined the western or main section he would doubtless have qualified his conclusion (plate CVII). This portion was compact, without a rectangular court, and was of pyramidal form. The eastern section was probably of later construction, and the mission was originally built outside the main pueblo, although probably a row of rooms of very ancient date extended along the northern side opposite the church. As it was customary in Tusayan to isolate the kivas, these rooms in Awatobi were probably extramural and may have been situated in this eastern court, but the majority of the people lived in the western section. The architecture of the mission and adjacent rooms shows well-marked Spanish influence, which is wholly absent in the buildings forming the western mounds. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CVII GROUND PLAN OF AWATOBI] LEGEND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF AWATOBI The legend of the overthrow of Awatobi is preserved in detail among the living villagers of Tusayan, and like all stories which have been transmitted for several generations exist in several variants, differing in episodes, but coinciding in general outlines. In the absence of contemporary documentary history, which some time may possibly be brought to light, the legends are the only available data regarding an event of great importance in the modern history of Tusayan. I have obtained the legends from Supela, Shimo,[68] Masiumptiwa, and Saliko, and the most complete appears to be that of the last mentioned. The others dilated more on the atrocities which were committed on the bodies of the unfortunate captives, and the tortures endured before they were killed. All show traces of modification, incorporation, and modern invention. _Destruction of Awatobi as related by Saliko_[69] "The chiefs Wiki and Shimo, and others, have told you their stories, and surely their ancestors were living here at Walpi when Awatobi was occupied. It was a large village, and many people lived there, and the village chief was called Tapolo, but he was not at peace with his people, and there were quarreling and trouble. Owing to this conflict only a little rain fell, but the land was fertile and fair harvests were still gathered. The Awatobi men were bad (_powako_, sorcerers). Sometimes they went in small bands among the fields of the other villagers and cudgeled any solitary worker they found. If they overtook any woman they ravished her, and they waylaid hunting parties, taking the game, after beating and sometimes killing the hunters. There was considerable trouble in Awatobi, and Tapolo sent to the Oraibi chief asking him to bring his people and kill the evil Awatobians. The Oraibi came and fought with them, and many were killed on both sides, but the Oraibi were not strong enough to enter the village, and were compelled to withdraw. On his way back the Oraibi chief stopped at Walpi and talked with the chiefs there. Said he, 'I can not tell why Tapolo wants the Oraibi to kill his folks, but we have tried and have not succeeded very well. Even if we did succeed, what benefit would come to us who live too far away to occupy the land? You Walpi people live close to them and have suffered most at their hands; it is for you to try.' While they were talking Tapolo had also come, and it was then decided that other chiefs of all the villages should convene at Walpi to consult. Couriers were sent out, and when all the chiefs had arrived Tapolo declared that his people had become sorcerers (Christians), and hence should all be destroyed. "It was then arranged that in four days large bands from all the other villages should prepare themselves, and assemble at a spring not far from Awatobi. A long while before this, when the Spaniards lived there, they had built a wall on the side of the village that needed protection, and in this wall was a great, strong door. Tapolo proposed that the assailants should come before dawn, and he would be at this door ready to admit them, and under this compact he returned to his village. During the fourth night after this, as agreed upon, the various bands assembled at the deep gulch spring, and every man carried, besides his weapons, a cedar-bark torch and a bundle of greasewood. Just before dawn they moved silently up to the mesa summit, and, going directly to the east side of the village, they entered the gate, which opened as they approached. In one of the courts was a large kiva, and in it were a number of men engaged in sorcerer's rites. The assailants at once made for the kiva, and plucking up the ladder, they stood around the hatchway, shooting arrows down among the entrapped occupants. In the numerous cooking pits fire had been maintained through the night for the preparation of food for a feast on the appointed morning, and from these they lighted their torches. Great numbers of these and the bundles of greasewood being set on fire, they were cast down the hatchway, and firewood from stacks upon the house terraces were also thrown into the kiva. The red peppers for which Awatobi was famous were hanging in thick clusters along the fronts of the houses, and these they crushed in their hands and flung upon the blazing fire in the kiva to further torment their burning occupants. After this, all who were capable of moving were compelled to travel or drag themselves until they came to the sand-hills of Mishoñinovi, and there the final disposition of the prisoners was made. "My maternal ancestor had recognized a woman chief (_Mamzrau moñwi_), and saved her at the place of massacre called Maski, and now he asked her whether she would be willing to initiate the woman of Walpi in the rites of the _Mamzrau_. She complied, and thus the observance of the ceremonial called the Mamzráuti came to Walpi. I can not tell how it came to the other villages. This Mamzrau-moñwi had no children, and hence my maternal ancestor's sister became chief, and her _tiponi_ (badge of office) came to me. Some of the other Awatobi women knew how to bring rain, and such of them as were willing to teach their songs were spared and went to different villages. The Oraibi chief saved a man who knew how to cause peaches to grow, and that is why Oraibi has such an abundance of peaches now. The Mishoñinovi chief saved a prisoner who knew how to make the sweet, small-ear corn grow, and that is why it is more abundant there than elsewhere. All the women who knew song prayers and were willing to teach them were spared, and no children were designedly killed, but were divided among the villages, most of them going to Mishoñinovi. The remainder of the prisoners, men and women, were again tortured and dismembered and left to die on the sand hills, and there their bones are, and that is the reason the place is called _Maschomo_ (Death-mound). This is the story of Awatobi told by my old people." All variants of the legend are in harmony in this particular, that Awatobi was destroyed by the other Tusayan pueblos, and that Mishoñinovi, Walpi, and probably Oraibi and Shuñopovi participated in the deed. A grievance that would unite the other villagers against Awatobi must have been a great one, indeed, and not a mere dispute about water or lands. The more I study the real cause, hidden in the term _powako_, "wizard" or "sorcerer," the more I am convinced that the progress Christianity was making in Awatobi, after the reconquest of the Pueblos in 1692, explains the hostility of the other villagers. The party favoring the Catholic fathers in Awatobi was increasing, and the other Tusayan pueblos watched its growth with alarm. They foresaw that it heralded the return of the hated domination of the priests, associated in their minds with practical slavery, and they decided on the tragedy, which was carried out with all the savagery of which their natures were capable. They greatly feared the return of the Spanish soldiers, as the epoch of Spanish rule, mild though it may have been, was held in universal detestation. Moreover, after the reconquest of the Rio Grande pueblos, many apostates fled to Tusayan and fanned the fires of hatred against the priests. Walpi received these malcontents, who came in numbers a few years later. Among these arrivals were Tanoan warriors and their families, part of whom were ancestors of the present inhabitants of Hano. It was no doubt hoped that the destruction of Awatobi would effectually root out the growing Christian influence, which it in fact did; and for fifty years afterward Tusayan successfully resisted all efforts to convert it. Franciscans from the east and Jesuits from the Gila in the south strove to get a new hold, but they never succeeded in rebuilding the missions in this isolated province, which was generally regarded as independent. From the scanty data I have been able to collect from historical and legendary sources, it seems probable that Awatobi was always more affected by the padres than were the other Tusayan pueblos. This was the village which was said to have been "converted" by Padre Porras, whose work, after his death by poison in 1633, was no doubt continued by his associates and successors. About 1680, as we learn from documentary accounts, the population of Awatobi was 800,[70] and it was probably not much smaller in 1700, the time of its destruction. EVIDENCES OF FIRE IN THE DESTRUCTION Wherever excavations were conducted in the eastern section of Awatobi, we could not penetrate far below the surface without encountering unmistakable evidences of a great conflagration. The effect of the fire was particularly disastrous in the rooms of the eastern section, or that part of the pueblo contiguous to the mission. Hardly a single object was removed from this part of Awatobi that had not been charred. Many of the beams were completely burned; others were charred only on their surfaces. The rooms were filled with ashes and scoriæ, while the walls had been cracked as if by intense heat. Perhaps the most significant fact in regard to the burning of Awatobi was seen in some of the houses where the fire seems to have been less intense. In many chambers of the eastern section, which evidently were used as granaries, the corn was stacked in piles just as it is today under many of the living rooms at Walpi, a fact which tends to show that there was no attempt to pillage the pueblo before its destruction. The ears of corn in these store-rooms were simply charred, but so well preserved that entire ears of maize were collected in great numbers. It may here be mentioned that upon one of the stacks of corn I found during my excavations for the Hemenway Expedition in 1892, a rusty iron knife-blade, showing that the owner of the room was acquainted with objects of Spanish manufacture. This blade is now deposited with the Hemenway collection in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge. THE RUINS OF THE MISSION The mission church of San Bernardino de Awatobi was erected very early in the history of the Spanish occupancy, and its ruined walls are the only ones now standing above the surface. This building was constructed by the padres on a mesa top, while the churches at Walpi and Shuñopovi were built in the foothills near those pueblos. The mission at Oraibi likewise stood on a mesa top, so that we must qualify Mindeleff's statement[71] that "at Tusayan there is no evidence that a church or mission house ever formed part of the villages on the mesa summits.... These summits have been extensively occupied only in comparatively recent time, although one or more churches may have been built here at an early date as outlooks over the fields in the valley below." At the time of the Spanish invasion three of the Hopi villages stood on the foothills or lower terraces of the mesas on which they now stand, and the other two, Awatobi and Oraibi, occupied the same sites as today, on the summits of the mesas. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CVIII RUINS OF SAN BERNARDINO DE AWATOBI] I believe that at the time of the Spanish discovery of Tusayan by Pedro de Tobar in 1540, there were only five Tusayan towns--Walpi, Awatobi, Shuñopovi, Mishoñinovi, and Oraibi. Later, Awatobi was destroyed, and shortly after 1680 Walpi, the only East Mesa town, together with Mishoñinovi and Shuñopovi, on the Middle Mesa, were moved to the elevated sites they now occupy. Oraibi, therefore, is probably the only Tusayan pueblo, at present inhabited, which occupies practically the same site that it did in 1540. In their excavations for the foundations of new houses the present inhabitants of Oraibi often find, as I am informed by Mr H. R. Voth, the missionary at that place, vessels or potsherds of ancient Tusayan ware closely resembling that which is found in the ruins of Sikyatki and Awatobi. The mission building at Awatobi, known in the church history of New Mexico and Arizona as San Bernardo or San Bernardino, was reputed to be the largest in Tusayan, and its walls are still the best preserved of any mission structure in that province. This, however, does not imply that the church structures of Tusayan are well preserved, for the mission buildings at Walpi have wholly disappeared, while at Oraibi little more than a pile of stones remains. Of the Shuñopovi mission of San Bernabe there are no standing walls save at one end, which are now used as a sheep corral. The mission of San Bernardino de Awatobi was built on the southern side of the eastern part of the pueblo on the edge of the cliff, and its walls are the only ones of Awatobi now standing above ground. From the situation of these walls, as compared with the oldest part of Awatobi--the western mounds--I believe that San Bernardino mission was, when erected, beyond the limits of the pueblo proper--a custom almost universally followed in erecting pueblo mission churches--necessary in this instance, since from the compactness of the village there was no other available site. The same was true of the missions of Oraibi and Shuñopovi, and probably of Old Walpi. As time passed additional buildings were erected near it, this eastward extension altering the original plan of the town, but in no way affecting the configuration of the older portion. From its commanding position on the edge of the mesa the mission walls must have presented an imposing appearance from the plain below, rising as they did almost continuously with the side of the cliff, making a conspicuous structure for miles across Antelope valley, from which its crumbling walls are still visible (plate CVIII). When compared with the masonry of unmodified pueblo ruins the walls of the mission may be designated massive, and excavation at their foundations was very difficult on account of the great amount of débris which had fallen about them. With the limited force of laborers at my command the excavations could not be conducted with a great degree of thoroughness. In the middle of what I supposed to have been the main church there was much sand, evidently drift, and in it I sank a trench 10 feet below the surface without reaching anything which I considered a floor. We found in excavations at the foundation of the church walls fragments of glass, several copper nails, a much-corroded iron hook, a copper bell pivot, and fragments of Spanish pottery. From the character of these objects alone there is no doubt in my mind of the former existence of Spanish influence, and the method of construction of the mission walls and the addition constructed of adobe containing chopped straw, substantiate this conclusion. Supposing, from the architecture and orientation of other New Mexican missions, that the altar was at the western end, opposite the entrance to the church, I sank a trench along the foundation of the wall on that side, but encountered such a mass of fallen stone at that point that I found it impossible to make much progress, and the fact that the floor was more than 10 feet below the surface of the central depression led me to abandon, as impossible with my little band of native excavators, the laying bare of the floor of the church. [Illustration: FIG. 255--Ground plan of San Bernardino de Awatobi] The ground plan (figure 255) of the mission resembles that of the Zuñi church, and is not unlike the plans of the churches in the Rio Grande pueblos. The tall buttresses, which rise 15 or 20 feet above the trail up the mesa on the southern corner, are, I believe, remnants of towers which formerly supported a balcony. During a previous visit to Tusayan I obtained fragments[72] of the ancient bell, which are now on exhibition in the Hemenway section of the Peabody Museum at Cambridge. The stone walls of the mission were rarely dressed or carefully fitted, the interstices being filled in with loose rubble laid in adobe. There was apparently a gallery over the entrance to the building overlooking many smaller buildings, which evidently were the quarters of the resident priest. The construction of the walls was apparently a laborious task, as many of the stones are large and must have been brought a considerable distance. These stones were laid in adobe, and apparently were plastered without and within, although little evidence of the former plastering may now be seen. At the northwestern corner, however, there still remain well-made adobe walls, the clay having been intermixed with straw. From the general appearance of these walls I regard them as of late construction, probably long after the destruction of the mission. An examination of the plan of the mission building shows that it was oriented about north and south, with the entrance toward the latter direction. Compared with many other pueblo missions, this would seem to be an exceptional position. In my excavations I naturally sought the probable position of the entrance and, opposite it, the recess for the altar. It is evident, from the form of the standing walls, that an entrance from the east would be blocked by standing walls, and the axis of the building is north and south. The theory that the door was at the south has much in its favor, but there are several almost fatal objections to this conclusion. If, however, we suppose that the entrance was in the south wall, the high walls still standing above the trail up the mesa would then recall the façades of other missions. The rooms east of the largest inclosure, by this interpretation, would be outbuildings--residence rooms for the padres--one side of which forms the eastern walls of the church edifice. The form of the Awatobi church, as indicated by the walls still standing, is very similar to that of Zuñi, notwithstanding the orientation appears to be somewhat different. Excavations failed to reveal any sign of the altar recess at either the northern or the western end, which is not surprising, since the walls are so poorly preserved in both these directions. It was, moreover, very difficult to make a satisfactory examination of the foundations of the walls at any point on account of the fallen stories, which encumbered the floor at their bases. From the appearance of antiquity it seems probable that long before the mission buildings were erected a ridge of many-storied houses extended eastward from the pueblo on the northern side of a level space or court, in which there were, either then or later, ceremonial chambers or kivas. The southern side of this open space was the site of the mission, but was then unoccupied. This open space recalls the large court at Walpi, where the Snake dance occurs, but it was considerably broader, one side being formed by the structures which rose from the edge of the mesa. In course of time, however, the mission buildings were erected on this site, and a wall connecting the ridge of houses on the north and the outhouses of the mission was made, thus inclosing the court on all four sides. It was into this inclosure, through a gateway, the buttresses of which still remain, that the assailants passed on that eventful night when Awatobi was destroyed. There is good evidence that a massacre of Awatobians occurred in the southeastern angle of the eastern part of the pueblo, just east of the mission. If so, it is probable that many of the unfortunates sought refuge in the outbuildings of the church. Suspecting that such was the case, I excavated a considerable space of ground at these places and found many human skulls and other bones thrown together in confusion. The earth was literally filled with bones, evidently hastily placed there or left where the dead fell. These bodies were not buried with pious care, for there were no fragments of mortuary pottery or other indication of burial objects. Many of the skulls were broken, some pierced with sharp implements. While it is true that possibly this may have been a potter's field, or, from its position east of the mission, a Christian burial place, as at Zuñi, the evidence from the appearance of the bodies points to a different conclusion. According to the legends, the hostiles entered the pueblo through the adjacent gateway; their anger led them especially against those of the inhabitants who were regarded as _powako_ or sorcerers, and their first acts of violence would naturally have been toward those who sought refuge in the buildings adjacent the church. Near this hated "Singing-house" the slaughter began, soon extending to the kivas and the whole of the eastern section of the village. There was no evidence of murderous deeds in the rooms of the western section of the old pueblo, and the legends agree in relating that most of the men were in kivas, not far from the mission, when the village was overthrown. There is no legendary evidence that there were any Spanish priests in the mission at the time of its destruction, and there is no record extant of any Spaniards losing their lives at Awatobi at the time of its destruction, although the fact of the occurrence, according to Bandelier,[73] was recorded. The traditional clans which inhabited Awatobi were the Awata (Bow), Honani (Badger), Piba (Tobacco), and Buli (Butterfly). The Bow people appear to have been the most important of these, since their name was applied to the village. Their totemic signatures, in pictographic form, may still be seen on the sides of the cliff under Awatobi, and in the ruins was found a fine arrowshaft polisher on which was an incised drawing of a bow and an arrow, suggesting that the owner was a member of the Bow phratry. Saliko, the chief of the woman's society known as the Mamzrautû, insists that this priesthood was strong in the fated pueblo, and that a knowledge of its mysteries was brought to Walpi by one of the women who was saved. It is claimed by the folklorists of the Tataukyamû, a priesthood which, controls the New-fire ceremonies at Walpi, and is prominent in the Soyaluña, or the rites of the winter solstice, that the Piba or Tobacco phratry brought the fetishes of that society to Walpi, and there are many obscurely known resemblances between the Mamzrauti and the Wüwütcimti celebrations in Walpi which appear to support that claim. The Piba phratry is likewise said to have come to Walpi comparatively late in the history of the village, which fact points the same way. Undoubtedly Awatobi received additions to its population from the south when the pueblos on the Little Colorado were abandoned, and there are obscure legends which support that belief; but the largest numbers were recruited from the pueblos in the eastern section of the country.[74] THE KIVAS OF AWATOBI A pueblo of the size of Awatobi, with so many evidences of long occupancy, would no doubt have several ceremonial chambers or kivas, but as yet no one has definitely indicated their positions. I have already called attention to evidences that if they existed they were probably to be looked for in the open court east of the western mounds and in the space north of the mission. In all the inhabited Tusayan pueblos the kivas are separated from the house clusters and are surrounded by courts or dance plazas. No open spaces existed in the main or western mounds of Awatobi, and there was no place there for kivas unless the pueblo was exceptional in having such structures built among the dwellings, as at Zuñi. A tradition has survived that Awatobi had regular kivas, partially subterranean, of rectangular shape, and that they were situated in open courts. This would indicate that the space east of the oldest part of the ruin may have been the sites of these chambers. The old priests whom I have consulted in regard to the probable positions of Awatobi kivas have invariably pointed out the mounds north of the mission walls in the eastern section of the ruin as the location of the kivas, and in 1892 I proved to my satisfaction that these directions were correct. There is no reason to suppose that the kiva was a necessity in the ancient performance of the Tusayan ritual, and there are still performed many ceremonials as secret and as sacred as any others which occur in rooms used as dwellings or for the storage of corn. Thus, the Flute ceremony, one of the most complicated in Tusayan, is not, and according to legends never was, performed in a kiva. On the contrary, the secret rites of the Flute society are performed in the ancestral Flute chamber or home of the oldest woman of the Flute clan. Originally, I believe, the same was true in the case of other ceremonials, and that the kiva was of comparatively recent introduction into Tusayan.[75] Speaking of the sacred rooms of Awatobi, Mindeleff says: "No traces of kivas were visible at the time the ruin was surveyed," but Stephen is quoted in a legend that "the people of Walpi had partly cleaned out one of these chambers and used it as a depository for ceremonial plume-sticks, but the Navaho carried off their sacred deposits, tempted probably by their market value as ethnologic specimens." It is true that while from a superficial examination of the Awatobi mounds the position of the kivas is difficult to locate, a little excavation brings their walls to light. It is likewise quite probable that the legend reported by Stephen has a basis in fact, and that the people at Walpi may have used old shrines in Awatobi, after its destruction, as the priests of Mishoñinovi do at the present time; but I very much doubt if the Navaho sold any of the sacred prayer emblems from these fanes. It is hardly characteristic of these people to barter such objects among one another, and no specimens from the shrines appear to have made their way into the numerous collections of traders known to me. There is, however, archeological evidence revealed by excavations that the room centrally placed in the court north of the mission contained a shrine in its floor on the night Awatobi fell. In 1892, while removing the soil from a depression about the middle of the eastern court of Awatobi, about 100 feet north of the northern wall of the mission, I laid bare a room 28 by 14 feet, in which were found a skull and many other human bones which, from their disposition, had not been buried with care. The discovery of these skeletons accorded with the Hopi traditions that this was one of the rooms in which the men of Awatobi were gathered on the fatal night, and the inclosure where many died. I was deterred from further excavation at that place by the horror of my workmen at the desecration of the chamber. In 1895, however, I determined to continue my earlier excavations and to trace the course of the walls of adjacent rooms. The results obtained in this work led to a new phase of the question, which sheds more light on the character of the rooms in the middle of the eastern court of Awatobi. Instead of a single room at this point, there are three rectangular chambers side by side, all of about the same size (plate CVIII). In the center of the floor of the middle room, 6 feet below the surface, I came upon a cist or stone shrine. As the workmen approached the floor they encountered a stone slab, horizontally placed in the pavement of the room. This slab was removed, and below it was another flat stone which was perforated by a rectangular hole just large enough to admit the hand and forearm. This second slab was found to cover a stone box, the sides of which were formed of stone slabs about 2-1/2 feet square. On the inner faces of the upright slabs rain-cloud symbols were painted. These symbols were of terrace form, in different colors outlined with black lines. One of the stones bore a yellow figure, another a red, and a third white. The color of the fourth was not determinable, but evidently, from its position relatively to the others, was once green. This arrangement corresponds with the present ceremonial assignment of colors to the cardinal points, or at least the north and south, as at the present time, were yellow and red, respectively, and presumably the white and green were on the east and west sides of the cist. The colors are still fairly bright and may be seen in the restoration of this shrine now in the National Museum. There was no stone floor to this shrine, but within it were found fragments of prayer-plumes or pahos painted green, but so decayed that, when exposed to sunlight, some of them fell into dust. There were likewise fragments of green carbonate of copper and kaolin, a yellow ocher, and considerable vegetal matter mixed with the sand. All these facts tend to the belief that this crypt was an ancient shrine in the floor of a chamber which may have been a kiva. The position of this room with a shrine in the middle of the court is interesting in comparison with that of similar shrines in some of the modern Hopi pueblos. Shrines occupy the same relative position in Sichomovi, Hano, Shipaulovi, and elsewhere, and within them sacred prayer-offerings are still deposited on ceremonial occasions. At Walpi, in the middle of the plaza, there is a subterranean crypt in which offerings are often placed, as I have elsewhere described in treating of certain ceremonies. This shrine is not visible, for a slab of stone which is placed over it lies on a level with the plaza, and is securely luted in place with adobe. There are similar subterranean prayer crypts in other Tusayan villages. They represent the traditional opening, or _sipapu_, through which, in Pueblo cosmogony, races crawled to the surface of the earth from an underworld. In Awatobi also there is a similar shrine, for the deposit of prayer-offerings, almost in the middle of a plaza bounded on three sides by the mission, the spur of many-storied houses, and the wall with a gateway, while the remaining side was formed by the great communal houses of the western part of the pueblo. While we were taking from their ancient resting places the slabs of stone which formed this Awatobi shrine, the workmen reminded me how closely it resembled the _pahoki_ used by the _katcinas_, and when, a month later, I witnessed the _Nimán-katcina_ ceremony at Walpi, and accompanied the chief, Intiwa, when he deposited the prayer-sticks in that shrine,[76] I was again impressed by the similarity of the two, one in a ruin deserted two centuries ago, the other still used in the performance of ancient rites, no doubt much older than the overthrow of the great pueblo of Antelope mesa. OLD AWATOBI The western mounds of Awatobi afford satisfactory evidence that they cover the older rooms of the pueblo, and show by their compact form that the ancient village in architectural plan was similar to modern Walpi. They indicate that Awatobi was of pyramidal form, was symmetrical, three or four stories high,[77] without a central plaza, but probably penetrated by narrow courts or passages. No great ceremonial dance could have taken place in the heart of the pueblo, since there was not sufficient space for its celebration, but it must have occurred outside the village, probably in the open space to the east, near where the ruined walls of the mission now stand. From the nature of the western mounds I found it advantageous to begin the work of excavation in the steep decline on the southern side, and to penetrate the mound on the level of its base or the rock formation which forms its foundation. In this way all the débris could advantageously be moved and thrown over the side of the mesa. We began to open the mounds, therefore, on the southern side, making converging trenches at intervals, working toward their center. We found that these trenches followed continuous walls connected by cross partitions, forming rooms, and that these were continued as far as we penetrated. The evidence is good that these rooms are followed by others which extend into the deepest part of the mound. We likewise excavated at intervals over the whole surface of the western area of Awatobi, and wherever we dug, walls of former rooms, which diminished in altitude on the northern side, were found. From these excavations I concluded that if any part of the western mound was higher than the remainder, it was on the southern side just above the edge of the mesa, and from that highest point the pueblo diminished in altitude to the north, in which direction it was continued for some distance in low, single-story rooms. ROOMS OF THE WESTERN MOUND The older or western portion of Awatobi is thus believed to be made up of a number of high mounds which rise steeply, and for a considerable height from the southern edge of the cliff, from which it slopes more gradually to the north and west. On account of this steep declivity we were able to examine, in vertical section, the arrangement of the rooms, one above the other (figure 256). By beginning excavations on the rocky foundation and working into the mound, parallel walls were encountered at intervals as far as we penetrated. From the edge of the cliff there seemed to extend a series of these parallel walls, which were united by cross partitions, forming a series of rooms, one back of another. The deeper we penetrated the mound the higher the walls were found to be, and this was true of the excavations along the whole southern side of the elevation (plate CIX). If, as I suspect, these parallel walls extend to the heart of the mounds, the greatest elevation of the former buildings must have been four stories. It would likewise seem probable that the town was more or less pyramidal, with the highest point somewhat back from the one- or two-story walls at the edge of the cliff, a style of architecture still preserved in Walpi. The loftiest wall, which was followed down to the floor, was 15 feet high, but as that was measured over 20 feet below the apex of the mound, it would seem that, from a distance, there would be a wall 30 feet high in the center of the mound. Even counting 7 feet as the height of each story we would have four stories above the foundation, and this, I believe, was the height of the old pueblo. But probably the wall did not rise to this height at the edge of the mesa, where it could not have been more than one or two stories high. There is no evidence of the former existence of an inclosed court of any considerable size between the buildings and the cliff, although a passage probably skirted the brink of the precipice, and house ladders may have been placed on that side for ready access to upper rooms. By a series of platforms or terraces, which were in fact the roofs of the houses, one mounted to the upper stories which formed the apex of the pueblo. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CIX EXCAVATIONS IN THE WESTERN MOUND OF AWATOBI] [Illustration: FIG. 256--Structure of house wall of Awatobi] On the western, northern, and eastern sides the slope is more gradual, and while there are many obscurely marked house plans visible over the surface, even quite near the top of the elevation, they are doubtless the remains of single-story structures. This leads me to suspect that when Awatobi was built it was reared on a mound of soil or sand, and not on the solid rock surface of the mesa. The configuration, then, shows that the pueblo sloped by easy decline to the plain to the north, but rose more abruptly from the south and west. There are low extramural mounds to the north, showing that on this side the dwellings were composed of straggling chambers. The general character of the rooms on the level slope at the western side of old Awatobi is shown in the accompanying illustration (plate CX). The peculiarity of these rooms appears by a comparison with the many-story chambers of the southern declivity of the ruin. Extending the excavations four feet below the surface we encountered a floor which rested on solid earth, and there were no signs of walls beneath it. This was without doubt a single-story house, the roof of which had disappeared. The surrounding surface of the ground is level, but the tops of adjoining walls of rooms may readily be traced near by. The room was rectangular, twice as long as wide, and without passageways into adjoining chambers. The northern, eastern, and western walls were unbroken, and there was nothing peculiar in the floor of these sections; but we found a well-preserved, elevated settle at the southern side, extending two-thirds of the length of the main wall to a small side wall, inclosing a square recess, the object of which is unknown to me. All walls were smoothly plastered, and the floor was paved with flat stones set in adobe. The singular inclosure at the southern corner could not be regarded as a fireplace, for there was no trace of soot upon its walls. I incline to the belief that it may have served as a closet, or possibly as a granary. Its arrangement is not unlike that in certain modern rooms at Walpi. An examination of the masonry of the rooms of the western mounds of Awatobi shows that the component stones were in a measure dressed into shape, which was, as a rule, cubical. In this respect they differ from the larger stones of which the mission walls were built, for in this masonry the natural cleavage is utilized for the face of the wall. The differences between the masonry of the mission and that of the room in which we found a chief buried were very marked. In the former, elongated slabs of stone, without pecking or dressing, were universal, while in the latter the squared stones were laid in courses and neatly fitted together. The partitions likewise are narrower, being not more than 6 inches thick. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CX EXCAVATED ROOM IN THE WESTERN MOUND OF AWATOBI] SMALLER AWATOBI About an eighth of a mile west of the great mounds of Awatobi there is a small rectangular ruin, the ground plan of which is well marked, and in which individual houses are easy to trace. Like its larger neighbor, it stands on the very edge of the mesa. None of its walls rise above the surface of the mounds, which, however, are considerably elevated and readily distinguished for some distance. The pueblo was built in the form of a rectangle of single-story houses surrounding a plaza. There was an opening or entrance on the southern side, near which is a mound, possibly the remains of a kiva. A trail now passes directly through the ruin and down the mesa side to Jeditoh valley, probably the pathway by which the ancient inhabitants ascended the cliff. The Hopi Indians employed by me in excavating Awatobi had no name for this ruin and were not familiar with its existence before I pointed it out to them. For want of a better interpretation I have regarded it as a colony of old Awatobi, possibly of later construction. Excavations in its mounds revealed no objects of interest, although fragments of beautiful pottery, related to that found at Awatobi and Sikyatki, show that it must have been made by people of the older or best epoch[78] of Tusayan ceramics. MORTUARY REMAINS Although it is well known that the ancient inhabitants of the great houses of the Gila-Salado drainage buried some of their dead within their dwellings, or in other rooms, and that the same mortuary practice was observed in ancient Zuñi-Cibola, up to the time of my excavations this form of burial had never been found in Tusayan. I am now able to record that the same custom was practiced at Awatobi. Excavation made in the southeastern declivity of the western mounds led to a burial chamber in which we found the well-preserved skeleton of an old man, apparently a priest. The body was laid on the floor, at full length, and at his head, which pointed southward, had been placed, not mortuary offerings of food in bowls, but insignia of his priestly office. Eight small objects of pottery were found on his left side (plate CXII, _a_, _b_, _d_, _e_). Among these was a symmetrical vase of beautiful red ware (plate CXI, _a_) richly decorated with geometric patterns, and four globular paint pots, each full of pigment of characteristic color. These paint pots were of black-and-white ware, and contained, respectively, yellow ocher, sesquioxide of iron, green copper carbonate, and micaceous hematite (plate CXIII, _a_, _d_, _e_) such as is now called _yayala_ and used by the Snake priests in the decoration of their faces. There were also many arrowpoints in an earthen colander, and a ladle was luted over the mouth of the red vase. My native excavators pronounced this the grave of a warrior priest. The passageways into this chamber of death had all been closed, and there were no other mortuary objects in the room. This was the only instance of intramural interment which I discovered in the excavations at Awatobi, but a human bone was found on the floor of another chamber. So far as known the Awatobi people buried most of their dead outside the town, either in the foothills at the base of the mesa, or in the adjacent sand-dunes. The work of excavating the graves at the foot of the mesa was desultory, as I found no single place where many interments had been made. Several food vessels were dug up at a grave opened by Kópeli, the Snake chief. I was not with him when he found the grave, but he called me to see it soon after its discovery. We took from this excavation a sandstone fetish of a mountain-lion, a fragment of the bottom of a basin perforated with holes as if used as a colander. Deposited in this fragment were many stone arrowheads, several fragments of green paint, a flat green paho ornamented with figures of dragon-flies in black. In addition to a single complete prayer-stick there were fragments of many others too much broken to be identified. One of these was declared by Kópeli to be a chief's paho. The grave in which these objects were found was situated about halfway down the side of the mesa to the southward of the highest mounds of the western division of the pueblo. Here and there along the base of all the foothills south of Awatobi are evidences of former burials, and complete bowls, dippers, and vases were unearthed (plate CXIII, _b_, _c_). The soil is covered with fragments of pottery, and in places, where the water has washed through them, exposing a vertical section of the ground, it was found that the fragments of pottery extended through the soil sometimes to a depth of fifty feet below the surface. There was evidence, however, that this soil had been transported more or less by rain water, which often courses down the sides of the mesa in impetuous torrents. Human bones and mortuary vessels were found south of the mission near the trail, at the foot of the mesa. In a single grave, a foot below the surface, there were two piles of food bowls, each pile containing six vessels, all broken. The cemetery northwest of Awatobi, where the soil is sandy and easy to excavate, had been searched by others, and many beautiful objects of pottery taken from it. This burial place yielded many bowls (plates CLXVII, CLXVIII) and jars, as well as several interesting pahos similar to those from Sikyatki, which I shall later describe but which have never before been reported from Awatobi. It was found that one of these prayer-sticks was laid over the heart of the deceased, and as the skeleton was in a sitting posture, with the hand on the breast, the prayer-stick may thus have been held at the time of burial. Our success in finding places of interment on all sides of Sikyatki, irrespective of direction, leads me to suspect that further investigation of the sand-dunes north of Awatobi will reveal graves at that point. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXI VASE AND MUGS FROM THE WESTERN MOUNDS OF AWATOBI] I have already called attention to the great abundance of charred corn found in the rooms north of the mission. Renewed work in this quarter revealed still greater quantities of this corn stacked in piles, sometimes filling the entire side of a room. Evidently, as I have elsewhere shown, the row of rooms at this part of the ruin were burned with all their contents. The corn was not removed from the granaries, as it would have been if the place had been gradually abandoned. When an Indian burns stored corn in such quantities as were found at Awatobi we can not believe he was bent on pillage, and it is an instructive fact that thus far no stacked corn has been found in the western or most ancient section of Awatobi. SHRINES Although Awatobi was destroyed almost two centuries ago, the shrines of the old pueblo were used for many years afterward, and are even now frequented by some of the Mishoñinovi priests. In one of these ancient depositories two wooden figurines sat in state up to within a few years ago. This shrine lies below the ruins of the mission, among the bowlders on the side of the cliff, about fifty feet from the edge of the mesa, and is formed in an eroded cavity in the side of a bowlder of unusual size. A rude wall had been built before this recess, which opened to the east, and apparently the orifice was closed with logs, which have now fallen in. The present appearance of this shrine is shown in the accompanying illustration (figure 257). In former times two wooden idols, called the _Alosaka_, were kept in this crypt, in much the same manner as the Dawn Maid is now sealed up by the Walpians, when not used in the New-fire ceremony, as I have described in my account of _Naacnaiya_.[79] Mr Thomas V. Keam, not knowing that the Awatobi idols were still used in the Mishoñinovi ritual, had removed them to his residence, but when this was known a large number of priests begged him to return them, saying that they were still used in religious exercises. With that consideration which he has always shown to the Indians, Mr Keam allowed the priests to take the images of _Alosaka_. The figurines were this time carried to Mishoñinovi, the priests sprinkling a line of meal along the trail over which they carried them. The two idols[80] have not been seen by white people since that time, and are now, no doubt, in some hidden crypt near the Mishoñinovi village. There is a shrine of simple character, near the ruins of smaller Awatobi, which bears evidence of antiquity (figure 258). It consisted, in 1892, of a circle of small stones in which were two large water-worn stones and a fragment of petrified wood. There was no evidence that it had lately been used. [Illustration: FIG. 257--Alosaka shrine at Awatobi] On the extreme western point of the mesa, at the very edge of the cliff, there was also a simple shrine (figure 259). Judging from its general appearance, this, likewise, had not been used in modern times, but there were several old prayer-sticks not far away. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXII PAINT POTS, BOWL, AND DIPPER FROM AWATOBI] At the foot of the mesa, below the point last mentioned, however, there is a shrine (figure 260), the earth of which contained hundreds of prayer-sticks, in all stages of decay, while some of them had been placed there only a few days before my visit. This shrine, I was told, is still used by the Mishoñinovi priests in their sacred observances. Among other forms of prayer offerings there were many small wooden cylinders with radiating sticks connected with yarn, the symbolic prayer offering for squashes.[81] In former times Antelope valley was the garden spot of Tusayan, and from what we know of the antiquity of the cultivation of squashes in the Southwest, there is little doubt that they were cultivated by the Awatobians, and that similar offerings were made by the ancient farmers for a good crop of these vegetables. [Illustration: FIG. 258--Shrine at Awatobi] [Illustration: FIG. 259--Shrine at Awatobi] POTTERY The mounds of Awatobi are entirely covered with fragments of pottery of all the various kinds and colors known to ancient Tusayan. There were found coiled and indented ware, coarse undecorated vessels, fine yellow and smooth ware with black-and-white and red decorations. There is no special kind of pottery peculiar to Awatobi, but it shares with the other Tusayan ruins all types, save a few fragments of black glazed ware, which occur elsewhere. [Illustration: FIG. 260--Shrine at Awatobi] It is highly probable that the few specimens of black-and-white ware found in this ruin were not manufactured in the village, and the red ware probably came from settlements to the south, on the Little Colorado. These colors are in part due to the character of the paste which was used, and the clay most often selected by Awatobi potters made a fine yellow vessel. The material from which most of the vessels were manufactured came, no doubt, from a bank near the ruin, where there is good evidence that it was formerly quarried. Three coarse clay objects, such as might have been used for roof drains, were found. The use of these objects, possibly indicated by their resemblance, is not, however, perfectly clear. Their capacity would not be equal to the torrents of rain which, no doubt, often fell on the housetops of Awatobi, and they can hardly be identified as spouts of large bowls, since they are attached to a circular disk with smooth edges. In want of a satisfactory explanation I have provisionally regarded them as water spouts, but whether they are from ancient vessels or from the roofs of houses I am in much doubt.[82] One of the most instructive fragments of pottery taken from the ruins is that of a coarse clay vessel, evidently a part of a flat basin or saucer. The rim of this vessel is punctured with numerous holes, the intervals between which are not greater than the diameter of the perforations. Several platter-like vessels with similar holes about their rims have been taken from other ruins of Jeditoh valley and mesa, the holes being regarded as having been made as a means of suspension. Near a sacred spring called Kawaika,[83] not far from Jeditoh, near Awatobi, a large number of beautiful vessels with similar holes in their rims were excavated by Mr T. V. Keam, and later passed into the collections of the Hemenway Expedition, now installed at Cambridge. They are of all kinds of ware, widely different in shape, the number of marginal perforations varying greatly. As they were found in large numbers near a spring they are regarded as sacrificial vessels, in which food or sacred meal was deposited as an offering to some water deity. The handle of a mug (plate CXI, _f_) from Awatobi, so closely resembles the handles of certain drinking cups taken from the cliff-houses of San Juan valley that it should be specially mentioned. There is in the handle of this mug a T-shape opening quite similar in form to the peculiar doorways of certain cliff-dwellings. The mug is made of the finest white ware, decorated with black lines arranged in geometric patterns. So close is its likeness in form and texture to cliff-house pottery that the two may be regarded as identical. Moreover, it is not impossible that the object may have been brought to Tusayan from Tségi canyon, in the cliff-houses of which Hopi clans[84] lived while Awatobi was in its prime, and, indeed, possibly after the tragedy of 1700. The few fragments of Tségi canyon pottery known to me have strong resemblances to ancient Hopi ware, although the black-and-white variety predominates. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXIII POTTERY FROM INTRAMURAL BURIAL AT AWATOBI] The collection of pottery from Awatobi is, comparatively speaking, small, but it shows many interesting forms. Awatobi pottery may be classed under the same groups as other old Tusayan ceramics, but most of the specimens collected belong to the yellow, black-and-white, and red varieties. It resembles that of Sikyatki, but bears little likeness to modern ware in texture or symbolism. One is impressed by the close resemblance between the Awatobi pottery and that from the ruins of the Little Colorado and Zuñi,[85] which no doubt is explained, in part, by the identity in the constituents of the potter's clay near Awatobi with that in more southerly regions. Evidences of Spanish influence may be traced on certain objects of pottery from Awatobi, especially on those obtained from the eastern mounds of the ruin. In most essentials, however, the Awatobi ware resembles that of the neighboring ruins, and is characteristically Tusayan. The differentiation in modern Cibolan and Tusayan symbolism is much greater than that of the ancient pottery from the same provinces, a fact which is believed to point to a similarity, possibly identity, of culture in ancient times. With this thought in mind, it would be highly instructive to study the ancient ruins of the Rio Grande region, as unfortunately no large collections of archeological objects from that part of the Southwest have been made.[86] The majority of the bowls from Awatobi are decorated in geometric patterns and a few have animal or human figures. The symbols, as well as the pottery itself, can not be distinguished from those of Sikyatki. Fragments of glazed ware are not unknown at Awatobi, but so far as recorded, entire specimens have never been obtained from the latter ruin. In order that the character of the geometric designs on Awatobi pottery may be better understood, two plates are introduced to illustrate their modifications in connection with my discussion of the geometric forms figured on Sikyatki ware. The figures on these bowls (plates CLXVI, CLXVII), with one or two exceptions, need no special description in addition to what is said of Sikyatki geometric designs, which they closely resemble. The cross-shape figure (plate CLXVI, _b_) may profitably be studied in connection with the account of the modification of Sikyatki sun symbols. Evidences of the use of a white pigment as a slip were found on one or two fragments of fine pottery from Awatobi, but no decoration of this kind was observed on the Sikyatki vessels. The red ware is the same as that found in ancient Cibola, while one or two fragments of glossy black recall the type common to modern Santa Clara. Two bird-shape vessels, one made of black-and-white ware, the other red with black-and-white decoration, were found at Awatobi. Large masses of clay suited to the potter's art were not uncommonly found in the corners of the rooms or in the niches in their walls. Some of these masses are of fine paste, the others coarse with grains of sand. The former variety was used in making the finest Tusayan ceramics; the latter was employed in modeling cooking pots and other vessels of ruder finish. Several flute-shape objects of clay, with flaring extremities, were found on the surface of the mounds of Awatobi, and one was taken from a Sikyatki grave. The use of these objects is unknown to me. Among the fragments of dippers from Awatobi are several with perforations in the bottom, irregularly arranged or in geometric form, as that of a cross. These colanders were rare at Sikyatki, but I find nothing in them to betray Spanish influence.[87] Handled dippers or mugs have been found so often by me in the prehistoric ruins of our Southwest that I can not accept the dictum that the mug form was not prehistoric, and the conclusion is legitimate that the Tusayan Indians were familiar with mugs when the Spaniards came among them. The handles of the dippers or ladles are single or double, solid or hollow, simply turned up at one end or terminating with the head of an animal. The upper side of the ladle handle may be grooved or convex. No ladle handle decorated with an image of a "mud-head" or clown priest, so common on modern ladles, was found either at Awatobi or Sikyatki. Rudely made imitations in miniature of all kinds of pottery, especially of ladles, were common. These are regarded as votive offerings, from the fact that they were found usually in the graves of children, and were apparently used as playthings before they were buried. A common decoration on the handles of ladles is a series of short parallel lines arranged in alternating longitudinal and transverse zones. This form of decoration of ladle handles I have observed on similar vessels from the Casas Grandes of Chihuahua, and it reappears on pottery in all the ruins I have studied between Mexico and Tusayan. In the exhibit of the Mexican Government at Madrid in 1892-93 a fine collection of ancient pottery from Oaxaca was shown, and I have drawings of one of these ladles with the same parallel marks on the handle that are found on Pueblo ware from the Gila-Salado, the Cibola, and the Tusayan regions. The only fragment of pottery from Awatobi or Sikyatki with designs which could be identified with any modern picture of a _katcina_ was found, as might be expected, in the former ruin. This small fragment is instructive, in that it indicates the existence of the _katcina_ cult in Tusayan before 1700; but the rarity of the figures of these supernatural beings is very suggestive. The fragment in question is of ancient ware, resembling the so-called orange type of pottery, and is apparently a part of the neck of a vase. The figure represents Wupamo, the Great-cloud _katcina_, and is marked like the doll of the same as it appears in the _Powamû_ or February celebration at Walpi.[88] The associates of the _katcinas_ are the so-called "mud-heads" or clowns, an order of priests as widely distributed as the Pueblo area. In Tusayan villages they are called the Tcukuwympkia, and are variously personated. As they belong especially to the _katcina_ cult, which is naturally supposed to have been in vogue at Awatobi, I was greatly interested in the finding of a fragment representing a grotesque head which reminded me of a glutton of the division of the Tcukuwympkia called Tcuckutû. While there may be some doubt of the validity of my identification, yet, taken in connection with the fragment of a vase with the face of Wupamo, I think there is no doubt that the _katcina_ cult was practiced at Awatobi. STONE IMPLEMENTS Comparatively few stone implements, such as mauls, hammers, axes, and spearpoints, were found; but some of those unearthed from the mounds are finely finished, being regular in form and highly polished. There were many spherical stones, resembling those still sometimes used in Tusayan on important occasions as badges of authority. These stones were tied in a buckskin bag, which was attached to a stick and used as a warclub. Many of the axes were grooved for hafting; one of the specimens was doubly grooved and had two cutting edges. By far the largest number were blunt at one pole and sharpened at the opposite end. A single highly polished specimen (plate CLXXI, _f_) resembles a type very common in the Gila Salado ruins. Arrowheads, some of finely chipped obsidian, were common, being frequently found in numbers in certain mortuary bowls. Three or four specimens of other kinds of implements fashioned from this volcanic glass were picked up on the surface of the mounds. Metates, or flat stones for grinding corn, were dug up in several houses; they were in some instances much worn, and were eagerly sought by the Indian women who visited our camp. These specimens differ in no respect from similar mealing stones still used at Walpi and other modern Tusayan pueblos. Many were made of very coarse stone[89] for use in hulling corn preparatory to grinding; others were of finer texture, and both kinds were accompanied by the corresponding mano or muller held in the hand in grinding meal. The modern Hopi often use as seats in their kivas cubical blocks of stone with depressions in two opposite sides which serve as handholds by which they are carried from place to place. Two of these stones, about a cubic foot in size, were taken out of the chamber which I have supposed to be the Awatobi kiva. In modern Tusayan these seats are commonly made of soft sandstone, and are so few in number that we can hardly regard them as common. They are often used to support the uprights of altars when they are erected, and I have seen priests grind pigments in the depressions. Incidentally, it may be said that I have never seen priests use chairs in any kiva celebration; nor do they have boxes to sit upon. During the droning of the tedious songs they have nothing under them except a folded blanket or sheepskin. Excavations in the Awatobi rooms revealed several interesting shallow mortars used for grinding pigments, but no one of these is comparable in finish with that shown in the accompanying illustration (plate CLXXII, _a_). This object is made of a hard stone in the form of a perfect parallelopipedon with slightly rounded faces. The depression is shallow, and when found there was a discoloration of pigment upon its surface. In almost every house that bore evidence of former occupancy, beautifully made mullers and metates were exhumed. These were ordinarily in place in the corner of the chamber, and were much worn, as if by constant use. In one grave there was found a metate reversed over a skeleton, probably that of a woman--although the bones were so disintegrated that the determination of the sex of the individual was impossible. Several of these metates were taken by Indian women, who prized them so highly that they loaded the stones on burros and carried them ten miles to Walpi, where they are now applied to the same purpose for which they were used over two centuries ago. On the surface of the mesa, beyond the extension of the ground plan of the ruin, there are many depressions worn in the rocks where the Awatobi women formerly whetted their grinding stones, doubtless in the manner practiced by the modern villagers of Tusayan. These depressions are especially numerous near the edge of the cliff, between the eastern and western sections of the ruin.[90] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXIV BONE IMPLEMENTS FROM AWATOBI AND SIKYATKI] BONE OBJECTS A large and varied collection of bone implements was gathered at Awatobi, and a few additional specimens were exhumed from Sikyatki. It is worthy of note that, as a rule, bone implements are more common in houses than in graves; and since the Awatobi excavations were conducted mostly in living rooms, while those at Sikyatki were largely in the cemeteries, the bone implements from the former pueblo far outnumber those from the latter. The collection consists of awls, bodkins, needles, whistles, and tubes made of the bones of birds and quadrupeds. The two animals which contributed more than others to these objects were the turkey and the rabbit, although there were fragments of the horns and shin-bones of the antelope or deer. Several of these specimens were blackened by fire, and one was stained with green pigment. There was also evidence of an attempt at ornamenting the implements by incised lines, while one was bound with string. Bones of animals which had served for food were very common in all the excavations at Awatobi, especially near the floors of the houses. With the exception of a number of large bones of a bear, found in one of the houses in the northern range of the eastern section, these bones were not carefully collected. Plate CXIV gives a general idea of some of the forms of worked bone which were obtained. Figure _a_ shows an awl, for the handle of which one of the trochanters was used, the point at the opposite end being very sharp; _b_ and _c_ are similar objects, but slighter, and more carefully worked; _d_ is a flattened bone implement perforated with two holes, and may have been used as a needle. There are similar implements in the collection, but with a single terminal perforation. Other forms of bone awls are shown in _e_, _f_, _g_, and _j_. There are a number of bone objects the use of which is problematical. One of the best of these is a section of the tibia of a bird, cut longitudinally, convex on the side represented in plate CXIV, _h_, and concave on the opposite side. When found this bone fragment was tied to a second similar section by a string (remnants of which can be seen in the figure), thus forming a short tube. The use of this object is not known to me, nor were any satisfactory suggestions made by the Indians whom I consulted in relation to it. This does not apply, however, to the object illustrated in plate CXIV, _i_, which was declared by several Hopi to be a bird whistle, similar to that used in ceremonials connected with medicine making. The manner in which a bone whistle is used in imitation of a bird's call has been noticed by me in the accounts of several ceremonials, and I will therefore quote the description of its use in the _Nimankatcina_ at Walpi.[91] Then followed an interval of song and accompanying rattle, at the termination of which Intiwa's associate took the bird whistle (_tatükpi_) and blew three times into the liquid, making a noise not unlike that produced by a toy bird whistle. This was repeated four times, accompanied by song and rattle. He first inserted the bone whistle on the north side, then on the other cardinal points in turn. The monotonous song and rattle then ceased, and Intiwa sprinkled corn pollen on the ears of corn in the water, and upon the line of pahos. The object of the whistle is to call the summer birds which are associated with planting and harvesting. The whistle figures in many rites, especially in those connected with the making of medicine or charm liquid. MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTS ORNAMENTS IN THE FORM OF BIRDS AND SHELLS In the excavations, as well as on the surface of the mounds at Awatobi, were found many imitations of marine shells made of clay, often painted red and ranging from the size of half a dollar to that of the thumb nail (plate CLXXIII, _j-m_). On the convex surface of these objects parallel lines are etched, and they are pierced at the valves for suspension. I have never found them suspended from the neck of a skeleton, although their general appearance indicates that they were used as ornaments. Similarly made clay images of birds (plate CLXXIII, _g_, _h_, _i_) with extended wings were also found, and of these there are several different forms in the collection. A small perforated knob at the breast served for attachment. In the absence of any better explanation of these objects, I have regarded them as gorgets, or pendants, for personal decoration. In the Awatobi collections there are several small disks made apparently of pipe clay, which also were probably used as ornaments. These are very smooth and wonderfully regular in shape--in one case with a perforation near the rim. Turquois and shell beads were found in considerable numbers in the excavations at Awatobi, but, as they are similar to those from Sikyatki, I have reserved a discussion of them for following pages. A few fragments of shell armlets and wristlets were also exhumed. These were made generally of the Pacific coast _Pectunculus_, so common in the ruins of the Little Colorado.[92] CLAY BELL Copper bells are said to be used in the secret ceremonials of the modern Tusayan villages, and in certain of the ceremonial foot races metal bells of great age and antique pattern are sometimes tied about the waists of the runners. Small copper hawk bells,[93] found in southern Arizonian ruins, are identical in form and make with those used by the ancient Nahuatl people. So far as the study of the antiquities of the ruins of Tusayan immediately about the inhabited towns has gone, we have no record of the finding of copper bells of any great age. It was, therefore, with considerable interest that I exhumed from one of the rooms of the westernmost or oldest section of Awatobi a clay bell (figure 261) made in exact imitation of one of the copper bells that have been reported from several southern ruins (plate CLXXIII, _a_). While it may be said that it would be more decisive evidence of the prehistoric character of this object if Awatobi had not been under Spanish influence for over a century, still, from the position where it was dug up and its resemblance to metal bells which are undoubtedly prehistoric, there seems to be little reason to question its age. As with the imitation of marine shells in clay, it is probable that in this bell we have a facsimile of a metal bell with which the ancient Tusayan people were undoubtedly familiar.[94] [Illustration: FIG. 261--Clay Bell from Awatobi (natural size)] TEXTILE FABRICS In the very earliest accounts which we have of Tusayan the Hopi are said to raise cotton and to weave it into mantles. These mantles, or "towels" as they were styled by Espejo, were, according to Castañeda, ornamented with embroidery, and had tassels at the corners. In early times garments were made of the fiber of the maguey, and of feathers and rabbit skins. Fabrics made of animal fiber are mentioned by Friar Marcos de Niza, and he was told that the inhabitants of Totonteac obtained the material from which they were made from animals as large as the greyhounds which the father had with him. The historical references which can be mentioned to prove that the Tusayan people, when they were first visited, knew how to spin and weave are numerous, and need not be quoted here. That the people of Awatobi made cotton fabrics there is no doubt, for it is distinctly stated by early visitors that they were acquainted with the art of weaving, and some of the presents made to the first Spanish explorers were of native cotton. The archeological evidence supports the historical in this particular, and several fragments of cloth were found in our excavations in the western mounds of the village. These fragments were of cotton and agave fiber, of cotton alone, and in one instance of the hair of some unknown animal. No signs of the famous rabbit-skin blankets were seen, and from the perishable nature of the material of which they were made it would be strange if any traces had been discovered. At Sikyatki a small textile fragment made of feathers was found in one of the burial vases, but no feather garments or even fragments of the same were unearthed at Awatobi. A woven rope of agave fiber and many charred strings of the same material were found in a niche in the wall of a house in the eastern section, and from the same room there was taken a string, over a yard long, made of human hair. It was suggested to me by one of the Hopi that this string was part of the coiffure of an Awatobi maid, and that it was probably used to tie up her hair in whorls above the ears, as is still the Hopi custom. The whole number of specimens of textile fabrics found at Awatobi was small, and their character disappointing for study, for the conditions of burial in the soil are not so good for their preservation as in the dry caves or cliff houses, from which beautifully preserved cloth, made at a contemporary period, has been taken. PRAYER-STICKS--PIGMENTS Among the most significant mortuary objects used by the ancient Tusayan people may be mentioned the so-called prayer-sticks or pahos. These were found in several graves, placed on the breast, in the hand, or at the side of the person interred, and have a variety of form, as shown in the accompanying illustrations (plates CLXXIV, CLXXV). As I shall discuss the forms and meaning of prayer-sticks in my account of Sikyatki, where a much larger number were found, I will simply mention a few of the more striking varieties from Awatobi. One of the most instructive of these objects is flat in shape, painted green, and decorated with figures of a dragon-fly. As this insect is a symbol of rain, its occurrence on mortuary objects is in harmony with the Hopi conception of the dead which will later be explained. Pahos, in the form of flat slats with a notched extension at one end were common, but generally were poorly preserved. The prayer-sticks from the shrine in the middle of the rooms in the plaza of the eastern section crumbled into fragments when exposed to the air, but they were apparently small, painted green, and decorated with black spots. On several of the prayer-sticks the impressions of the string and feathers that were formerly attached are still readily seen. It is probable that the solution of a carbonate of copper, with which the green pahos were so colored, contributed to the preservation of the wood of which they had been manufactured. The only pigments detected on the prayer-sticks are black, red, and green, and traces of red are found also on the inner surface of a stone implement from a grave at the base of the mesa. All the pigments used by the modern Tusayan Indians were found in the intramural burial already described. My Hopi workmen urged me to give them small fragments of these paints, regarding them efficacious in their ceremonials. OBJECTS SHOWING SPANISH INFLUENCE We would naturally expect to find many objects of Caucasian origin in the ruins of a pueblo which had been under Spanish influence for a century. I have already spoken of certain architectural features in the eastern part of Awatobi which may be traced to the influence of the Spanish missionaries, and of small objects there were several different kinds which show the same thing. The old iron knife-blade already mentioned as having been found among the corn in a storage chamber in the northern row of houses was not the only metallic object found. Not far from the mission there were unearthed many corroded iron nails, a small hook of the same metal, a piece of cast copper, and a fragment of what appeared to be a portion of a bell. There were several pieces of glass, the surfaces of which had become ground by the sand which had beaten upon them during the years in which they had been exposed. There was found also a fragment of a green glazed cup, which was undoubtedly of Spanish or Mexican make, and sherds of white china similar to that sold today by the traders. These latter specimens were, as a rule, found on the surface of the ground. It will therefore appear that the archeology of Awatobi supports the documentary evidence that the pueblo was under Spanish influence for some time, and the fact that all the above-mentioned objects were taken on or in the eastern mounds emphasizes the conclusion that this section of the town was the part directly under Spanish influences. Nothing of Spanish manufacture was found in the rooms of the western mounds, but from this negative evidence there is no reason to suspect that this section of Awatobi was not inhabited contemporaneously with that in the vicinity of the mission. THE RUINS OF SIKYATKI TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE PUEBLO Very vague ideas are current regarding the character of Hopi culture prior to Tobar's visit to Tusayan in 1540, and with the exception of the most meager information nothing concerning it has come down to us from early historical references in the sixteenth century. It is therefore interesting to record all possible information in regard to these people prior to the period mentioned, and this must be done mainly through archeology. Although there are many Tusayan ruins which we have every reason to believe are older than the time of Coronado, no archeologist has gathered from them the evidences bearing on prehistoric Tusayan culture which they will undoubtedly yield. Large and beautiful collections of pottery ascribed to Tusayan ruins have shown the excellent artistic taste of the ancient potters of this region, indicating that in the ceramic art they were far in advance of their descendants. But these collections have failed to teach, the lesson they might have taught, from the fact that data concerning the objects composing them are so indefinite. Very little care had been taken to label these collections accurately or to collect any specimens but those which were strikingly beautiful or commercially valuable. It was therefore with the hope of giving a more precise and comprehensive character to our knowledge of Tusayan antiquities that I wished to excavate one of the ruins of this province which was undoubtedly prehistoric. Conditions were favorable for success at the mounds called by the Indians Sikyatki.[95] These ruins are situated near the modern Tusayan pueblos of East Mesa, from which I could hire workmen, and not far from Keam's Canyon, which could be made a base of supplies. The existing legends bearing on these ruins, although obscure, are sufficiently definite for all practical purposes. I find no mention of Sikyatki in early historical documents, nor can the name be even remotely identified with any which has been given to a Tusayan pueblo. My knowledge of the mounds which mark the site of this ancient village dates back to 1892, when I visited them with one of the old men of Walpi, who then and there narrated the legend of its destruction by the Walpians previously to the advent of the Spaniards. I was at that time impressed by the extent of the mounds, and prepared a rough sketch of the ground plan of the former houses, but from lack of means was unable to conduct any systematic excavation of the ruin. Comparatively nothing concerning the ruin of Sikyatki has been published, although its existence had been known for several years previously to my visit. In his brief account Mr Victor Mindeleff[96] speaks of it as two prominent knolls, "about 400 yards apart," the summits of which are covered with house walls. He also found portions of walls on intervening hummocks, but gives no plan of the ruin. The name, Sikyatki, is referred to the color of the sandstone of which the walls were built. He found some of the rooms were constructed of small stones, dressed by rubbing, and laid in mud. The largest chamber was stated to be 9-1/2 by 4-1/2 feet, and it was considered that many of the houses were "built in excavated places around the rocky summits of the knolls."[97] Mr Mindeleff identified the former inhabitants with the ancestors of the Kokop people, and mentioned the more important details of their legend concerning the destruction of the village. We can rely on the statement that Sikyatki was inhabited by the Kokop or Firewood people of Tusayan, who were so named because they obtained fire from wood by the use of drills. These people are represented today at Walpi by Katci, whose totem is a picture of Masauwû, the God of Fire. It is said that the home of the Firewood people before they built Sikyatki was at Tebuñki, or Fire-house, a round ruin northeastward from Keam's canyon. They were late arrivals in Tusayan, coming at least after the Flute people, and probably before the Honani or Badger people, who brought, I believe, the _katcina_ cult. Although we can not definitely assert that this cultus was unknown at Sikyatki, it is significant that in the ruins no ornamental vessel was found with a figure of a _katcina_ mask, although these figures occur on modern bowls. The original home of the Kokop people is not known, but indefinite legends ascribe their origin to Rio Grande valley. They are reputed to have had kindred in Antelope valley and at the Fire-house, above alluded to, near Eighteen-mile spring. The ruin of Fire-house, one of the pueblos where the Kokop people are reputed to have lived before they built Sikyatki, is situated on the periphery of Tusayan. It is built of massive stones and differs from all other ruins in that province in that it is circular in form. The round type of ruin is, however, to be seen in the two conical mounds on the mesa above Sikyatki, which was connected in some way with the inhabitants who formerly lived at its base. The reason the Kokop people left Fire-house is not certain, but it is said that they came in conflict with Bear clans who were entering the province from the east. Certain it is that if the Kokop people once inhabited Fire-house they must have been joined by other clans when they lived at Sikyatki, for the mounds of this pueblo indicate a village much larger than the round ruin on the brink of the mesa northeast of Keam's canyon. The general ground plan of the ruin indicates an inclosed court with surrounding tiers of houses, suggesting the eastern type of pueblo architecture. The traditional knowledge of the destruction of Sikyatki is very limited among the present Hopi, but the best folklorists all claim that it was destroyed by warriors from Walpi and possibly from Middle Mesa. Awatobi seems not to have taken part in the tragedy, while Hano and Sichomovi did not exist when the catastrophe took place. The cause of the destruction of Sikyatki is not clearly known, and probably was hardly commensurate with the result. Its proximity to Walpi may have led to disputes over the boundaries of fields or the ownership of the scanty water supply. The people who lived there were intruders and belonged to clans not represented in Walpi, which in all probability kept hostility alive. The early Tusayan peoples did not readily assimilate, but quarreled with one another even when sorely oppressed by common enemies. There is current in Walpi a romantic story connected with the overthrow of Sikyatki. It is said that a son of a prominent chief, disguised as a _katcina_, offered a prayer-stick to a maiden, and as she received it he cut her throat with a stone knife. He is said to have escaped to the mesa top and to have made his way along its edge to his own town, taunting his pursuers. It is also related that the Walpians fell upon the village of Sikyatki to avenge this bloody deed, but it is much more likely that there was ill feeling between the two villages for other reasons, probably disputes about farm limits or the control of the water supply, inflamed by other difficulties. The inhabitants of the two pueblos came into Tusayan from different directions, and as they may have spoken different languages and thus have failed to understand each other, they may have been mutually regarded as interlopers. Petty quarrels no doubt ripened into altercations, which probably led to bloodshed. The forays of the Apache from the south and the Ute from the north, which began at a later period, should naturally have led to a defensive alliance; but in those early days confederation was not dreamed of and the feeling between the two pueblos culminated in the destruction of Sikyatki. This was apparently the result of a quarrel between two pueblos of East Mesa, or at least there is no intimation that the other pueblos took prominent part in it. It is said that after the destruction some of those who escaped fled to Oraibi, which would imply that the Walpi and Oraibi peoples, even at that early date, were not on very friendly terms. If, however, the statement that Oraibi was then a distinct pueblo be true, it in a way affords a suggestion of the approximate age[98] of this village. There was apparently a more or less intimate connection between the inhabitants of old Sikyatki and those of Awatobi, but whether or not it indicates that the latter was founded by the refugees from the former I have not been able definitely to make out. All my informants agree that on the destruction of Sikyatki some of its people fled to Awatobi, but no one has yet stated that the Kokop people were represented in the latter pueblo. The distinctive clans of the pueblo of Antelope mesa are not mentioned as living in Sikyatki, and yet the two pueblos are said to have been kindred. The indications are that the inhabitants of both came from the east--possibly were intruders, which may have been the cause of the hostility entertained by both toward the Walpians. The problem is too complex to be solved with our present limited knowledge in this direction, and archeology seems not to afford very satisfactory evidence one way or the other. We may never know whether the Sikyatki refugees founded Awatobi or simply fled to that pueblo for protection. There appears to be no good evidence that Sikyatki was destroyed by fire, nor would it seem that it was gradually abandoned. The larger beams of the houses have disappeared from many rooms, evidently having been appropriated in building or enlarging other pueblos. There is nothing to show that any considerable massacre of the people took place when the village was destroyed, in which respect it differs considerably from Awatobi. There is little doubt that many Sikyatki women were appropriated by the Walpians, and in support of this it is stated that the Kokop people of the present Walpi are the descendants of the people of that clan who dwelt at Sikyatki. This conclusion is further substantiated by the statements of one of the oldest members of the Kokop phratry who frequently visited me while the excavations were in progress. The destruction of Sikyatki and its consequent abandonment doubtless occurred before the Spaniards obtained a foothold in the country. The aged Hopi folklorists insist that such is the case, and the excavations did not reveal any evidence to the contrary. If we add to the negative testimony that Sikyatki is not mentioned in any of the early writings, and that no fragment of metal, glass, or Spanish glazed pottery has been taken from it, we appear to have substantial proof of its prehistoric character. In the early times when Sikyatki was a flourishing pueblo, Walpi was still a small settlement on the terrace of the mesa just below the present town that bears its name. Two ruins are pointed out as the sites of Old Walpi, one to the northward of the modern town, and a second more to the westward. The former is called at present the Ash-heap house or pueblo, the latter Kisakobi. It is said that the people whose ancestors formed the nucleus of the more northerly town moved from there to Kisakobi on account of the cold weather, for it was too much in the shadow of the mesa. Its general appearance would indicate it to be older than the more westerly ruin, higher up on the mesa. It was a pueblo of some size, and was situated on the edge of the terrace. The refuse from the settlement was thrown over the edge of the decline, where it accumulated in great quantities. This débris contains many fragments of characteristic pottery, similar to that from Sikyatki, and would well repay systematic investigation. No walls of the old town rise more than a few feet above the surface, for most of the stones have long ago been used in rebuilding the pueblo on other sites. Kisakobi was situated higher up on the mesa, and bears every appearance of being more modern than the ruin below. Its site may readily be seen from the road to Keam's canyon, on the terrace-like prolongation of the mesa. Some of the walls are still erect, and the house visible for a great distance is part of the old pueblo. This, I believe, was the site of Walpi at the time the Spaniards visited Tusayan, and I have found here a fragment of pottery which I believe is of Spanish origin. The ancient pueblo crowned the ridge of the terrace which narrows here to 30 or 40 feet, so that ancient Walpi was an elongated pueblo, with narrow passageways and no rectangular court. I should judge, however, that the pueblo was not inhabited for a great period, but was moved to its present site after a few generations of occupancy. The Ash-hill village was inhabited contemporaneously with Sikyatki, but Kisakobi was of later construction. Neither Sichomovi nor Hano was in existence when Sikyatki was in its prime, nor, indeed, at the time of its abandonment. In 1782 Morfi spoke of Sichomovi as a pueblo recently founded, with but fifteen families. Hano, although older, was certainly not established before 1700.[99] The assertions of all Hopi traditionists that Sikyatki is a prehistoric ruin, as well as the scientific evidence looking the same way, are most important facts in considering the weight of deductions in regard to the character of prehistoric Tusayan culture. Although we have no means of knowing how long a period has elapsed since the occupancy and abandonment of Sikyatki, we are reasonably sure that objects taken from it are purely aboriginal in character and antedate the inception of European influence. It is certain, however, that the Sikyatki people lived long enough in that pueblo to develop a ceramic art essentially peculiar to Tusayan. NOMENCLATURE The commonly accepted definition of Sikyatki is "yellow house" (_sikya_, yellow; _ki_, house). One of the most reliable chiefs of Walpi, however, called my attention to the fact that the hills in the locality were more or less parallel, and that there might be a relationship between the parallel valleys and the name. The application of the term "yellow" would not seem to be very appropriate so far as it is distinctive of the general color of the pueblo. The neighboring spring, however, contains water which after standing some time has a yellowish tinge, and it was not unusual to name pueblos from the color of the adjacent water or from some peculiarity of the spring, which was one of the most potent factors in the determination of the site of a village. Although the name may also refer to a cardinal point, a method of nomenclature followed in some regions of the Southwest, if such were the case in regard to Sikyatki it would be exceptional in Tusayan. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXV SIKYATKI MOUNDS FROM THE KANELBA TRAIL] FORMER INHABITANTS OF SIKYATKI The origin of the pueblo settlement at Sikyatki is doubtful, but as I have shown in my enumeration of the clans of Walpi, the Kokop (Firewood) and the Isauûh (Coyote) phratries which lived there are supposed to have come into Tusayan from the far east or the valley of the Rio Grande. The former phratry is not regarded as one of the earliest arrivals in Tusayan, for when its members arrived at Walpi they found living there the Flute, Snake, and Water-house phratries. It is highly probable that the Firewood, or as they are sometimes called the Fire, people, once lived in the round pueblo known as Fire-house, and as the form of this ruin is exceptional in Tusayan, and highly characteristic of the region east of this province, there is archeological evidence of the eastern origin of the Fire people. Perhaps the most intelligent folklorist of the Kokop people was Nasyuñweve, who died a few years ago--unfortunately before I had been able to record all the traditions which he knew concerning his ancestors. At the present day Katci, his successor[100] in these sacerdotal duties in the Antelope-Snake mysteries, claims that his people formerly occupied Sikyatki, and indeed the contiguous fields are still cultivated by members of that phratry. It is hardly possible to do more than estimate the population of Sikyatki when in its prime, but I do not believe that it was more than 500;[101] probably 300 inhabitants would be a closer estimate if we judge from the relative population to the size of the pueblo of Walpi at the present time. On the basis of population given, the evidences from the size of the Sikyatki cemeteries would not point to an occupancy of the village for several centuries, although, of course, the strict confines of these burial places may not have been determined by our excavations. The comparatively great depth at which some of the human remains were found does not necessarily mean great antiquity, for the drifting sands of the region may cover or uncover the soil or rocks in a very short time, and the depth at which an object is found below the surface is a very uncertain medium for estimating the antiquity of buried remains. GENERAL FEATURES The ruin of Sikyatki (plates CXV, CXVI) lies about three miles east of the recent settlement of Tanoan families at Isba or Coyote spring, near the beginning of the trail to Hano. Its site is in full view from the road extending from the last-mentioned settlement to Keam's canyon, and lies among the hills just below the two pyramidal elevations called Küküchomo, which are visible for a much greater distance. When seen from this road the mounds of Sikyatki are observed to be elevated at least 300 feet above the adjacent cultivated plain, but at the ruin itself this elevation is scarcely appreciable, so gradual is the southerly decline to the arroyo which drains the plain. The ruin is situated among foothills a few hundred yards from the base of the mesa, and in the depression between it and the mesa there is a stretch of sand in which grow peach trees and a few stunted cedars. At this point, likewise, there is a spring, now feeble in its flow from the gradually drifting sand, yet sufficient to afford a trickling stream by means of which an enterprising native, named Tcino, irrigates a small garden of melons and onions. On all sides of the ruin there are barren stretches of sand relieved in some places by stunted trees and scanty vegetation similar to that of the adjacent plains. The soil in the plaza of the ruin is cultivated, yielding a fair crop of squashes, but is useless for corn or beans. Here and there about the ruins stand great jagged bowlders, relieving what would otherwise be a monotonous waste of sand. One of these stony outcrops forms what I have called the "acropolis" of Sikyatki, which will presently be described. On the eastern side the drifting sand has so filled in around the elevation on which the ruin stands that the ascent is gradual, and the same drift extends to the rim of the mesa, affording access to the summit that otherwise would necessitate difficult climbing. Along the ridge of this great drift there runs a trail which passes over the mesa top to a beautiful spring, on the other side, called Kanelba.[102] The highest point of the ruin as seen from the plain is the rocky eminence rising at the western edge, familiarly known among the members of my party as the "acropolis." As one approaches the ruin from a deep gulch on the west, the acropolis appears quite lofty, and a visitor would hardly suspect that it marks the culminating point of a ruin, so similar does it appear to surrounding hills of like geologic character where no vestiges of former house-walls appear. The spring from which the inhabitants of the old pueblo obtained their water supply lies between the ruin and the foot of the mesa, nearer the latter. The water is yellow in color, especially after it has remained undisturbed for some time, and the quantity is very limited. It trickles out of a bed of clay in several places and forms a pool from which it is drawn to irrigate a small garden and a grove of peach trees. It is said that when Sikyatki was in its prime this spring was larger than at present, and I am sure that a little labor spent in digging out the accumulation of sand would make the water more wholesome and probably sufficiently abundant for the needs of a considerable population. The nearest spring of potable water available for our excavation camp at Sikyatki was Kanelba, or Sheep spring, one of the best sources of water supply in Tusayan. The word Kanelba, containing a Spanish element, must have replaced a Hopi name, for it is hardly to be supposed that this spring was not known before sheep were brought into the country. There is a legend that formerly the site of this spring was dry, when an ancient priest, who had deposited his _tiponi_, or chieftain's badge, at the place, caused the water to flow from the ground; at present however the water rushes from a hole as large as the arm in the face of the rock, as well as from several minor openings. It is situated on the opposite side of the mesa from Sikyatki, a couple of miles northeastward from the ruin. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXVI GROUND PLAN OF SIKYATKI] Half-way up the side of the mesa, about opposite Sikyatki, there is a large reservoir, used as a watering place for sheep. The splash of the water, as it falls into this reservoir, is an unusual sound in this arid region, and is worth a tramp of many miles. There are many evidences that this spring was a popular one in former times. As it is approached from the top of the mesa, a brief inspection of the surroundings shows that for about a quarter of a mile, on either side, there are signs of ancient terraced gardens, walled in with rows of stones. These gardens have today greatly diminished in size, as compared with the ancient outlines, and only that portion which is occupied by a grove of peach trees is now under cultivation, although there is plenty of water for the successful irrigation of a much larger tract of land than the gardens now cover.[103] Judging from their size, many of the peach trees are very old, although they still bear their annual crop of fruit. Everything indicates, as the legends relate, that these Kanelba gardens, the walls of which now form sheep corrals, were long ago abandoned. The terraces south of the Kanelba peach grove resemble the lower terraces of Wipo. About 100 rods farther south, along the foot of the mesa, on the same level, are a number of unused fields, and a cluster of house remains. The whole of this terrace is of a type which shows greater action of the weather than the others, but the boundaries of the fields are still marked with rows of stones. The adjacent foothills contain piles of ashes in several places, as if the sites of ancient pottery kilns, and very old stone inclosures occur on the top of the mesa above Kanelba. All indications seem to point to the ancient occupancy of the region about Kanelba by many more farmers than today. Possibly the inhabitants of Sikyatki, which is only two or three miles away, frequented this place and cultivated these ancient gardens. Kanelba is regarded as a sacred spring by several Hopi religious societies of East Mesa. The Snake priests of Walpi always celebrate a feast there on the day of the snake hunt to the east in odd years,[104] while in the alternate years it is visited by the Flute men. The present appearance of Sikyatki (plate CXV) is very desolate, and when visited by our party previously to the initiation of the work, seemed to promise little in the way of archeological results. No walls were standing above ground, and the outlines of the rooms were very indistinct. All we saw at that time was a series of mounds, irregularly rectangular in shape, of varying altitude, with here and there faint traces of walls. Prominent above all these mounds, however, was the pinnacle of rock on the northwestern corner, rising abruptly from the remainder of the ruin, easily approached from the west and sloping more gradually to the south. This rocky elevation, which we styled the acropolis, was doubtless once covered with houses. On the western edge of the ruin a solitary farmhouse, used during the summer season, had been constructed of materials from the old walls, and was inhabited by an Indian named Lelo and his family during our excavations. He is the recognized owner of the farm land about Sikyatki and the cultivator of the soil in the old plaza of the ruins. Jakwaina, an enterprising Tewan who lives not far from Isba, the spring near the trail to Hano, has also erected a modern house near the Sikyatki spring, but it had not been completed at the time of our stay. Probably never since its destruction in prehistoric times have so many people as there were in our party lived for so long a time at this desolate place. The disposition of the mounds show that the ground plan of Sikyatki (plate CXVI) was rectangular in shape, the houses inclosing a court in which are several mounds that may be the remains of kivas. The highest range of rooms, and we may suppose the most populous part of the ancient pueblo, was on the same side as the acropolis, where a large number of walled chambers in several series were traced. The surface of what was formerly the plaza is crossed by rows of stones regularly arranged to form gardens, in which several kinds of gourds are cultivated. In the sands north of the ruin there are many peach trees, small and stunted, but yearly furnishing a fair crop. These are owned by Tcino,[105] and of course were planted long after the destruction of the pueblo. In order to obtain legends of the former occupancy and destruction of Sikyatki, I consulted Nasyuñweve, the former head of the Kokop people, and while the results were not very satisfactory, I learned that the land about Sikyatki is still claimed by that phratry. Nasyuñweve,[106] Katci, and other prominent Kokop people occupy and cultivate the land about Sikyatki on the ground of inheritance from their ancestors who once inhabited the place. Two routes were taken to approach Sikyatki--one directly across the sandy plain from the entrance to Keam's canyon, following for some distance the road to East Mesa; the other along the edge of the mesa, on the first terrace, to the cluster of houses at Coyote spring. The trail to the pueblos of East Mesa ascends the cliff just above Sikyatki spring, and joins that to Kanelba or Sheep spring, not far from Küküchomo, the twin mounds. By keeping along the first terrace a well-traveled trail, with interesting views of the plain and the ruin, joins the old wagon road to _Wala_, the "gap" of East Mesa, at a higher level than the cluster of Tewan houses at Isba. In going and returning from their homes our Hopi workmen preferred the trail along the mesa, which we also often used; but the climb to the mesa top from the ruin is very steep and somewhat tiresome. We prosecuted our excavations at Sikyatki for a few days over three weeks, choosing as a site for our camp a small depression to the east of the ruin near a dwarf cedar at the point where the trail to Kanelba passes the ruin. The place was advantageously near the cemeteries, and not too far from water. For purposes other than cooking and drinking the Sikyatki spring was used, the remainder of the supply being brought from Kanelba by means of a burro. I employed Indian workmen at the ruin, and found them, as a rule, efficient helpers. The zeal which they manifested at the beginning of the work did not flag, but it must be confessed that toward the close of the excavations it became necessary to incite their enthusiasm by prizes, and, to them, extraordinary offers of overalls and calico. They at first objected to working in the cemeteries, regarding it as a desecration of the dead, but several of their number overcame their scruples, even handling skulls and other parts of skeletons. The Snake chief, Kopeli, however, never worked with the others, desiring not to dig in the graves. Respecting his feelings, I allotted him the special task of excavating the rooms of the acropolis, which he performed with much care, showing great interest in the results. At the close of our daily work prayer-offerings were placed in the trenches by the Indian workmen, as conciliatory sacrifices to Masauwûh, the dread God of Death, to offset any malign influence which might result from our desecration of his domain. A superstitious feeling that this god was not congenial to the work which was going on, seemed always to haunt the minds of the laborers, and once or twice I was admonished by old men, visitors from Walpi, not to persist in my excavations. The excavators, at times, paused in their work and called my attention to strange voices echoing from the cliffs, which they ascribed, half in earnest, to Masauwûh. The Indians faithfully delivered to me all objects which they found in their digging, with the exception of turquoises, many of which, I have good reason to suspect, they concealed while our backs were turned and, in a few instances, even before our eyes. The accompanying plan of Sikyatki (plate CXVI) shows that it was a rectangular ruin with an inclosed plaza. It is evident that the ancient pueblo was built on a number of low hills and that the eastern portion was the highest. In this respect it resembled Awatobi, but apparently differed from the latter pueblo in having the inclosed plaza. In the same way it was unlike Walpi or the ancient and modern pueblos of Middle Mesa and Oraibi. In fact, there is no Tusayan ruin which resembles it in ground plan, except Payüpki, a Tanoan town of much later construction. The typical Tusayan form of architecture is the pyramidal, especially in the most ancient pueblos. The ground plan of Sikyatki is of a type more common in the eastern pueblo region and in those towns of Tusayan which were built by emigrants from the Rio Grande region. Sikyatki and some of the villages overlooking Antelope valley are of this type. In studying the ground plans of the three modern villages on East Mesa, the fact is noted that both Sichomovi and Hano differ architecturally from Walpi. The forms of the former smaller pueblos are primarily rectangular with an inclosed plaza in which is situated the kiva; Walpi, on the other hand, although furnished with a small plaza at the western end, has kivas located peripherally rather than in an open space between the highest house clusters. Sichomovi is considered by the Hopi as like Zuñi, and is sometimes called by the Hano people, Sionimone, "Zuñi court," because to the Tewan mind it resembles Zuñi; but the term is never applied to Walpi.[107] The distinction thus recognized is, I believe, architecturally valid. The inclosed court or plaza in Tusayan is an intrusion from the east, and as eastern colonists built both Hano and Sichomovi, they preserved the form to which they were accustomed. The Sikyatki builders drew their architectural inspiration likewise from the east, hence the inclosed court in the ruins of that village. The two most considerable house clusters of Sikyatki are at each end of a longer axis, connected by a narrow row of houses on the other sides. The western rows of houses face the plain, and were of one story, with a gateway at one point. The opposite row was more elevated, no doubt overlooking cultivated fields beyond the confines of the ruin. No kivas were discovered, but if such exist they ought to be found in the mass of houses at the southern end. I thought we had found circular rooms in that region, but cursory excavations did not demonstrate their existence. As there is no reason to suspect the existence of circular kivas in ancient Tusayan, it would be difficult to decide whether or not any one of the large rectangular rooms was used for ceremonial purposes, for it is an interesting fact that some of the oldest secret rites in the Hopi villages occur, not in kivas, but in ordinary dwelling rooms in the village. It has yet to be shown that there were special kivas in prehistoric Tusayan. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXVII EXCAVATED ROOMS ON THE ACROPOLIS OF SIKYATKI] The longer axis of the ruin is about north and south; the greatest elevation is approximately 50 feet. Rocks outcrop only at one place, the remainder of the ruin being covered with rubble, sand, stones, and fragments of pottery. The mounds are not devoid of vegetation, for sagebrush, cacti, and other desert genera grow quite profusely over their surface; but they are wholly barren of trees or large bushes, and except in the plaza the ruin area is uncultivated. As previously stated, Sikyatki is situated about 250 or 300 feet above the plain, and when approached from Keam's canyon appears to be about halfway up the mesa height. On several adjacent elevations evidences of former fires, or places where pottery was burned, were found, and one has not to go far to discover narrow seams of an impure lignite. Here and there are considerable deposits of selenite, which, as pointed out by Sitgreaves in his report on the exploration of the Little Colorado, looks like frost exuding from the ground in early spring. THE ACROPOLIS During the limited time devoted to the excavation of Sikyatki it was impossible, in a ruin so large, to remove the soil covering any considerable number of rooms. The excavations at different points over such a considerable area as that covered by the mounds would have been more or less desultory and unsatisfactory, but a limited section carefully opened would be much more instructive and typical. While, therefore, the majority of the Indian workmen were kept employed at the cemeteries, Kopeli, the Snake chief, a man in whom I have great confidence, was assigned to the excavation of a series of rooms at the highest point of the ruin, previously referred to as the acropolis (figure 262). Although his work in these chambers did not yield such rich results as the others, so far as the number of objects was concerned, he succeeded in uncovering a number of rooms to their floors, and unearthed many interesting objects of clay and stone. A brief description of these excavations will show the nature of the work at that point. The acropolis, or highest point of Sikyatki, is a prominent rocky elevation at the western angle, and overlooks the entire ruin. On the side toward the western cemetery it rises quite abruptly, but the ascent is more gradual from the other sides. The surface of this elevation, on which the houses stood, is of rock, and originally was as destitute of soil as the plaza of Walpi. This surface supported a double series of rooms, and the highest point is a bare, rocky projection. From the rooms of the acropolis there was a series of chambers, probably terraced, sloping to the modern gardens now occupying the old plaza, and the broken walls of these rooms still protrude from the surface in many places (plate CXVIII). When the excavations on the acropolis were begun, no traces of the biserial rows of rooms were detected, although the remains of the walls were traceable. The surface was strewn with fragments of pottery and other evidences of former occupancy. On leveling the ground and throwing off the surface stones, it was found that the narrow ridge which formed the top of the acropolis was occupied by a double line of well-built chambers which show every evidence of having been living rooms. The walls were constructed of squared stones set in adobe, with the inner surface neatly plastered. Many of the rooms communicated by means of passageways with adjacent chambers, some of them being provided with niches and shelves. The average height of the standing walls revealed by excavation, as indicated by the distance of the floor below the surface of the soil, was about 5 feet. [Illustration: FIG. 262--The acropolis of Sikyatki] The accompanying illustration (plate CXVIII) shows a ground plan of nine of these rooms, which, for purposes of reference, are lettered _a_ to _l_. A description of each, it is hoped, will give an idea of a typical room of Sikyatki. Room _a_ is rectangular in shape, 5 feet 3 inches by 6 feet 8 inches, and is 5 feet 8 inches deep. It has two depressions in the floor at the southeastern corner, and there is a small niche in the side wall above them. Some good specimens of mural plastering, much blackened by soot, are found on the eastern wall. Room _a_ has no passageway into room _b_, but it opens into the adjoining room _c_ by an opening in the wall 3 feet 4 inches wide, with a threshold 9 inches high. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXVIII PLAN OF EXCAVATED ROOMS ON THE ACROPOLIS OF SIKYATKI (Dimensions in feet and inches)] The shape of room _b_ is more irregular. It is 8 feet 1 inch long by 4 feet 5 inches wide, and the floor is 5 feet 2 inches below the surface. In one corner there is a raised triangular platform 2 feet 7 inches above the floor. A large cooking pot, blackened with soot, was found in one corner of this room, and near it was a circular depression in the floor 17 inches in diameter, evidently a fireplace. Room _c_ is smaller than either of the preceding, and is the only one with two passageways into adjoining chambers. Remains of wooden beams in a fair state of preservation were found on the floors of rooms _c_ and _b_, but they were not charred, as is so often the case, nor were there any ashes except in the supposed fireplace. Room _d_ is larger than those already mentioned, being 7 feet 8 inches by 5 feet, and connects with room _c_ by means of a passageway. Rooms _e_ and _f_ communicate with each other by an opening 16 inches wide. We found the floors of these rooms 4 feet below the surface. The length of room _e_ is 8 feet. Room _f_ is 6 feet 8 inches long and of the same width as _e_. The three chambers _g_, _h_, and _i_ are each 6 feet 9 inches wide, but of varying width. Room _g_ is 5 feet 2 inches, _h_ is 8 feet 6 inches, and _i_, the smallest of all, only a foot wide. These three rooms have no intercommunication. The evidence of former fires in some of these rooms, afforded by soot on the walls and ashes in the depressions identified as old fireplaces, is most important. In one or two places I broke off a fragment of the plastering and found it to be composed of many strata of alternating black and adobe color, indicating successive plasterings of the room. Apparently when the surface wall became blackened by smoke it was renewed by a fresh layer or wash of adobe in the manner followed in renovating the kiva walls today.[108] An examination of the dimensions of the rooms of the acropolis will show that, while small, they are about the average size of the chambers in most other southwestern ruins. They are, however, much smaller than the rooms of the modern pueblo of Walpi or those of the cliff ruins in the Red-rock region, elsewhere described. Evidently the roof was 2 or 3 feet higher than the top of the present walls, and the absence of external passageways would seem to indicate that entrance was through the roof. The narrow chamber, _i_, is no smaller than some of those which were excavated at Awatobi, but unless it was a storage bin or dark closet for ceremonial paraphernalia its function is not known to me. The mural plastering was especially well done in rooms _g_ and _h_, a section thereof showing many successive thin strata of soot and clay, implying long occupancy. No chimneys were found, the smoke, as is the case with that from kiva fires today, doubtless finding an exit through the hatchway in the roof. MODERN GARDENS The whole surface of the ancient plaza of Sikyatki is occupied by rectangular gardens outlined by rows of stones. These are of modern construction and are cultivated by an enterprising Hopi who, as previously mentioned, has erected a habitable dwelling on one of the western mounds from the stones of the old ruin. These gardens are planted yearly with melons and squashes, and stones forming the outlines serve as wind-breaks to protect the growing plants from drifting sand. The plotting of the plan of these gardens was made in 1891, when a somewhat larger part of the plaza was under cultivation than in 1895.[109] There is a grove of dwarf peach trees in the sands between the northern side of the ruin and the mesa along the run through which sometimes trickles a little stream from the spring. These trees belong to an inhabitant of Sichomovi named Tcino, who, it is claimed, is a descendant of the ancient Sikyatkians. The trees were of course planted there since the fall of the village, on land claimed by the Kokop phratry by virtue of their descent from the same phratral organization of the ancient pueblo.[110] The spring shows no evidence of having been walled up, but apparently has been filled in by drifting sand since the time that it formed the sole water supply of the neighboring pueblo. It still preserves the yellow color mentioned in traditions of the place. THE CEMETERIES By far the largest number of objects found at Sikyatki were gathered from the cemeteries outside the ruin, and were therefore mortuary in character. It would seem that the people buried their dead a short distance beyond the walls, at the three cardinal points. The first of these cemeteries was found in the dune between the ruin and the peach trees below the spring, and from its relative position from the pueblo has been designated the northern cemetery. The cemetery proper lies on the edge of the sandy tract, and was first detected by the finding of the long-bones of a human skeleton projecting from the soil. The position of individual graves was indicated usually by small, oblong piles of stones; but, as this was not an invariable sign, it was deemed advisable to extend long trenches across the lower part of the dune. As a rule, the deeper the excavations the more numerous and elaborate were the objects revealed. Most of the skeletons were in a poor state of preservation, but several could have been saved had we the proper means at our disposal to care for them. No evidence of cremation of the dead was found, either at Awatobi or Sikyatki, nor have I yet detected any reference to this custom among the modern Hopi Indians. They have, however, a strange concept of the purification of the breath-body, or shade of the dead, by fire, which, although I have always regarded it as due to the teaching of Christian missionaries, may be aboriginal in character. This account of the judgment of the dead is as follows: There are two roads from the grave to the Below. One of these is a straight way connected with the path of the sun into the Underworld. There is a branch trail which divides from this straight way, passing from fires to a lake or ocean (_patübha_). At the fork of the road sits Tokonaka, and when the breath-body comes to this place this chief looks it over and, if satisfied, he says "_Üm-pac lo-la-mai, ta ai_," "You are very good; go on." Then the breath-body passes along the straight way to the far west, to the early _Sipapû_, the Underworld from which it came, the home of Müiyinwû. Another breath-body comes to the fork in the road, and the chief says, "You are bad," and he conducts it along the crooked path to the place of the first fire pit, where sits a second chief, Tokonaka, who throws the bad breath-body into the fire, and after a time it emerges purified, for it was not wholly bad. The chief says, "You are good now," and carries it back to the first chief, who accepts the breath-body and sends it along the straight road to the west. If, on emerging from the first fire, the soul is still unpurified, or not sufficiently so to be accepted, it is taken to the second fire pit and cast into it. If it emerges from this thoroughly purified, in the opinion of the judge, it is immediately transformed into a _ho-ho-ya-üh_, or prayer-beetle. All the beetles we now see in the valleys or among the mesas were once evil Hopi. If, on coming out of the second fire pit, the breath-body is still considered bad by the chief, he takes it to the third fire, and, if there be no evil in it when it emerges from this pit, it is metamorphosed into an ant, but if unpurified by these three fires--that is, if the chief still finds evil left in the breath-body--he takes it to a fourth fire and again casts it into the flames, where it is utterly consumed, the only residue being soot on the side of the pit. I have not recorded this as a universal or an aboriginal belief among the Hopi, but rather to show certain current ideas which may have been brought to Tusayan by missionaries or others. The details of the purification of the evil soul are characteristic. The western cemetery of Sikyatki is situated among the hillocks covered with surface rubble below a house occupied in summer by a Hopi and his family. From the nature of the soil the excavation of this cemetery was very difficult, although the mortuary objects were more numerous. Repeated attempts to make the Indians work in a systematic manner failed, partly on account of the hard soil and partly from other reasons. Although the lower we went the more numerous and beautiful were the objects exhumed, the Indians soon tired of deep digging, preferring to confine their work to within two or three feet of the surface. At many places we found graves under and between the huge bowlders, which are numerous in this cemetery. The southern cemetery lies between the outer edge of the ruin on that side and the decline to the plain, a few hundred feet from the southern row of houses. Two conspicuous bowlders mark the site of most of the excavations in that direction. The mortuary objects from this cemetery are not inferior in character or number to those from the other burial places. All attempts to discover a cemetery on the eastern side of the pueblo failed, although a single food basin was brought to the camp by an Indian who claimed he had dug it out of the deep sand on the eastern side of the ruins. Another bowl was found in the sand drift near the trail over the mesa to Kanelba, but careful investigation failed to reveal any systematic deposit of mortuary vessels east of the ruin.[111] The method of excavation pursued in the cemeteries was not so scientific as I had wished, but it was the only practicable one to be followed with native workmen. Having found the location of the graves by means of small prospecting holes sunk at random, the workmen were aligned and directed to excavate a single long, deep trench, removing all the earth as they advanced. It was with great difficulty that the Indians were taught the importance of excavating to a sufficient depth, and even to the end of the work they refused to be taught not to burrow. In their enthusiasm to get the buried treasures they worked very well so long as objects were found, but became at once discouraged when relics were not so readily forthcoming and went off prospecting in other places when our backs were turned. A shout that anyone had discovered a new grave in the trench was a signal for the others to stop work, gather around the place, light cigarettes, and watch me or my collaborators dig out the specimens with knives. This we always insisted on doing, for the reason that in their haste the Indians at first often broke fragile pottery after they had discovered it, and in spite of all precautions several fine jars and bowls were thus badly damaged by them. It is therefore not too much to say that most of the vessels which are now entire were dug out of the impacted sand by Mr Hodge or myself. No rule could be formulated in regard to the place where the pottery would occur, and often the first indication of its presence was the stroke of a shovel on the fragile edge of a vase or bowl. Having once found a skeleton, or discolored sand which indicated the former presence of human remains, the probability that burial objects were near by was almost a certainty, although in several instances even these signs failed. A considerable number of the pottery objects had been broken when the soil and stones were thrown on the corpse at interment. So many were entire, however, that I do not believe any considerable number were purposely broken at that time, and none were found with holes made in them to "kill" or otherwise destroy their utility. No evidences of cremation--no charred bones of man or animal in or near the mortuary vessels--were found. From the character of the objects obtained from neighboring graves, rich and poor were apparently buried side by side in the same soil. Absolutely no evidence of Spanish influence was encountered in all the excavations at Sikyatki--no trace of metal, glass, or other object of Caucasian manufacture such as I have mentioned as having been taken from the ruins of Awatobi--thus confirming the native tradition that the catastrophe of Sikyatki antedated the middle of the sixteenth century, when the first Spaniards entered the country. It is remarkable that in Sikyatki we found no fragments of basketry or cloth, the fame of which among the Pueblo Indians was known to Coronado before he left Mexico. That the people of Sikyatki wore cotton kilts no one can doubt, but these fabrics, if they were buried with the dead, had long since decayed. Specimens of strings and ropes of yucca, which were comparatively abundant at Awatobi, were not found at Sikyatki; yet their absence by no means proves that they were not used, for the marks of the strings used to bind feathers to the mortuary pahos, on the green paint with which the wood was covered, may still be readily seen. The insight into ancient beliefs and practices afforded by the numerous objects found at Sikyatki is very instructive, and while it shows the antiquity of some of the modern symbols, it betrays a still more important group of conventionalized figures, the meaning of which may always remain in doubt. This is particularly true of the decoration on many specimens of the large collection of highly ornamented pottery found in the Sikyatki cemeteries. If we consider the typical designs on modern Hopi pottery and compare them with the ancient, as illustrated by the collections from Awatobi and Sikyatki, it is noted, in the first place, how different they are, and secondly, how much better executed the ancient objects are than the modern. Nor is it always clear how the modern symbols are derived from the ancient, so widely do they depart from them in all their essential characters. POTTERY CHARACTERISTICS--MORTUARY POTTERY The pottery exhumed from the burial places of Sikyatki falls in the divisions known as-- I--Coiled and indented ware. II--Smooth undecorated ware. III--Polished decorated ware. _a_. Yellow. _b_. Red. _c_. Black-and-white. By far the largest number of ancient pottery objects from this locality belong to the yellow-ware group in the above classification. This is the characteristic pottery of Tusayan, although coiled and indented ware is well represented in the collection. The few pieces of red ware are different from that found in the ruins of the Little Colorado, while the black-and-white pottery closely resembles the archaic ware of northern cliff houses. Although the Sikyatki pottery bears resemblance to that of Awatobi, it can be distinguished from it without difficulty. The paste of both is of the finest character and was most carefully prepared. Some of the ancient specimens are much superior to those at present made, and are acknowledged by the finest potters of East Mesa to be beyond their power of ceramic production. The coloration is generally in red, brown, yellow, and black. Decorative treatment by spattering is common in the food basins, and this was no doubt performed, Chinese fashion, by means of the mouth. The same method is still employed by the Hopi priests in painting their masks. The Sikyatki collection of pottery shows little or no duplication in decorative design, and every ornamented food basin bears practically different symbols. The decoration of the food basins is mainly on the interior, but there is almost invariably a geometrical design of some kind on the outside, near the rim. The ladles, likewise, are ornamented on their interior, and their handles also are generally decorated. When the specimens were removed from the graves their colors, as a rule, were apparently as well preserved as at the time of their burial; nor, indeed, do they appear to have faded since their deposit in the National Museum. The best examples of ceramic art from the graves of Sikyatki, in texture, finish, and decoration, are, in my judgment, superior to any pottery made by ancient or modern Indians north of Mexico. Indeed, in these respects the old Tusayan pottery will bear favorable comparison even with Central American ware. It is far superior to the rude pottery of the eastern pueblos, and is also considerably better than that of the great villages of the Gila and Salado. Among the Hopi themselves the ceramic art has degenerated, as the few remaining potters confess. These objects can hardly be looked upon as products of a savage people destitute of artistic feeling, but of a race which has developed in this line of work, through the plane of savagery, to a high stage of barbarism. While, as a whole, we can hardly regard the modern Hopi as a degenerate people with a more cultured ancestry, certainly the entire Pueblo culture in the Southwest, judged by the character of their pottery manufacture, has greatly deteriorated since the middle of the sixteenth century. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXIX COILED AND INDENTED POTTERY FROM SIKYATKI] COILED AND INDENTED WARE The rudest type of pottery from Sikyatki has been classed as coiled and indented ware. It is coarse in texture, not polished, and usually not decorated. Although the outer surface of the pottery of this class is rough, the general form of the ware is not less symmetrical than that of the finer vessels. The objects belonging to this group are mostly jars and moccasin-shape vessels, there being no bowls of this type. As a rule, the vessels are blackened with soot, although some of the specimens are light-brown in color. The former variety were undoubtedly once used in cooking; the latter apparently for containing water or food. In the accompanying illustration (plate CXIX, _a_) is shown one of the best specimens of indented ware, the pits forming an equatorial zone about the vessel. All traces of the coil of clay with which the jar was built up have been obliterated save on the bottom. The vessel is symmetrical and the indentations regular, as if made with a pointed stone, bone, or stick. In another form of coarse pottery (plate CXIX, _b_) the rim merges into two ears or rudimentary handles on opposite sides. Traces of the original coiling are readily observable on the sides of this vessel. Another illustration (plate CXIX, _c_) shows an amphora or jar with diametrically opposite handles extending from the rim to the side of the bowl. The surface of this rude jar is rough and without decoration, but the form is regular and symmetrical. In another amphora (plate CXIX, _d_) the opposite handles appear below the neck of the vessel; they are broader and apparently more serviceable. The jar shown in plate CXIX, _e_, has two ear-like extensions or projections from the neck of the jar, which are perforated for suspension. This vessel is decorated with an incised zigzag line, which surrounds it just above its equator. This is a fair example of ornamented rough ware. Several of the vessels made of coarse clay mixed with sand, the grains of which make the surface very rough, are of slipper or moccasin shape. These are covered with soot or blackened by fire, indicating their former use as cooking pots. By adopting this form the ancients were practically enabled to use the principle of the dutch-oven, the coals being piled about the vessels containing the food to be cooked much more advantageously than in the vase-like forms. The variations in slipper-shape cooking pots are few and simple. The blind end is sometimes of globular form, as in the example illustrated in plate CXX, _a_, and sometimes pointed as in figures _b_ and _c_ of the same plate. One of the specimens of this type has a handle on the rim and another has a flaring lip. Slipper-form vessels are always of coarse ware for the obvious reason that, being somewhat more porous, they are more readily heated than polished utensils. They are not decorated for equally obvious reasons. SMOOTH UNDECORATED WARE There are many specimens of undecorated ware of all shapes and sizes, a type of which is shown in plate CXX, _d_. These include food bowls, saucers, ladles, and jars, and were taken from many graves. These utensils differ from the coarse-ware vessels not only in the character of the clay from which they are made, but also in their superficial polish, which, in some instances, is as fine as that of vessels with painted designs. Several very good spoons of half-gourd shape were found, and there are many undecorated food bowls and vases. The first attempts at ornamentation appear to have been a simple spattering of the surface with liquid pigment or a drawing of simple encircling bands. In one instance (plate CXX, _d_) a blackening of the surface by exposure to smoke was detected, but no superficial gloss, as in the Santa Clara ware, was noted. POLISHED DECORATED WARE By far the greater number of specimens of mortuary pottery from Sikyatki are highly polished and decorated with more or less complicated designs. Of these there are at least three different groups, based on the color of the ware. Most of the vessels are light yellow or of cream color; the next group in point of color is the red ware, the few remaining specimens being white with black decorations in geometric patterns. These types naturally fall into divisions consisting of vases, jars, bowls, square boxes, cups, ladles, and spoons. In the group called vases (plates CXXI, CXXII) many varieties are found; some of these are double, with an equatorial constriction; others are rounded below, flat above, with an elevated neck and a recurved lip. It is noteworthy that these jars or vases are destitute of handles, and that their decoration is always confined to the equatorial and upper sections about the opening. In the specimens of this group which were found at Sikyatki there is no basal rim and no depression on the pole opposite the opening. No decoration is found on the interior of the vases, although in several instances the inside of the lip bears lines or markings of various kinds. The opening is always circular, sometimes small, often large; the neck of a vessel is occasionally missing, although the specimens bear evidence of use after having been thus broken. In one or two instances the equatorial constriction is so deep that the jar is practically double; in other cases the constriction is so shallow that it is hardly perceptible (plate CXXVI, _a, b_). The size varies from a simple globular vessel not larger than a walnut to a jar of considerable size. Many show marks of previous use; others are as fresh as if made but yesterday. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXX SAUCERS AND SLIPPER BOWLS FROM SIKYATKI] One of the most fragile of all the globular vessels is a specimen of very thin black-and-white ware, perforated near the rim for suspension (plate CXXXII). This form, although rare at Sikyatki, is represented by several specimens, and in mode of decoration is very similar to the cliff-house pottery. From its scarcity in Tusayan I am inclined to believe that this and related specimens were not made of clay found in the immediate vicinity of Sikyatki, but that the vessels were brought to the ancient pueblo from distant places. As at least some of the cliff houses were doubtless inhabited contemporaneously with and long after the destruction of Sikyatki, I do not hesitate to say that the potters of that pueblo were familiar with the cliff-dweller type of pottery and acquainted with the technic which gave the black-and-white ware its distinctive colors. By far the largest number of specimens of smooth decorated pottery from Sikyatki graves are food bowls or basins, evidently the dishes in which food was placed on the floor before the members of a family at their meals. As the mortuary offerings were intended as food for the deceased it is quite natural that this form of pottery should far outnumber any and all the others. In no instance do the food bowls exhibit marks of smoke blackening, an indication that they had not been used in the cooking of food, but merely as receptacles of the same. The beautiful decoration of these vessels speaks highly for the artistic taste of the Sikyatki women, and a feast in which they were used must have been a delight to the native eye so far as dishes were concerned. When filled with food, however, much of the decoration of the bowls must have been concealed, a condition avoided in the mode of ornamentation adopted by modern Tusayan potters; but there is no doubt that when not in use the decoration of the vessels was effectually exhibited in their arrangement on the floor or convenient shelves. The forms of these food bowls are hemispherical, gracefully rounded below, and always without an attached ring of clay on which to stand to prevent rocking. Their rims are seldom flaring, but sometimes have a slight constriction, and while the rims of the majority are perfectly circular, oblong variations are not wanting. Many of the bowls are of saucer shape, with almost vertical sides and flat bases; several are double, with rounded or flat base. The surface, inside and out, is polished to a fine gloss, and when exteriorly decorated, the design is generally limited to one side just below the rim, which is often ornamented with double or triple parallel lines, drawn in equidistant, quaternary, and other forms. Most of the bowls show signs of former use, either wear on the inner surface or on the base where they rested on the floor in former feasts. These mortuary vessels were discovered generally at one side of the chest or neck of the person whose remains they were intended to accompany, and a single specimen was found inverted over the head of the deceased. The number of vessels in each grave was not constant, and as many as ten were found with one skeleton, while in other graves only one or two were found. In one instance a nest of six of these basins, one inside another, was exhumed. While many of these mortuary offerings were broken and others chipped, there were still a large number as perfect as when made. Some of the bowls had been mended before burial, as holes drilled on each side of a crack clearly indicate. Fragments of various vessels, which evidently had been broken before they were thrown into the graves, were common. There is a general similarity in the artistic decoration of bowls found in the same grave, as if they were made by the same potter; and persons of distinction, as shown by other mortuary objects, were, as a rule, more honored than some of their kindred in the character and number of pottery objects deposited with their remains. There were also a number of skeletons without ceramic offerings of any kind. In one or two interments two or more small jars were found placed inside of a food bowl, and in many instances votive offerings, like turquois, beads, stones, and arrowpoints, had been deposited with the dead. The bowls likewise contained, in some instances, prayer-sticks and other objects, which will later be described. One of the most interesting modifications in the form of the rim of one of these food bowls is shown in plate CXX, _e_, which illustrates a variation from the circular shape, forming a kind of handle or support for the thumb in lifting the vessel. The utility of this projection in handling a bowl of hot food is apparent. This form of vessel is very rare, it being the only one of its kind in the collection. A considerable number of cups were found at Sikyatki; these vary in size and shape from a flat-bottom saucer like specimen to a mug-shape variety, always with a single handle (plate CXXV). Many of these resemble small bowls with rounded sides, but there are others in which the sides are vertical, and still others the sides of which incline at an angle to the flattened base. The handles of these cups are generally smooth, and in one instance adorned with a figure in relief. The rims of these dippers are never flaring, either inward or outward. As a rule they are decorated on the exterior; indeed there is only one instance of interior decoration. The handles of the dippers are generally attached at both ends, but sometimes the handle is free at the end near the body of the utensil and attached at the tip. These handles are usually flat, but sometimes they are round, and often are decorated. Traces of imitations of the braiding of two coils of clay are seen in a single specimen.[112] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXI DECORATED POTTERY FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXII DECORATED POTTERY FROM SIKYATKI] Small and large ladles, with long handles, occurred in large numbers in Sikyatki graves, but there was little variation among them except in the forms of their handles. Many of these utensils were much worn by use, especially on the rim opposite the attachment of the handle, and in some specimens the handle itself had evidently been broken and the end rounded off by rubbing long before it was placed in the grave. From the comparatively solid character of the bowls of these dippers they were rarely fractured, and were commonly found to contain smaller mortuary objects, such as paint, arrowheads, or polishing stones. The ladles, unlike most of the cups, are generally decorated on the interior as well as on the exterior. Their handles vary in size and shape, are usually hollow, and sometimes are perforated at the end. In certain specimens the extremity is prolonged into a pointed, recurved tip, and sometimes is coiled in a spiral. A groove in the upper surface of one example is an unusual variation, and a right-angle bend of the tip is a unique feature of another specimen. The Sikyatki potters, like their modern descendants,[113] sometimes ornamented the tip of a single handle with the head of an animal and painted the upper surface of the shaft with alternate parallel bars, zigzags, terraces, and frets. Several spoons or scoops of earthenware, which evidently had been used in much the same way as similar objects in the modern pueblos, were found. Some of these have the shape of a half gourd--a natural object which no doubt furnished the pattern. These spoons, as a rule, were not decorated, but on a single specimen bars and parallel lines may be detected. In the innovations of modern times pewter spoons serve the same purpose, and their form is sometimes imitated in earthenware. More often, in modern and probably also in ancient usage, a roll of paper-bread or _piki_ served the same purpose, being dipped into the stew and then eaten with the fingers. Possibly the Sikyatkian drank from the hollow handle of a gourd ladle, as is frequently done in Walpi today, but he generally slaked his thirst by means of a clay substitute.[114] Several box-like articles of pottery of both cream and red ware were found in the Sikyatki graves, some of them having handles, others being without them (plate CXXV). They are ornamented on the exterior and on the rim, and the handle, when not lacking, is attached to the longer side of the rectangular vessel. Not a single bowl was found with a terraced rim, a feature so common in the medicine bowls of Tusayan at the present time.[115] In addition to the various forms of pottery which have been mentioned, there are also pieces made in the form of birds, one of the most typical of which is figured in plate CXII, _c_. In these objects the wings are represented by elevations in the form of ridges on the sides, and the tail and head by prolongations, which unfortunately were broken off. Toys or miniature reproductions of all the above-mentioned ceramic specimens occurred in several graves. These are often very roughly made, and in some cases contained pigments of different colors. The finding of a few fragments of clay in the form of animal heads, and one or two rude images of quadrupeds, would seem to indicate that sometimes such objects were likewise deposited with the dead. A clay object resembling the flaring end of a flageolet and ornamented with a zigzag decoration is unique in the collections from Sikyatki, although in the western cemetery there was found a fragment of an earthenware tube, possibly a part of a flute. In order to show more clearly the association of mortuary objects in single graves a few examples of the grouping of these deposits will be given. In a grave in the western cemetery the following specimens were found: 1, ladle; 2, paint grinder; 3, paint slab; 4, arrowpoints; 5, fragments of a marine shell (_Pectunculus_); 6, pipe, with fragments of a second pipe, and 7, red paint (sesquioxide of iron). In the grave which contained the square medicine bowl shown in plate CXXVIII, _a_, a ladle containing food was also unearthed. The bowl decorated with a picture of a girl's head was associated with fragments of another bowl and four ladles. Another single grave contained four large and small cooking pots and a broken metate. In a grave 8 feet below the surface in the western cemetery we found: 1, decorated food vessel; 2, black shoe-shape cooking pot resting in a food bowl and containing a small rude ladle; 3, coarse undecorated basin. A typical assemblage of mortuary objects comprised: 1, small decorated bowl containing polishing stones; 2, miniature cooking pot blackened by soot; 3, two small food bowls. In modern Hopi burials the food bowls with the food for the dead are not buried with the deceased, but are placed on the mound of soil and stones which covers the remains. From the position of the mortuary pottery as regards the skeletons in the Sikyatki interments, it is probable that this custom is of modern origin. Whether in former times food bowls were placed on the burial mounds as well as in the grave I am not able to say. The number of food bowls in ancient graves exceeds those placed on modern burials. The Sikyatki dead were apparently wrapped in coarse fabrics, possibly matting. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXIII DECORATED POTTERY FROM SIKYATKI] PALEOGRAPHY OF THE POTTERY GENERAL FEATURES The pottery from Sikyatki is especially rich in picture writing, and imperfect as these designs are as a means of transmitting a knowledge of manners, customs, and religious conceptions, they can be interpreted with good results. One of the most important lessons drawn from the pottery is to be had from a study of the symbols used in its decoration, as indicative of current beliefs and practices when it was made. The ancient inhabitants of Sikyatki have left no written records, for, unlike the more cultured people of Central America, they had no codices; but they have left on their old mortuary pottery a large body of picture writings or paleography which reveals many instructive phases of their former culture. The decipherment of these symbols is in part made possible by the aid of a knowledge of modern survivals, and when interpreted rightly they open a view of ancient Tusayan myths, and in some cases of prehistoric practices.[116] Students of Pueblo mythology and ritual are accumulating a considerable body of literature bearing on modern beliefs and practices. This is believed to be the right method of determining their aboriginal status, and is therefore necessary as a basis of our knowledge of their customs and beliefs. It is reasonable to suppose that what is now practiced in Pueblo ritual contains more or less of what has survived from prehistoric times, but from Taos to Tusayan there is no pueblo which does not show modifications in mythology and ritual due to European contact. Modern Pueblo life resembles the ancient, but is not a facsimile of it, and until we have rightly measured the effects of incorporated elements, we are more or less inexact in our estimation of the character of prehistoric culture. The vein of similarity in the old and the new can be used in an interpretation of ancient paleography, but we overstep natural limitations if by so doing we ascribe to prehistoric culture every concept which we find current among the modern survivors. To show how much the paleography of Tusayan has changed since Sikyatki was destroyed, I need only say that most of the characteristic figures of deities which are used today in the decoration of pottery are not found on the Sikyatki ware. Perhaps the most common figures on modern food bowls is the head of a mythologic being, the Corn-maid, _Calako-mana_, but this picture, or any which resembles it, is not found on the bowls from Sikyatki. A knowledge of the cult of the Corn-maid possibly came into Tusayan, through foreign influences, after the fall of Sikyatki, and there is no doubt that the picture decoration of modern Tusayan pottery, made within a league of Sikyatki, is so different from the ancient that it indicates a modification of the culture of the Hopi in historic times, and implies how deceptive it may be to present modern beliefs and practices as facsimiles of ancient culture. The main subjects chosen by the native women for the decoration of their pottery are symbolic, and the most abundant objects which bear these decorations are food bowls and water vases. Many mythic concepts are depicted, among which may be mentioned the Plumed Snake, various birds, reptiles, frogs, tadpoles, and insects. Plants or leaves are seldom employed as decorative motives, but the flower is sometimes used. The feather was perhaps the most common object utilized, and it may likewise be said the most highly conventionalized. An examination of the decorations of modern food basins used in the villages of East Mesa shows that the mythologic personages most commonly chosen for the ornamentation of their interiors are the Corn or Germ goddesses.[117] These assume a number of forms, yet all are reducible to one type, although known by very different names, as Hewüqti, "Old Woman," Kokle, and the like. Figures of reptiles, birds, the antelope, and like animals do not occur on any of the food bowls from the large collection of modern Tusayan pottery which I have studied, and as these figures are well represented in the decorations on Sikyatki food bowls, we may suppose their use has been abandoned or replaced by figures of the Corn-maids.[118] This fact, like so many others drawn from a study of the Tusayan ritual, indicates that the cult of the Corn-maids is more vigorous today than it was when Sikyatki was in its prime. Many pictures of masks on modern Tusayan bowls are identified as _Tacab_ or Navaho _katcinas_.[119] Their symbolism is well characterized by chevrons on the cheeks or curved markings for eyes. None of these figures, however, have yet been found on ancient Tusayan ceramics. Taken in connection with facts adduced by Hodge indicative of a recent advent of this vigorous Athapascan tribe into Tusayan, it would seem that the use of the _Tacab katcina_ pictures was of recent date, and is therefore not to be expected on the prehistoric pottery of the age of that found in Sikyatki. In the decoration of ancient pottery I find no trace of figures of the clown-priests, or _tcukuwympkiya_, who are so prominent in modern Tusayan _katcina_ celebrations. These personages, especially the Tatcukti, often called by a corruption of the Zuñi name Kóyimse (Kóyomäshi), are very common on modern bowls, especially at the extremities of ladles or smaller objects of pottery. Many handles of ladles made at Hano in late times are modeled in the form of the Paiakyamu,[120] a glutton priesthood peculiar to that Tanoan pueblo. From the data at hand we may legitimately conclude that the conception of the clown-priest is modern in Tusayan, so far as the ornamentation of pottery is concerned. The large collections of so-called modern Hopi pottery in our museums is modified Tanoan ware, made in Tusayan. Most of the component specimens were made by Hano potters, who painted upon them figures of _katcinas_, a cult which they and their kindred introduced. Several of the food bowls had evidently cracked during their firing or while in use, and had been mended before they were buried in the graves. This repairing was accomplished either by filling the crack with gum or by boring a hole on each side of the fracture for tying. In one specimen of black-and-white ware a perfectly round hole was made in the bottom, as if purposely to destroy the usefulness of the bowl before burial. This hole had been covered inside with a rounded disk of old pottery, neatly ground on the edge. It was not observed that any considerable number of mortuary pottery objects were "killed" before burial, although a large number were chipped on the edges. It is a great wonder that any of these fragile objects were found entire, the stones and soil covering the corpse evidently having been thrown into the grave without regard to care. The majority of the ancient symbols are incomprehensible to the present Hopi priests whom I have been able to consult, although they are ready to suggest many interpretations, sometimes widely divergent. The only reasonable method that can be pursued in determining the meaning of the conventional signs with which the modern Tusayan Indians are unfamiliar seems, therefore, to be a comparative one. This method I have attempted to follow so far as possible. There is a closer similarity between the symbolism of the Sikyatki pottery and that of the Awatobi ware than there is between the ceramics of either of these two pueblos and that of Walpi, and the same likewise may be said of the other Tusayan ruins so far as known. It is desirable, however, that excavations be made at the site of Old Walpi in order to determine, if possible, how widely different the ceramics of that village are from the towns whose ruins were studied in 1895. There are certain practical difficulties in regard to work at Old Walpi, one of the greatest of which is its proximity to modern burial places and shrines still used. Moreover, it is probable--indeed, quite certain--that most of the portable objects were carried from the abandoned pueblo to the present village when the latter was founded; but the old cemeteries of Walpi contain many ancient mortuary bowls which, when exhumed, will doubtless contribute a most interesting chapter to the history of modern Tusayan decorative art. One of the largest, and, so far as form goes, one of the most unique vessels, is shown in plate CXXVI, _b_. This was not exhumed from Sikyatki, but was said to have been found in the vicinity of that ruin. While the ware is very old, I do not believe it is ancient, and it is introduced in order to show how cleverly ancient patterns maybe simulated by more modern potters. The sole way in which modern imitations of ancient vessels may be distinguished is by the peculiar crackled or crazed surface which the former always has. This is due, I believe, to the method of firing and the unequal contraction or expansion of the slip employed. All modern imitations are covered with a white slip which, after firing, becomes crackled, a characteristic unknown to ancient ware. The most expert modern potter at East Mesa is Nampéo, a Tanoan woman who is a thorough artist in her line of work. Finding a better market for ancient than for modern ware, she cleverly copies old decorations, and imitates the Sikyatki ware almost perfectly. She knows where the Sikyatki potters obtained their clay, and uses it in her work. Almost any Hopi who has a bowl to sell will say that it is ancient, and care must always be exercised in accepting such claims. An examination of the ornamentation of the jar above referred to shows a series of birds drawn in the fashion common to early pottery decoration. This has led me to place this large vessel among the old ware, although the character of the pottery is different from that of the best examples found at Sikyatki. I believe this vessel was exhumed from a ruin of more modern date than Sikyatki. The woman who sold it to me has farming interests near Awatobi, which leads me to conjecture that she or possibly one of her ancestors found it at or near that ruin. She admitted that it had been in the possession of her family for some time, but that the story she had heard concerning it attributed its origin to Sikyatki. HUMAN FIGURES Very few figures of men or women are found on the pottery, and these are confined to the interior of food basins (plate CXXIX).[121] They are ordinarily very roughly drawn, apparently with less care and with much less detail than are the figures of animals. From their character I am led to the belief that the drawing of human figures on pottery was a late development in Tusayan art, and postdates the use of animal figures on their earthenware. There are, however, a few decorations in which human figures appear, and these afford an interesting although meager contribution to our knowledge of ancient Tusayan art and custom. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXIV DECORATED POTTERY FROM SIKYATKI] As is well known, the Hopi maidens wear their hair in two whorls, one over each ear, and that on their marriage it is tied in two coils falling on the breast. The whorl is arranged on a U-shape stick called a _gñela_; it is commonly done up by a sister, the mother, or some friend of the maiden, and is stiffened with an oil pressed from squash seeds. The curved stick is then withdrawn and the two puffs held in place by a string tightly wound between them and the head. The habit of dressing the hair in whorls is adopted after certain puberty ceremonials, which have elsewhere been described. When on betrothal a Hopi maid takes her gifts of finely ground cornmeal to the house of her future mother-in-law, her hair is dressed in this fashion for the last time, because on her return she is attacked by the women of the pueblo, drawn hither and thither, her hair torn down, and her body smeared with dirt. If her gifts are accepted she immediately becomes the wife of her lover, and her hair is thenceforth dressed in the fashion common to matrons. The symbolic meaning of the whorls of hair worn by the maidens is said to be the squash-flower, or, perhaps more accurately speaking, the potential power of fructification. There is legendary and other evidence that this custom is very ancient among the Tusayan Indians, and the data obtainable from their ritual point the same way. In the personification of ancestral "breath-bodies," or spirits by men, called _katcinas_, the female performers are termed _katcina-manas_ (katcina-virgins), and it is their custom to wear the hair in the characteristic coiffure of maidens. In the personification of the Corn-maid by symbolic figures, such as graven images,[122] pictures, and the like, in secret rites, the style of coiffure worn by the maidens is common, as I have elsewhere shown in the descriptions of the ceremonials known as the Flute, _Lalakonti_, _Mamzrauti_, _Palülükoñti_, and others. The same symbol is found in images used as dolls of Calako-mana, the equivalent, as the others, of the same Corn-maid. From the nature of these images there can hardly be a doubt of the great antiquity of this practice, and that it has been brought down, through their ritual, to the present day. This style of hair dressing was mentioned by the early Spanish explorers, and is represented in pictographs of ancient date; but if all these evidences of its antiquity are insufficient the testimony afforded by the pictures on certain food-basins from Sikyatki leaves no doubt on this point.[123] Plate CXXIX, _b_, represents a food-basin, on the inside of which is drawn, in brown, the head and shoulders of a woman. On either side the hair is done up in coils which bear some likeness to the whorls worn by the present Hopi maidens. It must be borne in mind, however, that similar coils are sometimes made after ceremonial head-washing, and certain other rites, when the hair is tied with corn husks. The face is painted reddish, and the ears have square pendants similar to the turquois mosaics worn by Hopi women at the present day. Although there is other evidence than this of the use of square ear-pendants, set with mosaic, among the ancient people--and traditions point the same way--this figure of the head of a woman from Sikyatki leaves no doubt of the existence of this form of ornament in that ancient pueblo. However indecisive the last-mentioned picture may be in regard to the coiffure of the ancient Sikyatki women, plate CXXIX, _a_, affords still more conclusive evidence. This picture represents a woman of remarkable form which, from likenesses to figures at present made in sand on an altar in the _Lalakonti_ ceremony,[124] I have no hesitation in ascribing to the Corn-maid. The head has the two whorls of hair very similar to those made in that rite on the picture of the Goddess of Germs, and the square body is likewise paralleled in the same figure. The peculiar form is employed to represent the outstretched blanket, a style of art which is common in Mayan codices.[125] On each lower corner representations of feathered strings, called in the modern ritual _nakwákwoci_,[126] are appended. The figure is represented as kneeling, and the four parallel lines are possibly comparable with the prayer-sticks placed in the belt of the Germ goddess on the _Lalakonti_ altar. In her left hand (which, among the Hopi, is the ceremonial hand or that in which sacred objects are always carried) she holds an ear of corn, symbolic of germs, of which she is the deity. The many coincidences between this figure and that used in the ceremonials of the September moon, called Lalakonti, would seem to show that in both instances it was intended to represent the same mythic being. There is, however, another aspect of this question which is of interest. In modern times there is a survival among the Hopi of the custom of decorating the inside of a food basin with a figure of the Corn-maid, and this is, therefore, a direct inheritance of ancient methods represented by the specimen under consideration. A large majority of modern food bowls are ornamented with an elaborate figure of Calako-mana, the Corn-maid, very elaborately worked out, but still retaining the essential symbolism figured in the Sikyatki bowl.[127] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXV FLAT DIPPERS AND MEDICINE BOX FROM SIKYATKI] While one of the two figures shown in plate CXXIX, _e_, is valuable as affording additional and corroborative evidence of the character of the ancient coiffure of the women, its main interest is of a somewhat different kind. Two figures are rudely drawn on the inside of the basin, one of which represents a woman, the other, judging from the character of the posterior extremity of the body, a reptilian conception in which a single foreleg is depicted, and the tail is articulated at the end, recalling a rattlesnake. Upon the head is a single feather;[128] the two eyes are represented on one side of the head, and the line of the alimentary tract is roughly drawn. The figure is represented as standing before that of the woman. With these few lines the potter no doubt intended to depict one of those many legends, still current, of the cultus hero and heroine of her particular family or priesthood. Supposing the reptilian figure to be a totemic one, our minds naturally recall the legend of the Snake-hero and the Corn-mist-maid[129] whom he brought from a mythic land to dwell with his people. The peculiar hairdress is likewise represented in the figures on the food basin illustrated in plate CXXIX, _c_, which represent a man and a woman. Although the figures are partly obliterated, it can easily be deciphered that the latter figure wears a garment similar to the _kwaca_ or dark-blue blanket for which Tusayan is still famous, and that this blanket was bound by a girdle, the ends of which hang from the woman's left hip. While the figure of the man is likewise indistinct (the vessel evidently having been long in use), the nature of the act in which he is engaged is not left in doubt.[130] Among the numerous deities of the modern Hopi Olympus there is one called Kokopeli,[131] often represented in wooden dolls and clay images. From the obscurity of the symbolism, these dolls are never figured in works on Tusayan images. The figure in plate CXXIX, _d_, bears a resemblance to Kokopeli. It represents a man with arms raised in the act of dancing, and the head is destitute of hair as if covered by one of the peculiar helmets, used by the clowns in modern ceremonials. As many of the acts of these priests may be regarded as obscene from our point of view, it is not improbable that this figure may represent an ancient member of this archaic priesthood. The three human figures on the food basin illustrated in plate CXXIX, _f_, are highly instructive as showing the antiquity of a curious and revolting practice almost extinct in Tusayan. As an accompaniment of certain religious ceremonials among the Pueblo and the Navaho Indians, it was customary for certain priests to insert sticks into the esophagus. These sticks are still used to some extent and may be obtained by the collector. The ceremony of stick-swallowing has led to serious results, so that now in the decline of this cult a deceptive method is often adopted. In Tusayan the stick-swallowing ceremony has been practically abandoned at the East Mesa, but I have been informed by reliable persons that it has not wholly been given up at Oraibi. The illustration above referred to indicates its former existence in Sikyatki. The middle figure represents the stick-swallower forcing the stick down his esophagus, while a second figure holds before him an unknown object. The principal performer is held by a third figure, an attendant, who stands behind him. This instructive pictograph thus illustrates the antiquity of this custom in Tusayan, and would seem to indicate that it was once a part of the Pueblo ritual.[132] It is possible that the Navaho, who have a similar practice, derived it from the Pueblos, but there are not enough data at hand to demonstrate this beyond question. Regarding the pose of the three figures in this picture, I have been reminded by Dr Walter Hough of the performers who carry the wad of cornstalks in the Antelope dance. In this interpretation we have the "carrier," "hugger," and possibly an Antelope priest with the unknown object in his hand. This interpretation appears more likely to be a correct one than that which I have suggested; and yet Kopeli, the Snake chief, declares that the Snake family was not represented at Sikyatki. Possibly a dance similar to the Antelope performance on the eighth day of the Snake dance may have been celebrated at that pueblo, and the discovery of a rattlesnake's rattle in a Sikyatki grave is yet to be explained. One of the most prominent of all the deities in the modern Tusayan Olympus is the cultus-hero called Püükoñhoya, the Little War God. Hopi mythology teems with legends of this god and his deeds in killing monsters and aiding the people in many ways. He is reputed to have been one of twins, children of the Sun and a maid by parthenogenetic conception. His adventures are told with many variants and he reappears with many aliases. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXVI DOUBLE-LOBE VASES FROM SIKYATKI] The symbolism of Püükoñhoya at the present day consists of parallel marks on the face or body, and when personated by a man the figure is always represented as carrying weapons of war, such as a bow and arrows. Images of the same hero are used in ceremonies, and are sometimes found as household gods or penates, which are fed as if human beings. A fragment of pottery represented in the accompanying illustration (figure 263), shows enough of the head of a personage to indicate that Püükoñhoya was intended, for it bears on the cheek the two parallel marks symbolic of that deity, while in his hands he holds a bow and a jointed arrow as if shooting an unknown animal. All of these features are in harmony with the identification of the figure with that of the cultus-hero mentioned, and seem to indicate the truth of the current legend that as a mythologic conception he is of great antiquity in Tusayan. [Illustration: FIG. 263--War god shooting an animal. (Fragment of food bowl.)] In this connection it may be instructive to call attention to two figures on a food bowl collected by Mr H. R. Voth from a ruin near Oraibi. It represents a man and a woman, the former with two horns, a crescent on the forehead, and holding in his outstretched hand a staff. The woman has a curious gorget, similar to some which I have found in ruins near Tusayan, and a belt like those still worn by Pueblo Indians. This smaller figure likewise has a crescent on its face and three strange appendages on each side of the head. Another food basin in Mr Voth's collection is also instructive, and is different in its decoration from any which I have found. The character of the ware is ancient, but the figure is decidedly modern. If, however, it should prove to be an ancient vessel it would carry back to the time of its manufacture the existence of the _katcina_ cult in Tusayan, no actual proof of the existence of which, at a time when Sikyatki was in its prime, has yet been discovered. The three figures represent Hahaiwüqti, Hewüqti, and Natacka exactly as these supernatural beings are now personated at Walpi in the _Powamû_, as described and figured in a former memoir.[133] It is unfortunate that the antiquity of this specimen, suggestive as it is, must be regarded as doubtful, for it was not exhumed from the ruin by an archeologist, and the exact locality in which it was found is not known. THE HUMAN HAND Excepting the figure of the maid's head above described, the human hand, for some unknown reason, is the only part of the body chosen by the ancient Hopi for representation in the decoration of their pottery. Among the present Tusayan Indians the human hand is rarely used, but oftentimes the beams of the kivas are marked by the girls who have plastered them with impressions of their muddy hands, and there is a _katcina_ mask which has a hand painted in white on the face. As in the case of the decoration of all similar sacred paraphernalia, there is a legend which accounts for the origin of the _katcina_ with the imprint of the hand on its mask. The following tale, collected by the late A. M. Stephen, from whose manuscript I quote, is interesting in this connection: "The figure of a hand with extended fingers is very common, in the vicinity of ruins, as a rock etching, and is also frequently seen daubed on the rocks with colored pigments or white clay. These are vestiges of a test formerly practiced by the young men who aspired for admission to the fraternity of the Calako. The Calako is a trinity of two women and a man from whom the Hopi obtained the first corn, and of whom the following legend is told: "In the early days, before houses were built, the earth was devastated by a whirlwind. There was then neither springs nor streams, although water was so near the surface that it could be found by pulling up a tuft of grass. The people had but little food, however, and they besought Masauwûh to help them, but he could not. "There came a little old man, a dwarf, who said that he had two sisters who were the wives of Calako, and it might be well to petition them. So they prepared an altar, every man making a _paho_, and these were set in the ground so as to encircle a sand hillock, for this occurred before houses were known. "Masauwûh's brother came and told them that when Calako came to the earth's surface wherever he placed his foot a deep chasm was made; then they brought to the altar a huge rock, on which Calako might stand, and they set it between the two pahos placed for his wives. "Then the people got their rattles and stood around the altar, each man in front of his own paho; but they stood in silence, for they knew no song with which to invoke this strange god. They stood there for a long while, for they were afraid to begin the ceremonies until a young lad, selecting the largest rattle, began to shake it and sing. Presently a sound like rushing water was heard, but no water was seen; a sound also like great winds, but the air was perfectly still, and it was seen that the rock was pierced with a great hole through the center. The people were frightened and ran away, all save the young lad who had sung the invocation. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXVII UNUSUAL FORMS OF VASES FROM SIKYATKI] "The lad soon afterward rejoined them, and they saw that his back was cut and bleeding and covered with splinters of yucca and willow. The flagellation, he told them, had been administered by Calako, who told him that he must endure this laceration before he could look upon the beings he had invoked; that only to those who passed through his ordeals could Calako become visible; and, as the lad had braved the test so well, he should thenceforth be chief of the Calako altar. The lad could not describe Calako, but said that his two wives were exceedingly beautiful and arrayed with all manner of fine garments. They wore great headdresses of clouds and every kind of corn which they were to give to the Hopi to plant for food. There were white, red, yellow, blue, black, blue-and-white speckled, and red-and-yellow speckled corn, and a seeded grass (_kwapi_). "The lad returned to the altar and shook his rattle over the hole in the rock, and from its interior Calako conversed with him and gave him instructions. In accordance with these he gathered all the Hopi youths and brought them to the rock, that Calako might select certain of them to be his priests. The first test was that of putting their hands in the mud and impressing them upon the rock. Only those were chosen as novices the imprints of whose hands had dried on the instant. "The selected youths then moved within the altar and underwent the test of flagellation. Calako lashed them with yucca and willow. Those who made no outcry were told to remain in the altar, to abstain from salt and flesh for ten days, when Calako would return and instruct them concerning the rites to be performed when they sought his aid. "Calako and his two wives appeared at the appointed time, and after many ceremonials gave to each of the initiated five grains of each of the different kinds of corn. The Hopi women had been instructed to place baskets woven of grass at the foot of the rock, and in these Calako's wives placed the seeds of squashes, melons, beans, and all the other vegetables which the Hopi have since possessed. "Calako and his wives, after announcing that they would again return, took off their masks and garments, and laying them on the rock disappeared within it. "Some time after this, when the initiated were assembled in the altar, the Great Plumed Snake appeared to them and said that Calako could not return unless one of them was brave enough to take the mask and garments down into the hole and give them to him. They were all afraid, but the oldest man of the Hopi took them down and was deputed to return and represent Calako. "Shortly afterward Masauwûh stole the paraphernalia, and with his two brothers masqueraded as Calako and his wives. This led the Hopi into great trouble, and they incurred the wrath of Muiyinwûh, who withered all their grain and corn. "One of the Hopi finally discovered that the supposed Calako carried a cedar bough in his hand, when it should have been willow; then they knew that it was Masauwûh who had been misleading them. "The boy hero one day found Masauwûh asleep, and so regained possession of the mask. Muiyinwûh then withdrew his punishments and sent Palülükoñ (the Plumed Snake) to tell the Hopi that Calako would never return to them, but that the boy hero should wear his mask and represent him, and his festival should be celebrated when they had a proper number of novices to be initiated."[134] Several food basins from Sikyatki have a human hand depicted upon them, and in one of these both hands are represented. On the most perfect of these hand figures (plate CXXXVII, _c_) a wristlet is well represented, with two triangular figures, which impart to it an unusual form. From between the index and second finger there arises a triangular appendage, which joins a graceful curve, extending on one side to the base of the thumb and continued on the other side to the arm. The whole inside of the basin, except the figure of the hand and its appendage, is decorated with spattering,[135] and on the outside there is a second figure, evidently a hand or the paw of some animal. This external decoration also has a triangular figure in which are two terraces, recalling rain-cloud symbols. One of the most interesting representations of the human hand (figure 354) is found on the exterior of a beautiful bowl. The four fingers and the thumb are shown with representations of nails, a unique feature in such decorations. From between the index finger and the next, or rather from the tip of the former, arises an appendage comparable with that before mentioned, but of much simpler form. The palm of the hand is crossed by a number of parallel lines, which recall a custom of using the palm lines in measuring ceremonial prayer sticks, as I have described in a memoir on the Snake dance. In place of the arm this hand has many parallel lines, the three medial ones being continued far beyond the others, as shown in the figure. QUADRUPEDS Figures of quadrupeds are sparingly used in the decoration of food bowls or basins, but the collection shows several fine specimens on which appear some of the mammalia with which the Hopi are familiar. Most of these are so well drawn that there appears to be no question as to their identification. One of the most instructive of these figures is shown in plate CXXX, _a_, which is much worn, and indistinct in detail, although from what can be traced it was probably intended to represent a mythic creature known as the Giant Elk. The head bears two branched horns, drawn without perspective, and the neck has a number of short parallel marks similar to those occurring on the figure of an antelope on the walls of one of the kivas at Walpi. The hoofs are bifid, and from a short stunted tail there arises a curved line which encircles the whole figure, connecting a series of round spots and terminating in a triangular figure with three parallel lines representing feathers. Perhaps the strangest of all appendages to this animal is at the tail, which is forked, recalling the tail of certain birds. Its meaning is unknown to me. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXVIII MEDICINE BOX AND PIGMENT POTS FROM SIKYATKI] There can be no doubt that the delineator sought to represent in this figure one of the numerous horned _Cervidæ_ with which the ancient Hopi were familiar, but the drawing is so incomplete that to choose between the antelope, deer, and elk seems impossible. It may be mentioned, however, that the Horn people are reputed to have been early arrivals in Tusayan, and it is not improbable that representatives of the Horn clans lived in Sikyatki previous to its overthrow. Two faintly drawn animals, evidently intended for quadrupeds, appear on the interior of the food bowl shown in plate CXXX, _b_. These are interesting from the method in which they were drawn. They are not outlined with defined lines, but are of the original color of the bowl, and appear as two ghost-like figures surrounded by a dense spattering of red spots, similar in technic to the figure of the human hand. I am unable to identify these animals, but provisionally refer them to the rabbit. They have no distinctive symbolism, however, and are destitute of the characteristic spots which members of the Rabbit clan now invariably place on their totemic signatures. [Illustration: FIG. 264--Mountain sheep] The animal design on the bowl illustrated in plate CXXX, _c_, probably represents a rabbit or hare, quite well drawn in profile, with a feathered appendage from the head. Behind it is the ordinary symbol of the dragon-fly. Several crosses are found in an opposite hemisphere, separated from that occupied by the two animal pictures by a series of geometric figures ornamented with crooks and other designs. The interior of the food bowl shown in plate CXXX, _d_, as well as the inner sides of the two ladles represented in plate CXXXI, _b_, _d_, are decorated with peculiar figures which suggest the porcupine. The body is crescentic and covered with spines, and only a single leg, with claws, is represented. It is worthy of mention that so many of these animal forms have only one leg, representative, no doubt, of a single pair, and that many of these have plantigrade paws like those of the bear and badger. The appendages to the head in this figure remind one of those of certain forms regarded as reptiles, with which this may be identical. [Illustration: FIG. 265--Mountain lion] In another decoration we have what is apparently the same animal furnished with both fore and hind legs, the tail curving upward like that of a cottontail rabbit, which it resembles in other particulars as well. This figure also hangs by a band from a geometric design formed of two crescents and bearing four parallel marks representing feathers. The single crescent depicted on the inside of the ladle shown in plate CXXXI, _b_, is believed to represent the same conception, or the moon; and in this connection the very close phonetic resemblance between the Hopi name for moon[136] and that for the mammal may be mentioned. In the decoration last described the same crescentic figure is elaborated into its zoömorphic equivalent. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXIX DESIGNS ON FOOD BOWLS FROM SIKYATKI] An enumeration of the pictographic representations of mammalia includes the beautiful food bowl shown in plate CXXX, _e_, which is made of fine clay spattered with brown pigment. This design (reproduced in figure 264) represents probably some ruminant, as the mountain sheep or possibly the antelope, both of which gave names to clans said to have resided at Sikyatki. The hoofs are characteristic, and the markings on the back suggest a fawn or spotted deer. There is a close similarity between the design below this animal and that of the exterior decorations of certain vases and square medicine bowls. Among the pictures of quadrupedal animals depicted on ancient food bowls there is none more striking than that illustrated in plate CXXX, _f_, which has been identified as the mountain lion. While this identification is more or less problematical, it is highly possible. The claws of the forelegs (figure 265) are evidently those of one of the carnivora of the cat family, of which the mountain lion is the most prominent in Tusayan. The anterior part of the body is spotted; the posterior and the hind legs are black. The snout bears little resemblance to that of the puma. The entire inner surface of the bowl, save a central circle in which the head, fore-limbs, and anterior part of the body are represented, is decorated by spattering. Within this spattered area there are highly interesting figures, prominent among which is a squatting figure of a man, with the hand raised to the mouth and holding a ceremonial cigarette, as if engaged in smoking. The seven patches in black might well be regarded as either footprints or leaves, four of which appear to be attached to the band inclosing the central area. In the intervals between three of these there are branched bodies representing plants or bushes. REPTILES Snakes and other reptilian forms were represented by the ancient potters in the decoration of food bowls, and it is remarkable how closely some of these correspond in symbolism with conceptions still current in Tusayan. Of all reptilian monsters the worship of which forms a prominent element in Hopi ritual, that of the Great Plumed Snake is perhaps the most important. Effigies of this monster exist in all the larger Hopi villages, and they are used in at least two great rites--the _Soyaluña_ in December and the _Palülükonti_ in March, as I have already described. The symbolic markings and appendages of the Plumed Snake effigy are distinctive, and are found in all modern representations of this mystic being. While several pictographs of snakes are found on Sikyatki pottery, there is not a single instance in which these modern markings appear; consequently there is considerable doubt in regard to the identification of many of the Sikyatki serpents with modern mythologic representatives. [Illustration: FIG. 266--Plumed serpent] In questioning the priests in regard to the derivation of the Plumed Serpent cult in Tusayan, I have found that they declare that this cultus was brought into Tusayan from a mythic land in the south, called Palatkwabi, and that the effigies and fetiches pertaining to it were introduced by the Patki or Water-house people. From good evidence, I suspect that the arrival of this phratry was comparatively late in Tusayan history, and it is possible that Sikyatki was destroyed before their advent, for in all the legends which I have been able to gather no one ascribes to Sikyatki any clan belonging to the phratries which are said to have migrated from the far south. I believe we must look toward the east, whence the ancestors of the Kokop or Firewood people are reputed to have come, for the origin of the symbolic markings of the snakes represented on Sikyatki ceramics. Figures of apodal reptiles, with feathers represented on their heads, occur in Sikyatki pictography, although there is no resemblance in the markings of their bodies to those of modern pictures. One of the most striking of these occurs on the inside of the food basin shown in plate CXXXII, _a_. It represents a serpent with curved body, the tail being connected with the head, like an ancient symbol of eternity. The body (figure 266) is destitute of any distinctive markings, but is covered with a crosshatching of black lines. The head bears two triangular markings, which are regarded as feather symbols. The position of the eyes would seem to indicate that the top of the head is represented, but this conclusion is not borne out by comparative studies, for it was often the custom of ancient Tusayan potters, like other primitive artists, to represent both eyes on one side of the head. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXX FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF QUADRUPEDS FROM SIKYATKI] The zigzag line occupying the position of the tongue and terminating in a triangle is a lightning symbol, with which the serpent is still associated. While striving not to strain the symbolism of this figure, it is suggested that the three curved marks on the lower and upper jaws represent fangs. It is highly probable that conceptions not greatly unlike those which cluster about the Great Plumed Serpent were associated with this mythic snake, the figure of which is devoid of some of the most essential elements of modern symbolism. While from the worn character of the middle of the food bowl illustrated in plate CXXXII, _b_, it is not possible to discover whether the animal was apodal or not from the crosshatching of the body and the resemblance of the appendages of the head to those of the figure last considered, it appears probable that this pictograph likewise was intended to represent a snake of mystic character. Like the previous figure, this also is coiled, with the tail near the head, its body crosshatched, and with two triangular appendages to the head. There is, however, but one eye, and the two jaws are elongated and provided with teeth,[137] as in the case of certain reptiles. The similarity of the head and its appendages to the snake figure last described would lead me to regard the figure shown in plate CXXXII, _c_, as representing a like animal, but the latter picture is more elaborately worked out in details, and one of the legs is well represented. I have shown in the discussion of a former figure how the decorator, recognizing the existence of two eyes, represented them both on one side of the head of a profile figure, although only one is visible, and we see in this picture (figure 267) a somewhat similar tendency, which is very common in modern Tusayan figures of animals. The breath line is drawn from the extremity of the snout halfway down the length of the body. In modern pictography a representation of the heart is often depicted at the blind extremity of this line, as if, in fact, there was a connection with this organ and the tubes through which the breath passes. In the Sikyatki pottery, however, I find only this one specimen of drawing in which an attempt to represent internal organs is made. The tail of this singular picture of a reptile is highly conventionalized, bearing appendages of unknown import, but recalling feathers, while on the back are other appendages which might be compared with wings. Both of these we might expect, considering the association of bird and serpent in the Hopi conception of the Plumed Snake. Exact identifications of these pictures with the animals by which the Hopi are or were surrounded, is, of course, impossible, for they are not realistic representations, but symbolic figures of mythic beings unknown save to the imagination of the primitive mythologist. [Illustration: FIG. 267--Unknown reptile] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXI ORNAMENTED LADLES FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: FIG. 268--Unknown reptile] A similar reptile is pictured on the food bowl shown in plate CXXXII, _d_, in which design, however, there are important modifications, the most striking of which are: (1) The animal (figure 268) has both fore and hind legs represented; (2) the head is round; (3) the mouth is provided with teeth; and (4) there are four instead of two feather appendages on the head, two of which are much longer than the others. Were it not that ears are not represented in reptiles, one would be tempted to regard the smaller appendages as representations of these organs. Their similarity to the row of spines on the back and the existence of spines on the head of the "horned toad" suggests this reptile, with which both ancient and modern Hopi are very familiar. On a fragment of a vessel found at Awatobi there is depicted the head of a reptile evidently identical with this, since the drawing is an almost perfect reproduction. There is a like figure, also from Sikyatki, in the collection of pottery made at that ruin by Dr Miller, of Prescott, the year following my work there. The most elaborate of all the pictures of reptiles found on ancient Tusayan pottery is shown in plate CXXXII, _e_, in which the symbolism is complicated and the details carefully worked out. A few of these symbols I am able to decipher; others elude present analysis. There is no doubt as to the meaning of the appendage to the head (figure 269), for it well portrays an elaborate feathered headdress on which the markings that distinguish tail-feathers, three in number, are prominent. The extension of the snout is without homologue elsewhere in Hopi pictography, and, while decorative in part, is likewise highly conventionalized. On the body semicircular rain cloud symbols and markings similar to those of the bodies of certain birds are distinguishable. The feet likewise are more avian than reptilian, but of a form quite unusual in structure. It is interesting to note the similarity in the carved line with six sets of parallel bars to the band surrounding the figure of the human hand shown in plate CXXXVII, _c_. In attempting to identify the pictograph on the bowl reproduced in plate CXXXIV, _a_, there is little to guide me, and the nearest I can come to its significance is to ascribe it to a reptile of some kind. Highly symbolic, greatly conventionalized as this figure is, there is practically nothing on which to base the absolute identification of the figure save the serrated appendage to the body and the leg, which resembles that of the lizard as it is sometimes drawn. The two eyes indicate that the enlargement in which these were placed is the head, and the extended curved snout a beak. All else is incomprehensible to me, and my identification is therefore provisional and largely speculative. [Illustration: FIG. 269--Unknown reptile] I wish, however, in leaving the description of this beautiful bowl, to invite attention to the brilliancy and the characteristics of the coloring, which differ from the majority of the decorated ware from Sikyatki. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXII FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF REPTILES FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXIII BOWLS AND DIPPERS WITH FIGURES OF TADPOLES, BIRDS, ETC. FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXIV FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF SUN, BUTTERFLY, AND FLOWER FROM SIKYATKI] Among the fragments of pottery found in the Sikyatki graves there was one which, had it been entire, would doubtless have thrown considerable light on ancient pictography. This fragment has depicted upon it portions of the body and the whole head and neck of a reptilian animal. We find on that part of the body which is represented, three parallel marks which recall those on the modern pictures of the Great Plumed Serpent. On the back there were apparently the representations of wings, a feather of which is shown above the head. The head likewise bears a crest of three feathers, and there are three reptilian like toes. Whether this represents a reptile or a bird it is impossible for me to say, but enough has already been recorded to indicate how close the symbolism of these two groups sometimes is in ancient pictography. It would almost appear as if the profound anatomical discovery of the close kinship of birds and reptiles was unconsciously recognized by a people destitute of the rudiments of the knowledge of morphology. TADPOLES Among the inhabitants of an arid region, where rain-making forms a dominant element in their ritual, water animals are eagerly adopted as symbols. Among these the tadpole occupies a foremost position. The figures of this batrachian are very simple, and are among the most common of those used on ceremonial paraphernalia in Tusayan at the present time. In none of these is anything more than a globular head and a zigzag tail represented, and, as in nature, these are colored black. The tadpole appears on several pieces of painted pottery from Sikyatki, one of the best of which is the food bowl illustrated in plate CXXXIII, _a_. The design represents a number of these aquatic animals drawn in line across the diameter of the inner surface of the bowl, while on each side there is a row of rectangular blocks representing rain clouds. These blocks are separated from the tadpole figures by crescentic lines, and above them are short parallel lines recalling the symbol of falling rain. One of the most beautiful forms of ladles from Sikyatki is figured in plate CXXXIII, _b_, a specimen in which the art of decoration by spattering is effectively displayed. The interior of the bowl of this dipper is divided by parallel lines into two zones, in each of which two tadpoles are represented. The handle is pointed at the end and is decorated. This specimen is considered one of the best from Sikyatki. The rudely drawn picture on the bowl figured in plate CXXXII, _f_, would be identified as a frog, save for the presence of a tail which would seem to refer it to the lizard kind. But in the evolution of the tadpole into the frog a tailed stage persists in the metamorphosis after the legs develop. In modern pictures[138] of the frog with which I am familiar, this batrachian is always represented dorsally or ventrally with the legs outstretched, while in the lizards, as we have seen, a lateral view is always adopted. As the sole picture found on ancient pottery where the former method is employed, this fact may be of value in the identification of this rude outline as a frog rather than as a true reptile. BUTTERFLIES OR MOTHS One of the most characteristic modern decorations employed by the Hopi, especially as a symbol of fecundity, is the butterfly or moth. It is a constant device on the beautiful white or cotton blankets woven by the men as wedding gifts, where it is embroidered on the margin in the forms of triangles or even in more realistic patterns. This symbol is a simple triangle, which becomes quite realistic when a line is drawn bisecting one of the angles. This double triangle is not only a constant symbol on wedding blankets, but also is found on the dadoes of houses, resembling in design the arrangement of tiles in the Alhambra and other Moorish buildings. This custom of decorating the walls of a building with triangles placed at intervals on the upper edge of a dado is a feature of cliff-house kivas, as shown in Nordenskiöld's beautiful memoir on the cliff villages of Mesa Verde. While an isosceles triangle represents the simplest form of the butterfly symbol, and is common on ancient pottery, a few vessels from Sikyatki show a much more realistic figure. In plate CXXXIV, _f_, is shown a moth with extended proboscis and articulated antennæ, and in _d_ of the same plate another form, with the proboscis inserted in a flower, is given. As an associate with summer, the butterfly is regarded as a beneficent being aside from its fecundity, and one of the ancient Hopi clans regarded it as their totem. Perhaps the most striking, and I may say the most inexplicable, use of the symbol of the butterfly is the so-called _Hokona_ or Butterfly virgin slab used in the Antelope ceremonies of the Snake dance at Walpi, where it is associated with the tadpole water symbol. [Illustration: FIG. 270--Outline of plate CXXXV, _b_] The most beautiful of all the butterfly designs are the six figures on the vase reproduced in plate CXXXV, _b_. From the number of these pictures it would seem that they bore some relationship to the six world-quarters--north, west, south, east, zenith, and nadir. The vase has a flattened shoulder, and the six butterfly figures are represented as flying toward the orifice. These insect figures closely resemble one another, and are divided into two groups readily distinguished by the symbolism of the heads. Three have each a cross with a single dot in each quadrant, and each of the other three has a dotted head without the cross. These two kinds alternate with each other, and the former probably indicate females, since the same symbols on the heads of the snakes in the sand picture of the Antelope altar in the Snake dance are used to designate the female.[139] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXV VASES WITH FIGURES OF BUTTERFLIES FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXVI VASES WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI] Two antennæ and a double curved proboscis are indicated in all the figures of butterflies on the vase under consideration. The zones above and below are both cut by a "line of life," the opening through which is situated on opposite equatorial poles in the upper and under rim. [Illustration: FIG. 271--Butterfly design on upper surface of plate CXXXV, _b_] The rectangular figures associated with the butterflies on this elaborately decorated vase are of two patterns alternating with each other. The rectangles forming one of these patterns incloses three vertical feathers, with a triangle on the right side and a crook on the left. The remaining three rectangles also have three feathers, but they are arranged longitudinally on the surface of the vase. The elaborate decoration of the zone outside the six butterflies is made up of feathers arranged in three clusters of three each, alternating with key patterns, crosshatched crooks, triangles, and frets. The wealth of ornament on this part of the vase is noteworthy, and its interpretation very baffling. This vase may well be considered the most elaborately decorated in the whole collection from Sikyatki. There are several figures of butterflies, like those shown in plate CXXXI, _a_, in which the modifications of wings and body have proceeded still further, and the only features which refer them to insects are the jointed antennæ. The passage from this highly conventionalized design into a triangular figure is not very great. There are still others where the head, with attached appendages, arises not from an angle of a triangle, but from the middle of one side. This gives us a very common form of butterfly symbol, which is found, variously modified, on many ancient vessels. In such designs there is commonly a row of dots on each side, which may be represented by a sinuous line, a series of triangles, bars, or parallel bars. The design reproduced in plate CXXXIV, _d_, represents a moth or butterfly associated with a flower, and several star symbols. It is evidently similar to that figured in _a_ of the same plate, and has representations of antennæ and extended proboscis, the latter organ placed as if extracting honey from the flower. The conventional flower is likewise shown in _e_ of this plate. The two crescentic designs in plate CXXXV, _a_, are regarded as butterflies. The jar illustrated in plate CXLV, _b_, is ornamented with highly conventionalized figures on four sides, and is the only one taken from the Sikyatki cemeteries in which the designs are limited to the equatorial surface. The most striking figure, which is likewise found on the base of the paint saucer shown in plate CXLVI, _f_, is a diamond-shape design with a triangle at each corner (figure 276). The pictures drawn on alternating quadrants have very different forms, which are difficult to classify, and I have therefore provisionally associated this beautiful vessel with those bearing the butterfly and the triangle. The form of this vessel closely approaches that of the graceful cooking pots made of coiled and coarse indented ware, but the vessel was evidently not used for cooking purposes, as it bears no marks of soot.[140] DRAGON-FLIES Among the most constant designs used in the decoration of Sikyatki pottery are figures of the dragon-fly. These decorations consist of a line, sometimes enlarged into a bulb at one end, with two parallel bars drawn at right angles across the end, below the enlargement. Like the tadpole, the dragon-fly is a symbol of water, and with it are associated many legends connected with the miraculous sprouting of corn in early times. It is a constant symbol on modern ceremonial paraphernalia, as masks, tablets, and pahos, and it occurs also on several ancient vessels (plates CXL, _b_; CLXIII, _a_), where it always has the same simple linear form, with few essential modifications. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXVII VESSELS WITH FIGURES OF HUMAN HAND, BIRDS, TURTLE, ETC. FROM SIKYATKI] The symbols of four dragon-flies are well shown on the rim of the square box represented in plate CXXVIII, _a_. This box, which was probably for charm liquid, or possibly for feathers used in ceremonials, is unique in form and is one of the most beautiful specimens from the Sikyatki cemeteries. It is elaborately decorated on the four sides with rain-cloud and other symbols, and is painted in colors which retain their original brilliancy. The interior is not decorated. The four dragon-flies on the rim of this object are placed in such a way as to represent insects flying about the box in a dextral circuit, or with the heads turned to the right. This position indicates a ceremonial circuit, which is exceptional among the Tusayan people, although common in Navaho ceremonies. In the sand picture of the Snake society, for instance, where four snakes are represented in a border surrounding a mountain lion, these reptiles are represented as crawling about the picture from right to left. This sequence is prescribed in Tusayan ceremonials, and has elsewhere been designated by me as the sinistral circuit, or a circuit with the center on the left hand. The circuit used by the decorator of this box is dextral or sunwise. Several rectangular receptacles of earthenware, some with handles and others without them, were obtained in the excavations at Sikyatki. The variations in their forms may be seen in plates CXXVIII, _a, c,_ and CXXV, _f_. These are regarded as medicine bowls, and are supposed to have been used in ancient ceremonials where asperging was performed. In many Tusayan ceremonials square medicine bowls, some of them without handles, are still used,[141] but a more common and evidently more modern variety are round and have handles. The rim of these modern sacred vessels commonly bears, in its four quadrants, terraced elevations representing rain-clouds of the cardinal points, and the outer surface of the bowl is decorated with the same symbols, accompanied with tadpole or dragon-fly designs. One of the best figures of the dragon-fly is seen on the saucer shown in plate CXX, _f_. The exterior of this vessel is decorated with four rectangular terraced rain-cloud symbols, one in each quadrant, and within each there are three well-drawn figures of the dragon-fly. The curved line below represents a rainbow. The terrace form of rain-cloud symbol is very ancient in Tusayan and antedates the well-known semicircular symbol which was introduced into the country by the Patki people. It is still preserved in the form of tablets[142] worn on the head and in sand paintings and various other decorations on altars and religious paraphernalia. BIRDS The bird and the feather far exceed all other motives in the decoration of ancient Tusayan pottery, and the former design was probably the first animal figure employed for that purpose when the art passed out of the stage where simple geometric designs were used exclusively. A somewhat similar predominance is found in the part which the bird and the feather play in the modern Hopi ceremonial system. As one of the oldest elements in the decoration of Tusayan ceramics, figures of birds have in many instances become highly conventionalized; so much so, in fact, that their avian form has been lost, and it is one of the most instructive problems in the study of Hopi decoration to trace the modifications of these designs from the realistic to the more conventionalized. The large series of food bowls from Sikyatki afford abundant material for that purpose, and it may incidentally be said that by this study I have been able to interpret the meaning of certain decorations on Sikyatki bowls of which the best Hopi traditionalists are ignorant.[143] In order to show the method of reasoning in this case I have taken a series illustrating the general form of an unknown bird. There can be no reasonable doubt that the decoration of the food basin shown in plate CXXXVII, _a_, represents a bird, and analogy would indicate that it is the picture of some mythologic personage. It has a round head (figure 272), to which is attached a headdress, which we shall later show is a highly modified feather ornament. On each side of the body from the region of the neck there arise organs which are undoubtedly wings, with feathers continued into arrowpoints. The details of these wings are very carefully and, I may add, prescriptively worked out, so that almost every line, curve, or zigzag is important. The tail is composed of three large feathers, which project beyond two triangular extensions, marking the end of the body. The technic of this figure is exceedingly complicated and the colors very beautiful. Although this bowl was quite badly broken when exhumed, it has been so cleverly mended by Mr Henry Walther that no part of the symbolism is lost. While it is quite apparent that this figure represents a bird, and while this identification is confirmed by Hopi testimony, it is far from a realistic picture of any known bird with which the ancients could have been familiar. It is highly conventionalized and idealized with significant symbolism, which is highly suggestive. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXVIII FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS FROM SIKYATKI] Bearing in mind the picture of this bird, we pass to a second form (plate CXXXVIII, _a_), in which we can trace the same parts without difficulty. On a round head is placed a feathered headdress. The different parts of the outstretched wings are readily homologized even in details in the two figures. There are, for instance, two terminal wing feathers in each wing; the appendages to the shoulder exist in both, and the lateral spurs, exteriorly and interiorly, are represented with slight modifications. [Illustration: FIG. 272--Man-eagle] The body is ornamented in the same way in both figures. It is continued posteriorly on each side into triangular extensions, and the same is true of its anterior, which in one figure has three curved lines, and in the other a simple crook. There are three tail-feathers in each figure. I believe there can be no doubt that both these designs represent the same idea, and that a mythologic bird was intended in each instance. The step in conventionalism from the last-mentioned figure of a bird to the next (plate CXLVII, _a_) is even greater than in the former. The head in this picture is square or rectangular, and the wings likewise simple, ending in three incurved triangles without appendages. The tail has five feathers instead of three, in which, however, the same symbolic markings which distinguish tail-feathers are indicated. The conventionalized wings of this figure are repeated again and again in ancient Tusayan pottery decorations, as one may see by an examination of the various birds shown in the plates. In many instances, however, all the other parts of the bird are lost and nothing but the triangular feathers remain; but as these have the same form, whatever organs are missing, the presumption is that their meaning has not changed. In passing to the figure of the bird shown in plate CXXXVIII, _b_, we find features homologous with those already considered, but also detect considerable modification. The head is elongated, tipped with three parallel lines, but decorated with markings similar to those of the preceding figure. The outstretched wings have a crescentic form, on the anterior horn of which are round spots with parallel lines arising from them. This is a favorite figure in pottery decoration, and is found very abundantly on the exterior of food bowls; it represents highly conventionalized feathers, and should be so interpreted wherever found. The figure of the body of the bird depicted is simple, and the tail is continued into three tail-feathers, as is ordinarily the case in highly conventionalized bird figures. The most instructive of all the appendages to the body are the club-shape bodies, one on each side, rising from the point of union of the wings and the breast. These are spatulate in form, with a terraced terminal marking. They, like other appendages, represent feathers, but that peculiar kind which is found under the wing is called the breath feather.[144] This feather is still used in certain ceremonials, and is tied to certain prayer offerings. Its ancient symbolism is very clearly indicated in this picture, and is markedly different from that of either the wing or tail feathers, which have a totally different ceremonial use at the present time. For convenience of comparison, a number of pictures which undoubtedly refer to different birds in ancient interpretations will be grouped in a single series. Plate CXXXVIII, _d_, represents a figure of a bird showing great relative modification of organs when compared with those previously discussed. The head is very much broadened, but the semicircular markings, which occur also on the heads of previously described bird figures, are well drawn. The wings are mere curved appendages, destitute of feather symbols, but are provided with lateral spurs and have knobs at their bases. The body is rectangular; the tail-feathers are numerous, with well-marked symbolism. Perhaps the most striking appendages to the body are the two well-defined extensions of parts of the body itself, which, although represented in other pictures of birds, nowhere reach such relatively large size. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXXXIX FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS FROM SIKYATKI] The figure of a bird shown in plate CXXXVIII, _c_, is similar in many respects to that last described. The semicircular markings on the head of the former are here replaced by triangles, but both are symbolic of rain-clouds. The wings are curved projections, without any suggestion of feathers or basal spurs and knobs. The tail-feathers show nothing exceptional, and the body is bounded posteriorly by triangular extensions, as in figures of birds already described. The representation of the bird in plate CXXXVIII, _e_, has a triangular body continued into two points on the posterior end, between which the tail-feathers are situated. The body is covered with terraced and triangular designs, and the head is rectangular in form. On each side of the bird figure there is a symbol of a flower, possibly the sunflower or an aster. In the figures of birds already considered the relative sizes of the heads and bodies are not overdrawn, but in the picture of a bird on the food bowl shown in plate CXXXVIII, _f_, the head is very much enlarged. It bears a well-marked terraced rain-cloud symbol above triangles of the same meaning. The wings are represented as diminutive appendages, each consisting of two feathers. The body has a triangular extension on each side, and the tail is composed of two comparatively short rectangular feathers. The figure itself could hardly be identified as a representation of a bird were it not for the correspondence, part for part, with figures which are undoubtedly those of birds or flying animals. A more highly conventionalized figure of a bird than any thus far described is painted on the food bowl reproduced in plate CXL, _b_. The head is represented by a terraced figure similar to those which appear as decorations on some of the other vessels; the wings are simply extended crescents, the tips of which are connected by a band which encircles the body and tail; the body is continued at the posterior end into two triangular appendages, between which is a tail, the feathers of which are not differentiated. On each side of the body, in the space inclosed by the band connecting the tips of the wings, a figure of a dragon-fly appears. The figure on the food bowl illustrated in plate CXXXIX, _c_, may also be reduced to a conventionalized bird symbol. The two pointed objects on the lower rim represent tail-feathers, and the triangular appendages, one on each side above them, the body, as in the designs which have already been described. Above the triangles is a rectangular figure with terraced rain-cloud emblems, a constant feature on the body and head of the bird, and on each side, near the rim of the bowl, occur the primary feathers of the wings. The cross, so frequently associated with designs representing birds, is replaced by the triple intersecting lines in the remaining area. The resemblance of this figure to those already considered is clearly evident after a little study. The decoration on the food basin presented in plate CXXXIX, _a_, is interesting in the study of the evolution of bird designs into conventional forms. In this figure those parts which are identified as homologues of the wings extend wholly across the interior of the food bowl, and have the forms of triangles with smaller triangular spurs at their bases. The wings are extended at right angles to the axis of the body, and taper uniformly to the rim of the bowl. The smaller spurs near the union of the wings and body represent the posterior part of the latter, and between them are the tail-feathers, their number being indicated by three triangles. There is no representation of a head, although the terraced rain-cloud figure is drawn on the anterior of the body between the wings. The reduction of the triangular wings of the last figure to a simple band drawn diametrically across the inner surface of the bowl is accomplished in the design shown in plate CXXXIX, _b_. At intervals along this line there are arranged groups of blocks, three in each group, representing stars, as will later be shown. The semicircular head has lost all appendages and is reduced to a rain-cloud symbol. The posterior angles of the body are much prolonged, and the tail still bears the markings representing three tail-feathers. The association of a cross with the bird figure is both appropriate and common; its modified form in this decoration is not exceptional, but why it is appended to the wings is not wholly clear. We shall see its reappearance on other bowls decorated with more highly conventionalized bird figures. In the peculiar decoration used in the treatment of the food bowl shown in plate CXXXIX, _c_, we have almost a return to geometric figures in a conventional representation of a bird. In this case the semblance to wings is wholly lost in the line drawn diametrically across the interior of the bowl. On one side of it there are many crosses representing stars, and on the other the body and tail of a bird. The posterior triangular extensions of the former are continued to a bounding line of the bowl, and no attempt is made to represent feathers in the tail. The rectangular figure, with serrated lower edge and inclosed terraced figures, finds, however, a homologue in the heads and bodies of most of the representations of birds which have been described. This gradual reduction in semblance to a bird has gone still further in the figure represented in plate CXXXIX, _d_, where the posterior end of the body is represented by two spurs, and the tail by three feathers, the triangular rain-clouds still persisting in the rectangular body. In fact, it can hardly be seen how a more conventionalized figure of a bird were possible did we not find in _e_ of the same plate this reduction still greater. Here the tail is represented by three parallel lines, the posterior of the body by two dentate appendages, and the body itself by a square. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXL FIGURES OF BIRDS FROM SIKYATKI] In plate CXL, _c_, we have a similar conventional bird symbol where two birds, instead of one, are represented. In both these instances it would appear that the diametric band, originally homologous to wings, had lost its former significance. It must also be pointed out that there is a close likeness between some of these so-called conventionalized figures of birds and those of moths or butterflies. If, for instance, they are compared with the figures of the six designs of the upper surface of the vase shown in plate CXXXV, _b_, we note especially this resemblance. While, therefore, it can hardly be said there is absolute proof that these highly conventionalized figures always represent birds, we may, I think, be sure that either the bird or the moth or butterfly is generally intended. There are several modifications of these highly conventionalized figures of birds which may be mentioned, one of the most interesting of which is figured in plate CXXXIX, _f_. In this representation the two posterior triangular extensions of the body are modified into graceful curves, and the tail-feathers are simply parallel lines. The figure in this instance is little more than a trifid appendage to a broad band across the inner surface of the food bowl. In addition to this highly conventionalized bird figure, however, there are two crosses which represent stars. In this decoration all resemblance to a bird is lost, and it is only by following the reduction of parts that one is able to identify this geometric design with the more elaborate pictures of mythic birds. When questioned in regard to the meaning of this symbol, the best informed Hopi priests had no suggestion to offer. In all the figures of birds thus far considered, the head, with one or two exceptions, is represented or indicated by symbolic markings. In that which decorates the vessel shown in plate CXL, _a_, we find a new modification; the wings, instead of being attenuated into a diametric line or band, are in this case curved to form a loose spiral. Between them is the figure of a body and the three tail-feathers, while the triangular extensions which generally indicate the posterior of the body are simply two rounded knobs at the point of union of the wings and tail. There is no indication of a head. The modifications in the figure of the bird shown in the last mentioned pictograph, and the highly conventionalized forms which the wings and other parts assume, give me confidence to venture an interpretation of a strange figure shown in plate CXLI, _a_. This picture I regard as a representation of a bird, and I do so for the following resemblances to figures already studied. The head of the bird, as has been shown, is often replaced by a terraced rain-cloud symbol. Such a figure occurs in the pictograph under consideration, where it occupies the position of the head. On either side of what might be regarded as a body we find, at the anterior end, two curved appendages which so closely resemble similarly placed bodies in the pictograph last discussed that they are regarded as representations of wings. These extensions at the posterior end of the body are readily comparable with prolongations in that part on which we have already commented. The tail, although different from that in figures of birds thus far discussed, has many points of resemblance to them. The two circles, one on each side of the bird figure, are important additions which are treated in following pages.[145] From the study of the conventionalized forms of birds which I have outlined above it is possible to venture the suggestion that the star-shape figure shown in plate CLXVII, _b_, may be referred to the same group, but in this specimen we appear to have duplication, or a representation of the bird symbol repeated in both semicircles of the interior of the bowl. Examining one of these we readily detect the two tail-feathers in the middle, with the triangular end of the body on each side. The lateral appendages duplicated on each side correspond with the band across the middle of the bowl in other specimens, and represent highly conventionalized wings. The middle of this compound figure is decorated with a cross, and in each quadrant there is a row of the same emblems, equidistant from one another. It would be but a short step from this figure to the ancient sun symbol with which the eagle and other raptorial birds are intimately associated. The figure represented in plate CXXXIII, _c_, is a symbolic bird in which the different parts are directly comparable with the other bird pictographs already described. One may easily detect in it the two wings, the semicircular rain-cloud figures, and the three tail-feathers. As in the picture last considered, we see the two circles, each with a concentric smaller circle, one on each side of the mythic bird represented. Similar circular figures are likewise found in the zone surrounding the centrally placed bird picture. In the food bowl illustrated in plate CXLI, _b_, we find the two circles shown, and between them a rectangular pictograph the meaning of which is not clear. The only suggestion which I have in regard to the significance of this object is that it is an example of substitution--the substitution of a prayer offering to the mythic bird represented in the other bowls for a figure of the bird itself. This interpretation, however, is highly speculative, and should be accepted only with limitations. I have sometimes thought that the prayer-stick or paho may originally have represented a bird, and the use of it is an instance of the substitution[146] of a symbolic effigy of a bird, a direct survival of the time when a bird was sacrificed to the deity addressed. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXLI FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXLII VASES, BOWLS, AND LADLE, WITH FIGURES OF FEATHERS, FROM SIKYATKI] The studies of the conventional bird figures which are developed in the preceding pages make it possible to interpret one of the two pictures on the food bowl represented in plate CLII, while the realistic character of the smaller figure leaves no question that we can rightly identify this also as a bird. In the larger figure the wings are of unequal size and are tipped with appendages of a more or less decorative nature. The posterior part of the body is formed of two triangular extensions, to which feathers are suspended, and the tail is composed of three large pointed feathers. The head bears the terraced rain-cloud designs almost universal in pictographs of birds. It is hardly necessary for me to indicate the head, body, wings, and legs of the smaller figure, for they are evidently avian, while the character of the beak would indicate that a parrot or raptorial genus was intended. The same beak is found in the decoration of a vase with a bird design, which will later be considered. From an examination of the various figures of birds on the Sikyatki pottery, and an analysis of the appendages to the wings, body, and legs, it is possible to determine the symbolic markings characteristic of two different kinds of feathers, the large wing or tail feathers and the so-called breath or body feathers. There is therefore no hesitation, when we find an object of pottery ornamented with these symbols, in interpreting them as feathers. Such a bowl is that shown in plate CXLI, _c_, in which we find a curved line to which are appended three breast feathers. This curved band from which they hang may take the form of a circle with two pendent feathers as in plate CXLI, _d_. In the design on the bowl figured in plate CXLI, _e_, tail-feathers hang from a curved band, at each extremity of which is a square design in which the cross is represented. It has been suggested that this represents the feathered rainbow, a peculiar conception of both the Pueblo and the Navaho Indians. The design appearing on the small food bowl represented in plate CXLI, _f_, is no doubt connected in some way with that last mentioned, although the likeness between the appendages to the ring and feathers is remote. It is one of those conventionalized pictures, the interpretation of which, with the scanty data at hand, must be largely theoretical. Figures of feathers are most important features in the decoration of ancient Sikyatki pottery, and their many modifications may readily be seen by an examination of the plates. In modern Tusayan ceremonials the feather is appended to almost all the different objects used in worship; it is essential in the structure of the _tiponi_ or badge of the chief, without which no elaborate ceremony can be performed or altar erected; it adorns the images on the altars, decorates the heads of participants, is prescribed for the prayer-sticks, and is always appended to aspergills, rattles, and whistles. In the performance of certain ceremonials water from sacred springs is used, and this water, sometimes brought from great distances, is kept in small gourd or clay vases, around the necks of which a string with attached feathers is tied. Such a vase is the so-called _patne_ which has been described in a memoir on the Snake ceremonies at Walpi.[147] The artistic tendency of the ancient people of Sikyatki apparently exhibited itself in painting these feathers on the outside of similar small vases. Plate CXLII, _a_, shows one of these vessels, decorated with an elaborate design with four breath-feathers suspended from the equator. (See also figure 273.) On the vases shown in plate CXLII, _b_, _c_, are found figures of tail-feathers arranged in two groups on opposite sides of the rim or orifice. One of these groups has eight, the other seven, figures of these feathers, and on the two remaining quadrants are the star emblems so constantly seen in pottery decorated with bird figures. The upper surface of the vase (figure 274) shows a similar arrangement, although the feathers here are conventionalized into triangular dentations, seven on one side and three on the other, individual dentations alternating with rectangular designs which suggest rain-clouds. This vase (plate CXLIII, _a_, _b_) is also striking in having a well-drawn figure of a bird in profile, the head, wings, tail, and legs suggesting a parrot. The zone of decoration of this vessel, which surrounds the rows of feathers, is strikingly complicated, and comprises rain-cloud, feather, and other designs. [Illustration: FIG. 273--Pendent feather ornaments on a vase.] In a discussion of the significance of the design on the food bowl represented in plate CXXXIX, _a_, _b_, I have shown ample reason for regarding it a figure of a highly conventionalized bird. On the upper surface of the vase (plate CXLIV, _a_, _b_) are four similar designs, representing birds of the four cardinal points, one on each quadrant. The wings are represented by triangular extensions, destitute of appendages but with a rounded body at their point of juncture with the trunk. Each bird has four tail-feathers and rain-cloud symbols on the anterior end of the body. As is the case with the figures on the food basins, there are crosses representing stars near the extended wings. A broad band connects all these birds, and terraced rain-cloud symbols, six in number and arranged in pairs, fill the peripheral sections between them. This vase, although broken, is one of the most beautiful and instructive in the rich collection of Sikyatki ceramics. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXLIII VASE WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXLIV VASE WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXLV VASES WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: FIG. 274--Upper surface of vase with bird decoration] I have not ventured, in the consideration of the manifold pictures of birds on ancient pottery, to offer an interpretation of their probable generic identification. There is no doubt, however, that they represent mythic conceptions, and are emblematic of birds which figured conspicuously in the ancient Hopi Olympus. The modern legends of Tusayan are replete with references to such bird-like beings which play important rôles and which bear evidence of archaic origins. There is, however, one fragment of a food bowl which is adorned with a pictograph so realistic and so true to modern legends of a harpy that I have not hesitated to affix to it the name current in modern Tusayan folklore. This fragment is shown in figure 275. [Illustration: FIG. 275--Kwataka eating an animal] According to modern folklore there once lived in the sky a winged being called Kwataka, or Man-eagle, who sorely troubled the ancients. He was ultimately slain by their War god, the legends of which have elsewhere been published. There is a pictograph of this monster near Walpi,[148] and pictures of him, as he exists in modern conceptions, have been drawn for me by the priests. These agree so closely with the pictograph and with the representation on the potsherd from Sikyatki, that I regard it well-nigh proven that they represent the same personage. The head is round and bears two feathers, while the star emblem appears in the eye. The wing and the stump of a tail are well represented, while the leg has three talons, which can only be those of this monster. He holds in his grasp some animal form which he is represented as eating. Across the body is a kilt, or ancient blanket, with four diagonal figures which are said to represent flint arrowheads. It is a remarkable fact that these latter symbols are practically the same as those used by Nahuatl people for obsidian arrow- or spearpoints. In Hopi lore Kwataka wore a garment of arrowpoints, or, according to some legends, a flint garment, and his wings are said to have been composed of feathers of the same material. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXLVI BOWLS AND POTSHERD WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXLVII FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS, FROM SIKYATKI] From the pose of the figure and the various details of its symbolism there can be little doubt that the ancient Sikyatki artists intended to represent this monster, of which the modern Hopi rarely speak, and then only in awe. Probably several other bird figures likewise represent Kwataka, but in none of these do the symbols conform so closely to legends of this monster which are still repeated in the Tusayan villages. The home of Kwataka is reputed to be in the sky, and consequently figures of him are commonly associated with star and cloud emblems; he is a god of luck or chance, hence it is not exceptional to find figures of gaming implements[149] in certain elaborate figures of this monster. By far the most beautiful of the many food bowls from Sikyatki, and, I believe, the finest piece of prehistoric aboriginal pottery from the United States, is that figured in plate CXLVI, _d_. This remarkable object, found with others in the sands of the necropolis of this pueblo, several feet below the surface, is decorated with a highly conventional figure of a bird in profile, but so modified that it is difficult to determine the different parts. The four appendages to the left represent the tail; the two knobs at the right the head, but the remaining parts are not comprehensible. The delicacy of the detailed crosshatching on the body is astonishing, considering that it was drawn freehand and without pattern. The coloring is bright and the surface glossy. The curved band from which this strange figure hangs is divided into sections by perpendicular incised lines, which are connected by zigzag diagonals. The signification of the figure in the upper part of the bowl is unknown. While this vessel is unique in the character of its decoration, there are others of equal fineness but less perfect in design. Competent students of ceramics have greatly admired this specimen, and so fresh are the colors that some have found it difficult to believe it of ancient aboriginal manufacture. The specimen itself, now on exhibition in the National Museum, gives a better idea of its excellence than any figure which could be made. This specimen, like all the others, is in exactly the same condition as when exhumed, save that it has been wiped with a moist cloth to clean the traces of food from its inner surface. All the pottery found in the same grave is of the finest character, and although no two specimens are alike in decoration, their general resemblances point to the same maker. This fact has been noticed in several instances, although there were many exceptional cases where the coarsest and most rudely painted vessels were associated with the finest and most elaborately decorated ware. The ladle illustrated in plate CXLII, _e_, is one of the most beautiful in the collection. It is decorated with a picture of an unknown animal with a single feather on the head. The eyes are double and the snout continued into a long stick or tube, on which the animal stands. While the appendage to the head is undoubtedly a feather and the animal recalls a bird, I am in doubt as to its true identification. The star emblems on the handle of the ladle are in harmony with known pictures of birds. The feather decoration on the broken ladle shown in plate CXXXI, _f_, is of more than usual interest, although it is not wholly comprehensible. The representations include rain-cloud symbols, birds, feathers, and falling rain. The medially placed design, with four parallel lines arising from a round spot, is interpreted as a feather design, and the two triangular figures, one on each side, are believed to represent birds. The design on the food bowl depicted in plate CXXXI, _e_, is obscure, but in it feather and star symbols predominate. On the inside of the ladle shown in plate CXXXI, _c_, there is a rectangular design with a conventionalized bird at each angle. The reduction of the figure of a bird to head, body, and two or more tail-feathers occurs very constantly in decorations, and in many instances nothing remains save a crook with appended parallel lines representing feathers. Examples of this kind occur on several vessels, of which that shown in plate CXLV, _a_, is an example. [Illustration: FIG. 276--Decoration on the bottom of plate CXLVI, _f_] There are many pictures of birds and feathers where the design has become so conventionalized that it is very difficult to recognize the intention of the decorator. Plate CXLVII, _f_, shows one of these in which the feather motive is prominent and an approximation to a bird form evident. The wings are shown with a symmetric arrangement on the sides of the tail, while the latter member has the three feathers which form so constant a feature in many bird symbols. In _b_ of the same plate there is shown a more elaborated bird figure, also highly modified, yet preserving many of the parts which have been identified in the design last described. The beautiful design shown in plate CXLVI, _e_, represents a large breath feather with triangular appendages on the sides, recalling the posterior end of the body of the bird figures above discussed. The interior of the saucer illustrated in plate CLXVI, _f_, is decorated with feather symbols and four triangles. The remaining figures of this plate have already been considered. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXLVIII FOOD BOWLS WITH SYMBOLS OF FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXLIX FOOD BOWLS WITH SYMBOLS OF FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI] The figures on the vessel shown in plate CLXVII are so arranged that there can be little question of their homologies, and from comparisons it is clear that they should all be regarded as representations of birds. There appears no necessity of discussing figures _a_ and _b_ of the plate in this interpretation. In figure _c_ the center of the design becomes circular, recalling certain sun symbols, and the tail-feathers are readily recognized on one side. I am by no means sure, however, that the lateral terraced appendages at the opposite pole are representations of wings, but such an interpretation can not be regarded as a forced one. Figure _d_ shows the three tail-feathers, lateral appendages suggestive of wings, and a square body with the usual decorations of the body and head of a bird. The design shown in figure _f_ suggests in many ways a sun-bird, and is comparable with those previously studied and illustrated. There is no question of the homologues of tail, head, and wings. The meridional band across the bowl is similar to those already discussed, and its relationship to the head and tail of the bird identical. This design is interpreted as that of one of the numerous birds associated with the sun. The crescentic extension above what is apparently the head occurs in many bird figures and may represent a beak. Many food bowls from Sikyatki are ornamented on their interior with highly conventionalized figures, generally of curved form, in which the feather is predominant. Many of these are shown in plates CXLVIII to CLVII, inclusive, and in studying them I have found it very difficult to interpret the symbolism, although the figures of feathers are easy to find in many of them. While my attempt at decipherment is not regarded as final, it is hoped that it may at least reveal the important place which the feather plays in Tusayan ceramic decoration. Plate CXLVIII, _a_, shows the spiral ornament worn down to its lowest terms, with no hint of the feather appendage, but its likeness in outline to those designs where the feather occurs leads me to introduce it in connection with those in which the feather is more prominent. Figure _b_ of the same plate represents a spiral figure with a bird form at the inner end, and a bundle of tail-feathers at the outer extremity. On this design there is likewise a figure of the dragon-fly and several unknown emblems. Figure _c_ has at one extremity a trifid appendage, recalling a feather ornament on the head of a bird shown in plate CXXXVIII, _a_. Figure _d_ has no conventionalized feather decoration, but the curved line terminates with a triangle. Its signification is unknown to me. For several reasons the design in _e_ reminds me of a bird; it is accompanied by three crosses, which are almost invariably found in connection with bird figures, and at the inner end there is attached a breath feather. This end of the figure is supposed to be the head, as will appear by later comparative studies. The bird form is masked in _f_, but the feather designs are prominent. This bowl is exceptional in having an encircling band broken at two points, one of the components of which is red, the other black. Feather designs are conspicuous in plate CXLIX, _a_, _b_, in the former of which curved incised lines are successfully used. In _c_, however, is found the best example of the use of incised work as an aid in pottery decoration, for in this specimen there are semicircles, and rings with four triangles, straight lines, and circles. The symbolism of the whole figure has eluded analysis. Figure _d_ has no feather symbols, but _e_ may later be reduced to a circle with feathers. The only symbols in the design shown in _f_ which are at all recognizable are the two zigzag figures which may have been intended to represent snakes, lightning, or tadpoles. When the design in plate CL, _a_, is compared with the beautiful bowl shown in plate CXLVI, _d_, a treatment of somewhat similar nature is found. It is believed that both represent birds drawn in profile; the four bands (_a_) are tail-feathers, while the rectangle represents the body and the curved appendage a part of the head. From a similarity to modern figures of a turkey feather, it is possible that the triangle at the end of the curved appendage is the feather of this bird. An examination of _b_ leads to the conclusion that the inner end of the spiral represents a bird's head. Two eyes are represented therein, and from it feathers are appended. The parallel marks on the body are suggestive of similar decorations on the figure of the Plumed Snake painted on the kilts of the Snake priests of Walpi. The star emblems are constant accompaniments of bird designs. Figure _c_ has, in addition to the spiral, the star symbols and what appears to be a flower. The design shown in _d_ is so exceptional that it is here represented with the circular forms. It will be seen that there are well-marked feathers in its composition. Figure _f_ is made up of several bird forms, feathers, rectangles, and triangles, combined in a complicated design, the parts of which may readily be interpreted in the light of what has already been recorded. The significance of the spiral in the design on plate CLI, _a_, is unknown. It is found in several pictures, in some of which it appears to have avian relationship. Figure _b_ of the same plate is a square terraced design appended to the median line, on which symbolic stars are depicted. As in many bird figures, a star is found on the opposite semicircle. There is a remote likeness between this figure and that of the head of the bird shown in plate CXLV, _d_. Plate CLI, _c_, is a compound figure, with four feathers arranged in two pairs at right angles to a median band. The triangular figure associated with them is sometimes found in symbols of the sun. Figure _d_ is undoubtedly a bird symbol, as may be seen by a comparison of it with the bird figures shown in plate CXXXVIII, _a-f_. There are two tail-feathers, two outstretched wings, and a head which is rectangular, with terraced designs. The cross is triple, and occupies the opposite segment, which is finely spattered with pigment. This trifid cross represents a game played by the Hopi with reeds and is depicted on many objects of pottery. As representations of it sometimes accompany those of birds I am led to interpret the figure (plate CLVII, _c_) as that of a bird, which it somewhat resembles. The two designs shown in plate CLI, _e_, _f_, are believed to be decorative, or, if symbolic, they have been so worn by the constant use of the vessel that it is impossible to determine their meaning by comparative methods. Both of these figures show the "line of life" in a somewhat better way than any yet considered. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CL FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLI FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI] In plate CLII, _a_, is shown a compound figure of doubtful significance, made up of a series of crescents, triangles, and spirals, which, in _c_, are more compactly joined together, and accompanied by three parallel lines crossing three other lines. The curved figure shown in _b_ represents three feathers; a large one on each side, inclosing a medially smaller member. In _d_ is shown the spiral bird form with appended feathers, triangles, and terraced figures. Figure _f_ of this plate is decorated with a design which bears many resemblances to a flower, the peripheral appendages resembling bracts of a sunflower. A somewhat similar design is painted on the side of the helmets of some _katcina_ dancers, where the bracts or petals are colored in sequence, with the pigments corresponding to the six directions--north, west, south, east, above, and below. In the decoration on the ancient Sikyatki bowl we find seven peripheral bracts, one of which is speckled. The six groups of stamens(?) are represented between the triangular bracts. The designs shown in plates CLIII to CLV, inclusive, still preserve the spiral form with attached feathers, some of them being greatly conventionalized or differentiated. In the first of these plates (figure _b_) is represented a bird form with triangular head with four feathers arranged in fan shape. These feathers are different from any which I have been able to find attached to the bodies of birds, and are thus identified from morphological rather than from other reasons. The body of the conventionalized bird is decorated with terraced figures, spirals, flowers, and other designs arranged in a highly complicated manner. From a bar connecting the spiral with the encircling line there arises a tuft of feathers. Figure _a_ of the same plate is characterized by a medially placed triangle and a graceful pendant from which hangs seven feathers. In this instance these structures take the form of triangles and pairs of lines. The relation of these structures to feathers would appear highly speculative, but they have been so interpreted for the following reason: If we compare them with the appendages represented in the design on the vase shown in CXLIII, _b_, we find them the same in number, form, and arrangement; the triangles in the design on this vase are directly comparable with the figures in plate CXLIII, _b_, in the same position, which are undoubtedly feathers, as has been shown in the discussion of this figure. Consequently, although the triangles on the pendant in plate CLIII, _a_, appear at first glance to have no relation to the prescribed feather symbol, morphology shows their true interpretation. The reduction of the wing feather to a simple triangular figure is likewise shown in several other pictures on food vessels, notably in the figure, undoubtedly of a bird, represented in plate CXLVI, _a_. In the two figures forming plate CLIV are found simple bird symbols and feather designs very much conventionalized. The same is true of the two figures given in plate CLV. The vessels illustrated in plate CLVI, _a_, _b_, are decorated with designs of unknown meaning, save that the latter recalls the modification of the feather into long triangular forms. On the outer surface this bowl has a row of tadpoles encircling it in a sinistral direction, or with the center of the bowl on the left. The design of figure _c_ shows a bird's head in profile, with a crest of feathers and with the two eyes on one side of the head and a necklace. The triangular figure bears the symbolism of the turkey feather, as at present designated in Tusayan altar paraphernalia. As with other bird figures, there is a representation in red of the triple star. Figure _d_ is the only specimen of a vessel in the conventional form of a bird which was found at Sikyatki; it evidently formerly had a handle. The vessel itself is globular, and the form of the bird is intensified by the designs on its surface. The bird's head is turned to the observer, and the row of triangles represent wing feathers. The signification of the designs on _e_ and _f_ is unknown to me. Figures _e_ and _f_ of plate CLVI are avian decorations, reduced in the case of the former to geometric forms. The triangular figure is a marked feature in the latter design. The designs represented in plate CLVII are aberrant bird forms. Of these _a_ and _b_ are the simplest and _c_ one of the most complicated. Figure _d_ is interpreted as a double bird, or twins with a common head and tails pointing in opposite directions. Figure _e_ shows a bird in profile with one wing, furnished with triangular feathers, extended. There is some doubt about the identification of _f_ as a bird, but there is no question that the wing, tail, and breath feathers are represented in it. Of the last mentioned there are three, shown by the notch, colored black at their extremities. VEGETAL DESIGNS Inasmuch as they so readily lend themselves as a motive of decoration, it is remarkable that the ancient Hopi seem to have used plants and their various organs so sparingly in their pottery painting. Elsewhere, especially among modern Pueblos, this is not the case, and while plants, flowers, and leaves are not among the common designs on modern Tusayan ware, they are often employed. It would appear that the corn plant or fruit would be found among other designs, especially as corn plays a highly symbolic part in mythic conceptions, but we fail to find it used as a decoration on any ancient vessel. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLII FOOD BOWLS WITH BIRD, FEATHER, AND FLOWER SYMBOLS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLIII FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI] In a figure previously described, a flower, evidently an aster or sunflower, appears with a butterfly, and in the bowl shown in plate CXXXIV, _e_, we have a similar design. This figure evidently represents the sunflower, the seeds of which were ground and eaten in ancient times. The plant apparently is represented as growing from the earth and is surrounded by a broad band of red in rudely circular form. The totem of the earth today among the Hopi is a circle; possibly it was the same among the ancients, in which case the horizon may have been represented by the red encircling band, which is accompanied by the crook and the emblem of rain. The petals are represented by a row of dots and no leaves are shown. From the kinship of the ancient accolents of Sikyatki with the Flute people, it is to be expected that in their designs figures of asters or sunflowers would appear, for these plants play a not inconspicuous rôle in the ritual of this society which has survived to modern times. THE SUN Sun worship plays a most important part in modern Tusayan ritual, and the symbol of the sun in modern pictography can not be mistaken for any other. It is a circle with radiating feathers on the periphery and ordinarily with four lines arranged in quaternary groups. The face of the sun is indicated by triangles on the forehead, two slits for eyes, and a double triangle for the mouth. This symbol, however, is not always used as that of the sun, for in the Oraibi _Powalawû_ there is an altar in which a sand picture of the sun has the form of a four-pointed star. The former of these sun symbols is not found on Sikyatki pottery, but there is one picture which closely resembles the latter. This occurs on the bowl illustrated in plate CLXI, _c_. The main design is a four-pointed star, alternating with crosses and surrounded by a zone in which are rectangular blocks. While the identification may be fanciful, its resemblances are highly suggestive. The existence of a double triangle adjacent to this figure on the same bowl, and its likeness to the modern mouth-design of sun pictures, appears to be more than a coincidence, and is so regarded in this identification. In the design shown in plate CLVIII, _a_, one of the elaborate ancient sun figures is represented. As in modern symbols, the tail-feathers of the periphery of the disk are arranged in the four quadrants, and in addition there are appended to the same points curved figures which recall the objects, identified as stringed feathers, attached to the blanket of the maid (plate CXXIX, _a_). The design on the disk is different from that of any sun emblem known to me, and escapes my interpretation. I have used the distribution of the feathers on the four quadrants as an indication that this figure is a sun symbol, although it must be confessed this evidence is not so strong as might be wished. The triangles at the sides of two feathers indicate that a tail-feather is intended, and for the correlated facts supporting this conclusion the reader is referred to the description of the vessels shown in plate CXXXVIII. It would appear that there is even more probability that the picture on the bowl illustrated in plate CLVIII, _b_, is a sun symbol. It represents a disk with tail and wing feathers arranged on the periphery in four groups. This recalls the sun emblems used in Tusayan at the present time, although the face of the sun is not represented on this specimen. There is a still closer approximation to the modern symbol of the sun on a bowl in a private collection from Sikyatki. In plate CLVIII, _c_, the sun's disk is represented with the four clusters of feathers replaced by the extremities of the bodies of four birds, the tail-feathers, for some unknown reason, being omitted. The design on the disk is highly symbolic, and the only modern sun symbol found in it are the triangles, which form the mouth of the face of the sun in modern Hopi symbolism. One of the most aberrant pictures of the sun, which I think can be identified with probability, is shown in the design on the specimen illustrated in plate CXXXIV, _b_. The reasons which have led me to this identification may briefly be stated as follows: Among the many supernaturals with which modern Hopi mythology is replete is one called Calako-taka, or the male Calako. In legends he is the husband of the two Corn-maids of like name. The ceremonials connected with this being occur in Sichomovi in July, when four giant personifications enter the village as have been described in a former memoir. The heads of these giants are provided with two curved horns, between which is a crest of eagle tail-feathers. Two of these giants, under another name, but with the same symbolism, are depicted on the altars of the _katcinas_ at Walpi and Mishoñinovi, where they represent the sun. A chief personifying the same supernatural flogs children when they are initiated into the knowledge of the _katcinas_. The figure on the bowl under discussion has many points of resemblance to the symbolism of this personage as depicted on the altars mentioned. The head has two horns, one on each side, with a crest, apparently of feathers, between them. The eyes and mouth are represented, and on the body there is a four-pointed cross. The meaning of the remaining appendages is unknown, but the likenesses to Calako-taka[150] symbolism are noteworthy and important. The figure on the food bowl illustrated in plate CXXXIV, _c_, is likewise regarded as a sun emblem. The disk is represented by a ring in the center, to which feathers are appended. The triangle, which is still a sun symbol, is shown below a band across the bowl. This band is decorated with highly conventionalized feathers. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLIV FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLV FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLVI FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI] It may be added that in this figure we have probably the most aberrant sun-symbol yet recognized, and on that account there is a possibility that the validity of my identification is more or less doubtful. The three designs shown in plate CLVIII, _c_, _d_, _e_, evidently belong in association with sun or star symbols, but it is hardly legitimate to definitely declare that such an interpretation can be demonstrated. The modern Tusayan Indians declare that the equal-arm cross is a symbol of the "Heart of the Sky" god, which, from my studies of the effigies of this personage on various altars, I have good reason to identify with the lightning. GEOMETRIC FIGURES INTERPRETATION OF THE FIGURES Most of the pottery from Sikyatki is ornamented with geometric designs and linear figures, the import of many of which are unknown. Two extreme views are current in regard to the significance of these designs. To one school everything is symbolic of something or some religious conception; to the other the majority are meaningless save as decorations. I find the middle path the more conservative, and while regarding many of the designs as highly conventionalized symbols, believe that there are also many where the decorator had no thought of symbolism. I have ventured an explanation of a few of the former. Terraced figures are among the most common rectangular elements in Pueblo ceramic decorations. These designs bear so close a likeness to the modern rain-cloud symbol that they probably may all be referred to this category. Their arrangement on a bowl or jar is often of such a nature as to impart very different patterns. Thus terraced figures placed in opposition to each other may leave zigzag spaces suggesting lightning, but such forms can hardly be regarded as designed for symbols. Rectangular patterns (plates CLXII-CLXV) are more ancient in the evolution of designs on Tusayan pottery than curved geometric figures, and far outnumber them in the most ancient specimens; but there has been no epoch in the development reaching to modern times when they have been superseded. While there are many specimens of Sikyatki pottery of the type decorated with geometric figures, which bear ornamentations of simple and complex terraced forms, the majority placed in this type are not reducible to stepped or terraced designs, but are modified straight lines, bars, crosshatching, and the like. In older Pueblo pottery the relative proportion of terraced figures is even less, which would appear to indicate that basket-ware patterns were secondary rather than primary decorative forms. By far the largest element in ancient Tusayan pottery decoration must be regarded as simple geometric lines, triangles, spirals, curves, crosshatching, and the like, some of which are no doubt symbolic, others purely decorative (plate CLXVI). In the evolution of design I am inclined to believe that this was the simplest form, and I find it the most constant in the oldest ware. Rectangular figures are regarded as older than circular figures, and they possibly preceded the latter in evolution, but in many instances both are forms of reversion, highly conventionalized representations of more elaborate figures. Circles and crosses are sometimes combined, the former modified into a wavy line surrounding the latter, as in plate CLIX, _c_, _d_, where there is a suggestion (_d_) of a sun emblem. CROSSES A large number of food bowls are decorated with simple or elaborate crosses, stars, and like patterns. Simple crosses with arms of equal length appear on the vessels shown in plate CLIX, _c_, _d_. There are many similar crosses, subordinate to the main design, in various bowls, especially those decorated with figures of birds and sky deities. Plate CLX, _a_, exhibits a cruciform design, to the extremities of three arms of which bird figures are attached. In this design there are likewise two sunflower symbols. The modified cross figure in _b_ of the same plate, like that just mentioned, suggests a swastica, but fails to be one, and unless the complicated design in figure _c_ may be so interpreted, no swastica was found at Sikyatki or Awatobi. Plate CLX, _d_, shows another form of cross, two arms of which are modified into triangles. On the opening of the great ceremony called _Powamû_ or "Bean-planting," which occurs in February in the modern Tusayan villages, there occurs a ceremony about a sand picture of the sun which is called _Powalawû_. The object of this rite is the fructification of all seeds known to the Hopi. The sand picture of the sun which is made at that time is in its essentials identical with the design on the food bowl illustrated in plate CLXI, _c_; consequently it is possible that this star emblem represents the sun, and the occurrence of the eight triangles in the rim, replaced in the modern altar by four concentric bands of differently colored sands, adds weight to this conclusion. The twin triangles outside the main figure are identical with those in the mouth of modern sun emblems. These same twin triangles are arranged in lines which cross at right angles in plate CLXI, _d_, but from their resemblance to figure _b_ they possibly have a different meaning. The most complicated of all the star-shape figures, like the simplest, takes us to sun emblems, and it seems probable that there is a relationship between the two. Plate CLXI, _f_, represents four bundles of feathers arranged in quadrants about a rectangular center. These feathers vary in form and arrangement, and the angles between them are occupied by horn-shape bodies, two of which have highly complicated extremities recalling conventionalized birds. [Illustration: BUREAU Of AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLVII FIGURES OF BIRDS AND FEATHERS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLVIII FOOD BOWLS WITH FIGURES OF SUN AND RELATED SYMBOLS FROM SIKYATKI] A large number of crosses are represented in plate CLXII, _d_, in which the remaining semicircle is filled with a tessellated pattern. A spiral line with round spots at intervals adorns the specimen shown in plate CLXI, _a_. Parallel lines with similar spots appear on the vessel illustrated in plate CLXII, _e_, and a network of the same is shown in _f_ of the same plate. Plate CLXVII, _b_, represents a compound star. While simple swasticas are not found on any of the Sikyatki pottery, modified and compound forms are well represented. There are several specimens of figures of the Maltese cross, and one closely approximating the Saint Andrew's cross. It is scarcely necessary to say that the presence of the various kinds of crosses do not necessarily indicate the influence of Semitic or Aryan races, for I have already shown[151] that even cross-shape prayer-sticks were in use among the Pueblos when Coronado first visited them. TERRACED FIGURES Among the most common of all geometric designs on ancient Tusayan pottery none excel in variety or number those which I place in the above group. They form the major part of all decoration, and there is hardly a score of ornamented vessels in which they can not be detected. In a typical form they appear as stepped designs, rectangular figures with diagonals continuous, or as triangular designs with steps represented along their sides. While it is probable that in some instances these figures are simply decorative, with no attempt at symbolism, in other cases without doubt they symbolize rain-clouds, and the same figures are still used with similar intent in modern ceremonial paraphernalia--altars, mask-tablets, and the like. Decorative modifications of this figure were no doubt adopted by artistic potters, thus giving varieties where the essential meaning has been much obscured or lost. THE CROOK Among the forms of geometric designs on ancient Tusayan pottery there are many jars, bowls, and other objects on which a crook, variously modified, is the essential type. This figure is so constant that it must have had a symbolic as well as a decorative meaning. The crook plays an important part in the modern ritual, and is prominent on many Tusayan altars. Around the sand picture of the rain-cloud, for example, we find a row of wooden rods with curved ends, and in the public Snake dance these are carried by participants called the Antelopes. A crook in the form of a staff to which an ear of corn and several feathers are attached is borne by _katcinas_ or masked participants in certain rain dances. It is held in the hand by a personage who flogs the children when they are initiated into certain religious societies. Many other instances might be mentioned in which this crozier-like object is carried by important personages. While it is not entirely clear to me that in all instances this crook is a badge of authority, in some cases it undoubtedly represents the standing of the bearer. There are, likewise, prayer offerings in the form of crooks, and even common forms of prayer-sticks have miniature curved sticks attached to them. Some of the warrior societies are said to make offerings in the form of a crook, and a stick of similar form is associated with the gods of war. There is little doubt that some of the crook-form decorations on ancient vessels may have been used as symbols with the same intent as the sticks referred to above. The majority of the figures of this shape elude interpretation. Many of them have probably no definite meaning, but are simply an effective motive of decoration. In some instances the figure of the crook on old pottery is a symbol of a prayer offering of a warrior society, made in the form of an ancient weapon, allied to a bow. THE GERMINATIVE SYMBOL The ordinary symbol of germination, a median projection with lateral extensions at the base (plate CXLIX, _e_), occurs among the figures on this ancient pottery. In its simplest form, a median line with a triangle on each side attached to one end, it is a phallic emblem. When this median line becomes oval, and the triangles elongated and curved at the ends, it represents the ordinary squash symbol,[152] also used as an emblem of fertility. The triangle is also an emblem of germination and of fecundity--the female, as the previously mentioned principle represents the male. The geometric designs on the ancient Sikyatki ware abundantly illustrate both these forms. BROKEN LINES In examining the simple encircling bands of many of the food bowls, jars, and other ceramic objects, it will be noticed that they are not continuous, but that there is a break at one point, and this break is usually limited to one point in all the specimens. Various explanations of the meaning of this failure to complete the band have been suggested, and it is a remarkable fact that it is one of the most widely extended characteristics of ancient pottery decoration in the whole Pueblo area, including the Salado and Gila basins. While in the specimens from Sikyatki the break is simple and confined to one point, in those from other regions we find two or three similar failures in the continuity of encircling lines, and in some instances the lines at the point of separation are modified into spirals, terraces, and other forms of geometric figures. In the more complex figures we find the most intricate variations, which depart so widely from the simple forms that their resemblances are somewhat difficult to follow. A brief consideration of these modifications may aid toward an understanding of the character of certain geometric ornamental motives. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLIX CROSS AND RELATED DESIGNS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLX CROSS AND OTHER SYMBOLS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXI STAR, SUN, AND RELATED SYMBOLS FROM SIKYATKI] If any of the interlocking spirals on bowls or vases are traced, it is found that they do not join at the center of the figure. The same is true when these spirals become frets. There is always a break in the network which they form. This break is comparable with the hiatus on encircling bands and probably admits of the same interpretation. In a simple form this motive appears as two crescents or two key patterns with the ends overlapping. This simple ornament, called the friendship sign, is commonly used in the decoration of the bodies of _katcinas_, and has been likened to the interlocking of fingers or hands of the participants in certain dances, the fingers half retracted with inner surfaces approximated, the palms of the hands facing in opposite directions and the wrists at opposite points. If the points be extended into an elaborate key pattern or curved into extended spirals, a complicated figure is produced in which the separation is less conspicuous although always present. The same points may be modified into terraced figures, the separation then appearing as a zigzag line drawn across the figure, or they may have interlocking dentate or serrate prolongations imparting a variety of forms to the interval between them.[153] In order to trace out these modifications it would be necessary to specify each individual case, but I think that is unnecessary. In other words, the broken line appears to be a characteristic not only of simple encircling bands, but also of all geometric figures in which highly complicated designs extend about the periphery of a utensil. DECORATIONS ON THE EXTERIOR OF FOOD BOWLS The decorations on the exterior of the ancient food bowls are in most instances very characteristic and sometimes artistic. Generally they reproduce patterns which are found on the outside of vases and jars and sometimes have a distant relationship to the designs in the interior of the bowl upon which they occur. Usually these external decorations are found only on one side, and in that respect they differ from the modern food bowls, in which nothing similar to them appears. The characteristics of the external decorations of food bowls are symbolic, mostly geometric, square or rectangular, triangular or stepped figures; curved lines and spirals rarely if ever occur, and human or animal figures are unknown in this position in Sikyatki pottery; the geometric figures can be reduced to a few patterns of marked simplicity. It is apparent that I can best discuss the variety of geometric designs by considering these external decorations of food vessels at length. From the fact that they are limited to one side, the design is less complicated by repetition and seems practically the same as the more typical forms. It is rarely that two of these designs are found to be exactly the same, and as there appears to be no duplication a classification of them is difficult. Each potter seems to have decorated her ware without regard to the work of her contemporaries, using simple designs but combining them in original ways. Hence the great variety found even in the grave of the same woman, whose handiwork was buried with her. As, however, the art of the potter degenerated, as it has in later times, the patterns became more alike, so that modern Tusayan decorated earthenware has little variety in ornamentation and no originality in design. Every potter uses the same figures. [Illustration: FIG. 277--Oblique parallel line decoration] [Illustration: FIG. 278--Parallel lines fused at one point] [Illustration: FIG. 279--Parallel lines with zigzag arrangement] The simplest form of decoration on the exterior of a food bowl is a band encircling it. This line may be complete or it may be broken at one point. The next more complicated geometric decoration is a double or multiple band, which, however, does not occur in any of the specimens from Sikyatki. The breaking up of this multiple band into parallel bars is shown in figure 277. These bars generally have a quadruple arrangement, and are horizontal, vertical, or, as in the illustration, inclined at an angle. They are often found on the lips of the bowls and in a similar position on jars, dippers, and vases. The parallel lines shown in figure 278 are seven in number, and do not encircle the bowl. They are joined by a broad connecting band near one extremity. The number of parallel bands in this decoration is highly suggestive. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXII GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTATION FROM SIKYATKI] Four parallel bands encircle the bowl shown in figure 279, but they are so modified in their course as to form a number of trapezoidal figures placed with alternating sides parallel. This interesting pattern is found only on one vessel. The use of simple parallel bars, arranged at equal intervals on the outside of food bowls, is not confined to these vessels, for they occur on the margin of vases, cups, and dippers. They likewise occur on ladle handles, where they are arranged in alternate transverse and longitudinal clusters. [Illustration: FIG. 280--Parallel lines connected by middle bar.] The combination of two vertical bands connected by a horizontal band, forming the letter H, is an ornamental design frequently occurring on the finest Hopi ware. Figure 280 shows such an H form, which is ordinarily repeated four times about the bowl. [Illustration: FIG. 281--Parallel lines of different width; serrate margin] The interval between the parallel bands around the vessel may be very much reduced in size, and some of the bands may be of different width, or otherwise modified. Such a deviation is seen in figure 281, which has three bands, one of which is broad with straight edges, the other with serrate margin and hook-like appendages. [Illustration: FIG. 282--Parallel lines of different width; median serrate] [Illustration: FIG. 283--Parallel lines of different width; marginal serrate] In figure 282 eight bands are shown, the marginal broad with edges entire, and the median pair serrated, the long teeth fitting each other in such a way as to impart a zigzag effect to the space which separates them. The remaining four lines, two on each side, appear as black bands on a white ground. It will be noticed that an attempt was made to relieve the monotony of the middle band of figure 282 by the introduction of a white line in zigzag form. A similar result was accomplished in the design shown in figure 283 by rectangles and dots. [Illustration: FIG. 284--Parallel lines and triangles] The modification of the multiple bands in figure 283 has produced a very different decorative form. This design is composed of five bands, the marginal on each side serrate, and the middle band relatively very broad, with diagonals, each containing four round dots regularly arranged. In figure 284 there are many parallel, noncontinuous bands of different breadth, arranged in groups separated by triangles with sides parallel, and the whole united by bounding lines. This is the most complicated form of design where straight lines only are used. [Illustration: FIG. 285--Line with alternate triangles] We have thus far considered modifications brought about by fusion and other changes in simple parallel lines. They may be confined to one side of the food bowl, may repeat each other at intervals, or surround the whole vessel. Ordinarily, however, they are confined to one side of the bowls from Sikyatki. [Illustration: FIG. 286--Single line with alternate spurs] [Illustration: FIG. 287--Single line with hourglass figures] Returning to the single encircling band, it is found, in figure 285, broken up into alternating equilateral triangles, each pair united at their right angles. This modification is carried still further in figure 286, where the triangles on each side of the single line are prolonged into oblique spurs, the pairs separated a short distance from each other. In figure 287 there is shown still another arrangement of these triangular decorations, the pairs forming hourglass-shape figures connected by an encircling line passing through their points of junction. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXIII FOOD BOWLS WITH GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTATION FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: FIG. 288--Single line with triangles] [Illustration: FIG. 289--Single line with alternate triangles and ovals] [Illustration: FIG. 290--Triangles and quadrilaterals] [Illustration: FIG. 291--Triangle with spurs] In figure 288 the double triangles, one on each side of the encircling band, are so placed that their line of separation is lost, and a single triangle replaces the pair. These are connected by the line surrounding the bowl and there is a dot at the smallest angle. In figure 289 there is a similar design, except that alternating with each triangle, which bears more decoration than that shown in figure 288, there are hourglass figures composed of ovals and triangles. The dots at the apex of that design are replaced by short parallel lines of varying width. The triangles and ovals last considered are arranged symmetrically in relation to a simple band. By a reduction in the intervening spaces these triangles may be brought together and the line disappears. I have found no specimen of design illustrating the simplest form of the resultant motive, but that shown in figure 290 is a new combination comparable with it. The simple triangular decorative design reaches a high degree of complication in figure 290, where a connecting line is absent, and two triangles having their smallest angles facing each other are separated by a lozenge shape figure made up of many parallel lines placed obliquely to the axis of the design. The central part is composed of seven parallel lines, the marginal of which, on two opposite sides, is minutely dentate. The median band is very broad and is relieved by two wavy white lines. The axis of the design on each side is continued into two triangular spurs, rising from a rectangle in the middle of each triangle. This complicated design is the highest development reached by the use of simple triangles. In figure 291, however, we have a simpler form of triangular decoration, in which no element other than the rectangle is employed. In the chaste decoration seen in figure 292 the use of the rectangle is shown combined with the triangle on a simple encircling band. This design is reducible to that shown in figure 290, but is simpler, yet not less effective. In figure 293 there is an aberrant form of design in which the triangle is used in combination with parallel and oblique bands. This form, while one of the simplest in its elements, is effective and characteristic. The triangle predominates in figure 294, but the details are worked out in rectangular patterns, producing the terraced designs so common in all Pueblo decorations. Rectangular figures are more commonly used than the triangular in the decoration of the exterior of the bowls, and their many combinations are often very perplexing to analyze. [Illustration: FIG. 292--Rectangle with single line] [Illustration: FIG. 293--Double triangle; multiple lines] [Illustration: FIG. 294--Double triangle; terraced edges] [Illustration: FIG. 295--Single line; closed fret] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXIV FOOD BOWLS WITH GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTATION FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: FIG. 296--Single line; open fret] [Illustration: FIG. 297--Single line; broken fret] [Illustration: FIG. 298--Single line; parts displaced] In figure 295, starting with the simple encircling band, it is found divided into alternating rectangles. The line is continuous, and hence one side of each rectangle is not complete. Both this design and its modification in figure 296 consist of an unbroken line of equal breadth throughout. In the latter figure, however, the openings in the sides are larger or the approach to a straight line closer. The forms are strictly rectangular, with no additional elements. Figure 297 introduces an important modification of the rectangular motive, consisting of a succession of lines broken at intervals, but when joined are always arranged at right angles. [Illustration: FIG. 299--Open fret; attachment displaced] [Illustration: FIG. 300--Simple rectangular design] Possibly the least complex form of rectangular ornamentation, next to a simple bar or square, is the combination shown in figure 298, a type in which many changes are made in interior as well as in exterior decorations of Pueblo ware. One of these is shown in figure 299, where the figure about the vessel is continuous. An analysis of the elements in figure 300 shows squares united at their angles, like the last, but that in addition to parallel bands connecting adjacent figures there are two marginal lines uniting the series. Each of the inner parallel lines is bound to a marginal on the opposite side by a band at right angles to it. The marginal lines are unbroken through the length of the figure. Like the last, this motive also may be regarded as developed from a single line. [Illustration: FIG. 301--Rectangular reversed S-form] [Illustration: FIG. 302--Rectangular S-form with crooks] Figures 301 and 302 are even simpler than the design shown in figure 300, with appended square key patterns, all preserving rectangular forms and destitute of all others. They are of S-form, and differ more especially in the character of their appendages. [Illustration: FIG. 303--Rectangular S-form with triangles] [Illustration: FIG. 304--Rectangular S-form with terraced triangles] While the same rectangular idea predominates in figure 303, it is worked out with the introduction of triangles and quadrilateral designs. This fairly compound pattern, however, is still classified among rectangular forms. A combination of rectangular and triangular geometric designs, in which, however, the former predominate, is shown in figure 304, which can readily be reduced to certain of those forms already mentioned. The triangles appear to be subordinated to the rectangles, and even they are fringed on their longer sides with terraced forms. It may be said that there are but two elements involved, the rectangle and the triangle. [Illustration: FIG. 305--S-form with interdigitating spurs] The decoration in figure 305 consists of rectangular and triangular figures, the latter so closely approximated as to leave zigzag lines in white. These lines are simply highly modified breaks in bands which join in other designs, and lead by comparison to the so-called "line of life" which many of these figures illustrate. [Illustration: FIG. 306--Square with rectangles and parallel lines] [Illustration: FIG. 307--Rectangles, triangles, stars, and feathers] The distinctive feature of figure 306 is the square, with rectangular designs appended to diagonally opposite angles and small triangles at intermediate corners. These designs have a distant resemblance to figures later referred to as highly conventionalized birds, although they may be merely simple geometrical patterns which have lost their symbolic meaning. [Illustration: FIG. 308--Crook, feathers, and parallel lines] Figure 307 shows a complicated design, introducing at least two elements in addition to rectangles and triangles. One of these is a curved crook etched on a black ground. In no other exterior decoration have curved lines been found except in the form of circles, and it is worthy of note how large a proportion of the figures are drawn in straight lines. The circular figures with three parallel lines extending from them are found so constantly in exterior decorations, and are so strikingly like some of the figures elsewhere discussed, that I have ventured a suggestion in regard to their meaning. I believe they represent feathers, because the tail-feathers of certain birds are symbolized in that manner, and their number corresponds with those generally depicted in the highly conventionalized tails of birds. With this thought in mind, it may be interesting to compare the two projections, one on each side of the three tail-feathers of this figure, with the extremity of the body of a bird shown in plate CXLI, _e_. On the supposition that a bird figure was intended in this design, it is interesting also to note the rectangular decorations of the body and the association with stars made of three blocks in several bird figures, as already described. It is instructive also to note the fact that the figure of a maid represented in plate CXXIX, _a_, has two of the round designs with appended parallel lines hanging to her garment, and four parallel marks drawn from her blanket. It is still customary in Hopi ceremonials to tie feathers to the garments of those who personate certain mythic beings, and it is possible that such was also the custom at Sikyatki. If so, it affords additional evidence that the parallel lines are representations of feathers. [Illustration: FIG. 309--Crooks and feathers] [Illustration: FIG. 310--Rectangle, triangles, and feathers] [Illustration: FIG. 311--Terraced crook, triangle, and feathers] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXV FOOD BOWLS WITH GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTATION FROM SIKYATKI] In figure 308 a number of these parallel lines are represented, and the general character of the design is rectangular. In figure 309 is shown a combination of rectangular and triangular figures with three tapering points and circles with lines at their tips radiating instead of parallel. Another modification is shown in figure 310 in which the triangle predominates, and figure 311 evidently represents one-half of a similar device with modifications. [Illustration: FIG. 312--Double key] [Illustration: FIG. 313--Triangular terrace] One of the most common designs on ancient pottery is the stepped figure, a rectangular ornamentation, modifications of which are shown in figures 312-314. This is a very common design on the interior of food vessels, where it is commonly interpreted as a rain-cloud symbol. [Illustration: FIG. 314--Crook, serrate end] Of all patterns on ancient Tusayan ware, that of the terrace figures most closely resemble the geometrical ornamentation of cliff-house pottery, and there seems every reason to suppose that this form of design admits of a like interpretation. The evolution of this pattern from plaited basketry has been ably discussed by Holmes and Nordenskiöld, whose works have already been quoted in this memoir. The terraced forms from the exterior of food bowls here considered are highly aberrent; they may be forms of survivals, motives of decoration which have persisted from very early times. Whatever the origin of the stepped figure in Pueblo art was, it is well to remember, as shown by Holmes, that it is "impossible to show that any particular design of the highly constituted kind was desired through a certain identifiable series of progressive steps." [Illustration: FIG. 315--Key pattern; rectangle and triangles] [Illustration: FIG. 316--Rectangle and crook] For some unknown reason the majority of the simple designs on the exterior of food bowls from Tusayan are rectangular, triangular, or linear in their character. Many can be reduced to simple or multiple lines. Others were suggested by plaited ware. [Illustration: FIG. 317--Crook and tail feathers] In figure 312 is found one of the simplest of rectangular designs, a simple band, key pattern in form, at one end, with a reentrant square depression at the opposite extremity. In figure 313 is an equally simple terrace pattern with stepped figures at the ends and in the middle. These forms are common decorative elements on the exterior of jars and vases, where they occur in many combinations, all of which are reducible to these types. The simplest form of the key pattern is shown in figure 314, and in figure 315 there is a second modification of the same design a little more complicated. This becomes somewhat changed in figure 316, not only by the modifications of the two extremities, but also by the addition of a median geometric figure. [Illustration: FIG. 318--Rectangle, triangle, and serrate spurs] [Illustration: FIG. 319--W-pattern; terminal crooks] [Illustration: FIG. 320--W-pattern; terminal rectangles] The design in figure 317 is rectangular, showing a key pattern at one end, with two long feathers at the opposite extremity. The five bodies on the same end of the figure are unique and comparable with conventionalized star emblems. The series of designs in the upper left-hand end of this figure are unlike any which have yet been found on the exterior of food bowls, but are similar to designs which have elsewhere been interpreted as feathers. On the hypothesis that these two parts of the figure are tail-feathers, we find in the crook the analogue of the head of a bird. Thus the designs on the equator of the vase (plate CXLV, _a_), which are birds, have the same crook for the head, and two simple tail-feathers, rudely drawn but comparable with the two in figure 317. The five dentate bodies on the lower left-hand end of the figure also tell in favor of the avian character of the design, for the following reason: These bodies are often found accompanying figures of conventionalized birds (plates CXLIV, CLIV, and others). They are regarded as modified crosses of equal arms, which are all but universally present in combinations with birds and feathers (plates CXLIV, _a_, _b_; CLIV, _a_), from the fact that in a line of crosses depicted on a bowl one of the crosses is replaced by a design of similar character. The arms of the cross are represented; their intersection is left in white. The interpretation of figure 317 as a highly conventionalized bird design is also in accord with the same interpretation of a number of similar, although less complicated, figures which appear with crosses. Thus the three arms of plate CLX, _a_, have highly conventionalized bird symbols attached to their extremities. In the cross figure shown in plate CLVIII, _d_, we find four bird figures with short, stumpy tail-feathers. These highly conventionalized birds, with the head in the form of a crook and the tail-feathers as parallel lines, are illustrated on many pottery objects, nowhere better, however, than in those shown in plates CXXVI, _a_, and CLX, _e_. Figure 318 may be compared with figure 317. [Illustration: FIG. 321--W-pattern; terminal terraces and crooks.] [Illustration: FIG. 322--W-pattern; terminal spurs] Numerous modifications of a key pattern, often assuming a double triangular form, but with rectangular elements, are found on the exterior of many food bowls. These are variations of a pattern the simplest form of which is shown in figure 319. Resolving this figure into two parts by drawing a median line, we find the arrangement is bilaterally symmetrical, the two sides exactly corresponding. Each side consists of a simple key pattern with the shank inclined to the rim of the bowl and a bird emblem at its junction with the other member. In figure 320 there is a greater development of this pattern by an elaboration of the key, which is continued in a line resembling a square spiral. There are also dentations on a section of the edge of the lines. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXVI LINEAR FIGURES ON FOOD BOWLS FROM SIKYATKI] In figure 321 there is a still further development of the same design and a lack of symmetry on the two sides. The square spirals are replaced on the left by three stepped figures, and white spaces with parallel lines are introduced in the arms of a W-shape figure. [Illustration: FIG. 323--W-pattern; bird form] In figure 322 the same design is again somewhat changed by modification of the spirals into three triangles rimmed on one side with a row of dots, which are also found on the outer lines surrounding the lower part of the design. [Illustration: FIG. 324--W-pattern; median triangle] In figure 323 the same W shape design is preserved, but the space in the lower reentrant angle is occupied by a symmetrical figure resembling two tail-feathers and the extremity of the body of a bird. When this figure is compared with the design on plate CXLVI, _a_, resemblances are found in the two lateral appendages or wings. The star emblem is also present in the design. The median figure in that design which I have compared to the tail of a bird is replaced in figure 324 by a triangular ornament. The two wings are not symmetrical, but no new decorative element is introduced. It, however, will be noticed that there is a want of symmetry on the two sides of a vertical line in the figure last mentioned. The right-hand upper side is continued into five pointed projections, which fail on the left-hand side. There is likewise a difference in the arrangement of the terraced figures in the two parts. The sides of the median triangles are formed of alternating black and white blocks, and the quadrate figure which it incloses is etched with a diagonal and cross. [Illustration: FIG. 325--Double triangle; two breath feathers] [Illustration: FIG. 326--Double triangle; median trapezoid] The decoration in figure 325 consists of two triangles side by side, each having marginal serrations, and a median square key pattern. One side of these triangles is continued into a line from which hang two breath feathers, while the other end of the same line ends in a round dot with four radiating, straight lines. The triangles recall the butterfly symbol, the key pattern representing the head. [Illustration: FIG. 327--Double triangle; median rectangle] [Illustration: FIG. 328--Double compound triangle; median rectangle] In figure 326 there is a still more aberrant form of the W-shape design. The wings are folded, ending in triangles, and prolonged at their angles into projections to which are appended round dots with three parallel lines. The median portion, or that in the reentrant angle of the W, is a four-sided figure in which the triangle predominates with notched edges. Figure 327 shows the same design with the median portion replaced by a rectangle, and in which the key pattern has wholly disappeared from the wings. In figure 328 there are still greater modifications, but the symmetry about a median axis remains. The ends of the wings instead of being folded are expanded, and the three triangles formerly inclosed are now free and extended. The simple median rectangle is ornamented with a terrace pattern on its lower angles. [Illustration: FIG. 329--Double triangle; median triangle] [Illustration: FIG. 330--Double compound triangle] Figure 329 shows a design in which the extended triangles are even more regular and simple, with triangular terraced figures on their inner edge. The median figure is a triangle instead of a rectangle. [Illustration: FIG. 331--Double rectangle; median rectangle] Figure 330 shows the same design with modification in the position of the median figure, and a slight curvature in two of its sides. [Illustration: FIG. 332--Double rectangle; median triangle] [Illustration: FIG. 333--Double triangle with crooks] Somewhat similar designs, readily reduced to the same type as the last three or four which have been mentioned, are shown in figures 331 and 332. The resemblances are so close that I need not refer to them in detail. The W form is wholly lost, and there is no resemblance to a bird, even in its most highly conventionalized forms. The median design in figure 331 consists of a rectangle and two triangles so arranged as to leave a rectangular white space between them. In figure 332 the median triangle is crossed by parallel and vertical zigzag lines. [Illustration: FIG. 334--W-shape figure; single line with feathers] In the design represented in figure 333 there are two triangular figures, one on each side of a median line, in relation to which they are symmetrical. Each triangle has a simple key pattern in the middle, and the line from which they appear to hang is blocked off with alternating black and white rectangles. At either extremity of this line there is a circular dot from which extend four parallel lines. [Illustration: FIG. 335--Compound rectangle, triangles, and feathers] A somewhat simpler form of the same design is found in figure 334, showing a straight line above terminating with dots, from which extend parallel lines, and two triangular figures below, symmetrically placed in reference to an hypothetical upright line between them. [Illustration: FIG. 336--Double triangle] Figure 335 bears a similarity to the last mentioned only so far as the lower half of the design is concerned. The upper part is not symmetrical, but no new decorative element is introduced. Triangles, frets, and terraced figures are inserted between two parallel lines which terminate in round dots with parallel lines. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXVII GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTATION FROM AWATOBI] [Illustration: FIG. 337--Double triangle and feathers] The design in figure 336 is likewise unsymmetrical, but it has two lateral triangles with incurved terrace and dentate patterns. The same general form is exhibited in figure 337, with the introduction of two pointed appendages facing the hypothetical middle line. From the general form of these pointed designs, each of which is double, they have been interpreted as feathers. They closely resemble the tail-feathers of bird figures on several bowls in the collection, as will be seen in several of the illustrations. [Illustration: FIG. 338--Twin triangles] [Illustration: FIG. 339--Triangle with terraced appendages] [Illustration: FIG. 340--Mosaic pattern] Figure 338 is composed of two triangular designs fused at the greatest angles. The regularity of these triangles is broken by a square space at the fusion. At each of the acute angles of the two triangles there are circular designs with radiating lines, a common motive on the exterior of food bowls. Although no new elements appear in figure 338, with the exception of bracket marks, one on each side of a circle, the arrangement of the two parts symmetrically about a line parallel with the rim of the bowl imparts to the design a unique form. The motive in figure 339 is reducible to triangular and rectangular forms, and while exceptional as to their arrangement, no new decorative feature is introduced. The specimen represented in figure 340 has as its decorative elements, rectangles, triangles, parallel lines, and birds' tails, to which may be added star and crosshatch motives. It is therefore the most complicated of all the exterior decorations which have thus far been considered. There is no symmetry in the arrangement of figures about a central axis, but rather a repetition of similar designs. [Illustration: FIG. 341--Rectangles, stars, crooks, and parallel lines] The use of crosshatching is very common on the most ancient Pueblo ware, and is very common in designs on cliff-house pottery. This style of decoration is only sparingly used on Sikyatki ware. The crosshatching is provisionally interpreted as a mosaic pattern, and reminds one of those beautiful forms of turquois mosaic on shell, bone, or wood found in ancient pueblos, and best known in modern times in the square ear pendants of Hopi women. Figure 340 is one of the few designs having terraced figures with short parallel lines depending from them. These figures vividly recall the rain-cloud symbol with falling rain represented by the parallel lines. Figure 341 is a perfectly symmetrical design with figures of stars, rectangles, and parallel lines. It may be compared with that shown in figure 340 in order to demonstrate how wide the difference in design may become by the absence of symmetrical relationship. It has been shown in some of the previous motives that the crook sometimes represents a bird's head, and parallel lines appended to it the tail-feathers. Possibly the same interpretation may be given to these designs in the following figures, and the presence of stars adjacent to them lends weight to this hypothesis. [Illustration: FIG. 342--Continuous crooks] [Illustration: FIG. 343--Rectangular terrace pattern] An indefinite repetition of the same pattern of rectangular design is shown in figure 342. This highly decorative motive may be varied indefinitely by extension or concentration, and while it is modified in that manner in many of the decorations of vases, it is not so changed on the exterior of food bowls. There are a number of forms which I am unable to classify with the foregoing, none of which show any new decorative design. All possible changes have been made in them without abandoning the elemental ornamental motives already considered. The tendency to step or terrace patterns predominates, as exemplified in simple form in figure 343. In figure 344 there is a different arrangement of the same terrace pattern, and the design is helped out with parallel bands of different length at the ends of a rectangular figure. A variation in the depth of color of these lines adds to the effectiveness of the design. This style of ornamentation is successfully used in the designs represented in figures 345 and 346, in the body of which a crescentic figure in the black serves to add variety to a design otherwise monotonous. The two appendages to the right of figure 346 are interpreted as feathers, although their depart forms widely from that usually assumed by these designs. The terraced patterns are replaced by dentate margins in this figure, and there is a successful use of most of the rectangular and triangular designs. [Illustration: FIG. 344--Terrace pattern with parallel lines] [Illustration: FIG. 345--Terrace pattern] [Illustration: FIG. 346--Triangular pattern with feathers] In the specimens represented in figures 347 and 348 marginal dentations are used. I have called the design referred to an S-form, which, however, owing to its elongation is somewhat masked. The oblique bar in the middle of the figure represents the body of the letter, the two extremities taking the forms of triangles. [Illustration: FIG. 347--S-pattern] [Illustration: FIG. 348--Triangular and terrace figures] So far as decorative elements are concerned the design in figure 349 can be compared with some of those preceding, but it differs from them in combination. The motive in figure 350 is not unlike the ornamentation of certain oriental vases, except from the presence of the terraced figures. In figure 351 there are two designs separated by an inclined break the edge of which is dentate. This figure is introduced to show the method of treatment of alternating triangles of varying depth of color and the breaks in the marginal bands or "lines of life." One of the simplest combinations of triangular and rectangular figures is shown in figure 353, proving how effectually the original design may be obscured by concentration. [Illustration: FIG. 349--Crook, terrace, and parallel lines] [Illustration: FIG. 350--Triangles, squares, and terraces] In the foregoing descriptions I have endeavored to demonstrate that, notwithstanding the great variety of designs considered, the types used are very limited in number. The geometrical forms are rarely curved lines, and it may be said that spirals, which appear so constantly on pottery from other (and possibly equally ancient or older) pueblos than Sikyatki, are absent in the external decorations of specimens found in the ruins of the latter village. Every student of ancient and modern Pueblo pottery has been impressed by the predominance of terraced figures in its ornamentation, and the meaning of these terraces has elsewhere been spoken of at some length. It would, I believe, be going too far to say that these step designs always represent clouds, as in some instances they are produced by such an arrangement of rectangular figures that no other forms could result. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXVIII GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTATION FROM AWATOBI] [Illustration: FIG. 351--Bifurcated rectangular design] [Illustration: FIG. 352--Lines of life and triangles] [Illustration: FIG. 353--Infolded triangles] The material at hand adds nothing new to the theory of the evolution of the terraced ornament from basketry or textile productions, so ably discussed by Holmes, Nordenskiöld, and others. When the Sikyatki potters decorated their ware the ornamentation of pottery had reached a high development, and figures both simple and complicated were used contemporaneously. While, therefore, we can so arrange them as to make a series, tracing modifications from simple to complex designs, thus forming a supposed line of evolution, it is evident that there is no proof that the simplest figures are the oldest. The great number of terraced figures and their use in the representation of animals seem to me to indicate that they antedate all others, and I see no reason why they should not have been derived from basketry patterns. We must, however, look to pottery with decorations less highly developed for evidence bearing on this point. The Sikyatki artists had advanced beyond simple geometric figures, and had so highly modified these that it is impossible to determine the primitive form. As I have shown elsewhere, the human hand is used as a decorative element in the ornamentation of the interior of several food bowls. It is likewise in one instance chosen to adorn the exterior. It is the only part of the human limbs thus used. Figure 354 shows the hand with marks on the palm probably intended to represent the lines which are used in the measurement of the length of pahos or prayer-sticks. From between the index and the middle finger rises a line which recalls that spoken of in the account of the hand on the interior of the food bowl shown in plate CXXXVII. [Illustration: FIG. 354--Human hand] The limb of an animal with a paw, or possibly a human arm and hand, appears as a decoration on the outside of another food bowl, where it is combined with the ever-constant stepped figure, as shown in figure 355. [Illustration: FIG. 355--Animal paw, limb, and triangle] PIGMENTS The ancient Sikyatki people were accustomed to deposit in their mortuary vessels fragments of minerals or ground oxides and carbonates, of different colors, used as paints. It thus appears evident that these substances were highly prized in ancient as in modern times, and it may be mentioned that the present native priests regard the pigments found in the graves as so particularly efficacious in coloring their ceremonial paraphernalia that they begged me to give them fragments for that purpose. The green color, which was the most common, is an impure carbonate of copper, the same as that with which pahos are painted for ceremonial use today. Several shallow, saucer-like vessels contained yellow ocher, and others sesquioxide of iron, which afforded both the ancients and the moderns the red pigment called _cuta_, an especial favorite of the warrior societies. The inner surface of some of the bowls is stained with the pigments which they had formerly contained, and it was not uncommon to find several small paint pots deposited in a single grave. The white used was an impure kaolin, which was found both in masses and in powdered form, and there were unearthed several disks of this material which had been cut into definite shape as if for a special purpose. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXIX ARROWSHAFT SMOOTHERS, SELENITE, AND SYMBOLIC CORN FROM SIKYATKI] One of these disks or circular plates (figure 356) was found on the head of a skeleton. The rim is rounded, and the opposite faces are concave, with a perforation in the middle. Other forms of this worked kaolin are spherical, oblong, or lamellar, sometimes more or less decorated on the outer surface, as shown in plate CLXXII, _e_. Another, shown in _f_, of the same plate, is cylindrical, and other fragments of irregular shapes were found. A pigment made of micaceous hematite was found in one of the Sikyatki paint jars. This material is still used as coloring matter by the Tusayan Indians, by whom it is called _yayala_, and is highly prized by the members of the warrior societies. [Illustration: FIG. 356--Kaolin disk (natural size)] STONE OBJECTS Almost every grave at Sikyatki contained stone objects which were found either in the bowls or in the soil in the immediate neighborhood of the skeletons. Some of these implements are pecked or chipped, others are smooth--pebbles apparently chosen for their botryoidal shape, polished surface, or fancied resemblance to some animal or other form. Many of the smooth stones were probably simply polishing stones, used by the women in rubbing pottery to a gloss before it was fired. Others were charm stones such as are still employed in making medicine, as elsewhere described. There were still other stones which, from their resemblance to animals, may have been personal fetishes. Among the unusual forms of stones found in this association is a quartz crystal. As I have shown in describing several ceremonies still observed, a quartz crystal is used to deflect a ray of sunlight into the medicine bowl, and is placed in the center of a sand picture of the sun in certain rites called _Powalawû_; the crystal is also used in divining, and for other purposes, and is highly prized by modern Tusayan priests. A botryoidal fragment of hematite found in a grave reminds me that in the so-called Antelope rock[154] at Walpi, around which the Snake dancers biennially carry reptiles in their mouths, there is in one side a niche in which is placed a much larger mass of that material, to which prayers are addressed on certain ceremonial occasions, and upon which sacred meal and prayer emblems are placed. One or two mortuary bowls contained fragments of stalactites apparently from the Grand canyon of the Colorado or from some other locality where water is or has been abundant. The loose shaly deposit which underlies the Tusayan mesas contains many cephalopod fossils, a collection of which was made in former years and deposited in the National Museum. Among these the most beautiful are small cephalopods called by the Hopi, _koaitcoko_. Among the many sacred objects in the _tiponi_ baskets of the Lalakonti society, as described in my account[155] of the unwrapping of that fetish, there was a specimen of this ammonite; that the shell was preserved in this sacred bundle is sufficient proof that it is highly venerated. As a natural object with a definite form it is regarded as a fetish which is looked upon with reverence by the knowing ones and pronounced bad by the uninitiated. The occurrence of this fossil in one of the mortuary bowls is in harmony with the same idea and shows that it was regarded in a similar light by the ancient occupants of Sikyatki. But the resemblance of these and other stones to animal fossils[156] is not always so remote as in the instances above mentioned. There was in one grave a single large fetish of a mountain lion, made of sandstone (plate CLXXII, _b_, _c_), in which legs, ears, tail, and eyes are represented, and the mouth still retains the red pigment with which it was colored, although there was no sign of paint on other parts of the body. This fetish is very similar to the one found at Awatobi, and is identical in form with those made by the Hopi at the present time. It was customary to bury in Sikyatki graves plates or fragments of selenite or mica, some of which are perforated as if for suspension, while others are in plain sheets (plate CLXIX, _c_). Among the stone implements used as mortuary offerings which were found in the cemeteries, was one made of the same fine lithographic limestone as the so-called _tcamahia_ (plate CLXXI, _g_) which occur on the Antelope altar in the Snake ceremonies. The exceptional character of this fragment is instructive, and its resemblance to the finely polished stone hoes found in other ruins is very suggestive. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXX CORN GRINDER FROM SIKYATKI] There were found many disk-shape stones, pecked on the periphery as if used in grinding pigment or in bruising seeds, and spheroidal stones with a facet worn at one pole as if used for the same or a similar purpose (plate CLXXI, _b_, _c_). A few stone axes and hatchets were also taken from the graves; most of these are rude specimens of stone working, although one of them can hardly be excelled in any other collection. Many arrowpoints were found, but these are in no respect peculiar. They are made of many different kinds of stone, but those of obsidian are the most numerous. They were generally found in numbers, sometimes in bowls. Evidently they had not been attached to shafts when buried, for no sign of the reeds remained. Arrowheads sewed into a bandoleer are still worn as insignia of rank by warriors, and it is probable that such was also true in the past, so that on interment these arrowpoints might have been placed in the mortuary basin deposited by the side of the warrior, as indicative of his standing or rank, and the bandoleer or leather strap to which they were attached decayed during its long burial in the earth. Spearpoints of much coarser make and larger in size than the arrowheads were also found in the graves, and a rare knife, made of chalcedony, showed that the ancient, like the modern Hopi, prized a sharp cutting instrument. Among the many large stones picked up on the mounds of Sikyatki there was one the use of which has long puzzled me. This is a rough stone, not worked save in an equatorial groove. The object is too heavy to have been carried about, except with the utmost difficulty, and the probability of the former existence of a handle is out of the question. It has been suggested that this and similar but larger grooved stones might have been used as tethers for some domesticated animal, as the eagle or the turkey, which is about the only explanation I can suggest. Both of these creatures, and (if we may trust early accounts) a quadruped about the size of a dog, were domesticated by the ancient Pueblo people, but I have found no survival of tethering in use today. Eagles, however, are tied by the legs and not confined in corrals as at Zuñi, while sheep are kept in stone inclosures. It is probable that this latter custom came with the introduction of sheep, and that these stones were weights to which the Sikyatki people tied by the legs the eagles and turkeys, the feathers of which play an important part in their sacred observances. Certain small rectangular slabs of stone have been found, with a groove extending across one surface diagonally from one angle to another (plate CLXIX, _a_, _b_.) These are generally called arrowshaft polishers, and were used to rub down the surface of arrowshafts or prayer-sticks. Several of these polishers were taken from Sikyatki graves, and one or two were of such regular form that considerable care must have been used in their manufacture. A specimen from Awatobi is decorated with a bow and an arrow scratched on one side, and one of dark basaltic rock evidently came from a distance. A number of metates and mullers were found in the graves at Sikyatki. One of the best of the latter is shown in plate CLXX. These stones are of different degrees of fineness, and vary from simple triangular slabs of fine sandstone to very coarse lava. The specimen figured has depressions on the sides to facilitate handling.[157] Perhaps the most significant of all the worked stones found in the Sikyatki cemeteries were the flat slabs the edges of which near the surface of the soil marked the presence of the graves. These slabs may be termed headstones, but they have a far different meaning from those that bear the name of the deceased with which we are most familiar, for when they have any marking on their faces, it is not a totem of the dead, but a symbol of the rain-cloud, which is connected with ancestor worship. One of the best of these mortuary slabs has its edge cut in such a way as to give it a terraced outline, and on one face a similar terrace is drawn in black pigment. These figures are symbols of rain-clouds, and the interpretation of the use of this design in graves is as follows: The dead, according to current Tusayan thought, become rain-cloud gods, or powerful intercessors with those deities which cause or send the rains. Hence, the religious society to which the deceased belonged, and the members of the clan who survive, place in the mortuary bowls, or in the left hand of their friend, the paho or prayer emblem for rain; hence, also, in prayers at interment they address the breath body of the dead as a _katcina_, or rain god. These _katcinas_, as divinized ancestors, are supposed to return to the villages and receive prayers for rain. In strict accord with this conception the rain-cloud symbol is placed, in some instances, on the slab of rock in the graves of the dead at Sikyatki. It proves to me that the cult of ancestor worship, and the conception that the dead have power to bring needed rain, were recognized in Sikyatki when the pueblo was in its prime. One of these slabs is perforated by a small hole, an important fact, but one for which I have only a fanciful explanation, namely, to allow the escape of the breath body. Elsewhere I have found many instances of perforated mortuary stone slabs, which will be considered in a report of my excavations in 1896. OBSIDIAN Many fragments of obsidian, varying in size, are found strewn over the surface of the majority of ancient ruins in Tusayan, and the quantity of this material on some mounds indicates its abundance in those early habitations. This material must have been highly prized for knives, arrowpoints, and weapons of various kinds, as several of the graves contained large fragments of it, some more or less chipped, others in natural forms. The fact of its being deemed worthy of deposit in the graves of the Sikyatkians would indicate that it was greatly esteemed. I know of no natural deposit of obsidian near Sikyatki or in the province of Tusayan, so that the probability is that these fragments had been brought a considerable distance before they were buried in the earth that now covers the dead of the ancient pueblos. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXXI STONE IMPLEMENTS FROM PALATKI, AWATOBI, AND SIKYATKI] NECKLACES, GORGETS, AND OTHER ORNAMENTS The Sikyatki people buried their dead adorned with necklaces and other ornaments as when living. The materials most highly prized for necklaces were turquois and shell which were fashioned into beads, some of which were finely made. These necklaces did not differ from those now worn, and the shells employed were mostly marine varieties of the genus _Pectunculus_. The turquois beads are often as finely cut as any now worn, and their presence in the graves led to the only serious trouble which I had with my native workmen, as they undoubtedly appropriated many which were found. Some of these turquois beads are simply flat fragments, perforated at one end, others are well formed. Many skeletons had a single turquois near the mastoid process of the skull, showing that they had been worn as ear pendants. On the neck of one skeleton we found a necklace of many strands, composed of segments of the leg bones of the turkey, stained green. There were other specimens of necklaces made of turkey bones, which were smoothly finished and apparently had not been stained. Necklaces of perforated cedar berries were likewise found, some of them still hanging about the necks of the dead, and in one instance, a small saucer like vessel (plate CXX, _d_) was filled with beads of this kind, as if the necklace had thus been deposited in the grave as a votive offering. For gorgets the Sikyatki people apparently prized slabs of lignite (plate CLXXII, _d_) and plates of selenite. It was likewise customary to make small clay imitations of birds and shells for this and for other ornamental purposes; these, for the most part, however, were not found in the graves, but were picked up on the surface or in the débris within the rooms. The three forms imitating birds shown in plate CLXXIII, _g_, _h_, _i_, are rude in character, and one of them is crossed by a black line from which depend parallel lines, representing falling rain; all of these specimens have a perforated knot on the under side for suspension, as shown in the figure between them. The forms of imitations of shells, in clay, of which examples are shown in plate CLXXIII, _j_, _k_, _l_, are rude in character; they are often painted with longitudinal or vertical black lines, and have a single or double perforation for suspension. The shell imitated is probably the young _Pectunculus_, a Pacific-coast mollusk, with which the ancient Hopi were familiar. TOBACCO PIPES I have elsewhere mentioned that every modern Tusayan ceremony opens and closes with a ceremonial smoke, and it is apparent that pipes were highly prized by the ancient Sikyatkians. The form of pipe used in most ceremonials today has a bowl with its axis at right angles to the stem, but so far as I have studied ancient Pueblo pipes this form appears to be a modern innovation.[158] To determine the probable ancient form of pipe, as indicated by the ritual, I will invite attention to one of the most archaic portions of the ceremonies about the altar of the Antelope priesthood, at the time of the Snake dance at Walpi:[159] "The songs then ceased, and Wí-ki sent Ká-tci to bring him a light. Ká-tci went out, and soon returned with a burning corncob, while all sat silently awaiting Wí-ki's preparation for the great _Ó-mow-ûh_ smoke, which was one of the most sacred acts performed by the Antelope priests in these ceremonials. "The _wu-kó-tco-ño_ is a huge, stemless pipe, which has a large opening in the blunt end, and a smaller one in the pointed. It is five inches long, one inch in diameter at the large aperture, and its greatest circumference is seven and a half inches. The pipe is made of some black material, possibly stone, and as far as could be seen was not ornamented. The bowl had previously been filled with leaves carefully gathered from such places as are designated by tradition. In the subsequent smokes the ashes, "dottle," were saved, being placed in a small depression in the floor, but were not again put in the pipe. "Wí-ki took the live ember from Ká-tci and placed it in the large opening of the pipe, on the leaves which filled its cavity. He then knelt down and placed the pipe between the two _tí-po-nis_, so that the pointed end rested on the head of the large fetish, between the ears. Every one remained silent, and Wí-ki blew several dense clouds of smoke upon the sand altar, one after another, so that the picture was concealed. The smoke was made by blowing through the pipe, the fire being placed in the bowl next the mouth, and the whole larger end of the pipe was taken into the mouth at each exhalation. "At the San Juan pueblo, near Santa Fé, where I stopped on my way to Tusayan, I purchased a ceremonial headdress upon which several spruce twigs were tied. Wí-ki received some fragments of these with gratitude, and they formed one of the ingredients which were smoked in the great _ó-mow-ûh_ pipe. The scent of the mixture was very fragrant, and filled the room, like incense. The production of this great smoke-cloud, which is supposed to rise to the sky, and later bring the rain, ended the first series of eight songs. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXXII PAINT GRINDER, FETISH, KAOLIN DISKS, AND LIGNITE FROM SIKYATKI] "Immediately after this event, Há-ha-we filled one of the small-stemmed pipes lying near the fireplace with native tobacco, and after lighting it puffed smoke on the altar. He passed the pipe to Wí-ki, holding it near the floor, bowl foremost, as he did so, and exchanging the customary terms of relationship. Wí-ki then blew dense clouds of smoke over the two _tí-po-nis_ and on the sand picture. Há-ha-we, meanwhile, lit a second pipe, and passed it to Kó-pe-li, the Snake chief, who enjoyed it in silence, indiscriminately puffing smoke on the altar, to the cardinal points, and in other directions. Kó-pe-li later gave his pipe to Ká-kap-ti, who sat at his right, and Wí-ki passed his to Na-syuñ-'we-ve, who, after smoking, handed the pipe to Kwá-a, who in turn passed it to Ká-tci, by whom it was given to Há-ha-we. Ká-tci, the last priest to receive it before it was returned to the pipe-lighter, smoked for a long time, and repeatedly puffed clouds of smoke upon the sand picture. Meanwhile Ká-kap-ti had handed his pipe to Há-ha-we, both exchanging terms of relationship and carefully observing the accompanying ceremonial etiquette. Há-ha-we, as was his unvarying custom, carefully cleaned the two pipes, and laid them on the floor by the side of the fireplace." The form of pipe used in the above ceremony is typical of ancient Pueblo pipes, several of which were found at Sikyatki. One of these, much smaller than the _ó-mow-ûh_ pipe, was made of lava, and bore evidence of use before burial. It is evident, however, that these straight pipes were not always smoked as above described. The most interesting pipes found at Sikyatki were more elongated than that above mentioned and were made of clay. Their forms are shown in plate CLXXIII, _b_, _c_, _d_, _f_. One of these (_b_) is very smooth, almost glazed, and enlarged into two lateral wings near the mouth end, which is perforated with a small hole. The cavity at the opposite end is large enough to hold sufficient for a good smoke, and shows evidence of former use. The whole median region of the exterior is formed by a collar incised with lines, as if formerly wrapped with fiber. In some of the modern ceremonials, as that of the Bear-Puma dramatization in the Snake dance, a reed cigarette is used, ancient forms of which have been found in sacrificial caves, and there seems no doubt that this pipe is simply a clay form of those reeds. The markings on the collar would by this interpretation indicate the former existence of a small fabric wrapped about it. The two pipes shown, in plate CLXXIII, _b_, _f_, are tubular in shape,[160] highly polished, and on one of them (_f_) we see scratches representing the same feature as the collar of _b_, and probably made with the same intent. The fragment of a pipe shown in plate CLXXIII, _d_, is interesting in the same connection. The end of this pipe is broken, but the stem is intact, and on two sides of the bowl there are elevations covered with crosshatching. The pipe is of clay and has a rough external surface. It is improbable that these pipes were always smoked as the _wu-kó-tco-ño_ of the Snake ceremony, but the smaller end was placed to the mouth, and smoke taken into the mouth and exhaled. It is customary in ceremonials now practiced, to wind a wisp of yucca about the stem of a short pipe, that it may not become too hot to hold in the hand. This may be a possible explanation[161] of the scratches on the sides of the ancient tube pipes from Sikyatki. PRAYER-STICKS One of the most important objects made in the secret ceremonials of the modern Pueblos is sacrificial in nature, and is called a paho or "water wood," which is used as an offering to the gods (figure 357). These pahos are made of a prescribed wood, of length determined by tradition, and to them are tied appendages of symbolic meaning. They are consecrated by songs, about an altar, upon which they are laid, and afterward deposited in certain shrines by a special courier. [Illustration: FIG. 357--Mortuary prayer-stick (natural size)] In modern times the forms of these pahos differ very greatly, the shape depending on the society which makes them, the god addressed, and the purpose for which they are used, as understood by the initiated. Among many other uses they are sometimes mortuary in character, and are deposited in the graves of chiefs, as offerings either to the God of Death, or to other deities, to whom they may be presented by the shade or breath body of the deceased. This use of pahos is of ancient origin in Tusayan, as shown by the excavations at Sikyatki, where they were found in mortuary bowls or vases deposited by the relatives or surviving members of the sacerdotal societies to which the deceased had belonged. This pre-Spanish custom in Tusayan was discovered in my excavations at Awatobi, but the prayer-sticks from that place were fragmentary as compared with the almost perfect pahos from Sikyatki. These pahos are of many forms;[162] some of them are of considerable size, and the majority are of distinctive forms (plates CLXXIV-CLXXV). There are also many fragments, the former shapes of which could not be determined. When it is considered that these wooden objects with their neat carvings were fashioned with stone implements, the high character of the work is very remarkable. They show, in several instances, the imprint of attached strings and feathers, portions of which still remain; also, in one instance, fragments of a pine needle. They are painted with green and black mineral pigments, the former of which had undoubtedly done much to preserve the soft wood of which they were manufactured. As at the present day, cottonwood and willow were the favorite prescribed woods for pahos, and some of the best were made of pine. The forms of these ancient prayer offerings, as mentioned hereafter, differ somewhat from those of modern make, although in certain instances there is a significant resemblance between the two kinds. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXXIII PIPES, BELL, AND CLAY BIRDS AND SHELLS FROM AWATOBI AND SIKYATKI] One of the most striking instances of resemblance between the old and the new is the likeness of some of these ancient pahos to those now made by the Flute society, and if this resemblance is more than a coincidence, the conclusion that the present flute paho is a survival of the ancient form may be accepted. As adding weight to this theory it may be mentioned that traditionally the Flute people claim to be the ancient people of Tusayan, and possibly contemporaries, in that province, with the ancient inhabitants of Sikyatki. There is likewise a most suggestive resemblance between these pahos and certain similar sticks from cliff dwellings, and it is a belief, which I can not yet demonstrate as true, that kindred people, or the same sacerdotal societies represented in cliff houses and in Sikyatki, manufactured ceremonial prayer offerings which are identical in design. Plate CLXXIV, _a_, represents a double stick paho, which closely resembles the prayer offering of the modern Flute society. The two rods were found together and originally had been attached, as indicated by the arrangement of the impression of the string midway of their length. The stick of the left has a facet cut on one side, upon which originally three dots were depicted to represent the eyes and the mouth. This member of the paho was the female; the remaining stick was the male. There are two deep grooves, or ferules, cut midway of their length, a distinctive characteristic of the modern flute paho. Both components are painted green, as is still customary in prayer-sticks of this fraternity. The pahos shown in _b_, _c_, and _d_, are likewise ascribed to the same society, and differ from the first only in length. They represent female sticks of double flute pahos. The length of these prayer-sticks varies on different ceremonial days, and is determined by the distance of the shrines for which they are intended. The unit of measurement is the length of certain joints of the finger, and the space between the tip of longest digit to certain creases in the palm of the hand. The length of the ancient Sikyatki pahos, ascribed to the Flute society, follows the same rule. Plate CLXXIV, _e_, _f_, have the same ferules referred to in the description above, but are of greater diameter. They are unlike any modern paho except in this particular. In _g_ is depicted a still larger prayer-stick, with two serrate incisions on each side of the continuation of the flattened facet. Specimens _h_ to _m_ are forms of pahos which I can not identify. They are painted green, generally with black tips, round, flattened, and of small size. Figure _n_ is a part of a paho which closely resembles prayer-sticks found in the cliff houses of Mesa Verde and San Juan valley of northern New Mexico. Numerous specimens of a peculiar razor-shape paho were found, two of which are shown in plate CLXXV, _o_, _s_. The paho shown in figure _d_ is flat on one side and rounded on the other, narrowing at one end, where it was probably continued in a shaft, and a hole is punctured at the opposite extremity, as if for suspension. It is barely possible that this may have been a whizzer or bull-roarer, such as are used at the present day to imitate the wind, and commonly carried by the performer in a public dance who personifies the warrior. Figure _t_ differs from the ordinary flute paho in having five constrictions in the upper part, and in being continued into a very long shank. The best preserved of all the pahos from the Sikyatki graves are represented in _u_ and _v_, both of which were found in the same mortuary bowl. They are painted with a thick layer of green pigment, and have shafts, which are blackened and placed in opposite directions in the two figures. Their general form may be seen at a glance. The lower surface of the object shown in _u_ is perfectly flat, and the part represented at the upper end is evidently broken off. This is likewise true of both extremities of the object shown in _v_; it is also probable that it had originally a serrated end, comparable with that shown in _c_. A similar terraced extremity survives in the corn paho carried by the so-called Flute girls in the biennial celebrations of the Flute ceremonies in the modern Tusayan pueblos. I refer the paho to the second group of sacrifices mentioned by Tylor,[163] that of homage, "a doctrine that the gist of sacrifice is rather in the worshiper giving something precious to himself than in the deity receiving benefit. This may be called the abnegation theory, and its origin may be fairly explained by considering it as derived from the original gift theory." While it is probably true that the Hopi barters his paho with the idea of receiving in return some desired gift, the main element is probably homage, but there is involved in it the third and highest element of sacrifice, abnegation. It is a sacrifice by symbolism, a part for the whole. On this theory the query naturally is, what does a paho represent? While it is difficult to answer this question, I think a plausible suggestion can be made. It is a sacrifice by symbolic methods of that which the Hopi most prize, corn or its meal. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXXIV PAHOS OR PRAYER-STICKS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CLXXV PAHOS OR PRAYER-STICKS FROM SIKYATKI] In a simple prayer the sacrifice is a pinch of meal thrown on the fetish or toward it. This is an individual method of prayer, and the pinch of meal, his prayer bearer, the sacrifice. When a society made its prayers this meal, symbolic of a gift of corn, is tied in a packet and attached to two sticks, one male, the other female, with prescribed herbs and feathers. Here we have the ordinary prayer-stick, varying in details but essentially the same, a sacrifice to the gods appropriately designated by prescribed accessories. Frequently this packet of meal may be replaced by a picture of an ear of corn drawn on a flat slat, the so-called "corn paho" of the Flute maidens,[164] or we may have an ear of corn tied to the wooden slat. In the _Mamzrau_ ceremony the women carry these painted slats in their hands, as I have elsewhere described.[165] It appears as if, in all these instances, there exists a sacrificial object, a symbolic offering of corn or meal. The constant appearance of the feather on the paho has suggested an interpretation of the prayer-plumes as symbolic sacrifices of birds on the theory of a part for the whole; we know that among the Nahua sacrifices of birds were common in many ceremonials. The idea of animal sacrifice, and, if we judge from legends, of human sacrifice, was not an unknown conception among the Pueblos. While it is possible that the omnipresence of the feather on the prayer-sticks may admit of that interpretation, to which it must be confessed the male and the female components in double pahos lend some evidence,[166] I believe the main object was, as above stated, an offering of meal, which constituted the special wealth of an agricultural people. MARINE SHELLS AND OTHER OBJECTS The excavations at Sikyatki did not reveal a large number of marine shells, although some of the more common genera used in the ancient pueblos were found. There were several fragments of _Pectunculus_ cut into the form of wristlets, like those from the ruins on the Little Colorado which I have described. Two beautiful specimens of _Oliva angulata_, truncated at each pole, which occurred in one of the mortuary bowls, and a few conical rattles, made of the spires of _Conus_, were taken from the graves; there were also a few fragments of an unknown _Haliotis_. All of the above genera are common to the Pacific, and no doubt were obtained by barter or brought by migratory clans to Tusayan from the far south. One of the most interesting objects in Sikyatki food basins from the necropolis was a comparatively well preserved rattle of a rattlesnake. The Walpi Snake chief, who was employed by me when this was found and was present at the time it was removed from the earth, declared that, according to the legends, there were no Snake people living at Sikyatki when it was destroyed, but the discovery of the snake rattle shows that the rattler was not without reverence there, even if not in the house of his friends, and some other explanation may be suggested to account for this discovery. There are evidences that the ancient Hopi, like certain Yuman tribes, wore a snake's rattle as an ornament for the neck, in which case the rattle found in the Sikyatki food basin may have been simply a votive offering, and in no way connected with ceremonial symbolism. Among many other mortuary offerings was one which was particularly suggestive. This specimen represented in plate CLXIX, _e_, is made of unbaked clay, and has a reticulated surface, as if once incrusted with foreign objects. The Hopi who were at work for me declared that this incrustation had been composed of seeds, and that the pits over the surface of the clay cone were evidence of their former existence. They identified this object as a "corn mound," and reminded me that a similar object is now used in the _Powamu_, _Lalakonti_, and certain other ceremonies. I have elsewhere mentioned the clay corn mound incrusted with seeds of various kinds in a description of the altar of the last-mentioned ceremony. These corn mountains (_ká-ü-tü'-kwi_) are made in the November ceremony called the _N[=a]-ác-nai-ya_, as described in my account of those rites from which I quote[167]-- "The _Tá-tau-kya-mû_ were very busy in their kib-va. Every member was shelling corn of the different colors as if on a wager. Each man made a figure of moist clay, about four or five inches across the base. Some of these were in the form of two mammæ, and there were also many wedge and cone forms, in all of which were embedded corn kernels, forming the cloud and other of the simpler conventional figures in different colors, but the whole surface was studded as full as possible with the kernels. Each man brought down his own _pó-o-tas_ (tray), on which he sprinkled prayer-meal, and set his _ká-ü-tü'-kwi_ (corn mountain) upon it. He also placed ears of corn on the tray." These corn mountains were carried by the _Tá-tau-kya-mû_ priesthood during an interesting ceremony which I have thus described:[168] "The whole line then passed slowly along the front of the village sideways, facing the north, and singing, and all the women came out and helped themselves to the clay molds and the ears of corn borne by the _Tá-tau-kya-mû_, bestowing many thanks upon the priests." The fragment of polished stone shown in plate CLXIX, _d_, is perforated near the edge for suspension, and was found near the aural orifice of a skull, apparently indicating that it had been used as a pendant. With this object, many rude arrowpoints, concretions of stone, and the kaolin disk mentioned above were also found. Small round disks of pottery, with a median perforation, were not common, although sometimes present. They are identified as parts of primitive drills. No object made of metal was found at Sikyatki, nor is there any evidence that the ancient people of that pueblo ever saw the Spaniards or used any implement of their manufacture. While negative evidence can hardly be regarded as a safe guide to follow, so far as knowledge of copper is concerned, it is possible that the people of ancient Tusayan pueblos, in their trading expeditions to southern Arizona, may have met races who owned small copper bells and trinkets of metal. I can hardly believe, however, that the Tusayan Indians were familiar with the art of tempering copper, and even if objects showing this treatment shall be found hereafter in the ruins of this province it will have to be proved that they were made in that region, and not brought from the far south. No glazed pottery showing Spanish influence was found at Sikyatki, but there can hardly be a doubt that the art of glazing pottery was practiced by the ancestors of the Tusayan people. The modern potters of the East Mesa never glaze their pottery, and no fragment of glazed ware was obtained from the necropolis of Sikyatki. PERISHABLE CONTENTS OF MORTUARY FOOD BOWLS It is the habit of the modern Tusayan Indians to deposit food of various kinds on the graves of their dead. The basins used for that purpose are heaped up with paper-bread, stews, and various delicacies for the breath-body of the deceased. Naturally from its exposed position much of this food is devoured by animals or disappears in other ways. There appears excellent evidence, however, that the mortuary food offerings of the ancient Sikyatkians were deposited with the body and covered with soil and sometimes stones. The lapse of time since these burials took place has of course caused the destruction of the perishable food substances, which are found to be simple where any sign of their former presence remains. Thin films of interlacing rootlets often formed a delicate network over the whole inner surface of the bowl. Certain of the contents of these basins in the shape of seeds still remain; but these seeds have not germinated, possibly on account of previous high temperatures to which they have been submitted. A considerable quantity of these contents of mortuary bowls were collected and submitted to an expert, the result of whose examination is set forth in the accompanying letter: U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, DIVISION OF BOTONY, _Washington, D. C., March 25, 1896._ DEAR DR FEWKES: Having made a cursory examination of the samples of supposed vegetable material sent by you day before yesterday, collected at Sikyatki, Arizona, in supposed prehistoric burial places, I have the following preliminary report to make: No. 156247. A green resinous substance. I am unable to say whether or not this is of vegetable origin. No. 156248. A mass of fibrous material intermixed with sand, the fibers consisting in part of slender roots, in part of the hair of some animal. No. 156249. This consists of a mixture of seed with a small amount of sand present. The seeds are, in about the relative order of their abundance, (_a_) a leguminous shiny seed of a dirty olive color, possibly of the genus _Parosela_ (usually known as _Dalea_); (_b_) the black seed shells, flat on one side and almost invariably broken, of a plant apparently belonging to the family _Malvaceae_; (_c_) large, flat, nearly black achenia, possibly of a _Coreopsis_, bordered with a narrow-toothed wing; (_d_) the thin lenticular utricles of a _Carex_; (_e_) the minute black, bluntly trihedral seeds of some plant of the family _Polygonaceae_, probably an _Eriogonum_. The majority of these seeds have a coating of fine sand, as if their surface had originally been viscous; (_f_) a dried chrysalis bearing a slight resemblance to a seed. No. 156250. This bottle contains the same material as No. 156249, except that no larvæ are found, but a large, plump, brownish, lenticular seed 4 mm. in diameter, doubtless the seed of a _Croton_. No. 156251. A thin fragment of matter consisting of minute roots of plants partially intermixed on one surface with sand. No. 156252. This consists almost wholly of plant rootlets and contains a very slight amount of sand. No. 156254. This consists of pieces of rotten wood through which had grown the rootlets of plants. The wood, upon a microscopical examination, is shown to be that of some dicotyledonous tree of a very loose and light texture. The plant rootlets in most cases followed the large ducts that run lengthwise through the pieces of wood and take up the greater part of the space. No. 156255. The mass contained in this bottle is made up of (_a_) grains, contained in their glumes or husks, of some grass, probably _Oryzopsis membranacea_; (_b_) what appears to be the minute spherical spore cases of some microscopical fungus. The spore cases have a wall with a shiny brown covering, or apparently with this covering worn off and exhibiting an interior white shell. Within this is a very large number of spherical spore-like bodies of a uniform size; (_c_) a few plant rootlets. No. 156256. The material in this bottle is similar to that in 156255 except that the amount of rootlets is greater, the grass seeds are of a darker color, seemingly somewhat more disorganized, and somewhat more slender in form, and that the spore cases seem to be entirely wanting. No. 156257. The material in this bottle is similar to that in No. 156249, containing the seeds numbered _a_, _b_, _c_, and _d_ mentioned under that number, besides a greater amount of plant rootlets and some fragments of corncob. No. 156258. This consists almost entirely of plant rootlets and sand. No. 156259. This consists chiefly of the leaves of some coniferous tree, either an _Abies_ or a _Pseudotsuga_. All the seeds with the exception of those of the leguminous plant are dead and their seed-coats rotten. The leguminous seeds are still hard and will be subjected to a germination test.[169] For a specific and positive identification of these seeds it will be necessary either for a botanist to visit the region from which they came or to have at his disposal a complete collection of the plants of the vicinity. Under such conditions he could by process of exclusion identify the seeds with an amount of labor almost infinitely less than would be required in their identification by other means. Very sincerely yours, FREDERICK V. COVILLE, _Botanist._ FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: See "The Prehistoric Culture of Tusayan," _American Anthropologist_, May, 1896. "Two Ruins Recently Discovered in the Red Rock Country, Arizona," ibid., August, 1896. "The Cliff Villages of the Red Rock Country, and the Tusayan Ruins, Sikyatki and Awatobi, Arizona," Smithsonian Report for 1895.] [Footnote 2: The reader's attention is called to the fact that this report is not intended to cover all the ruins in the section of Arizona through which the expedition passed; it is simply a description of those which were examined, with a brief mention of such others as would aid in a general comprehension of the subject. The ruins on the Little Colorado, near Winslow, Arizona, will be considered in a monograph to follow the present, which will be a report on the field work in 1896. If a series of monographs somewhat of this nature, but more comprehensive, recording explorations during many years in several different sections, were available, we would have sufficient material for a comprehensive treatment of southwestern archeology.] [Footnote 3: It may be borne in mind that several other clans besides the Patki claim to have lived long ago in the region southward from modern Tusayan. Among these may be mentioned the Patuñ (Squash) and the Tawa (Sun) people who played an important part in the early colonization of Middle Mesa.] [Footnote 4: Report upon the Indian Tribes, Pacific Railroad Survey, vol. III, pt. iii, p. 14, Washington, 1856. The cavate dwellings of the Rio Verde were first described by Dr E. A. Mearns. Although it has sometimes been supposed that Coronado followed the trail along Verde valley, and then over the Mogollones to Rio Colorado Chiquito, Bandelier has conclusively shown a more easterly route.] [Footnote 5: See mention of cliff houses in Walnut canyon in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology.] [Footnote 6: The kinship of Cliff dwellers and Pueblos was long ago recognized by ethnologists, both from resemblances of skulls, the character of architecture, and archeological objects found in each class of dwellings. It is only in later years, however, that the argument from similar ceremonial paraphernalia has been adduced, owing to an increase of our knowledge of this side of Pueblo life. See Bessels, Bull. U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, vol. II, 1876; Hoffman, Report on Chaco Cranium, ibid., 1877, p. 457. Holmes, in 1878, says: "The ancient peoples of the San Juan country were doubtless the ancestors of the present Pueblo tribes of New Mexico and Arizona." See, likewise, Cushing, Nordenskiöld, and later writers regarding the kinship of Cliff villagers and Pueblos.] [Footnote 7: Report of the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the year ending June 30, 1894; Smithsonian Report, 1894.] [Footnote 8: The ruins in Chaves Pass, 110 miles south of Oraibi, will be considered in the report of the expedition of 1896, when extensive excavations were made at this point. About midway between the Chaves Pass ruins and those of Beaver creek, in Verde valley, there are other ruins, as at Rattlesnake Tanks, and as a well-marked trail passes by these former habitations and connects the Verde series with those of Chaves Pass, it is possible that early migrations may have followed this course. There is also a trail from Homolobi and the Colorado Chiquito ruins through Chaves Pass into Tonto Basin.] [Footnote 9: Smithsonian Report, 1883; Report of Major Powell, Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 57 et seq. Explorations in the Southwest, ibid., 1886, p. 52 et seq.] [Footnote 10: Report of an Expedition down the Zuñi and Colorado rivers; Washington, 1853.] [Footnote 11: Smithsonian Report, 1883, Report of the Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 62: "Pending the arrival of goods at Moki, Mr Cushing returned across the country to Zuñi for the purpose of observing more minutely than on former occasions the annual sun ceremonials. En route he discovered two ruins, apparently before unvisited. One of these was the outlying structure of K'n'-i-K'él, called by the Navajos Zïnni-jin'ne and by the Zuñis He'-sho'ta pathl-tâ[)i]e, both, according to Zuñi tradition, belonging to the Thlé-e-tâ-kwe, the name given to the traditional northwestern migration of the Bear, Crane, Frog, Deer, Yellow-wood, and other gentes of the ancestral pueblos."] [Footnote 12: The reduplicated syllable recalls Hopi methods of forming their plural, but is not characteristic of them, and the word Totonteac has a Hopi sound. The supposed derivation of Tonto from Spanish _tonto_, "fool," is mentioned, elsewhere. The so-called Tonto Apache was probably an intruder, the cause of the desertion of the "basin" by the housebuilders. The question whether Totonteac is the same as Tusayan or Tuchano is yet to be satisfactorily answered. The map makers of the sixteenth century regarded them as different places, and notwithstanding Totonteac was reported to be "a hotte lake" in the middle of the previous century, it held its place on maps into the seventeenth century. It is always on or near a river flowing into the Gulf of California.] [Footnote 13: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology.] [Footnote 14: Mr Mindeleff's descriptions deal with the same cluster of cavate ruins here described, but are more specially devoted to the more southern section of them, not considering, if I understand him, the northern row here described. I had also made extensive studies of the rooms figured by him previously to the publication of his article, but as my notes on these rooms are anticipated by his excellent memoir I have not considered the rooms described by him, but limited my account to brief mention of a neighboring row of chambers not described in his report.] [Footnote 15: _Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology_, vol. II, No. 1. All the Tusayan kivas with which I am familiar have this raised spectator's part at one end. The altars are always erected at the opposite end of the room, in which is likewise the hole in the floor called the _sipapû_, symbolic of the traditional opening through which races emerged to the earth's surface from an underworld. Banquettes exist in some Tusayan kivas; in others, however, they are wanting. The raised platform in dwelling rooms is commonly a sleeping place, above which blankets are hung and, in some instances, corn is stored. A small opening in the step often admits light to an otherwise dark granary below the floor. In no instance, however, are there more than one such platform, and that commonly partakes of the nature of another room, although seldom separated from the other chamber by a partition.] [Footnote 16: Counting from the point of the cliff shown in plate XCI_a_. The positions of the rooms are indicated by the row of entrances.] [Footnote 17: It was from this region that the individual chambers, described by Mindeleff, were chosen.] [Footnote 18: Mr Mindeleff, in his valuable memoir, has so completely described the cavate dwellings of the Rio Grande and San Juan regions that their discussion in this account would be superfluous.] [Footnote 19: See Mindeleff, Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, _American Anthropologist_, April, 1895. The suggestion that cliff outlooks were farming shelters in some instances is doubtless true, but I should hesitate giving this use a predominance over outlooks for security. In times of danger, naturally the agriculturist seeks a high or commanding position for a wide outlook; but to watch his crops he must camp among them.] [Footnote 20: Ancient Dwellings of the Rio Verde Valley, Dr E. A. Mearns; _Popular Science Monthly_, vol. XXVII. Mindeleff, Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley; Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology.] [Footnote 21: Since the above lines were written Mr C. F. Lummis, who has made many well-known contributions to the ethnology and archeology of the Pueblo area, has published in _Land of Sunshine_ (Los Angeles, 1895), a beautiful photographic illustration and an important description of this unique place.] [Footnote 22: Miscellaneous Ethnographic Observations on Indians inhabiting Nevada, California, and Arizona, Tenth Annual Report of the Hayden Survey, p. 478; Washington, 1878.] [Footnote 23: The cliff houses of Bloody Basin I have not examined, but I suspect they are of the same type as the so-called Montezuma Castle, or Casa Montezuma, on the right bank of Beaver creek. The latter is referred to the cliff-house class, but it differs considerably from the ruins of the Red-rocks, on account of the character of the cavern in which it is built (see figure 246).] [Footnote 24: Fortified hilltops occur in many places in Arizona and are likewise found in the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, where they are known as _trincheras_. They are regarded as places of refuge of former inhabitants of the country, contemporaneous with ancient pueblos and cliff houses.] [Footnote 25: This pinnacle is visible for miles, and is one of many prominences in the surrounding country. Unfortunately this region is so imperfectly surveyed that only approximations of distances are possible in this account, and the maps known to me are too meager in detail to fairly illustrate the distribution of these buttes.] [Footnote 26: In certain cavate houses on Oak creek we find these caverns in two tiers, one above the other, and the hill above is capped by a well-preserved building. In one of these we find the entrance to the cavern walled in, with the exception of a T-shape doorway and a small window. This chamber shows a connecting link between the type of true cavate dwellings and that of cliff-houses.] [Footnote 27: The absence of kivas in the ruins of the Verde has been commented on by Mindeleff, and has likewise been found to be characteristic of the cliff houses on the upper courses of the other tributaries of Gila and Salado rivers. The round kiva appears to be confined to the middle and eastern ruins of the pueblo area, and are very numerous in the ruins of San Juan valley.] [Footnote 28: See "Tusayan Totemic Signatures," _American Anthropologist_, Washington, January, 1897.] [Footnote 29: An exhaustive report on the ruins near Winslow, at the Sunset Crossing of the Little Colorado, will later be published. These ruins were the sites of my operations in the summer of 1896, and from them a very large collection of prehistoric objects was taken. The report will consider also the ruins at Chaves Pass, on the trail of migration used by the Hopi in prehistoric times in their visits, for barter and other purposes, to the Gila-Salado watershed.] [Footnote 30: Possibly the Shoshonean elements in Hopi linguistics are due to the Snake peoples, the early colonists who came from the north, where they may have been in contact with Paiute or other divisions of the Shoshonean stock. The consanguinity of this phratry may have been close to that of the Shoshonean tribes, as that of the Patki was to the Piman, or the Asa to the Tanoan. The present Hopi are a composite people, and it is yet to be demonstrated which stock predominates in them.] [Footnote 31: A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola; Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1886-87.] [Footnote 32: This account was copied from a copy made by the eminent scholar, A. F. Bandelier, for the archives of the Hemenway Expedition, now at the Peabody Museum, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.] [Footnote 33: Hano or "Tewa."] [Footnote 34: Sichomovi. In the manuscript report by Don José Cortez, who wrote of the northern provinces of Mexico, where he lived in 1799, Sichomovi is mentioned as a nameless village between Tanos (Hano) and Gualpi (Walpi), settled by colonists from the latter pueblo. One of the first references to this village by name was in a report by Indian Agent Calhoun (1850), where it is called Chemovi.] [Footnote 35: Mishoñinovi.] [Footnote 36: Shipaulovi.] [Footnote 37: Shuñopovi.] [Footnote 38: In 1896 I collected over a hundred beautiful specimens from this cemetery.] [Footnote 39: There lived in Walpi, years ago, an old woman, who related to a priest, who repeated the story to the writer, that when a little girl she remembered seeing the Payüpki people pass along the valley under Walpi when they returned to the Rio Grande. Her story is quite probable, for the lives of two aged persons could readily bridge the interval between that event and our own time.] [Footnote 40: "La Mission de N. Sra. de las Dolores de Zandia de Indios Teguas á Moqui."] [Footnote 41: See J. F. Meline, Two Thousand Miles on Horseback, 1867. Sandia, according to Bancroft, is not mentioned by Menchero in 1744, but Bonilla gave it a population of 400 Indians in 1749. In 1742 two friars visited Tusayan, and, it is said, brought out 441 apostate Tiguas, who were later settled in the old pueblo of Sandia. Considering, then, that Sandia was resettled in 1748, six years after this visit, and that the numbers so closely coincide, we have good evidence that Payüpki, in Tusayan, was abandoned about 1742. It is probable, from known evidence, that this pueblo was built somewhere between 1680 and 1690; so that the whole period of its occupancy was not far from fifty years.] [Footnote 42: Mindeleff mentions two other sites of Old Walpi--a mound near _Wala_, and one in the plain between Mishoñinovi and Walpi; but neither of these is large, although claimed as former sites of the early clans which later built the town on the terrace of East Mesa below Walpi. I have regarded Küchaptüvela as the ancient Walpi, but have no doubt that the Hopi emigrants had several temporary dwellings before they settled there.] [Footnote 43: Sometimes called Nüsaki, a corruption of "Missa ki," Mass House, Mission. One of the beams of the old mission at Nüsaki or Kisakobi is in the roof of Pauwatiwa's house in the highest range of rooms of Walpi. This beam is nicely squared, and bears marks indicative of carving. There are also large planks in one of the kivas which were also probably from the church building, although no one has stated that they are. Pauwatiwa, however, declares that a legend has been handed down in his family that the above-mentioned rafter came from the mission.] [Footnote 44: Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, January 2, 1895, p. 441.] [Footnote 45: Thus in Castañeda's account we are told: "Farther off [near Cia?] was another large village where we found in the courtyards a great number of stone balls of the size of a leather bag, containing one arroba. They seem to have been cast with the aid of machines, and to have been employed in the destruction of the village." It is needless for me to say that I find no knowledge of such a machine in Tusayan!] [Footnote 46: The ceremonials attending to burial of the eagle, whose plumes are used in secret rites, have never been described, and nothing is known of the rites about the Eagle shrine at Tukinobi.] [Footnote 47: Recent Archeologic Find in Arizona, _American Anthropologist_, Washington, July, 1893.] [Footnote 48: For a previous description see the Preliminary Account, Smithsonian Report for 1895; also "Awatobi: An Archeological Verification of a Tusayan Legend," _American Anthropologist_, Washington, October, 1893.] [Footnote 49: This important ceremony celebrates the departure from the pueblos of ancestral gods called _katcinas_, and is one of the most popular in the ritual.] [Footnote 50: Pacheco-Cardenas, Colleccion de Documentos Inéditos, XV, 122, 182.] [Footnote 51: Voyages, III, pp. 463, 470, 1600; reprint 1810.] [Footnote 52: Pacheco-Cardenas, Documentos Inéditos, op. cit., XVI, 139.] [Footnote 53: Menologio Franciscano, 275; Teatro Mexicano, III, 321.] [Footnote 54: San Bernardino de Ahuatobi (Vetancurt, 1680); San Bernardo de Aguatuvi (Vargas, 1692). I find that the mission at Walpi was also mentioned by Vargas as dedicated to San Bernardino. The church at Oraibi was San Francisco de Oraybe and San Miguel. The mission at Shuñopovi was called San Bartolomé, San Bernardo, and San Bernabe.] [Footnote 55: This article was in type too early for a review of Dellenbaugh's identification of Cibola with a more southeasterly locality. His arguments bear some plausibility, but they are by no means decisive.] [Footnote 56: An exact translation by Winship of the copy of Castañeda in the Lenox Library was published in the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau.] [Footnote 57: "At evening the chiefs asked that notices be written for them warning all white people to keep away from the mesa tomorrow, and these were set up by the night patrols in cleft wands on all the principal trails. At daybreak on the following morning the principal trails leading from the four cardinal points were 'closed' by sprinkling meal across them and laying on each a whitened elk horn. Anawita told the observer that in former times if any reckless person had the temerity to venture within this proscribed limit the Kwakwantû inevitably put him to death by decapitation and dismemberment." ("Naacnaiya," _Journal of American Folk-lore_, vol. v, p. 201.) This appears to be the same way in which the Awatobians "closed" the trail to Tobar.] [Footnote 58: When the Flute people approach Walpi, as is biennially dramatized at the present time, "an assemblage of people there (at the entrance to the village) meet them, and just back of a line of meal drawn across the trail stood Winuta and Hoñyi," also two girls and a boy. After these Flute people are challenged and sing their songs the trail is opened, viz: "Alosaka drew the end of his _moñkohu_ along the line of meal, and Winuta rubbed off the remainder from the trail with his foot." "Walpi Flute Observance," _Journal of American Folk-lore_, vol. VII, p. 19.] [Footnote 59: This custom of sprinkling the trail with sacred meal is one of the most common in the Tusayan ritual. The gods approach and leave the pueblos along such lines, and no doubt the Awatobians regarded the horses of Espejo as supernatural beings and threw meal on the trail before them with the same thought in mind that they now sprinkle the trails with meal in all the great ceremonials in which personators of the gods approach the villages.] [Footnote 60: According to the reprint of 1891. In the reprint of 1810 it appears as "Ahuato." I would suggest that possibly the error in giving the name of a pueblo to a chief may have arisen not from the copyist or printer, but from inability of the Spaniards and Hopi to understand each other. If you ask a Hopi Indian his name, nine times out of ten he will not tell you, and an interlocutor for a party of natives will almost invariably name the pueblos from which his comrades came.] [Footnote 61: This was possibly the expedition which P. Fr. Antonio (Alonzo?) made among the Hopi in 1628; however that may be, there is good evidence that Porras, after many difficulties, baptized several chiefs in 1629.] [Footnote 62: _Segunda Relacion de la grandiosa conversion que ha avido en el Nuevo Mexico. Embiada por el Padre Estev[=a] de Perea_, etc., 1633.] [Footnote 63: An earlier rumor was that the horses were anthropophagous.] [Footnote 64: As Vargas appears not to have entered Oraibi at this time he may have found it too hostile. Whether Frasquillo had yet arrived with his Tanos people and their booty is doubtful. The story of the migration to Tusayan of the Tanos under Frasquillo, the assassin of Fray Simón de Jesus, and the establishment there of a "kingdom" over which he ruled as king for thirty years, is a most interesting episode in Tusayan history. Many Tanos people arrived in several bands among the Hopi about 1700, but which of them were led by Frasquillo is not known to me.] [Footnote 65: "El templo acabo en llamas." At this time Awatobi was said to have 800 inhabitants.] [Footnote 66: At the present time one of the most bitter complaints which the Hopi have against the Spaniards is that they forcibly baptized the children of their people during the detested occupancy by the conquerors.] [Footnote 67: _Naacnaiya_ and _Wüwütcimti_ are the elaborate and abbreviated New-fire ceremonies now observed by four religious warrior societies, known as the _Tataukyamû_, _Wüwütcimtû_, _Aaltû_ and _Kwakwantû_. Both of these ceremonials, as now observed at Walpi, have elsewhere been described.] [Footnote 68: Obiit 1892. Shimo was chief of the Flute Society and "Governor" of Walpi.] [Footnote 69: Oldest woman of the Snake clan; mother of Kopeli, the Snake chief of Walpi; chief priestess of the Mamzráuti ceremony.] [Footnote 70: Vetancurt, Chronica, says that Aguatobi (Awatobi) had 800 inhabitants and was converted by Padre Francisco de Porras. In 1630 Benavides speaks of the Mokis as being rapidly converted. It would appear, if we rely on Vetancurt's figures, that Awatobi was not one of the largest villages of Tusayan in early times, for he ascribes 1,200 to Walpi and 14,000 to Oraibi. The estimate of the population of Awatobi was doubtless nearer the truth than that of the other pueblos, and I greatly doubt if Oraibi ever had 14,000 people. Probably 1,400 would be more nearly correct.] [Footnote 71: Architecture of Cibola and Tusayan, p. 225.] [Footnote 72: There are two fragments, one of which is large enough to show the size of the bell, which was made either in Mexico or in Spain. The smaller fragment was used for many years as a paint-grinder by a Walpi Indian priest.] [Footnote 73: See his Final Report, p. 372.] [Footnote 74: The only Awatobi name I know is that of a chief, Tapolo, which is not borne by any Hopi of my acquaintance (see page 603).] [Footnote 75: This explains the fact that the ruins in Tusayan, as a rule, have no signs of kivas, and the same appears to be true of the ruins of the pueblos on the Little Colorado and the Verde, in Tonto Basin, and other more southerly regions.] [Footnote 76: See Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology, vol. II.] [Footnote 77: "Las casas son de tres altos"--_Segunda Relacion_, p. 580.] [Footnote 78: So far as our limited knowledge of the older ruins of Tusayan goes, we find that their inhabitants must have been as far removed from rude Shohonean nomads as their descendants are today. The settlement at the early site of Walpi is reported to have been made in very early times, some legends stating that it occurred at a period when the people were limited to one family--the Snake. The fragments of pottery which I have found in the mounds of that ancient habitation are as fine and as characteristic of Tusayan as that of Sikyatki or Awatobi. It is inferior to none in the whole pueblo area, and betrays long sedentary life of its makers before it was manufactured.] [Footnote 79: Journal of American Folk-lore, vol. v, No. xviii, 1892.] [Footnote 80: There is a rude sketch of these two idols of _Alosaka_ in the archives of the Hemenway Expedition. They represent figurines about 4 feet tall, with two horns on the head not unlike those of the Tewan clowns or gluttons called Paiakyamû. As so little is known of the Mishoñinovi ritual, the rites in which they are used are at present inexplicable.] [Footnote 81: See the ear-ornament of the mask shown in plate CVIII, of the Fifteenth Annual Report.] [Footnote 82: Similar "spouts" were found by Mindeleff at Awatobi, and a like use of them is suggested in his valuable memoir.] [Footnote 83: The Keresan people are called by the same name, Kawaika, which, as hitherto explained, is specially applied to the modern pueblo of Laguna.] [Footnote 84: The Asa people who came to Tusayan from the Rio Grande claim to have lived for a few generations in Tubka or Tségi (Chelly) canyon.] [Footnote 85: The pottery of ancient Cibola is practically identical with that of the ruined pueblos of the Colorado Chiquito, near Winslow, Arizona.] [Footnote 86: The specimens labeled "New Mexico" and "Arizona" are too vaguely classified to be of any service in this consideration. It is suggested that collectors carefully label their specimens with the exact locality in which they are found, giving care to their association and, when mortuary, to their position in the graves in relation to the skeletons.] [Footnote 87: I am informed by Mr F. W. Hodge that similar fragments were found by the Hemenway Expedition in 1888 in the prehistoric ruins of the Salado.] [Footnote 88: The head is round, with lateral appendages. The face is divided into two quadrants above, with chin blackened, and marked with zigzag lines, which are lacking in modern pictures. In the left hand the figure holds a rattle. The body is wanting, but the breast is decorated with rectangles.] [Footnote 89: A single metate of lava or malpais was excavated at Awatobi. This object must have had a long journey before it reached the village, since none of the material from which it was made is found within many miles of the ruin.] [Footnote 90: There are many fine pictographs, some of which are evidently ancient, on the cliffs of the Awatobi mesa. These are in no respect characteristic, and among them I have seen the _awata_ (bow), _honani_ (badger's paw), _tcüa_ (snake), and _omowûh_ (rain-cloud). On the side of the precipitous wall of the mesa south of the western mounds there is a row of small hemispherical depressions or pits, with a groove or line on one side. There is likewise, not far from this point, a realistic figure of a vulva, not very unlike the _asha_ symbols on Thunder mountain, near Zuñi.] [Footnote 91: _Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology_, vol. II, No. 1, p. 77.] [Footnote 92: In the expedition of 1896 there were found a large number of shell ornaments, which will be described in a forthcoming report of the operations during that year. See the preliminary account in the article "Pacific Coast Shells in Tusayan Ruins," _American Anthropologist_, December, 1896.] [Footnote 93: One of these bells was found in a grave at Chaves Pass during the field work of 1896.] [Footnote 94: Bells made of clay are not rare in modern Tusayan villages, and while their form is different from that of the Awatobi specimen, and the size larger, there seems no reason to doubt the antiquity of the specimen from the ruin of Antelope mesa.] [Footnote 95: Many of the specimens in the well-known Keam collection, now in the Tusayan room of the Peabody Museum at Cambridge, are undoubtedly from Sikyatki, and still more are from Awatobi. Since the beginning of my excavations at Sikyatki it has come to be a custom for the Hopi potters to dispose of, as Sikyatki ware, to unsuspecting white visitors, some of their modern objects of pottery. These fraudulent pieces are often very cleverly made.] [Footnote 96: Architecture of Tusayan and Cibola, op. cit., pp. 20, 21.] [Footnote 97: These rooms I failed to find. One of the rocky knolls may be that called by me the "acropolis." The second knoll I cannot identify, unless it is the elevation in continuation of the same side toward the east. Possibly he confounded the ruin of Küküchomo with that of Sikyatki.] [Footnote 98: The legends of the origin of Oraibi are imperfectly known, but it has been stated that the pueblo was founded by people from Old Shuñopovi. It seems much more likely, however, that our knowledge is too incomplete to accept this conclusion without more extended observations. The composition of the present inhabitants indicates amalgamation from several quarters, and neighboring ruins should be studied with this thought in mind.] [Footnote 99: It is distinctly stated that the Tanoan families whose descendants now inhabit Hano were not in Tusayan when Awatobi fell. To be sure they may have been sojourning in some valley east of the province, which, however, is not likely, since they were "invited" to East Mesa for the specific purpose of aiding the Hopi against northern nomads. Much probability attaches to a suggestion that they belonged to the emigrants mentioned by contemporary historians as leaving the Rio Grande on account of the unsettled condition of the country after the great rebellion of 1680.] [Footnote 100: The succession of priests is through the clan of the mother, so that commonly, as in the case of Katci, the nephew takes the place of the uncle at his death. Some instances, however, have come to my knowledge where, the clan having become extinct, a son has been elevated to the position made vacant by the death of a priest. The Kokop people at Walpi are vigorous, numbering 21 members if we include the Coyote and Wolf clans, the last mentioned of which may be descendants of the former inhabitants of Küküchomo, the twin ruins on the mesa above Sikyatki.] [Footnote 101: In this census I have used also the apparently conservative statement of Vetancurt that there were 800 people in Awatobi at the end of the seventeenth century.] [Footnote 102: _Kanel_ = Spanish _carnero_, sheep; _ba_ = water, spring.] [Footnote 103: Wipo spring, a few miles northward from the eastern end of the mesa, would be an excellent site for a Government school. It is sufficiently convenient to the pueblos, has an abundant supply of potable water at all seasons, and cultivable fields in the neighborhood.] [Footnote 104: The boy who brought our drinking water from Kanelba could not be prevailed upon to visit it on the day of the snake hunt to the east in 1895, on the ground that no one not a member of the society should be seen there or take water from it at that time. This is probably a phase of the taboo of all work in the world-quarter in which the snake hunts occur, when the Snake priests are engaged in capturing these reptilian "elder brothers."] [Footnote 105: Tcino lives at Sichomovi, and in the Snake dance at Walpi formerly took the part of the old man who calls out the words, "_Awahaia_," etc. at the kisi, before the reptiles are carried about the plaza. These words are Keresan, and Tcino performed this part on account of his kinship. He owns the grove of peach trees because they are on land of his ancestors, a fact confirmatory of the belief that the people of Sikyatki came from the Rio Grande.] [Footnote 106: Nasyuñweve, who died a few years ago, formerly made the prayer-stick to Masauwûh, the Fire or Death god. This he did as one of the senior members of the Kokop or Firewood people, otherwise known as the Fire people, because they made fire with the fire-drill. On his death his place in the kiva was taken by Katci. Nasyuñweve was Intiwa's chief assistant in the Walpi _katcinas_, and wore the mask of Eototo in the ceremonials of the _Niman_. All this is significant, and coincides with the theory that _katcinas_ are incorporated in the Tusayan ritual, that Eototo is their form of Masauwûh, and that he is a god of fire, growth, and death, like his dreaded equivalent.] [Footnote 107: The Hano people call the Hopi _Koco_ or _Koso_; the Santa Clara (also Tewa) people call them _Khoso_, according to Hodge.] [Footnote 108: The replastering of kivas at Walpi takes place during the _Powamu_, an elaborate _katcina_ celebration. I have noticed that in this renovation of the kivas one corner, as a rule, is left unplastered, but have elicited no satisfactory explanation of this apparent oversight, which, no doubt, has significance. Someone, perhaps overimaginative, suggested to me that the unplastered corner was the same as the break in encircling lines on ancient pottery.] [Footnote 109: I was aided in making this plan by the late J. G. Owens, my former assistant in the field work of the Hemenway Expedition. It was prepared with a few simple instruments, and is not claimed to be accurate in all particulars.] [Footnote 110: The existence of these peach trees near Sikyatki suggests, of course, an abandonment of the neighboring pueblo in historic times, but I hardly think it outweighs other stronger proofs of antiquity.] [Footnote 111: The position of the cemeteries in ancient Tusayan ruins is by no means uniform. They are rarely situated far from the houses, and are sometimes just outside the walls. While the dead were seldom carried far from the village, a sandy locality was generally chosen and a grave excavated a few feet deep. Usually a few stones were placed on the surface of the ground over the burial place, evidently to protect the remains from prowling beasts.] [Footnote 112: The excavations at Homolobi in 1896 revealed two beautiful cups with braided handles and one where the clay strands are twisted.] [Footnote 113: The modern potters commonly adorn the ends of ladle handles with heads of different mythologic beings in their pantheon. The knob-head priest-clowns are favorite personages to represent, although even the Corn-maid and different _katcinas_ are also sometimes chosen for this purpose. The heads of various animals are likewise frequently found, some in artistic positions, others less so.] [Footnote 114: The clay ladles with perforated handles with which the modern Hopi sometimes drink are believed to be of late origin in Tusayan.] [Footnote 115: The oldest medicine bowls now in use ordinarily have handles and a terraced rim, but there are one or two important exceptions. In this connection it may be mentioned that, unlike the Zuñi, the Hopi never use a clay bowl with a basket-like handle for sacred meal, but always carry the meal in basket trays. This the priests claim is a very old practice, and so far as my observations go is confirmed by archeological evidence. The bowl with a basket-form handle is not found either in ancient or modern Tusayan.] [Footnote 116: Symbolism rather than realism was the controlling element of archaic decoration. Thus, while objects of beauty, like flowers and leaves, were rarely depicted, and human forms are most absurd caricatures, most careful attention was given to minute details of symbolism, or idealized animals unknown to the naturalist.] [Footnote 117: Certainly no more appropriate design could be chosen for the decoration of the inside of a food vessel than the head of the Corn-maid, and from our ideas of taste none less so than that of a lizard or bird. The freshness and absence of wear of many of the specimens of Sikyatki mortuary pottery raises the question whether they were ever in domestic use. Many evidently were thus employed, as the evidences of wear plainly indicate, but possibly some of the vessels were made for mortuary purposes, either at the time of the decease of a relative or at an earlier period.] [Footnote 118: The figure shown in plate CXXIX, _a_, was probably intended to represent the Corn-maid, or an Earth goddess of the Sikyatki pantheon. Although it differs widely in drawing from figures of Calako-mana on modern bowls, it bears a startling resemblance to the figure of the Germ goddess which appears on certain Tusayan altars.] [Footnote 119: Hopi legends recount how certain clans, especially those of Tanoan origin, lived in Tségi canyon and intermarried with the Navaho so extensively that it is said they temporarily forgot their own language. From this source may have sprung the numerous so-called Navaho _katcinas_, and the reciprocal influence on the Navaho cults was even greater.] [Footnote 120: These priests wear a close-fitting skullcap, with two long, banded horns made of leather, to the end of which corn husks are tied. For an extended description see _Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology_, vol. II, No. 1, page 11.] [Footnote 121: The rarity of human figures on such kinds of pottery as are found in the oldest ruins would appear to indicate that decorations of this kind were a late development. No specimen of black-and-white ware on which pictures of human beings are present has yet been figured. The sequence of evolution in designs is believed to be (1) geometrical figures, (2) birds, (3) other animals, (4) human beings.] [Footnote 122: In some of the figurines used in connection with modern Hopi altars these whorls are represented by small wheels made of sticks radiating from a common juncture and connected by woolen yarn.] [Footnote 123: The natives of Cibola, according to Castañeda, "gather their hair over the two ears, making a frame which looks like an old-fashioned headdress." The Tusayan Pueblo maidens are the only Indians who now dress their hair in this way, although the custom is still kept up by men in certain sacred dances at Zuñi. The country women in Salamanca, Spain, do their hair up in two flat coils, one on each side of the forehead, a custom which Castañeda may have had in mind when he compared the Pueblo coiffure to an "old-fashioned headdress."] [Footnote 124: _American Anthropologist_, April, 1892.] [Footnote 125: Troano and Cortesiano codices.] [Footnote 126: A _nakwákwoci_ is an individual prayer-string, and consists of one or more prescribed feathers tied to a cotton string. These prayer emblems are made in great numbers in every Tusayan ceremony.] [Footnote 127: The evidence afforded by this bowl would seem to show that the cult of the Corn-maid was a part of the mythology and ritual of Sikyatki. The elaborate figures of the rain-cloud, which are so prominent in representations of the Corn-maid on modern plaques, bowls, and dolls, are not found in the Sikyatki picture.] [Footnote 128: The reason for my belief that this is a breath feather will be shown under the discussion of feather and bird pictures.] [Footnote 129: For the outline of this legend see _Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology_, vol. IV. The maid is there called the Tcüa-mana or Snake-maid, a sacerdotal society name for the Germ goddess. The same personage is alluded to under many different names, depending on the society, but they are all believed to refer to the same mythic concept.] [Footnote 130: The attitude of the male and female here depicted was not regarded as obscene; on the contrary, to the ancient Sikyatki mind the picture had a deep religious meaning. In Hopi ideas the male is a symbol of active generative power, the female of passive reproduction, and representations of these two form essential elements of the ancient pictorial and graven art of that people.] [Footnote 131: The doll of Kokopeli has along, bird-like beak, generally a rosette on the side of the head, a hump on the back, and an enormous penis. It is a phallic deity, and appears in certain ceremonials which need not here be described. During the excavations at Sikyatki one of the Indians called my attention to a large Dipteran insect which he called "Kokopeli."] [Footnote 132: The practice still exists at Zuñi, I am told, and there is no sign of its becoming extinct. It is said that old Naiutci, the chief of the Priesthood of the Bow, was permanently injured during one of these performances. (Since the above lines were written I have excavated from one of the ruins on the Little Colorado a specimen of one of these objects used by ancient stick-swallowers. It is made of bone, and its use was explained to me by a reliable informant familiar with the practices of Oraibi and other villagers. It is my intention to figure and describe this ancient object in the account of the explorations of 1896.)] [Footnote 133: "Tusayan Katcinas," Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1893-94, Washington, 1897. Hewüqti is also called Soyokmana, a Keresan-Hopi name meaning the Natacka-maid. The Keresan (Sia) Skoyo are cannibal giants, according to Mrs Stevenson, an admirable definition of the Hopi Natackas.] [Footnote 134: The celebration occurs in the modern Tusayan pueblos in the _Powamû_ where the representative of Calako flogs the children. Calako's picture is found on the _Powamû_ altars of several of the villages of the Hopi.] [Footnote 135: Figures of the human hand have been found on the walls of cliff houses. These were apparently made in somewhat the same way as that on the above bowl, the hand being placed on the surface and pigment spattered about it. See "The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly," by Cosmos Mindeleff; Sixteenth Annual Report, 1894-95.] [Footnote 136: Mu^{r}yi, mole or gopher; mu^{r}iyawû, moon. There maybe some Hopi legend connecting the gopher with the moon, but thus far it has eluded my studies, and I can at present do no more than call attention to what appears to be an interesting etymological coincidence.] [Footnote 137: This form of mouth I have found in pictures of quadrupeds, birds, and insects, and is believed to be conventionalized. Of a somewhat similar structure are the mouths of the _Natacka_ monsters which appear in the Walpi _Powamû_ ceremony. See the memoir on "Tusayan Katcinas," in the Fifteenth Annual Report.] [Footnote 138: Figures of the tadpole and frog are often found on modern medicine bowls in Tusayan. The snake, so common on Zuñi ceremonial pottery, has not been seen by me on a single object of earthenware in use in modern Hopi ritual.] [Footnote 139: _Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology_, vol. IV.] [Footnote 140: Although made of beautiful yellow ware, it shows at one point marks of having been overheated in firing, as is often the case with larger vases and jars.] [Footnote 141: One of the best examples of the rectangular or ancient type of medicine bowl is used in the celebration of the Snake dance at Oraibi, where it stands on the rear margin of the altar of the Antelope priesthood of that pueblo.] [Footnote 142: One of the best of these is that of the Humis-katcina, but good examples occur on the dolls of the Calakomanas. The Lakone maid, however, wears a coronet of circular rain-cloud symbols, which corresponds with traditions which recount that this form was introduced by the southern clans or the Patki people.] [Footnote 143: In the evolution of ornament among the Hopi, as among most primitive peoples where new designs have replaced the old, the meaning of the ancient symbols has been lost. Consequently we are forced to adopt comparative methods to decipher them. If, for instance, on a fragment of ancient pottery we find the figure of a bird in which the wing or tail feathers have a certain characteristic symbol form, we are justified, when we find the same symbolic design on another fragment where the rest of the bird is wanting, in considering the figure that of a wing or tail feather. So when the prescribed figure of the feather has been replaced by another form it is not surprising to find it incomprehensible to modern shamans. The comparative ethnologist may in this way learn the meanings of symbols to which the modern Hopi priest can furnish no clue.] [Footnote 144: In an examination of many figures of ancient vessels where this peculiar design occurs it will be found that in all instances they represent feathers, although the remainder of the bird is not to be found. The same may also be said of the design which represents the tail-feathers. This way of representing feathers is not without modern survival, for it may still be seen in many dolls of mystic personages who are reputed to have worn feathered garments.] [Footnote 145: At the present time the circle is the totemic signature of the Earth people, representing the horizon, but it has likewise various other meanings. With certain appendages it is the disk of the sun--and there are ceremonial paraphernalia, as amulets, placed on sand pictures or tied to helmets, which may be represented by a simple ring. The meaning of these circles in the bowl referred to above is not clear to me, nor is my series of pictographs sufficiently extensive to enable a discovery of its significance by comparative methods. A ring of meal sometimes drawn on the floor of a kiva is called a "house," and a little imagination would easily identify these with the mythic houses of the sky-bird, but this interpretation is at present only fanciful.] [Footnote 146: The _paho_ is probably a substitution of a sacrifice of corn or meal given as homage to the god addressed.] [Footnote 147: _Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology_, vol. IV. These water gourds figure conspicuously in many ceremonies of the Tusayan ritual. The two girls personating the Corn-maids carry them in the Flute observance, and each of the Antelope priests at Oraibi bears one of these in the Antelope or Corn dance.] [Footnote 148: "A few Tusayan Pictographs;" _American Anthropologist_, Washington, January, 1892.] [Footnote 149: A beautiful example of this kind was found at Homolobi in the summer of 1896.] [Footnote 150: In this connection the reader is referred to the story, already told in former pages of this memoir, concerning the flogging of the youth by the husband of the two women who brought the Hopi the seeds of corn. It may be mentioned as corroboratory evidence that Calako-taka represents a supernatural sun-bird, that the Tataukyamû priests carry a shield with Tunwup (Calako-taka) upon it in the Soyaluña. These priests, as shown by the etymology of their name, are associated with the sun. In the Sun drama, or Calako ceremony, in July, Calako-takas are personated, and at Zuñi the Shalako is a great winter sun ceremony.] [Footnote 151: _American Anthropologist_, April, 1895, p. 133. As these cross-shape pahos which are now made in Tusayan are attributed to the Kawaika or Keres group of Indians, and as they were seen at the Keresan pueblo of Acoma in 1540, it is probable that they are derivative among the Hopi; but simple cross decorations on ancient pottery were probably autochthonous.] [Footnote 152: In dolls of the Corn-maids this germinative symbol is often found made of wood and mounted on an elaborate tablet representing rain-clouds.] [Footnote 153: Many similarities might be mentioned between the terraced figures used in decoration in Old Mexico and in ancient Tusayan pottery, but I will refer to but a single instance, that of the stuccoed walls of Mitla, Oaxaca, and Teotitlan del Valle. Many designs from these ruins are gathered together for comparative purposes by that eminent Mexicanist, Dr E. Seler, in his beautiful memoir on Mitla (_Wandmalereien von Mitla_, plate X). In this plate exact counterparts of many geometric patterns on Sikyatki pottery appear, and even the broken spiral is beautifully represented. There are key patterns and terraced figures in stucco on monuments of Central America identical with the figures on pottery from Sikyatki.] [Footnote 154: This pillar, so conspicuous in all photographs of Walpi, is commonly called the Snake rock.] [Footnote 155: _American Anthropologist_, April, 1892.] [Footnote 156: I failed to find out how the Hopi regard fossils.] [Footnote 157: These objects were eagerly sought by the Hopi women who visited the camps at Awatobi and Sikyatki.] [Footnote 158: The tubular form of pipe was almost universal in the pueblo area, and I have deposited in the National Museum pipes of this kind from several ruins in the Rio Grande valley.] [Footnote 159: _Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology_, vol. IV, pp. 31, 32, 33.] [Footnote 160: This form of pipe occurs over the whole pueblo area.] [Footnote 161: Ancient cigarette reeds, found in sacrificial caves, have a small fragment of woven fabric tied about them.] [Footnote 162: The so-called "implements of wood" figured by Nordenskiöld ("The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde," plate XLII) are identical with some of the pahos from Sikyatki, and are undoubtedly prayer-sticks.] [Footnote 163: Primitive Culture, vol. ii, p. 396.] [Footnote 164: Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology, Vol. _ii_, p. 131.] [Footnote 165: _American Anthropologist_, July, 1892.] [Footnote 166: As stated in former pages, there is some paleographic evidence looking in that direction.] [Footnote 167: _Journal of American Folk-Lore_, vol. V, no. xviii, p. 213.] [Footnote 168: Op. cit., p. 214.] [Footnote 169: They failed to germinate.] APPENDIX The following list introduces the numbers by which the specimens illustrated in this memoir are designated in the catalog of the United States National Museum. Each specimen is also marked with a field catalog number, the locality in which it was found, and the name of the collector: PLATE CXI. _a_, 155895; _b_, 155897; _c_, 155898; _d_, 155896; _e_, 155900; _f_, 155916. CXII. _a_, 155875; _b_, 155996; _c_, 155902; _d_, 155996; _e_, 155997. CXIII. _a_, 155992; _b_, 155913; _c_, 155991; _d_, 155994; _e_, 155993. CXIV. _a_-_g_, 156018; _h_, 156131; _i_, 156091; _j_, 156018. CXIX. _a_, 155806; _b_, 155841; _c_, 155832; _d_, 155678; _e_, 155820; _f_, 155838. CXX. _a_, 155867; _b_, 155866; _c_, 155871; _d_, 155856; _e_, 155861; _f_, 155460. CXXI. _a_, 155694; _b_, 155698; _c_, 155719. CXXII. _a_, 155702; _b_, 155684; _c_, 155688. CXXIII. _a_, 155711; _b_, 155703; _c_, 155707; _d_, 155673. CXXIV. _a_, 155674; _b_, 155683. CXXV. _a_, 155750; _b_, 155753; _c_, 155751; _d_, 155752; _e_, 155749; _f_, 155747. CXXVI. _a_, 155700; _b_, 155682. CXXVII. _a_, 155718; _b_, 155714; _c_, 155723; _d_, 155691. CXXVIII. _a_, 155745; _b_, 155744; _c_, 155746; _d_, 155735; _e_, 155734; _f_, 155733; _g_, 155736. CXXIX. _a_, 155467; _b_, 155462; _c_, 155463; _d_, 155464; _e_, 155466; _f_, 155465. CXXX. _a_, 155474; _b_, 155475; _c_, 155477; _d_, 155484; _e_, 155473; _f_, 155476. CXXXI. _a_, 155758; _b_, 155773; _c_, 155768; _d_, 155771; _e_, 155546; _f_ 155764. CXXXII. _a_, 155482; _b_, 155483; _c_, 155481; _d_, 155480; _e_, 155479; _f_, 155485. CXXXIII. _a_, 155614; _b_, 155757; _c_, 155502; _d_, 155772; _e_, 155758; _f_, 155781. CXXXIV. _a_, 155570; _b_, 155597; _c_, 155567; _d_, 155507; _e_, 155575; _f_, 155505. CXXXV. _a_, 155692; _b_, 155681. CXXXVI. _a_, 155687; _b_, 155737; _c_, 155695. CXXXVII. _a_, 155488; _b_, 155450; _c_, 155468; _d_, 155732; _e_, 155776; _f_, 155740. CXXXVIII. _a_, 155498; _b_, 155490; _c_, 155492; _d_, 155500; _e_, 155499; _f_, 155494. CXXXIX. _a_, 155524; _b_, 155528; _c_, 155491; _d_, 155523; _e_, 155527; _f_, 155522. CXL. _a_, 155529; _b_, 155489; _c_, 155540; _d_, 155541; _e_, 155606; _f_, 155410. CXLI. _a_, 155501; _b_, 155503; _c_, 155509; _d_, 155511; _e_, 155510; _f_, 155512. CXLII. _a_, 155712; _b_, 155693; _c_, 155756; _d_, 155636; _e_, 155697. CXLIII. _a_, _b_, 155690. CXLIV. _a_, _b_, 155689. CXLV. _a_, 155717; _b_, 155696. CXLVI. _a_, 155538; _b_, 155508; _c_, 155802; _d_, 155537; _e_, 155487; _f_, 155653. CXLVII. _a_, 155493; _b_, 155497; _c_, 155602; _d_, 155504; _e_, 155608; _f_, 155495. CXLVIII. _a_, 155556; _b_, 155408; _c_, 155545; _d_, 155548; _e_, 155544; _f_, 155542. CXLIX. _a_, 155554; _b_, 155549; _c_, 155573; _d_, 155607; _e_, 155572; _f_, 155581. CL. _a_, 155565; _b_, 155519; _c_, 155518; _d_, 155569; _e_, 155551; _f_, 155574. CLI. _a_, 155535; _b_, 155532; _c_, 155539; _d_, 155526; _e_, 155613; _f_, 155615. CLII. _a_, 155555; _b_, 155547; _c_, 155571; _d_, 155553; _e_, 155536; _f_, 155521. CLIII. _a_, 155558; _b_, 155564. CLIV. _a_, 155560; _b_, 155568. CLV. _a_, 155543; _b_, 155557. CLVI. _a_, 155562; _b_, 155561; _c_, 155562; _d_, 155796; _e_, 155601; _f_, 155588. CLVII. _a_, 155531; _b_, 155530; _c_, 155525; _d_, 155585; _e_, 155563; _f_, 155552. CLVIII. _a_, 155628; _b_, 155742; _c_, 155632; _d_, 155633; _e_, 155587; _f_, 155634. CLIX. _a_, 155583; _b_, 155598; _c_, 155516; _d_, 155629; _e_, 155590; _f_, 155520. CLX. _a_, 155577; _b_, 155576; _c_, 155622; _d_, 155594; _e_, 155647; _f_, 155654. CLXI. _a_, 155642; _b_, 155506; _c_, 155517; _d_, 155472; _e_, 155589; _f_, 155600. CLXII. _a_, 155637; _b_, 155618; _c_, 155643; _d_, 155621; _e_, 155534; _f_, 155533. CLXIII. _a_, 155611; _b_, 155612. CLXIV. _a_, 155610; _b_, 155609. CLXV. _a_, 155593; _b_, 155592. CLXVI. _a_, 155641; _b_, 155616; _c_, 155617; _d_, 155619; _e_, 155584; _f_, 155640. CLXVII. _a_, 155877; _b_, 155878; _c_, 155892; _d_, 155882; _e_, 155890; _f_, 155881. CLXVIII. _a_, 155876; _b_, 155891; _c_, 155884; _d_, 155914; _e_, 155940; _f_, 155880. CLXIX. _a_, 156095; _b_, 156098; _c_, 156175; _d_, 156174; _e_, 156154; _f_, 156065. CLXX. _a_, _b_, 156227. CLXXI. _a_, 156270; _b_, _c_, 156303; _e_, 156199; _f_, 156043. CLXXII. _a_, 156042; _b_, 156169; _c_, 156169; _d_, 156170; _e_, 156184; _f_, 156164. CLXXIII. _a_, 155999; _b_, 155154; _c_, 156128; _d_, 156131; _e_, _f_, 1561?0; _g_, 156010; _h-l_, 156130. CLXXIV. _a_, 156191; _b_, _c_, 156183; _d_, 156185; _e-g_, 156183; _h-j_, 156194; _k_, 156180; _l_, _m_, 156191; _n_, 156182. CLXXV. _o_, 156188; _p_, 156185; _q_, 156191; _r_, 156186; _s_, 156180; _t_, 156188; _u_, 156181; _v_, 156179; _w_, 156187. INDEX ACROPOLIS of Sikyatki 638, 640, 643-646 ADOBE plastering in cavate houses 542 [ADOBE], _see_ MASONRY, PLASTERING. AGAVE fiber used in Tusayan 629, 630 AGUATO, an Awatobi synonym 594 AGUATOBI, an Awatobi synonym 594 AGUATUVÍ, an Awatobi synonym 594 AGUATUYA, an Awatobi synonym 594 AGUATUYBÁ, an Awatobi synonym 594 AGUITOBI, an Awatobi synonym 594 AHUATO, an Awatobi synonym 594 AHUATOBI, an Awatobi synonym 594 AHUATU, an Awatobi synonym 594 AHUATUYBA, an Awatobi synonym 594 AH-WAT-TENNA an Awatobi synonym 594 ALOSAKA idols in Awatobi shrine 619 ANAWITA, traditional information given by 595 ANCESTOR worship at Sikyatki 732 ANTELOPE VALLEY, _see_ JEDITOH VALLEY. APACHE depredation in Tusayan 585 [APACHE], late appearance of, at Tusayan 581 [APACHE] occupancy of Verde ruins 550, 565, 570 [APACHE] pictographs in Verde valley 550, 556, 567, 568 AQUATASI, an Awatobi synonym 594 AQUATUBI, an Awatobi synonym 594 ARCHEOLOGICAL expedition to Arizona, 1895 519-744 ARIZONA, archeological expedition to, 1895 519-744 [ARIZONA], _see_ NAVAHO. ARROWHEAD KILT worn by man-eagle 692-693 ARROWHEADS from Awatobi 618, 625 [ARROWHEADS] in Sikyatki graves 731, 740 ARROWSHAFT POLISHERS from Awatobi 611, 731 [ ARROWSHAFT POLISHERS] in Sikyatki graves 731 ART REMAINS in Palatki and Honanki 569 ASA PEOPLE join the Hopi 578 [ASA PEOPLE], migration of 622 [ASA PEOPLE] settle at Sichomovi 578 ASH-HEAP PUEBLO, former site of Walpi 635 ATABI-HOGANDI, an Awatobi synonym 594 AUA-TU-UI, an Awatobi synonym 594 A-WA-TE-U, an Awatobi synonym 594 AWATOBI and Sikyatki pottery compared 659 [AWATOBI], arrowshaft polishers from 611, 731 [AWATOBI], etymology of 594 [AWATOBI], legend of destruction of 602 [AWATOBI], population of 637 [AWATOBI], reasons for excavating 591 [AWATOBI] ruin discussed 592-631 [AWATOBI] ruin examined 535 [AWATOBI], settlement of Sikyatki people at 634 [AWATOBI] settled by Küküchomo and Sikyatki people 589 [AWATOBI] visited in 1540 596 AWATÛBI, an Awatobi synonym 594 Á-WAT-U-I, an Awatobi synonym 594 AWLS, bone, from Awatobi 627 AXES, stone, in Sikyatki graves 730, 731 [AXES] from Awatobi 625 BADGER PEOPLE settle Sichomovi 578 BAER, ERWIN, with archeological expedition in 1895 527 BANCROFT, H. H., on destruction of Awatobi 601 BANDELIER, A. F., Cibola identified by 595 [BANDELIER, A. F.], on record of Awatobi destruction 610 BAPTISM opposed by the Hopi 601 BASINS, _see_ POTTERY. BASKETRY found in Honanki 572 [BASKETRY] not found at Sikyatki 649 BAT-HOUSE, ruin of the 590 BEADS from Awatobi 628 [BEADS] in Sikyatki graves 733 BEAMS of mission in Walpi houses 586 [BEAMS] of Palatki ruin 557 BEAN-PLANTING ceremony of the Hopi 702 BEAR CLANS, early arrival of, at Tusayan 582 BELL, clay, from Awatobi 628 [BELL], copper fragments of, from Awatobi 609, 631 [BELL] used in Hopi ceremony 628 BERRIES in Sikyatki graves 733 BESSELS, EMIL, on affinity of cliff-dwellers and pueblos 532 BICKFORD, F. D., on cliff houses in Walnut canyon 532 BIRD figures on Hopi pottery 660 [BIRD] figures on Sikyatki pottery 658, 682-698, 714 [BIRD] ornaments from Awatobi 628 [BIRD] ornaments in Sikyatki graves 733 [BIRD] vessels from Awatobi 624 BLOODY BASIN, cliff houses of 549 BODKINS, bone, from Awatobi 627 BONE BEADS from Honanki 573 [BONE BEADS] in Sikyatki graves 733 BONE OBJECTS from Awatobi 627, 628 [BONE OBJECTS], from Honanki 572 BONILLA, --, on Sandia population in 1749 584 BOURKE, J. G., identifies Tally-hogan with Awatobi 602 BOWLS, Sikyatki, decorations on 705 [BOWLS], _see_ POTTERY. BOXES, earthenware, from Sikyatki 655 BRACELETS from Awatobi 628 BUTTERFLY figures on Sikyatki pottery. 678-680, 698 [BUTTERFLY] symbol on Hopi pottery 687 CALAKO in Hopi mythology 700 [CALAKO] katcina, origin of 666 CAMPBELL, GEO., cliff houses discovered by 533 CAMP VERDE, ruins near 534 CARDENAS, G. L., visits Tusayan in 1540 595 CARDINAL POINTS in Hopi ceremony 613, 628, 678 CASA GRANDE ascribed to the Hopi 531 CASA MONTEZUMA, _see_ MONTEZUMA CASTLE. CASAS GRANDES, pottery from 624 CASTEÑEDA, P. DE, account of Tusayan 596 [CASTEÑEDA, P. DE] on Cibola hair-dressing 661 [CASTEÑEDA, P. DE] on early pueblo warfare 588 [CASTEÑEDA, P. DE] on Hopi fabrics 629 [CASTEÑEDA, P. DE] on pueblo kivas in 1540 575 [CASTEÑEDA, P. DE] on visit to Tusayan in 1540 596, 597 CAVATE DWELLINGS, function of 544 [CAVATE DWELLINGS] in Verde valley discussed 536, 537-545 CEMETERIES of Sikyatki 646-649 CEMETERY of Awatobi 593, 618 CEREMONIAL CIRCUIT of the Hopi 681 CHAIRS tabooed in Hopi kivas 626 CHARM STONES from Sikyatki 729 CHAVERO, A., on Nahuatl water symbol 569 CHAVES PASS, ruins at 532, 573 CHELLY CANYON, cliff houses in 578 [CHELLY CANYON], _see_ TSÉGI. CHIMNEYS, absence of, at Sikyatki 646 CHUKUBI, ruin of, discussed 583 CIBOLA, identification of 595 [CIBOLA], _see_ ZUÑI. CIGARETTES of reeds in sacrificial caves 736 [CIGARETTES] in Hopi ceremony 735 CINDER CONES, ruins in 532 CIRCULAR RUINS absent in southern pueblo area 576 CIST in Awatobi kiva 612 [CIST] in cavate lodges 542 [CIST] near cavate houses 543 CLANS formerly occupying Sikyatki 636 [CLANS] of Awatobi 610 [CLANS] of Küküchomo and Sikyatki 587, 588 CLIFF DWELLERS defined 531 CLIFF HOUSES, age of, in Red-rocks 545 [CLIFF HOUSES] and pueblos similar 537 [CLIFF HOUSES] formerly occupied by Hopi 578 [CLIFF HOUSES], human hand figures on 668 [CLIFF HOUSES] in Walnut canyon 532 [CLIFF HOUSES] of the Red-rocks 548, 549 [CLIFF HOUSES] of Verde valley classified 536 CLIFF PALACE and Honanki compared 552 CLIFF'S RANCH, pictographs near 548 CLOUD, _see_ RAINCLOUD. CLOWN-PRIEST figures on Hopi pottery 659 COLANDER fragments from Tusayan ruins 624 COMUPAVÍ identified with Shuñopovi 599 CONCEPCION, CRISTOVAL DE LA, at founding of Awatobi mission 599 COPPER found in Awatobi 608, 609, 631 [COPPER] bells in Arizona ruins 628, 629 [COPPER] unknown to ancient Tusayan 741 CORN attached to prayer-sticks 739 [CORN] found in Awatobi 606, 619 [CORN] found in Honanki 572 [CORN], Hopi symbolism of 662 [CORN] in Hopi ceremony 628 [CORN], sweet, introduced in Mishoñinovi 604 CORN-MAID dolls of the Hopi 704 [CORN-MAID] figures of the Hopi 661 [CORN-MAID] figures on Hopi pottery 657, 658, 662 CORN MOUND, symbolic 740 CORN POLLEN in Hopi ceremony 628 CORNADO, F. V. DE, route of 530 COSMOGONY of the Hopi 647, 666, 732 COTTON cultivated by the Hopi 596, 629 [COTTON] fabrics in Verde ruins 573 [COTTON] garments of the Hopi 599 COVILLE, F. V., on identification of ancient food remains 741-742 CREMATION not practiced at Sikyatki 649 CROOKS in Tusayan ritual 703 [CROOKS] on Sikyatki pottery 703-704, 714, 724 CROSS figure allied to sun symbol 623 [CROSS] on Sikyatki pottery 702 CRYSTAL, _see_ QUARTZ CRYSTAL. CUANRABI mentioned by Oñate 599 CUPS from Sikyatki described 654 [CUPS], _see_ POTTERY. CUSHING, F. H., on affinity of cliff dwellers and pueblos 532 [CUSHING, F. H.], on southern origin of Zuñi clans 574 [CUSHING, F. H.], ruins visited by 534 DECORATION of Awatobi pottery 623, 624-625 [DECORATION] of Honanki pottery 570, 571 [DECORATION] of ladle handles 624 [DECORATION] of pottery by spattering 650, 668, 671, 677 [DECORATION] of Sikyatki pottery 650, 652, 655, 657-728 DELLENBAUGH, F. S., on identification of Cibola 595 DIPPERS from Awatobi described 624 [DIPPERS], _see_ POTTERY. DOLLS, Corn-maid, of the Hopi 704 DOMESTIC ANIMALS of the Hopi 731 DOORWAYS of cavate houses 543, 552 DRAGONFLY symbolic of rain 630 [DRAGONFLY] symbol on pottery 669, 680-682 DRILL balances from Sikyatki graves 740 EAGLE PLUMES in Hopi rites 589 EAGLE SHRINE at Tukinobi 589 EAGLES kept by the Hopi 731 EAST MESA, ruins at 581, 585 ESPEJO, ANTONIO, Awatobi referred to by 596, 599 [ESPEJO, ANTONIO], Awatobi visited by 594 [ESPEJO, ANTONIO], on Hopi fabrics 629 [ESPEJO, ANTONIO], visits Tusayan in 1583 598 ESPELETA, an Oraibi chief 601 [ESPELETA], visits Santa Fé 601, 602 ESPELETA, JOSÉ, killed at Oraibi 600 ESPERIEZ mentioned by Oñate 599 ESTUFA, _see_ KIVA. FABRICS, _see_ TEXTILE. FEATHER fabrics from Sikyatki 629 [FEATHER] symbols on Hopi pottery 663 [FEATHER] symbols on Sikyatki pottery 658, 682-698, 714, 723, 724 FEATHERED STRINGS represented on pottery 662 FEATHERS on prayer-sticks 739 FETISH, mountain lion, from Awatobi 618 [FETISH], mountain lion, from Sikyatki 730 [FETISH], personal, from Sikyatki 729 FEWKES, J. W., on archeological expedition to Arizona, 1895 519-744 FIGUEROA, JOSÉ, killed at Awatobi 600 FIRE, Hopi purification by 647 [FIRE], _see_ NEW-FIRE CEREMONY. FIRE-HOUSE, ancient occupancy of 633 [FIRE-HOUSE] ruin of Tusayan 590, 633 FIREPLACES in cavate dwellings 641 FIREWOOD PEOPLE at Sikyatki 632, 633, 640, 646 [FIREWOOD PEOPLE] of Tusayan 672 FLAGSTAFF, cliff houses near 533 FLOWER FIGURE on Hopi pottery 697 [FLOWER FIGURE] on Sikyatki pottery 658, 680 FLOWERS, _see_ VEGETAL DESIGNS. FLUTE CEREMONY not performed in kiva 575, 612 [FLUTE CEREMONY], trails closed during 597 FLUTE-LIKE OBJECTS from Awatobi 624 [FLUTE-LIKE OBJECTS] from Sikyatki 656 FLUTE SOCIETY, prayer-sticks of the 737 FOOD REMAINS in mortuary vessels 741 FOSSILS used in Hopi ceremony 730 FRASQUILLO, flight of Tanoan refugees under 578, 600 FROG figures on Sikyatki pottery 658 [FROG] figures on Tusayan bowls 677 GARAYCOECHEA, JUAN, Awatobi visited by 600 [GARAYCOECHEA, JUAN], missionary labors of 601 GARDENS, modern, at Sikyatki 646 GENESIS, _see_ COSMOGONY. GEOMETRIC figures on Sikyatki pottery 701-705 GERMINATIVE symbol on Sikyatki pottery 704 GODDARD, S., with archeological expedition in 1895 527 GOD OF DEATH of the Hopi 641 GOODE, G. BROWN, acknowledgments to 528 GORGETS in Sikyatki graves 733 GUTIERREZ, ANDRES, at founding of Awatobi mission 599 HAIR, human, woven by the Hopi 630 HAIRDRESSING of the Hopi 661, 663 HANCE'S RANCH, pictograph bowlder near 545 HAND figures on Sikyatki pottery 666-668, 728 HANO compared with Walpi 642 [HANO] in 1782 579 [HANO], when established 636 HAVASUPAI, cliff dwellings occupied by 533 HEART represented in animal figures 673 HEMATITE fetish from Sikyatki 730 HEMENWAY, MARY, Kawaika pottery purchased by 590 HÉ-SHÓTA-PATHL-TÂ[)I]E, Zuñi name of Kintiel 534 HODGE, F. W., acknowledgments to 527 [HODGE, F. W.] on colander fragments from Salado ruins 624 [HODGE, F. W.] on recent advent of the Navaho 658 [HODGE, F. W.], Sikyatki excavation aided by 648 HODGE, _Mrs_ M. W., acknowledgments to 527 HOFFMAN, W. J., on ruins at Montezuma Well 546 HOLBROOK, ruins near 533 HOLGUIN, _Capt_., Payüpki attacked by 583 HOLMES, W. H., on evolution of pottery designs 715, 716, 727 HOMOLOBI, location of 532 HONANKI, art remains found at 569 [HONANKI], origin of name 553, 559 [HONANKI], discovery of ruin of 534, 551 [HONANKI] ruin discussed 558-569 HOPI, abandonment of villages by 580 [HOPI] and Verde ruins compared 573 [HOPI], early migrations of clans of 574 [HOPI] knowledge of Montezuma Well 547 [HOPI] pictographic score 568 [HOPI] pueblos in 1782 579 [HOPI] request removal to Tonto basin 534 [HOPI] ruins, distribution of 581 [HOPI], southern origin of part of 568 HORN CLANS at Sikyatki 669 HORN-HOUSE, ruin of 590 HORSES, how regarded by ancient Hopi 598, 599 HOUGH, W., pottery figure interpreted by 664 HOWELL, E., cliff houses discovered by 533 HUMAN FIGURES on Sikyatki pottery 660 HUMAN REMAINS in Awatobi ruins 610, 612, 618 [HUMAN REMAINS], _see_ CEMETERIES. IDOL, _see_ ALOSAKA, DOLL, FETISH. INSECT figures on Sikyatki pottery 658 IRRIGATION represented in pictography 545 [IRRIGATION] ditches in Verde valley 538 JACOB'S WELL described 546 JAKWAINA, farm of, at Sikyatki 640 JARAMILLO, JUAN, on "Tucayan" 595 JARS, _see_ POTTERY. JEDITOH VALLEY, ruins in 581, 589, 592 JUDD, JAMES S., acknowledgments to 527 KACHINBA ruin described 589 KATCI, a Hopi folklorist 637 [KATCI], farm of, at Sikyatki 641 KATCINA cult in Tusayan 625, 633 [KATCINA] defined 661, 732 [KATCINA] figures on Hopi pottery 624, 658, 665 KAWAIKA, application of name 622 [KAWAIKA], pottery from 622 [KAWAIKA], ruins at 590 KEAM, T. V., excavations by, at Kawaika 622 [KEAM, T. V.], idols removed and returned by 619 KEAM'S CANYON, ruins in 581 KINNAZINDE, ruin of 534 KINTIEL ascribed to the Zuñi 534, 591 [KINTIEL], location of 533 KISAKOBI, former site of Walpi 578 [KISAKOBI] ruins described 585 [KISAKOBI], settlement of 635 KISHYUBA, a Hopi ruin 591 KISI and cavate house compared 544 KIVA-LIKE remains at Honanki 560 KIVAS, absence of, in Sikyatki 642 [KIVAS], absence of, in southern cliff houses 574 [KIVAS], ceremonial replastering of 645 [KIVAS], distribution of 561, 574 [KIVAS] of Awatobi 611 [KIVAS], platforms characteristic of 541 [KIVAS], round, evolution of 575 K'N'-I-K'ÉL, _see_ KINTIEL. KOKOPELI, a Hopi deity 663 KOPELI, services of, at Sikyatki 641, 643 KÓYIMSE of the Hopi 659 KÜCHAPTÜVELA, former site of Walpi 578 [KÜCHAPTÜVELA] ruin described 585 KÜKÜCHOMO ruins described 586 KWATAKA, a Hopi monster 691 LADLES from Awatobi described 624 [LADLES] from Sikyatki described 655 [LADLES], _see_ POTTERY. LANGLEY, S. P., acknowledgments to 528 LELO, farm of, at Sikyatki 640 LEROUX, A., Verde ruins discovered by 530 LIGHTNING symbol on Hopi pottery 673 LIGNITE deposits near Sikyatki 643 [LIGNITE] gorgets in Sikyatki graves 733 LINES, broken, on Sikyatki pottery 704 LUMMIS, C. F., on Montezuma Well ruins 546 MAMZRÁUTI ceremony introduced at Walpi 604 MAN-EAGLE, a Hopi monster 691 [MAN-EAGLE] on Sikyatki pottery 683 MARIE, AUG. STA., an Awatobi missionary 600 MASAUWÛH in Hopi mythology 666 [MASAUWÛH], _see_ GOD OF DEATH. MASIUMPTIWA, Awatobi legend repeated by 603 MASONRY of Awatobi 616 [MASONRY] of Honanki 563 [MASONRY] of Palatki 554-555 [MASONRY] of Sikyatki 644 MEAL, sacred, trail closed with 596, 597 [MEAL] sacrifice by the Hopi 739 MEARNS, E. A., on Verde valley ruins 535, 544, 546 MEDICINE BOWLS of the Hopi 681 [MEDICINE BOWLS] of the Zuñi and Hopi 655 MELINE, J. F., on settlement of Sandia 584 MESCAL in Verde valley caves 550 METAL not found at Honanki 571 [METAL] not found at Sikyatki 649, 741 METATES found in Awatobi 625, 626 [METATES] found in Honanki 571 [METATES] found in Sikyatki graves 731 MICA, _see_ SELENITE. MIDDLE MESA, ruins at 581, 582 MIGRATION of Hopi clans 577 MILLER, _Dr_, pottery collected by 675 MINDELEFF, COSMOS, Homolobi ruins examined by 532 [MINDELEFF, COSMOS], on absence of kivas in Verde ruins 561 [MINDELEFF, COSMOS], on cavate houses 543 [MINDELEFF, COSMOS], on function of cavate lodges 544 [MINDELEFF, COSMOS], on origin of circular kivas 576 [MINDELEFF, COSMOS], on similarity of cliff dwellings and pueblos 537 [MINDELEFF, COSMOS], on Verde valley ruins 535 MINDELEFF, VICTOR, Awatobi described by 602 [MINDELEFF, VICTOR], groundplan of Chukubi by 583 [MINDELEFF, VICTOR], groundplan of Mishiptonga by 590 [MINDELEFF, VICTOR], on Awatobi kivas 612 [MINDELEFF, VICTOR], on distribution of Tusayan ruins 577 [MINDELEFF, VICTOR], on former sites of Walpi 585 [MINDELEFF, VICTOR], on Horn-house and Bat-house 590 [MINDELEFF, VICTOR], on origin of circular kivas 576 [MINDELEFF, VICTOR], Shitaimovi mentioned by 582 [MINDELEFF, VICTOR], Sikyatki described by 632 MISHIPTONGA, ruin of 590 MISHOÑINOVI in 1782 579 MISHOÑINOVI, OLD, discussed 582 MISSION, ruins of, at Awatobi 606 [MISSION], when established at Awatobi 599 MISSIONS among the Hopi 595 MOKI, _see_ HOPI. MONTEZUMA CASTLE and Honanki compared 563 [MONTEZUMA CASTLE] on Beaver creek 549 MONTEZUMA WELL, ruins at 534, 546-548 MOONEY, JAMES, cited on Kawaika pottery 590 MORFI, JUAN A., on Hopi pueblos in 1782 579 [MORFI, JUAN A.], on settlement of Sandia 584 MORTARS found in Awatobi 626 MORTUARY CUSTOMS of the Hopi 648, 656 MORTUARY OBJECTS in Sikyatki graves 650, 656 MORTUARY REMAINS in Awatobi 617 MORTUARY SLABS from Sikyatki 732 MORTUARY VESSELS, food remains in 741 MOTH FIGURES on Sikyatki pottery 678-680 MOUNTAIN-LION fetish from Sikyatki 730 [MOUNTAIN-LION] figure on pottery 671 [MOUNTAIN-LION] in Hopi mythology 545 MOUNTAIN-SHEEP figure on pottery 669, 671 MÜYINWÛ, a Hopi deity 647, 667 MYTH, _see_ COSMOGONY; GENESIS. MYTHIC origin of Kanelba 638-639 [MYTHIC] personages on pottery 665 NAHUATL and Hopi pictographs compared 569 NAIUTCI injured by stick swallowing 664 NAKWÁKWOCI defined 662 NAMPÉO, a Hopi potter 660 NASYUÑWEVE, a Hopi folklorist 637, 640 NAVAHO and Hopi intermarriage 658 [NAVAHO] ceremonial circuit 681 [NAVAHO] depredations in Tusayan 585 [NAVAHO] in Antelope valley 592, 593 [NAVAHO] katcinas on Hopi pottery 658 [NAVAHO], late appearance of, in Tusayan 581 [NAVAHO] name of Awatobi 594 [NAVAHO], recent advent of, in New Mexico 658 [NAVAHO], shrine robbed by 612 NAYBI identified with Oraibi 599 NECKLACES in Sikyatki graves 733 NEEDLES, bone, from Awatobi 627 NEW-FIRE CEREMONIES of the Hopi 586, 602 NEW MEXICO, _see_ NAVAHO. NIEL, J. A., on Tanoan migration to Tusayan 578, 584 NIMANKATCINA of the Hopi 593 NIZA, MARCOS DE, on Totonteac fabrics 629 NOMENCLATURE of Awatobi 594 [NOMENCLATURE] of Sikyatki 636 NORDENSKIÖLD, G., on affinity of cliff dwellers and pueblos 532 [NORDENSKIÖLD, G.], on evolution of pottery design 716, 727 [NORDENSKIÖLD, G.], cited on Mesa Verde villages 555, 563, 678 [NORDENSKIÖLD, G.], on origin of round kivas 575 [NORDENSKIÖLD, G.], on platforms in Mesa Verde kivas 541 [NORDENSKIÖLD, G.], prayer-sticks found by 736 NÜSHAKI, etymology of 578, 586 OAK CREEK, ruins on 533, 550 OBSIDIAN objects from Sikyatki 732 OFFERINGS by Indian excavators 641 OÑATE, JUAN DE, Awatobi visited by 594, 599 OPENINGS in Honanki walls 565 [OPENINGS], _see_ DOORWAY. ORAIBI, age of 607 [ORAIBI] in 1782 580 [ORAIBI] legendary origin of 634 [ORAIBI], site of 578 ORIENTATION of Awatobi mission 609 ORNAMENTS in Sikyatki graves 733 OTERMIN, ANT., attempted reconquest by 584 OWENS, J. G., acknowledgments to 646 PADILLA, JUAN, visits Tusayan in 1540 596 PAHO, _see_ PRAYER-STICK. PAIAKYAMU figures on Hopi pottery 659 PAINT, _see_ PIGMENT. PALATKI, art remains found at 569 [PALATKI], population of 567 [PALATKI] ruins discovered 534, 551 [PALATKI] ruins described 553-558 PALATKWABI, a traditional land of the Hopi 529, 531, 568, 672 PALEOGRAPHY, _see_ DECORATION. PASSAGEWAYS in cavate dwellings 542 [PASSAGEWAYS] in Honanki 565 PATKI PEOPLE, early migrations of the 574 [PATKI PEOPLE], southern origin of the 529, 568 PATUÑ PHRATRY, southern origin of 529 PAYÜPKI, a ruin in Tusayan 578, 583 [PAYÜPKI], possible origin of 584 PEACHES cultivated near Sikyatki 646 [PEACHES] introduced in Oraibi 604 [PEACHES] of the Hopi 639 PHALLIC representations among the Hopi 663 PICTOGRAPHS at Honanki 567, 568 [PICTOGRAPHS] at Palatki ruin 556 [PICTOGRAPHS] in Verde valley 545 [PICTOGRAPHS] near Montezuma Well 548 [PICTOGRAPHS] near Schürmann's ranch 550 [PICTOGRAPHS] of Awatobi totems 610 [PICTOGRAPHS] on Awatobi cliffs 626 [PICTOGRAPHS], _see_ DECORATION. PIGMENT found at Awatobi 618 [PIGMENT] found at Sikyatki 728, 729 [PIGMENT] how applied by the Hopi 650 [PIGMENT] used on prayer-sticks 630 PIPES in Sikyatki graves 733 PLASTERING on Awatobi walls 616 [PLASTERING] of Honanki ruin 563 [PLASTERING] of Palatki ruin 555 [PLASTERING] of Sikyatki rooms 645, 646 PLATFORMS in cavate dwellings 541 [PLATFORMS] in Honanki 566 PLUMED SNAKE cult in Tusayan 671, 672 [PLUMED SNAKE] figures on Hopi kilts 696 [PLUMED SNAKE] figure on pottery 658, 671 [PLUMED SNAKE] in Hopi mythology 668 POLISHING STONES from Sikyatki 729 POPULATION of Awatobi 605 [POPULATION] of Honanki 567 PORCUPINE figure on pottery 669 PORRAS, _Padre_, missionary labors of 595, 599, 600, 605 POTTERY decoration of the Hopi 569 [POTTERY] from ancient Walpi 585 [POTTERY] from Awatobi 621-625 [POTTERY] from Honanki classified 570 [POTTERY] from Payüpki 584 [POTTERY] from Shuñopovi and Mishoñinovi 582 [POTTERY] from Sikyatki discussed 650-728 [POTTERY] from Verde and Colorado Chiquito compared 573 [POTTERY], mortuary, from Awatobi 617 [POTTERY], mortuary, from Kawaika 590 [POTTERY], mortuary, from Sikyatki 649 [POTTERY] of ancient Tusayan 617 POWAMÛ ceremony of the Hopi 702 POWELL, J. W., ruins found by 532 PRAYER-STICKS, cross-shape, of Keres origin 703 [PRAYER-STICKS] from Awatobi 613, 618, 630-631 [PRAYER-STICKS] from Honanki 573 [PRAYER-STICKS] from Sikyatki 649, 736-739 [PRAYER-STICKS] in Hopi ceremony 628 [PRAYER-STICKS], prescribed length of 668 [PRAYER-STICKS], significance of 688, 738 PRAYER-STRINGS of the Hopi 662 PRIESTS, Hopi, succession of 637 PUEBLO GRANDE, _see_ KINTIEL. PUEBLO INDIANS descended from cliff dwellers 531, 532 [PUEBLO INDIANS] RUINS, of Verde valley classified 536 [PUEBLO INDIANS] and cliff dwellings similar 537 QUADRUPED figures on Sikyatki pottery 668-671 QUARTZ CRYSTAL from Sikyatki 729 RABBIT figure on Sikyatki pottery 669, 670 RABBIT-SKIN robes of Tusayan 629 RAIN symbol on bird ornaments 733 RAINBOW symbols on Sikyatki pottery 681 RAINCLOUD SYMBOL of the Hopi 681 [RAINCLOUD SYMBOL] on Awatobi cist 613 [RAINCLOUD SYMBOL] on gravestones 732 [RAINCLOUD SYMBOL] on Hopi pottery 694 [RAINCLOUD SYMBOL] on Sikyatki pottery 689, 690 RATTLESNAKE TANKS, ruins at 532 RED ROCKS, cliff houses of the 548-549 REPTILE figures on pottery 658, 671-677 RUINS of East Mesa discussed 585 [RUINS] of Tusayan 577 [RUINS], _see_ AWATOBI, HONANKI, PALATKI, SIKYATKI, _etc._ SACRIFICE among the Hopi 738 [SACRIFICE], _see_ OFFERING. SAINT JOHNS, ruins near 533 SALIKO, Awatobi legend repeated by 603 [SALIKO] on the Awatobi Mamzráutu 611 SAN BERNABE, mission name of Shuñopovi 607 SAN BERNARDO, mission name of Awatobi 594, 595, 599 SANDALS found in Honanki 573 SANDIA, Hopi name for 584 [SANDIA] settled by Tanoan people from Tusayan 584 SAN JUAN, headdress from 734 SCHÜRMANN, --, acknowledgments to 559 [SCHÜRMANN], ruins near ranch of 550-553 SEATS, stone, in Awatobi ruins 626 SEEDS in mortuary vessels 741 SELENITE deposits near Sikyatki 643 [SELENITE] in Sikyatki graves 730, 733 SELER, E., Mexican designs gathered by 705 SERPENT, plumed, of the Hopi 547, 548 SHALAKO, _see_ CALAKO. SHELL beads from Honanki 573 [SHELL] bracelet from Honanki 572 [SHELL] from Sikyatki graves 739 [SHELL] ornaments from Awatobi 628 [SHELL] ornaments in Sikyatki graves 733 SHIMO, Awatobi legend repeated by 602 SHIPAULOVI in 1782 579 SHITAIMOVI, ruin of 582 SHRINES at Awatobi described 619-621 [SHRINES] at Walpi 586 [SHRINES] near Tukinobi 589 [SHRINES] robbed by Navaho 612 [SHRINES] unearthed at Awatobi 613 [SHRINES] of the Hopi 613 SHUÑOPOVI in 1782 579 [SHUÑOPOVI], OLD, discussed 582 SICHOMOVI compared with Walpi 642 [SICHOMOVI], Tewa name for 642 [SICHOMOVI], when established 578, 636 SIKYATKI and Awatobi pottery compared 623, 659 [SIKYATKI] and modern Hopi pottery compared 649 [SIKYATKI], destruction of 633 [SIKYATKI], etymology of 636 [SIKYATKI] inhabitants settle at Awatobi 596 [SIKYATKI] people harrassed by Walpians 588 [SIKYATKI], prehistoric character of 592, 632 [SIKYATKI] ruins described 631-742 [SIKYATKI], reasons for excavating 591 [SIKYATKI] ruins examined 535 SITES of Tusayan pueblos 578 SITGREAVES, L., on ruins near San Francisco mountains 532, 533 [SITGREAVES, L.], cited on selenite deposits 643 SLIPPER-FORM VESSELS from Sikyatki 652 SMOKING in Hopi ceremony 734 SNAKE represented on pottery 671, 677 [SNAKE], _see_ PLUMED SNAKE. SNAKE HUNT, taboo of work during 639 SNAKE PEOPLE, absence of, at Sikyatki 740 [SNAKE PEOPLE], early arrival of, at Tusayan 582 [SNAKE PEOPLE], northern origin of 575 [SNAKE PEOPLE] settle at Walpi 617 SNAKE-RATTLE in Sikyatki grave 740 [SNAKE-RATTLE] used for ornament 740 SORCERY, Awatobi men accused of 603 SPANISH OBJECTS found at Awatobi 606, 623, 631 [SPANISH OBJECTS] unknown to early Tusayan 741 SPATTERING, pottery decorated by 650, 668, 671, 677 SPOONS from Sikyatki described 655 [SPOONS], _see_ POTTERY. SQUASH indigenous to the southwest 621 [SQUASH] flower, symbolism of the 661 SQUAW MOUNTAIN, cavate dwellings near 534 STALACTITES in Sikyatki graves 730 STAR figures on Sikyatki pottery 702, 724 [STAR] symbol on Hopi pottery 696 [STAR] symbols on Sikyatki pottery 680, 690 STEPHEN, A. M., on Awatobi kivas 612 [STEPHEN, A. M.], on Horn-house and Bat-house 590 [STEPHEN, A. M.], on Mishiptonga ruin 590 [STEPHEN, A. M.], on occupancy of Küküchomo 587 [STEPHEN, A. M.], on origin of certain katcina 666 STEVENSON, JAMES, ruins discovered by 532 STEVENSON, M. C., on Keresan cannibal giants 665 STICK SWALLOWING by the Hopi 664 STONE IMPLEMENTS from Awatobi 625-626 [STONE IMPLEMENTS] from Honanki 571 [STONE IMPLEMENTS] from Sikyatki 729 SUN FIGURE in Powamû ceremony 702 SUNFLOWER symbols on Sikyatki pottery 702 SUN SYMBOL, cross allied to 623 [SUN SYMBOL] on Sikyatki pottery 699-701 SUN WORSHIP of the Hopi 699 SUPELA, Awatobi legend repeated by 603 SWASTIKA figures on Sikyatki pottery 703 TABOO of work during snake hunt 639 TADPOLE figures on Sikyatki pottery 658, 677 TALLA-HOGAN, meaning of 594 [TALLA-HOGAN], Navaho name of Awatobi 594 TANOAN migration to Tusayan 578, 600, 636 TAPOLO, an Awatobi chief 603, 611 TATAUKYAMÛ, a Hopi priesthood 611 TATCUKTI, a Hopi clown-priest 659 TAWA (SUN) PHRATRY, southern origin of 529 TCINO, garden of, at Sikyatki 638, 640, 646 TERRACED FIGURES of Mexico and Tusayan 705 [TERRACED FIGURES] on Sikyatki pottery 701, 703 TEWA PEOPLE occupy Payüpki 584 [TEWA PEOPLE], progressiveness of, in Tusayan 580 TEXTILE FABRICS from Awatobi 629-630 [TEXTILE FABRICS], absence of, at Sikyatki 649 [TEXTILE FABRICS] found in Honanki 572, 573 [TEXTILE FABRICS], Sikyatki dead wrapped with 656 TINDER TUBE from Honanki 572, 573 TOBACCO, _see_ SMOKING. TOBACCO PHRATRY in Awatobi 611 TOBAR, PEDRO, visits Tusayan in 1540 578, 595, 596, 631 TONTO, origin of term 534 TONTO BASIN, ruins in 534 TOTONAKA, a Hopi deity 647 TOTONTEAC identified with Tusayan 534 [TOTONTEAC], suggested origin of 534 TOYS of pottery from Sikyatki 656 TRAILS ceremonially closed 596-597 TRINCHERAS defined 550 [TRINCHERAS] in Red-rock country 549, 550 TRUJILLO, JOSÉ, probably killed at Shuñopovi 600 TSÊGI CANYON and Tusayan pottery compared 623 [TSÊGI CANYON] formerly occupied by Hopi clans 658 [TSÊGI CANYON], _see_ CHELLY CANYON. TUBES, bone, from Awatobi 627 TUCANO, name applied to Tusayan 595 TUCAYAN, name applied to Tusayan 595 TUKINOBI, ruin of, described 589 TURQUOIS beads found at Honanki 573 [TURQUOIS] mosaics of the Hopi 662 [TURQUOIS] objects in Sikyatki graves 641, 733 TUSAYAN, application of term 577 [TUSAYAN] identified with Hopi villages 595 [TUSAYAN] ruins discussed 577-742 [TUSAYAN] towns in 1540 606 [TUSAYAN], _see_ HOPI. TUZAN, name applied to Tusayan 595 TYLOR, E. B., cited on primitive sacrifice 738 UTE depredations in Tusayan 585 [UTE], late appearance of, at Tusayan 581 VARGAS, DIEGO DE, Awatobi visited by 594 [VARGAS, DIEGO DE], Tusayan conquered by 600 VASES, _see_ POTTERY. VEGETAL DESIGNS on Hopi pottery 698-699 VERDE VALLEY and Tusayan ruins compared 573 [VERDE VALLEY], archeology of 530 [VERDE VALLEY] ruins discussed 536, 576 VETANCURT, A. DE, Awatobi mentioned by 594 [VETANCURT, A. DE], on destruction of Awatobi mission 600 VOTH, H. R., decorated bowl collected by 665 [VOTH, H. R.], on ancient pottery found at Oraibi 607 WALLS of Honanki described 559 [WALLS] of Palatki ruin 557 [WALLS], _see_ MASONRY. WALNUT CANYON, cliff houses in 532 WALPI, ancient, pottery of 660 [WALPI] compared with other villages 642 [WALPI], former sites of 585, 635 [WALPI], gradual desertion of 586 [WALPI] in 1540 578 [WALPI] in 1782 579 [WALPI], origin of name 585 [WALPI], southern origin of clans of 529 WALTHER, HENRY, pottery repaired by 682 WAR GOD symbolism on Hopi pottery 664 WATER used in Hopi ceremony 689 WATER-HOUSE PEOPLE of Tusayan 672 [WATER-HOUSE PEOPLE], _see_ PATKI. WATER SUPPLY of Sikyatki 638, 646 WEAPONS of ancient Tusayan 596, 598 WHISTLES, bone, from Awatobi 627 [WHISTLES] used in Hopi ceremonies 628 WINSHIP, G. P., acknowledgments to 527 [WINSHIP, G. P.], Castañeda's narrative translated by 596 WIPO SPRING in Tusayan 639 WOOD in Palatki ruin 555 [WOOD], method of working, at Honanki 571 [WOOD], remains of, at Honanki 562, 566 [WOOD], objects of, from Honanki 572 WOOD'S RANCH, pictograph bowlder near 545 XUMUPAMÍ identified with Shuñopovi 599 YUCCA fiber anciently used 572 ZAGNATO, an Awatobi synonym 594 ZAGUATE, an Awatobi synonym 594 ZAGUATO, an Awatobi synonym 594 ZÏNNI-JINNE, _see_ KINNAZINDE. ZUÑI and other pottery compared 623 [ZUÑI] origin of Kintiel 534, 591 [ZUÑI], Shalako ceremony of 700 [ZUÑI], snake figures on pottery of 677 [ZUÑI], southern origin of clans of 574 [ZUÑI], stick-swallowing at 664 * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Some illustrations have been repositioned to avoid breaking up the text. Page numbers in the List of Illustrations refer to the original printed report. The Index has been edited to list only the topics contained in this report. The original book contains some diacriticals that are represented in this e-text as follows: The [)i] represents a breve (u-shaped) above the i. (He'-sho'ta pathl-tâ[)i]e,) The [=a] represents a macron (straight-line) above the a. (_N[=a]-ác-nai-ya_, and Estev[=a]) Page 522, Table of Contents: Ornaments, necklaces, and gorgets (page 733) in original report changed to Necklaces, gorgets, and other ornaments to match the actual section heading. Page 525, List of Illustrations: CXXXV, _a_ in original report changed to CXXXV, _b_ to match the actual caption. (Fig. 270. Outline of plate CXXXV, _a_) Page 526, List of Illustrations: triangles in original report changed to triangle to match the actual captions. (Fig. 336. Double triangles) and (Fig. 337. Double triangles and feathers) Page 652: attemps in original report changed to attempts. (The first attemps at ornamentation) Page 688, Footnote 1 in original report, now Footnote 145: annulets in original report changed to amulets. (ceremonial paraphernalia, as annulets, placed on sand pictures) Page 702: respresented in original report changed to represented. (A large number of crosses are respresented in plate) Page 706: Sityatki in original report changed to Sikyatki. (animal figures are unknown in this position in Sityatki pottery;) Page 709 in original report, now page 708: lines in original report changed to line. (FIG. 288--Single lines with triangles) Page 731: to-day in original report changed to today for consistency. (tethering in use today.) Page 737: offerigs in original report changed to offerings. (ancient prayer offerigs) Page 741: accompaning in original report changed to accompanying. (is set forth in the accompaning letter) Page 744: In Appendix, Plate CLXXIII, _f_, the 5th digit of number is missing in original report; represented by a question mark. (_f_, 1561 0;) Plate CXL: SITYATKI in original report changed to SIKYATKI. (FIGURES OF BIRDS FROM SITYATKI) All other spelling and accent variations and inconsistencies have not been changed from the original document, except for minor punctuation corrections. 
2394	----	None 
27890	----	[Transcriber's note: Extensive research found no evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Merriweather Girls IN QUEST OF TREASURE BY LIZETTE M. EDHOLM AUTHOR OF "THE MERRIWEATHER GIRLS" SERIES THE GOLDSMITH PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO COPYRIGHT 1932 BY LIZETTE M. EDHOLM Made in U. S. A. CONTENTS CHAPTER I On Their Way II A Street Leading to the Capitol III The Wash-Out IV The Desert V A Solitary Explorer VI Casa Grande VII The Map of Mystery VIII Kit's Home Folks IX Lost Canyon X The Professor's Job XI Staking a Claim XII Double Dealing XIII The "Orphan Annie" Claim XIV Treasure Trove XV A Spy XVI Missing XVII Indian Trading XVIII The Old Chief's Daughter Walks XIX A Brass Bound Chest XX "Compliments of Kie Wicks" In Quest of Treasure CHAPTER I _ON THEIR WAY_ The four Merriweather Girls were assembled at the railroad station where the long string of Pullman coaches stood ready. The girls were starting on a vacation trip to the southwest. "What's the matter, now, Joy Evans? Why all the tears?" Bet Baxter, her blond hair in disarray, caught the girl by the shoulders and gave her a rough but affectionate shake. "Oh, let her alone, Bet," laughed Shirley Williams. "That's Joy's good-bye. She likes to weep when she goes away." "But why?" insisted Bet, her blue eyes serious for a moment. "We've been planning on this western trip all winter. We've thought of nothing but Arizona for months. Tell me why you are crying?" "Because I feel like it, Bet Baxter," snapped Joy. "It's so thrilling to be going away for a long trip, and when it comes to the luxury of a private car, why it's twice as thrilly." Joy choked as a laugh and a sob got mixed up together. Then making an elaborate but not very polite grimace at her chum, she disappeared into the car that was to carry her and her chums westward. "There, she's herself again," laughed Bet. "That face indicates that Joy is happy." Bet was glowing with excitement. It was her first long trip away from her home in Lynnwood on the Hudson, and the promise of a summer of adventure in the Arizona mountains was almost too good to be true. Or so it seemed to the girl. Her one regret was that her father was not coming with her. From the observation car she was calling her farewell messages to him as he stood on the platform of the station. Bet was his only child and the responsibility of looking after her and trying to make up for the loss of her mother, was sometimes a heavy burden on Colonel Baxter. There was an anxious look in his face now, although he knew that his daughter would be well taken care of by Judge Breckenridge and his wife, who had invited Bet and her chums to be their guests for the summer. Anyone but an over-anxious parent would have felt confident that Bet Baxter could look out for herself under any circumstances. Her straight young body had poise and assurance of power and she had a resourcefulness of mind that made her a leader among her friends. Bet was nearer to real tears than she would have admitted to any one. Back there was her father, the very best chum she had, and to be going away where she could not see him every week-end made a strange catch in her breath. Shirley realized what Bet was experiencing and stepping to her side, called gaily to the Colonel. "Hold that pose, Colonel. I'm going to take a picture of you." Wherever one saw Shirley, they usually saw a camera for she rarely let it out of her hands during a trip, and now as the shutter clicked she said to Bet: "That's the third picture I've taken of him. You'll have those to look at." "Thanks, Shirley, that's good of you. And I shouldn't feel so frightfully homesick for Dad may come out to see us in a few weeks." "Oh, won't that be great," exclaimed Shirley. "He is just like one of the boys." "Doesn't it seem strange not to have the boys here to bid us good-bye. It's never happened before." The boys were Bob Evans, Joy's brother, and his chum, Phil Gordon, favorites with the girls and always included in their activities when boys were wanted at all. The week before, the girls had waved them good-bye as they started on an auto trip with Paul Breckenridge. The girls missed their parting nonsense. It didn't seem like going away at all, without the boys to keep up the fun. As the train began to move, Bet smiled bravely back at her father and waved until a curving road carried them out of sight of the station. Only then did she answer the insistent calls of the girls inside the car. "Bet Baxter, do come here and see this," cried Enid Breckenridge, a large blond girl whose serious face told of trouble lived through that had been too heavy for her young shoulders. Her gray-blue eyes were sad. Bet was about to speak to Enid when the other chum, a tall dark-eyed girl, grabbed her by the hand and dragged her across the room. "Look at this, Bet!" Kit Patten exclaimed. "You're missing everything!" But Bet stood stock still and gazed about her in surprise. This was not a bit like an ordinary train. It gave the impression of a very homey living room in a small house, with its shaded reading lamps and the easy chairs that invited one to their soft depths. "Isn't it wonderful?" breathed Bet with a happy sigh. "I'd love to sit right there and watch the scenery go by." But that was only the impulse of a moment. There were too many things to see in this marvelous train. And Kit was demanding her attention from one side and Enid Breckenridge from the other. Kit won, and opening a door, displayed a small bedroom beautifully arranged and furnished. "Isn't it just too lovely for anything?" asked Kit as she heard Bet's gasp of astonishment. "I didn't know trains were ever fixed up this way," Bet was taking in all the delightful details of the room. "I always thought it was a lower berth if you were lucky and an upper one if you were out of luck. Why this is just like a lovely little playhouse. Who will sleep here?" "This is for mother," said Enid. "She gets the best room." "Of course she does," assented Bet. "But where do _we_ get put away for the night?" "In here!" Kit suddenly opened a door and at Bet's look of surprise she went on: "You didn't know there was a door there, did you? It's almost like magic." And magic it seemed to the girls as they wandered from one thing to another. The electrical appliances in the dressing room! "Why, girls, we don't know what half of them are for," laughed Bet. "We'll have to have a maid to show us how to get dressed here." And as Kit spoke a trim little colored maid appeared as if she had heard a call. "Is everything all right?" she asked looking at Enid. Bet had always taken the lead and was chief spokesman. She was about to answer when she remembered that Enid was hostess. "Here's where I'll have to take second place," thought Bet. But in her heart she was glad to see Enid in the position of hostess. Her life had been full of tragedy. Stolen from her wealthy parents, she had not known a home or friends until the previous year when she had been rescued by the chums on Campers' Trail. The car in which the girls were travelling belonged to Enid's father, and the girl was glad to show her friends around the place. "Here's one compartment with two beds, and opposite is one with three beds," said Enid. "How will we divide up?" "As usual, I guess, you and Kit and I in one and Shirley and Joy in the other." When the maid had left, Enid laughingly pushed Kit into a chair in front of the dressing table. "Sit still now, while I curl your hair!" she directed. The other girls joined the laugh, for Kit's hair was a mass of dark ringlets that clung close to her head. Bet Baxter, with her straight, blond hair always envied Kit those curls, while her own unruly locks were flying out at all angles. "But do come and see what I discovered," said Enid at last, pulling Bet by the sleeve. "It's a darling little dining room! Why it's--it's..." And Enid stopped because in all her experience she could find nothing to compare with the tiny room which glittered with crystal and silver. "I do believe that lunch is getting ready," said Joy Evans. "And let me tell you, it can't come too soon to suit me. I'm starved." "As usual," laughed Shirley. "You're always hungry, Joy. And it's so nice you can eat _everything_! And still you're thin!" Shirley was inclined to plumpness and had to choose her food more carefully than the others. As they turned toward the salon once more, Bet dropped into an easy chair and picked up a book. "Oh, Bet, don't get interested in a story yet! You'll have heaps of time to read before we get to Arizona. Come on, let's see if we can peek into the kitchen. To my way of thinking, that's the most important room on the train," laughed Joy. "That's what we'd expect you to think, Joy," teased Shirley. Enid rose and motioned the girls to follow her toward the kitchen compartment, then gave a shrug of disgust as she noticed a sign on the door, "Private." "Why, the idea," pouted Bet Baxter. "Right on our own car, too! I don't think we ought to stand for it." Then a spirit of mischief overcame Bet. She tiptoed toward the door and shoved it open, bouncing into the room without even looking. The girls watched to see what would happen. Plenty happened, for at that moment Sam Wilkins, the huge colored cook, was bringing in a large tray of ice water. There was a loud crash. Two glasses fell to the floor, and the man himself almost lost his balance. Sam's usual smile faded. "Ain't you seen that sign, nohow?" he demanded pointing a long, black finger at the word "Private." "Why how stupid of me!" Bet tried to look innocent. "Was that there _all_ the time? Imagine me not seeing it!" There was remorse in her voice but a merry twinkle in her eyes that did not escape Sam. "Maybe you can't read yet," he said, frowning. Bet bestowed on him one of her compelling smiles. "I'm very sorry," she said with her sweetest accent. "I'll promise never to come in here again--that is unless you want me to see your darling kitchen. I know I'd just love it." Sam's white teeth showed in a broad smile. After that, he was willing to do anything for Bet Baxter. He ushered her into his kitchen as if she were a queen. When Bet came back triumphantly to the drawing room a few minutes later, Enid greeted her with a shake of her head: "You certainly have a way with you, Bet Baxter. No one can resist you, no one!" "What about Edith Whalen?" Bet reminded her. "Oh, that girl!" said Enid contemptuously. "Every rule has to have one exception. She doesn't count at all." "Speaking of Edith, I wonder where she is this summer?" asked Kit. "Why spoil a perfectly good day by speaking of Edith at all. She's just nothing in my young life. She belongs to the dim and distant past. A summer of real happiness is before us!" exclaimed Bet. "Huh! That's just what you said last year when we went to Campers' Trail, and see what happened! Edith was there and managed to make our lives miserable for a month and more," Joy reminded her with shrug of her dainty shoulders. "Well, there is one thing sure, girls," laughed Kit Patten. "She will not be in Lost Canyon. So you are safe in planning on a happy summer." "Now if we can only persuade Bet not to find any problems to solve, we will have a heavenly time." Shirley had been working hard during the winter. She was the level headed, business girl. She was always ready for a good time, but if she were asked to choose, it would be a quiet one with no great excitement. But Shirley always took things as they came and enjoyed herself. Joy Evans was different. Her impatience often made her miss the good time that was right at hand. Now she was looking forward to her vacation in the Arizona mountains on Judge Breckenridge's ranch. "Oh, I'm so glad we're off. I can hardly wait until I see the cowboys. I think they must be marvelous!" "Joy, do try to use a little bit of sense. There's nothing remarkable about a cowboy," Kit Patten, the mountain girl, replied. For Kit had lived most of her life in Arizona at the head of Lost Canyon, and as luck would have it, only about half a mile from the ranch belonging to Judge Breckenridge. Kit had been away from her home for two years and at present was all excited about seeing her father and mother. "What are you looking forward to, Enid?" asked Shirley. "Joy wants to see the cowboys, I want to rest and Kit wants to see Dad and Ma Patten." "I want to see what my western home is like. It's so good to have a home, girls," Enid replied, and the girls gave her a tender smile, remembering the experiences on Campers' Trail. "And I suppose Bet wants some wild adventure," teased Joy. "Problems to solve, great deeds to be done!" "Oh, I'm not so sure. Maybe I'll be a cowgirl and learn to ride like Kit, and rope a steer like her friend, Seedy Saunders. There are heaps of things I'd like to do. I'd like to meet a western bad man that you read about." "If you want that, Bet, you'll have to go to the movies. Western bad men are a thing of the past," Kit answered decidedly. "In the early days, Lost Canyon was a wild place but now it's the most peaceful spot in the world." "Just my luck!" pouted Bet. "I did want to catch a western bad man, single handed, and turn him over to justice." The girls laughed. They were each looking forward to something different, some particular plan or desire of her own, as far apart as they could possibly be, yet these five girls had bound themselves together, one for all and all for one. Two summers ago, Bet Baxter, Joy Evans and Shirley Williams had first met Kit Patten, the homesick western girl. They had formed a little club that took its name from Colonel Baxter's estate, Merriweather Manor, a delightful old mansion on the Hudson with its romantic story of Revolutionary days when Lady Betty Merriweather reigned in its stately rooms. Her story inspired the girls to find adventure in life and to be true to their highest ideals. In the story The Merriweather Girls and The Mystery of the Queen's Fan, these four girls solved the problem of the stolen fan. They had tense moments when it seemed as if they had failed, but they held on and won out. The next year a new member was added to their club. In The Merriweather Girls, On Campers' Trail, they found Enid, then known as Tilly, The Waif of the Woods. The girls with quick thinking, daring and devotion were able to discover the girl's parents, and as a proof of their gratitude, Judge Breckenridge and his wife had invited them on this lovely vacation trip to Arizona. Suddenly the train gave a little jerk and Bet looked up quickly to see Enid Breckenridge staring at her. Each knew that the other had been looking back for a moment and being thankful that they had met and were now journeying together for a summer of happiness. At that moment Sam's grinning face appeared at the door with the announcement that lunch was ready. Enid jumped to her feet and hastened to help her invalid mother to the table. Years of anxiety and worry over her daughter's disappearance had broken her health. Strength was coming back slowly and it was hoped that a summer in the southwest would complete her recovery. With the judge on one side and Enid on the other, the frail invalid walked the few feet to the table. Her face was aglow with happiness. Virginia Breckenridge was still young and the white hair only emphasized the youthful lines of her face. She did not appear much older than the group of girls who surrounded her at the table. "Isn't this wonderful!" cried Bet in her enthusiastic way, waving her hand toward the passing landscape. "I could keep on like this forever." "So could I," laughed Joy. "But when do we get to Washington?" "Not until four o'clock! Why all the hurry?" Shirley was enjoying her day of travel. When the train stopped at stations she was all ready with her camera in case some interesting bit presented itself. Shirley was in her glory. Colonel Baxter's parting gift to her had been a new camera and plenty of films, so Shirley felt that she could take pictures to her heart's content. "We've got a good cook," whispered Joy across the table to her hostess. "I don't know what he calls this mixture, but it's wonderful!" Joy's face was expressive and Sam noticed her approval of his lunch so during the remainder of the trip it was to Joy he turned if he wanted to make sure that any dish was appreciated. And while the girls did not find the time dragging, they were ready and waiting when the train pulled into the station at Washington. They were shunted about for a few minutes and finally stopped on a side track where the car would remain while they were in the Capital. As Bet emerged from the station she gave a little scream of delight. "There it is, girls!" she cried. "The dome of the Capitol! At last my eyes have really seen it!" "Wait a minute till I get a picture of it," said Shirley. "I might not get such a good view again." "That view isn't worth taking," interrupted Mrs. Breckenridge. "You'd better wait. That dome is visible from all parts of the city. It's wasting a film to take it here." "Oh, girls, I can hardly wait until I see everything. The Congressional Library, the....." "The place where the money is made! That's what I want to see. I hope they'll be making thousand dollar bills. I think that would be fun," sang out Joy as the Judge helped her into the taxi. When they reached the hotel steps, Shirley was thankful that she had not wasted her film on the other view of the Capitol. In the haze of the late afternoon, the dome looked like a huge bubble. "There's your picture, Shirley," gasped Bet. "And see, the street in front of us leads right up to the Capitol." The girls followed the Judge rather unwillingly into the hotel. They were anxious not to miss any of the sights of the city and it seemed a waste of time to go indoors. "Come on Bet, don't be so slow," called Kit from the doorway. "This is so nice I'd like to look at it forever," she said with a sigh. The girls laughed for Bet was always wishing things to last forever. Mrs. Breckenridge had not stood the trip as well as they had expected. She seemed completely tired out and Enid refused to leave her. "You go along and have a good time," Enid proposed to the girls, but without their friend they felt they could not enjoy anything, so a short walk was all they saw of Washington that evening. They retired early, for even youth gets weary with excitement and new scenes. The girls were glad to get into bed. "We'll have a hard day ahead of us tomorrow, if we want to see everything we plan on seeing," said Bet as she snuggled down. Within half an hour they were all asleep. When Bet opened her eyes it was daylight and she felt ready for the strenuous day ahead. She scrambled out of bed, gave Kit a shake and then ran across the hall to see if Shirley and Joy were up. Shirley was still sleeping. But Joy was not there. "Why, she's up and dressed! Her clothes are gone!" exclaimed Bet in vexed tones. "I think she might have wakened us." Dressing quickly they went down stairs to find Joy. The lounging rooms and halls and the foyer were empty at this hour. No one had seen Joy or knew anything about her. She had simply disappeared. CHAPTER II _A STREET LEADING TO THE CAPITOL_ And when breakfast was over there was still no Joy. Finally one of the porters was found who said he had seen a girl leave the hotel about seven o'clock. "She walked up the street in front of you, up toward the Capitol." "There, didn't I tell you! Joy's all right. Nothing can happen to her here," said Shirley reassuringly. "Let's walk up that way. We'll probably meet her coming back." Kit looked anxiously toward the hill. "I can't imagine why she stayed so long. She can't get inside any of the buildings." "Maybe I won't have something to say to that girl!" exclaimed Bet angrily. "She hasn't any right to run off like this and frighten us." And if Bet had met her at that minute, the girl would probably have been told many things about herself. But they did not meet Joy. There was no sign of her on the street leading up to the Capitol, and no sign of her on the grounds. Where was Joy? Even the Judge looked worried. "Not that I think anything will happen to her, but I'm responsible and I wish she had not gone out by herself," he declared. The girls were seeing the Capitol in a very different way than they had planned. They were in no mood to be impressed by the majesty of the building. They were watching for the tiny figure of Joy to appear at every corner. "It's no use, we might as well go back to the hotel and wait. Maybe she's there by this time," suggested Judge Breckenridge. Still Joy had not returned when the party reached their quarters. "There may have been an accident!" Bet shivered at the thought. Their laughing Joy! That would be too terrible to think of. The Judge was about to notify the authorities when Sam Wilkins the colored steward on their train, walked in leading Joy, a woe-begone little creature, tear-stained and tired. "Why Joy Evans! You----" Then catching sight of the girl's white face, Bet ran and threw her arms about her. "You darling! We thought you were lost and you were at the train all the time. Oh, Joy dear!" Tears came to Bet's eyes. Joy did not break down and cry again until she had reached her own room. Then the tears came in a flood. "Oh, I was so frightened," she sobbed. When she had quieted down, half an hour later, she told her story. "I woke up hours and hours before the rest of you and I couldn't sleep. And when I'm at home I always go walking early in the morning. So I walked up the street leading to the Capitol." "Yes, we know. We went up there, thinking we'd meet you coming back. How did you get lost? The hotel is at the end of the street." "Just you go up there and look!" Joy's eyes snapped, but in a minute her sense of humor returned. "I wouldn't have believed it possible to get lost, for, as you say, the hotel is at the end of the street leading up there." "Then what happened?" "Oh, I'm so dumb!" began Joy. "Tell us something we don't know!" laughed Kit. "Well, I didn't look at the name of the street. And that old Capitol! Girls, I don't care if I never see it again! It stands up there on that hill as if it were the most important thing in the world, and streets lead up to it from _everywhere_, like the spokes of a wheel. _All_ the streets lead to the Capitol!" "And you didn't know which street you came up?" asked Kit. "That's it. So I walked down all those streets, up and down and up and down. Why I've seen that building from every angle. It was terrible!" "Why didn't you just take a taxi to the hotel?" asked the practical Shirley. "Oh, I'm not so dumb. I thought of that!" exclaimed Joy with a toss of her head. "But the taxi man laughed at me. I didn't know the name of the hotel or the name of the street, and I'd already told him I didn't have any money." "You poor little kid," soothed Bet. "He finally went away and I saw him make a sign to another taxi driver as much as to say I was crazy. Then I got frightened for fear they'd speak to me and laugh some more, so I ran away." "And did you go down all those streets again?" asked Shirley. "No, I was tired of that. I'd been on all of them, I guess. Then I remembered the train at the station, and I walked there." "Oh Joy! All that long way? You could have taken a taxi there," said Enid. "No, I couldn't! I didn't have any money and I wasn't going to be laughed at any more. I couldn't be sure that Sam was there to pay for me." "Well, it's over now, and we'd better go sight-seeing. We've wasted half the morning," exclaimed Bet sharply. "I don't want to go sight-seeing!" said Joy decidedly. "Don't be a spoil-sport, Joy. We're not angry at you or anything. But we do want to see Washington." Bet's voice was raised to a point where angry words were apt to come. At a signal from Kit, she quieted down however. Kit turned to Joy. "You wouldn't want to leave this city without seeing everything--the Congressional Library and the Capitol......" "_Please_ don't take me to the Capitol! I think I'll scream if I ever lay eyes on that dome again! I've seen it a million times to-day, and that's plenty." "All right, you can sit in the car while we take a look at it," laughed Shirley, patting the still half frightened girl. Still Joy shook her head. "I can't go!" she finally exclaimed. "The breakfast at the hotel is over and I'm so hungry I'm weak." "You poor little girl!" spoke up the Judge with a twinkle in his eyes. "Enid, you take her down the block to that restaurant and get her a good breakfast. She'll be ready for anything when she gets back." "Not the Capitol, Judge! I draw the line at that." She laughed like the old Joy once more. Half an hour later Joy returned and announced that even the sight of the Capitol would not prevent her from accompanying them. For the rest of the stay in the city she had to put up with a good deal of teasing, and the Judge noticed that she did not allow the girls to get out of sight for a moment. Joy had learned her lesson. "We're just like tourists," sighed Bet when the day was almost over. "We've rushed around from one thing to another. I don't like it. My eyes ache from looking at so many pictures. Imagine two galleries in one afternoon, besides the White House and the Capitol. That's too much sight-seeing! I'll be glad when we go." But the trip down the river to Mount Vernon the next day was enjoyed by all the girls, and when they caught sight of the old mansion, Bet cried, "Why, it looks something like Merriweather Manor." "A little," said Joy, "but I think Merriweather Manor is much nicer." "Thanks, Joy. I'm always so proud and happy when you girls say you like my home. To me it's just the loveliest place in the world. I wouldn't change it for anything modern. Sometimes Auntie Gibbs gets fussy and says it's too much work." "Your dear old housekeeper is getting old," said Enid. "Yes, Auntie Gibbs is almost seventy and Dad wants her to have plenty of help. But she won't hear of it and she won't retire. So what are we to do?" said Bet wistfully. "You know Dad and I love Auntie Gibbs and Uncle Nat as much as if they were really members of our family." The girls were thrilled as they stepped inside the old mansion. Here Washington had lived. He once sat at that very table, used those dishes, drank from those glasses. They could scarcely believe it. They tried to imagine him as he had been before the responsibilities of the great war lay heavy on his shoulders. The young Washington, owner of the estate. There must have been gay parties in this house. Bet shut her eyes for a second and could see the belles of that day. She wondered if Lady Betty Merriweather had ever been a guest in the house. It would not be impossible. She hoped that it was so. "Some day," said Bet, as they were returning to Washington on the boat, "let's come and live for a winter in Washington. Then we can see things thoroughly. This is just skimming the surface. We haven't seen anything well." "Oh yes, we have!" laughed Joy. "There's that Capitol. I could draw it with my eyes shut!" But the girls were tired enough so that, a few days later, they welcomed the announcement that they would leave Washington at midnight. The train with their cozy berths looked good to them and they settled down for the two days' trip to Arizona. It was good not to have to go sight-seeing for a while. Shirley strapped her camera in its case and laid it away. She had taken so many pictures in Washington that she was tired, for once in her life. But that did not last long. Very quickly the nature of the country changed and they were going through the south-land, where the huts of the negroes added a picturesque touch to the landscape. Charming little black-eyed pickaninnies were at the stations and grinned at Shirley while she took their pictures. "Girls, I'll have pictures enough for my shop this winter, and for half a dozen more!" Shirley exclaimed. Shirley was the business girl and had made a success of a little gift shop in Lynnwood. She had helped to support her parents and been able to continue at school with her chums. In this venture, The Merriweather Girls had all joined. They had worked and planned under the leadership of Colonel Baxter, and the little shop had given them many interesting adventures. Shirley had developed a commercial instinct and, together with her talent for photography, was what the girls liked to call a business success. The sameness of the desert country through Texas, the dust and dirt was a bit trying to the nerves of the girls. But there was no complaint. They looked ahead to the wonderful experience that would be theirs when they would leave the train and journey into the cowboy land. "Kit, do tell us about them," begged Joy. "I won't do it. You've got your own ideas from the movies and I can't change them. Now you'll just have to get disappointed. There aren't any _handsome_ cowboys in my country." Kit spoke impatiently. "Isn't Seedy Saunders handsome?" Joy asked again. Kit shouted with laughter as she brought a picture of the old cowboy to her mind. He was a small man, bow-legged and thin. A sort of dried-up desert rat. In looks Seedy was nothing at all. Only when he was in the saddle did he shine, for he could throw a rope better than anyone Kit had ever seen, and as for taming a wild horse, there was no better cowboy in the mountains than this old hand at the game. "No, of course Seedy isn't handsome. He's old, and plain and common looking," Kit answered. "I'll not believe it until I see one. For I'm very sure that some of the cowboys on the screen are the real thing. Just see how they can ride and throw the ropes and catch the cows by the horns! Why, they're wonderful!" Bet Baxter laughed. "Go on, Joy, rave some more! And don't worry, we'll find a handsome cowboy if we have to import one from the movies for you." "Thanks, Bet," laughed Joy, blowing her a kiss from the ends of her fingers. "I'll pick my own. Kit is trying to discourage me, but I'll find a handsome cowboy. You just wait and see!" CHAPTER III _THE WASH-OUT_ "This time tomorrow we'll be at Benito!" exclaimed Kit. "I do wonder if mother will be there to meet me. I'm homesick for a sight of her." The heat was intense as they sped through the desert. Small sand-storms swirled across the flat land, and filled their train. They were dirty and tired. They would all be glad when the little desert station of Benito would be reached and they could transfer to the automobiles that would carry them to the hills and the ranch. Summer storms raged ahead of them, big black clouds that threatened. The girls watched from the windows the deluge of rain in the distance. "That's what we call a cloud-burst," said Kit with a pleased smile. "It's good to get home again!" "Do you mean," asked Joy, "that you are glad to see that terrible storm? You _must_ be homesick if _that_ pleases you." "I love it!" Kit answered. Suddenly the train jerked to a stop, and all heads came to the window to see the cause of the delay. The train had been flagged. "Danger ahead!" "What's the matter?" Bet called to the conductor, who had descended and was walking toward the engine. "A wash-out! That cloud-burst you saw tore away a bit of the track. We'll be stalled here for hours, very likely." The heat seemed worse than ever now. As long as the train was going, there was some breeze, but at a stand-still, the sun blazed down on the roof of the car and made it almost unbearable. Soon it became apparent that the delay might be longer than they anticipated. "There's a good hotel at the next station," said the conductor. "If you will ride in the work train ahead, you can go in there in a few minutes." "Oh, do let us!" cried Bet who was always ready for something different. "We've never ridden in a work train in our lives." With Sam's help they carried Mrs. Breckenridge across the broken tracks and into the work train. The girls laughed with pleasure as they settled themselves in the box car. Bet suddenly had a new idea. "Judge Breckenridge, the engineer says I can go in the engine with him, if you will let me. Please say yes," Bet's face was rosy with excitement. "This might be the only chance I'll ever have to ride in the engine, and I'd hate to miss it." The Judge hesitated but finally gave in. And when Bet joined her friends at the hotel in Willowmere she said: "It doesn't seem quite fair that we are starting out with so many adventures. It will make the summer seem so uneventful." "That's just what I was thinking," added Kit anxiously. "I'm so afraid you'll be disappointed. There aren't many adventures in the mountains. It is just one day after another. Nothing new, nothing to do, no place to go, and absolutely nothing ever happens, nothing thrilling, I mean." "That's what we've decided that we want this year. We'll learn to ride horseback well and we'll learn to use the rope, that is if we ever can, which I doubt," laughed Bet. "And we can read and lazy around. I call that an ideal summer." After lunch at the hotel, the girls started out to explore the settlement. "I love those adobe houses of the Mexicans," said Enid. "Let's go over and get acquainted with some of the women." But the women were shy. Most of them disappeared into the huts as they saw the girls approaching. Only the children remained and stopped in their play to stare at the newcomers. "Aren't they pretty when they're little! Look at those dreamy black eyes!" whispered Enid to Bet, who was trying to coax one small girl to come and get a piece of candy. Suddenly there was a scream and from the house at the end of the street a small boy dashed out of the door, his clothes a mass of flame. "It's Pedro Alvarez!" cried a Mexican woman nearby. But she made no attempt to do anything. And the other women were screaming but seemed helpless to rescue the child. Bet did not wait to ask for a quilt or rug, there was no time for that. She quickly slipped out of her dress, and catching the little fellow wrapped him tight in the gown, smothering out the flames. One look at the burns and she cried, "Oh the poor boy! Get the doctor quickly, Kit." While Bet held the child, Enid tore the half burned clothes from his body. "Bring oil!" Bet shouted, but the women seemed dazed and did not understand. Bet looked about her desperately. "Run to the hotel, Enid, and get oil, lots of it. Will that doctor never come!" Kit at that moment came running back with the word that the doctor was away and would not be back until noon. The child's mother stood helplessly by, wringing her hands in despair. She watched as Enid returned and poured the oil upon the burns. "I wonder what they would have done if we had not been here," whispered Shirley as the screams quieted down in the settlement. "They don't act as if they knew anything about such things." Bet held the little fellow in her arms until his cries ceased, then getting clean sheets and pillows from the hotel they fixed up a bed for him. Later on, when the doctor arrived and examined the boy, he declared he could not have given any better treatment than the girls had done. "I'm so glad we were right here on the spot," said Bet. "We were trying to get acquainted with the children when it happened." After the accident, it was an easy matter. The children followed them about the settlement and the women offered them all that their small stores contained. They insisted that the girls must eat tamales, enchilades, tortillas and all the other Mexican dishes that they cooked, with corn meal and peppers. And when the train left late that night, the whole settlement turned out to bid them good-bye. "What a miserable time we would have had," exclaimed Joy as she waved her hand back toward the station, "if it hadn't been for those Mexicans." Much to the disgust of Sam, a package had been sent aboard by the grateful mother of Pedro Alvarez. It contained more of the Mexican cooking that the girls had praised. But only Joy really cared for it. "Of course it burns, but can't you get that wonderful flavor?" she exclaimed as Shirley and Bet turned up their noses at the food. "You like anything that can be eaten!" said Bet with a laugh. Shirley had brought away many picturesque bits of western life from the little settlement. "If they just come out as lovely as they were in the finder, I'll have some beauties to send back to Colonel Baxter." The girls were too excited to drop to sleep quickly that night. Early the next day they would reach Benito. "Dad says that Tommy Sharpe will be there to meet us," said Enid. "I wonder if he has grown?" Enid had found this boy on Campers' Trail. He was half starved and ill. And when her parents had found her, Enid insisted that the child who had helped her, should be looked after. Judge Breckenridge, on the advice of the doctor, had sent the boy to his ranch in Arizona, hoping that he would grow strong. "Oh, I almost forgot about Tommy," said Bet. "Won't we be glad to see him!" "I do wish Dad and Mum would come to meet me. I don't suppose they will, but I don't see how I can wait until I get to the hills." "I think they'll come," said Enid. At the first peep of dawn Kit was awake. She dressed quickly and went to the window in the drawing room to watch the sun rise on the desert. Out of the violet-grey mist, streaks of rose shot out like long fingers, reaching far up into the sky. Kit stood it as long as she could alone, then ran and wakened the girls. "Do come, girls, you don't know what you're missing." Slipping into robes, they quickly joined Kit at the window. "Isn't this gorgeous!" Kit's breath came almost in gasps, so excited was she at the spectacle. "Now you never saw anything as gorgeous as that in the way of a sunset over the Hudson. Own up, Bet, you know you haven't!" "No, Kit, this is magnificent. Do you have this every day?" "Almost," she answered. The mountains caught the glow and turned to purple and rose, and deep shadows of blue, and sometimes a bare mountain side shone out like gold. Shirley had pointed her camera toward it, then put it away, saying, "It won't look like anything in black and white." "I am going to try and make a sketch of it," said Bet as she flew back to her room for her note book and colors. "But if I painted it that way, no one would believe it. It's too vivid, too spectacular!" she sighed. Kit often tried to sketch when Bet was at it, but this morning she was too excited to settle down. She walked about the car like a restless animal. She was glad when Sam announced an early breakfast. Not that she was hungry, but it put in time and that was good. The hour to wait until they reached Benito was one of the longest she had ever known. "The next station is ours!" called the Judge. "Everybody ready!" But Kit was already standing at the door, her suitcase beside her. Kit had tears in her eyes. It wasn't often that she gave way, but when the train pulled into the station, the tears were running down her cheeks. The Judge's car came to a stop at last at the siding of the station. Benito was a typical desert settlement, the very last link with civilization. For beyond the three squat adobe shacks, lay the sandy, cactus-dotted land that stretched far out in every direction to the rising foothills that skirted the rugged peaks. "Oh, girls!" cried Bet. "Isn't this wonderful?" "Yes, just like the movies. I've seen it dozens of times, and I almost expect to see the villain and the handsome cowboy ride up this very minute!" laughed Joy. "Kit, come here!" called Bet. But Kit was missing from the group. Her arms were thrown about a tanned, alert little woman. What she was saying the girls could not hear, but they could guess. Finally she broke loose and with a wave of her arm she cried: "Come on, girls, it's Mum!" CHAPTER IV _THE DESERT_ It was not the strange country that interested The Merriweather Girls at the moment of their arrival, but an old friend. A tall boy was shaking hands vigorously with Judge Breckenridge. And Enid stepping from the train at that instant, stood and stared in astonishment hardly believing that she was seeing aright. "Tommy Sharpe!" she cried, running to him with both hands outstretched. "Why, you've grown! You're almost as tall as I am. And what a grand cowboy's outfit!" Tommy did not speak. He shook Enid's hand but words would not come. The boy's face was burned to a rich shade of brown, his eyes were bright and the huskiness was gone from his voice. Health had come to him in this dry climate. Tommy looked as if he belonged there. He was tall, thin and muscular, a desert dweller, not at all like the sickly boy that Enid had known and cared for on Campers' Trail. In a moment the boy was surrounded by the girls and everybody was talking at once. It took some time for Tommy's embarrassment to wear off. Even Mrs. Patten was inclined to be shy with these friends of her daughter but Mrs. Breckenridge in her tactful way soon put her at ease. Kit's mother was a born nurse and one glance at the sick woman made her realize that she was needed. She helped to get the invalid into the car with the least possible jar; she arranged pillows and a footstool in order to ease the bumps on the rough road. "See, she's deserted me already," laughed Kit as she watched her mother. "I knew I wouldn't count when she saw Mrs. Breckenridge." Suddenly there was a sort of war whoop and Billy Patten, who had hidden behind the station, dashed out at Kit, much to the amusement of Tommy Sharpe. "Why you little imp! You haven't changed a single bit, Billy Patten! You're just as bad as ever," declared his sister. "You're a pest!" "I am not! You're another!" said the boy, and to Kit it seemed as if she had never been away from home, for the brother and sister had started again just where they left off, half teasing, half in earnest as their quarreling always was. Billy Patten was not bashful. "Bold," would have described his attitude more than anything else. "See this stick!" He addressed Bet suddenly at the same time frowning defiantly as he caught Kit's eye. "Of course I see the stick. What about it?" laughed Bet Baxter. "It's a humming stick that grows out here in Arizona. Isn't it wonderful! You just tap it gently like that and you can hear it hum." Kit made a gesture to interfere but the Judge smiled tolerantly and signalled the girl to keep quiet. Bet took the stick, which seemed like a hollow tube, and tapped it gently on the ground. A strange, buzzing started, continued for a few moments, then quieted. And Bet raised the stick once more. Billy put forth his hand to capture the rod, but before he could interfere, Bet had brought it down with a thud on the ground. A wasp flew from the hole with an angry buzz and lighted fair and square on Billy's nose, burying its stinger deep into the flesh. The boy gave a howl, then choked back the tears. He was too much of a sport to make a fuss, especially as the joke was on him. The hollow stem was the insect's nest. "Oh, I'm sorry, Billy! Please forgive me," pleaded Bet contritely. "I didn't know there was a wasp inside that stick. I really thought it was a strange Arizona plant." Kit was chuckling. Never before had retribution come so quickly to her young brother who delighted in playing tricks on a newcomer to the desert. But she only smiled at the boy. She wanted to say, "It serves you right," but she had only been back for ten minutes and decided that it was too soon to plague the child. But Billy saw her gleam of triumph and decided he would get even with Kit at some later date. "Let's get started, girls! Everybody pile in!" commanded the Judge. "You girls go in that car with Matt Larkin. I want Tommy Sharpe with me." There wasn't a prouder boy in the whole world at that moment than Tommy. Judge Breckenridge wanted him, and maybe someday he would be his right-hand man, as the Judge playfully called him. To himself Tommy promised that it would not be his own fault if he did not measure up to the Judge's estimate of what a right hand man should be. Bet was amused to notice the slight swagger that Tommy assumed as he took his place beside his friend in the car. She exchanged a smile of understanding with Enid. A shower of sand hit the chassis of the car as the driver started along the road. The girls gave a cry of alarm as they saw a jack rabbit that had been startled, bound ahead of them for a few yards, then with a wild jump it landed in the shelter of the sage brush. "Doesn't everything smell good?" Shirley sniffed the air in long indrawn breaths. "Didn't I tell you it was wonderful!" said Kit. "I used to get so lonesome just for a whiff of the desert. And you girls could never understand it." "Of course we didn't understand. How could we? We'd never been here!" Bet Baxter's face was glowing with happiness. It was only ten o'clock but already the sun was blazing hot. There was a fury about the heat that the girls had never before experienced. They were glad to be under the shelter of the automobile top. "Oh, Matt," called Kit, when they had driven a few miles, "let's stop and get the girls some of those cactus fruits. They've never tasted them, think of that!" "You don't say so!" The driver smiled back at the eager young faces and brought his car to a stop. The girls jumped out glad to get nearer to the strange plants of the desert. Suddenly a rasping whirr seemed to come from the ground at their feet. It was a sound to hold the nerves taut, to send the cold shivers up and down the spine. "A rattler!" exclaimed Kit delightedly. "Now I do feel as if I were really home again. Where is it? I want a good look at my old friend," she added as another insistent whirr was heard. Matt Larkin had taken his automatic from his belt and pointed it, and in that instant the girls saw a black and yellow skinned snake coiled, its head poised with darting tongue, ready to strike. There was a menace in that coil. But the next minute the head had been neatly severed by a shot and the long body writhed and squirmed on the ground. "Oh!" cried Bet. "Look at the pretty pattern on its skin." "Pretty!" snapped the man beside her. "When you live in Arizona you never see any beauty in a rattler. He's just plain pizen to everybody. There ought to be a reward offered fer every snake killed. Then maybe they could be exterminated." The girls were glad to get back into the automobile again, out of the glaring sun. Each held a luscious cactus fruit gingerly in her fingers, trying to open it without getting the tiny pronged spikes in their fingers. The driver climbed into his place and set the car going once more, headed toward the hills that seemed to beckon them. They had outdistanced the other car, for Judge Breckenridge was driving slowly for the sake of the invalid. When they saw the foothills ahead of them, Kit began to get excited. "I've been up that road," she exclaimed. "Once Dad and I went up to Jasper Crowe's claims to sell him a horse." But Shirley was staring ahead. Suddenly she cried: "There's a lake! Isn't it refreshing after so many miles of desert? I had no idea you had such large bodies of water in this country." The driver turned and glanced at Kit, then spoke to Shirley: "How far away do you reckon that lake is, Miss?" "A mile!" replied Bet decidedly. "No, it's more than that," corrected Shirley. "I remember of reading somewhere that distances in the desert are very deceiving. It's probably a lot farther off than it seems. I'll say five miles." "Let's hurry and get there so we can eat our lunch at the water's edge," suggested Joy. "That's an idea!" replied Matt with a sly glance at Kit. "We'll try and get there by lunch time." "And look at the lovely trees!" cried Joy. "It's like an oasis in the desert, isn't it?" But half an hour later they were no nearer the lake than when they had first seen it. A haziness now hung over the water, partly hiding it, and the trees seemed to be floating in mid air. "That lake might be called 'Lake Illusion,'" laughed Bet. "It certainly is unreal enough! Don't let us wait until we get there to eat lunch. I'm starved. After we've eaten we'll appreciate the view more, anyway." Even as they watched the mistiness increased and then suddenly seemed to dissolve, leaving the desert stretched out before them, hard, sullen and cruel. The lake was gone. The waving trees were gone. Then the girls realized what they had just witnessed. The mirage of the desert! That enticing promise of water that had been the undoing of many a pioneer of the early days! A thoughtful expression came into the faces of the girls, and their enthusiasm vanished for a few minutes. Stories of by gone days came into their minds, stories of weary travellers who had been beckoned by the mirage and taken miles out of their way by this false promise, perhaps to die of thirst. "How hard life used to be for the pioneers," said Bet wistfully. "And so easy for us!" "But why did the pioneers go out on the desert?" asked Joy lightly. "They didn't have to do it, did they?" "Of course not, Joy," answered Bet. "But they wanted adventure and they were seeing another sort of mirage. It was the hope of gold and a fortune in the hills." Bet gazed out over the vast stretch of mesa as if she were living through those early days herself, instead of being carried along by a high-powered car that ate up the miles easily and swiftly. A low whistle from Matt brought the girls out of their day dreams to follow his glance ahead. Far along the sandy road was a man trudging along with a bundle over his shoulder. "That ain't no desert man," said Matt quietly. "How can you tell from here?" asked Bet. "You can always tell a desert man by his walk. That fellow looks as if he were used to walking on city streets," Matt returned. "And he hasn't even a burro," exclaimed Kit contemptuously. "Let's give him a lift and see what he's doing here so far from civilization." The man ahead had turned at the sound of the automobile, deposited his bundle on the ground and stood waiting expectantly. The girls smiled as they greeted him. His clothes, a neat business suit and light colored shirt, were soiled, his face was streaked with dust but in his eyes there was that indefinable gleam that marks the soul of an adventurer. He was offered a lift. "I'm very dusty," said the traveller. "We don't mind at all," answered the girls. They liked the little man with his far-away look as if he belonged to another world and were seeing sights that no one around him was seeing. "Isn't he a dear!" whispered Bet. "I like him!" Little did the girls dream that most of their summer adventures would center around this shabby figure; adventures that would thrill them and at times almost overcome them. If they had guessed it, they could not have been more cordial in their greeting and more eager to help him. Although none of them realized it, a problem to solve was already presenting itself. CHAPTER V _A SOLITARY EXPLORER_ As Matt Larkin brought his car to a stop, the traveller greeted them as if he were an old acquaintance and had made an appointment for them to meet him at this very spot in the desert and had been waiting and expecting them to come along. He took it as a matter of course that he would be invited to ride and the moment the door of the car was opened he scrambled in with quick, nervous movements. He was a thin faced little man, stoop shouldered as if he had spent his life bent over books, but there was a charm in his twinkling eyes that made friends at once for him, no matter what society he entered. He was equally at home with people of wealth as he was with the poorest of his friends. So eager was the old man to be seated, out of the scorching rays of the sun, that he left his bundle lying at the side of the road. "Your pack!" called Kit, as Matt was about to start the car. "You've forgotten your pack!" The man gave her a grateful smile. "That's just like me to leave it. Alicia said I was sure to do just that," he laughed nervously. He jumped out of the car and quickly recovered his property. "Don't know what I would have done if I'd lost it--all my sustenance and books." "Listen to the old chap," whispered Joy in Shirley's ear. "He's a regular highbrow. Hear him talk! 'Sustenance', what does that mean?" "Why, his food, of course," replied Shirley with a laugh. "Then why didn't he say so? Isn't the word 'food' polite enough for him?" giggled Joy. "I wonder who he is?" Kit was puzzled by the man. He did not belong to the desert, of that she was sure. As if in answer to her thought, the stranger announced: "I am Anton Gillette of Dorsey College. I'm on an exploring expedition." "A professor!" gasped Joy in a low voice. "He'll spoil all our fun. We'll have to pretend we're clever or something of the sort." This was whispered in Bet's ear and brought forth a laugh. "Be yourself, Joy! Don't try to be clever. It might strain you." Bet leaned forward eagerly and addressed the old man. "An exploring expedition! How interesting that sounds. What are you going to explore? And where?" "Are you going to find a buried city?" asked Enid excitedly. "Hardly a buried city in this country," he returned. "But why? When there were seven cities of Troy and maybe more, why can't it be possible that there is one buried city here?" "And maybe we could find a King Tut grave," suggested Shirley. "That's an idea," said Bet, and the girls joined in the laugh, but the professor was serious. "I don't mind telling you that it is something of that sort that I am after. I want to find the ruins of an old Indian village and find the grave of a certain old chief. How did you guess it?" "We didn't," laughed Kit. "We were just hoping it might be so." "This old chief was supposed to have been buried with many historical objects of the tribe, and it is his grave that I must find. It is all very interesting--very," nodded the professor. "There are Indian mounds all over Arizona," said Kit. "I don't see how you will ever find the right one." "I have a clue. It may be only an old legend without any foundation of truth in it, but I don't think so. It was at the scene of an Indian massacre. A common enough story it is. The white men encroaching on the Indian lands," began Professor Gillette but Kit interrupted. "There are thousands of legends like that. They are like the cactus, they grow everywhere in Arizona." But the old professor was not to be discouraged so easily. "The Indians killed some white men and then soldiers came and there was a massacre--mostly whites." "There's nothing unusual about that story, Professor Gillette." "True. But in this case a princess, the daughter of a chief, cursed her own people for their cruelty. And within a year the tribe at that village died out. Every man of them." "Why that's the legend of Lost Canyon!" exclaimed Kit excitedly. "And does this princess come back and haunt the canyon, does she appear when anything crooked is being done around that section?" "Yes, yes, that's the story. Lost Canyon, do you know where Lost Canyon is?" asked the old man with trembling eagerness. "Lost Canyon was my playground since babyhood. It's like my front yard. I love it!" "How wonderful! Then maybe you know this man." He fumbled in his pockets, taking out the contents of all of them, before he found the letter which he handed to Kit. "This is an introduction to a man who may be very useful to me." Kit laughed happily as she read the name on the envelope. "Mr. William Patten." Returning the paper to the professor she said, "I should know that man well. He's my father!" "Oh isn't that jolly, Kit!" cried Joy. "Imagine meeting someone who is on the way to see your father! That's a bit of luck, isn't it?" "Dad will be very glad to help you," continued Kit. "What a strange coincidence!" remarked the professor glowing with pleasure. His boyish smile offset the formal style that might have bothered the girls. His dark eyes were small and twinkling and he was so very nearsighted that it was necessary for him to look intently in order to see anything. At that moment a loud report startled them. Joy gave a scream of fright. "What is it?" she cried excitedly. "Indians!" "Shooting?" exclaimed the professor, half rising in his seat. "Is it a hold up?" He looked around in all directions. But the desert seemed devoid of human life. "It means that we've blown out a tire," smiled Matt as he brought the car to a stop at the side of the road and got out muttering, "Of all the ding-busted places to get a flat! Not even a spear of grass for shade and no water hole nearer than Coyote Creek and that's ten miles away." Matt puffed as he unstrapped the spare tire and prepared to jack up the wheel. The girls stood around, anxious to make themselves useful, but Matt paid no attention to their offers of help. He even scowled at Professor Gillette, and went on without answering him. Matt's face was red with the effort under the burning sun that scorched the flesh with its blistering rays. It seemed impossible that life could exist in that burned-out sandy waste. Bet Baxter had not spoken. She was tremendously interested in the things she saw around her. Suddenly she gave an exclamation of surprise as her foot touched what appeared at first to be a light-colored stone, and saw it move. "What under the sun is this?" she cried as she stooped over the now motionless little creature. "Oh, that's a horn toad, it won't bother you," laughed Kit. "You'll see plenty of them around." "Isn't it pretty!" Bet picked up the little creature between her thumb and forefinger gingerly. "Just look at its funny little tail! I never knew a toad had a tail." "And look at the thorns all over its body. Isn't it funny?" Enid poked her finger at the toad, prodding it in the sides. The toad was motionless now as if dead, only an occasional blinking of the eyes showed that it had life. "If it isn't poisonous, I'd like to take it along for a pet." Bet turned toward the car. "Oh, leave it where it is, Bet. Maybe it wouldn't want to be parted from its family," said Shirley in her quiet way. Kit burst into a peal of laughter. "That's what I call considerate. Its mother mightn't like to have it go out for a ride in an auto with strange people." Bet paid no attention to Kit's nonsense. She was fascinated by this strange creature, covered with horn-like spines. But at that moment Matt's voice rang out: "Let's go! And here's hoping we'll have no more tire trouble before we reach the ranch." Bet turned to put down the horn toad, then exclaimed excitedly: "Look, Kit, what kind of a bird is that?" "That's just a road runner. You'll see plenty of them before the summer is over." "What a funny name for a bird!" answered Bet. "You can call it a Chapparal Cock, if that suits your fancy," laughed Matt Larkin. "I'll do it!" Bet said with a toss of her head. "That name sounds very stylish. And it suits it much better. Look at its lovely blue crest, and its bronze-green body!" The girls gave a little gasp as the large bird, evidently startled by the engine, went off on a run that looked ridiculous in a bird. Aided by its large wings, it made rapid progress. "I like that bird!" cried Joy with enthusiasm. "I believe it could be taught to dance." "You can have the job of teaching it," remarked Shirley Williams with a shiver. "I wouldn't want to get a nip from that long bill." "If you want to know what that bill can do, just get the opinion of the rattlesnakes and lizards around here. Those birds are the worst enemies the snakes have. They certainly fade away when Mr. Road Runner is out for a walk. And by the way, Bet, this bird has a third name, it's 'Snake killer'." But Matt was calling impatiently and the girls finally left their observations of desert life and took their seats in the car. For a few miles Matt sent the machine ahead at a rate which troubled the girls but finally his impatience wore away and he slowed down to his ordinary careful driving. Kit nodded approval and whispered to Bet: "Matt forgot he was driving a car; he thought he was riding a bronc." "I am greatly relieved," said the professor quietly. "Speed is the curse of the age. We should take lessons from the Indians." "That's all you know about Injins, Injins ain't so slow as you might think. I've seen 'em with plenty of ginger in 'em. They're only slow when there's work to be done." Matt Larkin had made the longest speech that Kit had ever heard from him at one time. He was not a talkative man, and rarely addressed anyone. But that did not shake the professor in his conviction that Indians had led a quiet, placid existence and should be an example. "Yes, we have much to learn from the red man," he continued just as if Matt had not spoken. And if he heard the contemptuous snort from the driver, he did not let on. Mile after mile slid by quickly and soon the walls of the ranch house were visible. "There it is!" cried Kit, hardly able to sit still. "We're almost home!" "At long last!" Joy burst out impatiently. "I had almost given up expecting it. It's been ages since we left the station." "But wasn't every minute of it perfect!" Enid Breckenridge was enjoying the feeling of ownership in the land. Part of this strange country was hers, her home. "Didn't you enjoy it all?" "No, I didn't," Joy answered. "I got so tired of those tall smoke-stack cactus things that I wanted to scream." She pointed her hand at the towering pillars of the suhuaro, or giant cactus. "And I hope I'll never have to see a cow again. They're everywhere! Only one thing I dislike more, that's cactus." "Why, Joy Evans, I think they are the most romantic looking objects I've ever seen. They're wonderful!" exclaimed Bet. "And as for me, I've taken pictures every time Matt has slowed down enough. That shows what I think of them. I'm enthused over everything! I've taken six pictures of cattle." Shirley, the quiet one, rarely spoke so whole-heartedly over things. She appreciated but seldom expressed her emotions. Bet had half risen in the auto and craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the ranch buildings, but all they could see for the moment was the high wall of sun-dried bricks. "What's the idea of that wall about a ranch?" she asked. In spite of Bet's lively imagination, she always wanted a reason for everything she saw. "They don't have Indian raids any more, do they?" Bet's tone indicated that she almost wished they did. "Oh, I hope not!" cried Joy. "Those fierce-looking Indians that we saw racing toward the station didn't look exactly peaceful. I'm sure I don't feel so very safe." "Don't worry, girls, the Indians are tame enough now. But the walls date back to the time when they weren't," Kit explained. "When that wall was built the settlers needed it badly." "Isn't it romantic!" Bet thrilled as she looked at the old adobe wall fully ten feet high with small porthole openings at intervals. "And there are the tiny windows they used to shoot through at the Indians. I'd love to have seen it." "Oh, Bet, you make me ashamed of you! And you know well enough you wouldn't have wanted to see an Indian raid," sniffed Joy contemptuously. "You're just trying to appear brave and wild." But there was a look in Bet's eyes that confirmed her remarks. She longed for adventure, wild fighting and glorious deeds of valor. If she had been born earlier and been a boy she would have chosen the life of a soldier or a pirate. Of that she was very sure. "And down back of that wall is the canyon, where the Indians hid and then rushed the ranch before the people inside knew they were there. The old Indian trail runs off over the mountain on the other side of the canyon," Kit informed her friends. "Think of having to live out here in those days when there was so much danger! I'm glad I didn't have to," Enid sighed. The memory of her own isolated existence on Campers' Trail through that hard winter was still too fresh in her memory. She did not often mention the unpleasantness of her life. Most of it was too bitter. Eagerly the girls watched for the first sight of the ranch house, but it was not until the car reached the wide gateway that they were able to glimpse it. It stood far back toward the edge of the cliff and was so completely surrounded by trees that it was impossible to tell just what kind of a house it was. If it had not been for a few windows it might have been taken for part of the old wall. There was no attempt at ornament, in that adobe structure. The front was bare and without imagination. The door was in the center with a stone walk leading to it. Bet especially felt disappointed. She had planned on a Spanish castle or something equally imposing. A romantic setting for Enid, a gorgeous frame that would bring out all the loveliness of her friend. Everything was quiet. There was no sign of life. Matt brought the car to a stand-still, and jumping out, opened the doors. The girls dismounted and stood there hardly knowing what to do. Then a Chinese boy opened the door of the house and Bet caught a glimpse beyond him of a great patio, or interior court, full of tropical plants like a hot house. Here at last was a spot romantic enough to suit her taste. Bet clung to Kit's arm as they went along the stone walk to the door. "It's perfect, Kit, it's perfect!" she gasped. CHAPTER VI _CASA GRANDE_ The soft, tinkling ripple of a fountain in that interior court added to a feeling of unreality. It was a stage set for a play. Palm trees and many flowering plants grew in profusion and The Merriweather Girls, unused to the luxuriant verdure of the south, stood looking about them in surprise. Even Kit was astonished, for Casa Grande had been neglected for years before Judge Breckenridge had bought it and restored its beauty. Enid's face shone with happiness. She was the first to speak. "Isn't it glorious!" she cried as she clasped her hands together. "Just think of being miles and miles away in the desert and having a place like this. It's like a miracle! I love it!" "Who wouldn't?" laughed Joy. "You are a lucky girl, Enid. You simply can't appreciate it!" "Can't I?" Enid smiled as she gave a little sigh. Joy noticed the wistful look and hastened to add: "Of course you appreciate it, Enid. I'm just envious, that's all." Bet was so moved by the loveliness of the garden that tears stood in her eyes. "I'd like to stay here always," she said with a catch in her voice. "Do you mean it, Bet?" asked Joy. "I think it's great, of course, but it's too much like a hothouse to suit me. I wouldn't think of living here forever." At that moment they were interrupted by the silent appearance of Tang, the Chinese cook. A tea wagon was being wheeled in by two young Chinese boys, Tang himself being too dignified to help in the serving. When he wanted to give an order to his boys he clapped his hands and they responded as quickly as if he delivered his command in a loud voice. Tea was served in small Chinese bowls with preserved fruits, ginger and wafer-like cakes. A bland smile covered the face of Tang as he glided softly about the veranda; a well satisfied air expressed his content with life. He motioned to the boys to place a stool here and another there beside the chairs. These were to be used as tables. "Some service!" whispered Shirley in Bet's ear. "Don't you love it?" "I feel like a million dollars--or maybe two!" answered Bet. The old professor seemed quite at ease. He accepted the attention of the servants without the least surprise or embarrassment over his soiled clothes. The honking of an auto horn announced the arrival of the second car. Somewhere during the trip the silent Judge seemed to have lost much of his reserve. He hailed Tang as if he were an old friend, and the dignified Chinaman placed the pillows on a reclining chair which awaited Mrs. Breckenridge, as the Judge carried her into the patio. The invalid might have been a child, so easily did the tall man lift her and move her from place to place. "How lovely this is!" the woman cried. "I'm sure I'll get well now. I believe all the peace in the world is right here." Enid was standing beside her mother, arranging and rearranging the pillows to make sure that the invalid was comfortable. "Of course you'll get well," laughed the Judge. "Before long you'll be busting broncos, as Kit says. You can't help but feel better in this glorious air," he said, stroking her thin hand. The woman smiled at the happy faces about her then her eyes rested hungrily on her daughter. Her heart had not yet been satisfied, she was eager to make up to that daughter for the years of separation. The Judge had owned the ranch for three years, but this was the first visit his wife had made to it. The doctors had tried to persuade her to leave the Long Island home where the memories of her lost daughter surrounded her, but she had clung to the place, always waiting, always expecting the child to be returned. She had had a long wait, but happiness had come at last. And in finding Enid, they had found The Merriweather Girls, those four chums that had crept into their hearts. Tang was once more gliding about the veranda, following after the boys to see that tea was served properly. And when a sudden shaft of sunlight struck across the face of the sick woman, Tang clapped his hands sharply once more and the boys ran to his side. As the older man indicated the chair, the boys picked it up gently and carried it to a shaded spot. Not a word had been spoken. "Service!" chuckled Joy. "That's service!" Shirley was already busy with her camera. She had it pointed toward the invalid's chair. "Don't take a picture of me, yet, Shirley," exclaimed Mrs. Breckenridge. "Wait a few weeks until I am well." But Enid interrupted: "No, Mother, we want one now. You know you do look lovely there, and besides we want a picture to show how much you improve." "Before and after taking!" Mrs. Breckenridge's cheery laugh echoed through the corridors. The Judge smiled back at her. It was good to see her happy once more. The old professor had found his way into the hearts of the Judge and his wife. He had a charm about him. Most people immediately liked him, and his childlike qualities brought out a protective feeling in others. And everybody from Tang and his boys to the Judge were eagerly watching a chance to do him a favor. And without trying to do it, the professor had gained the Judge's interest in the Indian excavations. Not that the Judge was interested in Indian relics in themselves, but the professor had a way of passing on his enthusiasms to others. Kit's mother was hovering about the sick woman, eager to serve, suggesting all sorts of things that might help her. One could see that already Mrs. Breckenridge was looking toward the mountain woman for advice. "They are going to be good friends, those two," whispered Kit to Bet as she watched them. "Isn't it good!" "Who could help being friends with your mother, Kit? I love her already," returned Bet a little wistfully. While Colonel Baxter was doing his best to make up to his daughter for the loss of her mother, it couldn't entirely satisfy her when she saw other girls being cared for. Suddenly footsteps were heard on the walk outside and a queer couple introduced themselves to the Judge. The man had the face of a hawk, a long beak that seemed as if it were prying into the most private affairs of his audience. His loose-jointed body sprawled as he stood, leaning against a post. He was very different from the compact little woman beside him, who held her plump body stiffly erect. "My name's Kie Wicks," the man explained. "And this is the missus!" Then on seeing the familiar face of Mrs. Patten he grew confused for a moment and added: "Mrs. Patten there can tell you we're O. K. We have the store over at Cayuga and I thought as how I'd better be a welcoming committee and drop in and say howdy." "Come right in," greeted the Judge, amused at the manners of the mountaineer. "We'll probably be seeing a good deal of each other, so I says to Maude, (that's the missus) we'll just go over first thing and get acquainted." "That's very kind of you," smiled Mrs. Breckenridge from her chair. "Do sit down, Mrs. Wicks. There's a nice shady place right here beside me." The Judge sized up the pair at once and did not care to be alone with them at this time. Seeing that Mrs. Patten was getting ready to leave, he begged her with a glance to delay her departure. "You was just a-goin' wasn't you, Mrs. Patten?" enquired Kie Wicks. "Don't let us stop you." "Oh, I'm not in a hurry. I'll sit a while. It's been a long time since I've seen Mrs. Wicks." This did not seem to please Maude Wicks, but were was nothing further to say. Mrs. Patten settled back in the easy chair and smiled. Kie Wicks and his wife talked about the weather, the stock and the sheep men, who should be run out of the country, he asserted vehemently, and when finally he rose to go he said: "I'll be over some day and have a talk with you private-like, Judge. There's people in these mountains that you should be warned against. And I'm willing to give you the inside facts about them. It's come to such a pass that you can hardly trust anyone around you." "Oh, now, Mr. Wicks," laughed Mrs. Patten. "You know that isn't so. I think the people around here are a fine lot. They're neighborly and kind when you're in trouble. Only last year when Dad cut his foot, the men and boys came every day and helped with the cattle." "Sure, that's right, Mrs. Patten. They _are_ kind hearted even if they are ignorant," broke in Maude Wicks, her sharp little eyes shining out from the depths of her fat cheeks. Kit at that moment made a face behind the back of Kie Wicks and Bet smothered a giggle and hastily left the veranda, motioning the girls to follow her. Once outside they ran far enough away to indulge in a good laugh. "Where's Tommy?" asked Enid suddenly. "He disappeared and I can't find him anywhere." "We're looking for Tommy Sharpe," called Kit to a boy who stood near the ranch house. He was dark-skinned and handsome. The boy turned and Joy gasped with surprise. "Who is he?" she whispered to Kit. "Who is that boy?" "Oh, just one of the cow hands," answered Kit. "You mean a cowboy?" "Sure." "But Kit Patten, you said there were no _handsome_ cowboys! Did you notice his eyes?" Joy pulled at Kit's arm to stop her. "He's wonderful! So romantic!" "Come along, Joy Evans, and don't be a little fool. That's just a Mexican boy and I don't see anything romantic about him at all." "But his eyes!" thrilled Joy. "I don't think I ever saw such beautiful eyes. Can't I speak to him?" "No!" snapped Kit. "Not now! Wait until you get a little bit of sense. We don't make friends with the Mexican laborers." Joy turned reluctantly away. "Just my luck!--when I find a handsome cowboy to be told I can't make friends with him." "Oh, come on, Joy. You're silly!" laughed Bet. "Don't _you_ think he's handsome, Bet?" asked Joy. "Well, maybe, a little bit. But if Kit says you're not to be seen talking to him, that goes. Kit knows the ways of the mountains." "Yes, and like as not she'll introduce me to some man as ugly as that fellow who just called on the Judge, and I'll be expected to be satisfied with that." "Who is that man, Kit?" demanded Bet. "I don't like him!" "Few people do like him and those who do are not the kind to chum around with," answered Kit. "I've known Kie Wicks ever since I was a little girl, and I've never yet heard any good of him." "He looks crafty," said Shirley. "Like a cat that's just eaten the canary," added Enid. "Well, let's not spoil our day by thinking up mean things about that man. Let's nail down the furniture and anything that can be carried away." Bet laughed merrily as she strode toward the center of the court. "Come on, let's find Tommy." "Oh, look at that lovely dog!" cried Enid. A large collie was coming toward them leisurely. "He looks like the owner of the ranch." "He is! Judge Breckenridge told me about him one day when we were comparing him with Smiley Jim, my own dear dog. I get lonesome for Smiley some days. I do hope Auntie Gibbs is looking after him all right." Bet patted the head of the collie. "What's his name?" Enid stooped to examine the brass plate on his collar. "It's Rex. That's a nice name for a dog." Rex showed his friendship by waving his tail around and going from one to the other of the girls. But a moment later he growled menacingly when Kie Wicks and his wife appeared. "Evidently he doesn't like that pair any more than we do," smiled Bet. And the dog continued to growl until the couple had gone. "There's a man we want to steer clear of." Bet was in deadly earnest. "Rex has warned us." At that moment Tommy Sharpe appeared. "Come on over and see my home," he called. Bidding good-bye to Mrs. Patten and the professor who were just leaving and after promising that Kit would be allowed to go home soon, the girls hurried out to see Tommy Sharpe. The boy was as proud of his own little corner of the ranch as if he had an estate. It was the first home the poor fellow had ever known. Enid took the boy by the arm as they walked across the court toward the rear wall. Billy Patten was dancing ahead of him eager to show off Tommy's house. The boy, although a few years younger than Tommy, had become great friends and Billy was often to be found in Tommy's home. As they reached the door, the boy took off his sombrero and made a sweeping bow. "The Merriweather Girls are welcome in the castle of Tommy Sharpe!" he said. "The Merriweather Girls are proud to enter," she answered with a laugh. "We are honored!" CHAPTER VII _THE MAP OF MYSTERY_ Tommy Sharpe had been given an old shed on the edge of the cliff from which he could look straight down into the canyon behind the ranch house. He had made it over into a home. There were two rooms; one he used as a bedroom and the other was his den into which he put all the treasures he had collected. Outside, a narrow veranda had been built out over the cliff and it was here that the boy loved to sit and watch the sky grow bright with the morning sun and again at evening see the rosy glow of sunset. Tommy Sharpe's cabin met the approval of the girls. "You make me very proud of you, Tommy," laughed Enid. "You do credit to my teaching." "You were a good teacher," and Tommy put on such a doleful expression that the girls screamed with laughter. "Do you remember the time you made me clean out the cabin three times before I got it right?" "Tilly was a cruel lady! But aren't you glad now? See what a good housekeeper I made of you." Enid looked proudly about the clean little shack and showed her approval. "Sure," said Tommy simply. "That boy is just as much of a bluffer as ever," exclaimed Kit. "I saw Cheerekee here with a broom. She disappeared as we came in. Tommy never dusted this place today, I know he didn't." "Of course today is different. I couldn't go to the station to meet you and clean house at the same time. Cheerekee did the work today." Tommy agreed without a smile. "And every day. Look here, Tommy Sharpe, tell the truth and say you have never swept or dusted this cabin in your life!" Bet grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around. "Look me in the eye and tell the truth." "Well, if I don't, I see to it that Cheerekee does," he acknowledged at last. "What's more, Mr. Tommy Sharpe," cried Enid gleefully, "you give her strict orders not to touch anything up on that shelf. Heavens! Look at the dust, girls, it's an inch thick." "Ah ha, Tommy, we caught you there!" "You would! I might have known you girls would see a little thing like that. But what's the difference?" "None at all, Tommy, only we won't allow you to take credit for things that you don't do," scolded Enid playfully. "That's because you are all hard-hearted girls," Tommy answered with a scowl. "Now, let's see your treasures." Bet was already peering on the high shelf. "I want to see every one of them." The girls looked eagerly about on the shelves that ran three deep about the room, and each shelf was full to overflowing with his strange collections. Enid smiled as she noticed several little pine cone figures that she had given him for his own. These he had treasured and they now held a conspicuous place in his assortment of knick-knacks. There were stuffed birds, arrowheads, old bits of pottery, and many Indian baskets. "And look at that snake skin! Ugh, Tommy, how could you bear to touch the wriggling thing?" exclaimed Joy with a shudder of disgust. "It had stopped wriggling when I touched it," returned Tommy. "Can't say as I like them squirmy, myself." "And what is this, Tommy?" called Enid. "Girls do come and look at this ugly thing in the jar. What is it? It's like a big brown lizard." "That's a baby Gila monster. Isn't it a beauty? If you'll look at it closely you'll see that it's not ugly at all. Look at the design of his back, like an Indian rug." Tommy took the jar in his hand caressingly. But Enid shuddered and turned to something more interesting which Bet was already examining. "What's he got there, Bet?" asked Enid laying her arm across her friend's shoulder. "Looks like an old map! Isn't it quaint?" Bet was looking at it intently. "I love old maps. Where did you pick this up, Tommy?" she inquired. "Oh, a Mexican wanted some money and offered to sell it to me for five dollars," the boy answered with a smile. "He was such a wicked looking old fellow that I figured I might as well buy something from him as have him rob me. So I gave him five dollars. The map was all in tatters but I pasted it together. I rather like it myself." "Five dollars!" exclaimed Bet. "And I'm almost sure you could sell it to a museum for fifty. That map is a beauty." "If I ever get my five dollars back from it, I'll be surprised. Personally I don't believe it's worth fifty cents, Mex." Tommy shrugged his shoulders, and rather scorned Bet's enthusiasm. "Why it's worth more than that just as a curiosity. Look at the arrows and X marks. And that weird looking tree! I wonder what it's all about?" "It's a useful map," declared Tommy with a smile. "It hides a stovepipe hole in that chimney. I couldn't do without it in the summer." The girls all laughed. Only Bet was seriously interested in the map. "I believe it's a treasure map," she murmured half to herself as if dreaming. "I'd love to hunt for treasure." Then she turned to Tommy Sharpe: "Judge Breckenridge says there is an old legend of a treasure here in Lost Canyon. Of course he makes fun of it, but it might be true. What do you think about it, Kit?" "I'd hurt too many people's feelings if I told you what I think about it," answered Kit. "Go on, don't mind us. Say what's on your mind," laughed Tommy. "Well, I'm surprised, Tommy Sharpe, that you would fall for that old story about a treasure being buried here. I thought boys were supposed to be clever," Kit said contemptuously. "There's a treasure there all right," Tommy stated it with certainty. "I have Ramon Salazar's word for it. He looked me in the eye and told me." "Now I know you're not telling us the truth. Ramon Salazar couldn't look one straight in the eye." Kit dropped into a chair, shrieking with laughter as she visualized Ramon Salazar trying to look anyone straight in the eye, for he was the most weirdly cross-eyed person she had ever seen. "Maybe that's why he could look at me and lie like a pirate," replied Tommy. "I paid him five good dollars for that map." "You must have been crazy, Tommy." "I wasn't. Ramon knew I had that five dollars, and if I hadn't given it to him, he would have stolen it." "There's something fishy about the whole story, Tommy. There must have been some other reason for Ramon Salazar wishing that old map off on you." Kit knew the dwellers in the hills. "I can bet a nickel on it that he thought you might get interested and dig for the treasure and maybe find it." Suddenly Kit jumped up, "And I bet a dime on top of that that Kie Wicks was back of it." "And I have reason to think you are right, Kit. Kie came in one day, saw the map and claimed that Ramon had stolen it from him, but when I offered it to him for nothing, he refused. Said that would be taking advantage of me." Kit gave a boisterous shout of laughter. "Oh girls, if you only knew Kie Wicks, you'd see the joke of that. Why that man lives by taking advantage of people, and he never puts through a deal of any kind without cheating. He's notorious. That's his business in life, to take advantage of people." Tommy smiled. "I think Kie had a lot to do with it. I think he put Ramon up to selling it to me. But I don't know why." "I wonder why Kie didn't take back the map when you offered it to him? That surprised me. Usually he doesn't turn down any kind of a gift." "He didn't need this map," said Tommy quietly. "How do you know?" "Because the map had been copied before I got it. The tracing marks were on it for a full day, then disappeared. I don't pretend to know why," Tommy turned away from the map, and one could see that he was not interested. "It's a mystery," exclaimed Enid. "Get to work, Bet Baxter. The mystery of the treasure map! We'll give you a week to solve the problem." "Don't do it, Bet, please don't! If you go mooning away about treasures and all that sort of thing, we'll miss half the fun of the ranch. When you hunt for treasure, it's work, work, work! And a big disappointment in the end," advised Kit Patten. "I've always had a yearning to dig for something. Once when I was a little girl, Uncle Nat was digging in our garden and he found an old rusty cannon ball and a piece of a flintlock, and ever since that I've always wanted to get a shovel and dig." Bet's voice had a longing in it that set the girls into screams of laughter. "You ridiculous girl!" cried Joy affectionately. "You would try to start something!" "But you'll have to acknowledge that Bet usually finds what she goes out after," remarked the quiet Shirley, pointing her camera toward the canyon wall opposite Tommy's door. "And while we usually object, we've never had more fun or thrills than when she leads us into adventure." "Maybe so. But..." began Joy. "And so I say," continued Shirley, "let Bet lead the way and we'll follow. If it's treasure, we'll help her dig. And if she goes in for fancy bronco busting, that's O. K. too." "Oh, Shirley, don't say that! You make me feel responsible and I don't want that. Let's not make any plans at all. Just be ready to do whatever comes our way. That's always more fun." Bet liked to have the thrill of unexpected adventure, hoping that something new would come their way. "I have my heart set on teaching some of you to rope a steer," Kit spoke up. "Sure! It wouldn't do at all for them to go back east before they'd learned that," agreed Tommy, his eyes glowing at the prospect of showing off his skill with the rope. "It isn't as hard as it looks," Kit encouraged the girls. "I imagine we'll find it harder than it looks," laughed Bet as she tore herself away from the map. "It doesn't look a bit difficult when that rope twirls through the air. I've seen it in the movies and once I tried it with the clothes line but I couldn't do more than get the rope around my own neck. I know I'll never learn." "Before the summer is over, Bet, you'll be a regular cowboy. I'll teach you myself," Tommy asserted. "And I don't want to be taught. I'm sure I'd hate it," exclaimed Joy. "Nobody will learn if we are going to get interested in treasure maps and that sort of thing," pouted Kit. Bet spoke up firmly: "I've decided not to go treasure hunting. As a work of art, that map is a treasure in itself, I love it, but I'm going to leave the treasure hunting to Tommy and Kie Wicks and the cross-eyed Mexican." Bet was so positive in her assertion that the treasure could remain in the ground for all she cared, that no one guessed that before the month was out, not Bet alone, but all The Merriweather Girls would have no thought of anything except that treasure, and all the adventure it brought. From early morning until late at night their one interest would be unravelling the mystery of Lost Canyon. Even the old professor whose mind was set on Indian relics, would forget his errand to the hills and all that it involved and be heart and soul in the venture of the hidden treasure. For Fate upsets all plans and leads into strange and undreamed-of adventures. CHAPTER VIII _KIT'S HOME FOLKS_ Kit's greeting to her quiet, undemonstrative father was as effusive as he would allow it to be. She threw both arms about him with a cry of joy but all he said was: "You're home! That's good!" His tall, stooped figure was that of a hard working man, an outdoor man. His face bore criss-cross wrinkles stamped by the winds and heat of the mountain. It was from him that Kit had inherited her deep-set brown eyes, her tall, slight body. Father and daughter were very much alike in looks but her mother had given her a disposition of joyousness that her silent father admired but utterly lacked. Kit knew her father's way. She saw the happiness in his eyes and knew that he had missed her, perhaps even more than her sociable mother had done. Ma Patten could make friends with everybody who came near, and in that way she had worked off a lot of her loneliness at her daughter's absence. But Dad Patten confided in no one, not even Ma knew what was in his heart. After the greeting was over the old man turned to the professor and continued his conversation without another glance at Kit. One could see that the professor and the mountaineer were already friends. Not many words had passed between them by way of introduction but the vigorous handshake assured the city man that he was welcome, and only when they began to talk of Indians and their ways did Dad Patten speak. The two men were in the middle of a discussion when Kit arrived home. After a few minutes she disappeared and the next thing the professor saw was Kit trying to embrace a stout old squaw. But the two years separation from Indian Mary had made Kit a stranger to her, at least one would judge so by the graven image attitude she put on. Kit grabbed her by the shoulder. "Now look here, Mary, don't put on any airs with me. Didn't you pretty nearly bring me up? Why, I'm almost like your own child. Tell me, don't you love me almost as much as you do Young Mary?" The Indian woman shook her head for no, but Kit laughed. "I don't believe you! You always liked me better than Young Mary.--Where is she? I brought her something from New York." "Where? What?" asked Old Mary. "I want to give it to Young Mary myself. It's so pretty that if you saw it first you'd never let Mary have it. Where is she?" "Way off visiting at the reservation. Pretty soon she come home. Lots of Indians come soon." "I'm so disappointed," exclaimed Kit. "Here, I brought something for you, too." And Kit held out a large package. The old Indian woman unwrapped the large bundle and disclosed a dress. Kit had chosen it with the idea of pleasing her old nurse, who, above everything else, delighted in bright clothes. A pleasing mixture of reds and yellows; modernistic, they called it in New York, but in Arizona it was just plain "Injun Caste." The old woman gave grunts of satisfaction as she patted the bright cloth, then scurried away to show her treasure to her husband, Indian Joe. He hurried out and shook hands with Kit and beamed on her when Old Mary displayed her gown. The Indian was more up-to-date than his wife. He had been to school when young and knew the ways of the white people. Kit extended a package to Indian Joe. "Ah!" breathed Mary excitedly when Joe undid the string and she saw a pair of comfortable felt slippers. "He like much," she said with a nod of her head. But when they saw a stranger watching them from the window they became embarrassed and wanted to hide away until Kit told them that Professor Gillette was a great friend of the Indians and would want to meet them and get acquainted. Old Mary shook her head with disapproval. It took her a long time to make up with strangers. But Joe was different. When Kit told him that the professor was going to pitch a tent in the canyon and live there for the summer, he nodded and said: "Me fix him up. Joe knows where." And Kit knew by that that Indian Joe and the stranger would be friends. The professor had studied his Indians well. He waited patiently for the proper chance to introduce himself. It came the first evening. Joe and Old Mary always built a little bonfire back of their shack and sat around it, as they had done in previous days when outdoor cooking was their custom. In fact they had never outgrown the habit of preparing a meal over the glowing coals. But on this evening the fire was only to look at. And very quietly the professor approached and squatted down beside them. He merely nodded and then stared into the fire as Indian Joe was doing. This continued for a long time, then the professor got up as quietly, said goodnight and left. After that Indian Joe and Old Mary were his devoted friends. The professor returned to the house as pleased as if he had already found the ancient ruins that he was seeking. "I'm afraid you can't expect to get much help from the Indians," remarked Dad Patten. "There's a legend in these mountains to the effect that Indians massacred a band of white men, and the daughter of the old Indian chief cursed her own people. Within a year the tribe had died out or wandered away. The village was deserted. Now the daughter is supposed to appear at times when there is treachery going on, a sort of warning to those who are doing wrong." "That's a good idea," laughed Professor Gillette. "It has probably kept many a man on the straight path." "Maybe so, but I haven't ever noticed it. There is plenty of crookedness goes on in the canyon. And no one, Indian or white man, is safe from the ghost." "Ah, that's interesting!" exclaimed the professor rubbing his hands together in his excitement. "The Mexicans believe it to a man," broke in Kit. "They will hardly come into the canyon at night, especially if they have anything on their conscience. Some white men are afraid of that ghost. Maybe you believe in ghosts yourself, Professor Gillette?" "No, I'm afraid not. But that ghost does complicate matters. The Indians will not want to give me any information and I had planned to save time by winning their confidence." "Don't worry," replied Dad Patten. "Make friends with them and sooner or later they'll let it slip out without meaning to. That is if they know anything about a lost village. And truly, Professor, we always thought that was just a lot of silly talk about there being an ancient Indian town near here. I've never seen it and I've never seen anyone else who has. So I doubt it." "We'll see." The professor's eyes were aglow once more at the prospect of finding the ruins and winning glory for himself. "If there is one here, we'll find it, if it takes all summer. And now I'm very tired and I'd like to go to bed," he added as simply as a child. Ma Patten was in her glory. Here was another person for her to mother. And she fluttered around the old man as if he were indeed a child. Long before daylight the next morning, Professor Gillette was awake and he waited impatiently for the first sign of life in the house. It would never do, he thought, to disturb the family on his first morning in their house. But he did not have to wait long. Dad Patten was an early riser and at the first sound the professor was ready to go out in the yard. Here he found Indian Joe already busy, going doggedly about his work, never in a hurry, never flustered but accomplishing a surprising lot of jobs during his long day. He had brought in Kit's horse, a beautiful, dark, slender animal that pawed the ground and whinneyed impatiently. Kit slipped from the house with a cry of joy. "Oh, Powder, you dear, dear old thing! I love you! And you'll never know how much I missed you!" There was a sparkle in Joe's eye as he hastily put on the saddle while Kit ran into the house for her riding knickers. The professor watched admiringly as she swung into the saddle. Then he stood paralyzed with fear as the horse stood straight up on his hind legs, then with a sudden spring he reversed his position with his hind legs in the air. Kit had half expected this performance and had put on spurs which she dug into his sides. Not for a second did she leave the saddle. She finally turned the horse's head toward the road and with a prod of the spurs sent the animal down it at a speed that made the professor gasp in fright. Every moment he expected to see the girl thrown against the jagged rocks at the side of the narrow thoroughfare. But Kit held the reins. Soon she was out of sight and the old man went in search of Dad Patten. "Kit's horse is running away with her," he exclaimed, his hand trembling. But Dad Patten and Indian Joe merely smiled. "It had to come," said the girl's father. "Whenever Kit leaves that horse, even for a week, she has to go through this. Powder wants to be boss and tries to win, but Kit is always master." "She knows what she's doing," Ma Patten reassured the old man when he excitedly pointed out Kit far over the mesa, struggling with her pony who was once more bucking. "Kit has been riding a horse ever since she was a baby." Kit returned half an hour later, her cheeks glowing, her eyes dancing with excitement. And when the professor voiced his fears to her, she replied: "You know I don't believe that horse would throw me. I think he goes just as far as he knows I can handle him. He's brainy, that pony! No one knows how I've missed him." The professor looked at her with the same admiring glance as Jim Hawkins, the riding master on Campers' Trail, had done. His eyes were not seeing the fancy riding in quite such a professional manner as Jim, but nevertheless he gloried in the poise and daring of this slight bit of a girl. Things were very different when he was a boy. Then girls clung like plants and were sheltered. The professor had never seen such riding and he stood staring over the mesa as Kit once more gave her horse the spurs. In spite of her parents' confidence, he could not believe that Kit had the horse under control for the animal raced madly, then suddenly without any warning, stopped short and tried by every method known to a horse, to throw off his burden. He reared, he bucked, he "sun-fished" but all to no avail. The girl stuck to her saddle. "Won't somebody help her?" the professor prayed desperately. "She will be killed!" CHAPTER IX _LOST CANYON_ The four girls at Casa Grande were hardly awake that first morning, when a shout brought them to the window. It was Kit, seated on her spirited pony, that pawed the ground as she drew him up by the wall. "Wake up, lazy girls!" cried Kit. "The Judge has been out for a ride before breakfast, and here you are missing the best part of the day. Come to the window and meet my friend, Powder." "Oh, Kit," called Bet excitedly, "is that Powder? Do wait and let me ride him." Kit laughed. "As I told you before, if you want to ride Powder after seeing how he acts with me, you can take a chance. He's trying to show me how much he loves me. Hurry up and get a bite to eat. I see Tommy getting the horses ready." Much to the disgust of Tang, the girls hurried through their breakfast, hardly knowing what they were eating, so excited were they over the prospect of a ride in Lost Canyon. "Are your western horses very wild?" asked Joy as she joined Kit in the courtyard. "I--I don't know how to ride very well." "Don't worry, Joy! I brought you a safe one. We always give Dolly to people who can't ride well. She's as safe as a rocking chair." Even Joy could feel no apprehension when she got into the saddle. Dolly was decidedly safe. On the least upgrade she puffed and stopped short to rest. "Poor thing! She's all tired out!" exclaimed Bet, watching Joy's horse lumber up a heavy grade. "I think it's a shame, Tommy Sharpe, to let an old horse like that carry a load." "I do sort of feel sorry for that horse, Dolly," drawled Kit. "Joy is such a heavy-weight that Dolly just has to puff. Why, she tips the scales at ninety-two pounds." Everybody laughed and Tommy drew in his horse and waited until Joy came abreast on a level stretch. Then he reached over and dug into the horse's side. Dolly leaped forward as Joy gave a cry of fright, but this only lasted for a moment. Dolly's speed was soon over and she settled back into her usually lazy pace. "That horse is a cheat. If I were riding her she'd step along lively without urging. But she has a lot of sense and knows who is on her back," laughed Kit, offering Joy her quirt, which she carried only because it looked pretty. Powder never needed a quirt. "Dolly isn't so very old. She's lazy!" said Tommy. "Don't say that, Tommy. She isn't lazy, she was born tired," reproved Bet. Joy refused the quirt. "Oh, I just couldn't use a whip, Kit. I just couldn't. Dolly's a nice horse and I wouldn't think of hurting her. I think you people are terribly hard-hearted and cruel." And as if Dolly understood just what was being said, she made for the shade of a large tree and stood still, and no amount of coaxing on Joy's part would make her budge. "She won't do as I tell her, at all," pouted Joy. "Then maybe you'll accept a quirt now and say 'thank you'," and Kit extended the quirt once more. "I hate to use it," Joy looked bewildered, but the others were going on and would soon be far ahead. She brought the braided leather down on the side of the horse. Dolly sprang into action, galloped for a few minutes, then settled down to a jog trot. But by this time Joy was getting impatient. Again and again the quirt descended, and for a full minute at a time the horse trotted. "Why you cruel, hard-hearted girl!" Bet shouted over her shoulder. "How can you bear to hit that gentle creature?" Joy wrinkled up her nose at Bet and motioned her to go on. "Keep up the good work," called Tommy Sharpe. "We'll never get over to Sombrero Butte to-day, if you let Dolly set the pace. I wish I had given you Oso. That's a mean little imp of a burro. But at that I believe he'd have gone faster than Dolly." "Oh, Tommy, I'd love to ride a burro. Will you let me, truly?" begged Joy. "And so do I want to ride a burro, Tommy. I'm always thrilled to pieces when I see the picture of one." Bet had a sudden inspiration. "Let's have a burro party some day and all ride burros. I think that would be fun." "That's O.K. for me, if you ride them, Bet. As for me, I'll ride Powder," spoke Kit contemptuously. "Why should anyone want to ride one of those contrary little beasts? I think they are horrid." They had suddenly followed a trail into a canyon, which brought them down into the bed of a stream. "This is Lost Canyon!" Kit called to the girls. "I wonder how places get their names?" asked Bet. "Why did they call this Lost Canyon?" "Nobody knows," responded Kit. "When I was a very little girl I always felt sorry for it. I truly thought it was lost and in my childish mind I planned to have the canyon find itself someday. Wasn't that silly?" The girls laughed heartily, and the echo of their voices came back to them from the walls of the canyon. But soon they left the large stream and rode up over the mountain. Tommy had his heart set on reaching Sombrero Butte, a high and inaccessible peak shaped like a huge cowboy hat, that rose above a flat-topped mountain. On reaching the foot of the butte, the young people drew rein and dismounted. "I'm glad to be on the ground again!" Joy exclaimed with a heavy sigh. "I don't care for horseback riding very much." "What do you like, Joy? I mean in the way of sports. What do you like to do more than anything else?" asked Enid Breckenridge. "I like dancing. I'm not as much of an outdoor girl as the rest of you. I go along, not because I like it, but I like the company. Now it's different with dancing, I could dance all day and all night." "She's the ladylike member of The Merriweather Girls' Club," smiled Bet with an affectionate glance toward Joy. "She's a butterfly. As for me, I can't imagine why Fate played me such a mean trick as to send me into the world a girl, when I'd just love to have been a boy." Bet shot out the words with a vicious snap. "Say, you girls don't know when you're well off." There was a wistful note in Tommy's voice. "People expect so much more of boys and are never satisfied with what we do, while you girls have your paths strewn with roses." "Listen to him talk!" exclaimed Shirley. "I guess we girls have to struggle to live." "And what girl wants her path strewn with roses anyway?" demanded Bet in disgust. "I want to have to fight my way, I want to do worth-while things. Right now, if I were a boy, I'd try to climb Sombrero Butte." "Would you really do a silly thing like that, Bet Baxter?" asked Joy seriously. "I mean it. Tell me just why you'd do it?" "I don't know why, but I'd do it because it would seem like a big thing to do. It would be hard work and when I accomplished it, I could always say, 'I climbed Sombrero Butte'." "That's not much of an ambition. I should call that simply foolhardy!" Joy could never understand such a desire. It was too far away from her own temperament. "Then," continued Bet, "I'd travel. I'd discover things, I'd find a new continent or a river or something. I'd like to go to South Africa and dig for diamonds. That would be romantic." Joy laughed. "Now I can half-way understand that. Diamonds are worth while. If you were a man, whom would you bestow those diamonds on?" "You--most likely. Men who do big things always fall hard for a handful of fluff like you," returned Bet, her eyes flashing dangerously. "And there you'd show your good sense," Joy smiled in a provoking way. "I almost wish you were a man, Bet." As everybody laughed Bet soon regained her poise. Such flare-ups were frequent with Bet, a sudden flash of fire and then calm. The girls understood her and did not resent her bursts of impatience. Tommy Sharpe leaned over and picked up a small stone from the ground, exclaiming: "Look here, girls, while you're talking of discovering things, I find a treasure." "What is it?" cried Bet grasping Tommy's closed hand. "Let me see?" "An arrowhead!" Kit burst out contemptuously. "Not much of a discovery in that. I'm sick and tired of arrowheads." "Why, I think it's wonderful to find one!" Bet examined the little sharpened piece of flint. "I wish I could find one." "I'll let you have this one," Tommy offered. "No, that wouldn't be the same. To make it a real treasure I must find one myself," answered Bet as she looked longingly at the stone. The girls began to search the ground for arrow-heads, but Shirley was the only successful one and even her find was a doubtful treasure as it had a large nick in it. "You don't need to worry, girls, you have all summer to find arrowheads, if that's what you want," laughed Kit. "I have a cigar box full of them at home," said Tommy. "I'd like to give you some. But now we'd better be going. It will be dinner time before we get back to the ranch." "Let's go!" Kit swung herself into the saddle and as Powder's spirit had returned he gave an exhibition of bucking and rearing that made Joy scream for she was certain that Kit would be dashed against the rocks. At Joy's scream, Powder took fright and madly raced down the steep trail with Kit clutching the saddle horn for dear life. "Oh, Bet, she's going to be killed, I know it!" sobbed Joy. "Oh, I hate horses. Bet, do something! Kit will be hurt!" "Don't worry about Kit. Just watch her and see how she sits in the saddle, for all the world as if she were part of the animal." Bet was fascinated by the skill with which Kit handled her horse, and she urged her pony forward so as to watch Kit more closely. It took all of Enid's and Shirley's persuasions to get Joy into the saddle. "Come on, Joy, don't be a silly! Kit's a trained cowgirl. That horse can't unseat her." Knowing that she was headed toward home, Dolly kept up a steady trot that covered the miles rapidly. There was no more stopping to pant and blow. Dolly knew that food and drink was waiting at the ranch. Just as they reached the end of the canyon and prepared to take the trail to the ranch house, a slouching figure rose from the side of the canyon. It was Kie Wicks. "Well, well, and what are you folks doing in the canyon this morning?" he asked, for all the world as if he owned the whole district and feared that they were stealing from him. "I took them over to Sombrero Butte," replied Tommy Sharpe. "I'm to show them all the interesting places in the mountains this summer." Kie Wicks smiled, but the girls could see that he resented their presence there. "That's a fine idea. I hope you'll bring them over to Cayuga. Maude will show them around," he invited cordially, yet as the girls turned their horses' heads up grade, Bet turned suddenly and was surprised at the look of hatred and distrust that was in the face of the storekeeper. "I wonder why he dislikes us so much," thought Bet, but decided not to pass on her knowledge to the others. Joy would be sure to get nervous and Kit might get into an argument with Kie or Maude and Enid Breckenridge would certainly tell her father and he would insist on them having an escort, or not allowing them to go into the canyon again. So Bet kept her secret, and the girls did not suspect that Kie was actively unfriendly, they thought him a brusque, ignorant desert dweller whose friendship they could depend on, if needed. They had not yet learned that Kie Wicks could not be depended on for friendship or loyalty to anyone. He was a suspicious man, always believing the worst of people, and when The Merriweather Girls showed an interest in Lost Canyon, old Indian relics, and even the pleasure of finding arrowheads, Kie Wicks was certain that they had heard of the treasure of Lost Canyon and were going to hunt for it. And Kie Wicks considered that to be his own special mission in life. He believed implicitly in the old legend that there was a treasure buried in the canyon, and all of his spare time was used up in a search that had continued for ten years. Twice he had formed a company to locate the treasure, he had spent all the money subscribed and had failed. Still his faith held that he would eventually find it. Maude usually tended the store and Kie spent days at a time drifting around the canyons and hoping that he would stumble upon a clue that would reveal the hidden gold. He watched the girls ascend the steep hill, gazed after them until they disappeared over the summit, then shook his fist toward the place where they had been. "Let them take care not to cross me. I can only stand just so much," he muttered. Kie turned slowly away, mounted his horse and rode down the canyon toward Cayuga. Ahead of him was a great hole in the rock, an undertaking of his dated some years before and financed by his friends. He frowned at the tunnel dug into the bank, then his frown became a scowl and a ferocious one, for a man was standing there studying the workings, so intent on it that he did not hear the approach of the rider. "What you doing there?" roared Kie Wicks. And as the man turned he recognized the little professor whom he had met at Judge Breckenridge's ranch the previous day. Kie laughed to himself. Here was one man he need never fear. Inefficiency and irresponsibility were stamped upon ever line of the little man's figure. "He's childish and perhaps a bit off," thought the mountaineer. He turned to the professor. "That's a mining claim belonging to me. It has promise of wealth in it. You're not by any chance looking for some likely claims, are you?" "No," replied the professor truthfully. "I've come out here to hunt for Indian relics." Kie eyed the professor distrustfully. To himself he said: "That's a likely story! Indian relics! What would a grown man want with them?" Then he turned to the old man. "You are in the wrong district," he asserted. "Who ever told you there were Indian relics in this section? Why, we don't even find arrowheads in this part of the country. Now over on the San Pedro there's lots of mounds and things. There's where you ought to go." "That's a great disappointment. I've come a long way to unearth an old village or something of the sort." "You're barking up the wrong tree, mister! There ain't nothing around here." As the professor took leave and rode up the trail, his face was a puzzle. "That's queer," he sighed. "Judge Breckenridge certainly told me that he had made some very important discoveries himself. But this man who belongs here should know more about it. I can't make it all out." Even Ma Patten's good cooking and her cheerful chatter could not restore the old man's optimism. "He's tired himself out the first morning," whispered Kit to her mother, after the professor had left the table and seated himself on a large rock overlooking the canyon. Then, as they watched, they saw him slap his knee vehemently as he arose with a smile. "That fellow is a fraud! He's trying to mislead me! I know his type now. He wants to keep everything for himself." He would have been certain of this if he had seen Kie Wicks emerging from the canyon. Kie shook his head decidedly. "There, I put a spike in the professor's gun. He simply wilted. I'm rid of him all right." But, as the horse followed the well worn trail, he mused. "There's treasure there, I know it! It's _my_ treasure! Mine!" CHAPTER X _THE PROFESSOR'S JOB_ Within a few days the professor's tent and cot arrived, and after that Ma Patten pleaded in vain for him to stay with them. The old man was independent and insisted on getting established in his own quarters. He had already chosen a spot in Lost Canyon with the aid of Indian Joe, who knew the best springs and the best place to pitch a tent. And Professor Gillette could not have had a better helper. Under a huge cottonwood tree, there was a bubbling spring, cool and clear, and down the creek a short distance was a small pool. "Why, there's my bath room!" laughed the old man. "Talk about modern conveniences, I have them all." The Merriweather Girls were eager to help the old man get settled. And when the five of them with Tommy Sharpe got to work they soon had everything in order. Tommy levelled a space and beat it down until it was smooth. Judge Breckenridge had suggested that boards be laid for a floor but at this the professor protested vehemently. "I've come out here to live the simple life, the life of an explorer. I want to rough it, even endure hardships. It will do me good," he asserted, objecting to anything that might seem like luxury. But after a day or two of trying to cook his meals over a small outdoor fire, he accepted a tiny stove from Mrs. Patten. Primitive living was all right, but it was a waste of time to cook over an open fire. And one day he returned from a long hike over the hills and settled into a rocking chair that the good neighbor had placed before his door, in his absence, and did not protest but took it gratefully. After a strenuous day, it would be good to drop into the restful depths of an easy chair and enjoy the glories of the canyon. But he refused her help very decidedly when she dropped in one morning and found him at his weekly wash. His shirts and overalls were spread out on a large flat stone in the creek and he was beating them incessantly with a small paddle. "I'm enjoying the washing," he declared with a laugh. "I don't mind it at all." "But your work, your discoveries?" inquired Ma Patten. "They can wait while I get clean! Anyway I haven't had much luck. The Indians will give me no help at all." "Why are you so keen about these Indian relics? We can give you any number of arrowheads and baskets and stuff. You're welcome to them if it will help you any," offered Mrs. Patten sympathetically. "That's not exactly what I want," the professor said. "I'm interested in American Indians, and have always been considered an authority on the subject. But I'm getting old and younger men are stepping into the field. They think I'm just a musty old professor with nothing but a book knowledge of Indian ruins. So I have to show them." "What's the use?" answered Ma Patten contemptuously. "These young fellows always can beat us in the end and we might as well give up gracefully." "But that isn't all. My job's at stake. If I don't do something to get up-to-date I'll be shoved out. They want men who go out and do spectacular things that get them into the newspapers. I was told that my department would have to be snapped up a bit! Isn't that terrible language for educators to use? And if my job goes, I don't know what I'll do. I've got responsibilities, heavy ones." "Have you a large family, Professor Gillette?" asked the woman. "No, I have only one daughter but she is an invalid. She was studying to be a dancer and one slippery day in winter she fell and broke her hip. And she has never been able to dance since." "Oh, that's terrible! The poor child!" "She's as happy as a lark. She has never given up faith that as soon as she is taken to see a specialist in the city, she will be cured. It is for that operation that I must earn more money. And with the fear of losing my position in the college you can see why I must make good this summer." "Well, you'll find plenty of Indian signs around these mountains," Mrs. Patten informed him. "That's strange!" The professor exclaimed, "That man, Kie Wicks, claims that there never were Indians in these hills. None to speak of, he said. Told me I was barking up the wrong tree. Oh yes, he was quite certain I was going to fail. But I mustn't fail! I can't fail!" "Of course you won't fail! And you needn't believe a word that Kie Wicks says. He doesn't want people to come into this canyon. He believes in the myth about the treasure and he makes it hard for anyone who comes in. One old prospector had to leave because Kie had it in for him. He just couldn't stay." "What did Kie Wicks do?" asked the old man. "Well, for one thing he would sell the prospector meat and at night steal it all back. And the old chap was shot at in the dark and threatened until he gave up after putting in several months working on the claims. So you needn't expect any help from that ruffian," stormed Ma Patten. "I don't know what to do. I must find that Indian village." Professor Gillette had no notion of giving up, not for all the western bad men he had ever heard about. He had come to Arizona to find an Indian village and that he must do. "Why don't you go over the hill there? We used to find bits of pottery and arrowheads and even some Indian ornaments made of silver. I have a few of them at home. Be sure to remind me to show them to you. You'll be interested." The professor's face glowed with excitement. "I'd like to ask you for more particulars as to the exact place," he exclaimed. "I'll do better than that. Kit will take you over there some day and like as not you'll find just what you are after," Mrs. Patten assured him. While they were still talking Tommy Sharpe arrived with a note from Mrs. Breckenridge. It was an invitation to supper that evening. "Isn't that kind! I'll be so glad to go. She's a beautiful and gracious woman." "It's a sort of party, I judge," said Mrs. Patten, beaming with pleasure and opening a note that Tommy had passed her. "We're all invited to dinner." That was Virginia Breckenridge's way of keeping in touch with her neighbors. On learning of Professor Gillette's business in the mountains, she had sent to New York for books on Indian legends, Indian ruins and anything that might give the professor a clue to what he wanted to find. And much to her surprise, a book on Indian legends was written by Anton Gillette. "Our professor is a modest man," laughed Enid. "Imagine him not telling us that he had written a book. He's got his typewriter with him, I wonder if he is planning another book." "Let's go and ask him," announced Bet, jumping up and starting toward the door. "It's ten o'clock! He'll be sound asleep," said Shirley. "Don't you think you can wait until morning?" Bet had waited and then asked the old man, but she got little satisfaction. The professor was shy about his work. But that was exactly what he was planning to do. If he could make some discoveries, get some practical knowledge and then write about it, he would save his job and increase his income so that his daughter might get the treatment to restore her health. A sum of money had been offered to the old man for research work, and he had accepted it gladly. He knew from the history of Arizona that a large Indian village must have been situated in the region of Lost Canyon, and it was here that he hoped to find the burial place of the wealthy chief. The younger teachers heard of his plan and smiled with condescension. They did not imagine for a minute that the old man could stand the strenuous trip to the southwest and find the Indian village. It was a stunt that they would have hesitated to undertake. But Anton Gillette was made of different stuff. Here was his chance, he must win out. As he looked into the pale face of his daughter, Alicia, her eyes glowing with hope both for her father and her own future, he had vowed that no hardships would be too great for him to overcome. And here he was in the mountains, camping in Lost Canyon within, he believed, arm's length of the ruins. But so far he had not found them. Luck was with him, that he knew. Everywhere from the time he had left home, he had found friends to help him. They gladly gave him advice, and in the case of The Merriweather Girls, they would have been happy to serve him in every way. They were quite indignant when the old man pitched his tent far from the ranch where they could not see him so often. "It will never do," thought the professor. "I'll get soft if they wait on me and give me the idea that I can't do things for myself." But the invitation from Virginia Breckenridge was another thing. These visits he loved. They were always helpful. The Judge was as interested in the finding of the ruins now as the old man himself. It was his only way to help the independent professor, who refused all financial aid, and the two men were often seen riding the hills together, speculating on the prospect of an ancient village there. But still they had not found it, after a week of search. Someone else was anxious to accompany the old man on his trips. It was Kie Wicks. And while Professor Gillette enjoyed the daily visits of the girls and the occasional calls from Judge Breckenridge or Dad Patten, he found the storekeeper very trying. Kie arrived at the tent early and stayed late. "That man acts as if he were spying on me. I wonder what he's afraid of. There is nothing here to steal that I can see." This continued for a week and then ended abruptly. After that Kie Wicks came only once in a long time. This had been Maude's doing. "You ain't getting no where at all, Kie. You keep that old book-worm from hunting or doing whatever he wants to do. Now if I were you, I'd let old Booky do his searching, then cook up a plan to do him out of whatever he finds." "Maude, you're a wonder! Why didn't I think of that myself? I couldn't have found a better wife anywhere than you." So Kie did not appear the next morning. But it was not until noon that the professor knew that he had been deserted. His patience was at an end so he had risen before dawn and left the tent, striking off over the hills where Mrs. Patten had indicated. He returned at noon with arrowheads and a stone axe but there was no sign of ruins. But the old man was not discouraged. These signs of Indians merely gave him the necessary urge to investigate. Before he had finished lunch the girls arrived. "Where's your bosom friend today?" they asked mockingly. "You and Kie Wicks are almost inseparable. It's quite touching to see such devotion," laughed Bet, who knew of the old man's impatience. Bet laughed and the contagion of her merriment started the other girls and their voices echoed back to them from the canyon wall opposite. While they stood there, a strange procession appeared around the bend in the trail. A band of horses one after the other, filed by. "Poor horses!" exclaimed Bet in sympathy. "Horses!" sneered Kit. "Those are not horses, they are just racks of bones, that's all. And that's the way most of the Indian ponies look." The professor was speechless. He watched the procession with interest. Fat squaws rode huddled over their nags, each carrying a baby strapped to her back. Small boys ran beside the horses or clung on behind the mother. The men usually rode free and on one of the animals, the professor saw an old Indian. "I wish I could talk to him," he whispered to Kit, who was standing near him. "You'll have your chance before the day is over. They usually camp right here where you are. I'm surprised that Indian Joe suggested this spot. They are not apt to go far away from here." As Kit spoke the squaw heading the procession stopped, and it looked as if she rolled off her horse as she dismounted. She had evidently found a suitable place to camp. The professor was delighted that it was on the opposite side of the stream where he could watch them. A tepee was made almost before the squaws were all out of their saddles. A large piece of sacking was thrown over small bushes which were tied together at the top to form an arch. This was the only shelter put up by the Indians when on the march. The men dismounted, sat down by the stream and smoked their pipes, while the women and children scurried about, gathering fire wood and starting a blaze. In a few minutes they had settled down to life for a few days, the life that the Indians loved, carefree, indolent and happy. The professor was greatly elated. Here was a chance to watch the modern Indian at least and see how he lived. He would have something to tell his class. "That's Old Mapia," confided Kit. "He's supposed to be about a hundred years old. You're in luck if you can get him to talk. Some of the young ones will translate for him if he gets stuck. I'll send Old Mary over, if he won't talk to you. She can make him tell stories." Before the afternoon was over, the professor had invited the old Indian to have a smoke with him, then offered him cookies and other delicacies, and while he accepted without a sign of appreciation, the ice was broken and when the professor began to ask questions the old Indian answered as well as he could, and Young Wolf supplied the missing words that his grandfather had forgotten. "Yes, once a very long time ago there were many Indians here, a city!" droned the old fellow and the professor edged closer to hear him, fascinated by the wrinkled face. "My father--my grandfather, yes, he know. Up yonder somewhere a large village, where the Indians make baskets and rugs and silver and pottery, long ago. There were good times then. Indians plenty rich. No white men. My grandfather tell me heaps." "Where was the village?" asked Professor Gillette. "No find any more,--gone!" The Indian shook his head and with a wave of his hand indicated every hill surrounding the canyon. "I think he knows," the professor confided to the girls that afternoon when he went up to see Dad Patten. "But it's probably a secret." "No, it's on account of the curse," said Kit. "But what has the curse to do with it?" the professor asked. "Plenty. The daughter of the old chief still walks at times, and she cursed that village, and the Indians try to forget that there ever was such a place. None of them will go near it." "What does the ghost look like, Kit?" asked Bet. "She always wears a costume of deerskin and feathers. And at night she just appears out of nothing in Lost Canyon. One minute she isn't there and the next she is. And when she appears she is supposed to curse those who see her. They run for their lives." "Is that true?" Joy's voice was trembling. "If it is, I won't ever go into this canyon again." "Don't worry, Joy. If you are good you'll never see the ghost. Only those who are planning to do wrong see her." The girls laughed at the timid Joy. "Don't worry, dear," Bet patted her hand lovingly. "I'll take care of you." "Some say," went on Kit, "that the ruin of the village must be left untouched, and that any one disturbing it will see the ghost." "And that's why Old Mapia won't talk," said the professor. "He's afraid of the curse. It would hasten matters very much if I could get some reliable information as to the location of the village." "And are you really going to hunt for the village after that?" Bet's eyes were glowing. "Yes, I'm not afraid of the curse. I'll find that village. Alicia is expecting me to. I must make good." "That's the way to talk, Professor Gillette! And remember this, The Merriweather Girls will help you in any way we can. We're not afraid of any curse. We're with you, every one of us." Joy started to speak. She turned pale then suddenly gave up. "All right. If Bet leads, I follow!" But there was no wild enthusiasm in her promise. CHAPTER XI _STAKING A CLAIM_ But it was rarely ever that the professor wanted company in his search. Bet was inclined to feel offended, for she had hoped that he would accept her offer of help and consider The Merriweather Girls as partners. "All right, Kit, let's do something by ourselves. What's the use of just looking at the glorious scenery? If an old man like Professor Gillette can go out and hunt for a lost village, we should be able to find some copper claims or other interesting things. Let's do it." The girls were in the saddle while Bet discussed the possibility of discovering something. It was really adventure that Bet was seeking. The horses stepped gingerly over the slippery rocks of the creek bed as the girls chatted and laughed on their way to Table Mountain, a great flat-topped summit in the high hills. Joy Evans suddenly laughed outright. "Bet Baxter, it would take you to think of a thing like this. What under the sun will we do with a copper mine if we do locate one? I'm very sure I have no use for one." "Don't be a spoil-sport, Joy! Think of the romance and the fun. Why, we'll be mine owners!" "What I want to know is, who will do the actual work?" It was Shirley Williams, the practical girl of affairs who put the question. "We'll hire the work done, of course. It would be foolish for us to waste our valuable time digging holes in the ground," returned Bet. "Certainly," giggled Kit. "We'll do the brain work and let the _greasers_ do the digging." "Please don't call the Mexicans that horrid word again. It doesn't sound nice. I think the Mexican boys have such wonderful dreamy eyes." "We've heard that before. Go on, Joy, rave some more!" Bet treated Joy's outbursts of enthusiasm over boys with contempt. "I'm going to do something useful in life." "Like finding copper mines! Hm! What use are they?" snapped Joy. "I'd rather think about boys any time." "Of course you would! Go on and dream then!" Bet was angry. She and Joy were often near to a quarrel, but somehow it was always averted. "Quit your fighting, girls," laughed Enid. "What's to hinder us from finding our mine and letting Joy dream of romantic brown eyes at the same time?" "I'm for the mine! I've always had a secret passion to locate claims, myself, and see them develop into a big mine." Kit caught some of Bet's enthusiasm and wanted to start out at once. She continued: "It's lots of fun to locate a claim. Once I followed an outcropping of ore up over a high hill, but when I got to the top I found it already located." "Oh, what a shame!" cried Bet. "And did you give up then?" Bet looked her disappointment at Kit's lack of enthusiasm. "I did for a while but I've never really given up wanting to and had a feeling that I _would_ sooner or later. Guess I was waiting for you to help me. Say, girls, let's follow this stream." "What for?" asked Shirley. She was looking about her in a bewildered way, which set Kit into peals of laughter. "Well, you see the stream carries bits of ore and if we follow it, we may find the place the ore comes from. Watch for copper stain on the rocks." "But it's such a tiny stream!" protested Joy. Kit had already guided her horse to the right and led through a narrow passage between the high canyon walls. "This is the Iron Gate, girls. It's a landmark around here." Bet looked up at the high cliffs. They towered above her. "The Iron Gate! Doesn't that sound romantic?" Suddenly Enid called excitedly, "Oh, Kit, is that greenish color on the rock copper stain?" "That's it," said Kit, "but here there is hardly more than a tint. Let's go on farther," and Kit urged her pony ahead. After half an hour of slow travel through the creek, the girls were rewarded. The tiny canyon had widened out, the stream was larger and they found sufficient emerald green stain to suggest that there might be a large deposit of copper nearby. They also found more fragments of ore. Dismounting, the girls left their horses standing with trailing bridles. Bet suggested unfastening the rope she had brought for practising, to tie her pony to a tree. Kit laughed. "The very idea! Don't insult a mountain horse in that way. He'd never forgive you. Never! Look, here's a small outcrop!" Kit led the way up over the hill, following an exposed vein of copper ore that appeared at intervals. Bet squealed with delight. "Just look at it! Isn't that lovely? Kit, do you think it's rich ore?" "I can't tell you that, Bet, but Dad said there were a lot of fine claims up this way." "Oh, isn't it glorious?" enthused Bet. "We'll stake them out and own a mine!" "And if we find any good claims, we'll locate them today, for Dad gave me some location blanks to give to the professor. Dad thinks that it is all foolishness to hunt for a lost Indian village, so he was trying to persuade the old man to go in for mining. And I have those blanks in my saddle bag right here." And Kit waved her hand back toward the canyon where Powder was standing patiently waiting his mistress's return. The girls had reached the flat and here they found a large outcropping of greenish ore. Delightedly they set to work. On the legal forms that they had brought with them, they filled in a description of the claim. They erected a monument built of stones in the center and then paced off the required number of feet and placed a small pile of stones at four corners. "It's a good thing I've watched Dad and other folks build their monuments. Now I know just how to do it." Kit was jubilant. It was thrilling to be able to show the girls the way to locate claims. Kit took the blank that had been filled in and placed it in the center of the monument. "There!" she exclaimed. "The first time we come back here we'll bring a tin can and put that paper in it and bury it in the rocks again. That will keep it dry." "What a funny thing to do," laughed Bet. "It's the rule up here. We're doing it the same as all the prospectors did. Every claim was located that way!" Kit carefully covered the blank, then folded up another, a duplicate and handed it to Bet. "Keep this one." "What for?" asked Shirley. "That is the one we send in to be recorded at the County Office." "I'm excited!" cried Bet as she dropped beside the pillar of rock in the center of the claim. "Isn't it just too wonderful for anything to own a mine like this? I feel rich already. And just think there may be a big mine on this very spot some day!" "Bet, you should have been a prospector. Every old miner in the hills thinks that his own particular claims are going to be the biggest mine in sight," laughed the Arizona girl. "As soon as he builds a monument he begins to talk of private cars and mansions." "I almost wish I were a prospector. It must be lots of fun to have marvelous hopes of success. If I hadn't come a girl, I'd be a prospector. Just think of it, not having anything to do in life but roam around the hills and look at the rocks!" Bet lost herself in her dreams. "And build funny little play monuments!" added Enid. "Yes, and half starve to death before you get ore enough mined to sell," Kit reminded her. "Oh, Kit, that isn't fair to wake me up so rudely. Why not dream pleasant things while you're about it?" Bet laughed. "Where do we locate the next claim?" They followed Kit to some distance from the monument and when they had found sufficient outcropping they repeated the same process. There was a hot breeze that seemed to intensify the heat of the sun and brought the aromatic scent of the greasewood. The wild beauty of the canyon was not lost on the girls. From the cliff they could see down into the depths, they could hear the rippling of water over the rocky bed of the creek, the flash of a bright bird in the trees would bring them out of their day dreams. It was good to be alive, good to be roaming through the hills looking for romance and adventure. "I'm glad we gave up the idea of hunting for treasure," declared Bet with a shade of contempt in her voice as she paced off the required number of feet for marking the fourth and last claim. "Somehow or other that seems silly now. This is far more important and worth while." "After seeing those excavations that were made, I could never think of it seriously," Enid said quietly. "Kie Wicks must have spent a fortune trying to find treasure in that spot." "Yes, but not _his_ fortune! He formed a company and sold stock, so it wasn't his own money he spent," Kit reminded them. The girls stood looking over their claims with affectionate glances. "I love them, Bet, and I'd just hate to have anyone else do the digging. Why can't we do it?" asked Kit. Enid spoke up. "Don't do it, girls. Take my advice and hire it done, it will be cheaper in the end." "Maybe Enid's right," agreed Bet. "We mustn't get too ambitious or we'll miss half the fun." "Say, when do we eat?" demanded Joy suddenly. "I'm famished! I can't do another thing until I get my lunch." "Poor starved child!" laughed Enid. "Do you suppose you could roll down the hill so we can build a camp fire by the stream? If you think you can't, we might fix up a stretcher and carry you." Joy answered with a toss of her head and a puckered-up grin. "I think I can manage to crawl there, if I am sure of a feed immediately." The girls scrambled down the steep cliff side and began to unpack the lunch. Joy chose a large granite rock in the middle of the stream and perched thereon, she surveyed her surroundings. "Isn't that a lovely copper stain? And to think it's coming from our mine!" she enthused in a mocking tone, while the other girls unpacked the lunch or hustled around to find sticks for a fire. Their lunch preparations were to be quite elaborate, roast potatoes and corn on the cob and steak. Enid and Kit built the fire with care and soon a bed of coals was ready. While the two girls worked over the fire and Shirley gave attention to spreading the feast, Bet sat on the cliff, dreaming of the mine to be. "This is adventure! This is romance!" she cried to her friends. "Romance!" chuckled Joy. "It's not what I call romance." "Dark brown eyes and a heavenly smile on the face of a boy, is your only idea of romance. You are a silly girl!" Bet shrugged her boyish shoulders and laughed at Joy as she undid her long rope, and standing up straight, tried to send the loop over a stump in the manner approved by Tommy Sharpe, her teacher. Her efforts were not very successful. Out of twenty attempts she managed one that coiled over the spot that she was aiming at. Bet decided then and there that she would not make a good cowboy. While she practised the throw again and again, she continued to talk to Joy who seemed half vexed as she snapped: "You needn't talk about liking boys, Bet Baxter. I don't blush every time the mail arrives and a letter is handed me. And you seem to have no objection to dreamy brown eyes yourself. I've seen the way you looked at Phil Gordon. Now Phil's eyes haven't got enough snap in them for me--they're altogether too brooding to suit me. I think that young Mexican's eyes are much more exciting." "Why, Joy Evans, how dare you say that I like to look at Phil's eyes? He's a dear boy, one of our best chums, but I don't think at all about his eyes," retorted Bet. "You don't think his eyes are nice? Answer me, Bet?" teased Shirley. "They're all right I tell you, but I think you girls are just too horrid trying to insinuate that I'm in love with Phil," protested Bet, her face flushing, her blue eyes snapping with anger. "We don't have to insinuate anything, Bet. You give yourself away every time his name is mentioned," was Joy's emphatic reply. "I move we change the subject. It's a sore point with me for I'm half in love with Phil myself," laughed Kit. "He's one of the nicest boys I've ever seen. But when Bet's around he won't even notice me." "What will Bob say to that?" laughed the impish Joy for it was no secret that Bob Evans had lost his heart to the Arizona girl from the first time he met her. His heart was hers to crush or treasure as she saw fit. But at present Kit preferred to hold on to her girlhood and not allow the thought of love and grown-up responsibilities to enter her head. That was one nice thing about the relationship of the girls and their boy friends. There was comradeship and loyal friendship. Bet suddenly jumped down from her perch on the cliff and said disgustedly: "Joy Evans, I think you are corrupting all of us with your silly ideas regarding boys. I love Bob and Phil and Paul Breckenridge and Tommy Sharpe just exactly the same, and I won't be teased about any one in particular." "Methinks thou dost protest too much, my dear!" exclaimed Joy tantalizingly. "We'll change the subject for the time, but when I get you alone, Bet Baxter, I'll make you own up that Phil Gordon is a little dearer to you than any of them." Joy dodged and slid from the granite rock just in time to miss the loop of rope that Bet had aimed at her with no gentle hand. "Come on girls, you selfish things, give your horses a chance," and Kit stroked Powder's muzzle and gave him a nosebag of oats. All the girls followed her example, then while the potatoes were getting ready, Bet took a book from her pack behind the saddle and lost herself in a story. "Do read aloud, Bet," begged Enid, dropping down beside her friend. "I will always remember how you read to me on Campers' Trail when I was hurt." So while Kit tended the fire, keeping a bed of hot coals just right for the baking, and Shirley fried steak and cooked the corn, Enid stretched out on a flat rock and listened to Bet. She had chosen "The Wonderful Window" by Dunsany, and when she finished Enid sighed softly. "I like a story that gives you something to think about," said Bet, moved by the loveliness of the tale. "I don't see anything particularly nice to think about in that story, Bet," objected Joy with a shrug. "It isn't lively enough to suit me." "Of course you wouldn't!" laughed Enid. "Your idea of a story is Cinderella. There has to be a girl, a prince and a wedding. Isn't that right?" "Of course," answered the butterfly girl, twirling about on her toes as usual. "It's the only kind that counts. I wouldn't give a snap of my finger for any other kind." With a bound, Bet jumped to her feet, caught the slight form of Joy, lifted her clear off the ground, then ran with her down to the creek. "Come on, Enid, this girl needs to have her head soaked in cold water. Let's do it." And in spite of the protests of the kicking, shrieking Joy, the girls managed to get her to a pool of water in the creek bed. "Now, Joy Evans, will you behave yourself?" Bet held Joy's head under her arm, and using her arm as a dipper she poured water freely over the girl's head. Kit and Shirley came to the rescue at Joy's screams, but Shirley held them off. "She had it coming to her, girls. It will do her good." Between Bet's bursts of laughter she managed to say, "Promise you won't talk about boys and love for a week at least, then I'll let you go." "Don't be as unreasonable as all that," protested Shirley. "She might live through twenty-four hours of it, but not much longer." "Then promise that you won't mention a boy's name for two days!" and for good measure another handful of water splashed into Joy's laughing face. "I promise! I promise! Please let me go!" choked Joy who had opened her mouth just in time to get it full of water. "All right! Here you go!" And Bet gave a quick shove, landing the dripping girl on her feet, then she stood back admiringly. "There is one fine thing about you, Joy Evans. You're a good sport. I couldn't be as good natured as that." Bet threw an arm about the smaller girl affectionately. "Yes, I am good natured. I let you abuse me just turrible! I'm so kind and lovable and......" "Give her another bath!" cried Kit, making a bound to catch Joy. But quick as a flash the girl had sprung to a rocky ledge and was scrambling up the cliff-side like a mountain goat. The girls shrieked with laughter and the echoes resounded back and forth across the canyon like the voices of a thousand imps. This set them deliberately to letting their voices out in strange calls and weird whisperings in order to hear the echoes coming back to them. "Isn't it wonderful!" exclaimed Bet. "There are so many more things to entertain one here than in the cities. And after this, Lynnwood will seem dull." "I could never call Lynnwood dull," said the sensible Shirley. "We always managed to have plenty of adventure there, thanks to Bet who can find a thrilling mystery anywhere." "Say, girls, I wish you'd get that silly idea you have of me out of your heads. From now on I'm a business woman, a mine-owner, and all other adventures are out. I'm going to be known as Sensible Bet." "Listen to her! She thinks it will be an adventure to work a copper claim. My idea of an adventure is altogether different. I can't see any thrill in five girls getting out in the hills, miles away from nowhere, and without the boys......" Bet made a dash toward Joy, who had just stepped down to the creek from her place of refuge. "Put her in the creek!" Bet shouted. "This time she goes in all over!" "Oh please!" begged Joy, taking refuge once more on the steep trail. "Truly I forgot! I won't say it again." "All right, come on down, and we'll let you off this once, but next time, in you go, head and all!" Kit had drawn away at some distance from the girls and was looking anxiously at the sky. "Looks to me as if a storm was coming up. We'd better get home at once." On mountain weather forecasts, Kit was authority so the girls quickly seized their horses' bridles, tightened the cinches as Kit directed, then hastily mounted and started toward home. "It's beginning to look worse and worse! Don't waste a minute. We must reach the pass down there before it catches us. Otherwise we'll be in a jam." The horses sensed the excitement and the tenseness that goes before a storm and raced through the creek-bed without any urging. Even the old horse, Dolly, needed neither spur nor whip. Snorting and blowing in good earnest, she held her own with the more spirited animals as they picked their way around boulders and pools of water. At the first drop of rain, Kit drew in her pony. "We can't make it, girls! We'll never make it in time," she cried in a panic of fear. "Of course we can make it. There it is right ahead of us," Enid encouraged them. "We can get through the pass." "No, we can't!" declared Kit anxiously. "Then we'd better stay right here where it's dry," said Bet. "We can't do that either," screamed Kit. "In ten minutes this will be a raging torrent instead of a little trickle of water. You don't understand." It was not often that Kit lost her presence of mind, but the responsibility of looking after the girls quite unnerved her. "Then what shall we do?" asked Shirley, who never got excited or lost her head. Kit looked at the canyon walls on both sides. They were steep, they seemed straight up. "Oh, I shouldn't have started back, I should have waited," in Kit's voice was a sob. Heavy clouds had shut out all the blue of the sky. Never before had the girls seen such black and menacing clouds. They rolled and seethed like foaming billows. It looked as if the demons of some underworld were engaged in a tremendous battle. Black, castle-like shapes piled up, to be tumbled into the abyss, the next second. It was an inferno through which a flash of lightning darted from time to time, followed by thunderclaps. The girls were terrified. Joy was sobbing outright and at every blast of thunder a high-pitched, uncontrollable shriek broke from her lips. The horses stood still, trembling with fright. "We're in terrible danger here. We must get out!" cried Kit, frantically. "Come on back. Let your horse take you wherever he wants to, and hold on for dear life." Kit wheeled her horse back the way they had come and the girls followed. And just at that moment the downpour came and looking back toward the pass, the girls saw a strange sight. A body of water came roaring through the narrow opening as if a gigantic fire-hydrant had burst. A cloudburst in the mountain beyond had sent the water roaring and tumbling down the bed of the stream. Just what happened the girls could hardly tell afterwards. They held on as Kit had directed and the horses raced madly away from the oncoming torrent. Bet's heart almost stopped beating as her pony took the trail up the wall of the canyon, so steep that she would not have dared to attempt it on foot. Half way up the wall, the horse stopped. "I've never seen anything braver than that! This is thrilling!" breathed Bet as she held on to the horn of the saddle with a grip that strained her hands. Although she was as frightened as any of the girls, she still had an eye to the adventure. The stream bed was a river now, swirling, foaming and roaring. It made one dizzy to look down into it. Bet finally got up the courage to turn her head to see if the other girls were safe, and behind her on the trail, she made out Joy's horse. The animal had followed Bet's lead and it stood on the trail dejected and drooping, a picture of woe. And the saddle was empty. "Joy! Joy!" screamed Bet. "Where are you? Joy!" No one, even a few feet away, could have heard her call and if there had been any answer, the roar of the storm deadened it. The rain came down in a heavy sheet, soaking her to the skin and shutting out the hills across the canyon. She was alone in this blinding downpour. It seemed as if the inferno she had witnessed in the sky had fallen upon her and was eager to swallow her up. And yet Bet was thrilled. She wanted to huddle over her pony, hold on to the saddle horn, but she dared not do it. She must find Joy. What had happened to the other girls? Kit was probably with them, and leading them to safety. Joy was near and in need of help. Bet carefully took her feet from the stirrups and slid to the ground with a death-grip on the saddle. There was only room for one foot on the tiny shelf of rock, and that slight space was slippery with the rain. Slowly Bet lowered herself, with the aid of the stirrup, and clutching at the tough-fibred plants, she lay down flat on her stomach. Sliding and wriggling, an inch at a time, down that slippery incline, she managed to hold on to the narrow shelf. "Joy! Joy! Where are you?" she cried. At last Bet could hear the heavy breathing of Joy's horse, got hold of a stirrup and clung there trembling. Again and again she called, then listened. Finally above the roar of the storm she thought she heard a faint cry from the trail below. Bet crept along the trail, this time under Dolly's feet. She had to take a chance even though one move on the part of the horse might send her over the side of the cliff. Then Bet saw Joy. She was clinging to a mass of bear grass, her face white and her eyes wild with fear. It was impossible to reach her. She seemed to be clinging there only with her hands, her feet swinging without any support. But of that Bet could not be certain. It would be sure destruction to attempt to climb down that wall. Then quick as a flash Bet thought of the reata on Joy's saddle. Bet had insisted that the girl carry the rope with her, and Joy had protested as usual. That rope was her only chance. Bet slowly crept up the incline to Joy's horse and managed to get to her feet and undo the long coil of rope. Then crouching to her knees once more she made a loop, thankful that she had learned to do that stunt as a child. The other end she tied to the saddle. Bet heard a groan from the cliff and hastened toward it. But haste was one thing that could not be attempted with safety. Bet regretted that effort. Her body slipped, a plant gave way and her feet slid over the wall. Bet's mind was clear. She heard once more Joy's faint cry in the distance and knew that it depended on her to rescue her friend. The empty hand clutched and found another tough root, and slowly, now, she brought first one foot then the other to the ledge. She was saved! But would she reach Joy in time? With greater caution she crept the few feet along that treacherous path until she came close above Joy's head. "Hold on, Joy, don't give up! I'll help you in a minute." Bet encouraged her. Working desperately, Bet got to her feet and clung there. It was the only hope for Joy. The rain had ceased to pour down in such a torrent, and Bet could now see her friend clinging to that slender plant. Leaning over as far as she dared, she dropped the loop over Joy's head and shoulders. "Joy dear," she called. "Put one arm inside the loop, quick!" Joy heard and understood. She let go with one hand. There was a shriek, a groan, a shower of rocks descended as Joy slipped down that steep wall. For Bet, everything went black. She grew faint and closed her eyes, then suddenly pulled herself together, and looked over. The rope was taut. It had held. A second shower of rocks came from the trail, started by the sudden jerk on the saddle. The horse pawed the ground in an effort to keep its footing. It held. And Bet gripped the stirrup with her foot and drew on the rope. It was well that Joy was tiny. Even then, Bet had difficulty in bringing her up. She tugged, she pulled, trying to ease the girl's body over the sharp projecting rocks. Bet was weak and trembling when she clasped Joy in her arms, perched on that narrow shelf of rock. And that was the way Kit found them ten minutes later, when the storm had passed and the sun shone fiercely down once more. Joy was sobbing as if her heart would break and Bet was saying in a crooning voice: "Joy dear, you can talk about the boys as much as you want to from now on. I'll never again object to anything you do." CHAPTER XII _DOUBLE DEALING_ An anxious group was waiting for the girls to arrive in camp. Ma Patten had run over to make her daily call on Mrs. Breckenridge. Even Tang and the two Chinese hoys were watching eagerly and scowling toward the tempestuous sky. A thunder and lightning storm in the hills was not a thing to laugh at. A flash! A roar! And a large mass of rock was cleft apart as if a mighty hammer had struck it. Tommy Sharpe and Seedy Saunders had saddled their horses and gone in search of the girls as soon as the storm threatened, but not knowing in which direction they had headed, it was like hunting for a needle in a hay stack. They did find Professor Gillette, however, soaked to the skin, a bedraggled, shivering figure that set the boys laughing in spite of the pathetic look of the old man. They helped him up the hill to the Patten household where he could be taken care of, and once more went in search of the girls. But it was not until the storm was over and the girls were climbing up the last trail to the ranch that Tommy spied them. "There they are, Seedy! They're safe!" Tommy's voice trembled with emotion. The mountain | storms still terrified the boy, although he had experienced so many of them. By the time the girls reached the house, the strain they had undergone was beginning to wear off and they were able to laugh at their adventure. That all except Joy, who shuddered whenever she thought of it and turned pale when the women asked excited questions. "I hate these mountains," whispered Joy to Shirley. "I wish I were going home tomorrow!" "Why, Joy Evans, you know you don't." Shirley put her arm around the frightened girl. "You're having a grand time here, and the fun is just beginning. You're not going to quit over the first unpleasant thing that happens to you. That's not playing the game. What would Lady Betty Merriweather do?" Joy laughed in spite of herself. "We always used to ask that question when we were in Lynnwood. Lady Betty meant a lot to us, didn't she? I guess she wouldn't have cried and taken on the way I did down there on the cliff." "Do you remember," said Shirley softly, "how Lady Betty rode through the night to help her wounded husband? That was bravery!" "But that was so long ago. The Revolutionary War seems like a story and not real life," Joy said with a toss of her head. "Maybe it didn't happen at all." Lady Betty Merriweather had been the first owner of the Merriweather Estate, Bet's home on the Hudson, and from an old picture of her that adorned the great entrance hall of the Manor, the girls had come to feel that she was their friend and companion, an ideal for them to live up to. "Anyway," continued Joy, "she liked horses. And I don't. And I don't like their old cactus plants with their sharp needles that seem to jump at you. And the sun is cruel. It bites. And even the mountains look hard and angry as if they wanted to do you a mean turn.--And that storm! Did you ever see anything more terrifying? I thought the day of judgment had come. I don't believe Lady Betty would have been any braver than I was. Well, not much braver!" Shirley laughed softly. "Joy dear, how you exaggerate things! Arizona is wonderful. Did you ever see such glorious sunsets? I'm crazy about them." "The sunrises are just as wonderful!" interrupted Bet. "And I'm wondering who is going to be game enough to start to Saugus before daylight some morning. Kit says we will have to take an early start if we are to make the trip in one day." "Why are we going there?" asked Joy. "To record our claims. We _could_ mail the filled-in blanks but it's lots more exciting to take them. And it's good experience for us. Besides the County Recorder should get acquainted with us, for someday we'll own a great big mine and be people of importance." The girls laughed at Bet's seriousness. "Are you going to say you don't want to go?" Bet asked in a vexed tone. "Of course we'll go!" assented Enid. "We're The Merriweather Girls; one for all and all for one! What day do we start?" "Why not go tomorrow, if our folks agree? I'm anxious to see those claims put on record," said Shirley, "and the sooner business matters are attended to, the better for everyone. And just think, girls, it's our second business venture. Shirley's Shop was a success and still is, for mother is keeping it going, and she said in her last letter that she was not doing badly at all." "Shirley's Shop was a success and the Merriweather Mining Company will be, too," Bet declared. "It _must_ be a success." "It will be!" determined Enid. Only Joy did not share their optimism. "I think the storm was a bad omen, don't you, Kit? It's hoodooed!" "Joy Evans!" cried Bet her eyes flashing. "Half an hour ago I would have let you say that, but now if the creek were near, in you'd go!" Joy laughed and got beyond the reach of Bet's hand, then said impishly: "As for boys, I think they are simply wonderful! Mexican boys have beautiful eyes and Phil Gordon always smiles at you, Bet." For answer Bet ran into the house and slammed the door to her own room. Joy had wept after the storm, and thus relaxed her nerve tension but Bet had not had any such relief. As a result of the strain she found herself irritated by Joy's nonsense and got out of the way to avoid a quarrel. It was two days later when the girls started on their trip to Saugus. The first faint flush of dawn was in the sky as they set out, the exhilarating air acting as a stimulant. Even the horses seemed to feel it as they tossed their heads and pawed the ground when the girls were getting ready to start. The restless animals were as eager to be off as their riders, and at the first touch of the reins they sprang forward as if for a race. "Take it easy, Powder," laughed Kit as she tightened the rein and drew up the horse's head. "You have a full day to show how clever you are." Kit talked to the pony as if it were a human being and the horse seemed to respond to whatever mood she was in. He slowed to a prancing trot, high-stepping along the level like a spirited race horse. Kit leaned over and patted his neck with pride as she called: "Look, Bet, isn't he a beauty?" "He is!--That is in looks. But I don't like his disposition. You are welcome to ride him." Bet laughed aloud in her joy as she made her pony dance along the trail. "But if Powder didn't act up like a perfect fiend at times, I'd be bored to death with him. I like them naughty. I hate a horse without any spirit. Powder keeps me on my toes all the time." Kit ran her finger along the horse's mane and with a spring Powder reared and bucked, and did all the things that an untamed bronco would do when he was first introduced to the saddle. "You can have it all to yourself," said Bet, as Kit finally brought her quieted horse to a standstill. "I like riding, but I don't want to be a bronco buster." Although they planned on being in the town by noon, the girls carried a lunch strapped to their saddles. A rest and a bite to eat along the way was half the fun and they had not gone more than a mile before Joy was digging into the little bag that hung from the horn of her saddle. By ten o'clock when the other girls were ready for a rest and something to eat, Joy was down to the bottom of the bag. "Never mind, Joy, you can have half of mine. Mother always puts up enough for an army." "Aren't we ever going to get there?" complained Joy, as she squatted in the scant shade of a mesquite tree and ate some fudge. "Five miles more!" Kit announced. "I'll never be able to do it! If they only had a change of scenery, I wouldn't be so bored. And those tall, smokestack cactus make me sick." "Smokestack cactus!" snapped Kit with contempt. "If you'd only take enough interest to learn the names of the trees and things you see, you wouldn't be so bored." "Well, what are they called?" "Sahuara. And if that word is too big for you to remember, call them Giant Cactus." Suddenly Bet shook Joy by the arm. "Keep quiet and watch that road runner. Isn't he a beauty?" The bird had risen and poised above the mesa, then with fluttering wings darted downward. There was a rattling brr, and the girls knew what was happening. The road runner was attacking a rattlesnake. "That bird isn't much of a sport," declared Bet, watching the little drama with eager eyes. "It doesn't give the snake a fighting chance. I feel sorry for it." Kit laughed. "Don't waste your sympathy on rattlesnakes. Take something worthy of your respect." Kit watched the struggle with little emotion but the other girls turned away not wanting to see the end of the uneven fight. "Let's go," said Enid, jumping to her feet. "I've seen enough." An hour later when the girls were entering the little desert town of Saugus, and just as they came to the first adobe houses, they saw a horseback rider coming toward them. As he rode nearer the man waved them a greeting. "It's Kie Wicks! And he's good-natured," grunted Kit suspiciously. "Wonder what he's doing over here today? Up to some meanness, I know, otherwise he wouldn't be so cordial to us." "Well his meanness doesn't concern us," answered Bet. "You can't be sure of that. He's probably bought up some second hand food stuff that he plans to work off on the ranchers during the summer." "And what's your errand over this way?" inquired Kie Wicks bluntly. "I came to visit an ice cream parlor and go to a movie," chuckled Joy. But Kit did not deign to answer the man. She dug her spurs into Powder's sides and he leaped past the rider and raced toward the town. "That fellow looks as if he had been taking advantage of someone. Wasn't he feeling good? On top of the world! The old cheat!" blustered Kit, as she dismounted at the stables where they were to leave their horses for a rest and a good feed. The girls took their time, went leisurely about the town, ate their lunch at the Grand Palace Hotel and later went to the County Recording Office. "Why, that's funny!" said the clerk, giving them a searching look. "Those same claims were recorded not more than an hour ago. Man by the name of Ramon Salazar. What are you trying to do, jump his claims?" "Why, we wouldn't do such a thing," exclaimed Bet indignantly. "Was Ramon here in person?" asked Kit. "No, he sent the papers in by a neighbor," returned the young man. "A fellow by the name of Kie Wicks." "Kie Wicks!" That explained everything. The girls suddenly wilted. All their sparkle was gone as they watched the clerk checking over the descriptions with the ones already recorded. "You have one here that has not been recorded," the clerk announced when he had finally finished the checking. "Wonder how he happened to leave out that one?" snapped Kit. Bet held out her hand for the blank. "Let's see which one it is. Oh, girls, what a shame! It's the most unpromising claim of all. That's the last one we located, the one we called, 'Little Orphan Annie.' It's too mean for anything." There were tears of disappointment and anger in Bet's eyes. "Do you want it recorded?" The girls heard the clerk's voice but it seemed to come from far away. "What's the use of one claim? You can't make a mine out of just one miserable claim!" "I don't care, I want it anyway!" Bet shrugged her shoulders defiantly. "I told you there was a hoodoo on those claims," Joy spoke cheerfully, as much as to say, "I told you so." Joy's pessimism was all that was needed to decide Bet. "Yes, we'll record it, and we'll be locating some more soon," she announced with determination. "We are not going to let Kie Wicks and Ramon Salazar beat us. We'll get even with them somehow." "They wouldn't have dared to do this if we were men. Just because we are girls, they think they'll get away with it." "Oh, by all means!" Joy taunted provokingly, "Be sure to locate some more claims and let that man take them away from us again." Bet turned her back on Joy and watched the clerk as he put the blank through the usual routine and then turned to leave the office. The Merriweather Girls were the owners of one very unpromising copper claim. They dragged wearily out into the fierce sunlight. There was a discouraged droop to their shoulders, but Bet suddenly straightened. Her eyes were flashing as she said: "I have a hunch! Something tells me that we are not down and out on this deal." Joy squatted on the steps of the General Mining Supply Company's office and laughed. "You ought to win with a disposition like that, Bet Baxter. I don't admire your judgment, but I do like your spunk. I'm with you. I'll never say a discouraging word again." "I don't know why, but somehow that Little Orphan Annie claim is going to help us win out!" "But how?" whispered Kit to herself. CHAPTER XIII _THE "ORPHAN ANNIE" CLAIM_ Disappointments could not long dampen the spirits of The Merriweather Girls. Youth soon conquered discouragement and by the time they were awake the next morning, they were happy and ready to take the next step in the adventure. But Judge Breckenridge, with his strong ideas of justice, was not so easily appeased. And when the girls told him of what had happened he sat for a long time with a worried frown on his brow, then got up and walked in the court. It was plain to be seen that he was agitated about the claim jumpers. "If you are bothered about us, Judge Breckenridge," said Bet, linking her arm in his and skipping into step beside him, "You might just as well not think about it. We didn't like it at first either, but now we don't care at all--not much, I mean. It will save us lots of work. And probably we couldn't be mine owners very well, anyway." "You're a great little girl, Bet!" The Judge patted her hand affectionately. "You're a sport, all right. Now, _I'm_ mad clean through!" "That's what I thought, and I have never seen you angry before." "I'm sorry, child, I didn't mean to have you see me in this mood, ever," said the Judge with a trembling voice. "But I'm so glad I did. I usually snap and snarl when I have a temper spell, and I did not know it could be done in such a dignified way. I think it was wonderful!" The Judge stopped short in his walk and laughed, his voice echoing through the patio. Enid heard it in her own room and came on the run to see what amused her father so greatly. When she saw Bet, she smiled. "I might have known it was you. Dad always laughs at you." And the tall girl slipped up at the other side of her father, and snuggled close with her head on his shoulder. "Two daughters are better than one!" The grey-haired man clasped his girl to him as if he had not seen her for weeks. Then turning to Bet he said: "Aren't you going to work your one claim?" "Is it worth it?" she asked. "I think I would. You can get a Mexican to do the assessment work, and he'd be glad of the money. You never can tell what may happen," advised Judge Breckenridge. "I had a sort of hunch that we ought to keep it, but then again in the night I decided that it would be foolish. We can go elsewhere and locate more claims." "I'll take a trip over there with you this afternoon and have a look at 'Little Orphan Annie.' Tommy Sharpe is threatening to lay in wait for Kie Wicks with a shotgun." "Tommy's a fool! He always was!" exclaimed Enid impatiently. "He can't imagine there is any way of getting the better of a person except by shooting him. He even wanted to go after Sol Curtin. I believe he had the notion that he could do it all by himself. He's a funny boy!" The Judge frowned. Although a year had passed since Enid had been found, the father could not talk, without emotion, of the man who had kidnapped his daughter when she was a child. Sol was in jail and would be there for many years, but still the father was uneasy. "This Kie Wicks makes me think of Sol," he said bitterly. "And I want you to keep as far away from him as possible. Have a man do the work for you if you keep this claim near his." That afternoon the Judge rode with the girls down Lost Canyon, through the Iron Gate to the smaller creek and picked their way around the boulders of the river bed. About a mile from the claim, they met Professor Gillette. He had been far over one of the hills in search of the ruins. Half a dozen arrowheads were his reward. He was preparing a belated dinner in the creek-bed, over a smouldering fire. The girls were impatient to go on, and dragged the Judge away from his friend. "Come on up over that hill when you finish your lunch," invited the Judge. "I have to obey, so I'm off." "What made you think of coming away up here to locate claims, Kit?" the Judge asked as they brought their horses to the summit. "Dad said there were some good claims over this way, and I've had experience. I've lived out here all my life and know how they go about their location work." "I'll say your view is worth as much as 'Orphan Annie,'" enthused Judge Breckenridge, as he looked over the ranges of mountains and the deep-cut canyons. "But views are not worth a Mexican dime out here. You can't cash in on a good outlook," returned Bet with a chuckle. "It's the mine that counts. Now tell us, don't you think we made a good job of locating those claims?" "I think you did, Bet. However as Ramon Salazar and Kie Wicks will reap the benefit, I think we might go on to other promising spots and let them have a free hand here. You are only girls and can't fight men like them." No other remark could have roused all the spunk in the girls. "I don't see why we can't hold our own against any man," sniffed Kit. "Ramon Salazar is a cross-eyed Mexican with a lame leg, and Kie Wicks is a coward. I guess The Merriweather Girls could beat them with their eyes shut." "That a girl, Kit! Of course we can," cried Bet indignantly. "And we will!" The Judge chuckled at their flare of independence, and turned to Joy, the timid one. "What about you, Joy? Do you want to help the girls fight for the claim?" "I'm not saying that I want the old mine, if we can hold it, but I'm willing to help fight, if the girls say so. The Merriweather Girls stand together." "Good for you, Joy Evans! I didn't expect it of you." "You didn't? What are you trying to insinuate, Bet Baxter? I'm not a traitor!" "Why, of course not, Joy, but you don't like digging mines and riding horseback and all that sort of thing." "Maybe not. But you've never known me to back out of anything, especially where the honor of The Merriweather Girls was at stake." "That's right," responded Bet quickly. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You've always been a sport when it came to doing things, although you've sometimes made a frightful fuss about it." "That's part of the game," laughed the butterfly girl. "Somebody has to be a kicker. And I'm it." "Please do it with your feet from now on, it's much more graceful!" teased Enid. "I may do it with my feet and I may do it with my tongue," returned Joy with a happy laugh, "but you'll find me ready to back up any one of you." "Well said, fair lady. Now let's have a look at 'Orphan Annie.'" The Judge's eyes were sparkling with amusement as Bet led him up the gentle slope of the mountain. Suddenly Bet threw herself from the saddle. "See folks, I found an arrowhead! Oh, boy! Isn't that lucky?" The girls dismounted and grouped about her, all except Kit, who had picked up arrowheads since babyhood. "It's a perfect one. I'm the happiest girl in all the world!" "Doesn't take much to make some people happy," began Joy, then she started to laugh. "Come on, where's our little orphan?" "This way, follow me," called Shirley Williams. "This is it, isn't it, Bet?" "Yes, that's our baby. Poor little thing." Bet was trying to be cheerful but there was a tinge of bitterness in her voice. There was always a great soul conflict when Bet's well developed plans went amiss and in this case, where it involved double dealing, it was harder than usual to give up. "Nine chances out of ten," remarked Enid quietly and with little emotion, "those other claims have all the ore and this one has nothing." "For my part, I don't care if it hasn't any ore in it at all, I like it anyway," and Bet squatted down on a big flat rock within the boundaries of the claim. "It feels good to be on my own property," she added with a sigh of contentment. But in a moment she had started up with a little cry of surprise. "What's the matter, Bet? Be careful! If it's a strange bug, it might bite you. There are so many stinging things out here," cautioned Kit. Bet's head was bent over the rock. She did not hear what was said. Suddenly she called, "Judge Breckenridge, do come here and look at these strange markings on the rock." "Markings on a rock," said Joy Evans contemptuously. "I thought it was a tarantula or something." "Well, you wouldn't have liked to see a tarantula any better than the markings, and these at least are not poisonous," Bet retorted. Judge Breckenridge was examining the markings with interest, and gave a low whistle of astonishment. "This is the sort of thing one reads about. I'm wondering though if Kie Wicks put them here to fool you." "It might be markings that tell of a buried treasure. See the arrow! Look the way the arrow points." "Yes, look the way the arrow points," mimicked Joy. "Now at last you have your mystery, Bet. I wish you joy of it. Follow the arrow and then you'll come to a tall cactus, and in the cactus you'll find a bullet..." "Oh, keep quiet, Joy Evans!" flashed Bet angrily. "We haven't found a mystery and I don't believe there is a treasure here. This is far away from Lost Canyon," said Kit. "I'm going to believe in the treasure!" cried Bet, fired with enthusiasm at the prospect of finding something unusual. "Why, I could easily believe in a buried treasure. What's more I'll find it." "I'm going to go and call Professor Gillette," called Enid, already in the saddle. "He can probably tell us what it means and what the Indians looked like who made the markings." "These lines were not made by Indians," remarked the Judge thoughtfully. "There's a Spanish word there." But when the professor came a few minutes later, he was all at sea as to the meaning of the tracings on the rock. "It is very much like the sort of thing people used to draw when they buried treasure. You've seen the map in Tommy Sharpe's room but that doesn't say that if we located the proper spot that there would be any treasure left. Other people can read signs the same as we can, and many people have been over this ground since that sign was carved," Judge Breckenridge explained to the girls. "Why be so sensible, Judge?" laughed Bet wistfully. "Why not let us think that there is a treasure hidden in the ground somewhere? I'm thrilled all to pieces just thinking about it." "And that's right, too, Bet. Don't let an old fellow like me spoil your dreams by my common sense." The Judge acted as if he wanted to believe it himself and only needed a little urging. "And there is just as much chance that no one has passed over this rock since the early days and that we may find a fortune hidden." The professor smiled around at the group with a happy, child-like stare as if he were one of the characters of a fairy story. "Now that's the way to talk, Professor Gillette. You never can be sure unless you look around." Bet nodded at him approvingly. The Judge suddenly looked at his watch. "I move we get home to dinner. Tang will be waiting and he hates that." Bet very carefully spread some tiny twigs and sand over the rock so that no one else would see the markings on the stone. "Come along up with us to dinner, Professor," suggested the Judge cordially. "We'll have a meeting tonight and talk things over and see what is best to do. I have a feeling that the shrubs and rocks have ears around these claims of Ramon's." "That's what I say. Otherwise how did Ramon and Kie Wicks find out about the claims in the first place?" asked Bet. "There's no mystery in that, Bet. Kie saw us coming here and followed. He spied on us, saw us building the monuments and then came and jumped the claims," explained Kit. "All but one!" cried Bet as she clapped her hands. "And on that one little neglected claim, we find the tracings that will perhaps lead us to the buried treasure. That's luck!" "Oh Bet, wake up, you're dreaming!" laughed Shirley, the quiet, sensible girl. Never in the world would Shirley have dreamed or let her imagination run wild. She was a practical, well-balanced girl, a clear thinker and not given to romantic flights of fancy. "The bubble's burst!" sang Joy tantalizingly. "It has not!" Bet swung easily into the saddle. "The bubble isn't blown yet. Just wait and see!" In single file they rode down into the canyon below them and let their horses pick a way through the rocks of the creek bed. Just as they passed through the Iron Gate, the narrow pass that led to Lost Canyon, they met Kie Wicks. "Nice weather for a picnic!" he called to them gaily with a wave of his dusty sombrero. "That's an interesting canyon!" "Yes," the judge replied with his most courteous air. "We find it very interesting. The girls located a claim up that way, and have started work on it." "You don't say so! Well, everybody to his liking. I'm through with locating claims. It's a slave's life, forever digging, digging, digging! I don't care if I never see another copper claim as long as I live," Kie Wicks returned with decision. "I run a store, that's a good, clean business." "You're right, Mr. Wicks. Stick to storekeeping," advised the Judge as he took the trail toward the ranch. The girls smiled back at Kie Wicks and waved him good-bye. They had decided to play a part with this man. And not for worlds would they let him know that they suspected that he had anything to do with the claim jumping. Later, much later, they might get strong evidence against him. They would deal with him then. Just now they could not afford to antagonize the man. Open enmity might be worse than the present situation. Kie and Maude, as long as they were making a pretense of friendliness, might let drop some of their plans without meaning to. People who talked so freely often did that. "We'll string 'em along," said Joy slangily. "Maude Wicks can't keep a secret, if _I_ know anything." "Which is doubtful!" laughed Bet. "Say, who are you talking about? Maude Wicks or yours truly?" retorted Joy, at the same time making a face at her friend. "Both!" cried Bet and gave her horse a tap on the neck, getting out of the way of Joy's quirt. Everybody liked to tease Joy, perhaps because she flushed so prettily as her slight anger rose. But whatever the reason she was always the butt for their good natured teasing. And no matter how much she resented it, she turned it off with a joke. Yet it could be seen that she always turned to Shirley Williams, who never teased her. Tang was watching anxiously from the kitchen door when they rode up the trail. He was always punctual and frowned on the late comers. In the corridor of the patio, after dinner, the council met. Mrs. Breckenridge, although she could scarcely hope to be able to take such a long ride to see the claim, was the most enthusiastic one of the group. She was a dreamer by nature, and the thrill of hidden things always intrigued her. Bet threw both arms impulsively around her. "You're a darling," Bet cried. "You are a real chum, a person after my own heart." "But you see I've been reading lately and it seems that there is basis for the story of hidden treasure in Lost Canyon. Lots of people have believed it." "And lots of people have hunted for the treasure and failed," returned Kit skeptically. "Perhaps we won't fail. It's that word 'perhaps' that adds the greatest spice to life. It won't do any harm to spend a little time studying out this sign on the rock. Tomorrow I'll make an accurate copy of it and then we can have it here at home to puzzle over. And if you say so, I'll begin that assessment work on your one claim so that there will be an excuse for being over there so much." Professor Gillette suggested. "You're a dear! That's an awful good idea! But what about your Indian ruins? You must find them." Bet was anxious for the old man to realize his desire and find the ancient village of the vanished tribe. It meant so much to his crippled daughter. "That can wait for a little while. This looks as if it might be much more interesting." The professor's wrinkled face was flushed with the excitement of a mystery to be unearthed. "I'll begin tomorrow," he declared as he rose to join Kit and her mother and accompany them home. Bet's face was radiant. "Here's where the fun begins!" she laughed at the prospect. But little did Bet realize that the hunting for a treasure was to bring to the girls, not only the most thrilling adventure of their lives, but danger, suspense and fear. CHAPTER XIV _TREASURE TROVE_ To the delight of the girls, the next morning was clear. It had rained in the night and they had been sure that it would storm and they might have to stay at home. The sun rose pleasantly warm, but the hour was five o'clock and the girls knew that before breakfast time it would be almost unbearably hot. "But what do we care?" laughed Bet gaily. "We're out for adventure. Today is the grand and glorious event. We will hunt for treasure." "Oh, no, we won't," Enid returned decidedly. "You forget that Professor Gillette and Dad decided that it would be better to do the location work on that claim first." Bet frowned. It was not her way to be patient. At last she said, "Oh, well, if it has to be done, we'll do it. We'll go over early and finish that ten foot hole by noon, then we'll have all afternoon for the treasure." "Kit said it would take us at the very least, a full week, to do that work," returned Enid. "Don't be a spoil-sport," pouted Bet. "You don't know anything about it." But Shirley Williams and Joy Evans both backed up Enid. "Why, Bet, that hole has to be dug through solid rock, almost." "How stupid!" shrugged Bet. "If you should dig right into a vein of rich copper ore, you won't think so. Why not have hopes of a mine and forget the treasure?" said Shirley quietly. "Have you given up the idea of being a mine owner?" "Not exactly. But to tell the truth, 'Orphan Annie' doesn't look very hopeful to me." Bet shook her head dolefully. "Well, it's no use fretting. If that hole has to be dug before we start looking for the treasure, it has to be, that's all." "Now you're being sensible, Bet. It's just as the professor says, it's wise for us to have a real claim on the land around that tracing. It might be worth something. Perhaps there is a treasure buried there, but it isn't likely." Shirley was not a dreamer and Bet, for the moment, was disgusted. She turned away and left them. "Let's get breakfast over," called Enid, leading the way toward the dining room. "We'll be pleasing Tang and that's a good start for the day. Then we'll be ready for Kit when she comes." "Where do we meet the professor?" asked Shirley. "He'll be waiting for us by the pass into the small canyon. Isn't he a dear to help us out instead of looking for his village? I like him!" declared Bet. It was only seven o'clock when the girls bade good-bye to Mrs. Breckenridge, listened to her instructions about taking care of themselves, and started down the trail, Kit in the lead. Although it was twenty minutes before the appointed time, Professor Gillette was waiting for them. On his burro, borrowed for the occasion from Dad Patten, he carried all the tools needed for prospecting. "You look as if you expected to dig twenty mines," laughed Bet, as she drew up her pony beside the old man. "Only one," insisted the professor. "At least I hope that is all we will need. But no one can tell for sure." "I think it is all foolishness anyway," Joy exclaimed. "What we want now is that treasure, and instead of looking for it, you are going to dig a well." Kit laughed as she always did at Joy's mistakes. "Call it a well if you want to," she said patronizingly, "but don't let Tommy Sharpe or Seedy Saunders hear you say it. They'll tease you unmercifully." "It's this way, Joy," explained Bet, impatiently. "Kie Wicks might get wise to it, and come in at the end of two months and snap up this claim too, if we haven't done our work. That has to be done within two months." "Then he'd get the stone with the markings?" "Yes, that's it. And he might find the treasure, if we don't watch out," added Kit. "Then let's get to work at once!" cried Joy, digging her spur into Dolly's side. "You mean, Professor Gillette will get to work at once while you and the rest of us stand around and look pretty," said Enid. "Why we don't mean any such a thing, Enid Breckenridge. I'm perfectly willing to work and do my share," snapped Bet, her face red with anger. "I'll not have Professor Gillette imposed on like that." "We'll all do what we can," soothed Kit. "Although I'm not sure we'll make much headway with the pick and shovel." "I think we should have a Mexican do the work, girls," said Enid. "He'd do it in half the time." "Professor Gillette said it was better not to have anyone else around for a while until we could find out something about this treasure," Bet said. "So we might as well make up our minds to dig right in and work hard." Once on the site of the claim, the professor unloaded his tools and looked about for a suitable place to put down the ten-foot shaft. His knowledge of mining was not very great but he and Kit finally decided on the best spot. The old man started in at once, swinging the pick as if it were a hammer. He soon dug away the thin layer of earth and crushed rock, and reached solid stone. "It's a good thing I brought the drills along!" the professor threw down his pick and took up a drill and heavy hammer. "Isn't it exciting!" cried Bet. "Do let me try to use the drill. "All in good time, child, all in good time," he promised her as he adjusted the tool. "This is a two-man job anyway. Somebody has to help me." Bet crouched down close beside him and held the drill steady while the old man prepared to hit. She glanced up at him, dubiously. The old man laughed. "Don't know as I blame you any," he said as he twisted a piece of heavy wire about the drill and gave Bet an end to hold. "There, you can steady it with that, so I won't hit your fingers." "Oh, I wasn't afraid," began Bet but the professor laughed and Bet did not finish her sentence. "You looked as if you were very much frightened indeed. You were certain I would hit your fingers, and I'm not sure I wouldn't have," he chuckled. And his first strong blow did miss the drill and the girls, watching him, laughed. "Gee, if Bet's fingers had been there!" gasped Joy. "Well, maybe I'd have been more careful if her hand had been there. I never take chances." While Bet held the drill in place the professor dealt blow after blow until he was ready to drop with exhaustion. "And some men keep that up all day, I'm told," he gasped as he threw down the tool and dropped to the ground. "I don't believe they do," he added. "I've seen men keep at it pretty steadily for hours," interrupted Kit, "but they don't go at it so strenuously. You put all your soul and body into it. They don't get excited and they don't wear themselves out with wild flourishes. You see when a prospector has that work to do, he doesn't have to hurry. He has all the time there is." "To tell you the truth," laughed the professor sheepishly, "I'm so anxious to start looking for the treasure that I don't want to dig this shaft, I'm like a child with a new toy." "Come here, Kit," called Bet. "You hold this drill for a while and let me swing the hammer. I'm just dying to do it." "And maybe I'm not glad there is a wire to hold. You'd hit me, sure." "Don't trust me even yet," Bet returned with a gay laugh. "That's right, Kit," trilled Joy. "You are only two feet away from her hammer, she might easily miss the mark by that much." Joy was glad of a chance to tease Bet. Bet swung the hammer with vigor, bringing it down on the drill with a force that seemed impossible from her slender arms. "Go it, Bet. You'll get there yet," shouted Joy. Bet was soon worn out and the girls took turns and had the joy of finishing one hole to the required depth for setting the charge. The professor was bending over the tracings on the rock. He had forgotten all about the location work that had to be done. While the arrow pointed southwesterly and showed the direction in which to look, it pointed over a deserted country that stretched for miles into Mexico. "If there is anything thrilling about this, I'd like to be shown," pouted Joy. And in sheer boredom she got up, walked to a rocky ledge and scrambled up the steep face of it. Enid and Shirley, who were watching the professor studying the markings on the rock, heard a cry of surprise from Joy, but before they could turn toward her, they saw her falling, clutching wildly at the ledges in an attempt to save herself. Joy had turned her head to speak to her friends and had missed her footing. As she touched the ground, her ankle bent under her and she fell with a groan. Bet ran to her help. "Speak, Joy, speak to me," we said shaking the girl. Joy's face was deathly white but her eyes fluttered open and seeing Bet she cried hysterically: "I found it! I found it!" "Found what, Joy? What did you find?" "Another arrow. Right there on the rock!" Joy was struggling to her feet, but at the attempt she fell back with a groan. "For the love of Mike, is that all? Why, Joy Evans, you'd get so excited over an arrowhead that you'd lose your footing!" Kit cried. "I thought you had more sense than that." Between clenched teeth Joy answered, "It wasn't an arrowhead! It was an arrow carved on the rock." "Don't be silly, Joy. You're dreaming!" laughed Kit. "If I thought you were just teasing me, Joy, I wouldn't be sorry about your poor foot." Bet stared at the girl with a threatening look. "It isn't nice to tease about things as serious as hidden treasure." "But the arrow's there," Joy answered. "Which way did it point?" asked Professor Gillette, the only one who seemed to credit Joy's story. "Why, really, I don't know. I never thought to notice. I saw an arrow and I think it was pointing toward that hill over there--but then again it might be pointing away from it. I'm not sure." Joy stopped helplessly, and clutched her aching foot. "You're helpful at least," Kit shrugged her shoulders. "I do believe she's just teasing us. Joy would never find anything!" "Then go and see for yourself!" snapped Joy. "I'll do it," replied Bet suddenly letting go of Joy in her excitement. Joy collapsed with a groan. Bet turned to help her but Enid shoved her aside. "Here is where I shine. You go and find your arrow and I'll play nurse and fix up Joy's ankle. You're lucky, Joy Evans, that it isn't broken." "It feels as if it were," sobbed Joy. "I don't see any arrow," called Bet in a disgusted tone. "Don't be mean, Joy. If there isn't one here, say so." "Go on, Bet, up a little higher!" cried Joy. Bet crept along the ledge, climbing from one projection of rock to the next. There was a sudden cry of joy. "Here it is!" The professor craned his neck to get a glimpse of the arrow. "Which way does it point, child?" he asked eagerly. "It points toward the hill, that way," replied Bet, studying the markings carefully. "That's our good luck. If it went the other way, it would be across the claims of Kie Wicks and his friend Ramon. Come on down, child, before you fall." Bet slid down easily, her nimble body could cling to the sheer cliff, or so it seemed to those who watched her. "I think we'll call you the goat girl, Bet, you sure can climb rocks," exclaimed Kit admiringly. "I never could do it." "And you an Arizona girl?" laughed Bet. "An Arizona girl only knows how to ride horses," retorted Kit. "And if they can all ride the way you can, they need no other accomplishment." Bet ran to join the professor. The old man was examining the ground in the direction the arrow was pointing. "Who ever would have thought to look up at that rock for an arrow," Bet said excitedly. "But you see, Bet, we're starting in the middle. Somewhere there's a map that shows all this, and by that map you would know you had to look at that cliff for the arrow," explained the professor seriously. "But where to next?" asked Bet. "Follow the arrow, that's all we know," answered Kit. There was no more digging on the claim that day. Even lunch was eaten by them in a half-hearted way. Joy was suffering with her ankle or she might have done justice to Tang's picnic spread. The professor was in a delightful dream. This was the sort of thing that he loved. "Do eat something, Professor Gillette. You'll be sick if you don't," pleaded Bet. "Why, I'm not hungry in the least. I do wonder why the arrow is pointing that way. There doesn't seem to be a thing in sight." "Maybe if we climbed the hill, we'd find it," suggested Enid. "Suppose we divide up in teams. Some go over the hill and some hunt on this side." "Who's going to stay with me? I won't stay alone," cried Joy her voice trembling with fear, "I'm afraid of buzzards. I've read about them. When they see people sick or crippled, they fly around, waiting for them to die. And sometimes they don't wait, they pick at them while they still live." "Don't worry, Joy. I'll stay with you!" Enid looked longingly toward the hill, then turned to Joy. The two girls watched the other members of the group, scramble up the steep ledge to the flat-topped hill. "It's stupid to have to stay here," said Joy with impatience. "Couldn't you help me over there to that wall? There's some low bushes that will keep this horrible sun out of my eyes." "Let's try it anyway. Come on!" Enid lifted Joy to her feet and supported her. "Now lean on me and just hobble along. Don't put any pressure on that ankle. Hop like a rabbit!" Joy groaned as she limped along. By resting many times the girls reached the clump of Palo Verde trees, and were glad to drop down in their scant shade. Joy's face was white and strained. "I know what I'd do if I had my way," announced Enid anxiously. "I'd get you home at once." "But I won't go. I want to wait for the others." Enid sat down on the ground beside Joy, crouched under the bushes. They were close to the wall of the cliff. "What a funny rock!" said Enid. "I wonder what causes these strange formations. Doesn't that look like an altar? And there is a figure of a man in a long robe. And the professor will tell us that it is all made by the rain." "Yes," said Joy indifferently. "You know, Enid, I'm tired of this Arizona country. I hate these bare mountains, and I hate the herds of cattle that stare at you and then race madly away. Everything is unfriendly. Yet, I'm almost sure I'll be homesick, like Kit, when I once get away." "It's glorious!" answered Enid. "It frightens me. Everything seems cruel. I'd give a dollar this minute to see a soft, green meadow." "I'm perfectly happy right here, I wouldn't have it different." Enid was gazing over the ranges of mountains that seemed to go on and on. It was half an hour later when the girls heard Bet's familiar call. "She's found the treasure!" whispered Enid. "You can hear the happiness in her voice." But the girls were mistaken. The group had searched high and low but nothing was in sight. The professor had found a bit of old ruin, part of a wall that he claimed was Indian fortification. But that was all. No mounds or signs of a village. "Why Joy and I found something just as interesting as that," laughed Enid. "Under the trees here, the wall of that small cliff has the most peculiar weather markings. Take a look at it, Professor Gillette. It's interesting." The professor bent away some of the branches of the trees so as to get a good view of the rock. The girls standing near, heard him give a gasp of astonishment. "What's the matter now?" asked Bet Baxter. "Those markings were never made by the weather. They were carved by human hands. And our arrow is pointing straight toward it. I don't understand why we didn't see it before." "It's the treasure!" exclaimed Bet. "Let's see what's there!" CHAPTER XV _A SPY_ The professor's hand trembled with excitement as he scratched the surface of the rock, tapped the face of the wall for a possible hollow sound, then called on Bet to bring him a pick. He dug at the base of the wall, but soon came to solid rock. "There's nothing there!" he exclaimed. "But this is interesting." The desert weeds had grown over all the crevices in the rock, and when the professor had carefully scraped them away, he found what he had hoped for; a small opening. Behind that wall there was a tunnel. As he looked into the darkness, a rattlesnake glided through the hole, and the old man sprang back just in time to save himself. "That was a close shave!" Wiping his forehead with his handkerchief, Professor Gillette sat down on the rock to decide what the next step would be. "Guess we'd better call it a day. We are all tired out. We can just get back in time for dinner," said Enid. "And Dad said you were to come home with us, Professor." "I'd like to consult with the judge," said the old man. "He can give us valuable advice I'm sure." He wouldn't for the world acknowledge that the hot dinner, already prepared, tempted him to accept the invitation. The girls turned away from the wall, unwillingly. They now felt sure that they were leaving a treasure behind them. And tomorrow seemed so far away! Bet and Enid helped Joy to hobble along to the edge of the cliff, and Kit hastened down the incline to where they had left the horses near the stream. "I'll bring Dolly up, that is if she'll climb, the lazy thing!" called Kit as she disappeared. By this time Joy's foot was badly swollen and was giving her acute pain. Before leaving the wall, the professor had concealed the opening that he had found. As he turned to go he picked up a bit of the rock that he had pried loose. It was this rock that kept the secret of the tunnel from Ramon Salazar, hidden in the brush of the hill opposite, where he had been set to spy on the girls by Kie Wicks. He had become rather weary of his job until he saw the professor examining the wall of the cliff, then he braced himself up expectantly, but relaxed again when he saw the old man looking closely at a rock in his hand, which he carried away with him. "He's found a colored stone that he likes," Ramon said to himself with a sneer of contempt at the professor who was always treasuring the brightly colored mineral specimens. And it was this report that he carried to Kie Wicks: "They just fooled around, had a picnic, and climbed the hill above the claims. I don't believe they even know you jumped them." "You mean you jumped their claims," corrected Kie Wicks. Ramon laughed and slapped his leg. "That's a good one, yes, I jumped their claims." "And you'd better get busy with the assessment work, too," advised Kie. "Who pays me for that?" demanded the cross-eyed Mexican. "There you go again! Always wanting money! I find you some good claims and a chance, maybe, to sell out at a big price in the future, and you want pay for doing the assessment work. You're an ungrateful cur!" "Then I won't do the work. No pay, no work!" But even as he spoke, Ramon knew that he would do whatever Kie Wicks asked him to do. The habit of obedience to this man was too strong in him. He had been a tool for this unscrupulous rogue for more than ten years. Just why, he could not have told, for Kie Wicks was not a generous master and the Mexican got little enough for his work. Rarely ever did he get any cash out of the storekeeper, and the supplies that Kie doled out were given grudgingly. Yet the man always returned, after promising himself many times that he was through. Kie had given him a small shack in the canyon, that had once been used by some friends of his for a summer vacation, and it was this home that sheltered his wife and eight children, which kept the Mexican faithful to Kie. Ramon had a bad name in the hills. He had tried his hand at every kind of rascality. Cattle had disappeared, horses rustled and Ramon was suspected of knowing more about them than he should. Yet it was Kie Wicks behind him, threatening and driving him on, that made Ramon the character he was. And while Ramon refused, at first, to go on with the assessment work on the stolen claims, he knew that he would do it in the end, and that Kie would also give him supplies while he was working on the job. Ramon did not like to meet the girls and perhaps Judge Breckenridge. The professor, he felt, was harmless, a silly old man who roamed through the hills, but the impressive looking judge was a different matter. Yet the next morning when the professor arrived with the girls, Ramon was digging away at the farthest claim, and did not even look up. "Guilty conscience!" whispered Bet to the professor. "He complicates matters considerably," frowned the old man. "I hardly know how we are going to proceed, if he stays around here." "With Ramon watching, the only thing to do was to go on with the drilling on the Orphan Annie claim. Bet fumed and fussed, scolding anyone who came near her. She insisted on being the professor's helper, holding the drill in place with the strong wire while he hammered. This gave her an audience and was an outlet for her anger against Kie Wicks and his Mexican hanger-on. "Take it easy, child. There's lots of time to find that treasure--that is if there is one. We don't need it right away, you know," soothed the professor. But it took Bet a long time to regain her poise. The other girls had recovered from their disappointment and were trying to make friends with the Mexican before Bet would even smile. "I do wish we could tell which of us he's talking to. His eyes are so crooked they overlap," whispered Enid to Bet. The Mexican did not want to make friends with the girls. He answered a few words to their questions then went moodily on with his work. But not for long. Without a master over him, the man grew lazy and before the morning was far advanced he had disappeared in the canyon. "I thought he'd get tired of it," smiled Kit. "A Mexican miner has to have someone to keep him on the job. And I don't believe that Kie Wicks will spend much time over here." Ramon was no sooner out of sight than the professor dropped the drill and they rushed for the wall to begin digging there. They had just started to work when Judge Breckenridge rode up. "Let's have a look at that treasure tunnel, Professor," greeted the Judge with a laugh. "How much bullion have you found?" "Not any yet, but who knows?" returned the old man, his eyes shining with excitement. "Stranger things have happened!" The Judge followed the girls and looked at the wall. "Well, well," he exclaimed, "this certainly looks interesting." The professor had already begun to pick away the crumbling rock at the small opening, and found that they had hit upon the spot where the mouth of the tunnel had been filled up. After half an hour's work he had opened it sufficiently to look in. Using a flashlight, he could see that the tunnel was very shallow, another wall confronted him and this appeared to be the solid rock of the mountain. He was about to give up when he noticed a peculiar stone on the floor of the tunnel, or what appeared to be a stone. With the pick he dragged it forward and was able to reach it. Drawing it forth, he stood before the Judge with glowing face. "See this!" he exclaimed excitedly. "This comes up to any story of buried treasure that I've ever read in my life." He displayed his find, a tiny disc of copper and on it were engraved strange figures and signs. They had no meaning to the group of people that stood about the tunnel. But that little copper plate was telling a story, of that there could be no doubt. "What do you think of it?" the professor gasped in a hoarse whisper. The old man was almost too excited to speak. He made several attempts then gave up, but he held the disc as if it were a jewel. "Let's sit down away over here and have a look at it," the Judge suggested. "And if anyone is spying on us, he'll not be apt to suspect anything." Judge Breckenridge examined the disc carefully then spoke. "Now there is a possibility--a slight one, we'll say, that there is a treasure in that vault somewhere. Do you think your friend Ramon is suspicious?" "It's hard to say," Kit burst out. "Kie Wicks may be watching us this minute from over the hill across the canyon." "We will want to carry on the work as quietly as possible, but if Kie hears about a treasure, we'll not have a minute's peace," said the Judge, rising and surveying the ground. "The first thing we ought to do," he continued, "is to stake out a claim covering this wall. Then we'll own it." "Yes, and have Kie Jump that claim, if he is watching us." Bet shrugged her boyish shoulders. "We'll get ahead of him on that. We'll stake the claim and I'll send a man over to record it first thing in the morning, and tonight we'll have a watchman--two in fact. We'll not leave the tunnel unguarded for a minute until we find out what it contains." "Oh, please, Judge, let us guard it!" cried Bet. "No!" There was a harsh, decided ring in the Judge's voice and the girls did not urge him further. That "no" meant exactly that. "I think it might be a good idea for me to go back to the ranch and get Tommy and some of the boys to move the professor's tent up here and Tommy and Seedy Saunders might stay for a few nights to guard your claims. You'll have all the excitement there is in it, even if there is no treasure." Bet flared up at once. "We're not so silly as to want excitement and nothing else. We want the treasure now that we have started out to find one. Nothing else will do." The Judge laughed as he mounted his horse and rode down the trail. But when he returned to the ranch and informed the boys what he wanted, he was met with roars of laughter. "You want us to guard a buried treasure! That's a good one!" said Seedy Saunders, the old cowboy who was now staying with Judge Breckenridge. "Let Tommy do it! He has a treasure map in his shack that he paid five dollars for. He'd love to do it!" However, when the cowboys heard how much it meant to the girls to have the tunnel guarded against Kie Wicks, they entered into the spirit of it, and even though they laughed and joked, they carried out the Judge's instructions. They moved all the professor's belongings over the mountain, and took another tent and cots for themselves. "There just naturally has to be two of us," insisted Seedy. "We'd be scared stiff to sleep alone there, even with the professor." "Which are you scared of?" laughed Tommy Sharpe. "Kie Wicks or the ghost of the Indian Chief's daughter?" "Both," returned Seedy pretending to shake with fright. "But I'm mostly scared of that there ghost that walks." The boys were hilarious as they unpacked their stuff at the Orphan Annie claim. "By rights we ought to camp in the canyon, we'll have to pack all the water up the hill," suggested Tommy. "You'll camp right at the mouth of that tunnel, boy!" insisted Enid, and there was something of Tilly the Waif in her command. Tommy looked up at her quickly, then burst into laughter. "Yes'm," he said meekly with a twinkle in his eye. "I obey!" They had the tents pitched and the girls were arranging the beds and making them cozy when Judge Breckenridge returned, with a boy driving a burro loaded with provisions. In his hand he held something white which he waved as he came up the mountain? "It's a letter!" exclaimed Bet. "I hope it's from my Dad. I haven't had a letter for a week." "It's a letter for me," announced the Judge, "but it may contain news that will please you. The boys will arrive this week. Phil and Bob are going to join us." A shout went up and echoed through the hills. Tommy gave an Indian war-whoop and the girls danced about, hugging each other in their joy. "Won't it be good to see them!" exclaimed Bet. "Is Paul coming with them?" asked Enid. "I'm homesick for my brother," she murmured with a happy sigh. "Yes, the three boys will come together by airplane to Phoenix," said the Judge. "By airplane!" echoed Bet Baxter. "If they don't let me go up with them, I'll never speak to them again, never. I want to fly!" The hunting for treasure took second place now. The coming of their friends was more important than anything else. "You know," said Kit solemnly, "we shouldn't get so fond of those boys. We'll spoil them." "I've never seen any spoiling!" Billy Patten had helped Judge Breckenridge bring over the supplies, and now confronted Kit. "Don't pretend you're soft-hearted, for you're not." Kit laughed at her teasing brother and with a wave of her hand pushed him aside. "Children should be seen and not heard," she said. "What did Joy say when you told her that Bob was coming?" asked Bet. "She shed a few tears; perhaps she was afraid she would miss all the fun with her sprained ankle." "She's in luck if she only knew it," laughed Enid. "A girl with a sprained ankle will just appeal to the sympathy of those boys. Joy will be the center of the stage." "And won't she love it?" chuckled Kit. With many final instructions to the boys to guard the tunnel, the girls mounted their horses and hurried toward home, their faces glowing with joy. From the mountain opposite, where Ramon had watched the previous day, Kie Wicks was on guard. He saw the preparations for camping at the claims and wondered what it was all about. His eyes narrowed to pin-points when he saw the professor examining the wall of the cliff. "What's he got there?" he muttered to himself. "But he can't put anything over on me. If I could get my hands on Ramon, I'd teach him to do as I tell him. If he had stuck around, I'd know what all this fuss is about." But that was all that Kie was to know for some days. He watched by the hour, he questioned every man, woman and child he met, but the professor and his men were not talking. The location work on the Orphan Annie claim and the digging of a tunnel seemed to be their only interest. Kie noticed that a monument had been built to cover the claim where the tunnel was being driven and smiled to himself. "These city fellows think they've got a mine with a couple of claims. They've got a lot to learn!" The secret had to come out, of course. And when Kie Wicks heard it a few days later, he was wild with fury. "Digging for treasure, are they?" he snorted. "I'll get them yet, those two-faced, underhanded robbers. They haven't got no business in these mountains. I'll show them!" "If they've found a treasure, it's _mine_! I've hunted for it for years! I'll get it somehow!" Kie Wicks was almost beside himself with rage when he reached the store and told his discovery to Maude. "Oh, maybe it's not the treasure," Maude tried to soothe the angry man. "Come eat your supper." But Kie was too unhappy to eat. He glared about the cheerless kitchen and did not seem to see anything. He stared moodily. Finally he rose and went outside, grumbling like a spoiled child. He sat for a long time, his head in his hands, not looking up to greet his customers. "What's the matter with the old man?" inquired a neighbor. "'T ain't often you see Kie Wicks sick or under the weather." "Somebody's stolen some property from him, and he's thinkin' out a way to get even. Let him alone," counselled Maude. "The more down he seems, the better schemes he can think up. And this one will be a dandy. He ain't eat a bite and he won't talk." Maude seemed quite elated. It was not until some hours later that Kie came to life once more and demanded his supper. On his face was a determined scowl, as if he were ready to challenge the whole world. As he went into the store he was whistling cheerfully. Maude smiled at him. But no words were exchanged. That smile expressed everything. Kie had a scheme, a big one, and Maude could afford to wait until he was ready to tell her what it was all about. Meanwhile on the hill near Orphan Annie, the professor was dreaming of Indian villages and treasure, and with the two watchmen beside him, had no uneasiness. CHAPTER XVI _MISSING_ The boys were still asleep the next morning when the professor got up quietly and went into the canyon for a dip in the creek. He wandered up the stream a short distance and was surprised to see a saddle horse standing dejectedly on the trail. The next moment Kie Wicks had hailed him genially from the cliff above. "Say pard," he called. "Last night when I was going home over the hill here, I found what looks like the ruins of an Indian village. Do you want to take a look at them?" "How far away is it?" asked the professor. "The boys are camping over there with me, so I'd better go back and tell them where I'm going. "It won't take you ten minutes, my friend," Kie answered. "You'll be back before they have breakfast ready." Kie descended the steep mountain and leading his horse, he urged the professor on with a description of the marvelous ruins that he had discovered. Professor Gillette was almost wild with excitement. He fairly danced from boulder to boulder along that rocky trail, and when they reached a narrow pass between the high canyon walls, Kie stopped his horse for a moment. At that same instant two men suddenly sprang into the trail in front of them, grabbed the unsuspecting professor, bound and gagged him and tied him to a horse. Professor Gillette could not imagine why he should be treated like this. Why should he be robbed? He had nothing. And where was Kie Wicks? Had the men kidnapped him as well? It took the kindly mind of the professor a long time to grasp the idea that Kie Wicks might have something to do with the affair. The old man did not struggle as he had an impulse to do. He knew it would be useless. The men were powerful, while he was frail, and helpless in their hands. It would be much better for him to save his strength so that his mind could work out a scheme for escape. He was not the sort of person to waste energy in worry. He believed that nothing could harm him, and he lay quietly in the uncomfortable position on the horse, wondering where he was going and how long they would hold him captive. What would The Merriweather Girls do when they heard about it? He had to smile at the thought of the adventure they would make of it. Yet perhaps it was nothing to smile about. He might never return alive. The boys did not miss the old man until breakfast was ready. They knew that it was his custom to start the day with a dip in the stream and so they went on with their breakfast preparations without giving him a thought. Finally they sat down and started to eat. Still the professor did not come. Tommy Sharpe called him from the summit of the cliff, waited, and called again many times. But there was no answer. "Guess you'd better take a walk down there and see what's keeping the old chap," advised Seedy Saunders. "He never goes far away without his breakfast." Tommy returned in a few minutes without seeing anything of the professor. He said: "I saw tracks going up the creek and there are fresh hoof prints, but that doesn't tell a thing." "Oh, he's all right. I won't worry about him," laughed Seedy. "I can just see his face if he thought we imagined he was lost. He's such an independent old fellow, he'd be displeased." Nine o'clock came and still the professor did not make his appearance. The boys each took turns in riding down the creek and calling, but when the girls arrived at ten, the missing man had not returned. He had not been to the ranch and the girls had seen nothing of him. "Something has happened!" exclaimed Bet anxiously. "The professor isn't the sort of man to wander away like a lost soul. He's too interested in this treasure to leave it for a minute. Some enemy is at work." "Melodrama from the movies," laughed Kit. "Bet is bound she's going to have some western bad man stuff." "Don't be silly, Bet," said Enid impatiently. "Our old professor hasn't got an enemy in the world." "Hasn't he? How do you know? Just suppose Kie Wicks found out about the treasure. He'd want to get rid of the professor first thing." "That's an idea, Bet," replied Enid, suddenly growing excited. "I never thought of Kie." "But what good would it do him to get rid of the professor?" asked the sensible Shirley. "Kie Wicks knows we are all backing the old man, so what would be the use of making away with him?" "That's true," agreed Bet with a puzzled frown. "If I thought that Kie Wicks had a hand in this I'd... I'd...." "What would you do, Bet?" asked Shirley. "I'd tell him right to his face what I think of him." "Heaps of good that would do," Kit shrugged. "Kie has heard about himself from lots of people." But Kie Wicks' scheme worked out just as he planned. In their anxiety over the professor's disappearance, the treasure was left unguarded and when the girls returned to the camp, they were confronted with guns held in the hands of two burly ruffians, swarthy, heavy giants who terrified them by their looks. The four girls wasted no time in that neighborhood. They raced their horses into the canyon and were heading toward the ranch. "Say, what's the matter with The Merriweather Girls?" cried Bet, bringing her horse up sharply. "We're letting two cowardly ruffians frighten us away. I'm going back this minute." "You are not, Bet Baxter! Father would be frightfully angry if you do. He trusts us not to take any big risks. I know he wouldn't want us to go back where those men are." Enid put her hand on Bet's shoulder. "Come on, Bet, be good!" "But are we going to let those fellows get our treasure?" Bet cried hysterically. "No, I won't run away! I'm going straight back there and tell them what I think of them." Shirley laughed quietly. "What's the use, Bet. They probably know more mean things about themselves than you can tell them. They're like Kie Wicks." But Bet was stubborn. She hated to give up. "I won't go home! I'm going to stay right here for the present and think out a plan." And it was there that Judge Breckenridge found them, heard their story and commanded them to return to the ranch house without any delay. Judge Breckenridge's word was law. Bet turned her horse's head down the canyon toward the home trail, her eyes flashing dangerously. She muttered: "To think of being sent home when the excitement gets good! Oh, I wish I were a boy!" "Well, since we have to go, let's hurry and have the fun of telling it all to Joy." But Joy and Mrs. Breckenridge were a disappointment. They did not thrill to the danger, as Bet did. They were decidedly angry and afraid. "You must never go into that canyon again while you are here!" exclaimed Mrs. Breckenridge. "Please don't put that down as an order! That would be a tragedy. I don't believe that even the Judge would be willing to deprive us of that joy." Bet's voice was pleading. "All right, dear, I'll take back the order and will leave it entirely to the Judge. But you must abide by his decision, that I insist upon." "We will," said Bet. "I hope he'll be a good sport about it. I want to know what's going on." Mrs. Breckenridge walked up and down the corridor in an anxious manner. She had been gaining strength so rapidly in the mountains that she had even threatened to try horseback riding. But the Judge had put her off. He wanted to be certain that the trial would be a success. "I'm glad I wasn't with you, today, I'd have screamed," said Joy. "I know I would." "That's probably what those bandits wanted. To scare us so we wouldn't go back. I hate to have them get away with it." At noon when the men returned to lunch, they had no good report. Although they had hunted the hills for miles, not a trace of the professor had been found. He had disappeared. Before lunch was over Kie Wicks appeared at the ranch house. "I just heard of the old man being lost, so Maude wanted me to come right over and join the search party. I think a lot of the professor and want to do my bit." Bet looked at the man in astonishment. "I would never have believed it," she whispered to Kit. "It just shows how we misjudge a person. I thought he would be the last man in the world to appeal to for help, and here he comes of his own free will and offers it." "People always have _some_ good in them." Joy shook her head. "From the first I hated that man and feared him." "And now you see, Joy Evans, how mistaken you were. He's a good man at heart," exclaimed Bet. But Kit was skeptical. "I wish I could believe it. I feel as if I were playing with a rattlesnake. He's treacherous! I think we'd better watch our step." "Of course, I know that Kie Wicks is unscrupulous in the matter of jumping claims, but you see he has a human side after all. He seems quite cut up about the professor being lost," Bet interrupted. "And did you notice how indignant he was over the ruffians at the claim? I believe he'll help us to get rid of them," said Enid confidently. "But those men didn't do a thing worse than Kie Wicks! Not half as bad, for they were open and above board. They pointed guns on us and Kie sneaked up after dark and stole our papers. No, girls, his change of heart is altogether too sudden to be sincere. Keep an eye on him!" advised Kit. Whether the men at the ranch believed in Kie's innocence or not, they accepted his offer of help and let him organize the searchers. "Let's go over and see what Ramon Salazar is up to. He's a scoundrel and looks it. Maybe he knows something about your old man," suggested Kie. "Can't we go, too?" begged the girls. The judge was about to object, but when he saw the look of disappointment in Bet's face, he changed his mind. "Why, it's all right, I think. I don't see that there will be any danger if you stay with me." Bet ran for her horse. "Come on, girls, let's go!" The group divided into two sections. The judge and the girls and Tommy went under Kie Wicks' leadership. Tommy was very contemptuous at the idea of help from Kie, but he followed without any remarks, deciding that the man needed watching. And that job would be his! Instead of being offended at the arrival of a searching party, Ramon Salazar seemed to welcome them and even his wife acted as if she had been expecting a visit. "Take a look around, folks," said Kie Wicks as he himself opened a door and looked into a bed room, littered with mattresses and soiled blankets. "He ain't here," said Kie. "I didn't more than half think he was. But you never can be sure unless you take a look." Bet caught a quick glance of understanding between the two men, but in the next second decided that it was a glance of approval. "They're up to some mischief," whispered Kit in Shirley's ear. "I don't trust that Kie Wicks and he is altogether too sugary today to suit me. But don't say a word to Bet. She will flare up and then we won't be able to watch him." Shirley agreed with Kit, who knew Kie Wicks better than the others. Tommy was watching the two men, his nerves keyed up and every sense alert to the slightest movement of the men. He had noted the quick look between Kie and the Mexican and felt sure that it was a danger signal. It conveyed a message. Not for a second did the boy doubt that Kie and Ramon knew where the professor was. The boy was angry clean through, but he held his temper under control. Only in that way could he keep in touch with these rascals and watch them. Sometime he would catch them off their guard. Ramon joined this group of searchers and made some suggestions as to possible places to look. "What we ought to do is to round up them fellows at the tunnel and make 'em talk. They probably killed the old man and threw his body over a cliff." It was Ramon who spoke. Kie Wicks looked startled. He had not told Ramon that the men at the claim were being paid by him. He frowned toward the Mexican, then his face relaxed suddenly. "Now that's an idea, too," he said. "Only I should think it might be just as well to leave them in possession until we find the professor. Someone has to stay there and we need all the men we have to hunt for the old man." "I think you're right, Mr. Wicks," agreed Bet. Kit looked her disgust. To herself she was thinking, "I never would have believed that Bet could be such a tenderfoot. To let Kie Wicks pull the wool over her eyes like that! She certainly is an easy mark!" But Bet was not such an easy mark as Kit imagined. She had figured it out that it would take days for the men to dig their way to the treasure and by that time they could find their old friend and then form a party to drive the ruffians away from the tunnel. An hour later, when they were returning to camp, Kit pointed up over one of the small mountains. "Bet, I'll take a short cut with you. The trail over that hill leads into Lost Canyon. Let's go and beat them home. Who's coming?" "I am!" exclaimed Bet turning her horse's head toward the up grade. "I'll stay with Dad," called Enid. "And so will I!" Shirley held her horse toward the canyon trail. "Wise girls!" smiled the Judge. "You know good company when you have it." Kit waved her sombrero as they reached the summit and disappeared over the ridge. But once on the other side, Kit was not so sure that she knew the way. "This doesn't look like the trail that leads into Lost Canyon, after all, Bet. Do you think we'd better go back?" "I should say not. I'd love to get lost in the hills with you, Kit." "Oh, we're all right, only I'm not sure that we will save any time. They'll probably get home first, if we go this way," returned Kit. "I'm not lost, I've been here before, but I just got mixed up. Lost Canyon is over the next ridge." "It's all right with me, let's keep on." The girls rode for an hour, and still Kit declared that they had not reached Lost Canyon. "Are you afraid, Kit?" asked Bet, as she looked at her friend's frowning face. "No, of course not, only I'm disgusted that I made such a mistake. Let's climb to the ridge there and look around, then I'll know in a minute where I am." The girls urged their horses up the steep trail. Kit was ahead and as she reached the summit she signalled Bet frantically to stop. Sliding from her saddle she ran back. "We're coming out right by the tunnel, I see the two ruffians." The girls crept along, keeping out of sight of the camp. But suddenly Bet grabbed Kit by the arm. The men were descending the trail to the creek, leaving the tunnel unguarded. The girls did not wait to think whether they were wise or not. They ran forward. Two shotguns lay on the ground. The men had taken off their belts. They were in the canyon unarmed. Bet choked with delight. "Here's where we get the drop on them," she laughed. "I'll be a regular wild westerner." "Don't do anything rash, Bet," advised Kit anxiously as she watched her friend's flushed face. "Trust me!" Bet picked up a weapon and held it awkwardly in her hand. It was the first time she had handled a loaded gun and it gave her a thrill. "Can you shoot, Bet?" asked Kit. "Do you know enough to pull the trigger?" "No, I don't know a thing about it, I'll have to put up a bluff!" When they heard a step on the trail. Bet aimed her gun. "Hands up!" ordered Bet and there was no sign of fear in her voice. The ruffians raised their hands high in the air, but the foremost one smiled. Bet's anger rose. "Don't come a step nearer! And don't fool yourself! We know how to shoot--and shoot to kill!" Kit wanted to laugh, for Bet was repeating word for word what she had read only a few days before in a western story. But Bet's next question was her own. "How much is Kie Wicks paying you for this job?" she asked. One man started to take a step forward, but Bet's gun menaced him. "Stand right where you are! Not a step nearer! Answer my question!" "Five dollars apiece!" growled the second man. "'T ain't enough!" "Of course it isn't. He short-changed you. The job is worth twice as much," said Bet indignantly. The men looked pleased. "We got a five spot between us for catching the old man and tying him up. And we are to get five each for this." "Your master isn't very generous. Do you often work for Kie Wicks?" asked Bet. "No, we never saw him before. We were just passing through the country. We went broke and he offered us this job." "Where are you going from here?" demanded the girl. "El Paso is home, and we want to work our way toward there," answered the man who had done all the talking. "Suppose I was to offer you ten apiece, would you get away from here and not come back? In fact it wouldn't be good for you to come back where Kie Wicks could take a shot at you." "We'd not stick around, honest we wouldn't. By night we'd be at the nearest railroad station." Both men made a motion to come toward the girls but were stopped by Bet's menacing weapon. "All right, go to the edge of the cliff there, and stand with your backs to us. If you dare to turn around, you'll be dead men." The ruffians backed away for a few feet, then turned and walked to the cliff. "Halt!" shouted Bet, and the men stood still. "Now Kit, you hold the gun on them and I'll get the money. That's one thing Dad has always insisted on that I keep a little money fastened to me, when I'm away from home." She fumbled in her dress and brought forth a small roll of bills. With Kit protecting her, Bet walked toward the cliff, and when she got to within ten feet from the men she put the money on the ground, and made a second trip, hauling their packs to the same spot. When her gun was once more levelled at the ruffians, she ordered: "Turn around!" The men wasted no time in obeying. They turned. "Now walk slowly and get your money and belongings. If you run, you drop!" The men grabbed their money and hastened back to their position on the cliff, as if they were anxious to put distance between themselves and the shotguns. "Now go, and go quickly! Kie Wicks is due over this way in half an hour and if he finds you gone and us in charge, he's going to send a posse after you!" The men hastened down the trail. They saddled and mounted their horses, with the shotguns pointed in their direction. From the opposite end of the canyon two riders were coming nearer, and the ruffians galloped their horses to get out of the way. Kit and Bet recognized Seedy Saunders and Billy Patten, who had gone out by themselves to search for the professor. They answered Kit's hail and raced their horses up the grade. By the time they reached the summit, Bet and Kit were almost hysterical from laughing. Bet put the gun down gingerly. "I wonder what I would have done, if they had called my bluff!" she exclaimed. "Oh, boys, if you could only have heard her," shrieked Kit, at last getting her breath. "You'd have thought she had just stepped out of a western two-gun story, the way she threatened those men, it's a wonder they didn't see through her. And she hardly knows how to hold the gun. It was a scream!" "I don't believe I'd enjoy that sort of thing for regular work," laughed Bet. "I guess I don't like to give orders that much." But the two ruffians, hastening toward the railroad station thirty miles away, never dreamed that the girl who menaced them so daringly, had never pulled a trigger. "We're lucky to be out of it," they agreed. "Girls have a way of always making trouble and getting their own way!" CHAPTER XVII _INDIAN TRADING_ Much to the disgust of Tommy Sharpe, Kie Wicks was a guest at the Judge's table that day. Kie was beaming with self-satisfaction. He felt that he had put over a good deal and could afford to be genial. Kie's plan was to let the ruffians hold the claim until he could make arrangements to put men to work and dig out the treasure in the tunnel. Kie did not doubt for a moment that the treasure was there. And tonight he intended to investigate and see how much needed to be done. If he could handle it alone, so much the better. Kit and Bet arrived when the meal was half finished and pretended to be hurt at the teasing that they encountered. They decided to wait until the family was alone before saying anything about the capture of the tunnel. Kie might get ugly and actually harm the old man. "Saw your playmate, Young Mary, coming up the canyon today," said Kie, glad of some new excitement for the girls, to take their minds off the professor for a while. "Oh, is Mary home?" cried Kit happily. "I do want to see her!" "Yes, Young Mary is here with a dozen other Indians of all sizes and shapes," grinned Kie. "They sure are a funny looking crowd." Kit herself might have made the same remark, but coming from Kie, she resented it. "Where are they?" exclaimed Bet. "I'll pay them a visit. Do you think they will make some baskets for me?" "You can never tell a thing about them. If they need money, they will, but like as not they'll refuse. This is their vacation, they come up every year to pick mesquite beans and piñon nuts," Kit informed them. "Let's go down right after lunch and see them," proposed the girls, but Kit hesitated. "We might frighten them away if we are too anxious," she said. "Indians are very shy." "I'll say they are," smiled Tommy. "And about as friendly as a block of ice." "Why Tommy Sharpe, how can you say such a thing? There's Old Mary and Indian Joe, they are the most friendly people in the world. There isn't anything they wouldn't do for Mum and Dad and me. And they think you're a great man!" Kit defended them. "Old Mary and Joe are altogether different. Indian Joe is just like a white man!" answered Tommy. "And good as gold!" emphasized Kit. "The only good Indian is a dead Indian," Kie Wicks exclaimed dramatically. Kit flared up, but Bet soothed her. "Remember we are already even with Kie Wicks," she whispered. Kit nodded her head. "Just the same I don't like to hear Indians talked about like that. It always makes me angry." After lunch, much to the joy of Kie Wicks, the girls decided to walk down into the canyon and see the Indians. Kit ran home first, for she was sure that she would find Young Mary there, and she wanted to see the girl alone. With the other girls she might be shy. So it was Bet who called the Judge aside, to a safe distance, from Kie Wicks' eager ears, and told him of the capture of the tunnel. "And those fellows said that Kie put them up to it and that it is Kie who took the old man. He's safe, they said, but I'm not so sure about that." "I wouldn't worry about him. Kie Wicks has no reason to harm the professor," declared Judge Breckenridge. "Now I'll tell you what we'd better do. You and the girls go along down the trail and visit the Indian camp. That is evidently what Kie wants you to do. I'll send Tommy over to the tunnel with two men to start the excavation work and maybe by the time we get the professor back, we'll have something to show him. Who knows, Bet? Sometimes I'm half hopeful, although my common sense tells me there isn't anything there." "Don't use so much common sense, Judge. It's lots of fun to dream. I wish Dad were here, he'd love this. He'd have the whole thing worked out, he'd be able to see the Spaniards who buried the treasure and all the rest of it. Dad's wonderful!" "He is, Bet. I agree with you, and I wish that he would make us a visit, he half promised, you know." "Yes, but in his last letter he said he'd not be able to come," Bet added with a sigh, for the separation from her father was a trial to the motherless girl. "All right, now you run along and don't say anything to the girls--not yet. Make a lot of fuss about going to see the Indians and pretend you're crazy about them." "I don't have to _pretend_ that, I am crazy to see them. Oh, I do hope they will like me and want to be friends." The Judge laughed at the girl's enthusiasm. "They will, Bet, they can't help themselves, if they are human at all." Bet turned away without noticing the delicate compliment that the Judge had paid her. In her heart she was really concerned for fear she might not be able to get on friendly terms with the Indians. Judge Breckenridge joined Kie Wicks and his party, after giving instructions to Tommy Sharpe, and he followed Kie on what he knew to be a "wild goose chase." Kie flattered himself that he was being very clever in keeping the searchers away from the old man. The girls waited impatiently for Kit. "I do wish she would hurry," fussed Bet. "What's keeping her?" "Maybe she found Young Mary there, as she hoped, and as it's been such a long time since they've seen each other, they'll need to do a lot of talking to make up for lost time." But Kit's meeting with her Indian friend was very different from what the girls pictured. Even Kit was surprised and a little hurt at the lack of interest in her childhood friend. The Indian girl was already dressed in the bright silk gown that Kit had brought her. Kit caught the girl in her arms and squeezed her tight. But Young Mary was as rigid as a post. Not by word or sign did she betray the fact that she was glad to see Kit. But Kit understood. She saw a bright light in Mary's eyes and was satisfied. "Why Mary, you're a beauty in that dress. I want you to come over and meet my friends." Mary shook her head. She was already gliding away toward the canyon where the Indians were camped by the stream. They had chosen the same spot that the professor had used for a camping site. And when Kit joined the group of Indians by the side of the creek she realized that Mary was now a grown-up Indian woman. She did not run or dance about any more, but seated herself with the squaws and seemed happy. Mary had returned to her people. There was no doubt about it. She would never again be the chum of the white girl. There were times when Kit felt angry; it seemed like a reflection on herself, on her loyalty. The girls watched with amusement Young Mary's pride in her new dress. There was a buzz of unintelligible comments from the squaws as they pressed about the girl, fingering the material and patting the silk. Kit learned before long why Mary was so preoccupied with herself. She was in love. In love with a man of her own race. Old Mary shrugged her shoulders and grunted her disapproval. But in spite of her shrugs, the older woman was proud. Young Mary was making a good choice. Andreas was a fine young Indian. He had a farm of his own on the San Pablo. They were both young and could work and would have many children to bless them. As Kit had prophesied, the Indian women were not interested in basket weaving. They shook their heads vehemently. Then at Bet's proposal that they sell her some that were already made, the ones they carried along, their heads shook more than ever and their grunts and frowns were decisive. Kit translated it to the girls as a flat refusal. Flat refusals always spurred Bet on to further efforts. "I'll get those baskets yet," she declared. "I want them. What's more I've got an idea." "Go ahead Bet and dream your little dream. You never dealt with an 'injun' before. Now you've met your Waterloo." Kit laughed. At heart she was rather pleased to see Bet go up against a losing proposition for once. Bet tossed her head impudently at her friend but made no answer. The determination in her glance proved that she had not given up the struggle. And late in the afternoon when the girls again walked down the canyon, Bet was decked out in such brightly colored beads that she might have been mistaken for an Indian girl herself. Strings of red, blue, amber, green and orange encircled her neck. "What are you trying to do, Bet?" exclaimed Shirley with a laugh. "Are you trying to show off in front of the squaws to make them jealous?" Enid laughingly began to count the strings. "Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like this," Kit interrupted. "Oh, keep quiet, all of you! I can wear as many strings of beads as I want to. It's the latest style," she retorted with a grimace. "I have an object in wearing them." "It's a bribe to get those baskets!" cried Kit delightedly. "And maybe you will, at that. Your methods are sound and business-like. I thought you'd met your match, but now I'm inclined to think they have." They were nearing the Indian camp and Bet noticed with pleasure the surprised glances of the squaws. They did not look at the other girls. Bet was the center of attraction. Finally one Indian woman drew near and put out a brown finger to touch the bright objects. Bet smiled and waited. "You like beads?" she asked. The squaw nodded and was joined by another one. Soon Bet was surrounded. "You want them?" There were as many grunts of acceptance as there were women there. "You sell me some baskets?" asked Bet. "Then you can have the beads." The squaws looked at each other then back at the bright beads. They sidled away, without a word. Bet's heart stood still. She had lost! Kit's eyes were shining with triumph. But only for a moment. The Indian women were busily at work emptying the contents of their baskets into blankets. They were evidently preparing to give her the best they had. Bet got several small jar-like baskets besides two large ones that were used to carry things on their saddles. They looked on in surprise when Bet paid them a good price for their baskets and passed over the strings of beads as well. There was a chorus of grunts and Kit again translated. The squaws were congratulating themselves on their bargain. They were more than satisfied. "I've known Indians all my life," Kit whispered to the girls, "but I've never before seen them so pleased about anything! You win, Bet!" "I certainly do, Kit Patten. Come on, girls, lend a hand and let's get these baskets home before they change their minds." As they were going up the trail toward the ranch, Young Mary suddenly appeared from a thicket of Palo Verde. "Kit," she said softly. Kit turned as if she had been shot. "Mary," she answered uneasily. "What's the matter?" Kit ran to the girl who now hesitated as if she were addressing a stranger. Then suddenly, with what appeared to be an effort, she whispered: "Your old man! He's in the hut over in Rattlesnake Creek, and he's being guarded by some bad Indians from down the valley. Be careful!" And before Kit could stop her to ask any more questions, the Indian girl glided away as softly as she had come. CHAPTER XVIII _THE OLD CHIEF'S DAUGHTER WALKS_ "If the professor is really hidden in that hut, perhaps we can get him tonight," exclaimed Bet Baxter, as she swung up the trail carrying her Indian baskets. "I wish we could find him before tomorrow afternoon when the boys come," said Enid. "It would be nice to give the boys our full attention." "You'll spoil them if you do," Shirley responded. Bet was quiet the rest of the way home. Thoughts of the professor kept crowding into her mind, schemes for his release; these things demanded her attention. Kit spoke to her three times without getting an answer, then with a smile turned to her chums. "Bet is trying to solve a problem. She is never this way unless she is making plans of some sort." By the time they reached the ranch house, Bet's eyes were glowing in an absent-minded way and she passed Ma Patten in the patio without speaking. She was so intent on the problem that was bothering her that she stood staring at her father a long time before she recognized him, then with a cry she threw herself into his arms. "Oh Daddy! I've been so lonesome for you! How did you get here and when did you come?" "Easy, girl, or you'll choke on all those questions," laughed Colonel Baxter. "I just arrived an hour ago, and I would have let you know if I'd been sure that I could come. And then at the end, I decided to surprise you. Are you glad?" Bet laughed happily, her blue eyes glowing now with a very different light. There was snap and joy in them as she held tightly to her father's hand. In her joy at seeing her father she had not paid any attention to what the other girls were doing. Now as she heard the sound of happy voices she turned and saw the boys, Phil and Bob and Paul. "Oh, you boys! Why we didn't expect you until tomorrow afternoon," she said, extending her hand to Phil Gordon. "If you don't want to see us tonight, perhaps we could go back and sit in the station at Benito." "Don't be silly, Bob Evans. You're just the same as ever." Bet laughed as she always did at Bob. "What did you expect me to do in three weeks time? Get grey headed and grow a beard?" Bob had helped Joy to her feet when they heard the girls arriving and he now stood supporting his sister while he laughed and teased. "Isn't it good to see them?" cried Joy. "Does that include me, too?" inquired Colonel Baxter. "Of course it does! You don't know how often we've talked about you and wished you were here," answered Enid, before Joy could reply. There was a real change in Paul Breckenridge since the girls had seen him the previous winter. The old brooding, shy look was gone, and now he entered into the pleasures around him as the other boys did. One could see that he liked to be near Enid, teasing her constantly as if he had to make up for those years of separation. Judge Breckenridge smiled around at his happy family, well pleased with everything. "The one thing that would make it perfect would be to have the old professor here," he said. "But we'll find him before long." Kit gave a little cry. "How terrible of me to have forgotten to tell you, Judge! We know where the professor is." "Where?" asked the Judge eagerly. "Young Mary says that he is in the shack in Rattlesnake Creek." "But Kie Wicks took us through that hut this afternoon," replied the Judge. "He isn't there!" The girls showed their disappointment. "Maybe they just moved the old man out for an hour until you finished your search," said Bet. "I wouldn't put that past Kie Wicks. Nothing is too bad for him to do." "We hunted inside and outside of that hut," insisted the Judge. "If he had been there, surely there would have been some sign." "I have an idea!" cried Bet, jumping to her feet. "I believe he's in that hut, they put him back after you'd been there. I'm going to find him tonight." "You'll do no such thing, Bet. Chasing around among a lot of bad men is no place for a girl," began her father, but Bet interrupted: "Just wait until I have worked out my plan and you'll see I'll be as safe as if I were at home. You can come with me, Dad. Will you help me, Judge? I'll need several men." "Let us in on this," exclaimed Phil and Bob in the same breath. "We'd like to have a hand in solving your latest mystery." Bet flew to her room and returned in a few minutes in a strange costume, a long dress of buckskin. Dark braids fell over her shoulders and feathers rose from her hair. She had no resemblance to the boyish girl they knew. The Colonel looked puzzled but Judge Breckenridge caught the idea. "You're a wonder, Bet! And I do believe you are right. You'll be as safe as if you were in your own bed." An hour later, the watchers by the hut rubbed their eyes and stared about them. A wild, weird cry rang through the canyon, and in the moonlight Kie Wicks and his bad men saw, far above them on the cliff, the figure of an Indian girl. "She wasn't walking, she was just floating in the air, it seemed, and as she moved, she moaned and shrieked. It was terrible! There was no doubt about it. It was the ghost," Kie Wicks told his wife when he was safely at home. "What happened?" Maude urged him to continue the story. "You should have seen those Indians go! 'The Old Chief's daughter walks! It's the ghost girl!' they cried hoarsely. And that's the last I saw of them." "And what did you do?" Maude pressed him further. "I--well, I ran, too. I got out of there in record time, let me tell you. I don't mind shooting it out with a human being, but I don't take no chances with a ghost. I vamoosed." "And the old man?" she inquired. "He's there yet. One thing certain, I'll never go into that canyon late at night again." Bet's ruse had worked better than she had hoped. In less than two minutes after she stepped out on the cliff, the place was deserted, the hut left unguarded and Judge Breckenridge and his men rushed in, broke open the door and found the old man asleep on a sack of straw. The Judge touched him and the professor tried to shake him off. "What are you going to do with me now?" he asked peevishly, "I want to go to sleep. Can't you let me be?" "Ssh! Don't talk! We've come to take you home. This is Judge Breckenridge." The professor recognized his voice and breathed a sigh of relief. He rose unsteadily and did not speak again until they were a long way up the trail. Then he suddenly got weak and felt as if he were going to faint. "Don't worry, I get this way sometimes. I have some medicine over at the tent." As it was only a short distance to the claim, the Judge decided to get him there as quickly as possible. The professor was like a child in his eagerness to stay at the camp, and finally toward morning the Judge left him there in charge of the boys and Seedy Saunders. And when Kie Wicks, deciding that he would have a look at the tunnel which he had left in charge of the two ruffians, climbed the trail to the summit the next morning about dawn, the first person he saw was the old professor, smoking his pipe and gazing far off over the hills with a smile of happiness on his face. Kie wheeled his horse as if he had been shot at and raced madly away. He was muttering excitedly: "The mountains are bewitched! That ghost has spirited the old man out of the hut and back to the tunnel." When his horse finally stopped before the store in Saugus, he was covered with foam and the man who bestrode him was trembling in every limb. Yet he said nothing to Maude. What was the use? She would only worry and fret, and besides he had always made light of ghosts and said he didn't believe in them. "But seein' is believin'," he said to himself as he dismounted. "I'm outdone by a ghost." And Bet, as she put away the Indian costume the next morning, hugged it to her as if it had been responsible for the whole affair. "Whatever made you think of it, Bet?" asked Enid. "Thoughts like that just come to her. It's what you might call inspiration, or intuition," laughed Shirley. "Why give it such a big name," returned Bet. "I simply had a hunch, and it worked out." "Just like that!" exclaimed Joy, as she tried to dance on the lame foot, snapping her fingers in time to the step. "What's the next thing on the program, Bet?" asked Bob Evans. "Have you a bulletin board with the adventures scheduled?" "I wish you'd stop teasing me. It isn't my fault if I'm always getting into the middle of a problem." "Whose is it, Bet?" laughed her father. "Yours, I think, Dad. You brought me up." She slid an arm around her father's neck. "And are you very much disappointed in me?" "Fishing for compliments?" Colonel Baxter pinched her rosy cheek. "No, I only want a little appreciation," she replied. At that moment Billy Patten poked his head into the corridor. "The old man at the tunnel. He says for the girls to come quick." "Something important has happened!" insisted Kit. "Hurry up, let's go!" Colonel Baxter hurried to his horse and followed after the girls. His mind was not, for the moment, on possible treasure, he was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the hills, their rugged outlines and the blazing sun that beat down upon them. When they reached the summit, the girls spurred their horses across the flat. What they saw was an excited little old man, waving his arms and dancing about a huge box. As the girls approached, he cried. "Come quickly. It's a brass-bound chest. It's the treasure!" Tommy Sharpe pried the rusty lock, and as the cover was swung back, the girls gave a gasp of astonishment and dismay. The chest was empty! CHAPTER XIX _A BRASS BOUND CHEST_ At the sight of the empty chest, Professor Gillette opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. His face was white and drawn. And the girls were no less moved than he. All their hopes had been dashed to the ground. Tears came to Bet's eyes. Angry tears! Why was it that they always had so many disappointments? Why couldn't the treasure have reposed in that chest ready for them? Why couldn't things have gone smoothly just for once? "What a silly thing to do! To bury an empty chest!" Bet said in a protesting voice. "But that's the trouble. Maybe it wasn't always empty. Maybe it was once full of gold and jewels," sighed the professor wearily. He had planned on this treasure more than he realized at first. He thought of Alicia, his patient daughter, whose hope of recovery depended on his summer's work. "Then what happened to it?" demanded Bet. "Someone has been ahead of us, that's all. There must have been treasure in that chest," repeated the old man. "I think you are right," interrupted Colonel Baxter. "But don't be discouraged! Unless I'm very badly mistaken, that chest will be worth a small fortune in itself. Look at those brass straps across the corners. The carving is unusual and beautiful." "I don't see anything beautiful about it, at all," snapped Bet. "If it had been filled with treasure, then I could admire it." Colonel Baxter laughed. But the girls at that moment could see nothing to be happy about. Their faces were serious and troubled. It was not alone for themselves that they had wanted the treasure. They had planned on being able to help the professor, to make it possible for Alicia to go to the famous specialist and be cured. "Guard the chest well," continued Colonel Baxter. "It's valuable!" "But there is no bullion or jewels!" Enid expressed her disappointment with a frown. "And no doubloons or louis d'or!" said Kit. "And I did want to see one." But Shirley laughed. "Come on, girls, what's the use of fretting over a treasure that didn't exist. Let's be satisfied with the old chest and call it a summer. For the rest of the time we'll complete our study of rope throwing and bronco busting." "Yes, we can do that--but where's the romance?" sighed Bet. "The treasure had all the romance of the old days in the west. I did want it to come true." "Why, Bet Baxter!" exclaimed Kit Patten. "You say you've had no romance! What do you call it when you stand off a couple of western bad men, and recapture the tunnel all by yourself?" "Did you do that, Bet?" asked her father, turning on his daughter with a frown. "Please don't think I intended to keep it from you, Dad. I was waiting until we went back to Lynnwood," Bet answered penitently. Her father laughed. "Oh, Bet, girl, when will you learn to be cautious? And when are you going to grow up and be ladylike?" "Not yet, Dad. There will be time enough to grow up when I get to be thirty. Until then, I want to be just a girl and have lots of fun and adventure." "You seem to be getting your wish, as you always do," Enid said as she tried to pat Bet's tousled locks into place. "I didn't get my wish this time. Far from it. I wished for heaps of treasure, and I get nothing but a brass-bound chest." Tommy Sharpe was gazing at the mud-crusted box with interest and suddenly burst out; "Say, Judge, if Kie Wicks gets an idea that the chest is worth more than a dollar and a half, he'll try to take it away from the girls. Don't you think we'd better take it back to the ranch?" "You're right, Tommy. It may not be what we planned for, but just the same, the professor and the girls put up a fight for it and it belongs to them." "And I love it, Dad!" exclaimed Enid, examining the carving on the box. "Well, what are we going to do now?" asked the business-like Shirley. "Will we abandon the tunnel and claims and let Kie Wicks have them?" "No!" cried Bet decidedly. "I won't let him have anything! Not even the worthless old tunnel." "That's the way I feel about it," said the professor. "Kie didn't treat me fairly and I don't wish him to be near my camp. On the other hand, we shouldn't be a burden to Judge Breckenridge, who has supplied men to guard the tunnel and help do the digging." Bob interrupted with a shout. "Let us live here and guard the tunnel part of the time. What about it, Paul, can you think of any more interesting way to spend a vacation? To cook and live out like this?" "I'm with you, Bob, if Dad says it's O. K." answered Paul Breckenridge. "It's all right if you want to," agreed the Judge. "You could change your camp down to the creek-bed if you wish." "I'd rather stay on top of the mountain," answered Phil. "This just suits me." So it was agreed that the boys would camp with the professor and keep Kie Wicks at a safe distance. But Kie had had enough. Word leaked out that they had not found any treasure. Kie did not want the claims. He was not a mining man by temperament and hated the toil and privation that went into the working of claims in the hills. Day after day now Professor Gillette went in search of the Indian ruins, hoping to find something that would give him credit in his college. A few bits of broken pottery, some arrowheads and a foot of crumbling wall were not the things that would bring him fame as an explorer. The vacation was almost over. Only once did the girls get the old man away from his search. Before returning home they wanted to visit the summer range where the large herd of cattle grazed, that belonged to Judge Breckenridge. It was five miles over the Cayuga Range. It was Joy's first outing after her accident and she mounted the broad back of Dolly with the same fear that she always felt with a horse. "I'll never get used to it," she sighed, as the other girls leaped gaily into their saddles. But Paul Breckenridge was at her side encouraging her. Joy's sweet helplessness appealed to the boy. The other girls often annoyed him by their self confidence and efficiency. The gay but child-like Joy amused and pleased him. He liked the way Joy looked to him for protection when they rode out on the broad flat where the cattle were grazing. There were hundreds of cattle on that range. Joy shivered. There was no pretense in her terror. She did not like cattle. "Oh, look at Tommy Sharpe. He'll be killed," she cried. "He's all right, Joy. He understands the game. Just watch and you'll see what he is going to do," returned Paul. Tommy had spurred his horse forward and was now riding straight toward the herd. It seemed to the girls that he was right in the midst of that stamping, struggling mass. The boy was after a certain cow with her calf and as he kept his eye on the animal he wanted, he untied the rope fastened about the saddle horn, and held the other end ready to throw when he had a chance. The girls watched proudly as the boy rode confidently into the herd, divided it and then singling out the animal he was after, threw the loop. No sooner did the loop twirl through the air than the trained cowpony braced itself backward. There was a swirl of dust in the air. The herd raced madly across the flat to the safety of the canyon beyond and the girls saw that Tommy had succeeded. A cow was scrambling to her feet, bellowing with rage. Twice the animal was thrown down before she gave up the struggle, and the reason for that was the appearance of a calf that answered her hoarse call. Tommy led the animal toward the trail and the calf followed. Tommy had won. "Do you like being a cowboy, Tommy?" asked Enid as she spurred her horse to have a word with the boy. "It's the best sport in the world, Enid. I wouldn't ask for nothing better." Whether it was the long ride over the mountain, or something that the professor had eaten; that night he was a sick man. "Go for Mrs. Patten," he gasped. "She knows what to do." And the girls, hearing about it from Kit, soon followed her to the camp. They found the professor tossing uneasily on his cot, holding his head to try and stop the pain. Even after Ma Patten's treatment it was an hour before he quieted down. The girls had been wandering about the camp and Bet suddenly exclaimed, "Come on girls, let's be sports and visit the site of our fondest hopes, and of our bitter disappointment." "Aw, why rub it in?" said Kit with a shrug, as she followed Bet into the tunnel. "I never even looked to see where that old chest came from, and I want to see," Bet let herself down into the hole. "I can't believe that anyone found the treasure, stole it, then sealed the tunnel up again. That doesn't spell sense, at all." "I think those old Spaniards showed very little sense anyway," remarked Kit. "Why didn't they hide their treasure in some easier place?" Bet laughed. But at that moment her foot scraped against something hard. There was a metallic ring. Stooping she dug away the dirt and crumbled rock with her hands. "Kit!" she gasped. "It's the treasure! Call the professor! Hurry!" Bet's voice rang out. There was no need to call the professor. Forgetting his weariness and headache, he leaped from the cot at Bet's cry, and ran to the tunnel. Bet appeared, carrying a small metal box, held tightly in her arms. "Call the girls!" she said, and disappeared into the shelter of the professor's tent. When the box was pried open, the girls had all the thrill they had ever planned. Old coins, nuggets and jewels were scrambled together in the casket. Enid's fingers closed about a long gold chain, tarnished and stained with the years. "That's what I've dreamed about!" she said with a gasp. "Isn't it wonderful!" A loud "Hullo" came to them from the hill above. Bet shut the box with a snap and placing it on the cot, sat down upon it. "Anyone who gets this box, has to take me along!" she said in a tense voice. "No one shall have it! No one!" A moment later there was a scramble from the trail and Bob, Phil and Paul rushed into the tent. They started back as they saw the frightened faces of the girls. Then Bet laughed. "We thought it was robbers! After the treasure!" she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and displaying the precious box. "Three cheers for The Merriweather Girls!" shouted Bob. The professor was delighted. He had forgotten his sickness. "It shows how one should keep at a thing long after it seems useless," he told the girls. "Why, I may even find my Indian village, yet." "Of course you will. This is just the beginning of our good luck!" cried Bet excitedly. "And we'll all help you hunt for your village," promised Phil Gordon. "That will be the next adventure!" "What about your claims?" asked Tommy. "Aren't you going to work them?" He cast a longing look over the flat-topped summit. "Dad says we'd be foolish to go on with them!" replied Enid. "If we were going to be out here to look after the work it would be different." "Will you sell them?" Tommy's eager face expressed more than the simple question. Tommy wanted those claims. "You can have them, Tommy!" began Enid. Bet burst out with a decided "No!" and the girls looked at the impulsive, generous girl in surprise. They had never known Bet to act like this. "We'll sell Tommy the claims," she said in her decided way. "We'll sell Tommy the claims--for that treasure map!" The boy looked relieved. "It's a bargain!" he laughed. "Nothing for nothing!" smiled Joy contemptuously. "No such thing!" protested Bet. "That map was worth a lot to us. If we hadn't seen it on Tommy's wall, I'd never have thought of those carvings on the rock meaning _anything_." "And who knows? Maybe there'll be a big mine on this mountain some day!" Tommy looked around with the pride of possession. "I'm going to get the assessment work done on my claims right away," he added. Kit came close to him. "Look here, Tommy Sharpe. You keep your eyes open after we go, and if Kie Wicks doesn't do his assessment work, jump his claims. They belong to us, anyway, and they're included in the sale." Bet carried the treasure to the ranch. The others acted as escort for the safe transfer of the box. "All gone crazy!" said Tang to his boys, as the young people rushed in and all began to talk at once to the Judge and Colonel Baxter. There was excitement and happiness on the ranch. Everybody had been interested in the adventure. But it was only the favored ones who ever saw the treasure. Bet gladly gave it to Judge Breckenridge for safe keeping. "Now the tunnel doesn't have to be guarded any more," exclaimed Bob. And even the professor agreed that it would be better to stay at the ranch. Kie Wicks might try to get back at them, if he found out about the treasure. So the camp on the summit was broken up. As the professor urged the burro through the canyon, loaded down with his tent and supplies, the contrary animal made a rush toward the flat where the Indians were camped, and nothing could turn him from his purpose. The professor had a sudden inspiration. He signalled Mapia who was sitting by the stream, smoking his pipe as usual. Unstrapping the tent, the old man presented it to the Indian. And while Mapia's face did not change expression, somehow the professor knew that he was pleased. As he turned to go, the Indian rose and followed. "Wait! I show you! Come!" he said, and mounting his bony horse, he headed it up Lost Canyon. It was slow travelling, the burro had to be brought back to the trail many times with prods from a heavy stick that the Indian had given the old man. After a mile they left the creek and followed a smaller stream that had no visible trail. They clambered over slippery rocks for another mile and still another and then the Indian brought him out to a broad shelf of rock. And there hidden by the hills, was the extensive ruins of the ancient town. "The village!" said Mapia with a sweep of his hand. The professor could only stare. He had no words to express his joy. Wall after wall of adobe ruins had withstood the weather in this sheltered spot. And from these walls he could picture the village as it had once been. Mapia interrupted his thoughts. "Be careful! The Old Chief's daughter walks!" "Are you afraid of the ghost, Mapia?" the professor asked him, looking steadily into his eyes. "No, I don't believe! But bad men believe and that is good." The professor laughed. Years seemed to have dropped from him. He felt like a boy. Mapia was talking. "The Old Chief, he's buried there--or maybe over there. Who knows? It is not good to disturb the bones of the dead!" he added in a warning voice. CHAPTER XX "_COMPLIMENTS OF KIE WICKS_" The last week in the hills was a busy one for The Merriweather Girls and their friends. Professor Gillette worked from early morning until late at night. The few excavations he made proved beyond doubt that he had found the ancient village that so many men had tried to locate. His job was secure. And with his share of the treasure he would be able to realize his hopes in regard to the invalid daughter. There was no happier man in the world these days than the old professor. His time was spent in making a careful map of the village. The ruins were photographed from every angle by Shirley Williams. Everyone had a hand in helping their old friend in the realization of his undertaking. Bet was quiet. Something seemed to be troubling here these days. "What is it, Bet?" asked Colonel Baxter one morning after his daughter had been following him around for an hour, with a question in her eyes. "There is just one thing I want to do more than I anything else in all the world," she answered. "Speak, child!" smiled the Colonel indulgently. "What is it that your heart desires?" he added playfully. "Let me fly back with you to New York! I've never been up in an airplane." "I'm sorry, Bet. I can't do it this time. Not yet," he answered. Bet looked disappointed. "Oh it's all right, Dad, I won't whimper. I've had a wonderful time this summer." "And what's more, you will have your chance this year." "Oh, what do you mean, Dad?" "Up at Rockhill School, where you are going this winter, they have a class in aviation for the girls," said her father. "Do you mean it? Is it really true? Will you let me learn to fly?" "Yes daughter, I want you to. I believe in modern sports for young people. It's a great game and the earlier you get into it, the more chance you have of becoming an expert." "Dad, you're wonderful!" exclaimed Bet. With this promise Bet was satisfied and not unhappy when her father and the boys left the next day for Benito, where the airplane was guarded in a barn. In fact Bet was too busy during the next few days to be unhappy. The girls were sorting over all the collections they had made in the hills. It would have needed a special train if Bet had taken all the things she had brought to the ranch so it was necessary for her to go over the lot and take only the treasures that she could not give up. "You'd better get an old trunk that's out in the garage and fill it up. Then we can send it by express," suggested Judge Breckenridge. But Bet objected. "Some of my things are too precious to put in that trunk," she said. "For instance, what?" asked Kit. "My arrowheads and my turquoise specimens. I'll carry them in my small suitcase. The ore samples, from those copper claims are heavy. They can go in the trunk. And what say we put our hiking and riding shoes in that." "Sure, that's an idea! All the heavy things that we don't care for can go into the old trunk." Judge Breckenridge took the small casket of treasure in his car. He started out a full hour before the others, as he still felt the necessity of driving slowly with his invalid wife. The genial little professor entertained her on the way with details of his village. Bet sighed as the last good-bye was said and she settled down in the car. "We've had a marvelous time! We never dreamed we'd have such an adventure." "Maybe it's just as well we couldn't forsee the struggle with Kie Wicks over that treasure," Shirley said with a happy smile. "Isn't it good to win out, no matter what you are doing?" "Yes, we have the treasure and had the fun of the contest, but what did Kie Wicks get out of it?" demanded Bet. "Nothing at all!" chirruped Joy. "He's just out of luck. And he deserves it for kidnapping our professor." "Atta boy, Joy! Dad says to be generous to your enemies, but I'm afraid I haven't one little generous thought for Kie Wicks. Isn't it good that he didn't hear about us finding the treasure? He knows about the chest but not a word about the other." But Kie Wicks knew more than the girls realized. He had heard more and seen more than they had any idea of. He suspected that treasure had been found and at that moment he was giving instructions to his hired men. He had formed a gang of ruffians from the hills and they were collected now in a ravine through which the automobiles must pass. Without any suspicion that the treasure was safely stowed away in a car that had passed fully half an hour before, the storekeeper huddled his men behind the rock and waited. As the car driven by Matt Larkin came out on the main road, Kie ordered his men and his voice was hard: "There's the chest of treasure. Go get it! Don't fail!" A shot rang out! Matt Larkin tried to put on speed and get away from the small car that had suddenly sprung into the road, and having a higher-powered engine he succeeded for a while. But the pursuing machine had only two men in it and the five girls and their luggage was a drag on the big car. Joy became hysterical with fright. She crouched low in the car, but Bet was excited. Her head bobbed up every minute to see what was taking place. Matt caught her as she peered through the back window and spoke angrily. "Get down there! Are you crazy? You'll be shot if you don't look out." Bet sighed as she obeyed. "Just my luck! To miss all the fun! Now if I were a boy...." The sentence was jerked out as Matt Larkin took a bump without easing it. "Ouch!" screamed Joy. "My head!" "Keep quiet, Joy Evans! It serves you right for being such a cry-baby," snapped Bet. But Shirley comforted her. Joy was trembling as her friend clasped her in her arms. "I wish the boys were here," sobbed Joy. "Well, I don't!" said Kit. "They'd think it was their duty to put up a fight, and it doesn't pay." Another shot! Another burst of speed that shook the car. Then Matt slowed down. There was nothing else to do. The men were gaining and it was foolish to try to out-speed them. Matt turned. "Keep perfectly quiet," said the man. "They won't hurt you. They're only after the treasure." "But that's in the car ahead," protested Bet. "You'd better yell it loud enough for them to hear," suggested Enid from the depths of the tonneau. Matt once more warned them to be quiet. "Put up your hands if they tell you to. Don't take any chances. Don't speak unless they ask you a question. I'll do the talking." With a gun pointed in their direction, they lost no time in putting up their hands. Bet hesitated, her defiant nature rebelled at the idea of such surrender. But a second command from Matt, brought the girl's hands toward her head. "The chest! Off with it!" commanded Ramon Salazar to the man by his side. "And here, Jake, you hold the gun on them!" "Not that chest, Ramon," cried Bet. "You can't have that chest!" "What's to stop us," sneered the Mexican with an ugly scowl. "My ore samples! My birds' nests. They're in that chest." "Ha, ha, that's a good joke. Birds' nests!" "Keep quiet, Bet, not another word!" Matt Larkin spoke with decision. And Bet slumped down in the seat, her arms still extended above her head. Ramon did not wait to untie the rope that held the huge trunk. He slashed the strings with his knife. Then bringing his gun once more toward the car, he ordered: "Now get along out of here as fast as you can. You are covered until you are out of sight." As Matt started his car the Mexican called. "Kie Wicks sends his compliments!" As the car got under way, Bet suddenly began to scream. It was something between a laugh and a cry. The girls looked at her in astonishment. Bet hysterical! They could hardly believe it. When a safe distance was reached Bet tried to speak. "That old trunk! They think it's the treasure chest! And they've stolen my riding shoes and my birds nests and some copper ore. Oh, girls, isn't it funny?" And Bet was once more convulsed with laughter. "To think of Bet getting hysterical!" exclaimed Enid. "I wasn't hysterical. I just had to laugh, and I thought they'd catch on so I screamed." "That explains everything, Bet," came Joy's voice from the floor of the car. "I'll remember that excuse myself and use it sometime." Bet glared but said nothing. Then she started to laugh once more: "What wouldn't I give to see Kie Wicks' face when he opens that chest?" Back in the ravine, the men had carried the trunk to a cave and Kie grabbed it. "Fine!" he said. "Those folks will learn who's boss here." "You're clever, Kie. You let those greenies do the hard work while you watched and then you grab the treasure. I call that smart!" Kie beamed with satisfaction. "Here, lend a hand, Ramon, and help me pry open this chest. I know a man who says he'll give me a fancy price for this treasure. This is my lucky day." The cover of the trunk was thrown back and the men stared down into the greatest array of old clothes and camping equipment they had ever seen. "Ain't this wonderful!" said Ramon picking up a huge chunk of copper ore. "That's a valuable specimen. It will bring a fancy price." Kie Wicks tried to speak, but a choking sound came in his throat. The rough men beside him knew that for once they had Kie Wicks at their mercy. They roared with laughter. "Compliments of Kie Wicks!" shouted Ramon. Kie made as if to draw his gun, but instead he turned to his horse, mounted it and rode away. "They've out-smarted me this time!" he muttered. "But they'd better watch out!" As Kie Wicks spurred his horse along the canyon road, he knew that his days at Saugus were over. He had gone too far. The sheriff would never stand for a hold-up. Prison threatened him. What was more he would be the laughing stock of the whole country. Kie Wicks, the man who had boasted of his cleverness had been outdone by a bunch of girls. "This place ain't healthy for me, no more," muttered the man. "Me and Maude will get away, to-night. We'll never stop till we get clear out of the state. Then we'll be safe." And on Judge Breckenridge's private train that was taking The Merriweather Girls and their friend toward their home, Bet would burst into a peal of laughter from time to time. "What now, Bet?" asked Enid. "Oh, I'm thinking of all the fun we've had--and I'm wondering if Kie Wicks will keep my birds' nests and start a collection," she giggled. Even the old professor, who had been invited to join the party, had to chuckle at the thought. Shirley Williams was gazing from the car window. "Look at that sunset, girls. Did you ever see anything so beautiful?" "I'd love to paint it," enthused Bet. "Then why don't you?" Shirley reproached her. "You brought your color box and some canvases with you to Arizona and you haven't made a single picture. I'm ashamed of you!" "Oh, I'll make up for it this winter at Rockhill School. I'll work hard. See if I don't." "No, you won't, Bet Baxter. You get so interested in the sports, the motoring, the flying and all that outdoor science course, that you'll never take a brush in your hand. And you won't study either!" declared Joy. "I'll have to," protested Bet. "Dad wouldn't like it if I failed to come up to the high standard of the school. Dr. Dale's idea is that modern sports develop the brain and make us wide awake and keen." "Sounds fishy to me," returned Joy slangily. "I may be wrong but I have my doubt that it works. If I had to go up in an airplane I'd be so frightened I couldn't think straight for a year at least." Suddenly Joy sprang up, her face white. "Say, Bet, does everyone at Rockhill _have_ to fly?" "Of course not, Joy. There probably won't be more than six in the whole school who will go in for aviation." "Thank goodness! I wish The Merriweather Girls wouldn't go in for flying." "Why, Joy Evans, I've already signed up for the aviation course. I wouldn't miss it for worlds." "Personally, I'd be content to stay on the ground," spoke Shirley. No one else spoke. Joy was staring at Kit. Then Bet turned to Kit and the western girl replied to her unspoken question: Kit's bright eyes and daring smile told that she was game to ride anything that could run or fly. "I'm with you, Bet," she said heartily. "We're all with you, Bet. We'll not be left behind. If you girls are going to fly, we will, too," Enid drew Shirley toward the two girls. "I was just thinking," exclaimed Shirley Williams, "that I can make some wonderful photographs from the air." "Well, since you're all going in for aviation, I suppose that includes me. But I'll not do a thing unless I can wear one of those lovely white leather costumes. I'm sure I'd look well in one!" This from Joy, the butterfly girl. "Then The Merriweather Girls stand together!" laughed Enid Breckenridge. "Of course, 'One for all and all for one!'" said Bet, with a happy smile on her face. "And this year it will be THE MERRIWEATHER GIRLS--AT GOOD OLD ROCKHILL." Kit waved an imaginary hat in the air. "I wonder what adventures are in store for us there?" "We've had so many wonderful experiences this summer that it seems as if there couldn't be any more adventures left," mused Enid. But Bet Baxter's face was glowing with the promise of future joys. "Don't worry about that, girls! At Good Old Rockhill, we'll find lots of fun, new thrills, and something tells me that adventure is waiting for us there!" "If we follow close on your heels, Bet, we're sure to find it!" laughed Kit. "Three cheers for Good Old Rockhill!" Bet shouted as the train carried them nearer and nearer to the exciting experiences that were before them. THE END 
28670	----	[Illustration: JOHN H. CADY, 68 YEARS, SOLDIER OF FORTUNE, ON THE SONOITA, DECEMBER, 1914] ARIZONA'S YESTERDAY BEING THE NARRATIVE OF JOHN H. CADY PIONEER Rewritten and Revised by BASIL DILLON WOON 1915 Copyright, 1916, By John H. Cady. TO THE PIONEERS WHO ARE LIVING AND TO THE MEMORIES OF THOSE WHO ARE DEAD _this book_, in affectionate tribute to the gallant courage, rugged independence and wonderful endurance of those adventurous souls who formed the vanguard of civilization in the early history of the Territory of Arizona and the remainder of the Great West, _is dedicated_. JOHN H. CADY BASIL D. WOON Patagonia, Arizona, Nineteen-Fifteen. PREFACE When I first broached the matter of writing his autobiography to John H. Cady, two things had struck me particularly. One was that of all the literature about Arizona there was little that attempted to give a straight, chronological and _intimate_ description of events that occurred during the early life of the Territory, and, second, that of all the men I knew, Cady was best fitted, by reason of his extraordinary experiences, remarkable memory for names and dates, and seniority in pioneership, to supply the work that I felt lacking. Some years ago, when I first came West, I happened to be sitting on the observation platform of a train bound for the orange groves of Southern California. A lady with whom I had held some slight conversation on the journey turned to me after we had left Tucson and had started on the long and somewhat dreary journey across the desert that stretches from the "Old Pueblo" to "San Berdoo," and said: "Do you know, I actually used to believe all those stories about the 'wildness of the West.' I see how badly I was mistaken." She had taken a half-hour stroll about Tucson while the train changed crews and had been impressed by the--to the casual observer--sleepiness of the ancient town. She told me that never again would she look on a "wild West" moving picture without wanting to laugh. She would not believe that there had ever been a "wild West"--at least, not in Arizona. And yet it is history that the old Territory of Arizona in days gone by was the "wildest and woolliest" of all the West, as any old settler will testify. There is no doubt that to the tourist the West is now a source of constant disappointment. The "movies" and certain literature have educated the Easterner to the belief that even now Indians go on the war-path occasionally, that even now cowboys sometimes find an outlet for their exuberant spirits in the hair-raising sport of "shooting up the town," and that even now battles between the law-abiding cattlemen and the "rustlers" are more or less frequent. When these people come west in their comfortable Pullmans and discover nothing more interesting in the shape of Indians than a few old squaws selling trinkets and blankets on station platforms, as at Yuma; when they visit one of the famous old towns where in days gone by white men were wont to sleep with one eye and an ear open for marauding Indians, and find electric cars, modern office buildings, paved streets crowded with luxurious motors, and the inhabitants nonchalantly pursuing the even tenor of their ways garbed in habiliments strongly suggestive of Forty-fourth street and Broadway; when they come West and note these signs of an advancing and all-conquering civilization, I say, they invariably are disappointed. One lady I met even thought "how delightful" it would be "if the Apaches would only hold up the train!" It failed altogether to occur to her that, in the days when wagon-trains _were_ held up by Apaches, few of those in them escaped to tell the gruesome tale. And yet this estimable lady, fresh from the drawing-rooms of Upper-Radcliffe-on-the-Hudson and the ballroom of Rector's, thought how "delightful" this would be! Ah, fortunate indeed is it that the pluck and persistence of the pioneers carved a way of peace for the pilgrims of today! Considering the foregoing, such a book as this, presenting as it does in readable form the Arizona West as it _really was_, is, in my opinion, most opportune and fills a real need. The people have had fiction stories from the capable pens of Stewart Edward White and his companions in the realm of western literature, and have doubtless enjoyed their refreshing atmosphere and daring originality, but, despite this, fiction localized in the West and founded however-much on fact, does _not_ supply all the needs of the Eastern reader, who demands the truth about those old days, presented in a compact and _intimate_ form. I cannot too greatly emphasize that word "intimate," for it signifies to me the quality that has been most lacking in authoritative works on the Western country. When I first met Captain Cady I found him the very personification of what he ought not to have been, considering the fact that he is one of the oldest pioneers in Arizona. Instead of peacefully awaiting the close of a long and active career in some old soldiers' home, I found him energetically superintending the hotel he owns at Patagonia, Santa Cruz county--and with a badly burned hand, at that. There he was, with a characteristic chef's top-dress on him (Cady is well known as a first-class cook), standing behind the wood-fire range himself, permitting no one else to do the cooking, allowing no one else to shoulder the responsibilities that he, as a man decidedly in the autumn of life, should by all the rules of the "game" have long since relinquished. Where this grizzled old Indian fighter, near his three-score-and-ten, should have been white-haired, he was but gray; where he should have been inflicted with the kindred illnesses of advancing old age he simply owned up, and sheepishly at that, to a burned hand. Where he should have been willing to lay down his share of civic responsibility and let the "young fellows" have a go at the game, he was as ever on the firing-line, his name in the local paper a half-dozen times each week. Oh, no, it is wrong to say that John H. Cady _was_ a fighter--wrong in the spirit of it, for, you see, he is very much of a fighter, now. He has lost not one whit of that aggressiveness and sterling courage that he always has owned, the only difference being that, instead of fighting Indians and bad men, he is now fighting the forces of evil within his own town and contesting, as well, the grim advances made by the relentless Reaper. In travels that have taken me over a good slice of Mother Earth, and that have brought me into contact with all sorts and conditions of men, I have never met one whose friendship I would rather have than that of John H. Cady. If I were asked to sum him up I would say that he is a _true_ man--a true father, a true and courageous fighter, and a true American. He is a man anybody would far sooner have with him than against him in a controversy. If so far as world-standards go he has not achieved fame--I had rather call it "notoriety"--it is because of the fact that the present-day standards do not fit the men whom they ignore. With those other men who were the wet-nurses of the West in its infantile civilization, this hardy pioneer should be honored by the present generation and his name handed down to posterity as that of one who fought the good fight of progress, and fought well, with weapons which if perhaps crude and clumsy--as the age was crude and clumsy judged by Twentieth Century standards--were at least most remarkably effective. The subject of this autobiography has traveled to many out of the way places and accomplished many remarkable things, but the most astonishing thing about him is the casual and unaffected way in which he, in retrospect, views his extraordinarily active life. He talks to me as unconcernedly of tramping hundreds of miles across a barren desert peopled with hostile Indians as though it were merely a street-car trip up the thoroughfares of one of Arizona's progressive cities. He talks of desperate rides through a wild and dangerous country, of little scraps, as he terms them, with bands of murderous Apaches, of meteoric rises from hired hand to ranch foreman, of adventurous expeditions into the realm of trade when everything was a risk in a land of uncertainty, of journeys through a foreign and wild country "dead broke"--of these and many similar things, as though they were commonplace incidents scarcely worthy of mention. Yet the story of Cady's life is, I venture to state, one of the most gripping and interesting ever told, both from an historical and from a human point of view. It illustrates vividly the varied fortunes encountered by an adventurous pioneer of the old days in Arizona and contains, besides, historical facts not before recorded that cannot help making the work of unfailing interest to all who know, or wish to know, the State. For you, then, reader, who love or wish to know the State of Arizona, with its painted deserts, its glorious skies, its wonderful mountains, its magical horizons, its illimitable distances, its romantic past and its magnificent possibilities, this little book has been written. BASIL DILLON WOON. CONTENTS PAGE THE BOY SOLDIER 13 FOLLOWING THE ARGONAUTS 17 ROUGH AND TUMBLE ON LAND AND SEA 37 THROUGH MEXICO AND BACK TO ARIZONA 50 STAGE DRIVER'S LUCK 61 A FRONTIER BUSINESS MAN 71 VENTURES AND ADVENTURES 80 INDIAN WARFARE 92 DEPUTY SHERIFF, CATTLEMAN AND FARMER 102 IN AGE THE CRICKET CHIRPS AND BRINGS-- 115 ILLUSTRATIONS JOHN H. CADY Frontispiece OLD BARRACKS IN TUCSON 20 RUINS OF FORT BUCHANAN 28 CADY'S HOUSE ON THE SONOITA 44 RUINS OF FORT CRITTENDEN 60 THE OLD WARD HOMESTEAD 76 SHEEP CAMP ON THE SONOITA 92 CADY AND HIS FAMILY 108 ARIZONA'S YESTERDAY THE BOY SOLDIER "_For the right that needs assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that they could do._" Fourteen years before that broad, bloody line began to be drawn between the North and the South of the "United States of America," before there came the terrific clash of steel and muscle in front of which the entire world retreated to a distance, horrified, amazed, fascinated and confounded; before there came the dreadful day when families were estranged and birthrights surrendered, loves sacrificed and the blight of the bullet placed on hundreds of thousands of sturdy hearts--fourteen years before this, on the banks of the mighty Ohio at Cincinnati, I was born, on September 15, 1846. My parents were John N. Cady, of Cincinnati, and Maria Clingman Cady, who was of German descent, and of whom I remember little owing to the fact that she died when I reached my third birthday. Ah, Cincinnati! To me you shall always be my City of Destiny, for it was within your boundaries that I, boy and man, met my several fates. One sent me through the turmoil and suffering of the Civil War; another sent me westward mounted on the wings of youthful hope and ambition. For that alone I am ever in the debt of Ohio's fairest city, which I hope to see again some day before there sounds for me the Taps.... But I do not know. The tide of life is more than past its ebb for me and I should be thinking more of a quiet rest on the hillside, my face turned to the turquoise blue of Arizona's matchless infinity, than to the treading again of noisy city streets in the country of my birth. But this is to be a story of Arizona, and I must hasten through the events that occurred prior to my leaving for the West. When I had reached three years of age my father married again--a milliner--and moved to Philadelphia. My grandmother, who had raised me practically from birth, removed with me to Maysville in Kentucky, where I was sent to school. Some of my pleasantest memories now are of that period in the old-fashioned Kentucky river town. Just after my ninth birthday my father came back to Maysville, claimed me, took me to Philadelphia with him and afterwards turned me over to one William Turner, his wife's brother, who was the owner of a farm on the eastern shore of Maryland. I stayed at the Turner farm until the outbreak of the Civil War in the fall of '61, when my father, who was then working for Devlin & Son, clothiers, with headquarters at Broadway and Warren streets, New York City, enlisted in Duryea's Zouaves as orderly sergeant in Company K. The Zouaves wintered at Federal Hill, Baltimore, and I joined my father and the regiment there. In the spring we moved to Washington, joining there the great Army of the Potomac, with which we stayed during that army's succession of magnificent battles, until after the Fredericksburg fight in '63. In Washington we were quartered at Arlington Heights and I remember that I used to make pocket money by buying papers at the Washington railway depot and selling them on the Heights. The papers were, of course, full of nothing but war news, some of them owing their initial publication to the war, so great was the public's natural desire for news of the titanic struggle that was engulfing the continent. Then, as now, there were many conflicting statements as to the movements of troops, and so forth, but the war correspondents had full rein to write as they pleased, and the efforts of some of them stand out in my memory today as marvels of word-painting and penned rhetoric. When Grant took command of the Army of the Potomac I left the army, three or four days before reinforcements for General Sherman, who was then making preparations for his famous "march to the sea," left for Kentucky. At Aguire Creek, near Washington, I purchased a cargo of apples for $900--my first of two exceedingly profitable ventures in the apple-selling industry--and, after selling them at a handsome profit, followed Sherman's reinforcements as far as Cincinnati. I did not at this time stay long in the city of my birth, going in a few days to Camp Nelson, Ky., where I obtained work driving artillery horses to Atlanta and bringing back to Chattanooga condemned army stock. Even at that time--1864--the proud old city of Atlanta felt the shadow of its impending doom, but few believed Sherman would go to the lengths he did. After the close of the war in 1865 I enlisted in Cincinnati, on October 12, in the California Rocky Mountain service. Before this, however, I had shipped in the Ram Vindicator of the Mississippi Squadron and after being transferred to the gunboat Syren had helped move the navy yard from Mound City, Ill., to Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, Mo., where it still is. I was drafted in the First United States Cavalry and sent to Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania, from which place I traveled to New Orleans, where I joined my regiment. I was allotted to Company C and remember my officers to have been Captain Dean, First Lieutenant Vail and Second Lieutenant Winters. Soon after my arrival in New Orleans we commenced our journey to California, then the golden country of every man's dreams and the Mecca of every man's ambition. FOLLOWING THE ARGONAUTS _So it's Westward Ho! for the land of worth, Where the "is," not "was" is vital; Where brawn for praise must win the earth, Nor risk its new-born title. Where to damn a man is to say he ran, And heedless seeds are sown, Where the thrill of strife is the spice of life, And the creed is "GUARD YOUR OWN!"_ --WOON. When the fast mail steamer which had carried us from the Isthmus of Panama (we had journeyed to the Isthmus from New Orleans in the little transport McClellan), steamed through the Golden Gate and anchored off the Presidio I looked with great eagerness and curiosity on the wonderful city known in those days as "the toughest hole on earth," of which I had read and heard so much and which I had so longed to see. I saw a city rising on terraces from the smooth waters of a glorious bay whose wavelets were tempered by a sunshine that was as brilliant as it was ineffective against the keen sea-breeze of winter. The fog that had obscured our sight outside the Golden Gate was now gone--vanished like the mist-wraiths of the long-ago philosophers, and the glorious city of San Francisco was revealed to view. I say "glorious," but the term must be understood to apply only to the city's surroundings, which were in truth magnificent. She looked like some imperial goddess, her forehead encircled by the faint band of mist that still lingered caressingly to the mountain tops, her countenance glistening with the dew on the green hill-slopes, her garments quaintly fashioned for her by the civilization that had brought her into being, her slippers the lustrous waters of the Bay itself. Later I came to know that she, too, was a goddess of moods, and dangerous moods; a coquette to some, a love to others, and to many a heartless vampire that sucked from them their hard-wrung dust, scattered their gold to the four winds of avarice that ever circled enticingly about the vortex of shallow joys that the City harbored, and, after intoxicating them with her beauty and her wine, flung them aside to make ready for the next comer. Too well had San Francisco merited the title I give it in the opening lines of this chapter. Some say that the earthquake and the fire came like vitriol cast on the features of a beautiful woman for the prostitution of her charms; but I, who lost little to her lures, am not one to judge. My memories of San Francisco are at any rate a trifle hazy now, for it is many, many years since I last saw the sun set over the Marin hills. An era has passed since the glamour of the Coast of High Barbaree claimed my youthful attention. But I remember a city as evil within as it was lovely without, a city where were gathered the very dregs of humanity from the four corners of the earth. What Port Said is now, San Francisco was then, only worse. For every crime that is committed in the dark alleys of the Suez port or the equally murky callejons of the pestholes of Mexico, four were committed in the beautiful Californian town when I first went there. Women as well as men carried "hardware" strapped outside, and scarcely one who had not at some time found this precaution useful. The city abounded with footpads and ruffians of every nationality and description, whose prices for cutting a throat or "rolling a stiff" depended on the cupidity of the moment or on the quantity of liquor their capacious stomachs held. Scores of killings occurred and excited little comment. Thousands of men were daily passing in and out of the city, drawn by the lure of the Sierra gold-fields; some of these came back with the joy of dreams come true and full pokes hung around their necks, some came with the misery of utter failure in their hearts, and some--alas, they were many, returned not at all. The Barbary Coast was fast gaining for itself an unenviable reputation throughout the world. Every time one walked on Pacific street with any money in pocket he took his life in his hand. _"Guard Your Own!"_ was the accepted creed of the time and woe to him who could not do so. Gold was thrown about like water. The dancing girls made fabulous sums as commissions on drinks their consorts could be persuaded to buy. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent nightly in the great temples devoted to gambling, and there men risked on the luck of a moment or the turn of a painted wheel fortunes wrung from the soil by months and sometimes years of terrific work in the diggings. The most famous gamblers of the West at that time made their headquarters in San Francisco, and they came from all countries. England contributed not a few of these gentlemen traders in the caprices of fortune, France her quota, Germany very few and China many; but these last possessed the dives, the lowest kind of gambling places, where men went only when they were desperate and did not care. We were not at this time, however, to be given an opportunity to see as much of San Francisco as most of us would have liked. After a short stay at the Presidio we were sent to Wilmington, then a small port in the southern part of the State but now incorporated in the great city of Los Angeles. Here we drew our horses for the long trek across the desert to our future home in the Territory of Arizona. There was no railroad at that time in California, the line not even having been surveyed as far as San Jose, which was already a city but, instead of being, as now, the market-place for a dozen fertile and beautiful valleys, she was then merely an outfitting point for parties of travelers, prospectors, cattlemen and the like, and was also a station and terminus for various stage lines. [Illustration: OLD BARRACKS (1912) ON NORTH SIDE OF ALAMEDA STREET, NEAR MAIN, WHERE Co. C, 1st U. S. CAVALRY, CAMPED IN 1866 ON ITS ARRIVAL IN TUCSON] Through San Jose, too, came those of the gold-seekers, bound for the high Sierras on the border of the desert, who had not taken the Sacramento River route and had decided to brave instead the dangers of the trail through the fertile San Joaquin, up to the Feather River and thus into the diggings about Virginia City. Gold had been found by that time in Nevada and hundreds of intrepid men were facing the awful Mojave and Nevada deserts, blazing hot in day-time and icy cold at night, to seek the new Eldorados. Since this is a book about pioneers, and since I am one of them, it is fitting to stay awhile and consider what civilization owes to these daring souls who formed the vanguard of her army. Cecil Rhodes opened an Empire by mobilizing a black race; Jim Hill opened another when he struck westward with steel rails. But the pioneers of the early gold rushes created an empire of immense riches with no other aid than their own gnarled hands and sturdy hearts. They opened up a country as vast as it was rich, and wrested from the very bosom of Mother Earth treasures that had been in her jealous keeping for ages before the era of Man. They braved sudden death, death from thirst and starvation, death from prowling savages, death from the wild creatures,--all that the works of man might flourish where they had not feared to tread. It is the irony of fate that these old pioneers, many of whom hated civilization and were fleeing from her guiles, should have been the advance-guard of the very Power they sought to avoid. The vast empire of Western America is strewn with the bones of these men. Some of them lie in kindly resting places, the grass over their graves kept green by loving friends; some lie uncared for in potters' fields or in the cemeteries of homes for the aged, and some--a vast horde--still lie bleached and grim, the hot sand drifted over them by the desert winds. But, wherever they lie, all honor to the pioneer! There should be a day set apart on which every American should revere the memory of those men of long ago who hewed the way for the soft paths that fall to the generation of today. What San Bernardino is now to the west-bound traveler, Wilmington was then--the end of the desert. From Wilmington eastward stretched one tremendous ocean of sand, interspersed here and there by majestic mountains in the fastnesses of which little fertile valleys with clear mountain streams were to be discovered later by the pioneer homesteaders. Where now are miles upon miles of yellow-fruited orange and lemon groves, betraying the care and knowledge of a later generation of scientific farmers, were then only dreary, barren wastes, with only the mountains and clumps of sagebrush, soapweed, cacti, creosote bushes and mesquite to break the everlasting monotony of the prospect. Farming then, indeed, was almost as little thought of as irrigation, for men's minds were fixed on the star of whitest brilliancy--_Gold_. Men even made fortunes in the diggings and returned East and bought farms, never realizing that what might be pushed above the soil of California was destined to prove of far greater consequence than anything men would ever find hidden beneath. The march to Arizona was both difficult and dangerous, and was to be attempted safely only by large parties. Water was scarce and wells few and far between, and there were several stretches as, for instance, that between what are now known as the Imperial Mountains and Yuma, of more than sixty miles with no water at all. The well at Dos Palmas was not dug until a later date. Across these stretches the traveler had to depend on what water he could manage to pack in a canteen strung around his waist or on his horse or mule. On the march were often to be seen, as they are still, those wonderful desert mirages of which so much has been written by explorers and scientists. Sometimes these took the form of lakes, fringed with palms, which tantalized and ever kept mockingly at a distance. Many the desert traveler who has been cruelly deceived by these mirages! Yuma, of which I have just spoken, is famed for many reasons. For one thing, the story that United States army officers "raised the temperature of the place thirty degrees" to be relieved from duty there, has been laughed at wherever Americans have been wont to congregate. And that old story told by Sherman, of the soldier who died at Yuma after living a particularly vicious existence here below, and who soon afterwards telegraphed from Hades for his blankets, has also done much to heighten the reputation of the little city, which sometimes still has applied to it the distinction of being the hottest place in the United States. This, however, is scarcely correct, as many places in the Southwest--Needles in California, and the Imperial Valley are examples--have often demonstrated higher temperatures than have ever been known at Yuma. A summer at the little Colorado River town is quite hot enough, however, to please the most tropical savage. It may be remarked here, in justice to the rest of the State, that the temperature of Yuma is not typical of Arizona as a whole. In the region I now live in--the Sonoita Valley in the southeastern part of the State, and in portions around Prescott, the summer temperatures are markedly cool and temperate. Yuma, however, is not famed for its temperature alone; in fact, that feature of its claim to notice is least to be considered. The real noteworthy fact about Yuma from a historical point of view is that, as Arizona City, it was one of the earliest-settled points in the Territory and was at first easily the most important. The route of the major portion of the Forty-Niners took them across the Colorado River where Fort Yuma was situated on the California side; and the trend of exploration, business and commerce a few years later flowed westward to Yuma over the picturesque plains of the Gadsden Purchase. The famous California Column ferried itself across the Colorado at Yuma, and later on the Overland Mail came through the settlement. It is now a division point on the Southern Pacific Railway, just across the line from California, and has a population of three or four thousand. At the time I first saw the place there was only Fort Yuma, on the California side of the river, and a small settlement on the Arizona side called Arizona City. It had formerly been called Colorado City, but the name was changed when the town was permanently settled. There were two ferries in operation at Yuma when our company arrived there, one of them run by the peaceable Yuma Indians and the other by a company headed by Don Diego Jaeger and Hartshorne. Fort Yuma had been established in 1851 by Major Heintzelman, U.S.A., but owing to scurvy (see De Long's history of Arizona) and the great difficulty in getting supplies, the Colorado River being then uncharted for traffic, it was abandoned and not permanently re-established until a year later, when Major Heintzelman returned from San Diego. The townsite of Colorado City was laid out in 1854, but floods wiped out the town with the result that a permanent settlement, called Arizona City, was not established until about 1862, four years before I reached there. The first steamboat to reach Yuma with supplies was the Uncle Sam, which arrived in 1852. Of all this I can tell, of course, only by hearsay, but there is no doubt that the successful voyage of the Uncle Sam to Yuma established the importance of that place and gave it pre-eminence over any other shipping point into the territories for a long time. Until the coming of the railroad, supplies for Arizona were shipped from San Francisco to the mouth of the Colorado and ferried from there up the river to Yuma, being there transferred to long wagon trains which traveled across the plains to Tucson, which was then the distributing point for the whole Territory. Tucson was, of course, the chief city. I say "city" only in courtesy, for it was such in importance only, its size being smaller than an ordinary eastern village. Prescott, which was the first Territorial Capital; Tubac, considered by many the oldest settled town in Arizona, near which the famous mines worked by Sylvester Mowry were located; Ehrenberg, an important stage point; Sacaton, in the Pima and Maricopa Indian country, and other small settlements such as Apache Pass, which was a fort, were already in existence. The Gadsden Purchase having been of very recent date, most of the population was Indian, after which came the Mexicans and Spaniards and then the Americans, who arrogantly termed themselves the Whites, although the Spaniards possessed fully as white a complexion as the average pioneer from the eastern states. Until recently the Indian dominated the white man in Arizona in point of numbers, but fortunately only one Indian race--the Apache--showed unrelenting hostility to the white man and his works. Had all the Arizona Indians been as hostile as were the Apaches, the probabilities are that the settlement of Arizona by the whites would have been of far more recent date, for in instance after instance the Americans in Arizona were obliged to rely on the help of the peaceful Indians to combat the rapacious Apaches. Yuma is the place where the infamous "Doc" Glanton and his gang operated. This was long before my time, and as the province of this book is merely to tell the story of life in the Territory as I saw it, it has no place within these pages. It may, however, be mentioned that Glanton was the leader of a notorious gang of freebooters who established a ferry across the Colorado at Yuma and used it as a hold-up scheme to trap unwary emigrants. The Yuma Indians also operated a ferry, for which they had hired as pilot a white man, whom some asserted to have been a deserter from the United States army. One day Glanton and his gang, angered at the successful rivalry of the Indians, fell on them and slew the pilot. The Glanton gang was subsequently wiped out by the Indians in retaliation. When the Gila City gold rush set in Yuma was the point to which the adventurers came to reach the new city. I have heard that as many as three thousand gold seekers congregated at this find, but nothing is now to be seen of the former town but a few old deserted shacks and some Indian wickiups. Gold is still occasionally found in small quantities along the Gila River near this point, but the immense placer deposits have long since disappeared, although experts have been quoted as saying that the company brave enough to explore the fastnesses of the mountains back of the Gila at this point will probably be rewarded by finding rich gold mines. I will not dwell on the hardships of that desert march from Yuma to Tucson, for which the rigors of the Civil War had fortunately prepared most of us, further than to say that it was many long, weary days before we finally came in sight of the "Old Pueblo." In Tucson I became, soon after our arrival, twenty years old. I was a fairly hardy youngster, too. We camped in Tucson on a piece of ground in the center of the town and soon after our arrival were set to work making a clean, orderly camp-park out of the wilderness of creosote bushes and mesquite. I remember that for some offence against the powers of the day I was then "serving time" for a short while and, among other things, I cut shrub on the site of Tucson's Military Plaza, with an inelegant piece of iron chain dangling uncomfortably from my left leg. Oh, I wasn't a saint in those days any more than I am a particularly bright candidate for wings and a harp now! I gave my superior officers fully as much trouble as the rest of 'em! [Illustration: RUINS OF OLD FORT BUCHANAN, DECEMBER 7, 1914] Tucson's Military Plaza, it may be mentioned here, was, as stated, cleared by Company C, First United States Cavalry, and that body of troops was the only lot of soldiery that ever camped on that spot, which is now historic. In after years it was known as Camp Lowell, and that name is still applied to a fort some seven miles east of Tucson. Captain Dean had not come with us to Arizona, having been taken ill in California and invalided home. Lieutenant Vail, or, as he was entitled to be called, Brevet-Major Vail, commanded Company C in his absence, and he had under him as fearless a set of men as could have been found anywhere in the country in those days. Vail himself was the highest type of officer--stern and unbending where discipline was concerned, and eminently courageous. Second Lieutenant Winters was a man of the same stamp, and both men became well known in the Territory within a few months after their arrival because of their numerous and successful forays against marauding Indians. Vail is alive yet, or was a short time ago. After some weeks in Tucson, which was then a typical western town peopled by miners, assayers, surveyors, tradespeople, a stray banker or two and, last but not least by any means, gamblers, we were moved to old Camp Grant, which was situated several hundred yards downstream from the point where the Aravaipa Creek runs into the San Pedro. Among others whom I remember as living in Tucson or near neighborhood in 1866 were: Henry Glassman, Tom Yerkes, Lord & Williams, Pete Kitchen, ---- Tongue, The Kelsey boys, Sandy McClatchy, Green Rusk, Frank Hodge, Alex. Levin, Bob Crandall, ---- Wheat, Smith Turner, "Old" Pike. Glassman lived most of the time at Tubac. Yerkes owned the Settlers Store in Tubac. Lord and Williams owned the chief store in Tucson and were agents for the United States Mail. Pete Kitchen was at Potrero Ranch; but Pete, who was more feared by the Indians than any white man in the Territory, deserves a whole chapter to himself. Tongue was a storekeeper. Green Rusk owned a popular dance house. Hodge and Levin had a saloon. Wheat owned a saloon and afterwards a ranch near Florence. The remainder were mostly gamblers, good fellows, every one of them. "Old Pike" especially was a character whose memory is now fondly cherished by every pioneer who knew him. He could win or lose with the same perpetual joviality, but he generally won. The principal gambling game in those days was Mexican monte, played with forty cards. Poker was also played a great deal. Keno, faro and roulette were not introduced until later, and the same may be said of pangingi, the Scandinavian game. There were several tribes of Apaches wintering at Camp Grant the winter we went there, if I remember correctly, among them being the Tontos and Aravaipas. All of them, however, were under the authority of one chief--Old Eskiminzin, one of the most blood-thirsty and vindictive of all the old Apache leaders. The Government fed these Apaches well during the winter in return for pledges they made to keep the peace. This was due to the altruism of some mistaken gentlemen in the councils of authority in the East, who knew nothing of conditions in the Territory and who wrongly believed that the word of an Apache Indian would hold good. We, who knew the Indian, understood differently, but we were obliged to obey orders, even though these were responsible in part for the many Indian tragedies that followed. The Apache was a curious character. By nature a nomad, by temperament a fighter, and from birth a hater of the white man, he saw nothing good in the ways of civilization except that which fed him, and he took that only as a means to an end. Often an Indian chief would solemnly swear to keep the peace with his "white brethren" for a period of months, and the next day go forth on a marauding expedition and kill as many of his beloved "brethren" as he could lay his hands on. Every dead white man was a feather in some Apache's headdress, for so they regarded it. One day Chief Eskiminzin appeared with a protest from the tribes against the quality of the rations they were receiving. It was early spring and the protest, as we well knew, was merely his way of saying that the Indians were no longer dependent on what the government offered but could now hunt their own meat. Our commanding officer endeavored to placate the old chief, who went back for a conference with his men. Then he re-appeared, threw down his rations, the others doing the same, and in a few minutes the entire encampment of Apaches was in the saddle. Some little time after they had gone Lieutenant Vail, suspecting trouble, sent a man down the trail to investigate. A few miles away was a ranch owned by a man named Israels. The scout found the ranch devastated, with Israels, his wife and family brutally slain and all the stock driven off. He reported to Vail, who headed an expedition of retaliation--the first I ever set forth on. We trailed the Indians several days, finally coming up with them and in a pitched battle killing many of them. This was just a sample of the many similar incidents that occurred from time to time throughout the Territory. Invariably the Military attempted to find the raiders, and sometimes they were successful. But it seemed impossible to teach the Apaches their lesson, and even now there are sometimes simmerings of discontent among the surviving Apaches on their reservation. They find it difficult to believe that their day and the day of the remainder of the savage Indian race is gone forever. It was during this stay at Fort Grant that Company C was ordered to escort the first Southern Pacific survey from Apache Pass, which was a government fort, to Sacaton, in the Pima Indian country. The route abounded with hostile Apaches and was considered extremely dangerous. I have mentioned this as the "first Southern Pacific survey," but this does not mean that there were not before that other surveys of a similar character, looking to the establishment of a transcontinental railroad route through the Territory. As early as 1851 a survey was made across Northern Arizona by Captain L. Sitgreaves, approximating nearly the present route of the Santa Fe Railway. A year or two later Lieutenant A. W. Whipple made a survey along the line of the 35th degree parallel. Still later Lieutenant J. G. Parke surveyed a line nearly on that of the Southern Pacific survey. At that time, just before the Gadsden treaty, the territory surveyed was in the republic of Mexico. These surveys were all made by order of the then Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, who aroused a storm of protest in the East against his "misguided attention to the desolate West." But few statesmen and fewer of the outside public in that day possessed the prophetic vision to perceive the future greatness of what were termed the "arid wastes" of Arizona and California. This was shown by the perfect hail of protest that swept to the White House when the terms of the Gadsden Treaty, drawn up by a man who as minister to a great minor republic had had ample opportunities to study at his leisure the nature of the country and the people with whom he dealt, became known. This Southern Pacific survey party was under the superintendence of Chief Engineer Iego--I believe that is the way he spelled his name--who was recognized as one of the foremost men in his line in the country. The size of our party, which included thirty surveyors and surveyors' helpers in addition to the soldier escort, served to deter the Indians, and we had no trouble that I remember. It is perhaps worthy of note that the railroad, as it was afterwards built--it reached Tucson in 1880--did not exactly follow the line of this survey, not touching at Sacaton. It passed a few miles south of that point, near the famous Casa Grande, where now is a considerable town. Railroad and all other surveying then was an exceedingly hazardous job, especially in Arizona, where so many Indian massacres had already occurred and were still to occur. In fact, any kind of a venture that involved traveling, even for a short distance, whether it was a small prospecting or emigrant's outfit or whether it was a long "train on hoofs," laden with goods of the utmost value, had to be escorted by a squad of soldiers, and often by an entire company. Even thus protected, frequent and daring raids were made by the cruel and fearless savages, whose only dread seemed to be starvation and the on-coming of the white man, and who would go to any lengths to get food. Looking back in the light of present day reasoning, I am bound to say that it would be wrong to blame the Apaches for something their savage and untutored natures could not help. Before the "paleface" came to the Territory the Indian was lord of all he surveyed, from the peaks of the mountains down to the distant line of the silvery horizon. He was monarch of the desert and could roam over his demesne without interference save from hostile tribes; and into his very being there was born naturally a spirit of freedom which the white man with all his weapons could never kill. He knew the best hunting grounds, he knew where grew excellent fodder for his horses, he knew where water ran the year around, and in the rainy season he knew where the waterholes were to be found. In his wild life there was only the religion of living, and the divinity of Freedom. When the white man came he, too, found the fertile places, the running water and the hunting grounds, and he confiscated them in the name of a higher civilization of which the savage knew nothing and desired to know less. Could the Indian then be blamed for his overwhelming hatred of the white man? His was the inferior, the barbaric race, to be sure, but could he be blamed for not believing so? His was a fight against civilization, true, and it was a losing fight as all such are bound to be, but the Indian did not know what civilization was except that it meant that he was to be robbed of his hunting grounds and stripped of his heritage of freedom. Therefore he fought tirelessly, savagely, demoniacally, the inroads of the white man into his territory. All that he knew, all that he wished to understand, was that he had been free and happy before the white man had come with his thunder-weapons, his fire-water and his mad, mad passion for yellow gold. The Indian could not understand or admit that the White was the superior, all-conquering race, and, not understanding, he became hostile and a battling demon. So intense was the hatred of the white man among the Apaches of the period of which I speak that it was their custom to cut off the noses of any one of their women caught in illegal intercourse with a white man. This done, she was driven from her tribe, declared an outcast from her people, and frequently starved to death. I can remember many instances of this exact kind. ROUGH AND TUMBLE ON LAND AND SEA "_'Twas youth, my friend, and joyfulness besides, That made me breast the treachery of Neptune's fickle tides._" When Spring came around in the year 1867 we were moved to Tubac, where we were joined by K Company of my regiment and C Company of the Thirty-Second Infantry. Tubac, considered by some to be the oldest town in Arizona, before the consummation of the Gadsden Treaty was a military post at which the republic of Mexico regularly kept a small garrison. It was situated on the Santa Cruz River, which at this point generally had considerable water in it. This was probably the reason for the establishment of the town, for water has always been the controlling factor in a settlement's progress in Arizona. The river is dry at Tubac now, however, except in unusually rainy seasons, irrigation and cattle having robbed the stream of its former volume. At the time we were quartered there Tubac was a place of no small importance, and after Tucson and Prescott were discounted it was probably the largest settlement in the Territory. Patagonia has now taken the position formerly occupied by the old adobe town as center of the rich mining zone of Southern Arizona, and the glories of Tubac (if they can be given that name) are, like the glories of Tombstone, gone. Unlike those of Tombstone, however, they are probably gone forever. Tombstone may yet rise from the ashes of her splendid past to a future as one of the important towns of the Southwest, if the stories of untold riches near by her are to be believed. A little to the east of Tubac and separating that town from Patagonia is Mount Wrightson, one of the highest mountains in Arizona. Nicknamed "Old Baldy" after its famous namesake in California, this mammoth pile of rock and copper was in the old days a landmark for travelers, visible sometimes for days ahead on the wagon trails. It presaged near arrival in Tucson, for in a direct line Old Baldy is probably not further than forty miles from the Old Pueblo. We camped at Tubac during the summer and part of the winter of 1867 and I remember that while we were there I cooked a reception banquet to Colonel Richard C. McCormick, who was then and until 1869 Governor of the Territory of Arizona. I forget his business in Tubac, but it was either an electioneering trip or one of inspection after his appointment to the office of Governor in 1866. In the early part of 1868 we moved to Fort Buchanan, which before the war had been a military post of considerable importance. It received its name from the President before Lincoln and was garrisoned by Confederates during the Civil War. We re-built the fort and re-named it Fort Crittenden, in honor of General Thomas L. Crittenden, a son of the Hon. John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, who was then in command of the military district embracing that portion of the Territory south of the Gila River. Crittenden was beautifully situated on the Sonoita, about ten miles from where I now live and in the midst of some of the most marvelously beautiful scenery to be found on the American continent. Fort Crittenden is no longer occupied and has not been for some time; but a short distance toward Benson is Fort Huachuaca, where at present a garrison of the Ninth Cavalry is quartered. During part of 1868 I carried mail from where Calabasas is now--it was then Fort Mason--to Fort Crittenden, a proceeding emphatically not as simple as it may sound. My way lay over a mountainous part of what is now Santa Cruz county, a district which at that time, on account of the excellent fodder and water, abounded with hostile Indians. On one occasion that I well remember I had reached the waterhole over which is now the first railroad bridge north of Patagonia, about a half mile from the present town, and had stopped there to water my horse. While the animal was drinking I struck a match to light my pipe--and instantly I ducked. A bullet whistled over my head, near enough to give me a strong premonition that a couple of inches closer would have meant my end. I seized the bridle of my horse, leaped on his back, bent low over the saddle and rode for it. I escaped, but it is positive in my mind today that if those Apaches had been better accustomed to the use of the white man's weapons I would not now be alive to tell the story. I was a great gambler, even in those days. It was the fashion, then, to gamble. Everybody except the priests and parsons gambled, and there was a scarcity of priests and parsons in the sixties. Men would gamble their dust, and when that was gone they would gamble their worldly possessions, and when those had vanished they would gamble their clothes, and if they lost their clothes there were instances where some men even went so far as to gamble their wives! And every one of us, each day, gambled his life, so you see the whole life in the Territory in the early days was one continuous gamble. Nobody save gamblers came out there, because nobody but gamblers would take the chance. As I have stated, I followed the natural trend. I had a name, even in those days, of being one of the most spirited gamblers in the regiment, and that meant the countryside; and I confess it today without shame, although it is some time now since I raised an ante. I remember one occasion when my talents for games of chance turned out rather peculiarly. We had gone to Calabasas to get a load of wheat from a store owned by a man named Richardson, who had been a Colonel in the volunteer service. Richardson had as manager of the store a fellow named Long, who was well known for his passion for gambling. After we had given our order we sought about for some diversion to make the time pass, and Long caught sight of the goatskin chaperejos I was wearing. He stared at them enviously for a minute and then proposed to buy them. "They're not for sale," said I, "but if you like I'll play you for 'em." "Done!" said Long, and put up sixteen dollars against the chaps. Now, Long was a game sport, but that didn't make him lucky. I won his sixteen dollars and then he bet me some whiskey against the lot, and again I won. By the time I had beat him five or six times, had won a good half of the store's contents, and was proposing to play him for his share in the store itself, he cried quits. We loaded our plunder on the wagon. Near Bloxton, or where Bloxton now is, four miles west of Patagonia, we managed to upset the wagon, and half the whiskey and wheat never was retrieved. We had the wherewithal to "fix things" with the officers, however, and went unreproved, even making a tidy profit selling what stuff we had left to the soldiers. At that time the company maintained gardens on a part of what afterwards was the Sanford Rancho, and at one time during 1868 I was gardening there with three others. The gardens were on a ranch owned by William Morgan, a discharged sergeant of our company. Morgan had one Mexican working for him and there were four of us from the Fort stationed there to cultivate the gardens and keep him company--more for the latter reason than the first, I believe. We took turn and turn about of one month at the Fort and one month at the gardens, which were about fourteen miles from the Fort. One of us was Private White, of Company K. He was a mighty fine young fellow, and we all liked him. Early one morning the five of us were eating breakfast in the cabin, an illustration of which is given, and White went outside for something. Soon afterward we heard several reports, but, figuring that White had shot at some animal or other, we did not even get up from our meal. Finally came another shot, and then another, and Morgan got up and peered from the door. He gave a cry. "Apaches!" he shouted. "They're all around! Poor White----" It was nip-and-tuck then. For hours we kept up a steady fire at the Indians, who circled the house with blood-curdling whoops. We killed a number of them before they finally took themselves off. Then we went forth to look for White. We found our comrade lying on his back a short distance away, his eyes staring unseeingly to the sky. He was dead. We carried him to the house and discussed the situation. "They'll come back," said Morgan, with conviction. "Then it's up to one of us to ride to the Fort," I said. But Morgan shook his head. "There isn't a horse anywhere near," he said. We had an old army mule working on the gardens and I bethought myself of him. "There's the mule," I suggested. My companions were silent. That mule was the slowest creature in Arizona, I firmly believed. It was as much as he could do to walk, let alone gallop. "Somebody's got to go, or we'll all be killed," I said. "Let's draw lots." They agreed and we found five straws, one of them shorter than the rest. These we drew, and the short one fell to me. I look back on that desperate ride now with feelings akin to horror. Surrounded with murderous savages, with only a decrepit mule to ride and fourteen miles to go, it seemed impossible that I could get through safely. My companions said good-bye to me as though I were a scaffold victim about to be executed. But get through I did--how I do not know--and the chillingly weird war-calls of the Indians howling at me from the hills as I rode return to my ears even now with extraordinary vividness. And, as Morgan had prophesied, the Apaches did "come back." It was a month later, and I had been transferred back to the Fort, when a nephew of Colonel Dunkelberger and William J. Osborn of Tucson were riding near Morgan's ranch. Apaches ambushed them, slew the Colonel's nephew, whose name has slipped my memory, and wounded Osborn. The latter, who was a person of considerable importance in the Territory, escaped to Morgan's ranch. An expedition of retaliation was immediately organized at the Fort and the soldiers pursued the assassins into Mexico, finally coming up with them and killing a number. I did not accompany the troops on this occasion, having been detailed to the Santa Rita range to bring in lumber to be used in building houses. I returned from the Santa Ritas in July and found an order had been received at the Fort from the War Department that all men whose times had expired or were shortly to expire should be congregated in Tucson and from there marched to California for their discharge. A few weeks later I went to the Old Pueblo and, together with several hundred others from all parts of the Territory, was mustered out and started on the return march to Wilmington where we arrived about October 1. On the twelfth of October I was discharged. After working as cook for a short time for a company that was constructing a railroad from Wilmington to Los Angeles, I moved to the latter place and obtained employment in the Old Bella Union Hotel as chef. John King was the proprietor of the Bella Union. Until Christmas eve I stayed there, and then Sergeant John Curtis, of my company, who had been working as a saddler for Banning, a capitalist in Wilmington, came back to the kitchen and said: [Illustration: CADY'S HOUSE ON THE SONOITA, NEAR BLOXTON, 1914. BUILT IN 1868] "John, old sport, let's go to 'Frisco." "I haven't," I told him, "enough change to set 'em up across the street, let alone go to 'Frisco." For answer Curtis pulled out a wallet, drew therefrom a roll of bills that amounted to about $1,000, divided the pile into two halves, laid them on the table and indicated them with his forefinger. "John," he offered, "if you'll come with me you can put one of those piles in your pocket. What do you say?" Inasmuch as I had had previously little opportunity to really explore San Francisco, the idea appealed to me and we shook hands on the bargain. Christmas morning, fine, cloudless and warm, found us seated on the San Jose stage. San Jose then was nearly as large a place as Tucson is now--about twenty odd thousand, if I remember rightly. The stage route carried us through the mission country now so widely exploited by the railroads. Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Monterey were all towns on the way, Monterey being probably the largest. The country was very thinly occupied, chiefly by Spanish haciendas that had been in the country long before gold was discovered. The few and powerful owners of these estates controlled practically the entire beautiful State of California prior to '49, and at the time I write of still retained a goodly portion of it. They grew rich and powerful, for their lands were either taken by right of conquest or by grants from the original Mexican government, and they paid no wages to their peons. These Spaniards, with the priests, however, are to be credited with whatever progress civilization made in the early days of California. They built the first passable roads, they completed rough surveys and they first discovered the wonderful fertility of the California soils. The towns they built were built solidly, with an eye to the future ravages of earthquakes and of Time, which is something the modern builder often does not do. There are in many of their pueblos old houses built by the Spaniards in the middle part of the eighteenth century which are still used and occupied. We arrived in San Francisco a few days after our departure from Los Angeles, and before long the city had done to us what she still does to so many--had broken us on her fickle wheel of fortune. It wasn't many days before we found ourselves, our "good time" a thing of the past, "up against it." "John," said Curtis, finally, "we're broke. We can't get no work. What'll we do?" I thought a minute and then suggested the only alternative I could think of. "Let's get a blanket," I offered. "Getting a blanket" was the phrase commonly in use when men meant to say that they intended to enlist. Curtis met the idea with instant approval, if not with acclamation, and, suiting the action to the words, we obtained a hack and drove to the Presidio, where we underwent the examination for artillerymen. Curtis passed easily and was accepted, but I, owing to a wound in my ankle received during the war, was refused. Curtis obtained the customary three days' leave before joining his company and for that brief space we roamed about the city, finishing our "good time" with such money as Curtis had been able to raise by pawning and selling his belongings. After the three days were over we parted, Curtis to join his regiment; and since then I have neither seen nor heard of him. If he still chances to be living, my best wishes go out to him in his old age. For some time I hung around San Francisco trying to obtain employment, without any luck. I was not then as skillful a gambler as I became in after years, and, in any case, I had no money with which to gamble. It was, I found, one thing to sit down to a monte deck at a table surrounded with people you knew, where your credit was good, and another to stake your money on a painted wheel in a great hall where nobody cared whether you won or lost. Trying to make my little stake last as long as possible, I roomed in a cheap hotel--the old What Cheer rooming house, and ate but one "two-bit" meal a day. I was constantly on the lookout for work of some kind, but had no luck until one day as I was passing up Kearney street I saw a sign in one of the store windows calling for volunteers for the Sloop-o'-War Jamestown. After reading the notice a couple of times I decided to enlist, did so, was sent to Mare Island Navy Yard and from there boarded the Jamestown. It was on that vessel that I performed an action that I have not since regretted, however reprehensible it may seem in the light of present-day ethics. Smallpox broke out on board and I, fearful of contracting the dread disease, planned to desert. This would probably not have been possible today, when the quarantine regulations are so strict, but in those days port authorities were seldom on the alert to prevent vessels with diseases anchoring with other shipping, especially in Mexico, in the waters of which country we were cruising. When we reached Mazatlan I went ashore in the ordinary course of my duties as ward-room steward to do some marketing and take the officers' laundry to be washed. Instead of bringing the marketing back to the ship I sent it, together with a note telling where the laundry would be found, and saying good-bye forever to my shipmates. The note written and dispatched, I quietly "vamoosed," or, as I believe it is popularly termed in the navy now, I "went over the hill." My primary excuse for this action was, of course, the outbreak of smallpox, which at that time and in fact until very recently, was as greatly dreaded as bubonic plague is now, and probably more. Vaccination, whatever may be its value in the prevention of the disease, had not been discovered in the sense that it is now understood and was not known at all except in the centers of medical practice in the East. Smallpox then was a mysterious disease, and certainly a plague. Whole populations had been wiped out by it, doctors had announced that there was practically no cure for it and that its contraction meant almost certain death, and I may thus be excused for my fear of the sickness. I venture to state, moreover, that if all the men aboard the Jamestown had had the same opportunity that I was given to desert, they would have done so in a body. My second excuse, reader, if one is necessary, is that in the days of the Jamestown and her sister ships, navy life was very different from the navy life of today, when I understand generous paymasters are even giving the jackies ice-cream with their meals. You may be entirely sure that we got nothing of the kind. Our food was bad, our quarters were worse, and the discipline was unbearably severe. THROUGH MEXICO AND BACK TO ARIZONA "_Know thou the spell of the desert land, Where Life and Love are free? Know thou the lure the sky and sand Hath for the man in me?_" When I deserted from the sloop-o'-war Jamestown it was with the no uncertain knowledge that it was distinctly to my best advantage to clear out of the city of Mazatlan just as rapidly as I could, for the ships of the free and (presumably) enlightened Republic had not yet swerved altogether from the customs of the King's Navee, one of which said customs was to hang deserters at the yard-arm. Sometimes they shot them, but I do not remember that the gentlemen most concerned had any choice in the matter. At any rate, I know that it was with a distinct feeling of relief that I covered the last few yards that brought me out of the city of Mazatlan and into the open country. In theory, of course, the captain of the sloop-o'-war Jamestown could not have sent a squad of men after me with instructions to bring me back off foreign soil dead or alive, but in practice that is just what he would have done. Theory and practice have a habit of differing, especially in the actions of an irate skipper who sees one of his best ward-room stewards vanishing from his jurisdiction. Life now opened before me with such a vista of possibilities that I felt my breath taken away. Here was I, a youth twenty-two years old, husky and sound physically, free in a foreign country which I felt an instant liking for, and no longer beholden to the Stars and Stripes for which I was quite ready to fight but not to serve in durance vile on a plague-ship. My spirit bounded at the thought of the liberty that was mine, and I struck northward out of Mazatlan with a light step and a lighter heart. At the edge of the city I paused awhile on a bluff to gaze for the last time on the Bay, on the waters of which rode quietly at anchor the vessel I had a few hours before quit so unceremoniously. There was no regret in my heart as I stood there and looked. I had no particular love for Mexico, but then I had no particular love for the sea, either, and a good deal less for the ships that sailed the sea. So I turned my back very definitely on that part of my life and set my face toward the north, where, had I known it, I was to find my destiny beneath the cloudless turquoise skies of Arizona. When I left Mazatlan it was with the intention of walking as far as I could before stopping, or until the weight of the small bundle containing my worldly possessions tired my shoulders. But it was not to be so. Only two miles out of the city I came upon a ranch owned by two Americans, the sight of whom was very welcome to me just then. I had no idea that I should find any American ranchers in the near neighborhood, and considered myself in luck. I found that one of the American's names was Colonel Elliot and I asked him for work. Elliot sized me up, invited me in to rest up, and on talking with him I found him to be an exceedingly congenial soul. He was an old Confederate colonel--was Elliot, but although we had served on opposite sides of the sad war of a few years back, the common bond of nationality that is always strongest beyond the confines of one's own land prevented us from feeling any aloofness toward each other on this account. To me Colonel Elliot was an American, and a mighty decent specimen of an American at that--a friend in need. And to Colonel Elliot also I was an American, and one needing assistance. We seldom spoke of our political differences, partly because our lives speedily became too full and intimate to admit of the petty exchange of divergent views, and partly because I had been a boy during the Civil War and my youthful brain had not been sufficiently mature to assimilate the manifold prejudices, likes, dislikes and opposing theories that were the heritage of nearly all those who lived during that bloody four years' war. I have said that Colonel Elliot was a friend in need. There is an apt saying that a "friend in need is a friend indeed," and such was Colonel Elliot as I soon found. For I had not been a week at the ranch when I was struck down with smallpox, and throughout that dangerous sickness, lasting several weeks, the old Colonel, careless of contagion, nursed me like a woman, finally bringing me back to a point where I once again had full possession of all my youthful health and vigor. I do not just now recall the length of time I worked for Elliot and his partner, but the stay, if not long, was most decidedly pleasant. I grew to speak Spanish fluently, haunted the town of Mazatlan (from which the Jamestown had long since departed), and made as good use generally of my temporary employment as was possible. I tried hard to master the patois of the peon as well as the flowery and eloquent language of the aristocracy, for I knew well that should I at any time seek employment as overseer at a rancho either in Mexico or Arizona, a knowledge of the former would be indispensable, while a knowledge of the latter was at all times useful in Mexico, especially in the cities, where the possession of the cultured dialect marked one for special favors and secured better attention at the stores. The Mexicans I grew to understand and like more and more the longer I knew them. I found the average Mexican gentleman a model of politeness, a Beau Brummel in dress and an artist in the use of the flowery terms with which his splendid language abounds. The peons also I came to know and understand. I found them a simple-minded, uncomplaining class, willingly accepting the burdens which were laid on them by their masters, the rich landlords; and living, loving and playing very much as children. They were good-hearted--these Mexicans, and hospitable to the last degree. This, indeed, is a characteristic as truly of the Mexican of today as of the period of which I speak. They would, if needs be, share their last crust with you even if you were an utter stranger, and many the time some lowly peon host of mine would insist on my occupying his rude bed whilst he and his family slept on the roof! Such warm-hearted simplicity is very agreeable, and it was a vast change from the world of the Americans, especially of the West, where the watchword was: "Every man for himsel', and the de'il tak' the hindmost." It may be remarked here that the de'il often took the foremost, too! When I left the hospitable shelter of Colonel Elliot's home I moved to Rosario, Sinaloa, where was situated the famous Tajo mine which has made the fortunes of the Bradbury family. It was owned then by Don Luis Bradbury, senior, the same Bradbury whose son is now such a prominent figure in the social and commercial life of San Francisco and Los Angeles. I asked for work at the Bradbury mine, obtained it, and started in shoveling refuse like any other common laborer at the munificent wage of ten dollars per week, which was a little less than ten dollars more than the Mexican peons laboring at the same work obtained. I had not been working there long, however, when some suggestions I made to the engineer obtained me recognition and promotion, and at the end of a year, when I quit, I was earning $150 per month, or nearly four times what my wage had been when I started. And then--and then, I believe it was the spell of the Arizona plains that gripped the strings of my soul again and caused them to play a different tune.... Or was it the prospect of an exciting and more or less lawless life on the frontier that beckoned with enticing lure? I do not know. But I grew to think more and more of Arizona, the Territory in which I had reached my majority and had found my manhood; and more and more I discovered myself longing to be back shaking hands with my old friends and companions, and shaking, too, dice with Life itself. So one day saw me once more on my way to the wild and free Territory, although this time my road did not lie wholly across a burning and uninhabited desert. It is a hard enough proposition now to get to the United States from Mazatlan, or any other point in Mexico, when the Sud Pacifico and other railroads are shattered in a dozen places and their schedules, those that have them, are dependent on the magnanimity of the various tribes of bandits that infest the routes; but at the time I write of it was harder. To strike north overland was possible, though not to be advised, for brigands infested the cedar forests of Sinaloa and southern Sonora; and savage Yaquis, quite as much to be feared as the Apaches of further north, ravaged the desert and mountain country. I solved the difficulty finally by going to Mazatlan and shipping from that port as a deck-hand on a Dutch brigantine, which I remember because of its exceptionally vile quarters and the particularly dirty weather we ran up against on our passage up the Gulf. The Gulf of California, especially the mouth of it, has always had an evil reputation among mariners, and with justness, but I firmly believe the elements out-did themselves in ferocity on the trip I refer to. Guaymas reached, my troubles were not over, for there was still the long Sonora desert to be crossed before the haven of Hermosillo could be reached. At last I made arrangements with a freighting outfit and went along with them. I had had a little money when I started, but both Mazatlan and Guaymas happened to be chiefly filled with cantinas and gambling-hells, and as I was not averse to frequenting either of these places of first resort to the lonely wanderer, my money-bag was considerably depleted when at last I arrived in the beautiful capital of Sonora. I was, in fact, if a few odd dollars are excepted, broke, and work was a prime necessity. Fortunately, jobs were at that time not very hard to find. There was at that time in Hermosillo a house named the Casa Marian Para, kept by one who styled himself William Taft. The Casa Marian Para will probably be remembered in Hermosillo by old-timers now--in fact, I have my doubts that it is not still standing. It was the chief stopping-house in Sonora at that time. I obtained employment from Taft as a cook, but stayed with it only long enough to procure myself a "grub-stake," after which I "hit the grit" for Tucson, crossing the border on the Nogales trail a few days later. I arrived in Tucson in the latter part of the year 1870, and obtained work cooking for Charlie Brown and his family. It was while I was employed as chef in the Brown household that I made--and lost, of course, a fortune. No, it wasn't a very big fortune, but it was a fortune certainly very curiously and originally made. I made it by selling ham sandwiches! Charlie Brown owned a saloon not far from the Old Church Plaza. It was called Congress Hall, had been completed in 1868 and was one of the most popular places in town. Charlie was fast becoming a plutocrat. One night in the saloon I happened to hear a man come in and complain because there wasn't a restaurant in town that would serve him a light snack at that time of night except at outrageous prices. "That's right," said another man near me, "if somebody would only have the sense to start a lunch-counter here the way they have them in the East he'd make all kinds of money." The words suggested a scheme to me. The next day I saw Brown and got his permission to serve a light lunch of sandwiches and coffee in the saloon after I had finished my work at the house. Just at that time there was a big crowd in the town, the first cattle having arrived in charge of a hungry lot of Texan cowpunchers, and everyone was making money. I set up my little lunch counter, charged seventy-five cents, or "six-bits" in the language of the West, for a lunch consisting of a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and speedily had all the customers I could handle. For forty consecutive nights I made a clear profit of over fifty dollars each night. Those sandwiches were a mint. And they were worth what I charged for them, too, for bacon, ham, coffee and the other things were 'way up, the three mentioned being fifty or sixty cents a pound for a very indifferent quality. Sometimes I had a long line waiting to buy lunches, and all the time I ran that lunch stand I never had one "kick" at the prices or the grub offered. Those cowboys were well supplied with money, and they were more than willing to spend it. Charlie Brown was making his fortune fast. After I quit Brown's employ, John McGee--the same man who now is secretary of the Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society and a well-known resident of Tucson--hired myself and another man to do assessment work on the old Salero mine, which had been operated before the war. Our conveyance was an old ambulance owned by Lord & Williams, who, as I have said, kept the only store and the post office in Tucson. The outfit was driven by "Old Bill" Sniffen, who will doubtless be remembered by many Arizona pioneers. We picked up on the way "Old Man" Benedict, another familiar character, who kept the stage station and ranch at Sahuarita, where the Twin Buttes Railroad now has a station and branch to some mines, and where a smelter is located. We were paid ten dollars per day for our work and returned safely to Tucson. I spoke of Lord & Williams' store just now. When in the city of Tucson recently I saw that Mr. Corbett has his tin shop where the old store and post office was once. I recognized only two other buildings as having existed in pioneer days, although there may be more. One was the old church of San Augustine and the other was part of the Orndorff Hotel, where Levin had his saloon. There were more saloons than anything else in Tucson in the old days, and the pueblo richly earned its reputation, spread broadcast all over the world, as being one of the "toughest" places on the American frontier. Tucson was on the boom just then. Besides the first shipment of cattle, and the influx of cowboys from Texas previously mentioned, the Territorial capital had just been moved to Tucson from Prescott. It was afterwards moved back again to Prescott, and subsequently to the new town of Phoenix; but more of that later. After successfully concluding the assessment work and returning to Tucson to be paid off by McGee I decided to move again, and this time chose Wickenburg, a little place between Phoenix and Prescott, and one of the pioneer towns of the Territory. West of Wickenburg on the Colorado River was another settlement named Ehrenberg, after a man who deserves a paragraph to himself. Herman Ehrenberg was a civil engineer and scientist of exceptional talents who engaged in mining in the early days of Arizona following the occupation of the Territory by the Americans. He was of German birth and, coming at an early age to the United States, made his way to New Orleans, where he enlisted in the New Orleans Grays when war broke out between Mexico and Texas. After serving in the battles of Goliad and Fanning's Defeat he returned to Germany and wrote and lectured for some time on Texas and its resources. Soon after the publication of his book on Texas he returned to the United States and at St. Louis, in 1840, he joined a party crossing to Oregon. From that Territory he went to the Sandwich Islands and for some years wandered among the islands of the Polynesian Archipelago, returning to California in time to join General Fremont in the latter's attempt to free California from Mexican rule. After the Gadsden Purchase he moved to Arizona, where, after years of occupation in mining and other industries, he was killed by a Digger Indian at Dos Palmas in Southern California. The town of Ehrenberg was named after him.[1] [Illustration: FORT CRITTENDEN RUINS, 1914. QUARTERS OF COS. K AND C, 1ST U. S. CAVALRY IN 1868] FOOTNOTE: [Footnote 1: This information relative to Ehrenberg is taken largely from The History of Arizona; De Long, 1905.] STAGE DRIVER'S LUCK _God, men call Destiny: Hear thee my prayer! Grant that life's secret for e'er shall be kept. Wiser than mine is thy will; I dare Not dust where thy broom hath swept._ --WOON. I have said that Wickenburg was a small place half-way between Phoenix and Prescott, but that is not quite right. Wickenburg was situated between Prescott and the valley of the Salt River, in the fertile midst of which the foundation stones of the future capital of Arizona had yet to be laid. To be sure, there were a few shacks on the site, and a few ranchers in the valley, but the city of Phoenix had yet to blossom forth from the wilderness. I shall find occasion later to speak of the birth of Phoenix, however. When I arrived in Wickenburg from Tucson--and the journey was no mean affair, involving, as it did, a ride over desert and mountains, both of which were crowded with hostile Apaches--I went to work as stage driver for the company that operated stages out of Wickenburg to Ehrenberg, Prescott and other places, including Florence which was just then beginning to be a town. Stage driving in Arizona in the pioneer days was a dangerous, difficult, and consequently high-priced job. The Indians were responsible for this in the main, although white highwaymen became somewhat numerous later on. Sometimes there would be a raid, the driver would be killed, and the stage would not depart again for some days, the company being unable to find a man to take the reins. The stages were large and unwieldy, but strongly built. They had to be big enough to hold off raiders should they attack. Every stage usually carried, besides the driver, two company men who went heavily armed and belted around with numerous cartridges. One sat beside the driver on the box-seat. In the case of the longer stage trips two or three men guarded the mail. Very few women traveled in those days--in fact, there were not many white women in the Territory and those who did travel usually carried some masculine protector with them. A man had to be a good driver to drive a stage, too, for the heavy brakes were not easily manipulated and there were some very bad stretches of road. Apropos of what I have just said about stage drivers being slain, and the difficulty sometimes experienced in getting men to take their places, I remember that on certain occasions I would take the place of the mail driver from Tucson to Apache Pass, north of where Douglas now is--the said mail driver having been killed--get fifty dollars for the trip and blow it all in before I started for fear I might not otherwise get a chance to spend it. The stage I drove for this Wickenburg company was one that ran regular trips out of Wickenburg. Several trips passed without much occurring worthy of note; and then on one trip I fell off the box, injuring my ankle. When I arrived back in Wickenburg I was told by Manager Pierson of the company that I would be relieved from driving the stage because my foot was not strong enough to work the heavy brakes, and would be given instead the buckboard to drive to Florence and back on post-office business. The next trip the stage made out of Wickenburg, therefore, I remained behind. A few miles from town the stage was held up by an overwhelming force of Apaches, the driver and all save two of the passengers massacred, and the contents looted. A woman named Moll Shepherd, going back East with a large sum of money in her possession, and a man named Kruger, escaped the Indians, hid in the hills and were the only two who survived to tell the story of what has gone down into history as the famous "Wickenburg Stage Massacre." I shudder now to think how nearly I might have been on the box on that fatal trip. I was not entirely to escape the Apaches, however. On the first return trip from Florence to Wickenburg with the buckboard, while I was congratulating myself and thanking my lucky stars for the accident to my ankle, Apaches "jumped" the buckboard and gave me and my one passenger, Charlie Block of Wickenburg, a severe tussle for it. We beat them off in the end, owing to superior marksmanship, and arrived in Wickenburg unhurt. Block was part owner of the Barnett and Block store in Wickenburg and was a well-known man in that section. After this incident I determined to quit driving stages and buckboards and, casting about for some new line of endeavor, went for the first time into the restaurant business for myself. The town needed an establishment of the kind I put up, and as I had always been a good cook I cleaned up handsomely, especially as it was while I was running the restaurant that Miner started his notorious stampede, when thousands of gold-mad men followed a will-o'-the-wisp trail to fabulously rich diggings which turned out to be entirely mythical. It was astonishing how little was required in those days to start a stampede. A stranger might come in town with a "poke" of gold dust. He would naturally be asked where he had made the strike. As a matter of fact, he probably had washed a dozen different streams to get the poke-full, but under the influence of liquor he might reply: "Oh, over on the San Carlos," or the San Pedro, or some other stream. It did not require that he should state how rich the streak was, or whether it had panned out. All that was necessary to start a mad rush in the direction he had designated was the sight of his gold and the magic word "streak." Many were the trails that led to death or bitter disappointment, in Arizona's early days. Most of the old prospectors did not see the results of their own "strikes" nor share in the profits from them after their first "poke" had been obtained. There was old John Waring, for instance, who found gold on a tributary of the Colorado and blew into Arizona City, got drunk and told of his find: "Gold--Gold.... Lots 'v it!" he informed them, drunkenly, incoherently, and woke up the next morning to find that half the town had disappeared in the direction of his claim. He rushed to the registry office to register his claim, which he had foolishly forgotten to do the night before. He found it already registered. Some unscrupulous rascal had filched his secret, even to the exact location of his claim, from the aged miner and had got ahead of him in registering it. No claim is really legal until it is registered, although in the mining camps of the old days it was a formality often dispensed with, since claim jumpers met a prompt and drastic punishment. In many other instances the big mining men gobbled up the smaller ones, especially at a later period, when most of the big mines were grouped under a few large managements, with consequent great advantage over their smaller competitors. Indeed, there is comparatively little incentive now for a prospector to set out in Arizona, because if he chances to stumble on a really rich prospect, and attempts to work it himself, he is likely to be so browbeaten that he is finally forced to sell out to some large concern. There are only a few smelters in or near the State and these are controlled by large mining companies. Very well; we will suppose a hypothetical case: A, being a prospector, finds a copper mine. He says to himself: "Here's a good property; it ought to make me rich. I won't sell it, I'll hold on to it and work it myself." So far, so good. A starts in to work his mine. He digs therefrom considerable rich ore. And now a problem presents itself. He has no concentrator, no smelter of his own. He cannot afford to build one; therefore it is perfectly obvious that he cannot crush his own ore. He must, then, send it elsewhere to be smelted, and to do this must sell his ore to the smelter. In the meantime a certain big mining company has investigated A's find and has seen that it is rich. The company desires the property, as it desires all other rich properties. It offers to buy the mine for a sum far below its actual value. Naturally, the finder refuses. But he must smelt his ore. And to smelt it he finds he is compelled to sell it to a smelter that is controlled by the mining company whose offer he has refused. He sends his ore to the smelter. Back comes the quotation for his product, at a price ridiculously low. "That's what we'll give you," says the company, through its proxy the smelter, "take it or leave it," or words to that effect. Now, what can A do? Nothing at all. He must either sell his ore at an actual loss or sell his mine to the company. Naturally, he does the latter, and at a figure he finds considerably lower than the first offer. The large concern has him where it wanted him and it snuffs out his dreams of wealth and prosperity effectively. These observations are disinterested. I have never, curiously enough, heeded the insistent call of the diggings; I have never "washed a pan," and my name has never appeared on the share-list of a mine. And this, too, has been in spite of the fact that often I have been directly in the paths of the various excitements. I have been always wise enough to see that the men who made rapid fortunes in gold were not the men who stampeded head-over-heels to the diggings, but the men who stayed behind and opened up some kind of business which the gold-seekers would patronize. These were the reapers of the harvest, and there was little risk in their game, although the stakes were high. I have said that I never owned a mining share. Well, I never did; but once I came close to owning a part share in what is now the richest copper mine on earth--a mine that, with the Anaconda in Montana, almost determines the price of raw copper. I will tell you the tale. Along in the middle seventies--I think it was '74, I was partner with a man named George Stevens at Eureka Springs, west of Fort Thomas in the Apache country, a trading station for freighters. We were owners of the trading station, which was some distance south of where the copper cities of Globe and Miami are now situated. We made very good money at the station and Stevens and I decided to have some repairs and additions built to the store. We looked around for a mason and finally hired one named George Warren, a competent man whose only fault was a fondness for the cup that cheers. Warren was also a prospector of some note and had made several rich strikes. It was known that, while he had never found a bonanza, wherever he announced "pay dirt" there "pay dirt" invariably was to be found. In other words, he had a reputation for reliability that was valuable to him and of which he was intensely vain. He was a man with "hunches," and hunches curiously enough, that almost always made good. These hunches were more or less frequent with Warren. They usually came when he was broke for, like all prospectors, Warren found it highly inconvenient ever to be the possessor of a large sum of money for any length of time. He had been known to say to a friend: "I've got a hunch!" disappear, and in a week or two, return with a liberal amount of dust. Between hunches he worked at his trade. When he had completed his work on the store at Eureka Springs for myself and Stevens, Warren drew me aside one night and, very confidentially, informed me that he had a hunch. "You're welcome to it, George," I said, and, something calling me away at that moment, I did not hear of him again until I returned from New Fort Grant, whither I had gone with a load of hay for which we had a valuable contract with the government. Then Stevens informed me that Warren had told him of his hunch, had asked for a grub-stake, and, on being given one, had departed in a southerly direction with the information that he expected to make a find over in the Dos Cabezas direction. He was gone several weeks, and then one day Stevens said to me, quietly: "John, Warren's back." "Yes?" I answered. "Did he make a strike?" "He found a copper mine," said Stevens. "Oh, only copper!" I laughed. "That hunch system of his must have got tarnished by this time, then!" You see, copper at that time was worth next to nothing. There was no big smelter in the Territory and it was almost impossible to sell the ore. So it was natural enough that neither myself nor Stevens should feel particularly jubilant over Warren's strike. One day I thought to ask Warren whether he had christened his mine yet, as was the custom. "I'm going to call it the 'Copper Queen,'" he said. I laughed at him for the name, but admitted it a good one. That mine today, reader, is one of the greatest copper properties in the world. It is worth about a billion dollars. The syndicate that owns it owns as well a good slice of Arizona. "Syndicate?" I hear you ask. "Why, what about Warren, the man who found the mine, and Stevens, the man who grub-staked him?" Ah! What about them! George Stevens bet his share of the mine against $75 at a horse race one day, and lost; and George Warren, the man with the infallible hunch, died years back in squalid misery, driven there by drink and the memory of many empty discoveries. The syndicate that obtained the mine from Warren gave him a pension amply sufficient for his needs, I believe. It is but fair to state that had the mine been retained by Warren the probabilities are it would never have been developed, for Warren, like other old prospectors, was a genius at finding pay-streaks, but a failure when it came to exploiting them. That, reader, is the true story of the discovery of the Copper Queen, the mine that has made a dozen fortunes and two cities--Bisbee and Douglas. If I had gone in with Stevens in grub-staking poor Warren would I, too, I wonder, have sold my share for some foolish trifle or recklessly gambled it away? I wonder!... Probably, I should. A FRONTIER BUSINESS MAN "_The chip of chisel, hum of saw, The stones of progress laid; The city grew, and, helped by its law, Men many fortunes made._" --Song of the City, by T. BURGESS. A Phoenix man was in Patagonia recently and--I don't say he was a typical Phoenix man--commented in a superior tone on the size of the town. "Why," he said, as if it clinched the argument, "Phoenix would make ten Patagonias." "And then some," I assented, "but, sonny, I built the third house in Phoenix. Did you know that? And I burnt Indian grain fields in the Salt River Valley long before anyone ever thought of building a city there. Even a big city has had some time to be a small one." That settled it; the Phoenix gentleman said no more. I told him only the exact truth when I said that I built the third house in Phoenix. After I had started the Wickenburg restaurant came rumors that a new city was to be started in the fertile Salt River Valley, between Sacaton and Prescott, some forty or fifty miles north of the former place. Stories came that men had tilled the land of the valley and had found that it would grow almost anything, as, indeed, it has since been found that any land in Arizona will do, providing the water is obtained to irrigate it. One of Arizona's most wonderful phenomena is the sudden greening of the sandy stretches after a heavy rain. One day everything is a sun-dried brown, as far as the eye can see. Every arroyo is dry, the very cactus seems shriveled and the deep blue of the sky gives no promise of any relief. Then, in the night, thunder-clouds roll up from the painted hills, a tropical deluge resembling a cloud-burst falls, and in the morning--lo! where was yellow sand parched from months of drought, is now sprouting green grass! It is a marvelous transformation--a miracle never to be forgotten by one who has seen it. However, irrigation is absolutely necessary to till the soil in most districts of Arizona, though in some sections of the State dry farming has been successfully resorted to. It has been said that Arizona has more rivers and less water than any state in the Union, and this is true. Many of these are rivers only in the rainy season, which in the desert generally comes about the middle of July and lasts until early fall. Others are what is known as "sinking rivers," flowing above ground for parts of their courses, and as frequently sinking below the sand, to reappear further along. The Sonoita, upon which Patagonia is situated, is one of these "disappearing rivers," the water coming up out of the sand about half a mile from the main street. The big rivers, the Colorado, the Salt, the upper Gila and the San Pedro, run the year around, and there are several smaller streams in the more fertile districts that do the same thing. The larger part of the Arizona "desert" is not barren sand, but fertile silt and adobe, needing only water to make of it the best possible soil for farming purposes. Favored by a mild winter climate the Salt River Valley can be made to produce crops of some kind each month in the year--fruits in the fall, vegetables in the winter season, grains in spring and alfalfa, the principal crop, throughout the summer. A succession of crops may oftentimes be grown during the year on one farm, so that irrigated lands in Arizona yield several times the produce obtainable in the Eastern states. Alfalfa may be cut six or seven times a year with a yield of as much as ten tons to the acre. The finest Egyptian cotton, free from the boll weevil scourge, may also be grown successfully and is fast becoming one of the staple products of the State. Potatoes, strawberries, pears, peaches and melons, from temperate climates; and citrus fruits, sorghum grains and date palms from subtropical regions, give some idea of the range of crops possible here. Many farmers from the Eastern and Southern states and from California, finding this out, began to take up land, dig irrigating ditches and make homes in Arizona. Fifteen or twenty pioneers had gone to the Salt River Valley while I was at Wickenburg and there had taken up quarter sections on which they raised, chiefly, barley, wheat, corn and hay. A little fruit was also experimented in. Some of the men who were on the ground at the beginning I remember to have been Dennis and Murphy, Tom Gray, Jack Walters, Johnny George, George Monroe, Joe Fugit, Jack Swilling, Patterson, the Parkers, the Sorrels, the Fenters and a few others whose names I do not recall. A townsite had been laid out, streets surveyed, and before long it became known that the Territory had a new city, the name of which was Phoenix. The story of the way in which the name "Phoenix" was given to the city that in future days was to become the metropolis of the State, is interesting. When the Miner excitement was over I decided to move to the new Salt River townsite, and soon after my arrival there attended a meeting of citizens gathered together to name the new city. Practically every settler in the Valley was at this meeting, which was destined to become historic. Among those present was a Frenchman named Darrel Dupper, or Du Perre, as his name has sometimes been written, who was a highly educated man and had lived in Arizona for a number of years. When the question of naming the townsite came up several suggestions were offered, among them being "Salt City," "Aricropolis," and others. Dupper rose to his feet and suggested that the city be called Phoenix, because, he explained, the Phoenix was a bird of beautiful plumage and exceptional voice, which lived for five hundred years and then, after chanting its death-song, prepared a charnel-house for itself and was cremated, after which a new and glorified bird arose from the ashes to live a magnificent existence forever. When Dupper finished his suggestion and explanation the meeting voted on the names and the Frenchman's choice was decided upon. "Phoenix" it has been ever since. Before I had been in Phoenix many days I commenced the building of a restaurant, which I named the Capital Restaurant. The capital was then at Prescott, having been moved from Tucson, but my name evidently must have been prophetic, for the capital city of Arizona is now none other than Phoenix, which at the present day probably has the largest population in the State--over twenty thousand. Soon I gained other interests in Phoenix besides the restaurant. The Capital made me much money, and I invested what I did not spend in "having a good time," in various other enterprises. I went into the butcher business with Steel & Coplin. I built the first bakery in Phoenix. I staked two men to a ranch north of the city, from which I later on proceeded to flood the Territory with sweet potatoes. I was the first man, by the way, to grow sweet potatoes in Arizona. I built a saloon and dance hall, and in this, naturally, was my quickest turnover. I am not an apologist, least of all for myself, and as this is the true story of a life I believe to have been exceptionally varied I think that in it should be related the things I did which might be considered "bad" nowadays, as well as the things I did which, by the same token, present-day civilization may consider "good." I may relate, therefore, that for some years I was known as the largest liquor dealer in the Territory, as well as one of the shrewdest hands at cards. Although I employed men to do the work, often players would insist on my dealing the monte deck or laying down the faro lay-out for them. I played for big stakes, too--bigger stakes than people play for nowadays in the West. Many times I have sat down with the equivalent of thousands of dollars in chips and played them all away, only to regain them again without thinking it anything particularly unusual. As games go, I was considered "lucky" for a gambler. Though not superstitious, I believed in this luck of mine, and this is probably the reason that it held good for so long. If of late various things, chiefly the mining depression, have made my fortunes all to the bad, I am no man to whine at the inevitable. I can take my ipecac along with the next man! There were few men in the old days in Phoenix, or, indeed, the entire Territory, who did not drink liquor, and lots of it. In fact, it may be said that the entire fabric of the Territory was constructed on liquor. The pioneers were most of them whiskey fiends, as were the gamblers. By this I am not defending the liquor traffic. I have sold more liquor than any man in Arizona over the bar in my life-time, but I voted dry at the last election and I adhere to the belief that a whiskey-less Arizona will be the best for our children and our children's children. [Illustration: THE OLD WARD HOMESTEAD, WHERE CADY KEPT STORE DURING THE BUILDING OF THE SANTA FE RAILROAD] During my residence in Phoenix Darrel Dupper, the man who had christened the town, became one of my best friends. He kept the post and trading store at Desert Station, at which place was the only water to be found between Phoenix and Wickenburg, if I remember correctly. The station made him wealthy. Dupper was originally Count Du Perre, and came of a noted aristocratic French family. His forefathers were, I believe, prominent in the court of Louis XIV. When a young man he committed some foolhardy act in France and was banished by his people, who sent him a monthly remittance on condition that he get as far away from his home as he could, and stay there. To fulfill the terms of this agreement Du Perre came to Arizona among the early pioneers and soon proved that he had the stuff of a real man in him. He learned English and Americanized his name to Dupper. He engaged in various enterprises and finally started Desert Station, where he made his fortune. He was a curious character as he became older. Sometimes he would stay away from Phoenix for several months and then one day he would appear with a few thousand dollars, more or less, spend every cent of it in treating the boys in my house and "blow back" home again generally in my debt. He used to sing La Marseillaise--it was the only song he knew--and after the first few drinks would solemnly mount a table, sing a few verses of the magnificent revolutionary song, call on me to do likewise, and then "treat the house." Often he did this several times each night, and as "treating the house" invariably cost at least thirty dollars and he was an inveterate gambler, it will be seen that in one way or another I managed to secure considerable of old Dupper's fortune. His partiality to the Marseillaise leads me to the belief that he was banished for participation in one of the French revolutions; but this I cannot state positively. On one occasion I remember that I was visiting with Dupper and we made a trip together somewhere, Dupper leaving his cook in charge. When we returned nobody noticed us and I happened to look through a window before entering the house. Hastily I beckoned to Dupper. The Frenchman's cook was sitting on his bed with a pile of money--the day's takings--in front of him. He was dividing the pile into two halves. Taking one bill off the pile he would lay it to one side and say: "This is for Dupper." Then he'd take the next bill, lay it in another spot, and say: "And this is for me." We watched him through the window unnoticed until he came to the last ten-dollar bill. It was odd. The cook deliberated a few moments and finally put the bill on top of the pile he had reserved for himself. Then Dupper, whose face had been a study in emotions, could keep still no longer. "Hey, there!" he yelled, "play fair--play fair! Divvy up that ten spot!" What happened afterwards to that cook I don't remember. But Dupper was a good sport. VENTURES AND ADVENTURES _Hush! What brooding stillness is hanging over all? What's this talk in whispers, and that placard on the wall? Aha! I see it now! They're going to hang a man! Judge Lynch is on the ramparts and the Law's an "Also-Ran!"_ --WOON. Reader, have you ever seen the look in a man's eyes after he has been condemned by that Court of Last Appeal--his fellow-men? I have, many times. It is a look without a shadow of hope left, a look of dread at the ferocity of the mob, a look of fear at what is to come afterwards; and seldom a hint of defiance lurks in such a man's expression. I have seen and figured in many lynchings. In the old days they were the inseparables, the Frontier and Judge Lynch. If a white man killed a Mexican or Indian nothing was done, except perhaps to hold a farce of a trial with the killer in the end turned loose; and if a white man killed another white man there was seldom much outcry, unless the case was cold-blooded murder or the killer was already unpopular. But let a Mexican or an Indian lift one finger against a white man and the whole strength of the Whites was against him in a moment; he was hounded to his hole, dragged forth, tried by a committee of citizens over whom Judge Lynch sat with awful solemnity, and was forthwith hung. More or less of this was in some degree necessary. The killing of an Apache was accounted a good day's work, since it probably meant that the murderer of several white men had gone to his doom. To kill a Mexican only meant that another "bad hombre" had gone to his just deserts. And most of the Mexicans in Arizona in the early days were "bad hombres"--there is no doubt about that. It was they who gave the Mexican such a bad name on the frontier, and it was they who first earned the title "greaser." They were a murderous, treacherous lot of rascals. In the Wickenburg stage massacre, for instance, it was known that several Mexicans were involved--wood-choppers. One of these Mexicans was hunted for weeks and was caught soon after I arrived in Phoenix. I was running my dance hall when a committee of citizens met in a mass-meeting and decided that the law was too slow in its working and gave the Mexican too great an opportunity to escape. The meeting then resolved itself into a hanging committee, broke open the jail, seized the prisoner from the arms of the sheriff and hung him to the rafters just inside the jail door. That done, they returned to their homes and occupations satisfied that at least one "Greaser" had not evaded the full penalty of his crimes. Soon after a Mexican arrived in town with a string of cows to sell. Somebody recognized the cows as ones that had belonged to a rancher named Patterson. The Mexican was arrested by citizens and a horseman sent out to investigate. Patterson was found killed. At once, and with little ceremony, the Mexican with the cattle was "strung up" to the cross of a gatepost, his body being left to sway in the wind until somebody came along with sufficient decency to cut it down. Talking about lynchings, reminds me of an incident that had almost slipped my mind. Before I went to Wickenburg from Tucson I became partners with a man named Robert Swope in a bar and gambling lay-out in a little place named Adamsville, a few miles below where Florence now is on the Gila River. Swope was tending bar one night when an American shot him dead and got away. The murderer was soon afterward captured in Tucson and lynched in company with two Mexicans who were concerned in the murder of a pawnbroker there. * * * * * In Phoenix I married my first wife, whose given name was Ruficia. Soon afterwards I moved to Tucson, where, after being awarded one child, I had domestic trouble which ended in the courts. My wife finally returned to Phoenix and, being free again, married a man named Murphy. After this experience I determined to take no further chances with matrimony. However, I needed a helpmate, so I solved the difficulty by marrying Paola Ortega by contract for five years. Contract marriages were universally recognized and indulged in in the West of the early days. My relations with Paola were eminently satisfactory until the expiration of the contract, when she went her way and I mine. Before I leave the subject of Phoenix it will be well to mention that when I left I sold all my property there, consisting of some twenty-two lots, all in the heart of the city, for practically a song. Six of these lots were situated where now is a big planing mill. Several lots I sold to a German for a span of mules. The German is alive today and lives in Phoenix a wealthy man, simply because he had the foresight and acumen to do what I did not do--hang on to his real estate. If I had kept those twenty-two lots until now, without doing more than simply pay my taxes on them, my fortune today would be comfortably up in the six figures. However, I sold the lots, and there's no use crying over spilled milk. Men are doing today all over the world just what I did then. I had not been in Tucson long before I built there the largest saloon and dance-hall in the Territory. Excepting for one flyer in Florence, which I shall speak of later on, this was to be my last venture into the liquor business. My hall was modeled after those on the Barbary Coast. It cost "four-bits" and drinks to dance, and the dances lasted only a few minutes. At one time I had thirteen Mexican girls dancing in the hall, and this number was increased on special days until the floor was crowded. I always did good business--so good, in fact, that jealousy aroused in the minds of my rivals finally forced me out. Since then, as I have said, with the single Florence exception, I have not been in the dance-hall business, excepting that I now have at some expense put a ballroom into my hotel at Patagonia, in which are held at times social dances which most of the young folk of the county attend, the liquor element being entirely absent, of course.[2] Besides paying a heavy license for the privilege of selling liquor in my Tucson dance hall, I was compelled every morning, in addition, to pay over $5 as a license for the dance-hall and $1.50 collector's fees, which, if not paid out every morning as regularly as clockwork, would have threatened my business. I did not complain of this tax; it was a fair one considering the volume of trade I did. But my patronage grew and grew until there came a day when "Cady's Place," as it was known, was making more money for its owner than any similar establishment in Arizona. The saloon-keepers in Tucson became inordinately jealous and determined to put an end to my "luck," as they called it. Accordingly, nine months after I had opened my place these gentlemen used their influence quietly with the Legislature and "jobbed" me. The license was raised for dance halls at one bound to $25 per night. This was a heavier tax than even my business would stand, so I set about at once looking for somebody on whom to unload the property. I claim originality, if not a particular observance of ethics, in doing this. One day a man came along and, when he saw the crowd in the hall, suggested that I sell him a share in the enterprise. "No," I replied, "I'll not sell you a share; but, to tell you the truth, I'm getting tired of this business, and want to get out of it for good. I'll sell you the whole shooting-match, if you want to buy. Suppose you stay tonight with my barkeep and see what kind of business I do." He agreed and I put two hundred dollars in my pocket and started around town. I spent that two hundred dollars to such good purpose that that night the hall was crowded to the doors. The prospective purchaser looked on with blinking eyes at the thought of the profits that must accrue to the owner. Would he buy the place? Would he? Well, say--he was so anxious to buy it that he wanted to pass over the cash when he saw me counting up my takings in the small hours of the morning. The takings were, I remember, $417. But I told him not to be in a hurry, to go home and sleep over the proposition and come back the next day. After he had gone the collector came around, took his $26.50 and departed. On his heels came my man. "Do you still want to buy?" I asked him. "You bet your sweet life I want to buy," he replied. "You're sure you've investigated the proposition fully?" I asked him. The customer thought of that four hundred and seventeen dollars taken in over the bar the night before and said he had. "Hand over the money, then," I said, promptly. "The place is yours." The next morning he came to me with a lugubrious countenance. "Well," I greeted him, "how much did you make last night?" "Took in ninety-six dollars," he answered, sadly. "Cady, why didn't you tell me about that $25 tax?" "Tell you about it?" I repeated, as if astonished. "Why, didn't I ask you if you had investigated the thing fully? Did I ask you to go into the deal blindfold? It wasn't my business to tell you about any tax." And with that he had to be content. * * * * * I was now out of the dance-hall business for good, and I looked about for some other and more prosaic occupation to indulge in. Thanks to the deal I had put through with the confiding stranger with the ready cash, I was pretty well "heeled" so far as money went, and all my debts were paid. Finally I decided that I would go into business again and bought a grocery store on Mesilla street. The handing out of canned tomatoes and salt soda crackers, however, speedily got on my nerves. I was still a comparatively young man and my restless spirit longed for expression in some new environment. About this time Paola, my contract-wife, who was everything that a wife should be in my opinion, became a little homesick and spoke often of the home she had left at Sauxal, a small gulf-coast port in Lower California. Accordingly, one morning, I took it into my head to take her home on a visit to see her people, and, the thought being always father to the action with me, I traded my grocery store for a buckboard and team and some money, and set forth in this conveyance for Yuma. This was a trip not considered so very dangerous, except for the lack of water, for the Indians along the route were mostly peaceable and partly civilized. Only for a short distance out of Tucson did the Apache hold suzerainty, and this only when sufficient Papagos, whose territory it really was, could not be mustered together in force to drive them off. The Papago Indians hated the Apaches quite as much as the white man did, for the Papago lacked the stamina and fighting qualities of the Apache and in other characteristics was an entirely different type of Indian. I have reason to believe that the Apaches were not originally natives of Arizona, but were an offshoot of one of the more ferocious tribes further north. This I think because, for one thing, the facial characteristics of the other Arizona Indians--the Pimas, Papagos, Yumas, Maricopas, and others--are very similar to each other but totally different from those of the various Apache tribes, as was the language they spoke. The Papagos, Pimas, Yumas, Maricopas and other peaceable Indian peoples were of a settled nature and had lived in their respective territories for ages before the white man came to the West. The Apache, on the other hand, was a nomad, with no definite country to call his own and recognizing no boundary lines of other tribes. It was owing to Apache depredations on the Papagos and Pimas that the latter were so willingly enlisted on the side of the White man in the latter's fight for civilization. Reaching Yuma without any event to record that I remember, we took one of the Colorado River boats to the mouth of the Colorado, where transfers were made to the deep-sea ships plying between the Colorado Gulf and San Francisco. One of these steamers, which were creditable to the times, we took to La Paz. At La Paz Paola was fortunate enough to meet her padrina, or godfather, who furnished us with mules and horses with which we reached Sauxal, Paola's home. There we stayed with her family for some time. While staying at Sauxal I went to a fiesta in the Arroyo San Luis and there began playing cooncan with an old rancher who was accounted one of the most wealthy inhabitants of the country. I won from him two thousand oranges, five gallons of wine, seventeen buckskins and two hundred heifers. The heifers I presented to Paola and the buckskins I gave to her brothers to make leggings out of. The wine and oranges I took to La Paz and sold, netting a neat little sum thereby. Sixty miles from La Paz was El Triunfo, one of the best producing silver mines in Lower California, managed by a man named Blake. Obeying an impulse I one day went out to the mine and secured a job, working at it for some time, and among other things starting a small store which was patronized by the company's workmen. Growing tired of this occupation, I returned to Sauxal, fetched Paola and with her returned to Yuma, or Arizona City, where I started a small chicken ranch a few miles up the river. Coyotes and wolves killed my poultry, however, and sores occasioned by ranch work broke out on my hands, so I sold the chicken ranch and moved to Arizona City, opening a restaurant on the main street. In this cafe I made a specialty of pickled feet--not pig's feet, but bull's feet, for which delicacy I claim the original creation. It was some dish, too! They sold like hot-cakes. While I was in Lower California I witnessed a sight that is well worth speaking of. It was a Mexican funeral, and the queerest one I ever saw or expect to see, though I have read of Chinese funerals that perhaps approach it in peculiarity. It was while on my way back to Sauxal from La Paz that I met the cortege. The corpse was that of a wealthy rancher's wife, and the coffin was strung on two long poles borne by four men. Accompanying the coffin alongside of those carrying it were about two hundred horsemen. The bearers kept up a jog-trot, never once faltering on the way, each horseman taking his turn on the poles. When it became a man's turn to act as bearer nobody told him, but he slipped off his horse, letting it run wherever it pleased, ran to the coffin, ducked under the pole and started with the others on the jog-trot, while the man whose place he had taken caught his horse. Never once in a carry of 150 miles did that coffin stop, and never once did that jog-trot falter. The cortege followers ate at the various ranches they passed, nobody thinking of refusing them food. The 150 mile journey to San Luis was necessary in order to reach a priest who would bury the dead woman. All the dead were treated in the same manner. While I was in Yuma the railroad reached Dos Palmas, Southern California, and one day I went there with a wagon and bought a load of apples, which, with one man to accompany me, I hauled all the way to Tucson. That wagon-load of apples was the first fruit to arrive in the Territory and it was hailed with acclaim. I sold the lot for one thousand dollars, making a profit well over fifty per cent. Then with the wagon I returned to Yuma. On the way, as I was nearing Yuma, I stopped at Canyon Station, which a man named Ed. Lumley kept. Just as we drove up an old priest came out of Lumley's house crying something aloud. We hastened up and he motioned inside. Within we saw poor Lumley dead, with both his hands slashed off and his body bearing other marks of mutilation. It turned out that two Mexicans to whom Lumley had given shelter had killed him because he refused to tell them where he kept his money. The Mexicans were afterwards caught in California, taken to Maricopa county and there, after trial by the usual method, received the just penalty for their crime. From Yuma I moved to Florence, Arizona, where I built a dance-hall and saloon, which I sold almost immediately to an Italian named Gendani. Then I moved back to Tucson, my old stamping-ground. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote 2: Since this was written the State has abolished the sale of liquor from within its boundaries.] INDIAN WARFARE _When strong men fought and loved and lost, And might was right throughout the land; When life was wine and wine was life, And God looked down on endless strife; Where murder, lust and hate were rife, What footprints Time left in the sand!_ --WOON. In the seventies and early eighties the hostility of the various Apache Indian tribes was at its height, and there was scarcely a man in the Territory who had not at some time felt the dread of these implacable enemies. By frequent raids on emigrants' wagons and on freighting outfits, the Indians had succeeded in arming themselves fairly successfully with the rifle of the white man; and they kept themselves in ammunition by raids on lonely ranches and by "jumping" or ambushing prospectors and lone travelers. If a man was outnumbered by Apaches he often shot himself, for he knew that if captured he would probably be tortured by one of the fiendish methods made use of by these Indians. If he had a woman with him it was an act of kindness to shoot her, too, for to her, also, even if the element of torture were absent, captivity with the Indians would invariably be an even sadder fate. [Illustration: CADY'S SHEEP CAMP ON THE SONOITA, DECEMBER 8, 1914. BUILT IN 1884] Sometimes bands of whites would take the place of the soldiers and revenge themselves on Apache raiders. There was the raid on the Wooster ranch, for instance. This ranch was near Tubac. Wooster lived alone on the ranch with his wife and one hired man. One morning Apaches swooped down on the place, killed Wooster and carried off his wife. As she has never been heard of since it has always been supposed that she was killed. This outrage resulted in the famous "Camp Grant Massacre," the tale of which echoed all over the world, together with indignant protests from centers of culture in the East that the whites of Arizona were "more savage" than the savages themselves. I leave it to the reader to judge whether this was a fact. The Wooster raid and slaughter was merely the culminating tragedy of a series of murders, robberies and depredations carried on by the Apaches for years. Soldiers would follow the raiders, kill a few of them in retaliation, and a few days later another outrage would be perpetrated. The Apaches were absolutely fearless in the warfare they carried on for possession of what they, rightly or wrongly, considered their invaded territory. The Apache with the greatest number of murders to his name was most highly thought of by his tribe. When the Wooster raid occurred I was in Tucson. Everybody in Tucson knew Wooster and liked him. There was general mourning and a cry for instant revenge when his murder was heard of. For a long time it had been believed that the Indians wintering on the government reservation at Camp Grant, at the expense of Uncle Sam, were the authors of the numerous raids in the vicinity of Tucson, though until that time it had been hard to convince the authorities that such was the case. This time, however, it became obvious that something had to be done. The white men of Tucson held a meeting, at which I was present. Sidney R. De Long, first Mayor of Tucson, was also there. After the meeting had been called to order De Long rose and said: "Boys, this thing has got to be stopped. The military won't believe us when we tell them that their charity to the Indians is our undoing--that the government's wards are a pack of murderers and cattle thieves. What shall we do?" "Let the military go hang, and the government, too!" growled one man, "Old Bill" Oury, a considerable figure in the life of early Tucson, and an ex-Confederate soldier. The meeting applauded. "We can do what the soldiers won't," I said. "Right!" said Oury, savagely. "Let's give these devils a taste of their own medicine. Maybe after a few dozen of 'em are killed they'll learn some respect for the white man." Nobody vetoed the suggestion. The following day six white men--myself, De Long and fierce old Bill Oury among them, rode out of Tucson bound for Tubac. With us we had three Papago Indian trailers. Arrived at the Wooster ranch the Papagos were set to work and followed a trail that led plain as daylight to the Indian camp at Fort Grant. A cry escaped all of us at this justification of our suspicions. "That settles it!" ground out Oury, between his set teeth. "It's them Injuns or us. And--it won't be us." We returned to Tucson, rounded up a party consisting of about fifty Papagos, forty-five Mexicans and ourselves, and set out for Camp Grant. We reached the fort at break of day, or just before, and before the startled Apaches could fully awaken to what was happening, or the near-by soldiers gather their wits together, eighty-seven Aravaipa Apaches had been slain as they lay. The Papagos accounted for most of the dead, but we six white men and our Mexican friends did our part. It was bloody work; but it was justice, and on the frontier then the whites made their own justice. All of us were arrested, as a matter of course, and when word reached General Sherman at Washington from the commander of the military forces at Fort Grant, an order was issued that all of us were to be tried for murder. We suffered no qualms, for we knew that according to frontier standards what we had done was right, and would inevitably have been done some time or another by somebody. We were tried in Judge Titus' Territorial Court, but, to the dismay of the military and General Sherman, who of course knew nothing of the events that had preceded the massacre, not a man in the jury could be found who would hang us. The Territory was searched for citizens impartial enough to adjudge the slaying of a hostile Apache as murder, but none could be found. The trial turned out a farce and we were all acquitted, to receive the greatest demonstration outside the courtroom that men on trial for their lives ever received in Arizona, I think. One thing that made our acquittal more than certain was the fact, brought out at the trial, that the dress of Mrs. Wooster and a pair of moccasins belonging to her husband were found on the bodies of Indians whom we killed. Lieutenant Whitman, who was in command at Fort Grant, and on whom the responsibility for the conduct of the Indians wintering there chiefly rested, was soon after relieved from duty and transferred to another post. General George Crook arrived to take his place late in 1871. The massacre had occurred on the last day of April of that year. Other raids occurred. Al Peck, an old and valued friend of mine, had several experiences with the Apaches, which culminated in the Peck raid of April 27, 1886, when Apaches jumped his ranch, killed his wife and a man named Charles Owens and carried off Peck's niece. Apparently satisfied with this, they turned Peck loose, after burning the ranch house. The unfortunate man's step-niece was found some six weeks later by Mexican cowpunchers in the Cocoapi Mountains in Old Mexico. The famous massacre of the Samaniego freight teams and the destruction of his outfit at Cedar Springs, between Fort Thomas and Wilcox, was witnessed by Charles Beck, another friend of mine. Beck had come in with a quantity of fruit and was unloading it when he heard a fusilade of shots around a bend in the road. A moment later a boy came by helter-skelter on a horse. "Apaches!" gasped the boy, and rode on. Beck waited to hear no more. He knew that to attack one of Samaniego's outfits there must be at least a hundred Indians in the neighborhood. Unhitching his horse, he jumped on its back and rode for dear life in the direction of Eureka Springs. Indians sighted him as he swept into the open and followed, firing as they rode. By luck, however, and the fact that his horse was fresher than those of his pursuers, Beck got safely away. Thirteen men were killed at this Cedar Springs massacre and thousands of dollars' worth of freight was carried off or destroyed. The raid was unexpected owing to the fact that the Samaniego brothers had contracts with the government and the stuff in their outfit was intended for the very Indians concerned in the ambuscade. One of the Samaniegos was slain at this massacre. Then there was the Tumacacori raid, at Barnett's ranch in the Tumacacori Mountains, when Charlie Murray and Tom Shaw were killed. Old Man Frenchy, as he was called, suffered the severe loss of his freight and teams when the Indians burned them up across the Cienega. Many other raids occurred, particulars of which are not to hand, but those I have related will serve as samples of the work of the Indians and will show just how it was the Apaches gained the name they did of being veritable fiends in human form. * * * * * After the expiration of my contract with Paola Ortega I remained in a state of single blessedness for some time, and then married Gregoria Sosa, in the summer of 1879. Gregoria rewarded me with one child, a boy, who is now living in Nogales. On December 23, 1889, Gregoria died and in October, 1890, I married my present wife, whose maiden name was Donna Paz Paderes, and who belongs to an old line of Spanish aristocracy in Mexico. We are now living together in the peace and contentment of old age, well occupied in bringing up and providing for our family of two children, Mary, who will be twenty years old on February 25, 1915, and Charlie, who will be sixteen on the same date. Both our children, by the grace of God, have been spared us after severe illnesses. * * * * * To make hundreds of implacable enemies at one stroke is something any man would very naturally hesitate to do, but I did just that about a year after I commenced working for D. A. Sanford, one of the biggest ranchers between the railroad and the border. The explanation of this lies in one word--sheep. If there was one man whom cattlemen hated with a fierce, unreasoning hatred, it was the man who ran sheep over the open range--a proceeding perfectly legal, but one which threatened the grazing of the cattle inasmuch as where sheep had grazed it was impossible for cattle to feed for some weeks, or until the grass had had time to grow again. Sheep crop almost to the ground and feed in great herds, close together, and the range after a herd of sheep has passed over it looks as if somebody had gone over it with a lawnmower. In 1881 I closed out the old Sanford ranch stock and was informed by my employer that he had foreclosed a mortgage on 13,000 head of sheep owned by Tully, Ochoa and De Long of Tucson. This firm was the biggest at that time in the Territory and the De Long of the company was one of the six men who led the Papagos in the Camp Grant Massacre. He died in Tucson recently and I am now the only white survivor of that occurrence. Tully, Ochoa and De Long were forced out of business by the coming of the railroad in 1880, which cheapened things so much that the large stock held by the company was sold at prices below what it had cost, necessitating bankruptcy. I was not surprised to hear that Sanford intended to run sheep, though I will admit that the information was scarcely welcome. Sheep, however, at that time were much scarcer than cattle and fetched, consequently, much higher prices. My employer, D. A. Sanford, who now lives in Washington, D. C., was one of the shrewdest business men in the Territory, and was, as well, one of the best-natured of men. His business acumen is testified to by the fact that he is now sufficiently wealthy to count his pile in the seven figures. Mr. Sanford's wishes being my own in the matter, of course, I did as I was told, closed out the cattle stock and set the sheep grazing on the range. The cattlemen were angry and sent me an ultimatum to the effect that if the sheep were not at once taken off the grass there would be "trouble." I told them that Sanford was my boss, not them; that I would take his orders and nobody else's, and that until he told me to take the sheep off the range they'd stay precisely where they were. My reply angered the cattlemen more and before long I became subject to many annoyances. Sheep were found dead, stock was driven off, my ranch hands were shot at, and several times I myself narrowly escaped death at the hands of the enraged cattlemen. I determined not to give in until I received orders to that effect from Mr. Sanford, but I will admit that it was with a feeling of distinct relief that I hailed those orders when they came three years later. For one thing, before the sheep business came up, most of the cattlemen who were now my enemies had been my close friends, and it hurt me to lose their esteem. I am glad to say, however, that most of these cattlemen and cowboys, who, when I ran sheep, would cheerfully have been responsible for my funeral, are my very good friends at the present time; and I trust they will always remain so. Most of them are good fellows and I have always admitted that their side had the best argument. In spite of the opposition of the cattlemen I made the sheep business a paying one for Mr. Sanford, clearing about $17,000 at the end of three years. When that period had elapsed I had brought shearers to Sanford Station to shear the sheep, but was stopped in my intention with the news that Sanford had sold the lot to Pusch and Zellweger of Tucson. I paid off the men I had hired, satisfied them, and thus closed my last deal in the sheep business. One of the men, Jesus Mabot, I hired to go to the Rodeo with me, while the Chinese gardener hired another named Fernando. Then occurred that curious succession of fatalities among the Chinamen in the neighborhood that puzzled us all for years and ended by its being impossible to obtain a Chinaman to fill the last man's place. DEPUTY SHERIFF, CATTLEMAN AND FARMER _You kin have yore Turner sunsets,--he never painted one Like th' Santa Rita Mountains at th' settin' o' th' sun! You kin have yore Eastern cornfields, with th' crops that never change, Me--I've all Arizona, and, best o' all, the Range!_ --WOON. About this time Sheriff Bob Paul reigned in Tucson and made me one of his deputies. I had numerous adventures in that capacity, but remember only one as being worth recording here. One of the toughest characters in the West at that time, a man feared throughout the Territory, was Pat Cannon. He had a score of killings to his credit, and, finally, when Paul became sheriff a warrant was issued for his arrest on a charge of murder. After he had the warrant Paul came to me. "Cady," he said, "you know Pat Cannon, don't you?" "I worked with him once," I answered. "Well," returned Paul, "here's a warrant for his arrest on a murder charge. Go get him." I obtained a carryall and an Italian boy as driver, in Tucson, and started for Camp Grant. Arrived there I was informed that it was believed Cannon was at Smithy's wood camp, several miles away. We went on to Smithy's wood camp. Sure enough, Pat was there--very much so. He was the first man I spotted as I drove into the camp. Cannon was sitting at the door of his shack, two revolvers belted on him and his rifle standing up by the door at his side, within easy reach. I knew that Pat didn't know that I was a deputy, so I drove right up. "Hello," I called. "How's the chance for a game of poker?" "Pretty good," he returned, amiably. "Smithy'll be in in a few moments, John. Stick around--we have a game every night." "Sure," I responded, and descended. As I did so I drew my six-shooter and whirled around, aiming the weapon at him point blank. "Hands up, Pat, you son-of-a-gun," I said, and I guess I grinned. "You're my prisoner." I had told the Italian boy what to do, beforehand, and he now gave me the steel bracelets, which I snapped on Cannon, whose face bore an expression seemingly a mixture of intense astonishment and disgust. Finally, when I had him safely in the carryall, he spat out a huge chew of tobacco and swore. He said nothing to me for awhile, and then he remarked, in an injured way: "Wa-al, Johnny, I sure would never have thought it of you!" He said nothing more, except to ask me to twist him a cigarette or two, and when we reached Tucson I turned him over safely to Sheriff Paul. * * * * * You who read this in your stuffy city room, or crowded subway seat, imagine, if you can, the following scene: Above, the perfect, all-embracing blue of the Arizona sky; set flaming in the middle of it the sun, a glorious blazing orb whose beauty one may dare to gaze upon only through smoked glasses; beneath, the Range, which, far from being a desert, is covered with a growth of grass which grows thicker and greener as the rivers' banks are reached. All around, Arizona--the painted hills, looking as though someone had carefully swept them early in the morning with a broom; the valleys studded with mesquite trees and greasewood and dotted here and there with brown specks which even the uninitiated will know are cattle, and the river, one of Arizona's minor streams, a few yards across and only a couple of feet deep, but swift-rushing, pebble-strew'd and clear as crystal. Last, but not least, a heterogeneous mob of cowboys and vaqueros, with their horses champing at the bit and eager to be off on their work. In the foreground a rough, unpainted corral, where are more ponies--wicked-looking, intelligent little beggars, but quick turning as though they owned but two legs instead of four, and hence priceless for the work of the roundup. In the distance, some of them quietly and impudently grazing quite close at hand, are the cattle, the object of the day's gathering. Cowboys from perhaps a dozen or more ranches are gathered here, for this is the commencement of the Rodeo--the roundup of cattle that takes place semi-annually. Even ranches whose cattle are not grazed on this particular range have representatives here, for often there are strays with brands that show them to have traveled many scores of miles. The business of the cowboys[3] is to round up and corral the cattle and pick out their own brands from the herd. They then see that the unbranded calves belonging to cows of their brand are properly marked with the hot iron and with the ear-slit, check up the number of yearlings for the benefit of their employers, and take charge of such of the cattle it is considered advisable to drive back to the home ranch. So much sentimental nonsense has been talked of the cruelty of branding and slitting calves that it is worth while here, perhaps, to state positively that the branding irons do not penetrate the skin and serve simply to burn the roots of the hair so that the bald marks will show to which ranch the calf belongs. There is little pain to the calf attached to the operation, and one rarely if ever even sees a calf licking its brand after it has been applied; and, as is well known, the cow's remedy for an injury, like that of a dog, is always to lick it. As to the ear-slitting, used by most ranches as a check on their brands, it may be said that if the human ear is somewhat callous to pain--as it is--the cow's ear is even more so. One may slice a cow's ear in half in a certain way and she will feel only slight pain, not sufficient to make her give voice. The slitting of a cow's ear draws very little blood. While I am on the subject,--it was amusing to note the unbounded astonishment of the cattlemen of Arizona a few years ago when some altruistic society of Boston came forward with a brilliant idea that was to abolish the cruelty of branding cows entirely. What was the idea? Oh, they were going to hang a collar around the cow's neck, with a brass tag on it to tell the name of the owner. Or, if that wasn't feasible, they thought that a simple ring and tag put through the cow's ear-lobe would prove eminently satisfactory! The feelings of the cowboys, when told that they would be required to dismount from their horses, walk up to each cow in turn and politely examine her tag, perhaps with the aid of spectacles, may be better imagined than described. It is sufficient to say that the New England society's idea never got further than Massachusetts, if it was, indeed, used there, which is doubtful. The brand is absolutely necessary as long as there is an open range, and the abolishment of the open range will mean the abandonment of the cow-ranch. At the time I am speaking of the whole of the Territory of Arizona was one vast open range, over the grassy portions of which cattle belonging to hundreds of different ranches roamed at will. Most of the big ranches employed a few cowboys the year around to keep the fences in repair and to prevent cows from straying too far from the home range. The home range was generally anywhere within a twenty-mile radius of the ranch house. The ear-slit was first found necessary because of the activities of the rustlers. There were two kinds of these gentry--the kind that owned ranches and passed themselves off as honest ranchers, and the open outlaws, who drove off cattle by first stampeding them in the Indian manner, rushed them across the international line and then sold them to none too scrupulous Mexican ranchers. Of the two it is difficult to say which was the most dangerous or the most reviled by the honest cattlemen. The ranches within twenty or thirty miles of the border, perhaps, suffered more from the stampeders than from the small ranchers, but those on the northern ranges had constantly to cope with the activities of dishonest cattlemen who owned considerably more calves than they had cows, as a rule. The difficulty was to prove that these calves had been stolen. It was no difficult thing to steal cattle successfully, providing the rustler exercised ordinary caution. The method most in favor among the rustlers was as follows: For some weeks the rustler would ride the range, noting where cows with unbranded calves were grazing. Then, when he had ascertained that no cowboys from neighboring ranches were riding that way, he would drive these cows and their calves into one of the secluded and natural corrals with which the range abounds, rope the calves, brand them with his own brand, hobble and sometimes kill the mother cows to prevent them following their offspring, and drive the latter to his home corral, where in the course of a few weeks they would forget their mothers and be successfully weaned. They would then be turned out to graze on the Range. Sometimes when the rustler did not kill the mother cow the calf proved not to have been successfully weaned, and went back to its mother--the worst possible advertisement of the rustler's dirty work. Generally, therefore, the mother cow was killed, and little trace left of the crime, for the coyotes speedily cleaned flesh, brand and all from the bones of the slain animal. The motto of most of these rustlers was: "A dead cow tells no tales!" [Illustration: CADY AND HIS THIRD FAMILY, 1915] Another method of the rustlers was to adopt a brand much like that of a big ranch near by, and to over-brand the cattle. For instance, a big ranch with thousands of cattle owns the brand Cross-Bar (X--). The rustler adopts the brand Cross L (XL) and by the addition of a vertical mark to the bar in the first brand completely changes the brand. It was always a puzzle for the ranchers to find brands that would not be easily changed. Rustlers engaged in this work invariably took grave chances, for a good puncher could tell a changed brand in an instant, and often knew every cow belonging to his ranch by sight, without looking at the brand. When one of these expert cowboys found a suspicious brand he lost no time hunting up proof, and if he found that there had actually been dirty work, the rustler responsible, if wise, would skip the country without leaving note of his destination, for in the days of which I speak the penalty for cow-stealing was almost always death, except when the sheriff happened to be on the spot. Since the sheriff was invariably heart and soul a cattleman himself, he generally took care that he wasn't anywhere in the neighborhood when a cattle thief met his just deserts. Even now this rule holds effect in the cattle lands. Only two years ago a prominent rancher in this country--the Sonoita Range--shot and killed a Mexican who with a partner had been caught red-handed in the act of stealing cattle. With the gradual disappearance of the open range, cattle stealing has practically stopped, although one still hears at times of cases of the kind, isolated, but bearing traces of the same old methods. Stampeding is, of course, now done away with. During the years I worked for D. A. Sanford I had more or less trouble all the time with cattle thieves, but succeeded fairly well in either detecting the guilty ones or in getting back the stolen cattle. I meted out swift and sure justice to rustlers, and before long it became rumored around that it was wise to let cattle with the D.S. brand alone. The Sanford brand was changed three times. The D.S. brand I sold to the Vail interests for Sanford, and the Sanford brand was changed to the Dipper, which, afterwards, following the closing out of the Sanford stock, was again altered to the Ninety-Seven (97) brand. Cattle with the 97 brand on them still roam the range about the Sonoita. * * * * * It was to a rodeo similar to the one which I have attempted to describe that Jesus Mabot and I departed following the incident of the selling of the sheep. We were gone a week. When we returned I put up my horse and was seeing that he had some feed when a shout from Jesus, whom I had sent to find the Chinese gardener to tell him we needed something to eat, came to my ears. "Oyez, Senor Cady!" Jesus was crying, "El Chino muerte." I hurried down to the field where Mabot stood and found him gazing at the Chinaman, who was lying face downward near the fence, quite dead. By the smell and the general lay-out, I reckoned he had been dead some three days. I told Mabot to stay with him and, jumping on my horse, rode to Crittenden, where I obtained a coroner and a jury that would sit on the Chinaman's death. The next morning the jury found that he had been killed by some person or persons unknown, and let it go at that. Two weeks later I had occasion to go to Tucson, and on tying my horse outside the Italian Brothers' saloon, noticed a man I thought looked familiar sitting on the bench outside. As I came up he pulled his hat over his face so that I could not see it. I went inside, ordered a drink, and looked in the mirror. It gave a perfect reflection of the man outside, and I saw that he was the Mexican Fernando, whom the Chinese gardener had hired when I had engaged Mabot. I had my suspicions right then as to who had killed the Chinaman, but, having nothing by which to prove them, I was forced to let the matter drop. Two or three years after this I hired as vaquero a Mexican named Neclecto, who after a year quit work and went for a visit to Nogales. Neclecto bought his provisions from the Chinaman who kept the store I had built on the ranch, and so, as we were responsible for the debt, when Bob Bloxton, son-in-law of Sanford, came to pay the Mexican off, he did so in the Chinaman's store. The next morning Neclecto accompanied Bloxton to the train, and, looking back, Bob saw, the Mexican and another man ride off in the direction of the ranch. After it happened Neclecto owned up that he had been in the Chinaman's that night drinking, but insisted that he had left without any trouble with the yellow-skinned storekeeper. But from that day onward the Chinaman was never seen again. Bloxton persuaded me to return to the ranch from Nogales and we visited the Chinaman's house, where we found the floor dug up as though somebody had been hunting treasure. My wife found a $10 gold piece hidden in a crack between the 'dobe bricks and later my son, John, unearthed twelve Mexican dollars beneath some manure in the hen-coop. Whether this had belonged to the Chinaman, Louey, who had disappeared, or to another Chinaman who had been staying with him, we could not determine. At any rate, we found no trace of Louey or his body. Even this was not to be the end of the strange series of fatalities to Chinamen on the Sanford ranch. In 1897 I quit the Sanford foremanship after working for my employer seventeen years, and turned the ranch over to Amos Bloxton, another son-in-law of Sanford. I rented agricultural land from Sanford and fell to farming. Near my place Crazy John, a Chinaman, had his gardens, where he made 'dobe bricks besides growing produce. We were living then in the old store building and the Chinaman was making bricks about a quarter of a mile away with a Mexican whom he employed. One day we found him dead and the Mexican gone. After that, as was natural, we could never persuade a Chinaman to live anywhere near the place. I later built a house of the bricks the Chinaman was making when he met his death. The Mexican escaped to Sonora, came back when he thought the affair had blown over and went to work for the railroad at Sonoita. There he had a fracas with the section foreman, stabbed him and made off into the hills. Sheriff Wakefield from Tucson came down to get the man and shot him dead near Greaterville, which ended the incident. In the preceding I have mentioned the railroad. This was the Benson-Hermosillo road, built by the Santa Fe and later sold to the Southern Pacific, which extended the line to San Blas in Coahuila, and which is now in process of extending it further to the city of Tepic. I was one of those who helped survey the original line from Benson to Nogales--I think the date was 1883. In future times I venture to state that this road will be one of the best-paying properties of the Southern Pacific Company, which has had the courage and foresight to open up the immensely rich empire of Western Mexico. The west coast of Mexico is yet in the baby stage of its development. The revolutions have hindered progress there considerably, but when peace comes at last and those now shouldering arms for this and that faction in the Republic return to the peaceful vocations they owned before the war began, there is no doubt that the world will stand astonished at the riches of this, at present, undeveloped country. There are portions of the West Coast that have never been surveyed, that are inhabited to this day with peaceful Indians who have seldom seen a white face. The country is scattered with the ruins of wonderful temples and cathedrals and, doubtless, much of the old Aztec treasure still lies buried for some enterprising fortune-seeker to unearth. There are also immense forests of cedar and mahogany and other hard woods to be cut; and extensive areas of land suitable for sugar planting and other farming to be brought under cultivation. When all this is opened up the West Coast cannot help taking its place as a wonderfully rich and productive region. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote 3: The term "cowpuncher" is not common in Arizona as in Montana, but the Arizona cowboys are sometimes called "vaqueros."] IN AGE THE CRICKET CHIRPS AND BRINGS-- _A faltering step on life's highway, A grip on the bottom rung; A few good deeds done here and there, And my life's song is sung. It's not what you get in pelf that counts, It's not your time in the race, For most of us draw the slower mounts, And our deeds can't keep the pace. It's for each what he's done of kindness, And for each what he's done of cheer, That goes on the Maker's scorebook With each succeeding year._ --WOON. While I was farming on the Sanford ranch a brother-in-law of D. A. Sanford, Frank Lawrence by name, came to live with me. Frank was a splendid fellow and we were fast friends. One day during the Rodeo we were out where the vaqueros were working and on our return found our home, a 'dobe house, burned down, and all our belongings with it, including considerable provisions. My loss was slight, for in those days I owned a prejudice against acquiring any more worldly goods than I could with comfort pack on my back; but Frank lost a trunk containing several perfectly good suits of clothes and various other more or less valuable articles which he set great store by, besides over a hundred dollars in greenbacks. We hunted among the ruins, of course, but not a vestige of anything savable did we find. Three days later, however, Sanford himself arrived and took one look at the ruins. Then, without a word, he started poking about with his stick. From underneath where his bed had been he dug up a little box containing several hundred dollars in greenbacks, and from the earth beneath the charred ruins of the chest of drawers he did likewise. Then he stood up and laughed at us. I will admit that he had a perfect right to laugh. He, the one man of the three of us who could best afford to lose anything, was the only man whose money had been saved. Which only goes to prove the proverbial luck of the rich man. Not long after this experience I moved to Crittenden, where I farmed awhile, running buggy trips to the mines in the neighborhood as a side line. One day a man named Wheeler, of Wheeler & Perry, a Tucson merchandise establishment, came to Crittenden and I drove him out to Duquesne. On the way Wheeler caught sight of a large fir-pine tree growing on the slope of a hill. He pointed to it and said: "Say, John, I'd give something to have that tree in my house at Christmas." It was then a week or so to the twenty-fifth of December. I glanced at the tree and asked him: "You would, eh? Now, about how much would you give?" "I'd give five dollars," he said. "Done!" I said. "You give me five dollars and count that tree yours for Christmas!" And we shook hands on it. A few days later I rigged up a wagon, took along three Mexicans with axes, and cut a load of Christmas trees--I think there were some three hundred in the load. Then I drove the wagon to Tucson and after delivering Wheeler his especial tree and receiving the stipulated five dollars for it, commenced peddling the rest on the streets. And, say! Those Christmas trees sold like wildfire. Everybody wanted one. I sold them for as low as six-bits and as high as five dollars, and before I left pretty nearly everybody in Tucson owned one of my trees. When I counted up I found that my trip had netted me, over and above expenses, just one thousand dollars. This, you will have to admit, was some profit for a load of Christmas trees. Sad to relate, however, a year later when I tried to repeat the performance, I found about forty other fellows ahead of me loaded to the guards with Christmas trees of all kinds and sizes. For a time Christmas trees were cheaper than mesquite brush as the overstocked crowd endeavored to unload on an oversupplied town. I escaped with my outfit and my life but no profits--that time. * * * * * On December 15, 1900, I moved to Patagonia, which had just been born on the wave of the copper boom. I rented a house, which I ran successfully for one year, and then started the building of the first wing of the Patagonia Hotel, which I still own and run; together with a dance-hall, skating rink and restaurant. Since that first wing was built the hotel has changed considerably in appearance, for whenever I got far enough ahead to justify it, I built additions. I think I may say that now the hotel is one of the best structures of its kind in the county. I am considering the advisability of more additions, including a large skating rink and dance-hall, but the copper situation does not justify me in the outlay at present. I am entirely satisfied with my location, however. Patagonia is not a large place, but it is full of congenial friends and will one day, when the copper industry again finds its feet, be a large town. It is in the very heart of the richest mining zone in the world, if the assayers are to be believed. Some of the mining properties, now nearly all temporarily closed down, are world-famous--I quote for example the Three R., the World's Fair, the Flux, the Santa Cruz, the Hardshell, the Harshaw, the Hermosa, the Montezuma, the Mansfield and the Mowry. This last, nine miles from Patagonia, was a producer long before the Civil War. Lead and silver mined at the Mowry were transported to Galveston to be made into bullets for the war--imagine being hit with a silver bullet! In 1857 Sylvester Mowry, owner of the Mowry mine and one of the earliest pioneers of Arizona, was chosen delegate to Congress by petition of the people, but was not admitted to his seat. Mowry was subsequently banished from Arizona by Commander Carleton and his mine confiscated for reasons which were never quite clear. * * * * * My purpose in writing these memoirs is two-fold: First, I desired that my children should have a record which could be referred to by them after I am gone; and, secondly, that the State of Arizona, my adopted home, should be the richer for the possession of the facts I have at my disposal. I want the reader to understand that even though the process of evolution has taken a life-time, I cannot cease wondering at the marvelous development of the Territory and, later, State of Arizona. When I glance back over the vista of years and see the old, and then open my eyes to survey the new, it is almost as though a Verne or a Haggard sketch had come to life. Who, in an uneventful stop-over at Geronimo, Graham county, would believe that these same old Indians who sit so peacefully mouthing their cigarros at the trading store were the terrible Apaches of former days--the same avenging demons who murdered emigrants, fought the modernly-equipped soldier with bow and arrow, robbed and looted right and left and finally were forced to give in to their greatest enemy, Civilization. And who shall begin to conjecture the thoughts that now and again pass through the brains of these old Apache relics, living now so quietly on the bounty of a none-too-generous government? What dreams of settlement massacres, of stage robberies, of desperate fights, they may conjure up until the wheezy arrival of the Arizona Eastern locomotive disperses their visions with the blast of sordid actuality! For the Arizona that I knew back in the Frontier days was the embodiment of the Old West--the West of sudden fortune and still more sudden death; the West of romance and of gold; of bad whiskey and doubtful women; of the hardy prospector and the old cattleman, who must gaze a little sadly back along the trail as they near the end of it, at thought of the days that may never come again. And now I myself am reaching the end of my long and eventful journey, and I can say, bringing to mind my youth and all that followed it, that I have _lived_, really _lived_, and I am content. THE END. +-----------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | | | | Page 80 recklesssly changed to recklessly | | Page 82 Wickenberg changed to Wickenburg | +-----------------------------------------------+ 
29485	----	[Illustration: WE MAKES FOUR TRIPS BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN WOLFVILLE AND RED DOG, CRACKIN' OFF OUR GOOD OLD '45'S AT IRREG'LAR INTERVALS, FARO NELL ON HER CALICO PONY AS THE GODDESS OF LIBERTY, BUSTIN' AWAY WITH THE REST. Frontispiece. p. 170.] FARO NELL AND HER FRIENDS WOLFVILLE STORIES BY ALFRED HENRY LEWIS AUTHOR OF "WOLFVILLE," "WOLFVILLE DAYS," "WOLFVILLE NIGHTS," "WOLFVILLE FOLKS," "THE BOSS," "THE SUNSET TRAIL," "THE APACHES OF NEW YORK," "THE STORY OF PAUL JONES," ETC. ILLUSTRATIONS BY W. HERBERT DUNTON AND J. N. MARCHAND G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Copyright, 1913, By G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY Faro Nell and Her Friends THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO WILLIAM EUGENE LEWIS AS MARKING MY APPRECIATION OF WHAT QUALITIES PLACE HIM HIGH AMONG THE BEST EDITORS BEST BROTHERS AND BEST MEN I'VE EVER MET A. H. L. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I DEAD SHOT BAKER 7 II OLD MAN ENRIGHT'S UNCLE 39 III CYNTHIANA, PET-NAMED ORIGINAL SIN 61 IV OLD MONTE, OFFICIAL DRUNKARD 99 V HOW THE MOCKING BIRD WAS WON 126 VI THAT WOLFVILLE-RED DOG FOURTH 148 VII PROPRIETY PRATT, HYPNOTIST 176 VIII THAT TURNER PERSON 198 IX RED MIKE 225 X HOW TUTT SHOT TEXAS THOMPSON 260 XI THE FUNERAL OF OLD HOLT 295 XII SPELLING BOOK BEN 320 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE We makes four trips back and forth between Wolfville and Red Dog, crackin' off our good old '45's at irreg'lar intervals, Faro Nell on her calico pony as the Goddess of Liberty, bustin' away with the rest. . . . Frontispiece 170 We're all discussin' the doin's of this yere road-agent when Dan gets back from Red-Dog, an' the result is he unloads his findin's on a dead kyard. 18 Dead Shot stops short at this hitch in the discussion, by reason of a bullet from the Lightin' Bug's pistol which lodges in his lung. 28 The second evening Old Stallins is with us, Dan Boggs an' Texas Thompson uplifts his aged sperits with the "Love Dance of the Catamounts." 42 "It's you, Oscar, that I want," observes Miss Bark. "I concloodes, upon sober second thought, to accept your offer of marriage." 90 A couple of Enright's riders comes a packin' a live bobcat into town. 118 Turkey Track, seein' he's afoot an' thirty miles from his home ranch pulls his gun an' sticks up the mockin' bird's buckboard. 138 We sees the Turner person aboard an' wishes him all kinds of luck. 222 "What's the subject?" Peets asks. "That, my friend, is the 'Linden in October,'" returns Mike, as though he's a showin' us a picture of Heaven's front gate. 238 "Him an' Annalinda shore do constitoote a picture. 'Thar's a pa'r to draw to,' says Nell to Texas, her eyes like brown diamonds." 280 Thar's a bombardment which sounds like a battery of gatlings, the whole punctchooated by a whirlwind of "whoops!" 316 "Onless girls is barred," declares Faro Nell, from her perch on the chair "I've a notion to take a hand." 336 FARO NELL AND HER FRIENDS I DEAD SHOT BAKER "Which you never knows Dead Shot Baker?" This, from the old cattleman, with a questioning glance my way. "No? Well, you shore misses knowin' a man! Still, it ain't none so strange neither; even Wolfville's acquaintance with Dead Shot's only what you-all might call casyooal, him not personally lastin' more'n three months. "This yere Dead Shot has a wife. Thar's women you don't want to see ontil you're tired, an' women you don't want to see ontil you're rested, an' women you don't want to see no how--don't want to see at all. This wife of Dead Shot's belongs with the latter bunch. "Last evenin' I'm readin' whar one of them philosophic sports asserts that women, that a-way, is shore the sublimation of the oncertain. That's how he lays it down; an' he never hedges the bluff for so much as a single chip. He insists that you can't put a bet on women; that you can bet on hosses or kyards or 'lections, but not on women--women bein' too plumb oncertain. As I reads along, I can't he'p feelin' that somehow this philosophic party must have knowed Dead Shot's wife. "The first time we-all ever sees Dead Shot, he comes trackin' into the Red Light one evenin' jest after the stage rolls up. Bein' it's encroachin' on second drink time, he sidles up to the bar; an' then, his manner some diffident an' apol'getic, he says: "'Gents, do you-all feel like a little licker, that a-way?' "It bein' imp'lite to reefuse, we assembles within strikin' distance of the bottles Black Jack is slammin' the len'th of the counter, an' begins spillin' out our forty drops. At this he turns even more apol'getic. "'Which I trusts,' he says, 'that no one'll mind much if I takes water?' "Of course no one minds. Wolfville don't make no speshulty of forcin' whiskey onto no gent who's disinclined. If they prefers water, we encourages 'em. "'An' for this yere reason,' expounds Boggs, once when he ondertakes to explain the public attitoode towards water to some inquirin' tenderfoot--'an' for this partic'lar reason: Arizona is a dry an' arid clime; an' water drinkers bein' a cur'ous rarity, we admires to keep a spec'men or two buck-jumpin' about, so's to study their habits.' "As we picks up our glasses, Dead Shot sets to introdoocin' himse'f. "'My name, gents,' he says, 'is Baker, Abner Baker. The Wells-Fargo folks sends me down yere from Santa Fe to ride shotgun for 'em.' "The name's plenty s'fficient. It's him who goes to a showdown with them three road agents who lays for the stage over in a spur of the Black Range back of San Marcial, an' hives the three. That battle saves the company $200,000; an', they're that pleased with Dead Shot's industry, they skins the company's bankroll for a bundle of money the size of a roll of blankets, an' gives it to him by way of reward. It's the talk of the two territories. "While we-all knows Dead Shot when he speaks his name, none of us lets on. It's ag'inst ettiquette in the southwest to know more of a gent than what he tells himse'f. "'So water's all you samples?' puts in Texas Thompson, as we stands an' drinks. "'It's like this,' explains Dead Shot, appealin' round with his eye. 'You see I can't drink nosepaint none, an' drink successful.' "'Shore,' observes Faro Nell, who's takin' her diminyootive toddy right at Dead Shot's elbow; 'thar's gents so organized that to go givin' 'em licker is like tryin' to play a harp with a hammer.' "That's me,' exclaims Dead Shot; 'that's me, Miss, every time. Give me a spoonful, an' I deemands a bar'l. After which, thar ain't no se'f respectin' camp that'll stand for my game.' "'I savvys what you means,' says Tutt; 'I reecalls in my own case how, on the hocks of mebby it's the ninth drink--which this is years an' years ago, though--I mistakes a dem'crat primary for a Methodist praise meetin', an' comes ramblin' in an' offers to lead in pra'r. Which I carries the scars to this day.' "'Which is why, Dave,' interjecks Cherokee Hall, in hopes of settin' Tutt to pitchin' on his p'litical rope, him bein' by nacher a oncompromisin' reepublican that a-way--'which is why you always holds dem'crats so low.' "'But I don't hold 'em low,' protests Tutt. 'Thar's heaps to be said for dem'crats, leastwise for the sort that's pesterin' 'round in the country I hails from.' "'What be your dem'crats like, Dave?' Texas urges. 'Which I wants to see if they're same as the kind I cuts the trail of down about Laredo.' "'Well,' returns Tutt, 'simply hittin' the high places, them dem'crats by which I'm born surrounded chews tobacco, sw'ars profoosely, drinks mighty exhaustive, hates niggers, an' some of 'em can read.' "'That deescription goes for Laredo, too,' Texas allows. 'This yere jedge, who gives my wife her divorce that time, an' sets the sheriff to sellin' up my steers for costs an' al'mony, is a dem'crat. What you says, Dave, is the merest picture of that joorist.' "'I expects my wife'll come rackin' along _poco tiempo,'_ Dead Shot remarks, after a pause. 'I'm yere as advance gyard to sling things into shape.' "It's as good as a toone of music to see how softly his face lights up. He's as big an' wide an' thick an' strong as Boggs, an' yet it's plain as paint that this yere wife of his, whoever she is, can jest nacherally make curl-papers of him. "That mention of a wife as usual sets Texas to growlin'. "'Thar you be, Dan!' I overhears him whisper, same as if he's been ill-treated; 'the instant this Dead-Shot says "Water" I'm onto it that he's a married man. Water an' matrimony goes hand in hand.' "'Now I don't see why none?' retorts Boggs. "'Because water's weakenin'. Feed a sport on water, an' it's a cinch he falls a prey to the first female who ropes at him.' "'Thar's Dave,' Boggs argyoos, noddin' towards Tutt. 'Ain't he drinkin' that time he weds Tucson Jennie?' "'Dave's the exception. Also, you-all remembers them circumstances, Dan. Dave don't marry Jennie; Jennie simply ups an' has him.' "'All the same,' contends Boggs, 'I don't regyard Dead Shot's sobriety as no drawback. Thar's lots of folks who's cap'ble of bein' sober an' sociable at one an' the same time.' "These yere low-voiced wranglin's between Texas an' Boggs is off to one side. Meanwhile, the gen'ral confab proceeds. "'You ain't been long hooked up?' says Doc Peets, addressin' Dead Shot. "'About a year. She's in the stage that time I has the trouble with them hold-ups in the Black Range, an' she allows she likes my style.' "'We-all hears about that Black Range battle,' remarks Enright. "'It's a mighty lucky play for me,' says Dead Shot; 'I don't ree'lize it while I'm workin' my winchester, but I'm winnin' a angel all the time. That's on the level, gents! I never puts my arm 'round her yet, but what I go feelin' for wings.' "'Don't this make you sick?' Texas growls to Boggs. "'No, it don't,' Boggs replies. 'On the contrary, I'm teched.' "'Gents,' goes on Dead Shot, an' I sees his mustache tremble that a-way; 'I don't mind confessin' she's that angelic I'm half afraid to marry her. I ain't fine enough! It's like weddin' gunny-sack to silk--me makin' her my wife. Which I shore has to think an' argyoo with myse'f a whole lot, before I gets the courage. Ain't you-all ever noticed'--yere he appeals 'round to Peets--'that every time you meets up with a angel, thar's always some smoke-begrimed an' sin-encrusted son of Satan workin' double-turn to support her?' "Peets nods. "'Shore! Well, it's sech reflections which final gives me the reequired sand. An' so, one evenin' up in Albuquerque, we prances over before a padre an' we're married. You bet, it's like a vision.' "'Any papooses?' asks Tutt, plumb pompous. "'None as yet,' confesses Dead Shot, lookin' abashed. "'Which I've nacherally got one,' an' yere Tutt swells. 'You can put your case _peso_ on it he's the real thing, too.' "'Little Enright Peets is certainly a fine child,' remarks Nell. 'Dave, you're shore licensed to be proud of him.' "'That's whatever,' adds Boggs. 'Little Enright Peets is nothin' short of bein' the No'th Star of all hoomanity!' "Mebby a week passes, an' one mornin' Dead Shot goes squanderin' over to Tucson to bring his wife. An' nacherally we're on what they calls in St. Looey the 'quee vee' to see her. At that, we-all don't crowd 'round permiscus when the stage arrives, an' we avoids everything which borders on mob voylence. "Dead Shot hits the street, lookin' that happy it's like he's in a dream, an' then goes feelin' about, soft an' solic'tous, inside. At last he lifts her out, an' stands thar holdin' her in his arms. She's shore beautiful; only she ain't no bigger 'n a ten year old youngone. Yellow-ha'red an' bloo-eyed, she makes you think of these yere china ornaments that's regyarded artistic by the Dutch. "They're certainly a contrast--him big as a house, her as small an' pretty as a doll! An' you should see that enamored Dead Shot look at her!--long an' deep, like a man drinkin'! Son, sometimes I fears women, that a-way, misses all knowledge of how much they're loved. "'She ain't sick,' says Dead Shot, speakin' gen'ral; 'only she twists her off ankle gettin' out at the last station.' "Dead Shot heads for the little 'dobe he's fitted up, packin' his bloo-eyed doll in his arms. What's our impressions? No gent who signs the books as sech'll say anything ag'in a lady; but between us, thar's a sooperior wrinklin' of the little tipped-up nose, an' a cold feel to them bloo eyes, which don't leave us plumb enthoosiastic. "'It's like this,' volunteers Enright, who stacks in to explain things. 'Every gent's got his ideal; an' this yere wife of his is Dead Shot's ideal.' "'Whatever's an ideal, Doc?' asks Boggs, who's always romancin' about for information. "'Which an ideal, Dan,' Peets replies, 'is the partic'lar gold brick you're tryin' to buy.' "At the time Dead Shot's standin' thar with his fam'ly in his arms, Nell comes out on the Red Light steps to take a peek. Also, Missis Rucker an' Tucson Jennie is hoverin' about all sim'lar. After Dead Shot an' his bride has faded into their 'dobe, them three experts holds a energetic consultation in the street. Of course, none of us has the hardihood to go j'inin' in their deelib'rations, but from what's said later we gets a slant at their concloosions. "'Dead Shot's a mighty sight too good for her,' is how Missis Rucker gives jedgment. 'It's peltin' pigs with pearls for him to go lovin' her like he does.' "Shore; bein' ladies that-a-way, Missis Rucker, Tucson Jennie an' Faro Nell all visits Dead Shot's wife. But the feelin' is that they finds her some stuck up an' haughty. This yere notion is upheld by Nell callin' her a 'minx,' while Tucson Jennie alloodes to her as a 'cat' on two sep'rate occasions. "Dead Shot an' his doll-bride, in the beginnin', seems to be gettin' along all right. It's only when thar's money goin' over, that Dead Shot has to buckle on his guns an' ride out with the stage. This gives him lots of time to hang 'round, an' worship her. Which I'm yere to reemark that if ever a white man sets up an idol, that a-way, an' says his pra'rs to it, that gent's Dead Shot. Thar's nothin' to it; prick her finger, an' you pierce his heart. "'It'd be beautiful if it wasn't awful,' says Faro Nell. "It ain't a month when events lifts up their p'isin heads, which goes to jestify them comments of Nell's. Thar's been a White House shift back in Washington, an' a new postmaster's sent out. He's a dapper party, with what Peets calls a 'Van Dyke' beard, an' smells like a ha'r-dresser's shop. "Now if affairs stops thar, we could have stood it; but they don't. I abhors to say so, but it ain't two weeks before Dead Shot's wife's makin' onmistak'ble eyes at that postmaster. Them times when Dead Shot's dooties has took him to the other end of the trail, she's over to the post office constant. None of us says anything, not even to ourselves; but when it gets to whar she shoves you away from the letter place, an' begins talkin' milk and honey to him right under your nose, onless you're as blind as steeple bats, an' as deaf as the adder of scriptoore which stoppeth her y'ear, you're shore bound to do some thinkin'. [Illustration: WE'RE ALL DISCUSSIN' THE DOIN'S OF THIS YERE ROAD-AGENT WHEN DAN GETS BACK FROM RED-DOG, AN' THE RESULT IS HE UNLOADS HIS FINDIN'S ON A DEAD KYARD. p. 18.] "'Which if ever a gov'ment offishul,' exclaims Texas, as he comes t'arin' into the Red Light one evenin', deemandin' drinks--'which if ever a gov'ment offishul goes organizin' his own fooneral that a-way, it's this yere deeboshed postmaster next door!' "Thar's nothin' said, but we-all knows what's on Texas's mind. That wife of Dead Shot's, for the fo'th time that day, has gone askin' for letters. "'She writes 'em to herse'f,' is the way Missis Rucker lays it down. 'Also, it's doo to the crim'nal besottedness of that egreegious Dead Shot. The man's shorely love-blind!' "'You ain't goin' to t'ar into him for that, be you?' Nell asks, her tones reproachful. 'Him lovin' her like he does shore makes a hit with me. A limit goes in farobank; but my notion is to take the bridle off when the game's love.' "'But all the same he needn't get that lovin' it addles him,' says Missis Rucker. 'In a way, it's Dead Shot's sole fault, her actin' like she does. Instead of keepin' them Mexicans to do her work, Dead Shot ought to make her go surgin' round, an' care for her house herse'f. Thar ain't nobody needs steady employment more'n a woman. You-all savvys where it says that Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do? Which you bet that bluff means women--an' postmasters--every time.' "Missis Rucker continues along sim'lar lines, mighty inflexible, for quite a spell. She concloodes by sayin': "'You keep a woman walsin' round a cook-stove, or wrastlin' a washtub, or jugglin' pots an' skillets, same as them sleight-of-hand folks at the Bird Cage Op'ry House, an' she won't be so free to primp an' preen an' look at herse'f in the glass, an' go gaddin' after letters which she herse'f's done writ.' "We-all can't he'p hearin' this yere, seen' we're settin' round the O. K. dinin' table feedin' at the time; but we stubbornly refooses to be drawed into any views, Enright settin' us the example. That sagacious old warchief merely reaches for the salt-hoss, an' never yeeps; wharupon we maintains ourselves stoodiously yeepless likewise. "Things goes on swingin' an' rattlin', an' the open-air flirtations which Dead Shot's wife keeps up with that outcast of a postmaster's enough to give you a chill. We sets thar, powerless, expectin' a killin' every minute. An' all the time, like his eyes has took a layoff, Dead Shot wanders to an' fro, boastin' an' braggin' in the mushiest way about his wife. Moreover--an' this trenches on eediotcy--he goes out of his path to make a pard of the postmaster, an' has that deebauchee over to his shack evenin's. "Dead Shot even begins publicly singin' the praises of this office holder. "'Which it's this a-way,' he says; 'what with him bein' book-read an' a sport who's seen foreign lands, he's company for my wife. She herse'f's eddicated to a feather-edge; an', nacherally, that's what gives 'em so much in common.' "Thar's all the same a note in Dead Shot's voice that's like the echo of a groan. It looks, too, as though it sets fire to Texas, who jumps up as if he's stung by a trant'ler. "'Come,' he says, grabbin' Boggs by the shoulder. "Texas has Boggs drug half-way to the door, before Enright can head 'em off. "'Whar to?' demands Enright; an' then adds, 'don't you-all boys go nigh that post office.' "'All right,' says Texas final, but gulpin' a little; 'since it's you who says so, Sam, we won't. Me an' Dan yere'll merely take a little _passear_ as far as the graveyard, by way of reecoverin' our sperits an' to get the air. I'll shore blow up if obleeged to listen to that Dead Shot any longer.' "'I sees it in his eye,' Enright explains in a low tone to Peets, as he resoomes his cha'r; 'Texas is simply goin' to bend his gun over that letter man's head.' "'How often has I told you, Dan,' asks Texas, after they gets headed for Boot Hill, an' Texas has regained his aplomb, 'that women is a brace game?' "'Not all women,' Boggs objects; 'thar's Nell.' "'Shore; Nell!' Texas consents. 'Sech as her has all of the honor an' honesty of a Colt's-45. A gent can rely on the Nellie brand, same as he can on his guns. But Nellie's one in one thousand. Them other nine hundred an' ninety-nine'll deal you the odd-kyard, Dan, every time.' "When Texas an' Boggs arrives at Boot Hill, Texas goes seelectin' about, same as if he's searchin' out a site for a grave. At last he finds a place whar thar's nothin' but mesquite, soapweed an' rocks, it's that ornery: "'Yere's whar we plants him,' says Texas; 'off yere, by himse'f, like as if he's so much carrion.' "'Who you talkin' about?' asks Boggs, some amazed. "'Who?' repeats Texas; 'whoever but that postmaster? Dead Shot's got to get him soon or late. An' followin' the obsequies, thar ain't goin' to be no night gyards neither. Which if them coyotes wants to dig him up, they're welcome. It's their lookout, not mine; an' I ain't got no love for coyotes no how.' "'Thar ain't no coyote in Cochise County who's sunk that low he'll eat him,' says Boggs. "Like every other outfit, Wolfville sees its hours of sunshine an' its hours of gloom, its lights an' its shadders. But I'm yere to state that it never suffers through no more nerve-rackin' eepock than that which it puts in about Dead Shot an' his wife. She don't bother us so much as him. It's Dead Shot himse'f, praisin' up the postmaster an' paintin' the sun-kissed virchoose of his wife, which keeps the sweat a-pourin' down the commoonal face. An' all that's left us is to stand pat, an' wait for the finish! "One day the Wells-Fargo people sends Dead Shot to Santa Fe to take a money box over to Taos. Two days later, Dead Shot's wife finds she's got to go visit Tucson. Likewise, the postmaster allows he's been ordered to Wilcox, to straighten out some deepartmental kinks. Which we certainly sets thar an' looks at each other!--the play's that rank. "The postmaster an' Dead Shot's wife goes rumblin' out on the same stage. Monte starts to tell us what happens when he returns, but the old profligate don't get far. "'Gents,' he says, 'that last trip, when Dead Shot's----' "'Shet up,' roars Enright, an' Monte shore shets up. "It comes plenty close to killin' the mis'rable old dipsomaniac at that. He swells an' he swells, with that pent-up information inside of him, ontil he looks like a dissipated toad. But sech is his awe of Enright, he never dar's opens his clamshell. "It's a week before Dead Shot's wife gets back, an' the postmaster don't show up till four days more. Then Dead Shot himse'f comes trackin' in. "Faro Nell, who's eyes is plumb keen that a-way, lets on to Cherokee private that Dead Shot looks sorrow-ridden. But I don't know! Dead Shot's nacherally grave, havin' no humor. A gent who constant goes messin' round with road agents, shootin' an' bein' shot at, ain't apt to effervesce. Nell sticks to it, jest the same, that he's onder a cloud. "Dead Shot continyoos to play his old system, an' cavorts 'round plumb friendly with the postmaster, an' goes teeterin' yere an' thar tellin' what a boon from heaven on high his wife is, same as former. "Faro Nell shakes her head when Cherokee mentions this last: "'That's his throw-off,' she says. "One evenin' Dead Shot comes trailin' into the Red Light, an' strolls over to whar Cherokee's dealin' bank. "'What's the limit?' he asks. "At this, we-all looks up a whole lot. It's the first time ever Dead Shot talks of puttin' down a bet. "Cherokee's face is like a mask, the face of the thorough-paced kyard sharp. He shows no more astonishment than if Dead Shot's been settin' in ag'inst his game every evenin' for a month. "'One hundred an' two hundred,' says Cherokee. "_'Bueno!'_ an' Dead Shot lays down two one-hundred dollar bills between the king and queen. "Thar's two turns. The third the kyards falls 'ten-king,' an' Nell, from her place on the lookout's stool, shoves over two hundred dollars in bloo checks. Thar they are, with the two one-hundred dollar bills, between the king an' queen. "'Does it go as it lays?' asks Dead Shot, it bein' double the limit. "'It goes,' says Cherokee, never movin' a muscle. "One turn, an' the kyards falls 'trey-queen.' Nell shoves four hundred across to match up with Dead Shot's four hundred. "'An' now?' Dead Shot asks. "'I'll turn for it,' Cherokee responds. "It's yere that Dead Shot's luck goes back on him. The turn comes 'queen-jack,' an' Nell rakes down the eight hundred. "Dead Shot's hand goes to the butt of his gun. "'I've been robbed,' he growls; 'thar's fifty-three kyards in that deck.' "Cherokee's on his feet, his eyes like two steel p'ints, gun half drawed. But Nell's as quick. Her hand's on Cherokee's, an' she keeps his gun whar it belongs. "'Steady!' she says; 'can't you see he's only coaxin' you to bump him off?' Then, with her face full on Dead Shot, she continyoos: 'It won't do, Dead Shot; it won't do none! You-all can't get it handed to you yere! You're in the wrong shop; you-all ought to try next door!' An' Nell p'ints with her little thumb through the wall to the post office. "Dead Shot stands thar the color of seegyar ashes, while Cherokee settles ca'mly back in his cha'r. Cherokee's face is as bar' of expression as a blank piece of paper, as he runs his eye along the lay-out, makin' ready for the next turn. Thar's mebby a dozen of us playin', but not a word is spoke. Everyone is onto Dead Shot's little game, the moment Nell begins to talk. "Matters seems to hang on centers, ontil Nell stretches across an' lays her baby hand on Dead Shot's: "'Thar ain't a soul in sight,' she says, mighty soft an' good, 'but what's your friend, Dead Shot.' "Dead Shot, pale as a candle, wheels toward the door. "'Pore Dead Shot!' murmurs Nell, the tears in her eyes, to that extent she has to ask Boggs to take her place as lookout. "Four hours goes by, an' thar's the poundin' of a pony's hoofs, an' the creak of saddle-leathers, out in front. It's the Red Dog chief, who's come lookin' for Enright. "They confabs a minute or two at a table to the r'ar, an' then Enright calls Peets over. "'Dead Shot's gone an' got himse'f downed,' he says. [Illustration: DEAD SHOT STOPS SHORT AT THIS HITCH IN THE DISCUSSION, BY REASON OF A BULLET FROM THE LIGHTIN' BUG'S PISTOL WHICH LODGES IN HIS LUNG. p. 29.] "'It's on the squar' gents,' explains the Red Dog chief; 'Dead Shot'll say so himself. He jest nacherally comes huntin' it.' "It looks like Dead Shot, after that failure with Cherokee in the Red Light, p'ints across for Red Dog. He searches out a party who's called the Lightnin' Bug, on account of the spontaneous character of his six-shooter. Dead Shot finds the Lightnin' Bug talkin' with two fellow gents. He listens awhile, an' then takes charge of the conversation. "'Bug,' he says, raisin' his voice like it's a challenge--'Bug, only I'm afraid folks'll string you up a whole lot, I'd say it's you who stood up the stage last week in Apache Canyon. Also'--an' yere Dead Shot takes to gropin' about in his jeans, same as if he's feelin' for a knife--'it's mighty customary with me, on occasions sech as this, to cut off the y'ears of----' "Dead Shot stops short, by reason of a bullet from the Bug's pistol which lodges in his lungs. "When Peets an' Enright finds him, he's spread out on the Red Dog chief's blankets, coughin' blood, with the sorrow-stricken Bug proppin' him up one moment to drink water, an' sheddin' tears over him the next, alternate. "The Red Dog chief leads out the weepin' Bug, who's lamentin' mighty grievous, an' leaves Enright an' Peets with Dead Shot. "'It's all right, gents,' whispers Dead Shot; 'I comes lookin' for it, an' I gets it. Likewise, she ain't to blame; it's me. I oughtn't to have married her that time--she only a girl, an' me a full-growed man who should 'av had sense for both.' "'That's no lie,' says Peets, an' Dead Shot gives him a grateful look. "'No,' he goes on, 'she's too fine, too high--I wasn't her breed. An' I ought to have seen it.' Yere he has a tussle to hang on. "Peets pours him out some whiskey. "'It's licker, ain't it?' Dead Shot gasps, sniffin' the glass. 'I'm for water, Doc, licker makin' me that ornery.' "'Down with it,' urges Peets. 'Which, if I'm a jedge, you'll pack in long before you're due to start anything extra serious, even if you drinkt a gallon.' "'Shore!' agrees Dead Shot, as though the idee brings him relief. 'For a moment it slips my mind about me bein' plugged. But as I'm sayin', gents, don't blame her. An' don't blame him. I has my chance, an' has it all framed up, too, when I crosses up with 'em recent over in Tucson, to kill 'em both. But I can't do it, gents. The six-shooter at sech a time's played out. That's straight; it don't fill the bill; it ain't adequate, that a-way. So all I can do is feel sorry for 'em, an' never let 'em know I knows. For, after all, it ain't their fault, it's mine. You sports see that, don't you? She's never meant for me, bein' too fine; an', me a man, I ought to have knowed.' "Dead Shot ceases talkin', an' Enright glances at Peets. Peets shakes his head plenty sorrowful. "'Go on,' he says to Dead Shot; 'you-all wants us to do--what?' "'Thar you be!' an' at the sound of Peets' voice Dead Shot's mind comes creepin' back to camp. 'She'll be happy with him--they havin' so much in common--an' him an' her bein' eddicated that a-way--an' him havin' traveled a whole lot! An' this yere's what I wants, gents. I wants you-all, as a kindness to me an' in a friendly way--seein' I can't stay none to look-out the play myse'f--to promise to sort o' supervise round an' put them nuptials over right. I takes time by the forelock an' sends to Tucson for a sky-pilot back two days ago. Bar accidents, he'll be in camp by to-morry. He can work in at the funeral, too, an' make it a whipsaw.' "Dead Shot turns his eyes on Enright. It's always so about our old chief; every party who's in trouble heads for him like a coyote for a camp fire. "'You'll shore see that he marries her?--Promise!' "Thar's a quaver in Dead Shot's voice, Peets tells me, that's like a pra'r. "'Thar's my hand, Dead Shot,' says Enright, who's chokin' a little. 'So far as the letter man's concerned, it'll be the altar or the windmill, Jack Moore an' a lariat or that preacher party you refers to.' "Dead Shot's gettin' mighty weak. After Enright promises he leans back like he's takin' a rest. He's so still they're beginnin' to figger he's done cashed in; but all at once he starts up like he's overlooked some bet, an' has turned back from eternity to tend to it. "'About Cherokee an' his box,' he whispers; 'that's a lyin' bluff I makes. Tell him I don't mean nothin'; I'm only out to draw his fire.' "After this Dead Shot only rouses once. His voice ain't more'n a sigh. "'I forgets to tell you,' he says, 'to give her my love. An' you say, too, that I'm bumped off like snuffin' out a candle--too plumb quick for her to get yere. An' don't blame her, gents; it's not her fault, it's mine.' "It's the week after the fooneral. The postmaster's still in town, partly by nacheral preference, partly because Enright notifies Jack Moore to ride herd on him, an' fill him as full of lead as a bag of bullets in event he ondertakes to go stampedin' off. "In the Red Light the seventh evenin' Enright rounds up Peets. "'Doc,' he says, 'a month would be more respect'ble, but this yere's beginnin' to tell on me.' "'Besides,' Peets chips in, by way of he'pin' Enright out, 'that preacher sharp corraled over to Missis Rucker's is gettin' restless. Onless we side-lines or puts hobbles on that divine we-all can't expect to go holdin' him much longer.' "Enright leads the way to the r'ar wareroom of the Noo York store, which bein' whar the stranglers holds their meetin's is Wolfville's hall of jestice. After licker is brought Enright sends Jack Moore for the postmaster, who comes in lookin' plenty white. Missis Rucker brings over the divine; an' next Dead Shot's widow--she's plumb lovely in black--appears on the arm of Peets, who goes in person. "Thar's a question in the widow's eye, like she don't onderstand. "'Roll your game,' says Enright to the preacher sharp. "It's yere an' now Dead Shot's widow fully b'ars out that philos'pher who announces so plumb cold, that a-way, that women's the sublimation of the onexpected. Jack Moore's jest beginnin' to manoover that recreant public servant into p'sition on the widow's left hand, so's he can be married to the best advantage, an' the preacher sharp's gettin' out an' openin' his book of rooles, when the widow draws back. "P'intin' at the bridegroom postmaster, same as if he's a stingin' lizard, she addresses Enright. "'Whatever's the meanin' of this?' "'Merely the croode preelim'naries, Ma'am,' Enright explains, 'to what we-all trusts will prove a fa'rly deesir'ble weddin'.' "'Me marry him?' an' the onmitigated scorn that relict exhibits, to say nothin' of her tone of voice, shore makes the postmaster bridegroom feel chagrined. "'You'll pardon us, Ma'am,' returns Enright, soft an' depreecatory, tryin' to get her feelin's bedded down, 'which you'll shore pardon us if in our dullness we misreads your sentiments. You see, the notion gets somehow proned into us that you wants this party. Which if we makes a mistake, by way of repa'rin' that error, let me say that if thar's any one else in sight whom you preefers, an' who's s'fficiently single an' yoothful to render him el'gible for wedlock,'--yere Enright takes in Boggs an' Texas with his gaze, wharat Texas grows as green-eyed as a cornered bobcat--'he's yours, Ma'am, on your p'intin' him out.' "'Which I don't want to marry no one,' cries the widow, commencin' to sob. 'An' as for marryin' him speshul'--yere she glances at the bridegroom postmaster in sech a hot an' drastic way he's left shrivellin' in his own shame--'I'd sooner live an' die the widow of Dead Shot Abner Baker than be the wife of a cornfield full of sech.' "Everybody stares, an' Enright takes a modicum of Old Jordan. "'You don't deeserve this none,' he says at last, turnin' to the postmaster bridegroom. 'Onder the circumstances, however, thar's nothin' left for me to do as cha'rman but deeclar' this yere weddin' a misdeal.' "Texas is plumb disgusted. "'Don't some folks have nigger luck, Dan?' he says. "Later, after thinkin' things up an' down in his mind, Texas takes ombrage at Enright's invitin' Dead Shot's widow to look him an' Boggs over that a-way, an' take her pick. "'Which sech plays don't stand ace-high with me, Sam,' Texas says--'you tryin' to auction me off like you does. Even a stranger, with a half-way hooman heart, after hearin' my story would say that I already suffers enough. An' yet you, who calls yourse'f my friend, does all that lays in your callous power to thrust me back into torment.' "'Texas,' replies Enright, like he's bore about all he can, 'you shorely worries me with your conceit. If you-all won't take my word, then go take a good hard look at yourse'f in the glass. Thar's never the slightest risk, as everybody but you yourse'f sees plainly, of that lady or any other lady takin' you.' "'You thinks not?' asks Texas, plenty incensed. "'Which I _knows_ not. No lady's lot ain't quite that desp'rate.' "'Well,' returns Texas, after a pause, his face expressin' his soreness, 'I'm yere to say, Sam, I don't agree with you, none whatever. You forgets that I've already been took in wedlock bonds by one lady. An' while that Laredo wife of mine is hard an' crooel, all Texas knows she's plumb partic'lar. Also, no one ever yet comes pirootin' up the trail who doubts her taste.' "It's the evenin' before the preacher sharp goes back to Tucson, when Enright edges him off into a corner of the O. K. dinin' room. "'Parson,' says Enright, lookin' like he's a heap bothered about somethin'--'parson, in addition to your little game as a preacher that a-way, you don't happen to be up none on table-tippin' or sperit rappin', same as them mediums, do you?' "'Which I shore don't,' replies the preacher sharp, archin' his neck, indignant. 'Likewise, I regyards them cer'monials you alloodes to as satantic in their or'gin.' "'Doubtless, parson,' returns Enright, some disapp'inted, 'doubtless. Still, if you-all but counts the rings on my horns, as givin' some impression of the years I've lived an' what troubles I've probably gone through, you'll onderstand that I ain't takin' Satan no more serious than a empty six-shooter. But the mere trooth is, parson, I'm pestered by them promises I makes deeceased. Which I'd give a yellow stack to get put next to Dead Shot's sperit long enough to explain concernin' them nuptials, an' make cl'ar jest how me an' the Doc falls down.'" II OLD MAN ENRIGHT'S UNCLE "Which you'll excoose me," and the old cattleman replaced his glass upon the table with a decisive click, "if I fails to j'ine you in them sent'ments. For myse'f, I approves onreserved of both lies an' liars. Also, that reemark goes double when it comes to public liars tellin' public lies. Which, however se'fish it may sound, I prefers this gov'ment to last my time; an' it's my idee that if them statesmen back at Washington ever takes a hour off from their tax-eatin' an' tells the people the trooth, the whole trooth an' nothin' but the trooth of their affairs, said people'll be down on the sityooation instanter, like a weasel on a nest of field mice, an' wipe the face of nacher free an' cl'ar of these United States." The above was drawn forth by my condemnatory comments on the published speech of a Senator, wherein the truth was as a grain of wheat in a bushel of mendacious chaff. "Shore," continued the old gentleman, with the manner of one who delivers final judgment, "lies is not only to be applauded, but fostered. They're the angle-irons an' corner-braces that keeps plumb the social fabric, wantin' which the whole frame-work of soci'ty would go leanin' sideways, same as that Eyetalian tower you shows me the picture of the other day. Why, if everybody in the world was to go tellin' the trooth for the next hour ninety-nine folks in every hundred would be obleeged to put in the rest of their lives hidin' out. "Do I myse'f ever lie? "Frequent an' plumb cheerful. I bases life on the rooles laid down by that sharp who advises folks to do unto others as others does unto them, an' beat 'em to it. Believin', tharfore, in handin' a gent his own system, I makes it my onbreakable practice to allers lie to liars. Then, ag'in, whenever some impert'nent prairie dog takes to rummagin' 'round with queries to find out my deesigns, I onflaggingly fills him to the brim with all forms of misleadin' mendac'ty, an' casts every fictional obstruction in his path that's calc'lated to get between his heels an' trip him up. I shore do admire to stand all sech inquirin' mavericks on their heads, an' partic'ler if they're plottin' ag'in me. "An' why not? A party that a-way, as I some time ago instructs you, ain't got no more right to search my head than to search my warbags, an' a gent who may lock a door may lie. Which, if you'll go off by yourse'f an' think this yere over, you'll see that it's so, an' so with a double cinch. "Thar's statements, too, which, speakin' technical, might be regyarded as lyin' which don't in jestice class onder no sech head. For spec'men, when Dick Wooten, upon me askin' him how long he's been inhabitin' the Raton Pass, p'ints to the Spanish Peaks an' says, 'You see them em'nences? Well, when I pitches camp in this yere gully them mountings was two holes in the ground,' I don't feel like he's lyin'. I merely remembers that he steals the bluff from old Jim Bridger, grins an' lets it go at that. "Likewise, I'm sim'larly onaffected towards that amiable multitoode who simply lies to entertain. These yere latter sports in their preevar'cations is public ben'factors. You-all can spread yourse'f out in the ca'm shadow of their yarns, same as if it's the shade of a tree, an' find tharin reefreshment an' reepose. "While the most onimag'native of us, from Peets to Cherokee, ain't none puny as conversationists, the biggest liar, ondoubted, who ever comes romancin' into Wolfville is Enright's uncle, who visits him that time. Back in Tennessee a passel of scientists makes what this yere relative of Enright's deescribes as a 'Theological Survey' of some waste land he has on Gingham Mountain, an' finds coal. An' after that he's rich. Thus, in his old age, but chipper as a coopful of catbirds, he comes rackin' into town, allowin' he'll take a last look at his nephy, Sam, before he cashes in. "His name is Stallins, bein' he's kin to Enright on his mother's side, an' since thar's nine ahead of him--Enright's mother bein' among the first--an' he don't come along as a infant ontil the heel of the domestic hunt that a-way, he's only got it on Enright by ten years in the matter of age. [Illustration: THE SECOND EVENING OLD STALLINS IS WITH US, DAN BOGGS AN' TEXAS THOMPSON UPLIFTS HIS AGED SPERITS WITH THE "LOVE DANCE OF THE CATAMOUNTS." p. 43.] "No, I shore shouldn't hes'tate none to mention him as a top-sawyer among liars, the same bein' his constant boast an' brag. He accepts the term as embodyin' a compliment, an' the quick way to get his bristles up is to su'gest that his genius for mendac'ty is beginnin' to bog down. "For all that, Enright imparts to me, private, that the old gent as a liar ain't a marker to his former se'f. "'You've heard tell,' Enright says, 'of neighborhood liars, an' township liars, an' county liars; an' mebby even of liars whose fame as sech might fill the frontiers of a state. Take my uncle, say forty years ago, an' give him the right allowance of baldface whiskey, an' the coast-to-coast expansiveness of them fictions he tosses off shore entitles him to the name of champion of the nation. Compar'd to him, Ananias is but a ambitious amatoor.' "It's the second evenin' old Stallins is with us, an' Enright takes him over to Hamilton's Dance Hall, whar Boggs an' Texas--by partic'lar reequest--uplifts his aged sperits with that y'ear-splittin' an' toomultuous minyooet, the 'Love Dance of the Catamounts.' Which the exh'bition sets his mem'ry to millin', an' when we gets back to the Red Light he breaks out remin'scent. "'Sammy,' he says to Enright, 'you was old enough to rec'llect when I has that location over on the upper Hawgthief? Gents,' he goes on, turnin' to us, 'it's a six-forty, an'--side hill, swamp an' bottom--as good a section as any to be crossed up with between the Painted Post an' the 'Possum Trot. It's that "Love Dance of the Catamounts" which brings it to my mind, since it's then an' thar, by virchoo of a catamount, I wins my Sarah Ann. "'She's shore the star-eyed Venus of the Cumberland, is my Sarah Ann. Her ha'r, black as paint, is as thick as a pony's mane; her lips is the color of pokeberry juice; her cheeks--round an' soft--is as cl'ar an' bright an' glowin' as a sunset in Jooly; her teeth is as milk-white as the inside of a persimmon seed. She's five-foot-eleven without her mocassins, stands as up an' down as a pine tree, got a arm on her like the tiller of a scow, an' can heft a full-sized side of beef an' hang it on the hook. That's fifty years ago. She's back home on the Hawgthief waitin' for me now, my Sarah Ann is. You'd say she's as gray as a 'possum, an' as wrinkled as a burnt boot. Mebby so; but not to me, you bet. She's allers an' ever to me the same endoorin' hooman sunburst I co'tes an' marries that long time ago.' "Old Stallins pauses to reefresh himse'f, an' Texas, who's been fidgetin' an' frettin' since the first mention of Sarah Ann, goes whisperin' to Boggs. "'Can't some of you-all,' he says, plenty peevish, 'head this yere mushy old tarrapin off? This outfit knows what I suffers with that Laredo wife of mine. An' yet it looks like I'm to be tortured constant with tales of married folks, an' not one hand stretched out to save me from them reecitals.' "'Brace up,' returns Boggs, tryin' to comfort him. 'Thicken your hide ag'in sech childish feelin's, an' don't be so easy pierced. Besides, I reckons the worst's over. He's comin' now to them catamounts.' "Texas grinds his teeth, an' old Stallins resoomes his adventures. "'My Sarah Ann's old pap has his location jest across the Hawgthief from me. Besides him an' Sarah Ann, thar ain't nobody but the old woman in the fam'ly, the balance of 'em havin' been swept away in a freshet. Shore, old man Bender--that's Sarah Ann's pap's name--has fourteen children once, Sarah Ann, who's oldest, bein' the first chicken on the domestic roost. But the other thirteen is carried off one evenin' when, what with the rains an' what with the snow meltin' back on Gingham Mountain, the Hawgthief gets its back up. Swish comes a big wave of water, an' you hear me them children goes coughin' an' kickin' an' splutterin' into the misty beyond. "'Which I says thirteen only because that's whar old Bender allers puts his loss. Zeb Stiles, who lives on the Painted Post, insists that it's fifteen who gets swept away that time. He allows he counts them infant Benders two evenin's before, perched along on old Bender's palin's like pigeons on a limb. Thirteen or fifteen, however, it don't make no difference much, once they're submerged, that a-way. "'Mebby I've been co'tin' my Sarah Ann for goin' on six months, givin' her b'ar robes an' mink pelts, with now an' then a pa'r of bald eagle wings to bresh the hearth. Nothin' heart-movin', however, comes off between us, Sarah Ann keepin' me at arm's len'th an' comportin' herse'f plumb uppish, as a maiden should. She's right; a likely girl can't be too conserv'tive techin' what young an' boundin' bucks comes co'tin' at her house. "'Old Bender sort o' likes me in streaks. After he gets bereft of them thirteen or fifteen offspring he turns morose a whole lot, an' I used to go 'cross in my dugout an' cheer him up with my lies. "'Could I lie? "'My nephy, Sammy, thar'll nar'ate how I once lies a full-grown b'ar to death. The cunnin' varmint takes advantage of me bein' without my weepons, an' chases me up a tree. I ensconces myse'f in the crotch, an' when the b'ar starts to climb I hurls down ontrooth after ontrooth on top of him ontill, beneath a avalanche of falsehood, he's crushed dead at the base of the tree. Could I lie, you asks? Even folks who don't like me concedes that I'm the most irresist'ble liar south of the Ohio river. "'While I'm upliftin' the feelin's of old Bender mendacious that a-way, he likes me; it's only when we gets to kyard-playin' he waxes sour. He's a master-hand to gamble, old Bender is, an' as shore as I shows up, followin' a lie or two, he's bound he'll play me seven-up for a crock of baldface whiskey. Now thar ain't a sport from the Knobs of old Knox to the Mississippi who could make seed corn off me at seven-up, an' nacherally I beats old Bender out of the baldface. "'With that he'd rave an' t'ar, an' make like he's goin' to jump for his 8-squar' Hawkins rifle, whar she's hangin' on a pa'r of antlers over the door; but he'd content himse'f final by orderin' me out of the shack, sayin' that no sech kyard-sharpin' galoot as me need come pesterin' 'round allowin' to marry no child of his'n. At sech eepocks, too, it looks like Sarah Ann sees things through the eyes of her old man, an' she's more'n common icy. "'One day old Bender goes weavin' over to Pineknot, an' starts to tradin' hosses with Zeb Stiles. They seesaws away for hours, an' old Bender absorbs about two dollars' worth of licker, still-house rates. In the finish Zeb does him brown an' does him black on the swap, so it don't astonish nobody to death when next day he quiles up in his blankets sick. Marm Bender tries rekiverin' him with yarbs, an' kumfrey tea, an' sweet gum sa'v. When them rem'dies proves footile she decides that perhaps a frolic'll fetch him. "'It's about second drink time in the afternoon when Marm Bender starts out Fiddler Abe, givin' notice of the treat. I hears the old nigger as, mule-back, he goes meanderin' along, singin': Thar's a smoke house full of bacon, An' a barrel full of rum. For to eat an' drink an' shake a laig You've only got to come. "'As soon as Fiddler Abe starts singin' the girls an' boys begin comin' out of the woods like red ants out of a burnin' log, headin' hotfoot for old Bender's. "'Do I go? "'It ain't a hour after candle lightin' when, with mebby it's a pint of baldface onder the buckle of my belt, I'm jumpin' higher, shoutin' louder, an' doin' more to loosen the puncheons in the floor than any four males of my species who's present at that merry-makin'. It he'ps old Bender, too, an' inspired by the company an' onder the inflooence of four or five stiff toddies, he resolves not to let that hoss trade carry him to a ontimely grave, an' is sittin' up in his blankets, yellin', "Wake snakes; an' Gin'ral Jackson fit the Injuns!" in happy accord with the sperit of his times. "'Fiddler Abe strikes into the exyooberant strains of "Little Black Bull Come Down the Mountains," an' I hauls Ten-spot Mollie out of the gin'ral ruck of calico for a reel. We calls her Ten-spot Mollie because she's got five freckles on each cheek. All the same, when it comes to dancin', she's shore a she-steamboat. Every time we swings she hefts me plumb free of the floor, an' bats my heels ag'in the rafters ontil both ankles is sprained. "'Sarah Ann falls jealous, seem' me an' Ten-spot Mollie thus pleasantly engaged, an' to get even goes to simperin' an' talkin' giggle-talk to Mart Jenkins, who's rid in from Rapid Run. Jenks is a offensive numbskull who's wormed his way into soci'ty by lickin' all the boys 'round his side of Gingham Mountain. At that, he's merely tol'rated. "'Seein' Sarah Ann philanderin' with Jenks, I lets go of Ten-spot Mollie, who goes raspin' an' rollin' into a corner some abrupt, an' sa'nters across to whar they're at. Leanin' over Sarah Ann's off-shoulder, bein' the one furthest from that onmitigated Jenks, I says, "Sweetheart, how can you waste time talkin' to this yere hooman Sahara, whose intellects is that sterile they wouldn't raise cow-pease?" "'This makes Jenks oneasy, an' getting up, he reemarks, "Dick Stallins, I'll be the all-firedest obleeged to you if you'll attend on me to the foot of the hollow, an' bring your instrooments." "'At this I explains that I ain't got my instrooments with me, havin' left both rifle an' bowie in the dugout when I paddles over to the dance. "'Jenks makes a insultin' gesture, an' reetorts, "Don't crawl, Dick Stallins. Borry old Bender's nine-inch bootcher, an' come with me." "'To appease him I says I will, an' that I'll j'ine him at the before named slaughter-ground in the flicker of a lamb's tail. Jenks stalks off plumb satisfied, while I searches out Ben Hazlett, an' whispers that Jenks is askin' for him some urgent, an' has gone down the trace towards the foot of the hollow to look him up. Nacherally, my diplom'cy in this yere behalf sends Ben cavortin' after Jenks; an' this relieves me a heap, knowin' that all Jenks wants is a fight, an' Ben'll do him jest as well as me. "'Which them was shorely happy days!' he continyoos, settin' down the bottle wharwith he's been encouragin' his faculties. 'Troo, every gent has to sleep with his head in a iron kettle for fear of Injuns, an' a hundred dollars is bigger'n a cord of wood, but life is plenty blissful jest the same.' "'Was you afraid of this yere Jenks?' asks Boggs. "'No more'n if he's a streak of lightnin'. Only, I've got on a new huntin' shirt, made of green blanket cloth, an' I ain't none strenuous about havin' that gyarment all slashed up. "'To proceed: After I dispatches Ben on the heels of Jenks that a-way it occurs to me that mebby I'm sort o' tired with the labors of the evenin', an' I'll find my dugout, ferry myse'f over to my own proper wickyup, an' hit the hay for a snooze. I'm some hurried to the concloosion by the way in which eevents begins to accumyoolate in my immedyit vicin'ty. Bill Wheeler announces without a word of warnin' that he's a flyin' alligator, besides advancin' the theery that Gene Hemphill is about as deeserv'dly pop'lar as a abolitionist in South Caroliny. I suspects that this attitoode of mind on Bill's part is likely to provoke discussion, which suspicion is confirmed when Gene knocks Bill down, an' boots him into the dooryard. Once in the open, after a clout or two, Gene an' Bill goes to a clinch an' the fightin' begins. "'It ain't no time when the circumf'rence of trouble spreads. Bud Ingalls makes a pass at me pers'nal, an' by way of reeprisal I smashes a stewpan on him. Bud's head goes through the bottom, like the clown through them paper hoops in a cirkus, the stewpan fittin' down 'round his neck same as one of them Elizbethan ruffs. The stewpan ockyoopies so much of Bud's attention that I gets impatient, an' so, tellin' him I ain't got no time to wait, I leaves him strugglin' with that yootensil, an' strolls off down to the Hawgthief whistlin' "Sandy Land." "'It's dark as the inside of a cow, an' somehow I misses the dugout; but bein' stubborn, an' plumb sot about gettin' home, I wades in an' begins to swim. The old Hawgthief is bank full, but I'd have made t'other side all right if it ain't that, as I swims out from onder the overhangin' branch of a tree, somethin' drops into the water behind me, an' comes snarlin' an' splashin' an' spittin' along in pursoote. I don't pay much heed at the jump, but when it claws off my nigh moccasin, leavin' a inch-deep gash in my heel, I glances back an' perceives by the two green eyes that I've become an object of comsoomin' int'rest to a pa'nter, or what you-all out yere calls a mountain lion, an' we-uns back in Tennessee a catamount.' "'But a panther won't swim,' reemonstrates Tutt. "'Arizona catamounts won't,' returns old Stallins, 'thar bein' no rivers to speak of. But in Tennessee, whar thar's rivers to waste, them cats takes to the water like so many muskrats. "'When I finds that thar's nothin' doggin' me but a catamount, I heads all casyooal for whar a tree's done been lodged midstream, merely flingin' the reemark over my shoulder to the catamount that, if he keeps on annoyin' me, he'll about pick up the makin's of a maulin'. As I crawls out on the bole of the lodged tree, I can hear the catamount sniggerin', same as if he's laughin' me to scorn, an' this yere insultin' contoomely half-way makes me mad. Which I ain't in the habit of bein' took lightly by no catamount. "'Drawin' myse'f out o' the water, I straddles the bole of my tree, an' organizes for the catamount, who's already crawlin' after me. T'arin' off a convenient bough the thickness of your laig, I arranges myse'f as a reeception committee for visitin' catamounts, an' by way of beginnin' confers on my partic'lar anamile sech a bat over the snout that he falls back into the drink, an' starts to swimmin' fancy an' goin' 'round in circles, same as if his funny-bone's been teched. "'Every time he gets in reach I jabs him in the eye with the splinter end of the bough, an' at last he grows that disgusted at these formal'ties he swims off to the bank. Thar he camps down on his ha'nches, an' glares green-eyed at me across the ragin' flood. "'Shore, I could have raised the long yell for he'p, but am withheld by foolish pride. Besides, I can hear Ben an' Jenks tusslin' an' gruntin' an' carryin' on over in the mouth of the hollow, as they kyarves into each other with their knives, an' don't want to distract their attention. "'As I sets camped thar on my lodged tree, an' the catamount is planted on the bank, I hears the lippin' splash of a paddle, an' then a voice which sounds like a chime of bells floats across to ask, "Dick Stallins, you ornery runnigate, wharever be you?" "'It's my Sarah Ann, whose love, gettin' the upper hand of maidenly reeserve, has sent her projectin' 'round in search of me. She's in my dugout. "'The catamount identifies her as soon as me; an' thinkin' she ought to be easy, he slides into the water ag'in an' starts for the boat. It's that dark I ain't shore of his deesigns ontil I sees him reach up, tip the dugout over, an' set Sarah Ann to wallowin' in the rushin' torrent. The dugout upsets on the catamount, an' this so confooses him that, by the time he's got his bearin's, Sarah Ann's been swept down to my tree, an' I've lifted her to a seat by my side. The catamount don't try to lay siege to our p'sition, recognizing it as impregnable, but paddles back to the shore an' goes into watchful camp as prior. "'For myse'f, I'm so elevated with love an' affection at havin' Sarah Ann with me, I dismisses the catamount as a dead issue, an' as sech beneath contempt, an' by way of mollifyin' Sarah Ann's feelin's, cuts loose an' kisses her a gross or two of times, an' each like the crack of a bull-whacker's whip. "'Old Bender hears them caresses plumb up to his house--as well he may, they're that onreeserved an' earnest--an' thinks it's some one shootin' a rifle. It has the effect of bringin' out the old Spartan with his Hawkins; an' the first word of it that reaches me an' Sarah Ann is him, Marm Bender an' the whole b'ilin' of folks is down thar on the bank, tryin' to make out in the gen'ral dimness whatever be we-all lovers doin' out thar in the middle of the Hawgthief on a snag. "'They don't deetect my catamount none, which sagacious feline slinks off into the shadows covered with confoosion; all they sees is us. An' the spectacle certainly excites old Bender. "Gen'ral Jackson fit the Injuns!" he exclaims, as all of a sudden a thought strikes him; "that measly excoose for a Union Democrat out thar is seekin' to eelope with our Sarah Ann." "'The old murderer starts to get a bead on me with the Hawkins. "Father," yells Marm Bender, pullin' at his sleeve, "you shore must be mistook." "'Old Bender won't have it. "Maw," he returns, strivin' to disengage himse'f, "I was never mistook about nothin' in my life but once, an' that's when I shifts from baldface whiskey to hard cider on a temp'rance argyooment. Let me go, woman, till I drill the miscreant an' wash the stain from our fam'ly honor." "'Before the old hom'cide can get to launderin' the fam'ly honor in my blood, however, Sarah Ann has interposed. "Don't go to blazing away at my Dickey, pop," she sings out, "or I'll shore burn every improvement you got, an' leave you an' maw an' me roofless in the midst of the wilderness." "'This goes a long way towards soberin' down old Bender, because he knows my Sarah Ann's the Cumberland hollyhock to put them menaces into execootion. He lowers the muzzle of his old 8-squar', an' allows if I promises to marry the girl I can swim ashore an' be forgiven. "'Thus the matter ends mighty amic'ble. We'all goes trackin' up to the house, a preacher is rushed to the scene from Pineknot, an' them nuptials between Sarah Ann an' me is sol'mnized. Shore, Jenks an' Ben is thar. They're found by a committee of their friends scattered about at the foot of the hollow, an' is collected an' brought up to the weddin' in blankets. Dave Daniels, who surveys the scene next day, says you could plant corn whar they fit, it's that plowed up. "'Followin' the cer'mony Marm Bender an' the old gent takes me into their hearts an' cabin like I'm their own an' only son. He's a great old daddy-in-law, old Bender is, an' is ven'rated for forty miles about Gingham Mountain, as deevoted heart an' soul to baldface, seven-up an' sin in any shape. "'That match-makin' catamount? "'We hives him. Me an' my new daddy-in-law tracks him to his reetreat, an' when we're through he's plumb used up. I confers the pelt on my Sarah Ann; an' she spreads it on the floor over by her side of the bed, so as to put her little number sevens on it when she boils out of a winter's mornin' to light the fire, an' rustle me my matoot'nal buckwheat cakes an' sa'sage.'" III CYNTHIANA, PET-NAMED ORIGINAL SIN "This yere speecific heroine is a heap onconventional, so much so as to be plumb puzzlin' to the common mind. Jest the same, she finishes winner, an' makes herse'f a gen'ral source of pride. She don't notify us, none whatever, that she intends a Wolfville deboo; jest nacherally descends upon us, that a-way, as onannounced as a mink on a settin' hen. All the same, we knows she's comin' while yet she's five mile out on the trail. Not that we savvys who she is or what she aims at; we merely gets moved up next to the fact that she's a lady, an' likewise no slouch for looks. "We reads these yere trooths in the dust old Monte kicks up, as he comes swingin' in with the stage. Which it's the weakness of this inebriate, as I tells you former, that once let him get a lady aboard, it looks like it's a signal for him to go pourin' the leather into his team like he ain't got a minute to live. It's a p'lite attention he assoomes, in his besotted way, is doo the sex. "It's the more strange, too, since it's the only attention Monte ever pays 'em. He never looks at 'em, never speaks to 'em; simply plants himse'f on the box, as up an' down as a cow's tail, an' t'ars into them harassed hosses. If the lady he's complimentin' that a-way was to get jolted overboard--which the same wouldn't be no mir'cal, considerin' how that dipsomaniac drives--it's even money he leaves her hunched up like a jack-rabbit alongside the trail, an' never thinks of stoppin' or turnin' back. He's merely a drunkard with that one fool idee of showin' off, an' nothin' the stage people's ever able to say can teach him different. From first to last you-all could measure Monte's notion of the pulcritoode of a petticoat passenger by the extent to which he lams loose with his whip. Given what he deems is a she-sunburst, he shorely does maltreat the company's live stock shameful. "'If,' observes Peets, as a bunch of us stands gossipin' round in front of the Red Light that time, watchin' the dust cloud draw nearer an' nearer--'if it's poss'ble to imagine the old sot as havin' a Cleopatra to freight over from Tucson, it's a cow pony to a Mexican sheep he'd kill one of the wheelers.' "Thar ain't none of us knows who this yere Cleopatra the Doc refers to is, onless it's Colonel Sterett, who edits the _Daily Coyote_. Still, the compar'son is plenty convincin'. Accordin' to the Doc himself, this Cleopatra's a meteoric female party, as lively as she is lovely, who sets a passel of ancient sports to walkin' in a cirkle back some'ers in the mists of time. Also, it's bloo chips to white, an' bet 'em higher than a cat's back, the Doc knows. The Doc is ondoubted the best eddicated gent that ever makes a moccasin track between Yuma an' the Raton Pass, an' when he onbuckles techin' any historic feachures, you can call for a gooseha'r pillow, an' go to sleep on it he ain't barkin' at no knot. "Thar's a feeble form of young tenderfoot pesterin' about the suburbs of the crowd. He's one of them hooman deficits, so plumb ornery as to be useless East, which their fam'lies, in gettin' rid of 'em, saws happ'ly off onto a onprotected West. This partic'lar racial disaster's been on our hands now mebbe it's six months, an' we-all is hopin' that in some p'intless sort o' way he'll brace up and do overt acts which entitles us to stampede him out of camp. But so far he don't. "This yere exile comes wanderin' into the talk by askin'--his voice as thin as a curlew's: "'Who is this old Monte you're alloodin' at?' "'Whoever he is?' says Boggs. 'Which if you-all'd struck camp by way of Tucson, instead of skulkin' upon us in the low-down fashion you does along of the Lordsburg-Red Dog buckboard, you wouldn't have to ask none. He's the offishul drunkard of Arizona, Monte is. Which the same should be notice, too, that it's futile for you to go ropin' at that p'sition. I says this, since from the quantity of Old Jordan you've been mowin' away, I more'n half infers that you nourishes designs upon the place.' "The feeble young shorthorn smiles a puny smile, and don't lunge forth into no more queries. "Texas, who's been listenin' to what Boggs says, squar's 'round an' half-way erects his crest for an argyooment. Texas has had marital troubles, an' him ponderin' the same constant renders him some morbid an' morose. "'From your tone of voice, Dan,' remarks Texas, 'I takes it you holds Monte's appetite for nose paint to be a deefect. That's whar I differs. That old marauder is a drunkard through sheer excess of guile. He finds in alcohol his ark of refooge. I only wish I'd took to whiskey in my 'teens.' "Boggs is amazed. "'Texas,' he says, plenty sorrowful, 'it wouldn't astonish me none if you finds your finish in a wickeyup deevoted to loonatics, playin' with a string of spools.' "'That's your onthinkin' way. Do you reckon now, if I'd been a slave to drink when that Laredo wife of mine first sees me, she'd have w'irled me to the altar an' made me the blighted longhorn you sees now? She wouldn't have let me get near enough to her to give her a bunch of grapes. It's my sobri'ty that's my ondoin', that an' bein' plumb moral. Which I onerringly traces them divorce troubles, an' her sellin' up my stock at public vandoo for cost an' al'mony like she does, to me weakly holdin' aloof from whisky when I'm young.' "'Which I shore,'--an' Boggs shows he's mighty peevish an' put out--'never meets up with a more exasp'ratin' conversationist! It's because you're sech an' egreegious egotist! You-all can't talk ten minutes, Texas, but what you're allers bringin' in them domestic affairs of yours. If you desires to discuss whiskey abstract, an' from what the Doc thar calls a academic standp'int, I'm your gent. But I declines to be drug into personal'ties, in considerin' which I might be carried by the heat of deebate to whar I gets myse'f shot up.' "'I sees your attitood, Dan; I sees your attitood, an' respects it. Jest the same, thar's an anti-nuptial side to the liquor question, an' bein' a drunkard that a-way is not without its compensations.' "'But he's bound to be so blurred,' reemonstrates Boggs, who by nacher is dispootatious, an' once started prone to swing an' rattle with a topic like a pup to a pig's y'ear: 'That drunkard is so plumb blurred.' "'Blurred but free, Dan,' retorts Texas, mighty firm. 'Don't overlook no sech bet as that drunkard bein' free. Also, it's better to be free than sober.' "'Goin' back to Monte,' says Boggs, returning to the orig'nal text; 'half the time, over to the O.K. Restauraw when Missis Rucker slams him down his chuck, he ain't none shore he's eatin' flapjacks or rattlesnakes. The other day, when Rucker drops a plate, he jumps three feet in the air, throws up his hands an' yells, "Take the express box, gents, but spar' my life!" It's whiskey does it. The old cimmaron thinks it's road agents stickin' him up.' "Dispoote is only ended by the stage thunderin' in--leathers creakin', chains jinglin', bosses a lather of sweat an' alkali dust, Monte cocked up on the box as austere as a treeful of owls. He's for openin' the door, but Peets is thar before him. Let it get dealt down to showin' attentions to a lady, an' the briskest sport'll have to move some sudden, or the Doc'll beat him to it. Which he certainly is the p'litest drug sharp of which hist'ry makes mention! "The Doc offers his hand to he'p her out, but she hits the ground onaided as light as any leaf. Nacherally we looks her over. Take her from foretop to fetlocks, she's as lovely as a diamond flush. She's got corn-colored ha'r, an' eyes as soft as the sky in Joone. Peets calls 'em azure--bein' romantic. As for the rest of us, we don't call 'em nothin'. Thar's a sprightly look about 'em, which would shore jestify any semi-proodent gent in jumpin' sideways. Likewise, she's packin' a Colt's .45, an' clutchin' a winchester in her little claw, the same contreebutin' a whole lot toward makin' her impressive as a pageant. "'How are you, sports?' she says, tossin' her disengaged hand a heap arch. 'I gets word about you-all up in Vegas, an' allows I'll come trundlin' down yere an' size you up. My idee is you needs regen'ratin'.' "'Is thar anything we-all can he'p you to, Miss?' asks Enright, who takes the play away from Peets. 'If aught is wanted, an' thar's a lariat in the outfit long enough to reach, you-all can trust Wolfville to rope, throw an' hawg-tie the same accordin' to your wishes.' "'Yes,' adds Peets, 'as Sam says, if thar's any little way we-all can serve you, Miss, jest say the word. Likewise, if you don't feel like speakin', make signs; an' if you objects to makin' signs, shake a bush. All we reequires is the slightest hint.' "'Be ca'm,' says the young lady, her manner as se'f-confident as if she's a queen. 'Thar's nothin' demanded of you outlaws except to tamely listen. I'm a se'f-respectin', se'f-supportin' young female, who believes in Woman Suffrage, an' the equality of the sexes in pol'tics an' property rights. Which my name is Bark, baptized Cynthiana, the same redooced by my old pap, while yet alive, into the pet name of Original Sin. It's my present purpose to become a citizen of this yere camp, an' take my ontrammeled place in its commercial life by openin' a grogshop. Pendin' which, do you-all see this?'--an' she dallies gently with a fringe of b'ar-claws she's wearin' as a necklace, the same bein' in loo of beads. 'That grizzly's as big an' ugly as him.' Yere she tosses a rose-leaf hand at Boggs, who breaks into a profoose sweat. 'I downs him. Also, I'll send the first horned-toad among you, who pays me any flagrant attentions, pirootin' after that b'ar. Don't forget, gents: my name's Bark, Cynthiana Bark, pet-named Original Sin, an' thar's a bite goes with the Bark.' "Havin' conclooded this yere salootatory, Miss Bark, givin' a coquettish flourish to her winchester, goes trapsein' over to the O. K. Restauraw, leavin' us--as the story-writer puts it--glooed to the spot. You see it ain't been yoosual for us to cross up with ladies who, never waitin' for us to so much as bat an admirin' eye or wag an adorin' y'ear, opens neegotations by threatenin' to shoot us in two. "'Thar's a young lady,' says Peets, who's first to ketch his breath, 'that's got what I calls _verve_.' "'Admittin' which,' observes Enright, some doubtful, havin' been thrown back on his hocks a whole lot; 'some of you-all young bucks must none the less have looked at her in a improper way to start her ghost-dancin' like she does.' "Enright's eye roves inquirin'ly from Boggs to Texas, an' even takes in Tutt. "'Not me!' declar's Texas, plenty fervent; 'not me!--more'n if she's a she rattlesnake!' "'As the husband of Tucson Jennie,' observes Tutt, his air some haughty--which he allers puts on no end of dog whenever he mentions his fam'ly--'as the husband of Tucson Jennie, an' the ondoubted father of that public ornament an' blessin', little Enright Peets Tutt, I do not regyard it as up to me to cl'ar myse'f of no sech charges.' "'Sam,' says Boggs, his voice reproachful, 'you notes how she makes invidious compar'sons between me an' that b'ar, an' how she beefs the b'ar? After which gratooitous slur it's preeposterous to s'ppose I'd go admirin' her or to takin' any chances.' "'Then it's you,' says Enright, comin' round on the puny tenderfoot. 'Jack,' he continyoos, appealin' to Jack Moore, who's kettle-tender to the Stranglers, of which arm of jestice Enright is chief--'Jack, do you reemark any ontoward looks or leers on the part of this yere partic'lar prairie dog, calc'lated to alarm a maiden of fastidious feelin's?' "'Sir,' breaks in the feeble young tenderfoot, an' all mighty tremyoolous, 'as shore as my name is Oscar Freelinghuysen I never even glances at that girl. I ain't so much as present while she's issuin' her deefiances. I lapses into the Red Light the moment I observes how she's equipped, an' Black Jack, the barkeep, will ver'fy my words.' "'All right,' warns Enright, plumb severe, 'you be careful an' conduct yourself deecorous. Wolfville is a moral camp. Thar's things done every day an' approved of in Noo York which'd get a gent downed in Wolfville.' "'That Miss Bark mentions she's Woman Suffrage, Sam?' observes Boggs, in a questionin' way, as we stands sloppin' out a recooperative forty drops in the Red Light. "'Shore!' replies Enright. 'The Doc yere can tell you all about 'em. As I onderstands, they're a warlike bevy of women who voylently resents not bein' born men. Thar's one thing, however; I sincerely trusts that none of you young sports'll prove that forward an' onwary as to go callin' her by her pet name of Original Sin. Which she might take advantage of it. Them exponents of women's rights is plumb full of the onexpected, that a-way, an' it's my belief that all who ain't honin' to commit sooicide'll be careful an' address her as Miss Bark.' "'Be they many of that Woman Suffrage brand?' persists Boggs. "'Herds of 'em,' chips in Peets. 'The Eastern ranges is alive with 'em. But they don't last. As a roole they gets married, an' that's gen'rally speakin' the end of their pernicious activ'ties. Wedlock is a heap apt to knock their horns off.' "Faro Nell, Tucson Jennie an' Missis Rucker don't take to this Miss Bark's Woman Suffrage views. "'She's welcome,' says the latter esteemable cook an' matron, 'to her feelin's; but she mustn't come preachin' no doctrine to me, wharof the effects is to lower me to Rucker's level. I've had trouble enough redoocin' that ground-hawg to where he belongs, an' I ain't goin' to sacrifice the work of years for no mere sentiments.' "'Which I shore agrees with you, Missis Rucker,' says Nell, lookin' up from some plum preeserves she's backin' off the noonday board to consider Cherokee, who's settin' next; 'a woman has enough to do to boss one gent, without tryin' to roole broadcast over whole commoonities.' "At this exchange of views Cherokee softly grins like a sharp who can see his way through. As for Rucker, who's waitin' on the table an' packin' in viands from the kitchen, he takes it as sullen as a sorehead dog. Personal, I ain't got no use for Rucker; but between us, Missis Rucker, one way an' another, does certainly oppress him grievous. "Before the week is out we knows a lot more about Miss Bark than we does when she first comes prancin' out upon us from Monte's stage. Not that thar's aught ag'inst the lady. It's doo to Enright, who begins recollectin' things. "'Which I knows her pop,' explains Enright, 'now my mem'ry's assertin' itse'f, I knows him when he first comes bulgin' into the Pecos Valley, eighteen years ago. This Original Sin daughter an' her maw don't show up none till later. Thar's no more innocent form of tenderfoot than Bark ever comes weavin' into the Southwest. He's that ignorantly innocent, wild geese is as wise as serpents to him. But he's full of a painstakin' energy, all the same, an' mighty assidyoous to learn.' "'Whatever does he turn to?' asks Texas. "'He hires out to a peach ranch. An' this'll show you how industrious, that a-way, this Bark tarrapin is. The peach ranch party has a measly bunch of sheep. He keeps 'em nights in a box-tight board corral, so's the coyotes can't get to mingle with 'em none. Days he throws 'em loose to feed. The first evenin' the peach ranch gent tells this yere Bark to corral the sheep, an' then come in for supper. "An' be shore," says the peach ranch party, "you gets 'em all in." "'An hour goes by, an' the peach ranch party is about through his feed, when this yere Bark drifts up to the table. His face is flushed, but he's w'arin' a look of triumph. "I hives 'em," says he, some exultant; "only one lamb does shore force me to extend myse'f a lot. I'll gamble I runs a hundred miles before I rounds him up." "'Next mornin' the peach ranch party goes out to throw loose them sheep. As he cranes his neck over the corral fence to count the bunch he's amazed to see a jack-rabbit galumpin' about among 'em. "Gin'ral Jackson fit the English!" he exclaims; "however does that jack-rabbit get himse'f mixed in with them sheep?" An' he p'ints it out to Bark. "'That ontootered person is all astonishment. "Jack-rabbit!" says he. "Why, I hopes next fall to vote the reepublican ticket an' die disgraced if I don't put it down for a lamb! That's the anamile which makes me run my laigs off roundin' of him up!"' "'Which, as you says, Sam,' reemarks Tutt, signin' up to Black Jack to set out the bottles, 'in the face of sech a showin' that Bark party must have been plenty ardent.' "'I should shore yell!' coincides Boggs. "'But he learns in time, of course?' questions Nell. "'Learns, Nellie?' repeats Enright; 'it ain't three years before he identifies himse'f with the life about him to that degree he bumps off two kyard sharps who tries to cold-deck him in a poker game, an' finds besides his steady employment stealin' old John Chisholm's calves, tharby assistin' in plantin' the toomultous seed of what comes subsequent to be called the Lincoln County War.' "'What's the finish of this interestin' crim'nal?' asks Cherokee. "'Lynched,' returns Enright. 'They puts him over the jump at Seven Rivers. You see this Rattlesnake--they calls him Rattlesnake Bark in them later years--is bunked down in one of these yere jim-crow, barn-board hotels. Thar's a resoundin' form of guest in the adjoinin' room, snorin' to beat four kings an' a ace. Rattlesnake tries poundin' on the partition, an' sw'arin' at him, an' callin' him a hoss thief. It's no avail. The snores of that boarder sounds like sawin' planks, an' fa'rly rocks the shack--they're that stormy. Final, when Rattlesnake's burdens gets to be more'n flesh an' blood can b'ar, he reaches for his .45, an' bombards that sleeper good an' plenty through the wall. It turns out it's the new jedge. In the mornin', when this joorist is discovered too dead to skin, the public is that mortified it takes Rattlesnake out as soon as breakfast's over, an' strings him to a limb.' "'Don't this pore Rattlesnake get no hearin'?' asks Nell. "'You see, Nellie,' Enright explains, 'what with maverickin' the Chisholm calves, an' a stage or two hold-up which p'ints to him, the close season's been out as to this Rattlesnake person for mighty like a year. Not but what he might have made preperations. Thar's a reeligious party present who asks Rattlesnake if he wants to pray some. "Which you'll cross the dark river all the easier," expounds the reeligious gent. But Rattlesnake reefuses his ministrations. "I'm what I be," he says; "an' as for that dark river you refers to, I ain't lookin' for no shallow ford." "'This Rattlesnake,' continyoos Enright, 'is willin' to learn to the last. It's his way. Spring a new game on him an' he's out instanter lookin' for information an' advice. That's why he comes on so fast. Thar bein' nothin' to stand him on for the purpose of bein' lynched, the Stranglers posed Rattlesnake a-top of a stack of hay, which is heaped up onder the tree they're yootilizin'. When the lariat is round his neck, an' he's disposed of the reeligious party who attempts to turn the business into a pra'r meetin', Rattlesnake looks at the chief of the committee an' says, "This yere bein' hanged from hay-cocks is plumb new to me entire, an' tharfore I'm obleeged to ask whether you-all expects me to jump off or slide?"' "'Well,' comments Jack Moore, drawin' a deep breath, 'the old murderer's game--misguided, mebby, but game.' "'That may be as it may,' observes Boggs, plenty thoughtful, 'but after all I regyards these yere details which Sam onfurls as chiefly valyooable as sheddin' a ray on this Miss Bark. On the chance that she takes after her old man, from now on I'm goin' to walk 'round her like she's a swamp.' "It's ten days after Miss Bark hits camp that things begins to focus. An old Mexican, the color of a blacksmith's apron, an' his wife, who's the same prosaic tint, comes creakin' along with a six-mule team--two wagons, lead an' trail--loaded to the gyards with stock an' fixtures. Said par'fernalia havin' arrived, Miss Bark busts in the door of the old deserted Lady Gay, an' takes possession. Armstrong, who runs the Noo York store, is the owner of the Lady Gay, but onder the circumstances he allows it'd be the act of a barbarian to interfere. "Besides, the attitoode of the young lady herse'f is plumb discouragin'. "'I'd shore admire,' she remarks, as, with the aid of her Mexicans, she goes tossin' things into p'sition, 'to see some male felon try to run a bluff about him havin' title to this Lady Gay structure, an' becomin' my landlord. Men have tyrannized a heap too long as it is over onprotected women, an' thar's one at least who's took in patient silence all she will.' "When Miss Bark's organized, she tacks up over the door a sign which the painter at the stage station preepar's. It reads: VOTES FOR WOMEN SALOON "'Only get it straight,' says Miss Bark when she has us close-herded at chuck time in the dinin' room of the O. K. Restauraw; 'I ain't openin' this saloon none with a view to sordid gain. I got money enough right now to buy an' burn this yere deboshed town of Wolfville, an' then prance over an' purchase an' apply the torch to that equally abandoned outfit, Red Dog. What I'm reachin' for is the p'litical uplift of this camp. Recognizin' whiskey as a permanency an' that saloons has come to stay, I aims to show folks how them reesorts should be run. I hopes to see the day when every s'loon'll be in the hands of ladies. For I holds that once woman controls the nosepaint of the nation the ballot is bound to follow.' "Once it's started we-all manages to patronize the Votes For Women S'loon for a average of three drinks a day. Enright advises it as safer. "'Otherwise she might resent it,' explains Enright, 'an' armed to the teeth like she is, an' possessin' them perfervid idees, thar's no tellin' whar she'd end.' "None of us feels like hangin' out thar. The atmosphere is too plumb formal. Besides, this yere Miss Bark has rooles. No kyards is permitted; an', moreover, you've got to go outdoors to sw'ar. As to drinks, the soberest among us can't get licker oftener than every other time, while Monte can't get none at all. That Votes For Women S'loon, considered as a house of call, is, an' put it mildest, certainly depressin'. "When I speaks of us patronizin' Miss Bark for three daily drinks, that a-way, thar's exceptions. Monte, as I states, is barred by the lady personal on the grounds of him bein' a slave to drink; while Tutt is forbid by Tucson Jennie. Tutt chafes some at them mandates of Jennie's; but bein' keenly alive as to what's comin' to her, as well as what she's cap'ble of, in her triple rôle of woman, wife an' mother, he yields. "As for Texas, while he subscribes to them three diurnal drinks, he allers insists that he has company. "'It's all right,' Texas'd say; 'I ain't intimatin' that this Miss Bark goes cherishin' designs. But it's my onbreakable roole, since them divoice experiences, to never enter the presence of onmarried ladies onless attended by witnesses.' "Owin' to which, some of us allers trails in along with Texas when he visits the Votes For Women S'loon. Even when thus protected he onflaggin'ly confines his observations to 'Licker, Miss, please!' an' stops thar as dumb as graven images. Once the licker's before him he heaves it into himse'f same as if it's drugs, an' instantly pulls his freight a heap speedy, breathin' hard. An' all as scared as a jack-rabbit that's heard the howl of a wolf. "Does Miss Bark go proselytin' 'round concernin' them Rights of Women? Which she shore does! You may say she omits no opportoonity. It's before Wolfville gets that effete it mixes drinks, an' any one who knows water from whiskey can 'tend bar. Wharfore, Miss Bark stands watch an' watch with her old Mexican, Pancho. The times she herse'f is min'sterin' to our needs she's preachin' Woman Suffrage incessant. Also, not bein' plumb locoed, we bows in concord tharunto. Enright an' Peets both concurs that it's the thing to do, an' we does it. "'Whatever difference does it make?' says Enright; 'the price of steers remains the same, three-of-a-kind continyoos to beat two pa'r, thar's still fifty-two kyards in a faro deck, an' every other law of nacher survives onteched. My notion is to agree with this Miss Bark, verbal, an' trust to Wolfville's onbeatable luck to pull us through.' "This counsel sounds good to us, an' we follows it. When Miss Bark sets forth her woman's rights fulm'nations along with her nosepaint, we murmurs a hearty assent, an' drinks down both impartial. Boggs, who's 'motional an' easy worked on, even gets to whar he gives it out he's actchooally a convert. "Miss Bark has been on the map for mebby it's a week, then thar occurs a eeposide which, while it makes no profound impression, deceased bein' a Mexican, shows she ain't packin' her pap Rattlesnake's old Colt's .45 in a sperit of facetiousness. It's about third drink time one evenin' when thar's the dull roar of a gun from over in the Votes For Women S'loon. When we arrives we finds a dead greaser carelessly quiled up near the door, an' Miss Bark snappin' the empty shell out of her six-shooter. "'He was roode,' is the only explanation she vouchsafes; an' Enright, after lookin' at Peets a spell, who's lookin' at the ceilin', says it's s'fficient. "'Only,' says Enright, when we're all back safe in the Red Light, 'I sincerely trusts she won't get her hindsights notched up to whar she takes to bumpin' off _Americanos_. I shore don't know whatever in sech case we could do, vig'lance committees, in the very essence of their construction, possessin' no joorisdiction over ladies.' "'That's right, Sam,' says Peets, plenty grave; 'if it ever gets to whar this Miss Bark turns her artillery loose on the camp permis'cus the only hope left would be to adjourn Wolfville _sine die_.' "Miss Bark, however, never does grow homicidal toward any of us, an' the only effect of her puttin' that Mexican over is that it inclines folks gen'ral to step high an' softly on what occasions they're found plantigradin' about in her s'ciety. "One week, two weeks, three weeks goes by, an' since a dead Mexican more or less ain't calc'lated to leave no onefface'ble scars the incident is all but forgot, when a second uprisin' takes place in the Votes For Women S'loon. This time it's that sickly curlew-voiced Oscar who's the shriekin' center of eevents. Most of us is jest filin' out of the O. K. Restauraw, pickin' our teeth after our matootinal reepast, when we beholds this yere Oscar boilin' fo'th from the Votes For Women S'loon, all spraddled out. As he goes t'arin' down the street Miss Bark seelects a graceful p'sition in the door, an' ca'mly pumps three loads at him out of her winchester. When I says she pumps them bullets at Oscar it's to be took conserv'tive; for none of 'em hits him, but only tosses up the dust about his flyin' feet. At the last shot Oscar cripples down in a shiverin' heap; an' with that Texas an' Boggs, not knowin' the extent of his injuries, rolls him onto a blanket an' packs him to his room over at the O. K. House, so's Peets can prospect his frame all scientific locatin' the lead. "Thar bein' no lead, as reelated, Peets reeports final to that effect. "'Only,' says Peets, 'he's scared up to sech extents that if our Joan of Arc had dusted his gaiters with so much as two more bullets he'd have been beyond medical skill.' "Followin' the foosilade Miss Bark sends for Enright. "'It's this way,' she goes on, when Enright arrives. 'That shorthorn Oscar comes lurchin' in, an' asks for nosepaint. As he stands thar, puttin' it onder his belt--me meanwhile swabbin' off the bar--he mentions that his paw's rich, an' his step-maw's jest died, leavin' him an' his paw alone. Then he calls attention to the presence in camp of that strayed sky-pilot, who preaches an' passes the hat the other evenin' over in the wareroom of the Noo York store. It's now, havin' got the bar tittivated to my taste, I has time to look this Oscar person's way, an' I finds him gloatin' over me in form an' manner not to be mistook. "Whatever be you leerin' at?" I deemands, bein' I'm in no mood for insults. Tharupon, he cuts loose a mouthful of platitoodes concernin' wedlock, an' about me bein' the soul of his soul. Havin' stood it a while, an' findin' my forbearance makes him worse, I grabs my winchester whar it's reposin' ready for eemergincies on the dripboard, an' you knows the rest.' "'With your free consent, Miss,' says Enright, 'I'd like to put one query. Was you aimin' to down, or to simply skeer this Oscar?' "'I was only skeerin' him up some,' replies Miss Bark coyly. 'W'y, if I was reely out for his skelp, I'd have shore got it a heap. You can pin a patch the size of a dollar on that disparin' lover's coat, an' I'll cut it nine times in ten, offhand, at a hundred yards.' "'Tests is not reequired,' Enright interposes, plenty hasty; 'it's part of the organic law of this yere camp that a lady's word, even about her age, is to be took onchallenged.' "'Which I'm flattered,' says Miss Bark. 'Now, is thar anything else?' "'Only this,' returns Enright. 'As long as he gives you cause, an' you can shoot like you says, why ever don't you down him?' "'Which I confesses,' says Miss Bark, a blush mantlin' her brow, 'that sech is my orig'nal intentions when I reaches for my weepon. But jest as I sees that Oscar through the sights it comes upon me that thar's nothin' in bein' preecip'tate, an' mebby I'd better give myse'f the needed time to think his offer over.' "Enright shakes his wisdom-freighted head; when he relates his talk to Peets, the Doc shakes his head sim'lar in sapient yoonison. "'Which I'll bet a hatful of yellow chips,' says Boggs, who's stood listenin', 'ag'inst a handful of whites, that this yere Miss Bark makes herse'f an' that Oscar shorthorn man an' wife.' "'Now I wouldn't wonder none,' observes Peets, replyin' to the look in Enright's eye. 'That shootin' needn't count. A troo affection is freequent boisterous, that a-way.' "'An' in case,' says Enright, 'the kyards do fall in favor of matrimony, it'll most likely be the end of that Votes For Women S'loon. I begins to see how this yere ongrateful outfit may yet get deep in debt to that egreegious Oscar.' "None of us ever says so, but it's the common belief that Texas connives at this yere threatened Oscar's escape. In any case, the next mornin' Oscar goes catfoot out of the O. K. House before folks is up, an' takes to hidin' out. The fact is he's layin' for Monte an' the stage, about ten mile no'th of camp. Leastwise, he's thar a heap when Monte comes along, an' deemands that he be took up an' carried to Tucson. "It ain't first drink time before this Oscar's missed, an' by second drink time the news has drifted over to Miss Bark. It's Peets who informs her, an' he tells us, when reelatin' the incident, that the way that deeserted lady knits her brow is a caution to philos'phers. "'So,' she says at last, 'that onmitigated seedoocer thinks to leave me in this heartless way. He'll find before he's through that it's no light matter to charm into fervent life a love like mine.' "'It's the theery, Miss,' says Peets, 'of the best minds in camp that this Oscar's hit the Tucson trail afoot, with a plan of headin' off the stage.' "Ten minutes an' Miss Bark is in the saddle, a lead pony gallopin' by her side, in hot pursoote of the dir'lect. "'That lead pony looks om'nous, Doc,' observes Enright, as the two stands watchin' Miss Bark's departure. "'It's prov'dential,' remarks Peets, as he heads the procession to the Red Light, 'that that sky-pilot's aboard the stage. Which he ought to work in plumb handy.' "Six hours later Miss Bark comes surgin' in with her Oscar foogitive, his heels tied onder the belly of the lead hoss. Any one can see by his benumbed expression that he's a married man. The two heads straight for the Votes For Women S'loon, an' after boltin' her new he'pmeet into the back room, Miss Bark takes a peek in the glass, pats down her ha'r, an' goes behind the bar as yoosual. "'Yes,' she replies, an' all a heap modest an' artless, as Peets an' Enright--actin' on behalf of the camp--gyardedly inquires if they're to offer congratulations, 'I reckon you may. An' the best part is that my dear Oscar's so plumb ready an' willin'. Which I never knows a bridegroom, gents, who gets married with so little struggle.' [Illustration: "IT'S YOU, OSCAR, THAT I WANT," OBSERVES MISS BARK. "I CONCLOODES, UPON SOBER SECOND THOUGHT, TO ACCEPT YOUR OFFER OF MARRIAGE." p. 93.] "'How soon, Missis Freelinghuysen,' says Peets, 'do you-all reckon on lettin' this Oscar husband out?' "'Oh,' she returns, 'as soon as ever it's safe. Jest now he's some onstrung; but in a day or two I figger he'll begin to get reeconciled to his bliss. An' at that, my main idee in lockin' him up is one of reeform rather than restraint. Oscar's been over-drinkin' himse'f of late; an' I aims to get the whiskey out of him, so as I can form some reas'nable estimate of how much of a husband that a-way I've done roped up.' "'Is thar any objections,' asks Enright, 'to our visitin' this modern pris'ner of Chillon? We binds ourselves to say nothin' that'll fret him, or set him to beatin' his life out ag'inst the bars.' "'W'y, shore,' she replies, 'you-all is quite welcome. I only hopes you'll teach him to look at things in their proper light.' "'It ain't so much,' says this Oscar husband, when Enright an' Peets calls upon him in his captivity, 'that I've been hurried, onregyardful of my feelin's, into the married state. But, gents, my parent is doo, accordin' to his last letter, to come curvin' in yere any minute; an' whatever do you-all reckon now he's goin' to say?' "Enright an' Peets is so moved they promises the imprisoned Oscar their support, an' this leaves him, if not hopeful, at least some cheered. "Monte gives his version of them nuptials when he returns from Tucson. "'Which it's this a-way, pards,' says Monte. 'I'm twenty miles no'th of yere, when somethin' flashes by with a lead hoss, like arrows. Thinks I, "That's a hoss thief gettin' away with some stock"; an', allowin' Jack Moore'll be hard on his neefarious hocks, I'm lookin' back to see can I raise Jack's dust. The next I knows, an' all as sudden as a pan of milk from a top shelf, I hears a silv'ry voice remarkin': "Set your brake!" an' turnin' my head I finds a winchester p'intin' as squar' between my eyes as you-all could lay your finger. Gents, thar's something mighty cogent about a winchester that a-way, an' I shore shoves on the brake with sech abandon I snaps the shank short off.' "'Wharever is this Oscar party?' asks Enright. "'He's with me on the box; an' when this yere intrepid Miss Bark takes to dom'neerin' at us with that rifle he collapses. "It's you, Oscar," observes this Miss Bark, shiftin' the muzzle to him. "Upon second thought I concloods to accept your offer of marriage." "'Which at that crisis,' remarks Peets, 'this Oscar of course breaks into loud an' joyful cries.' "'Not exactly. In fact, his tones if anything is some low-sperited. "I takes it," he says, when he's able to command his feelin's, "that you declines them proffers with your winchester at the time when made." But the lady dismisses this as a quibble, an' merely sayin' that she won't be paltered with no farther, orders Oscar an' the Bible sharp who's ridin' inside to assemble by the edge of the trail. The Bible sharp attempts to lay the foundations of fresh objections by askin' Oscar does he do this of his own free will; but the muzzle of the winchester--which the bride all along reetains in her hands--begins movin' 'round in his direction, observin' which man'festation he pronounces 'em husband an' wife. "What heaven has j'ined together," says he, "let no man put asunder." After which he blesses 'em, an' reeports the last cinch fastened. "Pay him, Oscar," whispers the bride. Wharupon Oscar, his fingers tremblin', squars the Bible sharp with the price of a brace of steers, an' the deed is done. Now he's hers for better or worse, she ropes his heels together onder the belly of her lead hoss, an' the happy pa'r goes romancin' back for Wolfville, while I kicks loose what's left of the brake an' p'ints out ag'in for Tucson.' "On the third day, by givin' his parole an' promising to fondly reeport to his spouse once every hour, Oscar is permitted to go reecreatin' about the camp. "'Only,' says the lady, by way of warnin' to Black Jack, 'thar's to be no drinks.' "These yere strained conditions preevails for mebby it's five days, when, as the stage swings in to the post office one evenin', a stout florid old gent gets out. He comes puffin' up to Peets a heap soopercilious. "'Do you-all know a addle-pated an' semi-eediotic young party,' says he, 'who's named Oscar Freelinghuysen?' "'Why, yes,' returns Peets, 'I do. Onless my mem'ry's pulled its picket pin an' gone plumb astray he's the eboolient sharp who conclooded a somewhat toomultuous courtship last week by gettin' married. He's in the shank of his honeymoon as we stands chattin' yere.' "The florid gent glares at Peets, his feachures the color of liver, his eyes stickin' out like the eyes of a snail. "'Married!' he gasps, an' falls in a apoplectic fit. "It takes a week an' all the drugs Peets has got before that apoplectic's able to sit up an' call for nosepaint. An' whatever do you think? His daughter-in-law, but onbeknownsts to him as sech, nurses him from soda to hock. Oscar Joonior? By advice of Enright that prodigal's took to cover over in Red Dog ontil we've made shore about the fatted calf. "The former Miss Bark puts up that nursin' game with Peets, an' day an' night she hangs over her apoplectic father-in-law like a painter over a picture. She's certainly as cunnin' as a pet fox! She dresses as quiet as a quail an' makes her voice as softly sober as a suckin' dove's. In the end she's got that patient hypnotized. "After Peets declar's him out of danger, an' all propped up in his blankets he's subscribed to mighty likely it's the fifth drink, the apoplectic begins to shed tears a heap profoose, an' relate to his nurse--the former Miss Bark--how his two wives has died, leavin' him a lonely man. She, the former Miss Bark, is his only friend--he says--an' he winds up his lamentations by recommendin' that she become his third. "'You're the only hooman heart who ever onderstands me,' he wails, gropin' for her hand, 'an' now my ongrateful boy has contracted a messalliance I shore wants you for my wife.' "She hangs her head like a flower at night, an' lets on she's a heap confoosed. "'Speak,' he pleads; 'tell me that you'll be mine.' "'Which I'd shore admire to, but I can't,' she murmurs; 'I'm wedded to your son.' "The old apoplectic asks for more licker in a dazed way, an' sends for Peets. The Doc an' him goes into execyootive session for most an hour; meanwhile the camp's on edge. "At the close the Doc eemerges plumb radiant. "'Everything's on velvet,' he says; 'thar's never a more joodicious convalescent. He freely admits, considerin' the sort of daughter-in-law he's acquired, that Oscar has more sense than folks suspects.' "Now that the skies is cl'ared, the bridegroom is fetched back from Red Dog, an' thar's a grand reeconciliation. "'We'll all go back East together,' sobs father-in-law Freelinghuysen, holdin' both their hands. "Two days later they starts, Missis Freelinghuysen Joonier lookin' after father-in-law Freelinghuysen same as if he's a charlotte roosse. "The Votes For Women S'loon? "It's kept a secret, at Peet's su'gestion, him bein' apoplectic that a-way. The stock is bought by public subscription of the camp, an' when the Freelinghuysen household is out of sight an' hearin' we invites Red Dog over in a body an' onbelts in a mod'rate orgy. The sign, 'Votes For Women S'loon,' is now preeserved in the custody of the Wolfville Historical Society, which body is called into active bein' upon motion of Peets, while Red Dog an' us is drinkin' up the stock." IV OLD MONTE, OFFICIAL DRUNKARD "Shore; Monte's the offishul drunkard of Arizona." The old cattleman was answering my question. "Or, seein' that mebby Wolfville's joorisdiction won't be held none to reach beyond, let's say the offishul drunkard of Cochise County. That's Monte's civic designation; offishul drunkard, an' meant to fix his social place. "Does he resent it? "Which he proudly w'ars that title like it's a kingly crown! It's as good as even money that to ondertake to sep'rate him from it, or deny the same, is the one single thing he bristles up at an' give you a battle over. "Which this yere last should mean a heap, since Monte's plumb pacific by nacher, an' abhors war to the mean confines of bein' timid. To be shore, he'll steam at the nose, an' paw the sod, an' act like he's out to spread rooin far an' wide--that he's doo to leave everything in front of him on both sides of the road. But in them perfervid man'festations he don't reely intend nothin' either high or heenious, or more'n jest to give his se'f-respect an outing that a-way. Let the opp'sition call him down, an' the crafty old cimmaron'll go to the diskyard instanter. "Which at that, Monte ain't without his interestin' side. When onder the inflooence of nosepaint, which last is constant, he has three distinct moods. About the fo'th drink, let a stranger show up, an'--all aff'ble an' garyoolous--Monte's right thar to do the honors. When the stranger, gettin' weary, kicks Monte off him, the same bein' shore to happen final since no one formed in the image of his Maker can put up with them verbal imbecil'ties of his beyond a given len'th of time, he'll arch his back an'--apparently--wax that f'rocious a wronged grizzly to him is as meek as milk. An' yet, as I tells you, it's simply a blazer; an' the moment the exasperated stranger begins betrayin' symptoms of goin' to a showdown, Monte lapses into his third mood of haughty silence, an' struts off like it's beneath him to bandy words. "That's the savin' clause in Monte's constitootion; he may get drunk, but he never gets injoodicious. Thar's a sport from some'ers over 'round Shakespear in the dance hall one evenin', whose patience has been plenty treespassed on by Monte. By way of bringin' matters to a deecisive head, this yere Shakespear party tells Monte he's a liar. Do you reckon Monte hooks up with him? Not a chance! He simply casts on that maligner from Shakespear a look of disparagement, an' with nose held high, as markin' his contempt, moves away with the remark. "'That's something I refooses to discuss with you.' "Which thar's no more real p'isin in Monte than in a hired girl. "We has the chance once to try some experiments on Monte, an' it's the mistake of our lives we don't. Peets, whose regrets is scientific, feels speshully acoote. Thar's a partic'lar bar'l of nosepaint gets trundled into camp, which is nothin' short of bein' the condensed essence of hostility. Black Jack, after years as barkeep, says himse'f he never sees nothin' like it. On the hocks of two drinks, folks gets that ornery Enright has it freighted back to Tucson in alarm, fearin' for the peace of the camp. At the time, none of us thinks of it; but later it's a subject of gen'ral regret that some of it ain't saved to try on Monte. Mebby that speshul brand of licker turns out to be the missin' ingreedient, an' keys him up to deeds of heroism. "Jest to show you some of the milder workin's of that licker. Boggs files away four inches of it onder his belt, an' next, when he's walkin' by the corral an' meets a Mexican, he reaches out in a casyooal an' abstracted way, collars that Greaser an' hefts him over a six-foot 'dobe fence, same as if he's a bag of bran; an' all apropos of nothin'. Boggs says himse'f he don't know why none. He's thinkin' of something else at the time, he declar's, an' the eepisode don't leave no partic'lar traces on his mem'ry. The trooth is, it's that veehement an' onmuzzled nosepaint, incitin' him to voylence. "Is the Mexican hurt? "Which, if I remembers rightly, Peets does mention about a busted collarbone. But it don't create no interest--him bein' a Mexican. You see, thar's a feelin', amountin' fa'rly to a onwritten law, that Mexicans ain't got no rightful call to be seen in public no how; an' when one does go pirootin' round permiscus, in voylation of this yere tenet, nacherally he takes his chances. You-all can gamble, though, that Boggs shore never would have reached for him, only he's actchooated by that whiskey. "As modest an' retirin' a sperit as Cherokee, to whom any form of boastful bluff is plumb reepellant, subscribes to a mod'rate snifter of that licker; an' in less time than it takes to rope a pony, he's out in front of the Red Light, onbucklin' in a display of pistol shootin'. Thar's a brace of towerists in camp, an' Cherokee let's on he'll show 'em. Which he shore shows 'em! He tosses two tomatter cans on high, an' with a gun in each hand keeps 'em dancin' an' jumpin' about in the atmosphere ontil thar's six bullets through each. It's a heap satisfyin' as a performance, as far as them pop-eyed towerists is concerned, an' both leaves town that evenin' by speshul buckboard. "Onaffected by that licker, Cherokee wouldn't have no more gone an' made sech a spectacle of himse'f, though urged tharunto by the yoonanimous voice of the outfit. When he so far recovers as to 'ppreeciate what Faro Nell has to say of them exploits--an', while tender, she's plenty explicit--he comes mighty clost to blushin' himse'f to death. "It's after we notes what it does to Cherokee, an' hears of them exhibitions of broote force by Boggs, that we gets timid about this yere whisky, an' Enright orders the bar'l sent back. An' right he is! S'ppose them Red Dogs was to have come prancin' over for a social call, an' s'ppose in entertainin' 'em we all inadvertent has recourse to that partic'lar licker, whatever do you-all reckon 'd have been the finish? Son, thar'd have been one of them things they calls a catyclism, an' nothin' short. "It's shore a fightin' form of licker. Tutt reeserves out a tin cup of it, an' sets it down by a prairie dog's hole. Accordin' to Tutt, the dog comes out, laps it once, an' starts back same as if he's been shot with a '45. Thar he squats, battin' his eyes, wrinklin' up his nose, an' cogitatin'. After thinkin' the thing over, the dog approaches, mighty gingerly, an' takes three or four more laps. Then he r'ars back, an' considers for quite a spell. It looks final like he gets his mind made up, an' with that he capers over, an' he'ps himse'f to what for a prairie dog is shore a big drink. "Two minutes later, ha'r bristlin', whiskers standin' out like wire, eyes full of determination, that dog crosses over to another dog who's livin' neighbor to him, an' says--accordin' to Tutt: "'Wharever can I locate that coyote who's been domineerin' round yere for mebby it's a month, harassin' folks into their holes? Whar's that coyote at?' "Peets allers allows Tutt exaggerates, but havin' sampled that licker some myse'f, I'm a long ride from bein' so shore. "That lack of war instinct in Monte ain't no speecific drawback. Him drivin' stage that a-way, he ain't expected none to fight. The hold-ups onderstands it, the company onderstands it, everybody onderstands it. It's the law of the trail. That's why, when the stage is stopped, the driver's never downed. Which if thar's money aboard, an' the express outfit wants it defended, they slams on some sport to ride shotgun that trip. It's for this shotgun speshulist to give the route agents an argyooment. Which they're licensed to go bombardin' each other ontil the goin' down of the sun. As for the driver, however, the etikette simply calls for him to set his brake, an' all peaceful hold his hands above his head. It's inside his rights, too, accordin' to the rooles, for him to cuss out the hold-ups, an' call 'em all the hard names of which he's cap'ble; an' stage drivers, who loves their art, spends their time between drinks practisin' new cuss words, an' inventin' onheard of epithets, so as to be ready when dooty an' o'casion calls. Havin' downed or driven off the shotgun sport, an' seen the bottom of the express box, the hold-ups tells the stage driver to pull his freight. Wharupon he picks up the reins, kicks free the brake, lets fly a loorid an' final broadside of vitooperation--he havin' carefully reeserved the same, by way of peroration--an' goes his windin' way. "Wolfville's been on the map for most a year, when Monte first shows up. In the beginnin', an' ontil we-all gets adjusted to him, he's something of a bore. Leastwise, he ain't what you'd go so far as to call a boon companion. When it dawns on us that he's plottin' to make himse'f a permanency, it certainly does look for a spell that, what with his consumption of nosepaint an' what with his turrific genius for snorin', he's goin' to be a trifle more'n we can stand. "Does Monte snore? "Not to create ondoo excitement, the bar'foot onclothed trooth is that his snorin' falls nothin' short of bein' sinful. Boggs has plenty of countenance when he brings them snores to the attention of Enright. "'Thar's shore a limit somewhar, Sam,' Boggs says, 'to this yere drunkard's right to snore. Which he's simply keepin' everybody over to the O. K. House settin' up. Onless something's done to check him, thar'll be a epidemic of St. Vitus dance. You ask Doc Peets; he'll tell you that this yere Monte with his snorin' is a scourge.' "It's not alone their volume, but their quality, which makes them snores of Monte so ondesir'ble. Some folks snores a heap deprecatory, an' like they're apol'gizin' for it as they goes along. Others snores in a manner ca'mly confident, an' all as though the idee that any gent objects would astonish 'em to death. Still others snores plumb deefiant, an' like they ain't snorin' so much for comfort, that a-way, as to show their contempt for mankind. It's to this yere latter hostile school that drunkard, Monte, belongs. "After Boggs lodges complaint, Enright takes a corrective peek into the sityooation. Thar's two rooms over the O. K. kitchen, sort o' off by themselves. Upon Enright's hint, Missis Rucker beds down Monte in one, an' Deef Andy, who mends harness for the stage company an' can't hear nothin', in the other. "'It's for the safety of your excellent car'vansary, Ma'am,' Enright explains. 'Which Dan's mighty easy moved; an' some mornin', onless you adopts them improvements, that somnolent sot you're harborin' 'll go too far with Dan. I takes it you-all don't want the shack all smoked up with Dan's six-shooter? In which event you'll put that reverberant drunkard in the far-corner room, with Andy next.' "Peets once mentions a long-ago poet party, named Johnson, who, speakin' of a fellow poet after he's dead an' down onder the grass-roots, lets on that he teches nothin' he don't adorn. You can go your ultimate simoleon that ain't Monte's style. The only things he don't upset is bottles; the only flooid he never spills is licker. This yere last would be ag'inst his religion. Wharever he goes, he's otherwise draggin' his rope, an' half the time he's steppin' on it. "It's him that coaxes that onhappy Polish picture painter our way. This yere is long after he's drivin' stage, an' as Wolfville's offishul drunkard becomes a tol'rated feachure of the camp. This Polish artist person is as much out o' place in Arizona as a faro lay-out at a Sunday school picnic. Monte crosses up with him over at Tucson in the Oriental S'loon, an' while thar's no ties between 'em, more'n what nacherally forms between two gents who sets drinkin' together all night long, before ever they're through with each other that inspired inebriate lands the locoed artist party on our hands. Enright shore does go the limit in rebookin' Monte. "'Why, Sam,' says Monte, an' he's that depreecatory he whines, 'I allows you'll look on him as a acquisition.' "'All the same,' returns Enright, an' I never knows him more forbiddin', 'yereafter please confine your annoyin' assidooities to drivin' stage, an' don't go tryin' to improve the outlook of this camp.' "Monte, with this, gets that dismal he sheds tears. 'Which it shore looks like I can't do nothin' right,' he sobs. "'Then don't,' says Enright. "From the start, Monte graves himse'f upon the mem'ry of folk as the first sport, to onroll his blankets in Cochise County, who consoomes normal over twenty drinks a day. Upon festal occasions like Noo Year's, an' Christmas, an' Fo'th of Jooly, an' Thanksgivin', no gent who calls himse'f a gent thinks of keepin' tabs on a fellow gent, no matter how freequent he signs up to Black Jack. On gala o'casions, sech as them noted, the bridle is plumb off the hoss, an' even though you drinks to your capac'ty an' some beyond, no one's that vulgar as to go makin' remarks. But that ain't Monte; he's different a heap. It looks like every day is Fo'th of Jooly with him, he's that inveterate in his reemorseless hankerin' for nosepaint. "Also, regyarded as to his social side, Monte, as I states former, is a nooisance. Knowin' folks, too, is his fad. Only so you give him licker enough, he'll go surgin' round accostin' every gent he sees. No matter how austere a stranger is, Monte'll tackle him. An' at that he never says nothin' worth hearin', an' in its total absence of direction his conversation resembles nothin' so much as a dog chasin' its tail. "An' then thar's them footile bluffs he's allers tryin' to run. He's been pesterin' in an' out of the Red Light one evenin' ontil he's got Black Jack incensed. As he comes squanderin' along, for say the twentieth time, Black Jack groans, an' murmurs, "'Yere's that booze-soaked old hoss-thief ag'in!' "Monte gets the echo of it, same as folks allers does when it ain't wanted, but he's onable to say who. So he stands thar by the bar, glarin' 'round an' snortin'. Final, he roars: "'Who cuts loose that personal'ty?' "Thar ain't no answer, an' Monte ag'in takes to pitchin' on his rope. "'Show me the galoot who insults me,' he roars; 'let him no longer dog it, but p'int himse'f out as the gent.' "'All right,' says Black Jack, whose indignation gets the best of his reespons'bilities as barkeep, 'which I'm the party who alloodes to you as a booze-soaked old hoss-thief.' "'An' so you're the gent,' says Monte, castin' a witherin' glance at Black Jack; 'so you're the would-be sooicide who calls me a booze-soaked old hoss-thief?' "'Which I'm the identical stingin' lizard. Now what is it you're so plumb eager to say?' "'What am I eager to say? I merely wants to remark that you ain't done nothin' to swell up over. You-all needn't go thinkin' you're the first barkeep who calls me a booze-soaked old hoss-thief.' "Havin' la'nched this yere, Monte turns off as stiffly pompous as though he ain't left a grease-spot of Black Jack. "When folks won't listen to him no longer, Monte goes bulgin' forth into the highways an' the byways, an' holds long an' important discussions with signs, an' dry-goods boxes, an' sim'lar inan'mate elements of the landscape. Also, to mules an' burros. I remarks him myse'f, whisperin' in the onregyardful y'ear of a burro, an' said anamile as sound asleep as a tree. When that drunkard's through his confidences, he backs off, an' wavin' his paw plumb myster'ous at the burro says: "'Remember, now; I'm givin' you this yere p'inter as a friend.' "That time Black Jack offends Monte, after the latter hits the sidewalk followin' what he clar'ly considers is his crushin' come-back on Black Jack, he gets the feelin' that Jack's ha'ntin' along on his trail. Before he's gone fifty foot, he w'irls about, an' shouts: "'Don't you-all follow me! Which, if you crowds me, them places that has knowed you won't know you no more forever.' "When Monte gets off this menace, it seems like the Black Jack specter becomes intim'dated, an' tries to squar' itse'f. "'What's that?' Monte asks, after listenin' mighty dignified to the spook's excuses; 'you begs my pardon? Not another word. If you-all keeps on talkin' now you'll sp'ile it. Thar's my hand,' givin' the fingers of the phantom a mighty earnest squeeze. 'I'm your friend, an' that goes.' "Havin' established a peace, Monte insists that the Black Jack phantom b'ar him company to the O. K. Restauraw. In spite of all Missis Rucker can say or do, he plants the spook at the table, feeds it on the best that's in the kitchen, an' all as confident as if it's shorely troo. Also, he insists on payin' for two. "When Missis Rucker tries to show him he's down wrong, he refooses to have it that way. "'Do you-all reckon, Ma'am, that I can't trust my eyes none?' he demands. 'Which you'll tell me next that them airtights I tops of with is figments.' "'But thar's only one of you-all,' Missis Rucker persists. "'Ma'am,' returns Monte, his manner plumb s'picious, 'I don't jest quite sense your little game. Whatever it is, however, you-all can't play it on old Monte. You write back to my fam'ly an' the neighbors, an' the least flatterin' among 'em'll tell you that I'm as cunnin' as a squinch owl. Thar's two of us who feeds, an' for two of us I settles. Bein' a woman, you're too feeble-witted for reason, too mendacious for trooth.' "'Don't you go callin' me no woman,' says Missis Rucker, her eyes snappin', 'onless you're ready to cash in.' "'Women!' repeats Monte, sort o' addressin' the scenery, but still plenty cynical, 'what be they except a fleetin' show to man's deloosion given. Also, thar's nothin' to 'em. You opens their front door, an' you're in their back yard.' "Texas has been givin' y'ear to the talk. It's before his Laredo wife starts ropin' for that divorce; but she's already makin' war medicine, an' the signs an' signal smokes which p'int to an uprisin' is vis'ble on every hill. Texas is careful not to let Missis Rucker hear him none, but as he walks away, he mutters: "'That ghost-seein' sport's got the treemors, but all the same I strings with him on them estimates of ladies.' "Texas is that fav'rably affected about Monte, he talks things over with Tutt, who himse'f ain't married to Tucson Jennie none as yet. Them nuptials, an' that onbiased blessin', little Enright Peets Tutt, who results tharfrom, comes along later. "'Which thar's good in that Monte maverick,' says Texas; 'only so we could get the nosepaint out of him.' "'Now, I wouldn't wonder none, neither,' says Tutt. "'He drinkt up two quarts an' a half yesterday,' says Texas. "'Ain't thar no steps which can be took?' Tutt asks. 'Two quarts an' a half, though, shore sounds like he's somethin' of a prop'sition.' "These yere remarks is made in the Red Light, an' Tutt an' Texas appeals to Cherokee, whar that courtier of fortune is settin' in behind his lay-out. Cherokee waves 'em off, p'lite but firm. "'Don't ask me none,' he says. 'You-all knows my doctrines. Let every gent kill his own snakes.' "'That's my theology,' remarks Boggs, who has just come ramblin' in from the Noo York store, whar he's been changin' in a bundle of money for shirts; 'I recalls how, when I'm a prattlin' yearlin', hearin' Parson Ed'ards of the Cambellite Church quotin' whar Cain gives it out cold that he's not his brother's keeper; an' even at that onthinkin' age I fully endorses Cain's p'sition.' "The talk takes in Black Jack, who, by virchoo of him bein' a barkeep, nacherally savvys a heap about the licker question. Jack reelates how a sot he knows back in Arkansaw is shocked into never takin' a drink, by simply blowin' his hand off accidental while tanked up. "'Whang! goes the old Betsy,' says Jack, 'an' that slave to licker's shy his left hand. "Which it lets me out!" he exclaims; an' datin' from said catastrophy he'd no more tech nosepaint, that a-way, than he'd join the church.' "'But it's doubtful,' observes Tutt, 'if Enright stands to let us shoot this yere Monte drunkard's hand off.' "'It's ten to one he won't,' says Texas; 'still thar ought to be other schemes for shockin' a party into moral'ty, which stops short o' cripplin' him for life.' "'But is this yere inebriate worth the worry?' asks Boggs. 'Also, it shore strikes me as mighty gratooitous for us to go reorganizin' the morals of a plumb stranger, an' him not even asked.' "'Which he's worth the worry all right,' Texas replies. 'Thar's no efforts too great, when thar's a chance to save a party who has the same thorough onderstandin' of ladies which this gent has.' "Up over the Red Light bar is a stuffed bobcat, the same bein' held as decorative. Only the day before Texas and Tutt stands talkin', a couple of Enright's riders comes packin' a live bobcat into town, which between 'em they ropes up over in the foothills of the Tres Hermanas, an' jams labor'ously into a pa'r of laiggin's. The same idee seizes on Texas an' Tutt yoonanimous. They sees that it only calls for the intelligent use of that Bar-8 bobcat, which them cow-punchers of Enright's ties down, to reegen'rate Monte, an' make him white as snow. [Illustration: A COUPLE OF ENRIGHT'S RIDERS COMES A PACKIN' A LIVE BOBCAT INTO TOWN. p. 118.] "Monte's ain't present none, bein' over to the O. K. House. By bein' plumb painstakin', Tutt an' Texas gets a collar onto the captive Bar-8 bobcat, an' chains him up over the Red Light bar, in place of the stuffed bobcat, deeposed. The Bar-8 bobcat jumps off once or twict before he learns, an' comes mighty clost to lynchin' himse'f. But Black Jack is patient, an' each time pokes him back with a cha'r. After mebby the third jump, it gets proned into the bobcat that thar's nothin' in it for him to go hurlin' himse'f into space that a-way, an' bein' saved from death by hangin' only through the cha'r-laig meditations of Black Jack. Acceptin' this yere view, he stands pat on his shelf. Likewise, he shore looks mighty vivid up thar, an' has got that former stuffed predecessor of his beat four ways from the jack. "We're hankerin' around, now the Bar-8 bobcat's organized, waitin' for Monte to come amblin' up, an' be reformed. "'An' you can gamble,' Tutt says, 'that the shock it'll throw into him'll have a ben'ficial effect. Shootin' off a hand or so ain't in it with the way that drunkard's goin' to feel.' "'That's the way I figgers,' Texas remarks. 'One glance at that bobcat, him on the verge of the treemors, an' thar'll a thrill go through his rum-soaked frame like the grace of heaven through a camp meetin'. For one, I antic'pate most excellent effects. Whatever do you think, Doc?' "'Whatever do I think?' Peets repeats. 'Which I thinks that, as the orig'nators of this yere cure for the licker habit, it'll be up to you an' Dave to convey the patient to his room at the O. K. House, as soon as ever you can control his struggles.' "Monte at last heaves in sight, an' comes shiverin' up to the bar, every nerve as tight as a fiddle string. Black Jack shoves him the bottle. "'What stuffed anamile sharp,' says Tutt, craftily directin' himself at Black Jack, 'mounts that bobcat up thar?' "Monte nacherally raises his eyes. Thar's that Bar-8 feline, half-crouched, glarin' down on him with green eyes, big as moons. "That settles it. "Monte gives a yell which they hears in Red Dog. Wharupon the bobcat, takin' it for a threatenin' deemonstration, onfolds in an answerin' yell, an' makes a scramblin' jump at Monte's head. Shore, he don't land none, bein' brought up short, like a roped pony. Thar he swings, cussin' an' spittin' an' clawin', as mad as a drunken squaw, an' begins all over to hang himse'f afresh. "Monte? "That victim of appetite falls to the floor as dead an' flat as a wet December leaf. "Actin' on them instructions, Tutt an' Texas picks Monte up an' packs him across to Peets, who, after fussin' over him for mebby an hour, brings him round s'fficient so he goes from one convulsion into another, in what you-all might deescribe as an endless chain of fits. Thar's nothin' to it; Peets is indoobitable the best equipped drug sharp that ever breaks loose in Arizona. At that, while Monte lives, he don't but jest. He's shore close enough at one time to kingdom come to hear the singin'. "For two weeks Monte's boilin' an' boundin' round in his blankets, Texas an' Tutt, feelin' a heap reemorseful, standin' watch and watch. It's decided that no more attempts to reform him will be made, him bein'--accordin' to Peets--too far gone that a-way. "'He's plumb onreform'ble,' explains Peets; 'whiskey's got to be so much a second nacher with him, that the only way you-all could cure him now is kill him.' "By way of partial rep'ration for what he suffers, as soon as Monte can ag'in move about, Enright calls a meetin' of the camp, an' dooly commissions him 'Offishul Drunkard,' with a absoloote an' non-reevok'ble license to go as far as he likes. "'This yere post of offishul drunkard,' Enright explains to the meetin', 'carries with it no money, no power, an' means only that he's free to drink from dark to daylight an' to dark ag'in, oncriticized, onreproved, an' onsaved. Colonel Sterett imparts to us in the last _Daily Coyote_ how them Hindoos has their sacred cobras. Cobras not bein' feas'ble none in Arizona, Wolfville in loo of sech accepts old Monte. Yereafter, w'arin' the title of offishul drunkard, he takes his place in the public regyard as Wolfville's sacred cobra.' "When Monte learns of his elevation, his eyes fills up with gratified pride, an' as soon as ever he's able to stand the w'ar an' t'ar, he goes on a protracted public drunk, by way of cel'bration, while we looks tol'rantly on. "'Gents,' he says, 'I thanks you. Yereafter the gnawin' tooth of conscience will be dulled, havin' your distinguished endorsement so to do. Virchoo is all right in its place. But so is vice. The world can't all be good an' safe at one an' the same time. Which if we all done right, an' went to the right, we'd tip the world over. Half has got to do wrong an' go to the left, to hold things steady. That's me; I was foaled to do wrong an' go to the left. It's the only way in which a jealous but inscroot'ble Providence permits me to serve my hour. Offishul drunkard! Ag'in I thanks you. Which this yere's the way I long have sought, an' mourned because I found it not, long meter.' "Boggs is the only gent who takes a gloomy view. "'That's fine for this yere egreegious Monte,' says Boggs, talkin' to Enright; 'as Wolfville's pet drunkard an' offishul cobra, he's mighty pleasantly provided for. But how about the camp? Whar does Wolfville come in? We're a strong people; but does any gent pretend that we possesses the fortitoode reequired to b'ar up through all the comin' rum-soaked years?--an' all onder the weight of this yere onmatched inebriate, whom by our own act an' as offishul drunkard, we onmuzzles in our shrinkin' midst? Gents, this thing can't last.' "'Not necessar'ly, Dan,' retorts Enright, his manner trenchin' on the cold; 'not necessar'ly. Let me expound the sityooation. I need not remind you-all that Sand Creek Riley, who drives the Tucson stage, gets bumped off the other evenin', while preeposterously insistin' that aces-up beats three-of-a-kind. Realizin' the trooth of half what you has said, Dan, I this evenin' enters into strategic reelations with the stage company's agent; an' as a reesult, an' datin' from now on, old Monte will be hired to fill the place of Sand Creek Riley, whom we all regrets. It's hardly reequired that I p'int out the benefits of this yere arrangement. As stage driver, old Monte for every other night will get sawed off on Tucson. An' I misjedges the vitality of this camp if, with the pressure on it thus relieved, an' Tucson carryin' half the load, it's onable to live through. In my opinion, Dan, by the light of this explanation, you at least oughter hope for the best.' "'That's whatever!' says Boggs, who's plumb convinced; 'if I'd waited ontil you was heard, Sam, I'd never voiced them apprehensions. But the fact is, this yere Monte cobra of ours, with his bibbin's an' his guzzlin's, has redooced me to a condition of nervous prostration. It's all right now. Which I will say, however, that I can't reeflect none without a shudder on what them Tucson folks'll say an' think, so soon as ever they wakes up to what's been played on 'em.'" V HOW THE MOCKING BIRD WAS WON "Myst'ries? "We lives surrounded by 'em. Look whar you will, nacher has a ace buried. Take dogs, now: Why is it when one of 'em, daylight or dark, cuts the trail of a anamile, he never makes the fool mistake of back-trackin' it, but is shore to run his game the way it's movin'? There must be some kind of head-an'-tail to the scent, that a-way, to give the dog the hunch. Myst'ry!--all myst'ry! The more a gent goes messin' 'round for s'lootions, the more he's taught hoomility an' that he ain't knee-high to toads. "An' yet when it comes to things myster'ous everything else is bound to go to the diskyard compared to a lady's heart. Of course, I speaks only in a sperit of philos'phy, an' not as one who's suffered. I never myse'f am able pers'nal to approach closter to a lady's heart than across the street. Peets once reemarks that all trails leads to Rome. In that business of trails a lady's heart has got Rome left standin' sideways. Not only does every trail lead tharunto, but thar's sech a thing as goin' cross-lots. Take gettin' in love; thar's as many ways as cookin' eggs. While you'll see gents who goes skallyhootin' into that dulcet condition as straight as a arrer, thar's others who sidles in, an' still others who backs in. I even knows a boy who shoots his way in. "Which the lady in this case is the Mockin' Bird. That Mockin' Bird maiden has wooers by onbounded scores, but holds herse'f as shy an' as much aloof as if she's a mountain sheep. Not one can get near enough to her to give her a ripe peach. Along comes the eboolient Turkey Track, bulges headlong into her dest'nies, takes to menacin' at her with a gun an', final, to bombardin' her outright, an'--love an' heart an' hand--she comes a-runnin'. "Wolfville's without that last evidence of advancement, a callaboose. It bein' inconvenient to shoot up or lynch everybody who infringes our rooles, Jack Moore invents a convincin' but innocuous punishment for minor offenders. Endorsed by Enright, he established a water trough--it's big enough to swim a dog--over by the windmill; an' when some perfervid cow-puncher, sufferin' from a overdose of nosepaint, takes to aggravatin' 'round Moore swashes him about in the trough some profoose, ontil he gives his word to live a happier an' a better life. "It's like magic the way that water trough works. No matter how gala some pronghorn of a cowboy may feel, it shore lets the whey out of him. Given the most voylent, it's only a matter of minutes before he's soaked into quietood. Enright himse'f says Moore's entitled to a monyooment for the idee. "Turkey Track's name is Ford, Tom Ford, but workin' that a-way for the Turkey Track outfit he nacherally gets renamed for the brand. Turkey Track an' two boon companions has been goin' to an' fro from the Red Light to the Dance Hall, ontil by virchoo of a over-accumyoolation of licker they're beginnin' to step some high. Also, they takes to upliftin' their tired souls with yells, an' blazin' away at froote cans with their six-shooters. "It gets so that Enright tells Moore to give 'em a call-down. "'What them boys does,' says Enright, 'is done harmless an' light-hearted to be shore, an' nothin' radic'lly wrong is either aimed at or meant; but all the same, Jack, it's no more'n proodence to go knock their horns off. It ain't what them yooths is doin', but what they may be led to do, which makes the danger. It's like old Deacon Sopris at the Cumberland Methodist class meetin' says of kyard-playin'. "It ain't," explains the deacon, "that thar's any harm in the children playin' seven-up around the kitchen table of a winter's evenin' for grains of corn, but seven-up persisted in is shore to lead to dancin'." An' so with these young merry-makers. They'll keep on slamin' away at empty bottles an' former tomatter cans that a-way, ontil the more seedate element objects, an' somebody gets downed. Don't you agree with me, Doc?' "'Nothin' shorer!' says Peets. "Moore corrals Turkey Track an' his fellow revellers, an' tosses off a few fiats. "'Quit that whoopin' an' shootin', boys,' says Moore. 'Likewise, keep your hardware in your belts, as more deecorous. So shore as I finds a gun in any of your hands ag'in, I'll shoot it out.' "Turkey Track an' his _compadres_ don't say nothin' back. They savvys about the water trough, an' ain't hungerin' none to have their ardor dampened in no sech fashion. So they blinks an' winks like a passel of squinch owls, but never onbuckles in no argyooment. All the same, it irks 'em a whole lot, an' after Moore reetires they begins mod'rate to arch their necks an' expand 'round a little. "They allows--talkin' among themselves in a quer'lous way--that they ain't hurtin' no one, an' for Moore to come shovin' 'round an' lecturin' on etiquette is a conceited exhibition of authority as offensive as it is onjest. Thar's doubts, too, about it's bein' constitootional. "'Whatever does that jim-crow sp'ile-sport of a marshal mean?' says Turkey Track. 'It looks like he's not only deefyin' the organic law of this country, but puttin' on a heap of dog. Does he reckon this yere camp's a church?' "'I moves we treats them mandates,' says one of the boys, who's a rider for the G-bar ranch, 'with merited contempt.' "'As how?' asks the third, who belongs with the Four-J brand. 'You ain't so locoed as to s'ggest we-all t'ars person'ly into this Jack Moore marshal none I hopes?' "'Which you fills me with disgust!' says the other, nettled at the idee of pawin' the onprofit'ble grass 'round Moore; 'but whatever's the matter with goin' up to the far end of the street, an' w'irl an' come squanderin' back jest a shootin'?' "'Great!' says Turkey Track, applaudin' the scheme. 'Which we-all nacherally shoots up their old prairie dog town, same as if it's a Mexican plaza, an' then jogs on to our ranches, all triumphant an' comfortable.' "The three rides up to the head of the street, an' then turns an'--givin' their ponies the steel--comes whizzin' down through the center of eevents, yelpin' like Apaches an' lookin' like fireworks. They've got a gun in each hand, an' they shakes the flame an' smoke out of 'em same as three volcanoes on hossback. "Moore's standin' in front of the Noo York store, talkin' to Tutt. As you-all might imagine, it frets him to the quick to see how little them effervescent sperits cares for his injunctions. By way of rebooke--not wantin' to down 'em outright for what, take it the worst way, ain't nothin' more heen'ous than a impropriety--Moore gets his artillery to b'ar, an' as they flashes by like comets, opens on the ponies. It's hard on the ponies; but it won't do to let them young roysterers get away with their play. The example'll spread; an', onless checked at the jump, inside of a month thar'd be nothin' but a whoopin' procession of cow-punchers chargin' up an' down the causeways. Tenderfeet might acquire misgivin's techin' us bein' a peaceful camp, an' the thing op'rate as a blow to trade. It's become a case of either get the boys or get the ponies, an' onder the circumstances the ponies has the call. "Thar's no more artistic gun-player than Moore in town, onless it's Cherokee, an' mebby Doc Peets, who's a heap soon with a derringer. As the ponies flash by, Moore's six-shooter barks three times. Two ponies goes rollin'; the third--it's Turkey Track's--continyoos cavortin' down the street an' out of town. Turkey Track never pulls up nor looks back. The last we sees of him is when he's two miles away, an' a swell rises up behind him an' hides him from view. "The G-bar boy, an' him from the Four-J outfit, hits the grass twenty feet ahead of their ponies, like a roll of blankets chucked out of a wagon, an' after bumpin' an' tumblin' along for a rod or so, an' all mighty condoosive to fractures an' dislocations, they flattens out reespective same as a couple of cancelled postage stamps. Shore, the fall jolts the savvy plumb out of 'em. "Bein' they're stretched out an' passive, Moore collects 'em an' sops 'em up an' down in the water trough for mebby it's fifteen minutes. Which they're reesus'tated an' reeproved at one an' the same time. When them yooths comes to, they're a model to angels. To be shore, their intellects don't shine out at first none like the sun at noon, but continyoos blurred for hours. Even as late as the weddin' of Turkey Track with the Mockin' Bird--an' that ain't for all of eight weeks--the G-bar boy informs Boggs confidenshul, as they're takin' a little licker all sociable, that speakin' mental he's as yet a heap in eeclipse. "The maiden name of the Mockin' Bird is Loocinda Gildersleeve, but pop'lar pref'rence allers sticks to her stage title. She's a fav'rite at the Bird Cage Op'ry House, at which nursery of the drammy she's been singin' off an' on for somethin' like three years. She's a shore-enough singer, too, the Mockin' Bird is. None of your yeepin's an' peepin's, none of your mice squeaks an' tea-kettle tones an' cub coyote yelps. Which she's got a round, meelod'yous bellow like a hound in full cry, an' while she's singin' thar ain't a wolf'll open his mouth within a mile of town. Which them anamiles is plumb abashed, the Mockin' Bird outholdin' 'em to that degree. "You-all don't hear no sech singin' in the East. Thar ain't room; an' moreover the East's too timid. For myse'f, an' I ain't got no y'ear for music, them top notes of the Mockin' Bird, like the death yell of a mountain lion, is cap'ble of givin' me the fantods; while the way she hands out 'Home, Sweet Home' an' 'Suwannee River,' an' her voice sort o' diggin' down into the soul, sets eemotional sports like Boggs an' Black Jack to sobbin' as though their hearts is broke. She's certainly a jo-darter of a vocalist--the Mockin' Bird is, an' once when she renders 'Loosiana Loo' an' Boggs's more'n common affected, he offers to bet yellow chips as high as the ceilin' she can sing the sights off a Colt's .45. "'Which I enjoys one of the most mis'rable evenin's of my c'reer,' says Boggs to Faro Nell, when she expresses sympathy at him feelin' so cast down. 'I wouldn't have missed it for a small clay farm.' "'_Yo tambien_' says Black Jack, who's keepin' Boggs melancholly company while he weeps. 'Only I reckons the odd kyard in my own case is that, before I'm a man an' in some other existence, I used to be one of these yere ornery little fice dogs, which howls every time it hears a pianny. It's some left-over vestiges of that life when I'm a dog which sets me to bawlin', that a-way, whenever the Mockin' Bird girl sings. I experiences pensive sensations, sim'lar to what comes troopin' over a gent, who's libatin' alone, on the heels of the third drink.' "The Mockin' Bird looks as sweet as she sings. I mentions long ago about the phil'sophic old stoodent who says, 'They do say love is blind, but I'll be ding-danged if some gents can't see more in their girls than I can.' This yere wisdom don't apply none to the Mockin' Bird. Them wooers of hers, to say nothin' of Turkey Track, possesses jestification for becomin' so plumb maudlin'. Lovely? She's as pretty as a cactus flower, or a sunrise on the staked plains. "Folks likes her, too. Take that evenin' when a barbarian from over to'ards the Cow Springs cuts loose to disturb the exercises at the Bird Cage Op'ry House with a measly fling or two. The public well nigh beefs him. They'd have shore put him over the jump, only Enright interferes. "It's doorin' the openin' scene, when the actors is camped 'round in a half-circle, facin' the fiddlers. Huggins, who manages the Bird Cage, an' who's the only hooman who ever consoomes licker, drink for drink, with Monte, an' lives to tell the tale, is in the middle. Bowin' to the Mockin' Bird, an' as notice that she's goin' to carol some, he announces: "'The world-reenowned cantatrice, Mam'selle Loocinda Gildersleeve, cel'brated in two hemispheres as the Mockin' Bird of Arizona, will now sing the ballad wharwith she ravished the y'ears of every crowned head of Europe, the same bein' that pop'lar air from the op'ry of _Loocretia Borgia_, "Down in the Valley."' "At this that oncooth crim'nal from the Cow Springs gets up: "'The Mockin' Bird of Arizona which you-all is bluffin' about,' he shouts, 'can't sing more'n a burro, an' used to sling hash in a section house over by Colton.' "'Never the less, notwithstandin',' replies Huggins, who's too drunk to feel ruffled, 'Mam'selle Loocinda Gildersleeve, known to all the world as the Mockin' Bird of Arizona, will now sing "Down in the Valley."' "Huggins would have let things go at that, but not so the Wolfville pop'lace. In the cockin' of a winchester they swoops down on that Cow Springs outcast like forty hen-hawks on a single quail, an' as I yeretofore observes, if it ain't for Enright they'd have made him shortly hard to find. You can gamble, the Cow Springs savage never does go out on that limb ag'in. "While Turkey Track escapes the water trough, an' makes his getaway that time all right, the pore pony ain't got by Moore onscathed. The bullet hits him jest to the r'ar of the saddle-flap, an' out about a brace of miles he stumbles over dead. "It's yere eevents begins to fall together like a shock of oats. The Mockin' Bird's been over entrancin' Tucson, an' the reg'lar stage with Monte not preecisely dove-tailin' with her needs, she charters a speshul buckboard to get back. Thar's a feeble form of hooman ground owl drivin' her, one of these yere parties who's all alkali an' hard luck, an' as deevoid of manly sperit as jack-rabbits onweaned. "This yere ground owl party, drivin' for the Mockin' Bird, comes clatterin' along with the buckboard jest as Turkey Track strips the saddle an' bridle from his deefunct pony. Turkey Track is not without execyootive ability, an' seein' he's afoot an' thirty miles from his home ranch, he pulls his gun an' sticks up the buckboard plenty prompt. At the mere sight of a weepon the hands of that young owl-person goes searchin' for stars, an' he's beggin' Turkey Track not to rub him out--him thinkin' it's a reg'lar hold-up. That's all the opp'sition thar is, onless you counts the reemarks of the Mockin' Bird, who becomes both bitter an' bitin' in equal parts, but has no more effect on Turkey Track--an' him afoot that a-way--than pourin' water on a drowned rat. Shore, a cow-puncher'd fight all day, an' even face a enraged female, before he'd walk a hour. [Illustration: TURKEY TRACK, SEEIN' HE'S AFOOT AN' THIRTY MILES FROM HIS HOME RANCH PULLS HIS GUN AN' STICKS UP THE MOCKIN' BIRD'S BUCKBOARD. p. 138.] "Turkey Track piles his saddle an' bridle onto the r'ar of the buckboard, an' settin' in behind on his plunder, commands the ground owl driver to head west till further orders. Likewise, he so far onbends as to say that them orders won't be deecem'nated, none whatever, ontil he's landed at the Turkey Track home ranch. Since he backs this yere programme with his artillery, the ground owl ain't got nothin' to say, an' it's no time when the outfit's weavin' along a side trail in the sole int'rests of Turkey Track. "What's worse, to dispell the ennui of sech a trip, an' drive away dull care, Turkey Track takes to despotizin' over the Mockin' Bird with his six-shooter, an' compels her to sing constant throughout them thirty miles. He makes her carrol everythin' from 'Old Hundred' to 'Turkey in the Straw,' an' then brings her back to 'Old Hundred' an' starts her over. The pore harassed Mockin' Bird, what with the dust, an' what with Turkey Track tyrannizin' at her with his gun, sounds final like an ongreased wheelbarrow which has seen better days. She don't get her voice ag'in for mighty clost to a month, an' even then, as she says herse'f, thar's places where the rivets reequires tightenin'. "It's pressin' onto eight weeks before ever Turkey Track is heard of 'round town ag'in. Also, it's in the Bird Cage Op'ry House he hits the surface of his times. The Mockin' Bird has jest done drove the vocal picket-pin of 'Old Kentucky Home,' when, bang! some loonatic shoots at her. Which the bullet bores a hole in the scenery not a foot above her head. "Every one sees by the smoke whar that p'lite attention em'nates from, an' before you could count two, Moore, Boggs, an' Texas Thompson has convened themselves on top of that ident'cal spot. Thar sets Turkey Track, cryin' like a child. "'It's no use, gents,' he sobs, the tears coursin' down his cheeks, 'she's so plumb bewitchin', an' I adores her so, I simply has to blaze away or bust.' "While he don't harm the Mockin' Bird none, the sent'ment of the Stranglers, when Enright raps 'em to order inform'ly at the Red Light an' Black Jack has organized the inspiration, favors hangin' Turkey Track. Even Texas, who loathes ladies by reason of what's been sawed off onto him in the way of divorce an' alimony, that a-way, by his Laredo wife, is yoonan'mous for swingin' him off. "'That I don't believe in marryin' 'em,' says Texas, expoundin' his p'sition concernin' ladies in answer to Boggs who claims he's inconsistent, 'don't mean I wants 'em killed. But you never was no logician, Dan.' "Cherokee's the only gent who's inclined to softer attitoodes, an' that leeniency is born primar'ly of the inflooence of Nell. Nell is plumb romantic, an' when she hears how the Turkey Track's been enfiladin' at the Mockin' Bird only because he loves her, while she don't reely know what she does want done with that impossible cow-puncher, she shore don't want him hanged. "'It's sech a interestin' story!' says Nell, an' then capers across to Missis Rucker an' Tucson Jennie to c'llect their feelin's. "Moore brings in Turkey Track. "'Be you-all tryin' to blink out this yere young lady?' asks Enright, 'or is that gun play in the way of applause?' "'It's love,' protests Turkey Track, his voice chokin'; 'it's simply a cry from the soul. I learns to love her that day on the buckboard while I'm lookin' at her red ha'r, red bein' my winnin' color. Gents, you-all won't credit it none, but jest the same them auburn tresses gets wropped about my heart.' "'Whatever do you make of it, Doc?' whispers Enright. "'This boy,' returns Peets, 'has got himse'f too much on his own mind. He's sufferin' from what the books calls exaggerated ego.' "'That's one way of bein' locoed, ain't it?' "'Shore. But him bein' twisted mental ain't no reason for not adornin' the windmill with his remains. The only public good a hangin' does is to scare folks up a lot, an' you can scare a loonatic quite as quick an' quite as hard as a gent whose intellects is plumb.' "'Thar she stands,' Turkey Track breaks in ag'in, not waitin' for no questions, 'an' me as far below her as stingin' lizards is from stars! Then, ag'in, when folks down in front is a'plaudin' her, she wavin' at 'em meanwhile the gracious smile, it makes me jealous. Gents, I don't plan nothin', but the first I knows I lugs out the old .45 an' onhooks it.' "The Mockin' Bird has come over from the O. K. House with Nell, Missis Rucker an' Tucson Jennie. As she hears Turkey Track's confession two drops shows in her eyes like diamonds. Clutchin' hold of Nell, an' with Missis Rucker an' Tucson Jennie flockin' along in the r'ar, she rushes out the front door. "This manoover leaves us some upset, ontil Nell returns to explain. "'She's overcome by them disclosures,' says Nell, 'an' goes outside to blush.' "'The ontoward breaks of that songstress,' observes Enright oneasily, 'has a tendency to confoose the issue, an' put this committee in the hole.' "'Thar's nothin' confoosin' about it, Sam Enright.' It's Missis Rucker who breaks out high an' threatenin', she havin' come back with Nell. 'This yere Mockin' Bird girl's in love with that gun-playin' cowboy, an' it's only now she finds it out. Do you-all murderers still insist on hangin' this yere boy, or be you willin' to see 'em wed an' live happy ever after?' "'Let's rope up a divine some'ers,' exclaims Boggs, 'an' have 'em married. If that Mockin' Bird girl wants Turkey Track she shall shore have him. I'd give her his empty head on a charger, if she asks it, same as that party in holy writ, she singin' "Suwannee River" like she does.' "Cherokee, who's more or less rooled by Nell, thinks a weddin' the proper step, an' Tutt, who sees somethin' in Tucson Jennie's eye, declar's himse'f some hasty. "Even Texas backs the play. "'But make no mistake,' says Texas; 'I insists on wedlock over lynchin' only because it's worse.' "'Which it's as well, Sam Enright,' observes Missis Rucker, blowin' through her nose mighty warlike, 'that you an' your marauders has sense enough to see your way through to that deecision. Which if you'd failed, I'd have took this Turkey Track boy away from you-all with my own hands. This Vig'lance Committee needn't think it's goin' to do as it pleases 'round yere--hangin' folks for bein' in love, an' closin' its y'ears to the moans of a bleedin' heart.' "'My dear ma'am,' says Enright, his manner mollifyin'; 'I sees nothin' to discuss. The committee surrenders this culprit into the hands of you-all ladies, an' what more is thar to say?' "'Thar's this more to say,' an' Missis Rucker's that earnest her mouth snaps like a trap. 'You an' your gang, settin' round like a passel of badgers, don't want to get it into your heads that you're goin' to run rough-shod over me. When I gets ready to have my way in this outfit, the prairie dog that stands in my path'll shore wish he'd never been born.' "Enright don't say nothin' back, an' the balance of us maintainin' a dignified silence, Missis Rucker, after a look all 'round, withdraws, takin' with her Tucson Jennie an' Nell, Turkey Track in their midst. "'Gents,' observes Enright, when they're shore departed, an' speakin' up deecisive, 'ways must be deevised to 'liminate the feminine element from these yere meetin's. I says this before, but the idee don't seem to take no root. Thar's nothin' lovelier than woman, but by virchoo of her symp'thies she's oncap'ble of exact jestice. Her feelin's lead her, an' her heart's above her head. For which reasons, while I wouldn't favor nothin' so ondignified as hidin' out, I s'ggests that we be yereafter more circumspect, not to say surreptitious, in our deelib'rations.' "Shore, they're married. The cer'mony comes off in the O. K. House, an' folks flocks in from as far away as Deming. "'If you was a chemist, Sam,' says Peets, tryin' to eloocidate what happens when the Mockin' Bird learns she's heart-hungry that a-way for Turkey Track, 'you'd onderstand. It's as though her love's held in s'lootion, an' the jar of Turkey Track's gun preecip'tates it.' "'Mebby so,' returns Enright; 'but as a play, this thing's got me facin' back'ards. Thar's many schemes to win a lady, but this yere's the earliest instance when a gent shoots his way into her arms.' "'Well,' returns Peets, 'you know the old adage--to which of course thar's exceptions.' Yere he glances over at Missis Rucker. 'It runs: "A woman, a spaniel an' a walnut tree, The more you beat 'em the better they be." "Boggs has been congratchoolatin' Turkey Track, an' kissin' the bride. Texas, as somber as a spade flush, draws Boggs into a corner. "'That Turkey Track,' says Texas, 'considers this a whipsaw. He misses hangin', an' he gets the lady. He feels like he wins both ways. Wait! Dan, it won't be two years when he'll discover that, compar'd to marriage, hangin' that a-way ain't nothin' more'n a technical'ty.'" VI THAT WOLFVILLE-RED DOG FOURTH "By nacher I'm a patriot, cradle born and cradle bred; my Americanism, second to none except that of wolves an' rattlesnakes an' Injuns an' sim'lar cattle, comes in the front door an' down the middle aisle; an' yet, son, I'm free to reemark that thar's one day in the year, an' sometimes two, when I shore reegrets our independence, an' wishes thar had been no Yorktown an' never no Bunker Hill." The old cattleman tasted his glass with an air weary to the borders of dejection; after which he took a pathetic puff at his pipe. I knew what had gone wrong. This was the Fifth of July. We had just survived a Fourth of unusual explosiveness, and the row and racket thereof had worn threadbare the old gentleman's nerves. "Yes, sir," he continued, shoving a 'possum-colored lock back from his brow, "as I suffers through one of them calamities miscalled cel'brations, endoorin' the slang-whangin' of the orators an' bracin' myse'f ag'inst the slam-bangin' of the guns, to say nothin' of the firecrackers an' kindred Chinese contraptions, I a'preeciates the feelin's of that Horace Walpole person Colonel Sterett quotes in his _Daily Coyote_ as sayin', 'I could love my country, if it ain't for my countrymen.' "Still, comin' down to the turn, I reckon it merely means, when all is in, that I'm gettin' too plumb old for comfort. It's five years now since I dare look in the glass, for fear I'd be tempted to count the annyooal wrinkles on my horns. "It's mighty queer about folks. Speakin' of cel'brations, for thousands of years the only way folks has of expressin' any feelin' of commoonal joy, that a-way, is to cut loose in limitless an' onmeanin' uproar. Also, their only notion of a public fest'val is for one half of the outfit to prance down the middle of the street, while the other half banks itse'f ag'inst the ediotic curb an' looks at 'em. "People in the herd ain't got no intelligence. We speaks of the lower anamiles as though we just has it on 'em completely in the matter of intelligence, but for myse'f I ain't so shore. The biggest fool of a mule-eared deer savvys enough to go feedin' up the wind, makin' so to speak a skirmish line of its nose to feel out ambushes. Any old bull elk possesses s'fficient wisdom to walk in a half-mile circle, as a concloodin' act before reetirin' for the night, so that with him asleep in the center, even if the wind does shift, his nose'll still get ample notice of whatever man or wolf may take to followin' his trail. "That's what them 'lower anamiles' does. An' now I asks, what man, goin' about his numbskull dest'nies, lookin' as plumb wise as a too-whoo owl at noon, ever shows gumption equal to keepin' the constant wind in his face, or has the sense to go walkin' round himse'f as he rolls into his blankets, same as that proodent elk? After all, I takes it that these yere Fo'th of Jooly upheavals is only one among the ten thousand fashions in which hoomanity eternally onbuckles in expressin' its imbecil'ty. "Which I certainly do get a heap disgusted at times with the wild beast called man. With all his bluffs about bein' so mighty sagacious, I can sit yere an' see that, speakin' mental, he ain't better than an even break with turkey gobblers. Even what he calls his science turns finally out with him to be but the accepted ignorance of to-day; an' he puts in every to-morrow of his existence provin' what a onbounded jackass rabbit he's been the day before. It's otherwise with them lower anamiles; what they knows they knows." Plainly, something had to be done to fortify my old friend. I fell back, quite as a matter of course, upon that first aid to the injured, another drink, and motioned the black waiter to the rescue. It did my old friend good, that drink, the first fruits of which easier if not better condition being certain fresh accusations against himself. "The trooth is, I'm a whole lot onused to these yere Fo'th of Jooly outbursts; an' so I ondoubted suffers from 'em more keenly, that a-way, than the av'rage gent. You see we never has none of 'em in Wolfville; leastwise we never does but once. On that single festive occasion we shore stubs our toe some plentiful, stubs it to that degree, in fact, that we never feels moved to buck the game ag'in. Once is enough for Wolfville. "Which it's the single failure that stains the fame of the camp. At that, the flat-out reely belongs to Red Dog; or at least to Pete Bland, for which misguided party the Red Dogs freely acknowledges reespons'bility as belongin' to their outfit. "This yere Bland's dead now an' deep onder the doomsday sods. Also, he died drinkin' like he'd lived. "'What's the malady?' Enright asks Peets, when the Doc comes trackin' back, after seein' the finish of Bland. "'No malady at all, Sam,' says Peets, plumb cheerful an' frisky, same as them case-hardened drug folks allers is when some other sport passes in his checks--'no malady whatsoever. His jag simply stops on centers, as a railroad gent'd say, an' I'm onable to start it ag'in.' "Was Peets any good as a med'cine man? Son, I'm shocked! Peets is packin' 'round in his professional warbags the dipplomies of twenty colleges, an' is onchallenged besides as the best eddicated sharp personal on the sunset side of the Mississippi. You bet, he onderstands the difference at least between bread pills an' buckshot, which is a heap sight further than some of these yere drug folks ever studies. "Colonel Sterett, who's fa'rly careful about what he says, reefers to Peets in his _Daily Coyote_ as a 'intellectchooal giant,' an' thar ain't no record of any scoffer comin' squanderin' along to contradict. Mebby you'll say that the omission to do so is doo to the f'rocious attitoode of the _Daily Coyote_ itse'f, techin' contradictions, an' p'int to how that imprint keeps standin' at the head of its editorial columns as a motto, the cynicism: "'Contradict the _Coyote_ and avoid old age!' "Thar'd be nothin' in it if you do. That motto's only one of Colonel Sterett's bluffs, one of his witticisms that a-way. You don't reckon that, in a sparsely settled country, whar the pop'lation is few an' far between, the Colonel's goin' to go bumpin' off a subscriber over mebby a mere difference of opinion? The Colonel ain't quite that locoed." "But about your Wolfville-Red Dog Fourth of July celebration?" I urged. "Which I'm in no temper to tell a story--me settin' yere with every nerve as tight as a banjo catgut jest before it snaps. To reelate yarns your mood ought to be the mood of the racontoor--a mood as rich an' rank an' upstandin' as a field of wheat, ready to billow an' bend before every gale of fancy. The way yesterday leaves me, whatever tale I ondertakes to reecount would about come out of my mouth as stiff an' short an' brittle as chopped hay. Also, as tasteless. Better let it go till some other an' more mellow evenin'." No; I was ready to accept the chances, and said as much. A chopped-hay style, for a change, might be found acceptable. Supplementing the declaration with renewed Old Jordan, I was so far victorious that my aged man of cattle yielded. "Well, then," he began reluctantly, "I'm onable to partic'larly say which gent does make the orig'nal s'ggestion, but my belief is it's Peets. I'm shore, however, that the Cornwallis idee comes from Bland; an', since it's not only at that Cornwallis angle we-all falls publicly down, but the same is primar'ly doo to the besotted obstinacy of this yere Bland himse'f, Wolfville, while ever proudly willin' to b'ar whatever blame's sawed off on to her shoulders proper, is always convinced that Red Dog an' not us is to be held accountable. However, Bland's gone an' paid what the sky scouts speaks of as the debt to nacher, an' I'm willin' to confess for one that when he's sober he ain't so bad. Not that them fits of sobriety is either so freequent or so protracted they takes on any color of monotony. "Bland's baptismal name is Pete, an' in his way he's a leadin' inflooence in Red Dog. He's owner of the 7-bar-D outfit, y'earmark a swallow-fork in both y'ears--which brands seventeen hundred calves each spring round-up; an' is moreover proprietor of the Abe Lincoln Hotel, the same bein' Red Dog's principal beanery. Bland don't have to keep this yere tavern none, but it arranges so he sees his friends an' gets their _dinero_ at one an' the same time, which as combinin' business an' pleasure in equal degrees appeals to him a heap. "Which it's the gen'ral voice that the best thing about Bland is his wife. She's shore loyal to Bland, you bet! When they're livin' in Prescott, an' a committee of three from one of them 'Purification Of The Home' societies comes trapesin' in, to tell her about Bland bein' ondooly interested in a exyooberant young soobrette who's singin' at the theayter, an' spendin' his money on her mighty permiscus, Missis Bland listens plenty ca'm ontil they're plumb through. Then she hands them Purifiers this: "'Well, ladies, I'd a heap sooner have a husband who can take keer of two women than a husband who can't take keer of one.' "After which she comes down on that Purification bunch like a fallin' star, an' brooms 'em out of the house. Accordin' to eye witnesses, who speaks without prejewdyce, she certainly does dust their bunnets strenuous. "When Bland hears he pats Missis Bland on the shoulder, an' exclaims, 'Thar's my troo-bloo old Betsy Jane! She knows I wouldn't trade a look from them faded old gray eyes of hers for all the soobretts whoever pulls a frock on over their heads!' "Followin' which encomium Bland sends to San Francisco an' changes in the money from five hundred steers for an outfit of diamonds, to go 'round her neck, an' preesents 'em to Missis Bland. "'Thar,' he says, danglin' them gewgaws in the sun, 'you don't notice no actresses flittin' about the scene arrayed like that, do you? If so, p'int out them over-bedecked females, an' I'll see all they've got on an' go 'em five thousand better, if it calls for every 7-bar-D steer on the range.' "'Pete,' says Missis Bland, clampin' on to the jooelry with one hand, an' slidin' the other about his neck, 'you certainly are the kindest soul who ever makes a moccasin track in Arizona, besides bein' a good provider.' "Shore, this yere Bland ain't so plumb bad. "An' after a fashion, too, he's able to give excooses. Talkin' to Peets, he lays his rather light an' frisky habits to him bein' a preacher's son. "'Which you never, Doc,' he says, 'meets up with the son an' heir of a pulpiteer that a-way, who ain't pullin' on the moral bit, an' tryin' for a runaway.' "'At any rate, Pete,' the Doc replies, all cautious an' conservative, 'I will say that if you're lookin' for some party who'll every day be steady an' law abidin', not to say seedate, you'll be a heap more likely to find him by searchin' about among the progeny of some party who's been lynched.' "Recurrin' again to that miserabul Fo'th of Jooly play we cuts loose in, it's that evenin' when we invites Red Dog over in a body to he'p consoome the left-over stock of lickers in the former Votes For Women S'loon, an' nacherally thar's some drinkin'. As is not infrequent whar thar's drinkin', views is expressed an' prop'sitions made. It's then we takes up the business of havin' that cel'bration. "Peets makes a speech, I recalls, an' after dilatin' 'round to the effect that Fo'th of Jooly ain't but two weeks ahead, allows that it'd be in patriotic line for us to do somethin'. "'Conj'intly,' says Peets, 'Red Dog an' Wolfville, movin' together with one proud purpose of patriotism, ought to put over quite a show. As commoonities we're no longer in the swaddlin' clothes of infancy. It's time, too, that we goes on record as a whole public in some manner an' form best calk'lated to make a somnolent East set up an' notice us.' "Peets continyoos in a sim'lar vein, an' speaks of the settlement of the Southwest, wharin we b'ars our part, as a 'Exodus without a prophet, a croosade without a cross,' which sent'ment he confesses he takes from a lit'rary sport, but no less troo for that. He closes by sayin' that if everybody feels like he does Wolfville an' Red Dog'll j'ine in layin' out a program, that a-way, which'll shore spread the glorious trooth from coast to coast that we-all is on the map to stay. "It's a credit to both outfits, how yoonanimously the s'ggestion is took up. Which I never does see a public go all one way so plumb quick, an' with so little struggle, since B'ar Creek Stanton is lynched; which act of jestice even has the absoloote endorsement of B'ar Creek himse'f. "Peets is no sooner done talkin' than Tutt stacks in. "'Thar's our six-shooters,' says he, 'for the foosilade; an', as for moosic, sech as "Columbia the Gem" an' the "Star Spangled Banner," we can round up them Dutchmen, who's the orchestra over at the Bird Cage Op'ry House.' "The talk rambles on, one word borryin' another, ontil we outlines quite a game. Thar's to be a procession between Wolfville an' Red Dog, an' back ag'in, Faro Nell leadin' the same on a _pinto_ pony as the Goddess of Liberty. "'An' that reeminds me,' submits Cherokee, when we reaches Nell; 'thar's Missis Rucker. It's goin' to hurt her feelin's to be left out. As the preesidin' genius of the O. K. Restauraw she's in shape to give us a racket we'll despise in eevent she gets her back up.' "'How about lettin' her in on the play,' says Boggs, 'an' typ'fyin' Jestice, that a-way?' "'Thar's a idee, Dan,' says Texas Thompson, 'which plugs the center, a reecommendation which does you proud! Down in that Laredo Co't House whar my wife wins out her divorce that time, thar's a figger of Jestice painted on the wall. Shore, it don't mean nothin'; but all the same it's thar, dressed in white, that a-way, with eyes bandaged, an' packin' a sword in one hand an' holdin' aloft some balances in t'other. Come to think of it, too, that picture shore looks a lot like Missis Rucker in the face, bein' plumb haughty an' commandin'.' "'Missis Rucker not bein' yere none,' says Enright softly, an' peerin' about some cautious, 'I submits that while no more esteemable lady ever tosses a flapjack or fries salt-hoss in a pan, her figger is mebby jest a trifle too abundant. As Jestice, she'll nacherally be arrayed--as Texas says--in white, same as Nell as the Goddess. I don't want to seem technicle, but white augments the size of folks an' will make the lady in question look bigger'n a load of hay.' "'Even so,' reemarks the Red Dog chief indulgently, 'would that of itse'f, I asks, be reckoned any setback? The lady will person'fy Jestice; an' as sech I submits she can't look none too big.' "In compliment to the Red Dog chief Enright, with a p'lite flourish, allows that he yields his objection with pleasure, an' Missis Rucker is put down for Jestice. It's agreed likewise to borry a coach from the stage company for her to ride on top. "'Her bein' preeclooded,' explains Peets, 'from ridin' a hoss that a-way, as entirely ondignified if not onsafe. We can rig her up a throne with one of the big splint-bottom cha'rs from the Red Light, an' wrop the same in the American flag so's to make it look offishul.' "Tucson Jennie, with little Enright Peets as the Hope of the Republic, is to ride inside the coach. "Havin' got this far, Pete Bland submits that a tellin' number would be a sham battle, Red Dog ag'in Wolfville. "Thar's opp'sition developed to this. Both Enright an' the Red Dog chief, as leaders of pop'lar feelin', is afraid that some sport'll forget that it ain't on the level, an' take to over-actin' his part. "As the Red Dog chief expresses it: "'Some gent might be so far carried away by enthoosiasm as to go to shootin' low, an' some other gent get creased.' "'The same bein' my notion exact,' Enright chips in. 'Of course, the gent who thus shoots low would ondenyably do so onintentional; but what good would that do the party who's been winged, an' who mightn't live long enough to receive apol'gies?' "'That's whatever!' says Jack Moore. 'A sham battle's too plumb apt to prove a snare. The more, since everybody's so onused to 'em 'round yere. A gent, by keepin' his mind firm fixed, might manage to miss once or twice; but soon or late he'd become preoccupied, an' bust some of the opp'sition before he could ketch himse'f.' "Bland, seein' opinion's ag'inst a sham battle, withdraws the motion, an' does it plenty graceful for a gent who's onable to stand. "'Enough said,' he remarks, wavin' a acquiescent paw. 'Ante, an' pass the buck.' "The Lightnin' Bug, speakin' from the Red Dog side, insists that in the reg'lar course of things thar's bound to be oratory. In that connection he mentions a sharp who lives in Phoenix. "'Which I'm shore,' says the Bug, 'he'd be gladly willin' to assist; an' you hear me he's got a tongue of fire! Some of you-all sports must have crossed up with him--Jedge Beebe of Phoenix?' "'Jedge Beebe?' interjecks Monte, who's given a hostler his proxy to take out the stage because of thar bein' onlimited licker; 'me an' the Jedge stands drinkin' together for hours the last time he's in Tucson. But you're plumb wrong, Bug, about him bein' eloquent.' "'Wrong?' the Bug repeats, mighty indignant. "'Of course,' says Monte, rememberin' how easy heated the Bug is, an' that he looks on six-shooters as argyooments, 'I don't mean he can't talk none; only he ain't what the Doc yere calls no Demosthenes.' "'Did you ever hear the Jedge talk?' demands the Bug. "'Which I shore does,' insists Monte; 'I listens to him for two hours that time in Tucson. It's when they opens the Broadway Dance Hall.' "'Whatever is his subject?' asks the Bug, layin' for to ketch Monte; 'what's the Jedge talkin' about?' "'I don't know,' says Monte, wropped in his usual mantle of whiskey-soaked innocence; 'he didn't say.' "The Bug's eyes comes together in a angry focus; he thinks he's bein' made game of. "Tharupon Enright cuts in. "'Bug,' he says, all sociable an' suave, 'you mustn't mind Monte. He's so misconstructed that followin' the twenty-fifth drink he goes about takin' his ignorance for information. No one doubts but you're a heap better jedge than him of eloquence, an' everything else except nosepaint. S'ppose you consider yourse'f a committee to act for the con'jint camps, an' invite this yere joorist to be present as orator of the day.' "The Bug's brow cl'ars at this, an' he asshores Enright that he'll be proud to act as sech. "'An', gents,' he adds, 'if you says he ain't got Patrick Henry beat to a standstill, may I never hold as good as aces-up ag'in.' "The Red Dog chief announces that all hands must attend a free-for-all banquet which, inflooenced by the tenth drink, he then an' thar decides to give at Bland's Abe Lincoln House. "'Said banquet,' he explains, 'bein' in the nacher of a lunch to be held at high noon. If the dinin' room of the Abe Lincoln House ain't spacious enough, an I'll say right yere it ain't, we'll teetotaciously set them tables in the street. That's my style! I wants everybody, bar Mexicans, to be present. When I gives a blow-out, I goes fo'th into the highways an' byways, an' asks the halt an' the lame an' the blind, like the good book says. Also, no gent need go prowlin' 'round for no weddin' garments wharin to come. Which he's welcome to show up in goat-skin laiggin's, or appear wropped in the drippin' an' offensive pelt of a wet dog.' "The Red Dog chief, lest some of us is sens'tive, goes on to add that no gent is to regyard them cracks about the halt an' the lame an' the blind as aimed at Wolfville. He allows he ain't that invidious, an' in what he says is merely out to be both euphonious an' explicit, that a-way, at one an' the same time. "To which Enright reesponds that no offence is took, an' asshores the Red Dog chief that Wolfville will attend the banquet all spraddled out. "More licker, followed by gen'ral congratulations. "Bland ag'in comes surgin' to the fore. This time he thinks that as a main feachure it would be a highly effective racket to reënact the surrender of Cornwallis to Washington. "Tutt goes weavin' across to shake his hand. "'Some folks allows, Pete,' says Tutt, 'that you're as whiskey-soaked an old fool as Monte. But not me, Pete, not your old pard, Dave Tutt! An' you hear me, Pete, that idee about Cornwallis givin' up his sword to Washington dem'nstrates it.' "'You bet your life it does!' says Bland. "'But is this yere surrender feasible?' asks Texas. 'Which, at first blink, it seems some cumbrous to me.' "'It's as easy as turnin' jack,' declar's Tutt, takin' the play away from Bland. 'I've seen it done.' "'As when an' whar?' puts in Cherokee. "'Thar's a time,' says Tutt--'it's way back--when I sets into a little poker game over in El Paso, table stakes she is, an' cleans up for about $10,000. For mebby a week I goes 'round thinkin' that $10,000 is a million; an' after that I simply _knows_ it is. These yere onnacheral riches onhinges me to a p'int whar I deecides I'll visit Chicago an' Noo York, as calk'lated to broaden me.' "'Noo York!--Chicago!' interrupts the Bug. 'I once deescends upon them hamlets, an' I encounters this yere strikin' difference. In Chicago they wouldn't let me spend a dollar, while in Noo York they wouldn't let anybody else spend one.' "'It's otherwise with me,' goes on Tutt, 'because for a wind-up I don't see neither. I'm young then, d' you see, an' affected by yooth an' wealth I takes to licker, with the result that I goes pervadin' up an' down the train, insistin' on becomin' person'ly known to the passengers.' "'An' nacherally you gets put off,' says Boggs. "'Not exactly, neither. Only the conductor, assisted by a bevy of brakemen, lays the thing before me in sech a convincin' shape that I gets off of my own accord. It seems that to be agree'ble, I proposes wedlock to a middle-aged schoolmarm, who allows that she sees no objection except I'm a perfect stranger. She says it ain't been customary with her much to go weddin' strangers that a-way, but if I'll get myse'f reg'larly introdooced, an' then give her a day or so to become used to my looks, she'll go me. It's then the conductor draws me aside, an' says, "I've a son about your age, my eboolient young sport, which is why I takes your part. My theery is that if you sticks aboard this train ontil we reaches Rock Island, you'll never leave that village a single man." "'This sobers me,' Tutt continyoos, 'an' I hides in the baggage kyar ontil we reaches a camp called Sedalia, whar I quietly makes my escape. I'm that reelieved I gives the cabman $20 to let me drive, an' then starts in to wake things up. Which I shore wakes 'em! I comes down the main street like the breath of destiny; an', say, you ought to see them Missourians climb trees, an' gen'rally break for cover! It costs me $50; an' the jedge gives me his word that, only it's the Fo'th of Jooly, he'd have handed me two weeks in the calaboose. I clinks down the fifty _pesos_ some grateful, an' goes bulgin' forth to witness the cer'monies. She's a jo-darter, that Sedalia cel'bration is! As Pete yere recommends, they pulls off the surrender of Cornwallis on the Fair grounds. Also, it's plumb easy. All you needs is mebby a couple of hundred folks on hosses, an' after that the rest's like rollin' off a log.' "More is said as the drink goes round, an' Cornwallis surrenderin' to Washington takes hold of our imaginations. We throws dice, an' settles it that Red Dog'll be the English, with Bland as Cornwallis, while Wolfville acts as the Americans, Boggs to perform as Washington--Boggs bein' six foot an' some inches, besides as wide as a door. By the time we gets the stock of the Votes for Women S'loon fully drinked up everything's arranged. "Onless you sees no objections, son, I'll gallop through the balance of this yere painful eepisode. The day comes round, bright an' cl'ar, an' the Copper Queen people gen'rously starts the ball a-rollin' by explodin' thirteen cans of powder, one for each of the orig'nal states. Then the procession forms, Nell in front as the Goddess. Thar's full two hundred of us, Wolfville an' Red Dog, on ponies. As to Missis Rucker, she's on top of the coach as Jestice, Tucson Jennie--with little Enright Peets lookin' like a young he cherub--inside, an' Monte pullin' the reins over the six hosses. We makes four trips between Wolfville an' Red Dog, crackin' off our good old '45s at irreg'lar intervals, Nell on her calico pony as the Goddess bustin' away with the rest. "Little Enright Peets wants in on the pistol shootin', an' howls jes' like a coyote--as children will--ontil Boggs, who foresees it an' comes provided, gives him a baby pistol, a box of blank cartridges, an' exhorts him to cut loose. Which little Enright Peets shore cuts loose, all right; an', except that he sets fire to the coach a few times, an' makes Missis Rucker oneasy up on top--her fearin' that mebby some of them blanks has bullets in 'em by mistake--he has a perfectly splendid time. "The procession over, we eats up the Red Dog chief's banquet, wharat every brand of airtights is introdooced. That done, we listens to Jedge Beebe, who soars an' sails an' sails an' soars, rhetorical, for mebby it's a hour, an' is that eloquent an' elevated he never hits nothin' but the highest places. "The Red Dog chief makes a speech, an' proposes 'Wolfville'; to which Peets--by Enright's request--reesponds, an' offers 'Red Dog.' It's bottoms up to both sentiments; for thar's no negligence about the drinks, Black Jack havin' capered fraternally over to he'p out his overworked barkeep brother of the Red Dog Tub of Blood. "When no one wants to further drink or eat or talk, we reepa'rs to a level place between the two camps to go through the Cornwallis' surrender. The rival forces is arrayed opp'site, Cornwallis Bland in a red coat, an' Washington Boggs in bloo an' buff, accordin' to the teachin's of hist'ry. Both of 'em has sabers donated from the Fort. "When all's ready Washington Boggs an' Cornwallis Bland rides out in front ontil they're in easy speakin' distance. Cornwallis Bland's been over-drinkin' some, an' is w'arin' a mighty deefiant look. "After a spell, nothin' bein' spoke on either side, Washington Boggs calls out: "'Is this yere Gen'ral Cornwallis?' "'Who you talkin' to?' demands Cornwallis Bland, a heap contemptuous an' insolent. "Peets has done writ out words for 'em to say, but neither uses 'em. Observin' how Cornwallis Bland conducts himse'f, Washington Boggs waves his sword plenty vehement, which makes his pony cavort an' buckjump, an' roars: "'Don't you try to play nothin' on me, Gen'ral Cornwallis. Do you or do you not surrender your mis'rable blade?' "'Surrender nothin'!' Cornwallis Bland sneers back, meanwhile reelin' in his saddle. 'Thar's never the horned-toad clanks a spur in Cochise County can make me surrender. Likewise, don't you-all go wavin' that fool weepon at me none. I don't valyoo it more'n if it's a puddin' stick. Which I've got one of 'em myse'f'--yere he'd have lopped off one of his pony's y'ears, only it's so dull--'an' I wouldn't give it to a yellow pup to play with.' "'For the last time, Cornwallis,' says Washington Boggs, face aflame with rage, 'I commands you to surrender.' "'Don't let him bluff you, Pete,' yells a bumptious young cow-puncher who belongs on the Red Dog-English side. 'Which we can wipe up the plains with that Wolfville outfit.' "The Red Dog chief bats the young trouble-makin' cow-puncher over the head with his gun, an' quietly motions to the Lightnin' Bug an' a fellow Red Dog to pack what reemains of him to the r'ar. This done, he turns to reemonstrate with Cornwallis Bland for his obstinancy. He's too late. Washington Boggs, who's stood all he will, drives the spurs into his pony, an' next with a bound an' a rush, he hits Cornwallis Bland an' his charger full chisle. "The pony of Cornwallis Bland fa'rly swaps ends with itse'f, an' Cornwallis would have swapped ends with it, too, only Washington Boggs collars an' hefts him out of his saddle. "'Now, you onwashed drunkard, will you surrender?' roars Washington Boggs, shakin' Cornwallis Bland like a dog does a rat, ontil that British leader drops all of his hardware, incloosive of his pistol--'now will you surrender, or must I break your back across your own pony, as showin' you the error of your ways?' "It looks like thar's goin' to be a hostile comminglin' of all hands, when--her ha'r streamin' behind her same as if she's a comet--Missis Bland comes chargin' up. "'Yere, you drunken villyun!' she screams to Boggs, 'give me my husband this instant, onless you wants me to t'ar your eyes out!' "'It's him who's to blame, ma'am,' says Enright mildly, comin' to Boggs' rescoo; 'which he won't surrender.' "'Oh, he won't, won't he?' says Missis Bland, as she hooks onto Cornwallis Bland. 'You bet he'll surrender to me all right, or I'll know why.' "As the Red Dog chief is apol'gizin' to Enright, who's tellin' him not to mind, Cornwallis Bland is bein' half shoved an' half drug, not to mention wholly yanked, towards the Abe Lincoln House by Missis Bland. "That's the end. This yere ontoward finale to our cel'bration gets wide-flung notice in print, an' instead of bein' a boost, as we-all hopes, Wolfville an' Red Dog becomes a jest an' jeer. Also, while it don't sour the friendly relations of the two camps, the simple mention of Fo'th of Jooly leaves a bitter taste in the Wolfville-Red Dog mouth ever since." VII PROPRIETY PRATT, HYPNOTIST "Do I ever see any folks get hypnotized? Which I witnesses a few sech instances. But it's usually done with a gun. If you're yearnin' to behold a party go into a trance plumb successful an' abrupt, get the drop on him. Thar ain't one sport in a hundred who can look into the muzzle of a Colt's .45, held by a competent hand, without lapsin' into what Peets calls a 'cataleptic state.' "Shore, son, I savvys what you means." The last was because I had begun to exhibit signs of impatience at what I regarded as a too flippant spirit on the part of my old cattleman. In the polite kindliness of his nature he made haste to smooth down my fur. "To be shore I onderstands you. As to the real thing in hypnotism, however, thar arises as I recalls eevents but few examples in Arizona. The Southwest that a-way ain't the troo field for them hypnotists, the weak-minded among the pop'lation bein' redooced to minimum. Now an' then of course some hypnotic maverick, who's strayed from the eastern range, takes to trackin' 'round among us sort o' blind an' permiscus. But he never stays long, an' is generally tickled to death when some vig'lance committee so far reelents as to let him escape back. "Over in Bernilillo once, I'm present when a mob gets its rope onto one of these yere wizards, an' it's nothin' but the mercy of hell an' the mean pars'mony of what outcasts has him in charge, which saves him from bein' swung up. Mind you, it ain't no vig'lance committee, but a mob, that's got him. "Whatever is the difference? "Said difference, son, is as a spanless gulf. A vig'lance committee is the coolest kind of comin' together of the integrity an' the brains of a commoonity. A mob, on the other hand, is a chance-blown convention of deestructionists, as savagely brainless as a pack of timber wolves. A vig'lance committee seeks jestice; a mob is merely out for blood." "About this Bernilillo business?" The old gentleman, as though the recital might take some time, signalled the black attendant to bring refreshments. The bottle comfortably at his elbow, he proceeded. "I was thar, as I says, but I takes no part for either 'yes' or 'no,' bein' no more'n simply a 'looker on in Vienna,' as the actor party observes over in the Bird Cage Op'ry House. Thar's one of them hypnotizin' sharps who's come bulgin' into Bernilillo to give a show. Nacherally the local folks raps for a showdown; they insists he entrance some one they knows, an' refooses to be put off by him hypnotizin' what herd of hirelin's he's brought with him, on the argyooment that them humbugs is in all likelihood but cappers for his game. "Thus stood up, the professor, as he calls himself, begins rummagin' 'round for a subject. Thar's a little Frenchman who's been pervadin' about Bernilillo, claimin' to be a artist. Which he's shore a painter all right. I sees him myse'f take a bresh an' a batch of colors, an' paint a runnin' iron so it looks so much like wood it floats. Shore; Emil--which this yere genius' name is Emil--as a artist that a-way is as good as jacks-up before the draw. "The hypnotic professor runs his eye over the audjence. In a moment he's onto Emil, an' begins to w'irl his hypnotic rope. It's Emil bein' thin an' weakly an' bloodless, I reckon, that attracts him. This yere Emil ain't got bodily stren'th to hold his own ag'in a high wind, an' the professor is on at a glance that, considered from standp'ints of hypnotism, he ought to be a pushover. "Emil don't hone to be no subject, but them Bernilillo hold-ups snatches onto him in spite of his protests, an' passes him up onto the stage to the professor. They're plenty headlong, not to say boorish, them Bernilillo ruffians be; speshully if they've sot their hearts on anythin', an' pore Emil stands about the same show among 'em as a cottontail rabbit among a passel of owls. "For myse'f, I allers adheres to a theery that what follows is to be laid primar'ly to the door of the Bernilillo pop'lace. Which it's themselves, not the professor, they'd oughter've strung up. You see this Emil artist person blinks out onder the spells of the professor, an' never does come to no more. The professor hypnotizes Emil, but he can't onhypnotize him. Thar he sets as dead as Davy Crockett. "This yere Emil bein' shore dead, Bernilillo sent'ment begins to churn an' wax active. Thar ain't a well-conditioned vig'lance committee between the Pecos an' the Colorado which, onder the circumstances, would have dreamed of stretchin' that professor. What he does, them Bernilillo dolts forces him to do. As for deceased, his ontimely evaporation that a-way is but the frootes of happenstance. "What cares the Bernilillo pop'lace, wolf hungry for blood? In the droppin' of a sombrero they've cinched onto the professor, an' the only question left open is whether they'll string him up to the town windmill or the sign in front of the First National Bank. "While them Bernilillo wolves is howlin' an' mobbin' an' millin' 'round the professor--who himse'f is scared plumb speechless an' is as white as a lump of chalk--relief pushes to the front in most onexpected shape. It's a kyard sharp by the name of Singleton, otherwise called the Planter, who puts himse'f in nom'nation to extricate the professor. "Climbin' onto the top step in front of the bank, the Planter lifts up his voice for a hearin'. "'Folks!' he shouts, 'I'm in favor of this yere lynchin' like a landslide. But, all the same, thar's a bet we overlooks. It's up to us not only to be jest, but to be gen'rous. This yere murderer, who's done blotted out the only real artist I ever meets except myse'f, has a wife down to the hotel. As incident to these festiv'ties she's goin' to be a widow. Is it for the manhood an' civic virchoo of Bernilillo to leave a widow of its own construction broke an' without a dollar? I hears the incensed echoes from the Black Range roarin' back in scornful accents "No!" Sech bein' the sityooation, as preelim'nary to this yere hangin' I moves we takes up a collection for that widow. Yere's a fifty to 'nitiate the play'--at this p'int the Planter throws a fifty-dollar bill into his hat--'an' as I passes among you I wants every sport to come across, lib'ral an' free, an' prove to the world lookin' on that Bernilillo is the band of onbelted philanthropists which mankind's allers believed. "Hat in hand, same as if it's a contreebution box an' he's passin' the platter in church, the Planter begins goin' in an' out through the multitood like a meadowlark through standin' grass. That is, he starts to go in an' out; but, at the first motion, that entire lynchin' party exhales like mist on the mornin' mountains. It's the same as flappin' a blanket at a bunch of cattle. Every profligate of 'em, at the su'gestion he contreebute to the widow, gets stampeded, an' thar's nobody left but the Planter, the professor, an' me. "'Which I shore knows how to tech them ground-hawgs on the raw,' says the Planter, as he onlooses the professor. 'If I was to have p'inted a gun at 'em now, they'd've give me a battle. But bein' to the last man jack a bunch of onmitigated misers, a threat leveled at their bankrolls sets 'em to hidin' out like quail!' "The professor? "The instant he's laig-free, an' without so much as pausin' to congrachoolate his preeserver on the power of his eloquence, he vanishes into the night. He's headin' towards Vegas as he's lost to sight, an' I learns later from Russ Kishler he makes that meetropolis more or less used up. No; he don't have no wife. That flight of fancy is flung off by the Planter simply as furnishin' 'atmosphere.' "Wolfville never gets honored but once by the notice of a hypnotist. This yere party don't proclaim himse'f as sech, but bills his little game as that of a 'magnetic healer,' an' allows in words a foot high that he's out to 'make the deef hear, the blind see, the lame to walk an' the halt to skip an' gambol as doth the hillside lamb.' Also, on them notices, the same bein' the bigness of a hoss-blanket an' hung up lib'ral in the Red Light, the post office, the Dance Hall, an' the Noo York store, is a picture of old Satan himse'f, teachin' Professor Propriety Pratt--that bein' the name this yere neecromancer gives himse'f--his trade. "These proclamations is tacked up a full week before Professor Pratt is doo, an' prodooces a profound effect on Boggs, him bein' by nacher sooperstitious to the brink of the egreegious. The evenin' before the Professor is to onlimber on us, he shows in Red Dog, an' Boggs is that roused by what's been promised in the line of mir'cles, he rides across to be present. "'It ain't that I'm convinced none,' Boggs reports, when quaffin' his Old Jordan in the Red Light, an' settin' fo'th what he sees, 'but I must confess to bein' more or less onhossed by what this yere Pratt Professor does. He don't magnetize none of them Red Dog drunkards in person, for which he's to be exon'rated, since no self-respectin' magnetizer would let himse'f get tangled up with sech. He confines his exploits to a brace of dreamy lookin' ground owls he totes 'round with him, an' which he calls his "hosses." What he makes these vagrants do, though, assoomin' it's on the squar', is a caution to bull-snakes. After he's got 'em onder the "inflooence," they eats raw potatoes like they're roast apples, sticks needles into themselves same as though they're pincushions, an' at his slightest behest performs other feats both blood-curdlin' an' myster'ous.' "We-all listens to Boggs, of course, as he recounts what marvels he's gone ag'inst in Red Dog, but we don't yield him as much attention as we otherwise might, bein' preeockepied as a public with word of a hold-up that's come off over near the Whetstone Springs. Some bandit--all alone--sticks up the Lordsburg coach, an' quits winner sixty thousand dollars. Nacherally our cur'osity is a heap stirred up, for with sech encouragement thar's no tellin' when he'll make a play at Monte an' the Wolfville stage, an' take to layin' waste the fortunes of all us gents. What is done to Lordsburg we can stand, but a blow at our own warbags, even in antic'pation, is calc'lated to cause us to perk up. We're all discussin' the doin's of this yere route agent an' wonderin' if it's Curly Bill, when Boggs gets back from Red Dog, with the result, as I says, that he onloads his findin's, that a-way, on a dead kyard. Not that this yere public inattention preys on Boggs. He keeps on drinkin' an' talkin', same as though, all y'ears like a field of wheat, we ain't doin' a thing but listen. "'Also,' he observes, as he tells Black Jack to rebusy himse'f, meanwhile p'intin' up to the poster which shows how the devil is holdin' Professor Pratt in his lap an' laborin' for that hypnotist's instruction; 'I shall think out a few tests which oughter get the measure of that mountebank. He won't find this outfit so easy as them Red Dog boneheads.' "Professor Pratt has a one-day wait in Wolfville, not bein' able that evenin' to get the Bird Cage Op'ry House, the same bein' engaged by a company of histrions called the Red Stocking Blonds. Havin' nothin' else to do, the Professor wanders yere an' thar, now in the Red Light, now at the Noo York store, but showin' up at the O. K. Restauraw at chuck time both rav'nous an' reg'lar. Missis Rucker allows she never does feed a gent who puts himse'f outside of so much grub for the money, an' hazards the belief it's because of a loss of nervous force through them hypnotizin's he pulls off. Not that she's findin' fault, for the Professor, havin' staked her to a free ticket, has her on his staff in the shakin' of a dice-box. "The Professor don't come bulgin' among us, garroolous an' friendly, but holds himse'f aloof a heap, clingin' to the feelin' mebby that to preeserve a distance is likely to swell reesults at the Bird Cage door. Boggs, however, ain't to be stood off by no coldness, carin' no more for a gent's bein' haughty that a-way than a cow does for a cobweb. Which you bet it'll take somethin' more'n mere airs to hold Boggs in check. "It's in the O. K. Restauraw, followin' our evenin' _frijoles_, that Boggs breaks the ice an' declar's for some exper'ments. "'Which you claims,' says he, appealin' to the Professor, 'to make the deef hear and the blind see. Onforchoonately we're out of deef folks at this writin', an' thar's nothin' approachin' blindness in this neck of woods which don't arise from licker. But aside from cures thus rendered impossible for want of el'gible invalids, thar's still this yere hypnotic bluff you puts up. What Wolfville hankers for is tests, tests about the legit'macy of which thar's no openin' for dispoote. Wharfore I yereby makes offer of myse'f to become your onmurmurin' dupe. I'll gamble you a stack of bloos you don't make me drink no water, thinkin' it's nosepaint, same as you pretends to do with them wretched confed'rates of yours.' "The Professor is a big b'ar-built sport, an' looks equal to holdin' his own onder common conditions. But Boggs don't come onder the latter head. So the Professor, turnin' diplomatic an' compliment'ry, explains that sech powerful nachers as Boggs' is out of reach of his rope--Boggs bein' reepellent, besides havin' too strong a will. "'As to you, Mister Boggs, with that will of yours,' says the Professor, 'I might as well talk of hypnotizin' Cook's Peak.' "One after another, Boggs makes parade of everybody in camp. It's no go; the Professor waves 'em aside as plumb onfit. Missis Rucker's got too much on her mind; in Rucker the tides of manhood is at so low a ebb he might die onder the pressure; Monte's too full of nosepaint, alcohol, that a-way, bein' a nonconductor. "When the Professor dismisses Monte, the ground he puts it on excites that inebriate to whar it reequires the united energies of Cherokee an' Tutt to kick him off the Professor. It's only the direct commands of Enright which in the end indooces him to keep the peace. "'Let me at him!' he howls; 'let me get at him! Does any one figger I'll allow some fly-by-night charl'tan to go reeflectin' on me? Stand back, Cherokee, get out o' the way, Dave, till I plaster the wall with his reemains!' "'Ca'm yourse'f, Monte,' says Enright, who's come in in time to onderstand the trouble. 'Which if this hypnotizer was reely meanin' to outrage your feelin's, it'd be different a whole lot, an' this sod-pawin' an' horn-tossin' might plead some jestification. But what he says is in the way of scientific exposition, an' nothin' said scientific's to be took insultin'. Ain't that your view, Doc?' "'Shore,' replies Peets. The Doc's been havin' no part in the discussion, him holdin' that the Professor, with his rannikaboo bluff about healin', is a empirik, an' beneath his professional contempt. 'Shore. Also, I'm free to inform Monte that if he thinks he's goin' to lap up red licker to the degree he does, an' obleege folks in gen'ral to treat sech consumption as a secret, he's got his stack down wrong.' "'Enough said,' ejacyoolates Monte, but still warm; 'whether or no, Doc, I'm the sot this outfit's so fond of picturin', I at least ain't so lost to reason as to go buckin' ag'inst you an' Enright. Jest the same, though, I'm yere to give the news to any magnetizing horned-toad who sows the seeds of dispoote in this camp that, if he goes about malignin' me, he'll shore find I'm preecisely the orange-hued chimpanzee to wrop my prehensile tail around him an' yank him from his limb.' "'Aside from aidin' the deef an' the blind,' says the Professor, ignorin' Monte utter an' addressin' himse'f to Boggs an' the public gen'ral, 'my ministrations has been found eff'cacious wharever the course of troo love has not run smooth. I binds up wounds of sent'ment, an' cures every sickness of the soul. Which, if thar's any heart lyin' 'round loose yereabouts an' failin' to beat as one, or a sperit that's been disyoonited from its mate an' can't remake the hook-up, trust me to get thar with bells on in remedyin' sech evils.' "The Professor beams as he gets this off, mighty benignant. Texas, feelin' like the common eye is on him, commences to grow restless. "'Be you-all alloodin' to me?' he asks the Professor, his manner approaching the petyoolant. 'Let me give you warnin', an' all on the principle that a wink is as good as a nod to a blind mule. So shore as you go to makin' any plays to reyoonite me an' that divorced Laredo wife of mine I'll c'llect enough of your hypnotizin' hide to make a saddle-cover.' "'Permit me,' says the Professor, turnin' to Texas some aghast, 'to give you my word I nourishes no sech deesigns. Which I'm driven to say, however, that your attitoode is as hard to fathom as a fifth ace in a poker deck. I in no wise onderstands your drift.' "'You onderstands at least,' returns Texas, still morbid an' f'rocious, 'that you or any other fortune teller might better have been born a Digger Injun to live on lizards, sage bresh an' grasshoppers than come messin' 'round in my mar'tal affairs with a view to reebuildin' 'em up. My hopes in that behalf is rooined; an' whoever ondertakes their rehabil'tation'll do it in the smoke. What I'm out after now is the ca'm onbroken misery of a single life, an' I'll shore have it or have war.' "'My heated friend, I harbors no notion,' the Professor protests, 'of tryin' to make it otherwise. Your romancin' 'round single, that a-way, ain't no skin off my nose. An' while I never before hears of your former bride, I'm onable to dodge the feelin' that she herse'f most likely might reesent to the utmost any attempt on my part to ag'in bring you an' her together.' "Texas formyoolates no express reply, but growls. The Professor, still with that propitiatin' front, appeals to the rest of us. "'Gents,' he says, 'this yere's the most reesentful outfit I'm ever inveigled into tryin' to give a show to. I certainly has no thought of rubbin' wrong-ways the pop'lar bristles. All I aims at is to give a exhibition of anamile magnetism, cure what halt an' blind--if any--is cripplin' an' moonin' about, c'llect my _dinero_ an' peacefully hit the trail. An' yet it looks like a prejewdice exists ag'inst me yere.' "'Put a leetle pressure on the curb, thar,' interrupts Peets. 'You're up ag'inst no prejewdice. On that bill, wharwith you've done defaced the Wolfville walls, you makes sundry claims. An' now you r'ars back on your ha'nches, preetendin' to feel plumb illyoosed, because some one seeks to put the acid on 'em.' "'That's whatever!' adds Boggs; 'the Doc states my p'sition equilaterally exact. I sees your Red Dog show. I'll be present a whole lot at your show to-morry night. Also, I feels the need of gyardin' ag'inst my own credoolity. What I sees you do in Red Dog, while not convincin', throws me miles into the oncertain air; an' I don't figger on lettin' you _vamoos_, leavin' me in no sech a onsettled frame. Wharfore, I deemands tests.' "'Yere,' breaks in Nell, who's been listenin', 'what's the matter of this occult party hypnotizin' me.' "'The odd kyard in that deck,' says Cherokee, his manner trenchin' on the baleful--'the odd kyard in that deck is that onless this yere occultist is cap'ble of mesmerizin' a bowie to whar it looses both p'int an' edge, for him to go weavin' his wiles an' guiles 'round you, Nellie, would mark the evenin' of his c'reer.' "Nell beams an' brightens at these yere proofs of Cherokee's int'rest, while the pore Professor looks as deeply disheveled mental as he does when Texas goes soarin' aloft. "Little Enright Peets waddles up to tell his paw that Tucson Jennie wants him. As he comes teeterin' along on his short cub-b'ar laigs, fat an' 'round as forty pigs, the Professor--thinkin' it'll mebby relieve the sityooation--stoops down to be pleasant to little Enright Peets. "'Yere's my little friend!' he says, at the same time holdin' out his hands. "Later we-all feels some ashamed of the excitement we displays. But the trooth is, the Professor offerin' to caress little Enright Peets that a-way sends us plumb off our feet. I never before witnesses any sech display of force. Every gent starts for'ard, an' some has pulled their guns. "'Paws off!' roars Enright to the pore dazed Professor, who comes mighty clost to rottin' down right thar; 'in view of them announcements'--yere Enright p'ints to the bill, whar Satan an' the Professor is deepicted as teacher an' poopil--'do you-all reckon we lets sech a devil's baby as you go manhandlin' that child?' "The Professor throws up his hands like he's growing desp'rate. "'Folks,' he says, 'I asks, in all hoomility, is thar anythin' I can say or do in this yere camp without throwing away my life?' "'Shore,' returns Boggs; 'all you got to do is give a deemonstration.' "'However be I goin' to give a hypnotic deemonstration,' returns the Professor, apparently on the verge of nervous breakdown, 'when every possible subject is either too preeokyoopied, or too obstinate, or too weak, or too yoothful, or too beautiful, or too drunk? If it's healin' you're after, bring fo'th the sickest you've got. If he's blind an' his eye ain't gouged plumb out, I'll make him see; if he's lame an' his laig ain't cut plumb off, I'll make him walk. An' now, gents, I'm through. If these yere proffers don't suit, proceed with my bootchery. I care less, since one day with you-all exactin' tarrapins has rendered life so distasteful to me that I wouldn't turn hand or head to live.' "Havin' got this off his mind, the harassed Professor sets down an' buries his face in his hands. "'Why not introdooce him,' breaks in Rucker, who's nosin' about, 'to that aflickted shorthorn who comes groanin' in on the stage last night? He's been quiled up in his blankets with the rhoomatism ever since he hits camp. Which if this yere imposter can make him walk, it'll shore be kings-up with Missis Rucker, 'cause she wants to make the bed.' "'Whar's this sufferer at?' demands Boggs, takin' the Professor by the sleeve an' with the same motion pullin' his six-shooter. 'This yere discussion's done reached the mark whar it's goin' to be a case of kill or cure for some sport.' "Rucker leads the way up sta'rs, Boggs an' the Professor next, the rest trailin'. All hands crowds into the little dark bedroom. Thar on the bed, clewed up into a knot, lies the rhoomatic party. As we-all files in, he draws himse'f onder the blankets ontil nothin' but his nose sticks out. "'Professor,' says Boggs, an' his six-shooter goes 'kluck! kluck!' mighty menacin', 'onfurl your game! I shore trusts that you ain't started nothin' you can't stop.' "The pore Professor don't nurse no doubts. He thinks he's in the bubblin' midst of blood an' sudden death; wharfore, you bet, he throws plenty of sperit into his racket. Makin' some hostile moves with his hands--Boggs elevatin' his gun, not bein' quite content about them motions--the Professor yells: "'Get up!' "Talk of mir'cals! Which you should have seen that rhoomatic! With one turrific squawk he lands on his knees at the feet of Boggs, beggin' for mercy. "'Don't kill me,' he cries; 'I'll show you whar I plants the money.' "Whoever is that rhoomatic? Which he's the stoodent who stands up the stage over by Whetstone Springs. His rhoomatism's merely that malefactor's way of goin' onder cover. "The Professor later offers to divide with Boggs on the two thousand-dollar reward the Wells-Fargo folks pays, but Boggs shakes his head. "'You take the entire wad, Professor,' says he, wavin' aside that gen'rous necromancer. 'It's the trophy of your own hypnotic bow an' spear. What share is borne by my .45 is incidental. Which I'll say, too, that if I was playin' your hand I'd spread that cure on my posters as the star mir'cle of my c'reer.'" VIII THAT TURNER PERSON "Talk of your hooman storm-centers an' nacheral born hubs of grief," observed the old cattleman, reminiscently; "I'm yere to back that Turner person ag'inst all competitors. Not but what once we're onto his angles, he sort o' oozes into our regyards. His baptismal name is 'Lafe,' but he never does deerive no ben'fit tharfrom among us, him behavin' that eegregious from the jump, he's allers referred to as 'that Turner person.' "As evincin' how swift flows the turbid currents of his destinies, he succeeds in focusin' the gen'ral gaze upon him before he's been in camp a day. Likewise, it's jest as well Missis Rucker herse'f ain't present none in person at the time, or mighty likely he'd have focused all the crockery on the table upon him, which you can bet your last _peso_ wouldn't have proved no desid'ratum. For while Missis Rucker ain't what I calls onusual peevish, for a lady to set thar quiet an' be p'inted to by some onlicensed boarder as a Borgia, that away, would be more'n female flesh an' blood can b'ar. "It's like this. The Turner person comes pushin' his way into the O. K. Restauraw along with the balance of the common herd, an' pulls a cha'r up ag'inst the viands with all the confidence of a oldest inhab'tant. After grinnin' up an' down the table as affable as a wet dog, he ropes onto a can of airtights, the same bein' peaches. He he'ps himse'f plenty copious an' starts to mowin' 'em away. "None of us is noticin' partic'lar, bein' engaged on our own hook reachin' for things, when of a sudden he cuts loose a screech which would have knocked a bobcat speechless. "'I'm p'isened!' he yells; 'I'm as good as dead right now!' "Followin' this yere fulm'nation, he takes to dancin' stiff-laiged, meanwhile clutchin' hold of the buckle on his belt. "Thar should be no dissentin' voice when I states that, at a crisis when some locoed maverick stampedes a entire dinin' room by allowin' he's been p'isened, prompt action should be took. Wharfore it excites no s'rprise when Jack Moore, to whom as kettle-tender for the Stranglers all cases of voylance is _ex officio_ put up, capchers the ghost-dancin' Turner person by the collar. "'Whatever's the meanin' of this midprandial excitement?' demands Jack. 'Which if these is your manners in a dinin' room, I'd shore admire to see you once in church.' "'I'm p'isened!' howls the Turner person, p'intin' at the airtights. 'It's ptomaines! I'm a gone fawnskin! Ptomaines is a center shot!' "None of us holds Rucker overhigh, an' yet we jestifies that husband's action. Rucker's headin' in from the kitchen, bearin' aloft a platter of ham an' cabbage. He arrives in time to gather in the Turner person's bluff about 'ptomaines,' an' onderstands he's claimin' to be p'isened. Shore, Rucker don't know what ptomaines is, but what then? No more does the rest of us, onless it's Peets, an' he's over to Tucson. As I freequently remarks, the Doc is the best eddicated sharp in Arizona, an' even 'ptomaines' ain't got nothin' on him. "Rucker plants the platter of ham an' cabbage on the table, an' appeals 'round to us. "'Gents,' he says, 'am I to stand mootely by an' see this tavern, the best j'int ondoubted in Arizona, insulted?' An' with that he's down on the Turner person like a fallin' tree, whar that crazy-hoss individyooal stands jumpin' an' dancin' in the hands of Moore. "'What's these yere slanders,' shouts Rucker, 'you-all is levelin' at my wife's hotel? Yere we be, feedin' you on the fat of the land; an' the form your gratitoode takes is to go givin' it out broadcast you're p'isened! You pull your freight,' he concloodes, as he wrastles the dancin' Turner person to the door, 'an' if you-all ever shows your villifyin' nose inside this hostelry ag'in I'll fill you full of buckshot.' "To be shore, that crack about buckshot ain't nothin' more'n vain hyperbole, Rucker not possessin' the spunk of bull-snakes. The Turner person, however, lets him get away with it, an' submits tamely to be buffaloed, which of itse'f shows he ain't got the heart of a horned toad. The eepisode does Rucker a heap of good, though, an' he puffs up immoderate. Given any party he can buffalo, an' the way that weak-minded married man expands his chest, an' takes to struttin', is a caution to cock partridges. An' all the time, a jack-rabbit, of ordinary resolootion an' force of character, would make Rucker take to a tree or go into a hole. "Is the Turner person p'isened? "No more'n I be. Which it's simple that alarmist's heated imagination, aggravated by what deloosions is born of the nosepaint he gets in Red Dog before ever he makes his Wolfville deboo at all. Two hookers of Old Jordan from Black Jack renders him so plumb well he's reedic'lous. "Most likely you-all'd go thinkin' now that, havin' let sech a hooman failure as Rucker put it all over him, this Turner person'd lie dormant a spell, an' give his se'f-respect a chance to ketch its breath. Not him. It's no longer away than second drink time the same evenin' when he locks gratooitous horns with Black Jack. To this last embroglio thar is--an' could be--no deefense, Jack bein' so amiable that havin' trouble with him is like goin' to the floor with your own image in the glass. Which he's shorely a long sufferin' barkeep, Jack is. Mebby it's his genius for forbearance, that a-way, which loores this Turner person into attemptin' them outrages on his sens'bilities. "The Turner person stands at the bar, sloppin' out the legit'mate forty drops. With nothin' said or done to stir him up, he cocks his eye at Jack--for all the world like a crow peerin into a bottle--an' says, "'Which your feachers is displeasin' to me, an' I don't like your looks.' "Jack keeps on swabbin' off the bar for a spell, an' all as mild as the month of May. "'Is that remark to be took sarkastic?' he asks at last, 'or shall we call it nothin' more'n a brainless effort to be funny?' "'None whatever!' retorts the Turner person; 'that observation's made in a serious mood. Your countenance is ondoubted the facial failure of the age, an' I requests that you turn it the other way while I drinks.' "Not bein' otherwise engaged at the moment, an' havin' time at his command, Jack repairs from behind the bar, an' seizes the Turner person by the y'ear. "'An' this is the boasted hospital'ty of the West!' howls the Turner person, strugglin' to free himself from Jack, who's slowly but voloominously bootin' him towards the street. "It's Nell who tries to save him. "'Yere, you Jack!' she sings out, 'don't you-all go hurtin' that pore tenderfoot none.' "Nell's a shade too late, however; Jack's already booted him out. "Shore, Jack apologizes. "'Beg parding, Nellie,' he says; 'your least command beats four of a kind with me; but as to that ejected shorthorn, I has him all thrown out before ever you gets your stack down.' "The Turner person picks himse'f out of the dust, an', while he feels his frame for dislocations with one hand, feebly menaces at Black Jack with t'other. "'Some day, you rum-sellin' miscreent,' he says, 'you'll go too far with me.' "As showin' how little these vicisitoodes preys on this Turner person, it ain't ten minutes till he's hit the middle of Wolfville's principal causeway, roarin' at the top of his lungs, "'Cl'ar the path! I'm the grey wolf of the mountings, an' gen'ral desolation follows whar I leads!' "Yere he gives a prolonged howl. "The hardest citizen that ever belted on a gun couldn't kick up no sech row as that in Wolfville, an' last as long as a drink of whiskey. In half the swish of a coyote's tail, Jack Moore's got the Turner person corralled. "'This camp has put up with a heap from you,' says Moore, 'an' now we tries what rest an' reeflection will do.' "'I'm a wolf--!' "'We savvys all about you bein' a wolf. Also, I'm goin' to tie you to the windmill, as likely to exert a tamin' inflooence.' "Moore conveys the Turner person to the windmill, an' ropes his two hands to one of its laigs. "'Thar, Wolf,' he says, makin' shore the Turner person is fastened secoore, 'I shall leave you ontil, with every element of wildness abated, you-all begins to feel more like a domestic anamile.' "From whar we-all are standin' in front of the post office, we can see the Turner person roped to the windmill laig. "'What do you reckon's wrong with that party?' asks Enright, sort o' gen'ral like; 'I don't take it he's actchooally locoed none.' "Thar's half a dozen opinions on the p'int involved. Tutt su'gests that the Turner person's wits, not bein' cinched on any too tight by nacher in the beginnin', mebby slips their girths same as happens with a saddle. Cherokee inclines to a notion that whatever mental deeflections he betrays is born primar'ly of him stoppin' that week in Red Dog. Cherokee insists that sech a space in Red Dog shore ought to be s'fficient to give any sport, however firmly founded, a decisive slant. "As ag'inst both the others, Boggs holds to the view that the onusual fitfulness observ'ble in the Turner person arises from a change of licker, an' urges that the sudden shift from the beverages of Red Dog, which last is indoobitably no more an' no less than liquid loonacy, to the Red Lights Old Jordan, is bound to confer a twist upon the straightest intellectyooals. "'Which I knows a party,' says Boggs, 'who once immerses a ten-penny nail in a quart of Red Dog licker, an' at the end of the week he takes it out a corkscrew.' "'Go an' get him, Jack,' says Enright, p'intin' to the Turner person; 'him bein' tied thar that a-way is an inhooman spectacle, an' if little Enright Peets should come teeterin' along an' see him, it'd have a tendency to harden the innocent child. Fetch him yere, an' let me question him.' "'Front up,' says Moore to the Turner person, when he's been conveyed before Enright; 'front up now, frank an' cheerful, an' answer questions. Also, omit all ref'rences to bein' a wolf. Which you've worn that topic thread-bar'; an' besides it ain't calc'lated to do you credit.' "'Whatever's the matter with you?' asks Enright, speakin' to the Turner person friendly like. 'Which I begins to think thar's somethin' wrong with your system. The way you go knockin' about offendin' folks, it won't be no time before every social circle in the Southwest'll be closed ag'inst you. Whatever's wrong?' "'Them's the first kind words,' ejacyoolates the Turner person, beginnin' to weep, 'which has been spoke to me in months. Which if you-all will ask me into yon s'loon, an' protect me from that murderer of a barkeep while I buys the drinks, I'll show you that I've been illyoosed to a degree whar I'm no longer reespons'ble for my deeds. It's a love affair,' he adds, gulpin' down a sob, 'an' I've been crooelly misonderstood.' "'A love affair,' repeats Enright plenty soft, for the mention of love never fails to hit our old warchief whar thar't a palin' off his fence. 'I ain't been what you-all'd call in love none since the Purple Blossom of Gingham Mountain marries Polly Hawkes over on the Painted Post. Polly was a beauty, with a arm like a canthook, an' at sech dulcet exercises as huggin' she's got b'ars left standin' sideways. However, that's back in Tennessee, an' many years ago.' "Enright, breshin' the drops from his eyes, herds the Turner person into the Red Light an' signals to Black Jack. "'Onfold,' he says; 'tell me as to that love affair wharin you gets cold-decked.' "Nell abandons her p'sition on the lookout stool, an' shows up interested an' intent at Enright's shoulder. "Ain't I in this?' she asks. "'Be thar any feachures,' says Enright to the Turner person, 'calc'lated to offend the y'ears of innocence?' "'None whatever,' says the Turner person. 'Which I'm oncapable of shockin' the most fastid'yous.' "'Is thar time,' asks Nell of Enright, 'for me to round up Missis Rucker an' Tucson Jennie? Listenin' to love tales, that a-way, is duck soup to both of 'em.' "'You-all can tell 'em later, Nellie,' returns Enright. Then, to the Turner person, 'Roll your game, _amigo_, an' if you needs refreshment, yere it is.' "'It ain't no mighty reecital,' says the Turner person loogubriously, 'an' yet it ought to go some distance, among fa'r-minded gents, in explainin' them vain elements of the weird an' ranikaboo which more or less enters into my recent conduct. I'm from Missouri; an' for a livelihood, an' to give the wolf a stand-off, I follows the profession of a fooneral director. My one weakness is my love for Peggy Parks, who lives with her folks out in the Sni-a-bar hills. "'The nuptual day is set, an' I goes hibernatin' off to Kansas City to fetch the license.' "'How old be you?' breaks in Enright. "'Me? I'm twenty-six the last Joone rise of the old Missouri. As I was sayin', I hitches my hoss in Market Squar', an' takes to reeconoiterin' along Battle Row, wonderin' wharever them licenses is for sale, anyway. Final, I discovers a se'f satisfied lookin' party, who's pattin' a dog. I goes to talkin' about the dog, an' allowin' I'm some on dogs myse'f, all by way of commencin' a conversation; an' winds up by askin' whar I go for to get a license. "Over thar," says the dog party p'intin' across to a edifice he asshores me is a City Hall. "First floor, first door, an' the damage is a dollar." "'Thus steered, I goes streakin' it across, an' follows directions. I boards my dollar, an' demands action. The outcast who's dealin' the license game writes in my name, an' shoves the paper across. In a blur of bliss I files it away in my jeans, mounts my hoss, an' goes gambodin' back to Peggy, waitin' at ancestral Sni-a-bar.' "'Is your Peggy sweetheart pretty?' asks Nell. "'She's a lamp of loveliness! Sweet? Beetrees is gall an' wormwood to her. "'As to the weddin', it's settled Peggy an' me is to come flutterin' from our respective perches the next day. Doubtless we'd have done so, only them orange blossom rites strikes the onexpected an' goes glancin' off. "'It's the Campbellite preacher, who's been brought in to marry us, that starts it. The play's to be made at Peggy's paw's house, after which, for a weddin' trip, she an' me's to go wanderin' out torwards the Shawnee Mission, whar I've got some kin. The parson, when he has the entire outfit close-herded into the parlor, asks--bein' a car'ful old practitioner--to see the license. I turns it over, an' he takes it to the window to read. He gives that docyooment one look, an' then glowers at me personal mighty baleful. "Miserable wretch," says he, "do you-all want to get yourse'f tarred an' feathered?" "'In my confoosion I thinks this outbreak is part of the cer'mony, an' starts to say "I do!" Before I can edge in a word, however, he calls over Peggy's old man. "Read that!" he cries, holdin' the license onder old Pap Parks' nose. Old Parks reads, an' the next news I gets he's maulin' me with his hickory walkin' stick like he's beatin' a kyarpet. "'Without waitin' to kiss the bride or recover my license, I simply t'ars out the front of the house an' breaks for the woods. The next day, old Parks takes to huntin' me with hounds. Nacherally, at this proof of man's inhoomanity to man, I sneaks across into Kansas, an' makes for the settin' sun.' "'An' can't you give no guess,' says Enright, 'at why old Parks digs up the waraxe so plumb sudden?' "'No more'n rattlesnakes onborn, onless his inordinate glee at gettin' me for a son-in-law has done drove him off his head.' "'Which it couldn't be that,' says Enright, takin' a hard, thoughtful look at the Turner person. Then, followin' a pause, he adds, 'thar's some myst'ry yere!' "'Ain't you-all made no try,' asks Nell, 'sech as writin' letters, or some game sim'lar, to cl'ar things up?' "'You-all don't know Pap Parks, Miss, in all his curves. Why, it's lucky he ain't wearin' his old bowie at that weddin', or he'd a-split me into half apples. If I goes to writin' missives that a-way, he'll locate me; an' you can take my word that invet'rate old homicide 'd travel to the y'earth's eends to c'llect my skelp. That ain't goin' to do me; for, much as I love Peggy, I'd a heap sooner be single than dead.' "'That party ain't locoed,' says Texas, noddin' towards the Turner person, whar he sets sobbin' in a cha'r when Enright gets through examinin' him. 'He's simply a howlin' eediot. Yere he escapes wedlock by a mir'cle; an'--chains an' slavery!--now he can't think of no better way to employ his liberty than in cryin' his heart out because he's free. If I'm bitter, gents, it's because I speaks from hard experience. Considerin' how she later corrals that Laredo divorce an' sells up my cattle at public vandoo for costs an' al'mony, if when I troops to the altar with that lady whom I makes Missis Thompson, my gyardian angel had gone at me with a axe, that faithful sperit would have been doin' no more than its simple dooty in the premises.' "Enright takes it onto himself to squar' the Turner person at the Red Light an' the O. K. Restauraw; an', since his ensooin' conduct is much within decent bounds, except that Rucker steps some high an' mighty when he heaves in sight an' Black Jack gives him hard an' narrow looks, nothin' su'gestive of trouble occurs. In less'n a week he shakes down into his proper place, an' all as placid as a duck-pond. He's even a sort o' fav'rite with Nell, Missis Rucker an' Tucson Jennie, they claimin' that he's sufferin' from soul blight because of a lost love. Certainly, thar's nothin' in this yere fem'nine bluff, but of course none of us don't say so at the time. "Boggs holds that the Turner person's only a pecooliarly gifted liar, an' refooses to believe in him. 'Because it's prepost'rous,' says Boggs, 'that folks would go in to frame up a weddin', an' then, led by the preacher, take to mobbin' the bridegroom on the very threshold of them nuptials.' "'It ain't by no means shore, Dan,' says Texas, to whom Boggs imparts his convictions, 'but what you've drove the nail. Which if that Parks household reely has it in for this Turner person, they'd have let him go the route. Could even the revenge of a fiend ask more than simply seein' him a married man?' "In about a fortnight, that Turner person's got fully cooled out, an' the worst effects of what Red Dog licker he imbibes has disappeared. As he feels himse'f approachin' normal, as Peets puts it, he mentions to Enright casyooal like that, if the town sees nothin' ag'in it, he reckons he'll open an ondertakin' shop. "'Not,' he says, 'that I'm the man to go hintin' that what former foonerals has been pulled off in these yere parts ain't been all they should; but still, to get a meetropolitan effect, you oughter have a hearse an' ploomes. Let it be mine to provide them marks of a advanced civilization. It'll make villages like Red Dog an' Colton sing low, an' be a distinct advantage to a camp which is strugglin' for consid'ration. Yes, sir,' goes on the Turner person, warmin' with the theme, 'what's the public use of obsequies if you-all don't exhaust 'em of every ounce of good? An' how can any outfit expect to do this, an' said outfit shy that greatest evidence of modern reefinement, a hearse? Given a rosewood coffin, an' a black hearse with ploomes--me on the box--an' the procession linin' solemnly out for Boot Hill, if we-all ain't the instant envy of the territory, you can peg me out by the nearest ant hill ontil I pleads guilty to bein' wrong.' "'Thar's no need for all this yere eloquence,' replies Enright, blandly. 'What you proposes has been a dream of mine for years. You open your game as fooneral director, an' if we can't find material for you local, we'll go rummagin' 'round as far as Lordsburg an' Silver City to supply the deficiency.' "Feelin' Enright is behind him, the Turner person goes to work with sech exyooberant enthoosiasm, that it ain't a month before he brings over his hearse from Tucson, said vehicle havin' been sent on from the East. She's shore no slouch for a catafalque neither, an' we p'rades up an' down the street with it, gettin' the effect. "Boggs voices the common feelin'. "'Thar's a conveyance,' says he, 'that comes mighty close to robbin' death of half its sting. Any sport is bound to cash in more content, when he savvys that his last appearance is bound to be a vict'ry an' he'll be freighted to the sepulcher in a swell wagon like that.' "'It is shore calc'lated to confer class on the deeparted,' assents Tutt. "These praises certainly exalts the sperits of the Turner person a whole lot. He buys the old Lady Gay dance hall, which, since the goin' out of the Votes for Women S'loon, has again become the ondispooted property of Armstrong, makes a double-door to back in the hearse, an' reopens that deefunct temple of drink an' merriment as a ondertakin' establishment. Over the front he hangs up his sign. COFFIN EMPORIUM. L. TURNER, FUNERAL DIRECTOR. CORPSES SOLICITED. "That sign so much uplifts the sperit of the town it mor'n doubles the day's receipts at the Red Light. Also, two or three shady characters vamooses for fear of what a nacheral public eagerness to see that hearse in action may do. "It's the day next on the hocks of the installation of the Turner person in business, an' the fooneral director is lookin' out of the front window of his coffin emporium wishin' some gent'd start somethin' with his gun an' mebby bump him off a load for his new hearse, when Enright eemerges from the post office with a iron look on his face. Peets is with him, an' the pa'r is holdin' a pow-wow. "The rest of us might have taken more notice, only our sombreros is fittin' some tight on account of the interest we evinces the day prior in he'pin' la'nch the Turner person that a-way. As it is, we bats a lackluster eye, an' wonders in a feeble way what's done corr'gated Enright's brow. "It don't go no further than wonder, however, ontil after a few moments talk with Nell, Enright sends across for the Turner person. As showin' how keenly sens'tive are the female faculties that a-way, Missis Rucker an' Tucson Jennie is canvassin' some infantile mal'dy of little Enright Peets in the front room of the O. K. House, an' same as if they smells the onyoosual in the air, they comes troopin' over to the Red Light to note what happens next. "'Young man,' says Enright, when the Turner person has been brought in, 'by way of starter, let me inquire, be you preepared to surrender your destinies, of which you're plumb onfitted to have charge, into disgusted albeit kindly hands?' "The Turner person, some oneasy at seein' Moore, who's carelessly toyin' with a lariat, edgin' 'round his way, allows in tremblin' tones he is. "'Thar be those,' goes on Enright, 'who with the best intentions in the world, has been explorin' the ins an' outs of your Sni-a-bar troubles, an' while the clouds is measur'ble lifted the fresh light shed on your concerns leaves you in a most imbecile sityooation. Which if I thought that little Enright Peets, not yet in techin' distance of his teens, hadn't got no more sense than you, much as I dotes upon that baby I'd shore vote for his deemise. However, proceedin' with the deal, thar's this to say: Nellie thar, writes to your Peggy sweetheart, while I opens negotiations with old man Parks. I plans to read you them replies, but after advisin' with the Doc, an' collectin' the views of Nell, it's deemed s'fficient to tell you what you're goin' to do, an' then head you fo'th to its accomplishment. Our conj'int findin's, the same bein' consented to by old Parks in writin', an' tearfully deesired by your Peggy sweetheart in what she commoonicates to Nellie, is that you proceed at once to Sni-a-bar, an' get them interrupted nuptials over. After which you'll be free to return yere with your bride, an' take up the hon'rable an' useful c'reer you've marked out. As the preesidin' officer of the Stranglers, my word is that you be ready to start by next stage; which, onless Monte gets so deep in licker that he tips that conveyance over a bluff, should permit you to clasp your Peggy to your bosom an' kiss the tears from her cheeks by the middle of next week.' "'But,' interjects the Turner person, his voice soundin' like the terrified bleatin' of a sheep, 'can't you-all give me no glimmer of what's wrong that time? I don't hanker overmuch to go back in darkened ignorance, like a lamb to the slaughter. What guarantee have I got that old Parks won't lay for me with that bootcher knife of his'n? It ain't fair to leave me to go knockin' about, in the midst of perils sech as these, like a blind dog in a meat shop.' "'Your Peggy,' returns Enright, 'encloses a letter to you by the hand of Nellie yere, which may or may not set fo'th what insults you perp'trates upon her fam'ly. Also, said missive furnishes the only chance at this end of the trail of you findin' out the len'th an' breadth of your ignorant iniquities. For myse'f, the thought of what you-all does that time is so infooriatin' I must refuse to go over it in words. Only, if in his first reesentments old Parks had burned you at the stake, I would not have condemned him. As to your safety pers'nal, you can regyard it as asshored. Your Peggy will protect you, an' your footure parent-in-law himse'f acquits you of everything except bein' an eediot. It's, however, got down to whether he preefers to have a fool in his fam'ly or see his darter wretched for life, an' he's done nerved himse'f to take the fool.' "'Thar's your sweetheart's letter,' an' Nell puts an envelope which smells of voylets into the Turner person's hands. "That ondertaker reads it; an' after bein' confoosed by shame for a moment, he begins to cheer up. "'Folks,' he says, kissin' his Peggy's letter an' stowin' it away in his coat, 'I trusts a gen'rous public will permit me, after thankin' them whose kindness has smoothed out the kinks in my affairs, to close the incident with onlimited drinks for the camp.' That's all he says; an' neither can we dig anything further out of Enright or Nell. "We sees the Turner person aboard the stage, an' wishes him all kinds of luck. As Monte straightens out the reins over his six hosses an' cleans the lash of his whip through his fingers, Peets vouchsafes a partin' word. "'Neither I nor Sam,' says Peets, 'wants you to go away thinkin' that you an' your bride ain't goin' to be as welcome as roses when you an' she comes ramblin' in as one on your return.' "'That's whatever,' coincides Nell. "'Also,' breaks in Enright, 'should old Parks go to stampin' the sod or shakin' his horns, you-all are to put up with them deemonstrations an' not make no aggrevatin' reemarks. No one knows better than you by now, how much cause you gives that proud old gent to feel harrowed.' [Illustration: WE SEES THE TURNER PERSON ABOARD AN' WISHES HIM ALL KINDS OF LUCK. p. 222.] "Of course all of us is preyed on by anxiety to know whatever awful thing it is the Turner person does. In the end it's Missis Rucker who smokes Enright out. "'Sam Enright,' says this yere intrepid lady, her manner plenty darklin', 'you mustn't forget that whenever the impulse moves me I can shet down utter on your grub. Likewise, as a lady, I not only knows my p'sition, but keenly feels my rights. Which I don't aim to coerce you, but onless you comes through with the trooth about this yere Turner person's felonies, some drastic steps is on their way.' "'You will see, Missis Rucker,' says Enright, who's to be excoosed for turnin' a bit white, 'that no present reason exists for threatenin' me when I asshores you that as far back as last evenin' I fully decides to lay bar' everything. I do this, onderstand, not through fear; but lest some folks go surmisin' round to the inj'ry of the innocent. As I recollects back, too, I can see how the Turner person slumps into that mistake, him first talkin' dog to that canine party in Battle Row, an' then askin' whar does he go for the weddin' license.' "'Sam Enright,' interrupts Missis Rucker, whose flashin' eyes shows she's growin' hysterical, 'don't harass me with no p'intless speeches. You say flat what it is he does, or take the consequences.' "'Why, my dear Missis Rucker,' an' Enright makes haste with his reply, 'the thing is easily grasped. The paper he gives the preacher sharp is a dog license. Which that Turner person is seekin' to wed the belle of Sni-a-bar on a permit to keep a dog! The canine party he meets in Battle Row misonderstands a sityooation.' "'All the same,' observes Texas to Boggs, as the two meets that evenin' in the Noo York store, 'thar's one feachure to a dog license, not perceivable in a marriage license, which is worth gold an' precious stones. Said docyooment runs out in a year.'" IX RED MIKE "Mebby you-all recalls about that Polish artist person?" suggested the old cattleman, tentatively; "him I speaks of former?" My gray old _campañero_ was measuring out what he called his "forty drops," and, since this ceremony necessitated keeping one eye on his glass, while he endeavored to keep the other eye on me, the contradictory effort resulted in a wavering and uncertain expression, not at all in harmony with his usual positive air. By way of helping conversation, I confessed to a clear remembrance of the "Polish artist person," and wound up by urging him to give the particulars concerning that interesting exile. "Well," he cautiously returned, "thar ain't nothin' so mighty thrillin' in his Wolfville c'reer. You see he ain't, for the most, no pop'lar figure--him bein' a furriner, that a-way, an' a artist, an' sufferin' besides from conceit in so acoote a form as to make it no exaggeration to say he's locoed. On account of these yere divers an' sundry handicaps, he don't achieve no social success, an' while he's with us, you'd hardly call him of us. "Not that I objects to this deescendant of Warsaw's last champion, personal. Which I'm a heap like Enright in sech reespects, an' shore tol'rant. I finds out long ago that the reason we-all goes fault-findin' about people, mostly is because we don't onderstand concernin' them folk's surroundin's. Half the things we arches our necks over, an' for which mebby we feels like killin' 'em a whole lot, they can't he'p none. If we only savvys what they're reely up ag'inst, it's four for one we pities 'em instead. "It's like one time 'way back yonder, when me an' Steve Stevenson has a sudden an' abrupt diffukulty with a buffalo bull. We're camped out on the edge of the Rockies near the Spanish Peaks, an' me an' Steve, in the course of a little _passear_ we're takin', is jest roundin' a bunch of plum bushes when, as onexpected as a gun play in a Bible class, that devil's son an' heir of a bull--who's been hid by the bushes--ups an charges. Which you should have seen me an' Steve scatter! We certainly do onbuckle in some hasty moves! He's bigger 'n a baggage wagon, an' as we leaves our guns ten rods away in camp, thar's nothin' for it but to dig out. "Nigh whar I'm at is a measley _pinon_ tree, an' the way I swarms aloft among that vegetable's boughs an' branches comes mighty clost to bein' a lesson to mountain lions. Steve, who's the onluckiest sport west of the Missouri, an' famed as sech, ain't got no tree. The best he can do is go divin' into a hole he sees in some rocks, same as if he's a jack-rabbit with a coyote in hot pursoote. "Me an' Steve both bein' safe, an' reegyardin' that bull as baffled, I draws a breath of relief. That is, to be ackerate, I starts to draw it; but before I so much as gets it started, yere that inordinate Steve comes b'ilin' out of his hole ag'in like he ain't plumb satisfied about that bull. The bull's done give him up, too, an' switchin' his tail some thoughtful has started to go away, when, as I tells you, that fool Steve comes surgin' out upon his reetreatin' hocks. "Nacherally, what could any se'f-respectin' bull do but wheel an' chase Steve back? It's no use, though; Steve won't have it. No sooner does the bull get him hived that a-way, an' make ready to reetire to private life ag'in, than, bing! yere Steve comes bulgin' like a cork out of a bottle. An' so it continyoos, a reg'lar see-saw between Steve an' the bull. Steve'll go into his cave of refooge, prairie-dog fashion, a foot ahead of the bull's horns, only to be a foot behind the bull's tail as that painstakin' anamile is arrangin' to deepart. "Which sech wretched strategy arouses my contempt. "'You dad-binged Siwash,' I yells down at Steve, 'whyever don't you-all stay in that hole, ontil the bull forgets whar you're at?' "'Go on!' Steve shouts back, as in he dives, head-first, for mebby it's the twentieth time; 'it's as simple as suckin' aiggs, ain't it, for you up in your tree? You-all don't know nothin' about this hole; thar's a b'ar in this hole!' "Which I allers remembers about that dilemmy of Steve's. An' now, when I beholds a gent makin' some rannikaboo break, an' everybody's scoffin' at him an' deenouncin' him for a loonatic or worse, I reeflects that mighty likely if we-all was to go examine the hole he's in, we'd find it plumb full of b'ar. "Returnin' to the orig'nal proposition, the same bein' that Polack, let me begin by sayin' that whenever it comes to any utterances of his'n, I'm nacherally onable to quote him exact. What with him rollin' his 'Rs' ontil they sounds like one of them snare drums, an' the jiggerty-jerkety fashion wharin he chops up his English, a gent might as soon try to quote a planin' mill exact. "That I'm able to give you-all his troo name is doo wholly to him passin' round his kyard a heap profoose, when he first comes ramblin' in, said cognomen as printed bein' 'Orloff Ivan Mitzkowanski, Artist and Painter of Portraits.' We perooses this yere fulm'nation two or three times, an' Peets even reads it out loud; but since the tongue of no ordinary gent is capable of ropin' an' throwin' it, to say nothin' of tyin' it down, we cuts the gordian knot in the usual way by re-christenin' him _pro bono publico_ as Red Mike, which places him within the verbal reach of all. "'Yes,' he says, as he ladles out them kyards, an' all with the manner of a prince conferrin' favors--'yes, I'm a artist come to you, seekin' subjects an' color. As you probably observes by my name, I'm a gallant Pole, one whose noble ancestors shrieks when Kosciusko fell.' "Him bein' a stranger that a-way, an' no one, onless it's Peets, ever havin' heard about Poland, or Kosciusko, or whoever does that shriekin' the time when Kosciusko finds himse'f bumped off, we lets Mike get by with this yere bluff. Besides, his name of itse'f sort o' holds us. That anyone, an' specially any furriner, could come as far as he has, flauntin' a name like that in the sensitive face of mankind, an' yet live to tell the tale, is shore plenty preepar'tory to believin' anything. "When we lets it go that owin' to local conditions we'll be obleeged to call him 'Red Mike,' he's agree'ble. "'As you will, my friends,' he cries, bulgin' out his breast an' thumpin' it. 'What care I, who am destined for immortality, that barbarians should hail me as Red Mike? It is enough that I am not destroyed, enough that I still move an' have my bein'!' "'Mike,' interjecks Tutt, bristlin' a little, 'don't cut loose in no offensive flights. It's a heap onadvisable when addressin' us to overwork that word "barbarian." As you says yourself, you're lucky to be alive; which, bein' conceded, it'd be plenty proodent on your part not to go doin' nothin' to change your luck.' "'Steady thar, Dave,' says Enright, 'don't go exhibitin' your teeth to a pore benighted furriner, an' him not onto our curves.' "'Him bein' a furriner,' retorts Tutt, 'is but a added argyooment in favor of him takin' heed. Speakin' for myse'f, I in partic'lar don't want no furriner to step on my tail an' stand thar, same as if my feelin's ain't goin' to count.' "'Be composed, my friend,' says Mike, tryin' to follow Enright out an' squar' himse'f with Tutt--'be composed. I reetract the "barbarians" an' suggest a drink.' "'That's all right, Mike,' returns Tutt, who's easy mollified; 'still I onreservedly says ag'in that in Arizona thar's nothin' in becomin' too difoose. All that this time lets you out, Mike, is that havin' jest had our feed we're happ'ly lethargic. Which if you'd let fly that crack about barbarians, an' us not fed none, some gent not otherwise employed 'd have seized upon you as a mop-rag wharwith to wipe up the floor.' "Thar's allers a dispoote as to whether or no Mike reely commits sooicide that time. Tutt an' Texas holds to the last that his light gettin' blowed out like it does is accidental. Peets, however, insists it's a shore-enough sooicide. Of course, Boggs goes with Peets. Whatever's the question at bay, Boggs never fails to string his play with the Doc's; it's Boggs's system. All you has to do to get a rise out o' Boggs is get some opinion out o' Peets. Once the Doc declar's himse'f, Boggs is right thar to back said declaration for his last dollar every time. "As sustainin' his claim of sooicide, Peets p'ints out that thar's no gent, not a howlin' eediot complete, but knows s'fficient of giant powder to be dead on to how it's cap'ble of bein' fired by friction. "'Why,' he says, eloocidatin' his p'sition, 'even darkened savages is posted as to that. I once sees a South Sea Islander, in a moose-yum East, who sets a bunch of shavin's in a blaze by rubbin' together two sticks. An' this yere Mike is a eddycated sharp, eddicated at a Dutch outfit called Heidelberg. Do you-all reckon a gradyooate of sech a sem'nary ever walks out on a cold collar, him not wise, an' performs in the numbskull fashions as this yere Mike?' "'That's whatever!' chimes in Boggs. "As I tells you, any emphatic idee laid down by Peets instantly sets Boggs to strikin' same as one of them cuckoo clocks. "Enright? "The old silver tip stands nootral, not sidin' with either Peets an' Boggs or Tutt an' Texas. "'Which this yere Mike bein' shore dead,' says Enright, 'strikes me as s'fficient. I plants my moccasins on that, an' don't go pirootin' an' projectin' about for no s'lootions which may or may not leave me out on a limb.' "You recalls how it's Monte who, while gettin' drunk with him over to the Oriental S'loon in Tucson, deloodes Mike into p'intin' our way. Also, what Enright says to that deboshed stage driver for so doin'. Enright's shore fervent on that occasion, an' the language he uses would have killed two acres of grass. But that don't he'p none. After the dust Enright paws up has settled, thar's Mike still, all quiled up in the Wolfville lap. "Thar's a worse feachure, the same bein' Mike's wife. She's as young, an' mighty nigh as lovely, too, as Nell; only she's blind, this yere Mike's girl wife is, blind as any midnight mole. Besides her, an' a armful of paint breshes an' pictures, about all Mike's got in the way of plunder is a ten-dollar bill. If it's only Mike, we-all might have thickened our hides a heap, an' let him go jumpin' sideways for his daily grub, same as other folks. But girls must be fed, speshully blind ones. "Which this egreegious Mike, who calls her his 'little Joolie,' allows her bein' blind that a-way is why he marries her. "'It inshores her innocence,' he says; 'because it inshores her ignorance of the world.' "'Likewise,' remarks Peets, as we stands discussin' this yere reasonin' of Mike's in the Red Light, 'it inshores her ignorance of them onmitigated pictures he paints. Which if ever she was just to get one good look at 'em, he couldn't hold her with a Spanish bit. But you-all knows how it is, Sam?'--Yere Peets clinks his glass, an' all mighty sagacious, ag'inst Enright's--'The wind is tempered to the shorn lamb. On the whole, I ain't none convinced that her bein' blind, that a-way, ain't for the best.' "To look at this little Joolie, you-all'd never know she can't see none. Her eyes is big an' soft an' deep, an nothin' queer about 'em except they has a half-blurred, baby look. Peets allows it's the nerve bein' dead which does it. But blind or not, little Joolie shore dotes on that Red Mike husband of hers, as though he's made of love an' gold. Which he's her heaven! "While it's evident, after a ca'm an' onbiased consideration of his works, that from standp'ints of art this yere Mike's about sign-painter size, little Joolie regyards him as the top-sawyer genius of this or any other age. "'He'll revolutionize the world of art,' she declar's to Nell, who's mighty constant about goin' to see her; 'Ivan'--she pronounces it 'Vahn'--'is ondoubted destined to become the founder of a noo school.' "'An' her face,' goes on Nellie, as she tells us about it over to the O. K. Restauraw one evenin', after Mike an' his little Joolie wife's done pulled their freight for the night--'an' her face glows with the faith of a angel! So if any of you-all boys finds occasion to speak of this yere Mike in her presence, you be shore an' sw'ar that, as an artist, he's got nacher backed plumb off the lay-out.' "'The wretch who fails,' adds Missis Rucker, plenty fierce, 'don't wrastle his hash with me no more! You can gamble that marplot has tackled his final plateful of slapjacks at the O. K. House, an' this yere's notice to that effect.' "It's a cinch, of course, that none of us is that obtoose as to go sayin' anything to pain this yere blind little Joolie; at the same time no one regyards it as feas'ble to resent them threats of Missis Rucker! She's a mighty sperited matron, Missis Rucker is, sperited to the verge of bein' vindictive, an' rubbin' her fur the wrong way is the same as rubbin' a bobcat's fur the wrong way. As a exercise thar's nothin' in it. Besides, we're plumb used to it, owin' to her threatenin' us about one thing or another constant. Menaces, that a-way, is Missis Rucker's style. "Mike an' his Joolie wife don't live at the O. K. House, but only gets their chuck thar. He allows that to do jestice to his art he's got to have what he calls a 'no'th light,' an' so he goes meanderin' out on the no'th side of town, an' jumps a empty shack. "Driv by a lack of money, mighty likely, Mike ain't in camp a week before he makes it plenty plain that, onless he's headed off or killed, he's goin' to paint Enright a whole lot. As a preelim'nary he loores a passel of us over to his wickeyup to show us samples. "'That's my chef dever,' he says, bringin' for'ard a smudgy lookin' canvas, plastered all over with reds an' browns. "We-all takes a slant at it, maintainin' ourselves meanwhile as grave as a passel of owls. An' at that the most hawk-eyed in the outfit can't make it look like nothin'. We-all hangs back in the straps, an' waits for Peets to take the lead. For thar is the pretty little blind Joolie wife, all y'ears an' lovin' int'rest, an' after what Nell an' Missis Rucker has done said the gent who lacerates her feelin's is lost. In sech a pinch Peets is our guidin' light. "'Massive!' says Peets, after a pause. "'Which she's shore a heap massive!' we murmurs, followin' Peets' smoke. "'An' sech atmosphere!' Peets goes on. "'Atmosphere to give away!' we echoes. "At these yere encomiyums the pore pleased face of little Joolie is beamin' like the sun. As for Mike, he assoomes a easy attitoode, same as though compliments means nothin' to him. "'What's the subject?' Peets asks. "'That, my friend, is the _Linden in October_,' returns Mike, as though he's showin' us a picture of heaven's front gate. 'Yes, the _Linden in October_.' "'Which if this yere Pole,' whispers Texas to Cherokee, 'is able to make anything out of that smear, he can shore see more things without the aid of licker than any sport that ever spreads his blankets in Cochise County.' "Texas is a heap careful not to let either Mike or the little Joolie girl ketch on to what he says. "Also, it's worth recallin' that Mike an' the little Joolie is the only wedded pa'r, of which the Southwest preeserved a record, that don't bring bilious recollections to Texas of his former Laredo wife. [Illustration: "WHAT'S THE SUBJECT?" PEETS ASKS. "THAT, MY FRIEND, IS THE 'LINDEN IN OCTOBER,'" RETURNS MIKE, AS THOUGH HE'S A SHOWIN' US A PICTURE OF HEAVEN'S FRONT GATE. p. 238.] "'Not but what thar's a wrong thar, Doc,' he insists, the time Peets mentions it; 'not but what this yere Red Mike-Joolie sityooation harbors a wrong. Only it's onavailable to 'llustrate the illyoosage I suffers at the hands of my Laredo wife.' "After the _Linden_ Mike totes out mebby it's a dozen other smeary squar's of canvas. We goes over 'em one by one, cockin' our eyes an' turnin' our heads first one way an' then another, like a bloo jay peerin' into a knothole. When Peets lets drive something about 'sky effects,' an' 'fore-grounds,' an' 'middle-distance,' we stacks in all sim'lar. Thar's nothin' to it; Mike an' the little Joolie girl puts in a mighty pleasant hour. "Mike, feelin' hospit'ble, an' replyin' to a thirsty look which Jack Moore sort o' sheds about the room, reegrets he ain't got no whiskey. "'My little Joolie objectin',' he explains. "'Oh, well,' speaks up Peets, who's plumb eager to bring them art studies to a wind-up, 'when thar's famine in Canaan thar's corn in Egypt. S'ppose we-all goes romancin' over to the Red Light an' licker up. Thar's nothin' like nosepaint, took internal, for bringin' out a picture's convincin' p'ints.' "'Right you be, Doc,' says Moore. 'It's only last week, when I myse'f cuts the trail of Monte, who, as the froote of merely the seventh drink, is sheddin' scaldin' tears over a three-sheet poster stuck onto the corral gate. This yere stampede in color deepicts the death of "Little Eva," as preesented in the _Uncle Tom_ show ragin' over to the Bird Cage Op'ry House. Monte allows it's one of the most movin' things he's ever met up with, an' protests between sobs ag'inst takin' out the stage that day for its reg'lar trip. "Which it's a hour for mournin'," he groans; an' he's shore shocked when the company insists. As he throws free the brake he shakes the tears from his eyes, an' says, "These yere corp'rations ain't got no heart!"' "If thar's ever any chance of Enright bein' that weak the sight of them smudges an' smears settles it, an' while we stands shovin' the Old Jordan along the Red Light bar, he allows to Mike that on the whole he don't reckon he'll have himse'f painted none. Rememberin', however, that it's a ground-hawg case with Mike, who needs the money, Enright gives him a commission to paint Monte. "'Him bein' a histor'cal character, that a-way,' says Enright. "Monte is over in Tucson, but you should have heard that drunkard's language when he's told. "'Whatever be you-all tryin' to do to me, Sam?' he wails. 'Ain't a workin' man got no rights? Yere be I, the only gent in camp who has actchooal dooties to perform, an' a plot is set afoot behind my back to make me infamous!' "'It's to go over the Red Light bar,' explains Enright, 'to be a horr'ble example for folks with a tendency to over-drink. As for you yellin' like a pig onder a gate, who is it, I asks, that beguiles this indigent artist party into camp, an' leaves him on our hands? Bein' he's yere, I takes it that even your whiskey-drowned intell'gence ree'lizes that this yere Mike, an' speshully the little blind Joolie, has got to be fed.' "'Well, gents,' returns Monte, gulpin' down his grief with his nosepaint, 'I reckons if it's your little game to use me as a healthful moral inflooence, I'd lose out to go puttin' up a roar. All the same, as sufferer in chief, I'm entitled to be more consulted by you uplifters before ever you arranges to perpetchooate me to poster'ty as a common jeer.' "Shore; these yere protests of Monte's ain't more'n half on the level. After a fashion, he's plenty pleased. "'For,' he says, confidin' in Black Jack over his licker, 'it ain't every longhorn of a stage driver whose picture is took by one of these yere gifted Yooropeans.' "Black Jack agrees to this in full, for he's a good-hearted barkeep, that a-way. "In doo time the picture's hung up back of the Red Light bar. Regyarded as a portrait it's shore some desp'rate, an' even Enright sort o' half reepents. Monte, after studyin' it a while, begins to get sore in earnest. Them scales, like the scriptoors say, certainly do fall from his eyes. "'Jack,' he says, appealin' to Moore, who happens to be present, 'does that thing look like me?' "'Why, yes,' Jack replies, squintin' his left eye a heap critical; 'to be shore it flatters you some, but then them artists gen'rally does.' "'Jack, if I'm that feeble as to go believin' what you says, I'd borry a shotgun from the express company and blow off the top of my head. That ain't the portrait of no hooman bein"--an' Monte raises a dispa'rin' hand at the picture; 'it's a croode preesentation of some onnacheral cross between a coyote and a cowskin trunk.' "Cherokee gets up from behind his lay-out, an' strolls over so's to get a line on the picture. He takes a long an' disparagin' survey. "'It ain't that I'm incitin' you to voylence, Monte,' he remarks final, 'but if you owes a dooty to s'ciety, don't forget that you owes also a dooty to yourse'f. You'll be lackin' in se'f-respect if you don't give Sam Enright two weeks to take that outrage down, an' if it ain't removed by then you'll bust it.' "Black Jack is ag'in the picture, too. "'Not,' he says, 'that I wants to put the smother on it entire; only I figger it'd look better in the post office, folks not makin' it so much of a hangout. Regyarded commercial, it's a setback to the Red Light. Some gent comes trackin' up intent on drinks, an' feelin' gala. After one glance at Monte up thar it's all off. That reveller's changed his mind, an' staggers out into the open ag'in without a word. The joint is daily knocked for about the price of a stack of bloos, as the direct result of that work of art. Which I'd as soon have a gila monster in the winder.' "Mike ain't present none when all this yere flattery is flyin'. If he was thar in person nothin' would have been said. Whoever'd be that hardened as to go harrowin' up the sens'tive soul of a artist, even if his work don't grade as corn-fed? "Some later tribyoote to his talents, however, reaches the y'ears of Mike. On the back of Black Jack's protests the Lightnin' Bug, who's come over from Red Dog for a little visit, drifts in. When he sees Monte's portrait his eyes lights up like a honka-tonk on Saturday night. "'Rattlesnakes an' stingin' lizards!' he cries; 'which I'm a Mexican if you-all ain't gone an' got him painted! However do you-all manage? I remembers when we captures him it's the last spring round-up but one. Two weeks goes by before ever we gets him so he'll w'ar clothes! An' even then we-all has to blindfold him an' back him in!' "'Whoever do you reckon that is, Bug?' asks Black Jack. "'It's that locoed Digger Injun, ain't it?' says the Bug; 'him we corrals, that time, livin' on ants an' crickets, an' roots an' yarbs, over in Potato canyon?' "'It's Monte.' "'Monte! Does anybody get killed about it?' "Black Jack mentions Mike as the artist. "'What, that Dutch galoot with the long ha'r?' says the Bug. "'Which he's a Pole.' "'Pole or Dutchman, what's the odds? I sees a party back in Looeyville whose ha'r's most as long as his. We entices him to a barber shop on a bet to have it cut, an' I'm ag'in the union if four flyin' squirrels don't come scootin' out. They've been nestin' in it.' "The Bug swings lightly into the saddle after a while, an' goes clatterin' back to Red Dog. No notice would have been took of what he says, only Monte, who hears it from Black Jack, is that malev'lent he goes an' tells Mike. "'You-all will make trouble between 'em, Monte,' Nell reemonstrates, when Monte's braggin' in his besotted way about what he's done. "'That's all right, Nellie. Both of 'em's been insultin' me; Mike by paintin' me so I'm a holy show, an' the Bug by lettin' on to take me for a Digger buck. S'ppose the Bug downs Mike, or Mike does up the Bug? Either way it's oats in your uncle Monte's feed box. That's me, Nellie; that's your old uncle Monte every time! Which, when it comes to cold intrigue, that a-way, I'm the swiftest sport in our set.' "On hearin' about the Bug from Monte Mike gets plenty intemp'rate. He goes plumb in the air, an' stays thar. He gives it out that he's goin' to prance over to Red Dog an' lay for the Bug. Nothin' but blood is goin' to do him. "Thar's nothin' we can say or do to stop Mike, so after talkin' it over a spell we deecides to throw him loose, Enright first sendin' word that he's harmless, an' not to be bumped off. "Upon receivin' Enright's word the Red Dog chief passes on a warnin' to the Bug. Mike mustn't, onder no circumstances, be killed. Bein' he's a artist he's not reespons'ble. "'Me kill him!' cries the Bug, who's scandalized at the idee; 'me take a gun to sech a insect! Gents, I've too much reespect for them good old faithful .45's of mine to play it as low down on 'em as all that.' "Which there leeniencies I allers feels is on account of the little Joolie, an' the blind love she entertains for Mike. When the worst does come we carefully conceals from her the troo details, an' insists that the powder house goes off by itse'f. "Then Nell, with Tucson Jennie and Missis Rucker to back her, carries the little Joolie girl the news. It's shore tough papers; an' Missis Rucker an' Tucson Jennie is kept racin' an' runnin' an' riotin' between the O. K. House an' Mike's wickeyup, freightin' over camphor an' sim'lar reestor'tives to the little Joolie all night long, while Nellie holds her head. "Does Mike's kickin' the bucket leave the little Joolie broke? It's this a-way: You see we-all chips in, an' makes up a fa'rly moderate pile to buy the _Linden in October_. "'It's to remember your gifted husband by,' explains Enright, as him an' Peets an' Boggs goes over to clink down the gold, an' get the _Linden_. 'This yere transcendent spec'men shall never leave our hands.' "'Not while we live!' declar's Peets. "'It's a marv'lous picture!' returns the little Joolie girl, proud and tearful both at once. "'Marv'lous!' repeats Peets; 'it's got the _Angelus_ beat four ways from the Jack.' "'Which I should remark!' puts in Boggs. 'Why, Doc, this yere _Linden_ of ours shore makes that _Angelus_ thing look like an old beer stamp.' "These yere outpourin's of onreestricted admiration shore does set the little Joolie to smilin' through her tears. Also, the bankroll they brings her sends her back to her folks in style. "So you don't regyard it as the proper caper to go deceivin' the little Joolie girl? That's preecisely the p'sition a Bible sharp over in Tucson takes, when some party's mentionin' the business. "'You go tell that doubtin' Thomas of a sky-pilot,' says Peets, on hearin' about it, 'that he can bet a ton of Watts' hymn books on it. You-all say, too, for his pulpit guidance, that what looks like deceit, that a-way, is often simple del'cacy, while Christian charity freequent w'ars the face of fraud.' "But I'm gettin' ahead of the wagons. Mike, who's a heap heated, goes lookin' for the Bug in the Tub of Blood S'loon. The Bug don't happen to be vis'ble no whar in the scen'ry when Mike comes clatterin' in. By way of a enterin' wedge Mike subscribes for a drink. As the Tub barkeep goes settin' out the glasses Mike, with his custom'ry gifts for gettin' himse'f in wrong, starts fomentin' trouble. An' at that it's simply his ignorance, an' a conceited deesire to show off among them Red Dogs. "As the Tub barkeep slams down the crockery Mike barks up sort o' sharp an' peevish: "'The ice! Ain't you people got no ice?' "The Tub barkeep takes a sour squinch-owl look at Mike. Then he goes softly swabbin' off the counter. "After a while he looks up an' says: "'Which you don't notice no swirlin' drifts of snow outside, do you? You ain't been swallowed up in no blizzard, be you, comin' into town? No, my stilted, stiff-laigged sheep of the mountain, we ain't got no ice.' "Mike, feelin' some buffaloed by the barkeep's manner, don't say no more. In silence he drinks his licker, an' then sets down at a table. "The barkeep, with the tail of his eye, continyoos to look him over. "'Whatever do you make of that crazy maverick,' he asks of a freighter, who's jest rolled in from Lordsburg. 'The idee of him askin' for ice in August!' "'Mebby he's the ha'r-brained party they sends word about from Wolfville,' the freighter replies--'him who's out to crawl the Bug's hump a whole lot?' "'That's the identical persimmon!' exclaims the barkeep, slammin' his hand on the counter. 'Which I ought to have knowed it without bein' told. I wonder if Peets, or some of them other Wolfville sports, puts him up to come bully-raggin' round yere about ice to insult us?' "The freighter allows he'll edge into a pow-wow with Mike, an' feel him out. "Planted at the same table, the freighter an' Mike is soon as thick as thieves. They're gettin' along like two pups in a basket, when in comes a disturbin' element in the shape of one of them half-hoss half-alligator felons, whose distinguishin' characteristic is that they're allers grouchy an' hostile. That's the drawback to Red Dog. It certainly is the home camp of some of the most ornery reptiles, that a-way! "The grouchy sorehead party, from the jump, gets dissatisfied about Mike's ha'r, which he w'ars a foot long same as all artists. Which a gent can't be no painter onless he's got ha'r like a cow pony. The sorehead party marches up an' down by the table whar Mike an' the freighter is swappin' lies, schemin' as to how he's goin' to make a warlike hook-up with Mike. After a spell he thinks he sees his way through, an' rounds to an' growls. "'What's that? Does one of your onparalleled tarrapins say something deerog'tory about George Washin'ton?' "Both the freighter an' Mike looks up some amazed, but pleads not guilty. They ain't, they says, even thinkin' of Washin'ton. "'Which I begs your parding,' returns Sorehead, snortin' mighty haughty an' elab'rate; 'I fancies I hears some one make some onbecomin' remark about Washin'ton. Mighty likely it's that licker I drinkt last night.' "Two minutes later he halts ag'in. "'It ain't possible I'm mistook this time. An' at that I don't precisely ketch what you offensive ground-owls is observin' about Thomas Jefferson?' "Mike an' the Lordsburg freighter insists vehement that thar's been no alloosion to Jefferson, none whatever. "'Parding!' Sorehead snorts; 'ag'in I asks parding! As former, I finds I'm barkin' at a bunch of leaves. My y'ear deeceives me into thinkin' that you two fool ground-owls is indulgin' in reecrim'nations ag'inst Thomas Jefferson.' "It's the third time, an' Sorehead's back, neck bowed an' fingers workin'. "'Now thar's no error! Which one of you cheap prairie dogs makes that low-flung statement about old Andy Jackson? Let him speak up, an' I'll give him a hundred dollars before devourin' his heart.' "'No one mentions Jackson,' says Mike, who's becomin' frightened an' fretted; 'whatever's the idee of any one talkin' about Jackson, anyhow?' "'Oh, ho! Perhaps, my bold galoot, you think old Andy ain't worth talkin' about!' "Sayin' which, that sorehead malcontent reaches for Mike, an' the two go sailin' 'round the room permiscus. Sorehead picks Mike up, an' sweeps a cord or two of glasswar' off the bar with him. Then he employs him in bringin' down a picture from the wall. After which he nacherally tosses him hither an' yon in the most irrel'vant way. "Sorehead has jest reached up with Mike, an' smashed a chandelier carryin' fourteen coal-oil lamps, when in t'ars the Lightnin' Bug, white an' frothin'. The Bug don't waste no time lookin' for holds, but casyooally, yet no less s'fficiently, snags onto Sorehead. Fixin' his ten claws in him, the Bug fo'thwith embarks upon sech feats in the way of ground an' lofty tumblin' with that gladiator, as to make what happens to Mike seem pooerile. "'Don't you-all know,' shouts the Bug, as, havin' done broke a cha'r with Sorehead, he proceeds to deevote what's left of him to smashin' a table--'don't you-all know, you abandoned profligate, that this yere artist you've been maltreatin' is a pers'nal friend of mine, yere present in Red Dog to confab with me on important affairs? An' is it for a houseless sot like you to take to minglin' with him malignant? Yereafter don't you-all so much as presoome to breathe without first gettin' my permission so to do in writin'!' "As closin' the incident the Bug sends Sorehead hurtlin' through a window, sash an' all. After which he dusts off his hands an' says: "'Gents, let's licker.' "The barkeep's that gratified he declar's the drinks is on the Tub. "'Also, the glass an' sash, Bug,' he adds. "Bein' refreshed, the Bug tenderly collects Mike, who's in a frayed an' fragmentary condition, an' gently freights him over to us on a buckboard. It's a week before Peets allows he's ag'in ready for the show ring, an' he uses up enough co't plaster on him to kyarpet the Red Light. Little Joolie? We let's on to her that Mike meets up with a she grizzly an' her cubs, an' while he cleans up that fam'ly he nacherally gets chewed. "'Mike's shorely some abrated, ma'am,' explains Peets; 'but he's mendin' fast. When I first lays eyes on him, after he encounters that bevy of b'ars, it's a question if his skin'll hold his principles. But don't take on, Ma'am; now I've got him headed right he'll be as good as new in a week. Don't forget, too, that he shore does land that band of grizzlies in the scrap-heap.' "Mike emerges from the hands of Peets filled with a pecooliar furrin' form of wrath, an' talkin' about his honor. It's Sorehead he's after now. As a noble Pole, he says, he has been most contoomeliously used, an' insists upon a dooel. Not with the Bug, who's withdrew them orig'nal jedgments concernin' old Monte's portrait, an' substitooted tharfor the view that said picture's bound to become the artistic pride an' joy of Arizona. Mike wants to fight the onreegen'rate Sorehead. "In the flush of their new friendship Mike asks the Bug to heel an' handle him. Also, it's warmin' to your better nacher to note the enthoosiasm wharwith the Bug takes up his dooties. "'It'll be six-shooters at ten paces,' he explains to Mike; 'an' if you only shoots like you paints, we'll send that tramp whar the wicked cease from troublin' an' the weary are at rest.' "The Red Dog chief gives his word to Enright that Mike ain't in no danger. "'Comin' down to cases,' says the Red Dog chief; 'it's even money that this yere Sorehead crawfishes. If he don't we've got it all set up to hand him the Bug, instead of that Red Mike artist of yours. So you see thar's lit'rally nothin' for you-all wolves to worry over at all.' "'We-all wolves ain't in the habit of worryin' to any astoundin' extent,' returns Enright, some rigid; 'none the less, I allows I'll take a look through the sights myse'f, merely by way of makin' shore which way the gun is p'inted. Thar's reasons, one of 'em a lovin' little blind girl, why we're not so plumb partic'lar about havin' this yere alleged artist party put over the jump.' "The fight's a week away, an' by advice of the Bug, Mike decides to put a polish on his shootin'. This yere's reckoned a bright idee, the more since as near as we-all can jedge Mike never does pull a trigger once since when his mother rocks his cradle an' warms his milk. "'Only,' warns Enright, as Mike goes makin' prep'rations, 'don't you-all go aimin' towards town none. We don't want no neeophytes bombardin' the village, which y'ar in an' y'ar out sees bullets enough in the nacheral onfoldment of eevents.' "Mike, not havin' no gun, borrys a .45 of Moore. Thus equipped, he secoores some cartridges at the Noo York store, an' la'nches forth. No one goes with him, since he allows he'll shoot better if he's by himse'f. "Thar's a powder house, belongin' to the Copper Queen Mine, about a mile outside of town. It stands off by itse'f an' nothin' near it, no one honin' much to live neighbor to a ton or two of powder. It's about fifth drink time the mornin' Mike seelects for his practice shootin' when, like a bolt from the bloo, that Copper Queen powder house goes up with a most emphatic whang! What Peets calls the 'concussion' breaks windows in the Wells-Fargo office, an' shakes up the Red Light to that extent it brings down Monte's picture an' busts it to forty flinders on the bottles. "'Which for a moment,' says Black Jack, commentin' on the gen'ral mess it makes, 'I thinks it's one of Colonel Sterett's _Coyote_ editorials on the licker question.' "That powder blow-up marks the onforchoonate last of Mike. Since he never does show up no more, an' a Mexican tendin' goats in the vicin'ty informs us he sees him pinnin' a target on the r'ar elevation of the powder house jest prior to the explosion, it's the common feelin' that the blow-up's caused by one of Mike's bullets, an' that Mike an' the powder reepos'tory takes flight simooltaneous. Only, as already set fo'th, Peets claims that Mike knows what's comin'. Mebby Peets is right, an' mebby Mike that a-way commits sooicide. Whichever it is, sooicide or accident, it's a mighty complete success; for the only trace we're able to find of either Mike or the powder house is a most elab'rate hole in the ground. "'The same bein', as I holds, a most excellent feachure,' says Boggs, who loathes foonerals. 'This yere powder house way of cashin' in meets with my approval. It shore don't leave no reemains!'" X HOW TUTT SHOT TEXAS THOMPSON "Which they starts the yarn in Red Dog that the shootin' that time between Tutt an' Texas is born of sectional feelin', an' because Texas is a southern gent, while Tutt comes from the No'th. Sech explainations is absurd--as Doc Peets well says. Also, I'm yere to go one word further an' state that, while it's like them Red Dogs, idle an' mendacious as they freequent be, to go fosterin' sech fictions, thar ain't a syllable of trooth tharin from soda to hock. The flareup has its start in them two children, Annalinda Thompson an' little Enright Peets, an' what sentiments of rivalry nacherally seizes on Tutt an' Texas as parent an' uncle reespective." "Still there must have been some degree of sectional feeling among you," I said, more by way of stirring my old cattleman up than any nobler purpose; "coming some of you from the South, and others from the North, it would have been strange indeed had it been otherwise." "Which it's shore strange, then. Them Wolfville pards of mine is one an' all United States men. They ain't Southern men, nor No'thern men, nor Eastern men, nor even Western men. Likewise, the improodent sport who'd go trackin' 'round, ondertaikin' to designate 'em as sech, would get toomultuous action, plenty soon and plenty of it. "Why, take Texas himse'f: Thar's a fly-by-night party pesterin' 'round camp for a space, who lets on he's from the same neck of woods as Texas. This yere annoyin' fraud is a heap proud of it, too, an' makes a speshulty of bein' caught a lot in Texas' company. He figgers it gives him a standin'. "One mornin', when only a few of us is pervadin' 'round, he plants himse'f plumb comfortable an' important in a Red Light cha'r, an' followin' the 'nitial drink for the day goes to talkin' with Texas. "As he sets thar, all fav'rable an' free, thar comes trackin' in a aged Eastern gent, who's been negotiatin' with Armstrong about business concernin' the Noo York store. The aged Eastern shorthorn goes rockin' up to the counter, an' p'litely lets on to Black Jack that he'll licker. As he does so this yere firegilt party who boasts he's of the same range an' breed as Texas speaks up, sharp an' coarse, like the bark of a dog: "'Yere, you! I wants a word or two with you-all!' "With that for a start he onfurls what he preetends is his grievances, the same bein' because of somethin' the aged Eastern sport does or don't do comin' over on Monte's stage--which they're fellow passengers that time, it seems--an' next he cuts loose, an' goes to vitooperatin' an' reecrim'natin', an' pilin' insult on epithet, that a-way, to beat four of a kind. Which he certainly does give that aged Eastern person a layin' out! Shore; he's jest showin' off at that, an' tryin' to impress Texas. "At the beginnin' the aged Eastern gent stands like he's dazed, onable to collect himse'f. However, he gets his mental feet onder him, an' allowin' he won't stay none to listen to sech tirades, tucks away his nosepaint an' pulls out. "After he's gone the vitooperative party wheels so's to face Texas, an' says--mighty pleasant an' agree'ble, like the object of the meetin's been most happ'ly accomplished: "'Thar, that shows you.' "'Whatever does it show?' Texas asks, some grim. "'Which it shows the difference between a No'thern gent an' a Southern gent. To be shore, that old cimmaron ain't half my size an' is twict my age, but all the same, Texas, if he's from the South, you bet, like you an' me, he'd tore into me, win or lose, if he'd got killed!' "'You think so?' says Texas, his eyes becomin' as hard an' glitterin' as a snake's. 'Now let me tell you something, my lionhearted friend. Thar's brave men South, an' brave men No'th. Also, thar's quitters; quitters at both ends of that No'thern-Southern trail who'll go into the water like a mink. Accordin' to my experiences, an' I've been dallyin' with hoomanity in the herd for quite some time, thar's nothin' in that geographical bluff of yours at all. Moreover, I reckons that before I'm through, seein' now you've got me goin', I'll prove it. For a starter, then, takin' your say-so for it, you're a Southern man?' "'Which that's shore c'rrect,' the other responds, but feeble; 'you an' me, as I says former, is both Southern men.' "'_Bueno!_ Now as calk'lated to demonstrate how plumb onfounded is them theeries of yours'--yere Texas gets up, an' kicks his cha'r back so he's got room--'I has pleasure in informin' you that you're a onmitigated hoss-thief;--an' you don't dare stand up. Yes, sir; you're onfit to drink with a nigger or eat with a dog;--an' you'll set thar an' take it.' "Which that aboosive party, pale as paper, certainly does 'set thar an' take it' preecisely as Texas prophecies; an' after glowerin' at him, red-eyed an' f'rocious for a moment, Texas sticks his paws in his jeans, an' sa'nters off. "It's jest as well. Why, if that humbug so much as curls a lip or crooks a finger, after Texas takes to enunciatin' them prop'sitions in philosophy, Texas'd have tacked him to the table with his bowie an' left him kickin', same as them goggled-eyed professors who calls themselves nacheralists does some buzzin' fly with a pin. "'Which, if thar's anything,' Texas explains to Enright, 'that makes me tired partic'lar, it's them cracks about No'th an' South. If I was range boss for these yere United States I'd shore have them deescriptives legislated into a cap'tal offence.' "'Sech observations as that narrow tarrapin onbosoms,' comments Enright, 'only goes to show how shallow he is. Comin' down to the turn, even that old Eastern shorthorn's walkin' away from him don't necessar'ly mean a lack of sand. Folks does a heap of runnin' in this vale of tears, but upon various an' varyin' argyooments. A gent runs from a polecat, an' he runs from a b'ar; but the reason ain't the same.' "Thar's no sectionalisms in Tutt's differences with Texas, none whatever. Also, while it finds, as I holds, its roots in Annalinda an' little Enright Peets, it don't arise from nothin' which them babies does to one another. Two pups in the same basket, two birds on the same bough, couldn't have got along more harmon'ous. The moment Nell brings little Enright Peets over to see Annalinda them children falls together like a shock of oats, an' at what times they're onhobbled of fam'ly reestrictions an' footloose so to do, you'd see 'em playin' 'round from sun-up till dark, same as a pa'r of angels. "Troo, Annalinda does domineer over little Enright Peets, an' makes him fetch an' carry an' wait on her; an' thar's times, too, when she shore beats him up with a stick or quirt some lib'ral. But what else would you expect? I even encounters little Enright Peets, down on all-fours, an' Annalinda ridin' him like he's a hoss. Likewise, she's kickin' his ribs a heap, to make him go faster. But that's nothin'; them two babies is only playin'. "Not that I'm none so shore it ain't this yere last identical spectacle which gives Nell the notion of them two children marryin' at some footure day. That, however, is merest surmise, an' in a manner onimportant. What I'd like to get proned into you-all is that Texas an' Tutt lockin' horns like they does has its single cause in them latent jealousies an' struggles for social preecedence, which is bound to occur between a only father an' a only uncle wharever found. Which the single safegyard lies in sech a multitoode of fathers an' uncles as renders 'em common. To possess but one of each makes 'em puffed up an' pride-blown, an' engenders a mootual uppishness which before all is over is shore to man'fest itse'f in war. "Thar's one boast we-all is able to make, however. That clash between Tutt an' Texas is the only shore-enough trouble which ever breaks out among the boys. You onderstands, of course, that when I says 'boys' that a-way, I alloodes to Enright an' Peets an' them others who constitootes Wolfville's social an' commercial backbone. Thar's other embroglios more or less smoky an' permiscus, which gets pulled off one way an' another, but they ain't held to apply to us of rights. For sech alien hookups, so to speak, we reefooses all reespons'bility. Which we regyards them escapades as fortooitous, an' declines 'em utter. Tutt's goin' against Texas is the only war-jig we feels to be reely Wolfville's." "You forget," I said teasingly, "the shooting between Boggs and Tutt, as incident to the Washerwoman's War." "Which, that?" There was impatience tinged with acrimony in the tones. "That's nothin' more'n gallantry. It's what's to be looked for whar thar's ladies about, an' is doo to a over-effervescence of sperit, common to the younger males of our species when made gala an' giddy by the alloorin' flutter of a petticoat. Boggs an' Tutt don't honestly mean them bullets none. Also, if you-all is goin' to keep on with your imbecile interruptions, I'll quit." Abject apologies on my part, supported by equally abject promises of reform. The old gentleman, thus mollified, resumed: "Goin' back to this yere Tutt-Texas collision, thar's no denyin', an' be fa'r about it, but what Tutt has grounds. For goin' on five years he's been looked up to as the only father in camp, an' for Texas to appear at what you-all might call the 'leventh hour an' go crowdin' disdainfully into the picture on nothin' more'n bein' a uncle, is preepost'rous. To prance 'round on sech a meager showin', puttin' on the dog he does, an' all in a somber, overbearin' way like he's packin' the world on his shoulders an' we-all's got to be a heap careful not to do nothin' to him to make him drop it, is inexcoosable to the verge of outrage. No rel'tive in the third or fo'th degree is jestified to assoome sech sooperiorities; an' Enright tells Texas so after Peets digs the lead out of the thick of his laig. "Which we gets orig'nal notice about Annalinda, when a passel of us, as is our custom followin' first drink time in the evenin', drifts into the post office. Some gets letters, some don't; an' Texas, who, as a roole, don't have no voloominous correspondence, is sayin' that he has the same feelin' about letters he has about trant'lers, as bein' a heap more likely to sting you than anything else, when the postmaster shoves him out one. "It's from Laredo, an' when Texas gets a glimpse at the mark on it he lets it fall onopened to the floor. "'It's my former wife!' he says, with a shudder. 'Yere she is, startin' in to get the upper hand of me ag'in.' "'Nonsense!' says Peets, pickin' up the letter, 'it's from some lawyers. Can't you see their names yere up in the corner?' "'That don't mean nothin',' Texas whispers--he's shore a heap shook; 'it'd be about her speed, as she goes plottin' afresh to ondermine me in my present peace, to rope up a law-wolf to show her how.' "Bein' urged by Peets, an' the balance of us asshorin' him we'll stand pat in his destinies come what may an' defend him to the bitter finish, Texas manages to open the envelope. As he stands thar readin' the scare in his face begins to fade in favor of a look of gloom. "'Gents,' he says, at last, 'it's my brother Ed. He's cashed in.' We expresses the reg'lation reegrets, an' Texas continyoos: 'Ed leaves me his baby girl, Annalinda--she's my niece.' After a pause he adds: 'This yere shore requires consideration.' "'These law sharps,' explains Texas, when we're organized all sociable in the Red Light, an' Black Jack's come through on right an' reg'lar lines, 'allows it's Ed's dyin' reequest that I take an' ride paternal herd on this infant child.' "'But how about its mother?' urges Enright. "'Which it ain't got none. Its mother dies two years ago. Now Ed's packed in, that baby's been whipsawed; it's a full-fledged orphan, goin' an' comin'.' "'Ain't thar no rel'tives on the mother's side?' asks Nell, from over back of Cherokee's lay out. "'Meanest folks, Nellie,' says Texas, 'bar none, between the Colorado an' the Mississippi. You see they're kin to my Laredo wife, me an' Ed both marryin' into the same tribe. Which it shows the Thompson intell'gence. Thar ain't a Thompson yet who don't need a guardeen constant.' "After no end of discussion that a-way it's onderstood to be the gen'ral notion that Texas ought to bring Ed's orphan baby to Wolfville. "'But s'ppose,' says Texas, 'that in spite of Ed wantin' me to cast my protectin' pinions over this yere infant, its mother's outfit, thinkin' mebby to shake me down for some _dinero_, objects?' "'In which case,' says Boggs, who's plumb interested, 'you sends for me, Texas, an' we mavericks it. You ain't goin' to let no sech callous an' onfeelin' gang as your wife's folks go 'round dictatin' about Ed's Annalinda child, be you, an' givin' you a stand-off? Which you're only tryin' to execoote Ed's dying behests.' "It's settled final that Texas, ag'inst whatever opp'sition, has got to bring on Annalinda to us. That disposed of, it next comes nacherally up as a question how, when we gets Annalinda safe to Wolfville, she's goin' to be took care of. "'Which the O. K. Restauraw won't do,' Texas says, lookin' anxious out of the tail of his eye at Enright an' Peets. 'Mind, I ain't hintin' nothin' ag'inst Missis Rucker, who hasn't got her Southwest equal at flapjacks, but I submits that for a plastic child that a-way, at a time when it receives impressions easy, to daily witness the way she maltreats Rucker, is to go givin' that infant wrong idees of what's coming to husbands as a whole. I'm a hard man, gents; but I don't aim to bring up this yere Annalinda baby so that one day she's encouraged to go handin' out the racket to some onforchoonate sport, which my Laredo wife hands me.' "'Thar's reasons other than Missis Rucker,' Enright is quick to observe, 'why the O. K. House ain't the fittest place for infancy, an' any discussion of our esteemable hostess in them marital attitoodes of hers is sooperfluous. S'ppose we lets it go, without elab'ration, that the O. K. House, from nursery standp'ints, won't do.' "Cherokee thinks that mighty likely a good way'd be to have Annalinda live with Tutt an' Tucson Jennie. "Peets shakes his sagacious head. "'Dave'll onderstand my p'sition to be purely scientific,' he says, glancin' across at Tutt, 'when I states that sech a move'd be a error. Tucson Jennie, as wife an' mother, is as fine as silk. But she's also a female woman, an' owns a papoose of her own. Thar's inborn reasons why woman, as sech, while sympathetic an' gen'rally speakin' plumb lovely, is oncapable onder certain circumstances of a squar' deal. In this yere business of babies, for example, thar's existed throughout the ages a onbridgable gulf in her eyes between her offspring an' other folks' offspring; an' while disclaiming all disloyalty to Tucson Jennie, I'm obleeged to say that as between Annalinda an' little Enright Peets, she wouldn't be cap'ble of a even break. Do I overstate the trooth, Dave?' "'None whatever,' Tutt returns. 'What you discovers scientific, Doc, I learns more painfully as husband an' father. I fully agrees that when it comes to other folks' children no female mother can hold the onbiased scales.' "'Thar's French an' his wife?' chirps Nell, her elbow on the lay-out, an' her little round chin in her fist; 'thar's the Frenches, over to the corrals? French an' Benson Annie ain't got no children, an' they'd be pleased to death at havin' Annalinda.' "'But be they competent?' asks Texas, over whom a feelin' of se'f-importance is already beginnin' to creep like ivy on a wall. 'I don't want to be considered a carper, but as I sees it I'd be doin' less'n my dooty as a uncle if I fails to ask, Be them Frenches competent?' "'You'll have to rope up a nurse some'ers, anyhow, Texas,' Boggs puts in. 'Thar's dozens of them good-nachered fat young senoritas among the Mexicans who'll do. The nurse would know her business, even if the Frenches don't.' "'Two nurses,' declar's Tutt. 'Bein' a father, I savvys the nurse game from start to finish. You'll need two; one to hold it, an' one to fetch it things.' "'But about them Frenches?' inquires Jack Moore. 'Ain't we goin' a little fast? Mebby they themselves has objections.' "'Which they'd look mighty well,' observes Cherokee, riflin' the deck an' snappin' it into the box plenty vicious, 'to go 'round objectin' after Nellie yere's done put 'em in nom'nation for this trust.' "'Not that they'd reeject it haughty,' explains Moore; 'but, as Texas himse'f says, who's to know, they bein' mighty modest people, that they'll regyard themselves as comp'tent? The Frenches ain't had no practice, an' thar's nothin' easier than a misdeal about a youngone. Thar's a brainless mother saws her baby off on me over in Prescott one day, while she goes cavortin' into a store to buy a frock, an' you-all can go put a bet on it I'm raisin' the he'pless long yell inside of the first minute. This takin' charge of babies ain't no sech pushover as it looks. It's certainly no work for amatoors.' "'Thar's nothin' in them doubts, Jack,' Boggs chips in confidently. 'Even if them Frenches ain't had no practice, an' the nurses should fall down, thar's dozens of us who'll be ever at the elbow of that household; an' if in their ignorance they takes to bunglin' the play we'll be down on 'em in the cockin' of a winchester to give 'em the proper steer.' "'I reckon, Nellie,' says Texas, lookin' wistful across at Nell, 'that if some of the boys yere'll stand your watch as lookout, you'd put in a day layin' in a outfit of duds? You could be doin' it, you know, while I'm down in Laredo, treating with them hostiles for possession.' "'Shore,' an' Nellie smiles at the prospect. 'Which I'll jest go stampedin' over to Tucson for 'em, too. How old is Annalinda?' "Texas gives Annalinda's age as three. "'She'll be four next fall,' says he; 'I remembers Ed writes me she's born durin' the beef round-up.' "'In that case,' comments Enright, 'she ought to stand about eight hands high. In clawin' together said raiment, Nellie, that'll give you some impression of size.' "'An', Nellie,' continyoos Texas, 'my idee is you'll want to change in say a thousand dollars?' "'Why, Texas, you talk like you're locoed. One hundred'll win out all the clothes she could sp'ile, w'ar or t'ar to pieces in a year.' "'Shore,' coincides Tutt; 'take little Enright Peets. One hundred _pesos_ leaves him lookin' like a circus.' "'But Annalinda,' objects Texas doubtfully, 'is a She. It costs more for girls. That Laredo wife of mine'd blow in the price of sixty head of cattle, an' then allow she ain't half dressed.' "'One hundred'll turn the trick,' Nell insists. "All that night we sets up discussin' an' considerin'. The more we talks the better we likes that Annalinda idee. "At sun-up, b'arin' the best wishes of all, Texas cinches a hull into his quickest pony, an' hits the trail for Tucson to take the railroad kyars for Laredo. "'Which, onless they gives me more of a battle than I anticipates,' he remarks, as he pushes his feet into the stirrup, 'I'll be back by ten days.' "'An', Texas,' says Boggs, detainin' him by the bridle rein, 'you-all beat it into that baby that I'm her Uncle Dan. It'll give you something to do comin' back.' "'Which, jedgin' from what I goes through that day in Prescott,' remarks Moore, mighty cynical, 'Texas'll have plenty to do.' "Texas don't meet up with no partic'lar Laredo opposition, them relatives appearin' almost eager to give him Annalinda. One of 'em even goes the insultin' len'th of offerin' to split the expense, but withdraws his bluff when Texas threatens to brain him with a six-shooter. "Boggs, hearin' of this Laredo willin'ness, can't onderstand it no how. "'It's too many for me,' he says. 'If it's me, now, I'd have clung to that blessed baby till the cows come home. They must shore be deeficient in taste, them Laredo yahoos!' "As exhibitin' how soon bein' moved into cel'bration as a uncle begins to tell on Texas he ups an' in the fullness of his vanity deecides, even before he arrives at Laredo, ag'inst the scheme which the camp's half laid out about the Frenches an' Annalinda, an' arranges to have a 'doby of his own. It's a blow to the Frenches, too, for since we notifies 'em, they has set their hearts on the racket. "But Texas is immov'ble. "'Ed's dyin',' says he, 'an' namin' me to be reespons'ble for Annalinda, creates a sityooation best met by me havin' a wickeyup of my own. I'm sorry to disapp'int, but after matoore reeflection, that a-way, I've conclooded to play a lone hand.' "While he's away Texas goes projectin' 'round an' cuts out a couple of old black mammies from a day nursery over in Dallas, an' brings 'em along. They an' Annalinda rides over from Tucson in the stage; but, bein' more familiar with the saddle, an' because he's better able tharfrom to soopervise an' go dictatin' terms to Monte, he himse'f comes on his pony. "'An', gents,' whines Monte, as, throwin' down the reins, he heads for the Red Light bar, 'between us he ain't the same Texas. That Annalinda child has shore changed him turrible. All the way from Tucson, when he ain't crowdin' up to the wheel to give orders to them Senegambians about how to hold or when to feed her, he's menacin' at me. That's why I'm three hours late. At rough places it looks like thar ain't no name mean enough for him to call me; an' once, when the front wheel jolts into a chuckhole an' Annalinda sets up a squall, he pulls a gun an' threatens in the most frenzied way to shoot me up. "You be more careful," he roars, "or I'll blow you plumb off your perch! Childhood, that a-way, is a fragile flower; an' if you figgers I'll set yere an', in the tender instance of my own pers'nal niece, see some booze-besotted drunkard break that flower short off at the stalk, I'll fool you up a whole lot." An' do you-all know,' Monte concloodes, almost with a sob, 'he never does let down the hammer of his .45 ag'in for most a mile.' "Annalinda is plumb pretty. The whole camp goes her way like a landslide. Tucson Jennie approves of her--with reeservations, of course, in favor of little Enright Peets; Missis Rucker finds time to snatch a few moments, between feedin' us an' bossin' Rucker, to go see her every day; while, as for Nell, she's in an' out of Texas' 'doby mornin', noon an' night to sech extents that half the time Cherokee ain't got no lookout, an' when he has it's Boggs. [Illustration: "HIM AN' ANNALINDA SHORE DO CONSTITOOTE A PICTURE. 'THAR'S A PA'R TO DRAW TO,' SAYS NELL TO TEXAS, HER EYES LIKE BROWN DIAMONDS." p. 281.] "Nell brings over little Enright Peets, an' thar's no backin' away from it him an' Annalinda shore do constitoote a picture. "'Thar's a pa'r to draw to!' says Nell to Texas, her eyes like diamonds. "Bein' romantic, like all girls, an' full of fancies that a-way, Nell indulges in playful specyoolations about Annalinda an' little Enright Peets gettin' married later on. Not that she intends anything, although Texas takes it plenty serious, which shows how his egotism is already workin' overtime. "When Monte puts up them groans about how Texas is changed, we-all lays it to the complainin' habit which, on account of whiskey mebby, has got to be second nacher with him. He's always kickin' about something; an' so, nacherally, when he onbosoms himse'f of that howl about Texas, we don't pay no speshul heed. It ain't three days, however, before it begins to break on us that for once Monte's right. Texas has certainly changed. Thar's a sooperior manner, what you'd call a loftiness, about him, which is hard to onderstand an' harder to put up with. It gets to be his habit constant to reemark in a wearied way, as he slops out his drinks, that we-all'll have to excoose him talkin' to us much, because he's got cares on his mind, besides bein' played out on account of settin' up all night with Annalinda. "'Which she's sheddin' her milk teeth,' he'd say, 'an' it makes her petyoolant.' "After which he'd turn away in dignified tol'ration, same as if we're too low an' dull to a'preeciate what he has to b'ar. "Or, ag'in--an' always before the draw--he'd throw down his hand in a poker game, an' scramble to his feet, sayin': "'Heavens! I forgets about that Annalinda child!' "An' with that he'd go skallyhootin' off into space, leavin' us planted thar with a misdeal on our hands, an' each one of us holdin' mebby better than aces-up, an' feelin' shore we could have filled. It's nothin' less'n awful the way he acts; an' that we lets him get away with it exhibits them sentiments of Christian charity which permeates our breasts. "Thar's the way, too, he goes hectorin' at Boggs! Two occasions in partic'lar I reecalls; an' it's only Boggs' forbearance that hostil'ties don't ensoo. One time when Annalinda's out for a walk with her two old black mammies Boggs crosses up with the outfit an' kisses Annalinda. Wharupon Texas yells out from across the street, like he's been bit by a rattlesnake: "'Don't do that, Dan! You'll mebby give her something. In Mother Shrewsbury's "What Ails Babies and Why" it's laid down emphatic that you mustn't kiss 'em.' "'But you kisses her,' retorts Boggs. "'Me? But I'm her uncle. Besides, I only kisses her hands. Which I'll permit you-all to kiss her hands, Dan, if that'll do you. Only don't you go to overplay it none. Don't forget that hands is the limit, an' it's thar whar you gets off.' "'Which I ain't none shore,' says Boggs, who's some hurt, as he's talkin' the thing over with Enright an' Cherokee in the Red Light--'which I ain't none shore but Texas is right; only he oughtn't to throw out them rooles of health of his so plumb offensive. You'd have reckoned from the row he makes I'm eatin' Annalinda.' "Another time Boggs gives Annalinda his six-shooter to play with, she havin' deemanded it with screams. Texas comes steamin' up. "'Dan,' he cries, grabbin' the weepon from Annalinda, 'sometimes I asks myse'f in all ser'ousness be you got common sense! Is this yere a snare you're settin' for this innocent child? Do you-all want her to blow her head plumb off?' "'But, Texas,' Boggs expostyoolates, 'thar ain't a chance. How's she goin' to cock that gun, an' the mainspring fifteen pounds resistance?' "'But she might drop it.' "'Which, if she does, it can't go off none; I sets the hammer between two shells on purpose.' "'Whoever's bringin' up this yere baby, you or me?' Texas deemands, as he tosses Boggs his gun. 'Please don't pass her no more artillery. If it's got to whar her existence is goin' to be a failure onless she's foolin' with a gun, I as her uncle preefers to furnish said hardware myse'f.' "Shore, Boggs stands it, it's so evident Texas is onhinged. "'An' if you look at it straight it ain't no wonder, neither,' says Boggs, who's mighty forgivin' that a-way. 'It's apples to ashes if you was to suddenly up an' enrich any of us with a niece like Annalinda, we-all in goin' crazy over her 'd give Texas kyards an' spades.' "Texas, who's always readin' medicine books, likes to go bulgin' 'round eloocidatin' about measles an' scarlet fever an' whoopin' cough, an' what other maladies is allers layin' in wait to bushwhack infancy. At sech moments he's plenty speecious an' foxy, so's to trap us into deebates with him. Mebby it'll be about the mumps, an' what's to be done; an' then, after he gets us goin', he'll r'ar back the actchooal image of insult an' floor us with 'Mother Shrewsbury.' It ain't no overstatin' a sityooation to say he pursoos these yere tactics ontil he's the admitted pest of the camp, an' thar ain't one of us but would sooner see a passel of Apaches comin' than him. He can't confab two minutes about Annalinda but he grows so insultin' you simply has to hold onto your manhood by the scruff of the neck not to go for him. "Even Enright ain't exempt. It comes out casyooally one evenin', as Texas goes layin' down the law about how he's r'arin' Annalinda, that Enright's mother was wont to sooth an' engage his infantile hours with a sugar-rag an' a string of spools. Which you should have shore seen Texas look at him! Not with reespect, mind you; not like he's heard anything worth while or interestin'. But like he's sayin' to himse'f, 'An' you sets thar offerin' yourse'f as a argyooment in favor of sugar-rags an' strings of spools! On the back of sech a warnin' you don't figger none I'll go givin' sugar-rags an' strings of spools to Annalinda, do you?' While he's thinkin' this he grins that patronizin' it'd set your teeth on edge. "Texas in a simple sperit of vain-glory'd take advantage of Tutt bein' a father that a-way to back him into a corner; an' then, ignorin' the rest of us as belongin' to the barb'rous herd, he'd insist on discussin' skunk oil as a remedy for croup. An' the worst of it is he finally has Tutt, who's bad enough before, gyratin' 'round, his addled nose to the sky in redoubled scorn of childless men. From the two sociablest sports in camp it gets so that the uncle in one an' father in the other so far supplants an' shoves aside the mere man in 'em that Job himse'f would have had to make a new record for meekness an' long sufferin' to get along with 'em. Which we-all suffers from both to that extent that when they does start to bombardin' each other the eepisode in some of its angles appeals to us as a welcome relief. "Even Peets goes after Texas. It don't do no good. He's become that opinionated he ain't got no more reespect for Peets than for Monte. Texas mentions that Annalinda's got a ache some'ers, an' asks Peets what's his idee. "'Thar's nothin' onder the firmament, Texas, the matter with that baby,' says Peets, 'but you. Which if you'd ever got to him as a yearlin' you'd a-killed Hercules himse'f! Quit yore fussin', an' give Annalinda a chance. Take a lesson from the cub coyote. Roll Annalinda out in the sand, an' let her scuffle. That's the way to bring a youngone up.' "'Mother Shrewsbury don't agree with you,' says Texas. 'Also, thar's nothin' in them cub coyote claims of yours for r'arin' children.' "'Mother Shrewsbury,' retorts Peets, 'is nothin' but a patent med'cine outfit, which feeds an' fattens on sech boneheads as you.' "'Excoose me, but scattered throughout that invalyooable work is the endorsements of doctors of divinity.' "'Shore! Half the time a gold brick comes to you wrapped in a tract. All the same, Texas, the way you're carryin' on about Annalinda is fast bringin' your sanity into doubt.' "Texas snorts his scorn at this, an' goes back to 'Mother Shrewsbury.' "As I've already s'ggested, however, thar's a bitter drop in Texas' cup, an' Tutt's the drop. As a ondeniable father, Tutt can put it all over Texas or any other mere uncle whenever he feels like it, an' deep down in his heart Texas knows it. He struggles to hide the feelin', but any one can tell that the very sight of Tutt is wormwood to him. "Likewise, Tutt fully ree'lizes his sooperiority, an' in no wise conceals the same. It comes as easy to Tutt as suckin' aiggs, he havin' had plenty of practice. Ever since little Enright Peets is born Tutt has conducted himse'f in a downhill manner towards all of us, an' been allowed to do so; as why not? This manner has become so much a part of Tutt that even after Texas inherits Annalinda an' sets up house for himse'f, while it makes the rest of us look up to him some, it don't he'p him none with Tutt. Tutt's too thoroughly aware of the difference between bein' a father an' bein' a uncle. Likewise, he lets Texas see it at every twist in the trail. "That time Nell takes to pa'rin' off little Enright Peets an' Annalinda, an' in a sperit of lightness speaks of how mebby some day they'll wed, she springs the notion on Texas, as stated, an' asks him what he thinks. Texas, who always has to have time to make up his mind about anything with Annalinda in it, is onable to say, first dash out of the box, whether he feels tickled or sore. He grows plenty solemn, as I mentions, grunts mighty elevated an' austere, an' mumbles about some things bein' a long shot an' a limb in the way, an' the wisdom of not crossin' a bridge till you gets to it. "Ten minutes later, while he's still got Annalinda an' little Enright Peets on the skyline of his regyard, Texas comes upon Tutt, who's talkin' pol'tics to Armstrong. Armstrong has tossed off a few weak-minded opinions about a deefensive an' offensive deal with Russia, an' Tutt's ag'in it as solid as a sod house. "'Yes, sir,' Tutt's saying; 'I'm ag'in any sech low alliance. I'd be ashamed to call myse'f a white man an' consent to sech open-eyed disgrace.' "Texas turns white. It's among his deefects that he can't escape the feelin' that the whole world is always thinkin' an' talkin' about whatever he himse'f is thinkin' an' talkin' about. Overhearin' what Tutt says, he concloodes that Tutt's declarin' his sent'ments as to little Enright Peets marryin' Annalinda, an' is out to reeject all sech alliances as a disgrace to the Tutts. An' Texas foomes. To be eat up by Tutt's sooperior station as a shore father is bad enough! An' now yere's Tutt, aggravatin' injury with insult! Which it's too much! "'Draw your weepon, Dave,' calls out Texas, bringin' his own gun to the front. 'Your bein' a father don't overawe me none, you bet! Likewise, if you're a Tutt I'm a Thompson, an' I've stood about all I'm going to.' "Tutt, as a old experienced gun-player, sees at a glance that he ain't got no time to throw out skirmishers. For reasons onknown, but s'fficient, thar's Texas manooverin' to plug him. Wharupon, Tutt takes steps accordin', an' takes 'em some abrupt. So abrupt, in trooth, that Texas ain't got through oratin' before his nigh hind laig has stopped a bullet midway above the knee. Shore, he gets a shot at Tutt, but it goes skutterin' along in the sand a full foot to one side. Thar's only them two shots, Enright, Armstrong an' Jack Moore gettin' in between 'em, an' nippin' any further trouble in the bud. "It's two hours later, an' Enright has come 'round to beat some sense into Texas. "'Accordin' to the Doc yere,' says Enright, as Peets ladles the invalid out a hooker of Old Jordan, 'that laig'll be so you can ride ag'in in a month. Pendin' which, while I don't preetend to savvy what's been goin' on between you an' Dave, nor what insults has been give or took, I no less tells you, Texas, that you're wrong.' "'As how?' growls Texas, gulpin' down the nosepaint. "'As to them airs which of late you dons. You know you can't defend 'em none. Dave's been the sole onchallenged father in this yere outfit for crowdin' nigh five years; an' for you to come swaggerin' up, insistin' that he divide the pot with you an' you holdin' nothin' higher than a niece, nacherally exasperates him beyond endoorance. Which you'd feel the same yourse'f in Dave's place.' "'But you don't onderstand, Sam. It's him connivin' round an' archin' his neck ag'inst them babies marryin' each other when they're growed up--it's that which sets my blood to b'ilin'. Wharever does Dave come in to get insultin' action at sech a prop'sition? It'll be a cold day when a Thompson ain't equal to a Tutt, an' I'll make that good while I can pull an' p'int a .45.' "'Which Dave,' interjecks Peets, as he goes cockin' up Texas' foot on a gooseha'r pillow, so's the shot laig'll feel it less--'which Dave thinks right now, an' so informs me personal, that you-all starts to mussin' with him on account of pol'tics, an' him havin' been a reepublican back East. Armstrong b'ars him out, too.' "'Pol'tics?' gasps Texas, full of wonder. 'Whatever do I care about pol'tics? I shore ain't no nigger-lovin' reepublican. At the same time, I ain't no cheap hoss-thief of a democrat, neither, even if I does come from Texas. Why, Doc, takin' jedge an' opposin' counsel an' the clerk who records the decree, on down to that ornery auctioneer of a sheriff who sells up my stock at public vandoo for costs an' al'mony the time my Laredo wife grabs off her divorce, every stick-up among 'em's a democrat. An' while I don't know nothin' about pol'tics, an' never aims to, you can go the limit on it I ain't nothin' them bandits be. Which I'd sooner be a prohibitionist!' "Enright an' Peets an' Texas keeps on discussin' ontil the misonderstandin' is laid bar', an' Texas is quick to admit that he's been mistook. Tutt, who's willin' an' ready, is brought in, an' the pa'r reeconciled. "'An', old man,' says Tutt, usin' both hands to shake with Texas, 'I'd on the level feel a heap better if it's me who gets busted in the laig.' "'Don't mention it, Dave,' returns Texas, who, now he reelizes what he's done, is deeply affected. 'I was plumb wrong; I sees it now. Also, if in the fullness of time Annalinda declar's in favor of weddin' little Enright Peets, I yereby binds myse'f to back them nuptials for a thousand head of steers.' "'Texas,' an' the water stands in Tutt's eyes, 'while it's the first I hears of sech a racket, yere's my hand that I'll go with you, steer for steer an' hoof for hoof.' "What Peets calls 'the logic of the sityooation' p'ints to licker all around; an', as we-all drinks to the onclouded future of Annalinda an' little Enright Peets, Texas an' Tutt ag'in shakes mighty fervent for the second time." XI THE FUNERAL OF OLD HOLT "That Turner person! Does he remain in Wolfville long?" The old cattleman repeated my question as though feeling for its bearings. "Well, he don't break no records. Which I should say now he sojourns with us mebby it's six months before he ups stakes an' pulls his freight back East. Oh, no; it ain't that any gent who's licensed to call himse'f a molder of public opinion, sech as Enright or Peets, objects to the Turner person's further presence none. Speakin' gen'ral, the heft of feelin' is in his favor. Not but what he has deeficiencies. It's no easy shot, offhand, to tell you preecisely whar this Turner person is camped in common esteem. Perhaps it's enough to say he's one of them parties who, while they don't excite your disapproval, is shore to keep you loaded with regrets. "Ain't you met up frequent with that form of horned toad? Thar's nothin' you can lodge ag'inst 'em, nothin' at which a vig'lance committee can rope an' fasten; they're honest, well meanin', even gen'rous; an' yet thar they be, upholstered by nacher in some occult way with about the same chance of bein' pop'lar as a wet dog. Speakin' for myse'f, I feels sorry for these yere onforchoonate mavericks, condemned as they be at birth to go pirootin' from the cradle to the grave, meetin' everywhar about the same welcome which awaits a polecat at a picnic. "Thar's no predom'natin' element of evil in this Turner person. Which in his case the trouble swings an' rattles on the way he's built. His crownin' deefect, mighty likely, is that he's got one of them sidehill minds, an' what idees he does evolve can't find no foothold, but is robbed at the start of everything reesemblin' perm'nancy. I watches his comin's in an' goin's out for months on eend, an' I'm yere to say--at the same time ascribin' to him no ill intentions--that onder all condition an' on all o'casions he's as onreli'ble as a woman's watch. "About that weddin' he goes east to consummate? "Which it looks like, speakin' mod'rate, he quits winner. He travels back to Sni-a-bar as tame as tabby cats in persooance with Enright's commands, an', once thar, old man Parks an' the rest of 'em whistles him through the marital chute a heap successful. When he shows up among us, his blushin' Peggy bride on his arm, he's wearin' all the brands an' y'ear marks of a thor'ughly married man; to sech degrees, indeed, as renders Texas oncomfortable. "'It recalls,' says Texas, 'them honeymoon days I passed with my Laredo wife before she wins out that divorce. It's like a icicle through my heart to look at him,' he goes on, aloodin' to the Turner person an' the fatyoous fog of deelight he's evident in. 'Thar he is, like a cub b'ar, his troubles all before him, an' not brains enough onder his skelp-lock to a'preeciate his awful p'sition.' "'Why, Texas,' remonstrates Nell as, the turn comin' trey-nine, she picks a stack of bloos off the trey an' puts it in the check rack, 'you talks of wedlock as though that sacriment's a brace. Plenty of folks has beat the game. Thar's Tutt an' Tucson Jennie.' "'Them nuptials of Dave's an' Jennie's, Nell,' returns Texas, shakin' his head a heap gloomy, 'ain't far enough to the r'ar to afford a preecedent. Wait till Dave wakes up.' "'Till Dave wakes up?' says Boggs, who's busy at the lay-out, an' has jest planted a stack of reds coppered in the big squar'. 'Sech pess'mism, Texas, is reedic'lous. Bein' married that a-way, I takes it, is somethin' like walkin' a tightrope. It reequires care, but it can be did. To be shore, if anything happens, you're in for a jo-darter of a jolt. Still, the resk don't render the feat imposs'ble, an' a brave man disregyards it.' "'That's whatever,' comments Nell, as, the king fallin' to win, she draws down Boggs's reds. "Thar's no chill on the reception we confers on the Turner person an' his Peggy bride. Monte has orders, in case they're aboard, to onlimber his shotgun a mile or two outside of camp, so's we gets notice an' is not caught off our gyard. For once the old drunkard is faithful to his trust, an' when we hears him whangin' away with both bar'ls, we turns out, as they say in Noo York, _en masse_. Every gent empties the six chambers of his gun as the stage pulls up, an' the Turner person he'ps out his Peggy bride into the center of a most joyful foosilade. We couldn't have done more if she's the Queen of Sheba. "The Turner person an' his Peggy bride is in right from the go. Missis Rucker declar's that the bride's a lady; Nell proclaims her as 'shore corn-fed,' while Tucson Jennie allows she's a whole lot too good for sech a jack-rabbit of a husband as she gets. "Her beauty? "Which you couldn't say it's calc'lated to blind. "For mere loveliness she ain't a marker to Nell. To be frank, it's somethin' more'n a simple question that a-way if she splits even with Tucson Jennie. As for Missis Rucker, that matron bein' past her yooth ain't properly speakin' in the runnin', an' to go comparin' her with girls would be injestice. "Once landed, an' havin' escaped from that ovation we prepar's, the Turner person an' his Peggy bride moves into the wickeyup okyoopied former by Cash Box Billie an' Missis Bill, an' opens up their domestic game. Hearin' nothin' to the contrary, no howls of anguish from him, no yelps of complaint from her, it's safe to say that in what joys is supposed to attend the connoobyal state, they coppers all of them loogubrious forebodin's of Texas, an' gets at least as good as a even break. "Old man Parks back at Sni-a-bar? "It looks like the Turner person, him bein' nacherally timid, exaggerates the perils which lurks in that aged cimmaron. Leastwise, old Parks don't offer no voylance to him, neither at the weddin' nor later. Some waifword does come creepin' along that durin' the cer'mony two of the guests has to hold old Parks, an' that he's searched for weepons by the preacher before ever said divine consents to turn his game at all. Which I'm free to say, however, I never lends no creedence to them yarns. "The Turner person, now he's established as a married gent an' a cit'zen in full standin', gives himse'f horn an' hide to business that a-way. He's as prompt about openin' his coffin emporium as ever is Black Jack in throwin' wide the portals of the Red Light. Once thar, he stays ontil the evenin' lamps is lit, layin' for a corpse to use his new hearse on. "Also, the Turner person has hopes: an' equally also he ain't without foundations wharon to build. That's an uncle of Armstrong who has come totterin' into camp, as he says himse'f, to die. Likewise, it's the onbiased view of every gent in the outfit that this reelative of Armstrong possesses reasons. He's a walkin' wreck. Peets concedes that he's got every malady ever heard of, besides sev'ral as to which science is plumb in the dark. "Nacherally, not alone the Turner person, but the public at large, figgers that this yere uncle'll shore furnish employment for the hearse, an' at no distant day. But it looks like that onmitigated invalid is out to test our patience. Mornin' after mornin' he comes scufflin' into the Red Light on two canes to get his matootinal nosepaint, an' this he keeps up ontil it begins to look like malice. Ree'lizin', too, the pecooliar int'rest we-all is bound to take in him onder the circumstances, he puts on airs, an' goes by us when he meets us as coldly haughty as a paycar by a tramp. Or, ag'in, he's prone to grin at us plenty peevish an' malev'lent, an' this he does partic'lar if the Turner person's hoverin' round. "'Which I shore deespises to keep you boys waitin',' he'd say, with a cacklin', aggravatin' laugh; 'but the way I feels it'd be prematoore to go greasin' up the hubs of that hearse.' "Sech taunts he flings forth constant, ontil he comes mighty near drivin' Boggs frantic. "'It seems,' says Boggs, 'like simply livin' ain't good enough for that old hoss thief. To be wholly happy he's obleeged to make his stay on earth a source of mis'ry to other folks. Which he ought to've been in his tomb ten years ago. Every day he draws his breath is so much velvet; an', instead of bein' thankful, all he thinks of is makin' mean reemarks an' sayin' bitin' things. He'll keep on till some over-provoked sport bends a six-shooter on his insultin' head.' "Weeks of waitin' goes by. Armstrong's old badger of a uncle hangs on, an' no outside corpse falls in, Arizona, as you doubtless savvys, bein' scand'lously healthy that a-way. So far, too, from any el'g'ble subject arrivin' in the usual way, the town never experiences sech a period of rippleless an' onruffled peace. As showin', too, how far the public is willin' to go to he'p along the play, I need only mention that on two o'casions Boggs leaves out his best pony all night, himse'f sprawled in behind a mesquite bush with his winchester, hopin' some Mexican'll prove weak enough to want it. All is in vain, however. Thar we be, framed up to give a fooneral from which Cochise County could date time, an' nothin' in the line of raw mater'al wharwith to pull it off. Which I never sees the gen'ral feelin' more exasperated. It's as though in a sperit of sarcasm our destinies is mockin' us. "The Turner person, in the face of this yere disheartenin' idleness, takes refooge in a trottin' hoss, which form of equine is as strange to us as camelopards. Shore, we has our runnin' races, pony ag'inst pony, a quarter of a mile dash; but that's as far as we goes. "The Turner person says that for himse'f he prefers trottin' races, an' after seein' him ride once I shore quits marvellin' at that pref'rence. You could no more keep him on a pony than you could keep him on a red-hot stove. We ties a roll of blankets across the horn of the saddle, an' organizes him with buckin' straps besides, an' in the face of all them safegyards he rolls off that hoss same as you'd expect some chambermaid to do. "Accordin' to the Turner person, trottin' races is the sport of kings, an' actin' on this feelin' he sends back East for a hoss. He drives it in one evenin' behind the stage, an' we-all goes over to the corral to size it up. It's consid'rable of a hoss, too, standin' three hands higher than the tallest of our ponies. Also, it has a ewe neck an' lib'ral legs. It's name is 'Henry of Navarre,' but we sees at once that sech'll never do, an' re-christens him 'Boomerang Bob.' "When this hoss arrives Boggs gets excited, an' him an' the Turner person lays out a track all around town like a belt. Boggs allows it's a mile long, or near enough, an' after a passel of Greasers cl'ars away the cactus an' mesquite an' Spanish bayonet, the Turner person hooks up Boomerang to a mountain wagon, an' sends him 'round an' 'round an' 'round at a pace that'd make your eyes stick out so far you could see your sins. Old Boomerang is shore some eevanescent! When that Turner person shakes the reins an' yells 'Skoot!' you could hear him whizz. On sech occasions he's nothin' short of a four-laigged meteor, an' looks forty feet long passin' a given p'int. "The big drawback is that thar ain't no quadrooped anywhar about to race Boomerang ag'inst. Leastwise, we don't hear of none for goin' on some months, an' when we do it's as far away as Albuquerque. Some consumptive tenderfoot, it looks like, has got a trottin' hoss over some'ers between Albuquerque an' Socorro, sech at least is the word which comes to us. "When this pulmonary sport hears of Boomerang, which he does by virchoo of the overblown boastin's of the Turner person, he announces that his hoss, Toobercloses, can beat him for money, marbles or chalk. Then comes a season of bluff an' counter-bluff, the pulmonary party insistin' that the Turner person bring Boomerang up to Albuquerque, an' the Turner person darin' the pulmonary sport to fetch his 'dog,' as he scornfully terms Toobercloses, down to Wolfville. "It's to be said for the Turner person that he'd have shore took Boomerang, an' gone romancin' off to Albuquerque, lookin' for that weak-lunged reprobate an' his hoss, only sent'ment is plumb ag'inst it. We-all don't propose to lose the camp the advantages of that contest, an' so to put an eend to discussion, we urges upon the Turner person that we-all'll shore kill him if he tries. This yere firmness gives us the pref'rence over Albuquerque, an' the pulmonary sport allows final that he'll come to Wolfville, but don't say when. "While eevents is thus a-whirl, an' the camp's all keyed up to concert pitch over the comin' race between Boomerang an' Toobercloses, the long-hoped for comes to pass an' the Turner person, as fooneral director, receives his 'nitial call. Over in Red Dog is a party named Holt. He ain't standin' none too high, him havin' married a Mexican woman, an' even them Red Dogs has the se'f-respect to draw the social line at Mexicans. One sun-up, however, she goes trapesin' across the line to visit her people down near Casa Grande, an' she never does come back. It looks like she's got enough of old Holt, which to gents who knows him don't go trenchin' on the strange. "The long suit of this yere Mexican wife of old Holt's is thinkin' she's sick, she holdin' that she's got as many things the matter with her as is preyin' on Armstrong's uncle. When she breaks out of the corral an' goes stampedin' off to her tribe, she leaves behind mebby it's a hundred bottles or more of patent med'cine, rangin' all the way from arnica to ha'r dye. "Followin' her flight that a-way old Holt goes to takin' an account of stock by way of seein' what she cabbages an' what she leaves, an' the first flash he blunders upon this yere bushel or so of drugs. He's too froogal to throw 'em away, old Holt is, bein' plumb pars'monious that a-way, an' after revolvin' the play in his mind for a spell, he ups an' swallows 'em to save 'em. "No one ever does figger out jest what individyooal med'cine bumps old Holt off that time, an' thar's no sayin' whether it's the arnica or the ha'r dye or some other deecoction, or simply the whole clan-jamfrey in comb'nation. Not that any gent goes to reely delvin' for the trooth, the gen'ral interest pitchin' camp contentedly on the simple fact that old Holt's been shore put over the jump. Doc Peets? Old Holt's packed in before the Doc's half way to Red Dog. Shore; some of them bottled med'cines is as ack'rate an' as full of action as a six-shooter. "Of course we-all is pleased to think the Turner person, as fooneral director, ain't been born to bloom onseen, but the rift in the floote is that the corpse belongs to Red Dog. Old Holt ain't ours none, an' from whatever angle we looks at it it appears like Wolfville ain't goin' to get a look in. "It's at pinches sech as this that Enright shows his genius for leadership. While all of us is lookin' bloo, to see how Red Dog beats us to it for our own hearse, our fertile old war chief is ribbin' up a game for pop'lar relief. "The Red Dog del'gation, headed by the Red Dog chief, comes over to round up the Turner person an' his hearse to entomb old Holt. At their showin' up Enright begins to onkiver his diplomacy. "'Which we symp'thizes with you-all in your bereevement, gents,' says he to the Red Dog bunch, 'but it's ag'inst our rooles for this yere hearse to go outside of camp.' "'Ain't you actin' some niggardly about that hearse?' asks the Red Dog chief coldly. "'Not niggardly, only proodent. Death cometh as a thief in the night, speshully in Arizona, an' we-all'd be a fine band of prairie dogs to go lendin' our only hearse all over the territory, an' mebby have it skallyhootin' 'round som'ers up about the Utah line jest when we needs it at home. However, as refootin' your onjest charge of bein' niggards, if you-all Red Dogs wants to bring deceased over yere, our entire lay-out is at your disposal. Allowin' you can find your own sky-pilot, we stands ready to not only let you have our hearse, but furnish you likewise with moosic from the Bird Cage Op'ry House, cha'rs from the dance hall, the Noo York store to hold serv'ces in, to say nothin' to considerin' you-all as our guests from soda to hock, with every Red Light thing said term implies.' "'Also,' observes Peets, who, from his place at Enright's elbow, is ridin' circumspect herd on the play--'also, we presents you-all, without money an' without price, a sepulcher in our buryin' ground on Boot Hill.' "This yere last provokes a storm of protest, the Red Dog del'gation takin' turns exposchoolatin'. But Enright an' the Doc stands ca'mly pat. "'Which now,' says the Red Dog chief, an' his tones is bitter--'which now I begins to ketch onto your plot. You savvys as well as I do that old Holt don't ought to go into your pile at all. He belongs in our pile--to Red Dog's pile. An' let me reemind you intriguers that Red Dog owns its own cem'tery over in Headboard Hollow, an' ain't askin' graveyard odds of any outfit west of the Spanish Peaks. This is a fine idee,' he concloods, turnin' sneerin'ly to his cohorts; 'not content with tryin' to grab off these yere obs'quies, they're brazenly manooverin' to purloin the corpse.' "At these contoomelius reemarks Boggs, Tutt, Moore an' Cherokee takes to edgin' to the fore, but Enright reepresses 'em with a admon'tory wave of his hand. "'Gents,' he says, to the Red Dog hold-ups, 'as vis'tors, even though se'f-invited, you're entitled to courtesy. But thar's a limit goes with courtesy even, an' you-all mustn't press it.' "This last sets the Red Dog outfit back on its apol'getic ha'nches, an' after a few more footile but less insultin' bluffs, they retires to consult. The wind-up is that they yields to Enright's terms, incloosive of Boot Hill, an' after libatin' at the Red Light they canters off to freight over old Holt, so's to be ready to hold the fooneral next day. "As I looks back to them prep'rations thar's no denyin' that as a fooneral director the Turner person proves himse'f plumb cap'ble of gettin' thar with the goods. Once he reeceives the word, everything goes off as measured an' steady as the breathin' of a sleepin' child. Even the Red Dog chief is moved to softer views, as gents frequent be followin' the eighth drink, an' whispers to Enright, confidenshul, that when all's in the only thing he deplores is that old Holt is bein' planted on Boot Hill instead of in Headboard Hollow. At this Enright, meetin' the Red Dog chief half-way, whispers back that later, if Red Dog desires the same, we'll jump in an' move old Holt a whole lot to Headboard Hollow. At this lib'ral'ty the Red Dog chief squeezes Enright's hand a heap fraternal, an' chokes with emotion. He sobs out that this is the one thing wanted to reestore them former friendly reelations between the camps. "The procession is one of the most exhil'ratin' pageants ever seen in the Southwest. At the head is the ploomed hearse, old Holt inside, the Turner person on the box. Next comes the stage coach, Monte drivin', an' Nell, Missis Rucker, Tucson Jennie, little Enright Peets, the Turner person's Peggy bride an' other ladies inside. The balance of us attends on our ponies, ridin' two an' two. "As we're waitin' for the preacher sharp, who's goin' in the stage, to get tucked in among the ladies, a hollow-chested, chalk-cheeked, sardonic-lookin', cynical-seemin' bandit, drivin' a lean-laigged hoss to one of them spid'ry things they calls a quill-wheel, comes pirootin' along over to one side of the fooneral cortege at a walk. He's p'intin' in from over Red Dog way, but I savvys from the wonderin' faces of them Red Dog sports that he's as new to them as us. The cynical bandit skirts along our procession ontil he's abreast of the hearse. Then he pulls up, we-all not havin' had the word to start as yet. "The Turner person has hooked up old Boomerang to the hearse, so as to confer on this his first fooneral all the style he can. Havin' halted his quill-wheel, the hectic bandit, coughin' a little, p'ints his whip at Boomerang an' says to the Turner person: "'Is this the skate you're tryin' to match ag'inst my Toobercloses?' "'Grizzly b'ars an' golden eagles!' exclaims Boggs, who's ridin' next to me, 'if he ain't that lunger from Albuquerque!' An' Boggs pulls out to the left, an' crowds up towards the hearse for a closer look. "'As fooneral director,' the Turner person replies to the hectic, quill-wheel bandit, whom he fathoms instantly--'as fooneral director, I must preeserve the decorums. But only you wait, you onblushin' outlaw, ontil I've patted down the sods on old Holt yere, an' I'll race you for every splinter you own.' "'That's all right,' retorts the hectic bandit, givin' another little cat-cough. 'Which you needn't get your ondertakin' back up none. Meanwhile, I'll nacherally string along with these obs'quies, so's to be ready to talk turkey to you when you're through.' "Enright gives the signal an', with Boomerang an' the hearse at the head, the procession lines out at a seedate walk for the grave. "Boot Hill's been located about a mile an' a half off, so as to give our foonerals doo effect. As we pushes for'ard, everything mighty solemn, the hectic bandit, keepin' a few feet off to one side, walks his hoss parallel with the hearse. Every now an' then his hoss, makin' a half bolt as if he's been flicked by the lash, would streak ahead a rod or two like a four-laigged shadow. Then he'd pull him down to a walk, an' sort o' linger along ontil the hearse comes up ag'in. He does this a half dozen times; an' all in a hectorin' sperit that'd anger the pulseless soul of a clam. "One way an' another it stirs up the feelin's of old Boomerang, who's beginnin' to bite at the bit an' throw his laigs some antic an' permiscus. The Turner person himse'f acts like a party who's holdin' onto his eemotions by the tail, so as to keep 'em from breakin' loose. His face is set, his elbows squar'd, an' he's settin' up on his hearse as stiff an' straight as a rifle bar'l, lookin' dead ahead between old Boomerang's two y'ears. So it goes on for likely half a mile, the hectic bandit seesawin' an' pesterin' an' badgerin' old Boomerang, now dartin' ahead, now slowin' back to let the hearse ketch up. "As I yeretofore explains, the Turner person ain't arranged mental to entertain more'n one idee at a time. My own notion is that as the hectic bandit, with Toobercloses, commences to encroach more an' more upon his attention, he loses sight that a-way of old Holt an' the fooneral. Whatever the valyoo of this as a theery, thar comes a moment, about a mile from Boot Hill, when, as sudden as the crack of a rifle, away goes Boomerang with the rush of a norther. Toobercloses ain't a second behind. Thar they be, Toobercloses ag'inst Boomerang, quill-wheel ag'inst hearse, old Holt inside, racin' away to beat a royal flush. "As hearse an' quill-wheel go t'arin' down the trail Monte gets the fever, an' sets to pourin' the buckskin into his three span, an' yellin' like forty Apaches. The six hosses goes into their collars like lions, an' the stage takes to rockin' an' boundin' an' bumpin' in clost pursoote of the hearse. Nor be we-all on ponies left any behind, you bet. We cuts loose, quirt an' spur, an' brings up the r'ar in a dust-liftin', gallopin' half-moon. It's ondoubted the quickest-movin' fooneral that ever gets pulled off. "Old Holt, an' put it lightest, is a one hundred an' eighty pounder, an' the hearse itse'f is as heavy as a Studebaker wagon. From standp'ints of weight pore old Boomerang ain't gettin' a squar' deal. Which the old hero ain't got no notion of bein' beat, though. He's all heart an' bottom; an', game?--bald hornets is quitters to him! "The load begins to tell at last, though, an' inch by inch Toobercloses starts to nose Boomerang out. It's then the flood-gates is lifted. Nell, head out of one of the coach windows, starts screamin' to Boomerang; Missis Rucker's got her sunbonnet out of another, expressin' her opinion of the hectic bandit an' Toobercloses; Tucson Jennie is shoutin' for Dave to come an' rescue her; the Turner person's Peggy is shriekin' with hysterics; the preacher sharp--who's tryin' to get at Monte--is talkin' scriptoorally but various, while little Enright Peets is contreebutin' his small cub-coyote yelps of exultation to the gen'ral racket. "Back among us riders the bets is flyin' hither an' yon as thick as swallow birds at eventide, we offerin' hundreds on Boomerang an' them Red Dogs backin' Toobercloses. It's as the tech of death to the Wolfville heart when we sees Toobercloses slowly surgin' to the fore. [Illustration: THAR'S A BOMBARDMENT WHICH SOUNDS LIKE A BATTERY OF GATLINGS, THE WHOLE PUNCTCHOOATED BY A WHIRLWIND OF "WHOOPS!" p. 317.] "Half-way to Boot Hill Boggs spurs up on the nigh flank of Boomerang. "'Yere's whar we puts a little verve into this thing!' he roars; an' pullin' his guns he begins shakin' the loads out of 'em like roman candles. "Wolfville an' Red Dog, every gent follows Boggs' example. It sounds like a battery of gattlings, the whole punctchooated by a whirlwind of 'Whoops!' that'd have backed a war party of Apaches over a bluff. They almost hears us in Tucson. "Old Boomerang reesponds noble to Boggs's six-shooters. They was the preecise kind of encouragement he's been waitin' for, an' onder their inspiration he t'ars by Toobercloses like a thrown lance. We sweeps on to Boot Hill, makin' a deemoniac finish, old Boomerang leadin' by the len'th of the hearse. "Nobody's hurt, onless you wants to count that hectic bandit from Albuquerque. After he's beat cold, Toobercloses gets tangled up accidental in a mesquite bush, the quill-wheel swaps eends with itse'f, an' the hectic Albuquerque bandit lands head on in a bunch of cactus. He's shore a spectacle; an' Peets says private that for a while thar's hopes he'll die. As for the parson, who's the sorest divine in Arizona, he allows that the only bet he ever knows prov'dence to overlook is not breakin' the hectic bandit's neck. "Nacherally, the Red Dogs feels some grouchy at the way things has gone, an' while they gives up their orig'nal thought of lynchin' the hectic bandit, they're plenty indignant at him for turnin' old Holt's fooneral into a hoss race. It ain't old Holt that's frettin' 'em so much as that they feels like it's a disgrace on their camp. "This yere Red Dog feelin' prodooces a onlooked for effect. They goes gloomin' an' glowerin' 'round, an' talkin' to themselves to sech a hostile extent it ups an' scares the Turner person. Plumb timid by nacher, he gets afraid the Red Dogs' indignation'll incloode him final, an' eend by drawin' their horns his way. It's no use tryin' to ca'm him. Argyooment, reemonstrance, even a promise to protect him with our lives, has no effect. The Turner person, in a last stampede of his nerve, is for dustin' back to Missouri--him an' his Peggy bride. He says it's more peaceful, more civ'lized thar, which shore strikes us as a heap jocose. In the end, however, we has to let him go. "The hearse? "We keeps the hearse, that an' Boomerang; Armstrong's uncle buys 'em. He says he don't aim to be sep'rated none from the only hearse within a hundred miles, an' him on the verge of the grave. "'Which my only reason for livin' now,' says he, 'is to lac'rate Boggs, an' even that as a pastime is beginnin' to pall.' "What time does Boomerang make? "No one preetends to hold a watch. Thar's one thing, though, which looks like he was shore goin' some. Tutt on the way back picks up a dead jack-rabbit, that's been run over by the hearse." XII SPELLING BOOK BEN "Which it's as you states." The old cattleman assumed the easy attitude of one sure of his position. "Reefinement, that a-way, will every now an' then hit the center of the table in manner an' form most onexpected. Thar's Red Dog. Now whoever do you reckon would look for sech a oncooth outfit to go onbeltin' in any reefined racket? An' yet thar's once at least when Red Dog shows it's got its silken side. "An', after all, mebby I'm too narrow about Red Dog. Thar's times when I fears that drawn aside by prejewdyce I misjedges Red Dog utter, an' takes for ignorant vulgar'ty what comin' down to cases is merely noise. It's the whiskey they drinks, most likely. They're addicted to a kind of cat-bird whiskey over thar, which sets 'em to whistlin' an' chirpin' an' twitterin' an' teeterin' up an' down on the conversational bough, to sech a seemin'ly empty-headed extent it's calc'lated to mislead the ca'mest intellects into a belief that the c'rrect way to deal with Red Dog is to build one of these yere stone corrals 'round it, call it a loonatic asylum, an' let it go at that. "Wolfville's whiskey? "We-all confines ourselves to Valley Tan an' Willow Run an' Old Jordan, all lickers which has a distinct tendency to make a gent seedate, an' render him plumb cer'monious. I in no wise exaggerates when I avers that I freequent cuts the trail of parties who, after the tenth or mebby it's the 'leventh drink across the Red Light bar, waxes that punctillious they even addresses a measly Mexican as 'Sir.' "Recurrin' to Red Dog, that silken occasion which I has in mind occurs when, proceedin' without invitation an' wholly as volunteers, they strings up the book-keep sharp who bumps off Spellin' Book Ben. Thar's a brief moment when said action runs a profound risk of bein' misconstrooed into becomin' the teemin' source of complications. You see we ain't lookin' for nothin' in the way of a play from Red Dog more del'cate than the butt of a six-shooter, an' it ain't ontil the Red Dog chief himse'f onlimbers in planations, an' all plenty loocid, that we ketches fully on. "Red Dog goes further an' insists on payin' over what money they wagers, an' all as honorable as though that contest which they bets on goes to a showdown. Enright won't have it, though, none whatever; an' what with one side heatedly profferin' an' the other coldly refoosin', it looks for a time like thar's goin' to be feelin'. Friction is averted, however, when Peets--who's allers thar with the s'lootion to any tangle--recommends that Red Dog an' Wolfville chip in half an' half conj'intly, to buy a tombstone for Spellin' Book, with a inscription kyarved tharon, the same to read: TO THE MEMORY OF SPELLING BOOK BEN. PREFERRING DEATH TO THE APPEARANCE OF IGNORANCE, HE DIED A MARTYR TO LEARNING AND BRAVELY DEFENDING A RIGHTFUL ORTHOGRAPHY. THE LANGUAGE MOURNS HIS LOSS. "'Which we simply aims by this yere hangin',' says the Red Dog chief in makin' them explanations, the same bein' addressed to Enright, 'to save you-all from a disagree'ble dooty.' "'As how?' deemands Enright, who's a heap deefensive by instinct, an' never puts down his stack while the kyards is in the hands of the dealer. "'As how to wit,' returns the Red Dog chief. 'Troo, this book-keep malefactor ain't by rights no shore-enough Red Dogger, seein' he's a importation of the express company's an' at best or worst no more'n a sojourner within our gates. But, considerin' how he trails in yere this evenin' in our company, we feels respons'ble. Wharfore, allowin' that mebby--you-all standin' towards us visitors, that a-way, in the light of hosts--your notion of hospital'ty gets its spurs tangled up in your deelib'rations so it impedes the march of jestice, we intervenes. Which I shorely trusts that no gent present regyards Red Dog as that ontaught as to go cuttin' in on what's cl'arly a alien game onasked. Red Dog ain't quite that exyooberantly bumptious, not to say croodly gay. It's only to relieve the shoulders of you-all from a burden that we strings said offender up.' "'_Bueno!_' replies Enright, followin' a dignified pause, like he's weighin' the Red Dog chief's eloocidations. 'A gent, onless his hand is crowded by some p'int of honor, allers takes the word of a fellow gent. In view of which, the execootion you pulls off is yereby accepted as kindly meant, an' as sech is kindly took. I'm preepared on behalf of Wolfville to regyard the same as performed in a sperit of del'cate courtesy. Whatever, Doc, do you-all say?' "'Like yourse'f, Sam,' says Peets, 'I grasps an' a'preeciates the Red Dog attitoode. Also, I holds that the business thus constrooed is calc'lated to cement relations between the two camps which, havin' their roots in mutyooal esteem, is shore to b'ar froote in fraternal affection.' "The Doc then goes on an' onbends in flatterin' asshorances that nothin' could be finer worded than the Red Dog chief's oration, onless it's Enright's reply. "'As a jedge of diction,' he concloods, 'an' a lover of proper speakin', I'm onreserved in the view that the statements of both ought to be preeserved as spec'mens of English ondeefiled.' "Thar havin' been talk enough, an' Enright an' Peets contendin' that it's Wolfville's treat, both sides goes weavin' over to the Red Light an' onbends in quite a frolic. "It'd shore been better if we had first cut down the corpse, an' tharby dodged the wrath of Missis Rucker. It's certainly a oversight. Bar that single incident, thar arises nothin' to mar the good feelin' which everywhar preevails. Forchoonately, that don't occur none ontil noon next day; an' by that time the Red Dog folks has all gone home, leastwise all who can go without fallin' out of the saddle. Which if them Red Dogs is present, an' able to form opinions, them intemp'rate exhibitions of Missis Rucker, an' what she says an' threatens ag'inst us, speshully Enright, would have mortified us to death. "As showin' the vagaries of the female mind, Missis Rucker seelects that lynchin' as a topic at chuck time, an' she shore does carry on scand'lous. We ain't but jest filed into the dinin' room, when she t'ars loose at Enright like a cyclone in a calico dress. Son, she certainly does curry our old Lycurgus frightful! "What does Enright do? "Whatever can he do more'n mootely arch his back, same as a mule in a storm of hail, an' stand it? "When Missis Rucker has done freed her feelin's, an' got them reecrim'nations dealt down to the turn, she shakes a finger onder Enright's subdooed nose, an' fulm'nates a warnin'. "'I tells you once before, Sam Enright,' she says, 'an' I tells you now ag'in, that you-all drunkards is either goin' to cease pesterin' me the way you does, or I'm bound I'll make some among you plenty hard to locate. Now don't you go tellin' me nothin',' she shouts, as Enright starts to say somethin'; 'don't go harrowin' me up with none of your fabrications. It's nothin' but your egreegious pompos'ty that a-way, an' a gen'ral deesire to put on dog an' lord it over us pore females with meals to cook an' water to draw, which sets you-all to hangin' parties to the windmill whar they're plumb in the way. An' all after me takin' my hands out of the dough, too, the time you Stranglers puts that B'ar Creek Stanton over the jump, an' goin' in person to the stage corral to p'int out a beam which is a heap better adapted.' "'But, ma'am,' expostyoolates Enright, 'you've done followed off the wrong wagon track entire. It ain't us none; it's them Red Dog savages. So far as Wolfville's concerned, him bein' swung to the windmill, that a-way, is plumb fortooitous.' "'Jest the same,' returns Missis Rucker, who's merciless an' refooses to be softened, 'you better take heed a heap. This once I lets you get away with that Red Dog crawl-out. But if ever I finds another party suspended to the windmill so's I can't get no water, thar's a passel of sots, of whom you, Sam Enright, is the onregen'rate chief, who'll shore get their grub fortooitous.' "Peets, at this yere crisis, jogs Enright's elbow, by way of signin' up to him to draw out; an', except from her domineerin' over Rucker more'n common for a couple of days, she ceases her demonstrations. "Not but what Missis Rucker has some rights on her side. What with feedin' forty of us folks three times a day, she's got a lot on her mind; an' to find some sooperfluous sport hangin' in her way, when she goes to fill her bucket, necessar'ly chafes her. "An' yet the Stranglers is up ag'inst it, too. Hangin' a culprit, dooly convicted, is a public game; an' the windmill's the only piece of public property in sight, besides bein' centrally sityooated. Also, thar's nothin' in that corral bluff of Missis Rucker's. The beam she alloodes to ain't big enough, an' is likewise too low. "Boggs, who sympathizes with Missis Rucker, once when we has a hoss thief we don't need on our hands, su'gests we rope him up to the sign over Armstrong's Noo York store. But thar's rival trade interests, an' Enright fears it'll be took invidious as a covert scheme for drawin' custom to Armstrong's emporium. "'Personally,' says Enright, 'I favors Dan's idee. But since Armstrong's a member of the committee, you-all sees yourselves that for us to go execootin' culprits on his sign that a-way, the direct effects of which distinguishes him an' booms his game, would shore breed jealousies.' "'How would it do,' asks Texas, 'if we takes them marts seeriatim, an' one after another yootilizes all their signs?' "'With doo deference to Texas,' interjecks Tutt, 'this swingin' round from sign to sign, with deeds of jestice, is a heap likely to subtract from the deterrent effects. It's better we stick to the windmill, an' takes chances on beddin' them resentments of Missis Rucker's down.' "'That's all right for you, Dave,' retorts Boggs; 'you're a married man, an' eats at home. You wouldn't feel so plumb gala about quietin' Missis Rucker if you-all was obleeged diurnal to depend upon that easily exasperated matron for your _frijoles_, same as us. Tucson Jennie's the best cook in Cochise County, an', bein' her husband that a-way, you ain't in no place to jedge.' "'Dan's right, Dave,' declar's Peets; 'surrounded as you be, you can't sense our peril, that is, sense it proper. Admirable as Tucson Jennie is as wife an' mother, an' I says this onbiased by bein' one of two after whom little Enright Peets is named, she's still more admirable in her rôle of cook. For which reason, Dave, you-all, when Missis Rucker threatens us, ain't able, as Dan says, to rightly gauge said menaces.' "Them coolinary compliments to Tucson Jennie placates Tutt. He's half started to bow his neck at Boggs, but they mollifies him. "'Mighty likely you're correct, Doc,' he returns, his face cl'arin'; 'an' I begs Dan's pardon for some things I was goin' to say. My wife is shore an exempl'ry cook, an' mebby I ain't no fit jedge. None the less, you-all'll find, as to them hangin's, that this yere goin' about from pillar to post with 'em is doo to rob 'em of their moral side.' "'I feels like Dave,' observes Enright, comin' in on the pow-wow. 'Lynchin's, to have weight an' be a credit to us, ought not to be erratic. A lack of reg'larity about 'em would shake our standin' as a camp.' "Monte starts the business that time when Red Dog astounds us with its del'cacy, by comin' bulgin' in one evenin' with word about how the leadin' inflooences in Tucson is broke out in a perfect deebauch of spellin' schools. "'An' I'm yere to remark,' says he, in his conceited, rum-soaked way, 'that these yere contests contreebootes a mighty meetropol'tan atmosphere.' "'Who orig'nates spellin' schools, anyway?' asks Boggs, whose curiosity is allers at half-cock. 'Which it's the first time I hears of sech things.' "'Spellin' schools ain't nothin' new,' Peets replies. 'They're as common as deelirum treemons in the East.' "'Which they certainly be,' corroborates Enright. 'Back along the Cumberland, as far away as when I'm a boy, we has 'em constant same as chills an' fever. We-all young bucks attends 'em mighty loyal, too, an' fights to see who-all goes home with the girls. When it comes to bein' pop'lar, spellin' schools is a even break with gander pullin's.' "'Thar's a Tucson kyard sharp,' continyoos Monte, 'over to the Oriental s'loon, who tells me them spellin' schools is likewise all the rage in Prescott an' Benson an' Silver City. That Lightnin' Bug tarrapin' from Red Dog is loafin' about, too, while the kyard sharp's talkin', his y'ears a-wavin' like a field of clover. You don't figger thar's a chance that Red Dog gets the notion, Sam, an' takes to holdin' them tournaments of learnin' itse'f?' "What Monte says sets us thinkin'. As a roole we don't pay much heed to his observations, the same bein' freequent born of alcohol. But that bluff about Red Dog sort o' scares us up a lot. Good can come out of Nazareth, an' even Monte might once in a while drive the center as a matter of luck. "'It wouldn't do us, Doc,' says Enright, who's made some oneasy by the thought--'which it shore wouldn't do us, as an advanced camp, to let Red Dog beat us to them spellin' schools.' "'I should confess as much!' admits Peets, mighty emphatic. 'Speakin' from commoonal standp'ints, it'd mark us as too dead to skin.' "The sityooation takes shape in a resolootion to hold a spellin' school ourselves, an' invite Red Dog to stand in. Sech steps is calc'lated, we allows, to head off orig'nal action on the Red Dog part. "'Let's challenge 'em to spell ag'in us,' says Texas. 'That's shore to stop 'em from holdin' spellin' schools of their own, an' it'll be as simple as tailin' steers to down 'em. I'll gamble what odds you please that, when it comes to edyoocation that a-way, we can make them Red Dogs look like a bunch of Digger Injuns.' "'Don't move your stack to the center on that proposition, Texas,' observes Tutt, 'ontil you thoroughly skins your hand. Edyoocation ain't wholly dead in Red Dog. Thar's a shorthorn over thar, him who keeps books for the Wells-Fargo folks, who's edyoocated to a razor edge.' "'Him?' says Boggs. 'That murderer ain't no book sharp speshul. Put him ag'in the Doc or Col'nel Sterett, an' he wouldn't last as long as a quart of whiskey at a barn raisin'. Which he's a heap sight better fitted to shine in a gun-play than a spellin' contest.' "'But Col'nel Sterett ain't here none,' Tutt urges, 'havin' gone back to see his folks; an' as for the Doc, he'll be needed to put out the words. Some competent gent's got to go back of the box an' deal the game, an' the Doc's the only stoodent in town who answers that deescription.' "Armstrong, who's happened along lookin' for his little old forty drops, lets on he knows a party down in El Paso who can spell any word that ever lurks between the covers of a dictionary. "'That's straight,' Armstrong declar's. 'This yere El Paso savant can spell anything. Which I've seen him spell the hind shoes off a shavetail mule for the drinks. He's the boss speller of the Rio Grande, so much so they calls him "Spellin' Book Ben."' "'Let's rope him up,' Peets suggests. 'Which them Red Dogs never will quit talkin' if we-all lets 'em down us.' "'Do you-all reckon,' asks Enright, appealin' to Armstrong, 'you could lure that El Paso expert up yere to partic'pate in this battle of the intellects?' "'It's as easy as playin' seven-up,' Armstrong replies. 'Which I'll write him I needs his aid to count up the stock in my store, an' you bet he'll come a-runnin'.' "'But s'ppose,' argues Tutt, 'these Red Dog crim'nals wakes up to it that this yere Spellin' Book Ben's a ringer?' "'In that event,' declar's Texas, 'we retorts by beltin' 'em over the heads with our guns. Be they, as guests, to go dictatin' terms to us?' "'Not onless they're tired of life,' says Boggs. 'While I can't spell none to speak of, seein' my Missouri youth is more or less neglected by my folks, showin' some Red Dog felon whar he's in wrong is duck soup to me. In a play like that I sees my way triumphant.' "'Shore!' Texas insists, mighty confident; 'let Red Dog wag one feeble y'ear, an' we buffaloes it into instant submission.' "'They can't make no objections stick,' Enright observes, after thinkin' things over. 'This Spellin' Book Ben person'll be workin' for Armstrong, an' that, as the Doc says, makes him a _pro tem._ citizen of the camp. As sech he's plumb legit'mate. Red Dog couldn't lower its horns at him as a hold-out, even if it would.' "It's settled, an' from then on thar's nothin' talked of but spellin' schools. We issues our deefiance, Peets b'arin' the same, an' Red Dog promptly calls our bluff. Regyardin' themselves as entrenched in that gifted Wells-Fargo book-keep, they're mighty eager for the fray. The _baile_ is set two weeks away, with Peets to hold the spellin' book. "After the time is fixed Monte comes squanderin' along an' gets Enright to move it one day further on. "'Because, Sam,' the old sot urges, puffin' out his chest like he amounts to somethin', 'that partic'lar evenin' you pitches upon I'll be at the other end of the route, an' I proposes to get in on this yere contest some myse'f.' "'You?' says Boggs, who overhears him, an' is nacherally astonished an' contempchoous at Monte's nerve. 'Whatever be you-all talkin' about? You can't spell none no more than me. The first word the Doc names'll make you look like a pig at church.' "'All the same'--for Monte's been drinkin', an' allers gets stubborn in direct proportion to what licker he tucks onder his belt--'all the same, Dan, as to this yere spellin', I proposes to ask for kyards. Even if I ain't no Bach'lor of Arts, so long as the Doc don't fire nothin' at me worse'n words of one syllable, an' don't send 'em along faster than two at a clatter, your Uncle Monte'll get thar, collars creakin', chains a-rattlin', with both hoofs.' [Illustration: "ONLESS GIRLS IS BARRED," DECLARES FARO NELL, FROM HER PERCH ON THE CHAIR "I'VE A NOTION TO TAKE A HAND." p. 337.] "Red Dog not only accepts our challenge, but gets that brash it offers to bet. Shore, we closes with the prop'sition. It ain't no part of our civic economy to let Red Dog get by with anything. I reckons, up one side an' down the other, we puts up the price of eight hundred steers. Texas and Boggs simply goes all spraddled out at it, while Cherokee calls down one eboolient Red Dog specyoolator for three thousand dollars. It's Wolfville ag'inst Red Dog, the roole to govern, 'Miss an' out!' "The excitement even reaches the gentler sect. "'Which onless girls is barred,' declar's Nell, speakin' from her lookout cha'r the second evenin' before the spellin' school is held, 'I've a notion to take a hand.' "'It wouldn't be a squar' deal, Nellie,' says Texas. 'With you in, everybody'd miss a-purpose.' "'I don't see why none,' says Nell. "'For two reasons; first, because you're dazzlin'ly beautiful; an', second, because Cherokee's too good a shot.' "'Shore,' says Boggs, plantin' a stack of reds open on the high kyard. 'Them contestants'd all lay down to you, Nellie. You certainly don't reckon Cherokee'd set thar, him all framed up with a Colt's .45, an' be that ongallant as to permit some clown to spell you down?' "Nell don't insist, an' the turn fallin' 'king-jack,' she nacherally moves Boggs's reds to the check-rack. "On the great evenin' Red Dog comes surgin' in upon us, snortin' an' prancin' an' pitchin'. Which it certainly is a confident band of prairie dogs. Wolfville's organized and ready, Armstrong's Spellin' Book Ben party havin' come over from El Paso three days prior. "Seein' how mighty se'f-possessed them Red Dogs feel, Boggs begins to grow nervous. "'You don't reckon, Dave,' says he, speakin' to Tutt, 'that them miscreents has got anything up their sleeve?--any little thing like a ace buried?' "'Which they wouldn't dare. Also, since you brings the matter up, Dan, I now gives notice that for myse'f I shall regyard success on their part as absoloote proof of perfidy. That settled, I sacks that hamlet of Red Dog, an' plows an' sows its deboshed site with salt.' "'That's the talk!' says Boggs. 'Let 'em win once, an' you an' me, Dave,'ll caper over in our individyooal capac'ty, an' lay waste that Red Dog hamlet if it's the last act of our lives.' "The spellin' school is schedjooled for the r'ar wareroom of the Noo York store, whar the Stranglers convenes. All Red Dog is thar, dressed up like a hoss, their Wells-Fargo book-keep in their exultant midst. Enright calls the meetin' to order with the butt of his six-shooter; our old warchief allers uses his gun as a gavel that a-way, as lookin' more offishul. Also, since the dooty of a presidin' officer is to preserve order, it's in line to begin with a show--not too ondecorous--of force. "Enright states the object of the gatherin', an' Peets, spellin' book in hand, swings into the saddle an' in a moment is off at a road gait. The words falls thick an' sharp, like the crackin' of a rifle. Which they shore does thin out them contestants plenty rapid! Boggs goes down before 'Theery,' spellin' it with a extra 'e.' Tutt lasts through three fires, but is sent curlin' like a shot jack-rabbit by 'Epitaph,' which he ends with a 'f.' Texas dies on 'Definite,' bein' misled by what happens to Tutt into introdoocin' tharin a sooperfluous 'ph.' "'I ain't none astonished,' Texas says sadly, when Peets informs him that he's in the diskyard; 'since ever my former Laredo wife acquires that divorce, together with al'mony an' the reestoration of her maiden name, the same bein' Suggs, I ain't been the onerrin' speller I once was.' "Cherokee has luck, an' lasts for quite a time. It's the 'leventh word that fetches him. An' at that thar's a heap to be said on the side of Cherokee. "The word's 'Capitol,' as Peets lets it fly. "'C-a-p-i-t-a-l,' spells Cherokee. "'Dead bird!' Peets says, plenty sententious. "'Whatever kind o' capital?' "'Capitol of a State.' "'Then I misonderstands you. Which I takes it you're referrin' to a bankroll.' "The Doc, however, is obdoorate, an' Cherokee shoves back. "'I think,' says Nell, whisperin' to Missis Rucker an' Tucson Jennie, who, with little Enright Peets, is off to one side--'I think the Doc's a mighty sight too contracted in his scope.' "Monte falls by the wayside on 'Scenery,' an' is that preepost'rous he starts to give Peets an argyooment. Monte spells it 'Seenry.' "'Whar do you-all get your licence, Doc,' he demands, when Peets tells him how it's spelled, 'to jam in that misfit "c"? Me havin' drove stage for twenty years, I've seen as much scenery as any gent present, an' should shore know how it's spelled. Scenery is what you sees. "S-e-e" spells see; an' tharfore I contends that "S-e-e-n-r-y" spells scenery. That "c" you springs on us, Doc, is a solecism, an' as much out of place as a cow on a front porch.' "Enright raps Monte down. '"Scenery" is spelled any way which the Doc says,' declar's Enright, his eye some severe, 'an' I trusts no gent'll compel the cha'r to take measures.' "'Say no more,' responds Monte, plenty humble and prompt. 'What I urges is only to 'licit information. I still thinks, however, that onder the gen'ral wellfare clause of the constitootion, an' with an onfenced alphabet to pick an' choose from, a sport ought to have the inalienable right to spell things the way he likes. Otherwise, whatever is the use of callin' this a free country? If a gent's to be compelled to spell scenery with a fool "c," I asks you why was Yorktown an' wharfore Bunker Hill?' "Monte, havin' thus onloaded, reetires to the r'ar, coverin' his chagrin by hummin' a stanzy or two from the well-known ditty, 'Bill, of Smoky Hill.' Bill driv three spans of hosses, An' when Injuns hove in sight, He'd holler "Fellers, give 'em hell! I ain't got time to fight." But he chanced one time to run ag'in A bullet made of lead, An' when they brung Bill into town, A bar'l of tears was shed. "While Texas an' Boggs an' Tutt an' Cherokee an' Monte an' the rest of the Wolfville outfit is fallin' like November's leaves, them Red Dog bandits is fadin' jest as fast. If anything, they're fadin' faster. They're too p'lite or too proodent to cavil at the presence of Spellin' Book Ben, an' by third drink time after we starts thar's no gents left standin' except that Wells-Fargo book-keep sharp for Red Dog, an' Spellin' Book for us. It's give an' take between 'em for mebby one hundred words, an' neither so much as stubs his orthographic toe. "The evenin' w'ars into what them poets calls the 'small hours.' Missis Rucker is wearily battin' her eyes, while little Enright Peets is snorin' guinea-pig snores in Tucson Jennie's lap. "Thar comes a pause for Black Jack to pass the refreshments, an' Nell takes advantage of the lull. "'Hopin' no one,' says Nell, 'will think us onp'lite, we ladies will retire. Jedgin' from the way little Enright Peets sounds, not to mention how I feels or Missis Rucker looks, it's time we weaker vessels hits the blankets.' "'Yes, indeed,' adds Missis Rucker, smothering a yawn with her hand; 'I'd certainly admire to stay a whole lot, but rememberin' the hour I thinks, like Nellie, that we-all ladies better pull our freight.' "Enright settin' the example, we gents stands up while the ladies withdraws, little Enright Peets bein' drug along between Nell an' Tucson Jennie plumb inert. "Peets resoomes his word-callin', an' them two heroes spells on for a hour longer. "At last, however, the Wells-Fargo book-keep sharp commences to turn shaky; the pressure's beginnin' to tell. As for Spellin' Book Ben, he's as steady as a church. "'By the grave of Moses, Dan,' Tutt whispers to Boggs, 'that Red Dog imposter's on the brink of a stampede.' "Peets gives out 'colander'; it's Spellin' Book Ben's turn. As he starts to whirl his verbal loop the Red Dog adept whips out his gun, an' jams it ag'inst Spellin' Book's ribs. "'Spell it with a "u,"' says the Red Dog sharp, 'or I'll shore send you shoutin' home to heaven! Which I've stood all of your dad-binged eryoodition my nerves is calk'lated to endoore.' "Spellin' Book Ben's game, game as yaller wasps. With the cold muzzle of that book-keep murderer's hint to the onconverted pushin' into his side, he never flickers. "'C-o,' he begins. "But that's as far as he ever gets. Thar's a dull roar, an' pore Spellin' Book comes slidin' from his learned perch. It's done so quick that not even Jack Moore has time to hedge a stack down the other way. "'It's too late, Doc,' says pore Spellin' Book, as Peets stoops over him; 'he gets me all right.' Then he rolls a gen'ral eye on all. 'Gents,' he says, 'don't send my remainder back to El Paso. Boot Hill does me.' "Them's Spellin' Book's last words, an' they does him proud. "It's the Lightnin' Bug who grabs the murderin' book-keep sharp, an' takes his gun away. Then he swings him before Enright. "'He's your pris'ner,' says the Red Dog chief, actin' for his outfit, an' Enright bows his acknowledgments. "Son, it's a lesson to see them two leaders of men. Enright never shows up nobler, an' you can wager your bottom peso that the Red Dog chief is a long shot from bein' a slouch. "Jack Moore takes the Wells-Fargo book-keep homicide in charge, while Enright, who declar's that jestice to be effectyooal must be swift, says that onless shown reason he'll convene the committee at once. He adds, likewise, that it'll be kindly took if the Red Dog chief, an' what members of his triboonal is present, will b'ar their part. "In all p'liteness, the Red Dog chief deeclines. "'This is your joorisdiction,' he says, 'an' we Red Dogs can only return the compliment which your su'gestion implies by asshorin' you-all of our advance confidence in the rectitoode of what jedgments you inflicts.' "'Speak your piece,' says Enright to the Wells-Fargo book-keep culprit, when stood up before him by Moore. 'Whatever prompts you to blow out this Spellin' Book Ben's candle that a-way?' "'Let me say,' exclaims the Wells-Fargo book-keep murderer, an' his manner is some torrid, 'that I has five hundred dollars bet on this yere contest----' "'That is a question,' interrupts Enright, suave but plenty firm, 'which will doubtless prove interestin' to your execooter. This, however, is not the time nor place. I asks ag'in, whatever is your reason for shovin' this yere expert in orthography from shore?' "'Do you-all think,' returns the Wells-Fargo murderer, 'that I'll abide to see a obscoority like him outspell me?--me, who's the leadin' speller of eight States and two territories, an' never scores less than sixty-five out of a poss'ble fifty? Which I'd sooner die.' "'So you'd sooner die?' repeats Enright, as cold an' dark an' short as a November day. 'Well, most folks don't get their sooners in this world, but it looks a heap like you will!' Turnin' to Moore, he goes on: 'Our friends from Red Dog'll hold your captive, Jack, while you-all goes rummagin' over to the corral an' gets a rope, the committee havin' come onprovided.' "Moore gives the Wells-Fargo homicide to the Red-Dog chief, an' tharupon, we Stranglers bein' ready to go into execyootive session, all hands except Enright an' the committee steps outside. We're in confab mebby it's ten minutes, an' Enright has jest approved a yoonanimous vote in favor of hangin', when thar's a modest tap at the door. "It's the Lightnin' Bug. "'It ain't,' he says, when we asks his mission, 'that we-all aims to disturb your deelib'rations none, gents, but the chief'd like to borry Doc Peets for five minutes to say a few words over the corpse.' "Upon this yere hint we-all gambols forth, an' finds what's left of the Wells-Fargo book-keep murderer adornin' the windmill. Thar's whar their del'cacy comes in; that's how them Red Dogs saves us from a disagree'ble dooty. "We plants Spellin' Book Ben on Boot Hill as per that sufferer's last request, an' Red Dog graces the obsequies to a man. Thar Spellin' Book lies to-day; an' the story of his ontoward takin' off, as told on that tombstone conj'intly erected as aforesaid by Wolfville an' Red Dog, is anyooally read by scores of devotees of learnin' who, bar'-headed an' mournful, comes as pilgrims to his grave." THE END "THE ART OF THE PHOTOPLAY" is a condensed textbook of the technical knowledge necessary for the preparation and sale of motion picture scenarios. More than 35,000 photoplays are produced annually in the United States. The work of staff-writers is insufficient. Free-lance writers have greater opportunities than ever before, for the producing companies can not secure enough good comedies and dramas for their needs. The first edition of this book met with unusual success. Its author, now the Director General of Productions for the Beaux Arts Film Corporation, is the highest paid scenario writer in the world, as well as being a successful producing manager. Among his successes were the scenarios for the spectacular productions: "Robin Hood," "The Squaw Man," "The Banker's Daughter," "The Fire King," "Checkers," "The Curse of Cocaine" and "The Kentucky Derby." WHAT THOSE WHO KNOW HAVE SAID: "In my opinion, based upon six years' experience producing motion pictures, Mr. Eustace Hale Ball is the most capable scenario writer in the business to-day." (Signed) W. F. Haddock, Producing Director with Edison, Eclair, All Star, and now President, Mirror Film Corporation. "Mr. Ball has thoroughly grasped present day and future possibilities of the Moving Picture business with relation to the opportunities for real good work by scenario writers." (Signed) P. Kimberley, Managing Director, Imperial Film Company, Ltd., London, England. "To those who wish to earn some of the money which the moving picture folk disburse, Eustace Hale Ball proffers expert and valuable advice." New York Times Review of Books. "Ball's Art of the Photoplay puts into concrete form, with expert simplicity, the secrets of writing photoplays which appeal to the millions of Americans who attend the theatres and the producers can not buy enough of such plays to satisfy the exhibitors." (Signed) Robert Lee Macnabb, National Vice-President, Motion Picture Exhibitor's League of America. "You have succeeded in producing a clear and helpful exposition of the subject." (Signed) Wm. R. Kane, Editor of "The Editor Magazine." 12 mo. Cloth bound, $1.00 Net. G. W. DILLINGHAM CO., Publishers NEW YORK THREE SPLENDID BOOKS BY ALFRED HENRY LEWIS FARO NELL AND HER FRIENDS A new story of "Wolfville" days--the best of all. It pictures the fine comradeship, broad understanding and simple loyalty of Faro Nell to her friends. Here we meet again Old Monte, Dave Tutt, Cynthiana, Pet-Named Original Sin, Dead Shot Baker, Doc Peets, Old Man Enright, Dan Boggs, Texas and Black Jack, the rough-actioned, good-hearted men and women who helped to make this author famous as a teller of tales of Western frontier life. 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Popular Edition. 50 Cents THE APACHES OF NEW YORK A truthful account of actual happenings in the underworld of vice and crime in the metropolis, that gives an appalling insight into the life of the New York criminal. It contains intimate, inside information concerning the gang fights and the gang tyranny that has since startled the entire world. The book embraces twelve stories of grim, dark facts secured directly from the lips of the police and the gangsters themselves. 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Popular Edition. 50 Cents THE STORY OF PAUL JONES A wonderful historical romance. A story of the boyhood and later life of that daring and intrepid sailor whose remains are now in America. Thousands and tens of thousands have read it and admired it. Many consider it one of the best books Mr. Lewis has produced. 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Popular Edition. 50 Cents G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY Publishers New York Nine Splendid Novels by WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE THE PIRATE OF PANAMA A tale of old-time pirates and of modern love, hate and adventure. The scene is laid in San Francisco on board The Argus and in Panama. A romantic search for the lost pirate gold. An absorbing love-story runs through the book. 12mo, Cloth, Jacket in Colors. Net $1.25. 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BUCKY O'CONNOR Every chapter teems with wholesome, stirring adventures, replete with the dashing spirit of the border, told with dramatic dash and absorbing fascination of style and plot. 12mo, Cloth, Illustrated. Popular Edition, 50 cents. TRAFFIC IN SOULS Novelized from the Great Photo-Play By EUSTACE HALE BALL TRAFFIC IN SOULS is a powerful study, in fiction garb, of the vice conditions of New York and their cure. The facts upon which it is based were compiled from the John D. Rockefeller, Jr., White Slave Report, and other documents of that nature, including Charles S. Whitman's, District-Attorney of New York. The story tells of the active fight of a conscientious policeman, Officer 4434, Bobbie Burke, to thwart the evil machinations of a gang of organized traffickers. His personal interest is suddenly doubled by the abduction of the young sister of his fiancée, Mary Barton. Burke, assisted by Mary, tracks the evil doers. 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30686	----	[Illustration: LITTLE TALES OF THE DESERT Cover] LITTLE TALES OF THE DESERT _By_ ETHEL TWYCROSS FOSTER, L. L. B. _Member Suffolk Bar_ _Illustrations by_ HERNANDO G. VILLA PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR LOS ANGELES, CAL. COPYRIGHT 1913 BY ETHEL T. FOSTER KINGSLEY, MASON AND COLLINS CO. PRINTERS AND BINDERS LOS ANGELES Contents CHRISTMAS ON THE DESERT 5 TRADE RATS 7 A CHAT WITH MRS. COTTONTAIL 9 RABBITS AND CACTUS BURRS 11 THE DANGEROUS PET 13 A VISIT TO PALM SPRINGS 15 THE ROAD-RUNNER 17 A STRANGE CAPTURE 19 A DESERT MAY PARTY 21 [Illustration: _Christmas on the Desert_] [Illustration] CHRISTMAS ON THE DESERT MARY was worried. To-morrow would be Christmas. Christmas! a day always spent close to New York City, that place where Santa Claus obtained all the contents of his wonderful pack. Here she was, out in the heart of the great Arizona Desert. Her little head was sorely puzzled over many things. Around her were sand, rocks and mountains; no snow, no ice, save on the tops of the distant peaks. How was Santa to draw his gift-laden sleigh over barren stretches of sage brush and sand? Besides, he surely would be far too warm, with his heavy fur coat and cap, to say nothing of the poor reindeer who could scarcely live in such a country. Mary and her mother had joined her father at his mine, where they were going to spend the winter, sleeping in a tent, eating in a tent, but spending the remainder of the time out of doors, under the clear, blue sky and breathing the sweet, pure air. Mary enjoyed all these things and no troubled thought crossed her mind until the approach of Christmas. She sought counsel with her mother, but Mother merely looked wise and said "wait." Mothers, somehow, seem to know all about these things and Mary had great confidence in hers, and so she ceased to worry, but still she wondered. Christmas Eve at last arrived and Mary with many misgivings retired early, as children often do in order to hasten the coming of the day. She slept well, but awoke just as the sun came peeping up from behind the distant mountains. She sat up on her cot very suddenly and rubbed her eyes. What was that rapidly moving object coming over the brow of the nearest hill? She hurried into her clothes and went out. As the speck came nearer it began to take definite form. But how strange! What did it all mean? Mary stood and stared with wide open eyes. Quickly it came nearer and nearer and presently rolled over the nearest rise and swung up in front of the camp. Mary had seen many interesting sights during her short life of six years, but never one so strange. First came twelve little burros with harnesses nearly hidden by holly berries, while behind was the queerest chariot that ever popped out of a fairy tale. The wheels were covered with blue and yellow flowers and above was an immense Spanish dagger with the center removed, and in its place stood the same dear old Santa Claus, whom Mary had seen every year of her life. Mary had never before seen him in his desert costume. Instead of his warm fur coat, he wore a kakhi coat and trousers, with high top boots, a bright red scarf around his neck and a wide sombrero hat. Below the hat peeped out the same kindly, bright eyes above the rosy cheeks and snowy white beard. Beside him, instead of the usual evergreen tree, a large, queer, crooked limbed joshua tree, was standing. It was literally laden with presents, and all was lighted up, not with candles or wax tapers, but with the crimson blossoms of the Spanish dagger. On every dagger point was hung a gift. There were grown up presents for father and mother and the cook and the miners; and there was a real doll with blue eyes and teeth, that said "Papa," and "Mama," and cried exactly like the dolls found in far away New York. There was a tea set and a little kakhi suit. There was a cute little set of furniture made from cactus burrs, to say nothing of the delicious cactus candy, and other sweetmeats which must have come from a far away town. Santa descended with a bow and a smile to all, distributed the gifts, joined them for a moment at breakfast, for the dear old man works very hard and gets hungry, and then with a cheery, "Merry Christmas to all," he was off again, leaving behind one of the little burros named Bepo, for Mary's own use. As he sped away over the sand toward the next camp, Mary gave a sigh and turned to her mother with a happy laugh, saying, "I guess Santa looks after the little girls and boys everywhere, doesn't he, Mamma?" TRADE RATS THE little clock struck twelve, all were sleeping soundly, the tent flap was rolled away and a streak of moonlight stretched half across the floor. Mary and her mother lay on a bunk and beyond the partition one could hear the even breathing of father and cousin Jack. All else was still save the occasional cry of a night hawk or the far distant call of a coyote. Slowly, cautiously, stealthily into this silence crept a tiny object. Its sharp, black eyes flashed fire in the moonlight and in its small mouth it carefully carried a cactus burr. "Pst! Mary, did you hear something?" It was cousin Jack's hoarse whisper that broke the silence and awakened Mary from a beautiful dream and her eyes popped open wide. She snuggled closer to Mother and stared into the moonlight. All she could hear was a funny, little scratching sound, unlike any she had ever heard around camp, and she knew not what it meant. None of her little animal friends made a noise like that. Jack was out of bed, had lighted a candle and in his pajamas, was searching under bunks, tables and chairs for the thing that had caused the noise. Mary sat up in bed, in time to hear a swift, rustling sound and see a small object dart out of the tent door. Jack knew it would do no good to search outside so tumbled back into bed and once more all was still. [Illustration] Next morning at breakfast all were wondering who the strange visitor could have been, but soon the incident was forgotten. Toward noon, Mary went to a vacant bunk where she kept her clothes, and picked up her new doll. She removed its dress and looked about for a little, red, wool gown, of which she was very fond, for the day was chilly and it looked like rain. But the gown was gone, high and low she looked, but find it she could not. At last, tired out with searching, she fell asleep, and the pretty lost gown remained a mystery. During the next few days strange things happened. On the day following one of Dolly's stockings was gone, on the next, its mate; on the next a pretty little velvet bonnet, and so on for a week. The strangest part of it was that something or somebody was bringing in little sticks of wood and cactus burrs and piling them up among the doll clothes. At the end of the week, Jack decided to solve the mystery. He said he was going to sit up all night and see what kind of a thing was coming into the tent so regularly. He didn't do exactly what he intended to do, for by ten o'clock his eyelids grew too heavy and he was fast asleep in the vacant bunk which he had chosen for a hiding place. Patter, patter, patter, something was coming. Jack awoke with a start of expectation. There was no moon tonight, but he had left a candle burning in a distant corner. It was all he could do to keep back a chuckle when he saw a big gray rat dart across the floor with a good sized twig in its mouth. Jack kept perfectly still and the little fellow, not even seeing him, continued its way across the floor to the bunk on which sat Jack beside the doll clothes. It clawed its way up the side of the bunk, dropped the twig, then selected a soft, woolly skirt. Then it turned and scampered away through the door and out into the sagebrush. Jack gave a hearty laugh and at once awakened the whole family and told them his story. "Of course," said Father, "it was a trade rat. Why didn't we think of that before? The hills are full of tiny holes where they burrow down and build their nests." "But what about the twig?" asked Jack. "They always pay for what they take," was the unexpected reply, "they are great fellows to steal both food and clothing, but they never take anything without replacing it with a cactus burr, a twig, a chip of wood, or something of the sort. They seem to think it wrong not to leave something in place of what they take." "But what did they do with all my dolly's clothes?" asked Mary, "surely they can't wear them." "Indeed no, my dear little girl," said Father, "but probably if you could find their nest, you would see them busy at work lining it with the soft, downy cloth in preparation for a family of little ones." Mary talked and wondered about all these happenings, and you can imagine her delight when big Joe came running up to camp one day and told her he had found her rat's nest. The men had been digging on a little hill preparing to build the foundation of an extra tent. The hill was covered with rat holes and gopher holes, and Joe lifted up a shovel full of adobe and underneath was a little cave all carefully lined with warm clothing. On the soft bed lay mother rat and six tiny little fellows with eyes just opened. They were peering around with a frightened look and giving shrill little squeaks of dismay. [Illustration: _Joshua Trees_ (_Mary and Bepo_)] [Illustration] A CHAT WITH MRS. COTTONTAIL ONE bright Sunday morning Mary wandered away from camp alone. The fact was she did not know what to do. At home she always attended church with Father and Mother, but here the nearest church was eighty miles away, a bit too far for a morning ride, you see. Father did not work Sunday, and as it was about the only time he had to chat with Mother, Mary was for the moment forgotten. She followed along a little trail leading over a small hill east of camp. Upon arriving at the top she noticed a clump of trees beyond, and they looked so cool and shady that she trotted down the trail and sat beneath them. Now this was a dangerous thing to do, for she could no longer see home, and there were many trails leading in all directions. A little girl of six years could hardly be expected to remember the way back. She was soon rested and decided to start for home. She was getting hungry, too. A tiny hill rose from the clump of trees in every direction, which one ought she to choose? She was not a child to be daunted by a thing like this, so boldly started up the path she thought led home. She climbed to the top, but no camp was in sight, no tents, no horses, nothing to indicate the surroundings of those dear people that she did want dreadfully to see, O! so quickly. "Oh me, oh my, I guess I'm lost!" she cried with a little break in her voice. "I hope there are no bears in these hills. Oh, why did I run away, and where is my mamma?" She ran back down the hill, throwing herself on the ground under the trees while the great big tears chased down her rosy cheeks. "Can I help you, little girl?" said a tiny voice near by, "you are getting your pretty dress soiled and your hair will be full of sand." "Oh, I didn't know rabbits could talk," and Mary's eyes grew big and round with wonder. There before her stood a little cottontail perched upon its haunches and blinking at her with its cute little pink eyes. "Yes, we desert rabbits could always talk, didn't you know that? But, where is your mamma and what are you doing out here alone?" "I guess I'm lost," answered Mary, "but you live here, can't you find my home?" "No, dear little girl, I can't, and I will tell you why. Mr. Man with many brothers and sisters lives in your home. Mr. Man has a gun and he uses that gun to kill poor little rabbits like me. Don't you remember eating some for dinner yesterday? Well, on that day several of our dear little playfellows were killed. Now you see I don't care to be eaten, so must not go near your home, even to show you the way." Mary gave a little shudder, for she did remember eating rabbit for dinner the day before and that she liked it, too; but she made a resolve never to do so again. "But I'll not desert you for all that," continued the strange friend. "My home is close by and as you are but a wee bit of a girl and have no gun, I'll take you there." Mary was delighted. To visit a real rabbit village and to be taken there by Mrs. Rabbit, herself, would be a strange adventure, indeed. Mrs. Rabbit led the way down a narrow path worn by the little feet of her numerous family. Mary trotted along behind when suddenly the rabbit stood up, gave a jump and darted away into the bushes. Mary, startled, looked up in surprise. There stood cousin Jack gazing down at her with an amused twinkle in his eyes; why! she, herself, was lying, her head pillowed on her chubby arms, directly under the shady tree where she had thrown herself in despair but a few moments before. "Well, little girl, what have you been dreaming about?" he asked. "Mother is sure you are lost or eaten up by some of your wild friends." At this, Mary stood up and looked around indignantly. "Did I really dream about all those dreadful things Mrs. Cottontail told me?" she said. [Illustration] RABBITS AND CACTUS BURRS MARY and Bepo, the burro, soon became fast friends. Few burros lead as happy a life as being the constant playmate of a merry child. Bepo seemed to appreciate this fact and loved Mary accordingly. Many a prospecting trip did they take on their own account over the network of trails leading from camp to the numerous shafts and tunnels of the mine. You city children and even you country boys and girls would never dream of all the delightful and interesting things they found. I suppose you think of the desert as being a flat stretch of sand with nothing on it, like the maps of the desert of Sahara, in Africa? I know I used to. But indeed it is not so. Many strange forms of life exist, both plant and animal, as we shall soon learn. This particular morning as they started out, Mary noticed that the ground was covered with cactus burrs. Did you ever see a cactus burr? They are similar to those you find in the country, but larger, with pointed daggers sticking out in all directions, and they grow on a crooked, prickly stalk or spine in the most comical way imaginable. As they ambled along they discovered more and yet more of them. Mary, being an inquisitive child, jumped down from Bepo's back for a closer inspection of the strange things. Then she discovered a queer thing. She had seen lots of burrs before but these were different. All the sharp daggers had been removed, the burrs had been split open and the soft centers taken out. Mary looked all around, who could have done it? No man could have opened all those burrs, it would have taken him weeks. He would have pricked his fingers many times and often besides. Then she heard a faint rustling in the bushes near by. Softly she tiptoed behind a clump of sagebrush and peeked over. There was a little rabbit nibbling away at a cactus burr. He handled it very carefully to guard against pricks and very daintily nibbled off, one by one, the tiny daggers. When all were gone he split open the burr, sucked out the juice, then nibbled up the soft center. So you see, even on this sandy desert, Nature cares for all her children. Mary was so pleased at the sight that she clapped her little hands in glee and cried, "You dear, cute little thing!" But Mr. Rabbit was not used to little girls. He looked up suddenly with fright in his tiny pink eyes, then sprang away into the bushes. Mary led Bepo around to a rock and clambered onto his back. As they slowly stubbed along over the rough trail they surprised many a family of rabbits and not a few were nibbling away at the prickly cactus burrs. You can ride for miles over the desert without finding water, no lakes, no rivers, no little stream even; and if it were not for the sweet juices in the center of these burrs many small animals would die of thirst. [Illustration: _Twilight on the Desert_] [Illustration] THE DANGEROUS PET MARY, with her mother, was taking a short stroll just before sundown. As they were about to return they espied the largest and strangest lizard they ever saw. It was nearly two feet long, with a perfectly round body, a broad, flat head, short legs and a short, blunt tail. It was a chunky little animal, all covered with a rough skin like an alligator and dotted with square warts. It seemed very tame and followed Mary into the tent where she made a warm nest for it in the corner near her bunk. It was very fond of being petted and would lie and rub its head against Mary's hand. When Father returned at night he was much pleased with the strange pet and encouraged Mary to keep it, thinking, of course, that it was some strange overgrown lizard. The question was, what should they feed it? First they tried grubs and worms which were not touched; then bread, meat, insects and all sorts of things, but nothing would he taste. At last someone thought of eggs and that was apparently just what the little fellow wanted, and that is what he lived on during the month Mary had him for her pet. At the end of that month big Ben, the foreman, came into Mary's tent to repair the floor. The first Mary knew that anything was wrong was when he gave a scream, calling to her to keep away from the tent. Her father, nearby, ran to see what was the trouble; Ben pointed to the big lizard and cried, "A gila monster, let us kill him quickly!" Mary and her parents looked at him in surprise. They had never heard of such an animal. Ben, however, had spent years on the desert and knew well its dangers. But he had no gun and all he could do was to take a stick and push the thing out of doors. Then a queer thing happened. When the hot sun shone down on the gila monster (pronounced heela) it was no longer tame and gentle, but would snap at anyone who came near and acted ugly, continuing to hiss with his mouth wide open, on the lookout for the first sign of an enemy. A squirrel came out of the brush and ran a bit too near, when the big lizard fastened its fangs in the poor little animal and turned over with it in its mouth. The poison is in its lower jaw and when he turns over it flows out. The squirrel died in a very few moments from the effects of the poison in spite of the fact that Ben had meantime shot the gila monster through the head. Mary's parents were horrified when they realized what a dangerous pet their little girl had been playing with for so many weeks. They determined to seek Ben's advice hereafter before housing any more strange animals. But Mary was not in great danger for generally the little reptiles are tame indoors, but out of doors in the sunshine they become cross and ugly and their bite is more dangerous than that of a rattlesnake. [Illustration: _Palm Springs_] [Illustration] A VISIT TO PALM SPRINGS MOTHER was unused to the desert, so Father, having arranged his business so he could leave it with Big Ben, the foreman, decided to take a vacation and all were going over to Palm Springs for a few days. Now, Palm Springs is in California near the great Mountain of San Jacinto and it took a day and a half to get there. It was great fun for Mary and Jack to get into a sleeping car and go speeding along over the desert again. They recognized many of their old friends on the way, most of whom they knew nothing about the last time they rode on a train. Then it grew dark and they could no longer see out of the window. The next morning after breakfast the conductor opened the door and called out, "Palm Springs." They hurriedly gathered together their bags and suitcases and left the train. My! but wasn't it cold, and didn't the wind blow? Folks could hardly stand straight and the wind was blowing right off the snow-capped mountains that were all around the place, making it seem colder still. Mary was hurried into the stage and before they had gone a mile their faces were covered with sand blowing off the desert and you could never have told that their clothes had ever been clean. Palm Springs itself was five miles from the station, but suddenly the wind stopped blowing and it was warm as summer, then pretty soon they heard dogs barking and rode right through an Indian village. Some of the squaws were making baskets, but most of them were out in the fields working just like men. Imagine Mamma doing work like that. It was interesting to see them, though, especially the little papooses being carried in a little box fastened to the mother's back. Just beyond was Palm Springs settlement itself, with lots of tents, several houses, a store and a hotel. They stopped at the hotel, and after dinner looked around the funny little store where they sold a little of everything while a phonograph ground out wheezy music. They visited the funny little cottages with their roofs and sides all covered with big palm leaves instead of boards. Then they went up to the hot springs. There was a stream of water shooting up in the air part of the time, but generally just bubbling up a little higher than the pond itself, which was about six feet wide and ten feet long. It didn't look deep, but the man at the springs told them the center shaft was sometimes as big as a well and no one knew how deep. Father had been there before and he wanted to take Mary into the spring, so with Jack they hired bathing suits and went down. It was very funny. They thought, of course, it was going to be deep, but the bottom was hard sand, and the water just covered their ankles. Father took Mary in first, but the water did not become deeper, but all at once the sand gave way. Father said it was quick sand which somewhat frightened her, but he didn't seem scared so she tried not to be. They went down and down into the sand which seemed to tighten around them, when all at once, when Mary was up to her shoulders, the spring gave a gurgle and tossed them out into shallow water. Mary was frightened, but the rest laughed at her, especially Jack, who was fourteen and thought he was almost a man. He said he could walk around in it all right--the old water could not toss him up like that. It was just bubbling over a little then, so he marched boldly in. But when he felt the warm watery sand hugging him tighter and tighter and sucking him down, he thought surely he was lost and wished he had not bragged. But just then the spring gurgled louder and a high stream shot up and in it was Cousin Jack, who landed safe and sound beside them. I can tell you he was a happy boy. They soon became accustomed to the idea and spent an hour of fun wading in and being gently but firmly tossed out. Then they went back to Dr. Murray's Hotel where Mother met them at the door. After a supper of fresh eggs, nice biscuits, strawberries and cream, they retired to their tent and when all were in bed Father rolled up the sides so they could look out at the stars and breathe the fresh, warm air softly blown to them by the gentle mountain breezes. [Illustration: _The Road Runner_] [Illustration] THE ROAD-RUNNER OF all Mary's pets she liked her road-runners best. Did you ever see a road-runner? It makes its home on the desert where you would find it impossible to get food, yet this little bird finds plenty and leads a happy existence. He looks much like a pheasant with broad wings, a long, broad tail and a crest that stands up very stiff and straight. The tail is very flexible, and many people who have lived on the desert a long time, say they can almost tell what the road-runner's thoughts are by the way he holds his tail. If you can make friends with the little bird and get near enough to it you can see the beautiful colors in its feathery coat. The olive green wings are edged with white, and the crest is of dark, deep blue. The bird is about twenty inches long, including the tail. A pair had built a nest in a clump of cactus a short distance from camp. The first time Mary espied them was the day after her arrival. One came up over a low ridge and stood looking at Mary with curiosity expressed in its long, flexible tail. This, of course, aroused Mary's interest and she hastened away to make friends. But it was not to be. Very quickly the bird retreated to its cactus patch. But it came again the next day and the next. At first Mary was afraid of frightening it away, but one day it came as she was eating a thick slice of bread and butter and she tossed it some crumbs. As before, he scampered away to a safe distance, but there he stopped. Mary stepped back and waited and pretty soon the little fellow returned and rapidly ate up all the crumbs. He then gave a little toss of his tail as if to say "thank you," and went home. After this Mary and the little road-runner soon became fast friends, and later Mary taught him that Cousin Jack was his friend, too. He soon learned that the big horn that the cook blew three times a day meant something to eat; and was always on hand to get his share. He would always save a goodly part of this share and carry it home to his mate. Mary and Jack each had a burro and often they would take short rides to the nearby camps, for Jack was a steady, reliable boy and Mary's father knew he would take care to see that no harm came to her. The trail led by the road-runner's nest and whenever he saw the little girl and the big boy coming along on their burros he would dart out into the road and rush ahead at full speed. He could always keep ahead, too. Try as they might Mary and Jack were unable to get ahead of him. When he grew weary of the sport he would turn suddenly and hurry into the brush until they had passed. In some ways, though, he was a nuisance. Mary's uncle had sent them a box containing a dozen chickens so that they could have some fresh eggs as a change from the cold storage eggs commonly found in mining camps. Now, the little road-runner would often try to slip into the chicken yard when no one was looking. He would wait indifferently, promenading up and down in a dignified manner until one of the hens cackled. He knew this meant a fresh egg and he would deliberately march up, peck a hole in the new laid egg and as deliberately swallow the contents. [Illustration: _Colorado Desert_ (_Ocatilla in foreground_)] [Illustration] A STRANGE CAPTURE ONE warm day in February a great lazy rattlesnake, over three feet long, glided out from under a broad, flat rock. It slowly wound its way through sagebrush and cactus until it found an open space where the hot rays of the noonday sun fell uninterrupted. Here it stretched itself out at full length, and after enjoying the warmth of the sunshine for a little while, gradually grew drowsy and at last fell asleep. Exactly one hour later, a faint rustling sound was heard. From behind the same rock peeped out an excited looking little creature. It was no other than our little friend the road-runner. But why so agitated and disturbed? Its little tail was bobbing up and down, and its beautiful bluish-black crest was raised as high as possible. He had spied his lifelong enemy, the rattlesnake. Suddenly, as quickly as he came, he disappeared from sight. He was soon back, carrying in his beak a cactus burr, which he placed on the ground near the sleeping snake. Back and forth he went, each time returning with a prickly burr. Before long he had a hedge entirely surrounding poor, unsuspecting Mr. Snake. Then one more burr was brought and quietly dropped on the snake's head. Now, the skin of a snake is very sensitive and he immediately woke up. Of course his first motion rubbed the delicate skin against the prickly burr. He gave a vicious rattle and started to move away from the troublesome thing. He struck at one side of the hedge, then another. He grew more and more angry. He would try to poke his nose between the burrs, but on being pricked by the sharp points, he would draw back and try in another place. At last, overcome with anger and mortification, he drove his poisonous fangs into his own body and soon died. Mr. Road-runner, meanwhile, had retreated to a safe distance and was much interested in all that was happening. When sure the snake was dead, he cautiously darted up to the hedge and gave the dead snake a series of sharp pecks with his long beak as an additional safeguard. Then he settled down and ate a portion, carrying the best part away to his nest to share with his mate. Now, if that snake had kept his temper and not become excited, he might have realized that by poking his nose under the burrs he could lift them and get away with only a few scratches. However, there are times when even boys and girls let their anger get the best of them, so why should we expect more wisdom in a poor, foolish snake! Sometimes the snake doesn't kill itself, but only becomes tired out and lies down motionless, when the little road-runner comes over and pecks him to death. There are only a few animals, birds or insects who can kill a rattlesnake, and the road-runner does this about as neatly as any. [Illustration: _A Desert May Party_] [Illustration] A DESERT MAY PARTY "WHY, Mamma, the very idea! Who ever heard of a desert May party?" I hear some tiny girl exclaim, "A desert is all sand, if there were flowers there it would not be desert at all." Ah, yes, my dear, I used to think so, too, but to Mary it was no surprise. She had spent the winter on the desert, had seen the heavy rains, and afterwards had watched how rapidly the sturdy little green shoots would push their way up through the hard unsympathetic soil. Generally once a year the desert puts on its party dress and is dotted with a gorgeous mass of blossoms. The rains come at intervals in the winter and early spring and the heavier and more frequent they are, the greater will be the flower growth. The March and April rains this year had been heavy. There had been days when Cousin Jack had come in with his raincoat dripping and declared that he knew Mt. Kenyon would be washed away. Now and then a cloudburst would strike terror to Mary's tender heart. She had gone out when the weather cleared and watched the warm earth rise up and break, while the little green things peeped through and took their first look at the sun. The ground was always warm and it was amazing to see how rapidly things would grow if you but gave them water. The thing that now troubled Mary was the fact that she had no one to ask to share her party. Of course there was Jack, but Jack was only a boy and a May party, above all else, means girls. It is strange what unexpected things happen at times, even in lonesome mining camps. The thought had barely entered her little curly head when she looked away over toward the mountains and saw a big, lumbering wagon, drawn by four strong horses, come creeping down the road. Long before it reached camp she could see that there were several people on it and then she saw the children. There were four of them, three little blue eyed girls with flaxen hair and a slightly older brother with the same light hair but who looked at the world through a pair of big, laughing brown eyes. They were staying twenty miles up the valley with their parents who had charge of a small cattle ranch, and Mother and children were having a holiday going to town with Father. They stopped to water the horses and you may be sure that it did not take long for the children to become acquainted. Not many little folks live on the desert and playmates are almost unknown. As it turned out, Father and Mother went on to town alone and left the children to enjoy one another until their return on the following day. Mary's mother was always planning surprises, so when she appeared with two large lunch baskets heaped with goodies, Mary realized that this would be a May day party unlike any she had ever before seen. Six burros were kept ever ready in the corral and these were caught and saddled for the children. Mother rode her Indian pony, a Christmas gift from Father. As they passed the mill and wound up the trail by the main shaft of the mine, the men were changing shift and as the cage swung up to the surface the miners called a cheery good-bye, for they were very fond of Mary. They ascended the next rise and what they saw was fairyland. They were at the entrance of a canyon. A tiny stream of water ran in the center and beside it wound a narrow trail. Foothills rolled up on either side and the steep walls were a mass of flowers. Wild heliotrope, thistle, poppies, white, pink and yellow gillias, long-leaved wild tobacco, with its rich yellow blossoms, all were massed together and far more beautifully arranged than the stiff gardens in Central Park. "Aunt Louise," called Jack to Mamma, who was riding behind with the little girls, "isn't that a campfire up on the next hill?" "No, Jack," she replied, "not a fire, only a smoke tree. That is why it received its name. The branches are grayish with tiny sage-green leaves and at a distance it is often mistaken for a fire as it is all so delicate and filmy." By this time Jack had ridden ahead for a closer inspection of the bush and startled us all by a little cry of pain. "Be careful, Jack, it is also called the porcupine tree by the miners," called Mother, "the tiny leaves are nothing more than very sharp and prickly spines." "Why is it that so many desert plants have stickers and thorns?" asked Tom, the rancher's son. "Why, can't you see for yourself, Tom?" called back Jack, "if they weren't sharp and prickly all these little desert animals would tear them up when they were young and tender and they would never grow to be full sized." "Yes," said Mother, "it is simply the way that nature protects her young so that it will not be destroyed in infancy. There are still other protections necessary on the desert for the hot sun would otherwise kill many plants. A large number are covered with a soft down which is really a mass of tiny air cells that keep the stems and leaves cool and protect them from the hot sun's rays." "And see, there is a creosote bush, its rich green leaves are covered with a kind of varnish which keeps them cool the same as the hairs would do. See how the recent rains have brought out a mass of blossoms at the tip of every branch, what a delicate flower, held in a pale green cup. And there is another smoke tree, nearer the water and so it has blossomed earlier, every point has a gorgeous purple flower." "See the funny bunch of sticks over here, Mamma," called Mary, "they look like a lot of candles sticking up." "And that is just what they are called, my dear, ocatilla, or candle cactus. They have no leaves for the greater part of the year, but after the rains they leave out and are soon covered with those beautiful scarlet bells." "Yes," answered Mary, "they look like some beautiful winged bird just about to fly away. And how tall the candles are, lots higher than our tents back in camp." It would take too long to tell you about all the desert beauties that the children saw, they all agreed that nothing as beautiful was ever seen "back East" where it rains half the time. At noon they sat down under a clump of mesquite and ate the splendid luncheon. The pure fresh air had made them ravenously hungry. The mesquite was a low, stocky tree which did not grow high but spread out in every direction, branches thick with foliage. "Why don't the old tree grow up higher and not bother about having so many side branches?" asked Jack. Then Mother told him. "Why, can't you see?" she asked. "The sun is so hot that it kills the tiny buds on the end of the branch; but the tree is determined to grow, just the same, so it sends out side buds, where the sun's rays are not as hot and the short, stubby tree is the result." "At any rate it makes a fine shade and that is all we need just now," answered Jack. They rested under the wide spreading branches until the sun shone a bit less fiercely, then they slowly rode homeward through the beautiful blossoms, arriving just at dusk, very hungry, a little tired, but happy in the thought that they had visited one of the strangest and most beautiful corners of the earth. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: The original text did not contain a table of contents. One was created for this text. Khaki is spelled kakhi in this text. 
35071	----	THE BOY SCOUTS ON THE RANGE BY LIEUT. HOWARD PAYSON NEW YORK HURST & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1911, BY HURST & COMPANY CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. ROB SURPRISES A COW-PUNCHER 5 II. NEWS OF THE MOQUIS 23 III. THE DESERT WATER HOLE 38 IV. SILVER TIP APPEARS 54 V. AT THE HARKNESS RANCH 65 VI. A BOY SCOUT "BRONCHO BUSTER" 75 VII. THE STAMPEDE AT THE FAR PASTURE 87 VIII. HEMMED IN BY THE HERD 100 IX. THE HOME OF A VANISHED RACE 112 X. THE GHOST OF THE CAVE DWELLING 125 XI. CAPTURED BY MOQUIS 137 XII. TUBBY'S PERIL 148 XIII. A FRIEND IN NEED 161 XIV. A TOBOGGAN TO DISASTER 172 XV. WHAT BECAME OF THE SCOUT? 185 XVI. BLINKY SPOILS A SOMBRERO 195 XVII. IN THE CLUTCHES OF THE GRIZZLY 205 XVIII. THE INDIAN AGENT 220 XIX. BLACK CLOUD'S VISIT 233 XX. THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAIL 246 XXI. THE MAVERICK RAID 257 XXII. CLARK JENNINGS GETS A SURPRISE 269 XXIII. THE WORSHIPPERS OF THE SNAKE 280 XXIV. BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE 291 The Boy Scouts on the Range. CHAPTER I. ROB SURPRISES A COW-PUNCHER. Northward from Truxton, Arizona, the desert stretches a red-hot, sandy arm, the elbow of which crooks about several arid ranges of baked hills clothed with a scanty growth of chaparral. Across this sun-bitten solitude of sand and sage brush extend two parallel steel lines--the branch of the Southern Pacific which at Truxton takes a bold plunge into the white solitudes of the dry country. Scattered few and far between on the monotonous level are desert towns, overtopped by lofty water tanks, perched on steel towers, in the place of trees, and sun-baked like everything else in the "great sandy." These isolated communities, the railroad serves. Twice a day, with the deliberate pace of the Gila Monster, a dusty train of three cars, drawn by a locomotive of obsolete pattern,--which has been not inaptly compared to a tailor's goose with a fire in it--makes its slow way. Rumbling through a gloomy, rock-walled cut traversing the barren range of the Sierra Tortilla, the railroad emerges--after much bumping through scorched foothills and rattling over straddle-legged trestles above dry arroyos--at Mesaville. Mesaville stands on the south bank of the San Pedro, a scanty branch of the Gila River. To the south of this little desert community, across the quivering stretches of glaring sand and mesquite, there hangs always a blue cloud--the Santa Catapina Range. The blazing noonday sun lay smitingly over Mesaville and the inhabitants of that town, when on a September day the dust-powdered train before referred to drew up groaningly at the depot, and from one of its forward cars there emerged three boys of a type strange to the primitive settlement. The eldest of the three, a boy of about seventeen, whom his two friends addressed as Rob, was Rob Blake, whom readers of the Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol--the first volume of this series--have met before. His companions were Corporal Merritt Crawford of the same patrol, and the rotund Tubby Hopkins, the son of widow Hopkins of Hampton, Long Island, from which village all three, in fact, came. "Well, here we are at Mesaville." Rob Blake gazed across the hot tracks at the row of raw buildings opposite as he spoke, and the town gazed back in frank curiosity at him. Opposite the depot was a small hotel, on the porch of which several figures had been seated with their chairs tilted back, and their feet on the rail, as the train rolled in. As it pulled out again, leaving the boys and an imposing pile of baggage exposed to the view of the Mesavillians, six pairs of feet were removed from the porch-rails as if by machinery, and their several owners bent forward in a frank stare at the newcomers. "Must think a circus has come to town," commented Tubby. "Well, they know where to look for the elephant," teased Merritt mischievously. "And for the laughing hyena, too, I guess," parried the fat youth, as the corporal went off into a paroxysm of suddenly checked laughter. The boys had bought sombreros at Truxton, and in their baggage was clothing of the kind which Harry Harkness--at whose invitation they had come to this part of the country--had advised them to buy. But as they still wore their light summer suits of Eastern cut and make, their generally "different" look from the members of the Mesaville Hotel Loungers' Association was quite sufficient to excite the attention of the latter. Readers of the Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol will recall that in that book was related the formation of the patrol at Hampton Harbor, L. I., and how it had been effected. How the boys of the patrol had many opportunities to show that they were true scouts was also told. Notably was this so in the incident of the stolen uniforms, in which the boys' enemies, Jack Curtiss, Bill Bender and Hank Handcraft, a disreputable old town character, were implicated. It will also be remembered that while encamped on an island near their home village, the Boy Scouts put off in a motor dory to the rescue of a stranded cattle ship on which Mr. Harkness, a cattle rancher, and his son Harry, a lad of the boys' own age, were returning from London, whither they had just taken a big consignment of stock. In return for their services, including the summoning of aid by wireless, Mr. Harkness invited the boys to spend some time on his cattle range. What adventurous boys would not have leaped at the invitation? But for a time it appeared as if it would be impossible for Rob and his chums to accept it, owing to the fact that the Hampton Academy, which they all attended, resumed its school term early in the fall. Just at this time, however, something happened which was very welcome to all three of the Scouts. Serious defects had been discovered in the foundation of the Academy, and it had been decided that it would be unsafe for the scholars to reassemble till these had been remedied. It was estimated that the work would take two months or more. Thus it had come about that the invitation of Mr. Harkness was accepted. To the boys' regret, however, only the members of the Patrol who stood that day on the platform at Mesaville had been able to obtain the consent of their parents to take the long, and to Eastern eyes, hazardous, trip. Arrangements had been made by letter for Harry Harkness, the rancher's son, to meet the boys at Mesaville, but the train had rolled in and rolled out again without his putting in an appearance. "Maybe Harry fell in that river and was drowned," suggested Tubby, pointing ahead down the tracks to the trestle crossing the San Pedro River. At this time of the year the so-called river was a mere trickle of mud-colored water, threading its way between high, sandy banks. The boys burst into a laugh at the idea of any one's drowning in it. "He'll be here before long," said Rob confidently. "It's a drive of more than fifty miles to the ranch, remember, and we can't start out till to-morrow morning, anyhow." Just then a white-aproned Chinaman appeared on the porch of the hotel and vigorously rang a bell. At the signal the lounging cow-punchers and plainsmen rose languidly from their chairs and bolted into the dining-room. From the few stores also appeared the merchants of Mesaville, most of whom lived at the hotel. "Sounds like dinner," remarked Tubby hopefully, sniffing the air on which an odor of food was wafted across the tracks. "Smells like it, too." "Trust Tubby to detect grub," laughed Rob. "He's a culinary Sherlock Holmes," declared Merritt, but his remark was made to Rob alone, for Tubby was beyond the reach of his sarcasm. He had started at once to cross the tracks and find the dining-room. "I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea to have something to eat while we're waiting," said Rob. "Let's go over." Tubby was already installed in a seat at the long table when his chums entered. He had in front of him a plate of soup, on the top of which floated a sort of upper crust of grease. From time to time an investigating fly ventured too near the edge and was miserably drowned. It was Tubby's initiation into desert hotel life, and he didn't look as if he was enjoying it. On both sides of the table, however, the cow-punchers, teamsters, and Mesaville commercial lights, were shoveling away their food without the flicker of an eyelash. Opposite to Tubby were seated two young fellows in cowboy garb, who seemed to extract much noisy amusement from watching the stout youth eat. They didn't seem to care if he overheard their somewhat personal remarks. "Ah, there's a lad who'll be a help to his folks when he grows up," grinned one of the stout boy's tormentors, as Rob and Merritt took their seats. "Which will be before you do," placidly murmured Tubby, continuing to eat his soup. A shout of laughter went up at this, and it wasn't at Tubby's expense, either. The two youths who had been so anxious to display their wit reddened, and one of them angrily said something about "the fresh tenderfoot." "Here's two more of 'em," tittered the other, as Merritt and Rob came in. Rob wore on his breast, but pinned on his waistcoat and out of sight, the Red Honor for lifesaving, which had been presented to him for heroism at the time of the waterlogging of the hydroplane, as narrated in the Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol. Merritt also wore the decoration in the same inconspicuous place. As the leader of the Eagle Patrol sat down, however, his coat caught against Tubby's shoulder and was thrown back, exposing the decoration. "Oh! ho! Look at the tenderfoot's medal," chuckled one of the young cattlemen; "wonder what it's for?" "The championship of the bread and milk eaters of New York State, I reckon," grinned the other, and another shout of laughter bore witness to the table's approval of this primitive humor. Rob flushed angrily, but said nothing. He did not wish to stir up trouble with two such ill-mannered young boors as the cattle-punchers were showing themselves to be. Encouraged by his silence, the badgering went on. One by one the other guests had been served by the Chinese attendant, with raisin pie and half-melted cheese, and had arisen and left the room. The two young cow-punchers and the Boy Scouts were shortly left alone in the fly-infested apartment. Rob and Merritt, who found the surroundings little to their liking, hurried through their meal, but Tubby ate conscientiously through everything that was brought him. It now grew plain, even if it had not been so before, that the two sun-burned young plainsmen sitting opposite the boys were deliberately trying to aggravate them. Interpreting the boys' silence as fear, they grew bolder and bolder in their remarks. "Have to catch up a real cow, I reckon," dreamily went on one of the boys' tormentors, gazing at the ceiling abstractedly, but fingering the condensed milk can. "What for?" inquired the other, playing into his hand. "Why, the tin cow might disagree with mama's boys." "Ho-ho-ho! Say, Clark." "What, Jess?" "Reckon they must be overstocked with yearlings East." "Looks that way. Do you suppose Easterners are born or jest grow?" The youth addressed by his companion as Jess looked straight at Rob as he spoke, and the insult was unmistakable. Rob's self-control suddenly deserted him with a rush. "I'll answer for your friend," he snapped out. "They grow-and-they-grow-right." Tubby looked up in surprise from his raisin pie, and Merritt's eyes opened wide at Rob's tone. It foreboded trouble as sure as a hurricane signal foretells a storm. "My! my!" grinned Jess, but it was an uncomfortable sort of a grin, "hear the little boy with the medal talk. Come on, Clark, let's go see to the ponies while the tenderfeet wait for their nurse to come and take their bibs off." They rose from the table, but Rob, still inwardly raging but outwardly cool as ice, stopped them. "Say," he said, "are you fellows cattlemen?" "You bet, stranger, from the ground up," rejoined Clark, with a vast air of self-importance. "Well, then we've been misinformed in the East," said Rob, coolly brushing a few stray crumbs from his knees. "How's that?" "Why, we'd been told that cattlemen were natural gentlemen; but whoever told us that was dead wrong. Judging by you fellows, they're not natural, and certainly not the other thing." Clark's face grew crimson and he muttered something about "fixing the fresh kid," but his companion drew him away. "We'll have plenty of time to rope and brand these young mavericks," he said, as they left the room. As they vanished Rob burst into a shout of laughter. "Score one for the Boy Scouts," he said. "If ever there were two discomfited cow-punchers, those fellows are it." The landlord, who had entered the room a few moments before, came forward as the boys arose from the table. He was a tall, lanky man, with a look of perpetual gloom on his face. A drooping, straw-colored mustache did not help to enliven his funereal features. "Say, strangers," he said, in a dismal voice, "you've started in bad." "How's that?" inquired Rob, in a somewhat peppery tone. "Why, riling up Clark Jennings and Jess Randell; they's two of the toughest boys in the country." "Think so, I guess," snorted Tubby. "Well, wait and see," said the landlord, with a melancholy shrug of his sloping shoulders. "Three dinners, please." He extended a yellow palm. "How much?" asked Rob, putting his hand in his pocket. "Three dollars and six bits." "What! three dollars and seventy-five cents for that fly-ridden stuff?" "That's the charge, stranger." Rob, seeing there was no use arguing, paid over the money, in exchange for which they had received three greasy plates of soup, three portions of ragged, overdone bull beef, and three slabs of raisin pie, together with three cups of muddy, inky coffee. But a sudden impulse of curiosity gripped him. "Say, what's the twenty-five cents extra all round for?" he asked. "Fer your ponies," rejoined the landlord, more miserably than ever. He seemed to be on the point of bursting into tears. "Ponies!" gasped Rob. "We haven't got any." "Never mind, it's a rule of the house," said the landlord, as if that settled the matter; "and if you ain't got any ponies it ain't my fault, is it?" There was no answering this sort of logic, and the boys strolled out to the porch to see if they could sight any trace of Harry Harkness. There was no sign of him, however, and after a prolonged period of gazing across the blazing desert, the boys sank back in three of the big rockers that stood in a row on the porch. It was dull, sitting there in the intense heat and drowsy silence, broken only at long intervals by the clatter of a pony's hoofs as some cow-puncher ambled by at an easy lope. A loud snore from Tubby soon proclaimed that he was off, and Merritt and Rob were about to follow him into the land of dreams, when there came a sudden interruption. Rob felt his shoulder roughly seized from behind, and a harsh, mandatory voice addressed him: "Say, that's my chair you're sitting in. You'll have to get out." The boy turned and saw Clark Jennings glaring at him. Close beside him, with a grin on his face, was Jess Randell. "Even supposing it is your chair," said Rob, "you can ask me for it like a gentleman,--then," he added to himself, "I'll think over giving it to you." "Oh, I guess you think you're a mighty fine gentleman?" "I hope I am one, yes." "Well, out here gentlemen have to fight for their title. Are you going to give me that chair?" "As you are no more a guest of this hotel than I am, I shall sit here till I get ready to get up." "Then I'll have to help you out----Ouch!" The remark and the exclamation came close together. Clark Jennings had bent forward as he spoke, and roughly laid hold of Rob to pull him from the chair by main force. As he did so, however, Rob had suddenly changed from a passive, rather sleepy boy, to a bundle of steel springs full of fight. Clark Jennings, as he laid hold of Rob, had felt himself hurled backward. Unable to check his impetus, he had landed against the wall of the hotel with a force which caused him to give vent to the exclamation recorded. "Look out, tenderfoot, he'll kill yer," warned the melancholy landlord from the window of the office, where he had been entering in a greasy book the extortion practiced on the boys. Several cow-punchers awoke to interest at the same time as Tubby and Merritt began to realize what was happening. His eyes blazing with fury, Clark Jennings crouched low, and then reaching back drew a revolver from his hip. He aimed it full at Rob, but simultaneously a strange thing happened. Rob was seen to dart forward, diving right under the leveled pistol. The next instant the weapon was spinning through the air. It landed with a thump in the middle of the dusty road. But Clark Jennings didn't see it, for the excellent reason that at that precise moment he was lying flat on his back on the hotel veranda. Before his eyes swam a whole galaxy of constellations. Over him stood Rob, with flushed face and clinched fists. CHAPTER II. NEWS OF THE MOQUIS. "Wow!" yelled the onlookers, as Clark's body struck the floor with a resounding thwack. Jess was in an agony of excitement over the sudden downfall of his friend. He was just about to hurl himself upon Rob when a sudden detaining arm fell on his with a heavy pressure. "Hold on there. We want fair play." It was Merritt Crawford who spoke, and Jess sullenly dropped his belligerent look. Somehow, the happenings of the last few seconds had altered the aspect of the tenderfeet materially in the eyes of the two young cow-punchers. "I'll fix you," growled Clark furiously, scrambling to his feet. "Why did you let him get up?" asked Tubby, his round cheeks glowing with excitement. "Because I want to give him plenty of rope," said Rob, a grim look creeping over his usually pleasant face. A sudden furious onrush on the part of Clark prohibited further conversation. "Go in and eat him up, Clark!" shouted a lanky, long-legged cow-puncher, one of several who had been attracted by the rumpus. "Looks as if your friend had developed a sudden attack of indigestion," grinned Tubby delightedly, as Rob's fist collided with the advancing Clark's jaw, much to the latter's astonishment. "Never seed nothing like it," commented the landlord, somewhat less melancholy now. "Clark's the champeen round here." "He may be when he's got a gun to back him up, but not when he has to fall back on his fists," retorted Merritt. "Look out!" he yelled suddenly, as the young cow-puncher, finding that fair methods seemed to have failed, attempted a foul blow below Rob's belt. But there was no need of the warning. Rob had seen the blow coming halfway, swiftly delivered as it was. The cowardly attempt at foul tactics thoroughly enraged him. "I thought Westerners fought fair," he gritted out, gripping the astonished cow-puncher by the wrist of the offending hand. Before Clark could gasp his astonishment, his other wrist was captive. Then a strange thing happened. Before any one had time to realize just how it occurred, Clark's body was describing a sweeping arc in the air. His heels rushed through the atmosphere fully five feet from the floor. Like the lash of a whip, his powerless body was straightened out as he reached the limit of the aerial curve he had described. At the same instant a dismayed yell broke from his pallid lips as Rob let go. Over the veranda rail, and out into the dusty road the young cow-puncher followed his revolver. He landed in a heap in the white dust, while Rob yelled triumphantly: "Now pick up your gun and profit by the lesson in manners I've given you." So saying, the boy calmly seated himself once more in the disputed chair, only a slight, quick movement of his chest betraying the great physical effort he had been through. After all, surprising as it had seemed, there was nothing very amazing about Rob's achievement. At the Hampton Academy athletics had always been a boast. The trick Rob had just put into execution he had learned from his physical instructor, who in his turn had picked it up from a Samurai wrestler of Japan. But to the cowboys, and other loungers about the Mesaville Hotel, the feat had been little short of marvelous. They eagerly thronged about the boy as he took his seat once more, and this time he remained in undisputed possession of it. "Whip-sawed, that's what Clark was," exclaimed one of the group. Another, the same tall, lanky fellow who had just been urging the young cow-puncher on to what he thought would be an easy victory, approached Rob. "Say, stranger," he asked eagerly, "will you teach me that thar contraption?" "Couldn't do it," rejoined Rob soberly, although a smile played about the corners of his lips. "Why not?" "Because, then, you'd know as much as I do," responded Rob. The assemblage burst into a loud roar of laughter, in which you may be sure, however, there were two voices which did not join. Those two were Clark Jennings' and Jess Randell's. The former had just picked himself up and stuffed his gun in his pistol pocket. A malevolent scowl marked his face as he did so. Nor did Jess smooth over matters by remarking audibly: "Say, Clark, what was the matter with you?" "Chilled feet, I guess," chortled Tubby, who had overheard the remark. "Get away from me, can't you?" snarled Clark irritably, facing round on his well-meaning crony, "why didn't you help me out?" "Help you out--how?" "Why, trip that tenderfoot up when I rushed him." "Oh, shucks, I thought you fought fair," said Jess, a little disgusted in spite of himself. "So I do," snorted Clark, "when I'm winning." "Well, come on round and see to the ponies. We'll think up some way to get even with these grain-fed mavericks before very long," comforted Jess. "You bet, and in a way they won't forget, either," Clark Jennings promised himself, as he followed his companion to the corral. Not long after this, the boys perceived, far out on the sultry plain, a sudden swirl of dust. "Something coming," shouted Tubby, who, strange to say, had been the first to notice the approaching column of dust. "Team," briefly grunted the landlord, "did I hear you fellers say you was waiting for some one from the Harkness range?" "Yes, you did," said Rob. "Waal, I guess that's them now. Must have a bear-cat of a team in to kick up all that smother." Closer and closer grew the dust cloud, and presently, from its yellow swirls, emerged the heads of the leaders of an eight-mule team. Behind them lumbered a big, broad-tired wagon, from the bed of which a high seat was reared like a watch tower. By the driver's side was a long iron foot brake. As the team approached the bank of the sandy little dried-up river, where the road took a dip, the driver placed his foot on the brake and a loud screeching and groaning resulted, as the big wagon, with the hind wheels locked, slid down the far bank. As the front wheels thundered across the rough bridge above the thin thread of luke-warm water, the heads of the first mules emerged over the top of the bank nearest the hotel. "Mountain style," commented the long, lanky cow-puncher admiringly, as the driver, a tall, sun-burned lad of about Rob's age, whirled a long whip three or four times round his head and concluded the flourish with a loud "crack" as sharp and penetrating as a pistol shot. An instant later the heavy wagon and its eight, dust-choked, sweating mules swept up in front of the hotel porch. The driver, flinging the single line with which he drove to his companion, clambered from his lofty perch and was immediately surrounded by the three tenderfeet. "Well, you certainly come into town with a flourish of trumpets," laughed Rob, after the first salutations between the Eastern boys and Harry Harkness, the rancher's son, had been exchanged. "Sorry to have kept you waiting so long," responded the other, who in order to speak had pulled down a big red handkerchief which had bundled up the lower part of his face and kept it dust-proof while he drove; "but the fact is, we had some trouble on the way. A bunch of Moquis are out, and----" "Indians!" gasped Tubby, with round eyes. "Yes, regular Indians," laughed Harry; "the Moquis' reservation is off a hundred miles or more to the northwest, near Fort Miles, but----" "They're off the reservation," cut in Tubby, proud of his knowledge. "Out fer a snake dance, I reckon," put in the long, lanky cow-puncher, who had been an interested listener. "Why, hello, Lone Star," exclaimed Harry. "I didn't know you were in town. Yes," he went on, "there's a secret valley in the Santa Catapinas which has been used by them for centuries for their festivals, and although they are supposed to be kept within the limits of the reservation, every once in a while a bunch of them get over here and hold a snake dance." "I've read about them," said Rob; "they do all kinds of weird things with rattlesnakes, don't they?" "Well, no white man has ever seen them--or, if he has, never lived to tell about it," said Harry, "so of course nobody knows exactly what they do. But anyhow, when we camped last night we had eight mules, and when we woke this morning there were only six. Jose, there--hey, Jose, wake up!" He prodded the Mexican who still sat on the wagon seat, with the end of his long whip. "Well, as I was saying, Jose trailed them and found them tethered in a arroyo about a mile from camp." "The Indians took them?" asked Merritt. "Yes, Jose, who's as good a trailer as he is a sleeper, found unmistakable tracks of Moquis. I suppose they took the mules in the night and then got scared at something and hitched them in the arroyo, meaning to come back for them." "Whereabouts did the Injuns cut into you, Harry?" A new voice had broken into the conversation. That of Clark Jennings. He nursed above his right eye a rapidly swelling "goose egg," marking the spot at which he had collided with the roadway. At his elbow was the faithful Jess Randell. "Why, hello, Clark, you in town, too? Every one from the Santa Catapinas seems to be in to-day--you, too, Jess. Well, the Indians paid us their little call just this side of the Salt Licks,--why?" "Oh, jes' wanted to know. Me and Jess has got to ride home that way to-night, for it's better riding when it's cool; and I thought I'd like to know whar to expect the varmints." "Well, that's the best information I can give you," said Harry, "but what have you been doing to your eye?" "Oh, nothing," muttered Clark, turning away, while a loud guffaw went up. "What's all the joke,--what is it?" asked Harry. It was soon explained, and the young rancher burst into a laugh. "Say, Rob, you must mean to clean the country of bad men. Trimmed Clark Jennings! Ho, ho, ho!" "Has he much of a reputation?" inquired Rob innocently, but with a twinkle in his eye. "I should say so. He won't forgive you in a hurry. He's going to be your neighbor, too, for a while." "How's that?" "His father owns the next ranch to us. Jess Randell is Clark's cousin, an orphan, you know. He lives there, too. The two are great cronies, and think a lot of their reputation as tough citizens. The whole bunch have a bad name." As the team from the Harkness ranch was tired out by the long, hard journey across the hot desert, it was decided that the boys should spend the night at the Mesaville House, and start for the ranch the next morning while it was cool. This would bring them into the mountains by dusk. Over supper they laughed and talked merrily, recalling the last time they had met, which was in a wet, dripping fog off the Long Island coast. How differently were they now situated! After the meal Merritt and Harry sat down to a game of checkers, while Tubby, seated in a big chair, indulged in his favorite occupation--namely, taking a quiet doze. As for Rob, he wandered about the little town a while, but found nothing to interest him. Small as Mesaville was in common with most towns of the same character, it boasted several low dens in which the cow-punchers, miners and sheepmen gambled and drank their hard-earned money away. From these dens, as usual, there came the same blasts of foolish talk and loud laughter, as their swing doors opened and closed. A glare of light poured from their blazing interiors to the quiet, moonlit desert outside. As Rob, rather sickened, turned away from this section of the town, the doors of one of the places swung open, and the forms of Clark Jennings and his crony, Jess, emerged; with them was a third figure, that of a tall, stoop-shouldered young man. The eyes of all three fell simultaneously on the figure of Rob as he walked away. "Talk of the train and you hear her whistle," grinned Jess. "There he is now." The companion of the two young cow-punchers nodded. "That's him, all right. I recognize him. It'll be candy to me to get even with him." "We can trust you, Jack?" "I'll fix him, never fear." "All right, then, we're going to start. We'll ride into town ag'in in a few days and fix you up." "All right. I need the money. How's Bill and Hank making out?" "Oh, doing odd jobs around the ranch. You know, Cousin Bill has turned out to be quite a cow-puncher; guess he rode horses back East?" "Yes, his father owned some in Hampton," rejoined the stoop-shouldered young man. (It will be recalled that when Bill Bender left Hampton he spoke of stopping a while with relatives in the West.) After a little more talk, the three bade each other good night. Soon the clatter of two ponies' hoofs, growing fainter and fainter in the distance, marked the departure from town of Clark Jennings and his crony. In the meantime, Rob had looked into the hotel, and finding Harry and Merritt still engrossed in a hotly contested fifth game, and Tubby snoring contentedly, had set out on another stroll. This time his aimless footsteps took him in the direction of the desert. By the railroad bridge he paused, gazing down at the moonlit water. Where the bridge abutments projected, the thready current of the San Pedro collected and formed quite a deep pool. "If this was the East, there'd be fish in there," mused Rob, when suddenly behind him he thought he heard a furtive footfall. He turned quickly. But, even as he did so, an irresistible shove was given him. Blindly extending his arms, Rob plunged forward down the steep embankment. CHAPTER III. THE DESERT WATER HOLE. As Rob toppled forward into vacancy, he received a startling momentary impression of familiarity from the tones of a loud laugh which rang out behind him. Fortunately for him, the water at the foot of the bridge abutment was some six or seven feet deep, and he struck it spread-eagle fashion, so that beyond the shock of his sudden fall he was uninjured. He at once struck out for the bank. When he stood again on the dry ground, shaking the water from himself, he began to rack his memory for the recollection of where and when he had heard a similar laugh to the one that had sounded in his ears as he plunged forward into space. Try as he would, however, he could not place it, and giving up the attempt finally, he made his way back to the hotel. The checker players started up as the dripping figure of the Boy Scout leader entered the room, and naturally began to ply him with questions. Rob's story of the events of the preceding few minutes was soon told, but so far as the shedding of any light on the mystery was concerned, it remained as blank a puzzle as ever. "I'd like to think that I dreamed it all," said Rob, "but these"--wringing out his wet clothes--"won't let me." "Well, there's no doubt that you were shoved over intentionally," decided Harry Harkness, "but who is there out here who would do such a thing?" "It might have been one of those two cow-punchers you had the row with this afternoon," suggested Merritt. "No. I saw Clark and Jess ride out of town a good half-hour before Rob could have been shoved over," said Harry. "Maybe they mistook me for some one else," suggested Rob, as the easiest way of disposing of the matter. Privately, though, he entertained a different opinion. If he could only place that laugh! But try as he would, he could not for the life of him recall where he had heard it before. Soon afterward the Boy Scouts and their ranch friend retired to bed, Tubby having been sufficiently aroused to make his way upstairs to their room. Tired out as Rob was, he sank into a deep sleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. With Tubby things were different, however. His nap in the chair had rendered him wakeful, and he tossed and turned till almost midnight before he began to grow drowsy. Just as he was dropping off, two persons entered the adjoining room. The partitions, as is usual in the West, were of the very thinnest wood, and he could easily hear every movement made by their neighbors. "Well, Jack," said one of the voices, evidently resuming a conversation that had been begun some time previously, "so you did the kid up, eh?" "Yes, sent him head first over the bank. Wish he'd broken his neck. The kid is one of that bunch that was responsible for my leaving Hampton." "Is that so? I don't wonder you are sore at him. Why didn't you hit him a good crack on the head while you were about it?" "Oh, I figured that a cold bath would do as a starter. Wait till that bunch gets up to the mountains. Clark and Jess and my friends, Bender and Handcraft, will attend to them." Tubby's brain was in a whirl. He had had no difficulty in recalling one of the voices,--that of the one who had spoken of sending Rob over the bank of the San Pedro. Who the other was he couldn't imagine, however, except that he was evidently a crony of the first speaker. Impulsively the stout youth shook Rob's shoulder, and as the other opened his eyes, enjoined him to silence. "Say, Rob, who do you think is in the next room?" he gasped. "I don't know, I'm sure. The emperor of China?" asked Rob in a sleepy voice. "Hush! don't talk so loud. It's Jack Curtiss!" "What!" "It is. I'm sure of it. He was boasting about having shoved you over the bank of the river." "Whatever can he be doing out here?" "Living on the allowance his father sends him, I suppose. I heard before we left Hampton that he was some place in the West. I guess his father would soon stop his allowance if he knew he was up to his old tricks. Mr. Curtiss thinks that Jack is studying farming." "Raising a crop of mischief, I guess," breathed Rob, in the same cautious undertone that the two boys had used throughout their conversation. "I wonder if Bill Bender and Hank Handcraft are with him?" "That reminds me. I heard him mention them. They are on some ranch up in the mountains--where we are going, I gathered." "That means trouble ahead," mused Rob. "Are you going to have Jack arrested?" "No, how can I prove that it was he who shoved me in? Just overhearing a conversation is no proof. I know now, though, why that laugh I heard sounded so familiar." Both boys listened for some time, but they heard no further talk from Jack Curtiss and his companion regarding themselves. Their talk seemed to be about money matters, and as well as they could gather, Jack was in debt to some gamblers for a large sum which he despaired of raising. "I've only got a month to get it in," they heard him say. "Well, we'll hit upon a plan, never fear," rejoined his companion. The next morning Harry Harkness was told of the happenings of the night. He, of course, already knew of the bold attempt of the former bully of Hampton Academy to kidnap one of the Boy Scouts, as related in the first volume of this series, and was inclined to warn the boys to be careful of such a dangerous character. Viewed in the cheerful light of the early day, however, the boys did not regard the matter so seriously. Indeed, they forgot all about Jack and his threats in the bustle of preparation for their long trip across the waste lands. Breakfast was soon disposed of, and then the boys in a body made for the corral. Jose had been told two hours earlier to catch up and hitch the mules, but the long-eared animals were still browsing at the hay pile, and not a vestige of Jose was to be seen when the boys emerged. "There he is in the hay," shouted Rob suddenly, pointing to two long, thin legs sticking out of the fodder heap. "Asleep again, the rascal," exclaimed Harry. "Come on, Rob; you lay hold of one leg, and I'll take the other." Both boys seized hold of a designated limb, and soon the sleepy Jose, expostulating loudly, was hauled out into the sunlight. "Why aren't those mules hitched?" demanded Harry. "Me go sleep," grinned the Mexican teamster apologetically, showing a row of white teeth. "We don't need telling that. You are always asleep, except when you're eating. Get busy now and hitch up." Urged thus, Jose soon had his rawhide rope circling, and in ten minutes had caught up the team with far more agility and skill than would have been suspected in such an easy-going individual. The mules were soon attached to the heavy wagon and the single line which guided them threaded. This manner of driving was new to the boys, but they were soon to find that most teamsters in the far West use only a single rein attached to the lead mules on the right side. The others follow the leader. If the driver desires to turn his team to the left, instead of pulling the single line, he shouts, "Haugh!" and over swings the team. The boys' baggage had lain at the depot all night, and accordingly the first stop was made there. It was soon loaded on, and then, with a loud cry of, "Ge-ee, Fox! Gee-ee-e, Maud!" from Jose, the lead mules swung to the right. Over the bridge, beneath which Rob had met his misadventure of the night before, thundered the heavy vehicle. Swinging in a broad circle, they then headed toward the south, where the Santa Catapinas, blue and vague, were piled like clouds on the horizon. Early as was the hour at which the start was made, however, two persons in Mesaville besides the hotel employees were up to see it. These were Jack Curtiss and the friend who had shared his room the night before. They peered out of the window at the four boys with eager glances. "Look them over well, Emilio," Jack urged his companion, who in the daylight was seen to have a swarthy skin and the cigarette-stained fingers of a Mexican town lounger. Emilio Aguarrdo was a half-breed gambler, and a thoroughly vicious type of man. In him were combined the vices and evil passions of two races. His thin lips curled back from his yellow teeth as he watched the boys, who, with shouts and laughter, were loading up their belongings, while Jose slept on his lofty seat. "I won't forget them, Jack," he promised, as the wagon started off, the long whip cracking like a gatling gun. All that morning the wagon lumbered on across the hot plains, an occasional jack-rabbit or coyote being the only sign of life to be seen. As the sun grew higher, the boys saw in the far distance the strange sight of the town of Mesaville, hotel and all, hanging upside down above the horizon. It was a mirage, as clear and puzzling as these strange phenomena of the desert always are. As the hours wore on, the mountains, from mere wavy outlines of blue, began to take on definite form. They now showed formidable, seamed and rugged. As well as the boys could perceive at that distance, the hills were covered with dark trees to their summits and intersected by dense masses of shadow, marking cañons and abysses. A more forbidding-looking range could hardly be imagined, yet in the foothills to the southeast there grew great savannas of succulent bunch grass on which several ranges of cattle roamed. The noon camp was made in the foothills near a small depression in which grew some scanty grass of a dried-up, melancholy hue. The wagon road was at some little distance from this, and as soon as a halt was made, Jose, at Harry's orders, took a shovel from the wagon and started for the dip in the foothills. "Going to dig potatoes?" asked Tubby casually, as he watched the lazy Mexican saunter off. "No, water," responded Harry. His serious tone precluded any possibility that he was joking. But the idea of water in that sterile land seemed so ridiculous to the boys that they burst into a laugh. "I mean it," declared Harry. "Here, you fellows, take those buckets from under the wagon. We carry them to water the mules. Pack them over to that dip and in half an hour you'll be back with them full." "Huh! guess I could carry all the water that will come out of that place in one hand," commented the fat boy. "Don't be rash," laughed Harry; "before long you'll take digging for water as a matter of course." "Wish you could dig for ice-cream sodas," muttered the fat boy absently, picking up a bucket and starting off after Jose. Rob and Merritt followed, while Harry busied himself unhitching the mules for their noonday rest. This done, he lighted a fire of sage-brush roots, and awaited the return of the boys. The first thing the boys saw Jose do when he got to the bottom of the dip was to lie flat on his stomach and place an ear to the ground. "He's going to sleep again," suggested Merritt. "Looks like it," agreed Rob. But this time the Mexican did not drop off into a peaceful slumber. Instead, he presently straightened up, and shouldering his shovel, began tramping off once more. The boys followed him over several dips and rises till at last he descended into another depression in which grew some scanty herbage. Here he repeated the other performance and arose with a grunt of satisfaction. Suddenly he began digging furiously. "Wow! he's making the dirt fly," exclaimed Tubby, as the industrious Mexican dug as frantically as though his life depended on it. So fast did the work of excavation proceed that soon quite a large hole had been made in the soft ground. "Pity they haven't got him down at Panama," commented Merritt dryly. Jose had paid no attention to the boys hitherto, but now he suddenly shouted, pointing downward into the hole: "Mira qui!" "What's that about a key?" asked Tubby. "Try to conceal your natural ignorance," rejoined Merritt, with withering scorn. "He said, 'Mira qui.' That means 'Look here.'" "Oh, and 'latcha-key' means open the door, I suppose," retorted the stout youth. "You're a fine Spanish scholar, you are." "I've a good mind to throw you into that hole," threatened Merritt. "Try it," shouted the stout youth, hopping about aggravatingly. "I will." Merritt made a rush at the irritating Tubby, who leaped provokingly away. But suddenly he gave utterance to a yell of dismay, as in his efforts to retreat he stumbled into the hole which Jose had dug. By this time, to Rob's astonishment, for he had been watching Jose's methods with interest, quite a lot of muddy water had appeared, and into this accumulation of moisture the stout youth fell with a resounding splash. Even the solemn Jose smiled as Tubby sputtered and splashed about in the pool. "Come out of that water," commanded Merritt. "Call this water?" demanded Tubby, sputtering some of it out of his mouth. "Ugh! it tastes more like soap suds to me." "Him alkali," grinned Jose, as Tubby scrambled out and stood, rather crestfallen, on the verge of the magic pool; "mucho malo." "What's 'mucho malo'?" demanded Tubby of Merritt, the self-appointed interpreter. "It means you're a nuisance," retorted Merritt, which reply almost brought on a renewal of hostilities. Rob checked them, however, by reminding the stout youth that the water was for drinking and not for bathing purposes. The boys were anxious to dip their buckets in and return to the wagon, but Jose told them they must wait till the water cleared. "Pretty soon him like glass," he said. Sure enough, after a long interval of waiting, in which there was nothing to do but look at the sand and the burning blue sky above it, the previously muddy seepage water began to take on a green hue. With a yell, the boys rushed forward to dip it up. But as they bent over the brink of the water hole a sudden shout from Jose made them look up. They echoed the Mexican's yell as they did so, for outlined against the sky was a startling figure. It was that of an Indian, his sinewy limbs draped in a blanket of gorgeous hue, and astride of a thin, active-looking calico pony. For an instant the piercing eyes of the red man and the white boys met, and then, with a strange cry, he wheeled his pony and vanished over the rim of the depression. "Was that an Indian?" gasped Tubby, for the figure of the red man had appeared and vanished so swiftly that it seemed almost as if it might have been a delusion. "Moqui, very bad Indian," grunted the Mexican, who seemed nervous and fearful all of a sudden. "Oh, I thought maybe it was a jack-in-the-box," said Tubby, with a cheerful grin, which froze on his face, however, as suddenly as it had come. The rim of the water hole was surrounded by twenty or more wild figures, the companions of the solitary horseman. They had appeared as if by magic. CHAPTER IV. SILVER TIP APPEARS. The interval of silence which succeeded to the discovery that they were surrounded by Moquis was the most trying any of the party had ever known. Resistance was useless, for each of the Indians carried a rifle of modern make, and even had the boys been armed, they could not have defended themselves. "What do you want?" demanded Rob at length, of an Indian who, judging by his ornate feather headdress, seemed to be the chief of the party. "White boys go to mountains?" demanded the chief. "Yes. We are going to the Harkness ranch," rejoined Rob, a trifle more boldly, as there did not seem to be any active antagonism in the chief's tone. "White boys got money?" "It's a hold up!" gasped Tubby. "Say, hold your tongue for once, can't you?" snapped Merritt angrily. "Yes, we have some money. Why?" inquired Rob. "We want um." It was a direct demand, and as the boy hesitated, a grim look spread over the chief's face. Rob, like the others, carried most of his money in a belt about his waist, but each lad had a few bills in his wallet and some small change in his pockets. "Say, what is this--Tag Day?" demanded Tubby, as the chief, having solemnly taken all Rob's small change, drew up in front of the stout youth and extended his dirty palm. "All right," said the fat boy, hastily digging down into his pocket, as the red man stared steadily at him. "Here's all I've got. Take it, Chief What-you-may-call-um, and I hope whatever you get with it chokes you." Fortunately for Tubby, the chief did not understand this, or it might have fared badly with the irrepressible youth. Merritt's turn came next, and then Jose, with many lamentations, surrendered a few small silver coins. "All right. You go now," said the chief, as with a shrill, wild yell he dug his naked heels into his pony's sides, and the little beast plunged up the steep bank. Echoing his shrill cries, the other Indians joined him, and the body of marauders swept off across the foothills at a rapid pace. "So that's the noble red man, is it?" demanded Tubby. "Hum! back home we'd call them noble panhandlers." "What did they want the money for?" asked Rob of the Mexican, who was still wringing his hands over the loss of his pocket money. "Moqui's go snake dance. Moocho red liquor," explained the guide from across the border. "Oh, that's it, is it?" said Rob. As he spoke, his eyes fell suddenly on a small piece of paper the Indian chief had dropped when he rode up the steep side of the water hole. He picked it up and opened its folds carefully. It appeared to be a scrap torn from a notebook, and the boy stared as his eyes fell on the name "Clark Jennings, His Book." "Say, fellows, look here," he cried excitedly, as he perused some writing on the other side. "That sneak I gave the razzle-dazzle to yesterday is in this." "What, Clark Jennings?" "The same. Listen!" From the side of the paper which bore the writing Rob read as follows: "'They will be near the water hole at noon. All three have money.'" "Well, what do you make of it?" asked Tubby in a puzzled tone. "I don't see the connection, quite." "It's plain enough. I've heard that these Indians are placid enough if they are not interfered with and given money. That fellow Clark knew they were somewhere hereabouts--you remember he asked Harry about them yesterday. He and Jess Randell left Mesaville early, so as to meet them and bribe them to hold us up." "But can the Indians read English writing?" asked Tubby. "Yes. Most of the present generation have been to government schools and are comparatively well educated." "Hooray for education!" shouted Tubby. "They sure are promising scholars." There came a sudden shout from above. "Hey, what's the matter with you fellows, anyhow? You've been gone almost an hour." Harry Harkness stood at the edge of the dip, looking down at the excited boys. "An hour isn't the only thing that's gone," wailed Tubby; "all our change has gone, too." When the laugh at Tubby's whimsical way of putting it had subsided, the situation was explained to Harry, who agreed that there was nothing to be done. "We had better be pushing on as fast as possible, though," he said; "there's no knowing when those fellows may wake up to the fact that we have more money about us and come back after it." A hasty lunch was cooked and eaten, and the mules watered with a bucket of water each. This done, the team was once more hitched, and Jose, who had in the meantime dropped off to sleep again, awakened. But as the Mexican cracked his whip, and his long-eared charges began to move, a sudden surprise occurred. From a little dip ahead a horseman suddenly appeared and hailed the boys. He was a tall, bearded man in regulation plainsman's costume, and his sun-burned face was shielded by a broad sombrero. On his face was a look of determination and self-reliance. As the boys looked at him they felt that here was a man of action and character. "Hullo, strangers," he said, checking the splendid horse he rode, as the mules came to a stop. "Have you seen anything of any Moquis hereabout?" "Why, yes," responded Rob; "they----" "Saw us to the extent of all our small change," put in Tubby. "Mine, too!" wailed the Mexican. "Mucho malo Indiano." "What! you have been robbed by them?" "Feels that way," said Tubby, patting his empty pockets. "That's too bad," said the man. "I am Jeffries Mayberry, the Indian agent from the reservation. I am trying to round those fellows up without making a lot of trouble over it, and having the papers get hold of the story and print exaggerated accounts of an uprising. They are really harmless if they don't get hold of liquor." "Or money," put in Tubby. "Well, as far as we know, they swept off to the southeast," said Rob. "Yes. They are going to have their snake dance in the Santa Catapinas. Every once in a while they break out and head for there. All the renegade Indian rascals for miles round join them, and besides the dance, which is a religious ceremony, they drink and gamble. Well, I must be getting on, and thank you for your information." With a wave of his hat, he dug his big blunt-rowelled spurs into his horse's sides and was off in a cloud of dust. "I'd like to help that fellow get his Indians rounded up," said Rob; "he seems the right sort of a chap." "Yes, his name is well known around here," rejoined Harry, as the wagon moved onward once more. "He is the best Indian agent that the Moquis have ever had, my father says. He knows them, and can handle them at all ordinary times. He dislikes fuss, however, and hates to see his name in the papers. Otherwise, I guess, he'd have had the soldiers after those fellows." "I wish we had the Eagle Patrol out here," said Merritt. "We'd soon get after that bunch of redskins." "Well, why not?" said Harry enigmatically. "Why not what?" "Why not form a patrol out here? You know we talked about it in the East in the brief time we had together." "Say, that's a great idea," assented Rob. "Who could we get to join, coyotes, rattlers, and jack-rabbits?" asked Tubby solemnly. "Say, Tubby, this is no joking matter," protested Merritt. "I'm not joking. Never more serious in my life. A coyote would make a fine scout." "Yes, to run away," laughed Rob. "But seriously, Harry, could we get enough fellows out here to form a patrol?" "Sure; I know of a dozen who would join. We could make it a mounted division, and maybe we could help Mr. Mayberry round up his Moquis." "Say, fellows!" exclaimed Rob, with shining face, "that would be splendid!" "Maybe we'd get our money back then," grunted Tubby. "Tell you what we'll do," said Harry. "To-morrow I'll take you with me, Rob, and we'll ride round all the ranches where I know some boys, and get them to sign up. We ought to have a patrol organized in a week at that rate." "Put me in as a commissariat officer, will you?" asked Tubby. "That goes without saying," laughed Rob. As the wagon jolted on over the road, which grew rapidly rougher and rougher, the boys eagerly discussed their great plan. The foothills were now passed, and they were forging ahead through a deep cañon, or gorge, well wooded on its rugged sides with dark trees and shrubs. Here and there great patches of slablike rock cropped through the soil and showed nakedly among the vegetation. All at once Rob gave a shout and pointed up the hillside at one of these "islands" of rock. "Look, look!" he shouted. "Something moved up there." "Something moved," echoed the rest, Indians being the "something" uppermost in every mind. "Indians?" gasped Tubby. "No; at least, I don't think so. It was some animal--a huge beast, it seemed to be." As he spoke there came a crashing of brush far up on the hillside, and every one in the party, even the sleepy Jose, gave vent to a perfect yell of amazement. On one of the rock shelves far above them was poised the massive form of an immense bear. His huge body showed blackly against the sunset-reddened shelf on which he stood. With the exception of one spot of white on his great chest, he was almost black. "Silver Tip!" shouted Harry Harkness, too excited even to remember his rifle, which lay in the bottom of the wagon. As he uttered the exclamation, the great ragged brute gave a snort of apparent disdain and clumsily lumbered off into the darker shadows. The next instant he was gone. CHAPTER V. AT THE HARKNESS RANCH. "Silver Tip!" echoed Rob, as the immense monarch of the Arizona forest crashed his way off through the undergrowth. "Well, when you told us about him on the steamer, you didn't exaggerate his size. He's as big as a pony." "Plenty of bear steaks on him," remarked Tubby judiciously. "I guess you'd find them well seasoned with lead," laughed Harry. "Every hunter in this part of the country has shot at Silver Tip, and plenty of them have hit him, but he always managed to get away. The Indians and the Mexicans are scared of him. They think he is not a bear at all, but some sort of demon in animal form. Eh, Jose?" "Silvree Teep mucho malo bear," grunted the Mexican. "Only can kill with silver bullet." "What do you think of that," laughed Harry. "But our hunters have wasted too many lead bullets on old Silver Tip to try him with silver ones. But in spite of his wonderful good fortune hitherto, that bear's day will come." "Like a dog's," commented Tubby. "You know they say every dog has his day--I guess it's the same way with that old sockdolliger." "That's so, I guess," rejoined Harry. Soon afterward they clattered and rumbled down a steep grade leading from the cañon into a wooded, green dip in the foothills. Before them suddenly spread out the vista of apparently illimitable pasture grounds, dotted with feeding cattle. In the foreground, half hidden by big cotton-wood trees, and overtopped by a windmill and water tank, stood a long, low ranch house, with numerous outbuildings and corrals about it. "That's the range," said Harry, pointing. And as the boys broke into an admiring chorus, the mules plunged forward into a brisk trot. In a short time the outer gate was reached, and opened by dint of pulling a hanging contrivance which worked on a system of levers, that opened and closed the gate at the will of whoever was entering or leaving, without obliging them to dismount. Around the bunkhouse stood a group of cowboys in leather chapareros and rough blue shirts, awaiting the call to supper in the low, red-painted cook-house. Some of them were gathered about a tin basin, removing the grime of the day. In a large corral were their ponies, browsing on a railed-off stack of grain hay, and occasionally kicking and biting and squealing, as some fractious soul among them instigated a fight. Suddenly a door in the ranch house opened, and a figure, which the boys recognized as that of Mr. Harkness, emerged. His hands were extended in a hearty welcome, and a smile wreathed his bronzed features. "Hulloa, boys!" he hailed. "Welcome to the Harkness ranch." The boys broke into a cheer, and leaping from the wagon, ran forward to greet their kind-hearted host, whom they had last met on the deck of a stranded steamer on the Long Island shoals. After the first chorus of greetings and questions had passed, Mr. Harkness inquired what had delayed them. "Indians," rejoined Harry. "They tried to steal mules going down, and they robbed the boys here of their small change on their way up." The face of the rancher grew graver. In response to his questions, Rob had soon placed him in possession of the facts surrounding the appearance of the Moquis at the water hole and the subsequent events. "We shall have to keep a sharp eye on the cattle, then," he said soberly. "I've got a bunch over on the far range, right up in the foothills. If these gentry get hungry they are likely to make a raid on them, or they may even do it out of pure wantonness." "Yes, it wouldn't be the first time," said Harry. "By the way, pop, we met Mr. Mayberry, the Indian agent, on the way up. He's after them." "That's bad," gravely commented the rancher. "Bad!" repeated Harry. "Why, dad, I've heard you yourself say that he was the best Indian agent you ever knew." "So he is, in a sense. But he is too kind-hearted. What those renegade rascals need is a file of soldiers with fixed bayonets and a burning desire to use them. However, come in, boys. Jose, wake up and put those trunks off. Get two men to help you bring them into the house. Come in, boys, and make yourselves at home in a rancher's shanty." Mr. Harkness may have called it a shanty, but to the boys' eyes there had seldom been presented a more attractive interior than that of the Harkness ranch house. The furniture was dark and heavy, and the walls were hung with trophies of the hunt. Bright-colored Navajo rugs were all about, lending a brilliant dash of brightness to the dark woods and walls. At one end of the room was a huge open fireplace, which was now filled with fresh green boughs. "Why--why, it's great!" exclaimed Rob, glancing about him admiringly. "Glad you like it," said the rancher, evidently well pleased at the boy's pleasure. "Those heads there are all the tale of my rifle." "The collection is only lacking in one thing--a single item," commented Rob. "Which is----" "The head of Silver Tip, the giant grizzly." "You know about him, then?" Mr. Harkness seemed much surprised. At the time of his leaving the stranded ship he had not overheard the conversation between his son and the Boy Scouts. "We've seen him," put in Tubby, nodding his head very sagely. Then of course the story of their glimpse of the monster had to come out. "It is unusual for Silver Tip to be about here at this time of year," commented Mr. Harkness. "He usually does not visit us till later. That's an additional peril to the cattle." "How is that?" inquired Rob. "In two ways. In the first place, Silver Tip is what we call a rogue grizzly. He lives all alone, hunts by himself, and has nothing to do with any others of his kind. He is as cruel, wantonly so, as he is formidable. For instance, last winter he killed fifty or more head of steers just for the sheer love of killing. Then, too, he is dangerous in another way. It takes very little to stampede a band of cattle. I have seen them started by a jack-rabbit leaping up suddenly from the brush. The sight of such an appalling monster as Silver Tip would be sure to start them off. No, I certainly don't like to hear that he is about." Not long after this remark the announcement of supper put an end to further discussion of Silver Tip and his ways. Then and there Rob determined in his own mind that, if it were possible, the skin of that inaccessible monster would journey East with him when he returned. Absurd as the idea seemed, of him, an Eastern boy, green in the ways of the West, winning such a trophy, still Rob could not help dwelling on it. After the meal Mr. Harkness left the house for the bunkhouse, to give some orders to the night-riding cow-punchers. The news of the near neighborhood of the Moquis had made him nervous and unsettled. The evening passed away in further discussion among the boys of the proposed mounted patrol of Boy Scouts, and before they knew it, ten o'clock had arrived. Pretty well fatigued by the events of the day, they were not unwilling to seek their beds, which were situated in three small upper rooms, directly above the big main living room. Rob was just dropping off into unconsciousness when he heard a clattering of hoofs outside. Somebody had ridden up to the ranch house at full speed. "Who is it?" he heard asked in Mr. Harkness's voice. "It's me--Pete Bell," an excited voice rejoined, evidently that of the horseman who had just arrived. "Well, Pete, what is it?" inquired the voice of Mr. Harkness once more. "Why, sir, you know I was one of the bunch you sent to the far pasture to-night." "Yes, yes! Go on, man! What is it--the Indians?" "No, sir, no Indians. But, sir, we've seen it again." "What, that foolish ghost-story thing! Haven't you fellows got over harping on that yet?" "It ain't imagination, Mr. Harkness, as you seem to think," Rob heard the cow-puncher protest. "I seen it with these eyes as plain as I see you now. It come out on the cliff where the old cave dwellings are, and we saw it wring its hands a few times and then vanish just like it's always done before." "Nonsense, Pete," replied the hard-headed rancher. "I thought you knew better than to take stock in ghost stories." "So I do, sir; but when you see the ghost itself, that's getting close to home." "Well, get back to the pasture now, Pete, and I'll guarantee the ghost won't bother you any more. Come on, get some color in your face. You are chattering like a child." "Won't you send somebody back with me, sir? That thing ought to be looked into." "Nonsense! I wouldn't waste time, men or thought on such rubbish. If you get track of any Indians, let me know, but don't bother me with any ghost stories. Now be off!" "Y-y-yes, sir," said the cow-puncher obediently, but Rob noted that his pony didn't travel back toward the far pasture as fast as it had come away from it. "So," thought Rob to himself, "there are haunted cliff dwellings near here, as well as a rogue grizzly and a bunch of bad Indians. Well, it looks as if we had fallen into an ideal spot for Boy Scouts." CHAPTER VI. A BOY SCOUT "BRONCHO BUSTER." The next morning before breakfast Rob recounted to his chums the conversation he had overheard the night before. The story of the ghost of the ancient cliff dwellings was, it appeared, no new thing on the Harkness ranch, which accounted for its owner's apathy in regard to it. Successive batches of cow-punchers doing duty in the far pasture at night professed to have seen the grisly object on its nightly rounds, but nobody had ever had the courage to investigate it. After the morning meal had been dispatched, Mr. Harkness announced that he expected to be busied about the ranch for the morning. "But, Harry, you take the boys down to the corral," he said, "and have one of the men catch up some horses for them. You boys know best the kind of stock you want, so I'll let you choose them." The boys thanked him, and a few moments afterward he left the room. A short time later he galloped off to make a round of the different sections of the range and to prosecute inquiries about the renegade Moquis. The corral was, as was usually the case, full of ponies of all colors and grades of disposition, from mild beasts to fiery, half-broken bronchos. As the boys neared the enclosure, a stout little cowboy in a huge hairy pair of "chaps" approached them, airily swinging a lariat. His eyes opened and shut as rapidly as a loose shutter slat in a breeze. Cowboys have nick-names for everybody. His was of course "Blinky." "Good mornin', Master Harry. Want some cattle this a. m.?" he inquired. "Yes, Blinky. Have you got some good ones caught up?" "Why, yes, you can have White Eye, and what kind of stock does your friends fancy?" There was a twinkle in Blinky's fidgety optics as he asked this, for the boys, although they had donned regular ranch clothes, still bore about them that mysterious air which marks a "tenderfoot," as if they bore a brand. "How about you, Rob?" asked Harry, also smiling slightly. "Want a bronc, or something more on the rocking-horse style?" Now, although Rob could ride fairly well, and both Tubby and Merritt had had some practice on horseback, none of the boys were what might be called rough riders. But something in Blinky's tone and Harry's covert smile aroused all Rob's fighting blood. "Oh, I want something with some life in it," he said boldly. "Um-hum! The same will do for me, but not _too_ much life, if you please," chimed in Tubby, somewhat dubiously. "Anything I don't need to use spurs on," ordered Merritt, following up the general spirit. "All right, young fellers," said the cow-puncher, opening the corral gate. "Come on in while I catch 'em up for you." The instant the rawhide began whirling about Blinky's head the ponies evidently realized that something was up, for they began a wild race round and round the corral, heads up and heels lashing out right and left. The three tenderfeet regarded this exhibition with some apprehension, but they were too game to say anything. "I'll rope my own," said Harry, picking up a lariat which hung coiled over a snubbing post near the gate. The ranch boy stood by the post, leisurely whirling his rawhide and just keeping the loop open till a small bay pony, with a big patch of white round each eye, came plunging by with the rest of the stampede. The lariat suddenly became imbued with life. Faster it whirled and faster, the loop finally sailing through the air gracefully and landing in a rawhide necklace round White Eye's neck. At almost the same instant that White Eye became a captive, Blinky let his loop go, and roped a small, active buckskin pony which, as soon as it felt the loop on its neck, laid back its ears and began squealing and bucking viciously. "I guess that's your pony, Rob," said Tubby generously, as the cow-puncher drew the struggling little animal up to the snubbing post, and tying him there, went into the barn for a saddle. "If you are in any hurry, you can have him," volunteered Rob. "No, I guess I can wait. How about you, Merritt?" "Same here, I'm in no hurry." "Well," thought Rob, "I'm in for it now, and if that bronc doesn't buck me into the middle of next week, I'm lucky." After more struggles, the bridle and saddle were forced on the buckskin, and Blinky cast him loose, still maintaining a grip on the bridle, however. "All aboard!" he said, with a grin in Rob's direction. Feeling anything but as confident as he looked, Rob boldly put his foot in the heavy wooden stirrup with its big leather tapadero covering, and swung into the saddle. Hardly had he touched it when a strange thing happened. The boy felt as if an explosion must have occurred directly beneath him, and he was being shot skyward by it. The next instant the sensation changed, and as the broncho struck the hard ground of the corral, all four legs as stiff as drum sticks, Rob felt as if every bone in his body was in process of dislocation. "Stick to her, boy! Yow-ee-ee!" Blinky, roaring with laughter, shouted the advice. At this moment, too, just when Rob would much rather not have had any spectators about, several cow-punchers appeared as if by magic, and perching themselves on the corral rails, settled down to enjoy the spectacle. "Whoop!" they yelled. "That's a regular steamboat bucker." "Go on, boy! Grip her!" "Don't go to leather!" These and a hundred other excited exclamations were borne dimly to Rob's ears as the buckskin threshed about, trying in vain to rid itself of the troublesome boy. How he did it Rob never knew, but he stuck like a cockle-burr, and that without "going to leather," or, in other words, gripping any part of the saddle. He must have been a born rider to stand the antics of the maddened cayuse as he did. One second the little brute, tiring of bucking, would rear backward as if it must overbalance, and the next it would be fairly standing on its head. Once it lay down and tried to roll over, but the high horn of the saddle prevented this. As it collapsed to the ground, Rob skillfully slipped off, and when it struggled upon its feet again, the boy was standing over it and was as firmly in his seat as ever by the time the animal was ready for a new performance. All at once the buckskin made a mad rush for the corral fence. It was five feet in height, and Rob turned sick as he faced what seemed inevitable disaster. The yells of the cowboys, however, made him determined to stick it out. "I've stood it all this time. I'll stay with it if it kills me," thought the boy. The next instant the little broncho rose at the fence. The bars rose in front like an impassable wall. "He'll never make it," was the thought that flashed through Rob's head. But even as the fear of a direful crash flashed through his mind, the active little animal he bestrode had cleared the barrier, its hind hoofs just splintering the upper edge of the top rail. The buckskin alighted on the other side, trembling and sweating, with expanded nostrils and heaving flanks, but its ears were no longer back, nor did its eyes show white. The broncho seemed to have realized that it had played its trump card and lost. "Get up!" cried Rob, kicking the shivering pony in the sides. Meekly the little buckskin obeyed the rein, and Rob rode it back toward the corral gate--a conquered animal. From that time on the buckskin owned Rob as its master, and a better animal never bore saddle. As the cow-punchers burst into a loud chorus of admiring yells, wrung from them by the plucky exhibition, Rob took off his hat and waved it three times round his head. For the life of him, he could not have abstained from this little bit of braggadocio. "Yip-ee!" he yelled. "Good for you!" shouted Harry. "It was a mean trick of Blinky, and I was going to get him in a lot of trouble for it, but--all's well that ends well." "Say, you were fooling all of us. You must have been out with a Wild West show," exclaimed Blinky admiringly, as Rob patted the wet shoulder of the conquered buckskin. "I'm glad I could stick on," declared Rob modestly. "Stick on!" echoed another cow-puncher. "Why, you're a broncho buster, boy!" "Well, I've had enough of it to last me for a long time," laughed Rob. Two other ponies were soon caught and saddled, and much to the delight of Tubby and Merritt, they found that the cow-puncher's love of fun had been worked off when Rob was given the buckskin, and that they were each provided with mounts that tried no such tricks as standing on their heads. "Now, then, come on," said Harry, when all were mounted. "We've got a big round to make. The first ranch we'll head for will be Tom Simmons's. He and his two brothers will join, I'm sure. After that we'll finish up the others and issue a call for a meeting." The remainder of the day was spent in the saddle, with a brief stop for a noonday dinner at the Simmons ranch. By the end of the day the Boy Scouts' list contained ten names, which were as follows: Tom, Jack and Bill Simmons, Eph and Sam Ingalls, Henry Randolph, Charley and Frank Price, Silas Lamb and Jeb Cotton. All the would-be scouts had been ordered to report, three days from the day of their signing on, at the Harkness ranch. In the meantime the boys wrote to Eastern headquarters for organization papers, which, as Rob and his companions were already so well known, they anticipated no difficulty in receiving without delay, which, indeed, proved to be the case. Rob had, meanwhile, received a letter from Hampton which reported the successful formation of another patrol in that village where the famous Eagles first saw the light. The interval between the call for the meeting and the meeting itself the boys put in in practicing riding and shooting. As they all three were familiar with the rifle and revolver, even that brief practice made them fairly expert with firearms and their riding improved every day. Mr. Harkness and Mr. Simmons had consented to act as Scout Masters, and were present at the first meeting of the organization. Rob, on account of his experience as leader of the Eagle Patrol, was voted in as leader, with Merritt and Harry as corporals. Tubby was appointed a sort of drill master and instructor to the new scouts. This done, they all dispersed, subject to immediate call. As the ranches of Mr. Harkness and his neighbors, though separated widely by actual distance, were each joined by telephone, it was decided that it would be an easy matter to assemble the scouts at a given rendezvous. The opportunity to test this came sooner than any of the boys expected. One afternoon, about a week after the formation meeting, during which interval Tubby had held two drill nights, a cow-puncher on a sweat-covered horse galloped into the corral. Slipping off his exhausted animal, he dashed at top speed toward the house. "The cattle in the far pasture have stampeded," he panted, bursting into the rancher's office, "and are headed for the Graveyard Cliffs!" "Boys, boys!" shouted Mr. Harkness, hastily springing up from his account books and jamming a sombrero on his head. "Here's a chance to show your boy scouts some action. Here, you, Blinky, saddle my horse and the boys' animals! Sharp work now! There's not a moment to lose! We must head them off!" CHAPTER VII. THE STAMPEDE AT THE FAR PASTURE. Such a scene of confusion, hurry and mad rushing about of men and horses as ensued, following the first shout of the alarm, the boys had never witnessed. Cow-punchers staggered about under the burden of heavy Mexican saddles. They tried to buckle on spurs and saddle and bridle their wild little horses all at the same time. But confused as the whole affair looked to an uninitiated spectator, there was system underlying it all. Each man knew what was required of him. At last all was ready. The last revolver was thrust into the last holster, and the last cinch was tightened round the belly of the last expostulating pony. Mr. Harkness, mounted on a powerful bay horse somewhat heavier than the others, rapidly explained to the punchers what had occurred. The cattle were stampeding on the far pasture. Their course led direct for the Graveyard Cliffs, a series of precipitous bluffs over which, in the past, many stampeding steers had fallen to their death. Fortunately, the steers had to take a round-about way, owing to various obstructions. The distance to be traversed by the men, cutting off every inch possible, was about five miles. It had to be covered in less than half an hour. No wonder the cow-punchers looked to their cinches and other harness details. Amid a wild yell from the throats of the score of cowboys who had been about the ranch when the summons was first given, the cavalcade swept forward. "Wow! this is riding with a vengeance," shouted Rob, above the roar of hoofs, in Harry's ear. "S-s-s-say!" sputtered Tubby, "I hope my horse doesn't stumble." Suddenly a voice close at hand struck in. It was one of the cow-punchers shouting to another. "Remember the last stampede, when Grizzly Sam was trampled?" "You bet I do. His pony's foot stuck in a gopher hole, and the whole stampede came lambasting on top of him." The boys began to look rather serious. Apparently they were off on a more dangerous errand than they had bargained for. It was too late to draw out now, however, and, anyhow, not one of them would, for this would have shown "the white feather." "Did you give the alarm to the rest of the boys?" asked Rob of Harry, after an interval of silence among the boys. "Yes. I only had time to call Simmons's place, but they'll get the others. Simmons's place is not far from the Graveyard Cliffs, and the boys will be there ahead of us, likely." "How about the others?" "They have to come from greater distances. They may not arrive till it's all over." It was impossible to see any of their surroundings in the thick cloud of dust. All about them, as far as the eye could penetrate the dense smother, were straining ponies and shouting cowboys. "How can we tell when we get to the place?" asked Tubby. "My father is riding up ahead," rejoined Harry; "that big bay of his can make two feet to a pony's one. He'll call a halt when we get there." In the meantime a rumor had been passed from mouth to mouth among the cow-punchers. Moquis had been seen near the far pasture the night before, and open accusations were made that the renegades had started the stampede so as to be able to make a feast off the dead cattle in case they swept over the cliffs. "Mr. Mayberry hasn't succeeded in rounding them up yet, then," said Rob. "No," rejoined Harry, "and I heard one of the punchers say yesterday that Indians for miles around are coming into the mountains. I guess they won't disperse till after the snake dance." Suddenly a wild yell from up in front caused them to halt. "Got there, I reckon," uttered one of the cowboys. As he spoke there was but one question in every mind. "Were they in time?" As the dust cloud settled, and they were able to make out their surroundings, the boys found that they had come to halt on a sort of plateau. Just beyond this was a sheer drop, as if a great hunk had been cut out of the ground. This drop--which was fully sixty feet deep,--formed the dreaded Graveyard Cliff, so called, although, as will be clear from our description, it was more properly a deep, narrow gulch. The distance across the yawning crack in the plateau--which was undoubtedly of volcanic origin--varied from a hundred feet or more to fifteen, and even less. A queerer place the boys had never seen. But they had little time to gaze about them. Blinky, who was one of the crowd of stampede arresters, gave a sudden shout as they came to a halt. "Hark!" From far off came a sound that, to the boys, resembled nothing so much as distant thunder. But unlike thunder, instead of ceasing, it grew steadily in volume. "Here they come!" shouted Mr. Harkness, as the advancing roar grew louder. The solid earth beneath the boys' feet seemed to shake as the stampede swept toward them. Suddenly, a mile or more off, a dark cloud grew and grew until it spread half across the blue sky, wiping it out. "They raise as much dust as a tornado," exclaimed Blinky. "Pesky critters! I'd like to get a shot at the Moquis what started them." But it was no time to exchange remarks. The face of each man in that little band was grave, and he appeared to be mustering every ounce of courage in his body for the struggle that was to come. To the boys, as to the men, the situation was clear enough. Across the plateau the stampeding cattle were thundering, headed straight for the Graveyard Cliffs. Behind them, like a mighty wall, rose the sheer face of a precipice where a bold peak of the range soared upward. Between this wall and the ominously named gorge was the little band of horsemen. They faced the problem of turning the stampede or being swept with it into the jaws of the deep, narrow gulch. Small wonder that the bravest of them felt his heart beat a little quicker as the cattle rushed on. Suddenly Mr. Harkness espied the boys. "You boys go back!" he shouted sharply. "I should never have let you come. This is too dangerous for you." "Why, dad, we'll be all right. Let us stay and see it out," protested Harry. "Go back at once, boy," said Mr. Harkness sternly. "You don't know the danger." There was no disobeying the stern command, and the boys, all of them with the exception of Tubby, regretting the necessity, turned their ponies away. The stout youth was inwardly much gratified at the idea of avoiding the stampede. "Beefsteak is all very fine," he said to himself, "but I like it inside, and not on top of me, at the bottom of a gulch." As the boys wheeled their mounts and separated from the main body of the cow-punchers, three other mounted figures swept toward them with wild yells. The newcomers were the three Simmons brothers, the recruits to the Boy Scouts. With them, and close behind, came Charley and Frank Price and Jeb Cotton. All had ridden post haste to the spot on receipt of the hastily 'phoned message from headquarters. Each boy gave the secret salute of the scouts as he drew rein, and awaited orders. A regular howl of disappointment went up when they learned that they had been ordered off "the firing line," so to speak. "It's a shame," growled Tom Simmons. "That's what," assented Jeb Cotton, trying to quiet his little calico pony, which was dancing about, scenting the excitement in the air. Indeed, all the animals seemed to have caught the infection, and were prancing about, almost unmanageable. Perhaps the increasing thunder of the hoofs of the advancing stampede had something to do with it. "Well, what are we to do?" demanded Frank Price. "Stay here and wait for a chance to help if we see it," said Rob. "Oh, pshaw! They're busy. They won't see us. Let's slip in while they're not looking," urged Bill Simmons. "The first duty of a Boy Scout is to obey orders," said Harry Harkness decisively. "It's mighty hard to sit here doing nothing, though," grumbled Frank Price. "That's what our soldiers had to do in many a battle," his brother Charley reminded him. "That's so. I guess we'll have to be patient." And now, under the direction of Mr. Harkness, the cattlemen spread out in a long line, so arranged as to be capable of sweeping across the vanguard of the cattle in a compact skirmish line rank. Each puncher had his gun ready for action, and at the word from Mr. Harkness they rode toward the approaching stampede at a quick lope. Up till now the stampede had not been visible. Only the signs of its approach were manifest. Suddenly, however, over the crest of a little rise, there swept into view an appalling spectacle. Hundreds of fear-crazed cattle, bellowing as they raced forward, and clashing their horns together with a sharp sound, formed the vanguard. Behind them came a huddled mass, goring and trampling each other in their terror. The boys' faces paled as they watched. "Yow-yow-yow-eee-ee-e!" The yells burst from the cattlemen's throats above the noise of the stampede. Bang! Bang! Bang! A score of revolver shots crackled as the line swept forward and rode at full gallop right across the faces of the leaders of the mad rush. It was terribly risky work. The slightest stumble would have meant death. At the head of his cow-punchers, like a general leading his forces, rode Mr. Harkness on his big bay. Clear across the front of the line the cow-punchers swept without appreciably diminishing the speed of the onrush. A second time they tried the daring tactics. This time they succeeded in checking the cattle a little, but only a bare two hundred yards remained between the leaders and the edge of the Graveyard. In this space galloped the cow-punchers. Could they stop the advance in time to save themselves from a terrible death? "Father! Father!" shouted Harry, in his painful excitement standing up in his stirrups. The boys felt a great sympathy for the rancher's son. If the cattle were not stopped in the next few minutes a terrible death seemed certain to overtake the brave man and his helpers. "Fire at 'em!" yelled Mr. Harkness suddenly. This was a desperate last resort. Hitherto, the cow-punchers had been firing in the air. Now, however, they leveled their revolvers at the oncoming herd. Bang! Bang! Bang! Several of the leaders crumpled up and fell to the ground, mortally wounded. In a second they were trampled under foot, but suddenly, after twenty or more had been thus slaughtered, the band began to waver. At last, with mad bellows, and amid frantic yells from the cowboys, their ranks broke and wavered. "Yip-yip-u-ee-ee!" The triumphant shrieks of the cowboys rang out as the disorganized herd split up. "Wow! They've turned 'em!" shouted Harry. "Hooray!" The next instant his shout of delight changed to a yell of dismay, and he turned his pony sharply. "Come on, Rob!" he cried. "We've got to get out of here!" "They're coming this way!" yelled Tubby, spurring his pony and galloping off at top speed, the others following him. As Rob's pony jumped forward, however, it stumbled and threw the boy headlong. He kept his hold of the reins, fortunately, and was up on its back in a trice. But the second's delay had been fatal. Sweeping toward the boy, from two points of the compass, were two sections of disorganized stampede. The cattle were trying, according to their instinct, to reunite. "I'm hemmed in," was Rob's thought. He switched rapidly round to a quarter where there seemed a chance of escape, but already it had been closed. The boy was on a sort of island. Behind him was the gorge, deep and terrible. In front of him on two sides, death was closing in on the wings of the wind. CHAPTER VIII. HEMMED IN BY THE HERD. There was little time to think, and hardly more for action. A more perfect trap of its kind than that in which Rob was caught could not have been devised by the utmost ingenuity. Shouts of alarm went up from the cow-punchers, and from the little group of Boy Scouts as they saw his danger. But not one of those horrified onlookers could do more than sit powerless. All about them, like waves shattered against a mighty rock, surged the broken stampede, with wild cattle rushing hither and thither. They themselves were, in fact, by no means out of danger. With an angry bellow, the leader of the advancing left flank of cattle lowered his head. His mighty horns glistened like sharpened sabres. Straight at the boy he rushed, while his companions followed his example. An involuntary groan burst from the watchers. It seemed as if Rob's doom was sealed. But suddenly something happened that they still talk about in that part of the country. Quick as thought the boy decided that there was only one course open to him. Advance he could not. Retreat, on the other hand, seemed barred by the gulch. Yet on the gulch side of the beleaguered boy lay the only path. Foolhardy as the attempt appeared, Rob decided that the risk must be taken. A shout burst from the lips of the powerless onlookers as they realized what the boy meant to do. Leap the gulch on his pony! A run, or take-off, of some fifty feet lay between Rob and the dark crack in the earth that was the gulch. Short as was the distance, from what Rob knew of the active little beast he bestrode, he believed he could do it. He raised his heavy quirt above the pony's trembling flanks. Crack! The lash descended, cutting a broad wale on the buckskin's back. He gave a squeal of rage and bounded forward. "Yip-yip!" yelled Rob. Out of the peril of the situation a spirit of recklessness seemed to have descended upon him. He could have shouted aloud as he felt the active bounds of the cayuse. One hurried glance at the awful gap before him gave the boy a rough estimate of its width--ten feet or more. A tremendous leap for a pony. But it must be done. "Yip-yip," yelled Rob once more, as he dug his spurs in deep, and the maddened pony gave one tremendous bound that brought it right to the edge of the pit. [Illustration: Then the brave buckskin gathered its limbs for the leap.] For one sickening instant it paused, and Rob felt the chill fear of death sweep over him. Then the brave buckskin gathered its limbs for the leap. Like steel springs its tough muscles rebounded, and the yelling, shrieking cow-punchers saw a buckskin body, surmounted by a cheering boy, give a great leap upward and--alight safe on the farther side of the chasm. Cheer after cheer went up, while Rob waved his hat exultantly and yelled back at his friends. Nothing like that leap for life had ever been witnessed before. The amazed cattle, cheated of their prey, wavered, and the leaders tried in vain to check themselves. Desperately they dug their forefeet into the edge of the gulch, but the treacherous lip of the chasm gave under their weight, and with a roar and rattle, a cloud of dust and a despairing bellow, four of them shot over the edge and vanished. Rob could not repress a shudder as he patted his buckskin, and realized that but for the little steed's noble effort he might have shared the fate of the dumb brutes. Before long the cow-punchers had the rest of the steers rounded up, and ready to be driven back to the Far Pasture. Many were the threats breathed against the Moquis as they did so. The cattle, as is the nature of these half-wild brutes, having had their run out, seemed inclined to collapse from fatigue. As long as unreasoning terror held sway among them they had galloped tirelessly, but now their legs shook under them and they quivered and drooped pitifully. But the cattlemen showed them no mercy. With loud yells and popping of revolvers and cracking of quirts, they rode round them, getting them together into a compact mass. While all this was going on, Rob had ridden his buckskin along the edge of the gulch. Some two miles below the place where his leap had been made, he found a spot which seemed favorable for crossing. The pony slid down one bank on its haunches and clambered up the other like a cat. As the boy traversed the bottom of the Graveyard, he noticed a peculiarly offensive odor. The smell which offended his nostrils, he found, sprang from the carcasses of the cattle which had at various times fallen into the gulch, above where he was crossing. "Wonder why they don't put up a fence here," thought the boy. He did not learn till afterward that that very thing had been done, but every time a freshet occurred in the mountains a part of the gulch caved away, carrying with it the fence and all. It had thus grown to be less of an expense to the ranchmen to lose a few cattle every season than to erect new fences constantly. By the time Rob rejoined his friends, the cattle were standing ready for the drive back to their pastures. A more forlorn looking lot of beasts could not have been imagined. "They know they done wrong," volunteered Blinky, gazing at the dejected herd. "Well done, my boy," exclaimed Mr. Harkness, as Rob rode up. "I never saw a finer bit of horsemanship. But let us hope that such a resource will never again be necessary." "I hope so, too, Mr. Harkness," said Rob. "I tell you I was scared blue for a minute or two. If it hadn't been for this gritty little cayuse here, I'd never have done it." "So I did you a good turn, after all, when I roped up that four-legged bit of dynamite, thinking to play you a fine joke," said Blinky. "You did," laughed Rob, "and I thank you for it." "Say, Rob," put in Tubby plaintively, after the other boys had got through congratulating Rob, and wringing his hand till, as he said, it felt like a broken pump handle. "Say, Rob, don't ever do anything like that again, will you?" "Not likely to, Tubby--but why so earnest?" "Well, you know I've got a weak heart, and----" "A good digestion," laughed Mr. Harkness; "and speaking of digestions, reminds me that we haven't had any dinner." "As I was just about to observe," put in Tubby, in so comical a tone that they all had to burst out laughing, at which the stout youth put on an air of innocence and rode apart. "But," went on Mr. Harkness, "the 'chuck-wagon' I sent out to the Far Pasture last night should still be there. It isn't more than five miles. If you boys think you can hold out we can ride over there, and we can have a real chuck-wagon luncheon. How will that suit you?" "Down to the ground," said Rob. "From the ground up," chimed in Tubby, who had recovered from his assumed fit of the sulks, at the mention of the immediate prospect of a meal. "It'll be great," was Merritt's contribution to the general chorus of approval. "Very well, then. Blinky, you ride on ahead and tell Soapy Sam to cook us up a fine feed." "With beans, sir?" asked Blinky in an interested tone. "Of course. And if he has any T bone steaks, tell him we want those, too." "Say, did you hear the name of that cook?" asked Tubby, edging his pony up to Merritt's, as the cow-puncher spurred off on his errand. "Yes--Soapy Sam; what of it?" "Oh, I thought it was Soupy Sam, that's all," muttered Tubby. "Say, is that meant for a joke? If so, where is the chart that goes with it?" But Tubby had loped off to join the cow-punchers, who with yells and loud outcries were getting the steers in motion. Presently the cloud of dust moved forward. After traversing some rough country a yell announced that the cabins and the chuck-wagon of the Far Pasture were in sight. The cow-punchers immediately abandoned the tired cattle, leaving them to feed on the range, and swept down on the camp like a swarm of locusts. Soapy Sam, his sleeves rolled up and a big apron about his waist, flourished a spoon at them as they began chanting in a kind of monotonous chorus: "Chick-chock-we-want Chuck! Chuck-chuck we want chuck! Cook-ee! Cook-ee! Cook-ee!" What's the luck? As they chanted they rode round and round the cook, whose fires and pots were all on the ground. In a huge iron kettle behind him, simmered that staple of the cow-puncher, beans. The atmosphere was redolent with those sweetest of aromas to the hungry man or boy, sizzling hot steaks and strong coffee. Soapy Sam had fairly outdone himself since Blinky had ridden in with news that the boss and some guests were on the way. "Now you go way back and sit down, you ill-mannered steer-steering bunch of cattle-teasers," bellowed Soapy Sam indignantly, at the singing punchers. "If you don't, you won't get a thing to eat." "Oh, cook-ee!" howled the cowboys. "Oh, I mean it, not a mother's son of you," yelled Soapy Sam. "All you fellows think about is eating and drinking, and then smoking and swopping lies." "How about work, cook-ee?" yelled some one. "Work!" sputtered the cook with biting sarcasm. "Why, if work 'ud come up to you and say 'Hello, Bill!' you'd say, 'Sir, I don't know you.'" Further exchange of ranch pleasantries was put a stop to at this moment by the arrival of Mr. Harkness and the boys, for the Simmons boys and the other Boy Scouts had been included in his invitation. The cowboys dispersed at once, riding over toward the huts, where they unsaddled their ponies and turned them into a rough corral. Water from a spring was dipped into tin basins, and a hasty toilet was made. By the time this was finished, Soapy Sam announced dinner by beating loudly on the bottom of a tin pan with a spoon. "Grub!" yelled the cowboys. "Come and get it," rejoined Sam in the time-honored formula. Within ten minutes everybody was seated, and in the lap of each member of the party was a tin plate, piled high with juicy steak, fried potatoes, and a generous portion of beans of Soapy Sam's own peculiar devising. Handy at each man's or boy's right was a steaming cup of coffee. But milk there was none, as Tubby soon found out when he plaintively asked for some of that fluid. "Maybe there's a tin cow in the wagon," said Soapy Sam; "I'll see." "A 'tin cow'," repeated Tubby wonderingly; "whatever is that?" A perfect howl of merriment greeted the fat boy's query. "I guess its first cousin to a can of condensed milk," smiled Mr. Harkness. "But if you'll take my advice, you'll drink your coffee straight, in the regular range way." And so the meal went merrily forward, in the shadow of the frowning, rugged peaks of the Santa Catapinas. In after days, the Boy Scouts were destined to eat in many strange places and by many "strange camp fires," but they never forgot that chuck-wagon luncheon, eaten under the cloudless Arizona sky on the open range. CHAPTER IX. THE HOME OF A VANISHED RACE. The meal disposed of, the cow-punchers and the boys, all of whom were pretty well tired out by their exertions of the morning, lounged about a while. Then preparations for the return to the ranch began. A guard was to be left over the cattle, however, as they were still restless and ill at ease, and the boys begged hard to be allowed to form a part of it. At first Mr. Harkness would not hear of it. "Why, dad, the boys are out here to get experience," protested Harry, "and what better training could they have in ranch life than by standing a night watch over restive cattle?" "That's all very well," rejoined his father, "but you must remember that I am in a measure responsible for the safety of these young men, and you boys have, up to date, displayed quite a capacity for getting into mischief." "And getting out of it again," put in the irrepressible Tubby. And the victory was won, as many another victory has been, by a burst of laughter. Soon after, the boys loped to the top of a nearby knoll, and waved good-by to the ranch-bound party. Then they turned their ponies and cantered back to the cow-punchers' huts at a smart pace. Besides the boys, the three Simmons brothers, Frank and Charlie Price and Jeb Cotton were to share the Scouts' watch, Mr. Harkness having promised to 'phone to their various homes explaining their absences. In charge of the four punchers was Blinky, who had also been given orders by Mr. Harkness to keep the boys out of mischief. The cattle, however, grew so restive during the afternoon that the attention of the punchers was fully occupied in "riding them." It seemed to soothe the bovines to have their guardians constantly near them. "The brutes smell Injuns, just as sure as my name is Blinky Small," declared Blinky emphatically. The boys, after riding a few rounds with the punchers, began to find this occupation growing monotonous, and looked about for some other means of diversion. "I know," shouted Tubby suddenly. "Tubby's got an idea," laughed Merritt. "Tell him to hold it. He may never get another," jeered Rob. "Let's play ball," went on the stout youth, absolutely unperturbed by the laughter Rob's comment aroused. "Fine," came sarcastically from one of the boys. "Where's the bat?" "Where's the ball?" "Where are the mitts?" "Oh, where's the earth?" interrupted Tubby impatiently, stemming the tide of objections. "Say, can't you fellows play ball without a big league collection of stuff?" "Well, here's a bit of board I can trim down a bit and make a bat of," said Jeb Cotton. "Good for you, Jeb. You are a young man of resource and ingenuity. You'll make a good scout. How's this for a ball?" The stout youth held up a rounded bowlder, which must have weighed at least four pounds. "Oh, rats! Say, what do you want to do--brain us?" "Couldn't," responded Tubby enigmatically. "Couldn't what?" "Brain you." "Why?" "Haven't got any." "Any what?" "B-r-a-i-n-s, brains!" yelled Tubby, retreating to a safe distance. "I have it!" exclaimed Rob suddenly. "What, the pip?" "No, an idea," responded the boy recklessly, forgetting his own comments on Tubby's inspiration. "Ho! ho! ho!" howled the stout youth delightedly. "Step up, ladies and gentlemen, and see the eighth--or ninth wonder of the world--Rob Blake has an idea. Step up lively now, before the little creature gets away." "We can borrow some potatoes from Soapy Sam," said Rob, when some of the laughter at his expense had subsided. "Borrow them?" exclaimed Bill Simmons. "I guess it will mean giving them. What I couldn't do to a potato with this bat----" He flourished the piece of lumber Jeb Cotton had shaped, as he spoke. However, Rob's suggestion was tried; but even as Bill Simmons had prophesied, the borrowed potatoes did not prove a success as baseballs. One after another, they were scattered into tiny fragments, and Soapy Sam, on being requisitioned for more, threatened to evict the entire party from his premises. "Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Tubby petulantly. "What'll we do?" "Go swimming," laughed Merritt. "I have it," exclaimed Rob suddenly. "He's got it again--a relapse of ideas," grinned Tubby. "What's the matter with climbing that cliff and exploring those old cave dwellings?" "Great!" was the unanimous verdict. Privately, one or two of the boys who had heard the ghost legend, were not quite as eager as they seemed to be, to traverse the mysterious passages and tomb-like dwellings of a vanished race, but they didn't say so. "It's about three hours to sundown. We'll have to shake a leg to get up there and back," said Frank Price. Acting on this advice, no time was lost in making a start. "Have we all got revolvers?" asked Rob suddenly. "Sure," responded Jeb Cotton. "I brought mine when I heard that it was a stampede we were called out on." The others had done likewise. "Say," put in Tubby gloomily, as they set out, "what's the good of taking guns with us?" "Why, you never know what you'll run into in a cave," said Bill Simmons. "Huh, I never heard of guns being any good against ghosts," chillily remarked the fat youth. "Well, you're a nice cheerful soul, you are," burst out Rob. "Are you scared?" "Oh, no; I'm not. Go ahead and rout your ghosts out. Stir 'em up, and make 'em jump through the hoops and back again. Fine!" exploded Tubby. "Whatever is the matter with him?" asked Merritt, looking about for an answer. "That idea he had a while back has gone to his head," laughed Harry. And such was the general opinion. As has been said, the cliff, at the summit of which were the cave dwellings, lay about half a mile back from the huts of the Far Pasture cow-punchers. The cliff was in itself a remarkable formation. It towered sheer up and down like the wall of a house. It was just as if a giant cheese-knife had shaved a neat slab off the face of the mountain--a slab some four hundred or more feet in height, and a mile or more wide at the base. From where the boys were, however, they could perceive an old cattle trail winding up the mountainside, off beyond one edge of the smooth cliff. It traced its way among the scrub growth and stunted trees almost--so far as they could judge--to a point near the summit, and afforded an easy way of reaching the top of the cliff. An hour or more of tough climbing brought them to the top of the mountain--or high hill--which formed a sort of plateau. No time was lost in making for the edge of the cliff, in the face of which, some twenty feet or more from the top, were bored the entrances to the cave-dwellers' mysterious homes. "Well," said Tubby triumphantly, as he gazed over the dizzy precipice "no cave man's home for us." It looked as if the stout youth was right. A narrow ledge, forming a sort of pathway against the naked side of the cliff, ran below the cave dwellings as a shelf is seen to extend sometimes below a row of pigeon holes. But from the summit of the cliff to the ledge was, as has been said, all of twenty feet, and there seemed to be no way of bridging the distance. "Those cave men must have been way ahead of the times," mused Tubby. "How do you make that out?" inquired Jack Simmons, Bill's younger brother. "Why, they must have had air ships. They couldn't have rung their front door bells any other way." "Nonsense they must have had some way of getting down," interposed Rob, who was looking about carefully--"Hooray, fellows! I've got it," he exclaimed suddenly, "look!" He pushed aside a clump of brush and exposed to view a flight of steps cut in the face of the rock. So filled with dust were they, however, that they had not been visible to any but the sharp eyes of the Boy Scout leader. "What are you going to do?" asked Merritt, as Rob made for the lip of the cliff. "Going down there, of course," rejoined Rob. Merritt, as he gazed over the brink and viewed the sheer drop, down which one false step would have sent its maker plunging like a loosened stone, was about to utter a warning. He checked himself, however, and, with the rest, eagerly watched Rob, as the boy made his way down the precipitous steps, or rather niches, cut in the face of the rock. It was breath-catching work. The descending boy was compelled to cling to the surface of the cliff like a fly to a window-pane. Between him and the ground, four hundred feet under his shoe soles, nothing interposed but the narrow ledge of rock outside the cliff-dwellers' "front doors." Rob made the descent in safety, and presently stood in triumph on the ledge. One after another, the Boy Scouts of the Range Patrol followed him, and presently they all stood side by side on the narrow shelf. "Say, I hope the underpinnings of this don't give way," said Tubby, as he joined them, his round cheeks even ruddier than usual from the exertion of his climb. "You ought to have been an undertaker, Tubby," exclaimed Merritt. "All you can think of is death and disaster and ghosts." "Well, if you feel so good about it, you can have the first chance at going into one of those holes," parried Tubby. "Very well, I will," rejoined Merritt, flushing. He privately did not much relish the idea of being the first to enter those long-untrod passageways. They looked dark and mysterious. An oppressive silence, too, hung about the boys, and half-unconsciously they had dropped their voices to a whisper, as they stood on the threshold of a civilization long passed to ashes. "Go ahead," said Rob, coming to Merritt's side. Together the two boys, followed by the remainder of the newly recruited Boy Scouts, entered the rocky portal of the first of the dwellings. A faint, musty smell puffed out in their faces. "Smells like grandpa's cellar in the country," remarked Tubby, sniffing it. "Where you used to swipe milk and apples, I suppose," laughed Merritt. Hollow echoes of his merriment went gurgling off down the dark passage, almost as if distant voices had taken them up and were repeating the joke over and over, till it died away in a tiny tinkle of a laugh, like the ghost of a baby's whisper. "Ugh, I guess I won't laugh again," remarked Merritt. "Say, Rob, how about a light?" asked Jeb Cotton suddenly. "I've got a bit of candle here in my pocket," rejoined Rob. "I put it there the other night when Harry was developing some pictures. By the way, I wish you'd brought your camera, Harry." "So do I. This would make a dandy flashlight in here." The boys gazed about them admiringly, as Rob struck a match from his waterproof match-safe and lit the candle. They had penetrated fully a hundred feet into the cliff by this time, and the walls about them were marked with curious paintings and carvings, the work of the long-vanished cave-dwellers. Under their feet was a thick, choking dust, that entered their eyes, ears and noses as they breathed, almost suffocating them. But not one of them was inclined to notice this, when there was so much to take up his attention elsewhere. "I wonder what the cave-dwellers ate----" began Tubby, when his words were fairly taken out of his mouth by a startling occurrence. A sudden puff of wind, chill as the breath of a tomb, blew toward them down the tunnel, and at the same instant Rob's candle was blown out. It was all the boys could do to keep from shouting aloud with alarm as they stood plunged into sudden blackness. The next instant there came an appalling sound, an onrush like the voice of a hundred waterfalls. The wind puffed in their faces in sharp blasts, and something swept by them in the darkness with a strange, muffled shriek. CHAPTER X. THE GHOST OF THE CAVE DWELLING. "L-l-let's get out of here--_quick_!" Tubby gasped the exclamation, as with a resounding rush the mysterious sounds swept by. "Ouch, somebody hit me in the face!" howled Jeb Cotton suddenly. "Me, too!" yelled Bill Simmons. "Say, fellows," shouted Rob suddenly, as the noise lessened, "be quiet, will you, till I light a candle. I've an idea what that noise was, and it was nothing to get scared at." "Oh, it wasn't, eh?" protested Tubby angrily. "Well, something hit me a bang on the nose." "And me on the ear," chimed in Jeb Cotton. "And me----" Bill Simmons was beginning, when Rob checked him. "Let up a minute, will you, and give me a chance? All that racket was caused by nothing more than a lot of old bats." "Cats, you mean, or flying rats," said Tubby scornfully. "No, bats. Look here. I knocked down one." Rob held his candle high above his head, and the astonished boys saw lying under a projecting bit of rock one of the leathern-winged cave-dwellers. "Huh," remarked Tubby, "and I thought it was ghosts. The ghost of the cliff. The one the cow-puncher said he saw." "I guess that ghost has leather wings and a furry body, if the truth were known," laughed Rob, as he flung the bat he had knocked down into the air, and the creature flapped heavily off toward the cave mouth. "Yes, ghosts are----" began Merritt, when he broke off suddenly. His mouth opened to its fullest extent, and his eyes grew as round as two big marbles. "Great hookey--what's that?" His frightened expression was mirrored on the rest of the countenances in the candle-lit circle, as a strange sound was borne to the ears of the Boy Scouts. "It's footsteps," gasped Jeb Cotton. "Coming this way, too," stuttered Tubby, edging back. "Nonsense," said Rob sharply, but nevertheless loosening his revolver in its holster. "It's the wind or something." "The funniest wind I ever heard," interrupted Tubby scornfully. "It's got feet--hark!" Nearer and nearer came the mysterious sound. They could now hear it distinctly--a soft "phut-phut" on the dusty floor of the passage. "Wow-oo, I see two eyes!" yelled Tubby, suddenly taking to his heels. His toe caught on a hidden rock, and he fell headlong in the choking dust. Scarcely less startled than the fat boy was Rob, as he made out, glaring at them from beyond the friendly circle of light, two big green points of fire. "Who's there?" he cried sharply. There was no answer, but the two green globes never moved. "Speak, or I'll fire!" cried the boy. "A-choo-oo-o--o-o-o-o-o!" The tense silence was shattered by a loud sneeze from Tubby, whose nostrils had become filled with the irritating dust. At the same instant an unearthly howl rang through the rocky corridors--a cry so terrible that it set Rob's heart to beating fiercely. He pulled the trigger more by instinct than anything else, and six spurts of flame leaped from the barrel of his automatic. With a howl more ear-piercing than the first, the points of fire vanished, and there was the sound of a heavy body falling. "Dead! whatever it is," was Rob's thought, but nevertheless he proceeded cautiously. It was well that he did so, for as he held his candle aloft, the huge, dun-colored body, which lay on the ground directly in front of him, made a convulsive spring. Rob, on the alert as he was, leaped back, and avoided it by a hair's breadth. "A mountain lion!" cried Harry. "That's what, and a whumper, too," exclaimed Merritt. "I guess we've laid the ghost all right. In the moonlight a light-colored creature like this would look white against the cliff face." "I wonder if that last sneeze of mine killed it?" remarked Tubby, who had leisurely sauntered up. There was now no doubt that the great tawny creature was dead. Its final spring must have been a purely convulsive act, for Rob's bullets had pierced its skull in three places. "Say, fellows," exclaimed Rob suddenly, "the fact that this brute was in here proves a mighty interesting fact." "And that is, that it's dead." "Please be quiet for two consecutive minutes, Tubby, if you can do it without injuring yourself. It means that there is another entrance to this place somewhere." "How do you make that out?" asked Jeb Cotton. "By applying a little scout lore. There are no tracks at the mouth of the cave, yet this lion is fat and well-fed, so that it must get its food outside somewhere. Therefore, there must be another entrance to the cave." "Quod erat demonstrandum," quoth Tubby learnedly. "Which is all the Euclid you know," teased Merritt. "Well," asked Rob, while Harry Harkness skillfully skinned the lion, "shall we go on or turn back?" "We'll go on!" shouted everybody. "If you guarantee no more scares," amended Tubby. With the tawny pelt slung over Harry's broad shoulder, the little party therefore pressed on into the darkness. "We'll have to hurry," said Rob suddenly, regarding his candle, of which not much was left. "How far do you guess it is from the entrance?" questioned Harry. "I've no idea," was Rob's rejoinder. "I half believe now we were wrong to try to find a way out this way." He said this in a low voice, so as not to alarm the others, who were behind the leaders. It did indeed begin to look as if the young explorers had placed themselves in a predicament. Presently, however, the air began to grow fresher, and, uttering a cheer at this sign that they were near to daylight, the lads rushed forward. Still cheering, they emerged into a place where the passage broadened, and in another moment would have been out of the farther end of the tunnel but for an unexpected happening that occurred at that moment. Rob, who had been slightly in advance, gave the first warning of the new alarm. As the welcome daylight poured upon his face, and he gazed into a sort of cup-like valley beyond the passage mouth, he heard a sudden "z-i-ip!" past his ear, like the whizzing of a locust. The next instant fragments of rock scattered about his head and he heard a sharp report somewhere outside. Like a flash, the boy threw himself flat on his stomach and wriggled back into the tunnel. "They're firing at us!" cried Tubby. "Yes, but who?" demanded Merritt. "That's the question," was Rob's rejoinder. "I guess it must be Indians, but then, again, it may be hunters, who, having seen something move, fired. I'm going to try to find out." "Oh, Rob, be careful," begged Merritt. "That's all right. Here, Bill, lend me that long pole you've got." Bill Simmons obediently handed over a long branch he had broken off to use as a guiding staff, before they entered the dark passageway. Rob pulled off his sombrero and stuck it on the pole. Then he cautiously poked it out of the rocky portal. "Bang!" Rob drew in the hat and examined it. "Phew!" gasped Tubby. "That's a fine way to ventilate a fellow's lid." A bullet had bored a hole right through the soft gray crown. "Guess that's Indians, all right," said Harry; "nobody else would be able to shoot like that." "It is Indians," announced Rob. "I saw one dodge behind some brush when I looked out." "Well, what are we going to do?" gasped Charley, the younger of the Price brothers, a lad of about fourteen. His face grew long, and he began to whimper. "Hey, hush up, there," admonished Tubby. "Boy Scouts don't cry when they get in a difficulty; they sit down and try to figure some way out of it." "And, in this case, that is easy," said Rob. "Huh?" "I said it is easy. All we've got to do is to go back again." "What, without the candle? Make our way through that dark place?" "Of course. That is, if you don't want to get drilled full of holes by those Indian bullets." "But supposing they follow us?" "We'll have to take our chances on that," rejoined Rob. "Well, you're a cool hand, I must say. You calmly propose that we shall walk back through a dark tunnel, with Heaven knows how many Indians at our heels?" "It's all we can do, isn't it?" "Um-m-well, I suppose so. Come on, then, if we've got to do it, the sooner we start the better." "Wait one minute," said Rob, and, stooping down, he pulled up some dry brush that grew near the cave mouth. He piled this in a heap and set fire to it. "Whatever are you doing that for?" asked Tubby. "I know," said Jeb Cotton, "so that the Indians, or whoever it is firing at us, will see it and think we are still there." Rob nodded approvingly. "That's it," he said, and plunged off into the blackness of the tunnel. He led the others through it at a rapid pace, but they did not travel so fast that they beat the daylight, however, for when they emerged at the other end it was dark, and the stars were shining above them. Far below they could see little flickering points of fire, where the cow-punchers were keeping watch. "Wish we were down there," muttered Tubby, as they all emerged on the ledge. "I'm hungry." "So am I," agreed Rob, "and the quicker we get down the mountain the quicker we'll get some hot supper." As he spoke, from the mouth of the tunnel, which acted as a sort of gigantic speaking-tube, there came what seemed to be the hollow echo of a shout. "The Indians!" gasped Rob; "they're after us! Up the steps, everybody, quick!" A rush for the rough stone steps followed, and so fast did the boys press forward that Rob had to warn them of the danger of speed. "If you slipped you'd be over the edge," he said. It was enough. The rush moderated. The thought of slipping off into black space was enough to alarm the stoutest hearts among them. Tubby was the last up but Rob, who remained behind with drawn revolver. He had nerved himself to fire at the first Indian head that showed out of the tunnel. "Come on, up with you," Rob urged, as the fat boy placed his foot on the rough flight hewn in the sheer face of the cliff. "All right, Rob," rejoined the stout youth, scrambling upward. "I'll be up before----" He broke off short, with a terrible cry that rang out far into the night. Rob, speechless with horror, saw the stout youth's feet slip from under him, and his hands clutch unavailingly at the smooth face of the cliff. The next instant--for the whole thing happened in the wink of an instantaneous photographic shutter--Tubby was gone. With a dreadful sinking of his heart, Rob stretched far over the edge of the ledge, which hung like some flying thing, between heaven and earth. Below him was utter blackness. CHAPTER XI. CAPTURED BY MOQUIS. Too frightened to utter a sound, the others, who by this time had reached the summit of the cliff, gazed over into the inky depths beneath them. It was Merritt who first found his voice. "Rob, oh, Rob! What has happened?" "Don't ask me yet," gasped the boy below him, and, throwing himself flat on the narrow shelf, he peered over into the black void. "Tubby, Tubby!" he called softly. "Gee, that was a drop, all right!" came up a voice from below him. The astonished Rob almost fell over the edge of the ledge himself in his excitement. "Oh, Tubby, is that really you?" "I guess so," came the voice below, "but I wish you fellows would hurry up and get me out of this; I'm hungry." "Gracious!" thought Rob; "fancy thinking of hunger in such a position as he is in." "I'm clinging to a tree," came up Tubby's voice. "I grabbed it as I was falling. It's only a very little tree, though, and I don't just know how long it'll bear me." "Get in as close to the roots of it as you can," breathed Rob, hardly daring to speak above a whisper for fear of dislodging his chum by the mere vibration of his voice. "All right," said Tubby, and Rob could hear him cautiously making his way along his slender aerial perch. Rob turned his face upward and hailed his corporal. "Say, Merritt," he cried, "take the fellows, and get back to camp as quick as your legs will carry you, and then get back up here again. Bring ponies and ropes with you--all you can get of them, and maybe Blinky and some of the men had better come." "All right, Rob. But how about you?" "I'll wait here. Hurry back, now." "We will," and an instant later Rob was alone, and his companions were making full speed to the camp. "How are you making out, Tubby?" called down Rob in a low tone. "All right. But my legs are cramped. Gee! I was lucky to strike this tree." "You bet you were. I noticed a few small ones clinging to the rocks as we peeped over, but I didn't think they'd ever be the means of saving a life." "Don't holler till we're out of the wood. It's bad luck." "Well, they ought to be back within an hour with the ropes. I guess they can get ponies up that trail." "I hope so," groaned Tubby. "I don't think I can hold out much longer." "Good gracious!" gasped Rob, "is the tree beginning to give?" "No, without grub, I mean. I tried to eat some of the leaves off this tree, but they're bitter and don't taste just right." "What! You've been moving about?" "Sure. I've got to have something to do." The very idea of any one's stretching their limbs in such a position as the fat boy's, almost made Rob's hair stand on end. "Tubby must have nerves of steel," he murmured, "or else not know the meaning of fear." Then he went on aloud: "For goodness' sake, don't move any more, Tubby. The slightest false move might send you off into space." "All right, I'll keep still," Tubby assured him, but in a free-and-easy tone. "Well, perhaps it's a good thing he isn't scared," thought Rob; "if he were, it would make the job of getting him up twice as difficult." For a long time he lay silent on the narrow ledge, so absorbed in the difficulties of the situation that he forgot everything. Even the recollection that there was a strong likelihood of the Indians pursuing them down the passage had entirely gone out of his mind--displaced by Tubby's accident. Suddenly the boy started up with a bound, which almost projected him over the ledge after Tubby. A hand had been placed on his shoulder. Before Rob could utter a sound another hand was placed over his mouth and he felt himself lifted from his feet. Peering down into his face, the startled boy could make out, in the faint starlight, half a dozen cruel countenances. How bitterly he blamed himself for being thus caught off his guard! The simplest precaution would have kept him safe, but he had allowed the soft-moccasined red men to slip up on him without placing the slightest difficulty in their path. If ever a boy felt foolish and angry, it was Rob, as his silent captors slid noiselessly as cats into the black mouth of the tunnel of the cave-dwellers. "I'm a fine scout to be caught napping like that," was his thought. But as the redskins bore him into the narrow portal, they were compelled to release one of his hands. Rob took advantage of this to break a shrub, in a way which he knew would indicate as plain as print to any Boy Scout who saw it which way he had been carried off. The next instant they were in the black tunnel. The Indians ran swiftly but noiselessly, bearing in their sinewy arms the powerless boy. Frightened Rob was not. His brain was too busy thinking up some plan of escape for that. His uppermost emotion was impatient anger at his folly. Even a loose rock, placed at the mouth of the passageway, would have been tripped over by the Indians, and thus have given him warning of their coming. Bitterly he blamed himself for his oversight. More bitter still were his thoughts, as his mind reverted to poor Tubby, hanging alone in space, without any means of knowing what had become of Rob, for the shelf, or ledge, on which the sudden drama of his taking off had been enacted, overhung the cliff face as an eyebrow does an eye. On and on traveled the Moquis, almost noiselessly pitter-pattering along the dusty floor of the passage. They skillfully avoided treading on the carcass of the skinned mountain lion, and it was not long before they emerged in the bowl-like valley in which Rob had seen the solitary marksman who had made a sieve of his hat. At the rocky portal the Moquis paused and grunted gutturally, and then started forward on a steady jog-trot once more. "Well, this is a luxurious way of riding," thought Rob, as he reposed in the sort of armchair the arms of the Indians formed, "if the circumstances were different, I wouldn't mind taking a long trip like this." It was so dark in the cup-like valley that the boy could see but little of the country. He only knew they were in the strange depression by noting how the dark walls upreared against the lighter hue of the star-sprinkled sky. Before long, however, his tireless kidnappers began to trot along over rising ground. For what seemed hours they traveled thus. Presently the boy became aware of a faint glare in the near distance. At the same time, the short, sharp yapping of a mongrel dog was borne to his ears. Before many moments had passed, they came in sight of several tepees, pitched under a grove of trees in a small, and seemingly inaccessible, cañon. The cook fires were lighted, and big pots hung over some of them. Children, squaws and dogs swarmed about, the curs yapping and snapping at each other. As the Indians who had captured the boy gave a shrill screech, the village literally boiled over with activity. From the tepees poured braves and squaws and more children. All rushed forward to meet the returning redskins. "Well, they seem glad to see us," thought Rob to himself; "wish I could say the same for myself. If only I knew how Tubby came out, I'd feel better." As he was borne into the circle of firelight, the boy was surrounded by a curious, chattering crowd, who pulled his clothes about, and poked him inquisitively. Suddenly, a tall Indian, his face hideously daubed with red, yellow and black, emerged with a stately stride from a tepee covered with rude pictures of hunts and battles. He regarded the boy with a piercing eye for a moment, and then, raising his arm, pointed to another tepee, and gave some sort of an order. Instantly Rob's arms were seized and pinioned by the Indians who had brought him from the cliff, and he was hustled over the ground and flung roughly into the tepee. "So that's their game, is it," gritted out Rob savagely, every drop of his fighting blood aroused by the cold-blooded ferocity of his manner of entrance into the patched and smoky tent. "Well," he went on, "there's no use getting mad, I suppose. Anyhow, it's a strange experience--captured by real Indians. That's more than any of the Boy Scouts at home can say, anyhow." No attempt had been made to bind him, and Rob therefore peeped out of the flap of his place of confinement to see what was going on about him. His experience of Indians had hitherto been confined to the Wild West show variety. He was deeply interested in the life of the tepee village, as he watched it busily moving about him. The savory smell of the Indians' supper, as they dispatched it, caused a strange sensation of emptiness about Rob's ribs, but no one came near him with food. "I'll be hanged if I'll ask them for it," grunted Rob to himself, "especially after the way they chucked me in here." When the meal was over, the braves pulled out their clay-bowled pipes and smoked stolidly. Not one threw even a glance at his tepee, and Rob began to think they must have forgotten him. He grew terribly thirsty, and not far from the camp there must be a brook, as he realized, by hearing the silvery tinkle, tinkle of its waters over the rocks. "Well, as no one will bring me a drink, I'll go and get one," thought the boy to himself, and he boldly threw back the flap of the tent and marched out. For an instant a wild hope flashed across him that he could escape. No attempt was made by any member of the smoking circle to check him, and the boy reached the bank of the stream without the slightest interference being opposed to his movements. "I'll try it," thought Rob. "I believe they've forgotten me." He placed his foot on a rock and was about to spring to the farther bank of the little creek, when a sharp voice behind him checked him abruptly: "White boy, come back!" The words came in the guttural, grunting tone that was unmistakably Indian. Rob wheeled, and found himself looking into the muzzle of a gleaming rifle-barrel. CHAPTER XII. TUBBY'S PERIL. "That's queer; I don't see a sign of him." Merritt Crawford, on the return of the Boy Scouts with ropes and help, peered about the ledge for a trace of his leader, but in vain. "He can't have gone over, too." It was Blinky who suggested this alarming possibility. "Don't suggest such a thing," protested Merritt. "Hullo, Tubby!--below there--are you all right?" "Fine and dandy, but snake down a rope as soon as you can, will you, and you might tie a sandwich on it, if you don't mind." "You can have your sandwich when we get you up," promised Merritt, as the others, despite their worry over Rob's disappearance, broke into a loud laugh at Tubby's unconcerned manner. "Come on, now, and lend a hand with the ropes," ordered Blinky, who had brought several lariats up on his pony, and was busily engaged in tying them together so as to form a long lifeline. Tubby had not yet been informed of Rob's disappearance, as it was feared that it might unnerve him. A fresh difficulty now presented itself. On the narrow ledge there was not sufficient room for the holders of the rope to brace themselves. To haul up the stout youth, therefore, it was necessary to return to the summit of the cliff. This was quickly done, but you may be sure that great caution was exercised in mounting the steps cut in the rock face. The fate of Tubby was fresh in their minds, even without the reminder that he was still clinging to his uncertain support, so far below them. Blinky began looking about for a suitable tree, around which to take a turn of the rope, as soon as they reached the summit. One was found about fifteen feet back from the lip of the precipice. "Now, then," ordered the cow-puncher, as he tied a big loop in one end of his long line, "we'll see if this will reach." He dropped it over the edge of the cliff and dangled it about so that it rattled against the rock. This was in order that the fat boy could hear it and indicate in which direction he wished it swung. "Is it near you, now, Tubby?" shouted Blinky, peering down into the darkness and tentatively swinging the rope. "A little more to the right," came up the stout boy's voice, as steady as if he was asking for another helping of ice cream. "That boy's grit clear through, even if he does like to play the giddy goat sometimes," muttered the puncher. "How's that?" he asked a minute later. "Wait, I'll reach out and grab it." "Don't you dare do any such thing!" almost yelled the cow-puncher. "You might lose your balance, and----" He stopped with a gasp. A jerk had come at the other end of the rope. Down there, out of sight, Tubby had hold of it. A succession of jerks told the holder of the rope on the cliff edge that he was making the loop fast about him. "All right!" finally hailed Tubby. Then in imitation of an elevator runner: "Go--ing up!" "Hold on a minute," croaked out Blinky, even his iron nerve a trifle shaken now that the crucial moment was near. He ran back to the tree and took a deft turn round the trunk. Then he extended the end of the rope to the boys and told them to "tail on." "What are you going to do?" asked Merritt. "I'm going to stand at the edge of the cliff and transmit orders from below. Mind you, obey them the instant you hear them." "All right. We will, Blinky," came in chorus. "Very well. Now hold on and when I tell you to start hauling, pull with all your might. That boy's a heavy load." "A hundred and forty pounds and still growing," volunteered Harry Harkness. "Well, that rope held a six-hundred-pound steer, so I guess it'll stand his weight. All I'm afraid of is a knot giving. I made them in the dark, you know." The cow-puncher, after giving a few more final instructions, ran to the cliff edge. "All right?" he shouted down. "All right!" rejoined Tubby. Blinky straightened up and turned back toward the boys, holding onto the rope. "Haul away, boys," he ordered. A cheer burst from the throats of the Boy Scouts as they tailed on the lifeline, and walked backward from the tree with it. "Whoa!" came a shout from below suddenly. "Whoa!" yelled Blinky, repeating the word. "What's the matter?" he hailed down, as the hoisting movement stopped. "Why, I'm bumping my delicate knees," came up in Tubby's voice. "Can't be helped," yelled down Blinky. Then hailing the hauling line:-- "Pull away, boys." Steadily they pulled till the fat boy had been raised twenty feet or more from his tree. Suddenly he hailed Blinky. "Whoa!" roared the cow-puncher. Instantly the hoisting ceased. "Now, what is it, Tubby?" "I just thought of something." "What?" "Say, lots of folks would pay money to see this, wouldn't they?" "Never mind that now. Are you all right?" "Yes, except my knees." "Ha-ul a-way." The boys on the other end of the rope hauled steadily now, and the fat boy drew nearer and nearer to the ledge. As he rose higher, hanging suspended like a spider from the end of his gossamer thread between the sky and the ground, a sudden thought struck Blinky. It would be manifestly impossible to haul Tubby over the edge of the ledge which projected like the eaves of a roof. Hardly had the thought flashed across his mind before a shout of alarm came from the boys, simultaneously with a sharp: Crack! "The rope!" came a wild yell from the tree. "It's broken!" Blinky went white, and his knees shook. At the same instant the rope began to snake hissingly over the edge of the precipice. It had parted. Tubby was once more dropping downward like a stone. "Catch it!" roared Blinky, regardless of his own peril, throwing himself onto the fast-retreating rawhide. He gripped it, but was carried like a feather before the wind toward the edge of the cliff by the descending Tubby's weight. In another moment--for he obstinately refused to let go--he would have been over the edge, when the line suddenly tightened. "Hooray! I've got it." The shout came in Merritt's voice. The boy, with great presence of mind, had managed to catch the rope, and secure it before its end whipped round the trunk of the tree. As the knot which had parted was in the section of the rawhide above the tree, this was possible. Had the rope broken between the tree and the cliff both Tubby and Blinky would have been dashed to death. "What parted?" roared Blinky, as soon as he had recovered his senses. "One of the knots. It slipped. It's all right, now we've fixed it!" hailed Merritt back. "Merritt, you're all right," shouted the cow-puncher, "if it hadn't been for you, I'd have been down among the cattle now. I'd have traveled by lightening express, too." As it was dark, the boys had not been able to see what the cow-puncher had done, so it was not till long afterward that they found out the meaning of his remark and learned of his courageous action. The cow-puncher feared that the sudden drop and the danger of the rope breaking again under the renewed strain might have frightened Tubby into a swoon. To his intense joy, however, in reply to his hail there came up a cheerful: "Say, what are you fellows doing? Having a game up there? You almost jolted the daylights out of me." "All right, we'll be more careful in future, Tubby," breathed the puncher, not daring to tell the boy what had actually happened. "Are you near the ledge, Tubby?" hailed the puncher suddenly, after an interval of hauling. "Yes, I think so. I can see a dark thing like a shelf right above me." "Stop!" shouted the cow-puncher to the rope handlers. The most difficult part of the enterprise was yet to come. They had to get the boy up on the ledge. To accomplish this at first was a poser, but Blinky finally solved it. Enjoining the rope handlers not to make a move till he hailed them, he slipped down the stone steps and reached the ledge. Arrived there, he peered over into the black void under his feet. Swinging a short distance below, he could distinguish a blacker object than the surrounding night. He could also make out a sound of humming. It was Tubby crooning to himself as he swung on the end of the frail rope: "See-saw! see-saw! On a s-um-mers day!" "Well, I'll be extra special, double-jiggered!" breathed the puncher, as he heard. He knelt on the edge of the ledge and spoke to the vocalist. "How's your nerve, Tubby?" "Fine, but it needs feeding," was the cheerful response. "All right, you'll do," rejoined the cow-puncher. "Now, then, Tubby, I want you to hang to the edge of this ledge by your finger tips for just two minutes. Think you can do it?" "I'll have to, won't I?" innocently inquired the stout youth. "Yes, or----" "Take a tumble," Tubby finished for him. "Never mind about that," spoke Blinky sharply. Then cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted upward: "Haul away! Slow, now!" He placed his fingers on the taut rope and felt it slip upward through them. "Good old ropes," he murmured; "stretched like a fiddle string and sound as a ship's cable." Presently Tubby was hauled up level with the ledge. "Stop!" roared Blinky. He could have reached over in the darkness, and, catching the stout boy's hands, have hauled him up beside him--he could have, that is if Tubby had been able to assist him by digging his feet into the rock face. But this he could not do, as he was dangling from the lip of the ledge, fully three feet out from the face of the precipice, and with four hundred feet of empty space under the soles of his shoes. Moreover, in such case the cow-puncher would have nothing to brace himself with, and there would have been grave danger of his being dragged over by the other's suspended weight. Instead, therefore--necessity being the mother of invention--he had thought up a daring plan. What this was we shall soon see. "Can you grip the edge with your fingers, Tubby?" whispered the cow-puncher. "Yes," rejoined Tubby, reaching up. "All right, then, grab it--and in Heaven's name, hold on!" With a single swift stroke of his knife, the cow-puncher slashed the rope, leaving Tubby with the loop draped uselessly under his shoulders. The fat boy's hold on the edge of the ledge was all that now lay between him and eternity. Blinky's breath came sharp and hard as he rapidly adjusted the rope around himself just under the shoulders. Then leaning forward, he seized the stout boy's wrists in his steel-muscled grip. "Haul!" he bellowed. The line tautened just as the cow-puncher braced his muscles. "Stop!" The line became motionless, holding the cow-puncher firmly on the ledge, while his hands gripped Tubby's wrists. "Now," breathed Blinky to himself, bracing every muscle till they seemed to crack. The sweat rolled down his face, and his features became contorted. Tubby was a heavier load than he had bargained for. But pluck and grit won out, and after a few seconds of this Titanic struggle the stout boy stood safe on the ledge beside his rescuer. "Got him!" muttered Blinky triumphantly. But even as he spoke he almost lost the rescued boy. All at once Tubby became as limp as a half-emptied sack of grain, and seemed about to slide backward out of the cow-puncher's arms. "Hey, hold on, there! What's the matter?" roared Blinky in amazement, dragging him back. "Gone out, by the great horn spoon!" he exclaimed, as the rescued boy sank heavily in a dead swoon on the ledge beside his rescuer. CHAPTER XIII. A FRIEND IN NEED. "Hum!" said Rob to himself, with an accent of deep conviction. "Evidently these chaps keep a closer watch on their prisoner than I had imagined. I guess I'd better retire to my boudoir again." The Indian sentinel lowered his rifle as the boy turned, and eyed him stoically without any more expression on his stolid features than would have shown on the features of a mask. "All right," Rob said to him, nodding cheerfully. "Don't worry about me, old chap. I'm going to bed." If the Indian understood, he made no sign. Instead, he wheeled and solemnly followed the boy back to the tepee. Rob entered it and lay down. Presently, to his delight, some blankets were thrown in to him. "Well, if I can't eat I can sleep, anyhow," he said philosophically, and in a few minutes he was curled up in the coverings and off as soundly as if he was slumbering in a cot at the ranch house. It was dawn when Rob awoke, as he speedily became aware when the tent flap was thrown open, and he saw facing him a rather pretty young Indian girl who bore in her hand an earthenware dish. "Hullo!" said Rob, sitting up in his blankets. "Hullo," rejoined the girl in a more friendly tone than Rob had yet heard in the Indian camp. "Who are you?" "My name Susyjan," was the response, as the girl set down the steaming dish, in which, as a concession to Rob, an earthenware spoon had been placed. "All right, Susyjan," smiled Rob. "If you don't mind, I'm going to eat." "All right, you go ahead," acquiesced Susyjan, who, as Rob guessed, had been named after some white Susy Jane. "You talk pretty good English, Susyjan," remarked Rob, between mouthfuls of the contents of the dish, which had some sort of stew in it. "Um! Me with Wild West show one time." "Is that so?" asked Rob, interested. "So you've been East?" "Um! New York, Chicago, Bosstown, every place." "Maybe I've seen you in the show some place?" "Maybe." "What did you like best in the East, Susyjan?" asked Rob, after a brief silence. "Beads," rejoined Susyjan, without an instant's hesitation. "Beans?" inquired Rob, puzzled. "Oh, in Boston, you mean?" "No beans--beads," pouted the young squaw. "Ladies' beads. Round neck--savee?" Rob nodded. "Oh, yes, I savee, Susyjan. So you like beads, eh?" "Plenty much," rejoined Susyjan, nodding her smooth black head vigorously and showing her white, even teeth in two smiling rows. A bold idea came into Rob's head. Perhaps out of this young squaw's vanity he might contrive a means to escape. But he would have to go to work gradually, or she might betray him, and that would result, as he knew, in closer captivity than ever for himself. "What have they got me here for, Susyjan,--you know?" he asked. "Um-hum. Big Chief Spotted Snake him say bimeby get plenty much money for you. Have big dance." "Oh, that's the game, is it?" mused Rob. "Holding me for ransom. In that case, then, no wonder they are guarding me closely." "Say, Susyjan," broke out Rob presently, "how you like to have lots of beads--fine ones, like white ladies wear?" The Indian girl clapped her hands, which to any one familiar with these unemotional people indicated that she was hugely excited over the idea. Presently her face clouded over, however. "How can?" she asked. "Me give um you." "You?" "Yes. I'll give you the finest set of beads ever strung together, but you have got to do something for me." "What that?" "Bring a pony round to the back of the tent to-night." The girl shook her head positively. But Rob saw that mingled with her refusal was an admixture of keen regrets for the loss of the promised beads. She knitted her brow in deep thought for a few seconds, and then sprang up, radiant once more. "All right, white boy. Me get you pony. Charley One-Eyed Horse him very sick. I get you his pony." "All right, then, that's settled," said Rob cheerfully. "But how about you? Won't you get into trouble over it? I don't want that, you know." "Oh, no," laughed the girl. "Charley One-Eyed Horse my uncle. Him very old man. Pony very old, too--plenty mean. I break rope. Braves think pony bust 'em and get away." Although the ethics of this didn't seem just straight to Rob, he was in no position to be very particular. More especially as the girl went on to tell him that the tribe expected to move on the next day, making for the valley in which the great snake dance was to be held. In the event of his being carried with them, Rob knew that his chances of escape would be problematical. If he was to make the attempt, he would have to carry it out as soon as possible. How the rest of that day passed, the boy could never tell. The feigning of sleepy indifference to things about him cost him the hardest effort he had ever known. The hours seemed to drag by. It appeared as if night would never come. Susyjan did not come near him again that day, and although he saw her moving about the camp at various times, she gave no sign of recognition. Once a dreadful thought flashed across Rob's mind. What if the girl had been used as a spy, and had betrayed his secret. This put him into a fever, but he was, of course, powerless to resolve his doubts. Suspense was all that was left for him. As evening closed in, the agony of waiting grew worse. "Those fellows must have made up their minds to keep awake all night," thought Rob, as hour after hour went by, and the Indians still sat, blanket-shrouded, by their fire, playing some sort of game with flat slabs of stone. Finally, however, even the most persistent players ceased and went to their tepees. By the dying fire there now stood only two figures, tall, motionless and apparently wooden. But Rob knew that they were sentinels posted to watch the tepee in which he was confined. He knew, also, that even though they did seem unconscious of everything, their little black eyes were alert and awake to the slightest move on his part. "I guess I'll have to give it up for to-night," thought Rob, casting himself down on his blankets. He felt more despondent than he had at any time since his capture. The camp was now as silent as a country graveyard. In the intense stillness he could even hear the occasional crackle of an ember falling to ashes. Suddenly the boy started, and gazed, open-eyed, at the back curtain of his tepee. Surely the flap had moved. After a few seconds' gazing there was no doubt of it. The flap slowly rose, and presently Susyjan's flat-nosed countenance peered into the gloom of the shelter. "Come, white boy," she whispered. "Me got pony." "Blessings on your black, clayed head!" breathed Rob under his breath. Silently as a stalking cat, he moved toward the back of the tent. In another moment he was out of it and under the starry canopy of the sky. "Come," whispered the young squaw, gliding like a snake into the dark fringe of forest behind the tepee. Rob followed as quietly as he could, but alas! he was not as expert as the girl. His foot struck a twig which snapped with a loud "crack!" under his tread. Instantly the motionless Indians by the fire galvanized into life. They looked about them in a startled way, and for one dreadful moment Rob, crouching in the shadow and hardly daring to breathe, thought that they were about to examine his tepee. To his intense relief, however, they contented themselves with gazing about them, and seeing nothing unusual, resumed their statue-like vigil. "White boy like lame cow. Plenty tumble," snickered Susyjan, while Rob's cheeks burned wrathfully. He took greater care from that time on, and managed to follow the noiselessly gliding girl without causing another alarm, while she led him in a circuitous route round the back of the encampment. Suddenly they came to a hillside covered with wild oats, on which several dark objects that the boy made out to be ponies were hobbled. Deftly seizing one by the nose, the girl forced a rope "hackamore" she had brought with her into its mouth, and cast off its hobbles. Rob, with one hand on the little animal's rump, and the other on its withers, vaulted to the pony's back in a second. "Which way I go?" he whispered. "Over there," rejoined the girl, pointing to the eastward. "Bymby find trail." "All right, Susyjan; you're a brick," whispered Rob, "and I won't forget the beads." "Real ones, like white lady," insisted Susyjan. "Sure, and the whitest of them isn't any whiter than you," Rob assured her, as he dug his heels into the pony's bony sides and the little animal plunged forward. As he did so, Susyjan wheeled and vanished. It was important for her to be in bed in her tepee in case the alarm was given. "Slow and steady's the word, I guess, along here," mused Rob, as the pony picked his way among rough rock and stubbly brush. "If this little animal doesn't stumble and wake the whole camp, I'm in luck. Anyhow, Susyjan won't get in trouble over it now. That's one thing, and----" Crash! The little pony had done just what Rob dreaded. Nimble as it was, a loose rock had proved its undoing, and it had come down on its knees with a crash. Instantly it scrambled up again, but as it did so a series of demoniacal yells rang out behind the boy. The alarm had been given. Suddenly there was added to the general confusion the sound of confused shooting. Bang! Bang! "Waking up the camp," muttered Rob, swinging the end of his rope hackamore and bringing it down over the pony's flanks with a resounding "thwack." "Now get a move on, Uncle One-Eyed Horse's pony, for if ever you carried a fellow in need, you've got one on your back to-night." CHAPTER XIV. A TOBOGGAN TO DISASTER. Pluckily forward plunged the pony, as if anxious to redeem his untimely stumble. "It'll take them some time to get to their ponies and unhobble them," thought Rob. "If I've luck, I may get away yet." Keeping steadily to the direction the girl had pointed out, the boy pressed on at as fast a clip as he dared. The farther he rode ahead of the pursuing tribe, the better chance he stood of getting beyond their earshot. It was risky riding, though, through an unknown country on such a dark night. What sort of going it was under foot, Rob could only tell by the uncertain gait of the beast he bestrode. Bushes occasionally brushed in his face, scratching it, and once in a while an extra strong bunch of chaparral would press against his legs, almost brushing him from his pony's back. Suddenly the way took a steep downward pitch. "I hope this isn't another precipice," thought the boy, as the pony half-slid, half-clambered down in the darkness. Presently his hoofs splashed in water, and Rob knew they were crossing a creek. He drew back on his single rein and listened intently. Fortunately the wind, what there was of it, set toward him. Borne on it he could hear distant shouts and cries. To his intense satisfaction, it seemed to him that they were farther off than when he had first heard them. "Gained on them!" muttered Rob triumphantly. "Now, if daylight would only come along----" But it was long to wait till daylight, and in the meantime Rob did not dare remain where he was. The Indians probably knew the mountains like a book, and would work them on a system. In such an event his only salvation lay in keeping moving. All at once he stopped, with a sudden heart leap, as his pony scrambled up the farther bank of the creek. A shrill cry sounded close behind him. Could it be possible that the advance guard of the Indians had approached him so nearly? The next instant Rob gave a laugh of relief. The shrill cry came again. "Whoo-to-too, who-o-o!" "Only an owl," exclaimed the boy. "Hullo, though, that's funny! There's another answering it--and by George! there's another!" From the woods to the right and left had come similar hoots to the owl-like sound he had noted behind him. At the same instant, the unmistakable sound of a dislodged stone bounding and rattling down the steep incline he had just descended was borne to his ears. "That's no owl," gasped Rob, "it's Indians!" As he realized how badly he had been fooled, his pony topped the rise. To any one below in the hollow, the outline of the pony and the boy showed blackly against the stars. Suddenly a sound like an angry bee in full flight hummed close to Rob's ear, and the next moment there came a sharp report behind him. Instantaneously the hoots to the right and left flanks redoubled, and began closing in. All at once one of the birdlike cries sounded right in front of the escaping white boy. He was hemmed in by Indians! The craft of the red men had proven too much for Rob. Even the darkness had not prevented their unerringly tracking him. By their skillful woodcraft and keenness of perception they had succeeded in discovering him and surrounding him. For an instant Rob's heart stood still. Then, as a second shot whizzed by his ear, aimed by the unseen marksman below, he urged his pony on over the rise. The advance, however, over the rocky ground sounded as loud as the approach of a squadron of cavalry. Wild cries and yells rang out on every side of the boy. What was he to do? One of those inspirations born in moments of keen stress came to him in his extremity. If all went well, he would fool the Indians yet, hard as they were to deceive. Slipping noiselessly from his pony as he rode under a dark clump of piñon trees, the boy turned it loose. The little animal, to his surprise, immediately turned backward, heading round toward the camp. But this turn of events, at first alarming, ultimately proved to be the very best thing that could have happened for Rob, who had at first hoped that the pony would trot forward. The Indians, hearing its rapid footsteps galloping back, reasoned that Rob, realizing that he was headed off, had turned his mount in a desperate effort to escape that way. Yelling like demons, and discharging their rifles in an almost continuous fusillade, the Indians wheeled and rode after the retreating pony. Naturally, the more they shouted and fired, the faster the little animal ran, and every step took them farther from Rob, who was crouching under his piñon trees. Not till they got back to their camp did the redskins discover that the white boy had served craft with strategy, and outwitted them. It was then too late to follow up the pursuit that night. The redskins knew that any one cunning enough to have devised such a trick would not have stood still while they were chasing a will-o'-the-wisp in the opposite direction to their desired quarry. And they were right in this assumption. Rob, as soon as the beat of their ponies' hoofs had grown faint, had chuckled to himself at their mistake, and silently as possible resumed his journey. If it had been a hard ride, it was a doubly hard tramp he had before him. Susyjan had told him that a trail lay not so very far ahead. In the darkness it was possible that he might have lost it. If he had, without food or water, he would soon be in a serious position. But Rob, nevertheless, determined that his best course lay in pushing on, and through the darkness he steadily and pluckily advanced. Presently he began to ascend what he knew must be a hill or mountainside. This complicated the problem. To go on along level ground was one thing, but to attempt to continue his way over an acclivity as steep as the one that faced him seemed foolhardy. Every step he took might be leading him farther and farther astray. "Oh, for a nice soft bed!" muttered Rob. "But not having one, a good flat stone would do." Soon afterward, following a lot of feeling about, he managed to find a flat-surfaced rock which seemed to promise well for a rough and ready couch. To the boy's delight, it retained some of the warmth of the sun which had beaten on it all day, and had he possessed a blanket to throw over it, might not have proved unacceptable as a sleeping place. Casting himself down on it, Rob soon dozed off, nor did he awaken till the blackness turned to the gray that preceded the dawn. Viewed by daylight, Rob found his surroundings such that he was glad that he had not proceeded any farther during the night. He lay on a hillside behind a screen of chaparral. But what caused him to feel some apprehension, when he thought of what might have happened had he continued his journey, was the fact that below his rock quite a steep slope dropped down to the valley below. It was a drop of some thirty feet, and while in the daylight any active man or boy could have clambered down it without injury, in the dark night it might have meant broken bones. But Rob had little time to think of such possibilities. Something else suddenly occupied all his attention, and that something was an odor of frying bacon! Mingled with it came the unmistakable aroma of tobacco. Somebody was camped near him, that was a certainty. His first impulse was to shout, but he checked it. It speaks volumes for the Western training that the boy was rapidly acquiring when it is said that before he showed himself from behind his chaparral, he gazed cautiously through that leafy screen. Below him he saw three figures seated about a fire, over which was frying the bacon that had aroused his hunger almost to the exclamation point. The three campers, whose ponies were tethered a short distance from them, had their backs turned to Rob, but presently one of them turned to reach something from a saddle bag. Rob came very near to uttering a startled exclamation and betraying his hiding place as he saw the man's features. It was Hank Handcraft. The former beachcomber wore Western clothes and had trimmed his once luxuriant and scraggly beard, but he was none the less unmistakably Handcraft. Nor, as almost simultaneously Hank's companions turned, was Rob's astonishment at all lessened, for one of them was Bill Bender and the other was the ranch boy to whom he had given a lesson in jiu jitsu--Clark Jennings. "Hurry up and stow your grub, Hank," Clark was saying. "We've got to light out of this neighborhood for a while and stick around the ranch." "You think that old Harkness is suspicious, then?" inquired Hank. "No, our disguises were too good. I'll bet they're cussin' the Moquis now." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Bill Bender. "That was a great idea, dressing up like Indians. I guess we got even on old Harkness for driving those sheep off his pastures." "You bet! and we'll do worse to him before we get through," grunted Clark. "It's pie for me. More especially as I can get even, at the same time, with that young sniffler, Harry Harkness, and his friends from the East--your old pals, Bill." "No pals of mine. You can bet your life on that," grunted Bill. "The best thing I'd heard for a long time was when you told me about Jack Curtiss shoving that kid Rob into the river. I'd like to have seen it. If it hadn't been for those Boy Scouts, as they call themselves, Hank and Jack and I would have been East now, instead of in this God-forsaken country." "What are you kicking at?" laughed Clark. "You've done pretty well since you've been here, and if we can get that bunch of mavericks of Harkness's, we'll all have a pocketful of money." "When are you going after them?" asked Hank, placing a big bit of bacon on a hunk of bread and gnawing on it in a satisfied way that set Rob half crazy to watch. "Soon as they are turned out on the Far Pasture. When they get over the scare of the stampede, they'll leave the place unwatched, and we'll have our chance. We ought to get five hundred apiece out of it, anyhow." "That would look good to me," grunted Hank. "Oh, the scoundrels!" breathed Rob to himself. "They're plotting to steal some of Mr. Harkness's mavericks. I remember now hearing him speak of turning them out in the Far Pasture." "Then we can clear out and get back East," concluded Bill, "and take poor old Jack with us. He isn't making out very well." "Sort of hanger-on in that gambling place, isn't he?" asked Clark. "I guess that's what you'd call it." Soon after the group saddled up their ponies and prepared to leave their temporary camp. That they were on the trail, after having concluded their dastardly attempt to stampede Mr. Harkness's cattle, Rob had no doubt, judging by their conversation. "Better put that fire out!" warned Clark. "Scatter the ashes. We don't want any one trailing us." The three worthies bent together over the ashes, while their saddled ponies stood eying them at some short distance. "Guess I'd better pull back out of this before they take it into their heads to look around," thought Rob, who in his eagerness to hear what was going forward below had thrust his head out through the bush which screened him. With the object of drawing back again, he braced himself on one hand and pushed backward. How it happened he never knew, for he had been very careful, but suddenly the small rock on which the pressure of his hand rested gave way with a crash. Clawing wildly at the bush, Rob sought to save himself from being flung headlong down the hill into the camp below him, but it was too late. Down the hill he shot at lightning speed, in the midst of a roaring, rattling landslide of rocks and earth. The men in the camp started and turned as the sudden uproar of Rob's involuntary toboggan slide reached their ears. "What the----" shouted Hank Handcraft. "Who is----" began Clark, when Rob's feet caught him in the stomach and cannoned him against Hank Handcraft. Clutching wildly to prevent his own fall, Hank caught Bill Bender's sleeve, and the next instant all three of the campers were rolling in a confused mass in the ashes of their fire. "It's a bear!" yelled Hank. "Bear nothing!" bellowed Clark Jennings, as Rob scrambled to his feet and darted off like a shot. "It's a boy!" "After him!" shouted Bill Bender, snatching up a rifle and aiming it. "That kid's Rob Blake." CHAPTER XV. WHAT BECAME OF THE SCOUT? But even as the former Long Islander raised the weapon to his shoulder, it was dashed down by Clark Jennings. "Look out, you idiot!" he bellowed. "Do you want to kill the ponies?" Rob, the instant he had recovered his self-possession, which preceded the recovery of the surprised plotters by some seconds, had made a dash for the ponies, which, as has been said, stood, saddled and bridled, near at hand. "Yip-yip!" he screeched, as he leaped onto the back of the first one he reached. Excited by the shouts and cries of the three amazed campers, and half-crazed by Rob's sudden leap onto its back, the animal plunged forward and vanished in a flash into the dark woods which veiled an abrupt turn in the trail. "Now, shall we shoot, Clark?" urged Bill Bender. "No, no; waste no time doing that. Hank, you stay here and look after things. Come, Bill--quick--the ponies!" In a second Bill and Clark were mounted and dashing off down the trail in a cloud of dust, in hot pursuit of the lad. "Do you think he heard what we were talking about?" Clark Jennings propounded the question as they clattered down the trail. Not far in front they could hear the rapid hoof beats of Rob's mount. "Don't know. The minute he came sky-hooting into the camp I'd a notion it was some one I've seen afore some place," rejoined Bill vaguely. "Yes, yes; but do you think he overheard?" "Dunno. We weren't expecting company, and therefore didn't lower our voices. Say, Clark, what if--what if he did hear?" "Then Harkness will find out everything." "Yes, if----" "Well, if what?" "If we don't bring him down. If we should kill him, we could easy blame it on the Indians. In fact, I guess the ranch folks would conclude the redskins did it, anyhow." Clark's ruddy face grew pale at Bill's sinister suggestion. "If he overheard, he knows enough to send us all to jail," prompted Bill. "That's right, too. Do you think you could----" Clark hesitated, as if the thought his mind held was too dreadful for him to voice. "Bring him down, you mean?" inquired Bill cheerfully. "Don't know. We're hitting up a hot pace for good shooting." "Say, Bill, I think you are the most cold-blooded fellow I ever met." "Oh, I'm cool, all right, in such a case as this," rejoined Bill. "Hark!" Both drew rein for a second and listened. The beat of hoofs in front of them suddenly slackened. So near was the sound that it seemed as if it could not have been more than a few feet ahead. "Right through that brush there!" whispered Clark, and hot as the day was, he shivered as if stricken with a sudden fever. Bill Bender coolly raised his rifle. He deliberately aimed it into the leafy screen. The next instant its deafening report rang out. It was followed by a loud crash from beyond the bushes, as if some heavy body had fallen. Clark fairly turned his pony round. He was too much of a coward even to dare to ask the question that forced itself to his lips. No such qualms assailed Bill Bender, however. He pressed spurs to his pony, and in a second flashed round the trees that hid what lay on the trail beyond. A second later a loud cry of astonishment broke from his lips. It was mingled with curses. "What's the matter?" hailed Clark tremblingly. "Come here." "Oh, Bill, I don't want to. I----" "Come here, I say. There's nothing to be afraid of." Thus urged, Clark, whose cheeks were still ashen under the bronze, urged his pony forward, and presently joined Bill. The latter had dismounted, and was standing over a dark, still object in the road. It was the pony Rob had borrowed so hurriedly. It lay stone dead, pierced in a vital spot by Bill Bender's bullet. "But the b-b-boy, is he----" stuttered Clark. "He's gone!" exclaimed Bill. "Gone?" echoed Clark in an amazed tone. "Yes, clean wiped out." "But how?" "Ask me an easy one." "Hasn't he left a trail?" "No, that's what makes it so queer. He must have had an aeroplane." For half an hour or more both youths searched the dusty trail and beat in and out of the dense brush, but not a trace of the missing boy rewarded their close scrutiny of the surroundings. Had the earth opened at that spot and swallowed Rob up bodily, he could not have vanished more utterly. The only trace of the missing boy was his sombrero, lying by the dead pony. Absolutely dumfounded with amazement, the two worthies finally gave up their search, and taking the saddle and bridle off the dead pony, made their way back to their camp, carrying Rob's broad-brimmed hat. * * * * * At about the same hour that Clark and Bill were searching among the piñon and scrub growth for some solution of the mystery of Rob's inexplicable disappearance, an equally perplexed party was assembled on a small rise some miles away. The latter group consisted of Mr. Harkness, his son, the Boy Scouts of the Ranger Patrol, Corporal Merritt Crawford and Tubby Hopkins, Blinky and two other cow-punchers. The day before, following the rescued Tubby's return to the ranch with his companions, the expedition to find the missing Rob had been hurriedly formed. The cliff face had been reached in quicker time than would have seemed possible, and an examination by the cow-punchers and the Boy Scouts soon showed which way Rob had been carried off. The broken shrub at the entrance to the tunnel, with the end pointing into the darkness, indicated clearly enough to Merritt that Rob had made a Boy Scout sign that his trail lay that way. Leaving their ponies in charge of one of the cow-punchers who had accompanied them that far, the party had proceeded through the tunnel on foot. They were led by Blinky, who was almost as expert a trailer as an Indian, and had at the present moment arrived near the site of the Indian camp from which Rob had escaped the night before. Had the boy only known it, on his wild flight he had passed within a few miles of those who were searching for him in the darkness. With the earliest light they had picked up the trail once more, and now they had reached its termination, the camp of the Moquis. But to reward their activity and perseverance they found only black ashes and scattered traces of cooking and stabling. Of the camp itself, all trace had vanished. Blinky bent over the ashes and stirred them with his fingers. "Been gone some hours," he announced, after an examination. "The ashes are plumb cold." "How far do you think they will have proceeded by this time?" inquired Mr. Harkness. "Maybe twenty miles or more," rejoined the cow-puncher. "It's hard to tell. These redskins travel fast, boss, as you know." "Yes, I do know," rejoined the rancher bitterly; "especially when they have a good reason to. But what do you suppose they carried off the poor boy for?" "Maybe they figgered he was a spy from the Indian territory, and maybe they thought they could get a good price for him if they held him long enough." "I guess you are right, Blinky," said the rancher sadly, sitting down upon an outcropping rock. He flicked his riding boots meditatively for some seconds with his rawhide quirt, which he still carried, and then spoke. "Boys," he said, addressing the little party, "those Moquis have carried off Rob. There's no doubt of that. The question now is, shall we follow them up, or shall we go back and get the ponies, and thus lose valuable time? I think it only fair to tell you that I am for going forward." "I guess there's no need to take a vote, Mr. Harkness," smiled Merritt, gazing at the determined faces of the Boy Scouts of the Ranger Patrol. Every member of the body was there. Harry and the telephone had seen to that as soon as they had made certain that Rob had been carried off. "We've got enough to eat with us," put in Tubby, "so there's no reason why we shouldn't go ahead." As Tubby said, the party had brought rations with them which, though not very plentiful, were enough to last until they struck a further food supply. "Then forward it is," said Mr. Harkness. "Ye-ow!" yelled the cow-punchers. The boys joined in their wild shouts, but their enthusiastic start was suddenly thrown into silence by an unexpected incident. Hoof beats sounded on the trail, and as everybody turned expectantly in the direction from whence the sound had proceeded, they were astonished to see two ponies emerge, carrying three men. The new arrivals were Clark Jennings and Bill Bender, and, seated behind the latter, Hank Handcraft. The faces of all three took on a guilty, confused air as they perceived that, instead of riding, as they had expected, into a camp of Moquis, they had unexpectedly encountered the last persons whom at that particular moment they wanted to meet. CHAPTER XVI. BLINKY SPOILS A SOMBRERO. If astonishment and uneasiness were depicted on the countenances of Clark Jennings and his companions, equally amazed looks were cast upon the newcomers by Mr. Harkness's party. The rancher was the first to recover his voice. "Well, Clark," he said rather sternly, "what are you doing here?" "We're not stealing sheepmen's land and feed from them, Mr. Harkness," spoke up Clark boldly, as soon as he saw by the rancher's manner that the party was not, as he had at first feared, aware of Rob's strange fate. "We won't discuss that old question now, Clark," said Mr. Harkness leniently. "As long as there are sheepmen and cattlemen that question will always be productive of strife, more's the pity. Besides, certain fence-cutting incidents----" "You can't say I cut your fences!" sputtered Clark angrily. "Certainly not. I never dreamed of doing such a thing--without the proper evidence." The rancher threw a grim emphasis into these last words. "What we want from you now, Clark, is information." "Well?" asked the other in sullen tone. "We have lost track of a young man who was my guest at the ranch," explained Mr. Harkness, his dislike of being compelled to ask information of Clark Jennings showing in his face. "His name is Rob Blake----" "Those two fellows know him well enough," broke out Merritt, pointing at Bill Bender and Hank Handcraft. The faces of those two worthies grew green as the boy pointed accusingly at them. Unwittingly Merritt had come near hitting the nail on the head when he connected them in a vague way with Rob's disappearance. "Well, what if we do know him?" growled Hank sullenly. "Mr. Harkness knows the mean tricks you put up on us in the East, so you needn't try to pretend you never met us before," went on Merritt angrily. "Come, come, Merritt," interrupted Mr. Harkness, "this will do no good. Whatever happened in the East is past and gone. What we want to know now is if they have seen Rob?" "No, we ain't," declared Clark boldly. "Why, do you think he's lost hereabouts?" "That's what we are afraid of. The Indians carried him off, and here, as you see, they were camped last night. I cherished a hope that he might have had the good fortune to escape." "I don't know anything about it," rejoined Clark in a more amiable tone, now that he saw that no suspicion attached to him. "What yer ridin' two on one pony for?" asked Blinky suddenly. "None of your business," rejoined Clark. "I guess we can ride the way we like." "Well, I guess so," echoed Hank. "Fine way they interfere with gentlemen's preferences out here in the West." "You had three ponies when you started out," pursued Blinky, looking at the spurs on Hank's feet, and noting the extra saddle which Clark carried behind him. "We did not." "What yer got the extra saddle for, then, and what's he got on spurs for, just ter decorate his handsome figure?" "Well, I can if I want to, can't I?" demanded Hank. "We're looking for a stray pony," explained Clark glibly. "That's why we're carrying the saddle--to put on him when we find him. That, too, accounts for the spurs. Anything else you'd like to know?" "Yes," demanded Merritt, his eyes blazing and his voice shaking with excitement as he stepped forward. "_Where did you get Rob Blake's sombrero?_" His eye had fallen on that article of headgear just as Hank had clumsily tried to conceal it. Merritt instantly recognized it by the stamped band about its crown. "Why, I--we--that is--it's my hat," lied Hank clumsily. "That's not true, and you know it!" shouted Merritt, carried away by rage. "You know where Rob Blake is. You----" Crack! The boy staggered back, half-blinded, as Bill Bender raised his heavy quirt and cut him full across the face with it. "Come on, boys!" shouted Clark, as Merritt reeled backward. "Let's get out of this." The two ponies sprang forward, leaving the ranch party half-stunned by the suddenness of Bill's brutal blow. But it was only for a second. In that interval of time Blinky's face had grown wrinkled and drawn with anger, and his hand had slid back to his hip and produced his forty-four. In another instant Bill would have paid dearly for his blow, but the rancher's hand fell on the cow-puncher's arm. "Not that way, Blinky," he said. "All right, boss," rejoined Blinky regretfully; "but it would have been a heap of satisfaction to have let daylight into that coyote's carcass." "Those fellows know where Rob is!" shouted Merritt, across whose face an angry red ridge lay, marking where the quirt had struck him. "Stop them!" "Steady on, boy, steady on," said Mr. Harkness in an even, cool tone. "And we without a spavined cayuse to follow 'em!" raged one of the cow-punchers. As he spoke, the three tormentors of the ranch party topped the little rise. As they did so, Clark Jennings rose in his stirrups and faced back. "Ye-ow!" he yelled defiantly, waving his hat mockingly toward them. Bang! The sombrero was suddenly whirled out of the youth's hand as if some invisible grasp had been laid upon it. Blinky looked apologetically at Mr. Harkness, and then carefully blew the smoke from the barrel of his pistol, the weapon with which he had just punctured Clark's headgear. "Awful sorry, boss," he said contritely, "but I just plumb couldn't help it." "Well, I don't know that I blame you," said Mr. Harkness, as the Clark Jennings party vanished in a hurry. The encounter with the three ne'er-do-wells had, however, changed the rancher's plans. Deducing from the fact that Hank Handcraft had Rob's hat in his possession, that the boy must have escaped from the Indians in some miraculous way, it was concluded that it would be a mere waste of effort to pursue the Moquis. The search must now be made for Rob himself. Even Tubby's spirits were dashed by the disturbing occurrences of the last few hours, and he and Merritt were both silent as the party made its way back to the cliff where the ponies had been left the day before. The plan now was to mount and scatter through the range. "We'll run a fine-tooth comb through it," was the emphatic way Mr. Harkness put it, "and if we don't find the boy, it'll be because he isn't on the top of the earth." All that day they retraced their steps, and at night made camp not far from the entrance to the tunnel. They did not dare to proceed in the dark, for fear of once more losing their path, and even more valuable time. It was not a lively party that settled down in the evening glow for a hastily cooked and not over-abundant supper. Even Tubby seemed distracted and worried. Suddenly Merritt, who was walking up and down, trying to evolve some theory to fit the facts in Rob's case, gave a shout and pointed over to the southwest. "Look, look!" he shouted. "Off there--what is it?" The boy's keen eyes had espied a thin spiral of blue smoke ascending from a hilltop against the burnished gold of the sunset. "A signal fire!" announced Blinky, after an interval. "It may be Rob signaling for help!" exclaimed Merritt, as the smoke rose and vanished and rose and vanished at regular intervals. "No, it ain't him. The Boy Scouts use the Morse, don't they?" "Yes. What has that to do with it?" "Well, this is Injun code." "Indian?" "Sure. The Injuns have as distinct a smoke-signal code as we have a wireless system. It works just as good, too, from what I can hear. Now, if we had their code book we----" "What, the Indians have a code book?" "You bet." "Where?" "In their rascally heads, son, where it's safe," rejoined the cow-puncher. "Hullo, look! There's an answer," cried Tubby, suddenly pointing to another hilltop some distance from the first. Another thin column of smoke was rolling upward from it in evident answer to the first. "Those fellows are making a date," decided the rough-and-ready Blinky. "I'd like to be on hand when they keep it, and maybe we'd find out something about Rob." CHAPTER XVII. IN THE CLUTCHES OF THE GRIZZLY. Blinky's conviction that the signaling had something to do with Rob would have been strengthened if he could have been so stationed as to watch the making of the first smoke telegraph Merritt noticed. On the distant hilltop Clark Jennings, Hank Handcraft and Bill Bender were stooped over a fire of green wood, alternately covering and uncovering it with a horse blanket. The signaling was being done under Clark's direction, as neither of the Easterners knew anything about the Indian smoke language. Clark, during his long residence in the West, had picked up his knowledge of it from Emilio Auguardo, the halfbreed who had once worked on his father's ranch. Through this man, too, he had become quite an intimate of the Moquis, as we have seen. "Douse it! Uncover it. Douse. Uncover. Douse. Uncover." Clark Jennings's commands came in regular rotation, with differing intervals between each order. In all essentials, those three enemies of the boys were using a telegraph code antedating by centuries the system in use to-day on our telegraph lines. "Ought to be getting an answer soon," muttered Clark, shading his eyes with his hand and standing erect on an upraised slab of rock, the better to command a view of the distant hills in the section in which he had reason to believe the Moquis had proceeded. "Hold on! Douse that fire!" he cried suddenly. Against the sky, not more than five miles distant, an answering thread of smoke had unrolled, like the coils of a slow serpent. Up it wavered and then stopped abruptly, to be followed by another puff. It was as if a locomotive lay beyond the distant hill. The puffs of smoke resembled the vaporous belchings of an engine stack when it is starting up. "They say for us to wait here and they will send a messenger," announced Clark finally. "Well, I guess we can wait as well as anything else," rejoined Hank Handcraft, extending himself lazily on the sun-warmed ground. "Are they going to send a pony?" "Don't know," rejoined Clark shortly. "Wonder what we'll do if Harkness hits our trail?" "Don't bother about that. He'll be too busy rounding up that boy Rob," replied Bill Bender. "Queer where that kid went to." "Queer is no word for it," agreed Clark; "and what bothers me is that we are likely to have trouble with him yet if we're not careful." "You think he is alive, then?" "Must be, unless he melted into thin air." "That's so." "By the way, Clark," struck in Hank Handcraft suddenly, after a period of deep thought, aided by the consumption of sweet grass stalks, "wouldn't the present time be a good one to drop in on Harkness's mavericks?" "By thunder! you're right," was the reply. "Harkness is pretty sure to have the whole ranch force, or every one he can spare, spread out, seeking for that young cub. The Far Pasture will be pretty sure to be left unguarded. You're right, Hank; we'll see what the chief has to say, and then, if we can get a few Indians to help us, we'll make the big drive. Ha, ha! won't Harkness be sore if he finds the boy, to discover that it's cost him the loss of a few thousand dollars' worth of beef!" In further discussion of their plans the three worthies spent the next hour or so. By that time it was dark, and the thin, silver nail-paring of the new moon showed above the eastern hilltops. It grew very still, the deep silence being broken only by the hoot of an owl or the chirping of some night insect. Suddenly, and quite near at hand, a twig snapped loudly. Instantly the hands of each of the three flew to their weapons, but an instant later they perceived that they, at least, had no cause for alarm from the newcomer who had thus announced his arrival. It was an Indian that stood before them while they still stared in a startled way into the dark shadows. "Chief Black Cloud!" exclaimed Clark, as the figure silently glided into the small circle, shrouded in the folds of a heavy blanket. The chief had tied his pony some distance away, and had advanced with customary stealth on the camping place of his allies. "How!" grunted the chief, squatting down on his haunches. "You want talk?" "Well, that's the reason we lighted up our little wireless plant," grinned Hank. "Hum! My brother with the hair on his face is foolish," snapped the chief, while the others laughed aloud at Hank's discomfiture. He did not again adopt a flippant tone toward the impressive figure which sat in council with them. "Chief Black Cloud," began Clark, "in the Far Pasture of Harkness, the rancher, below the places of the dwellers in the cliff, are many young cattle. They are unbranded, and if we can cut them out and get them away we can all be rich--make heap money." "Um!" grunted the chief, waiting for what was to come. "Harkness and his men are all away, seeking for a lost boy----" "Hum! Black Cloud know," interpolated the Indian. "Then you _did_ take him off!" burst out Bill Bender. "Why didn't you have sense enough to keep him?" "Hush!" ordered Clark sharply. He was sufficiently conversant with Indian character to know that the chief might be mortally offended by adverse comments on anything his tribe might have seen fit to do. But Black Cloud paid no attention to the interruption. "What you want Moquis to do?" inquired the chief, going right to the heart of the matter, for he had quite acumen enough to reason that from the conciliatory tone Clark adopted he had some service to ask. "That you will help us on the cattle drive," rejoined Clark boldly. The Indian shook his head. "No can do," he said decisively. "Mayberry, the Indian agent, is in the mountains seeking us now." Here the chief permitted himself a grim smile. "But Mayberry kind man. If we go back to reservation, make no trouble, everything all right. All the same as before. But if we steal the cattle of the white men, then the white man visit us with his anger." "It will be easy and no chance of being found out," urged Clark. But the chief shook his head. "No. My people here for snake dance. Not for steal white man's cattle." "Then you won't help us?" "No." "You'll be sorry for it, you old idiot!" snapped out Clark, foolishly letting his temper get the better of him for an instant. The Indian drew himself up with haughty dignity. Slowly he gathered the folds of his blanket about him. Then, and not till then, did he speak. "Black Cloud is never sorry for his deeds. But perhaps white men will sorrow for theirs," he said, with extraordinary dignity and force, and the next instant he was gone. "Say, Clark, it seems to me you've put your foot in it," muttered Hank, as the offended Indian strode off. "He looked Black Cloud by nature, as well as by name," commented Bill Bender. "He glared at you as if he would read your thoughts, Clark." "I hope not," laughed the young ranchman, though with a rather uneasy note in his assumed carelessness, "for they had a lot to do with him, I can tell you." "What do you mean?" "That we'll have to do the Indian act again." "How do you mean?" "Why, steal the cattle, disguised as Moquis. But come on, hit the trail. We'll be getting back to the ranch. I'll tell you as we go." As my readers will have seen, the above conversation throws a strange side light on Indian morality. The Moquis, of whom Chief Black Cloud was patriarch, had had not the slightest objection to "hold up" the boys and to capture Rob for ransom, but at the seriously punishable crime of cattle stealing they balked. What the consequences of this decision were to be to Clark Jennings and his companions we shall see later on. At the Jennings ranch they met Jess Randell, and here the four sat late, discussing the big coup which they hoped was to retrieve all their fortunes. At length they arrived at a decision, and arranged a plan which they deemed offered every security against discovery. * * * * * It is now time to revert to the fortunes of Rob, of whom we last heard when the three worthies into whose camp he had been catapulted with such velocity were searching in vain for a clew to his whereabouts. As will be recalled, after leaping on the back of Hank Handcraft's pony, the boy had dashed off down the trail at top speed, without a very clear idea of where he was bound for. As he rode he heard the sounds of the pursuit, and simultaneously with the sharp report of Bill Bender's gun, he felt his pony halt and stagger beneath him. For an instant of time it seemed to Rob as if he was bound to be captured by his pursuers, but in his extremity his mind worked with the lightning-like rapidity common to quick intelligences in moments of great stress. At the precise instant that his little mount gave a groan and plunged forward into the dust of the trail, Rob reached above his head and seized the low-hanging branch of a small, stout tree. With the activity of the practiced athlete, he swung himself up into the thick greenery as the poor pony lay in its death struggles below. Rapidly working his way among the branches, he was soon several feet from the trail. While Bill Bender and Clark Jennings were hanging over the dead pony and searching in vain for the boy's trail, Rob was noiselessly making his way over rocks and stones down into a deep-timbered gully. He could hardly keep himself from an exultant laugh as he pictured the chagrin and amazement of his old enemies at his total disappearance. He rapidly sped on, and after an hour or more of traveling, feeling himself safe once more, he halted. Up to that moment he had pressed on without feeling much fatigue. The excitement of the rapid happenings since he had slipped upon the Indian pony's back had sustained him. Now, however, that he felt comparatively safe, the inevitable relapse came. Rob's knees began to feel strained and weak, as they had never felt before. His head, too, buzzed queerly, and a feeling of overpowering lassitude assailed him in every limb. "Good gracious! am I going to play out?" The boy asked himself the question with every feeling of dismay. He was in a solitary, remote part of even those wild mountains, and although he was on a small eminence, he could see nothing at any point of the compass but dreary, monotonous woods or rocky patches of sun-burned wild oats and foxtail. By the height of the sun and its direction, he guessed that it was about noon, and that he had been traveling in a southerly direction, but even of this, in his sudden collapse, he had no very clear notion. All he really knew was that he craved food with a wild, aching longing in his every fibre that had never before assailed him. "I wonder if starving men in cities ever feel like this?" the boy asked himself. "Woof! I could eat a horse raw cheerfully." Then came an interval of utter lassitude of mind and body, in which the boy lay stretched out on the hot ground, without a thought of anything. A strange ringing began to sound in his ears and his head felt dizzy. "Got to get out of the sun," he thought in a dim, remote sort of way. He voiced his thought aloud, and his tones sounded faint and far away to him, like the accents of another person. "Brace up, Rob, brace up," he began repeating to himself, as he made for a patch of deep shadow under a bush covered with a kind of purple berry. But in spite of his determination to "brace up," even the slight effort of crawling to the grateful shade bothered him so badly that, having reached it, he could only lie on his side and pant like an exhausted creature. All at once a sound was borne to his ears that made him sit up erect--the bright light of hope gleaming in his eyes. Heavy footsteps were coming toward him. The boy cared little whether the advancing individual was friend or foe. His coming meant food, at least; for surely no enemy could be so inhuman as to refuse nourishment to a boy in the pitiable condition of Rob Blake. "There's something queer about those footsteps, though," mused the boy, as the sounds drew nearer, accompanied by a sort of low, growling grumbling. What can it be? "Sounds like--like---- Great Scott! Silver Tip!" Into the small clearing on one side of which Rob lay beneath his sheltering bush, there had suddenly lumbered the half-legendary monarch of the Santa Catapinas. It was Silver Tip, the giant grizzly! For a second the monster's small, piglike eyes glared in blank astonishment at the encounter. He was hunting honey, and this sudden meeting with a white boy in the wildest part of his own particular domain evidently had struck him "in a heap," so to speak. The next instant, however, the expression of his wicked little optics changed to one of active malevolence. He swung his great bulk savagely about--like the giant heavings and swayings of a picketed elephant. The small spot of snow-white hair that gave him his name shone out on his dark, shaggy hide like a bull's-eye. It was right over his heart. If Rob had had a rifle, he could have pierced it as unerringly as a target. [Illustration: With a crazy yell, the boy leaped to his feet and rushed straight at his monstrous shaggy opponent.] But the lad was weaponless, and almost unconscious from fatigue and exhaustion. Indeed, delirium had been dangerously near when Silver Tip came lumbering into the clearing. The sight of the monster had tipped the delicately adjusted balance. With a crazy yell, the boy leaped to his feet and rushed straight at his monstrous shaggy opponent. In sheer astonishment, Silver Tip reared his immense bulk upward. "Ha, ha! I'll kill you, you old thief, you old murderer!" yelled Rob deliriously, as he hurled his slight form straight against the monstrous hairy tower of rugged strength. The great forepaws--armed with claws as sharp and heavy as chilled-steel chisels--extended. In another instant the lad would have been in the monster's death grip, when an intervention, as sudden as it was unexpected, occurred. CHAPTER XVIII. THE INDIAN AGENT. From the dense surrounding clumps of chaparral there had suddenly emerged the figure of a tall, bearded man, with keen blue eyes and a striking air of self-reliance and resolution. It was Mr. Mayberry, the Indian agent. Over his arm he carried an automatic rifle, which he instantly jerked to his shoulder as his amazed eyes fell on the extraordinary scene before him. Surely Jeffries Mayberry was the first man who had ever gazed upon the spectacle of a boy, unarmed and alone, attacking the hugest grizzly in that part of the country. "The boy is mad!" was his first thought, and, as we know, he was not far wrong in this surmise. But it was no time for speculation as to the causes of this strange scene, and Jeffries Mayberry was not the man to indulge in rumination when the necessity called for immediate action. Bang! For the twentieth--or was it the hundredth?--time in his eventful life, Silver Tip felt the impingement of a bullet. But with the monster's usual good fortune, the ball did not pierce a vital part. Instead, it buried itself in the fleshy part of the brute's forequarters, inflicting a wound that made him bellow with pain and face round on this new foe. As Silver Tip, in regal majesty, swung his huge form about, Rob crumpled up in a heap and lay senseless on the hot ground. For an instant it looked as if the great monarch of the Santa Catapinas meant to attack the Indian agent. But it seemed that he changed his mind as he faced him. An animal so relentlessly hunted, and so often wounded as Silver Tip, becomes endowed with almost human cunning and reasoning power, and part of Silver Tip's immunity from mortal wounds had doubtless been due to this. Most grizzlies, when wounded, charge furiously on their tormentors, thus assuring their fatal injury. These had never been Silver Tip's tactics. He had always preferred to "fight and run away, and live to fight some other day." So it was now. For the space of a breath, the two splendid specimens of human kind and the animal kingdom stared into each other's eyes. In his admiration of the magnificent brute before him, Jeffries Mayberry held his fire. He could not bring himself to kill the splendid creature unless such an action became necessary in self-defense. Were there more hunters like him, our forests and plains would not have become devastated of many of the species once so plentiful among them. Suddenly the bear's eyes turned away under the steady scrutiny of the plainsman, and with a growl that was half a whine, he dropped on all fours and lumbered off. "Lucky for you you didn't hurt this boy, or even your splendid majesty wouldn't have saved you," muttered Jeffries Mayberry, reaching the unconscious Rob's side in three or four rapid strides. "Hum! in bad shape," he murmured, laying open the boy's blue flannel shirt and placing a hand over his heart. "Good thing I happened along when I did, and---- Hullo!" he gave a long, low whistle of astonishment. "It's one of those kids that my bad boy Moquis held up this side of Mesaville. Well, here's a discovery." He stood erect, and placing his fingers to his lips, blew a shrill, piercing call. The next instant a splendid cream-colored horse came bounding into the clearing, shaking his head impatiently and whinnying as his large liquid eyes fell on his master. "Here, Ranger," said Mayberry, addressing the beautiful steed as if it had possessed the faculty of understanding. "Here is a poor boy overcome for want of food and water, and I think he's got a touch of the sun. We've got to get him home, Ranger." Ranger pawed the ground with one forefoot and his nostrils dilated. His keen senses indicated to him that a bear had been about, and if there is one creature of which Western horses are thoroughly afraid it is his majesty, King Bruin. Perceiving this, Mayberry spoke a few reassuring words to the splendid horse, which instantly quieted down, though it still glanced apprehensively about it. The Indian agent's next action was to place Rob's senseless form across the saddle, while he himself swung rapidly up behind the cantle. Lightly pressing the rein to the left side of his horse's glossy neck, the Indian agent urged it forward into the chaparral. Ranger's dainty skin shivered at the rough touch of the prickly stuff, but he went unflinchingly in the direction his master guided him. After an hour or more of riding, Mayberry emerged on a curiously located open space. It lay at the bottom of a saucer-like depression, which might, in some remote day, have been a volcanic fire basin. Now, however, it was covered with a luxuriant growth of wild oats, and at the bottom bubbled up a little spring. All about it shot up scarred mountain sides, with scanty timber hanging to their rocky ribs. In the midst of this isolation and wilderness it looked strange to see a small cabin located. It was somewhat tumbledown, to be sure, and had, in fact, been erected there in the early fifties by a wandering prospector. Jeffries Mayberry, seeking a convenient spot from which to keep up his surveillance over his Moquis, had stumbled upon it by accident, and with an old woodsman's skill had rendered it quite habitable. So, at least, Rob thought, when half an hour later he recovered consciousness in the cool gloom of the shanty. He was lying on a bed of fragrant boughs, and above him was the shingle roof of the hut, through holes in which he could see the blue sky. "Where on earth am I?" was Rob's first thought, as consciousness rushed back like a tide that has been temporarily stemmed. Gradually the events preceding his collapse grew clear to him, and he retraced recent happenings up to the appearance of the grizzly. Of his delirious attack upon the monster, he had, of course, no recollection. "I must get up and find out where this is, and how I got here," was Rob's first thought, and with this intention he rose to his feet. To his intense astonishment, the room instantly whirled dizzily about him, and the earthen floor seemed to rise and smite him in the face. What had happened was that the weakened boy had fallen headlong. As he lay there, a hearty voice rang out in an amused tone: "Hello, hello! Pretty weak, ain't you, for a boy who wanted to fight grizzlies with his bare hands?" Rob looked up. The big form of Jeffries Mayberry stood framed in the doorway. He came forward and, gently as a woman, placed Rob on the couch. "Why--why, it's Mr. Mayberry!" gasped Rob, as his eyes fell on his companion's kindly, bearded features. "Yes, it's me, right enough," laughed the Indian agent. "And now, if you'll lie quiet for a minute, I'll see how some rabbit stew is getting along. How does that sound?" "Fine!" smiled Rob, and, indeed, the mention of food had set all his appetite on edge again. "But see here, Mr. Mayberry, I don't want to be babied this way. I'm going to get up and----" "You are going to do nothing of the sort," exclaimed the Indian agent. "Here, Ranger." Again he gave the peculiar whistle, and Ranger's dainty head appeared inquiringly in the doorway. "Watch that boy, Ranger, and if he tries to get up--grab him!" With these words, the kind-hearted Indian agent vanished, to superintend the composition of the stew he was making over a camp fire outside. "Well," thought Rob, "this is a funny situation. I'm in a hut, and haven't the least idea how I got here. A horse is set to guard me, and---- I wonder," he went on, "if that horse is really a watch dog, or if that was just a bluff." It was a good evidence of Rob's returning vitality that he stretched out a foot to test Ranger's watchfulness. Instantly the sharp, pointed ears lay flat back on the horse's head, and the whites of his eyes showed menacingly. "I guess I'll stay here!" laughed Rob. As soon as he resumed his posture, Ranger's ears came forward, and the kind light came back into his eyes. "I've heard of horses that were broken that way," thought Rob, "but this is the first I have ever seen." Had Rob known it, such horses as Ranger--animals trained to the same wonderful pitch of intelligence--are not uncommon in the Southwest. Presently Mr. Mayberry appeared with a bowl of what to Rob smelled more appetizing than anything he had ever known. "Ah-h-h-h-h!" he exclaimed, as his nostrils caught the savor. "Wade in," said Mr. Mayberry, placing the dish on a rough, home-made table by his side. And "wade in" Rob did. He could have finished half a dozen more bowls like it--or so he felt--but Mr. Mayberry told him that after such a fast as he had endured it was important to "go slow." So much better was the boy after dispatching the meal that he was able to get up, and after a short time spent in staggering about, he quite recovered his faculties. "Now," said Mr. Mayberry, "tell me how you came to be where I found you?" Rob told him, his narrative being interrupted from time to time by exclamations of astonishment from the Indian agent. "This youth, Clark Jennings," interrupted Mr. Mayberry once, "has been a thorn in my side for years. His father is almost as bad. They have frequently committed all sorts of outrages on ranchers and implicated the Indians in them. Not only that, but they have paid the most unprincipled of the Moquis to help them in their cattle stealing and fence cutting." "I wonder they haven't ever been captured," said Rob. "Well," said Mr. Mayberry, "as the saying goes, it is almost impossible to 'get the goods' on them. And you say you know this cousin of his from the East, and his companions?" "Very well," rejoined Rob, "some time I will tell you about our experiences in the East with their gang. They actually kidnapped one of our Boy Scouts, and imprisoned him in a hut." "Why, they could have been imprisoned for that!" "They would have been if it had not been for the fact that they fled to the West." Rob soon concluded his narration, and Mr. Mayberry then related to him some of his own movements of the last few days. Despairing of rounding up the Moquis by moral suasion, he had telegraphed to Fort Miles for a detachment of troops. He was to meet them the next evening at Sentinel Peak, a mountain about ten miles from his present camping-place. The Indian agent had succeeded in locating the valley in which the great Snake Dance was to be held, and, in consequence, was ready to raid it with the troops at the height of the ceremonies. "Such an action will break up their practices for many years," he declared. "When are you going to start for the peak?" asked Rob. "I had not intended to leave till to-morrow," said Mr. Mayberry, "but since you have told me you are anxious that your friends should be informed of your safety, I must start this evening in order to reach a settlement from which I can telephone to the Harkness ranch." Rob's heart sank. Mr. Mayberry had not said "we." The boy had hoped it would be possible for him to go along. The Indian agent saw his manifest disappointment and hastened to reassure him. "I would gladly take you," he said, "but it is too arduous a trip for even Ranger to carry more than one. You will be safe here till I return with the troops. I will come by here with an extra horse, and, if possible, with your friends, and then we will ride together on the Moquis." A shrill whinny suddenly sounded outside. "Hullo, what's the matter with Ranger?" exclaimed Mr. Mayberry, springing up, followed by Rob. Outside the hut the boy saw a strange sight. The splendid horse was gazing about him apprehensively, and stamping the ground impatiently. His nostrils were dilated, showing red inside, and his whole appearance was one of intense nervousness. "What's the matter with him?" asked Rob, noting in a swift glance that Mr. Mayberry's face had become suddenly clouded. "Well," said Mayberry succinctly, "there are only two things which make him act like that--Indians and bears--and I reckon there are no bears about right now. "But Ranger scents danger," he went on. "I am certain of it. Old horse, you'll have to carry double, after all." CHAPTER XIX. BLACK CLOUD'S VISIT. It was mid-afternoon of the day following the start of Mr. Mayberry and Rob, riding double, from the shanty in the lonely basin. Gathered in the big living room of the ranch house of the Harkness range was a cheerless little group, consisting of the Boy Scouts of the Ranger Patrol, Mr. Harkness and several cow-punchers, including Blinky. They had returned, disheartened and apprehensive, a few hours before, from a painstaking search of the mountains for a trace of Rob. But they had found absolutely none, and as Mr. Harkness had just said, felt as if they had indeed reached "the end of the rope." "You don't think, then, there is a chance of our finding him?" It was Merritt who spoke. "I'm afraid, much as I dislike to say it, my boy, that we have used up every possible resource at our command," rejoined the rancher. "Then what are we to do? We can't give up the search like this. He may be wandering about in the mountains now." "With nothing to eat," put in Tubby tragically. "I only wish you could suggest something," said Mr. Harkness in a weary tone, that made Merritt ashamed of his querulous speech. "What your experience has been unable to suggest it is unlikely that we could think of," he rejoined. "I've only one thing to say, Mr. Harkness, and that is that we delay notifying his parents in the East till the last flicker of hope has died out." "You mean that we may still hear some news of him?" "I know Rob Blake," rejoined Merritt, "and if he has an ounce of strength he will make his way back." "But the tracks of the big bear?" "Silver Tip," put in Harry. "That looks bad, I know," stubbornly rejoined Merritt; "but somehow I feel that Rob will yet come out all right." "I hope so, I am sure," breathed Mr. Harkness fervently. As the reader will have guessed by the rancher's remark, the searching party had encountered the tracks of the big grizzly in the course of their wanderings. Huge as were the monster's paws, there was no danger of mistaking them for those of any of his kindred. The fact that the huge brute was on that side of the range had proved a disturbing factor in the hunt for Rob Blake. It indicated another source of danger to the missing boy, aside from the peril of Indians, hunger and thirst, and many other dangers that he might have to face. Suddenly Mr. Harkness started up from the big hewn-oak chair in which he had flung himself, and sat up, listening intently. The others did the same, Blinky running to the window. "There's some one on a pony coming over the foothills like blazes bent for election!" he announced. "Wh-o is it?" demanded Mr. Harkness. "Can't make out. Doesn't ride like any of this outfit," said Blinky. "Maybe it's news of Rob," exclaimed Merritt. The same thought flamed up in the heart of each of the returned searchers. "It's an Indian!" cried Blinky suddenly. "How do you know?" "Can tell by his riding. I can see his blanket flapping out, too." "Perhaps he has news of the boy." "He knows something of importance; he wants to get here quick," was the cow-puncher's rejoinder. "He's spurring on that plug of his for all he's worth. Indians don't ride that hard unless they are in a hurry." Everybody was on their feet now, and by common consent a movement toward the door began. They had not long to wait before the rider galloped up, and drew rein so violently as to cast his mount back on its haunches. As Blinky had said, the newcomer was an Indian. He had evidently ridden long and hard. His pony's coat was covered with a coating of dust, and his blanket was whitened with the same stuff. The paint on his face was almost obliterated by the same substance. "How!" he exclaimed, gazing with a hawklike intensity into the ring of faces. "How!" said Mr. Harkness in the same manner. "Black Cloud!" he exclaimed the next instant, as the chief slipped from his pony. The chief nodded gravely, and then looked about him uneasily. He evidently did not like to be the centre of so many curious faces. Divining his thought, the rancher invited him inside, ordering one of the cow-punchers to take the chief's pony. "Has--has he news of Rob?" begged Merritt, pressing forward. "Now, see here, Merritt," said Mr. Harkness, not unkindly, "the way of an Indian is one of the wonders of the world. You leave him to me, and if he does know anything of the boy I'll get it out of him." Together the Indian chief and the rancher passed into the living room of the ranch house, and the door closed on them. For more than an hour they remained closeted, and then they emerged once more. Black Cloud, so the eager boys noticed, looked more than usually grim and determined, while Mr. Harkness's face bore a stern look. The Indian's pony, which had been fed, watered and rubbed down, was brought round for him, and he cast once more a searching glance about him. Then, without a word, he leaped upon his little animal's back and dashed off. "He--he had news?" demanded Merritt, the foremost in the rush that instantly surrounded Mr. Harkness. "Yes, grave news," was the reply; "but come inside. I will tell you all he told me. In the first place, to relieve your anxiety, I must tell you that while Rob was for a time a prisoner of the tribe, he is so no longer, having, as we surmised after we saw his sombrero on that scamp's saddle, escaped." "Then nobody knows where he is?" "That's it." Blank looks were exchanged as they clustered about the rancher to hear what the chief of the Moquis had visited him for. Evidently, from the rancher's manner, there were graver thoughts still in his mind. "To explain to you what is to follow," he said, "I must say that things are now at a crisis as regards the leadership of the Moquis tribe. For the first time in many years Black Cloud's power is threatened. A younger chief, named Diamond Snake, has attained great supremacy in the tribe, and is using his influence to undermine the leadership of Black Cloud. Diamond Snake is not a full-blooded Indian, but he once worked for Clark Jennings on his father's ranch, before the family moved here." "Gosh-jigger them!" burst out Blinky devoutly. "Black Cloud, who is a pretty sensible Indian, refused to have anything to do with Jennings and his gang, and as late as last night, he tells me, warned them not to try to implicate his tribe in trouble. In spite of that, an attack is to be made on our mavericks in the Far Pasture by Jennings and his crowd, disguised as Moquis, and----" "It was Jennings and that bunch, for a bet, that stampeded the cattle!" cried Blinky. "I think so. They could easily rig themselves up as Moquis and deceive any one, particularly in the excitement. Black Cloud became suspicious after his interview with Jennings, and laid in hiding in the brush. What he heard confirmed his suspicion that Jennings meant to disguise himself and his helpers as Indians, when they raided the cattle, and so throw the blame on the tribe. Old Black Cloud readily saw that this would work him immeasurable harm, so rode right off to warn me." "But why should he do this?" asked Merritt. "It's clear enough," rejoined the rancher. "He knows I'm pretty influential, and he also knows that there's a hot time coming for his tribe when they are finally rounded up. By coming to me and telling me of Jennings's plans, he figures that I, on my part, will go to the front for him and save his tribe from any severe penalty." "But will you?" asked Harry. "I promised him to," rejoined Mr. Harkness. "His visit may be the means of saving me thousands of dollars. But now I am in a serious predicament. Most of my punchers are off on the Bone Mound Range, rounding up mavericks. Jennings will have quite a force, and how are we to oppose him?" "We'll help you," spoke up Harry boldly. "Who?" "Why, the Boy Scouts. Except Merritt and Tubby, we can all rope, and not one of us is scared of a little shooting, or anything like that." "Well, I don't like the idea of taking you boys into danger." "I guess you'll have to take them," put in Blinky soberly. "Why?" "Well, there's only myself and three other punchers, and we'll need at least a dozen to take care of the raid. Let the kids help. They'll do all right. I watched 'em carefully while we were trailing poor Rob, and they're made of the right stuff." So it was arranged that the boys were to take part in protecting the Far Pasture against Clark Jennings and his marauders. There was now little doubt in the minds of Mr. Harkness and the others that the stampede had been instigated by Clark and his friends, disguised as Moquis. In fact, we know from the conversation we overheard in the mountains that such was the case. "Where has Black Cloud gone, to join the snake dance?" asked Merritt, when this had been settled. "No; at least, he has gone there, but with the object of preventing it, if possible. In some way he has learned that Mayberry has sent for soldiers, and that he means to surprise the tribe at the height of their revelry. Black Cloud, for this reason, is determined to stop it if he can." "Can he, do you think?" asked Harry. "I don't know. He told me that Diamond Snake, in order to make himself more popular with the tribe, was a red-hot advocate of giving the dance with all its trimmings." "I'd like to see it," said Merritt suddenly. "See them eating rattlers, eh?" put in Blinky. "Do they eat them?" asked Tubby, interested at once at the mention of his favorite topic. "Eat 'em alive," was the startling reply; "that is, except the ones they throw into a red-hot pit of coals." "Did you ever see a snake dance?" asked Merritt eagerly. "No, but I heard my grandpop talk about 'em. He's one of the few white men that ever saw one and got out alive." "What do you mean?" "That by Moqui law if a white man is caught looking on at their fal-de-lals and fandangos, he is tortured to death." "Hum! I guess I don't want to see one as badly as I thought I did," muttered Tubby. At this instant there came a sharp ring at the telephone. Mr. Harkness hastened to the instrument and took up the receiver. His face paled, and then broke into a joyous smile as he heard the voice at the other end. "News of Rob!" he shouted, wheeling about. Instantly they pressed forward about him, eager to hear. "He's---- Hullo! Yes. What's that? Oh, yes. Boys, Rob was at Red Flat some time ago. He is now mounted and on his way here. I am talking to Mr. Mayberry, the Indian agent, who saved him from a terrible death." "How far is Red Flat from here?" "About twenty miles, and the boy has a good horse." "He ought to be here in a couple of hours, then?" "About that," rejoined Mr. Harkness, resuming his conversation with the Indian agent. Suddenly they heard his voice raised as if in expostulation. "Don't do any such thing, Mayberry!" the boys heard the rancher exclaim. "You are mad to attempt it!" "Oh, I know, duty is duty, but it's no man's duty to place his head in a trap. Why, man alive, it's courting death, you----" "He's rung off," he exclaimed, turning to the inquiring group behind him. "I don't know what I wouldn't give to be able to stop him in what he is about to do." "Is he in trouble?" asked Harry. "No, my boy, but he soon will be. He is going to '_reason_' with the Indians. Reason with them!" he burst out bitterly. "Reason with a rock, a rattlesnake, a coyote, or anything else senseless or cruel, but don't reason with an Indian." "If you're enjoyin' this here present life," put in Blinky sagely. CHAPTER XX. THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAIL. Had Jeffries Mayberry and Rob Blake possessed the wonderfully sensitive intuition of the Indian agent's beautiful horse, they might have been able to feel, as they set out from the shanty in the clearing, that they were being followed and observed by more than one pair of cruel, beady eyes. Not being endowed with any such faculties, however, they followed the trail without any misgivings. The Indian agent, fortunately, had the good sense to accept the uneasiness of his steed as a sign of nearby danger. He had, for that reason, altered his previous determination to leave Rob behind in the hut till he returned with the soldiers from Fort Miles. And it was well that he did so, as we shall see. Hardly had the ring of Ranger's hoofs died out than a dozen dusky forms slid from the brush into the clearing and looked cautiously about. Seeing no cause for alarm, they entered the shanty and stripped it of everything they considered valuable. The Moquis, for such they were, then returned to the spot where they had tethered their ponies, and took the trail after Mayberry and his young companion. It was the scent of the ponies that had aroused Ranger's uneasiness, although the Indians, with their customary caution, had, as has been said, tethered them some little distance from the shanty. All that night, as Mr. Mayberry and his young companion rode steadily forward toward Red Flat, the objective point at which the Indian agent had determined to aim, the redskins stealthily dogged their tracks. Never by so much as an incautious move, however, did they betray their presence. Red Flat had been chosen as their destination by Mr. Mayberry on account of the superior attractions in point of distance it offered to the other station of Sentinel Peak. It was out of his way, it is true, but he determined to tax Ranger with the extra miles rather than expose Rob to peril, or keep him separated from his friends longer than needful. It was early dawn when they clattered into Red Flat, a small settlement with the essential store and post office. Its communication with the outside world consisted of the telephone and a stage which once a day trundled through. To the chagrin of the two travelers, however, the store in which the 'phone was located had been locked up during its owner's absence, and it was necessary to await his return before they could use the instrument. This opportunity, as we know, did not occur before the afternoon. In the meantime, Rob had hired a pony from the blacksmith of the place, and started off for the Harkness ranch. He had not been gone ten minutes when Ben Starkey, the storekeeper, drove into town. He had been off on a distant pasture, rounding up some sheep, which had kept him away till that time. "Hullo, Mr. Mayberry," he hailed, as he saw the Indian agent. "What brings you here? Come to buy a plow, or a shotgun to manage those 'babies' of yours?" "Neither," smiled the agent; "but if you will open up the store, Ben, I'd like to telephone." "All right. Want to use the talk box, eh?" chattered the storekeeper, as he unfastened sundry locks and bolts. "There you are. Now talk your head off." Presently, as we know, Mr. Mayberry was communicating the news of Rob's astonishing rescue to Mr. Harkness. He also told him something that he had not confided to Rob, and that was that he intended to hold the soldiers in reserve and go by himself to the valley in which the snake dance was to be held, and, as he expressed it, "reason with the Moquis." Now, there is little doubt that, had Black Cloud been in supreme control of the tribe at that time, Mr. Mayberry, with his knowledge of the red men, and the many little kindnesses he had done them, might have been able to "reason with them." But, as has been said, conditions in the tribe were not normal. The unscrupulous Diamond Snake, who was as ambitious as he was senseless, had determined on giving the snake dance, and equally determined that the logic of the little circle who still kept their heads and counseled saner measures should not prevail. Unfortunately, the wisest counsel is not invariably the most acceptable, and so it proved in the case of the rival chiefs. Black Cloud was even spoken of as "timid" by some of the young bucks. This, however, was behind his back, as none dared to fling such a taunt in the face of the veteran. In counsel, Black Cloud, supported by three or four of the elder Indians, had pleaded the many years of comfort Mr. Mayberry had provided for them. If they did nothing to thwart his wishes, he reasoned, the good times would continue. If they deliberately rebelled, however, no one knew what would happen. This sage advice had been jeered down by Diamond Snake's followers. The ancient lore of the tribe had been quoted, the spirits of their ancestors invoked, and Black Cloud denounced as a traitor to the traditions of the Moquis. A similar situation has often prevailed in the counsels of the white men, who vaunt themselves so much the red man's superiors. It was simply the case of one leader bowing to the will of the populace, the other sternly stemming the tide, bidding defiance to the element which he knows stands for what is wrong and foolish. So it had come about that a band of young braves engaged in hunting had stumbled across Mr. Mayberry's hiding place, and, having discovered it, had decided that it was their duty to trail its occupant, whom they not unnaturally, perhaps, regarded as their enemy. No such thoughts were in Jeffries Mayberry's mind, however, as he rode slowly out of Red Flat in the early twilight. On the contrary, a smile played about his usually rather stern features, and his whole countenance was relaxed in an expression which, to any one viewing him, would have said as plain as print that Jeffries Mayberry was in a pleasant mood. In fact, the crisis that he had feared seemed to the Indian agent's mind to have passed the crucial point. The cavalry from Fort Miles would be at Sentinel Peak that evening. From there it was not a long ride to the valley in which the dance was to be held. By midnight, he felt certain, things would be in train for the peaceful return of the Moquis to their reservation. Jeffries Mayberry was, as our readers have doubtless decided by this time, a man to whom the idea of bloodshed or violence was abhorrent, but also a man who looked upon duty unflinchingly. He regarded the Moquis more as children to be looked after, and chided, and reasoned with, than as bloodthirsty and cruel savages, in whom a thin veneer of civilization only skinned the savagery festering below. Men had often told Jeffries Mayberry that his view of the Indian character was wrong, but he had always defended his views. They were shortly destined to be put to the severest test a man's theories ever were called upon to bear. The Indian agent had ridden easily down the trail some two miles or so in the direction of Sentinel Mountain, when Ranger suddenly swerved so violently from the trail as almost to unseat him. "Steady, boy, steady!" soothed the agent, patting the alarmed animal's neck. "What is it?" Ranger snorted violently and then, trembling in every limb, came to a dead stop. "Why, Ranger, I----" began Mr. Mayberry, when, with hideous yells, several dark forms rushed from the surrounding gloom. As their soul-chilling yell burst from those hideously painted faces, distorted with the vilest of passions, a terrific blow was dealt the Indian agent from behind, and he fell forward, almost beneath the trampling hoofs of the maddened Ranger. His assailants were the same Indians who had been trailing him all the previous night, and who had lain in wait for him outside the settlement. The taste of blood is said to transmute a hitherto peaceful sheep dog into a creature more dangerous to his flock than even a marauding wolf. In like manner, the Moquis' dash off the reservation had converted them into a ferocity of mind which had speedily wiped off the varnish civilization had applied so painstakingly. While one of the Indians, seemingly the leader of the band, possessed himself of the agent's fine rifle, another hastened to seize the plunging Ranger's bridle. But the animal, beside himself with rage and fear, reared straight upright. Angered, the Indian dealt him a blow with a heavy rawhide quirt. With a squeal of rage, Ranger struck with his iron-shod forefeet at the redskin, and striking him on the head, toppled him over in the road beside his master. The fellow, however, was not badly hurt, and was soon on his feet again. Meanwhile, the other red men hoisted the agent's unconscious form over the back of one of their ponies. Jeffries Mayberry lay as if he were dead. Blood flowed from the wound that the weapon with which he had been struck had inflicted on the back of his head. Only the regular rising and falling of his deep, massive chest showed that he still lived. Glancing furtively about them, the Indians, including the one who had been felled by Ranger, remounted and prepared to proceed. The chief, however, on whose pony the still form of Jeffries Mayberry lay, found himself thus without a mount, and essayed to ride Ranger. Splendid rider as the fellow was, he met more than his match in the Indian agent's steed. Time and again he attempted to mount, only to be driven off by Ranger, who rushed at the member of the hated race, with bared teeth and ears wickedly set back. With a laugh that acknowledged his defeat, the Indian finally gave up the attempt, and mounted his pony, sitting far back on the animal's rump. In the glance he threw at the fiery Ranger there was an expression of admiration and respect. There are few horses that an Indian cannot master. Attempts to lead Ranger proved equally hopeless, but as he seemed to be inclined to follow his master's form, they allowed him to trail behind. And so the procession wound on, sometimes following a trail and sometimes striking off through the trackless wild. Never once did the redskins falter, but kept on as unhesitatingly as if following a beaten track. Occasionally, as they journeyed on, poor Ranger gave vent to a pathetic whinny, but the master he loved so well lay still and motionless on the back of the Indian pony that bore him. CHAPTER XXI. THE MAVERICK RAID. "Hark!" Through the dark, low-lying mass that marked the feeding maverick herd, a sort of convulsive shudder suddenly ran. The movement, somewhat like the undulation of a long wave, had not been lost on the keen eyes of the Boy Scouts lying crouched under the night sky behind a chaparral-covered rise. It was Rob who voiced the warning. Since we last heard of him at Red Flat, the boy had arrived at the ranch, and been welcomed with--well, let each one of my readers imagine for himself how he would greet his chum if he had been separated from him under such trying circumstances, and if, for a time, he had even feared that his friend might be dead. Suffice it to say that it was fully half an hour before Rob could be released from his chums and tell his story to Mr. Harkness, including confirmation of the Indian's story, that Clark Jennings and his evil companions meant to steal the mavericks while the rancher's attention was diverted by the hunt for the missing boy. A hasty supper had been dispatched soon after, and then the Boy Scouts, Mr. Harkness and the cow-punchers had set out for the Far Pasture. They reached there at nightfall, and found everything apparently in orderly shape. Owing to the uncertainty from which quarter the cattle thieves were likely to make their attack, Mr. Harkness had decided to distribute his little force in two wings, so to speak. To the south of the feeding bunch of mavericks he had deployed his cow-punchers under his own leadership. The northern flank of the feeding band was placed under the guardianship of the Boy Scouts. "Now, boys," had been Mr. Harkness's parting words, as he rode off, "the signal that they have arrived will be two shots in quick succession. Remember, don't fire at the raiders unless you have to. Concentrate your efforts on saving the cattle. If Jennings and his outfit once succeed in getting them headed up toward the mountains, they are as good as lost. Jennings has some sort of secret pasture where he can keep them till he finds time to clap his brand on and dispose of them in the open market." "But in the meantime you can have him arrested," objected Rob. "That is true, but a bunch like that always has secret agents. If all the men whom I know to be implicated in the Jennings' escapades were in jail, there would still be men on the outside of the prison walls to carry on their nefarious work." For an hour or more no sound had come to disturb the great silence which brooded above the grazing grounds. The herd moved easily and steadily over their feeding places, displaying no symptoms of alarm as they cropped the half-dry grass. Rob had enjoined perfect silence among the Boy Scouts of the Ranger Patrol, and the boys, composed, lay like veterans to their arms behind their shelter. Suddenly a maverick that had been lying down on the outskirts of the herd lumbered heavily to its feet, and raising its head, sniffed the air for a moment. Then it emitted a shrill bellow. A thrill ran through the boys as the young steer gave its alarm. Simultaneously, almost, with the maverick's cry had come marked restlessness among its mates. They stopped feeding and moved uneasily to and fro. They huddled together as cattle do before one of the electric storms of the Southwest breaks over them. "They hear something coming," whispered Merritt, who lay next to Rob. "Must be scared, to stop eating," put in Tubby, from his position alongside Harry Harkness, on Rob's other side. "Hush!" breathed the young leader. "Listen!" "I don't hear anything," said Merritt. "Yes, you do. Listen again. Off there to the north." "You mean that sort of trampling sound?" "Yes." "I thought that was the cattle," put in Merritt. "No. I hear what Rob means," whispered Harry. "It's riders, and they're coming this way." The slight sound that had first attracted Rob's keen ears now grew in volume till it resolved itself into the rattle of ponies' hoofs approaching at a smart gallop. "Here they come!" exclaimed Rob, half unconsciously clasping his rifle. "Well, they don't seem to be anxious to disguise their approach," commented Harry. "No, why should they? They figure that only three or four punchers at most are guarding the herd. With the force they have with them they suppose, I guess, that they can scare the punchers off." "I reckon that's it," agreed Merritt. Closer and closer drew the galloping, and Merritt began to shift uneasily. The others, too, began to stir about, eager for the word to advance and mount their ponies, which were concealed behind a high rampart of chaparral a few paces off. At last Rob gave the word. "Crawl over to your ponies, boys. Don't show a head." Silently as so many snakes, the Boy Scouts retreated, and managed to gain their little mounts without making any suspicious sounds. "Ready for the signal yet, Rob?" asked Merritt, noticing that the young leader had slipped his revolver from its holster. "Not yet. Give them a little more rope. We want to see what their plans are before giving the alarm." "All right. But don't let them give us the slip." "Not likely. Remember, I've got a few scores to even up with Master Clark Jennings and Company myself." Suddenly out of the darkness before them came an ear-splitting "whoop." "Yip-yip-y-ee-e-e-e!" Bang! Bang! Rob's pistol cracked out the signal that the attack had begun at the same instant. But quick as he was, the boy had delayed a little too long. In his anxiety to make sure from which quarter the drive was to begin, he had allowed the raiders to get between his line of scouts and the cattle, thus permitting them a free and open path to the mountains. In a flash Rob realized this, as he swung on his pony's back. Silence was of little moment now, and the Boy Scouts uttered a loud cheer as they swept forward behind their leader. Bang! Bang! It was the answer to Rob's signal, from Mr. Harkness's party. But it sounded faint and far off. The rancher, in his anxiety to allow ample room to head off the cattle, in case they started for the Graveyard Cliffs, had stationed his men too far to the southward. Already the drive had begun, and the mavericks were trotting off before the onrush of a dozen or more dark figures garbed like Indians. "Whoop-whoop-whoop-ee-ee!" yelled the raiders, the better to keep up the illusion that they were Indians. "I guess they don't know that they are not throwing any dust in our eyes," muttered Rob, as he dug his spurs in deep, and his pony answered with every pound of speed in its active little body. By his side was Harry Harkness and all about them surged the other Boy Scouts. "Spread out! Spread out!" commanded Rob, as the charge swept forward. "Each Scout take a man and rope him if he can." With the exception of the Eastern boys, every lad in the Ranger Patrol was, as a matter of course, an efficient roper, and could handle a lariat as well as they could their ponies. Rob's command to use the rawhides, therefore, met with shouts and yells of approval. The consternation created in the ranks of Clark Jennings's raiders by the chorus of shouts and yells behind them may be imagined. "I thought you told us there wouldn't be more than a few cow-punchers here," said Bill Bender angrily, as they pressed on behind the cattle, which were now loping fast toward the mountains. "Well, I thought so. How was I to know they'd have an army out?" "That's what they've got. Hark at that!" A fresh yell from the Boy Scouts broke out behind the disguised raiders, and this time it sounded closer. "Speed up those cattle," shouted Clark Jennings desperately; "we've got to get to the mountains before they close on us." A volley of pistol shots was the answer, but the raiders fired above the cattle's backs. A fresh burst of speed followed from the frightened animals, which were now fairly stampeding. The shouts and yells and the constant cracking of pistols drove them into a frenzy of fear. On and on swept the mad advance. "If once they get to the hills, we may as well give them up!" shouted Harry, above the deafening hammer of the galloping Boy Scouts. "Yes, we'd better pump some lead into them!" yelled Bill Simmons. "On no account," shouted back Rob. "Use your ropes, but no shooting." Fast as the mavericks were urged on, they could not make the same speed over the rough ground that the ponies of their tormentors achieved. This fact naturally held back the line of disguised white raiders and permitted the Boy Scouts to close up on them. Before long they were so close that they could see the headdresses and blankets of the supposed Indians, waving above the dark line of racing steers. In the excitement of the chase, the boys had quite overlooked the fact that they were in close pursuit of some of the most desperate men in Arizona, and had carelessly come within pistol range. Suddenly a bright flash spurted from one of the raiders' revolvers, and a bullet whizzed past Rob's ear. "A miss is as good as a mile!" he yelled exultingly. The boy, to tell the truth, did not feel any fear of being "pinked" by a raider's bullet. Added to the darkness was the fact that the whole body was sweeping forward over rough ground at tremendous speed. A man, to aim true under such conditions, must have been a phenomenal marksman. "Aim low! Fire at their ponies!" he heard Clark Jennings yell suddenly. "Ah!" thought Rob. "Now you are talking. If a pony gets hit, it puts his rider out of the race." Hardly had the thought flashed through his mind before there came another spurt of fire from the raiders' line, and Rob felt his mount collapse under him. He leaped from the saddle just in time to avoid being crushed as the pony crashed down in a dying heap. The boy had been riding off to one side of the Scouts when his pony was shot, and in the darkness not one of them seemed to have noticed that Rob was dismounted, for yelling and cheering, the chase swept on. "Well, I'm out of it," thought Rob dismally. "I hope they get them, though. I'd like----" "Up with your hands, and drop that rifle!" The command came out of the darkness behind him like a bolt out of the blue. Rob recognized that whoever had voiced the command meant business, and down fell his rifle with a crash, while his hands extended above his head. "Now I've got you where I want you," were the next words, coming in a vindictive voice from his captor. The next instant the speaker rode round the motionless Rob, and brought his pony to a halt directly in front of the boy. Despite the shrouding blanket and the waving feathers on the rider's head, Rob recognized his captor, with a thrill, as Clark Jennings. He was absolutely in the power of the vindictive ranch boy. CHAPTER XXII. CLARK JENNINGS GETS A SURPRISE. "Lucky thing for me my pony went lame and I had to drop out," muttered Clark Jennings triumphantly. "I've got a few things I want to say to you, Rob Blake." "You'd better say them quick, then," rejoined Rob. "I'm not overfond of your conversation." "Don't try to be fresh, young fellow!" warned Clark, raising his rifle menacingly. "I've got a corrective for back-talk in here." "But you daren't use it." "Don't be too sure." "Well, what do you want to do with me?" "All you have to do now is to obey, and obey pronto--see? Now march." "Which way?" "Toward the mountains." "Very well." Rob wheeled obediently, and began to march off, but already he had conceived a daring plan, and unexpectedly an opportunity suddenly presented itself to carry it out. As Clark Jennings swung his pony, the animal spied, lying on the bare ground, a gleaming white skull--the relic of some dead and gone steer. With a snort, he gave a wild sidewise leap that almost unseated Clark, practiced rider though he was. Rob heard the snort and the jump and Clark's sharp exclamation. In a flash his mind was made up. He wheeled like a streak, and bending down, grabbed his rifle. In far less time than it takes to tell it, the muzzle of the weapon was covering Clark Jennings's breast. "Drop that rifle, Clark!" The tables were turned with a vengeance now. But Clark Jennings, to do him justice, was no coward. Disregarding Rob's command, he instead raised his own rifle and aimed point blank at the lad. A stinging sensation cut through Rob's right shoulder and his muscles involuntarily contracted. His rifle was an automatic, and the "safety" slide was open. As Clark's bullet penetrated his shoulder, Rob's finger twitched on the light trigger. Bang! The bullet ploughed into the flank of Clark's pony. The animal gave a frightened, pained squeal and a terrific buck. Utterly unprepared as Clark was for such a contingency, he was shot through the air over the pony's head, and landed with a crash on the hard ground. His rifle flew out of his hand in the opposite direction, while his pony, which was only slightly wounded, galloped, riderless, off. "Well, I hope you're satisfied now," growled Clark, raising himself on one elbow and gazing vindictively at Rob, who this time took no chances and kept his enemy covered. Clark, for all he knew, might have a revolver concealed about him. "I'm not the one to be satisfied," rejoined Rob. "That is for Mr. Harkness to be. I should advise you to tell him the truth." At that instant the sound of trampling hoofs was heard off to the south. It was the belated band of cow-punchers, headed by Mr. Harkness, sweeping at top speed in the direction of the retreating chase. "Co-ee-ee!" yelled Rob. "Who is it?" came back the hail. "Rob Blake. I want to see you." "Don't stop us now, Rob," came back Mr. Harkness's voice, "unless it is something serious. We don't want to lose that rascal Jennings." "If you'll come this way, you can't miss him," called Rob cheerfully. "Confound you, Rob Blake! I'll get even with you some day for this!" growled Clark, utterly dumfounded by the unexpected arrival of Mr. Harkness. A few seconds later the perhaps equally astonished rancher and his men loped up. A shrill cheer broke from the punchers as they saw the leader of the cattle raiders ingloriously squatted on the ground, nursing a sprained wrist and scowling like a cornered wildcat. "Well done, Rob," cried Mr. Harkness, as he saw the crestfallen raider. "Here, Blinky, just take a few turns round this fellow with a rope. Joyce," to another of the punchers, "you stay here and guard him. We'll take no chance with so slippery a customer." The rancher drew out an electric flash torch and illumined the scene. Suddenly his eyes fell on a dark, wet patch on Rob's shoulder. "Why, boy, you are wounded!" he cried. "Oh, just a touch. The bullet tore the flesh. It isn't anything," protested Rob. "What, he fired at you?" "Yes," Clark answered brutally, "and I'm sorry I didn't kill him!" An examination of Rob's injury showed that it was only a slight flesh wound, and after it had been wrapped up with a strip of his shirt to keep dirt out till proper remedies could be applied, he mounted Joyce's pony, and the cavalcade swept on once more, leaving the appointed cow-puncher behind to guard Clark Jennings. "Hullo," exclaimed Mr. Harkness suddenly, as they rode on. "I believe something's happening up ahead." Indeed, it seemed so. Shouts and yells and imprecations filled the air. Suddenly a volley of shots sounded, and a sharp cry rang out. "Good gracious! They're shooting to kill!" cried Rob, dashing forward. Mr. Harkness and the cow-punchers were close on his heels. It was a strange scene into the midst of which they rode at top speed. Harry Harkness, Bill Simmons, Jeb Cotton and Frank Price each had their ponies "backed" on their lariats, and at the end of each taut, stretched rope lay a dark object, rolling about and muttering angry imprecations. Round the group rode the Boy Scouts, yelling at the top of their voices and cheering vociferously. And no wonder. At the end of the different lariats lay four cattle raiders, their clumsy disguises dragged half off, giving a grotesque appearance to them. The captives were examined one by one, and found to be Hank Handcraft, Bill Bender, Jess Randell and old man Jennings. None of them would say a word except profanity, and so they were each tied and left, while the cow-punchers and victorious Boy Scouts set out to round up the crazed mavericks. The steers had now scattered in every direction, and getting them into a bunch was no slight job. Of the rest of the cattle raiders no trace could be found. It was learned afterward that they had galloped off when the Boy Scouts roped their leaders, and they made good their escape later across the border. The Boy Scouts, however, had not escaped lightly. Several of them had minor wounds, none serious, where the bullets of the cowardly raiders had struck them. It took a good hour or more to round up the cattle and quiet them, and then a sort of general inspection was made of the ranch forces. This resulted in a startling discovery. No Tubby Hopkins was to be found. "Who saw him last?" asked Rob. "I did," said Jeb Cotton. "He was riding off after a tall fake Indian." "Any one see him since?" No, nobody had. At this moment, while things looked grave, there came a sudden yell, off in the distance. A few minutes later Tubby's rotund form appeared. To the boys' amazement, the fat boy led behind him a mounted figure, bound up like a valuable parcel, with fold on fold of rawhide. "Why, Tubby, wherever have you been?" demanded Rob. "On special duty," announced the fat boy importantly. "I have made a prisoner of war." "What! Why, how?" gasped Merritt. "Who is it?" shouted Merritt, edging round to get a look at the muffled prisoner. Mr. Harkness turned his searchlight in the captive's face. In vain the fellow tried to bury his features in the folds of his blanket. His attempts at concealment were useless. A shout of amazement went up as Rob and Merritt recognized the face of Tubby's captive. It was Jack Curtiss! Arriving unexpectedly at the Jennings ranch that evening, he had been persuaded to take part in the raid. Knowing little about riding, the former bully of Hampton Academy had boastfully declared he would outride any of the raiders. He had been accommodated with a pony and had taken part in the onslaught which had had such an unexpected conclusion. Tubby, carried away by excitement, had chased the huddled figure, little knowing whom the blanket shrouded. Suddenly Jack Curtiss's pony stumbled, throwing the bully headlong. Tubby had immediately pressed his rifle to the fallen figure's head with the curt command: "Shut up!" As soon as his astonished eyes had recognized Jack Curtiss, he saw a fine chance to redeem himself as a hero in the eyes of the Boy Scouts. Tricing Jack up with his lariat, he had led him back in triumph to the rest. "Hooray, Tubby, I didn't think you had it in you!" cried Merritt, clapping the fat boy on the back. "Hum! I don't show all my good qualities at once," remarked Tubby, grandiloquently strutting about. "I wonder what you'd have done if it had been a real Indian?" laughed Harry Harkness. "Just the same--just the same," rejoined Tubby. A roar of laughter greeted the stout youth's complacent remark, but it was suddenly checked as a horseman came dashing up to the party. "Hullo, what's up now?" exclaimed Mr. Harkness amazedly, as the rider drew rein almost at his feet. "It's an Indian!" exclaimed Merritt. "Another fake," declared Tubby sagely. But this time it was a real Indian, and he drew Mr. Harkness aside and spoke some rapid words. The rancher's face showed traces of great excitement, although his voice was calm enough as he turned to the interested group, after some moments of conversation with the red man. "Ray and Sumner, you join Joyce back there and take these prisoners to the ranch, and see that they are kept under strong guard," he ordered. "What! Aren't we going back?" inquired Rob. "No, my boy. I have grave news. The Moquis have rebelled against Black Cloud's authority, and Mr. Mayberry is a prisoner in their camp." "Is he in danger?" "He is in the gravest peril. Only prompt action can save his life. Such is the message Black Cloud gave this Indian to bring to me." A few moments later Rob, mounted on a pony previously ridden by old man Jennings, a tough, wiry little cayuse, was riding beside Mr. Harkness, listening eagerly to the details of his kind-hearted friend's predicament. Behind them spurred the Boy Scouts and the few cow-punchers remaining after a guard had been detailed. Minutes counted, as they well knew, and no rider in the party spared his pony as they pressed rapidly forward, under the Indian's guidance, for the valley of the snake dance. CHAPTER XXIII. WORSHIPPERS OF THE SNAKE. About a deep pit, filled to the brim with red-hot, glowing coals, swayed a long line of naked, copper-colored bodies. The glow of the flaming torches illuminated weirdly the surroundings. Steep, rocky walls, bare of timber or vegetation, and the flat, basin-like floor of the deep depression in the mountains formed the secret valley of the Moqui snake dancers. In lines behind the braves, who were swaying their lithe bodies so rhythmically above the red-hot pit, were grouped scores of stolid-faced Indians. By not the twitch of a single muscle did they display the frenzy that was already at work within them, but their beady, dark eyes glittered as they watched the weird gyrations of the swaying line above the fire. All at once a low chant arose from the line. Its regular rhythm and booming inflection marked it as being of religious character. Steadily it grew in volume, till half the Indians in that rock-bound basin in the hills were intoning it. As the line of chief chanters swayed back and forth, from time to time the firelight gleamed on a row of earthen vessels, quaintly illuminated, which stood behind them. Suddenly one of the dancers turned, and while the shrieks of his fellows grew more and more frenzied, he plunged his hand into the mouth of one of the vessels. He drew his arm forth again, embellished by a hideous ornament--a writhing, struggling diamond-back rattler! The creature's flat head darted at the man's face, and its fangs seemed to bury themselves in his arm, but his bronze form danced more furiously than ever, and the singing grew louder and more frenzied. The Moqui had reached a pitch of exaltation in which the venom of the serpent was harmless to him. As the other Indians witnessed the sight their expression of stoicism changed as if by magic. The excitement of the dance was upon them. Suddenly a blood-curdling yell echoed against the rock-bound walls. A young brave, one of those who had been seated in the front row of the onlookers, sprang to his feet. He cast off his blanket with a shout, standing upright in the firelight, a nude figure of bronze. The play of his muscles showed plain as day in the glare of the glowing pit. Straight up to the earthen jars he gyrated, chanting the refrain of the weird ritual. Uttering a wild screech, he plunged his arm up to the elbow into its wriggling, deadly contents, and drew forth a vicious-looking sidewinder, or desert rattlesnake--a distinct species from the big diamond-back--and even more deadly. Without the slightest hesitation, he thrust the monster's spade-shaped head into his mouth, and with one clean bite severed it. He then spat it forth into the glowing pit, where it fell hissing. [Illustration: Uttering a wild screech, he drew forth a vicious-looking desert rattlesnake.] This was the signal for yet wilder frenzies on the part of the Indians. One after another the young braves cast off their blankets and rushed forward to repeat the nauseous performance of the snake eater. The ground at the feet of the chanters of the ritual was littered with limp reptiles' bodies. An overpowering, musky stench arose on the air, the odor of scores of burnt envenomed heads. In the midst of that maddened throng there was but one quiet, unmoved countenance, and that was that of a bearded man, who stood back some distance in the shadows. He eyed the ceremonies with a look that was half contempt and half pity. But he made no motion to interfere, nor did he, in fact, move at all. And for a very good reason. He was bound hand and foot to a post. His face was white as ashes under its deep bronze, but not from fear, for not a tremor crossed his features. Perhaps a deep wound on the back of his head accounted for it. But Jeffries Mayberry--for our readers must have already recognized the Indian agent--never knew less fear than he experienced as he stood at that moment, captive among a dangerous tribe, rendered doubly formidable as they were by copious doses of cheap liquor and religious frenzy. The Indian agent knew well that the rattlers which the young braves were beheading were far less harmful than the human beings, of whom he was, perhaps, the only self-possessed one in that rocky bowl. But if Jeffries Mayberry gazed on the ceremonies with contempt, mingled with pity, there was another in the valley who regarded them with almost similar feelings. That person was Black Cloud. The old chieftain had made as stiff a fight as he dared for Jeffries Mayberry's liberation, but had been hooted and jeered down. Diamond Snake was now in full control of the passions and adulation of the tribe, and Black Cloud, the only friend Jeffries Mayberry had within it, at that moment gazed powerlessly on the snake dance. One friendly turn, however, he had been able to do for his white friend, and that was to dispatch the messenger to the ranch of Mr. Harkness. But as Black Cloud, not daring to raise a voice of protest, gazed on the dance, his mind was busy with intense speculation. Even in the event of Mr. Harkness having been reached, it was doubtful if the rancher would arrive in time. The old Indian recognized the symptoms of an approaching climax in the ceremonies, and what that climax was to be he guessed only too well. No white man had ever seen the snake dance of the Moquis and lived to tell of it, if his presence were known. That Jeffries Mayberry was to share the fate of many another unfortunate victim in the tribe's past history, was what Black Cloud feared. That his fears were well grounded we shall presently see. Suddenly the frenzy died down with the same rapidity with which it had arisen. Above the rim of the rocky basin the silvery edge of the new moon had shown. The height of the excitement was at hand. Diamond Snake stepped forward from his place in the row of chanters and began to address the tribe in a high, not unmusical voice. As Jeffries Mayberry gazed at his almost faultless form, gleaming like polished bronze in the glare of the fiery pit, he realized what an influence this fine-looking, fiery young Indian must sway among his people. His talk was listened to with deep attention, and seemed to be impassioned and fervid to the last degree. Although Diamond Snake spoke fast in his excitement, the Indian agent managed to pick out enough of the sense here and there to make out that, as he had suspected, he himself was the subject of the chief's address. Had he been in any doubt of this, his uncertainty would soon have been dissipated, for all at once every eye in that assemblage was turned on him with a baleful, malignant glare. If Jeffries Mayberry had ever felt one ray of hope, it died out of even his brave heart in that instant. "Well, I guess Indians are all they say they are, after all," he thought to himself. "Just to think that, after all I've done for those rascals, they've no more gratitude for me than that! Go on, stare away!" Jeffries Mayberry fairly shouted these last words. "I wish, though," he continued to himself, while the young chief's voice went on addressing his people, "I wish, though, that they'd turned Ranger loose. I kind of hate to think of him ever being an Indian's horse, for of all maltreaters of horse flesh, they are the worst." He turned his head--the only portion of his body which was free to move--and gazed back into the shadows where he knew Ranger was tied. For hours after his capture the splendid horse had fretted and raged, but now he had grown quiet. "Poor old fellow, they've broken his spirit!" thought Jeffries Mayberry. Which goes to show--in the light of what was to come--that a man can get "pretty close," as the saying is, to a horse and yet not know him. Mayberry could not forbear winking back a little moisture that arose in his eyes as he saw the well-known form of his horse dimly outlined in the darkness behind him. Ranger's head was abjectly hanging down. His whole attitude spoke dejection. As Jeffries Mayberry had said, the horse indeed seemed to be spirit-broken. All at once, while Mayberry's mind was busy with these thoughts, the young chief ceased his oratory, and the moment for action appeared at last to have arrived. With a concerted yell, the band of naked warriors who had chanted the solemn ritual of the snake dance rushed at the Indian agent. Even in that trying moment he did not flinch. He gazed at them unmoved, as they cast him loose from the post, and then instantly rebound his hands. His legs, however, they left free. Strange to say, the dominant feeling in Jeffries Mayberry's mind at that moment was one of curiosity. He wondered what they were going to do with him. For one instant a shudder passed through his frame. The fiery pit! Could they mean to thrust him into that? Such, however, was evidently not their intention, for they led him round to the farther side of the glowing coals, past the rows of seated Indians and squaws, who growled and spat at him as he passed. "You ungrateful bunch of dogs!" shouted Mayberry, fairly stung into speech. "I hope after I'm gone you'll get what is coming to you!" If only the soldiers would come, he thought; but realized that without him to guide them it would take the troopers hours, perhaps days, to find the secret valley. No, there was no hope from that quarter. It should be explained here that, although Mr. Mayberry knew about the Indian messenger, he had little faith in the ultimate arrival of Mr. Harkness and the Boy Scouts. They _might_ come, but it would be too late. However, any one would judge Jeffries Mayberry's character very much awry who should conclude that there was any bitterness in his soul. He accepted his fate as a brave man should, without complaint. "Now what are they going to do?" he thought, as the young braves, having led him past the hissing, spitting ranks of the squaws, arraigned him close to the edge of the pit, which now lay between him and the crowd of cruel faces beyond. His eyes pierced the darkness keenly, but the glare thrown up at his feet prevented him seeing whether or not Ranger still occupied his same position. Jeffries Mayberry was not to be left long in doubt as to what his fate was to be. A shudder ran through even his strong soul as he saw what the inhuman ingenuity of the Moquis had contrived for his execution. His legs, which had remained free, were rapidly bound, and he was forcibly thrown upon his face. As he measured his length, the chanting began once more, and the hand of Diamond Snake himself dived into the biggest of the earthen snake jars. He withdrew it, clasping the largest rattler that Jeffries Mayberry had ever seen,--an immense creature of the diamond-back species, fully eight feet long. As Mayberry's eyes encountered the leaden glint of the deadly rattler's dull orbs, he felt that this was the beginning of the end. CHAPTER XXIV. BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE. Amid wild yells from the assemblage on the farther side of the pit, the young brave who had attained temporary ascendency over the tribe cast the snake down on the ground before the recumbent form of the Indian agent. The reptile at first appeared dazed, and made no move, hostile or otherwise. Presently, however, as a deep hush fell over the Indians gazing on the scene, the creature began to sound his rattle. It was a dull, "horny" sound, like the rattling of dried peas in a bladder. The veins on Mayberry's forehead swelled as he made a desperate effort to burst his bonds, but the green hide held like iron, and he realized that all resistance was useless. Breathing a prayer, he resigned himself for what was to follow. Suddenly the serpent seemed to become endowed with furious rage. It lashed its mottled tail, and then carefully gauging its distance from the captive, coiled itself for the death strike. Not a sound was to be heard above the deep, expectant hush, as the red glow fell on the strange, cruel scene: the agonized man, helpless, and the flat, triangular head of the deadly reptile, drawn back as if to give greater force to its death blow. The Indian agent, as he had abundantly shown, was no coward, nor was his a heart to be stirred by any ordinary ordeal. But the cruel suspense that now ensued broke down even his iron nerves. As he gazed like a fascinated bird into the leaden eyes of the menacing rattler, his courage faltered, and he uttered a despairing cry. It was answered by a cruel jeer from the frenzied Indians. In the tense excitement none of them had, however, noticed the first moves in an act that was destined presently to change the whole complexion of the scene. Old Black Cloud knew that the agent's heart was wrapped up in his horse. So far as any one knew, Mayberry had neither relative nor close friend in the world. In the Indian's eyes, then, the captive would surely wish his horse near him in the hour of his doom. For one as skilled in silent movement as the old chief, it was an easy matter to slip from his place in the shadows at the rear of the fascinated horde, and with a couple of deft strokes of his knife set Ranger at liberty. Then he silently stole back, and was seated in his former place in a less space of time than it took Ranger to realize that he was free. The captive's despairing cry reached the horse's ears, and he knew his master's voice. While the mocking laugh of the tribe was still echoing from the rocks, four iron-shod hoofs struck the earth in a mighty leap, and Ranger alighted heavily in the midst of the amazed throng. With yells and cries of terror, the Indians, who did not know what had occurred, were bowled over right and left. One young brave lay groaning with a pair of broken ribs. Another's arm was snapped where Ranger's hoofs had struck. Without pausing one instant, the animal, whose only anxiety was to reach Jeffries Mayberry's side, once more shook his head and, with a shrill whinny, sprang forward. This leap brought him over the heads of the red men, to the very brink of the fiery pit. Overcoming his natural dread of fire--a far greater terror to horses than almost any other--Ranger gathered his clean-cut limbs for a mighty leap. In one clean jump he cleared the glowing coals. Diamond Snake and his attendant masters of ceremonies had not, in the brief space of time allotted to them for comprehension, made out what was occurring on the opposite side of the pit. They had not the slightest warning, therefore, when, through the lurid glow, the form of Ranger, crimsoned by the reflection, came leaping like a thunderbolt. Over went Diamond Snake, toppling backward to avoid the terrible hoofs. With a yell of superstitious terror, the other "priests" gave way. Right and left they ran, shouting that the Great Spirit had sent an infernal messenger among them. But above all the shrieks, and confusion, and angry shouts rang out one terrible cry. It issued from the lips of Diamond Snake. The hind hoofs of the alighting horse had struck him, and, as has been said, he toppled backward. Too late he saw behind him the glowing pit of fiery coals. Nerving every muscle in his sinewy frame, the young Moqui warrior strove to avert his doom, but try as he would he could not check his impetus. He reached the edge of the pit, and with one dreadful cry pitched over backward. For a brief space the red glow grew blackened where he had fallen, but an instant later the intense heat had consumed him, and nothing remained to mark the end of the ambitious young Moqui. At the moment that Ranger had alighted, the rattlesnake, terrified by the near proximity of the trampling hoofs, released its body as if a steel spring had been set free, and gave its death strike. But as the poison-laden fangs drove toward him, Jeffries Mayberry jerked his head to one side. The rattler had missed. Before it could gather itself for a second attack, it lay, a trampled mass, under Ranger's hoofs. The horse whinnied with pleasure as it gazed at its master. Then it stamped with impatience as it received no response. For the first and last time in his life, Jeffries Mayberry had fainted. With a howl of rage, like the angry voice of a storm, the Moquis, gathering up their weapons, rushed forward to avenge themselves for the tragic death of Diamond Snake. But they had not reached the edge of the fiery pit before a loud cry halted them. It was Black Cloud. The old Indian stood upright upon a bowlder, and pointed to the entrance of the rocky bowl. "Now will my brothers listen to the voice of reason?" he shouted above the tumult. A chorus of jeers and shouts greeted him. The mind of the tribe was a single one in that moment. The death of Jeffries Mayberry, in the same pit as that into which his steed had cast the popular young Diamond Snake, was their raging desire. "Then look!" rang out the voice of Black Cloud, as he pointed to the rocky path at the westerly side of the bowl. As the eyes of the redskins followed the patriarch's pointing finger, a perfect howl went up once more. The moonlight illumined the figure of a solitary horseman. A score of rifles were instantly leveled at him, but as the weapons came to the marksmen's shoulders, the lone rider vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. "Fools!" shouted Black Cloud, as the Moquis, with cries of rage, pressed on to Jeffries Mayberry's side, "that horseman is the forerunner of the white man's vengeance!" As he spoke, a rifle cracked, and the noble old chief vanished from the rock. Apparently a bullet from the rifle of one of his own followers had felled him. But, as a matter of fact, Black Cloud, with native cunning, had perceived that in the mood his rebellious followers then were, his safest plan was to keep out of sight. As the bullet hummed past his ear, therefore, he toppled from the rock as if dead. From behind the big bowlder he watched the events that were to follow. A young brave, anxious to earn the plaudits of his tribesmen by being the instrument of vengeance on Mayberry, rushed forward, and throwing himself on the unconscious man, seized him by the waist and was about to swing him into the flaming pit, when, with a shrill whinny of rage, Ranger's forefeet struck him down. He lay breathing heavily, an ugly wound gaping in his head. As if maddened by this, the great horse plunged, striking and kicking, into the crowd of hated Indians, bowling over and injuring several. But the temporary panic thus created lasted but a minute. A volley was fired at the noble figure of the raging horse, and he fell, still fighting, by his master's side. At the same instant a young redskin sprang forward with an uplifted "agency" axe. He raised it above his head, and was about to bury it in the horse's skull, when something struck the axe and sent it whizzing out of his hand. Simultaneously a sharp crack sounded from the upper end of the rock bowl. Shouts of alarm sounded on all sides. The Moquis realized they were attacked, and that it was a bullet that had sent the axe spinning out of the murderous young brave's hand. "Hooray!" The cry rang out loudly above the Indian whoops and cries, as Rob Blake swept down the rocky trail, followed by the Boy Scouts, cheering as if their throats would split. Right and left the Moquis went down under their ponies' hoofs, too terrified by the very suddenness of the attack to offer any resistance. A few half-hearted shots were fired, and one or two sombreros were drilled, but, aside from that, no one was injured. The arrival of Mr. Harkness and his cow-punchers ended what little resistance there had been. It was soon over, and the Moquis herded in a sullen, defiant band at the lower end of the bowl. Rob and his friends hastened forward to Jeffries Mayberry's side, and cut his bonds; and the first thing that the rescued man gazed upon when he recovered consciousness was a circle of friendly faces. "Well, Mayberry," burst out Mr. Harkness, "I told you so. I hate to say it, but I told you so. If it hadn't been for the Boy Scouts here, we'd never have saved you." "No, I guess not, Harkness," breathed the agent, "and this is not the place to tell you all how I feel. But, but----" His voice faltered as he gazed at Ranger, who still lay on the ground. Blinky and some of the cow-punchers had been examining his injuries. "Is Ranger seriously hurt?" The agent's throat sounded dry. He could hardly bring himself to ask the question. "No, he'll be around in a while," announced Blinky; "only a tendon on the off front leg is sprained. He'll carry a few scars, though." And so it proved, for, though Ranger was soon as well as ever, he carried with him to his last days the marks of that night. But his owner, as you may imagine, treasured every one of them, for each blemish spoke to him of his horse's affection and nobility. "Hullo, here come the soldiers!" exclaimed Tubby suddenly, with that fleshy youth's usual indifferent manner. A bugle call and a loud cheer announced the news at the same moment. "So they are!" exclaimed Mr. Mayberry, who by this time was standing upright, although he still had to lean weakly on the shoulder of Mr. Harkness. "A good thing you didn't wait for them," remarked Blinky; "they'd have come too late." "That was not their fault," put in Mr. Harkness. "The messenger I sent to Sentinel Peak could not have reached there more than an hour or two ago. They must have ridden like the wind." Indeed, as the bronzed troopers clattered, cheering, into the rocky basin, their steaming, dripping horses bore ample testimony to the pace they had kept up. "Confounded luck, arriving just too late for the music!" exclaimed the young officer at their head, after first greetings had been exchanged. "I see, though, that you have handled the situation well." "Yes, thanks to the Boy Scouts," said Mr. Harkness. "Ah, that is an organization of which I have often heard," observed the soldier. "They are destined to do great work for our country in the future." "We hope so," said Rob simply. * * * * * Little more is left to be told of the Boy Scouts' adventures on the range. The rebellious Moquis, thoroughly cowed by their lesson, went peaceably back to the reservation, and accepted Black Cloud once more as their chief. Their break from the place set aside for them, though, was paid for by the stoppage of more than one privilege. In course of time Mr. Mayberry recovered some of his faith in the Indian character, but even he admits that his optimism has been severely shaken. Possibly, if you were to pay a visit to the tribe, you might be tempted to ask who a certain graceful young squaw is, whose buckskin garments are literally covered with wonderful bead work, and round whose slender neck hang so many chains of red, yellow, amber and blue globules that you might be inclined to think it would make her stoop-shouldered. If you asked her her name you would be told that she is Susyjan. She is regarded as the most attractive young squaw in the tribe, and her fortunate husband will have to give her old father many ponies and blankets before he can hope to win her hand. The source of Susyjan's beady splendor, however, has always, as you may imagine, remained a mystery to the tribe. Clark Jennings and his unworthy accomplices were tried in due course for their offenses against the law, and received various heavy sentences. In a Western community few more serious crimes, for obvious reasons, can be committed than cattle stealing. The days following the surrender of the renegade tribe were happy ones for the young Eastern scouts. In due course of time, the uniforms Rob had ordered for the Ranger Patrol arrived, and the organization is now one of the most flourishing in the B. S. of A. Hunting trips were organized and many excursions made into the mountains. The boys, too, shared in the excitement of a round-up, and proved themselves of use in many ways. Altogether, the Boy Scouts has become a name to conjure with in that part of Arizona. What became of Silver Tip? Well, the story of how Rob had Silver Tip at his mercy, and let the huge brute go, has become a ranch classic. This is no place to relate it at length, but one day on a mountain hunt the monarch of the hills and the boy who had once rushed wildly upon the monster's shaggy form, met face to face. Did Silver Tip recognize the lad? Who can tell? Animals possess many faculties and instincts we do not credit them with. Be that as it may, it seemed to the imaginative Rob that the monster's eyes bore a craven look, as if he realized that judgment was come upon him. Rob stood alone upon a rocky ledge. Below him the great brute gazed upward, in the position he had frozen into on his first discovery of the young hunter. Rob raised his heavy rifle to his shoulder. The great creature was at his mercy. He paused an instant and then slowly lowered the weapon again. "Go on, old Silver Tip!" he said. "Let some one else wipe out your wicked old life." Tubby was highly indignant when he heard of this. "Gee whiz!" he exclaimed, "you ought to have thought of me, Rob. I've been hearing about bear steak ever since I've been out here, and now I've lost about the only chance I've ever had to stick my teeth into one." One day a letter came to the ranch house which caused several long faces to be drawn. It announced the opening, within a week, of the Hampton Academy. And so--as all good things have to draw to a close--the happy, eventful days of the Boy Scouts on the Range ended. But had they realized it, the exciting scenes through which they had passed were only a milestone in their adventurous lives. We shall meet our young friends again, and follow them through many more stirring incidents and scenes in the next volume of this series. Some of these will be connected with the wonderful new science of ærial navigation. This new installment of their adventures will be called: THE BOY SCOUTS AND THE ARMY AIRSHIP. THE END. =Reasons why you should obtain a Catalogue of our Publications= _A postal to us will place it in your hands._ 1. You will possess a comprehensive and classified list of all the best standard books published, at prices less than offered by others. 2. You will find listed in our catalogue books on every topic: Poetry, Fiction, Romance, Travel, Adventure, Humor, Science, History, Religion, Biography, Drama, etc., besides Dictionaries and Manuals, Bibles, Recitation and Hand Books, Sets, Octavos, Presentation Books and Juvenile and Nursery Literature in immense variety. 3. You will be able to purchase books at prices within your reach; as low as 10 cents for paper covered books, to $5.00 for books bound in cloth or leather, adaptable for gift and presentation purposes, to suit the tastes of the most critical. 4. You will save considerable money by taking advantage of our SPECIAL DISCOUNTS, which we offer to those whose purchases are large enough to warrant us in making a reduction. HURST & CO., _Publishers_, 395, 397, 399 Broadway, New York. BOY SCOUT SERIES BY LIEUT. HOWARD PAYSON MODERN BOY SCOUT STORIES FOR BOYS Cloth Bound Price, 50¢ per volume. =The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol.= A fascinating narrative of the doings of some bright boys who become part of the great Boy Scout movement. The first of a series dealing with this organization, which has caught on like wild fire among healthy boys of all ages and in all parts of the country. While in no sense a text-book, the volume deals, amid its exciting adventures, with the practical side of Scouting. To Rob Blake and his companions in the Eagle Patrol, surprising, and sometimes perilous things happen constantly. But the lads, who are, after all, typical of most young Americans of their type, are resourceful enough to overcome every one of their dangers and difficulties. How they discover the whereabouts of little Joe, the "kid" of the patrol, by means of smoke telegraphy and track his abductors to their disgrace; how they assist the passengers of a stranded steamer and foil a plot to harm and perhaps kill an aged sea-captain, one must read the book to learn. A swift-moving narrative of convincing interest and breathless incident. Sold by Booksellers Everywhere. Hurst & Co., Publishers New York BOY SCOUT SERIES BY LIEUT. HOWARD PAYSON MODERN BOY SCOUT STORIES FOR BOYS Cloth Bound, Price 50¢ per volume. =The Boy Scouts on the Range.= Connected with the dwellings of the vanished race of cliff-dwellers was a mystery. Who so fit to solve it as a band of adventurous Boy Scouts? The solving of the secret and the routing of a bold band of cattle thieves involved Rob Blake and his chums, including "Tubby" Hopkins, in grave difficulties. There are few boys who have not read of the weird snake dance and other tribal rites of Moquis. In this volume, the habits of these fast vanishing Indians are explained in interesting detail. Few boys' books hold more thrilling chapters than those concerning Rob's captivity among the Moquis. Through the fascinating pages of the narrative also stalks, like a grim figure of impending tragedy, the shaggy form of Silver Tip, the giant grizzly. In modern juvenile writing, there is little to be found as gripping as the scene in which Rob and Silver Tip meet face to face. The boy is weaponless and,--but it would not be fair to divulge the termination of the battle. A book which all Boy Scouts should secure and place upon their shelves to be read and re-read. Sold by Booksellers Everywhere. Hurst & Co., Publishers New York Bungalow Boys Series BY DEXTER J. FORRESTER NEW MODERN STORIES OF OUTDOOR LIFE. Cloth Bound Price, 50¢ per volume. =THE BUNGALOW BOYS.= The first of a new up-to-date series concerning the absorbing doings of Tom and Jack Dacre and their chums of Audubon Academy. The lure of the big woods and the call of the rod and gun are delightfully set forth in these volumes. The first one deals with life in the wilder parts of Maine. Wild as the region into which the boys penetrate, accompanied by their professor, turns out to be, they find that there are bold, unscrupulous enemies even there. Nate Trulliber and his son Jeff prove to be formidable neighbors in more senses than one. For instance the lost lead vein which is one of the objects of the boys' quest is associated in a strange way with this Trulliber and his evil companions. The plots of these men are, however, frustrated in a clever manner by the boys; but not without their involving themselves in grave difficulties. Danger too threatens them, as notably when Tom is imprisoned in the mountain cave with every prospect of being speedily drowned if help does not soon come. The source from which aid finally proceeds is as mysterious as the character of the lonely hermit who for a time is mistaken by the boys for an enemy. Not until the end of the book do they learn how utterly they were mistaken, in his character. Sold by Booksellers Everywhere. HURST & CO., Publishers NEW YORK. Dreadnought Boys Series BY Capt. WILBUR LAWTON. =Modern Stories of the New Navy.= Cloth Bound Price, 50¢ per volume. =The Dreadnought Boys on Battle Practice.= How many times have you paused to gaze provided you live in a maritime town of course, at Uncle Sam's grim, gray sea-fighters swinging at their anchors, or steaming majestically by? Haven't you thought then that you would like to know something of the lives of the servers of their country who pass the best part of their adventurous lives within those steel walls? There are no books published which will tell you more of the new navy,--of the men, the ships, the huge guns, the submarine auxiliaries and all the hundred and one things that go to make up the fascination of the naval seaman's life, than these volumes. In the first volume of the series which bears the above title Ned Strong and Herc Taylor make their debut in Uncle Sam's navy. Of course they have to endure much rough joking. Ned, however, proves so handy with his fists in a notable set-to with the ship's bully that the boys soon set themselves on a footing. From that moment on adventures come thick and fast. At target practice Herc--by a mean trick of his enemy becomes a living target for a twelve inch gun. A flare-back in the forward turret of the Dreadnought on which they are serving gives the lads their longed-for opportunity to show the stuff they are made of. Real books for real boys. Sold by Booksellers Everywhere. HURST & CO., Publishers NEW YORK. Motor Rangers Series By MARVIN WEST OUTDOOR LIFE STORIES FOR MODERN BOYS Cloth Bound Price, 50¢ per volume. =The Motor Rangers' Lost Mine.= A new series dealing with an idea altogether original in juvenile fiction,--the adventures of a party of bright, enterprising youngsters in a splendid motor car. Their first trip takes them to the dim and mysterious land of Lower California. Naturally, as one would judge from the title, the lost mine, which proves to be Nat Trevor's rightful inheritance,--occupies much of the interest of the book. But the mine was in the possession of enemies so powerful and wealthy that it taxed the boys' resources to the uttermost to overcome them. How they did so makes absorbing reading. In this book also, the young motor rangers solve the mystery of the haunted Mexican cabin, and exterminate for all time a strange terror of the mountains which has almost devastated a part of the peninsula. The Motor Rangers too, have an exciting encounter with Mexican cowboys, which beginning comically, comes very near having a serious termination for all hands. Emphatically "third speed" books. Sold by Booksellers Everywhere. Hurst & Co., Publishers New York The Oakdale Series By Morgan Scott HIGH CLASS COPYRIGHTED STORIES FOR BOYS Cloth Bound. Illustrated. Price, 60¢ a Volume =Ben Stone at Oakdale= BY MORGAN SCOTT 12MO., CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. PRICE 60¢ Never in the history of juvenile fiction have copyrighted books of this class been sold at a price so sensational, for beyond dispute the Oakdale Stories are of the highest grade, such as other publishers market to retail at $1.25 or $1.50 a volume. In no respect, save in price, can these be designated as cheap books; in manufacture, in literary finish, and in the clean, healthy, yet fascinating, nature of the stories they are destined to take rank with the works of the masters of fiction for the modern youth. The first volume is a narrative of school life and football, which, while in no way sensational will cast a spell almost hypnotic upon every young reader, from which he will find it impossible to escape until he has read through to the last word of the last chapter. The tale of the struggles of Ben Stone, a boy misunderstood, an outcast, a pariah, will excite the sympathy of all; and his final triumph over adversity, the scheming of an enemy, and the seemingly malign rebuffs of fate, will be hailed with joy. FOR SALE WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD, OR SENT POSTPAID UPON RECEIPT OF 60¢ BY HURST & COMPANY, 395 Broadway, NEW YORK The Oakdale Series By Morgan Scott High Class Copyrighted Stories for Boys Cloth Bound Illustrated Price, 60 cents a Volume =Boys of Oakdale Academy= by Morgan Scott 12mo., cloth. Illustrated. Price, 60¢ This is a brisk, vigorous, snappy, story in which winter sports--snowshoeing, skating, rabbit hunting, and such--are features. In the tale Rodney Grant, a young Texas cowboy, appears at Oakdale and attends the academy, being adjudged an imposter by the New England lads, who entertain a mistaken notion that all Texans swagger and bluster and talk in the vernacular. As Grant is quiet and gentlemanly in his bearing and will not, for some mysterious reason, take part in certain violent sports, they erroneously imagine him to be a coward; but eventually, through the demands of necessity and force of circumstances, the fellow from Texas is led to prove himself, which he does in a most effective manner, becoming, for the time being, at least, the hero of the village. This is a story of vigorous, healthy boys and their likes and dislikes; it is brimming over with human nature and, while true to real life, is as fascinating as the most imaginative yarn of adventure. For sale wherever books are sold, or sent postpaid upon receipt of 60¢ by Hurst & Co., 395 Broadway, New York +----------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the | | original document have been preserved. | | | | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | | | | Page 26 Samuri changed to Samurai | | Page 89 struck changed to stuck | | Page 113 Charlie changed to Charley | | Page 151 croked changed to croaked | | Page 206 Jenning's changed to Jennings's | | Page 226 earthern changed to earthen | | Page 243 fandangoes changed to fandangos | | Page 297 safeest changed to safest | +----------------------------------------------+ 
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37746	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber's notes are at end of text. [Illustration: _She forgot the flowers in her arms, forgot the sunset, and stood entranced in prayer._] THE ANGEL OF THE GILA _A Tale of Arizona_ CORA MARSLAND _With Illustrations by S. S. HICKS and GEM VAUGHN_ [Illustration] RICHARD G. BADGER THE GORHAM PRESS BOSTON COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY RICHARD G. BADGER _All Rights Reserved_ _THE GORHAM PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A._ TO MY MOTHER CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THE MINING CAMP 11 II THE DAWN OF A NEW DAY 19 III CLAYTON RANCH 30 IV THE ANGEL OF THE GILA 41 V THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN BALL 57 VI A SOUL'S AWAKENING 78 VII THE GILA CLUB 89 VIII THE COW LASSES 107 IX A VISIT AT MURPHY RANCH 117 X CARLA EARLE 132 XI AN EVENTFUL DAY 140 XII CHRISTMAS DAY 154 XIII THE ADOPTION OF A MOTHER 167 XIV THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION 182 XV SOME SOCIAL EXPERIENCES 194 XVI OVER THE MOUNTAINS 205 XVII THE GREAT RACE 217 XVIII NIGHT ON THE RANGE 225 XIX INASMUCH 238 XX A WOMAN'S NO 241 XXI THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 248 XXII THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE 265 XXIII AT SUNSET 271 XXIV AFTERMATH 278 THE ANGEL OF THE GILA The Angel of The Gila CHAPTER I THE MINING CAMP It was an October day in Gila,[1] Arizona. The one street of the mining camp wound around the foothills, and led eastward to Line Canyon, which, at that point, divides Arizona from New Mexico. Four saloons, an opium den, a store of general merchandise,--owned and operated by the mining company,--a repair shop, one large, pretentious adobe house,--the headquarters of the company, where superintendent, assayers, and mining engineers boarded,--several small dwelling houses, and many miners' shacks, constituted the town. [1] Pronounced hé la. A little further to the eastward, around a bend in the foothills, and near Line Canyon, lay Clayton Ranch,--the most historic, as well as the most picturesque spot in that region. Near the dwelling house, but closer to the river than the Clayton home, stood a little adobe schoolhouse. The town, facing south, overlooked Gila River and its wooded banks. Beyond the Gila, as in every direction, stretched foothills and mountains. Toward the south towered Mt. Graham, the highest peak of the Pinaleno range, blue in the distance, and crowned with snow. Up a pathway of the foothills, west of the town, bounding forward as if such a climb were but joy to her, came a slight, girlish figure. She paused now and then to turn her face westward, watching the changing colors of sunset. At last she reached a bowlder, and, seating herself, leaned against it, removed her sombrero hat, pushed back the moist curls from her forehead, and turned again to the sunset. The sun, for one supreme moment, poised on a mountain peak, then slowly sank, flashing its message of splendor into the majestic dome of the sky, over snow-capped mountains, over gigantic cliffs of red sandstone, over stretches of yellow foothills, and then caught the white-robed figure, leaning against the bowlder, in its rosy glow. The girl lifted her fine, sensitive face. Again she pushed the curls from her forehead. As she lifted her arm, her sleeve slipped back, revealing an arm and hand of exquisite form, and patrician to the tips of the fingers. She seemed absorbed in the scene before her, unconscious that she was the loveliest part of it. But if she was unconscious of the fact, a horseman who drew rein a short distance away, and who watched her intently a few moments, was not. At last the girl stirred, as though to continue on her way. Instantly the horseman gave his horse a sharp cut with his whip, and went cantering up the ascent before her. The sudden sound of a horse's hoofs startled her, and she glanced up to see the horseman and his thoroughbred speeding toward the town. She swung her sombrero hat over her shoulder, and gathered up her flowers; then, with a lingering glance to westward, turned and walked rapidly toward Gila. By the time she had reached the one long street, many cowboys and miners had already congregated about the saloons. She dreaded to pass there at this hour, but this she must do in order to reach Clayton Ranch, nearly a mile beyond. As she drew near one saloon, she heard uproarious laughter. The voices were loud and boisterous. It was impossible for her to escape hearing what was said. It was evident to her that she herself was at that moment the topic of conversation. "She'll git all the Bible school she wants Sunday afternoon, or my name's not Pete Tompkins," ejaculated a bar-tender as he stepped to the bar of a saloon. "What're ye goin' ter do, Pete?" asked a young miner. "I'm in f'r y'r game, or my name ain't Bill Hines." "I?" answered the individual designated as Pete Tompkins, "I mean ter give 'er a reception, Bill, a _reception_." Here he laughed boisterously. "I repeat it," he said. "I'll give 'er a reception, an' conterive ter let 'er understan' that no sech infernal business as a Bible school 'll be tol'ated in these yere parts o' Arizony. Them as wants ter join me in smashin' this cussed Sunday business step ter the bar. I'll treat the hull blanked lot o' ye." The girl passing along the street shuddered. The brutal voice went on: "Set up the glasses o' whiskey, Keith. Here, Jess an' Kate. We want yer ter have a hand in smashin' this devilish Bible school. Another glass fur Jess, Keith, an' one fur Kate." The pedestrian quickened her pace, but still the voice followed her. "Here's ter y'r healths, an' ter the smashin' o' the Bible school, an' ter the reception we'll give the new schoolma'am." The stranger heard the clink of glasses, mingled with the uproar of laughter. Then she caught the words: "Ye don't jine us, Hastings. P'r'aps y're too 'ristercratic, or p'r'aps y're gone on the gal! Ha-ha-ha-ha!" The saloon rang with the laughter of the men and women. The girl who had just passed quickened her pace, her cheeks tingling with indignation. As she hastened on, the man addressed as Hastings replied haughtily: "I am a _man_, and being a man I cannot see insult offered to any woman, especially when that woman is making an effort to do some good in this Godless region." "He's gone on 'er, sure, Bill. Ha-ha-ha-ha! Imagine me, Pete Tompkins, gone on the schoolma'am! Ha-ha-ha-ha!" His companions joined in his laughter. "What'ud she think o' my figger, Bill?" he asked, as he strutted across the saloon. "How 'ud I look by 'er side in Virginny reel, eh? I'm afeared it 'ud be the devil an' angel in comp'ny. Ha-ha-ha!" "Y're right thar," replied one of the men. "Ye certain are a devil, an' she do look like a angel." "Say, fellers," said Bill Hines, "me an' Pete an' all o' ye ought ter git some slime from the river, an' throw on them white dresses o' hern. I don't like nobody settin' theirselves up to be better'n we be, even in clo'es, do ye, Jess?" Jess agreed with him. "What's all this noise about?" interrupted a new comer. "Hello, Mark Clifton, is that you? Well, me an' Bill an' Jess an' the other kids is plannin' ter smash schoolma'am's Bible school, Sunday. We're goin' ter give 'er a reception." "What do you mean by that?" asked Clifton. "Ye kin jine the party an' we'll show yer." "Let me urge you to leave Miss Bright alone. She has not harmed you. Leave the Bible school alone, too, and attend to your own business." "Oh, he's a saint, ain't he! He is!" sneered Pete Tompkins. "What about this gal as he has with him here? More whiskey! Fill up the glasses, Keith. Come, Jess. Come, Kate Harraday." And the half-intoxicated man swung one woman around and tried to dance a jig, failing in which, he fell to the floor puffing and swearing. Mark Clifton's face darkened. He grasped a chair and stepped forward, as if to strike the speaker. He hesitated. As he did so, a handsome cowboy entered, followed by a little Indian boy of perhaps six years of age. "What's the row, Hastings?" asked the cowboy in a low voice. "Pete Tompkins and Bill Hines and their ilk are planning to give Miss Bright, the new teacher, some trouble when she attempts to start a Bible school to-morrow afternoon. Clifton remonstrated, and they taunted him about Carla Earle. That enraged him." "What do they plan ter do?" "I fancy they'll do every blackguard thing they can think of. They are drunk now, but when they are sober they may reconsider. At any rate, the decent men of the camp ought to be on the spot to protect that girl, Harding." "I'll be there fur one, Hastings. Have yer seen 'er?" "Yes. As I rode into camp just now I passed someone I took to be Miss Bright." "Pretty as a picter, ain't she?" said Jack Harding. "Look, there she goes around the bend of the road towards Claytons'. There goes y'r teacher, Wathemah." The Indian child bounded to the door. "Me teacher, _me_ teacher," he said over and over to himself, as he watched the receding figure. "_Your_ teacher, eh, sonny," said Kenneth Hastings smiling. He laid his hand on the child's head. "Yes, _me_ teacher," said the boy proudly. His remark was overheard by Pete Tompkins. "Lookee here, boys! There goes Wathemah's teacher. Now's y'r chance, my hearties. See the nat'ral cur'osity as is to start a religion shop, an' grind us fellers inter angels. Are my wings sproutin'?" As he spoke the words, he flapped his elbows up and down. Kenneth Hastings and Jack Harding exchanged glances. Mark Clifton had gone. Pete Tompkins hereupon stepped to the door and called out: "Three cheers fur the angel o' the Gila, my hearties. One, two, three! Now! That's it. Now! Death to the Bible school!" "Death to the Bible school!" shouted they in unison. The little Indian heard their words. He knew that insult and, possibly, injury threatened his teacher, and, stepping up to Pete Tompkins, he kicked his shins with all his childish strength, uttering oaths that drew forth hilarious laughter from the men. "Y're a good un," said one. "Give 'im a trounce in the air," added another. In a moment, the child was tossed from one to another, his passionate cries and curses mingling with their ribald laughter. At last he was caught by John Harding, who held him in his arms. "Never mind, Wathemah," he said soothingly. Hoarse with rage, the child shrieked, "You blankety blanked devils! You blankety blanked devils!" A ruffian cursed him. He was wild. He struggled to free himself, to return to the fray, but Jack Harding held him fast. "You devils, devils, devils!" he shrieked again. His little frame trembled with anger, and he burst into tears. "Never mind, little chap," said his captor, drawing him closer, "ye go with me." For once John Harding left the saloon without touching liquor. The Indian child was clasped in his arms. When he reached a place beyond the sound of the men's voices, he set the little lad on his feet. He patted him on the head, and looked down compassionately into the tear-stained face. "Poor little chap," he said, "poor little chap. Y're like me, ain't ye? Ye ain't got nobody in the world. Let's be pards, Wathemah!" "Pards?" repeated the child between sobs. "Yes, pards, sonny. That's what I said." Wathemah clasped his arms about Jack's knees. "Me _teacher_ pard too?" he asked, trying bravely to stop crying. "Yourn, not mine, sonny," answered Harding, smiling. Then hand in hand, they strolled toward Clayton Ranch. And this was the strengthening of the comradeship between the two, which was as loyal as it was tender. Kenneth Hastings overtook them, then passed them. He reached Clayton Ranch, hesitated a moment, then walked rapidly toward Line Canyon. For some indefinable reason he did not call that evening at Clayton Ranch as was his custom, nor did he knock at that door for many days. On the following Monday, he was called to a distant mining camp, where he was detained by business. So it happened that he was one of the last to meet the new teacher whose coming was to mean so much to his life and to the people of Gila. CHAPTER II THE DAWN OF A NEW DAY For many days, public attention had been centered upon Esther Bright, the new teacher in Gila. Her grasp of the conditions of the school, her power to cope with the lawless element there, and her absolute mastery of the situation had now become matters of local history. Her advent in Gila had been a nine days' wonder to the Gilaites; now, her presence there had come to be regarded as a matter of course. Every new feature introduced into the school life, every new acquaintance made, deepened her hold upon the better life of the community. Moreover, her vital interest in the people awakened in them a responsive interest in her. Fearlessly she tramped the foothills and canyons, returning laden with flowers and geological specimens. Learning her interest in these things, many people of the camp began to contribute to her collections. Here in the Rockies, Nature pours out her treasures with lavish hand. White men had long dwelt in the midst of her marvelous wealth of scenic beauty, amazingly ignorant of any values there save that which had a purchasing power and could be counted in dollars and cents. The mountains were ministering to the soul life of Esther Bright. The strength of the hills became hers. Nature's pages of history lay open before her; but more interesting to her than cell or crystal, or tree or flower, or the shining company of the stars, were the human beings she found fettered by ignorance and sin. The human element made demands upon her mind and heart. Here was something for her to do. If they had been a colony of blind folk or cripples, their condition could not have appealed more strongly to her sympathy. Profanity, gambling, drunkenness and immorality were about her everywhere. The vices of the adults had long been imitated as play by the children. So one of Esther Bright's first innovations in school work was to organize play and teach games, and be in the midst of children at play. She was philosopher enough to realize that evil habits of years could not be uprooted at once; but she did such heroic weeding that the playground soon became comparatively decent. How to save the children, and how to help the older people of the community were absorbing questions to her. She was a resourceful woman, and began at once to plan wisely, and methodically carried out her plans. In her conferences with Mr. Clayton, her school trustee, she repeatedly expressed her conviction that the greatest work before them was to bring this great human need into vital relation with God. So it came about very naturally that a movement to organize a Bible school began in Gila. Into every home, far and near, went Esther Bright, always sympathetic, earnest and enthusiastic. Her enthusiasm proved contagious. There had been days of this house to house visitation, and now the day of the organization of the Bible school was at hand. In the morning, Esther went to the schoolhouse to see that all was in readiness. She paused, as she so often did, to wonder at the glory of the scene. The schoolhouse itself was a part of the picture. It was built of huge blocks of reddish brown adobe, crumbled at the corners. The red tile roof added a picturesque bit of color to the landscape. Just above the roof, at the right, rose an ample chimney. At the left, and a little back of the schoolhouse, towered two giant cactuses. To the north, stretched great barren foothills, like vast sand dunes by the sea, the dreariness of their gray-white, or reddish soil relieved only by occasional bunches of gray-green sage, mesquite bushes, cacti and the Spanish dagger, with its sword-like foliage, and tall spikes of seed-pods. Beyond the foothills, miles away, though seeming near, towered rugged, cathedral-like masses of snow-capped mountains. The shadows flitted over the earth, now darkening the mountain country, now leaving floods of light. All along the valley of the Gila River, stretched great fields of green alfalfa. Here and there, above the green, towered feathery pampas plumes. The river, near the schoolhouse, made a bend northward. Along its banks were cottonwood trees, aspen, and sycamore, covered with green mistletoe, and tangles of vines. No wonder Esther paused to drink in the beauty. It was a veritable garden of the gods. At last she entered the schoolhouse. She carried with her Bibles, hymn books, and lesson leaves, all contributions from her grandfather. Already, the room was decorated with mountain asters of brilliant colors. She looked around with apparent satisfaction, for the room had been made beautiful with the flowers. She passed out, locked the door, and returned to the Clayton home. In the saloons, all that morning, the subject of gossip had been the Bible school. John Harding and Kenneth Hastings, occasionally sauntering in, gathered that serious trouble was brewing for the young teacher. The hour for the meeting drew near. As Esther approached the schoolhouse, she found perhaps forty people, men, women and children, grouped near the door. Some of the children ran to meet her, Wathemah, the little Indian, outrunning all of them. He trudged along proudly by his teacher's side. Esther Bright heard groans and hisses. As she looked at the faces before her, two stood out with peculiar distinctness,--one, a proud, high-bred face; the other, a handsome, though dissipated one. There were more hisses and then muttered insults. There was no mistaking the sounds or meaning. The Indian child sprang forward, transformed into a fury. He shook his little fist at the men, as he shouted, "Ye Wathemah teacher hurt, Wathemah kill ye blankety blanked devils." A coarse laugh arose from several men. "What're yer givin' us, kid?" said one man, staggering forward. "Wathemah show ye, ye blankety blanked devil," shrieked he again. Wild with rage, the child rushed forward, uttering oaths that made his teacher shudder. She too stepped rapidly forward, and clasped her arms about him. He fought desperately for release, but she held him, speaking to him in low, firm tones, apparently trying to quiet him. At last, he burst into tears of anger. For a moment, the mutterings and hisses ceased, but they burst forth again with greater strength. The child sprang from his teacher, leaped like a squirrel to the back of one of the ruffians, climbed to his shoulder, and dealt lightning blows upon his eyes and nose and mouth. The man grasped him and hurled him with terrific force to the ground. The little fellow lay in a helpless heap where he had fallen. Esther rushed to the child and bent over him. All the brute seemed roused in the drunken man. He lunged toward her with menacing fists, and a torrent of oaths. "Blank yer!" he said, "Yer needn't interfere with me. Blank y'r hide. Yer'll git out o' Gila ter-morrer, blank yer!" But he did not observe the three stern faces at the right and left of Esther Bright and the prostrate child. Three men with guns drawn protected them. The men who had come to insult and annoy knew well that if they offered further violence to the young teacher and the unconscious child, they would have to reckon with John Clayton, Kenneth Hastings and John Harding. Wordless messages were telegraphed from eye to eye, and one by one the ruffians disappeared. Esther still knelt by Wathemah. He had been stunned by the fall. Water revived him; and after a time, he was able to walk into the schoolhouse. Oh, little child of the Open, so many years misunderstood, how generously you respond with love to a little human kindness! How bitterly you resent a wrong! Afterwards, in describing what Miss Bright did during this trying ordeal, a Scotch miner said: "The lass's smile fair warmed the heart. It was na muckle, but when she comforted the Indian bairn I could na be her enemy." As Esther entered the door, she saw two middle-aged Scotch women clasp hands and exchange words of greeting. She did not dream then, nor did she know until months after, how each of these longed for her old home in Scotland; nor did she know, at that time, how the heart of each one of them had warmed towards her. Several women and children and a few men followed the teacher into the schoolroom. All looked around curiously. Esther looked into the faces before her, some dull, others hard; some worn by toil and exposure; others disfigured by dissipation. They were to her, above everything else, human beings to be helped; and ministration to their needs became of supreme interest to her. There were several Scotch people in the audience. As the books and lesson leaves were passed, Esther gave out a hymn the children knew, and which she fancied might be familiar to the Scotch people present,--"My Ain Countrie." She lifted her guitar, played a few opening chords, and sang, "I am far frae my hame, an' I'm weary aftenwhiles For the longed-for hame-bringin', an' my Faither's welcome smiles; An' I'll ne'er be fu' content, until mine een do see The gowden gates o' Heaven, an' my ain countrie." At first a few children sang with her, but finding their elders did not sing, they, too, stopped to listen. The two Scotch women, who sat side by side, listened intently. One reached out and clasped the hand of the other; and then, over the cheeks furrowed by toil, privation and heart-hunger, tears found their unaccustomed way. The singer sang to the close of the stanza, then urged all to sing with her. A sturdy Scotchman, after clearing his throat, spoke up: "Please, Miss, an' will ye sing it all through y'rsel? It reminds me o' hame." Applause followed. The singer smiled, then lifting her guitar, sang in a musical voice, the remaining stanzas. When she prayed, the room grew still. The low, tender voice was speaking as to a loving, compassionate Father. One miner lifted his head to see the Being she addressed, and whose presence seemed to fill the room. All he saw was the shining face of the teacher. Months later, he said confidentially to a companion that he would acknowledge that though he had never believed in "such rot as a God an' all them things," yet when the teacher prayed that day, he somehow felt that there was a God, and that he was right there in that room. And he added: "I felt mighty queer. I reckon I wasn't quite ready ter have Him look me through an' through." From similar testimony given by others at various times, it is clear that many that day heard themselves prayed for for the first time in their lives. And they did not resent it. The prayer ended. A hush followed. Then the lesson of the day was taught, and the school was organized. At the close, the teacher asked all who wished to help in the Bible school to remain a few moments. Many came to express their good will. One Scotch woman said, "I dinna wonder the bairns love ye. Yir talk the day was as gude as the sermons i' the Free Kirk at hame." Then another Scotch woman took both of Esther Bright's hands in her own, and assured her it was a long day since she had listened to the Word. "But," she added, "whatever Jane Carmichael can dae tae help ye, Lassie, she'll dae wi' a' her heart." The first of the two stepped forward, saying apologetically, "I forgot tae say as I am Mistress Burns, mither o' Marget an' Jamesie." "And I," added the other, "am the mither o' Donald." Mr. Clayton, elected superintendent at the organization of the Bible school, now joined the group about the teacher. At last the workers only remained, and after a brief business meeting, they went their several ways. Evidently they were thinking new thoughts. Mrs. Burns overtook Mrs. Carmichael and remarked to her, "I dinna ken why the Almighty came sae near my heart the day, for I hae wandered. God be thankit, that He has sent the lassie amang us." "Aye," responded Mrs. Carmichael, "let us be thankfu', an' come back hame tae God." Esther Bright was the last to leave the schoolhouse. As she strolled along slowly, deep in thought over the events of the day, she was arrested by the magnificence of the sunset. She stopped and stood looking into the crystal clearness of the sky, so deep, so illimitable. Across the heavens, which were suddenly aflame with crimson and gold, floated delicate, fleecy clouds. Soon, all the colors of the rainbow were caught and softened by these swift-winged messengers of the sky. Away on the mountains, the snow glowed as if on fire. Slowly the colors faded. Still she stood, with face uplifted. Then she turned, her face shining, as though she had stood in the very presence of God. Suddenly, in her path, stepped the little Indian, his arms full of goldenrod. He waited for her, saying as he offered the flowers: "_Flowers_, me teacher." She stooped, drew him to her, and kissed his dirty face, saying as she did so, "Flowers? How lovely!" He clasped her hand, and they walked on together. The life story of the little Indian had deeply touched her. It was now three years since he had been found, a baby of three, up in Line Canyon. That was just after one of the Apache raids. It was believed that he was the child of Geronimo. When the babe was discovered by the white men who pursued the Indians, he was blinking in the sun. A cowboy, one Jack Harding, had insisted upon taking the child back to the camp with them. Then the boy had found a sort of home in Keith's saloon, where he had since lived. There he had been teased and petted, and cuffed and beaten, and cursed by turns, and being a child of unusually bright mind, and the constant companion of rough men, he had learned every form of evil a child can possibly know. His naturally winsome nature had been changed by teasing and abuse until he seemed to deserve the sobriquet they gave him,--"little savage." Now at the age of perhaps six years, he had been sent to the Gila school; and there Esther Bright found him. The teacher was at once attracted to the child. Many years after, when Wathemah had become a distinguished man, he would tell how his life began when a lovely New England girl, a remarkable teacher, found him in that little school in Gila. He never failed to add that all that he was or might become, he owed entirely to her. The Indian child's devotion to the teacher began that first day at school, and was so marked it drew upon him persecution from the other children. Never could they make him ashamed. When the teacher was present, he ignored their comments and glances, and carried himself as proudly as a prince of the realm; but when she was absent, many a boy, often a boy larger than himself, staggered under his furious attacks. The child had splendid physical courage. Take him for all in all, he was no easy problem to solve. The teacher studied him, listened to him, reasoned with him, loved him; and from the first, he seemed to know intuitively that she was to be trusted and obeyed. On this day, he was especially happy as he trudged along, his hand in that of his Beloved. "Did you see how beautiful the sunset is, Wathemah?" asked the teacher, looking down at the picturesque urchin by her side. He gave a little grunt, and looked into the sky. "Flowers in sky," he said, his face full of delight. "God canyon put flowers, he Wathemah love?" "Yes, dear. God put flowers in the canyon because he loves you." They stopped, and both looked up into the sky. Then, after a moment, she continued: "You are like the flowers of the canyon, Wathemah. God put you here for me to find and love." "Love Wathemah?" "Yes." Then she stooped and gathered him into her arms. He nestled to her. "You be Wathemah's mother?" he questioned. She put her cheek against the little dirty one. The child felt tears. As he patted her cheek with his dirty hand, he repeated anxiously: "Me teacher be Wathemah mother?" "Yes," she answered, as though making a sacred covenant, "I, Wathemah's teacher, promise to be Wathemah's mother, so help me God." The child was coming into his birthright, the birthright of every child born into the world,--a mother's love. Who shall measure its power in the development of a child's life? They had reached the Clayton home. Wathemah turned reluctantly, lingering and drawing figures in the road with his bare feet, a picture one would long remember. He was a slender child, full of sinuous grace. His large, lustrous dark eyes, as well as his features, showed a strain of Spanish blood. He was dressed in cowboy fashion, but with more color than one sees in the cowboy costume. His trousers were of brown corduroy, slightly ragged. He wore a blue and white striped blouse, almost new. Around his neck, tied jauntily in front, was a red silk handkerchief, a gift from a cowboy. He smoothed it caressingly, as though he delighted in it. His straight, glossy black hair, except where cut short over the forehead, fell to his shoulders. Large loop-like ear-rings dangled from his ears; but the crowning feature of his costume, and his especial pride, was a new sombrero hat, trimmed with a scarlet ribbon and a white quill. He suddenly looked at his teacher, his face lighting with a radiant smile, and said: "Mother, _me_ mother." "Tell me, Wathemah," she said, "what you learned to-day in the Bible school." He turned and said softly: "Jesus love." Then the little child of the Open walked back to the camp, repeating softly to himself: "Jesus love! Mother love!" CHAPTER III CLAYTON RANCH Early traders knew Clayton Ranch well, for it was on the old stage route from Santa Fe to the Pacific coast. The house faced south, overlooking Gila River, and commanded a magnificent view of mountains and foothills and valleys. To the northeast, rose a distant mountain peak always streaked with snow. The ranch house, built of blocks of adobe, was of a creamy cement color resembling the soil of the surrounding foothills. The building was long and low, in the Spanish style of a rectangle, opening on a central court at the rear. The red tile roof slanted in a shallow curve from the peak of the house, out over the veranda, which extended across the front. Around the pillars that supported the roof of the veranda, vines grew luxuriantly, and hung in profusion from the strong wire stretched high from pillar to pillar. The windows and doors were spacious, giving the place an atmosphere of generous hospitality. Northeast of the house, was a picturesque windmill, which explained the abundant water supply for the ranch, and the freshness of the vines along the irrigating ditch that bordered the veranda. The dooryard was separated from the highway by a low adobe wall the color of the house. In the yard, palms and cacti gave a semi-tropical setting to this attractive old building. Port-holes on two sides of the house bore evidence of its having been built as a place of defense. Here, women and children had fled for safety when the Apache raids filled everyone with terror. Here they had remained for days, with few to protect them, while the men of the region drove off the Indians. Senor Matéo, the builder and first owner of the house, had been slain by the Apaches. On the foothills, just north of the house, ten lonely graves bore silent witness to that fatal day. Up the road to Clayton Ranch, late one November afternoon, came Esther Bright with bounding step, accompanied, as usual, by a bevy of children. She heard one gallant observe to another that their teacher was "just a daisy." Although this and similar compliments were interspersed with miners' and cowboys' slang, they were none the less respectful and hearty, and served to express the high esteem in which the new teacher was held by the little citizens of Gila. As the company neared the door of the Clayton home, one little girl suddenly burst forth: "My maw says she won't let her childern go ter Bible school ter be learned 'ligion by a Gentile. Me an' Mike an' Pat an' Brigham wanted ter go, but maw said, maw did, that she'd learn us Brigham Young's 'ligion, an' no sech trash as them Gentiles tells about; 'n' that the womern as doesn't have childern'll never go ter Heaven, maw says. My maw's got ten childern. My maw's Mormon." Here little Katie Black paused for breath. She was a stocky, pug-nosed, freckle-faced little creature, with red hair, braided in four short pugnacious pigtails, tied with white rags. "So your mother is a Mormon?" said the teacher to Katie. "Yep." "Suppose I come to see your mother, Katie, and tell her all about it. She might let you come. Shall I?" Her question was overheard by one of Katie's brothers, who said heartily: "Sure! I'll come fur yer. Maw said yer was too stuck up ter come, but I said I knowed better." "Naw," said Brigham, "she ain't stuck up; be yer?" "Not a bit." The teacher's answer seemed to give entire satisfaction to the company. The children gathered about her as they reached the door of Clayton Ranch. Esther Bright placed her hand on Brigham's head. It was a loving touch, and her "Good night, laddie," sent the child on his way happy. Within the house, all was cheer and welcome. The great living room was ablaze with light. A large open fireplace occupied the greater part of the space on one side. There, a fire of dry mesquite wood snapped and crackled, furnishing both light and heat this chill November evening. The floor of the living room was covered with an English three-ply carpet. The oak chairs were both substantial and comfortable. On the walls, hung three oil paintings of English scenes. Here and there were bookcases, filled with standard works. On a round table near the fireplace, were strewn magazines and papers. A comfortable low couch, piled with sofa pillows, occupied one side of the room near the firelight. Here, resting from a long and fatiguing journey, was stretched John Clayton, the owner of the house. As Esther Bright entered the room, he rose and greeted her cordially. His manner indicated the well-bred man of the world. He was tall and muscular, his face, bronzed from the Arizona sun. There was something very genial about the man that made him a delightful host. "Late home, Miss Bright!" he said in playful reproof. "This is a rough country, you know." "So I hear, mine host," she said, bowing low in mock gravity, "and that is why we have been scared to death at your long absence. I feared the Indians had carried you off." "I was detained unwillingly," he responded. "But, really, Miss Bright, I am not joking. It _is_ perilous for you to tramp these mountain roads as you do, and especially near nightfall. You are tempting Providence." He nodded his head warningly. "But I am not afraid," she persisted. "I know that. More's the pity. But you ought to be. Some day you may be captured and carried off, and no one in camp to rescue you." "How romantic!" she answered, a smile lurking in her eyes and about her mouth. She seated herself on a stool near the fire. "Why didn't you ask me why I was so late? I have an excellent excuse." "Why, prisoner at the bar?" "Please, y'r honor, we've been making ready for Christmas." She assumed the air of a culprit, and looked so demurely funny he laughed outright. Here Mrs. Clayton and Edith, her fifteen-year-old daughter, entered the room. "What's the fun?" questioned Edith. "Miss Bright is pleading guilty to working more hours than she should." "Oh, no, I didn't, Edith," she said merrily. "I said we had been making ready for Christmas." Edith sat on a stool at her teacher's side. She, too, was ready for a tilt. "You're not to pronounce sentence, Mr. Judge, until you see what we have been doing. It's to be a great surprise." And Edith looked wise and mysterious. Then Esther withdrew, returning a little later, gowned in an old-rose house dress of some soft wool stuff. She again sat near the fire. "Papa," said Edith, "I have been telling Miss Bright about the annual Rocky Mountain ball, and that she must surely go." John Clayton looked amused. "I'm afraid Edith couldn't do justice to that social function. I am quite sure you never saw anything like it. It is the most primitive sort of a party, made up of a motley crowd,--cowboys, cowlassies, miners and their families, and ranchmen and theirs. They come early, have a hearty supper, and dance all night; and as many of them imbibe pretty freely, they sometimes come to blows." He seemed amused at the consternation in Esther's face. "You don't mean that I shall be expected to go to such a party?" she protested. "Why not?" he asked, smiling. "It seems dreadful," she hastened to say, "and besides that, I never go to dances. I do not dance." "It's not as bad as it sounds," explained John Clayton. "You see these people are human. Their solitary lives are barren of pleasure. They crave intercourse with their kind; and so this annual party offers this opportunity." "And is this the extent of their social life? Have they nothing better?" "Nothing better," he said seriously, "but some things much worse." "I don't see how anything could be worse." "Oh, yes," he said, "it could be worse. But to return to the ball. It is unquestionably a company of publicans and sinners. If you wish to do settlement work here, to study these people in their native haunts, here they are. You will have an opportunity to meet some poor creatures you would not otherwise meet. Besides, this party is given for the benefit of the school. The proceeds of the supper help support the school." "Then I must attend?" "I believe so. With your desire to help these people, I believe it wise for you to go with us to the ball. You remember how a great Teacher long ago ate with publicans and sinners." "Yes, I was just thinking of it. Christ studied people as he found them; helped them where he found them." She sat with bent head, thoughtful. "Yes," John Clayton spoke gently, "Christ studied them as he found them, helped them where he found them." He sometimes smiled at her girlish eagerness, while more and more he marveled at her wisdom and ability. She had set him to thinking; and as he thought, he saw new duties shaping before him. It may have been an hour later, as they were reading aloud from a new book, they heard a firm, quick step on the veranda, followed by a light knock. "It's Kenneth," exclaimed John Clayton in a brisk, cheery tone, as he hastened to open the door. The newcomer was evidently a valued friend. Esther recognized in the distinguished looking visitor one of the men who had protected her the day of the organization of the Bible school. John Clayton rallied him on his prolonged absence. Mrs. Clayton told him how they had missed him, and Edith chattered merrily of what had happened since his last visit. When he was presented to Esther Bright, she rose, and at that moment, a flame leaped from the burning mesquite, and lighted up her face and form. She was lovely. The heat of the fire had brought a slight color to her cheeks, and this was accentuated by her rose-colored gown. Kenneth Hastings bowed low, lower than his wont to women. For a moment his eyes met hers. His glance was keen and searching. She met it calmly, frankly. Then her lashes swept her cheeks, and her color deepened. They gathered about the hearth. Fresh sticks of grease woods, and pine cones, thrown on the fire, sent red and yellow and violet flames leaping up the chimney. The fire grew hotter, and they were obliged to widen their circle. What better than an open fire to unlock the treasures of the mind and heart, when friend converses with friend? The glow of the embers seems to kindle the imagination, until the tongue forgets the commonplaces of daily life and grows eloquent with the thoughts that lie hidden in the deeps of the soul. Such converse as this held this group of friends in thrall. Kenneth Hastings talked well, exceedingly well. All the best stops in his nature were out. Esther listened, at first taking little part in the conversation. She was a good listener, an appreciative listener, and therein lay some of her charm. When he addressed a remark to her, she noticed that he had fine eyes, wonderful eyes, such eyes as belonged to Lincoln and Webster. One would have guessed Kenneth Hastings' age to be about thirty. He was tall, rather slender and sinewy, with broad, strong shoulders. He had a fine head, proudly poised, and an intelligent, though stern face. He was not a handsome man; there was, however, an air of distinction about him, and he had a voice of rare quality, rich and musical. Esther Bright had noticed this. The visitor began to talk to her. His power to draw other people out and make them shine was a fine art with him. His words were like a spark to tinder. Esther's mind kindled. She grew brilliant, and said things with a freshness and sparkle that fascinated everyone. And Kenneth Hastings listened with deepening interest. His call had been prolonged beyond his usual hour for leave-taking, when John Clayton brought Esther's guitar, that happened to be in the room, and begged her for a song. She blushed and hesitated. "Do sing," urged the guest. "I am not a trained musician," she protested. But her host assured his friend that she surely could sing. Then all clamored for a song. Esther sat thrumming the strings. "What shall I sing?" "'Who is Sylvia,'" suggested Mrs. Clayton. This she sang in a full, sweet voice. Her tone was true. "More, more," they insisted, clapping their hands. "Just _one_ more song," pleaded Edith. "Do you sing, 'Drink to me only with thine eyes'?" asked Kenneth. For answer, she struck the chords, and sang; then she laid down the guitar. "Please sing one of your American ballads. Sing 'Home, Sweet Home,'" he suggested. She had been homesick all day, so there was a home-sigh in her voice as she sang. Kenneth moved his chair into the shadow, and watched her. At last he rose to go; and with promises of an early return, he withdrew. Not to the saloon did he go that night, as had been his custom since coming to the mining camp. He walked on and on, out into the vast aloneness of the mountains. Once in a while he stopped, and looked down towards Clayton Ranch. At intervals he whistled softly.--The strain was "Home, Sweet Home." John Clayton and his wife sat long before the fire after Esther and Edith had retired. Mary Clayton was a gentle being, with a fair, sweet English face. And she adored her husband. They had been talking earnestly. "Any way, Mary," John Clayton was saying, "I believe Miss Bright could make an unusually fine man of Kenneth. I believe she could make him a better man, too." "That might be, John," she responded, "but you wouldn't want so rare a soul as she is to marry him to reform him, would you? She's like a snow-drop." "No, like a rose," he suggested, "all sweet at the heart. I'd really like to see her marry Kenneth. In fact, I'd like to help along a little." "Oh, my dear! How could you?" And she looked at him reproachfully. "Why not?" he asked. "Tell me honestly." He lifted her face and looked into it with lover-like tenderness. "You like Kenneth, don't you? And we are always glad to welcome him in our home." "Y-e-s," she responded hesitatingly, "but--" "But what?" "I fear he frequents the saloons, and is sometimes in company totally unworthy of him. In fact, I fear he isn't good enough for Miss Bright. I can't bear to think of her marrying any man less pure and noble than she is herself." He took his wife's hand in both of his. "You forget, Mary," he said, "that Miss Bright is a very unusual woman. There are few men, possibly, who are her peers. Don't condemn Kenneth because he isn't exactly like her. He's not perfect, I admit, any more than the rest of us. But he's a fine, manly fellow, with a good mind and noble traits of character. If the right woman gets hold of him, she'll make him a good man, and possibly a great one." "That may be," she said, "but I don't want Miss Bright to be that woman." "Suppose he were your son, would you feel he was so unworthy of her?" "Probably not," came her hesitating answer. "Mary, dear," he said, "I fear you are too severe in your judgment of men. I wish you had more compassion. You see, it is this way: many who seem evil have gone astray because they have not had the influence of a good mother or sister or wife." He bent his head and kissed her. A moment later, he leaned back and burst into a hearty laugh. "Why, what's the matter?" she asked. "I don't think it's a laughing matter." "It's so ridiculous, Mary. Here we've been concerning ourselves about the possible marriage of Kenneth and Miss Bright, when they have only just met, and it isn't likely they'll ever care for each other, anyway. Let's leave them alone." And the curtain went down on a vital introductory scene in the drama of life. CHAPTER IV THE ANGEL OF THE GILA Days came and went. The Bible school of Gila had ceased to be an experiment. It was a fact patent to all that the adobe schoolhouse had become the social center of the community, and that the soul of that center was Esther Bright. She had studied sociology in college and abroad. She had theorized, as many do, about life; now, life itself, in its bald reality, was appealing to her heart and brain. She did not stop to analyze her fitness for the work. She indulged in no morbid introspection. It was enough for her that she had found great human need. She was now to cope, almost single handed, with the forces that drag men down. She saw the need, she realized the opportunity. She worked with the quiet, unfailing patience of a great soul, leaving the fruitage to God. Sometimes the seriousness in Esther's face would deepen. Then she would go out into the Open. On one of these occasions, she strayed to her favorite haunt in the timber along the river, and seated herself on the trunk of a dead cottonwood tree, lying near the river bank. Trees, covered with green mistletoe, towered above her. Tremulous aspens sparkled in the sunshine. The air was crystal clear; the vast dome of the sky, of the deepest blue. She sat for a long time with face lifted, apparently forgetful of the open letter in her hand. At last she turned to it, and read as follows: LYNN, MASS., Tenth Month, Fifth Day, 1888. MY BELOVED GRANDDAUGHTER: Thy letter reached me Second Day. Truly thou hast found a field that needs a worker, and I do not question that the Lord's hand led thee to Gila. What thou art doing and dost plan to do, interest me deeply; but it will tax thy strength. I am thankful that thou hast felt a deepening sense of God's nearness. His world is full of Him, only men's eyes are holden that they do not know. All who gain strength to lead and inspire their fellows, learn this surely at last:--that the soul of man finds God most surely in the Open. If men would help their fellows, they must seek inspiration and strength in communion with God. To keep well, one must keep his mind calm and cheerful. So I urge thee not to allow the sorrowfulness of life about thee to depress thee. Thou canst not do thy most effective work if thy heart is always bowed down. The great sympathy of thy nature will lead thee to sorrow for others more than is well for thee. Joy is necessary to all of us. So, Beloved, cultivate joyousness, and teach others to do so. It keeps us sane, and strong and helpful. I know that the conditions thou hast found shock and distress thee, as they do all godly men and women; but I beg thee to remember, Esther, that our Lord had compassion on such as these, on the sinful as well as on the good, and that He offers salvation to all. How to have compassion! Ah, my child, men are so slow in learning that. Love,--compassion, is the key of Christ's philosophy. I am often lonely without thee; but do not think I would call thee back while the Lord hath need of thee. Thy Uncle and Aunt are well, and send their love to thee. I have just been reading John Whittier's 'Our Master.' Read it on next First Day, as my message to thee. God bless thee. Thy faithful grandfather, DAVID BRIGHT. As she read, her eyes filled. In the veins of Esther Bright flowed the blood of honorable, God-fearing people; but to none of these, had humanity's needs called more insistently than to her. Her grandfather had early recognized and fostered her passion for service; and from childhood up, he had frequently taken her with him on his errands of mercy, that she might understand the condition and the needs of the unfortunate. Between the two there existed an unusual bond. After reading the letter, Esther sat absorbed in thought. The present had slipped away, and it seemed as though her spirit had absented itself from her body and gone on a far journey. She was aroused to a consciousness of the present by a quick step. In a moment Kenneth Hastings was before her; then, seated at her side. "Well!" he began. "How fortunate I am! Here I was on my way to call on you to give you these flowers. I've been up on the mountains for them." "What beautiful mountain asters!" was her response, her face lighting with pleasure. "How exquisite in color! And how kind of you!" "Yes, they're lovely." He looked into her face with undisguised admiration. Something within her shrank from it. Three weeks had now passed since the meeting of Kenneth Hastings and Esther Bright. During this time, he had become an almost daily caller at Clayton Ranch. When he made apologies for the frequency of his calls, the Claytons always assured him of the pleasure his presence gave them, saying he was to them a younger brother, and as welcome. It was evident to them that Kenneth's transformation had begun. John Clayton knew that important changes were taking place in his daily life; that all his social life was spent in their home; that he had ceased to enter a saloon; and that he had suddenly become fastidious about his toilet. If Esther noted any changes in him, she did not express it. She was singularly reticent in regard to him. At this moment, she sat listening to him as he told her of the mountain flora. "Wait till you see the cactus blossoms in the spring and summer." He seemed very enthusiastic. "They make a glorious mass of color against the soft gray of the dry grass, or soil." "I'd love to see them." She lifted the bunch of asters admiringly. "I have some water colors of cacti I made a year ago. I'd like to show them to you, Miss Bright, if you are interested." She assured him she was. "I was out in the region of Colorado River a year ago. It is a wonderful region no white man has yet explored. Only the Indians know of its greatness. I have an idea that when that region is explored by some scientist, he will discover that canyon to be the greatest marvel of the world. What I saw was on a stupendous, magnificent scale." "How it must have impressed you!" "Wonderfully! I'll show you a sketch I made of a bit of what I found. It may suggest the magnificence of the coloring to you." "How did you happen to have sketching materials with you?" "I agreed to write a series of articles for an English magazine, and wished illustrations for one of the articles." "How accomplished you are!" she exclaimed. "A mining engineer, a painter, an author--" "Don't!" he protested, raising a deprecatory hand. Having launched on the natural wonders of Arizona, he grew more and more eloquent, till Esther's imagination made a daring leap, and she looked down the gigantic gorge he pictured to her, over great acres of massive rock formation, like the splendor of successive day-dawns hardened into stone, and saw gigantic forms chiseled by ages of erosion. "Do you ride horseback, Miss Bright?" he asked, suddenly changing the conversation. "I am sorry to say that I do not. I do not even know how to mount." "Let me teach you to ride," he said, with sudden interest. "You would find me an awkward pupil," she responded, rising. "I am willing to wager that I should not. When may I have the pleasure of giving you the first lesson?" "Any time convenient for you when I am not teaching." She began to gather up her flowers and hat. Then and there, a day was set for the first lesson in horsemanship. "Sit down, please," said Kenneth. "I want you to enlighten me. I am painfully dense." She seated herself on the tree trunk again, saying as she did so: "I had not observed any conspicuous signs of density on your part, Mr. Hastings, save that you think I could be metamorphosed into a horsewoman. Some women are born to the saddle. I was not. I am not an Englishwoman, you see." "But decidedly English," he retorted. "I wish you would tell me your story." Her face flushed. "I beg your pardon," he hastened to say. "I did not mean to be rude. You interest me deeply. Anything you think or do, anything that has made you what you are, is of deep interest to me." "There is nothing to tell," she said simply. "Just a few pages, with here and there an entry; a few birthdays; graduation from college; foreign travel; work in Gila; a life spent in companionship with a wonderfully lovely and lovable grandfather; work at his side, and life's history in the making. That is all." "All?" he repeated. "But that is rich in suggestion. I have studied you almost exclusively for three weeks, and I know you." She looked up. The expression in his eyes nettled her. Her spinal column stiffened. "Indeed! Know a woman in three weeks! You do well, better than most of your sex. Most men, I am told, find woman an unsolvable problem, and when they think they know her, they find they don't." This was interesting to him. He liked the flash in her eye. "Some life purpose brings you to Gila, to work so unselfishly for a lot of common, ignorant people." "What is that to you?" Her question sounded harsh in her own ears, and then she begged his pardon. "No apology is necessary on your part," he said, changing from banter to a tone of seriousness. "My words roused your resentment. I am at fault. The coming of a delicately nurtured girl like you into such a place of degradation is like the coming of an angel of light down to the bottomless pit. I beg forgiveness for saying this; but, Miss Bright, a mining camp, in these days, is a hotbed of vice." "All the more reason why people of intelligence and character should try to make the life here clean. I believe we can crowd out evil by cultivating the good." "You are a decided optimist," he said; "and I, by force of circumstances, have become a confirmed pessimist." "You will not continue to be a pessimist," she said, prophetically, seeing in her mind's eye what he would be in the years to come. "You will come to know deep human sympathy; you will believe in the possibility of better and better things for your fellows. You will use your strength, your intellect, your fine education, for the best service of the world about you." Somehow that prophecy went home to him. "By George!" he exclaimed, "you make a fellow feel he _must_ be just what you want him to be, and what he ought to be." The man studied the woman before him, with deep and increasing interest. She possessed a strength, he was sure, of which no one in Gila had yet dreamed. He continued: "Would you mind telling me the humanitarian notions that made you willing to bury yourself in this godless place?" She hesitated. The catechism evidently annoyed her, for it seemed to savor of impertinent curiosity. But at last she answered: "I believe my grandfather is responsible for the humanitarian notions. It is a long story." She hesitated. "I am interested in what he has done, and what you are doing. Please tell me about it." "Well, it goes back to my childhood. I was my grandfather's constant companion until I went to college. He is a well-known philanthropist of New England, interested in the poor, in convicts in prison and out, in temperance work, in the enfranchisement of woman, in education, and in everything that makes for righteousness." She paused. "And he discussed great questions with you?" "Yes, as though in counsel. He would tell me certain conditions, and ask me what I thought we had better do." "An ideal preparation for philanthropic service." He was serious now. "There awoke within me, very early, the purpose to serve my fellow men in the largest possible way. Grandfather fostered this; and when the time came for me to go to college, he helped me plan my course of study." She looked far away. "You followed it out?" "Very nearly. You see, Mr. Hastings, service is no accident with me. It dates back generations. It is in my blood." "Your blood is of the finest sort. Surely service does not mean living in close touch with immoral, disreputable people." Her eyes kindled, grew dark in color. "What _does_ it mean, then? The strong, the pure, the godly should live among men, teach by precept and example how to live, and show the loveliness of pure living just as Jesus did. I have visited prisons with grandfather, have prayed with and for criminals, and have sung in the prisons. Is it not worth while to help these wretched creatures look away from themselves to God?" "Oh, Miss Bright," he protested, "it is dreadful for a young girl like you even to hear of the wickedness of men." "Women are wicked, too," she responded seriously, "but I never lose hope for any one." "Some day hope will die out in your heart," he said discouragingly. "God forbid!" she spoke solemnly. In a moment she continued: "I am sure you do not realize how many poor creatures never have had a chance to be decent. Just think how many are born of sinful, ignorant parents, into an environment of sin and ignorance. They live in it, they die in it. I, by no will or merit of my own, received a blessed heritage. My ancestors for generations have been intelligent, godly people, many of them people of distinction. I was born into an atmosphere of love, of intelligence, of spirituality, and of refinement. I have lived in that atmosphere all my life. My good impulses have been fostered, my wrong ones checked." "I'll wager you were painfully conscientious," he said. "Why should I have been given so much," she continued, "and these poor creatures so little, unless it was that I should minister to their needs?" "You may be right." He seemed unconvinced. "But I am sure of one thing. If I had been your grandfather, and you my grandchild, I never would have let you leave me." He was smiling. "You should know my grandfather, and then you would understand." "How did you happen to come to Gila?" he asked. "I met Mr. and Mrs. Clayton in the home of one of their friends in England. We were house guests there at the same time. We returned to America on the same steamer. Mrs. Clayton knew I was to do settlement work, and urged me to come to Gila a while instead. So I came." How much her coming was beginning to mean to him, to others! Both were silent a while. Then it was Kenneth who spoke. "Do you know, Miss Bright, it never occurred to me before you came, that I had any obligations to these people? Now I know I have. I was indifferent to the fact that I had a soul myself until you came." She looked up questioningly. "Yes, I mean it," he said. "To all intents and purposes I had no soul. A man forgets he has a soul when he lives in the midst of vice, and no one cares whether he goes to the devil or not." "Is it the environment, or the feeling that no one cares?" she asked. "Both." He buried his face in his hands. "Did you feel that no one cared? I'm sure your mother cared." She had touched a sore spot. "My mother?" he said, bitterly. "My mother is a woman of the world." Here he lifted his head. "She is engrossed in society. She has no interest whatever in me, and never did have, although I am her only child." "Perhaps you are mistaken," she said softly. "I am sure you must be mistaken." "When a mother lets year after year go by without writing to her son, do you think she cares?" "You don't mean to say that you never receive a letter from your mother?" "My mother has not written to me since I came to America. Suppose your mother did not write to you. Would you think she had a very deep affection for you?" Esther's face grew wistful. "Perhaps you do not know," she answered, "I have no living mother. She died when I was born." "Forgive my thoughtless question," he said. "I did not know you had lost your mother. I was selfish." "Oh, no," she said, "not selfish. You didn't know, that was all. We sometimes make mistakes, all of us, when we do not know. I lost my father when I was a very little child." "And your grandfather reared you?" "Yes, grandfather, assisted by my uncle and auntie." "Tell me about your grandfather, I like to hear." "He was my first playfellow, and a fine one he was, too." "How I envy him!" "You mustn't interrupt me," she said demurely. "I am penitent. Do proceed." Then she told him, in brief, the story of her life, simple and sweet in the telling. She told him of the work done by her grandfather. "He preaches, you tell me." "Yes," she said, rambling on, "he is a graduate of Yale, and prepared to be a physician. But his heart drew him into the ministry, the place where he felt the Great Physician would have him be. Grandfather is a Friend, you know, a Quaker." "So I understood." "He had a liberal income, so it was possible for him to devote his entire time to the poor and distressed. He has been deeply interested in the Negro and American Indian, and in fact, in every one who is oppressed by his stronger brother." "An unusual man." "Very." "How could you leave him? Did you not feel that your first duty was to him?" "It _was_ hard to leave him," she said, while her eyes were brimming with tears; "but grandfather and I believe that opportunity to serve means obligation to serve. Besides, love is such a spiritual thing we can never be separated." "Love is such a spiritual thing--" he repeated, and again, "Spiritual." He was silent a moment, then he spoke abruptly. "You have already been the salvation of at least one soul. I owe my soul to you." "Oh, no, not to me," she protested. "That was God's gift to you from the beginning. It may have slumbered, but you had it all the while." "What did your grandfather say to your coming to Gila?" "When I told him of the call to come here, told him that within a radius of sixty miles there was no place of religious worship, he made no response, but sat with his head bowed. At last he looked up with the most beautiful smile you ever saw, and said, 'Go, my child, the Lord hath need of thee.'" Her voice trembled a little. "He was right," said Kenneth earnestly. "The Lord has need of such as you everywhere. I have need of you. The people here have need of you. Help us to make something of our lives yet, Miss Bright." There was no doubting his sincerity. She had again risen to go. "Don't go," he said. "I would like to tell you _my_ story, if you care to hear." "I shall be glad to hear your story. I know it will not be as meager as mine." "I wish," he said earnestly, "that I might measure up to your ideal of what a man should be. I cannot do that. But I can be honest and tell you the truth about myself. "I belong to a proud, high-strung race of people. My father is like his forbears. He is a graduate of Cambridge; has marked literary ability. "My mother is a society woman, once noted as a beauty at court. She craves admiration and must have it. That is all she cares for. She has never shown any affection for my father or me. "I left England when I was twenty-two,--my senior year at Cambridge. I've been in America eight years, and during that time I have received but two letters from home, and those were from my father." "You must have felt starved." "That's it," he said, "_starved_! I did feel starved. You see, Miss Bright, a fellow's home has much to do with his life and character. What is done there influences him. Wine was served on our table. My parents partook freely of it; so did our guests. I have seen some guests intoxicated. We played cards, as all society people do. We played for stakes, also. You call that gambling. My mother's men admirers were mush-headed fools." "Such conditions obtain in certain circles in this country, too. They are a menace to the American home," she said gravely. "I was sent to Cambridge," he continued, "as my father and his father, and father's father before him, had been sent. I was a natural student and always did well in my work. But my drinking and gambling finally got me into trouble. I was fired. My father was so incensed at my dismissal he told me never to darken his doors again. He gave me money, and told me to leave at once for America. "I went to my mother's room to bid her good-by. She stood before a mirror while her maid was giving the final touches to her toilet. She looked regal and beautiful as she stood there, and I felt proud of her. I told her what had happened, and that I had come to bid her good-by. She turned upon me pettishly, and asked me how I could mar her pleasure just as she was going to a ball. Her last words to me were, 'I hate to be disturbed with family matters!'" "Did she bid you good-by?" "No." "Forget it," she urged. "All women are not like that. I hope you will find some rare woman who will be as a mother to you." "Forget it!" he repeated bitterly. "I can't." "But you will sometime. You came to America. What next?" "Then I entered the School of Mines at Columbia, and took my degree the following year, after which I joined Mr. Clayton here. That was seven years ago." "Did you know him in England?" "Yes. During these intervening years I have frequented the saloons. I have drank some, gambled some, as I did at home. And I have mingled with disreputable men here, but not to lift them up. I have not cared, chiefly because I knew no one else cared." His companion was silent. "You despise me, Miss Bright," he continued. "I deserve your contempt, I know. But I would do anything in the power of man to do now, if I could undo the past, and have a life as blameless as your own." He glanced at his companion. "What a brute I have been," he exclaimed, "to pour my ugly story into your ears!" "I am glad you told me," she assured him. She looked up with new sympathy and understanding. "You are going to live down your past now, Mr. Hastings. We'll begin here and now. You will not speak of this again unless it may be a relief to you. The matter will not cross my lips." She flashed upon him a radiant smile. She believed in him. He could hardly comprehend it. "You do not despise me? You forgive my past?" He looked into her face. "It is God who forgives. Why should I despise whom God forgives?" "If ever I find my way to God," he said in a low voice, "it will be through you." She quoted softly: "'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool.'" Then she added, "I must go home now." They walked on to Clayton Ranch. After a few commonplaces, Kenneth lifted his hat, and turning, walked swiftly toward the company's headquarters. Esther stood a moment, watching the easy, graceful stride of the young engineer. His words then, and long afterwards, rang in her ears,--"Help us to make something of our lives yet." And as the words echoed in her heart, a voice aged and full of tender love, came to her like an old refrain,--"Go, my child, the Lord hath need of thee." She lifted her face and looked into the sky. Suddenly she became conscious of the beauty of the hour. The violet light of evening played about her face and form. She forgot the flowers in her arms, forgot the sunset, and stood absorbed in prayer. CHAPTER V THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN BALL It was the day of the ball. Parties of mountaineers, some on horseback, some in wagons, started for Jamison Ranch. In the early evening, a wagon load made up of the members of the Clayton household, Kenneth Hastings and some Scotch neighbors, started for the same destination. The road skirted the foothills for some distance, then followed the canyon several miles; and then, branching off, led directly to Jamison Ranch. As the twilight deepened into night, Nature took on a solemn and mysterious beauty. The rugged outline of the mountains, the valley and river below,--were all idealized in the softening light. The New England girl sat drinking in the wonder of it all. The mountains were speaking to her good tidings of great joy. In the midst of merry chatter, some one called out: "Sing us a song, Miss Bright." It was Kenneth Hastings. Hearing her name, she roused from her reverie. "A song?" "Yes, do sing," urged several. "Sing 'Oft in the Stilly Night,'" suggested Mrs. Clayton. "All sing with me," responded Esther. Then out on the stillness floated the beautiful old Irish song. Other voices joined Esther's. Kenneth Hastings was one of the singers. His voice blended with hers and enriched it. Song after song followed, all the company participating to some extent in the singing. Was it the majesty of the mountain scenery that inspired Esther, that sent such a thrill of gladness into her voice? Or was it perhaps the witchery of the moonlight? Whatever may have been the cause, a new quality appeared in her voice, and stirred the hearts of all who listened to her singing; it was deep and beautiful. What wonder if Kenneth Hastings came under the spell of the song and the singer? The New England girl was a breath of summer in the hard and wintry coldness of his life. "Who taught you to sing?" he asked abruptly. "The birds," she answered, in a joyous, laughing tone. "I can well believe that," he continued, "but who were your other instructors?" Then, in brief, she told him of her musical training. Would she sing one of his favorite arias some day? naming the aria. She hummed a snatch of it. "Go on," he urged. "Not now; some other time." "Won't you give us an evening recital soon?" asked John Clayton. And then and there the concert was arranged for. "Miss Bright," said Mrs. Carmichael, "I am wondering how we ever got on without you." Esther laughed a light-hearted, merry laugh. "That's it," Kenneth hastened to say. "We 'got on.' We simply existed. Now we live." All laughed at this. "You are not complimentary to our friends. I protest," said Esther. "You are growing chivalrous, Kenneth," said Mrs. Clayton. "I'm glad you think as we do. Miss Bright, you have certainly enriched life for all of us." "Don't embarrass me," said Esther in a tone that betrayed she was a little disconcerted. But now they were nearing their journey's end. The baying of hounds announced a human habitation. An instant later, the house was in sight, and the dogs came bounding down the road, greeting the party with vociferous barks and growls. Mr. Jamison followed, profuse in words of welcome. As Kenneth assisted Esther from the wagon, he said: "Your presence during this drive has given me real pleasure." Her simple "Thank you" was her only response. At the door they were met by daughters of the house, buxom lasses, who ushered them into an immense living room. This opened into two other rooms, one of which had been cleared for dancing. Esther noted every detail,--a new rag carpet on the floor; a bright-colored log-cabin quilt on one of the beds; on the other bed, was a quilt of white, on which was appliqued a menagerie of nondescript animals of red and green calico, capering in all directions. The particular charm of this work of art was its immaculate quilting,--quilting that would have made our great-grandmothers green with envy. Cheap yellow paper covered the walls of the room. A chromo, "Fast Asleep," framed in heavy black walnut, hung close to the ceiling. A sewing machine stood in one corner. At first, Esther did not notice the human element in the room. Suddenly a little bundle at the foot of the bed began to grunt. She lifted it, and found a speck of humanity about three months old. In his efforts to make his wants known, and so secure his rightful attention, he puckered his mouth, doubled up his fists, grew red in the face, and let forth lusty cries. As she stood trying to soothe the child, the mother rushed in, snatched it from the teacher's arms, and gave it a slap, saying as she did so, "The brat's allus screechin' when I wanter dance!" She left the babe screaming vociferously, and returned to dance. Four other infants promptly entered into the vocal contest, while their respective parents danced in the adjoining room, oblivious of everything save the pleasure of the hour. Then it was that the New England girl became a self-appointed nurse, patting and soothing first one, then another babe; but it was useless. They had been brought to the party under protest; and offended humanity would not be mollified. The teacher stepped out into the living room, which was in festive array. Its picturesqueness appealed to her. A large fire crackled on the hearth, and threw its transforming glow over the dingy adobe walls, decorated for the occasion with branches of fragrant silver spruce. Blocks of pine tree-trunks, perhaps two feet in height, stood in the corners of the room. Each of these blocks contained a dozen or more candle sockets, serving the purpose of a candelabrum. Each of the sockets bore a lighted candle, which added to the weirdness of the scene. The room was a unique background for the men and women gathered there. At least twenty of the mountaineers had already assembled. They had come at late twilight, and would stay till dawn, for their journey lay over rough mountain roads and through dangerous passes. The guests gathered rapidly, laughing and talking as they came. It was a motley crowd,--cowboys, in corduroy, high boots, spurs, slouch hats, and knives at belt, brawny specimens of human kind; cowlasses, who for the time, had discarded their masculine attire of short skirts, blouse, belt and gun, for feminine finery; Scotchmen in Highland costume; Mexicans in picturesque dress; English folk, clad in modest apparel; and Irishmen and Americans resplendent in colors galore. For a moment, Esther stood studying the novel scene. Mr. Clayton, observing her, presented her to the individuals already assembled. The last introduction was to a shambling, awkward young miner. After shaking the hand of the teacher, which he did with a vigor quite commensurate to his elephantine strength, he blurted out, "Will yez dance a polky wid me?" She asked to be excused, saying she did not dance. "Oh, but I can learn yez," he said eagerly. "Yez put one fut so, and the other _so_," illustrating the step with bovine grace as he spoke. His efforts were unavailing, so he found a partner among the cowlasses. Again Esther was alone. She seated herself near one of the improvised pine candelabra, and continued to study the people before her. Here she found primitive life indeed, life close to the soil. How to get at these people, how to learn their natures, how to understand their needs, how to help them,--all these questions pressed upon her. Of this she was sure:--she must come in touch with them to help them. Men and women older and more experienced than she might well have knit their brows over the problem. She was roused to a consciousness of present need by a piercing cry from one of the infants in the adjoining room. The helpless cry of a child could never appeal in vain to such a woman as Esther Bright. She returned to the bedroom, lifted the wailing bundle in her arms, seated herself in a rocker, and proceeded to quiet it. Kenneth Hastings stood watching her, while an occasional smile flitted across his face. As John Clayton joined him, the former said in a low tone: "Do you see Miss Bright's new occupation, John?" "Yes, by George! What will that girl do next? Who but Miss Bright would bother about other people's crying infants? But it's just like her! She is true woman to the heart. I wish there were more like her." "So do I, John. I wish I were more like her myself in unselfish interest in people." "She has done you great good already, Kenneth." "Yes, I know." Then a shadow darkened Kenneth's face. He moved toward the outer door that stood open, and looked out into the night. At last Esther's task was accomplished, the babe was asleep, and she returned to the scene of the dancing. Kenneth sought her and asked her to dance the next waltz with him. She assured him, also, that she did not dance. "Let me teach you," he urged. But she shook her head. "You do not approve of dancing?" he asked, lifting his brows. "I did not say I do not approve of dancing; I said I do not dance. By the way," she said, changing the subject of the conversation, "my lessons in riding are to begin to-morrow, are they not?" "To-morrow, if I may have the pleasure. Do you think riding wicked, too?" This he said with a sly twinkle in his eye. "Wicked, too?" she echoed. "What's the 'too' mean?" "Dancing, of course." "But I didn't say I thought dancing wicked. I said I do not dance." "Oh, well, you think it wicked, or you would dance." She looked amused. "What would you say if I should tell you I learned to dance years ago?" "That you are strait-laced obstinacy personified. Why not dance? It could do you no harm." "It is not expedient, that is all. Let me tell you I really did learn. I am not an accomplished dancer, though. I was taught to dance in a school I attended. But I have never danced in social life." "Why not put aside your scruples for once," he urged, "and dance the next waltz with me? You don't know what pleasure it would give me." But she still refused. He saw that to pursue the matter further would be useless. The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of cowboys and cowlasses, who, as they filed past, were presented to her by Kenneth Hastings. "How are ye?" asked one husky fellow, gripping Esther's hand like a vise. "Happy ter know yer acquaintance," said another. The girls snickered and looked foolish, keeping time to the music with the tapping of their feet. "You like to dance, I see," said Esther to one girl. "You bet I do!" The girl's jaws kept time to the music as she vigorously chewed gum. "Come, Jim," said another loud-voiced cowlass, "that's our set." And away they went, hand in hand, edging their way through the crowded rooms. Soon they were in the midst of the boisterous dancers. Kenneth joined the human fringe around the dance room. He stood watching as though what he saw amused him. "Swing y'r pardners," shouted the fiddler, above the din of voices. Down came the bow across the strings, that responded in shrill, piercing notes. Around flew the dancers, their cheeks growing redder and redder. The clatter of the cowboys' spurs, and the tapping of the fiddler's foot kept time to the music. While watching the dancers, Kenneth discovered Jessie Roth, a young Scotch girl, in from the range. As soon as he could do so, he presented her to Esther Bright. Jessie responded to the introduction awkwardly and shyly; but as she looked into Esther's face, she seemed to gain confidence. It was such a kindly, such a sympathetic face. Jessie was a girl Esther had long been wishing to meet, and to interest in better things. She was at heart good, and if wisely directed would undoubtedly exercise a wholesome influence over other girls. As the teacher expressed her interest in her, and what they might do together, Jessie's face beamed. "Mr. Hastings telt me aboot y'r Bible school, an' how ye wantit me tae come. Did ye?" "Indeed I did." "Dae ye want mony mair tae come?" "Yes, as many as you can bring, Jessie." Then the two took seats in the corner of the room, and Esther gave her an enthusiastic account of her plans for the Gila girls. The Scotch girl listened, with an occasional comment. "Do you like the life on the range, Jessie?" "Rael weel! Y're as free as the air!" Here the girl gave her body and arms a swing, as though ready to leap to the back of a running horse. She seemed all muscle. "My mustang's the best friend I hev. I broke 'er mysel'. My! She can gae like the wind!" "You!" said the astonished teacher. "Can you break a horse?" "Can I?" she repeated in amusement. "I'd like tae show ye. I wad like tae tak ye oot on the range wi' me. My, but ye'd like it!" "No doubt. What do you do out on the range?" "Oh, we rides an' rides an' looks after the cattle; we cooks, an' plays cards, an' joshes the boys." Here Jessie laughed. "What a dreary life this must be," thought Esther. She said aloud, "You must find the life monotonous and lonely." "Never lonely, schoolma'am. It's full o' excitement. There's somethin' doin' all the time. Sometime ye sees herds o' antelope, or ye meets a grizzly. It's better'n a dance tae bring down a grizzly." "A bear?" the teacher exclaimed in astonishment. "You don't mean to say you ever killed a bear?" The cowlass's eyes sparkled as she said proudly: "I've shot several, an' other big game too. But the greatest thing on the range is tae see a stampede o' cattle. It's as much as y'r life's worth tae be in their way." The girl, though rough, had a vitality and picturesqueness attractive to the polished New Englander. It was equally certain that Esther was attractive to the cowlass. Jessie left her for a moment, but soon returned, bringing three others with her. After presenting them, she said: "Tell 'em, schoolma'am, what ye telt me." "Tell what, Jessie?" "Oh, aboot the Bible school an' the parties, an' how ye wants tae dae somethin' fer the lasses." Then Esther briefly outlined her plans, during which they occasionally interrupted her by questions or comments. "Do you mean, schoolma'am, that y're willin' to learn us outside o' school hours?" "Yes." "Y're mighty good. I love ye already," said one lass. "But we're sae auld," said Jessie. "No, you're not. You're not old,--not too old to study." "Yes, schoolma'am, that's what mother used tae say," said Jessie in a softer tone. She turned her face aside. Another girl whispered to Esther, "Her father killed her mother when he was drunk." Esther slipped her arm around Jessie's waist, and continued to speak her plans, and how much their co-operation would mean to her. "Git y'r pardners!" shouted the fiddler. Soon the lasses were led away to the dance; and for the time, nothing more was said of their plans; but Esther Bright knew that of all the days' work she had done in Gila, this would probably count the most. The rooms were now crowded with people. The huge candles burned lower; the air grew more stifling; the noise more tiring. As she looked up, she met the gaze of a young English girl, who flushed and turned her eyes away. An instant later, Kenneth Hastings seated himself by Esther and began speaking. "I was glad to see you talking with the cowlasses, for they need the gentle, refining influence that you can bring them." He was evidently deeply in earnest. "You have no idea how full of peril their life is. You see there is something in this bold, free life of exposure that almost unsexes a woman. Some of the cowlasses are good-hearted, honest girls, but many are a hard lot. Your womanly influence would help them." As he spoke, he caught sight of the girl who, a moment before, had attracted Esther's attention. "Do you see that girl with the cameo-like face?" he asked. "Yes." "I have been hoping you could save that child. She can't be more than seventeen, if she is that. What her previous history is I do not know; but it is evident she has had gentle breeding." "What a sweet face she has!" "Yes. Lovely, isn't it? Like a flower." "What is her name?" Esther looked sympathetically at the girlish figure. "Earle--Carla Earle. She lives at Keith's. I see her often with Mark Clifton, a young Englishman here. He is a wild fellow. She is shy of everyone else." "Poor child!" said Esther, glancing toward her. "I made bold to speak to her one day, and invited her to come to your Bible school. I believe if you could meet her you would be her salvation." Esther looked up with a grave question in her eyes. "Well?" he asked. "You invite her to come to the Bible school, but do not come yourself, do not offer to help." "It does seem inconsistent, doesn't it? I will try to explain." He studied the cracks in the floor. "You see, I have felt that I would be a hypocrite if I came. I know nothing about religion; at least, I knew nothing about it until I began to find it in you." "And yet religion is the great question of life. I wonder that, with your habit of thought, you have not been attracted to the study of philosophy and religion." "Some of the most materialistic men I have known," he replied, "have been students of philosophy and religion. They seemed anything but religious. But your religion is practical. You live it. You make men believe in your religion, make them believe it is the one real thing of life. I need to be taught of you." "Please bring this young girl to me, or take me to her," she responded. Together they sought Carla Earle. As Esther was introduced, she clasped Carla's hand, and began to talk to her of England. Kenneth excused himself, and the two girls took seats in the corner where he had left them. At first Carla avoided looking into the face of her companion. When she did gain courage to look up, she saw that Esther's face was full of tenderness. What could it mean? Sympathy for her? Carla Earle? Her chest rose and fell. Suddenly she hid her face in her hands, while suppressed sobs shook her frame. Quickly, Esther slipped her arm about her, and drew her to the open door, and out into the clear night air. There, Nature seemed full of peace. Up and down, the two walked in the moonlight, talking in low, earnest tones. Often they paused and looked up into the heavens. Once the English girl bowed her head on the New England girl's shoulder, and wept bitterly. The teacher listened, listened to a story whose pathos touched her heart. Then she said gently: "You know right from wrong. Leave the wrong life. Come to me for shelter, until I can find a home for you where you will be safe, and I hope, contented." "Oh, I can't," sobbed Carla, "I am so unhappy!" "I know you can leave if you will," Esther said firmly. "You will have strength and courage given you to do right. It is wrong for you to continue in the life you are now living." Carla shuddered. She was still weeping. "God will never forgive me," she said. "He has forsaken me." She seemed utterly hopeless. "God always forgives those who come to Him penitent, Carla. He has not forsaken you; you have forsaken Him. I am glad you and I have found each other. Perhaps I can help you find your way back to God." Carla gripped her hand. When they re-entered the house, the English girl slipped into the bedroom. "Fust couple forrerd an' back!" called out the fiddler, keeping time with his foot. There were bows, differing more in quality than in kind; bows masculine, with spurred foot to rearward; bows feminine, quite indescribable. "Swing y'r pardners!" shouted the fiddler, flourishing his bow. Around flew the lasses, with skirts and ribbons flying; down came the boots of the cowboys, their spurs clanking time to the music. The room grew more stifling. Among the late-comers was a middle-aged woman, immaculately clean. Her snapping black eyes were set close to her nose, which was sharp and thin. Her lips closed firmly. Her thin black hair, drawn tightly back, was fastened in a tight wad at the back of her head. She wore an antiquated black alpaca dress, sans buttons, sans collar, sans cuffs; but the crowning glory of her costume, and her particular pride, was a breastpin of hair grapes. She was accompanied by an easy-going, stubby little Irishman, and a freckle-faced, tow-headed lad of ten. "Maw, Maw!" said the child, "there's my teacher!" "Mind y'r mannerses," said the woman, as she cuffed him on the ear. "I am mindin' my mannerses," he said sulkily. The teacher saw the shadow on the child's face, stepped forward to greet him, then extended her hand to the mother, saying: "Good evening, Mrs. Black. I am Brigham's teacher." But Mrs. Murphy was on the warpath. "I'm not Miz. Black," she snapped, assuming an air of offended dignity; "I'm Miz Murphy, the wife o' Patrick Murphy. This is my man," pointing to the stubby Irishman, with the air of a tragedy queen. The teacher thereupon shook hands with Patrick. Mrs. Murphy continued: "My first husband were a Young, my second a Thompson, my third a Wigger, my fourth a Black, and my fifth a Murphy." "I wonders who the nixt wan will be," said Patrick, grinning from ear to ear. "My woman lived wid the Mormons." Mrs. Murphy's eyes looked daggers. He continued: "An' she thought if it were good fur wan man to marry many women, it were equally good fur wan woman ter have many husbands, even if she didn't have all of thim ter onct." He chuckled. "Mind y'r bizness!" snapped the irate Mrs. Murphy. "An' so it came my turrhn, schoolma'am, an' she were that delighted wid me she have niver tried another man since. Eh, mavourneen?" Saying which, Patrick made his escape, shaking with laughter. Then Esther poured oil on the troubled waters, by telling Mrs. Murphy how interested she was in what Brigham had told her of his little sisters, Nora and Kathleen. "Won't you sit down, Mrs. Murphy?" Esther's voice and manner were very charming at that moment, as she drew a chair forward for her companion. Somewhat mollified, Mrs. Murphy seated herself. "Oh, I don't mind ef I do set down. I'm that tuckered out with scrubbin' and washin' an' cookin', I'm afeared I can't dance till mornin'." As she talked, she fanned herself with her red cotton handkerchief. "You enjoy dancing, don't you, Mrs. Murphy?" asked the teacher, with apparent interest. "Enjoy dancin'? I should say I did!" She suddenly assumed an air of great importance. "Back East where I was riz, I went ter all the barn raisin's, an' was accounted the best dancer in the county." She showed sudden interest in the fiddler, and tapped time to the music with her foot. "Then I joined the Mormons. When I lived in Utah, there was plenty o' dancin', I can tell you." "You are from New York, Mrs. Murphy, I think you said." "Yep," complacently. "I was riz in York State, near Syrycuse. My folks was way up, my folks was. Why, my aunt's husband's sister's husband kep' a confectony, an' lived on Lexity Street, York City. She were rich, she were,--an' dressed! My landy! How she dressed! Always latest style! Ye didn't know her, I s'pose. Miz Josiah Common was her name, lived at 650 somethin' Lexity Street. Wisht you'd a knowed her." Here she mopped her face again. It was not often that Mrs. Murphy found herself in society, and in society where she wished to make an impression. Her voice rose higher and shriller. "Yep," she continued, in a tone of supreme satisfaction, "I'm 'lated, as it were, to Miz Josiah Common. She gimme this here pin." Here she took off a hair grape pin, and held it up for inspection. "A bunch o' grapes, yer see, hereditaried in the family, descended from father to son, yer know, in memory of the departed." All this in a tone of one who gives information, and commiserates the ignorance of the listener. Suddenly Esther Bright lifted her handkerchief to her eyes. "Got pink eye?" asked Mrs. Murphy with sudden sympathy. But at this moment Patrick Murphy joined them, and Mrs. Murphy rose to dance with him. As the two left her, Esther saw John Clayton edging his way through the crowd. An instant later, he presented Lord Kelwin, of Dublin, Ireland. "Really," said the newcomer, "I had no idea I should meet an American lady on the frontier. I am charmed. So delighted, Mr. Clayton, to meet Mrs. Clayton and Miss Bright. I had anticipated meeting Indians, Indian princesses, don't you know, like the people we see in the shows you send us." "It is too bad you should be disappointed, Lord Kelwin," said the New Englander, smiling. "There are princesses galore in the southwest, and a little search will reward you." "Beg pardon, I did not intend to give the impression that I was disappointed; rather, I am surprised that here out of civilization, ah--ah--I should find a lady,--_two_ ladies. I count myself most fortunate." John Clayton's eyes twinkled. At the first opportunity he drew Lord Kelwin aside, and whispered in his ear. The Irishman looked astonished. "An Indian princess, did you say? By Jove!" "Yes, of the blood royal," replied John Clayton, with gravity. "And possessed of untold wealth? What was it you said?" "Of untold wealth. I'd rather have her wealth than the crown jewels of any royal house." "By George! A fortune and a pretty girl thrown in!" It was evident that this bit of information was not without effect upon Lord Kelwin, for he turned to Esther Bright effusively. "It is such a pleasure, such a great pleasure, to meet one who so charmingly represents her race." He bowed deferentially. Esther looked mystified. Before she could frame a reply, their conversation was interrupted. Lord Kelwin drew John Clayton aside. "An American princess, did you say?" "Yes, by divine right," responded the older man. The Irishman adjusted his monocle, to view Esther more critically. "She looks more like an English woman," he said meditatively. "Rather too slender to be a beauty." "She was born on the free soil of America," continued his companion, "and has some ideas of her own." The Irishman smiled cynically. "As if a pretty girl ever had ideas of her own! She usually knows just what her mamma or governess teaches her. I always find a pretty girl an easy victim. I've broken more than one innocent's heart." He twirled his moustache. "You'll not get on so well with Miss Bright. You see, she is used to meeting _men_." John Clayton looked a trifle wicked, as he continued, "She might take you for a long-headed animal with long ears." But the last remark was lost upon the Irishman, whose attention was fixed upon Esther Bright. "You say her ancestors were savages, Mr. Clayton?" "I suppose they _were_ savages, same as ours. She has the best heritage the ages can give,--a healthy body, a beautiful mind, and a heroic soul." John Clayton's voice, half ironical, had an undertone of seriousness. "A heroic soul! A heroic soul!" The Irishman raised his monocle again. "I didn't suppose savages had souls. I've always imagined this fad about souls came with civilization." "I have begun to think," answered his companion, "that with much of the so-called civilization, men and women are losing their souls. Miss Bright is a remarkable woman. She believes in the possibilities of every man and woman. It is her purpose in life to awaken the soul wherever she finds it dormant or atrophied." "Indeed!" Again the monocle was raised, and the Irishman's curious gaze was fixed upon the American girl, then engaged in conversation with a cowboy. Patrick Murphy now interrupted this dialogue. "Lord Kelwin, we wants yez ter dance an Irish jig." The lord lifted his eyebrows. "There's no one to dance an Irish jig with me unless you do it yourself, Patrick." Here there was a general laugh. "Come along wid yez," persisted Patrick, half carrying him toward the dance room. "Here," he said to Lord Kelwin, "here's light-footed Janette O'Neil will dance this wid yez." There was a stir. The center of the room was cleared, then out stepped Lord Kelwin, leading rosy, graceful Janette. She was lithe and dainty. The fiddler flourished his bow, drew it across the strings, and brought forth the strains of "Soldier's Joy,"--a melody that sets an Irishman's feet flying. Janette's short, red skirt showed her trim feet and ankles. Down the room came the two dancers, side by side, their feet fairly flying. Backward, again they danced, the length of the room, still keeping up the feathery rapidity of flying feet. Then Lord Kelwin swung his partner around and around; then facing each other, they danced apart. Expressions of admiring approval were heard. "Them's fine dancers!" "Go it, Kelwin! I'll bet on you." "Three cheers for ould Ireland!" Down again the full length of the room sped the flying feet; then back again. Then, whirling as birds in flight, they faced each other once more, and danced apart, and finished the dance amid deafening applause. As it continued, Lord Kelwin raised his hand for attention. "Give us the Highland fling. Here, Burns, you and Jessie Roth dance the Highland fling." "Highland fling! Highland fling!" echoed many voices. Again the center of the room was cleared, and Robert Burns led forth Jessie Roth. In a moment the air of "Bonnie Woods and Braes" shrieked from the fiddle. With rhythmic swing of body and limb, the graceful Scotch dancers kept time to the music. Up rose the arm of the girl, with inimitable grace; forward came one foot, daintily touching the floor. It was the very poetry of motion. At the close of this dance, the applause was again deafening. "Git y'r pardners fer Virginny reel!" shouted the weary fiddler. In the rush of the dancers, John Clayton was jostled against Esther Bright and Kenneth Hastings. "Well!" said he, "I believe we'd better go out to supper, and then start homeward." A brief search brought the other members of the party. They seated themselves at a long improvised table, covered with red tablecloths. There was but one course, and that included everything from roast venison and Irish stew, hot biscuit and honey, to New England doughnuts, hot tamales and whiskey. Near by sat an Indian half-breed, who, discovering a large plate of doughnuts, greedily devoured every one. As he had been drinking heavily, no one interfered, or made audible comments. When the Clayton party were about to withdraw, there were sounds of scuffling, oaths and cries, from the adjoining room, followed by a heavy thud. Some one had fallen. John Clayton rushed out, and finding one of his own cowboys in the fight, dragged him out into the open air. To keep him out of the mêlée, he sent him for their team, and he himself returned to the house for the members of his party. The leave-taking over, the spirited team dashed away from Jamison Ranch. The lights of the house grew fainter and fainter, then disappeared. The babble of voices, the clink of glasses, the clatter of spurs, the sound of dancing feet, were far behind. To the New England girl, the experience of the night seemed a strange dream; and the reality, the solemn hush of the midnight sky brooding over all. CHAPTER VI A SOUL'S AWAKENING The next evening, as the Claytons gathered about the fire, heavy footsteps were heard on the veranda. "The cowboys are just in from the range," explained the host. The door opened, and four cowboys entered. Abashed at the presence of a stranger, they responded awkwardly to the introduction. They were a picturesque group in the flickering firelight. All were dressed in corduroy jackets, belted with heavy leather belts, each of which held a gun and a sharp knife. Each man wore leather trousers, fringed at the bottom, high boots, with clanking spurs, and sombrero hats that no one deigned to remove on entering the room. They were brawny specimens of human kind, with faces copper-colored from exposure. The Claytons welcomed them to a place before the fire. Many a curious glance wandered toward Esther. She listened intently to their tales of hair-breadth escapes, of breaking bronchos, of stampedes of cattle, of brandings and round-ups, of encounters with Indians and wolves, and of perilous feats of mountain climbing. Noticing her interest, their tongues were loosened, and many a half-truth took on the color of whole truth. One of the cowboys had been so absorbed in watching her that he had taken no part in the conversation. His steady, persistent gaze finally attracted her attention. She was perplexed as to where she could have seen him. His face looked strangely familiar to her. Then it came to her in a flash that it was at the schoolhouse the day of the organization of the Bible school. He was one of the men who had protected her. She saw he could not be measured at a glance. His face, though strikingly handsome, was one men feared. Yet there were those who could tell of his deeds of gentleness and mercy. These were in his better moments, for he had better moments. Many tales were told of his courage and daring. Mr. Clayton sometimes expressed the belief that if this cowboy had been reared in the right kind of atmosphere, he would have achieved distinction. His eagle eye and powerful jaw indicated a forceful personality. As Esther felt his magnetic gaze, she turned and asked: "Were you not at the schoolhouse the day we organized the Bible school?" "I was there a few minutes," he responded. But he did not add that he had gone away with the ruffians to prevent their disturbing her. She expressed the wish that he would visit the Bible school. "Oh, I haven't been in a church since I was a kid," he blurted out. "Then my stepfather turned me out ter earn my livin'. I'm now twenty-eight, an' I don't know nothin' but cattle, an' bears, an' wolves an' Indians." "It is sad not to have a home, isn't it?" she said. "Oh, I don't know 'bout it's bein' sad," he answered, as though embarrassed. There was a change of expression in his face. "But then your being thrown upon your own resources has made you brave, and self-reliant, and strong." He squared his shoulders. "In some ways, you have had great opportunities, Mr. Harding,--" "Oh, don't call me 'Mr. Harding,'" he interrupted, "Call me 'Jack.'" "I'll try to remember." Her face lighted. "These opportunities have given you magnificent physical strength. I know people who would give a fortune just to have your superb strength." He straightened up. "Well, I'd be glad to give it to 'em, if I could only have a chance to know somethin'." "Know what?" "Know how a man ought ter live." There was in his voice a deep, vibrant undertone of earnestness. "It's a great thing to live, isn't it?" She spoke as though pondering some vital question. Jack Harding watched her curiously. "Some jest half live, schoolma'am." "That is probably true," she responded, "but God created us capable of something better. He has given us His world to know, and the people in it." "The people in it," he repeated contemptuously. "Some people are a bad lot, schoolma'am, an' I'm one of 'em." "You must not speak so of yourself. A man who will protect a woman, in order that she may continue her work unmolested, is not a bad lot. Now I should call you a pretty _good_ sort of a man." A luminous smile. Almost any man would have become her willing slave for that smile. As her voice gave special emphasis to the word "good," he squared his shoulders again. She continued: "A man doesn't know how good he really is until he begins to try to help some one else up. Then he finds out." "I need to be helped," he said, in a tone that seemed to be intended for her ear alone. "I am ignorant,--don't know nothin'. Can't hardly read, or write, or cipher. Could yer learn me?" She looked at the strong man before her, touched by his appeal. "What do you wish to learn?" "First readin' an' writin' an' cipherin'." "What next?" "Oh, everythin', I guess." The others had caught fragments of the conversation, and now joined in. Mike Maloney spoke first. "Do yez think yez are a kid again, Jack, that yez are sthartin' wid book learnin'?" "No, Mike, not a kid, but a dunce." Before the teacher could protest, he continued: "Ye'll find me an ignoramus, schoolma'am. A fellow out on the range, or in a minin' camp, don't git much schoolin'. But sometimes when ye're alone under the open sky, an' the stars come out, there's somethin' in here" (striking himself on the chest) "that is--is--unsatisfied. I want somethin'. I don't know what it is I want, but I believe you can help me find out." Let those scoff who will; there is such a thing as divine unrest; and when this takes possession of a man, his evolution has begun. John Harding went on with increasing earnestness. "Yer see, schoolma'am, this not knowin' is awful. Y're not all a man should measure up to. Y're in prison like, hide bound. It's come ter me ter-night, all ter onct, that an ignoramus is in bondage, an' that only education can set him free." The tide of his feeling gave him a rough eloquence. It was evident his words found a responsive echo in the other cowboys' hearts. The teacher had listened with deepening interest. John Harding had set her a task,--the greatest task, nay, the greatest pleasure man or woman can know, of leading a human soul out of bondage into freedom. One of the cowboys, Jimmie Smith by name, nudged Mike Maloney, and whispered: "Ask her to learn us, too." Mike readily assented. "Would yez be willin' ter bother wid us too?" "It would be no bother. I'd be glad to help you." There was no doubting her sincerity. In a few moments, the men were seated around the dining table, each with pencil and paper, and a lesson in penmanship had begun. "Gosh!" said Jimmie. "Ef that don't look like the rail fences back in Indianny!" As he said this, he held up to view the very best he could do after repeated efforts. He laughed uproariously at himself, the others joining from pure sympathy, for Jimmie's laugh was contagious. But Mike worked as though entered for a race. He seemed to need an astonishing amount of the teacher's attention, especially after she commended his work. "Schoolma'am," he called out, beckoning to her with his dirty hand, "would yez be showin' me the nixt?" She bent over him, naming principles, explaining slant and spacing, as she made a group of letters. "Stim letthers, did yez say? Stim? Stim?" He held up his work and looked at it critically. "Manin' no disrespict to yez, schoolma'am, I'll jist call 'em, not stim letthers, but fince posts." After the laughs and gibes had ceased, he listened to her a moment, and then remarked, "The stims should all be sthandin' the same way, did yez say?" He grinned as he viewed his writing o'er. It was clear to him, even at that early stage of the work, that he was not cut out for an expert penman. Yet his last effort that evening he seemed to regard with special pride and satisfaction, and this is what the teacher found on his paper when she returned to observe his work: klass jimme Smith mike maloney john harding bill weeks teecher the angle of the gila Night after night, these cowboys gathered for an hour or more at the Clayton home for study with Esther Bright. Reading, and arithmetic, and talks on physical geography followed. The cowboys did not suspect it, but she was fighting the degrading influences of the saloon. Days came and went. The interest in the night school increased; so did the interest in the Bible school. But for some indefinable reason, John Harding had not visited it. One Saturday morning, when Esther sought the schoolhouse to do some work there, he joined her, entered the building, and built a fire for her. While observing the decorations of the room, he saw on the walls the words, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." He read and reread the words. What could it mean? He was ashamed to ask. At last his great dark eyes sought the teacher's face. She saw a question in them. "What is it?" she asked. "What does it mean?" "What does what mean?" "Them words,--'God so loved the world', an' so on." "What don't you understand?" "I don't understand none of it. Yer see, us fellers uses 'God' as a cuss-word. That's all I know 'bout God." "Have you never read in the Bible about Jesus?" "Bible? I ain't seen one sence I was a kid, 'n' I never read it then, 'n' ef God is a father 'n' anythin' like my stepfather, I reckon I don't care ter make his acquaintance." "He is not like your stepfather, for Jesus never turns anyone away. He invites people to come to Him. Would you like to hear about this, John?" "Yes, mum." "Well, sit down and I'll tell you." So they sat down near the desk. Then the woman of twenty-four told the Christ-story to the man of twenty-eight as to a little child. He listened intently, with the eagerness of a man in whom the passion to know has just been born. The teacher's words thrilled her listener. She pictured Jesus a child. Jesus a young man in Nazareth, working among his fellows, tempted, victorious; Jesus healing the sick and afflicted, mingling with sinful men, and freeing them from their bondage to sin. The expression of the man's face was indescribable. As she reached the story of the Crucifixion, he asked huskily: "Why did God let the Jews kill him?" "Many have asked that question. All we know about it is what the Bible tells us. I used to wonder if there could not have been some other way of salvation than through the suffering and death of Jesus." Her look was far away, as of one thinking of things eternal. Again she read aloud: "And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, 'The Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again.' And they were exceeding sorry." "He knew it, then, that they would kill him?" "It seems so." She read on: "He taught his disciples and said unto them, 'The Son of Man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day.'" She turned the leaves and read again: "'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.'" "He died for us?" She nodded, and continued: "'I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.'" "The Comforter!" "Listen, John. 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'" Then she closed the book. "Greater love hath no man than this," he repeated. She took up the words, "'that a man lay down his life for his friends.'" "He--gave--his--life--for--us!" John Harding spoke slowly. The great truth that has comforted the human heart for ages had at last reached his dormant soul. The eagle eye seemed looking inward; the iron jaw set; the strong hand clinched. In this deep inward look, the man seemed to have forgotten the presence of the teacher. At last into the hard face flashed a comprehending light, and he spoke. "I would give my life for you." "I believe you would," she said, never doubting. "Just so Jesus gave his life for all mankind." He looked up. "I begin to understand." "He taught men how to live," explained the teacher. "He taught that great and worthy love means sacrifice, and that all who would truly love and serve their fellow men must cease to think about self, and must get about doing kind, helpful things for other people." "I have never known the meaning of love or sacrifice," he said. "I don't know no more about them things than I do about God. But tell me about Jesus. What happened after they had crucified him?" He listened with intense interest as she told the story. "I want ter know more," he said. "I never knowed sech things was in the Bible. Ef I'd knowed it when I was a kid, I'd a lived a differ'nt life. I s'pose it's too late now." "No; not too late." Her voice was low and gentle. "I don't know how ter begin," he said helplessly. "Tell me how." "One way is to feel deeply sorry for anything wrong in one's past; to repent of wrong thoughts, wrong words, wrong deeds." "But, schoolma'am, my wrong deeds has been so many," and he bowed his head on his arms on the desk before him. "Not so many--" her voice was comforting--"but God will forgive them, if you are truly sorry. Pray every day, pray many times a day, that God will not only forgive you, but help you become a better man." He raised his head. "I don't know how ter pray. I'm afraid ter pray. Do you know," he said desperately, "I've committed about every crime but murder?" Again he bowed his head on his arms. His frame shook with sobs. The calm, well-poised girl had never before seen such a stirring of the deeps. A strong man in tears is not an easy thing to witness. "Will yer pray fur me?" he said at length; but he did not lift his head. Then upon his ears fell the comforting voice of the teacher. It was the first time in all his life anyone had prayed for him. Something choked him. At last he looked up into her eyes. "Learn me ter pray," he said huskily. "Say this, John, _now_: 'Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me.'" He repeated, "'Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me!'" It was the first prayer John Harding had ever prayed. He rose to go. "I wisht--." He hesitated. "What do you wish?" She reached out a delicate, expressive hand, and laid it gently on his brawny arm. It came to him, at that hour, like a benediction from God. "_What_ do you wish?" she repeated. "I wisht you'd give me a Bible." She lifted the Bible from her desk, one long used by her and carefully marked, and placing it in his open hand, she said: "Never forget, John, that Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, has bought your soul with a great price, and that it belongs to God." He tried to thank her. Then turning, without a vocal word of thanks, he left the room; and with long, easy, rapid strides, sought the solitude of the mountains. The something within him that had long been beating to be free, now asserted itself. It _would_ have way. It seemed to be his real self, and yet a new man, risen up out of his dead and fruitless past. It seemed to sing within him, yet it sorrowed. And in the midst of the sorrow, a great hope was born. He knew it now,--this Something was his own Soul! There, on the heights of the rugged foothills, he stood alone. Only the fathomless deeps of the sky saw the struggle of that human soul. For a while he seemed to be passing through the tortures of the damned. He fought his way inch by inch. Great beads of sweat covered his forehead; then, lifting one clenched hand high in the air, as though he had burst forth from a dungeon of death into the light of day, he said: "God! God!" CHAPTER VII THE GILA CLUB The class of cowboys soon outgrew the living room at Clayton Ranch, and now occupied the schoolhouse three consecutive evenings a week. Although the class had organized as the Gila Club, for study and social life, the meetings thus far had been for the purpose of study only. From the inception of the club, it had met with popular favor. For many a day, nothing had been so much talked of, and talked of with such unqualified approval. The knowledge of the teacher, her unselfish interest in the men, her goodness and kindness, were themes upon which many a rough man grew eloquent. Had Esther Bright been a Sister of Mercy, in the sacred garb of the Church, she could hardly have been revered more than she was. It never occurred to her as she went and came among them, that she needed a protector. Before the year was over, many a one in that group would have risked his life to save hers. And yet, Esther Bright was not such an unusual woman. Such as she may be found almost anywhere in this land, sanctifying the home; rearing children to be true men and women; teaching in the schools; ministering to the sick; protecting the pure; rescuing the fallen; and exemplifying in every act of their lives, Christ's teachings of love and mercy. And the work of this great sisterhood goes quietly, unfalteringly on, making, as no other force does, for the real progress of the race. An Esther Bright is never written up in glaring headlines of yellow journalism; an Esther Bright is never offered in barter for a foreign title and a degenerate husband; such as she are never seen at the gaming table, nor among the cigarette and cocktail devotees. We find her in places where the world's needs are great, calm, well-poised, intelligent, capable, sympathetic; the greatest moral force of the age. The common man, if decent, always respects such a woman. She becomes to him a saint, an ideal; and in proportion to his respect for her, is his own moral uplift possible. So those rough men of Gila, in those days of long ago, came to look upon Esther Bright as a sort of saint, their Angel, as they called her; and with this deepening respect for her, there gradually grew up in them, faint at first, but sure at last, a wholesome respect for all womankind. Such was the atmosphere of the Gila Club. Among the first to attend the meetings, after the organization of the club, was Patrick Murphy, whom Esther had not seen since the night of the ball. He came with John Harding, and as he entered the room, he took his pipe from his mouth, jerked his slouch hat from his head, and gave a queer little duck in lieu of a bow. "I am plazed to be wid yez, Miss." He smiled broadly. She assured him of a cordial welcome from all, extending her hand as she spoke. He gripped it till she winced, and became so engrossed in hearing himself talk that he forgot to release it. "The byes has been tellin' av me as yez learn 'em ter git on. Now that's what Oi allus preach,--git on. There's no use allus bein' wid yer nose ter the grindstone." He released her hand to stuff more tobacco in his pipe. After a puff or two, he continued his remarks: "The childthren has been gittin' on so well, Oi sez to mesilf, sez Oi, p'raps the schoolma'am can learn me ter figger, an' read an' write. So here Oi am," (slapping his chest heartily, as that portion of his anatomy rose an inch higher) "here Oi am!" Just then Esther's attention was sought by a group of newcomers. Kenneth watched her attitude towards the people. She was gracious and cordial, but there was about her a fine reserve that the commonest man felt, and tacitly respected. At first, this young Englishman had been attracted to the young New England girl by the delicate loveliness of her face, and the elegance of her manner. He had felt, from the first, that in his social intercourse with her, he must rise above the empty platitudes of society. There were times when he flattered himself he had made progress in her favor. Then, when he presumed upon this, he was met by a strong wall of reserve. Here she was now, bestowing smiles and gracious words upon just common men. He was filled with disgust. Then he, gentleman as he was, man of the world, university graduate, engineer, felt his self-love wounded; and he thereupon had an acute attack of sulks. What was she to him, anyway? The stern patrician face looked coldly, cynically on at the men around him. The "vulgar herd," he called them. Just in the midst of his morbid reflections, he heard a merry, contagious laugh from Esther. He did not glance up. But, in an instant, she was at his side, telling with great glee the skit that had provoked the laughter. It was so irresistibly funny, Kenneth laughed with them, and the ice was broken. To be sure, he did not know Esther Bright as he did the alphabet, but what of that? Who could sound the deeps of such a rare woman's soul? She _was_ a rare woman. He conceded that every time he held an argument with himself, when she was the question of the argument. Always in her life, he was sure, there would be a reserve, through which no one could pass, unless it might be the ordained of God. She fascinated him more and more. One moment, in his adoration, he could have humbled himself to the dust to win one gracious word from her; at other times, his pride made him as silent and immovable as a sphinx. On this particular night at the club, Kenneth was in one of his moods. If Esther saw, she did not betray it. She came to him, telling in a straightforward way, that the work had grown so she could not do it all herself, and do justice to the men? Would he help her? There was a class in arithmetic. Would he kindly teach that for her to-night? Kenneth looked savage. "Oh, don't say no," she urged appealingly. "They are working in compound numbers and are doing so well. _Won't_ you take the class?" she urged, again. And Kenneth consented. It is but justice to say that the selection of the teacher proved wise. What this did for Kenneth himself is not the least part of the good resulting therefrom. Soon the click of pencils, and occasional questions and answers indicated that the arithmetic classes were at work. In one corner, the dignified and scholarly John Clayton sat helping a young miner learn to write. By her desk, sat Esther Bright, teaching Patrick Murphy to read. Learning to read when a man is forty-five is no easy task. Patrick Murphy did not find it so. He found it rather humiliating, but his unfailing good humor helped him out. The teacher began with script sentences, using objects to develop these. She wrote the sentences on the blackboard. Again and again the sentences were erased and then rewritten. But the pupil at last remembered. One sentence was, "I am a man." Patrick hesitated; then solemnly said, as though reading: "Oi certainly am not a woman, manin' no disrespict to women folk, Miss." She read quietly from the blackboard again, "I am a man." "Perhaps, Miss, it would be more intilligint fur me ter say, 'Oi am an Oirishman.'" "Very well," she said, smiling, "I will write the sentence that way." "You see, Miss," he continued, with droll seriousness, "it is ividint Oi am a man. Let me read the sintinces agin!" And he read them correctly. Here the classes changed, each teacher helping a group of men with a simple reading lesson. Then followed the lesson in penmanship, taught by Esther Bright, and the work of the evening was over. As the three teachers left the schoolhouse door, Mr. Clayton laid his hand on Kenneth's shoulder, and said: "Come over to see Mrs. Clayton a little while. It's still early." Kenneth hesitated. "Yes, do," urged Esther. "We have some plans to work out for the club, you know, and we need your help." Again there was an appeal in her voice. What a brute he had been! What a fool! So he strolled along with the two. As they stepped on the veranda, they heard a deep voice. "Lord Kelwin!" exclaimed John Clayton. The greetings over, the meeting of the club and its possibilities became the subject of discussion. "Why can't you join us, Lord Kelwin?" questioned the host. "Yes, why not?" said Esther, with sudden animation. Kenneth Hastings' face darkened. "Ah--I--well--" stammered Lord Kelwin. "I didn't suppose my services--ah--would--ah--would be agreeable to the _teacher_,"--and he looked first at Esther Bright, and then at Kenneth Hastings. A single, hectic flush suddenly appeared in one of Esther's cheeks. Then Mr. Clayton spoke. "You do not seem to understand, Lord Kelwin, that Miss Bright's class has grown so rapidly she has had to have assistance, and Mr. Hastings and I, for lack of better material, have been pressed into service. Come, yourself, and you'll want to help the good work on." Lord Kelwin raised his monocle. Esther spoke quickly, with more enthusiasm than usual. "The girls have been seeking the same opportunity we are giving the men. They need help just as much, and so we must plan to help them too!" "Yes, and kill yourself!" growled Kenneth Hastings. John Clayton smiled. "Not if Miss Bright has sufficient help. If she will organize the work, we can surely assist her." For a time, it seemed as though a club for girls was doomed. Then Mrs. Clayton came to Esther's rescue. "Miss Bright is already in touch with the girls, and knows something of their great need." "But they're such a tough lot," rejoined Lord Kelwin. "Then they need her influence all the more. She can help them if anyone in the world can." Again Mrs. Clayton had helped her out. The hectic flush deepened. Esther's eyes grew brilliant. Her voice, when she spoke, was low, calm, sweet, but vibrating with an earnestness the group about her had occasionally heard in her voice before. She spoke with decision: "I shall help the girls!" "That settles it!" responded Kenneth, half in admiration, half in disgust. He could not understand what it was that could make a girl of her fine and sensitive nature, a girl of her beauty and culture and great attainments, not only willing, but eager, to help a group of coarse, uncouth men and women, of doubtful reputation, and who, to his mind, were utterly incapable of appreciating her. John Clayton spoke again. "Won't you join us, Lord Kelwin?" Again the Irishman looked at the teacher, but her eyes were fixed on the glowing fire. "I--well--I suppose--I could." "Suppose we have a joint meeting of the men and women next Saturday evening," said Esther. "Have a programme that would not be very long, but interesting. Then let them have a social time, and treat them to some cake and coffee." "That is a happy thought, Miss Bright," said Mrs. Clayton in hearty approval. Now plans began to be discussed in earnest. And before the guests departed, it had been decided that the first social function ever given by the people of Gila should be given in the schoolhouse the following Saturday night. As the two men walked toward the camp, Lord Kelwin questioned his companion. "What did Clayton mean by Miss Bright's being of the 'blood royal'?" "That is what he meant." "Related to some royal house of Europe, some native ruler here, eh?" His companion stopped and laughed. "Royal by nature. It is such blood as hers that should flow in the veins of the rulers of the earth." "Then she has no vast estates coming to her?" The darkness concealed the contempt on Kenneth's face. "If there is a God, (and I begin to believe there is) she has a rich reward before her." "Poor in this world's goods, eh?" "_Rich_ as few women are." His companion whistled. Kenneth stopped. Lord Kelwin stopped too. "Deuced fine girl, isn't she?" said the Irishman. His companion made no reply. After another remark from Lord Kelwin, Kenneth said sharply: "I do not care to discuss Miss Bright." So the conversation ended. But something rankled in the heart of the Englishman. Saturday night came. Such jollity! Such overflow of spirits! The laughter was loud and frequent. People came in a steady stream until the little schoolhouse was full to overflowing. Among the first arrivals, were Patrick Murphy and his wife. He was beaming with good nature. But Mrs. Murphy had come (as she expressed it) "agin her jedgment." She viewed the company with a chilly glance. Patrick chuckled. "It's plazed Oi am wid this evint. Oi've persuaded me woman, here, as this is quoite equal ter anythin' she iver attinded in York State, not even barrin' a barrn raisin'." Mrs. Murphy's beady black eyes seemed to come closer together. Her mouth set. Her nose rose by gradual gradations into the air, and her spinal column stiffened. She delivered herself to the following effect: "I _will_ confess as I have never been at a club afore. Back in York State they was only fur men folks. But my 'lations as lives on Lexity Street, York City, knows what clubs be, an' parties too, I reckon." But here John Harding, the president of the club, called the meeting to order. He announced that the first number on the programme would be a talk on physics, by Mr. Hastings. After the applause, Patrick Murphy, in facetious mood, exclaimed: "Begorra, if yez are not commincin' wid physic fur our stomachs!" "No," responded the speaker, "but physics for your head, Patrick." When the laugh at Patrick's expense had subsided, Kenneth announced the subject of his talk as "Magnetism." He talked simply, illustrating as he talked. Occasionally he was interrupted by questions that showed a fair degree of intelligence, and a desire to know. At the close of his talk Patrick, the irrepressible, burst forth again: "Yez said that a natural magnit could magnetize a bar o' steel, makin' the steel a sthronger magnit than the iron, an' yit this natural magnit be jist as magnitic as it was before?" "Yes." "Begorra!" said Patrick, slapping his knee, "yez'll have a harrd toime makin' me belave that. The idea! that anythin' can give to another more nor it has itself, an' at the same toime have as much lift itself as it had before it gave away more nor it had!" Patrick drew himself up. He had assumed a sudden importance in the community. Did he not know? The teacher smiled indulgently. As she spoke, there was quiet, respectful attention. "You see, Mr. Murphy, the natural magnet is like a human being. The more strength a man puts forth, the more he will have. If we give of ourselves, of our talents, to help other people, we are enriched by it. So the magnet teaches us a lesson, don't you see?" Patrick scratched his head dubiously. The teacher continued: "A natural magnet may not have much power in itself, but when it shares its power with a steel bar, the bar can do vastly more than the piece of iron could. In the same way, the influence we exert, though it may not be great in itself, may enable other people to do greater things than we could possibly do." The lesson went home. Patrick shook his head approvingly. "All right, Miss, all right! Oi'll belave the sthory if yez say so. Oi foind it hard to understhand what makes a bit o' iron a natural magnit. What Oi does understhand is yez are loike the steel magnit, an' yez draws the rist av us to yez!" And having delivered himself of this compliment, which apparently met with the hearty approval of the company, he subsided. Then John Harding announced the next number on the programme,--a talk on Ireland by Lord Kelwin, illustrated by Mr. Clayton with his magic lantern. Again there was applause; and as the lights were put out, the giggling and laughter grew boisterous. In an instant, a picture flashed on the screen, and the laughter changed to quiet attention. Lord Kelwin's voice soon made itself heard. He was well-known in camp, and popular. He spoke in a bright, attractive way, with occasional flashes of Irish wit, when he provoked laughter and comment again. On one of these occasions, Patrick burst forth. Patrick was in fine spirits. He had stopped at the saloon on the way to the party. "Begorra, the ould counthry is all foine enough in a picture or lecture; but Oi loike the Imerald Oile on this soide betther. The Imerald Oile of Ameriky, bounded on the north, by the North Pole; on the east, by the Atlanthic; on the south, by the South Pole; on the wist, by the Pacific; an' on the top, by the rist o' the universe. Hoorah fur the Imerald Oile of Ameriky!" A howl went up, and a laugh from everyone, followed by much clapping. "Where did you learn so much geography?" asked one. Again there was a laugh. "And this," said the speaker, as a new picture flashed before their eyes, "is Blarney Castle. Here is where Patrick learned his blarney." But Patrick was not to be outdone. He chuckled. "The blairney stone was all roight whin Oi was at Blairney Castle in the ould counthry; but whin Oi landed in Ameriky, Oi wint to Plymouth, an' there Oi found an Oirish saint holdin' a rock. Oi sez ter him, sez Oi, 'Phat do yez call the rock where the Pilgrims landed'? An' he looks at me scornful loike, an' sez he ter me, sez he, 'Y're mishthaken', sez he, 'this is the blairney stone of Killairney. Ameriky imports all the bist things from the ould counthry." The people fairly howled. "Includin' you, eh, Patrick?" shouted an Englishman, above the uproar of laughter. The address held everyone's attention, and at its close, both Lord Kelwin and Mr. Clayton were loudly applauded. "This closes our programme," said John Harding. "We hope ye'll talk an' have a good time, an' look about the room ter see what the children of the school have been doin'. Then the women folks will feed yer cake an' coffee." This announcement, too, was applauded. Mrs. Murphy, belle of the back East barn raisings, separated herself from the company. She came upon a good-sized play house, neatly painted and papered. It was furnished tastefully with little woven rugs, wire furniture, and crocheted window curtains. Over different articles, were placed the names of the children who had made them. Mrs. Murphy stood in amazed admiration, for her own children had been among the most skilled workers. She found simple garments, neatly made, and here and there bits of sewing, clumsy, and botched in some cases, because baby fingers had been at work. The teacher joined Mrs. Murphy, who said to her: "You don't say, schoolma'am, as you learns the young uns to do sich things as this?" "Yes. Don't you like it?" "Like it! I should say! Why, fust I know, they'll be makin' their own cloes, an' their pap's an' mine!" "Perhaps." But in another part of the room, a different conversation was going on. "I tell ye," said Jessie Roth, who was talking to Bobbie Burns, "schoolma'am kens an awfu' lot." "How dae ye ken?" he asked with an air of scorn, "ye dinna ken muckle yirsel'." "Ye jist shut up, Bob Burns," she replied testily. "I may not ken muckle, neither do ye. Ye has no manners. I tell ye I want ter learn. I'm a mind ter quit the range an' go ter school." "What's the matter, Jessie?" asked the teacher, coming up at this moment, and slipping her arm about the girl's waist. "I believe Bob has been teasing you. Make up, children;" and smiling kindly, and with a reassuring grasp of Jessie's hand, she passed on. "What'd I tell ye?" asked the girl. "Oh, she's only a woman. Anyway, she don't care much for you lasses, or she'd had a club for girls." This was more than Jessie could stand. "A woman, did ye say? A woman?" Jessie's eyes flashed with anger. "An' wasna' y'r mither a woman, Bob Burns?" "I believe she was," answered the boy with a broad grin. He was enjoying himself. "An' as fur the schoolma'am's not carin' fur the girls, y're mistaken. I'm sure she will have a club fur us." "Yes," taunted the burly fellow, "to hammer things into y'r heads with." At this Jessie left him in high dudgeon. She sought Esther and asked: "_Don't_ ye like we girls as much as the boys?" "Just a little bit better, perhaps. Why, Jessie?" "Bob Burns says ye don't care fur the girls, an' he knows ye don't 'cause ye hain't made no club fur them." "Bob's mistaken, isn't he? We girls," and the teacher paused and smiled into several faces, "we girls are to have a club soon. Don't you say so?" The girls gathered about her. Bob's remark, repeated by Jessie, had been most timely, and crystallized what had been in the girls' minds,--to organize such a club for women as had been organized for the men. They talked rapidly, several at a time; but at last they listened to Esther, as she asked them to visit the school at an hour they could agree upon, on the following Monday. This they promised to do. But at this juncture, John Harding interrupted the conversation. "They want ter know as will yer tell 'em a short story, Miss Bright." "A story? Let--me--see--! What shall I tell them, Jack?" "Tell 'em about Abraham Lincoln, as didn't have no chance till he made it hisself." So she told them a story of a hero, a plain, simple man, a man of toil, a man of great heart. She pictured his faithfulness to simple duties, his rise to the highest position his countrymen could bestow upon him, his death and the nation's sorrow. As she finished, a cowboy asked, "Did yer say that Abraham Lincoln was onct president of the United States?" "Yes." "My!" he exclaimed, "I wisht I'd 'a knowed him! I wisht I could 'a fit on his side!" "It is not too late to fight on his side," she said. "Every time you try to live a more sober, honest, decent life, every time you try to be more manly and true, you are fighting on the same side he did." "Gosh!" he said. "I didn't know that. I thought fightin' meant jest killin' off the other fellers." While the refreshments were being served, John Harding extended an invitation to the men to attend the club regularly, and suggested that the girls see Miss Bright about a club for girls, adding: "I believe a club fer women is in the air." Vociferous applause. Patrick Murphy stepped forward. "John Harding, y'r honor, I jist wish ter say as this is the foinest toime Oi've had in Ameriky; an' I tells yez all this: that if any young feller wishes ter git on, he will have a chance here in this club. Schoolma'am learns us a lot (the Saints bliss her!). She's a foine lady! She believes in givin' a man a chance ter be a man. Instid o' wastin' our earnin's in the saloons Saturday nights, let's come here t' the club, an' learn how ter git on. Save y'r money, lads. Now who'll give three cheers f'r Miss Bright?" The room rang with the cheers. The festivities were over, the last guest, gone. The officers had taken their leave, and the Claytons walked on ahead, leaving Kenneth Hastings to escort Esther Bright home. "It was a great success," he said enthusiastically. When Esther spoke, there was an expression of weariness in her voice. "Tired?" he asked gently, with sudden sympathy. "A little." She looked so slight, so fragile, to shoulder a man's work in the world, he felt a sudden shame at the insignificance of what he had done. He would stand between her and the world, this he would do. "You gave an instructive and interesting talk," she was saying. He recalled his wandering thoughts. After thanking her, he said he had liked Patrick's remarks about her being a magnet. "Patrick's great fun, isn't he?" she laughed. "Yes, but he usually hits the right nail on the head. It is true, as he said, you _do_ draw people to you. You draw me to you as no one has ever done." "Don't!" she began. "You have taught me to believe in true womanhood. I used to despise women. I thought they were a vain, frivolous lot, at the bottom of all the wrong-doing of the world." "Indeed! I understand that some Englishmen have very little respect for woman; that she is regarded as the inferior of man, a little higher in the scale of intelligence than a horse or dog." "How sarcastic we are to-night!" he said ironically. "The Englishwoman trains her daughters to wait on their father and brothers." "How extensive has your acquaintance been with the English?" "Many American men grow up as their fathers have done before them, chivalrous toward the women of their families, and often chivalrous to women everywhere." "Indeed! A paragon of animals, the American man!" "England kept her universities closed to women, because English men were afraid bright English women would carry off scholastic honors, if admitted to the universities." "What remarkable wisdom you possess in the matter!" "I read the magazines." "Indeed!" "And the daily papers," she added, chuckling. "Remarkable!" "I read several English periodicals. I am interested in English politics." "The deuce!" "The--what?" she asked, with a suggestion of suppressed mirth in her voice. "The gentleman with horns." "Ah, yes," she said. "I have heard something of the gentleman. A very bad-tempered fellow, isn't he? Have you known him long?" "By George, you think you're funny, don't you?" But by this time he laughed, too. "Come in, Kenneth," called John Clayton, when they reached the veranda. "No, I thank you," said Kenneth. "Miss Bright has been abusing men, and Englishmen in particular." "Well," responded John Clayton laughingly, "you stood up for our sex, I hope." "I tried to, but Miss Bright came out ahead. Good night, Miss Bright. I hope you'll change your opinion of the Englishman, and that he will not always suffer when compared with your pink of perfection, the American man." When he had gone a short distance, she called him back. "Well?" he said, turning. "I just wished to remind you that it isn't becoming to you to be grouchy." "You wretch!" And he turned on his heel and stalked away. "What's the matter with Kenneth?" asked John Clayton. "Oh," said Esther, indifferently, "he thinks altogether too much of Mr. Kenneth Hastings. He must learn there are other people in the world besides K.H." "Don't be too hard on him," said her host warningly. "No," she said, "I won't. I'll teach him to respect the human being, irrespective of sex, color or previous condition of servitude. Good night." CHAPTER VIII THE COW LASSES It was clear that the character of the work for the Gila girls should differ from that for the men. Esther Bright had thought it all out, but she resolved to let the girls themselves determine, in large measure, what it should be. So they came to visit the school that bright December day to observe. School! Could this be school? Not school as they recalled it, hours of dull monotonous tasks, where punishment, merited or unmerited, stood out in conspicuous boldness. As they now listened, every moment seemed to open the door to knowledge, and a wonderland of surprising interest spread before them. The dull drone of the old-time reading lesson had given place to conversational tones. The children were reading aloud from a bright, vivacious story that caught and held the attention of these untutored girls. To learn to read like the teacher became the proud ambition of these seven visitors. With a simple lesson in physics the interest deepened. Then came the lesson in manual training. The deft fingers of the boys and girls were busy learning the mysteries of tailoring. How to darn a rent in cloth is no easy thing for untrained fingers to learn. Little fingers, big fingers, busily plied the needle. The boys were learning how to repair their clothing. The teacher passed from one to another, helping, encouraging, commending. She held up a beautiful piece of work for the visitors to see. When the school was dismissed for the noon hour, they gathered around Esther. "My!" said one, "I wisht I knowed as much as you do, schoolma'am." "Do you?" asked the teacher, as if to know as much as she did were the easiest thing in the world. "You bet I do!" answered the girl. "Schoolma'am," asked Jessie Roth, "do ye s'pose ye could learn us tae read as good as them kids did this mornin'?" "Oh, yes. Even better." "Better nor them?" "Indeed, yes, if you will study as hard as they do. One's progress depends upon one's interest and one's application." "Oh, we'll study all right," said Kate Keith, "if you'll give us the chance." "You bet we will!" said another. Then Esther told them the history of the Gila Club for men, how it had begun, how she had taught the men, how the class had grown until it had seemed imperative to meet in the schoolhouse, and how they organized as a club. "Did _you_ learn all them men yourself?" asked a girl just in from the range. She was a veritable Amazon. "Yes," was the answer, "until we began to meet in the schoolhouse. Then I had help." Esther stood looking into this raw girl's face as though she saw there the loveliest being on earth. What the teacher really saw there was an awakening mind and soul. The girl, rough and uncouth as she was, admired the teacher, and longed to be like her. "What can we dae?" asked Jessie Roth, eager to perfect plans for study. "That is just what I wish you girls to decide. What would you like to do?" In response to the teacher's question, all of them spoke at once. "One at a time, please, one at a time," Esther said. "Suppose, we commence with Jessie. What do you wish to do, Jessie?" "Oh, I'd like tae dae cipherin' an' readin' an' writin'. I wisht I could read like you, schoolma'am!" "Could she ever?" questioned Kate Keith, a young English girl. "Certainly." She showed such belief in them and what they might do that their enthusiasm rose still higher. Then Kate said impulsively: "I wisht ye'd learn us to sew. I've been wishin' to know how." She held up her big, coarse hands, looked at them a moment, and laughed as she said: "I don't know as I could handle such a little thing as a needle." "You wish to learn to sew? I am so glad." This was just the turn Esther had been hoping would come. "Every woman," she continued, "ought to know how to sew. I like to sew, myself. What next?" A comely maid spoke. "My name's Mandy Young. Me an' Marthy thought we'd like ter learn ter write letters an'--" Here she blushed furiously. "That's good," said the teacher. "What else?" "Me an' Marthy wanted ter learn ter sing like you do, schoolma'am." "Now, Martha, it is your turn," said the teacher with an encouraging smile. Martha was a great, brawny specimen of humankind. "My name's Miss Lieben," she said. "Lieben! Lieben! That's a good name. It means _love_." The cowlass blushed and snickered. "And Martha's a good name too. There was once a very careful housekeeper named Martha." "Oh, I ain't no housekeeper," responded the girl, "but I want ter be. I want ter learn readin' an' writin', an' cookin', too." "Cooking! Well! Next?" said Esther, looking into the face of the next girl. "My name's Mary Burns." Mary had a more modest way. "I hardly know what I dae want. I think ye could plan for us better nor we could plan for oursels. An' we'd a' be gratefu'." "Sure," said one. "That's right," added another. They all nodded their heads in approval. Then up spoke Bridget Flinn: "Shure, an' she's on the right thrack. When we can do housework, we can command a high wage, an' git on. My cousin gits five dollars a week in New York, an' she says she has mere nothin' ter do, an' dthresses as good as her misthress. Oi'd loike ter learn ter write letthers, so as ter wroite ter Pat, an' Oi'd loike ter learn housekapin', so's I could go out ter sarvice." Then a pretty Mexican girl, with a soft voice, spoke: "Martha Castello is my name. I want to learn to read an' write an' sing." The teacher stepped to the blackboard, and wrote the following: Reading Arithmetic Sewing Writing Singing Housekeeping The girls watched her intently. "An' letthers," suggested Bridget. "To be sure--letters," said Esther, writing the word. Then followed the organization of the girls' club, resulting in the election of Jessie Roth as president. It was agreed that for the present the girls should enter school, and occasionally meet with the teacher outside of school hours. That day proved a red-letter day for them. They had come in touch with an inspiring personality, and their education had begun. Years have come and gone since that day; but the people of Gila still tell how a young girl, the sweetest soul that ever lived, came and dwelt among them, and brought God into their lives. Even the roughest old men will pause, and say with reverence: "The Angel of the Gila! God bless her!" The afternoon session of the school passed quickly. Then followed a bit of kindly talk with the seven new pupils. Then Esther Bright walked homeward. She was overtaken by Brigham Murphy and Wathemah. Something mysterious seemed in the air. "Miss Bright," blurted out Brigham, "Maw says as will yer come home with us ter-morrer, ter visit. We're goin' ter have chicken an' lots o' good things ter eat, ain't we, Wathemah? An' he's comin', too, ain't yer, Wathemah?" The Indian child gave an affirmative grunt, and trudged along close to his teacher. It was a way he had of doing since she had promised to be his mother. "Will yer come?" eagerly questioned the representative of the Mormon household. "I shall be happy to if you will show me the way." "Oh, we'll 'scort yer!" And Brigham turned several somersaults, and ran like a deer along the road leading to the Murphy ranch. Such a flutter of excitement as the prospective visit brought to the Murphy household! "Maw," said Brigham in the midst of his mother's volley of directions on household arrangements, "Ain't yer goin' ter ask schoolma'am ter stay all night?" He seemed suddenly interested in social amenities. "Of course I be! Landy! Don't yer s'pose y'r maw's got no p'liteness? I told schoolma'am 'bout my 'lations as lives on Lexity Street, York City, an' keeps a confectony, an' she'll 'spect yer ter be jest as p'lite an' 'ristercratic as they be. I'll sleep on the floor, an' Kate an' Kathleen an' Wathemah kin sleep with schoolma'am. She'll think it a great come-down, Pat Murphy, fur one as is a 'lation, so ter speak, of Miz Common of Lexity Street, York City, she'll think it's a great come-down, I say, fur one with sech folks ter live in a common adobe. Y'r not ter let on y're Irish, but speak as though yer was French like." She had given emphasis to her remarks with more and more energetic movements of her arm, as she washed off the furniture. At last she paused, and her husband ventured a reply. "Begorra! An' would yez be afther changin' me mouth to the Frinch stoile?" He sidled toward the door, and grinned as he caught the reflection of himself in the dirty piece of mirror that still remained in the old black frame on the wall. There was no denying the fact that Patrick bore unmistakable evidence of his Irish origin. He realized that he had ventured his remarks as far as was consistent with peace and safety; so he walked from the house, chuckling to himself as he went, "Relations on Lexington Street! Frinch stoile! Begorra!" And he laughed outright. "Patrick Murphy," his spouse called after him. "This is the first time a friend o' my 'lations in York City (so ter speak) has visited me. Patrick Murphy, what _do_ yer s'pose Josiah Common done when my sister visited there? He took her ter a theatre an' after that he took her ter a resternt, an' treated her. That's what he done! The least yer can do is ter scrub up, comb yer har an' put on a clean shirt ter-morrer. Yer ter clean up, do yer hear?" All this in a high treble. "Frinch stoile?" inquired Patrick, with a broadening grin. But this was lost upon Mrs. Murphy, engrossed in plans for the reception of the coming guest. She smoothed down her hair with both hands. "Here, Mandy," she called abruptly, "wash out the tablecloth. Sam, you clean the winders. Jo, you run over to Miz Brown's an' say as y'r Maw's goin' ter have comp'ny ter-morrer as must have knowed her 'lations as lived on Lexity Street, York City, an' kep' a confectony. Tell her y'r Maw wants a dozen eggs ter make a cake an' custard. Jake, oh, Jake!" she called in stentorian tones, "you go ketch them two settin' hens! The only way yer kin break up a settin' hen when yer don't want her ter set is jest to make potpie o' her. Y're goin' ter have a supper that yer'll remember ter y'r dyin' day. We uster have sech suppers at barn raisin's back East." The small boys smacked their lips in anticipation. The mother turned suddenly. "My landy!" she said. "I forgot somethin'." "What?" inquired Amanda. "A napting!" "A napting? What's that?" But Mrs. Murphy had begun on the floor, and was scrubbing so vigorously she did not hear the question. When order finally evolved from chaos, Mrs. Murphy, with her hair disheveled and arms akimbo, viewed the scene. Everything was so clean it was sleek,--sleek enough to ride down hill on and never miss snow or ice. "Come 'ere, childern," said Mrs. Murphy, mopping her face with a corner of her apron. "I want yer to stan' aroun' the room, the hull ten o' yer, all but the baby. Mandy, do take the baby an' stop her cryin'. Joseph Smith, stan' at the head, 'cause y're the oldest. That's the way I uster stan' at the head o' the spellin' class when we uster spell down 'fore I graduated from deestrict school back in York State. Y'r Maw was a good speller, ef I do say it. 'Range y'rselfs in order, 'cordin' to age." A tumultuous scramble followed. Maternal cuffs, freely administered, brought a semblance of order. "Now, childern," said the mother, in a hard shrill voice, "what is y'r 'ligion? Speak up, or yer know what yer'll git!" "'Ligion o' the Latter Day Saints," answered Samuel. "An' who is the Prophet o' the Lord?" continued Mrs. Murphy. "Brigham Young," answered Amanda, assuming an air of conscious superiority. "No, he isn't neither," protested Brigham, "for my teacher said so. Jesus is the only prophet o' the Lord since Old Testament times." But the heretic was jerked from the line, to await later muscular arguments. Then the mother continued her catechism. "Who's another prophet o' the Lord as has had relevations?" "Joseph Smith," responded Kate, timidly. "That's right. What divine truth did Joseph Smith teach?" "That men should marry lots o' wives," said Jake, realizing that he had answered the most important question of the catechism. "Yes, childern," she said, with an air of great complacence, "I've obeyed the prophet o' the Lord. I've had five husbands, an' I've raised ten young uns. Now what I want yer to understan' is that yer Maw an' her childern has got all the 'ligion as they wants. Schoolma'am had better not persume to talk 'ligion to me." She drew herself up as straight as a ramrod, and her lips set firmly. "But I wanter show her I'm uster entertainin'. I'll give her the silver spoon. An' I do wisht I had a napting to put at her place." "What's that, Maw?" asked Samuel. "What's what?" "Why, what yer want ter put at schoolma'am's plate?" "Oh, a little towel, like. 'Ristercratic people uses them when they eats. They puts 'em on their laps." "Won't a dish towel do?" "Landy! No!" "Well, we ain't stylish, anyway," said Samuel, philosophically, "an' it's no use to worry." "Stylish? We're stylish when we wants to be, an' this is one o' them times." "Is it stylish ter go ter Bible school?" asked Brigham. He seemed greatly puzzled. "No, sir-ee, it ain't stylish, an' you ain't goin' thar," she said, giving him a cuff on the ear by way of emphasis. "She? What's she know 'bout _my_ 'ligion or _y'r_ 'ligion? She ain't had no relevations. But git off to bed, the hull lot o' yer." "It's only eight o'clock," said one, sullenly, dragging his feet. "Well, I don't care. The house is all red up, an' I wants it to stay red up till schoolma'am comes. Besides, y're all clean yerselfs now, an' yer won't have to wash an' comb to-morrer." At last they were driven off to bed, and gradually they quieted down, and all were asleep in the little adobe house. But Brigham tossed in terrifying dreams. The scene shifted. He was with Wathemah, who was telling him of Jesus. Then the teacher's life was in danger and he tried to save her. He felt her hand upon his head; a smile flitted across his face, his muscles relaxed; he was in heaven; the streets were like sunset skies. The teacher took him by the hand and led him to the loveliest Being he had ever beheld, who gathered him in His arms, and said, "Suffer little children to come unto Me." CHAPTER IX THE VISIT AT MURPHY RANCH The hour hand of the clock was on three. Twenty pairs of restless eyes watched the minute hand as it drew close, very close to twelve. The books had been placed in the desks; there was a hush of attention. The children sang "America," saluted the flag, and marched out of the room. As Wathemah returned to visit with his teacher, she asked him what he had learned that day. "Country love!" answered the child. As he spoke, he stepped to the flag, that hung from the staff in graceful folds, and caressed it. "Oh, Miss Bright, Miss Bright!" shouted James Burns. "Brigham's come fur yer! He's brung his horse fur yer ter ride! Golly! But he looks fine! Come see!" And James led the way to Brigham and the horse. Sure enough! There they were. The little lad, radiant with pride, the huge bay horse, lean and gaunt and hairy, bedight as never was horse before. He seemed conscious that this was a gala day, and that it behooved him to deport himself as became a respectable family horse. Numerous small bouquets, tied to white muslin strings, adorned his bridle. The animal was guiltless of saddle, but there was an improvised cinch of white cotton cloth around him. This, likewise, was adorned with butterfly-like bouquets. "Ain't he some?" said one lad, admiringly. "Gee! but I'd like ter ride him!" shouted another. "Brigham dressed old Jim up just 'cause yer wuz goin' ter ride him, Miss Bright," said Donald. To the last remark, the teacher replied: "Ride him? I never rode bareback in my life. I am afraid to try it. I might slip off." "Oh, no, yer won't," said Brigham, who stood holding the horse's bridle. The teacher pretended to be greatly scared. The company grew hilarious. "Brigham," she said, "I am sure I can't stick on. I might go sliding over the horse's head and land in a heap. Then what would you do?" "Pick yer up." This reply increased the hilarity. Donald seemed to think it would be great sport to see the teacher's maiden effort at riding bareback. "Jest git on, Miss Bright, an' see how easy 'tis," he urged. "I don't know how to mount," she hastened to say. "I haven't learned even that much." "Oh, that's easy enough," said a muscular little chap. "I'll show yer." And he leaped like a squirrel to the horse's back. "Oh, I could never do that," said Esther, joining in the laughter of the children. "I'll tell yer what," said a large Scotch boy, "ye wait a bit, Miss Bright, an' I'll bring ye y'r chair, an' then 'twill be easy enough." So the chair was brought, and the teacher seated herself on the horse's back, sideways. "Oh, ye must ride straddles," insisted Donald, "or ye'll sure fall off." "Yes, straddles," echoed another; but Esther shook her head dubiously, and pointed to her full blue flannel walking skirt. "Oh, that's all right," said the tallest boy, "everybody rides straddles here." "Try it," urged Brigham. So she tried it. But she was not the only passenger who rode astride. Michael and Patrick, the little Murphy twins, were helped to a place behind her. Wathemah then climbed up in front of her. "Is this all?" she asked, laughingly. "I should think it was enough," said Kenneth Hastings, who at that moment joined the company. As he caught Esther's eye, both laughed, and the children joined from pure sympathy. When she recovered her composure, Esther said to Kenneth, "Nothing lacking but some white muslin harness and posies on me." At last, amid shouts and cheers, the much-bedecked horse and his human load started up the mountain road. By three o'clock, the pulse of the Murphy household beat faster. The temperature rose to fever heat. Three-fifteen, three-thirty; still no visitors; and what is more, no signs of visitors. Every five minutes, one of the children would run down the mountain road, and return disappointed. "Do yer s'pose they ain't comin'?" queried Kate, who had been kept at home that day to assist in the preparations. "Oh, yes, they're comin', I think likely," answered the hostess; "but I don't see where they're keepin' theirselves." She frequently straightened the chairs; once more she dusted the furniture with her clean apron; she straightened the pictures on the walls; she brought out an old and much-prized album, sacred to Mormon prophets and elders. The broken mirror, that adorned the wall, had been cleaned and decorated with tissue paper. Mrs. Murphy stood and looked in it. She saw reflected a sharp, severe face shining like the mirror. "I wisht I had a collar," she said. "I uster wear a collar back in York State." Suddenly, she heard a shout from the road. "They're comin'! They're comin'! Schoolma'am's with 'em! Quick, Maw, quick!" There was a rush down the path, Joseph Smith leading the line. All was expectation. The approaching horse started into a jolting trot. As he neared the barn he began to buck. The inevitable followed. Over the horse's head went the passengers in a heap. The twins quickly extricated themselves, and sprang up uninjured; but the two visitors lay unconscious. "Quick, Samuel, bring water!" directed Mrs. Murphy. In a few minutes, she dashed water in the unconscious faces, and watched anxiously. The water soon restored Esther, who had been stunned by the fall. At last Wathemah opened his eyes, and saw his teacher kneeling by his side. He tried to rise, but fell back with a cry of pain. One arm lay limp by his side. It was evident that his arm was broken. "Is there a surgeon anywhere near Gila?" she asked anxiously. "There's one about fifteen miles away," responded Joseph. "Then I'll try to set Wathemah's arm myself. Several times I have helped my uncle set broken bones. Could you bring me some flat splints about this size?" she asked, showing Joseph what she wanted. "Yes, mum," answered the boy, starting on his errand. "And some strips of muslin, and some pins, Mrs. Murphy?" she continued. In a few moments the articles were ready. By this time Wathemah had recovered consciousness. "You have broken your arm, dear," she said. "I am going to set it. It'll hurt you, but I want you to be brave and keep very still." The child smiled faintly. But as she lifted his arm, he again fainted. They lifted him, and carried him into the house. Then firmly, deftly, as though experienced in such work, Esther pulled and pressed the broken bone into place. The child roused with the pain, but did not cry out again. At last the arm was bandaged, and placed on a cushion. "You must be very careful of your arm, Wathemah," she said, patting his cheek, "until the broken bone grows together." Before the child could speak, there was a knock at the door. The children rushed to open it, and there stood Kenneth Hastings. "I came to see if the cavalcade reached here safely," he said, smiling. "I followed a short distance behind you, until--" Here his comprehending glance grasped the situation. "Wathemah hurt?" he asked in quick sympathy, striding to the child's side. "I feared something might happen." "Old Jim threw 'em," explained three or four eager voices. Kenneth looked inquiringly at Esther. "Were you hurt, too?" he asked in a low voice. "I think not," she said, looking intently at Wathemah. "I believe you _were_. Was she?" he asked, turning to Mrs. Murphy. "She were stunned like from the fall, but was so busy settin' the boy's arm, she didn't think of herself." "Ah." Then turning to Esther again, he questioned her. The family observed every tone in the questions and answers. During the setting of the arm, they had watched Esther with open-mouthed astonishment. "I tell yer, schoolma'am," remarked Joseph, "I bet yer life yer'll hev all yer kin do in Gila, now." "I should think she already had enough to do," suggested Kenneth. Here Mrs. Murphy, suddenly realizing that certain amenities had been omitted, blurted out: "This is my son, Joseph Young; my daughter, Mandy Young you've knowed already; my son Samuel Young, my son Jacob Black, yer've knowed at school, 'n' my daughter Kate Black, 'n' Brigham Murphy, aged six, 'n' Kathleen, aged four, 'n' Nora, aged two." Mrs. Murphy paused. Samuel at once took the floor. "We've knowed _you_ ever sence you come. They call you the angel o' the Gila." He seemed to swell with importance. "A queer name, isn't it?" said Esther. Samuel had combed his hair, and wore a clean shirt in honor of the occasion. "Miss Bright," said Kenneth, "I am fearful lest you _have_ been injured by the fall. Let me take you home." This she would not listen to. "Then let me call for you later in the evening and take you back with me. There may be something Mrs. Clayton can do for you." But there was a chorus of protests. Mrs. Murphy gave it as her opinion that the schoolma'am knew her own feelin's best; and it wasn't often they had comp'ny, goodness knows, especially comp'ny from back East. And Mr. Hastings should leave her be. Esther poured oil on the troubled waters; and Mrs. Murphy became so mollified she pressed Kenneth to stay to supper. At this juncture Patrick Senior's step was heard. "Good avenin'," he said, heartily, making a queer little bow. "It's proud I am ter welcome yez ter me home." He did not take off his hat nor remove the pipe from his mouth. Esther rose. "Kape y'r sate, Miss, kape y'r sate," he said, making a sweeping gesture. Then he gripped her hand. "An' Mr. Hastings! It's honored Oi am ter have yez enter me humble home." "He's goin' to stay to supper, Pop," said one of the little boys. Kenneth hastened to excuse himself, but Patrick would have none of it. Mr. Hastings must stay, and share the fatted calf. Kenneth laughed. "Which is the prodigal?" asked he, smiling towards Esther. "The prodigal? the prodigal?" repeated Mrs. Murphy mystified, and half resentful at Kenneth's smiles. "Oh, that's a Bible story, Mrs. Murphy," explained Esther. "A rich man had two sons. One son spent all he had in riotous living. When he finally repented and came back home to his father's house, they were very happy to see him and made a great feast for him. For this purpose they killed their fatted calf." "I see," said Mrs. Murphy with great dignity. "An' sence we are happy to see yer and have killed our fatted hens fur yer, we'll just call yer the Prodigal." "I always knew you were prodigal of your strength and talent," Kenneth said merrily. "Prodigal. That's a good name for you. That was a happy thought of yours, Mrs. Murphy." Mrs. Murphy still looked mystified. "Oi see me little girrls are plazed ter see yez," said Patrick, beaming proudly upon the little ones. Kathleen held up for his inspection some paper dolls Esther had brought her. Then the smile on his face broadened. He laid his pipe on the shelf and examined the dolls critically. "Did yez iver see the loike on it, now? Shure, an' did yez say 'Thank yez' ter the lady?" "Yep," answered Kathleen, and "Yep," echoed Nora. "An' phwat is the matther wid Wathemah?" asked Patrick, as he approached the little Indian. "Got hurted." "Broked his arm." "Fell off old Jim." "Miss Bright mended his arm," came in quick succession. "Poor little lad. Oi'm sorry yez got hurted." And the kind-hearted man patted the child on the head. He liked Wathemah. But the little visitor was intent on the two little girls and their gay paper dolls. Esther now expressed a wish to hear some of her host's stories of pioneer life in Arizona. Patrick drew himself up. He felt his self-respect rising. "Them wuz awful toimes," he said, puffing away at his pipe again; "but Oi wuz young an' sthrong. The Apaches wuz on the warpath most av the toime, an' we fellers didn't know but we'd be kilt ony minute. We slipt wid wan oi open, an' our guns by our soides." "It must have been very exciting," said Esther, with marked interest. "It certain wuz exciting. It wuz bad, too, ter come back ter y'r shack an' foind y'r rations gone, or no shack at all." "What would you do then?" she asked. "Oh, we wint hungry till we caught fish, or shot deer." Here he lighted his pipe again, and drew long whiffs. "What were you doing in those days?" questioned Kenneth. "Me business wuz always wid cattle. Sometoimes the Apaches would go off wid some o' me cattle." "Did you ever get them back?" asked Esther. "Sometoimes." He smoked in silence a few minutes. "I understand the Apaches are still treacherous," she said. Just then she felt Wathemah's hand on her arm. "Wathemah Apache," he said. "He no bad. He good." "Yes," she acknowledged, smiling, "you _are_ getting to be a pretty good boy, dear." Her smile did more for the child than did the words. "Pop," said Samuel, "them air Apaches we seen up canyon t'other day's ben skulkin' aroun'. Yer'd better carry a gun, schoolma'am." Supper was now announced, and discussion of the Indians ceased. The younger children, joyfully anticipating the feast before them, had forgotten all their mother's preliminary instructions on etiquette at table, and there was a tumultuous scramble. "Murphy!" called Mrs. Murphy in stentorian tones as she stood with arms akimbo, "seat schoolma'am at y'r right!" With a smile that would have done credit to the proudest son of Erin, Patrick waved his hand toward the place of honor. Patrick Junior and his twin Michael insisted upon sitting in the same seat by their visitor. What is more, Michael dealt his brother a severe blow in the mouth to settle his superior claims. To add to the clamor, Kathleen pressed her right to the same seat. She screamed lustily. Mrs. Murphy, family representative of law, started towards the disturbers of the peace. They dodged. The teacher hereupon made a suggestion that seemed to satisfy everyone, and so the matter was settled. "Set right down, Mr. Hastings, set right down," urged Mrs. Murphy. He seated himself at Patrick Senior's left. They were scarcely seated before Michael exclaimed, "Ain't we got a good supper!" He sprawled on the table, looking longingly at the huge dish of chicken potpie. "One'd think yer never had nothin' ter eat," observed Samuel. He seemed to think it devolved upon him to preserve the decorum of the family. While the children were waiting impatiently for their turns, a nudge started at Mrs. Murphy's right and left. Nine pairs of elbows were resting upon the table. Nine pairs of eyes were fixed longingly upon the platter of chicken. Suddenly, as the parental nudge passed along, nine pairs of elbows moved off the table, and nine figures sat erect. The family had been instructed to observe the teacher's manners at table, "fur," observed Mrs. Murphy, "there is no better way fur yer to learn eatin' manners than to notice how folks does. Ef she sets up straight-like, yer kin do the same. Jest watch her. Ef she takes her chicken bone in her hand, y' kin; but ef she cuts her chicken off, why, y' cut yourn off." Finally, all were served. In the preparation for the reception of the teacher, the offspring of Mrs. Murphy had been duly instructed by her to hold each little finger out stiff and straight while manipulating the knife and fork. To the dismay of all, Esther did not take her chicken bone in her hand, nor did she hold her knife and fork perpendicular, nor did she hold her little fingers out at a right angle. The children struggled with their refractory chicken bones, as they watched the teacher. Patrick Murphy's eyes were twinkling. But at this juncture, a nudge from Mrs. Murphy again passed around the table. Nine pairs of eyes were upon the knife and fork of the guest. Amanda was filled with admiration as she observed Esther Bright. In talking this over afterwards, Samuel said to his sister: "Schoolma'am wuz brung up better nor we be. Yer kin see it by the way she eats. Did yer see how dainty-like she held her knife and fork?" "Yer don't know nuthin' about it, Sam," said Mandy. "I guess I seen her myself." Just as the last nudge passed around, Patrick laughed outright. "Begorra childthren," he said, "is it Frinch stoile ter eat wid y'r fingers sthuck out? Phwat ails yez?" "Pat Murphy," said his wife, "yer never seen good eatin' manners in y'r life. I hev. Back in York State where I wuz riz, the very best people in the country come to them barn raisin's." Her sharp chin tilted upward; her black eyes grew brighter. "Where I growed up, folks set great store by p'liteness. They allus had clean plates fur pie when they wuz comp'ny. Yes, Pat Murphy, I wuz well trained, ef I do say it." The visitors remained silent. Patrick grinned. When the teacher's cup was again filled with tea, she stirred it longer than usual, thinking, possibly, how she could pour oil on troubled waters. Instantly, around the table nine other spoons were describing circles in the bottom of each cup. Again Patrick's eyes laughed. Mrs. Murphy glowered. The supper over, and all housewife duties of the day performed, Mrs. Murphy turned to her offspring, standing in line,--at her suggestion,--on one side of the room. "Schoolma'am," she said with an air of conscious superiority, "the childern told me yer wanted 'em to go to Bible school. Now me an' my childern has all the 'ligion as we wants. I'll show yer." "Childern, what is y'r 'ligion?" "Latter Day Saints," answered Joseph. "An' who is the prophet o' the Lord?" "Joseph Smith," piped Kate. "An' what wuz his relevations?" "That men should marry lots o' wives, an raise lots o' childern," answered Jacob. "Shure, an' did he have rivelations that women should be marryin' lots o' husbands?" asked Mr. Murphy with a chuckle. This was an interruption Mrs. Murphy could ill brook. She was on the warpath; but Patrick, the good-natured, now took matters in his own hands, and spoke with firmness. "We'll have no more Mormon talk ter-night. Childthren, set down." They sat down. Mrs. Murphy's mouth shut like a spring trap. She was humiliated; she, a connection, so to speak, of the Commonses of "Lexity Street, York City!" "Whin me woman there," said Patrick, "was lift wid two babies, Jacob an' Kate, twelve year ago, lift 'way off in a lonesome place in Utah by her Mormon husband, Oi felt as though Oi would loike ter go wid some dacint man, an' give this Mormon who lift his wife an' babies fur the sake of goin' off wid another woman,--Oi repate it,--Oi'd 'a ben glad ter have give 'im sich a batin' as he'd remimber ter his dyin' day. He wuz kilt by the Indians. Whin Oi heerd he wuz kilt, an' knowed fur shure he wuz dead, Oi persuaded me woman here ter marry me, an' ter come let me give her an' all her childthren a dacint home in Arizony. "Oi don't want ter hear no more about Mormons. Oi know 'em root an' branch. Oi am a Catholic. Oi belave in the Holy Mither. Oi belave in good women. Oi belave as a man should have wan wife, a wife wan husband. Oi wants me childthren an' me woman's childthren too, ter come ter y'r Bible school. What's more, they shall come. Oi wants 'em ter learn about God an' the Blissed Virgin. Y're a good woman; that Oi know. An' yez are as good a Catholic as Oi want ter see. Yer kin jist count on me fur support in all the good yez are thryin' ter do in Gila." Mrs. Murphy's face was suppressed fury. The teacher spoke in a low, gentle voice: "So you are a Catholic, Mr. Murphy. Do you know, I have always admired the reverent way Catholics speak of the mother of Jesus." Then she turned to Mrs. Murphy, saying: "I know but little about the belief of the Mormons. Some day I wish you would tell me about it." "Mormons are a good sight better'n Catholics," snapped Mrs. Murphy. "Intelligent people should know about 'em, and what they've done fur the world. They are honest, they don't smoke, nor chew, nor drink. They are good moral people, they are." "Yes," said Esther, "I have heard some admirable things about them." Kenneth rose to go. "So you'll not return to Clayton Ranch with me, Miss Bright." He knew by the expression of her face that she preferred to go rather than to stay. But she spoke graciously: "I have not finished my visit yet." In a moment more Kenneth was gone. Then a new difficulty arose. Who was to sleep with the teacher? Kate, the twins, and Kathleen, all pressed their claims. After listening to the altercation, Esther suggested that it would be necessary for her to occupy the rocking chair by Wathemah, to see that he did not injure his broken arm, and asked that she be given the privilege of watching by him throughout the night. Then the family withdrew. Soon Esther pretended to be asleep. Occasionally the child reached out and touched her arm to make sure his Beloved was there. Then he fell asleep. But Esther was wakeful. Why had Kenneth come for her? Was she coming to care too much for him? How would it all end? When she at last fell asleep, her dreams were troubled. CHAPTER X CARLA EARLE School had been dismissed, and the shadows had begun to lengthen in the valley. Esther Bright sat in the doorway of the schoolhouse, leaning against the jamb of the door, her hands resting idly in her lap. At last she lifted a letter she held, and read over again the closing words, "Thy devoted grandfather, David Bright." She brushed her hand across her cheek more than once, as she sat there, looking off, miles away, to her New England home. She heard a step, and turning, saw Carla Earle approaching. Before she could rise, Carla was at her side, half shy, uncertain of herself. Without the usual preliminary of greeting, Carla said: "Are you homesick?" She had seen Esther wipe tears from her cheeks. "A little. I was thinking of my grandfather, and how I'd love to see him. I am always homesick when his letters come. One came to-day." "I am homesick, too," said Carla, "for my native land, its green turf, its stately trees, the hedges, the cottages, the gardens, the flowers and birds--and--everything!" "Sit down, Carla. Let's talk. You are homesick for your native land, and I am homesick for my grandfather." She took one of the English girl's hands in hers, and they talked long of England. At last Carla asked Esther to sing for her. For answer, Esther rose, entered the schoolroom, and returned, bringing her guitar. Then striking the chords of C Major, she sang softly, "Home, Sweet Home." As she sang, Carla watched her through tears. "An exile from home," the teacher sang; but at that moment she heard a sob. She stopped singing. "Go on, please," begged the English girl. Again the cords vibrated to the touch of Esther's fingers, and she sang the song that has comforted many a sorrowing heart. "There were ninety and nine that safely lay In the shelter of the fold; But one was out on the hills away, Far off from the gates of gold." On she sang, her voice growing more pitifully tender. "But none of the ransomed ever knew How deep were the waters crossed; Nor how dark the night that the Lord passed through, Ere He found His sheep that was lost. Out in the darkness He heard its cry,-- Sick and helpless and ready to die." Then as she sang, "And the angels echoed around the throne, 'Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!'" her voice thrilled with triumphant hope. Was she inspired, or was it simply that she was about her Master's business? Her voice seemed a message from God to the stricken girl who listened. Carla, looking into the face of Esther Bright, saw there a smile that was ineffably sweet; saw, too, the golden light of the setting sun playing about her face and form. Song after song was sung from one heart to the other. The guitar was laid aside. Then hand in hand, the two girls sat talking till the sunset faded, talking through falling tears, talking of ideals of life, and of how sweet and good life may be. Then Esther told of the Blessed One of Galilee whose love and compassion never fail. And at last Carla told her her whole sad story. "But you will leave the saloon, Carla, won't you? You will throw off Mr. Clifton's influence?" Esther said as they rose to go. "I can give you shelter until I can find a home for you, only leave that dreadful place." "I can't; I love him," she answered. Then, covering her face with her hands, she wept bitterly. "You _can_ leave him, I know, and you will in time. Come often to see me, as you have done to-day. Perhaps you and I together, with God's help, can find a way." They parted at the schoolhouse, Esther returning home, her heart sorrowful. She thought of One who centuries before had sought the mountains alone, the sorrow of a world upon His heart. She understood it now, understood at least something of the agony of that sorrow. She went to her room and prayed. When at last she rose from her knees, her face looked drawn. The feeling as of a heavy weight upon her heart increased. How helpless she seemed! She opened her window wider, and looked up into the fathomless blue. An overwhelming desire to save the tempted English girl had taken possession of her. What should she do? As she stood thus, she seemed conscious of a presence, and turned as though expecting to see some one; but no one was there. She heard no voice. Notwithstanding the evidence of her eyes, she could not shake off the feeling of another presence than her own. She turned again toward the window, and looked out into the crystal deeps. Then a strange peace came upon her. It seemed a foretaste of heaven. She threw herself on the lounge in her room, and fell into a refreshing sleep. But what of Carla Earle? On leaving Esther, she walked slowly toward Keith's saloon. Suddenly, she put her hand to her heart, staggered, and gave a sharp cry. Then trembling in every limb, she turned abruptly, and walked rapidly toward the canyon. She reached a place that seemed to have a fascination for her. She looked at the dark pool and wrung her hands. Her muscles gave way, and she sank on the bank, while great convulsive sobs shook her frame. She tried to rise, but her limbs refused to obey her will. Then it was that her agony of shame, and sorrow, and remorse burst forth in pitiful cries to God to let her die. She removed her hat and wrap, and crawled to the verge of the black pool. She shuddered as she looked. Then a great horror-stricken cry came from her white lips as she plunged into the seething waters. There was the sound of a human voice in answer; and a moment later, Patrick Murphy plunged after her, grasped and caught her floating skirt, pulled her by it to shore, and lifted her up the bank. He began to wring the water from her skirts. "Lass, lass," he said, kindly, "what made yez do it? What's the matter wid yez?" Great sobs were his only answer. It seemed as though the girl must die from the agony of her distress. Then he lifted her in his arms, and carried her to where he had left his horse. By the dim light, he had recognized Carla Earle, and he at once concluded that Mark Clifton was responsible for her deed. His first impulse, like all of his impulses, was a generous one. He resolved to take her to his home, and become her protector. As he was about to lift her to his horse's back, he discovered that she had fainted. He succeeded in lifting her to the saddle, mounted behind her, and rode directly to his home. A few words sufficed to explain to his wife the rescue of the girl, and the necessity of keeping her whereabouts a profound secret. Every member of the family was enjoined to strict silence about the presence of Carla Earle in their home. Mrs. Murphy undressed Carla and put her in her own bed. The helplessness of the unconscious girl appealed to her. After a time, Carla's eyes opened. She looked startled, and began to rave, writhing and twisting as one in mortal agony. Now she called on Mark Clifton to keep his promise to her; now she asked Wathemah to go for Miss Bright; now she begged God to take her; now she was on the brink of the pool, and in the dark water. So she raved, and the night passed. From time to time Mrs. Murphy laid wet cloths on Carla's head, or moistened her lips. The two faithful watchers did not close their eyes. The day dawned, and they were still watching; but at last their patient slept. When Carla finally wakened, she looked around, and seeing Mrs. Murphy, asked where she was. "With friends who are going to take good care of yer," answered her nurse. "How did I come here?" Mrs. Murphy explained that her husband had found her unconscious, and had brought her to his home. And, leaning down, she did an unprecedented thing. She kissed Carla Earle. At this Carla began to cry. "Don't cry, lass, don't cry," said Patrick, who entered just then. He turned away and blew his nose violently. "I must get up and help you," said the sick girl, trying to rise. But she did not rise that day nor for many days. Throughout her illness that followed, Mrs. Murphy's kindness was unstinted. She waited on the sick girl with unfailing patience. But Brigham was oftenest at her bedside when home, telling her of his beloved teacher and what she taught them. At last Carla begged to see her. That very day Patrick drove down for Esther, telling her on their way back to the ranch the particulars of his finding Carla Earle, and of her subsequent illness. "You dear, good people!" said Esther, deeply touched. "I feel so grateful to you." "Och! That's nothin', Miss," he responded awkwardly. "Whin Oi see the girl so near desthruction, Oi sez ter mesilf, sez Oi, what if me sisther or one of me little girrls wuz iver ter be in the clutches of a Mark Clifton? So Oi sez ter mesilf, sez Oi, Oi'll jist save her. That's all there wuz av it. My wife has taken care o' the lass. An' she has grown that fond av her! Beats all!" "God will bless you for saving her, you may be sure of that," responded Esther heartily. "She must have gone directly from me to the canyon. I had urged her to leave Mr. Clifton and come to me, but she did not seem to have decision enough to promise then. The canyon must have been an after-thought, and the result of her despair." "Poor creetur!" said Patrick, huskily. When Carla saw Esther, she began to sob, and seemed greatly disturbed. Her pulse grew more rapid. Such remorse one seldom sees. Esther placed her own cool hand on the sick girl's forehead, and spoke to her in low, soothing tones. Carla grasped her hand and held it tightly. "I have wanted to see you and tell you--" But Esther interrupted her. "Yes, dear, you shall tell me by and by. Don't try to tell me now." "I must. The distress here" (placing her hand over her heart) "will never go until I tell you. After I left you at the schoolhouse, I was filled with despair. I felt so utterly strengthless. Then I prayed. Suddenly it came to me I must never again return to the saloon or--him. I seemed to have strength given me to go on and on in the opposite direction. All I remember now is that I resolved to make it impossible to return. Then I awakened here. They have been so kind to me, especially little Brigham. He comes in to see me as soon as he returns from school, and talks to me about you, and it comforts me." "God has been leading you, Carla," said Esther. "I am sure of that. And He raised up this kind friend to save you in your dark hour. But the dark hour is past now, and we are going to help you learn how to grow happy." "Can one learn how to grow happy who has made such a blunder of life?" "Oh, yes. And it is a blessed lesson to learn." When Esther left, she promised to return on the morrow. That evening, there was a family council at Clayton Ranch, and the result of it was that Mrs. Clayton herself soon went to see Carla, and invited her to make her home with them. So it came about that Carla Earle became one of the Clayton household; and in the loving, helpful atmosphere of that home, she began to lift up her lovely head, as does an early blossoming flower in the April sunshine after it has been nipped by an untimely frost. And life, with love enfolding her every hour of each happy day, began to grow worth while to the English girl. And Carla grew into the affection of the family, for she was a refined, winsome creature. She became as a daughter to Mrs. Clayton. One day Mrs. Clayton said to her husband: "Do you notice how much Carla is growing like our Miss Bright?" "Yes," he responded. "There is something very attractive about both. Only Miss Bright is a remarkably well-poised woman, and Carla is clinging and dependent. Poor Carla! How bitterly she has been wronged! I am glad she has found love and shelter at last." "So am I, John. Why, the poor child was just starved for love." "I believe, Mary, that she will develop into a strong character. What she has suffered has been a great lesson to her." "Poor child! Sometimes when I speak appreciative words to her, she breaks down, and says she doesn't deserve all our kindness. One day when she cried, she said, 'Why does God take mothers away from their children when they need them so?'" "Well," he responded, "she has at last found a good mother. God bless the mother and the unfortunate girl!" And stooping, the husband kissed his wife, and started on a long journey to a distant mine. CHAPTER XI AN EVENTFUL DAY After Esther Bright and Wathemah returned from their visit at Murphy Ranch, he became a guest at the Clayton home, and there he remained until his arm was well. His sojourn with them strengthened his devotion to Esther Bright, and brought about several changes for the better in him. When he was allowed to run and play with the children again, he returned to school and to Keith's saloon. The men who had always called him the "little tough," now observed him with amazement. One observed: "I'll be blowed ef the Angel o' the Gila can't do anythin' she wants ter. See that kid? He used ter cuss like a pirate. Do ye hear him cuss now? No, sir! For why? 'Cause he knows she don't like it. That's why. Ef she wuz ter be turned loose among the Apaches, she'd civilize 'em. An' they're the blankedest Indians there be. I don't know what it is about her. She sort o' makes a feller want ter be somebody. I reckon God Almighty knows more about 'er nor we do, 'n' she knows more about us 'n' we do ourselves. Leastways, she do about me." Having delivered himself to this effect, he left the saloon, sober. There is no doubt Esther Bright had sown good seed broadcast, and some had fallen on good ground. The awakening of the cowlasses had been a continual joy to her. She marveled that some one had not found them before. Each successive day the little school reached out further to enrich the life of the community. One morning, while a class was in the midst of a recitation, there came a knock at the schoolhouse door. "I'm Robert Duncan," said a Scotch miner, as Esther opened the door. He held by the hand a little boy of about three years. "This is Bobbie," he continued. "I've brought me bairn tae school." Could the mother spare such a baby? Ah, could she? Esther stooped and held out her arms to the child, but he hid behind his father. "His mither died last week, Miss," he said with a choke in his voice. "I'd like tae leave him with ye." "I'm very sorry," she replied, with quick sympathy. Then she promised to receive Bobbie as a pupil, providing he would stay. "Oh, he'll stay," the father hastened to say, "if ye'll just call Donald." So Donald was called, and he succeeded in coaxing Bobbie into the schoolroom. When the child realized that his father had gone and left him, he ran to the door, crying, "Faither! Faither!" while tears rolled down his cheeks. Then the mother heart of Esther Bright asserted itself. She gathered him in her arms and soothed him, until he cuddled down contentedly and fell asleep. Soon after, Kenneth Hastings appeared at the open door, and saw Esther at her desk with the sleeping child in her arms. He heard her speaking in a soft tone to the children as she dismissed them for the morning recess; but Bobbie wakened frightened. At the moment Kenneth entered, Bobbie was carried out of the room by Donald, the other children following. "I came to see if you could go for a horseback ride this afternoon," said Kenneth. "It's a glorious day." "Just delighted! Nothing would please me better." The two stood inside the open door. As Wathemah saw Kenneth talking to his teacher, he entered the door, pushed between them, nestled close to her, and said defiantly: "Miss Bright _me_ teacher; _mine_!" "Yours, eh, sonny?" said Kenneth, smiling. Then looking into Esther's face, he said: "I wish I could feel as sure that some day you will be mine." A delicate flush swept over her face. When he went on his way, life and vigor were in every step. He seemed to walk on air. The recess over, the children returned to their seats, and Patrick Murphy entered. The school, for the hour, was transformed into a place of general merchandise, for the teacher had promised that to-day they would play store, buy and sell. Business was to be done on a strictly cash basis, and accounts kept. Several children had been busy for days, making school money. Scales for weighing, and various measures were in evidence. Patrick watched the play of the children, as they weighed and measured, bought and sold. At the close of the exercises, he turned to Esther, saying: "Oi wisht Oi wuz young agin mesilf. Yez larn the chilthren more in wan hour, 'n' many folks larns in a loife toime. It's thankful Oi am that yez came ter Gila, fur the school is gittin' on." Having delivered himself of this compliment, he withdrew, highly pleased with himself, with the teacher, with the school, and the world generally. If there was one thing that met with Patrick's unqualified approval, it was "to git on." Near the close of the midday intermission, during the absence of Wathemah, Donald Carmichael said to the teacher, "Ye love Wathemah mair nor the rest o' us, don't ye?" "Why?" asked Esther, as she smiled down at the urchin. "Oh," hanging his head, "ye say 'Wathemah' as though ye likit him mair nor anybody else." "As though I loved him?" "Yep." "Well," she acknowledged, "I do love Wathemah. I love all the other children, too. Don't you think I ought to love Wathemah a little better because he has no father or mother, as you have, to love him?" Donald thought not. "You have no idea," said Carla, who now attended school, "what brutal treatment Wathemah used to receive at the saloon. I have seen him teased and trounced and knocked around till he was frantic. And the men took delight in teaching him all the badness they knew. I used to hear them while I was helping Mrs. Keith." Carla's eyes suddenly filled. "Poor little fellow!" said Esther, in response. "I shall never forget his happiness," continued Carla, "the first day he went to school. He came to me and said he liked his teacher and wanted to go live with her." "Did he? Bless his heart!" "After that," Carla went on to say, "he came to me every morning to see if he was clean enough to go to school." "So _you_ were the good fairy, Carla, who wrought the transformation in him. He certainly was a very dirty little boy the first morning he came to school, but he has been pretty clean ever since." Donald, who had been listening, now spoke up again. "Oh, Wathemah's all right, only I thocht ye likit him mair nor the rest o' us." "No, she don't, neither," stoutly maintained Brigham. "I guess I know. She's always fair." At this moment, Wathemah himself drew near. He had been to the timber for mistletoe, and returned with his arms full of sprays of green, covered with white waxen berries. He walked proudly to his Beloved, and gave her his offering. Then he stepped back and surveyed her. "Wathemah love he teacher," he said in a tone of deep satisfaction. "She ain't yourn, ye Apache savage," cried Donald. "She don't love ye; she said so," added the child, maliciously. Like a flash, Wathemah was upon him, beating him with all his strength. He took the law into his own hands, settled his score, and laid his opponent out before Esther could interfere. When she grasped Wathemah's arm, he turned upon her like a tiger. "Donald lie!" he cried. "Yes, Donald did lie," she conceded, "but _you_ should not punish him." "Donald call savage. Wathemah kill he!" The teacher continued to hold him firmly. She tried to reason with him, but her words made no impression. The child stood resolute. He lifted a scornful finger toward Donald, and said in a tone of contempt: "Donald lie. Wathemah no lie." The teacher released him, and told him to see her after school. Then the afternoon session began. But Wathemah's place was vacant. As the hours passed, it became evident that Donald was not as happy as usual. He was in disgrace. At last his class was called. He hung his head in shame. Esther did not press him to recite. The hour for dismissal came. The little culprit sat alone in the farther corner of the room. Carla started out to find Wathemah. The loud accusing tick of the clock beat upon Donald's ear. The teacher was busy, and at first paid no attention to him. She heard a sniffling in the corner. Still no attention. At last she sat down by the lad, and said very gently: "Tell me about it, Donald." No answer. He averted his face, and rubbed his dirty fists into his eyes. "Tell me why you lied to Wathemah, Donald." Still no answer. "How could you hurt his feelings so?" No answer. Then Esther talked to him till he buried his face in his arms and sobbed. She probed down into his heart. At last she asked him what he thought he should do. Still silence. She waited. The clock ticked louder and louder in the ears of the child: "Say it! Say it! Say it!" At last he spoke. "I ought tae tell Wathemah I lied; but I dinna want tae tell him afore the lads." "Ah!" she said, "but you said your untruthful words before them; and unless you are a coward, your apology ought to be before them." "I am nae coward," he said, lifting his head. "Then you must apologize to Wathemah before the children to-morrow." "Yes, mum." Then she dismissed him, telling him to remember what he had done, when he prayed to God that night. "Did God hear me lie?" he asked. "I think so, Donald." The child looked troubled. "I didna think o' that. I'll tell Him I'm sorry," he said as he left the schoolroom. He began to search for Wathemah, that he might make peace with him. At first Carla's search was fruitless. Then she sought him in a place she knew he loved, away up the canyon. There, sure enough, she found him. He sat on a bowlder near a cascade with his back toward her. Beyond him, on the other side of the stream, rose the overhanging cliffs. He did not hear her step as he listened to the music of the waters. "Wathemah!" she called. He started, then turned toward her. She saw that he had been crying. She climbed up on the bowlder and sat down beside him. "Donald lie!" he said, angrily. "Yes, Wathemah, but he is sorry for it, and I am sure will tell you so." She saw tears roll down the dirty little face. She had the wisdom to leave him alone; and walking a short distance up the canyon, sent pebbles skipping the water. After a while this drew him to her. "Shall we go up stream?" she asked. He nodded. They jumped from bowlder to bowlder, and at last stopped where the waters go softly, making a soothing music for the ear. "Carla!" "Yes, Wathemah." "Jesus forgive?" "Yes, dear, He does." Then Carla's self-control gave way, and she sobbed out her long-suppressed grief. Instantly the child's arms were around her neck. "No cry, Carla!" he said. "No cry, Carla!" patting her cheek. Then, putting his tear-stained cheek close to hers, he said: "Jesus love Carla." She gathered the little comforter in her arms; and though her tears fell fast, they brought relief to her heart. At last she persuaded him to return to school the following day, and to do all he could to atone for leaving it without permission. On their return, they sought the teacher in the schoolhouse, but she was gone, and the door was locked; neither was she to be found at the Clayton ranch. The little penitent lingered a long time, but his Beloved did not come. At last he walked reluctantly in to camp. Away up the mountain road, Esther Bright and Kenneth Hastings drew rein. The Englishman sat his horse well; but it was evident his companion was not a horsewoman. She might shine in a drawing-room or in a home, but not on a horse's back. If she had not been riding one of the finest saddle horses in the country, she would have appeared to greater disadvantage. The canter up the mountain road had brought the color to her cheeks. It had also shaken out her hairpins; and now her wavy brown hair, with its glint of gold, tumbled about her shoulders. "You look like a gypsy," Kenneth was saying. She laughed. "The last gypsies I ever saw," she said merrily, "were encamped along the road through Beekman's Woods, as you approach Tarrytown-on-Hudson from the north. The gypsy group was picturesque, but the individuals looked villainous. I hope I do not strongly resemble them," she said still laughing; then added, "They wanted to tell our fortunes." "Did you let them tell yours?" "Yes, just for fun." "What did they tell you?" "Oh, just foolishness." "Come, tell _me_ just for fun." "Well,"--here she blushed--"the old gypsy told me that an Englishman would woo me, that I'd not know my own mind, and that I would reject him." "Interesting! Go on." "That something dreadful would happen to the suitor; that I'd help take care of him, and after that, all was cloudland." "Really, this grows more interesting. The fortune teller realized how hard-hearted you were. Didn't she ask you to join their caravan? You'd make an ideal gypsy princess." Esther touched her horse with her whip. He gave a sudden lunge, and sped onward like mad. It was all she could do to sit her horse. Before her, to her dismay, yawned a deep gulch. She could not stop her horse now, of that she was sure. She tightened her grip, and waited. She heard the sound of hoofs behind her, and Kenneth's voice shouting "Whoa!" As well shriek at a tornado to stop. She seemed to catch the spirit of the horse. The pupils of her eyes dilated. She felt the quivering of the beast when, for a moment, he reared on his haunches. Then she felt herself borne through the air, as the animal took the gulch; then she knew that he was struggling up the bank. In a moment the beast stopped, quivering all through his frame; his nostrils were dilated, and his breath came hard. In a few minutes Kenneth Hastings overtook her. It was evident he had been alarmed. "You have done a perilous thing for an inexperienced rider," he said. "It is dumb luck that you have escaped unhurt. I expected to find you injured or dead." "I was dreadfully scared when we came to the gulch. I didn't know about it, you know; but I couldn't stop the horse then." "Of course not. What made the animal run? Did you cut him with the whip?" "Yes. I thought it'd be such fun to run away from you for calling me a gypsy." He laughed. Then he looked grave. Suddenly Esther Bright grew as cold as ice, and swayed in the saddle. At last she was forced to say she was ill. Her companion dismounted and lifted her from the saddle. "Why, how you tremble!" he was saying. "How cold you are!" "Just fright," she replied, making an effort to rally. "I am ashamed of being scared. The fright has made me deathly sick." Even her lips were white. He seemed deeply concerned. After a while her color returned, and she assured him that she was able to go on. "But are you sure?" he asked, showing the deepest concern. "Quite sure," she said, positively. "Come, let us go. I have given you enough trouble already." "No trouble, I assure you." He did not add that the very fact that she had needed a service from him was sufficient recompense. Then they walked their horses homeward, talking of many things of common interest to them. Down in the valley, the soft gray of the dead gramma grass was relieved by the great beds of evergreen cacti, yucca, and the greenery of the sage and mesquite. The late afterglow in the sky mingled with the purple haze that hung like an ethereal veil over the landscape. They stopped their horses at a turn of the road commanding a fine view of the mountains. "How beautiful the world is everywhere!" Esther said, half to herself. "Especially in Arizona," said Kenneth, as he drew a deep invigorating breath. Silence again. "Miss Bright," he hesitated. "I believe the world would be beautiful to me anywhere, if you were there." "You flatter," she said, lifting her hand as if to ward off what might follow. "No flattery. Since you came, the whole world has seemed beautiful to me." "I am glad if my coming has improved your vision," she said merrily. "Come, we must hasten, or we'll be late for dinner. You are to dine with us to-night, I believe." "Yes, Mrs. Clayton was so kind as to invite me." Again her horse took the lead. Kenneth touched his with the whip, and overtook her. For some distance, the horses were neck and neck. As they came to a steep ascent, they slackened their pace. Her eyes were sparkling, and she was in excellent spirits. "If I were a better horsewoman," she said gayly, "I'd challenge you to a race." "Why not, anyway?" he suggested. "There are no more gulches." "I might not be able to stick on." "We'll try it," he responded, encouragingly, "over the next level stretch." So try it they did. They flew like the wind. The cool evening air, the excitement of the race, the rich afterglow in the heavens,--all were exhilarating. On they sped, on and on, till they turned into the canyon road. Again Esther's horse led, but Kenneth soon overtook her, and then their horses walked slowly on together the rest of the way. "I wonder if you are as happy as I am," he said, as he assisted her from the saddle. "I am in the positive degree of happiness," she said, cheerily. "I am always happy except when shadowed by someone else's sorrow." He said something to her about bearing all her future sorrows for her, adding: "That is becoming the dearest wish of my heart." "All must meet sorrow sometime," she responded gravely. "I hope to meet mine with fortitude when it comes." She stood stroking the horse's neck. "I wish I might help you to bear it when it comes. Oh, Miss Bright," he said, earnestly, "I wish I could make you realize how I honor you--and dare I say it?--how I love you! I wish you would try to understand me. I am not trifling. I am in earnest." He looked at her downcast face. "I will try," she said, looking up frankly, with no trace of coquetry in her voice or manner. There had been moments when Kenneth's love for Esther had led him to speak dearer words to her than her apparent interest in him would warrant. At such times she would retire within herself, surrounded by an impenetrable reserve. Kenneth Hastings was the only one she ever treated icily. One day he would be transported to the seventh heaven; another, he would sink to the deeps of gloom. It was several days after this ride that he chanced to meet Esther in the path along the river road. He stopped her, and asked abruptly: "Why do you treat me so frigidly sometimes?" "Do I?" she asked in surprise. He remained silent. "Do I?" she said, repeating her question. "Yes, you do. Why do you treat me so?" She looked distressed. "I didn't realize I had treated you discourteously, Mr. Hastings. If I did, it was because I am afraid of you." "Preposterous! Afraid of me!" Now he was smiling. "Perhaps--" As she hesitated, she looked up at him in an appealing manner. "Perhaps what?" "Perhaps it is because you have given me a glimpse of your own heart, and have--" "Have what?" "--asked me to reveal mine to you. I can't." "In other words, you do not love me?" "I honor you as I do several people I know. Nothing more." There was a long pause. Kenneth was the first to speak. "Your friendship! Am I to be deprived of that, too?" "My friendship is already yours," she said. "You know that." "I thank you. I need hardly tell you that your friendship is the dearest thing I know." Then Kenneth left her, and she walked on alone. But still those words kept repeating themselves in her mind like a haunting melody, "Your friendship is the dearest thing I know!" and, like Banquo's ghost, they would not down. CHAPTER XII CHRISTMAS DAY It was Christmas morning, early. Not a leaf was stirring. The stillness seemed aware. The sun rose in solemn majesty, heralded by scarlet runners of the sky. Just as it burst forth from behind the sleeping mountains, a splendor of coloring beyond the power of man to describe flooded the earth and the covering dome of the heavens. Then the snowy mountain peaks, grim sentinels of the ages, grew royal in crimson and gold. And the far-stretching valley, where the soft gray of dead gramma grass was relieved by the yellowish tint of desert soil, took on the glory of the morning. From zenith to horizon, the crystal clearness seemed for one supreme moment ashine with sifted gold. But, as if to protect the eyes of man from the too great splendor of this anniversary of Christ's natal day, a faint purple veil of haze dropped over the distant mountains. The waters of the Gila caught the glory of the morning, and became molten gold. When the Gilaites awakened, the gladness of the morning was upon them; and men and women remembered, some of them for the first time in years, that it was Christmas day, and went about with "Merry Christmas" on their lips. To the children of Gila, the day that had heretofore been as all other days, now took on new meaning. They had come to associate it with a wonderful personality they were learning to know through their teacher. Christ's birthday she had called Christmas day, Christ their elder brother, Christ the lover of children. They had seen the splendor of the morning. What wonder that some of them were touched with a feeling of awe? For the first time in the history of Gila, Christmas day was to be observed, and every child had come to feel a personal interest in the celebration. The preparations for the evening exercises to be held in the schoolhouse had all been so new, so mysteriously interesting! Expectation ran high. Word had spread to the burro camps on the mountains, and to the Mexicans tending the charcoal pits up the canyon. Rumors had reached other camps also, miles away. The Mexicans, as was their custom, had prepared immense bonfires on the mountains and foothills for firing Christmas night. But hearing of the approaching entertainment at the schoolhouse, they caught the spirit of the hour and outdid themselves. The saguaro, or giant cactus, sometimes called the sentinel of the desert, is one of the most interesting varieties of the cactus family. Sometimes it grows in the form of a fluted column, many times reaching a height of sixty feet. Often at a distance of perhaps thirty feet from the ground, this cactus throws out fleshy arms at right angles, which, after a short distance, shoot upward in columns parallel to the main column, giving the cactus the appearance of a giant candelabrum. The saguaro has a skeleton of woody ribs bound together by tough, woody fibers. In the living cactus, this framework is filled and covered with green pulp; but when the cactus dies, the pulp dries and is blown away. The ribs are covered with quantities of resinous thorns that burn like pitch. The dead saguaro, therefore, when set on fire, becomes a most effective bonfire, having frequently been used by the Indians, in early days, as a signal fire. On this special occasion, the Mexicans had found several of these dead sentinels of the desert so nearly in the shape of a Roman cross that a few blows from an ax made them perfectly so. When lighted Christmas night, the burning crosses on the mountains loomed up against the sky, no longer symbols of triumphant hate, but of triumphant love. Early that day, what the Mexicans had done began to be noised abroad; and with every bulletin that passed from mouth to mouth, interest in the approaching service at the schoolhouse deepened. It looked as though the room could not hold all who would come. The young folk had been generous helpers, and had decorated the place with spruce, pine, cedar and mistletoe. The air was heavy with spicy fragrance. Around the room were huge altar candles in improvised candlesticks of wood. Across one end of the room, was stretched a large sheet of white cotton cloth. For many a day, John Clayton, Kenneth Hastings and Esther Bright had formed a mysterious triumvirate. The two men had been seen bringing packages from the distant station. What it might mean became an absorbing topic of conversation. One thing was certain, Gila was alive. On Christmas morning, these three, accompanied by Mrs. Carmichael, met at the schoolhouse to make their final preparations. The beautiful silver spruce, selected for the Christmas tree, stood out from the dark greenery of the room. It was a beautiful tree, exquisite in color, perfect in symmetry, spicy in fragrance. They decorated this with ornaments, then began to hang gifts on its branches. At one side of the tree, Esther stacked small pasteboard boxes close and high. What these contained, only she herself knew; and she preserved a mysteriously interesting silence. As the four busied themselves at their happy task, Mrs. Carmichael suddenly uncovered a huge basket she, thus far, had managed to conceal. She looked a culprit as she said: "An' whaur would ye be wishin' the cookies put?" "Cookies!" they all exclaimed, with one accord, "Cookies!" Esther sampled one. "They're just as good as they look!" she said. "What a lot of them! How did you come to think of it? How good of you!" "It was Donald. He telt me aboot y'r birthday cakes for the wains. So I thocht bein's it was the Maister's birthday, each should hae a birthday cake. A makit one hundred." "One hundred!" Kenneth whistled. "You know how to find the way to men's hearts," he laughed. "But you found your way to mine long ago." "Fie, fie," she said smiling. "I ken ye weel." When their preparations were completed, they looked about with an air of satisfaction. It was evident the spirit of Christmas had taken possession of them. Such kindness! Such good will! Jack Harding was the last to leave the room. Before he closed and locked the door, he deposited some packages in an obscure corner. An hour before the time for the entertainment, the little adobe schoolhouse was surrounded by people, and they continued to come even after the teacher, accompanied by the Claytons, opened the door. Soon every seat was filled; then, all standing space. Then the windows were crowded with faces. Still there were as many more outside who could not hope to see, but might possibly hear. Those fortunate enough to enter the room sniffed the fragrance of cedar and spruce. The burning mesquite wood in the fireplace snapped and crackled, and the soft light from the huge candles idealized the beauty of the tree and the woodsy decorations of the room. And there was the teacher also, _their_ teacher (for did she not belong to them?) young, lovely, doing all this for them! They noted every detail of her simple gray toilet, even to the soft lace at her throat. There was something exquisite about her that night as she stood before them in the yellow candle-light. Her face was luminous. Kenneth Hastings observed it, and said in a low tone to his friend John Clayton, "See Miss Bright's face! I never saw anything more lovely. The spirit of Christmas is in it." John Clayton placed his hand on his friend's shoulder as he responded, "Yes. It's all due to her beautiful, generous soul." After several Christmas carols were sung, he told them Miss Bright would now address them. There was an approving murmur. Then she told them the old, old story, dearest story of childhood, of the little child in the khan at Bethlehem, of the star, of the song of the angels, the coming of the shepherds, and the search by the Wise Men, as they came with their rich gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh, to lay them at the Christ-child's feet. She told the story briefly and simply. Among those who listened there that night were Mexicans and half-breed Indians, Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen and Americans. There were Catholics and Protestants, Mormons, and men of no faith whatever. There were four university-bred men; there were also men and women of deepest ignorance; and there were many others between these extremes. While the voice of the teacher still held their attention, John Harding and Kenneth Hastings put out the lights, and picture after picture, illustrating the early life of Christ (all copies of famous paintings), flashed upon the white screen. There were exclamations of approval such as these: "Did yez iver now?" "The Holy Mother! Bless her!" "Oh!--Oh!--Oh!" in faint whispers. When Murillo's "Holy Family" appeared, there was a hush. As it disappeared, some one asked for it again. After complying with this request, the candles were relighted, and the distribution of gifts began. There was a subdued hum of interest. These men and women, throwing aside care and toil for an hour, were as pleased as children. As gifts were passed, many began to realize what the extra meetings at the schoolhouse had meant. The children had been making things, and had made them well. They had been engaged in manual training, though the teacher had not called it that. She was in advance of the age, and was doing practical work in manual training years before the pedagogues of the land had wakened to the necessity of training the hand. The Gila children had made gingham aprons for mothers and sisters; they had crocheted lace and mats; they had made articles for domestic use, and so on. When a new blouse waist and a pair of suspenders were given to Wathemah, his delight knew no bounds. Kenneth and Jack Harding stood watching him. The child was a favorite with both. "Do you like your waist, little chap?" asked Kenneth. "Yes!--Me!--Pretty!" said the child, patting and smoothing his waist as if it were an object of affection. Then he held his suspenders up for his two friends to see. "Do you like 'em, sonny?" asked Jack Harding. "Mine! Mine!--S'penders!--Wathemah's s'penders!" The grown-ups smiled. The day had unlocked many a heart long barred and bolted against human sympathy. "Two dolls, one for Nora and one for Kathleen Murphy," called out the superintendent. "Did yez iver?" said Patrick, smiling with good humor, from the crown of his bristly head to the extremity of his bristly chin. Gifts were passed to right and left. It seemed wonderful so many should be remembered. Some received their gifts with undisguised pleasure,--pleasure so out of proportion to the intrinsic value of the gifts, it was pathetic. Esther felt her eyes brimming. More than one said to her that night that it was the first time he or she had ever received a Christmas present. As yet Brigham had received no gifts, but he sat by Wathemah, apparently enjoying what his friend had received as though it had been his own. But when his turn came, and his Beloved brought him three books about animals, he seemed embarrassed, and stammered out: "For me? All thim for me?" The teacher stood smiling. "Yes, for you, dear." In a short time he and Wathemah, with heads close together, were lost in one of these books. Esther watched them from time to time. It was evident to every one in Gila, that Brigham and Wathemah were very intimate friends of their teacher's. Brigham had confided to Kenneth that he was "intimater with her nor anybody else, 'cause she loved him, an' he loved her best of anybody in the world." He had likewise confided to Kenneth his great desire to have some animal books, as he called them. And Kenneth had seen to it that he should not be disappointed. Suddenly, to her surprise, Esther Bright was presented with a new chair, and was asked to be seated in it. The excitement of the children rose. This, to them, was the important moment of the evening. As one homely little gift after another was presented to her,--all the work of children's hands, she spoke homely, loving words out of her heart. Several coat sleeves were put to a new use, and some clean gingham aprons actually found their way to women's cheeks. A loving-hearted woman had entered their lives and found them worth while. What wonder that she became to them, more than ever, what they had called her at first in ridicule, but later in respect and affection and reverence,--the angel of the Gila? When Esther Bright's lap was full of gifts, she tried to express what she felt. Her words had vanished, and happy tears had taken their place. After her unsuccessful effort to speak, Wathemah, who could hardly comprehend her tears, ran to her, and began to wipe them away with a sleeve of his new waist. She slipped her arm about him and drew him to her. He looked up questioningly. "It's all right, Wathemah," she said, smiling. "I was so happy I couldn't help crying." "Now," said the superintendent, "you are each to receive from Miss Bright a Bible, a box of candy and a Christmas card; and from Mrs. Carmichael, some delicious Christmas cookies. Here, boys," he said, beckoning to some of them, "pass these, will you?" Esther Bright herself took a large panful of cookies to the people outside of the schoolhouse. As she approached a Mexican, she saw standing by him his wife, a blanket Indian, and on her back, a pappoose. As she passed the cakes to them, the squaw reached down and grabbed two handfuls of them, devouring them ravenously. Esther patted the child, and smiled into the squaw's face, which she could see distinctly in the light that streamed from the window. "Pappoose?" she said to the Indian. But there was no answering smile in the squaw's eyes. The "emptiness of ages" was in her face. It was a face Esther was to see again under very different circumstances; but no premonition warned her of the fiery ordeal through which she would be called to pass. Finally the multitude was fed. The boisterous laughter and the loud talk, within, seemed strangely out of harmony with the solemn stillness of the night. The moon sent a flood of silvery light over the scene before her; and, everywhere, the Christmas fires, built by the Mexicans, were leaping skyward. Esther stood watching; for on far away mountains and near by foothills, the sentinels of the desert had become gigantic burning crosses. She had heard that these were to be a unique feature of the Christmas celebration, but she was not prepared for the exceeding beauty of it all. The burning cross caught her fancy. Suddenly, she became aware of the presence of Kenneth Hastings. "Wonderfully beautiful,--the scene,--isn't it?" she said, without turning. "I think I have never seen anything more impressive." "Yes, beautiful. These Catholic Mexicans have a religious feeling that finds expression in splendor. Does the burning cross have any significance to you?" "Yes," she answered, speaking slowly, as she looked toward one of them; "the cross, once a symbol of ignominy; but now become, like the flaming cross on the mountains, a symbol of light." "Miss Bright," said John Clayton, from the doorway, "you are asked for." As she entered the room, Patrick Murphy stepped forward. He raised his hand for attention. After several gibes from the men, and witty retorts on his part, the company quieted down again. "Ladies an' gintlemin," he said, flourishing his empty pipe, as he made an elaborate gesture, "it's mesilf as feels as we have wid us a foine Christian lady. Ez Oi watched the picters av the Holy Mither this avenin', Oi sez ter mesilf, sez Oi, our teacher (the saints bliss her!) is as lovin' ter the children av this school, as is the blissid Virgin ter the child in thim picters. Oi sez ter mesilf, this lady is as good a Catholic as Oi wish ter see. An' she learns 'em all ter git on. Oi'll sind ivery child o' mine ter day school an' Bible school. Oi hope yez'll all do the same." Mrs. Murphy's face was a suppressed thunder-storm; but Patrick was oblivious of this as he talked on. "This was a godless region. Miss Bright come like a angel ter tell us av our sins. Oi belave the Lord sint her. "See what she done fur us! Her nate little talk ter us, the picters an' her prisints. All who wish ter thank our koind frind, join wid me in three cheers fur Miss Bright!" Then cheer on cheer rose from the people. As Patrick took his seat, John Clayton rose. "Now," said he, "three cheers for our good friend, Mrs. Carmichael, who made the Christmas cookies." Again the hearty cheers echoed on the still night air. But Mrs. Carmichael raised a protesting hand. She didn't deserve such a compliment, she said. Then the guests went their various ways. John Harding covered the embers of the fire and took from his teacher's hands whatever she had to carry, going directly to the Clayton home. She and Kenneth Hastings were the last to leave. Outside the door, they stood for a moment, watching the moonlit scene. In the distance, they heard a man's rich voice singing, "In the Cross of Christ I glory." They listened. Then they walked on in silence for some moments, the gaze of each fixed upon a colossal burning cross through whose yellow flames violet, and green, and red, and blue leaped and died away, then leaped again. "The cross!" he said at last. "How it has gone in the van of civilization!" She stopped and laid her hand on his arm. He, too, stopped and looked questioningly into her lifted face, which he could see but dimly. "The world for Christ!" she said, deeply moved. "It will surely be! Followers of the wonderful Nazarene, filled and actuated by His spirit of brotherhood, are reaching the uttermost parts of the earth. We shall live to see the awakening of nations. We shall live to see strong men and women enlisted on the side of Christ to bring right and justice and purity into life, God into men's lives." Again silence. "I know nothing of God," he responded, "save as I see power manifested in the physical world. I have read the Bible so little. I am not intimately familiar with the life and words of Jesus. Before meeting you, I had always thought of religion with more or less contempt. I confess my ignorance. But I am learning to know _you_. What you are and what you do convince me there is something in your religion I have not found. I am as untaught in spiritual truth as a babe. But now I want to learn." "I am glad you do. Will you study your Bible?" He did not tell her he had no Bible, but he promised to study one. "Will you pray too?" she asked, with a little choke in her voice. "Would you have me read the prayers of the church?" "No; the prayer of your own heart." Then the man became rash. "The prayer of my heart?" he repeated, with evident emotion. "The prayer of my heart? That prayer is that I may win your love, and your hand in marriage. That is my religion; you, I worship." "Don't! Don't!" she said, withdrawing her hand from his arm. "Don't; that seems blasphemous." "If you could only love me, I might begin to comprehend what you tell us of the love of God. I love _you_. That I _know_, I understand. You are the embodiment of all I hold sweet and dear. Can't you love me--sometime?" "I do not know," she responded. "What I _do_ know surely is that I do not love you now. I believe that love of the deep and abiding kind does not fall at man's feet as manna, nor does it grow like a mushroom in a night. It takes time for the mighty, resistless forces of nature to develop a single blade of grass. So love, I take it, must have time to grow." "Then I may hope to win your love?" he said eagerly. "Oh, no; don't think of love. You have my friendship; let us not spoil the friendship by dreaming of a love that I cannot give you." "Do you believe," he asked, "that you will never love any other man?" "I believe if such love ever grows in my heart, I shall walk in glory all my days. It is a sacred thing, and I could never speak of it lightly, as many do." "Good night," he said, "and God bless you." They had reached the Clayton home. The door closed, and Kenneth was alone. He turned; and before him, on the foothills, flamed the burning cross. CHAPTER XIII THE ADOPTION OF A MOTHER Bobbie had become a personality. What is more, he had adopted Esther Bright as his mother, without any formalities of the law. He had found a mother heart, and had taken his place there by the divine right of love. No one seemed to know how it had all come about; all anyone knew, positively, was that Bobbie suddenly began to call his teacher "Mither." At first the children laughed when Bobbie would call her by this new name; then the baby of the school was broken-hearted, until the teacher had mended the break with kisses and tender words. Sometimes at midday recess, the drowsy child would climb into Esther's lap; and when she would cuddle him, his great blue eyes would look up into hers with a look of content and trusting love. After a while the heavy lids would close, and the flaxen hair lie moist on the ruddy forehead. Then Bobbie would be laid on an improvised bed, to finish his siesta. Day after day went by, with increasing love on Bobbie's part, and deepening tenderness on the part of Esther Bright. He was not always good. Far from it. He was a healthy little animal, bright and attractive. His activity sometimes got him into trouble. Then to divert his mind, his teacher would tell him little stories. When she would finish, he would say coaxingly, "More." After a while, he would call for certain stories she had already told him, and interrupt her all the way along, his face alive with intelligent interest. At last he himself wanted to tell the stories to his teacher, with many interpolations and funny variations. But the funniest thing happened one day when he refused to go home, and announced that he would stay with his adopted mother. "Oh, no, Bobbie dear," she said, placing her hand on his shoulder. "What would your father do without you?" "He tan det another wain," he said, in a tone of satisfaction. "No, Bobbie," insisted the teacher; "you must go home." Still he refused. Then all his Scotch stubbornness asserted itself. He could not be driven or coaxed home. And when the older children tried to carry him, he kicked and screamed and fought, till he had freed himself. He ran to his teacher with heart-rending sobs. She sent the other children home, and took him in her arms. Gradually his sobs ceased and he fell asleep. His face was wet with tears. In his sleep, great sighs, the aftermath of the storm, seemed to come from his innermost heart. The adopted mother sat with her arms clasped about him. Such a look of tender love came into her face as one sometimes sees in the face of a young mother, bending over her sleeping babe. If ever Esther Bright was beautiful, it was at that moment. Kenneth Hastings stood a short distance away, watching her. He lifted his hat and stood with bowed head. At last he spoke her name. She turned, and nodded toward the sleeping boy in her arms. "Come sit down," she said, moving to make room for him on the doorstep. "You seem to be a good nurse, too," he responded, taking the proffered seat. "What's Bobbie doing here this time of day?" She told him of the child's decision to stay with her, and his refusal to go home, his fight, and his stormy sorrow. He listened, with an amused twinkle in his eyes. "Poor little chap," he said; "he has my sympathy in refusing to be parted from you." She flushed slightly. "Don't waste your sympathy," she replied saucily. Somehow that provoking smile of his nettled her. He had found her vulnerable. "Bigger chaps than he feel the same way towards you," he said, smiling still. He saw that she was badly teased, and the spirit of mischief led him on. "Now _I'd_ like to stay with you always, myself." She looked as though she would annihilate him. "And what is more, I'd like to change places with Bobbie this very minute." She rose suddenly, but with some effort, for the child was stout and heavy for his years. "What are you going to do?" he asked, looking admiringly upon Bobbie. "I'm going to carry him home." "How cruel to Bobbie!" he said, stepping near her and extending his arms for the child. "Let _me_ carry him, do." "I can carry him myself, thank you," she said, with a sudden air of independence. Again she saw his look of amusement, and struggled with her heavy load, knowing full well that she could not carry him far. "No, you must not carry him," he said firmly. "He is too heavy for you." And without more ado, he took Bobbie from her arms. "Come," he said amicably, "we'll both take him home--to Mrs. Carmichael's." So on they trudged. Bobbie roused a moment, but seeing a familiar face, he reached up his grimy hand and patted the bronzed cheeks, then cuddled comfortably into the strong arms. "So Bobbie wanted to stay with you," he was saying. "Yes, he calls me mither, you know." "_I'd_ like to call you 'mither' myself some day. It's a beautiful name." She felt provoked with herself. Why in the world had she made that unfortunate remark? "You love children, don't you?" He was not smiling now. "Oh, yes; from my childhood up I have loved every child I have seen." "I see." But at this juncture Bobbie again roused, rubbed his eyes and demanded to be put down. So Kenneth set him on his feet. The little lad stood in sleepy bewilderment a moment, then with an engaging smile, offered one hand to Esther, and the other to Kenneth. He began to chatter. "Bobbie loves his mither." "So do I," responded Kenneth. Esther bit her lip. She would not look up. But she felt her cheeks flush. "Mr. Kenneth love Bobbie's mither?" Kenneth laughed, a free, happy laugh. It was contagious, and the child laughed too. So did Esther in spite of herself. "Mr. Kenneth tan't love Bobbie's mither." "Can't, eh?" Again the happy laugh. "Who says I can't?" "I do, his adopted mother," said the girl, demurely. "I'll just capture you the way Bobbie did, and you can't help yourself." And again the stern eyes that seldom smiled, were filled with laughter. Esther suddenly stopped. "_I_ can take Bobbie home." "So can I," he said carelessly, with a suggestion of laughter still in his voice. "I command you, Mr. Persistency, to turn about and leave me to take Bobbie home." "I refuse to obey, Miss Obstinacy." A low chuckle. "I suppose I'll have to endure you, then," she said, with mock seriousness. "I suppose you will," he said. He seemed to enjoy the tilt. "But Miss Bright--." He stood still and faced her. "--I didn't know you were such a fighter. Here I have been trying to make you understand how I appreciate you, and you almost give me a black eye." "You had two before--ever you saw me," she said. "You have looked into them, then," he said, maliciously, "so that you know their color?" He was, provokingly confident in his manner. Suddenly she stopped again. They were almost at Mrs. Carmichael's door, and Robert Duncan's shack was not far away. "Really, Mr Hastings," she said, resuming a serious tone, "I do wish you would leave me." "No," he persisted, "I am going to see you safely home." Mrs. Carmichael met them at the door. Donald had already reached home, and had told her of Bobbie's refusal to return with him. She patted the little one on the head. He was an attractive little boy, and it was evident Mrs. Carmichael loved him. She stooped and extended her arms, and the child ran into them. "So my Bobbie was nae coming home tae his auntie? What'd I dae wi'oot him?" Bobbie hung his head and then said softly: "Bobbie hae found a mither." The call was prolonged in order to get Bobbie into a staying frame of mind. At last they spied Robert Duncan approaching his shack, when Kenneth stepped over to tell him of Bobbie's decision and afternoon experience. At first the man smiled, then the tears trickled down his face. "Puir bairn, puir bairn," he said, huskily. Kenneth laid a kindly hand on his shoulder. He knew that Duncan was disheartened, and had spent much time, lately, in the saloons. "Come," he said. "Come get the little chap. It is evident he misses his mother." "Yes, he misses her, an' I miss her. I'll gie mair time tae him." So saying, he accompanied Kenneth to the Carmichael home and soon Bobbie was in his father's arms. The call of Kenneth and Esther drew to a close. As the two walked briskly toward the camp, Esther Bright paused from time to time to draw in great breaths of air, and to drink in the glory of the world about her. "Come," her companion said, "we shall be late to dinner. Did you know I am invited to dine with the Claytons to-night?" "Really!" She tossed back the curls the stiff breeze had blown across her eyes. "Really!" he echoed, in a tone of mockery. "Miss Bright, pardon me, but you--" He paused. "Well?" she said. "What about _you_?" "You look altogether charming." She stopped. He walked on. "You are perfectly incorrigible," she called. "Unless you promise to talk sense, I'll not go a step further with you." He turned. "Sense?" he said with mock seriousness, "that's what I have been talking when in your society all these weeks past. And here you make me play second fiddle to Jack Harding, Wathemah and Bobbie." "And you prefer to be _first_ fiddle?" "Of course!" She seemed in high spirits, ready for a tilt. "Do be sensible," she said gayly. "Sensible? I was never more sensible in my life." He made a long face. "Unfortunate man!" She sighed, as though his condition were utterly hopeless. He laughed. "Miss Bright!" "Mr. Hastings!" "I have been thinking!" "Marvelous!" She seemed like some mocking sprite. "Why don't you ask what I am thinking about?" He seemed provokingly cool. "Because you are just dying to tell me." She was piquant. "I vow I'm not. I won't tell you!" "All right," she returned, quickening her pace. "Really, now, _don't_ you wish to know what I have been thinking about?" He stepped nearer to her. "I'm not the least bit concerned," she answered with airy indifference. "I wouldn't know for anything." "Then I'll tell you. I was just thinking what fun it would be to meet you in society, and have a rattling flirtation with you." "Indeed!" She lifted her head. "You'd find Greek had met Greek." "I've no doubt. That would be the fun of it." "And you might die of a broken heart." Her tone was full of laughter. "That's what I'm doing already." He looked comical. "And you take no pity on me." "You might take a dose of soothing syrup." She looked extremely solicitous. "How extremely kind of you, Miss Bright. But my malady is in the region of the heart. I suspect you think I haven't a heart. But really, Miss Skeptic, a heart happens to be a part of my anatomy." "I thought we were to talk sense," she reminded him. Just then they heard a familiar call, and turning, saw Lord Kelwin hastening towards them. "By George!" he said, breathing hard. "I have been trying to overtake you two for a half mile. You seemed to be having a mighty good time." "Good time?" echoed Kenneth. "Miss Bright has been abusing me all the way." He assumed an injured air. "I have no doubt, Miss Bright, that Mr. Kenneth enjoyed the treatment he received," remarked Lord Kelwin. "Enjoyed it?" Kenneth interjected. "I have been a perfect martyr to feminine cruelty. And would you believe it? Miss Bright has been trying to palm off on me that she is not a daughter of Eve." "You are a veritable son of Adam," she rejoined, gayly. "And to think that I shall have to endure you at dinner!" "You'll have to endure another son of Adam, too," interjected Lord Kelwin, "for I am invited also." At once new light broke in upon Esther. "I believe you are letting the cat out of the bag," she said, "for I am sure this is intended to be a surprise for me. I have a birthday to-day." "A birthday?" Kenneth said. "Let me see--" he said with comic gravity, "--you are getting to be a venerable lady. I presume you'll never see fifty again?" "Oh, I assure you that is altogether too young." Then she turned to Lord Kelwin. "Do you think it proper to suggest such frivolity as a flirtation to one of my advanced years?" "Highly improper. Highly improper," said the Irishman, "but I'd like a hand in such a flirtation myself." He seemed to enjoy the nonsense. "Then there would be two victims." "You and I?" questioned Lord Kelwin. "No; you and Mr. Kenneth." "I was just thinking--." Lord Kelwin paused, to think of something that would make him a score. "Thinking! Thinking!" as though that were quite incomprehensible. "Mr. Hastings also claimed to be thinking." "Better leave her alone, Kelwin," laughed Kenneth. "She will have the last word. She's like the woman with the scissors." "Good avenin'," said a rich brogue just at hand. "How are you, Patrick?" said Kenneth. "Well, sir. How are yez, Miss?" He gave his slouch hat a jerk. "Good avenin', Lord Kelwin." They walked on together, and the talk drifted to the Gila Club. "I'm really surprised, don't you know," said Lord Kelwin, "at the interest these fellows take in the club." "It's the first dacint thing the byes has had ter go to. Look at that saloon there!" he said, pointing to an overgrown shack, where women of the coarsest type presided. "And look at that opium den," he said, indicating a small building at their right. "And see that haythen," he said, pointing to a female who stood in the door of a saloon, her cheeks painted, and puffing away at a cigarette. "Thim is the things as has sint the byes to desthruction." Kenneth Hastings and Lord Kelwin made no reply. "If yez kape on, schoolma'am," continued Patrick, "yez'll wipe out the saloons and opium places, an' make dacint min an' women out of these poor crathers." He nodded his head. "So pitifully sad!" Esther's vivacious mood suddenly vanished. She was again grave and thoughtful. "Aye," said Patrick, "but yez kin do it, Miss, niver yez doubt it. Yez can do it! Oi used ter go ter the saloon mesilf, but Oi'll go no more, no more. That's what yez has done fur me." Just then Wathemah came running and leaping from Keith's saloon. In a moment he spied them, and ran full tilt towards them. "It makes me sick at heart," Esther said in a low tone to Patrick, "whenever I think of Wathemah living longer in the saloon." "Yez air right, Miss," answered Patrick, "but Misthress Keith is a purty dacint sort av a woman, and she has been good ter the lad." "Yes, I realize that. But I wish I could take him myself." By this time the child was trudging along beside his Beloved. Lord Kelwin liked to tease him, and said in a bantering tone, "What are you always hanging on to Miss Bright's hand for, Wathemah? She don't allow the rest of her admirers to do that." Wathemah placed his other hand over the hand he clasped. "_Me_ teacher _mine_!" he said, defiantly. The men laughed. The teacher placed one hand on the child's head. He rested his cheek against her hand, as he said softly, "Me _mother_." "Your mother, eh?" Lord Kelwin looked amused. "I wish she'd mother the rest of us." The child did not understand the laughter, and fancying himself ridiculed by Lord Kelwin, turned, ran and leaped like a squirrel to his shoulder, and struck him in the face. "You little savage," the Irishman said, angrily, as he grasped the child and shook him. "Let _me_ settle with Wathemah," said Esther, firmly. She stepped forward, and took him by the arm, and held him. "Go on," she said to the men, "I will follow." They sauntered on, leaving her with the refractory urchin. When she and the child finally overtook them, Wathemah's face was tear-stained. Nothing more was said to the child until they reached the Clayton door. "I guess you had better go back now, dear," Esther said, placing her hand on Wathemah's shoulder. "No," he said stoutly, "Mrs. Clayton ask Wathemah he Miss Bright party." "Oh, yes," she said, with sudden understanding, "you came to celebrate my birthday, didn't you?" He nodded. "You want me to wash your face and hands, don't you, Wathemah?" she asked. And off she went with the child. "By George," said Lord Kelwin, "I never saw such a woman." "Nor I," returned Kenneth. "There is no other like her." The other whistled, and Kenneth flushed. His companion went on, "I'd like to know if she really has a fortune." "Better ask her." Lord Kelwin did not observe the look of contempt on Kenneth's face. But host and hostess had entered the spacious room, and were extending gracious welcomes. "Does either of you happen to know of the whereabouts of Miss Bright?" questioned Mr. Clayton. On learning of her arrival with them, he rallied them on spiriting her off. In the midst of the raillery, Esther and Wathemah entered the room. The latter found his way at once to Mr. Clayton's side, for they were great friends. The entrance of Esther was the signal for further badinage. "John, what do you think of a young lady who tells her escort she supposes she'll have to endure him?" "Mr. Clayton," she said, with a saucy tilt of her head, "what do you think of gentlemen who tell a lady they would like to flirt with her?" "That depends," he answered, with a broad smile, "upon who the lady is. Now if I were not a staid married man--" "You do not answer my question," she said. "You introduce an altogether extraneous matter. I asked you what you thought of gentlemen who would tell a lady they would like to flirt with her." Here both Lord Kelwin and Kenneth Hastings tried to present their cases. Esther raised her hand. "Would you not consider this great frivolity, Mr. Clayton?" And she assumed a prim, shocked expression so funny that all laughed. "If you wish to know my candid opinion," he said, with the air of a judge, "I believe they were within the law; but, if they were guilty offenders, they have my sympathy." Wathemah looked from one to another with a puzzled expression as he listened to their laughter. He seemed to sense the fact that his Beloved was in some way the butt of their fun. In a moment he had slid from his place on John Clayton's knee, and was standing leaning against Esther. "That's right, Wathemah," she said, pretending to be greatly injured, "you take my part." "Look out here, young man," said Lord Kelwin, as Wathemah approached him with a threatening fist. Kenneth caught the child, and held him close in his arms, whispering to him, "We're only fooling, Wathemah." But he said aloud: "Did you know, John, that Miss Bright has become an adopted mother?" "No. Whom has she adopted? You?" "Me? No. That's a good one. She's adopted Duncan's little boy, Bobbie. And when I suggested that I'd like to change places with Bobbie, she almost annihilated me." All seemed to be enjoying the nonsense. "Really, Miss Bright," continued Lord Kelwin, "I think you should be at the head of an orphanage." "I suppose you'd like to be chief orphan," suggested John Clayton. Then the talk drifted to serious themes, until dinner was announced. A birthday cake with sixteen lighted candles, in the center of the table, was the signal for another fusillade of fun. "Sixteen! sixteen!" said Kenneth Hastings. "I accused Miss Bright, to-day, of being fifty, and she assured me she was not so young as that." "Sixteen! sweet sixteen!" said Lord Kelwin, bowing low. She, in turn, bowed _her_ head. "You see," she said, "our good prophet, Mrs. Clayton, cried out, and the shadow has turned backward on the dial of Ahaz." "It is not so much the number of years we count on the dial, after all," spoke Mrs. Clayton, who had thus far listened smilingly to the others; "it is what we live into those years. And you have lived already a long life in your few years, dear friend." "You are right," Kenneth rejoined. "Miss Bright has lived more years of service to her fellow men in the few months she has been in Gila, than I have lived in my thirty years." Then, half in jest, half in earnest, he continued, "I wish Miss Bright could have been my grandmother, then my mother, then my--" He halted in embarrassment, as he saw a deep blush sweep over Esther's face. "And then--" suggested Lord Kelwin, in a provoking tone--"and then?" "I should like her for my _friend_." "So say we all of us," rejoined John Clayton. Then observing Esther's face, he changed the drift of the conversation. "How would you good people like to make up a party to go to Box Canyon sometime in the near future?" "Delightful!" spoke several, simultaneously. And thereupon they began to describe for Esther the canyon and what she would see. Before leaving the table, every wineglass save one was filled with sherry. That glass was turned down. John Clayton rose and lifted his glass. "Here's to our dear friend, Miss Bright. May she always be sixteen at heart, with her ideals of life as true and as sweet as they are now; may the cares of life sit lightly upon her; may she be given strength to do all that she will always seek out and find to do; may the love of the true of heart enfold her; may the Heavenly Father keep her in all her ways; may the shadow ever turn backward on the dial." And lifting their glasses, they drank to this toast. Ah, little did they realize how prophetic in some ways that toast would prove to be, nor how great was the work that lay before the lovely and fragile-looking girl. All were happy and light-hearted; at least, all save Carla Earle. She sat quiet and retiring, when her duties were over. Wathemah had found refuge in her lap, and his regular breathing assured her he was fast asleep. So the evening wore on. At last all the guests except Wathemah had departed. The fire burned low. And soon all were asleep in the quiet house. CHAPTER XIV THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION John Harding seemed a new man. If ever man fought desperately the evil in his nature, he did. It would be foolish to say that he became a saint. Far from it. He was at all times very human. All the years of his life, his deeper nature had been lying fallow. No one had ever cared enough about him to suspect or discover its richness. Now some one had found him who did care, and who knew instinctively what lay below the forbidding exterior. He sought Esther Bright with all sorts of questions, many of them questions a child might have asked (for he was but a child as yet in knowledge of many things); and she poured out the richness of her own knowledge, the inspiration of her transcendent faith, until the man roused from a long sleep, and began to grapple with great questions of life. He read, he thought, and he questioned. Sometimes, when long away from Esther's influence, he yielded to the temptations of the saloon again, and drank heavily. On one of these occasions, he chanced to cross her path as he came staggering from a saloon. He tried to avoid her, but failed. "Oh, Jack," she said, laying her hand on his arm, "is this what Jesus would have you do? Come home." "'Taint no use," he answered, in a drunken drawl, "no use. I ain't nobody; never was nobody. Let me be, I say. Nobody cares a blank for me." He threw an arm out impatiently. "'Sh!" she interrupted. "Jesus cares. Mr. and Mrs. Clayton care. I care. Miss Edith cares. Come home with me, John." So saying, she led him on to the Clayton ranch. After a field has lain fallow many years, it must be turned and overturned again, in order to yield an abundant harvest. So it is with a soul. John Harding's soul was slowly but surely being prepared to receive the seeds of truth. There were days when it seemed as though a demon possessed him. Then he would mysteriously disappear, and be gone for days. He always returned worn and haggard, but gentle. Then he would seek Esther Bright, and say simply: "I have conquered!" He seemed to know intuitively that she never lost faith in him. He felt certain that he would yet become what she wished him to be,--a true man. And this conviction made every battle with himself less terrible. At last he knew that the good in him was master. All this did not come about at once. Months passed before he knew that he could feel sure of his victory. In the meantime, the church service had become established in Gila. Esther Bright preached with deepening spiritual power. The cowlasses now attended regularly. Other women, too, had come. Miners, dirt begrimed, had astonished their cronies by coming to hear the teacher talk. Even men from the charcoal pits and burro camps found their way to the crowded room. One Sunday, the atmosphere of the meeting was so remarkable it still stands out in the memory of many a Gilaite of those early days. Esther Bright had preached on the Healing of the Lepers. She had told them of the disease of leprosy, its loathsomeness, its hopelessness. Then she vividly pictured the ten lepers, the approach of Christ, and their marvelous restoration. She showed them sin, its power to degrade men and women, and to weaken the will. She urged the need of God's help, and the necessity for each one to put forth his will power. Her low, earnest, heart-searching voice seemed to move many in that audience. Again and again rough hands brushed away tears they were ashamed for others to see. Ah, could there be help for them! Could there! The speaker seemed filled with a power outside of herself, a power that was appealing to the consciences of men. Kenneth Hastings, caught in this great spiritual tide, was swept from his moorings, out, out, on and away from self, Godward. He rose and spoke with deep feeling. Then some one sang the first stanza of "Where are the Nine?" The singing ceased. The Spirit of God seemed brooding over all. The pregnant silence was followed by a succession of marvels. A Scotch miner rose and said: "I am a sinner. Jesus, Maister, hae mercy on _me_." Then voice after voice was heard confessing sin and praying for mercy. At the close of the service, there were many touching scenes as men and women long hardened and burdened, came to this young girl for words of hope and encouragement. If ever human being was an instrument in the hands of God, Esther Bright was that day. The attendance at the meetings increased so that the schoolhouse could no longer accommodate the people. It was still too cool to hold out-of-door meetings. In the midst of Esther's perplexity, she received a call from one of the saloon keepers. "I 'ave been attending the meetings," he said, "and see that you need a larger room. I 'ave come to offer you my saloon." "Your saloon, Mr. Keith?" she said, aghast. "Yes," he replied, "my saloon! I'm one of the lepers ye told about the other day. I 'ave decided to give up the saloon business." This was beyond Esther's wildest dreams. "You have decided to give up the saloon?" she said, overjoyed. "I am so glad! But how will you make your living?" "I'll go to minin' again, an' my wife'll keep boarders. She's glad to 'ave me give up the dram shop." Esther's eyes filled with happy tears. The first Sunday in February had arrived. Nearly all vestiges of a saloon had disappeared from what had been Keith's saloon. Masses of mistletoe and fragrant spruce had taken the place of indecent pictures. A cabinet organ, borrowed for the occasion, stood at one side. A small table served as the speaker's desk. The billiard tables had disappeared, and chairs now filled the room. The crowd that gathered about the door the day of this first service in the saloon was unusually large, for word had gone out that David Bright, the grandfather of their pastor, would speak at the meeting. The saving of the souls of men had come to be the vital question of the hour in Gila. As the crowd caught sight of a stately white-haired man accompanying their leader, there was a respectful hush. Men and women stepped aside, leaving a passage to the door. The two entered. The singers were already in their places. The congregation assembled, and the song service began. At its close, there followed an impressive stillness, broken only by the joyous notes of a Kentucky cardinal. The aged preacher sat with bowed head. One would hardly have been surprised to hear a voice from on high. At last he rose. Everyone looked intently into his benevolent, kindly face. Slowly and impressively he repeated: "Repent ye; for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand." He repeated the words a second time, then took his seat. Again the pregnant silence. When David Bright rose the second time, he read Matthew III., and closing his Bible spoke to them for an hour, holding their undivided attention. "Beloved," he said, "this voice is speaking to us to-day. 'Repent ye: for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.' The kingdom comes to us individually. It comes only as men's hearts are prepared for it." Then he carried his audience with him as he preached the need of repentance, and Christ's compassionate love for every human soul. His voice rose and fell, and the roughest men listened, while down many faces flowed repentant tears. Oh miracle of miracles,--the turning from sin to righteousness! Oh greatest experience of the human heart,--the entrance of the Divine! As the godly man took his seat, Esther Bright rose, and sang, with face shining, "I Love to Tell the Story." As she sang, the notes of the Kentucky cardinal burst forth, a joyous accompaniment to her glad song. To the amazement of all, Ben Keith rose and said: "I 'ave been a sinful man. May God forgive me. I repent me of my sins. I 'ave led men and women astray in this saloon. May God forgive me. I 'ave determined to turn face about, and to lead an honest life. I 'ave sold my last drop o' whiskey. I 'ave poured all I 'ad left on the ground. I shall keep no more saloon. May God 'ave mercy on my soul, and on the souls of them as I 'ave led astray." A sob was heard. It came from the long-suffering Mrs. Keith. Then another stood, asking for prayers; then another, then another. Last of all, David Bright rose, and after speaking a few fatherly encouraging words, he dismissed them with the benediction. He was soon surrounded by men waiting for a word, a hand grasp. They asked for personal conferences with him. "Let us go down to the timber," suggested Jack Harding. So together these men strolled down to the river bank. "Thou art troubled about the unpardonable sin, thou sayest?" the preacher said to a young man walking by his side. "Yes," replied the youth addressed. "I've been a bad one, but now I really want to be a Christian. I fear I have committed the unpardonable sin. Do you suppose--" he asked in a voice that choked a little, "that God could pardon such a sinner as I am?" "With God all things are possible," reverently replied the other, laying a kindly hand on the young man's shoulder. "The only sin that seems to me to be unpardonable is that unrighteous obstinacy that forever refuses the _offer_ of salvation." And into the old man's face came an expression of sorrow. "But if the offer of salvation is forever _passed by_, what then?" asked another. "I believe the soul is lost." "You mean the soul is in a place of fire and torment, literal hell fire?" asked the first speaker. "I said I believe the soul is lost." "Then you don't believe in hell?" asked another. "No," answered David Bright; "not as some believe in it,--literal fire. Spirit or soul is, I believe, immortal. It lives on. To know God, and Jesus Christ, His Son, is eternal life; not to know them is death. To obey the laws of God here on earth means a foretaste of heaven; to disobey them, means a foretaste of hell." "And you think there can be hell on earth?" asked one. "Yes: a man's own evil mind and life make for him a constant hell." "And you believe heaven may begin on earth?" "I do. Heaven is the rightful heritage of the soul. Heaven is accord with the Divine. It is the natural environment of the soul. It is more natural to do right than wrong. It is evil environment that perverts the soul." They seated themselves on a dead tree trunk. "Here," said David Bright, laying his hand on the fallen tree, "you see an illustration of what happens to many a life. Its environment has brought a parasite that lays hold upon the life of the tree, saps its strength, and decay follows. Destructive agencies in a sinful environment lay hold of human life, sap its strength, and moral decay follows. Many a strong man has fallen as has this magnificent tree. Nothing can revitalize the tree once fallen into decay; but, thanks be to God, there _is_ a force that can revitalize the human being long after he seems dead and lost to the world, and that is the redemptive power of Jesus Christ. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." The look of one who bears the sorrow of his race upon his heart came into the beautiful face. And the men watched him with deepening reverence for their kind. One who had thus far been silent spoke. "But if the soul is immortal, spiritual death cannot come." The old man looked keenly into the young man's eyes. He spoke with deepest conviction as he said: "I believe there is almost no limit to the possibilities of the mind and soul to him whose ideals are high, whose courage is great, and who holds himself to the very highest ideals of living. Christ paved the way for such a life for every young man. That sort of life is real living, for it means constructive work in the world. It means growth, immortality. "To come short of what one might be, steadily, increasingly, brings moral deterioration, atrophy;--to my mind, the saddest form of death. It is life to grow toward the Divine. My son, it will soon be too late. Turn Godward now. Shall we pray?" Then up to the throne of God went a prayer for these young men,--sons of parents who had long ago lost their grip on them. For about two weeks, religious meetings were held daily. Night after night the room was crowded. The services consisted of talks by David Bright, songs, short prayers and testimony. Sometimes several men and women would be on their feet at once, eager to voice their repentance, and to testify of God's mercy. The interest did not end here. Down in the mines, brief meetings were held daily at the noon hour. One group of miners would start a hymn; then way off, another group would catch up the refrain. On many lips the oath or unclean story died unspoken. Men sought David Bright as they would a father confessor, pouring the story of their lives into his kind and sympathetic ear. They seemed to know intuitively that he was a man of God. What mattered, if he were Catholic or Protestant? He found men evil, and left them good. And Esther Bright's influence was hardly less marked. Her deep spirituality made her a great power for righteousness. John Harding seemed scarcely less interested in saving men's souls than she. "Giving men a chance," he called it. He went from mining camp to mining camp, carrying the tidings of salvation, and urging men to repent. And those who heard him not only came to the meetings, but began to bring others also. And so the work grew. It was at the close of David Bright's second week in Gila that the most impressive meeting was held. At its close, the aged evangelist bade them farewell. Then they crowded about him, thanking him for all he had done for them, and asking him to remember them in his prayers. Kenneth Hastings was the last to speak with him. He asked for a personal interview. Then arm in arm, they strolled up the mountain road. What was said during that interview no one ever knew. But when the two returned to Clayton Ranch, David Bright walked with his hand resting on the young man's shoulder. Esther heard her grandfather say to him: "I honor thee for it, my son. I believe under the same circumstances, I should feel as thou dost. It is a serious question." Kenneth said something in reply that did not reach Esther's ears. She heard her grandfather speaking again: "Yes, she is an unusual woman, as thou sayest. She has always been a delightful character, and Christlike in her purity. She is compassionate and loving because she has always walked in the Master's steps." The two men entered the house, and John Clayton advanced to greet them. "That was a great meeting," he said. "Yes," David Bright replied, "God has touched the hearts of the people." He sat down by his granddaughter, put his arm about her, and drew her to him. "The field is white unto the harvest, Beloved," he said, looking into her upturned face. "I hadn't thought of the harvest yet, Grandfather," she said simply. "We have been getting the soil ready to sow good seed at every opportunity. We are on the verge of the growing time." "Well, well, as you will, little philosopher," he said, releasing her. It was a lovely picture to see the two side by side. The white head of the one suggested a life work near completion; while the golden brown of the other, suggested life's work at its beginning. Happy would it be if godly and beautiful age could give up its unfinished tasks to those who are content to prepare the soil, and sow good seed, intent on the growing time! The social hours in the Clayton home that day were ones to be long remembered. David Bright was a man enriched from many sources. He gave himself to his companions in intercourse as rare as it was beautiful. Conversation had never become to him a lost art; it was the flowering out of the life within. And Kenneth Hastings listened. If _he_ had only had such a father! He was beginning to see it all now,--life's great possibility. At last he was drawn into the conversation. "I hardly know," he responded to a question from David Bright. How many things he now realized he "hardly knew!" How vague a notion he had, anyhow, of many questions affecting the destiny of the human race! He thought aloud: "You see Mr. Bright, I was reared in a worldly home, and I was brought up in the Church of England. My religion is simply a beautiful ritual. But, further than that, I know nothing about it. I never felt any interest in religion until--" here his face flushed "--until your granddaughter came. She found me a heathen--" He hesitated, and glancing toward Esther, caught her glance. How lovely she was! As he hesitated, David Bright finished his sentence, smiling genially as he did so. "And made you a Christian, I hope." "I fear not. I am plagued with doubts." "You will conquer the doubts," responded David Bright, "and be stronger for the struggle. Triumphant faith is worth battling for." "Well," said Kenneth, "I feel that I am adrift on a great sea. If anyone pilots me to a safe harbor, it will be your granddaughter." "No," she said, looking into his face with a sudden radiance in her own, "but the Man of Galilee." And so the talk drifted, talk where each one could be himself and speak out of his innermost heart, and not be misunderstood. So blessed is friendship of the higher sort. The day passed and the morrow dawned. Then David Bright journeyed eastward again, to minister to the world's unfortunate ones. He left behind him in Gila an influence that men speak of to this day. But to no one, probably, did his coming mean more than to John Harding. John's transformation was now complete. He became the self-appointed evangelist to numbers of unfortunate and tempted men. He had risen in the scale of life, and had become a Man! CHAPTER XV SOME SOCIAL EXPERIENCES One evening about the middle of February, Kenneth Hastings called at the Clayton home. After a few moments of general conversation, he turned to Mrs. Clayton and begged to be excused from his engagement to accompany them to Box Canyon. "Oh, Mr. Kenneth," protested Edith. "I am sorry, Edith," he said, turning to her, "but I leave to-morrow for England." "For England!" ejaculated Esther in astonishment; for she knew that a visit to England had been remote from his thoughts the last time she had talked with him. "Nothing wrong at home, I hope, Kenneth?" said John Clayton, kindly. "My uncle cabled me that my parents were killed in an accident. It is imperative that I go at once." He paused. John Clayton reached over and laid a hand on his arm. Mrs. Clayton spoke a few words of sympathy; but Esther Bright sat silent. How she had urged him to make his parents a visit! How he had rebuffed her, saying they cared nothing for him! She remembered his saying that he had always been starved for a mother's love. Too late now to give or to receive. She felt Kenneth looking at her, expecting her to say some word. She seemed suddenly dumb. At last she heard him speak her name. He hesitated, then continued: "I wish I had gone when you suggested it, Miss Bright." He bowed his head upon his hand. "I wish you _had_ gone," she said, simply. "It might have been a comfort to you." After awhile he spoke cheerfully of his return, and of what they would do. "Don't let Miss Bright work too hard," he said, smiling gravely. "She does enough work for five men." "I shall miss your help," was all she said. But she felt a sudden longing to comfort him. Into her face flashed a look of sympathy. He knew it was for him. "It almost makes me homesick, Kenneth, to hear you talk of going home," said Mrs. Clayton. "England always will seem home to me," she added, turning to Esther. "It is a beautiful country to call home," responded the New England girl. "I love England." They talked till late, Kenneth receiving message after message from them to kindred and friends across the sea. He rose to go, taking leave of Esther last of all. Then he turned to her with both hands extended. She placed her own in his. He drew her towards him, and without a word, turned and was gone. Esther withdrew, and Edith and Carla soon followed, leaving John Clayton and his wife seated before the fireplace. "Well, John!" said the wife. "Well, my dear?" responded the husband, apparently surmising what was coming. "Kenneth _loves_ Miss Bright." "Well, is this the first time you have suspected that?" As though he had always suspected it. "No! But--" "But what?" "Is he worthy of her, John?" "Don't be foolish, Mary. Kenneth is a true and honorable man. Yes--" pausing to listen to her expostulations,--"I know he used to drink some; but I never saw him intoxicated. He played cards as we do here, and when he was in the company of men who gambled, he gambled too." "But morally, John. It's goodness that a woman cares most about. Is he all right morally?" He drew his chair close to hers. "I believe Kenneth to be clean morally. If he had been immoral here, I should have known of it. And yet he, like the other men, has been surrounded by temptation. What is gross does not appeal to him. I have never known him to speak lightly of any woman. For you and Edith he has the deepest respect; for Carla, he has the utmost compassion; and for Miss Bright, (bless her!) he has a reverence I have never seen any man show to any woman." "Then he loves her, doesn't he?" "He never told me so," he answered, smiling; "I doubt if he has told her." "But after that good-by to-night," she persisted, "I _know_ he loves her." "I hope he does, Mary, and that she cares for him. I don't see how she could help it. I'd like to see them happy,--as happy as you and I are, Mary." He leaned toward her, resting his cheek against hers. "As happy as we are, Beloved. Twenty years married. Am I right? And lovers still." "Yes, twenty happy years," she said, "twenty happy years. But, John, do you think Miss Bright would make Kenneth happy? Would she give up her philanthropic ideas to devote herself to one ordinary man?" "Oh, that's what's troubling you now, is it?" he asked, laughing outright. Then he spoke seriously: "I believe Miss Bright could and would make Kenneth supremely happy. You know she is domestic in her tastes, and I believe home would always be her first consideration. But she is such a broad, public spirited woman she would always be a public benefactor. And Kenneth is not an ordinary man. You know that well. He is superior. I do not know of any man for whom I have such a strong friendship." "I like Kenneth, too," she admitted. "But I was just thinking." He rose and covered the embers for the night. "Better leave them alone," he suggested. "Their story is so beautiful I'd not like to have it spoiled." "John!" "Yes, Mary." "I just thought of something!" "Remarkable! What did you think of?" "Kenneth will inherit a large fortune, won't he?" "Of course." "That might change his plans." "I think not. He loves America, and the woman he loves is here. He will return. Come! Let's to sleep." The going of Kenneth Hastings brought a shadow over the household. His departure was likewise the signal for frequent calls from Lord Kelwin. It grew more apparent that he felt a marked interest in the teacher. But whether she felt a corresponding interest in him, no one could have determined. A few times she went horseback riding with him. He assured her she was becoming an excellent horsewoman. Lord Kelwin now became a constant attendant at the meetings of the club, on all of which occasions he was Esther's self-appointed escort. Once he ventured a remark about how it happened that a woman of her rank and fortune and accomplishments should be teaching in a mining camp. "My rank? My fortune? My accomplishments?" she repeated, mystified. "Yes," he said, patronizingly, "a lady of rank and fortune. I have met several Americans of fortune,--great fortune,--in London and Paris--ah--I--" "But I am not a woman of rank and fortune, Lord Kelwin. I am just a plain working woman." He did not observe the amused smile about her eyes and mouth. "You are not likely to find women of rank and fortune in a mining camp." "It's wonderful how much these American heiresses think of titles, don't you know, Miss Bright. Why, a man of rank can marry almost any American girl he pleases." "Just so," she assented. "He wins a fortune to pay his debts, and squander otherwise; and she wins a title, dragged into the dust by a degenerate nobleman, plus enough unhappiness to make her miserable the rest of her life. An interesting business proposition, truly!" "Why, really, Miss Bright,--ah--I--ah--I fear you grow sarcastic." "_Really!_ Did you discern any approach to sarcasm in my remarks? I am surprised!" He was not prepared for the mockery in her voice, nor for something about her that made him feel that she was his superior. Before he could formulate a suitable reply, one quite in accord with his sentiments and feelings, she continued: "We shall doubtless live to see a social evolution. The American man of genius, and force, and character is too intent on his great task of carving out a fortune, or winning professional or artistic distinction, to give his days and nights to social life. "Now there are noblewomen of the Old World who are women of real distinction, vastly superior to many men of their class, and who have not been spoiled by too great wealth simply because their profligate brothers have squandered the family fortunes. "Now it occurs to me that it might be a great thing for the progress of the human race, if the finest noblewomen of the Old World, who are women of intellect, and culture, and character, should seek in marriage our men of brains and character. "The time has come when the American man of the highest type needs something more than a fashion plate or a tailor's model for his mate." "And have you no American women who could match your paragons, your American _tradesmen_?" he asked, contemptuously. "Oh, yes," she replied. "We have fine and noble American women. I was just thinking how the Old World could be invigorated by the infusion of fresh blood from the vital, progressive New World. Just think of a brainy, womanly Lady Somebody of England, refusing to ally herself with an inane, worthless nobleman of any country, and deliberately _choosing_ a man of the people here, a man whose achievements have made him great! Is there not a college of heraldry somewhere that places intellect and character and achievement above rank and fortune?" He could not fathom her. "How queer you are, Miss Bright! Such marriages," he continued, in a tone of disgust, "would not be tolerated." "Why not? They would be on a higher plane than the ones you boast of. You exploit the marriage of title and money. I suggest, as an advance upon that, the marriage of the highest type of the noblewoman of the Old World, with no fortune but her intellect, her character, and her fine breeding, with the highest type of noble manhood in America, a man large enough and great enough to direct the progress of the world." "Ally the daughters of our nobility with plebeian Americans?--with working men?" "Why not?" she asked. "Because we despise people in trades," he said, contemptuously. "But the tradesmen who _make_ the fortunes are quite as good as their daughters, who barter themselves and their fathers' wealth for titles. You seem to approve of such alliances." They had reached the veranda of the Clayton home. Esther Bright's hand was on the door knob, and her companion took his leave. How radical she must seem to him! As she entered her own room, she found a letter bearing a London postmark. It was the first letter she had received from Kenneth Hastings, and it was a long one. She read it through, and then reread it, and buried her face in her arms on the table. After awhile there came a knock on the door. It was Carla. She had been crying. Esther slipped an arm about her, and together they sat on the edge of the bed. "What is the matter, Carla?" she asked gently. "Oh, I am so unhappy!" "Has anyone hurt your feelings, dear?" "Oh, no. It is not that. It is the other. I wish I could die!" Esther drew Carla to her. "You still care for Mr. Clifton; is that it?" "Yes," she answered, with a sob, "that is it. I am _so_ unhappy!" "Tell me all about it, Carla," said Esther, in a soothing tone. "Perhaps it will be a relief for you to tell me. When a load is shared it grows lighter." "Well, you see, Papa and Mamma died, and I had no one but distant kindred. They gave me a home, and I became a sort of servant in the family. Mark Clifton was their nephew. He seemed to love me, and he was the only one who did. He talked often of the home we'd have when we are married, as I told you. "I was sixteen when he came to America. Then he sent me money to come to him, saying we'd be married on my arrival here. "But when I reached Gila, he said he could not disgrace his _family_ by marrying _me_." These words were followed by violent weeping. Then Esther comforted her as best she could, and tucked her in her own bed. At last Carla fell into a heavy sleep. Again Esther opened Kenneth's letter, read it, and placed it in her Bible. So days came and went,--homely days, days of simple duties, days of ministration to human need. And Esther Bright was happy. One day as she lingered late at the schoolhouse, she was startled to see a young Apache, dressed as a cowboy, standing in the doorway. For an instant, she felt a sickening fear. Then her habit of self-control asserted itself. She motioned him to a seat, but he did not seem to understand. He spied her guitar, tried the strings, shook his head, and muttered words unintelligible to her. The Indian was, apparently, about her own age, tall, muscular, and handsome. His long, glossy, black hair hung about his shoulders. On his head, was a light felt hat, similar to the ones worn by the cow-punchers. His trousers and jacket were of skins and cloth respectively. In a moment he looked up at her, from his seat on the floor, and jabbered something. Apparently, he approved of her. He touched her dress and jabbered something else. [2]"N[=e]-sh[=e]-äd-nl[)e]h´," he said, pointing southward towards the Apache reservation. [2] You be my squaw. She told him, in poor Spanish, that she could not understand; but he apparently understood her, and looked pleased. Again he repeated the same words, using much gesticulation to help convey his meaning. There was a step outside, and Robert Duncan appeared with Bobbie. After greeting the teacher, Robert looked with unbounded astonishment at her unusual visitor. Apparently the Apache was there on a friendly visit. The Scotchman was about to pass on, when the teacher asked him to stay. He entered the room, and said something to the Indian, who answered, [3]"Indä-stzän´ [=u]´-sn-b[=e]-ceng-k[)e]´." [3] The white woman is an angel. Robert seemed to catch his meaning, and answered in Spanish that the people called her the Angel of the Gila. The Apache nodded his head approvingly, and said, [4]"Indä-stzän´ [=u]´-sn-b[=e]-tse´!" [4] The white woman is the daughter of God. He stepped up to the teacher, and took hold of her arm as if to draw her away with him. She shook her head, and pointed to Robert Duncan, who made signs to him that she was his squaw. At last the Indian withdrew, turning, from time to time, to look back at the vision that, apparently, had bewitched him. Then Robert explained his own errand. He was seeking a mither for Bobbie. The bairn must have a mither. He had understood her interest in the bairn to be a corresponding interest in himself. He was muckle pleased, he said, to be singled out for any woman's favor. He was nae handsome man, he kenned that weel. He was ready tae marry her any time she telt him. Robert looked wonderfully pleased with himself, apparently confident of a successful wooing. His experience had been limited. "You wish to marry me, Mr. Duncan?" Outwardly, she was serious. "Yes, Miss, sen ye was sae willin', I thocht I maucht as weel tak ye, an' then I'd not be bothered wi' ither women. "Have they troubled you?" she asked, with a look of amusement. "Have they been attentive to you?" "Not as attentive as y'rsel'." "In what way have I been attentive to you, Mr. Duncan?" she asked, looking still more amused. "Ye've helpit me bairn, an' cleaned his claes, an' let him ca' ye mither. Ye'd no hae doon that wi'oot wishin' the faither, too." His confidence was rather startling. "But suppose I do not wish the father. What then?" "Oh, that could never be," he said, "that could never be." "You have made a mistake, Mr. Duncan," she said, quietly. "You will have to look elsewhere for a wife. Good afternoon." Saying which, she turned the key in the door, and left him standing dumb with astonishment. After she had gone some distance, he called after her: "Ye are makin' the mistak o' y'r life!" CHAPTER XVI OVER THE MOUNTAINS One Friday early in May, Edith Clayton suddenly became ill. Esther, returning from school, found Mrs. Clayton deeply distressed. "Oh," she said, "if Mr. Clayton or the boys were only here to take Edith to Carlisle, to see Dr. Brown!" "How soon will they return?" "Two days. I'm afraid to drive myself, and Edith sick." "Does she know the way there, Mrs. Clayton?" Esther seemed weighing the matter. "Yes; she has gone with her father several times." "Then if she is able to ride, and you are not afraid to trust me, I'll take her. It is Friday, and still early." "But, my dear, it is fifteen miles away, a long fatiguing journey over rough mountain roads. You'll have to ford a river, and stay all night at a ranch beyond the ford. Besides, it is a perilous drive. Oh, dear! I am so worried!" Here she broke down completely. "Don't let us waste any time, Mrs. Clayton. If you think Edith can endure the journey, I am willing to run the risk. I'll take her myself." "I believe Edith could go all right,--but--" "Never mind anything else. Give us the safe team, and we'll start." A spirited team was soon at the door, and they were placing wraps, cushions and luncheon in the carriage. Then Esther and Edith started. For a few miles, they repeatedly crossed bridges over the Gila, then their road followed the foothills for some distance. The hills were still yellow with the silky California poppies. Green alfalfa fields, in the valley below, looked like bits of Eden let down into the grimly majestic scene. Higher the travelers rode, and higher. At a sudden turn, they came upon the narrow and perilous canyon road, where they drove slowly, drinking in the grandeur of it all. The tinkling of a cowbell warned them that they were approaching a human habitation. As they rounded a sharp jag, they came upon a picturesque bridge, near the farther end of which they caught a glimpse of a pine-slab cabin, half hidden by tremulous aspens. A little Mexican child stood near the door, helping himself to the pink and white blossoms of the wild sweet pea. Near by, a white cow, with her clanking bell, browsed on the green turf that bordered that side of the stream. On and up the mountain, the travelers rode, into the heart of the Rockies. "Just look at that rose-colored sandstone," said Esther. "How exquisitely veined! See the gigantic, overhanging mass of rock beyond! And oh, the cactus blossoms! How glorious! The large scarlet blossoms! See?" "Yes. Exquisite, aren't they? But look at those cliffs over in that direction, Miss Bright," said Edith, pointing to her left, as she spoke. "Do you see anything unusual?" "Yes. Quaint figures. Indian art, isn't it? I do wish I could see it nearer by." And so they traveled on, reveling in the beauty everywhere about them. "Does it ever occur to you," asked Edith, "that God is nearer to us here, in the mountains, than anywhere else?" "Yes. Does God seem nearer to you here?" "Much nearer. When we went home to England the last time, I missed something. It seemed to me it was God. We went to the churches and heard great preachers, but they did not make me feel the presence of God as the mountains do. When I come out into the open, as you call it, and see the mountains, it seems to me I could reach my hand out and find God." "The mountains do great things for us," said Esther, looking up at the jagged cliffs. Suddenly there was a whir of wings. An enormous eagle roused from his perch on the rocks, made a bold swoop, and soared grandly above their heads. "Look, look!" cried Esther, in excitement. "An eagle, isn't it? Oh, you splendid creature! How magnificently free!" Her cheeks flushed. "Did you never see one before?" "Yes, stuffed; but this bird is alive and free." She looked at Edith. "You look pale, Edith," she said, with sudden alarm. "Are you feeling worse?" "No. Only tired. We'll soon reach the clearing, and just beyond that, the ford; and just beyond that, the house. So I can soon rest." Esther drew a deep breath, and said: "I feel as though the spirit of the eagle had entered into me." But darkness was coming on apace. To their relief they soon entered the clearing, and reached the bank of the stream, where they halted a few minutes. The horses pricked up their ears. "Do you think the ford is dangerous now, Edith?" "It is usually quite safe at this season, unless there has been a cloudburst. The horses know the ford, and are used to crossing. Papa gives them the rein, and they have always brought him safely through. We had better place our luggage on the seat," she said, "and keep our feet up. Tuck your skirts up, or you'll get a drenching." Then she leaned forward, and called each horse by name. In a moment they were in the river, with the water up to the horses' shoulders. They felt the carriage swing with the current, and felt the team struggling with the force of the waters. Then Esther called to the horses, in tones that showed no fear, "Well done, Rocket! On, Star, on!" It seemed hours to her before the faithful animals were once more on the shore, and safe. "Were you frightened, Miss Bright?" asked Edith. "Just a little. I never forded a stream before. But how nobly the horses behaved!" "Yes. It must be a hard struggle for them, though." In about five minutes, they stopped before a house, tied their team, and knocked at the door. A refined-looking young woman received them. "Why, Esther Bright!" she exclaimed, with a little shriek, clasping Esther in her arms. "Why, Grace Gale! Bless your heart! Where in the world did you come from? Grace, this is my friend, Miss Edith Clayton. She is ill, and I am taking her to see Dr. Brown in Carlisle. We are seeking the hospitality of this house overnight." Before she was through speaking, Grace Gale was half carrying Edith into the house. "Come right in, come right in!" she said. "I'm delighted! Tickled to death to see some one I know!" She ushered them into a room guiltless of carpet, meagerly furnished, but immaculately clean. Then she excused herself to send some one to attend to the horses, and to tell her landlady she would entertain two guests over night. She soon returned. "But how did _you_ happen to come so far from civilization, Esther?" she questioned. "Oh, a combination of circumstances; but chiefly through Mrs. Clayton, whom I met in England. What brought you out here?" "I came for restoration of health," she answered, laughing merrily, as though it were all a joke. "I don't look very sickly now, do I? I had had double pneumonia, and my physician ordered me to leave Boston, and go to a dry climate. So I came to Arizona. I happened to meet the superintendent of education. He needed teachers. So I came here, just for the fun of the thing." "And has it been fun?", asked Esther, joining in her friend's laughter. "Fun? There have been so many funny things I have laughed myself into stitches. For example, my landlady refuses to let me have any extra bedding for to-night." "Never mind. We have our cushions and lap-robe to help out. Who would have dreamed, Grace, when we were at Wellesley, that we should meet way out here in the wilds of Arizona? Oh, I'm _so_ glad to see you!" "So am I, to see you. Now tell me all you know about the girls of our class, Esther." They were in the midst of a vivacious conversation, when a sleek, tow-headed woman appeared at the door, and was presented to them. Then she announced supper, and disappeared. "Don't be frightened," whispered the merry hostess to her guests. "She's tame, and won't bite, and the food is clean." The landlady entered the kitchen, and after serving them, left the room. The hours sped merrily. The sick girl lay on the little bed, listening to college reminiscences, and joining occasionally in the conversation and laughter. "Esther," said Miss Gale, "let's give the Wellesley yell for Edith." "Well! Here goes!" said Esther, joining her friend. Suddenly, the tow-head appeared at the door. "Be ye sick?" inquired the surprised hostess. "No," answered Miss Gale, "only giving our college yell." "Ye don't say! Is them the kind er doin's ye has where ye goes ter school?" "A yell is a safety-valve, don't you see, Mrs. Svenson?" But Mrs. Svenson left the room mumbling to herself. At a late hour, Grace Gale made a shake down of one blanket, for Esther and herself. Then Esther proposed they use Mrs. Clayton's cushions, and shawls, and robe, to complete the preparations. Edith slept in the bed. After a while, the hostess asked: "Are your bones coming through, Esther?" "No, but I am sorry to put you to such inconvenience. I hope you won't take cold. There is a chill in the air to-night." "No more o' that, honey. I'm just glad to see you. This is the biggest lark I have had since I came to Arizona." The visitors laughed with her. "My! It is eleven o'clock, and I must not keep this sick child awake any longer. Good night, Esther." "Good night, Grace." "Good night, Edith." "Good night." A long pause. "Esther," softly, "are you asleep?" "No." "I am so glad you came. I was almost dead from homesickness." "Were you, Grace? I'm so sorry I didn't know you were so near." On the following morning, the vivacious hostess said: "I can't let you go. I'm so lonely." And to her surprise, tears rolled down her cheeks. "You dear girl!" said Esther, slipping her arm about her. "Get your hat, and go with us on our visit to Dr. Brown. We have enough luncheon to last us a week. Come right along." So off the three drove. It was a perfect May day, the kind found only in Arizona. The air was crystal clear, and the sky a deep blue. All along, there were thickets of sweet briar, and sweet peas; and cactuses, just beginning to bloom, made the way one of continual splendor. The air was exhilarating; so was the sunshine; so was Grace Gale. "Oh, you're just as good as a tonic, Miss Gale," said Edith. All three seemed to see the funny side of everything, and laughed even when there was no excuse for laughing. The gladness of the day was contagious. The physician looked grave when he saw the unnatural pallor of Edith's face, and noted her heart action. "It is well Miss Bright brought you to me at once, Edith," he said. "You need immediate medical attention. I wish you could remain with us a few days." But she insisted upon returning with her teacher. After a due amount of rest and refreshment, they started homeward, leaving Miss Gale at her boarding place. Then the two approached the ford again. The stream was higher than on the preceding day, and the waters raging. Once more the spirited team dashed forward. Once more the carriage swung with the current; only, now, it was swifter and stronger than on the day before. "Oh, this is terrible!" said Edith, grasping her companion's arm. "Keep up courage, Edith," said Esther. "I think we'll make it." But she noted the deathly whiteness of the girl's face. "Steady, Rocket! Steady, Star!" said the teacher. Her own face grew tense and white. She felt the carriage swing with a sudden lurch, and it began to dawn upon her that the horses might lose in the struggle. She lifted the reins, and called out above the roar of the waters: "On, Rocket! On, Star! Once more, my beauties! Bravo! Oh, God, give them strength! On!" She rose in her excitement, and swung the reins. The noble animals struggled madly. Could they gain the opposite bank? She was filled with sickening fear. "On, Rocket! On, Star!" she urged again. At that moment, the exhausted animals gained the mastery, sprang up the embankment, and stopped suddenly on the level beyond, quivering from their terrific struggle. Esther gave the reins to Edith, and springing from the carriage, she stepped to the horses' heads, patting and stroking them. Her voice trembled as she said: "Rocket, my brave, Star, my beauty, we owe our lives to you." They whinnied as if they understood. She put her cheek to their noses, she laughed, she cried. "I believe they understand," she said. "I feel sure they do," answered Edith. When Esther climbed back into the carriage, she found Edith had fainted. She waited till her patient regained consciousness, and then they started homeward. "Do you know," said Edith, after they had gone some distance, "we have had a very narrow escape? A little more, and we'd have been swept down the river." "I didn't realize the full danger until we were in the midst of the torrent," said Esther. "There was no choice but to go on. I thank God that your life is safe, dear," she added, drawing the girl affectionately to her. "I hope our troubles are over now, and that you'll feel no ill effects from the fright." They had covered miles of the return journey, and had reached the canyon road leading directly to Gila. Here, for a short distance, the canyon stream spreads wide, flowing over a pebbly bottom. The water sparkled in the sunlight like a stream of diamonds. In the shallows, the bed of the stream seemed jeweled with rubies and emeralds, opals and amethysts, as the pebbles below the crystal water shimmered in the late sunshine. They were within a mile of Gila when they heard the sharp, shrill cry of wolves. Esther tightened the reins, and the horses fairly flew. "Have we a gun with us, Miss Bright? We ought to have one. I always feel safer when I have a gun. You never know what you may meet on these mountain roads." "Can you shoot?" asked Esther. "Oh, yes; father trained me to shoot. Oh, those terrible wolves!" she said, as the shrill, mournful cries came nearer. "On, Rocket! On, Star!" urged Esther, again. The animals made a sudden lunge, and sped onward like mad. Around jagged turns they flew, as if inviting death; near precipitous cliffs they swung, till the driver was filled with sickening terror. On they raced, the wolves in hot pursuit. "Oh, dear!" said Edith, looking back. "One large wolf is far in advance, and close upon us." Quick as a flash, she stooped, took a great haunch of venison Dr. Brown had sent to her father, and flung it behind them. Then she watched in intense excitement. "Oh!" she exclaimed, striking her hands together, "the wolf has discovered the venison, and has stopped!" With that, she took the whip, and gave the already excited animals a stinging blow. They leaped and plunged madly forward. Esther doubled the reins around her hands, and called in low, insistent tones: "Steady, Rocket! Steady, Star!" They had gained upon their pursuers, and the horses were running at furious speed. "The she-wolf," said Edith, looking back, "is again following; but the smaller wolves are snarling over the venison." "Ow-ee-ow," came the wolf-cry, shriller, sharper, nearer. Esther shuddered. She urged the horses on. Edith grasped her arm in terror. "The wolf is just behind us!" she said. Suddenly there was the report of a gun. Esther glanced back, and saw the wolf fall in the road. She glanced ahead, and, at first, she saw no one. Then, out from the shade of a group of pines, rode Kenneth Hastings. "Whoa! Whoa!" he called, as he leaped from his own horse, and caught Rocket by the bits. With a sudden lurch, the team came to a standstill. "Whoa, Rocket! Whoa, Star!" he called soothingly, as he held and quieted the team. "Oh, thank you, thank you, Mr. Hastings!" said Esther. "When did you reach Gila?" "We're _so_ glad to see you!" said both, as he stepped to the carriage and extended a hand to each. "But how did you happen to be here?" asked Esther. "I came in this morning. Mrs. Clayton told me you had gone to Carlisle, and would be back about this time. I have felt anxious about you ever since I heard you had undertaken this journey." Again both repeated their gratitude for his timely assistance. He could see they were trembling. "Your horses were running away," he said. "They are nervous creatures, and are still frightened." After a while, he suggested that they drive on slowly, while he kept guard, in case wolves should pursue them farther. Then he mounted his horse, and rode beside their carriage. So they covered the remaining distance, talking of many things that had happened during the weeks of his absence. As they approached the Clayton residence, Mrs. Clayton and Carla came out to welcome them. "How are you, Edith?" questioned the anxious mother. "I hardly know," answered the girl. "I've been frightened nearly to death. I guess the fright cured me." "I think she is better," added Esther. "Dr. Brown's medicine has helped her." "But what frightened you?" asked the mother. Then Edith told of the peril of the ford, and of the pursuit of the wolves, dwelling on Kenneth's opportune assistance. "We owe a great deal to you, Kenneth," said Mrs. Clayton, her eyes filling with tears. "Oh, that was only a trifle, Mrs. Clayton," he said, carelessly. "Come dine with us to-night, Kenneth, won't you?" asked his friend. After thanking her, he mounted his horse, lifted his cap, and went on his way to headquarters. And Esther Bright! What was in her heart? We shall see. CHAPTER XVII THE DAY OF THE GREAT RACE It was pay-day in Gila. Miners from far and near were in camp. Cow-punchers had come from the range; cowlasses, also, were to be seen here and there, chaffing with men they knew. The one street had suddenly taken on human interest. Representatives of different nations were to be seen in all directions, some going to, and some coming from the saloons. Groups of men and women gathered to gossip. Comments on affairs of the community, and especially on the approaching race, were freely interlarded with profanity. Along the street, strolled Lord Kelwin, puffing away at a cigar. Apparently he was a good "mixer." "So you've entered your mare fur the race," said a cow-puncher, slapping him familiarly on the back. "What in blank do you expect her to do? She ain't fit fur nothin' but takin' gals hossback ridin', eh?" And he laughed uproariously at his attempt at wit. "Better cut out that part of the race. That belongs to another brand o' cattle. Come! Have a drink." Saying which, they entered the saloon where Pete Tompkins presided. The air was already stiff with smoke and profanity. Men had congregated there soon after receiving their wages. In a little room apart, sat men intent on a game of cards. Lord Kelwin joined them. One of the players, a mining engineer, was a professional gambler, who frequently raked into his pockets the hard-earned wages of many laboring men. Everyone save the engineer seemed tense. Once in a while, a smothered oath was heard. At the close of the game, the Irish lord, also, began to play. He had been drinking, and though an experienced player, he was no match for the sober gambler. He lost heavily. At the close of the game, he drank again, then staggered out of the door. Ah, how many had done the same! Pete Tompkins followed, gibing him about entering the mare in the race. "What in blank are ye enterin' her fur?" asked the aforesaid Pete. The men gathered about expectant of a fray. "What am--I--entering her--for--(staggering and hiccoughing)--entering her for? Ye blanked Americans!--I'm entering her for Miss Bright--Miss Bright, ye know--Miss Bright--" He laughed a silly laugh. "I'm going to marry her." Here, he indulged in a drunken jest that sent some of the men into fits of laughter. A few, standing outside the door, had attended the men's club and the Sunday service. Jack Harding, passing at that moment, stopped to speak with one of the men, and overheard the reference to Esther Bright. His face grew sternly white. He stepped in front of the boastful Irishman, and said in a stern, quiet voice: "Brute, say that you lied." "Blank you, you religious hypocrite," roared Lord Kelwin, "you can't bully me!" Jack Harding sprang upon him, gripped his throat like a vice, and demanded that he retract every insulting word he had said about the teacher. "What is that to you? Blank you!" gasped the Irishman. Jack Harding's grasp tightened. "Say it," he repeated, in deadly quiet tones. "Say that all you said about that pure, good woman is a lie." His tone was as inexorable as fate. The Irishman's eyes grew fixed with terror, his tongue hung from his mouth, his face grew purple. Still that calm intense voice reiterating in his ear: "Say it! Say that all you said was a lie." Seeing Lord Kelwin's extreme danger, some one attempted to interfere. Cries were heard: "Let them alone!" "It's none of your funeral!" "Jack Harding was right. Kelwin _did_ lie, and he's a blackguard for saying what he did." Then man after man took up the cry: "Kelwin, ye blanked coward, _say_ ye lied! Ye know ye lied!" At last the Irishman gave the sign. Jack Harding released him. Then, somewhat sobered, he muttered: "I did lie about a true woman. All I said was a lie." He staggered from the scene, and Jack Harding passed on his way. The race was to be on a track in the valley below. As it was Saturday, John Clayton had suggested to Esther that she and Edith take a horseback ride with him, to see the last part of the race; for, he assured her, she would see human life, as well as horse speed, there. As they approached the track from the mountain road, hoarse cries and yells could be heard. Excitement ran high. A few thoroughbreds had been entered for the race, but the greater number of entries were for horse-flesh that could boast neither registered sires nor grandsires. They were just "horses." The last race began just as the Clayton party turned and looked down on the wriggling, shoving, cursing crowd below. It is doubtful if Esther Bright had ever heard such language, in all her life, as she heard that day. She shuddered, and turning to her escort, asked why he had brought her there. "Just for you to see what animals human beings are, and how great is their need of refining, uplifting influences." "Is John Harding here?" she asked, uneasily. "We are all here," he answered, smiling, "including Jack. You need never worry about him again. You found him a sinner, and--" "And he has become a saint?" she supplemented. "Not exactly a saint," he answered, "but you have brought about a complete transformation in the man's life and character. Jack could never return to what he was, be sure of that!" "Kelwin! Kelwin's ahead!" shouted a hoarse voice, above the noise of the crowd. "Blank ye!" retorted another, "Bill Hines is ahead! I seen 'em turn fust!" "Ye lie!" continued the first. Away to the right, speeding around a curve in the race course, four horses were straining every muscle. Occasionally a cow-puncher would lift his quirt, and make it hum through the air, or lash the poor beast, already straining to its utmost speed. For a few moments, the racers were concealed from view by a mass of rocks. When they emerged again, they were greeted by yells from bystanders. A cowlass, mounted on a spirited animal, was in the lead. She swore almost constantly at her horse, occasionally cutting him with her quirt. Lord Kelwin, now somewhat sobered, made a close second; and Bill Hines and Bill Weeks were neck and neck behind the Irishman. The crowd cheered and cheered. The girl leading was as fine a specimen of the human animal as the horse she rode was of the horse kind. She sat her horse superbly. Finally, Lord Kelwin gained upon her, and the horses were neck and neck. The girl again whirled her quirt around till it cut the air with a hissing sound, and spoke to her horse. It was enough. The betting grew louder. The stakes grew heavier. "I know Kelwin'll win yet." "No, he won't. Kate Brown'll win. She's a devil to ride, that girl is!" Again the Irishman gained upon her. Again she sent her quirt singing through the air, and her horse obeyed as though horse and rider were one. He sped faster and faster, passed Lord Kelwin, then the starting point, and the race was won. "Hurrah for Kate Brown and Lightning!" shouted hoarse voices; and cowboys and cowlasses and everyone else yelled and shouted, and shouted and yelled. It seemed as though pandemonium had been let loose. Jack Harding had gone to the races chiefly to dog the steps of Lord Kelwin; so, if the Irishman had been inclined to speak lightly of Esther Bright again, he would have had to reckon with him. Kelwin felt himself shadowed by the cowboy, and a great fear took possession of him. As he dismounted, his scant clothing was wet, and clung to his person. The race had not improved his temper any. To be beaten, and beaten by a woman, and that woman an American cowlass, was the very limit of what he could endure from "raw America" that day. He swore to the right of him; he swore to the left of him. Then glancing over the crowd, he discovered the Clayton party overlooking the scene. John Clayton, ignorant of the episode at the saloon, was beckoning him to join them. Lord Kelwin was about to do so, when Jack Harding stepped up to him and said: "Don't you dare enter that woman's presence!" Lord Kelwin placed his hand on his gun, saying: "Oh, you needn't give me any of your impudent American advice, you mongrel cur!" "Never mind what I am," said Jack; "that woman is one of the truest, purest souls on earth. You are not fit to enter her presence. You have _me_ to deal with, remember." His great eyes flashed upon the Irishman, who quailed before him. "Oh, you needn't be so high and mighty," said Lord Kelwin, changing his tactics. "I don't care a blank about her, anyway. She's only an American working woman, an Indian at that." "So this is nobility," Jack said to himself. "Nobility! What is it to be _noble_?" The race was followed by a dance in one of the saloons, and the lowest of the low were there. At four o'clock in the morning, those sober enough went to their homes; the others stretched out anywhere, in a deep drunken sleep; and pay-day and its pleasuring were over. Men and women awakened to find their money gone; and for the first time in years, they felt shame. Sunday came. The hour of the service drew near. Esther Bright had thought out what she would say that day about the Race for Life. But when she rose to speak, she had a strange experience. All she had thought to say, vanished; and before her mind's eye, she saw the words, "The wages of sin is death." There were perhaps a hundred people before her in the timber (where the services were now held),--men and women among them, who, the day before, had forgotten they were created in the image of God, and who had groveled to the level of beasts. These men, these women, had come to this spot this day, why, they did not know. Why Esther Bright said the things she said that day, _she_ did not know, either. All she knew was that the words came, and that there were men and women before her whom she must help. Those who had sunken so low the day before, cried out in repentance, as they listened to her words. God's message, through Esther Bright's voice, had come to men's business and bosoms. Called of God, she said they were,--called to be true men, true women. From time to time, she quoted, "The wages of sin is death." One could almost hear his heart beat. The meeting was over, so far as Esther Bright's part in it was concerned; then it passed from her control. First one, then another rose, confessed his sins, and asked for her prayers. And what of Esther? She sat as pale as death, her face alight with a sweetness and compassion that did not seem of earth. Kenneth Hastings watched her with deepening reverence. Her words had gone to his heart, too, and he sang with deep feeling: "Just as I am, without one plea." As the song ceased, Pete Tompkins (to everyone's amazement) sprang to his feet. "Ye'll be s'prised ter hear from me, I reckon,"--Here he shoved his hand, lean and gaunt, up through his hair. "But I've been listenin' ter schoolma'am ever sence she begun preachin' in the timber, an' all I've got ter say is she ain't _our_ brand, or the Devil's brand either. When the Boss sent out his puncher ter round up folks, he cut her out an' branded her with the mark o' God. I know she's tellin' the gospel truth. She's got more courage 'n any blanked one o' yer. I done 'er a mean trick onct. I said blanked mean things about 'er. I'm sorry I done it, blanked ef I ain't! Ter show 'er an' you that I mean ter be differ'nt, I say, here an' now, that I wanter see these meetin's go on, 's long 's schoolma'am 'll be our angel an' pilot us. Ter prove I mean it, I'll plank down this hunderd dollars" (holding up a hundred-dollar bill) "toward buildin' a meetin' house; an' I'll give more, blanked ef I don't! How many wants a meetin' house in Gila? Stand up!" Many stood. "_Stand up, the hull blanked lot o' ye!_" said the self-appointed leader in forcible tones. To Esther's astonishment, the people rose, and remained standing. The notes of a thrush were caught up by a mocking bird, then a warbler joined in, and the waiting people listened. The song of the birds "came like the benediction that follows after prayer." At last the company dispersed, and Esther Bright sat alone, absorbed in silent prayer. CHAPTER XVIII NIGHT ON THE RANGE The cowboys and cowlasses had long been back on the range, and the attendance at the clubs had decreased in consequence. Many still came to the Sunday service in the timber; and the children remained in the school, notwithstanding the increasing heat. Continuous labor, and the intense heat, were beginning to tell on Esther Bright. As June approached, she occasionally spoke of going home; but whenever she did so, there was a chorus of protests, especially from Kenneth Hastings. Couldn't she spend the summer in Arizona, and they would camp on one of the forest mesas, a party of them? It would give her new life and strength. She shook her head listlessly. One idea grew and possessed her: she must go home, home to her grandfather. Into Esther's manner, when in the presence of Kenneth Hastings, had come a deepening reserve. And yet, from time to time, she spoke with feeling of her gratitude to him for rescuing Edith and herself on the day of his return. Her erstwhile gayety had departed, and in its place was a seriousness that seemed akin to sadness. Kenneth Hastings studied her, puzzled. He shared the solicitude the Claytons evidently felt for her. All knew she had drawn too lavishly upon her strength in her unselfish service for others. They also knew that warnings and protests availed nothing; that she must learn through experience the necessity of conservation of energy. Too useful a woman, Kenneth Hastings said of her, to wear herself out in service for a lot of common people. But he did not understand. He was to learn. At the close of a fatiguing day, a day of withering heat, John Clayton came home to dinner, bringing Kenneth with him. Esther Bright and Edith Clayton sat on the veranda as they approached. "Miss Bright," said the host, "I have a proposition to make:--that you and Mrs. Clayton accompany Mr. Hastings and me to Clifton to-morrow. Fortunately, to-morrow will be Friday. We can start soon after school is dismissed, and return Saturday, riding in the cool of the day." "Delightful!" she exclaimed, with evident pleasure, "How far is it?" "About twenty miles, I think," he answered. "Twenty miles? On horseback? I'm afraid I can't endure the fatigue of so long a ride. I am already so tired!" "Really!" said Kenneth, in a mocking tone. "You at last acknowledge that you are tired! I am astonished." But she was unresponsive. As the plans were discussed for the long ride, Esther gradually roused, and entered into the occasion with spirit. It was decided that the four should go in the surrey. Carla and Edith were to remain at home; and as Jack Harding was still in camp, he was to be general protector of the girls until the return of the party. As the sun began to lower, Friday afternoon, the party drove away from camp, first north, then east, toward Clifton. They crossed and recrossed the Gila River for some distance, passing many of the abandoned cliff dwellings along the canyon. Everywhere, the desert foothills, and the crevices of jagged, cliffs were ablaze with cactus blossoms. As the cool came on, the air grew delightful, and Esther seemed to awaken once more to the pure joy of living. Could they tell her anything of the cliff dwellers? They certainly could. And John Clayton told her of the Hopi Indians, and their customs. People of peace they were; keepers of sheep, lovers of the heavens, and knew the mystery of the stars as no one else did. Their men honored their women, he said. And then he laughingly told her that the Hopi Indians were women suffragists. The Hopi women, he said, were given more rights than were the women of civilization. "What rights?" she asked. Then he described his visit to Hopi land, telling her of the superior place the Hopi woman occupies in the life of the Hopi people. The talk drifted to Indians in general, Esther Bright asking many questions, indicating on her part a deep and growing interest in these native lords of the valleys and mesas. Just as they were crossing a bridge over the river, they met Lord Kelwin on horseback. It was the first time they had met him since the race. John Harding had not seen fit to tell Kenneth or the Claytons of his experiences with the Irishman, as long as he himself was in camp to protect Esther Bright. John Clayton reined in his horses to greet Lord Kelwin. The Irishman spoke to them, but looked at Esther. After learning their destination and the probable time of their return, he lifted his cap and rode on. Esther Bright was annoyed. She could hardly have told why. "Lord Kelwin is a genial fellow," John Clayton remarked, turning to speak to Esther; but, observing the expression of her face, he asked in a surprised tone: "Don't you like Lord Kelwin, Miss Bright?" "No," she answered, quietly. Kenneth laughed. Then, turning around, he said in a bantering tone: "But he told me you had gone horseback riding with him, daily, while I was away." "He's mistaken, Kenneth," responded John Clayton. "Miss Bright went riding with him about three times." "Three times too many," said Kenneth, apparently teasing, but with an undertone of seriousness. Mrs. Clayton adroitly turned the conversation. "John, tell Miss Bright about your meeting General C." Then he told how the general came to Arizona, and of his wise dealings with the red men. He explained the reason for the great unrest of the Indians after the general withdrew. He told how he was summoned from the Department of the Platte in 1882, and of the capture of Geronimo and his band. "And Geronimo is supposed to be the father of our little Wathemah!" Esther exclaimed. "Some think so," he said. "I have my doubts. He looks as though he might be a mixture of Apache, Mexican and Spanish." "Whatever he is, he is an attractive child," she said. "How did you come to meet General C.?" "He and his troops marched through Gila. I entertained the officers at the ranch over night." As he spoke, they came upon a pappoose, tied to a tree, and blinking in the afternoon sunshine. Just beyond, they found a group of Apaches. The women were cooking fish over live coals of fire. The men seemed to recognize John Clayton. He greeted them in the tongue of the Mexicans, as he drove by, while the Indians jabbered and gesticulated violently. At the bridge just beyond, they crossed the Gila for the last time before turning northward. There, they saw a young Apache catching fish. He glanced up, and Esther recognized in him the visitor who had found her at the schoolhouse. It was evident he knew her, for he started towards the surrey. "He is one of the friendly Apaches," explained John Clayton. "He's often on the range, and has adopted some of the cowboy regimentals, you see." The driver stopped his horses. The Indian came forward, offering John Clayton a number of fish strung on a withe. As he did so, he turned towards Esther, and said: "N[=e]-sh[=e]-äd-nl[)e]h´." "What does he mean?" asked Esther. "I think he wants to buy you from me with these fish," answered John Clayton, turning to her with an amused smile. Putting his hand into a tin box, he took from it a handful of cookies, gave them to the young Indian, and drove on. As they looked back, the last cake was about to disappear down the Indian's throat. "Poor things," said Esther, "they have had no chance." Then Kenneth rallied her on becoming a missionary to the Indians. "I'd be glad to help them as the early Jesuit priests did," she answered. "I cannot but feel that the Indian policy has been very faulty, and that the Indians have been the victims of grafters, some unprincipled Indian agents, and the scum of the white race. You tell me, Mr. Clayton, that the Mexican government offered a bounty of $100 for every Apache man's scalp, $50 for every Apache woman's scalp, and $25 for every Apache child's scalp? I'd fight, too," she continued, indignantly. "I know I'd fight. Poor things!" The company laughed at her championship, and told her how vicious the Apaches were, and many more matters of Indian history. The company were approaching a narrow canyon, through which they must pass for some distance. The waters dashed and boiled in eddies, where huge bowlders obstructed the way, making a pleasant murmur to the ear, soft and musical and low. And Esther Bright listened. Her heart, stirred to sudden anger by the stories of injustice and cruel wrong, was soothed into quiet by this slumber song of the ages. Oh, the music of the waters of the canyon! How, once heard, it echoes in the heart forever! In the midst of the unrest and discord of the world, how the memory of it keeps one close to the very heart of things! How it lingers! How it sings! They drove under, then around, an overhanging rock, beyond which, like ruins of ancient castles, storm-scarred, majestic, towered cliffs to a height of a thousand feet or more. The shadows had deepened in the canyon, adding to the solemn grandeur of it all. From every cleft of rock, apparently, a cactus had sprung into life, and had blossomed into flowers of exquisite beauty. All the journey was like a triumphal way, garlanded with flowers. At last they reached an open place in the canyon, and followed a track leading upward to a level plain. A short drive up a rocky way brought them to a vast mesa. Here they halted for the night. Some distance to the west, Esther spied a covered wagon with horses tethered near. There was a man busying himself about the wagon, and about the bonfire. John Clayton explained to Esther that this was the cook for the squads of cowboys, and that near where the man was working, the men would camp for the night. She watched the movements of the cook with some curiosity. The Clayton party had now stepped from the surrey, and removed from it the seats, blankets, and provisions. The two men returned to the canyon to gather dry driftwood for their fire for the night. During the ride of the afternoon, as the company had wound around the foothills, they had seen great herds of cattle, thousands of cattle, on the hills and mesas. But now, Esther was to see with her own eyes, the great event of life on the range. This vast out-of-doors was all so novel to her, so intensely interesting! She stood and drew in great breaths of air. Her eyes darkened. The pupils of her eyes had a way of dilating whenever she felt deeply. Although the cowboys and cowlasses had told Esther much about the round-ups, she felt quite ignorant of the whole matter. They had explained to her about the free range, how it was divided into imaginary sections, and how the "boss" cattleman would send groups of cow-punchers to each of these various sections to look after the cattle. John Clayton and Kenneth Hastings returned from the canyon, bringing a can of water, and dry driftwood. They at once began to build their bonfire, and to prepare their evening meal. As they worked, they talked. "If you watch from here," suggested Kenneth, "you'll see the close of the round-up, comfortably." "What do they mean by 'cutting out' the cattle?" asked Esther. "Don't you know that yet?" laughed John Clayton. "That is cowboy slang. As the cow-punchers approach (cow-punchers are cowboys, you know--)" "Yes, I know that much." "Well, as they approach you will see them weaving in and out among the cattle, lashing some with their quirts, and driving them out from the mass of cattle. This is called 'cutting out.' The cattle of different owners all run together on the range until time for the round-ups." "How often do they have these?" she asked. "There are two general round-ups, spring and fall; and others, when necessary for extra shipments of cattle." "How can they tell which belongs to which?" "By the brand," explained Kenneth. "Each cattle owner brands every one of his cattle with a certain mark, which determines whose property the animal is." The two women now placed cushions on the carriage seats, and sat down to watch the close of the round-up. The sunset was one of unusual splendor, the glory of color falling over the mesa, and the mountain peaks that loomed up far away. As they watched the sky, they spied a cloud of dust in the distance. "At last the cattle are coming!" exclaimed Mrs. Clayton. The dust cloud grew, coming nearer and nearer. It had a fascination for Esther. While they were speculating as to the probable number of cattle, and the cowboys and cowlasses who might be with them, Kenneth Hastings and John Clayton sauntered over to the mess wagon to await the closing scene. From that point, the men watched; and from their location, the women watched the on-coming herds. The dust cloud grew larger. The great mass of struggling cattle came steadily on. After a while, cowboys could be seen, and whirling of ropes. Nearer and nearer they came, the cowboys dealing stinging blows with their quirts. The bellowing of cattle, the cursing of men, and the choking fog of dust, all mingled together, came to the two women, who watched from a safe distance. In their intense interest, they forgot that the supper hour was long past, and watched. They saw cow-punchers, weaving in and out among the cattle, whirling ropes, and yelling, and cursing by turns, until each cowboy had separated the cattle in his charge from the others. It was an enormous task. The men were still cursing and lashing, when the last soft color of the afterglow faded from the sky. When the work of the round-up was finally over, and the men were free for the night, Esther heard the cook call out to them: "Grub's ready! Cut out y'r talkin'!" adding profanity, as if to whet the appetites of the hungry men. Then the cowboys, dirt begrimed, fell to, and were soon eating with a relish that would have made dyspeptics green with envy. Slowly, John Clayton and Kenneth Hastings sauntered back, finding their own repast ready for them. They, too, had found a keen edge to their appetite. Esther even went so far as to suggest that they might have done well to have accepted the Apache's fish. "Whom do you suppose we found over there?" asked Mr. Clayton. "Our boys," suggested Esther. "Yes, several who have been at the club and at the meetings. They know you are here, Miss Bright. Let's see what they'll do." Before the meal was over, the stars began to appear in the heavens. John Clayton threw great quantities of driftwood on the bonfire, and in a few moments, the flames were licking the logs. The voices of the cow-punchers came to them now and then, but the profanity had ceased. Suddenly, singing was heard. They listened. The cowboys were singing, "There were ninety and nine." From the singing, it was evident that the men were approaching the Clayton camp. In a moment more, they were there. Would they be seated? John Clayton had asked. So, around the camp fire they grouped, their faces and forms indistinct in the flickering light. They made a weird and picturesque group against the darkness of the night. "An' phwat do yez think now of a round-up?" asked Mike Maloney, of night school celebrity. Mike had been the star pupil in arithmetic. "Splendid!" said Esther, with contagious enthusiasm. "To see that host of cattle approach, the ropes swinging, the horses rearing and plunging, and the magnificent setting of the mountains at sunset,--why, it was glorious!" The men grinned their delight. Bill Weeks then grew eloquent about cattle. "We come across a herd o' antelopes to-day," interrupted another. Bill Weeks returned again to his favorite theme. Cattle were his life. In the midst of a dissertation on their good points, he was again interrupted with: "Oh, cut that out! Ye kin talk cattle any old day. We wants ter hear Miss Bright sing." "Yes, sing," all clamored. "_Do_ sing!" "What shall I sing?" "'Oft in the Stilly Night,'" one suggested. But they were not satisfied with one song, and called loudly for another. Then she sang, "Flee as a bird to Your Mountain." Esther Bright, as she stood and sang that night, was a picture one could never forget. Then around the crackling fire, story after story was told. The fire burned low. The dome above sparkled with myriads of stars. At last the cowboys rose, and returned to their camp. "Now we'll heap up the fire for the night, Kenneth," said John Clayton, "and arrange our shakedowns." "'Shakedowns,' John?" said his wife. "You don't call a blanket and cushion on a mesa a shakedown, do you?" "Why not?" Then the two men withdrew to the farther side of the fire. The women crawled into their blankets, and soon felt the warmth of the still heated earth upon which they lay. "Good night!" called the men's voices, and "Good night!" returned the women. Then silence brooded over the camp. For the first time in her life, Esther was bedded on the ground. Her face was turned upward, her eyes, fixed upon the starry deeps. Hour after hour went by. The regular breathing of her fellow-travelers assured her that all were asleep. She could not sleep. The marvelous scene above her grew upon her. She lay still, looking, looking into the infinite, that infinite around her, above her, beyond and beyond forever, who knows whither? The air, at first dark about her, grew into a weird, wonderful light. The dome grew vaster and vaster; and, with the marvelous expansion, she began to realize stars. They seemed to move from their solid ebon background, and to float in space. Stars! What do stars mean to the ordinary human? Just stars that come and go as a matter of course; just as men eat and drink, buy and sell, live and die. I say Esther Bright began to _realize_ stars. I do not mean by that that she was unfamiliar with certain astronomical facts all intelligent people are supposed to know. Far from it. She knew much of mathematical astronomy. It had a fascination for her. But she had not _realized_ stars, _felt_ stars, as she was to realize them this night. All the world was shut out from her vision, save that marvelous dome of sky, alight with myriads and myriads of stars, from zenith to horizon. She recalled Milton's description of the floor of heaven, and reveled in the thought. She gazed on one tremulous star, till it seemed a soul in space, beckoning to her to join it, in the company of the glorified. Her vision intensified. Into the Milky Way she gazed, till it seemed to her the pathway up to God. God! What was God? Then the stillness grew till it seemed the Infinite Presence. The stars, she was sure, made a shining pathway straight to her. Across the pathway, flashed shooting stars. She saw it all so clearly. Then the vast space, up to the shadowy shores of the Infinite Sea, filled with a strange, unearthly light. God! Was this _God_? Then she must be on holy ground! She felt herself lifted into the Everlasting Arms. The wind rose and whispered softly. And Esther Bright slept. Who shall say she did not sleep close to the very heart of God? CHAPTER XIX INASMUCH While the Clayton party were journeying from Clifton, John Harding was on guard, vigilant, watchful. In the Post Office that morning, he chanced to hear some one repeat a boast Lord Kelwin had made in regard to Carla Earle, whom he had heretofore treated with patronizing condescension. John Harding returned to Clayton Ranch, and invented excuses to be about the house, saying, as he went off to do some chores, that if they needed him, just to call him, adding that he'd be within hearing. Carla and Edith joked a little about his solicitude, and went about their daily tasks, planning surprises for the hungry company, on their return that night. Carla seemed happier this day than usual, and began to make a soft music in her throat like the warbling of a bird. She had been alone in the room for some time, when she heard a step. She stopped warbling when she recognized the voice of Lord Kelwin, whom she instinctively feared. He had entered the house unannounced, and now walked into the dining room. "Aha, my beauty!" he said, stepping toward her. "Aha, my bird! Caught at last!" She saw that he was intoxicated. "So you are alone at last, bird." He flung himself between her and the door. Something in his face filled her with disgust and alarm. He kept coming towards her, uttering words of insolent familiarity, and she kept backing away. Finally he lunged forward, grasped her by the arm, and tried to hold her. Evidently, he had not counted on opposition from her; and when he found his will thwarted, all the beast in him seemed roused. He struck her in the mouth, calling her vile names as he did so. In an instant, her shrieks of terror went ringing through the house. They brought Edith, in sudden alarm, and John Harding. The latter, recognizing the situation at a glance, sprang forward, and clutched the Irishman by the throat. "Let her go," he said, "you blankety blanked coward. Let her go, I say!" As he spoke, he gripped Kelwin's throat tightly, shaking him as if he were a rat. Then he grew dangerously white. The visitor, enraged at this unexpected interference, grew violent. He turned upon Jack Harding, and drew his gun; but Jack, sober and alert, knocked the gun from his hand; and, closing with him, dealt terrific blows in his face. All the brute in the drunken man roused. The sober man had the advantage. The struggle lasted but a few moments, though it seemed an eternity to the frightened girls. Finally, Jack Harding placed his knees on Kelwin's chest and arms, his hand on his throat, choking him until he gasped for mercy. Then the cowboy let him rise. As soon as he was free, he began to curse Carla Earle. Jack Harding promptly knocked him down. Partly sobered, the man rose, and staggered from the room. Carla stood trembling, her face white with fear. Harding saw her distress, and said with unusual gentleness: "Don't ye care, Miss Carla. 'Tain't so, anyway. He lied. He'll pay for it." "Oh, don't meddle with him, I beg you," she said with sudden alarm. "He might shoot you." "Shoot? Let him. But he can't insult any decent woman, while I'm near to protect her. Mark that." Carla turned to resume her duties, but fell in a limp heap on the floor. Then Edith and Jack Harding worked to bring her to. At last her eyes opened. She looked around, dazed, bewildered. When she realized what had happened, she asked: "Has that dreadful man gone?" On being assured that he was at a safe distance, she tried to rise, but her knees gave way, and she sank to the floor again. So Jack and Edith prepared the evening meal, and waited. At last they heard the sound of the returning carriage, and, a few moments later, welcomed the party at the gate. When John Clayton heard what had happened, he seemed dumfounded. "How dared he? How dared he?" he repeated, indignantly. But Kenneth's mouth set hard, and it did not augur well for Lord Kelwin. For one thing, all were thankful during the ensuing weeks,--the Irish nobleman no longer came to Clayton Ranch, socially, or otherwise. He managed to keep himself in the background, and was seldom heard of save as he figured in some drunken brawl. But Jack Harding, who understood him best of all, and who knew the venom of his tongue, hounded him day by day. And there grew up in Lord Kelwin's mind a deepening fear and hate of Jack Harding. CHAPTER XX A WOMAN'S NO Miles and miles of desert country, sometimes a dull red, sometimes almost yellow of hue; over that a dome of bluest blue; between the two, air, crystalline, and full of light; and everywhere, scattered with reckless profusion, from Nature's lavish hand, the splendor of cactus blossoms. That is Arizona in June. And in this glory of color, one June day, walked Mrs. Clayton and Esther Bright, returning from a round of neighborhood calls. As they approached Clayton Ranch, they paused to admire the cactus blossoms. The giant cactus, towering above the house, was now covered with a profusion of exquisite blossoms of deepest pink. Red blossoms, pink blossoms, white blossoms, yellow blossoms everywhere, but guarded by thousands of thorns and spines. Esther stopped and picked some yellow blossoms from the prickly pear, only to find her fingers stinging from its minute spines. "It serves me right," she said, making a wry face. "I knew better, but I love the blossoms." "Good evening," called a cheery voice from the veranda. It was Mr. Clayton. "Kenneth called to see you, Miss Bright," he continued. "He would like you to go for a drive with him this evening." "Far?" she asked. "He didn't say." The two women entered the house, and soon returned refreshed. On the spacious veranda, the family gathered in the cool of the day, to feast their eyes on the gorgeous sunsets. "Do you know," said Esther, "it refreshes me whenever I _look_ at snow-capped Mt. Graham?" She looked far away to the south. "I shall miss it all," she said, pensively, "all the grandeur of scene, miss all of you here, miss my dear children, when I go home." "Oh, I hate to think of your going," said Edith, lifting the teacher's hand to her cheek. "I'm afraid you won't come back." "What's that I hear about not coming back?" asked Kenneth Hastings, who, at that moment, joined them. "I said I was afraid Miss Bright wouldn't come back," explained Edith. "I hope you are not thinking of going East soon," said Kenneth quietly. When she announced that she should, he protested vigorously. That evening, Esther rode with him through beautiful mountain scenes. The heavens were still colored with the soft afterglow, as they sped along the upland road. Later, the moon rose, flooding the earth with its weird, transfiguring light. Once more, Kenneth told Esther his past. He wanted her to know all there was to know, he said simply. Then he poured into her ears the old, old story, sweetest story ever told, when love speaks and love listens. But Esther's eyes were haunted by a sudden fear. Kenneth paused, and waited for her to speak. Then, with a tightening of the lips, he listened to her answer. She had not thought of love and marriage. She had naturally grown into thinking that she would devote herself to philanthropic work, as her grandfather, before her, had done. "Yes," Kenneth said; "but your grandfather married; and his children married, and you, I take it, are the joy of his life. Suppose he had not married. Would his philanthropic work have been greater?" Then there was more talk, that seemed to give pain to both, for Esther said: "I will go soon, and not return; for my presence here would only make you unhappy." "No," he urged, "return to Gila. "You say you regard marriage as very solemn. So do I. You say you would feel it wrong to marry one you did not love. So should I." "I have been candid with you," she said in evident distress. To which he responded bitterly: "You think me a godless wretch. Well, I guess I am. But I had begun to grope after God, and stumbled in my darkness. I have been beset with tormenting doubts. The idea of God is so vast I cannot grasp even a fraction of it. You are right. I am godless." "No, no, not godless," she said. "Jesus of Nazareth, what of Him?" "I am coming to look upon him as a brother. I could have loved him profoundly, had I known him when he was on earth. But it all seems so far away in the past. To tell the truth, I have read the Bible very little." "Read it," she urged. "I should feel all the time that religion had placed a great gulf between you and me, and hate it in consequence. Ought religion to place a gulf between human souls?" "The lack of religion might." Silence followed. Then she continued, "If I loved you, loved you deeply enough, that would sweep away all obstacles." "And perhaps," he added, "if I had always lived up to the highest ideals of life, I might now be worthy of you. I _am_ unworthy, I confess it." "Oh, don't put it that way," she said in distress. "Let it be that I am not worthy of the love you offer me, not capable of loving enough to--to--marry." "Miss Bright, you are capable of loving, as few women are. It is my misfortune that I have not won your love. I need you to help me live my highest and best. All these months, because of your unconscious influence, I have been learning to see myself as I am, and as I might be. For the first time in my life, I have come in contact with a deeply religious soul, and have felt myself struggling towards the light. I have wrestled with doubt, again and again, bewildered. You teach us that the founder of the Christian religion had compassion on sinful men." "Yes." "But _you_ have no compassion on _me_." "You misunderstand," she said. "You see it sometimes happens that there is little real happiness, real union, where the wife is a believer in God, and the husband seeks--" "The devil," supplemented Kenneth. "I confess I have followed the devil to some extent." "Don't," she said. "It hurts me to the heart to hear you speak so. I meant to say if he had no sympathy with her spiritual life." "If I were a professing Christian, do you think you would care more for me?" "I might." "Suppose I pretended to be a Christian. Many make that pretense, and are accounted the real thing." "Dear Mr. Hastings, let me be a sincere and loyal friend to you, no more. Some day, I hope, you will win, in marriage, some rare woman who will make you happy." "Some rare woman? You are that one, Miss Bright. I want no other." "But you mustn't think of me, Mr. Hastings." "Do you know what you are, Miss Bright? You are an iceberg." She laughed. "That's fortunate. You will not long care for an iceberg. I will go soon, and you will forget me." He turned upon her. "Forget you? Do you really wish me to forget you?" Did she? She wondered. "No," she answered. Then over her face, lifted in the moonlight, he saw the color come. Their talk drifted to many subjects touching the life in Gila, and the larger world outside, to which she was soon to return. "Will you write to me?" he asked. "That would make it harder for you to forget," she said, naïvely. "I do not wish to forget," he said gloomily. "Why should I forget the happiest hours I have ever spent?" Why should he? Back at Clayton Ranch, an older pair of lovers, married lovers, walked up and down the veranda in the moonlight. "John," a soft voice was saying, "I just hope Kenneth will propose to Miss Bright to-night." He laughed. "You women! Always interested in a love story! How do you know Kenneth hasn't proposed to her already?" "I don't believe he has." Another silence. "John?" "Yes, Mary." "Does Miss Bright know what a vast fortune Kenneth has inherited?" "No. Not unless you have told her. He does not wish her to know." "But, John, that might influence Miss Bright's decision. You know these Americans care a great deal for money." "For shame, Mary, to think such a thing of her! Perhaps you do not know that her grandfather is a man of affluence. But he believes in the simple life, and lives it. She belongs to a fine old family, people of distinction, and wealth." "Is that true, John? She never told me. How can she work like a galley slave here?" "Because she is a great woman." Silence again. "With her mind, and heart, and passion for service, and Kenneth's intellect, and force of character, and vast wealth, they might be a tremendous force for the progress of the human race." "Can't you help matters on, John? I'm so afraid Miss Bright will reject Kenneth, and leave us." "Well, if she does, I shall be sorry. But we must keep hands off." On the following day, John Clayton was astounded to hear from Esther that she would not return as she had half promised to do in the fall. But Esther offered no explanations; and Kenneth's calls, from that day, grew less frequent. So the days passed, and two lives drifted apart. CHAPTER XXI THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW At the close of the religious service, the following day, Esther learned of many cases of sickness, in and about Gila, and especially along the water courses. A sort of a fever, the people told her. She resolved to make neighborhood calls the following day, and to take with her a case of medicine. She found many people sick with what seemed to be the same malady; and, thereupon, began a thorough investigation. The result was that she persuaded the people to let her call a physician. On the following day, Dr. Mishell drove into camp, and Esther made the rounds with him. As she suspected, the malady proved to be typhoid fever. "These people must have intelligent care," the physician said gruffly to her. "Do you know anything about nursing?" She told him she had nursed two patients through typhoid fever. "You know how to take respiration and temperature, then?" he said brusquely. She assured him she did. Then he wrote out directions for each patient, especially noting what to do, if certain conditions should arise. "You know the importance of sponging patients?" he asked shortly. "Yes." "Any alcohol?" "I can get it." And so Esther Bright was installed head nurse in Gila. Helpers rallied to her aid. School was dismissed at an early hour each day, so that Esther could make the rounds daily. The heat grew almost intolerable, but the delicate girl went on her way as if made of iron. Dr. Mishell looked her over with a nod of approval. "A woman of sense," he said, in speaking of her to Kenneth Hastings. The physician came again in three days, only to find many new cases. Esther Bright's task was becoming enormous. "Can you do it?" the physician had asked. And quietly she had answered: "I can do it as long as anyone needs my care." Again the physician nodded approvingly, and muttered: "Some women do have some sense." When this second visit drew to a close, he looked sharply at Esther, and said in a crusty tone: "You are working too hard." She protested. "I say you _are_!" he reiterated. "I'm going to find someone to come help you. Mr. Clayton wishes it. Are you a Catholic?" "No, a Quaker." "Quaker! Quaker!" he repeated. "No objections to a Catholic, I suppose?" "No objections to any human being who serves humanity." The old man left her abruptly. As he untied his horse, preparatory to leaving, he muttered to himself: "A very unusual woman. A _very_ unusual woman!" Late on the following day, when Esther returned from her rounds, she found the Mexican, who had come to the Christmas entertainment, awaiting her. After learning that his Indian wife was sick, she gathered up her medical outfit, and started with him up the canyon. It was a long and fatiguing tramp. The Indian woman proved to be another fever patient. She refused the medicine, but drank the beef juice the nurse offered her. After trying to make the Mexican understand what to do till she came again, Esther started down the canyon alone. It was nearly dark. After walking some distance, she heard the cry of wolves. The cries came nearer. She quickened her pace to a run, when, catching her foot, she was thrown violently forward into the stream below. She struggled to regain her footing, to climb to the bowlder from which she had fallen; but suddenly discovered that she had in some way twisted her ankle, and that she could not bear her weight on that foot. What was she to do? She was still over a mile from Clayton Ranch. If she called, no one could hear her. Oh, those wolves! Their cries sent a chill of terror through her. Again she struggled to climb up on the bank, but the bowlder above her was slippery, and there was nothing to cling to. At last she sent a loud cry for help echoing down the canyon. Then she listened. Suddenly she heard a step above her. It was the young Apache who had visited the school. His coming was about as welcome to her as the wolves would be. "N[=e]-sh[=e]-äd-nl[)e]h´," he said, beckoning her to join him. She shook her head, pointed to her ankle, and again tried to climb. Her efforts were futile. Then the Indian lifted her, carried her to a level place, and set her down. She was unable to bear her weight on the injured foot, and fell. She pointed to her ankle, then down towards Gila, hoping the Indian might make her plight known to the people in camp. As if in answer to her pantomimic request, he lifted her easily in his arms, and strode swiftly down the canyon. Could it be that he had rescued her in order to return her to her friends? It seemed so. At last it occurred to her to sing her call for help, to attract the attention of any miner, or charcoal tender who might chance to be going up or down the canyon. So with all the volume she could muster, she sang words, telling her plight. Every little while the Apache would repeat the words: "N[=e]-sh[=e]-äd-nl[)e]h´." What could he mean? About the time Esther was caring for the sick squaw, Kenneth Hastings learned from Wathemah that the teacher had gone to the Mexican's shack up the canyon. He was filled with alarm. "What's that ye are sayin', Wathemah?" asked Pete Tompkins, who, passing along, had overheard the conversation. "Me teacher up canyon. Mexican. Sick squaw," replied the child laconically. "Are you sure, Wathemah?" questioned Kenneth. The child nodded his head, and pointed toward the canyon. "Them devilish Apaches has been about camp all day," said Pete Tompkins, stopping to speak to Kenneth. "I seen some of 'em goin' up canyon jest 'fore dark." "We must go to Miss Bright's rescue at once!" said Kenneth excitedly. "I'm with ye," said Pete Tompkins. "If a blanked savage harms that air schoolma'am I'll smash his skull with the butt o' my gun. I'll jine y'r party. Let's take all the hounds. We're likely ter run across more'n one Apache. Hello, kids!" he called out. "Jine a rescue party. The schoolma'am's went up canyon ter tend sick squaw,--the Mexican's woman. Them devilish Apaches is up through the canyon, an' we're afeared they'll capture schoolma'am." Ten well-armed men, some mounted, some unmounted, started up the canyon. On their way, they met John Clayton, who joined them. His horse was neck and neck with Kenneth's. "Good God!" said the former to his companion. "What may have happened to Miss Bright? What may yet happen to her?" Kenneth made no reply, but his face was tense. These two men were in advance, closely followed by Jack Harding and Pete Tompkins, on their Mexican ponies. Suddenly, the party heard the distant cry of wolves, and--was it a human voice?--they strained their ears to hear. It was a human voice, a woman's voice. They dug their spurs into their horses' sides, and fairly flew. As they were journeying up the canyon, the savage, with his captive in his arms, was speeding down the canyon. Suddenly he turned, and took the trail leading towards the Apache reservation. Esther's song for help died on her lips. Every moment seemed eternity; every step, miles away from hope of rescue. Then with the energy born of despair, she sang again so that her song reached the ears of her rescuers: "Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide. The darkness deepens-- Lord, with me abide! When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O, abide with me!" Then she listened. Could it be the baying of hounds she heard? Her heart beat faster. She was not mistaken; she had heard the hounds. And now she heard the shouts of men. She began to sing again, but the Indian pressed his hand over her mouth, and tightening his hold with his other arm, started to run with her. She struggled desperately. He held her like a vise. She screamed for help, as she continued to struggle. "Courage!" came ringing back in response to her cry. She knew the voice. It was the voice of Kenneth Hastings. Again the Apache muttered in her ear: "N[=e]-sh[=e]-äd-nl[)e]h´." She realized that the men were gaining rapidly upon them, and struggled more violently to free herself. As the Apache ran, his breath came harder. It was no easy task to carry his struggling captive, and escape his pursuers. Still he kept up a remarkable speed. A moment more, the hounds came upon him. He kicked desperately, but could not free himself from them. Then, winding his fingers around Esther's throat, he choked her, and threw her to the ground. He lifted his gun, faced his pursuers, and fired. The ball entered the chest of Kenneth Hastings, who was in hot pursuit, and nearing the Indian. Kenneth fell from his horse, and the savage escaped. "My God!" exclaimed John Clayton, as he came up. He sprang from his saddle, and knelt by Kenneth's side. A little farther on lay Esther, unconscious. Her face was ghastly in the dim light, her clothing wet. "Brandy!" he called. "Any one got brandy?" "Here," said Pete Tompkins, stepping forward; "here's a flask." "With shaking hand, John Clayton tried to staunch the wound in Kenneth's shoulder. Then he put brandy between his lips, then between Esther's. She was like ice. "The brute!" he exclaimed. "I fear he has killed her!" Then he pulled off his coat and wrapped it about the girl, saying as he did so: "If she is not dead, the warmth may do her good. Some one ride ahead and prepare Mrs. Clayton." "I'll go, sir," said a Scotch miner, mounting one of the ponies. "Thank you. Tell Mrs. Clayton that Miss Bright and Mr. Hastings have met with an accident, and both are unconscious. Tell her to have hot water and blankets ready." "Come, John," he said, turning to Jack Harding. "Just help me lift Miss Bright to my saddle." Mechanically the cowboy obeyed. "Can one of you fellows carry Hastings on his horse?" Jack Harding volunteered. Few words were spoken by any of the men, as they made their way back to camp. Pete Tompkins had noisily boasted that he would kill the Indian; but, hearing no reply from any one, he subsided. In spite of his coarseness and vulgarity, he was touched by the tragic ending of the young teacher's life, and by the evident sorrow of his companions. He looked at the still, white face, and something tugged at his heart. As they passed Keith's house, Mrs. Keith ran out. "'Ere!" she said. "Wrap 'er in this 'ere warm shawl." Wathemah ran after them, asking anxiously: "Me teacher sick?" "Yes, very sick, Wathemah," answered Clayton. Just as they reached the Clayton home, Esther roused, and said in a dazed way: "Where am I?" "You are at home," answered her host, as he carried her into the house. "Do you feel better?" he asked, as he laid her on the couch. "What has happened?" she asked, showing no sign of recognition. "We don't know," said Mrs. Clayton, bending over her. She moaned. "Don't you remember the Indian who came to the schoolhouse?" questioned Mr. Clayton anxiously. "Indian? Schoolhouse?" she repeated in a perplexed way. "Where am I?" "Here with Mrs. Clayton," said her hostess. "Mrs. Clayton? Who is _she_?" asked Esther, vacantly. The group about her exchanged troubled glances. John Harding was already on his way to the railway station to telegraph for Dr. Mishell. Kenneth Hastings, now conscious, was lying on a bed in the Clayton home. John Clayton bent over him, staunching the blood the best he could. In the midst of this, they heard a sharp cry from Esther. "What is it?" questioned Kenneth. "Miss Bright!" exclaimed John Clayton, starting towards the room where the teacher and his wife were. Returning, he explained that Esther had apparently sprained her ankle, for it was badly swollen, and probably very painful, when Mrs. Clayton attempted to remove her shoe. Kenneth made no response, but, for a while, lay with eyes closed. He started when John Clayton told him that, as yet, Esther had not recognized any of the family. It was a long and anxious night for the ones who watched. In the morning, when Esther wakened, she called her companion by name. "Carla," she said, "I dreamed something dreadful had happened." As she spoke, she attempted to rise. A twinge of pain in her foot stopped her. "What has happened?" she asked. "You sprained your ankle yesterday," Carla explained. "Yesterday?" she repeated, in a puzzled way, as if trying to think of something. "Strange, but I can't recall yesterday." "Dr. Mishell is coming to look at your ankle soon." "Dr. Mishell! Dr. Mishell!" Esther said, slowly. Then a light came into her face. "Oh, yes! Now I remember. He came to Gila to see our sick people once, didn't he? I must dress so as to make the rounds with him." So saying, she started again to rise, but sank back with a pale face. "My foot, and head, and throat are so painful. It's so queer. I feel ill, too. What has happened?" she asked again. "You were injured, somehow," explained Carla, "and were unconscious, when found. Mr. Hastings was unconscious, too." "Mr. Hastings? Is he here?" "Yes." "And sick?" "Very. Dr. Mishell and Sister Mercy, the Catholic sister, are with him now." "I must help take care of Mr. Hastings, Carla." "By and by, perhaps," said the girl, soothingly. "You must get well yourself first." Kenneth Hastings' condition proved to be more serious than they thought, and Dr. Mishell looked grave. He had removed the bullet, and Sister Mercy had assisted him. When at last the wound was dressed, Dr. Mishell visited the other patient. He examined her ankle, and pronounced it a bad sprain. He examined her head, and looking towards Mrs. Clayton, said: "It is as you surmised, concussion. Probably due to a fall." He gave a few directions to Sister Mercy, and after a few gruff, but kindly, words, departed, to look after his other patients in Gila. Now, Carla Earle began her career as a nurse, and soon her ministrations were known in every house, and shack, where fever had entered. After Esther learned the details of her rescue, and of how Kenneth Hastings had again risked his life for hers, she grew abstracted, talked little, and ate less. And after she had learned that he was critically ill, delirious, as a result of the wound received in rescuing her, her sorrow became patent to all. Could she not see him? But Sister Mercy guarded her patient, and watched, and prayed the prayers of her church. Physician and nurse both knew that Kenneth's life hung by a thread. The sick man talked in his delirium; and his heart story lodged in the heart of the nurse, who watched by him, and who nursed him back to life. When Esther was able to go about on crutches, she visited her patients who were nearest to Clayton Ranch. One day Patrick Murphy called on her. "How are Brigham and Kathleen?" she asked, as she greeted him. "I hope they are better." "No betther, Miss," he said, struggling for composure. "The docther has been lavin' av his midicine, an' Carla (I mean Miss Earle) has came each day (the saints bliss her!) but still the faver is bad. An' Brigham--" He could say no more. After a while, he continued: "An' Brigham begs me ter bring yez to him. He insists upon callin' yez his Christ teacher, ma'am. He asks ivery day has yez come, an' cries wid disappointmint, whin he foinds yez are not there. I told him I would bring yez back wid me if yez could come." "I'll go with you," she promised, "as soon as I speak to Mrs. Clayton." When Esther entered the sick room at the Murphy home, she found two critical cases of typhoid fever. Their temperature was so high she was filled with alarm. She questioned the mother closely, as to what had thus far been done for the children. "Did you follow the doctor's directions?" she asked. "No, Miss, I didn't think it worth while. Back East where I wuz riz, they didn't think it necessary ter wash sick folks with sody an' water every day, an' alkyhol besides. They jest let sick folks be in peace, an' give 'em a good washin' after they was corpses." "But you see, Mrs. Murphy, we must sponge typhoid patients with water and with alcohol, to lower their temperature. Brigham's fever is very high." "I done all I could fur him," sniffled the mother. "Yes, I know," said Esther, kindly. "What has he eaten? Did you give him the beef juice?" "No, mum. That wuz no eatin' at all. I give him meat an' potatoes an' cabbage, jest the way he liked 'em cooked," she said, wiping her eyes on her apron. "He ain't eat none sence. He jest cries an' cries fur ye, Miss." "Brigham is very sick," the teacher said, gently. "He may not recover. Shall I take care of him?" "Yes, Miss, I wisht yer would." Esther called for water and clean linen. She sponged the children, made the necessary changes, ventilated the room, and closed the door into the living room; and for the first time since their illness began, the children had quiet. The angel of Death hovered near, and the Murphy family were filled with an indefinable fear. Esther watched over the two children throughout the night. Brigham was delirious. Once he seemed terrified, and called out: "Mamma, don't hurt my teacher! Wathemah, what did my teacher tell yer about Jesus? Has my teacher come?" At daybreak, when Esther gave him his medicine, he knew her and smiled. As she bent over him, he said: "I knowed ye'd come. Is Jesus near?" "Yes, very near, dear," she answered, softly. "An' He loves little childern?" "Yes, dear, loves them dearly." "I am so glad." He closed his eyes and seemed smiling in his sleep. Rousing again, he said in a weak voice: "I am so tired. Will yer carry me ter Jesus?" "Yes, dear." Then tenderly the teacher's arms went around the little form. She said, aloud: "Dear Jesus, I have brought you little Brigham, because you love little children. He is too tired to go any farther alone, so I have brought him to you. Please carry him the rest of the way home." Gently, she drew her arm away. The child smiled as if satisfied, and dozed off again. It was late in the morning, when Dr. Mishell reached Murphy Ranch. He looked grave as he watched Brigham. "Better remain here if you can, Miss Bright. Good nursing will save the girl, and may save the boy; but it is doubtful. You realize he is in a critical condition." "Yes. I will remain, Doctor; but Miss Earle will need help with the other patients." "Oh, Miss Earle is doing finely," he assured her. "And with one exception, none of the cases are as serious as these two." "Who is the exception?" "I believe his name is Clifton. A cowboy by the name of Harding has gone to his shack, to-day, to nurse him." "Just like him," she thought. She made no reply. As the day wore on, Kathleen's fever decreased, but Brigham's increased. The boy again grew delirious. He repeatedly called Wathemah and his teacher. As night drew near, he grew worse. The parents stood near the bed, weeping. Suddenly the child cried out: "Papa, won't yer bring my teacher? She knows the way ter heaven." "She's here, lad," he said, taking one of Brigham's hands in his. Then the father repeated the prayers of his church. At dawn, Brigham lifted his arms, and smiled. He had found the Open Door. When the Murphy children knew their brother was dead, they were filled with awe, and huddled in one corner of the living room. The mother sobbed aloud, but refused to come near or touch the still little figure. The teacher, with tears rolling down her cheeks, prepared her little friend's body for burial. Then she spoke again to the father, reminding him of further preparations. He rose, and, going into the room, where the family were gathered, said: "We must have a wake. Poor Brigham." "No, yer won't have no Cath'lic doin's with Brigham," responded his wife. "Suppose," interposed the teacher, "we have a funeral service for Brigham in the schoolhouse, among the children he loved." "Shure!" responded the father, wiping his eyes, "that'd be jist the thing." "Do you approve, Mrs. Murphy?" asked the teacher. "Yes, Miss. That'd please Brigham, I know." And again she sobbed. So Brigham was carried to the schoolhouse. The teacher placed a crucifix at the head of the coffin, and lighted several candles. It was the first time religious services for the dead had ever been held in Gila. Heretofore, the dead had simply been buried. The schoolroom was filled to its uttermost. The girl preacher rose and told them of Brigham's lovely life ever since she had known him, of his interest in Jesus, and of his desire to know the way to heaven. She told of his last words, and how he asked her to carry him to Jesus. As she spoke, tears rolled quietly down the bronzed cheeks of many a man and woman whose life had been one long record of sin. Near the coffin, stood Wathemah, his eyes riveted upon the face of his little comrade. The teacher saw the child take off his string of beads and lay it in the coffin. They buried Brigham on the foothills, and left him alone;--no, not alone, for Wathemah remained standing like a sentinel beside the grave of his little friend. Wathemah did not return to Mrs. Keith's as usual for supper. Neither was he in his little bunk that night. No Wathemah appeared for breakfast. Inquiries began to be circulated. Where was Wathemah? Esther grew very uneasy, and started out to search for him herself. She returned disappointed. An hour later, Jack Harding returned with the child. He had found him keeping watch by Brigham's grave. So deep is the Apache's affection, so real his grief. Esther gathered Wathemah in her arms, and talked to him long of Brigham. Henceforth, to that little child, as to many of his race, the heavens would be full of the Great Spirit. "Can Brigham see me from the sky?" asked Wathemah. "I think so, dear. You'll want to be a good boy, won't you?" For answer, he burst into tears, and she mingled her own with his. From that time on, Wathemah loved the stars at night, and would stand watching them with deepening wonder and awe. Then began his questioning of things eternal, that upreach of the soul, that links it to the Divine. The day after Esther's return to Clayton Ranch, Dr. Mishell asked her to go with him to the shack of Mark Clifton. "He cannot recover," he said. "He realizes that. He has repeatedly asked to see you." As they approached the shack, they heard a voice. Jack Harding was reading aloud from the Bible. On the walls of the shack, were guns, hides, and coarse pictures; in one corner, were a case of whiskey bottles, and a pack of cards. The sick man seemed to be a man of about thirty. He greeted his visitors courteously, and at once turned to Esther. "I have asked to see you," he said. "I think I cannot recover. I am not prepared to die. I have attended your meetings since you have held them in the timber. I believe there is something in your religion; I believe in God." His voice was faint. "Is there any hope for me?" he asked, searching her face with his keen black eyes. She shrank from his bold gaze, then answered gently: "There is hope for every one who repents of his sins and turns to Christ." "But," he said, impatiently, "I haven't done so very much to repent of. I haven't committed any crime, don't you know? The world doesn't hold such high ideals of what a fellow ought to be as you do. I am no better nor worse than the rest of men. I came to that conclusion long ago." "Indeed!" She spoke coldly. "Is that all? Then you do not need me." She rose to go. "No, it is not all!" interrupted Jack Harding. "Miss Bright, show him his sin; show him the way of repentance, as you did me." Suddenly the cowboy knelt by the bunk, and poured forth such a heartfelt prayer for the man before him, all were touched. Clifton lay with eyes closed. Esther spoke again. "Mr. Clifton, have you done nothing to repent of? Think. You lured to this country the sixteen-year-old orphan daughter of a clergyman. You promised to marry her, if she would join you here. You placed her to board in a saloon. You refused to marry her! Thank God, the child is safe at last!" There was no mistaking her tone. "Marry _her_?" he repeated, contemptuously. "Marry _her_? I'd as soon marry a cat. I think too much of my family. I wouldn't disgrace them by marrying her, the daughter of a poverty-stricken curate." Then they saw Esther Bright's eyes flash. Her face grew as stern as the granite hills of her native state. She spoke slowly, and each word--as Dr. Mishell afterwards said--seemed to weigh a ton apiece. "Your family?" she said. "Your family?" she repeated with scorn. "Your _family_? This girl is a child of God!" And turning, she left the shack. Jack Harding remained all through the night, talking and praying, at intervals, with Clifton. At dawn, the sick man cried out again and again: "God be merciful to me a sinner!" Then, at last, he said: "Jack, I want to atone for my wrong to Miss Earle as much as I can. I see it all now. Send for a clergyman. I can't live, I know. If Miss Earle becomes my wife, it will remove the stigma, and she will inherit a fortune willed to me. Send for her. Perhaps she will forgive me, before I die." At the sunset hour, word passed throughout the village that Mark Clifton had just died, and that before his death he had been married to Carla Earle. The clergyman who attended the dying man wrote to his parents, telling them of their son's marriage and death, and of his farewell messages to them. He added: "Your son died a repentant man." CHAPTER XXII THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE On her return from Murphy Ranch, Esther began to assist in the care of Kenneth Hastings. As yet, he had not recognized her. Sometimes, as she sat by him, tears would gather and roll down her cheeks. One day, Kenneth opened his eyes and asked: "Who are you? What are you doing here?" "I am Esther," she answered, "taking care of you." "No, you're not," he said, wildly. "Get out of here!" She stepped back where he could not see her. He rambled on. "Some one shot!" He tried to rise. But Sister Mercy, entering, quieted him, and he lay back, muttering. Occasionally, Esther caught the words "Esther," "gulf," "doubt." About an hour later, he awakened, quiet. She sat where she could watch his face, and learn her great lesson. "Are you an angel?" he asked, with unrecognizing eyes. She took one of his hands in hers, and rested her cheek against it. His hand grew wet with her tears. "Are you a soul in bliss?" he asked, softly. "I knew an angel when I was on earth. But a gulf yawned between us, a gulf, a gulf!" Then he seemed oblivious of the presence of anyone, and muttered: "I have lost my way--lost my way,--lost." At last he slept again. And Esther Bright, kneeling by his bedside, with one of his hands clasped in hers, prayed. Still he slept on. When he awakened, John Clayton stood looking down upon him. Kenneth looked around, puzzled. "Well, John! Where am I?" "Here in my home. Are you feeling better, Kenneth?" "Better? What do you mean?" "You've been very sick, and delirious. But now you'll recover." "What was the matter?" "An Indian blackguard shot you through the shoulder. Septic conditions set in, and you had a high fever. Keep still there," he said, as he prevented his friend from moving. "Queer, John," said Kenneth, after a moment's pause. "I can't recall anything that has happened recently but a drive with Miss Bright just before she went away. But I can't speak of that--" And Esther Bright, resting on the couch in the living room, heard every word. A long silence followed. "John," said Kenneth in a low voice, "tell her sometime for me, that I have lived a clean, honorable life. You know I have gone to the saloons here sometimes, largely because other human beings were there. You know I gambled a little to kill time. So deucedly lonely! Tell her I wasn't bad at heart." He started to say more, but suddenly stopped. And Esther, hearing in spite of herself, searched her own heart. Dr. Mishell came the next day, and finding his patient delirious again, announced that he would stay with him till danger was past. So the physician and nurse again watched together. It was the day Esther was to have left for Massachusetts. When questioned as to the time of her departure, she now assured everyone she would stay till her sick people were well. While Dr. Mishell sat by Kenneth, Mr. Clayton found Esther on the veranda, in tears. He pretended not to see. "Does Dr. Mishell give any hope of Mr. Hastings' recovery?" she asked. "Yes. There has been a decided change for the better this past hour." He slipped his hand under her arm, and, together, they walked up and down the path to the road. "My dear friend," he said to her, "Kenneth _may_ die, but I know a powerful restorative, that might help to save his life, if we could only bring it to him." He knew her heart better than Kenneth did. "Oh, let _me_ take it to him," she said eagerly. "I'd be so thankful to have a chance to help save his life. He's done so much for me, and he is such a loyal--friend." "You shall be the one to bring him the medicine if you will," he said smiling. "What is it? Where can I get it?" she asked, eager to go on her errand of mercy. "Where can you get it?" he repeated. "You can find it in your own heart. It is love that will save Kenneth, dear Miss Bright." Her tears fell fast. "I fear I have made him very unhappy," she said. "I suspect you have," he responded. "Did he tell you so?" "No. You know he has been delirious from the first. In his delirium, he has talked of you constantly." At last danger was past, and nurse and physician assured the Clayton household that Kenneth Hastings would recover. He awakened from sleep, alone. As he opened his eyes, they fell upon a copy of Tennyson's works. It was open at "The Princess." Someone had been reading, and marking passages. He at once turned to the title page, and at the top, read a name he half expected to see. Could it be possible that she was still there? He looked around the room. By his bedside, stood a small round table, on which stood a low glass dish, filled with pink cactus blossoms. Near by, was an open Bible. Here, too, was a marked passage,--"faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love," He knew the Bible was Esther's. He laid it down, as though he had trespassed upon her innermost heart. He closed his eyes, and lay in a half-dream of possible joy. Over and over, the words seemed to repeat themselves,--"the greatest of these is love." There was a quiet step, and Esther entered, looking fresh and cool in a white dimity gown. In her hands, was a bunch of cactus flowers. She laid them down, and with a joyous cry went to him, clasping his hand in hers. "You know me at last?" she asked. "I am so glad!" Kenneth did not speak. She continued, "I feared you would never know me again." She seemed to hesitate a moment, but went on. "I feared I could never tell you what I now _know_, what I want to tell you." "What do you know?" he asked. "What do you wish to tell me?" "That I love you," she answered, and stooping down, she put her cheek against his. "Look out, Kenneth!" she said, warningly, with a happy little laugh. "You mustn't forget about the wound in your shoulder." But he held her captive. "What do I care for the wound in my shoulder, when the wound in my heart is healed?" he asked of her. "I came to heal the wound I made in your heart," she said, while a pink wave swept over her face. Still he held her, drawing her closer to him. "The lips," he said, "on the lips, as a penance." "My penance is easy," she said with a happy ring in her voice. Then drawing a chair close to the side of his bed, she let him gather her hands in his. "Strange!" he said. "During my illness I dreamed it would be this way. I must have dreamed a long time. You were always with me, I thought. You were always in white, and often brought me flowers. Once, I found myself in heaven. You met me, and smiled and said, 'Come.' You brought me the most heavenly being I ever beheld, and placing my hand in his, said significantly, 'He loved much!' Then you vanished. And the heavenly being smiled upon me. And my heart grew glad. I began to understand the mysteries of life. Then I thought how you had led me to the very fountain of love, that I might know how to love you purely. I began to feel I could renounce all my hopes of your love, because there was something in that other presence that taught me that great Love asks no return. It just loves on, and on. Then I thought this heavenly being called me brother. And thousands of voices began to sing, 'Glory to God in the highest!'" "Beautiful!" she said. "Then I seemed to float in space, and I knew that you were near me. Your arms were full of flowers, and you offered up silent prayers for me that bridged the gulf between us." She kissed him again, saying softly: "Beloved, I did bridge the gulf with prayers. How stupid I was not to know sooner!" "Not to know what?" "Not to know love when it came." "But you know it now, Beloved?" he said, drawing the hands he clasped nearer to himself. "I thank God for that." He closed his eyes, and lay very still, still clasping her hands. She watched by him. At last, his hands relaxed their hold, and she knew by his regular breathing that he was asleep. John Clayton came to the door, saw how it was, and went away. So did the others who came to inquire. And Kenneth slept on, a restful, restoring sleep. And as Esther watched, she repeated to herself: "The Greatest of These is Love." CHAPTER XXIII AT SUNSET It was Dr. Mishell speaking. "My dear young lady, if Mr. Hastings must go to England, as he says he must, he should not go alone. He needs care. I have recommended you as a competent nurse." His eyes twinkled. "Is it _safe_ for him to travel now?" asked Esther. "If he makes the journey by slow stages." The physician spoke with some hesitation. "At any rate he should get out of this intense heat as soon as possible." "But the ocean voyage," she suggested. "Probably do him good." The physician had already extended his congratulations to them. Before leaving, he gripped Kenneth's hand, and said heartily: "My nurse will be a helpmate to you. She is a woman of sense." While he still gripped Kenneth's hand, he turned to Esther, and extended his other hand to her. He placed her hand in Kenneth's, and said impressively: "'What _God_ hath joined together, let not man put asunder.' Miss Bright, you are to marry a true man. Always _trust_ him." His eyes filled. He turned abruptly and was gone. Poor Dr. Mishell! The wilting heat of August was upon them. At evening, Esther, wearied with packing trunks, joined Kenneth on the veranda. As she sat there, Wathemah ran to her, and flung a bunch of flowers in her lap. "Why do you leave me?" he asked. She put her arm about him, and told him she was going home, a long, long way from there, and that Mr. Hastings was going with her. "Wathemah go, too?" he asked. Both laughed. "No, little chap," she said, drawing him closer to her, "not this time." "Wathemah go, too," he said, reproachfully, looking at Kenneth with marked disapproval. "Do you love your teacher?" asked Kenneth. He, too, liked the child. Wathemah nodded. "Would you like to be her boy, and live with her always?" Wathemah placed one arm about his teacher's neck, and said softly: "Wathemah's mother!" Kenneth laughed again, and declared he was jealous. Then Esther told the little fellow she would come back to Gila and get him, and he should then go to live with her always. "Take me now," he urged. "No, dear," she said. With that, he sprang from her, and walked proudly out of the yard, on toward the canyon, without turning, or looking back. "A nugget of gold from the Rockies," said Kenneth, looking after him. "An Arizona cactus," she replied, "lovely, but hard to handle." Wathemah trudged up the canyon, to his favorite bowlder, where he went, often, to listen to the waters. There, he threw himself down, and cried himself to sleep. He had slept a half-hour, perhaps, when he was awakened by voices. "Why, here's Wathemah," called out Jack Harding. Another spoke, "He's a queer un. He never will be civilized." The group of cowboys gathered about the child. "What's the matter, sonny?" asked his friend, Jack Harding. Then he told them of his teacher's refusal to take him with her. "Don't cry, little kid!" said Jack. "Here, boys, let's give him money ter go home with Miss Bright. I'll jest ask her ter take him along with her, an' I'll pay fur his keep. Don't cry, sonny. It's all right. Down in y'r pockets, pards, an' fork out some money fur Wathemah. We saved him, an' raised him, yer know." His own hand went down into his pockets, and into his hat went a roll of bills. He passed his hat, and soon it was full of bills and silver dollars. That evening, it began to be whispered about that Wathemah was to go with Miss Bright. But of this rumor she knew nothing. Two days later, the hands of young men and maidens were busy decorating the Clayton home for the wedding of Esther Bright and Kenneth Hastings. Cactus blossoms of exquisite form and color were used. Not only the interior of the house, but the veranda and yard as well, were one glorious mass of color. Jack Harding worked faithfully, stopping now and then to talk with Kenneth, who lay on a couch on the veranda. Carla, too, was busy, putting artistic touches here and there. She, too, came often to the sick man's side. But Esther was forbidden to work, and when she persisted, Mr. Clayton captured her and took her off for a ride. She was to be married at sunset. While they were out driving, one of John Clayton's cowboys drove up from the station, bringing David Bright and an English clergyman, a friend of Kenneth's, with him. When Esther returned, and found her grandfather, her joy knew no bounds. "I wish now, Kenneth, that we were to marry ourselves, as Friends do," she said, "but grandfather can give me away." The guests who had been bidden, gathered in the yard, just as the glory of the sunset began. There was Bobbie, with the Carmichaels; there were some of the cowboys and cowlasses, miners and ranchers who had attended the meetings; all the Clayton household; Dr. Mishell and Sister Mercy, Miss Gale, and Wathemah were there. Jack Harding kept a close watch on Wathemah, not knowing just what he might do. As the sun neared the horizon, the clergyman took his place in the yard, Kenneth stepped forward, and waited. Esther Bright, in a sheer white gown, freshly laundered,--a gown she had worn many times as she had ministered to the sick, came forward on the arm of her stately old grandfather, who gave her away. His benign face seemed to hallow the hour. The colors in the sky seemed to vie with the cactus blossoms. Yellows, and violets, and deep crimson, faint clouds with golden edges, violet, then rose-colored, all melting into the dome of the sky. The man and the woman were repeating the marriage ritual of the Church of England, while this miracle of beauty flashed through the heavens. The plaintive cry of the mourning dove rang out, followed by the cheerful piping of a cardinal. The human voices went on with the solemnest vows man and woman may speak. The exquisite notes of the cardinal, then of a thrush, accompanied their voices. The beauty of the dying day played over Esther Bright and Kenneth Hastings, as they stood in the glory of their youth, and of their love. Just as the clergyman pronounced the closing words of the marriage service, the heavens leaped into a splendor of color; a mocking bird caught up all the songs that had furnished an obligato to the marriage service; and, as if to outdo all the other feathered songsters, burst into a perfect ecstasy of song. In the midst of the congratulations and feasting, Wathemah kept close to Esther's side. The following day, Kenneth, Esther and David Bright were to begin their long journey eastward. The day dawned. All Gila gathered at the distant station to bid them God speed. "Where is Wathemah?" Esther asked. "I don't know," answered a miner. "I found him cryin' 'cause yer wouldn't take him with yer." "Poor little chap! But where's Jack?" she questioned. "There they be," said a ranchman, pointing to Jack and Wathemah, standing apart from the crowd. She stepped toward them. "I have come to say good-by," she said. "You won't forget, Jack, to follow the Christ; you won't forget to pray?" She laid her hand on his arm. He stood battling with himself. Her tender voice, her eyes filled with tears, almost unmanned him. "Is it not much, do yer think, ter let yer go, as have brought me ter know God, as have learned me ter live right, an' have been like God's angel ter me? God help me!" The strong man's face worked, and he turned from her. After a moment, he put his hand in his pocket, and drew forth the Bible she had given him. "I wisht I'd a knowed about this when I was a lad. My life'd ben differnt. I thank yer fur all yer've done fur me, and all yer've learned me. But it seems I can't let yer go. God help me!" He stood with head bent and hands clinched. At last, Esther spoke again: "Good-by, John. You have fought a good fight, and conquered. Now, help the others with all your might." Ah, how much she had helped him in his battle! He grasped her hand and held it. So they stood. Then he said: "Take the little kid with yer. Give him a chance. I'll send him money as long as I live. I ain't got nobody else ter care fur." She would help the strong man, now, if she could; but how could she? He had this battle to fight alone. "You wish _me_ to take Wathemah, John?" "Yes. Give him a chance,--differnt surroundings." He lifted a bag of money. "This 'ere holds nearly one hunderd dollars. The boys give it to Wathemah ter go home with yer." "Did they? How generous!" The child ran to her, fearful he should be left behind. She hesitated. How could she care for her convalescent husband, and this impetuous, high-strung child? She turned to Kenneth and spoke with him. Jack lifted Wathemah in his arms and kissed him, saying: "Good-by, little pard. Mind now, no more cussin'." David Bright, who had overheard the conversation, now stepped forward, and said, "Let the child go with us, Esther, if those who have reared him consent." Both Mr. and Mrs. Keith, who stood near him, signified their willingness. The party then entered the Pullman, and a few minutes later, the train drew out from the station. Esther and Wathemah went to the rear platform, and watched till a turn in the road hid their friends from their sight. After a time Kenneth joined them. "Tears, Esther?" he said, lifting her face. "But not of sorrow," she returned. He put an arm around each, and they stood looking down upon the majesty of the scene through which they were passing. One looking back to that moment, would say it had been prophetic of the future. The man of power, destined to become a determining factor in the development of the great Southwest; the woman at his side, great of heart and brain and soul; and this little prince of the Rockies, with his splendid heritage of courage, destined to be the educational leader of his race. And it was this woman of vision, who, during the years that were to come, saw clearly the great work her husband and foster son might do, and nerved them for it by her faith in the work, and their power to do it. CHAPTER XXIV AFTERMATH It was a substantial stone house, built against the mountainside, overlooking a picturesque canyon. A woman sat on the broad veranda. Occasionally, she turned her head, and looked down the mountain road, listening as though expecting some one. Then she walked down the path, and stood watching. A little five-year-old girl joined her, flitting about like a sprite. "Will father come soon, mother?" she asked. "I hope so, Edith. He said he would come to-day." There was a far away look in the mother's eyes. "Why _doesn't_ father come?" the child continued. "Oh, he has been a long way, and has traveled many days, dear. Something may have happened to detain him." "What could have happened, mother?" the little one asked. "Oh, business, or the rails might have spread, or there might have been a washout, or a landslide." The mother again looked down the road. Then she walked slowly back to the veranda and took up her sewing. The child leaned against her knee. "Mother, when you were a little girl, did you have any little girls to play with?" "No. I had just my dear grandfather." "Then you know how lonely I am, mother. It's pretty hard to be a little girl and all alone." "Do you think you are alone, little daughter, when you have father, and aunt Carla, and mother?" "But you are big, mother, don't you see? When a little girl hasn't any other little boys and girls to play with, the world's a pretty lonesome place." The mother sighed. The child rested her chin in her dainty hands, and looked up through her long lashes into her mother's eyes. "I have been thinking, mother." The child was given to confidences, especially with her mother. "What did you think, Edith?" The mother smiled encouragingly. "I thought I'd pray for a brother." A tear trembled on the mother's cheek. "A little brother?" The mother looked far away. "Oh, a _b-i-g_ brother!" said the child, stretching her arms by way of illustration. "What would you say, sweetheart, if a big brother should come to-day?" The little one clapped her hands. "A really, _truly_, big brother?" she asked, dancing about in glee. "A really, truly, big brother,--Wathemah. You have never seen him, and he has never seen you, since you were a baby. But he is coming home soon, you know." "Will he play with me?" she asked. "You and Aunt Carla just 'nopolize father and the big ladies and gentlemen when they come. But _sometimes_ father plays with me, doesn't he, mother?" "Yes, sometimes. He loves his little daughter." "I don't know." She shook her head doubtfully. "I heard father say he loved you bestest of ev'rybody in a world." She threw up her arms and gave a little jump. "Oh, I wish I had some one to play with!" "Let's go watch for father again," said the mother, rising. This time they were not disappointed. They heard the sound of wheels; then they saw the father. The little daughter ran like the wind down the road. The father stopped the horses, gave the reins to the driver, and stepped to the ground. In an instant the little sprite was in his arms, hugging him about the neck, while her ripples of laughter filled the air. The wife approached, and was folded in the man's embrace. "Father," said the child, "I am to have a big brother, mother says." "You are?" Great astonishment. The parents smiled. "An', father,"--here she coquetted with him--"you and mother are not to 'nopolize him when he comes. He's going to play with me, isn't he, mother?" "I think so." A grave smile. The child was given to saying her father "un'erstood." "When did you hear from Wathemah, Esther?" the father asked. "About ten days ago. I'll read you his letter. I shall not be surprised to see him any day, now." "Wathemah is my big brother, Father. Mother said so. She says he's always been my big brother, only _I_ didn't re'lize it, you know." The parents looked amused. "Yes, Edith, he is your brother, and a dear brother, too," said the father. When they were seated on the veranda, and the child was perched on her father's knee, Esther brought Wathemah's last letter, and read it aloud to her husband. "_Dear Mother Esther:_ "This is probably the last letter I shall write you from Harvard for some time. As soon as Commencement is over, I shall go to Carlisle again for a brief visit, and then start for Arizona, to Father Kenneth and you, my dear Mother Esther, and my little sister and Carla and Jack. Now that the time approaches for me to return to you, I can hardly wait. "I may have expressed my gratitude to you and Father Kenneth in different ways before, but I wish to do so again now. "I am deeply indebted to him for his generosity, and for his fatherly interest and counsel. But it is to you, my beloved teacher, I owe most of all. All that I am or ever may be, I owe entirely to you. You found me a little savage, you loved me and believed in me, and made it possible for me to become a useful man. As I have grown older, I have often wondered at your patience with me, and your devotion to the interests of the Indian. You have done great things already for him, and I am confident that you will do much more to bring about a true appreciation of him, his character and his needs. The Indian in transition is a problem. You know more about that problem than almost anyone else. "I never told you about my birthday, did I? Do you know the day I count my years by? My first day, and your first day at the Gila school. Then my real birth took place, for I began to be a living soul. "So, in a spiritual sense, you are my real mother. I have often wondered if the poor creature who bore me is still living, and living in savagery. All a son's affection I have given to you, my beloved foster mother. It is now nearly sixteen years since you found me a little savage. I must have been about six years of age, then; so, on the next anniversary of your first day in the Gila school, I shall be twenty-two years old. From that day till now, you have been the dearest object in the world to me. I am sure no mother could be more devotedly loved by her son than you are loved by me. I strive to find words to express the affection in my heart. "And Grandfather Bright! How tender and gentle he always was to me, from the time we had our beautiful wedding journey until his death! He came to Carlisle to see me as he might have gone to see a beloved son. He always seemed to me like God, when I was a little fellow. And as I grew older, he became to me the highest ideal of Christian manhood. I went over to Concord Cemetery not long ago, and stood with uncovered head by his grave. "And our dear little David Bright! That was a sore loss for you and Father Kenneth. "You don't know how often I wish to see little Edith. I was greatly disappointed that you and Father Kenneth did not bring her with you the last time you came to see me. You didn't realize such a lean, lanky, brawny fellow as I cared so much to see a little girl, did you? I had always wished I might have a little sister. I have shown her pictures to some of the fellows who come to my room, telling them she is my baby sister. They chaff me and say I do not look much like her. "The fellows have been very courteous to me. "Now that the time has come to leave Harvard and Cambridge and Boston, I am sorry to go. I have met such fine people. "Dr. ---- urges me to return in the fall, to continue my work for my Master's degree; but I have thought it all over, and believe it wiser, for the present, to work among my people, and get the knowledge I seek at first hand. After that, I'll return to Harvard. "Long ago, your words gave me my purpose in life,--to prepare myself to the uttermost for the uplift of my race. "Daily, I thank you in my heart, for the years I had at Carlisle. But most of all, I thank you for yourself and what you have been to me. "I must not close without telling you of a conversation I had with Col. H---- of Boston. He heard your address on 'The Indian in Transition' at the Mohonk Conference. He told me it was a masterly address, and that you presented the Indian question with a clearness and force few have done. He told me that what you said would give a new impulse to Indian legislation. He seemed to know of your conferences at Washington, too. "I hear great things of Father Kenneth, too; his increasing wealth, his power for leadership, and his upright dealings with men. "Do you remember how jealous I used to be of him when I was a little chap? Well, I am jealous no longer. He is the finest man I know. "But I must stop writing. This letter has run on into an old-fashioned visit. "I am coaching one of the fellows in mathematics. Strange work for a savage! "With love for all of you, including my dear Carla, "Your loving boy, "WATHEMAH." "He's a fine fellow, is Wathemah," said Kenneth, as he cuddled his little girl up in his arms. "Yes, he's developed wonderfully," responded Esther. "How's Carla?" the husband asked. "Carla's well, and just now deeply interested in the Y.M. and Y.W.C.A. work." Here Carla herself appeared, and joined in the welcome home. She was the picture of wholesome content. While they were talking, there was a sound of wheels again. The wagon stopped, a young man jerked out a trunk, paid the driver, and ran towards the veranda. How happy he seemed! "It's Wathemah," all cried, hastening to meet him. The sprite was in advance, with arms outstretched. "I guess you don't reco'nize me," she said. "I'm your little sister." He laughed, stooped and lifted her in his arms, and kissed her several times. Then came Esther's turn. At the same time, Kenneth enfolded Wathemah. Then came Carla, whom Wathemah kissed as he used to do in childhood days, and laughingly repeated a question he was accustomed to ask her then--"Is my face clean, Carla?" And all laughed and talked of the days when they had found one another, of the Claytons and Jack Harding, and Patrick Murphy and his family, and the Rosses and Carmichaels, and the changes that had taken place in Gila since they left there. "I was so sorry to hear of Mr. Clayton's death," said Wathemah. "What a great-hearted man he was! Such a generous friend! Do you suppose Mrs. Clayton and Edith will ever come back to America?" "No," answered Kenneth, "I fear not. Mrs. Clayton's kindred are in England, you know. She never liked America. It was a lonely life for her here, and doubly so after her husband's death." "And how's Jack? Dear old Jack! I must see him soon," said Wathemah. "I'll call him up," said Kenneth, going to the phone. "Give me 148, please." "No,--1-4-8." "Hello! Is Mr. Harding within reach?" "Gone to the store, you say? Send some one for him at once, please, and tell him Mr. Hastings wishes to talk with him. Important." He hung up the receiver and returned to his place. "Do you know, Father Kenneth, I have received a letter from Jack every week since I left Gila, except the time he was sick? He insisted upon sending me money, saying that it was he who found me, and wanted me to live." "Yes, Jack is a generous fellow," assented Kenneth. "I tried to make him understand that I was strong and able to earn my own way; but it made no difference." "Just like him! Bless him!" said Esther. "So I have invested his money for him, in his name, and it will make him very comfortable some day." Kenneth smiled. "Jack is becoming a rich man by his own work, and his own wise investments." Just then the telephone rang. "Hello! Hello! Is that you, Jack?" asked Kenneth. "That's good. "Yes, yes. "Something interesting is up. Whom would you like to see at this moment? "Mother Esther? That's good. Who next? "Wathemah? Hold the phone a minute." He turned to Wathemah. "Jack says he'd like to see you. He doesn't know you're here. Here! Talk to him yourself." So Wathemah stepped to the phone. "Hello, old Jack!" There was a happy laugh. "You'll be over to-morrow?" "What's that you say? _Your_ boy? Well, I guess!" "How happy Jack will be!" said Kenneth. "Your little pard?" There was a chuckle from the lithe, muscular young Indian. "To be sure, I'm still your 'pard,' only I'm far from little now. I'm a strapping fellow." "What's that? You feel the education has come between us? No more o' that, old fellow! You're one of the biggest-hearted friends man ever had!" "Tell him to come over as soon as he can," interrupted Kenneth. "Father Kenneth says 'Come over as soon as you can.'" "You will? Good! What a reunion we'll have! Good-by." He hung up the receiver, and the conversation drifted on. "Has Jack made a successful overseer?" questioned Wathemah. "Very. He's a fine fellow. He is still very religious, you know, and the men respect him. He has become an indefatigable reader and student of labor questions. Recently I heard him give a speech that surprised me. He grasps his subject, and has a direct way of putting things." "I should expect Jack to be a forceful speaker," commented Wathemah, "if he ever overcame his diffidence so as to speak at all. But tell me about the school at Gila. That little spot is dear to me." "You should see the building there now," said Esther. "Do you know that the people who were most lawless when we were there, are now law-abiding citizens? Gila is said to be one of the best towns in Arizona." "That seems like a miracle,--your miracle, Mother Esther." He rose from his chair and stood for a moment behind her, and said in a low voice, as in childhood, "_Me_ mother, _me_ teacher." There was a suspicious choke in his voice, and, turning, he lifted Edith, tossed her to his shoulder, and ran with her down toward the road. Kenneth overtook him, and as they strolled along, they talked of many things, but chiefly of Esther, and her great work for the Indian. "How did it all come about?" asked Wathemah. "Oh, in a roundabout way. Her magazine articles on the Indian first drew attention to her. Then her address at the Mohonk Conference brought her into further prominence. She was asked to speak before the Indian Commission. Later, she was sent by the Government to visit Indian schools, and report their condition. She certainly has shown marked ability. The more she is asked to do, the more she seems capable of doing." "A wonderful woman, isn't she?" "Yes. Vital. What she has done for the Indian, she has also done for the cause of general education in Arizona." "I fear she will break down under all this, Father Kenneth." "Never fear. Work is play to her. She thinks rapidly, speaks simply, and finds people who need her absorbingly interesting." "Yes, but she gives herself too much to others," protested the Indian youth. "Well, we must let her. She is happier so," responded Kenneth. "What about your own work, Father Kenneth? I have heard in Massachusetts that you are a great force for public good throughout this region. But tell me of the mines." "I invested much of my fortune _here_," said Kenneth, giving a broad outward sweep of his arm. "Some of the mines are paying large dividends. My fortune has more than doubled. But Arizona has been unfortunate in being infested with dishonest promoters. I am trying to bring about legislation that will protect people from this wholesale robbery." "I suspect you enjoy the fight," laughed the youth. "It has created bitter enemies," said Kenneth, gravely. So talking, they again sought the house, and found Esther and Carla on the veranda. The latter sat where Wathemah could see her delicate profile as she bent over some sewing. Quiet happiness and content had transformed her into a lovely woman. "How beautiful you are, Carla!" said Wathemah, admiringly. He enjoyed her confusion. "Do you remember the day I played truant, Carla, and you found me in the canyon, and made me ashamed of myself?" Did she? He did not notice the shadow over the winsome face. "Do you know, Wathemah," said Esther, "Carla would not remain at college, because she felt I needed her. But she has become an indefatigable student." Later, Wathemah discovered for himself that she really had become a fine student. One day he asked her how she came to study Greek. "Oh," she said, hesitatingly, "I loved Grecian literature, and history, and art. And I had often heard that my father was a fine Greek scholar. So I began by myself. Then I had Sister Esther help me. And after that, it became to me a great delight." They were a merry party that day. All were in fine spirits. In the midst of their talk and laughter, the telephone rang. "Some one for you, Esther," said Kenneth, returning to the veranda. On her return, he looked up questioningly. "The superintendent of education wishes me to give an address before the teachers at Tucson next month," she said, quietly. "And will you do it?" asked Wathemah. "Do it?" echoed Kenneth. "Of course she'll do it! She doesn't know how to say 'no.'" Esther smiled indulgently. "You see, Wathemah, the needs of the new country are great. They would not invite me to lecture so frequently, if they had enough workers. To me, the opportunity to help means obligation to help." "Our Mother Esther has just returned from a conference at Washington, and another in Montana," said Kenneth, "and here she is going off again. The truth is she has become an educational and moral force in the Southwest." "We are glad to share her with all who need her," said Carla, simply. "Yes, lad," added Kenneth, rising, "we are glad she has the power to help." The next morning, they were awakened early by John Harding, calling Wathemah to let him in. Such a meeting as that was! Jack did not seem to know how to behave. The little unkempt lad, untutored, and undisciplined, whom he had known and loved, was gone; and in his place, stood a lithe, graceful, really elegant young man. Jack stood back abashed. _His_ Wathemah, his little Wathemah, was gone. Something got in his throat. He turned aside, and brushed his hand across his cheek. But Wathemah slipped his arm around his neck, and together they tramped off up the mountain for a visit. Then Jack knew that his boy had really come back to him, but developed and disciplined into a man of character and force. That was a gala day for Jack Harding and the Hastings household. No one had ever seen Jack so happy before. Late that afternoon all stood on the veranda. "My little kid," said Jack, laying his hand on Wathemah's shoulder, "I've worked fur ye, prayed fur ye, all the years. And now you've come, now you've come," he kept saying, over and over. "Say, Jack," said Wathemah, "do you remember the time you found me asleep up the canyon, and took up a collection to send me East with Mother Esther?" Jack nodded. "Well, that money, with all that you have since sent me, has been invested for you. And now, Jack, my dear old pard, that money has made you a little fortune. You need work no more." Jack choked. He tried to speak, but turned his face away. Esther slipped her arm through his, and told him she wanted to visit with him. So the two walked up and down the road in front of the house, talking. "We are all so happy over Wathemah," she said. "I know you must be, too. He is really your boy, for you saved him, Jack." Then Jack Harding poured his heart out to her. She understood him, all his struggles, all his great unselfish love for the boy. She knew the pain of his awakening, when he found that the child whom he had loved, whom he had toiled for all these years, needed him no more. It was pathetic to her. "But, Jack dear," she was saying, "I am sure Wathemah will always be a joy to you. Only wait. My heart tells me he has some great purpose. He will tell us in time. When he does, you will want to help him carry out his plans, won't you?" Up and down the veranda, walked Kenneth and Wathemah. Kenneth's hand and arm rested on the youth's shoulder. "Yes, Wathemah," he was saying, "little David's death was a great sorrow to us. He was shot by an unfriendly Indian, you know." For a moment his face darkened. The two walked on in silence. "And Mother Esther?" Wathemah said in a husky tone; "how can she still give her life for the uplift of my people?" "Oh, you know as well as I. She serves a great Master." They talked from heart to heart, as father and son. At last all the household gathered on the veranda to watch the afterglow in the sky. Esther slipped her arm through Wathemah's, and they stood facing the west. "And so my boy is to enter the Indian service," she said. "Yes," he answered. "You know I majored in anthropology and education. My summers among various Indian tribes were to help me know the Indian. My thesis for my doctorate is to be on 'The Education of the Indian in the United States.' When I have my material ready, I'll return to Harvard and remain until I complete my work for my doctorate." "What next, Wathemah?" There was a thrill in Esther's voice. The Indian youth squared his shoulders, lifted his head, and said, as though making a solemn covenant: "The uplift of my race!" And Esther's face was shining. Transcriber's Notes Omission of punctuation and misspellings that appeared to be typesetter errors have been corrected. Slang and colloquialisms in dialogue has been left as it appeared in the original. In this Latin-1 text version, the following substitution system has been used for non-Latin-1 diacritical marks:- [=e] e with Macron [=u] u with Macron [)e] e with Breve There is a Unicode version of the text file which has all diacritical marks as per the original book. In Chapter XV, the Apache makes the statement "N[=e]-sh[=e]-äd-nl[)e]h´" "You be my squaw." This is repeated several times in Chapter XXI. In the original the diacritical marks are typeset differently in the subsequent entries. On the assumption that the first entry is more accurate, all repetitions are changed to agree with the original. In the original there is some dialogue of one sentence that has been typeset across two paragraphs. These have been closed up into the same paragraph to aid reading flow and to maintain consistency. In Chapter XXI (page 250 in the original) there is a line that appears to be out of order. The original reads:- His coming was about as welcome to her as the wolves would be. him. She shook her head, pointed to her ankle, and "N[=e]-sh[=e]-äd-nl[)e]h´," he said, beckoning her to join again tried to climb. Her efforts were futile. Then This has been rearranged as:- His coming was about as welcome to her as the wolves would be. "N[=e]-sh[=e]-äd-nl[)e]h´," he said, beckoning her to join him. She shook her head, pointed to her ankle, and again tried to climb. Her efforts were futile. Then In Chapter XXIV the sentence "The child was given to confidences, especially with her father" has been changed to "especially with her mother" as the reference to father made no contextual sense. 
40277	----	[Illustration: BAH, THE LITTLE INDIAN WEAVER] _The_ LITTLE INDIAN WEAVER BY MADELINE BRANDEIS _Producer of the Motion Pictures_ "The Little Indian Weaver" "The Wee Scotch Piper" "The Little Dutch Tulip Girl" "The Little Swiss Wood-Carver" Distributed by Pathè Exchange, Inc., New York City _Photographic Illustrations by the Author_ GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK _by arrangement with the A. Flanagan Company_ _COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY A. FLANAGAN COMPANY_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To every child of every land, Little sister, little brother, As in this book your lives unfold, May you learn to love each other. CONTENTS Chapter I Page The Corn Ear Doll 9 Chapter II Something Terrible Happens 32 Chapter III At the Trading Post 43 Chapter IV The Prayer Stick 62 Chapter V At Bah's Hogan 75 Chapter VI Billy Starts His Story 88 Chapter VII All About the Indians 101 Chapter VIII Who Wins the Radio? 119 [Illustration: BAH AND CORNELIA] The Little Indian Weaver CHAPTER I THE CORN EAR DOLL How would you like to have a doll made from a corn ear? That is the only kind of doll that Bah ever thought of having. Bah was only five years old and she had never been away from her home, so of course she couldn't know very much. But she knew a bit about weaving blankets, and she was learning more each day from her mother, who made beautiful ones and sold them. You see, Bah and her mother were American Indians, and they belonged to the Navajo tribe. Their home was on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, and they called it an Indian village. But if you went there you would not think it very much of a village in comparison to the villages you know. As a matter of fact, all you could see was a row of funny little round houses, looking very much like large beehives, put together with mud and sticks and called hogans. A street of hogans in each of which lived a whole family of Indians, a few goats and sheep, a stray dog or two, an Indian woman sitting outside her hogan weaving a blanket, perhaps a child running with a dog--this, then, was a Navajo village. [Illustration: THE LITTLE INDIAN WEAVER] How different from your villages with their smooth stone buildings, their stores and gasoline stations, and pretty shrub-covered bungalows! Most Indian women have many babies, and the whole family lives together in one room which is the living room, bedroom, kitchen and dining room all rolled into one. In the top of the hogan is a hole, so that the smoke from the cooking fire in the middle of the room can go out. Bah did not spend much time in her hogan. No sooner was she up in the morning than she was outside gathering sticks for the breakfast fire. From the time she put her little brown face outside the hogan door, bright and early in the morning, until nightfall when she cuddled down in her warm Navajo blanket, she was out in the air--and the air is so fresh out there in the desert; so much fresher than it is in the big smoky cities. Bah was a bright-eyed, healthy little girl, and the way she dressed will sound queer to you, for her clothes were made just like her mother's. On rainy days you have no doubt "dressed up" in mother's clothes and thought it quite a lark. But when the game was over, how glad you were to come back to your own little dresses and short socks. But Bah had always dressed in the same way--and that is, in a long full cotton skirt, a calico waist with long sleeves, and many strings of bright beads about her neck. Her hair was long, black and shiny, and her mother tied it up in a knot at the back of her neck with a white cloth. Every morning Bah had a lesson in weaving, just as you have a drawing lesson or a sewing lesson. Her father had made her a tiny loom which stood outside the hogan door next to her mother's big loom. The morning when Bah planned the corn ear doll she was in the midst of her weaving lesson. Mother's fingers were flying in and out, and Bah's fingers were slow--oh, so slow, but her mind was not. Her mind was at work on a doll. She had once seen the picture of a doll, a real one. It was such a lovely doll! She wanted to cuddle it. How she would love to hug a doll close to her and rock it to sleep! The corn was ripe in the field which was not far away. After the lesson she would pick an ear of corn, dry it nicely and dress it in a wee Indian blanket. She would make some beads for its neck. She would stick in two black beads for eyes. She would-- "Bah! you do not heed the lesson!" It was Mother. And Mother was scolding. There were few times in Bah's life when she could remember Mother having been cross. Bah was at once attentive. "I am sorry, Ma Shima (my mother)," she said, in the Navajo language. "I was dreaming of something sweet." "It is bad medicine to dream when one is awake, Bah," said Mother. "You will never learn to weave--and a Navajo woman who cannot weave blankets is indeed a useless one." Bah hung her head in shame. But Mother laughed. "Do not look that way, my little one, but try now to make the little pattern which I teach you." Bah did try. She had to rip out several rows of bad weaving caused by her dreams of her corn ear doll. But not once, until the lesson was over, did Bah think again of the doll. The weaving lesson was at last over, and Bah ran quickly to the cornfield, where she began to look eagerly for a proper ear of corn with which to make a proper Indian doll. As she was looking through the many waving stalks, she thought she heard her name being called. But was it her name, and was it being called? It sounded more like singing than like calling--and Mother did not sing. "Bah, Bah, Black Sheep Have you any wool?" This is what Bah heard. She stopped in her search and looked around. There, a few yards away, was some one coming towards her on a pony. Bah's first thought was to run. She did not want to meet a stranger. So few came here to her home, where the only people the little girl ever saw were Mother, Father, and the few Indians who lived nearby. White people were mysterious to Bah, and yet she often wondered about the white children and how they played and worked and what they did all day in school. Bah would go to school next year--to the big new school just built on the Reservation for Indian children. White people built it, and so it must be like the white children's school. Sometimes she longed to go--and other times she was just a little bit afraid. "Yes, sir, yes, sir, Three bags full." The pony which Bah had seen from a distance was now standing beside her, and she could see the rider, although he could not see her, for she had hidden and was crouching between the cornstalks. [Illustration: BAH'S HOME] The rider was a very small person--a boy--a white boy. Bah really didn't feel as though he should be classified as white, for his skin was a mixture of orange and brown--orange where the sun had burned him, and over that a pattern of vivid brown freckles. Bah had never before seen anything like him, and it is no wonder that the timid little Indian hid herself. The speckled boy took off his large cowboy hat and wiped his hot brow with a cowboy's handkerchief. "Gee, it's hot, Peanuts," he said aloud to the pony. "And I'd like to know the way back--but looks as if we're lost." Peanuts was presumably bored, for he let his head sink slowly, closed his eyes and patiently waited for the next move. None came. Bah, in her hiding place, was as dumb, if not as bored, as Peanuts. She was tense with excitement, which obviously Peanuts was not, and did not take her eyes from the boy's face. His every move very much interested her. Here, then, was a white boy. He must be white, for he was not an Indian and he spoke English. Bah understood English, and of that she was very proud. Her mother and father had always traded with the white man, so they had learned to speak English, and had wisely taught their little girl. Now how much easier it would be for Bah when she started to school. But her knowledge did not help her at the moment when she looked up from her cornstalk hiding place into the face of a live white boy. Indeed she had even decided to run away, and was crawling noiselessly through the corn. "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep," again the boy began to sing as he started to turn away. Bah stopped crawling. He did sing her name. He wanted her to come back. Maybe she could help him find his way. And Oh! the pony was stepping all over the corn. Didn't he know better than to do that? The cornstalks rustled. The pony jumped to the side, and the boy turned in his saddle and saw Bah standing. "Oh, hello!" he said and turned back--the pony trampling upon a beautiful stalk of corn. "I didn't see you before. Where were you?" Bah couldn't speak. She tried ever so hard, but the English words she knew so well would not come. The boy jumped down from his pony and went up to her. There was a smile on his face and as he came closer she saw that his eyes were as blue as the sky. That part of him was pretty, thought Bah, even if his skin was not--and the smile was friendly. So she gained courage. "You call my name?" she ventured. The boy looked puzzled. "No," he said, "I don't know your name, but I'm glad I've found you." Again he smiled, and this time Bah smiled too. "My name Bah," she said, "and you say 'Bah, Bah, back skip'--I think you call me come back to you." When it suddenly dawned upon the boy what she meant he opened his mouth very wide indeed and laughed so hard that Bah again began to be afraid. But he stopped suddenly, realizing perhaps that he had frightened her, and said: "Oh, no. That is a song we sing about 'black sheep' that goes 'bah bah'! I didn't know you heard me singing it." Bah looked a bit ashamed, and did not offer a reply. The boy kept on talking-- "But, gee, where do you come from, Bah? Is your house around here?" "Yes," said Bah. "Hogan over way, Bah come to find corn in cornfield." "Oh, I see," said the boy, "for dinner, I guess." "No," replied the Indian girl, looking up into his face, "Bah make so pretty doll from corn ear. Will dress in blanket and beads. You ever see little girl's doll?" She looked so intent and innocent that the boy could not scoff at what would have been, among members of his own group at home, a subject entirely forbidden in the presence of growing gentlemen. Dolls! What interest had he in dolls! But as he looked into the upturned face of the little brown maiden, he suddenly realized that she had never heard of a boy's dislike for dolls; in fact, she had probably never before met a white boy nor seen a white doll. "Oh, yes, plenty of 'em," answered the white boy, "but never made of an ear of corn--" Then, seeing a shadow pass over her face he resumed gallantly, "But it ought to make a peach of a doll. Maybe I could help you make it." Now Bah was certain that she would like the white boy. She had never before had a human playmate, and the feeling was a pleasant one. But she remembered that her new friend was lost. "You no can find way home?" she asked. The boy laughed. "I guess you want to get rid of me," he said. Then, sobering, he resumed. "Yes, really, I'm lost. Peanuts and I have been wandering all morning. You see, we started from Tuba early and we just didn't watch the trails, so here we are." "Oh, Tuba," said Bah, "not so very far. I show you how to go." "But first I'll help you fix up a corn doll," said the boy. "We'll first have to find a good fat corn ear. Nice fat dolls are the best, don't you think so?" As he talked he began looking through the cornstalks, and Bah watched him. He finally found what he considered to be an ideal ear, and together the two children made it into a doll, black bead eyes, cornsilk hair, blanket, and all. "I have just the name for her," said the boy. "We'll call her 'Cornelia!' Shall we?" Bah nodded happily. The name was a new one to her and she did not catch its meaning in relation to her beautiful new doll, but it pleased her nevertheless. In fact, everything about the boy pleased her, and she was sorry when at last he said: [Illustration: BAH AND CORNELIA] "It must be getting late. You'd better tell me how to get home. Mother will wonder what happened." Bah pointed out directions and the boy, thanking her, held out his hand and said: "You never even asked my name. Don't you want to know?" Bah drooped her head shyly as she replied: "Indian never ask name. Very bad manner." The white boy's eyes opened wide. "That's funny," he said. "Then how do you get to know people's names?" "When one people like other people, they tell name. No ask," said Bah seriously. "Oh, then I'll tell you quick 'cause I like you. My name's Billy." Bah did not reply, but stood watching Billy as he swung himself onto his pony. Then, when he was seated and smiled down at her, she smiled up sweetly and said: "We have cow named Billy." [Illustration: BILLY] CHAPTER II SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAPPENS For days Bah's chief delight was her new corn ear doll. She kept it with her constantly. It went to bed with her, sat at meals with her, and watched the daily weaving lesson. But one day a terrible thing happened. She was sitting by her mother's side outside the hogan, her little fingers flying through the strings of her loom, and one eye watching Mother's more experienced fingers as they made a beautiful new pattern. Cornelia had been carefully dressed in her blanket, her beads hung about her neck and fondly kissed by her devoted parent, and was now lying at Bah's feet while the little girl worked hard at her lesson. [Illustration: THE WEAVING LESSON] "Pull your wool tighter, Bah," said Mother, in Navajo. Bah's fingers and tongue worked together. Children's tongues have a habit of moving with whatever else is in motion. And as Bah worked, some sheep came wandering in from the field. They were tame sheep and often nosed about the hogan for a bit of human company or food, as the case might be, and this morning I fear the reason was food. Father sheep was very large and therefore hungrier than the rest. His hunger made him bold. But Bah was a particular friend of his, and I doubt whether even his appetite could have driven him to do what he did that morning, had he been able to guess the great sorrow he was to cause. "You have left out a stitch, my child, and there will be a hole in the work." Bah's fingers stopped and so did her tongue. "Oh dear, must I do that all over again, Mother?" she asked. "If you wish to weave perfectly so that you may some day sell your work, then you must learn to rip and go over many times." Ripping is deadly work, as everyone who has ever ripped knows. And Bah was not as interested in ripping as she had been in making her pattern. So her thoughts naturally turned to her precious Cornelia lying at her feet. Her eyes turned at the same time, and horror upon horrors, what did she see? The big black sheep was there chewing contentedly, but Cornelia was gone. The little blanket was there--so were the beads and some of the cornsilk hair. But Cornelia was gone. The sheep went on chewing and couldn't understand why Bah did not caress him as usual. "Bah, do pay attention to your work!" Mother was annoyed. Bah turned around and Mother saw a very sad sight. She saw before her another mother--a stricken little mother whose child had just provided a meal for a hungry animal. She rocked an empty blanket back and forth, and the tears were beginning to gather. Mother understood what had happened, and now her voice sounded soft and kind. [Illustration: "GO AWAY, MR. SHEEP!"] "Poor Bah! Your doll is gone!" The little girl was crying as she continued to hug the empty blanket. "Do not cry, my little one," said Mother. "Are there not many more corn ears in the field?" "Yes, my Mother," sobbed the child, "but no more Cornelias!" And that was final. Never again could Bah go back to the cornfield. Never again! How could Mother even have suggested such a thing! Didn't she know that Cornelia, since the day of her birth, had been different from all other ears of corn? Why, Cornelia was a doll--she and Billy had decided that--and the rest were vegetables! Oh, didn't Mother understand? Perhaps Mother did, for her next remark showed it. "One day, Bah, when I went to the Trading Post near Tuba I saw a most beautiful doll. She was an Indian baby--a papoose--and she was strapped upon the prettiest little laced baby cradle you ever saw. She was dressed in a bright blanket and she had real hair and such lovely beads around her neck." A smile was trying to chase away the tears on the face of the little mother as she listened to her own mother's recital of something too wonderful to imagine. She said sorrowfully: "Some white child will buy her, and how happy she will be. Ah, how I should like to have her." Mother said: "And so you shall, if you will work to have her." Bah's eyes asked the question: "How?" and her mother went on: "You know, Bah, that Mother sells or trades blankets, and that Father sells or trades his beautiful silver and matrix jewelry to the Trading Post. We do this so that we may have, in return, things which we want and need. Now, you want and need a little doll. Why not sell your work? Bah must weave a little blanket and take it to the store where they will perhaps trade with you for the papoose doll." "Do you really think they will, Ma Shima?" asked Bah as if she could hardly believe it, and she wiped away her tears. [Illustration: HOW BAH LONGED FOR THE PAPOOSE DOLL!] "Yes, I do," answered Mother. "But your blanket must be well made and of a pretty pattern--else they will not take it, for they, in turn, must sell it to the tourists." "Then I shall make the most beautiful blanket which has ever been made," laughed Bah, now thoroughly interested in her new task with its wonderful object. She worked all through the morning on her little blanket, with happy thoughts of a real-haired Indian doll flying through her mind as her fingers flew through her work. It was not until she heard Mother grinding the corn for lunch that she looked up, and not until then that she thought again of the morning's sorrow. But then she did think of it, and her parents wondered why she could not eat her corn bread. CHAPTER III AT THE TRADING POST Billy's mother and father had come to Arizona for a special reason. Billy's father was a writer, and he had come for information on the Navajo Indians for a new book he was writing. Every day he would go to the Indian villages, sit among the big chiefs and medicine men (who are the wise ones among the Indians and are supposed to work charms which cure the sick) and he would jot down in his notebook many things which they told him. Billy went with his father the first few days, but he didn't care much for the way they sat around and did nothing but talk. Billy was a very active boy and he soon grew tired of listening to the droning voices of the Indian men, and the scratching of Father's pencil. At last he told Father how it was, and Father laughed. "I thought you were going to write, too, Billy," he said. "You'll never find out about the Indians if you don't take the trouble to listen--and then you'll never win that composition contest you've been dreaming about." It was true that Billy, since he had left New York, had dreamed of nothing else but the composition contest. Many of his friends at home were already struggling with their compositions, for the prize was worth striving for--a wonderful radio set, the very latest model. [Illustration: "I TRADE MY BLANKET FOR PAPOOSE DOLL!"] And how the others had envied him, for he was to go to Arizona and live among the Indians where he would be sure to learn so much of interest and send in a true account of the lives of American Indians. The contest was open to any composition dealing with children of any particular race or country, and was to reveal their habits and customs. "Oh! You'll win it easily, Bill," his chum had said. "Indians are such interesting people, and you'll find out all about them if you stick to your dad." And Billy had been fired with ambition, when he had left, and when he had first arrived. But the novelty of the idea was gradually wearing off and he seemed to like far more to gallop over the country on his pony, Peanuts, than to glean knowledge. Especially since his meeting with Bah did he look forward each morning to his ride. And each day he tried to find the Indian girl and went many times to the cornfield. But she was never there and, try as he might, Billy could not find her village. Father did not wait for Billy to answer him, but said: "Well, old man, I can see the radio set gradually taking wings and broadcasting itself! You'll never win it this way, you know--and you'd have a good chance, too, if you'd come along and listen to some of the old fellows I'm chumming with each day." "Oh, I'll come along tomorrow, Dad," said Billy carelessly. "Today I'm going to the Trading Post and see the Indian stuff there." "Well, do as you like, Son," said his father, "but don't be annoyed if you don't win the contest." "I'll write something yet, Dad, you'll see." Peanuts and Billy found themselves at the Trading Post in the heat of the day. Billy tied the pony in the shade and went into the store. It was filled with a mixed assortment of objects. On one side of the room were groceries, pots and pans, cigarettes, in fact a little bit of everything necessary for housekeeping. On the other side were the Indian curios--silver and matrix jewelry, beautifully fashioned with blue stones set in, handsome Navajo blankets hanging on the wall, pottery of all kinds, and beads, beads, beads. Billy wandered about the store and he thought of his mother, and how she would like something to take home as a souvenir. The beads looked hopeful, as he could carry them, while a pottery jar or blanket would be big and heavy. Taking from his pocket his two dollars and some few cents, he selected the string of beads which looked most likely. One string in particular very much pleased him. It was delicately made, but looked simple enough to be within reach of his two dollars. The shop-keeper was chewing tobacco in the corner. He was a white man made brown by the Arizona sun and wind. "How much is this string?" asked Billy, holding it up for the man to see. "That one's fifty dollars!" "Fifty what?" asked Billy, dazed. "Fifty dollars, Son," repeated the man, "and that's one of the cheapest." "Gee whiz," sighed Billy. "I'm out with my two an' a quarter!" "Yes," smiled the man. "No one knows how much work the Injuns put into that stuff. It's all handmade, and their tools ain't so good either, so it takes 'em a long time. But they sure know how to make 'em." "You bet they do," said Billy--and just then his eye fell on a doll, a papoose it was, with a blanket and a string of beads. He thought of Cornelia and smiled to himself. How Bah would open her eyes if she could see this one! As he was thinking about her, he suddenly decided to try once more to find her. Maybe this storekeeper knew where the village was. He asked--the storekeeper knew of several not far away. "The Indians come in every day with things to trade. It's funny how they like plain stuff like beans and salt and will trade beautiful jewelry and blankets for just plain sacks of food. But we try and treat 'em fair. It would be easy though to cheat 'em. They don't know how valuable their stuff is." "But you don't!" said Billy. "No, we don't. Indians are honest, and white men should treat 'em honestly!" "That's right," said Billy, thinking of the only Indian he ever knew, and deciding to be off in search of her home. As he stepped out of the door he saw a small figure trudging along towards the Trading Post with what looked like a small blanket thrown over her arm. As she came closer he recognized Bah and ran to meet her. "Gee, I'm glad to see you, Bah," he cried. "Do you know I've been looking for you ever since the day we made Cornelia. Do you remember?" Bah was smiling happily, but upon mention of that name her face fell. "Why, what's the matter, Bah? Wasn't she a good doll?" "Cornelia ate up!" said Bah, slowly. "Ate up what?" asked Billy. "Sheep--big one--" "Gee, what an appetite she must have had!" laughed Billy. But seeing that his friend was taking the conversation seriously he stopped laughing and asked: "What do you mean?" "Big sheep come--very hungry. Eat up Cornelia!" "Aw, that is too bad!" said Billy. But now it was Bah's turn to smile. She held out her blanket and said: "You see Bah's blanket. Bah come to trade blanket for doll in Trading Post. So pretty doll, Ma Shima said!" Billy remembered the papoose doll and was delighted to think that it would really belong to his friend. "That's great," he said. "May I go along with you while you trade? I never saw anyone trade and I'd like to watch you." "Me never trade before," said the Indian girl softly, and it seemed to Billy that her voice trembled. "Poor little kid," he said to himself. "She's scared stiff!" He went into the store with Bah and watched her as she walked up to the man in the corner and handed him the blanket. Then she pointed to the doll--but she said nothing. The man took the blanket and examined it. He knew immediately what she wanted. He understood Indians. And as he looked at the blanket a smile passed over his face, and Billy noticed for the first time that the blanket was far from perfect. There was a hole in it, and some of the threads were sticking out. Oh, it was not a very well made blanket when one compared it with the works of art hanging on the wall. As the man smiled to himself Billy's anger rose. Wasn't she only a little girl? How could they expect her to weave as well as the women did? It was wonderful that she could do that well! Why, he didn't know a girl at home who could even start to weave a blanket like that. He felt his fists clenching together as he watched the man's face. At last the man spoke. He spoke only two words as he handed Bah her blanket. "No trade." The Indian girl looked at him for a moment, and Billy saw two small lakes in her eyes. She did not wait for them to overflow, but ran out of the store, holding her little blanket tight. Billy came to himself after she had flown through the door, and made a start as though to follow her. But he stopped and turned. [Illustration: "PRETTY PAPOOSE DOLL."] "How much is that doll, mister?" he asked abruptly. "That doll's two an' a half, Son." "Well, I'll give you two twenty-five for her, an' that's all," said a voice that Billy could hardly believe was his own, so big and manly did it sound. The man looked at him for a moment and then evidently seeing something he liked in the boy's eyes, said: "All right, sonny. It's yours. And you can bet that Indian kid will never forget you!" Without another word the boy paid his money, took the doll which the man wrapped for him, and departed. Outside the Post, when Billy mounted his pony, his thought was, naturally, to go to Bah and deliver the doll. The distress which he had seen in the eyes of his little friend made him realize just what a disappointment she had had. But, alas, Billy knew no more of Bah's whereabouts than he had known before seeing her at the Trading Post. The man had said that there were three or four small Indian villages nearby, but the question was in which one did Bah live? He jumped down again from his pony and ran into the store: "Say, Mister, do you know where that little girl lives?" he asked. "No," came the answer. "I never saw her before. The old folks seldom bring their kids when they come to trade. Anyway not into the Post. They leave 'em outside most times to watch the burro." So a period of searching began for Billy. That day he visited one of the villages. He looked at each hogan for Bah, and asked the Indians he met, but she did not live there. They all shook their heads and grunted when he asked: "Bah, little girl, live here?" It was very discouraging because he couldn't tell whether they had even understood him. It grew late and he had to hurry home for fear of worrying his parents. The next day he started out early, determined to try the other villages, and he left a puzzled father, who remarked to his wife as the boy disappeared on a fast gallop: [Illustration: BILLY RIDING THROUGH THE INDIAN VILLAGE] "Bill isn't taking the interest in the Indians I had hoped he would." But Mother smiled wisely. "He's getting brown and strong, though," she answered, "and that's better." CHAPTER IV THE PRAYER STICK Bah was making a prayer stick. The prayer stick is an old custom among the Indians, and every Indian child knows about it. But Bah had never wanted anything badly enough to try the charm. Now, it was the only thing left for her to do. She took the branch of a tree, a straight branch which she cleaned, and then she took the feather of an eagle. She tied the feather to the end of the stick with a bit of wool from her loom. She wrapped the wool around and around, and when the feather was secure in place she made a hole in the ground and put the other end of the stick into the hole. The stick stood up straight and the feather on top of it waved slightly in the breeze. [Illustration: THE PRAYER STICK] Bah stood over her handiwork, raised her two arms skyward and prayed: "Oh, Prayer Stick," she chanted in Navajo, "please take my prayer to the sky on this eagle's feather! My prayer is for a doll!" Now, you may think that Bah was idol-worshipping--that she didn't know better than to pray to a stick and a feather! But this was not the case. She knew very well that it was the Great Father who saw and heard all, but her ancestors had all used the eagle feather to convey to the Great Father their prayers and to tell Him their needs. It was only a method of reaching her God. When her people wanted the rain to fall they danced the great Eagle Dance for rain, and the Great Father saw and understood. This prayer of Bah's was only her way of asking what you would no doubt ask with your eyes closed and your hands folded together. She did not know that she was being watched. As she started her prayer, Billy had approached the hogan. His first thought had been to call to her, but somehow he had felt that what she was doing was not to be interrupted, so he stopped. It was not his intention to listen secretly to something he had no right to hear. But as he stopped, she prayed so loudly that he could not help hearing and, anyway, she did not seem to care for she went on and on, regardless of the fact that she was out in broad daylight, in front of her hogan, and anyone might pass before her door. The prayer was repeated, and it was not until she had recited it many times that she lowered her arms and with them her gaze from the heavens, and beheld the white boy standing a few yards away. He stood holding his pony's bridle with one hand, and the other hand was behind his back. He looked at her questioningly and then at the Prayer Stick, whose feather was waving back and forth. Bah smiled and said: "I make this prayer stick to pray for doll." [Illustration: "THEN BAH GIVE IT TO YOU."] It was hard for the boy to grasp her meaning, for he knew so little about the Indians and their queer customs. However, he smiled back at her and, keeping his hand behind him, asked: "Where is the blanket you made, Bah?" "You like to see?" she questioned sweetly. "Yes, please," said Billy. Bah went towards the hogan and took from a nail the blanket she had failed to sell. It was hanging on the outside wall of the hogan, a proof that it was appreciated here if not at the Trading Post. Bah brought it over and held it up for Billy to see. "You like?" she asked innocently, cocking her head on one side like a little sparrow. "I like very much, Bah," answered Billy eagerly. "I like to--" Bah did not allow him to finish his sentence, but, starting to drape the blanket about his shoulders, she smilingly said: "Then Bah give to you!" The boy stood amazed while the little Indian girl patted the blanket into place on his shoulders. She was giving him the blanket which she had tried so hard to trade. It was really spoiling everything for him. He had hoped to make quite a dramatic scene out of the trade, and the doll was to be a genuine surprise. Now it looked as though Bah had forgotten the doll and even the blanket, for she gave it up so easily and was standing in front of him smiling sweetly. "I'll trade you something for the blanket, Bah," he began. "Oh, no--Bah give--no trade!" It was settled. Billy could see that by the look in her eyes. He brought forth his package. "Then Billy will give Bah this," he exclaimed, holding out the bundle to her. Solemnly Bah looked into his face. Her eyes seemed to ask many questions but she said nothing. Billy understood. He tore the string, undid the package, and the girl's eyes never left his face. It was as though she had guessed what was there. She looked down and beheld in his hands--the doll! Her mouth opened and she formed only the word "Oh"--Billy put the papoose doll into her arms. Slowly and solemnly she kissed it. Then, turning quickly she ran to her mother who was weaving in the accustomed place-- "Ma Shima, oh, Ma Shima! The papoose doll! She is mine. The Great Father has sent her!" [Illustration: "AND BILLY GIVE BAH THIS."] It was all in Navajo and Billy did not understand. He watched her as she sat down beside her mother and held up her new treasure. He heard her mother emit sounds, though he could hardly see her lips moving. Had he been able to understand Navajo he would have heard some very sweet and happy words. Then Bah's mother looked over at Billy. She beckoned him to come and he came. Her black, beady eyes followed him until he stood before her. He did not know what to think of the smile she gave him. Was it friendly, or was she mocking him? Billy had never before met an Indian woman, and he was puzzled by the black eyes so deep and mysterious. Billy found himself staring, and was suddenly aware of himself standing before a lady with his hat on. He doffed his sombrero and in doing so he smiled. Bah's mother smiled back, and said in a musical voice, "Sit down." [Illustration: BAH AND THE PAPOOSE DOLL] He sat beside her. Bah was on her other side, absorbed in her doll. Billy smiled into the face of the Indian woman and she put her arm about him and said: "White boy good friend to Indian!" [Illustration: "WHITE BOY GOOD FRIEND TO INDIAN!"] CHAPTER V AT BAH'S HOGAN "Why do you call her 'Bah?' Is it because she watches the sheep?" Billy was asking many questions of Bah's mother and he found her anxious and ready to answer him. She had already told him her name, which showed that she liked him, and Billy was pleased. He wanted to hear many things about this family, especially about his little friend, Bah. Her mother shook her head. "No, not why. I tell you story why we call her Bah." And this is what Bah's Mother told Billy: Many Indians name their babies in this way: Soon after the baby is born, the mother straps it to the baby cradle and goes to the door of her hogan--what she first sees as she looks out upon the world, is what she calls her newborn. If she sees a running deer--then the baby is called "Running Deer." If her first glance falls upon a lazy bull, resting himself, the baby will bear the name of "Sitting Bull." [Illustration: WHEN BAH WAS A PAPOOSE] Then, there is another way of naming the Indian baby, and this is the way Bah was named. When she was a wee papoose, her mother would make the bread and set her down beside the stone oven where she could watch from her baby cradle. As you perhaps know, the Indian baby cradle is very plain, and simply made. It is only a board upon which the baby is strapped until he is able to walk. The Indians have some very good reasons for doing this. They wish to train children to be uncomfortable and not to cry. Strapped as they are to this board, they are only able to move their hands and must lie straight and stiff. This is also the reason why all Indians are so straight. Then the Indian mother's mind is at rest, when she can have her baby securely tied in the cradle, strapped to her back, or if she puts him down any place she knows that he is safe. She can hang him on the wall while she works, which was what Bah's mother did when she made the bread. Now, bread in Navajo is "Bah," and this is how they make it. First, they take some corn and put it into a hollow stone. With another stone they smash the corn until it is fine. They then mix it with water, knead it and flatten it into small flat cakes which look like pancakes. It then goes into the big stone oven, which is always out of doors, and when it is cooked it is taken out and placed on a cool stone. At this point Bah, who you see was at that time only a papoose, would cry and reach out her little hands for some "Bah". As soon as Mother would put a crisp piece into her little hand she would stop crying and chew on it contentedly. So they called her "Bah" because she cried for bread. "So your name is 'Bread!' That's a nice name. And I'm so hungry that I could eat you now!" said Billy, rising to his feet and making a pretense at biting. [Illustration: BAH GETS HER NAME] Bah laughed and hid her face behind the new doll. Mother chuckled to herself, as Indians do when they are amused. Then she said: "I make some real 'Bah' for you." "Oh, that would be fine!" said the boy. Then, realizing that he had practically asked for it, he hung his head and added: "But don't do it if it's too much trouble." The remark seemed to amuse the Indian woman, for she chuckled again as she arose, but she did not answer him. Instead, she began to prepare for the making of the bread. Billy watched the process with great interest, and ate with even more interest when it was finished. The Bah was delicious, he thought. It tasted like--no, it didn't taste like anything Billy had ever eaten before. After having done justice to the new food, the boy was shown in and about the hogan by his little friend. She took him to her "play hogan." It was made for her by her father and was just like the one they lived in, except that it was only large enough for one child to fit into. "We could have lots of fun here, Bah. I'd like to come again and play with you. May I?" Billy asked. "Yes, come much," answered Bah happily. "And we'll play that I'm an Indian Chief and you are the Indian Mother, and the doll--oh, we haven't named the doll yet, have we?" said Billy. "No, doll no name yet," said Bah. "Well, let's see, how shall we do it?" Billy mused. "Suppose you come out of your play hogan and look around. The first thing you see will be what we'll name her." "Yes, I do," said Bah--and obediently she entered the small hogan. "Now come out, but close your eyes," called Billy. Out came the little girl, holding her papoose doll. She stood, with closed eyes, in the door of her hogan, and waited for further instructions. "Open your eyes!" called the boy, "and tell me what you see!" Bah's eyes opened slowly, dramatically. Her head was raised and as she looked she saw a bluebird in a tree. Billy followed her gaze and saw what she did. [Illustration: NAMING THE PAPOOSE DOLL] "How lucky!" thought he, "Now the child will have a beautiful name!" But Bah looked down at her baby and smilingly said: "Bah name you 'Doli'." Billy was horribly disappointed. "Oh, listen, Bah. Don't do that! Why every girl calls a doll 'dolly.' That's common--name her 'Bluebird.' You saw one, didn't you?" Bah was still smiling as she said: "Yes, I see and I name papoose 'Bluebird' in Navajo--that is 'Doli'." A grin spread from one of Billy's ears to the other. "That's the time you fooled me!" said he. They were laughing over Bah's joke when they saw some one coming towards them. "My father come home," cried Bah, and ran to meet him. As he came nearer Billy saw that he was very tall and very straight. He wore white trousers tied below the knees with red ribbons, a sash about his waist, and many beads hanging from his neck. His hair was long and tied in the back, much the same as Bah's, with a white cloth. He came over and held out his hand to Billy. He said: "I hear you good to little Bah. Me Bah's father." Billy was thrilled to shake the hand of such a fine big Indian, and to find that he was treating him as a friend. "He Big Chief," said Bah proudly. "Oh, are you a Big Chief?" asked the boy. A thought began to flicker through his mind. He would surprise his father--his father who was hobnobbing daily with Big Chiefs and Medicine Men, and who thought Billy was wasting his time. He wouldn't say a word to Father, but he'd begin tonight and he'd write a story, all about Bah, her mother and her father, the Big Chief. He'd come back again tomorrow and learn more from them, for hadn't Bah said "Come much"--which meant he was welcome. "Well, I have had such a good time with Bah--Mr.-a-a" "My name 'Fighting Bull,'" said the brave (as Indian men are called). "I know why you're called Fighting Bull," said Billy, sagely. "One time when you were little your Mother must have seen a bull fight!" CHAPTER VI BILLY STARTS HIS STORY The next morning found Billy fully dressed and ready to leave before his parents were even awake. He could hardly wait for them to be astir and as soon as he heard his mother's step in her room he knocked at the door. Mother opened it and stood amazed. "Why, Billy--at this hour! What do you mean?" "I'm going out, Mother, and I didn't want to leave before you were awake." "But, dear, you can't go so early, and without your breakfast." "Oh, that's all right. Peanuts and I will go to the Trading Post and get breakfast. You see, Mother, I have to--" Just then there came a growl from within the room. It came from Father. "What is the commotion? And at such an hour! Billy, what's the excitement?" "Nothing, Father--only it's such a fine morning and I want a ride." "Let him go, Mother. He is only keeping me from my hard-earned rest. When one works one needs sleep. Billy will never need it!" Billy was sharp enough to understand his father's words and, smiling shrewdly to himself, he clutched a paper which reposed in his pocket, but he only called out, "Goodby, Father." His mother kissed him with the parting words: "Do be careful, Billy, and don't go too far." "No further than usual, Mother," answered Billy. And then, afraid that Mother might ask something, he ran off, waving his hand and sighing a deep sigh of relief. Billy had spent some restless hours during the night, thinking about the story he was to write. As he was only a little boy and couldn't write very well, and as this was his very first story, he was a little bit afraid of the results. But the determination to surprise Father and Mother had grown within him ever since the idea had come to him yesterday at Bah's home. Father thought Billy couldn't do it! Well, he'd show him! He'd listen while Mrs. Fighting Bull told him things, and hadn't he already learned lots about them? [Illustration: BAH'S MOTHER WEAVING NAVAJO BLANKET] In fact, he'd started his story! He'd started it with a poem (at least he thought it a poem) and that is what he clutched in his pocket when Father chided him. He was going to show it to Bah and her mother. He was going to ask them what they thought of it and he was going to tell them all about the contest, and how he'd planned to win the radio without telling his parents! How astonished they'd be, and how Father would stare when he saw the radio arrive with his son's name engraved thereon-- "Winner of Composition Contest." His dreams accompanied Billy all the way to the Trading Post. There he had a hurried breakfast of milk and crackers, allowed Peanuts to graze a bit in the clover, and after buying some funny chocolates in the forms of objects, animals, birds and fishes which he thought would amuse Bah, he was off in search of his new-made friends--and information. [Illustration: BAH'S FATHER STRETCHING A SKIN] Upon arriving at the hogan he found Bah's mother already seated at her loom. Fighting Bull was stretching a goat's skin outside the hogan door. After greeting the Indians, Billy looked around for Bah. She was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Bah?" he asked of her mother. The woman shook her head, the usual amused smile playing over her features. "Not here." The Indians had not seemed particularly pleased to see him, he thought, and his heart was beginning to sink. But then Bah's mother pointed towards the play hogan. "Over there. She play mother and papoose. See?" With these words, Mrs. Fighting Bull laughed out loud, a sort of chuckle it was, but nevertheless she did laugh, and Billy felt reassured. He looked and saw Bah. She was emerging from her play hogan, and there was something on her back. He couldn't tell what it was, but as she approached he saw that it was a large board with a blanket strapped around it. Something was in the blanket, and that something was heavy, too, for Bah was obviously weighted down. "What's that?" asked Billy, puzzled. "That my papoose," laughed Bah, and turning her back towards Billy he saw, strapped cozily to the papoose cradle, a baby sheep! It was bleating, "Baa, Baa--" [Illustration: BAH'S PAPOOSE] "He knows your name," laughed Billy, stroking the small woolly head. Bah sat down with her burden on her back and Billy sat beside her. The Indian mother continued to smile to herself as she went on weaving. "Me glad you come," said Bah, smiling her friendly smile. "Are you?" questioned Billy. "I couldn't wait to get here. You know, I've started to write a story--a real story like Father writes. It's going to be all about you!" "Me?" the little girl pointed to herself. She realized that this was something important, for the white boy was excited and although the affair was very vague to her, she mustered up the enthusiasm necessary. "I've written a poem to start it with. Want to hear it?" "Oh, yes," Bah's eyes grew big. Just what a poem was didn't matter. It was important to know that Billy had written one. So he read-- "Bah, Bah Indian girl, Have you any bread? Yes sir, yes sir, That's what I was fed. When I was a papoose I cried to my ma, So she gave me bread, And now my name is 'Bah'!" There was a loud explosion from the corner where Mrs. Fighting Bull was weaving. Billy's face grew red. Mrs. Fighting Bull was laughing at him. Oh, now he knew he must have done something wrong! The Indian woman composed herself and beckoning the boy over, she said: "You write good words. Tell me more." Billy had a great deal to learn about Indians; he was beginning to realize that. Evidently Bah's mother was kindly disposed towards him but she had a queer way of laughing at everything, which was hard for Billy to understand. Still, he thought, it was better to laugh at everything than to be cross and angry. Mrs. Fighting Bull was a jolly woman, that was all, and Billy moved up close to her and smiled up into her face. "Gee, I'm glad you like it. I thought, when you laughed, you were making fun of me. You see, I never wrote anything before, and this story has just got to be good, because----" And then he told Bah and her mother of his desire to win the contest and the prize attached to it. "You like I tell you more?" asked the Indian woman. "That's just what I'd like to have you do, if you would," answered the boy writer. "Well, I tell you." With no more ado, Mrs. Fighting Bull started talking as Billy sat and listened to her words. CHAPTER VII ALL ABOUT THE INDIANS The Navajo Indians live in hogans. That, you already have heard--and you know what a hogan looks like. But all Indian tribes do not use the same kind of dwelling places. The Pueblo, Hopi and other peaceful tribes live in what are called pueblos. They are houses built of adobe and they are built to resemble a child's stone blocks when he has piled one on top of the other. To reach the top of a pueblo one must climb the ladders which are set up against the outside of the building. The Pueblo villages are different from the Navajo villages. They are composed of long rows of these pinkish adobe block houses, and the Indian tribes who live therein are, as I have said, peaceful. Can you imagine why, being as they are of a peaceful nature, these tribes build as they do? It is so that they can be protected from warlike tribes, in their many storied houses. Then, too, the tribes which build pueblos do not wander, as the warlike tribes do. The pueblos are stationary, and they are built to be permanent homes. They are built, mainly, by the women and children, who do all the manual work--while the men often sit at home weaving garments and knitting stockings. [Illustration: THE PIPE OF PEACE] The tepees are the abode of warlike Indians, such as the Sioux, Apaches, etc. They wander and so they build temporary dwellings which, at a moment's notice, may be transported quickly and easily from one location to another. In the East there are other Indian tribes, and also in Canada. Then, in Mexico, the Indians build straw huts. There are hundreds of tribes of Indians and each tribe has a different language. That is why the sign language came into existence. It is used when a member of one tribe meets a member of another tribe. They cannot understand each other's language, so they talk with their hands. When the Indian chiefs gather they smoke the pipe of peace. This is usually done to celebrate some victory, or upon the occasion of a visit from a member of another tribe. The men sit around a fire in a circle and pass the long pipe from one to the other. As each man receives it he utters a sound or nods his head, proceeds to take a puff, and passes it to his neighbor. It is all done silently and quietly, but there is a wealth of meaning in this very solemn performance. [Illustration: THE FIRE MAKER] The Indians, in older days, made fire entirely by friction. By the rubbing together of two pieces of wood, most of the tribes caused fire to appear--but some had elaborate devices made of wood and string. The Navajos used a thin pole which they twirled around by using a string tied to a stick. Today, the Indians use matches just as we do, but most families still keep their fire-makers. The Navajos do not use feathers and do not make chiefs by crowning them. But many of the other tribes create their chiefs by placing the crown of tall feathers, which you have often seen in pictures, upon the head of the "brave," and saying "I make you 'Big Chief Flying Eagle,'" or whatever the name may be. [Illustration: CROWNING A BIG CHIEF] The eagle is much venerated by the Indians. We have seen how Bah used a prayer stick made of an eagle feather. In the Eagle Dance, the dancer paints his body red, black and white, and wears a dance skirt and bonnet of eagle feathers. The dance is performed as a ceremonial, mostly as a plea for rain. The dancers imitate almost every movement of the great eagle. They soar, they hover as an eagle would hover over the fields. They spread their wings and move about in a great circle. This and the Sun Dance are the two most important and interesting dances of the Indians; the Sun Dance is performed in the spring, celebrating the return of the growing season, and the growth of the corn. "Oh, I hope I can remember all that," sighed Billy, when Mrs. Fighting Bull finished talking. She turned to her weaving without answering him, and he turned to Bah, saying: "Come, Bah! Let us play over at your hogan and you pretend to make me a Big Chief!" "Yes, come," said Bah, rising. They started over to their play house. From out the play hogan Bah pulled forth some Navajo blankets and then they both set to work to make a feather crown. Having no feathers (the Navajos not using them) they made their crown of branches. It was a large and weighty object when they finished with it and Billy was, indeed, a queer sight when Bah placed it upon his head. The big blanket was wrapped about him, and from beneath the crown peered his freckled face. With all due ceremony Bah raised her eyes to heaven and chanted: "I make you Big Chief Spots-In-The-Face!" It was a very serious moment for them. Billy had become a chief, and his next move was to propose the smoking of the pipe of peace. From his pocket Billy pulled a chocolate pipe. It was done up in silver paper. Bah was impressed as he carefully unwrapped and handed it to her. "You smoke first," he said. She took it in her hands and putting it to her mouth pretended to draw in the smoke. She handed it to Billy, but he proceeded to bite out a piece, much to the astonishment of his playmate, who stared at him in wonderment. [Illustration: BAH AND BILLY SMOKE THE PIPE OF PEACE] "You do that, too, Bah, it's good," Billy mumbled with his mouth full. Bah shrank back. "No, me no eat pipe, me smoke!" Billy couldn't help laughing. "Oh, but this isn't a real pipe--it's chocolate!" Still Bah was reluctant to try. "Well," said Billy, digging into his pocket for the rest of the candy. "Here's another, the same--only it's not in the shape of a pipe. Try it." Bah took the candy and looked at it. "Fish!" she gasped and dropped it. "Well, what's the matter with that?" asked Billy, greatly disturbed by her evident horror. "Bah no eat fish. No Navajo eat fish!" "Tell me why," said Billy, now amused and interested. Bah did not answer, but pointed over to her mother. She hung her head shyly. Billy didn't like to press her, so, dragging his blanket, and with his crown over one ear, he stumbled over to the loom and stood before Mrs. Fighting Bull with the query: "Why don't Navajos like fish?" Mrs. Fighting Bull did not smile, for once, and replied: "Not because no like! No eat because ancestors once turned into fish. If Navajo eat fish, he eat ancestor!" Satisfied with this explanation, Billy thanked her and trotted back to his friend. "I understand now, Bah," he said. "But you see this isn't a real fish, it's candy! You try." He held it up to her, but he could see how she shrank from the thought of eating anything that was even the shape of fish. So he picked out a bird and gave it to her. After she had sampled the chocolate she was delighted to finish the whole piece, and when that was eaten, she said: "Now me smoke pipe of peace." "Yes," said Billy, "and this time you'll eat a piece of the pipe, won't you?" He laughed loudly at his own joke, but Bah was too absorbed in her new found game. When Billy reached for the pipe, expecting to receive it for his turn, he saw that the little girl had put the whole pipe into her mouth and was munching the chocolate, her cheeks puffed out and a twinkle in her eye! Billy stared in surprise. "Why, Bah, you bad girl. You ate up all the pipe!" But they soon found another game to replace the "Peace Pipe" and played together happily until it was time for Billy to go home. Before leaving he remembered that he had not thanked the Indian woman for telling him so much of interest. He ran back to where she was sitting, and, drawing from his pocket the chocolate candies, he offered them to her, saying: "Thanks so much for your nice story. Won't you have some candy?" She took some and smiled at him. Then she said: "Write nice story about Indians. All white men no think Indians good." Billy was puzzled for a moment to know what she meant. Then it dawned upon him that the Indians were often spoken of as cruel and savage. Well, he'd "tell the world" in his story that this family was kind and civilized. He said: "Oh, yes, I'll say everything I think about you, and that will be good!" Then, suddenly bethinking himself of a word he'd once heard, he asked: "Isn't an Indian woman called a 'Squaw'?" Bah's mother shook her head and a slight frown--the first Billy had seen--appeared between her eyes. [Illustration: THE "SQUAWKER"] "No. Indian woman no like to be called Squaw! Not very nice! In reservation she fight when man call that!" "Well, I'll remember and never use the word 'Squaw' again," promised Billy. Just then an Indian mother appeared in the doorway of her hogan. The papoose upon her back was crying loudly, and Billy looked roguishly at Mrs. Fighting Bull and asked: "Is the baby called a 'Squawker'?" CHAPTER VIII WHO WINS THE RADIO? For many days Billy worked diligently at his composition. He took care to do his writing away from home, as he cherished the thought of surprising Mother and Father. Then, too, he had conceived another idea. It happened to pop into his head one evening when he was returning from Bah's home. It was such a good idea that he wondered he hadn't thought of it before. And so, as I have said, he worked, and no one but Peanuts knew what he was doing, and Peanuts was sworn to secrecy. As he would prepare to leave his secluded spot out on the prairie where he did his writing, Billy would say to Peanuts: "Now, we'll never say a word! We'll keep this to ourselves, won't we?" [Illustration: FOR DAYS BILLY WORKED ON HIS STORY] And Peanuts was most agreeable. Why not? The days had been pleasure since his master had decided to allow him to graze all day long instead of asking him to gallop over the plains. Yes, indeed, the plan suited Peanuts down to the ground (where, by the way, he constantly kept his nose.) Billy's nose was buried in his writing and he chewed the pencil as steadily as Peanuts chewed the dry nourishment he found. But at last the task was over, the manuscript sent in to the magazine, and Billy was again paying his respects to the Fighting Bull family. Peanuts was the only regretful one when the story was finished, and sent away. Billy sighed a sigh of relief and the first day that he put in an appearance at the hogan, Bah squealed with joy to see him returning. Many happy days ensued, in which the Indian girl showed the boy new games and ways of playing which she, little lonely one, had devised by herself. Each evening Billy would come home with the same question on his lips: "Has my magazine arrived?" But New York is a long way from Arizona, and it was many weeks before the magazine, in which the winning story was to appear, at last came. It was one evening after Billy had had a particularly exciting day chasing buffaloes (in the form of tame sheep) with Bah, that he came home to find his magazine awaiting him. It had not been opened and was lying on his little desk. It was addressed to him--and inside it was--maybe--his story! He longed to find out, but he couldn't move his fingers to open the wrapper. He suddenly grew hot all over and realized then how he longed to see that story inside those covers. If he had been an Indian instead of a white boy he would have made a prayer stick and prayed via the eagle feather to the Great Father. The next morning Father and Mother found Billy curled up in a big chair in the living room poring over his magazine. They could not see his face. Father took up his paper, but before starting to read he remarked: "Who's the lucky winner of the radio, Son?" Billy did not answer, but arose from his chair and brought the magazine over, to Father. Father glanced at the page with a wicked smile, and remarked: "Needless to say, it wasn't a chap named William!" Billy, his head drooping, left the room, and Mother felt sorry for him. So did Father. In fact I think Father was sorry for what he had said, as he got up and called him back. It was then that Billy told Father what he had done--all about it from the first day that the idea had occurred to him until the moment when he had, with trembling fingers, opened the magazine and found.... "You're a good boy, Bill," said Father, "and I've been wronging you." Mother was about to make a fuss over him, so, allowing her only time enough for one kiss, he grabbed his hat. Then with the parting words, "I'm going to see the Fighting Bulls--goodbye," he made a dash for the door. "Some day maybe you'll take me, Bill," called Father after him, "I'd like to meet the Fighting Bulls, and their calf. She must be a smart little kid!" Then the parents looked at each other and Mother's eyes were just a little bit dewy. She smiled and shook her finger at Father: "I know another Fighting Bull," she said. "Yes, dear," said Father humbly, "and he has a splendid and plucky little calf!" At the hogan there was much excitement. As Peanuts came galloping down the village "street" his rider saw a most unusual sight. Chief Fighting Bull, his wife and small daughter were all grouped about an object which seemed to be attracting them. So much did it attract them that they were talking in Navajo faster and louder than Billy had ever heard them talk. The boy jumped down from his pony and walked up to the family circle. He saw that the object of their interest was a large wooden express box, and written across it were the words: "Bah, The Little Indian Weaver, Daughter of Chief Fighting Bull, Navajo Reservation, near Tuba, Arizona." [Illustration: "IS IT FOR ME?"] "This came today," said the Chief to Billy, and Bah held up an envelope which she clutched in her hand. "And see--letter to Bah." Billy asked: "Why don't you open it?" "Yes, will do," replied the girl. At the same time as Bah and Billy were opening the letter, the Chief, aided by his wife, was opening the large box. "You read letter for me, please," smiled Bah. Billy took the letter--but just then the box was opened and inside it the astonished family beheld a radio! "What this?" asked Fighting Bull. Said Billy wisely: "It's a radio--you know, you can listen to music and everything. It's lots of fun. Come on, we'll fix it up!" [Illustration: "WITHOUT YOU I COULDN'T HAVE WRITTEN IT."] With Billy's instructions the Chief set up the radio. It was a portable set and as soon as they attached the aerial and Billy turned the dials the sound of fine music began to float on the air. "Alive!" shrieked Bah, turned on her heels, and fled! Billy, still holding the unopened letter, ran after her. He found her hidden in a thicket and brought her back to her parents, who stood transfixed before the radio, which was still sending forth music. "Don't be afraid, Bah," said Billy. "It's not this box making the noise. The music comes through the air from a big city!" The Chief and his wife were almost as impressed as Bah, but they did not show their feelings. They could only stand and stare while Billy, holding on to Bah with one hand for fear that she would run away again, read the following letter: "Dear Little Bah: Your story 'The Little Indian Weaver,' written by yourself about yourself, has won the Composition Contest. The prize, a radio, we are sending you today. It was a great pleasure to receive such a charming little story from a real Indian girl. The white children who read it will, we are sure, enjoy it, and learn a great deal from you. Thank you, and we hope you will like the radio! The Children's Magazine." "But--but," said Bah, "I not write story!" Billy put his arm around her shoulders and smiling down at her said: "No, but I sent it in your name because if it hadn't been for you and your mother and father I never could have written it!" [Illustration: "I PUT INDIAN FLAG ON MY SINGING BOX."] As the strains of music floated through the air, attracting the sheep from the prairie, two dreamy children sat beside the radio, which was perched on the top of a packing box, and listened eagerly. [Illustration: THE WHITE CHILD LOVES HIS INDIAN FRIENDS] Bah had outgrown her fear of the "Singing Box" as she called the radio, and each day she and Billy would enjoy songs and music from the city--strange sounds, some of them, to the little Indian girl. But to Billy it had become a greater joy than he ever had anticipated to watch her rapture with the new toy. One day he found a stick with feathers stuck on top of the radio, and he asked her what it meant. "Bah put flag on Singing Box. That is Indian flag!" Billy never ceased learning about the Indians, their customs and their interesting ways. Perhaps the Fighting Bulls also were learning. They learned what many Indians do not know--that the white child loves his brother--the first American. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes Page 85: Possibly missing "second" before "time" in the sentence: "That's the time you fooled me!" said he. Page 90: Retained "Goodby" but possibly a typo for "goodbye." (he only called out, "Goodby, Father.") Page 123: Retained "poring" but possibly a typo for "pouring." (Billy curled up in a big chair in the living room poring over his) 
42175	----	THE WINTER SOLSTICE ALTARS AT HANO PUEBLO BY J. WALTER FEWKES (From the American Anthropologist (N.S.), Vol. 1, April, 1899) NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 1899 THE WINTER SOLSTICE ALTARS AT HANO PUEBLO BY J. WALTER FEWKES INTRODUCTION The fetishes displayed in their kivas by different phratries during the Winter Solstice ceremony at the Hopi pueblo of Walpi, in northeastern Arizona, have been described in a previous article,[1] in which the altar made in the _Moñkiva_, or "chief" ceremonial chamber, by the _Patki_ and related people has been given special attention. The author had hoped in 1898[2] to supplement this description by an exhaustive study of the Winter Solstice ceremonies of all the families of the East Mesa, but was prevented from so doing by the breaking out of an epidemic. This study was begun with fair results, and before withdrawing from the kivas he was able to make a few observations on certain altars at Hano which had escaped him in the preceding year. Walpi, commonly called by the natives _Hopiki_, "Hopi pueblo," began its history as a settlement of Snake clans which had united with the Bear phratry. From time to time this settlement grew in size by the addition of the _Ala_, _Pakab_, _Patki_, and other phratries of lesser importance. Among important increments in modern times may be mentioned several clans of Tanoan ancestry, as the _Asa_, _Honani_, and the like. These have all been assimilated, having lost their identity as distinct peoples and become an integral part of the population of Walpi, or of its colony, Sitcomovi.[3] Among the most recent arrivals in Tusayan was another group of Tanoan clans which will be considered in this article. The last mentioned are now domiciled in a pueblo of their own called Hano; they have not yet, as the others, lost their language nor been merged into the Hopi people, but still preserve intact many of their ancient customs. The present relations of Hano to Walpi are in some respects not unlike those which have existed in the past between incoming clans and Walpi as each new colony entered the Tusayan territory. Thus, after the _Patki_ people settled at the pueblo called Pakatcomo,[4] within sight of Old Walpi, they lived there for some time, observing their own rites and possibly speaking a different language much as the people of Hano do today. In the course of time, however, the population of the _Patki_ pueblo was united with the preëpre Walpi families, Pakatcomo was abandoned, and its speech and ritual merged into those of Walpi. Could we have studied the _Patki_ people when they lived at their former homes, Pakatcomo or Homolobi, we would be able to arrive at more exact ideas of their peculiar rites and altars than is now possible. Hano has never been absorbed by Walpi as the _Patki_ pueblos were, and the altars herein described still preserve their true Tanoan characteristics. These altars are interesting because made in a Tanoan pueblo by Tewa clans which are intrusive in the Hopi country, and are especially instructive because it is held by their priests that like altars are or were made in midwinter rites by their kindred now dwelling along the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The midwinter rite in which the altars are employed is called _Tûñtai_ by the Tewa, who likewise designate it by the Hopi name _Soyaluña_. This latter term may be regarded as a general one applied to the assemblages of different families in all the kivas of the East Mesa at that time. The name of the Tewa rite is a special one, and possibly the other families who assemble at this time once had or still retain their own names for their celebrations. The _Tûñtai_ altars were brought by the ancestors of the present people of Hano from their old eastern home, and the rites about them are distinctly Tewan, although celebrated at the same time as the Winter Solstice ceremonies of the Hopi families. CLAN COMPOSITION OF HANO The pueblo called Hano is one of three villages on the East Mesa of Tusayan and contained, according to the writer's census of 1893, a population of 163 persons. It was settled between the years 1700 and 1710 by people from Tcewadi, a pueblo situated near Peña Blanca on the Rio Grande in New Mexico. Although only six persons of pure Tanoan ancestry are now living at Hano, the inhabitants still speak the Tewa dialect and claim as kindred the peoples of San Juan, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Pojoaque, Nambe, and Tesuque.[5] The best traditionists declare that their ancestors were invited to leave their old home, Tcewadi, by the Snake chief of Walpi, who was then pueblo chief of that village. They claim that they made their long journey to give aid against the Ute Indians who were raiding the Hopi, and that they responded after four consecutive invitations. The Walpi Snake chief sent them an embassy bearing prayer-sticks as offerings, and although they had refused three invitations they accepted the fourth. According to traditions the following clans have lived in Hano, but it is not stated that all went to the East Mesa together from Tcewadi: _Okuwuñ_, Rain-cloud; _Sa_, Tobacco; _Kolon_, Corn; _Tenyük_, Pine; _Katcina_, Katcina; _Nañ_, Sand; _Kopeeli_, Pink Shell; _Koyanwi_, Turquoise; _Kapolo_, Crane; _Tuñ_, Sun; _Ke_, Bear; _Te_, Cottonwood; _Tayek_ (?); _Pe_, Firewood; and _Tceta_, Bivalve shell. The early chiefs whose names have been obtained are Mapibi of the _Nañ-towa_, Potañ of the _Ke-towa_, and Talekweñ and Kepo of the _Kolon-towa_. The present village chief is Anote of the _Sa-towa_ or Tobacco clan.[6] Of the original clans which at some time have been with the Hano people, the following have now become extinct: _Kopeeli_, _Koyanwi_, _Kapolo_, _Tuñ_, _Tayek_, _Pe_,[7] and _Tceta_. The last member of the _Tuñ_ or Sun people was old chief Kalacai who died about four years ago. It is quite probable that several of these extinct clans did not start from Tcewadi with the others. There were several waves of Tanoan emigrants from the Rio Grande region which went to Tusayan about the same time, among which may be mentioned the _Asa_, which took a more southerly route, via Zuñi. The route of the _Asa_ people will be considered in another article, and the evidences that some of the _Asa_ clans joined their kindred on their advent into Tusayan will be developed later. Probably certain members of the _Katcina_ clan accompanied the _Asa_ people as far as the Awatobi mesa and then affiliated with the early Hano clans.[8] * * * * * The census of Hano in December, 1898, was as follows: _Clans_ _Males_ _Females_ _Total_ Okuwuñ 12 8 20 Sa 8 5 13 Kolon 11 12 23 Tenyük 12 16 28 Ke 5 10 15 Katcina 8 9 17 Te 5 4 9 Nañ 4 7 11 ---- Total native to Hano domiciled at home 136 The above enumeration of Hano population does not include Walpi and Sitcomovi men married to Hano women (23), nor Tewa men living in the neighboring pueblos (15).[9] Adding these, the population is increased to 174, which may be called the actual enumeration at the close of 1898. Subsequent mortality due to smallpox and whooping-cough will reduce the number below 160. In the following lists there are arranged, under their respective clans, the names of all the known inhabitants of Hano. There have been several deaths since the lists were made (December 1, 1898), and several births which also are not included. It will be noted that the majority have Tanoan names, but there are several with names of Hopi origin, for in these latter instances I was unable to obtain any other.[10] _Census of Hano by Clans_ _Okuwuñ-towa_, or Rain-cloud clan.--Men and boys: Kalakwai, Kala, Tcüa, Wiwela, Kahe, Yane, Solo, Yunci, Pade, Klee, Kochayna, Këe (12). Women and girls: Sikyumka, Kwentce, Talitsche, Yoyowaiolo, Pobitcanwû, Yoanuche, Asou, Tawamana (8). Total, 20. _Sa-towa_, or Tobacco clan.--Men and boys: Anote, Asena, Tem[)e], Ipwantiwa, Howila, Nuci, Yauma, Satee (8). Women and girls: Okañ, Heli, Kotu, Kwañ, Mota (5). Total, 13. _Kolon-towa_, or Corn clan.--Men and boys: Polakka, Patuñtupi, Akoñtcowu, Komaletiwa, Agaiyo, Tcid[)e], Oba, Toto, Peke, Kelo, Tasce (11). Women and girls: Kotcaka, Talikwia, Nampio, Kweñtcowû, Heele, Pelé, Kontce, Koompipi, Chaiwû, Kweckatcañwû, Awatcomwû, Antce (12). Total, 23. _Tenyük-towa_, or Pine clan.--Men and boys: Tawa, Nato, Wako, Paoba, Topi, Yota, Pobinelli, Yeva, Tañe, Lelo, Sennele, Poctce (12). Women and girls: Toñlo, Hokona, Kode(?), Sakpede, Nebenne, Tabowüqti, Poh[ve], Saliko, Eye, Porkuñ, Pehta, Hekpobi, Setale, Naici, Katcine, Tcenlapobi (16). Total, 28. _Ke-towa_, or Bear clan.--Men and boys: Mepi, Tae, Tcakwaina, Poliella, Tegi (5). Women and girls: Kauñ, Kalaie, Pene, Tcetcuñ, Kala, Katcinmana, Selapi, Tolo, Pokona, Kode (10). Total 15. Tcaper ("Tom Sawyer") may be enrolled in this or the preceding family. He is a Paiute, without kin in Hano, and was sold when a boy as a slave by his father. His sisters were sold to the Navaho at the same time. Tcaper became the property of an Oraibi, later of a Tewa man, now dead, and so far as can be learned is the only Paiute now living at Hano. _Katcina-towa._--Men and boys: Kwevehoya, Taci, Avaiyo, Poya, Oyi, Wehe, Sibentima, Tawahonima (8). Women and girls: Okotce, Kwenka, Awe, Peñaiyo, Peñ, Poñ, Tcao, Poschauwû, Sawiyû (9). Total, 17. _Te-towa_, or Cottonwood clan. Men and boys: Sania, Kuyapi, Okuapin, Ponyin, Pebihoya (5). Women and girls: Yunne, Pobitche, Poitzuñ, Kalazañ (4). Total, 9. _Nañ-towa_, or Sand clan.--Men and boys: Puñsauwi, Pocine, Talumtiwa, Cia (4). Women and girls: Pocilipobi, Talabensi, Humhebuima, Kae, Avatca, "Nancy," Simana (7). Total, 11. The present families in Hano are so distributed that the oldest part of the pueblo is situated at the head of the trail east of the _Moñkiva_. This is still owned and inhabited by the _Sa_, _Kolon_, and _Ke_ clans, all of which probably came from Tcewadi. The _Katcina_ and related _Tenyük_, as well as the _Okuwuñ_ and related _Nañ_ clans, are said, by some traditions, to have joined the Tewa colonists after they reached the Hopi mesas, and the position of their houses in respect to the main house-cluster favors that theory. Other traditions say that the first pueblo chief of the Tewa was chief of the _Nañ-towa_. Too much faith should not be put in this statement, notwithstanding the chief of the _Tewakiva_ belongs to the _Nañ-towa_. It seems more probable that the _Ke_ or Bear clan was the leading one in early times, and that its chief was also _kimoñwi_ or governor of the first settlement at the foot of the mesa. TEWA LEGENDS According to one authority (Kalakwai) the route of migration of the Hano clans from their ancient home, Tcewadi, led them first to Jemesi (Jemez), where they rested a year. From Jemesi they went to Orpinpo or Pawikpa ("Duck water"). Thence they proceeded to Kepo, or Bear spring, the present Fort Wingate, and from this place they continued to the site of Fort Defiance, thence to Wukopakabi or Pueblo Ganado. Continuing their migration they entered Puñci, or Keam's canyon, and traversing its entire length, arrived at Isba, or Coyote spring, near the present trail of the East Mesa, where they built their pueblo. This settlement (Kohti) was along the foot-hills to the left of the spring, near a large yellow rock or cliff called Sikyaowatcomo ("Yellow-rock mound"). There they lived for some time, as the debris and ground-plan of their building attest. Their pueblo was a large one, and it was conveniently near a spring called Uñba, now filled up, and Isba, still used by the Hano people. Shortly after their arrival Ute warriors made a new foray on the Hopi pueblos, and swarmed into the valley north of Wala,[11] capturing many sheep which they drove to the hills north of the mesa.[12] The Tewa attacked them at that place, and the Ute warriors killed all the sheep which they had captured, making a protecting rampart of their carcasses. On this account the place is now called Sikwitukwi ("Meat pinnacle"). The Tewa killed all but two of their opponents who were taken captives and sent home with the message that the Bears had come, and if any of their tribe ever returned as hostiles they would all be killed. From that time Ute invasions ceased. According to another good authority in Tewa lore, the _Asa_ people left "Kaëkibi," near Abiquiu, in northern New Mexico, about the time the other Tewa left Tcewadi They traveled together rapidly for some time, but separated at Laguna, the _Asa_ taking the southern route, via Zuñi. The Tewa clans arrived first (?) at Tusayan and waited for the _Asa_ in the sand-hills near Isba. Both groups, according to this authority, took part in the Ute fight at Sikwitukwi, and when they returned the village chief of Walpi gave the _Asa_ people for their habitation that portion of the mesa top northeast of the _Tewakiva_, while the present site of Hano was assigned to the Tewa clans. During a famine the _Asa_ moved to Tübka (Canyon Tsegi, or "Chelly"), where they planted the peach trees that are still to be seen. The ruined walls east of Hano are a remnant of the pueblo abandoned by them. The _Asa_ intermarried with the Navaho and lost their language. When they returned to the East Mesa the Hopi assigned to them for their houses that part of Walpi at the head of the stairway trail on condition that they would defend it.[13] In view of the tenacity with which the women of Hano have clung to their language, even when married to Hopi men, it seems strange that the _Asa_ lost their native dialect during the short time they lived in Tsegi canyon; but the _Asa_ men may have married Navaho women, and the Tanoan tongues become lost in that way, the _Asa_ women being in the minority. There is such uniformity in all the legends that the _Asa_ were Tanoan people, that we can hardly doubt their truth, whatever explanation may be given of how the _Asa_ lost their former idiom. In 1782 Morfi described Hano,[14] under the name "Tanos," as a pueblo of one hundred and ten families, with a central plaza and streets. He noted the difference of idiom between it and Walpi. If Morfi's census be correct, the pueblo has diminished in population since his time. Since 1782 Hano has probably never been deserted, although its population has several times been considerably reduced by epidemics. In return for their aid in driving the Ute warriors from the country, the Hopi chief gave the Tewa all the land in the two valleys on each side of the mesa, north and east of a line drawn at right angles to _Wala_, the Gap. This line of demarcation is recognized by the Tewa, although some of them claim that the Hopi have land-holdings in their territory. The line of division is carefully observed in the building of new houses in the foot-hills, for the Hopi families build west of the line, the Tewa people east of it. DIFFERENCES IN SOCIAL CUSTOMS A casual visitor to the East Mesa would not notice any difference between the people of Hano and those of Walpi, and in fact many Walpi men have married Tanoan women and live in their village. The difference of idiom, however, is immediately noticeable, and seems destined to persist. Almost every inhabitant of Hano speaks Hopi, but no Hopi speaks or understands Tewa. While there are Tewa men from Hano in several of the Hopi villages, where they have families, no Tewa woman lives in Walpi. This is of course due to the fact that the matriarchal system exists, and that a girl on marrying lives with her mother or with her clan, while a newly married man goes to the home of his wife's clan to live. There are differences in marriage and mortuary customs, in the way the women wear their hair,[15] and in other minor matters, but at present the great difference between the Hopi and the Tewa is in their religious ceremonials, which, next to language, are the most persistent features of their tribal life. Hano has a very limited ritual; it celebrates in August a peculiar rite known as _Sumykoli_, or the sun prayer-stick making, as well as the _Tûñtai_ midwinter ceremony, the altars of which are described herein. There are also many _Katcina_ dances which are not different from those performed at Walpi. One group of clown priests, called _Paiakyamû_, is characteristic of Hano. Compared with the elaborate ritual of the Hopi pueblo, that of Hano is poor; but Tewa men are members of most of the religious societies of Walpi, and some of the women take part in the basket dance (_Lalakoñti_) and _Mamzrauti_, in that village. The following Tewa names for months are current at Hano: January, _Elo-p'o_, "Wooden-cup moon"; refers to the cups, made of wood, used by the _Tcukuwympkiyas_ in a ceremonial game. February, _Káuton-p'o_, "Singing moon." March, _Yopobi-p'o_, "Cactus-flower moon." The element _pobi_[16] which is so often used in proper names among the Tewa, means flower. April, _Púñka-p'o_, "Windbreak moon." May, _Señko-p'o_, "To-plant-secretly moon." This refers to the planting of sweet corn in nooks and crevices, where children may not see it, for the _Nimán-katcina_. June-October, nameless moons, or the same names as the five winter moons. November, _Céñi-p'o_,[17] "Horn moon," possibly referring to the _Aaltû_ of the New-Fire ceremony. December, _Tûñtai-p'o_, "Winter-solstice moon." CONTEMPORARY CEREMONIES The Winter Solstice ceremony is celebrated in Walpi, Sitcomovi, and Hano, by clans, all the men gathering in the kivas of their respective pueblos. The _Soyaluña_ is thus a synchronous gathering of all the families who bring their fetishes to the places where they assemble. The kivas or rooms in which they meet, and the clans which assemble therein, are as follows: _Walpi_ MOÑKIVA: _Patki_, Water-house; _Tabo_, rabbit; _Kükütce_, Lizard; _Tuwa_, Sand; _Lenya_, Flute; _Piba_, Tobacco; and _Katcina_. WIKWALIOBIKIVA: _Asa_. NACABKIVA: _Kokop_, Firewood; _Tcüa_, Snake. ALKIVA: _Ala_, Horn. TCIVATOKIVA: _Pakab_, Reed; _Honau_, Bear. _Sitcomovi_ FIRST KIVA: _Patki_, Water-house; Honani, Badger. SECOND KIVA: _Asa_. _Hano_ MOÑKIVA: _Sa_, Tobacco; _Ke_, Bear; _Kolon_, Corn, etc. TEWAKIVA: _Nañ_, Sand; _Okuwuñ_, Rain-cloud, etc. The altars or fetishes in the five Walpi kivas are as follows: The altar described in a former publication[18] is the most elaborate of all the Winter Solstice fetishes at Walpi, and belongs to the _Patki_ and related clans. The _Asa_ family in the _Wikwaliobikiva_ had no altar, but the following fetishes: (1) An ancient mask resembling that of _Natacka_ and called _tcakwaina_,[19] attached to which is a wooden crook and a rattle; (2) an ancient bandoleer (_tozriki_); and (3) several stone images of animals. The shield which the _Asa_ carried before the _Moñkiva_ altar had a star painted upon it. The _Kokop_ and _Tcüa_ families, in the _Nacabkiva_, had no altar, but on the floor of the kiva there was a stone image which was said to have come from the ancient pueblo of Sikyatki, a former village of the _Kokop_ people. There was no altar in the _Alkiva_, but the _Ala_ (Horn) clan which met there had a stone image of Püükoñhoya, and on the shield which they used in the _Moñkiva_ there was a picture of Alosaka. The _Pakab_[20] (Reed or Arrow) people had an altar in the _Tcivatokiva_ where Pautiwa presided with the _típoni_ or palladium of that family. The writer was unable to examine the fetishes of the _Honani_ and _Asa_ clans, who met in the two Sitcomovi kivas. It was reported that they have no altars in the _Soyaluña_, but a study of their fetishes will shed important light on the nature of the rites introduced into Tusayan by these clans. Tcoshoniwa is chief in one of these kivas.[21] Pocine, chief of the _Tewakiva_, belongs to the _Nañ-towa_, or Sand clan, and is the elder son of Pocilipobi. Puñsauwi, his uncle, is Pocilipobi's brother. As the _kimoñwi_ or village chief of the Tewa colonists, when they came into Tusayan, belonged to the Sand clan, we may suppose this altar to be hereditary in this family. Anote, the chief of the _Moñkiva_ of Hano, is the oldest man of the _Sa-towa_ or Tobacco clan. Satele, who assisted him in making the altar, is a member of the _Ke_ or Bear clan. Patuñtupi, who was present when the altar was made at Hano, belongs to the _Kolon_ or Corn clan. THE WINTER SOLSTICE CEREMONY The _Tûñtai_ or _Soyaluña_ ceremony of the East Mesa in 1898 extended from December 9th to the 19th inclusive, and the days were designated as follows: 9th, _Tcotcoñyuñya_ (_Tcotcoñya_), Smoke assembly. 10th, _Tceele tcalauûh_, Announcement. 11th, _Cüs-tala_, First day. 12th, _Lüc-tala_, Second day. 13th, _Paic-tala_, Third day. 14th, _Yuñya_, Assemblage. 15th, _Sockahimû_. 16th, _Komoktotokya_. 17th, _Totokya_, _Totokpee_. 18th, _Pegumnove_. 19th, _Navotcine_. The active secret ceremonies began on the 14th and extended to the 19th. _Yuñya_ was the day on which the Walpi chiefs entered their kivas, and _Totokya_ that on which the most important secret rites were performed. _Tcotcoñyuñya_, Smoke assembly. The time of the Soyaluña is fixed by Kwatcakwa, Sun-priest of the _Patki_ clan, who determines the winter solstice by means of observations of sunset on the horizon, as elsewhere described. The Smoke assemblage at Walpi occurred after sunset on December 9th, in the house of Anwuci's wife, adjoining the _Moñkiva_, and was attended by Supela, Kwatcakwa, Sakwistiwa, Kwaa, and Anawita, all chiefs belonging to the _Patki_ clan. The Smoke assemblage at Hano, preliminary to the _Tûñtai_, was also held after sunset on December 9th, and was attended by the following chiefs: Anote (Tem[)e]), _Sa-towa_; Satele, _Ke-towa_; Pocine (Koye), _Nañ-towa_; Patuñtupi, _Kolon-towa_. There was no formal notification of _Tûñtai_ from the housetops of Hano on the following morning, the _Soyaluña_ announcement from Walpi serving all three pueblos on the East Mesa. The formal announcement was made by Kopeli at daybreak of December 10th. Hoñyi, the regular _tcakmoñwi_, or town-crier, was snowbound at Keam's Canyon, and consequently was unable to perform this function. The Smoke assemblage and its formal announcement at daybreak on the following morning have been observed in the Snake dance, and in the Flute, New-fire, and _Soyaluña_ ceremonies; it probably occurs also in the _Lalakoñti_ and _Mamzrauti_. It takes place several days before the Assembly day, when the chief enters the kiva and sets his _natci_ or standard on the kiva hatch to announce that he has begun the ceremonies. [Illustration: AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST No. 8., VOL. 1, PL. XVII Drawn by MARY M. LEIGHTER ALTAR IN THE MOÑKIVA AT HANO] KIVAS AT HANO There are two kivas in Hano, one of which, called _Tewakiva_, is situated at the head of the trail to the pueblo. The other, called the _Moñkiva_, is built in the eastern part of the plaza, and, as its name implies, is the "chief" Hano kiva. Both these semi-subterranean rooms are rectangular[22] in shape, and in structural details resemble the kivas of Walpi. Each has a hatchway entrance in the middle of the roof, and is entered by means of a ladder which rests on the floor near a central fireplace. Neither of the Hano kivas has a window, but each has a raised platform for spectators east of the fireplace.[23] ALTAR IN THE MOÑKIVA AT HANO Anote,[24] the chief of the _Moñkiva_, constructed his altar (plate XVIII) on the day above mentioned as _Paic-tala_. He anticipated the others in making it, and began operations, about 10 A.M., by carefully sweeping the floor. His fetishes and other altar paraphernalia were in a bag on the floor at the western end of his kiva, but there was no _típoni_, or chieftain's badge, even on the completed altar. Shortly after Anote had finished sweeping the floor of the kiva, Satele entered, followed a few minutes later by Patuñtupi.[25] These three men, with Kalakwai, who was weaving a blanket, were the only persons in the kiva while the altar was being made. Immediately after the other chiefs came in, Anote began the making of prayer-sticks. Four of these were made, each of characteristic Tewa form. Each of these prayer-sticks was double the length of the middle finger, and was painted black with green pigment at the blunt end. On one of the two sticks which compose this prayer offering, there was cut a facet which was painted green with black dots representing eyes and mouth. The stick without the facet was called the male, and upon it a ferrule was incised. The two sticks were bound together with two cotton strings in two places, but no packet of prayer-meal was appended as in Hopi prayer-sticks (_pahos_).[26] A string with a terminal feather was attached to that which bound the two sticks together. Anote likewise made many feathered strings called _nakwakwocis_, and Satele fashioned two prayer-sticks; all of these were laid in a basket-tray on the floor. After these prayer offerings had been completed, Anote placed on the floor a blanketful of moist clay which he further moistened and kneaded, fashioning a part of it into a cylinder about a foot and a half long, and two inches in diameter. This object was made blunt at one end and pointed at the other. The image represents _Avaiyo_, the Tewa name of _Palülükoñ_, the Great Serpent. He added to the blunt end, or head, a small clay horn,[27] and inserted a minute feather in the tip of the tail. He fashioned into a ball the clay that remained after making the effigy of the serpent, patting it into a spherical compact mass about the size of a baseball. This, called the _natci_, later served as the pedestal to hold two eagle-wing feathers, and was placed at the kiva hatch each day to inform the uninitiated that ceremonies were in progress. Having finished the effigy of the Great Serpent and formed the clay cylinder to his liking, Anote made on the western side of the floor of the kiva a ridge of sand, a few inches high and about two feet long, parallel with the western wall. While making this ridge he sat between it and the kiva wall. Having patted this sand ridge to the proper height, he removed from their wrapping of coarse cloth, four sticks, each about two feet long. These sticks, dingy with age, were tied in pairs, and were called _poñya-saka_, "altar ladders." They were inserted in the ridge in pairs, one on each side, and between them was placed in the sand a row of eagle feathers. As these were being put in position by Satele, Anote sang in a low tone, the song continuing as the other parts of the altar were arranged.[28] Anote was frequently obliged to prompt his associate regarding the proper arrangement of the objects on the altar. Satele next drew a line of prayer-meal before the ridge of sand, and from it, as a base line, made three deep semicircles representing rain-clouds. These were drawn as simple, elongated outlines, but immediately the chief sprinkled meal on the floor over the space enclosed by them. The curved edges of the three rain-cloud symbols were then rimmed with black sand or powdered coal. About twenty short, parallel lines, representing falling rain, were next drawn on the floor with cornmeal, and alternating with them the same number of black lines. Satele then placed upon the rain-cloud symbols, skeleton puma paws, two for each rain-cloud. At the apex of each symbolic cloud a stone fetish of a bear was deposited, and by the side of each an arrow-point or other stone object was laid. The clay effigy of the Great Snake was next placed back of the rain-cloud symbols, with the head pointing southward. As this effigy lay on the floor, Anote made on it, with meal, representations of eyes and teeth, then drew two lines of meal about the neck for a necklace, and two other parallel lines about the tail. Black powder was then evenly sprinkled along the back of the effigy. Both Anote and Satele procured a few ears of differently colored corn and shelled them upon the rain-cloud picture, sprinkling the grains evenly over the meal design, and adding a few to the back of the Great Snake. Squash and melon seeds were likewise distributed in the same way. The vase from which the stone effigies and other images were taken was then placed near the base of the middle rain-cloud picture, and a large quartz crystal was added on the left. A conch, which the author presented to the chief, was placed on the right of this vase. Anote then swept the floor north of the fireplace, and as he sang in a low tone Satele drew a straight line of meal from near the right pole of the ladder across the floor to the middle of the altar. He placed along this line, at intervals, four feathers, and near where it joined the altar he stretched a string, with an attached feather, called the _pütabi_.[29] He then sprinkled a line of pollen along this trail of meal. Anote's medicine-bowl was set just in front of the middle rain-cloud figure; the clay pedestal with inserted upright feathers stood before the left, and a basket-tray with prayer-meal before the right rain-cloud figure. ALTAR IN THE TEWAKIVA AT HANO The altar (plate XIX) in the _Tewakiva_ was begun about 10 A.M. on the Assembly day, and was made by Pocine,[30] assisted by his uncle, Puñsauwi, both members of the _Nañ-towa_, or Sand clan. The preparations began with the manufacture of a clay effigy of the Great Snake similar to but larger than that made by Anote in the _Moñkiva_. The clay was moistened and kneaded on the floor, and then rolled into a cylinder about three feet long, blunt at one end and pointed at the other. [Illustration: AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST No. 8., Vol. 1, PL. XIX Drawn by MARY M. LEIGHTER ALTAR IN THE TEWAKIVA AT HANO] Four clay balls were made at the same time. One of these later served as the base of a standard (_natci_) which was subsequently placed each morning on the kiva hatch to warn the uninitiated not to enter. The other three were placed back of the altar and supported the sticks called the altar-ladders, which will be considered later. Pocine outlined with meal on the floor a square figure which he divided into two rectangular parts by a line parallel with the northern side. He used meal of two colors--white for one rectangle, and light brown or pinkish for the other. Having made the outlines of the rectangle with great care, he carelessly sprinkled the enclosed spaces with the meal, hardly covering the sand base upon which the figures were drawn. He then added four triangular figures in meal on the south or front side of the rectangular symbols. These images represented rain-clouds, and were alternately white and brown.[31] To the tips of these triangular rain-cloud figures he appended zigzag continuations with lozenge-shaped tips representing the lightning of the four cardinal points. A stone spearpoint or arrowhead was laid on each lozenge-like tip of the zigzag lightning.[32] The two men, Pocine and Puñsauwi, next raised the snake effigy and bore it to a position back of the rectangular meal figures on the floor. They deposited it in such a way that its head pointed southward. Having set the snake effigy in the position which it was to retain throughout the ceremony, Pocine sprinkled a black powder along the back of the image, while his uncle inserted several kernels of corn in the blunt end to represent sent the teeth of an upper jaw. Two kernels of corn were then stuck into the head to indicate eyes, and an imitation necklace, also of grains of corn, was made around the neck of the idol. A double encircling row of corn grains was inserted in the tail or pointed end of the effigy, and Pocine added a small feather at the tip. After the effigy had been put in position and adorned in the manner described, both Pocine and his uncle again shelled ears of corn on the rectangles of meal,[33] to which were added squash, melon, and other seeds. These were regularly distributed, some being dropped along the back of the image. A row of eagle feathers was now inserted along the back of the effigy, instead of in a ridge of sand as in the _Moñkiva_ altar. There were twelve of these feathers, and they were placed at equal intervals from the neck to the tail of the effigy. Puñsauwi then placed the three balls of clay, previously mentioned, back of the image, and in each of these balls he inserted two sticks, called _pahos_, similar to those used on the altar of the _Moñkiva_. These are ancient objects, being reputed to have descended from a remote past. One stick in each pair was called the male, the other the female, as is true of all double prayer-sticks used by the Hopi Indians. They are called _poñya-saka_, "altar-ladders," and imitations[34] of them in miniature are made and placed in shrines on the final day of the ceremony. The insertion of the row of eagle-feathers along the back of the clay effigy of the serpent recalls an instructive reptilian figure on one of the bowls from Sikyatki.[35] In this ancient pictograph we find a row of triangles drawn along the medial line from the head to the tail of a lizard-like figure. The use of the triangle in ancient Pueblo pictography as a symbol of a wing-feather, has been pointed out in an article on the feather as a decorative design in ancient Hopi pottery.[36] The medial line of triangles, representing feathers, on the Sikyatki food-bowl, is paralleled in the Hano kiva by eagle-wing feathers inserted along the middle of the image of a snake. A small vase was next placed just in advance of the effigy of the Great Snake, and into this vase Pocine poured water from an earthenware canteen, making a pass as he did so to the four Pueblo cardinal points--north, west, south, and east--in sinistral ceremonial circuit.[37] A stone arrow-point was then laid on the lozenge-shaped extremity of each lightning figure. Pocine now scraped into the vase some powder from a soft white stone, saying, as he did so, that the process was called _sowiyauma_, "rabbits emerge,"[38] and that he wished he had stones of other colors, corresponding to the cardinal points, for the same purpose. After this was finished he emptied on the floor, from a cloth bag, a miscellaneous collection of botryoidal stones (many of which were waterworn), a few fetishes, and other objects, one of the most conspicuous among the latter being a large green stone. All were at first distributed on the meal picture without any special order, but later were given a definite arrangement. Pocine next went up the kiva ladder, and standing on the upper rung in the sunlight, sought, by means of an angular piece of glass, to reflect a ray of sunlight on the altar, but more especially into the vase of medicine. Four turkey-feathers were then inserted at equal intervals along the base of the serpent effigy, as shown in plate XIX. After the stone objects had been arranged on the meal picture, a line of meal was drawn along the floor, from the right pole of the ladder to the altar. This line was drawn with great care, particular pains being taken to make it as straight as possible. There was no singing while this occurred, thus differing from the ceremony performed in the other Hano kiva. Four small feathers were placed at intervals along the line of meal. These, in sequence, beginning with the one nearest the ladder, were _sikyatci_, yellow-bird; _kwahu_, eagle or hawk; _koyoña_, turkey; and _pociwû_. Pocine sprinkled pollen along this line or meal trail. There was then emptied from a canvas bag upon the rectangular meal figures a heterogeneous collection of objects, among which may be mentioned a bundle of gaming reeds, the humerus of a turkey, a whistle made of a turkey bone, and a zigzag wooden framework such as is used by the Hopi to represent lightning.[39] Back of the altar, leaning against the wall of the kiva, was set upright a wooden slat, notched on both edges and called _tawa-saka_, "sun-ladder." Miniature imitations (plate XX) of this are made in this kiva on the last day of the _Tûñtai_ and deposited in a shrine near Sikyaowatcomo, the site of the early settlement of the Tewa. The _poñya-saka_ or _tawa-saka_ mentioned has not before been seen in any Hopi ceremony, and it may be characteristic of Tewa altars. A notched prayer-stick, called the rain-cloud ladder, is placed in the same shrine at this time. This is characteristic of the Tewa of Tusayan, but is not found in the Hopi _pahos_, with which I am familiar.[40] [Illustration: AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST No. 8., Vol. 1, PL. XIX Drawn by J. L. RIDGWAY MINIATURE IMITATION OF THE TAWA-SAKA OR SUN-LADDER (About one-half size)] The reason these prayer-sticks are termed "ladders" is because they have the form of an ancient type of ladder made by notching a log of wood. They are symbols of the ladders by which the Sun is supposed to emerge from his house at sunrise. In the Hopi and Tewa conception the Sun is weary as he withdraws to the south in winter and these ladders are made to aid him in rising, and thus in returning to bless them. More light will doubtless be shed on the significance of the sun-ladder prayer-offerings when we know more of the ceremonies about the _Tûñtai_ altars. No _típoni_ or badge of office was placed on this altar on the day it was made, and my abrupt departure from the East Mesa made it impossible for me to see the rites which are later performed about it. It is evident, from the preceding description, that the priests of Hano have a knowledge of the Great Serpent cult corresponding to the worship of Palülükoñ. Among the Hopi the _Patki_ people claim to have introduced this cult[41] in comparatively recent times. There is a Tewa clan called _Okuwuñ_ (Cloud) which corresponds, so far as meaning goes, with the _Patki_ clan of the Hopi. Whether this clan brought with it a knowledge of the Great Snake is not clear, as traditions are silent on that point. There is a tradition in the _Okuwuñ_ clan that their ancestors, like those of the _Patki_, came from the south, and that the _Nañ-towa_ bears a like relationship to the _Okuwuñ_ that the Hopi _Tuwa_ clan does to the _Patki_.[42] If this tradition is well founded, a knowledge of the Great Snake fetish of the two Hano kivas may have been brought by the _Okuwuñ_ and _Nañ-towa_ into Tusayan from the same place as that of Palülükoñ. The Kwakwantu society of the _Patki_ clans among the Hopi are intimately connected with this Great Plumed or Horned Snake cult. In some parts of the New-fire ceremony, in which this society takes a prominent part, each member of the society carries in his hand a small wooden image of a horned snake. These images are called _moñkohus_, some of the typical forms of which are figured in an article on the _Naacnaiya_.[43] The head of the snake and its horn are well represented in several of these wooden effigies. CONCLUSIONS The special interest attached to the Winter Solstice altars at Hano is in the fact that they are made by Tewa priests whose ancestors came to Tusayan about the beginning of the eighteenth century. The makers claim that their forefathers brought a knowledge of them from Tcewadi, in the upper valley of the Rio Grande in New Mexico, and that their relatives in the Tewa pueblos in the east still use like altars in their celebration at the _Tûñtai_. Nothing, so far as known, has yet been published on the _Tûñtai_ altars of the eastern Tanoan people, but ethnographers may yet find in the kivas of those villages material which will render the above descriptions of comparative interest. The resemblance of the _Tûñtai_ altars to that of the _Patki_ and related families in the Walpi _Moñkiva_ at the Winter Solstice, is a very distant one. Both have snake effigies, but there is practically little else in common between them, or with the altar erected at the same time by the _Pakab_ people in the _Tcivatokiva_. The _Tûñtai_ altars are characteristically Tewan, and, while homologous with each other, are different from any yet known from the Hopi pueblos. The purport of the _Tûñtai_ rites at Hano seems to be similar to that of the Hopi _Soyaluña_, namely, to draw back the sun in its southern declination, and to fertilize the corn and other seeds and increase all worldly possessions. As at Walpi, strings with attached feathers are made and given to men and women with wishes that the gods may bring them blessings. These strings are also attached to beams of houses, placed in springs of water, tied to the tails of horses, burros, sheep, dogs, chickens, and indeed every possession which the Indian has and wishes to increase. The presence of the idol of the snake means snake worship. The survival of the Tanoan _Tûñtai_ altars at Hano is typical of the way in which the Tusayan ritual has grown to its present complicated form. They are instances of an intrusive element which has not yet been amalgamated, as the knowledge of them is still limited to unassimilated people and clans. Similar conditions have existed from time to time during the history of the Hopi, when new clans were added to those already existing. For many years incoming clans maintained a strict taboo, and each family held the secrets of its own religion; but as time went on and assimilation resulted by intermarriage, the religious society arose, composed of men and women of different clans. The family to which a majority of the membership belonged continued to hold the chieftaincy, and owned the altar and its paraphernalia, cherishing the legends of the society. But when men of other clans were admitted to membership, a mutual reaction of one society on another naturally resulted. This tended to modifications which have obscured the original character of distinctive family worship. The problem of the Hopi ritual, by which is meant the sum of all great ceremonies in the Hopi calendar, deals largely with a composite system. It implies, as elsewhere pointed out, an investigation of the characteristic religious observances of several large families which formerly lived apart in different pueblos. It necessitates a knowledge of the social composition of Walpi and of the history of the different phratries which make up the population of the village. There is a corollary to the above conclusions. No pueblo in the southwest, outside of Tusayan, has the same ceremonial calendar as Walpi, because the population of none is made up of the same clans united in the same relative proportions. Hence the old remark that what is true of one pueblo is true of all, does not apply to their ritual. Some ceremonies at Jemez, Acoma, Sia, and Zuñi, for instance, are like some ceremonies at Walpi; but the old ceremonial calendar in any one of these pueblos was different from that of the other, because the component families were not the same. In the same way the ceremonies at Hano and Walpi have certain things in common, due no doubt to the assimilation in the latter of certain Tanoan clans, but their calendars are very different. The _Tûñtai_ at Hano differs more widely from the Winter Solstice ceremony at Walpi, a gunshot away, than the Walpi observance differs from that at Oraibi, twenty miles distant. So we might also predict that if we knew the character of Winter Solstice altars in the Rio Grande Tewa villages, they would be found to resemble those of Hano more closely than the altars of Hano resemble those of Walpi. The Knickerbocker Press, New York FOOTNOTES: [1] _The Winter Solstice Ceremony at Walpi_ (_American Anthropologist_, vol. XI). [2] These studies were made under the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology. [3] Most of the people of Sitcomovi are of the _Asa_ and _Honani_ clans, of Tanoan ancestry, but they long ago lost the Tewa language and their Tanoan identity. [4] The site of this last settlement of the _Patki_ people, before they joined those of Walpi, is in the plain about four miles south of the East Mesa. The ruins of the pueblo are still visible, and the foundation walls can readily be traced. [5] The Hano names of these pueblos are--San Juan, ----; Santa Clara, _Kap'a_; San Ildefonso, _Pocuñwe_; Pojoaque, _P'okwode_; Nambe, _Nûme_; Tesuque, _Tetsogi_. They also claim Taos (_Tawile_) and Picuris (_Ohke_), but say that another speech is mixed with theirs in these pueblos. [6] The Tewa of Hano call the Hopi _Koso_, and the Hopi speak of the Hano people as the _Towa_ or the _Hanum-nyûmû_. The word "Moki," so constantly used by white people to designate the Hopi, is never applied by the Hopi to themselves, and they strongly object to it. The dead are said to be _moki_, which enters into the formation of verbs, as _tconmoki_, to starve; _tcinmoki_, to be very lonesome, etc. The name _Hano_ or _Hanoki_ is, I believe, simply a combination of the words _Hano_ and _ki_, "eastern pueblo." The element _hano_ appears also in the designation for American, _Pahano_, "eastern water"; _pahanoki_, "American house." Both the Asa and the Tewa peoples are called _Hanum_ clans. [7] Remains of old reservoirs, elaborately walled, from which water was drawn by means of a gourd tied to a long pole, are still pointed out near Tukinovi and are said to have belonged to the _Pe-towa_. Old Tcasra claims that they were in use in his mother's grandmother's time. [8] The troubles following the great rebellion of 1680 drove many Tewa from the Rio Grande valley to Tusayan. [9] It is impossible to make this enumeration accurate, hence these numbers must be regarded as approximations. [10] It is not unusual to find several names applied to the same person. Thus, Hani, the chief of the _Piba_ clans at Walpi, is called Lesma in the Snake kiva. The Walpi call the author Nakwipi, but the Flute chief at Cipaulovi insists that his name is Yoyowaiamû, which appellation was given when the author was inducted into the Flute rites at that pueblo in 1891. [11] The gap in the East Mesa just at the head of the trail before one enters Hano. The pueblo of Walpi derived its name from this gap. [12] Their nomadic enemies raided so near the pueblo of the East Mesa that the priests were unable to visit their shrines without danger. The idol of _Talatumsi_, used in the New-fire ceremony, was removed from its shrine north of Wala on that account. [13] Later, as the outcome of a petty quarrel near the middle of the eighteenth century, the _Asa_ women moved to Sitcomovi which they founded. At present there is only one woman of this clan in Walpi, and no women of the _Honani_, both of which clans are strong in Sitcomovi. [14] Ten Broeck in 1852 seems to have been the first writer to adopt the true name, Hano, of the Tewa pueblo on the East Mesa. [15] One of the differences in custom between Hopi and Tewa women is the method of making their coiffures. Unmarried girls of Walpi and Hano dress their hair in the same manner, with whorls above the ears. Married women have different ways of wearing their hair in the two pueblos. During the wedding ceremonies at Hano the mother of the bride, in the presence of guests, combs her daughter's hair, or that part of it on the front of the scalp, over the face, so that it hangs down like a veil. She ties the hair on the back of the head in two coils, one of which hangs on either side, but the hair before the face she cuts on a level with the chin, beginning at the top of the ears. The hair which remains is too short to be done up in coils, and is simply brushed to one side or the other. Among Hopi married women all the hair is included in the two coils, and the "bang" is absent. [16] The names of many Tewa women end in _pobi_, corresponding with the Hopi _si_, a contracted form of _sihû_, in women's names, as Hoñsi, Nasiumsi, etc. [17] Among the Hopi the moon (Tewa _p'o_) is called _müiyaûh_; new moon, _müiyakatci_; first quarter, _müiyachaunacapti_; full moon, _müiyanacapti_. An eclipse of the moon is spoken of as _müiyaûh moki_, "dead moon." There was a total eclipse of the moon visible at Walpi near the end of December, 1898, when the full moon arose partially obscured. This, said Sikyatala, was bad for the Americans who dwell in the far east, but not for the Hopi. A "dead moon," when in the meridian of the Hopi pueblos, is considered _kalolamai_, "bad." [18] _The Winter Solstice Ceremony at Walpi_, op. cit. [19] The _Asa_ people are also called the _Tcakwaina_ clans. The ruins of their old village, near the western point of Awatobi mesa, are called Tcakwaina-ki. Its walls do not appear above the surface. [20] The particular ceremony of the _Pakab_ peoples is the _Momtcita_, a single day's rite which occurs just after the _Soyaluña_, under direction of Pautiwa. Connected with this ceremony are the performances of the "stick swallowers" or _Nocoto_ priests who were thought to be extinct at Walpi, but Eewa is chief of the _Nocotana_ priests, and the society includes Wikyatiwa, Talahoya, Sikyaventima, and others. They still practice stick-swallowing. Pautiwa is chief of the _Kalektaka_, a warrior priesthood. He belongs to the Eagle clan of the _Pakab_ phratry, which may be related to the _Awata_ or Bow clan of the former pueblo of Awatobi. [21] Tcoshoniwa is generally called by a nickname, Tcino, "Bald-head," or "Curly-hair," a sobriquet to which he strongly objects. He is one of the oldest men of Sitcomovi, belongs to the _Patki_ clan, and was formerly the _kimoñwi_ or governor of Sitcomovi. Hani, of the _Piba_ (Tobacco) clan, is political chief of Walpi; and Anote, also of the _Piba_ clan, is chief of Hano. All the pueblos have _kimoñwis_ or governors, and the office dates from early times; but these pueblo chiefs have no authority over pueblos other than their own. [22] The orientation of the Hano kivas is not far from that of the other East Mesa kivas, or about north 44º west. [23] The chief kiva had a small stove, an innovation which was greatly appreciated by the writer. [24] So named by the Hopi; the Tewa call him Tem[)e], At Hano almost everyone has a Hopi and a Tewa name. [25] Son of Kutcve and Kotcampa of the _Kolon-towa_, or Corn clan; commonly called "Esquash" by Americans. [26] The corn-husk packet of meal seems to be wanting in Zuñian, Keresan, and Tanoan prayer-sticks, but it is almost universally present in those of the Hopi. The Tanoan prayer-stick is called _o'dope_. [27] A cephalic horn is an essential organ of the Great Snake, and is always represented in pictography and on graven or other images of this being. Note the similarity of his Tewa name to the Spanish word _abajo_, "below." [28] This is the first time songs have been noted while an altar was being put in place. [29] This was a four-stranded string of cotton, as long as the outstretched arm, measured from over the heart to the tip of the longest finger. It is supposed to be a roadway of blessings, and the trail of meal is the pathway along which, in their belief, the benign influences of the altar pass from it to the kiva entrance and to the pueblo. [30] Pocine is a youth not far from seventeen years of age. His marriage ceremony was studied by the writer a week before the _Tûñtai_. [31] The triangle among the Hopi is almost as common a symbol of the rain-cloud as the semicircle. It is a very old symbol, and is frequently found with the same meaning in cliff-houses and in ancient pictography. [32] It was found in studying the four lightning symbols on this Tewa altar that sex is associated with cardinal points as in the Walpi Antelope altar. The lightning of the north is male, that of the west female, the south male, and the east female. The same holds with many objects in Hopi altars; thus the stone objects, _tcamahia_, of the Antelope altar follow this rule. In the same way plants and herbs have sex (not in the Linnean meaning), and are likewise associated with the cardinal points. [33] This sprinkling of corn seeds upon the meal picture of a Hopi altar is mentioned in an account of the Oraibi Flute ceremony. The evident purpose of this act is to vitalize the seeds by the accompanying rites about the altar. [34] Called _omowûh-saka_, "rain-cloud ladders." [35] _Smithsonian Report_, 1895, pl. lvii. [36] _The American Anthropologist_, vol. XI, page 1. [37] The Tewa, like the Hopi, recognize six ceremonial directions--north, west, south, east, above, and below. The sinistral circuit is one in which the center is on the left hand, while the dextral circuit has its center to the right. The older term, "sunwise," for the latter circuit, etymologically means one ceremonial circuit in the northern hemisphere and an opposite in the southern. On this and other accounts the author has ceased to use it in designating circuits. [38] For the increase of rabbits. [39] This zigzag framework had appended to one end a carved imitation of a snake's head, and as it represents the lightning this association was not incongruous. Similar frameworks are carried in the dance by a man impersonating Püükoñ, the War god, and at certain other times when lightning is symbolized. [40] In asking why albino Hopi are found at the Middle Mesa and not on the East Mesa, it was unexpectedly learned that in some ceremonies a white prayer-stick is made at the former mesa, and that albinism was due to want of care by the father in making these offerings while his wife was pregnant. The author has never seen the white _paho_ of the Middle Mesa, and does not know when it is made nor its shape and use. [41] All Hopi priests are very solicitous that sketches of the _Patki_ altar in the _Soyaluña_ should not be shown to Tewa men or women, and the Tewa men begged me to keep silent regarding their altars while conversing with the Walpi chiefs. There is a very strict taboo between the two peoples at the time of the Winter Solstice ceremony, which is more rigid than at other times. [42] The _Tuwa_ (Sand) or _Kükütce_ (Lizard) clan lived at Pakatcomo with the _Patki_ people, according to their legends. [43] _Journal of American Folk-lore_, 1892, pl. II, figs. 1-4. These _moñkohus_ of the Kwakwantu society, representing horned snakes, should not be confounded with those carried by other societies, typical forms of which are shown in figures 5-8. In the article quoted it was not stated that the effigies with heads represent _Palülükoñs_. The effigy on the massive club borne by the chief of the Kwakwantu also represents the Great Snake. 
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Standish 480--Phil's Rivals By Stanley Norris 481--Mark Manning's Mission By Horatio Alger, Jr. 482--Dick Merriwell's Ability By Burt L. Standish 483--Jack Lightfoot's Capture By Maxwell Stevens 484--A Captain at Fifteen By Jules Verne 485--Dick Merriwell's Trap By Burt L. Standish 486--Phil's Pluck By Stanley Norris 487--The Wreck of the _Grosvenor_ By W. Clark Russell 488--Dick Merriwell's Defense By Burt L. Standish 489--Charlie Codman's Cruise By Horatio Alger, Jr. 490--Jack Lightfoot's Head Work By Maxwell Stevens 491--Dick Merriwell's Model By Burt L. Standish 492--Phil's Triumph By Stanley Norris 493--A Two Years' Vacation By Jules Verne 494--Dick Merriwell's Mystery By Burt L. Standish 495--The Young Explorer By Horatio Alger, Jr. 496--Jack Lightfoot's Wisdom By Maxwell Stevens 497--Frank Merriwell's Backers By Burt L. Standish 498--Ted Strong, Cowboy By Edward C. Taylor 499--From Circus to Fortune By Stanley Norris 500--Dick Merriwell's Back-stop By Burt L. 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Standish 522--Lost in the Desert By Edward C. Taylor 523--Building Himself Up By Oliver Optic 524--Dick Merriwell's Test By Burt L. Standish 525--Adrift in Midair By Ensign Clarke Fitch 526--True to His Trust By Stanley Norris 527--Frank Merriwell's Trump Card By Burt L. Standish 528--Lyon Hart's Heroism By Oliver Optic 529--Fighting the Rustlers By Edward C. Taylor 530--Frank Merriwell's Strategy By Burt L. Standish 531--Digging for Gold By Horatio Alger, Jr. 532--Wyoming By Edward S. Ellis 533--Frank Merriwell's Triumph By Burt L. Standish 534--Louis Chiswick's Mission By Oliver Optic 535--Facing the Music By Stanley Norris 536--Dick Merriwell's Grit By Burt L. Standish 537--Stemming the Tide By Roy Franklin 538--Adrift in the City By Horatio Alger, Jr. 539--Dick Merriwell's Assurance By Burt L. Standish 540--Royal Tarr's Pluck By Oliver Optic 541--Holding the Fort By Ensign Clarke Fitch 542--Dick Merriwell's Long Slide By Burt L. Standish 543--Two Ways of Becoming a Hunter By Harry Castlemon 544--The Rival Miners By Edward C. Taylor 545--Frank Merriwell's Rough Deal By Burt L. Standish 546--The Professor's Son By Oliver Optic 547--Frank Hunter's Peril By Horatio Alger, Jr. 548--Dick Merriwell's Threat By Burt L. Standish 549--Fin and Feather By Wallace Kincaid 550--Storm Mountain By Edward S. Ellis 551--Dick Merriwell's Persistence By Burt L. Standish 552--Striving for His Own By Oliver Optic 553--Winning by Courage By Roy Franklin 554--Dick Merriwell's Day By Burt L. Standish 555--Robert Coverdale's Struggle By Horatio Alger, Jr. 556--The West Point Boys By Col. J. Thomas Weldon 557--Frank Merriwell's Peril By Burt L. Standish 558--The Last of the Herd By Edward C. Taylor 559--Making a Man of Himself By Oliver Optic 560--Dick Merriwell's Downfall By Burt L. Standish 561--Winning Against Odds By Roy Franklin 562--The Camp in the Foothills By Harry Castlemon 563--Frank Merriwell's Pursuit By Burt L. Standish 564--The Naval Academy Boys Commander Luther G. Brownell 565--Every Inch a Boy By Oliver Optic 566--Dick Merriwell Abroad By Burt L. Standish 567--On a Mountain Trail By Edward C. Taylor 568--The Plebes' Challenge By Col. J. Thomas Weldon 569--Frank Merriwell in the Rockies By Burt L. Standish 570--Lester's Luck By Horatio Alger, Jr. 571--His Own Helper By Oliver Optic 572--Dick Merriwell's Pranks By Burt L. Standish 573--Bound to Get There By Roy Franklin 574--An Annapolis Tangle By Commander Luther G. Brownell 575--Frank Merriwell's Pride By Burt L. Standish 576--Across the Prairie By Edward C. Taylor 577--Honest Kit Dunstable By Oliver Optic 578--Frank Merriwell's Challengers By Burt L. Standish 579--The Runaway Cadet By Col. J. Thomas Weldon 580--Jack Harkaway Around the World Bracebridge Hemyng 581--Frank Merriwell's Endurance By Burt L. Standish 582--Out for Big Game By Edward C. Taylor 583--The Young Pilot By Oliver Optic 584--Dick Merriwell's Cleverness By Burt L. Standish 585--Oscar in Africa By Harry Castlemon 586--Rupert's Ambition By Horatio Alger, Jr. 587--Frank Merriwell's Marriage By Burt L. Standish 588--The Pride of Annapolis By Com. Luther G. Brownell 589--The Cruise of the "Dandy" By Oliver Optic 590--Dick Merriwell, the Wizard By Burt L. Standish 591--Captain Nemo's Challenge By Edward C. Taylor 592--The Cabin in the Clearing By Edward S. Ellis 593--Dick Merriwell's Stroke By Burt L. Standish 594--Frank and Fearless By Horatio Alger, Jr. 595--Three Young Silver Kings By Oliver Optic 596--Dick Merriwell's Return By Burt L. Standish 597--His Own Master By Roy Franklin 598--An Annapolis Adventure By Com. Luther G. Brownell 599--Dick Merriwell's Resource By Burt L. Standish 600--Ted Strong's Close Call By Edward C. Taylor * * * * * LOOK FOR THE S. & S. IMPRINT For fifteen years the S. & S. Novel has held first place in the estimation of readers who want, first of all, good, clean, interesting fiction and _then_ a sufficient number of "_words_" to make them feel that the book is worth what they paid for it--if not more. Mere "_words_" do not make a story, nor should a colored cover and heavy paper deceive the reading public into thinking that an imitation of the S. & S. Novel is as good as the original. Unscrupulous publishers are now trying to defraud the reading public. Taking certain of the S. & S. Novels, which are not protected by copyright, they change the titles and authors' names, and sell books at fifteen cents, the authentic editions of which may be had in the S. & S. Edition for ten cents! Hence, a word of caution to our readers: _LOOK FOR THE S. & S. IMPRINT_ It is a guarantee of quality and protects you Send a 2c. stamp for our complete catalogue STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS NEW YORK * * * * * "ALGER" What a pleasant sound the name of Horatio Alger, Jr., has to boys who read clean, wholesome stories of adventure! His name on a book means that it is a "good one"; that the money invested in it is well invested. Street & Smith publish the most complete list of his works in their famous S. & S. novels--it contains nearly all of them. If you want your boys to read helpful books, buy the "Algers" in the Medal and New Medal Libraries. PRICE, 10c. and 15c. PER COPY AT ALL NEWSDEALERS If sent by mail, add four cents per copy to cover postage. Complete catalogue upon request. STREET & SMITH, Publishers, NEW YORK * * * * * FRANK MERRIWELL'S BACKERS Or The Pride of His Friends by BURT L. STANDISH Author of _The Celebrated "Merriwell Stories"_ Published Exclusively in the Medal Library, in Paper-Covered Edition [Illustration] Street & Smith, Publishers 79-89 Seventh Ave., New York City Copyright, 1903 By Street & Smith Frank Merriwell's Backers All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. CONTENTS I--IN THE TRAP II--IN THE HANDS OF CIMARRON BILL III--INTO THE NIGHT IV--IN THE OLD HUT V--PINTO PEDE RECEIVES HIS LESSON VI--INJUN JOE TO THE RESCUE VII--MERRIWELL AND BIG MONTE VIII--THE DEATH-SHOT IX--FRANK MAKES A DECISION X--MERRIWELL'S METHOD XI--SMOKE SIGNALS AND A DECOY XII--LOST IN THE MOUNTAINS XIII--FRANK'S ESCAPE XIV--MYSTERIOUS PABLO XV--MERRY'S DISCOVERY XVI--FRANK DETECTS TREACHERY XVII--THE WAR-WHOOP OF OLD ELI XVIII--A STRANGE FUNERAL XIX--NEW ARRIVALS IN HOLBROOK XX--MRS. ARLINGTON HAS A VISITOR XXI--SEEN FROM THE WINDOW XXII--A SENSATION IN TOWN XXIII--BOXER CREATES A STIR XXIV--BOXER TO THE RESCUE XXV--UNTO DEATH! XXVI--THE COMING OF CROWFOOT XXVII--ARRESTED IN HOLBROOK XXVIII--BILL HIKES OUT XXIX--OLD JOE TAKES A DRINK XXX--FRANK IN SUNK HOLE XXXI--THE DANCE IN SUNK HOLE XXXII--DEAD OR LIVING XXXIII--THE RETURN TO HOLBROOK FRANK MERRIWELL'S BACKERS. CHAPTER I. IN THE TRAP. Millions of bright stars shone serenely through the clear Arizona night, shedding their soft white light on the great arid plains and the mysterious mesas and mighty mountains. Throughout the night Frank Merriwell lay ensconced behind some sheltering rocks in a deep ravine, where he had been trapped by the ruffians in the employ of the mining trust, who were determined to wrest from him the precious papers they believed to be in his possession. Old Joe Crowfoot, the aged Indian friend of Merriwell, who had been snared with him, had, shortly after nightfall, taken the precious oilskin package, containing the papers, and crept forth on his stomach, like a snake, from amid the rocks. Joe had promised to take the papers to the nearest registry post-office, in case he escaped, and send them, according to directions, to Richard Merriwell, Frank's brother, at Fardale. Frank had written a letter to Dick, and had securely tied up and directed the package. He trusted the aged redskin, who declared that he might find a method of escaping from the trap, yet could not take the white youth with him. He had made certain that Joe understood the matter of registering the package, in case he should reach the post-office with it in his possession. Merriwell had become satisfied that this was the best course to pursue. It was plain that he was in a very bad trap, and he knew those ruffians could soon starve him out. There was no water or food for himself or his horse. A day of thirst behind those rocks must surely do for him. If Joe carried out the plan successfully, the papers would be placed beyond the reach of the ruffians, even though Frank fell into their hands. And it was the papers they had been engaged to secure. Were they to kill him, Dick would have the precious papers and be able to continue the battle for his rights. Merry watched old Joe wiggle silently away, wondering that the Indian could slip along in that manner with so very little effort. The old redskin lay flat on the ground and took advantage of every little cover he could find, and soon he vanished amid the rocks and passed into the shadows, after which Merry saw him no more. Down the ravine a great mass of rocks and earth had been blown down by a mighty blast and blocked the passage. Up the ravine armed and murderous men were waiting and watching, ready to shoot down the youth they had trapped. There were also armed ruffians on the barrier to the southeast. They had trailed Merry with the persistence of bloodhounds. A full hour passed. The men above were making merry in a boisterous way. One of them began to sing. He had a musical voice, which rang out clearly on the soft night air. Strangely enough he sang "Nearer My God to Thee." Could they be watching closely? It did not seem so. Frank rigged his coat on the barrel of his rifle. On the muzzle of the weapon he placed his hat. Then, he lifted coat and hat above the rocks. Crack! Ping! The ringing report of a rifle and the singing of a bullet. The hat and coat dropped. In the coat Merriwell found a bullet-hole. That settled it. There was no longer a doubt but that the desperadoes were watching like wolves. Yet old Joe had been able to slip forth from the protection of those rocks and creep away. More than ever Merriwell admired the skill of the Indian. Thinking that the old fellow had instructed Dick in the craft which he knew so well, Frank believed such knowledge had not been acquired in vain. Some time Dick might find it very valuable to him. There was a hoarse burst of laughter from the watching ruffians. "Oh, Merriwell!" called a voice. "Well," sang back Frank, "what do you want?" "Stick that thing up again. We'd like a leetle target practise." "You'll have to provide your own target," Merry retorted. "Oh, we reckons not! We'll stand you up fer one sooner or later," was the assurance. Still they had not discovered old Joe. It seemed marvelous. The night passed on. Another hour was gone when there came a sudden commotion far up the ravine, as if on the further outskirts of the ruffians. There were hoarse shouts, angry oaths, the rattle of shots, and then the clatter of iron-shod hoofs. The ring and echo of those clattering hoofs receded into the night, coming back clear and distinct at first, but growing fainter and fainter. Frank Merriwell laughed and lay still until the sound of the galloping horse had died out in the distance. "Old Joe is on his way to the post-office," muttered Merry. "He took a fancy to acquire one of their horses in order to make better time." The ruffians were filled with more or less consternation. They continued to wrangle angrily. At last, one cried: "Oh, Merriwell!" Frank lay perfectly still and made no answer. "Oh, Merriwell!" Peering forth from amid his rocky barrier, yet crouching where the shadows hid him, Frank cocked his rifle and pushed it forward for use. There was a time of silence, during which he fancied the men were consulting in whispers. Finally his keen eyes saw something move into the dim white light above some boulders. He laughed a little in a suppressed way and sent a bullet through the moving object. "Put it up again!" he called cheerfully. "I don't mind a little target practise myself." He knew the thing had been thrust up there to draw his fire and settle the question if he still remained in the trap. But he had shown those ruffians that he could shoot as accurately as the best of them. After this he heard the men talking. He knew they were bewildered by what had happened. They could not believe it possible that a human being had crept forth from the snare. It seemed to them that the person who had seized their horse and ridden away had come upon them from the rear and was in no way connected with Merriwell. After a time they were silent. They were satisfied that the trap held fast. Then Frank found a comfortable place where he was perfectly hidden and coolly went to sleep, with his hand on his cocked rifle. Merriwell needed sleep, and he did not hesitate to take it. It spoke well for his nerves that he could sleep under such circumstances. It may seem that it did not speak so well for his judgment. Still he knew that he would awaken at any sound of an alarming nature, and he believed those men would rest content, satisfied that they had him caged where there was no possibility that he could give them the slip. After an hour or more, he awoke and demonstrated the fact that he was still behind the rocks by exchanging a challenge with the watching ruffians. Then he slept again. And so the night passed on. Frank was wide-awake with the coming of dawn. He saw the stars pale and die in the sky. He saw the gentle gray of morning and the flush of sunrise. Far up the ravine rose the smoke of a camp-fire, telling where the ruffians were preparing breakfast. "Oh, Merriwell!" "Hello, yourself!" "Are you hungry?" "No, thank you. I have plenty to eat." "Are you thirsty?" "Not in the least. I have my canteen." "That'll be empty right soon. How would you like some steamin' hot coffee?" "It wouldn't go bad. Send some in." "We'll exchange a pot of coffee for sartin papers you has with yer." "You're very kind!" laughed Merry derisively. "It's a right good offer. We're goin' to have them papers anyhow, an' you may not even git coffee fer them." "You're due for the greatest disappointment of your lives, gentlemen," declared Frank. "If you're looking this way for papers, you're barking up the wrong tree." "Oh, you can't fool us!" was the answer. "We know you've got 'em, and we'll have 'em." "Ever gamble?" asked Frank. "Oh, we sometimes take a chance." "I'll go you my horse and outfit against that of any one in your party that you don't get the papers." "Done! It's a sure thing as far as we're consarned. We has yer foul, an' we'll stay right yere till we starves ye out." "Too bad to waste your valuable time so foolishly. But, say!" "Say it." "I see no particular reason why my horse here should go hungry and thirsty." "Not the least. Bring the pore critter right out." "Beg pardon if I seem a trifle lazy, but it's too much bother. However, I'll send him out, and I'll look to you to see that he's properly cared for." Without exposing himself, Frank managed to get the horse out from the niche in the wall where he had been placed, headed the animal through a break in the rocky barrier and sent him off, with a sharp crack of the hand. The horse galloped up the ravine, finally saw human beings, stopped, snorted, seemed about to turn back, but finally kept on and disappeared. Then Frank settled down to wait, being resolved to give old Joe plenty of time. The day grew hot in the ravine, where there was little air. The sun beat down with great fierceness from the unclouded sky. Those mountains seemed bare and baked. Little wonder that their repelling fastnesses had presented little attraction for the prospector. Little wonder it had often been reported that they contained no gold. But Frank Merriwell's "Queen Mystery" Mine lay in that range, and it had developed so richly that the great Consolidated Mining Association of America was straining every nerve to get possession of it--to wrest it from its rightful owner. So Frank baked in the sun, taking care to keep well hidden, for he knew those men would gladly end the affair by filling him full of lead, if they were given the opportunity. Once or twice he caught glimpses of them. Several times they challenged him. He was prompt to answer every challenge, and he did not wish to shoot any of them. He had fully decided on the course he would pursue; but he was determined to give Joe Crowfoot plenty of time to perform his part of the program. Frank smiled in grim irony over his position. He took it philosophically, satisfied that that was the best he could do. He did not worry, for worry would do him no good. He was given plenty of time to reflect on the course pursued by the syndicate, and it made him wonder that such high-handed things could take place in the United States. It seemed rather remarkable that the head of the mighty syndicate, D. Roscoe Arlington, was the father of Chester Arlington, Dick Merriwell's bitterest enemy at Fardale. Frank had encountered Mr. Arlington. He had found him blunt, grim, obstinate, somewhat coarse, yet apparently not brutal. Being a clever reader of human nature, which many are not who pride themselves that they are, Frank had become satisfied that there were many men in the world who were far worse than D. Roscoe Arlington, yet were considered models of virtue and justice. Arlington was not a hypocrite. He was bluntly and openly himself. He had set out as a poor boy to make a fortune, and now it seemed possible that he might become the richest man in America. Comfortable riches had first been the object for which he strived; but when his scheming poured wealth upon him, he set the mark higher. He determined to be one of the very rich men of the United States. That goal he had now arrived at; but the mark had been lifted again, and now he was determined to become the richest. Arlington had not ordered those ruffians to take the papers from Frank. Still he was back of it all. He had turned the matter over into the hands of unscrupulous lieutenants, instructing them to employ any means within their power to obtain possession of the Queen Mystery and San Pablo Mines. Those lieutenants were directing the operations of the ruffians. It is quite probable that Arlington did not wish to know the method employed by his lieutenants. All he desired was the result. Frank had also met Mrs. Arlington, and he had seen in her a haughty, domineering, icy woman, ready to do anything to gain her ends. She was proud and high-headed, although she had once been a poor girl. She looked down in scorn and contempt on all poor people. But Merry had not forgotten June Arlington, who had a truly high-bred face of great attractiveness, and who was vivacious yet reserved, proud yet considerate, high-spirited yet kind. He had not forgotten the girl, and ever he thought of her with feelings of kindness, for with her own hands she had restored to him the precious papers when they had been stolen from him, by agents of the trust, assisted by her mother. He knew Dick admired June, and he did not wonder at it, for about June Arlington there was such fascination as few girls possess. Still Merry could not help wondering if June would one day develop into a woman like her mother. Such a result did not seem possible. Midday passed, and the afternoon waned, yet without any diminishing of the scorching heat in the ravine. Frank's water was gone, and he began to feel the torments of thirst. He had counted the time as it passed. Finally he was satisfied that Crowfoot had accomplished the task he had set out to perform. The papers were mailed. Probably they were already on their way to Dick Merriwell at Fardale. "Well," muttered Frank, "I think I'll go out and look these ruffians over now." CHAPTER II. IN THE HANDS OF CIMARRON BILL. A shout quickly brought an answer. "Gentlemen," said Frank, "I'm for a parley. What say you?" "We're willing. Parley away." "If you were to get those papers I suppose you would feel yourselves perfectly well satisfied?" "I reckon you've hit it good an' fair." "Such being the case, if I come forth with hands up and empty, I take it you won't take the trouble to shoot me up any?" "None at all," was the assurance promptly given. "If you comes out like that, you has our promise not to do any shooting whatever." "And how about the gentlemen below?" "They'll do no shootin' unless you goes that way." "Is this all on the square?" "You bet! Bring out that old redskin with ye, an' let him keep his hands up, too." "I think you've made a mistake, gentlemen; there is no redskin with me. I am quite alone." "We knows better! Ye can't play any tricks on us!" "I am willing to convince you. Just keep your fingers off your triggers. Watch me as close as you like. I'm coming!" Having said this, he left his rifle lying on the ground and rose to his feet with his hands held open above his head. It must be confessed that he did not do this without some doubt concerning the result, for he knew those ruffians were very treacherous; but somehow he was satisfied that they had been instructed to obtain the papers, if possible, without killing him, and that belief led him to run the risk that he now faced. He was ready to drop instantly if they fired as he arose into view. A moment he stood quite still, and then, as no shot rang out, he stepped through amid the boulders and walked boldly up the ravine. In this manner, Frank walked straight into the midst of a party of nine thoroughbred frontier desperadoes, who were waiting for him, with their weapons in their hands. The leader was a thin, dark-faced, fierce-looking man, who covered Merry with a revolver. "I rather 'lowed you'd come to it," he said, in satisfaction. "But I told ye to bring that old Injun along." "And I told you there was no Indian with me. I spoke the truth." "Say, youngster, did you ever hear of Cimarron Bill?" Frank looked the fellow over with his calm eyes. He saw a cruel, straight slit of a mouth, a thin black mustache, with traces of gray, and sharp, cruel eyes, set altogether too near together. He had heard of Cimarron Bill as the most dangerous "man-killer" in all the Southwest. "Yes," he said quietly, "I have heard of him." "Well, you're lookin' at him. I'm Cimarron Bill. The butts of my guns have seventeen notches in 'em. You may make the eighteenth." Merriwell knew what the ruffian meant, yet he showed no signs of fear. "I have heard," he said, "that Cimarron Bill has never yet shot a man in cold blood or one who was unarmed." "I opine that's right, young man; but this case is a leetle different. It's not healthy to irk me up under any conditions, and so I advise you to go slow." Frank smiled. "I have no desire or intention of irking you up, sir," he said. "I am giving you straight goods. There is no Indian with me." "There was last night." "Yes." "Well, I don't opine he's melted into the air or sunk into the ground, an' tharfore he has to be yander behind them rocks." "I give you my word, sir, that he is not there, and has not been there since last night." The ruffians had gathered about and were listening to this talk. Picturesque scoundrels they were, armed to the teeth and looking fit for any job of bloodshed or murder. They glared at the cool youth standing so quietly in their midst; but he seemed perfectly at his ease. "Sam," said the leader, turning to one of them, "go out yander to them thar rocks an' look round for that redskin." Sam, a squat, red-headed desperado, seemed to hesitate. "What ef the Injun is waitin' thar to shoot me up some as I comes amblin' along?" he asked. "Go!" said Cimarron Bill, in a tone cold as ice. "If the Injun shoots you, we'll riddle this here young gent with bullets." "Which won't do me good none whatever," muttered Sam; but he knew better than to disobey or hesitate longer, and so, dropping his rifle into the hollow of his left arm, he stepped out and advanced toward the spot where Merriwell had been ensconced behind the boulders. The brutal band watched and waited. Cimarron Bill surveyed the face of Frank Merriwell, more than half-expecting the youth would call for Sam to come back, knowing the fate that would befall him in case the Indian began to shoot. But Sam walked straight up to the boulders, clambered onto them, and looked over into the hiding-place that had served Frank so well. "Derned ef thar's ary livin' critter hyer!" he shouted back. "Make sure," called the leader, in that metallic voice of his, which was so hard on the nerves. "Don't make no mistake." Sam sprang down behind the boulders. They saw his head moving about, but, very soon, he clambered back over them and came walking rapidly away. "The varmint is sartin gone," he averred. Immediately Cimarron Bill thrust his cocked revolver against Frank Merriwell's temple. "Tell us where the Injun is!" he commanded. "Speak quick and straight, or I'll blow the top of your head off!" "I am unable to tell you just where he is at present," said Frank, with that perfect coolness that so astonished the desperadoes. "He left me last night." "Left you?" "Yes." "How? We had this side guarded, an' ther boys below kept close watch." "All the same, I think Joe Crowfoot passed you. How he did it I do not know. He told me he could." The leader of the ruffians looked as if he was not yet willing to believe such a thing had happened; but there no longer seemed much chance for doubt. "Then it must have been that red whelp who stole one of our hosses!" he said. "I think it was," nodded Merry. "Something like two hours after he left me I heard a commotion this way, followed by some shooting and the sound of a galloping horse, which died out in the distance." Some of the men began to swear, but Bill silenced them with one swift look from his evil eyes. "Well, that sure is the limit!" he observed, trying to hide some of his disgust. "We didn't opine a kitten could sneak past us without being seen an' shot up." "A kitten might not," said Frank. "But old Joe Crowfoot should be compared with a serpent. He has all the wisdom and craft of one. I depended on him, and he did not fail me." "Where has he gone? State it--state it almighty sudden!" "If he followed instructions, he has gone to Holbrook." "For what?" "To send a message for me to my brother." "A message? What sort of a message?" "A letter and some papers." "Papers?" said Cimarron Bill, in a low, threatening tone. "What papers?" "Certain papers referring to the Queen Mystery and San Pablo Mines, which I own." A look of disappointed rage contorted the cruel face of the murderous ruffian. The lips were pressed together until they appeared to make one straight line no wider than the thin blade of a knife. The eyelids closed to narrow slits, while that dark face turned to a bluish tinge. Many times had Frank Merriwell stood in deadly peril of his life; but, looking at that man then, he well knew that never had his danger been greater. Still, if he regretted his act in walking forth and surrendering himself into the hands of such a creature he effectually concealed it. He betrayed not a whit of trepidation or alarm, which was a masterly display of nerve. The ruffians began to murmur fiercely, like the growling of so many wolves. Perhaps it was to this outbreak that Merry owed his life, for the leader suddenly bade them be silent, and the sounds ceased. "So you sent those papers off by that old redskin, did you?" asked Bill. "I did." "And you have the nerve to come out here and tell me that! If you had known me better, you would have stayed, and choked and starved, or even shot yourself behind those rocks, before doing such a thing!" Merriwell made no retort, for he felt that too many words would be indiscreet. This man was capable of any atrocity, and another straw might break the camel's back. "Mr. Merriwell," said the ruffian, "I came here for them papers, and I'm goin' to have them!" "You may take my life," said Merry; "but that will not give you the papers. In fact, it will utterly defeat the object of those men who have employed you to obtain them." "How do you figger that out? With you out of the way, they'll have less trouble in takin' your mines." "On the contrary, if I am murdered, the fact will react against them. I have written a full account of the facts concerning my position and fight with the syndicate to my brother, to be used in case anything serious happens to me. With that, and with the papers I have sent him, I fancy he can so arouse public indignation against the syndicate that the men who are pushing this thing will be glad enough to pull in their horns and quit the battle. So you can see that by killing me you will defeat the object of the syndicate and disgust it with your method of procedure." Frank spoke those words convincingly, and certain it is that he made an impression on Cimarron Bill. The other ruffians, however, who failed to reason clearly, were fierce enough to shoot the captive where he stood. Bill stood still and looked the young man over, beginning to realize that he was dealing with a youth of more than ordinary courage, resource and sagacity. His respect for Merriwell was beginning to develop amazingly. Frank could read the man well enough to feel that the danger-point had been successfully passed, and he breathed more freely, although there was no outward change in his manner. "I'm not yet satisfied that you're not lying to me," said the chief of the ruffians; whereupon he ordered his satellites to search the captive. The closest search, which was supervised by Bill, failed to bring to light the package of coveted papers. Bill seemed to pass a few moments in thought. Then he said: "We'll all go over yander and have a look round among the boulders." With Frank in their midst, they proceeded to the spot where he had successfully held them off. As they went forward, they called to the men down the ravine, and soon those ruffians came hastening to join them. "Have ye got the papers?" demanded one called Big Monte, a strapping ruffian, who was the leader of the party. When he learned what had happened the giant swore in angry disappointment. "However did you all happen to let the Injun slip ye that way?" he demanded scornfully. Bill looked him over. "I opines you're not castin' reflections any whatever?" he said, in a deadly manner. Big Monte looked large enough to eat the thin, dark-faced chap, but he hastened to disclaim any intention of "casting reflections," whereupon Bill gave him no further heed. The chief set them to searching amid the boulders, overseeing it all and taking care that no possible place of concealment was neglected. But all this search came to nothing, and the baffled wretches were finally forced to confess that they were outwitted. But Merriwell was a captive in their hands, and in their disappointment they might be led to revenging themselves upon him. CHAPTER III. INTO THE NIGHT. Cimarron Bill was a man who disliked being outwitted and outdone, especially by a youth of Frank Merriwell's years, and he was one who was not at all likely to let such a thing pass without seeking to recover and accomplish his object by some method, failing in which, he was almost certain to take summary and tragic vengeance on the one who had baffled him. Merriwell knew well enough in what peril he stood, and yet he maintained his manner of composure. Bill spoke to two of the ruffians, of whom Big Monte was one, and Sam, the red-headed rascal, the other. "You two take charge of this here altogether too smarty young gent," said the leader of the desperadoes, "and look out for him a heap close. Don't let him come none of his slick tricks on you, for you will be held responsible for him, and I opines you know what that means." "Oh, we'll take care of him!" said Sam significantly, as he fingered the butt of a pistol. "All I wants is a right good chance to do that!" Bill fixed the red-head with a look of his narrow black eyes. "At the same time," said he, "permit me to suggest that you lets no special harm come to him, as I reckons him valuable property just about now, and I may need him a whole lot later. If anything unnecessary happens to the young gent, you'll deal with me for it!" It must be confessed that Merry felt somewhat safer in the hands of those ruffians after that, for he began to perceive that, for some reason, Bill wished to preserve him for the time being without harm. Apparently the captive gave little heed to these words, but in truth he missed nothing. As the others drew aside with Bill, Big Monte took a picket rope, observing: "I allows, Sam, that we'd better be keerful, jest as the boss suggests, fer it ain't a whole lot healthy to have anything happen contrarywise to his wishes. Such bein' the case, I propose we tie up this here young gent some, so he'll not bring trouble on hisself an' us by tryin' to lope out." Sam looked disappointed. "I was a-thinkin'," he said, "that I'd like to see him try to lope; but sense the boss has put it so plain, I kind of changes my mind, an' I thinks your propersition is kirect. Go ahead, Monte, while I keeps him kivered with my shootin'-iron." Frank made no objection as Big Monte tied his hands behind him. He knew it was quite useless, and so he submitted with a meekness that was rather deceptive, for it seemed to indicate that he was quite awed by his situation and the men who had taken him captive. "I judges that will do," said the big man, having bound the rope about Merry's wrists until it was uncomfortable in its tightness. "He's good an' fast now." Merriwell sat down on a rock, while the two ruffians flung themselves on the ground in the shadow of the wall and waited the end of the consultation between the chief and the remainder of the band. Bill was talking to his ruffians in his low, quiet way, and they were listening. Frank wondered what was passing, but they were too far away for him to hear. At last, one of the men, who had but one arm, started off from the others, hurrying toward the horses. Bill had thrust something into this man's hand, seeming to give him a final admonition. Five minutes later the one-armed man, mounted on the very best horse he could find, rode away at good speed. Even then Merry did not conceive that it was the desperate purpose of One-hand Hank to follow those papers all the way to Fardale, if necessary, in the attempt to gain possession of them. He fancied that Hank meant to try to find the Indian, with the hope that the papers still remained in old Joe's possession. Bill came back and stood looking Merriwell over. Several of the men had departed toward the spot where the horses were kept. "I reckons you thinks yerself some slick, kid!" he said, with cold contempt. "You'll git all over that before you're through dealin' with Cimarron Bill. I'm sartin to take the conceit out of ye a whole lot." To which Merry vouchsafed no retort. "Bring him along," said the chief, to Sam and Monte. "We're goin' to pull up stakes and hike." So Frank was marched up to the horses, among which was his own animal, which had been captured by the ruffians. "If you don't mind, gentlemen," said Merry, "it would give me considerable satisfaction to imbibe a little water." "You'll choke plumb to death afore ye ever gits a drap from me," averred Sam. Whereupon Bill looked at the red-head sharply, saying: "Sam, give him a drink from your canteen." And Sam did so. "Thanks," said Merry easily. "It was the desire for water that led me to saunter out from my place among the rocks earlier than I intended. I feel much better now." His saddle had been brought along, and, when it was strapped upon his horse, he was tossed into it by Big Monte and another. The rest of the band had prepared to move, with the exception of those who had come from down the ravine and one fellow who seemed to have taken the place of the departed fellow with one arm. These men had horses beyond the rocky barrier that had been blown down to prevent Merriwell from escaping in that direction, and it was necessary for them to return and pursue another course, as the horses could not be brought over that barrier. There was little delay when everything was ready. Bill took the lead, and those who were to follow did so, the captive in their midst; his horse led by one of them. The others had turned back. The sun was descending peacefully behind the barren mountains, and night was spreading her sable pinions over the land. There was gold in the western sky. The heat yet seemed unabated, save in the valleys and gorges; but later it would become unpleasantly cool. In silence those men rode onward, with their dark, cruel-faced leader at their head. The hoofs of the horses clinked and rang, bestirring the echoes; and, when the gloom of night had stolen upward from the gulches, there came an occasional spark like a firefly when the iron of a hoof struck a flinty rock. So night came on, and still they went forward. Frank wondered what their destination could be; but he saw they were taking a course that must bring them nearer the Queen Mystery Mine. He wasted no words in seeking to engage any of them in conversation. All the while, however, his thoughts were busy. He wondered much if he could come safely through this perilous mischance and how it was to be accomplished. For Frank had not given up, and he had confidence that somehow he would find a way, or one would be opened to him. CHAPTER IV. IN THE OLD HUT. In a valley amid the hills that lay at the base of the barren mountains stood an old hut. Who had built it there? It seemed that it had, beyond doubt, been erected by some prospector. What fate had befallen the builder no man knew. The hut remained, weather-worn and falling to pieces. The coming of another day found Frank Merriwell a captive in that hut, closely guarded. The ruffians had stopped there, for in the vicinity could be found wood and water, and feed for the horses. Some time during the night they had been joined by Big Monte and the others who had turned back to secure the horses beyond the barrier in the ravine. In the morning the men lay about in the vicinity of the hut. Two fires had been built, and breakfast was preparing. Inside the hut an armed man kept guard over the captive. At intervals the guard was changed, but always a man was near with a pistol ready to shoot Merry down if he offered to make a break for freedom. But Frank seemed strangely contented. After the ride through the night, he asked for a blanket to make himself comfortable, suggested in a pleasant way that it would be agreeable to have the cords about his wrists loosened a little, as they were chafing him and his wrists were swollen, and, when the ropes were entirely removed, then lay down on the blanket and went calmly to sleep. Merry slept until one of the men brought him some breakfast. This fellow kicked him to awaken him, whereupon Frank looked up and observed: "Gently, partner--gently! You don't have to kick in a rib in order to get my eyes open." "Ef it wasn't fer ther boss," said the fellow, "I'd take a heap o' satisfaction in kickin' ev'ry dern rib outer ye!" "Then I am thankful for the boss." "Hush! Mebbe ye thinks so now; but wait till he gits round ter deal with ye. I opines he'll disterb ye some." "Well, don't lead me into worriment before it is necessary," entreated Frank, with a smile. "As long as I'm comfortable, I see no reason to disturb myself over what may happen--for there is always a chance that it may not happen." "Waal, not in this case. Ye've robbed us outer a clean two hundred dollars apiece by sendin' off them papers." "Only that? Why, you seem to be cheap men! I should fancy it would take at least five hundred each to hire men to go out to commit robbery and murder." "Thar ain't no robbery about it." "Now, you don't tell me? Perhaps you are right, but the object was robbery, all right enough." "Nary robbery! Ther papers belongs to ther gents what wants to git 'em an' what engaged Bill to do the job." "Possibly I might convince you to the contrary if I had time; but just now I will admit that I'm remarkably hungry. Put down the feed right here on the floor, and I'll turn to directly." As the man stooped to put down the stuff, as directed, he brought his head quite close to Frank's lips. In the fellow's ear Merry whispered: "I'll make it one thousand dollars in your fist if you find a way to help me out of this scrape." The man started a little, gave Frank a look, then glanced toward the armed guard, who had heard nothing. Merry touched a finger to his lips, thus enjoining silence. "Ha!" he exclaimed. "Thank Bill for me! This coffee smells most satisfactory. It will serve finely to wash down the hard bread and beef. To a healthy appetite, like mine, this will be a feast fit for an epicurean." The ruffian looked at him in apparent wonderment. "Fer a cool galoot, you sure are the limit!" he exclaimed. Then he went out. Frank wondered if his proposal to the fellow would bear fruit. He knew well enough that these men stood in great awe of Cimarron Bill; but would the greed of this one overcome his fears of the chief and lead him to attempt to set Frank at liberty? That was a serious question. Having eaten heartily, Merry once more made himself comfortable and slept. When next he was awakened, Cimarron Bill himself was sitting near, smoking a Spanish cigarette. "Good morning," said Frank. "It's a long distance past morning," said the leader of the ruffians. "You've slept away the whole morning. You seem to be takin' it a heap easy and comfortable like." "Just bottling up a little sleep in case of need," said Merry, sitting up and placing his back against the wall. "There's no telling when I may have to keep awake a whole lot, you know." "Instead of keeping awake," said Bill, in a sinister manner, "you're a heap more likely to fall asleep some of these yere times an' never wake up." "In that case, it will be of no consequence, so I am not losing anything by sleeping while I may." The man surveyed Merry long and intently, as if trying to probe the nature of this cool youth. At last, he turned to the sentinel and dismissed him. The sentinel went out, closing the door. Bill lighted a fresh cigarette. "Young man," he said, "I want to inform you right yere and now that it will do you no good whatever to try to bribe any of my men." "Possibly not," said Frank noncommittally. "You bet your life it won't!" said Bill emphatically. "Thar ain't one of them but what knows me, an', knowin' me, thar ain't one what would dare play me crooked. Savvy?" "It's quite plain." "It's straight goods, Merriwell. A while ago you offered one of 'em a thousan' dollars if he would find a way to get you out of this." "Correct," admitted Merry immediately. "And had he accepted the offer and accomplished the job, I should have congratulated myself on getting off very cheap." He had seen at once that it was useless to try deception or denial with Bill, and so he spoke frankly. "That's right," nodded Bill. "A thousan' would be small money fer such a job; but it ain't no use, for none of them will take the job at that or five times as much. 'Cause why? 'Cause they knows me, Cimarron Bill, right well. They know I'd sure settle up with 'em if they done any crooked work. They have seen the notches in my guns. Some of 'em has seen me shoot." "Well, my dear sir," smiled Merry, "I don't presume you fancied I would remain here like a man in a trance without trying to get away in some fashion?" "I hardly opined that would be your style. But I has to warn ye that you has about one chance in fourteen million of gettin' off with a hull hide. I keep a guard inside and outside, besides another over the hosses. I don't want to shoot ye--now--but it sure will be done if you breaks an' runs fer it." "Of course I'd have to take chances on that." "Don't! But your offer to Jake has set me thinkin'. Somehow I kinder take to your style." "Thanks!" laughed Merriwell. "You has a heap of nerve for a youngster." "Thanks again!" "And I opine we'd make a pretty strong team together. Such bein' the case, I has a propersition to make to ye, whereby, in case you accepts, you gits outer this scrape in a hurry an' none the worse for wear." "Let it drive," said Frank. "I'm listening." "Like 'most ev'rybody," said Bill, "I'm out fer the dust. That's what brought me up against you. I opined you'd be easy meat. I've sorter changed my mind. You look an' talk like a tenderfoot, but I take it that you has your eye-teeth cut, an' this yere ain't the first time you've seen Arizona." "I have been in Arizona before. I have likewise been in various parts of the West." "I knowed it," nodded Bill. "I likewise opine you has a whole lot of fight in ye." "Well, I rather enjoy the strenuous life." "But you're certain up against a right powerful combination in this yere gang what means to have your mines." "Without doubt." "You needs assistance to hold them there mines. Such bein' the case, suppose we strikes a partnership, you an' I, an' stan's by each other. You'll find me a right handy partner when it comes to fightin', an' I kin back ye up with a gang what will wade through gore fer me. Under them circumstances, I reckons we kin give this yere minin' trust a run fer its money." "Your offer is very interesting, not to say fascinating," confessed Frank. "But there is something behind it. Come out with the whole matter." "There's nothing to come out with, save that I'm to be taken in a half-partner in your mines." "Only that?" smiled Merry scornfully. Bill did not like the manner in which the youth spoke those two words. "I 'lows," he said, "that you'll be gettin' off a heap cheap at that. If you fails to accept, it's almost certain your friends never hears of you no more. You'll be planted somewhere yereabouts. Arter that, the minin' trust will have easy goin'." "Well," said Merry, "I presume you will give me time to think this matter over?" "Certainly. I gives ye till to-morrer mornin'." "All right." Again Bill lighted a fresh cigarette. "But, without 'pearin' to press ye too hard, which might cause ye onpleasant rememberances in the futer, I hints that I'll be a heap riled up if you fails to accept my offer." Then Bill called the guard and sauntered out. Frank had no thought of permitting the desperado to force him into such a partnership, but he believed that it would be well to appear to take time to consider it. That afternoon, toward nightfall, he was permitted to go outside in the open air, with two armed guards watching over him. Frank inhaled the open air with a sense of gratitude, for the hut had become stuffy and oppressive. He looked around, noting the surroundings, without betraying any great interest in the location. He saw that all about the hills rose to enclose the valley, but conjectured that the party had entered from the south or southeast. By this time the men were interested in him, and they looked him over curiously. Four of them were playing cards, and Merry sat down on the ground where he could watch the game. "You don't want to be makin' no remarks about what keerds ye sees in anybody's hand, young man," growled one of them, whose cards Merry could see. Frank smiled. "I'm not quite that fresh," he said. "I have played the game occasionally myself. If I had a chance to sit in, I might give you some points." They laughed derisively at that, for the idea that this smooth-faced youth could give them points at poker seemed preposterous. "Why, ef you got inter this game we'd skin the eye-teeth outer ye!" declared one. "You'd be easy pluckin'," said another. "It would be a shame to rob ye," sneered a third. "But seein's you ain't got no dust we won't have that pleasure." "If it's dust that bars me," said Merry, "I might have enough to last a hand or two. I see you're playing five dollars limit, with a two bits edge." "Why, you're plumb skinned dry!" said Big Monte. "You ain't got no stuff." Whereupon Frank displayed a little thin wad of bank-bills, amounting to about twenty-five dollars in all. They were astounded, for no money had been found on him when he was searched for the papers. "How is this?" growled Monte. "Whar did ye keep it hid?" "That's my business," said Merry. "If you're anxious to teach me this game let me in." They made a place for him, assuring him that he would "last quick." Now Merry was a most adept poker-player, although he let the game entirely alone, not believing in gambling. He was also a clever magician, and he could do tricks with cards to astonish far more astute men than these ruffians. It was Pinto Pede's deal, and the Mexican handled the cards in a slick manner. Without pretending to watch him, Merry really kept a close eye on the fellow's movements. Pede looked his cards over carelessly. Big Monte chipped a dollar, the next man raised him a dollar, and it was up to Frank, who immediately raised five. Monte laughed hoarsely. "Throwin' yer money away right off, eh?" he said. The man after Frank dropped out. Pinto Pede raised five dollars. The fellow whose edge it was dropped his cards, but Monte came in, as did the next man and Frank. "How men' card?" asked the Mexican. "I'll take two," said Monte. "Better draw to the strength o' yer hand," advised the next man. "Gimme three." Pede looked inquiringly at Merry. "One card," said Frank. Pede frowned and looked annoyed. He had stacked the cards, and everything had worked perfectly up to Merriwell, who had been given three jacks on the deal, and whom the Mexican had expected would draw two. "You take da two card!" exclaimed Pede. "Yo' no fool anybod' with da side card." "I'll take one!" said Frank grimly. "If I choose to hold a side card to threes that is my business. Perhaps I have two pairs." The Mexican had betrayed his trick by his anger at Merry's style of drawing. Writhing with anger, he tossed Frank one card. "I tak' two," he said. Merry leaned forward and watched the Mexican's fingers so closely that Pede was given no chance to perform any crooked work, if he had contemplated it. "Now we're off," said Frank. "Go ahead and do your betting." Then he glanced at his cards. He had held up a five spot with his three jacks. To his satisfaction, he found Pede had given him another five spot. Merry had conceived that it was the Mexican's plan to give him threes and then to fill his hand with a small pair, but to take a pair himself, having on the deal secured threes of a higher denomination than those in Merry's hand. For that very reason, Frank had decided to draw one card, instead of two, thinking to defeat Pede's object in securing a full. By a strange chance, Frank had held up a five spot, while all the time Pede had been intending to give him a pair of fives. This being the case, the youth secured his full hand just the same, but without the knowledge of the dealer. At the same time, he spoiled Pede's draw, for the pair the Mexican had counted on getting had been divided, he getting instead one of the fives intended for Merriwell. This left Pede with three queens, a five, and a nine. But the Mexican believed that Merriwell had secured only threes, as he did not dream for an instant that the side card held up with the three jacks could be a five spot. In case Frank had three jacks only, Pede's three queens were "good." The betting began. Monte started it with a dollar. The next man had failed to improve his hand, and he fell out. Frank raised five. Pede shoved in six dollars, and added another five. "I tak' dis pot," he said. Monte looked his cards over. Then he looked at Pede. He knew the Mexican. "You oughter be shot!" he said. And he threw his cards down, turning to Frank. "You ain't got a ghost of a show agin' that greaser, youngster," he averred. "Well, as long as my money lasts I'll stay with him," smiled Merry. He did. Having thrust the last of his money into the pot, he finally called. Pede spread out his three queens, smiling with crafty triumph. "You no fool me," he said. "My t'ree bigger dan your t'ree. I tak' da mon'." "Wait a minute," said Merry. "I happen to have more than threes here." And he displayed his full hand, coolly raking the money over to his side of the blanket. CHAPTER V. PINTO PEDE RECEIVES HIS LESSON. Pinto Pede was the most disgusted Mexican in all Arizona. At the same time he was thoroughly thunderstruck. That Merriwell had secured the pair of fives with his three jacks for all of his style of drawing seemed like legerdemain. Big Monte gave a shout of surprise, that was not entirely unmingled with delight. "Waal, say!" he roared; "that's the furst time I ever seen Pede done up on his own deal by a tenderfoot! Haw! haw! haw!" As the game continued Frank soon demonstrated that he was quite capable of holding his own with those men. On his deal he simply played "hob" with them. In less than thirty minutes he had won over a hundred and fifty dollars. Cimarron Bill had sauntered up and was standing near, his arms folded, silently watching the progress of the game. "Gentlemen," said Frank finally, "you're too easy for me. Just to show you how easy you are, I'll deal a hand around and then tell you what you have." "Not if you lets me cut," declared Monte. Merry had gathered the cards and was shuffling them. "You may cut," he said. He put the cards down on the blanket, and Monte divided them into two parts, after which he watched Frank to see that he picked them up right. Merry picked them up with one hand, doing so swiftly. He picked them up all right, but he cleverly made the pass, which restored the cards to their original positions, as they were before Monte had cut. Then he dealt. When they picked up their cards, he began at the left and called off the cards each man held, going around the entire circle. Monte threw his down, with a cry of amazement. "An' this yere is what we takes for an easy mark!" he exclaimed. "He cheat!" grated Pinto Pede. "Dat how he win all da mon'." "I don't want your money," said Merry. "I find it too easy to make money off such chaps as you. You talk about tenderfeet, but the East is full of tenderfeet who could skin you fellows to death. If you ran into a New York bunco man he'd have your boots off your feet in less than thirty minutes. In fact, gentlemen, you need to get your eye-teeth filed." He was laughing at them, as they plainly saw. This made Pinto Pede furious, and, with a cry of rage, the Mexican snatched out a knife, flung himself forward on his knees, clutched the captive's throat and seemed about to finish him. Quick as a flash, Merriwell had seized Pede's wrist, which he gave a twist that made the bones crack and brought a yell from the yellow-faced fellow's lips. The knife dropped. Merry tossed it over his shoulder, and then flung Pede backward, groaning over his wrenched arm. "The only safe way to play such tricks on me," said the undisturbed captive, "is to catch me when I'm asleep." Then Cimarron Bill spoke, and they saw he had a pistol in his hand. "It sure is a good thing for Pede that the gent stopped his play just as he did, for if Pede had done any cuttin' I'd sartin shot him up a whole lot. I has told you boys that Mr. Merriwell is to be kept safe an' unharmed until I gits ready to finish with him, an' when I says a thing like that, I generally has a way o' meanin' it. If Pede had used his knife, I'd a-let daylight through him instanter." Now they all knew Bill spoke the truth, and so Pede was doubly humiliated. "He was a trifle hasty," said Merriwell coolly. "I was about to explain that I never keep money won at cards, as I do not believe in gambling. I sat in this game to illustrate to you fellows that it doesn't always pay to get puffed up and look contemptuously on a tenderfoot. Having made the lesson plain, I will withdraw my own money, which will leave the amount I have won. You may divide it equally among you and go on with your game." This Frank did exactly as he said, taking himself out of the game. There would have been a quarrel over the division of the money had not Bill interfered. Possibly Frank was counting on that quarrel, for a fight among the men might have given him an opportunity to escape. However, if such was his plan, it miscarried, for Bill acted as judge and saw that the matter was settled without further dispute or bloodshed. Merry turned away, his hands in his pockets, seeming to take no further interest in the gambling ruffians. They looked after his fine, supple, manly figure, and Big Monte said: "Gents, he shore is a hummer! I admits it now. He's put up a heap different from any tenderfoot I ever struck afore. We knows he kin shoot, fer didn't he perforate Sam's coat back yander in the raveen when Sam h'isted it on his rifle. We know he kin play keerds, fer didn't he jest demonstrate it to our complete satisfaction. We know he has a heap of nerve, fer he sure has showed it all the way through. An' I'm bettin' he's goin' ter make it a right hot fight afore the galoots what are arter his mines gits what they wants." "You forgits he's dealin' with Bill," said one of the others; "an' Bill shore has the keerds stacked on him." "That's all right," said Monte; "but you got ter do somethin' more than stack the keerds on that young chap. Didn't Pede do that, an' didn't he beat Pede a-plenty at his own game? That showed me that you never kin tell when you has Frank Merriwell beat fer fair." Frank had known all the time that Bill was watching. He had played the game more for the benefit of the chief of the rascals than any one else. At the same time, it had served to pass away a little time and had been a diversion for the moment. The guards also were near, watching every move closely. Frank had satisfied himself that there was no chance of making a break to escape without throwing his life away, and so he seemed to return to the hut with perfect content. Indeed, his nonchalance and apparent lack of fretfulness and dissatisfaction over his misfortune was most amazing to the rough men. Merry ate supper heartily. There was a clay fireplace in the hut, and, the night coming on cool, a fire was built there. Merry lolled before the fire on the hard-packed earth, which served as a floor to the hut. Bill came in, sat down on the ground, and rolled a cigarette. "Well," he finally said, "how do you find yourself to-night?" "Oh, comfortable," carelessly answered Frank. "Smoke?" "Never do." "Drink?" "Out of my line." "Still you can shoot and play poker! I certain admits you're a queer one!" After a little silence, Bill again dismissed the guard. Then he said: "I'm in a leetle hurry to know what your answer is to that there propersition I made ye. I sw'ar, partner, I sure reckons we'd make a hot pair. I takes to you!" "You're very complimentary!" "I'm givin' it to ye straight. You're my style. Now, I wants ye ter know that I kin be of great service to ye, so I reckons it was well enough to tell ye what has been done. You sent them papers to your brother in the East. Well, I has sent one of my best men a-chasin' the papers, an' he'll be sure to get 'em if it kin be did. If he succeeds, you'll be plumb out in the cold. Howsomever, in case we rigs up a partnership, it won't be nohow so bad, fer my man he brings me the papers, an' that fixes it all right. Savvy?" "That is the way you look at it." "Sure. You may have thought you was a-givin' me too much to let me have a half-share in your mines; but when you reckons that you gits your liberty, my friendship, and you has your papers saved, which same otherwise would go to the minin' trust, I opine you'll come to see that you're not makin' such a powerful bad trade after all." "But it is not at all certain that you'll get possession of those papers. In fact, everything is against such a thing happening." "Is that so?" "It is." "How do ye make it out?" "My brother knows his business, and he will take care of the papers." "How did you send them?" "Registered mail." "So I opined. Now you knows it takes things registered a heap sight longer to travel than it takes other mail." "Well?" "Such bein' the case, One-hand Hank is powerful sartin to git thar ahead o' the letter." "He may." "In which case he watches the post-office close. When he sees your kid brother take out the package, he follers the boy, taps him on the kebeza, knocks him stiff, takes the papers and ambles. See how easy it is to be did?" "It is easy enough to talk about it; but my brother is pretty shrewd, and One-hand Hank will have the time of his life getting those papers." "You don't know Hank. He's perfectly familiar with the East, an' that was why he was sent. One time he escaped from Sing Sing. That was when he had two good arms. He's a mighty bad man, an' he'll eat up that brother of yours but he'll have the papers." "I give you my assurance that Dick will sit hard on Hank's stomach. I am not greatly worried, for all of what you have told me." Bill frowned. "All right," he said. "I did have some intentions of usin' persuasive measures on ye, such as puttin' your feet to the fire, or things like that; but I holds them things off to the last finish, as I opine a partnership brought about that there way would be onpleasant to us both." "Rather," laughed Frank. "Still," said Bill; "I may have to be rather harsh, which certain would grieve me up a lot with such a fine young fellow as you are. I hopes you don't bring me none to that. Thar's no chance fer you to give me the slip. I've taken mighty good keer of that p'int. It will save ye a great amount of trouble if you decides to-night that we becomes pards. I'll jest walk out with ye an' interduce ye to ther boys as equal with me, an' ev'rything will be lovely. I don't reckon you'd be fool enough to go back on any sech arrangement you made, fer Cimarron Bill ain't the man to be throwed down in such a way." "There is no need of even suggesting a threat," said Merry. "If I enter into such a partnership with you, you can be sure I'll stand by it." Bill urged him to make the agreement at once, but still Merry declined. "Time is right precious," said the leader of the ruffians. "Perhaps I'll give you an answer to-morrow." And that was all Bill could get out of him then. So the chief fell to talking of other things, and they chatted agreeably for some time. When the ruffian was ready to retire, he called the guard. Then he bade Frank good night and went out. Merry slept with the same amazing peacefulness. But some time in the night he started wide-awake, seeming to feel near him the presence of some one. The fire had died out, save for a few glowing coals on the hearth. The sentinel sat rigid in his corner. Merry could not tell if he slept or not. Outside the cabin something seemed to brush lightly against the wall. This gentle sound was not repeated. After listening a long time, Frank fell asleep once more. In the morning he found a black feather where it had fallen to the ground after being thrust through a crack in the wall. At sight of the feather he started. Then he hastened to pick it up and conceal it. For that feather told him that old Joe Crowfoot was near. It promised escape from the hands of the ruffians, and caused Merry to suddenly cease planning himself and trust things wholly to Crowfoot. He knew old Joe would find an opportunity to try to aid him to escape. That morning Frank was asked by Bill to come out and take breakfast with the rest of the men, an invitation which he willingly accepted, as he was beginning to thirst for the open air. It was a glorious morning, just as all mornings in that land of eternal sunshine seem to be glorious. The elevation was sufficient to give the air a pleasant coolness. The sun shone down brightly. The horses fed in the valley. The men were lazing about, as usual. Never had Merry seemed so perfectly at his ease as he was on this morning. He was in a jovial mood. Some of the men attempted to chaff him. "You're right peert fer a tenderfoot," said Red Sam. "But the effeet East is ruther slow as compared with the West, you knows." "I'm sure I don't know," smiled Frank, sipping his coffee. "In what way is the East behind the West?" "Waal, when it comes to fast trains, we lays away over the East out yere." "I have my doubts." "Waal, you see it's this a-way," said Sam, winking at some of his companions, "the trains out yere don't hev to stop ev'ry few miles, an' so, havin' once got started, they kin keep increasin' an' a-pilin' on speed till they literally tears along. Now, thar's the Overland Express. Why, I was a-ridin' on that train oncet when she was jest running at comfortable speed, and the telygraft-poles beside the track seemed as nigh together as teeth in a fine-tooth comb." "That's speedy," confessed Frank. "You bate. But it warn't northin' to what she did later. A hot box, or somethin', kind o' delayed us, an' we hed to make up lost time. Sir, it's a fact that arter she got on full head the telygraft-poles looked presactly like a solid fence along beside the track!" "But you see," said Frank, "you confess that your trains out here have to take time to get up such high speed. That is where they are behind the trains in the East." "How?" demanded Sam contemptuously. "Why, having to stop often, the Eastern trains make it a practise to start quick and at high speed. They don't have to pump away for fifteen or twenty miles in order to get to going at a comfortable rate of speed. Instead of that they start right off at full speed. Now there is a train runs between New York and Washington. I got aboard at the station in Jersey City. My girl had come along to see me off. I opened the car window and leaned out to kiss her good-by, and, so help me, I kissed a colored woman in Philadelphia!" There was a moment of silence, and then Big Monte gave a roar of delighted laughter. This was the kind of humor he could appreciate, and the fact that Red Sam had been doubly outdone by the tenderfoot gave him great joy. The others laughed, also, and their respect for their captive rose several notches. Cimarron Bill thoroughly appreciated Merry's cleverness in getting ahead of Red Sam. "That youngster'd make the greatest pard a man could tie to!" thought Bill. After breakfast Merry coolly sauntered about the hut. He was followed everywhere by the two guards, but he gave them no heed whatever. He looked for some further sign of old Joe, but saw nothing. Merry wondered how the redskin would go to work to accomplish what he meant to attempt. Bill let Frank alone until after dinner. Then he sat down with Merry, they being by themselves, and again broached the subject that seemed uppermost in his mind. "See here," said Frank, "I offered one of your men a thousand dollars to get me out of this. The same offer stands good with you." The dark face of Cimarron Bill flushed and he looked deadly. "Mebbe you don't know you're insultin' me a heap!" he said. "Such bein' the probable case, I resents it none. The minin' trust has promised me five thousan' when I turns them papers over." "Which you will never do." "Which I'll sure do if you gits foolish an' refuses to tie up with me." "Well," said Frank, "I'm not bidding against the mining trust. I have refused to recognize that organization." "Then you refuses my proposal?" said Bill, in that cold, dangerous voice of his. "Not that. I want until to-morrow morning to think it over. Just till to-morrow." "You'll give me my answer to-morrer mornin'?" "Yes." "Then it's settled that you has that much more time. I won't ask ye no more about it until to-morrer morning; an' then you must sure give an answer. I knows what that answer will certain be if you has the level head I thinks." CHAPTER VI. INJUN JOE TO THE RESCUE. Along in the middle of the night Frank awoke. Again he was overcome by that strange feeling that some person was near him. Then he felt a touch, light as a feather, and saw at his side a dark figure. The starlight came in at the small, square window. A hand grasped Frank's wrist and gave it a gentle pull. There was not even a whisper. Merry knew what was wanted. Without making a sound, he crept across the ground to the wall, where a timber had been removed from the lower portion, making an opening large enough for a man to slip through. Some one passed noiselessly through this opening ahead of him. Frank followed as silently as he could. Outside he found at his side the one who had entered the cabin in that manner. This person lay flat on the ground and moved away with amazing deftness and silence. Frank could not follow as easily, but he wormed along as best he could. In that manner they finally passed to the shelter of some scrubby bushes. There Frank found a dark form sitting on the ground. "Heap all right," whispered a voice. "You no make a row when Joe him come. Joe he know you be ready if you find feather." It was Crowfoot, the faithful old redskin. "All right now. Make um no noise. Foller Joe," continued the Indian. The old fellow did not hurry. He took his time to crawl along on hands and knees until they were far from the hut. At last he arose, and Frank followed his example. They bent low and went on like two dark shadows. "Can we get out of the valley all right?" asked Merry. "One man him guard this way to go out," said Joe. "How do we pass him?" "Joe know. Leave it to him." The valley narrowed at last. They slipped along between rocky walls. Joe's feet made absolutely no sound. "Stop here," advised the redskin. "Joe him come back in minute." So Frank stopped and waited. The minute was long. Indeed, it became ten minutes at least. But the old fellow returned, saying: "All right. Coast clear." "What's that?" exclaimed Frank, as they nearly stumbled over a dark figure, as they were hurrying on again. "Him guard," said Joe. "Guard? What's the matter with him?" "Him sleep." Merry shuddered a bit, for he fancied he knew the sort of sleep meant by the old fellow. Cimarron Bill would receive his answer in the morning. It would be a great surprise to him, and would please him not at all. More than two miles had been traversed when they came, in a deep gully, upon old Joe's horse. "No keep him so near," said the Indian. "Bring him here to have him ready to-night. You ride." Frank did not fancy the idea of riding, but the old fellow insisted, and Merry finally mounted. So they passed through the silent night, Joe leading for a time. "Did you get the package off all right?" Merry asked. "Him go," said Joe. "No worry." "Joe, I don't know how I can repay you; but anything I have in this world is yours. You want to remember that. Take what you want that belongs to me." "Joe him not need much. He soon go off to the long hunt." Frank thought of the time when this old redskin had been his bitter enemy, when Joe had seemed treacherous and deadly as a rattlesnake, and smiled somewhat over the transformation. He had won the confidence of the Indian, who was now as faithful as he had once been dangerous. "Did you see anything of the one-armed man who was with my pursuers?" asked Merry. "No see him after leave you." "He was sent away to follow you." "No see him. He no bother me." Frank was thoroughly well satisfied with the work of the faithful redskin. They took turns at riding throughout the night. Three hours after dawn they came into a large, wooded valley amid the mountains. As they approached this valley they heard afar a rumbling, jarring sound that brought a smile to the face of Frank Merriwell. "The stamps are in operation," he said. Riding up the valley, through which flowed a stream of water, they saw reared against the bold face of a high mountain, looking like ant-mounds, some buildings, four or five in number. In the side of the mountain opened the black mouth of a shaft. "Hurrah!" Merry cried, waving his hat over his head. "There, Joe, is the Queen Mystery, and it is in full blast!" The Queen Mystery mine was located a long distance from the nearest railroad, but Merriwell had been to the expense and trouble of having the very latest machinery brought there and set up. He had in his employ Jim Tracy, as a foreman, said to be thoroughly capable and reliable. Only about fifty men were employed in the mine at that time; but Merry contemplated increasing the force extensively. There was talk of a branch railroad being constructed to pass within ten or fifteen miles of the Queen Mystery. Were the mine to fall into the hands of the mining trust, without doubt that railroad would be constructed, and it would run direct to Camp Mystery and onward. The influence of the great railroad magnate would easily bring about the running of the railroad to suit his fancy. The mining trust had been completely baffled in its first efforts to get the best of Merriwell. Frank was welcomed at the mine, where he made himself comfortable. Old Joe disappeared within six hours after arriving there. He vanished without saying a word to Merry about his intentions. Two days later he reappeared, Frank finding him sitting, in the morning, with his back against one of the buildings, his red blanket pulled about him, serenely smoking. "Hello, Joe!" cried Merry. "So you're back?" "Ugh!" grunted Joe, as he continued to smoke. "What's your report, Joe?" "Bad men heap gone." "Cimarron Bill and his gang?" "Joe mean um." "They have gone?" "Git out. They go heap quick after Strong Heart he git away." "Well, that looks as if Bill had given up the fight, but it seems hardly possible." "No can tell," said the old fellow. "May come 'gain with great lot many more bad men." Frank sat down and talked with the old redskin for some time. Then Joe was given a square meal, and he ate heartily. Merry had some business to look after in the mine, and he departed, at last, with the idea that he would find Joe and have another talk with him after the business was done. But when Merry came to look again for the Indian, Joe had disappeared once more in his usual mysterious fashion. Merry was not at all satisfied that Cimarron Bill had given up the struggle. In any event, he was confident that the syndicate had not given up, and experience had taught him that the organization would resort to any desperate means to accomplish its purpose. So Merriwell, having seen that all things were going well at the mine, set out the following day for Holbrook, in which place he mailed a letter to Dick, informing him of his fortune in escaping from the ruffians. In Holbrook Merry purchased a supply of rifles and cartridges, also small arms. This stock he had boxed and contracted with a man to deliver everything with the least possible delay at the Queen Mystery mine. Having attended to this matter, Merry rested over night and set out with the first hint of coming day for the mine. Through the hottest part of the day he rested in a ravine where there was some shade. Then he traveled again until after nightfall. The following forenoon found him in a part of the mountains that seemed familiar. He had diverged somewhat from the regular trail between Holbrook and the mine. Riding through a narrow pass, he came into a valley that was somewhat wooded and had a decidedly familiar aspect. Five minutes later he drew rein, uttering an exclamation of surprise. Before him, at a distance, stood an old hut. It required no second glance to show Merriwell that it was the very hut where he had been held a captive by Cimarron Bill and his gang. Frank looked around keenly, but the valley seemed desolate, and apparently he and his horse were the only living creatures within its confines. "The very place!" said Merry. "I wonder how Bill liked my answer to his proposition. He must have been decidedly surprised when he found me missing in the morning." He rode forward toward the hut, having a fancy to look around the place. As he drew nearer, suddenly his horse plunged forward and fell, while a shot rang out. Merry had seen a puff of smoke come from the window of the hut. He managed to jerk his feet from the stirrups and drop to the ground behind the body of the horse, where he lay quite still. The animal had been shot through the brain, and it did not even kick after falling. CHAPTER VII. MERRIWELL AND BIG MONTE. As he lay behind his stricken horse, Merriwell pulled his rifle around and got it ready for use. Peering over the body of the animal, he watched the hut. The sun, which was dropping toward the west, was still decidedly uncomfortable. It blazed upon him with a feeling like the heat from a bake-oven. Frank knew his peril. He knew better than to lift his head high and give his hidden foe another chance at him. He could not jump up and rush for cover, as cover lay too far away. Only one thing could he do, and that was to remain quietly there and watch and wait. After a time it is likely the man who had fired the shot began to believe Merriwell seriously hurt. Frank caught a glimpse of him within the hut. "He's coming out!" Merry decided. He was mistaken. Time dragged on and the sun dipped lower toward the mountain-peaks; but still no person issued from the old hut. The situation was anything but comfortable. "Confound him!" muttered Frank. "Who is he, and what does he mean?" Even as he asked the question, he again saw the man moving beyond the window. Frank thrust the rifle across the horse, resting it on the animal's body. Then he got into a position where he could take good aim, and then waited again. The sun was touching the mountain-tops when beyond the window Merry saw the head of a man. Then the clear report of his rifle rang through the valley. The puff of smoke from the muzzle blotted out the window for a moment. When it floated away the window was empty. "Did I reach him?" thought Frank anxiously. He felt that he had not missed, and still he could not be sure. He did not venture to rise from behind the horse. In case he had missed, he might fall before a second bullet from the hut. The sun went down behind the mountains, flinging a hundred golden and crimson banners into the sky. Finally these began to fade, and a few stars peeped forth palely. "If somebody's watching for me there," thought Merry, "it's going to be dangerous to move, at best." But something told him his lead had not gone astray. As the light faded still more he arose quickly, rifle in hand, and started on a run for the hut. As he ran he felt that it was far from impossible that another shot might bring sudden death to him. Still he did not hesitate, and, running steadily, he came up to the hut. The door swung open before his hand. He looked in. It was not so dark as to hide a black figure that lay sprawled on the dirt floor. Frank shuddered a little, and felt like turning away at once. "He brought it on himself!" he whispered. "It was my life or his. But I'm sorry I had to do it." Then he entered the hut. Striking a match, he bent over the prostrate figure. The reflected light, coming from his hollowed hands, showed him a familiar face. "Big Monte!" he cried, starting back and dropping the match. It was in truth the big man who had been one of Cimarron Bill's paid satellites. He found the man's wrist and felt for his pulse. "Good Lord!" Merry cried. Big Monte's pulse flickered beneath his fingers. The ruffian still lived. Frank knew where there was some wood, and this he soon had piled in a little heap in the open fireplace. He applied a match, and soon a blaze sprang up. By the growing light of the fire he examined Monte's wound. "Creased him as fine as can be!" he muttered. "Maybe there is a chance for him, after all." It may be explained that by "creased" Frank meant that the bullet had passed along the man's skull, cutting his scalp, yet had not penetrated the bone. This had rendered Big Monte unconscious. Merry removed the fellow's revolvers and knife and stood his rifle in a far corner. Then he brought some water in his drinking-cup and set about the effort of restoring the wretch to consciousness, which did not prove such a hard task as he had anticipated. After a little Monte's eyes opened and he lay staring at the youth. He seemed bewildered, and it was plain he could not readily collect his scattered wits. "Well, Monte," said Frank coolly, "that was a pretty close call for you. I came near shooting off the top of your head, which I would have been justified in doing. All the same, I'm glad I failed." The big man continued to stare at Frank. Already Merry had bound up the ruffian's wound. "Ho!" came hoarsely from Monte's lips. "Back! Back to the depths! You are dead!" "If I am dead," said Frank, "I'm just about the liveliest dead man you ever saw." A strange smile came to the lips of the wounded man. "If you are not yet dead," he said, "I opines you soon will be a heap." "Never count chickens before they are hatched, Monte." "When you come back you'll find your mine in the hands of the syndicate. Bill will have it." "That's interesting! How will Bill get it?" "He will take it while you are away. He has gathered a right good gang, and he's a-goin' to jump the mine to-night." "Monte," said Frank, "you interest me extensively. How does it happen you are not with the gang?" "I am one of the watchers. I watch to see that you do not get back. I reckons I have done my part o' the job, for I shot you dead a while ago." The big ruffian was not in his right mind, but already he had said enough to stir Frank Merriwell's blood. So Cimarron Bill had been watching his movements from some place of cover, and had hastened to gather his ruffians the moment Frank left the mine. Without doubt Bill had counted on Frank remaining away longer. However, this night he was to strike, with his gang. The mine was to be seized. "I must be there!" muttered Merriwell. Fortunately Big Monte had a horse hidden not far from the cabin, and Frank was able to find the animal. The wounded ruffian was raving at intervals. He seemed quite deranged. "I can't leave him like this," thought Merry. "He might wander off into the mountains and perish." Still he disliked to be encumbered with the wretch. Some would have deserted the wounded man without delay and ridden with all haste to reach the mine. It must be confessed that such a thought passed through the head of Frank Merriwell. "No!" murmured Frank. "He's a human being. It is my duty to do what I can to save him." So it came about that two men rode Monte's big horse away from that valley. One of them muttered, and laughed, and talked wildly. "Riding with the dead!" he said. "We're on the road to Purgatory! Ha! Ha! Ha! Whip up the horse! Gallop on!" It was a strange ride through the starlight night. The clicking clatter of the horse's hoofs aroused the big man at intervals, and he laughed and shouted. "I'm dead!" he finally declared. "I am a dead man! Two dead men are riding together! And we're on the road to the burnin' pit! But it's getting a heap cold! I'm beginnin' to freeze. The fire will be good an' hot!" "Shut up!" said Merry. "We're getting near the Queen Mystery. You may get shot up some more if you keep your jaw wagging." As they came nearer to the valley, Merry slackened the pace of the foam-flecked horse. Fortunately the animal had been big and strong, for once Frank had seemed to have little mercy on the beast he bestrode. Monte continued to talk. He had grown so weak that Merry was compelled to partly support him. "Look here," Frank said, in a commanding way, "you are not to say another word until I give you permission. Do you understand that?" "Yes." "Then close up. Not another word from you." Monte closed up, obeying like a child. They were entering the valley. Suddenly there came a challenge. "Hold up, thar! Who goes yander?" Not a word from Merriwell's lips, but he drove the spurs to the horse, clutched Big Monte tighter, and they shot forward into the valley. Instantly sounded a shot, followed by several more. Bullets whistled past them. Frank felt Monte give a great start and lurch sideways, but he held the man steady. There were cries of rage from the men who had fired the shots. Not a word did Frank speak, but he held straight on toward the head of the valley and Camp Mystery. As he approached he saw lights gleaming ahead, seeming to indicate that the sound of shooting had come up the valley and aroused the miners. He was challenged, but gave an answer that caused the men to welcome him with a shout. It was Crowfoot who seized the lather-white horse by the bit, but it was another who caught Big Monte as the ruffian plunged from the saddle on being released from Frank's arms. "I 'lows he'd got it good an' plenty," said the man who caught Monte. "Ef he ain't dead a'ready, he'll be so right soon." "Take him inside somewhere," directed Frank. "Every man who can find a weapon wants to get ready to fight. We're going to have a gang of ruffians down on us here, and we'll have to fight to hold this mine." "We're all ready, Mr. Merriwell," said Jim Tracy, the foreman. "Joe Crowfoot came and warned us what was doin'. I opine them galoots must 'a' bin shootin' at you some down yander?" "That's right," said Frank. "I had to ride through them, and they banged away at me to their satisfaction. I was lucky to come out with a whole skin." "Which the other gent didn't. Who is he?" "Big Monte." "What? Not that galoot? Why, he's one o' the wust devils unhung in Arizona!" The men began to murmur. "Big Monte!" cried another. "Why I has a score to settle with that thar varmint! He shot my partner, Luke Brandt." "An' I has a score to settle with him, too!" declared another. "He stole a hoss off me!" Many others claimed grievances against Monte, and suddenly there was a rush toward the room into which the wounded man had been conveyed. Somehow Frank Merriwell was ahead of them all. As they came crowding in at the door, Merry stood beside the blanket on which the wounded ruffian was stretched. "Hold on, men!" he called quietly. "Monte is dying!" "What do we keer fer that!" cried one. "All the more reason fer us to hurry an' swing the varmint afore he crokes!" "Let him die in peace." "That's escapin' what's his due." Frank lifted one hand. "There is One above who will judge him," he said. "It is not for us to do that." But those men did not fancy the idea of being robbed of their vengeance. Big Monte was helpless in their hands, and they were for swinging him before he could escape them by giving up the ghost. "Mr. Merriwell, sir," said one, "we respects you all right, an' we don't like to run contrarywise to anything you says here; but in this yere case we has to, most unfortunate. It is our sollum duty to hang this onery hoss-thief, an' that is what we proposes to do. Arter that we'll be ready ter fight fer you an' your mine as long as it's necessary." "That's right!" shouted others, as they again crowded forward. "Let us have him! We'll make it right short work! Then we'll be ready fer his pards!" Some of them flourished weapons. They were an ugly-looking crew. Quick as a flash Frank Merriwell whipped out a pair of revolvers and leveled them at the crowd. "Gentlemen," he said, "I have just one thing to observe: If you don't, one and all, get out of here instanter and leave Monte to shuffle off in peace I shall open on you! If I open on you, I shall reduce you so that Cimarron Bill and his crowd will have no trouble whatever in taking this mine." They did not doubt but he meant it, remarkable though it seemed. If they attempted to seize Monte, Merriwell would begin shooting. It was astonishing that he should choose to defend this ruffian that had been one of his worst enemies. As the men were hesitating, old Joe Crowfoot suddenly appeared. "Com'ron Bill he come!" said the Indian. "There be a heap fight in a minute! Come quick!" "Come on!" cried Jim Tracy. And the men rushed forth to meet and repulse Cimarron Bill and his gang. CHAPTER VIII. THE DEATH-SHOT. Frank was about to follow, when Big Monte clutched weakly at his foot. "Pard," said the ruffian, "I may never git another chanct to say it. You're the white stuff! They'd shore hanged me a whole lot but for you. Now I has a chanct to die comfortable an' respectable like. Thankee, Frank Merriwell." "Don't mention it!" said Frank. "Die as comfortably as you can. I have to go out to help the boys shoot a few of your pards." "I ain't got northin' agin' them," said Monte; "but I wishes ye luck. They're in the wrong, an' you're right." At this moment the sound of shooting outside startled Merry, and, without another word, he rushed forth, leaving Monte lying there. Cimarron Bill had counted on capturing the mine by strategy and meeting with very little resistance. When Frank had returned and ridden into the valley Bill knew that it would not do to delay longer, and he had led his men in swift pursuit. But old Joe Crowfoot, faithful as ever, had prepared the miners for the attack; so it came about that the ruffians were met with a volley of lead that dismayed and demoralized them. This was not the kind of work they relished. Thus it happened that Frank Merriwell came hurrying forth, only to find the enemy already repulsed and retreating in disorder. The starlight showed two men and a horse stretched on the ground, while another horse was hobbling about. At a distance down the valley the mine-seizers were fleeing. "They git heap hot time!" said old Joe, in Frank's ear. "What?" cried Merry. "Have they quit it as quick as this?" "It looks that way, sir," said Jim Tracy. "And I didn't get into the game." "You was too busy defending Big Monte. I hopes you pardons me, sir, but I thinks that was a mistake." "You have a right to think whatever you like, but I object to your freedom in expressing yourself." This was plain enough, and it told Tracy that Frank would not tolerate any criticism from him. "It's your own game," muttered Tracy, turning away. "I see you have dropped two of those chaps." "Yes." Revolver in hand, Frank walked out toward the spot where the two figures lay. He was followed by Crowfoot and several others. The first man was stone-dead. The next proved to be the Mexican, Pinto Pede, who was sorely wounded. "That cursed greaser!" growled one of the men. "Give me lief to finish him, Mr. Merriwell!" He placed the muzzle of a pistol against Pede's head. Frank knew that a word from him would send the Mexican into eternity. "None of that!" he said sternly and commandingly. "Pick the fellow up and take him in yonder. He may not be shot up too bad to recover." But they drew back. "Sir," said Tracy, "I don't opine thar is a man here but what thinks hisself too good to be after handlin' the onery greaser." "And you would let him remain here to die?" "I reckons that's correct." In another moment Merry had stooped and lifted the slender body of Pinto Pede in his arms. With long strides, he bore the Mexican toward the building in which Big Monte lay. The miners looked on in amazement. "Waal, he's the limit!" said Jim Tracy, in disgust. Crowfoot followed Frank, who took Pede into the room and placed him beside Big Monte. The redskin stopped at the door, where he stood on guard. "Well, Pede," said Frank, "we'll examine and see just how hard you're hit." The Mexican was shot in the side. At first it seemed that the wound might be fatal, but, examining with the skill of an amateur surgeon, Frank made a discovery. "She struck a rib, Pede," he said. "She followed around and came out here. Why, you're not in such a bad way! You may pull through this thing all right. You'd be almost sure to if you had the right sort of treatment." The Mexican said nothing, but certain it is that he was bewildered when he found Merry dressing the wound. This Frank did with such skill as he possessed, making the fellow comfortable. Big Monte had watched all this, and he spoke for the first time when the job was done. "I reckon," he said, "that they don't raise galoots like you ev'rywhere. Why, it shore was up to you to finish the two o' us! Why you didn't do it is something I don't understand none at all. An' you keeps them gents from takin' me out an' swingin' me. You shore air plenty diffrunt from any one I ever meets up with afore!" Old Joe Crowfoot had been watching everything. The Indian understood Frank not at all, but whatever "Strong Heart" did Joe was ready to stand by. "Don't worry over it," laughed Merry. "I owe you something, Monte." "I fail to see what." "Why, you warned me that Bill and the others meant to jump the mine to-night." "Did I?" "Sure thing." "I don't remember. But I tried ter shoot ye. Bill said you was ter be shot ef you comes a-hustlin' back afore he gits around to doin' his part o' the job." "You got the worst of it in that little piece of shooting, so we'll call that even." "If you says even, I'm more'n willin'." "Now," said Frank, "I'm going out with the men to watch for a second attack from Bill. I have to leave you, and some of the boys may take a fancy to hang you, after all. That bein' the case, I don't want to leave you so you won't have a show. Here, take this gun. With it you may be able to defend yourself until I can reach you. But don't shoot any one if you can help it, for after that I don't believe even I could save you." So he placed a revolver in the hand of Big Monte and went out, leaving the wounded ruffians together. When Frank was gone the two wounded wretches lay quite still for some time. Finally Pinto Pede stirred and looked at Big Monte. "How you get shot?" he asked. "The gent who jest went out done a part o' the job," said Monte, in reply. "Heem--he shoot you?" "Yes." "Ha! You lik' da chance to shoot heem?" "Waal, I had it, but I missed him. He fooled me a whole lot, fer he jest kept still behind his hoss, what I had salted, an' then he got in at me with his own bit o' lead." "That mak' you hate heem! Now you want to keel heem?" "Oh, I don't know! I don't opine I'm so mighty eager." "Beel says he gif one thousan' dol' to man who shoot Frank Mer'well." "That's a good lot." "Beel he do it." "No doubt o' that, I reckons." "Mebbe you an' I haf the chance." "Waal, not fer me! I quits! When a chap keeps my neck from bein' stretched arter all I has done ter him--waal, that settles it! I opines I has a leetle humanity left in me. An' he thought I was dyin', too. I kinder thought so then, but I'm managin' ter pull along. Mebbe I'll come through." The face of Pinto Pede showed that he was thinking black thoughts. "Gif me da chance!" he finally said. "You no haf to do eet. Gif me da chance. I do eet, an' we divvy da mon'. Ha?" "Don't count me into your deviltry." "No count you?" "No." "What matter? You no too good. I see you shoot man in back." "Mebbe you did; but he hadn't kept me from bein' lynched." "Bah! Why he do eet? You fool! He want to turn you ofer to law." "Mebbe you're right; I don't know." "You safe yourself if you help keel him." "Looker hyer, Pede, I'm a low-down onery skunk; but I reckon thar's a limit even fer me. I've struck it. This hyer Frank Merriwell made me ashamed a' myself fer the fust time in a right long time. I know I'm too onery to reform an' ever be anything decent, even if I don't shuffle off with these two wounds. All the same, I ain't the snake ter turn an' soak pisen inter Merriwell, an' you hear me. Others may do it, but not Big Monte." "Bah! All right! You not get half! Yes; you keep steel, you get eet." "What are you driving at?" "Wait. Mebbe you see. All you haf to do is keep steel." "Waal, I'm great at keepin' still," said Monte. It was not far from morning when Merriwell re-entered that room. Pinto Pede seemed to be sleeping, but Big Monte was wide-awake. "Hello!" exclaimed Frank. "So you're still on these shores. I didn't know but you had sailed out." "Pard, I opine mebbe I may git well enough to be hanged, after all," grinned the big ruffian. "Possibly you may," said Frank. "And the chances are you would be if I were to leave you alone long enough. I heard some of the boys talking. They contemplate taking you out and doing things to you after I'm asleep. But they did not reckon that I would come here to sleep, where they cannot get their hands on you without disturbing me." "That was right kind of you," said Monte. "How's Bill?" "I think that Bill has had his fill for the present. Indications are that he has left the valley with his whole force, and we are not looking for further trouble from him in some time to come." "Bill shore found hisself up against the real thing," said Monte. Frank placed a blanket near the door, wrapped himself in it, and was soon sleeping soundly. Big Monte seemed to fall asleep after a time. Finally the Mexican lifted his head and listened. He looked at Monte, and then at Frank. Seeming to satisfy himself, he gently dropped aside his blanket and began creeping across the floor, making his way toward Merriwell. He moved with the silence of a serpent. Now, it happened that Big Monte was not asleep, although he had seemed to be. The Mexican had not crept half the distance to Frank when the big man turned slightly, lifted his head, and watched. As the creeping wretch drew nearer to the sleeping youth the hand of Big Monte was gently thrust out from the folds of his blanket. Pede reached Frank, and then arose to his knees. Suddenly he lifted above his head a deadly knife, which he meant to plunge into the breast of the unconscious sleeper. At that instant a spout of fire leaped from something in the hand which Big Monte had thrust from beneath the blanket, and with the crashing report of the revolver Pede fell forward across the body of his intended victim, shot through the brain! Frank was on his feet in an instant. "What does this mean?" he cried, astounded, stirring the body of the Mexican with his foot. "You gave me a gun," said Big Monte, "so that I might defend myself. It came in handy when I saw Pede gittin' keerless with his knife an' goin' fer to cut you up." "Was that it?" exclaimed Frank. "Why, he was going to stab me! And you saved my life by shooting him!" "Which mebbe makes us some nearer square than we was," said Monte, "as you saved my life a leetle time ago." CHAPTER IX. FRANK MAKES A DECISION. Frank leaned against the door-jamb of his cabin and looked out into the sunny valley. To his ears came the roar of the stamp-mills of the mine, which was in full blast. Before him lay the mine-buildings about the mouth of the tunnel, from which rich ore was being brought to be fed to the greedy stamps. It was now something like ten days since the ruffians under Cimarron Bill tried to carry the mine by assault. Frank had remained watchful and alert, well knowing the nature of Cimarron Bill and believing he would not be content to abandon the effort thus easily. Still the second attack, which he had so fully expected, had not come. He was wondering now if the ruffians had given it up. Or had they been instructed by the trust to turn their attention to the San Pablo Mine? If the latter was the case, Frank felt that they would find the San Pablo prepared. He had taken pains before hastening to the Queen Mystery to fortify his mine in Mexico, leaving it in charge of a man whom he fully trusted. Nevertheless, Frank felt that it would be far better were he able to personally watch both mines at the same time. Just now he was meditating on the advisability of leaving the Queen Mystery and journeying southward to the San Pablo. As he thought this matter over, something seemed to whisper in his ear that such an action on his part was anticipated by the enemy, who were waiting for him to make the move. Then, while he was away, they would again descend on the Queen Mystery. Again the old Indian, Crowfoot, had disappeared, after his usual manner, without telling Frank whither he was going. Merry knew he might be in the vicinity, or he might be hundreds of miles away. Still, Joe had a remarkable faculty of turning up just when he was most needed. Merry turned back into the little cabin, leaving the door open. He had been feeling of his chin as he stood in the doorway, and now he thought: "A shave will clean me up. Great Scott! but I'm getting a beard! This shaving is becoming a regular nuisance." Indeed, Frank was getting a beard. Every day it seemed to grow heavier and thicker, and he found it necessary to shave frequently to maintain that clean appearance in which he so greatly delighted. Frank could wear old clothes, he could rough it with joy, he minded neither wind nor weather, but personal cleanliness he always maintained when such a thing was in any manner possible. To him a slovenly person was offensive. He pitied the man or boy who did not know the pleasure of being clean, and he knew it was possible for any one to be clean, no matter what his occupation, provided he could obtain a cake of soap and sufficient water. So Frank was shaving every day when possible. He now turned back into the cabin and brought out his shaving-set. On the wall directly opposite the open door hung a small square mirror, with a narrow shelf below it. Here Merry made preparations for his shaving. Over a heater-lamp he prepared his water, whistling the air of the Boola Song. This tune made him think of his old friends of Yale, some of whom he had not heard from for some time. A year had not yet passed since he had gathered them and taken his baseball-team into the Mad River region to play baseball. In that brief space of time many things had occurred which made it evident that never again could they all be together for sport. The days of mere sport were past and over; the days of serious business had come. Frank thought, with a sense of sadness, of Old Eli. Before him rose a vision of the campus buildings, in his ears sounded the laughter and songs, and he saw the line of fellows hanging on the fence, smoking their pipes and chaffing good-naturedly. With some men it is a sad thing that they cannot look back with any great degree of pleasure on their boyhood and youth. They remember that other boys seemed to have fine times, while they did not. Later, other youths chummed together and were hail-fellow-well-met, while they seemed set aloof from these jolly associates. With Frank this was not so. He remembered his boyhood with emotions of the greatest pleasure, from the time of his early home life to his bidding farewell to Fardale. Beyond that even unto this day the joy of life made him feel that it was a million fold worth living. There are thousands who confess that they would not be willing to go back and live their lives over. Had the question been put to Frank Merriwell he would have said that nothing could give him greater pleasure. When the water was hot, Frank carefully applied his razor to the strop and made it sharp enough for his purpose. Then he arranged everything needed on the little shelf beneath the mirror. Now, it is impossible to say what thing it was that led him to remove his revolver from the holster and place it on the shelf with the other things, but something caused him to do so. Then he applied the lather to his face, and was about to use the razor, when he suddenly saw something in the mirror that led him to move with amazing quickness. Behind him, at the open door, was a man with a rifle. This man, a bearded ruffian, had crept up to the door with the weapon held ready for use. But for the fact that the interior of the cabin seemed somewhat gloomy to the eyes of the man, accustomed as they were to the bright glare of the sun outside, he might have been too swift for Frank. Another thing added to Frank's fortune, and it was that he had drawn his revolver and placed the weapon on the little shelf in front of him. For this reason it was not necessary for him to reach toward the holster at his hip, an action which must have hurried the ruffian to the attempted accomplishment of his murderous design. For Merriwell had no doubt of the fellow's intention. He saw murder in the man's eyes and pose. The rifle was half-lifted. In another moment Frank Merriwell would have been shot in the back in a most dastardly manner. He snatched the revolver from the little shelf and fired over his shoulder without turning his head, securing such aim as was possible by the aid of the mirror into which he was looking. Frank had learned to shoot in this manner, and he could do so as skilfully as many of the expert marksmen who gave exhibitions of fancy shooting throughout the country. His bullet struck the hand of the man, smashing some of the ruffian's fingers and causing him to drop the rifle. Merry wheeled and strode to the door, his smoking revolver in his hand, a terrible look in his eyes. The wretch was astounded by what had happened. Blood was streaming from his wounded hand. He saw Merriwell confront him with the ready pistol. "You treacherous cur!" said Frank indignantly. "I think I'll finish you!" He seemed about to shoot the man down, whereupon the ruffian dropped on his knees, begging for mercy. "Don't--don't shoot!" he gasped, holding up his bleeding hand, "Don't kill me!" "Why shouldn't I? You meant to kill me." "No, no--I swear----" "Don't lie! Your soul may start on its long trail in a moment! Don't lie when you may be on the brink of eternity!" These stern words frightened the fellow more than ever. "Oh, I'm telling you the truth--I sw'ar I am!" he hastened to say. "You crept up to this door all ready to fill me full of lead." "No, no! Nothing of the sort! I was not looking for you! It--it was some one else! I swear it by my honor!" A bitter smile curled the lips of the young man. "Honor!" he said--"your honor! Never mind. How much were you to receive for killing me?" "It was not you; it was another man." "What other?" "Tracy." "My foreman?" "Yes." "You were looking for him?" "Yes." "Why?" "Him and me have had a fallin' out, and he cussed me. He threatened to shoot me, too." "What was the matter?" "Oh, he didn't like the way I done my work. It's true; ask him. I swore I'd fix him." "Well, what brought you here to my cabin to shoot the foreman?" "I thought I saw him coming this way." Frank pressed his lips together and looked the man over. Somehow he believed the ruffian was lying, in spite of all these protests. "See here, Anson," he said, "you were hired by the mining trust, or by some of its tools, to shoot me, and you tried to earn your money. Don't deny it, for you can't fool me. Just own up to the truth and it will be better for you. Tell me who made the deal with you and how much you were to receive. If you come out honestly and confess all, I'll spare you. Your hand is bleeding pretty bad, and it should be attended to at once. I'll see to that, but upon condition that you confess." Still the ruffian continued to protest, insisting that it was Tracy he was looking for. In the midst of this he suddenly stopped, seeming to be badly frightened. "Oh, Lord!" he choked. "Here comes Tracy! Don't tell him! I can't defend myself! Don't tell him, or he'll sure shoot me up and finish me!" Jim Tracy was coming with long strides. He saw Frank and the wretch with the bleeding hand. "Whatever is this?" he demanded. "I heard the shooting. What has this yaller dog been up to?" "I shot him," said Frank quietly. "He came walking into my door in a careless manner with his rifle in his hand, and I shot him in a hurry. He was foolish; he should have been more careful. It's dangerous to walk in on me that way, even with the most peaceable intentions." There was a strange look on Tracy's face. "So that's how it happened?" he exclaimed, in a harsh voice. "Well, it's pretty certain that Hop Anson needs to have his worthless neck stretched, and all I ask is permission to attend to the job. I'll dispose of him very quickly." "I told you, Mr. Merriwell!" muttered the wounded man. "You have had some trouble with him, have you, Tracy?" asked Frank. "Confound his hide! yes, I have. He has no business here at this time. His place is discharging the rock as it comes out. The fact that he's here counts against him. Turn him over to me." "Instead of that," said Frank, thrusting his revolver into his holster, "I think I'll take care of him. Come in here, Anson." Tracy seemed astonished and disgusted. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "I'm going to see if I can't dress that hand and keep him from bleeding to death," was Merriwell's answer. "Well, by thunder!" muttered the foreman. CHAPTER X. MERRIWELL'S METHOD. It was not easy for such men to understand Frank Merriwell. Hop Anson was as much astonished as was Jim Tracy. He entered the cabin at Frank's command, and Merriwell proceeded to wash and examine the wound. "You'll have to lose two fingers and part of another one," said Merriwell. "I can do the job for you right here, if you say so. Or I'll patch them up, stop the bleeding, and let you get to a regular saw-bones." "You go ahead," said Anson. So Frank opened a trunk which sat behind a curtain in one corner of the room, bringing out a case, which, on being opened, revealed a complete set of surgical instruments. These he spread out on the rough table, and soon he was ready to operate on Hop Anson's mangled hand. Jim Tracy, his hands on his hips and his feet rather wide apart, stood looking on in silence. Frank spent the greater part of an hour about his task, impressing Tracy as an assistant, and when he had finished two of the ruffian's fingers and a part of the third were gone, but the amputation and dressing had been done in a manner that was anything but bungling. Frank had been as careful as possible to preserve cleanliness about his work. "Well, you're certain a wonder!" exclaimed Tracy admiringly. "But you makes a big mistake in wastin' so much trouble on a dog like this." Anson did not retort, save with a sullen flash of his treacherous eyes in the direction of the foreman. "Permit me to know my business, Tracy," said Merry shortly. "You may go now, Anson." "What? You're not going to let him go where he likes?" "Yes." So Hop Anson walked out of the cabin, picked up his rifle, and disappeared. "I don't want to criticise you, Mr. Merriwell," said the foreman. "You know I am devoted to your interests. But I feel confident that you will be very sorry you treated that man in such a decent way and then let him off. He's a snake. I still believe he crept up to the door to shoot you in the back." "Perhaps he did," nodded Frank, cleansing his instruments with the utmost coolness. "If so, he got the worst of it." "But would you let him off like that if you knew it was so?" "No. He swore it was not. I had no proof, so I let him go." "You're altogether too easy with your enemies," asserted Tracy. "Just you turn them over to me. I'll take care of them, and they'll never bother you again, be right sure of that." "I'll think about it," smiled Frank, returning the instruments to the case. "You came mighty near being killed by that greaser because you were easy with him." "And my life was saved by Big Monte because I had been easy with him. That balances things, I fancy. In fact, for me, it more than balances things. I'd rather let a dozen bad men escape punishment than strike one who is innocent." "But neither Big Monte nor Pinto Pede was innocent." "And Pinto Pede provided a subject with which to start a graveyard here. Big Monte seemed repentant. Pede would have knifed me, but Monte shot him just as he was ready to strike." "Well, where's Big Monte now?" "I don't know," confessed Frank. "He skipped out." "Sure thing. He took a walk the first chance he got." "And it's certain he's gone back to his pals. When they strike at you ag'in, if they do, Monte will be with 'em." "All right. Perhaps he has an idea he'll be fighting fair that way." "And he may kill you yet." "Possibly." "Well," said Tracy, "I must admit that I don't understand you none whatever! Hop Anson left his work, got a rifle and came sneakin' up to your door. You shoots him in the hand, then doctors him and lets him go. That's right peculiar. But I have him to deal with somewhat, and I propose to deal. If you hear before night that Hop has hopped the divide don't be any surprised." Tracy seemed about to depart. "Look here," said Frank, "before you go, I have some things to say. Unless Hop Anson gives you good and sufficient cause, you are not to lift your hand against him. I don't want any shooting to get started here at the mine. I want these men to dwell together peaceably. The first shooting is likely to lead to other work in the same line." "You're too much against such things," said Tracy; "and still I notice you don't hesitate any whatever to use a gun at times." "When forced to it; never at any other time. I am decidedly against it. It would be dead easy to start an affair here that would lead to disturbances that might get the men to quarreling. That would put the men in condition to revolt, and an assault upon the mine would find us weakened. I trust you, Tracy, to be careful about this matter. Much depends on you. You have proved satisfactory in every way." "Thankee," said the foreman, somewhat awkwardly. "I've tried to do my best, sir." "That is all I ask of any man. That is all any man can do. You should understand why I wish no disturbance. But, at the same time, let me warn you to watch Hop Anson closely--for your own benefit. If you have to do any shooting, well and good." "I think I understand," said Tracy, as he walked out. At the door he paused and half-turned, as if to say something more. Already Frank was facing the little mirror on the wall, ready to resume his shaving. He stood exactly as he had stood when he shot at Anson, and his revolver lay on the shelf beneath the mirror. Tracy went on. CHAPTER XI. SMOKE SIGNALS AND A DECOY. Frank grew restless. On the day following the shooting of Anson he called Tracy and said: "Tracy, I want you to keep your eyes open and be on your guard while I am away." "Are you going away, sir?" asked the foreman. "Yes." "For a long time?" "That is uncertain. I may return by night, and I may not be back for several days." The foreman looked as if he wished to ask where Frank thought of going, but held himself in check. "I wish to satisfy myself if any of my enemies are in this vicinity," said Merriwell. "I leave things in your hands here, and I believe I can trust you." "You can, sir, fully." Merry attended to the saddling of his horse. When he rode forth from the mine he was well armed and prepared for almost anything. Behind him the roar of the ore-crushers died out, and he passed into the silence of the mountains. Not an hour had passed when he was somewhat surprised to see before him from an elevated point a big, ball-like cloud of dark smoke rising into the sky. "That's odd," was his immediate decision. He stopped his horse and watched the smoke as it ascended and grew thinner. It was followed by another ball of smoke as he watched, and after this came still another. Then Frank turned in the saddle, looking in various directions. Some miles behind him three distinct and separate clouds of smoke seemed to be mounting into the sky from another high elevation. "If those are not smoke signals," said Frank, "I'm a chump! In that case, it's likely I'll have Indians to deal with if I keep on. Perhaps I'd better turn back." For something told him that he was the object of those signals, and this was an Indian method of communication. He sat still for some time, watching the smoke fade in the upper air, which it did slowly. At last, however, it was gone, and the clear atmosphere held no black signal of danger. Frank's curiosity was aroused. He longed to know the meaning of those signals. Having looked to his weapons, he rode on slowly, keenly on the alert. Coming through a narrow gorge into a valley that looked barren enough, he suddenly snatched forth a revolver and cried: "Halt, there! Stop, or----Why, it's a woman!" For he had seen a figure hastily seeking concealment amid some boulders. At sound of his voice the figure straightened up and turned toward him. Then he was more amazed than ever, for he saw a dark-faced Mexican girl, wearing a short skirt and having about her neck a scarlet handkerchief. Her head was bare, and her dark hair fell over her shoulders. She looked like a frightened fawn. No wonder he was astonished to behold such a vision in that desolate part of the mountains. She seemed trembling, yet eager, and she started to advance toward him. "Oh, señor!" she said, in a voice that was full of soft music, "eet mus' be you are good man! Eet mus' be you are not bad an' weeked. You would not hurt Gonchita?" "Not on your life!" exclaimed Merry, at once putting up his revolver. At which she came running and panting up to him, all in a flutter of excitement. "Oh, _Madre de Dios_! I am so much happeeness! I have de great fear when you I do see. Oh, you weel come to heem? You weel do for heem de saveeng?" The girl was rather pretty, and she was not more than eighteen or nineteen years of age. She was tanned to a dark brown, but had white teeth, which were strangely pointed and sharp. "Who do you mean?" "My fadare. _Ay-de mi_! he ees hurt! De bad men shoot heem. They rob heem! He find de gold. He breeng me with heem here to de mountain, all alone. He theenk some time he be vera reech. He have de reech mine. Then de bad men come. They shoot heem. They take hees gold. He come creep back to me. What can I to do? _Ay-de mi_!" "Your father--some bad men have shot him?" said Merry. "_Si, si, señor_!" "It must have been Cimarron Bill's gang," thought Merry. The girl was greatly excited, but he continued to question her, until he understood her quite well. "Is he far from here?" he asked. "No, not de very far. You come to heem? Mebbe you do for heem some good. Weel you come?" She had her brown hands clasped and was looking most beseechingly into Frank's face. "Of course I'll come," he said. "You shall show me the way. My horse will carry us both." He assisted her to mount behind him, and told her to cling about his waist. Frank continued to question Gonchita, who sometimes became almost unintelligible in her excitement and distress. They passed through the valley and turned into a rocky gorge. Frank asked if it was much farther. "We be almost to heem now," assured Gonchita. Almost as the words left her lips the heads of four or five men appeared above some boulders just ahead, and as many rifles were leveled straight at Frank's heart, while a well-known, triumphant voice shouted: "I've got you dead to rights, Merriwell! If you tries tricks you gits soaked good and plenty!" At the same moment the girl threw her arms about Frank's body, pinning his arms to his sides, so that he could make no move to draw a weapon. Merry knew on the instant that he had been trapped. He realized that he had been decoyed into the snare by the Mexican girl. He might have struggled and broken her hold, but he realized the folly of such an attempt. "Be vera steel, señor!" hissed the voice of Gonchita in his ear. "Eet be bet-are." "You have betrayed me," said Frank reproachfully. "I did not think it of you. And I was ready to do you a service." He said no more to her. Out from the rocks stepped Cimarron Bill. "So we meet again, my gay young galoot," said the chief of the ruffians. "An' I reckon you'll not slip me so easy this time. That old Injun o' yours is food fer buzzards, an' so he won't give ye no assistance whatever." "Old Joe----" muttered Merry, in dismay. "Oh, we finished him!" declared Bill. "That's why you ain't seen him fer some time. Set stiddy, now, an' don't make no ruction. "Gonchita, toss down his guns." The Mexican girl obeyed, slipping to the ground with a laugh when she had disarmed Frank. The ruffians now came out from the shelter of the rocks and gathered about the youth, grinning at him in a most provoking manner. He recognized several of the same fellows who had once before acted as guard over him. Red Sam was there, and nodded to him. "You're a right slick poker-player," said the sandy rascal; "but we 'lowed a girl'd fool ye easy. Goncheeter done it, too." Frank nodded. "She did," he confessed. "I was taken off my guard. But you want to look out for Indians." "Why for?" Merry then told them of the smoke signals, whereupon they grinned at one another knowingly. "That'll be all right," said Bill. "Them signals told us when you was comin', an' which way." "Then you were doing the signaling?" "Some o' the boys." Frank was then ordered down and searched. He appeared utterly fearless. He observed that Gonchita was watching him closely, a strange look in her eyes, her lips slightly parted, showing her milky, pointed teeth. When the men were satisfied that no weapon remained in the possession of their captive, two or three of them drew aside to consult, while the others guarded Frank. Cimarron Bill patted Gonchita's cheek with his hand. "Well done, leetle gal!" he said. "You fooled him powerful slick." She smiled into Bill's eyes, but in another moment, the chief, having turned away, she was watching Frank again. The result of the consultation led to the placing of Merry on his own horse, and he was guarded by the armed men who escorted him along the gorge until they came to a place where two men were watching a number of waiting horses. Then there was mounting and riding away, with Frank in the midst of his triumphant enemies. Gonchita rode with them, having a wiry little pony that seemed able to cope with any of the other horses. Frank was not a little disgusted because he had been decoyed into the trap, but he did his best to hide his feelings. It was some hours later that they halted to rest until the heat of the day should pass. A fire was built, and a meal prepared, Gonchita taking active part in this work. Frank sat near and watched all that was passing. He had not been bound, and his manner was that of one free amid the scoundrels by whom he was surrounded. It was Gonchita who found an opportunity to whisper in his ear: "Be vera careful! Dey mean to shoot you eef you try de escape." He did not start or betray any emotion whatever. It hardly seemed that he had heard her whispered words. Later, however, he gave her a look which conveyed to her the assurance that he had not failed to understand. As she worked about the fire she called upon him to replenish it with more fuel, which he did. He was putting wood on the fire when she again whispered to him: "I weel drop by you a peestol. Tak' eet; you may need eet." He made no retort, but watched for her to keep her promise, which she afterward found opportunity to do. Merry was lying carelessly on the ground when the weapon, a tiny revolver, was dropped at his side. Immediately he rolled over upon his stomach, in a lazy fashion, hiding the weapon, and shortly after he succeeded in slipping it into his pocket. Frank wondered how this strange girl happened to be with those ruffians. It seemed a most remarkable and mysterious thing. He also wondered why she had been led to give him the pistol. Having led him into the trap, she had suddenly changed so that she now seemed to wish him to escape without harm. The truth was that his coolness and nerve, together with his handsome, manly appearance, had quite won Gonchita's heart. She was a changeable creature, and had quickly come to regret leading this handsome youth into such a snare. When the food was prepared all partook heartily. Two of the men, a big fellow with an evil face, called Brazos Tom, and a thick-shouldered brute hailed as Mike Redeye, had been drinking freely from a flask. Brazos Tom was given to chaffing the others in a manner that some of them did not appreciate, and this inclination grew upon him with the working of the liquor. Redeye was a sullen, silent fellow, and Frank regarded him as a very dangerous man. Once or twice Cimarron Bill gave Tom a look, and, at last, the big fellow seemed to quiet down. After the meal, while the men were yet resting, Bill had his horse saddled for some reason, and rode away, having left the men in charge of Red Sam. As soon as the chief was gone, Brazos Tom brought forth his flask, which was now nearly emptied. "Gents," he said, "while we is waitin' we'll finish this an' try a hand at poker. Wot d'yer say?" "Oh, blazes!" growled one. "You an' Mike has purt' near finished that. Thar ain't enough left fer a drap apiece if we pass it around." "Drink up your stuff," said Red Sam. "It's poor firewater, anyhow. I'm fer the poker. Does you come inter this yere game, young gent, same as ye did oncet before?" This question was addressed to Frank, but Merry already "smelled a mouse," and so it did not need the warning look from Gonchita and the slight shake of her head to deter him. "Excuse me," he said. "I have no money." "Waal, fish some out o' the linin' o' your clothes, same as you did afore," advised Sam. "But I have none in the lining of my clothes." "I begs yer pardon, but we knows a heap sight better. Don't try no monkey business with us, younker! You was good enough ter git inter a game oncet before an' try ter show us up, so we gives ye another chanct, an' ye'd better accept it in a hurry." "I hardly think I have a friend here who will be willing to lend me money," smiled Merry. "Unless somebody does so, I cannot play. That being the case, I reckon I'll keep out of it." Sam laid a hand on the butt of his revolver. "You can't play none of that with us!" he declared fiercely. "We knows how you found the money afore, an' you'll find it ag'in. Come, be lively." Frank looked the man over. "You could get blood from a turnip easier than money from me," he declared. Then, as Red Sam seemed about to draw his weapon, Gonchita chipped in, crying: "Don't do it, Sam! I have you cover' weez my peestol! I weel shoot!" The men were astonished, for Gonchita had drawn a pistol and had it pointed at the head of Red Sam, while in her dark eyes there was a deadly gleam. "What in blazes is the matter with you?" snarled Red Sam, looking at her over his shoulder. "You hear what Gonchita say," she purred, a flush in her brown cheeks. "She mena de busineeze." Frank could not help admiring her then, for she presented a very pretty picture. Reluctantly Sam thrust back his weapon into his holster. "Oh, all right!" he laughed coarsely. "I see you're stuck up a heap on the feller." "You not to shoot heem while I am around." "Whoop!" roared Brazos Tom, in apparent delight. "Thar's a gal fer ye! I shore admires her style!" Then, being in a position to do so, he sprang on Gonchita, caught her in his strong arms so she could not defend herself, and gave her a bearlike hug and a kiss. The next instant something like a hard piece of iron struck Tom behind the ear and he measured his length on the ground. Frank Merriwell had reached his feet at a bound, and hit the giant a blow that knocked him down in a twinkling. Through all this Gonchita had held fast to her drawn revolver, and now she had it ready for use, so that, when those ruffians placed hands on their weapons, she again warned them. At the same time she flung herself between them and Frank, so that he was partly protected as he stood over Brazos Tom, who lay prone and dazed. "Take hees peestols!" she palpitated. And Frank followed this piece of advice, relieving the fallen ruffian of his revolvers, so that Tom's hand reached vainly for one of the weapons as he began to recover. "Eef you make de fight," said the girl to the ruffians, "we now gif you eet all you want." Never before had they seen her in such a mood, and they were astounded. But they knew she could shoot, for they had seen her display her marksmanship. "You little fool!" grated Sam. "Are you goin' to help that galoot try to git erway?" "No, I do not dat; but I see he ees not hurt till Beel he come back." Then she commanded Frank to throw down the pistol he had taken from Tom, which Merry did, knowing there was no chance for him to escape then without a shooting affray, in which he was almost certain to be wounded. Immediately on this act of Frank's the ruffians seemed to abandon any desire to draw and shoot at him. But Brazos Tom rose in a great rage, almost frothing at the mouth. "Ten thousan' tarantulas!" he howled. "Let me git my paws on him!" He made a rush for Frank, who seemed to stand still to meet him, but stepped aside just as the ruffian tried to fold him in his arms. Then the big wretch was somehow caught about the body, lifted into the air, and sent crashing to the ground, striking on his head and shoulders. The young athlete from Yale handled Brazos Tom with such ease that every witness was astounded. The big fellow lay where he fell, stunned and finished. Gonchita looked at Frank with a light of the most intense admiration in her dark eyes. "How you do eet so easee?" she asked. "That's nothing, with a bungler like him to meet," said Merry quietly. The ruffians said nothing, but exchanged meaning glances. They had been foiled for the time being by the girl and by the cleverness of their captive. CHAPTER XII. LOST IN THE MOUNTAINS. Four persons were lost in the mountains. Three of them were young men who were scarcely more than youths. All were mounted on broncos. One was a bright-eyed, apple-cheeked chap, who had an odd manner of talking, and who emphasized his words with little gestures and flirts of his hand that were very peculiar. Another was dark and silent, with a face that was decidedly handsome, although it denoted a person given more or less to brooding and morbid thoughts. The third youth was long and lank and talked with a nasal drawl and a manner of speech that proclaimed him a down-easter. These three were respectively Jack Ready, Bart Hodge, and Ephraim Gallup, all friends and former companions of Frank Merriwell. The fourth one of the party was a red-nosed bummer, known as Whisky Jim, whom they had picked up to guide them from the little railroad-town to Frank Merriwell's mine. Jim had averred that he knew "every squar' foot o' Arizony frum the Grand Cañon to the Mexican line," and they had trusted in his promise to lead them, with the smallest possible delay, to the Queen Mystery Mine. Jim would not acknowledge that he was lost. They had provided him with the bronco he bestrode and promised him good pay when they should come to the mine. He had collected enough in advance to "outfit" with a liberal supply of whisky, and had managed to keep beautifully loaded ever since they rode out to the Southwest. Their horses were wearied and reluctant, while they were sun-scorched and covered with dust. "By gum!" groaned Gallup. "I'm purty near pegged! This is too much fer me. I wish I was to hum on the farm!" "Prithee say not so!" cried Ready. "You give unto me that feeling of sadness known to those who are homesick. Ah, me! to endure thus to have my beautiful complexion destroyed by this horrid sun! And behold my lily-white hands! Are they not spectacles to make the gods sigh with regret! Permit me to squeeze out a few salt teardrops." Hodge was saying nothing. "'Sall ri', boysh," assured the useless guide thickly. "Jesht you wait an' shee. Whazzer mazzer with you? I know m' bushiness. Who shays I dunno m' bushiness?" He was able to sit perfectly straight in the saddle, although he was disgustingly intoxicated. "I say you don't know your business, you old fool!" said Hodge, breaking out at last. "It would serve you right if we were to leave you here in the mountains. A great guide you are! You'd die if we left you! You'd never find your way out." Jim looked astonished. This was the first time Bart had broken forth thus plainly. "You don't mean it?" he gurgled. "You bet your life I meant it! I'm in for leaving you to get back to town the best way you can." "Oh, don't do that!" exclaimed Jim, sobered somewhat by his alarm. "Someshin' might happen t' you, boysh." "Let's leave him," nodded Jack Ready, amused by the consternation of the old fellow. "Derned ef we don't!" cried Gallup. Upon which the "guide" became greatly alarmed, begging them for the love of goodness not to leave him there in the mountains to die alone. "But you're a guide," said Hodge. "You would be able to get out all right." "Boysh," said the old toper, "I got a 'fession to make." "What is it?" "I ain't been in the guidin' bushiness for shome time. I'm a leetle rusty; jest a bit out o' practish. That's whazzer mazzer." "Why didn't you say so in the first place? What made you lie to us?" "Boysh, I needed the moneysh. Hones' Injun, I needed the moneysh bad. Been a long time shince I've had all the whisky I could hold. Great treat f' me." Bart was disgusted, but Jack Ready was inclined to look at the affair in a humorous light. "I'd like to know the meaning of those smoke clouds we saw," said Hodge. "They looked mighty queer to me." They consulted together, finally deciding to halt in a shadowy valley and wait for the declining of the sun, which would bring cooler air. They confessed to one another that they were lost, and all felt that the situation was serious. It was not at all strange that Hodge was very angry with the worthless old toper who had led them into this predicament. "We may never get out of these mountains," he said. "Or, if we do, we may perish in the desert. I tell you, fellows, we're in a bad scrape!" "Dear me!" sighed Ready. "And I anticipated great pleasure in surprising Merry to-day. Alas and alack! such is life. I know this dreadful sunshine will spoil my complexion!" Gallup looked dolefully at the horses, which were feeding on the buffalo-grass of the valley. "We're a pack of darn fools!" he observed. "We'd oughter sent word to Frankie that we was comin', an' then he'd bin on hand to meet us." The "guide" had stretched himself in the shadow of some boulders and fallen fast asleep. "I suppose I'm to blame for this thing, fellows," said Bart grimly. "It was my scheme to take Merry by surprise." "Waal, I ruther guess all the rest of us was reddy enough ter agree to it," put in Gallup. "We're jest ez much to blame as you be." They talked the situation over for a while. Finally Bart rose and strolled off by himself, Gallup calling after him to look out and not go so far that he could not find his way back. Hodge was gone almost an hour. His friends were growing alarmed, when he came racing back to them, his face flushed with excitement and his eyes flashing. "Come, fellows!" he cried, his voice thrilling them. "I've got something to show you! We're wanted mighty bad by a friend of ours who is in trouble!" They were on their feet. "Who in thutteration be you talkin' abaout?" asked Gallup. "Perchance you mean Frank?" said Ready. "You bet your life!" said Bart. "Make sure your rifles are in working order! Leave the horses right where they're picketed. Leave Jim with them. He'll look after them, if he awakes." For Whisky Jim continued to sleep soundly through all this. So they seized their weapons and prepared to follow Bart. As they ran, Bart made a brief explanation. He had climbed to a point from whence he looked down into a grassy valley, and there he discovered some horses and men. The horses were feeding, and the men were reclining in the shade, with the exception of one or two. While Bart looked he recognized one of the men, and also saw a girl. At first he thought he must be deceived, but soon he was satisfied that the one he recognized was the comrade he had traveled thousands of miles to join, bringing with him Ready and Gallup. As he watched, he saw the encounter between Merry and Brazos Tom, and that was enough to satisfy Hodge that his friend was in serious trouble. Then he hastened back to get Jack and Ephraim. When Bart again reached the point where he could look into that valley he was astonished to discover that another struggle was taking place down there. Frank was engaged in a knife-duel with Red Sam, having been forced into it. And Red Sam meant to kill him. The watching ruffians were gathered around, while Gonchita, a pistol in her hand, was watching to see that the youth had fair play. Without doubt, the sandy ruffian had expected to find Merriwell easy, and finish him quickly in an engagement of this sort. But Frank Merriwell had been instructed in knife-play by a clever expert, and he soon amazed Red Sam and the other ruffians by meeting the fellow's assault, catching his blade, parrying thrust after thrust, leaping, dodging, turning, charging, retreating, and making such a wonderful contest of it that the spectators were electrified. It was Frank's knife that drew first blood. He slit the ruffian's sleeve at the shoulder and cut the man slightly. Gonchita's dark eyes gleamed. More than ever she marveled at this wonderful youth, who seemed more than a match for any single ruffian of Bill's band. "He is a wonder!" she told herself. "Oh, he is grand! They meant to kill him. If he beats Red Sam they shall not kill him." Sam swore when he felt the knife clip his shoulder. "I'll have your heart's blood!" he snarled. Frank smiled into his face in a manner that enraptured the watching girl. "You are welcome to it--if you can get it! But look out for yourself!" Then he began a whirlwindlike assault upon Sam, whom he soon bewildered by his movements. He played about the man like a leaping panther. Once Sam struck hard at Frank's breast, and Merry leaped away barely in time, for the keen knife slit the front of his shirt, exposing the clean white skin beneath. But again and again Frank cut the big ruffian slightly, so that soon Sam was bleeding from almost a dozen wounds and slowly growing weaker in spite of his efforts to brace up. The knives sometimes flashed together. The men stood and stared into each other's eyes. Then they leaped and dodged and struck and struck again. Little did Frank dream of the friends who were watching him from above. Bart Hodge was thrilled into silence by the spectacle. He knelt, with his rifle ready for instant use, panting as the battle for life continued. "Great gosh all hemlock!" gurgled Ephraim Gallup, his eyes bulging. "Did you ever see anything like that in all your natteral born days? Dern my squash ef I ever did!" "It is beautiful!" said Jack Ready. "Frank is doing almost as well as I could do myself! I'll have to compliment him on his clever work." Twice Bart Hodge had the butt of his rifle against his shoulder, but lowered it without firing. "He's gittin' the best of the red-headed feller!" panted Gallup. "Of course!" nodded Ready. "Did you look for anything else to happen?" "Them men don't like it much of enny." "They do not seem greatly pleased." "I bet they all go fer him if he does the red-head up." "In which case," chirped Jack, "it will be our duty to insert a few lead pills into them." Bart was not talking. He believed Frank in constant danger of a most deadly sort, and he was watching every move of the ruffians, ready to balk any attempt at treachery. As Sam weakened Frank pressed him harder. The fellow believed Merry meant to kill him, if possible. At length Merriwell caught Sam's blade with his own, gave it a sudden twist, and the fellow's knife was sent spinning through the air, to fall to the ground at a distance. At that moment one of the ruffians suddenly flung up a hand that held a revolver, meaning to shoot Frank through the head. Before he could fire, however, he pitched forward on his face. Down from the heights above came the clear report of the rifle in the hands of Bartley Hodge. Bart had saved the life of his old friend. CHAPTER XIII. FRANK'S ESCAPE. As the ruffian pitched forward on his face, Gonchita uttered a cry. The attention of the men was turned toward the point from which the unexpected shot had come. The Mexican girl caught hold of Merry, thrust a pistol into his hand, and hissed: "Back--back there! Quick! It's your chance! You take eet!" Frank did not hesitate. With the pistol in his hand, he went leaping toward the point of cover indicated. He was behind the rocks before the desperadoes realized what had taken place. They turned, uttering exclamations of anger and dismay. "Steady, you chaps!" rang out Frank's clear voice. "Keep your distance! If you don't----" But now the three young fellows above began shooting into the valley, and their whistling bullets sent the ruffians scudding to cover. Gonchita disdained to fly. She walked deliberately to the shelter of the rocks near Frank. "I geet horse for you," she said. "You take eet an' ride. Eet ees your chance. Mebbe them your friend?" Frank had caught barely a glimpse of the three fellows, and he was not at all sure that his eyes had not deceived him. "Perhaps they are my friends," he said. "They must be." "You ready to go?" "Yes." She ran out and pulled the picket pin of one of the horses. This animal she brought up close to the point where Frank crouched. "Take heem queek!" she panted. "You haf de chance! Down de vallee. Mebbe you git 'way." Frank hesitated. He knew the danger of such an attempt. He no longer doubted the friendliness of Gonchita, although the remarkable change in her was most astonishing. But the firing from above continued, and the ruffians were forced to again take to their heels and seek still safer shelter farther up the valley. That was Merry's opportunity, and he seized it. In a twinkling, while the rascals were in confusion, he leaped upon the bare back of the horse, headed the animal down the valley, and was off. A yell came down from above; but Frank, bending low, did not answer it. Two or three bullets were sent after him. He was untouched, however. Gonchita had armed him with two pistols, neither of which he had used. One he held gripped in his hand as the horse carried him tearing down the valley, and thus he came full upon Cimarron Bill, who was returning to his satellites. Bill was astounded. He had drawn a pistol, and he fired at the rider who was stooping low along the neck of the horse. The animal tossed its head and took the bullet in his brain. Even as the horse fell, Frank fired in return. He flung himself from the animal, striking on his feet. Bill's horse reared high in the air, striking with its forward feet. The rider leaned forward and fired from beneath the creature's neck as it stood on its hind legs, but the movements of the animal prevented him from accuracy. Merry's second shot struck the hind leg of Bill's horse, and the creature came down in such a manner that its rider was pitched off, striking upon his head and shoulders. Frank did not fire again, for Bill lay in a heap on the ground. The horse struggled up, being caught by Merry. Frank looked to the beast's wound, fearing to find its leg broken. This, however, was not the case, although the bullet had made a rather ugly little wound. In another moment Frank was in Bill's saddle, and away he went on the back of the chief's horse, leaving the stunned rascal where he had fallen. "An exchange of horses," he half-laughed. "You may have my dead one in place of your wounded one. If you do not like the bargain, Captain Bill, blame yourself." He was in no great fear of pursuit, but he longed to know just what friends had come to his rescue at such an opportune moment. How was he to reach them? When he felt that he was safe, he drew up Bill's splendid horse, dismounted and examined the bleeding wound. It was far less serious than he had feared, and he proceeded to dress it, tearing his handkerchief into strips to tie about the creature's leg. Having attended to his horse, Merry remounted and sought to find a means of approaching the spot from which his unknown friends had fired into the valley at such an opportune moment. He was thus employed when he came upon a most disreputable-looking old bummer, who had in his possession four horses. This man was startled by the appearance of Merriwell and acted very strangely. Frank rode slowly forward, ready for whatever might take place. However, he was recognized by the man, who uttered a shout of astonishment. The man with the horses was Whisky Jim, who had awakened to find his companions gone. He greeted Merriwell with protestations of delight. "I knew I wash a guide!" he said. "Who shed I washn't guide? I shed I'd bring 'em to Frank Merriwell, an' I done it. But whazzer mazzer? Where zey gone? I dunno." Barely had Merry started to question the old toper when Hodge, Ready, and Gallup appeared, hurrying forward. When they saw Merriwell they gave a cheer of delight, and, one minute later, they were shaking hands with him. "What does this mean?" asked Frank, when he could recover enough to ask anything. "It means," said Bart, "that we are here to back you up in your fight against the mining trust. You can depend on us to stand by you. After getting your letter, in which you wrote all about the hot time you were having fighting the trust, I hastened to get hold of Ready and Gallup and light out for this part of our great and glorious country. Here we are, though we're dead in luck to find you, for this drunken duffer managed to lose us here in the mountains." "And you were the ones who chipped in just at the right time after my little encounter with Red Sam? Fellows, you have given me the surprise of my life! It's great to see you again! I ran into those gents, or was led into a trap by a very singular girl, and it looked as if I was in a bad box. The girl, however, seemed to change her mind after getting me into the scrape, and she wanted to get me out. I owe her a lot. But there is no telling when Cimarron Bill and his gang may come hiking this way after me, so I propose that we light out for the Queen Mystery, where we can talk things over at our leisure." They were ready enough to follow his lead. Jim Tracy sat with his feet elevated upon Frank Merriwell's table, smoking his pipe and talking to Hop Anson, who was on the opposite side of the table when the door opened and Frank stepped in, followed by his friends, with Whisky Jim staggering along in the rear. Tracy's boots came down from the table with a thud, and he jumped up, uttering an exclamation and looking astounded. "Well, may I be derned!" he said, staring at Frank. Now Merriwell was not at all pleased to find the foreman making free in his cabin in such a manner. "What's the matter, Tracy?" he asked sharply, glancing from Jim's face to that of Anson, who seemed no less confounded. "You seem disturbed." "I allow I didn't expect ye back so soon," mumbled the foreman, who could not recover his composure at once. "But I told you I might be back in a few hours, or I might not return for many days." "I know, but----" "But what?" "Oh, nothing!" "It's plain you were making yourself quite at home here. What were you doing with Anson?" "Jest givin' him a piece o' my mind," answered Tracy promptly. "I reckon he knows now purty well what I think of him." Now to Merry, it had seemed on his appearance that these two men were engaged in a confidential chat. "Well, couldn't you find some other place to talk to him?" Frank asked. "I brought him here so the rest of the boys wouldn't hear us," explained Tracy. "I opined they might take a right strong dislike to him in case they found out what happened this mornin'." "You have not told them?" "No." "Well, your consideration for Anson seems very strange, considering the talk you made to-day at an earlier hour." "I'm jest follerin' your orders," protested the foreman, not at all pleased by Merry's manner. "Very well. You may retire, Tracy. Boys, make yourselves at home." As Tracy and Anson were going out, the eyes of the latter encountered those of Whisky Jim, who was surveying him closely in a drunken manner. "Who are you lookin' at?" muttered Anson. "Sheems to me," said Jim thickly, "I'm a-lookin' at a gent what had shome deeficulty down Tucson way 'bout takin' a hoss what b'longed to nozzer man." "You're a liar, you drunken dog!" grated Anson, as he hastened from the cabin. "Do you know that man?" asked Merry, of Jim. "Sh!" hissed the toper, with a cautioning gesture. "I don't want 't gener'lly know I ever shaw him before. He'sh a hosh-thief. He'd shteal anything, he would. I never 'nowledge him ash 'quaintance of mine." "Do you know the other man, my foreman?" "Sheems to look ruzer nacheral," said Jim; "but can't 'zactly plashe him. All shame, if he keeps comp'ny wish that hosh-thief, you look out f' him." Frank celebrated his safe return to the mine in company with his friends by preparing a rather elaborate spread, and all gathered about the table to enjoy it and chat about old times and the present fight Merry was making against the mining trust. "Waal, dinged if this ain't scrumpshus!" cried Ephraim Gallup. "I'm feelin' a hanged sight better than I was when we was lost out in the maountains this arternoon." "Fellows," said Merry, "you have given me the surprise of my life. I never dreamed of seeing you at such a time. And Bart's shot saved my life. I know it! I owe him everything!" There was a glow of satisfaction in the dark eyes of Hodge. "You owe me nothing," he said earnestly. "Whatever I am I owe it to you. Do you think I am a fellow to forget? That is why I am here. I felt that this was the time for me to prove my loyalty. When I explained it to Ephraim and Jack they were eager to come with me to back you in your fight. If you need them, you can have any of the old gang. They'll come to a man." "Thus far," said Merry, "I have been able to balk every move of the enemy. They have employed ruffians who hesitate at nothing. You saw the fellow with the bandaged hand who was here with my foreman? Well, it was this very morning, while I was shaving at that glass, that he crept up to that open door and tried to shoot me in the back. I fired first, and he has lost a few fingers." "Dear me!" said Ready. "I'm so frightened! What if somebody should take a fancy to shoot me full of holes! It might damage me beyond repair!" "Gol ding it!" chuckled Gallup. "You must be havin' enough to keep you alfired busy around here. But what is that chap a-doin' of stayin' here?" Frank explained fully about Hop Anson, adding that he had partly believed Anson's statement that it was the foreman for whom he was looking. "But since coming back here unexpectedly," said Merry, "and finding them together in such a friendly fashion, I am inclined to think differently. Tracy pretended to have a powerful feeling against Anson. Something leads me to believe now that Tracy will bear watching." They sat up until a late hour talking over old times and other matters that interested them all. When they slept they took pains to make sure that the door and windows were secured. Whisky Jim slept outside in another building. CHAPTER XIV. MYSTERIOUS PABLO. The following morning, while Frank and his friends were at breakfast, there came the sounds of a struggle outside the cabin, followed by a knock on the door. Merry drew a revolver and laid it in his lap. "Come in," he called. The door was flung open, and Tracy entered, dragging by the collar a small Mexican lad, who held back and betrayed every evidence of terror. "Found him skulking about, Mr. Merriwell," said the foreman. "Don't know whar he come from. Just brought him yere fer you to deal with." The boy seemed badly frightened. "Let him go, Tracy," said Frank. The boy hesitated when released, seeming on the point of running, but pausing to look appealingly at Merry. He was not a bad-looking little chap, although he was rather dirty and unkempt. He had wondrous dark eyes, big and full of interrogation. "Well, my boy, what do you want?" asked Merry, in a kindly way. The boy shook his head. "I want notheenk de señor can gif," he answered, in a low tone. "How came you around here?" "I hunt for my seestar." "Your sister?" "_Si, señor_." "Where is she?" "That I cannot tell, señor. She be take away by de bad man. He haf fool her, I t'ink." "What bad man do you mean?" "Seester call heem Beel." "Bill?" "Dat ees hees name." "Bill what?" The boy shook his head once more. "I know eet not," he said. "He half manee man like heem who do what he say. He get my seester to go wif heem." "What is your sister's name?" "Eet ees Gonchita." Frank jumped. "Gonchita?" he cried. "Dat ees eet," nodded the boy. "Mebbe you do know her?" "I think I have seen her," said Merry. "By Jove! So this fellow Bill led her to run away with him, did he, the scoundrel? And you are searching for him. What will you do if you find him?" "I cannot tell, but I want my seestar to come 'way an' leaf heem. He ees bad man." "That's right. What's your name?" "Pablo." "Well, Pablo, my boy, I hope you find your sister all right and get her away from Bill, but you have a big job on your hands. Come here and have some breakfast. Are you hungry?" "Oh, vera hungree, señor!" "You shall have all you can eat. It's all right, Tracy. You may go. I'll take care of the kid." "I wish to report, sir," said Tracy, "that Hop Anson is missing." "What's that? Anson--he's gone?" "Skipped out last night, sir. He was not to be found this morning. I thought he'd do it, sir." "Well, let him go. I don't think he'll do much harm." "If you had listened to me, I'd fixed him so he'd never done any further harm." "All right, Tracy--all right. I'll see you later." Tracy left the room. "Look out for that man, Frank," said Hodge, in an ominous manner. "He is not to be trusted at all." "All right," said Merry. "We'll not discuss him--now." Which remark was made with a meaning look toward the Mexican lad. Pablo was given a place at the table and a steaming cup of coffee placed before him. Corn bread and bacon, with some canned stuff, made up the breakfast, and the boy ate almost ravenously of everything given him. But he kept his hat pulled low over his eyes all the while. After breakfast Frank sought to question Pablo further, succeeding in drawing from the boy that both his father and mother were dead, and that he had lived in Holbrook with his sister, where she had seen Bill, who seemed to fascinate her. At least she had run away with the man, and, arming himself with a knife and pistol, Pablo had followed to rescue or avenge her. Chance had led him to the valley in which the Queen Mystery Mine was located. It was rather a pathetic little story, and Merry was somewhat stirred by it. "What could you do if you should find Bill?" he asked. A grim look came to Pablo's soiled yet attractive face. "I haf my peestol," he said. "But Bill is a very bad man, and he would have a pistol, too." "I do my best. I am not skeert of Beel." "Well, as I happen to know something of Bill, I tell you now, Pablo, that it will be better for you if you never meet him." "But my seestar--my seestar! I mus' find her." Frank was tempted to tell the boy what he knew about Gonchita, but decided not to do so, believing it would be to no purpose. So Pablo remained in the valley for the time, seeming in no hurry to continue the search for his sister. He wandered about the mine and the buildings, peering curiously at everything with his big eyes, listening to the talk of the men, and seeming to have a great curiosity. All this was observed by Bart Hodge, who watched the lad as closely as possible. That afternoon Bart said to Frank: "Merry, that greaser boy acts queer. Have you noticed it?" "How do you mean?" "Why, he told a story about being in a dreadful hurry to find his sister, but he hangs around here." "I suppose the little chap doesn't know where to look for the girl." "But he's such an inquisitive little rascal. He goes slipping around everywhere, looking at everything, and listening to the talk of the men. He acts to me like a spy." "It's his way. Mexicans have a sneaking way about them, you know." "Well, it may be his way, but I wouldn't trust him." "I don't propose to trust him," said Frank, with a laugh. "I am not given to trusting greasers. It is probable that he will go away to-morrow and we'll never see anything more of him." "Perhaps so." "I expect to find him gone in the morning," said Merry. But in the morning Pablo was found sleeping just outside Frank's door when Merry opened it. He lay there, his old hat pulled down over his ears, curled up like a dog; but he started wide-awake and sat up, staring at Merriwell with his big black eyes. "What the dickens you doing here?" asked Frank, annoyed. "I tak' de sleep," grinned Pablo faintly. "Well, couldn't you find any other place? Have you been there all night?" "Oh, I haf no odar place. Thees good for Pablo." "Well, it may be all right for you; but it seems deuced uncomfortable to me. When are you going to look for Bill and your sister?" "_Manana_." "To-morrow?" "_Si, señor_." Frank could not refrain from smiling at this characteristic answer. With the Spaniards everything is to be done to-morrow, and the lazy Mexican, having adopted the language of the Spaniard, has also adopted his motto. When Frank turned back he found Hodge washing. "I told you," said Bart. "The fellow acts to me like a spy. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that he had been sent here by Bill. This story about his sister may be faked up." "But I know Gonchita is with the ruffians." "That's all right. That makes it all the easier to deceive you. That made the boy's story seem all the more probable. Just you watch him close and see if he doesn't act the spy." "All right," laughed Merry. "But let's have breakfast without worrying about him." It was necessary to drag Ready out. "Oh, me! oh, my!" sighed Jack dolefully. "Methinks I have bestridden something that hath galled me extensively. I am likewise weary and sore in every limb and joint." Gallup had stood the riding much better, but even he was lame. After breakfast Frank went out and found Pablo curled in the sunshine around the corner of the hut. And not more than four feet from the Mexican lad was a rattlesnake. The crack of the pistol in Frank's hand caused Pablo to start up with a jump. He stared in astonishment at Merry, who stood over him, holding the smoking pistol. Then he looked and saw the headless snake stretched on the ground. "Oh, _Madre de Dios_!" he cried. "You shoot de snake! Mebbe you save me from de snake!" "Perhaps so," nodded Frank, with a slight smile. "You had better be careful, for snakes are not all the dangerous things you will find on the ground." Pablo made a spring and caught Frank's hand. "To me you are so veree goode!" he said, kissing Merry's hand in a manner that surprised Frank somewhat. Then he saw the pistol with which the snake had been shot. "_Carrambo_!" he cried, in astonishment. "Where you geet eet? De peestol. Eet do belong to my seestar." For Merry had shot the snake with the pistol given him by Gonchita. "How you haf eet?" asked Pablo, with great eagerness. "Where you geet eet?" Frank was fairly cornered. As a result, he sat down there and told the Mexican boy of his capture by Cimarron Bill's gang and of Gonchita. "Then she be steel alife?" exclaimed Pablo. "Beel haf not keeled her!" "He had not then." "But she help you to geet away?" "Yes." "Then mebbe Beel be veree angry weeth her--mebbe he keel her! Eef he do that----" "If he does he ought to be hanged! Pablo, Bill is sure to be hanged or shot before long, anyhow." "But he tell Gonchita he mak' veree much monee. He say big men what can buy the law pay him much monee." "I know what he means, Pablo. A lot of men have banded together to rob me of my mines, this one here and another in Mexico. They expected to do so with ease at first, but made a fizzle of it. They thought to take the mines from me by law; but now they know they cannot do that, and they have hired Bill and his ruffians to seize it. Those men are the ones who are paying Bill for his work. He expects they will protect him when it is done. He is looking for a pardon for all past offenses." "But you weel not let him beat you?" "Not if I can help it. He has failed thus far. He attacked the mine with his ruffians and was repulsed." "De nex' time he do eet deeferent. He come een when you do not expect. Mebbe he geet somebody to gef de mine up to them." "Nobody here," said Merry, with a laugh. "I can trust my men." "You theenk so." "Oh, I'm sure of it." "One try to shoot you not long 'go." "Yes. How did you learn of that?" "Pablo have de ear. He hear something." "What did you hear?" "Dat man be paid to try de shoot." "Look here, how do you know?" "Oh, I hear some of de men talk. They all say they pritee sure of eet. How you like my seestar?" The boy asked the question with such suddenness that Frank was a bit startled. "I am sorry for her, Pablo. I'm sorry Bill has her in his hands." "Oh, Beel he say he marree her; but I know he lie. Mebbe she know eet now. Beel want her to help heem. You theenk she veree bad girl?" This question was put almost pathetically, Pablo again grasping Frank's hand and gazing wistfully into Merry's eyes. "No; I do not think she is very bad." "She do noteeng to make you theenk so?" "Well, she fooled me somewhat at first by telling me a story about her wounded father. She had such an innocent way that I swallowed the yarn. That was how I fell into Bill's hands. I accompanied her to go, as I supposed, to her wounded father. She decoyed me into a trap." "But afterward--afterward?" eagerly asked the boy. "She seemed to change in a most remarkable manner, and helped me out of it. But for her, I fancy I'd surely been disposed of by those ruffians." "Then you see she be not so veree bad. When she first see you mebbe she never seen you before. Mebbe she haf promeesed to Beel that she take you eento trap. Aftare she see you she be soree, and she want you to geet away." "I think that was about the way things happened, Pablo." "I am glad you do not theenk she ees so veree bad girl. What you do eef I breeng her here?" "What would I do?" "_Si señor_; how you like eet?" Pablo was watching Frank's face closely. "Why, I would do my best for her," said Merry. "I should feel it my duty after what she did for me." "You would not be veree angree?" "No." "Nor veree please'?" "Why, for your sake I would be pleased." "But you never care for your own sake at all? You never want to see my seestar again?" "I should be glad to see her and thank her." "Dat ees all?" "And to do her any other favor in my power. I am not ungrateful enough to forget what she did for me." "Dat ees all?" "What more do you want?" demanded Merry, in surprise. "Notheeng," murmured Pablo regretfully, as he turned and walked away. CHAPTER XV. MERRY'S DISCOVERY. The actions of Tracy seemed strangely suspicious to Merry, who undertook to watch the man, only to find that Pablo seemed to be watching him still more closely. Thus it happened that Merry followed the foreman up the valley and saw him meet another man at a point removed beyond view of the mine. The man Tracy met was none other than Hop Anson, readily recognized at a distance by his bandaged hand. "Something doing!" muttered Frank, as he crouched behind the rocks and watched the two. "Tracy wanted to lynch Anson. Now they meet like this, apparently by appointment. My foreman is playing some sort of a double game." This point was settled in Frank's mind. He longed to be near enough to hear what was passing between the two, but could not reach such a position without exposing himself. The men were suspicious that they might be watched. They did not remain there long. But Frank distinctly saw Anson give Tracy something, which the latter placed in his pocket. Then the foreman turned back, and Hop Anson vanished in the opposite direction. Frank was tempted to step out and confront the foreman, demanding to know what it meant, but he chose to remain quiet and seek the truth in another manner. So he let Tracy pass. But when the foreman had disappeared Merry sprang up and went racing after Hop Anson, hoping to run the rascal down. He came out where he could see far along a broad gorge, and there, riding into the distance, mounted on a good horse, was Anson. Frank knew the folly of trying further pursuit, so he stood still and watched the vanishing figure. "I'd like to know just what it was that Hop Anson gave Tracy," he said, aloud. Immediately, within less than twenty feet from him, Pablo, the Mexican boy, arose into view. "I teel you what eet was," he said. "Eet was monee." Frank was startled by this sudden appearance of the boy. "What are you doing here?" he asked sharply. "Oh, I watch de Tracy man," returned the lad craftily. "I see something." "Were you near enough to hear their talk?" "Just a leetle beet." "Ha! What was it? What did you hear?" "De man with hurt hand he geef oder man monee. Oder man take eet. Say eet not enough. Must have two times more as much before he do something man with hurt hand want heem to do. Man with hurt hand mad. Eet do no goode. Oder man say breeng as much more twice over to heem at same place same time to-morrow." It is needless to say that this revelation was intensely interesting to Merriwell. "Why, Hop Anson has no money!" exclaimed Frank. "Where did he get it? It must have come from Bill. In that case, an attempt is being made to bribe my foreman. I have a traitor in the mine, and he means to deliver me into the hands of the enemy." "Tracy man he say to man with hurt hand that Pablo, the brother of Gonchita, ees here." "So Tracy told Anson that?" "_Si, señor_." "Well, I think I need a new foreman--and need him bad! It is about time for Mr. Tracy to get out!" "You wait and watch, you ketch heem." It was arranged that Pablo should return in advance to the mine, in order that they might not be seen coming in together. So the Mexican boy strolled back with assumed carelessness. But it happened that Jim Tracy was watching, and he saw Pablo, whereupon he hastened to meet the boy. "Where have you been?" harshly demanded the foreman. Pablo looked surprised. "I go to tak' de walk," he said. "You little liar!" snarled Tracy. "You have been playing the spy! I know what you have been doing!" "De spyee--how you mean?" The Mexican lad seemed very innocent. "I've seen you sneaking around. Why are you hanging around here, anyhow? Why don't you get out?" "Dat none of your busineeze," returned the lad saucily. "You little runt!" growled Tracy, catching the boy by the shoulder. "Do you dare talk to me that way?" "You beeg rufeen!" cried Pablo. "You hurt! Let of me a-go!" Then he kicked the foreman on the shins. Immediately, with a roar of rage, Tracy struck Pablo with his fist, knocking the boy down. Pablo was armed with a pistol, and this weapon he snatched out when he scrambled to his feet. But Tracy was on hand to clutch him and wrest the weapon from his grasp. "You little devil!" grated the man. "I'll cut your throat on the spot!" There was a terrible look in his eyes as he whipped out a knife and lifted it. "Drop that!" Crack!--the report of a revolver emphasized the command, and the bullet struck the knife and tore it from the hand of the aroused ruffian. Frank Merriwell had arrived just in time to save Pablo, who was bent helplessly backward over Tracy's knee, the hand of the wretch being at his throat. Tracy shook his benumbed and quivering hand, releasing the boy and looking at Frank resentfully. "Oh, you're not badly hurt!" said Merry, as he strode up. "My lead struck the knife blade, not your hand. And I seemed to be barely in time, too." "Oh, I wasn't going to hurt the kid!" declared Tracy harshly. "I was going to teach him a lesson, that was all. I wanted to frighten him a little." "Well, your behavior looked remarkably bloodthirsty. You seemed on the point of drawing the knife across his throat. That was enough for me. You may go, Tracy, but you are to let Pablo alone in the future." "If he insults me----" "Report to me; I'll make him apologize. Go." Tracy seemed to wish to linger to argue over the matter, but the look in Merriwell's eyes forbade it, and he picked up the knife and slouched sullenly away. "I hope he did not hurt you much," said Frank, lifting Pablo's hat to see the bruise made by the ruffian's fist. With a cry, the boy grasped his hat and pulled it down upon his head. But Frank had made a most surprising discovery, and it was enough to give Merry something to meditate over. He decided that the boy must be closely watched, and he longed for the presence of old Joe Crowfoot, than whom no one was more fitted to such a task. But the outlaws had averred that old Joe was "food for buzzards," and the protracted absence of the redskin led Merry to fear that he had looked into the Indian's beady eyes for the last time. Frank spoke to no one of his discovery. As far as possible, he kept his eyes on Pablo, as if he believed the boy meditated treachery of some sort. Frank's friends wandered about the place and investigated the mine, watching operations. The calm of the valley was most deceptive, and both Ready and Gallup declared they could not conceive any possible danger lurking near. Hodge, however, professed to feel a warning in the very peacefulness, which he declared was the calm before a storm. Jim Tracy sulked. His treatment by Frank was altogether displeasing to him, and he felt that he had been humiliated, which caused him to register a secret vow of vengeance. Pablo was generally found lingering about Frank's cabin or somewhere near Merry. "He knows a good thing when he sees it," said Ready sagely, "and he means to stick to it. He doesn't seem in any great hurry about rushing to the rescue of his 'seestar.'" Frank smiled in a knowing manner, observing: "Perhaps he has reasons to know that his sister is in no great peril at present, and he is satisfied to stay here." "He's a gol dern lazy little beggar!" said Gallup. "An' he oughter hev to wash his face once in a while." The evening was cool and agreeable. The sun dropped peacefully behind the mountains and the shadows gathered deeply in the gorges and cañons. The roar of the stamps sank to silence, and peace lay like a prayer on the valley. Frank and his friends sat about the cabin door and chatted of old times. Sometimes they sang little snatches of the old songs. And as the darkness deepened a slender, boyish figure lay on his stomach and wiggled cautiously nearer and nearer, taking the utmost pains not to be seen. This eavesdropper was Pablo, and he evinced the greatest interest in all they were saying; but it was when Frank spoke or sang that he listened with the utmost attention, keeping perfectly still. Thus it was that the boy heard Hodge say: "Merriwell, I'm half-inclined to believe that dirty little Mexican rascal is a fakir. I suspect him." "Of what?" asked Frank. "Of being a spy. He told a slick tale, but I've had time to think it over, and somehow it seems too thin. Why shouldn't Bill send him here to play the spy?" "My dear Bart," said Merry, with a laugh, "what would be Bill's object? What could the boy do?" "He might get a chance to put a knife in your back, old man." "I'll chance it. I do not believe Pablo that bad. I'll trust him." "Well, I wouldn't trust any greaser." "I hate you, Señor Hodge!" whispered the listening boy, to himself. "I hate you; but I lofe Frank Merriwell!" The miners gathered near their quarters. As far as possible, Frank had secured miners who were not Mexicans, but there were a few Mexicans among them. Among the men were some who were hard characters when they were drinking, and Merry had taken particular pains to make rules and regulations to keep liquor away from them. The morning after the encounter between Pablo and Jim, the foreman, Frank arose and flung open the door of his cabin, but immediately made the discovery that a sheet of paper was pinned to the door with a knife. "Hello!" he exclaimed. "Here's something interesting!" Gallup came slouching forward, followed by Ready. "What, ho!" cried Jack, as his eyes fell on the knife and the paper. "Methinks I see something! Hist! That is what the tragic actor said when he appeared upon the stage. He crept in and looked around, after which he said, 'Hist!' And he was hissed." "By gum!" cried Ephraim. "There's writin' written on it! What does it say?" This is what they read written sprawlingly on the sheet of paper that was pinned to the door by the knife: "FRANK MERRIWELL: You are hearby giv notis that you are to send away the boy Pablo instanter. He promised to come to his sister, and he has not come. You are warned not to keep him. BILL." Frank looked at the notice and laughed. "Well," he said, "that is rather interesting. So Bill wants the boy? Why doesn't he come and take him?" Hodge came and read the notice, a deep frown on his darkly handsome face. "What do you make of it, Merry?" he asked. "Give us your opinion." "Nerve." "Shall we give up the boy?" Now Bart had not favored Pablo, but at this juncture he grimly declared: "I'm against it." "Good!" nodded Merry. "Let Bill come and take him! If the boy's story is true, it would not be a healthy thing for him to fall into Bill's hands." Just as he spoke these words Jim Tracy came around the corner and appeared on the scene. He halted, appearing surprised, and stared at the knife and the notice. "Whatever is it?" he asked. "Something left there during the night," said Merry. "Read it." Tracy looked it over. "Well, Bill sure wants the greaser kid," he said, "an' I reckon you'd best give the youngster up." "Why do you reckon that?" "Cimarron Bill is a heap dangerous." "He may be," said Merry; "but he has failed thus far to get ahead of me. I don't like his notice, if this came from him. But I thought you took pains to have the place guarded at night, Tracy?" "So I does, sir." "Then how did Bill or any of his gang manage to creep up here and pin this to my door?" "That I can't say, sir." "I think I'll look after things to-night," said Frank grimly. "If we're getting careless around here Bill may walk in some night and seize the mine before we know a thing of what's going to happen." He jerked the knife from the door, took the paper and placed it in his pocket, after which he indicated that he was ready to speak with the foreman, who had some matter of business to discuss. When Tracy departed Frank sat down and meditated, for he had noticed something peculiar and remarkable. There were ink-stains upon the thumb and two of the fingers of Jim Tracy's right hand. CHAPTER XVI. FRANK DETECTS TREACHERY. Needless to say Frank did not send Pablo away. He did not tell the boy of the warning found on the door. Instead, he called the Mexican lad and said: "Pablo, I want you to watch Tracy closely for me. Will you?" "Señor Frank can be sure I weel," said the boy. "If possible, I want you to get some of Tracy's handwriting and bring it to me." "Eet I will do, señor." "But look out for him. He's dangerous. Don't let him catch you playing the spy." "I tak' de great care 'bout that." Before noon the Mexican boy came hurrying to Merry, his big dark eyes glowing. He caught hold of Frank's hand and gave it an excited pressure. "I haf eet!" he said. "What is it you have?" "Some of hees writeeng. He do eet in de mine offeese when he think no one watch heem. I see heem through window. He put eet in lettare, stick eet up, put in pocket, then drop um. I know; I watch; I pick eet up. Here eet ees!" He thrust into Merry's hand a soiled, sealed and undirected envelope. "Eet ees inside," said Pablo, all aquiver. "Come in here," said Frank, leading the way into the cabin. Bart and Jack were watching Ephraim Gallup at a distance from the cabin, the Yankee youth being engaged in a brave attempt to ride a small, bucking bronco. When they were inside the cabin, Frank closed and fastened the door. Making a hasty examination of the envelope, he quickly lighted a small alcohol-lamp beneath a tiny brass tea-kettle, which he partly filled with water. In a very few moments steam was pouring from the nozle of the kettle. Holding the envelope in this, Merry quickly steamed open the flap, taking from it a sheet of paper. Pablo's eyes seemed to grow larger than ever as he watched. Frank unfolded the paper and read: "I have decided to except terms, and to-night will be the time for you to come down on the mine. The whisky will be yoused to get the men drunk, jest as you perposed, and I'll hev them all filled up by ten o'clock. Wate tell you hear three shots right togather, then charge and you'll take the mine, havin' only Merywel and his tenderfeet backers to fight, and them I will hav fastened into their cabin. J." Merry whistled over this, showing no small amount of surprise. "Ees de writin' what you expec'?" asked Pablo anxiously. "It's somewhat more than I expected," said Frank. "By Jove! there will be doings here to-night." He quickly decided on the course he would pursue. Carefully drying the flap of the envelope, he placed some fresh mucilage on it, thrust the message into it, and resealed it carefully. "See here, Pablo," he said quickly, "if you can do it, I want you to take this and drop it just where you found it, so that Tracy will be pretty sure to recover it. I do not wish him to know that it has been picked up. Do your best. If you can't do it, come and tell me." "I do eet," assured Pablo, as he took the envelope, concealed it beneath his jacket, and slipped from the cabin. Frank had been given something to think about. "So Tracy has turned traitor," he meditated. "He has decided to betray the mine into the hands of Cimarron Bill's gang. It was his writing on the notice pinned on the door, not Bill's. That notice was a fake, and it made him angry because it didn't work out as he planned. Bill got at him through Hop Anson, who must have been in Bill's employ all along. Well, to-night is the time I give those ruffians their final setback. Another repulse will discourage them. They would have descended on the place while I was in their power if they had fancied there was any chance that I might escape with my life." Pretty soon he walked out, with his hands in his pockets, and joined his friends, laughing heartily over Gallup's trials, and seeming undisturbed by any worry. Later he entered the mine and found that Tracy was not about. Nor could he discover anything of Pablo. The afternoon was far spent when the Mexican boy suddenly appeared before Frank. "Hello, Pablo!" said Merry. "What's the word?" "I followe heem," whispered Pablo excitedly. "I haf drop de letter where he find eet when he look for eet. Then he find time to go 'way. I followe. I see heem take letter to place in rocks long distance down vallee. He hide eet there. Pablo let heem go; stay watch letter. He haf hoss hid some piece off. He geet to hoss, geet on heem, ride off." "That's all?" "Dhat ees all." "Well, you have done well, Pablo," said Merry. "I'll not forget it." Pablo again grasped Frank's hand, which he kissed. "You freen' to Pablo," he said. "You goode to heem. He not forget." "Tell no one what you have seen and done." "You look out for Beel." "You may be sure I'll do that, Pablo. When Bill comes here, he'll receive a warm reception." That night after supper, as the miners sat about the long table in the low, open room, smoking their pipes and cigarettes and enjoying the grateful coolness of the evening, Jim Tracy, the foreman, came into the room and cried: "Well, boys, you've been working right hard to open up this yere old mine, an' I appreciates it, if the young man what owns the property don't. It's a long distance to town, an' ye can't all git off together to have a leetle blow, so I has brought ye some good whisky, and I perposes that you all takes a drink on me." Saying which, he produced two big quart bottles and held them above his head, so the lamplight fell upon them. Instantly two shots sounded through the place, and the bottles were smashed in the foreman's hands by a pair of bullets, the glass flying and the liquor spattering over him. In through the doorway at the opposite end of the room stepped Frank Merriwell, a pistol in each hand. "Keep your hands up and empty, Jim Tracy!" he said, in a commanding tone. "It will be unhealthy for you if you lower them!" Behind Frank were Bart, Jack, and Ephraim, with Pablo hovering like a shadow still farther in the rear. Tracy was astounded. "What in blazes does this mean!" he snarled, but he kept his hands up, as Frank had ordered. "It means that I am onto your game to drug these boys and betray us all. Steady! If you try to get a weapon I shall drop you! You know I can shoot a little. Just tie him up, fellows." "With the greatest pleasure," chirped Jack Ready, as he waltzed lightly forward, accompanied by Hodge and Gallup. In spite of the protests of Tracy, they bound him hand and foot, so that he could barely wiggle. The miners had been amazed, but they believed Merry when he told them of Tracy's plot to betray the mine. "He would have drugged you all," said Frank. "Then, when Bill's gang charged on the mine, it's likely many of you would have been killed. But what did he care about that. Now we'll fool Cimarron Bill and teach him a lesson." He explained his plan to them, and they readily agreed. So it happened that, a little later, the miners began to sing and shout and pretend to be riotously merry. This they kept up until it seemed as if they were engaged in a fearful carousal. Then the noises began to die out and grow less. It was past ten o'clock when dead silence seemed to rest on the camp. Frank Merriwell stepped to the door, lifted his hand and fired three shots into the air. Five minutes later the sound of galloping horses coming up the valley was distinctly heard. "Here they come!" breathed Frank. "All ready for them!" Right up to the mine-buildings charged the horsemen. They were dismounting when Frank's challenge rang out sharp and clear: "Hold, Cimarron Bill! Stop where you are! Stop, or we fire!" The outlaws uttered a yell and charged, firing the first shots. Then Merry gave the command, and the armed and waiting miners fired on the raiders. It was a withering volley, and must have astounded the ruffians. Bill, however, had come this time determined to succeed, and he called on his men to break down the doors. As they were hammering at the front doors, Frank led some of the men out by the back way and charged round the buildings. The encounter that took place was brief and sanguine. The miners were encouraged by Hodge, Ready, and Gallup, who fought with savage fury, and the raiders began to waver. Suddenly a tall figure came rushing into the thick of the fight and confronted Frank. It was Tracy, who had been released from his bonds by a sympathetic miner. "Yah!" he snarled, having heard Merry's voice and recognized him. "So it's you! I've found you! Take that!" He pitched forward a revolver and fired pointblank at Frank. At that very instant, with a cry, Pablo, the Mexican boy, leaped in front of Merry. Struck by the bullet intended for Frank, the little fellow tossed up his arms and fell backward into Merriwell's clasp. At the same instant somebody shot Jim Tracy through the brain. As Merriwell lowered the death-stricken boy, the raiders, completely baffled, gave over the attack and took to flight, leaving half their number behind, stretched upon the ground. "Are you hurt--badly?" asked Frank, as one of the boy's arms dropped limply over his neck and seemed to cling there. For a moment there was no answer. Then came the faintly whispered words: "I--theenk--I--am--keeled--Señor Merriwell." "Oh, no, Gonchita!" said Frank earnestly; "not as bad as that! It cannot be!" "You know me," was the surprised whisper. "How you know I am Gonchita?" "Oh, I discovered it the other day--I found you had your hair tied up beneath your hat. Here, men--somebody bring a light! Be lively about it!" "All right, sir," said one of the men. "Have one directly." "No use, Señor Merriwell," came weakly from the lips of the disguised girl. "I shall be dead in a minute. _Ay-de mi_! Poor Gonchita! You theenk she ees veree bad girl? Beel he say he weel marree her. He get me to fool you, señor. Then you are so veree brave! Señor Frank, I theenk you are de han'someest, de braveest man I evere know. I run away from Beel. I wear de boyee's clothes an' come here. Dat ees all. Now I haf to die." "Perhaps not, Gonchita," said Merry, with infinite pity for the unfortunate girl. "We'll see what can be done for you." She managed to press one of his hands to her lips. "So goode--so han'some!" she whispered. "Good-by, señor! Eet ees ovare." Then one of the men came out with a lighted lantern; but before the light fell on the face of the wounded girl Frank knew he was holding a corpse in his arms. * * * * * Among the dead was found Hop Anson. Jim Tracy lay where he had fallen immediately after the shot which ended the life of poor Gonchita. Such of the ruffians who were wounded were cared for as well as possible. The dead were buried there in the valley. Cimarron Bill's band was completely broken up. On his next visit to town Merry had a marble slab cut for the grave of the Mexican girl, which was located at a distance from those of the outlaws. On the slab were chiseled these words: "Poor Gonchita!" CHAPTER XVII. THE WAR-WHOOP OF OLD ELI. The afternoon sun lay scorching hot upon the arid plain. Heat waves moved in the air like the billows of a phantom sea. To the west were barren mountain-peaks and the nearer foot-hills; to the east the unbroken plain lay level to the horizon. Behind the body of his dead horse lay a sorely wounded man, with his dog crouching close at his side. The dog's dry tongue lolled from the animal's mouth; at times the poor creature whined and sought to lick the hand of its master; anon he growled fiercely, the hair bristling on his neck, and started up in a savage manner. "Down, Boxer, down!" the man would order, in a voice ever growing weaker. "You can't help. The red devils will get you with a bullet. Down, sir!" At which the dog would sink back, whine again and draw his filelike tongue along the hand or cheek of his master. "Heavens!" muttered the man. "For a swallow of water. I'd give the last ounce in the saddle-bags if I could finish one or two more of those murderous curs before I cash in!" His almost nerveless hands grasped the barrel of his rifle, and he looked away toward the spot where six horsemen had drawn up in a little cluster just beyond bullet-reach. They were Indians, mounted on tough ponies, and some of them armed with modern weapons. Two or three carried lances, on which the glaring sun glinted. They had hunted him down; they had killed the horse beneath him and wounded him unto death. The bullet was through his body, and the sands of life were ebbing fast. He had reached the end of his trail, and the red fiends out there on the baking plain knew they had only to wait a while and then ride forward unmolested and strip off his scalp. Yet, being far from their reservation, the savages were impatient at the delay. Their hearts were vengeful within them, for in the chase he had slain two of their number. One of them, an impetuous young buck, was for making haste in finishing the paleface. He motioned toward the declining sun and suggested that the wounded man might try to crawl away with the coming of darkness. Besides, they had far to go, and it was a waste of time to wait for the paleface to die. Likely he was so far gone that he could not shoot to defend himself, and there would be little trouble in getting near enough to despatch him. The impetuous spirit of this savage prevailed, and soon the redskins began riding around and around man and horse and dog, spreading out into a circle with great gaps and slowly closing in, now and then uttering a challenging yell. As they closed in they flung themselves over upon the sides of their ponies opposite the wounded man, so that their horses seemed riderless. Occasionally a shot was fired from beneath the neck of a racing pony. The dying man gathered himself a little and watched them. A puff of white smoke leaped out before a pony and was quickly left behind to dissolve and fade in the heated air. A bullet threw up a bit of dust within three feet of the white man. The dog bristled and growled. Another bullet clipped a stalk from a cactus plant five feet away. "They're within shooting distance," whispered the doomed wretch. "Wonder if I've got nerve enough to drop a pony." He rested his rifle on the body of the dead horse and waited. Out on the plain the racing ponies began to swim in a haze. He could see them indistinctly, and he brushed a hand across his eyes. "I'm going fast, Boxer," he muttered to the dog. "My sight is failing! I'm burning inside! And I know you're choking yourself, poor dog! It's a hard way to pipe out." The dog whined sympathetically and pressed closer. A bullet whistled past the head of the man. He tightened his grip on his rifle, sought to take aim, and finally fired. His bullet went wide of the target he sought, and a yell of derision floated to his ears through the hot air. "No use!" he muttered huskily. "I'm done for! It's the finish! They can close right in and wipe me out!" The savages seemed to know it, and they were drawing nearer. Of a sudden out from the depths of a long barranca, a mighty fissure in the plain, produced in former ages by a convulsion of nature, or marking the course of a river--out from one end that rose to the surface of the plain not far from the circling savages, came a horse and rider. As the rider rose into view he began shooting with a magazine rifle, and his first bullet caused a redskin to lose his hold and tumble end over end in the dirt, while the pony galloped on. The following Indian stooped and seemed to catch up his wounded comrade as he swept past. The lone horseman rode straight at them in a reckless manner, working his repeater. A pony was wounded, another plunged forward into the dirt. In another moment the redskins wheeled and were in full flight, astounded and demoralized by the attack, two of the horses carrying double, while another left drops of blood upon the ground. The daring paleface uttered a strange war-whoop of triumph: "Brekekek Co-ax, Co-ax, Yale!" Never before had those Indians heard such a singular cry from the lips of a white man. It seemed to fill them with a mad desire to get away, to flee at top speed. It struck terror into their hearts, as many a time the same slogan has struck fear to the hearts of those battling against Old Eli on some athletic field. They urged their ponies forward, and away they went, scurrying into the distance, with bullets singing around them. The man behind the dead horse lifted himself and strained his bedimmed eyes, seeing the youthful rider shoot past in pursuit of the savages. The dog rose, planting his forefeet on the horse's body, and barked madly. When he was satisfied that the Indians were in full retreat, with little thought of turning or offering resistance, Frank Merriwell, for it was he who had dashed out of the barranca, drew up and turned about, galloping back toward the man he had dared so much to save. But he had come too late. As Merry rode near the dying man had fallen back beside his dead horse. Over him stood the dog, covered with dust, its eyes glaring redly, its teeth disclosed, ready to defend the body of its master. As Frank drew up the dog snarled fiercely. Merry saw at a glance that the situation of the dog's master was serious in the extreme. He dismounted and stepped forward, leaving his horse, knowing well the animal would stand. As he approached the dog grew fiercer of aspect, and he saw the creature meant to leap straight at his throat. "Good dog!" he said, stopping. "Fine dog! Come, sir--come! Ah-ha, fine fellow!" But all his attempts to win the confidence of the dog were failures. "The man is dying," he muttered. "Perhaps I might save him if I could get to him now. Must I shoot that dog? I hate to do it, for the creature seems very intelligent." At this moment the man stirred a little and seemed to realize what was happening. He lifted his head a little and saw the dismounted horseman and the threatening dog. "Down, Boxer; down, sir!" he commanded. "Be quiet!" His voice rose scarcely above a whisper, but the dog reluctantly obeyed, still keeping his eyes on Frank, who now stepped up at once. "You're badly wounded, sir," he said. "Let me see if I can do anything for you." "Give me water--for the love of Heaven, water!" was the harshly whispered imploration. In a twinkling Frank sprang to his horse and brought back a canteen that was well filled. This he held to the lips of the wretched man, while the crouching dog watched every move with his red eyes. That water, warm though it was, brought back a little life to the sinking man. "God bless you!" he murmured gratefully. The dog whined. "Can't you give Boxer a little?" asked the dog's master. "He's suffering as much as I am." Frank quickly removed from his saddle-bags a deep tin plate, on which some of the water was poured, and this the dog greedily licked up, wagging his tail in thankfulness. "Poor old Boxer!" sighed the doomed man. "Now, sir," said the youth, "let me examine your wound and find out what I can do for you." "No use," was the declaration. "I'm done for. It's through the lung, and I've bled enough to finish two men. The blood is all out of me." But the young man insisted on looking and did what he could to check the flow of blood. The doomed man shook his head a little. "No use," he repeated. "I'm going now--I feel it. But you have done all you could for Old Bens, and you won't lose nothing by it. What's your name?" "Frank Merriwell." "Well, Pard Merriwell, you sure went for those red devils right hot. I allowed at first that you must have four or five friends with ye." "I'm alone." "And it was great grit for you to charge the red skunks that way. However did you happen to do it?" "I saw what was going on from the high land to the west with the aid of a powerful glass. I knew they had a white man trapped here. I struck the barranca and managed to get down into it, so I was able to ride close without being seen and charge up from this end, where it rises to the level of the plain. That is all." "It was nerve, young man, and plenty of it! My name is Benson Clark. I'm a miner. Been over in the Mazatzals. Struck it rich, young pard--struck it rich. There was no one but me and old Boxer, my dog. I took out a heap of dust, and I opine I located a quartz claim that certainly is worth a hundred thousand dollars, or I'm away off. Been a miner all my life. Grub-staked it from the Canadian line to Mexico. Have managed to live, but this is my first strike. No one staked me this time, so it's all mine. But see, pard, what black luck and those red devils have done for me! I'm finished, and I'll never live to enjoy a dollar of my wealth. Pretty tough, eh?" "Pretty tough," admitted Frank Merriwell; "but brace up. Who can tell----" "I can. Bens Clark is at the end of his trail. Young man, I want you to see me properly planted. You'll find enough in the saddle-bags here and in the belt around my waist to pay you for your trouble." "I want no pay, sir." "Well, I reckon you may as well have it, as I have neither kith nor kin in the wide world, and most of my friends have cashed in ahead of me, so I'm left all alone--me and Boxer." The dying man lifted his hand with a great effort and caressed the dog. The animal whined and snuggled nearer, fixing his eyes on his master's face with an expression of devotion and anxiety that was quite touching to see. "Good old Boxer!" sighed the man, with deep feeling. "You'll miss me, boy, and you're the only one in all the wide world. What will become of you, Boxer?" Again the dog whined a little, touching the bloodless cheek of the man with its tongue. "I'll do what I can for your dog, sir," said Frank Merriwell. "What do you mean? Will you take Boxer and care for him?" "Yes, sir." "Do it! You'll never be sorry. You'll find him the most faithful, devoted, and intelligent of dumb animals. Truly, he knows almost as much as a man--more than lots of men. It's a shame he can't talk! He knows what I say to him almost always. I've almost fancied he might be taught to talk; but that's ridiculous, I know. Take him, Frank Merriwell, treat him well, and you'll never regret it." The dog seemed listening. He looked from one to the other in a peculiar manner, and then, as if realizing what had passed and that he was soon to part with his master forever, he uttered a whining howl that was doleful and pathetic. "Poor old Boxer--good boy!" said Benson Clark. "I've got to go, boy." The dog crept close, and the dying man weakly folded the animal in his arms. Frank Merriwell turned away. The sunlight was so bright and strong on the plain that it seemed to cause him to brush a hand over his eyes. He stood looking far off for some moments, but was given a start by hearing a weak call from the man. "I'm going!" breathed Clark huskily. "Here--in my pocket here you will find a rude chart that may lead you to my rich mines in the Mazatzals. Feel in my pocket for the leather case. That's it. Take it--keep it. It's yours. The mines are yours--if you can find them. Boxer is yours. Be good to him. Poor old Boxer!" He closed his eyes and lay so still that Frank fancied the end had come. But it was not yet. After a little he slowly opened his eyes and looked at Merry. Immediately Frank knelt beside him, with uncovered head. The dying man then looked at the dog. "Boxer," he said faintly, "I'm going off on my long trail, and we'll never meet up again this side of the happy hunting-grounds. Good-by, old dog! This is your new master. Stick to him like glue, old boy. Fight for him--die for him, if you have to. I opine you understand what I mean." A strange sound came from the throat of the dog--a sound that was almost like a human sob. If ever a dog sobbed that one did. Agony and sorrow was depicted in his attitude and the look in its red eyes. The miner took the dog's paw and placed it in Frank Merriwell's hand, his body lying between them. "I make you pards," said Benson Clark. Then he whispered to Frank: "Can't you pray? I've clean forgot all the prayers I ever knew. But I feel that I need a prayer said for me now, for I'm going up before the judgment bar. Pray, partner--pray to the Great Judge that He will be easy with me." So Frank Merriwell prayed, and that prayer fell upon the heart of the dying man with such soothing balm that all fear and dread left him, and he passed into the great unknown with a peaceful smile on his weather-worn face. CHAPTER XVIII. A STRANGE FUNERAL. Frank found the saddle-bags and the belt about the dead man's waist heavy with gold. It took him some time to make preparations for transporting the precious stuff, and it was no easy task for him to quiet his horse and induce the animal to stand while he lifted the corpse and placed it where it could be tied securely on the horse's back. He had no thought of leaving the body of Benson Clark to be devoured by wolves and vultures. The sun was resting close down to the blue tops of the western mountains when everything was ready to start. The dog had watched every move with eyes full of singular intelligence, but made no move or sound until Merry was ready to go. Then Frank turned more water from the canteen, after taking a few swallows himself, placing it before Boxer in the tin plate. The dog licked it up. "Good Boxer!" said Merry, patting the beast's head. "I'm your master now, my boy. Your other master is dead. He has told you to stick to me. Did you understand?" The dog made some strange swallowing and mumbling sounds in its throat, as if trying to talk back in words. "By Jove!" said Merry, gazing at the creature with great interest. "You are a knowing fellow, and you actually try to talk. Your master fancied you might be taught to talk." Again those strange swallowings and mumblings issued from the dog's throat, and the creature wagged its tail a little. "We'll go now," said Frank. "It's a good distance to the mine, and we have something to do before we can set out in earnest." So they started off, Frank leading the horse bearing the ghastly burden, while the dog walked behind with hanging head, the perfect picture of sorrow. A strange funeral procession it was, making its way toward the setting sun and the hazy mountains. The dead horse was left behind, while far in the sky wheeled two black specks, buzzards waiting for the feast. The Indians had long vanished from the face of the plain, yet Frank knew their nature, and he was not at all sure he had seen the last of them. The sun vanished behind the mountains and the blue night lay soft and soothing on the hot plain when the funeral procession came into the foot-hills. It was not Frank's intention to carry the dead man farther than was needful, and, therefore, he kept his eyes about him for some place to bestow the body where it might rest safe from prowling beasts. This place he found at last, and, with the aid of a flat stone, and with his bare hands, he scooped a shallow grave. Into this the body was fitted. Over the man's face Frank spread his own handkerchief. Then he besprinkled the dry earth lightly over the body at first, afterward using the flat rock to scrape and shovel more upon it, ending with covering it heavily with such stones as he could find, knowing well with what skill the ravening beasts of the desert could use their claw-armed paws. For a time the dog sat and watched everything. When his late master was placed in the grave he whined and cried softly; but when the body was covered he lay down beside the grave in silence, and there was in his posture something so heartbroken that Frank was moved to a great pity. "Poor old Boxer!" he murmured. "It is the end to which all living things must come, each in its own time. But it is the law of nature, and it is not so bad, after all. Blessed is he who goes to his last deep sleep without fear, feeling that he has done his best and is willing to trust everything in the hands of Him who sees and knows all. The fear of death and what may follow is such as should trouble alone the coward or the wicked wretch. Boxer, your master seemed to pass without fear, and something tells me it is not so bad with him. His case is in the hands of the Great Judge, and we may rest sure that he will be done no wrong." Was there ever such a strange funeral oration! A youth with bared head and solemn face, speaking above a grave, and a silent, grief-stricken dog as the only mourner and attendant! The still Arizona night all around, with no sound of humming insect, no stir of foliage, no whisper of moving breeze, the dome of heaven above, studded with millions of clear stars! The dog did not move or lift its head, but Frank saw the starshine glint upon his eyes, which were wide open and fastened upon the speaker. When the work was completed Frank knelt for a moment beside that grave, praying softly, yet with an earnestness that bespoke his faith that his words were heard. It was over. His horse was at a little distance. He went and brought the animal up and adjusted the saddle. The dead man's belt, stuffed to bursting and wondrous heavy, he had fastened about his own waist. "Come, Boxer," he said, again stooping to pat the head of the dog. "We must go. Bid farewell to your master's grave. It's not likely you may ever again come beside it." The dog stirred. He sat up and lifted his muzzle toward the stars. From his throat came a low note that rose and swelled to the most doleful sound imaginable. With his blood chill in his body, Frank listened while the dog sang a requiem above that grave. Tears started from Merry's eyes, and never while life was his could he forget that sound and that sight. Never chanted words of mass had more of sorrow! No human tongue could speak greater grief. At last the sound died away into silence, and the dog stood on all fours, with hanging head and tail, his muzzle kissing some of the rough stones heaped on that grave. How long he might have remained in that attitude cannot be said; but soon Frank spoke again and called him to follow. At the word he turned, and his manner denoted he was ready. Merry swung into the saddle and started, looking over his shoulder. In dead silence, the dog followed. And so they passed into the still night. CHAPTER XIX. NEW ARRIVALS IN HOLBROOK. The town of Holbrook had been greatly stirred. It had not yet settled into its accustomed grooves. The proprietor of the best hotel in town had received a consignment of fine furniture, carpets, draperies, wallpaper and pictures, and he had set about renovating and decorating several of the largest rooms in his house, having for that purpose a number of workmen imported from some Eastern point. It was said that the rooms had been rearranged to connect with each other in a suite, and that when they were completed, and furnished, and decorated they were dazzlingly magnificent, nothing like them ever before having been seen in the place. The good citizens of Holbrook wondered and were amazed at all this; but they did not know that not one dollar had been expended by the proprietor of the hotel. All this work had been done without expense of his to accommodate some guests who came in due time and took possession of those rooms. The California Special had dropped four persons in Holbrook, who regretfully left the comfort of a palace car and looked about them with some show of dismay on the cluttered streets and crude buildings of the Southwestern town. Holbrook was even better in general appearance than many Western towns, but, contrasted with clean, orderly, handsome Eastern villages, it was offensive to the eyes of the proud lady who was aided from the steps of the car and descended to the station platform with the air of a queen. She turned up her aristocratic nose a little on glancing around. This woman was dressed in the height of fashion, although somewhat too heavily for the country she now found herself in; but there was about her an air of display that betokened a lack of correct taste, which is ever pronounced in those who seek to attract attention and produce astonishment and awe. She had gray hair and a cold, unattractive face. Still there was about her face something that plainly denoted she had been in her girlhood very attractive. She was followed by a girl who was so pretty and so modest in appearance that the rough men who beheld her gasped with astonishment. Never in the history of the town had such a pretty girl placed her foot within its limits. She had a graceful figure, fine complexion, Cupid-bow mouth, flushed cheeks, large brown eyes and hair in which there was a hint of red-gold, in spite of its darkness. A colored maid followed them. From another car descended a thin, wiry, nervous man, who had a great blue beak of a nose, and who hastened to join the trio, speaking to them. The hotel proprietor had at the station the finest carriage he could find, and this whisked them away to the hotel as soon as they had entered it, leaving the loungers about the station wondering, while the train went diminishing into the distance, flinging its trail of black smoke against the blue of the Arizona sky. At the hotel the lady and her daughter occupied two of the finest rooms, the colored maid another, less expensively furnished, and the man with the blue nose was given the fourth. Holbrook wondered what it meant. The lady ordered a meal to be served in her rooms. The report went forth at once, and again Holbrook stood agog. The hotel register was watched. Finally the man with the restless eyes and blue beak entered the office and wrote nervously in the register. Barely was he gone when a dozen persons were packed about the desk, seeking to look over one another's shoulders to see what had been written. "Whatever is it, Hank?" asked one. "You sure kin read writin'. Whatever do you make o' it?" "'Mrs. D. Roscoe Arlington,' the fust name," said the one called Hank. "Then comes 'Miss Arlington,' arter which is 'Mr. Eliot Dodge,' an' lastly I sees 'Hannah Jackson.'" "Which last must be the nigger woman," said one of the rough men. "I allows so," nodded Hank. "An' it 'pears to me that name o' Arlington is some familiar. I somehow thinks I has heard it." "Why, to be course you has!" said another of the men. "D. Roscoe Arlington, did you say? Who hasn't heerd that name? He's one o' them big guns what has so much money he can't count it to save his gizzard. Ev-rybody has heerd o' D. Roscoe Arlington. If he keeps on gittin' rich the way he has the past three years or so, old Morgan won't be in the game. Why, this Arlington may now be the richest man in this country, if ev'rything were rightly known about him. He owns railroads, an' mines, an' ships, an' manufacturin' plants, an' nobody knows what all." "That sartin explains a whole lot the fixin' up that has been a-doin' around this ranch," said a little man with a thirsty-looking mouth. "They was a-preparin' fer the wife o' this mighty rich gent." "But say!" exclaimed a young fellow with a wicked face, "ain't she got a slick-lookin' gal with her, what?" Some of them laughed and slapped him on the back. "Go on, Pete!" cried one chap. "You're a gay one with greaser gals, but you won't be able to make a wide trail with that yar young lady, so don't be lookin' that way." "Wonder whatever could 'a' brought such people here," speculated a man with tobacco juice on his chin. "They must mean to stay a while, else they'd never had them rooms fixed up the way they are." A ruffianly-looking man with a full beard broke into a low laugh. "Why, ain't none o' you heard about the fight what's bein' made to git holt o' a certain mine not so very fur from yere?" he asked. "I mean the mine owned by a young chap what calls himself Frank Merriwell. You oughter know somethin' about that." "Why, 'pears to me," observed the fellow with tobacco juice on his chin--"'pears to me I did hear that thar was trouble over a mine somewhar down in the Mogollons, an' that Cimarron Bill had been sent to take it." "He was sent," said the full-bearded man. "Then I 'lows he took it, fer Bill's sure to do any job he tackles." "He ain't took it none. Frank Merriwell is still a-holdin' the mine, an' Bill has had his troubles, leavin' a good part o' his backers stiff arter the ruction." "Say you so? Waal, this Merriwell sure must be a hot fighter. But Bill will down him in the end, an' you kin bet your last simoleon on that." To which the man with the full beard said nothing. "All this don't explain any to me jest why this lady an' her party is hyer," said the one with the thirsty mouth. "It ain't noways likely she's lookin' arter Cimarron Bill none," said another. "Whoever is a-takin' my name in vain?" demanded a voice that made them all start and turn toward the door. "It's Cimarron Bill hisself!" gasped one, in a whisper. And the entire crowd seemed awe-stricken and afraid. CHAPTER XX. MRS. ARLINGTON HAS A VISITOR. The black maid stood over the little table at which mother and daughter sat taking tea. "Sugar, Jackson," said the lady wearily. The maid lifted the sugar-bowl, but, finding no tongs, was compelled to use a spoon. "Why don't you use the tongs, Jackson?" asked the woman. "Dar am no tongs, ma'am," answered the maid. "No tongs? no tongs?" exclaimed Mrs. Arlington, in astonished surprise. "And I directed that everything should be prepared here--that we should have every convenience of a first-class hotel. Dear me! Why, I've found nothing right! The hardship of spending some days in such a place will prostrate me. I know it will!" "But why have you come here, mother?" asked June Arlington, in a voice that denoted culture and a refined nature. "I cannot understand it. You told me in the first place that you were going to Mexico. Then I heard you urging father to come here. When he said it was not possible, you seemed to get angry, and you declared that you would come here yourself. But why should you come because he could not? That I wonder at." "He would not!" exclaimed Mrs. Arlington, sipping her tea. "It was his duty. Never mind the particulars, June; you may know some time, but not now." "And I did not wish to come here, mother. You knew that." "My daughter, I have decided that it is necessary to keep you with me. I determined on that after your surprising behavior the last time you went to Fardale. You deceived me, June! I cannot forget that." The words were spoken with cold severity. June flushed a little. "It was for Chester's good, as I explained to you," she said somewhat warmly. "He has never thanked me for it, yet it is I who have kept him in Fardale Academy. Had I not entreated Dick Merriwell to be easy with him, Chester must have been compelled to leave or be expelled before this." "I cannot believe that, June. But, were it true, it is no excuse for your action. I want no favors from either of the Merriwells. I will accept nothing from them! Dick Merriwell is my boy's enemy, and he shall know what it is to have an Arlington for a foe. I have determined on that. I repeat that I'll accept nothing from him." "Once----" June stopped short. She had been on the verge of telling her mother that once that lady had accepted something from Dick Merriwell--her life! For, as Mrs. Arlington slipped on the icy platform of the railway-station at Fardale and was falling beneath the wheels of a moving train, Dick had grasped and held her till the cars passed and she was safe. But June had seen her mother turn blue with anger at mention of this affair, so she checked herself now, not wishing to arouse the lady. Tea was finished in silence, mother and daughter being occupied with their thoughts. The maid moved softly about the table. They had just finished when there came a tap on the door. "See who it is, Jackson," directed Mrs. Arlington. The man with the blue beak was at the door. "I must speak with Mrs. Arlington," he said, and entered, hat in hand. "What is it, Mr. Dodge?" asked the lady, frowning coldly and plainly annoyed. Eliot Dodge paused and looked at June significantly. "Oh, is it a private matter?" asked the lady. Flushing a bit, June arose at once and withdrew, from the room. "William Lamson has arrived in town, and demands to see you," said Dodge, when June had disappeared, the maid having likewise withdrawn. "That man?" said Mrs. Arlington, with a little start and a slight shiver. "I have brought you to do the business with him. You are a regular attorney of the C. M. A. of A., and you have my instructions." "So I told him." "Well?" "He refused pointblank to do any business whatever with me." "He did." "Yes. I talked to him pretty straight until--ahem!--until I could say no more." "You could say no more?" "No, madam; it was impossible." "Why impossible?" "He had drawn and cocked a revolver and pointed it at me. He told me to shut up and take word from him to you at once or he would shoot me." "What a dreadful creature!" "He is, indeed, madam; he's a typical ruffian of the worst sort." "And, therefore, the very man to accomplish the work," said she, with growing interest. "But I dislike very much to have dealings with such a fellow." "I thoroughly understand that, madam." "You might attend to the matter fully as well." "That is true, Mrs. Arlington." "You told him so?" "I did." "And still----" "And still he drew a gun on me. He is bound to see you. He says he will, and I am sure he is a man to make his word good. Really I don't know how you are going to get out of it." "Then I shall not try," said the lady, composing herself. "You mean----" "I'll see him." "Here?" "Yes." "Now?" "Send him up at once. I may as well have it over." Eliot Dodge hesitated. "I shall be in my room," he said. "If you need me----" "I understand. Go bring this man to my door." Dodge departed, and Mrs. Arlington waited. When there came a knock on the door she coldly said: "Come in!" Cimarron Bill entered the room! Mrs. Arlington had not called her servant to let this man in. She glanced toward the door of the room into which her daughter had retired, and the look on her face was one of apprehension. Cimarron Bill was a wicked man, as his every aspect betokened, and this woman could not think without shame that June should have any knowledge of her dealings with such a creature. So she arose hastily, which was quite unlike her, and crossed the floor to close the door, a strange thing, considering that she seldom did a thing that another could do for her. When June was thus shut out, the woman recrossed the floor to likewise close the door of the room into which the colored maid had retired. All the while Cimarron Bill, hat in hand, stood watching her closely with his evil eyes. For him it must have been a most exceedingly strange thing to come thus into the presence of a woman whose husband was known far and wide as a money king, a woman whose every wish that wealth could serve was sure to be granted almost as quickly as expressed. When she had closed the doors she turned about and faced him, surveying him from head to feet with her cold and penetrating eyes. He looked back at her with a sort of boldness, for this man was not one to be in the least downcast in the presence of a human being of whatever degree. Mrs. Arlington motioned toward a chair. "Will you sit down, sir?" she invited. "Thank you, madam," said Bill, casting aside the rough manner of speech that he sometimes assumed and now using very decent English. "I don't care if I do." Whereupon he placed his hat upon the table and sat upon a chair, with a certain pantherish undulation of his body, as if his muscles flowed beneath his skin. "Mr. Dodge saw you," said the woman, remaining standing. "I directed him to inform you that he was my accredited agent and prepared to transact any business with you. I thought it better for him to attend to this affair." "And I, madam, if you will excuse me, thought it best that we should come face to face and have our dealings thus. That is why I declined to do any business whatever with the gent with the blue nose." "I did not suppose it would be necessary for me to go so far into this matter until I was informed of your failure to take possession of the property that rightfully belongs to the Consolidated Mining Association of America. I must say, sir, that I am very much displeased over your failure." "And you can be no more so than am I myself," returned Bill, civilly enough, yet with a sort of boldness that did not please her, as she was accustomed to much deference and respect. "But you must know it is difficult, even in this country, to find men who are eager to put on themselves the brand of outlaws, and I acknowledge that my force was not sufficient. The young dog is a stiff fighter, and that I had not counted on, him being a tenderfoot to a certain degree--though," he added, as if on second thought, "he's not so very tender, after all." "You were told to collect an army, if necessary. Mr. Dodge informs me that you were directed to get together a force sufficient to make failure out of the question. Yet you were repulsed and beaten off when you went to seize the mine." "Twice," said Bill grimly. "And the second time a full half of my men were dropped cold or hurt so bad that they were put out of the fight. It was not just my fault that I failed then, for the treachery of a Mexican girl betrayed my plans to Merriwell, so he was ready with a trap when I expected to take him by surprise. That is how it came about, madam. I had his foreman bribed and should have walked into possession of the mine with little or no trouble but for the girl I mention. It was a bad piece of business." "Bad!" she exclaimed, nodding a little. "It was very unfortunate!" "A word that scarce expresses it, madam. The rest of my men, the curs, with one or two exceptions, weakened and gave it up as a bad job. And then, on top of that, I was informed that the syndicate had grown disinclined to press the matter further in such a manner, fearing to get itself into serious trouble." "That's it!" said the woman sharply. "But I have taken hold of this matter. The syndicate seems willing to obtain the mine by some other and slower method. I am not. I cannot brook delay! I have a reason why I wish the taking of the mine with the smallest possible delay, and it makes no difference to me how the work is accomplished. That is why I am here on the scene of action. I shall remain here until I triumph! If you are able to accomplish the work, well and good. If you are not, then another man must be found for it." Cimarron Bill smiled in a most evil manner. "Madam," he said, "I think you will have trouble to find in all this country another man so well prepared to accomplish the task." "Yet you confess that you have failed twice." He shrugged his shoulders. "For which reason," he averred, "I am all the more dangerous. There is an old saying that the third time never fails. I am ready for the third trial." "I am glad to hear you speak this way. What will you do?" "Gather a stronger force and lay my plans so there can be no failure." "It is well." "But that will take much money, madam. You have it at your command. It is almost certain that all of us, to the last man, will bear the brand of outlaws. We may be hunted. It may be necessary for me to hasten into Mexico and lose myself there for a time. I must have money in abundance for myself. As for the men who take part with me, they will all demand high prices. When it is over and the mine is delivered into the possession of the syndicate, I shall not trouble about any one save myself. The men who are with me may look out for themselves." This was said in a most cold-blooded manner, speaking plainly the real character of the wretch. "I care nothing about that," said the woman. "Fix that matter as you choose. How much money will you require?" "Let me see," said Bill, as if meditating. "It will take, I am sure, at least fifty men. They may be got at various prices, some more, some less; but there will be the bringing of them together and other expenses. I should say that they must cost at least two hundred dollars each, which makes a pretty little sum of ten thousand dollars." "Then it will cost ten thousand dollars?" said Mrs. Arlington quickly. "I'll draw the sum from my own private account." "Wait a bit, madam," said the chief of desperadoes. "I have reckoned for the men, but that does not include myself. I have said that I must be well paid. I value myself quite as much as fifty common men, and that is another ten thousand, or twenty thousand dollars in all, for which sum I am ready to undertake the job. I'll add, also, that I guarantee it shall not fail this time." It seemed that such a sum must have staggered the woman. Indeed, her face went a trifle pale, but her lips were pressed together, and she coldly said: "It is a bargain! You shall have the money, but not until you have accomplished the work. Understand that, not until the work is done!" CHAPTER XXI. SEEN FROM THE WINDOW. Never before had there been such a bargain between such a man and such a woman. It was the strangest compact on record. And no wonder Mrs. Arlington had closed the doors that her daughter and her maid should not hear! Had June known all she must have turned with loathing and horror from the woman. Had D. Roscoe Arlington known he must have been shocked and heart-torn beyond measure. Had he known he must have wondered if this woman had matured from the sweet country girl who once declared with blushes and hanging head that love in a cottage with him was all the happiness she asked. Had he known he might have remembered the soft moonlight night in June when beneath the fragrant lilacs they plighted their troth, and surely his gold-hardened heart would have melted with anguish over the frightful change. In truth, Mrs. Arlington had become deranged, as it were, on one point. Her son was her idol. She had petted, and flattered, and spoiled him. She had sent him off to school at Fardale with the conviction that he was certain to rise superior to all other boys there. And from him she had come to learn that he had not risen, but had been imposed upon, defeated, baffled, and held down by another lad who was the recognized leader in the school. Into the ears of his astonished and angry mother Chester Arlington had poured his tale of woe, and it had filled her soul with intense hatred for this other boy by the name of Merriwell who had dared think himself better than her Chester. She had gone to Fardale to set things about as they should be, and had failed. That seemed to fill her with such bitterness that she was quite robbed of sober judgment and reason. When Mrs. Arlington learned that the mining syndicate had claims to the mines belonging to Frank and Dick Merriwell, she was aroused. When she came to understand that the taking of those mines by the syndicate would leave the Merriwell brothers almost penniless and would be the signal for Dick Merriwell to leave Fardale, she determined that the thing should be brought about at any cost of money, or time, or trouble to herself. And it was in pursuit of this determination that the wife of D. Roscoe Arlington had come to Arizona and placed herself face to face with a ruffian like Cimarron Bill, with whom she now struck a bargain that was most astounding. Was the woman in her right mind? It made little difference to Bill if she were sane or not, as long as he obtained possession of that money. But when he asked for it in advance she smiled upon him coldly, almost scornfully. "You were paid money by the syndicate, and you pledged them to accomplish a task at which you failed. This time there will be no money forthcoming until the work is done." In return the man smiled back at her, and he said: "That settles it! I'm not a fool. When the work is done I may find myself on the run for Mexico, with the law reaching for me. In such a case I'll have no time to collect. Cash in advance is my motto. You'll bargain with me, or you'll fail, in everything. You cannot get another man to fill my boots in the whole country. And if you were to throw me down and give the job over into the hands of another gent, I'd speak one word to him that would be enough." "What do you mean?" she asked, wondering and angry. "What word?" "The word 'stop,'" said Bill. "When Cimarron Bill says 'stop,' you can bet they stop. They know what it means if they don't. If you don't think so, count the notches on my guns." "You mean that you would turn against me?" "Not exactly, madam; I mean that I have no idea of letting any other gent get my job. I do this piece of work--or no one does it. I rather admire the sand of this Merriwell, though I'd slit his throat, just the same, for the price. If there was no object in being against him, I'd surely be for him; and it seems that you ought to know better than to put Cimarron Bill in the ranks of the enemy." "It's a threat!" cried the woman. "Not so; it's a business statement, begging your pardon, madam. I don't propose that any gent shall jump my claim." "How can I be sure you'll not play me false? How can I know you'll not take the money and do nothing?" "The syndicate paid me in advance, as you know. I did my best to earn the money. It was not my fault that I failed. In this case, if you pay the sum I have named, I swear to you I'll know no rest until I have succeeded. If I cannot succeed in one way, I will in another." "What do you mean by that?" "I'll capture or kill Frank Merriwell himself." "If you could do that!" said the woman, with great eagerness. "He is the great stumbling-block." "That's right. With him out of the way, taking the mine would be easy." "Is there no way this can be done before you try to seize the mine?" "He keeps pretty close to it. If he could be caught by himself. I have had my hands upon him twice, and he has slipped me both times. Next time he will not!" "Next time----" "An accident will happen to him," assured Bill, with deadly meaning. "That will be the simplest method." "You are right!" she said, in a whisper. "If that could happen----" "Would you pay the money?" "I would. Understand, I make no bargain with you for such a thing, but that mine must be torn from him somehow. I have with me some money." Cimarron Bill understood her well, and he nodded. "Madam," he said, "give me a little time and I'll find a way to see to it." At this moment there was a commotion in the street, the sound of fighting dogs, shouts of men, and the clatter of horses' hoofs. Bill rose quickly and strode to the window, looking down into the street. A handsome Irish setter had been attacked by two mongrel dogs, and he was giving those dogs the surprise of their lives. He had one by the neck in a moment, and the mongrel was shaken like a rat. When the setter let go the mongrel took to his heels, howling with pain and terror. Then the setter turned on the other dog and a battle that was fierce enough for a few moments ensued, which ended again in the complete triumph of the setter. Two young men had ridden into town behind the setter, and they had drawn up to witness the result of the fight. A crowd had quickly gathered, and the triumphant setter was loudly applauded. At sight of one of the two horsemen Cimarron Bill burst forth with an exclamation of excitement. "Look!" he said, pointing from the open window. "See--see that fellow on the dark horse!" Mrs. Arlington was near the window. "The one with the small mustache?" she asked. "Yes, that's the one." "I see him." "Well, that's Frank Merriwell!" said Bill. Cimarron Bill was right. Frank Merriwell and Bart Hodge had ridden into Holbrook, and with them had come Boxer, the dog. Boxer had been attacked by the mongrel curs, and he showed his mettle by quickly putting them to flight. As Bill gazed down from that window the evil light in his eyes deepened. "Remember our bargain!" he said in such a terrible voice that the woman at his side shuddered. Then she saw him bring forth a revolver, and, knowing what he meant to do, she uttered a little scream and ran back into another part of the room, unwilling to witness the dark deed. Quickly kneeling, Bill rested his elbow on the window-ledge and took aim, meaning to send a bullet through the heart of the rightful owner of the Queen Mystery Mine. The commotion in the street and her mother's cry had brought June Arlington into that room. June saw the man with the revolver, and her eyes fell on the horseman below. She recognized Frank Merriwell, for all that he was bronzed and changed, and had a small mustache. With a sudden scream, the girl flung herself on Bill and spoiled his aim, so that when the revolver spouted smoke the bullet flew wide of the mark intended. Bill uttered a savage snarl, wheeling about. "You wretch!" panted the girl, who was now pale as snow. "You murderer!" The man was dazzled by her beauty. Immediately he moved back from the window, bowing low. "Beg your pardon, miss," he said. "He sure is an enemy of mine, and out here we shoots on sight. But mebbe he is your friend, in which case I lets up and gives him another show." In that moment of excitement he had fallen into the frontier manner of speaking. She looked at him with unspeakable horror in her eyes. "What are you doing here?" she panted. "You--you--murderer! Mother--this man--why is he here?" But Mrs. Arlington, usually cold as ice and perfectly self-possessed, had quite lost her nerve. She sank into a chair, seeming on the verge of fainting, while she gave Bill a look that, ruffian though he was, he understood as an appeal to be left alone with June. Nor was he loath about getting out of that room. His pistol had been discharged from the window, and, though the bullet had found no human target, men might come in haste to ask unpleasant questions. "I begs your pardon, madam," he said, hurriedly picking up his hat. "I thinks I'll call again and finish this yere bit o' business. Just now I has another matter to attend to." Then he hastened out. June had flown to her mother. "Tell me--tell me, mother, what it means!" she implored. "My smelling-salts," faintly breathed the woman. "My heart, June! I--I'm afraid!" Now, June knew well that the one great fear of her mother's life was sudden death from a heart trouble that came upon her at times, and so the girl hastened to bring out the bottle of salts and hold it beneath the pale lady's nose till she was somewhat recovered, though still resting limp on her chair and breathing heavily. "What does it mean, mother?" asked the girl again. "I do not understand these strange things. I do not understand why such a wicked-looking man should be here in this room and about to shoot down in cold blood a young man in the street. He would have shot him from this very window had not I spoiled his aim." Mrs. Arlington turned her eyes toward her daughter's face, but looked away quickly, still trembling. "Did you know him at whom the man was about to shoot?" she weakly asked. "Yes, I knew him, or I am much mistaken. It was Frank Merriwell. I saw him at the hotel in Fardale the day I returned to him those papers. You recollect, mother?" "Yes, I remember it all too well, and it was the giving back to him of those papers that has made no end of trouble for us all. But for that foolish act of yours, June, he would not still be holding the mines that are rightfully the property of the C. M. A. of A." "If those mines do not belong to him, how is it that he can hold them?" "He has possession, and he holds it with armed men." "But the law----" "The law is slow, and, without those papers, it is not very sure. It is your folly, girl," declared the woman reproachfully, "that has made no end of trouble. It is your folly that brought Frank Merriwell near to his end a few moments ago, though you it was who saved him then." "Mother, you speak in riddles! How can that be? I gave him back what was his. And have you forgotten that it was his brother, Dick, who kept you from slipping beneath the car-wheels, where you must have been maimed or killed?" At this Mrs. Arlington sat up, and something like anger took from her her great pallor. "No," said she, "nor have I forgotten that it was Dick Merriwell who brought upon my son all his trouble at Fardale! Dick Merriwell has been his blight there! Dick Merriwell is his enemy. He has tried to set himself over my boy, and no one shall do that!" June knew how useless it was to talk of this matter with her mother, who refused to listen to reason, and so she did not try to press it further; but she again asked who was the man who had tried to shoot from the window. "He was a miner," said Mrs. Arlington. "And what business had he here in this room?" "That is nothing to you, girl. Forget that you saw him here." "A thing easier said than done, mother. I saw his face and his eyes, and I know he is a wicked man and one to be greatly feared. Why should you have dealings with such a wretch?" "You ask too many needless questions, June. Look out and tell me if you still see anything of--of--Frank Merriwell." But when June looked from the window Frank Merriwell was not to be seen on the street, which had again resumed its usual aspect. "I must have a spell of quiet to restore my nerves, June," said Mrs. Arlington, when the girl had told her. "Leave me. Call Jackson. I think I will lie down." So the colored maid was called, and June lingered to make sure there was nothing she could do for her mother, who coldly bade her go. In her own room June found herself filled with tempestuous thoughts and vain speculations. She was bewildered by it all, and there was much that she could not understand, for her mother had told her little or nothing of what had brought them to that Arizona town. She was wise enough to know full well that the lady had not come there in search of health, and surely it could not be pleasure she expected in such a place, which left but one thing to suppose--it was business. But what sort of business could she have there? and why should she meet and do business with a murderous wretch like the man who had tried to shoot Frank Merriwell from the open window? Knowing there was little danger of interruption, June found pen, ink, and paper and sat herself down to write a letter. She thought at first that she would make it very brief, and she found it exceedingly hard to begin; but when she had begun it, it ran on and on until she had written many pages. Sometimes she laughed over it, and sometimes she blushed; once her chin quivered and tears seemed to fill her splendid eyes. When it was all finished she read it over, her cheeks glowing, and at the end she kissed the paper, at which the blush swept down to her very neck, and in great confusion she folded it all hastily and put it into an envelope, which she hurriedly sealed. Although she was not aware of it, she had spent nearly two hours over the letter. On the envelope she wrote a name and address, and then, finding her hat, she slipped out to mail it. CHAPTER XXII. A SENSATION IN TOWN. Frank's little "scout," as he called it, on which expedition he had driven the redskins from the wounded miner, had convinced him that Cimarron Bill and his gang had withdrawn from the vicinity of the Queen Mystery Mine. So it came about that Merry and Bart Hodge started for Holbrook, bringing with them the gold Frank had found in the saddle-bags and belt of the dead miner. Boxer would not be left behind. Since the death of his former master the dog kept close to Frank, for whom he seemed to have formed an affection quite as deep as that he had entertained for Benson Clark. Frank and Bart came, dust covered and wearied, into Holbrook. Boxer's engagement with the mongrel curs, who set upon him, was an incident to enliven their advent in town, and it demonstrated the mettle of the setter. The shot that came from the window of the hotel was somewhat surprising; but, as the bullet failed to pass anywhere near either Bart or Merry, they did not fancy it was intended for them. Still Frank dropped a hand toward the pistol swinging at his hip, thinking the lead might be intended for Boxer. A puff of smoke was dissolving before the open window, but Cimarron Bill had vanished, nor did he again appear there. Neither Frank nor Bart had seen him. So they were not greatly alarmed, and they laughed over the manner in which Boxer had put his assailants to flight, merriment which was joined in by many of the spectators who had gathered to witness the fight. "Good boy, Boxer!" said Merry. "You did that up slickly." At which the setter turned toward Frank and showed his teeth in a grin, and something followed that caused several of the bystanders to gasp and stagger or stand dazed and astounded. When Frank and Bart rode on two or three of those men hurried into Schlitzenheimer's saloon, where one of them banged the bar with his clenched fist, and shouted: "By thunder! that's the first time I ever heard a dog talk! Was I dreaming?" "None whatever, pard!" declared another, mopping sweat from his face. "I heard it plain enough. For the love of goodness, Fritz, give me a snifter of tanglefoot! I need something to brace my nerves after that!" "Vot id vos you peen sayin'?" asked the fat Dutchman behind the bar. "Vot vos dot voolishness apoudt der talkings uf a tog?" "No foolishness," declared the sweating individual, as whisky and glasses were placed on the bar. "I'll swear to it. The dog that came in with those young gents an' whipped two other dogs in short order sartin made an observation in good, clean United States, or I'm the biggest liar on two legs." "Say, Benchy!" said the Dutchman scornfully, "I pelief you vos readiness to haf anoder attack py dose delerium triangles, ain'd id! Uf you vill undertook my advice, you vill off svear alretty soon und safe yourseluf from der snakes some droubles." "This is my first drink to-day," asserted Benchy, as he poured with shaking hand; "and I'd not take this if I didn't need it a whole lot to steady my nerves arter hearin' a dog talk." "It's on the level, Fritz," assured the man who had banged the bar with his fist. "I heard it myself. The young fellow with the mustache says to the dog arter the dog had licked t'other dogs, says he, 'Good boy, Boxer; you done that up slick.' Then the dog turns about and grins up at him and winks, and he opens his mouth, and I hope I may be struck dead where I stand this minute if he didn't answer and say, 'Oh, that was no trick at all, Frank; those low-bred curs haven't any sand.' I heard it, Fritz, and I'll swear to it with my last breath!" "You vos craziness!" said the Dutchman. "Oh, you vos drying some jokes on me to play alretty." But now several of the others asserted that they also had heard the dog speak, and that the animal had uttered the very words quoted by the man called Spikes. "Id peen a put-up jobs!" shouted Schlitzenheimer angrily. "Uf vor a greadt vool you tookit me, you vos not so much uf a jackass as I look to peen! Id vos nod bossible a tog vor to speech, und I vill bate zwi t'ousan' tollar it on!" "But I heard him!" declared Benchy. "I'm another!" averred Spikes. "We all heard him!" cried the others at the bar. "You got vrom my blace uf pusiness out britty queek!" ordered the Dutchman, in a great rage. "I vill not had so many plame liars aroundt! Und dond you back come some more alretty undil you vos readiness apology to make vor me drying to vool!" "Look here, Fritz," said Benchy, leaning on the bar, "I'll bet you ten dollars coin of the realm that the dog can talk! If I had been alone in hearing the beast, I might have thought myself fooled; but all these other gents heard him, and so there is no mistake. Do you take me?" "Den tollars haf nod seen you in a month," declared Schlitzenheimer disdainfully. "Howeffer, uf you prings pack by you dot tog und he vill speech my saloon in, I vill gif you den tollars my own moneys out uf, and all der drink you can a whole veek vor. Now, you tookit my advice und shut upness or make goot britty queek." "I'll do it!" cried Benchy, and he hastened forth. Frank and Bart had proceeded directly to the bank, where their dust was weighed and taken on deposit. This done, they left and sought a square meal in the very hotel where Mrs. Arlington and June were stopping. Fortunately the presence of his guests, who paid extravagantly well, had caused the proprietor to have on hand an unusual stock of cooked food, and he was able to see that the young men from the mines were provided for in a manner that surprised and pleased them not a little. Although he took good care to keep out of sight, Cimarron Bill knew Frank Merriwell was in the hotel. At the bar of the place Bill found a rough, bewhiskered fellow, whom he drew aside. "Bob," said Bill, in a whisper, "are you ready to tackle a tough proposition?" "For the needful, Bill," was the quiet answer of the man, who, in spite of his rough appearance, was known by his mild manner of speech as Gentle Bob. "What is it?" "You know the young tenderfoot gent what I have been stacking up against--the one what I spoke to you about?" "I reckon." "Well, he is now eatin' in the dinin'-room." "Sho!" said Bob, in placid surprise. "Fact," assured Bill. "Him an' one of his pards is thar. They came inter town together a short time ago. Now, I could pick a quarrel with them, and I allows I could shoot 'em both; but it would be knowed agin' me that I had been tryin' to jump their claim, which sartin' would rouse feelin's. In your case, as you were nohow consarned in the raid on the mine, it would be different, an' I 'lows you might find a way o' doin' the job easy an' slick. You kin plead self-defense, an' I promise you there will be plenty o' money to defend ye." "It's the money fer the job I'm a-thinkin' of first, Bill," said Bob. "A good clean thousan' dollars if you shoots the young gent with the mustache," whispered Bill. "Do you mean it?" asked Bob, looking at him hard. "Where does it come from?" "That I allow is none of your business. You has my word that you gets it. And I opine the word o' Cimarron Bill is knowed to be good." "As his bond," said Gentle Bob, taking out a brace of pistols and looking them over. "I takes the job, Bill; and there sartin will be a funeral in these parts to-morrer." CHAPTER XXIII. BOXER CREATES A STIR. When Frank and Bart came out of the hotel, with Boxer at their heels, they found a group of men on the steps engaged in earnest discussion. Immediately, on sight of the two young men and the dog, the babel of voices fell to a hush and the men all squared about and stared. But Merry immediately noticed that it was not at Bart or himself that they were staring, but at Boxer. The dog seemed to observe this, likewise, for he stopped short, with one paw uplifted, surveyed the men, and Frank, who was a clever ventriloquist, made the animal apparently say: "Say, Frank, what do you suppose the ginnies are gawking at?" "Mother av Moses!" cried an Irishman in the group. "Oi swear be all the saints the baste did spake!" "Yah! yah!" chattered a pig-tailed Chinaman by the name of Sing Lee, who ran a laundry in town. "Dogee talkee allee samee likee Chinyman." "Go on, you rat-eater!" contemptuously exclaimed the dog. "If I couldn't talk better than you I'd go drown myself!" Needless to say this brought the excitement of the crowd to a high pitch. Benchy and Spikes were on hand, and now the former appealed to Frank. "Is that your dog?" he asked. "Well, I lay claim to him," smiled Merry. "He--he--can he talk?" "Didn't you hear him?" "Yes, but----" "Well, what better evidence do you want than your own ears?" "That's enough; but Schlitzenheimer called me names and said I was trying to put up a joke on him because I told him I heard the dog talk." "Who's Schlitzenheimer?" "He runs the saloon down the street right in front of which your dog whipped those other dogs what jumped on him. He's a black-headed Dutchman. Come on down and show him the dog." "Come on!" cried others. Merry didn't mind the lark, but he now turned to the dog, with a very serious expression on his face, saying: "How about it, Boxer? I believe you told me you hold an antipathy against Dutchmen. Will you go down to Schlitzenheimer's with me?" The dog seemed to hesitate, and then he answered: "Oh, I don't care; go ahead. I'm not stuck on Dutchmen, but I'll teach this one a lesson." "All right," said Merry. "Come on." Benchy triumphantly led the way, being followed by Frank and Bart and the dog, with the crowd at the heels of them. The Irishman was protesting his wonderment, while the Chinaman chattered excitedly. Within the hotel a man had been watching and listening. He was a bewhiskered ruffian, and he strode forth and followed the crowd to the Dutchman's saloon. Cimarron Bill watched his tool depart, smiling darkly and muttering to himself: "Good-by, Bob! You're going up against a hard proposition in Frank Merriwell, and it's not likely you'll call to collect that little sum of money from me. All the same, I hope you get in a shot, for you shoot straight, and you may make a round sum for my pocket, as I'll compel the old lady to lay down the cash. I'll be able to scare her into it by threatening to tell the whole story and bring her into the game as an accomplice. That will yank her around to her feet in short order, I opine." For all of Bill's reputation as a "killer," he was willing to let this piece of work over to the attention of another. So Gentle Bob followed Merriwell, an evil purpose in his black heart, nor knew that his employer believed and half-hoped he might be going to his own end. Benchy burst into the saloon, uttering a cry of triumph. "Here comes the dog!" he said. "Now I have you, you old duffer! You'll find out he can talk." Schlitzenheimer stared at the door, through which the crowd followed Frank, and Bart, and the dog. "Vos dot der tog?" he said. "Do you take me for a monkey, you lobster-faced frankfurter?" saucily demanded the dog. "Hey?" squawked the saloon-keeper, turning purple. "Vot id vos? Dit I hear correctness?" "Be careful, Boxer," said Frank reprovingly. "Don't be so free with your lip. You may offend the gentleman." "Gentleman!" exclaimed the setter, in a tone of profound contempt. "Do you call that sourkraut-barrel a gentleman? I'm surprised at you, Frank!" At this there was a burst of laughter, and Schlitzenheimer turned as red as he had been pale a moment before. "Vot vor did dot tog vanted to insult me?" he exclaimed indignantly. "I dit not someding to him do!" "Boxer, I'm surprised!" cried Frank. "You will get me into trouble with your careless language. I insist that you apologize immediately to the gentleman. I insist, sir!" "Oh, very well," said the dog; "if you insist, I'll apologize. I was joking, anyway." "And I add my own apology, Mr. Schlitzenheimer," said Merry. "I hope this will be sufficient?" "Oh, yah, dot peen all righdt," said the Dutchman at once. "But py dunder! der tickens id does peat to heard a tog dalking!" "It's a good one on you, Fritz!" cried Benchy triumphantly. "Remember your agreement! You're stuck!" "Vale, I will stood py dot agreements," said the saloon-keeper, rather reluctantly, "efen if in pusiness id does preak me up. Und I vill sdant treat der crowdt vor. Sdep up, eferpody, und your trink name." "That's the talk!" cried the dog. "You're not such a bad fellow, Schlitzy." Schlitzenheimer leaned on the bar with both hands and looked over at Boxer. "Vot will you haf yourseluf?" he asked. "Excuse me," said the setter; "I'm on the water-wagon. Go ahead, gentlemen, and don't mind me." So they lined up in front of the bar, expressing their amazement over the accomplishment of the dog and burdening Merriwell with questions, all of which Frank cheerfully answered or skilfully evaded. Boxer had been lifted and placed on one end of the bar, where he immediately sat, surveying the line of men with his clear, intelligent eyes. "Hello, Mike!" he called to the Irishman. "When did you leave the Old Dart?" "It's goin' on three year now," answered the son of the Old Sod civilly; "and me name's not Moike--it's Pat." The dog seemed to wink shrewdly. "It's all the same," he declared; "Mike or Pat makes no difference, as long as your last name is Murphy." "But me last name's not Murphy at all, at all--it's O'Grady, av yez plaze." "Thanks," snickered the dog. "I have it down pat now. It's a way I have of finding out a man's name when no one takes the trouble to introduce him. Drink hearty, Pat; the whisky'll add to the beautiful tint of your nose." "Begorra! it's a divvil the crayther is!" muttered Pat, nudging his nearest neighbor. "Ah, there, Chink!" called the setter, seeming to get his eye on the Chinaman, who was staring open-mouthed. "How's the washee-washee business?" "Oh, velly good, velly good!" answered the Celestial hurriedly, backing off a little, his face yellowish white. "Vele," said Schlitzenheimer, holding up a glass of beer; "here vos goot health to der smardest tog vot effer vos." "Drink hearty," said Boxer; and, with the exception of Frank and Bart, all swallowed their drinks. Not wishing anything to drink, and still desiring to join in so that the saloon-keeper might not be offended, Frank and Bart had taken cigars, which they slipped into their pockets. "Dot tog peen der vonder der vorld uf," said Schlitzenheimer, gazing admiringly at Boxer. "Vot vill you soldt him vor?" "There's not enough money in Arizona to buy him from me," answered Frank at once. "You know a good thing when you see it," chuckled the dog. "Vos there anything exception talk vot he can do?" asked Fritz. "Lots of things," answered Merry. "He can play cards." "Beenuckle?" asked the Dutchman. "You bet! He's a dabster at pinocle." "Easy, Merry!" cautioned the setter, in a whisper. "If you want to skin the old bologna-sausage out of his shekels, don't puff me up. I can't beat him at his own game." "Vale, I pet den tollars you can't dot do!" cried Schlitzenheimer. "I nefer vould acknowledgment dot a tog could peat me!" Frank sternly turned on Boxer. "What do you mean by getting me into such a scrape?" he demanded, shaking his finger at the setter. "You know I never gamble, and I will not bet on a game of cards. If you make any more such foolish talk, I'll not let you play at all." The dog hung his head and looked quite ashamed. "Beg pardon," he whined softly. "I was joking again!" "I'll blay der fun uf him vor," said Schlitzenheimer. "Id vill peen a creat jokes to said I had a came uf beenuckle blayed mit a tog. Come on." He hurried out from behind the bar. "Begorra! Oi'd loike to take a hand in this!" cried Pat O'Grady, as a square table was drawn out and the cards produced. "It's a shlick game av peenockle Oi play." "But three-handed----" said Frank. "Be afther makin' the fourth yesilf." "I have to hold the cards for Boxer, he having no hands of his own," explained Merry. Then it was that Gentle Bob stepped forward, saying, in a very quiet voice and polite manner, that he would be pleased to enter the game. Now, with the exception of Frank and Bart, all knew that Bob was a very bad man to offend, and so they were willing enough that he should play, and it was soon arranged. Frank was keen enough to see in what manner the ruffianly looking fellow with the quiet voice was regarded, and, as he was not in Holbrook in search of a quarrel, he raised no dissent. However, he gave Hodge a look that Bart understood, and the silent youth nodded. From that moment Bart watched Gentle Bob closely. The crowd drew about the table, eager to witness a game of cards in which a dog took part. Merry sat on a short bench, with Boxer at his side. The cards were cut, and the deal fell to Schlitzenheimer. "Be careful, Dutchy," advised Boxer. "We're watching you, and you'd better not try any slick tricks." "Eferything on der lefel shall pe," assured the saloon-keeper, pulling at his long pipe. O'Grady was likewise smoking, and his pipe contrasted ludicrously with that of Schlitzenheimer. When the cards were dealt, it fell the dog's turn to meld first. Frank spread out the cards and held them in front of Boxer's nose. "I will meld one hundred aces," said the dog. "Put 'em down, Frank." Merry did so. "Sixty queens," called Boxer, and Merry spread them out. "Lally ka lolly loka!" chattered Sing Lee, or something like that; whereupon Boxer seemed to fix the Chinaman with a scornful stare, and observed: "You ought to take something for that. It must be painful." "Gleatee Sklot!" gasped the Celestial. "Dogee hab a debbil!" And he backed away. "That's right," said Boxer. "I like you a long distance off, the longer the distance the better I like you." "Pay attention to the game," said Frank. "Are you going to meld anything else?" "Forty trumps, twenty spades, and twenty hearts," said Boxer. "Dunder!" muttered Schlitzenheimer, and his hands trembled so that he dropped some of the cards. "Get a basket," snickered the dog; and the crowd laughed loudly at the saloon-keeper's expense. When all the melding was finished they prepared to play. "I'll lead the ace of trumps," said Boxer. Frank ran the cards over. "It's here," he said. "But I didn't see it." "What's the matter with your eyes?" snapped the dog. "Didn't I meld one hundred aces? You ought to learn something about this game!" "I seldom play cards," said Merry apologetically. "Well, you want to keep your eyes open!" exclaimed Boxer sharply. "These chaps may try to skin us." At this Gentle Bob looked up and said: "I do not mind a little faking none whatever, but I sure objects to being called a skin, either by a dog or his master, so I opine it will be best for somebody to apologize." And, as he made this remark, he suddenly whipped forth a pistol, with which he covered both Frank and the dog, but held the weapon more in Merry's direction. Cimarron Bill's tool had found the opportunity he sought, and he meant to make the most of it. Merry saw in the fellow's eyes the full extent of his evil purpose. "If the apology is not forthcoming instanter," murmured the ruffian, "I shall puncture the wonderful talking dog with a bullet!" Now, it seemed that Bob had Frank at a great disadvantage, but at this point Bart Hodge shoved the muzzle of a pistol against the fellow's ear and harshly commanded: "Put up that gun--instanter! If you don't I'll blow the whole top of your head off!" But Bart had made a miscalculation, for Gentle Bob had not come alone to the saloon, having noted well that Frank Merriwell had a friend. He had picked up a chap of his own sort, and now this fellow had a gun at Bart's head. "You're the one who'll lose the ruff o' his head!" he said. "You put up your gun!" Gentle Bob still sat pistol in hand, but Boxer had taken advantage of an opportunity to drop down from the bench to the floor. Of a sudden there came a wild yell from Bob, who kicked out with his feet and flung himself backward, his pistol being discharged straight up at the ceiling. Boxer had seized him by the leg beneath the table. Instantly there was a fearful uproar in the saloon. The action of the dog had disconcerted the plans of every one. Hodge ducked and whirled, catching the ruffian at his back a fearful blow on the solar plexus that drove him slam against the bar, and he went down and "out." Merry went across the table in a leap at Gentle Bob, from whom he tore the revolver that the fellow was trying to use on Boxer. "Let up, boy," said Frank to the dog. "I'll attend to his case." Boxer seemed reluctant to let go, but he did so at the second command. Merriwell pinned Bob down and deftly disarmed him, removing every weapon, which he passed over to Schlitzenheimer. "Take care of these tools, sir," he said, "until I leave town. It will save this fellow's life--perhaps." "Und dot vill peen a pity!" muttered the saloon-keeper, who had no love for the ruffian, but held him in great awe. Having disarmed Bob, Merry rose and commanded him to get up. The fellow rose immediately and sprang at Frank, trying to strike him. Boxer would have mingled in, but Bart held him in check, saying: "Keep out of it. Frank can attend to that case now without any of your aid." Hodge was not mistaken, as Merriwell quickly demonstrated. He avoided the blows of the ruffian and quickly knocked him down. Bob rose, only to be struck in the eye and sent to the floor again. Four times this happened, and then Merry picked the wretch up, carried him bodily to the door, and kicked him into the street, observing: "If you come back here or bother me again, I'll send you to the hospital for a month!" And the dog barked with great satisfaction. CHAPTER XXIV. BOXER TO THE RESCUE. The second ruffian was ejected, and Frank and the talking dog were regarded with unbounded admiration by every one present. "I neffer haf seen Shentle Pob done upness pefore," remarked Schlitzenheimer. "He vos a pad man." "You bettee!" put in Sing Lee, who crept forth from behind a barrel, where he had taken refuge during the encounter. "Him velly bad. Him shootee, stabbee, killee." "An' so he will," nodded Pat O'Grady, seeming quite concerned. "It's me opinion he wur lookin' fer throuble whin he came here." "Well, he found it," smiled Merry. "That's what!" said Boxer, wagging his tail and looking up at Frank knowingly. "But he tasted disagreeable. You don't suppose it will make me sick, do you?" Frank stooped and patted the dog's head. "I hope not," he laughed. "You got hold of his leg just in time, old boy." "Oh, I didn't dally when I saw him throw his gun out," said Boxer, winking rapidly with both eyes. "I allowed he was going to begin shooting directly." "Uf you vould tookit my device," said Schlitzenheimer, "you couldt out uf dis town get a hurriness indo." "Thot's roight," nodded O'Grady. "It's moighty dangerous to remain after this, Oi know." "Pob vill got vor heemseluf another gun, und he vill look vor you on der sdreet," declared the saloon-keeper. "Well, he may find us, eh, Boxer?" smiled Frank. "Sure thing," said the dog. "And I reckon you can shoot as quick and as straight as he can." Schlitzenheimer shook his head and averred that Bob was the greatest pistol-shot known in those parts, which, however, did not seem to alarm Frank Merriwell in the least. Suddenly there came a scream from the street, the voice being that of a girl, and the sound indicating that she was in great fear and distress. Frank sprang to the open door, Boxer barking at his heels, and Hodge was not slow in following. The cry had issued from the lips of June Arlington, who was then on her way to the post-office to mail the letter she had written, not wishing her mother to see it. June had arrived in the vicinity of the saloon as Gentle Bob was turning away. She noted that the man's face was cut and bruised and one eye was swollen. His appearance led her to look at him with something like sympathy, when, of a sudden, he turned on her, smiling evilly, and seized her arm. "Derned ef you ain't a right peert gal!" said the fellow insolently. "Gimme a kiss, sweetness." Then June screamed and tried to break away, striking at him with her clenched fist. She was frightened and angry. "Stop yer squarmin'!" snarled the fellow, who had thought to kiss her quickly before she could make much resistance, and then hasten along, it being his intention to boast of what he had done. But June would not stop. She saw a tall, athletic young man come bounding through an open doorway into the street, followed closely by a dog and another young man. Her eyes recognized the one in advance, and she cried out: "Mr. Merriwell, help--help, quick!" With a growl of rage, Gentle Bob released her and turned. As he did so, the dog, terrible in his fury, shot past Frank, and made a great spring through the air straight at Bob's throat. Bob threw up his arm, and the teeth of the dog fastened on it. The force of the creature's leap hurled the ruffian backward. The man went down in the dust, and Boxer was at him with all the fury of a mad animal. He would have torn the wretch to pieces right before their eyes, but Frank fearlessly grasped the dog and pulled him away, at the same time crying commandingly to him. "Keep him off!" palpitated Bob, now filled with a great terror for the fierce animal. "Don't let him touch me ag'in! He's near bit me to pieces now!" "You got just what you deserved, and no more, you miserable creature!" said Frank indignantly. Then he turned and asked June what Bob had been doing. "Oh, he grasped me, and he tried to kiss me!" "Did he!" grated Merry, very white. "Then I should have let Boxer finish him!" "No, no!" gasped June. "No, no!" exclaimed Bob. "On your knees!" cried Frank, in ringing tones--"on your knees and apologize to the young lady! If you don't do it, so help me, I'll let Boxer get at you again!" Bob did not hesitate. Ruffian and desperado though he was reputed to be, he cast himself on his knees before June and humbly begged her pardon, all the while watching Boxer, who glared back at him and licked his chops. "Get up and go, you pitiful coward!" said Frank. "Keep out of my sight while I'm in town, and be careful not to try any dirty tricks. If you hurt me, Boxer will eat you up; if you hurt Boxer, I'll have your life! Go!" The wretch lost not a moment in getting away. Frank stooped and picked up the letter June had dropped. He was restoring it to her when his eye caught the address upon it, and he stared in astonishment. "MR. RICHARD MERRIWELL, "Fardale." That was the name and address he read. Then he looked closely at June and recognized her. "Miss Arlington?" he exclaimed, his hat in his hand; "is it possible?" The color was coming back into her cheeks. "Mr. Merriwell," she said, "let me thank you for coming so quickly to my assistance." "It was Boxer who got there first. But I'm amazed to see you here--here in Arizona." "I don't doubt it." "What brings you to this place?" "I came with my mother." "Your--your mother?" he said, still further astonished. "And your father--he is here, also?" "No, sir." "He is coming?" "No, sir, I believe not." Merry had thought at once that there might be a very good reason why D. Roscoe Arlington should come to Holbrook to learn just how well the hired ruffians of the syndicate had performed their tasks, but the presence there of Mrs. Arlington and June, without D. Roscoe, rather bewildered him. June looked back toward the hotel windows, thinking it must be that her mother had heard her cry and would be looking forth; but was relieved to see nothing of the lady. "You were on your way to mail this letter?" said Frank, divining her destination. "Yes." "May I accompany you, to make sure you are not molested further?" She accepted his escort. Bart had lingered near, and Frank presented him. "An old school and college chum, Miss Arlington," he said, "and one of my closest friends." Bart lifted his hat and bowed, smiling a bit on the pretty girl. In his way, which was dark and silent, he was almost every bit as handsome as Frank himself, and it is no cause of wonderment that June could not wholly repress the flash of admiration that came into her splendid eyes. On his part, Bart was quite smitten with her, and he stood watching Frank walk away at her side, Boxer following, smiling without envy, yet thinking his friend fortunate to have the company of such a charming girl for even a brief time in that part of the country. Frank found himself somewhat embarrassed, not a little to his surprise, as he walked down the street with June. The girl was the daughter of the man who was doing his best to bring upon Merriwell complete ruin--or seemed to be doing his best to that end, for Frank could not know that all his trouble at the Queen Mystery had not risen directly from D. Roscoe Arlington. Much less did he suspect that any great part of it came without Mr. Arlington's knowledge and through the vengeful malice of Mrs. Arlington. It was not agreeable to speak of this matter with June, and still in his heart Merry was more than eager to know what had brought the girl to Holbrook. He had not forgotten that it was the hand of June that had restored to him the precious papers relating to the mines when those papers had been stolen from him in Fardale, a service for which he remained grateful. Further than this, Frank had learned that Dick had a deep interest in June--so deep, indeed, that the boy himself did not quite suspect its measure. Merry had been able to read his brother, and his good sense told him beyond question that never would Dick hold his hand from the person of his most persistent enemy simply because that enemy's sister thus entreated him, unless there was back of it all a feeling of affection for the sister that was of no small magnitude. That June cared something for Dick, Merry more than half-suspected, and the sight of the name on the letter she now carried in her hand seemed very good evidence that this was not false fancy on his part, for did she not care for the lad far away in Fardale, then why should she write to him? It was June herself who relieved Frank's embarrassment by earnestly turning to him and beginning speech. "Mr. Merriwell," she said, with such a sober face that he was greatly surprised, "I have wanted to see you since you came into town." "Then you knew I had entered town?" "I saw you; and I have wanted to speak with you to warn you." "To warn me?" said Frank. "Of what?" "Of your great danger, for you are in danger here. You have in this town a man who would kill you." "I think we lately parted from such a man," smiled Merry. "But he is not the one." "Is there another?" "Oh, yes! I saw him! Perhaps I saved your life." At this Frank gave a great start of surprise and asked her how that could be, upon which she told him how Cimarron Bill had shot at him from the window, and how she had spoiled the aim of the would-be murderer. She held back the fact that the man had fired from one of the windows of her mother's rooms, and that her mother had shortly before been in consultation with him. Still Frank was keen enough to see that she was hiding something, and he had the good discernment to come close to guessing the truth. "Miss Arlington," he said, "it seems that I owe you my life. I heard the shot, but I could not be sure it was fired at me. If I mistake not, the man who fired it has a deadly aim, and I could not have escaped but for your quickness in spoiling his sight. I owe you a great deal more than I can ever repay." June knew something of the truth, and she was aware that her father was concerned in a movement the accomplishment of which meant ruin to both Frank and Dick; therefore this acknowledgment by Frank of his indebtedness to her caused her to flush with shame. "It is I who owe you a great deal!" she exclaimed. "See what you have just done--saved me from a ruffian! But your brother--Dick--he did more. He saved me once from the fangs of furious dogs, at another time from being killed in a runaway, and that is not all. It is I who owe you much more than I can ever repay. My brother"--she choked a little--"my brother is Dick's enemy, yet, for a promise to me, Dick has been easy with him and has not forced him in disgrace from Fardale. Oh, Mr. Merriwell!" she suddenly exclaimed, feeling her utter inability to express herself, "it seems to me that never before was a girl placed in such a position as I find myself in! What can I do?" "You can do nothing, Miss June," he said gently. "You are not to blame for anything that may happen, and I shall not forget that. I am very sorry for you, as I fancy you must be far from comfortable." At this her pride returned, and she straightened, thinking she could not acknowledge to him that her people were in the wrong. "You know there is always two sides to any question," she said, "and there may be as much of right on one side as the other. I presume my father has every reason to think himself right." Now, June knew that it was her mother who hated Dick and Frank with undying intensity, while her father cared very little about either of the Merriwells, save that he had been led to wonder immoderately at the success of Frank in fighting the syndicate; but she wished to avoid the shame of confessing that her mother had such a vengeful nature and could enter with vindictiveness into an affair that might well be left to men. Frank had no desire to hurt her feelings. He understood her pride and sensitiveness, and he said: "It is very likely you are correct about that. At any rate, we will not argue it. It is no matter for us to speak of, as what we might say would not change the situation in the least. Still, if I should become satisfied that your father had the right in this thing, even though it stripped me of my last dollar and made me a beggar, I would surrender to him immediately." She did not doubt him then, and she saw that the character of Frank Merriwell was one to be admired, his one concern being for perfect and complete justice, even though by justice he might be the sufferer. Inwardly she was struck with the conviction that her father seldom made inquiry into the justice of any project he wished to carry through, his one concern being to accomplish his ends by any method whatever, so long as it did not involve him in difficulties of a nature too serious. "Mr. Merriwell," she said quickly, "you must leave Holbrook just as soon as you can!" "Why?" "The man who tried to shoot you is here--the man with the wicked face and evil eyes." "I am not given to running away from one man." "It's not that. He is an assassin! See how he tried to kill you without giving you a show! You don't know what moment he may try it again. If he were to meet you face to face it would be different. You cannot defend yourself from attacks in the dark. You have no show." "Well, there is some truth in that," smiled Merry. "He will attack you that way again. I know it! He will strike at you from behind." "Possibly." "You must go! You must leave Holbrook before dark!" "I hardly fancy it," muttered Frank, frowning. "I do not like the notion. It leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth to think of running away from Cimarron Bill." For, although June had not mentioned the ruffian by name, not knowing it herself, her description of him had satisfied Frank that it could be no other than the baffled scoundrel who had twice attempted to seize the Queen Mystery Mine. "But you will go?" she urged. "I'll think of it." They had reached the post-office and were now standing in front of the building. Bart Hodge was sauntering slowly in their direction on the opposite side of the street, having kept within easy pistol-shot of Frank all the while. Frank's words did not satisfy June. He saw she was in distress. "If you will not go for your own sake," she said, "please do for mine." He looked astonished. "For your sake?" he said. "Why, I had not an idea in the world that it could be of so much concern to you. I'm afraid I do not understand why it should be. Now, if Dick----" She stopped him with a gesture, her face flushing very warm. "Don't!" she entreated, in a low voice. "At least, you are his own brother! But it is for my sake more than yours. I cannot explain. Do not embarrass me! But promise me you will go--for my sake!" Having a quick perception, Frank suddenly fancied he caught an inkling of the truth. In that moment he saw Mrs. Arlington dealing with Cimarron Bill. It was a conjecture, but it struck him hard as the truth. This, then, was the reason why June wished him to flee from Holbrook. She feared that her mother somehow would become involved in the murder in case Cimarron Bill should carry into execution his dastardly purpose. Of course, it was not possible for him to be sure he had struck upon the truth. "It is hard for me to refuse a girl when she corners me like this," he smiled. "You'll go?" persisted June. "If you insist." "Oh, thank you--thank you! I shall not breathe easy until I know you are well out of this dreadful place." "And I shall not breathe easy as long as I know you remain here, where you may become subject to such insults as to-day happened. It is no place for you at the present time. Holbrook is well enough in its way; but you are too pretty to walk its streets without an escort. Western gentlemen are gentlemen in every sense of the word, and no man can hold the honor of a lady more sacred; but Western ruffians are dangerous, and it seems there are several of the latter class in this place." "I must remain while mother stays here; I must stay with her." The letter was dropped in the post-office, and June urged Frank to depart at once; but he insisted on escorting her back to the hotel. Boxer kept close to their heels, seeming to listen to their conversation at times; but, strange though it may appear, he made no attempt to take part in it, nor did he speak as much as one word during all the time that he seemed neglected by his master. Frank made a sign to Bart, who crossed the street and joined them. "I have decided to leave town right away," said Merry. "Have the horses saddled and prepared. We'll start as soon as I have escorted Miss Arlington back to the hotel." Hodge looked surprised. "The horses are in no condition, Frank," he said. "You know they are in sore need of a good rest." "I know it, Bart; but I have a reason for this. We'll go. Get them ready, please." "All right," said Bart, as he turned away to carry out instructions. CHAPTER XXV. UNTO DEATH! The sun was down in the west and night was gathering over the face of the world when Frank and Bart rode forth from Holbrook, setting their faces to the southwest. Boxer trotted behind them. They were not molested, although Frank remained in constant expectation of an attack until they were fairly clear of the place and had it a long rifle-shot at their backs. The blue night grew upon the distant plain, and the stars were coming forth over their heads as they rode down into the distance, the beating hoofs of the ponies making rhythm on the baked ground. The first cool breath of night touched their heated cheeks with grateful kisses. "How did you happen to do it, Frank?" asked Bart. "I found out a thing or two," Merry answered. "Cimarron Bill is in town, and he was watching his chance to get another shot at me." "Another?" exclaimed Bart; upon which Merry explained how Bill had fired at him already. "It was rather dangerous to stay there, and I couldn't resist when a pretty girl took enough interest in me to urge me to get away," Frank laughed. "We had some sport with our talking dog, and now----" "You can't mean to ride far?" "Remember the hut we passed on the way into town? It's not very far. We'll stop there to-night." "Good!" said Bart; and they rode on. Coming to the deserted hut, they stopped there. The horses were cared for, and Frank and Bart entered the hut with their blankets, where they prepared to sleep until toward morning, planning to rise before daybreak and get an early start, so that some distance could be covered ere the sun rose. Both of the young men were weary, and they lost little time in drawing their blankets about them and rolling on the floor. Boxer curled in a corner and went to sleep. The door of the hut was left open to admit the cool night air. Frank fell asleep at once, and Bart was not slow in following his example. They were awakened in the middle of the night by a snarl, a cry, a struggle, and a fall. Both sat up, grasping their weapons. The moon was up, and by its light, which streamed in at the wide-open door, a man and a dog were seen struggling on the floor. The dog was Boxer, who had leaped at the throat of the man as he came slipping in at the open door. "Great Scott!" exclaimed Hodge. "What's the meaning of this?" "One of my friends has arrived," said Frank. "Boxer has him." The struggle was fierce and terrible. The dog seemed to have the man by the throat. Before either Merry or Hodge could interfere the moonlight glinted on something bright in the hand of the man, who struck and struck again. Not a sound came from the dog. But the bright thing in the man's hand grew suddenly dark. "Heavens!" gasped Frank, leaping forward. "He has a knife!" Then a terrible sound came from the throat of the man, and he lifted his arm no more. The thing in his hand, dark and dripping, fell to the floor of the hut. A moment later the man rolled into the shadow, and then Boxer was seen dragging himself away, while the man lay still. "Boxer! Boxer!" cried Frank, bending over the dog. "Are you hurt, boy? Merciful goodness! he ripped your whole side open with that knife!" Hodge struck a light and bent over the man who lay in the shadow. When the match burned out in his fingers he dropped it and stepped out to join Merriwell, who had picked up the dog and carried the creature into the open air. Bart found Merry sitting on the ground, with the dog in his arms. Boxer had been cut in a terrible manner, and was bleeding in a way that plainly told his end was near. "Oh, the wretch!" choked Merry, in a husky voice. "Oh, the wretch who did this! He ought to be hanged!" "No need of hanging for him," said Hodge. "He'll be beyond that in less than three minutes." "You mean----" "He's pretty near dead now. Boxer's teeth found his jugular vein." "Who was it, Bart?" "The fellow who made the row in Schlitzenheimer's saloon." "Gentle Bob?" "Yes." "One of Cimarron Bill's hired tools, or I am mistaken! He followed us here and tried to creep in on us with that knife, meaning to finish the job at which he failed in town. Boxer saved us. Good old Boxer! Poor old Boxer!" The dog whined a little on hearing this name from Frank's lip's, and feebly wagged his tail. The moonlight showed his eyes turned toward Merry's face. "Is it so bad there's no show for him?" asked Hodge, in genuine distress. "No show!" sobbed Frank. "He's finished, Bart! It's a shame! The most knowing dog in the whole world! And he has to die like this, killed by a human being that is more of a beast than he!" "It's a shame!" said Bart. The dog licked Frank's hand. Merry bowed his head, and tears started from his eyes. "Poor Boxer!" he choked. "Boxer, we have to part here. You're going to another country, where I must follow in time. It's all up with you. You may find your first master over there; but he'll never love you more than I have. Good-by, Boxer!" The dog uttered a whine. And so his life ended in Frank's arms, with the moonlight falling on them and the stillness of the Arizona night all around. Hodge entered the hut, only to come forth, bringing the blankets and looking very sick. "For Heaven's sake, let's get away from here!" he exclaimed. "The man in there?" "Dead!" said Bart. "The place is gory! I'm faint from it!" Boxer's body was wrapped in a blanket, and they mounted and rode away, Frank carrying the dead dog in his arms to find a burial place where there could be no chance that his body should be exhumed by any prowling thing of the desert. CHAPTER XXVI. THE COMING OF CROWFOOT. Rap! rap! rap! "Wait a minute!" called Frank. "No need to knock the door down!" He flung the door of his cabin wide open, standing on the threshold. It was early dawn in Mystery Valley. Sunrise was beginning to gild the barren peaks of the Mogollons. The new day had come to its birth in a splendid glow, and the world smiled refreshed after the cooling sleep of the departed night. Frank was just risen and not yet fully dressed, but about his waist was his cartridge-belt, and his pistol swung ready in the holster at his hip. He had no use for the weapon, however. Outside the door stood old Joe Crowfoot, his blanket drawn about his shoulders. Those keen eyes gazed on Merry with an expression of friendly greeting. With a shout of surprise and joy, Frank clasped the old redskin in his arms in the most affectionate manner. "Old Joe Crowfoot, as I live!" he cried, showing unusual excitement and delight. "Why, you old reprobate, here you come popping back from the grave after I've been mourning you as dead! What do you mean by it, you villain?" "Ugh!" grunted old Joe, something like a merry twinkle in those beady eyes. "Strong Heart him think Crowfoot dead, eh?" "Hang me if I didn't!" "Crowfoot him heap tough; no die easy," declared the Indian. "I should say not! Why, you tricky scoundrel, they told me you were done for." "Who tell so?" "Some of Cimarron Bill's delectable gang. They averred they had disposed of you for good and all." "Waugh! No let such cheap carrion kill me!" said Joe. "They mebbe think some they do it. Joe he fool um heap lot." "But where have you been?" "Oh, all away round," was the answer, with a wide sweep of the arm. "Joe him scout--him find out how land lay. Do a little biz." "Do business? What sort of business?" "Catch the sucker some." "Catch the sucker? What's that?" The redskin flung open his dirty red blanket and tapped a fat belt about his waist, which gave back a musical clink. "Play the game of poke'," he exclaimed. "Make heap plenty mon'." "You've been gambling again?" "Strong Heart him guess," nodded Joe, with something like a sly smile. "You villain! And I'll wager you got away with your ill-gotten spoils." "Heap do so," said Joe. "Have some firewater. Find one, two, three, four crooked paleface follow to kill and rob. Let firewater 'lone till fool crooked palefaces so um no follow some more. Then go safe place drink firewater a heap." "You've been drunk, too!" cried Merry. "Mebbe so," admitted the Indian. "White man firewater heap good while um last; heap bad when um gone. Make um feel much glad at first, then much sorry little time after." Frank laughed heartily at the queer manner of the old Indian as he said this. "I suppose that's about right," he said. "I've never tried it to find out." "Strong Heart him no try firewater?" exclaimed Joe, in surprise. "Crowfoot him think all paleface drink the firewater." "Well, here is one who doesn't. I've seen too much trouble come from the stuff." "Ugh! Strong Heart him got heap more sense than anybody Joe ever see," asserted the Indian admiringly. "Once git taste of firewater, always be heap fool and drink him some. Many times old Joe he say no drink some more. Head all swell, middle all sick, mouth all dry, taste nasty a lot, bone ache--then him say no more the firewater. Mebbe he go 'long some time, but bimeby he take it some more. White man make firewater. Bad! bad! bad! No firewater made, nobody drink it." From inside the cabin a voice called. "What, ho! Methinks thou hast found a philosopher, Merry! Bring the sage in that I may survey him with my heavenly blue eyes." "Yes, dew!" drawled another voice. "I want to set my eyes onter him, by gum!" Merry led the old Indian into the cabin. "Here he is," Merry laughed. "Crowfoot, these are some of my friends, whom you met last summer. You remember them. They played ball with me in the Mad River country." "Ugh!" grunted the redskin. "Heap remember!" Bart Hodge stepped forward, his hand outstretched to the Indian. "I am glad to see you again, Crowfoot," he said. "Me same," said Joe, shaking Bart's hand. "You heap good to ketch hard ball when Strong Heart him make it go fast like a bullet and man with stick he--whish!--strike at it so, no hit it at all." They all laughed at the Indian's manner of describing Bart's skill at catching. "Consarned if it ain't a sight fer sore eyes to see ye, Mr. Crowfoot!" said Ephraim Gallup, as he froze to the redskin's hand and shook it warmly. "Yeou was the best mascot a baseball-team ever hed." "How! how!" said the old fellow. "Nose Talk him stand way out far, ketch ball when it come there. How! how!" "Nose Talk!" laughed Frank. "Well, that's one on you, Gallup!" Jack Ready was smiling blandly. He gave his hand a little flirt in salute, and stepped forward with an odd movement. "Gaze on my classic features, Joseph Crowfoot, Esquire," he invited. "See if you can recollect what I did in the game." "Sure remember," nodded Crowfoot. "Talk-talk a heap, no do much else." Then the joke was on Jack, and even Bart Hodge was forced to smile, while Gallup gave Ready a resounding smack on the shoulder with his open hand. "Bless my punkins!" snickered the Vermonter. "That's a thunderin' good one on you, Jack!" Ready looked sad. "Alas!" he sighed. "Is it thus I am to be defamed! And by a copper-colored aborigine! The thought is gall to my sensitive soul! I shall peek and pine over it! For days to come no sweet smile shall adorn my beautiful features!" Joe looked puzzled. "No say something bad," he declared. "When Red Cheek him talk-talk a heap lot other man that throw ball he got a lot mixed, no make good pitch. Red Cheek him help win game a heap." Jack's face cleared at once. "Crowfoot, you have poured soothing balm on my wounded heart!" he cried. "I'm glad to know that I do amount to something, for, so help me! of late I have begun to wonder what I was made for!" "Sit down, Joe," invited Frank. "We're going to have breakfast in a short time, and you are to eat with us." "Ugh!" said the Indian, disdaining a chair and sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. "Joe him do so. Him a heap empty. Mebbe after him eat him tell Strong Heart something much good to hear." When breakfast was over the old Indian lighted his rank pipe and smoked contentedly, still sitting on the floor, with his back against the wall. Through the open door came the sounds of work at the mine. Frank was not yet running the mine day and night, with shifts of men, but it was his intention to do so later. Smoke was rising from the high pipe of the stamp-mill, and soon the stamps began to rumble and roar, awaking the echoes of the valley. The sound was a pleasant one in Merriwell's ears. "This running a mine in Arizona is a snap," said Jack Ready, as he elevated his feet to the top of the table, in which the breakfast-dishes and remnants of the meal remained. "The hardest part of it seems to be washing the dishes. It's Gallup's turn this morning." "Not by a thuttering sight!" exclaimed Ephraim. "Yeou can't shoulder that onter me! You've gotter wash the dishes to-day. I done it yisterday." "Is it possible!" cried Jack. "Why, I thought it was day before yesterday, or, perchance, the day before that. Alas, how time flies--tempus fugit!" "Now, don't go to springin' any Latin on us!" growled Gallup. "You never learned enough Latin to hurt ye, an' ye don't want to try to show off." "Behold how the green-eyed monster turneth a friend into a critic!" said Jack. "You can attend to the dishes later," said Frank. "Just now I am anxious to hear the good news Crowfoot said he might have to tell. What is it, Joe?" "Some time little while 'go, few days, you be in Holbrook?" questioned the Indian, pulling away at his pipe. "Yes, I was there--Hodge and myself." "Joe him been there since." "And you bring good news from that place?" "Heap good to Strong Heart. In Holbrook him find white woman who hate him a lot, eh? White woman she is the squaw of man who make for Strong Heart big trouble 'bout mine." "You mean Mrs. Arlington?" "Ugh! Mebbe that her name." "That is it. She is in Holbrook, or was a few days ago." "She hate Strong Heart a heap." "I reckon she does," nodded Frank, wondering how the old redskin found out so much. "She come to get bad men to take mine." "Possibly that is right." "Joe him know it. She make much business with Cim'run Bill." "That I suspected, although I did not find it out for a certainty while in Holbrook." "It so." "Go on." "She give Bill heap much mon' to buy bad men to take from Strong Heart the mine." "Is that so?" "Waugh! Joe him find out. Joe he play sharp; he listen." "Crowfoot, you're as good as a detective." "No know 'bout that. Find out white squaw she hate Strong Heart, then try to find out more. Now squaw she heap sorry she come to Holbrook." "She is sorry?" "Heap so." "Why?" "She have papoose girl with her--young squaw." "Her daughter June." "Ugh! Now she no have young squaw." "What's that? What do you mean by that. What has become of June?" "You tell," said Joe, with a strange gesture. "She gone. Old squaw tear hair, tear run from her eye, she make a loud weep. Ha! Now you hear good news, Strong Heart! Now you know your enemy have the great sorrow! That make your heart much glad!" But Frank was on his feet now, his face rather pale and a look of excitement in his eyes. "See here, Crowfoot," he said, "do you mean to tell me that June Arlington has disappeared and that her mother does not know what has become of her?" Joe nodded. "Laugh!" he said. "Laugh, Strong Heart!" But Frank did not laugh; instead, to the wonderment of the Indian, he betrayed both consternation and dismay. "Are you sure of this, Joe?" he demanded. "How long had the girl been missing when you left Holbrook?" "The sun had slept once." "By which you mean that one night had passed?" "Ugh!" "Then this is serious, indeed! Something most unfortunate has happened, or June Arlington would not be missing overnight. Boys, prepare at once to start for Holbrook! Get ready to mount and ride as fast as horseflesh can carry us; We'll start at the earliest moment possible!" Crowfoot arose, a look of wonderment in his dark eyes. He reached out and grasped Frank's arm. "What would Strong Heart do?" he asked. "I'm going to Holbrook hotfoot," was the answer. "I'm going to find out, if possible, what has happened to June Arlington, and I shall do my best to return her to her mother, if she has not already returned when I reach there." The redskin's hand dropped from Merriwell's arm and the old fellow stared at the white man in uncomprehending amazement. "Why so?" he asked. "Paleface squaw she hate you, she is your enemy. Now she have something to think a heap of, and no time to make trouble for Strong Heart. He should have a great happiness that it is so. Why does he hurry to the bad white squaw? Is it to laugh at her? Is it to see her weep and cry?" "No, Crowfoot; it is to find out, if possible, what has happened to the girl, just as I said a moment ago, and to return her to her mother." The Indian shook his head. "Waugh! No understand!" he declared. "Strong Heart him much strange." "Joe, will you go with us? You shall have a good horse. I may need your aid. Will you go?" "Joe him go. No understand; him go, all same." "Then hustle, fellows!" cried Frank. "We'll be off soon!" He rushed from the cabin. CHAPTER XXVII. ARRESTED IN HOLBROOK. Another morning was dawning when five weary horses bore five persons into the town of Holbrook. The animals had been pushed to the utmost, and the riders showed signs of deep fatigue. The dust of the desert lay white upon men and beasts. At the head of the party rode Frank Merriwell, showing of them all the least weariness, his lips pressed together with an expression of grim determination. Bart, Jack, and Ephraim were behind, with old Joe bringing up the rear. Straight to the hotel they went, where Frank learned immediately that Mrs. Arlington was still there, and he also found out that she was very ill, having been completely prostrated by the vanishing of June, who was still missing. When Frank asked to see the woman he was told that the doctor attending her had said no one was to see her without his permission. "Then I must see that doctor in a hurry," Merry declared. "Where can I find him?" He was directed and hastened to the home of the doctor, who proved to be a red-faced, pompous little fellow. "Impossible to see the lady," declared the doctor. "She has heart trouble, and it might prove fatal. I cannot permit it." "See here, doctor," said Frank, "I have ridden a right good distance to see her, having heard of the disappearance of her daughter June. I have come to see what I can do about tracing the missing girl and restoring her to her mother. To start the work right, I should have an interview with the lady." "Hum! hum!" coughed the doctor. "I don't know about it." He shook his head, but Merriwell caught his eye and continued to talk earnestly until the man gradually ceased his opposition. "I'm afraid it's not just the wisest thing," he said. "But still it is anxiety over her daughter that has brought her to this pitiful condition. If you can do anything to relieve that anxiety, it may be better than medicine. But you must take care not to excite her more than possible." This Frank readily promised, and they set out for the hotel. Having ascended to the rooms occupied by Mrs. Arlington and those she had brought with her, the doctor entered first, being admitted by the faithful colored maid. In a few moments he came out and said: "I forgot to ask your name, but Mrs. Arlington says she will see you. Come in." Frank followed the doctor into the room. Mrs. Arlington, partly dressed, was reclining on a couch, propped up amid cushions. She was very pale and showed signs of great worriment and grief. The moment her eyes rested on Frank, who came forward, hat in hand, she gave a great cry and started up. The doctor hurried to her side, cautioning her against becoming excited, but she appeared to heed him not in the least. "You?" she cried, pointing at Frank. "You have dared to come here?" Merry bowed. "I know of no reason why I should not come here," he said. "I have heard of your misfortune, and----" "Wretch!" the woman panted, glaring at him. "How dare you! I'll have you arrested at once!" Frank was surprised by this reception, but he kept his composure, although he was struck by a thought that the woman must be mad. "Why should you have me arrested?" he asked. "For defending my property? I scarcely think you will do that, madam!" "You--you scoundrel!" panted Mrs. Arlington, pointing at him. "Where is my daughter? You shall never leave this place until you restore her to me!" This did stagger Merry somewhat. "Mrs. Arlington," he said, "I have come to offer my services in searching for your daughter. If I can be of any assistance----" "You--you lured her away!" declared the shaking woman. "You were seen talking with her on the street. Is this the way you defend your property? I know your game! You mean to make me promise to drop the battle against you, on which condition you will restore June to me! I have been told that you would try that trick! But I am ready for you, and you shall be arrested immediately. You have walked into the trap!" "My dear woman," said Merry quietly, "you never were more mistaken in all your life. I know absolutely nothing of the whereabouts of your daughter; but I fancied you might be able to tell me something that would serve as a clue in the search for her." "Don't tell me that! I have sense enough to know you would not offer to help me find her!" Startled by the sound of Mrs. Arlington's excited voice, Eliot Dodge, her agent, who was in an adjoining room, now entered quickly. When he saw Merriwell he stopped short. Frank had met Dodge once in Denver, at which time the man with the blue nose had made him an offer in behalf of the mining syndicate for the San Pablo and Queen Mystery Mines, an offer that Merry had scornfully declined. Now Frank recognized the crafty fox of a lawyer at once. "So you are here, Dodge?" he said. "And I fancy you are behind some of the doings that have been going on in this region of late." Dodge puckered up his mouth and tried to look at the young man with something like contempt, although the effort was a failure. "Yes, I am here," he said, in his raspy voice; "and I fancy it is a pretty good thing for Mrs. Arlington that I am. I have been able to show her the inwardness of this last move of yours." "Then you are the one who has filled her mind with the idea that I know something of the whereabouts of Miss Arlington? Well, Dodge, I know you are not a fool, and, therefore, I must conclude at once that you have some rascally reason for giving her such an impression. Be careful, sir, that you do not make a false step! In this part of the country it is very dangerous. Down here men are sometimes lynched for rascality." "Don't you dare threaten me!" fumed Dodge, shaking his fist at Frank. "There is a warrant out for your arrest, and you'll find that the end of your career is pretty near." Frank smiled derisively. "You remind me of a snapping cur, Dodge," he observed; then he turned from the man, as if not deigning to waste further words on him. "Mrs. Arlington," he said earnestly, "I assure you on my honor that I have come to you with the most friendly intentions. I assure you that I have ridden more than one hundred miles for the purpose of offering my services in the search for your daughter. You may not believe me, but it is the simple truth. You have received me in a manner most disheartening; but I understand that your nervous condition must be the excuse. "I am not your enemy. I do not wish to fight you. I am fighting the Consolidated Mining Association of America. I would not like to think that I have a woman among my enemies, who have hired murderers and ruffians to try to seize my property! Such a thought is most distasteful to me. I have had the pleasure of meeting your daughter, and I found her a most charming girl. I was interested in her. When I learned that she had disappeared I lost not a moment in gathering a few friends and starting for this place. We have covered the ground as fast as possible, taking the heat into consideration. If any one has told you that I am even remotely connected with the disappearance of Miss June that person has lied to you and deceived you. If you will give me a little aid, I shall exert myself to the utmost to restore June to your arms. That is all I have to say." She heard him through with impatience. Frank saw before he had finished that her mind was set and that he had wasted his breath. "Like your brother," said the woman passionately, "you are a scoundrel! Like him, you assume the airs of a gentleman. I know your tricks, and I am not deceived. You have been told that there is a warrant out for your arrest. It is true--and here is the officer to serve it!" Behind Merry there was a heavy step. He turned and found himself face to face with a plain, quiet-looking man, who promptly said: "Are you Frank Merriwell?" "I am." "Then let me tell you that I am Ben File, city marshal of Holbrook, and you are my prisoner! If you try to pull a gun, I'll shoot you in your tracks!" Frank showed his nerve then. He did not even change color, although the arrest had fallen upon him so suddenly. "Your words are plain enough, sir," he said. "There is no reason why I should provoke you into shooting me, as I have nothing to fear from arrest." "I have been led to understand that you are a very dangerous character," said File, looking Merry over in some surprise. "You do not seem so at first glance." Frank smiled a bit. "I assure you I am not in the least dangerous," he said. "I surrender without the least resistance." Eliot Dodge stood in the background, rubbing his hands together and grinning. "Mr. Dodge," said the city marshal, "will you be good enough to relieve this young man of his weapons." "Eh?" said Dodge nervously. "I--I--yes, sir." He came forward and took Frank's revolvers, handling them gingerly, as if fearing they would explode in his hands. He passed them over to File, who afterward searched Merry himself. In spite of Frank's coolness, he was indignant over the outrage. Mrs. Arlington astonished the doctor by seeming stronger and better than she had been since it was known that June had disappeared. "Now I have you!" she said exultantly. "If you do not tell me at once where my daughter may be found it will go still harder with you." Merry gave her a look of pity. "Madam," he said, "I fear that you are not in your right senses. Your action in coming to this part of the country and bringing your daughter here, where you have had dealings with ruffians, confirms me in this belief. I cannot believe you would do such things if perfectly sane." "You insult me!" she exclaimed, tossing her head. "But you shall pay dearly for your insults! The law will punish you!" "And are you to stand clear of the law--you, who have incited ruffians to attack me and my property? I am well aware that law and justice may frequently be two different things; but I fancy it will be to your discomfort to have the whole truth come out. I know a ruffian called Cimarron Bill fired at me from the window of this very room. How came he here unless by your permission? And were you in partnership with a man of his character in an attempted murder?" Frank's fearless words struck home, and the woman turned pale, in spite of herself. "Oh, doctor!" she said, sinking back on the couch. The astonished physician, who had remained dumb and staring through the most of this scene, now cried to Frank: "See what you have done! See what you have done!" "She brought it on herself," retorted Merry, turning away, his heart hardened toward the woman. "I have ridden a hundred miles to do everything in my power to find her daughter and restore her to her mother, and I am--arrested!" There was deep bitterness in his tone and manner. "Mr. File," he said, "I am ready to go with you, sir." "Hold! Wait!" called Mrs. Arlington from the couch. "Tell me where you have taken my daughter!" Frank gave her a look, shook his head a bit, and again turned away. "Oh, tell me!" pleaded the wretched mother. "I can't bear this suspense! My poor June!" Then she sat bolt upright and almost screamed: "If you harm a hair of her head, I'll make you regret it until the day of your death! You'll be conpelled to tell! I'm going to see that you are sent to prison! I'll make a convict of you!" Frank did not retort. As he was walking out with File's hand on his shoulder, the woman fell on her knees and begged him to restore her daughter. "Too bad!" said Merry, when the door was closed. "I believe she really thinks I know something about the girl." File said nothing until they had descended to the street. On the steps of the hotel he paused and looked hard at Frank. "Young man," he said, "you don't act to me like a desperado. I'm mightily disappointed in you. From what I heard, I supposed you a ruffian. To tell you the truth, I'm rather inclined in your favor." "Thank you," said Frank, with a bit of bitterness. "Little good that does me, although I am grateful to know that I have not become villainous in appearance. I came here to do that woman a favor, knowing all the while that she hated me, and this is the way I have been received." "Why did you take so much pains to come?" "Because I know her daughter, a handsome, refined, noble-hearted girl. It was not for the woman's sake, but for her daughter's that I put myself to the trouble that has drawn me into this scrape, Mr. File. Tell me, what has been done to find and rescue June Arlington?" "Everything possible," said the city marshal. "But the girl seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. She vanished in the very heart of this town, too. It's a most mysterious affair. Mr. Merriwell, I regret that my duty compelled me to place you under arrest and now compels me to lock you up. I hope circumstances may give you your freedom very soon." Frank was somewhat touched by these simple words. "Go ahead," he said. "But you had better get me under lock and key before my friends find out what has happened. They might raise trouble, and I don't want to see anybody hurt over this affair." So they started down the street, walking side by side, like two friends. File did not even keep a hand on Merry. They had proceeded but a short distance when a man suddenly appeared in the open doorway of a saloon. Frank saw the pistol in the man's hand, and he recognized his mortal enemy, Cimarron Bill. As Bill appeared in that doorway, Merry knew the fellow's purpose was to make a second attempt to kill him, and Frank was unarmed and defenseless, under arrest at the time. As Bill's weapon came up Frank made a sidelong spring. He did this at the very instant, it seemed, that the revolver spoke. The fact was that he sprang a trifle before the shot was fired. His movement seemed much like that of a man death-smitten by a bullet, and Cimarron Bill dodged back at once, believing he had accomplished his dastardly purpose. Frank was not touched. But the bullet meant for him had found a human target. Ben File swayed from side to side, his legs buckling beneath him, and fell into Merriwell's arms. CHAPTER XXVIII. BILL HIKES OUT. "Got it!" whispered File huskily. "He nailed me good and plenty that time!" Without a word, fearing Cimarron Bill might discover he had shot the wrong man and seek to rectify his bad work, Frank lifted File in his muscular arms and ran into a store with him. The city marshal was stretched on a counter. "Send for a doctor!" commanded Merry. "And turn out a posse to take Cimarron Bill. He fired the shot." At the mention of Cimarron Bill, however, consternation reigned. The desperado was all too well known in Holbrook, and scarcely a man in all the place cared to face him. "No use," said File faintly. "Nobody'll dare touch Bill. He'll get out of town deliberately without being molested." "Impossible!" exclaimed Merry. "Why, you don't mean to say they will let that murderous hound escape?" "He'll escape now that I'm flat. There's not a man in Holbrook that dares face him." "You're mistaken!" said Merry. "There is one man!" "What one?" "This one!" "You?" "Yes." "Do you mean to say----" "That I dare face that man! Give me my weapons and I'll go out and get him!" Ben File looked at the boyish young man incredulously. "You don't know what you're talking about," he said, as they were trying to stop the bleeding of his wound, which was in his left side. "That man has a record. He's the deadliest ruffian in Arizona. He would kill you." "I don't believe it," said Frank. "I've seen his like before. Give me my revolvers, and I'll go take him. I'll bring him to you if you live!" File fumbled in his huge pockets and brought out Merry's long-barreled revolvers. "Go ahead if you want to," he said. "Somehow I take stock in you, though I'm afraid it's your funeral you're going to. Anyhow, if I'm booked to cash in, I don't mind giving you a show to levant. Here comes the doctor." The same red-faced little man came rushing into the store, brought there by a messenger who had gone in search of him. Frank examined his weapons, and then walked out of the store. There was considerable excitement on the street, caused by the shooting. Merry minded no one, yet kept his eyes wide open for every one. As fast as he could step he proceeded straight to the open door from which Cimarron Bill had fired the shot. He had a pistol in either hand when he stepped through that doorway. As he had expected, it was a saloon. Three persons were in the room, but Cimarron Bill was not there. "Gentlemen," said Merry, "I'll be obliged if you will tell me where I can find the white-livered cur who just shot Ben File from this doorway." They stared at him as if doubting their senses. "If it's Cimarron Bill you're looking for, young man," one of them finally said, "take my advice and don't. It's the most onhealthy occupation you can engage in, and I advise----" "Cut out the advice," said Merry sharply; "and tell me where the cowardly dog has gone." "He ambled out o' yere directly arter doin' the shootin', and we last sees him lopin' down the street that-a-way. But you wants to keep a heap long distance----" Frank waited for no more. He was satisfied that Bill had departed just as the man said, and he wheeled at once and started down the street. Merry knew full well what sort of mission he had undertaken, but he was not daunted in the least by its magnitude. Cimarron Bill was his deadly foe, but he now saw his opportunity to bring the ruffian to an accounting for his crimes, and he did not propose to let the chance slip. So he inquired as he passed down the street and found that Bill had hurried to the saloon kept by Schlitzenheimer. Again Merry had his pistols ready when he entered the saloon. Early though it was, he found four men there engaged in a game of draw poker, and one of the four was old Joe Crowfoot. Schlitzenheimer gave a shout when he saw Frank. "My gootness!" he cried. "How you vos? Vere vos dot dalking tog alretty? I vouldt like to blay dot tog anodder came beenuckle of." Frank was disappointed once more in failing to discover Cimarron Bill. He asked if the man had been there. "He vos," nodded Schlitzenheimer. "Und avay he dit his saddle take." "He took his saddle?" "Yah." "Then his saddle was here?" "It he dit keep here, vor id vos very valueless," said the Dutchman. "He vos avraid stolen id would pe. I know Pill. Ven he come und say, 'Vritz, you tookit my saddles und keepit it a vile undil vor id I call,' I say, 'Yah, you pet.' I haf nod any anxiety him to make some drouble by." "If he came for his saddle it is likely he meant to use it. Was he in a hurry?" "Der piggest hurry I ever knewn him to pe indo. Ven I invortationed him to a drink take, he said he could not sdop vor id." "He's on the run!" exclaimed Frank. "Where does he keep his horse when in town?" "Ad Dorvelt's shust down a liddle vays." Frank almost ran from the saloon and hurried down the street to Dorfelt's stable. He was stared at in the same wondering amazement when he asked for Cimarron Bill. "Mebbe you has urgent business with that gent?" said one man. "I have," answered Merry. "He shot Ben File about ten minutes ago, and I am after him." "Waal, you'll have to hustle to ketch him, an' I 'lows it's jest as well fer you. His hoss was saddled jest now, an' I opine he's well out o' town by this time." Frank listened to hear no more. On the run, he set out to find his friends. Singularly enough, not one of them knew anything of his arrest, although they had heard of the shooting. He found them in short order, and what he told them in a very few words stirred them from lassitude to the greatest excitement. "Fellows," he said, "I'm going to run Cimarron Bill down if it takes a year! I've given my word to Ben File that I would bring Bill back. I mean to make good. Are you with me in this chase?" They were with him to a man. CHAPTER XXIX. OLD JOE TAKES A DRINK. Away on the horizon, riding to the southeast, was a black speck of a horseman as Frank, Bart, Jack, and Ephraim galloped out of town on fresh mounts secured by Merry. "There he is!" cried Frank. "We mustn't lose him! We must keep him in view and run him down before nightfall. Can we do it?" "We can try!" said Bart grimly. These young fellows seemed made of iron. All their weariness had vanished, and they sat in their saddles like young Centaurs, with the exception of Gallup, who could not be graceful at anything. "This is what might well be called the strenuous life," observed Jack Ready. "It's almost too much for my delicate constitution. I fear my health will be undermined and my lovely complexion will be ruined." "He has seen us," declared Frank. "He knows we are after him! It's going to be a hard chase." "How about June Arlington?" asked Bart. "When I gave Ben File my word to bring Cimarron Bill back I was under arrest for kidnaping June Arlington. Had I not made that promise I might still be under arrest. I must keep my word to File. I hope to do something for June later." So they rode into the scorching desert, seeming to be gaining on the man ahead for a time. The sun poured down mercilessly. Alkali dust rose and filled their nostrils. Red lizards flashed before them on the ground at rare intervals. And far ahead the black speck held into the distance. "He knows where he's going, fellows," said Frank. "He's not the man to strike blindly into the desert. He'll come to water and feed before his horse gives out, and so we must find the same." But fate seemed against them. Afar on the desert a haze arose and grew and became a beautiful lake, its shores lined with waving trees. And in this mirage the fugitive was swallowed up and lost. When the lake faded and vanished the black speck could be seen nowhere on the plain. "Vanished into a gully of some sort," said Frank. "We must find just what has become of him." So they kept on; but in time they came to feel that the search was useless. Water they had brought for themselves, together with some canned food; but the only relief they could give the horses was by pouring a little water over a sponge and wiping out the dry mouths of the poor animals. They were forced to turn aside and seek some hills, where Frank felt certain there was a spring. Thus it was that nightfall found them at the spring, but Cimarron Bill was gone, none of them knew where. There was feed for the horses in the little valley, and they made the best of it. Frank was far from pleased. Everything had gone wrong since their arrival in Holbrook, and the prospect was most discouraging. "By gum! it's too bad to hev to give it up," said Ephraim. Frank shot him a look. "I have no intention of giving it up," he said. "But I confess that I made one bad mistake." "What was that?" "I left Crowfoot back there in Schlitzenheimer's saloon playing poker." "You think he'll be skinned, do you?" said Bart. "Oh, I'm not worrying about that. The old reprobate can take care of himself. I knew it would be almost impossible to drag him away from that game, and that was why I did not bother with him. Didn't want to lose the time. But that redskin can follow a trail that would bother a bloodhound. If we had taken him at the start, he'd never lost the scent." They lay on the ground and watched the heavens fill with bright stars. The heat of the day melted into coolness, and all knew it would be cold before morning. Frank had anticipated that they might have to spend the night in this manner, and blankets had been brought. They seemed alone in the wild waste, with no living thing save their horses within miles and miles. So, with no fear of attack, they wrapped their blankets about them and slept. The wind swept almost icy through the little valley before morning dawned. As the eastern sky grew pale Frank opened his eyes and sat up. A moment later a shout from his lips aroused the others. Merry was staring at a familiar figure in a dirty red blanket. In their very midst old Joe lay stretched, and apparently he had been sleeping as soundly as any of them. Nor were his slumbers broken by Merry's shout, which astounded Frank beyond measure, for never before had he known the old fellow to sleep like that. Always when he had stirred he had found the beady eyes of the redskin upon him. "Behold!" said Jack Ready. "Lo, the noble red man is again within our midst. But how came it thus?" "Waal, may I be honswizzled!" grunted Gallup. Frank flung aside his blanket. "Something is the matter with him!" he said, in a tone that indicated anxiety. "If there wasn't, he'd not sleep this way. I wonder what it is. Is he dead?" But when the red blanket was pulled down it was found that Joe lay with a quart bottle clasped to his heart in a loving embrace. The bottle was fully two-thirds empty. "That explains it!" said Merry, in deep disgust. "The old dog is drunk as a lord! That's how we happen to have the pleasure of finding him asleep. I'll give any man fifty dollars who will catch him asleep when he is perfectly sober." "What a picture he doth present!" said Ready. "Look upon it! And yet there is something in it to bring sadness to the heart. Behold how tenderly he doth hold the long-necker to his manly buzzum! 'Tis thus that many a chap hugs a destroyer to his heart." "The old sinner!" said Hodge. "I don't see how he got here without arousing any of us. There's his horse, picketed near the other animals." Frank stooped and tried to take the bottle from Joe's clasp, but the sleeping Indian held it fast. "Go heap better five dol's," he muttered in his sleep. "He's still playing poker," said Frank. He gave Crowfoot a hard shake. "Wake up, you copper-colored sot!" he cried. "Wake up and see what you've got in your hands." "Four king," mumbled Joe thickly. "Heap good!" At this the boys laughed heartily. "That's a pretty good hand!" said Frank. "It takes four aces or a straight flush to beat it." Then he wrenched the bottle away, whereupon the redskin awoke at once. "Mine! mine!" he exclaimed, sitting up. "It's poison," said Frank, and smashed the bottle. With a snarl of fury, the Indian staggered to his feet and made for Merry, drawing a wicked-looking knife. "Look out!" cried Gallup, in consternation. Frank leaped to meet old Joe, clutching his wrists and holding him helpless, while he gazed sternly into the bloodshot eyes of the drunken old man. "What's this, Crowfoot?" he demanded. "Would you strike Strong Heart with a knife? Would you destroy the brother of Indian Heart? Has the poison firewater of the white man robbed you of your senses?" "Firewater Joe's!" exclaimed the redskin. "No right to spill um! No right! No right!" "I did it for your own good, Crowfoot," said Merry quietly. "You are in bad shape now. I want you to come out of it. You may be able to help us. What you need is a good drink of water." "Ugh! Water heap good. Joe he take some." Immediately Frank released the old man's wrists, and Joe slipped his knife out of sight with something like a show of shame. In another moment Merry had his canteen, filled it at the spring, and handed it to Crowfoot, who gravely took it and began to drink. The boys stood around, and their eyes bulged as the old man held the canteen to his mouth, tipping it more and more skyward, a deep gurgling coming from his throat. He continued to drink until the canteen was quite emptied, when he lowered it with perfect gravity, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and observed: "Joe him a little dry!" "Well, I should say so!" smiled Frank. "Your interior must have been as parched as an alkali desert, Joe." "If he takes many drinks like that," said Ready, with a queer twist of his mug, "there'll be a drought in this country that will make an ordinary dry spell look like a back number." Crowfoot did not smile. Giving back the canteen, he sat down on the ground, resting his elbows on his knees and taking his head in his hands. He was the picture of misery and dejection. "Injun big fool!" he groaned. "Last night feel much good; to-day feel a lot bad. Big pain in head." "We've all been there many's the time," sang Jack Ready softly. Then the eccentric chap sat down on the ground beside the redskin, about whom he placed an arm. "Joseph," he said, "methinks I know how it is! I have felt that way heap often. Ugh! Sick all over." Joe grunted. "Nothing worth living for." Another grunt. "Much rather be dead with the beautiful daisies growing on my grave than living in such misery." Again a grunt. "Internal organs all out of gear, stomach on a strike, head bigger than a barrel. Are those the symptoms, Joseph?" "Much so," confessed old Joe. "Joseph, you have my sympathy. You've never been to college, but you have received part of a college education. I have taken my degree in that branch. I'm a P. M. of J. C.--Past Master of Jag Carriers. But I have reformed, and now 'lips that touch wine shall never touch mine.' Joseph, I would reclaim you. I would woo you tenderly from the jag path that leadeth to destruction. It is broad and inviting at first, but toward the finish it is rough, and hubbly, and painful to travel. Pause while there is yet time. My heart yearns to save you from destruction. Listen to the pearly words of wisdom, that drop from my sweet lips. Shun the jag juice and stick to the water-wagon. Heed this advice and your days shall be long ere you pass to the happy hunting-grounds." "Heap talk a lot," said Joe; "no say anything. Make Injun lot sicker!" Gallup laughed heartily, slapping his knee. "That's right, by gum!" he cried. "The wind blows ev'ry time Jack opens his maouth." "You are jealous," said Ready. "You are jealous of my wisdom and eloquence. Get thee behind me, Nose Talk! Your face is painful to look upon." "Don't you go to makin' that kind of gab!" snapped Gallup. "If yeou do, dinged if I don't jolt ye one in the slats!" "Such language! Slats! I'm shocked! Never have you heard words of slang ripple from my tuneful vocal chords. I disdain such frivolity! Slang gives me a pain! Go lay down!" "Lay!" snorted Ephraim. "I'm no hen!" "Let's have breakfast," said Hodge. "We may as well get on the move before it grows too hot." It did not take long to prepare breakfast, but old Joe seemed to grow ill at the sight of food. All he wanted was water, and he threatened to drink the weak little spring dry. After a time, he seemed more inclined to talk. "No ketch Cim'r'n Bill?" he said. "So you found out we were after him?" said Frank. "Ugh!" nodded the Indian. "Joe no big fool only when firewater is to get. He play poke', all time him keep ear open. Mebbe him learn a whole lot." "It's quite likely. If you had been with us yesterday, we might have stuck to Bill's trail. Now it is lost, and he may get away." "Crowfoot he know how find Bill." "What's that? You know how to find him?" "Ugh!" "Well, that is interesting, for I am bound to find him. I gave Ben File my word to bring Bill back, and I'm going to keep that promise. If you can help----" "You bet!" grunted Joe. "How did you find out so much?" "Joe him take drink in saloon. Keep much careful not git full. Make um believe so. Go sleep. Hear men talk in whisper. Waugh! Find out a heap." "Well, you're a clever old rascal!" cried Merry; "and I'm in love with you!" "Joe him play game pritty slick," said the Indian. "Same time him get one, two, three drink. That bad. Make um want heap more. Make um take firewater when um git out town." "So you really got drunk because you were trying to do me a good turn?" said Merry. "Joe, I appreciate it! But what did you hear?" "Bill him go to Sunk Hole." "Sunk Hole?" cried Frank. "That place?" "Where's that?" asked Hodge, who was deeply interested. "Down in the White Mountain region, near the head of Coyote Creek." "Why did you exclaim, 'That place?'" "Because it is a camp made up of the worst characters to be found in the Southwest. It is a place without law and order of any sort. Murderers, gamblers, and knaves in general flee there when in danger. They are banded together to defy the law. Travelers who happen into that wretched place seldom come forth. At times the ruffians quarrel among themselves and shoot and kill with impunity. The people of the Territory have more than once asked that the place be invaded by troops and wiped off the map. It is a standing disgrace." "An' Cimarron Bill has gone there?" asked Ephraim Gallup, his eyes bulging. "So Joe says." "Waal, I ruther guess yeou'll take a couple of thinks afore ye foller him any furder." "I shall follow him into Sunk Hole if I live!" declared Merry grimly; "and I mean to bring him out of the place, dead or alive. I do not ask the rest of you to risk your lives with me. You are at liberty to turn back. Joe----" "Him stick by Strong Heart!" declared the old Indian quickly. "You bet!" "Thank you, Joe!" said Frank. "I shall need you to show me the road to the place, for I have heard Sunk Hole is not easy to find." "I hope," said Bart Hodge quietly, "that you do not fancy for a moment that I'm not going with you? I don't think you would insult me, Frank, by entertaining such a thought. I shall be with you through thick and thin." "Dear me!" said Ready. "How brave you are! Please stand in the glow of the limelight where we can admire your heroic pose! La! la! You are a sweet creature, and one to make the matinée girls rave with adoration." "Don't get so funny!" growled Hodge, who always took Ready's chaffing with poor grace. "Softly! softly!" smiled Jack, with a flirt of his hand. "Let not your angry passions rise. You can't play the bold and fearless hero any better than can your humble servant. I'm in this, and you want to watch me and note what a bold front I put on. I'll wager a lead nickle you will begin to think me utterly fearless, and all the while, beyond a doubt, I'll be shaking in my boots. Oh, I can make an excellent bluff when I have to." "Bluff heap good sometime," said Crowfoot. "Mebbe bluff take pot." "But it's a mighty poor thing if the other fellow suspects and calls," said Jack. "Waal," drawled Gallup, "darn my punkins! I s'pose I'm in fer it, but I kinder wisht I was to hum on the farm." Frank knew the Vermonter well enough not to fancy by those words that Ephraim was badly frightened. It was Gallup's way of expressing himself, and, even though he might be afraid in advance, the tall, lank fellow always showed up well "in a pinch." "Then it's settled," said Merry. "We all go." "Joe him not talk all he find out," put in the Indian. "Is there more? Well, give it to us quick. There are many miles of alkali between here and Sunk Hole." "Joe him hear men whisper 'bout gal." "Eh? About a girl?" "Ugh!" "Then it must be about June Arlington? What did they say?" "Mebbe Bill him know where she is." "What?" cried Merry, clutching the redskin by the arm. "Is that possible?" "Reckon um heap so." "Then there is a double reason why I should get my hands on Cimarron Bill!" "Mebbe Joe he no hear right; no could ketch all men whisper. He think gal she be took to Sunk Hole." Frank reeled, his face going white. "Merciful Heaven!" he gasped. "June Arlington, innocent little June! in that dreadful place? Come, fellows, we must go! June Arlington there? The thought is horrifying! If that is true, Cimarron Bill may go free until I can do my best to get June out of that sink of wickedness! Come, fellows--come!" "We are ready!" they cried, in response. CHAPTER XXX. FRANK IN SUNK HOLE. The Great Dipper indicated by its position that the hour was not far from midnight. Crowfoot halted and pointed downward, where, in the gloom of a round valley, a few lights twinkled. "Sunk Hole!" he said. "At last!" breathed Frank. The others stood in silence, looking down at those lights. Suddenly they started, for to their ears came the sound of music, dimly heard because of the distance. "Perchance my ears deceive me," said Ready; "but I fancy I hear the soothing strains of a fiddle." "Sure as fate!" exclaimed Bart Hodge. "Listen!" cautioned Merry. There were other sounds, a sing-song cry at intervals, and then hoarse laughter and several wild whoops. "By gum!" exclaimed Gallup. "Saounds jest like one of them air country dances they uster hev over to Billing's Corners, Varmount. The boys called them 'hog wrastles.'" "See," said Merry, "there is one place that seems more brightly lighted than the others. It's right in the center of the other lights. Fellows, I believe there is a dance going on down there!" "Just what I'm beginning to think," said Bart. "My! my! How nice!" exclaimed Jack. "Let's go right down and get into it! Balance your partners all! All hands around! Let her sizzle!" "That would be a splendid place for you to get into a dance!" said Frank sarcastically. "But a dance there!" exclaimed Hodge. "It does seem mighty strange," agreed Frank. "Still something of the kind is going on. Hear 'em yell!" And now they could faintly hear the sound of feet keeping time to the music. "We've struck this place in a most excellent time to get into it," said Merry. "I suppose one of us ought to go back and watch the horses." The horses had been left in a little pocket some distance behind and they had climbed on foot to the point where they could look down into the round valley. "No need watch um now," said Joe. "Um hosses all picket fast. We go down there, better go quick." "Correct," agreed Frank. "Just show us how to get down." "Follow," said the redskin. "Take heap care." The path over which he led them, if path it may be called, was precarious enough. At times they felt that they were on the edge of some precipice, with a great fall lying beneath. But the aged redskin went forward with surprising swiftness, causing them all to strain every nerve to keep up with him, and in time he brought them down into the valley. "Take lot care," cautioned Crowfoot. "Have guns reddy. No can tell. May have to use um 'fore git out." "It's quite likely," said Merry grimly. So they all made sure that their pistols could be drawn quickly and readily, and then they crept toward the dark huts, from the windows of which lights gleamed. The sounds of fiddling and dancing grew plainer and plainer. Now and then a shout would awake the echoes. "Where do they find their 'ladies' for a dance?" asked Hodge wonderingly. "Oh, there are a few women in this hole," answered Merry. "Perhaps others have come in." They reached the first hut and paused where they could peer along the street, if such it could be called, for the huts had been built here and there, so that the road between them zig-zagged like a drunken man. In the very center of the place was the building, somewhat larger than its neighbors, from which came the sounds of revelry. Doors and windows were wide open. The music having stopped, there might be heard a hum of voices, and then the wild, reckless laugh of a woman floated out upon the night air. Frank shuddered a little as he heard the sound, which, to his ears, was more pitiful and appalling than any cry of distress that could fall from female lips. "Poor creature!" he thought. "To what depths has she fallen!" They went forward again, slipping around a corner, and Merry stumbled and fell over the body of a man that was lying prone on the ground. "Hold on!" he whispered. "Let's see what we have here. It's a man, but I wonder if he is living or dead." He knelt and felt for the man's heart. "Living all right," he declared; "but dead in one sense--dead drunk! Whew! what a vile smell of liquor!" "Let him lie," said Hodge. "I have a fancy to take a peep at him," said Frank. "Hold still. I want a match. I have one." Bringing out a match, he struck it and shaded it with his hands, throwing the light on the prostrate man. The light of the match showed them that the fellow was an unusually large Mexican, dressed after the custom of his people in somewhat soiled finery. "Dead to the world!" sighed Jack Ready softly. The match died out in Frank's fingers, but Merry did not rise. "What are you doing?" asked Jack. "Are you accumulating his valuables?" "Hardly," said Merry. "I'm thinking." "Can such a thing make you think! What is passing in your massive brain?" "I have an idea." "That's more than Ready ever hed," muttered Gallup. "Fellows," said Frank, "this man's clothes ought to be a fairly good fit for me." "Well, what of it?" "I'm going to wear them. Get hold here, and we'll carry him aside where there'll be little chance that any one will stumble upon us. Let's move lively." They did as directed, although wondering why Frank should wish to exchange clothes with the drunken Mexican. CHAPTER XXXI. THE DANCE IN SUNK HOLE. A low-ceiled room with a bar at the end near the door. The odor of smoke, liquor, and perspiration. The place lighted with oil-lamps having dirty chimneys. The lights of the lamps dancing and flaring to the stamp of many heavy-shod feet. A maze of human beings whirling, shifting, prancing, and cutting figures on the floor. Rough-looking men, bearded and armed; disheveled women, their faces glowing with excitement and from the effects of drink. At the far end of the room an old man, mounted on a square box and seated on a chair, sawing away for dear life at his fiddle, while he called the figures in a sing-song tone. And this was the way the fiddler called: "First couple balance and swing, Promenade the inside ring, Promenade the outside ring, Balance and swing and cast off six, Ladies to the right and gents to the left. Swing the one you swung before, Down the center and cast off four, Swing the one that comes to you, Down the center and cast off two." The men were such as most women would avoid. With few exceptions, they had wicked faces. They had been drinking, and at intervals some elated and enthusiastic fellow would utter a blood-curdling yell. But the figures they cut were laughable at times. They "spanked 'er down" furiously. They seized their partners and swung them until often they were lifted off their feet. But those were not the sort of women to mind. Three or four of the citizens of Sunk Hole were married. Two had daughters old enough to be present at the dance. Other "ladies" had come in from the surrounding country, brought there by their partners. There were a number of Mexicans in the crowd, and three or four Mexican women. Into this smoky room came yet another Mexican, a young man, dressed in soiled finery, his wide-brimmed high-peaked hat shading his face. He had a little mustache that was pointed on the ends, and he walked with a swagger. Immediately on entering he made for the bar and called for a drink. Had any one been watching him closely that person must have noticed that he did not drink the stuff put out to him, but slyly and deftly tossed the contents of the glass into a corner under the bar. This newcomer was Frank Merriwell, who had disguised himself as well as possible and boldly walked into this den of ruffians. Having pretended to drink, Frank stood back in a retired spot and looked the dancers over. In a moment his eyes fell on Cimarron Bill, who had a Mexican girl for a partner and was enjoying himself in his own peculiar way. Frank knew it would not be safe to come face to face with Bill, although he saw at once that the desperado had been drinking heavily and could barely "navigate" through the mazes of the dance. "Gents chassé and put on style, Resash and a little more style-- Little more style, gents, little more style," sang the fiddler; and the dancers strictly obeyed the admonition by putting on all the style of which they were capable. Under different circumstances Merry would have been amused by the spectacle; and even now, for all of his peril, he was greatly interested. Cimarron Bill was not habitually a hard drinker, but on this occasion he had surprised everybody present by the amount of whisky he had imbibed. He seemed determined to get intoxicated, and it was plain that he was making a success of it. Frank did not wish to dance if he could avoid it, knowing he might be brought face to face with Bill in the course of some of the figures. All around the sides of the room men were leaning and looking on, some of them laughing and calling to various dancers. "Go it, Seven Spot!" "Spank it down, Dandy!" "Steady, Pie Face! Your left hoof belongs to the church!" "See Honeydew! He's a holy terror!" "Watch Lanky Jim cut a pigeon wing!" "Say, Big Kate can dance some! You bet your boots!" "Hi! hi! There goes Sweet William, plumb off his pins!" Now the fiddler was calling: "First lady out to the right; Swing the man that stole the sheep, Now the one that packed it home, Now the one that eat the meat, Now the one that gnawed the bones." Frank found an opportunity to slip along the wall toward the back of the room. No one seemed to pay any attention to him until he accidentally stepped on a big fellow's foot. Instantly he was given a shove, and the man growled: "What in thunder ails ye, you yaller-skinned greaser? Keep off my corns, ur I'll make hash o' you with my toad-sticker!" "Pardon, señor, pardon!" entreated Merry, in a soft voice, with an accent that seemed perfectly natural. "I deed not mean to do eet, señor." "Ef I'd 'lowed ye did I'd sure slashed ye without no talk whatever!" was the retort. Having no desire to get into trouble, Merry took great pains to avoid stepping on another foot, and he finally reached the point he sought. In the corner at the far end of the room there was not so much light. A bench ran along there, and Frank found a seat on it, where he could lean against the thin board partition, and he did not mind if some of the men stood up before him so that he was partly screened. Merry knew full well that he had done a most reckless thing in entering that place, where all around him were ruffians and murderers; but there was something about the adventure that he relished, and the danger gave it a spice that was far from disagreeable. He thanked his lucky stars that this dance had given him the opportunity to get in there without attracting any more attention. "Meet your partner and all chaw hay, You know where and I don't care, Seat your partner in the old armchair." That particular dance ended with this call from the fiddler; but there were no armchairs in which the ladies could be seated, and Merry crowded up into the corner in order to be as inconspicuous as possible and to escape being disturbed. There was a general rush for the bar, the fiddler getting down from his box and hastening across the floor, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Some of the women accompanied their partners to the bar and drank with them. Such depravity was not pleasant to witness, and Merry felt pity for the fallen creatures. Sentiment, however, he sought to put aside, thinking only of the dangerous mission that had brought him into that nest of gambolling tigers. Two men sat down near Merry. They had been dancing, and observed, with some lurid embellishments, that it was hot. Then one of them said something that interested Frank. "Bill's goin' it a whole lot stiff to-night." "That's whatever. Never saw him punish the razzle juice this way afore." "You know why, mebbe." "Waal, I opine he's some irked up over his mistake in Holbrook. First time he ever shot the wrong gent. He warn't gunnin' fer File. It was another galoot he was after." "I jedge that's the matter with him. Bandy tried to joke him some about it, an' Bandy came mighty near gettin' his." "Bandy's a dern fool! He should 'a' knowed better than to shoot off his mouth at Bill." "I say so. But Bill he's a-playin' a right steep game in that thar gal business." "Bill kin play his keerds. You let him alone." "No danger o' me chippin' in. They say the gal's folks are a heap rich." "I opine so, else Bill he'd never taken so much trouble over her." "Oh, I dunno; she's the purtiest leetle thing I ever set my blinkers on. I 'lowed mebbe Bill was lookin' some fer a wife." "Wife--northin'! He's lookin' fer the dust. Why, he sent word as how he'd skin the galoot what dared hurt her or even say somethin' impolite afore her." "Let me tell you somethin'." "Fire erway." "Han'some Charley has seen that gal, an' I 'low he's taken a likin' to her a whole lot. Bill better look sharp, ur Charley will sure get away with her." "I ain't the one to give Charley no advice, but if I were, I'd whisper fer him to think twice afore tryin' it." "Charley's some clever. Look, thar he is a-drinkin' with Bill now. Say, pard, I've got an idee that Charley's doin' his best to load Bill to-night. If that's so, he's got somethin' up his sleeve, an' we want to look right sharp fer a breeze afore this dance is over. I'm goin' to stand ready to duck instanter when the shootin' begins." Frank could peer past a man in front of him without moving and see the person referred to as Handsome Charley, who was drinking with Cimarron Bill at the bar. This man was larger than Bill and heavier. He had a flushed, reckless face that wore a smile nearly all the time. He had a dark mustache and imperial, and there was about him the atmosphere of a dashing desperado. Charley at this time seemed very friendly with Cimarron Bill, and it was plain that he was urging Bill to drink again. "All right," thought Frank; "I'll watch you both." At this moment a man appeared in the open door and looked timidly into the room. At sight of this man Frank gave a start in spite of his wonderful nerve, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he kept himself from crying forth a name. Eliot Dodge, the crafty lawyer with the blue nose, stood there in the door. No wonder Merry was astounded to see that man appear in such a place and at such a time. Dodge was rather pale, but an expression of relief flashed over his face when his eyes fell on Cimarron Bill. Then he stepped into the room. Bill seemed no less astonished, but he advanced to meet Dodge, holding out his hand, which the lawyer accepted. "However is this, Mr. Dodge?" inquired Bill. "I sure am a whole lot surprised to meet up with you here--that is, I'm surprised to have it occur so soon. Will you wash the dust out of your throat?" "Don't care if I do," said Dodge, and they crowded nearer to the bar. "Bill, I thinks mebbe you might present yer friend," chipped in Handsome Charley. "Waal, Charley," said Bill, "this yere is Mr.----" "Lewis," interposed Dodge quickly. "Mr. Lewis," said Bill queerly. "Mr. Lewis, permit me to make you acquainted with Charley Sears, generally called Handsome Charley. Will you take a little pisen with us, Charley?" Handsome Charley gave Dodge his hand, which the lawyer shook gingerly, his coolness causing the fellow to frown. They all drank, and Bill lurched, catching at the edge of the bar. "'Scuse me," he said, with unusual politeness. "Always makes me dizzy to dance. There is a right good lot of whirlin' around in it, you know." Charley smiled. "You had a fine partner that last dance, Bill; but you ought to bring out that handsome gal an' take a spin with her, man. I 'low it ain't right to keep her under kiver when every gent yere is yearnin' to set eyes on her." "They'll have to keep right on yearnin'," averred Bill, frowning. "You're gettin' a whole lot selfish," declared Charley. "Are you afeared some other gent will git her away from ye if you brings her out?" "None at all, Charley. But she ain't for this gang to hustle around any, and that's level." At this the other seemed to take offense. "I opine, Bill," he said, "that you don't set yourself up as a heap better than the rest of this gang?" The cruel face of Cimarron Bill took on an expression that was a warning. "Charley," he said, in a low, smooth voice, with one hand on the bar to steady himself, "I am willing to confess that you disturbs me some. I has my reasons for not bringin' the gal out, an' you'll sure excuse me if I don't recite them none at present. Some other time I may explain." But Charley persisted. "Some other time it will be too late," he said. "I'm certain looking to dance one set with the little beauty myself, Bill." "Sorry to disappoint you," returned Bill; "but the young lady doesn't dance none, if you want to know one good reason." "Well, at least, you can bring her forth and permit us to gaze upon her a while," suggested Charley. "Not to-night," was the firm retort. "Then it certain will seem a heap like you thought her too good for us, and the boys won't like that a great deal if I tell 'em so." Bill leaned on the bar, his back against it and his elbows resting so that his hands were close to his hips. In that manner he stood perfectly steady, and he was in a position to draw his pistols quickly. "Charley," he said, his voice like the purring of a cat, all the thickness seeming gone from his tongue, while his wicked eyes narrowed to two thin slits, "I don't think you'll go for to say anything whatever to the boys on this point. You are my friend, I opine. Am I sure right on that?" At this juncture Handsome Charley realized all at once that Bill was not yet drunk enough not to be deadly. Charley's eyes noted in a flash how the man had steadied himself and was ready for anything, and Charley decided that the time was not yet ripe for bringing on a quarrel. "Of course I'm your friend, Bill!" he said, with pretended heartiness, "and whatever you says goes with me. I was just speakin' because I has heard some of the boys growlin' over this business. That's all." Bill smiled, but his smile was anything but pleasant. "If any o' the boys growl around in your hearin' some more," he said, "refer 'em to me, please. I reckons I can certain stop their growlin' in a hurry." "All right, all right!" nodded Charley. "And you, pard," Bill went on--"you, I judge, will say to them that I know my business a-plenty, and that you backs me up. Eh?" "Sure, sure, Bill." "I thought you would," nodded the desperado with the deadly eyes. "I opined I could depend on you." "You bet! Have another drink, you and Mr. Lewis?" "Excuse us, please," urged Bill. "I hates most mortally to decline; but I has some business to transact with Mr. Lewis, an' I says business first an' pleasure arterwards. Arter we has settled the business I'll stand up here to this yere bar an' drink with you as long as the pisen lasts. Is that all satisfactory like?" This question was put in a manner that indicated beyond question that it would be best for Charley to acknowledge that it was satisfactory, and the acknowledgment was made. "Thanks," bowed Bill. "You're a sure enough gent, Charley, an' I'll shoot the galoot what says to the contrary! An' now I reckons you'll excuse us a while. Come, Mr. Lewis, thar's a small back room, an' we'll jest step in thar." Through this Dodge had stood there pale to the lips, with the exception of his blue nose, for he realized that these men were on the verge of a disagreement, and he understood that a disagreement between them meant shooting in short order. Bill, however, had won out by a display of calm assurance and nerve, which was remarkable, considering his condition. The ruffian slipped an arm through that of Dodge, and they crossed the floor and passed through a narrow door just as the fiddler resumed his seat and called for the men to select partners and form for the next dance. Frank had watched every move, realizing full well that there was a possibility of a "gun play" between those two desperadoes. He was unable to hear what passed between them, but still he fancied he knew the bulk of it, and, in spite of himself, in spite of the character of the man, he could not help admitting Cimarron Bill's masterfulness. Frank comprehended that Charley had thought at first of forcing a quarrel, but had been cowed by Bill's manner. The agitation of Eliot Dodge was also quite apparent. Merry had already marked Dodge down as a coward. When the two men passed into the back room Frank longed to follow them. He sat there, wondering what course to pursue. That June Arlington was somewhere in Sunk Hole he now felt certain. The talk of the two men who had been seated near him was assurance enough on that point. But where was she? How was he to find and rescue her? This task he now understood as the most important one before him and the one to which he was to give his attention at once, regardless of the capture of Bill, which could be accomplished later. As he sat there, thinking the affair over and seeking to decide on some course to pursue, he was surprised and pleased to distinctly hear Bill speaking in the room beyond the board partition. These boards were thin and badly matched, so that there were large cracks at intervals. One of these cracks happened to be just behind Frank's head. By shifting his position slightly, he brought his ear close to the crack. The fiddler was tuning up, and the rough men and women were laughing as they formed on the floor for the next dance. Frank was able to concentrate his mind on anything he chose, at the same time becoming quite oblivious to everything else; and now he shut out the sounds of the room in which he sat and listened with all his ability to hear what passed beyond the partition. "Sure, partner," Bill's voice was saying, "it surprises me a whole lot to see you come pokin' in here. However did you git here?" "Terry came with me all the way. You said he would bring word to you from me, but I could not wait. I wanted to have a talk with you face to face, without trusting to any middle man. I felt that I must do it, and that's what brought me here for one thing." "Waal, here you are, and now open up. I'm ready to listen to anything whatever you has to say." "In the first place," Frank distinctly heard Dodge say, "Ben File is dead." "Say you so?" exclaimed Bill, and his voice indicated regret. "I allow I'm a-plenty sorry." "It was bad work." "That's right. Don't know how I happened to do anything like that. Never did afore. I saw Merriwell make a jump, and I thought from the way he done it the bullet sure had gone clean through him." "And you never touched him!" "Don't rub it in harder than you kin help, Mr. Dodge!" "Hush! Don't speak that name here! It must not get out that I'm in this game! It would ruin me!" "That's all right, pard; no danger. Hear the racket out yonder in that room. Nobody would ever think o' tryin' to hear what we're sayin'." "Still it will be better to keep on calling me Lewis. It's a dangerous game we've tackled, and I want to get it through in a hurry now. That's why I'm here." "Waal, whatever do you say is the next move?" "Merriwell got out of Holbrook right after you." "I knows it. The gent sure chases me a distance, but he gits lost, together with his pards, some time afore night." "Well, now is the time to make the demand on Mrs. Arlington for the ransom money. It must be rushed along. She's in a state of mind so that she'll be sure to give up easy now. I've waited for this, and I find she will pay well to have June returned to her unharmed." "That's a heap soothin' and agreeable news. I has waited fer you to say when it was best to make the demand on the old lady." "And I've waited until I felt sure she was so distressed and agitated that she would yield. She did not wish her husband to know of her presence here, and so she sent no word to him at first. Now she has wired him the whole facts, and we can reckon that he'll be coming this way as fast as steam can carry him. It's best to get the whole deal through, if possible, before he shows up." "I'm for it." "You must write a demand on the woman for the boodle. She has diamonds and jewels with her on which she can raise ten thousand dollars. Make her raise it at once. Don't let her delay. Frighten her into it." "I opines I can do that. I'll give her a scorcher. I'll tell her the gal is all safe an' onharmed, but she has to plunk down instanter or I'll send her one o' Miss June's fingers to hurry her up a leetle." "That will go. I think that ought to start her." "If you says so, I'll make it stiffer. What if I adds that one o' the gal's prittey hands will foller? or an ear--mebbe that's better?" "As you choose. Say that the money is to be placed in my hands to be delivered to your agent, who will meet me on the open plain ten miles from Holbrook in whatever direction you choose. Then I can ride out with it and come back, and you can bring the girl into town under cover of night." "I reckon that ought to work, partner. This yere game is your plannin', an' I falls inter it because I reckons it was easier than gittin' ahead o' Merriwell an' seizin' the mine. Had I shot up Merriwell, instead o' File, I'd 'a' called on the lady hard fer the price, which, together with the money I'll get out o' this strike, would have made me easy for a right good while." "I'm against your idea of trying to saddle the kidnaping onto Merriwell." "Why?" "I don't think it will go. Merriwell might return to Holbrook. If the demand for money had his name attached, his arrest would seem to put him where it would be necessary for him to produce the girl. Mrs. Arlington was for forcing him to do so when File took him. Anything like that would cause delay, and delay is something we do not want." "Mr.--ah--Mr. Lewis, you sure reasons correct. We'll jest hitch a made-up name to the demand for money, which will be a whole lot better." "I think so. And now let's write this demand, so that I may turn about and get out of this hole immediately. You must furnish me with a fresh horse. I'm supposed now to be searching for Merriwell, several men in town having set out upon the same task, for Mrs. Arlington offered a reward for his recapture. I will be able to make a very satisfactory explanation of my absence from Holbrook." CHAPTER XXXII. DEAD OR LIVING. Frank's feelings on listening to this talk, the greater part of which he was able to hear very well, may be imagined far more easily than described. At last he was in full possession of the facts relating to the abduction of June Arlington, and a greater piece of villainy had never come to his knowledge. From the first he had regarded Eliot Dodge as a scoundrel of the worst type; but he had not gaged the man as one who would enter into such a desperate scheme as this. Merry had also learned that Ben File was dead, and, therefore, he was released from his promise to bring back Cimarron Bill. Immediately his one thought turned to June and to the devising of some method of discovering her whereabouts and going to her rescue. Later he could think of other things; but not until this great object had been accomplished. The voices of the men ran on in the little room, though words grew fewer, and Merry knew the demand for the ransom money was being written. For a moment he thought of the satisfaction it would give him to expose the rascally lawyer and bring him to the end of his tether. Then he saw Handsome Charley speaking quietly in the ear of a man, afterward passing on to another and yet another. There was something in Charley's manner that seemed very significant. "There's trouble brewing for Bill," Frank decided. "It's coming as sure as fate." He felt for his own weapons, making sure they were where he could draw them and use them without delay; but Frank did not propose to become involved in the affair unless circumstances made it impossible to keep out. Again he listened at the crack in the partition, hoping that some word passed between Dodge and Bill would tell him where June was hidden. In this Merry was disappointed. True, Dodge asked about the girl and Bill assured him that she was perfectly safe and unharmed, but that was all. The dance was over and another was in progress when Bill and Eliot Dodge came from that back room. Handsome Charley and his satellites were watching these two men. But they were permitted to pass to the door, where Bill shook hands with Dodge, who hurried forth into the night. "How is that, Bill?" demanded Charley, hastily approaching. "I opine you agreed that you an' your friend would sure drink with me arter your business was over. I notices that he has hiked." Bill turned. "Count me in, Charley," he said easily. "Mr.--ah--Lewis, he didn't hev time. My neck is again a whole lot dry, and I'll be pleased to irrigate with you." So they stood up to the bar, and Frank saw a number of men drawing near from different directions, all coming forward quietly. Charley openly expressed his disapproval of the conduct of Eliot Dodge. "He certain was most onmannerly, Bill," he declared. "Forget it," advised Bill curtly. And this was not at all agreeable to the other. "Mebbe I can't do that none," said Charley; "but I'll tell ye, Bill, what will help a whole lot." "Go ahead," said Bill. "You has right up-stairs in this same ranch a young lady what is handsome enough to make any gent fergit a wrong, an' her I most mightily wants to bring down yere." Frank heard the words distinctly, and they gave him a start. Handsome Charley was speaking of June Arlington; there could be no doubt of that. He said June was "up-stairs in that same ranch." At last Frank had received the clue he was seeking. More than Merry saw trouble was brewing between Charley and Bill, and now the attention of almost every person in the room was directed toward them. Bill's face grew grim, and again his eyes narrowed and glittered. "See yere," he said harshly, "I allows we has settled the p'int in regard to her, an' so you lets it drop, Charley." Frank knew that pistols would be out in a few seconds more. He did not wait for the men to draw and begin to shoot. There was no flight of stairs in the room where the dance was taking place, and, therefore, he immediately decided that the stairs might be found in the back room, where the interview between Bill and Eliot Dodge had taken place. The door leading into that room was closed, but Frank slipped quickly to it, and it readily opened before his hand. He found himself in a bare room, having but little furniture, a table, a bed, some chairs, and, as Frank had believed likely, a steep flight of stairs ran railless up one side of the room, disappearing at a dark landing above. In a twinkling Merry was bounding lightly up those stairs, the sounds of loud and angry voices coming from the dance-room, where the music and dancing had now stopped. Frank knew that whatever he did must be done in a hurry, for, allowing that in the trouble in the dance-room, Handsome Charley should come forth triumphant it was likely that June would be sought by some of those ruffians. The thought of this spurred Merry on. He pictured to himself the terror of the poor girl seized by those men and dragged into the presence of the mob below. "They shall not touch her!" he muttered. "If I can reach her, they shall not touch her!" Then he found himself, in the gloom of the landing, against a heavy door. He sought to open it, but it was locked. From below came the sound of a shot. Then there were shouts and other shots. "The devils have broken loose!" exclaimed Merry, and he wondered how it fared with Bill. In vain he felt for the fastenings of the door. His heart smote him with the fear that it would withstand any attack he might direct upon it. Then he found a match and struck it. The light showed him something that made his heart leap with satisfaction. Across the face of the door, lying in iron slots, was an iron bar that held it fast. The match was dropped in a twinkling, and Frank's fingers lifted the bar from the slots and its socket. Then he easily opened the door. At that instant it seemed as if pandemonium broke loose below. There was a perfect fusillade of shots, hoarse shouts from men and wild shrieks from women. There was likewise a terrible crash, as if some part of the building had been ripped down. "June!" called Frank. "June! June!" The room in which he found himself was dark and silent. "June! June! I am a friend! Answer me!" Still silence. Again he brought forth and struck a match. It flared up in his fingers, and he lifted it above his head, looking all around. Stretched on the floor in a huddled heap in one corner was the body of a girl. The glance he had obtained convinced him that it was June beyond question. Frank sprang forward, again speaking her name and assuring her that he was a friend. In the darkness he found her with his hands. She did not move when he touched her, and his fingers ran to her face. It was cold as marble to the touch, and a great horror filled his soul. "Merciful God!" he groaned, starting back a little. "They have killed her. The devils!" The shock was so great that he remained quite still on his knees for a few moments. He was aroused by the sound of heavy feet upon the stairs. Frank sprang up and dashed across the room to the door. The door leading into the dance-room had been left wide open below. He saw that a number of men had entered the back room, and already two or three were on the stairs. Handsome Charley was at their head. Frank was trapped! At once he realized that Cimarron Bill was, beyond a doubt, lying in a pool of his own blood in the dance-room. At last the most desperate and dangerous man-killer of the Southwest had met his master. Merry had little time, however, to think of anything like this. His own life was in the utmost peril. He drew his revolver, and, with the utmost coolness, put a bullet through Handsome Charley's right shoulder. With a cry, the man fell back into the arms of the one directly behind him, and that fellow was upset, so that all were swept in a great crash to the foot of the stairs. "Perhaps that will hold you for a while!" muttered Frank, as he picked up the iron bar and promptly closed the door at the head of the stairs. He had seized the bar because he thought it might be a good weapon of defense in case his revolvers should be emptied and he remained in condition to fight. Now he thought of something else, and decided that the bar might do for a prop at the door. "There ought to be some other way out of this room," he muttered. "Isn't there even a window?" Again he struck a match, looking around with the aid of its light. At the end of the long room in which he found himself he fancied he must find a window. Toward this end of the room he hurried, and another match disclosed to him a window that was hidden by heavy planking. Plainly the planks had been spiked over the window after it was decided to hold June a prisoner in that room. Down dropped the match, and instantly Frank attacked the planks with the iron bar. Fortune must have favored him, for had it been light he could not have been more successful. Every stroke was effective, and he began ripping off the planks. There was wild excitement below, and Merry prayed for a little time. His heart was filled with a hope that Handsome Charley's fate would be a warning to others, so they would not be eager to rush up the stairs to the door. In just about one minute he had torn the planks from the window. Once more he heard men ascending the stairs. Instantly he dashed across the floor, finding the door in the darkness. "Halt!" he cried savagely, from behind the closed door. "Halt, or I fire!" Then he sought to prop the door with the iron bar, pressing it down in such a position that it might hold for some moments against an ordinary attack upon it. "I'll shoot the first man who tries to open this door!" he shouted. But he did not remain there to await an effort to open the door. Instead he quickly found the girl in the corner, lifted her limp body, and sought the window once more. Reaching the window, Frank promptly kicked out sash and glass with two movements of his foot. Bang! bang! bang!--sounded heavy blows on the door behind him, but the iron bar was holding well. Merry swung his leg over the window-ledge. Desperate as he was, he meant to venture a leap from the window to the ground with the girl in his arms. But just then, pausing to look down, he was amazed and delighted to see below him his four friends, who were on the point of entering the building, led by Bart Hodge. Instantly Frank hailed them. "Catch her!" he cried, swinging the girl out over the window-ledge, so that they could see her below. Immediately Bart and Ephraim extended their arms and stood ready. "Let her come!" shouted Hodge. Frank dropped the girl, and the two young men clutched at her as she fell directly into their arms. At that moment the door behind Merry flew open with a slam and the ruffians came bursting into the room. One of them held a lighted lamp. The fellow in advance saw Frank in the window and flung up his hand. There was a loud report and a burst of smoke. When the smoke cleared the window was empty, Frank having disappeared. "Nailed him!" shouted the ruffian who had fired. "Nailed him for sure!" He rushed forward to the window and looked down, expecting to discover the body of his victim stretched on the ground. But in this he was disappointed, for neither Frank nor his friends were beneath the window. Into the darkness of the crooked street some dusky figures were vanishing. Frank had leaped from the window, being untouched by the bullet that fanned his cheek in passing. He struck on his feet, but plunged forward on his hands and knees. In a moment he was jerked erect by some one who observed: "Methinks your parachute must be out of order. You descended with exceeding great violence. What think you if we make haste to depart?" "Jack!" exclaimed Frank. "The same," was the assurance, as Ready clutched his arm and started him on the run. "Dear me! I know this strenuous life will yet bring me to my death!" Ahead of them Frank saw some figures moving hastily away. "The girl----" "They've got her," assured Jack. "Old Joe is with them. We'll talk it over later." So they ran, well knowing the whole of Sunk Hole would be looking for them within thirty minutes. It did not take them long to come up with Bart, Ephraim, and old Joe. Behind them there sounded shouts and commands, and it was well the whole of Sunk Hole had been at the dance, else the place must have been aroused so that they would have run into some of its inhabitants. Here and there amid the buildings they dodged until they arrived at the edge of the collection and struck out for the side of the valley, Crowfoot leading. It was necessary to trust everything to the old Indian. Without him they could not have known with any certainty that they were taking the proper course to enable them to get out of the valley. The girl was passed from one to another as they ran. They did not waste their breath in words. The old Indian ran with an ease that was astonishing, considering his years. Looking back, they could see torches moving swiftly here and there through the town, telling that the search for them was being carried on. Soon they came to a steep gully that led upward, and the ascent was very difficult, even at first. It grew more and more difficult as they ascended, and it became necessary for them to work slowly in the darkness, the girl being passed upward from time to time, as one after another took turns at creeping ahead. Joe did not seem to have much trouble, but he did not bother with the girl. Finally he said: "Here come bad palefaces! Make some big hurry!" It was true that a party of men were running toward the gully. Their torches danced and flared, showing them with some distinctness. To the right and left in other parts of the valley were clusters of torches. "Heap try to stop us," exclaimed Crowfoot. "One way to go up there, 'nother way down there, this be 'nother way. They know all. That how um come here so fast." By the time the men with the torches reached the foot of the gully Frank and his comrades were so far above that they were not betrayed by the torchlight. But one of the ruffians bade the others listen, and at that very moment Ephraim Gallup dislodged a stone that went clattering and rattling downward with a great racket. Instantly a wild yell broke from the lips of the ruffians below. "Here they are!" they shouted. "They're up here!" Then one of them began to blaze away with his pistols, and the bullets whistled and zipped unpleasantly close to the party above. Bart Hodge stooped and found some rocks as large as ducks' eggs in the hollow of the gully. He knew it would expose their position if he should answer the fire with his revolvers, and so he simply hurled those rocks with all the accuracy and skill that had made him noted on the baseball diamond as a wonderful thrower to second base. The first rock struck a fellow on the wrist and broke it. The third hit another man on the shoulder, and not many of the six Bart threw failed to take effect. Astonishing though it seemed, this method of retorting to the shooting proved most effective, and the ruffians scattered to get out of the way, swearing horribly. The fugitives continued till the top of the gully was reached and they struck something like a natural path that soon took them where they could no longer see the valley nor hear their enemies. Knowing they would be followed still farther, they halted not for a moment until their horses were reached. Then they paused only to make ready and swing into the saddle. Even as June was passed up to Frank she sighed and seemed to come a little to herself. And as they rode into the dusk of the night she recovered consciousness, the cool breeze fanning her face. She wondered and shuddered until she heard the voice of Frank Merriwell reassuring her, and then she was certain that it was all a dream. In her prison room she had listened with shaking soul to the sounds from below, she had crept to the barred door and heard Cimarron Bill and Eliot Dodge talking below, and the horror of knowing the rascally lawyer was in the plot that had brought about her abduction and detention in that den had been a fearful shock to her. When the quarreling and the shooting began, she was filled with mortal dread. She heard some one on the stairs and fumbling at her door, and then, kneeling in a corner of the room, all the world slipped away from her, and she remembered nothing more until she awoke in the arms of her brave rescuer, Frank Merriwell. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE RETURN TO HOLBROOK. Haggard from worriment and need of sleep, her face seeming drawn and old, her eyes feeling like coals in her throbbing head, Mrs. Arlington welcomed Eliot Dodge, who came into the room, looking dejected yet seeming to appear hopeful. "June! June, my child?" cried the tortured mother. "Have you no news of her?" "Nothing but--this," said Dodge, pulling out an unsealed letter. Then he briefly told of being held up by three ruffians, who had given him the letter. Mrs. Arlington read it, and fell half-fainting on the couch, while Dodge bent over her with protestations of sympathy. "My poor girl!" gasped the miserable woman. "And she is in the power of such monsters! The ransom money must be paid! She must be saved at once!" "Is there no way to avoid paying the money?" said Dodge. "Is it not possible she may be saved in some other manner?" "I think it is," said a clear voice, as the door was thrust open and Frank Merriwell, covered from head to heel with the dust of the desert, escorted the rescued girl into the room. "Mrs. Arlington, I have brought you your daughter." With a scream of joy, Mrs. Arlington leaped up and June ran into her arms. Eliot Dodge seemed to turn green. He stood and stared at the girl in a sort of blank stupor, failing to observe that just behind Frank Merriwell, who still wore the clothes taken from the intoxicated Mexican, there was the officer newly appointed to fill the place left vacant by the death of Ben File. "June! June! June!" cried Mrs. Arlington, her face flushed with gladness. "Is it you, my poor girl! I can scarcely believe it! How does it happen? Tell me how you come to be here!" "I am here, mother, because I was rescued from those horrible ruffians by that brave gentleman whom you have so greatly wronged, Frank Merriwell. He risked his life for me. I will tell you all, but first--first I must tell you that you have trusted a snake. I mean that monster there!" She pointed her finger at Dodge, who started and looked startled, but pretended the utmost amazement. "He is the villain who planned it all!" declared June. "I know, for I heard them talk it over. But he shall not escape!" "I hardly think so," said Frank. "Officer, he is a desperate man. Be careful of him." "This is an outrage!" declared Dodge, as the new city marshal grasped him. "I'll not permit it! I----" Frank clutched him on the other side, and, a moment later, the officer had ironed his prisoner. Mrs. Arlington would have interfered, but Merry declared he had sworn out the warrant for Dodge's arrest, and she saw it was useless. "Madam," said Frank, "I will leave you alone with your daughter. When she has told you all, you will be ready, I am confident, to prosecute Eliot Dodge. I shall then withdraw my charge and permit you to have him arrested. In the meantime I bid you good day. I shall be in this hotel for the next day or so." He bowed gracefully to both Mrs. Arlington and June and left the room. * * * * * When there was plenty of time, Frank and his friends talked it over. He told them of his experience in the dance-room, and they told him how they had lingered near, ready to rush to his rescue. When they heard the sounds of the quarrel between Cimarron Bill and Handsome Charley they hurried to the door, but there they halted, for they looked in and saw nothing of Frank. Thus it was that they beheld the shooting of Bill as he tried to draw on Charley. He was shot down from behind by Charley's tools, and they fired several bullets into his body as he lay weltering on the floor. Frank shook his head as he heard this account of Bill's end. "He was a bad man, a very bad man," he said; "but somehow I'm sorry that he met his end that way. They had to shoot him from the rear. Not one of them dared pull on him face to face." Frank received a brief letter from Mrs. Arlington, thanking him for what he had done for her daughter. Not one word did she say of her own malevolence toward him, not one word of the manner in which she had wronged him. And the doctor, who brought the letter, told Merry that she was in such a precarious condition that she could not write more, nor could she be seen by any one but June. Frank smiled grimly, disdainfully, over the letter, then deliberately tore it into shreds. But he had proved his manhood, and June Arlington, for all of her mother, found time to see him a few moments before he left town. After that brief time with June he rode light-heartedly away, his friends galloping at his side and listening to the cowboy song that came from his lips. * * * * * Transcriber's note: This text file version is encoded in Latin-1 format to preserve all original accents. Because of extensive use of dialect, all apparent errors within dialogue have been assumed intentional and retained. Page 5, "Merriell's" changed to "Merriwell's" (Frank Merriwell's Rough Deal) Page 24, changed erroneous period to comma ("I have no desire or intention of irking you up, sir," he said.) Page 27, "referrring" changed to "referring" (Certain papers referring to the Queen Mystery and San Pablo Mines, which I own.) Page 93, added missing opening quote ("I think I'll finish you!") Page 213, "Cimaroon" changed to "Cimarron" (Cimarron Bill watched his tool depart, smiling darkly and muttering to himself) Page 216, removed extraneous quote after "hurriedly" ("Oh, velly good, velly good!" answered the Celestial hurriedly, backing off a little, his face yellowish white.) Page 217, "cant" changed to "can't" ("I can't beat him at his own game.") Page 300, changed single quote to double quote at end of sentence ("In the first place," Frank distinctly heard Dodge say, "Ben File is dead.") Page 318, "Merriwel" changed to "Merriwell" (He stood and stared at the girl in a sort of blank stupor, failing to observe that just behind Frank Merriwell, who still wore the clothes taken from the intoxicated Mexican, there was the officer newly appointed to fill the place left vacant by the death of Ben File.) 
39599	----	[Illustration: THE DUCK HUNT (_See page 168_)] The Little Colonel in Arizona By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON Author of "The Little Colonel Series," "Big Brother," "Ole Mammy's Torment," "Joel: A Boy of Galilee," "Asa Holmes," etc. Illustrated by ETHELDRED B. BARRY [Illustration] BOSTON * L. C. PAGE & COMPANY * PUBLISHERS _Copyright, 1904_ BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) _All rights reserved_ Published September, 1904 _Ninth Impression, March, 1908_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. MARY TELLS ALL SHE KNOWS 1 II. A ROBINSON CRUSOE OF THE DESERT 19 III. A DAY AT SCHOOL 38 IV. WARE'S WIGWAM 56 V. WHAT A LETTER BROUGHT ABOUT 78 VI. WASH-DAY AND WASHINGTON 94 VII. A SURPRISE 116 VIII. IN THE DESERT OF WAITING 137 IX. LLOYD'S DUCK HUNT 162 X. THE SCHOOL OF THE BEES 179 XI. THE NEW BOARDER AT LEE'S RANCH 193 XII. PHIL HAS A FINGER IN THE PIE 212 XIII. A CHANGE OF FORTUNE 231 XIV. THE LOST TURQUOISES 253 XV. LOST ON THE DESERT 272 XVI. BACK TO DIXIE 293 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE THE DUCK HUNT (_See page 168_) _Frontispiece_ "SHE PROCEEDED WITH A JOYFUL HEART TO PAINT THE AFRICAN LION" 51 "'WE ALLEE SAMEE LAK CHINAMEN,' HE SAID" 94 "'I THOUGHT WE'D NEVAH, NEVAH GET HEAH!'" 128 "ENJOYING EVERY MOMENT OF THE SUNNY AFTERNOON" 162 "SHE LEANED OVER TO OFFER HIM THE LITTLE BASKET" 209 "HE WAS HOLDING OUT BOTH FOREFINGERS" 244 "CLATTERING DOWN THE ROAD AS FAST AS HIS FEET COULD CARRY HIM" 279 THE LITTLE COLONEL IN ARIZONA CHAPTER I. MARY TELLS ALL SHE KNOWS "JOYCE," said Jack Ware, stopping beside his sister's seat in the long, Western-bound train, "I wish you'd go back into the observation-car, and make Mary stop talking. She's telling all she knows to a couple of strangers." "Why don't you do it?" asked Joyce, looking up from her magazine with a teasing smile. "That dignified scowl of yours ought to frighten anything into silence." "I did try it," confessed Jack. "I frowned and shook my head at her as I passed, but all the good it did was to start her to talking about _me_. 'That's my brother Jack,' I heard her say, and her voice went through the car like a fine-pointed needle. 'Isn't he big for fourteen? He's been wearing long trousers for nearly a year.' They both turned to look at me, and everybody smiled, and I was so embarrassed that I fell all over myself getting out of sight. And it was a girl she said it to," he continued, wrathfully. "A real pretty girl, about my age. The fellow with her is her brother, I reckon. They look enough alike. He's a cadet from some military school. You can tell by his uniform. They laugh at everything that Mary says, and that makes her go on all the worse. So if you don't want them to know all our family history, past, present, and to come, you'd better go back and shut up that chatterbox. You know what Mary's like when she gets started." "Yes, I know," sighed Joyce, "but I don't dare move now. Norman has just fallen asleep, and he's been so restless all day that I don't want him to waken until mamma has had her nap." She glanced down at the little six-year-old brother stretched out on the seat beside her with his head in her lap, and then across the aisle at her mother, lying with her white face hidden among the shawls and pillows. "If I send for Mary to come back here, she'll flop around until she wakes them both. Can't you get her out on to the rear platform for awhile? I should think she would enjoy riding out there on one of those little camp-stools. Slip one of those oranges into your pocket, and whisper to her to follow you out and guess what you have for her." "Well, I'll try," said Jack, dubiously, "but I'm almost sure she won't budge. It isn't every day she gets an audience like that. It flatters her to have them laugh at everything she says, and as sure as I stop and speak to her she'll say something that I don't want to hear." "Oh, never mind, then," said Joyce. "They are strangers, and probably we'll never see them again, so it won't make any difference. Sit down here and forget about them. You can have this magazine in a minute, just as soon as I finish reading this half-page." But Jack did mind. He could not forget the amused glances that the pretty girl had exchanged with her big brother, and after standing irresolutely in the aisle a moment, he strolled back to the observation-car. Slipping into a wicker chair near the door, he sat waiting for Mary to look in his direction, so that he could beckon her to come to him. Half the passengers had gone to sleep and forgotten that they were being whirled across the great American Desert as fast as the limited express-train could carry them. Some were reading, and some gazing out of the windows at the monotonous wastes of sand. The only ones who really seemed to be enjoying the journey were his small sister and her audience of two. She sat on a footstool in the aisle, just in front of them, a box of candy in her lap, and a look of supreme satisfaction on her face. Two little braids of blond hair, tied with big bows of blue ribbon, bobbed over her shoulders as she talked. Jack was too far away to hear what she said, but his scowl deepened whenever the girl exchanged amused glances with her brother. "This candy is almost as good as the fudge we used to make at home every Saturday afternoon," said Mary, putting a chocolate-covered marshmallow in her mouth, and gravely running her tongue around her lips. "But we'll never again make any more fudge in that house." "Why not, dear?" asked the girl, with encouraging interest. This child was the most diverting thing she had found on the long journey. "Oh, everything has come to an end now. Joyce says you can never go back when you've burned your bridges behind you. It was certainly burning our bridges when we sold the little brown house, for of course we could never go back with strangers living in it. It was almost like a funeral when we started to the train, and looked back for the last time. I cried, because there was the Christmas-tree standing on the porch, with the strings of popcorn and cranberries on it. We put it out for the birds, you know, when we were done with it. When I saw how lonesome it looked, standing out in the snow, and remembered that it was the last Christmas-tree we'd ever have there, and that we didn't have a home any more, why I guess _anybody_ would have cried." "Why did you sell the little home if you loved it so?" asked the girl. It was not from any desire to pry into a stranger's affairs that she asked, but merely to keep the child talking. "Oh, mamma was so ill. She had pneumonia, and there are so many blizzards in Kansas, you know, that the doctor said she'd never get rid of her cough if she stayed in Plainsville, and that maybe if we didn't go to a warm place she wouldn't live till spring. So Mr. Link bought the house the very next day, so that we could have enough money to go. He's a lawyer. It used to be Link and Ware on the office door before papa died. He's always been good to us because he was papa's partner, and he gave Jack a perfectly grand gun when he found we were coming out among the Indians. "Then the neighbours came in and helped us pack, and we left in a hurry. To-morrow we'll be to the place where we are going, and we'll begin to live in tents on New Year's Day. You'd never think this was the last day of the old year, would you, it's so warm. I 'spose we'll be mixed up all the time now about the calendar, coming to such a different climate." There was a pause while another marshmallow disappeared, then she prattled on again. "It's to Lee's Ranch we are going, out in Arizona. It's a sort of boarding-camp for sick people. Mrs. Lee keeps it. She's our minister's sister, and he wrote to her, and she's going to take us cheaper than she does most people, because there's so many of us. Joyce and Jack and Holland and Norman and mamma and me makes an even half-dozen. But we're going to keep house as soon as our things come and we can get a place, and then I'll be glad that Jack has his gun. He can't shoot very well yet, unless it's at something big like a stable door, but you always feel safer, when there's Indians around, if you've got something to bang at them." Here she lowered her voice confidentially. "Holland scared Norman and me most to death one night. We were sitting on the rug in front of the fire, before the lamp was lighted, saying what would we do s'posen an Indian should come to the camp sometime, and try to scalp us, and just when we were so scared we didn't dare look around behind us, he rolled out from under the bed where he'd been hiding, and grabbed us by the hair, with the awfullest whoop, that made us feel as if we'd been dipped in ice-water. Why, we didn't stop yelling for half an hour. Norman had the nightmare that night. We never did find out how Joyce punished Holland, but what she did to him was plenty, for he hasn't scared us since, not yet, though you never know when he's going to. "Joyce isn't afraid of anything on earth. You ought to hear about the way she played ghost once, when she was in France. And she just talked right up to the old monsieur who owned the Gate of the Giant Scissors, and told him what she thought of him." "How old is this Joyce?" asked the tall young fellow whom his sister called Phil. "She sounds interesting, don't you think, Elsie?" he said, leaning over to help himself to a handful of candy. Elsie nodded with a smile, and Mary hastened to give the desired information. "Oh, she's fifteen, going on sixteen, and she _is_ interesting. She can paint the loveliest pictures you ever saw. She was going to be an artist until all this happened, and she had to leave school. Nobody but me knows how bad it made her feel to do that. I found her crying in the stable-loft when I went up to say good-bye to the black kitten, and she made me cross my heart and body I'd never tell, so mamma thinks that she doesn't mind it at all. "Things have gone wrong at our house ever since I had the mumps," she began again, when she had slowly crunched two burnt almonds. "Holland sprained his wrist and mamma nearly died with pneumonia and Norman upset the clothes-horse on the stove and burnt up a whole week's ironing. And after that Jack had both ears frosted in a blizzard, and Bob, our darling little fox-terrier that Joyce brought from Kentucky, was poisoned." "That _was_ a list of misfortunes," exclaimed Phil, sympathetically, "enough to discourage anybody." "Oh, at our house we never get discouraged to _stay_," answered Mary. "Of course we feel that way at first, but Joyce always says 'Remember the Vicar,' and then we stiffen." "The vicar," echoed Phil, much puzzled. "Yes, the Vicar of Wakefield, you know. Don't you remember what bad luck they all had, about the green spectacles and everything, and he said, '_Let us be inflexible, and fortune will at last change in our favour!_'" "Was there ever anything funnier!" exclaimed Phil, in an aside, as this bit of wisdom was rolled out with such a dramatic toss of the head, that the big blue bows on the little blond braids bobbed wildly. "The idea of a child like that reading the 'Vicar of Wakefield.'" "Oh, I didn't read him myself," answered Mary, eager to be entirely truthful. "Joyce read it aloud to all the family last winter, and since then we've all tried to do as the Vicar did, be inflexible when troubles come. Even Norman knows that if you'll swallow your sobs and _stiffen_ when you bump your head, or anything, that it doesn't hurt half so bad as when you just let loose and howl." Jack started to his feet when he heard the laugh that followed, sure that Mary was saying something that ought to be left unsaid. He reached her just in time to hear her remark, "We're going to eat in the dining-car to-night. Our lunch has all given out, and I'm glad of it, for I never did eat in a dining-car, and I've always wanted to. We're going to have ice-cream, if it doesn't cost too much." Jack's face was crimson as he bent down and whispered in Mary's ear, and it grew several shades redder as she calmly answered aloud, "No, I don't want to go out on the platform. It's blowing so hard, I'll get my eyes full of sand." He bent again to whisper, this time savagely, and then turned back toward the other car, not waiting for her answer. But it followed him shrilly in an indignant tone: "It's no such a thing, Jack Ware! I'm not telling all I know." A few minutes later a freckle-faced boy of twelve appeared in the door, looking up and down the car with keen gray eyes. The moment his glance fell on Mary, he started down the aisle toward her with such an air of determination that she started up in dismay. "Oh, dear!" she exclaimed. "There's Holland beckoning for me. Now I've got to go." "Why should you go for him rather than Jack?" asked Phil. "He isn't nearly so big." "You don't know Holland," said Mary, taking a step forward. "He doesn't mind making a scene anywhere we happen to be. If he was told to bring me, he'd do it, if he had to drag me down the aisle by my hair. Good-bye. I've had a mighty nice time, and I'm much obliged for the candy." The Ware family were already seated in the dining-room when Phil and Elsie went in to dinner a little later. Mary, over her soup, was giving an enthusiastic account of her new acquaintances. "They're going to their grandfather's in California," she said. "It's the most beautiful place you ever heard of, with goldfish in the fountain, and Gold of Ophir roses in the garden, and Dago, their old pet monkey, is there. They had to send him away from home because he got into so much mischief. And Miss Elsie Tremont, that's her name, is all in black because her Great-Aunt Patricia is dead. Her Aunt Patricia kept house for them, but now they live at their grandfather's. Mr. Phil is only seventeen, but he's six feet tall, and looks so old that I thought maybe he was thirty." "Gracious, Mary, how did you find out so much?" asked Joyce, with a warning shake of the head at Norman, who was crumbling his bread into his soup. "Oh, I asked him if he was married, and he laughed, and said he was only seventeen, just a schoolboy, a cadet in a military academy out in California. There they are now!" she added, excitedly, as the waiter pulled out two chairs at the little table across the aisle. Both the newcomers smiled at Mary, who beamed broadly in response. Then they gave a quick side-glance at the rest of the family. "What a sweet-looking woman the little mother is," said Elsie, in a low tone, "and Joyce _is_ interesting, but I wouldn't say she is exactly pretty, would you?" "Um, I don't know," answered Phil, after another politely careless glance in her direction. "She has a face you like to keep looking at. It's so bright and pleasant, and her eyes are lovely. She'd be jolly good company, I imagine, a sort of a surprise-party, always doing and saying unusual things." In the same casual way, Joyce was taking note of them. She felt strongly drawn toward the pretty girl in black, and wished that they were going to the same place, so that she might make her acquaintance. Once when they were all laughing at something Norman said, she looked up and caught her eye, and they both smiled. Then Phil looked across with such an understanding gleam of humour in his eyes that she almost smiled at him, but checked herself, and looked down in her plate, remembering that the handsome cadet was a stranger. The train stopped at a junction just as Mary finished her ice-cream, which she had been eating as slowly as possible, in order to prolong the pleasure. Finding that there would be a wait of nearly half an hour, Joyce persuaded her mother to go back to the rear platform of the observation-car, and sit out awhile, in the fresh air. Although the sun was down, it was so warm that Mrs. Ware scarcely needed the shawl Joyce drew around her shoulders. "I can't believe that this is the last day of December," she said to Mary, as Joyce hurried into the station to make some inquiry of the ticket-agent. "The last day of the old year," she added. "These electric-lights and the band playing over there in the park, and all the passengers promenading up and down in front of the station, bareheaded, make it seem like a summer resort." Mary peered after the promenading passengers wistfully. The boys had disappeared to watch the engine take water, and there was no one for her to walk with. Just then, Phil and Elsie Tremont, sauntering along, caught sight of her wistful little face. "Don't you want to come too?" asked Elsie, pausing. "You'll sleep better for a little exercise." "Oh, yes!" was the delighted reply. "May I, mamma? It's Miss Elsie Tremont, that I told you about, that ran away with a monkey and a music-box when she was a little bit of a girl." "I'm afraid that with such an introduction you'll think I'm not a proper person to trust your daughter with, Mrs. Ware," said Elsie, laughing, "but I assure you I'll never run away again. That experience quite cured me." "Probably Mary has given you just as alarming an impression of us," answered Mrs. Ware. "She has never learned to regard any one as a stranger, and all the world is her friend to confide in." "Wouldn't you like to walk a little while, too?" asked Elsie, stirred by some faint memory of a delicate white face like this one, that years ago used to smile out at her from a hammock in the Gold of Ophir rose garden. She was only five years old the last time she saw her mother, but the dim memory was a very sweet one. "Yes, come! It will do you good," urged Phil, cordially, influenced partly by the same memory, and partly by the thought that here was a chance to make the acquaintance of Joyce as well. According to her little sister she was an unusually interesting girl, and the glimpse he had had of her himself confirmed that opinion. So it happened to Joyce's great astonishment, as she hurried back to the train, she met her mother walking slowly along beside Elsie. Phil, with Mary chattering to him like an amusing little magpie, was just behind them. Almost before she knew how it came about, she was walking with them, listening first to Elsie, then to Phil, as they told of the boarding-school she was going back to in California, and the Military Academy in which he was a cadet. They had been back home to spend the Christmas vacation with their father, whom they did not expect to see again for a long time. He was a physician, and now on his way to Berlin, where he expected to spend a year or two in scientific research. At the warning call of all aboard, they hurried back to the car just as the boys came scrambling up the steps. Acquaintances grow almost as rapidly on these long overland journeys across the continent as they do on shipboard. The girls regretted the fact that they had not found each other earlier, but Jack and Phil soon made up for lost time. Phil, who had hunted wild goats among the rocks of Catalina Island, and Jack, who expected unlimited shooting of quail and ducks at Lee's Ranch, were not long in exchanging invitations for future hunting together, if either should happen to stray into the other's vicinity. "I feel as if I had known you always," said Elsie to Joyce, as they separated, regretfully, at bedtime, wondering if they ever would meet again. "I wish you were going to the boarding-school with me." "I wish you were going to stop in Arizona," answered Joyce. "Maybe you can come out to the ranch sometime, when you are on your way back East." "I think that we ought to all sit up together to see the old year out and the new year in," protested Mary, indignant at being hurried off to bed at half-past seven. "You'll see the change all right," remarked Jack, "and you'll have a chance to make a night of it. We have to get off at Maricopa a little after midnight, and there's no telling when that train for Phoenix will come along. They say it's always behind time." Late that night, Elsie, wakened by the stopping of the train, looked at her watch. The new year had just dawned. A brakeman went through the car with a lantern. There were strange voices outside, a confusion of calls, and the curtains of her berth swayed and shook as a number of people hurried down the aisle, laden with baggage. Somebody tripped over a pair of shoes, left too far out in the aisle, and somebody muttered a complaint about always being wakened at Maricopa by people who had no more consideration for the travelling public than to make their changes in the dead of night. "Maricopa," she thought, starting up on her elbow. "That is where the Wares are to get off." Raising the window-shade, she peered out into the night. Yes, there they were, just going into the station. Jack and Holland weighted down with baggage, Joyce helping the sweet-faced little mother with one hand, and dragging the drowsy Norman after her with the other, Mary sleepily bringing up the rear with her hat tipped over one eye, and her shoe-strings tripping her at every step. "Bless her little soul, she's the funniest, fattest little chatterbox of a girl I ever saw," thought Elsie, as she watched her stumble into the station. "Good-bye, little vicar," she whispered, waving her hand. "May you always keep inflexible. I wonder if I'll ever see any of them again. I wish I were in a big family like that. They do have such good times together." As the train pulled slowly out and went thundering on into the darkness, she tried to go to sleep again, but for a long time, whenever she closed her eyes, she saw the little house in Kansas that Mary had described so vividly. There it stood, empty and deserted in the snow, with the pathetic little Christmas-tree, left for the birds. And far away, the family who loved it so dearly were facing blithely and bravely the untried New Year, in which they were to make for themselves another home, somewhere out on the lonely desert. "Oh, I do hope they'll keep 'inflexible,'" was Elsie's last waking thought. "I do hope they'll have a happy New Year." CHAPTER II. A ROBINSON CRUSOE OF THE DESERT JOYCE stood in the door of the little adobe house, and looked out across the desert with tears in her eyes. If _this_ was to be their home through all the dreary years that stretched ahead of them, it hardly seemed worth while to go on living. Jack, in the bare unfurnished room behind her, was noisily wielding a hatchet, opening the boxes and barrels of household goods which had followed them by freight. He did not know which one held his gun, but he was determined to find it before the sun went down. For nearly three weeks they had been at Lee's Ranch, half a mile farther down the road, waiting for the goods to come, and to find a place where they could set up a home of their own. Boarding for a family of six was far too expensive to be afforded long. Now the boxes had arrived, and they had found a place, the only one for rent anywhere near the ranch. Joyce felt sick at heart as she looked around her. "Here it is at last," called Jack, triumphantly, dropping the hatchet and throwing pillows and bedding out of the box in reckless haste to reach his most cherished possession, the fine hammerless shotgun which Mr. Link had given him Christmas. He had intended to carry it with him on the journey, in its carved leather case, but in the confusion of the hurried packing, some well-meaning neighbour had nailed it up in one of the boxes while he was absent, and there had been no time to rescue it. He had worried about it ever since. "Oh, you beauty!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hand along the polished stock as he drew it from the case. Sitting on the floor tailor-fashion, he began whistling cheerfully as he fitted the parts together. "Joyce," he called, peering down the barrels to see if any speck of rust had gathered in them, "do you suppose we brought any machine-oil with us? I'll uncrate the sewing-machine if you think that the can is likely to be in one of the drawers." "I don't know," answered Joyce, in such a hopeless tone that Jack lowered his gun-barrels and stared at her in astonishment. Her back was toward him, but her voice certainly sounded choked with tears. It was so unusual for Joyce to cry that he felt that something very serious must be the cause. "What's the matter, sister?" he inquired. "You aren't sick, are you?" "Yes!" she exclaimed, with a sob, turning and throwing herself down on the pile of pillows he had just unpacked. "I'm sick of everything in this awful country! I'm sick of the desert, and of seeing nothing but invalids and sand and cactus and jack-rabbits wherever I go. And I'm sick of the prospect of living in this little hole of a mud-house, and working like a squaw, and never doing anything or being anything worth while. If I thought I had to go on all my life this way, I'd want to die right now!" Jack viewed her uneasily. "Goodness, Joyce! I never knew you to go all to pieces this way before. You've always been the one to preach to us when things went wrong, that if we'd be inflexible that fortune would at last change in our favour." "Inflexible fiddlesticks!" stormed Joyce from the depths of a bolster, where she had hidden her face, "I've been holding out against fate so long that I can't do it any more, and I'm going to give up, right here and now!" "Then I don't know what will become of the rest of us," answered Jack, raising his empty gun to aim at a butcher-bird in the fig-tree outside the door. "It's you that has always kept things cheerful when we were down in the mouth." Joyce sat up and wiped her eyes. "I think that it must be that old camel-back mountain out there that makes me feel so hopeless. It is so depressing to see it kneeling there in the sand, day after day, like a poor old broken-down beast of burden, unable to move another step. It is just like us. Fate is too much for it." Jack's glance followed hers through the open door. Straight and level, the desert stretched away toward the horizon, where a circle of mountains seemed to rise abruptly from the sands, and shut them in. There was Squaw's Peak on the left, cold and steely blue, and over on the right the bare buttes, like mounds of red ore, and just in front was the mountain they must face every time they looked from the door. Some strange freak of nature had given it the form of a giant camel, five miles long. There it knelt in the sand, with patient outstretched neck, and such an appearance of hopeless resignation to its lot, that Joyce was not the only one who found it depressing. More than one invalid, sent to the surrounding ranches for the life-giving atmosphere of Arizona, had turned his back on it with a shiver of premonition, saying, "It's just like me! Broken-down, and left to die on the desert. Neither of us will ever get away." It made no difference to Jack what shape the mountains took. He could not understand Joyce's sensitiveness to her surroundings. But it made him uncomfortable to see her so despondent. He sat hugging his gun in silence a moment, not knowing how to answer her, and then began idly aiming it first in one direction, then another. Presently his glance happened to rest upon a battered book that had fallen from one of the boxes. He drew it toward him with his foot. It was open at a familiar picture, and on the opposite page was a paragraph which he had read so many times, that he could almost repeat it from memory. "Hello!" he exclaimed. "Here's an old friend who was in as bad a fix as we are, Joyce, and he lived through it." Leaning over, without picking up the book from the floor, he began reading from the page, printed in the large type of a child's picture-book: "'September 30, 1609. I, poor, miserable Robinson Crusoe, being shipwrecked during a dreadful storm in the offing, came on shore this dismal, unfortunate island, which I called the Island of Despair, all the rest of the ship's company being drowned, and myself almost dead. All the rest of the day I spent in afflicting myself at the dismal circumstances I was brought to, viz., I had neither house, clothes, weapons, nor place to fly to, and in despair of any relief saw nothing but death before me, either that I should be devoured by wild beasts, murdered by savages, or starved to death for want of food.'" A long pause followed. Then Joyce sat up, looking teased, and held out her hand for the book. "I don't mind old Crusoe's preaching me a sermon," she said, as she turned the tattered leaves. "Now he's done it, I'll quit 'afflicting myself at the dismal circumstances I was brought to.' I've wished a thousand times, when I was smaller, that I could have been in his place, and had all his interesting adventures. And to think, here we are at last, in almost as bad a plight as he was. Only we have a weapon," she added, with a mischievous glance at the gun Jack was holding. "And that means food, too," he answered, proudly, "for I expect to kill many a quail and duck with this." "Oh, we're better off than Crusoe in a thousand ways, I suppose, if we'd only stop to count our blessings," she answered, now ready to take a more cheerful view of life since she had had her little outburst of rebellion. "He didn't have a Chinaman driving by with fresh vegetables twice a week, as we will have, and we have clothes, and a house, such as it is, and a place to fly to, for Lee's Ranch will always be open to us if we need a refuge." "So we can start at the place where Crusoe was when he really began to enjoy his Island of Despair," said Jack. "Shall I go on unpacking these things? I stopped when you announced that you were going to give up and die, for I thought there wouldn't be any use trying to do anything, with you in the dumps like that." Joyce looked around the dingy room. "It's not worth while to unpack till the place has been scrubbed from top to bottom. If we're going to make a home of it, we'll have to begin right. The landlord won't do anything, and we could hardly expect him to, considering the small amount of rent we pay, but I don't see how we can live in it without fresh paper and paint." "I wish we'd find a ship cast up on the sands of the desert to-morrow," said Jack, "that would have all sorts of supplies and tools in it. The shipwrecks helped old Robinson out amazingly. I'd make a bookcase if we did, and put up shelves and all sorts of things. This would be a fine place to show what I learned in the manual training-school. We need benches and rustic seats out under those umbrella-trees." "We'll have to buy some tools," said Joyce. "Let's make out a list of things we need, and go to town early in the morning. Mrs. Lee said we could borrow Bogus and the surrey to-morrow." "All right," assented Jack, ready for anything that promised change. "And _Jack_!" she exclaimed, after a long slow survey of the room, "let's paint and paper this place ourselves! I'm sure we can do it. There's a tape measure in one of the machine drawers. Suppose you get it out and measure the room, so we'll know how much paper to buy." Joyce was her old brave, cheery self again now, giving orders like a major-general, and throwing herself into the work at hand with contagious enthusiasm. With the stub of a pencil Jack found in his pocket, she began making a memorandum on the fly-leaf of Robinson Crusoe. "Paint, turpentine, brushes, screws, nails, saw, mop, broom, scrubbing-brush, soap," she wrote rapidly. "And a hatchet," added Jack. "This one belongs to the Mexican at the ranch. And, oh, yes, an axe. He says that Holland and I can get all the wood we need right here on the desert, without its costing us a cent, if we're willing to chop it; mesquite roots, you know, and greasewood." "It's fortunate we can get something without paying for it," commented Joyce, as she added an axe to the list. Then she sat studying the possibilities of the room, while Jack knocked the crate from the machine, found the tape measure, and did a sum in arithmetic to find the amount of paper it would take to cover the walls. "I can see just how it is going to look when we are all through," she said, presently. "When this old dark woodwork is painted white, and these dismal walls are covered with fresh light paper, and there are clean, airy curtains at the windows, it won't seem like the same place. Mamma mustn't see it till it is all in order." Exhausted by the journey, Mrs. Ware had been too weak to worry over their future, or even to wonder what would become of them, and had handed over the little bank-book to Joyce. "Make it go just as far as it will, dear," she said. "You are too young to have such a load laid on your shoulders, but I see no other way now." Joyce had taken up the burden of responsibility so bravely that no one but Jack knew of her moments of discouragement, and he was forgetting her recent tears in her present enthusiasm. "Oh, I wish it was to-morrow," she exclaimed, "and we had all our supplies bought so that we could begin." "So do I," answered Jack. "But it's nearly sundown now, and the supper-bell will be ringing before we get back to the ranch, if we don't start soon." "Well, lock the doors, and we'll go," said Joyce, beginning to pin on her hat. "Oh, what's the use of being so particular! Mrs. Lee says everybody is honest out in this country. They never turn a key on the ranch, and they've never had anything taken either by Mexicans or Indians in all the years they've lived here. It isn't half as wild as I hoped it would be. I wish I could have been a pioneer, and had some of the exciting times they had." Nevertheless, Jack barred the back door and locked the front one, before following Joyce across the yard, and over the little bridge spanning the irrigating canal, into the public road. They stood there a moment, looking back at the house, just one big square adobe room, with a shed-kitchen in the rear. Around three sides of it ran a rough sort of porch or shack, built of cottonwood posts, supporting a thatch of bamboo-stalks and palm-leaves. While it would afford a fine shelter from the sun in the tropical summer awaiting them, it was a homely, primitive-looking affair, almost as rough in its appearance as if Robinson Crusoe himself had built it. "It's hopeless, isn't it!" said Joyce, with a despairing shake of the head. "No matter how homelike we may make it inside, it will always be the picture of desolation outside." "Not when the leaves come out on that row of umbrella-trees," answered Jack. "Mrs. Lee says they will be so green and bushy that they will almost hide the house, and the blossoms on them in the spring are as purple and sweet as lilacs. Then this row of fig-trees along the road, and the clump of cottonwoods back of the house, and those two big pepper-trees by the gate will make it cool and shady here, no matter how scorching hot the desert may be. We'll have to give them lots of water. Oh, that reminds me, I'll have to have a pair of rubber boots, if I am to do the irrigating. The water will be in again day after to-morrow." Joyce groaned as she opened the book she was carrying, and added boots to the long list on the fly-leaf. "What a lot it's going to take to get us started. Crusoe certainly had reason to be thankful for the shipwrecked stores he found." "But it'll cost less to get the boots than to hire a Mexican every eight days to do the irrigating," said Jack. Following the road beside the canal, they walked along in the last rays of the sunset, toward the ranch. Birds twittered now and then in the fig-trees on their right, or a string of cows went lowing homeward through the green alfalfa pastures, to the milking. The road and canal seemed to run between two worlds, for on the left it was all a dreary desert, the barren sands stretching away toward the red buttes and old Camelback Mountain, as wild and cheerless as when the Indians held possession. Some day it too would "rejoice and blossom like the rose," but not until a network of waterways dug across it brought it new life. Once as they walked along, a jack-rabbit crossed their path and went bounding away in a fright. A covey of quail rose with a loud whirr of wings from a clump of bushes beside the road, but they met no human being until Holland and Mary, just from school, came racing out from the ranch to meet them with eager questions about the new home. Chris, the Mexican, had made the round of the tents, building a little fire of mesquite wood in each tiny drum stove, for in February the air of the desert grows icy as soon as the sun disappears. Mrs. Ware was sitting in a rocking-chair between the stove and table, on which stood a lamp with a yellow shade, sending a cheerful glow all over the tent. Joyce took the remaining chair, Jack sat on the wood-box, and Mary, Norman and Holland piled upon the bed, to take part in the family conclave. The canvas curtain had been dropped over the screen-door, and the bright Indian rugs on the floor gave a touch of warmth and cosiness to the tent that made it seem wonderfully bright and homelike. "I don't see," said Mary, when she had listened to a description of the place, "how we are all going to eat and sleep and live in one room and a kitchen. It takes three tents to hold us all here, besides having the ranch dining-room to eat in. What if Eugenia Forbes should come from the Waldorf-Astoria to visit us, or the Little Colonel, or some of the other girls from Kentucky, that you knew at the house-party, Joyce? Where would they sleep?" "Yes," chimed in Holland, teasingly, "or the Queen of Sheba? Suppose _she_ should come with all her train. It's about as likely. We would have to play 'Pussy wants a corner' all night, Mary, and whoever happened to be 'it' would have to sit up until he happened to find somebody out of his corner." "Goosey!" exclaimed Mary, sticking out her tongue at him and making the worst face she could screw up. "Honestly, what would we do, Joyce?" "We're not going to try to live in just one room," explained Joyce. "The doctor said mamma ought to sleep in a tent, so we'll get a big double one like this, wainscoted up high, with floor and screen-door, just like this. Mamma and you and I can use that, and the boys will have just an ordinary camping-tent, without door or floor. They have been so wild to be pioneers that they will be glad to come as near to it as possible, and that means living without extra comforts and conveniences. In the house one corner of the room will be the library, where we'll put papa's desk, and one corner will be the sewing-room, where we'll have the machine, and one will be a cosy corner, with the big lounge and lots of pillows. If the Queen of Sheba or the Little Colonel should do such an improbable thing as to stray out here, we'll have a place for them." "There goes the supper-bell," cried Norman, scrambling down from the bed in hot haste to beat Mary to the table. Joyce waited to turn down the lamp, close the stove draughts, and bring her mother's shawl, before following them. "How bright the camp looks with a light in every tent," she said, as they stepped out under the stars. "They look like the transparencies in the torchlight processions, that we used to have back in Plainsville." Mrs. Ware's tent was in the front row, so it was only a step to the door of the dining-room in the ranch house. The long table was nearly filled when they took their seats. Gathered around it were people who had drifted there from all parts of the world in search of lost health. A Boston law-student, a Wyoming cowboy, a Canadian minister, a Scotchman from Inverness, and a jolly Irish lad from Belfast were among the number. The most interesting one to Joyce was an old Norwegian who sat opposite her, by the name of Jan Ellestad. Not old in years, for his hair was still untouched by gray, and his dark eyes flashed at times with the spirit of the old vikings, when he told the folk-lore of his fatherland. But he was old in sad experiences, and broken health, and broken hopes. The faint trace of a foreign accent that clung to his speech made everything he said seem interesting to Joyce, and after Mrs. Lee had told her something of his history, she looked upon him as a hero. This was the third winter he had come back to the ranch. He knew he could not live through another year, and he had stopped making plans for himself, but he listened with unfailing cheerfulness to other people's. Now he looked up expectantly as Joyce took her seat. "I can see by your face, Miss Joyce," he said, in his slow, hesitating way, as if groping for the right words, "that you are about to plunge this ranch into another wild excitement. What is it now, please?" "Guess!" said Joyce, glancing around the table. "Everybody can have one guess." During the three weeks that the Wares had been on the ranch they had made many friends among the boarders. Most of them could do little but sit in the sun and wait for the winter to creep by, so they welcomed anything that relieved the monotony of the long idle days. Mary's unexpected remarks gave fresh zest to the conversation. The boys, bubbling over with energy and high spirits, were a constant source of entertainment, and Joyce's enthusiasms were contagious. She was constantly coming in from the desert with some strange discovery to arouse the interest of the listless little company. Now, as her challenge passed around the table, any one hearing her laugh at the amusing replies would not have dreamed that only a few hours before she was sobbing to Jack that she was sick of seeing nothing but invalids and sand and cactus. "We haven't any name for our new home," she announced, "and I'm thinking of having a name contest. Any one can offer an unlimited number, and the best shall receive a prize." "Then I'll win," responded the Scotchman, promptly. "There's nae mair appropriate name for a wee bit lodging-place like that, than _Bide-a-wee_." "That is pretty," said Joyce, repeating it thoughtfully. "I love the old song by that name, but I'm afraid that it isn't exactly appropriate. You see, we may have to bide there for years and years instead of just a wee." "Give it a Spanish name," said the minister. "Alamo means cottonwood, and you have a group of cottonwoods there. That would be just as good as naming it The Pines, or The Oaks, or The Beeches." "No, call it something Indian," said the cowboy. "Something that means little-mud-house-in-the-desert, yet has a high-sounding swing to the syllables." "Wait till we get through fixing it," interrupted Jack. "It'll look so fine that you won't dare call it little-mud-house-in-the-desert. We're going to paint and paper it ourselves." "Not you two children," exclaimed the Norwegian, in surprise. "With our own lily fingers," answered Joyce. "Then you'll have an interested audience," he answered. "You'll find all of us who are able to walk perching in the fig-trees outside your door every morning, waiting for the performance to begin." "Whoever perches there will have to descend and help, won't they, Jack?" said Joyce, saucily. "Oh, mamma," whispered Mary, "is Mr. Ellestad really going to climb up in the fig-tree and watch them? _Please_ let me stay home from school and help. I know I can't study if I go, for I'll be thinking of all the fun I'm missing." CHAPTER III. A DAY AT SCHOOL. IT was with a most unwilling mind and an unhappy heart that Mary began her third week at school. In the first place she could not bear to tear herself away from all that was going on at the new house. She wanted to have a hand in the dear delights of home-making. She wanted to poke the camp-fire, and dabble in the paste, and watch the walls grow fresh and clean as the paper spread over the old patches. The smell of the fresh paint drew her, and gave her a feeling that there were all sorts of delightful possibilities in this region, yet unexplored. In the second place, life in the new school was a grievous burden, because the boys, seeing how easily she was teased, found their chief pleasure in annoying her. She was a trusting little soul, ready to nibble the bait that any trap offered. "Never mind! You'll get used to it after awhile," her mother said, consolingly, each evening when she came home with a list of fresh woes. "You're tired now from that long walk home. Things will seem better after supper." And Joyce would add, "Don't look so doleful, Mother Bunch; just remember the vicar, and keep inflexible. Fortune is bound to change in your favour after awhile." But the third Friday found her as unhappy as the third Monday. There were two rooms in the school building, one containing all the primary classes, the other the grammar grades, where Holland found a place. Mary had one of the back seats in the primary department, and one of the highest hooks in the cloak-room, on which to hang her belongings. But this Friday morning she did not leave her lunch-basket in either place. She and Patty Ritter, the little girl who sat across the aisle from her, had had an indignation-meeting the day before, and agreed to hide their baskets in a hedgerow, so that there could be no possibility of Wig Smith's finding them. Salt on one's jelly cake and pepper in one's apple-pie two days in succession is a little too much to be borne calmly. Wig Smith's fondness for seasoning other people's lunches was only one of his many obnoxious traits. "There," said Mary, scanning the horizon anxiously, to see that no prowling boy was in sight. "Nobody would think of looking behind that prickly cactus for a lunch-basket! We're sure of not going hungry to-day!" With their arms around each other, they strolled back to the schoolhouse, taking a roundabout way, with great cunning, to throw Wig Smith off the track, in case he should be watching. But their precautions were needless this time. Wig had set up a dentist's establishment on the steps of the stile, his stock in trade being a pocket-knife and a hat full of raw turnips. Nothing could have been friendlier than the way he greeted Mary and Patty, insisting that they each needed a set of false teeth. Half a dozen of his friends had already been fitted out, and stood around, grinning, in order to show the big white turnip teeth he had fitted over the set provided by Nature. As the teeth were cut in irregular shapes, wide square-tipped ones alternating with long pointed fangs, and the upper lip had to be drawn tightly to hold them in place, the effect was so comical that they could hardly hold the new sets in position for laughing at each other. In payment for his work, Wig accepted almost anything that his customers had to offer: marbles, when he could get them, pencils, apples, fish-hooks, even a roll of tin-foil, saved from many chewing-gum packages, which was all one girl had to trade. A search through Mary's orderly pencil-box failed to show anything that he wanted of hers, but the neatly prepared home lesson which fluttered out of her arithmetic caught his eye. He agreed to make her the teeth for a copy of six problems which he could not solve. Mary had much the hardest part of the bargain, for, sitting on the stile, she patiently copied long-division sums until the second bell rang, while he turned off the teeth with a few masterful strokes of his knife. "Let's all put them in as soon as we're done singing, and wear them till we recite spelling," he suggested. "It's mighty hard to keep from chawin' on 'em after they've been in your mouth awhile. Let's see who can keep them in longest. Every five minutes by the clock, if the teacher isn't lookin', we'll all grin at onct to show that they're still in." Needless to say, the usual Friday morning studiousness did not prevail in the primary room that morning. Too many eyes were watching the clock for the moment of display to arrive, and when it did arrive, the coughing and choking that was set up to hide the titters, plainly told the teacher that some mischief was afoot. If she could have turned in time to see the distorted faces, she must have laughed too, it was such a comical sight, but she was trying to explain to a row of stupid little mathematicians the mysteries of borrowing in subtraction, and always looked up a moment too late. Mary Ware, having written every word of her spelling lesson from memory, and compared it with her book to be sure that she knew it, now had a quarter of an hour of leisure. This she devoted to putting her desk in order. The books were dusted and piled in neat rows. Everything in her pencil-box was examined, and laid back with care, the slate-rag folded and tucked under the moist sponge. There was another box in her desk. It had bunches of violets on it and strips of lace-paper lining the sides. It smelled faintly of the violet soap it had once held. She kept several conveniences in this, pins, and an extra hair-ribbon in case of loss, a comb, and a little round mirror with a celluloid back, on which was printed the advertisement of a Plainsville druggist. As she polished the little mirror, the temptation to use it was too great to resist. Holding it under the desk, she stretched her lips back as far as possible in a grotesque grin, to show her set of turnip teeth. They looked so funny that she tried it again with variations, rolling her eyes and wrinkling her nose. So absorbed was she that she did not realize that a silence had fallen in the room, that the recitation had stopped and all eyes were turned upon her. Then her own name, spoken in a stern tone, startled her so that she bounced in her seat and dropped the mirror. "Why, _Mary Ware_! I'm _astonished_! Come here!" Blushing and embarrassed at being called into public notice, Mary stumbled up to the platform, and submitted to an examination of her mouth. Then, following orders, she went to the door, and with much sputtering spat the teeth out into the yard. "I'll see you about this after school," remarked the teacher, sternly, as she stumbled back to her seat, overcome by mortification. If the teacher had not been so busy watching Mary obey orders, she would have noticed a rapid moving of many jaws along the back row of seats, and a mighty gulping and swallowing, as the other sets of teeth disappeared down the throats of their owners. "So this has been the cause of so much disturbance this morning," she remarked, crossly. "I'm astonished that one of the quietest pupils in the school should have behaved in such a manner." Then as a precaution she added, "Is there any one else in the room who has any of these turnip teeth? Raise your hands if you have." Not a hand went up, and every face met Mary's indignant accusing gaze with such an innocent stare that she cried out: "Oh, what a story!" "Open your mouths," commanded the teacher. "Turn your pockets wrong side out." To Mary's amazement, nobody had so much as a taste of turnip to show, and she stood accused of being the only offender, the only one with judgment awaiting her after school. With her head on her desk, and her face hidden on her arms, she cried softly all through the spelling recitation. "It wasn't fair," she sobbed to herself. Patty comforted her at recess with half her stick of licorice, and several of the other girls crowded around her, begging her to come and play Bird, and not to mind what the boys said, and not to look around when Wig Smith mimicked the teacher's manner, and called after her in a tantalizing tone, "Why, Mary Ware! I'm _astonished_!" Gradually they won her away from her tears, and before recess was over she was shrieking with the gayest of them as they raced around the schoolhouse to escape the girl who, being "It," personated the "bad man." As they dropped into their seats at the close of recess, hot and panting, a boy from the grammar room came in and spoke to the teacher. It was Paul Archer, a boy from New York, whose father had recently bought a ranch near by. He held up a string of amber beads, as the teacher asked, "Does this belong to any one in this room?" They were beautiful beads. Mary caught her breath as she looked at them. "Like drops of rain strung on a sunbeam," she thought, watching them sparkle as he turned and twisted the string. Paul was a big boy, very clean and very good-looking, and as little Blanche Ellert came up to claim her necklace, blushing and shaking back her curls, he held it out with such a polite, dancing-school bow that Mary's romantic little soul was greatly impressed. She wished that the beautiful beads had been hers, and that she had lost them, and could have claimed them before the whole school, and had them surrendered to her in that princely way. She would like to lose a ring, she thought, that is, if she had one, or a locket, and have Paul find it, and give it to her before the whole school. Then she remembered that she had worn her best jacket to school that morning, and in the pocket was a handkerchief that had been hung on the Sunday-school Christmas-tree for her in Plainsville. It was a little white silk one, embroidered in the corners with sprays of forget-me-nots, blue, with tiny pink buds. What if she should lose that and Paul should find it, and hold up the pretty thing in sight of all the school for her to claim? As the morning wore on, the thought pleased her more and more. The primary grades were dismissed first at noon, so she had time to slip the handkerchief from her jacket-pocket, tiptoe guiltily into the other cloak-room, and drop it under a certain wide-brimmed felt hat, which hung on its peg with a jauntier grace than the other caps and sombreros could boast. It seemed to stare at her in surprise. Half-frightened by her own daring, she tiptoed out again, and ran after Patty, who was hunting for her outside. "There won't be any salt in our cake and pepper in our pie to-day," Patty said, confidently, as they strolled off together with their arms around each other. "Let's get our baskets, and go away off out of sight to eat our dinners. I know the nicest place down by the lateral under some cottonwood-trees. The water is running to-day." "It'll be like having a picnic beside a babbling brook," assented Mary. "I love to hear the water gurgle through the water-gate." Seated on a freshly hewn log, after a careful survey had convinced them that no lizards, Gila monsters, or horned toads lurked underneath, the little girls opened their baskets, and shook out their napkins. The next instant a wail rose from them in unison: "Ants! Nasty little black ants! They're over everything!" "Just look at my chicken sandwiches," mourned Mary, "and all that lovely gingerbread. They're walking all over it and through it and into it and around it. There isn't a spot that they haven't touched!" "And my mince turnovers," cried Patty. "I brought one for you to-day, too, and a devilled egg. But there isn't a thing in my basket that's fit to eat." "Nor mine, either," said Mary, "except the apples. We might wash them in the lateral." "And I'm nearly starved, I'm so hungry," grumbled Patty. "An apple's better than nothing, but it doesn't go very far." "It's no use to go and ask Holland for any of his lunch," said Mary. "By this time he's gobbled up even the scraps, and busted the bag. He always brings his in a paper bag, so's there'll be no basket to carry home." Cautiously leaning over the bank of the lateral, Mary began dabbling her apple back and forth in the water, and Patty, kneeling beside her, followed her example. Suddenly Patty's apple slipped out of her hand, and she clutched frantically at Mary's arm in her effort to save it, and at the same time keep her balance. Both swayed and fell sideways. Mary's arm plunged into the water, wetting her sleeve nearly to her shoulder, but, clawing at the earth and long grass with the other hand, she managed, after much scrambling, to regain her position. Patty, with a scream, rolled over into the water. The ditch was shallow, not more than waist-deep, but as she had fallen full length, she came up soaking wet. Even her hair dripped muddy little rivers down over her face. There was no more school for Patty that day. As soon as her old yellow horse could be saddled, she started off on a lope toward dry clothes and a hot dinner. Mary looked after her longingly, as she sat with her sleeve held out in the sun to dry, and slowly munched her one cold apple. She was so hungry and miserable that she wanted to cry, yet this child of nine was a philosopher in her small way. "I'm not having half as bad a time as the old vicar had," she said to herself, "so I won't be a baby. Seems to me, though, that it's about time fortune was changing in my favour. Maybe the turn will be when Paul finds my forget-me-not handkerchief." With that time in view, she carefully smoothed the wrinkles out of her sleeve as it dried, and pulled the lace edging into shape around the cuff. Then she combed the front of her hair, and retied the big bows. She was not equal to the task of braiding it herself, but a glance into the little celluloid mirror satisfied her that she looked neat enough to march up before the school when the time should come for her to claim her handkerchief. Every time the door opened before the afternoon recess she looked up expectantly, her cheeks growing red and her heart beating fast. But no Paul appeared, or anybody else who had found anything to be restored to its owner. She began to feel anxious, and to wonder if she would ever see her beloved forget-me-not handkerchief again. At recess she dodged back into the hall after every one had passed out, and stole a quick glance into the other cloak-room. The handkerchief was gone. Somebody had picked it up. Maybe the finder had been too busy to search for the owner. It would be brought in before school closed; just before dismissal probably. The prospect took part of the sting out of the recollection that she was to be kept after school that evening, for the first time in her life. During the last period in the afternoon, the A Geography class always studied its lesson for next day. Mary specially liked this study, and with her little primary geography propped up in front of her, carefully learned every word of description, both large print and small, on the page devoted to Africa. "Your hair is coming undone," whispered the girl behind her. "Let me plait it for you. I love to fool with anybody's hair." Mary nodded her consent without turning around, and sat up straight in her seat, so that Jennie could reach it with greater ease. She never took her eyes from the page. The teacher, who was putting home lessons on the board for the D Arithmetic to copy, was too busy to notice Jennie's new occupation. [Illustration: "SHE PROCEEDED WITH A JOYFUL HEART TO PAINT THE AFRICAN LION"] Mary enjoyed the soft touch of Jennie's fingers on her hair. It felt so good to have it pulled into place with smooth, deft pats here and there. After the bows were tied on, Jennie still continued to play with it, braiding the ends below the ribbon into plaits that grew thinner and thinner, until they ended in points as fine and soft as a camel's-hair paint-brush. Evidently they suggested brushes to Jennie, for presently she dived into her desk for something quite foreign to school work. It was a little palette-shaped card on which were arranged seven cakes of cheap water-colour paint. The brush attached to the palette had been lost on Christmas Day, before she had had more than one trial of her skill as an artist. The water-bottle, which held the soap-suds devoted to slate-cleaning, stood behind the pile of books in her desk. She drew that out, and, having uncorked it, carefully dipped the end of one of Mary's braids into it. Then rubbing it across the cake of red paint, she proceeded with a joyful heart to paint the African lion in her geography the most brilliant red that can be imagined. Mary, still enjoying the gentle pull, little guessed what a bloody tip swung behind her right shoulder. Then the caressing touch was transferred to the left braid, and the greenest of green Bedouins, mounted on the most purple of camels, appeared on the picture of the Sahara. The signal for dismissal, sounding from the principal's room across the hall, surprised both the girls. The time had passed so rapidly. Mary, putting her hand back to feel if her bows were properly tied, suddenly jerked her right braid forward in alarm. The end was wet, and--was it _blood_ that made it so red? With a horrified expression she clutched the other one, and finding that wet and green, turned squarely around in her seat. She was just in time to see the geography closing on the red lion and green Bedouin, and realized in a flash how Jennie had been "fooling" with her hair. Before she could sputter out her indignation, the teacher rapped sharply on the table for attention. "Will you _please_ come to order, Mary Ware?" she said, sternly. "Remember, you are to remain after the others are dismissed." To have been publicly reprimanded twice in one day, to have been kept after school, to have had one's lunch spoiled by ants, and to have been left miserably hungry all afternoon, to have had the shock of a plunge almost to the shoulder in icy water, and the discomfort of having a wet sleeve dried on one's arm, to have had one's hair used as paint-brushes, so that stains were left on the back of the new gingham dress, was too much. Mary could keep inflexible no longer. Then she remembered that no one had brought back the forget-me-not handkerchief, and with that to cap her woes, she laid her head down on the desk and sobbed while the others filed out and left her. Usually, Holland found her waiting for him by the stile when the grammar grades were dismissed, but not seeing her there, he forgot all about her, and dashed on after the boy who tagged him. Then he and George Lee hurried on home to set a new gopher-trap they had invented, without giving her a thought. The faithful Patty, who always walked with her as far as the turn, had not come back to school after her plunge into the lateral. So it came about that when Mary finally put on her hat and jacket in the empty cloak-room, the playground was deserted. As far as her tear-swollen eyes could see up and down the road, not a child was in sight. With a sob, she stood a moment on the top step of the stile, then slowly swinging her lunch-basket, in which there were no scraps as usual to appease her after-school hunger, she started on the long, two-mile walk home. It looked later than it really was, for the sun was not shining. She had gone on a long way, when a sound of hoofs far down the road made her look back. What she saw made her give another startled glance over her shoulder, and quicken her pace. Half-running, she looked back again. The sound was coming nearer. So was the rider. Another glance made her stand still, her knees shaking under her; for on the pony was an Indian, a big, stolid buck, with black hair hanging in straight locks over his shoulders. She looked wildly around. Nobody else was in sight, no house anywhere. The biggest man-eating tiger in the jungles could not have terrified her like the sight of that lone Indian. All the tales that Jack and Holland had told for their mutual frightening, all that she had read herself of tortures and cruelties came into her mind. Their name was legion, and they were startlingly fresh in her memory, for only the evening before she had finished a book called "On the Borders with Crook," and the capture of the Oatman girls had been repeated in her dreams. Sure that the Indian intended to tomahawk her the instant he reached her, she gave one stifled gasp of terror, and started down the road as fast as her fat little legs could carry her. A few rods farther on her hat flew off, but she was running for her life, and even the handsome steel buckle that had once been Cousin Kate's could not be rescued at such a risk. She felt that she was running in a treadmill. Her legs were going up and down, up and down, faster than they had ever moved before, but she seemed to be making no progress; she was unable to get past that one spot in the road. And the Indian was coming on nearer and nearer, with deadly certainty, gaining on her at every breath. She felt that she had been running for a week, that she could not possibly take another step. But with one more frantic glance backward, she gave another scream, and dashed on harder than before. CHAPTER IV. WARE'S WIGWAM PHIL TREMONT, driving out from Phoenix in a high, red-wheeled cart, paused at the cross-roads, uncertain whether to turn there or keep on to the next section-line. According to part of the directions given him, this was the turning-place. Still, he had not yet come in sight of Camelback Mountain, which was to serve as a guide-post. Not a house was near at which he might inquire, and not a living thing in sight except a jack-rabbit, which started up from the roadside, and bounded away at his approach. Then he caught sight of the little whirl of dust surrounding Mary in her terrified flight, and touched his horse with the whip. In a moment he was alongside of the breathless, bareheaded child. "Little girl," he called, "can you tell me if this is the road to Lee's ranch?" Then, as she turned a dirty, tear-stained face, he exclaimed, in amazement, "Of all people under the sun! The little vicar! Well, you _are_ a sprinter! What are you racing with?" Mary sank down on the road, so exhausted by her long run that she breathed in quick, gasping sobs. Her relief at seeing a white face instead of a red one was so great that she had no room for surprise in her little brain that the face should be Phil Tremont's, who was supposed to be far away in California. She recognized him instantly, although he no longer wore his uniform, and the broad-brimmed hat he wore suggested the cowboy of the plains rather than the cadet of the military school. "What are you racing with?" he repeated, laughingly. "That jack-rabbit that passed me down yonder?" "A--a--a _Indian_!" she managed to gasp. "He chased me--all the way--from the schoolhouse!" "An Indian!" repeated Phil, standing up in the cart to look back down the road. "Oh, it must have been that old fellow I passed half a mile back. He was an ugly-looking specimen, but he couldn't have chased you; his pony was so stiff and old it couldn't go out of a walk." "He _was_ a-chasing me!" insisted Mary, the tears beginning to roll down her face again. She looked so little and forlorn, sitting there in a heap beside the road, that Phil sprang from the cart, and picked her up in his strong arms. "There," said he, lifting her into the cart. "'Weep no more, my lady, weep no more to-day!' Fortune has at last changed in your favour. You are snatched from the bloody scalper of the plains, and shall be driven home in style by your brave rescuer, if you'll only tell me which way to go." The tear-stained little face was one broad smile as Mary leaned back in the seat. She pointed up the road to a clump of umbrella-trees. "That's where we turn," she said. "When you come to the trees you'll see there's a little house behind them. It's the White Bachelor's. We call him that because his horse and dog and cows and cats and chickens are all white. That's how I first remembered where to turn on my way home, by the place where there's so awful many white chickens. I was hoping to get to his place before I died of running, when you came along. You saved my life, didn't you? I never had my life saved before. Wasn't it strange the way you happened by at exactly the right moment? It's just as if we were in a book. I thought you were away off in California at school. How _did_ it happen anyway?" she asked, peering up at him under his broad-brimmed hat. A dull red flushed his face an instant, then he answered, lightly, "Oh, I thought I'd take a vacation. I got tired of school, and I've started out to see the world. I remembered what your brother said about the quail-shooting out here, and the ducks, so I thought I'd try it a few weeks, and then go on somewhere else. I've always wanted a taste of ranch life and camping." "I'm tired of school, too," said Mary, "specially after all the terrible unpleasant things that have happened to-day. But my family won't let me stop, not if I begged all night and all day. How did you get yours to?" "Didn't ask 'em," said Phil, grimly. "Just chucked it, and came away." "But didn't your father say anything at all? Didn't he care?" The red came up again in the boy's face. "He doesn't know anything about it--yet; he's in Europe, you know." They had reached the White Bachelor's now, and turning, took the road that ran like a narrow ribbon between the irrigated country and the desert. On one side were the wastes of sand between the red buttes and old Camelback Mountain, on the other were the green ranches with their rows of figs and willows and palms, bordering all the waterways. "Now we're just half a mile from Lee's ranch," said Mary. "We'll be there in no time." "Do you suppose they'll have room for me?" inquired Phil. "That's what I've come out for, to engage board." "Oh, I'm sure they will, anyhow, after to-morrow, for we're going to move then, and that'll leave three empty tents. We've rented a place half a mile farther up the road, and Jack and Joyce are having more fun fixing it up. That's one reason I want to stop school. I'm missing all the good times." "Hello! This seems to be quite a good-sized camp!" exclaimed Phil, as they came in sight of an adobe house, around which clustered a group of twenty or more tents, like a brood of white chickens around a motherly old brown hen. "There comes Mrs. Lee now," cried Mary, as a tall, black-haired woman came out of the house, and started across to one of the tents with a tray in her hands. Her pink dress fluttered behind her as she moved forward, with a firm, light tread, suggestive of buoyant spirits and unbounded cheerfulness. "She's doing something for somebody all the time," remarked Mary. "If you were sick she'd nurse you as if she was your mother, but as long as you're not sick, maybe she won't let you come. Oh, I never thought about that. This is a camp for invalids, you know, and she is so interested in helping sick people get well, that maybe she won't take any interest in you. Have you got a letter from anybody? Oh, I do hope you have!" "A letter," repeated Phil. "What kind?" "A letter to say that you're all right, you know, from somebody that knows you. I heard her tell Doctor Adams last week that she wouldn't take anybody else unless she had a letter of--of something or other, I can't remember, because one man went off without paying his board. _We_ had a letter from her brother." "No, I haven't any letter of recommendation or introduction, if that's what you mean," said Phil, "but maybe I can fix it up all right with her. Can't you say a good word for me?" "Of course," answered Mary, taking his question in all seriousness. "And I'll run and get mamma, too. She'll make it all right." Springing out, Phil lifted her over the wheel, and then stood flicking the dry Bermuda grass with his whip, as he waited for Mary to announce his coming. He could hear her shrill little voice in the tent, whither she had followed Mrs. Lee to tell her of his arrival. "It's the Mr. Phil Tremont we met on the train," he heard her say. "Don't you know, the one I told you about running away with his little sister and the monkey and the music-box one time. He isn't sick, but he wants to stay here awhile, and I told him you'd be good to him, anyhow." Then she hurried away to her mother's tent, and Mrs. Lee came out laughing. There was something so genial and friendly in the humourous twinkle of her eyes, something so frank and breezy in her hospitable Western welcome, that Phil met her with the same outspoken frankness. "I heard what Mary said," he began, "and I do hope you'll take me in, for I've run away again, Mrs. Lee." Then his handsome face sobered, and he said, in his straightforward, boyish way that Mrs. Lee found very attractive, "I got into a scrape at the military school. It wasn't anything wicked, but four of us were fired. The other fellows' fathers got them taken back, but mine is in Europe, and it's so unsatisfactory making explanations at that long range, and I thought they hadn't been altogether fair in the matter, so I--well, I just skipped out. Mary said I'd have to have references. I can't give you any now, but I can pay in advance for a month's board, if you'll take me that way." He pulled out such a large roll of bills as he spoke, that Mrs. Lee looked at him keenly. All sorts of people had drifted to her ranch, but never before a schoolboy of seventeen with so much money in his pocket. He caught the glance, and something in the motherly concern that seemed to cross her face made him say, hastily, "Father left an emergency fund for my sister and me when he went away, besides our monthly allowance, and I drew on mine before I came out here." While they were discussing prices, Mrs. Ware came out with a cordial greeting. Mary's excited tale of her rescue had almost led her to believe that Phil had snatched her little daughter from an Indian's tomahawk. She was heartily glad to see him, for the few hours' acquaintance on the train had given her a strong interest in the motherless boy and girl, and she had thought of them many times since then. Phil felt that in coming back to the Wares he was coming back to old friends. After it was settled that he might send his trunk out next day, when a tent would be vacant, he sat for a long time talking to Mrs. Ware and Mary, in the rustic arbour covered with bamboo and palm leaves. Chris was calling the cows to the milking when he finally rose to go, and only rapid driving would take him back to Phoenix before nightfall. As the red wheels disappeared down the road, Mary exclaimed, "This has certainly been the most exciting day of my life! It has been so full of unexpected things. Isn't it grand to think that Mr. Phil is coming to the ranch? Fortune certainly changed in my favour when he happened along just in time to save my life. Oh, dear, there come Joyce and Jack! They've just missed him!" * * * * * Saturday afternoon found the new home all ready for its occupants. Even the trunks had been brought up from the ranch and stowed away in the tents. Although it was only two o'clock, the table was already set for tea in one corner of the clean, fresh kitchen, behind a tall screen. Joyce, with her blue calico sleeves tucked up above her white elbows, whistled softly as she tied on a clean apron before beginning her baking. She had not been as happy in months. The hard week's work had turned the bare adobe house into a comfortable little home, and she could hardly wait for her mother to see it. Mrs. Lee was to bring her and Norman over in the surrey. Any moment they might come driving up the road. Jack had offered to stay if his services were needed further, but she had sent him away to take his well-earned holiday. As he tramped off with his gun over his shoulder, her voice followed him pleasantly: "Good luck to you, Jack. You deserve it, for you've stuck by me like a man this week." Since dinner Mary and Holland had swept the yard, brought wood for the camp-fire, filled the boiler and the pitchers in the tents, and then gone off, as Joyce supposed, to rest under the cottonwood-trees. Presently she heard Mary tiptoeing into the sitting-room, and peeped in to find her standing in the middle of the floor, with her hands clasped behind her. "Isn't it sweet and homey!" Mary exclaimed. "I'm so glad to see the old furniture again I could just hug it! I came in to get the book about Hiawatha, sister. Holland keeps teasing me 'cause I said I wished I was named Minnehaha, and says I am Mary-ha-ha. And I want to find a name for him, a real ugly one!" "Call him Pau-Puk-Keewis,--mischief-maker," suggested Joyce. "There's the book on the second shelf of the bookcase." She stepped into the room to slip the soft silk curtain farther down the brass rod. "I'm prouder of this bookcase than almost anything else we have," she said. "Nobody would guess that it was made of the packing-boxes that the goods came in, and that this lovely Persian silk curtain was once the lining of one of Cousin Kate's party dresses." "I'm glad that everything looks so nice," said Mary, "for Mr. Phil said he was coming up to see us this evening. I'm going to put on a clean dress and my best hair-ribbons before then." "Very well," assented Joyce, going back to the kitchen. "I'll change my dress, too," she thought, as she went on with her work. "And I'll light both lamps. The Indian rugs and blankets make the room look so bright and cosy by lamplight." It had been so long since she had seen any one but the family and the invalids at the ranch, that the thought of talking to the jolly young cadet added another pleasure to her happy day. "Oh, Joyce," called Holland, from behind the tents, "may we have the paint that is left in the cans? There's only a little in each one." "I don't care," she called back. That had been an hour ago, and now, as she broke the eggs for a cake into a big platter, and began beating them with a fork, she wondered what they were doing that kept them so quiet. As the fork clacked noisily back and forth in the dish and the white foam rose high and stiff, her whistling grew louder. It seemed to fill all the sunny afternoon silence with its trills, for Joyce's whistle was as clear and strong as any boy's or any bird's. But suddenly, as it reached its highest notes, it stopped short. Joyce looked up as a shadow fell across the floor, to see Jack coming in the back door with Phil Tremont. She had not heard the sound of their coming, for the noise of her egg-beating and her whistling. Joyce blushed to the roots of her hair, at being taken thus unawares, whistling like a boy over her cake-baking. For an instant she wanted to shake Jack for bringing this stranger to the kitchen door. "We just stopped by for a drink," Jack explained. "Tremont was coming out of the ranch with his gun when I passed with mine, so we've been hunting together. Come in, Phil, I'll get a cup." There was such a mischievous twinkle in Phil's eyes as he greeted her, that Joyce blushed again. This was a very different meeting from the one she had anticipated. Instead of him finding her, appearing to her best advantage in a pretty white dress, sitting in the lamplight with a book in her hands, perhaps, he had caught her in her old blue calico, her sleeves rolled up, and a streak of flour across her bare arm. She rubbed it hastily across her apron, and gathered up the egg-shells in embarrassed silence. "Did you tell those kids that they might paint up the premises the way they are doing?" demanded Jack. "What way?" asked Joyce, in surprise. "Haven't you seen what they've done to the front of the house? They haven't waited for your name contest, but have fixed up things to suit themselves. You just ought to come out and look!" Phil followed as they hurried around to the front of the house, then stood smiling at the look of blank amazement which slowly spread over Joyce's face. Down one of the rough cottonwood posts, which supported the palm and bamboo thatch of their Robinson Crusoe porch, was painted in big, straggling, bloody letters: "W-A-R-E-S W-I-G-W-A-M." Joyce groaned. She had made such an attempt to convert the rude shade into an attractive spot, spreading a Navajo blanket over her mother's camp-chair, and putting cushions on the rustic bench to make a restful place, where one could read or watch the shadows grow long across the desert. She had even brought out a little wicker tea-table this afternoon, with a vase of flowers on it, and leaned her mother's old guitar against it to give a final civilizing touch to the picture. But the effect was sadly marred by the freshly painted name, glaring at her from the post. "Oh, the little savages!" she exclaimed. "How could they do it? Ware's Wigwam, indeed!" Then her gaze followed Jack's finger pointing to the tents pitched under the cottonwood-trees. The one which she was to share with Mary and her mother stood white and clean, the screen-door open, showing the white beds within, the rug on the floor, the flowers on the table; but the large, circular one, which the boys were to occupy, was a sight to make any one pause, open-mouthed. Perched beside it on a scaffolding of boxes and barrels stood Holland, with a paint-can in one hand and a brush in the other, putting the finishing touches to some startling decorations. Mary, on the other side, was brandishing another brush, and both were so intent on their work that neither looked up. Joyce gave a gasp. Never had she seen such amazing hieroglyphics as those which chased each other in zigzag green lines around the fly of the tent. They bore a general resemblance to those seen on Indian baskets and blankets and pottery, but nothing so grotesque had ever flaunted across her sight before. "Now, get the book," called Holland to Mary, "and see if we've left anything out." Only Mary's back was visible to the amused spectators. She took up the copy of "Hiawatha" from the barrel where it lay, careful to keep the hem of her apron between it and her paint-bedaubed thumbs. "I think we've painted every single figure he wrote about," said Mary. "Now, I'll read, and you walk around and see if we've left anything out: "Very spacious was the wigwam With the gods of the Dacotahs Drawn and painted on the curtains." "No, skip that," ordered Holland. "It's farther down." Mary's paint-smeared fingers travelled slowly down the page, then she began again: "Sun and moon and stars he painted, Man and beast and fish and reptile. "Figures of the Bear and Reindeer, Of the Turtle, Crane, and Beaver. "Owl and Eagle, Crane and Hen-hawk, And the Cormorant, bird of magic. "Figures mystical and awful, Figures strange and brightly coloured." "They're all here," announced Holland, "specially the figures mystical and awful. I'll have to label mine, or somebody will take my turtle for a grizzly." "Oh, the little savages!" exclaimed Joyce again. "How could they make such a spectacle of the place! We'll be the laughing-stock of the whole country." "I don't suppose that'll ever come off the tent, but we can paint the name off the post," said Jack. "Oh, that's a fine name," said Phil, laughing, "leave it on. It's so much more original than most people have." Before Joyce could answer, the rattle of wheels announced the coming of the surrey, and Mrs. Lee drove into the yard with Mrs. Ware and Norman, and her own little daughter, Hazel. Then Joyce's anger, which had burned to give Holland and Mary a good shaking, vanished completely at sight of her mother's amusement. Mrs. Ware had not laughed so heartily in months as she did at the ridiculous figures grinning from the tent. It seemed so good to see her like her old cheerful self again that, when she laughingly declared that the name straggling down the post exactly suited the place, and was far more appropriate than Bide-a-wee or Alamo, Joyce's frown entirely disappeared. Mrs. Lee caught up the old guitar, and began a rattling parody of "John Brown had a little Indian," changing the words to a ridiculous rhyme about "_The_ Wares had a little Wigwam." Mrs. Ware sat down to try the new rustic seat, and then jumped up like a girl again to look at the view of the mountains from the camp-chair, and then led the way, laughing and talking, to investigate the new home. She was as pleased as a child, and her pleasure made a festive occasion of the home-coming, which Joyce had feared at first would be a sorry one. Phil shouldered his gun ready to start off again, feeling that he ought not to intrude, but Jack had worked too hard to miss the reward of hearing his mother's pleased exclamations and seeing her face light up over every little surprise they had prepared for her comfort. "Come and see, too," he urged so cordially that Phil fell into line, poking into all the corners, inspecting all the little shelves and cupboards, and admiring all the little makeshifts as heartily as Mrs. Lee or Mrs. Ware. They went through the tents first, then the kitchen, and last into the living-room, of which Joyce was justly proud. There was only the old furniture they had had in Plainsville, with the books and pictures, but it was restful and homelike and really artistic, Phil acknowledged to himself, looking around in surprise. "Here's the Little Colonel's corner," said Mary, leading him to a group of large photographs framed in passe-partout. "You know mamma used to live in Kentucky, and once Joyce went back there to a house-party. Here's the place, Locust. That's where the Little Colonel lives. Her right name is Lloyd Sherman. And there she is on her pony, Tar Baby, and there's her grandfather at the gate." Phil stooped for a closer view of the photograph, and then straightened up, with a look of dawning recognition in his face. "Why, I've seen her," he said, slowly. "I've been past that place. Once, several years ago, I was going from Cincinnati to Louisville with father, and something happened that we stopped on a switch in front of a place that looked just like that. And the brakeman said it was called Locust. I was out on the rear platform. I believe we were waiting for an express train to pass us, or something of the sort. At any rate, I saw that same old gentleman,--he had only one arm and was all dressed in white. Everybody was saying what a picture he made. The locusts were in bloom, you know. And while he stood there, the prettiest little girl came riding up on a black pony, with a magnificent St. Bernard dog following. She was all in white, too, with a spray of locust blossoms stuck in the cockade of the little black velvet Napoleon cap she wore, exactly as it is in that picture; and she held up a letter and called out: 'White pigeon wing fo' you, grandfathah deah.' I never forgot how sweet it sounded." "Oh, that was Lloyd! That was Lloyd!" called Mary and Joyce in the same breath, and Joyce added: "She always used to call out that when she had a letter for the old Colonel, and it must have been Hero that you saw, the Red Cross war-dog that was given to her in Switzerland. How strange it seems that you should come across her picture away out here in the desert!" Mary's eyes grew rounder and rounder as she listened. She delighted in romantic situations, and this seemed to her one of the most romantic she had ever known in real life, quite as interesting as anything she had ever read about. "Doesn't it seem queer to think that he's seen Lloyd and Locust?" she exclaimed. "It makes him seem almost like home folks, doesn't it, mamma?" Mrs. Ware smiled. "It certainly does, dear, and we must try to make him feel at home with us in our wild wigwam." She had seen the wistful expression of his eyes a few moments before when, catching Joyce and Jack by the arms, she had cried, proudly: "Nobody in the world has such children as mine, Mrs. Lee! Don't you think I have cause to be proud of my five little Indians, who fixed up this house so beautifully all by themselves?" "Come back and take supper with us, won't you?" she asked, as he and Jack started on their interrupted hunt. "We'll make a sort of house-warming of our first meal together in the new wigwam, and I'll be glad to count you among my little Indians." "Thank you, Mrs. Ware," he said, in his gentlemanly way and with the frank smile which she found so winning; "you don't know how much that means to a fellow who has been away from a real home as long as I have. I'll be the gladdest 'little Indian' in the bunch to be counted in that way." "Then I'll get back to my cake-making," said Joyce, "if we're to have company for supper. I won't promise that it'll be a success, though, for while it bakes I'm going to write to Lloyd. I've thought for days that I ought to write, for I've owed her a letter ever since Christmas. She doesn't even know that we've left Plainsville. And I'm going to tell her about your having seen her, and recognized her picture away out here on the desert. I wish she'd come out and make us a visit." "Here," said Phil, playfully, taking a sprig of orange blossoms from his buttonhole, and putting it in the vase on the wicker table. "When you get your letter written, put that in, as a sample of what grows out here. I picked it as we passed Clayson's ranch. If it reaches her on a cold, snowy day, it will make her want to come out to this land of sunshine. You needn't tell her I sent it." "I'll dare you to tell," said Jack, as they started off. Joyce's only answer was a laugh, as she went back to her egg-beating. Almost by the time the boys were out of sight, she had whisked the cake dough into a pan, and the pan into the oven, and, while Mrs. Ware and Mrs. Lee talked in the other room, she spread her paper out on the kitchen table, and began her letter to the Little Colonel. CHAPTER V. WHAT A LETTER BROUGHT ABOUT LLOYDSBORO VALLEY would have seemed a strange place to Joyce, could she have followed her letter back to Kentucky. She had known it only in midsummer, when the great trees at Locust arched their leafy branches above the avenue, to make a giant arbour of green. Now these same trees stood bleak and bare in the February twilight, almost knee-deep in drifts of snow. Instead of a green lacework of vines, icicles hung between the tall white pillars of the porch, gleaming like silver where the light from the front windows streamed out upon them, and lay in far-reaching paths across the snow. In the long drawing-room, softly lighted by many candles and the glow of a great wood fire, the Little Colonel sat on the arm of her father's chair. He had just driven up from the station, and she held his cold ears in her warm little hands, giving them a pull now and then to emphasize what she was saying. "The first sleigh-ride of the season, Papa Jack. Think of that! We've had enough snow this wintah for any amount of coasting and sleighing if it had only lasted. That's the trouble with Kentucky snow; it melts too fast to be any fun. But to-night everything is just right, moon and all, and the sleighs are to call for us at half-past seven, and we're going for a glorious, gorgeous, grandiferous old sleigh-ride. At nine o'clock we'll stop at The Beeches for refreshments." "Yes," chimed in Betty from the hearth-rug, where she sat leaning against her godmother's knee. "Mrs. Walton says we shall have music wherever we go, like little Jenny that 'rode a cock-horse to Banbury Cross.' She has a whole pile of horns and bells ready for us. It's lovely of her to entertain both the clubs. She's asked the _Mu Chi Sigma_ from the Seminary as well as our Order of Hildegarde." "Oh, that reminds me," exclaimed Mr. Sherman, "although I don't know why it should--I brought a letter up from the post-office for you, Lloyd." Feeling in several pockets, he at last found the big square envelope he was searching for. "What a big fat one it is," said Lloyd, glancing at the postmark. "Phoenix, Arizona! I don't know anybody out there." "Arizona is where our mines are located," said Mr. Sherman, watching her as she tore open the envelope. "Oh, it's from Joyce Ware!" she cried. "See all the funny little illustrations on the edge of the papah! And heah is a note inside for you, mothah, from Mrs. Ware, and oh, what's this? How sweet!" A cluster of orange blossoms fell out into her lap, brown and bruised from the long journey, but so fragrant, that Betty, across the room, raised her head with a long indrawn breath of pleasure. "Listen! I'll read it aloud:" "'WARE'S WIGWAM, ARIZONA. "'DEAREST LLOYD:--Mamma's note to your mother will explain how we happened to stray away out here, next door to nowhere, and why we are camping on the edge of the desert instead of enjoying the conveniences of civilization in Kansas. "'The sketch at the top of the page will give you an idea of the outside of our little adobe house and the tents, so without stopping for description I'll begin right here in the kitchen, where I am sitting, waiting for a cake to bake. It's the cleanest, cosiest kitchen you ever saw, for Jack and I have been cleaning and scrubbing for days and days. It has all sorts of little shelves and cupboards and cuddy holes that we made ourselves, and the new tins shine like silver. A tall screen in the middle of the room shuts off one end for a dining-room, and the table is set for supper. To-night we are to have our first meal in the wigwam. Holland and Mary named it that, and painted the name on the porch post in big bloody letters a little while ago. "'Through the open door I can look into the other room, which is library, studio, parlour, and living-room all in one. Everything is so spick and span that nobody would ever guess what a dreadful time we had putting on the paper and painting all the woodwork. I spilled a whole panful of cold, sticky paste on Jack's head one day. We had made a scaffolding of boxes and barrels. One end slipped and let me down. You never saw such a sight as he was. I had to scrape his hair and face with a spoon. Then so much of the paper wrinkled and would stick on crooked, but now that the pictures are hung and the furniture in place, none of the mistakes show. "'Jack has gone hunting with Phil Tremont, a boy staying at Lee's ranch. I am learning to shoot, too. I practised all one afternoon, and the gun kicked so bad that my shoulder is still black and blue. Phil said the loads were too heavy, and he is going to loan me his little rifle to practise with. He is such a nice boy, and, oh, Lloyd! it's the strangest thing!--he has seen _you_. I have those pictures of Locust hanging over my easel, and, when he saw the photograph of you on Tar Baby, he recognized it right away. He was on the train and saw you ride in at the gate with a letter for your grandfather, and Hero following you. * * * * * "'I didn't get any farther than this in my letter (because I spent so much time making the illustrations) before Phil and Jack came back with some quail they had shot. They were the proudest boys you ever saw, and nothing would do but they must have those quail cooked for supper. They couldn't wait till next day. Mamma had invited Phil to take supper with us, and help make a sort of house-warming of our first meal in the new home. "'We had the jolliest kind of a time, and afterward he helped wipe the dishes. I told him that I was writing to you, and he took this little piece of orange blossom out of his buttonhole, and asked me if I didn't want to send it to you as a sample of what we are enjoying in this land of perpetual sunshine. "'It isn't a sample of everything, however. The place has lots of drawbacks. Oh, Lloyd, you can't imagine how lonesome I get sometimes. I have been here a month, and haven't met a single girl my age. If there was just one to be chums with I wouldn't mind the rest so much,--the leaving school and all that. I don't mind the work, even the washing and ironing and scrubbing,--it's just the lonesomeness, and the missing the good times we used to have at the high school. "'Save up your pennies, or else get a railroad pass, you and Betty, for some of these days I'm going to give a wigwam-party. It will be a far different affair from your house-party (could there ever be another such heavenly time?), but there are lots of interesting things to see out here: an ostrich farm, an Indian school and reservation, and queer old ruins to visit. There are scissors-birds and Gila monsters--I can't begin to name the things that would keep you staring. Mrs. Lee has a Japanese chef, and a Mexican to do her irrigating, and a Chinaman to bring her vegetables, and she always buys her wood of the Indians, so it seems very foreign and queer at first. There is no lack of variety, so I ought to be satisfied, and I am usually, except when I think of little old Plainsville, and the boys and girls going up and down the dear old streets to high school, and meeting in the library, and sitting on the steps singing in the moonlight, and all the jolly, sociable village life and the friends I have left behind for ever. Then it seems to me that I can hardly stand it here. I wish you and Betty were with me this very minute. _Please_ write soon. With love to you both and everybody else in the family and the dear old valley, "'Your homesick "'JOYCE.'" Mrs. Ware's letter was cheerful and uncomplaining, but there were tears in Mrs. Sherman's eyes when she finished reading it aloud. "Poor Emily," she said. "She was always such a brave little body. I don't see how she can write such a hopeful letter under the circumstances,--an invalid sent out into the wilderness to die, maybe, with all those children. She has so much ambition to make something of them, and no way to do it. Jack, if you go out to the mines this month, as you talked of doing, I want you to arrange your trip so that you can stop and see her." Lloyd looked up in surprise. "When are you going, Papa Jack? Isn't it queah how things happen!" "The latter part of this month, probably. Mr. Robeson has invited me to go out with a party in his private car. He is interested in the same mines." "I wonder--" began Mrs. Sherman, then stopped as Mom Beck came to announce dinner. "I'll talk to you about it after awhile, Jack." Somehow both Betty and Lloyd felt that it was not the summons to dinner which interrupted her, but that she had started to speak of something which she did not care to discuss in their presence. "Arizona has always seemed such a dreadful place to me," said Lloyd, hanging on her father's arm, as they went out to the dining-room. "I remembah when you came back from the mines. It was yeahs ago, befo' I could talk plainly. Mothah and Fritz and I went to the station to meet you. Fritz had roses stuck in his collah, and kept barking all the time as if he knew something was going to happen. You fainted when we got to the house, and were so ill that you neahly died. I heard you talk about a fiah at the mines, and evah since I've thought of Arizona as looking like the Sodom and Gomorrah in my old pictuah book--smoke and fiah sweeping across a great plain, and people running to get away from it." "To me it's just a yellow square on a map," said Betty. "Of course, I've read about the wonderful petrified forests of agate, and the great cañon of the Colorado, but it's always seemed the last place in the world I'd ever want to visit. It's terrible for Joyce to give up everything and go out there to live." "The Waltons were out there several years," said Mrs. Sherman. "They were at Fort Huachuca, and learned to love it dearly. Ask them about it to-night. They will tell you that Joyce is a very fortunate girl to have the opportunity of living in such a lovely and interesting country, and does not need any one's pity." Little else was discussed all during dinner. Afterward they sat around the fire in the drawing-room, still talking of the Wares and the strange country to which they had moved, until a tooting of horns and a jingling of bells announced the coming of the sleighing party. Both the girls were into their wraps before the first sleigh reached the gate. They stood waiting by the hall window, looking out on the stretches of moon-lighted snow. What a cold, white, glistening world it was! One could hardly imagine that it had ever been warm and green. Lloyd put her nose into the end of her muff for a whiff of the orange blossoms. She was taking Joyce's letter to show to the girls. Betty, her eyes fixed on the stars, twinkling above the bare branches of the locust-trees, caught the fragrance also, and it fired her romantic little soul with a sudden thought. "Lloyd," she exclaimed, "what if that orange blossom was an omen! What if Phil were the one written for you in the stars!" "Oh, Betty! The idea!" laughed Lloyd. "You're always imagining things the way they are in books." "But this happened just that way," persisted Betty. "His passing Locust on the train and seeing you when you were a little girl, and then finding your picture away out on the desert several years after, and sending you a token of his remembrance by a friend, and orange blossoms at that! If ever I finish that story of Gladys and Eugene, I'm going to put something like that in it." "Heah they come," interrupted Lloyd, as the sleighs dashed up to the door. "Come on, Papa Jack and everybody. Give us a good send-off." She looked back after her father had helped them into the sleigh, to wave good-bye to the group on the porch. How interested they all were in her good times, she thought. Even her grandfather had come to the door, despite his rheumatism, to wish them a pleasant ride. Life was so sweet and full. How beautiful it was to be dashing down the snowy road in the moonlight! Was she too happy? Everybody else had troubles. Would something dreadful have to happen by and by, to make up for all the unclouded happiness of the present? She was not cold, but a sudden shiver passed over her. Then she took up the song with the others, a parody one of the Seminary girls had made for the occasion: "Oh, the snow falls white on my old Kentucky home. 'Tis winter, the Valley is gay. The moon shines bright and our hearts are all atune, To the joy-bells jingling on our sleigh." Down the avenue they went, past Tanglewood and Oaklea, through the little village of Rollington, on and on through the night. Songs and laughter, the jingling of bells and the sound of girlish voices floated through all the valley. It was not every winter that gave them such sport, and they enjoyed it all the more because it was rare. It was nine o'clock when the horses swung around through the wide gate at The Beeches, and stopped in front of the great porch, where hospitable lights streamed out at every window across the snow. There was such a gabble over the steaming cups of hot chocolate and the little plates of oyster patés that Lloyd could not have read the letter if she had tried. For there were Allison and Kitty and Elise passing the bonbons around again and again, with hospitable insistence, and saying funny things and making everybody feel that "The Beeches" was the most charming place in the Valley for an entertainment of that kind. Everybody was in a gale of merriment. Miss Allison was helping to keep them so, and some of the teachers were there from the college, and two or three darkies, with banjoes and mandolins, out in the back hall, added to the general festivities by a jingling succession of old plantation melodies. However, Lloyd managed to tell Mrs. Walton about the letter, saying: "It almost spoils my fun to-night to think of poah Joyce being away out in that dreadful lonesome country." "Why, my dear child," cried Mrs. Walton, "some of the happiest years of my life were spent in that dreadful country, as you call it. It is a charming place. Just look around and see how I have filled my home with souvenirs of it, because I loved it so." Lloyd's glance followed hers to the long-handled peace-pipe over the fireplace, the tomahawks that, set in mortars captured during a battle in Luzon, guarded the hearth instead of ordinary andirons, the baskets, the rugs, and the Navajo portières, and the Indian spears and pottery arranged on the walls of the stairway. "Even that string of loco berries over Geronimo's portrait has a history," said Mrs. Walton. "Come down some day, and I'll tell you so many interesting things about Arizona that you'll want to start straight off to see it." Her duties as hostess called her away just then, but her enthusiasm stayed with Lloyd all the rest of the evening, until she reached home and found her father and mother before the fire, still talking about the Wares and their wigwam. "Your mother wants me to take you with me when I go to Arizona," said Mr. Sherman, drawing her to his knee. "Mr. Robeson had invited her to go, but, as long as that is out of the question, she wants to arrange for you to go in her place." "And leave school?" gasped Lloyd. "Yes, with Betty's help, you could easily make up lost lessons during the summer vacation. You'd help her, wouldn't you, dear?" "Yes, indeed!" cried Betty. "I'd get them for her while she was gone, if I could." "Oh, it's so sudden, it takes my breath away," said Lloyd, after a moment's pause. "Pinch me, Betty! Shake me! And then say it all ovah again, Papa Jack, to be suah that I'm awake!" "Do you think you could get your clothes ready in ten days?" he asked, when he had playfully given her the shaking and pinching she had asked for. "Oh, I don't need any new clothes," she cried. "But, Papa Jack, I'll tell you what I do want, and that's a small rifle. _Please_ get me one. I used to practise with Rob's air-gun till I could shoot as straight as he could, and I got so that I could put a hole through a leaf at even longer range than he could. Christmas, when Ranald Walton was home, we all practised with his gun. It's lots of fun. Joyce is learning to shoot, you know. _Please_ let me have one, Papa Jack. I'd rather have it than a dozen new dresses." Mr. Sherman looked at her in astonishment. "And _this_ is my dainty Princess Winsome," he said at last. "I thought you were going for a nice, tame little visit. I'll be afraid now to take you. You'll want to come back on a bucking broncho, and dash through the Valley, shooting holes through the crown of people's hats, and lassoing carriage horses when you can't find any wild ones to rope. No, I can't take you now. I'm afraid of consequences." "No, honestly, Papa Jack," laughed Lloyd, "I'll be just as civilized as anybody when I come back, if you'll only get me the rifle. I'll try to be extra civilized, just to please you." "We'll see," was the only answer he would give, but Lloyd, who had never known him to refuse her anything, knew what that meant, and danced off to bed perfectly satisfied. She was too excited to sleep. To see Joyce again, to share the wigwam life, and make the acquaintance of Jack and Holland and Mary, who had been such interesting personages in Joyce's tales of them, to have that long trip with Papa Jack in Mr. Robeson's private car, and a month's delightful holiday, seemed too much happiness for one small person. All sorts of exciting adventures might lie ahead of her in that month. The stars, peeping through her curtains, twinkled in friendly fashion at her, as if they were glad of her good fortune. Suddenly they made her think of Betty's words: "What if Phil should be the one written for you in the stars?" It _was_ strange, his having seen her so long ago, and finding her picture in such an unexpected way. She wondered what he was like, and if they would be good friends, and if she could ever think as much of him as she did of her old playmates, Rob and Malcolm. Then she fell asleep, wishing that it was morning, so that she could send a letter to Joyce on the first mail-train, telling her that she was coming,--that in less than two weeks she would be with her at Ware's Wigwam. CHAPTER VI. WASH-DAY AND WASHINGTON IT was wash-day at Ware's Wigwam; the first that Joyce and Jack had personally conducted, as it was the first Monday after moving from Lee's ranch. [Illustration: "'WE ALLEE SAMEE LAK CHINAMEN,' HE SAID"] Out in the back yard a big tin wash-boiler sat propped up on stones, above a glowing camp-fire. From time to time Jack stooped to poke another stick of mesquite into the blaze, or give the clothes in the boiler a stir with an old broom-handle. Then tucking up his shirt-sleeves more firmly above his elbows, he went back to the tub by the kitchen door, and, plunging his arms into the suds, began the monotonous swash and rub-a-dub of clothes and knuckles on the wash-board. "We allee samee lak Chinamen," he said to Joyce, who was bending over another tub, rinsing and wringing. "Blimeby, when we do heap more washee, a cue will glow on my head. You'll be no mo' Clistian lady. You'll be lil'l heathen gel." "I believe you're right," laughed Joyce. "I certainly felt like a heathen by the time I had finished rubbing the first basket full of clothes through the suds. The skin was off two knuckles, and my back was so tired I could scarcely straighten up again. But it won't be so bad next week. Mamma says that we may draw enough out of bank to buy a washing-machine and a wringer, and that will make the work lots easier." A long, shrill whistle out in the road made them both stop to listen. "It's Phil," said Jack. "He said he would ride past this morning to show us the new horse he is going to buy. My! It's a beauty bright!" he exclaimed, peering around the corner of the kitchen, "Come out and look at it." Hastily wiping the suds from his arms, and giving a hitch to the suspenders of his old overalls, he disappeared around the house. Joyce started after him, then drew back, remembering her old shoes and wet, faded gingham, as she caught sight of Phil, sitting erect as a cavalryman on the spirited black horse. From the wide brim of his soft, gray hat to the spurs on his riding-boots, he was faultlessly dressed. A new lariat hung on the horn of his saddle, the Mexican quirt he carried had mountings of silver on the handle, and the holster that held his rifle was of handsomely carved leather. While he talked to Jack, the horse stepped and pranced and tossed its head, impatient to be off. "Come on out, Joyce, and look at it," called Phil. "I can't," she answered, peeping around the corner of the kitchen. "I'm running a Chinese laundry back here. Jack says I'm no longer a 'Clistian lady.'" "Do you want any help?" he called, but there was no answer. She had disappeared. Phil was disappointed. It was for her admiration more than Jack's that he had ridden by on the new horse. He was conscious that he made a good appearance in the saddle, and he had expected her to show some interest in his purchase. Usually she was so enthusiastic over everything new. The work might have waited a few minutes, he thought. But it was not the urgency of the work that sent Joyce back to the tubs in such a hurry. It was the rebellious feeling that swept over her at the sight of his holiday appearance. She was tired and hot and bedraggled, having splashed water all over herself, and the contrast between them irritated her. "If I have to be a Polly-put-the-kettle-on all the days of my life, I'll just _be_ one," she said, in a half-whisper, giving the towel she was wringing a vicious twist. "I'm not going out there to have him feel sorry for me. He's used to seeing girls who are always dainty and fresh, like his sister Elsie, and I'm not going to let him see me looking like a poor, bedraggled Cinderella. It isn't fair that some people should have all the good things in life, and others nothing but the drudgery. "Jack doesn't seem to mind it. There he stands out in the road in his old faded, paint-smeared overalls, and his sleeves rolled up, never caring how awkward and lanky he looks. He's taking as eager an interest in that horse's good points as if he were to have the pleasure of riding it. But then Jack hasn't the artistic temperament. He likes this wild country out here, and he never can understand what a daily sacrifice it is for me to live in such a place. My whole life is just a sacrifice to mamma and the children." By the time the basket was full of clothes, ready to be hung on the line, Joyce had worked herself up to such a pitch of self-pity that she felt like a martyr going to the stake. She carried the basket to the sunny space behind the tents, where the line had been stretched. Here, with her sunbonnet pulled over her eyes, she could see without being seen. Phil was just riding away whistling. She watched him out of sight. The desert seemed lonelier than ever when the sound of hoof-beats and the cheery tune had passed. Her gaze wandered back to old Camelback Mountain. "We'll never get away, you and I," she whispered. "All the bright, pleasant things in life will ride by and leave us. Only the work and the waiting and the loneliness will stay." When she went back to the house with her empty basket, Jack was rubbing away with a vigour that was putting holes in one of Holland's shirts. "Why didn't you come out and see Phil's new horse?" he cried, enthusiastically. "He let me try him, and he goes like a bird. And say, Joyce, he knows where I could get the best kind of an Indian pony for almost nothing, at a camp near Scottsdale. It is good size, and it's broke either to the saddle or buggy, and the people will sell it for only ten dollars. Just think of that. It's almost giving it away. The man who had it died, and his wife couldn't take it back East with her, and she told them to sell it for anything they could get. Don't you think we could manage in some way to get it, Joyce?" "Why, Jack Ware! What can you be thinking of!" she cried. "For us to spend ten dollars on a horse that we don't need would be just as great an extravagance as for some people to spend ten hundred. Don't you know that we can only buy things that we absolutely have to eat or to wear? You've surely heard it dinned into your ears long enough to get some such idea into your head." "We don't absolutely have to have a washing-machine and wringer," he declared, nettled by Joyce's unusual tone. "A horse would be lots more use. We could have it to bring wood up with from the desert when we've burned all that's close by. And we can't go on all year borrowing a horse from Mrs. Lee every time we want to go to town, or have to have a new supply of groceries." "But you know well enough that mamma's teaching Hazel, after awhile when she gets well enough, will more than make up for the borrowing we will do," answered Joyce. "Besides it would only be the beginning of a lot of expense. There'd be feed and a saddle to start with." "No, there wouldn't! There's all that alfalfa pasture going to waste behind the house, and Mrs. Lee has a saddle hanging up in her attic that somebody left on a board bill. She said I might use it as often as I pleased." "Well, we can't afford to spend ten dollars on any such foolishness," said Joyce, shortly. "So that is the end of it." "No, it isn't the end of it," was the spirited answer. "I've set my heart on having that pony, and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll take the place of the washing-machine and wringer. You give me the five dollars they would cost, and I'll do every bit of the rubbing and wringing every Monday morning. I'll borrow the other five dollars, and give a mortgage on the pony. I'll find some way to earn enough to pay it off before the summer is over." Joyce shook her head. "No, a mortgage makes a slave of anybody foolish enough to chain himself up with one, Grandpa Ware always used to say. I'm running the finances now, and I won't give my consent. I think it is best to get the machine, and I don't intend to change my mind. You may get a position next fall, and then I'd be left to do the work without any machine to help. Besides, you sha'n't run in debt to get something that nobody really needs." "I do need it," insisted Jack, "and I don't see why, when you are only a year older than I am, that you should have the say-so about the way all the money is to be spent." "Because mamma wishes me to. Don't you see that the very fact of your wanting to be extravagant in this case, and go in debt and load yourself down with a mortgage shows that I have better judgment than you?" "Oh, you've got a great head for business!" sneered Jack. "Don't you see that it wouldn't be the same as buying something to eat up or wear out? It's an investment. You put the money into the pony instead of the bank, and any time you want to get it out, you just sell the beast. I might be able to get twice as much for him next fall when the tourists begin to come into Phoenix for the winter." "Yes, you might, but it would be more like Ware luck for it to cut itself all to pieces on the barb-wire fences before then, or break its legs stumbling into a gopher hole, or founder itself by getting into a neighbour's oat-bin. Something would be sure to happen. The money is safe where it is, and I believe in letting well enough alone." "Banks bust sometimes, too," said Jack, moodily, "and _I_ believe that 'nothing venture, nothing have.'" It was the first quarrel they had had in months. Each, feeling firmly convinced of being in the right, grew indignant with the other, and they passed from teasing banter to angry words, and then to an angrier silence. "It won't be any harder for him to give up what he had set his heart on than it is for me," thought Joyce, as she hung up the last garment. "I have to do without things I want all the time. And I'm not going to let him think that I'll give in if he teases long enough. I wouldn't have any authority at all over the children if I wasn't firm with them." As Jack emptied the last tubful of water, and stood the wash-board up to dry, he broke the angry silence that had lasted fully ten minutes. "Holland has a dollar in his savings-bank, and Mary has seventy-five cents. We could all chip in with what we have, and then go without butter or something for awhile till we'd saved enough." Joyce only gave an impatient shrug as she replied: "Much comfort we'd get out of a horse that everybody had a share in. If Holland felt that he'd sunk a dollar and several pounds of butter in that pony, he'd feel privileged to ride it any hour of the day or night, no matter who wanted it, and he'd do it, too. You might as well give it up, Jack. It is selfish of you to insist on spending so much on just your own pleasure." "Selfish!" blazed Jack. "It's _you_ that's selfish, wanting to be so bossy and have everything just your way. I haven't asked _you_ to do without anything, have I, or to put in any of _your_ money? And if I do the work of the washing-machine and wringer, I don't see why I shouldn't have what they would cost, to do what I please with. _You're_ the selfish one!" He banged the tub up against the tree and walked off toward his tent, buttoning his shirt-sleeves, and muttering to himself as he went. "Now, he'll go and tell mamma, I suppose, and worry her," thought Joyce, as she went into the kitchen. "But I'm too tired to care. If I hadn't been so tired, I probably wouldn't have snapped him off so short, but it just goes to prove that we can't do without a machine. The washing is too hard for me without one. I can't afford to get so worn out every week. It is all right for him to offer to take the place of one. He might keep it up for weeks, and even months, but next fall, if he should get a position in Phoenix, the money would be spent and I'd be left with the bag to hold. I don't think that, under the circumstances, he has any right to call me selfish. I'm _not_!" The word stuck in her memory, and hurt, as she dragged herself wearily into the sitting-room, and lay down on the couch. After she had pulled the afghan over her shoulders and buried her face in one of the pillows, a few hot tears trickled down through her closed eyelids, and made them smart. The kitchen clock struck eleven. "Oh, dear!" she said to herself, "I must get up in a few minutes and see about dinner." But the next thing she knew, Norman was ringing the dinner-bell in her ears, shouting that it was one o'clock, and that Jack had dinner ready, and to come before it got cold. "Oh, Jack, why didn't you call me?" she cried. "I didn't mean to fall asleep. I only stretched out to rest for a few minutes." He made no answer, busying himself in carrying a hot dish of poached eggs and toast to the table, and bringing his mother's tea. He was carrying on a lively conversation with her. "Still mad, I suppose," thought Joyce, when he ignored her repeated question. "But evidently he hasn't said anything to mamma about it." The meal seemed an unusually cheerful one, for although Jack and Joyce had nothing to say to each other, they kept up such a chatter with their mother, that she ate her dinner serenely unconscious of their coolness toward each other. Afterward she insisted upon washing the dishes, so that Joyce could take a well-earned rest, and Jack go down to the ranch to see Mr. Ellestad's new microscope, which had just come. Joyce would not listen to her appeal that she was perfectly able to do that much work, and that she needed the exercise, but finally consented to her helping wipe the dishes, while she cleared the table and washed them. But Jack, after a little urging, started down the road toward the ranch, to spend a long, interesting afternoon there. As he went whistling out of sight Mrs. Ware looked after him fondly. "I know he's the best boy in the world," she said. "I wish I could afford to give him some of the pleasures that other boys have." "Seems to me he has about as much as the rest of us," said Joyce, rattling the cups and saucers in the dish-pan. But a picture rose in her mind as she spoke, that made her wish that she had not been so cross and so positive. It was Phil Tremont, on his horse, as he had looked that morning, handsome, fun-loving, and free to do as he pleased, and then in sharp contrast, Jack, standing in the road beside him, in his old outgrown, paint-smeared overalls, his fingers red and wrinkled from the suds, called from his work to see a pleasure in which he could not share. Now that she was rested and refreshed by her dinner, matters looked different. She could even see the force of Jack's argument about the pony being an investment, and she wished again that she had not been so positive in her refusal. But having once said no, Joyce felt that it would not be dignified to yield. If she changed her mind this time, Jack would think that she was inconsistent; and such is the unyielding policy of fifteen, that she felt that she would rather be called selfish than to admit that she was in the wrong or had been mistaken. It was a long afternoon. The fact that she and Jack had quarrelled kept recurring to her constantly, and made her uncomfortable and unhappy. He came back from the ranch at supper-time as if nothing had happened, however, and when she asked him some question about the new microscope, he answered with a full description that made her feel he had forgotten their morning disagreement. "I don't believe that he cares so much about that pony after all," she thought. After supper, when Holland and Mary had disposed of the dishes, she drew out the kitchen-table, and began sprinkling clothes ready for the next day's ironing. The boys had gone to their tent. The door was open between the kitchen and the sitting-room so that the heat might pass in to where Mrs. Ware sat knitting by the lamp. Mary was there also, and her voice came out to Joyce shrilly, as if she were in the room with her. "It seems a waste of time for me to be learning new pieces to say at school when I know at least a dozen old ones that I recited in Plainsville that would be new out here. But teacher picked this out for me. She's going to keep us in at recess if we don't know our pieces Friday. This has forty-eight lines in it, and I've only four nights to learn it in." "That is not bad," said Mrs. Ware, consolingly. "Only twelve lines an evening. Read it all to me, then I'll help you with the first quarter." Joyce stopped her humming as Mary began dramatically: "'A Boy of Seventy-six.' That's the name of it." She read unusually well for a child of her age, and the verses were new to Joyce: "You have heard the story, time and again, Of those brave old heroes, the 'Minute Men,' Who left their homes to fight or fall, As soon as they heard their country's call. Let me tell you of one, unnamed, unknown, A brave boy-hero, who fought alone. When the breathless messenger drew rein He had started whistling, down the lane With his rod and line, to the brook for trout, But he paused as he heard the warning shout, And his father called to him, 'Ben, my son, I must be off to Lexington! There is little time for fishing now, You must take father's place behind the plough.' One quick good-bye! The boy stood still, Watching him climb the homeward hill-- In and out of the house again, With his musket, to join the 'Minute Men.' Then he turned the furrows, straight and true, Just as he'd seen his father do. He dropped the corn in the narrow rows, And fought for its life with the weeds and crows. Oh, it was hard, as the days wore on, To take the place of that father, gone. The boyish shoulders could hardly bear All their burden of work and care. But he thought, 'It is for my country's sake That father's place at the plough I take. When the war is over, and peace is won, How proud he'll be of his little son!' But they brought him home to a soldier's grave, Wrapped in the flag he had died to save. And Ben took up his burden again, With its added weight of grief and pain, Saying bravely, 'In all things now I must take father's place behind the plough.' Seed-time and harvest came and went, Steadily still to the work he bent, For the family needed bread, and then, So did the half-starved fighting men. Only a boy! Not a hero bold, Whose deeds in the histories are told. Still, there fell under British fire, No braver son of a patriot sire Than this young lad, who for duty's sake Said, 'This is the task I'll undertake. I cannot fight for my country now, But I'll take father's place behind the plough.'" "I wonder why it is," said Mary, thoughtfully, as she came to the end, "that all the heroes live so far away that nobody knows them except the people who write the books and poetry about them. I wish I knew a boy like that." "You do," said her mother, quietly. "One who has been just as faithful to duty, just as much of a hero in his small way as Ben. Who said the same thing, 'In all things now, I must take father's place behind the plough,' and who has done it, too, so faithfully and well that he has lifted a great burden from his mother's heart, and made living easier for all the family." "Why, mamma, do I know him? Was it somebody in Plainsville? What was his name?" "John Alwyn Ware," said her mother, with a smile, although her lips trembled. "John Alwyn Ware," repeated Mary, with a puzzled expression. "Why, that was papa's name, and you said that he was a boy that I knew." "Isn't it Jack's name, too?" asked her mother. "Yes, so it is! But how could _he_ take his father's place behind the plough? Papa was a lawyer, and never had any plough." "Whatever is a man's life-work may be called his plough," explained Mrs. Ware, gently, "and papa's duties were not all in his law-office. They were at home, too, and there is where Jack tried to take his place. He was such a little fellow. My first thought was, 'Oh, how am I ever going to bring up my three boys without their father's help and noble example!' and he came to me, his little face all streaked with tears, and put his arms around me, and said, 'Don't cry, mother, I'll take papa's place now, and help take care of the family. If I can't do anything for awhile but just be a good boy, I'll do that much, and set them a good example.' And from that day to this he has never given me an anxious moment. He is a high-strung boy, fond of having his own way, and it has often been a struggle for him to resist the temptation of doing as his chums did, when they were inclined to be a little wild. But he has always been true to his promise, and Holland and Norman have both been easier to manage, because of the example of obedience he has always set them. So you see the heroes don't always live so far away after all. You've been living in the same house with one, and didn't know it." Norman came clamouring into the kitchen for something that Holland had sent for, and Joyce lost the rest of the conversation, but what she had heard stayed with her. Little scenes that she had almost forgotten came up in her mind. Now she understood why Jack had so often refused to join in the larks of the other boys. It was not because he was lazy and indifferent, as she had sometimes thought, when he had settled down with a book at home, instead of going with them in the evenings. She understood, too, why he never "answered back" or asked why. Not because he had any less spirit than Holland, or cared less for his own way. It was because of the promise he had made beside his father's coffin. He was setting the highest example he knew of obedience and faithfulness to duty. "How could I have called him selfish?" she asked herself, "when this is the first time he has asked for anything for his own pleasure since we have been here. He has stayed at home and dug and delved like an old man instead of a boy of fourteen, and of course it must be as dull for him as it is for me. I suppose I didn't realize it, because he never complains as I do. I've had so many more good times than he has," she went on in her self-communing. "My trip to Europe, and the Little Colonel's house-party,--and he was never even out of Plainsville until we came here." As she thought of the house-party, she caught the gleam of the little ring, the lover's knot of gold on her finger that Eugenia had given her to remind her of the Road of the Loving Heart, and she stood quite still for a moment, looking at it. "I believe I'll do it," she decided, finally, and fell to work so energetically that the last damp roll of clothes was soon tucked away in the basket. Then taking the candle from the shelf, and shading it carefully with her hand, she hurried out to her tent. Dropping on her knees beside her trunk, she began turning over its contents till she reached a pink bonbon-box at the very bottom. Inside the box was a letter, and inside the letter was a gold coin, the five dollars that Cousin Kate had sent her Christmas. She had put it sacredly away as a nest-egg, intending to add to it as she could, until there was enough to pay for a course of instruction in illustrating, by correspondence. The address of an art school which advertised to give such lessons, was copied on the envelope. As she turned the letter irresolutely in her hands, she heard Jack's voice in the next tent, talking to Holland: "I wonder who'll take my place in the high school nine this year? Wouldn't I give my eyes to pitch for them when they play the Plainsville 'Invincibles'! Wish I could see old Charlie Scudder's red head behind the bat again! And don't I wish I could hear him giving his call for me out by the alley gate! I'd walk from here to Phoenix just to hear it again." "I don't miss the fellows much as I thought I would," said Holland, who was hunting for a certain hook he wanted in what looked to be a hopeless snarl of fishing-tackle. "There's some first-rate kids go to this school, and I see about as much fun out here as I did at home." "I suppose it would be different with me if I went to school," said Jack. "But it gets mighty monotonous poking around the desert by yourself, even if you have got a gun. Now that Phil Tremont has his horse, that will cut me out from going with him, for I'll have to foot it wherever I go." "Oh, I know where there's a dandy Indian pony for sale over by Scottsdale," began Holland. "George Lee told me about it. They're going to put it up at auction Saturday, if they don't sell it before. Don't you wish you had it?" "You can bet your only dollar I do! I tried to talk Joyce into thinking we could afford it, but she wouldn't be convinced." "I don't see why she should always have the say-so," said Holland. "She's only a year older than you are, anyhow. She sits down on everything we want to do, as if she was our grandmother. She's too bossy." "No, she isn't," answered Jack, loyally. "She knows what she is talking about. She's had a mighty tough time trying to make one dollar do the work of two since we've been out here. And she's worked like a squaw, and it's powerful hard on her having so much responsibility. What she says in this wigwam _goes_, even if it doesn't suit our tastes!" A warm little glow came into Joyce's heart as she knelt there beside the trunk, unconsciously playing eavesdropper. How good it was of Jack to uphold her that way with Holland, who was always resenting her authority, and inclined to be rebellious. Hesitating no longer, she reached into the tray of her trunk for the purse which held the monthly housekeeping allowance. Taking out a crisp five-dollar bill, she folded the coin in it, and ran out toward the boys' tent. The candle-light, streaming through the canvas, made a transparency on which the green-eyed gods of the Dacotahs stood out in startling distinctness. Holland's shadow, bending over the fishing-tackle beside the candle, reached to the top of the tent. Jack's waved its heels over the foot-board of the bed on which he had thrown himself. "Jack," she said, putting her head through the opening of the tent where the flap was pinned back, "I've changed my mind about that investment. I've decided to go in with you. I'll put in Cousin Kate's Christmas money, and if you still want to take the place of the washing-machine and wringer, we'll use the five dollars they would cost, to buy the pony. Then I think the most appropriate name we could give it would be _Washing_-ton!" CHAPTER VII. A SURPRISE IN order to understand the excitement that prevailed at the Wigwam when it was announced that the Little Colonel was on her way toward it, one would first have to understand what an important part she had played in the Ware household. To begin with, the place where she lived had always seemed a sort of enchanted land to the children. "The Old Kentucky Home" was their earliest cradle-song, and their favourite nursery-tales were about the people and places of Lloydsboro Valley, where their mother's happy girlhood had been passed. They might grow tired of Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. Aladdin and even Ali Baba and the forty thieves might lose their charm, but no story failed to interest them that began "Once upon a time in Lloydsboro Valley." These reminiscences had passed from Joyce to Jack, and on down the line, with the high chair and the Cock Robin book and the red building-blocks, belonging to each in turn, but claimed by all. Mary's tears, Holland's tempers, and Norman's tantrums had many a time disappeared as if by magic, at those familiar words. After Joyce's return from the house-party at Locust, the Little Colonel became the central figure of interest, and all the glamour with which their childish imaginations had surrounded the place, now gathered around her like a nimbus around a saint. To Mary, who had read the "Princess Winsome" until she knew it all by heart, Lloyd was something between an ideal princess, who played on a golden harp, and an ideal little schoolgirl, who lived in a real palace, and did exactly as she pleased. She could talk of nothing else, after the letter came, and followed Joyce and her mother with innumerable questions, pausing often before the pictures of Lloyd and Tarbaby. The boys' interest in her coming was increased when they found that she was going to bring a rifle, and that her father had promised to hire a horse for her as soon as they arrived. Phil, who came so often to the Wigwam now that he seemed almost one of the family, caught so much of its enthusiasm over the coming guest, that he planned picnics and excursions for every day of her visit. He even had a voice in what he called the Council of War, in which it was decided to let the two older boys move their cots out-of-doors. Holland had been clamouring to sleep outside the tent ever since George Lee told him that he had begun to do so, and that was what made the cowboys so strong. So the gaily decorated tent, with its "figures mystical and awful," was made ready for Lloyd, and Norman took Joyce's place in his mother's tent. "She'll know that she's really out West when she once sets her eyes on those gods of the Dacotahs," Holland said to Mary on their way to school one morning. "As long as we call this the Wigwam, I think we ought to be dressed up in war-paint and feathers when she gets here. I'll do it, Mary, if you will. I'll dare you to. I'll double dare you!" Usually a double dare never failed to have the desired effect upon Mary. She would attempt anything he suggested. But it was too serious a matter to risk the first impression that such an appearance would make upon Lloyd, so she trudged on with a resolute shake of her little blond braids and big blue bows. "No, sir-ree, Holland Ware. I'm going to stay home from school that day, and wear my very best white dress and my rosebud sash. It's just as good as new if it is two years old, and the little spots on it where I squirted orange-juice don't show at all when it's tied. And Joyce said that she is going to put your hands to soak overnight, to see if she can't get them clean for once, for if there's anything the Little Colonel abominates, it's dirty hands and finger-nails. And you've got to wear a necktie every day, and go into Phoenix and have your hair cut. So there!" "Oh, I have, have I?" repeated Holland, mimicking her tone. "If Joyce has all those plans in her head, she can just get them out again. I'm not going to be a dude for any old girl in the country, I don't care if it is Lloyd Sherman. And if she is so dreadful particular as all that, I'll do something to shock her every day, till she gets used to it. Yes, I believe I'll come to the table the very first meal in a blanket, with feathers in my hair, and if you dare tell anybody beforehand, I'll--I'll--well, I'll get even with you in a way you won't like." "Oh, Holland, please don't! _Please_ don't disgrace us," begged Mary, who always took his threats in earnest. "It would be too dreadful. I'll give you something nice if you'll promise not to." "What will you give me?" "What have I got that you want?" "Oh, I don't know. I'll have to think about it." Holland had no intention of carrying out his threats, but he kept Mary in a fever of anxiety all week, saying one hour that he'd think about her offer, and the next that she didn't have anything he cared for, and that he preferred the fun of tormenting the girls to anything she could give. Joyce drew a star on the kitchen calendar, over the date on which they expected Lloyd to arrive; a big five-pointed red star. She rejoiced that it fell on a Wednesday, for by that time the washing and ironing would be out of the way. Her first experience in laundry-work made her look ahead to the coming Mondays as weekly bugbears. But the second was not so hard as the first. True to his promise, Jack did all the rubbing and wringing, getting up at daybreak to start the fire under the big wash-boiler out in the yard. This morning, as he touched a match to the little pile of kindling, and fanned the blaze with his hat, the new pony, grazing in the alfalfa field, came up to the pasture-bars with a whinny, and put his head over the fence, as if to watch him. "Oh, you think you'll boss this job, do you, Mr. Washington?" said Jack, who, in the short time he had had the pony, had grown as fond of him as if he were a person, and who talked to him as if he had human intelligence. "Well, you ought to take an interest in the washing, since that's the way you got your name, and the reason you are here. Wait till I get this boiler filled, and I'll bring you a lump of sugar." Washington was a wiry little pony. He had a wicked light in his eyes, and was too free with his heels at times, but he had been raised as a household pet, and stood like a kitten while Jack rubbed his nose and fed him sugar. "Take it easy while you can," said Jack. "If I have to work like a dog all morning on your account, to earn half the dollars that you cost us, I'll put you through your paces this afternoon to make up for it. You'll think that you are the Wild Mazeppa by the time we get back. Oh, you're such a nice old fellow!" Nobody was near to see the impulsive way in which the boy threw his arms around the pony's neck and hugged him tight. The feeling of possession made him happy as a king, as he sat on the topmost bar braiding Washington's shaggy forelock, while the sun came up over the Camelback, and the morning chorus of bird-calls swelled louder and sweeter over the awakening world. The fire under the boiler was crackling merrily, and the water was steaming, when Joyce came out of her tent and started toward the kitchen. She stopped a moment by the pasture-bars to reach through and give the pony a friendly stroke, for she was almost as proud and fond of him as Jack. She had had several delightful rides on him; once with Jack for company, on Phil's new horse, and twice with Phil, when they had raced for miles down the sandy road, past olive orchards and orange groves, sweet with the coming of spring. "I'm going to clip his mane to-morrow," said Jack, as he slipped down from his seat, and followed Joyce toward the kitchen. "He must look his best when Lloyd comes." "We've done everything to that tune for a week," laughed Joyce. "'When Lloyd comes' has grown to be a sort of refrain, running through all our conversation. You notice now, at breakfast, and see how often it will be used." Holland was the first to repeat the well-worn phrase, as he took his seat at the table, and waited hungrily for his plate to be served. "When Lloyd comes you'll have some of those good little corn muffins for breakfast, won't you, Joyce? Kentucky people aren't used to cold bread." Joyce smiled at Jack as the words they were waiting for were repeated, and then almost mechanically used them herself in her answer. "We'll have them once in awhile, I suppose, but we can't afford a very great change in our bill of fare. We'll have a mighty skimpy dinner to-day, for there's not much left over from Sunday, and we'll be too busy washing to stop to cook. But I want to have a big baking before Lloyd comes. If I go in to meet her Wednesday, in the ranch surrey, I'll have to do the extra cooking to-morrow afternoon, I suppose, after the ironing is out of the way." Mary cast an inquiring glance at the red star on the calendar. "Only to-day and to-morrow, then I can stay home the day after that when Lloyd comes, and wear my best white dress and my rosebud sash." "Oh, that will be joyful," chanted Holland, imitating her tone. "I wish that I were able to help you more with the work," said Mrs. Ware, wistfully. "Then you would have more time for preparation. Norman and I can manage the tent work, I think, this morning. Then I'll go down to the seat under the willows, and finish that Indian head sofa pillow. We must have that done before Lloyd comes." "Seems to me that I can hardly wait," said Mary, giving an impatient little wiggle that nearly upset her glass of milk. "I wish Betty were coming, too," said Joyce. "She would be making up stories from morning till night about the strange things out here; but she wouldn't have much peace. You children would never let her out of your sight." "Like Davy did at the cuckoo's nest," said Mary, who knew Betty's history almost as well as her own, and loved dearly to talk about it. Betty's devotion to her godmother since she had gone to live at Locust, and her wonderful gift for writing verses and stories made her almost as interesting to Mary as the Little Colonel herself. As she moved about the house after breakfast, doing the little duties that fell to her lot before school-time, she chanted in a happy undertone all the play of the "Rescue of the Princess Winsome," from beginning to end. Sir Feal, the faithful knight, had been associated in her mind with Phil, since the day he rescued her from her fright when she was running away from the Indian. She was the princess, and Phil the gallant knight, who, she dreamed in her romantic little heart, might some day send her messages by the morning-glories and forget-me-nots, as Sir Feal had done. Of course, not now, but some day when she was grown, and wore long, lovely dresses, and had a beautiful voice. She had pictured herself many a time, standing by a casement window with a dove clasped to her breast, and singing the song, "Flutter, and fly, flutter, and fly, bear him my heart of gold." But now that the real princess was coming, she lost interest in her own little day-dreams, which were of such a far-away time and so vague and shadowy, and began dreaming them for Lloyd. She wondered what Phil would think of her when they first met. She had already recited the entire play to him, and showed him the miniature, and, as he studied the sweet face at the casement, bending over the dove, he had hummed after Mary in an absent-minded sort of way: "Spin, spin, oh, golden thread, He dreams of me night and day. The poppy's chalice is sweet and red, Oh, Love will find a way." She was still humming it this morning when she came out of the back door, ready to start to school, and her thoughts were full of the play. "Joyce," she remarked, critically, pausing to watch her sister put more wood on the camp-fire and poke the clothes in the boiler with the end of an old broom-handle, "you look like the witch in the play: "'On the fire I'll pile my faggots higher and higher, And in the bubbling water stir This hank of hair, this patch of fur. Bubble and boil, and snake-skin coil! This charm shall all plans but the Ogre's foil.'" Joyce laughed, and Mary, slipping through the bars, followed Holland across lots to school. "I do feel like a witch in this old dress and sunbonnet," she said, "and I must look like one. But no one ever comes here in the mornings but Phil, and he has had his orders to stay away on Mondays." "What is the use of worrying about how you look?" asked Jack. "Nobody expects a fellow to play Chinese laundryman with a high collar and kid gloves on." Sousing the tubful of clothes into the rinse-water, Joyce went on vigorously with her morning's work. She and Jack relapsed into busy silence as the morning wore on, and when the clock struck eleven, neither had spoken for nearly an hour. Suddenly a sound of wheels, coming rapidly along the road, and a child's high-pitched voice made them both stop and look up to listen. "Aren't we getting back-woodsy!" Joyce exclaimed, as Jack shook the suds from his arms, and ran to the corner of the kitchen to watch a buggy drive past. "So few people come out this desert road, that it is really an event to see any one. I suppose we ought not to be blamed for staring." "It is Hazel Lee," said Jack. "I'm sure that's her voice. There must be some new boarders at the ranch, for there's a strange gentleman and a girl in the buggy with her, and she's standing up in front pointing out the country to them." Joyce came and looked over his shoulder. "Yes, that's Hazel," she said. "She's the knowingest little thing I ever saw for a child of five. You couldn't lose her anywhere around this region, and she is as good as a guide-book, for giving information. Mr. Ellestad was laughing the other day about her disputing with the White Bachelor over the market price of chickens. She was in the right, too, and proved it. She hears everything, and never forgets anything she hears." [Illustration: "'I THOUGHT WE'D NEVAH, NEVAH GET HEAH!'"] "She's saying something now to amuse those people mightily," said Jack, as a hearty laugh rang out above the rattle of wheels. Joyce transferred her gaze from the chubby, bareheaded child, leaning over the dashboard with eager gestures, to the two strangers behind her. Then she grasped Jack's elbow with a little cry of astonishment. "It's Lloyd!" she gasped. "Lloyd Sherman and her father, two days ahead of time. What shall we do? Everything is in a mess, and nothing in the house for dinner!" That instant Hazel's bright eyes spied them, her plump little finger pointed them out, and Joyce had no more time to consider appearances; for, springing over the wheel, Lloyd came running toward her, calling in the soft Southern accent that was the sweetest music to Joyce's ears, "Oh, you deah, darling old thing! What made you move away out to the edge of nowhere? I thought we'd nevah, nevah get heah!" In the delight of seeing her again, Joyce forgot all about things being topsyturvy, and how little there was in the house for dinner. She even forgot to introduce Jack, who stood awkwardly waiting in the background, till Mr. Sherman, amused at the girls' absorption in each other, stepped out of the buggy and came forward, laughing. "It looks as if the two Jacks will have to introduce themselves," he said, holding out his hand. Jack's awkwardness vanished instantly at this hearty greeting, and a moment later he was shaking hands with Lloyd as easily as Joyce was welcoming Lloyd's father, wholly indifferent to his outgrown overalls and rolled-up shirt-sleeves. In the meantime, Hazel, who was a major-general in her small way for comprehending situations, had, of her own accord, raced off to find Mrs. Ware and bring her to welcome the unexpected guests. "And you are Aunt Emily!" exclaimed Lloyd, turning with outstretched hands as the sweet-faced little woman came toward them. "Mothah said you wouldn't mind if I called you that, because you and she have always been such deah friends." There were tears in Mrs. Ware's eyes as she returned the impulsive kiss. She had expected to be fond of Elizabeth's only daughter. She had hoped to find her pretty and sweet, but she had not looked for this winsomeness, which had been the Little Colonel's greatest charm since babyhood. With that greeting, Lloyd walked straight into her heart. The surprise ended more satisfactorily than most surprises do, for, while Jack was unhitching the horse, and Mrs. Ware was talking over old times with Mr. Sherman, whom she had known in her school-days, some one went whizzing around the house on a bicycle. "It's Jo, the Japanese chef from the ranch," said Joyce, springing up from the front door-step where she sat with Lloyd, and starting back to the kitchen to ask his errand. "Oh, let me go, too," cried Lloyd, following. "I nevah saw a Jap close enough to speak to." Lloyd could not understand the pigeon-English with which he delivered a basket he had brought, but it was evidently a funny proceeding to Jo. He handed it over as if it had been a joke, doubling up like a jack-knife as he pointed to the contents, and laughing so contagiously that Joyce and Lloyd could not help laughing, too. "He not velly nice pie, maybe," giggled Jo. "But you eat him allee same. Mis' Lee say you not lookee for comp'nee. You not have nuzzing cook." "Did Mrs. Lee tell you to bring the basket, Jo?" asked Joyce. He shook his head. "Mis' Lee say take soup," pointing to the large glass jar of clearest consommé, smoking hot, which Joyce had just lifted from the basket. "I, _me_, bling along the pie, for my compli_ment_. She no care. She kind, Clistian lady." "She certainly is," laughed Joyce. "Now we can at least begin and end our dinner in style. That's a _lovely_ pie, Jo; the prettiest I ever saw." The little almond eyes twinkled, as he watched her hold up the dainty pastry with its snowy meringue for Lloyd to admire. "Aw, he not velly good pie," protested Jo, with a self-conscious smirk, knowing in his soul that it was the perfection of pastry, and eager to hear Joyce say so again. "I make-a heap much betta nex-a time." Then, with another laugh, he whizzed away on his wheel, pausing under the pepper-trees to catch up Hazel, and take her home on his handle-bars. "Joyce," asked Lloyd, as she watched him disappear down the road, "did you uncawk a bottle, or rub Aladdin's lamp? I feel as if I had walked into the Arabian nights, to have a foreign-looking, almond-eyed chef suddenly appear out of the desert with consommé and pie, like a genie out of a bottle." "It doesn't happen every day," laughed Joyce. "I suppose that after you stopped at the ranch to inquire the way here, and picked up Hazel for a guide, that it occurred to Mrs. Lee that we were not looking for you until Wednesday, and that, as this is our wash-day, maybe we wouldn't have a very elaborate dinner prepared, and she thought she would help us out in a neighbourly way. Jo enjoyed coming. When we were at the ranch, he was always making delicious little extra dishes for mamma." "Oh, I hope our coming soonah than you expected hasn't made a difference!" exclaimed Lloyd. "I nevah thought about yoah doing yoah own work. Mr. Robeson decided not to stop in New Mexico as long as he had planned, and, when I found that would put us heah two days soonah, I wouldn't let Papa Jack telegraph. I'm so sorry." "Don't say another word about it," interrupted Joyce. "The only difference it makes is to you and your father. You've not been received in quite such good style as if we'd been dressed in our best bibs and tuckers, but maybe you'll feel more at home, dropping right down in the middle of things this way." Lloyd felt as if she certainly had dropped down in the middle of things, into a most intimate knowledge of the Ware family's affairs. For, as Joyce circled around, setting the table, she saw that a pitcher of milk, bread and butter, and some cold boiled potatoes, sliced ready to fry, was all that the pantry held for dinner. If Joyce had spoken one word of apology, Lloyd would have felt exceedingly uncomfortable, but she only laughed as she put the consommé on the stove to keep hot, and set out the pie-plates on the sideboard. "Lucky for you," she said, "that the genie came out of his bottle. We were spending all our energy in rushing through the laundry work, so that we could make grand preparations for to-morrow, but we couldn't have equalled Jo, no matter how hard we tried." While Joyce, talking as fast as she worked, fried the potatoes and sliced the bread, Jack wrung out the last basketful of clothes and hung them on the line, and then disappeared in his mother's tent to make himself presentable for dinner. Lloyd had already had a peep into the tent that she was to share with Joyce, and had called her father to come and have a laugh with her over the green-eyed gods of the Dacotahs which were to guard her slumbers during her visit to the Wigwam. He was to leave that same night, and go on to the mines with Mr. Robeson and his party. Her trunk was brought out from town soon after dinner, and, while she partly unpacked it, putting the things she would need oftenest into the bureau drawers that Joyce had emptied for her, Jack and Mr. Sherman drove away to look at the horses one of the neighbours kept to hire to tourists. They came back later with a shaggy Indian pony, which Lloyd at once mounted for a trial ride. Joyce went with her on Washington as far as the White Bachelor's. Lloyd was not accustomed to a cross saddle, or to guiding a horse by the pressure of the bridle-reins against its neck, so they rode slowly at first. When they were almost opposite the camp at Lee's ranch, Joyce saw a familiar little figure trudging along the road, and wished with sisterly solicitude that they could avert a meeting. It was Mary on her way home from school, dusty and dishevelled, as usual at such times, one hair-ribbon lost, and the braid it had bound hanging loose and limp over her ear. Joyce was not near enough to see, but she felt sure that her shoe-laces were dangling, that there was ink on her hands and maybe her face, and that at least one button, if not more, had burst loose from the back of her dress. She knew that the child would be overwhelmed with mortification if she should come face to face with the Princess Winsome in such a condition, when she had set her heart upon appearing before her in her white dress and rosebud sash. Before Joyce could think of an excuse to turn back, Mary had settled the matter for herself. Hazel had stopped her at the gate to tell her of the unexpected arrival, so she was not wholly unprepared for this sudden meeting. Darting up the high bank of the irrigating ditch like a little gray lizard, she slid down on the other side into its dry bed and crouched there till they passed. There had been no water running for several days, but it would have made no difference to Mary. She would have plunged in just the same, even if it had been neck deep. She simply could not let the adored Little Colonel see her in such a plight. Joyce almost laughed aloud at the frantic haste in which she scuttled out of sight, but seeing that Lloyd had been too absorbed in guiding her pony to notice it, she said nothing, and delayed their return until she was sure that Mary was safe in her tent. So it was that when Lloyd went back to the Wigwam one member of the Ware family was arrayed in all her glory according to the original programme. Mary stood out under the pepper-trees, washed, combed, and clad, painfully conscious of her festive garments, which had had so few occasions to be donned on the desert, and in a quiver of eagerness. It was not only Lloyd Sherman who was coming toward her up the road. It was the Little Colonel, the Queen of Hearts, the Princess Winsome, the heroine of a hundred familiar tales, and the beautiful Dream-Maiden around whom she had woven all she knew or imagined of romance. CHAPTER VIII. IN THE DESERT OF WAITING LLOYD sat with her elbows on the white kitchen table, watching Joyce at her Saturday afternoon baking. Five busy days had passed since her coming, and she felt almost as much at home in the Wigwam as any of the Wares. Phil had been there every day. Mrs. Lee had invited her to the ranch to tea, where she had met all the interesting boarders she had heard so much about. Jack, Holland, and Norman devoted themselves to her entertainment, and Mary followed her so adoringly, and copied so admiringly every gesture and intonation, that Holland called her "Miss Copy-cat" whenever he spoke to her out of his mother's hearing. Lloyd could not fail to see how they all looked up to her, and it was exceedingly pleasant to be petted and deferred to by everybody, and on all occasions. The novelty of the place had not yet worn off, and she enjoyed watching Joyce at her housekeeping duties, and helped whenever she would allow it. "How white and squashy that dough looks," she said, as Joyce turned it deftly out on the moulding-board and began kneading it. "I'd like to put my fingahs in it the way you do, and pat it into shape, and pinch in the cawnahs. I wish you'd let me try to make a loaf next week. Will you, Joyce?" "You may now, if you want to," said Joyce. Lloyd started to her tent to wash her hands, but Jack's shout out in the road stopped her as she reached the door. He was galloping toward the house as fast as Washington could carry him, and she waited to hear what he had to say. "Get your rifle, quick, Lloyd!" he called, waving his hat excitedly. "Chris says that the river is full of ducks. We can get over there and have a shot at them before supper-time if we hurry. I'll catch your pony and saddle him while you get ready." "How perfectly splendid!" cried Lloyd, her eyes shining with pleasure. "I'll be ready in almost no time." Then, as he galloped on toward the pasture, she turned to Joyce. "Oh, I wish _you_ could go, too!" "So do I," was the answer; "but it's out of the question. We've only the one horse, you know, and I haven't any gun, and I can't leave the baking, so there's three good reasons. But I'm glad you have the chance, Lloyd. Run along and get ready. Don't you bother about me." By the time Jack came back leading Lloyd's pony, she was ready and waiting at the kitchen door, in her white sweater and brown corduroy riding-skirt. Her soft, light hair was gathered up under a little hunting-cap, and she carried her rifle in its holster, ready to be fastened to her saddle. "Oh, I wish you were going, too, Joyce!" she exclaimed again, as she stood up in the stirrups and smoothed the folds of the divided skirt. Settling herself firmly in the saddle and gathering up the reins with one hand, she blew her an airy kiss with the other, and started off at the brisk pace Jack set for her on Washington. Joyce called a laughing good-bye after them, but, as she stood shading her eyes with her hand to watch them ride away, all the brightness seemed to die out of the mid-afternoon sunshine. "How much I should have enjoyed it!" she thought. "I could ride as well as Jack if I had his pony, and shoot as well as Lloyd if I had her rifle, and would enjoy the trip to the river as much as either of them if I could only leave the work. But I'm like that old Camelback Mountain over there. I'll never get away. It will be this way all the rest of my life." Through the blur of tears that dimmed her sight a moment, the old mountain looked more hopeless than ever. She turned and went into the house to escape the sight of it. Presently, when the loaves were in the oven, and she had nothing to do but watch the baking, she brought her portfolio out to the kitchen and began looking through it for a sketch she had promised to show to Lloyd. It was the first time she had opened the portfolio since she had left Plainsville, and the sight of its contents made her fingers tingle. While she glanced over the sketches she had taken such pleasure in making, both in water-colours and pen and ink, her mother came into the kitchen. "Joyce," she said, briskly, "don't you suppose we could afford some cookies while the oven is hot? I haven't baked anything for so long that I believe it would do me good to stir around in the kitchen awhile. I'll make some gingersnaps, and cut them out in fancy shapes, with a boy and girl apiece for the children, as I always used to make. Are there any raisins for the eyes and mouths?" It seemed so much like old times that Joyce sprang up to give her mother a squeeze. "That will be lovely!" she cried, heartily. "Here's an apron, and I'll beat the eggs and help you." "No, I want to do it all myself," Mrs. Ware protested. "And I want you to take your sketching outfit, and go down to the clump of willows where Jack put the rustic bench for me. There are lovely reflections in the irrigating canal now, and the shadows are so soft that you ought to get a very pretty picture. You haven't drawn any since we left home, and I'm afraid your hand will forget its cunning if you never practise." "What's the use," was on the tip of Joyce's tongue, but she could not dim the smile on her mother's face by her own hopeless mood, and presently she took her box of water-colours and started off to the seat under the willows. Mary and Norman, like two muddy little beavers, were using their Saturday afternoon playtime in building a dam across the lateral that watered the side yard. Joyce stood watching them a moment. "What's the use of your doing that?" she asked, impatiently. "It can't stay there. You'll have to tear it down when you stop playing, and then there'll be all your work for nothing." "We don't care, do we, Norman?" answered Mary, cheerfully. "It's fun while we're doing it, isn't it, Norman?" As Joyce walked on, Mary's lively chatter followed her, and she could hear her mother singing as she moved about the kitchen. She was glad that they were all happy, but somehow it irritated her to feel that she was the only discontented one. It made her lonely. She opened her box and spread out her material, but she was in no mood for painting. She couldn't get the right shade of green in the willows, and the reflections in the water were blotchy. "It's no use to try," she said, finally. "Mamma was right. My hand has already lost its cunning." Leaning back on the rustic seat, she began idly tracing profiles on the paper, scarcely conscious of what she was doing. People's faces at first, then the outline of Camelback Mountain. Abstractedly, time after time, she traced it with slow sweeps of her brush until more than a score of kneeling camels looked back at her from the sheet of paper. Presently a cough just behind her aroused her from her fit of abstraction, and, turning hastily, she saw Mr. Ellestad, the old Norwegian, coming toward her along the little path from the house. He had been almost a daily visitor at the Wigwam since they moved into it, not always coming in, usually stopping for only a moment's chat under the pepper-trees, as he strolled by. But several times he had spent an entire morning with them, reading aloud, while Joyce ironed and her mother sewed, and Norman built block houses on the floor beside them. Once he had taken tea with them. He rarely came without bringing a book or a new magazine, or something of interest. And even when he was empty-handed, his unfailing cheerfulness made his visits a benefaction. Mary and Norman called him "Uncle Jan," such a feeling of kinship had grown up between them. "Mary said you were here," he began, in his quaint, hesitating fashion, "so I came to find you. I have finished my legend at last,--the legend I have made about Camelback Mountain. You know I have always insisted that there should be one, and as tradition has failed to hand one down to us, the task of manufacturing one has haunted me for three winters. Always, it seems, the old mountain has something to say to me whenever I look at it, something I failed to understand. But at last I have interpreted its message to mankind." With a hearty greeting, Joyce moved over to make room for him upon the bench, and, as he sat down, he saw the sheet of paper on her lap covered with the repeated outlines of the old mountain. "Ah! It has been speaking to you also!" he exclaimed. "What did it say?" "Just one word," answered Joyce,--"'_Hopeless_!' Everything out here is hopeless. It's useless to try to do anything or be anything. If fate has brought you here, kneel down and give up. No use to struggle, no use to hope. You'll never get away." He started forward eagerly. "At first, yes, that is what I thought it said to me. But now I know it was only the echo of my own bitter mood I heard. But it is a mistake; that is not its message. Listen! I want to read it to you." He took a note-book from his pocket. "Of course, it is crude yet. This is only the first draft. I shall polish it and study every word, and fit the sentences into place until the thought is crystallized as a real legend should be, to be handed down to future generations. Then people will not suspect that it is a home-made thing, spun from the fancy of one Jan Ellestad, a simple old Norwegian, who had no other legacy to leave the world he loved. This is it: "'Once upon a time, a caravan set out across the desert, laden with merchandise for a far-distant market. Some of the camels bore in their packs wine-skins that held the richest vintage of the Orient. Some bore tapestries, and some carried dyestuffs and the silken fruits of the loom. On Shapur's camel was a heavy load of salt. "'The hope of each merchant was to reach the City of his Desire before the Golden Gate should close. There were other gates by which they might enter, but this one, opening once a year to admit the visiting rajahs from the sister cities, afforded a rare opportunity to those fortunate enough to arrive at the same time. It was the privilege of any who might fall in with the royal retinue to follow in its train to the ruling rajah's palace, and gain access to its courtyard. And wares displayed there for sale often brought fabulous sums, a hundredfold greater sometimes than when offered in the open market. "'Only to a privileged few would the Golden Gate ever swing open at any other time. It would turn on its hinges for any one sent at a king's behest, or any one bearing something so rare and precious that only princes could purchase. No common vender could hope to pass its shining portal save in the rear of the train that yearly followed the rajahs. "'So they urged their beasts with all diligence. Foremost in the caravan, and most zealous of all, was Shapur. In his heart burned the desire to be first to enter the Golden Gate, and the first one at the palace with his wares. But, half-way across the desert, as they paused at an oasis to rest, a dire lameness fell upon his camel, and it sank upon the sand. In vain he urged it to continue its journey. The poor beast could not rise under its great load. "'Sack by sack he lessened its burden, throwing it off grudgingly and with sighs, for he was minded to lose as little as possible of his prospective fortune. But even rid of its entire load, the camel could not rise, and Shapur was forced to let his companions go on without him. "'For long days and nights he watched beside his camel, bringing it water from the fountain and feeding it with the herbage of the oasis, and at last was rewarded by seeing it struggle to its feet and take a few limping steps. In his distress of mind at being left behind by the caravan, he had not noticed where he had thrown the load. A tiny rill, trickling down from the fountain, had run through the sacks and dissolved the salt, and when he went to gather up his load, only a paltry portion was left, a single sackful. "'"Now, Allah has indeed forgotten me!" he cried, and cursing the day that he was born, he rent his mantle, and beat upon his breast. Even if his camel were able to set out across the desert, it would be useless to seek a market now that he had no merchandise. So he sat on the ground, his head bowed in his hands. Water there was for him to drink, and the fruit of the date-palm, and the cooling shade of many trees, but he counted them as naught. A fever of unrest consumed him. A baffled ambition bowed his head in the dust. "'When he looked at his poor camel kneeling in the sand, he cried out: "Ah, woe is me! Of all created things, I am most miserable! Of all dooms mine is the most unjust! Why should I, with life beating strong in my veins, and ambition like a burning simoom in my breast, be left here helpless on the sands, where I can achieve nothing, and can make no progress toward the City of my Desire?" "'One day, as he sat thus under the palms, a bee buzzed about him. He brushed it away, but it returned so persistently that he looked up with languid interest. "Where there are bees, there must be honey," he said. "If there be any sweetness in this desert, better that I should go in its quest than sit here bewailing my fate." "'Leaving the camel browsing by the fountain, he followed the bee. For many miles he pursued it, till far in the distance he beheld the palm-trees of another oasis. He quickened his steps, for an odour rare as the perfumes of Paradise floated out to meet him. The bee had led him to the Rose Garden of Omar. "'Now Omar was an alchemist, a sage with the miraculous power of transmuting the most common things of earth into something precious. The fame of his skill had travelled to far countries. So many pilgrims sought him to beg his wizard touch that the question, "Where is the house of Omar?" was heard daily at the gates of the city. But for a generation that question had remained unanswered. No man knew the place of the house of Omar, since he had taken upon himself the life of a hermit. Somewhere, they knew, in the solitude of the desert, he was practising the mysteries of his art, and probing deeper into its secrets, but no one could point to the path leading thither. Only the bees knew, and, following the bee, Shapur found himself in the old alchemist's presence. "'Now Shapur was a youth of gracious mien, and pleasing withal. With straightforward speech, he told his story, and Omar, who could read the minds of men as readily as unrolled parchments, was touched by his tale. He bade him come in and be his guest until sundown. "'So Shapur sat at his board and shared his bread, and rose refreshed by his wine and his wise words. And at parting, the old man said, with a keen glance into his eyes: "Thou thinkest that because I am Omar, with the power to transmute all common things to precious ones, how easily I could take the remnant of salt that is still left to thee in thy sack and change it into gold. Then couldst thou go joyfully on to the City of thy Desire, as soon as thy camel is able to carry thee, far richer for thy delay." "'Shapur's heart gave a bound of hope, for that is truly what he had been thinking. But at the next words it sank. "'"Nay, Shapur, each man must be his own alchemist. Believe me, for thee the desert holds a greater opportunity than kings' houses could offer. Give me but thy patient service in this time of waiting, and I will share such secrets with thee that, when thou dost finally win to the Golden Gate, it shall be with wares that shall gain for thee a royal entrance." "'Then Shapur went back to his camel, and, in the cool of the evening, urged it to its feet, and led it slowly across the sands. And because it could bear no burden, he lifted the remaining sack of salt to his own back, and carried it on his shoulders all the way. When the moon shone white and full in the zenith over the Rose Garden of Omar, he knocked at the gate, calling: "Here am I, Omar, at thy bidding, and here is the remnant of my salt. All that I have left I bring to thee, and stand ready now to yield my patient service." "'Then Omar bade him lead his camel to the fountain, and leave him to browse on the herbage around it. Pointing to a row of great stone jars, he said: "There is thy work. Every morning before sunrise, they must be filled with rose-petals, plucked from the myriad roses of the garden, and the petals covered with water from the fountain." "'"A task for poets," thought Shapur, as he began. "What more delightful than to stand in the moonlighted garden and pluck the velvet leaves." But after awhile the thorns tore his hands, and the rustle and hiss underfoot betrayed the presence of serpents, and sleep weighed heavily upon his eyelids. It grew monotonous, standing hour after hour, stripping the rose-leaves from the calyxes until thousands and thousands and thousands had been dropped into the great jars. The very sweetness of the task began to cloy upon him. "'When the stars had faded and the east begun to brighten, old Omar came out. "Tis well," he said. "Now break thy fast, and then to slumber with thee, to prepare for another sleepless night." "'So long months went by, till it seemed to Shapur that the garden must surely become exhausted. But for every rose he plucked, two bloomed in its stead, and night after night he filled the jars. "'Still he was learning no secrets, and he asked himself questions sometimes. Was he not wasting his life? Would it not have been better to have waited by the other fountain until some caravan passed by that would carry him out of the solitude to the dwellings of men? What opportunity was the desert offering him greater than kings' houses could give? "'And ever the thorns tore him more sorely, and the lonely silence of the nights weighed upon him. Many a time he would have left his task had not the shadowy form of his camel, kneeling outside by the fountain, seemed to whisper to him through the starlight: "Patience, Shapur, patience!" "'Once, far in the distance, he saw the black outline of a distant caravan passing along the horizon where day was beginning to break. He did no more work until it had passed from sight. Gazing after it with a fierce longing to follow, he pictured the scenes it was moving toward,--the gilded minarets of the mosques, the deep-toned ringing of bells, the cries of the populace, and all the life and stir of the market-place. When the shadowy procession had passed, the great silence of the desert smote him like a pain. "'Again looking out, he saw his faithful camel, and again it seemed to whisper: "Patience, Shapur, patience! So thou, too, shalt fare forth to the City of thy Desire." "'One day in the waning of summer, Omar called him into a room in which he had never been before. "Now at last," said he, "hast thou proven thyself worthy to be the sharer of my secrets. Come! I will show thee! Thus are the roses distilled, and thus is gathered up the precious oil floating on the tops of the vessels. "'"Seest thou this tiny vial? It weighs but the weight of one rupee, but it took the sweetness of two hundred thousand roses to make the attar it contains, and so costly is it that only princes may purchase. It is worth more than thy entire load of salt that was washed away at the fountain." "'Shapur worked diligently at the new task till there came a day when Omar said to him: "Well done, Shapur! Behold the gift of the desert, its reward for thy patient service in its solitude!" "'He placed in Shapur's hands a crystal vase, sealed with a seal and filled with the precious attar. "'"Wherever thou goest this sweetness will open for thee a way and win for thee a welcome. Thou camest into the desert a vender of salt. Thou shalt go forth an apostle of my alchemy. Wherever thou seest a heart bowed down in some Desert of Waiting, thou shalt whisper to it: 'Patience! Here, if thou wilt, in these arid sands, thou mayst find thy Garden of Omar, and from these daily tasks that prick thee sorest distil some precious attar to sweeten all life!' So, like the bee that led thee to my teaching, shalt thou lead others to hope." "'Then Shapur went forth with the crystal vase, and his camel, healed in the long time of waiting, bore him swiftly across the sands to the City of his Desire. The Golden Gate, that would not have opened to the vender of salt, swung wide for the Apostle of Omar. "'Princes brought their pearls to exchange for his attar, and everywhere he went its sweetness opened for him a way and won for him a welcome. Wherever he saw a heart bowed down in some Desert of Waiting, he whispered Omar's words and tarried to teach Omar's alchemy, that from the commonest experiences of life may be distilled its greatest blessings. "'At his death, in order that men might not forget, he willed that his tomb should be made at a place where all caravans passed. There, at the crossing of the highways, he caused to be cut in stone that emblem of patience, the camel, kneeling on the sand. And it bore this inscription, which no one could fail to see, as he toiled past toward the City of his Desire: "'"Patience! Here, if thou wilt, on these arid sands, thou mayst find thy Garden of Omar, and even from the daily tasks which prick thee sorest mayst distil some precious attar to bless thee and thy fellow man." "'A thousand moons waxed and waned above it, then a thousand, thousand more, and there arose a generation with restless hearts, who set their faces ever westward, following the sun toward a greater City of Desire. Strange seas they crossed, new coasts they came upon. Some were satisfied with the fair valleys that tempted them to tarry, and built them homes where the fruitful hills whispered stay. But always the sons of Shapur pushed ahead, to pitch their tents a day's march nearer the City of their Desire, nearer the Golden Gate, which opened every sunset to let the royal Rajah of the Day pass through. Like a mirage that vision lured them on, showing them a dream gate of opportunity, always just ahead, yet ever out of reach. "'As in the days of Shapur, so it was in the days of his sons. There were those who fell by the way, and, losing all that made life dear, cried out as the caravan passed on without them that Allah had forgotten them; and they cursed the day that they were born, and laid hopeless heads in the dust. "'But Allah, the merciful, who from the beginning knew what Desert of Waiting must lie between every son of Shapur and the City of his Desire, had long before stretched out His hand over one of the mountains of His continent. With earthquake shock it sank before Him. With countless hammer-strokes of hail and rain-drops, and with gleaming rills he chiselled it, till, as the centuries rolled by, it took the semblance of that symbol of patience, a camel, kneeling there at the passing of the ways. And to every heart bowed down and hopeless, it whispers daily its message of cheer: "'"_Patience! Thou camest into the desert a vender of salt, thou mayst go forth an Alchemist, distilling from Life's tasks and sorrows such precious attar in thy soul that its sweetness shall win for thee a welcome wherever thou goest, and a royal entrance into the City of thy Desire!_" There was a long silence when Mr. Ellestad closed his note-book. Joyce had turned her face away to watch the mountain while he read, so he could not see whether the little tale pleased her or not. But suddenly a tear splashed down on the paper in her lap, and she drew her hand hastily across her eyes. "You see, it seems as if you'd written that just for me," she said, trying to laugh. "I think it's beautiful! If ever there was a heart bowed down in a desert of waiting, I was that one when I came out here this afternoon. But you have given a new meaning to the mountain, Mr. Ellestad. How did you ever happen to think of it all?" "A line from Sadi, one of the Persian poets, started me," he answered. "'_Thy alchemist, Contentment be._' It grew out of that--that and my own unrest and despondency." "Look!" she cried, excitedly. "Do you see that? A bee! A bee buzzing around my head, as it did Shapur's, and I can't drive him away!" She flapped at it with her handkerchief. "Oh, there it goes now. I wonder where it would lead us if we could follow it?" "Probably to some neighbour's almond orchard," answered Mr. Ellestad. "Oh, dear!" sighed Joyce. "I wish that there was a bee that I could follow, and a real rose garden that I could find. It sounds so beautiful and easy to say, 'Out of life's tasks and sorrows distil a precious attar in thy soul,' and I'd like to, heaven knows, but, when it comes to the point, how is one actually to go about it? If it were something that I could do with my hands, I'd attempt it gladly, no matter how hard; but doing the things in an allegory is like trying to take hold of the girl in the mirror. You can see her plainly enough, but you can't touch her. I used to feel that way about 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and think that if I only had a real pack on my back, as Christian had, and could start off on a real road, that I could be sure of what I was doing and the progress I was making. I wish you'd tell me how to begin really living up to your legend." She spoke lightly, but there was a wistful glance in the laughing eyes she turned toward him. "You will first have to tell me what is the City of your Desire." "Oh, to be an artist! It has always been that. To paint beautiful pictures that will live long after I am gone, and will make people better and happier. Then the work itself would be such a joy to me. Ever since I have been old enough to realize that I will have to do something to earn my own living, I've hoped that I could do it in that way. I have had lessons from the best teachers we could get in Plainsville, and Cousin Kate took me to the finest art galleries in Europe, and promised to send me to the Art League in New York if I finished my high school course creditably. "But we had to come out here, and that ended everything. I can't help saying, like Shapur, 'Why should I, with life beating strong in my veins, and ambition like a burning simoom in my breast, be left here helpless on the sands, where I can achieve nothing and make no progress toward the City of my Desire?' It seems especially hard to have all this precious time wasted, when I had counted so much on the money I expected to earn,--enough to keep mamma comfortable when she grows old, and to give the other children all sorts of advantages." "And you do not believe that these 'arid sands' hold anything for you?" said Mr. Ellestad. Joyce shook her head. "It takes something more than a trained hand and a disciplined eye to make an artist," he answered, slowly. "Did you ever think that it is the soul that has to be educated? That the greater the man behind the brush, the greater the picture will be? Moses had his Midian before he was worthy to be 'Lawgiver' to his people. Israel had forty years of wilderness-wandering before it was fit for its Promised Land. David was trained for kingship, not in courts, but on the hillsides with his flocks. "This is the secret of Omar's alchemy, to gather something from every person we meet, from every experience life brings us, as Omar gathered something from the heart of every rose, and out of the wide knowledge thus gained, of human weaknesses and human needs, to distil in our own hearts the precious oil of sympathy. That is the attar that will win for us a welcome wherever we go,--sympathy. The quick insight and deep understanding that help us to interpret people. And nobody fills his crystal vase with it until he has been pricked by the world's disappointments and bowed by its tasks. No masterpiece was ever painted without it. A man may become a fine copyist, but he can never make anything live on canvas until he has first lived deeply himself. "Do not think your days wasted, little friend. Where could you learn such lessons of patience and courage as here on this desert where so many come to die? Where could you grow stronger than in the faithful doing of your commonplace duties, here at home, where they all need you and lean upon you? "You do not realize that, if you could go on now to the City of your Desire, the little you have to offer the world would put you in the rank of a common vender of salt,--you could only follow in the train of others. Is not waiting worth while, if it shall give you wares with which to win a _royal_ entrance?" "Oh, yes," answered Joyce, in a quick half-whisper, as the musical voice paused. She was looking away toward the mountain with a rapt expression on her uplifted face, as of one who sees visions. All the discontent had vanished now. It was glowing with hope and purpose. As Mr. Ellestad rose to go, she turned impulsively to thrust both outstretched hands into his. "I can never thank you enough!" she exclaimed. "Old Camelback will be a constant inspiration to me after this instead of an emblem of hopelessness. _Please_ come in and read the legend to mamma! And may I copy it sometime? Always now I shall think of you as _Omar_. I shall call you that in my thoughts." "Thank you, little friend," he said, softly, as they walked on toward the house. "I have failed to accomplish many things in life that I had hoped to do, but the thought that one discouraged soul has called me its Omar makes me feel that I have not lived wholly in vain." CHAPTER IX. LLOYD'S DUCK HUNT MEANWHILE, Lloyd and Jack, riding along toward the river, were enjoying every moment of the sunny afternoon. Leaving the road at the White Bachelor's, they followed the trail across a strip of desert. [Illustration: "ENJOYING EVERY MOMENT OF THE SUNNY AFTERNOON"] "Look out for gopher holes," called Jack. "If your horse should happen to stumble into one, you'll be over his head before you can say 'scat.' The little pests burrow everywhere." As he spoke, his pony sprang to one side of the road with a suddenness that nearly threw him from the saddle. "You old goose!" he exclaimed. "That was nothing but a stick you shied at. But it does look remarkably like a snake, doesn't it, Lloyd? That's the way with all these ponies. They're always on the watch for rattlers, and they'll shy at anything that looks the least bit like one." "I didn't know that we'd find snakes out heah in this dry sand," said Lloyd, in surprise. "Yes, you'll find almost anything if you know just where to look,--a whole menagerie. There are owls and snakes living together in the same holes. Wait! It looks as if there might be a nest of them yonder. I'll stir it up and see." Leaving the trail, he rode up between a clump of sage-brush and greasewood bushes, and threw his hat with all his force toward a hole beneath them. A great, sleepy owl fluttered out, and sailed off with a slow flapping of wings to the shelter of a stubby mesquit farther on. "If we had time to dig into the nest, we'd find a snake in there," declared Jack, hanging down from his saddle, cowboy fashion, to pick up his hat from the ground as he rode along. He could feel that Lloyd admired the easy grace with which he did it, and that she was interested in the strange things he had to tell about the desert. He was glad that Phil was not along, for Phil, with his three years' advantage in age and six inches in height, had a way of monopolizing attention that made Jack appear very young and insignificant. He resented being made to feel like a little boy when he was almost a year older than Lloyd and several inches taller. This was the first time he had been out alone with her, and the first time that he had had a chance to show her that he could be entertaining when he tried. Joyce and Mary and Phil had always had so much to say that he had kept in the background. The sun on Lloyd's hair made it gleam like sunshine itself, tucked up under her jaunty little hunting-cap. The exercise was bringing a deeper colour to the delicate wild-rose pink of her cheeks, and, as her eyes smiled mischievously up at him whenever he told some tale that seemed almost too big to believe, he decided that she was quite the nicest girl he had ever known, except Joyce, and fully as agreeable to go hunting with as any boy. In that short trip he pointed out more strange things than she could have seen in a whole afternoon in the streets of Paris or London. There were the wonderful tiny trap-doors leading down into the silk-lined tunnels of the cunning trap-door spiders; the hairy tarantulas; the lizards; the burrows of the jack-rabbits; a trail made by the feet of coyotes on their way to the White Bachelor's poultry-yard. Then he pointed out a great cactus, sixty feet high, branched like a candelabrum, and told her that the thorny trunk is like a great sealed cup, full of the purest water, and that more than one traveller has saved his life by boring into one of these desert wells when he was perishing of thirst. He told her how the Navajo Indians hunt the prairie-dogs, sticking up a piece of mirror at the entrance to the mound, and lying in wait for the little creature to come out. When it meets its own reflection, and sees what it supposes to be a strange prairie-dog mocking it at its own front door, it hurries out to fight, and the Indian pins it to the ground with his arrow. "Now, we'll have to go faster and make up for lost time," he exclaimed, as they left the desert and turned into a road leading to Tempe, a little town several miles away on Salt River. "There is an old ruin near this road, where the Indians had a fort of some kind, that I'd like to show you, but it's getting late, and we'd better hurry on to the river. Let's gallop." Lloyd had enjoyed many a swift ride, but none that had been so exhilarating as this. The pure, fresh air blowing over the desert was unlike any she had ever breathed before, it seemed so much purer and more life-giving. It was a joy just to be alive on such a day and in such a place. She felt that she knew some of the delight a bird must feel winging its wild, free way through the trackless sky. "I'd like to show you the town, too," Jack said, as they came to the ford in the river leading over to Tempe. "The Mexican quarter is so foreign-looking. But, as we're out to kill, we'll just keep on this side, and follow the river up-stream a piece. Chris said that is where he saw the ducks." "Oh, I'd be the proudest thing that evah walked," she exclaimed, "if I could only shoot one. A peacock couldn't hold a candle to me. It would be worth the trip to Arizona just to do that, if I nevah did anothah thing. How I could crow ovah Malcolm and Rob. Oh, Jack, you haven't any idea how much I want to!" "You shall have first pop at them," Jack answered. "You don't stand as good a show with that little rifle as I do. You'll have to wait till you get up just as close as possible." Compared to the broad Ohio, which Lloyd was accustomed to seeing, Salt River did not look much wider than a creek. She was in a quiver of excitement when they turned the bend, and suddenly came in sight of the beautiful water-fowl. The ponies, trained to stand perfectly still wherever they were left, came to a sudden halt as the two excited hunters sprang off, and crept stealthily along the bank. "They'll see your white sweater," cautioned Jack. "Stoop down, and sneak in behind the bushes." "Then I'd bettah wait heah," returned Lloyd, "and you go on. I don't believe I could hit a bahn doah now, I'm in such a shake. I must have the 'buck ague.' If I bang into them, I'll just frighten them all away, and you won't get a shot." It was a temptation to Jack to do as she urged. This was the first sight he had had of a duck since he had owned a gun, and the glint of the iridescent feathers as the pretty creatures circled and dived in the water made him tingle with the hunters' thrill. "No," he exclaimed, as she insisted. "I brought you out here to shoot a duck, and I don't want to take you back without one." "Then I'll get down and wiggle along in the sand so they can't see me," said Lloyd, "just like 'Lawless Dick, the Half-breed Huntah.' Isn't this fun!" Crawling stealthily through the greasewood bushes, they crept inch by inch nearer the water, fairly holding their breath with excitement. Then Lloyd, rising to her knees, levelled her rifle to take aim. But her hands shook, and, lowering it, she turned to Jack, whispering, "I'm suah I'll miss, and spoil yoah chance. You shoot!" "Aw, go on!" said Jack, roughly, forgetting, in his excitement, that he was not speaking to a boy. "Don't be a goose! You can hit one if you try!" The commanding tone irritated Lloyd, but it seemed to steady her nerves, for, flashing an indignant glance at him, she raised her rifle again, and aimed it with deliberate coolness. _Bang!_ Jack, who knelt just beside her, prepared to fire the instant her shot should send a whir of wings into the air, gave a wild whoop, and dropped his gun. "Hi!" he yelled. "You've hit it! See it floating over there! Wait a minute. I'll get it for you!" Crashing through the bushes he ran back to where Washington stood waiting, and, swinging himself into the saddle, spurred him down the bank. But the pony, who had never balked before with him at any ford, seemed unwilling to go in. "Hurry up, you old slow-poke!" called Jack. "Don't you see it's getting away?" He succeeded in urging him into the middle of the river, where the water was almost up to the pony's body, but half-way across, the pony began to plunge, and turned abruptly about. Then his hind feet seemed to give way, and he went suddenly back on his haunches. At the same instant a gruff voice called from the bank, "Come out of that, you little fool! Don't you know there's quicksand there? Head your cayuse down the river! Quick! Spur him up! Do you want to drown yourself?" With a desperate plunge and a flounder or two, the pony freed himself, and struggled back to safe ground, past the treacherous quicksand. As Jack reached the bank he saw the White Bachelor peering at him from the back of his white horse. He was evidently on the same mission, for he wore a hunting-coat, as brown and weather-beaten as his swarthy face, and carried an old gun on his shoulder. "You'd have been sucked clean through to China, if you'd gone much farther over," he said, crossly. "That's one of the worst places in the river." Although his tone was savage, there was a pleasant gleam in his eyes as he added: "Too bad you've lost your duck." "Haven't lost it yet," said Jack, with a glance toward the dark object floating rapidly down-stream. He kicked off his boots as he spoke. "Oh, Jack, please don't go in after it!" begged Lloyd. "It isn't worth such a risk." The word quicksand had frightened her, for she had heard much of the dangerous spots in the rivers of this region. "Bound to have it!" called Jack, "for you might not get another shot, and I'm bound not to take you back home without one." Striking out into the water regardless of his sweater and heavy corduroy trousers, he paddled after it. By this time the entire flock was out of sight, and when Jack emerged from the river dripping like a water-dog, the man remarked, coolly: "Well, your hunt's up for this day, Buddy. Better skip home and hang yourself up to dry, or you'll be having pneumonia. Aren't you one of the kids that lives at that place where they've got Ware's Wigwam painted on the post, and all sorts of outlandish figgers on the tents?" "Yes," acknowledged Jack, in a surly tone, resenting the name kid. Then, remembering the fate that the man's warning had saved him from, he added, gratefully: "It was lucky for me you yelled out quicksand just when you did, for I was so bent on getting that duck that I'd have kept on trying, no matter how the pony cut up. I thought he had taken a stubborn spell, and wanted to balk at the water. I'm a thousand times obliged. Here, Lloyd," he added. "Here's your trophy. We'll hang it on your saddle." He held out the fowl, a beautifully marked drake, but she drew back with a little shrug of the shoulders. "Oh, mercy, no!" she answered. "I wouldn't touch it for the world!" "Haw! Haw!" roared the White Bachelor, who had watched her shrinking gesture with a grin. "Afraid of a dead duck!" "I'm not!" she declared, turning on him, indignantly. "I'm not afraid of anything! But I just can't beah to touch dead things, especially with fu'h or feathahs on them. Ugh! It neahly makes me sick to think about it!" "Well, if that don't beat the Dutch," said the man, in an amused tone, after a long stare. She seemed to be a strange species of womankind, with which he was unacquainted. Then, after another prolonged stare, he swung his heels against the sides of his old white horse as a signal to move, and ambled slowly off, talking to himself as he went. "Meddlesome old thing!" muttered Lloyd, casting an indignant glance after him. "It's none of his business. I don't see what he wanted to poke in for." "It was lucky for me that he did," answered Jack. "I never once thought of quicksand. Queer that I didn't, too, when I've heard so much about it ever since I came. It's all through Southern Arizona, and more than one man has lost his life blundering into it." Lloyd grew serious as she realized the danger he had escaped. "It was mighty brave of you to go back into the rivah aftah you came so neah being drowned, and just fo' my pleasuah--just because you knew I wanted that duck. I'll remembah it always of you, Jack." "Oh, that's nothing," he answered, carelessly, blushing to the roots of his wet hair. "When I once start out to get a thing, I hate to be beaten. I'd have swam all the way to Jericho rather than let it get away. But I hope you won't always think of me as sloshing around in the water, though I suppose you can't help that, for you know the first time you saw me I was over my elbows in a washtub." "That's so," laughed Lloyd. "But you weren't quite as wet then as you are now. It's a pity you can't wring yourself as dry as you did those towels." While Jack was tugging into his boots, she went back to the bushes for the gun he had dropped. Then she stood drawing out the loads while he tied the duck to his saddle. "Poah thing," said Lloyd. "It looked so beautiful swimming around in the watah a few minutes ago. Now it's mate will be so lonesome. Papa Jack says wild ducks nevah mate again. Of co'se," she went on, slowly, "I'm proud to think that I hit it, but now that it's dead and I took it's life, I feel like a murdahah. Jack, I'm nevah going to kill anothah one as long as I live." "But it isn't as if you'd done it just for sport," protested Jack. "They were meant for food. Wait till Joyce serves it for dinner, and you'll change your mind." "No," she said, resolutely, "I'll keep my rifle for rattlesnakes and coyotes, in case I see any, and for tah'get practice, but I'm not going to do any moah killing of this kind. I'm glad that I got this one, though," she added, as she swung herself into the saddle. "I'll send grandfathah a feathah, and one to Mom Beck. They'll both be so proud. And I'll send one to Malcolm and one to Rob, and they'll both be so envious, to think that I got ahead of them." "May I have one?" asked Jack, "just to keep to remember my first duck hunt?" "Yes, of co'se!" cried Lloyd. "I wouldn't have had any myself, if it hadn't been for you. You have given me one of the greatest pleasuahs I evah had. This has been a lovely aftahnoon." "Then I can count that quite a 'feather in my cap,' can't I," said Jack, laughingly. Reaching down, he selected the prettiest feather he could find, and thrust the long quill through his hatband. Lloyd glanced quickly at him. She would have expected such a complimentary speech from Malcolm or Phil, but coming from the quiet, matter-of-fact Jack, such a graceful bit of gallantry was a surprise. "You can save the down for a sofa-cushion, you know," he added. "Even if you have sworn off shooting any more yourself, you can levy on all that Phil and I get, to finish it." "Oh, thank you," she called back over her shoulder. Her pony, finding that he was turned homeward, was setting off at his best gait. Slapping his hat firmly on his head, Jack hurried to overtake her, and the two raced along neck to neck. "This is how they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix," he called. "I recited it once at school! "'Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace,-- Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place.'" "Isn't it glorious?" called back Lloyd. Her cheeks dimpled with pleasure, and were growing red as a sun-ripened peach from the exercise. Her hat-pin began slipping out. Snatching at the little cap, she caught it just in time to save it from sailing off into the desert, but her hair came slipping down over her shoulders to her waist, in soft, shining waves. Jack thought that he had never seen anything prettier than the little golden ripples in it, as it floated back behind her in the sunshine. "You look like Goldilocks when the three bears chased her," he laughed. "Don't try to put it up again. That's squaw fashion. You ought to wear it that way all the time you're out here, if you want to be in style." Across the road from the Wigwam, Mary and Norman were waiting for the return of the hunters. They had rolled a barrel from the back yard over to the edge of the desert, where they could watch the road, and, turning it on its side, had laid a plank across it, left from flooring the tents. On this they were seesawing up and down, taking turns at occupying the end which faced in the direction Jack and Lloyd would come. Mary happened to have the coveted seat when they came in sight. "Gay go up, and gay go down," she chanted, as the seesaw rose and fell with delightful springiness. "All the way to London town." Norman was high in the air when she began again, "Gay go up," but it was anything but gay go down for Norman. With an unexpectedness that he was wholly unprepared for, Mary's chant ended with a whoop of "Here they come!" She sprang off, and ran to meet them, regardless of the other end of the plank. It fell with such a thud that Norman felt that his spinal column must certainly have become unjointed in the jolt, and his little white teeth shut down violently on his little red tongue. His cries and Mary's shout of "Here they come" brought Joyce to the door. Mr. Ellestad was just leaving. She had prevailed upon him to read the legend to her mother, and then he had stayed on till sundown, discussing the different things that a girl might do on the desert to earn money. The story of Shapur had inspired her with a hope that made all things possible. She was glad that Lloyd's triumph gave her an outlet for her enthusiasm. As soon as Mr. Ellestad left, she hustled Jack off to his mother's tent to change his wet clothes, and then started to build the fire for supper. "It's a pity that it's too dark for me to take a snap shot of you with that duck," she said. "But the first one that Jack or Phil kills we'll have a picture of it. It will do just as well. Then if I were you I'd make some little blotting-pads of white blotting-paper, put a blue-print on the top sheet, of you and your rifle and the duck, and at the top fasten one of the feathers made into a pen. You can split the end of the quill, you know, just as they used to make the old-fashioned goose-quill pens." "So I can!" cried Lloyd. "I'm so glad you thought of it. Oh, Joyce, I've had the best time this aftahnoon! I had no idea the desert could be so interesting!" "Nor I, either," began Joyce. "I'll tell you about it some other time," she added, as Holland burst in, demanding to see the duck that Lloyd had killed. Mary had run down the road to meet him with the news, but he stoutly declined to believe that a girl could have accomplished such a feat, until he had the proof of it in his hands. Then to Lloyd's delight he claimed the honour of picking it. She felt that she would rather throw it away than go through the ordeal herself, yet she could not impose such a task on any one else at such a late hour on a busy Saturday. "Oh, if you only will," she cried, "I'll let you use my rifle all next Saturday. I didn't see how I could possibly touch it! That down is so thick undah the long outside feathahs, that it would be as bad as picking a--a _cat_!" Holland ripped out a handful with a look of fine scorn. "Well, if you aren't the funniest!" he exclaimed. "Girls are awful finicky," he confided to Mary later. "I'm glad that I'm not one." CHAPTER X. THE SCHOOL OF THE BEES WITH her slipper toes caught in the meshes of the hammock to keep her from falling out, and with her head hanging over nearly to the ground, Mary lay watching something beneath her, with breathless interest. "What is it, Mary?" called Phil, as he came up and threw himself down on the grass beside her, in the shade of the bushy umbrella-tree. She pointed to a saucer of sugar and water just below her, on the edge of which several bees had alighted. "I put it there," she said, in a low tone, as if afraid of disturbing the bees. "Mr. Ellestad has been telling us how smart they are, and I wanted to watch them do some of their strange things myself. He wants Joyce to raise bees instead of chickens or squabs or any of the things they were talking about doing. He came up after dinner with some books, and told us so much about them, that I learned more than I would in a whole week in school. Joyce and Lloyd were so interested that, as soon as he left, they rode right over to Mr. Shaw's bee ranch to find out how much a hive costs, and all about it." "Have they been gone long?" asked Phil, more interested in the girls than in the bees. Finding that they had been away more than an hour, and that it was almost time for their return, he settled himself to wait, feigning an interest almost as great as Mary's in the saucer of sugar and water. There was something comical to him always in Mary's serious moods, and the grave expression of the little round face, as it hung over the edge of the hammock, promised enough amusement to make the time pass agreeably. "When one bee gets all he can carry, he goes and tells the others," explained Mary. "I've had six, so far. I suppose you know about Huber," she asked, looking up eagerly. "I didn't till Mr. Ellestad read us a lot about him out of one of the books he brought." "I've heard of him," answered Phil, smiling, as he saw how much she wanted the pleasure of repeating her newly gained knowledge. "Suppose you tell me." "Well, he was born in Switzerland--in Geneva, and when Lloyd found that out, she was ready to read anything he had written, or to study anything he was interested in. She just loves Geneva. That was where she met the major who gave her Hero, her Red Cross war-dog, you know, and that is where he saved her life, by stopping a runaway horse. "Well, Huber went blind when he was just a boy, and he would have had a terribly lonesome time if it hadn't been for the bees. He began to study them, and they were so interesting that he went on studying them his whole life. He had somebody to help him, of course, who watched the hives, and told him what went on inside, and he found out more about them than anybody had ever done before, and wrote books about them. It is two hundred years since then, and a whole library has been written about bees since then, but his books are still read, and considered among the best. "Holland said, Pooh! the bees couldn't teach _him_ anything. He'd just as soon go to a school of grasshoppers, and that I'd be a goose if I spent my time watching 'em eat sugar and water out of a dish. He was going off fishing with George Lee. He wouldn't wait to hear what Mr. Ellestad had to say. But all the fish in the canal wouldn't do me as much good as one thing I learned from the bees." "What was that?" asked Phil, lazily, stretching himself out full length on the grass, and pulling his hat over his eyes. "Sometimes it happens that something gets into the hives that don't belong there; like a slug. Once a mouse got in one, and it told in the book about a child dropping a snail in one. Well, the bees can sting such things to death, but they're not strong enough to drag them out after they're dead, and if the dead bodies stayed in the hives they'd spoil everything after awhile. So the bees just cover them all over with wax, make an air-tight cell, and seal them up in it. Isn't that smart? Then they just leave it there and go off about their business, and forget about it. Mr. Ellestad said that's what people ought to do with their troubles that can't be cured, but have to be endured. They ought to seal them up tight, and stop talking and fretting about them--keep them away from the air, he said, seal them up so they won't poison their whole life. That set me to thinking about the trouble that is poisoning my happiness, and I made up my mind I'd pretend it was just a snail that had crept into my hive. I can't change it, I can't drag it out, but I won't let it spoil all my honey." "Well, bless my soul!" exclaimed Phil, sitting up very straight, and looking at her with an interest that was unfeigned this time. "What trouble can a child like you have, that is so bad as all that?" "Won't you ever tell?" said Mary, "and won't you ever laugh at me?" She was eager to unburden her soul, but afraid of appearing ridiculous in the eyes of her hero. "Well, it's being so fat! I've always wanted to be tall and slender and willowy, like the girls in books. I always play I am, when Patty and I go off by ourselves at recess. I have such good times then, but when I come back the boys call me Pudding, and Mother Bunch and _Gordo_. I think that is Spanish for _fat_. My face is just as round as a full moon, and my waist--well, Holland calls me _Chautauqua_, and that's Indian for bag-tied-in-the-middle. There isn't a girl in school that has such legs as mine. I can barely reach around them with both hands." She pulled her short gingham skirt farther over her knees as she spoke, and stole a side glance at Phil to see if he were taking as serious a view of her troubles as the situation demanded. He was staring straight ahead of him with a very grave face, for he had to draw it into a frown to keep from laughing outright. "I'd give anything to be like Lloyd," she continued. "She's so straight and graceful, and she holds her head like a real princess. But she grew up that way, I suppose, and never did have a time of being dumpy like me. They used to call her 'airy, fairy Lillian' when she was little, because she was so light on her feet." "They might well call her that now," remarked Phil, looking toward the road down which she was to appear. Mary, about to plunge into deeper confidences, saw the glance, and saw that he had shifted his position in order to watch for the coming of the girls. She felt that he was not as interested as she had supposed. Maybe he wouldn't care to hear how she stood every day in the tent before the mirror, to hold her shoulders as Lloyd did, or throw back her head in the same spirited way. Maybe he wouldn't understand. Maybe he would think her vain and silly and a copy-cat, as Holland called her. Lloyd would not have rattled on the way she had been doing. Oh, why had she been born with such a runaway tongue! Covered with confusion, she sat so long without speaking that Phil glanced at her, wondering at the unusual silence. To his surprise there was an expression of real distress on the plump little face, and the gray eyes were winking hard to keep back the tears. "So that is the trouble, is it?" he said, kindly, not knowing what was in her thought. "Well, it's a trouble you'll probably outgrow. I used to go to school with a girl that was nicknamed Jumbo, because she weighed so much, and she grew up to be as tall and slim as a rail; so you see there is hope for you. In the meantime, you are a very sensible little girl to take the lesson of the bees to heart. Just seal up your trouble, and don't bother your head about it, and be your own cheerful, happy little self. People can't help loving you when you are that way, and they don't want you to be one mite different." Phil felt like a grandfather as he gave this bit of advice. He did not see the look of supreme happiness which crossed Mary's face, for at that moment the girls came riding up to the house, and he sprang up to meet them. "I'll unsaddle the ponies," he said, taking the bridles as the girls slid to the ground, and starting toward the pasture. By the time he returned, Mary had carried some chairs out to the hammock, and Joyce had brought a pitcher of lemonade. "Come, drink to the success of my new undertaking," she called. "It's all so far off in the future that mamma says I'm counting my chickens before they are hatched, but--I'm going into the bee business, Phil. Mr. Shaw will let me have a hive of gold-banded Italian bees for eight dollars. I don't know when I'll ever earn that much money, but I'll do it some day. Then that hive will swarm, and the new swarms will swarm, and with the honey they make I'll buy more hives. There is such a long honey-making time every year in this land of flowers, that I'll be owning a ranch as big as Mr. Shaw's some day, see if I don't! I always wanted a garden like Grandmother Ware's, with a sun-dial and a beehive in it, just for the artistic effect, but I never dreamed of making a fortune out of it." "And I intend to get some hives as soon as I go back to Locust," said Lloyd. "It will be the easiest way in the world to raise money for ou' Ordah of Hildegarde. That's the name of the club I belong to," she explained to Phil. "One of its objects is to raise money for the poah girls in the mountain schools. We get so tiahed of the evahlasting embroidery and fancy work, and, as Mr. Ellestad says, this is so interesting, and one can learn so much from the bees." "That's what Mary was telling me," said Phil, gravely. "But I must confess I never got much out of them. I investigated them once when I was a small boy--stirred up the hive with a stick, and by the time I was rescued I was pretty well puffed up. Not with a sense of my wisdom, however. They stung me nearly to death. So I've rather shrunk from having any more dealings with them." "You can't deny that they gave you a good lesson in minding your own business," laughed Lloyd. "Well, I don't care to have so many teachers after me, all teaching me the same thing. I prefer variety in my instructors." "They don't all teach the same thing," cried Joyce, enthusiastically. "I had no idea how the work was divided up until I began to study them. People have watched them through glass hives, you know, with black shutters. They have nurses to tend the nymphs and larvæ, and ladies of honour, who wait on the queen, and never let her out of their sight. And isn't it odd, they are exactly like human beings in one thing, they never turn their back on the queen. Then there are the house bees, who both air and heat the hives by fanning their wings, and sometimes they help to evaporate the honey in the same way, when there is more water in the flower nectar than usual. There are architects, masons, waxworkers, and sculptors, and the foragers, who go out to the flowers for the pollen and nectar. Some are chemists, who let a drop of formic acid fall from the end of their stings to preserve the honey, and some are capsule makers, who seal down the cells when the honey is ripe. Besides all these are the sweepers, who spend their time sweeping the tiny streets, and the bearers, who remove the corpses, and the amazons of the guard, who watch by the threshold night and day, and seem to require some kind of a countersign of all who pass, just like real soldiers. Some are artists, too, as far as knowing colours is concerned. They get red pollen from the mignonette, and yellow pollen from the lilies, and they never mix them. They always store them in separate cells in the storerooms." "Whew!" whistled Phil, beginning to fan himself with his hat as Joyce paused. "Anything more? It takes a girl with a fad to deluge a fellow with facts." "Tell him about the drones," said Lloyd, meaningly. She resented being laughed at. "_They_ don't like the school of the bees eithah. If Aristotle and Cato and Pliny and those old philosophahs could spend time studying them, _you_ needn't tuh'n up yoah nose at them!" Lloyd turned away indignantly, but she looked so pretty with her eyes flashing, and the colour coming up in her cheeks, that Phil was tempted to keep on teasing them about their fad, as he called it. His antagonism to it was all assumed at first, but he began to feel a real resentment as the days wore on. It interfered too often with his plans. Several times he had walked up to the ranch to find Mr. Ellestad there ahead of him with a new book on bee culture, or an interesting account of some new experiment, or some ride was spoiled because, when he called, the girls had gone to Shaw's ranch to spend the afternoon. Joyce and Lloyd purposely pointed all their morals, and illustrated all their remarks whenever they could, by items learned at the School of the Bees, until Phil groaned aloud whenever the little honey-makers were mentioned. "If you had been Shapur you nevah would have followed that bee to the Rose Garden of Omah, would you?" asked Lloyd, one day when they had been discussing the legend of Camelback. "No," answered Phil, "nothing could tempt me to follow one of those irritating little creatures." "Not even to reach the City of yoah Desiah?" "My City of Desire would have been right in that oasis, probably, if I had been Shapur. The story said, 'Water there was for him to drink, and the fruit of the date-palm.' He had everything to make him comfortable, so what was the use of going around with an ambition like a burning simoom in his breast." "I don't believe that you have a bit of ambition," said Lloyd, in a disapproving tone that nettled Phil. "Have you?" "I can't say that it keeps me awake of nights," laughed Phil. "And I can't see that anybody is any happier or more comfortable for being all torn up over some impossible thing he is for ever reaching after, and never can get hold of." "Neahly everybody I know is like Shapur," said Lloyd, musingly. "Joyce is wild to be an artist, and Betty to write books, and Holland to go into the navy, and Jack to be at the head of the mines. Papa has promised him a position in the mine office as soon as he learns Spanish, and he is pegging away at it every spare minute. He says Jack will make a splendid man, for it is his great ambition to be just like his fathah, who was so steady-going and reliable and honahable in all he undahtook, that he had the respect of everybody. Papa says Jack will make just the kind of man that is needed out heah to build up this new country, and he expects great things of him some day. He says that a boy who is so faithful in small things is bound to be faithful to great ones of public trust." "What is your City of Desire?" asked Phil, who did not relish the turn the conversation had taken. He liked Jack, but he didn't want Lloyd to sing his praises so enthusiastically. "Oh, I'm only a girl without any especial talent," answered Lloyd, "so I can't expect to amount to as much as Joyce and Betty. But I want to live up to our club motto, and to leave a Road of the Loving Heart behind me in everybody's memory, and to be just as much like mothah and my beautiful Grandmothah Amanthis as I can. A home-makah, grandfathah says, is moah needed in the world than an artist or an authah. He consoles me that way sometimes, when I feel bad because I can't do the things I'd like to. But it is about as hard to live up to his ideal of a home-makah, as to reach any othah City of Desiah. He expects so much of me." "But what would your ambition be if you were a boy?" asked Phil, lazily leaning back in the hammock to watch her. "If I were a boy," she repeated. A light leaped up into her face, and unconsciously her head took its high, princesslike pose. "If I were a boy, and could go out into the world and do all sawts of fine things, I wouldn't be content to sit down beside the well and the palm-tree. I'd want something to do that was hard and brave, and that would try my mettle. I'd want to fight my way through all sawts of dangahs and difficulties. I couldn't beah to be nothing but a drone, and not have any paht in the world's hive-making and honey-making." "Look here," said Phil, his face flushing, "you girls are associating with bees entirely too much. You're learning to sting." CHAPTER XI. THE NEW BOARDER AT LEE'S RANCH Mary could hardly wait to tell the news to Phil and Mrs. Lee. She ran nearly all the way from the Wigwam to the ranch, her hat in her hand, and the lid of her lunch-basket flapping. Long before she came within calling distance, she saw Phil mount his horse out by the pasture bars, and ride slowly along the driveway which led past the tents to the public road. With the hope of intercepting him, she dashed on still more wildly, but her shoe-strings tripped her, and she was obliged to stop to tie them. Glancing up as she jerked them into hard knots, she breathed a sigh of relief, for he had drawn rein to speak to Mr. Ellestad and the new boarder, who were sitting in the sun near the bamboo-arbour. Then, just as he was about to start on again, Mrs. Lee came singing out to the tents with an armful of clean towels, and he called to her some question, which brought her, laughing, to join the group. Thankful for these two delays, Mary went dashing on toward them so breathlessly that Phil gave a whistle of surprise as she turned in at the ranch. "What's the matter, Mary?" he called. "Indians after you again?" "No," she panted, throwing herself down on the dry Bermuda grass, and wiping her flushed face on her sleeve. "I'm on my way to school. I just stopped by with a message, and I thought you'd like to hear the news." "Well, that depends," began Phil, teasingly. "We hear so little out on this lonely desert, that our systems may not be able to stand the shock of anything exciting. If it's good news, maybe we can bear it, if you break it to us gently. If it's bad, you'd better not run any risks. 'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise,' you know." "Oh, come now, Tremont, that's too bad," laughed Mr. Ellestad. "Don't head her off that way when she's in such a hurry to tell it." "Then go on, Mary," said Phil, gravely. "Mr. Ellestad's curiosity is greater than his caution, and Mr. Armond hasn't been in the desert long enough to be affected by its dearth of news, so anything sudden can't hurt him. Go on." Mary stole a glance at the new boarder. The long, slender fingers, smoothing his closely clipped, pointed beard, hid the half-smile that lurked around his mouth. He was leaning back in his camp-chair, apparently so little interested in his surroundings, that Mary felt that his presence need not be taken into account any more than the bamboo-arbour's. "Well," she said, as if announcing something of national importance, "_Joyce has an order_." "An order," repeated Phil, "what under the canopy is that? Is it catching?" "Don't pay any attention to him, Mary," Mr. Ellestad hastened to say, seeing a little distressed pucker between her eyes. "Phil is a trifle slow to understand, but he wants to hear just as much as we do." "Well, it's an order to paint some cards," explained Mary, speaking very slowly and distinctly in her effort to make the matter clear to him. "You know the Links, back in Plainsville, Mrs. Lee. You've heard me talk about Grace Link ever so many times. Her cousin Cecelia is to be married soon, and her bridesmaids are all to be girls that she studied music with at the Boston Conservatory. So her Aunt Sue, that's Mrs. Link, is going to give her a bridal musicale. It's to be the finest entertainment that ever was in Plainsville, and they want Joyce to decorate the souvenir programmes. Once she painted some place cards for a Valentine dinner that Mrs. Link gave. She did that for nothing, but Mrs. Link has sent her ten dollars in advance for making only thirty programmes. That's thirty cents apiece. "They're to have Cupids and garlands of roses and strings of hearts on 'em, no two alike, and bars of music from the wedding-marches and bridal chorus. Joyce is the happiest thing! She's nearly wild over it, she's so pleased. She's going to buy a hive of bees with the money." Phil groaned, but Mary paid no attention to the interruption. "The letter and the package of blank cards for the programmes came this morning while she was sweeping, and she just left the dirt and the broom right in the middle of the floor, and sat down on the door-step and began sketching little designs on the back of the envelope, as they popped into her head. Lloyd and Jack and mamma are going to do all the cooking and housework and everything, so Joyce can spend all her time on the cards. They want them right away. Isn't that splendid?" "Whoop-la!" exclaimed Phil, as Mary stopped, out of breath. "Fortune has at last changed in your favour. I'll ride straight up to the Wigwam to congratulate her." "Oh, I almost forgot what I stopped by for," exclaimed Mary. "Lloyd told me to tell you that you needn't come to-day to take her riding, for she'll be too busy helping Joyce to go." Phil scowled. "The turn in _my_ fortune isn't so favourable, it seems. Well, if I'm not wanted at the Wigwam I'll go to town to-day. There's always something doing in Phoenix. Climb up behind me, Mary, and I'll give you a lift as far as the schoolhouse." As they galloped gaily down the road, Mrs. Lee looked after them with a troubled expression in her eyes. "There's too much doing in Phoenix for a nice boy like that," she thought. "I wish he wouldn't go so often. I must tell him the experience some of my other boys have had when they went in with idle hands and full purses like his." Her boarders were always her boys to Mrs. Lee, and she watched over them with motherly interest, not only nursing them in illness and cheering them in homesickness, but many a time whispering a warning against the temptations which beset all exiles from home who have nothing to do but kill time. Now with the hope of interesting the new boarder in something beside himself, she dropped down into the rustic seat near him, hanging the towels over the arm of it while she talked. "You must make the acquaintance of the Wares, Mr. Armond," she began. "They stayed at the ranch three weeks, and this little Mary and her brothers kept things humming, the whole time." "They'd give me nervous prostration in half a day, if they're all like that little chatterbox," he answered, listlessly. "Not Joyce," interrupted Mr. Ellestad. "She's the most interesting child of her age I ever knew, and being an artist yourself you couldn't fail to be interested in her unbounded ambition. She really has talent, I think. For a girl of fifteen her clever little water-colours and her pen-and-ink work show unusual promise." "Then I'm sorry for her," said Mr. Armond. "If she has ambition and thinks she has talent, life will be twice as hard for her, always a struggle, always an unsatisfied groping after something she can never reach." "But I believe that she will reach what she wants, some day," was the reply. "She has youth and health and unbounded hope. The other day I quoted an old Norwegian proverb, '_He waits not long who waits for a feast_.' She wrote it on the kitchen door, saying, 'I'll have to wait till I can earn enough money to buy one hive of bees, and then I'll wait for that hive to swarm and make another, and for the two to grow into a hundred, and that into two hundred maybe, before I'll have enough to go away and study. It'll be years and years before I reach the mark I've set for myself, but when I'm really an artist, doing the things I've dreamed of doing, that will be a feast worth any amount of waiting.' Now in less than a week she has found her way to the first step, the first hive of bees, and I'm truly glad for her." "But the happier such beginnings, the more tragic the end, oftentimes," Mr. Armond answered. "I've known such cases,--scores of them, when I was an art student myself in Paris. Girls and young fellows who thought they were budding geniuses. Who left home and country and everything else for art's sake. They lived in garrets, and slaved and struggled and starved on for years, only to find in the end that they were not geniuses, only to face failure. I never encourage beginners any more. For what is more cruel than to say to some hungry soul, 'Go on, wait, you'll reach the feast, your longing shall be satisfied,' when you know full well that in only one case in ten thousand, perhaps, can there be a feast for one of them. That when they stretch out their hands for bread there will be only a stone." "But you reached it yourself, Armond, you know you did," answered Mr. Ellestad, who had known the new boarder well in his younger days. "To have had pictures hung in the Salon and Academy, to be recognized as a success in both hemispheres, isn't that enough of a feast to satisfy most men?" The face turned to him in reply wore the look of one who has fought the bitterest of fights and fallen vanquished. "No. To have a sweet snatched away just as it is placed to one's lips is worse than never to have tasted it. What good does it do me now? Look at me, a hopeless invalid, doomed to a year or two of unendurable idleness. How much easier it would be for me now to fold my hands and wait, if I had no baffled ambitions to torment me hourly, no higher desires in life than Chris there." He pointed to the swarthy Mexican, digging a ditch across the alfalfa pasture. "No," he repeated. "I'd never encourage any one, now, to start on such an unsatisfactory quest." "I'm sorry," said Mr. Ellestad. "When I heard that you were coming, I hoped that you would take an interest in Joyce Ware. You could be the greatest inspiration and help to her, if you only would." "There she is now," exclaimed Mrs. Lee, who sat facing the road. "It does me good to see any one swing along as she does, with so much energy and purpose in every movement." Mr. Armond turned his head slightly for a view of the girlish figure moving rapidly toward them. "Don't tell her that I am an artist, Ellestad," he said, hurriedly, as she drew near, "or that I've ever lived in the Latin Quarter or--or anything like that. I know how schoolgirls gush over such things, and I'm in no mood for callow enthusiasms." Joyce's errand was to borrow some music, the wedding-marches, if Mrs. Lee had them, from Lohengrin and Tannhauser. She remembered seeing several old music-books on the organ in the adobe parlour, and she thought maybe the selections she wanted might be in them. Mr. Armond sat listening to the conversation with as little interest, apparently, as he had done to Mary's. After acknowledging his introduction to Joyce by a grave bow, he leaned back in his chair, and seemed to withdraw himself from notice. At first glance Joyce had been a trifle embarrassed by the presence of this distinguished-looking stranger. Something about him--the cut of the short, pointed beard, the nervous movement of his long, sensitive fingers, the eyes that seemed to see so much and so deeply in their brief glances, recalled some memory, vague and disturbing. She tried to remember where it was she had seen some man who looked like this one. "Is it very necessary that you should have the wedding-marches?" asked Mrs. Lee, coming back from a fruitless search in the parlour. "Wouldn't a few bars from any other music do just as well? So long as you have some notes, I should think any other march would carry out the idea just as well." "No," said Joyce. "All the guests will be musicians. They'd see at a glance if it wasn't appropriate, and ordinary music would not mean anything in such a place." "I know where you can get what you want," said Mrs. Lee, "but you'd have to go to Phoenix for it. I have a friend there who is a music-teacher and an organist. I'll give you a note to her, if you care enough to go six miles." "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Lee," cried Joyce. "I'll be glad to take it, if it isn't too much trouble for you to write it. I'd go twenty miles rather than not have the right notes on the programmes." Mr. Armond darted a quick glance at her through half-closed eyelids. Evidently she was more in earnest than he had supposed. As Mrs. Lee went to the house to write the note, Mr. Ellestad said, smilingly, "Mary told us that this piece of good fortune will bring you your first hive of bees, give you your first step toward the City of your Desire. It seems appropriate that this bridal musicale should give you your hives. Did you ever hear that the bow of the Hindu love-god is supposed to be strung with wild bees?" "No," she answered, slowly, "but it's a pretty idea, isn't it?" Then her face lighted up so brightly that Mr. Armond looked at her with awakening interest. "Oh, I'm so glad you told me that! It suggests such a pretty design. See! I can make one card like this." Taking a pencil from her hair, where she had thrust it when she started on her errand, and catching up the old music-book Mrs. Lee had brought out, she began sketching rapidly on a fly-leaf. "I'll have a little Cupid in this corner, his bow strung with tiny bees, shooting across this staff of music, suspended from two hearts. And instead of notes I'll make bees, flying up and down between the lines. Won't that be fine?" Mr. Armond nodded favourably when the sketch was passed to him. "Very good," he said, looking at it critically. Slipping a pencil from his pocket, he held it an instant over the little fat Cupid, as if to make some correction or suggestion, but apparently changing his mind, he passed the sketch back to Joyce without a word. Again she was baffled by that vague half-memory. The gesture with which he had taken the pencil from his pocket and replaced it seemed familiar. The critical turn of his head, as he looked at the sketch, was certainly like some one's she knew. She liked him in spite of his indifference. Something in his refined, melancholy face made her feel sorry for him; sorrier than she had been for any of the other people at the ranch. He looked white and ill, and the spells of coughing that seized him now and then seemed to leave him exhausted. When Mrs. Lee came out with the note, Joyce rose to go. She had learned in the short conversation with Mr. Ellestad that this stranger was an old acquaintance of his, so she said, hospitably, "We are your nearest neighbours, Mr. Armond. I know from experience how monotonous the desert is till one gets used to it. Whenever you feel in need of a change we'll be glad to see you at the Wigwam. It's always lively there, now." He thanked her gravely, and Mr. Ellestad added, with a laugh, "He is just at the point now where Shapur was when the caravan went on without him. He doesn't think that these arid sands can hold anything worth while." "Oh, I know!" exclaimed Joyce, with an understanding note in her voice. "It's dreadful until you follow the bee, and find your Omar. You must tell him about it, Mr. Ellestad." Then she hurried away. Half an hour later she galloped by on the pony, toward Phoenix. Lloyd was riding beside her. As they passed the ranch she waved a greeting with the note which Mrs. Lee had given her. "What do you think of her work?" asked Mr. Ellestad of his friend. "One couldn't judge from a crude outline like that," was the answer. "She's so young that it is bound to be amateurish. Still she certainly shows originality, and she has a capacity for hard work. Her willingness to go all the way to Phoenix for a few bars of music shows that she has the right stuff in her. But I wouldn't encourage her if I were in your place." When Mr. Ellestad called at the Wigwam that afternoon, he found Joyce hard at work. A row of finished programmes was already stretched out on the table before her. Through the door that opened into the kitchen, he could see Lloyd at the ironing-board. Her face was flushed, and there was an anxious little frown between her eyes, because the wrinkles wouldn't come out of the sheets, and the hot irons had scorched two towels in succession. But she rubbed away with dogged persistence, determined to finish all that was left in the basket, despite Joyce's pleading that she should stop. "Those things can wait till the last of the week just as well as not," she insisted. But Lloyd was unyielding. "No, suh," she declared. "I nevah had a chance to i'on even a pocket-handkerchief befoah, and I'm bound I'll do it, now I've begun." There was a blister on one pink little palm, and a long red burn on the back of her hand, but she kept cheerfully on until the basket was empty. "Tell me about Mr. Armond," said Joyce, as she worked. "He reminds me of some one I've seen. I've been trying all afternoon to think. You've known him a long time, haven't you?" "Yes, I met him abroad when he was a mere boy," answered Mr. Ellestad, wishing that he had not been asked to say nothing about his friend's career as an artist. The tale of his experiences and successes would have been of absorbing interest to Joyce. "Armond doesn't like to have his past discussed," he said, after a pause. "He made a brilliant success of it until his health failed several years ago. Since then he has grown so morose that he is not like the same creature. He has lost faith in everything. I tell him that if he would rouse himself to take some interest in people and things about him,--if he'd even read, and get his mind off of himself, then he'd quit cursing the day he was born, and pick up a little appetite. Then he would live longer. If he were at some sanitarium they'd make him eat; but here he won't go to the table half the time. Jo fixes up all sorts of tempting extras for him, but he just looks at them, and shoves them aside without tasting. The only thing I have heard him express a wish for since he has been at the ranch is quail." "Oh, we're going to have some for supper to-night," cried Joyce. "Jack shot seven yesterday. He gets some nearly every day. I'll send Mr. Armond one if you think he'd like it. That is, if they turn out all right. My cooking isn't always a success, especially when my mind is on something like this work." [Illustration: "SHE LEANED OVER TO OFFER HIM THE LITTLE BASKET"] Everybody in the family helped to get supper that night, even Norman, so that Joyce might work on undisturbed till the last moment. The only part that she took in the preparations was to superintend the cooking of the quail, and to call out directions to the others, as she painted garlands of roses and sprays of orange-blossoms on one programme after another. "Spread one of the white fringed napkins out in the little brown covered basket, Mary, please, and put in a knife and fork. And Lloyd, I wish you'd set a saucer on the stove hearth where it'll get almost red-hot. Jack, if you'll have the pony ready at the door I'll fly down to Mr. Armond with a quail the minute they are done, so that he'll get it piping hot. No, I'll take it myself, thank you. You boys are as hungry as bears, and I've painted so hard all afternoon that I haven't a bit of appetite. I'll feel more like eating if I have the ride first." The ranch supper-bell was ringing as she started down the road on a gallop, holding the basket carefully in one hand, and guiding the pony with the other. Everybody had gone in to the dining-room but Mr. Armond. Wrapped in a steamer-rug and overcoat, he sat just outside the door of his tent, his hat pulled down over his eyes. Turning from the driveway she rode directly across the lawn toward him. She was bareheaded, and her face was glowing, not only from the rapid ride, but the kindly impulse that prompted her coming. He looked up in astonishment as she leaned over to offer him the little basket. "I've brought you a quail, Mr. Armond," she said, breathlessly. "You must eat it quick, while it's blazing hot, and eat it every bit but the bones, for it was cooked on purpose for you. It'll do you good." Without an instant's pause she started off again, but he called her. "Wait a moment, child. I haven't thanked you. Ellestad said you were working at your programmes like a Trojan, and wouldn't stop long enough to draw a full breath. You surely haven't finished them." "No, it will take nearly two days longer," she said, gathering up the reins again. "And you stopped in the middle of it to do this for me!" he exclaimed. "I certainly appreciate your taking so much time and trouble for me--an entire stranger." "Oh, no! You're not a stranger," she protested. "You're Mr. Ellestad's friend." "Then may I ask one more favour at your hands? I'd like to see your programmes when they're finished,--before you send them away. There is so little to interest one out here," he continued, apologetically, "that if you don't mind humouring an invalid's whims----" "Oh, I'd be glad to," cried Joyce, flushing. "I'll bring them down just as soon as they're done. That is," she added, with a mischievous smile dimpling her face, which made her seem even younger than she was, "if you'll be good, and eat every bit of the quail." "I'll promise," he replied, an answering smile lighting his face for an instant. An easy promise to keep, he thought, as he lifted the lid, and took out the hot covered dish. The quail on the delicately browned toast was the most tempting thing he had seen in weeks. "What a kind little soul she is," he said to himself, as he tasted the first appetizing morsel, "fairly brimming over with consideration for other people. As Ellestad says, I could do a lot for her, if it seemed the right thing to encourage her." Whether it was the quail, which he ate slowly, enjoying it to the last mouthful, or whether it was the remembrance of a pair of honest, friendly eyes, beaming down on him with neighbourly good-will and sympathy, he could not tell, but as he went into his tent afterward and lighted the lamp, somehow the desert seemed a little less lonely, the outlook a trifle less hopeless. CHAPTER XII. PHIL HAS A FINGER IN THE PIE PHIL went up to the Wigwam early next morning. Breakfast was just over, and Joyce had begun painting again. He paused an instant at the front door to watch her brown head bending over the table, and the quick motion of her deft fingers. She was so absorbed in her task that she did not look up, so after a moment he went on around the house to the kitchen. Mrs. Ware was lifting the dish-pan from its nail to its place on the table, and Lloyd was standing beside her, enveloped in a huge apron, holding a towel in her hands, ready to help. Norman, beside a chair on which a clean napkin had been spread, was filling the salt-cellars. Jack, having carried water to the tents, was busy chopping wood. "Good mawning!" called Lloyd, waving her towel as Phil appeared in the door. Mrs. Ware turned with such a cordial smile of welcome, that he took it as an invitation to come in, and hung his hat on the post of a chair. "I want to have a finger in this pie," he announced. "I was told to stay at home yesterday, but I don't intend to be snubbed to-day. "Wait, Aunt Emily, that kettle is too heavy for you!" He had called her Aunt Emily since the first time he had heard Lloyd do it. "You don't care, do you?" he had asked. "It makes a fellow feel so forlorn and familyless when he has to mister and madam everybody." She was sewing a button on his coat for him at the time he asked her, and she gave such a pleased assent that he stooped to leave a light kiss on the smooth forehead where gray hair was beginning to mingle with the brown. Now he took the kettle from her before she could object, and began pouring the boiling water into the pan. "Let me do this," he insisted. "I haven't had a hand in anything of the sort since I was a little shaver. It makes me think of a time when the servants were all away, and Stuart and I helped Aunt Patricia. She paid us in peppermint sticks and cinnamon drops." "You'll get no candy here," she answered, laughing. "You might as well go on if that's what you expect." But there was no resisting the coaxing ways of this big handsome boy, who towered above her, and who took possession in such a masterful way of her apron and dish-mop. His coat and cuffs were off the next instant, and he began clattering the china and silverware vigorously through the hot soap-suds. Mrs. Ware, taking a big yellow bowl in her lap, sat down to pick over some dried beans, and to enjoy the lively conversation which kept pace with the rattle of the dishes. It was interrupted presently by a complaint from Lloyd. "Aunt Emily, he doesn't wash 'em clean! He's left egg all ovah this spoon. That's the second time I've had to throw it back into the watah." "Aunt Emily, it isn't so," mocked Phil, in a high falsetto voice, imitating her accent. "It's bettah than she could do huhself. She's no great shakes of a housekeepah." "I'll show you," retorted Lloyd, throwing the spoon back into the pan with a splash. "I'm going to make a pie foh dinnah to-day, and you won't get any." "Then probably I'll be the only one who escapes alive to tell the tale. Aunt Emily, please invite me to dinner," he begged, "and mayn't I stay out here, and watch her make it?" "Of co'se I can't help it if she chooses to ask you to dinnah," said Lloyd, loftily, when he had received his invitation, "but I most certainly won't have you standing around in my way, criticizing me when I begin to cook. You can fill the wood-box and brush up the crumbs and hang these towels out on the line, if you want to, then you may go in and watch Joyce paint." "Oh, thank you!" answered Phil. "_Such_ condescension! _Such_ privileges! Your Royal Highness, I humbly make my bow!" He bent low in a burlesque obeisance that a star actor might have envied, and, throwing up a saucer and catching it deftly, began to sing: "The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts, Upon a summer day. But none could look--that selfish cook Drove every one away." It was all the most idle nonsense, and yet, as they worked together in a playful half-quarrel, Lloyd liked him better than she had at any time before. He reminded her of Rob Moore. He was big like Rob, tall and broad-shouldered, but much handsomer. Rob had teased her since babyhood, and, when Phil began his banter in the same blunt, big-brother fashion, it made her feel as if she had known him always. And yet he was more like Malcolm than Rob, in some respects, she thought later. The courteous way he sprang to pick up her handkerchief, the quick turn he gave to some little remark, which made it a graceful compliment, his gentlemanly consideration for Mrs. Ware--all that was like Malcolm. Phil would not be driven out of the kitchen until he had exacted a promise from Mrs. Ware that he might come the next day, and make the dessert for the morrow's dinner, vowing that, if it were not heels over head better than Lloyd's, he would treat everybody at the Wigwam and on the ranch to a picnic at Hole-in-the-rock. "Prop the door open, please," called Joyce, as he went into the sitting-room from the kitchen. "I need some of that heat in here. It's chilly this morning when one sits still." So Lloyd, moving back and forth at her pastry-making, could see their heads bending over the table, and hear snatches of an animated discussion about a design he proposed for her to put on one of the programmes. "Put a line from 'Call me thine own' on this one," he said, "and have a couple of turtle-doves perched up on the clef, cooing at each other, and make little hearts for the notes." "How brilliant!" cried Joyce. "Phil, you're a genius. Do think up some more, for I'm nearly at my wits' end, trying to get thirty different designs." "Don't make them all so fine," he suggested. "Some of those people will get it into their heads that matrimony is all roses." He lifted his voice a little, so that Lloyd could not fail to hear. She was standing before the moulding-board now, her sleeves tucked up, and a look of intense seriousness on her face as she sifted flour, as if pie-making were the most important business in the universe. "Make the Queen of Hearts with a rolling-pin in her hand and a scowl on her face, as she will look after the ceremony, when she takes it into her head to make some tarts. Put a bar of 'Come, ye disconsolate,' with a row of tiny pies for the notes, and the old king doubled up at the end of it, with the knave running for a doctor." "You horrid thing!" called Lloyd, wrathfully, from the kitchen. "You sha'n't have a bite of these pies now." "Nothing personal, I assure you," called Phil, laughing. "I'm only helping the artist." But Joyce said, in a low tone, "It _is_ a little personal, because she used to be called the Queen of Hearts so much. Did you ever see her picture taken in that character, when she was dressed in that costume for a Valentine party? It was years ago. Miss Marks made some coloured photographs of her. You'll find one in that portfolio somewhere, if you'll take the trouble to look through it. She's had so many different nicknames," continued Joyce. Norman was hammering on something in the kitchen now, so there was no need for her to lower her voice. "She is 'The Little Colonel' to half the Valley, and I suppose always will be to her grandfather's friends. Then when she started to school, about the time that picture was taken, she was such a popular little thing that one of her teachers began calling her Queen of Hearts. Both boys and girls used to fuss for the right to stand beside her in recitations, and march next her at calisthenics, and she was sure to be called first when they chose sides for their games at recess. "Then, after she was in that play with her dog Hero, that Mary told you about, the girls at boarding-school began calling her the Princess Winsome, and then just Princess. Malcolm McIntyre, who took the part of the knight who rescued her, never calls her anything but that now. There she is, as she looked in the play when she sang the dove song." Joyce pointed with her brush-handle to another photograph in the pile. It was the same picture that Mary had showed him, the beautiful little medallion of the Princess Winsome, holding the dove to her breast as she sang, "Flutter and fly." The same picture which had swayed on the pendulum in Roney's lonely cabin, repeating, with every tick of the clock, "For love--will find--a way!" Phil put it beside the other photograph, and studied them both intently as Joyce went on. "Then the other day, when her father was here, I noticed that he had a new name for her. He called her that several times, and when he went away, he said it in a tone that seemed to mean so much, 'Good-bye, my little _Hildegarde_!'" Phil looked from the pictures on the table to the original, standing in the kitchen wielding a rolling-pin under Mrs. Ware's direction. The morning sun, streaming through the window, was making a halo of her hair. Somehow he found this last view the most pleasing. He said nothing, however, only thrummed idly on the table, and hummed an old song that had been running through his head all morning. "What's that you're humming?" asked Joyce, when she had worked on in silence several minutes. Phil came to himself with a start. "I'm sure I don't know," he laughed. "I wasn't conscious that I was making even an attempt to sing." "It went this way," said Joyce, whistling the refrain, softly. "It's so sweet." "Oh, that," said Phil, recognizing the air. "That's a song that Elsie's old English nurse used to sing her to sleep with. "'Maid Elsie roams by lane and lea, Her heart beats low and sad.' She liked it because it had her name in it, and I liked it because of the jingle of the chorus. It always seemed full of bells to me." He hummed it lightly: "'Kling, lang ling, She seems to hear her bride-bells ring, Her bonny bride-bells ring.' It must have been these bridal musicale programmes that brought it up to me, for I haven't thought of it in years." "And that suggests something to me," answered Joyce. "I haven't used any wedding-bells on these programmes. Now, let me see. How can I put them on?" She sat studying one of the empty cards intently. "Here! This way!" cried Phil. "I can't draw it as it ought to be, but I can see in my mind's eye what you want. Put a Cupid up in each top corner, with a bunch of five narrow ribbons, strung across from one to the other in narrow, wavy lines, and hang the little bells on them for notes. Then the ends of the ribbons can trail down the sides of the programmes sort of fluttery and graceful. Pshaw! I can't make it look like anything, but I can see exactly how it ought to look." He scribbled his pencil across the lines he had attempted to draw, and started to tear the paper in disgust, when she caught it from him. "I know just what you mean," she cried. "And Phil Tremont, you _are_ a genius. This will be the best design in the whole lot." She was outlining it quickly as she spoke. "You ought to be a designer. You'd make your fortune at it, for originality is what counts. Why don't you study it?" "I did have it in mind for a week or so," answered Phil, "but I wanted most of all to be an architect, or something of the sort. Father wanted me to study medicine, and grandfather thought I'd do better at civil engineering. But I couldn't settle down to anything. I suppose the truth of the matter was I was thinking too much about the good times I was having, and didn't want to buckle down to anything that meant hard digging. So last year father said I wasn't getting any kind of discipline, and that I had to go to a military school for it. That there I would at least learn punctuality and order, and that military training would fit me to be a good citizen just as much as to be a good soldier." "What does he think about it now?" answered Joyce. "I beg your pardon," she added, hastily. "I had no right to ask such a personal question." "That's all right," answered Phil. "I don't care a rap if you do talk about it. It's worried me a good deal thinking how cut up the old pater will feel when he finds out about it. He thought he'd left me in such good hands, shut up where I couldn't get out into any trouble, and I hated to write that they'd fired me almost as soon as his back was turned. If I could have talked to him, and explained both sides of it, how unfair the Major was, and all that, and how we were just out for a lark, with the best intentions in the world, I could have soon convinced him that I meant all right, and he wouldn't have minded so much. But I never was any good at letter-writing, so I kept putting it off the first two weeks I was here. I wrote last week, but it takes a month to send a letter and get an answer, so it'll be some time yet before I hear from him. In the meantime, I'm taking life easy, and worrying as little as possible." Joyce made no reply when he paused, only bent her head a little lower over her work; but Phil, unusually sensitive to mental influences, felt her disapprobation as keenly as if she had spoken. The silence began to grow uncomfortable, and finally he asked, lightly, toying with a paper-knife while he spoke, "Well, what do you think of the situation?" "Do you want to know honestly?" asked Joyce, her head bending still lower over her work. "Yes, honestly." Her face grew red, but looking up her clear gray eyes met his unflinchingly. "Well, I think you're the very brightest boy that I ever knew, anywhere, and that it would be a very easy thing for you to make your mark in the world in any way you pleased, if you would only make up your mind to do it. But it's lazy of you to loaf around all winter doing nothing, not even studying by yourself, and it's selfish to disappoint your father when he is so ambitious for you, and it's--yes, it's _wicked_ for you to waste opportunities that some boys would almost give their eyes for. There!" "Whew!" whistled Phil, getting up to pace the floor, with his hands in his pockets. "That's the worst roast I _ever_ got." "Well, you asked for it," said Joyce. "You said for me to tell you honestly what I thought." "What would you have me to do?" asked Phil, impatiently, anxious to justify himself. "A fellow with any spirit couldn't get down and beg to be taken back to school, when he knew all the time that he was only partly in the wrong, and that it was unjust and arbitrary of the officers to require what they did." "That isn't the only school in the country," said Joyce, quietly, "and for a fellow six feet tall, and seventeen years old, a regular athlete in appearance, to wait for somebody to lead him back to his books does seem a little ridiculous, doesn't it?" "Confound it!" he began, angrily, then stopped, for Joyce was smiling up into his face with a friendliness he could not resist, and there was more than censure in her eyes. There was sincere admiration for the handsome boy whom she found so entertaining and companionable. "Now don't get uppity," she laughed. "I'm only saying to you what Elsie would say if she were here." Phil shrugged his shoulders. "Not much!" he exclaimed. "You don't know Elsie. She thinks her big brother is perfection. She has always stood up for me in the face of everything. Daddy never failed to let me off easy when she patched up the peace between us. _She_ wouldn't rake me over the coals the way you do." Joyce liked the expression that crossed his face as he spoke of Elsie, and the gentler tone in which he said Daddy. "All the more reason, then," she answered, "that somebody else should do the raking. I hope I haven't been officious. It's only what I would say to Jack under the same circumstances. I'm so used to preaching to the boys that I couldn't help sailing in when you gave me leave. I won't do it any more, though. See! Here is the design you suggested. I've finished it." Mollified by her tone and her evident eagerness to leave the subject, he dropped into the chair beside her again, and sat talking until Lloyd called them both out to admire her pies. There were two of them on the table, hot from the oven, so crisp and delicately browned, that Lloyd danced around them, clicking a couple of spoons in each hand like castanets, and calling Mrs. Ware to witness that she had made them entirely by herself. "Don't they look delicious?" she cried. "Did you evah see moah tempting looking pies in all yoah life? I wish grandfathah could have a slice of that beautiful custa'd with the meringue on top. He'd think Mom Beck made it, and he'd nevah believe, unless he saw it with his own eyes, that I could make such darling cross-bahs as are on that cherry taht." "I wish you'd listen!" cried Phil. "Don't you know that proverb about letting another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth?" "I'm not praising _me_," retorted Lloyd. "I'm just praising my pies, and if they're good, and I know they're good, why shouldn't I say so? They're the first I evah made, and I think I have a right to be proud of their turning out so well. Of co'se they wouldn't have been this nice if Aunt Emily hadn't showed me what to do." "Let's sample them now," proposed Jack, who had been called in from the wood-pile to pay his respects to the pastry. Lloyd threw herself between the table and Jack with a little scream of remonstrance, as he advanced threateningly with a knife. "I believe Lloyd is prouder of making those old pies than she was of shooting the duck. Confess, now, aren't you?" he insisted. "Yes, I am," she answered, emphatically. "You had your picture taken with a duck," suggested Phil. "Suppose you have one now with the pies to add to your collection. Come on and get your camera, and I'll take a companion piece to the hunting-picture. We'll call this the 'Queen of Tarts.' Stand out back of the tent, and hold the custard pie in one hand, and the cherry tart in the other." With the dimples deepening in her cheeks as the whole family gathered around to watch the performance, Lloyd took her position out-of-doors, with the white tent for a background. Holding her hands stiffly out in front of her, she stood like a statue, while Jack and Joyce each brought out a pie, and balanced them in the middle of her little pink, upturned palms. "I want to take two shots," said Phil, waiting for them to step out of range. "There are several blank films left on this roll. Now," he ordered, when the shutter clicked after the first exposure, "hold still, we'll try another. Suppose you put the plates up on the tips of your fingers, the way hotel waiters do. They carry things that way with such an easy offhand grace. I always admired it." "I should say it was offhand!" cried Jack. For Lloyd, obeying orders, clutched frantically after the cherry tart, with a shriek of dismay. It had refused to stay poised on her finger-tips. "Topside down, of co'se," she wailed, as the broken plate fell in one place, and the pastry in another. "And the juice is running all ovah me, and the darling little cross-bahs are all in the sand!" Phil hastily clicked the shutter again. He was sure that the second snap had caught the tart in the act of falling, and with the third film he wanted to preserve the expression of surprise and dismay that clouded Lloyd's face. It was one of the most ludicrous expressions he had ever seen. "Pride goeth before destruction," he quoted, laughingly. "I wish you'd hush up with yoah old proverbs, Phil Tremont," cried Lloyd, half-laughing and half-angry. "It's all yoah fault, anyway. You knew I'd spill that taht if I held it that way, and I just believe you did it on purpose. You knew when you first saw those pies it would be useless for you to try to make any dessert to-morrow that would half-way come up to them, and you deliberately planned to get them out of the way, so you wouldn't have to stand the test. You were afraid you'd have to give the picnic you promised." "Sputter away, if it will ease your mind any," laughed Phil. "It was worth the picnic to see your frantic grab after that tart. But honestly, Lloyd," he said, growing serious as he saw she really cared, "I'm as sorry as I can be that it happened, and I'll do anything you say to make atonement. I'll withdraw from the contest, award you the laurels, and give the picnic, anyhow." "There's nothing the matter with the custard pie," piped up Norman, "'cept'n you can see where Joyce's fingers jabbed into the meringue when she caught it from Lloyd. I think it would be safer to eat it now before anything else happens." "No, we'll set mamma to guard it till the rest of the dinner is ready," said Joyce, leading the way back to the kitchen. "If everybody will fly around and help, we'll have it a little earlier to-day." It was one of the jolliest meals that Phil had had in the Wigwam. "Let's all go to Phoenix this afternoon," proposed Phil, when they had gone back to the sitting-room. "We can take the films in to the photographer, and have them developed. Joyce, you may ride my horse, and I'll get one from Mrs. Lee." "Oh, thank you!" cried Joyce, looking wistfully through the window. "The outdoors never did look so tempting, it seems to me, and those programmes are getting so monotonous I can hardly make myself go back to them. I wish I could go. But I can't shirk even for a few hours, or they might miss getting there in time." "Couldn't anything tempt you to go?" urged Phil. She shook her head resolutely. "'Not all the king's horses and all the king's men' could draw me away from these programmes till they are finished." "No wonder she preached me such a sermon on loafing, this morning," thought Phil, as he rode away beside Jack, with the roll of films in his pocket. "Anybody with that much energy and perseverance doesn't need to go to the School of the Bees. It makes her all the harder on the drones. And I know that's what she thinks I am." CHAPTER XIII. A CHANGE OF FORTUNE IT was nearly two o'clock next day when the thirtieth programme was finished and placed in the last row of dainty cards, laid out for the family's farewell inspection. While Lloyd cut the squares of tissue-paper which were to lie between them, Joyce brought the box in which they were to be packed and the white ribbons to tie them. Jack, having saddled Washington, was blacking his shoes and making other preparations for his ride to town. A special trip had to be made, in order to get the package to the Phoenix post-office in time. "They might wait until morning, I suppose," said Joyce, as she began placing them carefully in piles of ten. "But it is best to allow all the time possible for delays. Then the programmes have to be written on them after they get to Plainsville. Oh, I _hope_ Mrs. Link will like them!" "I don't see how she can help it!" exclaimed Lloyd. "They're lovely, and I think you'd be so proud of them you wouldn't know what to do." "I am pleased with them," admitted Joyce, stopping to take one last peep at the pretty rose-garlanded Cupids ringing the bride-bells, which Phil had suggested. It was the best design in the lot, she thought. "Oh, I forgot!" she exclaimed, suddenly, looking up in dismay. "What shall I do? I promised Mr. Armond that I'd let him see these cards before I sent them away." "You won't have time now," suggested Lloyd. "I suppose Jack could wait a few minutes, but I thought we'd start over to Shaw's ranch just as soon as the cards were off. I didn't want to lose a minute in getting my hive of bees, after I'd earned them. It's such a long walk over there and back, that I don't feel like going to the ranch first." "Let Jack stop and show them to Mr. Armond," suggested her mother. "He's always so careful that he can be trusted to tie the box up safely afterward." "Oh, he's _safe_ enough," answered Joyce, "but he'd make such a mess of it, tying and untying the white ribbons on the inside of the package. He can't make a decent bow to save his life. He'd have them all in knots and strings, and after all the care I've taken I want Mrs. Link to find them just as they leave me." For a moment Joyce stood undecided, regretting her promise to Mr. Armond, and sorely tempted to break it. "He won't really care," she thought, but his own words came back to her plaintively: "There is so little to interest one here,--if you don't mind humouring an invalid's whims." She couldn't forget the hopeless melancholy of his face, and what Mr. Ellestad had said to her about him: "He's just where Shapur was when the caravan went on without him." And she remembered that in the story Shapur had cursed the day he was born, and laid his head in the dust. "I'll go," she exclaimed. "Jack can follow as soon as he is ready, and I'll hand the package to him as he passes. I'll be back as soon as I can, Lloyd, and then we'll start right over to Mr. Shaw's. You explain to Jack, please, mamma, and give him the money to pay the postage." Stopping only long enough to write the address on the wrapper, she hurried down the road, bareheaded, toward the ranch. Lloyd sat down on the front door-step to wait for her return. Opening a book, in which she had become interested, she was soon so deep in the story that she scarcely noticed when Jack rode away, a quarter of an hour later, glancing up for just an instant as she waved her hand mechanically in answer to his call. The kitchen clock struck half-past two, then three. With the last stroke came a vague consciousness that it was growing late, and that Joyce was long in coming, but the absorbing interest of the story made her immediately forgetful again of her surroundings. It was nearly four when Mrs. Ware, coming out beside her on the step, stood shading her eyes with her hand to peer down the road. "I can't imagine what keeps Joyce so long," she said, anxiously. "It will soon be too late for you to go to the Shaws." But even as she spoke, Joyce came in sight, running as Lloyd had never seen her run before. She had left the dusty road, and was bobbing along on the edge of the desert, where the hard, dry sand, baked into a crust, made travelling easier. "Oh, you'll never, never guess what kept me!" she called, as she hurried up to the door, eager and breathless. Seizing her mother around the waist, she gave her a great squeeze. "Oh, I'm so happy! So happy and excited that I don't know whether I'm on my head or my heels. I feel like a cyclone caught in a jubilee, or a jubilee caught in a cyclone, I don't know which. There never was such glorious good fortune in the world for anybody!" "Do stop yoah prancing and dancing and tell us," demanded Lloyd, "or we'll think that you've lost yoah mind." Joyce sank down beside her on the door-step. Her face was shining with a great gladness, and she could hardly find breath to begin. "Oh, there aren't words good enough to tell it in!" she gasped. "Mr. Armond is an artist, mother, a really great one, who has had pictures hung in the Salon and the Academy. Mr. Ellestad walked part of the way home with me, and told me about him. He studied for years in Paris, and lived in the Latin Quarter, and had a studio there, just like Cousin Kate's friend, Mr. Harvey. And _that's_ the man Mr. Armond looks like," she added, triumphantly. "I've been trying to think ever since I first met him, who I had seen before with a short Vandyke beard like his, and long, alive-looking fingers, that seem to have brains of their own." "And that's what makes you so glad," laughed Lloyd, "to think you've discovered the resemblance? Do get to the point. I'm wild to know." "Well, he liked my work, thought it showed originality and promise, and, if mamma is willing, he wants to give me lessons. Think of that, Lloyd Sherman,--lessons from an artist, a really great artist like that! Why, it would mean more for me than years of class instruction in the Art League, or anywhere else. He seemed pleased when I told him that I wanted to do illustrating, because he said that that was something practical, and work that would find a ready market. He told me so many interesting things about famous illustrators that he has known, that I have come away all on fire to begin. My fingers fairly tingle. Oh, mamma!" she cried, two great happy tears welling up into her eyes. "Isn't it splendid? The story of Shapur is true! For me the desert holds a greater opportunity than kings' houses could offer!" "But the price, my dear little girl--" "And that's the best of it," interrupted Joyce. "He asked to be allowed to do it for nothing. Time hangs so heavily on his hands that he said it would be a charity to give him something to do, and Mr. Ellestad told me afterward, as we walked home, that I ought to let him, because it's the first thing that he has taken any interest in for months; that with something to occupy his mind and make him contented, he would get better much faster. "When I tried to thank him, and told him that he had showed me a better way to the City of my Desire than the one I had planned for myself, he said, with the brightest kind of a smile, 'I expect to get far more out of this arrangement than you, my little girl. _You_ are the alchemist whose courage and hope shall help me distil some drop of Contentment out of this dreary existence.' "He is going to drive up here to-morrow, to ask you about it, and to see the work I have already done. I'm glad now that I saved all those charcoal sketches of block hands and ears and things. And I'm going to get out all those still life studies I did with Miss Brown, and pin them up on the wall, so he'll know just how far I've gone, and where to start in with me." "Get them out now," said Lloyd. "You never did show them to me." There was some very creditable work hidden away in the old portfolio, and, while they talked and looked and arranged the studies on the wall, time slipped by unnoticed. "Aren't you mighty proud, Aunt Emily?" asked Lloyd, stepping back for a final view, when the exhibit was duly arranged. "Proud and glad," answered Mrs. Ware, with a happy light in her eyes. "It was always my dream to be an artist myself, and now to see my unfulfilled ambitions realized in Joyce more than compensates for all my disappointments." "Phil's coming," called Norman, from the yard. "And we haven't started for the bees!" exclaimed Joyce. "It's so late, we'll have to put it off until to-morrow." But all plans for the morrow were laid aside when Phil told his errand. He would not dismount, but paused just a moment to invite them to the promised picnic at Hole-in-the-rock. "Everybody on the ranch is going," he explained. "Even Jo, to make the coffee and unpack the lunch. There'll be a carriage here for you, Aunt Emily, at three o'clock, and you must let Mary and Holland stay home from school to go. No, don't bother to take any picnic baskets," he interrupted, hastily, as Mrs. Ware started to say something about lunch. "This is my affair. Jo is equal to anything, even cherry tarts and custard pies, and I must make the atonement I promised to Lloyd, for spilling hers." Waiting only long enough to hear their pleased acceptance, he dashed off down the road again. Ever since her arrival in Arizona Lloyd had wanted to see the famous hole in the rock. It lay several miles across the desert, in a great red butte. There was a picture of it in the ranch parlour, and nearly every tourist who passed through Phoenix made a pilgrimage to the spot, and took snap shots of this curious freak of nature. Climbing up the butte toward it, one seemed to be going into a mighty cave, but when he had passed up into the opening, and down over a ledge of rock, he saw that the cave led straight through the butte, like an enormous tunnel, and at the farther end opened out on the other side of the mountain, giving a wide outlook over the surrounding desert. It was a favourite spot for picnic parties, but of all ever gathered there, none had had so many preparations made for the comfort of the guests. Phil rode over several times; once to be sure that the wood he had ordered for the camp-fire had been delivered, and again to take a load of canvas chairs, rubber blankets, rugs, and cushions, so that even the invalids on the ranch could enjoy the outing. It was the first of March. Where the irrigating ditches ran, almond and peach orchards were pink with bloom. California poppies, golden as the sunshine, nodded on the edges of the waving green wheat. Even the dry, hard desert was sweet in its miracle of blossoming. A carpet of bloom covered it. Stems so short that they could scarcely raise the buds they bore above the sand bravely pierced the hard-baked crust. Great masses of yellow and blue, white, lavender, and scarlet transformed the bleak solitary places for a little while into a glory of colour and perfume. An odour, sweet as if blown across acres of narcissus, made Mrs. Ware turn her head with a little cry of pleasure as they drove along toward the butte the afternoon of the picnic. "It's the desert mistletoe," explained Phil, who was following on horseback with Lloyd and Joyce the surrey which Jack was driving. "It is in blossom now, hanging in bunches from all those high bushes over yonder. Mrs. Lee says it isn't like ours. The berries, instead of being little white wax ones like pearls, shade from a deep red to the palest rose-pink." "How lovely!" exclaimed Lloyd. "I hope I'll see some of the berries befoah I go home. Oh, deah! the days are slipping by so fast. The month will be gone befoah I know it." Phil, seeing the wistful expression in the eyes raised to his for a moment, laid a detaining hand on her bridle-rein. "Let's walk the horses, then," he said, laughingly, "and make the minutes last just as long as possible. We'll have to fill the few days left to us so full of pleasant things that you'll never forget them. I don't want you to forget this day anyhow, because it's in your especial honour that this picnic is given--because you're such an accomplished Queen of Hearts." "Tahts you mean," she answered, correcting him. "Maybe I mean both," he replied, with an admiring glance that sent a quick blush to her face, and made her spur her pony on ahead. There were more things than that fragrant, breezy ride across the desert to make her remember the day. There was the delicious supper that Jo spread out under the sheltering ledge of rock at the entrance to the great hole. There were the jokes and conundrums that passed around as they ate, the witty repartee of the boy from Belfast that kept them all laughing, and the stories gathered, like the guests, from all parts of the world. "This is the first picnic I have been to since the one at the old mill, when you had your house-party," said Joyce, snuggling up beside Lloyd against a pile of cushions, after supper, as the blazing camp-fire dispelled the gathering shadows of the twilight. "There is as much difference between the two picnics as there is between a cat and a tigah," said Lloyd, tingling with the horror of an Indian story that the cowboy had just told. "Mine was so tame and this is so exciting. I'm glad that I didn't live out West in the times they are telling about. Just listen!" Phil had asked for an Indian story from each one, and Mrs. Lee had begun to tell her experiences during her first years on the ranch. No actual harm had come to her, but several terrible frights during a dreadful Apache uprising. She had been alone on the ranch, with only George, who was a baby then, and a neighbour's daughter for company. They had seen the smoke and flames shoot up from a distant ranch, where the Indians fired all the buildings and haystacks; and they had waited in terror through the long hours, not knowing what moment an arrow might come hurtling through the window of the little adobe house, where they cowered in darkness. In frightened whispers they discussed what they should do if the Apaches should come, and the only means of escape left to them was to take the baby and climb down the jagged rocks that lined the walls of the well. The water was about shoulder deep. Even that was a dangerous proceeding, for there was the fear that the baby might cry and call attention to their hiding-place, or that some thirsty Indian, coming for water, might discover them. Mrs. Lee told it in such a realistic way that Lloyd almost held her breath, feeling in part the same fear that had seized the helpless women as they waited for the dreaded war-whoop, and watched the flames of their neighbours' dwellings. She shuddered when she heard of the scene that was discovered at the desolated ranch next morning. An entire family had been massacred and scalped, and left beside the charred ruins of their home. Even the little blue-eyed baby had not escaped. As the twilight deepened, the stories passing around the camp-fire seemed to grow more dreadful. Mary was afraid to look behind her, and presently, hiding her face in her mother's lap, stuck her fingers in her ears. It was a relief to more than Mary when Jo, who had been packing the dishes back into the baskets behind the scenes, came rushing into the circle around the fire so excited that, in his wild mixture of Japanese and broken English, he could hardly make himself understood. He was holding out both forefingers, from each of which trickled a little stream of blood. Each bore the gash of a carving-knife, which had slipped through his fingers in his careless handling of it, as he kept his ears strained to hear the Indian stories. [Illustration: "HE WAS HOLDING OUT BOTH FOREFINGERS"] He laughed and jabbered excitedly, with a broad grin on his face. Finally he succeeded in making Mrs. Lee understand that the cutting of both forefingers at the same moment was the sign that there was some extraordinary good fortune in store for him. It was the luckiest thing that could have befallen him, and he declared that he must go at once to the Chinese lottery in Phoenix. "If I toucha ticket with these," he cried, holding up his bleeding fingers, "I geta heap much money; fo', five double times so much as I puta in. I be back fo' geta breakfus'," he called, suddenly darting away. Before Mrs. Lee could protest, he was on his wheel, tearing across the desert trail toward Phoenix like some uncanny wild thing of the night. "The superstitious little heathen!" exclaimed Mrs. Lee. "If he should win, I may never lay eyes on him again. He's not the first good cook that I've lost in that way. I have found that, if one once gets the gambling fever, I may as well begin to look immediately for a new one." "Chris says that he has seen men lose ten thousand dollars at a time," broke in Holland, his eyes big with interest. "Prospectors used to come in from the mines with their gold-dust and nuggets, and they'd spread down a blanket right on the street corner and play sometimes till they'd lose everything they had." "It's the curse of the West," sighed Mrs. Lee. "I could tell some pitiful tales of the young men and boys I have known, who came out here for their health, got infatuated with the different games of chance, and lost everything. One man I knew was such a nervous wreck from the shock of finding himself a pauper as well as an invalid that he lost his mind and committed suicide. Another had to be taken care of in his last days and be buried by a charitable society, and another had to write to his sister that he was penniless. She sewed for a living, and she sewed then to support him, till she worked herself ill and died before he did. He spent his last days in the almshouse." "We should have showed Jo Alaka's eyes, and told him the Indian legend," said Mr. Ellestad, pointing up to the stars. "Do you see those two bright ones just over Camelback Mountain? Look up in a straight line from the head, and you will see two stars unusually brilliant and twinkling. Those are the eyes of the god Alaka. He lost them in gambling. An old settler told me the story. He got it from an Indian, and, as I read something like it in a Chicago paper this winter, I think we may be justified in believing it. At least it is as plausible as the old myths the ancients told of the stars,--Cassiopeia's chair, for instance, and Leo's sickle." "Tell it," begged Lloyd. "I'd rathah heah them than those blood and thundah Apache stories. I'll not be able to close my eyes to-night." Every voice in the circle joined in the chorus of assents that went up, except Phil's, and no one noticed his silence but Lloyd. It seemed to her that he had looked uncomfortable ever since Mrs. Lee had spoken so feelingly of the curse of the West; but she told herself that it must be just her imagination,--that it was the flickering shadows of the camp-fire that gave his face its peculiar expression. He moved back into the darkness against the rock, with his hat over his eyes, as Mr. Ellestad began the story: "Once there was a young god named Alaka sent by the Great Spirit to live awhile among the cliff-dwellers of the Southwest. Now in that country there is a fever that lays hold of the children of the sun. It comes you know not how, and you cannot stop it. And this fever that runs hot in the veins of men began to course through the blood of Alaka, a fierce fever to gamble. "At first, when men challenged him to pit his skill against theirs, he refused, knowing that the Great Spirit had forbidden it; but they jeered him, saying: 'Ah, ha! He is afraid that he will lose. This can be no god, or he would not fear us.' So when they had made a mock of him until he could no longer endure it, he cried: 'Come! I will show you that I am a god! that I fear nothing!' "Forgetting all that the Great Spirit had enjoined upon him, he plunged madly into the game. Now the most precious thing known to that people is the turquoise, for it is the stone that stole its colour from the sky. Around the neck of the young god hung a string of these turquoises, and one by one he lost them, till the morning found him with only an empty string in his hand. "Still the fever was upon him, and he could not assuage it, so he put up his shells from the Great Water in the west. These people had heard of a great water many days' journey toward the setting sun, but to the dwellers in the Land of Thirst it seemed incredible to them that there could be so much water in the world as Alaka told them of. But they looked upon the exquisite colour of the shells he brought, which held the murmur of the sea in their hearts, and counted them wonderful treasures. And they gambled all day with Alaka to gain possession of them. "Still the fever waxed hotter than ever within him, and, when he had lost his shells, he put up his measure of sacred meal. When he lost that, they made a mock of him again, saying not that he was afraid to lose, but that he had no skill, that he was not a god. He was less than a man,--he was only a papoose, and that he should play no more until he had learned wisdom. "Then Alaka was beside himself with rage. 'I will show you,' he cried. 'I will venture such mighty stakes that I must win.' He plucked out his right eye and laid it where the turquoises, the shells, and the sacred meal had lain. But the eye was lost also, and after that the left eye, so that, when morning dawned, he staggered into the sunrise, blind and ruined. "Then he called upon the Great Spirit to give him back his sight, but the Great Spirit was angry with him, and drove him away into the Land of Shadows. And He caught up the eyes and said: 'I will hang them up among the stars to be a warning for ever to the children of men not to gamble.' "So they hang there to this day, and the wise look up, and, seeing them, pray to the Great Spirit to keep them from the fever; but the unheeding go on, till, like Alaka, they lose their all, and are lost themselves in the Land of Shadow." That was the last story told that evening around the camp-fire. The moon was coming up, and Phil brought out Mrs. Ware's old guitar, which he had restrung for the occasion. Striking a few rattling chords, he started off on an old familiar song, calling on all the company to join. His voice was a surprise to every one, a full, sweet tenor, strong and clear, that soared out above all the others, except Mrs. Lee's full, high soprano. The Scotchman rumbled along with a heavy bass. One by one the others caught up the song, even little Norman joining in the chorus. Lloyd was the only one who sat silent. "Sing," whispered Joyce, giving her a commanding nudge. Lloyd shook her head. "It's so heavenly sweet I want to listen," she replied, under cover of the song. The music and the mountains and the moonlight, with the wide, white desert stretching away on every side, seemed to cast some sort of witchery over her, and she sat with hands clasped and lips parted, almost afraid to breathe, for fear that what seemed to be a beautiful dream would come to end. A tremulous little sigh escaped her when it did come to an end. "It's time to strike the trail again," called Mrs. Lee. "That is the worst of these outings. We can't stay singing on the mountains. We have to get down to earth again. My return to valley life will take me into the deepest depths if Jo doesn't come back in the morning to get breakfast." "Oh, it was so beautiful!" sighed Lloyd, later, when the party finally started homeward across the moon-whitened desert. It had taken some time to collect all the chairs, hampers, and cushions which George and Holland took home in the ranch wagon. The moon was directly overhead. Lloyd was riding beside Phil a little in advance of the others. "It was the very nicest picnic I evah went to, Phil," she said, "and it's the loveliest memory that I'll have to take home with me of this visit to Arizona." "I'm glad you enjoyed it," he answered, taking off his hat, and riding along beside her bareheaded in the moonlight. How big and handsome he looked, she thought, sitting up so erect in his saddle, with his eyes smiling down into hers. "I don't want you ever to forget--" he hesitated an instant, then added in a lower tone, "Arizona." The sweet odours of the night came blowing up from every direction, the ethereal fragrance of the mistletoe bloom, the heavy perfume of the orange-blossoms hanging white in distant orchards. Behind them the picnickers began to sing again, "Roll along, silver moon, guide the traveller on his way." Lloyd looked around for Joyce. She was riding far in the rear of the caravan, beside the carriage where Mrs. Lee led the chorus. Presently the old tune changed, and some one started the Bedouin love-song, "From the desert I come to thee." Looking down at her again with smiling eyes, Phil took up the words, sending them rolling out on the night in a voice that thrilled her with its sweetness, as they rode on side by side across moonlighted desert: "_Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!_" CHAPTER XIV. THE LOST TURQUOISES THAT night there was a whispered consultation in Mrs. Ware's tent while Lloyd was undressing in the other one. Sitting on the edge of her mother's bed, Joyce rapidly outlined a plan which she had thought of on her way home. "You see, I haven't done anything special at all to give Lloyd a good time," she began. "This picnic was Phil's affair. When I was at her house-party, there was something new on the programme nearly every day. She's been here nearly a month now, and her visit will soon be over. I'd like to give her one real larky day before she goes. Mrs. Lee said that I could have Bogus to-morrow, and, as it is Saturday, the children will be at home to help you. So I thought it would be fun for Jack and Lloyd and me to ride over to the Indian school. It's so interesting, and it doesn't cost anything to get in. Then we could go on to the ostrich farm just outside of Phoenix. Lloyd wants to get some kodak pictures of the ostriches. The admission fee will only be seventy-five cents for the three of us. I can pay that out of the money that Mrs. Link sent, and get a nice little lunch at Coffee Al's restaurant, and still have enough left to pay for my hive of bees. We can spend the rest of the afternoon prowling around the curio shops and picture stores. Lloyd wants to get ever so many things to take home,--bead belts and moccasins, and things made out of cactus and orangewood. I haven't said anything to her about it yet, but Phil said that if we went he would join us." "I think that is a very good plan," said Mrs. Ware, entering into whatever Joyce proposed with hearty interest. "You'd better not tell her to-night, or you'll lie awake talking about it too long, and you'll need to make an early start, you know." By half-past eight next morning the little cavalcade was on its way, Jack and Lloyd riding on ahead, and Phil and Joyce following leisurely. The road they took led through irrigated lands, and green fields and blooming orchards greeted them at every turn, instead of the waste stretches of desert that they were accustomed to seeing. "I wish you'd look!" exclaimed Lloyd, drawing rein to wait for Joyce and Phil, and then pointing to a field where a boy was ploughing a long, straight furrow. "That's an _Indian_ ploughing there! An Indian in a cadet unifawm, with brass buttons on it. Doesn't it seem queah? Jack says it's the unifawm of the school, and that they have to weah it when they hiah out to the fahmahs. This is paht of their education. I like them best in tomahawks and blankets. It seems moah natural." "This isn't Hiawatha's land," laughed Phil, "nor the Pathfinder's country. I was disappointed, too, to find them so tame and unromantic-looking, but they're certainly more pleasant as neighbours since they have taken to civilization. You remember the horrible tales we heard last night." Lloyd had expected to see a large school-building, but she was surprised to find in addition so many other buildings. Dormitories, workshops, a public hall, and the fine, wide streets leading around the central square gave the appearance of a thrifty little village. They lingered long in the kindergarten, where the bright-eyed little papooses were so interested in watching them that they almost forgot the song they were singing about "Baby's ball so soft and round." They went through the great kitchens, where Indian girls were learning to cook, and the tailoring establishment where the boys were turning out the new uniforms. Down in one of the parlours a little eagle-eyed girl, with features strikingly like those of Sitting Bull, practised the five-finger exercises at the piano. Only twice did they see anything that reminded them of the primitive Indians. In one of the workshops a swarthy boy sat before a loom such as the old squaws used to have, weaving patiently a Navajo blanket. And in one of the buildings where dressmaking was taught there was a table surrounded by busy bead-workers, working on chains and belts and gaily decorated trinkets that made Lloyd wish for a bottomless purse. They were all so tempting. So much time was occupied in watching the classes in wood-carving, and in listening to recitations in the various rooms, that it was nearly noon when they reached the ostrich farm. It was not the ranch where the great birds were hatched and raised, but a large enclosure near the street-car line, where they were brought to be exhibited to the tourists. So, after watching the foolish-looking creatures awhile, laughing at their comical expressions as they tilted mincingly up and down in what Lloyd called the perfection of cake-walking, and taking several snap-shots of them, Joyce proposed that they should leave their horses at a corral farther down the street, and go at once for their lunch. It was the first time that Jack had been inside the restaurant, and he was glad that Phil, who often lunched there, was with them to take the lead. He felt very young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, as he marched in behind him, and, while he secretly admired the lordly air with which Phil gave his orders, he saw that the girls were impressed by it, too, and he inwardly resented being made to appear such an insignificant small boy by contrast. He had supposed that they would sit up on the stools at the lunch-counters which one could see from the street. That is where he, in his ignorance, would have piloted the party. But Phil, passing them by, led the way up-stairs. An attractive-looking dining-room opened out from the upper hall, but, ignoring that also, Phil kept on to a balcony overlooking the street, where there were several small tables. "They serve out here in hot weather," he said, "and it's warm enough to-day, I'm sure. Besides, we'll be all by ourselves, and can see what is going on down below. Here, Sambo!" He beckoned to a coloured waiter passing through the hall, and soon had him scurrying around in haste to fill their orders. It was the most enjoyable little lunch Lloyd could remember. Phil, who somehow naturally assumed the part of host, had never been so entertaining. Time slipped by so fast while they laughed and talked that the hour was finished before they realized that it had fairly begun. Then Phil, putting Lloyd's camera on an opposite table, and focussing it on the group, showed the waiter how to snap the spring, and hurried back to his chair to be included in the picture which they all wanted as a souvenir of the day's excursion. They made arrangements for the rest of the afternoon after that. Jack was to take the camera to a photographer's and leave it for the roll of films to be developed, and then go to a shoestore and the grocery. Phil had an errand to attend to for Mrs. Lee and a few purchases to make. Lloyd had a long list of things she hoped to find in the Curio Building. They agreed to meet at a drug store on that street which had a corner especially furnished for the comfort of its out-of-town patrons. Besides numerous easy chairs and tables, where tired customers could be served at any time from the soda-fountain, there were daily papers to help pass the time of waiting, and a desk provided with free stationery. It was just four o'clock when Joyce and Lloyd, coming back to the drug store with their arms full of packages, found Jack already there waiting for them. He was weighing himself on the scales near the door. "I've been knocking around here for the last half-hour," he said. "I'll go out and look for Phil now, and tell him you are ready, and we'll get the horses and bring them around." "How long will it take?" asked Joyce. "Fifteen or twenty minutes, probably. He's just up the street." "Then I'll begin a lettah to mothah," said Lloyd, depositing her bundles on a table, and sitting down at the desk. Joyce picked up an illustrated paper and settled herself comfortably in a rocking-chair. The big clock over the soda-fountain slowly dropped its hands down the dial, but Joyce, absorbed in her reading, and Lloyd in her writing, paid no attention until half an hour had gone by. Then Lloyd, folding her letter and slipping it into an envelope, looked up. "Mercy, Joyce! It's half-past foah! What do you suppose is the mattah?" Before Joyce could answer, she caught sight of Jack, through the big show-window, hurrying down the street by himself. He was red in the face from his rapid walking when he came in, and had a queer expression about his mouth that he always had when disgusted or out of patience. "Phil's busy," he announced. "He wants me to ask you if you'd mind waiting a few minutes longer. He wouldn't ask it, but it's something quite important." "We ought to get back as soon as we can," said Joyce, "for I've been away all day, and there's the ride home still ahead of us. I'm afraid mamma will start to get supper herself if I'm not there." "I think I'll put in the time we're waiting in writing to the Walton girls," said Lloyd, drawing a fresh sheet of paper toward her. Joyce picked up her story again, and Jack went out into the street, where he stood tapping one heel against the curbstone, and with his hands thrust into his pockets. Then he walked to the corner and back, and peered in through the show-window at the clock over the soda-fountain. When he had repeated the performance several times, Joyce beckoned for him to come in. "It's after five o'clock," she said. "It must be very important business that keeps him so long." "It is," answered Jack. "I'll go back once more, and if I can't get him away, I'll go around and get the horses and we'll just ride off and leave him." "Can't get him away!" repeated Joyce. "Where is he?" "Oh, just up the street a little way," said Jack, carelessly, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. Joyce looked at him steadily an instant, then, as if she had read his mind, said, with startling abruptness: "Jack Ware, you might as well tell me. Is he doing what Mr. Ellestad says all the boys out here do sooner or later, getting mixed up in some of those gambling games?" There was no evading Joyce when she spoke in that tone. Jack had learned that long ago. But, with a glance toward Lloyd, who sat with her back toward them, he only nodded his reply. Startled by the question, Lloyd turned just in time to see the nod. "I didn't intend to tell on him," blurted Jack, "but you surprised it out of me. He put some money on a roulette wheel, and lost all the first part of the afternoon. Now his luck has begun to change, and he says he's got to stick by it till he makes back at least a part of what he started with." Joyce looked up at the clock. "We ought to be going," she said, drumming nervously on the arm of her chair with her fingers. Then she hesitated, a look of sisterly concern on her face. "I hate, though, to go off and leave him there. No telling when he'll come home if he feels he is free to stay as long as he pleases. Goodness, Jack! I'm glad it isn't you. I'd be having a fit if it were, and I can't help thinking how poor Elsie would feel if she knew it. Lloyd, what do you think we ought to do?" "I think we ought to go straight off and leave him!" she answered, hotly. "It's perfectly horrid of him to so fah fo'get himself as a gentleman as to pay no attention to his promises. He made a positive engagement with us to meet us heah at foah o'clock, and now it's aftah five. I nevah had a boy treat me that way befoah, and I must say I haven't much use for one that will act so." Presently, after some slight discussion, the girls slowly gathered up the bundles and walked up the street to the corral. Jack hurried on ahead, so that by the time they reached it, the men there had the ponies saddled and were waiting to help them mount and tie on the packages by the many leather thongs which fringed the saddles for that purpose. It was a quiet ride homeward. A cloud seemed to have settled over their gay spirits. Nobody laughed, nobody spoke much. The story of Alaka was still fresh in each mind, and what Mrs. Lee had said about the curse of the West, and the fate of the men she had known who had become possessed by the same fever. They remembered how Jo had come in at daylight, red-eyed and sullen, after his night's losses, for the lucky feeling which seized him at the sight of his cut fingers had been a mistaken omen of success. All that he had saved in months of service had vanished before sunrise in the same way that Alaka's turquoises and shells and eyes had gone. Deeper than the indignation in Lloyd's heart, deeper than her sense of wounded pride that Phil should have been so indifferent about keeping his engagement to meet them, was a sore feeling of disappointment in him. He had seemed so strong and manly that she had thought him above the weakness of yielding to such temptations. She recalled the expression of his face the night before when he drew back from the firelight into the shadow, and pulled his hat over his eyes, as Mr. Ellestad began the story of Alaka. Evidently he had played Alaka's game before. Ah, that night before! How the whole moonlighted scene rolled back over her memory, as she rode along now, slightly in advance of Joyce and Jack. Phil had been with her that night before, and, as the sweet strains of the Bedouin love-song floated out on the stillness of the desert, something had stirred in her girlish heart as she looked up at him. A vague wonder if it were possible that in years to come this would prove to be the one the stars had destined for her. And, as if in answer to her unspoken wonder, his voice had joined in, higher and sweeter than all the others, as he smiled down into her eyes. But now--there was a little twinge of pain when she thought that he wasn't a prince at all when measured by the yard-stick of old Hildgardmar and her father, much less the one written in the stars for her. He wasn't strong, and he wasn't honourable if he gambled, and she told herself that she was glad that she knew it. And now that she had found out how much she had been mistaken in him, she didn't care any more for his friendship, and that she never intended to have anything more to do with him. A dozen times on the way home Joyce said to herself: "Oh, what if it had been Jack!" And, thinking of Elsie and the father so far away across the seas, she wished that she could do something to get him away from the surroundings that were sure to work to his undoing if he persisted in staying there. Supper was ready when they reached home. Afterward there were all Lloyd's purchases to be unwrapped and admired. Mary had hoped for a candy-pull, as it was Saturday, and they had not had one during Lloyd's visit; but the girls were too tired after so many miles in the saddle, and by nine o'clock all lights were out and a deep quiet reigned over Ware's Wigwam and the tents. The moonlight flooding the white canvas kept Lloyd awake for awhile. As she lay there, listening to the distant barking of coyotes, and going over the events of the day, she heard the approaching sound of hoof beats. Some lonely horseman was coming down the desert road. She raised herself on her elbow to listen, recognizing the sound. It was Phil's horse clattering over the little bridge. But it paused under the pepper-trees. "I suppose Phil has come up to apologize," she said to herself, "but he might as well save himself the trouble. No explanation could evah explain away the fact that he was rude to us and that he _gambled_. I could forgive the first, but I nevah can forgive being so disappointed in him." A moment later, seeing no light, and evidently concluding that his visit was untimely, he turned and rode back toward the ranch. Lloyd, still leaning on her elbow, strained her ears to listen till the last footfall died away in the distance. "He'll be back in the mawning," she thought, as she laid her head on the pillow. "He always comes Sunday mawnings; but he'll not find us this time, because we'll be gone befoah he gets heah." Joyce had arranged to keep Bogus part of the next day, so that they could ride into Phoenix to church. So it happened that when Phil came up next morning, it was to find nobody but Mary in sight. Mrs. Ware had gone to the seat under the willows to read to Norman and Holland. The beehive had been brought over during Joyce's absence the day before, and placed in the shade of the bushy umbrella-tree where the hammock swung, and Mary was swinging in the hammock now, with a book in her lap. It was closed over one finger to keep the place, for she was listening to the droning of the bees, breathing in the sweetness that floated in across the desert from its acres of vivid bloom, and paying more attention to the sunny, vibrant world about her than to the hymn she was learning. "What are you doing, Mary?" he called, as his step on the bridge made her look around. She held up a battered old volume of poems, and moved over in the hammock to make room for him beside her. "I'm learning a hymn. That's the way we always earned our missionary money back in Kansas. I'm going to Sunday school with Hazel and George this afternoon in the surrey over to the schoolhouse. Her uncle has one there. I didn't have any pennies to take, so mamma said I could begin learning hymns again, as I used to do back home." As usual Mary rattled on, scarcely pausing to take breath or give her listener a chance to make reply. "This isn't one of the singing hymns, the kind they have in church. It's by Isaac Watts. I like it because it's about bees, and it's so easy to say: "How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour, And gather honey all the day From every opening flower.' "Joyce picked it out for me, and said that she guessed that Isaac Watts must have gone to the School of the Bees himself, and that was where he learned that 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.' The bees hate idle hands, you know, that's the drones, and, although they are patient with them longer than you'd suppose they'd be, it always ends in their stinging the drones to death. "And Lloyd said it was a pity that some other people she knew not a thousand miles away couldn't go to school to the bees and learn that about Satan's finding mischief for idle hands to do. "And Joyce said yes, it was, for it was too bad for such a fine fellow to get into trouble just because he was a drone, and had no ambition to make anything of himself. And I asked them who they meant, but they just laughed at each other and wouldn't tell me. I don't see why big girls always want to be so mysterious about things and act as if they had secrets. Do you?" "No, indeed!" answered Phil, in his most sympathetic manner. He stooped and picked a long blade of grass at his feet. "And Joyce said that if Alaka had gone to school to the bees, he wouldn't have lost his eyes, and Lloyd said that if somebody kept on, he would lose at least his turquoises. When I asked her what she meant, she said, oh, she was just thinking of what Mr. Ellestad told at the picnic, that the Indians thought the turquoises were their most precious stones because they stole their colour from the sky, and she called turquoise the friendship stone because it was true blue." Phil began whistling softly, as he pulled the blade of grass back and forth between his fingers. "So they think that somebody is like Alaka, do they?" he asked, presently, "in danger of losing his turquoises, his friendship stones. Well, I can imagine instances when that would be as bad for Alaka as losing his eyes." Phil had walked up to the Wigwam more buoyantly than usual that morning. He knew that he owed the girls an apology for not meeting them as he had promised, and he was prepared to make it so penitently and gracefully that he was sure that they would accept his excuses without a question. The big roll of bills in his pocket, which he had won by a lucky turn of the wheel, did not lie heavy on his conscience at all. It rather added to his buoyance of spirit, for it was so large that it would enable him to do several things he had long wished to do. Because of it, too, he had come up to plan another picnic, this time an excursion to Paradise Valley on the other side of Camelback. But Mary's report of the conversation which had puzzled her gave him an uncomfortable feeling. He could not fail to understand its meaning. Evidently the girls knew what had detained him in town and were displeased with him. "Oh, aren't you going to stay for dinner?" asked Mary, as he slowly rose and stretched himself. "It's Sunday, you know, and we always expect you on Sunday." "No, thank you," he answered, yawning. "I've changed my programme to-day." "Aren't you coming back this afternoon?" she asked, anxiously. "They'll all be home then." He studied the distant buttes a moment before he answered, then squared back his shoulders in a decided way, settling his hat firmly on his head. "No," he answered, finally, "I promised a fellow I met in town at the hotel the other day that I'd ride over and see him soon. He has a camp over on the other side of Hole-in-the-Rock, with an old duffer that's out here for rheumatism. I took a fancy to the fellow the minute I saw him, and it turns out that he's the cousin of a boy I knew at military school. It's funny the way you run across people that way out here." One of Phil's greatest charms to Mary was the deferential way he had of talking to her as if she were his age, and taking the trouble to explain his actions. Now, as he turned away, with a pleasant good morning, it was with as polite a lifting of his hat as if she had been nineteen instead of nine. She watched him swing down the road with his quick, military step, never dreaming in her unsuspecting little heart that _he_ was the mysterious person who, the girls wished, could learn about Satan and the work he finds for idle hands. Nor did she dream that the words she had so innocently repeated were still sounding in his ears: "If somebody keeps on, he'll at least lose his turquoises. It's the friendship stone--true blue!" CHAPTER XV. LOST ON THE DESERT IF Washington had not lost a shoe on the way home from church, and if Joyce had not been seized with a violent headache that sent her to bed with a bandage over her eyes, the day would have ended far differently for Lloyd. The afternoon went by quickly, for, lulled by the drowsy hum of the bees, she had fallen asleep in the hammock under the umbrella-tree, and slept a long time. Then supper was earlier than usual, as Jack wanted his before starting to the ranch. Chris, the Mexican, was taking a holiday, and had offered Jack a quarter to do the milking for him that evening. Holland strolled down the road with him, since the lost horseshoe prevented him taking the ride he had expected to enjoy. Scarcely were they out of sight when an old buggy rattled up from the other direction, bringing a woman and her two little girls from a neighbouring ranch for an evening visit. Lloyd, who was on her way to the tent to see if she could do anything for Joyce's comfort, heard a voice which she recognized as Mrs. Shaw's, as the woman introduced herself to Mrs. Ware. "I've been planning to get over here ever since you came," she began, "and specially since I got acquainted with your daughter over them bees, but 'pears like there's nothing in life on week-days but work; so this evening, when my little girls begged to come over and see your little girl, says I to myself, it's now or never, and I just hitched up and came." "Oh, deah!" sighed Lloyd. "I don't want to spend the whole evening listening to that tiahsome woman. The boys are gone, and Joyce's head aches too bad for her to talk. I don't know what to do." She stepped softly into the tent, insisting on rubbing Joyce's head, or doing something to make her more comfortable, but Joyce sent her away, saying that the pain was growing less, and that she didn't want her to stay shut up in the tent that smelled so strongly of the camphor she had spilled. Lloyd turned away and wandered down to the pasture bars, where she stood looking over toward the west. The sun was dropping out of sight. For the first time since she had come to the Wigwam she felt lonesome. She was so full of life after her long sleep, so fresh and wide-awake, that she looked around her restlessly, wishing that something exciting would happen. She was in the mood to enjoy an adventure of some kind, no matter what. While she stood there, her pony, who had often been coaxed up to the bars for sugar, now came up through curiosity, evidently wondering at her silence. "Come on, old boy," she said, reaching through the bars to grasp the rope that trailed from his neck. "You've settled it. We'll go off and have a ride togethah." With some difficulty, she saddled him herself, and then because she did not want to disturb Joyce by going back to the tent to change her white dress for her divided skirt, she mounted as if the cross-saddle were a side-saddle, and rode slowly out of the yard bareheaded. Mrs. Ware fluttered her handkerchief in response to the wave of Lloyd's hand, and looked after her as she took the road to the ranch. "She's going to see Mrs. Lee," she thought, and then turned her attention to her talkative visitor. It was merely from force of habit that Lloyd had taken the ranch road. She was in sight of the camp before she became aware of where the pony was carrying her. Then she turned abruptly, hardly knowing why she did so. Phil was at the ranch. She would not have him think that she had gone down with the hope of seeing him. She did not put the thought into words, but that is what influenced her to turn. In front of her Camelback Mountain loomed up, looking larger and more lifelike than usual, with the reflected light of the sunset lying rosy red on its summit. She knew that there is something extremely deceptive in the clear Arizona atmosphere, and had been told that the distance to the mountain was over five miles. But it was hard to believe. It looked so near that she was sure that she could reach it in a few minutes' brisk ride,--that she could easily go that far and back before daylight was entirely gone. An old game that she had played at the Cuckoos' Nest sent a verse floating idly through her memory: "How many miles to Barley-bright?" "_Three score and ten!_" "Can I get there by candle light?" "_Yes, if your legs are long and light-- There and back again!_ _Look out! The witches will catch you!_" With somewhat of the same eerie feeling that had affected her when she joined in the game with Betty and the little Appletons, she turned the pony into the narrow trail that led across the sand in and out among the sage-brush. Later, those same gray bushes might look startlingly like witches reaching up out of the gloaming. "It's a good thing that yoah legs _are_ long and light," she said to the pony, as he started off with a long, rabbit-like lope. "And it's a good thing that you seem as much at home heah as Br'er Rabbit was in the brush-pile when Br'er Fox threw him in for stealing his buttah. I'm glad it isn't old Tar Baby that I'm on. He wouldn't be used to these gophah holes, and would stumble into the first one we came to. Oh, this is glorious!" She shook back her hair as the soft, orange-perfumed breeze blew it about her face. Her full white sleeves fluttered out from her arms. Again she had that delightful sense of birdlike motion, of free, wild swinging through space. On and on they went, never noticing how far they had travelled or how dark it was growing, till suddenly she saw that she was not on any trail. A thick growth of stubby mesquit bushes made almost a thicket in front of her. An enormous cactus, thirty feet high, stood in her way like one of the Barley-bright witches. From its thorny trunk stretched two great arms, thrown up as if to ward off her coming. Its resemblance to a human figure was uncanny, and she stood staring at it with a fascinated gaze. "It's big enough to be the camel-drivah of the camel in the mountain," she said in a half-whisper to the pony. Then looking on toward the mountain, she realized that she had to strain her eyes to see it through the rapidly gathering gloom. Night had fallen suddenly, and the mountain seemed farther away than when she started. "Oh, it will be black night befoah we get home," she thought, turning in nervous haste. Then a new trouble confronted her. She was facing a dim, trackless wilderness, and she did not know how to get home. She had kept the mountain steadily in view as she rode toward it, but now she realized that it was so large that she could easily do that, and still at the same time go far out of her course. "You'll have to find the way home," she said, helplessly, to the pony, failing to remember that the Wigwam pasture had been his home for only a few weeks, and that, left to himself, he would go directly to his native ranch. [Illustration: "CLATTERING DOWN THE ROAD AS FAST AS HIS FEET COULD CARRY HIM"] In a few minutes Lloyd found herself carried along a narrow road, not more than a wagon track. While she knew that she had never been over it before, it was some comfort to find that she was on a human thoroughfare, and not lost among the tracks of wandering coyotes and jack-rabbits. The pony, feeling that he was headed toward his own home, went willingly enough, and Lloyd began to enjoy her adventure. "How exciting it will sound back in that tame little Valley," she thought, "lost in the desert! I'll give the girls such a thrilling description of it that they'll feel cold chills running up and down their spines. It's a wondah that the cold chills don't run up and down me! But I'm not one bit afraid now. This road is bound to lead to somebody's house, and everybody is so friendly out heah in the West that whoevah finds me will take me home." The pony swung along a few rods farther, then, startled by an owl rising suddenly out of the wayside bushes with a heavy flopping of wings, jumped sideways with such a start that Lloyd was almost thrown from her seat. It was an insecure one at best, and she was about to throw her foot over into the other stirrup when a forward plunge sent the pony into a gopher hole, and Lloyd over his head. When she picked herself up from the road and looked dizzily around, she gave a little gasp of horror. The pony, freed of his burden and spurred on by his fright, was clattering down the road as fast as his feet could carry him, and she was left helpless in what seemed to her the very heart of the great, desolate desert. She stood motionless till the last faint thud of the pony's hoofs died away down the road. Then she looked around her and shivered. The possibility of the pony's not going straight to the Wigwam had not yet occurred to her, but she felt that under any circumstances she was doomed to stay in the desert until morning. They would be badly frightened at the Wigwam, and would rouse the ranch to send out a searching-party, but they might as well look for a needle in a haystack as to make an attempt to find her in the darkness. She did not know where she was herself. She was within a stone's throw of one of the buttes, out which one she could not tell. She stood peering around her through the twilight with eager, dilated eyes. A twig crackled near her, trampled underfoot by some little wild creature as startled as she. The desert had seemed so still before, but now it was full of strange whisperings and rustlings. Remembering what Jack had told her when he showed her the nest shared by snakes and owls, she dared not sit down for fear some snake should come crawling out of the hole from which the owl had flown. She felt that it would be useless to walk on, since every step might be carrying her farther away from the Wigwam. How long she stood there in the road she could not tell, but presently it seemed to her that it was growing lighter. She could see the outlines of the butte more distinctly, and the sky behind it was growing gradually luminous. Then she remembered that the moon would be up in a little while, and her courage came back as she stood and waited. When its round, familiar face came peeping up over the horizon, she felt as if an old friend were smiling at her. "I'm neahly as glad to see you as if you were one of the family," she said, aloud, with a little sob in her throat. The feeling that this was the same moon that had looked down on her through the locusts, all her life, and had even peeped through the windows and seen Mom Beck rocking her to sleep in her baby days, gave her a sense of companionship that was wonderfully comforting. It was tiresome standing in the road, and, as she dared not sit down and risk finding snakes, she decided to climb up the side of the butte and look out over the country. Maybe she might see the light from some ranch house. At least on its rocky slope she would be freer from snakes than down among the bushes and the owls' nests. Scrambling over a ledge of rock she stumbled upon a pile of tin cans and broken bottles, which told of many past picnic parties near that spot. A little higher up she clasped her hands with a cry of pleased recognition. She was at the beginning of the great hole that led through the rock. Only two nights before she had sat on that very boulder, and speared olives out of a bottle with a hat-pin. There were their own sardine cans, and the fragments of the teacup Hazel had dropped. A mound of ashes and some charred sticks marked the spot where the camp-fire had blazed. She looked around, wondering if by some happy chance Jo could have left any matches. A brilliant idea had come to her of lighting a bonfire. She knew that it could be seen from the ranch, and would draw attention to her at once. A long search failed to show any stray matches, and she wondered if she could find flint among the rocks, or how long it would take to get fire by rubbing two sticks together. Some of the gruesome tales of Apache warfare that had been told around the fire came back to her as she stood looking at the ashes, but she resolutely turned her thoughts away from them, to the Indian school she had seen the day before. It was wonderfully comforting to think of that little Indian girl at the piano, patiently practising her five-finger exercises, and of the Indian boy in the brass-buttoned uniform ploughing in the fields. It made them seem so civilized and tame. The time of tomahawks and tortures was long past, she assured herself, and there was not nearly so much to fear from the peaceful Pimas and Maricopas as there was sometimes from the negroes at home. So, quieting herself with such assurances, she climbed up to a comfortable seat on a rock, where she could lean back against the cavelike wall, and sat looking out through the great hole, as the moon rose higher and higher in the heavens. Half an hour slipped by in intense silence. Then her heart gave a thump of terror, so loud that she heard the beating distinctly. There was a fierce, hot roaring in her ears. Down at the foot of the butte, going swiftly along with moccasined tread, was a stalwart Indian. Not one of the peaceful Pimas she had been accustomed to seeing, but a cruel-mouthed, eagle-eyed Apache. At least he looked like the pictures she had seen of Apaches. He had a lariat in his hand, and he stooped several times to examine the tracks ahead of him, as if following a trail. Instantly there flashed into Lloyd's mind what Mrs. Lee had told them about the Indians allowing their ponies to run loose on the desert. Sometimes the settlers' children used to catch them, and keep them all day to ride. But woe be it, she said, if the owner tracked his pony to a settler's house before it was turned loose. He always took his revenge. Lloyd was sure that this was what the Indian was after, as she noticed the lariat, and the way his keen eyes followed the trail. She almost held her breath as she waited for him to pass on. But he did not pass. Throwing up his head he looked all around, and then, leaving the trail, started swiftly up the butte toward her. Almost frozen with fear, Lloyd drew back into the shadow, and, rolling over the ledge, drew herself into as small a space as possible, crouching down to hide her white dress. Through a crevice between the rocks she watched his approach with wide, terrified gaze, sure that some savage instinct, like a bloodhound's sense of smell, had warned him of her presence. For an instant, as he reached the remains of the camp-fire, he stood motionless, looking out across the country, silhouetted darkly against the sky, like the head on the leather cushion she was taking home to her grandfather, she thought, or rather that she had intended to take. Maybe she would never live to see her home again. She crouched still closer against the rock, rigid, tense, scarcely breathing. With a grunt the Indian stooped, and began poking around among the scraps left by the picnickers. He turned the blackened brands with his foot, then moved farther along, attracted by the gleam of a bit of broken bottle. Evidently the coyotes had been there before him, for not a scrap was left of sandwiches or chicken bones; but, like the coyotes, he knew from past experiences that it was profitable to prowl where picnics were almost weekly occurrences. The gleam of something steely and bright caught his eye. Lloyd saw the object flash in the moonlight as he picked it up. It was the carving-knife Jo had dropped in his excitement, when he found the "lucky cuts" on his forefingers. With another grunt he turned it this way and that, examined the handle and tried the edge, and then looked stealthily around. Lloyd closed her eyes lest the very intensity of their gaze should draw him to her hiding-place. She knew that another step or two would bring him to higher ground, where he could look over the ledge and see her. How she ever lived through the moments that followed, she never knew. It seemed to her that her heart had stopped beating, and she was growing clammy and faint. It could not have been more than a few minutes, but it seemed hours to her, when, the suspense growing unbearable, she opened her eyes, and peered fearfully through the crack again. He had disappeared. Trembling so that she could scarcely stand, she ventured, little by little, to raise herself until she could look over the rock. Then she saw him moving leisurely down the path at the foot of the butte. In a moment more he had reached the road, and, striding along, he grew smaller and smaller to her sight till he disappeared among the dark patches of sage-brush. Lloyd sank limply down among the rocks again, so exhausted by the nervous strain that the tears began to come. The night was passing like a hideous dream. Half an hour went by. She could hear the distant barking of coyotes, and a nervous dread took possession of her, a fear that their long, gaunt forms might come sneaking up the path after awhile in search of other picnic leavings. She eyed the swaying shadows apprehensively. Presently, as she sat and watched, tense and alert, she saw some one coming along the wagon track far below. He was on horseback, and riding slowly, as if enjoying the calm beauty of the night. She could hear him whistling. As he reached the foot of the butte the whistling changed to singing. The full, strong voice that rang out on the deathlike stillness was wonderfully rich and sweet: "From the desert I come to thee!" It was the Bedouin song. Lloyd listened wonderingly, her lips half-open. Was this part of the dream? she asked herself. Part of the strange, unreal night? That was certainly Phil's voice, and yet it was past belief that he should be riding by this out-of-the-way place at such an hour of the night. But there was no mistaking the voice, nor the song that had been haunting her memory for the last two days: "Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old." Lloyd hesitated no longer. Scrambling up from the rocks, she went running down the steep path, calling at the top of her voice, "Phil! Oh, Phil! Wait!" It was Phil's turn to think he was dreaming. Flying down the path with her white dress fluttering behind her in the moonlight, and her long, fair hair streaming loosely over her shoulder, Lloyd looked more wraithlike than human, and to be confronted by such a figure in the heart of a lonely desert was such a surprise that Phil could scarcely believe that he saw aright. A moment more, and with both her cold, trembling little hands in his big warm ones, Lloyd was sobbing out the story of her fright. The reaction was so great when she found herself in his protecting presence, that she could not keep back the tears. He swung her up into his saddle in the same brotherly way he had lifted Mary into the cart, the day he found her running home from school, and proceeded to comfort her in the same joking fashion. "This is the second time that I have been called on to play the bold rescuer act. I'll begin to think soon that my mission in life is to snatch fair maidens from the bloody scalpers of the plains." Then more gently, as he saw how hard it was for her to control herself, he spoke as he often spoke to Mary: "There, never mind, Lloyd. Don't cry. It's all right, little girl. We'll soon be home. It's only a few miles from here. It isn't as late as you think--only half-past eight." Slipping his watch back into his pocket, he began to explain how he happened to be passing. He had stayed to supper at the camp where he had gone to call on his new acquaintance, and had purposely waited for the moon to come up before starting home. He had put the rein into her hands at first, but now, taking it himself, he walked along beside her, leading the horse slowly homeward. With the greatest tact, feeling that Lloyd would gain her self-possession sooner if he did not talk to her, he began to sing again, half to himself, as if unmindful of her presence, and of the little dabs she was making at her eyes with a wet handkerchief. "Maid Elsie roams by lane and lea." It was the song that his old English nurse had sung: "Kling! lang! ling! She hears her bonny bride-bells ring." When he had sung it through, Lloyd's handkerchief was no longer making hasty passes at her eyes. "I wonder what my little sister Elsie is doing to-night," he said. "That song always makes me think of her." "Tell me about her," said Lloyd, who wanted a little more time to regain her composure. He understood why she asked, and began to talk, simply to divert her mind from her recent fright. But presently her eager questions showed that she was interested, and he talked on, feeling that it was good to have such an appreciative listener. He began to enjoy the reminiscences himself, and as he talked, the old days seemed to draw very near, till they gave him a homesick feeling for the old place that would never welcome him again. It had gone to strangers, he told her, and Aunt Patricia was dead. "Poor old Aunt Patricia," he added, after laughing over one of the pranks they had played on her. "She never did understand boys. We tried her patience terribly. She did the best she could for us, but I've often thought how different it would have been if my mother had lived. I had a letter from Daddy to-day, in answer to the one I wrote about leaving school. It broke me all up. Made me think of the time when I was a little fellow, and he rocked me to sleep one night when I had been naughty, and explained why I ought to be a good boy. It almost made me wish I could be a little kid again, and curl up in his arms, and tell him I was sorry, and would turn over a new leaf." Lloyd liked the affectionate, almost wistful way in which he spoke of his father as Daddy. Whatever indignation she had felt toward him was wiped away by those confidences. And when he apologized presently, in his most winning way, for not keeping his engagement, and told her frankly what had prevented, she liked him better than she had done before. She wondered how it could be so, but she felt now that she knew him as well as Malcolm or Rob, and that their friendship was not the growth of a few weeks, but that it reached back to the very beginning of things. "You can't imagine what a fascination there is in seeing that roulette wheel whirl around," he said, "but I'm done with that now. Daddy's letter settled the question. And even if that hadn't come, I would have stopped. I don't want to lose my precious turquoises--my friendship stones," he added, meaningly. "I know how you and Joyce feel about it. Look at old Alaka's eyes, twinkling up there over Camelback. They seem to know that I have heeded their warning." Presently, as they went along, he glanced up at her with a smile. "Do you know," he said, "you look just as you did the first time I saw you, as you rode up to the gate at Locust, all in white, and on a black horse. Maybe having your hair hanging loose as you did then makes me think so. I never imagined then that I'd ever see you again, much less find you away out here on the desert." "It is queah," answered Lloyd. "I thought I must be dreaming when I heard you sing 'From the desert I come to thee.'" "And I certainly thought I was dreaming," answered Phil, "when, in answer to my call, you appeared all in white. You could have knocked me down with a feather, for an instant. I was startled. Then I thanked my lucky stars that led me your way." He began again humming the Bedouin song. Lloyd, looking out across the wide, moonlighted desert and up at the twinkling stars, wondered if it was fate that had brought him to her rescue; if it could be possible that through him was to come the happiness written for her in the stars. "There's the Wigwam light," said Phil, presently, pausing in his song to point it out to her. "We're almost there. I'll never forget this adventure--till--" He took up the refrain again, smiling into her eyes as he hummed it. The refrain that was to ring through Lloyd's memory for many a year to come, whenever she thought of this ride across the moonlighted desert: "_Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!_" CHAPTER XVI. BACK TO DIXIE THERE was another mark on the kitchen calendar now; not a red star, betokening some happy event to come, but a deep black border, drawn all around the date on which Lloyd's visit was to end. The heavy black lines marked the time as only a few days distant. It was Saturday again, a week after the excursion to the Indian school. Joyce had gone down to the ranch, for Mr. Armond to criticize the drawings which she had made since the last lesson, and Lloyd, on the seat under the willows, was waiting for Phil. He was to come at four, and ride over to one of the neighbouring orange groves with her. She had a book in her hand, but she was not reading. She was listening to the water gurgle through the little water-gate into the lateral, and thinking of all that had happened during her visit, especially since the night she was lost on the desert, and Phil had found her. Monday he had spent the entire day at the Wigwam, and, since Joyce had forbidden him to come near the spot where the washing was in progress, he and Lloyd had brought a jar of paste and the little wicker table down to this very seat under the willows, and had mounted all her photographs in the book she had bought for the purpose. There were over a hundred, beginning with a view of the Wigwam and ending with the four laughing faces around the table on the balcony of Coffee Al's restaurant. There was Lloyd on her pony, coming back from the duck hunt, and again in the act of dropping her cherry tart. There was Mary in the hammock watching the bees, Jack in his irrigating boots, and Holland on a burro. There were a dozen different pictures of Joyce, and family groups, and picnic groups, in which was represented every acquaintance Lloyd had made in Arizona. Turning the pages was like living over the pleasant days again, for they brought the scenes vividly before her. When the last picture was mounted, Phil proposed that they write an appropriate quotation under each one. So they spent another hour over that, Phil suggesting most of them, and at Lloyd's request writing the inscriptions himself in his strong, dashing hand. Some of his apt phrases and clever parodies seemed really brilliant to Lloyd, and they had laughed and joked over them in a way that had ripened their friendship as weeks of ordinary intercourse would not have done. "Do you know," he said, when the last inscription was written, "I've kept count, and I'm in twenty-five of these pictures. You won't have much chance to forget me, will you? I haven't put my collection in a book, but I have a better reminder of this last month than all these put together." Opening the little locket that hung from his watch-fob, he held it toward her, just long enough for her to catch a glimpse of her own face within it. Then, closing the locket with a snap, he put the fob back in its place. It was a picture he had taken of her one day as she sat on this same seat under the willows, watching Aunt Emily braid an Indian basket. He had cut out a tiny circle containing her head, from the rest of the group, just the size to fit in the locket. Lloyd, leaning forward unsuspectingly to look at it, was so surprised at seeing her own picture that a deep blush stole slowly over her face, and she drew back in confusion, not knowing what to say. If he had asked her permission to put her picture in his locket, she would have refused as decidedly as she had refused Malcolm the tip of a curl to carry in his watch. But Phil had not asked for anything; had not said a word to which she could reply as she had replied to Malcolm. He had showed her the locket in the same matter-of-course way that Rob had showed her the four-leafed clover which he carried. Yet deep down in her heart she knew that there was a difference. She knew that her father would not like Phil to have her picture in his locket, but she didn't know how to tell him so. It was only an instant that she sat in shy, embarrassed silence, with her heart in a flutter, and her eyes fastened on the book of photographs which she was fingering nervously. Then Jack came out with a pitcher of lemonade, and the opportunity to speak passed. She hadn't the courage to bring up the subject afterward. "Phil might think that I think that it means moah than it does," she told herself. "He weahs the pictuah just as he would Elsie's, and if I tell him that I don't want him to, he'll think that I think that he cares for me the way that Malcolm does. I don't suppose that it really makes any difference whethah he has it in his locket or not." He did not mention it again, but it did make a difference. The consciousness of it embarrassed her whenever she met his eyes. She wondered if Joyce noticed. Tuesday he came again, and read aloud all morning while they ironed. Wednesday he spent the day without bringing anything as an excuse. Thursday he rode with them over to the Indian reservation. Her pony had been brought back to her the day after it ran away. When he left them at the Wigwam that evening he said that he would not be back the next day as he had to go to Phoenix, but that he would be up Saturday afternoon to ride with Lloyd to the orange grove while Joyce took her drawing-lesson. It was of all this that Lloyd was thinking now, as she sat under the willows. And she was thinking, too, of the tale Mrs. Walton told her of The Three Weavers; the tale that had been the cause of the Shadow Club turning itself into the Order of Hildegarde. Mrs. Walton had spoken truly when she said that "Little girls begin very early sometimes to dream about that far-away land of Romance." Lloyd's dreams might not have begun so soon, perhaps, had it not been for the meetings of the Shadow Club at boarding-school, when Ida Shane fired their imaginations with the stories of "Daisy Dale" and "The Heiress of Dorn," and made Lloyd the bearer of her letters to her "Edwardo." The unhappy ending of Ida's romance had been a grave warning to Lloyd, and the story of Hildegarde in the Three Weavers was often in her thoughts. Part of it floated through her memory now, as she realized, with a start, how large a place Phil had occupied in her thoughts the last week. "Hildegarde worked on, true to her promise, but there came a time when a face shone across her mirror, so noble and fair that she started back in a flutter. 'Oh, surely, 'tis he!' she whispered to her father. 'His eyes are so blue they fill all my dreams!' But old Hildgardmar answered her, 'Does he measure up to the standard set by the sterling yardstick for a prince to be?'" "That is just what Papa Jack would ask," mused Lloyd. "And he'd say that little girls outgrow their ideals as they do their dresses, and that if I'm not careful that I'll make the same mistake that Hertha and Huberta did. Besides, there's my New Yeah's promise!" For a moment she ceased to hear the gurgle of the water, and heard instead the ticking of the clock in the long drawing-room at Locust, as she and Papa Jack kept watch beside the embers, waiting for the old year to die and the new one to dawn. And in the solemn hush she heard her own voice repeating Hildegarde's promise: "_You may trust me, fathah, I will not cut the golden warp from out the loom until I, a woman grown, have woven such a web as thou thyself shalt say is worthy of a prince's wearing!_" A woman grown! And she was not yet quite fourteen! "I'll not be the only one of all the Lloyds that can't be trusted to keep a promise," she said, aloud, with a proud lifting of the head. Resolutely shaking herself free from the day-dreaming that had been so pleasant, she picked up her book and started to the house. Listening to Aunt Emily's conversation over her stocking darning, about the commonplace happenings of the household, was not half so entertaining as letting her thoughts stray back to the moonlight ride, to the smile in Phil's eyes as he showed her the locket, or the sound of his voice as he sang, "From the desert I come to thee." There were a dozen such memories, so pleasant to dwell upon that a girl of less will-power would not have pushed them aside. Even Lloyd found it difficult to do. "It's like trying to drive away a flock of cherry birds," she thought. "They keep coming back no matter how often you say _shoo_! But I won't let them stay." Such a resolution was easier to make than to keep, especially as she was expecting to see Phil ride up to the door at any moment. But the time set for his coming passed, and when a step on the bridge made her glance up, it was Joyce she saw, walking along slowly. Usually she danced in after her lesson-hour with Mr. Armond in the gayest of spirits. To-day it was apparent that she was the bearer of bad news. "Oh, mamma!" she began, dropping her sketches on the table, and fumbling to find her hat-pin. "They're all so worried down at the ranch, over Phil! Mrs. Lee says he went to town yesterday morning, expecting to be back in time for dinner, but he hasn't come yet. Jo went in on his wheel, last night, and he saw him at one of those places where they play faro, and all those games, and he was so excited over his winnings that he didn't even see Jo, although he stood and watched him ever so long. This morning Mr. Ellestad went in, and he came across him, wandering about the streets. He had lost not only every cent he had deposited in the bank, but he put up his horse, and lost that, too. He didn't have any way to get out to the ranch. "He wouldn't drive out with Mr. Ellestad. He was so mortified and disgusted with himself that he said he couldn't face them all. He said his father would never trust him again, and that he had lost not only his father's confidence, but our respect and friendship. He said he was going to look for work of some kind, he didn't care what, and it didn't make any difference what became of him now. "Mr. Ellestad left him at a hotel, and he felt so sorry for him that, tired as he was, he rode over to Tempe, after he got home, to see a friend of his who is a civil engineer. This friend is going to start on an expedition next week, surveying for some canals. Mr. Ellestad persuaded him to take Phil in his party, and give him some work. Phil said he didn't intend to touch a cent of his usual monthly allowance until he had earned back all he lost. Mr. Ellestad telephoned to him from Tempe, and he is to start in a few days. Mrs. Lee says that losing everything is the best thing that could have happened to Phil. It's taught him a lesson he'll never forget; and this surveyor is just the sort of a man he ought to be with,--clean, and honourable, and strong." As Joyce finished her excited telling with these familiar words, the colour that had faded completely out of Lloyd's face rushed back again. "Clean, and honourable, and strong!" These were the standards of the yardstick that Papa Jack had given her. How far Phil had failed to measure up to the last two notches, and yet-- Mrs. Ware finished the unspoken sentence for her. "He is so young that I can't help feeling that, with something to keep him busy and some one to take a helpful interest in him, he will turn out all right. He has so many fine traits, I am sure they will prevail in the end, and that he will make a manly man, after all." Joyce openly wiped away the tears that came at the thought of this ending to their happy comradeship, but Lloyd stole away to the tent to hide her face in her pillow, and sob out the disappointment of her sore little heart. She would never see him again, she told herself, and they had had _such_ good times together, and she was so sorry that he had proved so weak. Presently, as she lay there, she heard Holland come clattering up on the pony, inquiring for her. He had killed a snake, she could hear him telling his mother, and had brought it home to skin for Lloyd. It was a beautifully marked diamond-back with ten rattles, and now she could have a purse and a hat-band, like some she had admired in Phoenix. Lloyd listened, languidly. "An hour ago," she thought, "I would have been out there the instant I heard him call. I would have been admiring the snake and thanking him for it and asking a hundred questions about how he got it. But now--somehow--everything seems so different." She started up as he began calling her. "I wish he'd let me alone," she exclaimed, impatiently. "Aunt Emily will think it strange if I don't answer, for she knows I'm out heah, but I don't feel like talking to anybody or taking an interest in anything, and I don't want to go out there!" The call came again. She drew back the tent-flap and looked out. "I'll be there in a minute, Holland," she answered, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice. As she went over to the wash-stand to bathe her eyes, she brushed a magazine from the table in passing. It was the one Phil had brought up several days before to read aloud. She replaced it carefully, almost as one touches the belongings of some one who is dead. There were so many things around the tent to remind her of him, it would be almost impossible to keep him out of her thoughts. She confessed to herself that it was growing very hard to keep her Hildegarde promise. She started to whisper it as one might repeat some strengthening charm: "You may trust me, fathah--" She stopped with a sob. This sudden ending of their happy companionship was going to shadow all the rest of her visit. As her eyes met her reflection in the little mirror hanging against the side of the tent, she lifted her head with determination, and looked at it squarely. "I _will_ stop thinking about it all the time!" she said, defiantly, to the answering eyes. "It will spoil all my visit if I don't. I'll do the way the bees do when things get into the hive that have no right there. I'll seal it up tight as I can, and go on filling the other cells with honey,--doing things that will be pleasant to remember by and by. I'll _make_ myself take an interest in something else!" The same spirit that looked from the eyes of the proud old portraits at home looked back at her now from the eyes in the mirror--that strong, indomitable spirit of her ancestors, that could rise even to the conquering of that hardest of all enemies, self, when occasion demanded it. Running out to the wood-pile, where Holland impatiently awaited her, she threw herself into the interests of the hour so resolutely that she was soon absorbed in its happenings. By the time the snake was skinned, and the skin tacked to the side of the house to dry, she had gained a victory that left her stronger for all her life to come. She had compelled herself to take an interest in the affairs of others, when she wanted to mope and dream. Instead of an hour of selfish musing in her tent, she had had an hour of wholesome laughter and chatter outside. It would be a pleasant time to look back upon, too, she thought, complacently, remembering Mary's amusing efforts to help skin the snake, and all the funny things that had been said. "Well, that hour's memory-cell is filled all right," Lloyd thought. "I'll see how much moah honey I can store away befoah I leave." There was not much more time, for Mr. Sherman came soon, with the announcement that they would leave in two days. Numerous letters had passed between the Wigwam and the mines, so Lloyd knew what was going to happen when her father arranged for her and Joyce to spend part of one of those days in town. She knew that when they came back they would find a long rustic arbour built in the rear of the tents--a rough shack of cottonwood poles supporting a thatch of bamboo and palm-leaves. Underneath would be a dozen or more hives, humming with thousands of golden-banded bees. And for all the rest of their little lives these bees would spend their "shining hours" in helping Joyce on toward easier times and the City of her Desire. Something else happened that day while they were in town. Phil made his last visit before starting away with the surveying party. Nobody knew what passed between him and Aunt Emily in the old Wigwam sitting-room, but he came out from the interview smiling, so full of hope and purpose that her whispered _Godspeed_ seemed already to have found an answer. She told the girls afterward a little of their conversation. His ambition was aroused at last, she said. He was going to work hard all summer, and in the fall go back to school. Not the military academy, but a college where he could take the technical course this friend of Mr. Ellestad recommended. Phil admired this man immensely, and she was sure that his influence would be exceedingly helpful. She was sure, too, that he would be all right now, and he had promised to write to her every week. As Phil came out of the Wigwam he heard Mary's voice, in a sort of happy little chant, as she watched the settling of the bees in their new home. She had heard nothing of Phil's troubles, and did not know that he was going away until he told her. "I want you to tell Lloyd and Joyce something for me," he said. "Try to remember just these words, please. Tell them that I said: 'Alaka has lost his precious turquoises, but _he will win them back again, some day_!' Can you remember to say just that?" Mary nodded, gravely. "Yes," she said, "I'll tell them." Then her lip trembled. "But I don't want you to go away!" she exclaimed, the tears beginning to come. "Aren't you ever coming back?" "Not for a long time," he answered, looking away toward old Camelback. "Not till I've learned the lesson that you told me about, the first time I saw you, that day on the train, to be inflexible. When I'm strong enough to keep stiff in the face of any temptation, then I'll come back. Good-bye, little Vicar!" Stooping, he kissed her gently on each plump cheek, and turned hastily away. She watched him go off down the road through a blur of tears. Then she rubbed her sleeve across her eyes. He had turned to look back, and, seeing the disconsolate little figure gazing after him, waved his hat. There was something so cheery and hopeful in the swing he gave it, that Mary smiled through her tears, and answered with an energetic fluttering of her white sunbonnet, swung high by its one string. * * * * * Joyce's delight on her return, when she found the long row of hives, was something good to see. She could hardly speak at first, and walked from one hive to another, touching each as she passed, as if to assure herself that it was really there, and really hers. "Joyce is so bee-wildered by her good fortune that she is almost bee-side herself," said Holland, when he had watched her start on her third round of inspection. "That's the truth," laughed Joyce, turning to face Lloyd and her father. "I'm so happy that I don't know what I'm doing, and I can't begin to thank you properly till I've settled down a little." There was no need of spoken thanks when her face was so eloquent. Even the mistakes she made in setting the supper-table spoke for her. In her excitement she gave Mr. Sherman two forks and no knife, and Lloyd three spoons and no fork. She made the coffee in the teapot, and put the butter in a pickle-dish. Only Mary's warning cry saved her from skimming the cream into the syrup-pitcher, and she sugared everything she cooked instead of salting it. "Oh, I'm sorry," she cried, when her mistakes were discovered, "but if you were as happy as I am you'd go around with your head in the clouds too." After supper she said to Mr. Sherman, as they walked out to the hives again, "You see, I'd been thinking all day how much I am going to miss Lloyd, and what a Road of the Loving Heart she's left behind her on this visit. We've enjoyed every minute of it, and we'll talk of the things she's said and done for months. Then I came home to find that she's left not only a road behind her, but one that will reach through all the years ahead, a road that will lead straight through to what I have set my heart on doing. I'm going into bee culture with all my might and main, now, and make a fortune out of it. There'll be time enough after that to carry out my other plans. "To think," she added, as Lloyd joined them, "when I first came to the Wigwam I was so lonesome and discontented that I wanted to die. Now I wouldn't change places with any other girl in the universe." "Not even with me?" cried Lloyd, in surprise, thinking of all she had and all that she had done. "No, not even with you," answered Joyce, quoting, softly, "For me the desert holds more than kings' houses could offer." The last two days of Lloyd's visit went by in a whirl. As she drove away with her father, in the open carriage that had been sent out of town for them, she stood up to look back and wave her handkerchief to the little group under the pepper-trees, as long as the Wigwam was in sight. Then she kept turning to look back at old Camelback Mountain, until it, too, faded from sight in the fading day. Then she settled down beside her father, and looked up at him with a satisfied smile. "Somehow I feel as if my visit is ending like the good old fairy-tales--'They all lived happily evah aftah.' Joyce is _so_ happy ovah the bees and Mr. Armond's lessons. Aunt Emily is lots bettah, the boys have so much to hope for since you promised to help Holland get into the Navy, and make a place for Jack at the mines. As for Mary, she is so blissful ovah the prospect of a visit to Locust next yeah, that she can't talk of anything else." "And what about my little Hildegarde?" asked Mr. Sherman. "Did the visit do anything for her?" "Yes," said Lloyd, growing grave as the name Hildegarde recalled the promise that had been so hard to keep, and the victory she had won over herself the day she turned away from her day-dreams and her disappointment to interest herself in other things. She felt that the bees had shown her a road to happiness that would lead her out of many a trouble in the years to come. She had only to follow their example, seal up whatever had no right in her life's hive, or whatever was spoiling her happiness, and fill the days with other interests. "Oh, I'm lots wiseah than when I came," she said, aloud. "I've learned to make pies and coffee, and to i'on, and to weave Indian baskets." "Is that the height of your ambition?" was the teasing reply. "You don't soar as high as Joyce and Betty." "Oh, Papa Jack, I know you'll be disappointed in me, but, honestly, I can't help it! I haven't any big ambitions. Seems to me I'd be contented always, just to be you'ah deah little daughtah, and not do any moah than just gathah up each day's honey as it comes and lay up a hive full of sweet memories for myself and othah people." "That suits me exactly," he answered, with an approving nod. "Contented people are the most comfortable sort to live with, and such an ambition as yours will do more good in your little corner of the world than all the books you could write or pictures you could paint." The engine was steaming on the track when they drove up to the station. Waffles, the coloured man whom Mr. Robeson had brought with him as cook, hung over the railing of the rear platform, whistling "Going Back to Dixie." "How good that sounds!" exclaimed Lloyd, as her father helped her up the steps. "Now that we are really headed for home, I can hardly wait to get back to the Valley and tell mothah and Betty about my visit. I don't believe anybody in the whole world has as many good times to remembah as I have. Or as many good times to look forward to," she added, later, when, with a mighty snorting and puffing, the engine steamed slowly out of the station, and started on its long homeward journey. As they rumbled on, she began picturing her arrival, the welcome at the station, and her meeting with her mother and Betty and the Walton girls. How much she had to tell them all, and how many delightful meetings she would have with the club! Her birthday was only two months away. Then the locusts would be white with bloom, and after that vacation. With the coming of summer-time to the Valley would come Rob to measure with her at the measuring-tree, to play tennis, and to share whatever the long summer days held in store. With a vague sense that all sorts of pleasantness awaited her there, her thoughts turned eagerly toward Kentucky. Even the car-wheels seemed to creak in pleased anticipation, and keep time to the tune she hummed half under her breath: "My heart turns back to Dixie, And I--must--go!" THE END. BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE THE LITTLE COLONEL BOOKS (Trade Mark) _By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON_ Each 1 vol., large 12mo, cloth decorative, per vol. $1.50 =The Little Colonel Stories.= (Trade Mark) Illustrated. Being three "Little Colonel" stories in the Cosy Corner Series, "The Little Colonel," "Two Little Knights of Kentucky," and "The Giant Scissors," put into a single volume. =The Little Colonel's House Party.= (Trade Mark) Illustrated by Louis Meynell. =The Little Colonel's Holidays.= (Trade Mark) Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman. =The Little Colonel's Hero.= (Trade Mark) Illustrated by E. B. Barry. =The Little Colonel at Boarding School.= (Trade Mark) Illustrated by E. B. Barry. =The Little Colonel in Arizona.= (Trade Mark) Illustrated by E. B. Barry. =The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation.= (Trade Mark) Illustrated by E. B. Barry. =The Little Colonel, Maid of Honour.= (Trade Mark) Illustrated by E. B. Barry. =The Little Colonel.= (Trade Mark) =Two Little Knights of Kentucky.= =The Giant Scissors.= =Big Brother.= Special Holiday Editions Each one volume, cloth decorative, small quarto, $1.25. New plates, handsomely illustrated, with eight full-page drawings in color. "The books are as satisfactory to the small girls, who find them adorable, as for the mothers and librarians, who delight in their influence."--_Christian Register._ These four volumes, boxed as a four volume set $5.00 =In the Desert of Waiting=: THE LEGEND OF CAMELBACK MOUNTAIN. =The Three Weavers=: A FAIRY TALE FOR FATHERS AND MOTHERS AS WELL AS FOR THEIR DAUGHTERS. =Keeping Tryst.= =The Legend of the Bleeding Heart.= Each one volume, tall 16mo, cloth decorative $0.50 Paper boards .35 There has been a constant demand for publication in separate form of these four stories, which were originally included in four of the "Little Colonel" books. =Joel: A Boy of Galilee.= By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON. Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman. New illustrated edition, uniform with the Little Colonel Books, 1 vol., large 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50 A story of the time of Christ, which is one of the author's best-known books. =Asa Holmes=; OR, AT THE CROSS-ROADS. A sketch of Country Life and Country Humor. By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON. With a frontispiece by Ernest Fosbery. Large 16mo, cloth, gilt top $1.00 "'Asa Holmes; or, At the Cross-Roads' is the most delightful, most sympathetic and wholesome book that has been published in a long while."--_Boston Times._ =The Rival Campers=; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF HENRY BURNS. By RUEL PERLEY SMITH. Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 Here is a book which will grip and enthuse every boy reader. It is the story of a party of typical American lads, courageous, alert, and athletic, who spend a summer camping on an island off the Maine coast. "The best boys' book since 'Tom Sawyer.'"--_San Francisco Examiner._ =The Rival Campers Afloat=; OR, THE PRIZE YACHT VIKING. By RUEL PERLEY SMITH. Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 This book is a continuation of the adventures of "The Rival Campers" on their prize yacht _Viking_. An accidental collision results in a series of exciting adventures, culminating in a mysterious chase, the loss of their prize yacht, and its recapture by means of their old yacht, _Surprise_. =The Rival Campers Ashore.= By RUEL PERLEY SMITH, author of "The Rival Campers," "The Rival Campers Afloat," etc. Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 "The Rival Campers Ashore" deals with the adventures of the campers and their friends in and around the town of Benton. Mr. Smith introduces a new character,--a girl,--who shows them the way to an old mill, around which the mystery of the story revolves. The girl is an admirable acquisition, proving as daring and resourceful as the campers themselves. =The Young Section-Hand=; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF ALLAN WEST. By BURTON E. STEVENSON, author of "The Marathon Mystery," etc. Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by L. J. Bridgman $1.50 Mr. Stevenson's hero is a manly lad of sixteen, who is given a chance as a section-hand on a big Western railroad, and whose experiences are as real as they are thrilling. =The Young Train Dispatcher.= By BURTON E. STEVENSON, author of "The Young Section-hand," etc. Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 The young hero has many chances to prove his manliness and courage in the exciting adventures which befall him in the discharge of his duty. =Captain Jack Lorimer.= By WINN STANDISH. Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by A. B. Shute $1.50 Jack is a fine example of the all-around American high-school boy. He has the sturdy qualities boys admire, and his fondness for clean, honest sport of all kinds will strike a chord of sympathy among athletic youths. =Jack Lorimer's Champions=; or, Sports on Land and Lake. By WINN STANDISH, author of "Captain Jack Lorimer," etc. Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 All boys and girls who take an interest in school athletics will wish to read of the exploits of the Millvale High School students, under the leadership of Captain Jack Lorimer. Captain Jack's Champions play quite as good ball as do some of the teams on the large leagues, and they put all opponents to good hard work in other summer sports. Jack Lorimer and his friends stand out as the finest examples of all-round American high school boys and girls. =Beautiful Joe's Paradise=; OR, THE ISLAND OF BROTHERLY LOVE. A sequel to "Beautiful Joe." By MARSHALL SAUNDERS, author of "Beautiful Joe." One vol., library 12mo, cloth, illustrated $1.50 "This book revives the spirit of 'Beautiful Joe' capitally. It is fairly riotous with fun, and as a whole is about as unusual as anything in the animal book line that has seen the light. It is a book for juveniles--old and young."--_Philadelphia Item._ ='Tilda Jane.= By MARSHALL SAUNDERS. One vol., 12mo, fully illustrated, cloth decorative, $1.50 "It is one of those exquisitely simple and truthful books that win and charm the reader, and I did not put it down until I had finished it--honest! And I am sure that every one, young or old, who reads will be proud and happy to make the acquaintance of the delicious waif. "I cannot think of any better book for children than this. I commend it unreservedly."--_Cyrus Townsend Brady._ =The Story of the Graveleys.= By MARSHALL SAUNDERS, author of "Beautiful Joe's Paradise," "'Tilda Jane," etc. Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by E. B. Barry $1.50 Here we have the haps and mishaps, the trials and triumphs, of a delightful New England family, of whose devotion and sturdiness it will do the reader good to hear. =Born to the Blue.= By FLORENCE KIMBALL RUSSEL. 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.25 The atmosphere of army life on the plains breathes on every page of this delightful tale. The boy is the son of a captain of U. S. cavalry stationed at a frontier post in the days when our regulars earned the gratitude of a nation. =In West Point Gray.= By FLORENCE KIMBALL RUSSEL. 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated $1.25 West Point forms the background for the second volume in this series, and gives us the adventures of Jack as a cadet. Here the training of his childhood days in the frontier army post stands him in good stead; and he quickly becomes the central figure of the West Point life. =The Sandman; His Farm Stories.= By WILLIAM J. HOPKINS. With fifty illustrations by Ada Clendenin Williamson. Large 12mo, decorative cover $1.50 "An amusing, original book, written for the benefit of very small children. It should be one of the most popular of the year's books for reading to small children."--_Buffalo Express._ =The Sandman: More Farm Stories.= By WILLIAM J. HOPKINS. Large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated $1.50 Mr. Hopkins's first essay at bedtime stories met with such approval that this second book of "Sandman" tales was issued for scores of eager children. Life on the farm, and out-of-doors, is portrayed in his inimitable manner. =The Sandman: His Ship Stories.= By WILLIAM J. HOPKINS, author of "The Sandman: His Farm Stories," etc. Large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated $1.50 "Mothers and fathers and kind elder sisters who put the little ones to bed, and rack their brains for stories, will find this book a treasure."--_Cleveland Leader._ "Children call for these stories over and over again."--_Chicago Evening Post._ =Pussy-Cat Town.= By MARION AMES TAGGART. Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in colors $1.00 "Pussy-Cat Town" is a most unusual delightful cat story. Ban-Ban, a pure Maltese who belonged to Rob, Kiku-san, Lois's beautiful snow white pet, and their neighbors Bedelia the tortoise-shell, Madame Laura the widow, Wutz Butz the warrior, and wise old Tommy Traddles, were really and truly cats. =The Roses of Saint Elizabeth.= By JANE SCOTT WOODRUFF, author of "The Little Christmas Shoe." Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in colors by Adelaide Everhart $1.00 This is a charming little story of a child whose father was caretaker of the great castle of the Wartburg, where Saint Elizabeth once had her home. =Gabriel and the Hour Book.= By EVALEEN STEIN. Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in colors by Adelaide Everhart $1.00 Gabriel was a loving, patient, little French lad, who assisted the monks in the long ago days, when all the books were written and illuminated by hand, in the monasteries. =The Enchanted Automobile.= Translated from the French by MARY J. SAFFORD. Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in colors by Edna M. Sawyer $1.00 The enchanted automobile was sent by the fairy godmother of a lazy, discontented little prince and princess to take them to fairyland, where they might visit their storybook favorites. =The Red Feathers.= By THEODORE ROBERTS, author of "Brothers of Peril," etc. Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 "The Red Feathers" tells of the remarkable adventures of an Indian boy who lived in the Stone Age, many years ago, when the world was young, and when fairies and magicians did wonderful things for their friends and enemies. =The Wreck of the Ocean Queen.= By JAMES OTIS, author of "Larry Hudson's Ambition," etc. Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 This story takes its readers on a sea voyage around the world; gives them a trip on a treasure ship; an exciting experience in a terrific gale; and finally a shipwreck, with a mutineering crew determined to take the treasure to complicate matters. But only the mutineers will come to serious harm, and after the reader has known the thrilling excitement of lack of food and water, of attacks by night and day, and of a hand-to-hand fight, he is rescued and brought safely home again,--to realize that it's only a story, but a stirring and realistic one. =Little White Indians.= By FANNIE E. OSTRANDER. Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.25 The "Little White Indians" were two families of children who "played Indian" all one long summer vacation. They built wigwams and made camps; they went hunting and fought fierce battles on the war-trail. A bright, interesting story which will appeal strongly to the "make-believe" instinct in children, and will give them a healthy, active interest in "the simple life." PHYLLIS' FIELD FRIENDS SERIES _By LENORE E. MULETS_ Six vols., cloth decorative, illustrated by Sophie Schneider. Sold separately, or as a set. Per volume $1.00 Per set 6.00 =Insect Stories.= =Stories of Little Animals.= =Flower Stories.= =Bird Stories.= =Tree Stories.= =Stories of Little Fishes.= In this series of six little Nature books, it is the author's intention so to present to the child reader the facts about each particular flower, insect, bird, or animal, in story form, as to make delightful reading. Classical legends, myths, poems, and songs are so introduced as to correlate fully with these lessons, to which the excellent illustrations are no little help. THE WOODRANGER TALES _By G. WALDO BROWNE_ =The Woodranger.= =The Young Gunbearer.= =The Hero of the Hills.= =With Rogers' Rangers.= Each 1 vol., large 12mo, cloth, decorative cover, illustrated, per volume $1.25 Four vols., boxed, per set 5.00 "The Woodranger Tales," like the "Pathfinder Tales" of J. Fenimore Cooper, combine historical information relating to early pioneer days in America with interesting adventures in the backwoods. Although the same characters are continued throughout the series, each book is complete in itself, and, while based strictly on historical facts, is an interesting and exciting tale of adventure. THE LITTLE COUSIN SERIES The most delightful and interesting accounts possible of child life in other lands, filled with quaint sayings, doings, and adventures. Each one vol., 12mo, decorative cover, cloth, with six or more full-page illustrations in color. Price per volume $0.60 _By MARY HAZELTON WADE_ (_unless otherwise indicated_) =Our Little African Cousin= =Our Little Alaskan Cousin= By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet =Our Little Arabian Cousin= By Blanche McManus =Our Little Armenian Cousin= =Our Little Brown Cousin= =Our Little Canadian Cousin= By Elizabeth R. Macdonald =Our Little Chinese Cousin= By Isaac Taylor Headland =Our Little Cuban Cousin= =Our Little Dutch Cousin= By Blanche McManus =Our Little English Cousin= By Blanche McManus =Our Little Eskimo Cousin= =Our Little French Cousin= By Blanche McManus =Our Little German Cousin= =Our Little Hawaiian Cousin= =Our Little Hindu Cousin= By Blanche McManus =Our Little Indian Cousin= =Our Little Irish Cousin= =Our Little Italian Cousin= =Our Little Japanese Cousin= =Our Little Jewish Cousin= =Our Little Korean Cousin= By H. Lee M. Pike =Our Little Mexican Cousin= By Edward C. Butler =Our Little Norwegian Cousin= =Our Little Panama Cousin= By H. Lee M. Pike =Our Little Philippine Cousin= =Our Little Porto Rican Cousin= =Our Little Russian Cousin= =Our Little Scotch Cousin= By Blanche McManus =Our Little Siamese Cousin= =Our Little Spanish Cousin= By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet =Our Little Swedish Cousin= By Claire M. Coburn =Our Little Swiss Cousin= =Our Little Turkish Cousin= COSY CORNER SERIES It is the intention of the publishers that this series shall contain only the very highest and purest literature,--stories that shall not only appeal to the children themselves, but be appreciated by all those who feel with them in their joys and sorrows. The numerous illustrations in each book are by well-known artists, and each volume has a separate attractive cover design. Each 1 vol., 16mo, cloth $0.50 _By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON_ =The Little Colonel.= (Trade Mark.) The scene of this story is laid in Kentucky. Its heroine is a small girl, who is known as the Little Colonel, on account of her fancied resemblance to an old-school Southern gentleman, whose fine estate and old family are famous in the region. =The Giant Scissors.= This is the story of Joyce and of her adventures in France. Joyce is a great friend of the Little Colonel, and in later volumes shares with her the delightful experiences of the "House Party" and the "Holidays." =Two Little Knights of Kentucky.= WHO WERE THE LITTLE COLONEL'S NEIGHBORS. In this volume the Little Colonel returns to us like an old friend, but with added grace and charm. She is not, however, the central figure of the story, that place being taken by the "two little knights." =Mildred's Inheritance.= A delightful little story of a lonely English girl who comes to America and is befriended by a sympathetic American family who are attracted by her beautiful speaking voice. By means of this one gift she is enabled to help a school-girl who has temporarily lost the use of her eyes, and thus finally her life becomes a busy, happy one. =Cicely and Other Stories for Girls.= The readers of Mrs. Johnston's charming juveniles will be glad to learn of the issue of this volume for young people. =Aunt 'Liza's Hero and Other Stories.= A collection of six bright little stories, which will appeal to all boys and most girls. =Big Brother.= A story of two boys. The devotion and care of Steven, himself a small boy, for his baby brother, is the theme of the simple tale. =Ole Mammy's Torment.= "Ole Mammy's Torment" has been fitly called "a classic of Southern life." It relates the haps and mishaps of a small negro lad, and tells how he was led by love and kindness to a knowledge of the right. =The Story of Dago.= In this story Mrs. Johnston relates the story of Dago, a pet monkey, owned jointly by two brothers. Dago tells his own story, and the account of his haps and mishaps is both interesting and amusing. =The Quilt That Jack Built.= A pleasant little story of a boy's labor of love, and how it changed the course of his life many years after it was accomplished. =Flip's Islands of Providence.= A story of a boy's life battle, his early defeat, and his final triumph, well worth the reading. _By EDITH ROBINSON_ =A Little Puritan's First Christmas.= A Story of Colonial times in Boston, telling how Christmas was invented by Betty Sewall, a typical child of the Puritans, aided by her brother Sam. =A Little Daughter of Liberty.= The author introduces this story as follows: "One ride is memorable in the early history of the American Revolution, the well-known ride of Paul Revere. Equally deserving of commendation is another ride,--the ride of Anthony Severn,--which was no less historic in its action or memorable in its consequences." =A Loyal Little Maid.= A delightful and interesting story of Revolutionary days, in which the child heroine, Betsey Schuyler, renders important services to George Washington. =A Little Puritan Rebel.= This is an historical tale of a real girl, during the time when the gallant Sir Harry Vane was governor of Massachusetts. =A Little Puritan Pioneer.= The scene of this story is laid in the Puritan settlement at Charlestown. =A Little Puritan Bound Girl.= A story of Boston in Puritan days, which is of great interest to youthful readers. =A Little Puritan Cavalier.= The story of a "Little Puritan Cavalier" who tried with all his boyish enthusiasm to emulate the spirit and ideals of the dead Crusaders. =A Puritan Knight Errant.= The story tells of a young lad in Colonial times who endeavored to carry out the high ideals of the knights of olden days. _By OUIDA_ (_Louise de la Ramée_) =A Dog of Flanders=: A CHRISTMAS STORY. Too well and favorably known to require description. =The Nurnberg Stove.= This beautiful story has never before been published at a popular price. _By FRANCES MARGARET FOX_ =The Little Giant's Neighbours.= A charming nature story of a "little giant" whose neighbours were the creatures of the field and garden. =Farmer Brown and the Birds.= A little story which teaches children that the birds are man's best friends. =Betty of Old Mackinaw.= A charming story of child-life, appealing especially to the little readers who like stories of "real people." =Brother Billy.= The story of Betty's brother, and some further adventures of Betty herself. =Mother Nature's Little Ones.= Curious little sketches describing the early lifetime, or "childhood," of the little creatures out-of-doors. =How Christmas Came to the Mulvaneys.= A bright, lifelike little story of a family of poor children, with an unlimited capacity for fun and mischief. The wonderful never-to-be forgotten Christmas that came to them is the climax of a series of exciting incidents. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Varied hyphenation was retained as in yardstick and yard-stick. Page 138, "kneeding" changed to "kneading" (and began kneading) Page 321, the author of The Wreck of the Ocean Queen was not small-capped in the original. This was fixed in this copy. 
38064	----	AW-AW-TAM INDIAN NIGHTS Being The Myths and Legends of the Pimas of Arizona As received by J. William Lloyd From Comalk-Hawk-Kih (Thin Buckskin) Thru the interpretation of Edward Hubert Wood Price $1.50 Postpaid The Lloyd Group, Westfield, N. J. Copyright, 1911, by John William Lloyd January 20th, 1904. This is to certify that the myths and legends of the Pimas derived by J. William Lloyd from my granduncle, Thin Buckskin, thru my interpretation, are correct and genuine to the best of my ability to interpret them. Edward H. Wood, (Pima Indian) Sacaton, Arizona. THE STORY OF THESE STORIES When I was at the Pan-American Fair, at Buffalo, in July, 1901, I one day strolled into the Bazaar and drifted naturally to the section where Indian curios were displayed for sale by J. W. Benham. Behind the counter, as salesman, stood a young Indian, whose frank, intelligent, good-natured face at once attracted me. Finding me interested in Indian art, he courteously invited me behind the counter and spent an hour or more in explaining the mysteries of baskets and blankets. How small seeds are! From that interview came everything that is in this book. Several times I repeated my visits to my Indian friend, and when I had left Buffalo I had learned that his name was Edward Hubert Wood, and that he was a full-blooded Pima, educated at Albuquerque, New Mexico. Afterward we came into a pleasant correspondence, and so I came to know that one of my Indian friend's dreams was that he should be the means of the preservation of the ancient tales of his people. He had a grand-uncle, Comalk-Hawk-Kih, or Thin Buckskin, who was a see-nee-yaw-kum, or professional traditionalist, who knew all the ancient stories, but who had no successor, and with whose death the stories would disappear. He did not feel himself equal to putting these traditions into good English, and so did not quite know what to do. We discussed this matter in letters; and finally it was decided that I should visit the Gila River Reservation, in Arizona, where the Pimas were, and get the myths from the old seeneeyawkum in person, and that Mr. Wood should return home from Pyramid Lake, Nevada, where he was teaching carpentry to the Pai-utes, and be my host and interpreter. So, on the morning of July 31st, 1903, I stepped from a train at Casa Grande, Arizona, and found myself in the desert land of which I had so long dreamed. I had expected Mr. Wood to meet me there, but he was not at the station and therefore I took passage with the Irish mail-carrier whose stage was in daily transit between Casa Grande and Sacaton, the Agency village of the Pima Reservation. We had driven perhaps half the distance, and my Irish friend was beguiling the tedium by an interminable series of highly spiced yarns, calculated to flabbergast the tenderfoot, when my anxious eyes discerned in the distance the oncoming of a neat little open buggy, drawn by two pretty ponies, one of which was a pinto, and in which sat Mr. Wood. Just imagine: It was the last day of July, a blazing morning in the open desert, with the temperature soaring somewhere between 100 and 120 degrees, yet here was my Indian friend, doubtless to do me honor, arrayed in a "pepper-and-salt" suit, complete with underclothes; vest buttoned up; collar and necktie, goggles and buckskin driving gloves. And this in an open buggy, while the Irishman and I, under our tilt, were stripped to our shirts, with sleeves rolled above elbows, and swigging water, ever and anon, from an enormous canteen swathed in wet flannel to keep it cool. Truly Mr. Wood had not intended that I should take him for an uncivilized Indian, if clothes could give the lie; but the face was the same kindly one of my "Brother Ed," and it did not take me long to greet him and transfer myself to his care. We came to Sacaton (which Ed said was a Mexican name meaning "much tall grass"--reminding me that Emory, of the "Army of the West," who found the Pimas in 1846, reported finding fine meadows there--but which the Pimas call Tawt-sit-ka, "the Place of Fear and Flight," because of some Apache-caused panic) but we did not stop there, but passed around it, to the Northwest, and on and over the Gila, Akee-mull, The River, as the Pimas affectionately call it, for to them it is as the Nile to Egypt. The famous Gila is not a very imposing stream at any time, and now was no stream at all, but a shallow dry channel, choked with desert dust, or paved with curling flakes of baked mud which cracked like bits of broken pottery under our ponies' feet. But I afterwards many times saw it a turbid torrent of yellow mud, rushing and foaming from the mountain rains; perilous with quicksand and snag, the roaring of its voice heard over the chaparral for miles to windward. The Pimas live in villages, each with its sub-chief, and we were bound for the village of Lower San-tan. But in these villages the houses are now seldom aggregated, as in old days of Apache and Yuma war, but scatter out for miles in farm homesteads. Brother Ed had lately sold his neat farmstead, near Sacaton, and when I came to his home I found he was temporarily living under a vachtoe (pronounce first syllable as if German), or arbor-shed, made of mezquite forks, supporting a flat roof of weeds and brush for shade. Near by he was laying the foundations of a neat little adobe cottage, which was finally completed during my stay. Ed introduced me to his mother, a matronly Indian woman of perhaps fifty-five, who must have been quite a belle in her day, and whose features were still regular and strong, and his step-father, "Mr. Wells," who deserves more than a passing word from me, for his kindness was unremitting (bless his good-natured, smiling face!) and his solicitude for my comfort constant. These were all the family, for Ed himself was a widower. Fifty yards or so to the northwest were the huts of two old and wretchedly poor Pimas (the man was blind) who had been allowed to settle there temporarily by Mr. Wood, owing to some difficulty about their own location on their adjoining land. One or two hundred yards in the other direction were two old caw-seens, or storehouses, square structures of a sort of wattlework of poles, weeds and brush, plastered over with adobe and roofed with earth. In one of these I placed my trunk, and on its flat roof I slept, rolled in my blankets, most of the nights of the two months of my stay. I came to know it as "my Arizona Bedstead," and I shall never forget it and its quaint, crooked ladder. My Indian brother was not slow in shedding his dress-parade garments, and in getting down to the comfort of outing shirt and overalls, neck handkerchief and sombrero. Then I had my first meal with Indians in Arizona. Mrs. Wells, or as I prefer to call her, Sparkling-Soft-Feather (her Indian name) was a good cook of her kind, and gave us a meal of tortillas, frijole beans, peppers (kaw-awl-kull), coffee, and choo-oo-kook or jerked beef. Ed and I were given the dignity of chairs and a table, but the older Indians squatted on the ground in the good old Pima way, with their dishes on a mat. There were knives and spoons, but no forks, and the usefulness of fingers was not obsolete. A waggish, pale-eyed pup, flabbily deprecative and good-natured, and a big-footed Mexican choo-chool, or chicken, were obtrusively familiar. Neither of the older Indians could speak a word of English, but chatted and laughed away together in Pima. The hot, soft wind of the desert kissed our faces as we ate, and off in the back ground rose the stately volcanic pile of Cheoff-skaw-mack, the nearest mountain, and all around the horizon other bare volcanic peaks burned into the blue. Sometimes a whirlwind of dust travelled rapidly over the plain, making one ponder what would happen should it gyrate into the vachtoe. The old woman from the near-by kee slunk by as we ate, going to the well. She wore gah-kai-gey-aht-kum-soosk (literally string-shoes), or sandals, of rawhide, on her feet, and was quite the most wretched-looking hag I ever saw among the Pimas. Her withered body was hung with indescribable rags and her gray hair was a tangled mat. Yet I came to know that that wretched creature had a heart and a good one. She was kind and cheerful, industrious and uncomplaining, and devotion itself to her old blind husband; who did nothing all day long but move out of the travelling sun into the shade, rolling nearly naked in the dust. After dinner we got our guns and started out to go to the farm of old Thin Buckskin ("William Higgins," if you please!) the seeneeyawkum I had come so far to see. Incidentally we were to shoot some kah-kai-cheu, or plumed quails, and taw-up-pee, or rabbits, for supper. We found the old man plowing for corn in his field. The strong, friendly grasp he gave my hand was all that could be desired. Tall, lean, dignified, with a harsh, yet musical voice; keen, intelligent black eyes, and an impressive manner, he was plainly a gentleman and a scholar, even if he could neither read nor write, nor speak a sentence of English. The next afternoon he came, and under Ed's vachtoe gave me the first installment of the coveted tales. It was slow work. First he would tell Ed a paragraph of tradition, and Ed would translate it to me. Then I would write it down, and then read it aloud to Ed again, getting his corrections. When all was straight, to his satisfaction, we would go on to another paragraph, and so on, till the old man said enough. As these Indians are all Christianized now, and mostly zealous in the faith, I could get no traditions on Sunday. And indeed, when part way thru, this zeal came near balking me altogether. A movement started to stop the recovery of these old heathen tales; the sub-chief had a word with Comalk, who became suddenly too busy to go on with his narrations, and it took increased shekels and the interposition of the Agent, Mr. J. B. Alexander, who was very kind to me, before I could get the wheels started again. Sometimes the old man came at night, instead of afternoon, and I find this entry in my journal: "Sept. 6.--We sat up till midnight in the old cawseen getting the traditions. It was a wild, strange scene--the old cawseen interior, the mezquite forks that supported the roof, the poles overhead, and weeds above that, the mud-plastered walls with loop-hole windows; bags, boxes, trunks, ollas, and vahs-hrom granary baskets about. Ed sitting on the ground, against the wall, nodding when I wrote and waking up to interpret; the old man bent forward, both hands out, palms upward, or waving in strange eloquent gestures; his lean, wrinkled features drawn and black eyes gleaming; telling the strange tales in a strange tongue. On an old olla another Indian, Miguel, who came in to listen, and in his hand a gorgeously decorated quee-a-kote, or flute, with which, while I wrote, he would sometimes give us a few wild, plaintive, thrilling bars, weird as an incantation. And finally myself, sitting on a mattress on my trunk, writing, fast as pencil could travel, by the dim light of a lantern hung against a great post at my right. Outside a cold, strong wind, for the first time since I came to Arizona, bright moonlight, and some drifting white clouds telling the last of the storm." Again, on Sept. 12th: "Traditions, afternoon and until midnight. I shall never forget how the half-moon looked, rising over Vahf-kee-woldt-kih, or the Notched Cliffs, toward midnight, while the coyotes laughed a chorus somewhere off toward the Gila, and we sat around, outdoors, in the wind, and heard the old seeneeyawkum tell his weird, incoherent tales of the long ago." My interpreter was eager and willing, and well-posted in the meaning of English, and was a man of unusual intelligence and poetry of feeling, but was not well up in grammar, and in the main I had to edit and recast his sentences; yet just as far as possible I have kept his words and the Indian idiom and simplicity of style. Sometimes he would give me a sentence so forceful and poetic, and otherwise faultless, that I have joyfully written it down exactly as received. I admit that in a very few places, where the Indian simplicity and innocence of thought caused an almost Biblical plainness of speech on family matters, I have expurgated and smoothed a little for prudish Caucasian ears, but these changes are few, and mostly unimportant, leaving the meaning unimpaired. And never once was there anything in the spirit of what was told me that revealed foulness of thought. All was grave and serious, as befitted the scriptures of an ancient people. Occasionally I have added a word or sentence to make the meaning stand out clearer, but otherwise I have taken no liberties with the original. As a rule the seeneeyawkum told these tales in his own words, but the parts called speeches were learned by heart and repeated literally. These parts gave us much trouble. They were highly poetic, and manifestly mystic, and therefore very difficult to translate with truthfulness to the involved meanings and startling and obscure metaphors. Besides they contained many archaic words, the meaning of which neither seeneeyawkum nor interpreter now knew, and which they could only translate by guess, or leave out altogether. But we did the best we could. The stories were also embellished with songs, some of which I had translated. They were chants of from one to four lines each, seldom more than two, many times repeated in varying cadence; weird, somber, thrillingly passionate in places, and by no means unmusical, but, of course, monotonous. I obtained phonograph records of a number, and the translations given are as literal as possible. As to the meaning of the tales I got small satisfaction. The Indians seemed to have no explanations to offer. They seemed to regard them as fairy tales, but admitted they had once been believed as scriptures. My own theory came to be that they had been invented, from time to time, by various and successive mah-kais to answer the questions concerning history, phenomena, and the origin of things, which they, as the reputed wisest of the tribe, were continually asked. My chief reason for supposing this is because in almost every tale the hero is a mahkai of some sort. The word mah-kai (now translated doctor, or medicine-man) seems to have been applied in old time to every being capable of exerting magical or supernatural and mysterious power, from the Creator down; and it is easy to see how such use of the word would apparently establish the divine relationship and bolster the authority of the medicine men, while the charm of the tale would focus attention upon them. The temptation was great and, I think, yielded to. I doubt if much real history is worked in, or that it is at all reliable. All over the desert, where irrigation was at all practicable, in the Gila and Salt River valleys, and up to the edge of the mountains, among the beautiful giant cactus and flatbean trees, you will ride your bronco over evidences of a prehistoric race;--old irrigating ditches, lines of stone wall; or low mounds of adobe rising above the greasewood and cacti, and littered over profusely with bits of broken and painted pottery, broken corn-mills and grinders, perhaps showing here and there a stone ax, arrowhead, or other old stone implement. These mounds (vah-ahk-kee is the Pima word for such a ruin) are the heaps caused by the fallen walls of what were once pueblos of stone and clay. In some places there must have been populous cities, and at the famous site of Casa Grande one finds one of the buildings still standing--a really imposing citadel, with walls four or five feet thick, several stories high, and habitable since the historic period. Now according to these traditions it was the tribes now known as Pimas, Papagoes, Yumas and Maricopas, that invaded the land, from some mythic underworld, and overthrew the vahahkkees & killed all their inhabitants, and this is the most interesting part of the tales from a historic point of view. Fewkes, and other ethnologists, think the ancestors of the Pimas built the Casa Grande & other vahahkkees, but I doubt this. Is it reasonable to suppose that if a people as intelligent & settled as the Pimas had once evoluted far enough in architecture & fortification to erect such noble citadels and extensive cities as those of Casa Grande & Casa Blanca, that they, while still surrounded by the harassing Apaches, would have descended to contentment with such miserable & indefensible hovels as their present kees and cawseens? To me it is not. They are as industrious as any of the pueblo-building Indians, not otherwise degenerate, and had they once ever builded pueblos I do not think would have abandoned the art. But it is easy to understand that a horde of desert campers, overthrowing a more civilized nation, might never rebuild or copy after its edifices. So far, then, I am inclined to agree with the traditions and disagree with the ethnologists. But these traditions are evidently very ancient. They appear to me to have originated from the aborigines of this country; people who knew no other land. Every story is saturated with local color. From the top of Cheoffskawmack, I believe I could have seen almost every place mentioned in the traditions, except the Rio Colorado & the ocean, and the ocean was to them, I believe, little more than a name. They never speak of it with their usual sketchy & graphic detail, and the fact that in the ceremony of purification it is spoken of as a source of drinking water shows they really knew nothing of it. The Indian is too exact in his natural science to speak of salt water as potable. And these stories certainly say that the dwellers in the vahahkkees were the children of Ee-ee-toy, created right here. And that the army that carried out Ee-ee-toy's revenge upon his rebellious people were the children of Juhwerta Mahkai, who had been somewhere else since the flood, but who were also originally created here. Now, for what it is worth, I will give a theory to reconcile these differences. I assume that their flood was a real event, but a local one, and the greater part of the people destroyed by it. A minority escaped by flight into the desert, and neither they nor their descendants, for many generations, returned to the place where the catastrophe occurred. Another remnant escaped by floating on various objects & climbing mountains. The first were those of whom it is fabled that Juhwerta Mahkai let them escape thru a hole in the earth. These became nomadic, desert dwellers. The second remained in the Gila country, became agricultural & settled in habit, irrigating their land & building pueblos, growing rich, effeminate & inapt at war. At length the desert fugitives, also grown numerous, and war-like & fierce with the wild, wolf-like existence they had led, and moved by we know not what motives of revenge or greed, returned & swept over the land, in a sudden invasion, like a swarm of locusts; ruthlessly destroying the vahahkkees and all who dwelt therein; breaking even the ma-ta-tes & every utensil in their vandal fury; dividing the region thus taken among themselves. According to these traditions the Apaches were already dwellers in the outlying deserts & mountains, and were not affected especially by this invasion. Is it now unreasonable to suppose that some of the invaders kept up, to a great extent, their old habits of desert wandering (Papagoes for instance), and that others adopted to some extent the agricultural habits of those they had conquered, and yet retained, with slight change, the little brush & mud houses & arbors they had grown accustomed to in their wanderings? These last would be our present Pimas. If it is considered strange that these adopted the habits, to any extent, of those they supplanted it may be urged that they almost certainly, in conquering the vahahkkee people, spared and married many of the women, and adopted many of the children; this being in accordance with their custom in historic times. And this infusion of the gentler blood may have been very large. And these women would naturally go on, and would be required by their new husbands to go on, with the agricultural methods to which they were accustomed & would teach them to their new masters. And their children, being wholly or partly of the old stock, would have a natural tendency to the same work, to some extent. This theory not only explains & agrees with the main parts of the old traditions, but seems confirmed by other things. Thus the Pimas, Papagoes, Quojatas, and the "Rabbit-Eaters" of Mexico, speak about the same language, which would seem to prove them originally the same people. But some have kept the old ways, some have become agricultural, and some are in manners between, and thus have become classed as different tribes. And, judging from the remains, the life of the old vahahkkee dwellers was in many ways like that of the modern Pima, only less primitive. But the real value of these stories is as folklore, and in their literary merit. They throw a wonderful side-light on the old customs, beliefs and feelings. I consider them ancient, in the main, but do not doubt that in coming down thru many seeneeyawkums they have been much modified by the addition of embellishment, the subtraction of forgetfulness. As proof I adduce the accounting for the origin of the white people, who use pens & ink, in the story of Van-daih. The ancient Pimas knew neither white men, nor pens, nor ink, therefore this passage is clearly an interpolation by some later narrator, if the story is really ancient, as I suppose it is. In the story of Noo-ee's meeting the sun, the word used by old Comalk, for the sun's weapon, was vai-no-ma-gaht (literally iron-bow) which is the modern Pima's name for the white man's gun, and it was translated as gun by my interpreter. But iron and guns were both unknown to ancient Pimas, therefore this term must have been first used by some seeneeyawkum after the white man came, who thought a gun more appropriate than a bow for the sun's shooting. How much has been lost by forgetfulness we can never know; but at least I found that the meaning of many ancient words had disappeared, that the mystic meaning of the highly symbolic speeches seemed all gone, and I felt certain that the last part of the Story of the Gambler's War had been lost by forgetting; for it stops short with the preliminary speeches, instead of going on with a detailed account of the battles as does the Story of Paht-ahn-kum's war. Another proof that these tales were changed by different narrators is afforded by the variants of some of them published by Emory, Grossman, Cook, and other writers about the Pimas. As to the mystic meaning I can only guess. The mystic number four, so constantly used, probably refers to the four cardinal points, but my Indians seemed not aware of this. In the stories, West is black, East is white or light, South is blue, North is yellow, and Above is green. Of course the west is black because there night swallows up the sun, and the east is light because it gives the sun, but why south is blue and north is yellow I do not know. But south is the nearest way to the ocean, and as in one story the word ocean seems used in place of south, I infer the blue color was derived from that. And the desert lying north of the ocean may suggest the desert tint, yellow, as the color of the north. As to the sky being green, I find this in my journal: "August 29--Last evening, after sunset, there were the most wonderful sky effects--there was a line of light clouds across the sky, in the west, about half way up to the zenith, and suddenly the white part of these was washed over, as tho by a paint brush, with a strong but delicate pea-green, while under this spread a mist or haze of dainty pink, changing to a rich, delicate mauve. Lasted quarter of an hour or more. Never saw anything like it in nature before." Again, on September 6, I saw nearly the same phenomenon. The green was very strong and vivid, and could not fail to attract an Indian's eye, and something of the sort, I fancy, made him make the strange choice of green for the sky color. Those who like to compare myths and folktales and ancient scriptures will find a rich field here. And the interesting thing is that these tales come straight from a line of Indians who could neither read nor write nor speak English, therefore adulteration by white man's literature seems improbable. As to the literary merit of these tales, after all that is lost by a double interpretation, I consider it still very high. You must come to them as a little child, for they are intensely child-like, and to expect them to be like a white man's narrative is absurd. But they are sketched in such clear, bold lines, with such a sure touch and delicate expressiveness of salient points; there are such close-fitting, shrewd bits of human nature; such real yet startling touches of poetry in metaphor; such fertile and altogether Indian imagination in plot and incident, that the interest never fails. No two stories are alike, and if surprise is a literary charm of high value, and I think it is, then these tales are certainly charming, for they constantly bring surprise. And the poetry, in Eeeetoy's speech for example, is so rich and strong; and in such parts as the story of the Nah-vah-choo the mysticism seems to challenge one like a riddle. When these old tales were told with all proper ceremony and respect, they were told on four successive nights. This could not be in the giving of them to me, for many practical reasons, but I have endeavored to give them that form for my reader and hence the title of my book. But I did not discover how many or what ones were told on any one night, so my division is arbitrary, and only aims at reasonable equality. The naming, too, of the different stories is my own, for the old man did not appear to have any set names for them. I fancy the old man was rusty and out of practice, and forgot some of the tales in their proper sequence, and brought them in afterward as they recurred to him. For instance, the story of Tcheu-nas-sat Seeven's singing away another chief's wives evidently belongs among the early stories of the vahahkkee people, and before the account of his death, when the vahahkkees were destroyed. But I have given the stories in the order in which they were told to me, leaving all responsibility on the old seeneeyawkum's shoulders. I lived a little more than two months with these Indians, collecting these stories, enjoying their kindly hospitality, living as they lived, eating their food, riding their ponies, sleeping on their roofs under the splendid Arizona stars. I shall never forget that day, before I left, when Ed and I saddled our ponies in the early morning and rode twenty miles to the Casa Grande ruins. On the way we crossed the dry bed of the Gila; and passed thru the Agency village of Sacaton and the village of Blackwater; skirting the Maricopa Slaughter mountains, where once some unfortunate Maricopas were waylaid and massacred by a band of Apaches, almost in sight of Sacaton. The Casa Grande ruins are imposing enough, but sadly belittled in effect by the well-meant roof which the government has erected over them to preserve them. This kills all the poetry and gives them the ludicrous aspect of a museum specimen. Had the old walls been skillfully capped with a waterproof cement and the walls coated with some weatherproof and transparent wash, all necessary security could have been effected with perhaps less expense than this absurd roof, and all the romance of impression preserved. Let us hope the genial and manly young custodian, Mr. Frank Pinckly, to whose warm-hearted hospitality and that of his parents I owe grateful thanks, will consider this suggestion favorably and earn the blessing of future travellers. A storm broke on us while we were at the ruins, and riding home that evening we found the Gila flooded. I shall always remember how its muddy torrent looked to me, plunging along at my feet, where that morning I had crossed dry shod; its yellow waves shot with blood-red reflections from the last colors of sunset. "You better see that Pinto's cinch is tight, or she may try to get you off in the river," warned Ed, in my ear, as he jumped off to cinch up "Georgie." It was always exciting to me to ford the treacherous Gila, the tawny waters were so sweeping, and the ponies plunged so when their feet felt the quicksands, but we got across all right, and galloped home on the slippery, muddy roads. When I left these people it was with a genuine regard for their virtues. I found them in the main kind, honest, simple-minded, industrious, surprisingly clean, considering their obstacles of scant water and ever-present dust, and the calmest tempered people I have ever known. I remember the second day of my stay we were going to ride to the Casa Blanca ruins. In watering the ponies at the well, "Georgie's" loosened saddle turned and swung under his belly. Such bucking and frantic kicking as that half-broken colt indulged in for a few moments would have made a congress of cow-boys applaud, and when it was over the beautiful colt stood exhausted on the far side of a twenty acre field, with the saddle fragments somewhere between. Now to poor Indians the loss of a saddle is not small, and I fancy most frontiersmen, under the provocation, would have made the air blue with oaths, but Ed only sadly said: "I'm afraid that spoils Georgie," and the stepfather laughed and started patiently out on the trail of the colt "to save the pieces," while the mother took one of her bowl-shaped Pima baskets, with beans in it, and coaxed the colt till she caught him. Then he was patted and soothed and fed with sugar, the saddle patched up and replaced, and we rode eighteen miles that day and never another mishap. And from first to last never a harsh or complaining word. I at no time encountered a beggar among the Pimas, and tho they were mostly very poor I had not a pin's worth stolen. I never heard an oath, or saw a brutal or violent act, or a child slapped or scolded, or a woman treated with disrespect or tyranny, nor any drunkenness or cruelty to animals. Perhaps I was especially fortunate, but I can only speak of what I saw. Their self-respect and serenity continually aroused my admiration. I must say that they appeared to me to excel any average white neighborhood in good behavior. It is a strange land, that in which the Pimas dwell; a desert overgrown with strange soft-tinted weeds, "salt weeds," pink, red, green, gray, blue, purple; the rich-green yellow-flowering greasewood; odd cacti, and all manner of thornbearing bushes. The soil is inexhaustibly rich, were there water enough, but the white people, settling above the Indians, on the Gila, have so withdrawn the water that crop failures from lack of sufficient irrigation are the rule, now, instead of the exception, and the once ever-flowing Gila is more often a dry channel, as sun-baked as the desert around it. All around their valley, and rising here and there from the plain, are low volcanic peaks, mere dead masses of rock except where in places a giant cactus stands candelabra-like among the slopes of stone. About the feet of these mountains, and along the channels where the torrents rush down in times of rain, are weird forests of desert growths, mezquite, cat-claw, flat-beans, screw-beans, greasewood, giant-cactus, cane-cactus, white-cactus, cholla-cactus, and a host of others, almost everything bristling with innumerable thorns. On this strange pasture of weed and thorn the Indian's ponies & his few cattle graze. Here in summer the sun beats down till the mercury registers 118 to 120 degrees in the shade, and dust storms & dust whirlwinds travel over the burning plain. STORIES OF THE FIRST NIGHT THE TRADITIONS OF THE PIMAS The old man, Comalk Hawk-Kih, (Thin Buckskin) began by saying that these were stories which he used to hear his father tell, they being handed down from father to son, and that when he was little he did not pay much attention, but when he grew older he determined to learn them, and asked his father to teach him, which his father did, and now he knew them all. THE STORY OF THE CREATION In the beginning there was no earth, no water--nothing. There was only a Person, uh-wert-a-Mah-kai (The Doctor of the Earth). He just floated, for there was no place for him to stand upon. There was no sun, no light, and he just floated about in the darkness, which was Darkness itself. He wandered around in the nowhere till he thought he had wandered enough. Then he rubbed on his breast and rubbed out moah-haht-tack, that is perspiration, or greasy earth. This he rubbed out on the palm of his hand and held out. It tipped over three times, but the fourth time it staid straight in the middle of the air and there it remains now as the world. The first bush he created was the greasewood bush. And he made ants, little tiny ants, to live on that bush, on its gum which comes out of its stem. But these little ants did not do any good, so he created white ants, and these worked and enlarged the earth; and they kept on increasing it, larger and larger, until at last it was big enough for himself to rest on. Then he created a Person. He made him out of his eye, out of the shadow of his eyes, to assist him, to be like him, and to help him in creating trees and human beings and everything that was to be on the earth. The name of this being was Noo-ee (the Buzzard). Nooee was given all power, but he did not do the work he was created for. He did not care to help Juhwertamahkai, but let him go by himself. And so the Doctor of the Earth himself created the mountains and everything that has seed and is good to eat. For if he had created human beings first they would have had nothing to live on. But after making Nooee and before making the mountains and seed for food, Juhwertamahkai made the sun. In order to make the sun he first made water, and this he placed in a hollow vessel, like an earthen dish (hwas-hah-ah) to harden into something like ice. And this hardened ball he placed in the sky. First he placed it in the North, but it did not work; then he placed it in the West, but it did not work; then he placed it in the South, but it did not work; then he placed it in the East and there it worked as he wanted it to. And the moon he made in the same way and tried in the same places, with the same results. But when he made the stars he took the water in his mouth and spurted it up into the sky. But the first night his stars did not give light enough. So he took the Doctor-stone (diamond), the tone-dum-haw-teh, and smashed it up, and took the pieces and threw them into the sky to mix with the water in the stars, and then there was light enough. [1] And now Juhwertamahkai, rubbed again on his breast, and from the substance he obtained there made two little dolls, and these he laid on the earth. And they were human beings, man and woman. And now for a time the people increased till they filled the earth. For the first parents were perfect, and there was no sickness and no death. But when the earth was full, then there was nothing to eat, so they killed and ate each other. But Juhwertamahkai did not like the way his people acted, to kill and eat each other, and so he let the sky fall to kill them. But when the sky dropped he, himself, took a staff and broke a hole thru, thru which he and Nooee emerged and escaped, leaving behind them all the people dead. And Juhwertamahkai, being now on the top of this fallen sky, again made a man and a woman, in the same way as before. But this man and woman became grey when old, and their children became grey still younger, and their children became grey younger still, and so on till the babies were gray in their cradles. And Juhwertamahkai, who had made a new earth and sky, just as there had been before, did not like his people becoming grey in their cradles, so he let the sky fall on them again, and again made a hole and escaped, with Nooee, as before. And Juhwertamahkai, on top of this second sky, again made a new heaven and a new earth, just as he had done before, and new people. But these new people made a vice of smoking. Before human beings had never smoked till they were old, but now they smoked younger, and each generation still younger, till the infants wanted to smoke in their cradles. And Juhwertamahkai did not like this, and let the sky fall again, and created everything new again in the same way, and this time he created the earth as it is now. But at first the whole slope of the world was westward, and tho there were peaks rising from this slope there were no true valleys, and all the water that fell ran away and there was no water for the people to drink. So Juhwertamahkai sent Nooee to fly around among the mountains, and over the earth, to cut valleys with his wings, so that the water could be caught and distributed and there might be enough for the people to drink. Now the sun was male and the moon was female and they met once a month. And the moon became a mother and went to a mountain called Tahs-my-et-tahn Toe-ahk (sun striking mountain) and there was born her baby. But she had duties to attend to, to turn around and give light, so she made a place for the child by tramping down the weedy bushes and there left it. And the child, having no milk, was nourished on the earth. And this child was the coyote, and as he grew he went out to walk and in his walk came to the house of Juhwertamahkai and Nooee, where they lived. And when he came there Juhwertamahkai knew him and called him Toe-hahvs, because he was laid on the weedy bushes of that name. But now out of the North came another powerful personage, who has two names, See-ur-huh and Ee-ee-toy. Now Seeurhuh means older brother, and when this personage came to Juhwertamahkai, Nooee and Toehahvs he called them his younger brothers. But they claimed to have been here first, and to be older than he, and there was a dispute between them. But finally, because he insisted so strongly, and just to please him, they let him be called older brother. JUHWERTA MAHKAI'S SONG OF CREATION Juhwerta mahkai made the world-- Come and see it and make it useful! He made it round-- Come and see it and make it useful! NOTES ON STORY OF CREATION The idea of creating the earth from the perspiration and waste cuticle of the Creator is, I believe, original. The local touch in making the greasewood bush the first vegetation is very strong. In the tipping over of the earth three times, and its standing right the fourth time, we are introduced to the first of the mystic fours in which the whole scheme of the stories is cast. Almost everything is done four times before finished. The peculiar Indian idea of type-animals, the immortal and supernatural representatives of their respective animal tribes, appears in Nooee and Toehahvs, and here again the local color is rich and strong in making the buzzard and the coyote, the most common and striking animals of the desert, the particular aides on the staff of the Creator. Might not the creation of Nooee out of the shadow of the eyes of the Doctor of the Earth be a poetical allusion to the flying shadow of the buzzard on the sun-bright desert? In the creation of sun and moon we find the mystic four referred to the four corners of the universe, North, South, East and West, and this, I am persuaded, is really the origin of its sacred significance, for most religions find root and source in astronomy. In the dropping of the sky appears the old idea of its solid character. In the "slope of the world to the Westward" there is something curiously significant when we remember that both the Gila and Salt Rivers flow generally westward. Nooee cuts the valleys with his wings. It would almost appear that Nooee was Juhwertamahkai's agent in the air and sky, Toehahvs on earth. The night-prowling coyote is appropriately and poetically mothered by the moon. And here appears Eeeetoy, the most active and mysterious personality in Piman mythology. Out of the North, apparently self-existent, but little inferior in power to Juhwertamahkai, and claiming greater age, he appears, by pure "bluff" and persistent push and wheedling, to have induced the really more powerful, but good-natured and rather lazy Juhwertamahkai to give over most of the real work and government of the world to him. In conversing with Harry Azul, the head chief's son, at Sacaton, I found he regarded Eeeetoy and Juhwertamahkai as but two names for the same. And indeed it is hard to fix Eeeetoy's place or power. THE STORY OF THE FLOOD Now Seeurhuh was very powerful, like Juhwerta Mahkai, and as he took up his residence with them, as one of them, he did many wonderful things which pleased Juhwerta Mahkai, who liked to watch him. And after doing many marvelous things he, too, made a man. And to this man whom he had made, Seeurhuh (whose other name was Ee-ee-toy) gave a bow & arrows, and guarded his arm against the bow string by a piece of wild-cat skin, and pierced his ears & made ear-rings for him, like turquoises to look at, from the leaves of the weed called quah-wool. And this man was the most beautiful man yet made. And Ee-ee-toy told this young man, who was just of marriageable age, to look around and see if he could find any young girl in the villages that would suit him and, if he found her, to see her relatives and see if they were willing he should marry her. And the beautiful young man did this, and found a girl that pleased him, and told her family of his wish, and they accepted him, and he married her. And the names of both these are now forgotten and unknown. And when they were married Ee-ee-toy, foreseeing what would happen, went & gathered the gum of the greasewood tree. Here the narrative states, with far too much plainness of circumstantial detail for popular reading, that this young man married a great many wives in rapid succession, abandoning the last one with each new one wedded, and had children with abnormal, even uncanny swiftness, for which the wives were blamed and for which suspicion they were thus heartlessly divorced. Because of this, Juhwerta Mahkai and Ee-ee-toy foresaw that nature would be convulsed and a great flood would come to cover the world. And then the narrative goes on to say: Now there was a doctor who lived down toward the sunset whose name was Vahk-lohv Mahkai, or South Doctor, who had a beautiful daughter. And when his daughter heard of this young man and what had happened to his wives she was afraid and cried every day. And when her father saw her crying he asked her what was the matter? was she sick? And when she had told him what she was afraid of, for every one knew and was talking of this thing, he said yes, he knew it was true, but she ought not to be afraid, for there was happiness for a woman in marriage and the mothering of children. And it took many years for the young man to marry all these wives, and have all these children, and all this time Ee-ee-toy was busy making a great vessel of the gum he had gathered from the grease bushes, a sort of olla which could be closed up, which would keep back water. And while he was making this he talked over the reasons for it with Juhwerta Mahkai, Nooee, and Toehahvs, that it was because there was a great flood coming. And several birds heard them talking thus--the woodpecker, Hick-o-vick; the humming-bird, Vee-pis-mahl; a little bird named Gee-ee-sop, and another called Quota-veech. Eeeetoy said he would escape the flood by getting into the vessel he was making from the gum of the grease bushes or ser-quoy. And Juhwerta Mahkai said he would get into his staff, or walking stick, and float about. And Toehahvs said he would get into a cane-tube. And the little birds said the water would not reach the sky, so they would fly up there and hang on by their bills till it was over. And Nooee, the buzzard, the powerful, said he did not care if the flood did reach the sky, for he could find a way to break thru. Now Ee-ee-toy was envious, and anxious to get ahead of Juhwerta Mahkai and get more fame for his wonderful deeds, but Juhwerta Mahkai, though really the strongest, was generous and from kindness and for relationship sake let Ee-ee-toy have the best of it. And the young girl, the doctor's daughter, kept on crying, fearing the young man, feeling him ever coming nearer, and her father kept on reassuring her, telling her it would be all right, but at last, out of pity for her fears & tears, he told her to go and get him the little tuft of the finest thorns on the top of the white cactus, the haht-sahn-kahm, [2] and bring to him. And her father took the cactus-tuft which she had brought him, and took hair from her head and wound about one end of it, and told her if she would wear this it would protect her. And she consented and wore the cactus-tuft. And he told her to treat the young man right, when he came, & make him broth of corn. And if the young man should eat all the broth, then their plan would fail, but if he left any broth she was to eat that up and then their plan would succeed. And he told her to be sure and have a bow and arrows above the door of the kee, so that he could take care of the young man. And after her father had told her this, on that very evening the young man came, and the girl received him kindly, and took his bows & arrows, and put them over the door of the kee, as her father had told her, and made the young man broth of corn and gave it to him to eat. And he ate only part of it and what was left she ate herself. And before this her father had told her: "If the young man is wounded by the thorns you wear, in that moment he will become a woman and a mother and you will become a young man." And in the night all this came to be, even so, and by day-break the child was crying. And the old woman ran in and said: "Mos-say!" which means an old woman's grandchild from a daughter. And the daughter, that had been, said: "It is not your moss, it is your cah-um-maht," that is an old woman's grandchild from a son. And then the old man ran in and said: "Bah-ahm-ah-dah!" that is an old man's grandchild from a daughter, but his daughter said: "It is not your bah-ahm-maht, but it is your voss-ahm-maht," which is an old man's grandchild from a son. And early in the morning this young man (that had been, but who was now a woman & a mother) made a wawl-kote, a carrier, or cradle, for the baby and took the trail back home. And Juhwerta Mahkai told his neighbors of what was coming, this young man who had changed into a woman and a mother and was bringing a baby born from himself, and that when he arrived wonderful things would happen & springs would gush forth from under every tree and on every mountain. And the young man-woman came back and by the time of his return Ee-ee-toy had finished his vessel and had placed therein seeds & everything that is in the world. And the young man-woman, when he came to his old home, placed his baby in the bushes and left it, going in without it, but Ee-ee-toy turned around and looked at him and knew him, for he did not wear a woman's dress, and said to him: "Where is my Bahahmmaht? Bring it to me. I want to see it. It is a joy for an old man to see his grandchild. "I have sat here in my house and watched your going, and all that has happened you, and foreseen some one would send you back in shame, although I did not like to think there was anyone more powerful than I. But never mind, he who has beaten us will see what will happen." And when the young man-woman went to get his baby, Ee-ee-toy got into his vessel, and built a fire on the hearth he had placed therein, and sealed it up. And the young man-woman found his baby crying, and the tears from it were all over the ground, around. And when he stooped over to pick up his child he turned into a sand-snipe, and the baby turned into a little teeter-snipe. And then that came true which Juhwerta Mahkai had said, that water would gush out from under every tree & on every mountain; and the people when they saw it, and knew that a flood was coming, ran to Juhwerta Mahkai; and he took his staff and made a hole in the earth and let all those thru who had come to him, but the rest were drowned. Then Juhwerta Mahkai got into his walking stick & floated, and Toehahvs got into his tube of cane and floated, but Ee-ee-toy's vessel was heavy & big and remained until the flood was much deeper before it could float. And the people who were left out fled to the mountains; to the mountains called Gah-kote-kih (Superstition Mts.) for they were living in the plains between Gahkotekih and Cheoffskawmack (Tall Gray Mountain). And there was a powerful man among these people, a doctor (mahkai), who set a mark on the mountain side and said the water would not rise above it. And the people believed him and camped just beyond the mark; but the water came on and they had to go higher. And this happened four times. And the mahkai did this to help his people, and also used power to raise the mountain, but at last he saw all was to be a failure. And he called the people and asked them all to come close together, and he took his doctor-stone (mah-kai-haw-teh) which is called Tonedumhawteh or Stone-of-Light, and held it in the palm of his hand and struck it hard with his other hand, and it thundered so loud that all the people were frightened and they were all turned into stone. And the little birds, the woodpecker, Hickovick; the humming-bird, Veepismahl; the little bird named Gee-ee-sop, and the other called Quotaveech, all flew up to the sky and hung on by their bills, but Nooee still floated in the air and intended to keep on the wing unless the floods reached the heavens. But Juhwerta Mahkai, Ee-ee-toy and Toehahvs floated around on the water and drifted to the west and did not know where they were. And the flood rose higher until it reached the woodpecker's tail, and you can see the marks to this day. And Quotaveech was cold and cried so loud that the other birds pulled off their feathers and built him a nest up there so he could keep warm. And when Quotaveech was warm he quit crying. And then the little birds sang, for they had power to make the water go down by singing, and as they sang the waters gradually receded. But the others still floated around. When the land began to appear Juhwerta Mahkai and Toehahvs got out, but Ee-ee-toy had to wait for his house to warm up, for he had built a fire to warm his vessel enough for him to unseal it. When it was warm enough he unsealed it, but when he looked out he saw the water still running & he got back and sealed himself in again. And after waiting a while he unsealed his vessel again, and seeing dry land enough he got out. And Juhwerta Mahkai went south and Toehahvs went west, and Ee-ee-toy went northward. And as they did not know where they were they missed each other, and passed each other unseen, but afterward saw each other's tracks, and then turned back and shouted, but wandered from the track, and again passed unseen. And this happened four times. And the fourth time Juhwerta Mahkai and Ee-ee-toy met, but Toehahvs had passed already. And when they met, Ee-ee-toy said to Juhwerta Mahkai "My younger brother!" but Juhwerta Mahkai greeted him as younger brother & claimed to have come out first. Then Ee-ee-toy said again: "I came out first and you can see the water marks on my body." But Juhwerta Mahkai replied: "I came out first and also have the water marks on my person to prove it." But Ee-ee-toy so insisted that he was the eldest that Juhwerta Mahkai, just to please him, gave him his way and let him be considered the elder. And then they turned westward and yelled to find Toehahvs, for they remembered to have seen his tracks, and they kept on yelling till he heard them. And when Toehahvs saw them he called them his younger brothers, and they called him younger brother. And this dispute continued till Ee-ee-toy again got the best of it, and although really the younger brother was admitted by the the others to be Seeurhuh, or the elder. And the birds came down from the sky and again there was a dispute about the relationship, but Ee-ee-toy again got the best of them all. But Quotaveech staid up in the sky because he had a comfortable nest there, and they called him Vee-ick-koss-kum Mahkai, the Feather-Nest Doctor. And they wanted to find the middle, the navel of the earth, and they sent Veepismahl, the humming-bird, to the west, and Hickovick, the woodpecker, to the east, and all the others stood and waited for them at the starting place. And Veepismahl & Hickovick were to go as far as they could, to the edge of the world, and then return to find the middle of the earth by their meeting. But Hickovick flew a little faster and got there first, and so when they met they found it was not the middle, and they parted & started again, but this time they changed places and Hickovick went westward and Veepismahl went east. And this time Veepismahl was the faster, and Hickovick was late, and the judges thought their place of meeting was a little east of the center so they all went a little way west. Ee-ee-toy, Juhwerta Mahkai and Toehahvs stood there and sent the birds out once more, and this time Hickovick went eastward again, and Veepismahl went west. And Hickovick flew faster and arrived there first. And they said: "This is not the middle. It is a little way west yet." And so they moved a little way, and again the birds were sent forth, and this time Hickovick went west and Veepismahl went east. And when the birds returned they met where the others stood and all cried "This is the Hick, the Navel of the World!" And they stood there because there was no dry place yet for them to sit down upon; and Ee-ee-toy rubbed upon his breast and took from his bosom the smallest ants, the O-auf-taw-ton, and threw them upon the ground, and they worked there and threw up little hills; and this earth was dry. And so they sat down. But the water was still running in the valleys, and Ee-ee-toy took a hair from his head & made it into a snake--Vuck-vahmuht. And with this snake he pushed the waters south, but the head of the snake was left lying to the west and his tail to the east. But there was more water, and Ee-ee-toy took another hair from his head and made another snake, and with this snake pushed the rest of the water north. And the head of this snake was left to the east and his tail to the west. So the head of each snake was left lying with the tail of the other. And the snake that has his tail to the east, in the morning will shake up his tail to start the morning wind to wake the people and tell them to think of their dreams. And the snake that has his tail to the west, in the evening will shake up his tail to start the cool wind to tell the people it is time to go in and make the fires & be comfortable. And they said: "We will make dolls, but we will not let each other see them until they are finished." And Ee-ee-toy sat facing the west, and Toehahvs facing the south, and Juhwerta Mahkai facing the east. And the earth was still damp and they took clay and began to make dolls. And Ee-ee-toy made the best. But Juhwerta Mahkai did not make good ones, because he remembered some of his people had escaped the flood thru a hole in the earth, and he intended to visit them and he did not want to make anything better than they were to take the place of them. And Toehahvs made the poorest of all. Then Ee-ee-toy asked them if they were ready, and they all said yes, and then they turned about and showed each other the dolls they had made. And Ee-ee-toy asked Juhwerta Mahkai why he had made such queer dolls. "This one," he said, "is not right, for you have made him without any sitting-down parts, and how can he get rid of the waste of what he eats?" But Juhwerta Mahkai said: "He will not need to eat, he can just smell the smell of what is cooked." Then Ee-ee-toy asked again: "Why did you make this doll with only one leg--how can he run?" But Juhwerta Mahkai replied: "He will not need to run; he can just hop around." Then Ee-ee-toy asked Toehahvs why he had made a doll with webs between his fingers and toes--"How can he point directions?" But Toehahvs said he had made these dolls so for good purpose, for if anybody gave them small seeds they would not slip between their fingers, and they could use the webs for dippers to drink with. And Ee-ee-toy held up his dolls and said: "These are the best of all, and I want you to make more like them." And he took Toehahv's dolls and threw them into the water and they became ducks & beavers. And he took Juhwerta Mahkai's dolls and threw them away and they all broke to pieces and were nothing. And Juhwerta Mahkai was angry at this and began to sink into the ground; and took his stick and hooked it into the sky and pulled the sky down while he was sinking. But Ee-ee-toy spread his hand over his dolls, and held up the sky, and seeing that Juhwerta Mahkai was sinking into the earth he sprang and tried to hold him & cried, "Man, what are you doing! Are you going to leave me and my people here alone?" But Juhwerta Mahkai slipped through his hands, leaving in them only the waste & excretion of his skin. And that is how there is sickness & death among us. And Ee-ee-toy, when Juhwerta Mahkai escaped him, went around swinging his hands & saying: "I never thought all this impurity would come upon my people!" and the swinging of his hands scattered disease over all the earth. And he washed himself in a pool or pond and the impurities remaining in the water are the source of the malarias and all the diseases of dampness. And Ee-ee-toy and Toehahvs built a house for their dolls a little way off, and Ee-ee-toy sent Toehahvs to listen if they were yet talking. And the Aw-up, (the Apaches) were the first ones that talked. And Ee-ee-toy said: "I never meant to have those Apaches talk first, I would rather have had the Aw-aw-tam, the Good People, speak first." But he said: "It is all right. I will give them strength, that they stand the cold & all hardships." And all the different people that they had made talked, one after the other, but the Awawtam talked last. And they all took to playing together, and in their play they kicked each other as the Maricopas do in sport to this day; but the Apaches got angry and said: "We will leave you and go into the mountains and eat what we can get, but we will dream good dreams and be just as happy as you with all your good things to eat." And some of the people took up their residence on the Gila, and some went west to the Rio Colorado. And those who builded vahahkkees, or houses out of adobe and stones, lived in the valley of the Gila, between the mountains which are there now. JUHWERTA MAHKAI'S SONG BEFORE THE FLOOD My poor people, Who will see, Who will see This water which will moisten the earth! THE SONG OF SUPERSTITION MOUNTAINS We are destroyed! By my stone we are destroyed! We are rightly turned into stone. EE-EE-TOY'S SONG WHEN HE MADE THE WORLD SERPENTS I know what to do; I am going to move the water both ways. NOTES ON THE STORY OF THE FLOOD In the Story of the Flood we are introduced to Indian marriage. Among the Pimas it was a very simple affair. There was no ceremony whatever. The lover usually selected a relative, who went with him to the parents of the girl and asked the father to permit the lover to marry her. Presents were seldom given unless a very old man desired a young bride. The girl was consulted and her consent was essential, her refusal final. If, however, all parties were satisfied, she went at once with her husband as his wife. If either party became dissatisfied, separation at once constituted divorce and either could leave the other. A widow or divorced woman, if courted by another suitor, was approached directly, with no intervention of relatives. Of course, on these terms there were many separations, yet all accounts agree that there was a good deal of fidelity and many life-long unions and cases of strong affection. Polygamy was not unknown. Grossman says that the wife was the slave of the husband, but it is difficult to see how a woman, free at any moment to divorce herself without disgrace or coercion, could be properly regarded as a slave. Certainly the men appear always to have done a large part of the hard work, and as far as I could see the women were remarkably equal and independent and respectfully treated, as such a system would naturally bring about. A man would be a fool to ill-treat a woman, whose love or services were valuable to him, if at any moment of discontent she could leave him, perhaps for a rival. The chances are that he would constantly endeavor to hold her allegiance by special kindness and favors. But today legal marriage is replacing the old system. So far as I saw the Pimas were very harmonious and kindly in family life. The birds, gee-ee-sop and quotaveech, were pointed out to me by the Pimas, and as near as I could tell quotaveech was Bendire's thrasher, or perhaps the curve-bill thrasher. It has a very sweet but timid song. I did not succeed in identifying gee-ee-sop, but find these entries about him in my journal: "Aug. 5--I saw a little bird which I suppose to be a gee-ee-sop in a mezquite today, smaller and more slender than a vireo, but like one in action, but the tail longer and carried more like a brown thrasher, nearly white below, dark, leaden gray above, top of head and tail black." Again on Sept. 1: "What a dear little bird the gee-ee-sop is! Two of them in the oas-juh-wert-pot tree were looking at me a few minutes back. Dark slate-blue above and nearly white below, with beady black eyes and black, lively tails, tipped with white, they are very pretty, tame and confiding." The faith of the Aw-aw-tam in witchcraft appears first in this story and afterwards is conspicuous in nearly all. Almost all diseases they supposed were caused by bewitching, and it was the chief business of the medicine-men to find out who or what had caused the bewitching. Sometimes people were accused and murders followed. This was the darkest spot in Piman life. Generally, however, some animal or inanimate object was identified. Grossman's account in the Smithsonian Report for 1871 is interesting. In the stories, however, witchcraft appears usually as the ability of the mahkai to work transformations in himself or others, in true old fairy-tale style. Superstition Mountain derives its name from this story. It is a very beautiful and impressive mountain, with terraces of cliffs, marking perhaps the successive pausing places of the fugitives, and the huddled rocks on the top represent their petrified forms. Some of the older Indians still fear to go up into this mountain, lest a like fate befall them. What beautiful poetic touches are the wetting of the woodpecker's tail, and the singing of the little birds to subdue the angry waters. The resemblances to Genesis will of course be noted by all in these two first stories. Yet after all they are few and slight in any matter of detail. In Ee-ee-toy's serpents, that pushed back the waters, there is a strong reminder of the Norse Midgard Serpent. The making of the dolls in this story is one of the prettiest and most amusing spots in the traditions. The waste and perspiration of Juhwerta Mahkai's skin again comes into play, but this time as a malign force instead of a beneficent one. It would also appear from this that the more intelligent Pimas had a glimmering of the fact that there were other causes than witchcraft for disease. I have generally used the word Aw-aw-tam (Good People, or People of Peace) as synonymous with Pima, but it is sometimes used to embrace all Indians of the Piman stock and may be so understood in this story. And perhaps this is as good a place as any to say a few descriptive words about these Pimas of Arizona, and their allies, who have from prehistoric times inhabited what the old Spanish historian, Clavigero, called "Pimeria," that is, the valleys of the Gila and Salt Rivers. Their faces seemed to me to be of almost Caucasian regularity and rather of an English or Dutch cast, that is rather heavily moulded. The forehead is vertical and inclined to be square; and the chin, broad, heavy and full, comes out well to its line. The nose is straight, or a little irregular, or rounded, at the end, but not often very aquiline, never flat or wide-nostriled. The mouth is large but well shaped, with short, white, remarkably even teeth, seldom showing any canine projection. The whole face is a little heavy and square, but the cheek bones are not especially prominent. The eyes are level, frank and direct in glance, with long lashes and strong black brows. In the babies a slight uptilt to the eye is sometimes seen, like a Japanese, which indeed the babies suggest. The head of almost all adults is well-balanced and finely poised on a good neck. Another type possesses more of what we call the Indian feature. The forehead retreats somewhat, so does the chin, while the upper lip is larger, longer, more convex and the nose, above is more aquiline, with wider nostrils. Consequently this face in profile is more convex thruout. The cheek-bones are much more prominent, too, and the head not generally so well-balanced and proportional. While I have seen no striking beauty I believe the average good looks is greater than among white men, taken as they come. The women as a rule, however, do not carry themselves gracefully, are apt to be too broad, fat and dumpy in figure, with too large waists, and often loose, ungracefully-moving hips. This deformity of the hips, for it almost amounts to that, I observe among Italian peasant women, too, and some negresses, and, I take it, is caused by carrying too heavy loads on the head at too early an age. There seems to be a settling down of the body into the pelvis, with a loose alternate motion of the hips. There are exceptions, of course, and I have seen those of stately figure and fine carriage. Sometimes the loose-hip motion appears in a man. A slight tattooing appears on almost all Pima faces not of the last generation. In the women this consists of two blue lines running down from each corner of the mouth, under the chin, crossing, at the start, the lower lip, and a single blue line running back from the outer angle of each eye to the hair. In the men it is usually a single zigzag blue line across the forehead. The pigment used is charcoal. The men are generally erect and of good figure, with good chests and rather heavy shoulders, the legs often a little bowed. Strange to say I never saw one who walked "pigeon-toed." All turned the toes out like white men. The hands are often small and almost always well-shaped; and the feet of good shape, too, not over large, with a well-arched instep. Emory and his comrades found the Pimas wearing a kind of breech-cloth and a cotton serape only for garments; the women wearing only a serape tied around the waist and falling to the knee, being otherwise nude. Today the average male Pima dresses like a white workman, in hat, shirt, trousers and perhaps shoes, and his wife or daughter wears a single print gown, rather loose at the waist and ruffled at the bottom, which reaches only to the ankles. Both sexes are commonly barefooted, but the old sandals, once universal, are still often seen. These gah-kai-gey-aht-kum-soosk, or string-shoes, as the word means, were made in several different ways, and often projected somewhat around the foot as a protection against the frequent and formidable thorns of the country. Sometimes a wilder or older Indian will be seen, even now, with only a breech-cloth on, and some apology for a garment on his shoulders. The skin is often of a very beautiful rich red-bronze tint, or perhaps more like old mahogany. Except the tattooing both sexes are remarkable for their almost entire absense of any marked adornment or ornament of person. Even a finger-ring, or a ribbon on the hair, is not common, and the profuse bead-work and embroidery of the other tribes is never seen. The exceedingly thick and intensely black hair was formerly worn very long, even to the waist, being banged off just over the eyes of the women and over the eyes and ears of the men and allowed to hang perfectly loose. But the women seldom wore as long hair as the men. This long hair is still sometimes seen and is exceedingly picturesque, especially on horseback, and it is a great pity so sightly a fashion should ever die out. I have seen Maricopas roll theirs in ringlets. Sometimes the men braided the hair into a cue, or looped up the ends with a fillet. But the Government discourages long and loose hair, and now most men cut it short, and women part theirs and braid it. Like all Indians, the men have scant beards, and the few whiskers that grow are shaved clean or resolutely pinched off with an old knife or pulled out by tweezers. Their hair appears to turn gray as early as ours, tho I saw no baldness except on one individual. In old times (and even now to some extent) the hair was dressed with a mixture of mud and mezquite gum, at times, which was left on long enough for the desired effect and then thoroly washed off. This cleansed it and made it glossy and the gum dyed the gray hair quite a lasting, jet black, tho several applications might be needed. Women still carry their ollas and other burdens on their heads and are exceedingly strong and expert in the art, balancing great and awkward weights with admirable dexterity. The convenient and even beautiful gyih-haw (a word very difficult to pronounce correctly), or burden basket, of the old time Pima woman, seems to have entirely disappeared. It was not only picturesque, but an exceedingly useful utensil. The wawl-kote, or carrying-cradle for the baby, is obsolete, too, now. Strange to say, tho in shape like most pappoose-cradles, it was carried poised on the head, instead of slung on the back in the usual way. The Pimas are fond of conversation and often come together in the evening and have long talks. Their voices are low, rapid, soft and very pleasant and they laugh, smile and joke a great deal. They are remarkable for calmness and evenness of temper and the expression of the face is nearly always intelligent, frank, and good-natured. They are noticeably devoid of hurry, worry, irritability or nervousness. Unlike most Indians these have not been removed from the soil of their fathers and, indeed, such an act would have been cruelly unjust, for, true to their name, the Pimas have maintained an unbroken peace with the whites. Lieutenant Colonel W. H. Emory, of "The Army of the West," who visited them in 1846, was perhaps the first American to observe and describe these people. He says: "Both nations (Pimas and Maricopas) cherished an aversion to war and a profound attachment to all the peaceful pursuits of life. This predilection arose from no incapacity for war, for they were at all times able and willing to keep the Apaches, whose hands are raised against all other people, at a respectful distance, and prevent depredations by those mountain robbers who held Chihuahua, Sonora and a part of Durango in a condition approaching almost to tributary provinces." As observed by Emory and the other officers of the "Army of the West" they were an agricultural people raising at that time "cotton, wheat, maize, beans, pumpkins and water melons." I found them raising all these in 1903, except cotton, and I think he might have added to his list, peppers, gourds, tobacco and the pea called cah-lay-vahs. Emory says: "We were at once impressed with the beauty, order, and disposition of the arrangements made for irrigating the land ... the fields are subdivided by ridges of earth into rectangles of about 200�100 feet, for the convenience of irrigating. The fences are of sticks, matted with willow and mezquite." I found this still comparatively correct. The fields are still irrigated by acequias or ditches from the Gila, and still fenced by forks of trees set closely in the ground and reinforced with branches of thorn or barbed wire. Some of these fences with their antler-like effect of tops are very picturesque. From the description given by Emory, and Captain A. R. Johnson of the same army, of their kees or winter lodges, they were essentially the same as I found some of them still inhabiting. There is the following entry in my journal: "I have been examining the old kee next door, since the old couple left it. It is quite neatly and systematically made. Four large forks are set in the ground, and these support a square of large poles, covered with other poles, arrow-weeds, chaff and earth, for the roof. The walls are a neat arrangement of small saplings, about 10 inches apart curving up from the ground on a bending slant to the roof, so that the whole structure comes to resemble a turtle-shell or rather an inverted bowl. These side sticks are connected by three lines of smaller sticks tied across them with withes, all the way around the kee. Against these arrow-weeds are stood, closely and neatly, tops down (perhaps thatched on) and kept in place by three more lines of small sticks, bound on and corresponding to those within. Then the whole structure is plastered over with adobe mud till rain-proof. No window, and only one small door, about 2-1/2 feet square, closed by a slat-work." This kee of the Pima was not to his credit. The most friendly must admit it dirty, uncomfortable and unpicturesque. It was too low to stand erect in, the little fire was made in the center, the smoke escaping at last from the low doorway after trying everywhere else and festooning the ceiling with soot. The establishment of the Pima was most simple. He sat, ate and slept on the earth, consequently a few mats and blankets, baskets, bowls and pots included his furniture. A large earthen olla, called by the Pimas hah-ah, stood in a triple fork under the shade of the vachtoe and being porous enough to permit a slight evaporation kept the drinking water cool. The arbor-shed or vachtoe pertains to almost every Piman home and consists of a flat roof of poles and arrow-weeds supported by stout forks. Sometimes earth is added to the roof to keep off rain. Sometimes the sides are enclosed with a rude wattle work of weeds and bushes, making a grateful shade, admitting air freely; screening those within from view, while permitting vision from within outward in any direction. Sometimes this screen of weeds and bushes, in a circular form, was made without any roof and was then called an o-num. Sometimes after the vachtoe had been inclosed with wattle work the whole structure was plastered over with adobe mud and then became a caws-seen, or storehouse. All these structures were used at times as habitations, but now the Pima is coming more and more to the white man's adobe cottage as a house and home. But the vachtoe, attached or detached, is still a feature of almost every homestead. Under the vachtoe usually stood the metate, or mill (called by the Pimas mah-choot) which was a large flat or concave stone, below, across which was rubbed an oblong, narrow stone (vee-it-kote), above, to grind the corn or wheat. Other important utensils were a vatchee-ho, or wooden trough, for mixing, and a chee-o-pah, or mortar, of wood or stone, for crushing things with a pestle. The nah-dah-kote, or fire-place, was an affair of stones and adobe mud to support the earthern pots for cooking or to support the earthern plates on which the thin cakes of corn or wheat meal were baked. These were what the Mexicans call tortillas. Perhaps the staple food of the Pima even more than corn (hohn) or wheat (payl-koon) is frijole beans--these of two kinds, the white (bah-fih), the brown (mohn). A sort of meal made of parched corn or wheat; ground on the mahchoot and eaten, or perhaps one might say drank, with water and brown sugar (pano-che) was the famous pinole, the food carried on war trips when nutrition, lightness of weight and smallness of bulk were all desired. It has a remarkable power to cool and quench thirst. Taw-mahls, or corn-cakes of ground green corn, wrapped in husks and roasted in the ashes, or boiled, were also favorites. Peppers (kaw-aw-kull) were a good deal used for seasoning and relishes. Today the country of the Pima is very destitute of large game but he adds to the above bill of fare all the small game, especially rabbits, quail and doves, that he can kill. In the old days when the Gila always had water it held fine fish and the Indians caught them with their hands or swept them up on the banks by long chains of willow hurdles or faggots, carried around the fish by waders. I could not learn that they ever had any true fish-nets or fish-hooks; nor any rafts, canoes or other boats. But owing to the frequent necessity of crossing the treacherous Gila the men, and many of the women, were good swimmers. The Toe-hawn-awh Aw-aw-tam, or Papagoes, whose reservation is in Pima County, near Tucson (and called St. Xavier) are counted "blood brothers" of the Pimas, speak essentially the same language, are on the most cordial terms with them, and are under the same agency. The Maricopas are a refugee tribe, related to the Yumas, who once threatened them with extermination because of an inter-tribal feud. They were adopted by the Pimas and protected by them, and have ever since lived with them as one people, having however a different language, identical with that of the Yumas. The Quojatas are a small tribe, of the Piman stock, living south of the Casa Grande. The total number of Pimas, Papagoes and Maricopas in the U. S. is now estimated at about 8000, the Pimas alone as 4000. I am not a linguist, or a philologist, and my time was short with these people, and I did not go to any extent into their language, or study its grammar. Their voices were soft and pleasant, and I was continually surprised at the low tones in which they generally conversed and the quickness with which they heard. But their words were most awkward to my tongue. There were German sounds, and French sounds, too, I would say, in their language, and there were letters that seemed to disappear as they uttered them, or never to come really forth, and syllables that were swallowed like spoonfuls of hot soup. But I trust that I am substantially correct in the words that I have retained in the stories and that I have written them so that the English reader can pronounce them in a way to be understood. The accent is generally on the first syllable. THE STORY OF AH-AHN-HE-EAT-TOE-PAHK MAHKAI And there was an orphan named Ah-ahn-he-eat-toe-pahk Mahkai (which means Braided-Feather Doctor) who lived at a place called Two Reservoirs (Go-awk-Vahp-itchee-kee) north of Cheoff-Skaw-mack, or Tall Gray Mountain. And his only relative was an old grandmother. And she used to go and get water in earthern vessels, a number of them in her carrying basket. And when she neared home she would call to her grandson, saying: "Come, help me wrestle with it!" meaning to help her down with her load. And he would jump and run, and wrestle so roughly he would break all the vessels in her basket. And thus was he mean and mischievous, a bad boy in many ways. And one day his grandmother sent him to get some of the vegetable called "owl's-feathers," which the Awawtam cook by making it into a sort of tortilla, baked on the hot ground where a fire has just been. And he went and found an owl and pulled its feathers out & brought them to the old woman, and she said: "This is not what I want! It is a vegetable that I mean!" And so he went off again and got the vegetable owl's-feathers for her. After that she sent him for the vegetables named "crow's-feet" and "blackbird's-eyes," saying to him that they were very good cooked together. And the mischievous orphan went & got the feet of some real crows and the eyes of real blackbirds and brought them to her. And she said: "This is not what I mean! I want the vegetables named after these things!" And the boy, who was then about twelve years old, went and got what she wanted and she cooked them. And this orphan boy had a dream which he liked and wished to have come true, and went to a dance that was being danced in the neighborhood, a ceremonial dance such as is celebrated when a young girl arrives at womanhood, and he went to see it, hoping it would in some way be like his dream, but when he saw it he was disgusted. And he went to hear the song of a singing doctor, a mahkai or medicine-man, but when he heard his singing he was disgusted with that too. And he left his home and on his way found a little house, or kee, made of rough bushes. And the one who lived therein invited him to stay awhile and see all the different people who would arrive there. And he did so, and in the early evening they came--all the fiercest animals, cougars, bears, eagles, and they were bewitching each other, but nobody bewitched him, and in the morning he went on. And he went along until he came to another kee, and the owner invited him to stay over night and see all the people who came there. And he did so, and in the early evening came the same creatures and did the same as before, but he was not bewitched. And he went on again till he came to a desert place, utterly barren, without trees or bushes and there a wind came to meet him, a whirlwind, Seev-a-lick, and it caught him up and carried him to the East & then back again; and to the North and back again; and to the West & back again; and then South & back again. And so it got possession of his soul and carried it off to its own place. And Seevalick, the whirlwind, said to him: "You shall be like me." And there his dream came true and he said: "This is what I was looking for; this it is for which I was travelling." And he wished to go back, and the wind took his soul back again into his body, and so he returned to his home. And after his return he was the best young man in the country, kind to everybody, and everybody liked him. But he did not care to be with boys of his own age, but liked better to be with the wise old men, and went where they came together at nights. And he would sit and listen to them, but did not attempt to make any speeches himself. His reasons were that the young were often vicious, thieves, beggars, murderers, and he would rather be with the old who followed what was better. And in the evening he would often hear the old people say: "We will go rabbit-hunting in such a place," but he stayed at home and did not go with them. But one night, after a while, when they said: "Tomorrow we will go jack-rabbit hunting," he went home as they did, but the next morning, when they went hunting, he went and made himself a bow & arrows, as Seevalick had told him and placed them where he could find them. And the next evening they were talking again of hunting, and appointed a place to meet, and the following morning, when they were getting ready, he got his bows & arrows, but he did not come quite up to the meeting place, but sat a little way off. And as he sat there the people came up to him and made fun of him and asked him if he expected to kill anything with his weapons, for he had made a big bow & arrows as the Whirlwind had done. And the people handed these about among themselves, laughing, and when they were thru ridiculing them they brought back the bow and arrows and laid them down before him. But he said nothing, and when the people were thru he left the bow & arrows there, and went home and went again to look for a suitable stick to make a bow from. And he made a new bow & arrows and left them where he could find them, and went home. And again he went in the evening to the old people's gathering and heard them appoint a place for the hunting, and went home when they did. And in the morning, when he heard the signal cry for hunting, he went and got his bow & arrows and followed after them again, but again stayed some distance off. And again the people came about him and handled his bow & arrows and laughed at them. And again he left them lying there on the ground and went home to make a new bow & arrows. And the fourth time this happened he was late at the place of meeting, and before he came the one at whose house the meeting was said to the others: "There is a young man who has been several times with us to the place where we come together for the hunting, and I suppose he has made a new bow & arrows today, for he has to do that whenever you handle his weapons. Now I want you not to handle his weapons any more, but to let him be till we see what he will do, for it appears to me that he is some kind of a powerful personage (mahkai). And Toehahvs, who was listening, said: "You yourself, were the very first to handle his weapons." And the next morning when Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai heard the signal yells for the hunting, he went to the meeting place, with his bow and arrows, and sat away off, as before, but this time nobody came to him. And then the hunting began, and in it some one called to him: "There is a jack-rabbit (choo-uff) coming your way!" and he shot the rabbit with his arrow; but when he came to it he did not pick it up, but grasped the arrow and with a swinging motion threw the rabbit from it to the man nearest him. And thus he went on all day, killing rabbits and giving them to others, keeping none for himself. And again he was late at the place of meeting, and the man who had spoken the night before said: "Now you see what he has done! This is the fourth bow that he has made. If you people had left him alone before, he would, before this, have been killing game for you. And now if you do not disturb him I am sure he will go on, and you will have jack-rabbits to eat all the time." And so he killed rabbits at every hunt, and gave them away, especially to the old. Whenever he killed one he would pick it up and give it to an old man, and keep on that way. And one night at the place of meeting the spokesman said: "Tomorrow we will surround the mountain and hunt deer, and we will put him at the place where the deer will run, and we will see how many he will kill!" And in the morning, at the mountain, they placed him at the deer-run, and told him to "shut the valley," meaning for him to head-off and kill any deer which might run toward him. But the young man began to get big rocks and try to make a wall to close the valley up, and paid no attention to the deer running past him, and when the people came and asked him about his shooting he said: "You did not tell me to kill the deer, you told me to 'shut the valley.'" (Not but what he understood them, but he was acting again as he had once done with his grandmother.) And the next day they tried another mountain and said: "We will see if the young man will kill us any deer there." So when they came to this mountain they told him to go to a certain valley, on the other side, and hang himself there. This is a form of speech which means to hang around or remain at a place; but the young hunter went there and left his bow & arrows on the ground, and hung himself up by his two hands clasped around the limb of a tree. And after they had chased many deer in his direction they said: "Let us go now & butcher-up the deer the young man has killed, for he must have killed a good many by this time." But when they came to where the young man was, there he hung by his hands, and when they asked him how many he had killed, he said: "I have not killed any. You did not tell me to kill any, only to hang myself here, which I did, and I have hung here and watched the deer running past." And they tried him again, on another morning, at another valley, and this time they told him if he saw a doe big with fawn, "snon-ham," which is also the word used for a woman soon to become a mother, he should kill her. And he went to his place, and there came by such a woman and he shot her down and killed her. And the next day they took him to another mountain and told him to kill the "kurly," which means the old, but they meant him to understand old deer. And when they came to him later to butcher-up the deer he had killed, and asked him where they were, he replied: "I have not killed any deer, you did not tell me to kill deer, but to kill the kurly, and there is the kurly I have killed!" And it was the old man who goes ahead whom he had shot with his arrow. And after they had buried the old man they returned to the village, and that night the man who owned the meeting place said: "Tomorrow we must give him another trial, and this time I want you to tell him straight just what you want. Tell him to kill the deer, either young or old, and he will do it. If you had done this before he would have killed us many deer. You should have understood him better by this time, but you did not tell him straight, and now he has killed two of us." And the next morning they took him to another mountain, and placed him in a low place, and told him to kill all the deer which came his way. And when they went after a while, after chasing many deer toward him, they asked him where the deer were which he had killed, and he replied: "Down in the low place you will find plenty deer." And they went there and found many dead deer of all kinds, and butchered them up. NOTES ON THE STORY OF AH-AHN-HE-EAT-TOE-PAHK MAHKAI In the story of Ah-ahn-he-eat-toe-pahk Mahkai we are introduced to the Indian faith in dreams and to more witchcraft. We come, too, to the national sport of rabbit-hunting, with its picturesqueness and excitement. In the transaction between Seevalick and the boy we have a reappearance of the world-wide belief that there is a connection between the wind and the human soul. The strange quality of savage humor, labored, sometimes gruesome, and often tragic, appears in the latter part of the tale. It is noticeable that they buried the old man, but no mention is made of burying the woman who was shot. The Pimas of old time buried their dead in a sitting posture, neck and knees tied together with ropes, four to six feet under ground, and covered the grave with logs and thorn-brush to keep away wolves. The interment was usually at night, with chants, but without other ceremony. Then, immediately after, the house of the deceased was burned, and all personal effects destroyed, even food; the horses and cattle being killed and eaten by the mourners, excepting such as the deceased might have given to his heirs. After the prescribed time of mourning (one month for a child or distant relative, six months or a year for husband or wife) the name of the dead was never more mentioned and everything about him treated as forgotten. The Maricopas burn their dead. It is noticeable, too, that no one appears to have punished the slayer for his murderous practical jokes. Indeed, while the Awawtam appear to have been people of exceptionally good character, it also appears that they seldom punished any crimes except by a sort of boycott or pressure of public disapproval. THE STORY OF VANDAIH, THE MAN-EAGLE And thus Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai became famous for the killing of game; and there was another young man, named Van-daih, who wanted to be his friend. So one day Vandaih made him four tube-pipes of cane, such as the Indians use for ceremonious smoking, and went to see the young hunter. But when he entered the young man was lying down, and he just looked at Vandaih and then turned his face away, saying nothing. And Vandaih sat there and when the young man became tired of lying one way and turned over he lit up one of his pipes. But the young man took no notice of him. And this went on all night. Every time there was a chance Vandaih tried his pipe, but Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai never spoke, and in the morning Vandaih went away without the friend he desired having responded to him. The next evening Vandaih came again and sat there all night, but the friend he courted never said a word, and in the morning he went away again. And he slept in the daytime, and when evening came he went again, and sat all night long, but the young man spoke to him not at all. And the third morning that this happened the wife of Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai said to him: "Why are you so mean to Vandaih as never to speak to him? Perhaps he has something important to say. He comes here every night, and sits the whole night thru before you, and you do not speak to him. And maybe he will come tonight again, and I feel very sorry for him that you never say a word to him when he comes." And the young man said: "I know it is true, what you have said, but I know, too, very well, that Vandaih is not a good man. He gambles with the gains-skoot, he is a liar, a thief, licentious, and is everything that is bad. I wish some other boys would come to see me instead of him, and better than he, for I know very well that he will repeat things that I say in a way that I did not mean and raise a scandal about it." And the next night Vandaih came again and sat in the same place; and when Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai saw him he just looked at him and then turned over and went to sleep. But along in the night he awoke, and when Vandaih saw he was awake he lit one of his pipes. Then Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai got up. And when he got up Vandaih buried his pipe, but the other said: "What do you bury your pipe for? I want to smoke." Vandaih said: "I have another pipe," and he lit one and gave it to Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai, and then he dug up his own pipe, and relighted it, and they both began to smoke. And Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai said: "When did you come?" And Vandaih replied: "O just a little while ago." And Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai said: "I have seen you here for four nights, now, but I know you too well not to know you have a way to follow," ["a way to follow" means to have some purpose behind] "but if you will quit all the bad habits you have I will be glad to have you come; but there are many others, better than you, whom I would rather have come to see me. And now I am going to tell you something, but I am afraid that when you go away from here you will tell what I have said and make more of it, and then people will talk, and I shall be sorry. I will tell you the habits you have--you are a liar, a gambler with the dice-game and the wah-pah-tee, a beggar, you follow after women and are a thief. Now I want you to stop these bad habits. You may not know all that the people say about you: They say that when any hunter brings in game you are always the first to be there, and you will be very apt to swallow charcoal [3] if you are so greedy. Wherever you go, when the people see you coming, they say: 'There comes a man who is a thief,' and they hide their precious things. When you arrive they are kind to you, of course, but they do not care much about you. I don't know whether you know that people talk thus about you, but it is a great shame to me to know, when I have done some bad thing, that people talk about it. Now if you quit these things you will be happy, and I want you to stop them. I am not angry with you, but I want you to know how the people are talking about you. Now I want you to go home, but not say anything about what I have told you. Just take a rest, and tomorrow night come again." And the next night Vandaih came again, and Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai was in bed when he came, but he got right up and received him, and said: "Now after this I mean to tell you what is for your good, but I want you to keep quiet about it. There are many people that gamble with you. If they ask you again to gamble with them, do not do it. Tell them you do not gamble any more. And if they do not stop when you tell them this, but keep on asking you, come to me, and tell me, first, that you are going to play. And if I tell you, then, that I do not want you to gamble, I want you not to do it, but if I tell you you may gamble & you win once, then you may bet again, but I do not want you to keep on after winning twice. Twice is enough. But if the other man beats you at first, then I do not want you to play any more, but to quit gambling forever." And after this a man did want to gamble with Vandaih, but Vandaih said: "I have nothing to wager, and so cannot play with you." And still another man wanted to gamble with him, and he made him the same answer, but this man kept on asking, and at last Vandaih said: "Perhaps I will play with you, I will see about it. But I must have a little time first." And he came to Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai and said: "There is a man who keeps on asking me to gamble with him, and I have come to tell you about it as you told me to do." And Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai told him to gamble, and gave him things to wager on the game, but said: "If he beats you I do not want you to gamble any more." And Vandaih took the things which had been given him, and went & played a game with this man who was so persistent, and won a game. And he played another game and won that, and then he said, "That is enough, I do not want to play any more;" but the other man kept on asking him to play. But Vandaih refused & took the things which he had won to Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai and gave them all to him. And the next morning he gambled again, and won twice, and he stopped after the second winning, as before. And thus the young man kept on winning and Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai made gainskoot (dice-sticks) for him, and this was one reason why he won, for Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai was a powerful doctor & the dice were charmed. And he beat every one who played against him till he had beat all the gamblers of his neighborhood, and then distant gamblers came & he beat them also. And so he won all the precious things that were in the country and gave all to Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai & kept nothing back. But one man went to Ee-ee-toy, who was living at the Salt River Mountain (Mo-hah-dheck) and asked him to let him have some things to wager against Vandaih. And Ee-ee-toy said: "You can have whatever you want, and I will go along to see the game." But when Ee-ee-toy got there he found the dice were not like common dice, and it would be difficult for any one to win against them, they were made by so powerful a man. And Ee-eetoy went westward and found a powerful doctor who had a daughter, and said to the father: "I want your daughter to go around to all the big trees and find me all the feathers she can of large birds, not of small birds, and bring them here. And I will come again & see what she may have found." And her father told her, and the very next morning she began to hunt the feathers, and when Ee-eetoy came again she had a bundle, and Ee-eetoy took them and took the pith out of their shafts and cleansed every feather which she had brought him. And Ee-ee-toy threw away the pith and cut the shafts into small pieces and told the girl to roast them in a broken pot over a fire; and she got the broken pot & roasted them, and they curled up as they roasted till they looked like grains of corn. And then he told her to roast some real corn & mix both together and grind them all up very fine, and Ee-ee-toy told her to take some ollas of this pinole in her syih-haw to the reservoirs. And she did so, and passed by where Vandaih was going to play, and Vandaih said: "Before I can play I must drink." But the man who was playing with him said: "Get some water of some one near," but Vandaih said, "I would rather go to the reservoir." And Ee-ee-toy had prepared the girl before this, telling her that when she passed the players Vandaih would follow her to the reservoir and want to marry her. "Be polite to him," he said "and ask him to drink some of the pinole, and to see your parents first." And the man who was going to gamble with Vandaih asked him not to go so far, for he wanted to gamble right away, but Vandaih replied: "I would rather go there. I will come right back. You be making holes till I get back." So the girl went to the reservoir, and Vandaih followed her and asked her to be his wife, and she said: "I want you to drink some of this pinole, and in the evening you may go and see my folks and ask them about it." So Vandaih mixed some pinole and drank it, and it made him feel feverish, like one with a cold; and the second time he drank the goose-flesh came out on his skin; and the third time he drank feathers came out all over him; and the fourth time long feathers grew out on his arms; and the fifth time he became an eagle and went and perched on the high place, or bank of the reservoir. Then the girl went to the place where the other man was waiting to play the game and told all the people to come and see the terrible thing which had happened to Vandaih. And the people, when they saw him, got their bows and arrows and surrounded him and were going to shoot him. And they fired arrows at him, and some of them struck him, but could not pierce him, and then all were afraid of him. And first he began to hop around, and then to fly a little higher, until he perched on a tree, but he broke the tree down; and he tried another tree and broke that down; and then he flew to a mountain and tumbled its rocks down its side, and finally he settled on a strong cliff. And even the cliff swayed at first as if it would fall,--but finally it settled and stood still. And this was foretold when the earth was being made, that one of the race of men should be turned into an eagle. Vandaih was a handsome man, but he had a bad character, and ever since the beginning parents had warned their children to practice virtue lest they be turned into eagles; because it had been foretold that some good-looking bad person should be thus transformed, and it was to be seen that good-looking people were often bad and homely ones good characters. And Vandaih took that cliff for his residence and hunted over all the country round about, killing jack-rabbits, deer and all kinds of game for his food. And when the game became scarce he turned to men and one day he killed a man and took the body to his cliff to eat. And after this manner he went on. Early in the morning he would bring home a human being, and sometimes he would bring home two. Then the people sent a messenger to Ee-eetoy, to his home on Mohahdheck, asking him to kill for them this man-eagle. And Ee-ee-toy said to the man: "You can go back, and in about four days I will be there." But when the fourth day came Ee-eetoy had not arrived, as he had promised, but Vandaih was among the people, killing them, carrying them away to the cliff. And the people again sent the messenger, saying to him: "You must tell Ee-ee-toy he must come and help his people or we shall all be lost." And the man delivered his message and Ee-ee-toy said, as before, that he would be there in four days. And this went on, the people sending to Ee-ee-toy, and Ee-ee-toy promising to come in four days, until a whole year had passed. And not only for one year, but for four years, for the people had misunderstood him, and when he said four days he meant four years, and so for four years it went on as we have said. (Now Ee-ee-toy and Vandaih were relatives, and that was one reason why Ee-ee-toy kept the people waiting so long for his help and worked to gain time. He did not want to hurt Vandaih.) But when the fourth year came Ee-ee-toy did go, and told the people to get him the "seed-roaster." And the people ran around, guessing what he meant, and they brought him the charcoal, but Ee-ee-toy said: "I did not mean this, I meant the 'seed-roaster'!" So they ran around again, and they brought him the long open earthen vessel with handles at each end, used for roasting, and with it they brought the charcoal which is made from ironwood. But he said: "I did not mean these. I mean the 'seed-roaster.'" And they kept on guessing, and nobody could guess it right. They brought him the black stones of the nahdahcote, or fire place, and he said: "I do not want these. I want the 'seed-roaster.'" And the people kept on guessing, and could not guess it right, and so, at last, he told them that what he wanted was obsidian, that black volcanic stone, like glass, from which arrow heads are made. And this was what he called the "seed-roaster." So the people got it for him. Then he told them to bring him four springy sticks. And they ran and brought all the kinds of springy sticks they could find, but he told them he did not mean any of these. And for many days they kept on trying to get him the sticks which he wanted. And after they had completely failed Ee-ee-toy told them what he wanted. It was a kind of stick called vahs-iff, which did not grow there, therefore they had not been able to find it. And beside vahsiff sticks were not springy sticks at all, but the strongest kind of sticks, very stiff. So they sent a person to get these, who brought them, and Ee-ee-toy whittled them so that they had sharp points. And there were four of them. And Ee-ee-toy said: "Now I am going, and I want you to watch the top of the highest mountain, and if you see a big cloud over it, you will know I have done something wonderful. But if there is a fog over the world for four days you will know I am killed." When he started he allowed one of the dust storms of the desert to arise, and went in that, so that the man-eagle should not see him. For many days he journeyed toward the cliff, and when sunset of the last day came he was still a good way off; but he went on and arrived at the foot of the cliff after it was dark, and hid himself there under a rock. About daybreak the man-eagle got up and flew around the cliff four times and then flew off. And after he was gone Ee-ee-toy took one of his sticks and stuck it into a crack in the cliff, and climbed on it, and stuck another above it and so he went on to the top, pulling out the sticks behind him and putting them in above. And when he got to the home of the man-eagle, Vandaih, on the top of the cliff, he found a woman there. And she was the same woman who had given Vandaih the pinole with eagles' feathers in it. He had found her, and carried her up there, and made her his wife. When Ee-ee-toy came to the woman he found she had a little boy, and he asked her if the child could speak yet, and she replied that he was just beginning to talk; and he enquired further when the man-eagle would return, and she said that formerly when game was plenty he had not stayed away long, but now that game was scarce it usually took him about half a day, so he likely would not be there till noon. And Ee-ee-toy enquired: "What does he do when he comes back? Does he sleep or not? Does he lie right down, or does he go looking around first?" And the wife said: "He looks all around first, everywhere. And even the little flies he will kill, he is so afraid that some one will come to kill him. And after he has looked around, and finished eating, he comes to lay his head in my lap and have me look for the lice in his head. And it is then that he goes to sleep." So Ee-ee-toy turned into a big fly and hid in a crack in the rock, and asked the woman if she could see him, and she said: "Yes, I can see you very plainly." And he hid himself three times, and each time she could see him, but the fourth time he got into one of the dead bodies, into its lungs, and had her pile the other dead bodies over him, and then when he asked her she said: "No, I cannot see you now." And Ee-ee-toy told her: "As soon as he goes to sleep, whistle, so that I may know that he is surely asleep." At noon Ee-ee-toy heard the man-eagle coming. He was bringing two bodies, still living & moaning, and dropped them over the place where Ee-ee-toy lay. And the first thing the man-eagle did was to look all around, and he said to his wife: "What smell is this that I smell?" And she said: "What kind of a smell?" And he replied: "Why, it smells like an uncooked person!" "These you have just brought in are uncooked persons, perhaps it is these you smell." Then Vandaih went to the pile of dead bodies and turned them over & over, but the oldest body at the bottom he did not examine, for he did not think there could be anyone there. So his wife cooked his dinner, and he ate it and then asked her to look for the lice in his head. And as he lay down he saw a fly pass before his face, and he jumped up to catch it, but the fly got into a crack in the rock where he could not get it. And when he lay down again the child said: "Father! come!" And Vandaih said: "Why does he say that? He never said that before. He must be trying to tell me that some one is coming to injure me!" But the wife said: "You know he is only learning to talk, and what he means is that he is glad that his father has come. That is very plain." But Vandaih said: "No, I think he is trying to tell me some one has come." But at last Vandaih lay down and the woman searched his head and sang to put him to sleep. And when he seemed sound asleep she whistled. And her whistle waked him up and he said: "Why did you whistle! you never did that before?" And she said: "I whistled because I am so glad about the game you have brought. I used to feel bad about the people you killed, but now I know I must be contented & rejoice when you have a good hunt. And after this I will whistle every time when you bring game home." And she sang him to sleep again, and whistled when he slept; and waked him up again, and said the same thing again in reply to his question. And the third time, while she was singing, she turned Vandaih's head from side to side. And when he seemed fast asleep she whistled. And after she had whistled she turned the head again, but Vandaih did not get up, and so she knew that this time he was fast asleep. So Ee-ee-toy came out of the dead body he had hidden in, and came to where Vandaih was, and the woman laid his head down & left him. And Ee-ee-toy took the knife which he had made from the volcanic glass, obsidian, and cut Vandaih's throat, and beheaded him, and threw his head eastward & his body westward. And he beheaded the child, too, and threw its head westward and its body eastward. And because of the killing of so powerful a personage the cliff swayed as if it would fall down, but Ee-ee-toy took one of his sharpened stakes and drove it into the cliff and told the woman to hold onto that; and he took another and drove that in and took hold of that himself. And after the cliff had steadied enuf, Ee-ee-toy told the woman to heat some water, and when she had done so he sprinkled the dead bodies. The first ones he sprinkled came to life and he asked them where their home was & when they told him he sent them there by his power. And he had more water heated and sprinkled more bodies, and when he learned where their home was he sent them home, also, by his power. And this was done a third time, with a third set of bodies. And the fourth time the hot water was sprinkled on the oldest bodies of all, the mere skeletons, and it took them a long time to come to life, and when they were revived they could not remember where their homes were or where they had come from. So Ee-ee-toy cut off eagles' feathers slanting-wise (pens) and gave them, and gave them dried blood mixed with water (ink) and told them their home should be in the East, and by the sign of the slanting-cut feather they should know each other. And they are the white people of this day. And he sent them eastward by his power. And in the evening he & the woman went down the cliff by the aid of the sharpened stakes, even as he had come up, and when they reached the foot of the mountain they stayed there over night. They took some of the long eagle feathers and made a kee from them, & some of the soft eagle feathers and made a bed with them. And they stayed there four nights, at the foot of the cliff. And after a day's journey they made another kee of shorter eagle feathers, and a bed of tail feathers. And they staid at this second camp four nights. And then they journeyed on again another day and build another kee, like the first one, & stayed there also four nights. And they journeyed on yet another day and built again a kee, like the second one, and stayed there four nights. And on the morning of each fourth day Ee-ee-toy took the bath of purification, as the Pimas have since done when they have slain Apaches, and when he arrived home he did not go right among the people but stayed out in the bushes for a while. And the people knew he had killed Vandaih, the man-eagle, for they had watched and had seen the cloud over the high mountain. And after the killing of Vandaih, for a long time, the people had nothing to be afraid of, and they were all happy. NOTES ON THE STORY OF VANDAIH In the story of Vandaih we are given a curious glimpse into Indian friendship. The reference to smoking, too, is interesting. The Pimas had no true pipes. They used only cigarettes of tobacco and corn-husk, or else short tubes of cane stuffed with tobacco. These I have called tube-pipes. They smoked on all ceremonial occasions, but appear to have had no distinctive pipe of peace. The ceremonial pipes of cane had bunches of little birds' feathers tied to them, and in my photo of the old seeneeyawkum he holds such a ceremonial pipe in his hand. "He gambles with the gain-skoot:" The gain-skoot were the Pima dice--two sticks so marked and painted as to represent the numerals kee-ick (four) and choat-puh (six), and two called respectively see-ick-ko, the value of which was fourteen, and gains, the value of which was fifteen. These were to be held in the hand and knocked in the air with a flat round stone. At the same time there was to be on the ground a parallelogram of holes with a sort of goal, or "home," at two corners. If the sticks all fell with face sides up they counted five. If all fell with blank sides up it was ten. If only one face side turned up it counted its full value, but if two or three turned up then they counted only as one each. If a gain was scored the count was kept by placing little sticks or stones (soy-yee-kuh) in the holes as counters. If the second player overtook the first in a hole the first man was "killed" and had to begin over. Among all Indians gambling was a besetting vice, and there was nothing they would not wager. Sometimes instead of the gain-skoot they used waw-pah-tee, which was simply a guessing game. They guessed in which hand a certain painted stick was held, or in which of four decorated cane-tubes, filled with sand, a certain little ball was hidden and wagered on their guess. These tubes were differently marked, and one was named "Old Man," one "Old Woman," one "Black Head," and one "Black in the Middle." Sticks were given to keep count of winnings. The moral advice which Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai gives Vandaih, is very quaint, and the shrewd cunning with which he loads the dice, pockets the proceeds, and yet finally unloads all the blame on poor Vandaih, is quite of a piece with the confused morals of most folk-lore in all lands. On these points it is really very hard to understand the workings of the primitive mind. Here is certain proof that the modern conscience has evoluted from something very chaotic. It will be noticed that Vandaih drinks the pinole, which bewitches him, five times instead of the usual four. Whether this is a mistake of the seeneeyawkum, or significant I do not know. Perhaps four is a lucky and five an unlucky number. Another variation in the numerical order is in the woman whistling only three times, in putting Vandaih to sleep. As I have before pointed out the reference to white men, and pens and ink, is evidently a modern interpolation, not altogether lacking in flavor of sarcasm. There are suggestions in this story of Jack the Giant Killer, of the Roc of the Arabian Nights, of the harpies, and of the frightful creatures, part human, part animal, so familiar in all ancient folk-lore. The latter part of this tale is particularly interesting, as perhaps throwing light on the origin of that mysterious process of purification for slaying enemies, so peculiar to the Pimas. It seems to have been held by the Awawtam that to kill an Apache rendered the slayer unclean, even tho the act itself was most valiant and praiseworthy, and must be expiated by an elaborate process of purification. From old Comalk Hawk Kih I got a careful description of the process. According to his account, as soon as an Apache had been killed, if possible, the fact was at once telegraphed to the watchers at home by the smoke signal from some mountain. This custom is evidently referred to in Ee-ee-toy's cloud over a high mountain as a signal of success. The Indians apparently regarded smoke and clouds as closely related, if not the same, as is shown in their faith in the power of tobacco to make rain. As soon as the Apache has been killed the slayer begins to fast and to look for a "father." His "father" is one who is to perform all his usual duties for him, for he is now unclean and cannot do these himself. The "father," too, must know how to perform all the ceremonial duties necessary to his office, as will be explained. If a "father" can be found among the war-party the slayer need only fast two days, but if not he must wait till he gets home again, even if it takes four or more days. It appears that this friend, who has charge of the slayer, is humorously called a "father" because his "child" is usually so restless under his long fast, and keeps asking him to do things for him and divert him. If there is no "father" for him in the war-party, as soon as possible a messenger is sent on ahead to get some one at home to take the office for him, and to make the fires in the kee, that being a man's special duty. And the wife of the slayer is also now unclean by his act, and must purify herself as long as he, tho she must keep apart from him. And she also must have a substitute to do her usual work. She must keep close at home, and her husband, the slayer, remain out in the bushes till the purification is accomplished. For two days the fast is complete, but on the morning of the third day the slayer is allowed one drink of pinole, very thin, and no more than he can drink at one breath. The moment he pauses he can have no more at that time. When presenting this pinole, the "father" makes this speech: "Your fame has come, and I was overjoyed, and have run all the way to the ocean, and back again, bringing you this water. On my return I strengthened myself four times, and in the dish in which I carried the water stood See-vick-a Way-hohm, The Red Thunder Person, the Lightning, and because of his force I fell down. And when I got up I smelled the water in the dish, and it smelled as if something had been burned in it. And when I got up I strengthened myself four times, and there came from the sky, and stood in the dish, Tone-dum Bah-ahk, The Eagle of Light. And he turned the water in the dish in a circle, and because of his force I fell down, and when I rose up again and smelled the water in the dish it was stinking. And when I had started again I strengthened myself four times, and Vee-sick the Chicken Hawk, came down from the sky and stood in the dish. And by his force I was thrown down. And when I stood again and smelled the water in the dish, it smelled like fresh blood. And I started again, strengthening myself four times, and there came from the East our gray cousin, Skaw-mack Tee-worm-gall, The Coyote, who threw me down again, and stood in the dish, and turned the water around, and left it smelling as the coyote smells. And when I rose up I started again, and in coming to you I have rested four times; and now I have brought you the water, and so many powerful beings have done wonderful things to it that I want you to drink it all at one time." After the third day the "father" brings his charge a little to eat every morning and evening, but a very little. On the morning of the fourth day, at daybreak the slayer takes a bath of purification, even if it is winter and he has to break the ice and dive under to do it. And this is repeated on the morning of each fourth day, till four baths have been taken in sixteen days. The slayer finds an owl and without killing him pulls long feathers out of his wings and takes them home. The slayer had cut a little lock of hair from the head of the Apache he had killed (for in old times, at least, the Pimas often took no scalps) and now a little bag of buckskin is made, and a ball of greasewood gum is stuck on the end of this lock of hair which is placed in the bag, and on the bag are tied a feather of the owl and one from a chicken hawk, and some of the soft feathers of an eagle, and around the neck of the bag a string of blue beads. (And during this time the women are carrying wood in their giyh-haws to the dancing place.) Now the Apaches are contemptuously called children, and this bag represents a child, being supposed to contain the ghost of the dead Apache, and the slayer sits on the ground with it, and takes it in his hands as if it were a baby, and inhales from it four times as if he were kissing it. And when it is time for the dance the slayers who are a good ways off from the dancing place start before sunset, but those who are close wait till the sun is down. And the "father" goes with the slayer, through woods and bushes, avoiding roads. And before this the "father" has dug a hole at the dancing place about ten inches deep and two feet wide, just big enough for a man to squat in with legs folded, and behind the hole planted a mezquite fork, about five feet high, on which are hung the weapons of the slayer, his shield, club, bow, quiver of arrows, perhaps his gun or lance. (The shield was made of rawhide, very thick, able to turn an arrow and was painted jet black by a mixture of mezquite gum and charcoal, with water, which made it glossy and shiny. The design on it was in white, or red and white. The handle was of wood, curved, placed in the centre of the inside, bound down at the ends by rawhide, and the hand fended from the rough shield by a piece of sheepskin.) In this hole the slayer sits down and behind him and the fork lies down his dancer, for the slayer himself does not dance but some stranger who represents him perhaps a Papago or a Maricopa, drawn from a distance by the fame of the exploit. Nor do the slayers sing, but old men who in their day have slain Apaches. These singers are each allowed to sing two songs of their own choice, the rest of the veterans joining in. And as soon as the first old man begins to sing, the dancers get up, take the weapons of the men they represent, and dance around the fire, which the "fathers" keep burning, keeping time with the song. And the women cook all kinds of good things, and set them before the singers, but the bystanders jump in and snatch them away. But sometimes the wife of an old singer will get something and save it for him. And the relatives of the slayers will bring presents for the dancers, buckskin, baskets, and anything that an Indian values. And as soon as presented some relative of the dancer runs in and takes the present and keeps it for him. And while this big war-dance is going on the rest of the people are having dances in little separate groups, all around. And as soon as the dance is over the weapons are returned to the forks they were taken from. By this time it is nearly morning, and the slayers get up and take their bath in the river, and return and dry themselves by the expiring fire. Then returning to the bushes they remain there again four days, and that is the last of their purification. As this dance is on the eve of the sixteenth day, there were twenty days in all. Grossman's account differs considerably from this, and is worth reading. During the time of purifying, the slayers wear their hair in a strange way, like the top-knot of a white woman, somewhat, and in it stick a stick, called a kuess-kote to scratch themselves with, as they are not allowed to use the fingers. This is alluded to in the Story of Paht-ahn-kum's War. A picture of a Maricopa interpreter, with his hair thus arranged, is in the report of Col. W. H. Emory, before alluded to. This picture is interesting, because it shows that the Maricopas, when with the Pimas, adopted the same custom. When I showed this picture to the old see-nee-yaw-kum he was much interested, saying he himself had known this man, who was a relative of his, there being a dash of Maricopa blood in his family, and that he had been born in Mexico and had there learned Spanish enough to be an interpreter. His Mexican name, he said, was Francisco Lucas, but the Pimas called him How-app-ahl Tone-um-kum, or Thirsty Hawk, a name which has an amusing significance when we recall what Emory says about his taste for aguardiente, and that Captain Johnston says of the same man, "the dog had a liquorish tooth." STORIES OF THE SECOND NIGHT THE STORY OF THE TURQUOISES AND THE RED BIRD And at the vahahkkee which the white men now call the Casa Grande ruins was the home of Seeollstchewadack Seeven, or the Morning green Chief. And one morning the young women at that place were playing and having a good time with the game of the knotted rope or balls, which is called toe-coll. And in this game the young girls are placed at each end, near the goals, and at this time, at the west end, one of the young girls gradually sank into the earth; and as she sank the earth around her became very green with grass. And Seeollstchewadack Seeven told the people not to disturb the green spot until the next morning; and the next morning the green spot was a green rock, and he told the people to dig around it, and as they dug they chipped off small pieces, and the people came and got what they wanted of these pieces of green stone. And they made ear-rings and ornaments from these green stones, which were tchew-dack-na-ha-gay-awh or turquoises. And after the turquoises were distributed, and the fame of this had spread, the chief of another people, who lived to the east, whose name was Dthas Seeven (Sun-Chief) thought he would do something wonderful, too, being envious, and he opened one of his veins and from the blood made a large, beautiful bird, colored red. And Dthas Seeven told his bird to go to the city of Seeollstchewadack Seeven and hang around there till that chief saw him and took him in. And when they offered him corn he was not to eat that nor anything else they gave him, but when he saw his chance he was to pick up a bit of the green stone and swallow it, for when it should be seen that he would swallow the green stones then he would be fed on turquoises. So the bird was sent, and when it arrived at the city of the turquoises, the daughter of Seeollstchewadack Seeven, whose name was Nawitch, saw it and went and told her father. And he asked, "What is the color of the bird?" and she answered, "Red;" and he said, "I know that bird. It is a very rare bird, and its being here is a sign something good is going to happen. I want you to get the bird and bring it here, but do not take hold of it. Offer it a stick, and it will take hold of it, with its bill, and you can lead it here." And Nawitch offered the bird a stick, and it caught hold of the end by its bill, which was like a parrot's bill, and she led it to her father. And Seeollstchewadack Seeven said: "Feed him on pumpkin seed, for that is what this kind of bird eats." And Nawitch gave the bird pumpkin seed, but it would not eat. And then she tried melon seed, but it would not eat. And then she tried devil-claw seed, but it would not eat. And her father said, then: "Make him broth of corn, for this kind of bird eats only new dishes!" And she did so, but it would not eat the broth of corn. And the old man told her to try pumpkin seed again; and she tried the pumpkin seed again, and the melon seed again, and the devil-claw seed, and the broth of corn, but the bird would not touch any of these. But just then the bird saw a little piece of turquoise lying on the ground and it sprang and swallowed it. And the daughter saw this and told her father that the bird would eat turquoises. And her father said: "This kind of bird will not eat turquoises, but you may try him." And she gave it some turquoises and it ate them greedily. And then her father said: "Go and get some nice, clean ones, a basket full." And she did so, and the bird ate them all, and she kept on feeding it until it had swallowed four basketful. And then the bird began to run around, and the girl said: "I fear our pet will leave us and fly away" but the old man said: "He will not fly away. He likes us too well for that," but after a short time the bird got to a little distance and took to its wings, and flew back to the city of Dthas Seeven. And Dthas Seeven gave it water twice, and each time it vomited, and thus it threw up all the turquoises. And so Dthas Seeven also had turquoises. NOTES ON THE STORY OF THE TURQUOISES Turquoises seem to have been regarded by all Arizona Indians as magical and lucky stones, and the Story of the Turquoises professes to give their origin. Of the game, toe-coll, here spoken of, Whittemore gives this account in Cook's "Among the Pimas:" "One of the amusements of the women was that of tossing balls. They had two small ones, covered with buckskin, and tied about six inches apart. Young women and married, from thirty to seventy-five in a group, assembled as dressed for a ball, their hair carefully manipulated so as to be black and glossy. Each had a stick of willow six feet long. With these they dextrously tossed the balls high in the air, running after them until one party was so weary that they gave up the game from mere exhaustion. "In order to make the excitement a success they had certain active women, keen of wit and quick of action, practice weeks in advance." Sometimes the balls were formed by two large knots in a short piece of rope. THE STORY OF WAYHOHM, TOEHAHVS AND TOTTAI And Seeollstchewadack Seeven wondered what this action of the bird meant, and he studied about it till he found out who it was that had sent the bird and for what purpose. And he sent a cold rain upon the home of Dthas Seeven. And it rained a heavy rain for three days and three nights, so hard that it put out all the fires in the city of Dthas Seeven, and Dthas Seeven was dying with cold. And the people came about him to witness his dying, and they said: "Let us send some one to get the fire!" And they sent Toehahvs. And Toehahvs went, and at last came to a house where he heard the fire roaring within. And he looked in, and there was a big fire. And he sat in the doorway holding out his paws toward the heat. And the owner of the house, whose name was Way-hohm, or the Lightning, sat working within with his face to the fire and his back to Toehahvs. And Toehahvs wanted to dash in and steal some fire, but he did not dare, and he went back and told the people he had seen the fire but he could not get it. On the fourth day it was still raining, and they sent another person. And this time they sent Tot-tai, or the Road Runner, for they said he could run almost as fast as Toehahvs. And Tottai came to the same house, and heard the fire, and peeped in the door to warm himself. And there sat the owner of the fire, Wayhohm, working with his face to the fire and his back to Tottai. And Tottai dashed in and caught hold of a stick with fire at one end and ran out with it. And Wayhohm caught up his bow, the Bow-of-the-Lightning, Way-hohm-a-Gaht, and fired at Road Runner, and struck him on the side of his head, and that is why the side of Tottai's head is still bare; and Tottai ran on, and Wayhohm shot at him again and struck the other side of his head. And Tottai whirled around then so that the sparks flew every way, and got into all kinds of wood, and that is why there is fire in all kinds of sticks even now, and the Indian can get it out by rubbing them together to this day. But Tottai kept on, and got to the house of Dthas Seeven all right, and they made a fire, and Dthas Seeven got better again. NOTES ON THE STORY OF WAYHOHM There is a suggestion of Thor in the Story of Wayhohm, and also of Prometheus. Wayhohm's house must have been the hall of the clouds. How true to nature, here, is the touch describing the Coyote-person, Toehahvs. The excessive caution of the coyote, making it impossible for him, however eager, to force himself into any position he suspects, here stands out before us, contrasted in the most dramatic way with the dashing boldness of the road-runner. When we reached the end of this story Comalk Hawk-Kih took two pieces of wood to rub them together to make fire. But he was old and breathless, and "Sparkling-Soft-Feather," the mother of my interpreter, took them and made the fire for me. I have the implements yet. There were two parts to the apparatus. Gee-uh-toe-dah, the socket stick was of a soft dry piece of giant cactus rib, and a notch was whittled in one side of this with a small socket at the apex, that is on the upper side. This was placed flat on the ground, with a bit of corn husk under the notch, and held firmly in position by the bare feet. The twirling stick, eev-a-dah-kote, was a hard arrow weed, very dry and scraped smooth. The end of this was engaged in the little socket, at the top of the cactus rib, and then, held perpendicularly, was twirled between the two hands till the friction rubbed off a powder which crowded out of the socket, and fell down the notch at its side to the corn-husk. This little increasing pile of powder was the tinder, and, as the twirling continued, grew black, smelled like burned wood, smoked and finally glowed like punk. It was now picked up on the corn husk and placed in dry horse dung, a bunch of dry grass, or some such inflammable material, and blown into flame. It looked very simple, and took little time, but I never could do it. THE STORY OF HAWAWK And when Dthas Seeven had gotten better he meditated on what had happened to him, and studied out that Seeollstchewadack-Seeven was the cause of his trouble, and planned how to get the better of him. Now the Indians have a game of football in which the ball is not kicked but lifted and thrown a good ways by the foot, and Dthas Seeven made such a ball, and sent a young man to play it in the direction of the city of Seeollstchewadack-Seeven. And the young man did so, and as he kept the ball going on it came to the feet of a young girl, who, when she saw the ball, picked it up and hid it under the square of cloth which Indian girls wear. And the young man came up and asked her if she had seen the ball, and she answered no, she had not seen it, and she kept on denying it, so at last he turned back and said he might as well go home as he no longer had a ball to play with. But he had not gone far before the girl called to him: "Are you not coming back to get your ball?" And he went back to her, and she tried to find the ball, but could not. But the ball was not lost, but it had bewitched her. And after a time this girl had a baby, a tall baby, with claws on its hands and feet like a wild animal. And the people did not know what this meant, and they asked Toehahvs, and Toehahvs knew because this had been prophesied of old time. And Toehahvs said: "She is Haw-awk." And Hawawk grew and became able to crawl, but people were afraid of handling her because of the scratching of her claws. Only her relatives could safely handle her. And as she grew older, still, she would sometimes see other children and wish to play with them, but in a short time they would get scratched by her in her gambols and would run home crying and leave her alone. And it got so that when the children saw her coming they would tell each other and run home and she could get none of them to play with her. She claimed Ee-ee-toy as her uncle, and when he had been rabbit-hunting and came in with game she would run and call him "uncle!" and try and get the rabbits away from him; and when he cleaned the rabbits and threw away the entrails she would run and devour them, and the bones of the rabbits the people threw away after the feasts she would eat, too. And when Hawawk grew older she would sometimes complain to Ee-ee-toy if he came in without game. "Why is it you sometimes come in without rabbits?" she would say, "And why do you not kill a great many?" And he would reply: "It is not possible to kill a great many, for they run very fast and are very hard to shoot with a bow and arrow." "Let me go with you," she would say, "and I will kill a great many." But he would tell her: "You are a girl, and it is not your place to go hunting. If you were a boy it would be, but as it is you cannot go." And she kept on begging in this way, and he kept on refusing, she saying that she could kill a great many, and he saying that only a man or a boy could shoot many rabbits, because they ran so fast. But as she grew older still she began to follow the hunters, and when the hunting began she would be in the crowd, but she tried to keep out of her uncle's way so that he would not see her. And sometimes when she would thus be following the hunt a rabbit would run in her direction, and she would run fast and jump on it and kill it, and eat it right there; and after a while she could do this oftener and caught a good many; and she would eat all she wanted as she caught them, and the others she gave to her uncle, Ee-ee-toy, to carry home. And Ee-ee-toy came to like to have her with him because of the game she could get. But after a time she did not come home anymore, but staid out in the bushes, living on the game she could get. But when the hunters came out, she would still join them and after killing and eating all she wanted she would give the rest of her kill to her uncle, as before. And so she contrived to live in the wild places, like a wild-cat, and in time became able to kill deer, antelopes, and all big game, and yet being part human she would tan buckskin like a woman and do all that a woman needs to do. And she found a cave in the mountain which is called Taht-kum, where she lived, and that cave can be seen now and is still called Hawawk's Cave. But she had been born near where the ruins of Casa Grande now are and claimed that vahahkkee for her own. And when she knew a baby had been born there she would go to the mother and say, "I want to see my grandchild." But if the mother let her take the baby she would put it over her shoulder, into her gyih-haw, and run to her cave, and put the baby into a mortar, and pound it up and eat it. And she got all the babies she could in this way; and later on she grew bolder and would find the larger children, where they were at play, and would carry them off to eat them. And now she let all the rabbits and such game go, and lived only on the children she caught, for a long time. And Ee-ee-toy told the people what to do in this great trouble. He told them to roast a big lot of pumpkin seeds and to go into their houses and keep still. And when the people had roasted the pumpkin seeds and gone into their houses, Ee-ee-toy came around and stopped up the door of every house with bushes, and plastered clay over the bushes as the Awawtam still do when they go away from home. After a time Hawawk came around, and stood near the houses, and listened, and heard the people cracking the pumpkin seeds inside. And she said: "Where are all my grandchildren? They must have been gone for a long time, for I do not see any tracks, nor hear any voices, and I hear only the rats eating the seeds in the empty houses." And she came several times and saw no one, and really believed the people had gone entirely away. And for a while she did not come any more, but after a time she was one day running by the village and she saw some children playing. And she caught two and ran with them to her cave. And from that day she went on stealing children as before. And Ee-ee-toy made him a rattle, out of a wild gourd, and went and lay on the trail on which Hawawk usually came, and changed himself into the little animal called "Kaw-awts." And when Hawawk came along she poked him with a stick of her gyih-haw and said: "Here is a little kaw-awts. He must be my pet." And then Ee-ee-toy jumped up and shook his rattle at her, and frightened her so that she ran home. And then Ee-ee-toy made rattles for all the children in that place and when they saw Hawawk coming they would shake their rattles at her and scare her back again. But after a while Hawawk became used to the rattles and ceased to fear them, and even while they were shaking she would run and carry some of the children off. And one day two little boys were hunting doves after the manner of the country. They had a little kee of willows, and a hole inside in the sand where they sat, and outside a stick stuck up for the doves to light on. And when the doves came they would shoot them with their bows and arrows. And while they were doing this they saw Hawawk coming. And they said: "What shall we do! Hawawk is coming and will eat us up." And they lay down in the hole in the sand and covered themselves with the dove's feathers. And Hawawk came and said: "Where are my grandchildren! Some of them have been here very lately." And she went all around and looked for their tracks, but could find none leading away from the place. And she came back again to the kee, and while she was looking in a wind came and swept away all the dove-feathers, and she sprang in and caught up the two boys and put them in her gyih-haw and started off. And as she went along the boys said: "Grandmother, we like flat stones to play with. Won't you give us all the flat stones you can find?" And Hawawk picked up all the flat stones she came to and put them one by one over her shoulder into the basket. And the boys said, again, after the basket began to get heavy, "Grandmother, we like to go under limbs of trees. Go under all the low limbs of trees you can to please us." And Hawawk went under a low tree, and one of the boys caught hold of the limb and hung there till she had gone on. And Hawawk went under another tree, and the other boy caught hold of a limb and staid there. But because of the flat stones she kept putting into her gyih-haw Hawawk did not notice this. And when she got to her cave and emptied her basket there were no boys there. And when Hawawk saw this she turned back and found the tracks of the boys, and ran, following after them, and caught up with them just before they got to their village. And she would have caught them there, and carried them off again, but the boys had gathered some of the fine thorns of a cactus, and when Hawawk came near they held them up and let them blow with the wind into her face. And they stuck in her eyes, and hurt them, and she began to rub her eyes, which made them hurt worse so that she could not see them, and then the boys ran home and thus saved their lives. After that she went to another place called Vahf-kee-wohlt-kih, or the Notched Cliffs, and staid around there and ate the children, and then she moved to another place, the old name of which is now forgotten, but it is called, now, Stchew-a-dack Vah-veeuh, or the Green Well. And there, too, she killed the children. And the people called on Ee-ee-toy to help them, and Ee-ee-toy said, "I will kill her at once!" And Ee-ee-toy, being her relative, went to her home and said: "Your grandchildren want some amusement and are going to have dances now every night and would like you to come." And she replied: "You know very well I do not care for such things. I do not care to come." And Ee-ee-toy returned and told the people she did not care to come to their dances, tho he had invited her, but he would think of some other way to get her to come where they were, that they might kill her. And he went a second time, and told her the people were going to sing the Hwah-guff-san-nuh-kotch Nyuee, or Basket Drumming Song, and wanted her to come. But she said: "I have heard of that song, but I do not care to hear it. I care nothing for such things, and I will not come." So Ee-ee-toy returned and told of his second failure, but promised he would try again. And in the morning he went to her and said: "Your grandchildren are going to sing the song Haw-hawf-kuh Nyuee or Dance of the Bone-trimmed Dresses Song and they want you to come." But she said: "I do not care for this song, either, and I will not come." And Ee-ee-toy told of his third failure, but promised the people he would try once more, and when the morning came he went to Hawawk and said: "Your grandchildren are going to dance tonight to the song which is called See-coll-cod-dha-kotch Nyuee," (which is a sort of ring dance with the dancers in a circle with joined hands) "and they want you to come." And she said: "That is what I like. I will come to that. When is it going to be?" And he said: "It will be this very night." And he went and told the people she was coming and they must be ready for her. Hawawk got ready in the early evening and dressed herself in a skirt of soft buckskin. And over this she placed an overskirt of deerskin, fringed with long cut fringes with deer-hoofs at the ends to rattle. And then she ran to the dancing place; and the people could hear her a long way off, rattling, as she came. And they were already dancing when she arrived there, and she went and joined hands with Ee-ee-toy. And Hawawk was a great smoker, and Ee-ee-toy made cigarettes for her that had something in them that would make folks sleep. And he smoked these himself, a little, to assure her, but cautiously and moderately, not inhaling the smoke, but she inhaled the smoke, and before the four nights were up she was so sleepy that the people were dragging her around as they danced, and then she got so fast asleep that Ee-ee-toy carried her on his shoulder. And all the time they were dancing they were moving across country, and getting nearer the cave where she lived, and other people at the same time were ahead of them carrying lots of wood to her cave. And when they arrived at her cave in the mountain of Tahtkum they laid her sleeping body down inside, and placed the wood in the cave between her and the door, filling it all to the entrance, which they closed with four hurdles, such as the people fasten their doors with, so that she could not run out. And then they set the wood on fire, and it burned fiercely, and when the fire reached Hawawk she waked and cried out. "My grandchildren, what have I done that you should treat me this way!" And the fire hurt her so that she jumped up and down with pain, and her head struck the ceiling of the cave and split the rock. And when the people saw it they called to Ee-ee-toy, and he went and put his foot over the crack, and sealed it up, and you may see the track of his foot there to this day. But Ee-ee-toy was not quick enough, and her soul escaped through the crack. And then for a while the people had peace, but in time her soul turned into a green hawk, and this hawk killed the people, but did not eat them. And this made the people great trouble, but one day a woman was making pottery and she had just taken one pot out of the fire and left another one in the furnace, on its side, when this hawk saw her and came swooping down from high in the air to kill her, but missed her, and went into the hot pot in the fire, and so was burned up and destroyed. And one day they boiled greens in that pot, the greens called choo-hook-yuh, and the greens boiled so hard that they boiled over, and splashed around and killed people. And they boiled all day and stopped at night, and at daybreak began again to boil, and this they did for a long time; boiling by day and stopping at night. And the people sent for Toehahvs who lived in the east, and Gee-ah-duk Seeven, or Strong Bow Chief, who lived where is now the ruin of Aw-awt-kum Vah-ahk-kee, to kill the pot for them. And when they arrived Geeahduk Seeven enquired if the pot slept. And the people said: "Yes, it sleeps all night." Then said Geeahduk Seeven, "We will get up very early, before the pot wakes, and then we will kill it." But Toehahvs said; "That is not right, to go and kill it at night. I am not like a jealous woman who goes and fights her rival in the darkness. I am not a woman, I am a man!" And Toehahvs said to Geeahduk Seeven: "I will go in the morning to attack the pot and I want you to go on the other side, and if the pot throws its fluid at me, so that I cannot conquer it, then do you run up on the other side and smash it." Then Toehahvs took his shield and his club, in the morning, and went to attack the pot. But the pot saw him, and, altho he held up his shield, it boiled over, and threw the boiling choohookyuh so high and far that some of it fell on Toehahvs' back and scalded it. And Toehahvs had to give back a little. But at that moment Geeahduk Seeven ran in on the other side and smashed the pot. And there was an old man with an orphan grandson, living near there, and when the pot was smashed these came to the spot and ate up the choohookyuh. And at once they were turned into bears, the old man into a black bear, the boy into a brown bear. And these bears also killed people, and tho the people tried to kill them, for a long time they could not do so. When they shot arrows at the bears, the bears would catch them and break them up. And so the people had to study out other ways to get the better of them. There is a kind of palm-tree, called o-nook, which has balls where the branches come out, and the people burned the trees to get these balls, and threw them at the bears. And the bears caught the balls, and fought and wrestled with them, and while their attention was taken by these balls the people shot arrows at them and killed them. And thus ended forever the evil power of Hawawk. NOTES ON THE STORY OF HAWAWK The Story of Hawawk opens with an interesting reference to the favorite Pima game of football. The ball was about two and one half inches in diameter, merely a heavy pebble coated thick with black greasewood gum. Sometimes it was decorated with little inlays of shell. It was thrown by the lifting of the naked or sandaled foot, rather than kicked. Astonishing tales are told of the running power and endurance of the older Indians. White and red men agree in the testimony. Emory says of the Maricopa interpreter, Thirsty Hawk, before alluded to, that he came running into their camp on foot and "appeared to keep pace with the fleetest horse." Whittemore, the missionary, says: "Some young women could travel from forty to fifty miles in sixteen hours, and there were warriors who ran twenty miles, keeping a horse on a canter following them." G. W. Mardis, the trader at Phoenix, told me he had known Indians to run all day, and my interpreter told me of Pimas running forty to seventy miles in a day, hunting horses on the mountains. Others ran races with horses and with a little handicap and for moderate distance often beat them. On these long runs after horses the men took their footballs and kept them going, saying it made the journey amusing and less tiresome. And undoubtedly it was, in the practice of this sport, that their powers were developed. Beside the usual foot-races, in which all Indians delight, it often happened that two champions would, on a set day, start in different directions and chase their footballs far out on the desert, perhaps ten miles and then return. The one who came in first was winner. The whole tribe, in two parties, on horseback as far as they could get mounts, followed the champions, as judges, assistants, critics and friends and there was profuse betting and picturesque excitement and display. But the fine old athletic games seem to have all died out now. Stories of miraculous conception are not uncommon in Indian tradition, and this story of the bewitching of the young girl into motherhood thru the agency of the football is an instance. This gruesome and graphic tale is full of insight into Indian thought and fancy. In reading it we are reminded of many familiar old nursery tales of kidnapped child, pig or fowl ("the little red hin" of Irish legend for instance) and of Were-Wolf and Loup-Garou. And here reappears the old myth of some god's or hero's footstep printed in solid rock. Here is a hint, too, of transmigration in the various adventures of the soul of Hawawk. My Indian hosts cooked me a pot of choohookyuh greens, and I found them very palatable. The reference to the pottery making reminds me of Pima arts. Today the Maricopas have almost a monopoly of pottery making, tho the Quohatas make some good pottery too. It is shaped by the hands (no potters wheel being known) and smoothed and polished by stones, painted red with a mineral and black with mezquite gum and baked in a common fire. It is often very artistic in a rude way, in form and decoration. The Papagoes do most of the horse-hair work, chiefly bridles, halters and lariat ropes, and make mats and fans from rushes. The Pimas make the famous black and white, watertight baskets, which are too well known to need description. The black in these is shreds of the dead-black seed pod of the devil-claw and not some fibre dyed black, as some suppose. There seems to have been no original bead work among Pima Indians. THE STORY OF TAWQUAHDAHMAWKS AND HER CANAL And after this the people had long peace, increased in numbers, and were scattered all around. Some lived where the old vahahkkees now are in the Gila country, and some lived in the Papago country, and some in the Salt River country. And those who lived where the mound now is between Phoenix and Tempe were the first to use a canal to irrigate their land. And these raised all kinds of vegetables and had fine crops. And the people of the Gila country and the people of the Salt River country at first did not raise many vegetables, because they did not irrigate, and they used to visit the people who did irrigate and eat with them; but after a while the people who lived on the south side of the Salt River also made a canal, and you can see it to this day. But when these people tried their canal it did not work. When they dammed the river the water did not run, because the canal was uphill. And they could not seem to make it deeper, because it was all in a lime rock. And they sent for Ee-ee-toy to help them. And Ee-ee-toy had them get stakes of ironwood, and sharpen them, and all stand in a row with their stakes in their hands at the bottom of the canal. And then Ee-ee-toy sang a song, and at the end of the song the people were all to strike their stakes into the bottom of the canal to make it deeper. But it would not work, it was too hard, and Ee-ee-toy gave it up. And Ee-ee-toy said: "I can do no more, but there is an old woman named Taw-quah-dahm-awks (which means The Wampum Eater) and she, tho only a woman, is very wise, and likely can help you better than I. I advise you to send for her." And the people sent for her, and she said: "I will come at once." And she came, as she had promised, but she did not go to where the people were assembled, but went right to the canal. And she had brought a fog with her, and she left the fog at the river, near the mouth of the canal. And she went up the course of the canal, looking this way and that, to see how much up-hill it ran. And when she reached where the canal ran up-hill she blew thru it the breath which is called seev-hur-whirl, which means a bitter wind. And this wind tore up the bed of the canal, as deep as was necessary, throwing the dirt and rocks out on each side. And then the fog dammed up the river and the water ran thru the canal. Then the old woman did not go near the people, but went home, and in the morning, when one of the people went to see why the old woman did not come, he saw the canal full of water and he yelled to everybody to come and see it. And in this way these people got water for their crops and were as prosperous as the others below them. NOTES ON THE STORY OF TAWQUAHDAHMAWKS In this story we find proof that the oldest digging utensil was a sharpened stake. Before these people became agricultural they must have subsisted mainly on the game and wild fruits of the desert. They showed me several seed-bearing bushes and weeds which in old time had helped to eke out for them an existence. Starvation must have often stared them in the face, and the references to hunger, and the prophecies of plenty, and of visits to relatives whose crops were good, are scattered pathetically all thru these legends. And indeed, until very recently, mezquite beans and the fruit of various cactus plants were staple articles of food. Mezquite beans grow in a pod on the thorny mezquite trees. The gathering of them was quite a tribal event, large parties going out. The beans when brought home were pounded in the chee-o-pah, or mortar, which was made by burning a hollow in the end of a short mezquite log, set in the ground like a low post. A long round stone pestle, or vee-it-kote, was used to beat with, and sometimes the cheeopah itself was of stone. But stone mortars were usually ancient and dug from out the vahahkkee ruins. The beans, crushed very fine and separated from the indigestible seeds, packed into a sweet cake that would keep a year. Various cactus fruits were eaten. They warned me that for a novice to eat freely of prickly pears produced a lame, sore feeling, as if one had taken cold or a fever. I noticed no symptoms however. The fruit of the giant cactus is gathered from the top, around which it grows like a crown, by a long light pole, made from the rib of the same cactus, with a little hook at its end made by tying another short piece, slant-wise, across. They called the constellation of Ursa Major, Quee-ay-put, or The Cactus-Puller, from a fancied resemblance to this familiar implement. The giant cactus, or har-san, was eaten ripe, or dried in the sun, or boiled to a jam and sealed away in earthern jars. They also fermented it by mixing with water, and made their famous tis-win or whiskey from it. They had "big drunks" at this time, in which all the tribe joined in a general spree. A sort of large worm (larva) was also gathered in large quantities, boiled and eaten with salt. The confusion in the Pima thought on religious matters is well revealed in this tale, in which Ee-ee-toy, who may be regarded as a god, frankly admits that in some matters an old woman may be wiser and more powerful than he. Nothing appears to have been very clearly defined in their faith except that a mahkai might be or do almost anything. HOW NOOEE KILLED EE-EE-TOY Ee-ee-toy lived in the Salt River Mountain, which is called by the Awawtam Moehahdheck, or the Brown Mountain, and whenever the girls had ceremonial dances because of their arrival at womanhood he would come and sing the appropriate songs. And it often happened that he would tempt these young girls away to his mountain, to be his wives, but after keeping them awhile he would grow tired of them and send them back. And the people disliked Ee-ee-toy because of this. And when they had crops, too, Ee-ee-toy would often shoot his hot arrows thru the fields, and wither up the growing things; and tho the people did not see him do this, they knew he was guilty, and they wanted to kill him, but they did not know how to do it. And the people talked together about how they could kill Ee-ee-toy. And two young boys, there were, who were always together. And as they lay at the door of their kee they heard the people talking of sending bunches of people here and there to kill Ee-ee-toy, and one said: "He is only one, we could kill him ourselves." And the other one said: "Let us go and kill him, then." So the two boys went to Moehahdheck, and found Ee-ee-toy lying asleep, and beat him with their clubs, and killed him, and then came back and told the people of what they had done. But none of the people went to see the truth of this and in the morning Ee-ee-toy came again, just as he used to do, and walked around among the people, who said among themselves: "I thought the boys said they had killed him." And that same night all the people went to Moehahdheck, and found Ee-ee-toy asleep, and fell upon him and killed him. And there was a pile of wood outside, and they laid him on this and set fire to the wood and burned his flesh. And feeling sure that he was now dead, they went home, but in the morning there he was, walking around, alive again. And so the people assembled again, and that night, once more, they killed him, and they cut his flesh up into little bits, and put it into a pot, and boiled it, and when it was cooked they threw it all away in different directions. But in the morning he was alive again and the people gave it up for that time. But after awhile they were planning again how to kill him; and one of them proposed that they all go and tie him with ropes and take him to a high cliff, and push him off, and let him fall. And so they went and did this, but Ee-ee-toy was not hurt at all. He just walked off, when he reached the bottom, and looked up at the people above him. The next scheme was to drown him. They caught him and led him to a whirlpool, and tied his hands and feet and threw him in. But he came up in a few minutes, without any ropes on, and looked at the people, and then dived, and so kept on coming up and diving down. And the people, seeing they could not drown him, went home once more. Then Nooee called the people together and said: "It is of no use for you to try to kill Ee-ee-toy, for you cannot kill him. He is too powerful for men to kill. He has power over the winds, and all the animals, and he knows all that is going on in the mountains, and in the sky. And I have power something like him." So Nooee told the people to come in, that evening, to his house. He said: "I will show you part of my power, and I want everyone to see it." And Nooee lived not far from where Ee-ee-toy did, south of the Moehahdheck mountain, at a place called Nooee Vahahkkee, and that was where he invited the people to come. And so, when the people assembled at Nooee Vahahkkee, Nooee made earth in his habitation, and mountains on it, and all things on it, in little as we say, so that the people could see his power; for Juhwerta Mahkai had made him to have power, tho he had not cared to use it. And he made a little world in his house for them to look at, with sun, moon and stars working just as our sun and stars work; and everything exactly like our world. And when night came, Nooee pushed the darkness back with his hands, and spread it on the walls, so that the people could see his little world and how it worked. And he was there four days and four nights, showing this wonder to the people. And after this Nooee flew up thru the openings in the roof of his house, and sat there, and saw the sun rise. And as soon as the sun rose Nooee flew towards it, and flew up and up, higher and higher, until he could see Ee-ee-toy's heart. And he wore a nose ring, as all the brave people did, a nose ring of turquoise. But from his high view he saw that everything looked green and so he knew he could not kill Ee-ee-toy that day. And the next day he did the same thing, only he wore a new nose-ring, made of a sparkling shell. And when he got up high enuf to see Ee-ee-toy's heart he saw that the ground looked dry, and he was very much pleased, for he knew that now he would, someday, kill Ee-ee-toy. And he went home. And the third morning Nooee again put on his nose ring of glittering shell, and flew up to meet the Sun, and he flew up and up until he came to the sun himself. And Nooee said to the Sun: "You know there is a Person, on earth, called Ee-ee-toy, who is very bad, and I want to kill him, and I want your help, and this is the reason I come to you." And Nooee said to the Sun: "Now you go back, and let me shine in your place, and I will give just as much light as you do, but let me have your vi-no-me-gaht, your gun, to shoot with, when I get around to your home." And the Sun said: "Moe-vah Sop-hwah, that is all right. But I always go down over yonder mountain, and when you get to that mountain just stop and look back, and see how the world looks." And Nooee took the Sun's place, and went down, that evening, over the mountain, stopping, as he was told, to see how wonderful the world looked; and when he came to the Sun's home, the sun gave him the weapon he shot with. And the next morning Nooee rose in place of the Sun, and after rising a little he shot at the earth, and it became very hot. And before noon he shot again, and it was still hotter. And Ee-ee-toy knew, now that he was going to be killed, but he tried to use all his power to save himself. He ran around, and came to a pond where there had always been ice, and he jumped in to cool himself, but it was all boiling water. And when it was nearly noon Nooee shot again, and it became terribly hot, and Ee-ee-toy ran for a rock which had always been cold, but just before he got there the heat made the rock burst. And he ran to a tree, whose cool shade he often enjoyed, but as he came near it the tree began to burst into flame, and he had to turn back. And now it was noon, and Nooee shot again. And Ee-ee-toy ran to a great post, all striped around with black and white, which had been made by his power, and which had a hollow that was always cool inside, and was about to put his arms around it when he fell down and died. So Ee-ee-toy was dead, and Nooee went down to his setting, and returned the weapon to the Sun, and then went home to his vahahkkee. THE SONG OF NOOEE WHEN HE WENT TO THE SUN The Rising (Sun) I am going to meet. (Repeated many times) WHEN NOOEE KILLED EE-EE-TOY [4] (A Song) The gun, he gave it to me as a cane; With it I killed the Brother's heart. NOTES ON HOW NOOEE KILLED EE-EE-TOY The hot arrows of Ee-ee-toy, that withered the crops, remind us of Apollo. The idea often comes up in these stories that a person possessing the powers of a mahkai was hard to kill, having as many lives as a cat. It would also appear that there was a confusion as to what constituted killing, anyway. They perhaps regarded mere unconsciousness as death. Both Ee-ee-toy and Nooee are "killed," but after an interval are alive again. And Whittemore relates: "An Apache, seeing Louis, the Pima interpreter, came to him in high glee. Taking his hand, he said: 'You are the Pima who killed me years ago.' Louis then recognized him as the man to whom he had dealt a heavy blow with a warclub, and then left him for dead on the battle-field." Is there any connection between the the fact that when Nooee wore a nose-ring of turquoise the earth looked green, and that when he wore a nose-ring of glittering shell the earth looked dry to him? Could this whole story have been a myth of some great drouth? EE-EE-TOY'S RESURRECTION AND SPEECH TO JUHWERTA MAHKAI And after Ee-ee-toy was dead he lay there, as some say for four months, and some say for four years. He was killed, but his winds were not killed, nor his clouds and they were sorry for him, and his clouds rained on him. And he lay there so long that the little children played on him, jumping from him. But at last he began to come to life again, holding down the ground--as a wounded man does, moaning, and there was thunder, and an earthquake. And Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai's daughter was grinding corn when this happened, and the corn rolled in the basket, and she said: "How is it that it thunders when there are no clouds, none to be seen, and that the corn rolls in the basket?" And her father said: "You may think this is only thunder, but I tell you wonderful things are going to happen." Ee-ee-toy, when he got a little stronger, picked up some stones and examined them, and threw them away. He did this four times, throwing away the stones each time, not liking any of them. And the children went there to play, and found him alive, and asked each other: "Why is that old man doing that, picking up stones, and throwing them away, and picking up more?" And he began then to cut up all kinds of sticks, four at a time, and to lay them down and look at them, but he liked none of them. Then he cut arrow weeds, four of them, and he liked their look. And he lit his pipe and blew the smoke over them, and spread his hand above them, and he liked the light of them which came thru his fingers. And he put those sticks away in his pouch. And then he rose and took a few steps, and began to walk. And all his springs of water had been dried up while he was dead, but when he walked the earth again they gushed forth, and he dipped his fingers in them and stroked his wet fingers over his breast and he did the same to the trees. And he went on and came to the cliff, where Vandaih once was, and he did the same to it, putting his hand to it and rubbing it. And he went to see the Sun. He came to where the Sun starts, but the Sun was not there, but he could see the road the Sun takes, and he followed it. And that road was fringed with beautiful feathers and flowers and turquoises. And he came to the tree which is called The Talking Tree. And the Tree took of its bark thin strips, which curled as owl feathers do when split, and tied them on a little stick, and put them in Ee-ee-toy's hair. And it gave him four sticks, made from that one of its branches which dipped to the south. And from its middle branch it made him a war club, and from a gall, or excrescence, which grew on its limb, it made him a vah-quah, or canteen. After that he went along the beautiful fringed road which the Sun travels, and came to the place where the Sun drinks. And he took a drink there himself, putting his knee in the spot where the Sun's knee-print is, and his hand where the Sun rests his hand. And in the clear water he saw a stone like the Doctors' Stone, somewhat, but of the color of slate, with a zigzag pattern around it. And he took his four arrow-weeds and placed them under this stone and left them there. And he went on, and went down where the Sun goes down. And he went to see Juhwerta Mahkai, to the place where he lived with his people, those who sank thru the earth before the flood. And when Ee-ee-toy came to where Juhwerta Mahkai was, he said to him:-- "There was an Older Brother, and his people were against him; And he had made an earth that was like your earth; And he had made mountains that were like your mountains; And he had made springs of water, like yours, that were satisfactory; And he made trees like yours, and everything that he made worked well. And they shot him till he bounced, four times on the open ground; And threw him with his face to the earth. And he lay there, dead, but when he came to life he used the strength of his right arm and rose up. But things were changed, and looked different from the old times. He examined the sticks, but none suited him; He eyed along the river, that green snake, which he had made, and found the sticks that pleased him. And he cut those arrow-weeds, he found there, into four pieces, and blew the smoke over them. And out of them came sparks of light, that almost reached the Opposite World, the World of the Enemy, where things are different. And when he saw the light from the sticks he smiled within himself; He was so pleased he had found the sticks that suited him. And he brought the Black Fog from the West, and stroked the sticks with it, and so finished them, And from the Ocean he brought the Blue Fog, and stroked the sticks with it, and finished them; And from the East he brought the Fog of Light, and stroked the sticks with it and finished them; And from Above brought the Green Fog, and put it in hiding, and there secretly stroked the sticks with it, and finished them; From the West he brought the Black Snake, which he had made, and bound the sticks together, and finished them. And from the Ocean he brought the Blue Snake, and bound the sticks together, and finished them; From the East he brought the Snake of Light, and bound the sticks together, and finished them; And from Above he brought the Green Snake, and bound them together and finished them. And then he rose up, and with the first step he stepped on the great doctors of the earth and sank them down; The next step he stepped on the Speaker, and sank him down; The next step he stepped on the Slayer, and sank him down; And the next step he stepped on the rushing young maid who gathers the fruit to feed the family, and sank her down. And then he sank down himself, and walked under the earth's crust a little way, and then came out and found the Light's Road, his own proper way, and walked in it. Where he found his springs of water, which he had made, with their green moss growing, and dipped his hand in them and moistened his heart; And every mountain he came to, which he had made, he entered and there he cooled his heart; And rested his hand on every tree he had made, and so freshened his heart; And came like a ghost to the place, the cliff, where he had killed the man-eagle, and sat there. And there was Someone there, whom he did not know, who asked him what he wanted, coming there like a ghost; Who said: 'I told you that you would be against my people and the earth!' And from there he went to the East and strengthened himself four times; When he arrived at where the Sun arises; Where he came to the four notches which the Sun uses when he is rising. And where the Sun steps it is full of wind; And where the Sun puts his hands it is full of wind. In spite of that he climbed the way, the way in which the Sun rises. And he went Westward, stopping and taking his breath four times; Even at the fourth time, still going, still breathing westward. It was the west-bound road he followed, the road adorned with all beautiful fringes; Fringes of soft feathers, and large feathers; and flowers made from beautiful trees, and turquoises. And he went along this road, pulling all the fringes, and whenever he came to the doctors, tossing them up in the air. And there he came to Nee-yaw-kee-tom Oas, The Talking Tree; And he came to it like a ghost, and fell down on his knees toward it; And the Tree asked him why he came like a ghost, and what he wanted:-- 'I have told you that some day you would be the enemy to my people and to the earth.' There the Tree pulled off its bark and stuck it in his head, like split owl feathers; And it was its middle branch which it cut down in fine shape for a club and slipped under his belt; And it was a nut-gall from its limbs which it made into a canteen for him. And these two together it slipped under his belt. And it was the branch toward the ocean which it broke into four pieces, equally, and handed to him. And from thence he travelled on, on the Middle Road, and where there were beautiful fringes he examined them as he went along. And from the Middle Road he could see the road on either side, the Road of the Enemy. And it was among the fringes, where he was pulling the flowers made from sticks, that he reached the Speaker and tossed him, too. And there he reached the place where the Sun drinks. And tho the print of the Sun's knee was full of wind, and the print of his hand full of wind, there he knelt and drank as the Sun drinks. And there, in the clear water, he found the Doctor's stone, the Dab-nam-hawteh, which is square, and there, under it, left the arrow-weeds. And he started on from thence and went to the Sunset Place. Going down as the Sun goes down, and slid down from there four times, to the home of Juhwerta Mahkai. When he sat down there a strong wind came from the West and carried him to the East and brought him back and sat him down again; And from Above a strong wind came and tossed him up toward the sky, and returned him back and sat him down again. And the Black Gopher, his pet from the West, was rolling over; And the Blue Gopher, his pet from the South, was rolling over; And the Gopher of Light, his pet from the East, was rolling over; And the Yellow Gopher, his pet from the North, was rolling over; Because of their trouble about him." And Juwerta Mahkai picked up Ee-ee-toy like a baby, and held him in his arms, and swept the ground, and set him down upon it. And blew smoke over him, till he felt refreshed like a green tree. One kind of smoke was the ghost-smoke, which he blew over him; And the other kind was the smoke of the root called bah-wiss-dhack. And there they built the O-num of Light: Which means the circle of those great ones around the fire. And thence they sent the Gray Owl, to go around the enemy and breathe over them. Who, when they heard him, were shaking with fear; A fear that pulled out their thoughts so that they knew nothing and were weak in arms and legs, And they could not remember their dreams, and their skins became like the skins of sick people; And their lice became many, and their hair became coarse, and their eyes became sore. And they chose the little Blue Owl and sent him to the enemy, and he breathed over them. And he was invisible because of his blue darkness, and he breathed over them quietly. And they selected a Green Road Runner, and sent him to breathe over them. And the people could not see him because of his green darkness, and he breathed over them quietly. And they selected the small Gray Night Hawk; And he blew a gray dust all thru the enemy's houses and swept their ground. And their springs of water were left dry, choked with driftwood and covered with cobwebs. And their kees, their houses, were full of soot, and their trails like old trails; And after that the fresh foot-tracks could be seen-- And they went out and found the enemy by his fresh tracks and captured him, for he had no weapons. And from the sending out of the birds, even to the end, all this is a prophecy. NOTES ON EE-EE-TOY'S RESURRECTION The Story of Ee-ee-toy's Resurrection is perhaps the most poetic in the series, and the opening picture of him lying on the ground, lifeless, with the elements lamenting over him and the little children playing on him, might challenge the genius of a great artist. It is particularly rich in the mystical element also. I confess that I am not very confident of my rendering of those of the opening sentences of Ee-ee-toy's speech between "And he had made an earth" and the statement "And they shot him," etc. My Indians seemed to get hopelessly tangled over archaic words and other impediments here and not at all sure of what they told me. The rest I think is correct. Here we came to the mystic colors of the four quarters, North, South, East and West and of the zenith, the Above, which the Pimas reckoned evidently as a cardinal point. If their mystic power was derived from the cardinal points, might not their inclusion of the zenith make five also sometimes a mystic number? I think that it perhaps was. Brinton says that among the Mayas of Yucatan, East is Red, West is Black, North is White and South is Yellow. The Speaker: It was customary in the villages of the Awawtam for some individual, perhaps a chief, or a mahkai, or some representative of these, to mount on a kee, or other high place, and in a loud voice shout news, orders, advice, or other important matters to the people. This was the Speaker, a sort of town crier. To step on the rushing young maid who gathered the cactus fruit was a blow at the enemy's subsistence. It seems to have been a custom among the mahkais to have pet animals to assist them in their magic. A circle of bushes, stood up in the earth, forming a screen for shelter or privacy, was called an onum. One or more may be found near almost any Pima hut. To work witchcraft on a foe, so that he be left weaponless and helpless, and off his guard against attack, seems to have been the favorite dream of whoso went to war. Treachery was idolized. There was no notion of a fair fight. Stories of mythical beings who, tho repeatedly killed, persist in coming to life again, are common among many Indian tribes. STORIES OF THE THIRD NIGHT THE STORY OF EE-EE-TOY'S ARMY And after Ee-ee-toy was thru speaking Juhwerta Mahkai addressed him, and promised him his help, and that he would lead out to earth again his people, who had sunk down before the flood, that these might fight against the people whom Ee-ee-toy had made and who now had turned against him. So when his people heard this they gathered together all their property that they could carry, to take to earth with them. And Juhwerta Mahkai said to Ee-ee-toy: "You go ahead of the people and I will follow." And they went out in bands. The first band was called the Mah-mahk-Gum. These were led by Ee-ee-toy, and their color was red. The second band was called Ah-pah-pah Gum. And their colors were white and yellow. The third band was called Vah-vah Gum. And their color was red. The fourth band was called Ah-pah-kee Gum. And their colors were white and yellow. The fifth band was called Aw-glee Gum. And their color was red. And the sixth band was called Ah-pel-ee Gum. And their colors were white and yellow. And these bands were so called because it was by these names they called their fathers. As they were going to start they sent the Yellow Gopher ahead to open a way for them to this earth. And the gyih-haws were loaded with their belongings, and stood up beside the ranks. And the bands went thru, one by one. And when the fifth band was partly thru Toe-hahvs looked back and saw the gyih-haws walking beside the ranks, and he was amused and said: "I don't think there will be enemies enuf for us to kill, we are so many, and there are these other things, beside us, that look so funny." And he began to laugh. And as soon as he laughed the gyih-haws stopped walking, and ever since they have never walked, and the women have been obliged to carry them. And after these words, too, the earth closed up, so that the sixth band and part of the fifth band were left behind. And Juhwerta Mahkai was left behind, also, and only Ee-ee-toy and Toe-hahvs, and some other powerful men, went thru to lead the people. And after they had come out a little way they came to a place called the White Earth. And Ee-ee-toy stopped then and the others camped with him. And there the powerful men all sang, and the people joined in, and all dressed themselves in their war-bonnets, and attired themselves for war, and had a great war dance together. And they went on again, another journey, and camped at the place called Black Mountain, and again sang and danced a war dance. So they went on, slowly, camping at one place, sometimes, for many days or several weeks, making their living by hunting game. And whenever they stopped they sent scouts and spies ahead to look out for the next stopping-place, so that they might go ahead safely. And this went on for many years. And there were no deer in those days, and Ee-ee-toy said to the wood-rat: "Let me make a deer of you." And the wood-rat said: "Moevah Sophwah" (all right). But when Ee-ee-toy took out his knife and began to cut at his skin to change him into a deer, he cried out so hard that Ee-ee-toy let him go. And you may see the knife mark on his chest and neck to this day. And Ee-ee-toy asked another rat, the little one with coarse hair, called Geo-wauk-kuh-wah-paw-kum, if he might make him into a deer, and the little rat said "Moevah Sophwah!" And this little rat was brave, and let Ee-ee-toy cut and change him, and he became a deer. And Ee-ee-toy said: "You shall not be like some animals, that love to roam all over, you shall love only one spot and wish to stay there." And that is why, to this day, the deer do not care to leave their own places and wander as coyotes do. So there were now plenty of deer, and the people had something new to live upon. And there were two brothers who were especially good at hunting the deer. Their names were Hay-mohl and Soo-a-dack Cee-a-vawt. And they hunted as the people marched, and kept them well supplied with deer-meat. And there was a doctor among them who took the ears and tail of the deer and worked such witchcraft on them that the deer could hide away so well that the hunters could not see them. They hunted, as the people journeyed along, but all in vain. And the hunters in their trouble sought to get help from a doctor, and they happened to go to the very one who had helped the deer, and they told him they wanted help to find the deer, for the children were crying and hungry and they wanted meat to feed them. And the doctor said: "I guess the trouble is that you look for the deer in the old places, where you have already killed them. If you will hunt for them in the 'cheeks' (the outlying flanks) of our line of march, you will find them." And the hunters hunted for the deer in the cheeks but could not find them. And they went that evening to the same doctor and told him of their bad luck, and the doctor said: "If you will look for them next time in the little valleys between the hills, I think, you will find them, for they like to go there." And the hunters went the next day and looked in the little valleys, but could not find the deer, and they came that evening and told the doctor of their bad luck. And he said: "If you hear of anyone who chances to kill a deer, even if it is only a fawn, bring me the tips of its ears, and of its tail, and of its nose." And the doctor said: "I want you to bring me these because a deer feels first with his tail that some one is after him, and, second, hears with his ears that some one is near, and, third, smells danger with his nose. And that is why I want you to bring me these." The next day these brothers were in a crowd and heard that a fawn had been killed, and went to it and cut off the tips of its tail and of its ears and of its nose and brought these to the doctor. And the doctor took these, and then he took those which he had used at first to hide the deer with, and with these in his hand he began to sing. And in his song he asked one of the brothers, Haymohl, for the turquoise earrings which he wore; and then he asked Sooadack Ceeavawt for the beads which were around his neck. But the brothers kept on listening to his song and did not understand what he meant. And he told them to hunt the next day near the crowd of people, and they did so and killed a fawn, and took it home and had meat with their family. And then they went again to the doctor; who again sang his song, asking for the same gifts. And this time the brothers understood him and Haymohl said: "O, I never thought of these," and took off his ear rings and gave them to him. And Sooadack Ceeavawt took off his necklace of beads and gave them to him. And the doctor told them that the next day they were to hunt near the crowd, and they would find plenty of deer anywhere they might hunt for them. And he went to where the fawn skin was, and took pieces of its skin and made medicine-bags for the brothers, out of the cheek pieces of the fawn stretched out and made into soft buckskin, and filled these with the scrapings of the buckskin and the tips of the fawn's ears and of his tail and nose and gave one to each of the brothers. And the brothers took these bags, and wore them at their belts, and the next day they went out hunting and in a little while killed a deer, and went on a little further and killed another, and after that found plenty of deer; and from that time on the people had plenty of venison again. And the people marched on in the order of their villages; and a member of one village, a woman, was taken sick, and her fellow-villagers stayed with her to take care of her, and the rest of the army marched on, leaving this village behind. And these remained with her till she died, and buried her, and then journeyed on till they overtook the others. And as they traveled a pestilence broke out, a sickness which spread thru all the villages and delayed them. But a doctor told them to kill a doe and have a big dance, the dance that is called "Tramping Down the Sickness," that the sick might get well. And they did this and all their sick ones recovered. THE FIRST SONG OF EE-EE-TOY'S ARMY The White Earth I come to and sing; Where many war-bonnets are shaking with the wind; There we come together to dance and to sing. THE DOCTOR'S SONG TO THE HUNTERS Sahn-a-mahl! [5] Haymohl give me the necklace! Sooadack Ceeavawt give me the turquoise ear-rings! THE DESTRUCTION OF THE VAHAHKKEES (The Pima plural of vah-ahk-kee is vahp-ahk-kee, but I have made all plurals English, as more understandable.) And after this they were not sick any more, and they came to the Gila Country, to Ee-ee-toy's land, the Land of the Vahahkkees, and here they divided themselves into four parties, of which one went south; but the doctors united them all by "The Light," so that they would know about each other in case there was a battle in which any needed assistance. And as they came into this country the people there were stirred up with alarm, and the great doctor who lived at Casa Blanca, whose name was Tcheu-tchick-a-dah-tai Seeven, sent his son to Stcheuadack Seeven, at Casa Grande, to enquire if there were any prophecies that he knew of about the coming of this great invading army. So the boy went, but just before he got there he heard a frog, a big one, which Stcheuadack Seeven kept for a pet and to assist him in his work as a doctor, and when the boy heard the frog he was frightened, and ran back, and when his father asked what he had learned, he said: "Nothing, I heard a noise there that frightened me, so I ran home again." And his father said: "That is nothing to be afraid of, that is only the voice of his pet, his frog," and he sent the boy once more. So the boy went again, and came to Stcheuadack Seeven who asked him what his father had sent him for, and the boy replied that his father wanted to know if there were any prophecies about the coming of this enemy, and how he felt about it every evening. When the boy returned his father asked him what Stcheuadack Seeven knew, and how he felt, and the boy said: "He does not know anything. He says he sits out every night, and hears the different animals, and enjoys their pleasant voices, and in the morning he enjoys hearing the sweet songs of the birds, and he always feels good, and does not fear anything." So his father said: "I am well satisfied that I will not be the first to see this thing happen. It will be Stcheuadack Seeven who will first see it, and it will not be ten days before it will occur." And in a few days Ee-ee-toy's army came to the village of Stcheuadack Seeven and killed all the people there. And Geeaduck Seeven, who lived at Awawtkum Vahahkkee, told his people to flee: and many did so and ran to the mountains and other places, but the others who did not run away came to Geeaduck Seeven's house, and he told them to come in there. And the enemy came, and they fought, but it was not easy for Ee-ee-toy's warriors to fight the men of Geeaduck Seeven, because they were nearly all inside, but his men managed to set fire to the house, and so destroyed it, and killed all who were therein. Then Ee-ee-toy's men marched on, north, to where Cheof-hahvo Seeven, or Long Dipper Chief, lived, and as they marched along they sang about the places they were conquering, and they sang of the beads that they expected to get at this village, the beads called sah-vaht-kih, and there was an old woman among them who said: "When you get those beads, I want them." And so when they had conquered that vahahkkee they gave the beads to her. And they went from there to the home of Dthas Seeven, who had a cane-cactus fence about his place, and Ee-ee-toy's men heard of this, and sang about it as they went along. And they took this place and killed Dthas Seeven. And then they went on to where the Casa Blanca vahahkkees now are in ruins; and the great doctor who lived there, the same who had sent his boy to inquire of the prophecies, drew a magic line before his place, so that the enemy could not cross. And when Ee-ee-toy's men came to the line the earth opened, and they could not go further till one of their great doctors, by his power, had closed it, and then they could pass it. And they had a great battle there, for the place was very strong, and hard to get into. And there was a doctor among them called Nee-hum Mah-kai, or Thunder Doctor, and they asked him to use his magic power to tear the place down, and he tried, but could not succeed. And they asked another, called Tchu-dun Mahkai, or Earthquake Doctor, and he tried and failed also. And then they asked another, a little man, not supposed to have much power, and he took a hair from his head, and held it up by the two ends, and sang a song, and turned it into a snake. And he sent the snake, and it struck the house, and shook it so that it broke and fell down from above. And then Ee-ee-toy's men took the place, and killed everybody there except Tcheutchickadahtai Seeven, who escaped and ran on. And one of Ee-ee-toy's warriors pursued him, and was going to strike him with a club when he sank down, and the place where he sank was filled with a fog, so that they could not see him, and he got out on the other side and ran on. But they had a doctor called Ku-mi-wahk Mahkai, or Fog Doctor, and they had him clear away the fog and then they could see him and chased him again. And again, when about to be struck, he sank down, and a mirage filled the place so that they could not see him, for things did not look the same. And he got out beyond, and ran on. And they had a Sas-katch Mahkai, or Mirage Doctor, who cleared away the false appearance, and again they chased him, and were about to kill him, when again he sank. And this time a rainbow filled the place and made him invisible, and again he ran on till their Kee-hawt Mahkai, or Rainbow Doctor, removed the rainbow. And once more they were about to strike him when he sank, and the quivers which heat makes, called coad-jook, filled the hole, and again he got away. But they had a Coadjook Doctor, and he removed it, and then they chased him and killed him. And they went northward again from there. And there was a rattlesnake who had never killed an enemy, and he asked a doctor to help him do this, and the doctor told him he would. And the doctor told his pet gopher to dig a hole to the village of the doctor who lived beyond Od-chee, where is the place called Scaw-coy-enk, or Rattlesnake Village. And this doctor was the speaker of his village, and every morning stood on a big stone and in a loud voice told the people what they were to do. And the gopher dug a hole to this stone, through which the rattlesnake crawled and lay in wait under the stone. And when the doctor came out to speak to his people in the morning, the rattlesnake bit him and then slid back into his hole again. And the doctor came down from the stone, and went into his kee, and fell down there and died. And after taking this place they marched to the place called Ko-awt-kee Oy-yee-duck, or Shell Field, where a doctor-chief lived, named Tcheunassat Seeven, and this place they took, and Ee-ee-toy himself killed this doctor, this being the first foe he had killed. And they went on again to the place where Nooee lived, called Wuh-a-kutch. And Ee-ee-toy said: "When you come there you will know the man who killed me by his white leggings, and when you find him, do not kill him, but capture him, and bring him to me, and I will do what I please with him." And Ee-ee-toy had the Eagle and the Chicken-Hawk go up in the sky to look for Noo-ee, for he said he might go up there. And the Eagle and the Chicken-Hawk found Nooee there, and caught him, and brought him to Ee-ee-toy, who took him and scalped him alive. And Nooee, after he was scalped, fell down and died, and the women came around him, rejoicing and dancing, and singing; "O why is Seeven dead!" And after awhile be began to come to life again, and lay there rolling and moaning. And Ee-ee-toy's men went on again to a village beyond Salt River, where lived a chief who had a brother, and they were both left-handed, but famous shots with the bow. And these brothers put up the hardest fight yet encountered. But when the brothers were too hard pressed they fled to Cheof See-vick, or Tall Red Mountain, and there they kept shooting and killed a great many of Ee-ee-toy's men, who were short of arrows, after so long fighting and many of their bows broken. Because of this, Ee-ee-toy's men had to fall back and surround the place. And when this happened the band that had gone to the south knew by the "Light" that it was so, and came to help them. And these had many bows and arrows, and beside brought wood to mend the broken bows, and wood to make new arrows; and when they came into the place they gave their bows and arrows to Ee-ee-toy's men and made themselves new bows from the wood they had brought. And these men were the ancestors of the Toe-hawn-awh Aw-aw-tam, the present Papagoes, and that is why to this day the Papagoes are most expert in making bows and arrows. And then the fight began again and the two brave brothers were killed. And from there they went on to another awawtkumvahahkkee, where is now Fort McDowell, where lived another seeven whom they fought and conquered. And from there they went on westward thru the mountains. But when they came to Kah-woet-kee, near where is now Phoenix, one of the chiefs in Ee-ee-toy's army said: "I have seen enuf of this country, and I will take this for my part and remain here." And he did so. And the bands went on and came to the Colorado River, and there one of the great doctors, called Gaht Mahkai, or Bow Doctor, struck the river with his bow and laid it down in the water. And the water separated then so that the people were able to go over to the other side. And beyond the Colorado they came to a people who lived in holes in the ground, whom they found it hard to fight, and they asked help of their Thunder Doctor, and when the people came out of their holes to fight he struck right in the midst of them, but killed only one. Then they asked help of the Earthquake Doctor, and he was able to kill only one. And these two were all they killed. And these people were called Choo-chawf Aw-aw-tam, or the Foxes, because they lived in holes. And after the army failed to conquer the Foxes they returned across the Colorado River, near where is now Yuma. And here again the Bow Doctor divided the water for them. But before all the bands were across the waters closed, and some were left behind. And these called to those who were across to have the Bow Doctor hit the waters again, that they also might get there. But those who were across would not do this, but told them that there was plenty of land where they were that would make them a comfortable home. And those left there were the ancestors of the present Yumas and Maricopas. SONG BEFORE THE FIGHT WITH CHEOF-HAHVO SEEVEN [6] In the land where there are a great many galley-worms-- I will get the doctor out, It will lighten his heart. A SONG OF THE DOCTOR WHOSE SNAKE THREW DOWN THE VAHAHKKEE I made the black snake; And he went across and wounded the vahahkkee. NOTES ON THE STORY OF EE-EE-TOY'S ARMY AND THAT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE VAHAHKKEES In the Story of Ee-ee-toy's Army we come to an amusing superstition of the Pimas. There is a funny little creature in Arizona, related to the tarantula, perhaps, which the Pimas say is very poisonous, and which is certainly very quick in motion and the hardest thing to kill I ever saw. It is covered with a sort of fuzzy hair, which blows in the wind, and is sometimes red and sometimes yellow or white. Now there seems to be a connection in the Indian mind between this way-heem-mahl, as they name him, and this story of Ee-ee-toy's Army. The bands, it is related, were distinguished by certain colors--some took red, and some yellow and white, for their badge-color. And the Pimas of today suppose themselves descended from these bands, and some clans claim that the bands of the red were their forbears, and some trace back to the bands of yellow and white. And not many years back there was a rivalry between these, and the wayheemmahls, having the same colors, were identified with the bands, and the Pimas descended from a band of a certain color would not kill a wayheemmahl of that color, or willingly permit others to do so, but would eagerly kill wayheemmahls of the opposite color. If, then, a Pima of the red faction saw a yellow wayheemmahl, running over the ground, he was quick to jump on it; but if a Pima of the yellow stood near he would resent this attack on his relation, and a hair-pulling fight would result. This custom is probably altogether obsolete now. It will be noticed that the fantastic explanations of why gyihhaws are now carried by the women, is contradicted by the carrying of gyihhaws by various women in previous stories. The closing of the earth cuts down the six bands to four and a fraction. Wardances, and extravagant and boastful speeches prophesying success, seem to have preceded all the military movements of the Awawtam. The creation of deer in this story, by Ee-ee-toy, is contrary to their presence in earlier tales, as in that of Ahahnheeattoepahk Mahkai. The careful mention of the sickness and death of an apparently unimportant woman is curious, and hard to explain. Perhaps this was the inauguration of the pestilence. The Story of the Destruction of the Vahahkkees has the most historic interest of any. The uniting of the bands by the "Light" is very curious. My Indians could not tell me what this was, only something occult and mysterious by which they had clairvoyant ken of each other's needs. Its use appears in the fight at Cheof Seevick. The resemblance to the Israelites crossing the Red Sea is remarkable in the exploit of the Bow Doctor, and the crossing of the Rio Colorado. The Choochawf Awawtam appear to have been cave-dwellers, and my Indians were confused in memory as to whether they were encountered on the hither or far side of the Colorado. The statement that the closing of the waters left the Yumas and Maricopas on the far bank of the Colorado is likely only a mahkai's fanciful attempt to explain their presence there. As the Indians of the Yuman stock speak an entirely different language from the Indians of the Piman stock, it is unlikely they were united in the original invading army. There is no other evidence that there ever was any alliance between them till the Maricopas, fearing extermination from the Yumas, joined the Pimas sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century. Comalk Hawkkih gave me this account of the coming in of the Maricopas: The Yumas and the Maricopas were once all one people, but there was a jealousy between two sons of a chief, one of whom was a favorite of his father, and one killed the other, and this grew to a civil war. The defeated party, the Maricopas, went first to Hot Springs, where they staid awhile, and then to Gila Bend, but each time the Yumas followed and attacked them and drove them on. Fearing extermination they came to the Pimas for protection. The Pimas adopted them. Now began war between Yumas and Mohaves on one side, and Pimas, Papagoes and Maricopas on the other. There were only two battles after the Maricopas came in, but in the second battle all the Yuma warriors engaged were killed, and the Mohaves had to flee over the mountain, and only a part of these escaped. This battle was fought at what is now called Maricopa Mountain. So terrible was the defeat, that to this day the Yumas hold an annual "Cry," or lamentation, in memory of it. Their old foes are invited, and if any Pima or Maricopa attends he is given a horse. This war reduced both Yumas and Maricopas to a mere remnant. Since then the Maricopas have lived with the Pimas, and in customs are almost exactly similar, except that they burn their dead, and still speak their distinctive language. They are a taller, larger race than the Pimas, more restless, said to be quicker witted, but more inclined to vice, and to be rapidly dying out; while the Pimas yet hold their own in numbers, despite recent inroads of tuberculosis. THE STORY OF SOHAHNEE MAHKAI AND KAWKOINPUH Now when the bands were going thru this country they had selected the places for their homes, expecting to return, and each band, as it selected its place, drove down short sticks so as to know it again. And after returning across the Rio Colorado the bands went again to these places which they had selected and settled there. Only the Toehawnawh Awawtam (the Papagoes) did not at first go to their selected place, but went on beyond Awn-kee Ack-kee-mull, the Salt River, to where is now Lehi. And there was one doctor among them named So-hah-nee Mahkai, and he had no child, but he had found one of the children belonging to the country, which had been left alive, and he had adopted it for his own. And he went on and lived by himself at the place then called Vah-kah-kum, but now named Stcheu-a-dack-a-Vahf, or Green Cliff. And the Aw-up, or Apaches, were a part of the original people of this country, and this child which Sohahnee Mahkai had adopted was an Apache. And when he had grown up to be quite a large boy the Apaches planned to capture Sohahnee Mahkai; but Sohahnee Mahkai knew of this and told the boy to go to a place where he had been clearing up a farm and to find the stick there with which he had been cutting down bushes, and to dig a hole there under the bushes, and then to come back home and eat his supper. And after he had eaten his supper he was to return to the place where the stick was, and hide in the hole under the bushes which were there. And the boy's name was Kaw-koin-puh, and he dug the hole under the bushes, as he was directed, and returned for his supper. And then Sohahnee Mahkai said to him: "Now to-night the Apaches will come to kill me, but here is a basket-box which I want you to have after I am dead. And when you are safe in your hole you will hear when they come to kill me. But don't you come out till they are far enuf away. Then come and find my body, no matter whether h is here or dragged away. And when you find it, do not mind how stained and bloody it is, but fall upon it, and put your mouth to mine, and inhale, and thus you will inherit my power. And when you leave my body, do not attempt to follow after the Apaches, for they would surely kill you, for tho you are one of them they would not know that, because you do not speak their language. But I want you to return to where we left some people at the place called Vik-kuh-svan-kee." So the boy took the little basket-box, and went to his hole, and early in the evening the Apaches came and surrounded the house, and staid there till near morning, and then began the attack. And the boy could hear the fighting, and could hear Sohahnee Mahkai yell every time his arrow killed anyone; and he could hear the old woman, his wife, shout out in her exultation, too. And it was after the sun was up that the old woman was killed; and then Sohahnee Mahkai ran out and the Apaches chased him and killed him, and said: "Now let us cut him open and find what it is that made him so brave, and enabled him to kill so many of us." And they cut him open and found under his heart a feather of the chicken hawk. And the Apaches took that feather, and that is how they are so brave and even if there are only two of them will often attack their enemies and kill some of them. And after the Apaches were far away the boy came out of his hole and found the old woman, and from there tracked till he found the old man; and he fell over him, as he had been told, and inhaled four times; and then he went to Vikkuhsvankee, but he got there at night, and did not attempt to go into any house, but staid outside all night in the bushes. And in the morning a girl came and found the boy, and went back and told the people there was some one outside who was a stranger there, some one with short hair. And they came and stood around him, and teased him, and threw dirt at him, until finally he cried out: "Don't you remember me, who I am? My name is Kawkoinpuh and I was here once, but went away with the doctor, Sohahnee Mahkai. And now the Apaches have killed him and the old woman, his wife, and I am left alone." And when he said this the people remembered him, and took him by the hand, and led him to a doctor named Gawk-siss Seev-a-lick, who adopted him, and he was treated nicely because he was a good hunter and used to keep the doctor in plenty of game. And the doctor had a daughter, and when she was old enuf he gave her to Kawkoinpuh for his wife. And Kawkoinpuh staid with his wife's people; and his wife expected a child, and wanted different things to eat. So Kawkoinpuh left home and went to the mountain called Vahpkee, and there got her a lot of the greens called choohookyuh. And after a while he wanted to go again, but she said: "Do not go now, for the weather is bad. Wait till it is more pleasant." But he said, "I am going now," and he went. And this time he was hunting wood rats instead of greens, and he had killed three and was trying to scare out the fourth one, where he could shoot it, when the Apaches came and surrounded him a good ways off. He saw them and ran for home, but there were many Apaches in front of him, and they headed him off. But he jumped up and down and sideways, as Sohahnee Mahkai had done, shooting and killing so many that finally he broke thru their ring, and started for home. But he kept turning back and shooting at them as he ran. And one of them came near and was about to kill him, but he shot first and killed the Apache. And then another came near and this time the Apache shot first, and so Kawkoinpuh was killed. And when evening came, Gawksiss Seevalick came out, and called aloud, and invited the people to his house, and asked them if any had seen his son, Kawkoinpuh; who had seen him last; for he knew something had happened to him, as he always came home after his hunt, because he loved his home. But nobody had seen anything of Kawkoinpuh, because no one had been out, the weather being bad. But Gawksiss Seevalick knew the boy was killed, because he was a doctor, and there is a being above, called Vee-ips-chool, who is always sad and who makes people sad when anything bad has happened. So they went out the next morning, and tracked the boy, and came to where he had killed the wood-rats, and then they found the tracks of the Apaches, and then found a great many Apaches whom he had killed, and finally they found his body. The Apaches had cut him open, and taken out his bowels and wound them around bushes, and cut off his arms and legs and hung them on trees. And one of the men, there, told them to get wood and to gather up these parts of Kawkoinpuh's body and burn them. And some of the people remained behind and did this, and then all went home. And in the evening Gawksiss Seevalick again called the people together and sang them a song to express his grief. And the next morning he went with his daughter to where Kawkoinpuh had been burned, and there they found some blood still remaining and buried it. And that evening again he called the people together, and said: "You see what has happened; we have lost one of our number. We ought not to stay here, but to return to the place we first selected." And the people took his advice and got their things ready and started. And they went slow because they were on foot, and it took them four nights to get to the place where they wanted to go. And the first night there was no singing, but the second night there was a doctor named Geo-goot-a-nom-kum who sang a song for them; and the third night there was a doctor named Geo-deck-why-nom-kum who sang a song for them; and on the fourth night there was a doctor named Mahn-a-vanch-kih who sang for them a song. NOTES ON THE STORY OF SOHAHNEE MAHKAI In this we are given a most graphic and pathetic glimpse of Indian warfare. Notice the bushes are "cut down" (broken off more likely) by a stick. A glimpse of the rude old tools. Very poetic is the conception of Veeipschool, "the being above who is always sad, and makes people sad when anything bad has happened." A personification of premonition. THE STORY OF PAHTAHNKUM And when they came to their journey's end the wife of Kaw-koin-puh had a baby, which grew up to be a fine boy, but the mother cried all the time, where-ever she went, on account of her husband's death. And the people, after they had settled down, used to go rabbit-hunting, and the children too, and this boy, Paht-ahn-kum, used to watch them wistfully, and his mother said: "I know what you are thinking of, but there is nothing for you to kill rabbits with. But I will send you to your uncle, my brother, whom I am expecting will make a bow and arrows for you." And the next morning, early, the boy went to his uncle, who said: "Why do you come so early? It is an unusual thing for you to come to see me so early instead of playing with boys and girls of your own age." And the boy replied: "My mother said she was expecting you to make me a bow and arrows." And his uncle said: "That is an easy thing to do. Let us go out and get one." And they went out and found an o-a-pot, or cat-claw tree, and cut a piece of its wood to make a bow, and they made a fire and roasted the stick over this, turning it, and they made a string from its bark to try it with; and then they found arrow-weeds, and made arrows, four of them, roasting these, too, and strengthening them; and then they went home and made a good string for the bow from sinew. And then the boy went home and showed his mother his bow and arrows. And the next morning the children went hunting and little Pahtahnkum went with them to the place of meeting. And they found a quotaveech's nest near them, with young ones in it, and one of the men shot into it and killed one of the young ones, and then the children ran up to join in the killing. And when Pahtahnkum came up, one of the men threw him one of the young birds, and said: "Here, take it, even if your mother does not wish to marry me." And the little boy ran home and gave his game to his mother, and when she saw it she turned her back on it and cried. And he wondered why she cried when he had brought her game and was wishing she would cook it for his dinner. And his mother said: "I never thought my relatives would treat you this way. There is an animal, the caw-sawn, the wood rat, and a bird, the kah-kai-cheu, the quail, and these are good to eat, and these are what they ought to give you, and when they give you those, bring them home and I will cook them for you." She said, further; "This bird is not fit to eat; and I was thinking, while I was crying, that if your father were living now you would have plenty of game, and he would make you a fine bow, and teach you to be as good a hunter as there is. And I will tell you now how your father died. We did not use to live here. But beyond this mountain there is a river, and beyond that another river still, and that is where we lived and where your father was killed by the people called Apaches, and that is why we are here, and why we are so poor now. I am only telling you this so you may know how you came to be fatherless, for I know very well you can never pay it back, for the Apaches are very fierce, and very brave, and those who go to their country have to be very careful; for even at night the Apaches may be near them, and even the sunshine in their country feels different from what it does here." And the little boy, that night, went to his uncle, who asked: "Why do you come to me in the night?" And the little boy said: "I come to you because today I was hunting with the bow and arrows you made me, and someone gave me a little bird, and I was bashful, and brought it right home for my mother to cook for me, and she cried, and then told me about my father and how he died. And I do not see why you kept this a secret from me. And I wish you would tell me what these Apaches look like, that they are so fierce and brave." And his uncle said: "That is so. I have not told you of these things because you are just a baby yet, and I did not intend to tell you until you were a man, but now I know you have sense enuf to wish to learn. There is nothing so very different or dangerous about these Apaches; only their bows, and their arrows of cane are dangerous." And the little boy went on to another doctor, who said: "Why do you come to me? Are you lost? If so, we will take you home." But the little boy said to him: "No, I am not lost, but I want you to tell me one thing--why the Apaches are so dangerous--are they like the har-sen, the giant cactus, with so many thorns?" And the doctor answered: "No, they are men like we are, and have thoughts as we have, and eat as we do, and there is only one thing that makes them dangerous and that is their bows and their arrows of cane." So the little boy went to the next doctor, and this doctor also asked him if he were lost, and he said: "No, but I want you to tell me just one thing--why the Apaches are so dangerous. Are they like the mirl-hawk, the cane-cactus, with so many branches all covered with thorns?" And the doctor replied: "No, they are human beings just as we are, and think just as we do, and eat as we do, and the only things that make them dangerous are their bows and their arrows of cane." And the little boy said: "I am satisfied." But he went yet to another doctor and asked him also why the Apaches were so dangerous, were they like the hah-nem, the cholla cactus? But the doctor said no, and gave the same answer as the others had done, and the little boy said: "I am satisfied, then," and went back to his uncle again and began to question him about what people did when they got ready for war, and what they did to purify themselves afterward, and his uncle said: "It is now late at night, and I want you to go home, and tomorrow come to me, and I will tell you about these things." So the little boy went home, but very early in the morning, before sunrise, he was again at his uncle's house, and came in to him before he was yet up. And his uncle said: "I will now tell you, but we must go outside and not talk in here before other people." And he took the little boy outside, and they stood there facing the east, waiting for the sun to rise, with the little boy on the right of his uncle. And when the sun began to rise the doctor stretched out his left hand and caught a sunbeam, and closed his hand on it, but when he opened his hand there was nothing there; and then he used his right hand and caught a sunbeam but when he opened his hand there was nothing there; and he tried again with his left hand, and there was nothing, but when he tried the second time with his right hand, when he opened it, there was a lock of Apache's hair in his hand. And he took this and put it in the little boy's breast, and rubbed it in there till it all disappeared, having entered into the little boy's body. And then he told the little boy to get him a small piece of oapot or cat-claw tree, but no, he said, I will go myself; and he went and got a little piece of the oapot, and tied a strip of cloth around the boy's head, and stuck the little piece of wood in it, and then told him to go home to his mother and tell her to give him a new dish to eat from. And this stick which the doctor had put into the boy's hair represented the kuess-kote or scratching stick which the Pimas and Papagoes used after killing Apaches, during the purification time; and the doctor had made it from cat-claw wood because the cat-claw catches everybody that comes near, and he wanted the boy to have great power to capture his enemies. And his uncle told the boy to stay at home in the day time, lying still and not going anywhere, but at night to come to him again. "And before you come again," he said, "I will make you something and have it ready for you." And the little boy kept still all that day, but at night he went to his uncle again, and his uncle had four pipes ready for him, made from pieces of cane, and he said, "Now tonight when the people gather here (for it was the custom for many people to come to the doctor's house in the evening) they will talk and have a good time, but after they are thru I will roll a coal from the fire toward you, and then you light one of the pipes and smoke four whiffs, and after that slide the watch-kee, the pipe, along the ground toward me, as is the custom, and I will smoke it four times and pass it to my next neighbor, and he will do the same, and so the pipe will go all around and come back to you. And even when it is out, when it comes back to you, you are to take it and stick the end that was lighted in the ground. So that evening the people all assembled as usual, and told all the news of the day, and about the hunting as was their custom. And when they were thru, and had quieted down, the uncle moved to the fire and rolled a coal toward Pahtahnkum, who took it and lit one of the pipes, and smoked it four times, and then slid it slowly (the pipe must be slid slowly because if it were slid rapidly the enemy would be too quick and escape, but if it is done slowly the enemy will be slow and can be captured) along the ground to his uncle. And his uncle took the watchkee, the pipe-tube, and smoked it also four whiffs, and passed it on, but saying: "Of course you are all aware that if any man among you has a wife expecting to have a baby soon, he should not smoke it, but pass it on without smoking to his neighbor, for if you smoke in such case the child will not be likely to live very long." And so the pipe passed around, and the boy, when the pipe came to him again, buried it as he had been told, and then he began to make this speech:-- "I am nothing but a child, and I go around where the people are cooking and when they give me something to eat I generally suffer because it is so hot. And there was a hunt, and you gave me nothing but a little quotaveech, and stuck it under my belt as if it were something good to eat: and when I took it home to my mother, and dropped it down by her, she turned her back upon it and began to cry. And when she had done crying she told me of all that had happened before, about my father's death, and the story entered my heart; and I went for help to a respectable person, a doctor, one to whom a child would not be likely to go, and he kindly assisted me, and told me what I asked of him. And I wanted to be revenged on the slayers of my father, and in imagination a day was appointed for the war, and I went; and the first night I feared nothing and felt good, and the second night, too, I feared nothing and felt good, but the third night I knew I was in the land of the Apaches, an enemy with shield and club, and I did not feel good, and it seemed to me the world was shaking, and I thought of what my mother had said, that the land of the Apaches was different from ours. And the fourth day I went on and came to the mountain of the Apaches, and I found there the broken arrows of my father's fight; and I sat down, for it seemed to me the mountains and the earth were shaking, and shook my knees, and I thought of what my mother had said that the land of the Apaches felt entirely different. And the next day I went on and came to the water of the Apaches. And my hair lay over the water like moss. And I looked and found my skull, and I used it for a dipper, and parted the hair with it, and dipped up the water and drank it. And when I drank from the skull I felt as if I were crazy, and clutched around with my hands at things that were not there. And from there I went on to another water, and that was covered with the white war-paint of my hair, which lay like ashes on the water, and I looked around and found my skull, and drank from that water, and it smelled strong to me like the smell of human flesh and of black war-paint. And all this was caused in my imagination by the thought of my dead father, and of how the Apaches had gone along rejoicing because they had killed him. And the next place was a great rock, and I sat down under it, and it was wet with my tears; and the winds of the power of my sadness blew around the rock four times, and shook me. In the far east there is a gray cousin, the Coyote, and he knows where to find the Apaches, and he was the first I selected to help me and be my comrade, and he took my word, and joined me; and stood up and looked, and saw the Apaches for me and told me; and I had my band ready, and my boys captured the Apaches, who had no weapons ready to injure them. And after killing them I took their property, and I seemed to get all their strength, all their power. And I came home, bringing all the things I had captured, and enriched my home, strengthening myself four times, and the fame of my deed was all over the country. And I went to the home of the doctor, taking the child I had captured, and when we were there the blue tears fell from the eyes of the child onto my boys and girls. And all of you, my relatives, should think of this, and be in favor of the war, remembering the things we have captured, and the enemies we have killed, and should make your singing all joy because of our past successes." And after the speech was done, feeling it the speech of a child, the people were silent, but at length Toehahvs said: "I like the way of the child, because I am sure he is to be a powerful person, perhaps stronger than any of us, and I respect him, and that is why I am kind to him, and I want that we should all take a smoke, and after that you will get over your feeling of his insignificance." And then they all smoked again, and began to talk about the war, and of the things they lacked, but the boy wanted them to get ready in four days, telling them that was plenty of time. And so they all began to get ready for the war, making and getting ready shields, clubs, bows, arrows, shoes, and whatever was needed. And so the people departed for the war, and the very day they left, the mother of Pahtahnkum went and got clay to make the new dishes for the men who should kill Apaches, for she foreknew that many would be killed, and so she sang at her work. And a few of the people were left at home, and one of these was an old man, and he passed near where the mother (whose name was Koel-hah-ah) was making her pottery, and heard her singing her song, and he said to the people: "It is very strange that this woman who used to cry all the time is singing now her boy has gone to the war. Perhaps she is like some wives, who when their time of mourning is over are looking out for another man." And the war-party went by near where Tawtsitka (Sacaton) now is, around the mountain Chirt-kih, and west of the Sah-kote-kih, (Superstition) mountains, and there they found tracks of the Apaches, and paused, and the boy, Pahtahnkum, told them to wait there while he went forward and found where the Apaches were. And Toehahvs said: "I will go with you, so we can help each other and be company, and you will feel that you have some strength, and I will feel the same." So Pahtahnkum and Toehahvs went out on their scout, and went up an arroyo, or washout valley, In the mountains, and in making a turn came suddenly upon some Apache children playing in the sand, and the children saw them and ran up the valley to where the Apache houses were. And the two scouts stood and looked at each other and said: "What shall we do now! for if we go back the people will blame us for letting the Apaches see us first." And Pahtahnkum said: "You go back and step in my tracks, and I will turn into a crow and fly up on this rock." And this was done, and when the Apaches came they could see only the coyote tracks, and they said: "There are no human tracks here. It must have been a coyote the children saw," and they went back home. And then Pahtahnkum flew to where Toehahvs was, and came down and took his human shape again. And the band had been anxious about them, because they were gone so long, and had followed their tracks, and now came near, and when Pahtahnkum saw them, instead of going back to them, he and Toehahvs turned and ran toward the Apaches, and all the band rushed after them, and they took the Apache village by surprise, and conquered and killed all the men, and then killed all the women, and scalped them all. And because Pahtahnkum had been so brave, and had killed many, the people brought all the scalps to him, and all the baskets, and bows and arrows, and other things they had taken, and laid them around him; and then they all stood around him in circles, the oldest in the middle next to the boy, and the others, in the order of their age, in circles outside. [7] And then Pahtahnkum began to yell, he was so rejoiced, and he threw the scalps of the Apaches up into the air, and then, after them, the other things, the bows and arrows, and all things captured, because he wanted to make a cloud; for when an Apache is killed it will rain. And while this was happening, his mother was rejoicing at home, knowing all that was happening to her boy. So the people took everything the Apaches had, and a good many children as captives, and they returned by the same road, and before they got home they sent a messenger ahead. And when they got home they presented all the property taken, and all the weapons and all the captives to the mother of Pahtahnkum. Now when the neighbors of those Apaches heard of this they formed a big war-party, and followed Pahtahnkum's trail, but when they came to the place called Taht-a-mumee-lay-kote they stopped, because they did not know where to find water, and so they turned back, tho from there they could see the mountains where Pahtahnkum lived. And after Pahtahnkum had gone thru the prescribed purifications, and the war-dances and rejoicing proper to the occasion, he again formed a war-party, and again took the trail after the Apaches, only this time he went to the other end of the Superstition Mts. And there they saw the lights at night on a peak, where the Apaches lived, and went up there and killed them, except the children, whom they took for captives. And then they went down into an open place in the desert, and there placing Pahtahnkum and Toehahvs in the center, they again formed the circles, with the older ones nearest the middle, and again brought all their trophies to Pahtahnkum and Toehahvs, who threw them up with rejoicing, as before. And again the Apaches formed a war-party, and pursued them; and again they, when they came to the low mountains south west of where Tawtsitka now is, were frightened, as they looked over the desert, and said: "This country is unknown to us, and we do not want to die of thirst," and again they abandoned the pursuit, and returned home. And because the place where they made fires was found, these mountains are called Aw-up Chert-taw to this day. And again everything was given to Koelhahah, as before. And once more, after the purification, Pahtahnkum formed a war-party; and this time they went to the east, and there again found Apaches at the place called Oy-yee-duck, or The Field, because there the Apaches had cultivated fields, and here they fought the Apaches, and defeated them; but they had hard work to kill one Apache, who was very brave, and who kept his wife before him and his child behind him, and as the Papagoes did not want to kill these they could not get at the man. But finally Pahtahnkum killed a man near him, and some one else killed the woman, and then Pahtahnkum killed this man and took the little boy captive. And again they went out to an open place, and formed the circles, and rejoiced as before. And a party of Apaches pursued them again and again were discouraged, and turned back at the red bluff to the eastward, where they dug a well, which place is still called Taw-toe-sum Vah-vee-uh, or the Apache's Well. And again, in due time, a war-party was formed, and this time it went far east, and there was found a single hunter of the Apaches, and this man they killed and cut up and mutilated as had been done with Pahtahnkum's father, putting his flesh out as if to jerk it. And they went south-east from there and again found a single hunter; and him they scalped and placed his scalp like a hat on a giant-cactus, for which reason the place is still called Waw-num, which means a hat. And Pahtahnkum walked behind, for he was very sad, thinking of his father. And then Pahtahnkum returned home, having revenged his father, and this was the last of his wars. And once more the Apaches followed him, but stopped at a place near the Superstition Mts. where, as there had been rain and the ground was wet, they stopped to clean a field, See-qua-usk, or the Clearing, but they gave it up and returned, not even planting the crop. And his mother made a large olla, and a small flat piece of pottery, like the plates tortillas are baked on. And she put all the Apache hair in the olla, and placed the flat plate on top to cover it with greasewood gum to seal it up tight. And then she went and found a cave, and by her power called a wind and a cloud that circled it round. And then she returned to her people, and, placing the olla on her head, led them to the cave, and said. "I will leave this olla here, and then when I have need of wind, or of rain, I can form them by throwing these up, and so I shall be independent." And after this Pahtahnkum was taken ill, and the people said it was because he had not properly purified himself. And he went to the tall mountain east of Tucson, and from there to other mountains, seeking the cool air, but he got no better, and at last he came to the Maricopa Mts., and died there, and his grave is there yet. And his mother died at her home. THE SONG OF KOELHAHAH ABOUT HER SON My poor child, there will be great things happen you! And there will be great news all over the world because of my boy. The news will go in all directions. NOTES ON THE STORY OF PAHTAHNKUM In this, in the smoking at the war-council, appears a curious superstition concerning the effect of a man's smoking upon his unborn child. Another superstition appears in the idea that the killing of an Apache and throwing up of his accoutrements or scalp would cause rain. I have a boy's bow and arrows just like those described in this story, bought of a Pima child. War arrows were a yard long, with three feathers instead of two, and tipped with flint or, later, with iron. But even a wooden arrow would kill a deer. Bows were made from Osage orange, cat-claw, or o-a-pot; or, better still, from a tree called gaw-hee. Arrows from arrow-weeds. The Apache arrows were made of cane. The Pimas were formerly famous for archery, and the shooting of bird on the wing, and of jack rabbits at full run while the archer was pursuing on horseback, were favorite feats. The Apache well: I am told the old Arizona Indian wells were not walled up, and the sides were at such a slant that the women could walk down to the water and back with their ollas on their heads. Wells are now obtained without great difficulty, but the water is salty and often alkaline and none too cool. STORIES OF THE FOURTH NIGHT THE STORY OF THE GAMBLER'S WAR And after this, for a long time, there was peace toward the Apaches, but it happened, once, that two brothers of the country went to gamble with the Awup, playing the game called waw-pah-tee in which the gamblers guess in which piece of cane a little ball is hidden. And one of the brothers, after losing all his goods, bet his brother and lost him, and then bet the different parts of his own body, leaving his heart to the last, and finally wagered his heart against all his previous bets, saying it was worth more than they, and hoping so to recover all, but he lost that also. And when the game was ended the Apaches killed his brother, but allowed him to walk away, and he returned to his own land. But all the way he would see his brother's tracks, and whenever he stopped to camp he would see his brother's body, where it lay, and how he looked, lying there dead; and when he got home he felt so sad he cried aloud, but no one paid any attention to him. And when he got home his folks gave him food to eat, and water to drink, but he would neither eat nor drink, feeling so sad about his brother, and he took nothing for four days. But on the fifth day he went out and sought the cool shade of trees to forget his brother, and went upon the hills and stood there, but he could not forget; and then, in coming down, he fell down and went to sleep. And in his sleep his brother came to him, and he seemed to know him, but when he tried to put his arms around his brother he woke up and found he was not there. And he went home and ate, and then made this speech:-- "My pitiful relatives, I will pity you and you will pity me. This spread-out-thing, the world, is covered with feathers, because of my sadness, and the mountains are covered with soft feathers. Over these the sun comes, but gives me no light, I am so sad. And the night comes, and has no darkness to rest me, because my eyes are open all night. (This has happened to me, O all my relatives.) And it was my own bones that I raked up, and with them made a fire that showed me the opposite land, the Land of the Enemy. (This was done, my relatives.) The sticks I cut for the number of days were my own sinews, cut and bound together. It was my own rib that I used as an eev-a-dah-kote, or fire rubbing stick. It was my own bowels that I used for a belt. And it was my scalp, and my own hair, that I used for sandals. It was my own skull that I filled with my own blood, and drank from, and talked like a drunkard. And I wandered where the ashes are dumped, and I wandered over the hills, and I found it could be done, and went to the shadows of the trees and found the same thing. On the level ground I fell, and the Sun, the Traveller, was overhead, and from above my brother came down, and I tried to hug him, but only hugged myself. And I thought I was holding all sadness, but there was a yet stronger sadness, for my brother came down and stood on my breast, and the tears fell down and watered the ground. And I tried to hug him, but only hugged myself. And this was my desire, that I should go to the powerful woman, and I reached her quietly where she lived. And I spoke to her this way: 'You were living over there. You are the person who makes a hoop for her gyihhaw from the Apaches' bow, and with their arrows makes the back-stop, the oam-muck, and with their blood you color the gyihhaw prettily; and you split the arrow-heads and make from them the ov-a-nuck, and tie it in with the Apaches' hair, weaving the hair to the left and then binding it on.' And this way I spoke to her. And then she gave me good news of the weakness of the Apaches and I ran out full of joy. And from there I rose up and reached the Feather-Nested Doctor, Quotaveech, and I spoke to him this way: 'And you belong here. And you make the ribs of your kee from the Apache bows, and you tie the arrows across with the bow strings, and with the sinews of their bows you tie them. And with the robes of the Apaches, and with their head-wear, and with their moccasins, you cover the kee instead of with arrow weeds. And inside, at the four corners, there are hung locks of Apaches' hair, and at the corners are the stumps of the cane-tube pipes, smoking themselves, and forming the smoke into all colors of flowers--white and glittering and gray and yellow.' And this way I spoke to him, and he gave me the good news of the weakness of the Apaches. And I came down and went Southward to the other doctor, called Vahk-lohn Mahkai and there I reached him. And this way I spoke to him: 'And here is where you belong. The Apache bow you make into the likeness of the pretty rainbow, and the arrows you make into the likeness of the white-headed grass. And the fore shaft of the arrows you turn into water moss, and the arrows into resemblance of flat clay. And the hair of the Apaches you make into likeness of clouds.' And this way I spoke to him, and he told me the news of the weakness of the Apaches. And I ran out of the house, and went westward, and found the old woman doctor, Tawquahdahmawks. And I said to her: 'You belong here. And you make the bow of the Apaches into the hoop of the game the Aw-aw-bopp, the Maricopas, play, the rolling hoop that they throw sticks after. And their arrows you flatten up with your teeth, and wear around your brows like a crown. And the fore shafts of the arrows you have split, and painted red with the Apache blood, and made into gainskoot, the dice sticks. And the Apache hair you make into a skirt.' And this way I spoke to her, and she told me the thought of the two different peoples, the Awawtam and the Awup, that they were enemies, and she told me this, and I went out from there and strengthened myself four times. And I spread the news when I got home, and set the doctor over it. And there was the stump of the doctor's pipe standing there, and smoking itself, and I imbibed it, and smoked it toward the enemy, and the smoke changed into different colors of flowers, white, glittering, grey and yellow, and reached the edge of the earth, the land of the Apache, and circled around there. And it softened the earth, and brought fresh grass, and fresh leaves on the trees, so that the Apaches would be gathered together. And my western famous enemy went and told his son to go to his uncle, to see if it was so that there was plenty of grass and plenty of things to eat there. And his son went and said: 'My father sent me to find out about these things,' and his uncle said: 'It is so what he has heard, that we have plenty of things to eat, and all kinds of game, and that is what I eat. You go back and tell the old man to come, so that I will be with him here.' So the boy went and told the old man this, and he got up and put on his nose-ring of turquoise, and took his cake of paint, and his locks of hair, and his pouch. After he got everything together he started out and camped for one night, and arriving at his destination the next morning, after the sun rose, came to his brother and called him, 'Brother!' with a loud voice. And the next morning the brother got up and went hunting, and found a dead deer, and brought it home, and called it fresh meat, and they ate it together. But instead of eating deer they ate themselves up. And their skins became like sick person's skin, and their hair became coarse, and their eyes were sore, and they became lousy, and were so weak that they left their hands beneath their heads when they scratched themselves lying down. And the brother's wife went and gathered seed to eat, and found it easy to gather, without husks, and thought to enjoy eating it, but when she ate it she ate her own lice, and her skin became as a sick person's skin, her hair became coarse, her person lousy, her eyes sore. And my enemy in the far east heard about food being so plenty to eat there, and sent his son to ask his uncle if these reports were so. And his father got up and took his war-bonnet of eagle-feathers, and his moccasins, and, using his power, brought even his wind and his clouds and his rainbow with him, and all his crops, for tho he had plenty at home he thought to find more at his brother's place. And, camping one night on the road, he came to his brother, after sunrise, and called him 'Brother' with a loud voice. And everything happened to this enemy from the east, and his brother, and brother's wife, that had happened to the enemy from the west and his brother and brother's wife. And I found the Apache enemy early in the morning, lying asleep, still needing his blanket, and covering himself up, and captured him without trouble. And there I captured all his property, and took from him captives and many scalps, and my way coming back seemed to be down hill, and I strengthened myself and came to the level ground. And when I came to the hollow where I drank, the water rippled from my moving it. And I appointed messengers to go ahead and tell those at home, the old men and women waiting to hear of us, the good news of our victory. And after sending on the messengers I went on, rejoicing, carrying the consciousness of my victory over the Apaches with me; and arriving home at evening I found the land filled with the news, even the tops of the hills covered. And I told my people to send word to our western relatives, and to our southern relatives, and our eastern relatives, that the good news might be known to all." After this he called the people together for war, and the first evening they camped a man prophesied, and said: "Now we have heard our war-speech, and are on our way, and I foresee the way beautiful with flowers, even the big trees covered with flowers, and I can see that we come to the enemy and conquer them easily. And the road to the east is lined with white flowers, and the Apaches, seeing it, rejoice also, with smiles, thinking it for their good, but really it is for their destruction, for it is made so by the power of our doctors. And in the middle of the earth, between us and the enemy, stood the Cane-Tube Pipe and smoked itself. I inhaled the smoke and blew it out toward the East, and saw the smoke rising till it reached the Vahahkkee of Light, and up still till it reached the Cane of Light. And I took that cane and punched it at the corner of the Vahahkkee, and out came the White Water and the White Wasps, and the wasps flew around it four times and then they went down again. And then in the South I saw the Blue Vahahkkee, and the Blue Cane, and I took the cane and punched it into the corner of the vahahkkee, and there came out Blue Water and Blue Wasps, and the wasps flew around four times, and then sank down again. And in the West there stood the Black Vahahkkee, and the Black Cane, and I took the cane and punched at the corner, and there came out Black Water and Black Wasps, and the wasps flew around four times, and then went in again. And in the North stood the Yellow Vahahkkee, and the Yellow Cane, and I took the cane and punched it at the corner, and there came out Yellow Water and Yellow Wasps, and the wasps flew around four times, and then went in again. And on top of this vahahkkee was a Yellow Spider, and I asked him to help me, and he stretched his web four times, and there found my enemy. And there he bound his heart with his web, and bound his arms, and bound his bow and his arrows, and left him there in the state of a woman, with nothing to defend himself with. And he pushed me toward where he had left him, and I captured him very easily, and all his property, and all his children. You, my relatives, may not like the noise of our rejoicing, but it is only for a short time that we rejoice over the enemy." And they camped out another night, and another one spoke, and he said: "I was lying in ashes, and praying the distant mountains for strength, and the far doctors for power. And there was a Sun that rose from the east and followed the western road. And all the four-footed animals met together and called themselves relatives, and all the birds met together and called themselves relatives, and in this order followed the Sun. And the Sun rose again, and brought me the See-hee-vit-tah Feather, the Sunbeam, to wear on my head, and hugged me up to him. And the Sun rose again, and brought the Blue Fog, and in the fog took me toward the enemy. But instead of taking me to the enemy it took me up into the sky, to the Yellow Crow. And the Yellow Crow, as a powerful mahkai, went down to the enemy and divided their land four times, and slew the human beings, and painted the rocks over beautifully with their blood. And from there I went to the Yellow Spider, living on the back of the mound at the North, and asked him to help me. And he stretched his web four times, and found my enemy, and bound him, and pushed me toward him, and I took him, and all his, captive, and came home rejoicing. So, my relatives, think of this, that there will be victory. You may not like the noise of our rejoicing, but it is only for a short time that we rejoice over the enemy." And they went toward the mountains where the Apaches live, and camped there, and there were empty Apache houses there, and one of them spoke using himself figuratively as a type of his people: "Perhaps these Apaches have gone from here to my house, and have killed me and have dragged me thru the waters we passed coming here, and have beaten me with all the sticks we saw on the road, and have thrown ashes over me, and maybe these are my bones that lie here, and this dry blood is my blood. This has been done, my relatives, and there in the East is a Vahahkkee of Light, and within it there is a Butcher-bird of Light. And I asked the Butcher-bird for power, and he followed his Road of Light, and touched the ground four times with his tail, and came to me. And he went on the road that is lighted by a mahkai, and following that reached my enemy. And my enemy thought himself a good dreamer, and that his dreams were fulfilled for good, and that he had a good bow with a good string, and good cane arrows, but the Butcher-bird had already punched his eyes out without his knowing it. And all the animals and birds of the Apaches think they have good eyes to see with, but the Butcher-bird has punched their eyes out without their knowing it. And the winds of the Apaches think they have sharp eyes, and the clouds of the Apaches think themselves sharp-eyed, but the Butcher-bird has punched their eyes out without their knowing it. So he treated the enemy like that, and left him there as a woman, and then pushed me toward him, and I went and captured him easily. And I gathered all the property, and all the captives, and, turning back, looked ahead of me and found the country all springy with water, and wasps flying, and I followed them. And ahead of me was a road with many flowers, and a butterfly that beautifully spread itself open and led the way, and I followed. And I brought the dead enemy home, and from there the news spread all over my country. So, my relatives, think of this, that there will be victory. And you may not like the sound of our rejoicing, but it is only for a short time that we rejoice over our enemy." NOTES ON THE STORY OF THE GAMBLER'S WAR In this we are given wonderful glimpses into the strange, fierce, sad, extravagant poetry of the Indian speeches, which seem oftenest inspired by the passion of revenge. Notice that in these stories, if several speeches are given in any one story, they generally have a quite similar ending, a sort of refrain: "So, my relatives," etc. This story ends abruptly, and is, I think, manifestly only a fragment. Following the speeches, which were mere boastful prophecies, should have been an account in detail of the actual campaign, as in the story of Pahtahnkum's war. THE STORY OF NAHVAHCHOO Ee-ee-toy was once wandering along when he found some moss that had been left there ever since the flood, and he stood and looked at it, wondering how he could make it into a human being. And while he watched it the sun breathed on it, and it became not a man, but a turtle. And he wandered on again and found some driftwood, and while he stood wondering how to make it into a human being, the sun breathed on it, and it became a man, but he could not see its face, which was covered as with a mask. And the turtle and the masked man, thus created, went westward, and came to a Blue Vahahkkee, and they went in and staid all night. In the morning, when the sun rose, they were frightened at the blue beams that shone thru the vahahkkee, and they left. And after going a little way they came to a Black Road, and Black Birds flew over them to keep them from being seen. And they came to a Black Night. In that night was a Black Bow, which stretched as if it were going to shoot them, so that they were afraid to lie down all night. And the next day they came to a Blue Road, and a flock of Blue Birds flew over them, and all around, striking them. After a while they came to a Blue Night, and in the night was a Blue Bow, which stretched itself threateningly at them, as the Black Bow had done the night before. And they could not sleep for fear that night, either; and the next day they came to a White Road, and a flock of White Birds followed them, striking them. And they came to a White Night, and in that night was a White Bow, which threatened them as the others had done, so that again they could not sleep. And the next day they had a similar experience, only it was a Yellow Road, with Yellow Birds, and a Yellow Night with a Yellow Bow. The next day there was no danger any more, and they went on and came to a mountain, Co-so-vah-taw-up-kih, or Twisted Neck Mountain, and there the Nahvahchoo (masked man), having run ahead, left the turtle behind, and when evening came sat down and waited for the turtle to come up. But the turtle was too far behind, and when night came stopped where he was, and made a fire, and made corn and pumpkins, and roasted the corn and set the pumpkins around the fire, as the Indians do, to scorch them before putting them in the ashes. And Nahvahchoo heard the popping sound of the cooking, and came running back, and tried to steal a piece of the fire to have one of his own, but the turtle would not let him. And so the Nahvahchoo went off and made a fire of his own, and corn and pumpkins of his own, and cooked them as the turtle had done. In the morning, after they had feasted on the pumpkin and corn, the turtle, Wee-hee-kee-nee, sank down and went under the earth to the ocean, and made that his home, and Nahvahchoo sank down and went in the same direction, but not so far, coming up on the sea shore. And Nahvahchoo went along the sea-shore, toward the east, till he came to a great deal of driftwood, and many flowers, and handled all these, and got their strength, and made his home in the east. One day Nahvahchoo heard the earth shaking, and ran out of his house to try and find where the shaking came from, and he went south and did not feel it, and went west and felt it a little, and went north and felt it more. And so he ran back and put on his mask, and took his bow, and went north. And the first time he stopped and listened he heard it somewhat, and the next time he heard it more, and the third time still more, and the fourth time he came to where many people were singing the song Wah-hee-hee-vee, and dancing the dance Vee-pee-nim, in which the dancers wear gourd masks, on their faces, pierced full of little holes to let the light thru. And they were dancing, too, the dance Kawk-spahk-kum, in which the dancers wear a cloth mask, like Nahvahchoo, with a little gourd, full of holes, over the mouth-hole, to sing thru. And they were dancing also the dance Tawt-a-kum, in which the dancer wears a bonnet of cloth, and a mask like Nahvahchoo does. And the people sitting around in these dances had little rods which they rubbed upon notched sticks, in time to the singing and the dancing. At first Nahvahchoo was greatly excited by all this dancing, for all these people seemed to do nothing else but sing and dance, and make the rods and notched sticks and stand them up in bunches; but after a few days he began to think of game, for he was a great hunter, and he went out and found the tracks of a deer. And measuring these with his arrow he laughed, covering his mouth with his hand, and said: "This deer will not run very fast, I could catch him myself." For a deer that measures a good way between his tracks is long-bodied, and cannot run fast, while a deer that measures short between tracks has a short body, and jumps quicker. And he followed the deer, which heard him coming, and began to run, and when Nahvahchoo saw by its tracks that it was running, he ran, too, and getting on a hill saw the dust of its running away off; and he ran after it, and when he came to the next hill it was close, and he ran down, and killed it, and took it back to the singers, and they fell ravenously upon it and ate it all up, not leaving him even the bones. Nahvahchoo sat off a little way and watched them, and one of their speakers addressed him, and said: "We know you, who you are. You are a great doctor, and a great hunter, and a great farmer, and a powerful man every way. And maybe you expected us to join in your hunt and help you carry the game. But we want you to join us, and become a singer, and you will have plenty of corn and beans to eat, and you will find that such food will last, while, as you see, the game, when you bring it in, lasts but a little while." So Nahvahchoo staid with them and became a singer, and after a while the people told him to go to a certain vahahkkee, and said: "You will find something there with which you will be pleased. And then go to the opposite one, and you will find that with which you will be still more pleased. And one of these vahahkkees was called See-pook (Red-bird) Vahahkkee and the other was named Wah-choo-kook-kee (Oriole) Vahahkkee.--But tho they told him to go to these they did not allow him to do so, but one day he slipped away, when they were not looking, and opened one, and saw in it many wonderful things, clouds forming and sprinkling all the time; and in the other it was the same. And one was covered with red flowers, and the other with yellow flowers, and where they came together the mingling of red and yellow was very pretty. At the door of each vahahkkee was a corn-mill. And he stole one of these and went west. But after a while he stopped and said: "I wonder what is going to happen, for the east is all green and the west is of the same color." But he ran on, and the clouds came over him, and it began to sprinkle, and then to rain, and then the water began to run, and get deeper and deeper, and he said: "This is happening to me because I stole this mill, but I am not going to let it go, I am going to keep it." And he ran on and came to where he had separated from Weeheekeenee, and went on and over Cosovahtawupkih, the Twisted Neck Mountain. And on that mountain he felt rather faint, and put his hand in his pouch and found a root and chewed it, the root Cheek-kuh-pool-tak, and breathed it out, and it stopped raining. And he went on to the Quojata Mountain, and sat there and took a smoke; and then on to Ahn-naykum; and then to Odchee, where he left the mill; and then to Kee-ahk Toe-ahk, where he also rested and took a smoke; and then he went home. And when Nahvahchoo arrived home he made a speech: "Where shall we hear the talk that will make us drunk and dizzy with the flowers of eloquence? There was near the water the driftwood lying, and from above the sun breathed down and a being was made. And it was the beautiful daybreak that I took and wiped its face with, and the remains of darkness that I painted its face with. And there were all kinds of bird's feathers that I made a feather bonnet from. And there were joining wasps that came and flapped on the bonnet. And there were many butterflies that flapped their wings upon the bonnet, upon its feathers. And it was from the rainbow that I made its bow, and from the Milky Way that I made its arrow. From a red skin it was that I made its saw-suh-buh, to cover its arm for the bow-string not to injure it. And it was a red kuess-kote that I made and put in its hair to scratch with. And it was the gray fog that I fastened in its shoulders for its mantle. And the strong wind it was that I used for its girdle, around its waist. In the middle of the earth lay a square water moss, and the sun breathed on it and it turned into a creature, a turtle. And from there the Driftwood-Being went west with it. From there they went westward and watched the sun rise in the Blue Vahahkkee, and were frightened, and returned. From there they came to a Black Road, and Black Birds followed them, and to a Black Night wherein a Black Bow frightened them. And from there they came to a Blue Road, with Blue Birds following, and to a Blue Night with a Blue Bow to frighten them. And from there they came to a White Road with White Birds following, and a White Night with a White Bow to threaten them. And the next day it was a Yellow Road and Yellow Birds, and after that a Yellow Night and a Yellow Bow. And there was a square water full of ice, and he went around it four times. And there he found Seepook Vahahkkee, with its red flowers, and Wahchookookkee Vahahkkee with its yellow flowers, and there he got the everlasting corn-mill, and went westward and strengthened himself four times. And as he went westward there came a wind which felt good and refreshed him, and pleasant clouds that sprinkled him with water, and then there was rain, and the rattling of running water, and he went on his road rejoicing. And he reached the Twisted Neck Mountain, and there he felt faint a little, and took from his pouch the root Cheekkuhpooltak, and chewed it, and breathed it out, and was refreshed and went on. And he refreshed himself four times and went on, and found Tonedum Vahahkkee, the Vahahkkee of Light, and there he gave his power to the people who were gathered together, and said: 'My relatives, I want you to think of this, that our country will be more beautiful and produce more, because you know our country will not hereafter be what it has been'." And he made another speech: "It was after the creation of the earth, and there was a mud vahahkkee, and inside of it lay a piece of wood burning at one end, and by it stood a cane-tube pipe, smoking, and we inhaled the smoke, and then we saw things clearer and talked about them. In the West there was a Black Mocking Bird, and from him I asked power, and he brought the news and spread it over all the earth, and to every hill and every mountain and every tree, that the earth would stand still, but it did not, it still moved. (And you, Black Mocking Bird, take back your Black Winds, and your Black Clouds, and stay where you are, and your relatives may sometimes come to you for power.) And in the South there was a Blue Mocking Bird, and I asked it for power, and it stretched the news over all the earth, and over every hill and every mountain, and to every tree, that the earth stood still, but it did not, it still moved. In the East was a Mocking Bird of Light, and I asked it for power, and it stretched the news over all the earth, and to every hill, mountain and tree, that the earth stood still, but it still moved. And Above there was darkness, where lived the Feather Nested Doctor, who is famous for his power, and I asked him for power, and he spread the news, as the others had done, but the earth still moved. And in the North lived a Yellow Spider, and I asked him for power, and he stretched his news, and made his web, and tied the earth up with it, and made a fringe like a blanket fringe at each corner, and laid his arrows over it. The fringe at the West corner he made black, and covered it with the Black Vahahkkee to hold it down; and he put the blue fringe at the South corner, and over it the Blue Vahahkkee to hold it down, and he put the black arrows over the Black Vahahkkee, and the blue arrows over the Blue Vahahkkee. And in the East he put the Vahahkkee of Light over the fringe and the arrows of light over it. And after all this was done the earth stood still. And after this is done you are carried away like a child, and are set down facing the East, and your heart comes out towards it, and can be seen going up and down till it reaches it. And over the land your seed shall spring up and grow, and have good stalks and many flowers, and have good wide leaves and heads of good seeds. And after the seed is ripe they will take it and put it away and grind it with sunbeams, and the boys and girls shall eat and be happy, and all the old men and women shall eat it and lengthen their lives." NOTES ON THE STORY OF NAHVAHCHOO The story of Nahvahchoo was celebrated till lately among the Pimas by dancing games, resembling those described in this story, the players wearing masks and gourds, and rattling notched sticks, one of them impersonating Nahvahchoo himself. In the reference to the earth's moving, in one of the speeches, one might suspect a glimpse of true astronomical knowledge, but this is likely only a poetic figure. The "everlasting corn will" reminds a little of the old folk-lore tale of the everlasting salt mill whose continuous grinding makes the ocean salt. THE STORY OF CORN AND TOBACCO [8] There was a powerful mahkai who had a daughter, who, tho old enuf, was unmarried, and who grew tired of her single life and asked her father to bury her, saying, we will see then if the men will care for me. And from her grave grew the plant tobacco, and her father took it and smoked it and when the people who were gathered together smelled it they wondered what it was, and sent Toehahvs to find out. But, altho the tobacco still grew, the woman came to life again and came out of her grave back to her home. And one day she played gainskoot with Corn, and Corn beat her, and won all she had. But she gave some little things she did not care for to Corn, and the rest of her debt she did not pay, and they quarreled. She told Corn to go away, saying; "Nobody cares for you, now, but they care a great deal for me, and the doctors use me to make rain, and when they have moistened the ground is the only time you can come out." And the Corn said: "You don't know how much the people like me; the old as well as the young eat me, and I don't think there is a person that does not like me." And Corn told Tobacco to go away herself. There were people there who heard them quarreling, and tho Tobacco staid on, whenever she would be in a house and hear people laughing she would think they were laughing at her. And she became very sad, and one day sank down in her house and went westward and came to a house there. And the person who lived there told her where to sleep, saying, "Many people stop here, and that is where they sleep." But she said: "I am travelling, and no one knows where I am, and if any one follows me, and comes here, you tell them that you saw me, that I left very early in the morning and you do not know which way I went." And she told him that she did not know herself which way she would go, and at night, when she went to bed, she brought a strong wind, and when she wanted to leave she sank down and went westward, and the wind blew away all her tracks. And she came to the Mohaves and lived there in a high mountain, Cheof Toe-ahk, or tall mountain, which has a cliff very hard to climb, but Tobacco stood up there. And after Tobacco had gone, Corn remained, but when corn-planting time came none was planted, because there was no rain. And so it went on--all summer, and people began to say: "It is so, when Tobacco was here, we had plenty of rain, and now we have not any, and she must have had wonderful power." And the people scolded Corn for sending Tobacco away, and told him to go away himself, and then they sent for Tobacco to come back, that they might have rain again. And Corn left, going toward the east, singing all the way, taking Pumpkin with him, who was singing too, saying they were going where there was plenty of moisture. And the next year there was no water, and a powerful doctor, Gee-hee-sop, took the Doctor's Stone of Light, and the Doctor's Square Stone, and some soft feathers, and eagle's-tail feathers, and went to where Tobacco lived, asking her to come back, saying "We are all suffering for water, and we know you have power to make it rain, And every seed buried in the ground is begging for water, and likely to be burned up, and every tree is suffering, and I want you to come." Then Tobacco said: "What has become of Corn? He is still with you, and corn is what you ought to eat, and everybody likes it, but nobody cares for me, except perhaps some old man who likes to smoke me, and I do not want to go back, and I am not going!" But Geeheesop said: "Corn is not there now, he has gone away, and we do not know where he is." And again he asked Tobacco to come back but she refused, but gave him four balls of tobacco seed and said to him: "Take these home with you, and take the dirt of the tobacco-worm, and roll it up, and put it in a cane-tube and smoke it all around, and you will have rain, and then plant the seed, and in four days it will come up; and when you get the leaves, smoke them, and call on the winds, and you will have clouds and plenty of rain." So Geeheesop went home with the seed balls, and tobacco-worm dirt, and did as Tobacco had told him; and the smoking of the dirt brought rain, and the seeds were planted in a secret place, and in four days came up, and grew for a while, but finally were about to die for want of rain. Then Geeheesop got some of the leaves and smoked them, and the wind blew, and rain came, and the plants revived and grew till they were ripe. When the tobacco was ripe Geeheesop gathered a lot of the leaves and filled with them one of the gourd-like nests which the woodpecker, koh-daht, makes in the har-san, or giant-cactus, and then took a few of these and put them in a cane-tube pipe, or watch-kee, and went to where the people gathered in the evening. And the doctor who was the father of Tobacco said: "What is this I smell? There is something new here!" And one said, "Perhaps it is some greens that I ate today that you smell," and he breathed toward him. But the mahkai said, "That is not it." And others breathed toward him, but he could not smell it. Then Geeheesop rolled a coal toward himself, and lit up his pipe, and the doctor said: "This is what I smelled!" And Geeheesop, after smoking a few whiffs, passed the pipe around to the others, and all smoked it, and when it came back to him he stuck it in the ground. And the next night he came with a new pipe to the place of meeting, but the father of Tobacco said: "Last night I had a smoke, but I did not feel good after it." And all the others said: "Why we smoked and enjoyed it." But the man who had eaten the greens kah-tee-kum, the day before, said: "He does not mean that he did not enjoy the smoke, but something else troubled him after it, and I think it was that when we passed the pipe around we did not say 'My relatives,' 'brother,' or 'cousin,' or whatever it was, but passed it quietly without using any names." And Tobacco's father said "Yes, that is what I mean." (And from that time on all the Pimas smoked that way when they came together, using a cane-tube pipe, or making a long cigarette of corn-husk and tobacco, and passing it around among relatives.) So Geeheesop lit his pipe and passed it around in the way to satisfy the doctor. And the people saved the seeds of that tobacco, and to day it is all over the land. And the Corn and the Pumpkin had gone east, and for many years they lived there, and the people they had left had no corn, and no pumpkins; but after a while they returned of themselves, and came first to the mountain Tahtkum, and lived there a while, and then crossed the river and lived near Blackwater, at the place called Toeahk-Comalk, or White Thin Mountain, and from there went and lived awhile at Gahkotekih or, as it is now called, Superstition Mountain. While they lived at Gahkotekih there was a woman living near there at a place called kawt-kee oy-ee-duck who, with her younger brother, went to Gahkotekih to gather and roast the white cactus, and while they were doing this Corn saw them from the mountain and came down. And the boy saw him and said: "I think that is my uncle coming," but his sister said, "It cannot be, for he is far away. If he were here the people would not be starving as now." But the boy was right, it was his uncle, and Corn came to them and staid with them while the cactus was baking. And after awhile, as he sat aside, he would shoot an arrow up in the air, and it would fall whirling where the cooking was, and he would go and pick it up. Finally he said to the woman: "Would you not better uncover the corn and see if it is cooked yet?" And she said: "It is not corn, it is cactus." Again, after a while, he said: "Would you not better uncover the pumpkin and see if it is done?" And she replied: "It is not pumpkin, we are baking, it is cactus." But finally he said "Well, uncover it anyway," and she uncovered it, and there were corn and pumpkin there, together, all nicely mixed and cooked, and she sat staring at it, and he told her to uncover it more, and she did so and ate some of it. And then he asked about the Tobacco woman, if she were married yet, and she said, "No, she is not married, but she is back with us again, now." Then he asked her to send the little boy ahead and tell the people that Corn was coming to live with them again. But first the little boy was to go to the doctor who was the father of Tobacco, and see if he and his daughter wanted Corn to return. If they did he would come, and if they did not he would stay away. And he wanted the boy to come right back and tell what answer he got. So the little boy went, and took some corn with him to the doctor, and said: "Corn sent me, and he wants your daughter, and he wants to know if you want him. If you do he will return, but if you do not he will turn back again. And he wants me to bring him word what you say." And the mahkai said "I have nothing to say against him. I guess he knows the people want corn. Go and tell him to come." And Corn said: "Go back to the doctor and tell him to make a little kee, as quick as he can, and to get the people to help him, and to cover it with mats instead of bushes, and to let Tobacco go there and stay there till I come. And tell all the people to sweep their houses, and around their houses, and if anything in their houses is broken, such as pots, vahs-hroms, to turn them right side up. For I am coming back openly; there will be no secret about it." So the little boy went back and told the doctor all that Corn had told him to say, and the doctor and the people built the kee, and Tobacco went there, and the people swept their houses and around them as they were told. And before sunset the woman came home with the corn and pumpkins she had cooked at the mountain, but Corn staid out till it was evening. And when evening came there was a black cloud where Corn stood, and soon it began to rain corn, and every little while a big pumpkin would come down, bump. And it rained corn and pumpkins all night, while Corn and his bride were in their kee, and in the morning the people went out and gathered up the corn from the swept place around their houses. And so Corn and Pumpkin came back again. The people gathered up all the corn around their houses, and all their vessels, even their broken ones, which they had turned up, were full, and their houses were soon packed full of corn and pumpkins. So Corn lived there with his wife, and after a while Tobacco had a baby, and it was a little crooked-necked pumpkin, such as the Pimas call a dog-pumpkin. And when the child had grown a little, one day its father and mother went out to work in the garden, and they put the little pumpkin baby behind a mat leaning against the wall. And some children, coming in, found it there, and began to play with it for a doll, carrying it on their backs as they do their dolls. And finally they dropped it and broke its neck. And when Corn came back and found his baby was broken he was angry, and left his wife, and went east again, and staid there awhile, and then bethought him of his pets, the blackbirds, which he had left behind, and came back to his wife again. But after awhile he again went east, taking his pets with him, scattering grains of corn so that the blackbirds would follow him. Corn made this speech while he was in the kee with Tobacco: In the East there is the Tonedum Vahahkkee, the Vahahkkee of Light, where lives the great doctor, the king fisher. And I came to Bives-chool, the king fisher, and asked him for power, and he heard me asking, and flew up on his kee, and looked toward the West, and breathed the light four times, and flew and breathed again four times, and so on--flying four times and breathing after each flight four times, and then he sat over a place in the ground that was cut open. And in the West there was a Bluebird, and when I asked him for power he flew up on his kee, and breathed four times, and then flew toward the East, and he and Biveschool met at the middle of the earth. And Biveschool asked the Bluebird to do some great thing to show his power, and the Bluebird took the blue grains of corn from his breast and then planted them, and they grew up into beautiful tall corn, so tall its tops touched the sky and its leaves bowed over and scratched the ground in the wind. And Biveschool took white seeds from his breast, and planted them, and they came up, and were beautiful to be seen, and came to bear fruit that lay one after another on the vine--these were pumpkins. And the beautiful boys ran around among these plants, and learned to shout and learned to whistle, and the beautiful girls ran around among these plants and learned to whistle. And the relatives heard of these good years, and the plenty to eat, and there came a relative leading her child by the hand, who said: "We will go right on, for our relatives must have plenty to eat, and we shall not always suffer with hunger. So these came, but did not eat it all, but returned. So my relatives, think of this, that we shall not suffer with hunger always." And Corn made another speech at that time to Tobacco's father: "Doctor! Doctor! have you seen that this earth that you have made is burning! The mountains are crumbling, and all kinds of trees are burning down. And the people over the land which you have made run around, and have forgotten how to shout, and have forgotten how to walk, since the ground is so hot and burning. And the birds which you have made have forgotten how to fly, and have forgotten how to sing. And when you found this out you held up the long pinion feathers, mah-cheev-a-duck, toward the East, and there came the long clouds one after the other. And there in those clouds there were low thunderings, and they spread over the earth, and watered all the plants, and the roots of all the trees; and everything was different from what it had been. Every low place and every valley was crooked, but the force of the waters straightened them out, and there was driftwood on all the shores: and after it was over every low place and every valley had foam in its mouth. And in the mouth stood the Doctor, and took the grains from his breast, and planted them, and the corn grew and was beautiful. And he went on further, to another low valley, and planted other seeds, and the pumpkin grew and was beautiful. And its vine to the West was black and zigzag in form, and to the South was blue and zigzag in form, and to the East was white and zigzag in form, and to the North was yellow and zigzag in form. So everything came up, and there was plenty to eat, and the people gathered it up, and the young boys and girls ate and were happy, and the old men and the old women ate and lengthened even their few days. So think of this, my relatives, and know that we are not to suffer with hunger always." And the Dog-Pumpkin Baby lay there broken, after Corn went away, but after awhile sank down and went to Gahkotekih, and grew up there, and became the Harsan or Giant Cactus. And the mother and grandfather could not find the Dog-Pumpkin Baby, and called the people together, and Toehahvs was asked to find it, and he smelled around where it had been, and went around in circles. And he came to where the Giant Cactus was and thought it was the baby, but was not sure, and so came back, and told them he could not find it. And they wanted Nooee to go, and Toehahvs said to Nooee: "I did see something, but I was not quite sure, but I want you to examine that Giant Cactus." So Nooee flew around and around and examined the Giant Cactus and came back, and when the people questioned him said: "I have found it and it is already full-grown, and I tell you I think something good will happen to us because of it." And when the Cactus had fruit the people gathered it, and made tis-win, and took the seeds and spread them out in the sun. And the Badger stole these seeds, and when the people knew it they sent Toehahvs after the thief. And Toehahvs went and saw Badger ahead of him in the road, and saw him go out and around and come into the road again and come toward him. And when they met, Toehahvs asked him what he had in his hand. And Badger said "I have something, but I'm not going to show you!" Then Toehahvs said: "If you'll only just open your hand, so I can see, I'll be satisfied." And Badger opened his hand, and Toehahvs hit it a slap from below, and knocked the seeds all around, and that is why the giant cactus is now so scattered. NOTES ON THE STORY OF CORN AND TOBACCO In the Story of Corn and Tobacco we touch the superstitions about rain, the most desired thing in the desert. The mahkais used tobacco in their incantations, both for curing sickness and for making rain. It would appear that the Piman mind confused clouds of smoke and clouds of vapor, and because tobacco made clouds it was probably supposed to be potent in begetting rain. The Pimas told me that the Doctor's Square Stone was used in the incantations for rain, and there appears to have been a connection in Piman thought between feathers and clouds, and therefore between feathers and rain, and it will be noticed that when Geeheesop went to get Tobacco's help in making rain he took feathers and both kinds of Doctor-stone. This story seems to profess to give the origin of tobacco, giant cactus and of tiswin. THE STORY OF THE CHILDREN OF CLOUD There was a woman who lived in the mountains, who was very beautiful, and had many suitors, but she never married anyone. And one day she was making mats of cane; and she fell asleep and a rain came and a drop fell on her navel. And she had twin babies, and all the men claimed them, but when the babies were old enuf to crawl she told all the claimants to get in a circle, and she would put the babies in the middle, and if they crawled up to any man he would be the father. But the babies climbed upon nobody, and she never married. And when these twin boys were old enuf their mother showed them a cloud in the east, and said: "That is your father, and his name is Cloud, and the Wind is your uncle, your father's older brother." But the children paid little attention, but when they got older they asked their mother if they could go and see their father. And their mother let them go. And they went, and came to a house, and the man who lived there asked them where they were going, and they said they were looking for their father, whose name was Cloud. And the man pointed to the next house, and said: "That man, there, is your father." And they went to that man, but he said: "It is not so. He is your father. He is Cloud," and sent them back again. But the first man sent them back once more to the second, who was really Cloud. And Cloud said, that time; "I wonder if it is so that you are my children!" And the boys said: "That is what they say." And Cloud said: "I want you to do something to prove it." Then the oldest boy thundered loud and lightened, and the other lightened a little, and Cloud said, "It is true, you are my children!" And before night Cloud fed them, and then went into his kee and shut it up and left them outside all night. And it rained and snowed all night, but they staid outside. And in the morning Cloud came out, and said: "It is really so, that you are my children." And the next night he took them to a pond, where there was ice, and left them there all night. And the next day, when he came there and found they had staid in the water all night he said: "It is really so--you are my children." So Cloud acknowledged them for his children and took them into his kee. And after awhile the boys wanted to go back to their mother, and Cloud said: "You may go, but you must not speak to anybody on the way. And I will be with you on the journey." So the boys started, and cloud was over them, in the sky, shadowing them. And after a while they saw a man coming, and the younger boy said: "We must ask him how our mother is." But the older brother said: "Don't you remember that our father told us not to speak to anyone?" The younger said: "Yes, I remember, but it would not be right not ask how our mother is." So when the man came the boy asked: "How is everybody at home, and how is the old woman, our mother?" And then the cloud above them lightened and thundered, and they were both turned into century plants. NOTES ON THE STORY OF CLOUD In Emory's report, before alluded to, also in Captain Johnston's, we find variants of The Story of the Children of Cloud. Thristy Hawk, the Maricopa, told Emory "that in bygone days a woman of surpassing beauty resided in a green spot in the mountains, near where we were encamped. All the men admired and paid court to her. She received the tributes of their devotion, grain, skins, etc., but gave no love or other favor in return. Her virtue and her determination to remain unmarried were equally firm. There came a drought which threatened the world with famine. In their distress, people applied to her, and she gave corn from her stock, and the supply seemed endless.... One day as she was lying asleep with her body exposed, a drop of rain fell on her stomach, which produced conception. A son was the issue, who was the founder of a new race which built all these houses" (ruins, vahahkkees). Johnston has it: "The general asked a Pima who made the house I had seen. 'It is the Caza de Montezuma,' said he, 'it was built by the son of the most beautiful woman, who once dwelt in yon mountain; she was fair, and all the handsome men came to court her, but in vain; when they came, they paid tribute, and out of this small store she fed all the people in time of distress, and it did not diminish; at last, as she lay asleep, a drop of rain fell upon her navel, and she became pregnant, and brought forth a boy, who was the builder of all these houses." The seeneeyawkum gives her twins but knew nothing of any story of their children or of these buildings, the vahahkkees. THE STORY OF TCHEUNASSAT SEEVEN Stcheuadack Seeven wanted to gamble with Tcheunassat Seeven, who lived at Kawtkee Oyyeeduck, and sent a man with an invitation to come and play against him, and bring all his wives. And Tcheunassat Seeven said: "I will go, for my wives are used to travelling, and we will take food, and will camp on the road, and day after tomorrow, about evening, we will be there." So the messenger went back with this word, and in the morning Tcheunassat Seeven got his lunch ready, and he and his wives started; and the first night camped at Odchee, and the next day came to the little mountain, near Blackwater, called Sahn-a-mik, and they crossed Ak-kee-mull, The River, the Gila, there, and Tcheunassat Seeven told his wives to wash their hair and clean themselves there, and then he told them to go ahead to Stcheuadack Seeven while he took his bath. And while he bathed they went on and came to Stcheuadack Seeven's house, where he was singing and his wives dancing. Then the wives of Tcheunassat Seeven did not ask for invitation, but went right in and joined the dance, and went to Stcheuadack Seeven and took hold of his hand in the dance, pushing each other away to get it. And Stcheuadack Seeven thought from this that he would get all of Tcheunassat Seeven's wives away from him. Tcheunassat Seeven, after his bath, cut a piece of oapot wood and sharpened it, and split the other end into four pieces, and bent them over and tied the ends of crow's feathers to them, and stuck it in his hair, and dipped his finger in white paint and made one little spot over each eye, which was all the paint he used, and then he went and watched his wives dancing and taking Stcheuadack Seeven's hand. And Stcheuadack Seeven asked them if that was their husband, and they said: "Yes, he is our husband. He is not very good-looking, but we care so much for him." Tcheunassat Seeven watched the dancing awhile and then stepped back a little and took out his rattle and began to sing. And at once everybody crowded around him, and all his wives came back to him, and finally all Stcheuadack Seeven's wives came and contended for his hand, as his wives had been doing with Stcheuadack Seeven. And this went on into the night, all dancing and having a good time, except Stcheuadack Seeven, who walked around looking at his wives dancing. And finally he sent a message to the most beautiful of his wives (who had a beautiful daughter) and told him to tell her: "I am sleepy, and I want you home now, and I want all my wives to go into the house." And she said: "I will come. I will tell my daughter, who is over there, and then we will come home." But she did not tell her daughter, and did not come home, and Stcheuadack Seeven waited awhile, and then found his messenger and asked him: "Did you tell her?" And the messenger said: "I did." And he said: "Tell her again that I am waiting outside here, and I want her to come to me and we will go home." Then the messenger told the woman again, but she did not come, and Stcheuadack Seeven wandered around outside till morning. And near morning Tcheunassat Seeven sang a beautiful song, and began to move toward his own home, dancing all the way, and all the women going before him. And he did this till morning, and then stopped, and went home, taking all his own wives and all of Stcheuadack Seeven's wives with him. And Stcheuadack Seeven went home, when he saw this, and took his beautiful cloak all covered with live butterflies and humming-birds, and lay down, covering himself with it. But four days after, Stcheuadack Seeven told the messenger to take this beautiful cloak to Tcheunassat Seeven, and ask him to send back that beautiful wife and her daughter, and to keep the rest of the wives; and to keep the cloak and use that to marry more wives. But Tcheunassat Seeven said to the messenger: "Tell him I do not want his cloak. I have one just like it, and I have all I want, and I will not send back any of his wives. It was his wish that we should gamble, and if he had been the better singer and had won my wives I would not have asked for any of them back." And now Tcheunassat Seeven appeared as a beautiful person, with long hair and turquoise ear-rings, and he said: "He need not think I always look as I did when I came to his dance. That was only to fool him." The beautiful daughter of the beautiful wife grew up, and Tcheunassat Seeven married her, too, and she had a baby. And when Stcheuadack Seeven heard of it, he said: "I am going to punish him." And he made a black spider and sent it thru the air. And in the evening when the mother wanted to air her baby's cradle, she took it out, and then the black spider got in the baby's cradle and hid himself, and when the baby was put back the spider bit it, and it began to cry. And its father and mother tried to pacify it, but could not, and when they took it out of the cradle, there they found the black spider. And Tcheunassat Seeven sent word to Stcheuadack Seeven to come and see his grand-child, which was about to die, but Stcheuadack Seeven said to the messenger: "What is the matter with Tcheunassat Seeven? He is a powerful doctor. Tell him to cure the child. I will not come. The bite of a black spider is poisonous, but it never kills anybody. Tell him to get some weeds on Maricopa Mountain and cure the child." And he sent the messenger back again. And Tcheunassat Seeven said: "How can I get those weeds when I do not know which ones are right and there are so many! I cannot go." And he did not go, and the child died. A SONG OF TCHEUNASSAT SEEVEN There stands a dead vahahkkee On top of it there runs back and forth the Seeven And he has a robe with yellow hand prints on it. THE LARK'S SONG ABOUT HIS LOST WIFE [9] My poor wife! In the West she seems to be bound by the song of the Bamboo. THE LEGEND OF BLACKWATER A little off from the road between Sacaton, and Casa Grande Ruins there is, or was in the old days, a mysterious pool of dark water, which the Indians regarded with superstitious awe. They said it was of fathomless depth, that it communicated with the ocean, and that strange, monstrous animals at times appeared in it. There are Indians still living who declare they have seen them with their own eyes. I visited this famous place once with my interpreter, Mr Wood. After galloping a while thru a mezquite forest we suddenly emerged upon its legendary shores. Alas, for the prosaic quality of fact! It was but a common-place water-hole, or spring-pond, a few rods across, with bogs and bulrushes in its center. The unkindness of irrigation ditches, withdrawing its waters, revealed that like most bottomless pools of story it was very shallow indeed. It was nearly dry. Its name of Blackwater has been given to the nearby surrounding district. This was the only trace of the common Indian superstition of water monsters I found among the Pimas. Koo-a Kutch The End ERRATA In this book of Pima legends, various errors with regard to Indian words have occurred which will be corrected in a second edition. These are principally as follows: The rule was made that all Indian words should be printed the first time in italics, with hyphens to facilitate pronunciation; afterwards in roman type, without hyphens. This rule has many times been violated. There is a lack of uniformity in the spelling, etc., of many of the Indian terms. Thus the name of the old seeneeyawkum has been spelled in different ways, but should always be Comalk Hawkkih. The name of the Creator should always be Juwerta Mahkai. The name of his subordinate should be Eeheetoy. Gee-ee-sop should be Geeheesop. Cheof should be Cheoff. Vah-kee-woldt-kee, as on page 8, should be Vahf-kee-woldt-kih as on page 112. Sah-kote-kee, on page 183, should be Sah-kote-kih, and Chirt-kee should be Chirt-kih. On page 224, vahs-shroms should be vahs-hroms. Tcheuassat Seeven (page 237) should be Tcheunassat Seeven. Stchenadack Seeven (page 238) should be Stcheuadack Seeven. Scheunassat Seeven, on page 239, should be Tcheunassat Seeven. In the story of the Turquoises and the Red Bird (page 99) the name of the chief who lived in the Casa Grande ruins should have been spelled with a u, instead of a w, to secure uniformity; also the Indian name of the turquoises. The name of the Salt River Mountain, wherever it occurs, should always be Moehahdheck. NOTES [1] Many doubt that the Indians of North America knew anything about the diamond, but my interpreter insisted that the Doctor-stone was the diamond, therefore I have taken his word for it. Perhaps it was crystal. [2] What the Pimas call the haht-sahn-kahm is the wickedest cactus in Arizona. The tops of the branches fall off, and lie on the ground, and if stepped on the thorns will go thru ordinary shoe leather and seem to hold with the tenacity of fish-hooks, so that it is almost impossible to draw them out. [3] "To swallow charcoal" implies the swallowing of meat so greedily it is not properly cleansed of the ashes of its roasting. [4] The reference to the "gun" shows clearly that this song was made after the advent of the white man. [5] This word was not translated--probably archaic and the meaning forgotten. [6] This song is evidently imperfect, for in the context it is said that before this fight they sang about the beads, sah-vaht-kih, but there is no mention of them here. [7] The reason why the older people went inside the circle was to protect the younger ones from the impurity of anything Apache, and they went inside as more hardened to this. [8] Read before the Anthropological Society of Philadelphia, May 11, 1904. [9] This is a Pima flute-song, a record of which I obtained for my phonograph while in Arizona. It has no direct connection with the legends; but illustrates the Story of Tcheunassat Seeven a little, as it is about a woman, the wife of an Indian named the Lark, who is led away by the seductive singing of another Indian named the Bamboo; the Indians having an idea that women were most easily seduced by music. The Pimas, when they speak English, calling the wild cane bamboo. 
40262	----	FRANK MERRIWELL'S TRIUMPH OR THE DISAPPEARANCE OF FELICIA BY BURT L. STANDISH AUTHOR OF _The World-renowned "Merriwell Stories"_ PUBLISHED EXCLUSIVELY IN PAPER-COVERED EDITION IN THE NEW MEDAL LIBRARY STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS 79-89 SEVENTH AVE., NEW YORK CITY Copyright, 1904 By STREET & SMITH Frank Merriwell's Triumph All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. Publisher's Note Very few of our readers have any idea of the task that the growing popularity of the S. & S. novel imposes upon us. We don't refer to the mere manual labor of manufacturing, but to the vast expenditure of time, money and energy necessary to keep the quality of our lines up to the high standard that we have educated our readers to demand. In order that the S. & S. novel may continue to be all that we claim for it, we have invaded cloth-book fields and have made arrangements with several well-known publishers to print exclusive editions of books by famous authors--books about whose great merit there is not a single doubt. The S. & S. novel has prospered mightily and for that reason we can well afford to give our readers that literature that is acceptable to every man and woman who seeks mental relaxation after a hard day's work at the office, store or factory. The S. & S. novels are great popular educators, reaching, as they do, every city and hamlet in this vast country of ours, instilling a desire to read in thousands of persons who would have cared nothing for literature if they had not become aware of the wholesome, unalloyed pleasure that the S. & S. novels afford. Please send for our complete catalogue showing the S. & S. 2700. STREET & SMITH, Publishers NEW YORK "ALGER" What a pleasant sound the name of Horatio Alger, Jr., has to boys who read clean, wholesome stories of adventure! His name on a book means that it is a "good one"; that the money invested in it is well invested. Street & Smith publish the most complete list of his works in their famous S. & S. novels--it contains nearly all of them. If you want your boys to read helpful books, buy the "Algers" in the Medal and New Medal Libraries. PRICE, 10c. and 15c. PER COPY AT ALL NEWSDEALERS If sent by mail, add four cents per copy to cover postage. Complete catalogue upon request. STREET & SMITH, Publishers, NEW YORK CONTENTS I. A COMPACT OF RASCALS. 5 II. DAYS OF RETRIBUTION. 12 III. THE MAP VANISHES. 24 IV. THE NIGHT WATCH. 34 V. WILEY'S DISAPPEARANCE. 54 VI. WILEY MEETS MISS FORTUNE. 70 VII. A STARTLING TELEGRAM. 79 VIII. FELIPE DULZURA. 90 IX. WHAT THE MONK TOLD THEM. 104 X. THREE IN A TRAP. 112 XI. RUFFIANS AT ODDS. 122 XII. A LIVELY FISTIC BOUT. 136 XIII. MACKLYN MORGAN APPEARS. 148 XIV. THE MESSENGER. 157 XV. A DESPERATE SITUATION. 172 XVI. CROWFOOT MAKES MEDICINE. 184 XVII. HOW THE MEDICINE WORKED. 190 XVIII. A BUNCH OF PRISONERS. 195 XIX. THE VALLEY OF DESOLATION. 206 XX. THE FINDING OF THE BABES. 220 XXI. THE LOTTERY OF DEATH. 227 XXII. AN ACT OF TREACHERY. 244 XXIII. NEW RICHES PROMISED. 259 XXIV. WHAT HAPPENED TO DICK. 272 XXV. HOW WAS IT DONE? 286 XXVI. FORCED TO WRITE. 296 XXVII. COMPLETE TRIUMPH. 303 FRANK MERRIWELL'S TRIUMPH. CHAPTER I. A COMPACT OF RASCALS. They were dangerous-looking men, thirty of them in all, armed to the teeth. They looked like unscrupulous fellows who would hesitate at no desperate deed. Some of them had bad records, and yet they had served Frank Merriwell faithfully in guarding his mine, the Queen Mystery, against those who tried to wrest it from him by force and fraud. Frank had called these men together, and he now stood on his doorstep in Mystery Valley, Arizona, looking them over. Bart Hodge, Frank's college chum and companion in many adventures, was behind him in the doorway. Little Abe, a hunchback boy whom Merriwell had rescued from ruffians at a mining camp and befriended for some time, peered from the cabin. Merry smiled pleasantly as he surveyed the men. "Well, boys," he said, "the time has come when I shall need your services no longer." Some of them stirred restlessly and looked regretful. "To tell you the truth," Frank went on, "I am genuinely sorry to part with you. You have served me well. But I need you no more. My enemies have been defeated, and the courts have recognized my rightful claim to this property. You fought for me when it was necessary. You risked your lives for me." "That's what we is paid for, Mr. Merriwell," said Tombstone Phil, the leader. "We tries to earn our money." "You have earned it, every one of you. I remember the day we stood off a hundred painted ruffians in the desert; I remember the hunting of Jim Rednight; and I don't forget that when Hodge and I stood beneath a tree near Phoenix, with ropes about our necks, that you charged to the rescue and saved us. Have I paid you in a satisfactory manner?" "Sure thing!" "You bet!" "That's whatever!" "You don't hear us kick any!" "We're satisfied!" These exclamations were uttered by various men in the gathering. "I am glad to know, boys," declared Frank, "that you are all satisfied. If you must leave me, I like to have you leave feeling that you have been treated on the square." "Mr. Merriwell," said Mexican Bob, a wizened little man, "I ken chew up the galoot what says you ain't plumb on the level. Thar's nary a critter in the bunch whatever makes a murmur about you." "You can see, boys," Frank went on, "that I have no further use for you as a guard to my property. If any of you wish to remain, however, I shall try to find employment for you. There's work enough to be done here, although it may not be the sort of work you care to touch. I need more men in the mine. You know the wages paid. It's hard work and may not be satisfactory to any of you." The men were silent. "As we are parting," Merry added, "I wish to show my appreciation of you in a manner that will be satisfactory to you all. For that purpose I have something to distribute among you. Hand them out, Hodge." Bart stepped back and reappeared some moments later loaded down with a lot of small canvas pouches. "Come up one at a time, boys," invited Merry, as he began taking these from Bart. "Here you are, Phil." He dropped the first pouch into Tombstone Phil's hand, and it gave forth a musical, clinking sound that made the eyes of the men sparkle. One by one they filed past the doorstep, and into each outstretched hand was dropped a clinking canvas pouch, each one of which was heavy enough to make its recipient smile. When the last man had received his present, they gathered again in front of the door, and suddenly Tombstone Phil roared: "Give up a youp, boys, for the whitest man on two legs, Frank Merriwell!" They swung their hats in the air and uttered a yell that awoke the echoes of the valley. "Thanks, men," said Merry quietly. "I appreciate that. As long as you desire to remain in Mystery Valley you are at liberty to do so; when you wish to depart you can do so, also. So-long, boys. Good luck to you." He waved his hand, and they answered with another sharp yell. Then they turned and moved away, declaring over and over among themselves that he was the "whitest man." One of those who repeated this assertion a number of times was a leathery, bowlegged, bewhiskered individual in greasy garments known as Hull Shawmut. If anything, Shawmut seemed more pleased and satisfied than his companions. The only one who said nothing at all was Kip Henry, known as "the Roper," on account of his skill in throwing the lariat. Henry was thin, supple, with a small black mustache, and in his appearance was somewhat dandified, taking great satisfaction in bright colors and in fanciful Mexican garments. He wore a peaked Mexican hat, and his trousers were slit at the bottom, Mexican style. Several times Shawmut glanced at Henry, noting his lack of enthusiasm. When the Thirty retired to their camp down the valley and lingered there, Henry sat apart by himself, rolling and smoking a cigarette and frowning at the ground. "What's the matter, pard?" asked Shawmut, clapping him on the shoulder. "Didn't yer git yer little present?" "Yes, I got it," nodded the Roper. "Then what's eating of yer?" "Well, Shawmut, I am a whole lot sorry this yere job is ended. That's what's the matter. It certain was a snap." "That's right," agreed Kip, sitting down near the other. "We gits good pay for our time, and we works none to speak of. It certain was a snap. Howsomever, such snaps can't last always, partner. Do you opine we've got any kick coming?" "The only thing I was a-thinking of," answered Kip, "is that here we fights to keep this yere mine for him, we takes chances o' being called outlaws, and--now the job is done--we gits dropped. You knows and I knows that this yere mine is a mighty rich one. Why don't we have the luck to locate a mine like that? Why should luck always come to other galoots?" "I ain't explaining that none," confessed Shawmut, as he filled his pipe. "Luck is a heap singular. One night I bucks Jimmy Clerg's bank down in Tucson. I never has much luck hitting the tiger, nohow. This night things run just the same. I peddles and peddles till I gits down to my last yeller boy. If I loses that I am broke. I has a good hoss and outfit, and so I says, 'Here goes.' Well, she does go. Jim's dealer he rakes her in. I sets thar busted wide. When I goes into that place I has eight hundred in my clothes. In less than an hour I has nothing. "Clerg he comes ambling along a-looking the tables over. I sees him, and I says: 'Jim, how much you let me have on my hoss and outfit?' 'What's it wurth?' says he. 'Three hundred, cold,' says I. 'That goes,' says he. And he lets me have the coin. Then I tackles the bank again, and I keeps right on peddling. Yes, sir, I gits down once more to my last coin. This is where I walks out of the saloon on my uppers. All the same, I bets the last red. I wins. Right there, Kip, my luck turns. Arter that it didn't seem I could lose nohow. Pretty soon I has all the chips stacked up in front of me. I cashes in once or twice and keeps right on pushing her. I knows luck is with me, and I takes all kinds o' long chances. Well, pard, when I ambles out of the place at daylight the bank is busted and I has all the ready coin of the joint. That's the way luck works. You gits it in the neck a long time; but bimeby, when she turns, she just pours in on yer." "But it don't seem any to me that my luck is going to turn," muttered the Roper. "Mebbe you takes a little walk with me," said Shawmut significantly. "Mebbe I tells you something some interesting." They arose and walked away from the others, so that their talk might not be heard. "Did you ever hear of Benson Clark?" asked Shawmut. "Clark? Clark? Why, I dunno. Seems ter me I hears o' him." "I knows him well once. He was a grubstaker. But his is hard luck and a-plenty of it. All the same, he keeps right on thinking sure that luck changes for him. Something like two years ago I loses track of him. I never sees him any since. But old Bense he hits it rich at last. Somewhere in the Mazatzals he located a claim what opens rich as mud. Some Indians off their reservation finds him there, and he has to run for it. He gits out of the mountains, but they cuts him off and shoots him up. His luck don't do him no good, for he croaks. But right here is where another lucky gent comes in. This other gent he happens along and finds old Bense, and Bense he tells him about the mine and gives him a map. Now, this other lucky gent he proposes to go and locate that mine. He proposes to do this, though right now he owns two of the best mines in the whole country. Mebbe you guesses who I'm talking about." "Why," exclaimed Henry, "you don't mean Mr. Merriwell, do yer?" "Mebbe I does," answered Shawmut, glancing at his companion slantwise. "Now, what do yer think of that?" "What do I think of it?" muttered the Roper. "Well, I will tell yer. I think it's rotten that all the luck is to come to one gent. I think Mr. Merriwell has a-plenty and he can do without another mine." "Just what I thinks," agreed Shawmut. "I figgers it out that way myself. But he has a map, and that shows him where to find old Bense's claim." "See here," said Kip, stopping short, "how do you happen to know so much about this?" "Well, mebbe I listens around some; mebbe I harks a little; mebbe I finds it out that way." "I see," said Henry, in surprise; "but I never thinks it o' you. You seem so satisfied-like I reckons you don't bother any." "Mebbe I plays my cards slick and proper," chuckled Shawmut. "You sees I don't care to be suspected now." "What do you propose to do?" "Well, partner, if I tells you, does you opine you're ready to stick by me?" "Share even and I am ready for anything," was the assurance. "Mr. Merriwell he proposes hiking out soon to locate that thar claim o' Benson Clark's. I am none in a hurry about getting away from here, so I lingers. When he hikes I follers. When he locates the claim mebbe he has to leave it; mebbe I jump it; mebbe I gits it recorded first. If he don't suspect me any, if he don't know I'm arter it, he don't hurry any about having it recorded. That gives me time to get ahead of him. If you're with me in this, we goes even on the claim. It's a heap resky, for this yere Merriwell is dangerous to deal with. Is it settled?" "Yere's my hand," said Kip Henry. Shawmut clasped the proffered hand, and the compact was made. CHAPTER II. DAYS OF RETRIBUTION. When Merry had dismissed the men, he turned back into the cabin and sat down near the table. "Well, that's the end of that business, Bart," he said. "Yes," nodded Hodge, sitting opposite. "I congratulate you on the way you handled those men, Merry. No one else could have done it as well. If ever I saw a collection of land pirates, it was that bunch." Frank smiled. "They were a pretty tough set," he confessed; "but they were just the men I needed to match the ruffians Sukes set against me." Milton Sukes was the chief conspirator against Frank in the schemes to deprive him of the Queen Mystery Mine. "Sukes will hire no more ruffians," said Hodge. "I should say not. He has perpetrated his last piece of villainy. He has gone before the judgment bar on high." "And the last poor wretch he deluded is an imbecile." "Poor Worthington!" said Merry. "I fear he will never be right again. It was his bullet that destroyed Sukes, yet no man can prove it. What he suffered after that during his flight into the desert, where he nearly perished for water, completely turned his brain." "You want to look out for him, Frank. I think he is dangerous." Merry laughed. "Ridiculous, Hodge! He is as harmless as a child. When I let him, he follows me about like a dog." Even as Frank said this, a crouching figure came creeping to the door and peered in. It was a man with unshaven, haggard face and eyes from which the light of reason had fled. "There he is!" exclaimed this man. "There is my ghost! Do you want me, ghost?" "Come in, Worthington!" called Frank. The man entered hesitatingly and stood near the table, never taking his eyes from Merry's face for a moment. "What you command, ghost, I must obey," he said. "You own me, body and soul. Ha! ha! body and soul! But I have no soul! I bartered it with a wretch who deceived me! I was an honest man before that! Perhaps you don't believe me, but I swear I was. You must believe me! It's a terrible thing to be owned by a ghost who has no confidence in you. But why should my ghost have confidence! Didn't I deceive him? Didn't I kill him? I see it now. I see the fire! It is burning--it is burning there! He has found me as I am setting it. He springs upon me! He is strong--so strong! Ha! his feet slip! Down he goes! His head strikes! He is unconscious!" The wretch seemed living over the terrible experiences through which he had passed on a certain night in Denver, when he set fire to Merriwell's office and tried to burn Frank to death. He thought he had accomplished his purpose, and the appearance of his intended victim alive had turned his brain. As he listened Hodge shivered a little. "Never mind, Worthington," said Frank. "He is all right. He will escape from the fire." "No, no, no!" gasped the man, wringing his hands. "See him lying there! See the fire flashing on his face! See the smoke! It is coming thick. I must go! I must leave him. It is a fearful thing to do! But if he escapes he will destroy me. He will send me to prison, and I must leave him to die!" He covered his eyes with his hands, as if to shut out a terrible spectacle. "No one sees me!" he whispered. "Here are the stairs! It is all dark--all dark! I must get out quick, before the fire is discovered. I have done it! I am on the street! I mustn't run! If I run they will suspect me. I will walk fast--walk fast!" Merry glanced at Hodge and sadly shook his head. "Now the engines are coming!" exclaimed the deranged man. "Hear them as they clang and roar along the streets! See the people run! See the horses galloping! They are coming to try to put out the fire. What if they do it in time to save him! Then he will tell them of my treachery! Then he will send me to prison! I must see--I must know! I must go back there!" "He shall not send you to prison, Worthington," asserted Merry soothingly. "He shall be merciful to you." "Why should he? Here is the burning building. Here are the engines, panting and throbbing. See! they pour streams of water on the building. No use! It is too late; you cannot save him. He is dead long before this. Who shall say I was to blame? What if they do find his charred body? No man can prove I had a hand in it. I defy you to prove it!" Shaking his trembling hands in the air, the wretch almost shrieked these words. "This," muttered Bart Hodge, "is retribution." "I must go away," whispered Worthington. "I must hide where they can't see me. Look how every one stares at me! They seem to know I have done it! These infernal lights betray me! I must hide in the darkness. Some one is following me everywhere. I am afraid of the darkness! I will always be afraid of the darkness! In the darkness or in the light, there is no rest for me--no rest! Did you hear that voice? Do you hear? It accuses me of murder! I am haunted! My God! Haunted, haunted!" With this heartbroken cry he sank on his knees and crept toward Frank. "You're the ghost that haunts me!" he exclaimed. "It is my punishment! I must always be near you, and you must haunt me forever!" Merry touched him gently. "Get up, Worthington," he said regretfully. "Your punishment has been too much. Look at me. Look me straight in the eyes, Worthington. I am not dead. You didn't kill me." "No use to tell me that; I know better." "It is hopeless now, Hodge," said Merry, in a low tone. "The only chance for him is that time will restore his reason. You may go, Worthington." "I must stay near by, mustn't I?" "You may stay outside." With bowed head and unsteady steps the man left the cabin and disappeared. Little Abe had remained speechless and frightened in a corner. Now he picked up his fiddle, and suddenly from it came a weird melody. It was a crazy tune, filled with wild fancies and ghostly phantoms. "He is playing the music of that deranged soul," murmured Frank. The sound of the fiddle died in a wail, and the boy sat shivering and silent in the corner. "This is a little too much of a ghostly thing!" exclaimed Merry as he arose and shook himself. "Let's talk of something else, Hodge. To-morrow we start for the Mazatzals, and I have everything ready. If we can locate that mine, one-half of it is yours." He took from his pocket a leather case and removed from it a torn and soiled map, which he spread on the table. Together he and Bart examined the map once more, as they had done many times before. "There," said Frank, "is Clear Creek, running down into the Rio Verde. Somewhere to the northwest of Hawley Peak, as this fellow indicated here on the map, in the valley shown by this cross, is Benson Clark's claim." "The location is vaguely marked," said Bart. "We may search for it a year without discovering it." "That's true; but we know approximately somewhere near where it is." "Well," said Hodge, "we will do our best. That's all any one can do. It is your fortune, Frank, to be lucky; and for that reason we may be successful." "Something tells me we shall be," nodded Merriwell. The start was made next day, and the journey continued until one afternoon Merry and Bart Hodge stood looking down into a deep, oblong valley in the heart of the Northern Mazatzals. With them was Cap'n Walter Wiley, a former seafaring man, who had been Frank's friend in many thrilling adventures in the West. Little Abe had come with them from Mystery Valley, as had Worthington, but they were at the camp Merry had established some distance behind. "I believe this valley is the one," Merry declared; "but how are we going to get into it? That's the question that bothers me." "There must be an inlet or outlet or something to the old valley," said Hodge. "It cannot be just a sink hole dropped down here like a huge oval basin in the mountains. There is a stream running through it, too. It is wooded and watered, and there is plenty of grass for grazing." "I am almost positive this valley is the one Benson Clark told me of. I am almost positive it is the one marked on my map. Clark was shot and dying when I found him. He didn't have time to tell me how to get into the valley." "We seem to have struck something that impedes navigation and investigation and causes agitation," put in Cap'n Wiley. "I would truly love to have the wings of a dove that I could fly from these heights above. Poetry just bubbles from me occasionally. I must set my colossal intellect at work on this perplexing problem and demonstrate my astounding ability to solve entangling enigmas. (Webster's Dictionary does contain the loveliest words!) Let me think a thought. Let all nature stand hushed and silent while I thunk a think." His companions paid little heed to him; but he continued to discuss the problem of descending into the valley. "I have visited the northern end and the southern end," said Frank, "and I have explored this side and surveyed the other side through my field glasses. There seems no break in these perpendicular walls. This valley seems like one of those Southwestern mesas inverted. They rise sheer from the plains, and it is impossible to reach the top of many of them. This drops straight down here, and it seems impossible to reach its bottom." "The more difficult it is," said Bart, "the greater becomes my desire to get down there." "Same here," smiled Frank. "The difficulty makes it something of a mystery. Scientific expeditions have spent thousands of dollars in reaching the top of the Mesa Encantada, in New Mexico. By Americans it is called the Enchanted Mesa. Now, the mere fact that we can't seem to get down into this valley throws an atmosphere of mystery over it, and to me it is an enchanted valley." "Hush!" whispered Wiley, with one finger pressed against his forehead. "A mighty thought is throbbing and seething in my cohesive brain. If I only had my gravity destroyer here! Ha! Then I could simply jump down into the valley and look around, and, when I got ready, jump back up here. By the way, mates, did you ever know why it was that Santos-Dumont retired from this country in confusion and dismay? You know he came over here with his old flying machine, and was going to do stunts to amaze the gaping multitudes. You know he suddenly packed his Kenebecca and took passage to foreign shores. The secret of his sudden departure has never been told. If you will promise to whisper no word of it to the world, I will reveal the truth to you. "Just before Santy arrived in the United States I succeeded in perfecting my great gravity destroyer. As I have on other occasions explained to you, it was about the size of an ordinary watch, and I carried it about in my pocket. By pressing a certain spring I immediately destroyed the force of gravity so that, by giving an easy, gentle sort of a jump into the air, I could sail right up to the top of a church steeple. When I got ready to come down, I just let go and sailed down lightly as a feather. When I heard that Santy was going to amaze this country with his dinky old flying machine, I resolved to have a little harmless amusement with him. "With this object in view, I had a flying machine of my own invented. It was made of canvas stretched over a light wooden frame, and along the bottom, to keep it upright, I had a keel of lead. My means of expulsion was a huge paddle wheel that I could work with my feet. That was the only thing about the machine that I didn't like. There was some work connected with it. To the rear end of the arrangement I attached a huge fanlike rudder that I could operate with ropes running to the cross pieces, like on ordinary rowboats. "Mates, there never was a truer word spoken from the chest than that the prophet is not without honor save in his own country. I had this flying machine of mine constructed in Cap'n Bean's shipyard, down in Camden, Maine, my home. The villagers turned out in swarms, and stood around, and nudged each other in the ribs, and stared at my contrivance, and tried to josh me. Even Billy Murphy gave me a loud and gleeful ha-ha! They seemed to think I had gone daffy, but I kept right on about my business, and one day the _Snowbird_, as I called her, was finished. She was a beauty, mates, as she lay there, looking so light and airy and fragile. "By that time I had become decidedly hot under the collar on account of so much chaffing from the rustic populace. Says I to myself, says I: 'Cap'n, these Rubes don't deserve to see you fly. If you let them see you fly you will be giving every mother's son of them two dollars' worth of entertainment free of charge.' Now, it isn't my custom to give anything free of charge. Therefore I advertised in the _Herald_ that on a certain day I would sail the aërial atmosphere. I stated that before doing so I would pass around the hat, and I expected every person present to drop two dollars into it. I thought this was a clever idea of mine. "On the day and date the people came from near and far. They journeyed even from Hogansville, South Hope, and Stickney's Corner. When I saw them massed in one great multitude in and around that shipyard and on the steamboat wharf, I made merry cachinnation. "But alas! when I passed through that crowd with my hat and counted up the collection, I found I had a lead nickel, a trousers button, and a peppermint lozenger. That was all those measly, close-fisted people donated for the pleasure of seeing me navigate the ambient air. Although I am not inclined to be over-sensitive, I felt hurt, and pained, and disappointed. I then made a little speech to them, and informed them that over in Searsmont there was a man so mean that he used a wart on the back of his neck for a collar button to save the expense of buying one, but I considered him the soul of generosity beside them. I further informed them that I had postponed sailing. I minded it not that they guffawed and heaped derision upon me. I was resolute and unbending, and they were forced to leave without seeing me hoist anchor that day. "In the soft and stilly hours of the night which followed I seated myself in the _Snowbird_, applied my feet to the mechanism, pressed the spring of the gravity destroyer, and away I scooted over Penobscot Bay. When the sun rose the following morning it found Cap'n Bean's shipyard empty and little Walter and his flying machine gone. "I was on hand when Santos-Dumont arrived in New York. I sought an interview with him, and I told him I proposed making him look like a plugged quarter when he gave his exhibition. I challenged him to sail against me and told him I would show him up. Santy didn't seem to like this, and he made remarks which would not look well in the _Sabbath School Herald_. Indeed, he became violent, and, though I tried to soothe him, I discovered myself, when the interview ended, sitting on the sidewalk outside of the building and feeling of my person for bumps and sore spots. "You can imagine with what dignity I arose to my feet and strode haughtily away. More than ever was I determined to make old Santy look like an amateur in the flying business. However, he took particular pains while in New York to scoot around in his machine when he knew I was not informed that such was his intention. With a great deal of craft and skill he avoided coming in competition with me. One day some part of his jigger got out of gear and he had it removed into the country to fix it. I located him and followed him up. I have forgotten the name of the village where I found him; but the people were getting much excited, for he had stated that at a certain time he would show them what he could do. "He had gathered scientific men from Oshkosh, Skowhegan, Chicago, and other centres of culture and refinement. Among them was Professor Deusenberry, of the Squedunk Elementary College of Fine Fatheads. I succeeded in getting at Professor Deusenberry's ear. He had a generous ear, and there was not much trouble in getting at it. I told him all about my _Snowbird_, and informed him that I had her concealed near at hand and proposed to show up Santos when he broke loose and sailed. I took him around to see my craft; but when he looked her over he shook his head and announced that she'd never rise clear of the skids on which I had her elevated above the ground. "Well, mates, the great day came around, and promptly at the hour set Santos rose like a bird in the air. I was watching for him, and when I saw him gliding about over the village I promptly started the _Snowbird_ going. The moment I shut off the power of gravitation I scooted upward like a wild swan. I made straight for Dumont's old machine, and there before the wildly cheering people, whose shouts rose faint and sweet to my ear, I proceeded to do a few stunts. I circled around Santos when he was at his best speed. I sailed over him and under him, and I certain gave him an attack of nervous prostration. In his excitement he did something wrong and knocked his machine out of kilter, so that he suddenly took a collapse and fell into the top of a tree, where his old craft was badly damaged. I gently lowered myself to the ground, and as I stepped out of the _Snowbird_ Professor Deusenberry clasped me to his throbbing bosom and wept on my breast. "'Professor Wiley!' he cried, 'beyond question you have solved the problem of aërial navigation. Professor Wiley----' 'Excuse me, Professor Deusenberry' said I, 'but I am simply plain Cap'n Wiley, a salty old tar of modesty and few pretensions. I have no rightful claim to the title of professor.' "'But you shall have--you shall have!' he earnestly declared. 'I will see that you're made professor of atmospheric nullity at the Squedunk Elementary College of Fine Fatheads. Your name shall go ringing down through the corridor of the ages. Your name shall stand side by side in history with those of Columbus, Pizarro, and Richard Croker.' "That night I was wined, and dined, and toasted in that town, while Santos-Dumont stood outside and shivered in the cold. The scientific men and professors and men of boodle gazed on me in awe and wonderment and bowed down before me. Professor Deusenberry was seized with a determination to own the _Snowbird_. He was fearful lest some one else should obtain her, and so he hastened to get me to set a price upon her. I was modest. I told him that I was modest. I told him that in the cause of science I was ready to part with her for the paltry sum of five thousand dollars. In less than ten minutes he had gathered some of the moneyed fatheads of his college and bought my flying machine. "I suggested to them that the proper way to start her was to get her onto some eminence and have some one push her off. The following morning they raised her to the flat roof of a building, and, with no small amount of agitation, I saw that Professor Deusenberry himself contemplated making a trip in her. When they pushed her off he started the paddle wheels going, but without the effect of my little gravity destroyer to keep her from falling. She dropped straight down to the ground. When they picked the professor up, several of his lateral ribs, together with his dispendarium, were fractured. I thought his confidence in me was also broken. At any rate, I hastened to shake the dust of that town from my feet and make for the tall timber. "Nevertheless, mates, my little experience with Santos-Dumont so disgusted and discouraged him that he immediately left this country, which explains something that has been puzzling the people for a long time. They wondered why he didn't remain and do the stunts he had promised to do. Even now I fancy that Santy often dreams in terror of Cap'n Wiley and his _Snowbird_." CHAPTER III. THE MAP VANISHES. While Cap'n Wiley had been relating this yarn Merriwell seemed utterly unconscious of his presence. Having produced his field glasses from the case at his side, he was surveying the impregnable valley. Suddenly he started slightly and touched Bart's arm. "Look yonder, Hodge," he said, in a low tone. "Away up at the far end of the valley where the timber is, I can see smoke rising there." "So can I!" exclaimed Hodge. "What does it mean?" "There is but one thing it can mean, and that is----" "There's some one in the valley." "Sure, sure," agreed Cap'n Wiley. "Somebody has found a passage into that harbor." "Do you suppose," asked Hodge, in consternation, "that there are other parties searching for that mine?" "It's not unlikely." "But you were the only one told of its existence by Benson Clark." "Still, it's likely others knew he was prospecting in this vicinity." "It will be hard luck, Merry, if we find that some one has relocated that claim ahead of us." "That's right," nodded Frank. "The fact that there is smoke rising from that part of the valley proves it is not impossible to get down there. It's too late to-day to make any further effort in that direction. We will return to the camp and wait for morning." "And if you find other men on the claim, what will you do?" "I haven't decided." "But it belongs to you!" exclaimed Hodge earnestly. "Clark located it, and when he died he gave you the right to it." "Nevertheless, if some one else has found it and has registered his claim, he can hold it." "Not if you can prove Clark staked it off and posted notices. Not if you can prove he gave it to you." "But I can't prove that. Clark is dead. He left no will. All he left was quartz in his saddlebags and some dust he had washed from the placer, together with this map I have in my pocket. You see, I would find it impossible to prove my right to the mine if I discovered other parties in possession of it." Bart's look of disappointment increased. "I suppose that's right, Merry," he confessed; "but it doesn't seem right to me. The Consolidated Mining Association of America tried to take your Queen Mystery Mine from you on a shabbier claim than you have on this mine here." "But I defeated them, Bart. You must not forget that." "I haven't forgotten it," Hodge declared, nodding his head. "All the same, you had hard work to defeat them, and, later, Milton Sukes made it still harder for you." "But I triumphed in both cases. Right is right, Bart; it makes no difference whether it is on my side or the other fellow's." "That's so," Hodge confessed. "But it would be an almighty shame to find some one else squatting on that claim. I'd like to get down into that valley now!" "It can't be done before nightfall, so we will go back to camp." They set out, and an hour later they reached their camp in a small valley. There they had pitched a tent near a spring, and close at hand their horses grazed. As they approached the tent, little Abe came hobbling up to them. "I am glad you're back," he declared. "That man has been going on just awful." "Who? Worthington?" questioned Merry. "Yes; he said over and over that he knew his ghost would be lost. He declared his ghost was in danger. He said he could feel the danger near." "More of his wild fancies," said Hodge. "Mates," observed Cap'n Wiley, "if there's anything that upsets my zebro spinal column it is a crazy gentleman like that. I am prone to confess that he worries me. I don't trust him. I am afraid that some morning I will wake up and find a hatchet sticking in my head. I should hate to do that." "I am positive he is harmless," declared Merry. "Where is he, Abe?" "I don't know now. A while ago he just rushed off, calling and calling, and he's not come back." Frank looked alarmed. "He promised me he would stay near the camp. He gave me his word, and this is the first time he has failed to obey me implicitly in everything." "He said he'd have to go to save you." "It was a mistake bringing him here, Frank," asserted Hodge. "But what could I do with him? He wouldn't remain behind, and I knew the danger of leaving him there. Any day he might escape from the valley and lose himself in the desert to perish there." "Perhaps that is what will happen to him now." Merry was sorely troubled. He made preparations to go in search of Worthington without delay. But even as he was doing so the deranged man came running back into the camp and fell panting at his feet. "I have found you again, my ghost!" he cried. "They are after you! You must beware! You must guard yourself constantly!" "Get up, Worthington!" said Merry. "I am in no danger. No one can hurt a ghost, you know." "Ah! you don't know them--you don't know them!" excitedly shouted the lunatic. "They are wicked and dangerous. I saw them peering over those rocks. I saw their evil eyes. Abe was asleep. I had been walking up and down, waiting for you to return. When I saw them I stood still as a stone and made them believe I was dead. They watched and watched and whispered. They had weapons in their hands! You must be on your guard every minute!" "I have heard about crazy bedbugs," muttered Wiley; "but I never saw one quite as bad as this. Every time I hear him go on that way I feel the need of a drink. I could even partake of a portion of Easy Street firewater with relish." Worthington seized Frank's arm. "You must come and see where they were--you must come and see," he urged. "Never mind that now," said Merry. "I will look later." "No! no! Come, now!" "Be still!" commanded Merry sharply. "I can't waste the time." But the maniac continued to plead and beg until, in order to appease him, Merry gave in. Worthington led him to a mass of bowlders at a distance, and, pointing at them, he declared in a whisper: "There's where they were hiding. Look and see. There is where they were, I tell you!" More to pacify the poor fellow than anything else, Frank looked around amid the rocks. Suddenly he made a discovery that caused him to change countenance and kneel upon the ground. Bart, who had sauntered down, found him thus. "What is it, Frank?" he asked. "See here, Hodge," said Merry. "There has been some one here amid these rocks. Here's a track. Here's a mark where the nails of a man's boot heel scratched on the rocks." Hodge stood looking down, but shook his head. "You have sharper eyes than I, Frank," he confessed. "Perhaps Worthington has been here himself." "No! no!" denied the deranged man. "I was afraid to come! I tell you I saw them! I tell you I saw their wicked eyes. This is the first time I have been here!" "If he tells the truth," said Frank, "then it is certain some one else has been here." Behind Worthington's back Bart shook his head and made signals expressive of his belief that whatever signs Frank had discovered there had been made by Worthington. "Now, you see," persisted the madman; "now you know they were here! Now you know you must be on your guard!" "Yes, yes," nodded Merry impatiently. "Don't worry about that, Worthington. I will be on my guard. They will not take me by surprise." This seemed to satisfy the poor fellow for the time being, and they returned to the tent. There a fire was again started and supper was prepared. Shadows gathered in the valley and night came on. Overhead the bright stars were shining with a clear light peculiar to that Southwestern land. After supper they lay about on the ground, talking of the Enchanted Valley, as Merry had named it, and of the mysterious smoke seen rising from it. Later, when little Abe and Cap'n Wiley were sleeping and Worthington had sunk into troubled slumber, through which he muttered and moaned, Frank and Bart sat in the tent and examined the map by the light of a small lantern. "Beyond question, Merry, the mine is near here. There is not a doubt of it. Here to the east is Hawley Peak, to the south lies Clear Creek. Here you see marked the stream which must flow through that valley, and here is the cross made by Clark, which indicates the location of his claim." They bent over the map with their heads together, sitting near the end of the tent. Suddenly a hand and arm was thrust in through the perpendicular slit in the tent flap. That arm reached over Frank's shoulder, and that hand seized the map from his fingers. It was done in a twinkling, and in a twinkling it was gone. With shouts of astonishment and dismay, both Frank and Bart sprang up and plunged from the tent. They heard the sounds of feet running swiftly down the valley. "Halt!" cried Merry, producing a pistol and starting in pursuit. In the darkness he caught a glimpse of the fleeing figure. "Stop, or I fire!" he cried again. There was no answer. Flinging up his hand, he began shooting into the gloom. He did not stop until he had emptied the weapon. Having run on some distance, he paused and listened, stopping Bart with an outstretched hand. Silence lay over the valley. "Did you hit him?" asked Bart. "I don't know," confessed Frank. "I can hear nothing of him." "Nor I." "You may have dropped him here." "If not----" "If not, my map is gone." As he was talking, Frank threw open his pistol and the empty shells were ejected. He deftly refilled the cylinder. "By George, Merry!" whispered Bart, "Worthington may have been right when he told you he saw some one beyond those bowlders." "He was." "Then we have been followed! We have been spied upon!" "No question about it." "Who did it?" "That's for us to find out." Together they searched for the man at whom Frank had fired in the darkness. They found nothing of him. From the tent little Abe began calling to them. Then Worthington came hurrying and panting through the darkness seeking them. "They have gone!" declared the man wildly. "They were here! In my sleep I felt them! In my sleep I saw them!" "We must have a light, Hodge," said Frank. "Bring the lantern." Bart rushed back to the tent and brought the lantern. With it Frank began examining the ground. "Poor show of discovering any sign here," he muttered. After a time, however, he uttered an exclamation and bent over. "What have you found?" questioned Hodge excitedly. "See here," said Frank, pointing on the ground before him. On a rock at their feet they saw fresh drops of blood. "By Jove, you did hit him!" burst from Bart's lips. "If we can follow that trail----" "We will find the man who has that map," said Merry grimly. "I wonder how badly he is wounded." "Blood!" moaned Worthington. "There is blood on the ground! There is blood in the air! There is death here! Wherever I go there is death!" "Keep still!" said Frank sharply. "Look out for Abe, Bart." Then he began seeking to follow the sanguine trail with the aid of the lighted lantern. It was slow work, but still he made some progress. "We're taking big chances, Merry," said Bart, who had a pistol in his hand. "It's the only way we can follow him." "Beware!" warned Worthington, in a hollow whisper. "I tell you there is death in the air!" They had not proceeded far when suddenly a shot rang out and the bullet smashed the lantern globe, extinguishing the light. Hodge had been expecting something of the sort, and he fired almost instantly in return, aiming at the flash he had vaguely seen. "Are you hurt, Merry?" he asked. "No; the lantern was the only thing struck. Did you see where the shot came from?" "I caught a glimpse of the flash." Then a hoarse voice hailed them from the darkness farther down the valley. "You gents, there!" it called. They did not answer. "Oh, Frank Merriwell!" again came the call. "It's somebody who knows you," whispered Hodge. "What is it?" called Merry, in response. "You holds up where you are!" returned the voice, "or you eats lead a-plenty." "Who are you?" "That's what you finds out if you come. If you wants to know so bad, mebbe you ambles nearer and takes your chances o' getting shot up." "It's sure death to try it," warned Hodge, in a whisper. "Death and destruction!" Worthington screamed. "It is here! Come away! Come away!" He seized Merry and attempted to drag him back. Frank was forced to break the man's hold upon him. "I must save you!" the deranged man panted. "I knew it would come! Once I left you to perish in the flames; now I must save you!" He again flung himself on Frank, and during the struggle that followed both Hodge and Wiley were compelled to render assistance. Not until the madman had been tripped and was held helpless on the ground did he become quiet. "It's no use!" he groaned; "I can't do it! It is not my fault!" Merry bent close and stared through the gloom at the eyes of the unfortunate man. "You must obey me," he said, in that singular, commanding tone of his. "You have to obey me! Go back to the tent!" Then he motioned for Hodge to let Worthington up, and Bart did so. Without further resistance or struggling, the man turned and walked slowly back to the tent. "Go with him, Wiley, and take Abe with you." Although Wiley protested against this, Frank was firm, and the sailor yielded. Then, seeking such shelter as they could find amid the rocks and the darkness, Bart and Frank crept slowly toward the point from which that warning voice had seemed to come. A long time was spent in this manner, and when they reached the spot they sought they were rewarded by finding nothing. "He has gone, Frank," muttered Hodge. "While we were struggling with Worthington, he improved the opportunity to escape." "I fear you are right," said Merriwell. Further investigation proved this was true. In vain they searched the valley. The mysterious unknown who had snatched the map and who had been wounded in his flight by Frank had made good his escape. CHAPTER IV. THE NIGHT WATCH. They were finally compelled to give up the search, although they did so with the greatest reluctance. "Unless it aids the other fellow to locate the claim first," said Bart, "the loss of the map cannot be much of a disadvantage to you, Merry. It could give us no further assistance in finding the claim." "That's true," muttered Frank. "But the fact that mysterious men have been prowling around here and one of them has secured the map seems to indicate there are others who are searching for Benson Clark's lost claim. If they locate it first----" "It's rightfully yours!" growled Hodge. "No one else has a real claim to it. Clark gave it to you." "But he made no will." "All the same, you know he gave it to you." "We have discussed all that, Hodge," said Merry as they returned to the tent. "If other parties find the claim first and begin work on it, they can hold it." Wiley was teetering up and down in front of the tent, apparently in an uneasy state of mind. "I have faced perils by sea and land!" he exclaimed, as they approached. "It doesn't behoove any one to shunt me off onto a lunatic and a cripple when there is danger in the air. My fighting blood is stirred, and I long to look death in the mouth and examine his teeth." Neither Merry nor Bart paid much attention to the spluttering sailor. They consulted about the wisdom of changing their camping place for the night. "I don't think it is necessary," said Frank. "Whoever it was, the prowler secured the map, and I fancy it will satisfy him for the present. Something assures me that was what he was after, and we have nothing more of interest to him now." After a time they decided to remain where they were and to take turns in guarding the camp. The first watch fell on Bart, while Frank was to take the middle hours of the night, and Wiley's turn came toward morning. It was found somewhat difficult to quiet Worthington, who remained intensely wrought up over what had happened; but in time Merry induced him to lie down in the tent. Little Abe crept close to Frank and lay there, shivering somewhat. "You have so many enemies, Frank," he whispered. "Who are these new enemies you have found here?" "I don't know at present, Abe; but I will find out in time." "Why must you always have enemies?" "I think it is the fortune of every man who succeeds to make enemies. Other men become jealous. Only idiots and spineless, nerve-lacking individuals make no enemies at all." "But sometime your enemies will hurt you," muttered the boy fearfully. "You can't always escape when they are prowling about and striking at your back." "Of course, there is a chance that some of them may get me," confessed Frank; "but I am not worrying over that now." "Worthington frightens me, too," confessed the boy. "He is so strange! But, really and truly, he seems to know when danger is near. He seems to discover it, somehow." "Which is a faculty possessed by some people with disordered brains. I fancied the fellow was dreaming when he declared he saw some one hiding behind those rocks to-day; but now I know he actually saw what he claimed to see." "Oh, I hope they don't get that mine away from you! You have taken so much trouble to find it!" "Don't worry," half laughed Merry. "If they should locate the mine ahead of me, I can stand it. I have two mines now, which are owned jointly by myself and my brother." "Your brother!" exclaimed Abe, in surprise. "Why, have you a brother?" "Yes; a half-brother." "Where is he?" "He is attending school far, far away in the East. I received some letters from him while you were in Denver." "Is he like you?" "Well, I don't know. In some things he seems to be like me; in others he is different." "He is younger?" "Yes, several years younger." "Oh, I'd like to see him!" breathed Abe. "I know I'd like him. What's his name?" "Dick." "Perhaps I'll see him some day." "Yes, Abe, I think you will. By and by we will go East, and I will take you to see him at Fardale. That's where he is attending school." "It must be just the finest thing to go to school. I never went to school any. What do they do there, Frank?" "Oh, they do many things, Abe. They study books which prepare them for successful careers, and they play baseball and football and take part in other sports. They have a fine gymnasium, where they exercise to develop their bodies, which need developing, as well as their brains. In some schools, Abe, the development of the body is neglected. Scholars are compelled to study in close rooms, regardless of their health and of their individual weaknesses. And many times their constitutions are wrecked so that they are unfitted to become successful men and women through the fact that they have not the energy and stamina in the battle of life, at which successes must be won. "I don't know that you understand all this, Abe, but many parents make sad mistakes in seeking to force too much education into the heads of their children in a brief space of time. It is not always the boy or girl who is the smartest as a boy or girl who makes the smartest and most successful man or woman. Some of the brightest and most brilliant scholars fail after leaving school. Although at school they were wonders in their classes, in after life others who were not so brilliant and promising often rise far above them." "I don't know nothing about those things, Frank," said the boy. "You seem to know all about everything. But I want you to tell me more about the school and the games they play and the things they do there." "Not to-night, Abe," said Merry. "Go to sleep now. Sometime I will tell you all about it." Long after Merry's regular breathing indicated that he was slumbering, little Abe lay trying to picture to himself that wonderful school, where so many boys studied, and lived, and prepared themselves for careers. It was a strange school his fancy pictured. At last he slept also, and he dreamed that he was in the school with other boys, that he was straight, and strong, and handsome, and that Dick Merriwell was his friend and companion. He dreamed that he took part in the sports and games, and was successful and admired like other lads. It was a joyful dream, and in his sleep he smiled and laughed a little. But for the poor little cripple it was a dream that could never come true. In the night Frank was aroused by Bart, who lay down, while Merry took his place on guard outside the tent. The night was far spent when Frank awakened Wiley to take a turn at watching over the camp. "Port your helm!" muttered the sailor thickly, as Merry shook him. "Breakers ahead! She's going on the rocks!" "Turn out here," said Frank. "It's your watch on deck!" "What's that?" mumbled the sailor. "Who says so? I am cap'n of this ship. I give off orders here." Merry seized him by the shoulders and sat him upright. "In this instance," declared Frank, "you're simply the man before the mast. I am captain this voyage." "I deny the allegation and defy the alligator," spluttered Wiley, waving his arms in the dark. "I never sailed before the mast." Frank was finally compelled to drag him bodily out of the tent, where at length Wiley became aware of his surroundings and stood yawning and rubbing his eyes. "This is a new turn for me, mate," he said. "It has been my custom in the past to lay in my royal bunk and listen to the slosh of bilge water and the plunging of my good ship through the billows, while others did the real work. I always put in my hardest work at resting. I can work harder at resting than any man I know of. I have a natural-born talent for it. Nevertheless, Cap'n Merriwell, I now assume my new duties. You may go below and turn in with the perfect assurance that little Walter will guard you faithfully from all harm. Though a thousand foes should menace you, I will be on hand to repel them." "That's right, Wiley; keep your eyes open. There may be no danger, but you know what happened early this night." "Say no more," assured Wiley. "I am the embodied spirit of active alertness. Permit rosy slumber to softly close your dewy eyes and dream sweet dreams of bliss. Talk about real poetry; there's a sample of it for you." Smiling a little at the eccentricities of the sailor, Frank slipped into the tent and again rolled himself in his blanket. Rosy dawn was smiling over the eastern peaks when Frank opened his eyes. The others were still fast asleep, and Merry wondered if Wiley had already started a fire preparatory for breakfast. It seemed singular that the sailor had not aroused them before this. Stealing softly from the tent, Merry looked around for the captain. At first he saw nothing of him, but after some minutes he discovered Wiley seated on the ground, with his back against a bowlder and with his head bowed. Approaching nearer, Frank saw the sailor was fast asleep, with a revolver clutched in his hand. "Sleeping at your post, are you?" muttered Frank, annoyed. "Had there been enemies near, they might have crept on us while you were sleeping and murdered the whole party. You deserve to be taught a lesson." Making no noise, he drew nearer, keeping somewhat to one side and behind the sailor, then bent over and uttered a piercing yell in Wiley's ear. The result was astonishing. With an answering yell, the sailor bounded into the air like a jack-in-the-box popping up. As he made that first wild, electrifying leap he began shooting. When his feet struck the ground he started to run, but continued shooting in all directions. "Repel boarders!" he yelled. "Give it to them!" Frank dropped down behind the bowlder to make sure that he was protected from the bullets so recklessly discharged from the cap'n's revolver. Peering over it, he saw Wiley bound frantically down the slope toward the spring, catch his toe, spin over in the air, and plunge headlong. By a singular chance, he had tripped just before reaching the spring, and he dived into it, splashing the water in all directions. This termination of the affair was so surprising and ludicrous that Merry was convulsed with laughter. He ran quickly out, seized the sailor by the heels, and dragged him out. Wiley sat up, spluttering and gurgling and spouting water, very stupefied and very much bewildered. This sudden commotion had brought Hodge leaping from the tent, a weapon in hand, while Abe and Worthington crawled forth in alarm. Merry's hearty laughter awoke the echoes of the valley. "Why do you disturb the placid peacefulness of this pellucid morning with the ponderous pyrotechnics of your palpitating pleasure?" inquired Wiley. "Did it amuse you so much to see me take my regular morning plunge? Why, I always do that. I believe in a cold bath in the morning. It's a great thing. It's a regular thing for me. I do it once a year whether I need it or not. This was my morning for plunging, so I plunged. But what was that elongated, ear-splitting vibration that pierced the tympanum of my tingling ear? Somehow I fancy I heard a slight disturbance. I was dreaming just at that moment of my fearful encounter with Chinese pirates in the Indian Ocean some several years agone. Being thus suddenly awakened, I did my best to repel boarders, and I fancy I shot a number of holes in the ambient atmosphere around here." "You did all of that," smiled Merry. "I found it necessary to get under cover in order to be safe. Cap'n, you certainly cut a queer caper. It was better than a circus to see you jump and go scooting down the slope; and when you plunged into the spring I surely thought you were going right through to China." "Well," said the sailor, wiping his face and hands on the tail of his coat, "that saves me the trouble of washing this morning. But I still fail to understand just how it happened." "You were sleeping at your post." "What? Me?" "Yes, you." "Impossible; I never sleep. I may occasionally lapse a little, but I never sleep." "You were snoring." Wiley arose, looking sad and offended. "If I did not love you even as a brother I should feel hurt by your cruel words," he muttered, picking up an empty pistol that had fallen near the spring. "But I know you're joking." "You just said you were dreaming, Wiley," reminded Frank. "Is this the way you are to be trusted? What if our enemies had crept upon us while you were supposed to be guarding the camp?" "Don't speak of it!" entreated the marine marvel. "It hurts me. In case I closed my eyes by accident for a moment, I hope you will forgive me the oversight. Be sure I shall never forgive myself. Oh, but that was a lovely dream! There were seventeen pirates coming over the rail, with cutlasses, and dirks, and muskets, and cannon in their teeth, and I was just wading into them in earnest when you disturbed the engagement. "In that dream I was simply living over again that terrible contest with the Chinese pirates in which I engaged while commanding my good ship, the _Sour Dog_. That was my first cruise in Eastern waters. The _Sour Dog_ was a merchantman of nine billion tons burthen. We were loaded with indigo, and spice, and everything nice. We had started on a return voyage, and were bound southward to round the Cape of Good Hope. I had warned my faithful followers of the dangers we might encounter in the Indian Ocean, which was just literally boiling over with pirates of various kinds. "One thing that had troubled us greatly was the fact that our good ship was overrun with rats. I set my nimble wits to work to devise a scheme of ridding us of those rats. I manufactured a number of very crafty traps, and set them where I believed they would be the most efficacious. You should have seen the way I gathered in those rats. Every morning I had thirty or forty rats in those traps, and soon I was struck with a new scheme. Knowing the value of rats in China, I decided to gather up those on board, put about, and deliver them as a special cargo at Hongkong. With this object in view, I had a huge cage manufactured on the jigger deck. In this cage I confined all the rats captured, and soon I had several hundred of them. These rats, Mr. Merriwell, saved our lives, remarkable though it may seem to you. Bear with me just a moment and I will elucidate. "We had put about and set our course for the Sunda Islands when an unfortunate calm befell us. Now, a calm in those waters is the real thing. When it gets calm there it is so still that you can hear a man think a mile away. The tropical sun blazed down on the blazing ocean, and our sails hung as still and silent as Willie Bryan's tongue after the last Presidential election. The heat was so intense that the tar in the caulking of the vessel bubbled and sizzled, and the deck of the _Sour Dog_ was hot as a pancake griddle. Suddenly the watch aloft sent down a cry, 'Ship, ho!' We sighted her heaving up over the horizon and bearing straight down on us." "But I thought you said there was no wind," interrupted Merry. "How could a ship come bearing down upon you with no wind to sail by?" "It was not exactly a ship, Mr. Merriwell; we soon saw it was a Chinese junk. She was manned with a great crew of rowers, who were propelling her with long oars. We could see their oar blades flashing in the sun as they rose and fell with machine-like regularity. I seized my marine glasses and mounted aloft. Through them I surveyed the approaching craft. I confess to you, sir, that the appearance of that vessel agitated my equilibrium. I didn't like her looks. Something told me she was a pirate. "Unfortunately for us, we were not prepared for such an emergency. Had there been a good breeze blowing, we could have sailed away and laughed at her. As there was no breeze, we were helpless to escape. It was an awful moment. When I told my crew that she was a pirate they fell on their knees and wept and prayed. That worried me exceedingly, for up to that time they had been the most profane, unreligious set of lubbers it was ever my fortune to command. I told them in choice language just about what I thought of them; but it didn't seem to have any effect on them. I told them that our only chance for life was to repel those pirates in some manner. I warned them to arm themselves with such weapons as they could find and to fight to the last. We didn't have a gun on board. One fellow had a good keen knife, but even with the aid of that we seemed in a precarious predicament. "The pirate vessel came straight on. When she was near enough, I hailed her through my speaking trumpet and asked her what she wanted. She made no answer. Soon we could see those yellow-skinned, pigtailed wretches, and every man of them was armed with deadly weapons. Having heard the fearful tales of butcheries committed by those monsters, I knew the fate in store for us unless we could repulse them somehow. Again I appealed to my men, and again I saw it was useless. "The pirate swung alongside and fastened to us. Then those yellow fiends came swarming over the rail with their weapons in their teeth, intent on carving us up. The whole crew boarded us as one man. Just as they were about to begin their horrid work a brilliant thought flashed through my brain. I opened the rat cage and let those rats loose upon the deck. As the Chinamen saw hundreds of rats running around over the deck they uttered yells of joy and started in pursuit of them. "When they yelled they dropped their cutlasses and knives from their teeth, and the clang of steel upon the deck was almost deafening. It was a surprising sight to see the chinks diving here and there after the rats and trying to capture them. To them those rats were far more valuable than anything they had expected to find on board. For the time being they had wholly forgotten their real object in boarding us. "Seeing the opening offered, at the precise psychological moment I seized a cutlass and fell upon them. With my first blow I severed a pirate's head from his body. At the same time I shouted to my crew to follow my example. They caught up the weapons the pirates had dropped, and in less time than it takes to tell it that deck ran knee-deep in Chinese gore. Even after we had attacked them in that manner they seemed so excited over those rats that they continued to chase the fleeing rodents and paid little attention to us. "If was not more than ten minutes before I finished the last wretch of them and stood looking around at that horrible spectacle. With my own hand I had slain forty-one of those pirates. We had wiped out the entire crew. Of course, I felt disappointed in having to lose the rats in that manner, but I decided that it should not be a loss, and straightway I began shaving the pigtails from the Chinamen's heads. We cut them off and piled them up, after which we cast the bodies overboard and washed the deck clean. "When I arrived in New York I made a deal with a manufacturer of hair mattresses and sold out that lot of pigtails for a handsome sum. It was one of the most successful voyages of my life. When Congress heard of the wonderful things I had done in destroying the pirates, it voted me a leather medal of honor. That's the whole story, Mr. Merriwell. I was dreaming of that frightful encounter when you aroused me. Perhaps you may doubt the veracity of my narrative; but it is as true as anything I ever told you." "I haven't a doubt of it," laughed Frank. "It seems to me that the most of your wonderful adventures are things of dreams, cap'n. According to your tell, you should have been a rich man to-day. You have had chances enough." "That's right," nodded the sailor. "But my bountiful generosity has kept me poor. In order to get ahead in this world a fellow has to hustle. He can't become a Rockefeller or a Morgan if he's whole-souled and generous like me. I never did have any sympathy with chaps who complain that they had no chance. I fully agree with my friend, Sam Foss, who wrote some touching little lines which it would delight me to recite to you. Sam is the real thing when it comes to turning out poetry. He can oil up his machine and grind it out by the yard. Listen, and I will recite to you the touching stanzas in question." In his own inimitable manner Wiley began to recite, and this was the poem he delivered: "Joe Beall 'ud set upon a keg, Down to the groc'ry store, an' throw One leg right over t'other leg, An' swear he'd never had a show. 'O, no,' said Joe, 'Hain't hed no show;' Then shift his quid to t'other jaw, An' chaw, an' chaw, an' chaw, an' chaw. "He said he got no start in life, Didn't get no money from his dad The washing took in by his wife Earned all the funds he ever had. 'O, no,' said Joe, 'Hain't hed no show;' An' then he'd look up at the clock, An' talk, an' talk, an' talk, an' talk. "'I've waited twenty year--let's see---- Yes, twenty-four, an' never struck, Altho' I've sot roun' patiently, The fust tarnation streak er luck. 'O, no,' said Joe, 'Hain't hed no show;' Then stuck like mucilage to the spot, An' sot, an' sot, an' sot, an' sot. "'I've come down regeler every day For twenty years to Piper's store; I've sot here in a patient way, Say, hain't I, Piper?' Piper swore. 'I tell yer, Joe, Yer hain't no show; Yer too dern patient'----ther hull raft Just laffed, an' laffed, an' laffed, an' laffed." "That will about do for this morning," laughed Frank. "We will have breakfast now." That day Frank set about a systematic search for some method of getting into the Enchanted Valley, as he had called it. Having broken camp and packed everything, with the entire party he set about circling the valley. It was slow and difficult work, for at points it became necessary that one or two of them should take the horses around by a détour, while the others followed the rim of the valley. Midday had passed when at last Merry discovered a hidden cleft or fissure, like a huge crack in the rocky wall, which ran downward and seemed a possible means of reaching the valley. He had the horses brought to the head of this fissure before exploring it. "At best, it is going to be a mighty difficult thing to get the horses down there," said Bart. "We may not be able to do it," acknowledged Merry; "but I am greatly in hopes that we can get into the valley ourselves at last." When they had descended some distance, Frank found indications which convinced him that other parties had lately traversed that fissure. These signs were not very plain to Bart, but he relied on Merry's judgment. They finally reached a point from where they could see the bottom and look out into the valley. "We can get down here ourselves, all right," said Hodge. "What do you think about the horses?" "It will be a ticklish job to bring them down," acknowledged Merry; "but I am in for trying it." "If one of the beasts should lose his footing and take a tumble----" "We'd be out a horse, that's all. We must look out that, in case such a thing happens, no one of us is carried down with the animal." They returned to the place where Wiley, Worthington, and little Abe were waiting. When Frank announced that they could get into the valley that way, the deranged man suddenly cried: "There's doom down there! Those who enter never return!" "That fellow is a real cheerful chap!" said the sailor. "He has been making it pleasant for us while you were gone, with his joyful predictions of death and disaster." They gave little heed to Worthington. Making sure the packs were secure on the backs of the animals, they fully arranged their plans of descent and entered the fissure. More than an hour later they reached the valley below, having descended without the slightest mishap. "Well, here we are," smiled Merry. "We have found our way into the Enchanted Valley at last." "Never to return! Never to return!" croaked Worthington. "It's too late to do much exploring to-night, Merry," said Hodge. "It's too late to do anything but find a good spot and pitch our tent." "Where had we better camp?" After looking around, Merriwell suggested that they proceed toward the northern end of the valley, where there was timber. "It's up that way we saw smoke, Frank," said Hodge. "I know it." As they advanced toward the timber they came to a narrow gorge that cut for a short distance into the side of a mighty mountain. The stream which ran through the valley flowed from this gorge, and further investigation showed that it came from an opening in the mountainside itself. Beside this stream they found the dead embers of a camp fire. "Who built it, Frank?" asked Bart, as Merry looked the ground over. "Was it Indians, do you think?" Merriwell shook his head. "No; it was built by white men." Hodge frowned. "It makes little difference," he said. "One is likely to be as dangerous as the other." "We will camp here ourselves," decided Merry. The animals were relieved of their packs, and they busied themselves in erecting a tent and making ready for the night. Little Abe was set to gathering wood with which to build a fire. Darkness came on ere they had completed their tasks, but they finished by the light of the fire, which crackled and gleamed beside the flowing stream. Wiley had shown himself to be something of a cook, and on him fell the task of preparing supper. He soon had the coffeepot steaming on a bed of coals, and the aroma made them all ravenous. He made up a batter of corn meal and cooked it in a pan over the fire. This, together with the coffee and their dried beef, satisfied their hunger, and all partook heartily. "Now," said Wiley, as he stretched himself on the ground, "if some one had a perfecto which he could lend me, I would be supinely content. As it is, I shall have to be satisfied with a soothing pipe." He filled his pipe, lighted it, and lay puffing contentedly. Bart and Merry were talking of what the morrow might bring forth, when suddenly Worthington uttered a sharp hiss and held up his hand. Then, to the surprise of all, from some unknown point, seemingly above them, a voice burst forth in song. It was the voice of a man, and the narrow gorge echoed with the weird melody. Not one of them could tell whence the singing came. "Where dead men roam the dark The world is cold and chill; You hear their voices--hark! They cry o'er vale and hill: 'Beware! Take care! For death is cold and still.'" These were the words of the song as given by that mysterious singer. They were ominous and full of warning. "That certainly is a soulful little ditty," observed Wiley. "It is so hilariously funny and laughable, don't you know." Frank kicked aside the blazing brands of the fire with his foot and stamped them out, plunging the place into darkness. "That's right," muttered Hodge. "They might pick us off any time by the firelight." A hollow, blood-chilling groan sounded near at hand, and Wiley nearly collapsed from sudden fright. The groan, however, came from the lips of Worthington, who was standing straight and silent as a tree, his arms stretched above his head in a singular manner. "The stars are going to fall!" he declared, in a sibilant whisper that was strangely piercing. "Save yourselves! Hold them off! Hold them off! If they strike you, you will be destroyed!" "Say, Worth, old bughouse!" exclaimed Wiley, slapping the deranged man on the shoulder; "don't ever let out another geezly groan like that! Why, my heart rose up and kicked my hair just about a foot into the air. I thought all the ghosts, and spooks, and things of the unseen world had broken loose at one break. You ought to take something for that. You need a tonic. I would recommend Lizzie Pinkham's Vegetable Compound." "Keep still, can't you!" exclaimed Hodge, in a low tone. "If we hear that voice again, I'd like to locate the point from whence it comes." "Oh, I will keep still if you will guarantee to muzzle Worth here," assured the sailor. The deranged man was silent now, and they all seemed to be listening with eager intentness. "Why doesn't he sing some more, Merry?" whispered Bart. After some moments, the mysterious voice was heard again. It seemed to come from the air above them, and they distinctly heard it call a name: "Frank!" Merry stood perfectly still, but, in spite of himself, Bart Hodge gave a start of astonishment. "Frank Merriwell!" Again the voice called. "Great Cæsar's ghost!" panted Hodge in Merry's ear. "Whoever it is, he knows you! He is calling your name. What do you think of that?" "That's not so very strange, Bart." "Why not?" "Since we came into the valley, either you, or Wiley, or Abe have spoken my name so this unknown party overheard it." "Frank Merriwell!" distinctly spoke the mysterious voice; "come to me! You must come! You can't escape! You buried me in the shadow of Chaves Pass! My bones lie there still; but my spirit is here calling to you!" "Booh!" said Wiley. "I've had more or less dealings with spirits in my time, but never with just this kind. Now, ardent spirits and _spritis fermenti_ are congenial things; but a spooky spirit is not in my line." "I tell you to keep still," whispered Hodge once more. "I am dumb as a clam," asserted the sailor. "Do you hear me, Frank Merriwell?" again called the mysterious voice. "I am the ghost of Benson Clark. I have returned here to guard my mine. Human hands shall never desecrate it. If you seek farther for it, you are doomed--doomed!" At this point Worthington broke into a shriek of maniacal laughter. "Go back to your grave!" he yelled. "No plotting there! No violence--nothing but rest!" "Now, I tell you what, mates," broke in Cap'n Wiley protestingly; "between spook voices and this maniac, I am on the verge of nervous prostration. If I had a bottle of Doctor Brown's nervura, I'd drink the whole thing at one gulp." Having shouted the words quoted, Worthington crouched on the ground and covered his face with his hands. "What do you think about it now?" whispered Bart in Frank's ear. "Whoever it is, he knows about Benson Clark and his claim. He knows you buried Clark. How do you explain that?" "I can see only one explanation," answered Frank, in a low tone. "This man has been near enough at some time when we were speaking of Clark to overhear our words." "This man," muttered Wiley. "Why, jigger it all! it claims to be an ethereal and vapid spook." "Don't be a fool, Wiley!" growled Hodge. "You know as well as we do that it is not a spook." "You relieve me greatly by your assurance," said the sailor. "I have never seen a spook, but once, after a protracted visit on Easy Street, I saw other things just as bad. I don't think my nerves have gained their equilibrium." "What will we do about this business, Merry?" asked Hodge. "I don't propose to be driven away from here by any such childish trick," answered Frank grimly. "We will not build another fire to-night, for I don't care to take the chances of being picked off by any one shooting at us from the dark. However, we will stay right here and show this party that he cannot frighten us in such a silly manner." "That's the talk!" nodded Hodge. "I am with you." "Don't forget me," interjected the sailor. "You!" exclaimed Frank sharply. "How can we depend on a fellow who sleeps at his post when on guard?" "It's ever thus my little failings have counted against me!" sighed Wiley. "Those things have caused me to be vastly misunderstood. Well, it can't be helped. If I am not permitted to take my turn of standing guard to-night, I must suffer and sleep in silence." Having said this in an injured and doleful manner, he retreated to the tent and flung himself on the ground. Frank and Bart sat down near the tent, and listened and waited a long time, thinking it possible they might hear that voice once more. The silence remained undisturbed, however, save for the gurgle of the little brook which ran near at hand. CHAPTER V. WILEY'S DISAPPEARANCE. Night passed without anything further to disturb or annoy them. The morning came bright and peaceful, and the sun shone pleasantly into the Enchanted Valley. Wiley turned out at an early hour, built the fire, and prepared the breakfast. "Seems like I had an unpleasant dream last eve," he remarked. "These measly dreams are coming thick and fast. Night before last it was pirates; last night it was spooks. It seems to be getting worse and worse. If this thing keeps up, I will be in poor condition when the baseball season opens in the spring." "Then you intend to play baseball again, do you, cap'n?" asked Merry. "Intend to play it! Why, mate, I cannot help it! As long as my good right arm retains its cunning I shall continue to project the sphere through the atmosphere. To me it is a pleasure to behold a batter wildly swat the empty air as one of my marvelous curves serenely dodges his willow wand. I have thought many times that I would get a divorce from baseball and return to it no more. But each spring, as the little birds joyfully hie themselves northward from their winter pilgrimage in the Sunny South, the old-time feeling gets into my veins, and I amble forth upon the turf and disport myself upon the chalk-marked diamond. Yes, I expect to be in the game again, and when little Walter gets into the game he gets into it for keeps." "What if some one should offer you a prominent position at a salary of ten thousand a year where you would be unable to play baseball?" inquired Merry, with a sly twinkle in his eye. "You'd have to give it up then." "Not on your tintype!" was the prompt retort. "What would you do?" "I'd give up the position." Frank laughed heartily. "Cap'n, you're a confirmed baseball crank. But if you live your natural life, there'll come a time when your joints will stiffen, when rheumatism may come into your good arm, when your keen eye will lose its brightness, when your skill to hit a pitched ball will vanish--then what will you do?" The sailor heaved a deep sigh. "Don't," he sadly said, wiping his eye. "Talk to me of dreadful things--funerals, and deaths, and all that; but don't ever suggest to me that the day will dawn when little Walter will recognize the fact that he is a has-been. It fills my soul with such unutterable sadness that words fail me. However, ere that day appears I propose to daze and bewilder the staring world. Why, even with my wonderful record as a ball player, it was only last year that I failed to obtain a show on the measly little dried-up old New England League. I knew I was a hundred times better than the players given a show. I even confessed it to the managers of the different teams. Still, I didn't happen to have the proper pull, and they took on the cheap slobs who were chumps enough to play for nothing in order to get a chance to play at all. "I knew my value, and I refused to play unless I could feel the coin of the realm tickling my palm. I rather think I opened the eyes of some of those dinky old managers. But even though Selee, McGraw, and others of the big leagues have been imploring me on their knees to play with them, I have haughtily declined. What I really desire is to get into the New England League, where I will be a star of the first magnitude. I had much rather be a big toad in a little puddle than a medium-sized toad in a big puddle. The manager who signs me for his team in the New England League will draw a glittering prize. If I could have my old-time chum, Peckie Prescott, with me, we'd show those New England Leaguers some stunts that would curl their hair. "Speaking of Peckie, Mr. Merriwell, reminds me that there is a boy lost to professional baseball who would be worth millions of dollars to any manager who got hold of him and gave him a show. Play ball! Why, Peckie was born to play ball! He just can't help it. He has an arm of iron, and he can throw from the plate to second base on a dead line and as quick as a bullet from a rifle. As a backstop he is a wizard. And when it comes to hitting--oh, la! la! he can average his two base hits a game off any pitcher in the New England League. To be sure, the boy is a little new and needs some coaching; but give him a show and he will be in the National or American inside of three seasons." "Are you serious about this fellow, cap'n?" asked Frank. "I am aware that you know a real baseball player when you see him, but you have a little way of exaggerating that sometimes leads people to doubt your statements." "Mr. Merriwell, I was never more serious in all my life. I give you my word that everything I have said of Prescott is true; but I fear, like some sweet, fragile wild-woods flower, he was born to blush unseen. I fear he will never get the show he deserves. While these dunkhead managers are scrabbling around over the country to rake up players, he remains in the modest seclusion of his home, and they fail to stumble on him. He is a retiring sort of chap, and this has prevented him from pushing himself forward." "You should be able to push him a little yourself, cap'n." "What! When I am turned down by the blind and deluded managers, how am I to help another? Alas! 'tis impossible! Coffee is served, Mr. Merriwell. Let's proceed to surround our breakfast and forget our misfortunes." After breakfast Frank and Bart discussed the programme for the day. They decided to make an immediate and vigorous search for the lost mine. It was considered necessary, however, that one of the party should remain at the camp and guard their outfit. Neither Abe nor Worthington was suitable for this, and, as both Frank and Bart wished to take part in the search, Wiley seemed the only one left for the task. "Very well," said the sailor, "I will remain. Leave me with a Winchester in my hands, and I will guarantee to protect things here with the last drop of my heroic blood." In this manner it was settled. The sailor remained to guard the camp and the two pack horses, while the others mounted and rode away into the valley. Late in the afternoon they returned, bringing with them a mountain goat which Merry had shot. As they came in sight of the spot where the tent had stood they were astonished to see that it was no longer there. "Look, Frank!" cried Bart, pointing. "The tent is gone!" "Sure enough," nodded Merriwell grimly. "It's not where we left it." "What do you suppose has happened?" "We will soon find out." Not only had the tent and camping outfit disappeared, but the two pack horses were missing. Nor was Wiley to be found. Hodge looked at Merry in blank inquiry. "Where is this fellow we left to guard our property?" he finally exclaimed. "You know as well as I," confessed Frank. "As a guard over anything, he seems to be a failure." "We can't tell what has happened to him." "What has happened to him!" cried Bart. "Why, he has taken French leave, that's what has happened! He has stolen our horses and piked out of the valley." Merry shook his head. "I don't believe that, Hodge," he said. "I don't think Wiley would do such a thing." "Then, why isn't he here?" "He may have been attacked by enemies." "If that had been the case, we would see some signs of the struggle. You can see for yourself that no struggle has taken place here." "It's true," confessed Merry, "that there seem to be no indications of a struggle." "Do you know, Frank, that I never have fully trusted that chap." "I know, Bart, you made a serious mistake on one occasion by mistrusting him. You must remember that yourself." "I do," confessed Hodge, reproved by Merry's words. "All the same, this disappearance is hard to explain. Our tent and outfit are gone. We're left here without provisions and without anything. In this condition it is possible we may starve." "The condition is serious," Frank acknowledged. "At the same time, I think it possible Wiley decided this location was dangerous and transferred the camp to some other place. That's a reasonable explanation of his disappearance." "A reasonable one perhaps; but if that had happened! he should be here on the watch for our return." "Perhaps we have returned sooner than he expected." "Well, what's to be done, Merry?" "We will sit here a while and see if he doesn't turn up. At least, we can make some sort of a meal off this mountain goat." "A mighty poor meal it will be!" muttered Hodge disgustedly. A fire was built, however, and the mountain goat served to appease their hunger somewhat, although without salt it was far from palatable. There was plenty of feed and drink for the horses, therefore the animals did not suffer. In vain they waited for Wiley to return. Afternoon faded into nightfall and the sailor came not. "Do you propose to remain here all night, Merry?" inquired Bart. Frank shook his head. "I don't think it advisable. We will find another spot." With the gloom of night upon them, they set out, Frank in the lead. He had taken notice of a clump of thick timber in another part of the valley, and toward this he rode. In the timber they ensconced themselves and prepared to pass the night there. Worthington was strangely silent, but seemed as docile and as harmless as a child. When all preparations to spend the night in that spot were made, Frank announced to Bart that he proposed to go in search of their missing companion. "What can you do in the night?" questioned Hodge. "You can't find him." "Perhaps not," said Merry; "but I am going to try." "I hate to have you do it alone." "You must remain here to look out for Abe and Worthington." When this was settled, Merry set out on foot. During their exploration of the valley he had observed a deep, narrow fissure near the southern extremity, into which the stream plunged before disappearing into the underground channel. To him on discovering this it had seemed a possible hiding place for any one seeking to escape observation. Something caused him to set his course toward this spot. An hour later, from a place of concealment high up on a steep bank, Frank was peering into the fissure. What he discovered there surprised and puzzled him not a little. On a little level spot close by the stream a tent had been pitched. Before the tent a small fire was burning, and squatted around this fire were three persons who seemed to be enjoying themselves in fancied security. The moment Merry's eyes fell on two of them he recognized them as having been members of the Terrible Thirty. They were the ruffians Hank Shawmut and Kip Henry. The third person, who seemed perfectly at his ease as he reclined on the ground and puffed at a corn-cob pipe, was Cap'n Wiley! Was Wiley a traitor? This question, which flashed through Frank's mind, seemed answered in the affirmative by the behavior of the sailor, who was chatting on intimate terms with his new associates. Of course Frank had decided at once that Shawmut and Henry had somehow learned of his expedition in search of Benson Clark's lost mine and had followed him. Henry's left hand was swathed in a blood-stained bandage, the sight of which convinced the watching youth that it was this fellow who had snatched the map and who afterward had been winged in the pursuit. In spite of appearances, Frank did not like to believe that Cap'n Wiley had played him false. From his position he was able to hear the conversation of the trio, and so he lay still and listened. "We sartain is all right here fer ter-night," observed Shawmut. "We will never be disturbed any afore morning." "Perchance you are right, mate," said the sailor; "but in the morning we must seek the seclusion of some still more secure retreat. My late associate, the only and original Frank Merriwell, will be considerable aroused over what has happened. I am positive it will agitate his equipoise to a protracted extent. My vivid imagination pictures a look of supine astonishment on his intellectual countenance when he returns and finds his whole outfit and little Walter vanished into thin, pellucid air." Shawmut laughed hoarsely. "I certain opine he was knocked silly," he said. "But he is a bad man," put in Henry. "To-morrow he rakes this valley with a fine-toothed comb. And he is a heap keerless with his shooting irons. Look at this yere paw of mine. He done that, and some time I'll settle with him." The fellow snarled the final words as he held up his bandaged hand. "Yes," nodded the sailor, "he has a way of shooting in a most obstreperous manner. The only thing that is disturbing my mental placitude is that he may take to the war path in search of my lovely scalp." "Confound you!" thought Frank, in great anger. "So you are a traitor, after all! Hodge was right about you. You're due for a very unpleasant settlement with me, Cap'n Wiley." "What binds me to you with links of steel, mates," said the sailor, "is the fact that you are well supplied with that necessary article of exuberancy known to the vulgar and unpoetical as tanglefoot. Seems to me it's a long time between drinks." "You certain must have a big thirst," observed Shawmut, as he produced a cold bottle and held it toward the sailor, who immediately arose and clutched it with both hands. "Mates, it has been so long since I have looked a drink in the face that it seems like a total stranger to me. Excuse me while I absorb a small portion of mountain dew." His pipe was dropped, and he wiped the mouth of the bottle with his hand after drawing the cork. He then placed the bottle to his lips and turned its bottom skyward. "So it is for that stuff you sell your friends, is it?" thought Frank. Having remained with his eyes closed and the bottle upturned for some moments, the sailor finally lowered it and heaved a sigh of mingled satisfaction and regret. "My only sorrow," he said, "is that I haven't a neck as long as a giraffe's. If the giraffe should take to drink, what delight he would enjoy in feeling the ardent trickle down his oozle! Have something on me, boys." He then returned the bottle, and the ruffians drank from it. "There," said Wiley, picking up his pipe, "my interior anatomy glows with golden rapture. I am once more myself. Oh, booze, thou art the comforter of mankind! You cause the poor man to forget his sorrows and his misfortunes. For him you build bright castles and paint glorious pictures. For him you remove far away the cares and troubles of life. You make him a king, even while you make him still more of a pauper. You give him at first all the joys of the world and at last the delirium tremens. "Next to women, you are the best thing and the worst thing in this whole wide world. Mates, you see I am both a poet and a philosopher. It's no disparagement to me, for I was born that way, and I can't help it. Ever since my joyful boyhood days on Negro Island I have looked with a loving eye on the beauties of nature and on the extracted fluid of the corn. But what of this world's riches has my mighty intellect and my poetic soul brought me? I am still a poor man." "But you won't be long arter we diskeevers this mine," said Shawmut. "If you sticks by us, we gives you a third share." "Your generosity overwhelms me. But it must not be forgotten that we yet have Frank Merriwell to dispose of. It is vain for you to try to frighten him away from this valley. Last night you attempted it with your spook trick, but it didn't work." "What's that?" exclaimed Henry. "What are you talking about?" "Oh," said the sailor, "you can't deceive little Walter. We heard you doing that spook turn. But it was time wasted." Henry and Shawmut exchanged puzzled looks. "You certain will have to explain what you are driving at," growled Shawmut. "Don't you know?" "None whatever." "I fear you are still seeking to deceive me." "Not a bit of it," averred Henry. "Whatever was yer talking about, Wiley?" "Why, last eve, after we had partaken of our repast and were disporting ourselves in comfort on the bosom of mother earth, there came through the atmosphere above us a singing voice which sang a sweet song all about dead men and such things. Afterward the voice warned us to hoist anchor, set sail, and get out of this port. It claimed to be the voice of Benson Clark, the man who first found the mine here, and who was afterward shot full of holes by some amusement-seeking redskins. I surely fancied you were concerned in that little joke, mates." Both the ruffians shook their heads. "We has nothing to do with it," denied Shawmut. "Well, now it is indeed a deep, dark mystery," observed the sailor. "Do you suppose, mates, that the spook of Benson Clark is lingering in this vicinity?" "We takes no stock in spooks," asserted Henry. "And thus you show your deep logical sense," slowly nodded the sailor. "I congratulate you; but the mystery of that voice is unsolved, and it continues to perplex me." The listening man high up on the embankment was also perplexed. If Shawmut and Henry knew nothing of the mysterious warning voice, the enigma was still unsolved. As he thought of this matter, Merry soon decided that these ruffians had spoken the truth in denying all knowledge of the affair. These men talked in the rough dialect of their kind. The unseen singer had not used that dialect; and, therefore, the mystery of the valley remained a mystery still. Frank continued to watch and listen. "It's no spook we're worried about," declared Henry. "If we dispose of this yere Merriwell, we will be all right. With you ter help us, Wiley, we oughter do the trick." "Sure, sure," agreed the sailor. "Thar is three of us," said Shawmut, "and that certain makes us more than a match for them. The kid and the crazy galoot don't count. We has only Merriwell and Hodge to buck against." "They are quite enough, mates--quite enough," put in the sailor. "We will have to get up early in the morning to get ahead of them." "This yere Merriwell certain is no tenderfoot," agreed Shawmut. Wiley arose and slapped the speaker on the shoulder in a friendly, familiar manner. "Now you're talking," he nodded. "He is a bad man with a record longer than your arm. I have dealt with hundreds of them, however; and I think my colossal brain will be more than a match for him. Did you ever hear how I got the best of Bat Masterson? It's a thrilling tale. Listen and I will unfold it to you. You know Bat was the real thing. Beyond question, he was the worst bad man that ever perambulated the border. Yet I humbled him to his knees and made him beg for mercy. That was some several years ago. At that time--" Wiley was fairly launched on one of his yarns, but at that moment Frank Merriwell heard a slight movement and attempted to turn quickly, when he was given a thrust by a powerful pair of hands, which hurled him forward from the embankment and sent him whirling down toward the tent below. Frank struck on the tent, which served to break his fall somewhat, but he was temporarily stunned. When he recovered, he found himself bound hand and foot and his three captors surveying him by the light of the fire. "Well, wouldn't it jar you!" exclaimed the sailor. "It was almost too easy. Why, mates, he must 'a' been up there listening to our innocent conversation, and somehow he lost his hold and took a tumble." Shawmut laughed hoarsely. "It was a mighty bad tumble for him," he said. "He falls right into our paws, and we has him foul. Now we're all right. Talk about luck; this is it!" Kip Henry shook his wounded and bandaged hand before Frank's eyes. "You did that, hang you!" he snarled. "Now you gits paid fer it!" As the ruffian uttered these words he placed a hand on his revolver and seemed on the point of shooting the helpless captive. "Wait a minute, mate," urged Wiley. "Let's not be too hasty. There are three of us here, and I have a sagacious opinion that any one of us will take morbid pleasure in putting Mr. Merriwell out of his misery. I propose that we draw lots to see who will do the little job." "You seem mighty anxious to take a hand at it!" growled Henry. "I wish to prove my readiness to stand by you through thick and thin," asserted the sailor. "In this way I shall win your absolute confidence. Should it fall on me to do this unpleasant task, you will see the job most scientifically done." As he made this assertion Wiley laughed in a manner that seemed wholly heartless and brutal. "I didn't think it of you, cap'n!" exclaimed Frank. "That's all right," returned the sailor brazenly. "I'm a solicitor of fortune; I am out for the dust. These gents here have assured me that I shall have a third interest in the mine when it is located. Every bird feathers its own nest. I have a chance to feather mine, and I don't propose to lose the opportunity. If the task devolves upon me to transport you to the shining shore, rest easy in the assurance that I'll do a scientific job. I will provide you in short order with a pair of wings." "That's the talk!" chuckled Shawmut. "How does we settle who does it?" "Have you a pack of cards?" inquired Wiley. "Sartin," said Shawmut, fishing in his pocket and producing a greasy pack. "We has 'em." "Then I propose that we cut. The one who gets the lowest does the trick." That was agreed to, and a moment later the cards had been shuffled and placed on a flat stone near the fire. Henry cut first and exposed a king. "That lets you out," said the sailor. "I can beat that. Come ahead, Mate Shawmut." Shawmut cut and turned up a trey. "I reckon I'm the one," he said. Then Wiley cut the cards and held up in the firelight a deuce! Both Henry and Shawmut uttered exclamations. "Well, you has your wish," said the latter. "Now it's up to you to go ahead with the business." Wiley actually smiled. "Let me take your popgun, mate," he said, extending his hand toward Henry. "Mine is a little too small to do the trick properly." Henry handed over his pistol. Wiley examined it critically, finally shaking his head. "It's a mighty poor gun for a man of your standing to carry, mate," he asserted. "Perhaps you have a better one, Shawmut? Let me see." Shawmut also gave up his pistol. Having a revolver in each hand, Cap'n Wiley cocked them both. "They seem to be in good working order," he said. "I should fancy either of them would kill a man quicker than he could wink his eye." "You bet your boots!" said Henry. "That being the case," observed Wiley, "I will now proceed to business." Then, to the surprise of the two ruffians, he leveled the pistols straight at them. "Now, you double-and-twisted yeller dogs!" he cried, "if you so much as wiggle your little finger, I will perforate both of you! I have the pleasure to inform you that I am a fancy pistol shot, and I think I can soak you with about six bullets each before you can say skat." The astounded ruffians were taken completely by surprise. "What in blazes does you mean?" snarled Shawmut. "I mean business," declared the sailor. "Did you low-born whelps think that Cap'n Wiley would go back on his old side pard, Frank Merriwell? If you fancied such a thing for the fraction of a momentous moment, you deceived yourselves most erroneously. Now you keep still where you are, for I give you my sworn statement that I will shoot at the first move either of you make." As Wiley said this he stepped close to Frank, beside whom he knelt, at the same time keeping the ruffians covered. He placed one of the revolvers on the ground and drew his hunting knife. With remarkable swiftness he severed the cords which held Frank helpless. "Pick up that shooting iron, Merry," he directed. "I rather think we have these fine chaps just where we want them." Frank lost no time in obeying, and the tables were completely turned on Shawmut and Henry. "Stand up, you thugs!" ordered Merry. "Stand close together, and be careful what you do." Infuriated beyond measure, they obeyed, for they were in mortal terror of their lives. "Take those ropes, Wiley, and tie their hands behind their backs," directed Frank. "With the greatest pleasure," laughed the sailor. And he proceeded to do so. When the ruffians were thus bound Merry turned to Wiley, whose hand he grasped. "Cap'n, forgive me!" he cried. "I was mistaken in you. I couldn't believe it possible; still, everything was against you. How did it happen?" "A few words will clear up my seeming unworthiness," said the sailor. "When you departed to-day I found everything calm, and peaceful, and serene about the camp, and, after smoking my pipe a while, I fell asleep beside the tent. When I awoke these fine gentlemen had me. They proceeded to tie me up to the queen's taste. Seeing my predicament, I made no resistance. I permitted them to do just as they liked. I depended on my tongue, which has never failed me, to get me out of the predicament, I saw them gather up the outfit, pack it on the horses and prepare to remove it. During this I craftily assured them that I would gleefully embrace the opportunity to join issues with them. "It's needless to enter into details, but they decided that it was best to let me linger yet a while on this mundane sphere while thinking my proposition over. So I was brought thither, along with the goods and chattels, and I further succeeded in satisfying them that they could trust me. It was my object, when I found they were well supplied with corn juice, to get them both helplessly intoxicated, after which I hoped to capture them alone and unaided. Your sudden tumble into this little nest upset my plans in that direction, but everything has worked out handsomely." CHAPTER VI. WILEY MEETS MISS FORTUNE. When they returned with their captives and the stolen horses and outfit to the timber in which Frank had left Hodge and the others it was learned that Worthington had disappeared. In vain they searched for him. He had slipped away without attracting Hodge's attention, and he failed to answer their calls. In the morning the search was continued. They returned to their former camping place at the head of the valley where the mysterious voice had been heard, and there Frank finally discovered some rude steps in the face of the cliff, by which he mounted to an opening which proved to be the mouth of a cave. There were evidences that this cave had been occupied by some person. Merry saw at once that this unknown person might have been in the mouth of the cave at the time the mysterious voice was heard, and that beyond question he was the singer and the one who had warned them. It was midday when Worthington was found. They discovered him in a thicket, locked fast in the arms of another man, whose clothes were ragged and torn, and who looked like a hermit or a wild man. The thicket in that vicinity was smashed and broken, and betrayed evidences of a fierce struggle. Worthington's hands were fastened on the stranger's throat, and both men were stone-dead. "I know that man!" cried Merry, in astonishment. "I met him in Holbrook last spring. I told him of Benson Clark's death. He was once Clark's partner. Since that time he must have searched for Clark's mine and made his way to this valley. This explains the mystery. This explains how he knew me and knew of Benson Clark." "Yes, that explains it," nodded Hodge. "But now, Frank--what are we to do?" "We will give these poor fellows decent burial, and after that----" "After that--what?" "Shawmut and Henry must be turned over to the law. We must dispose of them as soon as possible. Then there will be plenty of time to return here and locate Benson Clark's lost mine." And that plan was carried out. In a few days Frank Merriwell, Bart Hodge, Cap'n Wiley and little Abe rode into Prescott, Arizona, escorting their captives, whom they turned over to the officers of the law. Merry was ready to make a serious charge against the men, but, after listening to his story, the city official said: "Better not trouble yourself about it, Mr. Merriwell. Those chaps are old offenders! They have been wanted for some time for stage robbing, horse stealing, and for the malicious murder of a man in Crown King and another in Cherry. Did you ever hear of Spike Riley?" "Seems to me," said Frank, "I have heard of him as a bad man who was associated with the Kid Grafton gang." "Well, sir, this chap you call Shawmut is Spike Riley. Since then little has been heard from him. I am glad to get my hands on him." "Then I'll leave him to your gentle care," said Frank, with a smile. "You will relieve me of further bother on his part. As for Henry----" "Henry!" laughed the official. "Why, he's got a record pretty nearly as bad as that of Riley. He is known down in Northern Mexico as one Lobo, and he has been concerned with Juan Colorado in some few raids. I think there is a reward offered for both of these men. In that case I presume you will claim it, sir." Cap'n Wiley, who had listened with his head cocked on one side and a peculiar look in his eyes, now coughed suggestively. Frank glanced at the sailor and smiled. "In case there is a reward, sir," he said, "it belongs to this gentleman." As he rested a hand on Wiley's shoulder the latter threw out his chest and swelled up like a toad taking in air. "Thanks, mate," he said. "My modesty would have prevented me from mentioning such a trifling matter." "Oh, I will give you all the credit that's your due, cap'n," assured Merry. "You pulled me out of a bad pickle and tricked those ruffians very handsomely." "That will do, that will do," said the sailor. "Let it go at that, Frank, old side partner. It is as natural for me to do such things as for the sweet flowers to open in the blooming spring. I never think anything about them after I do them. I never mention them to a soul. Why, if I were to relate half of the astounding things that have happened to me some people might suspect me of telling what is not strictly true. That's what binds my tongue to silence. That's why I never speak of myself. Some day my history will be written up, and I shall get great glory even though I do not collect a royalty." "This is a pretty good thing, Merry," said Hodge. "It relieves you of all responsibility in regard to those ruffians, and you can now go about your business." In this manner it was settled, and Frank left the two ruffians to be locked up in the Prescott jail. Rooms were obtained at the best hotel in the place, and both Frank and Bart proceeded without delay to "spruce up." Having bathed, and shaved, and obtained clean clothes, they felt decidedly better. It was useless for Cap'n Wiley to indulge in such needless trouble, as he regarded it. "This is not my month to bathe," he murmured, as he sat with his feet on the sill of Frank's window and puffed leisurely at a cigar. "Besides, I am resting now. I find myself on the verge of nervous prostration, and therefore I need rest. Later I may blossom forth and take the town by surprise." Later he did. Although he had jocosely stated that it was not his month to bathe, he indulged in such a luxury before nightfall, was shaved at a barber's shop and purchased a complete outfit of clothes at a clothing store. He even contemplated buying a silk hat, but finally gave this up when he found that silk hats of the latest style were decidedly scarce in Prescott. When he swaggered into Frank's room, where Merry and Hodge were holding a consultation, they both surveyed him in surprise. "I am the real thing now," he declared. "What has brought about this sudden change on your part?" questioned Frank. "Hush!" said the sailor. "Breathe it softly. When I sat by yonder window musing on my variegated career I beheld passing on the street a charming maiden. I had not fancied there could be such a fair creature in this town. When I beheld her my being glowed. I decided that it was up to me to shed my coat of dust and grime and adorn myself. I have resolved to make my ontray into the midst of society here." "But aren't you going back with us to the Mazatzals?" questioned Merry. "When do you contemplate such a thing?" "We expect to leave to-morrow." "Why this agitated haste?" "You know we've not definitely located Benson Clark's lost claim, although we feel certain it must be in the Enchanted Valley or in that vicinity. We're going back to prospect for that mine. If you return with us and we discover it, of course you will have an interest in it." "Thanks for your thoughtful consideration, mate. At the same time, it seems to me that I have had about enough prospecting to do me for a while." "Do you mean that you're not going with us?" exclaimed Hodge, in surprise. "Why, if we discover that mine it may make you rich!" "Well, I will think the matter over with all due seriousness," said Wiley easily. "I know you will miss my charming society if I don't go." "It may be the chance of your lifetime," said Merry. "I'm not worrying about that. Wherever I go, Dame Fortune is bound to smile upon me. I have a mash on that old girl. She seems to like my style." "I think you will make a mistake, Wiley, if you don't go," asserted Frank. "Possibly so; but I've made so many mistakes in the brief span of my legitimate life that one or two more will hardly ruffle me. If I have to confess the truth to you, that valley is to me a ghastly and turgid memory. When I think of it I seem to hear ghostly voices, and I remember Worthington raving and ranting about death and destruction, and I picture him as we discovered him in the thicket, dead in the clutch of another dead man. These things are grewsome to me, and I fain would forget them." "All right, cap'n," said Frank; "you are at liberty to do as you like." Then he and Bart continued arranging their plans. That evening Wiley disappeared. Frank and Bart left little Abe at the hotel and went out to "see the sights." In the biggest gambling place of the town they found the sailor playing roulette. Wiley had a streak of luck, and he was hitting the bank hard. Around him had gathered a crowd to watch his plunging, and the coolness with which he won large sums of money commanded their admiration. "It's nothing, mates," he declared--"merely nothing. When I was at Monte Carlo I won eleventeen thousand pesoses, or whatever they call them, at one turn of the wheel. Such a streak of luck caused the croupier to die of apoplexy, broke the bank, and put the Prince of Monte Carlo out of business for twenty-four hours. The next day the prince came to me and besought me to leave the island. He declared that if I played again he feared he would die in the poorhouse. As it was, he found it necessary to mortgage the Casino in order to raise skads to continue in business. To-night I am merely amusing myself. Five thousand on the red." "Well, what do you think of that?" asked Hodge in Frank's ear. "I think," said Frank, "that it is about time for Cap'n Wiley to cash in and stop playing." He pushed his way through the throng and reached the sailor. "Now is the time for you to stop," said Frank in Wiley's ear, speaking in a low tone, in order not to attract attention, for he knew such advice would not be relished by the proprietor and might get him into trouble. "Never fear about me, mate," returned the sailor serenely. "Ere morning dawns I shall own this place. Talk about your gold mines! Why, this beats them all!" "It's a wise man who knows when to stop," said Frank. "It's a wise man who knows how to work a streak clean through to the finish," was the retort. "I have my luck with me to-night, and the world is mine. In the morning I shall build a fence around it." "Red wins," quietly announced the croupier. "You observe how easy it is, I presume," said Wiley, smiling. "I can't help it. It's as natural as breathing." Frank saw that it was useless to argue with the sailor, and so he and Hodge left him still playing, while they strolled through the place. There was a dance hall connected, which provided amusement for them a while, although neither danced. Barely half an hour passed before Frank, who was somewhat anxious about Wiley, returned to note how Wiley was getting along. Luck had turned, and Wiley was losing steadily. Still he continued to bet with the same harebrained carelessness, apparently perfectly confident that his bad luck could not keep up. "He will go broke within twenty minutes if he sticks to it, Frank," said Hodge. Merry nodded. "That's right," he agreed; "but he won't listen to advice. If we attempt to get him away, we will simply kick up a disturbance and find ourselves in a peck of trouble. Even if he should cash in now and quit ahead of the game, he'd come back to it and lose all he's won. Therefore we may as well let him alone." They did so, and Bart's prophecy came true. The sailor's reckless betting lowered his pile so that it seemed to melt like dew before the sun. Finally he seemed to resolve on a grand stroke, and he bet everything before him on the red. The little ball clicked and whirred in the whirling wheel. The spectators seemed breathless as they watched for the result of that plunge. Slower and slower grew the revolutions of the wheel. The ball spun around on its rim like a cork on the water. At length it dropped. "He wins!" panted an excited man. "No--see!" exclaimed another. The ball had bobbed out of its pocket and spun on again. "Lost!" was the cry, as it finally settled and rested securely in a pocket. Wiley swallowed down a lump in his throat as the man behind the table raked in the wager. "Excuse me," said the sailor, rising. "I hope you will pardon me while I go drown myself. Can any one direct me to a tub of tanglefoot?" As he left the table, knowing now that it would cause no disturbance, Frank grasped his arm and again advised him to leave the place. "I admit to you," said Wiley, "that I was mistaken when I stated that I had a mash on Dame Fortune. I have discovered that it was her daughter, Miss Fortune. Leave me--leave me to my fate! I shall now attempt to lap up all the liquids in the place, and in the morning I'll have a large aching head." Frank insisted, however, and his command led Wiley reluctantly to permit them to escort him from the place. "I might read you a lecture on the evils of gambling, cap'n," said Merry; "but I shall not do so to-night. It strikes me that you have learned your lesson." "It is only one of many such lessons," sighed the sailor. "By this time I should have them by heart, but somehow I seem to forget them. I wish to tell you a secret that I have held buried in my bosom these many years. It is this: "Somewhere about my machinery there is a screw loose. In vain I have sought to find it. I know it is there just as well as I know that I am Cap'n Wiley. Now, you are a perfect piece of machinery, with everything tight, and firm, and well oiled, and polished. As an example you are the real thing. Perhaps to-morrow I may conclude to follow in your footsteps. Just tuck me in my little bed and leave me to dreamy slumber." After being left in his room, however, Wiley did not remain long in bed. Knowing they would not suspect such a thing of him, he arose, and dressed, and returned to the gambling house. When morning came he was not only broke, but he had pawned everything of value in his possession and was practically destitute. "Well," said Merry, having discovered the cap'n's condition, "I presume now you will return with us to the Mazatzals?" "No use," was the answer; "I shall stay here in Prescott. I have my eye on a good thing. Don't worry about me." It was useless to urge him, for he persisted in his determination to stay there. And so before leaving Frank made some final arrangements with him. "I have wired for my mail to be forwarded here, Wiley," he said. "If anything of importance comes, anything marked to be delivered in haste, I wish you would see that it reaches me. Cannot you do so?" "Depend upon me, Frank," assured the sailor. "I will not fail you in this. But before departing it seems to me that you should make arrangements that any such message be delivered into my hands." "I will do so," said Merry. "Now, see here, cap'n, I don't like to leave you strapped in this town. At the same time, I don't care to let you have money of mine to gamble with. If I provide you with some loose change, will you give me your word not to use it in gambling?" "Your generosity is almost ignoble!" exclaimed Wiley. "However, I accept it in the same manner that it is tendered. I give you my word." "Well, that goes with me," nodded Merry. "Before leaving I shall see that you are fixed with ready money." CHAPTER VII. A STARTLING TELEGRAM. Sunset in the Enchanted Valley. Below the little waterfall which plunged down into the fissure at the southern end of the valley Frank and Bart had toiled hard all through the day. Their sleeves were rolled up and their clothes mud-bespattered. There they had worked in the sandy soil near the stream, and there they had found the shining stuff for which they sought. Every panful was carefully washed in the stream, showing dull yellow grains in the bottom when the last particles remained. Not far away, on the level of the valley above them, set near the stream, was their tent. In front of it little Abe was building a fire and was seeking to prepare supper for them, knowing they would be ravenously hungry when they quit work for the night. At intervals the cripple hobbled to the brink of the fissure and looked down at them as they toiled. No one had troubled them since their return to the valley. No longer did the place seem enchanted or mysterious. All the mysteries were solved, and it lay sleeping and silent amid that vast mountainous solitude. "Well, Bart," said Frank, as he dropped his spade, "it seems to me that the thing is done to our satisfaction. At the northern end of the valley we have found Clark's quartz claim, and the specimens we have taken from it seem decidedly promising. Here we have located this placer, and we know from what we have washed out that it is rich and will prove extremely valuable while it lasts. Now it's up to us to register our claims and open them for operation in the proper manner. We ought to be satisfied." "Satisfied!" exclaimed Bart. "You bet I am satisfied! What if I had remained in Boston, Merry? Why, I would be plugging away to-day on a poor paying job, with decidedly poor prospects ahead of me. It was a most fortunate thing for me when I decided to stick by you and come West." Frank smiled. "It was lucky, Hodge," he agreed. "But I don't forget that you came without a selfish thought on your part. You came to help me in my fight against Milton Sukes. I am far better pleased for your sake than for my own that we have had this streak of luck. Let's knock off for the night, old man. There's no reason why we should stick to it longer." As they were climbing from the fissure by the narrow and difficult path, little Abe came rushing excitedly to the brink above and called to them. "Come quick! Come quick!" he cried. "What's the matter, Abe?" asked Frank, alarmed by the boy's manner. "Somebody's coming," said the hunchback; "a man on a horse. He is coming right this way. He has seen the tent!" "We may have some trouble after all, Merry," said Hodge. Ere they could reach the head of the path near the waterfall they plainly heard the thudding hoofs of the horse coming rapidly in that direction. When they had reached the level ground above they beheld the horseman approaching. It seemed that he observed them at the same time, for he suddenly waved his hat in the air and gave a yell. "By Jove!" exclaimed Merry, "I know him! It is Wiley!" "Right you are!" agreed Hodge. "What the dickens could have brought him here at this time?" "Perhaps he has some message for me. You know I made arrangements with him to bring any message of importance." The sailor drew up his horse as he approached. "Ahoy there, mates!" he cried. "At last I have struck port, although I'd begun to wonder if I'd ever find it. This confounded old valley has moved since I was here last. I thought I knew just where it was, but I have spent two whole days cruising around in search of it." "Hello, cap'n!" said Frank. "You're just in time for supper." "Supper!" exclaimed the sailor. "Say it again! Supper! Why, I have been living on condensed air for the last twenty-four hours. Look at me! I am so thin and emaciated that I can't cast a shadow. Hungry! Mates, a bootleg stew would be a culinary luxury to me. I will introduce ravage and devastation among your provisions. This morning I found an empty tomato can and another that once contained deviled ham, and I lunched off them. They were rather hard to digest, but they were better than nothing." He sprang down from his horse, which betrayed evidence of hard usage. "How did you happen to come?" asked Merry. Wiley fumbled in his pocket and brought forth a telegram. "I believe I made arrangements to deliver anything of importance directed to you," he said. "This dispatch arrived in Prescott, and I lost no time in starting to fulfill my compact." Merry took the telegram and quickly tore it open. There was a look of anxiety on his face when he had read its contents. "Anything serious the matter?" asked Hodge. "It's a message from my brother, Dick," answered Frank. "You know I wired him to address his letters to Prescott. He didn't stop to send a letter. Instead he sent this telegram. You know Felicia Delores, Dick's cousin, with whom he was brought up? The climate of the East did not agree with her, therefore I provided a home for her in San Diego, California, where she could attend school. Dick has learned that she is ill and in trouble. He wants me to go to her at once." "What will you do?" asked Hodge. "I must go," said Frank quietly. * * * * * Frank mounted the steps of a modern residence, standing on a palm-lined street in San Diego, and rang the bell. He was compelled to ring twice more before the door was opened by a sleepy-looking Mongolian. "I wish to see Mr. Staples at once," said Merry. "Is he home?" "Mistal Staple not home," was the serene answer, as the Chinaman moved to close the door. Frank promptly blocked this movement with a foot and leg. "Don't be so hasty," he said sharply. "If Mr. Staples is not home, where can I find him?" "No tellee. Velly solly." "Then I must see Mrs. Staples," persisted Merry. "She velly sick. Velly solly. She can't slee anyblody." "Well, you take her my card," directed Merry, as he took out a card-case and tendered his card to the yellow-skinned servant. "No take cald. She tellee me no bothal her. Go 'way. Come bimeby--to-mollow." "Now, look here, you son of the Flowery Kingdom," exclaimed Merry, "I am going to see Mrs. Staples immediately, if she's in condition to see anyone. If you don't take her my card, you will simply compel me to intrude without being announced." "Bold, blad man!" chattered the Chinaman, with growing fear. "I callee police; have you 'lested." "You're too thick-headed for the position you hold!" exasperatedly declared Merry. "Take my card to Mrs. Staples instantly, and she will see me as soon as she reads my name, Frank Merriwell, upon it." "Flank Mellowell!" almost shouted the Celestial. "You Flank Mellowell? Clome light in, quickee! Mladam, she expectee you." The door was flung open now, and Frank entered. "Well, you have come to your senses at last!" he said. "You no undelstand. Blad men velly thick. Blad men make velly glate tloubal. Little glil she glone; mladam she cly velly much, velly much!" "Hustle yourself!" ordered Frank. "Don't stand there chattering like a monkey. Hurry up!" "Hully velly flast," was the assurance, as the Mongolian turned and toddled away at a snail's pace, leaving Frank in the reception room. A few moments later there was a rustle of skirts, and a middle-aged woman, whose face was pale and eyes red and who carried a handkerchief in her hand, came down the stairs and found him waiting. "Oh, Mr. Merriwell!" she exclaimed, the moment she saw him. "So it's really you! So you have come! We didn't know where to reach you, and so we wired your brother. He wired back that he had dispatched you and that he thought you would come without delay." Her agitation and distress were apparent. "Felicia," questioned Frank huskily; "what of her?" "Oh, I can't tell you--I can't tell you!" choked the woman, placing the handkerchief to her eyes. "It's so dreadful!" "Tell me, Mrs. Staples, at once," said Frank, immediately cool and self-controlled. "Don't waste time, please. What has happened to Felicia? Where is she?" "She's gone!" came in a muffled voice from behind the handkerchief. "Gone--where?" The agitated woman shook her head. "No one knows. No one can tell! Oh, it's a terrible thing, Mr. Merriwell!" "Where is Mr. Staples?" questioned Frank, thinking he might succeed far better in obtaining the facts from the woman's husband. "That I don't know. He is searching for her. He, too, has been gone several days. I heard from him once. He was then in Warner, away up in the mountains." Merry saw that he must learn the truth from the woman. "Mrs. Staples," he said, "please tell me everything in connection with this singular affair. It's the only way that you can be of immediate assistance. You know I am quite in the dark, save for such information as I received from my brother's telegram. It informed me that Felicia was in trouble and in danger. What sort of trouble or what sort of danger threatens her, I was not told. In order for me to do anything I must know the facts immediately." "It was nearly a month ago," said Mrs. Staples, "that we first discovered anything was wrong. Felicia had not been very well for some time. She's so frail and delicate! It has been my custom each night before retiring to look in upon her to see if she was comfortable and all right. One night, as I entered her room, light in hand, I was nearly frightened out of my senses to see a man standing near her bed. He saw me or heard me even before I saw him. Like a flash he whirled and sprang out of the window to the veranda roof, from which he easily escaped to the ground. "I obtained barely a glimpse of him, and I was so frightened at the time that I could not tell how he looked. Felicia seemed to be sleeping soundly at the time, and didn't awake until I gave a cry that aroused her and the whole house as well. I never had a thought then that the man meant her harm. She was so innocent and helpless it seemed no one would dream of harming her. I took him for a burglar who had entered the house by the way of her window. After that we took pains to have her window opened only a short space, and tightly locked in that position, so that it could not be opened further from the outside without smashing it and alarming some one. I was thankful we had escaped so easily, and my husband felt sure there would be no further cause for worry. He said that, having been frightened off in such a manner, the burglar was not liable to return. "Somehow it seemed to me that Felicia was still more nervous and pale after that. She seemed worried about something, but whenever I questioned her she protested she was not. The doctor came to see her several times, but he could give her nothing that benefited her. I continued my practice of looking in at her each night before retiring. One night, a week later, after going to bed, something--I don't know what--led me to rise again and go to her room. Outside her door I paused in astonishment, for I distinctly heard her voice, and she seemed to be in conversation with some one. I almost fancied I heard another voice, but was not certain about that. I pushed open the door and entered. Felicia was kneeling by her partly opened window, and she gave a great start when I came in so quickly. A moment later I fancied I heard a sound as of some one or something dropping from the roof upon the ground. "I was so astonished that I scarcely knew what to say. 'Felicia!' I exclaimed. 'What were you doing at that window?' "'Oh, I was getting a breath of the cool night air,' she answered. 'With my window partly closed it is almost stuffy in here. Sometimes I can't seem to breathe.' "'But I heard you talking, child,' I declared. 'Who were you talking to?' "'I talk to myself sometimes, auntie, you know,' she said, in her innocent way. She always called me auntie. I confess, Mr. Merriwell, that I was completely deceived. This came all the more natural because Felicia was such a frank, open-hearted little thing, and I'd never known her to deceive me in the slightest. I decided that my imagination had led me to believe I heard another voice than her own, and also had caused me to fancy that some one had dropped from the roof of the veranda. After that, however, I was uneasy. And my uneasiness was increased by the fact that the child seemed to grow steadily worse instead of better. "Often I dreamed of her and of the man I had seen in her room. One night I dreamed that a terrible black shadow was hanging over her and had reached out huge clawlike hands to clutch her. That dream awoke me in the middle of the night, and I could not shake off the impression that some danger menaced her. With this feeling on me I slipped out of bed, lighted a candle, and again proceeded to her room. This time I was astonished once more to hear her talking as if in conversation with some one. But now I knew that, unless I was dreaming or bewitched, I also heard another voice than her own--that of a man. My bewilderment was so great that I forgot caution and flung her door wide open. The light of the candle showed her sitting up in bed, while leaning on the footboard was a dark-faced man with a black-pointed mustache. I screamed, and, in my excitement, dropped the candle, which was extinguished. I think I fainted, for Mr. Staples found me in a dazed condition just outside Felicia's door. She was bending over me, but when I told her of the man I had seen and when she was questioned, she behaved in a most singular manner. Not a word would she answer. Had she denied everything I might have fancied it all a grewsome dream. I might have fancied I'd walked in my sleep and dreamed of seeing a man there, for he was gone when my husband reached the spot. "She would deny nothing, however, and what convinced us beyond question that some one had been in her room was the fact that the window was standing wide open. After that we changed her room to another part of the house and watched her closely. Although we persisted in urging her to tell everything, not a word could we get from her. Then it was that Mr. Staples wired Richard, your brother. "Three days later Felicia disappeared. She vanished in the daytime, when every one supposed her to be safe in the house. No one saw her go out. She must have slipped out without being observed. Of course we notified the police as soon as we were sure she was gone, and the city was searched for her. Oh! it is a terrible thing, Mr. Merriwell; but she has not been found! Mr. Staples believes he has found traces of her, and that's why he is now away from home. That's all I can tell you. I hope you will not think we were careless or neglected her. She was the last child in the world to do such a thing. I can't understand it. I think she must have been bewitched." Frank had listened quietly to this story, drinking in every word, the expression on his face failing to show how much it affected him. "I am sure it was no fault of yours, Mrs. Staples," he said. "But what do you think has happened to her? She was too young to be led into an intrigue with a man. Still, I----" "You mustn't suspect her of that, Mrs. Staples!" exclaimed Merry. "Whatever has happened, I believe it was not the child's fault. When I placed her in your hands, you remember, I hinted to you of the fact that there was a mystery connected with her father's life, and that he was an outcast nobleman of Spain. Where he is now I cannot say. I last saw him in Fardale. He was then hunted by enemies, and he disappeared and has never been heard from since. I believe it was his intention to seek some spot where he would be safe from annoyance and could lead his enemies to believe he was dead. I believe this mystery which hung like a shadow over him has fallen at last on little Felicia. I would that I had known something of this before, that I might have arrived here sooner. I think Felicia would have trusted me--I am sure of it!" "But now--now?" "Now," said Frank grimly, shaking his head, "now I must find her. You say you heard from your husband, who was then in a place called Warner?" "Yes." "Then he may have tracked her thus far. It's a start on the trail." Mrs. Staples placed a trembling hand on Frank's sleeve. "If you find her--the moment you find her," she pleaded, "let me know. Remember I shall be in constant suspense until I hear from you." "Depend upon me to let you know," assured Frank. A moment later he was descending the steps. He walked swiftly along the palm-lined streets, revolving in his mind the perplexing problem with which he was confronted. Seemingly he was buried in deep thought and quite oblivious of his surroundings. As he passed around a corner into another street he glanced back without turning his head. Already he had noted that another man was walking rapidly in the same direction, and this sidelong glance gave him a glimpse of the man. Three corners he turned, coming at length to the main street of the city. There he turned about a moment later and was face to face with the man who had been following him. This chap would have passed on, but Frank promptly stepped out and confronted him. He saw a small, wiry, dark-skinned individual, on whose right cheek there was a triangular scar. "I beg your pardon," said Merry. "_Si, señor_," returned the man with the scar, lifting his eyebrows in apparent surprise. "You seem very interested in me," said Merry quietly. "But I wish to tell you something for your own benefit. It is dangerous for you to follow me, and you had better quit it. That's all. _Adios!_" "_Carramba!_" muttered the man, glaring at Frank's back as Merriwell again strode away. CHAPTER VIII. FELIPE DULZURA. Frank did not find Rufus Staples at Warner. He had been there, however, and gone; but no one seemed to know where. The afternoon of a sunny day found Merry mounted on a fine horse, emerging from the mountains into a black valley that was shut in on either side by savage peaks. Through this valley lay a faint trail winding over the sand and through the forests of hideous cactus and yucca trees. He had not journeyed many miles along this trail ere he drew up. Turning his horse about, he took a powerful pair of field glasses from a case and adjusted them over his eyes. With their aid he surveyed the trail behind him as far as it could be seen. "I thought I was not mistaken," he muttered, as his glasses showed him a mounted man coming steadily along from the foothills of the mountains. "I wonder if he is the gentleman with the scarred cheek. I think I will wait and see." He dismounted and waited beside the trail for the horseman to approach. The man came on steadily and unhesitatingly and finally discovered Frank lingering there. Like Merry, the stranger was well mounted, and his appearance seemed to indicate that there was Spanish blood in his veins. He had a dark, carefully trimmed Van Dyke beard and was carelessly rolling a cigarette when he appeared in plain view. His clothing was plain and serviceable. Merry stood beside his horse and watched the stranger draw near. Frank's hand rested lightly on his hip close to the butt of his holstered revolver, but the unknown made no offensive move. Instead of that he called, in a pleasant, musical voice: "Good-day, sir. I have overtaken you at last. I saw you in advance, and I hastened somewhat." "Did you, indeed?" retorted Merry, with a faint smile. "I fancied you were coming after me in a most leisurely manner. But, then, I suppose that's what you call hurrying in this country." "Oh, we never rush and exhaust ourselves after the manner of the East," was the smiling declaration, as the handsome stranger struck a match and lighted the cigarette. Although Frank was confident the man was a Spaniard, he spoke with scarcely a hint of an accent. In his speech, if not in his manner, he was more like an American. "Seems rather singular," questioned Frank, "that you should be traveling alone through this desolate region." "The same question in reference to you has been troubling me, sir," retorted the stranger, puffing lightly at his cigarette. "To me it seems altogether remarkable to find you here." "In that case, we are something of a mystery to each other." "Very true. As far as I am concerned, the mystery is easily solved. My name is Felipe Dulzura. I am from Santa Barbara. I own some vineyards there." Having made this apparently frank explanation, the man paused and looked inquiringly at Merry, as if expecting at least as much in return. Frank did not hesitate. "My name is Frank Merriwell," he said, "and I am a miner." "A miner?" "Yes, sir." "You can't have any mines in this vicinity." "Possibly I am looking the country over for an investment." "It's possible," nodded Dulzura. "But from your intelligent appearance, I should fancy it hardly probable." "Thanks for the compliment. In regard to you, being a planter, it seems quite unlikely that you should be surveying this region in search of a vineyard. It seems to me that I have been fully as frank, sir, as you have." Felipe Dulzura lifted an objecting hand. "I have not finished," he protested. "I didn't mean to give you the impression that I was seeking vineyards here. Far from it. On the contrary, having a little leisure, I am visiting the old missions in this part of the country. They interest me greatly. There was a time, long ago, you know, when this land belonged to my ancestors. My grandfather owned a vast tract of it. That was before gold was discovered and the great rush of 'forty-nine occurred. "I presume it is needless to state that my grandfather's title to his lands was regarded as worthless after that and he lost everything. He died a poor man. My father was always very bitter about it, and he retired to Old Mexico where he spent his last days. I am happy to say that he did not transfer his bitterness toward the people of this country to me, and I have found it to my advantage to return here and engage in my present occupation. You should see my vineyard, Mr. Merriwell. I think I have one of the finest in the State." The manner in which this statement was made seemed frankly open and aboveboard. To all appearances, Felipe Dulzura had nothing to conceal and was unhesitating in telling his business. "I, too," declared Merry, "am interested in the old Spanish missions. They remind me of the days of romance, which seem so far removed." "Ah!" cried Dulzura, "then it may happen that we can journey a while in company. That will be agreeable to me. I confess that the trail has been lonely." The planter was most agreeable and friendly in his manner, and his smile was exceedingly pleasant. In every way he seemed a most harmless individual, but experience had taught Merry the danger of always trusting to outward appearances. "Company of the right sort will not be disagreeable to me," assured Frank. "Good!" laughed Dulzura. "I am sick of talking to myself, to my horse, or to the landscape. I am a sociable chap, and I like some one to whom I can talk. Do you smoke, Mr. Merriwell? I have tobacco and papers." "Thank you; I don't smoke." "Ah, you miss one of the soothing friends of life. When I have no other company, my cigarette serves as one. This beastly valley is hot enough! The mountains shut it in and cut off all the cool breezes. However, ere nightfall we should get safely out of it and come to San Monica Mission. It lies yonder near the old Indian reservation. I have heard my father tell of it, and it has long been my object to see it." For some little time they chatted, Dulzura seeming to be in the most communicative mood, but finally they prepared to go on together. When they were ready Frank suggested that his companion lead the way, as it was far more likely that he knew the trail better. "No, no, Mr. Merriwell," was the protest. "There is but one trail here. Like you, I have never passed over it. You were in advance; it would scarcely be polite for me to take the lead." Frank, however, had no thought of placing himself with his back turned on the self-styled planter, and, therefore, he insisted that Dulzura should proceed in advance, to which the latter acquiesced. As they rode on through the somewhat stifling heat of the valley, the Spaniard continued to talk profusely, now and then turning his head and smiling back at Merry. "Next year," he said, "I mean to visit Spain. I have never been there, you know. Years and years ago my ancestors lived there. I trust you will pardon the seeming egotism, Mr. Merriwell, if I say it's not poor blood that runs in my veins. My ancestors far back were grandees. Did you ever hear of the Costolas? It's likely not. There were three branches of the family. I am a descendant of one branch." "Costola?" murmured Frank. "The name seems familiar to me, but I presume there are many who bear it." "Quite true. As for our family, however, an old feud has nearly wiped it out. It started in politics, and it divided the Costolas against themselves. A divided house, you know, cannot stand. My grandmother was a Costola. She was compelled to leave Spain. At that time another branch of the family was in power. Since then things have changed. Since then that powerful branch of the family has declined and fallen. It was not so many years ago that the sole surviving member was compelled, like my grandmother, to escape secretly from Spain. He came to this country and here lived under another name, taking that of his mother's family. I don't even remember the name he assumed after reaching America; but I did know that the surviving Costolas hunted him persistently, although he managed to evade and avoid them. What has become of him now is likewise a mystery. Perhaps he is dead." The speaker suddenly turned so that he could look fairly into Frank's face, smiling a little, and said: "It's not likely this interests you, sir." "On the contrary," Merry smiled back, "I find it quite interesting. To me Spain is a land of romance. Being a plain American, the tales of those deadly feuds are fascinating to me. I presume the Costolas must have possessed large estates in Spain?" "Once they did." "And the one you speak of--the one who was compelled to flee from the country--was he wealthy?" "I believe he was reckoned so at one time." "And now," said Frank, "if this feud were ended, if any offense of his were pardoned, could he not claim his property?" "That I don't know," declared Dulzura, shaking his head. "Well, then, if he has any descendants, surely they must be the rightful heirs to his estate." "I doubt, sir, if they could ever possess it. It must eventually be divided among his living relatives." "Ah!" cried Merry. "I understand, Mr. Dulzura, why you must have a particular interest in visiting Spain. It seems probable that you, being distantly related to this exiled nobleman, may finally come into possession of a portion of his property." "It's not impossible," was the confession, as the man in advance rolled a fresh cigarette. "But I am not counting on such uncertainties. Although my grandfather and my father both died poor, I am not a pauper myself. To be sure, I am not immensely rich, but my vineyards support me well. I have lived in this country and in Mexico all my life. In fact, I feel that I am more American than anything else. My father could not understand the democracy of the Americans. He could not understand their disregard of title and royalty." Frank laughed. "Had he lived in these days," he said, "and associated with a certain class of degenerate Americans, he would have discovered that they are the greatest worshipers of titles and royal blood in the whole world." "I think that may be true," agreed the Spaniard, puffing at his cigarette. "I have seen some of it. I know that many of your rich American girls sell themselves for the sake of titles to broken-down and rakish noblemen of other countries. I think most Americans are ashamed of this." "Indeed they are," seriously agreed Merry. "It makes them blush when a rich American girl is led to the altar by some broken-down old _roué_ with a title, who has spent his manhood and wrecked his constitution in dissipation and licentiousness. Almost every week we read in the papers of some titled foreigner who is coming to America in search of a rich wife. We don't hear of the scores and scores of American girls with wealthy parents who go abroad in search of titles. But we have forgotten the Costolas. Can you tell me anything more of them?" "You seem strangely interested in them," said Dulzura, again glancing back. "It almost seems as if you had heard of them before." "And it almost seems so to me," confessed Frank. "I think I must have heard of them before. Sometime I shall remember when it was and what I have heard." But, although they continued to talk, the Spaniard told Merry nothing more of interest in that line. Finally they relapsed into silence and rode on thus. Frank's thoughts were busy when his tongue became silent. He remembered well that the most malignant and persistent enemy of little Felicia's father was a man who called himself Felipe Costola. This man had made repeated efforts to get possession of Felicia, but had been baffled by Delores and had finally lost his life in Fardale. Beyond question, Felipe Costola was dead, and what had become of Juan Delores no man seemed to know. Putting two and two together, Frank began to wonder if Delores might not be a Costola who had assumed the name of his mother's family while living in Spain, thus arousing the everlasting enmity of all the Costolas, and who had finally been compelled to flee to America. In many respects the history of this man agreed with that told by Juan Delores himself. He had once told Frank the name and title by which he was known in Spain, but never had he explained the fierce enmity of Felipe Costola. Now Merry was speculating over the possibility that Delores must have once been a Costola. If this was true, then little Felicia was, by the statement of Dulzura, the rightful heir to the estate in Spain. Meditating on this possibility, Frank fancied he obtained a peep behind the curtain which hid the mystery of Felicia's disappearance. With the child out of the way, a false heir might be substituted, and the schemers behind the plot would reap their reward. The shadows of evening were thickening in the mountain when Merry and his companion passed from the valley and reached the abrupt foothills. Here the trail was more clearly defined, and soon they were startled to see standing beside it an aged Indian, who regarded them with the stony gaze of the Sphinx. Dulzura drew up and asked the Indian in Spanish if the San Monica Mission was near. The reply was that it was less than half a mile in advance. They came to it, sitting on a little plateau, silent and sad in the purple twilight. It was worn and battered by the storms of years. On its ancient tower the cross stood tremblingly. A great crack showed in its wall, running from base to apex. In the dark opening of the tower a huge bell hung, silent and soundless. Merry drew up and sat regarding the ancient pile in almost speechless awe and reverence. It was a monument of other days in that sunny land. Here, long before the coming of the gold seekers, the Spanish priest had taught the Indian to bow his knee to the one true God. Here they had lived their calm and peaceful lives, which were devoted to the holy cause. "Come," urged Dulzura, "let's get a peep within ere it becomes quite dark. There must be an Indian village somewhere near, and there, after looking into the mission, we may find accommodations." Frank did not say that he was doubtful if such accommodations as they might find in an Indian village could satisfy him; but he followed his companion to the stone gate of the old mission, where Dulzura hastily dismounted. Even as Frank sprang from his horse he saw a dark figure slowly and sedately approaching the gate. It proved to be a bare-headed old monk in brown robes, who supported his trembling limbs with a short, stout staff. Dulzura saluted the aged guardian of the mission in a manner of mingled worship and respect. "What do ye here, my son?" asked the father, in a voice no less unsteady than his aged limbs. "We have come, father, to see the mission," answered the Spaniard. "We have journeyed for that purpose." "It's now too late, my son, to see it to-night. On the morrow I will take you through it." "You live here alone, father?" "All alone since the passing of Father Junipero," was the sad answer, as the aged monk made the sign of the cross. Frank was deeply touched by the melancholy in the old man's voice and in the lonely life he led there in the ruined mission. "What is the mission's income?" questioned Merry. "Our lands are gone. We have very little," was the reply. "Still Father Perez has promised to join me, and I have been looking for him. When I heard your horse approaching I thought it might be he. It was but another disappointment. Still, it matters not." "Let us take a peep inside," urged Dulzura. "Just one peep to-night, father." "You can see nothing but shadows, my son; but you shall look, if you wish." He turned and moved slowly along the path, aided by the staff. They followed him through the gate and into the long stone corridor, where even then the twilight was thick with shadows. In the yard the foliage grew luxuriantly, but in sad neglect and much need of trimming and attention. At the mission door they paused. "Let's go in," urged Dulzura. "To-morrow will be time enough," answered Frank, a sudden sensation of uneasiness and apprehension upon him. At this refusal Dulzura uttered a sudden low exclamation and took a swift step as if to pass Merry. Frank instantly turned in such a manner that he placed his back against the wall, with the door on his left and the old monk close at hand at his right. Suddenly, from beyond the shadows of the foliage in the yard, dark forms sprang up and came bounding into the corridor. Out from the door rushed another figure. Dulzura uttered a cry in Spanish and pointed at Frank. They leaped toward him. Merry's hand dropped toward the holster on his hip, but with a gasp he discovered that it was empty. Instead of grasping the butt of his pistol, he found no weapon there with which to defend himself. For all of the shadows he saw the glint of steel in the hands of those men as they leaped toward him, and he knew his life was in frightful peril. How his pistol had escaped from the holster, whether it had slipped out by accident, or had in some inexplicable manner been removed by human hands, Frank could not say. It was gone, however, and he seemed defenseless against his murderous assailants. In times of danger Frank's brain moved swiftly, and on this occasion it did not fail him. With one sudden side-step, he snatched from the old monk's hand the heavy staff. With a swift blow from this he was barely in time to send the nearest assailant reeling backward. The others did not pause, and during the next few moments Frank was given the liveliest battle of his career. "Cut him down! Cut him down!" cried Dulzura, in Spanish. They responded by making every effort to sink their knives in Frank. They were wiry, catlike little men, and in the gloom their eyes seemed to gleam fiercely, while their lips curled back from their white teeth. Merriwell's skill as a swordsman stood him in good stead now. He took care not to be driven against the wall. He whirled, and cut, and struck in every direction, seeking ample room for evolutions. He knew full well that to be pressed close against the wall would put him at a disadvantage, for then he would not have room for his leaps, and swings, and thrusts, and jabs. The fighting American bewildered and astounded them. He seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. When one leaped at him from behind to sink a knife between his shoulders Frank suddenly whirled like lightning and smote the fellow across the wrist, sending the steel flying from his fingers to clang upon the stones. The old monk lifted his trembling hands in prayer and tottered away. What had happened seemed to him most astounding and appalling. "Come on, you dogs!" rang Frank's clear voice. "Come on yourself, Felipe Dulzura, you treacherous cur! Why do you keep out of reach and urge your little beasts on?" The Spaniard uttered an oath in his own language. "Close in! Close in!" he directed. "Press him from all sides! Don't let one man beat you off like that!" "You seem to be taking good care of your own precious hide," half laughed Frank. Then, as the opportunity presented, he made a sudden rush and reached Dulzura with a crack of the staff that caused the fellow to howl and stagger. It did not seem, however, that, armed only with that stick, Merry could long contend against such odds. Soon something must happen. Soon one of those little wretches would find the opportunity to come in and strike swift and sure with a glittering knife. The racket and uproar of the conflict startled the echoes of the mission building, and in that peaceful, dreamy spot such sounds seemed most appalling. Frank knew the end must come. Had he possessed a pistol he might have triumphed over them all in spite of the odds. Suddenly in the distance, from far down the trail toward the valley, came the sound of singing. As it reached Merry's ears he started in the utmost amazement, for he knew that tune. Many a time had he joined in singing it in the old days. Although the words were not distinguishable at first, he could follow them by the sound of the tune. This is the stanza the unseen singers voiced: "Deep in our hearts we hold the love Of one dear spot by vale and hill; We'll not forget while life may last Where first we learned the soldier's skill; The green, the field, the barracks grim, The years that come shall not avail To blot from us the mem'ry dear Of Fardale--fair Fardale." "Fair Fardale!"--that was the song. How often Frank had joined in singing it when a boy at Fardale Military Academy. No wonder Frank knew it well! By the time the stanza was finished the singers were much nearer, and their words could be plainly distinguished. Dulzura and his tools were astounded, but the man urged them still more fiercely to accomplish their task before the singers could arrive. The singing of that song, however, seemed to redouble Merry's wonderful strength and skill. He was now like a flashing phantom as he leaped, and dodged, and swung, and thrust with the heavy staff. His heart was beating high, and he felt that he could not be defeated then. Finally the baffled and wondering assailants seemed to pause and draw back. Frank retreated toward the wall and stood waiting, his stick poised. The musical voices of the unseen singers broke into the chorus, and involuntarily Frank joined them, his own clear voice floating through the evening air: "Then sing of Fardale, fair Fardale! Your voices raise in joyous praise Of Fardale--fair Fardale! Forevermore 'twixt hill and shore, Oh, may she stand with open hand To welcome those who come to her-- Our Fardale--fair Fardale!" It was plain that, for some reason, Dulzura and his band of assassins had not wished to use firearms in their dreadful work. Now, however, the leader seemed to feel that there was but one course left for him. Merry saw him reach into a pocket and felt certain the scoundrel was in search of a pistol. He was right. Even as Dulzura brought the weapon forth, Frank made two pantherish bounds, knocking the others aside, and smote the chief rascal a terrible blow over the ear. Dulzura was sent whirling out between two of the heavy pillars to crash down into the shrubbery of the yard. That blow seemed to settle everything, for with the fall of their master the wretches who had been urged on by him took flight. Like frightened deer they scudded, disappearing silently. Merry stood there unharmed, left alone with the old monk, who was still breathing his agitated prayers. From beyond the gate came a call, and the sound of that voice made Frank laugh softly with satisfaction. He leaped down from the corridor and ran along the path to the gate, outside which, in the shadows, were two young horsemen. "Dick--my brother!" exclaimed Merry. "Frank!" was the cry, as one of the two leaped from the horse and sprang to meet him. CHAPTER IX. WHAT THE MONK TOLD THEM. "By all that's wonderful!" exclaimed Merry, as he beheld his brother. "I thought I must be dreaming when I heard you singing. Dick, how did you come here?" "I heard nothing from you, Frank," was the reply. "I didn't know for sure that you had received my message. I did know that Felicia was in trouble and in danger, and so I resolved to hasten to her at once. When I reached San Diego I found she was gone and that you had been there ahead of me. I have been seeking to overtake you ever since. This afternoon we saw you far away in the valley, although we could not be certain it was you. You had a companion. We thought it might be Bart Hodge." Dick had made this explanation hastily, after the affectionate meeting between the brothers. "It was not Hodge," said Frank; "far from it! It was a man I fell in with on the trail, and a most treacherous individual he proved to be." Then he told of the encounter with Dulzura's ruffianly crew, upon hearing which Dick's companion of the trail uttered a cry. "Whoop!" he shouted. "That certain was a hot old scrimmage. Great tarantulas! Why didn't we come up in time to get into the fracas! Howling tomcats! but that certain would have been the real stuff! And you beat the whole bunch off, did you, Mr. Merriwell? That's the kind of timber the Merriwells are made of! You hear me gently warble!" "Hello, Buckhart!" exclaimed Frank, as the chap swung down from the saddle. Brad Buckhart and Dick Merriwell were chums at the Fardale Military Academy, and Frank knew him for one of the pluckiest young fellows he had ever met. Buckhart was a Texan through and through. "Put her there, Mr. Merriwell," said Brad, as he extended his hand--"put her there for ninety days! It does my optics a heap of good to rest them on your phiz. But I'll never get over our late arrival on the scene of action." "We knew you were here somewhere, Frank, when we heard you join in 'Fair Fardale,'" said Dick. "And by that sound the greasers knew I had friends coming," added Merry. "It stopped them and sent them scurrying off in a hurry." "Where are they now?" asked Brad. "Why don't they sail right out here and light into us? Oh, great horn spoon! I haven't taken in a red-hot fight for so long that I am all rusty in the joints." "Where is Felicia, Frank?" anxiously asked Dick. Merry shook his head. "I can't answer that question yet," he confessed. "I have followed her thus far; of that I am satisfied, for otherwise I don't believe these men would have attacked me." Through the shadows a dark figure came slowly toward them from the direction of the mission building. "Whoever is this yere?" exclaimed Buckhart. "It's the old priest," said Merry, as he saw the cloaked and hooded figure. The old man was once more leaning on his crooked staff, which Merry had dropped as he hastened to meet his brother. Even in the gathering darkness there was about him an air of agitation and excitement. "My son," he said, in a trembling voice, still speaking in Spanish, "I hope you are not harmed." "Whatever is this he is shooting at you?" inquired Buckhart. "Is it Choctaw or Chinese?" Paying no attention to Brad, Merry questioned the monk, also speaking in Spanish. "Father," he said, "who were those men, and how came they to be here?" "My son, I knew not that there were so many of them. Two came to me to pray in the mission. The others, who were hidden outside, I saw not until they appeared. Why did they attack you?" "Because they are wicked men, father, who have stolen from her home a little girl. I am seeking her, hoping to restore her to her friends." "This is a strange story you tell me, my son. Who is the child, and why did they take her from her home?" "There's much mystery about it, father. She's the daughter of a Spanish gentleman, who became an exile from his own country. There are reasons to suppose she may be an heiress. Indeed, that seems the only explanation of her singular abduction. I have traced her hither, father. Can you tell me anything to assist in my search?" The old man shook his hooded head, his face hidden by deep shadows. "Nothing, my son--nothing," he declared, drawing a little nearer, as if to lay his hand upon Frank. "I would I could aid you." Suddenly, to the astonishment of both Dick and Brad, Merry flung himself upon the monk, grasping his wrist and dropping him in a twinkling. He hurled the agitated recluse flat upon his back and knelt upon his chest. "Frank! Frank!" palpitated Dick. "What are you doing? Don't hurt him!" "Strike a match, one of you," commanded Merry. "Give us a look at his face." The man struggled violently, but Frank's strength was too much for him, and he was pinned fast. Dick quickly struck a match and bent over, shading it with his hands, flinging the light downward upon the face of the man Merry held. "Just as I thought!" Merry exclaimed, in satisfaction, as the light showed him, not the features of the old monk, but those of a much younger man, with dark complexion and a prominent triangular scar on his right cheek. "This is not the holy father. He couldn't deceive me with his attempt to imitate the father's voice. I have seen this gentleman on a previous occasion. He dogged my steps in San Diego after I left Rufus Staples' house." It was, in truth, the same man Merry had warned on the street corner in San Diego. The little wretch swore savagely in Spanish and glared at his captors. "Spare your breath, my fine fellow," said Frank. "Profanity will not help you." "Well, whatever was the varmint trying to do?" cried Buckhart. "I certain thought he was going to bless you." "He would have blessed me with a knife between my ribs had I been deceived by him," asserted Merriwell. "In my saddlebags you will find some stout cord. Give it to me." A few moments later, in spite of his occasional struggles, the captured rascal was securely bound. "There," said Merry, "I think that will hold you for a while. Now, boys, I am going to see what has become of the holy father. This is his cloak." "You're not going back there alone," protested Dick, at once. "Not on your life!" agreed Buckhart. "We are with you, Frank." They followed him into the yard, where the darkness was now deep, and came together to the entrance of the mission, but without discovering anything of the aged monk. Standing in the corridor, they peered in at the yawning door, but could see or hear nothing. Frank called to the monk, but only echoes answered him from the black interior of the mission. "Here's where you may get all the fight you want, Buckhart," he said grimly. "Be ready for anything, boys." "I am a heap ready, you bet your boots!" answered the Texan, who had a pistol in his hand. "Same here," said Dick. Frank struck a match on the cemented wall. A cold wind from the interior of the building came rushing through the open door and blew it out. It was like the breath of some dangerous, unseen monster hidden within the mission. Merry promptly struck another match. This time he shaded it with his hands and protected it until it sprang into a strong glow. Then, with his hands concaved behind it, he advanced through the doorway, throwing its light forward. Almost immediately an exclamation escaped his lips, for a few feet within, lying on the cold floor, he discovered a human form. As he bent over the figure, he saw to his dismay it was the monk from whose body the brown cloak had been stripped. Then the match went out. "Is he dead, Frank?" whispered Dick. "I can't tell," answered Merry. "I didn't get a fair look at him. We will know in a moment." He lighted another match and bent over the prostrate man. The light showed him the eyes of the monk fixed stonily on his face. It also showed him that a gag had been forced between the old man's teeth and fastened there. The father was bound securely with a lariat. "He is far from dead!" exclaimed Merry, in satisfaction. "Here, Dick, cut this rope and set him free. Get that gag out of his mouth, while I hold matches for you to do so." Soon the rope was cut, the gag removed, and together they lifted the old man to his feet. Frank then picked him up and carried him out into the open air. "You seem to have met with misfortune, father," he said. "I sincerely hope you are not harmed much." "My son," quavered the agitated monk, "it is not my body that is harmed; it is my spirit. Against no living creature in all the world would I raise my hand. Why should any one seize me and choke me in such a manner? Much less, why should any who profess to be of the holy faith do such a thing?" "They were frauds, father--frauds and rascals of the blackest dye." "But two of them came here to pray," murmured the priest, as if he could not believe such a thing possible. "Have we not suffered indignities enough? Our lands have been taken from us and we have been stripped of everything." "They were infidels, father. You may be sure of that." "Infidels and impostors!" exclaimed the old man, with a slight show of spirit. "But I couldn't think men who spoke the language of old Spain and who prayed to Heaven could be such base creatures." "What they certain deserve," growled Buckhart, unable to repress his indignation longer, "is to be shot up a whole lot, and I'd sure like the job of doing it." "I don't understand it--I cannot understand it!" muttered the monk. "It's far beyond me to comprehend. Why did they set upon me, my son?" he questioned, his unsteady hand touching Frank's arm. "Why did they seek to slay you?" "Wait a minute, father, and I will explain," said Merry. He then told briefly of the abduction of Felicia and his pursuit of her captors. As he spoke, the aged listener betrayed some signs of excitement. "My son, is all this true?" he solemnly questioned. "You are not one of our faith, yet your words ring true." "I swear it, father." "Then I have been twice deceived!" cried the old man, with surprising energy, shaking his hands in the empty air. "Yesterday there came here two men and a sweet-faced child. They told me they were taking her home. I believed them. With her they knelt at the shrine to pray. I blessed them, and they went on their way." "At last!" burst from Merry's lips. "Now there's no question. Now we know we're on the right trail! Father, that little girl is a cousin of my half-brother here. He will tell you if I have spoken the truth." "Every word of it is true," affirmed Dick, who spoke Spanish as fluently as Frank. "If you can tell us whither they were taking her, father, you may aid us greatly in our search for her." "Alas! it is not possible for me to tell you! I know that they were bound eastward. Beyond these mountains are the great San Bernardino plains, a mighty and trackless desert. Where they could go in that direction I cannot say." "Is it possible to cross the desert?" questioned Dick. "It is a waste of burning sand. Who tries to cross it on foot or mounted is almost certain to leave his bones somewhere in that desert." "Then if they kept straight on----" "If they kept straight on," said the old monk, "I fear greatly you will never again behold the child you seek." "They are not fools!" exclaimed Frank. "It is not likely they will try to cross the desert. The fact that they have taken so much trouble to endeavor to check pursuit here is proof they felt hard pushed. Is there no town, no human habitation beyond these mountains?" "No town," declared the father. "Straight over to the east you will come to the El Diablo Valley. It is deep and wild, and in it are some ruined buildings of stone and cement. Tradition says they were built long ago by Joaquin Murietta, a Californian outlaw, who waged war on all Americans. He expected to retreat there some day and defend himself against all assailants. At least, so the legend runs, although I much doubt if he built the castle which is now called Castle Hidalgo. Of late it has another occupant, who has taken the name of Joaquin--Black Joaquin he is called." "Well, this is somewhat interesting, too," declared Merry. "Is this new Joaquin endeavoring to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor?" "I believe there is a price upon his head." Merry turned to Dick with sudden conviction. "Our trail leads to Castle Hidalgo," he asserted. "I am satisfied of that. I am also satisfied that I have here encountered some of Black Joaquin's satellites." "And I will wager something," Dick added, "that we have one of them this minute, bound hand and foot, a short distance away." "That's right," said Frank, "and we may be able to squeeze a little information from him. Father, the man who has your cloak is outside the gate. Perhaps you may know him. Come and look at him." Together they left the yard and came to the spot where the man with the scar was supposed to be. On the ground lay the old monk's cloak, but the man was gone. Undoubtedly he had been set free by some of his comrades. CHAPTER X. THREE IN A TRAP. The day was declining when Frank, Dick, and Brad came down into El Diablo Valley. It was, indeed, a dark, wild place, and for some time it seemed almost impossible of access. No plain trail led into it. On an elevation in the valley they had seen a ruined pile that bore a strong resemblance to a crumbling castle. The very appearance of these buildings belied the tale that Joaquin Murietta had built them there. Had they been so recently constructed their ruined condition was unaccountable. It seemed certain that at least a hundred years had passed since their erection. About the valley and the castle appeared hanging an air of mystery and romance. That any one should choose such a remote and desolate spot to rear those buildings was beyond comprehension to the three young Americans who now beheld the ruins for the first time. Somehow those crumbling stones reminded them of the march of Cortez and his conquering treasure hunters. What Spaniard of that day, left behind in Mexico and supposed to be dead, had enriched himself with the treasures of the Aztecs and had escaped northward, only to find himself imprisoned in the new land, and to finally use a part of his treasures to erect this castle? During the middle hours of the day alone did the southern sunshine fall soft and golden in El Diablo Valley. Therefore, they descended into the shadows and approached the castle, which seemed to lie silent and deserted in the midst of the valley. "It's a whole lot strange we never heard of this place before," observed Buckhart. "Of course, others have seen it." There was a cloud on Dick's face. "Do you think, Frank," he questioned, "that there is any hope of finding Felicia here? Since leaving the mission we have seen nothing to indicate that we were still on the right trail." "It's a good deal like hunting for a needle in a hay-stack," confessed Merry. "Maybe those galoots who have her doubled back on us," suggested Brad. "Maybe they turned on us there at the mission." "It's not impossible," was Merry's regretful admission. "However, we are here, and we will find what there is to find." There were no echoes in the valley. It seemed a place of silence and gloom. As they approached the ruins they surveyed them with increasing wonder. There were old turrets and towers, crumbling and cracked, as if shaken by many earthquakes. The black windows glared at them like grim eyes. "I will bet my boots that there is no one around this yere ranch," muttered Buckhart. "Perhaps that old priest fooled us a whole lot." Merry shook his head. "I am sure not," he said. They mounted the rise on which the castle was built and passed through a huge gate and dark passage, coming into a courtyard, with the crumbling ruins all around them. Here they paused. Suddenly at one of the narrow, upper windows of the old turret a face appeared. Some one was there looking out at them. Frank's keen eyes were the first to discover it. Then to their ears came the cry of a voice electrifying them. The face at the window pressed nearer, and, together with the voice, it was recognized. Dick gave a shout of joy. "Felicia!" he exclaimed. "There she is, Frank. Can you see her in that window up there? Felicia! Felicia!" But even as he called to her thus she suddenly vanished. As they stared at the window, another face showed for a moment and another pair of eyes looked down at them. Then these also disappeared. "Waugh!" exploded Brad Buckhart. "Here's where we get into action." "She's there," declared Frank. "She's there--a captive!" "It's sure to be a red-hot scrimmage," said Buckhart, looking at his revolver. "Take care that your guns are ready for action." They leaped from their horses and swiftly approached the ruins, leaving the animals to wander where they might in the valley, well knowing they would not leave it. Up the stone steps they bounded, coming to the deepset door, which by its own weight or by the working of time had fallen from its hinges. Nothing barred them there, and they entered. As they dashed in, there was a sudden whirring sound, and they felt themselves struck and beaten upon as by phantom hands. This was startling enough, but Frank immediately comprehended that they were bats and the creatures were fluttering wildly about them. From one dark room to another they wandered, seeking the stairs that should lead them up into the turret. "We need a light," said Merry. "That certain is correct, pardner," agreed Buckhart. "We are a heap likely to break our necks here in the dark." "But we have no light," panted Dick, "and no time to secure a torch. If we waste time for that we may lose her." "Where are those pesky stairs?" growled the Texan. Their search led them into a huge echoing room that seemed windowless. Frank was exasperated by the aimlessness of their search. Had they not seen Felicia's face at the window and heard her voice, the silence and desolation of the place must have convinced them that it was in truth deserted. But now, of a sudden, there was a sound behind them. It was a creak on the rusty stairs. It was followed by a heavy thud and absolute silence. "What was that?" asked Dick. "It sounded to me," muttered Merry, "like the closing of a massive door." A moment later he struck a match, and by its light they looked around. Holding it above his head, it served to illumine the chamber dimly. "Wherever did we get into this hole?" asked Brad. "I fail to see any door." The repeated lighting of matches seemed to show them only four bare walls. At last Frank found the door, but he discovered it was closed. More than that, he discovered that it was immovable. "Boys," he said grimly, as the match in his fingers fluttered out and fell into a little glowing, coal at his feet, "we are trapped. It's plain now that we did a foolish thing in rushing in here without a light. That glimpse of Felicia lured us into the snare, and it will be no easy thing to escape." "Let me get at that door!" growled Buckhart. He flung himself against it with all his strength, but it stood immovable. They joined in using their united strength upon it, but still it did not stir. "Well, this certain is a right bad scrape," admitted the Texan. "I don't mind any a good hot fight with the odds on the other side, but I admit this staggers me." "What are we to do, Frank?" whispered Dick. "Easier asked than answered," confessed Merry. "It's up to us to find some means of escape, but how we can do so I am not ready to say." "Pards," said the Texan, "it seems to me that we are going to get a-plenty hungry before we leave this corral. We are some likely to starve here. The joke is on us." "Hush!" cautioned Merry. "Listen!" As they stood still in the dense darkness of that chamber they heard a muffled voice speaking in English. It seemed to be calling to them derisively. "You're very courageous, Frank Merriwell," mocked the voice; "but see what your courage has brought you to. Here you are trapped, and here you will die!" "Hello!" muttered Merry. "So my friend, Felipe Dulzura, is near at hand!" The situation was one to appall the stoutest heart, but Frank Merriwell was not the one to give up as long as there was the slightest gleam of hope. Indeed, in that darkness there seemed no gleam. It is not wonderful that even stout-hearted Brad Buckhart began to feel that "the jig was up." In most times of danger, perplexity, or peril, Dick relied solely on himself and his own resources; now, however, having Frank at hand, he turned to him. "Is there any chance for us to escape?" "Boys," said Merry, "we must not think of giving up until we have made every effort in our power. The first thing to be done is to sound the walls. You can help me in this. Go around the walls, rapping on them and listening. See if you can find a hollow place. This is not the donjon, and it may have been originally intended for something different from a prison room." Directed by him, they set about their task, sounding the walls. Hopeless enough it seemed as they went knocking, knocking through the darkness. When the room had been circled once and no discovery made, Buckhart seemed quite ready to give up the effort in that direction. Frank was not satisfied, but continued feeling his way along the walls, rapping and listening as he went. Finally he remained a long time in one place, which aroused the curiosity of his boy comrades. "Have you discovered anything?" asked Dick. Before replying Merry struck a match. "Here, boys," he said, "you will see there is a crack in the wall. That may be the cause of the hollow sound I fancied it gave. But, look!" he added, holding the match high above his head, "see how the crack widens as it rises toward the ceiling. By Jove, boys! it's almost wide enough up there for a cat to get through." Then the match burned too short to be held longer, and he dropped it. Several moments he stood in silence, paying no heed to the words of Dick or Brad. His mind was busy. Finally he said: "Get up here, boys, both of you. Face this wall and stand close together. I want to climb on your shoulders. I am going to examine that crack. It may be our only hope of salvation." They followed instructions, and Merry mounted to their shoulders, on which he stood. In this manner he was high enough to reach some distance into the crack in the wall. He found nothing but crumbling bits of cement and stone, which was a disappointment to him. "Keep your heads down," he said. "I am going to see if I can loosen some of this outer coat of cement here. It may rattle down about your ears." He pulled away at the cement, cleaving it off easily and exposing the fact that the wall was somewhat shabbily built above a distance of eight feet from the floor. An earthquake or convulsion of nature, or whatever had caused the crack in the wall, had seriously affected it, and it seemed very shaky and unstable indeed. Several times he shifted about on the boys' shoulders to give them rest, as his heavy boots were rather painful after remaining in one position a few moments. They were eager to know what progress he was making. "I can't tell what it amounts to, boys," he declared. "This crack may lead nowhere, even if I can make an opening large enough to enter." At length he was compelled to descend in order to give them a chance to rest. Three times he mounted on their shoulders and worked at the cement and stones until the skin of his fingers was torn and his hands bleeding. He was making progress, nevertheless, and it seemed more and more apparent that, if given time enough, an opening might be made there at that height in the wall. In his final efforts he loosened a mass of the stuff, that suddenly gave way and went rattling and rumbling down into the wall somewhere. To his intense satisfaction, this left a hole large enough for a human being to creep into. "Brace hard, boys," he whispered. "I am going to make a venture here. I am going to crawl into this place." "Be careful, Frank!" palpitated Dick. "What if you get in there and the old wall crumbles on you! You will be buried alive! You will be smothered, and killed!" "Better that than starvation in this wretched hole," he half laughed. "We will have to take chances if we ever escape at all. Steady now." They stiffened their bodies, and he gave a little spring, diving into the opening as far as he could and slowly wiggling and dragging himself forward. In this manner he gradually crept into it, although it was no simple matter. There was barely room enough for him to accomplish this feat, and when it was done he lay still a few moments to rest. As he lay thus he heard some of the stones and cement rattling and falling beneath him, and felt the whole wall seem to settle. His heart leaped into his throat, for it seemed, indeed, that he was about to be smothered and crushed to death in that place. Still he did not retreat. Instead of that, he squirmed and crawled forward as fast as possible. Suddenly a mass of the wall came down upon his back and shoulders, and he was pinned fast. Trying to squirm forward still farther, he found himself held as if in the jaws of a vise, and never in his adventurous career had his position seemed more desperate and helpless. Dust filled his eyes and nostrils, and he seemed smothered. Summoning all his wonderful strength, Merry made a mighty effort. Suddenly, as he did so, the wall beneath him seemed to give way, and downward he fell, amid showers of stones and cement, which rained upon him. He had fallen into some sort of open space, and, although somewhat dazed and stunned, he quickly crept forward to escape the falling mass of stuff. In this he was successful, and, although the air of the place seemed dense and stifling, he was practically uninjured. As soon as possible, he sought to learn what kind of a place he had dropped into so unexpectedly. There were yet a few matches left in his match safe, and one of these he lighted. Its light showed him a small, narrow passage, leading away he knew not where. Behind him there was a mass of fallen debris where the top of the passage had caved in. Even then still more was threatening to fall, and he quickly moved away. "I have heard of secret passages in old castles and mansions," Frank muttered, "and this must be one of them. Where will it lead me? It must take me somewhere, and this is better than remaining in the chamber where we were trapped." For a long time he felt his way cautiously onward along the passage. He came in time to its end. His hand could feel nothing but the bare stones, and it seemed that the passage terminated there. Once more he struck a match, the light of which revealed to him nothing of an encouraging nature. "Well," he said, "I seem to be in a trap still. It can't be possible this was simply a blind passage. Why was it constructed? There must be some way of getting out of it." Again at the end of the passage he fell to sounding the wall and listening. His hands roamed over it, feeling every protrusion or irregularity. Finally he touched something that was loose. Immediately he pressed it with considerable vigor, upon which there was a faint muffled click, and a heavy door that had been skillfully covered by cement swung slowly against his hands. Frank's wonderful command of his nerves kept him from uttering an exclamation of satisfaction. He quickly seized the edge of the door and pulled it wide open. Fresh air rushed in upon him, and he filled his lungs with a sensation of satisfaction and relief. He now thought of returning and seeking to assist Dick and Brad in following him, but after a few moments he decided to investigate still further. Soon he found himself on a high terrace, which opened into an inclosed courtyard of the ruins. As he leaned there, looking down, the ring of ironshod hoofs came through the arched gate, reaching his ears. A moment later two horsemen rode into the courtyard, leading behind them three animals. The clank and clang of the horses' feet upon the flagstones echoed in the inclosure. Merry drew back, watching and listening. "Three fine beasts," said a voice in Spanish. "And they are ours, comrade. The chief said we were to have them if we captured them." "Why not?" sullenly returned the other man. "Are we to have nothing? Is the chief to get it all?" "Hush, Jimenez!" hastily warned the first speaker. "Better not let him hear you utter such words." "At least one can think, Monte," retorted Jimenez. "We take all the risks, and what do we get? Not even when we faced that young devil Americano at the mission did the chief put himself in peril. He urged us on, but he took good care of his precious self, I noticed." "If you talk more in this manner, Jimenez," exclaimed Monte, "with you I will have nothing whatever to do!" "Bah! You are a coward," snarled the other. "Now, be not hasty in your movements, for I, too, am armed." "Fly at it!" whispered Frank, in satisfaction. "Go at each other, and do your prettiest. Cut each other's throats, and I will applaud you, you rascals!" But the two scoundrels did not engage in an encounter. After growling a little at each other, they proceeded with the horses to a part of the courtyard where the stables seemed to be, and there disappeared. Merry did not have to watch long for their return. They again crossed the open space below and disappeared; but, listening where he stood, he heard their voices, and they seemed ascending stairs not far away. His curiosity now fully aroused, with a pistol in his hand, Frank stole onward as swiftly as possible in an attempt to keep track of them. He left the terrace and came to the stairs by which they ascended. Even as he stole like a panther up those stairs, he caught the hum of voices and the flash of a light. Thus it was that the daring young man at last reached a dark nook, from which sheltered spot he could peer through an open door into a lighted room where several men were gathered. Beyond doubt these were the members of Black Joaquin's band, several of whom had set upon him at San Monica Mission. CHAPTER XI. RUFFIANS AT ODDS. Some of the men were idly lounging about as they smoked, while others were playing cards. The card players were gambling, and money clinked on the table before them. A picturesque and desperate-looking group they were, yet Merriwell felt and knew by experience that they were far more dangerous in appearance than in actual fact. He had met a number of them face to face, and succeeded in holding them in check with no more than the crooked staff of the old monk for his weapon of defense. They were the kind to strike at a man's back and cower before his face. The card players did not always get along amicably. At times they quarreled excitedly, over their game. Finally one of them lost everything and flew into a passion, roundly berating his more lucky companions. They laughed at him as they puffed their cigarettes. "What matters it, Pachuca?" cried one. "It is only a little. Soon you will have more." "Oh, yes, much more!" smiled another. "The chief has promised you plenty when he shall get the girl safely away." "I much prefer money to promises," solemnly retorted Pachuca. "It's an honest game I play. Why should I win with you?" "Now, it's best that you have a care with your tongue," rather hotly returned one of the winners. "Yesterday it was your luck to win; now it is mine." "Is it luck you call it?" sneered Pachuca. "Ha! ha!" "Yes, luck. What was it when you won?" "It was my skill," declared Pachuca loftily. "But even skill is no match for some methods." At this the little fellow who had won the most sprang up and struck the table with his fist, glaring across at Pachuca. "Do you dare say to my face that I cheat?" he sharply cried. "Speak it out, if you do!" Merry was quite satisfied by the course events seemed to be taking, for he felt that it might be much to his advantage if a quarrel between these two men followed. Pachuca, however, shrugged his shoulders and showed his teeth, as he rolled a cigarette. "You have won, Ramon," he returned. "Keep the money. My turn comes." "Any time you like," was the defiant challenge. "When I lose it is not like a stuck pig that I squeal." Then Ramon sat down as if quite satisfied, and the game proceeded without Pachuca participating further. Merry was disappointed. Still he saw there was bad blood among the men, and he felt that what he had heard in the courtyard and since indicated dissension and dissatisfaction. As the gamblers continued they again fell to speaking of "the girl." Suddenly behind him, toward the stairs, Merry heard a soft footfall. He pressed himself closer into the darkness of his niche and scarcely breathed as a man brushed past. This man halted in the door, hearing something of the words of the gamblers. Suddenly he stepped forward. "What is this?" he demanded angrily. "Again you are talking too much. I have warned you before. You are not to speak at all of the girl. You know she's here; let that be enough, and hold your tongues!" "Hello, my fine friend!" whispered Frank to himself, as the light fell on the face of the newcomer and he saw that there was a scar on the man's cheek. "So it's you?" Sudden silence fell upon the men. The man with the the scar singled out Ramon, at whom he pointed. "You are always talking too much," he declared. "When will you learn better?" As he stood behind the table, Ramon's hand slipped down to his sash, where it touched the hilt of a knife, and the look on his face was far from pleasant. "It's me you always single out, Carlos!" he exclaimed. "Why do you never talk thus to the others?" "Because it is you who make trouble. It is you I have been compelled to caution. What think you the chief would say should he hear you?" "The chief!" cried Ramon. "Where is he? It is easy to make promises, Carlos. How know we that we are to receive all that is promised?" "Have you not been satisfied in the past?" "Not always," was the bold retort. "I am not the only one; there are others here who have not been satisfied. It is time to speak plainly. When all danger is over----" "It is already," was the assertion. "How so?" "You know the three dogs who followed the trail have been trapped. They are secure, and never from this place will they go forth." "But there may be others. There was another who followed us far." "What of him?" sneered Carlos, snapping his fingers. "He has long lost the scent. It is only these three fellows who tracked us here, and better for them had they never come. Here their bones will rot!" "If that is true, there is now nothing to prevent the chief from carrying the girl whither he likes. Who is she? That you have not told us, Carlos." "That is nothing to you. It is a matter to concern the chief alone." "Ah! we know she must be of great value to him, else he would have never taken so many chances. Why was she deceived with the tale that she was to be carried to her father?" "How know you so much?" grimly demanded Carlos. Then suddenly he wheeled on Jimenez. "It's you who talk a great deal likewise!" he snarled. Up to this point Jimenez had been silent. Now, like a flash, he sprang up and advanced to the side of Ramon. "My tongue is my own," he harshly said. "On it no one has placed a lock. What harm has the child done that she should be deceived? We are the men who did the work; why should not we be trusted? Answer that--if you can. I know that she was told that she should find her father here. I know, too, that he is a fugitive and has long hidden from his enemies. However, I know that she was led to believe that he had sent for her. Where is this man?" "You fool!" burst from Carlos. "I knew that it was a mistake when you were placed to guard her. I knew it was unsafe that she should tell you too much. Wait until the chief learns of this." "Let him pay us what he has promised," said Ramon. "We will take it and be silent. He may then go where he pleases and carry the girl. Carlos, we are not the only ones here who demand to see this money and to hear it clink in our hands. Comrades, it is time we show our colors. Let those who are with me stand forth." At this there was a stir. Some of the men seemed to hesitate, but a moment later two more men came over to the side of Ramon and Jimenez. "This is not all," Ramon declared. "There are still others who are not satisfied with bare promises. Let the chief satisfy us. Where is he?" Merry had been so deeply interested that he failed to hear a step behind him, and had not he been cautiously pressed in the shadows of his nook he might have been observed. The approaching man, however, had heard sounds of a quarrel in that room, and he strode past Frank and entered by the door. "Who calls for me?" he demanded, in a clear, steady voice. "Why all this uproar?" "Joaquin!" muttered one, while others exclaimed, "The chief!" And Frank recognized Felipe Dulzura! Sudden silence fell upon them. Dulzura, whom Frank now knew to be Black Joaquin, stood boldly looking them over. Despite the assertion made by one of the men that the chief was one who avoided danger, his bearing now seemed that of utter fearlessness and command. "Speak!" he exclaimed. "What is the meaning of this?" "Ask Ramon," said Carlos. "He will tell you--perhaps." Ramon drew himself up. The time had come that he must face the matter unflinchingly. "It is this," he said; "we have been promised much and have received little. Some of us are not satisfied." "Indeed!" exclaimed Black Joaquin. "And you are one of the dissatisfied, I see." "I am," was the admission; "but I am not alone. You will find that there are many more. Ask them. You will find nearly all are dissatisfied." The chief glanced them over, and what he saw in their faces convinced him that Ramon spoke truly. Suddenly he smiled on them in that pleasant manner of his, and his voice was soft and musical as he spoke again. "I would not have any of my faithful fellows dissatisfied," he declared. "If there is anything I can do in justice, let them name it." Carlos seemed disappointed by this unexpected manner of their leader. "It is that you have promised us a great deal we have not received," said Ramon. "And is it yet time?" was the placid question. "Why not? You said the time would come when the girl was safely yours, with no danger of pursuit. To me it seems that time has come. The three Americans who pursued you are captured and cannot escape. The girl is now yours to do with as you like. Is it strange we suspect she is a prize of great value? If she were not, why should Black Joaquin put himself to so much trouble?" "You are right," smiled the man Merry knew as Dulzura. "But you are hasty. It is only lately the pursuers I most feared have fallen into my hands. Had you waited a little it might have given me more satisfaction. You were always too hasty, Ramon." The rebuke was of the mildest sort, and Ramon accepted it without a show of anger. "However," continued the chief, "I can pardon you this once, but you shall be satisfied. I have not at hand all I have promised you, but it is where I can soon secure it. Nevertheless, I have something here, and it shall be divided among you." As he said this, he drew forth a leather pouch, which he flung with a careless gesture upon the table. It struck with a heavy thud and a slight clanking sound. "I call upon you," he said, "to see that it is divided equally and fairly. The rest shall be paid you soon. Carlos, I would speak with you." He then turned toward the door, and Carlos followed him. Outside, in the shadows, they halted not fifteen feet from Frank. "Carlos," said Joaquin, "not one coin more will those dogs get. I have no further use for them. You and I must abandon them and get away before the coming of another day. It is no longer well for us to remain in this land. As Black Joaquin my work is done. Can we reach Spain in safety with the girl, our fortunes are made. But those snarling curs will object if they suspect we are contemplating leaving them behind. You I depend on. You know where the wine is kept. Take this which I give you and with it drug the wine. When you have done so, bring it for them to drink. Make merry with them, and encourage them to drink deeply. They will sleep soundly after that, and we shall have no trouble. I will get the girl ready. Before those fools awaken I shall be far from here, and we can laugh at them." "Good!" said Carlos, having accepted from Joaquin's hand the bottle proffered him. "It shall be done. Leave it to me." The chief clapped his trusted comrade upon the shoulder. "Faithful Carlos!" he said. "With me you shall share the reward. Lose no time, for time is precious now." "The Americans," questioned Carlos, "what of them?" "Leave them where they are. Let them starve there." Little did they dream when they turned away that they were followed by Frank Merriwell, who observed the greatest possible caution. They separated, and it was Black Joaquin whose footsteps led Frank through many winding ways and up long flights of stairs into one of the turrets. When Joaquin unbarred the door and entered the little room up there Frank was near at hand. Merry stole forward and peered into that room, from which the light shone forth. "She's there!" he told himself, in deep satisfaction, as he beheld Felicia. The captive girl had been weeping. When Joaquin saw this he spoke to her in a voice that seemed full of tenderness and compassion. "My dear child," he said, "why do you shed these foolish tears?" "Oh, sir!" exclaimed Felicia, "where are the friends I saw from the window? Why are they not permitted to come to me?" "They are near and you shall see them soon," was the treacherous promise. "How am I to believe you?" cried the girl. "You told me I should find my father here. You told me he was hiding here to escape his enemies. You told me he had sent for me to come to him, longing to see my face once more. I believed you. I trusted you. At your command I even deceived the good friends I knew in San Diego. Now I fear it was wrong and wicked for me to do so. Now I know it was wrong! But what was I to do? You told me, over and over, that my father would be placed in awful peril if I breathed a word of the truth." "Which clears up that part of the mystery," thought Frank, as he listened outside. "I told you nothing but the truth," declared Joaquin. "Your father sent that message to you by me." "But he is not here--he is not here!" panted the distressed child. "You said I should find him here. If you deceive me in that, why not in everything?" "Your father was here, but ere we could reach this place he found it necessary to depart. Enemies were searching for him, and he was forced to flee; but he left a message for me, telling me whither he went and directing me to bring you. Trust me, Felicia, and you shall soon see him." Frank quivered a little with rage as he listened to the lying wretch. Felicia drew a little nearer and looked earnestly into the face of the man. "Oh, I can't believe you are deceiving me!" she said. "You do not seem so terribly wicked." He laughed pleasantly. "I know it must seem suspicious to you, child; but trust me a little longer." "If you had only let my friends come to me!" "Within two hours you shall be with them. Some of my men, I regret to say, I cannot trust, and so I hastened to send your friends away. They are not far from here, and we will join them. Are you ready to go, child?" "Quite ready," she answered. "Then give me your hand and trust me in everything." She placed her hand confidingly in his, and they turned toward the door. Then Black Joaquin found himself face to face with a great surprise, for in that doorway stood Frank Merriwell, a cocked pistol leveled straight toward the scoundrel's heart. "Up with your hands, Joaquin!" commanded Merry sharply. "One moment of hesitation on your part and I shall pull the trigger. I will send your black soul to the bar of judgment as true as my name is Frank Merriwell!" The villain paled and was utterly dumfounded by the marvelous appearance of the man he believed secure in the dungeon. "Put up your hands!" palpitated Frank, and in that second command there was something that caused Black Joaquin to quickly lift his hands above his head. "One cry, one sound, even a murmur from your lips, will cause me to shoot you on the spot," declared the young American. Felicia had been spellbound, but now she started forward, uttering a cry. "Be careful," warned Frank, not taking his eyes off Joaquin for an instant. "Don't touch me! Keep out of the way!" She paused and hastened to say: "You must not hurt him, Frank. He is taking me to my father." "He has lied to you from start to finish, like the treacherous snake he is," asserted Merry. "He doesn't mean to take you to your father." Then he advanced two steps, and another command came from his lips. "Face about, Joaquin," he said, "and walk straight toward that wall. Be quick about it, too." Now, for all of the complaints of his followers that he seldom placed himself in danger, Black Joaquin was not a coward. Nevertheless, in those terrible, gleaming eyes of the American youth he had seen something that robbed him of his usual nerve and convinced him beyond doubt that unless he obeyed to the letter he would be shot on the spot. This being the case, he turned as directed and advanced until his face was against the wall. "Stand thus," said Frank, "and don't move for your very life." One glance around showed him a blanket upon a couch. Behind Joaquin's back he quickly took out and opened a knife. "Here, Felicia, take this and cut that blanket into narrow strips. Hasten as much as possible." She was, however, too trembling and excited to make the needed haste. Seeing this, Frank lost no time in searching Joaquin's person and disarming him, removing every dangerous weapon he found upon the man. When this was done, he directed Felicia to bring the blanket, and, holding his pistol ready in his left hand, he gave her directions and assistance in cutting and tearing it into strips. As soon as one good, strong strip had been removed from the blanket Frank took it, seized Joaquin's hands, twisting them downward and backward behind his back, and tied them thus. After this he was able to remove from the blanket further strips he needed, although as he worked his pistol was ready for instant use. All the while he kept Joaquin with his face toward the wall, three times cautioning the man against turning his head in the slightest. With the strips removed from the blanket Joaquin's ankles were securely tied. Then Frank unceremoniously kicked the fellow's feet from beneath him and lowered him to the floor upon his back. The rage, fury, and hatred in the conquered fellow's eyes was terrible to behold, but Merriwell heeded it not in the least. Deftly he rolled a wad of the blanket and forced it between Joaquin's teeth. With another piece of the torn blanket he fastened it there, knotting a strip behind the man's head. He took pains to make this as secure as possible, so that it would require no simple effort to remove it. "Now, Black Joaquin, otherwise known as Felipe Dulzura," said Frank, standing over the man and looking down on him, "we will bid you good-night. You can rest easy here until your comrades recover on the morrow and release you. Perhaps they will find you. I hope, for your sake, that you do not smother before they awaken and come here. You have my best wishes for a short life and a speedy hanging." With Felicia he left the chamber, closing and barring the door behind them. Thus far Frank's success had been enough to astonish himself, but now he thought with dismay of Dick and Brad still confined in the chamber from which he had escaped. As with Felicia he descended the stairs he paused, hearing in some distant portion of the ruins the sound of singing. "Carlos is doing his work," he thought. "He has brought them the wine. Thanks, Carlos; you have given me great assistance." Merry decided that it would be necessary to conceal Felicia somewhere while he sought to return to Dick and Brad by means of the secret passage. He found his way back to the terrace from which he had first looked down into the courtyard after his escape. As they reached that place, Merry heard beneath him some slight sound that caused him to again look downward. He was surprised to see a dark figure coming from the direction of the stables and leading three horses. His surprise increased when the feet of the horses gave forth no more than a faint, muffled sound on the courtyard flagging. "What's up now?" he asked himself. "That must be Carlos preparing for flight. Whoever it is, he has muffled the feet of those horses. More than that, I believe they are our horses." The human being and the horses crossed the courtyard and disappeared into the arched passage that led outward. "Keep close behind me, Felicia," whispered Merry. "Be courageous. I may have to leave you for a short time; but I will return as soon as possible." He had decided to conceal her in the secret passage while he endeavored to return to the prison chamber. The door of the passage he found to be slightly ajar. Swinging it open, he entered, with Felicia at his heels. Barely had he advanced ten feet into the passage before he felt himself suddenly clutched by a pair of strong hands. "Keep still, Felicia!" called Frank, knowing she would be greatly frightened by the struggle. Instantly the hold of these hands slackened and a joyous voice exclaimed in his ear: "Frank! Frank! my brother, is it you?" "Dick!" gasped Frank; "how did you get here?" "We managed to pry open a hidden door which was disclosed when a part of the wall fell after you crept into that opening," said Dick. "Where is Brad?" "That's what I'd like to know. We separated to search for you. He was to meet me here. We agreed on a signal. When you entered the passage without giving the signal I thought you must be an enemy." "It's up to us now," said Merry, "to find Brad and get away from here in a hurry. We have a fine chance to do so. I can't explain everything, but I will tell you later. Here is Felicia." "Felicia!" gasped Dick. She uttered a low cry of joy, and the cousins were clasped in each other's arms. "Come," said Merry. "Moments are precious." "But Brad----" "We will hope that luck may lead us to him." But it was something more than luck, for Brad Buckhart was returning to meet Dick as he had promised when they encountered him. He heard them, and, thinking it might be Dick, whistled the soft signal agreed upon. Immediately Dick answered, and when the Texan found them all together, he came very near throwing up his hat and giving a cowboy yell. "Oh, great jumping horned toads!" he whispered. "If this don't beat the record you can have my horse, saddle, and the whole blamed outfit! Talk about your miracles! So help me Davy Crockett, this is the greatest on record. You hear me gurgle!" "There is yet danger in the air," said Merry. "As we were seeking the passage I saw a man, leading three horses with muffled feet, crossing the courtyard below. It must have been Carlos, Black Joaquin's lieutenant, for they planned a flight to-night, and Joaquin's wretched gang has been drugged." "Guess again," advised the Texan, chuckling. "The gent you observed was yours truly, Bradley Buckhart." "You?" gasped Frank, astonished. "Precisely, pard--precisely. I was it. In my perambulations I discovered our horses, and it struck me as being something a whole lot proper to get them outside and have them where we could straddle them in a hurry when we took to our heels. I muffled their feet with the aid of blankets, and I can lead the way straight to them." "Brad, you're a dandy!" laughed Frank softly. "Watch out for Carlos and lead on, you son of the Lone Star State." They had come down into the courtyard when somewhere above, amid the ruins, there was a sudden sound of high-pitched voices, followed by a single pistol shot. Then came silence. "If fortune is still with us," said Merry, "the bullet from that pistol lodged in the carcass of Carlos. Evidently he has kicked up some sort of trouble, and I fancy a little chap by the name of Ramon fired that shot." Outside the ruins they came upon the horses where Buckhart had concealed them. They were not long in mounting. Frank took up Felicia behind him, and away they rode into the night, with no hand raised to stay them. CHAPTER XII. A LIVELY FISTIC BOUT. Three days later they arrived in San Diego, where Felicia was returned to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Staples, the former having given up the search in despair. It was Frank who led a party of Americans to the Castle Hidalgo, in El Diablo Valley. The only human being found there was a man who had been shot and left where he fell in one of the chambers of the ruins. As Merry looked at the body, he grimly said: "Retribution, swift and terrible, overtook you, Carlos, on that dark night. Who can say the hand of Providence was not in it? You were the only one who might have given us trouble, for your chief was bound and gagged, and your mates were drugged by your own hands. It is likely that Black Joaquin yet lives; but it is certain he must in time meet his just deserts." Fearing that Black Joaquin would not give up his scheming to get possession of the girl, Frank decided that it was unsafe to leave her in San Diego. Therefore, when he started on his return to Arizona, accompanied by Dick and Brad, he took Felicia along. The railroad journey to Prescott was made without any incident worth recording. Having arrived there, Merry secured accommodations at the best hotel, for he expected to remain in the place a day or more before setting out for his new mines in the Enchanted Valley, where he had left Wiley and Hodge. Little Abe was found safe in Prescott, where he had been left by Merry. But for the fact that what she had passed through had shaken Felicia's nerves and left her in a very excited frame of mind, the whole party would have been in high spirits. Dick was anxious to visit the mines, and the prospect was also attractive to Buckhart. Imagine Frank's surprise, on leaving the hotel an hour after his arrival, to encounter Cap'n Wiley on the street. The sailor looked somewhat battered and weather-worn, and there was an unnatural flush in his cheeks and a suspicious odor upon his breath. The moment his eyes fell on Merry he stopped short and made a profound salute. "Mate Merriwell!" he cried, "it is with a sensation of the most profound satisfaction that my eyes again behold your unexpected reappearance." "Cap'n," said Frank soberly, shaking his head, "I fear you have been looking on the corn juice. There is something suspicious about your breath and your heightened color." "Hush!" said the marine marvel. "The dreadful ordeal through which I have lately promulgated myself made it necessary for me to take something in the way of medicine. Mr. Merriwell, there have been riotous doings since you departed." "Any trouble in regard to the new mine?" asked Merry, somewhat anxiously. "Oh, no; nothing of that sort. I have been tending strictly to business. At the suggestion of Mate Hodge, I gathered up in Cottonwood, Central Butte, Stoddard, Bigbug, Cherry and elsewhere a score of hale and hearty laborers and piloted them safely to the valley, where they now are. He then sent me hither for supplies and other needed articles. I have secured half a dozen more good men, who will journey with us to the valley." "Now, Wiley," said Frank, "tell me about these men you say you have engaged. What sort of men are they?" "They are charming," assured the sailor. "You remember your Terrible Thirty." "Yes." "Well, they are men of the same class. They are the real thing." "But I am afraid such men are not just what we want, cap'n." The sailor looked surprised. "Why not?" he questioned. "What we need are miners, not fighting men. It happened that I was able to control the Thirty, and they proved valuable to me at that time. You remember that as miners I couldn't retain one of them. You say you have picked up some more men here?" "Sure, sure." "I'd like to look them over, cap'n. Where are they?" "If you will perambulate with me, I will present you to the bunch. I have them corralled not far away." "Lead on," said Frank. "I will look them over." Wiley led the way straight to a saloon, which they entered. As they walked in, several men were drinking at the bar, and Merry distinctly heard one of them, a huge, pockmarked fellow, say: "It sure is ten chances to one the gent loses his mine afore he ever sets eyes on it again." Frank recognized the fellow at a glance. He was a desperado with a bad reputation, and was known as Spotted Dan. "There they are," said Wiley. "Those fine boys I have collected. You can see at a glance that they are the real thing." "Altogether too real!" muttered Frank. He was confident that the words of Spotted Dan referred to him, and in a twinkling his mind was made up. "Mates," said Wiley, calling the attention of the ruffians, "it gives me untold pleasure to introduce you to Mr. Merriwell, the owner of the mines I told you about." They turned and looked Frank over. His youthful appearance seemed to surprise them, and it was evident that they regarded him as a tenderfoot. Frank lost no time. "It's my duty to inform you, gentlemen," he said, "that Cap'n Wiley has made a slight mistake. I shall not need you." This seemed to astonish them. "What's that?" cried Spotted Dan hoarsely. "Whatever is this you says, mister?" Frank quietly repeated his words, upon which one of the ruffians swore. "I reckons you is the one mistaken," said Spotted Dan, stepping out. "I opines, sir, that you does need us." "Then you opine wrong." "We has been engaged all fair and square, and we sticks by it. We proposes to see that you sticks by it, too." "Cap'n Wiley had no authority from me to engage anybody," declared Merry. "That being the case, you can see at once that no agreement made with him counts for anything." "Say you so?" sneered Dan. "Well, now, we thinks a heap different." "What you think is a matter of indifference to me," said Merry, looking the ruffian straight in the eyes. "Whatever does you take us fer?" snarled the pox-marked fellow. "We're no kids to be fooled with this yere way. You shakes us none whatever. If you tries it----" "What then?" asked Merry, in a low tone. "What then? Well, by the everlasting, I chaws you up! I flattens you out! There will be a funeral in Prescott to-morrow!" "There may be," said Frank; "but, if there is, you will be highly interested, and yet you will know nothing about it." Spotted Dan glared at Merry in his fiercest manner. It seemed to astonish him that the smooth-faced young man was not in the least awed by this fierceness. "Look a here, Mr. Merriwell," he said, "do yer know who yer dealing with in this yere piece of business?" "From all appearances, I should say that I am dealing with a thoroughbred ruffian," was the serene answer. "Yer dealing with a bad man with a record, and don't yer forget it," snarled Dan. "My record is as long as my arm. And whar I goes I leaves graves in my footsteps. I adds to the population of the cemeteries." "You're plainly a big bluffer and a blowhard," said Frank. Then, as Spotted Dan made a suspicious movement, quick as a flash of light a pistol appeared in Merriwell's hand. "Don't try to pull a gun on me, you big duffer!" exclaimed the youth. "If you do, I will run a couple of tunnels in you." "Correct in the most minute particular," chipped in Cap'n Wiley. "He will do it scientifically and skillfully. When it comes to shooting, he is a shooter from Shooterville. Say, you oughter see him shoot out a pigeon's eye at four thousand yards! Why, he can shoot with his feet better than any man in this bunch! At the same time I happen to be provided with a couple of large-bore fowling pieces, and I shall feel it my duty to shed real gore in case any of you other gents take a notion to chip in to this little circus." While speaking the sailor had produced a pair of Colt's revolvers, which he now flourished with reckless abandon. "Oh, that is the way yer does it, is it?" sneered Spotted Dan. "Mebbe yer thinks this settles it. Well, wait and see. You has the drop now; but our turn comes. It's a good thing fer you, young feller," he declared, still glaring at Frank, "that I don't git my paws on yer. Ef I'd ever hit yer a crack with my maul you would sprout wings instanter. Sometimes I gits at yer, tenderfoot, and I hammers yer all up." "You think you will," retorted Merry. "You might find yourself up against a snag." "Waal, ef I can't knock you stiff in less than one minute, I'll take to my hole and stay thar for a year." "I presume you would consider this engagement ended in case you fail to put me down and out in short order?" said Merry. "If you were the one whipped, you would call all dealings off?" "Sartin sure. I'd be so ashamed of myself I'd never look a dog in the face again." "Give your weapons to one of your pards there," directed Merry. "I will pass mine to Wiley, and I'll agree to take off my coat and give you a chance to do me up right here." "I think I smell smoke," murmured the sailor, sniffing the air. "I think I smell fire and brimstone. I think there will be doings around here directly." "Whoop!" cried Spotted Dan. "It's a go! Say, I makes you look like a piece of fresh beefsteak in just about two shakes." Then he turned to one of his companions and handed over a pistol and knife. He wore no coat, and when he had cast his old hat on the floor and thrust back his sleeves, exposing his brawny, hairy arms, he declared he was ready. The barkeeper had remonstrated. Merry was known in Prescott, and to the man behind the bar he said: "Whatever damage is done I will pay for. I will set 'em up for every one who comes in for the next hour besides." Then he placed his revolver on the bar and coolly drew off his coat, which he lay beside the pistol. "Keep your ellipticals parabolically peeled," warned Cap'n Wiley. "The gent with the dented countenance looks like a Peruvian dog. I don't know as there is a Peruvian dog, but I judge so, because I have heard of Peruvian bark." Merry said nothing. His face was calm and grim as he thrust back the sleeves of his woolen shirt. He had a handsome forearm, finely developed and finely moulded, with the flesh firm and hard and the supple muscles showing beneath the silken skin. "Come on!" cried Spotted Dan eagerly. "Step right out yere and git yer medicine." The ruffian's friends were chuckling and muttering among themselves. "Dan paralyzes him the first time he hits him," declared one. "You bet your boots he does!" put in another. "I seen him break Bill Goddard's neck with a blow down in Buckeye," said a third. Frank removed his wide-brimmed hat and laid it on the bar, tossing back his head with a slight shaking motion to fling a lock of hair out of his eyes. Then he suddenly advanced to meet his antagonist, his arms hanging straight at his sides and his hands open. It seemed as if he invited annihilation, and Spotted Dan improved the occasion by making a strong swinging blow with his huge fist, aiming straight at the face of the fearless youth. Quick as a flash of light, Merry ducked just the slightest and tipped his head to one side. Dan's fist shot over Frank's shoulder. With a quick movement of his foot, Merriwell struck the ruffian's feet from beneath him, and the giant crashed to the floor so heavily that the glasses and bottles rattled on the shelves behind the bar. With a roar of surprise, Spotted Dan made a spring and landed on his feet. Before him stood Merriwell, still with his hands hanging at his sides, regarding him with just the faintest suggestion of an amused smile. That smile was enough to infuriate the bruiser beyond description. "Dodges, does yer!" snarled the man. "Well, dodge this if yer ken!" Again he struck, and again Merry escaped by simply tipping his head like a flash over upon his shoulder and crouching the least bit. He did not lift a hand to ward off the blow. Like a panther he leaped to one side, and his outstretched toe caught his enemy's ankle as the force of that blow, wasted on the empty air, sent Dan staggering forward. A second time the fellow went crashing to the floor. A second time he sprang up with amazing agility for one so huge and ponderous. "Whatever kind of fighting does yer call this?" he shouted, in a rage. "Why don't yer stand up like a man and fight? Is that all yer can do? Does yer know nothing else but jest ter dodge?" "You're too easy," declared Frank. "I hate to hurt you--really I do. It seems a shame." "Yah!" shouted the infuriated man. "You would hurt nobody if yer hit um." "I beg you to pause a moment, Daniel," put in Wiley. "Have you made your will? If not, I entreat you to do so. If he ever hits you--oh, luddy, luddy! you'll think you've been kicked by a can of dynamite." The ruffian's companions had been astonished by the ease with which Merriwell escaped Dan's blows; but they, too, believed the fight would quickly end if Merry stood up and met his enemy. Spotted Dan slyly edged around Frank, seeking to force him into a corner. Apparently without suspecting the fellow's object, Merry permitted himself to be driven back just as Dan seemed to desire. Getting the young mine owner cornered, as he thought, the bruiser quickly advanced, seeking now to seize him with one hand, while the other hand was drawn back and clinched, ready for another terrible blow. With a snapping movement, Frank clutched the wrist of Dan's outstretched arm. There was a sudden twist and a whirl, and although the ruffian struck with all his force, he felt his shoulder wrenched in the socket and knew he had missed even as he delivered the blow. That twisting movement turned the fellow about and brought his arm up behind him on his back. Then Merry sent him forward with a well-directed and vigorous kick. "It is too easy!" sighed Cap'n Wiley, sadly shaking his head. "It isn't even interesting. I fancied possibly there might be some excitement in the affair, but I am growing sleepy, and I fear I shall miss the finish while I take a nap." Spotted Dan was astonished now. Never had he encountered any one who fought in such a singular manner, and he could not understand it. Just when he felt certain that he had the youth where he wanted him, Merry would thwart his design and trip him, or, with the utmost ease, send him staggering. "Dern yer! What makes yer fight with yer feet?" rasped the ruffian. "That ain't no way whatever ter fight. Fight with yer fists on the squar, and I will annihilate yer." "I don't believe that anything was said about the style of fighting," retorted Merry pleasantly. "However, if you don't like my methods I will agree not to use my feet any more." "That settles it!" roared Dan. "I will fix yer in thirty seconds now." "Dear, dear!" yawned Wiley, leaning on the bar. "How sleepy I am! I think this bout should have been pulled off under Marquis of Deusenbury rules. I, too, am against the use of feet. Cut it out, mates, and come down to real business." "Very well," said Frank. "You kick no more?" questioned the ruffian. "Not to-day." "Then I thumps the head off you right away." Spotted Dan sailed into it then, and for a few moments the fight was rather lively, although the ruffian was doing all the hitting. That is, he was trying to do all the hitting, but he was wasting his blows on the air, for Frank parried them all or ducked and dodged and escaped by such cleverness as none of Dan's comrades had ever before witnessed. Still the bruiser was the aggressor, and they were confident he would soon weary the youth, when a single blow would bring about the finish of the encounter. Indeed, one thing that led Dan on and made him force the fight harder and harder was the fact that Merry seemed to be panting heavily and betrayed signs of great exhaustion. The desperado was sure the youth was giving out, and so, although he was likewise somewhat winded, he continued to follow Merry up. At length, quick as a flash, Frank's manner changed. He no longer retreated. He no longer sought to escape his enemy. He made Dan parry two heavy blows aimed at him. Then he countered, and the big fellow was sent reeling. Like a wolf Frank followed the bruiser up, hitting him again and again until he went down. Cap'n Wiley roused up a little at this and observed: "That's somewhat better. Now it grows slightly interesting. But he hasn't oiled his machinery and started in earnest yet. Wait a few moments, gents, and see him cut parabolical circles through the diametrical space around Daniel's dizzy cranium." Spotted Dan sat up, astonished beyond measure at what had happened. He saw Frank standing at a little distance, with his hands on his hips, smiling down at him and showing not the least sign of exhaustion. The man who had seemed winded a few moments before and ready to drop was now as fresh and unwearied as if nothing had happened. Through the bruiser's dull brain crept a suspicion that he had been deceived by this handsome, smooth-faced young man. He knew now that Merriwell could fight in the most astounding manner. This, however, enraged him to such an extent that he banished reason and coolness and rose to charge on Merry, with a roar like that of a mad bull. Frank avoided the rush, but hit the ruffian a staggering blow on the ear as he went past. Dan turned quickly and charged again. Four times the big bruiser charged, and four times Merry avoided him and sent him reeling. The fourth time Frank followed him up. He gave Spotted Dan no chance to recover. Blow after blow rained on the man's face and body. Dan was driven back until he was close upon the card table that sat in the rear of the room. Then, with a swinging upward blow, Merriwell's fist hit the fellow on the point of the jaw, and the ruffian was actually lifted off his feet and hurled clean over the table against the wall. He fell to the floor and lay there in a huddled, senseless heap, literally knocked out. Frank turned toward the bar, rolling down his sleeves. "Watch his pards like a hawk, Wiley," he said. "Now is the time they may try treachery, if ever." "Depend on me," nodded the sailor. Frank quickly slipped on his coat and placed his hat upon his head. Then he turned to the amazed ruffians, saying, quietly: "Gents, you heard the agreement between us. If I whipped that fellow, the engagement which he claims to have made for himself and for you through Cap'n Wiley was off. I think you will acknowledge that he is whipped. That settles it." He backed toward the door of the saloon, followed by the sailor, also backing in the same manner and keeping his pistols ready. When the door was reached Merry turned and disappeared, and Wiley followed him. CHAPTER XIII. MACKLYN MORGAN APPEARS. "Mate," said Cap'n Wiley, as they hurried along the street on their way back to the hotel, "you are in every minute particular the finest specimen of exuberant manhood that it has ever been my fortune to associate with. Of course, I felt sure you would do up that fellow, but you came through the seething and turgid fray without so much as a scar. I don't believe he even touched you once." "Yes, he did," said Merry, "a couple of times. He hit me on the shoulder, but the blow was spent, and he caught me a fair one over the heart. I leaped away just in time to spoil the effectiveness of that." "But you are certainly the supreme fighter of this period of scrappers. If you chose to enter the ring, you might be champion of the world. It would delight my soul to be able to put up a real fight like that." "It disgusts me," returned Merry. "Wha-a-at?" gasped the sailor. "I think I fail to catch your meaning." "It disgusts me," repeated Merry. "If there is anything that makes me feel degraded, it is being compelled to take part in a fight of that sort. I was practically forced into it on this occasion. I saw those fellows meant mischief, and I felt that the only way to settle the affair was to give that big duffer a thumping. It's about the only reasoning a man can use on men of his calibre. Words and arguments fail to affect them, and a good thrashing moves them to respect." "But do you mean to tell me," said Wiley, "that you are not an admirer of the manly art of self-defense? Do you mean to tell me that you take no interest in the prize ring and the glorious heroes of it?" "If there is anything for which I have absolutely no use," said Merry, "it is a professional prize fighter. To me prize fighting is the most degrading of all the so-called sports." "This is more than passing strange," said the sailor. "If such can be the case, will you elucidate to me how it happened that you ever learned to use your little dukes in such a marvelously scientific manner?" "I think it is the duty of every American youth to learn to defend himself with his fists. No matter how peacefully inclined he is, no matter how much of a gentleman he is, no matter how much forbearance he may have, there is bound to come a time in his life when he will be forced to fight or suffer insults or bodily injury. As a rule, I never fight if I can avoid it. In this instance I might have avoided it for the time being, but I was certain that if I did so the matter would culminate in something more serious than a fistic encounter. Had I escaped from that saloon without meeting Spotted Dan, he and all his partners would have regarded me as afraid of them, and you know very well that they would have sought to force trouble on me at every opportunity. The easiest way to settle the whole matter was to fight then and there, and therefore I did so." "Well, you oughter feel proud of the job you did!" "Instead of that, I feel as if I had lowered and degraded myself. I'll not throw off the feeling for some time. To make the matter still worse, it was a saloon fight. However, I do not go there to drink. Out in this country the man who does business with the men he finds here is sometimes compelled to enter a saloon." "That's true--quite true," sighed Wiley. "I sometimes find it necessary to enter one myself." By this time they had reached the hotel, and as they entered the office Merry suddenly paused in surprise, his eyes fastened on a man who stood before the desk. This man was tall and well dressed, with a somewhat ministerial face and flowing grayish side whiskers. He was speaking to the clerk. "I see here the name of Mr. Frank Merriwell on the register," he was saying. "Can you tell me where to find him?" "Mr. Merriwell!" called the clerk. "Here is a gentleman inquiring for you." The man at the desk turned and faced Frank. "Is that so?" muttered Frank. "It is Macklyn Morgan!" Morgan, one of the money kings of the great Consolidated Mining Association of America, looked Merriwell over with a glance as cold as ice. "How do you do, sir?" he said, in a calm, low voice. "It seems that I have found you at last." "From your words," returned Merry, "I should fancy you had been looking for me for some time?" "I have." "Indeed?" "Yes, I have looked for you in Denver, in Holbrook, and at your Queen Mystery Mine." "It appears that I have given you considerable trouble?" "Not a little; but I was determined to find you." "You have done so." "Yes; you can't hide from me." "I have not the least desire in the world to hide from you, Mr. Morgan." "You say so," returned the man, with a cold sneer; "but I am certain you have taken pains to keep out of my way for the last two weeks." "You are utterly mistaken. I would not take pains to keep out of your way for two minutes. What do you want of me?" "I have a little matter to talk over with you--some private business." "I was not aware that there could be business dealings of any sort between us, Macklyn Morgan." "Be careful!" warned Morgan, lifting a thin finger. "You are putting on a very bold face." "And is there any reason why I should not? I know, Mr. Morgan, of your methods at the time of my affair with the C. M. A. of A." "I have not forgotten that." "Nor I. Nor do I regret that, although the C. M. A. of A. was compelled to give up its unlawful efforts to rob me, you entered into a combination with another moneyed rascal to accomplish the work." "Be careful!" again warned Morgan. "I am not the man to whom you can talk in such a manner." "Like any other man, you are one to whom I can tell the truth. If the truth cuts, so much the worse for you, sir." "Don't get on your high horse, young man; it will be better for you if you refrain. Don't be so free with your accusations, for you will soon find that there is an accusation against you of a most serious nature." "What new game are you up to, Mr. Morgan? It seems to me that the failures of the past should teach you the folly of your plots and schemes." "I have told you that I wish to have a private talk with you, young man. Perhaps you had better grant me the privilege." "As far as I am concerned, there is no necessity of doing so; but really I am curious to know just what you're up to. This being the case, I will not object. I have a room, and we may go there." "Your record indicates that you are a desperate character, Merriwell. I should hesitate to place myself alone with you in any room unless you were first disarmed. If you will leave your weapons here at the desk we will go to your room." "I am quite willing in case you leave your own revolver, sir." "I never carry a revolver, Merriwell." "But you have one in your pocket now," declared Frank positively. He seemed to know this to be a fact, and, after a moment's hesitation, Morgan took out a small revolver, which he laid upon the desk. "I thought it best to provide myself with such an article while in this part of the country," he said. "There it is. I will leave it here." Immediately Frank walked to the desk and placed his own pistol upon it. "Come," he said. "You may follow me to my room." In Frank's room, with the door closed behind them, Merry motioned to a chair. "Sit down, Mr. Morgan," he said, "and make whatever statement you choose. I will listen." Morgan took the chair. "First," observed Morgan, "I wish to speak of Milton Sukes." "I thought likely." "You know the interests of Mr. Sukes and myself were closely allied." Frank laughed. "Yes; although Sukes was at the head of the concern, I know that you conspired with him to defraud me." "Have a care!" again warned Morgan. "You are now dealing with a man of power and influence." "I have dealt with such men before. As a bugaboo, the mere fact that you have money does not frighten me in the least, Mr. Morgan. If, like Sukes, you fancy that money gives you power to commit any fraud, like Sukes, you are to learn your mistake." "I know all about your scandalous attack on Mr. Sukes in Denver. I know of your attempted blackmailing of him, Merriwell. You did try to blackmail him, and you can't deny it." "You lie, Morgan!" retorted Frank, with perfect control of himself. "Then what was the meaning of your threat to expose his mining operations?" "Morgan, Milton Sukes pitted himself against me and attempted to rob me of my mine. When he did so he aroused my fighting blood. He was defeated in every effort he made against me, and the decision against him in the courts of the Territory was the final blow that upset his plans. In the meantime I had learned that his Great Northwest Territory Mining Company was a swindle of the most outrageous sort. I had threatened to expose him, and, when he found himself whipped to a standstill, he sought to enter into a compact with me, by which I was to remain silent and let him go on with his dishonest work. "He sent one of his tools to me with a contract for me to sign. I tore it up. As I say, my blood had been aroused, and I warned him then that neither cajolery nor money could silence me. I warned him that I would expose and disgrace him, so that every honest man in the country would regard him with scorn and aversion. Had it been mere blackmail, Sukes could have silenced me with money. He sought to do so, but found he was barking up the wrong tree. He threatened libel suits and all that; but I kept on at my work. As a last desperate resort he paid an employee of mine to fire my office in Denver, and the result of that affair was that the treacherous fellow who betrayed me fancied I had perished in the fire. It drove him insane. He pursued Sukes relentlessly, and it is certain that Sukes was finally killed by that man's hand." "So you say, Merriwell; but I hold quite a different opinion--quite a different opinion." "Whatever your opinion may be, Morgan, it is a matter of absolute indifference to me." Macklyn Morgan showed his teeth. "You may think so just now, young man, but you will change your mind. I have been investigating this matter thoroughly. I have followed it up faithfully. I know how and where Sukes was shot. I have taken pains to secure all the evidence possible. You were present at the time. You were there in disguise. Why did you pursue and hunt him in disguise? It looks black for you, Mr. Merriwell--it looks black. These things will count against you at the day of reckoning, which is surely coming. How will you explain your behavior to the satisfaction of the law?" "That's no matter to worry you, Macklyn Morgan," calmly returned Merriwell. "If there is anything of explanation, I shall have the explaining to do. Don't trouble yourself over it." "You have a great deal of nerve just now, young man; but it will weaken--it will weaken. Wait until you are arrested on the charge of murder. Had you killed an ordinary man it might have been different; but Milton Sukes was a man of money, a man of power, a man of influence. All his money, if necessary, will be used to convict you. You cannot escape. Just as true as this case is put into the hands of the law you will eventually be hanged." In his cold, calm, accusing way, Morgan was doing everything in his power to unsettle Frank's nerves. As he spoke, he watched the youth as a hawk watches its prey. "I fail to see your object in coming to me with this," said Merry. "It seems most remarkable. If you intend to push such a charge against me, why don't you go ahead and do it? Why do you tell me what you contemplate doing? The proper method is to secure every scrap of evidence and then have me arrested without warning and thrown into jail." "I have all the evidence I need," asserted the money king. "Merriwell, I have men who will swear that you fired that shot." "Did they see me do it?" "They did." "Most amazing, Morgan! Are you aware of the fact that Sukes was shot in the dark? Are you aware that every light in the place had first been extinguished by other shots? Will you explain to me how any one could have seen me shoot him under such circumstances?" "One of the men was standing within two feet of you. He saw the flash of your weapon, as did the other man, who was a little farther away." Frank smiled derisively. "Wonderful evidence!" he said. "I doubt a great deal if a jury anywhere in this country would convict a man on such proof. At the time, as I think you will acknowledge, there was another man who did some shooting. I deny that I fired the shot. But even had I done so, who could say that it was not I who shot out the lights and the other man who killed Milton Sukes?" "Did you know that you left a pistol with your name upon it in a hotel where you stopped in Snowflake?" "I did nothing of the sort." "You did, Merriwell! The bullet that killed Sukes is in my possession. It is a bullet such as would have been fired from that pistol. The pistol is in my possession, Merriwell! I have the evidence against you, and you can't escape!" "Although you are lying in every particular, Morgan, I am curious to know what your game may be. What is behind this singular procedure of yours?" Macklyn Morgan seemed to hesitate for a few moments, and then, leaning forward on the edge of his chair and holding up one finger, he suddenly exclaimed: "There is only one escape for you!" "And that is----" "If I abandon the case you may escape. If I drop it there will be no one to push it." "And you will drop it?" questioned Merry, with pretended anxiety. "On what inducements?" "Now you're coming to your senses," nodded the man. "Now I fancy you comprehend just where you are. You possess several mines, and they are of considerable value. I have spent some money to get possession of one of those mines, having, as both Milton Sukes and I believed, a good claim to it. I speak of the Queen Mystery. Frank Merriwell, the day you deed over to me the Queen Mystery and give me possession of it I will abandon my determination to prosecute you for murder. I will even place such proofs as I have in your hands and you may destroy them. Of course there will remain the two men who are ready to swear they saw you fire the shot, but they may be easily silenced. That's my proposition. And it is by that method alone you can save your neck. Now give me your answer." "I will!" exclaimed Merriwell suddenly. And then, with a spring, he seized Macklyn Morgan by the collar. Immediately he ran the man to the door, which he hurled open. "That is my answer!" he cried, as he kicked Morgan out of the room. CHAPTER XIV. THE MESSENGER. As Morgan was hurled headlong from Merry's room he collided with a man outside, who was very nearly upset. This young man caught a glimpse of Frank in the act of violently ejecting the man of money, and what immediately happened to Morgan was the result of this discovery. "What's the meaning of this great agitation by which you seek to overthrow my corporosity?" savagely demanded Cap'n Wiley, for it was he. "This insult to my indignity is several degrees beyond my comprehension, and without waste of verbosity or the expenditure of violent language, I feel called upon to precipitate your corporosity on its journey." Saying which, he sprang, catlike, on the millionaire, seized him, ran him swiftly along the corridor and flung him head over heels down the stairs. As Morgan crashed to the bottom, Wiley stood at the head of the stairs, his arms akimbo, nodding with satisfaction, and remarked: "Possibly that jarred you some." Morgan was not seriously hurt, but he arose in a terrible fury. "I will land you both where you belong for this outrage!" he declared, white to the lips. "I will place you both behind iron bars!" Then he limped away. Merriwell had followed, and his hand fell on the sailor's shoulder. "Why do you mix up in this, Wiley?" he demanded sternly. "It was not your quarrel." "If I have offended by my impulsive and impetuous demeanor, I entreat pardon," said the sailor. "When the gent bumped me and I saw that he had been scientifically ejected by you, I couldn't resist the temptation to give him another gentle boost." "And by doing so you may find yourself in a peck of trouble," said Frank. "That man has power and influence, and he will try to make good his threat, which you heard. He is a money king." "What is money?" loftily returned Wiley. "I scorn the filthy stuff. But, regardless of his money, it seems to me that you unhesitatingly elevated his anatomy with the toe of your boot." "It was my quarrel, Wiley; and there is no reason why you should pitch in." "My dear comrade, I ever feel it my duty to stand by my friends, and your quarrel in some degree must be mine. I inferred that in some manner he offended you most copiously." "He did arouse my ire," admitted Merry, as he walked back to his room, followed by the sailor. "But he is the sort of a man who will seek to make good his threat and place us behind bars." "It will not be the first time your humble servant has lingered in endurance vile. In connection with that, I might mention another little nannygoat. On the last occasion when I indulged too freely in Western jag juice I was living in regal splendor in one of those hotels where they have lots of furniture and little to eat. I started out to put a red stripe on the city, and somewhere during my cruise I lost my bearings. I didn't seem to remember much of anything after that until I awoke with my throat feeling as dry as the desert of Sahara and my head splitting. "Just where I was I couldn't tell. I had some vague remembrance of whooping things up in glorious style, and knew I had been hitting the redeye. In a somewhat dormant condition I stretched my hands above my head, and, to my horror, they encountered iron bars. This aroused me slightly, and I looked in that direction and beheld before me, to my unutterable dismay, the bars I had touched. 'Cap'n,' says I, 'you have again collided with the blue-coated guardians of the peace, and you are pinched.' "I noted, however, that these iron bars seemed somewhat frail and slender, and it struck me that my colossal strength might be able to bend them. With the thought of escape, I wrenched the bars apart and thrust my head between them. By vigorous pushing I injected my shoulders, but there I stuck. In spite of all my desperate efforts, I could not crawl through, and I finally discovered that I couldn't get back. I floundered and kicked a while and then gave it up and yelled for help. My cries finally brought some one, who entered the place and dragged me from the trap, at the same time nearly shaving off my left ear with one of the bars. My rescuer proved to be a hotel attendant, who asked me, in no small astonishment, what I was trying to do. Then, to my inexpressible relief, on sitting up and looking round, I found that I was in my own room at the hotel, where I had somehow landed, and that my delusion had led me to endeavor to escape from limbo by crawling through the bars at the head of my iron bedstead. I gave the attendant who had dragged me out seven thousand dollars and pledged him to eternal silence. This is the first time my lips have ever betrayed the tale to mortal ears." In spite of the humor of the sailor's whimsical story, Merry did not laugh. This convinced Wiley that the affair with Macklyn Morgan was far more serious than he had at first apprehended. "Cap'n," said Frank, "I wish you would find Dick and send him here. After that, if you can get track of Morgan and keep watch of his movements it will be a good thing. I'd like to know just what he means to do." "Depend upon me," nodded the sailor. "I will shadow him with all the skill of those heroes about whom I used to read in the yellow-backed literature." Saying which, he hastily left the room. Within ten minutes Dick appeared and found Merry walking up and down. "What's the matter, Frank?" he asked. "From Wiley's words I inferred there was trouble in the air." "There is," Merry nodded; and he proceeded to tell his brother the whole story. Dick's indignation burst forth. "The unmitigated scoundrel!" he cried. "Tried to force you to give up the Queen Mystery, did he?" "That was his game." "Well, you didn't give him half what he deserves. And he threatened to have you arrested for murder--you, Frank, arrested for murder!" Merry smiled grimly. "That was the threat he made." "But it was a bluff, Frank--a bluff pure and simple. He will never try that game." "You can't tell what a man like Morgan may try. Sukes was desperate and dangerous, but I regard Macklyn Morgan as even more so. As a rule, he is quiet, cold, and calculating, and he lays his plans well. He would not have started in on this thing had he not been convinced that there was a good prospect of succeeding." "Why, he can't succeed! It is impossible!" "I don't propose to let him succeed, but I feel certain I am going to have a hot time with him. I am ready for it; let it come." Again Frank's fighting blood was aroused, and Dick saw it in the sternness of his handsome face and the gleam of his flashing eyes. "That's the talk, Frank!" cried the boy, thrilled by the spirit of his brother. "They can't down you. They've tried it and failed too many times. But what are your plans now? You intend to start for the new mines early to-morrow?" "I may alter my plans. I may remain here for a while to face Macklyn Morgan. For all of his power and his money, I think I have a few friends and some influence in Prescott. There is one, at least, whom I can depend upon, and that is Frank Mansfield. He is white to the bone, and he always stands by his friends." "But you cannot depend upon your friends alone in an emergency like this," said Dick. "You will have to rely on yourself. Of course, Brad and I will stand by you, no matter what happens." While they were talking Wiley came rushing in. "The gent who lately descended the stairs with such graceful impetuosity is now in consultation with the city marshal," he declared. "I traced him thither, and I have left one Bradley Buckhart to linger near and keep an eagle eye upon his movements." "By Jove!" exclaimed Dick; "I believe he does mean to have you arrested, Frank." "His movement seems to indicate something of the sort," was Frank's cool confession. "I suppose he will make a charge of personal assault, with the idea of putting me to inconvenience and detaining me until he can again try the effect of his threats of arrest on a more serious charge. Were I sure things are all right at the Enchanted Valley, I would not mind. I am afraid you have made a mess of it, cap'n, in sending those men there." "It seems that I have a clever little way of putting my foot into it," retorted the sailor. "When I seek to do what I supremely consider to be for the best I make a bobble." "Yet we will not worry over that now," said Merry. "However, in case of emergency, Dick, I wish you to have my horse constantly ready for me. If anything happens that I decide to get out in a hurry, you, and Brad, and Wiley are to take care of Felicia and little Abe." "All right," nodded Dick. "I will see to it at once." Ten minutes later Frank was standing alone upon the steps of the hotel, when a man on horseback came riding furiously down the street. He was covered with dust, and his horse was so spent that it was only by the most savage urging that the beast was forced into a gallop. Behind the man, at a distance, came two more horsemen, who were likewise spurring their mounts mercilessly. Plainly they were in pursuit of the man in advance. As Merry was wondering what it meant, the horse of the fugitive went down, as if shot, directly in front of the hotel, flinging the rider, who seemed stunned. With a great clatter of hoofs, the pursuers came up and stopped short, leaping from their saddles. As one of them dismounted, he whipped out a wicked-looking knife. Both seemed to be desperadoes, and it was evident that their intention toward the fugitive was anything but friendly. Now, it was not Frank's nature to stand idly by and see two men jump on a third who was helpless and do him up. Without a moment's hesitation, Merry leaped from the steps and rushed upon those men. A heavy blow sent one of them to the ground. The other had stooped above the fallen man when Frank's toe precipitated him headlong and caused him to roll over and over in the dust. At the same time Merriwell drew a pistol. "Get up and sneak, both of you!" he ordered. "If you linger, I will blow a window in each of you!" Muttering oaths, the ruffians rose, but the look they saw in Frank's face caused them to decide that the best thing they could do would be to obey. "It's none of your funeral!" cried one, as he grasped the bridle rein of his horse. "But it will be yours if you linger here ten seconds!" retorted Merry. "Git! If you value your skins, don't even turn to look back until you are out of shooting distance." As the baffled ruffians were retreating, the fugitive sat up, slowly recovering from his shock. "Thank you, pard," he said. "It was mighty lucky for me you pitched in just as you did. But for you, they had me dead to rights, and I opine they would have finished me." "What is it all about?" questioned Merry. "Got a message," answered the man. "Got to send it without fail. They meant to stop me. It has been a hot run. They headed me off from Bigbug, and I had to strike for this town. They've wasted lots of lead on me; but they were riding too fast to shoot well. And I didn't hold up to give them an easy chance at me." As the man was speaking, Merry assisted him to his feet. His horse had likewise risen, but stood with hanging head, completely pegged out. "Poor devil!" said the man, sympathetically patting the creature's neck. "It's a wonder I didn't kill you. But even if I did, I was going to send the message to Frank Merriwell, if possible." "What's that?" shouted Frank, in astonishment. "A message to Frank Merriwell! Man, I am Frank Merriwell!" "You?" was the almost incredulous answer. "Why, Hodge told me to wire to San Diego. He said it might reach you there." "I am just back from San Diego. Give me the message." The man fumbled in his pocket and brought forth a crumpled piece of paper, which he placed in Merriwell's hand. Opening the paper, this was what Merry read: "If possible, come at once. Trouble at the mines. Plot to seize them. --Hodge." "Come into the hotel," said Frank, turning to the man who had brought this message. "We will send some one to take charge of your horse." The man followed him. Having asked that the horse be cared for, Merry instructed his companion to follow, and he proceeded to his room. "What's your name?" he asked. "It's Colvin--Dash Colvin." "Well, Colvin, you are from the Enchanted Valley?" "Yes, sir." "You were one of the men engaged by Wiley, I presume?" "Yes, sir." "It seems that Hodge trusts you?" "He did, sir." "What's the trouble there?" "Those men are plotting a heap to take the mines, sir. Hodge discovered it." "How did he make the discovery?" "That I don't know. He discovers it, somehow, and he sends me with this yere message. He picks me out and asks me could he trust me a whole lot. I tells him he could, and he chances it. I plans with him to git out in the night, and I does so." "But you were followed?" "Yes. One of the crew sees me a-talking with Mr. Hodge, and they suspects me. Arter that they watches me mighty close. That makes it plenty hard for me to git away. I don't opine I am much more than out of the valley afore they finds out I am gone. I didn't think they'd git on so quick, and so I fails to push as hard as I might at first. Shortly after sun-up I sees two horsemen coming miles behind me. Even then I'm not dead sure they're arter me. But they was, sir--they was. I had a hard run for it, but I have made good by getting the message to you." "And you shan't lose by it, Colvin. Be sure of that. Did you know about this plot to seize the mines--before Hodge discovered it?" "I knows there was something up, sir; but the rest of the gang they don't trust me complete, and so I don't find out just what was a-doing. I sees them whispering and acting queer, and I thinks there's trouble brewing before Hodge speaks to me about it." "What sort of men are they?" "A right tough lot, Mr. Merriwell. They has liquor, too. Somehow it's brought to them, but the head one of the bunch, Texas Bland, he don't ladle it out free at once. He seems to keep it for some occasion later." Merry's face wore a serious expression. "How many men do you think there are in this plot?" "Fifteen or twenty, sir." "All armed?" "Every mother's son of them." "If I had my Thirty!" muttered Frank. But he was not prepared with an organized force to meet the plotting ruffians, and he felt that it would require precious time in order to get together a band of fighting men. "Whatever do you propose to do, Mr. Merriwell?" asked Colvin. "I see it is necessary for me to lose no time in reaching the mines." "But you don't go alone, I judge? You takes some good men with you?" "If possible." "Better do it, sir. That gang is a heap tough, and it takes twice as many men to down 'em." "Not twice as many of the right sort. I have two or three comrades I can depend upon." "But two or three are no good, Mr. Merriwell; you hears me." "Perhaps not; but if I can get the move on those rascals it will count in my favor." "Now, don't you reckon any on holding those mines with the aid of two or three backers," warned Dash Colvin. "You will never do it." At this juncture Dick came in. "Your horse is ready, Frank," he said. "I have given orders to have it saddled and held prepared for you." "I may have to use it within an hour." Dick immediately perceived that some new development had transpired, and he glanced from his brother to the stranger in the room. "What is now, Frank?" he anxiously questioned. "Read that," said Merry, thrusting the message into his hand. "By Jove!" exclaimed Dick, "this is bad business, Frank--bad business! How did you get this?" "It was brought by Mr. Colvin here. He was pursued and barely reached me with his life." "Which I allows I would not have done but for Mr. Merriwell himself," said Colvin. "My horse throws me unexpected, and the two galoots arter me has me down and is about to silence me some when Mr. Merriwell takes a hand." "Are you sure this is straight goods?" questioned Dick. "That's Bart's writing," declared Merry. "I'd know it anywhere." "Then there can be no mistake." "Certainly not. Colvin tells me that there are fifteen or more ruffians in this plot." "Do you believe, Frank, that it is their scheme?" "I can't say." "Perhaps this Macklyn Morgan is behind it." "He may be." "I believe he is!" cried Dick. "Somehow I am confident of it, Frank. If he detains you here in Prescott, you will lose those mines. You must get out of this place without delay." "It certainly looks that way. I shall do so, Dick." "But we must go with you." "Have you thought of Felicia? She is here. Some one must remain to look after her." "But, good gracious, Frank! I can't stay here, knowing that you are in such difficulties. It is impossible!" "It may seem impossible to you, Dick, but you know the peril through which Felicia has lately passed. You also know that Black Joaquin is at liberty and may find her again." "But can't we take her?" "Do you think she is prepared to endure the hardships she would be compelled to face? No, Dick, it can't be done. You will have to stay with her." "I will be crazy, Frank. When I think of you pitting yourself against such odds I will literally explode." Dick's cheeks were flushed and he was panting with excitement. It seemed that even then the scent of battle was in his nostrils and he longed for the fray. "Don't let your hot blood run away with your judgment, boy," half smiled Merriwell. "Colvin, do you know anybody in Prescott?" "I reckons not, sir." "You don't know a man you can depend upon--a good fighter who will stick by us if paid well?" "Nary a one, sir." "Then that's not to be reckoned on." Merriwell frowned as he walked the floor. Of a sudden there came a sound of heavy feet outside and the door burst open. Into the room strode Brad Buckhart, color in his cheeks and fire in his eyes. "Waugh!" he cried. "Get out your artillery and prepare for action!" "What's up now, Brad?" demanded Frank. "I certain judge they're after you in earnest," said the Texan. "Cap'n Wiley left me to watch a fine gent named Morgan. I did the trick, and I'll bet my shooting irons that Morgan has a warrant sworn out for you this minute, and he is on his way here with officers. They mean to jug you, pard, sure as shooting. You hear me gently murmur!" "Then," said Frank calmly, "it's about time for me to make myself scarce in Prescott." "If you're going, you want to get a move on," declared Brad. "I am not a whole lot ahead of old Morgan and the officers." Even as he spoke there reached their ears the sound of many feet outside. "Here they come!" said Dick. With a leap, the Texan reached the door and pressed himself against it. A hand fell on the knob of the door, but the powerful shoulder of Buckhart prevented any one from entering. Immediately there was a heavy knock. "Open this door!" commanded a voice. "Who is there? and what do you want?" demanded Buckhart. "We want Frank Merriwell. Open this door!" "Perhaps you will wait some," retorted Brad. Then another voice was heard outside, and it was that of Morgan himself. "Break down the door!" he commanded. "Merriwell is in there! Break it down!" "Remember my instructions, Dick," said Frank, as he coolly turned and opened a window. "Just hold this window a moment." On the door there fell a crashing blow. "That's right!" growled Buckhart, who remained immovable. "I hope you don't damage yourself in doing it." Frank balanced himself on the window ledge, glancing downward. "Remember, Dick," he said again. Crash, crash! fell the blows upon the door. It could not withstand such shocks, and the hinges began to break clear. "I am good for four seconds more!" grated Brad, maintaining his position. Frank made a light spring outward and dropped. It was more than fifteen feet to the ground, but he landed like a cat upon his feet, turned to wave his hand to Dick, and disappeared round the corner. Dick quietly lowered the window. "Let them in, Brad," he said. The Texan sprang away from the door and two men came plunging into the room as it fell. Behind them was a third, and behind him was Macklyn Morgan. Dick faced them, his eyes flashing. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded. "Where is Frank Merriwell?" questioned one of the officers. "He is here! He is here!" asserted Morgan, in the doorway. "I know he is here!" "You're a whole lot wise," sneered Buckhart. "You certain could have given old Solomon a few points! I admire you a great deal--not!" "He is hiding somewhere in this room," asserted Morgan, paying no attention to the Texan. "If that is so, he may as well come out," said the leading officer. "We will have him in a minute." "Go ahead," said Dick, beginning to laugh. "Pull him out." Dick's laughter was tantalizing, and one of the officers became enraged and threatened him. "Why, you're real amusing!" said Dick. "Ha! ha! ha! Oh! ha! ha! ha! Some one has a door to pay for. There is a joke on somebody here." "Who are you?" demanded Morgan. Dick took a step nearer, his dark eyes fixing on the man's face. "Who am I? I will tell you who I am. I am Frank Merriwell's brother." "His brother? I have heard of you." "Not for the last time, Macklyn Morgan; nor have you heard of Frank for the last time. Your plot will fizzle. Your infamous schemes will fail. You know what the plotting of your partner, Milton Sukes, brought him to. Look out, Mr. Morgan--look out for yourself!" "Don't you dare threaten me, you impudent young whelp!" raged Morgan. "You will find, sir, that I dare tell you just what you are. Your money and your power do not alarm me in the least. You're an unscrupulous scoundrel! You have trumped up a charge against my brother. He will fool you, and he will show you up, just as he did Milton Sukes. Where is Sukes now? Look out, Macklyn Morgan!" Although usually able to command his passions and appear cold as ice, the words of this fearless, dark-eyed lad were too much for Morgan, and he lifted his clinched fist. Quick as thought, his wrist was seized by Buckhart, who growled in his ear: "If you ever hit my pard, you will take a trip instanter to join Milton Sukes down below!" Then he thrust Morgan aside. In the meantime the officers had been searching the room. They opened the closet, looked under the bed, and inspected every place where a person could hide. "You're mistaken," said one of them. "Your man is not here." "He must be!" asserted Morgan. "I know it!" "You can see for yourself he is not here." "Then where is he?" As this question fell from Morgan's lips there was a clatter of hoofs outside. Morgan himself glanced from the window and quickly uttered a cry of baffled rage. "There he is now!" he shouted. "There he goes on a horse! He is getting away! After him!" "And may the Old Nick give you the luck you deserve!" laughed Dick. CHAPTER XV. A DESPERATE SITUATION. Morning in the Enchanted Valley. Bart Hodge was standing in front of a newly constructed cabin. His ear was turned to listen for sounds of labor from the lower end of the valley, where a crew of men was supposed to be at work building other cabins. The valley was strangely still. "They're not working," muttered Hodge, a dark frown on his face. "They have quit. What will this day bring? Oh, if Frank were only here!" Finally, as he stood there, to his ears from far down the valley came a faint sound of hoarse voices singing. "I know the meaning of that!" he declared. "They're drinking. At last Bland has given them the liquor. They're getting ready for their work." He turned back into the cabin, the door of which stood open. From a peg on the wall he took down a Winchester rifle and carefully examined it, making sure the magazine was filled and the weapon in perfect working order. He also looked over a brace of revolvers, which he carried ready for use. Tossing the rifle in the hollow of his left arm, he left the cabin and turned toward the end of the valley where the men were engaged. He observed some caution in approaching that portion of the valley. At last he reached a point amid some bowlders from which he could look down into a slight hollow, where stood some half-constructed cabins upon which the men had been working. Not one of them was at work now. They were lying around carelessly, or sitting in such shade as they could find, smoking and drinking. Several bottles were being passed from hand to hand. Already two or three of them seemed much under the influence of liquor, and one bowlegged fellow greatly amused the others by an irregular, unsteady dance, during which he kicked out first with one foot and then with the other, like a skirt dancer. At intervals some of them sang a melancholy sort of song. "The miserable dogs!" grated Bart. "They're ready to defy me now and carry out their treacherous plans." A tall man, with a black mustache and imperial, stepped among the others, saying a word now and then and seeming to be their leader. "You're the one, Texas Bland!" whispered Hodge. "You have led them into this!" As he thought of this his fingers suddenly gripped the rifle, and he longed to lean over the bowlder before him, steady his aim, and send a bullet through Texas Bland. Bart was unaware that two men were approaching until they were close upon him. This compelled him, if he wished to escape observation, to draw back somewhat, and he did so. He did not crouch or make any great effort at hiding, for such a thing he disdained to do. He was not observed, however, although the men stopped within a short distance. "Well, what do yer think o' this game, Dug?" said one of them, who was squat and sandy. "I reckons the boss has it all his own way, Bight," retorted the other, a leathery-faced chap with tobacco-stained beard. "The boss!" exclaimed Bight. "Mebbe you tells me who is the boss?" "Why, Bland, of course," said Dug. "He is the boss." "Mebbe he is, and then--mebbe again," returned the sandy one. "Well, we takes our orders from him." "Sartin; but I reckons he takes his orders from some one else." Bight pulled out a bottle. "Now," he said, "he furnished plenty o' this. My neck is getting dry. How is yourn, Dug?" "Ready to squeak," returned Dug, grasping the bottle his comrade extended. When they had lowered its contents until very little was left, Bight observed: "I s'pose Bland he's going to chaw up this yere chap, Hodge?" "Sure thing," nodded Dug. "Pretty soon he calls Hodge down yere on a pretense o' business or something, and then he kicks up a fuss with him. He has it all fixed for several of the boys to plug him as soon as the fuss starts. That settles his hash." The eyes of Bart Hodge gleamed savagely. "I wonder how he gits onter it that anything's up?" questioned Dug. "Mebbe that sneak, Colvin, tells him." "Mebbe so," nodded Bight. "Anyhow, nobody trusts Colvin none, and I opines he'd been polished off here ef he'd stayed." "And he'll sartin never git very fur," declared Dug. "Them boys arter him will sure run him down and make buzzard bait o' him." Hearing this, Hodge knew for the first time that there were men in pursuit of Colvin, his messenger, who had slipped out of the valley the previous night. Colvin had sworn, if he lived, to carry the message for Frank to the nearest telegraph station and send it. But he was pursued by ruffians who meant to slay him. It was doubtful if he reached a telegraph office. If he failed, of course Merriwell would remain uninformed as to the situation in the Enchanted Valley and would not hurry about returning there. Even if Colvin succeeded, it might be too late. Bart believed it probable that Merry was in San Diego or that vicinity, and therefore it would take him some time to reach Prescott and travel by horse from Prescott to the valley. Long before he could make such a journey the mutineers would be able to accomplish their evil design. "Who do you s'pose is back of this yere business, Dug?" said Bight. "You thinks Bland is not behind it, does yer?" "Dead sartin. Bland he never does this fer hisself. He wouldn't dare. It wouldn't do him no good." "Why not?" "Because he can't hold this yere mine and work it. Somebody locates him, and he has to evaporate, for his record counts agin' him. Howsomever, he can jump the mine for some other gent and git paid fer doing the trick, arter which he ambles into the distance and gently disappears. This is his little game, and I will bet on it." "I wonders some who the gent is behind it." "That's nothing much ter us as long as we gits our coin." "Does we git it sure?" "You bet I gits mine. Ef I don't, there'll be blazes a-roaring around yere." "Why, you don't buck up agin' Bland none?" half laughed the other. "You knows better than ter do that." "I don't do it by my lonesome; but if I raises a holler there is others does the same thing. But I will git my dust, all right. Don't you worry about that." At this point several of the men in the vicinity of the unfinished cabins set up a wild yell of laughter. One of their number had attempted to imitate the awkward motions of the former dancer and had fallen sprawling on his stomach. Immediately after this burst of laughter the men began to sing again. "That oughter bring this yere Hodge over this way," said Dug, with a hoarse laugh. "Ordinarily he comes a-whooping to see what is up, and he raises thunder. He sets himself up as a boss what is to be obeyed, and I reckons so far he has had the boys jumping when he gives orders." "If he comes over now," observed Bight, "he gits his medicine in a hurry. I don't care any about shooting him up, so I am for staying away from the rest of the bunch." "Oh! what ails yer?" growled Dug. "It's murder!" said Bight. "Well, I opines you has cooked yer man afore this?" "Ef I ever has," retorted Bight, "it certain was in self-defense." "I reckon you're something of a squealer, pard," sneered Dug. "You wants to git your share o' the dust without taking no part in the danger. You tells how you raises a roar if you don't git your coin, but what does yer do to earn it?" "Well, I fights some when I has to," returned Bight, rather savagely. "Mebbe you talks too much to me, Dug, and you gits yourself into some trouble." Bight was ugly now, and his companion involuntarily retreated a step, for the squat chap had a reputation as a fighter. "Go slow, pard!" exclaimed Dug. "I am not a-picking trouble with you." "All right, all right," nodded Bight, "Only just be a little keerful--a little keerful. Don't think just because a gent don't keer about shooting another gent down promiscuous-like that he is soft and easy. There's Texas Bland out yander. He has a reputation as a bad man. Well, partner, I picks no quarrels with him, but if he stomps on my tail he gets my claws." "What's that?" exclaimed Dug, in astonishment. "You ain't a-giving it ter me that you bucks up agin' Bland, are yer?" "I am a-giving it ter yer that I does in case I has to. I don't propose any ter have ter do it. I jines in with this yer move because it seems popular with the gang, and I am none anxious ter work myself. This yere is a nice bunch o' miners, now, ain't it? Why, the gent what hires this outfit and brings it yere had a whole lot better stick to his sailoring business! He may know how to pick out seamen, but it's right certain he makes a mess of it when it comes to engaging miners." "That's right," agreed Dug. "And he certain is the biggest liar it ever were my pleasure to harken unto. The way he can tell things to make a galoot's eyes bug out is a whole lot remarkable. Whither he gits his lively imagination I cannot surmise. Let's see, whatever was his name?" "Wiley--Cap'n Wiley he calls himself." "Well, however does he happen to be hiring men for this yere mine? I don't judge any that he is interested in it." "Not a whole lot. The mine is owned by a gent named Merriwell, and by this yere Hodge. Them two locates it." "Relocates it, you mean. I onderstand it were located original by another gent what is dead now. And I reckons some that it is through this other gent's action that the man that is back o' this yere jumping movement is going to stake his claim to the mine. I hears one o' the boys say that if Bland ain't back o' the game, it sartin is a gent with heaps o' money--one o' them yere money kings we hears about." This conversation was of no simple interest to Hodge, for, although it did not reveal the instigator of the movement, it satisfied him that the plot did not originate among the men themselves. Some enemy of Frank Merriwell must be behind it all. As Sukes was dead, it was not easy for Bart to conjecture who this new enemy was. After a few moments more the two ruffians finished the contents of the bottle and moved slowly away. This gave Hodge an opportunity to turn back toward his cabin, and he hastened to get away from that dangerous locality. "It's well for me that I suspected what was up," he muttered, as he hurried along. "Under ordinary circumstances, failing to hear the men at work and hearing their singing and shouts, I should have hastened over and demanded to know the meaning of it. As a result they would have finished me in short order. Now I am prepared for them. But what can I do? What can I do alone?" The situation seemed desperate and hopeless. Another fellow in Bart's position, and realizing his desperate peril, might have lost no time in getting out of the valley. Even though he happened to be a courageous person, his judgment might have led him to pursue such a course, for certainly it seemed a wild and hopeless plan to think of remaining there alone and contending against those ruffians. Bart, however, was an obstinate chap and one in whom fear was an emotion seldom experienced. Not that he had always been fearless, for as a boy he had sometimes felt the thrill of terror; but his iron will had conquered, and time after time he had refused to submit to the approach of the slightest timidity, until at last fear seemed banished from his heart. Now, as he hastened back to the cabin, he revolved in his mind certain thoughts in regard to the situation; but not once did he entertain the idea of leaving the valley and abandoning it to those desperadoes. "I will stay," he muttered. "I will stay as long as I am able to shoot. While I live they will never gain full possession of the valley. Merry left me here to guard this property, and I will do it with my life. But for Wiley's carelessness----" He stopped, suddenly struck by a startling suspicion. "Was it carelessness?" he asked himself. An instant later he was ashamed of the suspicion, for he remembered how on other occasions he had suspected Wiley, and each time had found himself wrong. "No, no," murmured Hodge; "it was simply a blunder, on Wiley's part. He remembered Merriwell's thirty, and thought he was doing the right thing in engaging men of similar calibre. The cap'n is on the level." Still troubled and perplexed by his thoughts, he grew, if possible, more fixed in his determination to defend the mines single-handed. He approached the cabin, the door of which was still standing open as he left it. Hurrying in, he stopped, suddenly turned to stone as he saw sitting on the floor, with his back against the wall, a human being, who was calmly smoking a long pipe. A moment later the muzzle of Bart's revolver covered this figure, which, however, did not stir or lift a hand. Coming, as he did, from the bright light outside into the shadows within the cabin, Hodge failed at first to note more than that the smoker who sat thus was wrapped in an old blanket. After a moment or two, however, he finally saw that he was face to face with an aged, wrinkled, leathery-skinned Indian. The little sharp eyes of the old savage were fixed steadily on Bart's face, and he betrayed not a symptom of alarm as Hodge brought the rifle to bear upon him. With stoical calmness he deliberately pulled at his pipe. "What in thunder are you doing here?" demanded Hodge, in astonishment. "Ugh!" was the only reply vouchsafed. Somehow that grunt seemed familiar. Bart had heard it before, but it simply increased his amazement. Lowering the rifle, he stared wonderingly. "Great Scott!" he breathed. "Is it possible? Are you old Joe?" "Heap same," was the curt answer. In a twinkling Bart dropped the rifle on the table and strode forward to shake the hand of an old friend. "Old Joe Crowfoot!" he shouted. "Where under the stars did you drop from?" "Joe he come visit. How, how!" "Why, you amazing old Nomad!" cried Bart, in delight. "You're always turning up just when you're wanted the most, and if ever you were wanted it is now." "Frank him not here?" "No." "Joe he want see Frank." "If that's the case, you will have to wait a while." "Strong Heart he better be here," declared the aged redskin. "Heap lot o' trouble pretty soon." "That's right, Joe. But how do you know anything about it?" "Joe he know. Him no fool. Him find out." Bart had extended his hand, and now he assisted the old man to his feet. Although old Joe tried to conceal the fact, he seemed rather stiff in his joints just then. "What's the matter, Crowfoot?" questioned Bart. "Rheumatism troubles you again?" "Debble got old Joe in his bones," indignantly returned the savage. "Old Joe him no good any more. Make old Joe mad when him think he no good." Under other circumstances the indignation of the redskin over his infirmities might have been somewhat amusing. "But tell me--tell me how you came to be here at this time," questioned Hodge. "We last saw you away up in Wyoming. You said then that you'd never travel south again." "Heap think so then. When winter he come Joe have debble ache in his bones plenty bad. Sabe?" "And so the rheumatism and cold weather drove you south, eh?" "One time," said the redskin, drawing his blanket about his shoulders with an air of dignity, "Joe him face cold and never feel um. One time him no care how cold. One time he laugh at snow and ice. Then all him bones be good. Then old Joe a heap strong to hunt. Now it ain't the same. Once Joe him hunt the grizzly bear for game; now he hunt poker." In spite of himself, Bart was forced to smile. He knew something of the skill of old Joe at the white man's game of poker, and the thought of the old Indian who had once tracked the grizzly now turned to gambling was both amusing and remarkable. "So that is what brought you south. You turned this way to escape the cold and to find at the same time the kind of game you were after?" "Heap so," nodded Crowfoot, as he produced from beneath his blanket a greasy pack of cards. "I came to play some. Mebbe I find um good players here." "I don't know where, Joe," said Hodge. "Mebbe over yon," suggested the Indian, waving his hand toward the southern end of the valley. "See here, Joe," said Bart, "those men down there are my enemies. They have betrayed me. There are valuable mines in this valley, and they belong to Frank Merriwell and myself. These ruffians mean to seize them. Even now they are ready to shoot me on sight, and intend to drop Frank when he appears." "Heap bad," observed Joe, without betraying the slightest emotion. "Bad!" cried Hodge. "I should say so!" "Too many for you, Black Eyes," asserted the redskin. "Mebbe you pull up stake and lope?" "Not by a blamed sight!" grated Hodge. "I will stay here and defend these mines as long as I am able to lift a weapon." The Indian shook his head. "Heap young, heap young," he declared, as if speaking to himself. "Blood hot. Joe him know. Once him blood hot." "Well, you don't suppose I'd let them drive me out, do you?" indignantly demanded Hodge. "You don't think I'd betray Frank like that! He left me here in charge of the property, and here I will remain. I want you to stick by me, Joe." "Ugh!" grunted the old fellow noncommittally. "Mebbe not much difference to old Joe. I may croak pretty soon now. Mebbe only make it some quicker." "Perhaps that's right," said Hodge slowly. "I have no right to ask you to lose your life in helping me fight against overwhelming odds. It's not your quarrel, Joe. You can do as you please." "Joe him think it over," said the Indian. "No like to see Frank lose um mines, but him have plenty more." Bart turned away, not without a feeling of disappointment. As he did so, through the still open door he caught a glimpse of a man who was advancing toward the cabin. Instantly he strode toward the door, and his eyes rested on Texas Bland, who was several rods away. "Oh, Mr. Hodge!" Bland called at once. "I want yer ter come over yon. The men has quit work, and they refuse to strike another stroke." Trying to repress and conceal his indignation, Bart asked, as if wholly unsuspicious of the real situation: "What's the matter, Bland?" "I dunno," lied the scoundrel. "I can't make 'em work; perhaps you can, sir." Suddenly, almost without being aware of what was happening, Bart permitted his hot indignation to get the best of his judgment. Instantly, as he stepped out of the cabin, he blazed: "You're lying, Bland, and I know it! I am on to the whole dastardly game! You're at the bottom of it, too! You have incited the men to mutiny. I know your plot, you treacherous whelp! I know you meant to get me over there for the purpose of assassinating me. The end of this business will be a rope for you, Bland. Go back and tell your dogs I am onto their game. Go back and bring them here. They will meet a hot reception!" Texas Bland had been astonished, but now, quick as a flash, he whipped out a revolver for the purpose of taking a shot at Hodge, whose hands were empty. Rapid though he was in his movements, he was not quick enough, for within the cabin sounded the loud report of a rifle, and the bullet knocked Bland's pistol from his hand, smashing two of his fingers. CHAPTER XVI. CROWFOOT MAKES MEDICINE. Although taken by surprise, the man looked at his benumbed and bleeding hand a moment, then pulled from his neck a handkerchief tied there and wrapped it around the mutilated member. By this time Hodge had his own pistol out, and Bland was covered. "You're lucky to get off with your life, you treacherous cur!" he cried. "Now make tracks, and hurry about it, too." "All right," said the leader of the ruffians, still with amazing coolness. "But you pays dear for this hand--you and the gent inside who fires the shot." With that he turned his back and hastily strode away, the handkerchief already dripping with blood and leaving a red trail behind him. Hodge watched until the hurrying man disappeared down the valley. Reentering the cabin, he found old Joe standing near the table on which still lay Bart's Winchester. The Indian had refilled his pipe and was smoking again in his most imperturbable manner. "Crowfoot," said Hodge, with sincere gratitude, "I owe you my life. It's lucky for me you fired just when you did. An instant more and Bland would have shot me down. How did you happen to be so quick with the shot?" "Look um rifle over," grunted the old man. "Pick um rifle up. When Black Eyes him go out, Joe think mebbe white man act crooked. Joe watch him white man. When white man tries to shoot, Joe him shoot." "You're a jewel, Crowfoot!" declared Bart; "but this thing will bring trouble to the cabin in a hurry. As soon as Bland can have his hand cared for, he will lead those ruffians over here to wipe us out. Now is your chance to get away." "Oh, no great hurry," returned Crowfoot. "Plenty time, plenty time." "On the contrary, there may be very little time. If you're going, you had better go at once." "Plenty time," persisted the old man placidly. "Joe too old to hurry. They no come right away. Mebbe Joe him look around a little." As the old fellow was leaving the cabin, Bart called: "Here's your own rifle, Joe, standing in the corner. Don't you want to take it?" "Leave him there now," returned the redskin. "Take him bimeby." Outside the door, leaning against the wall, were a pick and spade. To Bart's surprise, the old man picked these implements up and shouldered them; after which he found Bland's revolver where it had fallen on being knocked from the man's hand by the bullet, and took that along. Crowfoot turned northward toward a tangled wild thicket, into which Bart saw him disappear. "Well, of all peculiar things for him to do!" muttered Hodge, completely puzzled. "What the dickens is he up to?" This question bothered Bart not a little, and, after a time, having made sure none of the ruffians were yet approaching from the south, Bart caught up his rifle and ran swiftly toward the thicket. On entering the tangled underbrush, he soon came in sight of Crowfoot, who, although he must have heard the other approaching, paid no attention whatever. The defender of the mines paused in amazement as he noted the Indian's occupation, for old Joe was busily at work, engaged with pick and shovel, digging in the ground. "What in the name of all mysteries are you doing, Crowfoot?" asked Hodge, as he approached and stood nearer. "Dig a little," returned the old man, with something like a joking twinkle in his keen black eyes. "Mebbe get some exercise. Strong Heart him great on exercise. Crowfoot hear Strong Heart tell exercise much big thing." Now, Hodge knew well enough that the aged redskin was not expending so much energy and labor in mere exercise, and he lingered to watch a while longer. Pretty soon old Joe unearthed a long root that ran beneath the ground, which he immediately seized and dragged forth with considerable grunting. Hodge noted then that he had one or two similar roots lying near. "Mebbe him be 'nuf," observed Crowfoot, as he severed the last root unearthed and placed it with the others. "Think him be. Joe he get plenty exercise for to-day." Then, abandoning the pick and shovel where he had dropped them, the old man gathered up the roots and started to retrace his steps to the cabin. Still wondering at Crowfoot's strange actions, Hodge followed. The sunshine lay warm on the valley, which seemed deserted save for themselves. "Man git hand hurt, him no hurry back much," observed Crowfoot. "Not yet," said Hodge. "But he will come and bring his dogs with him soon enough." When the cabin was reached Crowfoot stood some moments looking at a little pile of wood lying in a corner near the open fireplace. "You build a fire, Black Eyes," he said. "Joe him cold--him cold." "Well, your blood must be getting thin," declared Hodge. "You can bake out in the sun to-day if you want to." "No like sun bake," was the retort. "Too slow; not right kind. Want fire bake." "Oh, all right," said Bart, ready to humor the old man. "I will have a fire directly." To his surprise, while he was starting the fire, old Joe brought in more wood that had been gathered in a little pile outside and threw it down in the corner. Several times he came with an armful of wood, but finally, seemed satisfied. "There's a good hot fire for you, Joe," said Hodge. "Now toast yourself, if you want to." "Ugh!" grunted the Indian. "You keep watch. Keep eye open wide. Mebbe bad palefaces come soon." Bart knew this was a good suggestion, and he proceeded to watch for the possible approach of the enemy. At the same time, he occasionally turned from the open doorway to observe what Crowfoot was about. The old Indian did not seem very anxious to warm himself at the fire. Instead of that, he took the roots he had dug and held them toward the fireplace, turning them over and over and warming them thoroughly, after which he beat off the particles of dirt that clung to them. While he was beating one of the roots by holding it toward the fire, he had the others arranged on the flat stones of the hearth quite near the blaze, where they also would receive warmth from the flames. At last, his curiosity reaching a point where he could repress it no longer, Hodge again asked old Joe what he was doing. For some minutes the Indian did not reply. Once or twice he grunted to himself, but finally said: "Joe him make medicine. Sometime him big medicine maker." "Oh, so that's it," said Hodge. "You are making medicine for your rheumatism?" "Ugh!" was the answer to this. Bart was surprised and almost annoyed as the day dragged on and the ruffians failed to appear. It seemed remarkable that they should delay the attack so long; still, he was confident that it must come sooner or later. All through the day after securing his roots old Joe worked over them patiently by the fire. He dried them and turned them over and over. And, while he was handling one of them and turning it before the heat like a thing he was toasting, the others remained in a long mound of hot ashes. The patience of the Indian over such a trifling task was something to wonder at. As night came on Crowfoot paused to say: "Now, Black Eyes, keep sharp watch. Bad white men come to-night. Mebbe they try to ketch um sleeping." The first half of the night, however, passed without alarm. During these hours the old redskin continued to putter with his roots, which he carefully scraped with a keen knife. At midnight he buried them in the ashes, on which hot coals were heaped, and then directed Bart to lie down and sleep. "Joe him watch now," said the old fellow. Trusting everything to the redskin, Hodge rolled himself in a blanket and slept soundly for two hours. He was awakened by Joe, who stirred him with a moccasin foot. "Get up, Black Eyes," said the old fellow, in a whisper. "Pretty soon we fight." "Those ruffians?" questioned Bart, as he leaped to his feet. "They coming," declared Crowfoot. He was right. Bland and his desperadoes were creeping on the cabin, hoping to take its defenders by surprise. Crowfoot pointed them out, and when they were near enough, Hodge called from the window for them to halt. Realizing they were discovered, they sprang up and charged. Instantly Bart and the redskin opened fire on them, Hodge working his repeater swiftly and accurately, while the clear spang of Crowfoot's rifle was heard at irregular intervals. The ruffians were unprepared for such a defense, and, as they saw several of their number fall and others were wounded, they halted, wavered, then turned and fled. Looking from the window, the starlight showed the defenders a few wounded men dragging themselves away. "Pretty good," said Joe. "No more bother to-night." With which he turned from the window, uncovered his roots, and replanted them in a fresh pile of hot ashes. CHAPTER XVII. HOW THE MEDICINE WORKED. Having left their horses picketed in a secluded spot, four men came stealing down the steep and narrow fissure that was the one entrance into the Enchanted Valley. Three days had passed since Dash Colvin stole out of that valley in his desperate attempt to carry the message to Frank. The third night had fallen. Frank had arrived, and with him were Pete Curry, of Cottonwood, an officer who knew him well and liked him, and two deputies whom Curry had called into service. Frank had picked these men up at Cottonwood after his flight from Prescott. The promise of a liberal reward under any circumstances, and possibly of a big capture, had led them to accompany him. Before seeking to descend into the valley they had seen from the heights above, far away to the southern end, the glow of two or three bright fires, and had heard at intervals something like singing. Frank feared the entrance to the valley might be in the hands of the enemy and guarded. He was relieved on discovering that this was not so, and his satisfaction was great when, with his companions, he found himself in the valley with no one to block the way. "What next, Mr. Merriwell?" asked Curry, in a low tone. "I am for finding out what is going on down there to the south," said Frank. "All right, sir. Lead on. We're with you." In time they approached near enough to look down upon that portion of the valley where the unfinished cabins were, and saw two or three fires burning there. Men were lying around on the ground in the light of these fires. Others were staggering about in a peculiar manner. Now and then one of them would utter a wild yell and dance about like a crazy man, sometimes keeping it up until, apparently exhausted, he ended by flinging himself on the ground and seemed immediately to fall asleep. As Frank and his companions watched these singular movements they saw three men join hands and execute a singular dance in the firelight. "Cæsar's ghost!" muttered Merry, "am I dreaming?" "What's the matter, pard?" asked Curry. "Look at those three men--look at them closely. One of them is an Indian." "Sure thing," said Curry. "And I know him!" palpitated Merry. "If my eyes don't fail me, it is old Joe Crowfoot." "Who is old Joe Crowfoot?" "A redskin I have believed to be my friend." "Waugh!" ejaculated Curry, in disgust. "There never was a red whelp as could be trusted." "But you don't know Crowfoot." "I know 'em all. Here is this yere Crowfoot a-whooping her up with your enemies, Mr. Merriwell. What do you think of that?" "It's mighty singular," confessed Merry. "Look! look! they are drinking!" It was true. The dance had stopped and one of the three had flung himself on the ground. Crowfoot bent over this fellow and offered him a bottle, which he eagerly seized. The Indian snatched it from the man's lips, refusing to let him drink all he seemed to desire. It was then given to the other men, and afterward the old redskin passed from one to another of the reclining men, rousing those he could and offering them the bottle. Some drank, but others seemed too nerveless to hold the bottle in their hands. "Well, this yere is lucky for us," declared Curry. "The whole bunch is paralyzed drunk. We oughter be able to scoop 'em in without any great trouble." "I wonder where Hodge is," speculated Merry. "I wonder if they have killed him." This possibility so aroused Frank that he was determined to seek Bart without delay. Curry was opposed to this; but Frank had his way, and they stole off leaving Crowfoot and his newly chosen companions to continue their carousal. As they approached Bart's cabin, there came from the window a sharp command for them to halt. Merry recognized the voice and uttered a cry of satisfaction. "Hodge!" he called. "It is I--Frank." From within the cabin there was another cry of joy, and a moment later the door flew open and Hodge came running toward them. "Merry, thank Heaven you're here!" he exclaimed, "Thank Heaven you're still alive!" returned Frank. "I was afraid I might arrive too late. Tell me what has happened. How have you managed to stand those ruffians off?" "They attacked the cabin twice," said Hodge; "but we were ready for them both times." "We? But aren't you alone?" "I am now; but old Joe Crowfoot----" "Crowfoot--what of him?" "He was with me. I don't know what has become of the old man now. He left to-night as soon as darkness fell, saying he was going to take a look at the ruffians down yonder. The old man is pretty well used up; he is nearly dead with rheumatism. He spent the greater part of the time after coming here in digging roots and making them into medicine by drying them at the fire, scraping them, then grinding them into powder between stones, finally preparing a decoction with water and the powder of the roots." Frank then told Bart what he had lately seen, and Hodge was greatly astonished. "Old Joe down there with those men?" he muttered. "Why, I don't see----" "Ugh!" grunted a voice near at hand, and out of the shadows slipped another shadow that unhesitatingly approached. It was Crowfoot himself, as they immediately perceived. "How, how, Strong Heart!" said the old man, extending his hand to Frank. "Heap glad to see um." "Why, you old wretch!" cried Merry. "We saw you a short time ago down there with that bunch of claim jumpers drinking and whooping things up. What do you mean by such conduct?" "Old Joe him got very bad rheumatism," returned the redskin. "Him make medicine. Him think mebbe um white men down there got bad rheumatism, too. He give um white men some medicine. He find um white man drinking a heap. Joe he mix um medicine with drink. They like medicine pretty good. One white man, who lead um, him get shot up a great lot. Him in no shape to lead um some more. So white men they wait for more men to come. Now they very much tired. They sleep a lot. Come down see um sleep. You like it." Of a sudden the truth dawned on Frank. "Why, you clever old rascal!" he laughed. "Hanged if I don't believe you've drugged them some way!" "Joe he give um medicine, that all," protested the redskin. "Sometimes medicine make um sleep. Come see." "Come on," said Frank, "we will follow this slick old rascal and find out how hard they are sleeping." As they approached the cabins at the lower end of the valley they saw the fires were dying down, while from that locality no longer came shouts and singing, and, in truth, all the ruffians seemed fast asleep on the ground, where they had fallen or flung themselves. Unhesitatingly Crowfoot led them amid the mass of drugged men, and the sinking firelight revealed on his leathery face a ghost of a shriveled smile. "Medicine heap good sometimes," he observed. "Strong Heart find him enemies sleeping. Mebbe he takes hatchet and chop um up? Joe he get many scalps." "You're a dandy, Crowfoot!" laughed Frank. "Here they are, Curry, the whole bunch. You can gather them and escort them to Cottonwood, or anywhere you please." "And a great haul it is, pard," nodded Curry. "I sees three gents now what has rewards offered for them. It's my opinion that they hangs. Get to work, boys, and we will tie up the whole bunch so they can't wiggle when they awake." Old Joe looked on in apparent dissatisfaction and dismay. "You no chop um up some?" he questioned. "You no kill um a heap. Then what Joe him get? He no have a scalp." "What do you get, Joe?" exclaimed Merry. "You have saved my mines for me. You get anything you want--anything but scalps." CHAPTER XVIII. A BUNCH OF PRISONERS. Pete Curry and his two deputies set off the next morning with their prisoners--thirteen in all. They were taking the ruffians direct to the nearest point where they could be confined and afterward delivered for trial into the hands of certain officers, who would take several of them to different parts of Arizona where they had committed crimes. At noon the second day they reached a point in a barren valley where the sun beat fiercely. Scorched mountains rose to the east and west. They came to a halt. In the party of sixteen there were only three horses, ridden by the officers. The prisoners had been compelled to tramp over the desert, the mountains, and valleys. The wrists of each captive were bound behind his back. A tough-looking, desperate lot they were, taken all together. There were Mexicans and men with Indian blood in their veins among them. They had weather-beaten, leathery, bearded faces. Many of them had a hangdog expression. Their eyes were shiftless and full of treachery. It was a most important capture for Curry, as there were among those men desperate characters for whose apprehension rewards had been offered. In short, it was a round-up of criminals that would make Curry's name known as that of a wonderfully successful officer of the law. He was proud of his accomplishment, although he regretfully admitted to himself that he deserved very little credit for it. He and his two companions had already been well paid by Frank Merriwell. Now, with his weapons ready, Curry was watching the prisoners, while his two companions sought for water in the bed of the creek. "How are you hitting her, Bill?" he called. "She's moist, Pete," answered one of the diggers. "There's water here." "It takes a right good while for her to gather in the hole," said the other digger. "If we makes a hole big enough, we will have some in an hour or so." Curry took a look at the sky, the mountains, and the westering sun. "Well, I opines we stops here a while," he said. "We may as well." A big, burly fellow among the captives carelessly stalked toward Curry, who watched him with a keen eye. "I say, Pete," said the prisoner familiarly, "mebbe you tells me just how this yere thing happens. I am a whole lot bothered over it." "Why, Bland, I has you--I has you foul," retorted Curry, with a grim smile. "That I certain admits," nodded the other; "but how it was did is what puzzles me a-plenty." "You has some bad habits, Bland," returned the captor. "You monkeys with firewater, and, for a man like you, with a price on him, it's a keerless thing to do." "No firewater ever lays me out," proudly retorted he of the drooping black mustache. "I knows my capacity when it come to the real stuff. But what I gits against this yere time is different a whole lot." The deputy sheriff smiled again. "Mebbe you're right, Bland," he admitted. "You thinks yourself a heap clever, but this time you is fooled right slick." Texas Bland frowned. "I confess, Pete, that it cuts me deep to realize it, but it certain is a fact that I gits tripped up. However, how it happened is what I wants ter know. There sure was dope in that booze." "Likely you're correct," nodded Curry. "How does it git there?" "Have you noticed a certain old Injun in this bunch sence we started out?" asked the officer. "No," said Bland, shaking his head. "I looks fer him some, but he is not yere. Does yer mean to insinuate that the old varmint loaded this bunch with dope?" "Well, how does it look to you?" "Why, ding his old pelt!" exclaimed the captive indignantly. "Some of the boys knowed him. Some o' them had seen him afore. One or two had seen him to their sorrer. They say to me that he plays poker somewhat slick. When he comes ambling into our camp, seeming a whole lot jagged hisself, I was a bit suspicious; but the boys what knowed him says he is all right, and so I takes a drink with him. Arter that I gits a heap sleepy and snoozes. Next I knows you is there, Pete, and you has us nailed solid." "That's about the way of it," nodded Curry. "And the old whelp dopes us, does he!" growled Texas Bland. "Whatever does he do that fer?" "Why, Bland, that yere old redskin is a friend of Mr. Merriwell. He gives you the dope to help Merriwell. When we comes down into the valley there and finds you all sleeping sweetly, the old Injun proposes to scalp you up some. To be course, we objects, and then he seems mighty disappointed-like. He seems to think he is cheated. He seems to reckon that, having done the job so slick, your scalps belong to him." Bland listened with a strange look on his face and a vengeful glare in his deepset eyes. "So that's however it is!" he growled. "Well, I am some glad I finds it out." "Mebbe it relieves your mind some of worry," returned the captor; "but it does you little good." "Don't you think it!" returned Bland harshly. "I settles with that old Injun, you bet your boots!" "First you settles with the law, Bland. You roams free a long time with a good price on your head. I am sorry fer you, but I reckons you are due to stretch hemp." Texas Bland actually laughed. "Pete," he said, "the rope ain't made yet what hangs me." "Your nerve is good, but I opine you're wrong this yere time. I has you, Bland, and I keeps you. I deliver you to them what wants you bad." "That's all right, Pete," was the cool retort. "No hard feelings on my account, you understand. I takes my medicine when I has to, and so I swallows this all pleasant and smiling. Just the same, you mark what I tells you, the rope ain't made what hangs Texas Bland. I goes back a-looking for that red skunk later, and I pots him. When I gits a chance, I starts a lead mine in his carcass. The idea of being fooled by a redskin galls me up a heap. But you don't tell me any how it happens you drops down thar and gathers us in just then." "I am some acquainted with Frank Merriwell. I has done business for him before. When he comes sailing into Cottonwood and locates me, he says: 'Curry, I am up against it some, and I needs assistance.' 'I am yours to order,' says I. 'Whatever is a-doing?' "Then he up and tells me that a gent with a whole lot of coin, what calls himself a money king, is trying to get possession of some new mines he has located. This gent, he says, has faked up a false charge against him and gives him a heap o' trouble. This gent's partner once tried mighty hard to get his paws on another mine belonging to Merriwell, and in the end he runs up against a bullet and lays down peaceful and calm. This gent's name were Sukes. The one what is a-bothering Merriwell now is Macklyn Morgan." "You interest me a-plenty," nodded Bland. "Now, there were some gent behind this yere deal what says it pays us well if we seizes those mines. Just who it were that puts up the coin fer the job I didn't know for sure. All I knows is that it comes straight through a gent what I depends on, and the coin is in sight the minute we delivers the mines over. I reckons, Pete, the gent you speak of is the one what lays the job out fer us." Curry nodded. "Likely that's all correct, Bland. But he makes a big mistake if he thinks this yere Merriwell is easy. Merriwell is a fighter from 'Way Back." "He is a whole lot young." "In experience he is a whole lot old. Mebbe he don't grow whiskers much, but he gets there just the same. Whiskers don't always make the man, Bland. With all his money, this yere Sukes don't get ahead of Merriwell any. When Morgan he tackles the job he finds it just as hard or harder. It does him no good to fake a charge that Merriwell shoots up Sukes." "Where did this yere shooting happen, Pete?" "Over yon in Snowflake." Bland shook his head. "Then it's ten to one he gits disturbed none fer it. If he proves conclusive this yere Sukes bothers him, why, supposing he did do the shooting, it convicts him of nothing but self-defense down in this yere country!" "Sukes was a whole lot wealthy, you understand." "All the same, I reckons it is pretty hard to put murder on a gent yereabouts in case he is defending his rights." "That's so," nodded Curry, at the same time lifting his eyes and watching with interest several horsemen who now appeared far up the valley, riding toward them through the heat haze. Bland noticed Curry's look and turned in the same direction. "Who does you allow is coming?" he questioned, with repressed eagerness. Instead of answering, Curry called to the men who were laboring in the bed of the creek. "Oh, Bill! Oh, Abe! Come up yere right away." The inflection of his voice indicated that something was wrong, and the two men hastened to join him. Curry motioned toward the approaching horsemen. "Mebbe we is troubled some," he observed. "We needs to be ready." The horsemen came on rapidly. There were seven of them in all. Like Curry and his two companions, the captives watched the approaching men with no small amount of anxiety. As the horsemen drew near, having told Bill and Abe to watch the prisoners closely, Curry rode forward. "Howdy, gents!" he called. "Howdy!" returned one of the men. "Is that you, Curry?" "Surest thing you know," said the deputy sheriff. "Somehow I don't seem to recall you any." "That's none strange," said the spokesman of the party. "I am Gad Hackett. No particular reason why you should know me." "Whatever are you doing yere?" inquired the officer suspiciously. "Just making a short cut, leaving all trails, from Fulton to Oxboro." "Say you so? Seems ter me you're hitting in the wrong direction." "I reckon I know my course," returned Hackett. "I have traveled this section a-plenty. There seems to be a good bunch of you gents. Whatever are you a-doing?" "We're holding up for water now," answered Curry evasively. "Mebbe you hurries right along? Mebbe you has no great time to waste?" "We look some for water ourselves," returned the other man. "Well, you has to look mighty sharp yereabouts. We digs our own water hole, and unfortunately we can't share it any. If you goes down the valley a mile or two, mebbe you finds a locality where water is easier to reach." "Seems ter me you're some anxious to hurry us on," laughed Hackett. "We're slightly tired, and I reckons we holds up for rest, water or no water." "That being the case," said Curry, "let me give you some advice. Yander I has a few gents what are wanted for various little doings in different parts, and I am takin' pains careful-like to deliver them over. They're lawbreakers to the last galoot of the bunch. Mebbe you bothers them none. I does my duty." "Oh--ho!" retorted Hackett, "so that's how the wind blows! Why, certain, Curry, we interferes none whatever with your business. Instead o' that, we helps you any we can in running in your bunch of bad men." "Thanks," returned the deputy sheriff coolly. "So long as I am not bothered with, I needs no help." Hackett laughed again. "I see, pard," he said, "you counts on gathering in the reward money yourself, and proposes to divide it none. All right; you're welcome." Then, with his companions, he again rode forward. Curry looked them over critically. In his eyes, with one or two exceptions, they appeared little different from the collection of ruffians who were his prisoners. With them he recognized one man, at least, who had an unenviable reputation--a tall, pockmarked individual--no less a person than Spotted Dan. There was in the party a man who seemed strangely out of place there. His every appearance was that of a tenderfoot, while his face, with his shaven lips and iron-gray beard, looked like that of a stern old church deacon. Somehow this person interested Curry more than all the others. He wondered not a little at the appearance of such a man in such a party. "Who is the parsonish gentleman?" asked the deputy sheriff, as Hackett came up with him. He spoke in a low tone and jerked his hand slightly toward the tenderfoot. "That?" said Hackett loudly. "Why, that is Mr. Felton Cleveland, a gentleman what is looking around some for mining property, and it is him we escorts to Oxboro. He engages us to see that he gets there all safe-like, and he is in a hurry." The man indicated did not betray that these words had reached his ears, although he had not missed the statement. "He looks more like a missionary than a mining man," declared Curry. As the new arrivals reached the captives and their guards, Felton Cleveland was soon looking the captives over with an expression of interest, not to say of sympathy. He turned to the deputy sheriff and observed: "It seems hardly possible, sir, that so many men could be lawbreakers; still, their faces indicate that they are desperate characters." "I reckon you're some unfamiliar with this part of the country," returned the officer. "We tries to keep our towns clean, but down along the Mexican border there are a few bad men. Sometimes they go in bunches." "But it is remarkable that you should capture so many of them at one time. Do you mind telling how it happened?" "I am not feeling a whole lot like talking just now," returned the deputy sheriff. "I opines you takes my word for it that they are just what I says." "Oh, certainly, sir--certainly," nodded Cleveland. "I don't dispute you in the least. I assure you it is not mere idle curiosity on my part, for I have interests in this part of the country, and I wish to be well informed about it and its inhabitants. However, if you don't care to tell me what these men have been doing, we will let it drop." "Well, I don't mind saying that they was caught redhanded trying to jump a claim. Mebbe that is the charge made agin' a few o' them, but I reckons the most of the bunch is to face things a heap more serious." "Trying to jump a claim?" said Cleveland. "Where was this, if you don't mind giving that much information?" "Over yon," answered Pete indefinitely, with a wave of his hand. "Well, it's truly remarkable that you should be able to capture so many of them. They outnumber you, it appears. If they are such desperate men, it surely is a strange thing that you could take them all." "We has a way of doing things sometimes, mister. Let me advise you to keep your own eyes open. Mebbe some o' that bunch you has is not to be trusted too far." "There is no reason why they should betray me," was the assertion. "I have nothing on my person that could tempt them. They will be paid well when we reach our destination. That should be enough to guarantee their faithfulness to me." "You're some wise in leaving your valuables behind," nodded Curry. Some of the captives attempted to converse with the newcomers, but Curry's companions promptly put a stop to that. Between Spotted Dan and one or two of them passed significant looks. The horsemen dismounted, as if to take a brief rest and give their animals a breathing spell. Gad Hackett lighted his pipe and engaged one of Curry's comrades in conversation. Seeing this, Curry approached them and quietly said: "You talks a little, Bill--a very little." Bill nodded. "I knows my business, Pete," he assured. Hackett laughed. "Why does he seem so mighty suspicious?" he asked. "We don't bother him none." After talking with Bill a few moments, however, he turned to Abe and engaged him in conversation. He seemed careless and indifferent in his manner, and occasionally a few low words passed between them. After a time, Abe examined the water hole and announced that water was rising in it. Bill joined him, and they were on their knees beside the hole when a startling thing happened. Curry suddenly felt something thrust against the back of his head and heard a harsh voice commanding him to stand still or be shot in his tracks. The voice was that of Spotted Dan, who held the muzzle of a revolver touching the deputy sheriff's head. Curry knew on the instant that he was in for it. He knew better than to attempt the drawing of a weapon, although one hung ready in the holster at his side. Hackett, a pistol in his hand, appeared before the officer. "We don't care to shoot you up, Curry," he said; "but we has to do it if you gits foolish. Put up your hands." "Whatever is this game?" exclaimed the startled man. "You arrays yourself agin' the law. You gits yourself into a heap o' trouble." "Put up your hands," repeated Hackett sharply. "If you delays any, the gent behind you blows off the top of your head." Knowing the folly of refusing to obey, Curry lifted his empty hands. Hackett then removed the revolver from the officer's holster. Instinctively Curry turned his eyes toward the water hole to see what was happening to his assistants there. He found them on their feet, but covered by drawn weapons of several men. He saw them also disarmed. Then one of the newcomers went among the captives and rapidly cut their bonds and set them free. Texas Bland turned to Curry and laughed in his face. "Pete," he said, "I tells you a while ago that the rope is not made that hangs me." CHAPTER XIX. THE VALLEY OF DESOLATION. Six persons, all mounted, sat on their horses and gazed down the valley. From that elevation they were able to see its full length. The six were Dick Merriwell, Brad Buckhart, Cap'n Wiley, Dash Colvin, little Abe, and Felicia Delores. Being aware that Macklyn Morgan had started with a number of desperate men in pursuit of Frank, in spite of Frank's admonition to stay in Prescott and care for Felicia, Dick found it impossible to remain quiet. He knew his brother was in deadly danger, and he longed to be with him when the tug of war came. Feeling certain likewise that the men employed by Cap'n Wiley and taken to the Enchanted Valley as miners were desperate characters, it did not seem possible to Dick that Frank and Bart unaided could cope with so many and overcome them. Dick had not worried long over the matter. Calling Brad, he said: "Buckhart, I am going to follow Frank and the men who are in pursuit of him." The eyes of the Texan gleamed. "Pard," he said, "I observed that you were notified to stay hereabouts and guard your cousin. Frank told you to do that. Do you let on that you're going to disobey orders?" "I can't stay here, Brad. I feel certain Frank needs me. His enemies are very powerful and desperate. What would I think of myself if anything serious happened to my brother? I should hate myself forever afterward." The rancher's son nodded. "I allow that's dead right, partner," he agreed. "I am feeling some that way myself. I certain smell smoke in the air, and I have an itching to be in the midst of the fray. But whatever are you going to do with Felicia?" "Why, I did think of leaving her here with you. I thought of leaving you in charge of her." "What, me?" squealed the Texan. "Leave me behind when there's a ruction brewing? Do you mean, pard, that you propose to cut me out of this yere scrimmage? Oh, say, Dick, you'd never treat me that low down! I came West to stick by you a heap close, and I am going to do it. Why don't you leave your cousin in the care of Cap'n Wiley?" "I wouldn't dare," answered Dick. "Wiley is square enough; but he is careless. Besides that, how can I find my way to the Enchanted Valley unless guided by Wiley himself?" "That's so. I never thought of that. You've got to take Wiley along--unless you can get hold of that man Colvin, who brought the message to Merry." Dick frowned a little, seeming deep in serious thought. "Then there's the hunchback boy," he finally muttered. "Possibly he might know the trail, but I doubt it." "You can't depend on him none whatever," put in Buckhart. "He looks like a good wind would blow him away." Dick rose to his feet. "Brad," he said, "we will find Wiley and talk this matter over." The sailor was found, and he turned an attentive ear to Dick's words. "My young mate," he observed, resting a hand on Dick's shoulder, "I have been seriously meditating on the problematical problem of hoisting anchor and setting my course for the Enchanted Valley all by my lonesome. In my mouth danger leaves a sweet and pleasant taste. I love it with all my yearning heart. If you are bound to set sail for the Enchanted Valley, I am ready to ship with you as pilot. It may be well for me to do so. If I linger here I may dally with the delusive jag-juice. When there is no temptation I can be the most virtuous man in the world. Yes, my boy, we will pull out of Prescott and cut away toward the valley in question. You may depend on me." "Then let's lose no time!" impatiently exclaimed Dick, feeling a powerful desire to hasten to his brother's side. "Let's make preparations without the least delay." This was done. Dick found Felicia and little Abe together, for the two had become fast friends in a short time. Felicia settled the question in regard to herself by immediately declaring that she was ready to accompany them. "It will do me good," she said. "The doctor in San Diego told me that what I most needed was more open-air exercise. I am feeling much better now. Oh, you will take me with you, won't you, Dick? Please take me!" "Me, too," urged little Abe. "You can't leave me behind." It was found necessary to take them both, and when the time for starting came Cap'n Wiley appeared in company with Dash Colvin, the messenger. Colvin likewise was anxious to return to the Enchanted Valley, for he declared that there were two of his late companions in the valley with whom he had a score to settle. Although they had pursued him into the very heart of Prescott, on recovering from the effects of that desperate race he had sought them in vain. He learned, however, that they had joined Macklyn Morgan's party in the pursuit of Frank. Thus it may be seen how it happened that Dick and his friends were watching to see what transpired in the barren valley amid the mountains at the time when Morgan's party released Texas Bland and his ruffians from the custody of Pete Curry, of Cottonwood. Wiley had pressed forward with such restless determination that they were close on the heels of Morgan and his men when this valley was reached, although this fact was not known by any of the men in advance. Provided with a powerful pair of field glasses, Dick watched what transpired, and saw Curry and his assistants held up while the captured desperadoes were set free. Although he had only his eyes to observe what was taking place, Buckhart grew greatly excited and eagerly proposed a dash into the valley for the purpose of aiding Curry. "Steady, Brad, old man!" warned Dick. "We're too far away for that. By the time we got there the whole thing would be over. The best we can do is to keep quiet and take care that we are not seen." "Who do you suppose those men are?" asked Buckhart. "It doesn't seem possible!" Dash Colvin was muttering to himself. "What is it that doesn't seem possible?" questioned Dick. "Let me take your glass a moment," requested Colvin. Dick handed it over. The man took a hasty look through it. "Well, of all things wonderful, this is the most remarkable!" he exclaimed. "What is it?" questioned Dick impatiently. "Yes, whatever is it you're driving at?" demanded Buckhart. "Speak up, you, and keep us no longer in suspenders!" cried Wiley. "Those men--those men who have been released----" "What of them?" demanded Dick. Colvin passed the glass quickly to Wiley. "Take a look yourself, cap'n," he directed. "You oughter to know some of them." After one glance, the sailor ejaculated: "Dash my toplights! Shiver my timbers! May I be keelhauled if they ain't that sweet little aggregation I gathered for the purpose of operating the new mines! Why, there's Texas Bland! I recognize his sable mustache and flowing hair." "That's it," nodded Colvin--"that's it exactly. They are the very men. What air they doin' here?" "A short time ago they seemed to be in endurance vile. If I mistake not, three gentlemen in that party were escorting them as captives of war to some unknown port. Mates, I will stake my life there have been voluminous doings in the Enchanted Valley. Something of a critical nature surely happened there." "But Frank is not in that party," said Dick. "Where can he be?" "At this precise moment," confessed Wiley, "I am in no calm and placid frame of mind, therefore I am unable to answer the riddle. One thing, at least, is certain: Those gay boys have not seized your brother's property. That should relieve your agitated mental equilibrium to a conclusive susceptibility." "We take chances of being seen here," said Dick. "Let's retire." They did so, but from a point of partial concealment continued to watch everything that occurred in the valley. Within an hour Morgan's men, accompanied by the rescued ruffians, turned toward the south, which action assured the watchers that once more they were headed for the Enchanted Valley. They appropriated the horses of Curry and his two assistants, taking also the weapons of the three men, who were left a-foot and unarmed in that desolate region. The trio was warned not to follow and were further advised to make straight for Cottonwood or the nearest camp. Apparently Curry and his assistants decided this was the only course to pursue, for they turned to the north and hurried up the valley. Morgan and his men soon disappeared far away to the south. Burning with eagerness to know the truth, Dick rode forward into the valley the moment the ruffians were beyond view. He was followed closely by Buckhart and Colvin. Cap'n Wiley remained long enough to caution Abe and Felicia to remain where they were, for, knowing nothing of Curry and his companions, Wiley fancied it possible there might be trouble of some sort. "I will look out for Felicia," declared little Abe, whose violin was hung over his back by a cord. "I will take care of her." "All right, my noble tar," said the sailor. And then he also rode forward into the valley. Curry and his assistants halted in some alarm when they saw four horsemen dashing swiftly toward them. As they were unarmed, they could not think of offering resistance in case the quartette proved to be enemies. Being on foot, they could not escape, and, therefore, they did the only thing possible, which was to wait for the approaching riders. Dick was the first to reach them. "We have been watching this whole affair," he said. "We don't understand it." "Well, we do!" growled Curry in disgust, while his companions growled likewise. "We understands that we have lost a bunch of valuable prisoners." "But how did you happen to have such prisoners in the first place?" questioned Dick. "That's our business, yonker. Why should we be for telling you any?" "Because I am interested. Because those men are my brother's enemies." "Who is your brother, kid?" "Frank Merriwell." "What?" shouted Curry. "Whatever are you giving us?" "He is giving you the dead-level truth, stranger," put in Brad, "That's right," agreed Dash Colvin, coming up. "Look here, Pete Curry, you knows me and I knows you. This boy is Frank Merriwell's brother." "That being the case," said Curry, "he wants to get a hustle on and join his brother some lively. That fine bunch you saw hiking down the valley is bound for Frank Merriwell's new mines, which they propose seizing a heap violent. We counts ourselves some in luck to get off with whole skins from such a measly outfit. All the same, if we had played our hand proper I reckon they'd never set that lot of mavericks loose. I am a-plenty ashamed of myself." "But tell me," urged Dick, "how you came to have those men as prisoners?" Curry then briefly related the whole story, to which Dick and his friends listened with the greatest interest. "That's how it were," finished Curry. "I allows to your brother I sure could take that gang to the nearest jail. He and his pard, Hodge, stays to guard their mines, leaving the job of disposing of those tough gents to we three. We makes a fizzle of it, and now the whole outfit is bound back for the Enchanted Valley. They are frothing to get at your brother and do him up. At the same time, they counts on salivating the old Injun what fools them a-plenty." "Frank will fight to the last," said Dick. "We must help him some way. We're all armed, and I think we can furnish you with weapons. Are you with us, or are you ready to give up?" "Pete Curry, of Cottonwood, gives up none at all," was the reply. "I counts on hiking somewhar to get weapons and horses and then hustling back for the purpose of doing whatever I can to help your brother." "If you try to do that, you will be too late to render any assistance," declared Dick. "Then give us some shooting irons and what goes in 'em and we're with yer," said Curry. This arrangement was quickly settled on, after which Dick rode back for Felicia and little Abe. When he reached the spot where they had been left, however, he was not a little surprised and alarmed to find they were no longer there. In vain he looked for them. He called their names, but his voice died in the silence of the desolate hollows. There was no answer, and Dick's fears grew apace. * * * * * What had become of Felicia and little Abe? Left to themselves, they fell to talking of the singular things which had happened. Felicia's horse champed its bit and restlessly stamped the ground. "That horse acts awful queer," said the boy. "He has got a funny look in his eye, just the same as a horse I once saw that was locoed. You know what that is, don't you?" Felicia laughed. "I was born in the West," she said. "Of course I know what it means when an animal is locoed. They have been eating loco weed and it makes them crazy. But I don't think this horse has been doing that." "Never can tell," said the hunchback. "Why, it should have shown on him before." "Not always. Sometimes it breaks out awful unexpected. Look how your horse rolls its eyes. Say, I'm going to----" Abe did not tell what he was going to do, for, starting his own horse forward, he reached for the bridle of Felicia's animal. To the horse it seemed that the boy's hand was large as a grizzly bear. The animal started back with a snort of alarm, quivering with sudden terror. "Whoa! whoa!" cried Abe, hastening in his attempt to seize the creature's bit. These efforts simply served to add to the horse's fear, and suddenly he wheeled and went tearing away, Felicia being unable to check its flight. Immediately the hunchback pursued, his one thought being to overtake the girl and save her from danger, for he was now confident that something was the matter with the horse. If the creature was really locoed, Abe knew it might do the most astonishing and crazy things. To a horse thus afflicted a little gully a foot wide sometimes seems a chasm a mile across, or a great ravine, yawning a hundred feet deep and as many in width, sometimes appears no more than a crack in the surface of the earth. Deluded by this distorted view of things, horses and cattle frequently plunge to their death in gorges and ravines, or do other things equally crazy and unaccountable. Felicia's horse fled madly, as if in fear of a thousand pursuing demons. The girl was a good rider, and she stuck to the animal's back with comparative ease, although unable to check its wild career. Doing everything in his power to overtake the runaway, the hunchback boy continued the pursuit, regardless of the direction in which it took them. The flying horse turned hither and thither and kept on and on until it was in a lather of perspiration and was almost exhausted to the point of dropping. Mile after mile was left behind them in this manner, Abe finding it barely possible to keep the runaway in sight. At length they came from the hills into a broad plain, and there, in the very midst of the waste, the runaway halted with such suddenness that Felicia barely saved herself from a serious fall. What had caused this sudden stopping of the horse was impossible to imagine, but the beast stood still with its fore feet braced, as if fearing to advance another inch. It quivered in every limb and shook all over. Felicia heard the clatter of horses' hoofs and turned to see little Abe coming with the greatest haste. The boy cried out to her, and she answered him. "Oh, Felicia!" he panted, as he came up on his winded horse; "I'm so glad you're safe! Get down, quick--get down! He might run again!" She slipped from the saddle to the ground, and little Abe also dismounted, but now neither of the horses showed the slightest inclination to run. Both were in such an exhausted condition that they stood with hanging heads, their sides heaving. "I was afraid you'd be killed, Felicia!" gasped the boy. Then he saw her suddenly sink to the ground and cover her pale face with her hands. Quickly he knelt beside her, seeking to soothe and reassure her. "It's all right--it's all right," he said. "Don't you cry, Felicia." "Where are we, Abe?" she whispered. "We're right here," was the answer, which seemed the only one he could give. "Where is Dick?" "He will come pretty soon. Don't you worry." "We must find our way back. Can you do that, Abe?" "Of course I can," he assured stoutly. "Just you trust me." Then once more he did his best to reassure her, and after a while succeeded in calming her somewhat. To his relief, she did not cry or become hysterical. Over and over the boy assured her that he could find the way back without the least trouble, and after a while he must have convinced her this was true. "You're so brave, Abe," she half smiled. "Brave!" he exclaimed. "Me! I reckon you don't know me! Why, I ain't brave at all! I'm just the biggest coward that ever lived." She shook her head. "Don't tell me that," she said. "I know better. You're just as brave as you can be." "Well, I never knowed it before," he said wonderingly. "If I am brave, it is something I never found out about myself. My, but I was scared when I saw that horse run!" "What will Dick think when he finds us gone?" "Oh, he will foller us, he will foller us," nodded the boy. "Don't you worry about that. We'll meet him coming." "But I will never dare mount that horse again." "Course you won't. You will take my horse. I will ride that critter. Just let him try to run with me!" He said this as if he really fancied he could control the animal in case it attempted to run away with him. The horses were submissive enough while the hunchback removed and changed their saddles. The animal that had lately seemed crazy and frantic with fear was now calm and docile. Apparently the furious run had worked off the effect of the loco weed. After a while, Abe did what he could to assist Felicia to mount, and then managed to scramble and pull himself with no small difficulty to the back of the other horse. They turned their animals to retrace the course over which they had come. This, however, was to prove no small task, for the runaway had twisted and turned in a score of different directions during its flight; and, shortly after entering the hills, Abe found himself quite bewildered as to the proper course they should pursue. This fact, however, he tried to conceal from Felicia, knowing it would add to her alarm. So they rode on and on until finally they came to a tiny stream that lay in the little hollows of a broad watercourse. There they found water for themselves and horses. Now, for the first time, Felicia began to suspect that they were not retracing the course over which they had come. "I don't remember this place," she said. "Of course you don't," put in Abe quickly. "It's a wonder you remember anything. By jing! you must 'a' been awful scart when that horse was running so. Course you didn't notice much of anything else." "But are you sure, Abe--are you sure we're taking the right course?" "Just you leave it to me," nodded the hunchback. "But what if we should miss Dick? If we should not find him, what would become of us, Abe? We might starve here, perish from thirst, or be killed by Indians or something." Abe did his best to laugh reassuringly. "Don't you go to getting all fussed up that way. We're all right. Let's hurry up now, for it is getting late." It was getting late. The sun hung low in the west and the afternoon was far spent. In the boy's heart there was a great fear that night would come upon them and find them alone in that wild region. When they sought to push on, the horses barely crept forward, having been badly used up by the mad flight and pursuit. Lower and lower sank the great golden sun. "Abe," said Felicia, at last, her face pale and drawn, "we're lost. Don't try to deceive me; I know it." "Mebbe we are turned round some," he admitted. "But that ain't any reason why you should get frightened. There are lots of mining camps pretty near here. And even if we don't find Dick--which we shall--we will be just sure to find a town." The girl's chin quivered, and it was with no small difficulty that she kept back her tears. Finally, as the sun dropped behind the western ranges, the horses seemed to give out entirely, refusing to proceed farther. "No use, Abe!" murmured Felicia. "We may as well give up and stop right here to-night." "I am just awful sorry," murmured the boy; "but don't you be afraid. I will guard you. I will watch you all night long. There shan't anything touch you, I tell you that." They were in a long, shallow valley where there was some scanty herbage, and the horses were permitted to find such grazing as they could. The western sky glowed with glorious colors, which gradually faded and passed away, after the bright, silvery stars gleamed forth, and the heat of the day passed before the night was fairly on them. Felicia lay down in the silence, gazing up at the millions of stars above them. Abe sat near, wondering what he could do to reassure her. At length he thought of his fiddle and pulled it round from his back, where it hung. Lifting the loop of the cord over his head, he held the fiddle to his bosom, softly patting and caressing it. After a time, he found his rosin and applied it to the bow. Then he put the instrument in tune and began to play. The music was soft, and sweet, and soothing, like the lullaby of a mother over a sleeping child. With this sound throbbing in her ears, Felicia finally slept. When he knew she was fast asleep, the boy slipped off his coat and spread it over her shoulders. The silence of the night was awesome, and he felt keenly the lonely desolation of their situation. So again he lifted the fiddle to his chin, and again it throbbed with such a soft, sweet melody that even the twinkling stars seemed bending to listen. CHAPTER XX. THE FINDING OF THE BABES. "Get up yere, pard," said one of the two men who were standing guard over Macklyn Morgan's bivouac. "I sure hears some queer sort of a wild critter a-yowling out yander." Morgan himself had been eager to push forward through the night toward Merriwell's valley, but the men lately released from the custody of Pete Curry were exhausted by their tramp and refused at nightfall to proceed farther. Therefore, it had been necessary for the party to divide or to stop where they were and make camp. The latter course had been decided upon. Not feeling positive that Curry and his comrades would not follow them, Morgan had given orders for two of the men to remain constantly on guard through the night. Of course the guard was to be changed at intervals. Now, shortly after nightfall, one of the original two appointed to watch over the camp called his comrade for the purpose of listening to certain strange sounds which came to his ears through the darkness. They advanced cautiously to the top of a ridge, where they halted and stood listening. The sounds could be faintly heard now and then. "Whatever does yer make of it, partner?" asked the one who had first heard them. "Mighty quar sounds for a wild critter to make," declared the other. "Just what I thought. More like some sort o' music." "That's it. Dinged if it ain't something like a fiddle!" "Mebbe we'd better nose out that way and see if we can diskeever what it is." "We leaves the camp onprotected." "Only for a short time. There won't anything happen, partner. This yere standing guard is all foolishness, anyhow." "I reckon you're right." "Then come on." Together they advanced in the direction from which the strange sounds seemed to proceed. As they made their way slowly and cautiously into the valley they were able to hear those sounds more and more distinctly, and before long both were satisfied that it was indeed a fiddle. "Well, wouldn't that chaw yer up!" muttered one. "Whoever does yer reckon is a-playing a fiddle out yere?" "You have got me." "Well, we will certain find out. Have your gun ready, pard, in case we runs into a muss." Pretty soon they saw through the starlight two horses grazing unhobbled and unpicketed. "Only two," whispered one of the men. "We are as many as they be." "Whar are they?" The violin was silent now, and they remained crouching and awaiting until it began again. It led them straight to the spot where little Abe sat playing beside the sleeping girl. So absorbed was he in his music, with his head bowed over the violin, that he failed to observe the approach of the men until they were right beside him and one of them stooped and took him by the shoulder. With a cry of terror, the boy sprang up. Felicia awoke in great alarm and sat up, staring bewildered at Abe and the two men. "Oh, ho!" said one of the guards. "What is this we finds? It is a strange bird we diskeevers." "There's two," said the other. "And, by smoke, t'other one is a gal!" "Don't you touch her!" shrilly screamed the boy. "Don't you put a hand on her!" He endeavored to jerk himself from the grip of the man who had seized him, but the strong hand held him fast. "Whatever is the use to jump around this yere way?" said the man. "We ain't a-hurting you none. Don't git so excited-like. Mebbe it's a right good thing we finds ye yere." "Who are they, Abe? Who are they?" whispered Felicia. "I dunno," confessed the boy, filled with regret and despair at his own carelessness in permitting the men to come upon them in such a manner while he was absorbed in his playing. "But they shan't hurt yer. I won't let um." "Mebbe you tells us what you're doing yere, you two kids," suggested one of the men. "We're jest lost," said Abe. "Only that?" laughed the man. "Well, that sure is nothing much. Perhaps if we don't find yer you stays lost. Where did yer get lost from?" "Oh, I know you won't hurt us!" said Felicia quickly. "Why should you? We can't hurt any one. My horse was frightened and ran away. Abe tried to catch him. That was how we got separated from Dick and the others." "Dick! Who is this yere Dick?" Before Abe could check her, Felicia answered. "Why, Dick Merriwell!" "Hey?" ejaculated one of the men. "Merriwell! Why, I sure opines that name is a heap familiar. Dick Merriwell! Mebbe you means Frank Merriwell?" "No! no! I mean Dick Merriwell, his brother." "His brother?" burst from both of the men. "Yes," said Felicia. "Then he has a brother, has he? Well, this is right interesting and no mistake." "You bet it is!" ejaculated the other. "Where is this yere Dick Merriwell, Hunchy?" It was the old hateful name which Abe detested, and his soul revolted against it. "Don't you call me Hunchy!" he shrilly exclaimed. "I won't be called Hunchy!" In his excitement he actually bristled at the ruffian. "Ho! ho!" laughed the other man. "What do yer think of that, partner? Why, he is going ter soak me one." "Ho! ho!" came hoarsely. "That's what he is. Don't let him hit yer hard, for he'll sure fix yer!" The one who had addressed Abe as "Hunchy" now removed his hat and made a profound bow. "I begs yer pardon, your royal highness," he said. "If I treads on the tail of yer coat any, I hopes you excuses me. I am not counting to rile you up any, for I reckon you might be a whole lot dangerous." Abe knew this was said in derision, but he muttered: "I won't have anybody calling me Hunchy no more. Don't you forget that!" Felicia was clinging to the cripple now, and he could feel her trembling. He put one of his long arms about her and sought to reassure her by a firm pressure. "If I hasn't offended your highness," said the man who had asked the question, "perhaps you tells me now where this Dick Merriwell is?" "Don't tell him, Abe!" whispered the girl. "They are bad men. I'm afraid of them." "I wist you could tell me," said the boy. "I'd like ter find him myself." "Then he is somewhere yereabouts?" "Don't tell!" breathed Felicia again. "I dunno 'bout that," said Abe. "Mebbe he is two hundred miles away now. I dunno." "Ef he is so fur, however is it you expects ter find him in a hurry?" Barely a moment, did the boy hesitate, and then he declared: "Why, he was a-going through to Californy on the train. We live down on the Rio Verde. Our dad, he's got a cattle ranch down there. Yesterday we started out to go to Flagstaff. They wouldn't let us go alone, so we runned away. We thought mebbe we could find the way there all right, but I guess we can't." The two men looked at each other in the starlight and shook their heads. "Sounds fishy," said one, immediately detecting that this statement conflicted with the one made by Felicia. "A whole lot," agreed the other. Felicia had gasped when she heard Abe fabricate so glibly. It was a surprise to her, and she was almost sorry she had cautioned him not to tell the facts to those men. "Well, you certain is off the trail, kids, providing you're bound for Flagstaff. It's right lucky we finds you. We takes you to the camp, and mebbe your dad what you speaks of pays us well if we returns you to him safe and sound. I opines he runs a pretty big ranch." "You bet," said the boy quickly. "He's got one of the biggest down that way. He has jest heaps of cattle and keeps lots of cowpunchers." "That being the case," chuckled the man who had grasped the boy's shoulder, "he certain pays liberal when he gits his children back. Now you two come along with us." He marched them along, one on either side, while his companion set out to catch the grazing horses and bring them. Felicia slipped from the man's hand and again sought Abe's side, pressing close to him. In his ear she whispered: "I am afraid we're in awful trouble now, Abe. You remember the bad men we saw in the valley before my horse ran. Perhaps these are two of them." "Better be ketched by bad men than starve," he returned, with an effort to reassure her. "I have seen heaps of bad men before this, and I am still alive." One of the horses was easily captured, but, to the surprise of the man, the other one charged viciously at him. When he sought to get at its head, the creature wheeled with a squeal and kicked wildly. The man swore. "What ails ye, drat yer?" he growled. Then he released the docile animal and turned his attention to the other. To his astonishment, the creature was fierce as a raging lion. It charged on him repeatedly, and he escaped only by the utmost nimbleness. It squealed, and whirled, and kicked in all directions. Apparently it fancied a thousand men were trying to capture it, and its wild gyrations were exceedingly surprising, to say the least. After a little, the man ran away when he found the opportunity and stood at a distance, with his hands on his hips, watching the cavorting creature. "The dinged hoss is sure crazy!" he declared. "Why, its a-trying to chew itself up, or kick itself to pieces. Never see but one critter act that way before." "It's locoed," said Abe to the man with him. Immediately this man called to his companion, saying: "Let the beast alone. The kid says it's locoed, and ef that's so, I reckon it's no good to anybody." "Never see no locoed horse feed nateral like this one was," returned the other. "I opines the critter is just ugly, that's all." But, suddenly uttering snorts and squeals, the horse went dashing off into the distance, as if pursued by some frightful thing. Nor did it stop until it had disappeared far, far away. CHAPTER XXI. THE LOTTERY OF DEATH. Men were lying about on the ground, sleeping where they had dropped. Picketed horses were grazing at a little distance. The most of the men slept heavily, but one or two routed up as the guards brought the boy and girl and the captured horse to the bivouac. "Whatever has you there?" growlingly asked one of the men who had awakened. "Some lost children we finds near yere," was the answer. Macklyn Morgan, wrapped in his blanket, had also awakened. His curiosity was aroused, and he flung off the blanket and got up. "Children!" he said. "How does it happen that there are children in this wretched region?" One of the men explained how he had heard the sound of the fiddle, which had led them to the boy and girl. He also repeated Abe's story, adding that it sounded "fishy." The interest of Morgan was redoubled at once. He immediately turned his attention to the hunchback. "Going to Flagstaff to meet Frank Merriwell's brother, did you say?" he questioned, attempting a kindly manner. "Seems to me that was rather a crazy undertaking, my lad. And what is Frank Merriwell's brother doing in Flagstaff?" "He jest said he was going there on his way to Californy," declared Abe, trying to stick to his original story and make it seem consistent. "We hope to see him there." Felicia was silent; but she felt that Abe's yarn was not believed by the men. "How did you happen to know this Dick Merriwell?" questioned Morgan. Abe started to reply, but faltered and stammered a little, whereupon Felicia quickly said: "I am his cousin." Instantly the man's interest was redoubled. "His cousin, eh?" he exclaimed. "Now we're getting at it. Curtis, start a fire. I want to look these children over." While the man thus ordered was complying Morgan continued to question the girl and boy, but now his interest seemed centred in Felicia. "So you are also the cousin of Frank Merriwell?" he said. "Tell me more about these two Merriwells. I have heard of Frank Merriwell, and I consider him a most excellent young man. I admire him very much." He endeavored to make his words sound sincere, but little Abe fancied there was a false ring in them. "You know Dick is Frank's half-brother, sir," said the girl. "He attends school in the East. I was at school in the same place once, but the climate didn't agree with me, and so Frank sent me West for my health." "Have you seen him lately?" "Yes, sir." "When?" "In Prescott, a few days ago. He was there, but some bad men made a lot of trouble for him and he left." "This boy is your brother?" asked Morgan, indicating Abe. "Why, yes, sir!" broke in Abe, quickly, seeing that Felicia would soon be trapped. "I am a sort of brother; an adopted brother, you know." "Oh, that's it?" said Morgan. "But if you were living on a ranch down on the Rio Verde, how did you happen to be in Prescott when Frank Merriwell was there?" "Why, we jest went there. Dad he took us there," hastily asserted the hunchback, seeking to maintain the original deception. "Is that true?" asked Morgan of Felicia. She was silent. "Of course it's true!" indignantly exclaimed the boy. "It seems to me that you are somewhat mixed, my child. Now, I advise you to trust me. It will be the best thing you can do. I advise you to tell me the truth. At this time we're on our way to join Frank Merriwell and help him to defend his new mines. He has many enemies, you know. We might take you directly to him." "Oh, splendid!" exclaimed the girl, all her suspicions disarmed. "Frank will be so glad! We thought, perhaps, you might be his enemy; that's why we were afraid of you." Macklyn Morgan forced a laugh, which he tried to make very pleasant and reassuring. "You see how wrong you were," he said. "You see now that it's a mistake to try to deceive me. It's best to tell me the truth and nothing else. This story about living on a ranch--how about it?" "Oh, Abe told you that when he thought you must be Frank's enemy," said Felicia. "Then it wasn't quite true?" "No, no." "And you were not on your way to Flagstaff to meet Dick Merriwell there?" "No; we left Prescott in company with Dick and some friends, who were on their way to join Frank." Felicia hastened on and told the entire story. Abe listened in doubt as to the wisdom of this, shaking his head a little, but remaining silent. "Now we're getting at the facts," smiled Morgan, as the fire was started and its light fell on his face. "It's much better for us all." He had assumed a free, benevolent, kindly expression, and to the girl it seemed that he could not be deceiving them. Morgan continued to question her until at length he learned everything he desired. "Now, my child," he said, "just you rest easy. We will soon join Frank Merriwell, and, of course, this brother of his with his friends will arrive all right in due time." Morgan then stepped over to where one of the sleeping men lay and aroused him. "Wake up, Hackett," he said, in a low tone. "Something mighty important has taken place." He then told the man what had happened, and Hackett listened attentively. "It seems to me," he said, "that these yere kids are going to be an incumbrance on us." "That's where you're wrong," asserted Morgan. "With the aid of these children we ought to be able to bring Frank Merriwell to some sort of terms." "I don't see how, sir." "Why, it's plain he thinks a lot of this girl. We have her. If that doesn't trouble him some, I am greatly mistaken." "Mebbe you're right," nodded Hackett. "I reckon I begin to see your little game, Mr. Morgan. Let me look these yere kids over some." He arose and proceeded to the fire, in company with Morgan, who cautioned him, however, to say little to the boy and girl, fearing Hackett might make some observation that would betray the truth. "She's some pretty, sir," said Gad, admiring Felicia; "though she's nothing but a kid. I reckon she makes a stunner when she gits older." "Hush!" said Morgan. "That's nothing to you." "Oh, I has an eye for female beauty!" grinned Hackett. "It's nateral with me." Suddenly, to their surprise, without the least warning, a man seemed to rise from the ground a short distance away and walk straight toward the fire. Hackett had his pistol out in a twinkling, but he stood with mouth agape as he saw the newcomer was an old Indian, about whose shoulders a dirty red blanket was draped. It was Felicia, however, who was the most surprised, and a cry left her lips, for she recognized old Joe Crowfoot. Even as she uttered that cry the eyes of the old redskin shot her a warning look that somehow silenced her. Without giving Hackett as much as a glance, old Joe walked up to the fire, before which he squatted, extending his hands to its warmth. "Well, dern me, if that don't beat the deck!" growled Hackett. "These yere red wards of the government are a-getting so they makes theirselves to home anywhere. And you never knows when they're around. Now, this yere one he pops right out o' the ground like." Then he turned savagely on Joe. "What are you prowling around yere for, you old vagrant?" he demanded threateningly. "Who are you?" Crowfoot rolled his little beady eyes up at the man. "Heap flying bird," he answered. "Go through air; go everywhere. Go through ground. White man did him see red snake with horse's head? Injun ride on red snake like the wind." "What's this jargon?" muttered Morgan. "Hark!" warned the Indian, lifting a hand. "You hear the flying lizard sing? See that big one up there. See um great green eyes." Then he stared straight upward, as if beholding something in the air. Involuntarily both men looked upward, but they saw nothing above them save the stars of the sky. Felicia, who knew old Joe very well, was more than astonished by his singular manner and remarkable words. Her first impulse had been to spring up and greet him joyously, but the look from his black eyes had stopped her. Now, as if she were a total stranger to him, he gave her no attention. Suddenly he thumped himself on the breast with his clinched fist. "Injun him all iron!" he declared. "Him like pale-face iron horse. When sun he comes up again Injun he go on white man's iron track. He blow smoke and fire and shriek same as iron horse." "Well, bat me, if the old whelp ain't daffy!" exclaimed Hackett. "He's plumb off his nut, sure as shooting." "When Injun him lay down to sleep," said Crowfoot, "many stars come and jump like antelope over him. No let him sleep. Him try to scare um away, but star no scare. Bimeby Injun he get sick. He get up and run away. Then star chase um Injun." "You're right, Hackett," said Morgan, "He's loony, for a fact." At this point one of the guards came walking up to the fire. The moment his eyes fell on Crowfoot he uttered a shout that instantly aroused every one of the sleeping men. "By the great horn toads!" he exploded savagely; "that's the old skunk what drugged the whole bunch of us when Pete Curry nabbed us! Whatever is he doing here?" Without even looking up, Crowfoot began to chant a strange, doleful song in his own language. "The boys will certain salivate him," asserted the guard, as the men were rising and approaching the fire. Old Joe apparently heard nothing and saw nothing. That singular chant continued. "He is dead loony," said Hackett. "Then mebbe he's been taking some of his own dope," growled the guard. "The boys will knock some o' his looniness out o' him, you bet!" As the men gathered around, a number of them recognized the aged redskin, and immediately there was a great commotion. Several drew their weapons, and it seemed that Joe would be murdered on the spot. With a scream of terror, Felicia flung herself before the old man, to whom she clung. "No! no! no!" she cried. "You shall not hurt him!" In the excitement old Joe whispered in her ear: "Keep still, Night Eyes. Um bad men no hurt Joe. Him touched by Great Spirit. Nobody hurt um man touched by Great Spirit." This, then, was the old fellow's scheme. This explained how it happened that he dared venture into the nest of desperadoes. Among the Indians of all tribes a deranged man is regarded with awe as one who has felt the touch of the Great Spirit. No redskin will harm a deranged person, believing the vengeance of the Great Father must fall on whoever does such a thing. Shrewd as he was, Crowfoot had not yet discovered that palefaces did not regard crazed people with such a feeling of awe. "Take the girl away," roared several of the men. "Let us settle with the old Injun." If Morgan thought of interfering, he was too late, for rude hands seized Felicia and dragged her away, in spite of her struggles. She cried and pleaded, but all her efforts were useless. Crowfoot paid no attention to her, nor did he heed the threatening weapons in the hands of the ruffians. Rising to his feet, he did a solemn dance around the fire, at the same time continuing his doleful chant. "That yere certain is a death dance for him," muttered Hackett, who realized that the men were aroused to a pitch at which they would insist on wiping the fellow out. "The black moon him soon come up," said Joe, standing with one hand outstretched as he finished his dance. "Then we see spirits of many dead warriors chase um buffalo over it." "You will have a chance to take a chase with the rest o' the bunch," snarled one of the men. "Stand back, boys, and watch me cook him." "Hold on!" cried another, catching the man's wrist. "I opine I am in this yere." Immediately an argument arose as to which of them should have the satisfaction of killing the Indian who had once fooled them so thoroughly. While this was taking place Joe continued, apparently oblivious of his danger, talking of flying horses and a dozen other impossible creatures. He must have realized that his apparent madness was making no impression on these men, but he seemed determined to play the game through to the finish. At length, he squatted again beside the fire, resuming his doleful chant. By this time it had been settled that some one of the party should have the privilege of shooting the Indian, for it was agreed that to waste a number of bullets on him was folly. There was some discussion as to the manner of choosing the slayer, but the desperadoes finally decided on drawing lots. Hackett, who took no part in this demand for the Indian's life, was chosen to prepare the lots, which he did. Then the men eagerly pressed forward to draw. The one who drew the shortest piece was to be the "fortunate" individual. All the while Crowfoot was guarded by men with drawn and ready weapons. Had he made an effort to get away he would have been riddled immediately. Finally the lots were compared, and a half-blood Mexican, with leathery skin, drooping mustache, deep-furrowed face, and matted black hair, was the one who held the shortest piece. He laughed as he displayed it. "Stand back!" he cried, flashing a pistol and striding forward to within four paces of the Indian. "I will settle him with one piece of lead." Then, as this wretch lifted his weapon, old Joe realized at last that his game had failed utterly. There was no escape for him. His long life had led him at last to this, and he believed he stood at the gateway of the happy hunting grounds. Had there been hope of escape he would have made the attempt. Now, as he still crouched by the fire, he drew his red blanket over his head, and from beneath its muffling folds came the sad and doleful chant of the redman's death song. The executioner stood fair and full in the firelight. He brought his weapon to a level and a shot rang out. It was not he, however, who fired. From somewhere near at hand a report sounded, and the pistol flew from his hand as the bullet tore through his forearm. A yell of pain escaped his lips. Instantly the ruffians were thrown into the utmost confusion. Feeling that they were about to be attacked, they hastened to get away from the fire, the light of which must betray them to the enemy. In spite of his age, like a leaping panther, old Joe shot to his feet. With one hand he seized little Abe, whom he snatched clear of the ground. And the next instant the old savage was running for his life. Two or three shots were fired, but in the excitement Crowfoot was untouched. They were given no further time to turn their attention on him. From out of the shadows came a single horseman, bearing straight down upon them, his weapons flashing. The recklessness of this charge and the astounding suddenness with which it came was too much for the nerves of those men. Felicia had been released by the man who was holding her as the first shot was fired. This man pulled a weapon and fired once at the shadowy horseman, after which he ran like a frightened antelope, for a screaming bullet had cut his ear. It seemed that the horseman meant to ride Felicia down. In her fear she stood still, as if turned to stone, which was the best thing she could have done. As he swept past her, the rider swung low to one side in the saddle, and somehow one strong young hand grasped her and snatched her from the ground. She felt herself lifted with such suddenness that her breath seemed snapped away, and then she lay across the horse in front of the rider, who now bent low over her. Bullets whined, and whistled, and sang about them, but some good fairy must have guarded them, for they were untouched. On they went. The sounds of irregular shooting fell farther and farther behind them. Felicia had not fainted, although her senses swam and she seemed on the verge of losing consciousness. She could not understand just what had taken place. Suddenly her rescuer began to laugh, and a strange, wild, boyish laugh it was. It thrilled her through and through. "Dick!" she gasped. "Oh, Dick!" He straightened up and lifted her, holding her before him with one strong arm. "Felicia!" he exclaimed, "are you hurt?" "Oh, Dick! Dick!" she repeated, in wonder. "And is it you?" "You are not hurt?" he persisted in questioning. "No, Dick--no." "Thank goodness!" "But how was it? My head is swimming; I can't understand. I am dazed." "Well, I fancy I dazed those fine gentlemen a little," said the boy. "Felicia, I have been searching, searching everywhere for you. We followed your trail as well as we could. When night came we had not found you. I couldn't rest. What fate it was that led me to those ruffians I cannot say, but I believe the hand of Heaven was in it. In their excitement over Crowfoot none of them heard my approach. I was quite near when that brute lifted his weapon to shoot Joe. I didn't want to kill him, and I fired at his arm. It was a lucky shot, for I hit him. He stood between me and the firelight, so that the light fell on the barrel of my pistol. Crowfoot took his cue quickly enough, for I saw him scamper." "How brave you are! How brave you are!" murmured the girl, in untold admiration. "Oh, Dick, I can't believe it now." "It was not such a brave thing, after all," he said. "I suppose most people would call it folly. But I had to do it. Why, old Joe saved my life a dozen times when I used to hunt with him years ago. He loved me as a father might love a son. You see it was impossible for me to keep still and see him murdered. I had to do something to save him. He can hide like a gopher on the open plain." "But Abe, Dick--Abe?" "I saw Crowfoot snatch him up as he ran. We must leave Abe to old Joe." "Listen, Dick! Are they pursuing us?" "We have the start on them, Felicia, and I don't believe they will be able to overtake us if they try it." Through the night they rode. At the first opportunity Dick turned from his course and doubled in a manner intended to baffle the pursuers. "It will be a long pull back to Bart and the others, Felicia," he said; "but I think we can make it all right. For all of the time I have spent at school, I have not forgotten the lessons taught me by Crowfoot when I was a mere kid. He taught me to set my course by the stars, the wind, the trees, by a score of things. To-night our guide shall be the stars." Brad Buckhart was worried and troubled greatly over Dick's long absence, and was on guard where they had camped as night fell. The Texan tramped restlessly up and down, now and then pausing to listen. The others slept. Wiley snored lustily and muttered in his sleep. "Avast, there!" he mumbled. "Put her to port, you lubber!" Then, after snoring again in the most peaceful manner, he broke out: "Right over the corner of the pan, Breck, old boy. Let's see you make a home run off that bender!" Brad moved still farther away that he might listen without being disturbed by the sailor. Far in the night he seemed to hear a sound. Kneeling, he leaned his ear close to the ground and listened attentively. "Horseman coming," he decided. "It must be Dick--it must be!" Finally the hoofbeats of the approaching horse became more and more distinct. Then through the still, clear night came a clear, faint whistle. "Dick it is!" exclaimed the Texan joyously. Dick it was, and with him he brought Felicia safely back to them. They did not arouse the others, but she was wrapped in blankets and left to sleep, if possible, through the remainder of the still, cool night. Young Merriwell's story filled the Texan with unbounded astonishment and admiration. He seized Dick's hand and shook it with almost savage delight. "Talk about a howling terror on ten wheels!" he exclaimed. "Why, you simply beat the universe. You hear me gurgle! Now you just turn in, for I reckon you're a whole lot pegged out." "Well, sleep won't hurt me if I can corral some of it," acknowledged Dick. Brad continued to stand guard, thinking that later he would arouse one of the others to take his place. His restlessness and worry had passed somewhat, and after a time he sat down, thinking over the startling things that had happened. It was thus that, exhausted more than he knew, he finally slid to the ground and also slept. The night passed without any of them being disturbed. But in the morning the first man to awaken was Pete Curry, who sat up, rubbing his eyes, and uttered a shout of astonishment. The remaining sleepers awoke and started up. What they saw astounded them no less than it had Curry, for on the ground near at hand lay little Abe, with Joe Crowfoot's dirty red blanket tucked about him, and within three feet sat the redskin, calmly and serenely smoking his pipe. Dick flung off his blanket and was on his feet in a twinkling. "Crowfoot!" he joyously cried, rushing forward with his arms outstretched. For one who complained of rheumatism and advancing age the redskin rose with remarkable quickness. Usually stolid and indifferent in manner, the look that now came to his wrinkled, leathery face was one of such deep feeling and affection that it astounded every one but himself. The old man clasped Dick in his arms as a father might a long-lost son. To Curry and his companions this was a most singular spectacle. Curry had seized a weapon on discovering Crowfoot. He did not use it when the old fellow remained silent and indifferent after his shout of astonishment and alarm. That the boy should embrace the Indian in such an affectionate manner seemed almost disgusting to Curry and his assistants, all three of whom held Indians in the utmost contempt. For a moment it seemed that the old man's heart was too full for speech. Finally, with a strange tenderness and depth of feeling in his voice, he said: "Injun Heart, Great Spirit heap good to old Joe! He let him live to see you some more. What him eyes see make him heart swell with heap big gladness. Soon him go to happy hunting ground; now him go and make um no big kick 'bout it." "Joe, I have longed to see you again," declared Dick, his voice unsteady and a mist in his eyes. "Sometimes my heart has yearned for the old days with you on the plains and amid the mountains. I have longed to be with you again, hunting the grizzly, or sleeping in the shade by a murmuring brook and beneath whispering trees. Then you taught me the secrets of the wild animals and the birds. I have forgotten them now, Joe. I can no longer call the birds and tiny animals of the forest to me. In that way I am changed, Joe; but my heart remains the same toward you, and ever will." Now the old redskin held Dick off by both shoulders and surveyed him up and down with those beady eyes, which finally rested on the boy's handsome face with a look of inexpressible admiration. "Heap fine! Heap fine!" said the old man. "Joe him know it. Joe him sure you make great man. Joe him no live to see you have whiskers on um face, but you sure make great man. Joe him getting heap close to end of trail. Rheumatism crook him and make um swear sometime." "Don't talk about getting near the end of the trail, Crowfoot," laughed Dick, whose heart was full of delight over this meeting. "You old hypocrite! I saw you last night! I saw you when you took to your heels after I perforated the gentleman who contemplated cutting your thread of life short. Rheumatism! Why, you deceptive old rascal, you ran like a deer! If your rheumatism was very bad, you couldn't take to your heels in that fashion." Crowfoot actually grinned. "Injun him have to run," he asserted. "Bullets come fast and thick. If Injun him run slow mebbe he get ketched by bullet." Little Abe had risen on one elbow, the blanket falling from his shoulders, and watched the meeting between Dick and the old savage. Felicia also was awakened, and now she came hastening forward, her dark eyes aglow and a slight flush in her delicate cheeks. "Joe! Joe! have you forgotten me?" she asked. The redskin turned at once and held out his hands to her. "Night Eyes," he said, with such softness that all save Dick and Felicia were astonished, "little child of silent valley hid in mountains, next to Injun Heart, old Joe him love you most. You good to old Joe. Long time 'go Joe he come to valley hid in mountains and he sit by cabin there. He see you play with Injun Heart. Warm sun shine in valley through long, long day. All Joe do he smoked, and sat, and watched. Bimeby when Night Eyes was very tired she come crawling close up side old Joe and lean her head 'gainst Joe, and sleep shut her eyes. Then old Joe him keep still. When Injun Heart he come near old Joe, him say, 'Sh-h!' He hold up his hand; he say, 'Keep much still.' Then mebbe Night Eyes she sleep and sleep, and sun he go down, and birds they sing last good-night song, and stars shine out, and old Joe him sit still all the time. Oh, he no forget--he no forget!" Somehow the simple words of the old redskin brought back all the past, which seemed so very, very far away, and tears welled from Felicia's eyes. "Oh, those were happy days, Joe--happy days!" she murmured. "I fear I shall never be so happy again--never, never!" "Oh, must be happy!" declared the old fellow. "Dick him make um Night Eyes happy. Him look out for Night Eyes." "Just the same," she declared, "I would give anything, anything, to be back in that valley now, just as I was long, long ago." With his head cocked on one side, Cap'n Wiley had been watching the meeting between the Indian and his young friends. Wiley now turned to Buckhart and remarked: "I am learning extensively in this variegated world. As the years roll on my accumulation of knowledge increases with susceptible rapidity. Up to the present occasion I have been inclined to think that about the only thing a real Injun could be good for was for a target. It seems to my acute perception that in this immediate instance there is at least one exception to the rule. Although yonder copper-hued individual looks somewhat scarred and weather-beaten, I observe that Richard Merriwell hesitates in no degree to embrace him. Who is the old tike, mate?" "Why, old Joe Crowfoot!" answered Brad. "The only Indian I ever saw of his kind." Immediately Wiley approached old Joe, walking teeteringly on the balls of his feet, after his own peculiar fashion, made a salute, and exclaimed: "I salute you, Joseph Crowfoot, Esquire, and may your shadow never grow less. May you take your medicine regularly and live to the ripe round age of one hundred years. Perhaps you don't know me. Perhaps you haven't heard of me. That is your misfortune. I am Cap'n Wiley, a rover of the briny deep and a corking first-class baseball player. Ever play baseball, Joe, old boy? It's a great game. You would enjoy it. In my mind's eye I see you swing the bat like a war club and swat the sphere hard enough to dent it. Or perchance you are attempting to overhaul the base runner, and I see him fleeing wildly before you, as if he fancied you were reaching for his scalp locks." "Ugh!" grunted old Joe. "No know who um be; but know heap good name for um. Joe he give you name. He call you Wind-in-the-head." At this the others, with the exception of Wiley himself, laughed outright. The sailor, however, did not seem at all pleased. "It's plain, Joseph," he observed, "that you have a reckless little habit of getting gay occasionally. Take my advice and check that habit before it leads you up against a colossal calamity." "Wind-in-the-head he talk heap many big words," said the Indian. "Mebbe sometime he talk big words that choke him." "That's a choke, Wiley," laughed Dick. "And that certainly is the worst pun it has ever been my misfortune to hear," half sobbed the sailor. "One more like that would give me heart failure. Did you ever hear of the time I had heart failure in that baseball game with the Cleveland Nationals? Well, mates, it was----" "We can't stand one of them before breakfast, Wiley," interrupted Dick. "It may prove too much for us. After breakfast we will endeavor to listen while you relate one of your harrowing experiences." "But this thing is burning in my bosom. I long to disgorge it." "You have to let it burn, I think. We should be on the move by this time." Thus Wiley was repressed and prevented from relating one of his marvelous yarns, not a little to his disgust. CHAPTER XXII. AN ACT OF TREACHERY. It was past midday. Guided by Wiley, who seemed to know the way well, the party had pushed on into the mountains and followed a course that led them over ragged slopes and steep declivities. Finally the sailor paused and turned. "There, mates," he said, stretching out his hand, "barely half a mile away lies the Enchanted Valley. I have a tickling fancy that we have reached it ahead of that delectable crew we sought to avoid." Even as he said this, Pete Curry uttered an exclamation and pointed toward the mouth of a ragged ravine or fissure, from which at this moment several horsemen suddenly debouched. They were followed closely by a band of men on foot. "That's the whole bunch!" exclaimed Curry. "And they're coming as fast as they can chase theirselves. They are heading to cut us off." "That's right!" burst from Dick. "We've got to make a dash for it. Lead the way, Wiley, and be sure you make no mistake." A hot dash it was for the fissure that led into the Enchanted Valley. The enemy, yelling like a lot of savages, did their best to cut the party off. Seeing they would fail at this, they opened fire, and a few bullets sang dangerously near the fugitives. "Oh, bilge-water and brine!" muttered the sailor. "There'll certainly be doings when we attempt to scurry down that crack into the valley! It's going to be a very disagreeable piece of business for us." Nearer and nearer they came to the fissure for which they were heading. Straight toward the beginning of it they raced, Wiley telling Dick it would be necessary for several of them to halt there and try to stand off the enemy while the rest of the party descended. But as they reached the beginning of the fissure, from behind some bowlders two young men opened fire with repeating rifles on the pursuers. In a moment the hail of bullets sent into the ranks of the enemy threw them into confusion. A horse dropped in its tracks, and another, being wounded, began bucking and kicking. One man was hit in the shoulder. This unexpected occurrence threw the pursuers into consternation, so that they wheeled immediately and sought to get beyond rifle range. "Avast there, my hearties!" cried Wiley, as he caught sight of the youths who knelt behind the bowlders. "Permit me to lay alongside and join you in the merry carnage." "Hello, Wiley!" called Frank, who, aided by Hodge, had checked the ruffians. "It seems that we happened up this way at just about the right time." "At the precise psychological moment," nodded the marine marvel. "This being just in time is getting habitual with you." While the enemy was still in confusion Frank and Bart hastened to join the new arrivals and greet them. Of course they were surprised to see Curry and his companions, and the story told by the deputy sheriff, who explained everything in a few words, made clear the cause of his unexpected reappearance at the valley. "A ministerial-looking gentleman who called himself Felton Cleveland, eh?" said Frank. "He was with the gang that cut loose your prisoners, was he? Well, I am dead sure Felton Cleveland is----" "Macklyn Morgan!" cried Dick. "I saw him last night. He is the man." "And Macklyn Morgan is the instigator of this whole business," said Frank. "Wiley, get Abe and Felicia down into the valley without delay. We have got to stand this gang off right here. We can't afford to let them reach this entrance to the valley. We're in for a siege. You will find provisions down there at the cabin. Bring supplies when you return. Abe and Felicia will be safe down there as long as we hold this passage." "Ay, ay, sir!" said the sailor. "I am yours to command." Fortunately near the mouth of the fissure there were heaped-up bowlders which seemed to form something of a natural fortress. Behind these rocks the defenders concealed themselves, their horses being taken down into the valley one after another. For a long time the enemy made no offensive move. It seemed to Frank and his friends that the ruffians had been dismayed by their warm reception, and they seemed disagreeing. "If they will only chew the rag and get into trouble among themselves, it will be greatly to our advantage," said Hodge. "Let them sail right into us if they are looking for a warm time!" exclaimed Brad Buckhart, who seemed thirsting for more trouble. "I opine we can give them all they want." Wiley brought a supply of provisions from the valley, and the defenders satiated their hunger while ensconced behind the bowlders. "This is even better than salt horse," declared Wiley, munching away. "One time when shipwrecked in the South Atlantic, longitude unty-three, latitude oxty-one, I subsisted on raw salt horse for nineteen consecutive days. That was one of the most harrowing experiences of my long and sinuous career." "Spare us! Spare us!" exclaimed Frank. "We have got to stand off those ruffians, so don't deprive us of our nerve and strength." "Look here!" exclaimed the sailor, "this thing is getting somewhat monotonous! Whenever I attempt to tell a little nannygoat somebody rises up and yells, 'Stop it!' Pretty soon I will get so I'll have to talk to myself. There was a man I knew once who kept a bowling alley and the doctor told him he mustn't talk; but he kept right on talking. He talked everybody deaf, and dumb, and black, and blue, and stone-blind, so at last there was nobody left for him to talk to but himself. Then he went to talking to himself in his sleep, which disturbed him so that he always woke up and couldn't sleep. The result was that he became so utterly exhausted for the want of rest that it was necessary to take him to the hospital. But even in the hospital they couldn't keep him still until they gagged him. That was the only thing that saved his life. What a sad thing it would be if anything like that should happen to me!" Late in the afternoon the enemy made a move. Protected by rocks and such cover as they could find, they attempted to close in on the defenders of the valley. Frank was keenly alert, and he discovered this move almost as soon as it began. Immediately he posted his companions where they could watch, and they agreed on a dead line, across which they would not permit the ruffians to creep without firing on them. As the ruffians drew nearer the cover was less available, and when the dead line was crossed the defenders opened fire on them. Within three minutes several of the enemy had been wounded, and the advance was not only checked, but the ruffians were filled with such dismay that the greater part of them took to their heels and fled. Several of these might have been shot down, but Frank would not permit it. "I opine that just about gives them all they want for a while," said Brad Buckhart. It seemed that he was right. The besiegers disappeared amid the rocks, and the afternoon crept on with no further effort in that direction to enter the valley by assault. Some of the defenders were beginning to wonder if the enemy had not given up when, with the sun hanging low, a man appeared in the distance, waving a white handkerchief, attached like a flag to the end of a stick. "Whatever's up now?" muttered Pete Curry. "It is a flag of truce," said Merry. "Look out, Frank!" exclaimed Bart. "It may be a trick." Merry rose and stood on a mound of bowlders, drawing out his own handkerchief and waved it in return. "What are you going to do?" asked Hodge. "I am going to find out what they are up to," was the answer. "I tell you it may be a trick." "We will see." The man in the distance with the flag of truce immediately advanced alone. Barely had he walked out into full view when Merry said: "It is Macklyn Morgan, or my eyes are no good!" "Old Joe he fix um," said the aged Indian, carefully thrusting his rifle over the rocks and preparing to take aim. "Stop him!" exclaimed Merry. "Don't let him fire on a man with a white flag!" The old savage seemed greatly surprised and disappointed when he was prevented from shooting. "When um Morgan man he is killed that stop all trouble," said Joe. "Good chance to do it." "Watch him close, Dick," directed Frank. "I am going out there to meet Morgan." "Let me go with you." "No; he's alone. I will go alone. He is taking his chances. If anything happens to me, if one of those ruffians should fire on me, Morgan knows my friends here will shoot him down. Still, there may be some trick about it, and I want every one of you to watch close and be on the alert." "Depend on us, Frank," said Dick. "Only I'm sorry you won't let me go with you." A few moments later Merriwell strode out boldly from the rocks, with the white handkerchief still fluttering in his hand, advancing to meet Morgan, who was slowly coming forward. They met in the centre of the open space near the little heap of bowlders. In grim silence, regarding his enemy with accusing eyes, Merry waited for Morgan to open the conversation. "This is a very unfortunate affair, young man," said the hypocritical money king. "I am sorry it has happened." "Are you?" asked Frank derisively. "I am, I am," nodded Morgan. "It's very bad--very bad." "If you feel so bad about it, sir, it's the easiest thing in the world for you to bring it to an end." "But you are the one to terminate it, young man." "How do you make that out?" "You know how you can settle this affair without delay. You heard my proposition in Prescott." "I believe I did. It was very interesting as the proposition of a thoroughly unscrupulous man." "Don't get insulting, Mr. Merriwell. I am doing my duty. Milton Sukes was my partner. Do you think I can conscientiously ignore the fact that he was murdered?" "I fail to understand what that has to do with me." "You know I have proofs," said Morgan sternly. "You know they will convict you." "I know nothing of the sort. You have no proofs that are worth being called that." "Everything points accusingly and decisively at you. You were Mr. Sukes' bitter enemy. It was to your advantage that he should be put out of the way. He annoyed you. He gave you great trouble." "And I fancy, Macklyn Morgan, that I annoyed him a little. But why do you pretend that it is on his account you are carrying out this lawless piece of business? You know its nature. You know in your heart that you are a hypocrite. You have even offered, if I turn over my property to you here, to make no proceeding against me. Is that the way you obtain justice for your dead partner? Is that the sort of justice you are looking for, Morgan? Don't talk to me of justice! I know the sort of man you are! I know you from the ground up!" "Be careful! Be careful! You are making a mistake, young man. Mr. Sukes annoyed you and harassed you because he believed you held property that he should possess--property that rightfully belonged to him. He obtained no satisfaction from you. If I am willing to settle with you by securing possession of this undeveloped mine here, which I now offer to do, you ought to think yourself getting off easy. It is not often that I enter into an affair of this sort. It is not often that I take hold of it personally. I allow my agents to carry such things through under my directions. In this case, however, I have considered it best to see the matter to an end myself. I confess that it seemed probable that you might be too slick for my agents." "No thanks whatever for the compliment. Have you anything new to propose, Mr. Morgan?" "My proposition is this: that you and your companions retire at once from this vicinity, and if you do I give you my word that you will not be molested. It is an easy and simple way to settle this whole affair. If you comply, we will let the Sukes matter drop where it is. You will escape prosecution for murder. Think well of it--think well. It is the best thing you can do. You are trapped now. You are penned in here and you can't get out. If we see fit, we can lay siege to this place and keep you here until we starve you out. In the end you will be compelled to surrender. In the end you will lose everything. If you force me to such a course, not only will I obtain possession of this undeveloped mine, but I tell you now that I shall do my best to see you hanged for the murder of Milton Sukes." Frank laughed in the man's face. "It's plain," he said, "that even now, Macklyn Morgan, you don't understand me. It's plain that you still fancy it possible to frighten me. You are wasting your time, sir. Go ahead with your siege and see what comes of it." This seemed to enrage Morgan, for suddenly he violently shook the flag at Frank and cried: "Then take the result of your obstinacy!" Instantly there were several puffs of white smoke from beyond the distant rocks and Frank pitched forward upon his face. At the same moment Macklyn Morgan made a spring and dropped behind a little pile of bowlders, where he was fully protected from the defenders of the valley. Apparently Frank had been treacherously shot down in cold blood while under the flag of truce. The watchers of the defense were horrified as they saw Frank fall. Dick uttered a savage cry and would have rushed out from behind the rocks had he not been seized by Brad Buckhart. "Steady, pard--steady!" warned the Texan, finding it difficult to detain young Merriwell. "Let go!" panted Dick. "Don't you see! My brother! The dastardly wretches have shot him!" "And do you propose to prance out there and let them shoot you up, too? Do you propose to let these measly galoots wipe out the Merriwell family in a bunch? Cool down, pard, and have some sense." Bart Hodge had been no less excited than Dick, and nothing could have prevented him from rushing forth to Frank had he not suddenly made a discovery as he sprang up. His eyes were on his chum of school and college days, and he saw Frank quickly roll over and over until he lay close against a bowlder, where he would be protected in case the enemy fired again. Then, as he lay thus, Merry lifted the hand that still clutched the white handkerchief and waved it in a signal to his friends. Hodge was shaking in every limb. "He is not killed!" he exclaimed. "Heap keep still," came from old Joe. "No shot at all. Him all right. Him see gun flash, him drop quick, bullets go over um. Him fool bad palefaces a heap." "What's that?" fluttered Dick. "Do you mean that he wasn't hurt, Joe?" "No hurt him much," asserted the old savage, "Strong Heart he have keen eye. He watch all the time. He see gun flash. He see smoke. He drop quick." It was not easy to make Dick believe his brother had not been hurt, but Frank managed to convey to them by signals that he was all right. Their relief was unbounded. Indeed, Dick's eyes filled with a mist of joy, although his anxiety was intense, for he feared that his brother might still be in a position where the enemy could get further shots at him. Frank, however, hugged the rocks closely, and there was no more shooting. On the other side of the bowlders lay Macklyn Morgan, his evil heart filled with triumph, for he believed Merriwell had been slain. His astonishment was unbounded when he heard Frank's voice calling his name. "Morgan," called Merry, "can you hear me?" "Yes, I hear you," answered the astounded villain. "So they didn't kill you outright, did they?" "Hardly that," returned Merry. "They didn't even touch me." "What did you say?" burst from Morgan. "Why, those men were the best shots in our party! They were carefully chosen for this piece of business." "A fine piece of business, Macklyn Morgan!" contemptuously retorted Merry. "And you planned it, I presume! You are a smooth-faced, hypocritical man of wealth, known far and wide and greatly respected because of your riches. Yet you have descended to a piece of business like this! Sukes was bad enough, Morgan; but you're a hundred times worse. You have failed in your most dastardly plot, just as you will fail in everything. Lie still, Macklyn Morgan. Keep close to those rocks where you are, for if you show yourself you will be riddled by my watching friends. From this time on your life will not be worth a pinch of snuff if they get a chance at you." So the two men, the fearless youth and the treacherous money king, lay each sheltered by the bowlders while the sun sank in the west and day slipped softly into night. When the shadows had deepened sufficiently, Frank crept away on his stomach toward the valley, taking the utmost pains not to expose himself, and, through his skill in this, returned at last in safety to his friends, who welcomed him joyously. "Heap well done!" grunted old Joe. "But now Strong Heart him know more than to trust um bad men. No do it some more." Dick was able to repress his emotion, although Frank read in the few words his brother said the intense anxiety he had felt. "What will be their next move?" exclaimed Hodge. "They will attempt to overpower us by some sudden move to-night," said Frank. "We must remain on the alert every moment." The stars came out bright and clear, as they always do in that Southwestern land, and, if possible, their light seemed more brilliant than usual. The night advanced, and still the enemy before them remained silent. It was Curry who discovered something down in the valley that attracted his attention and interested him. He called the attention of Frank, who saw down there a light waving to and fro and then in circles. "Whatever does yer make of that, pard Merriwell?" asked Curry. "It's a signal," said Frank--"a signal from Abe and Felicia. They are seeking to attract our attention. I must go down there at once." "There's trouble of some sort down there, Frank," said Dick, who had reached his brother's side. "Let's go quickly." Merry found Bart and directed him to take charge of the defense at that point and be constantly on the alert. With Dick close behind him, he hastened down the fissure leading into the valley. In the narrow place through which they descended the starlight was dim and uncertain, yet they hastened with reckless speed. Reaching the valley, they made straight for the cabin, where the signal light was still waving. As they drew near, they saw the grotesque figure of little Abe swinging a lighted torch over his head and then waving it round and round. The flaring torch revealed Felicia, who stood near. "What's the matter, Abe?" demanded Frank, as he dashed up. "I am glad you saw it! I am glad you came!" said the boy. "Frank, those men are trying to get into the valley another way." "Where? How?" "Felicia saw them first. Some of them are on the other side." "But there is no entrance save the one we are defending." "They are planning to get in by descending the face of the precipice. We saw them creep down over the rocks, three or four of them, and it took them a long time. They have reached a precipice that is perpendicular." "That should stop them." "I watched them through your field glasses, which I found in the cabin. They were letting themselves down with the aid of ropes." "Ropes?" exclaimed Dick. "A new game," said Frank. "Can they descend that way?" questioned the boy. "It's possible," admitted Frank. "Show us where they are, Abe. Drop that torch and lose not a moment." The hunchback led the way, running on before them, and they followed him closely. As they came at length to the vicinity of the precipice, they saw through the pale starlight that Abe had spoken truly, for already long lariats had been spliced together, and, by the aid of these, which now dangled from the top of the precipice to the bottom, one of the men had already begun to descend. They saw the shadowy figure of his companions waiting above, and it seemed that the men did not dare trust themselves more than one at a time upon the spliced rope. "We've got to stop that, Frank!" panted Dick. "We will stop it," said Merry. "Don't attract attention. Let's get nearer." They stole forward still nearer, watching the man as he came down slowly and carefully. This man had descended almost half the distance when a sudden rifle shot broke the stillness of the valley. Immediately, with a cry, the dark form of a man dropped like a stone. Frank and his companions had been startled by the shot, but Merry instantly recognized the peculiar spang of the rifle. "Old Joe!" whispered Merry. As they stood there a silent figure came slipping toward them, and the old Indian stopped close at hand. "Bad men no come down that way," he said quietly. "Joe him shoot pretty good--pretty good. Joe him think mebbe he shoot four, five, six times, he might cut rope. Joe him shoot once, him cut rope. Joe him got rheumatism. Him pretty old, but him shoot pretty good." "Was that what you fired at?" asked Merry, in astonishment. "You didn't shoot at the man on the rope?" "Plenty time to shoot man when Joe him find out he no cut rope," was the retort. "When rope him cut one man he come down pretty fast. Him strike, bump! Mebbe it jar him some." "The fall must have killed him instantly," said Frank. "If you cut that rope, Joe, you have spoiled their attack on this side of the valley. Stay here. Watch sharp, and make sure they don't resume the attempt. If they do, Abe can signal again." "All right," said Crowfoot. "Me watch." With this assurance, Frank felt safe to return again to the defenders above, and Dick returned with him. When he told what had taken place in the valley Cap'n Wiley observed: "I had it in for Joseph Crowfoot, Esquire, for calling me Wind-in-the-head; but I will overlook the insult. Evidently the old boy is a whole army in himself." As they lay waiting for the attack they fully expected must take place, there came to their ears from the direction in which the enemy was supposed to be the sounds of shots, followed immediately by hoarse yelling and more shooting. "Well, what do you make of that, Merry?" cried Hodge. "There seems to be a ruction of some sort going on over there." Frank listened a few moments. The sound of the shooting receded, and the yelling seemed dying out in the distance. "It may be a trick," he said; "but I am in hopes those ruffians have quarreled among themselves. If it is a trick, we will keep still and wait. Time will tell what has happened." Time did tell, but all through the rest of the night they waited in vain for the attack. When morning finally dawned the mountains lay silent in the flood of light which poured from the rising sun. Nowhere was the enemy to be discovered. Old Joe came up to them from the valley and declared that the men on the other side had been driven away. The fate of their comrade seemed to dishearten them, and they had crept back like snails over the rocks and vanished during the night. It was the old Indian who set out to find what had happened among the besiegers led by Morgan. He slipped away among the rocks and brush and vanished like a phantom. He was gone an hour or more when he suddenly reappeared and beckoned to them. "Come see," he invited. They knew it was safe to follow him, and they did so. Where the enemy had been ensconced they found one man, sorely wounded and in a critical condition. That was all. The others, to the last rascal of them, had vanished. "Where have they gone, Joe?" exclaimed Frank. "Ask him," directed the Indian, motioning toward the wounded man. "Mebbe he tell." This man was questioned, and the story he told surprised and satisfied the defenders beyond measure. Disgusted over their failure to get into the valley, the ruffians had plotted among themselves. A number of them had devised a plan which to them seemed likely to be profitable. Knowing Macklyn Morgan was a very rich man, they had schemed to take him personally, carry him off, and hold him in captivity until he should pay them handsomely for his freedom. Not all the ruffians had been taken into this plot, and when the schemers started to carry Morgan off there was an outbreak and some shooting, but they got away successfully. With Morgan and the leading spirits of the affair gone, the others quickly decided to give up the assault on the valley, and that was why they had departed in the night, leaving the wounded man behind to such mercy as Merriwell and his friends might show. "Well, what do you think of that?" exclaimed Dick. "Think?" said Frank, with a laugh. "Why, I think Macklyn Morgan has been caught in his own trap. Now let him get out of it!" CHAPTER XXIII. NEW RICHES PROMISED. When a week had passed Frank and his friends began to feel that all their troubles were over, for the time being, at least. Old Joe Crowfoot, who had been scouting in the vicinity, reported that he found no signs of probable marauders and himself settled down contentedly to smoke and loaf in the warm sunshine of the valley. With Dick and Felicia near, where he could watch them occasionally or hear their voices, the peaceful happiness of the old fellow seemed complete. Cap'n Wiley likewise loafed to his heart's content And if ever a person could make a whole-souled and hearty success of loafing it was the cap'n. He became so friendly with Crowfoot that old Joe even permitted him sometimes to smoke his pipe. One beautiful morning the entire party was gathered in front of Merriwell's cabin talking things over. "There seems nothing now, Frank, to prevent us from securing miners and opening up this new claim," said Hodge. "Macklyn Morgan seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth." "Perhaps he has learned that it is dangerous for a man like him to attempt dealing with the ruffians of this part of the country," put in Dick. "It seems certain now that he was actually carried into captivity by the very gang he employed to seize these mines." "But he will get free all right," declared Frank. "He will turn up again sometime." "If they don't kill him any," said Buckhart. "They won't do that," asserted Merriwell. "They can make nothing out of him in that fashion; but they might make a good thing by forcing him to pay a large sum for his liberty." "Well, now that everything seems all right here, Frank," said Dick, "I suppose Brad and I will have to light out for the East and old Fardale." "Waugh! That certain is right!" exclaimed the Texan. "We must be on hand, pard, when Fardale gets into gear for baseball this spring." "Baseball!" cried Wiley, giving a great start. "Why, that word thrills my palpitating bosom. Baseball! Why, I will be in great shape for the game this season! My arm is like iron. Never had such a fine arm on me before. Speed! Why, I will put 'um over the plate like peas! Curves! Why, my curves will paralyze 'um this year!" "Ugh!" grunted old Joe. "Wind-in-the-head blow a heap. Him talk a lot with him jaw. Mebbe him jaw git tired sometime." "Look here, Joseph," expostulated Wiley, "I don't like sarcasm. If I didn't love you as a brother, I might resent it." "Great horn spoon!" cried Buckhart, scratching vigorously. "These fleas are the biggest and worst I ever saw. You hear me murmur!" "What, these?" squealed Wiley, in derision. "Why, these little creatures are nothing at all--nothing at all. They just tickle a fellow up a bit. Fleas! Say, mates, you should have seen the fleas I have beheld in my tempestuous career. You should have seen the fleas I met up with in the heart of darkest Africa. Those were the real thing. Don't 'spose I ever told you about those fleas?" And he told them a long and wonderful story about African fleas. "Ugh!" grunted the old Indian, when Wiley had finished. "Wind-in-the-head biggest blame liar old Joe ebber see." Some days later, with the exception of Hodge and Crowfoot, Frank and the rest of his party arrived in Prescott. Hodge and the aged redskin were left, together with one of Pete Curry's men, to guard the valley after a fashion. Besides going to Prescott for the purpose of seeing his brother and Buckhart off, Frank had several other objects in view. With him he brought considerable ore, taken from the quartz vein they had located in the valley, and also a small leather pouch that was nearly filled with dull yellow grains and particles washed from the placer mine. With these specimens Frank proceeded direct to an assayer, who was instructed to make an assay and give a report. Following this, Frank set about picking up some genuine miners who knew their business and who could be relied on. It was his purpose to keep a few men at work on the claims while he completed the plans talked over by himself and Hodge and arrange for the transportation to the valley of such machinery as they needed to work the mines. As far as the placer was concerned, this was not such a difficult problem. With the quartz mine, however, it was quite a serious matter, as the valley was far from any railroad and extremely difficult of access. Frank knew very well that it would cost a big sum of money to begin practical operations on the quartz claim, and already, for a young man of his years, he had his hands pretty full. Hodge, however, had been enthusiastic, and Merry felt that Bart would, with the greatest readiness and satisfaction, remain where he could oversee everything and carry all plans out successfully. Merry felt that he was greatly indebted to Wiley, and he saw that the sailor had one of the best rooms in the best hotel of Prescott and was provided with every comfort the house could afford. This was not the only way in which Frank intended to reward the captain. Wiley himself was somewhat "sore" because he had declined to accompany Frank and Bart at the time they had returned to the valley and successfully located Benson Clark's lost mines. "'Tis ever thus," he sighed wearily, when the matter was spoken of. "I will bet eleventeen thousand dollars that I have lost more than a barrel of good opportunities to become rotten with wealth during my sinuous career. Not that I haven't felt the salubrious touch of real money to an extensive extent, for sometimes I have been so loaded down with it that it rattled out of my clothes every step I took. When I sauntered carelessly along the street in days past I have shed doubloons, and picaroons, and silver shekels at every step, and I have often been followed by a tumultuous throng, who fought among themselves over the coin that rained from my radiant person. Still to-day here I am broke, busted, while the world jogs on just the same, and nobody seems to care a ripityrap. Excuse these few lamentations and wails of woe. By and by I will take a little medicine for my nerves and feel a great deal better." "Don't worry over it, Wiley," said Frank, laughing. "It will all come out in the wash. I don't think you will die in the poorhouse." "Not on your tintype!" cried the sailor. "I propose to shuffle off this mortal coil in a palace." "Wiley," cried Frank, "I believe you would joke in the face of old Death himself!" "Why not? I regard life as a joke, and I don't propose to show the white feather when my time comes. I will have no mourning at my funeral. I propose to have my funeral the gayest one on record. Everybody shall dress in their best, and the band shall play quicksteps and ragtime on the way to the silent tomb. And then I shall warn them in advance to be careful, if they want to finish the job, not to pass a baseball ground where a game is going on, for just as sure as such a thing happened I'll kick off the lid, rise up, and prance out onto the diamond and git into the game." "Don't you worry about what will become of you, cap'n," advised Merry. "For all that you failed to stick by us in relocating those claims, I fancy we shall be able to make some provisions for you." "That's charity!" shouted Wiley. "I will have none of it! I want you to understand that little Walter is well able to hustle for himself and reap his daily bread. Not even my best friend can make me a pauper by giving me alms." "Oh, all right, my obstinate young tar," smiled Merry. "Have your own way. Go your own course." "Of course, of course," nodded Wiley. "I always have, and I always will. Now leave me to my brooding thoughts, and I will evolve some sort of a scheme to make a few million dollars before sundown." Wiley's schemes, however, did not seem to pan out, although his brain was full of them, and he had a new one every day, and sometimes a new one every hour of the day. Knowing they were soon to be separated again, Dick and Felicia spent much of their time together. It was Merriwell's plan, of which he had spoken, to take Felicia to Denver and find her a home there where she could attend school. The assay of the quartz Merry had brought to Prescott showed that the mine was marvelously rich. Beyond question it would prove a good thing, for all of the great expense that must be entailed in working it. On the day following the report of the assayer, Merry was writing letters in the little room of the hotel provided for such use when a man entered, approached him, and addressed him. "Excuse me," said this man, who was middle-aged and looked like a business man from the ground up. "I suppose you are Mr. Frank Merriwell?" "That's my name." "Well, my name is Kensington--Thomas Kensington. Perhaps you have not heard of me?" "On the contrary, I have heard of you, Mr. Kensington. I believe you have a mine in this vicinity?" "Yes, and another in Colorado. I hear that you have lately located a promising quartz claim. I understand that the assay indicates it is a valuable find." "Perhaps that's right," admitted Merry; "but I am at a loss just how you acquired the information." "My eyes and ears are open for such things. I am in Prescott to have a little assaying done myself, and I happened, by the merest chance, to hear Mr. Given, the assayist, speaking with an assistant about the result of his investigation of your specimens. You understand that it was barely a chance." "I presume so," said Merry. "I don't suppose that Given would talk of such matters publicly." "And he did not, sir--he did not. I assure you of that. I have also learned, Mr. Merriwell, that you have other mines?" "Yes, sir." "And this new claim of yours is inconveniently located at a distance from any railway town?" "That is correct." "Now, I am a man of business, Mr. Merriwell, and if you care to have me do so, I would like to investigate your property with the possibility of purchasing this new mine of yours." Frank was somewhat surprised. "I am not at all certain, Mr. Kensington, that I wish to sell. Besides that, I have a partner who would have to be consulted in the matter." "But we might talk it over, sir--we might talk it over. Are you willing to do so?" "I have no objections to that." Kensington then drew up a chair and sat down close by the desk at which Merry had been writing. "If I were to make you an offer for your property, on being satisfied with it as something I want," he said, "would you consider it?" "It's not impossible. But you must remember that my partner is to be consulted in the matter." "Of course, of course." "He might not care to sell. In that case I can do nothing." "You might use your influence." Frank shook his head. "I wouldn't think of that, sir. I would leave the question entirely to Hodge, and he could do as he pleased." "Do you fancy that there is a possibility that he might be induced to sell in case the offer seemed an advantageous one?" "Yes, I think it possible." "Good!" nodded Kensington. "That being the case, we can discuss the matter further. Do you mind showing me the report of the assayer?" "Not at all. Here it is." Merry took the paper from his pocket and handed it to Kensington, who glanced over the figures and statements, lifted his eyebrows slightly, puckered his lips, and whistled softly. "Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Merriwell, that this assay was made from an average lot of quartz from your mine, or was it from specially chosen specimens?" "Mr. Kensington, I had this assay made for myself, and not for the public. I had it made in order that I might find out just how valuable the mine is. That being the case, you can understand that I would not be foolish enough to pick what appeared to be the richest ore. On the contrary, sir, I took it as it came." Again Kensington whistled softly, his eyes once more surveying the figures. "How far is this mine from the nearest railroad point?" "Just about one hundred miles." "And in a difficult country as to access?" "Decidedly so," was Merry's frank answer. "It will cost a huge sum to open this mine and operate it." "There is no question on that point." "Still, this report shows it will be worth it, if the vein pans out to be one-half as promising as this assay of your specimens." Merry laughed. "Mr. Kensington," he said, "it is my belief that we have not fully uncovered the vein. It is my conviction that it will prove twice as valuable as it now seems when we get into it in earnest." For some moments Kensington continued to whistle softly to himself. It seemed to be a habit of his when thinking. "Are your other mines valuable, Mr. Merriwell?" "Yes, sir." "As valuable as this one?" "I believe they are." "And you have them in operation?" "I have one of them in operation." "That is the Queen Mystery, I believe?" "Then you have heard of it, sir?" "There is not much going on in mining matters in Arizona that I have not heard of. It's my business to keep posted. You have never thought of selling the Queen Mystery?" "Mr. Kensington, the Mystery is opened and is in operation. I have not contemplated selling it, and I do not think I shall do so. If you wish to talk of this new mine, all right. I can listen. Nothing whatever may come of it, but I see no harm in hearing whatever you have to say." "Now we're getting at an understanding, Mr. Merriwell. Of course, I wouldn't think of making you any sort of an offer for your mine unless thoroughly satisfied as to its value. I should insist on having it inspected by men of my own choice, who are experts. Their report I can rely on, and from that I would figure." "That would be business-like," Merry nodded. "And you would have no objections to that, of course?" "Certainly not, sir. Still, you must not forget that I have a partner who might object. It will be necessary to consult him before anything of the sort is done." "All right, all right. Where is he?" "He is at the mine." Kensington seemed somewhat disappointed. "I was in hopes he might be in Prescott." "He is not." "Another point, Mr. Merriwell. Are you certain your title to this property is clear?" "Absolutely certain, sir." "I am glad to hear that. Of course, I should look into that matter likewise. Unless the title was clear, I wouldn't care to become involved." "In that case," said a voice behind them, which caused them both to start slightly, "I advise you, Mr. Kensington, to let that property alone." Merriwell turned quickly and found himself face to face with Macklyn Morgan! "Morgan!" exclaimed Frank. To the ministerial face of the money king there came a smile of grim satisfaction, for he knew he had startled Frank. "Yes, Mr. Kensington," he said, "you had better be careful about this piece of business. There are some doubts as to the validity of this young man's claim to that mine." Kensington did not seem pleased, and immediately he demanded: "How do you happen to know so much about it, sir?" "Because I am interested. My name is Macklyn Morgan. It is barely possible you have heard of me?" "Macklyn Morgan!" exclaimed Thomas Kensington. "Why, not--why, not----" "Exactly," nodded Morgan. "I belong to the Consolidated Mining Association of America. You may know something of that association; it's quite probable that you do." "I should say so!" exclaimed Kensington, rather warmly. "I know that it's a trust and that it has been gobbling up some of the best mines in the country." "Very well. You know, then, that the C. M. A. of A. makes few mistakes. As a member of that association I warn you now that you may involve yourself in difficulty if you negotiate with this young man for this mine which he claims." Frank rose to his feet, his eyes flashing with indignation. "That will about do for you, Morgan!" he exclaimed. "I think I have stood about as much from you as I am in the mood to stand. Mr. Kensington, this man does belong to the Consolidated Mining Association. That association attempted to get possession of my Queen Mystery and San Pablo mines. I fought the whole bunch of them to a standstill and made them back water. They have given up the fight. But after they did so this Mr. Morgan, in conjunction with another one of the trust, did his level best to wring the Queen Mystery from me. "The matter was finally settled right here in the courts. They were beaten. It was shown that their claims to my property were not worth a pinch of snuff. Since then Sukes, this man's partner, met his just deserts, being shot by one of his tools, a half-crazed fellow whom he led into an infamous piece of business. This Morgan is persistent and vengeful. He has trumped up some silly charge against me and tried to frighten me into giving up to him my Queen Mystery or my new mine. It is a pure case of bluff on his part, and it has no further effect on me than to annoy me." Both Kensington and Morgan had listened while Frank was speaking, the latter with a hard smile on his face. "You can judge, Mr. Kensington," said Morgan, "whether a man of my reputation would be the sort to take part in anything of that kind. When it comes to bluff, this young fellow here is the limit. I tell you once more that you will make a serious mistake if you have any dealings with him. Any day he is likely to be arrested on the charge of murder, for there is evidence that he conspired in the assassination of my partner. It even seems possible that he fired the fatal shot. That's the kind of a chap he is." "Mr. Kensington," said Frank, with grim calmness, "this man, Morgan, has done his level best in trying to blackmail me out of one of my mines. This murder charge he talks about he has trumped up in hopes to frighten me; but I fancy he has found by this time that I am not so easily frightened. I can prove that he employed ruffians to jump my claim--to seize these new mines. We were forced to defend it with firearms. Morgan himself tried to have me treacherously shot, but he was not the kind of a man to deal with the ruffians he had employed, and he fell into a trap, from which he has now somehow escaped. He was captured and carried off by those same ruffians of his, whose object it was to hold him until he should pay a handsome sum for his liberty. Either he has managed to escape or he has paid the money demanded by those rascals." Morgan laughed. "It is not possible, Mr. Kensington, that you will believe such a ridiculous story. I give you my word--the word of a gentleman and a man of business and honor--that the whole thing is a fabrication." "Morgan," said Frank, "I propose to make this statement public just as you have heard it from my lips. If it is not true, you can have me arrested immediately for criminal libel. I dare you to have me arrested! If you do, I shall prove every word of what I have just said and show you up as the black-hearted rascal you really are. Instead of having me arrested, it is more than likely that you will employ some ruffian to shoot at my back. I'll guarantee you will never try it yourself. If I were to step out here now and make a similar charge against Mr. Kensington, what would be the result?" "By thunder!" burst from Kensington, "I'd shoot you on sight!" "Exactly," nodded Frank. "And so would Macklyn Morgan if the statement were false and if he dared." Morgan snapped his fingers. "I consider you of too little consequence to resort to any such method. I am not a man who shoots; I'm a man who crushes. Frank Merriwell, you may fancy you have the best of me, but I tell you now that I will crush you like an eggshell." As he said this his usually mild and benevolent face was transformed until it took on a fierce and vengeful look, which fully betrayed his true character. Quickly lifting his hand, Merry pointed an accusing finger straight at Morgan's face. "Look at him, Mr. Kensington!" he directed. "Now you see him as he is beneath the surface. This is the real Macklyn Morgan. Ordinarily he is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and it is only the clothing he reveals to those with whom he has dealings." Instantly the look vanished from Morgan's face, and in its place there returned the mild, hypocritical smile he sometimes wore. "I acknowledge that my indignation was aroused," he said. "And I know it was foolish of me. I have said all I care to. I think Mr. Kensington will have a care about making any negotiations with you, Merriwell. Good day, Mr. Kensington." Bowing to Frank's companion, Morgan coolly walked away and left the room. CHAPTER XXIV. WHAT HAPPENED TO DICK. Just at dusk a horse came galloping madly up toward the front of the hotel, bearing on its back an excited, frightened, pale-faced girl. It was Felicia. Brad Buckhart happened to be leaving the hotel as the girl pulled up her sweaty horse. "Oh, Brad!" she cried, and her voice was filled with the greatest agitation and distress. The Texan made a bound down the steps. "What is it, Felicia?" he asked. "Whatever is the matter? My pard--he went out to ride with you! Where is he now?" "Oh, where is he? Oh, where is he?" cried Felicia. "You don't know? Is that what you mean? Oh, say, Felicia, don't tell me anything has happened to my pard!" "Brad! Brad!" she gasped, swaying in her saddle, "a strange thing has happened. I can't account for it." In a moment he lifted her down in his strong arms and supported her, as he tumultuously poured questions upon her. "What's this strange thing, Felicia? What has happened? Where is Dick? Tell me, quick!" "Oh, I wish you could tell me!" she retorted. "He went out with you?" "Yes, yes!" The Texan made an effort to cool down. "Look here, Felicia," he said. "We're both so excited we don't hit any sort of a trail and stick to it for shucks. If anything whatever has happened to my pard, I want to know it right quick. Keep cool and tell me all about it. What was it that happened?" "But I tell you I don't know--I don't know," came faintly from the girl. "We rode some miles to the south. It was splendid. We laughed, and chatted, and had such a fine time. Then, when we turned to come back, I challenged Dick to a race. My horse was just eager to let himself out, and we raced. I had the lead, but my horse was so hard-bitted that I couldn't look back. Two or three times I called to Dick, and he answered. I heard his horse right behind me, and felt sure he was near. Once I thought he was trying to pass me, and I let my horse out more. "I don't know how far I went that way, but it was a long, long distance. After a while his horse seemed letting up. He didn't push him so hard. Then I pulled up some and called back to him again, but he didn't answer. I had to fight my horse, for he had the bit in his teeth and was obstinate. After a while I managed to turn, and then I saw something that gave me an awful jump. Dick's horse was a long distance away, and was going at a trot, but Dick was not in the saddle. The saddle was empty, and Dick was nowhere to be seen." "Great tarantulas! Great horned toads! Great Panhandle!" exploded Buckhart. "You don't mean to tell me that my pard let any onery horse dump him out of the saddle? Say, I won't believe it! Say, I can't believe it! Why, he can ride like a circus performer! He is a regular centaur, if I ever saw one! Whatever is this joke you're putting up on me, Felicia?" "No joke, no joke!" she hastily asserted. "It's the truth, Brad--the terrible truth! Dick was not on the horse. I don't know what happened to him, but he wasn't there. As soon as I could I rode back to find him. I rode and rode, looking for him everywhere. I thought something must have happened to him that caused him to fall from the saddle. I wondered that I had heard no cry from him--no sound." "And you didn't find him?" She shook her head. "I found nothing of him anywhere. I rode until I was where we started to race. After that I had called to him, and he had answered me more than once. I know that, at first, he was close behind me." "Jumping jingoes!" spluttered Brad. "This beats anything up to date! You hear me warble! You must have missed him, somehow." "It is not possible, Brad. I stuck to the road and followed it all the way through the chaparral, beyond which we had started to race this way." "Then you raced through a piece of woods, did you?" "Yes, yes." "Do you remember of hearing him answer any to your calls after you had passed through those woods?" "I don't remember." "Oh, Brad, what if he was thrown from his horse and some wild animal dragged him into the chaparral after he fell senseless on the road! You must find him! Where is Frank? Tell Frank at once!" "That's good sense," declared the Texan. "But wherever is Dick's horse?" "I don't know where the animal is now. I paid no further attention to it after I found Dick was missing." By this time the Texan had heard enough, and, lifting Felicia clear off her feet, he strode into the hotel with her, as if carrying a feather. Just inside the door he nearly collided with Cap'n Wiley. "Port your helm!" exclaimed the sailor. "Don't run me down, even if you are overloaded with the finest cargo I ever clapped my eyes on." "Hold on, Wiley!" commanded Brad. "Just you drop anchor where you are. I want you." "Ay, ay, sir!" retorted the marine. "I will lay to instantly. Ever hear the little story about the captain who ran out of provisions and, getting hard up, decided to have eggs for breakfast and made his ship lay two?" "Cut your chestnuts out, now!" growled the Texan. "Where is Frank?" "I last saw his royal nibs in close communion with a gentleman who is literally rotten with money." "Not Macklyn Morgan?" "Well, hardly. He is not chumming with old Mack to any salubrious degree. It was Thomas Kensington." "Do you know where Frank is now? If you do, find him instantly and tell him something has happened to Dick." "Ay! ay!" again cried Wiley. "Just you bear off and on right where you are, and I will sight him directly and bring him round on this course." The sailor hurried away, leaving Brad to question Felicia still further about the road they had taken outside of Prescott. Fortunately Frank was easily found, and Wiley came hurrying back with him. "What is it, Brad?" asked Merry, controlling his nerves and betraying little alarm, for all that he saw by the appearance of Felicia that some serious thing had occurred. "Oh, Frank--Dick!" she panted. "You must find him--you must!" The Texan quickly told Merry what had happened as related by Felicia. Frank's face grew grim and paled a little--a very little. His jaw hardened, and his eyes took on a strange gleam. "I opine I know just the road they took," said Buckhart. "She has told me all about it. I am dead certain I can go straight back over that trail." "Wiley," said Merry, still with that grim command of himself, "get a move on and have some horses saddled and made ready." "Leave it to me," cried the sailor, immediately taking to his heels and dusting away. By this time others in the hotel knew what had happened, and a number of people had gathered around. Unmindful of them, Frank took Felicia on his knee as he sat on a chair and questioned her. "Oh, Frank!" she suddenly sobbed, clasping him about the neck. "You will find Dick, won't you?" "As sure as I am living, Felicia," he asserted, with that same confident calmness. "Don't you doubt it for a moment, dear. Rest easy about that." "You don't think some wild animal has got him?" "I hardly fancy anything of that sort has happened to my brother." Merry called for the housekeeper, who soon came and he turned Felicia over to her, saying: "Look out for her, Mrs. Jones. Take care of her and don't let her worry more than can be helped." "Lord love her sweet soul!" exclaimed the housekeeper, as she received the agitated girl from Frank and patted and petted her. "I will look after her, Mr. Merriwell. Don't you be afraid of that. There, there, dear," she said, softly stroking Felicia's cheek. "Don't you take on so. Why, they will find your cousin all right." "You bet your boots!" muttered Brad Buckhart, who was examining a long-barreled revolver as he spoke. "We will hit the trail and find him in less than two shakes of a steer's hoof." Wiley now came panting back into the room, struck an attitude, and made a salute. "Our land-going craft are at the pier outside." Frank paused only to kiss Felicia and whisper a last word in her ear. As he turned to leave the room, he came face to face with Macklyn Morgan near the door. Morgan looked at him in a singular manner and smiled. "Excuse me, sir. You seem to be in a great hurry about something." Merry stopped short and stood looking straight into the eyes of his enemy. "What is your next low trick, Morgan?" he said. "Let me tell you here and now, and don't forget it for an instant, if ever any harm comes to me or mine through you, you'll rue it to the last moment of your miserable life." With which he strode on out of the hotel. Away out of Prescott they clattered, and away into the gathering darkness of a soft spring night. The cool breeze rushed past their ears and fanned their hot cheeks. Frank was in the lead, for Wiley had taken pains to see that Merriwell's own fine horse was made ready for him. "Is this the road, Buckhart?" the young mine owner called back. "This is the one Felicia told us to take, isn't it?" "Sure as shooting!" answered the Texan. "We don't want to make any mistake in our course," put in the sailor. "That would be fatal to the aspirations of our agitated anatomy. At the same time we want to keep our optical vision clear for breakers ahead. We may be due to strike troubled waters before long." "That's what we're looking for!" growled Buckhart, who seemed hot for trouble of some sort. Onward they rode along the brown trail. Beneath them the ground seemed speeding backward. The lights of the town twinkled far behind them. Frank's keen eyes detected something that caused him to drop rein and swerve from the road. At a short distance from the trail a horse was grazing. This animal shied somewhat and moved away as Merry approached, but Frank's skill enabled him, after a little, to capture the creature, which proved to be saddled and bridled. "Dick's horse," he said. "Hold him, Buckhart. I want to make an examination." Brad took the creature by the head, and a moment later Frank struck a match, which he protected in the hollow of his hand until it was in full blaze. He then examined the saddle and the creature's back. Several matches were used for this purpose, while both Buckhart and Wiley waited anxiously for the result. "What behold you, mate?" inquired the sailor. "Nothing," answered Frank. And it seemed there was relief in his voice. "Whatever did you expect to find?" questioned the Texan. "I hoped to find nothing, just as I have," was the answer. "Still, I thought it possible there might be blood stains on the horse. It is not likely there would be hostile savages in this vicinity. Indeed, such a thing is almost improbable; yet it was my fancy that Dick might have been silently shot from his saddle." "How silently?" asked Brad. "Shooting is pretty certain to be heard, I opine." "Not if done with an arrow." "But the Injun of this day and generation is generally provided with a different weapon." "That's true; but still some of them use the bow and arrow even to-day." "I don't reckon a whole lot on anything of that sort happening to my pard," asserted the Texan. "Nor I," admitted Frank. "But I thought it best to investigate." The horse was again set at liberty. They had no time to bother with it then. Once more they found the trail and rode on. Before them loomed the dark chaparral, into which wound the road they followed. On either hand the tangled thicket was dark and grim. "A right nasty place for a hold-up!" muttered Buckhart, whose hand was on his pistol. "If any one tries that little trick," observed Cap'n Wiley, "it's my sagacious opinion that they are due to receive a surprise that will disturb their mental condition and throw their quivering nerves into the utmost agitation. I am ready to keep the air full of bullets, for in that way something will surely be hit. Reminds me of the time when I went gunning with Johnny Johnson. We came to a promising strip of forest, and he took one side and I took the other. Pretty soon I heard him banging away, and he kept shooting and shooting until I grew black in the face with envy. I reckoned he was bagging all the game in that preserve. In my seething imagination I saw him with partridges, and woodcock, and other things piled up around him knee-deep. "For just about an hour he kept on shooting regular every few seconds. At last I came to him, for I didn't find a single measly thing to pop at. Imagine my astonishment when I found him idly reclining in a comfortable position on the ground and firing at intervals into the air. 'John, old man,' says I, 'what are you doing?' 'Wiley,' he answered, 'I am out for game. I haven't been able to find any, but I know where there is some in this vicinity. I arrived at the specific conclusion that if I could keep the air full of shot I'd hit something after a while, and so I am carrying my wise plan into execution.' Oh, I tell you, John was a great hunter--a great hunter!" "Better cut that out," said Frank. "This is a first-class time for you to give your wagging jaw a rest, cap'n." "Thanks, mate; your suggestion will be appropriated unto me." Through the chaparral they went, their eyes searching the trail and noting every dark spot on the ground. At length they came to the farther border of the thicket, but without making any discovery. "Here's where Felicia said the race began," said Brad. "We haven't found a thing, Frank--not a thing." Still Merry led them on a little farther before halting and turning about. "What's to be done now?" anxiously inquired the Texan. "We will follow the trail back through the chaparral," said Frank. "We will call to Dick. That's the only thing it seems possible for us to do." Having decided on this, they rode slowly back; calling at intervals to the missing lad. The thick chaparral rang with their voices, but through it came no answer. The cold stars watched them in silence. By the time they had again debouched from the chaparral Brad was in such a state of mind that reason seemed to have deserted him. He actually proposed plunging into the thicket and attempting to search through it. "You couldn't make your way through that tangle in broad daylight," declared Merry. "Don't lose your head, Buckhart." "But, Frank--my pard, we must find him!" "We will do everything we can. We may not find him to-night. But I will find him in time." "What has become of him?" groaned the Texan. "It's my belief," said Merry, "that he is in the hands of my enemies. This is a new blow at me. I saw something of it in the eyes of Macklyn Morgan when I faced him in the hotel just before we started. There was a look of triumph on his face." "Whoop!" shouted Brad. "Then he's the galoot we want to git at! It's up to us to light on him all spraddled out and squeeze the truth out of him in a hurry. Just let me get at him!" "And you would simply make the matter worse than it is. You must leave this thing to me, Buckhart. You must hold yourself in check unless you want to injure Dick. I will deal with Macklyn Morgan." "You," said Wiley. "I fancy you have hit on the outrageous and egregious truth. I don't know just what egregious means, but it sounds well there. Morgan has scooped Richard and proposes to hold him hard and fast until he can bring you to terms." "I think very likely such is his plot," nodded Merry. "He ought to be shot!" exploded Brad. "It was a whole lot unfortunate that the ruffians who carried him off did not keep him." "How do you think the trick was done?" questioned Wiley. "I haven't decided yet," admitted Frank. "But I feel sure my brother is nowhere in this vicinity now. It's my object to see Morgan again without delay." With this object in view Merriwell lost no further time in riding straight toward Prescott. When the town was reached he set out immediately to find Morgan, having first told Brad to see Felicia and do his best to soothe her fears. Felicia was waiting. She started up as the Texan tapped on her door. "There, there, child!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones, who was still with her. "Sit down and keep quiet. I will see who it is." When the door was opened and Buckhart entered, Felicia cried out to him: "Dick--you have found him?" "Well, not exactly that," said the Texan; "but I opine Frank will find him pretty quick now." The girl was greatly disappointed. "Then you know what has become of him?" she asked. "I opine we do," nodded Buckhart. "He is safe?" "You bet he is. He is all right, Felicia. We know well enough that he isn't hurt a bit." She seized his hands. "Tell me," she pleaded, "tell me all about it." Brad was placed in an awkward position, and he felt that it was necessary to draw on his imagination. "Why, there is not a great deal to tell," he said. "I reckon Dick's horse must have stumbled and thrown him. It stunned him some, of course. Then there were some gents what happened along and picked him up, and that's about all." She looked at him in doubt and bewilderment. "But I didn't see any one. Why didn't I see them?" Buckhart coughed behind his hand to get a little time for thought. "Why, these yere gents I speak of," he said, "were afraid to be seen, for they have been up to some doings that were not just exactly on the level. That being the case, they took him up all quietlike and stepped into the chaparral with him, and doctored him, and fixed him O. K. Of course, they will want to be paid for that little job, and that's why they are keeping him. You leave everything to Frank. He will settle with them and bring Dick back as sound as a nut. You hear me chirp?" Having made this statement, the Texan felt greatly relieved. He had managed to get through it some way, although it was a hard strain on him. Still, Felicia was not entirely satisfied, and her fears were not fully allayed. "If these men are bad men," she said, "won't they harm Dick some way?" "Ho! ho! ho!" laughed Brad. "What a foolish notion to get into your head, Felicia. Whatever good would it do them to harm him? What could they make out of that? It's up to them to take the best care of him, so Frank will feel like coughing up liberal when he settles. You can see that easy enough. So don't worry over it any more." "No, don't worry over it any more, child," put in Mrs. Jones. "Just go to bed. The strain on you has been severe, and you must rest." "Oh, I'm afraid I can't rest until I see Dick! Don't you think I may see him soon? Don't you think Frank will bring him here right away?" "Oh, mebbe not," said Brad. "It may take some time, for Frank thought likely Dick had been carried to Goodwin, or Bigbug, or some place. You see, we didn't find out just where they had taken him. All we found out was that he had been taken somewhere and was all right. You let Mrs. Jones tuck you in your little bed, and you just close your peepers and get to the sleeps. That's the best thing for you to do." Fearing she might suspect that he had not stuck by the truth if she questioned him further, Brad now made the excuse that he had to hurry away, and quickly left the room. In the meantime Frank had been searching for Morgan. He fully expected to find Morgan without trouble, and in this he was not disappointed. The money king was talking with Thomas Kensington in the hotel bar. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Kensington," said Merry. "If I'm not interrupting an important matter, I'd like a word or two with this man." Morgan lifted a hand. "You will have to excuse me, sir," he said. "I am quite busy now." "On the other hand," said Kensington, "we have finished our business. Mr. Morgan followed me here and wished to talk of mining matters. I am in no mood to discuss such matters to-night." He bowed to Frank and turned away. Morgan gave Merriwell a defiant look. "I cannot waste my time on you, young man," he said. "It's altogether too valuable." "You have wasted considerable time on me in the past, and I have been compelled to waste some on you. This night has brought matters to a climax. I know your game; but it will fail, just as every trick you have tried has failed. I have a few words to say to you. My brother is missing." "What's that to me? I care nothing about your brother." "Yet you attempted not so very long ago to hold him as a hostage. It was your scheme to force me into dealing with you by holding my brother a prisoner in the hands of your ruffians." "Be careful, young man! Don't accuse me of anything like that! If you do, I'll----" "You'll what?" demanded Merry, grim as flint and cold as ice. "Now, what will you do, Macklyn Morgan?" "I'll make you smart for it!" "It's about time you learned, sir, that your threats have no effect on me whatever. As I have said, my brother is missing. If he is not in Prescott to-morrow morning, it will be the worse for you. Do you know how I dealt with Milton Sukes? Do you know that I investigated his business methods and found out about his crooked dealings, so that when I was ready to expose him he was driven desperate? Macklyn Morgan, are you immaculate? Do you mean to tell me that your career as a maker of millions has been unspotted? Do you mean to tell me that you never have been concerned in any crooked schemes? I know better, Morgan. I know how a man like you makes his money. As I dealt with Sukes, so I will deal with you! I will investigate. I will learn the truth, and then I will expose you. To-day you may be concerned in several questionable projects. If those schemes are rotten, the world shall know it. I shall take hold of this thing in earnest, and I'll do for you what I did for Sukes." "That's a threat on my life!" cried Morgan, turning to the others who were near. "Gentlemen, I call on you to bear witness that this man has threatened my life." "You know better, sir, I have threatened nothing but your crooked business. Your life is safe as far as I am concerned. But you will see that my brother is in Prescott to-morrow, or I'll hold you up for the inspection of the whole country and show people what a thoroughbred scoundrel you are! That's all I have to say to you, sir. Good night." Frank turned his back on Morgan and walked out of the room. CHAPTER XXV. HOW WAS IT DONE? What had happened to Dick? Intentionally he had permitted Felicia to keep the lead in the race through the chaparral. It is possible he might have overtaken her had he tried. He had no thought of danger, and he was wholly unprepared when out from the shadows of the chaparral shot a twisting, writhing coil, the loop of which fell over his shoulders and jerked him like a flash from the saddle. The shock, as he struck the ground, drove the breath from his body and partly stunned him. Before he could recover he was pounced upon by two men, who quickly dragged him into the edge of the thicket, where a third man--a half-blood Mexican--was coiling the lariat with which the boy had been snatched from the horse's back. These men threatened Dick with drawn weapons. "Make a sound or a cry, kid," growled one of them, "and we sure cuts you up!" The boy's dark eyes looked fearlessly at them, and he coolly inquired: "What's your game? I have not enough money on me to pay you for your trouble." "Ho, ho!" laughed one of the trio. "We gits our pay, all right, younker. Don't worry about that. Tie his elbows close behind him, Mat. Mebbe we best gags him some." "No, none of that," declared the one called Mat. "If he utters a cheep, I'll stick him sure." But the other insisted that Dick should be gagged, and this they finally and quickly did. With his arms bound behind him and a gag between his teeth, he was lifted to his feet and forced into the depth of the thicket. The Mexican, who was called Tony, seemed to know a path through the chaparral, although it was dim and indistinct, and this they followed. Thus it happened that when Felicia missed Dick and turned back she found no trace of him. On through the thick chaparral they threaded their way, now and then crouching low to push through thorny branches, their progress necessarily being slow. For a long time they tramped on, coming finally to an opening. Several horses were grazing there. No time was lost in placing the captive boy on the back of a horse and fastening his feet together beneath the animal's belly. Already it was growing dusky, but those men knew the course they would pursue. The Mexican and Mat mounted one animal and followed Dick, while the biggest man of the party, who had once been addressed as Dillon, now took the lead. Starry night came as they still pushed on, but they had left the chaparral behind and were on the trackless plain. Finally it was decided that the captive should be blindfolded. By this time his jaws were aching, and he was greatly relieved when the gag was removed. They seemed to think there was little danger of his cries being heard should he venture to shout for help. Dick did not shout; he felt the folly of it. Long hours they rode, and the bandage over the boy's eyes prevented him from telling what course they followed. At last they halted. The cords about his ankles were released, and he was unceremoniously dragged from the saddle to the ground. Following this, he was marched into some sort of a building. There at last the bandage was removed from his eyes, and even his arms were set free. Dillon and Mat were with him. The Mexican had been left to care for the horses. "Now, kid," said the big man, "you makes yourself comfortable as you can. Don't worry none whatever; you're all safe here. Nothing troubles you, and we looks out for you. Oh, yes, we looks out for you." "Why have you brought me here?" asked Dick. "We lets you guess at that a while. It amuses you perhaps, and passes away the time." "If my brother finds out who did this----" "Now, don't talk that way!" cried Mat. "We don't bother with your brother any. We does our business with other parties." "So that's it--that's it!" exclaimed Dick, "My brother's enemies have paid you for this piece of work." "That's one of the little things you has to guess about," hoarsely chuckled Dillon. "Thar's a bunk in the corner. I sure opines this place is stout enough to hold you, and all the while Mat or I sits in the next room. If we hears you kick up restless-like, we comes to soothe you. We're great at soothing--eh, Mat?" "Great!" agreed Mat. "If you has a good appetite," continued Dillon, "in the morning we gives you a square feed. Oh, we treats you fine, kid--we treats you fine. We has orders to be ca'm and gentle with you. We're jest as gentle as two playful kittens--eh, Mat?" "Jest so," agreed Mat. "Of course, you being young, it disturbs you some to be introduced to us so sudden-like. Still, you seems to have a lot of nerve. You don't git trembly any, and you looks a heap courageous with them fine black eyes of yours. By smoke! I almost believes you has it in yer ter tackle us both, kid; but you'd better not--you'd better not. It does no good, and it ruffles our feelings, although we is so ca'm and gentle. When our feelings is ruffled we are a heap bad--eh, Mat?" "Sure," agreed Mat. "That's about all," said Dillon. "Now we bids you a pleasant good night, and we hopes you sleeps sweet and dreams agreeable dreams--eh, Mat?" "We does," nodded Mat. Then they backed out through the door behind them, which led into the front room of the building, leaving Dick in darkness, as the door was closed and barred. Dick knew there was very little chance for him to escape unaided from the clutches of those ruffians. Still, he was not the sort of a boy to give up, and he resolved to keep his ears and eyes open for any opportunity that might present itself. Left without a light, there was no hope of making a satisfactory examination of his prison room until the coming of another day. He flung himself down on the couch and meditated. But for the fact that he was in fine physical condition, his fall when jerked from the saddle might have injured him seriously. As it was, he had simply been somewhat shaken up. He felt a slight soreness, but regarded it as of no consequence. Of course, he understood the game the ruffians were playing. Beyond question he was to be held as a hostage in order that Frank's enemies might force Merry into some sort of a deal concerning the mines. His one satisfaction lay in the belief that Felicia had escaped. As he lay there on the bunk, he could hear the mumbling voices of his captors in the next room. After a time his curiosity was aroused, and he felt a desire to hear what they were saying. Silently he arose and stole over to the partition between the rooms. This partition was strangely thick and heavy for a building in that part of the country. Seemingly it had been constructed for the purpose of safely imprisoning any one who should be thrust into that room. Although he pressed his ear close to the partition, he was unable for some time to understand anything the men were saying. He moved softly about, seeking a place where he might hear better, and finally found it in a crack beneath the massive door, through which shone a dim light. Lying flat on his back, with his ear near this crack, the boy listened. To his satisfaction, he was now able to hear much of the talk that passed between the men. Plainly but two of them, Mat and Dillon, were in the outer room. "This piece of work certain pays us a good thing, Mat," said Dillon. "The gent what has it done is rotten with coin, and we makes him plank down a heap liberal." "What does yer know about him, pard?" inquired Mat. "Whoever is he, anyhow?" "Why, sure, I hears his name is Morgan, though I deals with him direct none at all myself." "Well, partner, this is better and some easier than the railroad job." "All the same, Dan gets a heap sore when he finds we has quit t'other job. And, as for this being less dangerous, I am none certain of that." "Why not?" "Well, this yere Frank Merriwell they say is a holy terror. Dan hisself has had some dealings with him, you know. He knocks the packing out of Dan down at Prescott not so long ago." "Down at Prescott," thought the listening boy; "down at Prescott. Why, I supposed it was up at Prescott. If it's down, Prescott must be to the south. In that case these fellows doubled and turned north after scooping me in." This was interesting to him, for one thing he desired to know very much was just where he had been taken. As he was meditating on this, Dick missed some of the talk between the men, for in order to understand what they were saying it was necessary for him to listen with the utmost intentness. "Do you allow, Dillon," he finally heard Mat say, "that Dan will stick to his little plan to hold up that train?" "I opine not. He won't be after trying it all by his lonesome. One man who holds up a train and goes through it has a heap big job on his hands." "So that's the kind of a railroad job they were talking about!" thought Dick. "They surely are a tough lot." "Mebbe he comes searching for us," suggested Dillon. "Mebbe so. Ef he does, we has to deceive him." "He gits a whole lot hot, I judge." "You bet he does. And when he is hot we wants to keep our eyes peeled for a ruction." "That's whatever." Although Dick listened a long time after this, the conversation of the ruffians seemed of no particular importance. Finally they ceased talking, and evidently one of them at least prepared to sleep. Dick arose and returned to the bunk, where he lay trying to devise some possible method of escape. Scores of wild plans flittered through his brain, but he realized that none of them were practical. "If I could get word to Frank," he thought. "But how can it be done--how can it be done?" Such a thing seemed impossible. At last he became drowsy and realized that he was sinking off to sleep, in spite of his unpleasant position. He was fully awakened at last by sudden sounds in the outer room. There came a heavy hammering at the door, followed by the voice of one of Dick's captors demanding to know who was there. Dick sat upright on the bunk, his nerves tingling as he thought of the possibility that the ruffians had been followed by a party of rescuers, who were now at hand. The one who was knocking seemed to satisfy the men within, for Dick knew the door was flung open. He swiftly crossed the floor and lay again with his ear near the crack beneath the door. "Well, you two are a fine bunch!" declared a hoarse voice that seemed full of anger. "You keeps your dates a heap well, don't yer! Oh, yes, yer two nice birds, you are!" This was the voice of the newcomer. "Howdy, Dan?" said Mat. "We thinks mebbe yer comes around this yere way." "Oh, yer does, does yer?" snarled the one called Dan. "Why does yer think that so brightlike? Why does yer reckon that when you agrees ter meet me at Win'mill Station I comes here to find you five miles away? That's what I'd like to know." "Windmill Station," Dick said to himself. "Five miles from Windmill Station, and Windmill Station is some twelve or fifteen miles north of Prescott." "You seems excited, Dan," said Mat, in what was intended to be a soothing manner. "Mebbe we has reasons why we didn't meet you any." "Reasons! If you has, spit 'em out." "Yes, we has reasons," quickly put in Dillon. "Dan, we finds we is watched a whole lot. We finds somebody suspects that little game we plans." "Is that so?" demanded the newcomer, with a sneering doubt in his voice. "That's what it is," asserted Mat. "We don't have a chance to move much without being watched, and so we reckons we does best to drop this little job for the time being." "Is that so?" sneered Dan. "Didn't we say it was?" indignantly demanded Dillon. "You hears us, I judge." "Now, who is it what watches you so closelike?" questioned the dissatisfied man. "Mebbe you tells me that." "We don't know just who it is, but we has been followed for the last two days. You know a hold-up down on the Southern Pacific gits people suspicious. Mebbe they thinks we had a hand in that." "Which we didn't have any at all," hastily put in Mat. "So you two fine chaps takes water?" contemptuously cried Dan. "You throws up a chance to make a good thing? Why, it was a snap! We could 'a' stopped the train, gone through her, and then hiked it for Mexico hot foot, and the Old Boy hisself wouldn't 'a' ketched us." "Mebbe not," admitted one of the other men. "But we opines it would 'a' been a whole lot bad for us if the holding up had been expected. Look here, Dan, we thinks it right and proper to put this thing off some. We thinks mebbe in a week or so we is in fer it." "Oh, that's how you figgers. Why didn't you let me know about it any? That's what I'd like ter have yer explain. You leaves me a-waiting and a-watching fer yer while you bunks down yere all ca'm and serene-like. That's what sores me to the limit." "We thinks," said Mat, "if we goes to meet you, mebbe we is seen, and that makes more suspicions. We thinks the best thing to do is to lay low. We're right sorry that we couldn't keep the app'intment, but it happens that way, and there is nothing else fer it." "Well, it is evident ter me that you two are squealers. You both lack nerve, and I quits you cold. The whole business is off, understand that." "Well, if you gits hot and quits us that way, we can't help it," said Dillon. "Well, I does quit. What I wants is my blanket I leaves in yar. I takes that an' gits out, and you two goes to blazes for all of me." Evidently Dan started for the back room at this moment, and the listening boy prepared to spring away from the door. At the same time Dick was seized by a sudden determination to attempt a dash for freedom the moment the door was opened. He knew he might not succeed, but there was a slim chance of it, and he decided to take that chance. Both the ruffians on guard, however, were startled when Dan proposed getting his blanket from the back room. Quickly Dillon interposed. "Hold on, Dan!" he cried. "Never mind that blanket. We fixes that all right with you. Yere is mine. You take that." Had Dick been able to see them he would have beheld the newcomer, a huge, pockmarked individual, standing in the centre of the floor, staring at the men before him in no small surprise. "Why, whatever is this?" asked Dan. "I opine I takes my own blanket." "But mine is worth more than yours," hastily asserted Dillon. "And you're a heap anxious ter give it up in place of mine, I sees. That's right queer. I don't just understand your generosity. It seems mighty curious." "It's all right, Dan," declared Mat. "Take the blanket." "Not by a blamed sight," roared the big man. "I takes my own blanket. I goes into that room. I sees what you has in there." As he said this, he suddenly whipped out a long revolver, with which he menaced the man who attempted to bar his progress. "Get out of the way," he commanded, "or I furnishes funeral stock for the undertaker." "He's coming!" whispered Dick. "They can't stop him!" The boy rose to his hands and knees, where he listened a moment more. He heard the men on guard protesting, but their protestations availed nothing, and a moment later a hand was on the door. Dick sprang up. The bar that held the door fell, and it was flung open. With a spring, Dick was out into the lighted room, bending low and striking the man with the revolver like a battering-ram full and fair in the pit of the stomach, bowling him over. As Dan went down, his fingers contracted on the trigger of the pistol, and a shot rang out. CHAPTER XXVI. FORCED TO WRITE. Dick's daring and reckless break for liberty might have been successful but for the fact that the outer door had been closed and securely fastened after the entrance of Spotted Dan. Dan went down with a shock that jarred the whole building, and the boy leaped toward the door. Both Dillon and Mat uttered cries of astonishment and grabbed at him. He avoided their hands and reached the door, but as he was trying to unfasten it they fell on him. Young Merriwell's fighting blood was up, and for at least five minutes he gave the ruffians the hardest sort of a struggle. Using hands and feet in unison, he made them howl as he repeatedly hit and kicked them. With all his force, he drove his knee into Mat's stomach and doubled the fellow up like a jackknife. At this juncture the boy had nearly whipped both the men. Dillon was panting and dazed, but he had drawn a pistol and reversed it in his hand, so that he gripped the barrel. With the butt of the weapon he struck a blinding blow at the fighting boy's head, and by chance the blow landed full and fair. Down Dick dropped and lay stunned on the floor. Dillon stood looking down at the lad, muttering savagely, while Mat gasped for breath and held both hands on his stomach. Spotted Dan had recovered from the first shock, and now stood, with his hands on his hips and his feet wide apart, watching what transpired. He had not even lifted a hand to take part in the struggle. "Well, drat the kid!" snarled Dillon. "He sure comes nigh slipping right through our fingers." "Confound him!" panted Mat, still gasping for breath. "He soaks his knee inter my solar plexus and pretty nigh puts me out." "Haw! haw! haw!" laughed Spotted Dan, throwing back his head. "Well, you two gents sure has a highly interesting time of it. So that was why yer didn't want me to go for my blanket! So that's what yer had in the back room yer didn't want me ter see! Well, I reckons I has clapped my peepers on this yere youngster before. I opines I smells your little game. I rather jedge I understands why you drops the railroad job. You seems ter strike another job that interests you a heap more." Without paying any attention to the pockmarked fellow, Dillon bent over the motionless boy, muttering: "I wonder if I cracks his skull? That certain was a good rap I gave him." Blood was trickling down from Dick's hair, and on one side of his head was a cut. "I don't care ef you did finish him!" grated Mat. "Well, I does," asserted Dillon. "We knocks ourselves out of a good thing ef that happens." "A good thing," laughed Spotted Dan. "Well, gents, you counts me in on that good thing. You plays no game like this on me, none at all!" Dick stirred and opened his eyes. "He is all right," said Mat. The boy looked up at the two ruffians near him and then struggled to his elbow, his black eyes full of defiance. "Give me a fair show and I'll try it again!" he weakly exclaimed. "If I'd a fair show then I wouldn't be here now. I was weaponless. You were three to one against me, and still you had to use a weapon to put me down and out." "Haw! haw! haw!" again roared Spotted Dan. "These yere Merriwells sure is fighters." Mat turned on him hotly. "I reckon you found that out in Prescott the first time you met Frank Merriwell," he said. Dan suddenly stopped laughing and scowled blackly. "Don't git so personal!" he cried. "Mebbe I don't like it any!" Dick lifted his hand to his head and saw blood on his fingers when he looked at them. Then from his pocket he took a handkerchief, which he knotted about his head. "Better put your bird back into the cage," advised Dan. "Ef yer don't, mebbe he flutters some more. When he flutters he is dangerous." "That's right," nodded Dillon, laying hold of Dick. "We will chuck him back there in a hurry." "Take your hands off me, you brute!" panted the boy. "I will go back of my own accord. Let me alone." Dillon dragged him to his feet, but, with a wrench, he suddenly tore free. If the ruffians expected him to resume the effort, they soon found he had no such intention, for, with a remarkably steady step, he walked across the floor to the open door of his prison room. In the doorway he turned and faced them, the handkerchief about his head already showing a crimson stain on one side. His dark eyes flashed with unutterable scorn and contempt. "I know you all three!" he exclaimed. "Wait till my brother finds out about this business. The whole Southwest won't be large enough to hide you in safety." Then he disappeared into the room, scornfully closing the door behind him. "Gents," said Spotted Dan, "for real, genuine sand, give me a kid like that!" Then the bar was once more slipped into its socket, and the door was made secure. With throbbing head and fiery pulse, Dick lay on the bunk in that back room as the remainder of the night slipped away. With the coming of another day he heard the faint hoofbeats of a horse outside, and knew some one had ridden up. Then the muttering of voices in the next room came to him, and his curiosity, in spite of his injury, caused him to again slip to the door and listen at the crack beneath it. He heard the voice of a strange man saying: "I am to take the letter back myself. The youngster must be forced to write it. Leave it to me; I will make him do it." "Partner," said the hoarse voice of Spotted Dan, "I opines you takes a mighty big contract when you tries to force that kid inter doing anything of the sort." "Leave it ter me," urged the stranger. "Let me in there, and I will turn the trick." A few minutes later Dick hastily got away from the door and pretended to be sleeping on the bunk, his ears telling him the bar was being removed. A flood of light shone in, for there was no window to that dark room to admit daylight. The four men entered, one of them bringing a lighted lamp in his hand. The boy pretended to awaken and then sat up. He saw that the newcomer had a mask over his face, making it plain he feared recognition by the captive. "Yere," said Spotted Dan, "is a gent what wants ter see you some, my young gamecock. He has a right important piece of business to transact with yer, and I reckons it pays yer ter do as he tells yer." The masked man came and stood looking at the boy. "Kid," he said, in what seemed to be an assumed manner of fierceness, "you've got to write a letter to your brother, and you will write it just as I tells yer. Understand that? If you refuse, we will stop bothering with you any by wringing your neck and throwing you out for buzzard bait. We can't afford to waste time fooling, and we mean business. Time is mighty important to us." "What do you want me to write?" asked Dick. "We wants you to write a letter telling your brother that you are in the hands of men who proposes to carve you up piecemeal unless he makes terms with a certain gent who wants to deal with him for some of his property. No need to mention this gent's name, mind that. Don't put it into the letter. You tells your brother nothing whatever about us save that we has you all tight and fast. But you tells him that, onless he comes to terms immediate, we sends him to-morrow one of your thumbs. In case he delays a while longer, we sends him t'other thumb. Then, if he remains foolish and won't deal any, we kindly sends him your right ear. If that don't bring him around a whole lot sudden, we presents him with your left ear. Arter that we gits tired when we waits twenty-four hours, and we shoots you full of lead and lets it go at that. Mat, pull over that yere box right close to the kid's bunk, where he can sit all comfortable-like and write on it." A box was dragged out of a corner and placed before young Merriwell, who sat on the edge of the bunk. Then a sheet of paper was produced and spread in front of the lad, while the stub of a lead pencil was thrust into his fingers. "Now write," savagely ordered the masked man--"write just what I tells yer to a minute ago!" Dick hesitated, but seemed to succumb. Through his head a wild scheme had flashed. It bewildered him for a moment, but quickly his mind cleared and he began to write. He did so, however, with the utmost slowness, as if the task was a difficult and painful one. Spotted Dan was surprised to see the boy give in so quickly. He had fancied Dick would have obstinately refused until compelled to obey. "Don't put in a thing but just what I tells yer to," commanded the masked man. "If yer does, youngster, you has ter write another letter, for we won't deliver this one any at all. If you wants to get free, you has good sense and obeys all peaceful-like." "All right," muttered Dick, as he slowly labored over the beginning of the message to Frank. "Why, seems ter me this yer boy's eddication has been a heap neglected," said Dillon. "He finds it a whole lot hard to write." The masked man resumed his position where he could read what was being written. Somehow it didn't seem to please him, for of a sudden he seized the sheet of paper and tore it up. "Why for do you ramble around that yere way?" he demanded. "You puts it down plain and brief, with no preliminaries. Understand that?" Then he produced another sheet of paper and laid it upon the box. Immediately Dick flung down the pen and lay back on the bunk. "You go to Halifax!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing. "I will write it just as I want to, or I won't write it at all." The man instantly whipped out a long, wicked-looking knife. "Then I slits your oozle!" he snarled. "Slit away!" defiantly retorted the boy. Spotted Dan broke into a hoarse laughter. "What did I tell yer!" he cried. "I certain knowed how it would be." The masked man seized Dick and held the knife menacingly before his eyes. "Will you do as I tell you?" he hissed. "I will do as I choose," retorted the nervy lad. "I don't propose to write anything save what you order, but I will write it in my own way. If I can't, then I won't write at all." The man hesitated, then straightened up. "Well, you sure has sand, or you're the biggest fool for a kid I ever saw," he declared. "Go ahead and write her out, and then I'll examine her and see that she's all right." So once more Dick took the pencil and began to write. He preserved the same deliberate slowness in constructing the early portion of the missive, but finally began to write faster and faster, and finished it with a rush, signing his name. "Well, the kid's eddication seems to be all right, arter all," observed Mat, as he admiringly watched the boy speedily scribble the last sentence. "Mebbe he is out of practice some, to begin with, and so he writes slow till he gits his hand in." The masked man took the letter and carefully read it over. "Why were you so particular to say, 'No house shelters me?'" he asked. "That yere is dead crooked. Is you trying to fool your brother up some?" Dick actually laughed. "I put that in just to help you out, gentlemen," he declared. "You have been so very kind to me I should hate to see anything happen to you." The masked man wondered vaguely if the boy was mocking them, but decided almost immediately that he had really frightened Dick to such an extent that the young captive had put those words in to show his willingness to hold to the demands made upon him. "Well, this will do," nodded the wearer of the mask, folding the paper and thrusting it into his pocket. "Now, pards, just keep the boy all ca'm and quiet, and mebbe his brother comes to his senses and settles the deal, arter which we evaporates and leaves them to meet up with each other and rejoice." Then he strode out of the room, and his three companions followed, closing the door and leaving Dick once more to gloom and solitude. CHAPTER XXVII. COMPLETE TRIUMPH. Frank found the letter thrust under the door of his room at the hotel in Prescott. He was reading it over and over when Brad Buckhart, wearing a long, doleful face, came into the room. "You don't find no trace whatever of my pard, do you, Frank?" he asked. "I have a letter from him here," said Frank. "What?" shouted the Texan, electrified by Merry's words. "A letter from him?" "Yes." "Why should he write a letter? Why didn't he come himself, instead of doing that?" "Well, from what he says in the letter, I fancy it is impossible for him to come," said Merry. "Here, Buckhart, read it and see what you make of it." He handed the missive to Brad, who read it through, his excitement growing every moment. This is what the Texan read: "Dear Frank: I now am held fast in hands that care little for my life. No house shelters me. I am not near Prescott. If you search, you will find wind and nothing more. Have had a hot mill with my captors, but to no use whatever. S.tay here I must. Brad will worry, so don't fail to show him this. "The men who have me swear to mutilate and finally kill me unless you come to terms immediately. You are to settle with the man who has demanded from you your mines and has threatened you with arrest for murder. As soon as you make terms with him, I am to be set free. If you refuse to make terms, this man swears to chop me up by inches. To-morrow you will receive one of my thumbs; next day the other thumb. Then, if you still delay, an ear will follow, and its mate will be delivered to you twenty-four hours later. If you remain obstinate, I shall be killed. "Your brother, Dick." "Great horn spoon!" shouted Buckhart, flourishing the missive in the air. "Great jumping tarantulas! This certain is a whole lot tough! Why, Frank, what are you going to do about it? You've got to rescue him, or else give in to old Morgan, for they will chop him up if you don't." "How am I going to rescue him," said Merry, "when I don't know where to find him?" Brad now stood quite still, with his hands on his hips, a look of perplexity and distress on his face. "That's so, Frank," he muttered, shaking his head. "I am afraid they've got you." "Do you notice anything peculiar about that letter?" questioned Merry. "Peculiar? Why, I dunno. Somehow it don't sound just like Dick, though I'll swear it's his writing. I know his writing." "Yes, I am certain it is his writing; still, the first part of it sounds peculiar. I suppose that's because he was ordered to write certain things and had to take them down from dictation. But look here, Brad," Merry continued, taking the letter from the Texan's hand. "Notice that word, 'sta.y.' Why do you suppose he dropped a period into the midst of it?" "Accident," said Brad. "Must have been." Frank shook his head. "Somehow I don't think so," he declared. "Somehow there seems to me there is a hidden meaning in this letter. I am half inclined to believe it is a cipher letter." "Gee whilikins!" cried the Texan. "Mebbe that's so!" Together they puzzled over it a long time, and the Texan grew more and more excited. Finally he shouted: "Let me have it, Frank--let me have it! That's why he wanted you to show it to me. See, he says for you to show it to me. He opined I'd tumble to the cipher and read it all right." The boy's hands were shaking as he held the letter. From head to feet he quivered with the excitement he could not control. "Steady, Buckhart," said Merry, laying a calming hand on his shoulder. "Then you believe there is a cipher in it, do you?" "Sure as shooting! I know there is! You hear me shout! Once on a time, at Fardale, he studied out right before me a cipher letter that was written this same way by one of his enemies. He reckoned I would remember that. He reckoned I would tumble and read the cipher in this letter." Although Frank must have been excited also, he still restrained himself. "If that's the case," he said, "you should be able to read this with ease. Go ahead and do so." "Gimme a pencil," panted the Texan. Frank did so, and then Brad began by underscoring the first word of the letter after Frank's name, following with the second word, having skipped one, then he skipped two, and underscored the next word. Then skipped three, underscoring the next, and so on through the greater part of the first paragraph. When this was finished, the words underscored read as follows: "I am in little house near windmill sta.y." "There she is!" Brad almost yelled, waving it wildly around his head. "That's the message. I followed her up further, but it ends right there. After that he just writes what they tell him to." "'I am in little house near windmill sta.y,'" read Frank, having taken the paper from the Texan's hand. "Are you certain that 'sta.y' comes into it?" "Well, part of her comes into it," averred Brad. "She comes into it up to the period, at least. I reckons that's why the period comes in there. 'Sta.'--what does that stand for, Frank?" "Station," said Merry at once. "He has written that he is in a little house near Windmill Station. That's it, Brad, my boy. We know where to find him at last, thanks to you." "No, Frank; thanks to that fine head of his. What are we going to do?" Frank walked over to a corner of the room and picked up a Winchester rifle, which he examined, a resolute grimness on his handsome face. "We're going to find that little house near Windmill Station," he said, in a calm, low voice. "And when we find it, Buckhart, there will be something doing." * * * * * Another night had fallen when a party of at least a dozen persons, all armed and ready for anything that might take place, surrounded and crept up to the little house where Dick was held a prisoner near Windmill Station. Frank led this party, and when the house was thoroughly surrounded, he advanced without hesitation to the door, Buckhart at his side, carrying in his hand an axe. "Give me the axe!" whispered Merry, as he extended his rifle to Brad. A moment later a crashing blow fell on the heavy door. When of a sudden Frank swung the axe and made blow after blow at the door, it shook, and cracked, and splintered before the attack upon it. "Lay on! lay on!" urged Cap'n Wiley, who was close at hand and ready for the encounter. "Knock the everlasting jimblistered stuffing out of her!" Within the hut there was no small commotion. Dick had been waiting. He heard the first blow, and it brought him to his feet with a bound. He heard the ruffianly guards in the outer room uttering excited exclamations. Then he shouted: "Beat it down, Frank--beat it down! Here I am!" He could not be sure his words were heard above the sounds of the assault on the door, but at this moment, with a great splintering crash, the door fell. Then came shouting, and shots, and sounds of a struggle. It was over quickly, and Dick was waiting when the door of his prison room was flung wide and his brother sprang in. "Hello, Frank!" he cried laughingly. "You're on time. They haven't begun chopping me up yet." "Where's my pard?" shouted Buckhart, as he came tearing into the room. "Here he is!" he whooped joyously, clasping Dick in his arms. "Say, pard, you're a dandy! But I don't believe I'd tumbled to it that there was a cipher message in that letter if Frank hadn't suspected such a thing." At this moment Cap'n Wiley appeared at the door. "Mate Merriwell," he said, "there's a fine gent out here who has a shattered knee and says he's bleeding to death. Perhaps you had better take a look at him." Frank turned back, followed by Dick and Brad. In the outer room both Mat and Dillon were prisoners in the hands of Merriwell's comrades, one of them having a bullet in his shoulder. But on the floor lay another man, who had been found there with them, having arrived a short time before the appearance of the rescuers. It was Macklyn Morgan, and his knee, as Wiley had declared, was shattered by a bullet. "I am dying, Merriwell!" said Morgan, his face ghastly pale. "You have triumphed at last. I will bother you no more." Frank quickly knelt and ripped open the man's trousers leg with a keen knife. Then he called sharply for a rope, which he tied loosely about Morgan's leg above the knee, thrusting through a loop in it a strong stick supplied him by Wiley. With this stick he twisted the rope until it cut into the flesh and stopped the profuse bleeding. "Now, Morgan," said Merry, "we will do our best to save your life by getting you to the nearest doctor in short order." "Why should you do that?" whispered the money king wonderingly. "I don't care to see even my worst enemy die in such a manner," was the answer. Macklyn Morgan did not die, although he must have done so but for the prompt action of Frank at that critical moment. He lost his leg, however, for it was found necessary to amputate the limb at the knee. It was some days after this operation that Morgan called for Frank, begging his attendant to bring Merry to him. When Merry stood beside the cot on which the wretched man lay, Morgan looked up and said: "I have been thinking this thing over, Mr. Merriwell, and the more I think about it the greater grows my astonishment at your action. The doctor has told me that you saved my life. I can't do much to even up for that; but from this time on, Frank Merriwell, I shall never lift a hand against you." THE END. 
47087	----	courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) MOTOR STORIES THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION NO. 4 MAR. 20, 1909 FIVE CENTS MOTOR MATT'S RACE THE LAST FLIGHT OF THE COMET _By STANLEY R. MATTHEWS_ [Illustration: "I've got it, pard!" shouted Chub, snatching the letter from Motor Matt's fingers.] _STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK._ MOTOR STORIES THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION _Issued Weekly. By subscription $2.50 per year. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1909, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C., by_ STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y._ No. 4. NEW YORK, March 20, 1909. Price Five Cents. MOTOR MATT'S RACE OR, THE LAST FLIGHT OF THE _COMET_. By the author of "MOTOR MATT." CONTENTS CHAPTER I. TROUBLE ON THE ROAD. CHAPTER II. THE STAMPEDE. CHAPTER III. CLIP'S NOTE. CHAPTER IV. M'KIBBEN'S TIP. CHAPTER V. A VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES. CHAPTER VI. THE PRIDE OF TOM CLIPPERTON. CHAPTER VII. LAYING PLANS. CHAPTER VIII. THE RIFLED CACHE. CHAPTER IX. THE BREAK IN THE ROAD. CHAPTER X. PRESCOTT. CHAPTER XI. MATT MAKES A NEW MOVE. CHAPTER XII. THE OLD HOPEWELL TUNNEL. CHAPTER XIII. QUICK WORK. CHAPTER XIV. STEAM VERSUS GASOLINE. CHAPTER XV. IN COURT. CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUSION. THE TENNIS-GROUND MYSTERY. MAKE QUEER CATCHES AT CAPE COD. COLD FIRE. CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY. =Matt King=, concerning whom there has always been a mystery--a lad of splendid athletic abilities, and never-failing nerve, who has won for himself, among the boys of the Western town, the popular name of "Mile-a-minute Matt." =Chub McReady=, sometimes called plain "Reddy," for short, on account of his fiery "thatch"--a chum of Matt, with a streak of genius for inventing things that often land the bold experimenter in trouble. =Welcome Perkins=, a one-legged wanderer who lives with Chub and his sister while their father prospects for gold--Welcome is really a man of peace, yet he delights to imagine himself a "terror," and is forever boasting about being a "reformed road-agent." =Tom Clipperton=, known generally as "Clip," a quarter-blood, who is very sensitive about his Indian ancestry. =McKibben=, the sheriff who has both nerve and intelligence. =Fresnay=, a cowboy who performs some mighty queer stunts. =Pima Pete=, an Indian to whom Clip is related. =Hogan=, } =Leffingwell=, } two deputy sheriffs. =Short=, a lawyer. =Burke=, sheriff of an adjoining county. =Jack Moody=, an engineer friend of Chub. CHAPTER I. TROUBLE ON THE ROAD. "Ye're afeared! Yah, that's what ye are! Motor Matt's scared, an' I never thought ye was afeared o' nothin'. Go ahead! I dare ye!" An automobile--a high-powered roadster--was nosing along through the hills a dozen miles out of the city of Phoenix. The vehicle had the usual two seats in front and a rumble-seat behind--places for three, but there were four piled aboard. Matt King was in the driver's seat, of course, and equally, of course, he had to have the whole seat to himself. On his left were Chub McReady and Tom Clipperton, sitting sideways and wedged into their places like sardines in a can. In the rumble behind was the gentleman with the wooden leg--Welcome Perkins, the "reformed road-agent." Matt was giving his friends a ride. The red roadster, in which they were taking the spin, was an unclaimed car at present in the custody of McKibben, the sheriff. It had been used for lawless work by its original owners, and had fallen into the hands of the sheriff, who was holding it in the hope that the criminals would come forward and claim it.[A] [A] See MOTOR MATT WEEKLY, No. 3, "Motor Matt's 'Century' Run; or, The Governor's Courier." McKibben and Motor Matt were the best of friends, and McKibben had told Matt to take the red roadster out for "exercise" whenever he felt like it. Directly after dinner, that day, they had started from the McReady home in Phoenix. It was now about half-past one, and they were jogging at a leisurely pace through the foot-hills. Welcome, on account of his wooden leg and the necessity of having plenty of room, had been given the rumble-seat. He was standing up most of the time, however, leaning over the back of the seat in front of him, and telling Motor Matt how to drive the car. That was the third time the old man had ever been in an automobile, but to hear him talk you'd have thought there wasn't anything about the machine that was new to him. His constant clamor was for more speed, and Matt had no intention of taking chances with a borrowed car when a leisurely pace was entirely satisfactory to himself and his two chums, Clip and Chub. "Oh, slush!" grunted Chub, as Welcome leaned forward and dared Motor Matt to "hit er up." "You'd be scared to death, Welcome, if Matt put on full speed and hit only a high place here and there. Sit down an' shut up, or we'll drop you into the road. I wouldn't mind having that seat of yours myself; eh, Clip?" "Free kentry, ain't it?" snapped Welcome. "You ain't got no call ter sot down on me, Chub McReady, if I want to talk. Go on," he added to Matt; "pull the plug out o' the carburetter an' hit the magneto a lick jest fer luck." This was a sample of Welcome's knowledge. Chub let off a delighted yell. "Yes," he laughed, "an' while you're about it, Matt, strip the planetary transmission an' short-circuit the spark-plug. Give Welcome all he wants! Make him sit down, hang on with both hands and bite hard on his store-teeth." "When you're running a car that don't belong to you, fellows," said Matt, "it's best to be on the safe side." "Sure," agreed Clip. "We're going fast enough. No need to rush things." "Ye're all afeared!" taunted Welcome. "Snakes alive, I could walk a heap faster'n what we're goin'. D'ruther walk, enough sight, if ye ain't goin' any faster'n this. This here ottermobill is an ole turtle. I hadn't ort ter brag about it, but when I was young an' lawless, I was that swift I could hold up a stage, then ride twenty miles an' hold up another, an' clean up the operation complete inside of an hour." "It wasn't much of a day for hold-ups, either," spoke up Chub gravely. "Anyways, that's what I done, Smarty," snorted Welcome, "but I didn't use no ottermobill--jest a plain hoss with four legs." "Must have had six legs," said Clip. "Couldn't have gone that fast on a horse with only four." "Now _you_ butt in," snarled Welcome. "Goin' to put the clutch on the cylinders, Matt," he added, "an' advance the spark a couple o' feet? If y'ain't, I'm goin' to git out an' walk home. It's only five hours till supper, an' we must be all o' twelve miles from town." "You see, Welcome," explained Matt, with a wink at Chub and Clip, "it wouldn't do to put the clutch on the cylinders, for I'd strip the gear; and if I advanced the spark more'n a foot I'd burn out the carburetter." "D'ye reckon I didn't know that?" demanded Welcome indignantly. "Why, I kin fergit more about these here ottermobill's in a minit than some fellers knows in a year. But, say! What's that thing off to the side o' the road? Looks like a Gila monster." All three of the boys turned their eyes swiftly to the roadside. The next instant Welcome had leaned far over, gripped the long lever at Matt's side and shoved it as far as he could. They had been on the low gear; that put them on the high with a jump, and the red roadster flung madly ahead. Matt shifted his eyes from the side of the road just in time to see Welcome sail out of the rumble, turn a half somersault and land, astonished, in a sitting posture in the road. Both Chub and Clip had had a scare, the sudden plunge of the machine having made them grab each other, and they only missed going over the side by a hair's breadth. As quickly as he could, Matt brought the lever to an upright position and pressed the primary foot-brake. "The old freak!" shouted Chub, as the car came to a halt. "He came within one of putting the lot of us overboard. If he had two good legs, I'm a farmer if we wouldn't make him walk back to town for that!" "If he don't agree to sit quiet in the rumble and enjoy the scenery," said Matt, "we'll make him walk, anyway. I won't allow any one to mix up with the machinery as long as I'm doing the driving." Welcome must have received quite a jolt. For a second or two he acted as though he were dazed; then he slowly gathered in his hat, got upright and shook his fist at those in the car. "Dad-bing!" he yelled. "Ye done it a-purpose, ye know ye did." "Well, what do you think of that!" muttered Chub. "Ye jest coaxed me out in that ole buzz-wagon ter hev fun with me," ranted Welcome. "Wonder ye didn't break my neck, 'r somethin'. I hit the trail harder'n a brick house, an' if I wasn't as springy as injy-rubber I'd hev been scattered all around here like a Chinese puzzle." "Come on, Welcome!" called Matt. "But you've got to keep still and keep away from the machinery if you want to ride with us." "Wouldn't ride in that ole cross between a kitchen stove an' a hay-rack fer a hunderd dollars a minit!" fumed Welcome. "I've stood all I'm a-goin' to. Ye've stirred up my lawlessness a-plenty, an' I'm goin' to hide out beside the road an' hold up the Montezuma stage when it comes through. Ye'll hear about it to-night, in town, an' then ye'll be sorry ye treated me like ye done. If ye got bizness any place else, hit yer ole gasoline-tank a welt an' don't let me detain ye a minit." Rubbing the small of his back and muttering to himself, the old man started along the road in the direction of town. "Let him walk a spell," said Chub in a low tone. "He wants us to coax him to get back in; let's make him think we're taking him at his word." "All right," laughed Matt, who knew the eccentric old man as well as anybody, "we'll lag along into the hills for a mile or two, and then come back. I guess Welcome will be glad enough to get in by that time." Chub got out and scrambled into the rumble. The machine took the spark without cranking and the red roadster started off. "So-long, Perk!" shouted Chub hilariously, standing up in the rumble and waving his hand. "Tell Susie, when you get home, that we'll straggle in by supper-time." The old man never looked around, but the way he stabbed the ground with his wooden pin showed how he felt. Perhaps half a mile from the place where Welcome had left the car the boys met a horseman riding at speed in the direction of town. The man drew rein for an instant. "Turn around!" he yelled; "p'int the other way! Can't ye hear 'em. Thar's a stampede on, an' a thousand head o' cattle aire tearin' this way like an express-train! Listen! If ye don't hike, they'll run right over ye!" Startled exclamations escaped the boys. The cowboy's manner, quite as much as his words, aroused their alarm. The trail, for several miles in that particular part of the hills, was walled in on both sides by high, steep ground. This made a sort of chute of the road, so that those in charge of the cattle would not be able to get ahead of them and turn them. Having given his warning and done what he could, the cowboy used his spurs and dashed on. At that moment a rumble of falling hoofs reached the ears of the boys, accompanied by the _click, click_ of knocking horns and a frenzied bellowing. "Turn 'er, quick!" whooped Chub. But the command was unnecessary. Motor Matt with a firm hand and a steady brain, was already manipulating the red roadster, backing and forging ahead in order to get faced the other way in the cramped space. Meanwhile the ominous sounds, which came from around the base of a hill where the road described a sharp bend, had been growing in volume. Just as the roadster jumped away on the back stretch the cattle began pouring around the foot of the hill. CHAPTER II. THE STAMPEDE. It was the custom of the ranchers to keep their cattle in the hills until they were nearly ready for market, then drive them down into Salt River Valley, turn them into the alfalfa-fields and let them fatten before shipment. This herd of lean, brown cattle, wild as coyotes, had been started for the grass-lands of the valley. Very little was required to start a panic among them, and this panic had hit them at the very worst place possible on the entire drive. With heads down, tongues protruding, foam flying from their open mouths, and horns knocking, the frenzied animals hurled themselves onward. Even if the sight of the automobile had frightened them, there could be no turning back for the leaders of the herd, pressed as they were by the charging brutes in the rear. And, of course, the character of the roadside, at that point, prevented any turning out or scattering. All that lay between the boys and destruction was the speed of the car. If a tire blew up, or if anything went wrong with the machinery, the tidal wave of cattle would roll on over the car and its passengers. "We're in fer it, fellers!" shouted Chub, who was in a good position to note the full extent of the danger. There was no hanging back on Motor Matt's part. He was on the high speed, and caressing the throttle-lever as he steered. "We're leaving 'em behind!" announced Clip. "Keep it up, Matt." The red roadster was not only leaving the frightened herd behind, but was coming up with the cowboy, hand over fist. "We'll have to slow down!" called Matt, between his clenched teeth, his flashing gray eyes straight ahead; "if we don't, we'll run over the man on the horse." Just then they turned a bit of an angle that gave them a glimpse of Welcome Perkins. Faint sounds of the uproar behind had reached the old man. Planted in the middle of the road, he was staring back, wondering, no doubt, why the horseman was tearing along at such a rate of speed, and why the red roadster was letting itself out on the back track. But the old man was not kept long in doubt. Through the haze of dust back of the automobile he saw the plunging cattle. The next moment he went straight up in the air with a terrified yell and made a dash for the side of the road. As fate would have it, the road at that point was hemmed in with banks too steep to be scaled; nevertheless, Welcome clawed frantically at the rocks. "Stand whar ye are!" roared the cowboy. "I'll take ye up with me." Welcome's peril struck wild alarm to the hearts of the boys. They realized that if they had insisted on the old man getting into the car he would not now be in that terrible predicament. In order to get Welcome up behind him the cowboy had to throw himself back on the bit and bring the horse to a quick halt. He leaned down to help Welcome up, and Welcome, who was almost as frenzied as the steers, gave a wild jump and grabbed saddle-horn and cantle. Under his weight, and the weight of the cowboy, which was temporarily thrown on the same side, the saddle turned. Welcome dropped into the road, and his would be rescuer pitched on top of him. The horse, thoroughly frightened, jumped away and continued his breakneck pace down the road. Yells of consternation went up from Chub and Clip. Matt had been obliged to bring the car almost to a halt while the cowboy was trying to pick up Welcome. The leaders of the stampeding herd had come dangerously close. "They're on us!" whooped Chub despairingly; "we're all done for!" "Not yet," shouted Matt, sending the car ahead toward the place where Welcome and the cowboy were scrambling to their feet. "Take 'em both aboard! Quick on it, now, and we'll get away." The car rumbled up abreast of the two in the road. "Jump in!" shouted Clip; "hustle!" Welcome threw himself into the front of the car and the cowboy made a flying leap for the rumble. Clip grabbed one and Chub caught the other. By then the foremost of the steers were almost nosing the rear of the car. Matt, without losing an instant, threw the lever clear over, and the roadster flung away like an arrow from a bow, on the high speed; then, a second later, he opened the throttle and the six purring cylinders sent the car along at a gait that was double that of the pursuing cattle. "Wow!" panted Welcome, who had both arms around Clip and was hanging to him like grim death. "Keep holt o' me! I feel like every minute was goin' to be my next! Slow down a leetle, can't ye? If ye don't we'll be upside down in the ditch! Whoosh! I'd ruther take chances with them steers than ridin' a streak o' lightnin' like this. Br-r-r!" Welcome was getting all the fast riding he wanted. The red roadster whipped and slewed around the curves, and leaped like lightning across the straight-away stretches. Matt, cool as a summer day and as steady as a clock, had eyes and ears for nothing but that terrible flight. Two minutes sufficed to bring the car out of the hills and onto the level plains. "All right, pard!" cried Chub from the rear; "slow down, now, whenever you please. The cowboys have got ahead of the herd and the leaders are beginning to mill." Matt slowed the pace to a ten-mile gait, and Welcome, with a gasp of relief, dropped in a limp huddle. "Shade o' Gallopin' Dick!" he mumbled, pulling a sleeve across his dripping forehead. "I've been in snug corners a-plenty durin' my hootin', tootin' career, but dadbinged if I ever had a closter call than this here. When I uster ride," he added, with a sour look at the cowboy in the rumble, "fellers useter know how to cinch up their saddles so'st they _stay_." "The givin' way o' that saddle," returned the cowboy, "was the best thing that ever happened to us. If I'd got you aboard that cayuse, Peg-leg, them cattle would hev nipped us, sure. The boss never could hev carried double an' got us out o' the way. This here devil-wagon," he finished, addressing the boys, "sartinly saved our scalps. I'm obliged ter ye fer what ye done." "Where do those cattle belong?" asked Chub. "To the Fiddleback outfit, same as me. I'm Josh Fresnay, an' I'm ridin' to town with the ole man's check fer ten thousand in gold ter pay off at the ranch. Got ter git ter the bank by three o'clock, 'r I won't be able ter git the money. I kin sojer back at any ole time ter-night, jest so'st the boys kin git their hooks on the dinero in the mornin'." Chub introduced himself, Matt, Clip, and Welcome. "Ye don't mean ter say," cried Fresnay, "that it's Motor Matt himself that made this devil-wagon cut that hole in the air?" "Sure it is," laughed Chub. "Put him behind a motor an' you can bet your spurs there's somethin' doing." "Waal, I reckon!" returned Fresnay enthusiastically. "Blamed few fellers in this part o' the kentry hevn't heerd o' Motor Matt. He's the one that ketched Dangerfield, the feller that was smugglin' Chinks inter the kentry, an' helped Burke, the Prescott sher'f, wind up the gang. Shore I've heerd o' Motor Matt. Put 'er thar, son!" and Fresnay leaned over the back of the seat and offered Matt his hand. The young motorist laughed as he gave the cowboy's hand a cordial shake. "It's easy to get talked about, Fresnay," said he. "That's right!" declared the cowboy. "Rob a bank, er save a gal from gittin' run over by a train--almost anythin'll do ter make yer name a household word. Now, as fer me----" The cowboy broke off his remarks with a long whistle. He was standing in the rumble, holding himself upright by gripping the back of the two front seats. His eyes, traveling along the trail over the heads of Matt and Clip, had seen something which aroused his surprise and gratification. "Waal, great horn spoons!" he cried. "If thar ain't Ole Beeswax, that cayuse o' mine, I'm a sinner! I'll be hornswoggled if I ain't playin' in luck, this trip. I'll be able ter git out now, McReady," he added to Chub, "an' give ye a leetle more room." Some distance away the horse was being held in the road. A tall man had the animal by the bridle. The man had a swarthy face, was roughly dressed, wore moccasins, and had evidently been footing it along the trail. As the red roadster came closer, Matt stared at the man keenly, and a muttered exclamation escaped his lips. As he brought the car to a halt, Matt's gaze swerved to Clip. Clip's eyes were like smoldering coals, and he was sitting rigidly erect. "Feller looks like a half-breed," murmured Welcome Perkins. "Got all the earmarks o' one. Seein' as how he was travelin' afoot, it strikes me as some remarkable he didn't h'ist himself inter the saddle an' ride off with that hoss. Half-breeds, as a rule, ain't got much regard fer other folk's property. Mebby he was intendin' to. I see he's got the saddle back on top o' the hoss." Fresnay tumbled out of the car and walked over to the half-breed. "Hello, neighbor!" he called. "I see ye've caught up my hoss. He got away from me back there in the hills." The half-breed grunted, swept his eyes over the cowboy and then over those in the car, and stepped forward to lay the reins in Fresnay's hand. "Heap easy to ketch um," said he. Clip and Chub got out to stretch their legs. Welcome gurgled delightedly as he sprawled himself in Clip's seat. Matt continued to watch the half-breed, but covertly. Fresnay fished a silver dollar out of his pocket. "I ain't got much dinero about my clothes, neighbor," he observed, "but here's a cart-wheel fer yer trouble." The half-breed grabbed the dollar, spun it in the air, caught it as it came down, then slipped it into his pocket. As he drew out his hand, Matt saw something in it that looked like a folded paper--perhaps a note. The half-breed tried to conceal the paper in his palm, and Matt believed that he was the only one in the party who saw it. While Fresnay was climbing to the back of the horse, the half-breed, tossing Matt a significant look, brushed past Clip and tucked the folded paper into his hand with a quick, stealthy movement, then whirled, left the trail and strode quickly away. Clip, his eyes still burning and with a strange look crossing his face, hid the paper deftly in the pocket of his coat. "Never did like a half-breed nohow," grunted Welcome. "They ain't ter be depended on, an' I makes it a rule to walk around 'em just as I would a rattler." Clip shot a glance of angry defiance at the garrulous old man. For the moment Welcome had forgotten that Clip was a quarter-blood, himself. CHAPTER III. CLIP'S NOTE. "Mighty unsociable, that feller," laughed the cowboy, staring after the vanishing form of the half-breed. "Waal," he added, "it was wuth a heap more'n a dollar ter hev him corral Ole Beeswax. You boys'll beat me inter Phoenix, easy enough, but I got time ter jog along an' git thar by three. I'm a powerful obliged ter ye fer what ye done, an' if ever any o' ye need a friend, jest call on Josh Fresnay. So-long." Chub and Clip had climbed back into the car. All the boys shouted their good-bys to Fresnay, and, after Matt had "cranked up," the car sped away in the direction of Phoenix. Clip was silent and preoccupied, and Matt attended quietly to his work of driving the car; but his thoughts were busy. While Welcome jabbered in his usual strain, and Chub flung back an occasional answer, Matt's mind circled about the half-breed and the note. Matt had recognized the half-breed at the first glance. He was none other than Pima Pete, and he was an uncle of Clip's. But, what was infinitely worse, Pete had been a member of a gang of smugglers headed by the notorious Dangerfield. With a few others, Pima Pete had escaped at the time Dangerfield and most of his gang had been captured. A reward of $1,000 each had been offered for the apprehension of every member of the lawless outfit, and this offer still held good so far as Pima Pete was concerned. That note which had been smuggled into Clip's hand must have been of a good deal of importance, or Pima Pete would not have run the risk of capture in order to deliver it. When the boys reached town, Clip got out of the car at the point nearest the place where he roomed, in the Mexican quarter. Chub and Welcome were still in the car, and Clip merely gave Matt a significant look as he waved a good-by. Matt knew that Clip must be anxious to read the note and find out what his uncle had to say to him. Chub and Welcome got out in front of their home, and stood for a moment beside the car. "You've shut up like a clam, pard," remarked Chub, with a curious look at Matt. "What's the matter? Anything gone crossways?" "What makes you think that, Chub?" laughed Matt. "Don't a fellow ever do a little head-work except when things go crossways?" "Everybody ain't shootin' off his mouth the hull blessed time like you, Chub," put in Welcome. "Whenever you talk it's like a lot o' words rattlin' in a gourd. Now, Matt an' me's some diff'rent. By keepin' mum fer a while, we allers hev somethin' to say whenever we talk." "Police!" grinned Chub. "Why, Perk, you garrulous old parrot, you can talk more and say less than any man in Arizona. When'll you be around again, Matt?" "Oh, I'll drop in on you to-morrow, some time. So-long!" Matt returned the red roadster to McKibben's barn, where it was being kept, cleaned it up a little and made sure that everything was all right, then locked the barn door and left the key with Mrs. McKibben. It was probably half-past four when he reached his boarding-place. As soon as he had dusted his clothes, and paid his respects to the wash-bowl, he dropped into a chair and fell to thinking, once more, about Clip, Pima Pete, and the note. He had an idea that that note meant trouble for Clip. It was a vague sort of feeling, but strong enough to make Matt uncomfortable. Pima Pete had been a lawbreaker, and there was a reward out for him. Being a relative of Clip's, the half-breed was safe so far as Clip and Matt were concerned, but if any one who knew Pima Pete happened to see Clip with him, there might be no end of trouble. Thoroughly dissatisfied with the course events were taking, and not a little worried, Matt went down to supper and sat through a half hour of incessant clatter from his landlady, Mrs. Spooner. When he got up from the table he had decided to find Clip at once and get at the contents of Pima Pete's note. He went to his room after his hat, and when he opened the door there was Clip in a rocking-chair by the window. The quarter-blood had slipped into the house and up-stairs to the room while Matt had been eating his supper. "Why, hello, old chap!" exclaimed Matt. "I was just thinking about hunting you up." "Hist!" warned Clip. "Not so loud, Matt. Maybe I shouldn't have come here. But I felt as though I just _had_ to talk with you." Matt was "stumped." Nevertheless, he was not slow in guessing that Pima Pete's note had something to do with Clip's mysterious manner. "What's wrong, Clip?" queried Matt, lowering his voice and setting a chair closer to his chum. "Matter enough. You saw what happened. When the cowboy got back his horse, I mean." "Pima Pete gave you a note." "That's it. Not much gets away from you, Matt. I was afraid Chub and Perkins might have seen it, too." "They didn't. I could swear to that." "You remember what Dangerfield said when he was captured? That there was something he wanted you to do?" Matt knitted his brows. He had not forgotten that. "I remember it, Clip," said he; "and I remember, too, that I was to hear about the work through Pima Pete." "Well, Pima Pete came to me. We're of the same blood, as you know." As usual, whenever he mentioned his mixed blood, a savage defiance blazed in Clip's face. "I reckon that's why Pete came to me. It would be easy for any one who knew him to give him away." "I wouldn't do that--on your account, Clip." "Sure you wouldn't. I know that. But Pima Pete don't. He saw us going into the hills in the automobile. Then he wrote that note and waited for us to come back. He didn't dare enter the town. And he was taking chances, as it was. If that cowboy had happened to know him, Pete's game would have been up." "Did he tell you in the note about seeing us, and waiting for us to come back, Clip?" asked Matt. Clip nodded. "Where's the note?" "I burned it. Got to be on the safe side, Matt. Pima Pete's my uncle. I can't take any chances. Are you willing to try what Dangerfield wants done?" "If it's honest work, and I can help anybody by doing it, yes. But Dangerfield was a lawbreaker, and I'd have to know all about the business before I took any hand in it." "There's ten thousand dollars in gold buried in the hills. It's cached near where Pete met us. Pete wants us to meet him out there to-night and get the gold. It's Dangerfield's. Pete says Dangerfield earned it honestly. Dangerfield's father is an old man, and lives in Emmetsburg, Iowa. We're to send six thousand dollars to Emmetsburg, and Pete, and you, and I are to divide the rest. That's the work." Clip's keen eyes were fixed on Matt's troubled face. Matt was thinking hard and did not answer. "You don't like the work!" muttered Clip. "I don't, and that's a fact, Clip," returned Matt. "That may be honest money, but how do we know? Why didn't Dangerfield tell the sheriff and let _him_ dig it up?" "The sheriff would turn it over to the prosecuting attorney. The government would confiscate it. You see, the federal lawyer would think it money Dangerfield got for smuggling Chinamen over the border." "Well," said Matt decisively, "if we fooled with that money we'd be apt to get our fingers burned. Besides, it isn't a good thing to tangle up with Pima Pete. He's better off, and so are we, if we keep apart." A dark frown settled on Clip's swarthy face. For several minutes he bent his head thoughtfully. "Pete has to get his part of the money," said Clip finally. "He can't get away to Mexico until he has it." "If he knows where it is," suggested Matt, "he could take it all." "Yes--if he was an out-and-out thief." Clip threw back his head and squared his shoulders. "He didn't reckon there was any harm helping Dangerfield run a few Chinks across the border. A whole lot of people think the same way." "That may be, Clip," answered Matt kindly, "but there's a law against it, and Dangerfield and his men broke the law. That's put Dangerfield in a hole, and it would put Pima Pete in a hole, too, if the officers knew he was skulking around near Phoenix. Take my advice, Clip," Matt added earnestly, dropping a hand on his chum's knee. "Keep away from Pete, just now. Let him dig up the gold and send some of it to Emmetsburg. There's no need of ringing you and me in on the deal." "You don't understand, Matt. Pete don't dare show himself anywhere. If you and I don't mix up with that gold, nothing will be done with it." Matt puzzled his brain over the problem for several minutes. "I'll tell you, Clip," said he finally, "you meet your uncle to-night, but do it carefully--understand? Be sure no one sees you. Let him tell you right where the gold is, and let him take a thousand of it, if he has to have it, and clear out. In two or three days, when your uncle has had time to get into Mexico, I'll go to Governor Gaynor, lay the whole matter before him, and ask his advice. If he says for us to do what Dangerfield wants, we'll do it. That's the best course. But don't you be with Pima Pete a minute longer than you have to." Once more Clip bowed his head. While he was thinking the matter over a rap fell on the door. Starting up quickly, Clip laid a finger on his lips, moved softly across the room and into a closet, pulling the door partly shut after him. All this secrecy of Clip's Matt did not think at all necessary; but Clip was a queer fellow, although a fine one at heart, and doubly queer whenever anything connected with his ancestry came up. There was no time to argue with him, however, and Matt stepped to the door and threw it open. McKibben, the sheriff, stepped into the room. CHAPTER IV. M'KIBBEN'S TIP. "Howdy, Matt!" cried McKibben. "Just dropped in to see you on a little matter of business. Mrs. Spooner wanted to come up and announce me, but I told her that wasn't necessary. Know where Tom Clipperton is?" This point blank question struck Matt "all of a heap." If there was one thing he hated more than another it was a lie. Only a coward will side-step the truth. However, Matt couldn't very well tell McKibben that Clip was in the closet, and he didn't see how he could refuse to answer McKibben's question without arousing his suspicions. Fortunately, the official did not wait very long for Matt to reply. "I've just come from the place where Clipperton boards," said he, "and he wasn't there. I can have a little talk with you, though, and maybe it will do just as well." Matt and McKibben were very good friends, and the sheriff dropped into the chair recently vacated by Clip. "What's happened, Mr. McKibben?" queried Matt. "Has some one turned up to claim that red roadster?" "No, and I don't believe any one ever will. The fellows who own that car know when to let well enough alone. What I want to see you about, Matt, is an altogether different matter, although the roadster is indirectly concerned. You were out this afternoon with Clipperton, McReady, and Perkins, and you got away from a cattle stampede by the skin of your eye-winkers, at the same time saving Josh Fresnay, of the Fiddleback outfit." "It wasn't much of a getaway," laughed Matt. "When you open that red roadster up she can go about ten feet to a steer's one." "Of course," returned McKibben, "with a cool head and a steady hand, like yours, there wasn't much danger. Fresnay was telling me about it. He also told me how his horse was stopped by a half-breed, and how he had a notion that the half-breed was Pima Pete, one of Dangerfield's old gang. Fresnay has only seen Pima Pete once or twice, and one half-breed looks a lot like another, anyhow, so Fresnay didn't think very much about it at the time he got his horse back. While he was riding into Phoenix though, he got to turning the matter over in his mind, along with something else he saw, and he got a bit suspicious. As soon as he'd finished his business at the bank he came to see me. I heard what he had to say and went to see Clipperton, but he wasn't at home. Knowing you were a chum of Clipperton's, I headed for here." Matt was startled, although he tried not to show it. Fresnay was a source of peril for Clip--that point went home to Matt in a twinkling. "Naturally," resumed the sheriff, taking a whole lot for granted, "you wouldn't know Pima Pete from Adam, but Clip might know him. Anyhow, on the supposition that Fresnay's suspicions were well grounded, I have sent a couple of deputies out into the hills to look for the half-breed; but I'd like a little more information, if I could get it. There's another point, too, which looks a little bit queer, in case Fresnay has got it right. He said he saw the half-breed hand Clipperton something that looked like a scrap of paper. Fresnay may have been wrong in this--I hope he is--for if the half-breed really proves to be Pima Pete, that note business will have an ugly look for your chum. See? What I want you to do, Matt, is to find Clip, if you can, and send him to me. I've only got the boy's best interests at heart, and I want to talk with him. A little heart-to-heart talk, just now, might save him some trouble." McKibben got up. "I reckon that's all," he finished, moving toward the door. "If you can find Clipperton you'll ask him to come and see me?" "Yes," answered Matt. Just then he was in a situation that was mighty unpleasant. How was he going to play square with the sheriff and at the same time be loyal to Clipperton? Certainly he could not tell what he knew about Clipperton and Pima Pete. As soon as the sheriff had gone, and the front door of the house had closed behind him, Clip emerged from the closet. His face was set and stern as he confronted Matt. "Fresnay has made much trouble!" muttered Clip. "He recognized my uncle. And he saw him smuggle that note into my hand. More than that, two deputies are in the hills looking for Pima Pete." Clip scowled his dissatisfaction over the prospect. "You can see, old chap," said Matt, "what it means to tangle up with Pima Pete in this business of Dangerfield's. Cut Pima Pete out. It isn't safe for you to have anything more to do with him." "_You_ needn't, Matt. You can't, after this. But I've got to. Pima Pete's my uncle. Blood's thicker than water, even if it _is_ Indian blood." The fiercely resentful look gleamed in Clip's eyes. "Pima Pete came here on Dangerfield's business. But for that, he'd have been across the border and safe by now. I'll see him to-night and warn him to clear out." "Clip," said Matt, in a low, earnest tone, "if you'll take my advice you won't go near Pima Pete, but you'll go to the sheriff and make a clean breast of the whole thing." Clip made a gesture of savage dissent. "If it was _your_ uncle," said he, with a bitter note in his voice, "you'd see this thing differently. Suppose Pima Pete's captured and brought in here. Suppose it becomes known he's a relative of mine--he, one of Dangerfield's gang!" Clip's eyes became points of flame, and his breath came hard and fast. "Why," and his voice was husky and thick with passion as he spoke, "they might try to take me out of the public school and send me to the Indian school. I've--I've stood all I can on account of my blood. I'm not ashamed of it!" His head went up again and his shoulders went back proudly. "But I'm not going to be an object of contempt for the whites of this town. At the high school they've been trying to down me because I'm part Indian. They couldn't have treated me worse if I'd been a nigger. You were my only friend." His voice softened. "You have made friends for me. Now I'm not going to lose all I've gained by having Pima Pete brought in, and letting everybody know what he is to me. Besides, he's my uncle. I'm not going to turn my back on him while he's in trouble." Clip's words came whisperingly, but with an undernote of firmness and determination there was no shaking. Matt was in a quandary. He could see Clip's side of the question, and he knew how resolute he always was when he had made up his mind to a certain course. "Look here," said Matt, "you go and see the sheriff. Tell him everything. He's a good friend of mine, and of yours, and he'll respect your confidence. While you're doing that, I'll get onto the _Comet_, go out into the hills, and warn Pima Pete myself. It will be safer for me than for you." Clip stared at Matt for a moment, then walked up to him and gripped his hand. "That's like you," he returned. "But it won't do. If there's danger in meeting Pima Pete, it's _my_ danger. Besides, it's my duty. Another thing. I'll not tell McKibben, nor any one else, what Pima Pete is to me. I'll die first. And as long as you're my friend, you'll not breathe a whisper of it to any one." The last words were spoken slowly and deliberately. "No matter what happens, Matt, that shot goes as it lays," went on Clip. "I'm going to see Pima Pete and warn him. I'll start as soon as I leave here. But I'll put on some other clothes so no one will know me. And I won't take my motor-cycle. That would be a give-away. I'll walk." Matt hardly knew what to do. "If it wasn't for that confounded note," he muttered, "this business would have a different look. I didn't think Fresnay saw that." "He said he'd be a friend of ours," frowned Clip gloomily. "Now he's making me trouble." "Fresnay meant well. He thought he was doing the right thing to carry his suspicions to the sheriff. In any other circumstances, Clip, you'd have done the same thing, and so would I. I'll go with you out there. Then, if anything should come of it, I'll have something to say. Governor Gaynor is a friend of mine, and so is McKibben. I'm sure they'd both of them listen to _me_." Clip shook his head. "I'll do this alone. I'm not going to ring you in. If I ever meant anything in my life I mean that. You say you're a friend of mine. Then prove it by staying right here in town. Don't say anything about me to any one. That's all, Matt." Clip glided to the door, opened it softly, and made a cautious survey of the stairway and the hall. "The coast is clear," he whispered, turning back for a moment, "and I can get out without being seen. Good-by, pard." "So-long, Clip." Clip vanished from the room. Matt, looking from the front window, saw him emerge from the house and start for a back street on his way to the Mexican quarter. His Indian blood never showed in him more than it did then. There was savage wariness in every movement. Heavy-hearted and full of foreboding, Matt dropped into a chair. His judgment told him that Clip ought not to go into the hills, but there was no way Matt could prevent it. His hands were tied. For an hour Matt sat in his chair; then, for an hour longer, he paced the floor. After that he tried to read, but his gloomy thoughts would give him no peace. It was about nine o'clock when he pulled covers, but for a long time he could only toss about sleeplessly and think of Clip. He heard the clock in the court-house tower chime the hours up to midnight, and then dropped into heavy slumber. The gray dawn was looking in at his windows when he was aroused. Somebody was pounding on his door. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he jumped up, unlocked the door, and pulled it open. Chub McReady staggered in. His face was gray in the dim light, and he was breathless from running and excitement. "What do you think, Matt?" he puffed. "Clip's been arrested. He's over in the jail, now." CHAPTER V. A VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES. "Arrested!" Matt staggered back and dropped on the edge of the bed. "That's right! Don't it knock you slabsided? Clip! Think of it! I've been on the blink ever since I heard it. Welcome was up early this mornin' and he saw 'em passin' the house, taking Clip to jail. Hogan and Leffingwell, two of McKibben's deputies, had him. And Hogan's arm was in a sling--he'd been shot." "Not by Clip!" exclaimed Matt, horrified. "No, but by Pima Pete, one of the Dangerfield gang who was with Clip. Pete got away; and Clip could have got away, too, only he didn't try. That ain't the worst of it, though!" Chub mopped his face with a handkerchief and began fanning himself with his hat. "Great horned toads, Matt, but things have been happenin' so fast I'm fair dazed with 'em all." "What else has happened, Chub?" demanded Matt, getting up and beginning to scramble into his clothes. "Go ahead. I'll listen while I'm getting dressed." "You remember what Josh Fresnay, that cowboy, told us," went on Chub, "while we had him on the car racin' away from those stampeding steers? He said he was going to town after ten thousand in gold to meet the Fiddleback pay-roll." "Yes," put in Matt, with a start, "I remember that." "Well, Fresnay was robbed, last night. He started for the ranch about nine in the evening, and when he struck the hills, close to the place where we met the stampeded herd, somebody roped him from the roadside and jerked him out of the saddle. He was pretty badly stunned, but he was able to see that there were two who turned the trick. They looked like half-breeds, to him, although it was too dark to see anything very plain. Before Fresnay could untangle the rope, the two robbers had cut his bag of gold from the saddle and made off with it. Fresnay, as soon as he could corral his wits, started back to town. As luck would have it, he met Hogan and Leffingwell, and told them what had happened. They all three started for the place where the robbery had been pulled off, and ran smack into Clip and this Pima Pete; what's more, Clip was lugging a bag containing nine thousand dollars in gold, and Pete had a buckskin pouch with the other thousand. Now, what d'you think o' that!" Matt was dumfounded. Towel in hand, he turned gaspingly from the wash-stand and stared at Chub. But Matt knew what had happened. In spite of his advice, Clip had gone with Pima Pete to Dangerfield's cache and dug up the money. Pete had probably needed the thousand to get away with. By an irony of fate, Dangerfield had buried $10,000 in gold--just the amount which had been stolen from Fresnay. "But it wasn't the same money!" declared Matt. "Yes, it was--anyhow, it looks like it. All double eagles, Matt. It wasn't the same bag, though--but _that_ don't count. Great guns! I'd never have thought that of Clip. But blood tells, one way or another, and----" "Don't you think it of him now, Chub!" cried Matt, scrubbing savagely at his face with a towel. "There's not a dishonest hair in Clip's head. You know it and I know it. This thing can all be explained." "Of course," said Chub, "it's hard to think Clip's a thief, but he's up against a hard lot of circumstances, and it's twenty-three for him, I'm afraid." "It's all circumstantial evidence," growled Matt, "and that means a doubt on the face of it." "And then to be caught with the goods----" "It wasn't the 'goods.' Chub, Clip's a chum of yours and mine. Now's when he needs us, more than at any other time. You take it from me, Clip's innocent. We'll pull together and get him clear." Matt's confidence aroused Chub's. "But Clip was _disguised_, Matt," said Chub, more than willing to be convinced; "how do you account for that?" Matt knew how to account for it, all right, but he was not at liberty to tell Chub or any one else. "That can be explained," said Matt quietly. The shock of Chub's news had passed, and Matt's keen mind was now busy with the situation. Every circumstance Chub had mentioned was but another coil about the unfortunate Clip. Matt blamed himself for not insisting on going with Clip to meet Pima Pete. Had he gone, he knew he could have kept Pete and Clip from going to Dangerfield's cache and getting the gold. But for that fateful gold, a little figuring would have let Clip out of the whole affair. "You got all this from Welcome?" asked Matt. "That's how," replied Chub. "Welcome came on in with Hogan and Leffingwell, and they told him all of it." "Didn't Clip say anything?" "You can search me. He was riding behind Leffingwell, handcuffed and tied to the horse. He looked all gloomed up, Perk said." "Why shouldn't he?" demanded Matt. "Why did they let Pima Pete get away?" he added angrily. "If they'd brought _him_ in, this whole thing could have been straightened out." "How? You seem to know something--put me wise, Matt." "I can't tell you now, Chub, but maybe I may after I talk with Clip. Did the deputies tell Welcome how Pima Pete managed to escape?" "They said he pulled a gun, fired, and jumped into the rocks at the trailside. He dropped the pouch with the thousand, in his hurry. Hogan was hurt, as I said, but Leffingwell drew a gun and would have dropped Pima Pete if Clip hadn't knocked the gun aside. And that's another point against Clip. Jumpin' tarantulas!" and Chub shook his head ominously. "I don't see how we're ever goin' to get Clip out of this, Matt. Even if he wasn't guilty, he acted that way right from the start." "But he didn't try to run himself! Don't forget that, Chub. What time were Clip and Pima Pete met up with by the deputies?" "A little after ten last night." "And they didn't bring Clip in till early this morning?" "No. Hogan watched Clip, and Leffingwell chased after Pete. Leffingwell couldn't use his horse--you know the lay of the ground out there beside the trail--so Leffingwell had to do his huntin' on foot. He used up several hours, I guess, but Pete got away from him." "There's another point, Chub," said Matt. "How could Hogan and Leffingwell tell the man was Pete, if it was dark?" "Leffingwell knows Pete pretty well. You see, Leffingwell comes from Prescott, an' that place used to be an old stamping-ground of the half-breed's. And then Leffingwell got close enough to Pete so he could see him. It was a clear night, and there was a good moon." Matt knew, naturally, that Leffingwell had made no mistake. "You say Clip's in jail?" inquired Matt, reaching for his cap. "That's where they were taking him." "Well, we'll get a permit from Mr. McKibben and go and have a talk with Clip. I guess the sheriff will be in his office now, on account of this, so we'll slide for the court-house. Come on." They descended the stairs quickly and let themselves out into the clear morning air. Would Clip still allow his pride to stand between himself and freedom? He had told Matt that he would die before he would let any one in Phoenix know that Pima Pete was a relative of his. Could Clip explain matters satisfactorily by keeping his relationship with Pete in the background? The sheriff was in his office, and with him were Hogan and Fresnay. Hogan's arm was hanging from his neck in a sling, and there was a strong smell of drugs in the room, proving that the arm had recently been dressed by a surgeon. Fresnay also had a few bruises, caused by his fall from the back of his horse. On the sheriff's desk lay a dingy canvas bag and a greasy pouch of buckskin. There was a big pile of gold pieces stacked up by the canvas bag, and a smaller pile heaped up by the pouch. "Hello, Matt!" called the sheriff, motioning both boys to chairs. "I felt pretty sure you'd show up. Tough luck, eh? But I was afraid of something like this when I called on you last night." "Clip's innocent, Mr. McKibben," asserted Matt stoutly. "You've made a mistake, Fresnay," he added to the cowboy. "Wisht I had, pard," answered Fresnay, "jest on yore account. Didn't know, till McKibben told me, that you was sich a great friend o' Clipperton's. But ye kain't dodge the facts, son." "If you'd got a good look at the two who robbed you," went on Matt, "you'd have known at once that one of them wasn't Clip." "I was kinder dazed, but them thieves looked like the half-breed and Clipperton. Anyways, we found 'em with the gold, an' that makes it a dead open-an'-shut." "Is it the same gold?" "Double eagles. The payin'-teller at the bank'll tell you that's how I drawed the pay-roll money. Allers git it that way." "Is it the same bag?" "Waal, no, but it 'u'd be plumb easy ter change bags." "If your bag was a good one, why would a change be made to that other one?" and Matt's eyes rested on the dingy canvas receptacle on the sheriff's desk. "Give it up, pard. We got ter take things as we find 'em." "I know, Matt," put in McKibben, "that you hate to think this of Clip even more than I do, but we've got a clean case against the boy. In the first place, he was in the red roadster when Fresnay told all of you he was coming to town after ten thousand in gold; then Clipperton gets into a disguise and walks into the hills--_walks_, mind you, so no one will guess who he is, which wouldn't have been hard if he'd taken the motor-cycle; and then he's bagged with the money and refuses to say a word about that note Pima Pete gave him, or how he came to be in the hills with the half-breed. It looks mighty bad for Clipperton, I can tell you that. I've sent for him, though, so as to have another talk with him. Glad you came. Maybe you can get him to say something. Ah, here he is now." Just at that moment the door opened and Clip came into the room. He was handcuffed, and Leffingwell had a hand through his arm. Matt and Chub got up and stepped toward their chum. "Cheer up, old chum!" said Matt, taking Clip's hand. "We know you're innocent, and we're going to prove it." "You bet we are!" declared Chub. Clip looked his gratitude, at the same time there was a restraining gleam in the eyes he turned on Matt. CHAPTER VI. THE PRIDE OF TOM CLIPPERTON. At that significant look from Clipperton, Matt's hopes went down. Apparently not even arrest, or the dubious prospect ahead of him, had shaken Tom Clipperton's resolve to hide his dealings with Pima Pete. Defiantly he turned to face the sheriff. "You're in a bad hole, Clipperton," said McKibben, "and I've brought you here to see again if you won't tell us something that will make this look a little less dark for you. I want to be your friend, but I can't do anything if you're not perfectly frank with me." "If you want to be my friend, look for the real robbers," answered Clip. "I didn't take Fresnay's money." "Where did you get that gold, then?" "I dug it up." The sheriff looked incredulous, as well he might; Hogan muttered sarcastically, and Fresnay shook his head. "It's a fact!" declared Clip angrily. "You can go and see the place. Look at that bag!" He whirled and pointed to the dingy canvas sack on the desk. "There's sand on it yet." "It won't do, Clip," said McKibben. "Don't it strike you as mighty odd you should dig up just the amount of money that was taken from Fresnay, and all of the same kind? But, assuming that you did dig it up, who put the gold in the ground? And what had Pima Pete to do with it?" "I can't tell you that," answered Clipperton stiffly. Matt went over to Clip and whispered to him. "For heaven's sake, Clip, don't you understand what this means to you? Make a clean breast of everything!" "I'll go to prison for life first! You know how I've been treated here, and you know what would be said of me if they knew all about Pima Pete." "Anyhow," pleaded Matt, "tell the sheriff it was Dangerfield's money. Dangerfield himself will bear you out in that." "They wouldn't believe me, and they wouldn't believe Dangerfield. I'll tell them that much, though. Don't you forget! If you're a friend of mine you'll say nothing." "Not to Chub?" Clip hesitated. "We're both of us going to help you out of this," went on Matt earnestly, "one way or another. But we can work better if Chub knows as much as I do." "Tell him," said Clip. "But make him promise not to tell any one else. I'm not ashamed of my blood, but if they knew Pima Pete was my uncle they'd be more ready to fasten this onto me." "That's a mistake, old fellow, and----" "I've made up my mind!" The black eyes flashed. "If you and Chub find the real thieves, and get back the other ten thousand dollars, that would let me out. Nothing else will." It was a terrible mistake Clip was making, but his nature had been so warped because of the treatment he had suffered on account of his Indian blood, that it was impossible for him to see the matter in the right light. Matt drew back, his face showing his intense disappointment. "It was Dangerfield's money," said Clip to McKibben. The sheriff did not believe the statement, and neither did Hogan nor Fresnay nor Leffingwell. "Where did Dangerfield get all that money?" asked McKibben; "and why did he hide it like that?" "Ask him," said Clip curtly. The looks on the faces of his inquisitors had brought his pride and defiance to the surface. "Where is Dangerfield now, Mr. McKibben?" asked Matt. "He has been taken to the government prison at Leavenworth," answered the sheriff. "Can't you write him, tell what has happened, and ask him for a statement?" "What's the use, Matt? The whole thing sounds too fishy." "Do it for me, Mr. McKibben! I _know_ Clip's telling the truth. Why, Dangerfield wanted me to help dig up that gold----" Matt stopped suddenly. Clip's eyes were on him and were telling him plainly he had said too much. "Wanted _you_ to help dig it up?" queried the puzzled sheriff. "Write and ask him about it," said Matt. "I will," averred McKibben, "just because of what you say. My letter will go to the warden of the prison, however, and I'll have him question Dangerfield. It's too improbable a yarn, though, and I haven't any hopes." He turned to Clip. "What was in that note Pima Pete gave you?" he asked. "Pete asked me to meet him last night and dig up the gold," replied Clip. "Have you the note?" "I burned it." "Why did you do that?" Clip was silent. "Why did you disguise yourself when you went out to meet Pima Pete?" Still Clip would not answer. "Why did you grab Leffingwell's revolver and keep him from shooting the half-breed when he was running away?" The use of the word "half-breed" was unfortunate. It reminded Clip how ready they were to think evil of him on account of his mixed blood. "That's my business," said he curtly. The sharp answer aroused the sheriff's resentment. "Very well, if you're foolish enough to take that stand, Clipperton. You'll have an examination this afternoon, but you might as well waive it, if you're going to keep that attitude." "He'll have a lawyer to look after his interests, Mr. McKibben," spoke up Matt. "Who'll pay for the lawyer?" asked Clip, turning on Matt. "I will! Dangerfield got you into this, and I'll spend every cent paid to me for his capture to get you clear." Clip stretched out his hands quietly, the handcuffs rattling. Matt clasped his chum's palm loyally, and Clip turned away. McKibben motioned to Leffingwell, and the prisoner was led out of the room. "You're certainly a mighty good friend of Clipperton's," said the sheriff to Matt, "but he don't deserve it." "You don't know him as well as I do," said Matt. "He could explain a whole lot, if he would." "Then why don't he do it?" "Mistaken pride," flushed Matt, "and it comes from the scurvy way people have treated him here in Phoenix." "Then that mistaken pride," said the sheriff gravely, "is going to land him in the penitentiary." "Not if Chub and I can save him!" "What have you and Chub got to work on?" "The theory you won't accept--that the real thieves, with another lot of money, are hiding away somewhere, tickled to death to think that you're on the wrong track." "Matt," and the sheriff came close to the boy and dropped a hand on his shoulder, "you're the clear quill, and I think a heap of you, but you're going it wrong. That Injun was never born who wouldn't steal, and there's enough Injun blood in Tom Clipperton to make him a thief. Come! There's no use beating about the bush; we might just as well call a spade a spade and be done with it. Let the law take its course with Clipperton--you can't stop it." "I _will_ stop it," declared Matt; "McReady and I will prove that Clipperton is innocent." "I wish I had a few friends like you," muttered the sheriff. "Same here," spoke up Fresnay, stepping forward. "Ye don't hold any grouch ag'inst me, do you, Matt?" "No; you only did what you thought was right. And that's all Tom Clipperton did. All of you will be next to that, one of these days." "Well," said McKibben, "I know you've got nerve, and I know that when you make up your mind to a thing you hang to it tighter than a dog to a bone. But you listen to me Matt: If you spend all your money for Clipperton you'll be sorry." "Anyhow, you're going to write to Leavenworth?" asked Matt. "I'll do that at once." That was about all Matt had gained by his interview in the sheriff's office. He and Chub went out, and Chub heaved a long breath as they went down the court-house steps. "There's a hen on somewhere, Matt," said Chub. "I'm pretty thick-headed, but I can see that. What was you whisperin' to Clip about?" "I was trying to get him to make a clean breast of everything," replied Matt gloomily. "And he wouldn't?" "No; but he said I could let you in on all I know, providing you'd agree to keep it to yourself." "Sure I'll keep it to myself. That's all to the good. Fire away." "Come over to breakfast with me at Mrs. Spooner's. I'll tell you as we go along." Matt began by telling Chub how Dangerfield had asked him to help in some work or other which Pima Pete knew about; then he went on to tell about the note given to Clip by Pete, of the former's call the afternoon before, and about Clip's determination to see Pete and warn him away. Then Matt made the whole thing clear by explaining that Pima Pete was Clip's uncle. Chub was so astounded he could only whistle. They were at Mrs. Spooner's before he could make any comment one way or another, and the landlady was waiting with a badly soiled envelope addressed to Matt. "That there letter," explained Mrs. Spooner, "was left here by the worst-lookin' greaser I calculate I ever seen. He jest said that was fer you, Matt, an' left straight off. I didn't ask his name, or anythin' else, bein' glad enough to see his back, I can tell ye." Matt tore open the envelope and drew out a folded sheet of paper. Grimy fingers had left marks all over the paper, but the writing--a mere lead-pencil scrawl--was legible enough. "CoM PresKot tursda be Att brigs hous wait." That was all. No signature, and nothing but the eight misspelled words. Was it a clue that pointed to something worth while in Clip's case? CHAPTER VII. LAYING PLANS. While he and Chub were eating their breakfast Matt questioned Mrs. Spooner more at length regarding the Mexican who had brought the letter. But he was not able to find out anything more than he already knew. Mrs. Spooner had about as much use for a Mexican as she had for an Indian, and that was no use at all. Consequently she had paid but little attention to the messenger who had delivered the letter, and had been very glad to get rid of him so quickly. Mrs. Spooner was a good woman, but very inquisitive. From the questions Matt put about the letter she knew it must be of considerable importance, and she tried hard to find out something about its contents. In order to get away, Matt ate less breakfast than usual, and hustled Chub up to his room. There he passed the letter over for Chub's inspection. "I guess," remarked Chub, after studying the scrawl, "that you can translate that to mean 'Come to Prescott on Thursday. Be at the Briggs House, and wait for something to happen.' Is that what you make of it, Matt?" "Yes." "A fair shake, do you think, or is somebody trying to string you?" "I can't imagine who'd want to string me, Chub. It may have something to do with Clip. And to-morrow's Thursday." "I can get next to that, all right. It won't do any harm to follow up the tip and see what it amounts to. Suppose I get that one-cylinder machine of Clip's and we make the trip to Prescott on our motor-cycles?" "Bully! But we can't get away much before this evening, Chub. When the bank opens I want to get some money and hire a lawyer for Clip; then I'd like to ride out to the hills and look over the scene of the robbery. After that we could hike for Prescott. Do you know the road?" "I could go over it with my eyes shut." "Good all the way?" "In dry weather. When it's wet there are whole miles of trail where the motor-cycle would mire clear to the forks. We could go on the train, though, if you wanted to. I know Jack Moody, one of the engineers. He runs up to Ash Fork in the afternoon and comes back the next afternoon; but whether his run's to-day or not I don't know." "It's better to use the motor-cycles. I haven't given the _Comet_ a real spin since I took that hundred-mile run for the governor." "Then we'll take the wheels and start this afternoon. But look here, Matt. I think a lot of Clip, but he's actin' mighty like he belongs in the foolish-house, seems to me. It wouldn't hurt him much if he told everything he knew--and it mightn't get him out of the scrape, either, but it would help, that's a cinch." "Clip's a mighty queer fellow, and I don't know that I can blame him for feeling like he does. You know how pretty near everybody has thrown it into him here in Phoenix, because he's part Indian. He's trying to do the square thing, and it hurts. Now, just as he's getting the better of that prejudice, if it came out that Pima Pete, one of the Dangerfield gang, was a relative of his, that would be like turning the knife in an old wound. Clip's got a lot of pride, and he feels as though he wanted to do everything he could for Pima Pete. It's possible he'll go to prison before he opens his head about Pete; unless----" Matt hesitated. "Unless what?" asked Chub. "Why, unless you and I can find the real robbers and the other bag of gold." "It's a big order," said Chub. "I've been filling big orders lately," smiled Matt, "and I'd tackle anything if there was a chance of helping Clip." "Here, too. But what have we got to go on? Nothing but a few words from a mutt who must have spent most of his time playin' hooky when he went to school. For all we know, it's just as much of a wrong steer as a right one." "Well, it's a warm guess that McKibben won't strain himself looking for any more robbers." "He thinks there were only two robbers, and that he's got them. Not knowin' what we do, Matt, an' considerin' the way Clip acts, you can't blame McKibben a terrible sight." "That's right, we can't. But it bats the whole thing up to us. Maybe McKibben will shake himself together and send some deputies after the other robbers when he hears from Dangerfield." "What do you think Dangerfield will say?" "He'll tell the truth, and that will prove that Clip wasn't lying when he said he dug up that money." "Sounds like a pipe-dream, though, don't it, that Dangerfield buried just ten thousand in double eagles--same as what Fresnay got from the bank?" "That's a mighty bad coincidence for Clip. Everything's gone wrong for him. He disguised himself so he wouldn't be recognized when he went out to meet his uncle, and now they think he put on those old clothes so he wouldn't be known when he committed the robbery! And when he saved his uncle's life by knocking Leffingwell's revolver aside, McKibben and the deputies drew their own conclusions about that." "If Pima Pete thought as much of helping Clip as Clip thought of helping him, he'll walk right into the sheriff's office as soon as he hears what's happened." "That's the last thing Clip would want him to do. The whole business might come out--and I believe Clip would rather go to prison than have it known a relative of his belonged to the Dangerfield gang. Clip knows that everybody thinks Indian blood is no good, and he's been trying to change their notions. I've got something in my head. It's this: You know there were four or five of Dangerfield's gang got away the time Sheriff Burke, of Prescott, rounded the smugglers up at Tinaja Wells. It's the general idea they got over into Mexico, but maybe some of them have been hanging out in the hills; and maybe two of them got wind of this trip of Fresnay's after the pay-roll money and laid for him." "A cinch!" cried Chub, electrified. "I'll bet money that's the way of it. But those two handy-boys may be on the way to Mexico now. If that's so, I can see where we get off!" "If we can't catch the robbers," said Matt, "maybe we can catch Pima Pete." "What good would that do? Clip don't want him caught." "I don't mean to bring him to Phoenix," pursued Matt, "nor to turn him over to the officers. If we could find him, and make him swear to what he and Clip did last night, that ought to help Clip's case a whole lot." "That means, then, we've got two strings to pull--either find the two robbers or find Pima Pete." "This clue may help," and Matt pointed to the note which lay on the table. "I'm not banking a whole lot on that. It's got all the earmarks of a false alarm. Goin' to show it to McKibben?" "I'm not going to show it to anybody. It may not amount to anything, but we'll run it down and make sure." Just then the pounding of a motor from the road in front reached the boys. "Great guns!" exclaimed Chub, looking from a window. "There's McKibben, now, and he's stopping in front." Matt looked out. McKibben, in the red roadster, had pulled to a stop in front of Mrs. Spooner's gate. Leffingwell was in the rumble-seat. The sheriff looked up and saw Matt, then waved his hand for him to come down. "There's something up, Chub," said Matt. "Let's go down and see what it is." The two boys hurried down-stairs and out of the house. "What is it, Mr. McKibben?" asked Matt. The sheriff reached into his pocket and drew out a yellow slip. "It's a telegram, Matt," said he. "Just came--and not more than half an hour after I had posted that letter to the warden of the government prison at Leavenworth." Matt unfolded the slip, hoping against hope that it contained good news of some sort. But he was far afield, for the news was anything but good. "Dangerfield committed suicide in his cell here last night. Advise name of next of kin, if you know it." Matt's hands closed convulsively on the yellow sheet. Another hope gone--and there were not many for Clip to lose! CHAPTER VIII. THE RIFLED CACHE. "Tough luck!" exclaimed Chub, looking over Matt's shoulder and reading the message. "It never rains but it comes down in buckets." "It _is_ tough, and no mistake," said McKibben. "I'm anxious to give Clipperton every chance, but he's his own worst enemy, and everything goes against him. Why, here I'm in starting on a wild-goose chase into the hills, looking for that rifled cache where Clip says he dug up the gold! Jump in, Matt, I want to take you with us. You, too, Chub; get into this other seat with me, for I'm not going to do the driving myself when there's such a crack chauffeur as Motor Matt along." McKibben changed his seat, and Chub climbed in. Matt walked around to the other side. "What time is Clip's examination, Mr. McKibben?" he asked. "Four o'clock this afternoon." "I want to get back before the bank closes and in time to hire a lawyer." "I expect to get back here by eleven o'clock." With that, Matt cranked up the machine, got in, and they started. There was no tarrying on the road, for Matt was anxious to get back, and he had Leffingwell hanging to the rumble-seat with both hands half the time. "You're going to look for the place where Clip and Pima Pete dug up the money, Mr. McKibben?" asked Matt. "For the place where Clip _says_ they dug it up," qualified the sheriff. "He told you where to go?" "Yes." "And if you see the place you'll believe his story?" "I'm not saying that, Matt. Clip and Pete may have dug the hole for some other purpose, and Clip may have been smart enough to call the hole a cache, and to say Fresnay's money came out of it. By the way," the sheriff went on, deftly changing the subject, "you were with Dangerfield quite a while, that time you brought him in from Castle Creek Cañon. Was that the time he spoke about having buried that money and asked you to help dig it up?" "I don't want to talk about that now, Mr. McKibben," answered Matt. "There's a whole lot to it that concerns Clip, and I promised him I wouldn't explain." "You boys are keeping something back--I know that. If you want to get Clip out of a bad hole, Matt, you don't want to keep anything back, no matter what Clip says. You've got to help him in spite of himself. This is no time for false ideas of loyalty to a friend." "What I know wouldn't clear Clip," said Matt, "although it would explain a few things that are counting against him. I'm in honor bound to keep it quiet." "Well," went on the sheriff, "have you any idea who Dangerfield's next of kin is?" "I understand that he has a father living in Emmetsburg, Iowa." "Good enough! I'll wire that to Leavenworth." Under McKibben's direction Matt brought the roadster to a stop close to the place where Fresnay's saddle had turned while he was trying to pick up Welcome during the stampede. Leaving the car in charge of Chub, Matt, McKibben, and Leffingwell got out, found the easiest place for climbing the steep bank, and made their way westward into the uplifts. As they proceeded, the sheriff eyed their surroundings keenly, apparently laying his course by landmarks about which Clip had told him. After fifteen minutes of scrambling among the rocks, McKibben brought his two companions to a halt at the foot of a rocky hill. Here there was a hole about three feet deep with a heap of sand lying beside it. Close to the edge of the hole a dozen stones had been laid in the form of a cross. "There you are Leffingwell," remarked McKibben. "What do you think about it?" "Some 'un was at work here," replied the deputy, "an' not very long ago, at that." "It was Clip and Pete," put in Matt, and pointed to the print of a moccasin and of a boot-sole in the soft sand at the side of the hole. "Pima Pete wore moccasins." "They dug up somethin' here, all right," commented Leffingwell, "but I'll bet somethin' handsome it wasn't money." McKibben wandered around the vicinity of the hole for a few minutes and then turned and started back toward the road. "We've only Clipperton's word for it," said he, as he descended the bank to the car. "And mine," added Matt. "We'll never have Dangerfield's--now." "Would Pima Pete's sworn statement help any?" asked Matt. "It might, Matt; but just how much weight Pima Pete's affidavit would have with a jury is a question." On the homeward trip another halt was made at the place where Fresnay had been robbed. The road was hard at this point, and the unyielding earth had left no sign of what had taken place. This was another disappointment for Matt. If the ground had been soft, _and no moccasin-tracks found_, a good point would have been scored for Clip. But fate seemed to be working against Clip at almost every turn. The party got back to Phoenix at half-past ten, and Matt and Chub left the car at the bank. Here Matt drew $200 of the money that had been paid to him as a reward for bringing in Dangerfield, and the boys proceeded at once to the office of a legal gentleman whom Clip declared to be one of the best criminal-lawyers in Phoenix. The man's name was Short, and, oddly enough, he stood over six feet in his stockings. He had a gimlet-eye and a hawklike face, and was professionally brusk and brutally frank. But he had already heard of Clip's arrest, and, as everybody in town knew Motor Matt--who had been a good deal in the public eye during the preceding weeks--the lawyer listened to the young motorist with attention. "How much money have you got to spend on this, King?" queried the lawyer. "I've got $900," said Matt, "but I'll need some of that for other expenses." "What expenses?" "I'll explain, Mr. Short, when you tell me whether or not you'll take the case." "The long and short of it is this: If we can't break down Clipperton's stubbornness, and induce him to tell what he knows, he's a gone gosling. If I get him clear I want $500; if I lose--which seems a foregone conclusion--$250 will settle the bill." "Here's a hundred on account," said Matt, and Short gave him a receipt and pocketed the money. "Now, about the clues you have," said Short. Matt showed the note received at the boarding-house that morning. The lawyer examined it, puckered up his brows, and drummed on the desk with his fingers. "Not worth the paper it's written on," said he. "That's my opinion, but it seems to be the only clue we have, so you'd better follow it. I'll go over and talk with Clipperton. Probably we'll waive examination. He'll be held to the circuit court, now in session, and the case will no doubt be taken right up. Are you prepared to furnish bail and get Clipperton out for a few days? I wouldn't advise it. He might run." "No danger of his running, Mr. Short," said Matt sharply. "Clip's as innocent of that robbery as I am." "That's my attitude--publicly; but to you, King, I'm frank. However, we'll do what we can. I don't want to lose out, for it means something to me if I win. You boys might go over with me to see Clipperton, and try to get him in a receptive frame of mind. He ought not to keep anything from his lawyer." The lawyer put on his hat and started for the door. "How much bail will be required to get Clip out?" Matt asked. "I think I can get it down to $5,000." "I've got friends in town----" "You bet you have!" declared Short; "Governor Gaynor, for instance." "But the way everybody feels toward Clip, I can't ask any of my friends to go on his bail." "Just as well. I think the case will come to trial in two or three days. The court is now sitting, and there's not much on the docket." Mr. McKibben had got back to his office, and the necessary permit for the boys and the lawyer to see Clipperton was quickly obtained. Clip was a forlorn-looking figure, sitting in his cell with arms folded and head bent. Matt's sympathy went out to him, and, after introducing the lawyer, he slapped him encouragingly on the shoulder and begged him to go into details as much as he could. Clip was grateful to Matt, and showed it, but not even to Short would he give the true inwardness of the affair. Matt did not tell Clip about the note received through Mrs. Spooner, thinking he might imagine it had something to do with Pima Pete, and shut down on having the clue followed. When they left the jail Short was tempted to withdraw from the case. "What can we do for a fellow who won't help himself?" he demanded, out of patience. Matt prevailed on him, however, to do what he could, and the boys left him at the foot of the stairs leading up to his office. "We're up against it, pard," remarked Chub gloomily, as he and Matt went off down the street. "I'm no knocker, but hanging out like this is the worst kind of foolishness on Clip's part. He's crazy, to act like he's doing. McKibben knew his business when he told you to do what you thought best, and never mind Clip." "Get that out of your head, Chub," said Matt. "We've got to win this game for Clip on the lines he has laid down. When will you be ready to start for Prescott?" "Just as soon as I can tell sis, eat my dinner, and pick up Clip's motor-cycle." "All right. When you're ready come around to Mrs. Spooner's." The two chums separated. Matt, profoundly dissatisfied with the course of events, took his way toward his boarding-house. As if he had not already had enough to discourage him, Mrs. Spooner, tremendously excited, met him in the hall with another letter. "The same greaser brought this 'un that brought the other, Matt," she explained. "I didn't like his looks any too well, but I tried to get him to tell his name, knowin' how curious ye was about it. He was that unmannerly, though, he jest bolted right off'n the front steps." "It doesn't make any difference, Mrs. Spooner," said Matt, "for I don't think it amounts to much." Matt went on up-stairs, and in the privacy of his room examined the letter. It was better written and better spelled than the other note had been, and was plainly from another hand; but there was no name signed and no other clue to the sender. The contents, however, were surprising. "If you start for Prescott you'll never get there alive. Take a fool's advice and keep away." Matt was amazed. Evidently that first communication was of some importance, or the present writer would never have taken the trouble to send such a threat. So far from being intimidated, a steely glint came into Matt's eyes, and his square jaw set resolutely. "Chub and I are going to Prescott," he muttered, "and I guess we can take care of all the trouble that comes our way." CHAPTER IX. THE BREAK IN THE ROAD. Several days before, when Matt had been planning to start for Denver on his motor-cycle, he had bought an auxiliary gasoline-tank. The tank that came with the machine was attached behind the saddle, and held five quarts, sufficient for a run of 75 to 100 miles. The auxiliary tank was attached to the top tube, and its tubes and connections were so arranged that it could be used independently of the tank behind. With both tanks filled, the _Comet's_ radius of action was increased at least 75 miles--enough to carry the machine half-again as far as Prescott. Matt had never experienced any trouble with the _Comet_. As a rule, common sense and ordinary thoughtfulness are enough to keep any good motor-cycle on the road without repair bills. The _Comet_ was always as spick and span as when it came from the factory, for Matt groomed the machine as he would have groomed a race-horse, and cleanliness is one of the first points to look after if a machine is to travel right. On his return from a trip he never failed to go over the motor-cycle with wrench and pliers, to inject a few squirts of kerosene into the warm cylinders, and to "turn over" the engine a few times. He was busy making a final survey of the _Comet_ when Chub pounded up on Clip's machine. A canteen, lashed to the head of the one-cylinder, showed that Chub had been thoughtful enough to secure a reserve supply of gasoline. "All ready?" sang out Matt. "Ready's whole family," answered Chub. Two minutes later the boys were skimming north along the Cave Creek road. Beyond the outlying canal they struck the hills, and here Matt instructed Chub a little in nursing his machine--not to open the muffler when there was no real necessity, to let the burned oil out of the motor base at least once every fifty miles, and to cut off the power when descending hills in order to cool and help the engine. They were well into the hills before Matt told Chub about the second letter, and showed it to him. "Thunder!" exclaimed Chub. "It must be a swift bunch we're up against. But I guess they're four-flushin'. Anyhow," he grinned, "I'm not scared so you can notice it." "It makes me think," said Matt, "that there's something in that first note, in spite of Short's opinion." "Sure," answered Chub. "That first note is lookin' better and better to me. Different fists worked on those two letters. The last one must have been jotted down by a fellow who'd been through the eighth grade, anyhow. How do you size 'em up?" "It's all guesswork, Chub, but my guess is that some party intends giving us a tip, and that another one found it out, and is trying to backcap the first man. The tip must be important, or the second man wouldn't try to keep us away from Prescott. To follow the thing farther, the second man may be one of the two who held up Fresnay." "Keno! And we've landed with both feet right in something that seems worth while. The second man is trying a bluff--but if he had known Motor Matt better he might have saved himself the trouble." "We'll keep our eyes skinned, all the same," said Matt. "If it's really a bluff, we won't lose anything by being careful; while if it isn't, we'll have a lot to gain." "Correct. An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure." The road, although it twisted back and forth between rocky hills, was smooth and even. Both motor-cycles worked to perfection, and the boys went spinning along at a leisurely clip, keeping a sharp watch all around them. At the town-pump, in Wickenburg, they stopped for a drink, then struck out for Skull Valley, where the railroad had an eating-house at which they had planned to get supper. They were still wary, although the prospect of trouble seemed to be growing more and more remote. Chub, overconfident as usual, was just exulting over the way they had "called the bluff" of the unknown writer of the second note, when trouble materialized like a bolt from the blue. It was at a place where the road-bed was like asphalt, although crooked as a snake, and edged on both sides with rocky hills. In passing a gap between two of the hills Matt heard sounds that aroused his apprehension. He might have been mistaken, but he thought he heard a scrambling of hoofs. "Hit her up, Chub," said he, in a low voice. "Did you hear a noise on the left of the road? I did, and I don't like it." Just as the two machines forged ahead at increased speed, a shout came from behind the boys: "Stop! Stop, or we'll shoot!" Matt and Chub stole a quick look behind. Two horsemen were in the road, and one of them was armed with a rifle. "Faster!" cried Matt. "Get around the next turn!" There was no need of a spur for Chub. His idea that the writer of that second note was "four-flushing" had proved to be a dream, and he was coaxing his motor-cycle to the limit. _Bang!_ The sharp report echoed and reechoed through the hills, and a spurt of dust shot up between the two racing wheels. "They're shooting at our tires!" called Matt. "If they'll give us about a minute more," answered Chub, doubled over his handle-bars, "they can blaze away all they please. They've got to haul up if they do any straight shooting, and while they're standing still we're getting into the distance. If---- Wow!" Chub broke off with a startled yell. One of the bullets had passed altogether too close to him for any sort of comfort. The next moment the shoulder of a hill intervened between the boys and the marksman. They were safe for the moment, but, above the noise of their machines, they could hear a flurry of pounding hoofs. "They mean business, all right," said Chub grimly, "but if they've a notion they can overhaul us on a couple of cayuses, they've got another guess coming." "Look!" shouted Matt suddenly; "there, ahead!" Chub stared, and instinctively a shout of despair escaped his lips. Ahead of the boys was a long, straight slope. At the foot of the slope there was a break in the road, a gap crossing it at right angles and seven or eight feet wide. "There were planks across that gap!" cried Chub. "Those scoundrels have taken them away. They've got us, Matt!" For a moment Motor Matt did not answer. He was gazing sharply at the break. The chasm seemed deep, even if it was not very wide, and was evidently the course of a small stream. Just before the edge of the gap was reached, heavy freighting over the road had hollowed out the road-bed. A daring idea took form in Matt's mind. "We'll get across!" he cried. "How?" gasped Chub. "That hollowed-out place--our machines will be thrown upward at the other side of it--_they'll leap across_!" Chub's heart almost stood still. He was brave enough, but he did not understand the possibilities of the situation so well as Matt, and the attempt to hurl their motor-cycles across the gap looked like the worst kind of recklessness. "Give her every ounce of power, Chub!" shouted Matt. "Head straight for the gap and keep the middle of the road. Watch me; I'll take it first." The _Comet_ was a much faster machine than the one Chub was riding. Up to that moment Matt had been holding back in order to stay alongside his chum; but now, in order to demonstrate the feasibility of the fearful leap he had suggested, he opened the throttle and forged into the lead. Chub, every faculty centered in his handle-bars, saw Matt duck downward into the hollow, shoot upward, spin through the air as though launched from a catapult, then alight on the opposite side of the break a good four feet from the edge. What was more, the _Comet_ did not seem to mind the leap any more than a spirited horse would have done, and started on up the road in excellent style. Matt, however, halted and turned back. There were some doubts in his mind about Chub. Clip's motor-cycle wasn't a very late machine and might not be able to duplicate the _Comet's_ performance. Far up the slope the horsemen could be seen racing after the boys at top speed. There was nothing else for it, Matt knew, but for Chub to take his chance. Down into the hollow went Chub, then up and out, the one-cylinder's wheels spinning in mid-air. Down he came, safe by a scant margin, and a breath of relief rushed through Matt's lips. Baffled shouts came from the horsemen. Matt's hopes were dashed somewhat by sounds which told him Chub's machine was beginning to misfire. "Use your pedals!" shouted Matt. "Open the throttle, Chub!" Matt knew that the jolt the machine had had was probably the cause of the misfiring. The jar had perhaps caused the carburetter-float to stick, thus interrupting the regular flow of gasoline. Opening the throttle did not seem to help. Matt, watching the horsemen, saw them getting ready to take the gap at a leap. To delay much longer would surely mean capture. "Hold down the priming-pin for a second!" yelled Matt. He was making ready to go back to Chub's assistance, when the motor took hold in proper shape, and Chub, white and worried but mightily relieved, came gliding along. "I'm a regular mutt in a pinch like that," said he. "Lost my head completely, and wouldn't have known the first thing to do if you hadn't yelled." "Let 'er out again," returned Matt. "We'll leave those two scoundrels behind, now, for good and all. The main thing is to get out of rifle-range while they're leaping the gap." Side by side the chums plunged away. Looking behind them, just before they took a turn, they saw the two horsemen swinging into the air and taking the leap safely. "We'll lead 'em now," gloried Chub, "clear into Skull Valley, if they want to follow!" CHAPTER X. PRESCOTT. Not again did the boys see their pursuers, and for five minutes they kept up their swift pace. When finally sure that they were safe, they slowed down their machines. "Didn't you ever get rattled, Matt?" asked Chub. "Lots of times, old fellow," laughed Matt. "Well, if you'd got rattled back there at the break in the road little Reddy McReady would have been raked in too easy for any use. Those two roughs were dead set on getting us. Must be something mighty important ahead of us in Prescott or they wouldn't have tried so hard to hold us back." "I'm getting more confidence in that first note all the time," declared Matt. "That's the way I stack up. It was a regular raw blazer of a play, though, the way those fellows came at us. But they'd laid their plans pretty well. Where they missed was in not riding out into the trail ahead of us instead of behind." "That wasn't a miss," said Matt, "that was a part of their plan. They had taken up the planks across that break in the road, and thought they'd chase us to the chasm and stop us there." "I'll bet the air is some blue around where those two fellows are now," laughed Chub. "But put me wise to this: How did they know we were intending to go to Prescott on our motor-cycles?" "That's too many for me, Chub. There's been quite a lot going on in Phoenix that I can't understand. The same Mexican delivered both notes to Mrs. Spooner, and it looks as though the two men who robbed Fresnay had been staying in the town, and at the same place where the fellow who wrote the first note was hanging out." "If we'd had time to look up that Mexican----" "Couldn't have found him in a thousand years from Mrs. Spooner's description. If I'd been at home when he brought that second note, he wouldn't have got away until he had told me a few things." "My thinkin'-apparatus is all kinked up over the whole business," puzzled Chub, "but it looks like those two handy-boys are playing the game all by themselves. One of them wrote that warning and sent it to us, then picked up his partner and slid for the hills in order to stop us if the note didn't scare us out. They're the robbers, Matt; they're the ones that lifted Fresnay's money, all right." "Then what do they want to keep us away from Prescott for?" queried Matt. "They needn't worry about themselves. With two good horses, and their freedom, and ten thousand in gold, they could start for Mexico. Whatever we can do in Prescott needn't bother them." "Maybe they're not able to clear out just yet." All the speculations of the chums regarding the two notes, and the men who had recently tried to stop them, were mere guesswork. Giving up their attempt to probe the mystery, they set themselves to the task of reaching Prescott as soon as possible. At Skull Valley, a place consisting of only half a dozen houses and the railroad-station, they halted just long enough to eat a hurried meal. There was the chance, if they tarried too long, that their enemies might attempt to get ahead of them on the road they were still to cover. When they had finished eating, the boys went over their machines, tightened a few bolts, lighted their lamps--it was beginning to get dark--then mounted and hurried on. From Skull Valley north they found the worst part of the road. It was on low ground, and boggy. During the present dry weather the road was passably good, but after a rain it would have been difficult for wagons to travel it, to say nothing of motor-cycles. For the most of the way the trail tried to follow the railroad-track, dipping under high trestles and angling back and forth across the rails. It was poor up to within half a dozen miles of Prescott, and then, abruptly, it became like an asphalt boulevard, level with the track and smooth and clean right up to the ends of the ties. It was nearly nine o'clock in the evening when the boys reached this good stretch of road, and their lamps, streaming out ahead, showed it to them clearly. "Mighty good going for a motor-cycle race," said Chub. "And a fine place for racing a limited train," added Matt, his mind running on the possibilities of steam versus gasoline. "Say," said Chub, "I'd like to see the _Comet_ splurging along by Jack Moody's big Baldwin, with Moody late and making up time! Whoo-ee! That would be a race! When Moody's behind his schedule you'd think a wildman was at the throttle." Although the boys did not dream of it at the time, yet this talk of theirs was prophetic. Presently the motor-cycles glided over a low hill, covered a couple of miles of level road, crossed the track, and entered the town of Prescott. Chub, who had been in Prescott several times, knew the location of the Briggs House, and led the way directly there. They registered, secured a room on the ground floor, and, in order to make sure there would be no tampering with their machines, trundled them into the room where they would be constantly under their eyes or else behind a locked door. The motor-cycles were looked over and taken care of, and then the boys, tired out with their trip, tumbled into bed and fell asleep. They were up in time for breakfast, and were eagerly expecting something to happen. It was Thursday, the day specified in the note which had been so mysteriously delivered at Mrs. Spooner's. Following breakfast, they sat around the hotel office, impatient and with every faculty on the alert. Noon came, and they had dinner, then the afternoon waned, and they had supper. No one came near them to broach anything connected with the particular business that had brought them to Prescott. By eleven o'clock Matt gave up hope of hearing anything that day, and he and Chub went to bed. Chub was very much discouraged. "I'm beginnin' to think that wasn't much of a tip, after all," he grumbled, as he rolled into bed. "Something may have happened to keep the man who wrote that first note from showing his hand," hazarded Matt. "Yes," returned Chub, "and something may have happened to him that will keep him from showing his hand at all." "You mean----" "Why, that those two roughs who chased us may have taken care of that fellow who wrote the first note. After we got away from them, those scoundrels may have decided to put the other man out of the way. That would keep the fellow from communicating with us, and it's a cinch that's what those handy-boys were afraid of. Matt, I'd be willin' to bet dad's gold-mine against a peck of marbles that we're side-tracked, and won't be able to do a thing for Clip." "We'll stay here, anyhow," said Matt doggedly, "and see it through. I've got a hunch that something's going to turn up." "But by stayin' here we may be losing time--and we haven't any time to throw away." "What could we do if we weren't here?" asked Matt. "You've got me now. This business is getting on my nerves so that it's hard for me to hold down a chair and wait. Feel like I wanted to be up and moving." "You can go back to Phoenix, if you want to," suggested Matt, "and watch things there. I can hold down this end, all right." "Not on your life!" declared Chub. "I'm goin' to stick to you tighter than a woodtick. If anything _does_ happen here, maybe you'll need some one about my heft and disposition to help." "Then," said Matt decidedly, "we're going to stay right here until something turns up. It's the only chance we've got to do anything for Clip." "It's a slim enough chance, at that, but I'll go you," and Chub turned over and went to sleep. Matt's resolution to remain in Prescott was somewhat shaken next morning. As he and Chub left their room and walked out into the office the clerk handed Matt a telegram. "Just came," said the clerk. Matt knew the message had something to do with Clip, and his hands shook a little as he tore it open. It was a night-message, and had been sent from Phoenix the preceding afternoon. It was from Short, and ran as follows: "Clipperton's case on Friday morning. No court Saturday. Will probably go to jury Monday afternoon. Need you as witnesses." Matt's face went white as he read the message and silently handed it to Chub. "They're making short work of poor old Clip," muttered Chub angrily. "We've _got_ to cut loose from here now, haven't we?" "I want to think about it," answered Matt, heading for the dining-room. CHAPTER XI. MATT MAKES A NEW MOVE. Neither of the boys ate much breakfast. That telegram, showing how Clipperton was being railroaded through the court, had taken their appetite. Matt reflected bitterly that Clip was a quarter-blood--little better than a half-breed--and that the foregone conclusion that he was guilty must have prompted Sparling, the prosecuting attorney, to hustle the case through. There was evidence enough to convict him without hunting up any more. Matt's first step, after breakfast, was to send a telegram to Short. "Adjourn the case if you can. Must have more time. If anything is done, got to do it here. Can't you send some one to take our affidavits?" Following this, Matt made a new move--one which he was sorry he had not made before. Leaving Chub at the Briggs House, he hunted up his friend Sheriff Burke. Because of what Matt had done for law and order, Burke had a hearty admiration for him, and welcomed him cordially. "I'm here on business, Mr. Burke," said Matt, "and haven't got much time to talk. You've heard about the robbery of Josh Fresnay, and about my chum, Tom Clipperton, being held for it?" A sympathetic look crossed Burke's face. "Sure I've heard about it," said he. "The trial's on to-day. I'm wondering, Matt, why you're not in Phoenix instead of here." "I'm here trying to help Clipperton. I can't explain how, but that's the way of it. Short, Clip's lawyer, telegraphed me the case will probably go to the jury Monday. There's not much time to lose, and I'd like to have you send out some deputies to look for the real robbers, Mr. Burke." Burke opened his eyes wide. "Why," said he, "it looks like a clear case against Clipperton, and----" "It isn't a clear case!" declared Matt warmly. "Day before yesterday the two men who robbed Fresnay were in the hills between Wickenburg and Skull Valley. That puts them in your county, Mr. Burke, and it's up to you to catch them, if you can." "How do you know all that?" demanded Burke, a little excited. "Because they chased me and my chum, McReady; but we were on our motor-cycles, and got away from them." "What were they chasin' you for?" Matt did not care to tell Burke about the tip which had brought him and Chub to Prescott. He got around the explanation in another way. "Those two robbers, Mr. Burke," said he earnestly, "are two of Dangerfield's old gang." Burke shot out of his chair at that. "Are you positive of that, Matt?" he demanded. "I am sure of it as I am that I am sitting here this minute." "But those two scoundrels may be a hundred miles away from here by now!" "I don't think so. I've got a firm conviction that they're hanging around in the vicinity of Prescott." "They must have recognized you as bein' the governor's courier, that time we made the sourround at Tinaja Wells," said Burke, "and that's why they chased you." Matt made no response to this. "Will you try and locate them, Mr. Burke?" he asked. "You bet I will--if for nothing more than to do something for you. You stack up pretty high with me, my boy, and if this is going to help any, I'll get right at it." "Hustle!" said Matt. "If we don't dig up something to help Clipperton he's going to be convicted. And we've only got until Monday. They're not losing any time putting him through." "Not much time to waste on a breed," returned Burke. "I know how it is. How long will you be in Prescott?" "Can't tell. Not long, I hope." "Where are you stopping?" "Briggs House." "If anything turns up I'll let you know. If you've gone back to Phoenix, I'll wire you. Keep a stiff upper lip," he added kindly, noting the gloom in Matt's face. "You seem to always win out when you tackle anything." "There's got to be a first time for a fellow to fall down, Mr. Burke." "Not for you, Matt," said the sheriff cheerily. In somewhat better spirits, Matt returned to the hotel. Chub was in the office and was not long in telling Matt that nothing had happened. "You're the one, anyway, a messenger will be lookin' for," fretted Chub. "If anything's going to turn up, you'd better stay right here and wait for it. Where you been, Matt?" Matt told him. "That's a good idea," approved Chub, "but the deputies ought to have been started out right after we got here." "That's one place where my foresight slipped a cog, Chub," said Matt. "I believe I'm getting batty over this business of Clip's. Any telegram from Short?" "No." Nor was any message received that day. Neither did anything else develop. The boys remained in the office until midnight, and then, with heavy hearts, went to their room and to bed. "We're a couple of dubs for staying here like we are," said Chub. "Let's get on our wheels in the morning and roll back where we belong." "We'll wait till Monday morning," said Matt. "If we can't find out anything by then we'll take the train that leaves here at nine in the morning. Our motor-cycles can travel in the baggage-car. I wouldn't feel like taking chances of an accident to the machines on that trip." Chub brightened. "That's the talk!" he exclaimed. "We'll wire Short to hold the case open till we get there, then you can butt in and tell every blooming thing you know about Clip and Pima Pete. Maybe it will help." Matt was beginning to think that this was the only thing to be done. If Clip wouldn't talk, then, at the last moment, it might be best for his friends to talk for him. Next morning there was a whole column in one of the Prescott dailies about Clip. He had been arraigned, a jury selected, and the taking of testimony had begun. Before the closing-hour the prosecution had got in nearly all its evidence. Fresnay had been put on the stand. He was made to tell about his ride in the red roadster, about his remark to the effect that he was going to Phoenix after the Fiddleback pay-roll, and then to describe the hold-up. Welcome Perkins was forced to testify that Clip was in the roadster when Fresnay said he was going after the pay-roll, and was questioned about the half-breed who had stopped the cowboy's horse. The paying-teller of the bank got in his evidence as to the amount of money drawn by Fresnay, and swore that it was all in double eagles. Hogan and Leffingwell also added their mite to the evidence against Clip; and the money, and the dingy canvas bag, and the pouch were shown. If Short accomplished anything on cross-examination, it did not appear in the newspaper record. While the discouraged boys were reading and debating the court proceedings, a hack drove up with passengers from the train that had recently arrived from the south. Among these was Short himself. Matt and Chub jumped up excitedly when they saw him. He nodded to them in his usual curt fashion. "I've come up here just to get your affidavits," said he. "Our side will have an inning Monday morning, but it will be a short one. Let's go some place where we can talk. Bring pen, ink, and paper." Chub got the writing-materials, and Matt led the lawyer to their room. "There's not much hope," announced the lawyer, when they were all in the room, "and I don't believe there'd be any hope even if we could make Clipperton talk. There isn't a white man who wouldn't believe the half-breed guilty on half the evidence brought out. If we could have butted into the prosecution with a sworn statement from Dangerfield, we might have had something to work on. But that's out of the question now." This talk, from Clip's attorney, seemed to ring the knell of his fate. "Could we do anything if we went on the stand?" asked Matt. "You could do something for the prosecution," answered Short grimly. "When I saw the line the prosecutor was taking, I was mighty glad you weren't around. All I want from you, King, is a statement that Dangerfield wanted you to help Pima Pete dig up that gold. That will bear out Clipperton's story when I put him on the stand. You don't know anything about that, do you, McReady?" Chub shook his head. Short had arrived on the eight-o'clock train, and he had to leave at nine. By doing that he would reach Phoenix early in the afternoon, and he had matters to attend to that couldn't be looked after Sunday. Having taken Matt's statement, Short conducted him to the office of a notary public, across the street from the Briggs House, and had the document sworn to. Then, when they were back at the hotel and waiting for the bus that was to take Short to the railroad-station, Matt told him about the second note received at Mrs. Spooner's, about the way he and Chub had been pursued on the road to Prescott, and about Sheriff Burke sending men out to look for the two horsemen. "This is all promising," said Short, "but it doesn't lead anywhere. We've got to try and make the jury believe that Clip and Pete dug up Dangerfield's gold. Anything that helps that impression will do something for our side." The bus was at the door, and Short got up to leave. Matt, his face white and haggard, walked with the lawyer to the door of the waiting vehicle. "Hold the case open, Mr. Short," said he, "until the train that leaves here at nine o'clock Monday morning gets to Phoenix. If nothing comes of our work here, I'll be down, go on the stand, and tell _everything_ I know. Clip won't like it, and it will make him my enemy, but you can count on me to do that if the worst comes." The lawyer shook his head. "I'll see that the case doesn't go to the jury until that train reaches Phoenix," said he, "but I don't think anything you can say will do any good. I've got here"--and he tapped the breast pocket of his coat where he had placed Matt's affidavit--"all you can tell about Dangerfield's gold. If you got on the stand, you might damage our case more than you'd help it. Good-by," and Mr. Short got into the bus and was driven away. Saturday passed, and Sunday--blue days for the dispirited boys. Sunday night brought on a tremendous storm. Lightning flashed, thunder roared, and rain fell in torrents. It was to such an accompaniment of the elements that Motor Matt gave up hope of accomplishing anything for Clipperton. "Lucky you told Short we'd come back to Phoenix on the train, Matt," said Chub. "It would be three or four days, after this rain, before we could get over the roads on the motor-cycles. Whoosh! Listen to that, will you?" A tremendous peal of thunder shook the walls of the hotel. "It doesn't rain very much around here, but when it does we get a soaker!" Just at that moment Matt stepped to the table to put out the light before turning in. He had hardly leaned over the lamp before a pane of one of the windows crashed in and some object slammed against the foot-board of the bed and dropped to the floor. A spurt of wind and rain gushed through the broken window, and the light flared high in the chimney and went out. "Somebody threw a rock!" yelled Chub, jumping out of bed and darting for the window with a blanket. As soon as the hole had been stopped, Matt struck a match and relighted the lamp; then he went over to the foot of the bed and picked up a stone the size of his fist. "Fine business," said Chub, "standin' out there in the rain an' shyin' rocks through a window! Who d'you s'pose did a thing like that?" Matt, pushing closer into the yellow lamplight, showed Chub the stone: It was wrapped closely with twine, and under the twine was a folded paper. "It's what we've been waiting for, Chub!" said Matt huskily. CHAPTER XII. THE OLD HOPEWELL TUNNEL. "Well, great centipedes!" gasped Chub, staring. "That's a nice way to hand a fellow a letter. Why didn't he get a cannon an' shoot it in! Suppose one of us had been in front of that window when the mail-wagon came through?" Matt, his fingers none too steady, had been busy taking off the twine and getting at the folded paper. The paper was soaked through, and called for great care in opening it out. When it was finally straightened and laid on the table, this penciled message met the eager eyes of the boys: "ole hoaPwel tunNNel 8 tirty muNdy morning Keap it quite" "More news from our old friend that wrote the first note," said Chub. "He hasn't improved any in his spelling, and he handles his capitals like a Hottentot. Give us a free translation, Matt." "It's plain enough," said Matt. "'Be at the old Hopewell tunnel at eight-thirty Monday morning. Keep it quiet.' Do you know anything about the old Hopewell tunnel, Chub?" "Why, yes. It's a played-out mine. We passed it coming into town." "Could you go there?" "Easy." "How far away is it?" "About three miles." "Good! Now let's go to bed and sleep--if we can. To-morrow," and Matt slapped his chum jubilantly on the shoulder, "we're going to do something for Clip. I had a hunch all the while that if we waited long enough something would come our way." "We'll be making quick connections with that nine-o'clock train, Matt. It's Moody's run, too, and I was going back on the engine." "This rain hasn't hurt the going any if the Hopewell tunnel is out along the road we followed into town. Even Clip's machine can turn those three miles in six minutes. That's twelve, going and coming, with a margin of eighteen at the tunnel. I'm feeling better to-night than at any time since we struck Prescott." Contrary to his expectations, Matt slept, and slept well. He had been so loaded down with worry that this ray of hope brought him a feeling of intense relief. It was that, no doubt, that calmed his excited nerves and gave him some rest. He was up bright and early and rousing Chub. "Turn out, you little runt!" he laughed. "See what a nice, large morning we've got for our work. We're going to get in some good licks for Clip--I feel it in my bones." Chub hopped out of bed and took a squint through the window. The sun was up, the sky was clear, and everything was glistening with the wet. "Seven-thirty," announced Matt, as they finished dressing; "that gives us half an hour for breakfast and plenty of time to get to the old Hopewell tunnel. Hope-well! That certainly sounds good to me." At sharp eight they were on the road, picking their way around street puddles in the direction of the railroad-station. They were to cross the track, close to the station, and reach out along the good road, smooth as macadam, for two miles, after which there was to be a little harder going across country. The train from Phoenix was just pulling out for the north when they reached the tracks. The station-agent was out on the platform. "How's Number Twelve?" yelled Chub. "Thirty minutes to the bad," answered the agent. "She'll be along at nine-thirty." "We're fools for luck, and no mistake, Matt," said Chub. "That's the way with luck," returned Matt. "When it makes a turn it comes your way in a bunch." The road along the railroad-track had perfect drainage, and it was already so nearly dry that the tires took firm hold without skidding. Even after the boys left the road and took a little-used trail across country, they were not bothered to any appreciable extent. The road was sandy, and had soaked up the moisture like a sponge. It was a quarter past eight by Matt's watch when they came opposite a tunnel opening in the hillside. There was a platform of rocks at the mouth of the tunnel where the useless matter from the bore had been dropped. "There's where we're going," said Chub, pointing to the tunnel, "but we're ahead of time and----" "Well, maybe the other fellow's ahead of time, too," broke in Matt. "Let's go up and see." Leaving their machines against the rocks, the boys climbed a twenty-foot bank and arrived at the mouth of the tunnel. There was no one waiting for them, and Matt and Chub sat down on a couple of boulders to pass the time until some one should come. "Who are you expecting to see, anyhow?" asked Chub. "Don't know," replied Matt, "but certainly it's some one who's able and willing to give us a helping hand." "Yes; and then again, Matt, it may be those two men who tried to corral us at the break in the road. Burke hasn't found them yet, or he'd have told you about it long before this. Suppose they're working a dodge on us?" This was a startling suggestion, but Matt wouldn't take any stock in it. "You're forgetting the writing, Chub," said he. "That first note, and the last one, were both by the same fist. There's no doubt about it." The time passed quickly--all too quickly for the anxious boys who were hoping for so much from their interview with the Unknown. Eight-thirty came, then a quarter to nine, and Matt's spirits were fast falling, when there was a noise inside the tunnel. Both boys started quickly, and exchanged significant glances. The sounds were like the swishing fall of moccasined feet, and were approaching steadily along the dark passage. Presently a swarthy face showed through the murk of the tunnel, and a roughly dressed man pushed into sight. Matt bounded up as though touched by a livewire. "Pima Pete!" he cried. A gleam darted through the half-breed's eyes. "You savvy um, hey?" he returned. "You git um paper-talk, come plenty quick. Ugh! _Bueno!_" Matt stood like one in a daze. He had not been expecting to see Pima Pete, although he wondered later how he could have expected to see any one else. "You know Clipperton's in trouble, don't you?" said Matt, suddenly getting control of his wits. "He's arrested, and being tried for stealing Josh Fresnay's money, and----" "All same savvy," interrupted Pima Pete, waving his hand. "Savvy plenty before me leave Phoenix, send paper-talk to Motor Matt. How we save um? Clip heap fine boy. White men make um big mistake. You think um Pete better go Phoenix, give himself up?" "You told us to be here Thursday," said Matt. "Why didn't you send word to us sooner?" "Me no can make um. Find trouble. Two men b'long to ole gang make um trouble. No let um go to Prescott. They hike off last night, then Pete write um note, go Prescott, throw um note through window. Ugh! How we save um Clip? Odder two men want Clip to go to prison. Me no want um. What we do, huh?" "Where are those other two men?" asked Matt. "No savvy." "Clip don't want you to come to Phoenix," said Matt. "If his lawyer can make the jury believe that you and he really dug up that gold, and that it was Dangerfield's, there's a chance. Understand?" "We dug um, sure!" declared Pima Pete. An idea rushed through Matt's head, an idea that called for quick work. "If I write that out, Pete," he continued, speaking quickly, "will you make oath that it's correct." "Make um swear? Sure. But how me swear, huh?" "We'll have to bring a man out here----" "No!" cried Pete, and drew back. "Me all same worth one thousan' dol'. You bring um man, he ketch um Pete. Huh! _Muy malo!_ No like um." "There'll be only one man, Pete," begged Matt, "and he couldn't capture you. Remember," he added solemnly, "if you don't make an affidavit there's nothing can save Clip!" Pima Pete straightened up. His mind was none too keen, and he frowned as he thought the matter over. "Hurry!" urged Matt. "We haven't any time to lose. Clip saved your life when the deputy sheriff was going to shoot at you. Now's your chance to do something for him." "All ri'," said Pima Pete suddenly. "You bring um man, me make um swear." Matt whirled on Chub, his watch in his hand. "It's five minutes of nine, Chub," said he, speaking hurriedly, "and here's what you're to do. Get on the motor-cycle and rush for Prescott. Send out that notary public who took my deposition--or any other notary you can find the quickest. Have him bring his seal along--don't forget that. We'll meet him at the road that runs along the railroad-track----" "But what good'll that do?" interposed Chub. "Think I can do all that, come out here, and then both of us get back to the station in time to catch the----" "Wait!" broke in Matt: "I've got this all figured out. After you start the notary in this direction, leave your motor-cycle at the hotel and go down to the station. If I can get there in time for the train, I will; if I can't, you get aboard, and when you see me along the road have your friend, the engineer, stop----" "Stop! Jack Moody, with thirty minutes to make up! Why, Matt, he wouldn't stop for love or money." "Then," and the old resolute gleam shone in Matt's gray eyes, "you stand ready to take Pima Pete's affidavit from me as I ride alongside the train on the _Comet_!" "You can't do it," murmured Chub, standing like one in a trance; "you'll be----" "I can, and I will!" cried Matt. "It's for Clip. Hustle and do your part and _I'll do mine_!" Matt's very manner was electrifying. Chub caught his spirit and arose to the occasion in his best style. "Count on me!" he yelled, and tore down the steep slope to the place where he had left the motor-cycle. As Matt watched him, he mounted, started the motor with two turns of the pedals--half a turn was all the _Comet_ ever needed--and was off. CHAPTER XIII. QUICK WORK. Motor Matt's work was mapped out for him, and he had plenty to do. Whirling on the grim-faced half-breed, he dropped down on a boulder and pulled a small motor-cycle catalogue from his pocket. Ripping off the cover, which was bare of printing on the inside, he laid it on top of his leather cap, which he placed on his knees. "This will be a queer-looking affidavit," said he, fishing a lead-pencil from his pocket, "but we'll have to make the most of what we have. You see, Pete, we're working against time, and every second counts. Now listen: "You met Tom Clipperton in the hills, on the night of the robbery, and took him to the place where Dangerfield had buried his money. Then you dug it up, went back to the trail, and were set upon by the two deputies. Is that it?" "Yes," nodded Pima Pete. "Where did Dangerfield get that money?" "He sell um cattle two month ago. Money heap heavy, him no like to carry um. Odder ombrays in gang mebbyso they get bad hearts, want to take um. Dangerfield say, 'Pete, we bury um; anyt'ing happen to me, you savvy where to find um' Ugh! me help Dangerfield bury um. He t'ink mebbyso when we ride to Mexico from Tinaja Wells, he dig up gold. But him captured. You savvy. Dangerfield send um note by big dog to Pima Pete, say for him, bymby, have Motor Matt take um money, send some to Emmetsburg, Iowa, Motor Matt keep some, Clipperton keep some. Whoosh! Him bad business. No win out." "And you will swear that all of Dangerfield's money was in gold double eagles, and that there was just ten thousand dollars of it?" "Sure!" Matt's pencil traveled rapidly over the paper. He was careful, however, to make the writing plain and to bear down hard. "What's your real name, Pete?" asked Matt. "Huh?" Matt repeated the question. "All same Sebastian," said the half-breed, catching Matt's drift, "Pete Sebastian, but me like um Pima Pete better." Matt went back to the beginning of the affidavit and put in the full name, then dropped farther down and resumed his writing. Presently it was finished, and Matt looked at his watch. It was a quarter past nine! What if Jack Moody, Matt suddenly asked himself, had made up some of his lost time? What if the train was already whipping along the rails on its way out of Prescott? Matt leaped up frantically and grabbed Pete's arm. "Come on!" he called. "We'll go down toward the main road and meet the notary." Pete drew back. "Mebbyso somebody see um Pima Pete," he demurred, "mebbyso ketch um?" "Take a chance, can't you?" flung back Matt. "It's for Clip! He'd do more than that for you." Pima Pete hung back no longer, but scrambled down the slippery rocks with Matt. "You ride," Pete suggested, when they reached the motor-cycle, "me run along. Heap good runner. You see." Matt followed out the suggestion, and in this way they reached the road. There was no sign of any rig coming from the direction of Prescott, and by then it was nine-twenty-five! "See um smoke," said the half-breed, pointing. Matt gave a jump as his eyes followed Pima Pete's pointing finger. An eddying plume of black vapor was hanging against the sky in the vicinity of the Prescott station. The smoke issued from a point that was stationary, and that meant, if it meant anything, that No. 12 was alongside the Prescott platform. As he watched, scarcely breathing, the fluttering fog of black began moving southward. At that moment a horse and buggy appeared in the road, the one passenger in the vehicle plying a whip briskly. But the horse was tired, and moved slowly. "There's the man we're waiting for!" cried Matt. "Come on! We'll meet him. I've got to have this acknowledged before that train gets here!" Whether this was clear in Pima Pete's mind or not, was a question. But there was one thing too plain to escape him, and that was Matt's wild eagerness to get the work over with as soon as possible. The two started down the road, Matt still on his machine and Pete running alongside. They could hear the low murmur of the rails, heralding the approach of the train, as they drew to a halt beside the man in the buggy. "Well, if it ain't Matt King!" exclaimed the notary. "I wasn't expecting to meet you this side the old----" "Quick!" shouted Matt, handing up the paper. "Acknowledge that. I've got to get it aboard this train." "You can't," gasped the notary, "you----" "I _must_!" There was a compelling note in that "must" which caused the notary to jab his spectacles down on his nose and begin, in a rapid mumble, to read off what Matt had written. The document began: "I, Peter Sebastian, otherwise Pima Pete, formerly one of the Dangerfield gang of smugglers." In the excitement of the moment it is quite likely that those ominous words did not strike the notary with their full meaning. At any rate, he did not cease his droning mumble. As he read, he laid the paper down on his lifted knee, humped over it, and mechanically pulled a fountain pen from his pocket. Equally as mechanically, and while he was still reading, he uncapped the point of the pen. His seal was on the seat beside him. Matt pulled a five-dollar bill from his pocket; also an empty envelope. He wanted to enclose the affidavit in a cover so as to safeguard the pencil-work. "Hurry!" he called. Jack Moody, on No. 12, was eating up the two miles that separated the Prescott station from that point in the road with tremendous rapidity. The rumble was growing louder and louder. The notary was using the fountain pen. "Do you solemnly swear," he asked as he wrote, "that this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" "Ugh!" grunted the dazed Pima Pete. "Yes or no!" roared the notary. "Yes!" cried Pete, with a jump. "There's your pay!" cried Matt. "Put the affidavit in that envelope, and be quick." The notary had dropped his fountain pen in the bottom of the buggy, had pulled the seal to his lap, and was bearing down on the handle. The train was almost abreast of them, and the horse, tired though he was, made a frantic jump for the opposite side of the road. Pima Pete rushed for the animal's head. The notary had come within one of going by the board, but he straightened up and tucked the document into the envelope. Matt had turned the _Comet_ so that it was pointing south. "There's your letter," called the notary, as Matt came past. Matt grabbed it, took it in his teeth, and dropped both hands on the grip-control. The last car of the train was opposite him, and the thick, acrid smoke of the engine streamed in his face. Nothing daunted by the lead the limited had of him, he opened the _Comet_ up for a record run. It was to be the _Comet's_ last flight--and it came within a hair's breadth of being Motor Matt's. CHAPTER XIV. STEAM VERSUS GASOLINE. Motor Matt knew, as well as he knew anything, that there was more speed in the _Comet_ than there was in Moody's big Baldwin engine. Moody's running-time was perhaps forty miles an hour. He might, on such a favorable stretch of track, eat into his lost thirty minutes at the rate of fifty miles an hour, but he would hardly dare to do better than that. Matt, on the other hand, could get sixty miles an hour out of the _Comet_, and even sixty-five if he had to in order to get that letter into Chub's hands before the good road jumped into the bog. This meant that he had four miles in which to come up with the locomotive--for Chub was riding in the cab with Moody, and Matt, now that the smoke was behind him, could see his chum hanging from the gangway. The morning sun had dried the road completely, but there was a dampness in the air, and damp weather is a prolific breeder of motor-cycle troubles. If the _Comet_ should begin to misfire on the high speed, if---- Dread possibilities began to flash through Matt's mind, but he thrust them aside. He was there to do his utmost for Clip, and to hope for the best. Out of the tails of his eyes he glimpsed excited faces at the car-windows. The passengers were watching him as he passed the swiftly moving coaches. Naturally they could have no idea what his object was in racing with the train, but a look at his set, determined face was enough to convince them that there was a deep purpose back of his work. Through the open windows ladies fluttered handkerchiefs, and men pushed out their heads and cheered him. It was a wonderful thing to see that gallant little machine close in on the rushing locomotive. Two nerve-racking minutes had passed and two miles of the good road had been covered. This meant that Matt had but two minutes more in which to transfer his letter to Chub. The _Comet_ was alongside the baggage-car now, and Matt could see his chum plainly in the gangway. He was leaning far out, holding to the hand-rails with one hand and stretching the other toward Matt. "Mile-a-minute Matt!" yelled Chub, in wild encouragement, "King of the Motor-boys! Come on, pard! A little farther, a little----" Just then a hand gripped Chub's shoulder and yanked him back into the cab, while an angry voice commanded him to stay inside. Matt saw this bit of byplay, and a thrill of apprehension shot through him. The engine crew were not going to let Chub take any chances of breaking his neck. Would they keep him from taking the letter? But Chub himself had something to say about it. There was a scramble in the cab, and the red-headed boy ducked through the window on the fireman's side and reached the foot-board along the boiler. The fireman yelled, and his hand shot through the window after him. Chub, however, was quick enough to evade the gripping fingers. Holding to the hand-rail, he bent down. He was too high to reach Matt, and Matt would have had to come dangerously close. The engine was pitching, and swaying, and swinging, but Chub hung to the running-board like a monkey, moved along it quickly, dropped to the top of the steam-chest, and flung his right hand to the lamp-bracket, under and to one side of the headlight. He could hear the fireman swearing at his recklessness and coming after him. Meanwhile Motor Matt was whirling along abreast of the big cylinder. "Ready?" he shouted; "look sharp!" "Hand it up!" and Chub leaned forward, one foot in the air and his weight on the lamp-bracket. Matt's right hand left the handle-bar, took the envelope from his teeth, and extended it upward. "I've got it, pard!" shouted Chub, snatching the letter from Motor Matt's fingers. A deep breath of relief and satisfaction flickered through Matt's tense lips. A hundred small things had conspired to make that race with the limited a success, and a turn for the worse in any one of them would have spelled failure. But it was over and he had won. There was a chance for Clip. Matt diminished speed slowly. The cars of the train began gliding past him, and the thick smoke covered him as with a pall. He heard yells from the passengers. They were not cheers, but shouts of warning and cries of consternation. What did they mean? Matt could see nothing for the moment, the vapor from the engine shrouded him so thickly that it blanketed his view in every direction. Nevertheless, he instinctively cut off the power and gripped the brake. Yet it is doubtful if he could by any possibility have saved himself, even had he known the full extent and nature of his peril. The _Comet_ was under such tremendous headway that a short stop was out of the question. A frenzied whoop broke on Matt's ears. At almost the same moment there was a shivering crash, so quick and sudden it was more like an explosion than anything else. It fell to Chub to see all this. His chum's danger loomed full on his stricken eyes. With the letter, for which he and Matt had risked so much, safe in his pocket, Chub had turned and climbed from the top of the steam-chest to the foot-board. In this position he was facing the cab of the engine, and looking back along the wagon-road. Matt was completely engulfed in the smoke, and Chub could not see him; but Chub saw something else that made his heart stand still and sent a sickening fear through every limb. With both shaking hands he hung to the rail that ran along the jacket of the boiler, dipping and lurching with the engine and staring back. A big freight-wagon, drawn by six horses and manned by two freighters, was at a standstill in the road. The horses, frightened by the train, had plunged for the roadside, turning the huge van squarely across the trail. The freighters were on the ground, hanging to the bits of the horses. Chub, completely unnerved and his brain benumbed with fears for Matt, stared at the huge wagon. The wheels of the vehicle were plastered with mud, for it had just labored through the bog and struck good road. Could Matt, engulfed as he was in that haze of smoke, see the wagon? Certainly he could not _hear_ it, because of the roar of the train; but could he see it, and would he be able to stop the _Comet_ in time to avoid a collision? So ran Chub's agonized thoughts. Although his brain seemed dazed to everything else, yet it was peculiarly alert to all that concerned Matt and his peril. Then, while Chub stared into the receding distance, the sharp detonation of the crash reached his ears. A groan was wrenched from him, and his legs gave way. But for the timely support of the fireman he would have fallen from the locomotive. Never had that particular fireman been so scared as he was then. He swore roundly as he dragged Chub to the cab and jammed him back through the window. Chub fell in a heap on the heaving floor. "You young fool!" roared Jack Moody, beside himself on account of the boy's narrow escape, "next time I take you in the cab with me you'll know it. I'd look nice facin' your father and your sister and tellin' them you'd dropped off my engine and been ground up under the drivers, wouldn't I?" And the exasperated Jack Moody said things to himself as he kept one hand on the throttle and the other on the air, and peered ahead. Chub, half-lifting himself, caught Moody about the knees. "Stop!" he begged: "there was an accident back there! Matt has been killed! Let me off! Moody----" "Of course there's been an accident!" cried Moody, without looking around. "Why shouldn't there have been? With two reckless daredevils playin' tag between a motor-cycle and a limited, it's a wonder there wasn't a worse accident than there was." "Let me get off!" screamed Chub. "If you don't stop, I'll jump!" "Sit down on him, Jerry," said Moody to the fireman. "If he won't act reasonable, lash his hands and feet. We're going to take him to Phoenix. I'm an old fool to have such a rattle-headed kid around. We're ten minutes to the good," he added, "and we'll drop into Phoenix not more'n five minutes behind the time-card. That's going _some_, eh?" Meantime there were two amazed freighters, far back on the road, pulling a white-faced, unconscious boy out of a tangled wreck. "Jumpin' gee-mimy!" muttered one of them, in consternation. "That two-wheeled buzz-cart butted into the wagon like a thunderbolt! Did ye see it, Nick?" "See nothin'!" grunted Nick. "The leaders had me off'n my feet about then, an' I didn't have no time to observe nothin'. Did he hurt the wagon any, Joe?" "Knocked the mud off the rear wheels. The wagon weighs twenty-five hundred, but she sure shook when the kid hit it. Fine-lookin' young feller," and Joe stood up and looked down at Motor Matt with a foreboding shake of the head. "Killed?" queried Nick, stepping to his partner's side. "His ticker's goin', but I don't see how he could come through a smash like that there an' live." "Me, neither. We'd better load him inter the wagon an' snake him ter a doctor as quick as we kin." "I'll pile up some o' the blankets so'st ter make him comfortable. Wait a minit." Nick climbed into the wagon and made a cushioned bed in the springless box: then, very gently, Motor Matt was lifted up and laid down on the makeshift bed. Nick climbed down again and found Joe picking up scraps of the _Comet_. It was a sorry wreck. The once beautiful machine, the pride of Motor Matt's life, was nothing now but a heap of junk. "Purty badly scrambled up," remarked Joe. "Don't reckon it could ever be fixed. Shall we tote scrap inter Prescott, Nick?" "Nary, I wouldn't. Leave the stuff whar it is. We got ter git the boy ter town as soon's we kin, an' hadn't ort ter lose time botherin' with sich truck as that." So the horses were straightened around, Nick and Joe mounted to the seat, the long whip cracked, and the creaking freight-wagon, with its unconscious passenger, got under headway. CHAPTER XV. IN COURT. Court had taken up after the noon recess. The evidence was all in, and the prosecuting attorney had made a masterly address demanding a prison sentence for Tom Clipperton. The prosecutor had so marshaled the evidence that there did not seem a possible hope for Clip. The jurymen looked convinced, and the defiant bearing of the prisoner, which at no time had appealed to their sympathies, was far from making such an appeal now. Short was in despair. He was not the man, however, to throw up his hands until the jury had announced their verdict and had been polled. Short had begun his plea at eleven o'clock. He could have finished by noon, but he was talking against time, and announced that he would complete his address after court reconvened. The train from Prescott was due at one-thirty. One of his clerks brought him word that it was five minutes late. With one eye on the clock he continued to reiterate some of the remarks he had already made. The jury looked bored, the prosecuting attorney, who did not know what was up, smiled sarcastically, and the judge settled back in his chair with a look of resignation. Just as the hands of the court-room clock pointed to a quarter of two there was a stir at the door. A crowd of excited men surged through, a red-haired boy, haggard, his face and hands covered with the grime of more than a hundred miles in a locomotive-cab, led the crowd. The boy staggered as he pressed through the room toward the enclosure. "Evidence!" cried the red-haired boy huskily; "evidence for Tom Clipperton!" There was a brief period of silence, during which the prisoner jumped to his feet and peered wonderingly at Chub McReady. Leffingwell, in charge of Clipperton, caught his arm and pulled him roughly back into his seat. In another moment a buzz of excitement ran through the room, and was rapidly increasing to an uproar when the bailiff pounded for order. "The room will be cleared," warned the judge, "unless we can have quiet." Short, doubtful but snatching at a straw of hope, turned to the judge and requested that the case be reopened for the taking of further evidence. The prosecutor was instantly on his feet with an objection. Objection was overruled. "I will call Chub McReady to the stand," said Short. Another objection from the prosecutor. McReady's evidence was already in, according to the representative of the people, in the form of an affidavit. Short begged to remind the learned counsel for the State that it was Matt King's affidavit that had been read in court, and not McReady's. Objection overruled. Chub made his way unsteadily to the witness-chair, stood up while he was being sworn, and then dropped down in a way that showed how spent he was with recent efforts. Fresh interest was injected into the case. The twelve good men and true in the jury-box were anything but bored now. Chub bore all the marks of having passed through a trying ordeal of some kind, and it must have been in behalf of the prisoner. In the dead silence that fell over the room while Short was impressively making ready to begin his examination, a piping voice floated through the intense quiet. "Shade o' Gallopin' Dick! It's Chub, my leetle pard, Chub! Him an' Motor Matt hev been workin' their heads off to git evidence fer Clipperton, an' here----" "Silence!" thundered the judge. "Officer," he added, "if that man makes any more disturbance, put him out." Welcome Perkins subsided. The prosecutor frowned, and Short looked pleased. Something had got to the jury which would help, rather than injure, the defendant. "Your name?" asked Short, facing Chub. "Mark McReady," came the answer, in a voice that trembled from fatigue and excitement. "Age?" "Seventeen." "Place of residence?" "Phoenix." "Occupation?" "Inventor." Somebody snickered. "Waal, he is!" cried Welcome. "Dad-bing!" The officer started toward the reformed road-agent, and Welcome ducked into a corner of the room and hid behind a fat man who hadn't been able to find a seat. "I will ask you to tell the jury, Mark," said Short, "just what you and Matt King have been doing in Prescott." The prosecutor was on his feet like a shot, objecting, of course. The judge knitted his brows. "If it is pertinent to any evidence already introduced," decided his honor, "it can go in." "It's an affidavit from Pima Pete!" quavered Chub, holding up the letter. "Wait!" shouted the prosecutor. "Don't speak, my boy, till I ask you something," said Short. The prosecutor and Short got their heads together at the judge's desk, and the affidavit of Pima Pete was looked over. "This is entirely relevant," declared the judge, "and we will have it read." The affidavit was handed to the clerk, and he read the same in a loud, incisive voice. The document stated, in clear, crisp terms, that the deponent was one Peter Sebastian, otherwise known as Pima Pete, that he had been a member of Dangerfield's gang of smugglers, told how Dangerfield had sold cattle and buried ten thousand dollars in double eagles, had intended to dig the money up on his way to Mexico, and had been captured before he could carry out his plans. The affidavit then went on to state how Dangerfield had requested Motor Matt to dig up the money for him, claiming that it was honest money, and send the lion's share of it to Dangerfield's father, in Emmetsburg, Iowa; how Pima Pete had given a note to Clipperton, asking him to tell Matt to come for the gold; how Matt had refused to mix up with Pete, and how Clipperton had gone, had joined Pete, had helped dig up the gold, and how both had been set upon by Hogan and Leffingwell. That affidavit, written by Motor Matt in a tearing hurry, was a model of clearness and brevity. The prosecutor was on hand with a whole lot of objections, aimed at having the affidavit stricken from the record. In the first place, the affidavit was in lead-pencil. This was unusual, and would allow of changing its contents; in the next place, how were they to know that Pima Pete, a proscribed outlaw, was the real author of the document? And what credence was a half-breed entitled to, anyway, even when under oath? By all these objections the prosecutor, to use a very figurative expression, "put his foot in it." Short was obliged to show, by the witness, just how the affidavit had been secured, and an opening was made for the tale of pluck and daring in which Matt and Chub had just figured. Chub, at times almost overcome with weariness and grief, told the story. It was a telling recital, and held the great roomful of people spellbound. The jurymen leaned forward in their chairs, the judge leaned over his table, everybody craned their necks and listened intently so that not a word might get away from them. Chub told how he and Matt had made up their minds to do everything they could to free their innocent chum; how Matt had drawn from the bank some of the money paid for the capture of Dangerfield, and had declared he would use every last cent of it to free Clip, who had got into his trouble on Dangerfield's account; how they had gone to Prescott, after receiving the tip at Mrs. Spooner's; how they had been chased by the two horsemen, and had got away by leaping the break in the road; how the weary days had dragged by in Prescott; how Matt had started Sheriff Burke to searching for the real robbers; how the note, tied to the stone, had been hurled through the hotel window on the night of the storm; and how the witness and Matt had gone to the old Hopewell shaft and met Pima Pete. If the interest up to that point had been absorbing, it now became even more so. Chub, in his quivering tones, went on to describe the meeting with Pima Pete, and Matt's plan for taking his affidavit, having a notary rushed out from Prescott, and then passing the document up to Chub on the Limited. Chub had fortunately found the notary in his office; and in front of the office a horse and buggy were standing. He had hustled the notary off in short order, and had then gone to the station and taken the train, riding in the cab with Jack Moody, the engineer, who was a friend of the witness' father. Just how Matt had accomplished the taking of the affidavit, Chub could not tell. All he knew was that when the limited dashed along the rails, some two miles out of Prescott, the notary, Matt, and Pima Pete were in the wagon-road, Pima Pete holding the notary's horse and Matt climbing after the train on his motor-cycle, the _Comet_, the machine Matt had won in a bicycle-race. Then Chub, mightily worked up himself and showing it in every word and gesture, proceeded to tell how he had tried to lean from the gangway and take the letter from Matt; how he had been thrown back by the fireman, only to get through the cab-window, hurry along the running-board, drop down on the steam-chest, and snatch the letter from Motor Matt's fingers. A sob came from him as he described how, standing on the foot-board and gripping the rail, he had seen the freight-wagon in the road and had heard a crash as Matt had collided with it, being unable to see ahead on account of the smoke, and unable, even if he had seen his danger, to stop the terrible impetus of a motor-cycle going at the rate of a mile a minute. Here, at the finish of his recital, Chub McReady broke down. In spite of the bailiff's half-hearted attempt to keep order, pandemonium broke loose. Susie McReady ran to her brother's side, and Welcome, nearly oversetting the fat man, tore through the shouting crowd to get to the witness-chair. Finally, order was again restored, and Short, bland and mightily satisfied with the turn of events, asked the prosecutor to "take the witness." The prosecutor had nothing to say, and Chub got down and walked wearily to a seat beside Susie and Welcome. And Clip! The first real feeling he had shown he showed then. With his face in his hands he leaned across the table beside which he was sitting. Short finished his plea. He did not consume much time, for he was an astute lawyer and knew when he had his jury with him. Jurymen are emotional, as well as any one else; they can weigh the evidence, but sentiment cuts a big figure in any jury's decision--just how big probably even the jurymen themselves do not know. The judge's charge was brief. He asked the jurymen to weigh the facts irrespective of the impression the heroism of the prisoner's friends might have had on them. And when the charge was finished, without leaving their seats, a verdict of "not guilty" was rendered. Then Bedlam broke loose again. Everybody crowded around Tom Clipperton to congratulate him. But Clipperton, pushing his way through the crowd, started for the door. "My pard!" he cried. "He's hurt, perhaps dead! I must get to Prescott." CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUSION. Matt King opened his eyes in his old room at the Briggs House. The roar of the limited was still in his ears, and the awful grinding crash that he had last heard. Sheriff Burke was sitting beside the bed and there were innumerable bandages about Matt's body and a strong smell of drugs in the room. "How's everything?" Matt mumbled, trying to sit up. Burke gently pushed him back. "Fine and dandy, Matt," said he: "but, best of all, is the way you got out of that smash." "Oh, is it you, Mr. Burke?" queried Matt. "Surest thing you know," laughed Burke. "That was a great race you made. Racin' the limited! First time it was ever done in these parts." "Who brought me in?" went on Matt. "A couple of freighters who were with the wagon you ran into. They thought you were going to turn up your toes, but 'Not for him,' says I. 'That boy,' I says, 'wasn't born to be snuffed out in a little smash like that.' But you've been unconscious for quite a while." "How long?" "Well, it's five o'clock now, and you had your race along about nine-forty, this morning." "What's the matter with me?" demanded Matt, in consternation. "I'm not badly hurt, am I? I don't feel as though I was." "Not a bone broken, and that's the wonder of it. You hit that wagon like an earthquake, they say. You've had the skin scraped off you in several places, but the doctor says you'll be as well as ever in a week--providing there are no internal injuries." "Well," said Matt, "there aren't any. I'd know it, I guess, if there was." "I guess you would." "Heard anything from Phoenix?" "Got news that will make you feel like a fighting-cock! A telegram got here sayin' that Clipperton has been freed----" "Glory!" "McReady got there in time to flash the affidavit of Pima Pete's before the case went to the jury; but the telegram says it wasn't the affidavit that turned the trick so much as the grit and determination of you and McReady in getting the document to Phoenix." "But Clip's innocent! Everybody's got to know that." "Everybody _will_ know it, too," averred the sheriff. "The two men who took the money from Fresnay were captured by three of the men I sent out on your tip. They brought the rascals in, not more than an hour ago, gold and all--not early enough to free Clipperton, but in plenty of time to set him straight with anybody who still had a doubt of his innocence. I wired the news to Phoenix an hour ago, and McKibben and some more people will be up on to-night's freight." There seemed to be nothing more that Motor Matt could wish for. But he roused up from a reverie to ask after the _Comet_. "That motor-cycle," said Burke, "is a mass of junk. You've had your last ride on it, Matt. You did a lot of good work with that machine." "But the best work I ever did with it," said Matt, "I did this morning. What I accomplished for Clip was worth the price. And Chub! Talk about pluck and grit, he showed it if ever a fellow did." "You both showed it," said Burke. "One of the captured scoundrels, Torrel by name, has turned State's evidence. He told me all about everything. Says he, and the fellow with him, have been staying at the house of a Mexican in Phoenix, ever since the Dangerfield gang was put out of business. They knew Dangerfield had buried ten thousand dollars in gold, not far away in the hills, and they knew Pima Pete had been let into the secret of the cache. They were in Phoenix watching Pete. A Mexican, belonging to the place where the two outlaws were staying, carried a note to you that had been given him by Pete. This was after the robbery----" "But how did Torrel and his pal know about the pay-roll money?" interposed Matt. "If they were watching Pete in order to locate Dangerfield's gold----" "That's right," broke in Burke, "I'm getting a little ahead of my yarn. Well, they heard from some one that Fresnay had come to town after the ranch-money. That gave them the idea they could make a rich haul without bothering with Pete, so they went out in the hills and made it. They learned, next morning, that Clipperton and Pete had been captured, that Pete had got away, and that circumstances pointed to Clipperton as the thief--Clip and Pete; see?" "Then Torrel and his pal came back into Phoenix. That was the time they got next to the note sent by Pete to you. The Mexican messenger had read it. The real thieves knew at once that Pima Pete was planning to save Clip, and, naturally, Torrel and his pal didn't want it that way. If Clip and Pete were believed guilty, then the real thieves could enjoy their loot without having the authorities bother them. So Torrel's pal tried to bluff you out by sending the Mexican with a warning. You wouldn't be bluffed. The two scoundrels laid for you in the hills--and you showed them your heels." "What did Torrel and his pardner want to hang around Prescott for?" queried Matt. "Why didn't they skip when they had a chance?" "They were expecting to meet another of the old gang at the old Hopewell tunnel. They went there to meet him, and found Pima Pete. Then they held Pete a prisoner in the tunnel until they thought the law had taken care of Clip, got word that the man they were waiting for was in Maricopa, and pulled out early Sunday night, in the storm. That was the last of them, and their move once more gave Pete a free hand, for since that money of Dangerfield's had been taken in charge by the State as that stolen from Fresnay, they had no reason to hold Pete." "What about the fellow at Maricopa?" "I wired that town and an officer went after him. But the man will not be caught--I'm positive of that." "Have you captured Pete?" A queer look crossed Burke's face. "I reckon I could have captured him, if I'd tried to right hard," said he slowly, "but I didn't try." "Why not?" "Well, he showed himself a good deal of a man, for a half-breed, and I'm not hungry to make a thousand off of him." Matt reached out his hand and gave the sheriff's big paw a cordial grip. "I'm glad you feel that way," said he. "I can't explain, but what you say does me a lot of good." It was half-past ten that night before the Phoenix delegation arrived in Prescott. McKibben and Leffingwell came, and Clip, and Chub, and Welcome Perkins, and--last but not least--Susie. Susie was going to take care of Matt until he was well enough to dispense with a nurse. It is useless to dwell on the meeting of these friends with Matt. Clip's dark eyes expressed his feelings, and henceforth only death could wipe out the close friendship born of recent exciting events. In a week, so well was Matt looked after, that he was up and around--not quite as full of ginger as ever, but rapidly getting back into his old form. He had more money in the bank, too--even after Short had corralled the $500--than he had before Clipperton had got into difficulties. Some of Dangerfield's gold came to him--Matt would only take enough to offset Short's fee and other expenses--and there was a "rake-off" from the $2,000 Burke received for the capture of Tolliver and his partner. Motor Matt, when he went back to Phoenix, found himself more popular than ever. He had lost the game little _Comet_, but it was only a start for higher things in the motor line. Just what these things were, and the fame and fortune they brought to Motor Matt will be touched upon in the next story. THE END. THE NEXT NUMBER (5) WILL CONTAIN MOTOR MATT'S MYSTERY OR, FOILING A SECRET PLOT. A Dutchman in Trouble--The Runaway Auto--The Man at the Roadside--The Mystery Deepens--Matt Gets a Job--Concerning the Letter--The Two Horsemen--On the Road--In the Hands of the Enemy--A Shift in the Situation--A Surprise--Escape--The Hut in the Hills--Back to the Car--A Race and a Ruse--In Ash Fork. MOTOR STORIES THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION NEW YORK, March 20, 1909. TERMS TO MOTOR STORIES MAIL SUBSCRIBERS. (_Postage Free._) Single Copies or Back Numbers, 5c. Each. 3 months 65c. 4 months 85c. 6 months $1.25 One year 2.50 2 copies one year 4.00 1 copy two years 4.00 =How to Send Money=--By post-office or express money-order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. At your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage-stamps in ordinary letter. =Receipts=--Receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. If not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once. ORMOND G. SMITH, } GEORGE C. SMITH, } _Proprietors_. STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York City. THE TENNIS-GROUND MYSTERY. By OLIVER K. ROSSE. It was about half-past six, one brilliant morning in June, and the boys of Bidford School were dressing themselves, preparatory to "scudding" for the river, wherein to take their customary seven-o'clock "dip." Every one was out of bed, skipping to and fro, as lively as grasshoppers, throwing wet sponges at one another, and indulging in divers other jocular vagaries, which sufficiently accounted for the many strange noises and the repeated loud bursts of laughter that greeted the listening ear. The inmates of dormitory number one were the younger members of the school, and the merriest and most popular of all were Caggles and Bottlebury. "I say, Bottlebury," cried Caggles, a youth who had a deal of confidence in his own powers, "I'll swim you this morning, and 'lick' you by a dozen yards." "All right," said Bottlebury; "but you can bet your life I'll have the laugh on you! I've been putting in a lot of practise lately." "That's what you always say, 'Bot,' old bird." "Well! it's right enough. Whoop! Here's a black beetle in one of my shoes!" "Don't kill it! It's mine," cried a lanky youth, dashing forward. "Look here, Fuzzy, you beast," said Bottlebury, "you'll get punched until you're black and blue if you bring such disgusting creeping reptiles up here." Fuzzy was an amateur naturalist, and delighted to keep a stock of living insects about his person, in pill-boxes. "This fellow got loose," he said, as he fearlessly picked up the coal-black beetle and popped it into the small cardboard prison which he had ready. "I say, 'Cag,'" resumed Bottlebury, "it's our turn to roll the tennis-ground." "So it is," said Caggles; "won't it be hot work if the sun hangs out all day!" "I should say so!" assented his friend. "I say, though, you were dreaming like a madman last night." "Was I?" laughed Caggles; "I'm an awful fellow to dream. I used to walk in my sleep, but I've got over that. They say it comes of having an active brain." "Aye; and they say that kids with active brains like that generally turn out to be tip-top poets and authors." "Do they?" said Caggles, suddenly imagining himself a budding genius. "Oh," said Bottlebury, with delightfully refreshing candor, "I don't suppose it means anything in your case, you know." "Why?" asked the disappointed Caggles, in an injured tone of voice. "Well, I don't think you've got enough brains for 'em to be active. It'll be active nerves in your case. It's just the same, only it's different; see?" "Was I talking in my sleep?" asked Caggles, anxious to change the subject. "I think so. I just caught something about 'moles,' but I went to sleep pretty soon after." "Well, I've been wishing for a mole," said Caggles; "Tupman says they've got no eyes, and I say they have. I'm going to hunt for one of the little beggars, just to see who's right." At that juncture the door was flung open, and Crieff, one of the oldest boys in the school, rushed into the dormitory, red and breathless, and minus his cap. Now, Crieff was usually a very sedate fellow, and went about as stately as an Oriental grandee. His neck was rather long, and at every stride he stiffened his legs and bulged out his chest, so that he was suggestive, somewhat, of a dignified stork. The boys of the dormitory were astonished, therefore, to see him in so breathless and limp a state. "What's up?" asked Caggles, with mouth agape. "The tennis-ground!" gasped Crieff, mopping his face with a handkerchief. The tennis-ground at Bidford School was reputed to be one of the finest in the whole neighborhood. It had been specially laid, and its smooth surface was as level as a billiard-table. Every boy was proud of it, and Crieff tended it with the anxiety of a father. "What's up with it?" asked two or three voices. "Spoiled! Ruined!" said Crieff, almost with tears in his eyes. "Never!" cried Bottlebury. "It is. Somebody has dug holes all over it with a spade. I've just been down and seen it." "It was all right yesterday afternoon," said Caggles, with an expression of disgust on his face. "Some one must have done it in the night," said Crieff; "I believe it's one of those village kids I thrashed last week for throwing stones." "Very likely," said Caggles; "they'll do anything for spite." "They used our spade, too," continued Crieff; "the one out of the shed. The lock of the door has been useless for some time, you know. They must have gone in and taken out the spade; I found it lying on the ground." The inmates of the dormitory stood aghast. A grand match between themselves and a neighboring school had been fixed for this coming Saturday. Under the peculiar circumstances this, of course, would have to be postponed. Hastily finishing their toilet, the boys accompanied Crieff to the tennis-ground, where they saw that his account was only too true. The ground was dug up in a dozen places. Exclamations of rage rose from the fast-increasing crowd of boys, and energetic discussions were entered upon, until quite a confusing uproar prevailed. "Whoever it was," said Caggles, almost bursting with wrath, "they ought to be kicked." "I say, Crieff," said Bottlebury, "do you think they'll come again?" "I don't think so," was the answer; "still, they may. I'm just trying to think of a way to catch the scoundrels." "Put a lot of rat-traps about," suggested a small boy. "Man-traps, you mean," said Caggles. "Yes; that's it--man-traps," said the small boy. "Where'll you get 'em from?" asked Caggles, as if bent on calling down derision on the youngster. "Oh, anywhere--buy 'em," replied the small boy, in a vague way. "But where from, you young ass?" "Where they sell 'em;" and the small boy fled in time to miss Caggles' foot. "Well," said Dumford, "if there's a doubt whether they'll pay us a second visit, it'll be hardly worth while sitting up all night." Suddenly Caggles gave a cry of extreme pleasure. "I know a good plan," he said; "I'll get a ball of strong, thin twine, fasten one end to the spade in the shed, carry the ball across the field, and up-stairs to the dormitory, and then tie the other end to my big toe. If any one walks off with the spade, the string will pull my toe and waken me. Then, down-stairs we go, and ask the midnight visitor if he wants any help." Crieff laughed. "It's a good idea," said he, "and there's no harm in trying it. It may answer and it may not. The schoolhouse isn't a hundred yards away." "Very well," said Caggles, with a gleeful chuckle, "I'll get the twine and try it to-night. Let's roll the ground. They'll very likely to come again if they see we've patched it up." This was done, the twine purchased, and that night Caggles got into bed with his toe attached to one end of the string and the spade in the shed tied to the other. Poor Caggles! He little thought what a laugh there was to be at his expense. For a considerable time the inmates of No. 1 dormitory lay awake in a state of anxious expectation, half-expecting to see Caggles dragged out of bed and go hopping down the room, with his big toe nearly pulled out by the roots, so to speak. But nothing happened, and one by one they closed their eyes and went to sleep, until all were wrapped in slumber. Even Caggles--despite the uncomfortable sensation of the twine round his toe--was not long in succumbing to drowsiness, for he was very tired, having rolled the tennis-ground all that afternoon. Just as the faint sounds of the schoolroom clock striking one floated up-stairs, Bottlebury woke with a start, having dreamed that he was falling down a coal-mine. He wiped the perspiration of fear from his brow, rubbed his eyes, and sat upright. Then, turning his gaze in the direction where Caggles always slept, he saw by the light of the moon, which streamed in at the window, that his chum was not to be seen. His bed was empty! In an instant Bottlebury was on his feet. "Wake up, you fellows!" he cried, as he dragged his trousers on. "Wake up! D'you hear?" Dumford popped up his head and asked what the row was over. "Caggles isn't in bed," said Bottlebury excitedly; "he's felt the string tug, I s'pose, and has hurried off without us." In another minute every boy had donned his nether garments, and then away they went, pell-mell, down the darkened stairs. As they rushed outdoors they descried a figure, clad in naught but a night-shirt, making for the tennis-ground. "Why, that's Caggles!" said Dumford. "What on earth has he come out like that for?" queried Bottlebury; "he'll catch his death of cold." "Make no row," warned Dumford. "It strikes me there's something peculiar about this affair. Let's follow him quietly." Caggles made straight for the shed, and, opening the door, disappeared inside. In a few seconds he reappeared with the spade in his grasp, and, walking up to the tennis-ground, began to dig. The onlookers gasped with amazement, and a light dawned on their minds. "He's asleep," whispered Dumford; "it was nobody but he who dug the ground before." "By Jove!" was all that the astonished Bottlebury could say--so unlooked-for was the revelation. Suddenly Caggles was seen to fall to the ground. The twine had twisted round his legs and thrown him. Bottlebury was quickly at his side and assisted him to his feet. "What's this?" said Caggles, in great bewilderment, the fall evidently having brought him to his waking senses. "Come along in," said Bottlebury; "you'll catch rheumatics, or something." Caggles looked, in a dazed way, first at the spade and then at his now grinning companions. "Did I do it?" he asked. "I suppose so," replied Bottlebury; "but what in the name of goodness made you? What were you digging for?" "Moles," said Caggles, after a slight pause, in which he shivered with cold; "I--I suppose I must have come out to look for moles." And so he had. The assertion made by Tupman that moles were blind had caused him to long to test the truth of the statement. He even dreamed of the subject, following which a somnambulistic desire to dig for moles in the tennis-ground was born within him. He never heard the last of the ludicrous adventure, and Bottlebury had a thorough good laugh at him. The nocturnal mole-hunter thenceforth slept in a small room by himself, with the door securely locked and a patent "catch" on the window, "so that"--as some one facetiously remarked--"he should not again have necessity to tie spades to his toes." MAKE QUEER CATCHES AT CAPE COD. Many strange fish come to the nets of the weirsmen of Cape Cod. The collection of the amateur photographer who summered at Provincetown a season would not be complete without a plate of some of them to show wondering friends on winter evenings. Most striking, perhaps, would be the giant horse-mackerel, which were often seen. "Four-hundred-pounders each" they were, according to the offhand estimate of the local old salt who named them for the summer folks edification. They were indeed a handsome couple, although only medium-sized representatives of a marine clan--_orcynus thynnus_--of which hundreds are annually taken at Provincetown in the big "catchalls," commonly termed weirs. In a small way, the horse-mackerel is a gladiator. Prior to his advent, the sand-lance, the mackerel, the herring, pollock, and dogfish make regular visitation in Cape Cod Bay. When the breaching "sea-tiger," or horse-mackerel, with great goggle eyes staring stonily and lemon-hued, rearanal fins glittering goldlike in the shadow of its under body, comes rushing upon the scene, all minor species hurriedly decamp. The horse-mackerel, or its familiar, is common in the Mediterranean, where it is known as the tuna, or tunny. For centuries the flesh of the tuna has been highly esteemed by the Latin races. Packed in oil, or salted, it has, since the days of the Phoenicians, been a very widely known commodity in the Mediterranean trade. The horse-mackerel occurs in the west Atlantic as far north as the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It puts in an appearance at Provincetown early in June customarily, remaining in the vicinity until about October. When much of the fishing-work there was performed by means of nets, the horse-mackerel was both a source of revenue and a pest to the small boatman; but the oil taken from it more than compensates for the loss resulting from its ravages upon nets. One would suppose that the fishermen's nets would speedily be ruined by the creatures, but such is not the case. Upon striking a floating net, the horse-mackerel goes, bulletlike, straight through it--unlike the shark, which, rolling itself in the netting, tears the same enormously--making a clean, round hole, easy to repair. Individuals weighing as much as 1,500 pounds have, it is said, been taken. Specimens of that weight are not taken off Provincetown, however, the average specimens weighing from 400 to 500 pounds, with an occasional 900 or 1,000-pounder. The average length is about eight feet. Horse-mackerel were seldom, if ever, used for food in this country until within a few years. At present quite all specimens taken in weirs are sent to city markets, where a ready sale at a good price is assured among immigrants from the south of Europe. No horse-mackerel need now be set adrift as worthless, as was formerly the custom. Usually the capture of a weir-imprisoned horse-mackerel is not a matter of great difficulty. Once in a while, however, the great strength of an individual nearly prevails over the efforts of its jailers. For instance: In July, 1897, Captain Henry J. Lewis, a skilful weir-manipulator, found in his harbor trap a big horse-mackerel, exhausted and apparently dead upon the dried-in "lint" when the crew gathered in the netting. The disengaged end of the main throat-halyards was made fast to the tail of the supposedly dead fish, the bight was loosely attached to the main-sheet traveler, and Skipper Lewis and his helper straightway began to bail in herring. All at once the stern of the boat settled. Down it went, suddenly, and water began to pour into the standing-room. The horse-mackerel had regained consciousness and was making the fact known. Mate James hurriedly unloosed the halyards, and the immense fish disappeared below the surface and renewed its fight for freedom. As the fish scurried away, the halyards tautened. The main-gaff started aloft, drawn by the hoisting-gear. The gaff-end caught, held securely for a moment, then broke, and up in a trice went the bellying sail, with broken spar dangling. For a moment all was confusion on the boat. The fish, a 900-pounder, in one of its rushes approached the boat's quarter. One of the crew, ax in hand, delivered a swinging blow at him, but the agile horse-mackerel easily avoided it. An instant later the strong wind struck full upon the bagging canvas and laid the boat over, well upon her side. A capsize seemed imminent. Correctly sizing up the situation, Mate Manuel James seized a sharp knife and with one stroke severed the halyards. Immediately the horse-mackerel, with all but a small portion of the main-halyards tied to its tail, vanished like a flash through the broadside netting of the weir, vanished for good. Lewis, owner thereof, gave vent to sundry explosive ejaculations. Cape Cod weirs scoop in many unexpected water-creatures. Recently a forty-foot-long--estimated--right-whale entered O'Neil's head of harbor Provincetown floating traps. Annoyed a half-hour later by would-be captors, this huge animal, bearing within its mouth baleen worth probably $2,000, with one rush burst through the heavy netting and went away to sea, leaving a badly torn weir behind. In August, 1908, a baby finback whale, just out of leading-strings, evidently, it being only fifteen feet long, entered Blatchford's weir and was slain. The creature was exhibited under a tent upon the main beach. The Lewis-James weir captured, October 9 of the same year, a bone shark seventeen feet long. The skin of that rare creature was removed intact, and is now being tanned for mounting by the purchaser, David C. Stull, known as the Ambergris King. This species--_cetophinus maximus_--a native of Arctic seas, is one of the largest of sharks. Sluggish in movement, the bone shark swims lazily at the surface, apparently indifferent to the approach of boats. Food found in its stomach comprises a red, pulpy mass, probably the roe of sea-urchins. The teeth are small--the Stull specimen hadn't the vestige of a tooth, being very young--and the gill-rakers--a sort of Galway whisker worn inside, instead of outside, the throat--would indicate that it feeds at the surface, straining its food, as does the baleen-bearing whale. A half-dozen years ago a West Indian sea-turtle, with a plump remora--sucking fish--adhering to its under shell, was taken from the "Jim" Lewis weir. Very recently the largest lobster known to have been captured in Provincetown Harbor was taken from the Eastern weir. Its weight was twenty-three pounds, and its length, tail end to outer end of forward extended claws, was forty-two inches. This giant crustacean, carefully mounted, now graces Mr. Stull's museum of marine curios. Recent sizable lot arrivals of fishes once deemed worthless at Provincetown, include the shadine, scientifically known as _etrumeus sadinia_, a species which occurs as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, but is most commonly found in Florida and Carolina waters, and the species variously called saury, billfish, skipper, and skipjack, the latter because of its surface-bounding habit when pursued by the horse-mackerel and bonito. The shadine appeared at Provincetown for the first time, and in large numbers, in October, 1908. They are very valuable. The saury, or billfish--_scomberesox sauris_--is found in all parts of the North Atlantic. Cod feed voraciously upon them. This long-beaked, slender-bodied species feeds upon soft, pelagic animals, its teeth being very minute. This species, formerly considered worthless in Provincetown, has suddenly leaped into favor. All caught there are eagerly sought by New York and Boston commission men. COLD FIRE. Cold fire is a coming invention. So also is heatless light. You may find them in nature already, if you but inquire intelligently into her secrets. Cold flame is exemplified in the firefly, and the glowworm gives forth heatless light. Such flames and lights are not mysteries. Their cause is due to one of the subtlest forces in the universe--ether. Only in an indirect way are the human senses acquainted with this wonderful substance. Yet ether flows through the earth's atmosphere in mighty currents, unchecked, resistless, and subtle. The ether is the direct parent of the X-ray and the speech of the wireless telegraph. When man shall attain the perfect vacuum, then the rude ether blush of the electric-light bulb will give forth many times more light, purified and heatless, soft and healing as the light of the stars, penetrating as the sun. An examination of the firefly, when emitting flames or light, shows bodily movements that cannot be understood to mean anything else than vacuum producing. The lights are always seen in the vacuum sac on the back. Immediately before emitting light, the insect will flatten the body, draw the legs in, droop the head, seemingly contracting in all directions; then with the relaxation comes the flame and light. The bodies of the glowworm and firefly always are transparent when filled with flame. The blades of grass or other debris are seen plainly through the bodies. Here are cases of nature anticipating man and dealing with X-rays. _ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT!!_ MOTOR STORIES _A New Idea in the Way of Five-Cent Weeklies._ Boys everywhere will be delighted to hear that Street & Smith are now issuing this new five-cent weekly which will be known by the name of MOTOR STORIES. This weekly is entirely different from anything now being published. It details the astonishing adventures of a young mechanic who owned a motor cycle. Is there a boy who has not longed to possess one of these swift little machines that scud about the roads everywhere throughout the United States? Is there a boy, therefore, who will not be intensely interested in the adventures of "Motor Matt," as he is familiarly called by his comrades? Boys, you have never read anything half so exciting, half so humorous and entertaining as the first story listed for publication in this line, called "=Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel=." Its fame is bound to spread like wildfire, causing the biggest demand for the other numbers in this line, that was ever heard of in the history of this class of literature. Here are the titles to be issued during the next few weeks. Do not fail to place an order for them with your newsdealer. No. 1. Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel. No. 2. Motor Matt's Daring; or, True to His Friends. No. 3. Motor Matt's "Century" Run; or, The Governor's Courier. No. 4. Motor Matt's Race; or, The Last Flight of the _Comet_. 32 LARGE SIZE PAGES SPLENDID COLORED COVERS PRICE, FIVE CENTS PER COPY AT ALL NEWSDEALERS, OR SENT POSTPAID BY THE PUBLISHERS UPON RECEIPT OF THE PRICE. _STREET & SMITH, Publishers, NEW YORK_ NUMBERS 1 TO 396 TIP TOP WEEKLY ARE CONTAINED IN THE MEDAL LIBRARY We know that there are thousands of boys who are very much interested in the early adventures of Frank and Dick Merriwell and who want to read everything that was written about them. We desire to inform these boys that numbers 1 to 396 are pretty well out of print in the TIP TOP WEEKLY, but all of them can be secured in the numbers of the NEW MEDAL LIBRARY given below. _The_ NEW MEDAL LIBRARY AT FIFTEEN CENTS [Illustration] 150--Frank Merriwell's School-days. 167--Frank Merriwell's Chums. 178--Frank Merriwell's Foes. 184--Frank Merriwell's Trip West. 189--Frank Merriwell Down South. 193--Frank Merriwell's Bravery. 197--Frank Merriwell's Hunting Tour. 201--Frank Merriwell in Europe. 205--Frank Merriwell at Yale. 209--Frank Merriwell's Sports Afield. 213--Frank Merriwell's Races. 217--Frank Merriwell's Bicycle Tour. 225--Frank Merriwell's Courage. 229--Frank Merriwell's Daring. 233--Frank Merriwell's Athletes. 237--Frank Merriwell's Skill. 240--Frank Merriwell's Champions. 244--Frank Merriwell's Return to Yale. 247--Frank Merriwell's Secret. 251--Frank Merriwell's Danger. 254--Frank Merriwell's Loyalty. 258--Frank Merriwell in Camp. 262--Frank Merriwell's Vacation. 267--Frank Merriwell's Cruise. 271--Frank Merriwell's Chase. 276--Frank Merriwell in Maine. 280--Frank Merriwell's Struggle. 284--Frank Merriwell's First Job. 288--Frank Merriwell's Opportunity. 292--Frank Merriwell's Hard Luck. 296--Frank Merriwell's Protégé. 300--Frank Merriwell on the Road. 304--Frank Merriwell's Own Company. 308--Frank Merriwell's Fame. 312--Frank Merriwell's College Chums. 316--Frank Merriwell's Problem. 320--Frank Merriwell's Fortune. 324--Frank Merriwell's New Comedian. 328--Frank Merriwell's Prosperity. 332--Frank Merriwell's Stage Hit. 336--Frank Merriwell's Great Scheme. 340--Frank Merriwell in England. 344--Frank Merriwell on the Boulevards. 348--Frank Merriwell's Duel. 352--Frank Merriwell's Double Shot. 356--Frank Merriwell's Baseball Victories. 359--Frank Merriwell's Confidence. 362--Frank Merriwell's Auto. 365--Frank Merriwell's Fun. 368--Frank Merriwell's Generosity. 371--Frank Merriwell's Tricks. 374--Frank Merriwell's Temptation. 377--Frank Merriwell on Top. 380--Frank Merriwell's Luck. 383--Frank Merriwell's Mascot. 386--Frank Merriwell's Reward. 389--Frank Merriwell's Phantom. 392--Frank Merriwell's Faith. 395--Frank Merriwell's Victories. 398--Frank Merriwell's Iron Nerve. 401--Frank Merriwell in Kentucky. 404--Frank Merriwell's Power. 407--Frank Merriwell's Shrewdness. 410--Frank Merriwell's Set-back. 413--Frank Merriwell's Search. 416--Frank Merriwell's Club. 419--Frank Merriwell's Trust. 422--Frank Merriwell's False Friend. 425--Frank Merriwell's Strong Arm. 428--Frank Merriwell as Coach. 431--Frank Merriwell's Brother. 434--Frank Merriwell's Marvel. 437--Frank Merriwell's Support. 440--Dick Merriwell at Fardale. 443--Dick Merriwell's Glory. 446--Dick Merriwell's Promise. 449--Dick Merriwell's Rescue. 452--Dick Merriwell's Narrow Escape. 455--Dick Merriwell's Racket. 458--Dick Merriwell's Revenge. 461--Dick Merriwell's Ruse. 464--Dick Merriwell's Delivery. 467--Dick Merriwell's Wonders. 470--Frank Merriwell's Honor. 473--Dick Merriwell's Diamond. 476--Frank Merriwell's Winners. 479--Dick Merriwell's Dash. 482--Dick Merriwell's Ability. 485--Dick Merriwell's Trap. 488--Dick Merriwell's Defense. 491--Dick Merriwell's Model. 494--Dick Merriwell's Mystery. =Published About January 5th= 497--Frank Merriwell's Backers. =Published About January 26th= 500--Dick Merriwell's Backstop. =Published About February 16th= 503--Dick Merriwell's Western Mission. =Published About March 9th= 506--Frank Merriwell's Rescue. =Published About March 30th= 509--Frank Merriwell's Encounter. =Published About April 20th= 512--Dick Merriwell's Marked Money. =Published About May 11th= 515--Frank Merriwell's Nomads. =Published About June 1st= 518--Dick Merriwell on the Gridiron. =Published About June 22nd= 521--Dick Merriwell's Disguise. STREET & SMITH, _Publishers_, NEW YORK CITY Transcriber's Notes: Added table of contents. Bold is represented with =equal signs=, italics with _underscores_. Changed oe ligatures to oe; ligatures retained in HTML edition. Retained some questionable spellings of scientific names from the original. Retained possible typos in dialogue due to possibility of intentional dialect. Page 2, added missing period after "what we're goin'." Page 3, removed unnecessary quote before "But the command...." Page 6, changed "Howdy, Matt?" to "Howdy, Matt!" and "you eye-winkers" to "your eye-winkers." Page 7, changed "Peter" to "Pete" in "Pima Pete came here." Page 8, removed stray quote after "or any one else." Page 10, removed stray quote after "spoke up Fresnay." Page 12, changed "saws he dug" to "says he dug." Page 17, removed stray quote after "rolled into bed." Page 30, "They'll very likely to come again" looks like an error, but this is retained as printed. 
41447	----	CURLY A TALE OF THE ARIZONA DESERT By ROGER POCOCK Author of "A Frontiersman," etc. Boston Little, Brown, and Company _Copyright_, 1904, BY ROGER POCOCK. _Copyright, 1905,_ BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. _All rights reserved._ Published May, 1905. Printers S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U.S.A. [Illustration] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. APACHES 1 II. LORD BALSHANNON 9 III. HOLY CROSS 16 IV. THE RANGE WOLVES 27 V. BACK TO THE WOLF PACK 37 VI. MY RANGE WHELPS WHIMPERING 44 VII. AT THE SIGN OF RYAN'S HAND 52 VIII. IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE 65 IX. WAR SIGNS 69 X. STORM GATHERING 78 XI. THE GUN-FIGHT 89 XII. THE CITY BOILING OVER 106 XIII. THE MAN-HUNT 118 XIV. THE FRONTIER GUARDS 126 XV. MOSTLY CHALKEYE 138 XVI. ARRANGING FOR MORE TROUBLE 145 XVII. THE REAL CURLY 156 XVIII. THE WHITE STAR 167 XIX. A MARRIAGE SETTLEMENT 184 XX. THE MARSHAL'S POSSE 200 XXI. A FLYING HOSPITAL 212 XXII. ROBBERY-UNDER-ARMS 222 XXIII. A HOUSE OF REFUGE 234 XXIV. THE SAVING OF CURLY 254 XXV. A MILLION DOLLARS RANSOM 272 XXVI. THE STRONGHOLD 290 XXVII. A SECOND-HAND ANGEL 314 CURLY CHAPTER I APACHES Back in Old Texas, 'twixt supper and sleep time, the boys in camp would sit around the fire and tell lies. They talked about the Ocean which was bigger than all the plains, and I began to feel worried because I'd never seen what the world was like beyond the far edge of the grass. Life was a failure until I could get to that Ocean to smell and see for myself. After that I would be able to tell lies about it when I got back home again to the cow-camps. When I was old enough to grow a little small fur on my upper lip I loaded my pack pony, saddled my horse, and hit the trail, butting along day after day towards the sunset, expecting every time I climbed a ridge of hills to see the end of the yellow grass and the whole Pacific Ocean shining beyond, with big ships riding herd like cowboys around the grazing whales. One morning, somewheres near the edge of Arizona, I noticed my horse throw his ears to a small sound away in the silence to the left. It seemed to be the voice of a rifle, and maybe some hunter was missing a deer in the distance, so I pointed that way to inquire. After a mile or so I heard the rifle speaking again, and three guns answered, sputtering quick and excited. That sounded mighty like a disagreement, so I concluded I ought to be cautious and roll my tail at once for foreign parts. I went on slow, approaching a small hill. Again a rifle-shot rang out from just beyond the hill, and two shots answered--muzzle-loading guns. At the same time the wind blew fresh from the hill, with a whiff of powder, and something else which made my horses shy. "Heap bad smell!" they snuffed. "Just look at that!" they signalled with their ears. "Ugh!" they snorted. "Get up!" said I; and charged the slope of the hill. Near the top I told them to be good or I'd treat them worse than a tiger. Then I went on afoot with my rifle, crept up to the brow of the hill, and looked over through a clump of cactus. At the foot of the hill, two hundred feet below me, there was standing water--a muddy pool perhaps half an acre wide--and just beyond that on the plain a burned-out camp fire beside a couple of canvas-covered waggons. It looked as if the white men there had just been pulling out of camp, with their teams all harnessed for the trail, for the horses lay, some dead, some wounded, mixed up in a struggling heap. As I watched, a rifle-shot rang out from the waggons, aimed at the hillside, but when I looked right down I could see nothing but loose rocks scattered below the slope. After I watched a moment a brown rock moved; I caught the shine of an Indian's hide, the gleam of a gun-barrel. Close by was another Indian painted for war, and beyond him a third lying dead. So I counted from rock to rock until I made out sixteen of the worst kind of Indians--Apaches--all edging away from cover to cover to the left, while out of the waggons two rifles talked whenever they saw something to hit. One rifle was slow and cool, the other scared and panicky, but neither was getting much meat. For a time I reckoned, sizing up the whole proposition. While the Apaches down below attacked the waggons, their sentry up here on the hill had forgotten to keep a look-out, being too much interested. He'd never turned until he heard my horses clattering up the rocks, but then he had yelled a warning to his crowd and bolted. One Indian had tried to climb the hill against me and been killed from the waggons, so now the rest were scared of being shot from above before they could reach their ponies. They were sneaking off to the left in search of them. Off a hundred yards to the left was the sentry, a boy with a bow and arrows, running for all he was worth across the plain. A hundred yards beyond him, down a hollow, was a mounted Indian coming up with a bunch of ponies. If the main body of the Apaches got to their ponies, they could surround the hill, charge, and gather in my scalp. I did not want them to take so much trouble with me. Of course, my first move was to up and bolt along the ridge to the left until I gained the shoulder of the hill. There I took cover, and said, "Abide with me, and keep me cool, if You please!" while I sighted, took a steady bead, and let fly at the mounted Indian. At my third shot he came down flop on his pony's neck, and that was my first meat. The bunch of ponies smelt his blood and stampeded promiscuous. The Apaches, being left afoot, couldn't attack me none. If they tried to stampede they would be shot from the waggons, while I hovered above their line of retreat considerably; and if they stayed I could add up their scalps like a sum in arithmetic. They were plumb surprised at me, and some discouraged, for they knew they were going to have disagreeable times. Their chief rose up to howl, and a shot from the waggons lifted him clean off his feet. It was getting very awkward for those poor barbarians, and one of them hoisted a rag on his gun by way of surrender. Surrender? This Indian play was robbery and murder, and not the honest game of war. The man who happens imprudent into his own bear-trap is not going to get much solace by claiming to be a warrior and putting up white flags. The game was bear-traps, and those Apaches had got to play bear-traps now, whether they liked it or not. There were only two white folks left in the waggons, and one on the hill, so what use had we for a dozen prisoners who would lie low till we gave them a chance, then murder us prompt. The man who reared up with the peace flag got a shot from the waggons which gave him peace eternal. Then I closed down with my rifle, taking the Indians by turns as they tried to bolt, while the quiet gun in the waggon camp arrested fugitives and the scary marksman splashed lead at the hill most generous. Out of sixteen Apaches two and the boy got away intact, three damaged, and the rest were gathered to their fathers. When it was all over I felt unusual solemn, running my paw slow over my head to make sure I still had my scalp; then collected my two ponies and rode around to the camp. There I ranged up with a yell, lifting my hand to make the sign of peace, and a man came limping out from the waggons. He carried his rifle, and led a yearling son by the paw. The man was tall, clean-built, and of good stock for certain, but his clothes were in the _lo-and-behold_ style--a pane of glass on the off eye, stand-up collar, spotty necktie, boiled shirt, riding-breeches with puffed sleeves most amazing, and the legs of his boots stiff like a brace of stove-pipes. His near leg was all bloody and tied up with a tourniquet bandage. As to his boy Jim, that was just the quaintest thing in the way of pups I ever saw loose on the stock range. He was knee-high to a dawg, but trailed his gun like a man, and looked as wide awake as a little fox. I wondered if I could tame him for a pet. "How d'ye do?" squeaked the pup, as I stepped down from the saddle. I allowed I was feeling good. "I'm sure," said the man, "that we're obliged to you and your friends on the hill. In fact, very much obliged." Back in Texas I'd seen water go to sleep with the cold, but this man was cool enough to freeze a boiler. "Will you--er--ask your friends," he drawled, "to come down? I'd like to thank them." "I'll pass the glad word," said I. "My friends is in Texas." "My deah fellow, you don't--aw--mean to say you were alone?" "Injuns can shoot," said I, "but they cayn't hit." "Two of my men are dead and the third is dying. I defer to your--er--experience, but I thought they could--er--hit." Then I began to reckon I'd been some hazardous in my actions. It made me sweat to think. "Well," said I, to be civil, "I cal'late I'd best introduce myself to you-all. My name's Davies." "I'm Lord Balshannon," said he, mighty polite. "And I'm the Honourable Jim du Chesnay," squeaked the kid. I took his paw and said I was proud to know a warrior with such heap big names. The man laughed. "Wall, Mister Balshannon," says I, "your horses is remnants, and the near fore wheel of that waggon is sprung to bust, and them Apaches has chipped your laig, which it's broke out bleeding again, so I reckon----" "You have an eye for detail," he says, laughing; "but if you will excuse me now, I'm rather busy." He looked into my eyes cool and smiling, asking for no help, ready to rely on himself if I wanted to go. A lump came into my throat, for I sure loved that man from the beginning. "Mr. Balshannon," says I, "put this kid on top of a waggon to watch for Indians, while you dress that wound. I'm off." He turned his back on me and walked away. "I'll be back," said I, busy unloading my pack-horse. "I'll be back," I called after him, "when I bring help!" At that he swung sudden and came up against me. "Er--thanks," he said, and grabbed my paw. "I'm awfully obliged, don't you know." I swung to my saddle and loped off for help. CHAPTER II LORD BALSHANNON With all the signs and the signal smokes pointing for war, I reckoned I could dispense with that Ocean and stay round to see the play. Moreover, there was this British lord, lost in the desert, wounded some, helpless as a baby, game as a grizzly bear, ringed round with dead horses and dead Apaches, and his troubles appealed to me plentiful. I scouted around until I hit a live trail, then streaked away to find people. I was doubtful if I had done right in case that lord got massacred, me being absent, so I rode hard, and at noon saw the smoke of a camp against the Tres Hermanos Mountains. It proved to be a cow camp with all the boys at dinner. They had heard nothing of Apaches out on the war trail, but when I told what I knew, they came glad, on the dead run, their waggons and pony herd following. We found the Britisher digging graves for three dead men, and looking apt to require a fourth for his own use. "Er--good evening," says he, and I began to wonder why I'd sweated myself so hot to rescue an iceberg. "Gentlemen," says he to the boys, "you find some er--coffee ready beside the fire, and afterwards, if you please, we will bury my dead." The boys leaned over in their saddles, wondering at him, but the lord's cool eye looked from face to face, and we had to do what he said. He was surely a great chief, that Lord Balshannon. The men who had fallen a prey to the Apaches were two teamsters and a Mexican, all known to these Bar Y riders, and they were sure sorry. But more than that they enjoyed this shorthorn, this tenderfoot from the east who could stand off an outfit of hostile Indians with his lone rifle. They saw he was wounded, yet he dug graves for his dead, made coffee for the living, and thought of everything except himself. After coffee we lined up by the graves to watch the bluff he made at funeral honours. Lord Balshannon was a colonel in the British Army, and he stood like an officer on parade reading from a book. His black hair was touched silver, his face was strong, hard, manful, and his voice quivered while he read from the little book-- "For I am a stranger with Thee, And a sojourner as all my fathers were; O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength Before I go hence, and am no more seen." I reckon that there were some of us sniffing as though we had just caught a cold, while we listened to that man's voice, and saw the loneliness of him. Afterwards Dick Bryant, the Bar Y foreman, walked straight up to Balshannon. "Britisher," said he, "you may be a sojourner, and we hopes you are, a whole lot, but there's no need to be a stranger. Shake." So they shook hands, and that was the beginning of a big friendship. Then Balshannon turned to the crowd, and looked slowly from face to face of us. "Gentlemen," he said kind of feeble, and we saw his face go grey while he spoke, "I'm much obliged to you all for er--for coming. It seems, indeed, ah--that my little son Jim and I have made friends and er--neighbours. I'm sorry that you should find my camp in such aw--in such a beastly mess, but there's some fairly decent whisky in this nearest waggon, and er--" the man was reeling, and his eyes seemed blind, "when we get to my new ranche at Holy Cross I--I hope you'll--friends--aw--and----" And he dropped in a dead faint. So long as I stay alive I shall remember that night, the smell of the dead horses, the silence, the smoke of our fire going up straight to a white sky of stars, the Bar Y people in pairs lying wrapped in their blankets around the waggons, the reliefs of riders going out on guard, the cold towards dawn. The little boy Jim had curled up beside me because he felt lonesome in the waggon. Balshannon lay by the fire, his mind straying away off beyond our range. Often he muttered, but I could not catch the words, and sometimes said something aloud which sounded like nonsense. It must have been midnight, when all of a sudden he sat bolt upright, calling out loud enough to waken half the camp-- "Ryan!" he shouted, "don't disturb him, Ryan! He's upstairs dying. If you fire, the shock will--Ryan! Don't shoot! Ryan!" Then with a groan he fell back. I moistened his lips with cold tea. "All right," he whispered, "thanks, Helen." For a long time he lay muttering while I held his hands. "You see, Helen," he whispered, "neither you nor the child could be safe in Ireland. Ryan killed my father." He seemed to fall asleep after that, and, counting by the stars, an hour went by. Then he looked straight at me-- "You see, dear? I turned them out of their farms, and Ryan wants his revenge, so----" Towards morning I put some sticks on the fire which crackled a lot. "Go easy, Jim," I heard him say, "don't waste our cartridges. Poor little chap!" Day broke at last, the cook was astir, and the men rode in from herd. I dropped off to sleep. It was noon before the heat awakened me, and I sat up to find the fire still burning, but Lord Balshannon gone. I saw his waggons trailing off across the desert. Dick Bryant was at the fire lighting his pipe with a coal. "Wall," said he, "you've been letting out enough sleep through yo' nose to run an engine. Goin' to make this yo' home?" "The camp's moved?" "Sure. I've sent the Britisher's waggons down to Holy Cross. He bought the place from a Mexican last month." "Is it far?" "About twenty mile. I've been down there this morning. I reckon the people there had smelt Apaches and run. It was empty, and that's why I'm making this talk to you. I cayn't spare my men after to-day, and I don't calculate to leave a sick man and a lil' boy thar alone." "I'll stay with them," said I. "That's good talk. If you-all need help by day make a big smoke on the roof, or if it's night just make a flare of fire. I'll keep my outfit near enough to see." "You reckon there'll be Indians?" "None. That was a stray band, and what's left of it ain't feeling good enough to want scalps. But when I got to Holy Cross this morning I seen this paper, and some tracks of the man who left it nailed on the door. I said nothing to my boys, and the Britisher has worries enough already to keep him interested, but you ought to know what's coming, in case of trouble. Here's the paper. "'GRAVE CITY, ARIZONA, "'_3rd February, 1886_. "'MY LORD, "'This is to tell you that in spite of everything you could do to destroy me, I'm safe in this free country, and doing well. I've heard of the horrible crime you committed in driving the poor people from your estate in Ireland, from homes which we and our fathers have loved for a thousand years. Now I call the holy saints to witness that I will do to you as you have done to me, and to my people. The time will come when, driven from this your new home, without a roof to cover you, or a crust to eat, your wife and boy turned out to die in the desert, you will plead for even so much as a drink, and it will be thrown in your face. I shall not die until I have seen the end of your accursed house. "'(Sd.) GEORGE RYAN.' "These Britishers," said Bryant, "is mostly of two breeds--the lords and the flunkeys; and you kin judge them by the ways they act. This Mr. Balshannon is a lord, and thish yer Ryan's a flunk. If a real man feels that his enemy is some superfluous on this earth, he don't make lamentations and post 'em up on a door. No, he tracks his enemy to a meeting; he makes his declaration of war, and when the other gentleman is good and ready, they lets loose with their guns in battle. This Ryan here has the morals of a snake and the right hand of a coward." "Do I give this paper," said I, "to Mr. Balshannon?" "It's his business, lad, not ours. But until this lord is well enough to fight, you stands on guard." CHAPTER III HOLY CROSS EDITOR'S NOTE.--The walls of Holy Cross rise stark from the top of a hill on the naked desert; and in all the enormous length and breadth of this old fortress there is no door or window to invite attack. At each of the four corners stands a bastion tower to command the flanks, and in the north wall low towers defend the entrance, which is a tunnel through the buildings, barred by massive doors, and commanded by loopholes for riflemen. The house is built of sun-dried bricks, the ceilings of heavy beams supporting a flat roof of earth. As one enters the first courtyard one sees that the buildings on the right are divided up into a number of little houses for the riders and their families; in front is the gate of the stable court, on the left are the chapel and the dining-hall, and in the middle of the square there is a well. Through the dining-hall on the left one enters the little court with its pool covered with water-lilies, shaded by palm trees, and surrounded by an arcade which is covered by creeping plants, ablaze with flowers. The private rooms open upon this cloister, big, cool, and dark, forming a little palace within the fortress walls. Such is the old Hacienda Santa Cruz which Lord Balshannon had bought from El Señor Don Luis Barrios. From the beginning I saw no sign and smelt no whiff of danger either of Apaches or of Mr. Ryan. When Balshannon was able to ride I gave him Ryan's letter, watched him read it quietly, but got nary word from him. He looked up from the letter, smiling at my glum face. "Chalkeye," said he, "couldn't we snare a rabbit for Jim to play with?" He and the kid and me used to play together like babies, and Jim was surely serious with us men for being too young. In those days Balshannon took advice from Bryant, our nearest neighbour, whose ranche was only one day's ride from Holy Cross. Dick helped him to buy good cattle to stock our range, and two thoroughbred English bulls to improve the breed. Then he bought ponies, and hired Mexican riders. So I began to tell my boss and his little son about cows and ponies--the range-riding, driving, and holding of stock; the roping, branding, and cutting out; how to judge grass, to find water, to track, scout, and get meat for the camp. The boss was too old and set in his ways to learn new play, but Jim had his heart in the business from the first, growing up to cow-punching as though he were born on the range. Besides that I had to learn them both the natural history of us cowboys, the which is surprising to strangers, and some prickly. Being thoroughbred stock, this British lord and his son didn't need to put on side, or make themselves out to be better than common folks like me. After the first year, when things were settled down and the weather cool, Lady Balshannon came to Holy Cross, and lived in the garden court under the palm trees. She was a poor invalid lady, enjoying very bad health, specially when we had visitors or any noise in the house. She never could stand up straight against the heat of the desert. On the range I was teacher to Jim; but in the house this lady made the kid and me come to school for education. We used to race neck and neck over our sums and grammar of an evening. I guess I was the most willing, but the kid had much the best brains. He beat me anyways. Sometimes I got restless, sniffing up wind for trouble, riding around crazy all night because I was too peaceful and dull to need any sleep. But then the boss wanted me in his business, the lady needed me for lessons and to do odd jobs, the kid needed me to play with and to teach him the life of the stock range; so when I got "Pacific Ocean fever" they all made such a howl that I had to stay. Stopping at Holy Cross grew from a taste into a habit, and you only know the strength of a habit when you try to kill it. That family had a string round my hind leg which ain't broken yet. The boss made me foreman over his Mexican cowboys, and major-domo in charge of Holy Cross. In the house I was treated like a son, with my own quarters, servants, and horses, and my wages were paid to me in ponies until there were three hundred head marked with my private brand. Some people with bad hearts and forked tongues have claimed that I stole these horses over in Mexico. I treat such with dignified silence and make no comment except to remark that they are liars. Anyway, as the years rolled on, and the business grew, Mr. Chalkeye Davies became a big chief on the range in Arizona. When the kid was fourteen years old he quit working cows with me, and went to college. Balshannon missed him some, for he took to straying then, and would go off in the fall of the year for a bear-hunt, in the winter to stay with friends, and the rest of the time would hang around Grave City. I reckon the desert air made him thirsty, because he drank more than was wise, and the need for excitement set him playing cards, so that he lost a pile of money bucking against the faro game and monte. He left me in charge of his business, to round up his calves for branding, and his beef for sale, to keep the accounts, to pay myself and my riders, and ride guard for his lady while she prayed for his soul, alone at Holy Cross. When Jim wanted money at college he wrote to me. In all that time we were not attacked by Indians, Ryans, or any other vermin. Upon the level roof of Holy Cross there was space enough to handle cavalry, and a wide outlook across the desert. There we had lie-down chairs, rugs, and cushions; and after dinner, when the day's work was done, we would sit watching the sunset, the red afterglow, the rich of night come up in the east, the big stars wheeling slowly until it was sleep-time. But when the boy was at college, and the boss away from home, there was only Lady Balshannon and me to share the long evenings. "Billy," she said once, for she never would call me Chalkeye, "Billy, do you know that I'm dying?" "Yes, mum, and me too, but I don't reckon to swim a river till I reach the brink." "My feet are in the waters, Billy, now." "I wouldn't hurry, mum. It may be heaven beyond, or it may be--disappointing." "You dear boy," she laughed; "I want to tell you a story." I lit a cigarette, and lay down at the rugs at her feet. "I can bear it, mum." She lay back in her chair, brushing off the warm with her fan. "Did my husband ever tell you about a man named Ryan?" "Not to me--no." "Well, the Ryans were tenant farmers on the Balshannon Estate, at home in Ireland. They were well-to-do yeomen, almost gentlefolk, and George Ryan and my husband were at school together. They might have been friends to-day, but for the terrible Land League troubles, which set the tenants against their landlords. It was a sort of smouldering war between the poor folk and our unhappy Irish gentry. It's not for me to judge; both sides were more or less in the wrong; both suffered, the landlords ruined, the tenants driven into exile. It's all too sad to talk about. "My husband's regiment was in India then; my son was born there. Rex used to get letters from poor Lord Balshannon, his father, who was all alone at Balshannon, reduced to dreadful poverty, trying to do his duty as a magistrate, while the wretched peasants had to be driven from their homes. His barns were burnt, twice the house was set on fire, his cattle and horses were mutilated in the fields, and he never went out without expecting to be shot from behind a hedge. He needed help, and at last my husband couldn't bear it any longer. He sent in his papers, left the profession he loved, and went back to Ireland. He was so impatient to see all his old friends that he wired Mr. George Ryan to meet the train at Blandon, and drive with him up to Balshannon House for dinner. Nobody else was told that Colonel du Chesnay was coming. Would you believe it, Billy, those Land Leaguers tore up the track near Blandon Station, pointing the broken rails out over the river! Mr. Ryan was their leader, who knew that my husband was in the train. Nobody else knew. No, mercifully the train wasn't wrecked. The driver pulled up just in time, and my husband left the train then, and walked up through Balshannon Park to the house. He found his father ill in bed; something wrong with the heart, and sat nursing him until nearly midnight, when the old man fell asleep. After that he crept down very quietly to the dining-room. He found cheese and biscuits, and went off in search of some ale. When he came back he found Mr. Ryan in the dining-room. "The man was drenched to the skin, and scratched from breaking through hedges. He said that the police were after him with a warrant on the charge of attempted train-wrecking. He swore that he was innocent, that he had come to appeal to Lord Balshannon against what he described as a police conspiracy. Rex told him that the old man was too ill to be disturbed, that the least shock might be fatal. 'Surrender to me,' said Rex, 'and if the police have been guilty of foul play, I'll see that you get full justice.' "At that moment they heard footsteps outside on the gravel, and peeping out through the window, Mr. Ryan found that the police had surrounded the building. He charged Rex with setting a trap to catch him: he pointed a pistol in my husband's face. 'Don't fire!' said Rex, 'my father is upstairs very ill, and if you fire the shock may be fatal. Don't fire!' "Mr. Ryan fired. "The bullet grazed my husband's head, and knocked him senseless. When he recovered he found that Ryan had escaped--nobody knows how, and a sergeant of the Royal Irish Constabulary told him that the police were in hot pursuit. He heard shots fired in the distance, and that made him frightened for his father. He rushed out of the room, and half-way up the staircase found the old may lying dead. The shock had killed him." "Lady," I said, "if I were the boss, I'd shoot up that Ryan man into small scraps." "Billy, you've got to save my husband from being a murderer." "Ryan," said I, "ain't eligible for the grave until he meets up with Balshannon's gun." "Promise me to save my husband from this crime." "But I cayn't promise to shoot up this Ryan myself. He's Balshannon's meat, not mine." "You must dissuade my husband." "I'll dissuade none between a man and his kill." "Oh, what shall I do!" she cried. "Is your son safe," I asked, "while Ryan lives?" "Why do you say that?" "Didn't your man drive all the people off the Balshannon range, and make it a desert?" "Alas! may he be forgiven!" "Will Ryan forgive? Is your son safe?" I sat dead quiet while the lady cried. When a woman stampedes that way you can't point her off her course, or she'd mill round into hysterics; you can't head her back, for she'd dry up hostile; so it's best to let her have her head and run. When she's tired running she'll quit peaceful. I lit a cigarette and began to round up all the facts in sight, then to cut the ones I wanted, and let the rest of the herd adrift. When our Balshannon outfit first camped down in Holy Cross, this Ryan began to accumulate with his family in the nearest city--this being Grave City--one hundred miles west. Grave City was new then; a yearling of a city, but built on silver, and undercut with mines. Ryan took Chance by the tail and held on, starting a livery stable, then a big hotel, while he dealt in mines and helped poor prospectors to find wealth. So Ryan bogged down in riches, the leading man at Grave City, with daughters in society, and two sons at college. Only this Ryan was shy of meeting up with Lord Balshannon, and I took notice year after year that when my boss went to the city Mr. Ryan happened away on business. Someone was warning Ryan. "Lady," said I, so sudden that she forgot to go on crying. "You've warned Ryan again and again." "How do you know that, Billy?" "It's a hundred-mile ride to Grave City, but it's only sixty to Lordsburgh on the railroad. Every time the boss goes to Grave City you send off a rider swift to Lordsburgh. He telegraphs from there to Grave City." "Messages to my husband." "And warnings to Ryan!" She was struck silent. "You're saving up Ryan until he gets the chance--to strike." "Oh, how can you say such things! Besides, Mr. Ryan's afraid, that's why he runs away." "Ryan ain't playing no common bluff with guns. The game he plays ain't killing. He wants you--all alive--like a cat wants mice; I don't know how, I don't know when--but here are the words he nailed on to the door of this house before Lord Balshannon came:-- "'The time will come when, driven from your home, without a roof to cover you or a crust to eat, your wife and boy turned out to die in the desert, you----'" "Stop! Stop!" she screamed. "Promise me, lady, that you'll send no more messages to Ryan." "It's murder!" "No, lady, this is a man's game, called war!" "I promise," she whispered, "I'll send no more warnings." CHAPTER IV THE RANGE WOLVES That same winter Lord Balshannon came down from Lordsburgh on the railroad, by way of Bryant's ranche, and tracked my round-up outfit to our camp at Laguna. That was the spot where the patrone and I fought the Apache raiders, but since then we had built corrals beside the pool, the ring-fences which are used for handling livestock. I had twenty Mexican _vaqueros_ with me, branding calves; and the patrone found us all at supper. While we ate he told me the news--how Dick Bryant was elected Sheriff of the county; how Mr. Ryan's eldest son had left college and gone into business in New York; how three bad men had been lynched by the Vigilance Committee at Grave City; and how Low-Lived Joe had shot up two Mexicans for being too obstreperous at cards. The boss had always some gossip for me at tea-time. After supper he passed me a cigar. "Chalkeye," said he, "give these boys as much sleep as you can. At midnight you pull out of camp for Wolf Gap; strike in there at the first streak of dawn, gather the whole of our horses, then run them as hard as you can to Holy Cross, and throw them into the house." "Indians?" I asked. "No, horse rustlers. Bryant gave me the office that some outlaws have come down from Utah. They've heard of our half-bred ponies, and they're in need of remounts." "We've only two days' forage at the house." "After to-morrow let the herd into the home pasture under a strong guard by day. Throw them into the house every night, and post a relief of sentries on the roof. We mustn't--haw, allow the poor robbers to fall into temptation, so see that the men have--er plenty of ammunition." "These robbers may round up our cattle." "If they do they will have to drive slow, and Bryant will hold the railway-line in force, with troops if necessary, er--Chalkeye!" "Yessir." "A friend of mine has turned this gang loose on my stock. There's been crooked work." "Ryan work, sir?" "What makes you think that?" "The birds. I want leave to go shoot Ryan." "Indeed, ah! I've promised my wife not to--er shoot Mr. Ryan." He stood up and grabbed my paw. "Chalkeye, we must try to behave like--er Christians, for her sake. Now I must be off. You'll find me at Holy Cross." At noon next day I brought our herd to Holy Cross, and watered all the horses at the dam below the house. This dam crossed a small hollow holding some two or three acres of water, directly under the western wall of the Hacienda. Some old trees sheltered the water, and one of these had been blown down by a gust of wind. As I drove the _remuda_ to the gates, one of the mares got snarled up in the wrecked tree, broke her leg, and had to be shot. Then I threw the herd into the stable-court, and went to my quarters. I reckon that I had been thirty-four hours in the saddle, and used up five horses, so I wanted much to get my eye down for a little sleep. While the _peon_ pulled off my boots I gave orders mixed with yawns to my segundo. "Take charge, Teniente, and report my obedience to El Señor Don Rex. Post a guard of four in the gate-house, close the gates, and place a relief of sentries on the North-west Bastion. If the sentry sees anybody coming, the guard is to call me at once. See that my riders get sleep till sundown, then send a couple of them to haul that dead mare from the water-hole." I had not slept an hour when a man from the guard-house came running to wake me up. I jumped into my boots, grabbed my gun, and bolted to the gates, where Balshannon joined me at the spy-hole. "Who's coming?" he asked. "A white man, patrone, and a boy, on the dead run." "Message from Bryant, eh? Let them in." I swung the gates wide open, and we stood watching the riders--a middle-aged stockman and a young cowboy, burning the trail from the north. As they came surging up the approach I reckon their horses smelt a whiff of blood from that dead mare beside the water-hole. Horses go crazy at the smell of blood, and though the man held straight on at a plunging run for the gates, the boy lacked strength to control his mare. When she swerved he spurred, then she began to sunfish, throwing one shoulder to the ground, and then the other, while she bucked. At this the youngster lost his nerve and tried to dismount, the same being the shortest way to heaven, for when the mare felt his weight come on one stirrup she made a side spring, leaving him in the air, then bolted, dragging him by the foot while she kicked the meat from his bones. He was surely booked right through to glory but for Balshannon. My boss was a quick shooter and accurate, so that his first bullet caught the mare full between the eyes, and dropped her dead in her tracks. I raised the long yell for my men, as we rushed to get the boy from under her body. It seemed to me at the time that the elder man never reined, but made a clear spring from his galloping horse to the ground, reaching the mare with a single jump before she had time to drop. Grabbing her head, he swung his full weight, and threw her falling body clear of the boy. When we reached the spot he was kneeling beside him in the sand. "Stunned," he said, "that's all! Seh," he looked up at the patrone, and I saw the tears were starting from his eyes. "Seh, you've saved my son's life with that shot, I reckon"--his voice broke with a sob--"you've sure made me yo' friend." "Nothing broken, I hope?" said Balshannon. "No, seh. The stirrup seems to have twisted this foot." I sent some men for a ground sheet in which the boy could be carried without pain. Balshannon sent for brandy. Still kneeling beside his son, the stranger looked up into the patrone's face. "You are Lord Balshannon?" he asked. "At your service, my good fellow--well?" "Do any of yo' greasers speak our language?" "I fancy not." "Then I have to tell you, seh, that I am Captain McCalmont, and my outfit is the Robbers' Roost gang of outlaws." He was bending down over his son. "I asked no question, my friend," said Lord Balshannon, "we never question a guest." "You make me ashamed, seh. I came with a passel of lies, to prospect around with a view to doing you dirt." Balshannon chuckled, and I saw by the glint in his eye that he was surely enjoying this robber. "You'll dine with me?" said he. Captain McCalmont looked up sharply to see what game the patrone was playing. "You will notice, Captain," said the boss, "that my house is like a deadfall trap. Indeed--ah, yes, only one door, you see." For answer the robber unbuckled his belt and let it fall to the ground. "Take my gun," he said. "Do you suppose I daren't trust you, seh?" A servant had brought the brandy, and McCalmont rubbed a little on his son's face, then poured a few drops between his teeth. Presently the lad stirred, moaning a little. "Let's take him to the house," said I. "No, Mistah Chalkeye Davies," answered the robber, "not until this gentleman knows some more, a whole lot more. Here, Curly," he whispered, "wake up, bo'." The lad opened his eyes, clear blue like the sky, and smiled at his father. "Air you safe, dad?" he whispered. "Sure safe." Curly closed his eyes and lay peaceful. The hold-up was squatting back on his heels, looking out across the desert. "Don Rex," said he, "I had a warning sent to Sheriff Bryant that I was coming down to lift all yo' hawsses. My wolves tracked Bryant's rider to Lordsburgh, where he wired to you. You came running, and had all yo' hawsses rounded up convenient for me, in the stable-yard of this house. I thank you, seh." "My good man, I'll bet you an even thousand dollars," said the patrone, "that you don't lift a hoof of my haw--_remuda_." "It's a spawtin' offer, and tempts me," answered the outlaw. "Oblige me by taking my gun from the ground here and firing three shots in the air." The patrone took the gun, and at his third shot saw a man ride out from behind the bastion on our right. McCalmont waved to him, and he came, putting a silk mask over his face as he rode, then halted in front of us, shy as a wolf, gun ready for war. "Young man," said McCalmont, "repeat to these gentlemen here the whole of yo' awdehs fo' the day. Leave out the names of the men." "You're giving us dead away!" said the rider, threatening McCalmont with his gun. "You mean that?" "I mean what I say." "Ah! Excuse me, McCalmont," said the patrone, "your--er--pistol, I think." "Thanks, seh." McCalmont took the gun. "Repeat the awdehs!" he said. "These gentlemen are our friends." "Well, you knows best," came the voice from behind the mask. "Three men to cover your approach to Holy Cross, and if there's trouble, to shoot Balshannon and Chalkeye. They're covered now. The wall of the stable court by the South-west Bastion to be mined with dynamite, and touched off at ten p. m. prompt; ten riders to get in through the breach in the wall, and drive out the bunch of horses; one man with an axe to split all the saddles in the harness-room, then join the herders." "Leave out," said McCalmont, "all detail for pointing, swinging, and driving the herd. Go on." "At one minute to ten, before the wall is blown away, ten riders are to make a bluff at attacking the main gate, and keep on amusing the garrison until the men with the naphtha cans have fired the private house. "Rendezvous for all hands at Laguna by midnight, where we catch remounts, and sleep until daybreak, with a night herd of two, and one camp guard. At dawn we begin to gather cattle, while the horse wrangler and two men drive the _remuda_ east. Rendezvous at Wolf Gap." Lord Balshannon laughed aloud. "And how about poor old Bryant's posse of men?" he asked. "Sheriff Bryant," said the Captain, "allows that he's to catch us in a sure fine trap, five miles due west of Lordsburgh. And now," he called to the mounted robber, "tell the boys that all awdehs are cancelled, that I'm supping to-night at Holy Crawss, and that the boys will wait for me at the place we fixed in case of accidents." The man rode off hostile and growling aloud, while Balshannon stood watching to see which way he went. "McCalmont," said he, and I took note of just one small quiver in his voice, "may I venture to ask one question?" "A hundred, seh." "You seem to know the arrangement of my house--its military weakness. How did you learn that?" The outlaw stood up facing him, and took from the breast of his shirt a folded paper. Balshannon and I spread it open, and found a careful plan of Holy Cross. At the foot of the paper there was a memorandum signed "George Ryan." "I may tell you," said the robber, "that if I succeeded in burning yo' home, stealing yo' hawsses, and running yo' cattle, Mr. George Ryan proposed to pay my wolves the sum of ten thousand dollars." "Carry out your plans," the patrone was pleased all to pieces. "I'd love to fight your wolves. I've got some dynamite, too! Think of what you're losing!" "Lose nothing!" said the robber. "I'll collect fifty thousand dollars compensation from Ryan!" He stooped down and gathered his son in his arms. "And now, will you have us for guests in yo' home? Say the word, and we go." Balshannon lifted his hat and made a little bow, much polite. "My house," he answered in Spanish, "is yours, señor!" CHAPTER V BACK TO THE WOLF PACK Being given to raising fowls, I'm instructed on eggs a whole lot. Killed young, an egg is a sure saint, being a pure white on the outside, and inwardly a beautiful yellow; but since she ain't had no chance to go bad she's not responsible. But when an egg has lingered in this wicked world, exposed to heat, cold, and other temptations, she succumbs, being weary of her youth and shamed of virtue. So she participates in vice to the best of her knowledge and belief. Yes, an old egg is bad every time, and the more bluff she makes with her white and holy shell, the more she's rotten inside, a whited sepulchre. I reckon it's been the same with me, for at Holy Cross I was kept good and fresh by the family. Shell, white, and yolk, I was a good egg then, with no special inducements to vice. Now I know in my poor old self what an uphill pull it is trying to reform a stale egg. In those days, when I thought I was being good on my own merits, I had no mercy on bad eggs like poor McCalmont, however much he tried to reform. Balshannon took me aside, and wanted to know if he could trust this robber. "So far as you can throw a dawg," said I. That night the lady fed alone, and we dined in the great hall, the patrone at the head of the table, McCalmont and Curly on one side, the padre and me on the other. Curly's ankle being twisted, and wrapped up most painful in wet bandages, the priest allowed that he couldn't ride away with his father, but had better stay with us. Curly shied at that. "I won't stay none!" he growled. But McCalmont began to talk for Curly, explaining that robbery was a poor vocation in life, full of uncertainties. He wanted his son to be a cowboy. "If he rides for me," says I, "he'll have to herd with my Mexicans. They're greasers, but Curly's white, and they won't mix." "I'd rather," says McCalmont, "for Arizona cowboys are half-wolf anyways, but this outfit is all dead gentle, and good for my cub." Then the boss offered wages to Curly, and the priest took sides with him. So Curly kicked, and I growled, but the boy was left at Holy Cross to be converted, and taught punching cows. As to McCalmont, he rode off that night, gathered his wolves, and jumped down on Mr. George Ryan at the Jim Crow Mine, near Grave City. He wanted "compensation" for not getting any plunder out of Holy Cross, so he robbed Mr. Ryan of seventy thousand dollars. The newspapers in Grave City sobbed over poor Mr. Ryan, and howled for vengeance on McCalmont's wolves. Curly read the newspaper account, and was pleased all to pieces. Then he howled all night because he was left behind. It took me some time to get used to that small youngster, who was a whole lot older and wiser than he looked. He had a room next to my quarters, where he camped on a bed in the far corner, and acted crazy if ever I tried to come in. Because he insisted on keeping the shutters closed, that room was dark as a wolf's mouth--a sort of den, where one could see nothing but his eyes, glaring green or flame-coloured like those of a panther. If he slept, he curled up like a little wild animal, one ear cocked, one eye open, ready to start broad awake at the slightest sound. Once I caught him sucking his swollen ankle, which he said was a sure good medicine. I have seen all sorts of animals dress their own wounds that way, but never any human except little Curly. As to his food, he would eat the things he knew about, but if the taste of a dish was new to him, he spat as if he were poisoned. At first he was scared of Lady Balshannon, hated the patrone, and surely despised me; but one day I saw him limping, attended by four of our dogs and a brace of cats, across to the stable-yard. I sneaked upstairs to the roof and watched his play. There must have been fifty ponies in the yard, and every person of them seemed to know Curly, for those who were loose came crowding round him, and those who were tied began whickering. Horses have one call, soft and low, which they keep for the man they love, and one after another gave the love-cry for Curly. He treated them all like dirt until he came to Rebel, an outlaw stallion. Once Rebel tried to murder a Mexican; several times he had pitched off the best of our broncho busters; always he acted crazy with men and savage with mares. Yet he never even snorted at Curly, but let that youngster lead him by the mane to a mounting-block; then waited for him to climb up, and trotted him round the yard tame as a sheep. "Curly!" said I from the roof. And the boy stiffened at once, hard and fierce. "Curly, that horse is yours." "I know that!" said Curly; "cayn't you see fo' yo'self?" The dogs loved Curly first, then the horses, and next the Mexican cowboys, but at last he seemed to take hold of all our outfit. He thawed out slowly to me, then to the patrone and the old priest; afterwards even to Lady Balshannon. So we found out that this cub from the Wolf Pack was only fierce and wild with strangers, but inside so gentle that he was more like a girl than a boy. He was rather wide at the hips, bow-legged just a trace, and when his ankle healed we found he had a most tremendous grip in the saddle, the balance of a hawk. Yes, that small, slight, delicate lad was the most perfect rider I've seen in a world of great horsemen. The meanest horse was tame as a dog with Curly, while in tracking, scouting, and natural sense with cattle I never knew his equal. Yet, as I said before, he was small, weak, badly built--more like a girl than a boy. With strangers he was a vicious young savage; with friends, like a little child. He did a year's work on the range with me, and that twelve months I look back to as a sort of golden age at Holy Cross. We were raising the best horses and the finest cattle in Arizona; prices were high, and the patrone was too busy to have time for cards or drink over at Grave City; and even the lady braced up enough to go for evening rides. And then the Honourable James du Chesnay rode home to us from college. The patrone and his lady were making a feast for their son; the cowboys were busy as a swarm of bees decorating the great hall; the padre fluttered about like a black moth, getting in everybody's way; so Curly and I rode out on the Lordsburgh trail to meet up with the Honourable Jim. "I hate him!" Curly snarled. "Why for, boy?" "Dunno. I hate him!" I told Curly about my first meeting with that same little boy Jim, aged six, and him turning his hot gun loose against hostile Indians, shooting gay and promiscuous, scared of nothing. "I hate him," snarled Curly between his teeth. "Last night the lady was reading to me yonder, on the roof-top." "Well?" "There was a big chief on the range, an old long-horn called Abraham, and his lil' ole squaw Sarah. They'd a boy in their lodge like me, another woman's kid, not a son, but good enough for them while they was plumb lonely. That Ishmael colt was sure wild--came of bad stock, like me. 'His hand,' says the book, 'will be up agin every man, and every man's hand agin him.' I reckon that colt came of robber stock, same as me, but I allow they liked him some until their own son came. Then their own son came--a shorely heap big warrior called Isaac--and the old folks, they didn't want no more outlaw colts running loose around on their pasture. They shorely turned that Ishmael out to die in the desert. Look up thar, Chalkeye, in the north, and you'll see this Isaac a-coming on the dead run for home." "Curly," says I, "this young chief won't have no use for old Chalkeye; he'll want to be boss on his own home range, and it's time he started in responsible to run Holy Cross. At the month's end I quit from this outfit, and I'm taking up a ranche five miles on the far side of Grave City. Thanks to the patrone, I've saved ponies and cattle enough to stock my little ranche yonder. Will you come at forty dollars a month, and punch cows for Chalkeye?" "No, I won't, never. I come from the Wolf Pack, and I'm going back to the Wolf Pack to be a wolf. That's where I belong--thar in the desert!" He swept out his hand to the north, and there, over a rise of the ground, I saw young Jim du Chesnay coming, on the dead run for home. CHAPTER VI MY RANGE WHELPS WHIMPERING Now that I have won through the dull beginning of this story, I've just got to stop and pat myself before going on any further. There were steep bits on the trail where I panted for words, rocks where I stumbled, holes where I bogged down to the hocks, cross-roads where I curved around lost. At the best I'd a poor eye, a lame tongue, and a heap big inclination to lie down and quit; so I've done sure fine to keep a-going. Ride me patient still, for I'm near the beginning of the troubles which picked up Jim, Curly, and me, to whirl us along like a hurricane afire. Soon we'll break gait from a limp to a trot, from trot to canter, then from lope to gallop. I suppose I had better explain some about Grave City, and how it got to have such a cheerful name. That was away back in 1878, when two prospectors, Ed Schieffelin and his brother, pulled out to explore the desert down by the Mexican boundary. The boys allowed they'd better take their coffins along with them, because if they missed being scalped by Apaches, or wiped out by border ruffians, or starved to death, they would surely perish of thirst. "The only thing you boys will find is your grave." Well, they called their discovery Grave City, but it was one of the richest silver-mines on earth, and a city grew up here in the desert. For the first few years it was most surely hot, full of artists painting the town red, and shooting each other up with a quick gun. That was the time of Mankiller Johnson, Curly Bill, Roosian George, Brazelton of Tucson, the robber, and a young gentleman aged twenty-two, called Billy the Kid, who wiped out twenty fellow-citizens and followed them rapid to a still warmer climate. When these gentlemen had shot each other for their country's good, and a great many more died a natural death by being lynched, the city got more peaceful. In the second year it was burnt, and entirely rebuilt in a fortnight. The first large gambling joint was called the "Sepulchre," the first weekly paper was the Weekly Obituary, and in the eighth year Mr. Ryan built his hotel--the "Mortuary." That was in 1886, the year of the Apache raids, when I went with the new patrone to Holy Cross. Twelve years I rode for Balshannon, then, Jim being in his eighteenth year, took charge as foreman and major-domo of that grand old ranche. It was the 4th of July, 1900, before I saw that youngster again. We gathered at Grave City then to celebrate the birthday of our great republic, and it does me good every time to see our flag Old Glory waving above the cities of freedom. The Honourable Jim must needs run a mare of his at the races, the same, as I told him, being suitable meat to bait traps. I made him an offer for that mare; ten cents for her tail as a fly switch, a dollar for her hide, and a five-cent rim-fire cigar if he would dispose of the other remains. He raced her, lost one thousand dollars, and came to me humble for the money to pay his debts. I told him to burn his own paws in his own fire, and be content with his own howls. "They're debts of honour!" says he. "Debts of dishonour, and you're the Dishonourable James du Idiot. There's your travelling pony been standing saddled all day in the blazing heat without a feed or a drink. You call yourself a horseman?" Afterwards we smoothed our fur, and had our supper together. Jim promised to be good, go home, do his honest cowboy work, and look after the poor lone lady who was dying by inches at Holy Cross. Yet I was proud of that boy, keen, fierce, stubborn as a wild ass, with the air and temper of a thoroughbred, and a laugh which spoiled me for preaching. He was smart, too, in a new shirt of white silk, a handkerchief round his neck striped cream and rose colour, Mexican trousers of yellow leather studded down the seams with lumps of turquoise stones in silver settings, big silver spurs, and on his belt a silver-mounted 45-Colt revolver. I've got no earthly use for a boy who slouches. At supper, while I preached, he called me an old fool for caring when he was bad. Then he told me good-bye in the dusk, and set off on his hundred-mile trail for Holy Cross. I rode home thoughtful, and lay long awake in my little dobe cabin at Las Salinas, thinking about that boy, whose mother was sick, and his father riding to sure destruction, a gambler, a drunkard, hopeless, lost--the best friend I ever had in the world. When I woke the faint light of dawn shone through the cabin window, and brightened the saddles on the wall. Something was touching my face, something cold, so I grabbed it quick--a little small hand. Then I heard Curly's low, queer laugh. "You, Chalkeye!" he whispered. He was sitting on the stool beside my bunk, dead weary, covered with dust from the trail. Somehow the boy seemed to have got smaller instead of growing up, and he sure looked weak and delicate for such a life as he led. Twenty years old? He didn't seem fifteen, and yet he spoke old-fashioned, heaps wise and experienced. "Whar you from?" says I, yawning. "Speak low, and no questions," said Curly in a hard voice, for on the range we never ask a guest his name, or where he comes from, or which way he goes. When he comes we don't need to tell him any welcome; when he goes we say, 'Adios!' for he'll sure have need of an Almighty Father out in the desert. "Chalkeye," says my wolf, "are you alone?" "Sure." "No boys over thar in yo' ram pasture?" "My riders is wolfing in Grave City, but they'll stray back 'fore noon." "Hide me up in yo' barn fo' the day, then." "An yo' horse, Curly?" "Say you won him last night at cyards. We'll hide the saddle." "Have coffee first?" "I surely will," and kneeling stiff, weary by the hearth, he began to make up a fire. "There's a notice up for you, Curly. They're offering two thousand dollars dead or alive." "For robbing that Union Pacific train?" "I reckon." "Chalkeye, did you ever know me to lie?" "None, Curly." "Then you'll believe me. I wasn't there when our wolves got that train. I've never done no robberies, ever yet." "I hope you never may." "Sometimes I hope so too." He was holding up his hands before the fire. "How's the patrone?" he asked, as he put on the coffee-pot to boil. "Going downhill rapid. He's mortgaged Holy Cross to the last dollar." "What's his play?" "Faro and monte--you'll see him bucking the game all night down at the Sepulchre. He drinks hard now." "Pore old--er chap, don't you know! And the lady?" "Dying out down at the Hacienda. The padre sits with her." "And the young chief?" "Do you still hate him?" "Why should I care?" "Tell me on the dead-thieving Curly, you do care some what happens to Holy Cross? Don't you remember old Ryan inviting yo' wolves to eat up the Hacienda?" "They had stewed Ryan for breakfast afterwards, and he sure squealed!" "Yesterday I seen a bar keep' who belongs to Ryan go up against young Jim and rob him of a thousand dollars over a sure-thing horse race. Any day you'll see Ryan's hired robbers running the crooked faro and monte games where Balshannon is losing what's left of Holy Cross. Ryan hired the range wolves, and they went straight for his own throat, but now the town wolves are eating yo' best friends." "The only friends I have excep' my gang," said Curly. "Why don't you shoot up them town scouts, and that Ryan?" "My gun against a hundred, Curly? No. I tried to get these crooks run out of the city, but Ryan's too strong for me. If I shoot him up I'd only get lynched by his friends." "Show me yo' cyards, old Chalkeye--let me see yo' play." "I aim to turn the range wolves loose in Grave City." "The range wolves is some fastidious, Chalkeye, and wants clean meat for their kill." "You don't want to save your friends?" "The boss wolf leads, not me, and he wants good meat. I must point to good meat, or he ain't hungry none." "Ryan has lots of wealth." "We ate some once, and he's got monotonous." "How about his son, the millionaire?" "My wolves would shorely enjoy a millionaire, but--shucks! We'll never get so much as a smell at him." "Cayn't you suggest some plan for checking Ryan?" "I'll think that over. I cal'late to spend some weeks in Grave City." "Two thousand dollars dead or alive! Why, lad, you're crazy." "When I'm disguised you'll never know it's me." "Disguised? As how?" "As a woman perhaps, or maybe as a man. I dunno yet." I went to sniff the morning, and at the door found Curly's horse, loaded with an antelope lashed across the saddle. "I shot you some meat fo' yo' camp," said Curly, throwing coffee into the boiling pot. "Now let's have breakfast." I went out and caught some eggs, then we had breakfast. CHAPTER VII AT THE SIGN OF RYAN'S HAND At the time of Curly's visit I was breaking in a bunch of fool ponies, and along in August sold them to the Lawson Cattle Company. Their Flying W. Outfit was forming up just then for the fall round-up, so by way of swift delivery I took my ponies down by rail to Lordsburgh. Their camp was beside the stock-yard, and the little old cow town was surely alive with their cowboys, stamping new boots around to get them used, shooting off their guns to show how good they felt, filling up with chocolate creams and pickles to while the time between meals, sampling the whisky, the games, and the druggist's sure-thing medicines, or racing ponies for trial along the street. Now I reckon that the sight and smell of a horse comes more natural to me than anything else on earth, while the very dust from a horse race gets into my blood, and I can't come near the course without my head getting rattled. But from the first whiff of that town I caught the scent of something going wrong, for most of the stock-yard was full of cattle branded with a cross, and the Holy Cross _vaqueros_ were loading them into a train. Moreover, by many a sign I gathered fact on fact, that this delivery of Balshannon's cattle was out of the way of business, not a shipment of beef to the market, but a sale of breeding-stock, which meant nothing short of ruin. I strayed through that town feeling sick, refusing to drink with the punchers, or talk cow with the cattlemen, or take any interest in life. At the post office I met up with Jim, face to face, and he tried to pass by short-sighted. "Boy," said I, as I grabbed him, "why for air you shamed?" "Leave me go," he snarled. "For why, son?" "'Cause I'm shamed." "Of yo'self?" "Shamed of my father. Our breeding-stock is gone to pay his gambling debts." "All of it?" "What's left is offal. Now you leave me go!" "Whar to?" "To follow Balshannon's trail--drink, gambling, shame, death, and a good riddance." "You'll come with me first," says I, "for an oyster stew and some bear sign. I ain't ate since sun-up." He came with me for a stew and the doughnuts, which made him feel some better in his heart, and after that I close-herded him until the cattle were shipped, through the evening, through the night, and on to daybreak. Then I rounded up his greaser cowboys from various gambling joints, and pointed him and them for Holy Cross. "Boy," says I at parting, "you've been at work on the range for long months now, and yo' mother is surely sick for the sight of yo' fool face. Go home." "You old Chalkeye fraud," says he, with a grin as wide as the sunrise, "you're getting rid of me because you want to have a howling time on your lonesome, with all that money you got for your rotten ponies." It was surely fine sight to see my Jim hit the trail, the silver fixings of his saddle and cowboy harness bright as stars, his teeth aflash, his eyes a-shining, as he stooped down to give me cheek at parting, and lit out with his tail up for home. His riders saluted me as their old chief in passing, calling, "Buenas dias señor, adios!" Yes, they were good boys, with all their dark skin and their habit of missing the wash-time; light-built riders, with big, soft eyes always watchful, grave manners, gentle voices, gay laughter, and their beautiful Spanish talk like low thunder rolling. They were brave as lions, they were true as steel, and foolish only in the head, I reckon. So they passed by me one by one, saluting with a lift of the cigarette, a glance of the eye, dressed gorgeous in dull gold leather, bright gold straw sombreros, rainbow-coloured serapes, spur and gun aflash, reins taut, and horses dancing, and were gone in a cloud of dust and glitter away across the desert. I was never to see them again. It made me feel quite a piece wistful to think of Holy Cross down yonder beyond the rim of the far grass, for that house had been more than home to me, and that range was my pasture where I had grazed for twelve good years. I could just judge, too, how Jim was wanting for home swift, while the segundo, good old Juan Terrazas, would pray the young lord to spare the little horses. "'Tis sixty leagues, and these our horses are but children, señor." "Confound the horses!" says Jim, "let's burn the trail for home. Roll your trail, Pedro! _Vamenos!_" "But the child horses, my lord, grass-fed only, in the hot desert." "Roll your tail and roll it high, We'll all be angels by-and-by!" And Jim would lope along with a glad heart, singing the round-up songs-- "Little black bull came down the hillside, Down the hillside, down the hillside, Little black bull came down the hillside, Long time ago." Then he would go on some more happy when he thought of the big tune to "Roll, Powder, Roll!" As I heard afterwards, the outfit was rounding the shoulder of the hill about five miles out when, on the ridge beyond, Mr. Jim's bright eye took note of something alive. "A vulture only, my lord," says the segundo, "eating a dead horse." "A quart of kittens!" says my lord, some scornful. "Call that a vulture?" and off he sailed, clattering down a slope of loose rocks. "That bird is a man-bird flapping at us for help. Segundo, you've no more range of sight than a boiled owl." The segundo came grumbling along behind, and they curved off across the level. "That man has lost his horse," says Jim; "thirsty, I guess, and signalling for help. Go back, Terrazas, and tell the men to wait." "Si, señor," and Terrazas rolled back to the trail. As Jim got nearer he saw that the man on the hill had signalled nothing, but his coat tails were a-flutter in the wind. Now he came all flapping from rock to rock down the hillside. "Hello!" Jim shouted. The stranger squatted down on a rock to wait for him, and sat wiping his face on a red handkerchief. He was dressed all in black, a sky-scout of sorts, but dusty and making signs as though he couldn't shout for thirst. Jim took his half-gallon canteen, ranged up, and dismounted. "Curious," he was thinking; "lips not swollen, tongue not black, this man ain't thirsty much!" "My deah young friend," says the preacher between drinks, "you're the means under Heaven of my deliverance"--gulp--"from a shocking end." "Scared you'd have to go to heaven?" asked Jim. "I was afraid"--gulp--"that I must give up my labours in this vale of"--gulp--"for which I was found unworthy." "Is that so?" "Seh, I have walked far, and am much exhausted." Jim looked at the preacher's pants, and saw that a streak of the cloth from knee to ankle was dusty none--the same being the mark of the stirrup leathers. He could not have walked a hundred yards from his horse. "Stranger," says Jim, "your horse is just on the other side of this hill." "Yes, indeed--but it never lets me get any nearer, and I've chased it for miles!" "I'll catch your horse." Jim swung to his seat, spurred off, circled the hilltop, and found the preacher's horse, rein to the ground, unable to trot without being tripped at once, dead easy to catch at one jump. This parson man was a liar, anyway. Then something caught Jim's eye, a sort of winking star on a hill-crest far to the east. He watched that star winking steady to right and left. The thing was a heliograph making talk, as it supposed, to the preacher, and Jim watched harder than ever. He couldn't read the signs, so wondering most plentiful, he spurred up to find out if anything more could be seen from the crest of the hill. Yes, there lay the railroad, and the town of Lordsburgh, plain as a map. This preacher had been sly, and heaps untruthful, so Jim rode back leading his horse, but kept the sights he had seen for his own consumption. "I suah thank y'u, seh," says the preacher. "Alas! that I should be so po' a horseman. My sacred calling has given me no chances of learning to ride like you-all." Jim watched him swing to the saddle as only a stockman can. You may dress a puncher in his last coffin, but no disguise short of that will spoil his riding. "Mebbe," says the preacher, "you can favour me with a few hints on the art of settin' a--whoa! hawss! And if you please, we will go more gradual 'cause the motion is pitching my po' kidneys up through my neck. Whoa! Yow!" Jim broke away at a trot, sitting side-saddle to enjoy the preacher, who jolted beside him like a sack of dogs. "Stranger," says he, "the trail is where my men are waiting yonder. To the left it goes to Lordsburgh, to the right it runs straight to Bryant's and on to Holy Cross. Good morning, sir," and he left on the dead run. "My deah young friend," the preacher wailed at him. "Whoa! Whoa, now! I've got mislaid! I place myself in yo' hands." Jim reined. "Well, where do you want to go?" "I want to find a wild, a sinful young man by the name of du Chesnay. He's the Honourable James du Chesnay. Perhaps you know him?" "Partly. Well, what's your business with him?" "I suffer," says the preacher, "from clergyman's sore throat--ahic! Permit me, seh, to ride with you while I explain my business." "As you please." They had gained the trail, and Jim swung into it with the preacher, calling back to his riders to keep within range astern. "Besides," says the preacher, coughing behind his hand, "I am somewhat timid--there are so many robbers that I yearn for yo' company for protection." Jim yelled back to his men in Spanish, "Boys, just watch this stranger--he's no good. Keep your guns handy, and if he tries to act crooked, shoot prompt!" "Thank you, seh!" says the preacher. "And now, your business, quick!" "It appears," the preacher groaned, "that some wicked men have been behaving deceitfully in the purchase of a flock of cows from this young gentleman." "Eh?" "Yes, they paid for his flock with a draft made in favour of Lord Balshannon, on the National Bank at Grave City. What a dreadful name for a city!--suggestive of----" "Rats! Go on, man!" "This draft on the bank from Jabez Y. Stone, who bought yo' cattle, seh, you forwarded from Lordsburgh yesterday. It will be presented to-day by Lord Balshannon at the bank in Grave City." "How do you know?" "Unhappily, my sacred calling has left me quite unfamiliah with the carnal affairs of this most wicked country." "Well, what's wrong? The bank wired yesterday morning that they held money to meet this draft. Stone showed me the telegram." "Up to noon," said the preacher, "there was money in the bank; some forty thousand dollars in the name of Jabez Y. Stone, ready to meet yo' draft, and pay for the cattle." "I know that!" "At noon yesterday that money was withdrawn from the bank." "Impossible!" "Jabez Y. Stone had given a previous draft to another man for the money. The other man got the plunder--the--ahic!--dross, I mean. Oh that we poh mortals should so crave after the dross which perisheth!" "Don't preach!" "Oh, my young brother, the little word in season----" "I wish it would choke you. Now who drew that money?" "A carnal man--yo' fatheh's mortal enemy--Misteh Ryan." "Ryan! Ryan!" "Misteh George Ryan, yessir. To-day yo' father presents a worthless paper at the bank in exchange for his breeding cattle. Oh, how grievous a thing it is that deceitful men should so deceive themselves, preparing for a sultry hereafter. Think of these poh dumb driven cattle, exchanged for a bogus draft upon a miserable, miserable bank--how----" "Luis!" Jim yelled, and his segundo, old Luis Terrazas, came a-flying. "Luis, take the men home--I've got to go back to Lordsburgh." "Stay!" The preacher lifted his hand, brushed back the hat from his face, and stared into Jim's eyes. "Chalkeye Davies is yondeh at Lordsburgh thar--you can trust him, eh? Send a letter to Chalkeye; ask him to wire the sheriff at Albuquerque to hold that thar train of cattle pending inquiries." "I'm going back myself. You stand aside!" "Seh, if you don't ride straight for Holy Cross, you ain't goin' to see yo' mother alive--she's sinking rapid." "How do you know what's happening at Holy Cross, at Grave City, and at Lordsburgh, and all these places a hundred miles apart?" "Have I said anything, boy, that you cayn't believe?" "You lied when you said you were thirsty, when you claimed to have walked, when you made out you couldn't catch your horse, and couldn't ride--you lied, and you're a liar!" The preacher reached for his hip, and a dozen revolvers covered him instant. "Seh," he said, quite gentle, "my handkerchief is in my hip-pocket; observe me blow my nose at yo' remarks." He trumpeted into his big red handkerchief. "Why do you make this bluff," says Jim, "at being a preacher, when you've been all your life in the saddle?" "Yo' questions, seh, are personal for a stranger, and the character you gave me to yo' greasers was some hasty, and the salute of guns you offer makes me feel unworthy. As to your thanks for an honest warning to save yo' lost cattle and haste to yo' dying mother----" Jim flushed with shame. "I beg your pardon, sir." "And you accept my warning?" "If you'll prove you forgive me by shaking hands, Mr.----" "Misteh? Just call me friend--no more. And Jim, when you've been to Holy Crawss, yo' natural feelings will call you swift to Grave City, where you'll find your father in mortal danger, I feah." "In mortal danger?" "Unless," said the stranger, "a mere friend can save him." Jim looked into this stranger's face, at the tanned hide, seamed and furrowed with trouble, the strong hard lips, twisty with a sort of queer smile, at the eyes, which seemed to be _haunted_. "Sir," he said, "I'll do what you tell me." So he took paper and pencil from his wallet, leaned over the horn of his saddle, and made it desk enough for what he had to write. "Will this do?" says he, passing his letter to the stranger. "Yes, I reckon. Add, sonny, that Misteh Michael Ryan's private cyar is due from the east to-morrow, with the Pacific Express. It's timed to reach Grave City at 10:05 p.m. Chalkeye will be thar." Jim wrote all that down, then looked up, fearful, surprised at this preacher knowing so much, then glanced all round to see which man had the best horse for his message. "Onate!" he called. "Si señor." "Take this letter, Onate, to Mr. Chalkeye Davies in Lordsburgh. Then you'll follow me home." Onate uncovered, took the letter, and bowed his thanks. "Gracias señor, adios!" and curved off swift for Lordsburgh. Then Jim saw the preacher's eyes boring him through. "You will shake hands?" he asked. "With a glad hand," said Captain McCalmont. "Put her thar, boy! I hope when we meet up again you'll remember me as a friend." So the great robber swung his horse, and spurred up back to his hilltop, while Jim and the _vaqueros_ burned the trail for home. CHAPTER VIII IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE It used to be a great sight down at Holy Cross when the _vaqueros_ came back from the round-up, serapes flapping in the wind, hats waving, guns popping, ponies tearing around, and eating up the ground. And then the house folk came swarming out to meet them, the little boys and dogs in a shouting heap, the girls bunched together and squealing, the young wives laughing, the old mothers, the tottering granddads, all plumb joyful to welcome the riders home. So they would mix up, crowd through the gates, and on the stable court to see a beef shot for the feast. Presently the little boys would come out in the dusk of the evening, bareback to herd the ponies through the pasture gate, and scamper back barefoot to the house in time for supper. All night long the lamps were alight in the great hall, the guitars a-strumming, and young feet dancing, and last, at the break of dawn, the chapel bell would call for early mass. But this was the last home-coming for the folks at Holy Cross, and far away across the desert Jim's riders heard the bell--the minute bell tolling soft for the dead. The people met them at the gates, but all the boys uncovered, riding slow. No beef would be killed that night, no lights would shine, no guitars would strum for the dance. Inside the main gate Jim's servant took his horse, and the lad walked on with clashing spurs to meet the old padre at the door of the dining-hall. "Take off your spurs," said the priest, "come softly." So he followed the padre across the bare, whitewashed dining-hall, and on along the cloister of the palm tree court. He heard the death-cry keening out of the shadows, the bell tolled, and he went on through the dark rooms, until he came to the señora, with women kneeling about the bed, and candles lighted at her head and feet. * * * * * The daybreak was bitter cold when Jim came out into the palm tree court, shivering while he watched the little, far-up clouds flushed with the dawn. He felt that something was all wrong in the house, with the hollow echoes, every time he moved, crashing back from out of the dark. Then in the black darkness of the rooms he saw a lighted candle moving, slow through the air. "Who's there!" he shouted, and at that the light came straight at him with something grey behind. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" Then he saw it was Sheriff Bryant. "Easy, boy, easy!" says Dick in his slow Texan drawl; "I cal'late, Jim, we may as well have coffee, eh, boy?" So he led Jim into the dining-hall, where he had cooked some coffee on the brazier. He set his candle down on the long table, and beside it a stick of sealing-wax and a bundle of tape. "Why, sheriff," says Jim, "what do you want with these?" "Take yo' coffee, son. It's cold this mawnin'." Jim fell to sipping his coffee, while old Dick sat crouched down over the brazier. "My old woman's been here this fortnight past," he said, "and I collected a doctor of sorts." "You never sent for father, or for me." "I had reasons, boy, good reasons. Jim, thar's trouble a-comin', and you've got to face it manful." "Oh, speak out!" "As I says to my ole woman only yesterday, I'd have loaned the money myself to yo' poh mother, only I don't have enough to lend to a dawg." "What do you mean?" "I couldn't turn the po' lady out of her home, so I got a stay of execution from the Court, to give her time to escape. She's done escaped now, and I got to act." "Sheriff!" "Yes, I'm sheriff, and I'd rather break a laig. But I'm the People's servant, Jim, and my awdehs is to seize this hull estate, in the name o' the People." "To seize this house!" "To turn you and all yo' servants out of Holy Crawss, and put the People's seal on the front gate." "Sheriff, you can't!" "Boy, take this writ." Jim took the paper, spread it out, and read-- "Jim," said the sheriff, "we must bury this lady first. Then you want to take the best hawss you've got, while I'm not looking, and ride to my home. Yo're mo' than welcome thar." "Who's done this thing?" "Yo' father's debts." "Don't beat about the bush--who's done this thing?" "George Ryan." CHAPTER IX WAR SIGNS On Tuesday morning, after I headed Jim for Holy Cross, I had to stay over in Lordsburgh, finish my horse deal with the Lawson Cattle Company, then get my men back to Grave City by the evening train. I had only three cowboys, Monte, Custer, and Ute; nice children, too, when they were all asleep, but fresh that morning, full of dumb yearnings for trouble, and showing plentiful symptoms of being young. At breakfast-time I pointed out some items in the local scenery, a doctor's shambles, a hospital, a mortuary, and an adjacent graveyard. "Now, you kids," says I, "you may be heap big tigers; but don't you get wild-catting around too numerous, because I ain't aiming to waste good money on yo' funerals." They said they'd be fearful good, and might they have ten dollars apiece for the church offertory? They set off with three pure hearts, and thirty dollars. Now I reckon there were twenty-five Flying W. riders owning the town that day, and they began politely by asking my boys if Chalkeye's squint was contagious, and whether that accounted for symptoms of mange in his ponies. My boys were dead gentle, and softly answered that Lawson was the worst horse-thief in Arizona; that Lawson's foreman was three-parts negro and the rest polecat, and that Lawson's riders had red streaks around their poor throats because the hang-rope had failed to do them justice. The Flying W. inquired if my three riders was a case of triplets, or only an unfortunate mistake. Then my boys produced their six-guns and allowed they'd been whelped savage, raised dangerous, and turned loose hostile--and I only arrived just in time to save them from being spoiled for further use on earth. I challenged the Flying W. to race their best pets against my "mangy" ponies, and both sides agreed to have a drink with me, instead of wasting mounted funeral pageants on such a one-horse town as little Lordsburgh. So while I was playing nursemaid, herding all those kids, who should roll up the street but young Onate, of Holy Cross, on the dead run with a letter from Jim. The more kids, the worse trouble. Well, when I had swallowed Jim's letter, I fired off a batch of telegrams and soon had a wire back from the Albuquerque sheriff. "Will impound them cattle," says he, "pending advices from Bryant." So I sent Onate streaking after Bryant, and went on playing at nursemaid until I was plumb scared that I'd be sprouting a cap of ribbons. Anyway, I didn't have time to think until the evening train pulled into Grave City. By that time my three babies were dancing a fandango upon the roof of the car. When the train stopped I hauled them down by the legs, petted them some with my boot, and told them to go away home. They went, with a bet between them, which would be first at my ranch. Just for the sake of peace and quietness I stayed that night in Grave City, and sat around next morning smoking long cigars while I made my poor brain think. There were points in Jim's letter, and facts I had picked up casual at Lordsburgh, and words of gossip dropped in the hotel; but to put them all together would have puzzled a large-sized judge. Still, by all the tracks, the signs, the signals, and the little smells, I reckoned that Mr. Ryan was mighty near reaching a crisis, and apt to break out sudden as dynamite. First, here was Sheriff Bryant with two deputies, his wife, and a medicine-man, camped down at Holy Cross. Now Bryant would scarcely take deputy-sheriffs down there to nurse a sick lady. Had Holy Cross been seized at last for Balshannon's debts? That smelt of Ryan. Secondly, Jim had gone to heaps of trouble gathering all the breeding-stock of Holy Cross, for a party named Jabez Y. Stone to steal them convenient. Jabez Y. had once been a bar-tender in Ryan's hotel--so that smelt of Ryan, too. Thirdly, here was poor Balshannon being held with a string round his leg at the Sepulchre saloon, by the two crookedest gamblers in Arizona, the same being Low-Lived Joe and Louisiana Pete. Once, Joe, being gaoled for killing a Mexican, Ryan had put up money for a lawyer to get him released. So if these two thugs were instructed to hold and skin the Dook, that likewise smelt strong of Ryan. Fourthly, here was young Michael Ryan in his private car from New York, burning the rails to reach Grave City by ten o'clock this night. The smell of Ryan surely tainted the whole landscape. Now just throw back to the words of Ryan's letter which fourteen long years before he had nailed upon the door of Holy Cross:-- "The time will come when, driven from this your new home, without a roof to cover you or a crust to eat, your wife and son turned out to die in the desert, you will beg for even so much as a drink of water, and it will be thrown in your face. I shall not die until I have seen the end of your accursed house." So this was Ryan's plan--the work of fourteen years; industrious a whole lot, and plenty treacherous, but coming surely true. He had waited until he knew the lady was mostly dead, then turned her out of Holy Cross to die in the desert. The cattle were stolen, Balshannon was tied down for slaughter, and Michael would come to see the finish at ten o'clock to-night. I began to reckon up Balshannon's friends, cowboys and robbers mostly, scattered anyway across the big range of the desert. They would not hear me if I howled for help. But Ryan was respectable. He was Chairman of the Committee of Public Safety which lynched bad men when they became too prevalent with their guns. Ryan was our leading citizen, heaps rich, and virtuous no end. The Law would side with him, and as to the officers of the law, judges, and City Marshal, and the police--they'd got elected because he spoke for them. He owned the city, could bring out hundreds of men to take his side. What could I do against this Ryan's friends? I knew that young Curly was hid in Grave City somewheres, and after a search I found him. The boy was so disguised he hardly knew himself. "Chalkeye," says he, "you want a talk?" He looked sort of scared and anxious. "I do." "If Ryan's folk see you making talk with me, they'll think there's some new plot against the white men. Just you watch where I go, and follow casual." He led me to a little room he rented over a barber's shop, and looking from the window I noticed that Ryan's hotel was just across the street. Curly left the room door open, because he didn't want any spy to use the keyhole. "Now," says he, "make yo' voice tame, or we'll be overheard. Don't show yo'self off at that window, but keep your eyes skinned thar, while I watch the stairs. What is yo' trouble?" "Whar are yo' range wolves?" "They're a whole lot absent," says Curly. "Cayn't you trust me?" "I ain't trusting even myself." He looked fearful worried. "You know that Ryan has seized Holy Cross?" "This mawning, yes." "And that Ryan has stolen all their breeding-stock?" "Yesterday that was." "And that yo' father dressed himself up as a preacher, and warned Jim?" "They met up five mile south of Lordsburgh. Yessir." "And that Balshannon is tied up here?" "To be butchered this evening. Well?" "Curly, I want the range wolves to save Balshannon." "The range wolves has another engagement, seh." "You know all about this, Curly! Cayn't you trust me to help?" "We want no help, I reckon." I turned my tongue loose then, and surely burned young Curly. "Don't talk so loud, ole Chalkeye, but say some more!" he laughed. "I could set around to listen to you all day. Turn yo' wolf loose, for it's shorely yo' time to howl." That dried me up cold and sudden, for I had been acting youthful, and Curly had got responsible, maybe elderly with me, the same being ridiculous seeing how small the boy was. "Yo're through with yo' prayers, Chalkeye? Some comforted, eh? You ole ring-tailed snorter, cayn't you understand? We ain't going to have you mixed up with us range wolves, and branded for an outlaw. We want you to keep good, and be a whole lot respectable right along. Then you can stay around in this man's town, walk in the open with a proud tail, and show the Ryan outfit that Balshannon has one friend who ain't no robber." Then I understood. "Now," says Curly, "hear my lil' voice, for I'm goin' to prophesy. You know that Ryan reckons to have young Michael here for Balshannon's funeral? Suppose this Michael don't transpire to-night? Suppose the train comes in with news of a horrible shocking outrage? Suppose them mean, or'nary robbers has stole a millionaire? Suppose--well, just you wait for Ryan's yell when he hears what's done happened to his petted offspring. He'll surely forget there's any Balshannon to kill. Just you wait peaceful, and when the town turns out to rescue that poor stolen maverick you want to ride in and collect Balshannon." Opposite in the hotel piazza I watched old Ryan and the City Marshal having a mint julep together at one of the tables. "You hear that hawss?" says Curly, and far off I heard a horse come thundering. Soon the rider swung into sight, pitching the dust high, until he came abreast of my window, and saw the City Marshal in the piazza. "Marshal," I heard him calling, "the wire to Bisley has been cut." "Is that so?" "The City Marshal at Bisley wants your help." "What's the trouble?" "You Ryan, your partner Jim Fiskin has been held up on the Mule Pass by robbers. Marshal, the message is for you to bring a posse swift to the nigh end of the pass, so as the Bisley people can drive the robbers under your guns." "Good," says the Marshal, belting up his gun, "I'll be thar." "It would be an awful pity," says Curly behind my shoulder, "if our City Marshal and his posse of men got called away on a false scent, while the wicked robbers up north were stealing a millionaire." That youngster was wiser than me. CHAPTER X STORM GATHERING It's a whole lot interesting to see how different sorts of people put up a fight. Cat, she spits, and proceeds with claws; dog, he says no remarks, but opens up with teeth; horse, he's mighty swift to paw; bull, he hooks; bear, he hugs affectionate while he eats your face; Frenchman, he pokes with a sword; German, he slashes; Spaniard, he throws his knife; nigger, he barbers around with a razor: and all of us have the same feelings to express in some heartfelt sudden way. If you're looking for trouble with Mr. Cowboy, you want to tame yourself and get pretty near absent before he shoots. But at present my mind is set on Britishers, which is a complicated tribe, and they sure fight most various. When Mr. Britisher is merely feeling good and wants to loose out his joy with a little wholesome scrap, he naturally hates to kill his man first lick--that would spoil future sport. So if he's Irish he turns himself loose with a club, or if he's Scotch or English he feels for the other man with a hard paw. That relieves him, and does no harm. But sometimes he feels real warlike. There's nobody special he wants to kill, his small home tribe has nothing to spare for burial, and yet he must have war. That's why his government keeps proper hunting preserves, well stocked with assorted barbarians over seas. Some of these savages are sure to be wanting a fight, so Mr. Britisher obliges, and comes along hot with rifles and Maxim guns. Savages are plenty, so that if a few get spoilt they'll never be missed. "It's good for them," says Mr. Britisher, "and it saves the crockery from being smashed at home." So you see how Mr. Britisher may have his peaceful scrapping with another boy, or go play with his savages when they want a licking; but he's serious none--just laughs and shakes hands afterwards. But what does he do when he feels real awful and dangerous? Civilised folk like us Americans, feeling as bad as that, turn loose the guns, and wipe each other out to a finish. Other people may prefer swords or battering-rams, or a tilt with locomotive engines, or cannon loaded with buffalo horns, or dynamite at ten paces; but all that would feel too tame for Mr. Britisher. No, he puts on his war paint--black suit and top hat most hideous--calls on his lawyer in a frantic passion, and goes to law! Now look, see how these two families, the du Chesnays and the Ryans, went to law. They came of the best fighting-stock on earth; they were whole-blooded Irish, but they went to law. The du Chesnays turned the Ryans out of their home and country, which was bad. Then the Ryans did worse: lay low and waited bitter years, gathered their strength, and struck from behind--the cowards! Old Ryan got his enemy corrupted with drink and gambling, stole all his cattle, left him helpless to fight, then seized the home to try and turn a dying lady into the desert. He kept within the law, but there was not an honest card in his whole game. It was foul play, and I for one don't blame poor Jim for wanting no more law in the fight with Ryan. And yet I reckon that after the first fifty miles of his trail that day Jim's main thoughts were about the dinner he didn't have, and by sundown he quit caring who was dead and who was ruined, as he racked on, with aching bones and a played horse. It was nigh dark when he raised the Toughnut Mine at Grave City against the red of dusk. Around him lay the rolling yellow swell of the hot grass, clumps of scorched cactus, blistered hills of rock; before him the mine-heads and the roofs with sparkling streaks of blue electric lamps. He jockeyed his worn horse past the Jim Crow Mine, and the house where my cousins lived, the Misses Jameson, then on through scattered suburbs, till swinging round the corner into the main street he rolled at a canter for the stable-yard. Abreast of the Sepulchre saloon he heard his name called, and reined up sharp to speak with the small stable-boy from Ryan's "livery," who came limping out to meet him through the dust. "Say, kid"--he leaned over in the saddle, well-nigh falling--"where shall I find the Duke?" The little one-eyed cripple jerked his thumb back at the Sepulchre saloon. "The Dook's in thar," he answered. Jim rolled from the saddle, dropped his rein to the ground, quit his horse, brushed past the cripple, and went on without a word. He was so stiff he could hardly walk, so dead weary that he reeled against the swing-doors trying to get them open. The cripple helped him, and he staggered in. The place was crowded, but the clash of his spurs along the floor made several punchers turn round lazy, asking him to drink, because he belonged to their tribe. Two of the cowboys grabbed him, but he broke away, and went on. Beyond the bar on the right were the gambling-tables, each with its crowd of players, and at the third Jim saw Louisiana on a high seat watching for Low-Lived Joe, his partner, who dealt the game. Opposite them he found his father, then pushed his way through the crowd to Balshannon's side. The ivory chips were piled breast high in front of him, for play had been high, and the Dook had had a run of luck. The boy watched his father's face flushed high with excitement, his feverish eyes, his twitching lips, and restless fingers at play with the round ivory counters which stood for five thousand dollars won since supper-time. Opposite he looked up at Louisiana on the high seat, all bald-faced shirt and diamonds, guarding his stacks of gold coin with a revolver. Low-Lived Joe faced up a card on the deck, and passed some chips to Balshannon. The rest of the players had quit to watch the big game through. "Father, I want you," says he. "Well, Jim," says Balshannon, "what's the trouble?" He never looked up. But the boy was shaking all over. "Father, come, I want you." The Dook staked, then rolled a cigarette. "Don't bother me, Jim," says he, "you'll spoil the run. We can't do anything, boy, for we've lost those cattle." "Ryan has seized the ranche, the sheriff's there! Come out!" Balshannon quivered, but Joe shoved him a pile of blue chips. "So Santa Cruz is gone?" Balshannon drawled, and doubled his stake. "Well, how's your mother?" "Dead!" Balshannon went grey, the cigarette dropped from his fingers. "Dead," he muttered, "dead." Then he looked up with a sort of queer smile. "Anything else?" he asked quite cheerfully. "Say, Dook," said Louisiana, "I'd hate to see you struck from not watching yo' game." "Thanks, Pete." Balshannon staked out the whole of his winnings, then picked up the cigarette, struck a match, and lighted it slowly. "Come home!" the boy was whispering. "Come home!" Jim saw the tears rolling down his father's face, and splashing on the chips. "What's the use, my boy?" he said very softly. "Would that bring your mother back?" "Come home! Come home!" "I'm winning back our home!" Then Low-Lived Joe drew a card, and as the boy went staggering away a great yell went up. Balshannon was winning back his home. Jim says he felt sick when he quit his father, cold down the back, and the floor was all aslant and spinning round. Then everything went black, and he dropped. When he woke up he felt much better, lying flat on the floor with iced water trickling over his face. That little one-eyed cripple was feeding brandy to him. "Here's luck!" he gulped, "that's all right--where's my hat?" "Come out," says little Crook, "you need fresh air." Jim got up, and wriggled loose, because he hated being pawed, then led the way out past the three fiddlers and the wheezing old harmonium to the door. Outside there was clear blue moonlight. "Where's my horse?" says he. Crook was lighting a cigarette. "Yo' hawss," says he, "is in the stable. He's unsaddled, rubbed down, watered and fed, befo' now. I reckon you want to be watered and fed yo'self." "No, kid, I'm not feeling proud enough for that." "Come on, then," says Crook, "and watch me eat. I'm just a lil' wolf inside, and if I cayn't feed I'll howl." They went to the pie foundry round the corner, and when Jim saw Crook eat he surely got ravenous. They both fed tree and severe, then strayed back heavy to the street in front of the Sepulchre saloon. "Sit on yo' tail," says Crook, "and I'll feed you a cigarette." So they sat down on the sidewalk, and Jim yawned two yards and a quarter at one stretch. "I cal'late," says Crook, "that yo' goin' to be riding to-night, so I had yo' saddle thrown on my buckskin mare." "I'll be riding my bed on the sleep-trail." "Riding a hawss, I reckon"--Crook bent forward, pulling up his boot legs by the tags--"and me too and the Dook. Our hawsses are waiting for us at the back door of this saloon. You understand?" "I don't," says Jim. "Do you know, youngster, that only this morning I buried my mother, then I rode a hundred miles, and if Arizona freezes over to-night we'll go skating for all I care." "Say, if the Dook gets shot up to-night will you be a lord?" Jim laughed sort of patronising because he liked the youngster's cheek. "My father isn't pining for any such thing to-night." "But suppose he went daid, would you be a lord?" "I'd be Jim du Chesnay, riding for whatever wages I'm worth. A lord! what's the use of that?" "But it must be fine!" "It may be good enough for my father, but he's Irish, and he doesn't know any better. I'm an American." "But still you'd be a lord." "Would my lordship keep my pony from stumbling in front of a stampede of cattle? Would it save my scalp from Apaches, or help my little calves when the mountain lions want meat? Does my blood protect me from rattlesnakes, or Ryans, or skunks?" "But there's the big land grant yo' people owns over in Ireland." "It's tied up with entail, whatever that means, and there's no money in it, anyway. My tail in the old country doesn't save me from being galled in the saddle here, and I'm awfully tired." "Same here, seh. I'm weary some myself. Yo' gun is loaded?" Jim pawed his revolver. "Yes." "Take some more," said Crook, and passed over a handful of cartridges to fill Jim's belt. Jim saw that the cripple was armed. "Why do you talk," says he, "about horses waiting for us, and the need of guns, and father getting killed? What's the trouble, my lad?" "The trouble is that Ryan has hired that gambling outfit to skin the Dook to-night. There's men standing round to see he don't leave that house alive. Now, look along the street here to the left, across at the Mortuary Hotel. You see old Ryan settin' there?" "I do." "He's waiting for his son, the millionaire, young Michael. He's due with his private cyar at ten o'clock. If Michael comes--if he comes, I say--his father reckons to bring him over to call on yo' father here at the 'Sepulchre.' That's why the Dook is bein' skinned, and that's why Ryan's men are watching to see he don't escape alive." "But what does Ryan want? He's got our breeding cattle, he's taken Holy Cross, my mother's gone--we've nothing left to take." "You have yo' lives, you and the Dook. Ryan and his outfit allow they'll wipe you out when Michael comes." "Is that all?" Jim laughed. "They're thoughtful and painstaking, anyway. By the way, I don't know that my father and I have been shrieking for help as yet." "If you were the kind of people to make a big song when yo're hurt, I reckon that we-all would jest leave you squeal." "And who is we-all? You've acted like a white man to-night, looking after my poor roan and me like a little brother. But why should you care, young chap? I've never seen you before in my life; I don't even know your name." "My name is Crook; I works at the stable." "But why should you interfere? You may get hurt. I wouldn't like that, youngster." "Wall, partner"--Crook shuffled a whole lot nervous--"I got a message for you from the boys. The Dook's had nothing but greasers working for him, and that's rough on us white men, but still he's surely good. He's dead straight, he don't wear no frills, and many a po' puncher, broke, hungry, half daid of thirst, has been treated like a son at Holy Crawss. We don't amount to much--'cept when you want an enemy or a friend--but our tribe is right into this fight a whole heap, for them Ryans is dirt; and if they comes up agin you to-night I expaict there'll be gun-play first." "Well, kid," said Jim, yawning with a big mouth, "I wish they'd put it off until to-morrow." "Yo' eyes is like boiled aigs. Try a cigarette to keep you awake." "Can't we get my father away from this house?" "Not till the train comes in." "What's that got to do with me?" "Ask no more questions--wait." "You say that Michael Ryan's due at ten?" "If they lets him come." "Suppose he comes?" "Then nothing can save yo' father, nothing on airth." As he spoke the sharp screech of the engine rang out from behind the curve, and with all its lights aflash the train rolled in. CHAPTER XI THE GUN-FIGHT Before supper that evening a passing traveller carried a letter to my ranche, and when my boys found out that there was going to be trouble in town they surely flirted gravel for fear of arriving too late. I placed them at a convenient saloon, explained my plans, made them swear that they would not stray. Then I went to Curly's room, and lay low, showing no light, but watching the Mortuary Hotel just across the street. Ryan sat there in his piazza, ruddy and full, broad and bald as a barn, a ripe man with a grey chin beard. Yes, he was a cheery old soul, popular with the crowd, a power in local politics, well qualified on the outside of him for paradise, and in the innards of him for the other place. I covered him with my gun, and wondered where he would go to when he died. I expect he would be craving then for some of that lager beer he sipped so peaceful, and for the palm-leaf fan which he used to brush off the heat. Away off to the right I could see Jim sitting on the sidewalk in front of the "Sepulchre." Little Crook was feeding brandy to him, and cigarettes to keep him away from sleep. Then the train came rumbling in, let out a screech, and stopped. It made me laugh to think what a big hurroar there would be presently when the news got wind of that train being held up by robbers, and Mr. Michael Ryan led away captive. Yet there seemed to be no excitement. The usual buses and buggies came up from the station, the ordinary crowd of loafers, and then our only cab, which crawled to the "Mortuary" to drop one passenger. He was a fat young man, dressed most surprising in a stove-pipe hat, a Jew fur coat, gloves, and a smart valise. If any of our cowboys had happened around, they would have fired a shot for luck to see if he wasn't some new kind of bird, but old Ryan came down the steps with a roar of welcome. "Michael!" he shouted, "where's your palace car? Have you sunk so low as to come in a mere cab? Oh, Mike!" I could hear Mr. Michael explaining that something was wrong with the car, so he'd had to leave her at Lordsburgh for repairs. Of course, the robbers, not seeing the private car, had concluded that their prey had failed to arrive and the train was not worth attacking. Now Michael had arrived, and after a talk and a drink with his father, these two would stroll over to finish the family vengeance on poor Balshannon. As far as we had missed getting help from the range wolves, so matters were getting mighty serious. I slipped away to my men. "Boys," says I, "we got to play at robbers to-night, I reckon, but I don't want you-all to get recognised. We may be bucking up against the law, and get ourselves disliked if we ain't cautious." So I took a big black silk handkerchief and cut it up into strips. "When the shooting begins," says I, "just you tie these round your heads to hide yo' homely faces. Now get yo' horses and come swift." I posted the three in the small alley which ran between the "Sepulchre" saloon and the post office beyond it. Then I went out to guard Balshannon. Being naturally a timid and cautious man, I had a brace of revolvers belted on ready for trouble. Meanwhile young Crook in the front of the house was sitting all doubled up with grief at the sight of Michael Ryan. "Boy," says Jim, "what's the matter?" "Nothin'." "How is it, young un, that you know all about my father's affairs and mine?" "I expaict," says that one-eyed cripple, "that working my job at the livery I'd oughter know what comes and goes around heah." "Is that why you're there--to watch?" Crook went white at that. "You're dreaming," says he, very faint. "And you're lending me the buckskin running mare for to-night. I've heard of that mare. Is that the sort of thing to lend to a stranger?" "Well, seh, even a hired man may have his private feelings." "Look here, youngster, I've seen you before, and I remember you now. When I saw you once at Holy Cross you had two eyes in your head, and you weren't a cripple." Suddenly Jim snatched away the black pad which was slung over Crook's disabled eye. Two good eyes shone out, and over one of them the scar of an old wound. Jim laughed at that, but Crook forgot to be lame, starting back lithe as a panther and his face dead white. "Be careful!" he whispered, "there's men passing us! My life ain't worth a cent if I'm seen heah in town." He had the sling across his eye again and broke out laughing. "I mean the doctor says I got to keep it covered, or I'll go blind--and a blind man's life ain't worth one cent in the dollar." "Quit lying! You're posted at the stable to see who comes and goes, one eye in a sling and one game leg for disguise. Come here!" Jim dragged him by the scruff of the neck to the post office, which stood next door to the saloon, with only the alley between, and there was an old poster notice on the wall:-- "NOTICE. "The Northern Pacific and Wells Fargo Express Companies offer ($2,000) two thousand dollars, DEAD OR ALIVE, for the four robbers who held up the Northern Pacific Express train at Gold Creek, Deer Lodge County, Montana, on the morning of April 3rd, 1899. Descriptions:-- "Peter, _alias_ Bobby Stark, _alias_ Curly McCalmont, supposed to be son of Captain McCalmont, is five feet six inches in height, slim, fair hair, blue eyes, clean-shaven, soft girlish manner, with a scar over left eye, the result of a knife wound. He is about twenty years of age, but looks not more than fifteen, and was formerly a cowboy, riding for the Holy Cross Outfit in Arizona. He was last seen on or about May 5th, at Clay Flat, in the Painted Desert, with a flea-bitten grey gelding branded x on the near stifle, and two led burros, one of them packed." Jim turned round sharp on Crook. "You're Curly McCalmont!" says he. "Come away--yo' risking my neck." "Do you think I'd sell you for that dirty money?" "What you seen, others may, and they'd act haidstrong." "All right, Curly. Don't you forget to walk lame." "Hist! Heah come the Ryans!" The two youngsters came hurrying into the saloon, where I stood watching Balshannon while he lost the last of his money. Jim clutched me by the arm, whispering something, but I did not catch what he said, for Curly was making a last play to get Balshannon from the tables. "You quit," said he, "befo' yo're too late, patrone." "It's too late now," says Balshannon; "what's the good?" "It's not too late to save yo' life. Come quick!" "So," says Balshannon, looking up sort of surprised, "you think you can er--_frighten_ me?" Louisiana was leaning forward across the table. "Look a-here, Crook," says he, "you can play, or you can get right out, but you don't interrupt this game." And Curly was hustled aside by Ryan's watchers. "Now, Joe," the patrone was saying, "let's finish this." He staked his last chips and lost, then got up with a little sigh, thinking, I reckon, of his wife, his ranche, his cattle. "I'm kind of sorry, Dook," says Louisiana. "So am I, a little," Balshannon chuckled. "I think," says the gambler, stacking away his great big heaps of gold and silver coin--"I think that----" "You are fortunate, Pete," Balshannon answered lightly, "I dare not think." "I'm closing the game for to-night," says Louisiana. "I'm closing the game to-night," says Lord Balshannon. He took a cigarette-case from his pocket, but found it empty, felt in his shabby old clothes for money, then turned away with a queer little laugh of his which made me ache. Outside in the street I heard a hand-bell clang, and took notice through the tail of my eye that the room was filling with all the worst men in that bad town of ours. There was the Alabama Kid, and beside him Shorty Broach, stage robber and thug, Beef Jones, the horse-thief, Gas, a tin-horn crook, Thimble-Rig Phipps, and two or three other sure-thing gamblers, rollers, and thugs. I went over to the front end of the house, where the orchestra were packing up to quit, and there at the far corner of the bar were old Ryan and Michael standing drinks to the crowd. Yes, the game was being set sure enough. I saw Low-Lived Joe hurry past me and speak in a whisper to Ryan, and at that Balshannon's enemy stood out to the front of his gang. All the scrubs and skin-game men were drifting into that corner behind him, until there must have been perhaps thirty gathered, loosing their guns to be ready. By the faro tables were Jim and Curly trying to get Balshannon out of the house, but he broke away, and they followed until he came to the inner end of the bar. Then they stood back a little, while he waited to be served. "Here, Bill!" he called out cheerfully. A bar-keep quit the Ryans and went to serve him. "Well," says he, heaps insolent, "what do you want?" The patrone looked at him smiling. "You seem out of sorts, Bill; have a drink with me. I'll take a whisky." The bar-keep glared at him. "Oh, by the way," says Balshannon, "I'll have to square up for this to-morrow morning." "Terms cash," says the bar-keep. "Really?" Balshannon smiled at his ugly face. "Oh, of course--your orders, eh? Well, never mind. You're so polite, Bill, that--er--that just by way of thanks I'll ask you to accept this little token." He chucked him the silver cigarette-case and turned away from the bar. But I was bull-roaring mad. "Patrone," says I, "patrone, I owe you heaps of money. Here, take this!" But Balshannon laid both his hands upon my shoulders, smiling right into my eyes. "Dear friend," he said, "you know I could not take money, even from you." A thick voice was calling from the other end of the bar: "Here, bar-keep, you give this man a drink!" Then the patrone looked round. "Ah, Ryan, eh?" He walked straight up to his enemy. "I'll drink with you gladly, Ryan. Suppose we forget the past, and try to be good--er--friends, eh?" He held out his hand, but Ryan took no notice. "Hello, I see your son is with you, Ryan. Good evening, Michael." Michael just stared at him. The people who had no interest in the trouble must have seen drawn guns before now, because I heard them breaking rapid for cover. The scrub which belonged to Ryan was formed up behind him for war, while back of Balshannon stood only Jim and Curly with the whole rear part of the room behind them empty. The two youngsters seemed to be having baby troubles, for Curly was struggling powerful to break away from Jim. "I got to," he shouted, "I cayn't see to shoot!" Then he jumped clear. He had disremembered about being a cripple, he had torn the bandage away from his eye, and over the left brow, clear for all men to see, was his brand, the knife wound! At that a yell went up from Ryan's crowd, and some of his men surged forward, Louisiana and Low-Lived Joe in the lead. I jumped straight at them with my brace of guns. "Back!" shouted Ryan, holding them back with both arms. "Back! What's your hurry? Wait!" "Come on!" came Curly's clear high yell. "Two thousand dollars daid or alive if you take me! I'm a sure wolf, and it's my night to howl, you cowards! I'm Curly McCalmont of the Robbers' Roost! Take me who can!" Curly had gone plumb crazy, throwing his life away to get Balshannon one more chance of escape, but the crooks only saw that the small boy's team of guns were quick in his hands to shoot, and felt real glad of Ryan's outstretched arms. So came the lull, and I heard the bar-keep clashing down bottle and glass beside Balshannon. "Whisky," says he in a shaky voice, "and yours, Mr. Ryan?" "Irish," said Ryan, then whispered to his son, who hauled clumsy, getting out his silver-plated pop-shooter, a thing more fit for a girl than a grown man. I like to think of my old patrone in those last moments of his life, as he stood at the end of the bar, quiet peaceful, facing Ryan. He was a tall, straight man, gaunt some, dead weary, but the only clean thing in sight. The grey moustache raked up against the red tan of his face, his hair was curling silver, his eyes cool blue. He seemed to be amused with the Ryans, and as to weapons, he just despised a gun. Then he heard the clash of his son's spurs just behind him. "Good-bye," I heard him whisper. "God bless you, Jim." I reckon Jim was crying. Ryan had swung forward along the bar, and reached for Balshannon's empty glass. "Here, take your drink," he shouted, "the drink you begged for!" Balshannon stepped aside while Ryan filled the glass for him to drink. "Thank you," he said. But Ryan snatched the full glass, jumped back, swung out his arm--"Take that!" he yelled, and threw the glass straight at Balshannon's face. The patrone took a handkerchief and wiped his face, slow and dainty, but the blood was starting where the glass had struck. "I'm sorry," he said, "that it should come to this, but as you are not in condition, Mr. Ryan, to fight, I must ask you, Mr. Michael Ryan, to oblige me." "Fight?" yelled Ryan. "Fight a thing like you? Not much! Back, Michael! My Lord Balshannon," he sneered, "do you think my son would demean himself to fight you?" "I observe," said Balshannon kindly, "that he seems to be rather warm in that fur overcoat." The crowd broke out laughing, half ready, I felt then to take the weaker side against a coward. The patrone was so surely great, so much a man, so helpless--death in his eyes, peace on his smiling lips; and the Ryans in furs and jewellery looked such curs. I had stepped back against the wall, facing the middle of the bar. On the right was the Ryan gang, on the left Balshannon, behind me the row of windows which looked on the alley-way where my men lay hid. I rapped soft with my knuckles on the window just at my right hand. "Say, Chalkeye!" Louisiana was hailing me. "Why don't you stand by the Dook? Have you gone back on the Dook?" "I stand here, Pete," said I, "to see fair play." Then Ryan broke in on me. "Boys," he said, "we don't need Chalkeye Davies to judge our play. You know me, all of you; you know my record, and what I've done for our city. I've not asked you here, citizens, to see murder, or fighting of any sort, but to witness an act of justice done by this Lord Balshannon on himself." The crowd kept still, remembering that our leading citizen had acted straight for our city, and had a right to be heard. "Now you shall judge as citizens," said Ryan, "between this man and me. For a thousand years my people, the Ryans, had land and homes in Oireland, until the Balshannons came over with bloody Cromwell to steal our little holdings by force of ar-r-ms. We were overpowered, we were forced to pay rent to the tyrants, but we were free men, not slaves; we are free men to-day, and we have fought for liberty. "Look at this last Balshannon, this man who once tried to get me hung on a false charge, this cowardly, brutal ruffian, who drove me and all my people out of our homes to die in the bitter cold. Think of our women starving to death in the snow-drifts--and, if you doubt me, go and ask me wife. We were driven, she and I, and all our people, out of the land we loved, out of Erin, beggared, hopeless, despairing exiles. Out on the black Atlantic we had to bury one of my little children in the sea--there stands the murderer! Do you blame me, citizens, for wanting vengeance?" "Dook," says the Alabama Kid, "suppose we hear your side?" "You'll hear my side," says Lord Balshannon, "from Ryan. This is his court--of--er--justice." Then he wiped the running blood from his cheek, and yawned behind his hand. Even Ryan's men began to look ashamed of such a court. "Vengeance!" Ryan was howling; "vengeance with the Apaches first--I turned them loose on your camp! Vengeance with McCalmont's robbers--I turned them loose on your ranche!" Balshannon swung half round and grasped Curly McCalmont's hand. We saw his back shaking with laughter, but when he faced Ryan again he straightened his lips. "Excuse me," he said, "go on." But the crowd remembered how McCalmont's wolves had breakfasted with Ryan after that little dinner at Holy Cross. They howled with laughter. "You may laugh!" yelled Ryan; "laugh, you hounds!" but Balshannon lifted his hand, and the crowd were silent. "Yes, I failed," said Ryan. "I had to wait--I waited--but what I couldn't do you did for yourself; yes, you, Balshannon, drinking and gambling here while your forsaken wife lay dying yonder! I had only to find a few friends to lend you me money, and sharpers to be after rooking you of all you borrowed. Yes, that was me vengeance; can you say that failed? Where is your big estate? Where are your cattle? Where is your wife?" Balshannon's face had gone dead with pain, but he never flinched. "And now," Ryan shouted at him, "you beggared gambler, you broken, shaking drunkard, you shall finish this vengeance on yourself, which you began, which needs no hand of mine! Here!" He ran forward, and jammed a long knife into Balshannon's hand. "Finish! Kill yourself, and have done, for shure an' you're not fit to live, ye filthy beast!" Balshannon was reeling, faint, sick, clinging to the bar for support. "Boys," I shouted, "if Ryan's a man, let him fight. Stand aside, give him room, give him a gun. Patrone, take this gun!" I jumped to his side, jammed one of my revolvers into his hand, then leapt back to my place by the wall. Ryan's tin-horn pets had deserted him; even his son, scared to death, had slunk away. "Help!" Ryan was screaming. "Murther!" But a gun was thrust into his hand, and his own hired thugs shoved him forward to fight Balshannon. "When I call 'Three!'" I shouted, and saw Balshannon stand like a man, cool, steady. "One, two, three!" Ryan fired and missed before my second call, but at the "Three" Balshannon's gun blazed out. I saw a little black hole between Ryan's eyes, and he fell forward all in a heap, stone dead. I reckon that for years I'd been heaps virtuous keeping my quick gun off Balshannon's meat, so now I was full of joy because the patrone had finished up all the unpleasantness and made peace without loss or damage. No grown responsible man had any quarrel left. But then my youngsters weren't grown up a bit, nor responsible, nor anything else, but rattled with a gun-fight too rich for their blood. Curly was scared all to pieces, Jim was right off his head, and as to my three kids outside the window, they had no sense anyways at their best. I ought to have thought of that before; it was too late now. What matter if young Michael eased his feelings by empting off his toy at the patrone? His pellets chipped the ceiling, and did him credit for a pious son, but only got a laugh from Balshannon. Michael just went on popping ostentatious, so Balshannon showed he bore no malice by throwing his own gun on the bar. Then somebody called out for drinks as a sign of peace. But Jim only saw his father being attacked, and he surely never had a sense of humour. He turned his wolf-howl loose, and broke his gun-arm free from Curly's hold, then started splashing lead at Michael Ryan. I saw some fur fly off from the Jew coat, and the next shot dispersed young Michael's hat, but the third struck Low-Lived Joe on the shoulder. Then there was surely war, for Louisiana loved that Joe more than anything else on earth, and all his friends lashed out their guns. Curly knelt quick below the blast of lead, and Jim leapt sudden behind the end of the bar, but in a blaze of flame and rolling smoke I saw Balshannon clutch both hands to his heart, then swing half round and fall. It must have been then that poor Curly fired the two shots which killed Louisiana and Beef Jones, the horse thief. It must have been then that the window close beside me fell with a crash of glass upon the floor, and my three men, all masked, with guns and rifles poured red-hot slaughter into the Ryan crowd. That was bad, but I felt grateful then, while one by one I shot out the swinging lamps which lit the smoke. There were five, making so many shades of deeper gloom, and then dead blackness pierced by flaming guns, and at the end of that silence, with a patter of running feet, the groan of a dying man. CHAPTER XII THE CITY BOILING OVER Once I remember seeing an old bear roped in the desert by cowboys, and dragged by the scruff of his neck into the fierce electric glare of a Western city. Some female tourists said he looked dreadful rough, a school ma'am squealed out he was dangerous, a preacher allowed he was savage, but nobody made excuses for that old bear. Now I reckon that I'm just like Mr. Bear, dragged sudden off the range into the indecent light of civilization. Nobody is going to make allowances for me if I look dreadful rough, and savage, and dangerous. I own up I've no excuse. Bear and I were raised outside the prickly fences of your laws, beyond the shelter of your respectable customs, exposed to all the heat and cold, the light and darkness, the good and the bad of life. Bear, he has teeth and claws, as I have horse and gun; but both of us fight or go dead, for that is our business. If you're shocked, quit reading; but if you want more, read on. When I knew that Balshannon was due to be shot I set a trap, and all the desperadoes at Grave City walked right into it. I had the men picked out who would make a good loss, sent out the invitations to them in Ryan's name, and had a hand-bell clanged to call them in for the ceremonies. If Ryan only played fair there would be no killing, but if he acted foul there was going to be a sure enough massacre. Why, it was only right that on the death of a great chief like Balshannon servants should go with him to the other world. That was all known to my three masked men in ambush, and when Ryan acted foul he was sent with Louisiana, Beef Jones, and four others, all desperadoes, to wait upon Balshannon--beyond the flames and smoke of his funeral honours. For a naturally cautious and timid man I took fool risks in exposing Curly to that danger; but honest range-raised fighters are more than a match for the drunken town swabs who had to be dispersed. Besides, my youngsters were not the kind to stay put in a place of safety. After the fight, if there was one, I knew that the fire-bell would call up the whole of the citizens, and the news would spread swifter than flames, of masked robbers attacking a saloon right in the middle of their peaceful town. They would be displeased, and rather apt to send in their little account to me, which made me blush to think of, because I lay myself out to be a modest man. When I got through with shooting out all the lights my men quit firing to haul me through the window. Now all four of us were in the alley-way, between the saloon and the post office, barred off from the main street by a high gate, while our line of escape was open to the rear. Being shy of recognition, I tied on a mask, and reloaded my gun, planning the next move rapid in my head. Then I called off my men to the tail end of the house, posting one to kill anybody who tried to get out by my window. I was scheming a raid into the house to rescue Curly and Jim, but just for a moment my riders hung back scared. "Come along, you tigers!" says I. There was no need to risk our lives, for through the black silence of the house came a sudden blaze of guns and rush of men. Curly and Jim had broken cover at last, so we had only to let them come, rolling out head over heels in no end of a hurry. As soon as they were clear we handed in lead to the crowd, stampeded them, and sprinkled their tails. They were surely discouraged. The next thing was to mount our horses and reload guns while we rode off slow. Jim was shaking all over, Curly was sobbing aloud, Monte, one of my boys, was groaning because a bullet had burned his cheek, Ute breathing like a gone horse, and Custer making little yelps of joy--all of us scary as cats with our nerves on the jump, the same being natural after a red-hot fight. We pulled out by the south end of the city. "Now," said I, "you, Curly, and you, Jim, light out ahead and keep a-flying for old Mexico." Curly howled, "We ain't goin' to leave you!" I had to make my meaning quick and plain before he knew I was earnest. As to Jim, I cut his words dead short--and so they quit me streaking off to the south. "Now, you-all!" I turned to my tigers. Custer let out his yelp, and Ute grinned ugly, and both of them thought all the world of me for getting them into trouble. "Monte," says I, "go home and fix that wound." He circled off. "Well," says I, "if you other two play any more tiger to-night, I'll rip your lives out. You got to be plumb good citizens, 'cause them people in the 'Sepulchre' have seen about ten masked robbers, which they'll surely hunt. So off with them masks quick," and I threw mine in the road. "Now," says I, "we'll see if the general public is going to help us to get them robbers and kill them." So we three trotted grave and innocent up Main Street, where scores of citizens were saddling, mounting, and gathering, the swift men calling the laggards. In the lead rode Deputy-Marshal Pedersen, coming on rapid. "Hello," he called, "you, Chalkeye!" I swung in beside him. "What's the delay?" says I. "How many robbers?" "Ten masked men, come on! They're McCalmont's gang." Custer and Ute were calling the rest to hustle. "Ten masked robbers," they shouted, "heading down for Naco!" "Thought you was in the 'Sepulchre'!" says Pedersen. "I was till I'd shot out the lights," says I; "them crazy idiots there were handing out lead at me." "Where did you see them robbers?" "In the back street. They wounded my boy Monte, so I had to send him home. Say, look at that!" Ahead on the white road, plain in the moonlight, lay something black, so I swung down my arm in passing, and took a grab. "What d'ye make of this, eh, Pedersen?" "A silk mask," says he. "Thanks, Chalkeye--you've got us on the right trail, anyways." "But watch these tracks," say I; "look there--they're quitting the main road--swing out!" Curly and Jim had struck straight south down the road, so I pointed the whole pursuit well off to the right, south-west for Naco, and made believe I saw another mask among the stones. If dangerous robbers were hard to see through the moonshine, that was no fault of mine. If the citizens wanted to go riding out by moonlight, I surely gave them heaps good exercise. Meanwhile that Curly was herding Jim down towards the Mexican boundary; but both the lads were rattled, and their nerves had gone all to smash. Jim had dumb yearnings to go back and eat up citizens, Curly was trying to cry with one lip while he laughed with the other. Then Jim told Curly not to be a coward, and Curly laughed with the tears rolling down his face. "I wisht I was daid," he howled, "I wisht I was daid. I done murdered Beef Jones, and there's his ole hawss a-waiting to take him home. He loved that hawss." "And you a robber!" says Jim, mighty scornful. Jim had only courage, a thing which is usual to all sorts of men and beasts, but Curly had something bigger--brains, judgment, the lion heart, the eagle sight, the woman gentleness, a child's own innocence, and heaven's unselfishness. "I'm a sure coward," he sobbed. "Brace up, youngster. I saw you kill both Beef and Louisiana, but now you're gone all rotten." "Between the eyes, I got Pete between the eyes! I seen his eyes goin' up all white--the hole between--oh, how I wisht I was daid!" "Poor little beggar! And one would think this was the first time you'd ever seen a gun-fight." "I never seen one, never until now." "And you McCalmont's son!" "You needn't let on to him that y'u seen me--human. Wall," he braced himself up, "I'm only a range wolf, so what's the odds, Jim?" "Well, what's wrong now?" "Do you know you're outlawed too? Old Chalkeye masked his riders, he played robbers, I showed wolf, and you're done branded with the range wolves now." Jim swung round in the saddle, looking back at Grave City, a bad sample surely among cities, but still entitled to wave Old Glory high, the flag of honest men, of civilisation. He set his teeth and swung to his trail again. "If honesty is _that_," says he determinedly, "I'll herd with thieves." "I don't like the smell of this trail," says Curly, "none. The City Marshal is riding up from Bisley with his posse. Let's strike west, then circle the town, then north, to father's camp." "Come on," says Jim, and swung his horse to the west along a small dead trail. "We got to change ourselves," says McCalmont's son, and began to loose some parcels tied by the strings to his saddle. "I got some clothes for we-all. Here," he passed over an old leather jacket, a straw sombrero, and a bottle. "That's cawffee extract," says he, "mixed with a black drug. I boiled it strong. You rub it over yo' face and neck and paws, then rig yo'self." Our people, at any gait in the saddle, are broke to eat dinner, drink from a bottle, roll a cigarette, or sing a song without being jarred up like a tenderfoot. So while they trotted slow Jim stained his hide all black like a greaser _vaquero_, then slung on the _charro_ clothes of a poor Mexican cowboy. "Now," says Curly, "you take this moustache and lick the gummy side, stick it on yo' lip, and remember yo're a Dago. Say, pull up, they'll know that buckskin mare of mine for sure. There ain't another in the United States I reckon with white points like her'n. You empty that bottle, and black her white stockings, quick." Curly was changing too, for he pulled up the legs of his overalls, then wriggled them down over his long boots. Then he took Jim's cowboy hat, and slouched the brim down front like a hayseed boy. He put on a raggy old jacket, and bulged his lean cheeks out with pads of wool. He looked a farm boy, and when they rode on, sat like a sack of oats. "It won't work," says Jim, "here's a big outfit of people sweeping right down from the north. Our horses are blown, and their snorting will give us away." "Dot vash all righd," says Curly. "That wouldn't pass for German," says Jim, "not even in a fog." "Shure," says Curly, "is it me forgettin' me nativity? Amn't I Oirish?" They had entered the Naco trail by this, and were walking their horses up the hill for Grave City. If the silly kids had obeyed my orders we should never have seen a hair of them that night. As it was, Deputy-Marshal Pedersen and I came with full thirty men on top of them. I don't profess I knew either the Irish hayseed boy or the _vaquero_, until the black horse, a melancholy plug called Jones which I'd lent Curly, began to whicker to the grey mare I rode. Pedersen, too, was mortal suspicious of that buckskin mare with Jim. "Black points," says he. "That's so--Crook's had white laigs." "Shure," says Curly, prompt, "an' is it thim robbers ye'd be afther hunting?" Pedersen reined up. "They've passed you, eh?" he called. "Didn't they shoot me," says Curly, "till I'm kilt entoirely? There was elivan av thim agin' me and the young feller that was along with me, the rapscallions, and thim with black masks on their dirthy faces!" "How long since?" "Three minutes gone, yer 'anner; and can any of yez tell me if this is the road to Misther Chalkeye Davies?" Pedersen had spurred on, and we swept after him, leaving Mr. Curly McCalmont howling Irish curses because we hadn't pointed him on his trail to Las Salinas. We were scarcely gone when a second outfit of five stragglers came rolling down the trail, headed by Shorty Broach, one of the men who had been hurt that night in the gun-fight. He always hated Balshannon's folks worse than snakes; he was heaps eager now for Curly McCalmont's blood; and the two thousand dollars which went along with it. But worse than that, this Shorty was a sure plainsman, who never forgot a horse. Still he went past with his crowd before he saw anything wrong with that black horse I'd lent, or the buckskin mare Jim was riding. Then he swung. "Hold on, boys! Say, I knows that buckskin. That's Crook's buckskin mare at the livery--here's Curly McCalmont's mare!" The riders tried to call Shorty off, told him to soak his head, remembered that Crook's buckskin had white stockings, whereas this mare's points were black, which made all the difference. "Them horses is blown, they're run full hard," says Broach; "they've been surely chased, and I'm due to inquire more." On that the riders began to circle around, while Curly slung out Irish by the yard about running away from the robbers. "Shure," says he, "and it's the Chief of the Police no less we're talkin' wid." "Throw up your hands!" says Broach, pointing his gun on Jim, but the youngster was busy rolling a cigarette. "Why is that gringo showing off with a gun?" he asked in Spanish. "He looks so foolish, too!" "You got to account for that buckskin mare," says Broach, but Jim set in the cool moonlight and lit his cigarette, taking no notice. "This greaser is lately an orphan, sorr," says Curly, "an' he's only goin' innocent for a dhrunk in Grave City--maning no harr-m at all." "Where did he get that buckskin?" "It's the 'pitchfork' mare ye'll be maning, sorr?" At last Jim knew the brand on the mare he was riding. "Indade," says Curly, "hasn't she got an Holy Crawss brand on the shoulder as well, sorr? Maybe he stole her there." "If you want to live, Mr. Greaser, you'll account for that buckskin mare," Broach threatened again with his gun. "I understand," says Jim in Spanish, puffing his cigarette at Shorty's face. "I took this mare in trade at la Morita Custom House on the Line. A Vaquero Americano could not pay the hundred per cent. duty on his horse, so I traded with him my Mexican-branded mustang to oblige, taking this mare. She's branded 'Holy Cross,' rebranded 'pitchfork.' Perhaps the gentlemen will stand aside--I have explained." "All very well," said Broach in Spanish, which sounded rough like a railroad accident, "how do you account for that saddle, Jim du Chesnay's silver-mounted saddle?" "Si Señor, the saddle of my young lord el Señor Don Sant Iago, of Holy Cross. The caballero ordered me to bring these, that he might play bear before the house of a beautiful lady in Grave City." "And your own saddle?" "Alas! I played poker with the Americanos. They have skinned me." Jim made a little flourish, twisted the moustache. It came off in his fingers! And with a howl the whole crowd closed in. They had captured Jim du Chesnay and Curly McCalmont! CHAPTER XIII THE MAN-HUNT I reckon that civilised folks are trained to run in a rut, to live by rule, to do what's expected. If they're chased they'll run, if they're caught they surrender. That's the proper thing to do. Our plainsman, he's a much resourceful animal: he never runs in the rut, and he always does exactly what's not expected. Here were Jim and Curly surrounded by five men all hot for war. Broach could shoot good, but his horse was a plumb idiot when it came to firing. He was scared he would miss Jim, and get the counter-jumper who pranced around behind. Of the rest, one was a railroad man, and useless at that, one was a carpenter, and one was a barber--all of them bad shots. Still, they knew that their prisoners could neither fight nor run. The prisoners did both most sudden, and heaps surprising. While Jim's moustache was dropping, Curly's first bullet got Broach's horse in the eye, sending him backwards over on top of the man. Jim unhorsed the railroad man, the carpenter disabled the barber, and the counter-jumper bolted. That posse was all demoralised, shooting liberal, attracting heaps of attention. So another belated outfit of citizens came whooping down the road, while at the first sound of battle, the crowd I was with swung round at full gallop to share the play. I knew my youngsters were in foul bad luck. Yet in a single evening these two had got to feeling each other's thoughts, acting together without talk, partners like the hands of a man. They knew that for them it was death to show on the skyline, sure good scouting to jump for the lowest ground, and keep the dust a-rolling to hide their movements. They struck a gulley, and Jim led over rock and cactus, riding slack rein, trusting that buckskin mare. After the first five minutes, looking round, he saw the belated outfit along the skyline following, and heard the whoops of our crowd closing in on the left. "I reckon," says Curly, "they'll get us." "Very awkward," says Jim. "Say, Curly," he called out, "there's a fence here somewhere on Chalkeye's pasture. It's broken where it cuts this arroyo, but just 'ware wire! Here! 'Ware wire!" The mare took a stumble, but cleared the fallen wire. The black horse just jumped high. Up on the plain above the pursuit was going to be checked by my standing fence. "We're plumb in luck to the lips," says Curly. And now the rocky hollow widened out, the trail was smooth, the pace tremendous. While our citizens behind were having a check betwixt rock and wire, Jim struck the further gate of my pasture, and held it wide for Curly. Horsemanship had given the partners a mile of gain, but now, on level ground, where any fool could ride, our posse gained rapidly, for the youngsters had to go moderate and save their horses. "Down on yo' hawss," says Curly, "you ride too proud," and a spatter of blue lead made Jim lie humble. The fool gallopers were right handy for war, when sudden the winding valley poured out its fan of débris upon the lower plain towards Mexico. Here just below the mouth of the arroyo a railroad track swung right across the trail on a high embankment. On the nigh side of the embankment ran a waggon trail, climbing a hill on the left to cross the track, and that was sure foul luck for Jim and Curly, for now they rode out clear against the sky in a storm of lead, and began to reckon they was due at the big front door of heaven. Jim was all right in a moment, for the buckskin mare just rose to the occasion, leapt the rails, and got to cover down the bank beyond; but Curly's horse was an idiot. At the sight of the gleaming rails, he stopped dead to show himself off, shied, bucked, pawed the full moon, fell in heaps, tumbled all over himself, dug a hole in the ground with his nose, and timed the whole exhibition to get Curly shot. The gallopers were right on to him before he chose to proceed, with flanks spurred bloody, down the further bank. Jim circled back to the rescue. "Hurt?" he called. Curly lay all of a heap on the saddle. "Shoot!" he howled, and flashed on across the plain. Jim got the gallopers stark against the sky at point-blank range, and just whirled in for battle, piling the track with dead and dying horses, blocking the passage complete. Then he streaked away to see if Curly had gone dead on Jones' back. Five minutes after that, Deputy-Marshal Pedersen and I came blundering into the wreckage. He jumped through somehow, leading eighteen men, but I stopped to help a hurt man, and used his rifle to splint his broken leg. The fool gallopers were mostly wrung out, and gone home, or left afoot by Jim. The good stayers were on ahead, but weary maybe, it being late for pleasuring. So I proceeded to have an attack of robbers all to myself, with the wounded man's revolver and my own, shooting promiscuous. Sure enough, half a dozen of them bold pursuers came circling back to find out what was wrong. When I had turned back with my idiots for home, a ripple spread along the grass, an air from the south, then a lifting wind, full strong, steady as ice aflow, cold as the wings of Death. Jim fought up wind, battling at full gallop until he overtook the little partner, then ranged abreast and steadied knee to knee, nursing his mare at a trot. The moon slid down flame-red behind the hills, the wind blew a gale, the night went black, the sky a sheet of stars. Jim had quit being tired, for his body was all gone numb and dead, so he felt nothing except the throb of hoofs astern. Then he heard a popping of guns faint in the rear, and on that saw flashes of signal firing away on the right, besides other gun-flames back below Mule Pass. He held his teeth from chattering to speak. "Curly, old chap, they've wired for a posse up from Naco, and the City Marshal's men are coming down from Bisley. They're closing in on three sides, and we can't escape." Curly said nothing. "Say, Curly, you're not hurt?" "Mosquito bite," said Curly; "look a-here, Jim. If anything goes wrong, you'll find the captain at La Soledad to-morrow." "What captain?" "My father. I made him swear he'd wait. How's yo' buckskin?" "Flagging." "She'll live through all right. Don't you talk any mo'." "You're losing hope?" "There's allus hope," said Curly, "but them stars seem nearer to we-all." They were riding through greasewood bushes and long grass, whilst here and there stood scattered trees of mesquite. That made bad going for horses, but, when they swung aside for better ground, they nearly blundered into an arroyo. Only the dawn grey saved my boys from breaking both their necks in that deep gap, but now they had got to lose the sheltering darkness, their horses were mighty near finished, and three big outfits of riders were closing down all round them. Jim looked up the sky to see if there were miracles a-coming, for nothing less was going to be much use. Then the Naco people came whirling down on the right, and the black arroyo lay broad across their hopes, so they swung north to look for a crossing, and were thrown right out of the hunt. Presently soon my youngsters had another big stroke of luck, because the Bisley crowd missed aim, and had to swing in behind with the men from Grave City. "Jim," says Curly, "has they closed in yet?" "Our wind is covering all three outfits now." Then came a yell from behind, for in the dawn the hunters had caught sight of their meat. Now close ahead loomed something white like a ghost, and Jim let out a screech as it reared up against him sudden. As he shied wide and spurred, he saw the ghost some better--a limewashed monument, the boundary mark of old Mexico. "Saved!" he yelled. "They can't follow beyond the Line." "They cayn't, but they will," says Curly; "fire the grass!" Jim grabbed a hair from the buckskin's mane, took matches from his wallet and bound them into a torch, struck a light to the tip, and held it in his paws against the roaring wind. Then he made shift to swing himself down till the long grass brushed his fingers. He dropped his torch beside a greasewood bush, and cantered on with Curly knee to knee. That flicker in the long grass grew to a blazing star, spread with the flaws of the wind, swayed its small tongues to lick new clumps and pass the word to others just beyond. The bush blazed up with a roar as only greasewood can, and flung its burning sticks upon the storm, so that the fire spread swift as a man could run over acres of greasewood. To the east was mesquite bush, which burns like gun-cotton in a gale of wind. But now the draught of the fire had made that gale a scarlet hurricane with the stride of a running horse, which flushed the flying cloud wrack overhead, and made red day along the mountain flanks. I reckon that if I'd happened with that outfit of hunters, I should have known enough to bear east and circle round the blaze without loss of time; but the leaders saw the burning mesquite grove, and tried to swing west of trouble. There the arroyo barred them, and before they won to the other horn of the fire their horses had gone loco, refusing to face the heat. Anyways, they stampeded with their riders, and I reckon those warriors never stopped to look back until they had thrown themselves safe beyond the railroad. If they had come out for a man-hunt, they got that liberal and profuse beyond their wildest dreams. CHAPTER XIV THE FRONTIER GUARDS Well up to windward of the range fire, that fool horse Jones came to a finish sudden all a-straddle, swaying, nose down, and blood a-dripping. So far Curly had just stayed in the saddle from force of habit, but when the usual motion stopped between his knees he surely forgot to be alive any more, and dropped like a shot bird to grass. As for Jim, he was too stiff to dismount, but the buckskin mare lay down with him complete; so he rolled from the saddle, and managed to stagger around. He uncinched Jones' saddle, eased his mouth of the bit, loosed the mare's girth as she lay, then knelt by Curly feeling him over for wounds. He didn't know until then that Curly had a bullet in the right arm; but all that side was in a mess of dry blood, and when he cut away the coat it began to spurt. He plugged up the hole, made a bandage with his handkerchief, twisted it up with a stick until the blood quit coming, then rolled himself down, dead asleep beside his partner. The big gale roared overhead; a haze of flying dust; the country to the north was a flaming volcano; the sky was a whirl of clouds, all painted purple and crimson with the daybreak; but my kids and their horses cared nothing more at all for storm or fire. Then the skyline along the east began to glow white-hot, burned by the lift of the sun; and stark black against that rode a bunch of horsemen. They were coming from La Morita Custom House to find out what sort of felons had set the range on fire. They were Mexican Frontier Guards. Their lieutenant told me afterwards that when they saw the played-out horses and those two poor kids who lay between them, they thought the whole outfit must be dead. They reckoned up Jim for one of their countrymen, and surely did everything in their power to act merciful. Firing the range comes pretty near being a serious thing, causing inconvenience to cattle, apt to annoy settlers by burning their homes and cooking their wives and families. Naturally that sort of play is discouraged, and the Frontier Guards was only acting up to their lights in arresting my youngsters. Still, they didn't act haughty and oppressive, but sent a rider off to fetch their waggon for the prisoners, and meanwhile made camp and boiled them a drink of coffee. The _teniente_ woke them up, gave them their coffee and told them their sins, while the rest of the greasers, talking all at once, explained what their officer meant. As to Jim and Curly, they were interested in that coffee a whole lot, and ready to excuse the Frontier Guards; but the worries and troubles of a pack of greasers only made them tired; so they told them not to fuss, and slept through the rest of the sermon. When they woke up again, they found themselves in prison. That calaboose at La Morita is built of the usual adobe, sun-dried brick, with a ceiling of cactus sticks laid on beams to carry a couple of feet of solid earth. A 'dobe house is the next thing to comfort in a climate like ours, where the sun will scorch a man's hide worse than boiling water. The Frontier Guards had laid clean hay on the dirt floor, and hung an _olla_ of water to cool in the draught, but when my boys woke up they were sure puzzled, for the night had fallen, the moon was not yet stirring, and the place was surely dark as a wolf's mouth. Stiff and sore from hard riding, Jim got up to grope in the darkness, ravaging around in search of grub. He found hay and water, but nothing else, so thought he must have been changed into a horse, and set up a howl for corn. Then he attracted Curly's notice by tumbling over his bed. "How many laigs have yo' got?" says Curly, "'cause that's ample. Catch me some water." Jim reached down the hanging jar, and Curly drank. "I been waiting hours for that," says he; "now sluice my arm." Jim threw cool water on the wound. "Is it very bad?" he asked. "It's sure attracting my attention, Jim." "Can I do anything?" "Yes, next time you're falling around don't use my laigs--they're private. Whar is this place?" Jim looked up at a window-gap, high in the 'dobe wall, and saw the starlight checkered with iron bars; then listening, he heard a muttering of Spanish talk, and noticed the door of the cell lined out with a glimmer from the guardroom. "It smells bad, like a trap," said Curly. "I wonder," says Jim, "what time they feed the animals? I'm starving." "My two sides," says Curly, "is rubbing together, and I'm sure sorrowful. We done got captured somehow." "I remember now. They gave us coffee. They must have been Frontier Guards--so this is La Morita." "Why did they gather us in? We didn't spoil any greasers." "No, but we fired the grass." "It was not their grass--we set fire to Arizona." "I don't think they mind," says Jim, "whose grass we burned. They've got us, and they won't worry about the details. You see, they've got to make a play at being useful, old chap, or else their Government would get tired and forget to send their wages." "What will they do to us?" "Keep us three days to cool, then find us guilty, and send us down to Fronteras." "I remember," says Curly, "when I was riding that year for Holy Cross I saw----" "The little wayside crosses?" "Yes, everywhere on the Mexican side of the line--the little wooden grave signs by the trail." Curly and Jim sat there in the dark, and thought of the wooden crosses. They understood, but I believe it's up against me to explain for folks who don't know that country. You see, there used to be only two industries in old Mexico, silver mining and stealing, but most of the people made a living by robbing each other. Then the great President Diaz came along, who had been a robber himself. He called up all the robbers he'd known in the way of business, and hired them as a sort of Mounted Rangers and Frontier Guards to wipe out the rest of the thieves. That made the whole Republic peaceful, but when there were no more robbers to shoot, the Rangers and Guards began to feel monotonous, the country being plumb depleted of game. Well, thanks to Diaz, Mexico has gone so tame that life ain't really worth living, and the Frontier Guards are scared of being disbanded because they're obsolete. Likewise the Mexican people are so humane that they don't allow capital punishment, and the Guards feel a heap discouraged about what few prisoners they catch. They're fearful pleased if they get a thief who doesn't happen to be their own cousin, most especially if he's a white man, real game and in season. That's why they lash him hands and feet to a horse, trot him off into the desert, and take pot shots at him by way of practice. Afterwards they report him for 'attempted escape.' His relations are allowed to bury him comfortable, and put up a cross to his memory. That is why the trails along the Mexican frontier are all lined with neat little crosses. "You reckon," says Curly, "that we'll have little crosses?" "It's beastly awkward," says Jim, "but we've got to take our medicine." "And yet I dunno," says Curly, thoughtful about those crosses; "if we get spoilt that way, the United States won't be pleased. You see, there's a reward out for me, and yo're wanted bad, so Uncle Sam will be asking Mexico, and say, 'Why did you shoot my meat?'" The voices in the guardroom had quit muttering, but now a horseman pulled up at the front door. "_Buenas noches hombre!_" And somebody answered: "_Buenas tardes señor!_" Then talk began in Spanish. "Can a feed of corn be bought here for the horse? He arrives from Grave City." "What news of the gringoes?" "_Muchos._ El Señor Don Rex has been shot." "Don Rex has been murdered?" "No, it was a fight. It must be understood that his son, Don Santiago----" "What, El Chico?" "Yes, El Chico 'Jim,' had a feud against the very rich Señor Ryan. He hired ladrones from the north, the Robbers' Roost Gang it is called, to murder Señor Ryan. It seems the ladrones wore masks, and they were led by a young robber named Curly, for whom great rewards are offered--two thousand pesos d'oro, dead or alive." "What a reward!" "Yes, El Chico and this Curly led the robbers, and they attacked Señor Ryan in the 'Sepulchre' saloon. El Chico killed Señor Ryan himself, and wounded Miguel his son. There are many witnesses, and a warrant is out against Don Santiago for that murder. I saw the warrant." "But you say Don Rex was killed?" "He also; many others were killed in the battle. Curly shot Louisiana and another also. Then these ladrones escaped from the city." "But the population!" "You judge well, corporal--the population followed. There was riding!" "And yet these ladrones escaped?" "So, except El Chico and Curly, the two leaders. The posse caught them near Las Salinas." "And got the great reward--two thousand pesos d'oro!" "But wait. These two caballeros would not submit, but fought and killed a lot more citizens; yes, even escaped. They reached the iron-way which runs down towards Bisley, and there again they fought terribly. Then the big posse chased them clear through to the boundary-line." "They were not caught!" "They fired the desert!" "Car-r-amba!" "Yes, stampeded a hundred riders! You must have seen the fire at dawn this morning." "Todos Santos! That was El Chico Santiago disguised as a _vaquero_?" "Yes, and Curly as a farm boy--you saw them?" "Man, we've got them here in chains! Two thousand pesos d'oro! _Por Dios!_ You have made me rich with your news!" "In chains, corporal? Then they did not escape after all! They fought like caballeros, and now they'll be claimed for extradition, taken back, and hanged! _Hombre_, that's no death for caballeros! How did you ever take such fighters, corporal?" "Oh, just arrested them." "But they fought a hundred Americanos!" "Yes, yes, but we are Frontier Guards--me and another man; we just arrested them, that's all. Two thousand pesos!" "They fought?" "Oh, yes, we had to disable one of them; in fact I myself shot him through the pistol arm. Then they surrendered, made their bow to force. Two thousand golden dollars!" "Miraculous! Well, señor corporal, may it be permitted to ask where forage is sold?" "Certainly, step this way. I, Pablo Juarez, rich! Two thousand! Santa Catalina, thou shalt have candles, a box of candles!" The voices faded out, and Jim lay back, wiping the sweat from his face. "Wheugh"--then he burst out laughing--"the liars," he howled, "the gentle, earnest liars! Oh, pat me, Curly, for I'm weak--the lop-eared, spavined, sway-backed, cock-eyed liars!" But Curly was shy of Spanish, and wanted the news. "What liars?" "Everybody--they're all liars--the whole world--liars! Liars! They couldn't leave it to facts, which are bad enough, but they've lied, and sworn to lies and perjured themselves with oaths, the thugs, the dirty bar-room toughs, selling their souls to that young Ryan--and made a remnant sale of themselves for witnesses that I murdered an old man!" "What, Ryan? It wasn't you who spoiled old Ryan. It was your father in honest fighting!" "Who cares for honesty when there's a millionaire to pay for souls in cash? They swear that I hired you and all your robbers to have old Ryan murdered, then did the killing myself, and turned loose your gang to massacre Ryan's friends--the cowards, the lying cowards!" "But them boys with masks was Chalkeye's riders, and he just covered their faces, Jim, to save them afterwards." "And who'll believe that? Here's a millionaire to buy the witnesses, the lawyers, the judge, the law! The only man who was there and can't be bribed is that leary old cow-thief Chalkeye, but he's mixed up with us, and likely enough a prisoner by now. Do you think that a Grave City court of justice would believe an honest man? No, we're trapped, and we're sold, and we're going to be butchered now." "Well," says Curly in that slow, soft way he had, "I allow it's done you good to turn yo' wolf loose, and you've shorely howled; it done me good to hear all the cussing said while I lay restin'. That's relieved me a lot and made me plumb forgetful of being in pain." Jim began talking haughty, and wanted to know if Curly liked the notion of being hanged. "That I shorely do," says Curly very soft. "You see, only a while back we was going to be taken out sudden and shot--which it was a caution to yaller snakes only to think of. That didn't make me happy a lil' bit, but now we got more prospects, a slow trial coming, time to turn around in, and think out how to escape." That sobered Jim, but it made him hostile, too. "Youngster, will nothing scare you?" he asked; "can't get a whimper out of you even for company's sake--you're so beastly selfish." Curly rolled over, resting his face on his hand. "I was raised that way," says he very quiet, "goin' to be shot up or hung most of the time. It's a risky thing bein' alive when you come to think of it, eh? We-all is mighty or'nary folks in a trifling sort of world, Jim; but I reckon it's sure nice being heah. We got sweet range hay to lie on, and hopes of a feed in the mawning; the place is sure quiet, but we cayn't complain of being dull. As to our lil' worries, I don't fuss about crossing a river until I done reached the bank." "I wish," Jim groaned, "that I'd got half your courage." "I've suffered some," says Curly, "and I reckon that what you call courage is just training. Now you, Jim, you lie down, and think about something to eat, and presently yo're goin' to drop off asleep, dreaming of good camps where there's feed and water. If that ain't good I'll wake you up in the night, so's you'll get two sleeps, which is even better'n one." CHAPTER XV MOSTLY CHALKEYE The loss of my near eye has led to a lot of mistakes on my part, specially when I mistook the brands on cows and horses, thought they belonged to me, and adopted the poor lone critters--I've always been fond of animals, anyway. Again, I argue that a person with two eyes had ought to see much more truth than I can with only one eye; but I don't find that folks are liberal in making allowances. They call me hard names instead. Now that was specially the case over the Ryan inquest. I testified that old man Ryan died a natural death, because it would have been completely unnatural for Balshannon to miss him at five paces. Moreover, as I saw things, Jim never fired at all until Ryan was dead, and only began to shoot when he saw young Michael turning loose for battle. Judge Sprynkes, Acting Assistant Deputy-Coroner, allowed that I had been a whole lot present at the fight, and was entitled to my one-eyed point of view; but then, he remarked to the jury that the witness was well known to have such a defective vision with regard to cows that the evidence was tarnished on the point at issue. "Judge," says I, "this is a court of justice, and I'd like to see everybody getting a fair show. Now, as judge, you're sure incorruptible and righteous." "Come to the point," says Sprynkes. "But," says I, "if Judge Sprynkes finds that the late Mr. Ryan met his death in a fair duel with Balshannon--then----" "Well?" "Then there's a citizen named Mr. Sprynkes who's apt to be reminded by the Ryan estate that he owes a heap of money!" On that we had considerable rough house, until the judge called the meeting to order. Then he remarked, sort of casual, that he knew a citizen named Sprynkes who was apt to shoot at sight when he met up with a certain notorious horse-thief called Chalkeye Davies. So my evidence for Jim was set aside, I was pitched out of the court, and for the next few days had to keep a wary eye on citizen Sprynkes. He was an awful poor sportsman, and mostly always missed; but once I got a bullet through my hat. Afterwards Mr. Sprynkes admitted to his friends that he preferred a restful landscape and a less bracing climate beyond the range of my guns--so he pulled out for Yuma, and I saw his kind face no more. Now I don't want to say anything unkind about Judge Sprynkes, or his jury, or his witnesses, in that inquest on Mr. Ryan; but for Jim's sake it is needful to point out some facts which were remarkable. Of the people who stayed in the "Sepulchre" saloon to attend the gun-fight, eight were unable to testify, being dead, three because they had gone to hospital, two because they were engaged elsewhere at La Morita, and one, which is me, on account of defective vision. Of the rest, the most part lit out from Grave City, and totally disappeared. There remained Mr. Michael, two bar-tenders, and four other citizens, the only people who gave evidence. These witnesses swore on oath that Jim came to the gun-fight attended by Curly McCalmont and ten masked robbers. They also swore on oath that Jim fired the first shot, killing Mr. Ryan. The Court returned a verdict that George Ryan came to his death at the hands of James du Chesnay, and recommended his arrest upon the charge of deliberate wilful murder. I am not complaining. The Court represented the majesty of the people, and that august flag, Old Glory, waving above us. It was a right enough Court, even if justice had strayed out and got itself lost for a while. I make no complaint, because I reckon that a still mightier Court than ours is sitting up above the starry sky to watch over fatherless kids who don't get a fair show on earth, to save them as gets desolate and oppressed, to vindicate justice upon low-lived swabs, liars, and cowards. I said nothing, but just stayed good and acted responsible, being in a minority of one against the entire city. The only time I ventured on any remarks was when I happened accidentally to meet up with Mr. Michael. He, the Mayor, the City Marshal, and a few friends were taking a drink together at the hotel. "Good morning, Ryan," says I, but I kept my voice all smooth for fear of rucking up my temper to no advantage. "Good morning, sir," says Ryan. "I come to congratulate you," says I, "on the hearty liberal way you've been acting." "I thank you, Mr. Davies," says he, sort of ironic. "Don't mention it," says I, "for I ain't done no kindness to you, and I don't aim for cash or thanks in what I say." He reached for his gun, which was hazardous and apt to get fatal, only the City Marshal grabbed him before I had to fire. "Let me be," says Ryan; "this man insults me!" "No," says I, "that would be impossible. I only congratulate you on the whole-hearted generous way you assisted a destitute judge, and them poor hungry witnesses." "Easy, my friend," says the Marshal, "I'm 'most deaf, but if I hear any contempts of court----" "If you're feeling any contempt of court, Mr. City Marshal, you shares my emotions. And you, gentlemen," I turned on the crowd, "if you feel any shame for the city and for any of the present company, I can only say I share that shame most bitter." The air was getting sultry, with just a faint flicker of guns. "If any of you gentlemen," says I, "is feeling unwell for pills, just let him step outside with me, and I'll prescribe. If not, excuse me, for I smell something dead in this company, and I'm aiming to refresh my nose in the open." I paced back, step by step, through the door. "My address," says I, "if I live, will be Las Salinas, and there you'll find a man who cayn't see to tell the truth, but can see a whole lot to shoot. Gentlemen, _adios_!" So I got my horse, swung to the saddle, and walked him backwards until I was out of range, but nobody offered himself up to serve for my target. I reckon that the funeral ceremonies in honour of the late Mr. Ryan and friends made an event in the annals of Grave City. The caskets and wreaths, the hearses and carriages, the band and procession, made the people feel uplifted with solemn pride and haughty to strangers for a full month afterwards. As the Weekly Obituary pointed out in large type, the occasion was great, and a city which had flourished for twenty-two prosperous years was able to give points to mere mushroom towns like Bisley, Benson, and Lordsburgh. The newspapers in those three rival burghs made light of the affair in a way which displayed mean envy and a nasty, carping spirit. As for me, I had got myself disliked a whole lot, so I felt it would be most decent not to attend the exercises. I had a feeling that if called upon to reply to any shooting, I might disturb the harmony which should always attend a scene of public grief. Besides that, it fell to me to arrange the burial of my old patrone, which it was difficult, the preachers, coffins, hearses, carriages, and all the funeral fixtures being engaged that day, and likewise also the graveyard. I had to go without. Moreover, the cowboys were mostly away at work on the round-up, so I only caught eight of my tribe to help me. We laid our friend on a blanket, then four of us gripped the corners up to the horns of our saddles and rode slow, the other boys coming behind until we got to the place where we had dug the grave. There was only one man of us all well educated, and that was Monte, who had been raised for a preacher before he broke loose to punch cows. Monte was shot in the face, weak, and feverish, so I had to feed him whiskey before he felt proud enough for his job. He read the service, the rest of us standing round, and when he was through we fired a volley before we filled the grave and piled rocks to keep off wild animals. That was a proper stockman's funeral, away out on a hilltop in the desert, and I reckon the Great Father in heaven knew we had done our best in a brave man's honour. CHAPTER XVI ARRANGING FOR MORE TROUBLE See what the geography-book says about Arizona--the same size as England? Shucks! There's homely ignorance from an office duck who dreams he can use a tape-measure to size up a desert. In England, if you wander round after dark, you're apt to fall off and get wet in the ocean. But you can sure stray off the edge of Arizona without the least chance of a wet, because the desert just rolls on more continuous than ever, till you're due to die of thirst. There's a practical difference in size, which your book theorist wouldn't be apt to survive. Again, by the books we're a community of sixty thousand pink and white citizens, all purely yearning for right and justice. By the facts, we're really split up into two herds--the town men, who use the law, and the range men, who naturally prefer a six-gun. I aim politely to say the best I can for the town men. You see, if a gentleman feels that he's just got to waltz in and rob the graves of his own parents, one may not understand his symptoms, but one has to try and think of him charitable. Our town men has mostly been found out acting self-indulgent, and been chased around by the police. That's why they flocked to Arizona, which is convenient at the Gates of Hades, with the Breath of Flame by way of excuse for a climate. There's a sort of comfortable, smell-your-future-home feeling about old Arizona which attracts such ducks. Anywhere else they would get their necks stretched, but in Arizona they can elect judges and police out of their own tribe. Then if they happen to indulge in a little bigamy, or thieving, or shooting, the lawyers get them off. They love the law which proves them up innocent, so you may class them all as law-abiding citizens. Now as to us plainsmen. The bad side of us is plumb apparent to the naked eye, and if there's a good side it's known to our friends, not advertised to strangers. We ain't claiming to be law-abiding citizens when we know the judge for a sure-thing politician, the lawyers for runaway gaol-birds, and the jury all for sale at the rate of a dollar a thief. We're lawless, sure enough, until we see the law dealt out by honest men. Are you fed up with one-eyed sermons from a cow-thief? Well, suppose we apply the facts. Here was two boys of our tribe bogged down to their withers in trouble. The town men howled for their blood, young Ryan offered plenty wealth for their raw scalps, the law claimed them for meat--and every plainsman on the range got right up on his hind legs for war. To our way of thinking robbery and killing are bad medicine, but innocent, holy joys compared with Arizona law. So naturally by twos and threes the punchers quit work on the round-up to come and smell at old Grave City and find out why she'd got a swollen head. They hung around saloons, projecting to see if something had gone wrong with the local breed of whisky; they gathered and made war-talk in the street; they came around me, wanting to know whether or not to break out and eat that town. "Boys," says I, "if you-all stalks round with mean eyes and dangerous smiles, these here citizens is going to hole up in their cyclone cellars and send for the army. We don't want the army messing around our game. Just you whirl in now and play signs of peace, and make good medicine. Lay low, give yo' ponies a strong feed--and wait for the night." "Chalkeye," says one of them, "is this to be war?" "If it was war," I told him, "I'd first send you home to yo' mother. No, kid, this is going to be smooth peace, but we're going to knock Grave City cold with astonishment. Get plenty ammunition, feed yo' horse, and wait my gathering howl for a signal." It was high noon when Captain McCalmont came straying down into Main Street on a "painted" horse. At Ryan's livery stable he allowed he was an unworthy minister, wanting water and feed for the piebald pony. At the Delmonico pie foundry he let out that he craved for sausages, mashed potatoes, and green tea. Then he had a basin of bread-and-milk, while he told the dish-slinger a few solemn truths. Apple-pie, says he, was a delusion; eating tobacco was a snare; intoxicating drink was only vanity on the lips, but raging wild-cats to the inward parts. The proper doctrine, says he, is to eschew all evil, but the wicked man leaves out that saving syllable _es_, and chews evil all the time. Then he allowed that a toothpick would do him no harm, paid for his meal, and strayed out across the street to where I stood dealing peace among the cowboys. "Little sinners," says he, "I perceive that you have fallen into evil company. This Chalkeye man is a pernicious influence, which would corrupt the morals of a grizzly bear. Flee from this Chalkeye person." They wanted to take him into the nearest saloon and enjoy him for the rest of the day. "Kin you dance?" says one of the boys, aiming a gun at his toes. "Whirl right in and dance!" McCalmont walked right at him, eye to eye, and that same cowboy went as white as death. "Shall I abate you," says the preacher, "in the midst of yo' sins? You done wrong--you done ate tobacco and chocolate candy mixed, then poured on hot cawfee, rye whisky, and an ice-cream soda; and now yo're white as a corpse with mixed sins. Go take a pill, my son, and repent before yo're sick." The boys watched that preacher smiling, and went tame as kittens. The tone of his voice just froze them up, his smile scraped their young bones, his eyes looked death. "Come, Chalkeye," says he, and led me off into the "Spur" saloon. There he threw a glance to Cranky Joe, the bar-keep, and put his finger on Mutiny Robertson, a smuggler who sat playing poker. Cranky put someone in charge of the bar, Mutiny passed his game to a friend of his, and both of them followed meek as sheep, while the preacher led on into the backyard. From there we worked round the back street to Ryan's stable, McCalmont keeping up his baby-talk for the sake of passing strangers. "Ah," says he, "my young friends, these deleterious pleasures change peaceful stomachs into seats of war; but the sausage soothes, the milk assuages, the pie persuades, and b'ar sign is sure good to fill up corners. Beware of vanities, and when we get to the stable-yard let Mutiny here stand guard in case I'm attacked, while I expound the blessedness of simple things. Well, here we are--you Mutiny, fall back, you lop-eared mongrel; I'm dying for a chew of 'baccy, and I'd give my off lung for a cocktail." Mutiny stood guard, Cranky hustled off to get liquor. "I got a line of retreat from here," says Captain McCalmont, "and a saddled hawss within reach. No, not that painted plug, but a sure crackerjack, which can burn the trail if I'm chased. How's things, you Chalkeye?" "Clouding for storm," says I; "the air's a-crackling." "Why for?" I told him about his son, holed up in gaol with Jim at La Morita. "I been projecting around thar last night"--the Captain was eating my plug tobacco like bread. "Was it you sent that doctor to Curly's wound?" "Sure thing, sir. Why?" He grabbed my paw. "You're white all through," says he; "that kid is all I care for in this world." "Can they escape?" "I dropped a crowbar through the window-hole." "The guards will be full curious when they hear the crowbar thumping." "That's what's the matter. I sent some Holy Crawss greasers to feed them liquor, games, and music--'specially music." "Will the Frontier Guards miss the big blood money for the sake of a flirt at skin games?" "I reckon they'll watch, and the crowbar's going to be heard. So I made a run to see you. Here comes Cranky Joe." "You trust him?" "The sight of him makes my fur crawl." "Here, Captain," says Cranky, offering the cocktail; but the outlaw bored him through with a cool eye. "My name," says he, "is the Reverend Perkins, and don't you forget. Now you'll send Mutiny here, and you'll stand on guard yourself. If I get captured, a friend of mine is to send your present name and address to the penitentiary, where you're wanted most--so here's to your freedom." He drank, and we watched the man sneak off. "I turned him out of my gang," said the robber, "for being dishonest." Mutiny strolled in and shook hands. "Old friend," says he, "what can we do to help?" "Watch Joe, and shoot him up quick if he tries to pass that gate." So Mutiny pulled his gun. "How's all the boys?" he asked. "You're honing to come back to being a robber?" "Cayn't," Mutiny groaned, "I've sure repented and turned smuggler now. Besides, I'm due to get married, so I'm dead tame and gentle, boss. What brought you south?" "You may inquire, seh." "Ain't you trusting me?" "Well, Mutiny, since you want to know, I came down to hold up a train." "Big plunder?" "I expaict. It was a carload of birds' teeth, cat feathers, and frawgs' tails; but there's too many inquiry agents around, so I missed the train." Mutiny had to laugh, but then he sighed. "If anything goes wrong with my girl," says he, "I'll come scratch on yo' door." "Wall"--the outlaw looked mighty serious--"if she happens to get drowned in the desert--perhaps we'll see you come. Now let's to business. Them kids at La Morita has to be collected, I reckon." "Why come to we-all?" says Mutiny,--"ain't the gang handy at rescues?" "My wolves would jump at the chance; I choked them off." "For how?" "Bekase"--the Captain turned his haunted eyes on me--"I don't want them po' youngsters mixed in with thieves." "You wanted me mixed again," says Mutiny through his teeth. "Sonny"--the outlaw laid his hand on Mutiny's shoulder--"you been a bad aig same as me, and we'd be hard to spoil. But these aigs at La Morita is new-laid, fresh aigs, so I wan' them to keep." "You're right, boss." "Mutiny, I sent you away for yo' good, 'ecause that girl may pull you up if anything can on airth. As for me, wall, I don't know as I care what becomes of me. I tried to turn good one't--tried mortal hard to run straight. I envy every honest man I see. I'm like a crawling snake, ambitious for bird wings to fly with; but still I'm no more than snake." "The kids have a chance all right," says Mutiny. "They have. A year ago I couldn't have drove my Curly away from the gang, but now he's paired with that du Chesnay youngster. Them colts won't care for the herd if they can run together, so I've got Curly weaned from following me to--to damnation." "Mutiny," says I, "will you help me to gather in these boys?" "I shorely will," says Mutiny; "but hadn't we ought to wait until they're moved up this way for trial?" "Wall," says the outlaw, "if I kin get to fight with a small man, I don't yearn for anything larger. Whirl in on La Morita, and you're fighting Mexico; wait for a move, and you're up against the hull United States. I'd rather have a lick at lil' ole Mexico." I told him that I had a town full of cowboys hard to hold. "That kind won't keep," says Mutiny; "what's yo' plan?" "I aimed," says I, "to steal young Ryan, and throw him into La Morita by way of consolation for them poor Frontier Guards when they miss their plunder." "Now don't you touch my meat," says Captain McCalmont; "I have to feed my little small lambs on him. Now, Misteh Davies." "Answers to the name of Chalkeye mostly." "Wall, Chalkeye, this is the second time we meet," he bored into me with his eyes; "I understand that Balshannon's will makes you some sort of guardian of his colt." "I reckon he needs a friend." "Will you be a friend to my son?" "Not more than I been already." "Mutiny," says he, "you witness that I, Captain McCalmont, thief, and general manager of the Robbers' Roost gang of outlaws, appoints this Chalkeye Davies guardian of Curly." "I witnesses." "Moreover, I aim to corrupt this Chalkeye by handing him stolen money." He passed me a heavy roll of notes worth fifty thousand dollars, which is ten thousand pounds by English reckoning. "My friend," he said, "take these two kids away out of this country--break them dead gentle, keep them clean, make them forget." He gave me a letter. "Read this when you're alone." "You trust me?" I asked. "You trust yo'self?" "Mutiny," says I, "you'll help?" "Poor Mutiny," said the robber, "might help himself." "On the dead thieving," says Mutiny, "that's so!" Then he grinned at me. "Look a-here, Chalkeye, this means that yo' pull out and hit the long trail. Now I want a home for my girl. How much will yo' take for yo' ranche?" "I'll see you later, Mutiny, and talk; and now shake hands, McCalmont. To-night I'll be on hand like a sore thumb, at La Morita." CHAPTER XVII THE REAL CURLY Throwing back along my trail, I notice that I've mentioned a whole lot of points about Curly which made him unusual, different from other boys. Remember how he balked and shied at Holy Cross until we allowed him to hole up in a den of his own. He was sure wild and scary of railroads, towns, or a strange house. Except with his own folks, the Balshannon outfit, and me, he was dumb as a bear, and showed wild-eyed fright when strangers spoke to him. The meanest horses went tame at a word from him; no dog ever barked at him except with tail signals of joy; cats followed him around, and any animal who was hurt or in trouble would run to Curly for help. Even the deer knew his calls, and would come quite near while he spoke to them in that low soft voice of his. That voice never broke gruff with manhood, but just stayed sweet, like the sound of running water. He had a strong face, stern as our desert country, tanned, beautiful no end, so that one caught one's breath at the very sight of him. His smile turned me weak; his voice went through me, and I'm a sure hard case. Everybody just had to love that Curly--a born rider, a wonderful scout, a dead shot, a dangerous fighter, who bore pain like an Indian, and had heaps more sense and courage than Jim his partner. Why do I say all this? Well, from the first, I saw that Curly youngster was undersized and weak, with a narrow chest and wide hips more like a girl than a boy. A right proper man is strong, rough, hardy; he ought to have a temper and be master, ready to work and fight for his women folk. That Curly broke down and sobbed like a girl after the gun-fight, and in a hundred soft ways was not a proper man. There were often times when I wanted to turn in and lam his head. Then I didn't, but somehow knew that Nature had played some scurvy trick on that well-meaning youngster. Well, Jim was younger than me, so there's some excuse for him. He was rough on Curly--hostile and contemptuous when the little partner acted feminine. He owned up afterwards he'd behaved like a brute to that poor wounded, helpless critter, loving him all the while, but acting coarse; that humbled Curly, who weakened under his tongue lash, cried at times, and lay for hours sucking the wound on his arm, dumb like a dying animal. Both youngsters were surely miserable on the second and third days they lay together in prison. It was on the second morning that I sent down a doctor from Bisley to fix up Curly's wound. Late that evening, towards midnight, a crowbar dropped down through the window-gap in the wall, and Jim began to labour out a hole for their escape. He dug out bricks of 'dobe one by one, and while he worked he made poor Curly sing hour after hour, to hide up the sound of the crowbar. Shall I tell you one of the songs? It's a cowboy tune for smoothing the feelings of driven cattle while they bed themselves down for night. "Soh, Bossie, soh! The water's handy neah, The grass is plenty heah, An' all the stars a-sparkle Bekase we drive no mo'-- We drive no mo'! The long trail ends to-day, The long trail ends to-day, The punchers go to play, And all you weary cattle May sleep in peace for sure-- Sleep, sleep fo' sure. The moon cayn't bite you heah, Nor punchers fright you heah, And you-all will be beef befo' We need you any mo'-- We need you mo'!" When morning broke Jim piled hay on the burrow he'd made in the foot of the wall, and lay on top, dead weary to get some sleep. At ten o'clock the doctor from Bisley found Curly still singing, light-headed, talking nonsense. The patient said he was a bear, so the doctor gave sleep medicine, and sat beside him. At noon he fed the boys their dinner and went away, but they didn't wake again until supper-time, when the man on guard came in. "What's for supper?" says Curly. "_Tortillas_, _frijoles_, coffee--same as usual." "Eat it," says Curly, "'cause I'm only a bear holed up for winter. We don't eat in winter anyways." "Bears have their coffee," says Jim. "Oh yes, of course," and Curly fed coffee to the winter bear. That cleared his head, and he sat up watching Jim at work on the little round dishes. The food was _frijoles_, the same being beans, and _tortillas_, which is a thin corn-cake, pretty much the same as brown fly-papers, warm and damp, but sort of uninteresting to taste. The coffee was in a brown earthen pot, fresh from the fire, and mighty encouraging. Those three things make the proper feed for Mexicans, the same being simple, uninstructed people, knowing no better. When they feast they make a stew of red pepper, and take a little meat with it; but that dish is a luxury, and hot enough to burn a hole through a brick. When Jim had eaten everything in sight he started cigarettes, listening to a banjo in the guardroom, a growing hum of talk, and the click of cups, for some Holy Cross riders were there with a jar of cactus spirit, a deck of cards, and other inducements sent in by Captain McCalmont. Jim heard them talking war because they'd never been paid off at Holy Cross, and had six months' wages coming. They allowed that el Chico their young patrone ought to hang, and the guards agreed that such was probable. To-morrow the prisoners were going to be collected by the United States authorities for trial. Jim looked at his partner for comfort, but saw big tears rolling down Curly's face. "You ought to be ashamed of that," says he. "It cayn't be helped." Curly swept his arm across his face. "You Jim, we got to part to-night." "You wild ass of the desert! What's the matter now?" "You're goin' through that hole to find yo' liberty, but I stay here." "Stay, and be hanged to you." "I got to. How should I be with this wound out there on the range?" "I'll see to that, youngster. It's only a little way to La Soledad, and I'll get you through. It may hurt, but it's not so bad as being hanged." "I cayn't travel. We're due to be caught and killed. You go alone, Jim." "We go together and live, or we stay together and die. Take your choice, Curly." "Oh, I cayn't bear it--you don't understand!" "I understand you're a little coward!" "That's no dream." "You own to being a coward?" "Yes. All these years I've tried to play the game, to be a boy, to live a boy's life, but now--I'd rather die, and get it finished." "Why?" "I've been off my haid last night and all to-day. This pain has stampeded me, and I'm goin' crazy. To-night the pain is worse. I'll be making fool talk, giving myself away, and you'll find me out. It's better to own up than to be found out." "To own up what?" "Oh, don't be hard on me, Jim! I tried so hard! I was born for a boy, I had to be a boy. Don't you see, girls was plumb impossible in a gang of robbers!" "Have you gone mad?" "Oh, you cayn't understand, and it's so hard to say." Curly lay face downwards, hiding a shamed face. "My mother must have made a mistake--I wasn't bawn for a boy." "Good gracious!" "I had to be raised for a boy--it had to be done. What else was possible at the Robbers' Roost?" "And you're not a boy!" "God help me, I'm only a girl." "You, a girl?" "Oh, don't be hard on me--it ain't my fault! I tried so hard to be a man--but I'm crazy with pain--and I wisht I was daid!" "But I can't believe--it can't be true. Why, I've seen you ride--the first horseman in Arizona, scout, cowboy, desperado, wanted for robbery and murder--you a girl!" "Have pity! Don't! Don't talk like that--I'm not so bad as you think--I never robbed--I never----" "You killed men to save my life. Oh, Curly, I'm so sorry I talked like that--I take it all back. I must have been _loco_ to call you a coward--I wish I'd half your courage! I never knew a woman could be brave; my mother wasn't, and all the girls I've known--they weren't like you. Oh, the things you've seen me do, the things I've said--treating you no better than a boy. Can you ever forgive the way I treated you?" One little hand stole out and touched him: "Stop--talk no more." A _vaquero_ was singing for all he was worth in the guardroom, to the strum of a guitar, while hands clapped out the time-- "I could not be so well content, So sure of thee, Señorita, Lolita; But well I know thou must relent And come to me, Lolita!" Jim set to work to finish his hole in the wall, prying out the 'dobe bricks with his crowbar, and he sure wrought furious, timing his strokes to the clapping hands, the guitar, and the swinging chorus-- "The caballeros throng to see Thy laughing face, Señorita, Lolita; But well I know thy heart's for me, Thy charm, thy grace, Lolita! "I ride the range for thy dear sake, To earn thee gold, Señorita, Lolita; And steal the gringo's cows to make A ranche to hold Lolita!" The cactus liquor was getting in its work, the guardroom crowded up all it would hold of soldiers, _vaqueros_, customs men, travellers; then there was dancing, singing, gambling, squabbling, all the row which belongs to a general drunk. Curly was fretted up to high fever, riding herd on a bunch of dream cows, and Jim was pouring in his strength on the 'dobe bricks. At two in the morning the Frontier Guards began to make war talk, wanting to turn the prisoners loose, with a prize for the soldier who got first kill with a gun. On that the Holy Cross _vaqueros_ proposed to rescue their young patrone, and wipe out the Frontier Guards. There was considerable rough house with knife and gun, until the guards subdued the _vaqueros_, jumped on their heads, and herded them into No. 2 cell as prisoners of war. The _vaqueros_ were just moaning for blood, the Guards turned loose to celebrate their victory with more drinks, and while the row was enough to drown artillery, Jim's crowbar drove a brick which fell outside the wall. Now he had only to pry 'dobes loose one by one until the hole was big enough to let out prisoners. Sometimes he had to quit and hold his breath while the sentry came reeling past along his beat. Once he had to play dead, because a drunken sergeant rolled into the cell to give him a drink of _meseal_. The sergeant called him brother, hugged him, kissed him, cried, and went away. At three o'clock Jim crawled out through the hole with his crowbar, lay for the sentry, jumped up behind, clubbed him, and got the rifle. Then he dragged Mr. Sentry into the cell, wrapped him in Curly's blanket, and made up a dummy to look like himself in case the sergeant of the guard should remember to call again. "Curly," he shook his partner out of sleep. "Curly, the spring time is coming--it's time for little bears to come out of hole." "Yo' gawn all foolish," says Curly, "callin' me a bear. I done forget who I am, but I'm too sure sick to be a bear." "Let's play bear," says Jim, mighty shy; "I'll bet you I'm first through this hole!" The guardroom had gone quiet, the men there being just sober enough not to fall off the floor, but the sergeant was droning with the guitar, sobbing out the tail end of the old Lolita song-- "I ride the range for thy dear sake, To win thee gold, S'rita, Lolita, To steal the gringo's cow-ow-ow----" Curly was first out through the hole, chasing dream bears. "The wind's in the west," she said, looking at the big stars above. "Crawl up the wind," Jim whispered. "We want our horses; where are they?" Curly sat up snuffing at the wind, then pointed. "The hawss smell's thar," she said, "but there's a scent of pony-soldiers too--many soldiers." Jim trailed over cat-foot to the stable and looked in through the door. A lantern hung in the place, and some of the Frontier Guards sat round a box on the hay gambling earnest. If he went off to a distance, and handed out a few shots to draw the guard away searching, he reckoned there might be time to sneak round and steal a horse before they began to stray back. But then there was Curly all delirious with fever, and whimpering small wolf calls, so that every dog in the place had started to bark. The wolf calls had to be stopped, and a new dream started which would keep the little partner good and silent. That is why Jim took a handful of dust which he said was salt. "Come along, Curly," he whispered, "we're going to stalk the buffalo; to still hunt the buffalo; we must be fearfully quiet, or we'll never put the salt on their tails. Don't you see?" "But the buffalo's all gawn extinct!" "Oh, that's all right; it's not their fault, poor things. Come on, and we'll salt their tails." "I'm sort of tired," says Curly right out loud, and Jim went cold with fright. He could hear the soldiers squabbling over their game not fifty feet away, then the sound of somebody's footsteps rambling over from the guard-house. A soldier staggered drunk within two yards of him, and rolled in at the stable door. "Come on, old chap," Jim whispered; "I'm your horse, so climb on my back, and we'll travel." So he put the little partner on his back, and staggered away into the desert. He had one cartridge in the gun, no water, only the stars to guide him, and at sunrise the Frontier Guards would see his tracks. There was no hope. CHAPTER XVIII THE WHITE STAR As soon as Captain McCalmont was clear of the city I meandered in a casual way around the saloons, taking a drink here, a cigar there, passing the word for a meeting of cowboys only. They were to ride out by twos and threes for home in the usual way, but the time for the meeting was sunset, and the place a slope of hillside beyond Balshannon's grave. There we gathered to the number of thirty head, and Mutiny rode into the bunch to cut out any strangers who might have strayed with the herd. There being no strays, I spoke-- "Boys, you-all knows who was buried here on the hilltop. He was my friend, and a sure friend of all range men." Some of the boys uncovered, one called-- "Spit it out, ole Chalkeye! When you starts up yo' church, rent me a stall!" "I'll hire yo' ruddy scalp," says I, "instead of lamps. Wall, boys, these town toughs has shot out El Señor Don, and they're proposing to play their pure fountain of law on two more of our tribe, the same being young Jim his son, and little Curly McCalmont." "Say, Chalkeye, when do you get yo' dividends from Messrs. Robbers, Roost, and Co.?" "Why, Buck, it's on them days when I trusts you with loans of money." The crowd knew Buck's habit of not paying his debts, and proposed to divide up his shirt and pants if he got too obvious with remarks. "Boys," I went on, "we been letting these town citizens get too much happy and animated, throwing dirt in our face. Why, here's down east newspapers sobbing obituary notices over the poor cowboy species departed. Seems that we-all, and the mammoth, and the dodo, and the bison is numbered with the past, and our bones is used to manure the crops of the industrious farmer. Does that splash you? "Dear departed, I appeals to you most sorrowful--ain't it time to show signs of being alive? Not being a worker of miracles, I don't aim to corrupt yo' morals, I ain't proposing to obliterate the town which provides us with our liquor and groceries, I ain't a party to acts of violence; but I do propose that we just whirl in to-night and rescue them po' kids at La Morita. Of course, in busting the calaboose we may have to shoot up a few Mexicans--but it does them good to be taken serious at times, and they'd sure hate to be ignored while we stole their captives." Mutiny called out, "Say, now you've got yo' tail up, you ain't forgetting to talk." And on that the boys got riotous--"Rair up some more, ole Chalkeye; let's see you paw the moon!" "You tell the lies, we'll stick to 'em!" "Who stole Ryan's cows, eh, Chalkeye?" "Let the old horse-thief turn his wolf loose! Ki-yi-yeou-ou-ou!" "Loo-loo-loo-Yip! Yow!" "Girls," says I, "you're gettin' plenty obstreperous. Come on--let's roll our tails for old Mexico!" The boys came yelping, and we trotted the night through, throwing the miles behind us. At three o'clock, to judge by the stars of Orion, we rested our ponies near the boundary, at the streak of dawn loped on, and just as the day broke hurricaned in a gun-blaze down on La Morita. I regret to state for your information that the Mexican Frontier Guards were too sleepy to play up their side of the game, but surrendered abject before they had time to get hurt. Moreover, our youngsters had vamoosed through a hole in the wall. So there were no captives to liberate, except four measly _vaqueros_, which gave us a red-hot cussing at being waked too early for coffee time. We had a sickening miserable picnic, a waste of sweat and oratory. Slow and solemn we gaoled up those soldiers in the calaboose, and mounted the sulky _vaqueros_ for a guard to hold them, feeling all the time like a batch of widows. In the stable I found Curly's buckskin mare and my fool horse Jones, the pair of which I took when we started for home. As to Jim and Curly, we held a council smoke, debating on their fate. The crowd agreed that these kids had been my pupils, and would be sure horse-thieves naturally. I felt they had gone afoot, but scouting around, I failed to find their sign. There was a track of a man with cowboy heels, going east, but it seemed to wiggle drunk. I never thought of Jim rolling along as he did with Curly on his back, but searched for the tracks of the pair running side by side. If I had only been a better scout I might have understood the lone track, and followed with horses to mount my youngsters for flight. We could have made an easy escape from the country, ending all our troubles--but I was a fool. So soon as my tribe pulled out for home I knew that the Frontier Guards would be loose at once like burned-out hornets. To linger in their way would be unhealthy, and I had no tracks to follow anyway. So I pulled out with the rest, taking all guns and horses, leaving the Guards disarmed and afoot lest they should try to act warlike. Further north the guns were thrown away, except some retained as mementos, and we used the Mexican herd of ponies to cover our tracks where we scattered. This episode is alluded to by the foolish cowboys as "Chalkeye's victory--all talk and run." A couple of miles to the eastward of La Morita Jim found that his little partner weighed a ton. After working all night, and struggling to the limit of his strength, he could go no further. The day was breaking; to move by daylight meant an extra risk of being seen, and there was nothing to be gained by travelling. So he staggered to the nearest hilltop, found a good look-out point, then smashed up some local rattlesnakes, and laid Curly to rest under a sheltering rock. From there he watched what the _Weekly Obituary_ described as "an infamous outrage, perpetrated at La Morita by a gang of cowardly ruffians." Not that Jim was shocked--indeed, I reckon the lad put up signs of depraved joy. He said to the little partner-- "We're sure saved, Curly, from being tracked down by the Guards and murdered." I calculate that one ordinary Arizona day without food and water would have finished Curly, but as it happened this was a desert Sabbath, when the clouds had a round-up for prayer. I ain't religious; it's no use for a poor devil like me to make a bluff at being holy, and if I went to church the Big Spirit would say: "Look at this Chalkeye person playing up at Me in a boiled shirt--ain't this plumb ridiculous?" It's no use, because I'm bad, but yet it humbles me down low to watch the clouds when they herd together for prayers, flirting their angel wings against the sun, lifting their gruff voices in supplication, tearing up the sky with their lightnings, sending down the rain of mercy to us poor desert creatures. The respectable people hire preachers to tell the Big Spirit of their wants, but it's the white clouds of the sky that says prayers for us ignorant range folks, for the coyotes, the deer and panthers, the bears and cows, the ponies and the cowboys. Then the rain comes to save us from dying of thirst, and we cusses around ungrateful because it makes us wet. When the storm broke that morning, the rain roared, the ground splashed, the hills ran cataracts, and Jim and Curly got washed out of their camp, the same becoming a pool all of a sudden, and were much too wet to go to sleep again. Moreover, the fever had left off prancing around in Curly's brain, and the cold had eased her wound like some big medicine. Jim had found a corner under the rock ledge which was perfectly dry. His leather Mexican clothes were shrunk tight with rain, the staining ran in streaks on his face, his teeth played tunes with the cold. "El Señor Don Santiago," says Curly, "yo' face has all gawn pinto, and it don't look Mexican that a-way in stripes. Maybe yo're changing into a sort of half-breed." "I'm beastly cold," says Jim, grave as a funeral. "Same here," she laughed. "Don't you think yo' disguise would pass for something in the way of striped squir'ls? With a rat in yo' paws you'd do for a chipmunk." "Let me be," says Jim. "How's your wound?" "Not aching to hurt, just to remind me it's there. How did we get to this rock?" Jim told her about the escape, and how the Frontier Guards had been left afoot, and how the storm had come convenient to wash out the raiders' tracks as well as his own. The rain had quit, and the plain was shining like a sea of gold which ran in channels between the island groups of purple mountains. So one could sure see range after range melting off into more than a hundred miles of clear distance, to where the sunshine was hot beyond the clouds. That clearness after rain is a great wonder to see, and makes one feel very good. "Talk some more," says Curly, "then I won't be encouraging this wound by taking notice of it." "Shall I lift you here to this dry corner?" "No; it's sure fighting, moving. Leave me be." "Curly, how did you get that scar above your eye?" "Buck handed me that. He's shorely fretful at times. Who's Buck? Why, he's second in command of our gang. No, he's a sure man. I'm plenty fond of Buck." "The brute! I'll wring his beastly neck! You love him?" "Wouldn't you love all yo' brothers, Jim?" "Oh, brothers--that's all right. But why did the rotten coward make that scar?" "You see, Buck's plenty fond of me, and his emotions is r'aring high, specially when--wall, I refused to be Mrs. Buck. It sounded so funny that I had to laugh. Then he got bucking squealing crazy, and when he's feeling that a-way he throws knives, which it's careless of him." "He wounded you with a knife? The cur!" "Oh, but Buck was remorseful a whole lot afterwards, and father shot him too. Father always shoots when the boys get intimate. Poor Buck! I nursed him until he was able to get around again, and he loves me worse than ever. It cayn't be helped." "So these robbers know that you--that you're a girl?" "They found me out last year. Yes, it's at the back of their haids that I'm their lil sister, and they're allowed to be brothers to me, Jim. Now don't you snort like a hawss, 'cause they're all the brothers I've got." "You're not afraid of them?" "You cayn't think what nice boys they are. Of course, being robbers, they claims to have been hatched savage, and brung up dangerous, pore things. Father tells 'em that they has no occasion for vain-glorious pride, 'cause their vocation is mean." "He's dead right, and I'm glad he shoots them!" "Generally in the laigs. He says he reckons that a tender inducement to being good is better than a bullet through the eye. Of co'se thar has to be some discipline to chasten they'r hearts, or they'd get acting bumptious." "Humph!" "But you don't savvy. Father has to press his views on the boys, but they'd be much worse if it wasn't for him. He says he's a heaps indulgent parent to 'em, and I reckon he shorely is. Father's the best man in the whole world. Do you know he only kills when he has to, and not for his own honour and glory? Why, he won't rob a man unless he's got lots of wealth. Once he was a bad man, but that's a long while ago, before I remember." "Were you always raised as a boy?" "Allus. He made me learn to ride, and rope, and shoot, from--ever since I was weaned. When I got old enough he learned me scouting, cooking, packing a hawss, tending wounds, hunting--all sorts of things. I been well educated shore enough, more than most boys." "It's all beastly rot calling him good--McCalmont good!" "A hawss or a dawg, or a lil' child will run from a bad man, but they love my father. Oh, but you don't know how good he is!" "Well, let it go at that. You wanted to be a robber?" "Shorely, yes, but he never would let me. It ain't true what that sign-paper says up in the city yonder, that I robbed a train. I wasn't there at all. You see, father picked up on the home trail with a starving man, and helped him. That mean, or'nary cuss went and told Joe Beef, the sheriff, that I was in the gang which held up the train. That's why I'm due to be hunted and roped, or shot at by any citizen who wants two thousand dollars. Of co'se, it's nacheral there should be a bounty offered on wolf haids, but I'd like to have a nice wolf-time before I'm killed. I never had a chance to get my teeth in, 'cept only once. Yes, we stole six hundred head of cattle from the Navajos, and you should just have seen the eager way they put out after us. They was plenty enthoosiastic, and they came mighty near collecting our wigs." "It makes me sick to think of you with a gang of thieves." "Father says that the worst crimes is cowardice, meanness, and cheating. The next worse things is banks, railroad companies, lawyers; and that young Ryan--'specially Ryan--he says that us robbers is angels compared with trash like that." "That's no excuse." "Father says that robbery is a sign that the law is rotten, and a proof that the Government's too pore and weak to cast a proper shadow. He allows we're a curse to the country, and it serves the people right." "It's bad--you know it's bad!" "Shore thing it's bad. Do you know what made us bad? All of our tribe was cowboys and stockmen once; not saints, but trying to act honest, and only stealing cows quite moderate, like ole Chalkeye. Then rich men came stealing our water-holes, fencing in our grass, driving our cattle away." "Why didn't you get a lawyer--wasn't there any law?" "There shorely was. My father's farm was way back in Kansas. His neighbour was a big cattle company, which hadn't any use for farms or settlers. They turned their cattle into his crops, they shot my brother Bill, they wounded father. Then father went to law, and the lawyers skinned him alive, and the judge was a shareholder in the Thomas Cattle Company--he done gave judgment that we-all was in the wrong. Then father appealed to the big Court at Washington, which says he had the right to his land and home. So the cattle company set the grass on fire and burned our home. Mother was burned to death, and father he went bad. I was the only thing he saved from the fire." "Poor beggar! No wonder he turned robber. I'd have done the same, by Jove!" "He shot Judge Thomson first, then he killed Mose Thomson, and the sheriff put out to get him. He got the sheriff. Then he went all through Kansas and Colorado, gathering pore stockmen what had been robbed and ruined by the rich men's law. They held up pay-escorts, stage coaches, banks, the trains on the railroad. That was the beginning of the Robbers' Roost." Jim sat heaps thoughtful looking away across the desert. "Our breeding cattle," says he, tallying on his fingers, "then Holy Cross, then mother, then father, and now I'm being hunted for a murder I didn't commit." "Now you know," says Curly, "why we robbers played a hand in yo' game." "I understand. Say, Curly, I take back all I said about it being bad--this robbery-under-arms. It's the only thing to do." "Don't you get dreaming," says Curly, "we-all ain't blind; our eyes is open a whole lot wide to truth, and we make no bluff that robbery and murder is forms of holiness." "It's all right for me. I'm a man, and I'm not a coward, either. But, Curly, you're not fit for a game like this. I'm going to take you away--where you'll be safe." "And whar to?" Jim looked at the desert steaming after the rain, hot as flame, reaching away all round for ever and ever. He looked at Curly's wound all swollen up, her face which had gone gaunt with pain and weakness. They were afoot, they were hunted, they had no place to hide. "Whar do you propose to take me?" says Curly. "I don't know," says Jim; "perhaps your people aren't so bad after all--anyway, they tried to keep you clean." "And what's the use of that? D'ye think I want to be alone in the hull world--clean with no folks, no home? Why should I want to be different from my father, and all my tribe? Would I want to be safe while they're in danger? Would I want to play coward while they fight? Shucks! Father turned me out to grass onced at the Catholic Mission, and them priests was shorely booked right through to heaven. What's the use of my being thar, while the rest of my tribe is in hell? I dreamt last night I was in hell, carrying water to feed it to my wolves; I couldn't get a drop for myself--never a drop." "Curly, I've got to save you--I must--I shall!" She laughed at him. "You! Do you remember me at Holy Crawss when I punched cows for Chalkeye? I might ha' been thar still but for you." "What on earth do you mean?" "Jim, I met up with yo' mother, and I didn't want to be bad any more when I seen her." "She thought the world of you." The poor child broke out laughing, "Oh, shucks!" Then her face went bitter. "She said she loved me, eh?" "She said I was a beastly little cad compared with you. When I got home from college she held you up for a holy example, and rubbed my nose in it. She was right--but how I cursed you!" Curly laughed faint and lay back moaning, for the sun had come hot from the clouds, and she was burning with pain. "So yo' mother claimed she loved me. Well, I know better!" "Why didn't you stay with her, Curly?" "I seen her face when she waited for you to come home--you, Jim, and she looked sure hungry. What was I to her, when she seen her own son a-coming? I waited to see you, Jim; I jest had to see you 'cause you was pizen to me. Then I went away 'cause I'd have killed you if I'd seen you any mo'." "Where did you go?" "Whar I belong, back to the wolf pack. What had I to do with a home, and a mother, with shelter, and livin' safe, and bein' loved? I'm only a wolf with a bounty on my hide, to be hunted down and shot." "And you--a girl!" "No, a mistake!" Jim pawed out, and grabbed her small brown hand. "You came back," he whispered. "I came back to see if that Ryan was goin' to wipe you out, you and yo' people. I came to see you die." "And saved my life!" "I reckon," says Curly, "I ain't quite responsible anyways for my life--'cause I'm only a mistake--jest a mistake. I feels one way, and acts the contrary; I whirl in to kill, and has to rescue; I aims to hate--and instead of that I----" "What?" "I dunno," she laughed. "Up home at Robbers' Roost we got a lil' book on etiquette what tells you how ladies and gentlemen had ought to act in heaps big difficulties. It shorely worries me to know whether I'm a lady or a gentleman, but it's mighty comfortin' the way that book is wrote. I done broke all my wolves outer that book to set up on their tails and act pretty. Now, if I had the book I'd know how I'd ought to act in regard to you-all." Jim looked mighty solemn, being naturally about as humorous as a funeral. "Am I nothing to you?" he asked, feeling hurt; but she just opened one eye at him, smiling, and said nothing. Presently the pain got so bad that she began to roll from side to side, scratching with her free hand at the face of the rock overhead. "Can't I do something?" says Jim. "It's awful to sit and watch that pain. I must do something." "If you climb to the top of this rock," she said between her teeth, "you'd see La Soledad. My father's thar." "I'll run." "Why run?" She snatched a small round looking-glass out of the breast of her shirt. "You've only to get the sun on this glass and flash the light three times upon La Soledad. The man on look-out will see the flash." "Give me the glass, then." "No." "Why not?" "Do you know what it means, Jim, if you flash that signal?" "Rescue for you." "And for you, Jim? It means that you quit bein' an honest man, it means shame, it means death. Us outlaws don't die in our beds, Jim." "Give me the glass." "No, Jim. Some time soon, when you and me is riding with the outfit, or camped at our stronghold, the army is goin' to come up agin' us--pony soldiers, and walk-a-heaps, and twice guns, to take our water-holes, to drive away our _remuda_, to block our escape trails, to close in on us. Our fires are goin' to be put out, our corpses left to the coyotes and the eagles." "Give me that glass!" "And my father says that beyond that is the Everlastin' Death." "Do you think you can frighten me? Give me that glass!" He snatched the glass from her hand, scrambled to the top of the rocks, and flashed the light three times upon La Soledad. A white star answered. CHAPTER XIX A MARRIAGE SETTLEMENT McCalmont was hid up at the _ranchita_ La Soledad, with a sentry out to the south-west watching La Morita, a sentry out to the west to keep tab on the Bisley trail, a sentry out to the north on the Grave City road, and Buck Hennesy, his segundo, riding from point to point with feed and water. When anything happened the sentries flashed a signal to Buck, who warned the chief. At sunrise McCalmont had news of our raid on La Morita, and that made him think for sure that the kids were rescued. He'd been riding all night, so he got his eye down quick for a big sleep. The storm rolled up, burst, and trailed off to the eastward; the sun shone out, lifting white steam from the desert; then came the heat. At two o'clock, away southward through the quivering haze, Buck sighted the three-flash signal, which means "Help!" He threw back the two-flash, "Coming." So he and the chief loped out, taking a canteen of cold tea, which is the proper medicine for thirst, and a led horse each, to bring the youngsters in to the little ranche. By four o'clock they had Curly bedded down in the shack, supposing herself to be a prairie-dog, and wanting to know who'd come and stole her tail. McCalmont nursed her, Buck went off to spoil the trail from the hill, and Jim squatted down on the doorstep for a feed of pork and beans, with lashings of coffee. The main outfit of the robbers was camped at Las Aguas, some miles to the north-east, and three of them came in at dusk to get their supper and relieve the sentries around La Soledad. They were heaps shy when they saw what looked like a greaser _vaquero_ sitting in the doorway of the cabin. One of them rode right at him. "Here, you," he shouted. "Git out 'er here _pronto_! Vamoose!" "_Poco tiempo_," says Jim. "Who are you, anyways?" "_Quien sabe?_" "Wall, ye cayn't stay here, so ye'd best get absent." He pulled his gun on Jim's feet. "Now jest you prance!" Jim laughed at him. "_Mañana_," he said. Then in English, "You bark a lot, my friend. Whose dog are you?" Then he heard McCalmont's slow, soft drawl. "I sure enjoy to see the sire's grit show out in the young colt. Spoke like a man, Jim! And as to you, Crazy Hoss, I want you to understand that if you don't learn deportment I'll politely lam yo' haid, you, you double-dealing foogitive, low-flung, sheep-herdin' son of a lop-eared thug! Hain't you got no more sense than a toorist, you parboiled, cock-eyed, spavined, broken-down, knock-kneed wreck o' bones? You----!" With such genteel introductions McCalmont sure spouted burning wrath into that robber, scorching holes until he lost his breath. "The evil communications of this young polecat," says he to Jim, "is shorely spoiling my manners. And now, you--you turtle-doves, you'll jest get away out of here and cook your supper thar by the barn. You want to be mighty quiet too, 'cause my Curly is lying in here wounded. Git over now!" The robbers trailed off grinning, while the chief sat down on the doorstep next to Jim. "The children make me peevish," he said, and began to roll a cigarette in his fingers. "Wall, do you remember, Jim? I allowed we'd be better friends when we met again." Jim looked round sharp and sat there studying McCalmont. He didn't look bad or dangerous, but just a middle-aged cattle-man of the old long-horn desert breed. Our folks are rough and homely; we've got a hard name, too, but we stay alive in a country which kills off all but the fighters. McCalmont had a cool blue eye, humorous and kind, and grey hair straggling down over a face that was tanned to leather. The stiff-brimmed cowboy hat was jammed on the back of his head, the white silk handkerchief hung loose about his shoulders. He wore a grey army shirt, blue overalls, stuffed anyhow into his boots, and a loose belt of cartridges, slinging the Colt revolver on his hip. Somehow the youngster felt drawn to him, knowing he'd found a friend of the kind that lasts. "And you were that sky-scout?" says he. "A most unworthy shepherd! Jest you look at my sheep," says McCalmont. Jim asked how long it was since they met that day on the range. "It seems a year to you, eh, lad? That was six days ago, the way I reckon time." "So much has happened--sir--can it be less than a week? I was only a boy then--and Curly----" "My son has struck you serious." "She has told me everything, sir." "Yo' goin' to remember to speak of Curly as a boy. He is allooded to as a boy, or I get hawstile. You understand that?" "I understand." "And now," says McCalmont, "we'll have that buckboard ready in case we need to pull out." There was a buckboard standing in the yard, the same being a four-wheel dogtrap, with a springy floor of boards, easy for travel. Jim helped McCalmont to stow some cases and a keg of water, fill sacks with sweet range hay for Curly's bed, and then cover the whole with a canvas ground-sheet. "You think," says Jim, "that we'll be chased to-night?" "I dunno, Jim, but it looks to me as that's how the herd is grazing." When supper was ready they strayed across to the fire and joined issue with beef, hot bread, and coffee, the same being taken serious without waste of time or talk. We range-folk don't interrupt our teeth with aimless discourse. By smoke-time Buck loped off in the dusk to find the _remuda_ of ponies out at grass, and the boys had a cigarette while he gathered, watered, and drove the ponies home. Then the team for the buckboard was caught, harnessed, and tied up with a feed of corn; each man roped and saddled his night horse; and Buck, with the three relief men, rode out slow, curving away into the starlight. McCalmont roped a sorrel mare for Jim, then found him a spare saddle, a bridle, a blanket, belt, gun, and spurs. "Now," says he, "jest bed yo'self down, but don't undress. Keep yo' hawss to hand, sleep rapid, and in case of alarm jump quick. An outlaw's bed, my son, ain't feathered for long sleeps." Jim lay awake and watched until the day guard came loping in with Buck. He saw them rope and saddle their remounts, catch their supper, bed down, and smoke the final cigarette. It all felt homely and good to be with cowboys again, to have his blanket on the dust, his horse and gun beside him, to know he was free and moderately safe, to look up drowsy at a great white sky of stars. Jim was a plainsman in those days sure enough, content, range fashion, to have the whole earth for a bed, the night for a bedroom, and the starry palace of the Great Spirit to shelter him while he slept. Kings and emperors and such have to hole up at night in mean quarters compared with that. Somewhere out on the range McCalmont's guard-camp kept a sentry alert through the night, and when Jim woke up he saw the day guard swarming off in the grey of dawn to relieve them. He washed himself in the horse-trough, and helped McCalmont to cook breakfast. "Now don't you make too much fire," says the chief, "'cause the less smoke we show the better for our health. We want no strangers projecting around to pay us mawning visits." "Colonel," says Jim, "how's Curly?" "Right peart, and chirping for breakfast." The boys came rolling in from night guard. "Now you, Crazy Hoss," says McCalmont, "rope the day hawsses, and put the herd to grass befo' you feed. You, Buck, is all secure?" "Wall, boss, there's United States pony-soldiers, three hundred haid of 'em, comes trailing down out of the Mule Pass." "Heading this way?" "No, seh; they're pointing for La Morita." "I see. It's because of the shockin' outrage yesterday on them pore Mexican Guards at La Morita. I expaict that ole Mexico is up on its ear for war, and they'll be sending their army to eat the United States. Jest take yo' glasses, Buck, and see if that Mexican army is coming along." Buck rode to the nearest hill and looked over the top without showing himself on the skyline; then he came sailing back, and rolled up to the chief, all snorting. "There's the dust of an army on the Fronteras trail." "Them rival armies," McCalmont drawled, "will talk theyrselves into fits, and the rival Governments will talk theyrselves into fits; and all the newspapers will talk theyrselves into fits; then they'll agree that La Morita was raided, and they'll agree that it was the acts of wicked robbers, and they'll agree it was _me_. 'Spose we have our coffee." All through the night McCalmont had been sitting up with Curly, treating her wound to a course of cold wet bandages once in five minutes to reduce the swelling. After breakfast he went back again to her side, and his teeth were sure set hard, because he had made up his mind to dig for the bullet, which caused her more pain than was needful. As for Jim, he squatted on the doorstep outside, with time at last to think. His affairs had been some hurried and precipitous in this one week, which cost him his parents, his home, his business as master of a tribe of cowboys, his friends, his prospects, his reputation as an honest man. And now the whirlwind had dropped him on the doorstep of a 'dobe shack to think the matter over quietly and have a look at himself. He was an orphan now, poor as a wolf, hunted, desperate, herded with thieves. What was the use of trying to earn an honest living when the first respectable person he met would begin the conversation by shooting him all to pieces? Then he heard McCalmont calling him: "Say, can yo' lawdship oblige me with the loan of a pin?" His lordship! The poor chap remembered now that he was Viscount Balshannon, Baron Blandon, and several different sorts of baronets. "Yo' lawdship!" "McCalmont," he howled, "you brute!" Then he heard Curly telling her father to behave himself, and his mind went off grazing again over the range of his troubles. There was that Curly, the famous desperado, the fighting frontiersman, the man who had saved his life--and all of a sudden he had to think of him--of her--as a poor girl crazy with pain. Jim had to face a fact which had hit his very soul, turned the world upside down, and left him wriggling. It was no use being hostile or disappointed; he couldn't make believe he was glad. Curly didn't feel like a chum or a partner now; he couldn't imagine her as any sort of sister or friend. She just filled his life until there was nothing else to care for on earth, and it made his bones ache. Then McCalmont began to work with some sort of surgical instruments, probing her wound for the bullet. He heard her make little moans, whimpers, and stopped his ears with his fingers. Then she screamed. Jim was shaking all over, but with that scream he knew what had happened to himself. He had fallen head over ears in love with that same Curly. After a long time McCalmont came out of the shack and sat down alongside of Jim. The robber was white as a ghost; he was trembling and gulping for breath. "Here," he cried, "you take this." Jim took the thing in his hand--a flattened bullet, all torn around the edges and streaked with blood. For some time he just sat staring at that bullet, scared by his own thoughts. "Captain," says he at last, "Curly's not dying?" "Why, not to any great extent, my son." McCalmont lay back on a dirt floor, and yawned. "He's sleeping a whole lot now, and if you'll stay around in case he wakes, I'll take a few myself; I'm kinder tired." The robber dropped off to sleep, and Jim sat watching beside him. At noon the boys off duty in the yard called him to dinner, but McCalmont slept far into the afternoon. Then of a sudden he started broad awake, his hand on his gun, staring out at the blazing heat of the desert. "That's all right," says he; "three hours' rest is enough for hawsses and robbers, so I reckon I've took more'n my share." "Curly's still sleeping," says Jim. "I'll catch some lunch, then." Jim watched him ranging about the yard, bread in one hand, meat in the other, eating his dinner while he hustled his men to work. He kept three young robbers busy until the camp gear was stowed for travel, and all the litter was hid away out of sight. Then he made them bury the ashes of the camp fire, and smooth over all the tracks until the ground looked as though there had been no visitors for a week. After that he brought a pencil and notebook for Jim. "I want you to write," he said; "scrawl yo' worst, and put down all the spellin' ignorant. Write:--'Dere Bill, I'm gawn with the buckboard for grub. Back this even.'--B. Brown.' Yes, that will do." He took the book from Jim, tore out the leaf, and hung it on the door conspicuous. "Thar's times," he said, "when sheriffs and marshals, and posses of virtuous citizens gets out on the warpath in pursuit of robbers. They comes pointing along mighty suspicious, and reads the tracks on the ground, and notes the signs, and sniffs the little smells, and in they'r ignorant way draws false concloosions. Meanwhile the robbers has adjourned." Jim's face was as long as a coffin. "Captain," says he, "I've been thinking." "I'm sorry yo're took bad, my son." The robber sat down beside him. "Let me see yo' tongue." "Don't laugh at me. Will you mind, Captain McCalmont--if--if I speak of Curly--just this once--as--as a woman?" "Turn yo' wolf loose, my son, I'm hearing." "I love her, sir." "Same here, Jim." "Do you mind, though?" "My boy, when I wanted to marry her mother, I jest up an' asked her." "I'm not good enough for her." "That's so, and yet I reckon Curly's been dead gentle with you-all. Why, she sure sits on all our haids." "I'm afraid she doesn't care for me yet." "I expaict, Jim, that an eye-doctor is what you need." "And you'll consent?" "If Curly consents, on one condition. You get her safely out of this country, you take her to civilised life, whar she can stay good, away from us--thieves. Take her to the Old Country." "To starve!" "I'll see to that. I've left enough wealth with Chalkeye to give you a start in life. He came down yesterday mawning to see you-all at La Morita--you were out." "Do you suppose," says Jim, getting hot, "that I'd take your money?" "If you take my child, yo're not above taking my money, Lord Balshannon!" Jim pawed his gun--"I take no stolen money!" "Yo're speaking too loud," says McCalmont, "come over by the corral." He walked over to the bars of the corral, Jim following. "And now," McCalmont's voice went softer than ever, "I may allude to the fact that if any cur insults my daughter or me, there is apt to be some unpleasantness." "Don't you think," says Jim, his hand on his gun, "that we had better go a little further off--so that Curly won't be disturbed when we fire?" "Why, boy, air you proposin' to dispense yo' gun at me?" "As you please! You called me a cur--and you'll eat your words or fight!" "And you only called me a thief? Wall, I shorely am for a fact, and you're not a cur--no. I reckon I was some impulsive in saying that. Come, we won't quar'l, for I like you a whole lot for yo' playing up against me that-a-way. What are yo' plans?" Jim was breathing hard and acting defiant still. "I want to join your gang!" "Which I accepts you glad, for I ain't refusing shelter to any hunted man." "And I may marry Curly?" "Not if you join my outfit. None of my wolves are invited to offer theyr paws in mar'iage with my Curly. Two or three of them young persons proposed theyrselves, and found my gun a whole lot too contagious for comfort." Jim unbuckled his belt, and let it fall with holster and gun to the ground. "I cannot accept the loan of that gun," he said, "or any favour from you. I've been hunted, I'm afoot, I'm unarmed, but now, by thunder! look out for yourself, because I'm going to hunt. I shall rob you if I can; I'm at war with you and every man on the stock range, until I've won back my house, my lands, my cattle. Then I'll come for your daughter, but I won't ask for her!" McCalmont leaned his shoulder against the corral, and laughed at him. "Wade in!" says he; "good luck, my boy. I mustn't ask you to divulge yo' plans, but I'm heaps interested." "My father told me, Captain McCalmont, that all the first Balshannon won he got with the sword. Well, times are changed--we use revolvers now!" "Only for robbery, my lad, and for murder. I thought as you do once, and reckoned I'd get even with the world. I started with a lone gun, I sure got even, but see the price I paid. My wife was--I cayn't talk of that. My lil' son was shot. My daughter is herding with thieves--and she's the only thing that I've got left on airth. Come, lad, if I can bear to part with her, and give her up to you, cayn't you give up a little of yo' fool pride and accept her dowry jest to save the child? Take her away to whar she can stay good--I ask no more of you." "You want me to run away from Ryan, and let him keep Holy Cross? You want me to live in Ireland on a woman's money? You want to hire Lord Balshannon, with stolen money, to keep your daughter?" Jim spat on the ground. "If you want to give Curly to a filthy blackguard, why don't you marry her to Ryan?" "You use strong words, seh." "And mean them!" McCalmont lowered his eyes, and pawed in the dust with his foot. Just for a moment he stood scratching the dust, then he looked up. "Onced," he said, very quiet, "I aimed at being a gentleman. I beg yo' pardon, seh." "You are a gentleman," says Jim, "that's just the worst of it--you understand things. What on earth makes you want to insult me?" "It seems to me, Jim, that you might understand, more than you do, that I'm aiming to be yo' friend. Yo're at war with this yere Ryan to get back Holy Crawss, or a fair equivalent, eh, for what you've lost?" "Go on, sir." "I'm at war, too, with the breed of swine he belongs to. Would you be satisfied if Ryan paid in cash for yo' home, yo' land, and yo' cattle? You being an outlaw now, it wouldn't be healthy to live there to any great extent. Will you take cash?" "Or blood!" "I have no speshul use fo' blood. I reckon I'd as soon bleed a polecat as a Ryan, if I yearned for blood. What d'you reckon you could buy with blood--sections of peace, chunks of joy? I'd take mine in cash." "You'll help, sir?" "For all young Ryan's worth, and then"--McCalmont laid his hands on Jim's shoulders--"you'll take Curly home as yo' wife, eh, partner?" "If she is willing, sir." McCalmont's ears went back against his head, he lifted his nose to the west, pointing up wind. There was a sound like the thud of raindrops on dust, a soft pattering which came nearer and stronger. He loosed off the long yell to rouse the three men who were resting by the barn, he told Jim to pick up his gun and help, he jumped for the team horses and led them to the buckboard. The pattering had grown up out of the distance to a steady rush of sound, the ground had begun to quiver, then to shake, then with a yell of warning, Buck and his sentries came thundering in from the desert. CHAPTER XX THE MARSHAL'S POSSE McCalmont backed his team to the buckboard, lifted the waggon tongue to the ring of the yoke bar, and jumped to hitch on the traces, just as Buck reined all standing to report. "There's a strong posse," says Buck, "coming out from the Mule Pass--maybe sixty riders, and they're shorely burning the trail straight for this ranche." "Were you seen?" "No, seh!" "Bowlaigs, Johnny, Steve, yo're mounted, so you'll collect the herd, drive north, and keep wide of the trail! Crazy Hoss, hold this team! Doc, throw my saddle on that sorrel, and lead north; Buck, make the camp search, and follow, closing all signs 'cept the wheel-track! Jim, help the herders! Git a move on!" McCalmont had got through with the harnessing while he slung his orders; now he went to work smooth and quiet, pulling on his shaps (leather leg-armour) and buckling his spurs while his cool eye searched the yard. "Buck," he called, "let the water drain out of that hoss trough. That water wouldn't look natural on an empty ranche." McCalmont brought Curly in his arms, bedded her down in the rig, drew the ground-sheet over to keep off the sun and dust, and passed a lashing across. After that he locked the door of the cabin, and hung the key on its nail. It was just that thoughtfulness in little plays which made McCalmont loom up great in his business. Two minutes after the first alarm he grabbed the reins, jumped to his seat, and drove off slow from the yard, aiming to show by the tracks that Cocky Brown's old buckboard had not pulled out in a hurry. Buck and Crazy Hoss stayed to brush out a few spare tracks, put up the slip rails and follow. For all one could see at the little _ranchita_ La Soledad, the owner, Cocky Brown, had trailed off for supplies to the city, then a couple of riders had happened along shortly after, and read the notice which was left for "Dere Bill" on the door. McCalmont just poured his whip into the team as Buck came up abreast. "All set?" he asked. "All set, seh." "Can we get behind them hills befo' we're seen by the posse?" Buck looked back to the boys who were sweating the herd astern. "Yes," he shouted, "I reckon. You done right smart, seh, to get Curly out 'n that mess." "You'll be pleased to know, Buck, that my Curly is engaged to be mar'ied to this du Chesnay colt." Buck's face went white, but he just spurred along saying nothing. A fold of the ground shut out the ranche behind, a hill barred off the country to the left, and, if the posse could see the dust of the flying outfit, they might well mistake that for one of the whirlwinds which curve around the desert wherever the sun burns strong. "Buck," says McCalmont, "reach back to the skyline, and see if that posse puts out on our trail from the ranche. At dusk I quit this Grave City road, and strike due east. If yo're delayed, jest roll yo' trail right east for Holy Crawss. In the mawning we round up all the stock we can find thar, and pull out for home. You understand?" "I understand," says Buck, and swung off for the skyline. * * * * * The breaking out of evil passions between the cowboys and the Grave City citizens opened my eye to the fact that this city was getting a whole lot obsolete since the mines began to peter out. Its population of twelve thousand assorted criminals had shrunken away to mere survivals living to save the expense of funeral pomps. Counting in tramps, tourists, and quite a few dogs, expected visitors and the dear departed, these ruins claimed a population of one thousand persons, mostly escaped from penitentiary. It made me feel lonesome to think of such a tribe with its mean ways, distorted intellects, and narrow views about me. On the other hand, there was Bisley, a sure live mining town in the Mule Pass, where the people were youthful, happy, and sympathetic. After that melancholy victory of mine at La Morita I came butting along to Bisley, where I reckoned I could have a glass of lager beer without being shot to any great extent. Besides that, United States Marshal Hawkins lives there, who's always been a white man and a good friend to me. I found his house away up the gulch, above Bisley City, and he being to home, just whirled right in, telling him how sick my heart was, and how my fur was all bristles. He said he was disgusted with me for getting mixed up with local politics and robbers. Naturally I explained how I'd only been acting as second in a duel between Balshannon and that Ryan. He agreed I was modest in the way I put my case, and that I ought to be hanged some in the public interest. "How about the robbers?" says he. "Is there robbers about?" says I. "Is thar really now?" He snapped out news of the La Morita raid that very morning, and I own up I was shocked all to pieces when he told me what had happened to those fragile guards. "Why, man," says he, "it's all your doing, and I had to wire for the dog-gone cavalry." "Cavalry?" says I. "Pore things; d'you reckon they'll get sore feet?" "I opine," says the Marshal, "that you'll get a sore neck soon and sudden, you double-dealing, cattle-stealing, hoss thief. Whar do you think you'll go to when you're lynched?" So he went on denouncing around until it was time to eat, then asked me to dinner. After that Mrs. Hawkins was plenty abusive, too, close-herding me until supper, when the Marshal came home. Hawkins, thoughtful to keep me out of mischief, made me bed down for the night in his barn; and I made no howl because here at Bisley, close to the boundary, I would get the first news of Jim and Curly. It made me sick to think how helpless I was to find them. In the morning a squadron of cavalry arrived by rail, had coffee in town, and trailed off in their harmless way to patrol the boundary for fear of somebody stealing Mexico. I lay low, but mended a sewing machine which had got the fan-tods, according to Mrs. Hawkins. I treated the poor thing for inflammation of the squeam until it got so dead I couldn't put it together any more. My mind was all set on my lost kids out yonder in the desert, but Mrs. Hawkins grieved for the dead machine, and chased me out of the house. Just then came the Marshal swift back from Bisley town on a bicycle. "Say, Chalkeye," he yelled, "I want you to saddle my mare, and get mounted yourself! _Pronto!_" When I came out with the horses I found him fondling his shot-gun, so I buckled on my guns, and inquired for the name of my enemy. "You know Cocky Brown?" he asked, as we rode down street. "I know he makes a first-rate stranger," says I. "His dog-gone son is here in Bisley drunk, and lets out that old Cocky is getting rent for La Soledad." "Who is the locoed tenant--some poor tourist?" "It's that dog-gone McCalmont and his robbers!" "And yet, Mr. Hawkins, you laid the blame on me for raiding La Morita! It makes me sick!" "For raiding La Morita? Why, of course--McCalmont's robbers--the same gang which shot up the 'Sepulchre' crowd at Grave City. That explains everything! Wall, I'm sure sorry, old friend, that I laid the blame on you." "Mr. Hawkins," says I, "hadn't you better tell the pony-soldiers that they're barking up the wrong tree?" "I will, and get their help in surprising that dog-gone McCalmont at La Soledad. A good idea." That was his idea, not mine, and I disown it. Suppose that Jim and Curly were hid up there at La Soledad? "We can get them or'nary hold-ups," says I indignant, "without being cluttered with a heap of military infants. Why, your half-fledged, moulting cavalry would just get right in our way by tumbling all over theirselves." In the town we found the citizens surging around for encouraging liquors before they hit the trail. They were all bristling with pocket-flasks and artillery, some on mules, some on sore-back plugs from the livery stable. Besides that there were heroes in sulkies, and dog-traps, and buckboards, warriors on bicycles, and three on a pioneer motor-car, which blew up with a loud explosion in front of the Turkish Divan. Mixed in with that milling herd were seven of my La Morita raiders, howling for robbers' blood, and gassing about the disgracefulness of molesting frontier guards. Then they circled round a tenderfoot on a pinto horse, and told him how the robbers fed red-hot coals to a prisoner. "Wall, I admire!" says the shorthorn. "Oh, you needn't believe me," says Lying Ike, "ask Chalkeye here. He's truthful." "Stranger," says I, "allow me to introduce you to Mr. Lying Ike. He has an impediment in his truth, but otherwise will survive until he's lynched. Now, seh, the Marshal over yonder says that he yearns for your advice." That tenderfoot loped off joyful to teach the United States Marshal, while I spoke to my cowboys like a father. "You moth-eaten bookworms," says I, "your stories is prehistoric, and your lies is relics. Now you want to encourage them pore toorists, 'cause we needs them. Toorists graze out slothful on the trail, they're noisy to warn their prey, and they flit like bats as soon as a robber shoots. Send all the toorists you can to tell good advice to Marshal Hawkins quick. As to the real folks who kin ride and shoot, beguile 'em to feed, lead 'em up against the fire-water, scatter 'em, delay! This Marshal needs our help, you blighted sufferers. Do you want the Marshal to get Jim and pore Curly McCalmont, you idiots?" So we scattered to help the Marshal, sending him earnest talkers while his fighting-men went off and lost themselves. Did I act mean? I wonder sometimes whether I done right for Jim, for Curly. Dog-gone Hawkins was as mad as a wet hen, too hoarse for further comments when, after a couple of hours, he rode off alone to hunt robbers; so we had to follow to save the old man from being shot. I came up abreast as soon as I could, and in a voice all hushed into whispers, he just invoked black saints and little red angels to comfort me on a grid. I reckon it was four o'clock when our circus, all hot and dusty after a ten-mile ride, charged down upon La Soledad. The place looked so blamed peaceful that the Marshal stared pop-eyed. "Wall, I'll be dog-goned!" says he, and let us riders traffick around innocent, trampling out all the ground sign. When he saw Cocky's memorandum on the door of the shack he couldn't bear it any longer. "Chalkeye," says he, "I'll be dog-goned if that ain't--'Gawn with the buckboard for grub.' If that ain't enough to scorch a yaller dawg!" "And yet," says I, "you blamed us for hanging back!" "Wall," he groaned, "the drinks is on me this time. Let's go home." But I knew Jim's handwriting, I knew that he and Curly were with the buckboard, I knew that the brains of McCalmont himself were behind a play like this. I looked up the Grave City trail, the way to my ranche, the way that the buckboard had gone with my kids. "You may go home, sir," says I, "but I'm off to my home before you leads me any more astray, corrupting my pure morals." Dog-gone Hawkins froze me with his eyes. "Ef your soul," he says, "were to stray out on to your dog-goned cheek it would get lost!" I'm always getting misunderstood like that by people who ought to know better. You see, I had to shock old Hawkins, or he would notice at once that I aimed to follow the buckboard. "Cyclists," says I, "dawg-traps, sulkies, buggies, waggons, sore-back horses, mules, tenderfoot--look at yo' circus and say if that ain't enough to corrupt a long-horn's mortals. Hello, look at that!" A man was coming down from the north, lickety-split on a roan with a rangy stride. He wore sombrero, shirt, shaps with streaming fringes, a brace of guns to his belt. He rode with a cowboy swing to his broad shoulders, and his face was black with rage as he pulled up facing our crowd--guns drawn for war. "Boys," he shouted, "whar's yo' sheriff?" I followed Hawkins as he rode up to confront the stranger. "I'm United States Marshal Hawkins. What's your dog-goned business that needs drawn guns?" "I'm Buck Hennesy, segundo to the Robbers' Roost gang of outlaws, and my guns are to shoot if I see you flirt that smoothbore." "Your business?" "State's evidence--take it or leave it!" "And who's your dog-goned evidence against?" "Against Captain McCalmont, Curly his--his son, and six others, robbers, and that polecat Jim du Chesnay, of Holy Crawss." "Wall, throw down your dog-goned guns, throw up your dog-goned hands, and say 'Sir' when you dare to address an honest man. Now you get off'n that horse!" "Dog-goned Hawkins," says the robber, "I ain't no prisoner, I ain't yo' meat, I don't propose to hole up in yo' flea-trap calaboose, and I quit this hawss when I'm daid. Take my talk for State's evidence, or go without!" "Chalkeye," says the Marshal aside, "is he covered?" "Say the word, and I drop him." "All right. Now, Hennesy, at the first break you die. You may talk." "McCalmont's outfit," says Buck, "is breaking for Holy Crawss. To-morrow mawning they round up cattle, and then they drive right home to Robbers' Roost." "You're going to guide us, Mr. dog-goned Robber, or get plugged as full of holes as a dog-goned sieve." "Guide you?" says Buck, and spat at him. "Guide you? I wouldn't be seen daid with yo' tin-horn crowd of measly, bedridden toorists. I cayn't insult you worse than saying that yo' mother was a sport, yo' father hung, and their offspring a skunk. Now all you deck of cowards----" He let drive with both his guns, but I shot first, and only just in time. One bullet grazed my ear, the other killed a horse; but my shot had done its work and spoiled his aim. His eyes rolled up white, his face went dead, he sat there a corpse in the saddle for maybe a minute, until I yelled, and the horse shied, and the body lurched forward, crashing to the ground, splashing a cloud of dust which was red with the sunset. CHAPTER XXI A FLYING HOSPITAL Captain McCalmont, away north on the trail, pulled up at a bend of the hill. "Doc," he called out to the man with the led horse astern, "jest you hitch that sorrel of mine to the tail of this rig. That's right, my son; now find out if Buck stays at the skyline or goes buttin' straight back to the ranche." "All right, Cap." When he was gone, Curly rucked up the canvas ground-sheet, climbed out of bed, and nestled against her father's side on the seat. "Havin' a bad time?" he asked, as he drove on. "Sure." "You heard what I told to Buck?" "Buck's gawn back to betray the outfit." "So I reckon." Curly got her father's near arm around her, shivering while she looked all round at the dusky hills, up to the red of the sunset. Then she listened to the thud of Doc's horse as he galloped back to report. "Cap," says the man, "Buck's gawn straight away to the ranche." "That's good," McCalmont chuckled; "you see, Doc, I've sent Buck to lead that sheriff's posse to Holy Crawss. We've got to work to-night, and ain't hungering none for their company. D'you know the Jim Crow Mine?" "I guess that's the old shaft a mile this side of Grave City?" "Correct. Now you lope off to the boys we left in camp at Las Aguas. Tell Stanley he's second in command now. He's to round up his boys, herd 'em close, and drive 'em swift to the Jim Crow Mine. Now repeat my awdehs." Doc repeated the orders. "Now," said the Captain, "ride!" Doc started off on the dead run, and for a while Curly watched his figure flopping away into the blue mists of dusk. The night was falling fast. "Po' Buck," she whispered. "I'm sorry, too," says McCalmont; "sooner or later he had to be a skunk, and behave as such." "He's daid," says Curly. "I heard him die just now, and he did love me so hard." "The trail is clearing ahead for you, my girl." "I'm sort of tired," she answered. "You'll rest to-night." "Father when you was talking with Jim outside the shack I was awake; I heard all what was said, but couldn't understand. Jim wanted suthin' fearful bad. What was it he wanted, dad?" "Wall, now, if that don't beat all! You jest got ears like a lil' fox! And didn't I act plumb good and tame with that Jim boy?" "Which you shorely did. Fancy, you taking all that war-talk, and never even shooting his laigs. Yo're getting better'n better every day." "I was good, that's a fact. You see, I nacherally couldn't lose my temper without disturbing you with my gun-talk. Besides, I jest cayn't help loving that Jim. You want him, Curly?" "Sure, I don't know what's coming over me the way I feels at that man. It seems as though my heart was pitchin' and buckin' like a mean hawss to get at Jim. D'you think it's this wound that tears my heart--is it 'cause I'm so sick?" "It's worse nor that, my girl. You've fallen in love." "Does that mean I got to marry him?" "That's the only cure." "But I don't want to be cured. I like it, dad, and when it hurts I like it all the more." "A sure bad symptom that. You'll go with Jim?" "To the end of the world, and over the edge--I cayn't help that." "You don't love me any more?" "Oh, you're allus the same, like the climate--but he's come buttin' along like the weather, so that I feel as if I was just whirled up in the air." "I was an idiot to think I could fool old Nature, and make you into a man. Wall, it cayn't be helped." "Daddy, I never was fit to ride with the gang, and I doubt I'll never be fit for a woman, either, now. I'm shorely tired, and my haid goes round and round." McCalmont stopped the team and laid Curly down in her nest. He told me after that he felt lonesome and scared, with all his nerves a-jumping for fear there was something worse than usual wrong. He felt Curly's bandages, and his hand got wet; then listened, and heard a drip, drip, drip, on the dust, then struck a match and saw the running blood, for her wound had opened. He had to light a lantern, no matter what the risk, while he stopped that bleeding. Meanwhile the Marshal had started his circus east toward Holy Cross, and he was having troubles most plentiful with all his warriors. He held us in the name of the Republic for special service in pursuit of robbers, but his tenderfoot outfit was badly in want of supper, and the cowboy people got plumb disgusted at having to ride, point, swing, and drive on a herd of shorthorns. I'd shown my hand in this game by shooting Buck, the same being needful to save the old Marshal's life, and I sure helped him all I knew in getting the posse on towards Holy Crawss. At the same time my private feelings called me off to quite a different lay-out, and I knew, all to myself, that Buck might have been mistaken a whole lot in his way of reckoning up McCalmont's plans. So I fell back to give a push to some stragglers, then fell back again to see if there was any more belated pilgrims behind. The light had faded, the stars were beginning to ride herd on the Milky Way, and I felt a sort of dumb yearning to find McCalmont. An hour later, scouting swift and cautious up the Grave City road, I saw a lantern bobbing high up among the hills. That must be a bait, I thought, to lure the Marshal's posse into some robbers' deadfall, so I rode slow, and sang my simple range songs to show it was only me, one harmless person. "Ip-e-la-go, go 'long little doggie, You'll make a beef steer, by-and-by." That's the rear song for driving a herd. This is nonsense:-- "Two little niggers upstairs in bed-- One turned ober to de oder and said: 'How 'bout dat short'nin' bread? How 'bout dat short'nin' bread?'" A voice called out of the dark, "Throw up yo' hands!" Up went my paws. "Hello, boys," I shouted, "is this the inquiry office? I wants my visitin' cyard sent up to Cap McCalmont." Somebody laughed, and then I heard Jim's voice. "Why, it's Chalkeye!" "Well, if he don't want to be shot he'd better turn right back." "Jest you tell yo' hold-ups, Jim," says I, "that them leaden go-through pills don't suit my delicate health." I dropped my hands, and the first robber asked Jim if he would answer for me. Jim said he would. "Take this man through," said the robber, and Jim led me, mighty pleased, to where the lantern shone. "Captain," says he, "here's old Chalkeye!" McCalmont jumped down from the buckboard, holding out his lantern. "Wall," says he, "I'm glad to see ye, Misteh Davies, I certainly am--shake hearty. Whar you from?" "Is Curly with you?" "Here's me," came a faint chirp out of the bedding. "Her wound broke out agin," says McCalmont. "_Her_ wound?" I howled. "Wall, that cat is shorely spilled," says McCalmont, and so I knew for the first time that my Curly wasn't a boy, but come of a different breed of people altogether. I slid from my horse and sat down on a rock to unravel my mixed emotions. "If that's the truth," I says, "I spose I may turn out to be a widow, the same being some confusing to the mind." "Wall, Mrs. Davies," says McCalmont, "I was goin' to propose that you act as a sort of chaperon to Curly." "I rise to inquire," says I, "if that's some new kind of mountain sheep." The name was new to me, and I felt suspicious. "A mountain sheep," says McCalmont, "is a cimarron, but a chaperon's defined as a party which rides herd on girls to proteck them in society." "Meaning that this carousing around in a waggon ain't good for wounds?" "Not when the hawspital has to gallop over rocks." "Seems to me," says I, "that right apart from bullet holes in a lady, he'll need home comforts more'n an or'nary robber." "Kin you take Curly home, then?" "I'm getting unpopular," says I. "My home ain't fortified much." I rolled a cigarette to think with. "Whereas I got some cousins which is ladies, the Misses Jameson. Their home is just the other side of the Jim Crow Mine, between that and Grave City, and they has a fancy for stray cats, dawgs, and outcasts generally. Seems to me, though, they'd be mighty near surprised if I played a wounded robber on them, calling the same a female. They ain't broke in to lady outlaws damaged in gun-fights yet. They're plumb respectable, and frequents the Episcopal Church. The bishop boards thar when he happens around, and they'll take up with any litter of passing curates." "I'm scart," says Curly. "Cayn't you bed me down in yo' barn?" "You'll go whar yo' told," says McCalmont, "and stay put until yo're well enough to fight." "If you're scared, Curly," says I, "these same ladies is due to have fits at the sight of yo' present costume. Now, if I could show them a case like you in the Bible they'd think it right natural, and all correct." "Absalom," says Curly, "had long ha'r." "So does Buffalo Bill, Texas Bob, and other old longhorns, but the same ain't lady robbers. Besides, yo' ha'r is short, and you're plumb unusual." "I got a trunk full of female plunder," says McCalmont, "and it's right here in the buckboard, in case he needs to dress respectable." "It's all tawn to rags," said Curly, "from that last b'ar hunt when I was treed by a grizzly. And the wig got stuck full of pine gum." "These details of female dress and depawtment"--McCalmont was getting restive--"seems to me to be some frivolous. The question is, Do these yere ladies run much to tongue?" "Wall, no; the fashionable society of Grave City has struck them reticent. Miss Blossom says she'd rather mix up with bears, and Miss Pansy she allows our crowd lacks tone. No, these ladies don't go henning around to cackle." "That settles it," said McCalmont. "Now you, Jim, you go back and tell these boys to join the herders in front, and I'll be with you presently. It ain't decent, my boy, for you to behold what's going to happen in the way of costume. So you jest tell Curly good-bye, and we'll proceed with disguisin' her as a womern." "When shall I see Curly again?" asks Jim in a fright. "At such time when he's fit to ride. Now tell yo' good-bye." So Jim and Curly had a minute together while I helped McCalmont to get out the trunk of clothes. Then Jim rode off for the sake of decency, and I turned my back. There was arguments between McCalmont and Curly about how the female costume should be fixed, the parent wanting one side to the front, and the dutiful child insisting otherwise. When I was told to look, there was Curly grinning in surroundings of yellow wig, the same being bunched up behind like a clump of prickly pear. McCalmont rigged himself out in his preacher clothes, cinched up his sorrel horse at the tail of the buckboard, and tied his cowboy gear to the strings of the saddle. He turned to watch Jim and the robbers file past on their way to the front, then gave me his lantern. "My friend," says he, "when you go to the home of them ladies, drive straight acrost the open range to the back door, be thar befo' midnight, and if you love yo' life, don't stray out on the waggon road between the Jim Crow Mine and Grave City. If you do you'll get killed for sure." "What shall I do with the buckboard?" "Lose it somewheres whar it ain't apt to be found. Turn them team hawsses loose and let them break for their home, as they shorely will." "And when Curly is well of this wound?" "Then Jim will join you, and you'll take them children to some safe country, so that they get mar'ied and forget this life. We planned all that befo'." "You trust me still?" "It looks that way, my friend, and I don't trust by halves." He gripped my hand, and went loping away into the night. CHAPTER XXII ROBBERY-UNDER-ARMS In those days of our little unpleasantness in Arizona there was another discussion proceeding along in South Africa. The Boers had their tail up, and the British Army was indulging itself in "regrettable incidents" about once a week. Which I allude to here because the word "regrettable incident" is good; it's soothing, and it illustrates exactly what happened on the night when I delivered Curly, damaged but cheerful, among my cousins, the Misses Jameson. Just to the east of the home inhabited by these ladies occurs the Jim Crow Mine, the same being the very place where the robbers once had breakfast with old man Ryan, making him pay the bill, as aforesaid, which was seventy-five thousand dollars, and annoying. On this further occasion which I now unfold, there were only four men working the Jim Crow claim. It seems they were in the bunk house playing poker until eleven p. m., when their foreman uprose with regrets to surrender his hat, boots, and pants to an avaricious person holding three aces and a pair of jacks. The foreman's warm communications on the subject of cheating were then cut off short by a masked robber standing in the doorway with guns. This robber proposed that all gentlemen present should throw up their hands, and allowed they had a fervent invitation to die unless they stepped out pretty soon to the head of the Jim Crow shaft. Accordingly the sad procession trailed away to the shaft, and one by one the mourners went down in a bucket to a total depth of one hundred and four feet. Then the robber hauled up the bucket to keep them from straying out, and promised faithful that if he heard any noise he would just drop in a few sticks of dynamite. There was not much noise. Meanwhile other earnest young robbers were collecting every citizen who passed the mine, and inviting him to join their surprise-party down at the foot of the shaft. The citizens all accepted, and when some candles, a deck of cards, and a few bottles of nose paint were sent to assist, the levée underground began to get quite a success. Mixed in with these proceedings, and other hold-ups various and swift, was the Chinese cook with a robber holding his tail while he fixed supper for twenty-five men. Afterwards he likewise was handed down the shaft. I should also mention a preacher in a black suit, and a white tie up under his ear, projecting around among the store shed for cases of dynamite. At 12:30 a bunch of cowboys numbering eighteen head, with a cavvyard of ponies, trailed in off the range. After each man had roped and saddled a fresh horse, and fed corn to the same, their reverend pastor put out a relief of sentries, and told the crowd to line up in the rampasture for supper. Naturally these people had to get the provisions off their minds before there was any talk, but then the preacher reared up to address the meeting. "Brethren----" says he. "Look a-here," the new segundo, Black Stanley, started in obstreperous, backed by a dozen men, all seething. "I represents this outfit in starting to buck right now!" "Turn yo'self loose." "We-all has come to an understanding that we ain't agoin' to fool around here any more. These is mean pastures, and we breaks for home." "That's what's the matter!" A lot of robbers began to come to a crisis. "Misteh Stanley, seh," says McCalmont, "you air a judge of rye whisky, and a natural bawn leader of men." The boys began to laugh. "Now," says McCalmont, "all you boys who yearns to get quit of me, and have this judge of rye and natural bawn leader of men to be they'r chief, will arise and join his herd. Yo' hawsses are at the door, so trail yo' spurs along the floor and go!" Not a man moved. "You, Black Stanley, take yo'self and yo' followers, and get absent quick from this camp, 'cause the rest of us has business." Stanley, getting to feel a whole lot lonesome, just dropped his tail, and submitted. "Chief," says he, "I take it all back." "I made you my segundo, Stanley, and you've proved yo'self mighty sudden. I reduce you to the ranks. You, Bowlaigs, act as second in command. And now to business. "First, I want to instil into yo' dim and clouded intellecks that when a member of the gang is captured he has to be rescued. The captured man was my son, and seventeen skunks of you hung fire when I asked for his rescue. These seventeen said skunks is fined half theyr shares of plunder in the next raiding, the same to be paid to those who do most work. Second, the man who rescued my son is Jim du Chesnay here." The Captain laid his hand upon Jim's shoulder. "He is my guest, and as he's not a member of this or'nary low-flung herd, you don't want to tell him awdehs, or oppress him, or stuff his haid with any of yo' dreams. I've a mind to muzzle a few pet liars right now. The speshul liars I see grinning is the ones I allude to particular. "Now you-all is a mighty sight wide of bein' perfect thieves; you has weaknesses, some for bad liquor, some for small mean thefts, most for showin' yo'selves off 'sif you was buck-devils, which you shorely ain't. To-night I propose you fast from such-like vanities, and attend strictly to business. Moreover, as some of you ain't got no more sense than a poached cat, I now explains this warpath, lest you get wandering around after the wrong scalp. The objec' of this virtuous night is to steal a millionaire which goes by the name of Michael Ryan, and holes up in a palace cyar on the railroad sidings. If you get him in reasonable preservation, we realise lots of wealth for his ransom; but any blamed fool who spoils him with loose ammunition is robbing his partners of theyr lawful dues." And so, having tamed his wolves, McCalmont gave the orders for the night. Right here I bubble over with remarks on the art of being a villain. Now this Captain McCalmont wasn't a good man exactly, it being his humble vocation to steal everything in sight, and shoot any party who happened to get in the way. He was a sure enough scoundrel, and yet Curly just loved him frantic. Jim trusted him body and soul. I was mighty proud of having his friendship. All his wolves were tame as little children when he led them; every cowboy on the range would have shared his last drop of water with old McCalmont, and even the victims he robbed would speak of him mostly as a perfect gentleman. When he laid a trap that same deadfall looked a whole lot attractive and comforting. "'Scuse me," says McCalmont, springing the steel jaws on his victim. I hope yo're not feeling hurt?" Now if McCalmont had looked like one of them villains I see at the theatre, scowling, threatening, lurid, mean-eyed scareheads, he wouldn't have seen the victim's tail for dust. No, he wasn't like a villain, he was like a man--a white man at that--and when he gave a show it was worth any man's money to see. Just watch his play. Grave City was a plenty big city to attack; it could turn out three hundred riders, anyway, and that mighty sudden, too, in case of robbers. McCalmont had to attack with twenty-four outlaws, and get them away without any holes through their hides. Along towards one in the morning the stable-man at Ryan's livery met with an accident, being clubbed. Then a couple of men walked round the stalls, loosed all the horses, and drove the whole outfit away through the back gate. The same proceedings occurred at the Spur livery, and in all the large stables, until two hundred head of good stock were gathered and run off to the northward. In Main Street, hitched to the snubbing posts, stood a score of saddled horses, a waiting patient to take their drunkards home. These poor creatures were cared for tender by a young man who went along casual, feeding them each a bunch of dry herbs, the same being _loco_ weed, and a heaps powerful medicine. Now we turn to the railroad station, where the main game was being played. At one a. m. the night operator in the depôt remembered all of a sudden that the lady clerk, Miss Brumble, at Contention, had wired him to send on a parcel of stockings by Number 4. The night freight train was pulling out at the time, so he ran across the platform and pitched the parcel into the caboose as the cars went rolling past him. "Miss Brumble's socks!" says he. "All correct!" says the conductor; and the train went rumbling off into the desert. Then the night operator--which his name was Bowles--turned round to point back for his office, and suddenly trod on a preacher. "Pardon me," says the reverend stranger. "Oh, don't mention it," says the clerk, some sarcastic. "'Scuse me, seh, may I venture to--" "Well, what's the matter with you?" "My poor lost brother, I am wishful to be infawmed if Misteh Michael Ryan----" "He's in his car. I'm busy." "Oh, but my deah young friend, these profane cowboys are using such feahful language, because Misteh Ryan refuses to see them, being gawn to bed----" The operator turned on his heel, and turned off growling. "You see," the preacher wailed after him, "they've got a robber." The operator began to nibble the bait. "Robber!" He swung round sudden. "What robber?" "The erring young person is called James du Chesnay." "They've got him? Great snakes!" "Yes, in bondage. They want to be rewarded with earthly dross, instead of seeking for the blessings and comfort which alone----" "And Ryan won't come out?" "I think, seh, that Misteh Ryan is timid, bekase of the shocking profanity of these misguided men, breaking his windows, too. Let me admonish you, my brother, to eschew the company of all----" "I'll fix him," says the operator, and charged along down the platform with the preacher suffering after him. That night operator, Mr. Mose Bowles, surging along the platform to Ryan's car, would have bet his last dollar that the facts were true. He saw three sure-enough cowboys sitting their horses easy in front of the private car, and the preacher was plumb correct about the way they talked. Bowles saw the prisoner, bound hand and foot, on a led horse, and that was Jim beyond all doubt, looking plenty discouraged. Bowles knew that Ryan had offered rewards most bounteous for Jim's body; he hungered for a portion of the plunder, and when he swung himself up the platform on the end of the car his batterings on the door was full of enthusiasm. "I feah," says the preacher, "that yo're spoiling the paint. Take thought, my friend, how expensive is paint like that!" The cowboys were backing their horses away beyond range of the car lamps, out of sight. "Mr. Ryan!" Bowles shouted, "urgent telegrams! Come out!" A nigger porter slid open an inch of the door. "You go way," says he; "Mass' Ryan he plumb distrackful. Go 'way." "Let me in, you fool!" Bowles wrenched the door wide open, and jumped into the car; then there were mutterings and voices, the lighting up of the far end of the Pullman; and after a while came a fat young man bustling out on the platform. He wore a fur coat, bare legs, and slippers, cussing around most peevish. "'Scuse me," says the preacher, "I am an unworthy minister, a 'Ticular Baptist, and I could not heah the feahful profanity of these rude men without shedding tears. May I esco't you, seh, to see this prisoner?" Bowles and the negro stood on the car platform watching, while the preacher led Ryan off into starlight. "My heart quakes at the feah that these cowboys have gawn away. Please step this way--and 'ware stumbling on these sidings--this way, Misteh Ryan--this way----" The voice died away, and Bowles was putting out to follow, when all of a sudden he and the negro were seized from behind, gagged, roped, and generally detained. Off among the sidings Mr. Ryan had a gag in his mouth, a rope round his elbows; then felt himself caught up into the starlight and thrown on a horse while his feet were hobbled under the animal's belly. In the station a robber was playing tunes with an axe on the keys of the telegraph, and the wires were being lopped with a pair of shears. Speaking generally, a whole lot of silence was being procured, and from a robber point of view things worked harmonious until the first bunch of riders went thundering away into the desert. As it happened, the City Marshal and his deputy, Shorty Broach, straying into these premises to send off a telegram, found the operator and the negro lying gagged and bound on the platform; so when they heard the robbers loping off they sized up the whole situation. They were just too late to get robbers, but plenty swift in turning out the town. This news of a fresh outrage hit old Grave City sudden, surprising, right in the middle of sleep time, and the whole town swarmed out instant like a hornets' nest for war. Some of the people were full of sleep, others were full of whisky; some had their war-paint, some had a blanket; but all of them felt they were spat on, all of them howled for vengeance. For a whole week the town tribe and the range tribe had been at war, and here was some idiot making a howl about robbers! This was certainly another case of cowboys in town, and the verdict was sudden--to lynch the cowboy leader, Mr. Chalkeye Davies. It being some expedient first to catch this Chalkeye, these warriors began to make haste and get mounted for pursuit. But from the first things seemed to go wrong, for one after another the horses which had been standing in the street went jumping roaring crazy, pulling back till their reins broke, bucking off their saddles, whirling around the town, and stampeding away to the desert. The people saw that _loco_ weed had been prevailing over the plain sense of these animals; then they found the stables an aching solitude, and the telegraph wrecked to prevent them calling for help, and everything done thoughtful and considerate by felonious parties unknown who had stolen the only millionaire in Arizona. Soon they remembered there had been a whole lot of unpleasantness between Mr. Ryan and Chalkeye. Thus the more they considered, the more their noses went sideways of the truth, smelling the poisonous iniquities of this Chalkeye outlaw. The town was left afoot, and yet from private stables horses were raked up, enough to mount a posse of thirty men. By this time it was too late to chase, but the Marshal reckoned that, with a shine of bicycle lamps, he could track until daylight, and keep on the robbers' trail until he got more help. He never ruminated on the thoughtful, prophetic way in which these motions were foreseen. Just abreast of the Jim Crow Mine the leading horse of that posse blew up with a loud bang, and Shorty Broach was projected into a prickly-pear bush. That is how he got his new pseudonym, which is Pincushion Shorty to the present day. On the whole that posse concluded to go home rather than face a pavement of live dynamite. CHAPTER XXIII A HOUSE OF REFUGE Looking back upon the whole discussion between the du Chesnay and Ryan families, I see myself sitting around meek and patient, shy, timid, cautious, and fearfully good, and yet I got all the blame. Of course, I ought to have shot old man Ryan, just as an early precaution, so it's best to own up that I was all in the wrong for dallying. But after that, there was the massacre of the leading Grave City felons; I got the blame. Next came the hunting and escape of Curly and Jim; I got the blame. Furthermore, there was the flight of Curly and Jim from La Morita prison, followed by business transactions with the Frontier Guards; I got the blame. And, moreover, there was the sliding out of Curly, Jim, and the robbers from Cocky Brown's ranche at La Soledad, with certain vain pursuits by a posse of citizens; I got the blame. Lastly, there was the stealing of all the horses and a millionaire out of Grave City; I got the blame. Whatever happened, I always got the blame. It's plumb ridiculous. Now, taking this last case, what ground is there for supposing that I helped McCalmont's robbers? My movements all that night were innocent and unobtrusive travels. When Dog-gone Hawkins went off with his tenderfoot posse to hunt ghosts, I naturally slid out for home. So I met up with McCalmont, took charge of Cocky Brown's old buckboard, and delivered Curly at the back door of my cousins, the Misses Jameson. These ladies had to hear a whole lot which was pretty near true about poor Curly, and that consumed some time. Afterwards they got scared all to fits by rushes of horsemen, dynamite explosions, and such diverting incidents, ending with the arrival of Shorty Broach to have his prickles pulled. Through this disturbance I hid up with Curly in a cellar, and when there was peace drove off alone, with my saddled horse tied behind the buckboard. After an hour's search, I found the old Coeur d'Alene Mine shaft, and tipped the buckboard in, turning the team horses loose to graze their way back to La Soledad. My duties being all performed, I rode back just before dawn to my own home pasture at Las Salinas. There is the whole annals of a virtuous night, and yet these Grave City idiots defamed my character, which it makes me sick. There's a habit which I caught from the old patrone at Holy Cross, the same being to have a cold bath. Our Arizona water is mostly too rich for bathing, being made of mud, cow-dung, alkali, and snakes; but at Las Salinas I owned a little spring, quite good for washing and such emergencies. After my bath I felt skittish, a whole lot younger than usual, full of aching memories about getting no supper last night, and pleased all to pieces to hear the breakfast-howl. These symptoms being observed, Custer proposed at once that I pay up the overdue wages, and Ute backed his play, grinning ugly. As for Monte, he was chipped in the face with a recent bullet, and squatted heaps thoughtful over his pork and beans. "So you-all wants yo' pay?" They agreed that they did, and Custer passed me the biggest cup for my coffee. "All right, you tigers," says I, "after this grub-pile we'll cyclone into town and catch what I've got in the bank." "I ain't no tiger this time," says Ute. "Why, yesterday I just rode up street to collect my washing, and the weather was a lot too prevalent." "Rain?" says I. "You shorely didn't have rain!" "Wall, it splashed up the dust all around me, it did that," says Ute, "but I sorter mistook it for bullets." Then those boys allowed that we was getting some unpopular in town, but they had a gnawing awful pain in their pants pockets, and nothing would cure that but wages. They were sure good boys, and it made me ache inside to see them want. "You boys," says I, "spose you collect these here wages yo'selves and make yo're own settlement?" "As how?" this Ute inquires, his homely face twisting around into strange new species of grins. "Why, you-all knows every hawss I got, and has yo' notions of value. Jest you whirl right in, boys, and take what's coming to you in hawsses instead of cash. Pay yo'selves liberal, and I'll sign the bills." "Shame!" says Monte. "D'ye think we'd take yo' pets?" In the end we agreed to go into partnership, the which we did, for those boys were as good as brothers from the moment I got into trouble. Monte is my partner still. Now, in course of these details, while we sat smoking cigarettes around the door of the cabin, we saw a sort of dust-cloud come rolling along out of the city. "Which reminds me," says Ute, "that the Grave City stranglers was proposing yesterday to come and hold a social gathering here. Mr. Davies, they's aiming to hang you some." We rolled the rain-barrels into the house, we toted bales of hay for barricades, and led our saddle-horses into cover; then put in the rest of our time filling the water-butts. In all we had forty minutes to prepare for our guests, but wanted a whole lot more. "You, Chalkeye," says young Monte in his thoughtful way, "you can talk the hind leg off a mule. Spose you make big war medicine to these here strangers until we're ready." Custer had got joyful, as he always did when there was trouble coming, making little yelps of bliss. "Don't talk them off the range," says he, "or we'll get no fight." Ute, he lay low, saying nothing, but he sure grinned volumes while he whirled in with his axe, cutting twelve loopholes through the 'dobe walls. I told Custer to break a hole in the roof and get up there quick, because the parapet had rain-spouts most convenient for shooting. Monte was laying out the ammunition, I was spreading wet blankets over the hay barricade in the front doorway, and then the Vigilance Committee came slanting down for battle. Seeing that Grave City was shy of horseflesh that morning, these people had done their best with thirty head, using them to haul waggons and buckboards full of men. Only the chairman was in the saddle, he being old Mutiny Robertson, who wanted to buy my ranche and not to burn it. I ought to mention that this gentleman was a Cherokee Indian by birth, a white man by nature, and some time a robber himself. He knew what sort of lightning had struck Grave City during the night, but his feelings did him credit and kept his mouth shut. As chief of the Vigilantes he had to go against all his natural instincts, but still he acted hostile and looked dangerous, leading his men until he came up against my door. "You, Chalkeye!" he shouted. I put up my head behind the barricade in the doorway. "Wall," says I, "this compliment, gentlemen, throws my tail high with pride. Put yo' hawsses in the barn while I fix the breakfast." "These barricades," says Mutiny, "is intended hawspitable--eh, Chalkeye?" "Which," says I, "they're raised in celebration of my thirty-third birthday as a token of innocent joy." "Seems to me," he responds, "that this yere day is apt to be remembered hereaways as the anniversary of yo' quitting out of from this mortal life." "These predictions of yours," says I "is rude." "You're due to die some, right now"--he poked his gun. "Come out!" "I remarks," says I, "on general principles that you all has come to mourn at the wrong funeral. My obsequies is postponed indefinite." "Now, Chalkeye," says he, "it's no use arguing, so you want to come out like a man. We're full prepared to give you a decent turn-off, and a handsome funeral." "I'm sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen, but I has other engagements, and this is my busy day." I listened to my boys getting ready. "Keep them amused," says Monte; "we need three more loopholes." "If you don't come out," says Mutiny, "there's going to be trouble, 'cause we're gettin' tired." "Wall, Mutiny, I'd shorely admire to know some trifling details first, 'cause you've aroused my interest in this yere celebration. Why for is my neck so much in need of stretching?" "This yere is frivolous argument," says he; "we-all is here to hang you, not to waste time in debates." "You has my sympathy," says I, "and I shares yo' poignant feelings about not wasting time. What's the use of a necktie social without an appropriate victim? Now thar's young Mose Bowles beside you--which I don't like the look of his neck, the same being much too short for a stand-off collar. What's the matter with hanging Moses Bowles?" "Come out," says Mose, "or we'll burn your den, you horse-thief!" "Bein' possessed of genius, Moses, you'll now proceed to set my 'dobe home in flames. The glare of yo' fierce eye is enough to burn brick walls." A bullet whizzed past my ear, and I got mad. "Ready!" yelled Monte. "Give the word, and we fire." "And now," says I, "you innocent pilgrims, you've given me heaps of time to get my twelve men ready. You've got three men in yo' posse who could hit a house from inside, the rest being as gun-shy as a school of girls. I've got a bullet-proof fort with the twelve best shots in Arizona, and if you don't get absent quick I'll splash yo' blood as high as the clouds. I give you two minutes to get out of range." The weaker men began to rabbit, the best of them saw a whole row of loopholes with projecting guns, the leaders were holding a council of war. "One minute!" says I, then turned to shout to my garrison. "Men on the roof, pick out the leaders to kill when I give the word! Men on the right, shoot all hawsses you can, or them reptiles is due to escape! Men on the left, attend to Mutiny! Ninety seconds! Ninety-five seconds!" Half the Grave City crowd was stampeding for the waggons, the rest were scared of getting left afoot. "One hundred seconds!" Mutiny's counsellors were breaking for cover. "One hundred'n five! ten--ten more seconds----" Mutiny turned and bolted. "One--two--three--when I give the word--ready--Fire!" We sprinkled the tails of the Stranglers until there was nothing to see but smoke and dust. Nobody stayed to get hurt. My cousins the two Misses Jameson admit right free and candid that my past life is plumb deplorable, that my present example would corrupt the morals of a penitentiary, and that my future state is due to be disagreeable in a place too hot to be mentioned. They remark that my face is homely enough to scare cats, that my manners and customs are horrid, that my remarks are a whole lot inaccurate, and that most of my property is stolen goods. At the same time, they say that I'm nice, and there I agree with them. My face may not amount to being pretty, my virtues haven't reached the level of bigotry, but I feel in my bones that I'm a sure nice man. Being nice, I aim to be liked, I hunger for popularity, and that is just where I blame the Grave City Stranglers. I've been misunderstood, I've not been appreciated, but why should I be taken out and lynched? It's plumb ridiculous! Now I don't claim that I had any mission to reform the morals of the Vigilance Committee--which they have none--or to correct their views, the same being a whole lot steeped in error; neither would it be right for me to encourage them in the evil work of stretching my neck on a rope, or to lead them into the temptation of shooting me any more. When one gets disliked and discouraged by the hostile acts of mean people, one needs to have presence of mind and plenty absence of body. Wherefore I did right in rounding up all my livestock, and quitting a locality where my peace of mind was disturbed with ropes, gunfire, and other evil communications. I took my riders and my herd away north, to where we could graze peaceful and virtuous amid the untroubled solitudes of the Superstitious Mountains. There was work to do, a drive of a hundred and seventy miles with slow-moving stock, then scouting for water and feed on the new pasture, a permanent camp to make, and much besides which filled up four good weeks. Afterwards I tracked a mountain sheep up to the bare heights, where all the rock was glazed with lightning, and the desert lay below me. I sat on my tail to think, feeling lonesome then, looking east toward Texas and wondering if my poor old mother was still alive. Westward the sun was setting, and that way lay the great Pacific Ocean, bigger than all the plains, where the ships rode herd upon their drove of whales--I wanted to see that too. But then I looked south-east, the way I had come, through valleys of scrub and cactus; there, somewheres beyond the hills, was my little ranch, and all the good pasture away to Holy Cross. My heart was crying inside me, but I didn't know what I wanted until I thought of Curly. Sure enough I wanted her most of all. Next morning I told all my boys good-bye, and streaked off to go see Curly. I rode till dusk and camped with Texas Bob, a friend of mine who told me I was sure enough idiot for getting outlawed. Next evening I came to the house where my cousins lived, and crept in the dusk to scratch at their back door. I found Miss Blossom Jameson all in a bustle as usual, which looked mighty natural. She was in the backyard feeding supper to her horse, and that poor victim leaned up against the fence to groan. There were cornstalks in it, cabbage-leaves, lettuce-leaves, tea-leaves, and some relics of ham and eggs. "Now jest you sail right in, Mr. Hawss, and don't act wasteful, or you'll go without!" Mr. Horse took a snuff at the mess, then backed away disgusted. "Well, if that don't beat all! Now, you Hawss, you don't want to eat the flower-beds, or you'll get murdered!" Mr. Horse turned his back and sulked. "There! That's what I call a mean spirit, and I'm goin' to lock you up, you and your supper, till one of the two gets eaten--I don't care which!" So the lady chased Mr. Horse into the barn, and threw the pig-feed in after him. "I'll larn you to know what's good," says she, and slammed the door on his tail. "Well!"--she stood with her back to the door, and threw up her nose at the sight of me--"I du wonder," says she, "that you dare to show yo' wicked face!" I allowed that my good face was getting a bit mended since our last encounter. "How's my kid?" says I. "Yo' savage, you mean. Now don't you say you've brought pet tigers this time, or tame dragons, 'cause I'll have no more strays at all." "I've got a roan hawss here who's run a hundred miles since daybreak." "Bring him in, then." "He says he's a vegetarian, and cayn't eat ham and eggs." "I don't care," says Miss Blossom; "we killed our pig to-day, and the slops has just got to be eaten. Waste is ruin." "My hawss says he'll eat the slops, ma'am, if he can have a drink of whisky along with supper." "Huh! so you want your vile debaucheries in spite of all I've told you against drink. Well, I 'spose you'll have it." She ran off to fetch the liquor, which gave me time to bury her salad in the manure heap, and get a decent feed of cornstalks down from the loft. Then I used the whisky to rub down my weary horse, the same being medicine both for man and beast. I had some myself, while Miss Blossom stood by, talking of wicked waste, and how Curly had been neglected. "Why, she's mo' like a man than a girl!" "'Spose, ma'am," says I, "that you'd been working in a stable and got shot, then run into gaol, and pulled out through a hole in the wall, and doctored by a robber, and chased around the hills----" "My habits are set," says Miss Blossom, "so I cayn't suppose any such thing. But that wig of Curly's, that skirt, those--now did yo' robber baron steal those things off a scarecrow, or did they grow by themselves?" Then she grabbed my hands. "Thar," says she, "that's off my mind, so don't look worried. The dear little soul, she's the bravest, sweetest thing--and the way she bore all that pain! Why, you or any other man would have set around cursing all day and groaning all night, but Curly--why, she never even whimpered. Now I ask you, is it possible she shot those two men? I cayn't believe a word, so it's no use your talking." "Was Miss Pansy very much scart with Curly's talk?" "Miss Pansy, my good man, is a fool, although I say it. Of all the romantic nonsense and sentimental--but thar, she writes poetry, my dear, and that accounts for her. Why, if I hadn't locked her up in her room, that woman would have sent off a poem, all about lady outlaws, to the New York _Sunday Companion_. I burned the stuff, and she had to go off in hysterics. Shucks! She puts Curly off to sleep every night with her fool poems--and such trash! Now there she is, with her glue-glue harp singing to Curly. If she don't beat cats! You listen." Away off in the house I could hear Miss Pansy's thin little voice and glue-glue harp; I thought it sounded fine. "Lost, stole, or strayed on Tuesday night, The finder tries to hide it-- A woman's heart--he has no right, For there's a Love inside it. "The owner fears 'twas snatched away, But this is a reminder, That she is quite prepared to pay One half, with thanks, to finder." Miss Blossom led me to the house. "You come right into the settin'-room," says she, "and keep yo' tearing spurs off my new carpet." I did my best about the spurs, but it would take an Indian scout to find a safe trail across that parlour floor, the same being cluttered up with little fool tables. These same tables were of different breeds, three-legged, two-legged, one-legged, tumble-over, all-to-pieces, trip-you-up, and smash-the-crockery, so it was a sure treat to watch Miss Pansy curving around without the slightest accident. Her paws were folded in front, her tail came swishing behind, her head came pecking along hen-fashion, and her smile was sweet enough to give me toothache. "Oh," she bubbled, "I'm so glad you didn't get lynched by those horrid men who never wash themselves, or think of serious things; and it's so nice to see you looking so brown with that beautiful cherry silk kerchief round yo' neck, and the wonderful leather leggings, and that dreadful revolver, so picturesque, so----" "You're making a fool of yo'self," says Miss Blossom, "and the man wants feeding. Picturesque! Bosh! Shoo!" She chased Miss Pansy out of the room. As to Curly, she lay on the sofa kicking high with joy. "Chalkeye," she howled, "you ole hoss-thief, keep yo' tearin' spurs off my new cyarpet. You picturesque, beautiful, leather-faced, cock-eyed robber! 'Ware tables, or they'll bite yo' laigs! Oh, gimme yo' paw to shake, and throw me a cigarette. Look out--that chair's goin' to buck!" I sat on the edge of the chair, and grabbed her hand while she called me all sorts of pet names. Then it seems that Miss Pansy broke loose from Miss Blossom, and came surging back, for she heard the pet names, and shrieked-- "Oh! oh! Stop! What frightful language! Oh, please, if you're a lady--remember! Oh, Misteh Davies, you mustn't let her smoke!" "Curly," says I, "you're shot, and you got to be good in a small voice, or----" "Good," says Curly; "I'm a wolf. I come from Bitter Creek. The higher up, the worse the waters, and I'm from the source, and it's my night to how-w-l. Yow-ow-ow!" "Well," Miss Pansy shrieked, "I call it disgraceful, so there!" "I don't care," says Curly. "I won't be good in a small voice, and I'll call this dear ole hoss-thief all the names I please. Why, Chalkeye and me punched cows at Holy Cross! Say, Chalkeye, d'you remember when I stuck burrs in under yo' saddle, and you got pitched to glory? Why, that's the very old hat I shot full of holes, and oh, I do enjoy to see you so much, you dear ole villain!" Then Miss Blossom dragged Miss Pansy away to cook supper, and Curly settled down with her little paw in my fist. "My habits," says she, "is a sure scandal, and I ain't got no more manners nor a bear. My language ain't becoming to a young gentlewoman, and my eating would disgrace a pinto hawss. They cayn't refawm me a lil' bit, and when I tries to set up on my tail, and look pretty, they tell me rebukes for crossin' my laigs like a cowboy. Oh, take me away, ole Chalkeye, take me away to the range and the camps, to feel the night-frosts agin, to sleep with the stars, to see the sun come up, to ride in the heat. This roof sets down on me at night. I cayn't see for walls; I cayn't get air to breathe. These ladies has roped me, and thrown me, tied down for branding, ears in the dust. Oh, take me away from this!" "When that bandage is off yo' arm I'll take you, Curly." "Not till then?" She had scarcely strength yet to travel, and yet if she fretted like this at being shut up in a house, would she ever get well at all? When I reflect what Curly looked like then it makes me wonder what sort of raging lunatic I had been to leave her in that house. By way of disguise she had a wig all sideways, and female clothes which she'd never learned to wear. They made her look like a man. Her skin had the desert tan; she moved and talked like a cowboy. But most of all, her eyes gave her dead away--the steel-blue eyes of a scout, more used to gun-fights than to needlework, which bored right through me. Only a frontiersman has eyes like that; only the outlaw has the haunted look which comes with slaying of men, and Curly was branded that way beyond mistake. This poor child was wanted as McCalmont's son, hunted like a wild beast, with a price on her head for murder and for robbery under arms. And yet she was a woman! "Say, Curly," I asked, "what has these ladies done to account for yo' being here in theyr home?" She reached to a table, and gave me cuttings from the _Weekly Obituary_. I fell to reading these:-- The burial of Buck Hennesy at La Soledad. Dog-gone Hawkins' report of not finding robbers. The rescue of McCalmont's prisoners out of the Jim Crow shaft, and the story of the posse which tracked the robbers north until the signs scattered out all over the country and every trace was lost. The attempt of the Stranglers to lynch a horse-thief at Las Salinas, the same being me. Then came a paragraph about a young lady staying at the home of the Misses Jameson. "We are informed that Miss Hilda Jameson, of Norfolk, Va., arrived last week on a visit to her aunts, the Misses Jameson. We regret to hear that on her journey westward this young lady met with an unfortunate accident, being severely bruised on the arm by the fall of a valise out of an upper bunk in the sleeping-car. This bruise has developed a formidable abscess, which the Misses Jameson are treating by the peculiar methods of Christian Science, of which craze they are well-known exponents. For our part we would suggest the calling in of a doctor; but as these ladies are way-up experts at nursing, we trust that their efforts will be successful, and that in a few days more we shall see the young lady around, enjoying all the pleasures of Grave City society. In the meantime Miss Blossom Jameson wishes us to say that the patient needs absolute quiet, and friends are requested not to call at the house until further notice." "As to the pleasures of Grave City sassiety," says Curly, "I'm plumb fed up already. 'Spose they dream that I'll go back to shoveling manure in that stable?" I asked her if there had been any visitors at the house. "They came every day to inquire, and Miss Blossom insulted them regular in the front yard. Now they've quit." "But nobody saw these ladies meeting a guest at the train." "No, but you should hear Miss Blossom telling lies out thar in the yard! She's surely an artist." "Curly," says I, "pull that wig straight, and hide up that scar on yo' brow. Cayn't you even pretend to act like a lady?" "Like a woman, you mean." "You're not safe--you'll be seen by some gossip through the window. You'd ought to hole up in the bedroom." "And choke? I'd as lief get choked with a rope." "Think of the risk!" "I reckon a little excitement keeps me from feelin' dull. Now don't you look so solemn--with yo' eye like a poached aig, or I'll throw my wig at you-all. Say, Chalkeye, d'you cal'late the Lawd made them two old ladies vicious?" "Why for?" "Looks to me 'sif they was bawn broke in, and raised gentle, with lil' lace caps on they'r haids, and mittens on they'r pasterns. I been thinking fearful hard, tryin' to just imagine Miss Pansy bad; spose she was to kick, or strike, or rair up, or buck, or pitch, or sunfish around to kill! And Miss Blossom, she only makes-believe to be dangerous to hide up her soft ole heart. Are real ladies all like that?" "Well, usual they don't bite." "I was raised wild"--Curly lay back tired--"my tribe are the young wolves, and I reckon when the Lawd was serving out goodness, He was sort of 'shamed lest we'd claim our share. He must be plumb busy, too, with His own people telling Him they'r prayers. Why, these two ladies requires whole heaps of attention. I allow theyr souls must have got out of order a lot, 'cause they has to put in enough supplications to save a whole cow camp entire. They're so plumb talkative that a-way that I cayn't get a prayer in edgeways." She was getting tired and sleepy, so I sat quiet, watching. Then somebody came outside, hammering the front door, and I pulled my gun to be ready in case of trouble. CHAPTER XXIV THE SAVING OF CURLY Miss Blossom was at the front door having great arguments with a man. "If you got baby carriages to sell," says she, "I claim to be a spinster, and if it's lightning-rods, I don't hold with obstructing Providence. If it's insurance, or books, or pianolas, or dress patterns, or mowing machines, you'd better just go home. I'm proof against agents of all sorts, I'm not at home to visitors, and I don't feed tramps. Thar now, you just clear out." "'Scuse me, ma'am, I----" "No, you mayn't." "Allow me to introduce----" "No you don't. You come to the wrong house for that." "Wall, I'm blessed if----" "Yo're much more apt to get bit by my dawg, 'cause yo' breath smells of liquor, and I'm engaged." "Glad to hear it, ma'am. I congratulate the happy gentleman you've chosen." "Well, of all the impudence!" "That's what my wife says--impudence. Will the dawg bite if I inquire for Misteh Curly McCalmont?" My blood went to ice, and I reckon Miss Blossom collapsed a whole lot to judge by the bang where she lit. "Wall, since yo're so kind, ma'am, I'll just step in." I heard him step in. "This way!" the lady was gasping for breath. "The dining-room? Wall, now, this is shorely the purtiest room, and I do just admire to see sech flowers!" Miss Blossom came cat-foot to shut the parlour door, and I heard no more. Curly was changing the cartridges in her revolver, as she always did every evening. "Scared?" she inquired, sort of sarcastic about the nose. "Shut yo' haid. D'you want to be captured?" "It would be a sort of relief from being so lady-like." Then a big gust of laughter shook the house, and I knew that Miss Blossom's guest was the whitest man on the stock-range, Sheriff Bryant. Naturally I had to go and see old Dick, so I told Curly to keep good, quit the parlour, crossed the passage, and walked right into the dining-room, one hand on my gun and the other thrown up for peace. Dick played up in the Indian sign talk: "Long time between drinks." "Thirsty land," says my hand. "Now may I inquire?" says Miss Blossom. "Wall, ma'am"--old Dick cocked his grey eye sideways--"this Chalkeye person remarked that he languished for some whisky, upon which I rebuked him for projecting his drunken ambitions into a lady's presence." The way he subdued Miss Blossom was plenty wondrous, for she lit out to find him the bottle. "Sheriff," says I, as we shook hands, "yo' servant, seh." "I left the sheriff part of me in my own pastures." Dick wrung my hand limp. "I don't aim to ride herd on the local criminals heah, so the hatchet is buried, and the chiefs get nose-paint. Miss Blossom, ma'am, we only aspire to drink to the toast of beauty." He filled up generous. "I look towards you, ma'am." "I du despise a flatterer," says Miss Blossom, but I saw her blush. "Wall, to resume," said Dick, "this lady's guest, Miss Hilda Jameson, of Norfolk, in old Virginie, is entitled to her own habits. She is wounded most unfortunate all day, but all night she's entitled to bulge around in a free country studying moonlight effects." "She's due to be whipped," says Miss Blossom, mighty wrathful. "On scenes of domestic bliss it is not my purpose, ma'am, to intrude. I only allude to the fact that this young lady was pervading Main Street late last night, happy and innocent, in a gale of wind, which it blew off her hat." "Good gracious!" "Yes, ma'am; and naturally the hat being pinned, her hair was blown off too." "It blew off!" "Perhaps, ma'am, this ha'r doesn't fit, and the best thing would be to shoot the party who made--the ornament. The young lady, of co'se, was in no way to blame if it flew down the street and she after it. I rise to observe that Deputy-Marshal Pedersen, being a modest man, was shocked most dreadful, and----" "Oh! Oh!" Miss Blossom went white as the tablecloth. "Go on," said I, "let's know the worst at once." "And he couldn't stay to help the young lady, 'cause he was running to catch the midnight train." "Thank goodness!" "Yes, ma'am, he was due in Lordsburgh this mawning to collect a hoss-thief." "And nobody else saw the wig?" "No, ma'am, only Pedersen. He came whirling down on me this mawning at Lordsburgh with dreams and visions about a robber chasing a wig, and a lady holed up in yo' home, and the same being disguised as a woman, but really a man, and wanting two thousand dollars daid or alive for the wig which its name was Curly. He seemed a heap confused and unreliable." "This Pedersen man," says Miss Blossom, "is coming here to arrest _her_--I mean _him_! Oh, what's the use of talking! Speak, man! Speak!" "Deputy-Marshal Pedersen, ma'am, is now in prison." "Arrested!" "Why, sheriff," says I, "what has he done to get arrested?" "I dunno." Dick shook his grey head mournful. "I forget. I had to exceed my authority a whole lot, so the first thing I thought of was 'bigamy and confusion of mind.' I reckon I'll have to apologise, and he's a low-flung crawler to beg pardon to." "You'll have to let him out?" "I shorely will; meanwhile he's thinking of all his sins, and he certainly looks like a Mormon. He never combs his ha'r. But then, you see, I had to keep his paws off these honourable ladies until I could bring some sort of warning heah. Besides if this pusson with a wig is really pore Curly McCalmont, I feel that I done right." "What makes you think that, Bryant?" "Wall, I happen to know that them witnesses in the Ryan inquest here was bribed to swear away the life of old Balshannon's son. The hull blamed business stinks of perjury. I may be wrong, you one-eyed fraud, but when Curly punched cows with you at Holy Crawss I sort of hungered for him. You see, my missus and me couldn't compass a son of our own, and we just wanted Curly. When he quit out from you-all, we tried to catch him, but he broke away. Then came the big shooting-match, six weeks ago, and it broke my ole woman's heart. Thar was the lady gawn daid, and Balshannon quits out in the gun smoke, and you and the two youngsters outlawed for trying to save him. That's how I reads the signs on this big war-trail, and being only a crazy old plainsman, I takes the weaker side." He reached out his paw. "Put her thar, you one-eyed hoss-thief, and you'll know that there's one official in this hull corrupt and filthy outfit who cares for justice more'n he cares for law." With warrants out against me on various charges, and the Grave City Stranglers yearning to make me a corpse, I had come on this visit feeling plenty bashful, so it was good to have a genuine county sheriff acting chaperon. The ladies gave us a great sufficiency of supper, and then we made Curly swear faithfully not to go hunting wigs in the moonlit streets. Afterwards the ladies went to roost, and we two men, having tracked out to tend the horses, made down our beds in the barn loft. Next morning my natural modesty, and certain remarks from the sheriff, made me hide up out of sight, but Bryant went to town and did my shopping. He bought me an iron-grey gelding, which I'd always longed to steal, because he was much too good for the tenderfoot doctor who owned him. It shocked my frugal mind to pay a hundred dollars cash, but Bryant was liberal with my money, and the horse was worth a hundred and fifty, anyhow. He got me a second-handed saddle, snaffle, rope, blanket, a dandy pair of shaps (leather armour for the legs), spurs, belt, shirt, overalls, boots, sombrero, and all cowboy fixings. If I was to take young Curly back to Robbers' Roost, she needed a proper trousseau, specially being due to meet Jim. I hate to put up dull particulars, but I ought to mention that Mutiny Robertson had located a good showing of silver, the second east extension of the Contention Mine, on my land at Las Salinas. That is why for he put up six thousand dollars cash for my water-spring, fencing, and adobe house, getting clear title to the land which held his mineral rights. It grieves me to think of Mutiny grabbing all his present wealth because I couldn't hold down that place without being lynched. Such is the fruits of getting unpopular, and I might preach a plenty improving sermon on the uncertainties of business, the immorality of being found out, the depravity of things in general, the cussedness of fate. Mutiny waited sly, while I plunged around conspicuous, so now he's rich, setting a good example, while I'm as poor as a fox. What with my bank deposit and the sale of my home, Dick brought me back nine thousand dollars in cash. Likewise I had in my warbags the money which McCalmont had trusted to my care for Curly's dowry. I gave Dick charge of all this wealth, taking only a thousand dollars for present expenses, and stuffed the same in the treasure-belt which I carry next my skin. These proceedings were a comfort to me, for I'm here to remark, and ready to back my statements with money, arguments, or guns, that the handling of wealth is more encouraging to the heart than such lonesome games as the pursuit of virtue. Besides the plunder and Curly's trousseau, Dick brought me chocolate creams, a new breed of rim-fire cigars just strong enough to buck, a quart of pickles, and some medicine for our thirst. The old drunkard knows what is good, and before supper we sat in the barn with these comforts talking business. It needs such surroundings of luxury to get my thoughts down to any manner of business, for I hold that office work is adapted to town sharps only, and not to men. Bryant and I had the misfortune to be named in Lord Balshannon's will as his executors, to ride herd on his Jim until such time as the colt could run alone. In this business my co-robber had taken action already, annexing the trainload of breeding cattle which had been stolen by Jabez Y. Stone. These cattle were sold by auction, and Dick held the money, swearing that nobody else but Jim should get so much as a smell. With regard to Holy Cross, Dick, as sheriff, had seized the old hacienda, and the same must be sold to pay Balshannon's debts to the Ryan estate. It seems that Michael Ryan claimed this plunder, and that Jim, the natural heir, had stolen Michael. "Thar it stands," says Dick, who has a legal mind, "until Jim skins his meat." That set me thinking of Michael. He was not likely to be special fat after his ride with the robbers. "I doubt," says Bryant, "that so shorely as Jim does the skinning, that Ryan duck ain't got a tail feather left." With these remarks he slanted away back to town, having agreed to sup with the City Marshal. As for me, I lay in the corn-shucks full of dim wonderings about that Pedersen person cramped in the cooler at Lordsburg on Bryant's charge of "bigamy and confusion of mind." The question was, would he stay put? The arrangement made with Pedersen was only temporary, not permanent like a proper funeral. Moreover, in his place I should have felt mournful and ill used. I should have put up objections and struggles to find my way out. Suppose this person escaped, or got loosed by his lawyer, or sent Curly's address to the Grave City police? I was afflicted with doubts about said Pedersen, and my mind began to gloat on the joys of absence. So I saddled the horses, got ready for the warpath, and watching until it was dark enough, made a break for the back door of the house, carrying Curly's outfit. To judge by the clatter in the house, something had happened, and when I broke in on the ladies, I found them having hysterics over their copy of the _Weekly Obituary_. I slung the cowboy gear to Curly, and bade her change herself quick because we must hit the trail. On that the clatter got to a crisis, as it does in a hen-roost in the case of fox. Miss Blossom called me all the names she could think of; Miss Pansy sobbed at having to part with her little private robber; Miss Curly whirled in telling the news in the paper. All of them wanted to talk, so I surely played fox to that hen-roost, chasing Miss Pansy out to pack us a lunch for the trail, grabbing the paper from Curly, and scaring Miss Blossom with bad words until she got tame enough to attend to business. She took Curly into the bedroom, and there was a sort of lull, while I got my ears to work at the back door. It's a true fact that I have a sort of sense which warns me if danger is coming. It makes my hands tingle as if they were full of prickles, and my heart beats loud, so I can scarcely hear. That minute I stood at the back door felt like whole hours of waiting, so that I wanted to howl. Close by me in the kitchen Miss Pansy was sobbing about the bad words she had heard, and through the mosquito netting I could hear Miss Blossom oppressing Curly while she changed her clothes. I folded the newspaper and jammed it into my pocket, studied the lay of the stable door to see how quick I could get the horses out, and pulled my gun loose for war. Away towards the town I could hear the rumble of wheels half a mile, coming on rapid. "Miss Pansy!" I called. She quit crying. "This Curly's in danger," says I. "Brace up; act brave, and when this waggon stops at the door, meet the men who try to break in. Tell them you're not to home, and give 'em some Christian Science." She went quite cool to wait by the front door, and now I could see the dust of a waggon come up against the afterglow in the sky. "Miss Blossom," I called, "roll Curly out through that window just as she is. Quick!" "Oh, but----" "Curly," I shouted, "come out!" "Coming!" "Fix that bed, Miss Blossom; lay in it with Curly's wig, and prepare to play daid!" Curly came tumbling through the mosquito bar in the window, dropped on her feet like a cat. "Horses!" I whispered, and she ran, her spurs clattering outrageous along the gravel-path. The waggon had pulled up to the front gate, somebody shouted, I heard Miss Pansy screeching like a cougar, and a man came surging past the side of the house, lifting his gun to draw a bead on Curly as she ran. I jumped behind, felled him with my gun-butt, and bolted. What with Miss Pansy's shrieks, and the shouting of men, the clatter had got to be a whole disturbance, rousing a quiet neighborhood. As I ran I could hear Miss Blossom calling, "Go 'way, you rude men! Scat!" It seemed to me that time was worth a million dollars a second while I held the back gate by the stable, and Curly rode through with the horses straight on to the open range. As I swung to the saddle, I heard the house door battered in with a crash of breaking glass. "Hold on," said Curly, reining in her horse, "I was forgettin'." The searchers were swarming through the house, and for my part I was full content to depart without telling them any good-bye. "You're scart," says Curly. "You coward! You stay heah!" Then feeling for blood with her spurs, she sailed at full gallop along the outer side of the garden fence. At the first shot from the yard she ducked, throwing herself until she hung Indian fashion along the off side of her horse. A bullet trimmed my back hair as I followed, gun flames blazed from the back porch and the windows, as we shot past the house. The bullets were singing all round us, our horses were crazy with fright, but then we swung round the end of the garden fence, running full tilt against the standing team of horses which the police had left in the road. The shock stampeded them, but Curly swerved clear of their rush, rolled back into the saddle, raced abreast, and shot both horses down. A minute more, and the firing died away behind us, for we were racing neck-and-neck across the desert. Curly had left the police to follow afoot, but now she began to weaken, for, because she had played the man, she broke down and sobbed--a woman. We had been running maybe two hours when we pulled up on the top of a hill to rest our horses. Far down to southward the electric lights in the city made a silver haze of small specks glistening as though a scrap of sky had fallen there. High in the south Orion rode guard upon the star herds, and the night was so still that we were scared to speak. I wanted to smoke, but on a night like that the striking of a match may be seen for miles around, so I took a bite at my plug and ate tobacco instead. Then as Curly and I sat on a rock together listening, I heard a bear cough because his nose got dusty, grubbing for ants; a coyote was singing the hunger-song, and miles away to the east a ranche dog answered him. Then Curly's horse scrunched up a tuft of grass, and my beast pawing, startled a rattlesnake. The little woman beside me whispered then-- "Shorely the Lawd makes His big medicine for us, for snakes and robbers, wolves and b'ars. Only the folk down tha cayn't see Him, 'cause they got electric lights instead of stars." "Which them two pore ladies," says I, "gets gun-flame by way of lamps to cheer them up to-night." "I hate to think how we-all stirred theyr peace. Still, Bryant has stroked theyr fur by now," she sighed. "Them visitors rumpled me too, and all my brussles is pointing the wrong way still." "D'you reckon, Curly," I asked, "that the City Marshal is hoping to trail us by starlight?" "Not to hurt," she yawned, "'cept maybe he's got smell-dogs guidin' his posse. Yes, I remember a while back the Marshal bought a team of blood-hounds." She didn't seem to take much interest, so I proposed that we roll our tails. "I see his lantern," said Curly; "thar it is agin. We got a ten-mile start." I saw the glimmer then. "Come on," said I. "_Poco tiempo_," says Curly. "I'm fearful sorry for them pore ladies yondeh." I dragged her away, and we rode on, throwing the miles astern. Every two hours or so Curly would give the horses a rest and a taste of grass--a trick she had learned from Indians, which kept them fresh for a trail. The night was cold, with a little "lazy wind," as Curly called it, too tired to go round, so it went right through us. Just before dawn we crossed a clay flat holding a slough of mud, and found it hard with frost. "When water goes to sleep with cold," says Curly, "a smell-dog's nose ain't goin' to guide his laigs. This frost is due to send the posse home." "At dawn they'll see our tracks." Dawn broke, and we were rising a slope of sand-drift, with acres of naked rock ahead of us. "Haw!" said Curly, leading me to the left until we entered the rock field. "Gee," she called, and we crossed the rocks to the right. "Follow the rocks--shy wide of any sand." I followed for a mile, until a little hill shut off the route we had come by. "Dismount," she said, and I stepped down by the edge of the sands. She made me take the saddle blankets, the oilskin coats, and a serape (Mexican blanket), and make a pathway of them across the sand, on which she rode, leading my horse, while I renewed the track in front of her for a couple of hundred feet. So we left horse sign on the sand which looked a whole fortnight old. Then, gathering the clothes, I mounted, and we curved away among sandhills for half an hour, sailing along at a lope until we came to a patch of gramma grass. "Let the hawsses graze," said Curly, and sat side-saddle, resting while she smoked a cigarette. I did the same, and the tracks we left now were those of grazing horses, not those of travellers. Then I resaddled, and all set, we rode off again to the north. The frost had spoiled our scent; the blanket play and grazing play had sure discouraged trackers. "Curly," says I, "you heap big Injun!" "I lil' small robber," she answered, "givin' away trade secrets." A few miles northward we circled up beyond a ridge of hills, to a good look-out point. From there we could see the Marshal's posse small as ants in the distance, ranging around on the rock flat, from whence they presently crawled off south, looking a lot subdued. Then I unsaddled, while Curly killed out a few centipedes, scorpions, rattlers, and other local vermin, to make our sleep comfy under the rocks. At noon, when the heat awoke us, we rode on to Texas Bob's big spring, reaching his camp by sundown. There we made up for lost meals by taking in four at once. Mrs. Bob gave us jerked beef, spiced bread and coffee; her wild range kids rubbed down our horses, watered them and fed; the old gentleman himself poured in his best advice until Curly crept off to sleep. As for me, I felt good, sitting there in the hut of cactus sticks watching the gold grass slowly change to grey, and great big stars come out above the hills. The long hair lay like silver around the old man's shoulders; the white beard, pointed short, wagged over his deerskin shirt; his kind eyes wrinkled with fun, and all his words were wisdom absolute. I reckon he's the wisest man in all the southern desert, and when I told him the things I ought not to have done, he showed me better how to act in future. "Stealin' a womern," says he, "is different from stealin' hawsses. You can make the hawsses forget theyr home range in a month, but a womern will sure break fences to quit back to the man she wants. This Curly will run to her mate, and whar they graze there ain't room for you in the pasture. The good Book says: 'No man shall put them asunder,' and the rules of Right and Wrong ain't got exceptions. Don't you try to steal Curly." In all my life I never needed a friend so much as I did that night, but when Curly and I hit the trail the old scout reached me his hand. "Put her right thar, Chalkeye," says he; "it's mighty hard at times to stick to the rules of the game. It's so easy to go crooked that it takes a man to play straight--and you'll play straight. _Adios!_" All night my mind was at ease, and when day broke again we were into the Superstitious Mountains. So I led Curly down towards Echo Spring, and gave the long yell to my boys where they lay in camp. CHAPTER XXV A MILLION DOLLARS RANSOM In giving my own account of this unpleasantness which happened between the Du Chesnay and Ryan families I've just grabbed Truth by the tail and tried to stay right with her. But Truth runs swift, and raises plenty dust of lies around her heels, so, maybe, whirling along I missed good facts. Happens I've been poorly provided with one eye and a lot of prejudice to see the trail ahead; likely I've not been the only party interested. Anyways, outsiders could watch the stampede without getting choked with dust. Now these conclusions struck me abrupt like a bat in the eye when I sat down to rest in camp at Echo Spring. Before leaving Grave City, while thinking of other worries, I had caught a copy of a local paper, stuffed the same in my rear pocket, and disremembered having such possessions. I never thought of it until my tigers, hungering for news, caught sight of the bulging paper and rushed my camp to grab. Then I unfolded the _Weekly Obituary_ to these boys, all setting around on their tails and pointing their ears for instruction. I read to them about a certain Chalkeye Davies, who seemed to be a most astonishing outrageous villain, performing simultaneous crimes in several places at once. My tigers purred for more. Then came a whole page of revelations concerning "the kidnapped Croesus," otherwise styled "the stolen millionaire" and the "brigands' prey." It was clearly proved that the Chalkeye villain, Jim du Chesnay--described as "a broken-down swell"--and Captain McCalmont had joined together in purloining Michael Ryan and hiding him up in a cave, the place being well known to the authorities. This cave was inaccessible by land and water, guarded with machine-guns, and supplied with all modern conveniences, especially searchlights. "Our special representative" had been there, "but declined to give particulars for fear of driving the bandits to still more desperate measures." Then came the _Weekly Obituary_ gallery of fine portraits. We knew them all well, because they were served up frequent to represent murderers, politicians, actresses, preachers, scandalous British duchesses, and other notorious persons. Now they represented McCalmont, Curly, Chalkeye, Jim, Michael Ryan, Mrs. Michael, and old Mrs. Ryan. The _Weekly Obituary_ said it was wishful with these identifications to assist the ends of justice. After this the next page was all quotations from leading papers throughout the Republic, proving how plumb depraved the robbers were, how wicked it was to purloin the rich and good out of their private cars, and how the Federal Government ought to act in this shocking catastrophe. The New York papers just burned themselves with wrath because Michael's present engagements prevented him a whole lot from attending to railroad business. His financial combine was due to collapse complete unless he took hold at once. Last came "our special supplement," with the very latest news. It seems that Michael had written to his wife in New York; likewise that somebody stole the letter from her and sold it to the New York _Megaphone_. Then all the papers copied Michael's letter and laid the blame on the _Megaphone_. Here is the letter:-- "_September 8th, 1900._ "DEAR KATHLEEN, "On 28th ult. I was abducted at Grave City out of my car by brigands and carried blindfold, lashed on to the back of a horse, for several hundred miles through frightful country, arriving here 4th instant. When I got here I weighed ninety-eight pounds! Indeed I was nearly dead; but now the robbers are feeding me up, so that I'm gaining flesh, although I'm still kept prisoner in close confinement. "I don't know the whereabouts of this house, but it's a large ranche building of logs in the middle of pine woods. At nights I'm almost frozen, so it must be high up in some range of mountains. The country looks flat from the window. A robber told me once that the place is in California. "Now, dearest, you will take this as my authority, and raise the sum of one million dollars to pay my ransom, and save me from being murdered. You know who to go to, and offer securities for the loan, getting the best terms you can. This money must be paid one-tenth in U. S. gold currency, and the balance in notes of ($50) fifty dollars and under. Bring it to Flagstaff, in Arizona, and ask for military escort. There you will charter a waggon, and have the treasure delivered at the point where the Tuba trail from Flagstaff crosses the Little Colorado River, right in the middle of the Painted Desert. The waggon must then be abandoned, and the escort to withdraw to Cañon Diablo, leaving no spies behind. The chief of the robbers tells me that the man he sends with a team to get this waggon will be a perfectly innocent farmer, and that any parties attempting to molest, join, or follow him will be killed so quick they'll never know what struck them. "I must earnestly warn you, as you value my life, to prevent any attempt whatever to watch or track the waggon; or prior to my release to permit any hostile movement against the robbers; or to deliver any money short of the full ransom; or to mark any coin or note for future identification. If the terms are not absolutely complied with in every detail, within forty days from date--that is, by noon of 18th October, I shall be murdered. If the ransom is delivered as per instructions by 18th October and found correct, the robbers will then disperse, and have no further use for me. They promise then to deliver me at the nearest ranche or farm on or before 1st November. "_Private._--Now, dearest, of my own free will, and without compulsion from the robbers, I want to ease my mind of a great burden, by confessing to you as I shall to Holy Church if ever I get the chance. Under this dreadful visitation I see things in their true light which before were hid. "I guess there's not the slightest doubt that Lord Balshannon was one of the blackest scoundrels that ever disgraced this earth. Apart from his odious crimes in Ireland, his later life was steeped in villainy. For years at Holy Cross ranche he was in open league with this gang of robbers who have captured me. One of them, Chalkeye Davies, the notorious horse-thief, was his foreman, and Captain McCalmont's son went there to get educated in crime. Once Balshannon actually hired the gang to rob my father of $75,000. "Under such circumstances I am awed by the sublime courage of my father in this single-handed war against Balshannon and his outlaws. I stood at father's side in the last fight when Balshannon murdered him; I fired first in the fusillade which avenged the old man's death; and untrained as I am to such wild warfare of the Frontier, I tried to be worthy of my blood. "But when I think of Balshannon's son, I realize now that he fought for his father as I fought for mine. Afterwards, blinded with passion, I brought a charge against him, and swore that he alone was guilty of my father's death. I had no right to do that; the young chap was innocent, the charge was a put-up job. But the evil one must have possessed me entirely, for when several witnesses thought they could please me by swearing Jim's life away, I was a party to their perjuries. More, I was induced to help them with money to leave the country, and so escape arrest. "If I sinned, I am punished, for as the robbers were Balshannon's partners, so they took sides with his son. Because I attacked the lad they abducted me. That is my punishment, Kathleen, and it is just. "In one thing I am puzzled, because I expected to find Balshannon's son with the robbers. I have not seen him, and McCalmont swears that Jim du Chesnay took no part in this outrage. "Kathleen, we've got to do right in this business. I want the charge against James du Chesnay withdrawn right now. When I am free I shall give him back his home and lands, all that father seized, and ask him to forget that there was ever a quarrel between our families. "Dear love, it breaks my heart to think of your anxiety. As for my business interests, I dare not think of what may be involved by my long absence. Mavourneen, you must save me quick, or worse will happen yet. "Your distracted lover, "MICHAEL." It made me sorry to think of that poor devil. You see, he tended strict to business first, then strutted awhile to show himself off to his woman, before he unfolded his crooked little soul in the part marked "Private." His letter gave me plenty to think about. Still, I had my own concerns to worry me, for Monte took me round our herd, which had grown in surprising ways during my absence. The mares, it seemed, had gotten more prolific than usual, giving birth to full-grown horses, ready branded. On the whole I concluded that if any of the neighbours happened around, my boys would find that pasture unhealthy with symptoms of lead poisoning. I advised them to quit, so they agreed to shift the herd along eastward, and sell out in Texas. Meanwhile, I cut out Curly's buckskin mare, and a few of my own pet runners who knew how to show their tails to any pursuers. We took twelve good stayers from the herd, and a little wall-eyed pack mule who had fallen dead in love with Curly's mare. So Curly and I were ready for our march. As to that young person, from the moment she hit the trail out of Grave City the wound in her arm healed rapid, and she sure forgot to be an invalid. Two days we fed and rested her, but then she began to act warlike, oppressing me for sloth. On the third morning I loaded the pack mule, told the boys good-bye, and trailed off with Curly, pointing for Robbers' Roost. When water won't cure thirst, but the juice in your mouth turns to slime caking in lumps on your lips, when the skin dries up because there's no more sweat, when your eyes ache and your brain mills round--that's Arizona. The air shakes in waves like a mist of cobwebs, and through that quiver the landscape goes all skeweye, for some of the mountains float up clear of the land, and some turn upside down standing on rows of pillars along the skyline. Then the hollows of the land fill with blue mist--blue lakes and cactus bushes change into waving palm trees by the waterside. How can a man keep his head when the world goes raving crazy all round him? You have just to keep on remembering that your eyes have quit being responsible, that your nose is a liar, that your ears are fooled, then keep a taut rein on yourself for fear your wits stampede, and your legs go chasing visions down the trail to death. That Valley of Central Arizona got me plumb bewildered; a country of bare earth and mesquite brush like mist, with huge big trees of cactus standing in one grove a hundred miles across. Then came a hillside of black cinders lifting a hundred miles; but the top was a level mesa, surely the first place I ever seen with good grass under pine trees. I had never seen woods before, and this coconino forest is the sort of pasture I'd want to go to after this present life. I hunger none for golden pavements or any desert lay-out, nor am I wishful for a harp--having a taste for guitars--nor for flopping around on wings, nor a crown of glory--the same being ostentatious a whole lot. Pasture like this, a horse, a camp, a spring--such promises as them would lure me to being good. Right in the heart of this forest there's a bunch of dead volcanoes called the San Francisco peaks, lifting their frosty heads into the sky, and round the skirts of lava at their feet lies broken country. Curly showed good judgment in making camps, but hereabouts I thought she had lost her wits, for she led me over broken lava flows, heart-breaking ground for the horses, where we had to dismount and climb. Then all of a sudden we dropped down, hid from all the world, into a meadow walled around with lava. This tract had escaped when the rest was overflowed; so happened there was grass among the bull pines, and right at the head of the field a little cave with space of floor for camping beside a bubbling spring. We struck the place at noon and camped, my partner concluding to lie over until she could make a night scout in search of news. She slept through the afternoon while I stood guard outside. Up to that time we had been scared to make a fire at night or show a smoke by day, except for the minutes we needed boiling coffee. Besides that, we could never camp within ten miles of a water-hole, but had to ride on after drinking to win the nearest grass, this country being all ate up around the pools. Here we had grass and water, the cave to hide our fire, and certainty besides of not being caught without warning. It was mighty fine to set around the fire after supper. "You Chalkeye"--Curly lit up a cigarette and broke into silence which had lasted days--"what does it feel like, being safe?" "We're safe enough here, lil' partner." "Till I hit the trail for this scouting. But I mean, to live safe day after day without nobody ever wanting to kill you. Ain't it some monotonous?" "Not to hurt." "It must feel sort of--neglected. I read a book onced about folks in England, which I kep' on readin' and readin' to see if anythin' happened 'cept meals and go-to-bed and get-up-in-the-mawning. The girl was a sure enough fool, and as to the boy--well, he wore government socks, and didn't love the Lawd. Then he mar'ied a widow by mistake, which she had a forked tongue, a bad eye, and parted her ha'r on one side lookin' rather cute. That boy just aimed to cut his throat for seventy-three pages, then didn't after all, which was plumb discouraging. 'Stead of that he got a government job inspectin' the clouds and drawin' salary. Then the widdy she talked herself to death, and quit out. Afterwards that boy took sixty-one pages to get a kiss from the heroine. Thar was a deanery in it and a funny parrot--I reckon that's all the story." "They mar'ied?" "Sure, and nothin' happened ever afterwards, 'cept kids. Them characters was awful safe from gettin' excited. Will it be that a-way when I get tame enough to mar'y Jim?" Feeling that said Jim was a lot unworthy of her, I strayed out to study how much our camp was visible. It seemed like we couldn't be attacked without our visitors cussing around first in the lava. They'd bark their shins, and we'd hear gentle protests. When I came back, Curly was brooding still about her Jim. "He'll be a dook like the old patrone," says she, "and sure as I'm a lady I'll be tired of life. Robes goes with that job, and a golden crown such as the angels wear." "I reckon that's only for Sunday best," I told her. "To go to church? Wall, now, ain't that jest fine? And how my wolves would laugh to see!" She stood up swaggering before the fire, her hand on her revolver, her laugh ringing echoes round the cave. "Jest you think," says she, "of me--a lady! Footman at the church door to announce us 'Lord and Lady Balshannon!' and Jim and me goes buttin' along to our pew. Then the preacher he rears up to talk his sermon. 'My lord, my lady, and you common or'nary brethren.' Cayn't you see Jim spit on his crown and give it a rub with his sleeve, and me snarled up in my robe like a roped hawss? Then we ride off home to the castle, and Jim says, 'Be-shrew thee! go to, thou varlet, and wrastle the grub pile 'fore I shoot the cook!' Then the valet says there's a deputy-marshal come to arrest us both for stealin' cows, so Jim has him hung in the moat. Afterwards we put in the hull afternoon shootin' foxes, and other British sports until it's time for supper, then play stud poker beside the parlour stove. You're to come and stop with us, Chalkeye." "Sing to me, Curly," says I, because her voice was sweet enough to gentle a grizzly bear, and it always smoothed my fur. It seems to me I can see her now, her eyes green and flame in the firelight, her face--I can't describe her face. "Here's a moccasin track in the drifts, It's no more than the length of me hand, An' her instep--just see how it lifts-- If that ain't jest the best in the land! For the maid ran as free as the wind, And her foot was as light as the snow, Why, as sure as I follow, I'll find Me a kiss whar her red blushes grow. "Here's two small little feet and a skirt, Here's a soft little heart all aglow; See me trail down the dear little flirt By the sign which she left in the snow! Did she run? 'Twas a hint to make haste, An' why, bless her!--I'm sure she won't mind! If she's got any kisses to waste, Why, she knew that a man was behind! "Did she run 'cause she's only afraid? No, for sure 'twas to set me the pace! And I've fallen in love with a maid When I ain't had a sight of her face. There she is! And I knew she was near; Will she pay me a kiss to be free? Will she hate? will she love? will she fear? Why, the darling! she's waiting to see!" In all the thousands of camp fires dotted along the trail of my life, that one is best to think of. Surely I believe that the Big Spirit sent us poor little spirits loose on the earth to be kicked and educated, not to have nice times. Looking around at present facts, we see how Life is a cold, hard, business proposition, so we have to keep a mighty sharp look-out for fear of being kicked off the premises. The future glows with hope gay as a sunrise, the past is full of memories shining glorious like the setting sun. Seems to me that in Eternity, when the cold present is mixed up with all the rainbow colours of Past and Future--why, then I'll hear Curly's voice come soft through the pines, and see her face in the fire where I camp. So in my poor way I dream in this lone camp where I sit at present. Perhaps, says you, I'd better wake up right now and tend to my story. At midnight Curly rode into the town of Flagstaff. Afterwards, following the Grand Cañon trail at daybreak, she happened by accident on a stage-coach broken down with a load of tourists. The driver chanced to be a retired robber, gone tame with rheumatism, so she helped him to fix his linch pin which had snapped. As to the tourists, they were plumb content to find a "real live cowboy" who would talk to them. Most punchers steer shy of tourists, but Curly enjoyed them. She was always curious as a young antelope at anything unusual in the way of game, so she borrowed all their newspapers "to read to her dying mother"--which was me. Then she told them good advice about keeping alert at night to watch for robbers. On that the teamster cheered them up by divulging how robbers drink human blood to keep their courage boiling, and how they like a baby when they are staled on pork. Curly imparted a few particulars and rode away with a high tail. I was still asleep when she came whirling into camp, whooping for breakfast ravenous. "Show a laig," says she, "and set out the grub pile swift while I go wrangle the hawsses. We get a move on ourselves right after breakfast!" There was something unusual, I thought, about the way she talked, a sort of high-strung excitement. As to her face, that was pale as ashes. By the time I'd cooked bacon and slapjacks she had the horses in, and fresh mounts saddled. "How's Flagstaff?" I asked, while she washed herself at the spring. "Ain't this just purty?" she said to the bubbling water. "Flagstaff? Why, it sure is the craziest town I ever seen." Her laugh was harsh to hear. "You been showin yo' face in the street?" "Wall partly, but I covered up half my complexion to look like the toothache--so!" She stuffed a ball of a handkerchief into her near cheek, bound the towel around her jaw, and looked most miserable. "Oh, throw me a dentist!" she howled, then broke out laughing. "I shorely did act pitiful." "And why for is this town locoed?" I felt the girl was laughing so as not to cry. "Well," says she, "there's Joe Beef, the Utah sheriff, and a lot of lil' no-account sheriffs, there's a fat United States Marshal with a chin whisker and a heap of deputies, there's cowboys, scouts, and trackers, reporters, ambulances, dawgs, pony-soldiers----" "Has the Navajos broke out?" "No, the pale-face has broke out; it's a hull epidemic, and there's an outfit on the war trail in Utah, another on the San Juan in Colorado--and they're going to eat up Robbers' Roost--and you, Chalkeye, lookin' glum as a new-laid widow! Scat, you!" "Has they gawn mad?" I asked. "The moment they make a break for Robbers' Roost, McCalmont will kill this Ryan, scatter his wolves, and vanish. This must be only the escort for Ryan's ransom." "It's plumb ridiculous, but--there ain't no ransom." "Yo're dreaming, Curly. This projeck of troops is sure death to Ryan. They'd risk the killin' of a common or'nary man--but a millionaire!" "That's where the joke comes--he ain't a millionaire!" I saw her quit her breakfast all untasted. "Cayn't you be serious, child, for once?" I asked, but it made me ache to see her face that way. "I daren't be serious, I daren't think, I daren't. Just you look at them papers." I snatched at the nearest paper, opened it, and thought I must have been locoed. There were the headlines:-- "Ryan Combine Smashed. Collapse of the Trust."--"Panic on 'Change. The Kidnapped Millionaire, a Confessed Perjurer and Corrupter of Witnesses, admits that He swore away the Life of an Innocent Man."--"Behold thy Financial Gods, O Israel!" I read on, dazed with the news. "Public Confidence at an End."--"Investors jump from Under."--"Ryan Debentures a Frost."--"Shares thrown on the Ash-heap."--"Petition in Bankruptcy."--"Mrs. Ryan abandons all Hope of a Ransom."--"Federal Government pledged to wipe out the Bandits."--"Movement of Troops."--"Sheriff Joe Beef interviewed on the Situation."--"Forces taking the Field."--"One of the Robbers offers Himself as a Guide." Curly was pulling my sleeve. "Come here," she said, and there was surely something awful in her voice. "Look, see that dragon-fly," she whispered, "and all them flowers usin' the spring for a mirror, bendin' low. And hear the bull pines whisper, smell the great strong scent, look thar at the blue sky, and the cloud herds grazin'. That's like my home, ole Chalkeye--sech sounds, sech good smells, sech woods, and sech a heaven overhead. The boys air gentlin' hawsses in the big corral, or ridin' out to get a deer for supper. My fatheh sets in the doorway strummin' hymns on his old guitar, his dawgs around him, his lil' small cat pawin' around to help. And Jim is thar, my Jim--cayn't I be serious? Don't I think? Ain't I seein' that, all blackened ruins--bloody ground--daid corpses rotting down by the corrals--shadows of black wings acrost the yard? Oh, God of Mercy, spare 'em, spare my wolves, my home, my fatheh! And Jim is thar!" She turned against me raging. "What air you waiting for? Has you jest got to stand round all day? Yo're scart--that's what's the matter with you-all--afraid to even carry a warning! What d'ye want to pack the kitchen for? I'm shut of you. Stay thar!" She jumped to her horse, she sprang to the saddle, she lashed her spurs for blood, and whirled away to the northward. CHAPTER XXVI THE STRONGHOLD My words are only crawling for lack of wings; my brain's like ashes when it needs to be live fire. I have no brains or words to talk of what I've seen, and I reckon I'm a lot incompetent. The men who wrote the Bible ought to be turned loose on this earth again to make another book. Then folks who have not seen might understand such places as the Painted Desert, the Rock City, and the Grand Cañon of the Colorado. What with delays in packing and driving I had to track Curly for maybe thirty miles before I caught her up at Clay Flat by the edge of the forest. Her horse was dead, and she sat beside him, her stone-white face set cold, staring straight ahead. Below us lay the Painted Desert, so wide that the further edge was lost in mist. We rode down to the trickle of water at the bottom, then up the further side, and all the rock lay in belts red as flame, yellow as gold, purple as violets, which seemed to shine of their own light, burning us. The men who stop in that country mostly go mad, the which is natural. Beyond we came out on a mesa of naked rock and sand-drifts, where we found a pool between high cliffs, splashed through it, and maybe a dozen miles beyond found after nightfall a few plants of grass. We had covered a hundred and ten miles at a tearing pace that day, changing horses, robber fashion, at every halt we made. Next morning we met up with small bunches of Navajo Indians, a strange breed of people, dressed up in their private brown skins, with great plenty of turquoise necklace, silver harness, and a wisp of breech clout, riding with bows and arrows to hunt rabbits. They handed a few arrows after us; but their ponies could not run, so we quit their company. Then we came to the City of Rocks, flaming red, and high as mountains; their thousand-foot walls sheer to the desert, all carved in needle spires, towers, castles, palaces. The street was six miles wide, I reckon, and we rode along it maybe fifty miles, like crawling flies in the sand. Beyond the city we curved around by a gap in the desert, a sort of crack half a mile deep, with a river along the bottom. It swung about like a snake, getting deeper and deeper; but we kept to the level desert, until we reached a little side cañon, where there was feed and water. We resaddled there, taking Curly's buckskin and my pet horse Sam. The rest of our bunch we turned down into that pasture, and left them, riding on along the rim rock. Just after sundown we came abrupt to what looked like the end of the world, a gulf so deep that we couldn't see to the bottom. That mighty gash in the earth is six hundred miles in length, it's usually ten miles wide; it's more than a sheer mile deep, and full of mountain ranges all shaped like gigantic buildings. Dead weary as I was from riding more than two hundred miles in forty-eight hours, I forgot about being tired when I saw that place, the most tremendous thing in the whole earth, the Grand Cañon of the Colorado. There was no rest for us, but seven miles of such a break-neck trail as I'd never imagined possible, for it overhung black death from start to finish, looping round the face of outrageous cliffs which seemed to have no bottom. Midnight was past before we got to camp beside the river, flung off the harness, turned the horses loose, and dropped in our tracks to sleep. A gunshot roused me, and starting broad awake I heard the echoes crashing from wall to wall. "It's only me," said Curly, "signalling." Dark banks of fog were driving over our heads, and I shivered with the dawn cold. Then I looked up, and more than a mile in the air saw scarlet cliffs ablaze in the sunlight. The river rolled beside our camp, wide as the Thames in London, grey water so thick that splashes of it harden into mud. A gunshot answered from the further bank, then Curly gave the cougar war-howl. The yelp of a wolf came back. "Both boats," said Curly, "are on this side of the river--something gawn wrong. Cook breakfast while I cross." She took a little crazy boat and towed it upstream, scrambling over boulders a quarter-mile or so. From there she pulled the boat across the great grey sluice, fetching the other bank after a half-mile drift downstream. There was a strong backwater along that further bank, and she pulled easy, drifting past the camp up to a rocky headland. The man who had answered the signals was waiting there to throw his saddle into the boat, and follow, leading two horses so they could swim behind. By the time they crossed again I had our two horses to camp, and breakfast waiting. It was not until after he fed, and he laid in provisions generous, that this robber--his name was Pieface--had a word to say. He took no more notice of me than if I was dead, and when he talked with Curly he sat close beside her whispering. I hearing nothing; but allow I thought a heap, for this man's face was bad, the very look of him was poison. My gun was plenty ready while I watched. "Chalkeye," says Curly out aloud, but her eyes were set on this ladrone all the while. "This Pieface says that ten of our boys were sent down to wait for the ransom. They were camped at Clay Flat, you remember?" "I ain't much forgetful," says I, for this meant that all the cowards had deserted! We had seen no men at Clay Flat. "The chief," says Curly, "is right on his ear, and sends this Pieface to find out what's wrong at Clay Flat." When this Pieface person had hit the trail, we took both boats across the river and swam our horses. From the far bank our way turned sharp to the left into the side Cañon of Dirty Devil Creek. There we rode along some miles in the water, so as to leave no trail; then, quitting the bottom, turned sharp back up a ledge, threading the face of the cliffs. The heat was blinding; it seemed as if we were being baked alive, and even my tanned hide broke out in blisters. Curly allowed this cliff was over six thousand feet high, and the trail kept circling round red buttresses, flanks of broken rock, to one sheer cape where nothing lay below us but blue space. Then we swung into a little arroyo with trickling water, shady trees, and a gentle glade until we reached the summit. At the rim rock a robber halted us, until Curly pushed her hat-brim up, showing her face. She answered for me, and we rode on through level pine woods. I noticed horse tracks scattering everywhere, but no trail whatever; and then even the horse-tracks petered out. I looked back, and there was not a sign to show the way we had come. For the first mile we headed towards where the sun would set, now we swung around on a long curve until we pointed north-east. I might just as well have been blindfold. "Curly," I asked, "is this Main Street?" "I reckon," she laughed. "Could you find the way back?" Once before she had told me that no trails led to the stronghold. Then away to the left I saw a big corral, with a dust of horses inside, and men sitting round on the top rail, maybe a dozen of them. Beyond it lay a streak of open water, and right in front loomed a house, set in the standing woods, where one could hardly see a hundred paces. It was a ranche house of the usual breed, log-built, low-pitched, banked up around with earth as high as the loopholes, and at each end against the gable stood a dry stone chimney. Two or three men stood in the doorway smoking, and but for the fact that they packed their guns when at home, they looked like the usual cowboys. The dogs were plenty exuberant, but Curly might have been out shooting rabbits for all the fuss that these men made about her coming. We unsaddled and set our horses loose. "Wall, Curly," asked one of the robbers, "got any liquor along?" "Nary a smell." Then McCalmont came round the end of the house, dusty after some argument with a broncho, trailing his rope while he coiled it. "So, home at last," says he, shaking a paw with me right hearty. "Wall, I'm sure pleased at you, Curly." "Come to repawt," says Curly, mighty cool, but I saw that her eyes were ranging around for Jim. An _olla_ of water hung from the eave by the door, and McCalmont passed the dipper to me first. Then while Curly drank he introduced me to Crazy Hoss, Black Stanley, and his brother Dave, who made out that they were glad to see me, though their looks said different. Then the Captain asked me in, and we followed Curly through the mess-house door. The log walls were hung with antlers, skins lay on the floor before the big hearth at the end, and down the middle, with benches on either side, ran the long table with its oilcloth cover, the tinware set out for supper, and netting to keep off flies. That cow camp looked good to me, home-like and soothing. Off to the left of the messroom opened a little lean-to house--McCalmont's den--with a cubby hole beyond it for Curly. We found her sitting on the bunk, gun and spurs unbuckled, and holding her legs out for the old man to pull off her shaps. I unharnessed myself, and he fed me a cigar, bidding me to settle in a cow-hide chair. I felt right to home then. "Dad," says Curly abrupt, "whar's my Jim?" "What, you ain't met him?" says McCalmont. "He's gone to look for you." Curly went pale under the tan, and gulped. "How long?" she asked. "Oh, quite a time. Why, child, what's scart you? Perhaps he's with my boys at Painted Desert." "Daddy, I've brought bad news." "I reckon"--McCalmont spoke very low--"I been thar before a few times, and yet we've worried along. Lie down, so you'll get mo' rest." He sat on the edge of the bunk, his hand on hers, as she lay loosing out bit by bit the story of the ransom lost, the Federal Government on the warpath, ten good men deserted. He was all crouched up when she finished, the stub of a cigarette burning his fingers, and he looked very old. I went to get the newspapers which I'd kept in my warbags for him, and when I came back he turned loose a volley of questions, searching me to the bones until he had all the truth. "Well, well," he said at last, with a queer smile, "these yere official parties seem to be takin' quite an interest, eh? I thank you, seh, and I'm full satisfied." Then he stood up. "You must be kinder hungry, Misteh Davies. Spose you jest interview my cook. I think that you and him has met before, and won't need introducin'. My son and I will join you presently." I strayed out through the messroom and found the kitchen beyond. Sure enough the cook and I were acquainted, although I had not expected to see this particular person in shirt and overalls, and his bare arms white with flour. He was plenty absorbed too, dipping balls of chopped meat into a pan full of mess. "How air you, seh?" He shied right off his feet and turned to face me, looking as guilty as a caught fox. "I guessed as much," he gasped; "all blackguards are bound to flock together here." "Glad to meet you, Mr. Ryan," says I. Then he collected himself for war. "State your business, and get right out of here. I'm engaged!" "I'm engaged likewise"--I sat down on a box, and a dog came fawning to me--"wharas this dog is polite, and sets an example. He's plumb full of decorum and depawtment." I hardly know what possessed me. Ryan's looks perhaps, or the way he guarded those meat balls. I grabbed the nearest, and fed it to the dog so quick that Ryan had only time enough to give himself dead away. "Leave that dawg alone!" says I. He quit resisting me then, backed to the log wall, and stood glaring. "I've noticed," says I, "in dawgs that the smaller the dawg, the larger the bark. I knew one onced so small that he hadn't room to hold his bark--and the recoil tharfrom threw him back three dawg lengths. You seem to suffer a whole lot from yo' recoil, Mr. Ryan." "I guess," he said in his harsh Yankee twang, "that you're a low-down coward--torturing me because you know I'm helpless." "That dawg," says I, "is acting sort of queer, eh? As to my being a coward, Mr. Ryan, you'll remember the last time we met I came buttin' along to yo' hotel in Grave City commenting on yo' proceedings with a straight tongue, and guns to back the same." "Come to the point," says he. "Now this yere is what I'm trailin's up to, seh, that I bears neither guns nor malice, calls no names, bridles my tongue severe, treats you with plenty and gentle inquiries, whar do you keep yo' manners?" "Where you keep your honesty," says he, sort of sarcastic. "You know I can't escape, so I've got to listen. Talk, my good man, and when you're through you can go." The town scout still had his office manners, a lot contemptuous. He climbed up on top of his vanity--like a frog on a ladder--to call me "my good man." And yet I had tamed him enough for business. "I take notice," says I, "that on the shelf above yo' haid there's a tin of rough-on-rats. This condiment is maybe unusual in meat balls, and it seems to affect yo' dawg some poignant, with wiggles and froth on the jaws. He's swelling up, too. I likewise remarks that thar's enough of these high-flavored meat balls to go through McCalmont and all his riders. May I politely ask how long you been cook for this ranche?" "Mind your own business." "Which is to further test these same delicacies by trying a meat ball on you." He grabbed a long butcher-knife from the table. "Try it," says he. "Maybe I'd better call in Captain McCalmont. Shall I shout for him?" Ryan dropped the knife. "What do you want to know?" "How long you have been cook?" "Since yesterday. I've been helping a man named Pieface." "Why did he quit?" "Got a note by carrier pigeon. He was in charge of McCalmont's pigeons." "You found the note after he left?" "Yes." "Hand it over." He said bad words. "I notice," says I, "that the meat ball has finished with yo' dawg." He took a slip of paper from his hip-pocket. "No ransom," I read. "Warn the boys." "Were the boys warned?" "No." "The news made you sort of desperate?" "They'll kill me when they know!" "So you took precautions first?" "Why do you torture me?" "Prefer a meat-ball?" "Go on, sir." "I might be induced to hide away these delicacies. Also this"--I kicked the dog's carcass--"in fact to help you some. You could bury the past, and resign yo' post as cook." "The news will come out, and I'll be murdered anyway. What's the good?" "There being no ransom," says I, "the use for you here ain't much conspicuous. As a cook you're precarious, too. Suppose I get you turned loose?" "I'll pay one hundred thousand dollars the day you set me free in the nearest town." How could I tell the poor brute that he had not a dollar left in the whole world? "Two hundred thousand," says he, "and that's my last word." A man came to the door behind me, which opened on the yard. There hung a long iron crowbar, bent up in the form of a triangle. The man began to beat this with a horseshoe, and the sound would carry maybe a quarter-mile. "Name your own terms," says Ryan. "Come, name your price!" "You does me too much honour," says I, for how could I tell him the facts? "What do I care for your honour?" Ryan had played like a sneaking coyote before, but now he talked out like a man. "I've bought better men than you with a hundred dollars, and now I'm going to insult you with hard cash. Your price, you thief!" The sound of the gong must have been a gathering signal, for men were straying in from the corrals, and there was soon a tramping of feet and buff of talk from the messroom at my back. "D'ye think," says Ryan, "that I'd be under any obligations to such as you? I ask no favours. I only try to make it worth your while to do what's right for once. Come, have you any manhood in you? I appeal to your manhood to save me. Oh, turn your back, you hound!" I ran to my saddle in the yard, opened my warbags, grabbed out a pad of paper and fountain-pen, then pushed my way through the growing crowd about the messroom doors, until I won back to the kitchen. "Ryan," says I, "set down on that meat block, and write down what I say in yo' own words." "What new treachery is this?" he asked. "If you want to live," I answered, "you'd best get a move on, and write." The row in the messroom made it hard for him to hear, so I drew up close. "Memorandum," says I, and he began to scribble; "date it 'Robbers' Roost, Utah.'" "But this is California!" "Write what I say, 'October 13th, 1900.'" Michael Ryan confessed on oath how he had aided and abetted George Ryan in a plot to destroy Balshannon. He confessed to perjury at the Ryan inquest, naming the witnesses and the amounts he paid to each. He released the Holy Cross estate from all claims on the ground of debt, restoring the same to Jim. He swore that Jim, Curly, and I were not among the brigands who captured him, and he believed all three of us to be innocent. As to these facts, I had to convince him with a meat ball, but in the end he signed. Then I got in a brace of independent robbers to sign as witnesses, so the thing looked mighty legal and satisfying. Meanwhile in the messroom I could hear McCalmont calling his wolves to order, and my witnesses went away to hear his talk. "Ryan," says I, sitting down beside him, "you know the points of the compass?" "I guess." "I'm going to explain the trail to the nearest settlement; see here." So I began to scribble out a map showing the lie of the Cañons, the route to where we had left the boats, the signs to guide him beyond. "When you see this big butte towering high on the right----" I looked up, and found he was not listening, for he pointed his ears to the messroom where McCalmont talked. "Yo're due to understand," the Captain was saying, "that this yere Ryan made a letter which he sent to his wife. He showed me the letter, and it was sure fine scholarship, telling her plain and clear how to scare up his ransom at once, how to deliver the same, and not make crooked plays to get us trapped. Mrs. Ryan she got the letter all right, but then some low-lived swab stole it away from her, and sold it to the N' York _Megaphone_." Ryan let out a sudden cry. "That's what's the matter," says McCalmont, "and all the private part of the letter got into print; whar Ryan confesses how he acted foul to pore young Jim du Chesnay. He confesses to perjury and bribing witnesses, an' sech-like acts of rotten treachery, which the general public havin' entrusted millions of money to this Ryan to hold and invest the same, ain't pleased when they larns his private manners and customs, or how his manhood proves itself up when tested. The public thinks it's been too trustful in confiding big wealth to a felon who is due to be gaoled for his sins and gathered into the penitentiary." "Escape," says I to Ryan, "or you ain't got five minutes to live." "Escape!" says he--"to penitentiary! Oh, Kathleen, Kathleen!" He covered his face with his hands, while McCalmont went on-- "So you see, boys, that the public closes down on this Ryan, and grabs theyr money, and jumps from under sudden, stampeding before the crash. This pore swab we got in the kitchen, which he cayn't even cook, ain't a millionaire any mo', but a bankrupt, due to get five years' grief for his acts, which is plumb felonious." It seemed as if all the robbers were stunned with the news, for they made no move or sound. Only poor Ryan groaned, and I felt sick, because I knew it was too late for him even to run. "Boys," says McCalmont, "this news is bad medicine for we-all, 'cause we done attracted too much attention, we made ourselves plenty conspicuous, and the United States has awoke to a smell of robbers. The nation has got a move on at last, and it's coming up again on us on every side to put our fires out. Ten of our men has deserted, and likewise the Pieface animal, so there'll be plenty guides to lead the attack on this place. I reckon our trails are blocked, our water-holes are held, our time is pretty near expired in this world. I tharfore propose that we divide up what plunder we got in store--the same being considerable--and all share alike, and after that we scatter as best we can. Those of us who win out of this trap is due to live, and those who don't will get a sure good fight." I heard a voice call out, "Who brung this news?" "The man who risked his life to bring this news is my friend Chalkeye Davies." At that I whirled right in through the crowd in the messroom and won to McCalmont's side. "I got to speak," says I. The Captain grabbed my hand. "Boys, will you hear him?" he called. "Spit it out!" says Crazy Hoss. "Yo're a sure enough man, and we'll hear." "Boys," says I, "if you hold it good to have this warning in time to save yo' lives, I has to say that Curly McCalmont done it. He acted faithful when ten men and a swab deserted you complete, and Curly is shorely braver than any man I ever seen in this world. I speaks for Curly and me, and for the Captain, when I says that it's a hull lot pitiful to see the way this Ryan person has acted straight to own up the wrong he done, and played his cyards honest in the matter of ransom. We asks you to spare the life of this yere Ryan." Crazy Hoss reared up swift to open war against me. "I'll spare him!" he shouted. "I'll spare him a gunload of lead! What's yo' game, stranger? Show down yo' hand, and let's see this hull crooked lay-out. I stood at the loophole thar to watch yo' play, I seen you workin over this yere prisoner until he's plumb subdued, and offering bribes. You catch him with a can full of wolf-bait pizen, preparin' the same for our supper; you feed his meat ball to his dawg, which dies on the floor between you; you threatens to stuff another down Ryan's throat; then you makes him good talk till he signs a paper, and now you arises here to recite his virtues, playin' to save his life. Show down yo' game!" By this time I was facing a matter of twenty revolvers, all a-quiver to drive holes through my poor old hide. Some yelled that Ryan had bribed me, some that I was projecting the death of the whole gang by Ryan's poison. I threw up my hand, showing the peace sign quick. "After you!" I called, always willing to oblige--"after you. Shoot first, and hear me afterwards, eh? That's right, boys. You see, I pack no gun, 'cause I'm yo' guest." The guns were put away. "You've heard," says I, "from Misteh Crazy Hoss how I subdued this Ryan and got a quittance for Jim du Chesnay from the charge of murder. I'm his guardian, boys. Furthermore, you heard from Misteh Crazy Hoss a plumb truthful account of how I saved this whole crowd from being wolf-bait fed to us for our supper--the same being considered unwholesome. Now, as to this pore little felon, he put up the only play he knew to save hisself from being murdered. He ain't a lion to fight with teeth, or a man to distribute gunfire on his enemies; but his back's to the wall and he puts up the best little fight he knows about. He, bein' a sure snake, uses poison, whereat, having drawn his fangs, I takes his side, and begs the critter's life. I want to have him for a curio to put in my collection, and I offers ten cents for the same--which is more'n he's worth." "Boys," said McCalmont, "if this yere Chalkeye didn't allus take the weaker side, he'd be a rich man still, instead of an outlaw herdin' with our gang as his last refuge." The robbers seemed to like me some better now, and a feeling of popularity began to glow on my skin. "But," says McCalmont, "in the matter of this yere snake, he acts plumb erroneous. If the snake escapes to give evidence, he can identify the entire gang, Chalkeye included. Go--kill that snake!" Crazy Hoss rushed to the kitchen. "Gawn!" he yelled. "Escaped! So this is yo' game, Mr. Chalkeye!" "Kill him! kill him!" "Halt!" McCalmont faced the rush against me--outroared the shouting. "Back, or I fire! Back, you curs! Deal with this business afterwards--we want the snake first! Whar's them smell-dawgs? Here, Powder! Powder! Here, you Rip; come on, lil' dawg! Crazy Hoss, you put on them dawgs to the scent, track down this Ryan, and kill him. Then come back." The dogs were put on Ryan's trail. "Go, get 'im, Rip! Sick 'im, Powder! Tear 'im and eat 'im! Come along, boys!" So the whole crowd poured away to track Ryan. McCalmont grabbed me by the arm to hold me back. "You fool," he hissed through his teeth, "come on--there's not a moment to lose--or them wolves will get you! Curly! Curly, come out, you, and fetch Chalkeye's gun. Chalkeye, you come quick." Curly came running from the little hind room with our guns, while McCalmont rushed me to the kitchen. "Here," he said, "hold this sack for grub!" "Not them meat balls," says I; "meat balls is out of season." "All right," he laughed, pitching a half-sack of flour into the bag which I held, then a side of bacon, and such other truck as was handy. "Curly, you knows whar to take this man?" "Come along," says Curly. And I followed tame, with the sack on my shoulder until we gained the woods. "Back!" says Curly sudden, and dodged for cover, while I dropped flat behind a fallen tree. Looking from under, I saw Ryan come surging past in front of us, screeching like all possessed, the smell-dogs at his tail, and the robbers swarming close behind. "A near thing that," says Curly, when they had passed; "creep through under the log." I crept through with my sack, and she followed. "Lie low," she said; "we're hidden here from the ranche until we can run some more. Get out yo' gun." They say that we white men, using our right hands mostly, is strongest on that side, and apt to bear to the left when we don't take note how we run. Anyway, Ryan, instead of circling south, had circled to the left and lost himself, then, when he found he was hunted, went off his head complete. He was back in the yard now, close beside the house, where McCalmont headed him off with a shot from the door, while the robbers spread out half circling. They laughed and shouted. "My turn first!" says Crazy Hoss. "Take his off ear, Crazy!" The shot took Ryan's right ear; then Spotty fired, lopping off the left. The poor brute tried to bolt, but a bullet swung him around. He lifted his hands for mercy, but the next shot smashed his wrist. He screamed, and a bullet caught his teeth. Curly was yelling now, but nobody noticed, for Ryan was down on his knees, and his face was being ripped to pieces. Then I saw McCalmont fire, and one of his dogs dropped dead. He fired again, and killed the other hound. He had saved me from being tracked. "Quit firing!" he shouted, and the robbers threatened him. "Now," he yelled at them, "who wants to talk war agin my friend Davies and me?" "Come away," says Curly; and I crept after her. A man's legs are naturally forked to fit onto a horse, and mine have never been broke to walking afoot. Fact is my legs act resentful when I walk, making me waddle all the same as a duck; which it humbles me to think of, because that Curly person loaded a sack on my withers, and herded me along like a pack mule until I felt no better than a spavined, groaning wreck. We must have gone afoot more than two whole miles before we came out at last on the edge of the Grand Cañon. At this place, right in under the rim rock, there was a hidden cavern--a fine big place when you got down there, but a scary climb to reach. Half-way down the rock ladder I grabbed a root, which turned out to be a young rattlesnake, and was so surprised that I pretty near took flight. Curly saved me that time from being an angel--which leads me to remark that there's lots of people better adapted to that holy vocation than me. It was dark when we got to the cavern, but next morning I saw that it was a sure fine hiding-place, the floor being covered with a whole village of old stone houses. There are thousands of cliff villages like this in the cañon country, made by some breed of Indians long gone dead, but this one had special conveniences, because you could spit from the outer wall into sheer eternity. Seeing how the robbers were warped in their judgments of me, and the authorities likewise prejudiced, my health required plenty seclusion then. We stayed in that hole for a week. Curly was restive, quitting me at night to range the woods and visit the ranche, collecting everything useful which was small enough and loose enough to pull. She got four horses into a hidden pasture, with saddles for the same, and chuck to feed us when we should hit the trail. The plunder was good, but the news she brought smelt bad of coming trouble, for the robbers stayed to quarrel over their shares of past thievings. When they broke to scatter, the trails were all blocked with troops, and then they were herded back into the ranche. On the fourth day I had to make Curly prisoner, while from noon to dusk the battle raged at the stronghold, and she wanted to go and die at her father's side. All that night and the day that followed I kept the poor girl quiet with my gun, then when the darkness came I let her free. I don't like to think of what happened next, because I reckon that if I wash my outside I ought likewise to keep my inside clean and tidy with nice thoughts. Getting our horses, Curly and I rode back to Robbers' Roost, pulling up at the edge of the clearing just as the new moon lifted above the pines. The stench of death, black ruins, white ashes, dark patches where blood had dried upon the dust, everywhere broken corpses--coyotes creeping to cover, eagles flapping heavily away--my soul felt small and humble in that place. Black it was and silver under the moon, with something moving slow from corpse to corpse in search--a live man counting the dead. Something in the way he moved reminded me I must have known that man, but the little partner called to him all at once-- "Jim!" Her voice went low and clear across the silence. "Jim!" CHAPTER XXVII A SECOND-HAND ANGEL Scouting cautious, and shying wide of settlements except when we had to buy chuck, I herded my youngsters up the long trail north. We took no count of the distance, we lost all tab of dates, but camped where game was plenty, pushed on when the sun was shining, holed up when the wind was too cold, and mostly lived by hunting. So we rode the winter through and came to the spring beyond, catching maybe more happiness than was good to have all at once. One day, the snow being gone, and the prairie one big garden of spring flowers reaching away to the skyline, we happened to meet up sudden with a pony-soldier which he was lying under the shadow of his horse and playing tunes on a mouth-organ, heaps content with himself. His coat was red, his harness all glittering fine, his boots were shiny, his spurs had small cruel rowels. He said his chief was His Imperial Majesty Edward VII., that his tribe was the North-West Mounted Police, and his camp was called Medicine Hat, the same being close adjacent. We sounded him on robbers, but he seemed plumb ignorant, and said there was quite a few antelope if we cared for hunting. Telling the youngsters to camp, I went butting along into Medicine Hat to prospect the same alone. It felt mighty strange to be in a town again, see the people walking around who belonged there, women and children especially, but the whisky I sampled felt right natural, and for all my snuffing and snorting I smelt nothing suspicious in the way of wolf-trap. So I traded with a lady who kept store for woman's clothing, such as she used herself, enough to load up my pack-horse. She certainly selected liberal to judge by the money I paid. When I got back to camp expecting supper, I found the kids had been quarrelling, so that they weren't on speaking terms, and I had to introduce them. Jim was special haughty, but Curly got heaps interested in the clothes I'd bought, crowing and chuckling over everything. Her favorite game was playing at being a lady, but now she shied at committing herself. "Shucks!" she flirted across to the far side of the fire. "I cayn't oppress Jim in them things--I'd get so tame and weak he'd sit on my haid!" "You're due to get mar'ied," says I, "as sure as sunrise to-morrow." "So! Jim ain't caught me yet!" Jim started in to catch her, but she jumped the fire to clear him. "Now!" she deified him complete; "don't you rush my corral with one of yo' fool kisses, or I'll shorely bat yo' haid. I ain't laid down my arms yet!" So she swaggered with her little brown hand on her gun, the firelight glowing on her leather clothes and gold bright hair, on the flush of her sunburnt skin, on milk-white teeth, and laughing, flashing eyes. Jim's heart was burning, I reckon, for he went down on one knee and reached out his arms to her. There was only the fire between them. "Say you love me, Curly?" "It cayn't be helped, Jim," she whispered, and her face went grave, "but I shorely love you." * * * * * Riding the ranges of the world and grazing in life's pastures, I've got to be plumb content with things present, which I can grab the same with my teeth, instead of hungering after that heaven above which seems a lot uncertain, and apt to prove disappointing. Here I've got horses for sure, plenty cows, and Monte, one of my old riders, for my partner. Bear Hole is the name of our new ranche, with the bull pines of the coconino forest all around us, the hoary old volcanoes towering above, and the lava-beds fencing our home pasture. Back of the cabin is the spring where Curly used to splash me when she washed, the cave where she sang to me beside our camp fire. The bubble spring, the wind in the pines, the chatter of the birds, and the meadow flowers remind me of her always. She has put away her spurs and gun never to ride any more with free men on God's grass, because, poor soul! she's only a lady now and gone respectable. Last summer--it sure makes me sweat to think of that scary business--I went to Ireland. First came civilisation--which I'd never seen it before--cities all cluttered up with so various noises and smells that I got lost complete. When you stop to study the trail you get killed by a tramcar. Then there was the ocean, a sure great sight and exciting to the stomach--mine got plumb dissolute, pitching and bucking around like a mean horse, so that I was heaps glad to dismount at Liverpool. That Old Country is plenty strange, too, for a plain man to consider, for I seen women drunk and children starving, and had to bat a white man's head for shining a nigger's shoes. It beats me how such a tribe can ride herd on a bunch of empires as easy as I drive cows, but if I proceed to unfold all I don't know, I'll be apt to get plumb talkative. When I came up against Balshannon Castle, I found it a sure enough palace, which was no place for me, so I pawed around outside inquiring. Her ladyship was to home, and I found her setting in a fold-up chair on the terrace. It made me feel uplifted to see her there nursing a small baby, crooning fool talk to the same, which she patted and smacked and nuzzled all at once. "Wall," says she, as I came looming up accidental, "ef it ain't ole Chalkeye! Didn't I tell you awdehs to come long ago? Now don't you talk, or you'll spoil my kid's morals, 'cause he ain't broke to hawss-thieves. Yes, you may set on that stool." "Curly," says I, feeling scared, "is that yo' kid?" "Sort of. I traded for him. He's a second-hand angel. Now jest ain't he cute?" He was a sure cunning little person, and thought me great medicine to play with. "Whar is his lawdship?" says I. "Jim's down to the pasture, breaking a fool colt, and Chalkeye--oh, you ole felon, how I enjoy to see yo' homely face! I got good news. Father's alive, yes, in New York. He writes to say he's got a job at a theatre, giving shows of roping and shooting. He's the Cowboy Champion, and"--her voice dropped to a whisper--"planning enormous robberies. He'll steal New York, I reckon." "Curly," says I, "spose I give you good news. May I hold that kid just to try?" "Now you tame yo'self, and don't get ra'ring up too proud. Then maybe you shall--to-morrow. Tell me yo' news." I handed her the documents, which the governor of Arizona had made for me himself. Curly was pardoned, the charge against Jim was withdrawn, and I was to come up for trial when called upon. I shall not be called upon so long as I stay good. I saw the tears in Curly's eyes as she read, and her lips went twisty as if she were due to cry. "Shorely," she said, "this comes of tellin' our prayers to God. So Jim and me is free to go back to Holy Crawss?" "You're free." "Old friend," she whispered, "you must be first to tell Jim. Leave me awhile." I walked away into the house as if to look for Jim, then crept back behind a curtain watching her. She looked away to the west, and I knew she was longing for the desert. Then she kissed her baby on the nose, and once again, as in the old days, I heard her singing:-- "Whar y'u from, little stranger--little boy? Y'u was riding a cloud on that star-strewn plain, But y'u fell from the skies like a drop of rain, To this wo'ld of sorrow and long, long pain-- Will y'u care fo' yo' motheh, lillie boy?" Far off I could hear the footfall of a horse. "When y'u grows, little varmint, lillie boy, Y'u'll be ridin' a hawss at yo' fatheh's side, With you' gun and yo' spurs and yo' haidstrong pride: Will y'u think of yo' home when the world rolls wide-- Will y'u wish fo' yo' motheh, lillie boy?" The horse was coming nearer up the drive. "When y'u love in yo' manhood, little boy, When y'u dream of a girl who is angel fair, When the stars are her eyes, and the winds her hair, When the sun is her smile, and yo' heaven's there, Will y'u care fo' yo' motheh, lillie boy?" The horseman, brought up half-rearing, stepped from the saddle, then threw his rein in the old range way, and Balshannon hurried to his wife. * * * * * LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY'S _Popular Editions of Recent Fiction_ Reissues of favorite copyrighted novels, fully illustrated (with few exceptions), and handsomely bound in cloth. 1. THE RAINBOW CHASERS. A Story of the Plains. By John H. Whitson. It presents with striking vividness a picture of the rise and fall of a boom town.--_Boston Transcript._ 2. FROM KINGDOM TO COLONY. By Mary Devereux. It is many a long day since such a charming love story has been written.--_Literary World._ 3. THE SHADOW OF THE CZAR. By John R. Carling. An engrossing romance of the sturdy, wholesome sort, in which the action is never allowed to drag.--_Boston Herald._ 4. WHITE APRONS. By Maud Wilder Goodwin. Has the true qualities of historical romance, dramatic situation, and stirring incident, coupled with accuracy and literary charm.--_Philadelphia Public Ledger._ 5. A DREAM OF A THRONE. By Charles Fleming Embree. A powerful story, with constantly changing movement, strong color, and striking effects.--_Philadelphia North American._ 6. IN THE COUNTRY GOD FORGOT. By Frances Charles. The sky and the cacti and the droughts of Arizona are stamped in on the brain as one reads. The characters loom forcibly out of the arid air.--_The Nation._ 7. WITHOUT DOGMA. By Henryk Sienkiewicz. Author of "Quo Vadis." Intensely human, intellectually a masterpiece, and throughout entertains.--_Philadelphia Telegraph._ 8. A DETACHED PIRATE. By Helen Milecete. A charming young English woman is the self-styled pirate of this book.--_The Outlook._ 9. KISMET. By Julia Fletcher (George Fleming). It is so fresh and sweet and innocent and joyous, the dialogue is so natural and bright, the characters so keenly edged, and the descriptions so pathetic.--_Extract from a letter._ 10. A DAUGHTER OF NEW FRANCE. By Mary Catherine Crowley. A strong, vivid romance, and has reproduced with rare skill the social atmosphere of the time, as well as the spirit of adventure that was in the air.--_Brooklyn Eagle._ 11. THE LOVE-LETTERS OF THE KING; or, The Life Romantic. By Richard le Gallienne. He possesses charm, sweetness, native poesy.--_Chicago Evening Post._ 12. WITH FIRE AND SWORD. By Henryk Sienkiewicz. Translated by Jeremiah Curtin. The only modern romance with which it can be compared for fire, sprightliness, rapidity of action, swift changes, and absorbing interest is "The Three Musketeers" of Dumas.--_New York Tribune._ 13. A MAID OF BAR HARBOR. By Henrietta G. Rowe. Mrs. Rowe writes of the country life, character and traditions, and dialect with the sure touch of the observer at first hand.--_Providence Journal._ 14. UP AND DOWN THE SANDS OF GOLD. By Mary Devereux. The story is one of sunshine and shade, of smiles and tears.--_Boston Transcript._ 15. THE KING'S HENCHMAN. A Chronicle of the Sixteenth Century. By William Henry Johnson. Mr. Johnson has caught the spirit of the period, and has painted in Henry of Navarre a truthful and memorable historical portrait.--_The Mail and Express_, New York. 16. WHEN THE GATES LIFT UP THEIR HEADS. A Story of the South in the Seventies. By Payne Erskine. A very remarkable story of the South after the war.--_Boston Budget._ 17. A ROSE OF NORMANDY. By William R. A. Wilson. Stirs the blood, warms the heart, and holds the interest in a firm grip from beginning to end.--_Chicago Tribune._ 18. BARBARA, A WOMAN OF THE WEST. By John H. Whitson. A story original in ideas, clever in construction, and interesting to the last word.--_New York World._ 19. THE HEROINE OF THE STRAIT. By Mary Catherine Crowley. A story of absorbing interest, told in a praiseworthy and skilful manner.--_Current Literature._ 20. LOVE THRIVES IN WAR. By Mary Catherine Crowley. The author is saturated with the atmosphere of the time, and has told her story with zest and spirit. It is a picturesque, well-imagined tale.--_New York Times Saturday Review._ 21. A GIRL OF VIRGINIA. By Lucy M. Thruston. The author has given us a picture of modern girlhood that goes straight to the heart and stays there.--_New York Globe._ 22. PAINTED SHADOWS. By Richard le Gallienne. Rich in poetic interpretation.--_Boston Transcript._ 23. THE VIKING'S SKULL. By John R. Carling. A capital tale of mystery and detection of crime. The ingenuity with which its intricacies are threaded is really wonderful.--_New York Times._ 24. SARAH TULDON. By Orme Agnus. A remarkable study of an English peasant girl of strong character who was developed into a fine, noble hearted, and generous woman.--_Chicago Record-Herald._ 25. THE SIEGE OF YOUTH. By Frances Charles. Of uncommon power. There is much bright and epigrammatic conversation. Among the notable good books of the year.--_Argonaut_, San Francisco. 26. HASSAN, A FELLAH. A Romance of Palestine. By Henry Gillman. It is romance of the strongest type. Many pages fairly glow with color.--_Public Opinion._ 27. THE WOLVERINE. By Albert L. Lawrence. An uncommonly vivid and well sustained story of pioneer days in Michigan.--_New York Globe._ 28. CURLY. A Tale of the Arizona Desert. By Roger Pocock. The best cowboy story since "The Virginian."--_The Outlook._ 29. JUSTIN WINGATE, Ranchman. By John H. Whitson. An accurate and adequate picture of the Western life of the day.--_New York Sun._ 30. A KNOT OF BLUE. By William R. A. Wilson. A strong, fanciful weaving together of incidents of adventure, intrigue, and gallantry.--_New York World._ 31. THE HEAD OF A HUNDRED. By Maud Wilder Goodwin. Charming for its sweetness and truth.--_New York Times._ 32. THE WEIRD PICTURE. By John R. Carling. Leads the reader through a maze of mystery and adventure.--_Brooklyn Eagle._ 33. A PRINCE OF LOVERS. By Sir William Magnay. A remarkable story of love, adventure, and intrigue.--_Boston Transcript._ 34. SWEET PEGGY. By Linnie Sarah Harris. A jolly, wholesome love story in the good old-fashioned manner.--_Detroit Free Press._ 35. JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS. The Speronara. By Alexandre Dumas. Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley. These pages simply teem with entertainment.--_New York Evening Sun._ 36. SIR CHRISTOPHER. By Maud Wilder Goodwin. One of the strongest and most wholesome romances ever brought forth from Maryland and Virginia.--_Cleveland World._ 37. FILE No. 113. By Emile Gaboriau. Translated by George Burnham Ives. A masterpiece of its kind, one of the best detective stories ever written.--_New York Tribune._ 38. MY LADY CLANCARTY. By Mary Imlay Taylor. A wholesome, vigorous, stirring, refreshing tale.--_Chicago Record-Herald._ 39. WHERE THE TIDE COMES IN. By Lucy M. Thruston. A novel of dramatic force, with a good plot.--_New York Times._ 
763	----	THE ROUND-UP A Romance of Arizona Novelized from Edmund Day's Melodrama by John Murray and Marion Mills Miller Chapter I. The Cactus Cross II. The Heart of a Girl III. A Woman's Loyalty IV. The Hold-up V. Hoover Bows to Hymen VI. A Tangled Web VII. Josephine Opens the Sluices VIII. The Sky Pilot IX. What God Hath Joined Together X. The Piano XI. Accusation and Confession XII. The Land of Dead Things XIII. The Atonement XIV. The Round-up XV. Peruna Pulls His Freight XVI. Death of McKee, Disappointed Desperado XVII. A New Deal XVIII. Jack! THE ROUND-UP CHAPTER I The Cactus Cross Down an old trail in the Ghost Range in northwestern Mexico, just across the Arizona border, a mounted prospector wound his way, his horse carefully picking its steps among the broken granite blocks which had tumbled upon the ancient path from the mountain wall above. A burro followed, laden heavily with pack, bed-roll, pick, frying-pan, and battered coffee-pot, yet stepping along sure-footedly as the mountain-sheep that first formed the trail ages ago, and whose petrified hoof-prints still remain to afford footing for the scarcely larger hoofs of the pack-animal. An awful stillness hung over the scene, that was broken only by the click of hoofs of horse and burro upon the rocks, and the clatter of the loose stones they dislodged that rolled and skipped down the side. Not a breath of air was stirring, and the sun blazed down from the zenith with such fierce and direct radiation that the wayfarer needed not to observe the shadows to note its exact position in the heavens. Singly among the broken blocks, and in banks along the ledges, the cactus had burst under the heat, as it were, into the spontaneous combustion of flowery flame. To the traveler passing beside them their red blooms blazed with the irritating superfluity of a torch-light procession at noonday. The trail leads down to a flat ledge which overlooks the desert, and which is the observatory whither countless generations of mountain-sheep have been wont to resort to survey the strange world beneath them--with what purpose and what feelings, it remains for some imaginative writer of animal-stories to inform us. From the ledge to the valley below the trail is free from obstructions, and broader, more beaten, and less devious than above, indicating that it has been formed by the generations of men toiling up from the valley to the natural watch-tower on the heights. Reaching the ledge, the prospector found that what seemed from the angle above to be an irregular pile of large boulders was an artificial fortification, the highest wall being toward the mountains. Entering the enclosure the prospector dismounted, relieved his horse of its saddle and his burro of its pack, and proceeded to prepare his midday meal. Looking for the best place where he might light a fire, he observed, in the most protected corner, a flat stone, marked by fire, and near it, in the rocky ground, a pot-hole, evidently formed for grinding maize. The ashes of ancient fires were scattered about, and in cleaning them off his new-found hearth the man discovered a potsherd, apparently of a native olla or water-jar, and a chipped fragment of flint, too small to indicate whether it had formed part of an Indian arrowhead or had dropped from an old flintlock musket. "Lucky strike!" observed the prospector. "I was down to my last match." And, gathering some mesquit brush for fuel, and rubbing a dead branch into tinder, he drew out a knife and, rapidly and repeatedly striking the back of its blade with the flint, produced a stream of sparks, which fell on the tinder. Blowing the while, he started a flame. When the fire was ready the man shook his canteen. "Precious little drink left," he said. "I wish that potsherd carried water as the flint-chip does fire. However, there's lots of cactus around here, and they're natural water-jars. My knife may get me a drink out of the desert's thorns, as well as kindle a fire from its stones. And right here's my watermelon, the bisnaga, the first one I've found in months," he exclaimed, going over to the edge of the cliff, above the level of which peered the fat head of a cactus covered with spines that were barbed like a fish-hook. Its short tap-root was fixed in a crevice a few feet below the parapet. Lying on the edge of the cliff, the man sliced off the top of the cactus, and began jabbing into its interior, breaking down the fibrous walls of the water-cells, of which the top-heavy plant is almost entirely composed. In a few moments he arose. "Now I can empty my canteen in the coffee-pot, sure of a fresh supply of water by the time I am ready to mosey along." He filled the pot, set it on the fire, and then pressed the uncorked and empty canteen down into the macerated interior of the bisnaga. While his coffee was boiling, the prospector continued his examination of the fortification, beginning, in the manner of his kind, with the more minute "signs," and ending with what, to a tourist, would have been the first and only subject of observation--the view. On the inner side of the large boulder in the wall he discerned, the faint outline of a cross, painted with red ochre. Scraping with his pick beneath the rock, to see if the emblem was the sign of hidden treasure or relic, he unearthed a rattlesnake. Before it could strike, with a quick fling of his tool he sent the reptile whirling high in the air toward the precipice. But from the clump of cactus growth along the parapet arose a sahuaro, with branching arms, and against this the snake was flung. Wrapped around the thorny top by the momentum of the cast, it hung, hissing and rattling with pain and hatred. The prospector looked up at the impaled rattlesnake with a smile. Reminiscences of Sunday-school flashed across his mind. "Gee, I'm a regular Moses," he ejaculated. "First I bring water from the face of the rock, and then I lift up the serpent in the wilderness. The year I've spent in the mountains and desert seem like forty to me, and now, at last, I have a sight of the Promised Land. God, what a magnificent view!" Dropping his pick, he stretched out his arms with instinctive symbolization of the wide prospect, and expression of an exile's yearning for his native land. "Over there is God's country, sure enough," he continued, giving the trite phrase a reverential tone, which he had not used in his first expression of the name of Deity. "Thank Him, the parallel with old Moses stops right here. Many a time I thought I would never get out of the mountains alive, and that my grave would be unmarked by so much as a boulder with a red cross upon it. But now, before night, I'll be back in the States, and in three more days at home on the ranch. I promised to return in a year, and I'll make good to the hour. I sure did hate to leave that strike, though, after all the hard luck I had been having. Sixty dollars a day, and growing richer. But the last horn was blowing. No tobacco, six matches, and nothing left of the bacon but rinds. Well, the gold is there and the claim'll bring whatever I choose to ask for it. And Echo shall have a home as good as Allen Hacienda, and a ranch as fine as Bar One--yes, by God, it'll be Bar None, my ranch!" Out of the sea of molten air that stretched before him, that nebulous chaos of quivering bars and belts of heated atmosphere which remains above the desert as a memorial of the first stage of the entire planet's existence, the imagination of the prospector created a paradise of his own. There took shape before his eyes a Mexican hacienda, larger and more beautiful even than that of Echo's father, the beau-ideal of a home to his limited fancy. And on the piazza in front, covered with flowering vines, there stood awaiting him the slender figure of a woman, with outstretched arms and dark eyes, tender with yearning love. "Echo--Echo Allen!" he murmured, fondly repeating the name. "No, not Echo Allen, but Echo Lane, for Dick Lane has redeemed his promise, and returns to claim you as his own." As he gazed upon the shimmering heat waves which distorted and displaced the objects within and beneath them, a group of horsemen suddenly appeared to him in the distance, and as suddenly vanished in thin air. "Rurales!" ejaculated Lane. "I wonder if they are chasing Apaches? That infernal mirage gives you no idea of distance or direction. If the red devils have got away from Crook and slipped by these Greaser rangers over the border, they'll sure be making straight for the Ghost Range, and by this very trail. If so, I'm at the best place on it to meet them, and here I stay till the coast is clear." Turning to the red cross on the rock, he reflected: "Perhaps, after all, it's a case of 'Nebo's lonely mountain.'" Lane had hardly reached this conclusion before he found it justified by the sight of a mounted Apache in the regalia of war emerging from a hidden dip in the trail below the fortification. Lane dropped behind the parapet, evidently before he was observed, as the steadily increasing number and loudness of the hoof-beats on the rocky trail indicated to the listener. Crawling back to his horse and burro, he made them lie down against the upper wall, and picketed them with short lengths of rope to the ground, for he foresaw that danger could come only from the mountainside. Taking his Winchester, he returned to the parapet, and, half-seated, half-reclining behind it, opened fire on the unsuspecting Apaches. The leader, shot through the head, fell from his horse, which reared and backed wildly down the trail. Other bullets must have found their billets also, but, because of the confusion which ensued among the Indians, the prospector was unable to tell how many of them he had put out of action. In a flash every rider had leaped off his horse, and, protecting himself by its body, was scrambling with his mount to the protecting declivity in the rear. The prospector was sorely tempted to pump his cartridges into the group as it poured back over the rim of the hollow, but he desisted from the useless slaughter of horses alone, knowing that he could be attacked only on foot, and that every one of his slender store of cartridges must find a human mark if he would return to the States alive. "They've got to put me out of business before they can go on," he ruminated. "An Apache is a good deal of a coward when he's fighting for pleasure, but just corner him, and, great snakes and spittin' wildcats, what a game he does put up! I must save my cartridges; for one thing's sure, they won't waste any of theirs. They're not as good shots as white men, for ammunition is too scarce with them for use in gun practise; so they won't fire till they've got me dead to rights. Let me see; there's about a dozen left in the party, and I have fifteen cartridges--that's three in reserve for my own outfit, if some of the others fail to get their men. Those red devils enjoy skinning an animal alive as much as torturing a man, and you can bet they won't save me any bullets by shooting Nance and Jinny." Reasoning that the Indians would not dare to attack by way of the open trail in front, and that it would take some time for them to make the detour necessary to approach him from above, since they would have to leave their ponies below and climb on hands and knees over jutting ledges and around broken granite blocks, Lane coolly proceeded to drink his coffee, and eat his lunch of hard bread and cold bacon-rind. After he had finished, he gave a lump of sugar to each of his animals, and pressed his cheek with an affectionate hug against the side of his horse's head. "Old girl," he said. "I'm sorry we can't take a parting drink, for I'm afraid neither of us will reach our next water-hole. But you can count on me that the red devils won't get you." Then, going to his pack, he undid it, and took out a double handful of yellow nuggets and a number of canvas bags. These he deposited in the pot-hole, and, prying up the flat stone of the fireplace, laid it over them, and covered the stone with embers. "It's a ten to one shot that they finish me," he reflected; "but the wages I've paid for by a year of hard work and absence from her side, stay just as near Echo Allen as I can bring them alive, and, if there's any truth in what they say about spirits disclosing in dreams the place of buried treasure, with the chance of my getting them to her after I am dead." Taking the useless boulders from the edge of the cliff, but carefully, so as not to expose himself to the fire of the Apaches, he piled them on top of the upper wall in such a fashion as to form little turrets. He left an opening in each, through which he could observe, in turn, each point of the compass whence danger might be expected, and could fire his Winchester without exposing himself. Then he began going from post to post on a continuous round of self-imposed sentinel duty. "If I could only climb the sahuaro," he thought, "and fly my red shirt as a flag, to let the Rurales know I've flanked the enemy, it might hurry them along in time to put a crimp in these devils before they get me. But it'll have to be 'Hold the Fort' without any 'Oh, Say Can You See?' business. Anyhow, I'm flying the rattlesnake flag of Bunker Hill, 'Don't Tread on Me!' Whether the Rurales see it or not, I've saved their hides. If the Apaches had got to this fort first, gee, how they would have crumpled up the Greasers as they came along the trail!" Rendered thirsty by his exertions, Lane remembered the canteen in the bisnaga, which he had forgotten among his other preparations for defense. He cautiously reached his hand over the ledge, and secured the precious vessel, but, as he was withdrawing it, PING! came a bullet through the canteen, knocking it out of his hand. As it fell clattering down the side of the ledge, he groaned: "Damned good shooting! They've probably left their best marksman below with the ponies. No hope for escape on that side. Well, there's some consolation in the thought that they'll undoubtedly finish me before I get too damned thirsty. Glad it wasn't my hand." Although the period he spent waiting for the attack was less than an hour by his watch, it seemed to last so long that he had hopes that the Rurales would appear in time to rescue him. His spirits rose with the prospect. Looking about him at the walls, the fireplace, and the red cross, he reflected: "I am not the first man, or even the first white man, that has withstood an attack in this place." In imagination he constructed the history of the fort. Here, in ages remote, a tribe of Indians, defeated and driven to the mountains had constructed an outpost against their enemies of the plain, but these had captured the stronghold, and fortified it against its former occupants. Later, a band of Spanish gold-seekers had made a stand here against natives whom they had roused against them by oppression. Or, perhaps, as indicated by the cross, it had afforded refuge to the Mission Fathers, those heroic souls who had faced the horrors of the infernolike desert in their saintly efforts to convert its fiendish inhabitants. With the symbol of Christianity in his mind, Lane turned toward the giant cactus, which he had heretofore regarded chiefly in the aspect of a flagpole, and saw in its columnar trunk and opposing branches a distinct resemblance to a cross. The plant was dead, and dry as punk. Suddenly there flashed into his mind a hideous suggestion. More cruel than even the Romans, the inventors of crucifixion, the Apaches are wont to bind their captives to these dead cacti, which supply at once scourging thorns, binding stake, and consuming fuel, and, kindling a fire at the top, leave it to burn slowly down to the victim, and, long before it despatches him, to twist his body and limbs into what appear to the Apache sense of humor to be exquisitely ludicrous contortions. With his mind occupied by these horrible apprehensions, Lane looked at the rattlesnake upon the sahuaro whose struggles by this time had diminished to a movement of the tail. "Poor old rattler," he thought. "I wish I could spare a cartridge to put you out of your misery." At length, as Lane peered up the mountainside, he saw a bush on a ledge a little to the left of the trail quiver, as if stirred by a passing breath of wind. He aimed his Winchester through a crack in the wall at the spot, and when a moment later an Apache rose up from the ground and leaped toward the shelter of a rock below, Lane fired, and the savage fell crumpling. Like an echo of the explosion a rifle on the right spoke, and a bullet struck the rock by Lane's head. He marked the spot whence the shot came, and quickly ran to another part of the wall. From here he saw the edge of an Indian's thigh exposed by the side of the boulder he had noted. CRACK! went Lane's Winchester; the leg was suddenly withdrawn, and at the same moment a head appeared on the other side of the rock, as if the Indian had stretched himself involuntarily. CRACK! again, and Lane had got his man. "Two shots to an Indian is expensive," thought the prospector, "otherwise this game of tip-jack would be very interesting." There was a cry in the Apache tongue, and suddenly nine half-naked bodies arose from behind rocks and bushes extending in an irregular crescent above the fort, and rushed forward ten, fifteen, and even twenty, yards to the next cover. Lane did not count number or distance at the time, but he figured these out in his next period of waiting from the photograph flashed on his subconscious mind. At the time of the rush he was otherwise occupied. CRACK! CRACK! and two of the Indians fell dead in mid-career. CRACK! and a third crawled, wounded, to the cover he had almost safely attained. CRACK! and an eagle-feather in the head of the fourth Indian shot at was cut off at the stem, and fell forward on the rock behind which its wearer had dropped just in time to save his life. There was an answering volley from the rifles of the remaining Apaches, which was directed against the lookout of loose stones from which the prospector's fire had come. One of the bullets penetrated the opening and plowed a furrow through Lane's scalp, toppling him to his knees. He scrambled quickly to his feet, and, hastily pressing his long hair back from his forehead, to stanch the bleeding wound, sought the protection the middle lookout. He congratulated himself. "Lucky for me they didn't follow the first rush immediately with a second. Now I know to wait for their signal. Six, and possibly seven of them, are left, and they will storm my works in two more attempts. Here they come!" The call again sounded. Six Apaches leaped forward, and from the rock that concealed the wounded warrior, a shot rang out in advance of the first discharge from Lane's Winchester. The Indian's bullet scored the top of the turret, and filled the eyes of the man behind it with powdered stone. The prospector, already dazed by his wound, fired wildly, and missed his mark. Quickly recovering himself, he fired again and again, severely wounding two Apaches. These lay clawing the ground within twenty yards of the wall. The four remaining Indians were safely concealed at the same distance, protected no less by the fortification than by the loose boulders behind which they crouched for the final spring. Lane realized the fact that his next shots, to be effective, must be at a downward angle, and to fire them he must expose himself. "This is my finish," he thought to himself. "Better be killed instantly than tortured. I hope all four will hit me. Good-by, Jinny"--CRACK! went his rifle. "Good-by, Nance"--CRACK! again. At the two shots, surmising that the prospector had shot himself and his horse, the Apaches did not wait for the signal, but sprang forward and climbed upon the wall before Lane had had time to mount it. Two of them he shot as they leaped down within the enclosure. As he reversed his Winchester to kill himself with the last cartridge, he noted that the two remaining Apaches had dropped their rifles and were leaping upon him to take him alive. He brought his clubbed weapon down upon the head of one of them, crushing his skull. At the same instant Lane was borne to the ground by the other Apache, who, seizing him by the throat, began throttling him into insensibility. In desperation, Lane bethought himself of the cliff, and, by a mighty effort, whirled over upon his captor toward the precipice. The ground sloped slightly in that direction, and the combatants rolled over and over to the very edge of the cliff, where the Indian, for the first time realizing that the prospector's purpose was to hurl both of them to destruction, loosened his hold upon the prospector's throat that he might use his hands to brace himself against the otherwise inevitable plunge into the valley below. In an instant Lane's hands were at the Indian's throat, and in another turn he was uppermost, and kneeling upon his foe at the very verge of the precipice. Both combatants were now thoroughly exhausted. Lane concentrated all his remaining strength in throttling the savage. But, just as the tense form beneath him grew lax with evident unconsciousness, and head fell limply back, extending over the edge of cliff, his own head was jerked violently backward by a noose cast around his lacerated neck. When Lane recovered consciousness he found himself lying on his back, bound hand and foot by a lariat, and looking up into a grinning face that he recognized. "Buck McKee!" he gasped. "This is certainly white of you considering the circumstances of our last meeting. Did you come with the Rurales?" "Hell, no! I come ahead of 'em. In fact, Dick Lane, you air jist a leetle bit off in your idees about which party I belong to. When you damned me fer a thievin' half-breed, and run me off the range, an' tole me to go to the Injun's, whar I belonged, I tuk yer advice. I'm what you might call the rear-guard of the outfit you've jist been havin' your shootin'-match with. Or I was the rear-guard, for you've wiped out the whole dam' battalion, so fur as I can see. Served 'em right fur detailin' me, the only decent shooter in the bunch, to watch the horses. I got one shot in as it wuz. Well, as the last of the outfit, I own a string of ten ponies. All I need now to set up in business is to have some prospector who hain't long to live, leave me his little pile uv dust an' nuggets, an' the claims he's located back in the mountains. You look a leetle mite like the man. It'll save vallible time if you make yer dear friend, Buck McKee, administrater uv yer estate without too much persuadin'. You had some objection oncet to my slittin' a calf's tongue. Well, you needn't be scared just yet. That's the last thing I'll do to you. Come, where's your cache? I know you've got one hereabouts, fer I foun' signs of the dust in your pack." Lane set his teeth in a firm resolutions not to say a word. The taunts of his captor were harder to bear in silence than the prospects of torture. "Stubborn, hey? Well, we'll try a little 'Pache persuadin'." And the renegade dragged his helpless captive up to the thorny sahuaro, and bound his back against it with the dead horse's bridle. McKee searched through Lane's pockets until he found a match. "Last one, hey? Kinder 'propriate. Las' drink from the old canteen, las' ca'tridge, last look at the scenery, and las' will an' testyment. Oh, time's precious, but I'll spare you enough to map out in yer mind jes' where them claims is located. The Rurales won't be along fer an hour yet, if they hain't turned back after our other party." McKee pulled off Lane's boots. "It 'ain't decent fer a man to die with 'em on," he said. He then kindled a fire on the stone, beneath which, if he but knew it, lay the treasure he sought. He returned with a burning brand to the captive. For the first time he observed the snake impaled on the sahuaro, writhing but feebly. "Hullo, ole rattler," he exclaimed; "here's somethin' to stir you up;" and he tossed the brand upon the top of the cactus. Taking another burning stick from the fire, he applied it to the soles of his victim's feet. Lane writhed and groaned under the excruciating torture, but uttered no word or cry. McKee brought other brands, and began piling them about his captive's feet. In the meantime the sahuaro had caught fire at the top, and was burning down through the interior. A thin column of smoke rose straight above it in the still air. The Rurales in the valley below, who had reached the beginning of the ascending trail, and were on the point of giving up the pursuit, saw the smoke, and, inferred that the Apaches, either through overconfidence or because of their superstitious fear of the mountains, which they supposed inhabited by spirits, had camped on the edge of the valley, and were signaling to their other party. Accordingly the Mexicans renewed the chase with increased vigor. As McKee bent over his captive's feet, piling against them the burning ends of the sticks, the rattlesnake on the sahuaro, incited by the fire above, struggled free from the impaling thorns by a desperate effort, and dropped on the back of the half-breed. It struck its fangs into his neck. McKee, springing up with an energy that scattered the sticks he was piling, tore the reptile loose, hurled it upon the ground, and stamped it into the earth. Then he picked up one of the brands and with it cauterized the wound. All the while he was cursing volubly--the snake, himself, and even Dick Lane, who was now lying in a dead faint caused by the torture. "Damn such a prospector! Not a drop of whisky in his outfit! I'd slit his tongue fer him if he wasn't already done fer. I must keep movin'--movin', or I'm a dead man. I must hustle along to the mountains, leadin' my horse. Up there I'll find yarbs to cure snake-bite that my Cherokee grandmother showed me. The Rurales will have to get the other ponies but some day I'll come back after Lane's cache." A half-hour later the Mexican guards appeared upon the scene, and unbound Lane's unconscious form from the sahuaro, which the fire had consumed to a foot of his bowed head. They deluged his face and back, and bathed his tortured feet with the contents of their canteens, and brought him back to life, but, alas! not to reason. Six months later there limped out of Chihuahua hospital a discharged patient, wry-necked, crook-backed, with drawn features, and hair and beard streaked with gray. It was Dick Lane, restored to old physical strength, so far as the distortion of his spine, caused by his torture, permitted, and to the full possession of his mental faculties. He mounted one of the captured ponies, and rode off with the proceeds of the sales of the others in his pocket, to purchase provisions for a return to his prospecting. Before plunging into the wilderness he wrote a letter: Chihuahua, Mexico "Mr. John Payson, "Sweetwater Ranch, "Florence, Arizona Territory, U.S.A. "Dear Jack: I have been sick and out of my head in the hospital here for the last six months. Just about the time you all were expecting me home, I had a run in with the Apaches. And who do you think was with them? Buck McKee, the half-breed that I ran off the range two years ago for tongue-slitting. After I had done for all the rest, he got me, and--well, the story's too long to write. I rather think McKee has made off with the gold I had cached just before the fight. I'm going back to see, and if he did, I'll hustle around to find a buyer for one of my claims. I don't want to sell my big mine, Jack. I tell you I struck it rich!--but that story can wait till I get back. Your loan can't, though, so expect to receive $3,000 by express some time before I put in an appearance. I hope you got the mortgage renewed at the end of the year. If my failure to show up then has caused you trouble, you'll forgive me, old fellow, I know, under the circumstances. I'll make it up to you. I owe you everything. You're the best friend a man ever had. That's why I'm writing to you instead of to Uncle Jim, for I want you to do me another friendly service. Just break it gently to Echo Allen that I'm alive and well though pretty badly damaged by that renegade McKee and tell her that it wasn't my fault I wasn't home the day I promised. She'll forgive me, I know, and be patient a while longer. It's all for her sake I'm staying away. Give her the letter I enclose. "Your old bunkie, Dick Lane" CHAPTER II The Heart of a Girl Jim Allen was the sole owner and proprietor of Allen Hacienda. His ranch, the Bar One, stretched for miles up and down the Sweetwater Valley. Bounded on the east and west by the foot-hills, the tract was one of the garden spots of Arizona. Southward lay the Sweetwater Ranch, owned by Jack Payson. Northward was the home ranch of the Lazy K, an Ishmaelitish outfit, ever at petty war with the other settlers in the district. It was a miscellaneous and constantly changing crowd, recruited from rustlers from Wyoming, gamblers from California, half-breed outlaws from the Indian Territory; in short, "bad men" from every section of the Western country. They had a special grudge against Allen and Payson, whom they held to be accountable for the sudden disappearance, about a year before, of their leader, Buck McKee, a half-breed from the Cherokee Strip. However, no other leader had arisen equal to that masterful spirit, and their enmity expressed itself only in such petty depredations as changing brands on stray cattle from the Bar One and Sweetwater Ranches, and the slitting of the tongues of young calves, so that they would be unable to feed properly, and, as a result, be disowned by their mothers, whereupon the Lazy K outfit would slap its brand on them as mavericks. Allen was a Kentuckian who had served in the Confederate Army as one of Morgan's raiders, and so had received, by popular brevet, the title of colonel. At the close of the war he had come to Arizona with his young wife, Josephine, and had founded a home on the Sweetwater. He was now one of the cattle barons of the great Southwest. Prosperity had not spoiled him. Careless in his attire, cordial in his manner, he was a man who was loved and respected by his men, from the newest tenderfoot to the veteran of the bunkhouse. His wife, however, was not so highly regarded, for she had never been able to recognize changes in time or location and so was in perpetual conflict with her environment. She attempted to make the free and independent cowboys of the Arizona plains "stand around" like the house servants of the Kentucky Bluegrass; and she persisted in the effort to manage her husband by the feminine artifice of weeping. In days of her youth and beauty this had been very effective, but now that these had passed, it was productive only of good-humored raillery from him, and mirth from the bystanders. "No wonder Jim has the finest ranch in Arizony," the cowboys were wont to say, "with Josephine a irrigatin' it all the time." Allen Hacienda was certainly a garden spot in that desert country. The building was of the old Mexican style, an architecture found, by centuries of experience, to be suited best to the climate and the materials of the land. The house was only one story in height. The rooms and outbuildings sprawled over a wide expanse of ground. The walls were of native stone and adobe clay; over them clambered grape-vines. In front of the home Mrs. Allen had planted a garden. A 'dobe wall cut off the house from the corral and the bunk-house. A heavy girder spanned the distance from the low roof to the top of the barrier. Latticework, supporting a grape-vine, formed, with a girder, a gateway through which one could catch from the piazza a view of a second cultivated plot. Palms and flowering cacti added color and life to the near prospect. Through the arbor a glimpse of the Tortilla Mountains, forty miles away, held the eye. The Sweetwater, its path across the plains outlined by the trees fringing its banks, flowed past the ranch. Yucca palms and sahuaroes threw a scanty shade over the garden. Shortly after the arrival of the Allens in Arizona they were blessed with a daughter, the first white child born in that region. They waited for a Protestant clergyman to come along before christening her, and, as such visits were few and far between, the child was beginning to talk before she received a name. From a "cunning" habit she had of repeating last words of questions put to her, her father provisionally dubbed her Echo, which name, when the preacher came, he insisted upon her retaining. As Echo grew older, in order that she might have a companion, Colonel Allen went to Kentucky and brought back with him a little orphan girl, who was a distant relative of his wife. Polly Hope her name was, and Polly Hope she insisted on remaining, though the Allens would gladly have adopted her. Colonel Allen trained the girls in all the craft of the plains, just as if they were boys. He taught them to ride astride, to shoot, to rope cattle. They accompanied him everywhere he went, cantering on broncos by the side of his Kentucky thoroughbred. Merry, dark-eyed, black-haired Echo always rode upon the off side, and saucy Polly, with golden curls, blue eyes, and tip-tilted nose, upon the near. The ex-Confederate soldier dubbed them, in military style, his "right and left wings." As the three would "make a raid" upon Florence, the county town, the inhabitants did not need to look out of doors to ascertain who were coming, for the merriment of the little girls gave sufficient indication. "Here comes Jim Allen ridin' like the destroyin' angel," said young Sheriff Hoover, on one of these occasions, "I know him by the rustlin' of his 'wings.'" The household was again increased a few years later by the generous response of the Allens to an appeal from a Children's Aid Society in an Eastern city to give a home to two orphaned brothers, Richard and Henry Lane. "Dick" and "Buddy" (shortened in time to Bud), as they were called, being taken young, quickly adapted themselves to their new environment, and by the time they arrived at manhood had proved themselves the equals of any cowboy on the range in horsemanship and kindred accomplishments. Dick, the elder brother, was a steady, reliable fellow, modest as he was brave, and remarkably quick-witted and resourceful in emergencies. He gave his confidence over readily to his fellows, but if he ever found himself deceived, withdrew it absolutely. It was probably this last characteristic that attracted to him Echo Allen's especial regard, for it was also her distinguishing trait. "You have got to act square with Echo," her father was wont to say, "for if you don't you'll never make it square with her afterward." Bud was a generous-hearted, impetuous boy, who responded warmly to affection. He repaid his elder brother's protecting care with a loyalty that knew no bounds. The Colonel, who was a strict disciplinarian, frequently punished him in his boyhood for wayward acts, and the little fellow made no resistance--only sobbed in deep penitence. Once, however, when Uncle Jim, as the boys and Polly called him, felt compelled to apply to rod to Dick--unjustly, as it afterward appeared--Bud burst into a tempest of passionate tears, and, leaping upon the Colonel's back, clung there clawing and striking like a wildcat until Allen was forced to let Dick go. It is shrewdly indicative of the Colonel's character that not only did he refrain from punishing Bud on that occasion, but, when floggings were subsequently due the little fellow, laid on the rod less heavily out of regard for the loyalty to his brother he had then displayed. This attack also won the admiration of Polly Hope, who was something of a spitfire herself. A little jealous of Dick for the chief place he held in Bud's affection, she openly claimed the younger brother as her sweetheart, and attempted to constitute him her knight--though with repeated discouragements, for Bud was a bashful lad, and, though he had a true affection for the girl, boylike concealed it by a show of indifference. The tender relations of these boys and girls persisted naturally into young manhood and womanhood. No word of love passed between Dick and Echo until that time when the "nesting impulse," the desire to have a home of his own, prompted the young man to go out into the world and win his fortune. For a year he had acted as foreman of the Allen ranch, working in neighborly cooperation with Jack Payson, of Sweetwater Ranch, a man of about his own age. The two young men became the closest of comrades. When the fever of adventure seized upon Lane, and he became dissatisfied with the plodding career of a wage-earner, Payson insisted on mortgaging Sweetwater Ranch for three thousand dollars and in lending Dick the money for a year's prospecting in the mountains of Sonora, Mexico, in search of a fabulous rich "Lost Mine of the Aztecs." Traditions of lost mines are plentiful in Arizona and northern Mexico. First taken up by the Spanish invaders of three hundred years ago from the native Indians, they have been passed down to each subsequent influx of white men. The directions are always vague. The inquirer cannot pin his informant down to any definite data. Over the mountains always lies the road. Hundreds of lives have been sacrificed, and cruelty unparalleled practised upon innocent men women, and children, by gold-seekers in their lust for conquest. Prosperous Indian villages have been laid waste, and whole bands of adventurers have gone into the desert in the search of these mines, never to return. When the time for Lane's departure came Echo wept at the thought of losing for so long a time the close companion of her childhood and the sympathetic confidant of her youthful thoughts and aspirations. Dick, in whom friendship for Echo had long before ripened into conscious love, took her tears as evidence that she was similarly affected toward him, and he allowed all the suppressed passion of his nature full vent in a declaration of love. The girl was deeply moved by this revelation of the heart of a strong man made tender as a woman's by a power centering in her own humble self, and, being utterly without experience of the emotion even in its protective form of calf-love, which is the varioloid of the genuine infection, she imagined through sheer sympathy that she shared his passion. So she assented with maidenly reserve to his plea that she promise to marry him when he should return and provide a home for her. Her more cautious mother secured a modification of this pledge by limiting the time that Echo should wait for him to one year. If at the expiration of that period Lane did not return to claim her promise, or did not write making satisfactory arrangements for continuance of the engagement, Echo was to be considered free to marry whom she chose. Soon after Lane's departure Mrs. Allen persuaded the Colonel to send Echo east to a New England finishing-school for girls, where her mother hoped that her budding love for Lane might be nipped in the frigid atmosphere of intellectual culture, if not, indeed, supplanted by a saving interest in young men in general, and, perhaps, in some particular scion of a blue-blooded Boston family. The plan succeeded in part only. The companionship of her schoolfellows, her music and art-lessons, her books (during the limited periods allotted to serious study and reading), and, above all, her attrition at receptions with another order of men than that she had known in the rough, uncultured West, occupied her mind so fully that poor Dick Lane, who was putting a thought of Echo Allen in every blow of his pick, received only the scraps of her attention. Dick had few opportunities to mail a letter, and none of them for receiving one. Unpractised in writing, his epistolary compositions were crude in the extreme, being wholly confined to bald statements of fact. Had he been as tender on paper as he was in his words and accents when he kissed away her tears at parting, her regard for him would have had fuel to feed on and might have kindled into genuine love. As it was, she was forced to admit that, in comparison, with the brilliant university men with whom she conversed, Dick Lane, intellectually, was as quartz to diamond. On the other band, she contrasted Dick in the essential point of manliness most favorably with the male butterflies of society that hovered around her. What one of them was so essentially chivalrous as the Western man; so modest, so self-sacrificing, so brave and resolute and resourceful? Dick Lane, or Jack Payson, for that matter, in all save the adventitious points of education and culture was the higher type of manhood, and Jack, at least, if not poor Dick, could hold his own in mental and artistic perception with the brightest, most cultured of Harvard graduates. At the end of the year she came back home to await Dick's return from the wilds of Mexico. There was great anxiety about his safety, for Geronimo, attacked by Crook in the Apache stronghold of the Tonto Basin, had escaped to the mountains of northwestern Mexico with his band of fierce Chiricahuas. Now Dick Lane had not been heard from in this region. When he neither made appearance nor sent a message upon the day appointed for his return, his brother, Bud, was for setting out instantly to find him and rescue him if he were in difficulties. Then it was that Echo Allen discovered the true nature of her affection for her lover, that it was sisterly regard, differing only in degree, but not in kind, from that which she felt for his brother. She joined with Polly in opposing Bud's going, urging his recklessness as a reason. "You are certain to be killed," she said, "and I cannot lose you both." Jack Payson, for whom Bud was working, then came forward and offered to accompany him, and keep him with bounds. Again there was a revelation of her heart Echo, and one that terrified her with a sense of disloyalty. It was Jack she really loved, noble, chivalric, wonderful Jack Payson, whom, with a Southern intensity of feeling, she had unconsciously come to regard as her standard of all that makes for manhood. Plausible objections could not be urged against his sacrificing himself for his friend. With an irresistible impulse she cast herself upon his breast and said: "I cannot BEAR to see you go." Payson gently disengaged her arms. "I must, Echo. It is what Dick would do for me if I were in his place." However, while Payson and Bud were preparing for their departure, Buck McKee appeared in the region and reported that Dick Lane had been killed by the Apaches. He told with convincing details of how he had met Lane as each was returning from a successful prospecting trip in the Ghost Range, and how they had sunk their differences in standing together against an attack of the Indians. He extolled Dick's bravery, relating how, severely wounded, he had stood off the savages to enable himself to escape. When he handed over Dick's watch to Echo--for he had learned on his return that she was betrothed to Lane--as a last token from her lover, no doubt remained in the minds of his hearers of the truth of his story, and Payson and Bud Lane gave up their purposed expedition. The owner of Sweetwater Ranch, while accepting McKee's account, could not wholly forget the half-breed's former evil reputation, and was reserved in his reception of the advances of the ex-rustler who was anxious to curry favor. Warm-hearted, impulsive Bud, however, whose fraternal loyalty had increased under his bereavement to the supreme passion of life, took the insinuating half-breed into the aching vacancy made by his brother's death. The two became boon companions, to the great detriment of the younger man's morals. McKee had plenty of money which he spent liberally, gambling and carousing in company with Bud. Polly was wild with indignation at her sweetheart's desertion, and savagely upbraided him for his conduct whenever they met, which may be inferred, grew less and less frequently. It was in revenge she made advances to another man who long "loved her from afar." This was William Henry Harrison Hoover, sheriff of the county, known as "Slim" Hoover by the humorous propensity of men on the range to give nicknames on the principle of contraries, for he was fattest man in Pinal County. Slim was one of those fleshy men who have nerves of steel and muscles of iron. A round, boyish face, twinkling blue eyes, flaming red hair gave him an appearance entirely at variance with his personality. A vein of sentiment made him all the more lovable. His associates--ranchers, men of the plains, soldiers, and the owners and frequenters of the frontier barroom--respected him greatly. "He's square as Slim" was the best recommendation ever given of a man in that region. Pinal County settlers had made Slim sheriff term after term because he was the one citizen supremely fitted for the place. He had ridden the range and "busted" broncos before election. After it he hunted wrong-doers. Right was right and wrong was wrong to him. There was no shading in the meaning. All he asked of men was to ride fast, shoot straight, and deal squarely in any game. He admitted that murder, horse-stealing, and branding another man's calves were subjects for the unwritten law. But in his code this law meant death only after a fair trial, with neighbors for a jury. He was not scrupulous that a judge should be present. His duties were ended when he brought in his prisoner. Hoover's rule had been marked by the taming of bad men in Florence, and a truce declared in the guerrilla warfare between the cattlemen and the sheepmen on the range. Slim's seemingly superfluous flesh was really of great advantage to him: it served as a mask for his remarkable athletic abilities, and so lulled the outlaws with whom he had to deal into a false sense of superiority and security. Slow and lethargic in his ordinary movements, in an emergency he was quick as a panther, never failing to get the drop on his man. Furthermore, his fat exerted a beneficial influence on his character in keeping him humble-minded. Being the most popular man in the county, he would probably have been swollen with vanity had there been any space left vacant for it in his huge frame. He was especially admired by the women, but was at ease only in the company of those who were married. It was his fate to see the few girls of the region, with every one of whom, by turns, he was in love, grow up to marry each some less diffident wooer. "Dangnation take it!" he used to say, "I don't git up enough spunk to cut a heifer out o' the herd until somebody else has roped her and slapped his brand onto her. Talk about too many irons in the fire, why, I've only got one, and it's het up red all the time waitin' fer the right chanct to use it; but some how I never git it out o' the coals. Hell! what's the use, anyhow? Nobody loves a fat man." Slim was inordinately puffed up by Polly's preference of him, which she showed by all sorts of feminine tyrannies, and he was forced continually to slap his huge paunch to remind himself of what he considered his disabling deformity. "Miss Polly," he would apostrophize the absent lady, "you don't know what a volcano of seethin' fiery love this here mountain of flesh is that your walkin' over. Some day I'll erupt, and jest eternally calcify you, if you don't look out!" The sheriff took no stock in Buck McKee's professed reformation, and was greatly worried over the influence he had acquired over Bud Lane, who had before this been Slim's protege. Accordingly, he readily conspired with her to break off the relations between the former outlaw and the young horse-wrangler, but thus far had met with no success. Payson, feeling himself absolved by the death of Dick Lane from all obligations to his friend, began openly to woo Echo Allen, but without presuming upon the revelation of her love for him which she had made at his proposition to go into the desert to Lane's rescue. She responded to his courteous advances as frankly and naturally as a bud opens to the gentle wooing of the April sun. Softened by her grief for Dick as for a departed brother, as the flower is by the morning dew, the petals of her affection opened and laid bare her heart of purest gold. The gentle, diffident girl expanded into a glorious woman, conscious of her powers, and proud and happy that she was fulfilling the highest function of womanhood, that of loving and aiding with her love a noble man. Jack Payson, however, failed to get the proper credit for this sudden flowering of Echo's beauty and charm. These were ascribed to her year's schooling in the East, and her proud mother was offended by the way in which she accepted the young ranchman's advances. "You hold yourself too cheap," she said. "It is at least due to the memory of poor Dick Lane" (whom, now that he was safely dead, she idealized as a type of perfect manhood) "that you make Jack wait as long as you did him." When Payson reasonably objected to this delay by pointing out he was fully able to support a wife, as Lane had not been, and proposed, with Echo's assent, six months as the limit of waiting, Mrs. Allen resorted to her expedient--tears. "BOO-HOO! you are going to take away my only daughter!" The Colonel, however, though he had loved Dick as if he were his own son, was delighted to the bottom of his hospitable soul that it was a man not already in the family circle who was to marry Echo, especially when he was a royal fellow like Jack Payson; so he arranged a compromise between the time proposed by Mrs. Allen and that desired by the lovers, and the date of the wedding was fixed nine months ahead. "It will fall in June," said the old fellow, who knew exactly how to handle his fractious wife; "the month when swell folks back in the East do all their hitchin' up. Why, come to think of it, it was the very month I ran off with you in, though I didn't know, then that we was elopin' so strictly accordin' to the Book of Etikwet." CHAPTER III A Woman's Loyalty The first instinctive thought of a man reveals innate character; those that follow, the moral that he has acquired through environment and circumstances. That Jack Payson was at bottom good man is shown by his first emotion, which was joy, and his first impulse, which was to impart the glad news to everybody, upon receiving the letter from Dick Lane telling that he was alive and soon to come home. He was in his house at the time. Bud Lane had just brought in the packet of mail from Florence, and was riding away. Jack uttered a cry of joy which brought the young man back to the door. "What is it?" asked Bud. But Jack had already had time for his damning second thought. He was stunned by the consideration that the promulgation of the news in the letter meant his loss of Echo Allen. He dissembled, though as yet he was not able to tell an outright falsehood: "It's a letter telling me that I may expect to receive enough money in a month or so to pay off the mortgage. Now your brother's debt needn't trouble you any longer, Bud." "Whew-w!" whistled Bud. "That's great! Where does it come from?" "Oh, from an old friend that I lent the money to some time ago. But, say, Bud, there's another matter I want to talk with you about. You've got to shake Buck McKee. I've got it straight that he is the worst man in Arizona Territory, yes, worse than an Apache. Why, he has been with Geronimo, torturing and massacring lone prospectors, and robbing them of their gold." "That's a damned lie, Jack Payson, and you know it!" cried the hot-headed young man. "It was Buck McKee who stood by Dick's side and fought the Apaches. And I'll stand by Buck against all the world. Everybody is in a conspiracy against him, Polly and Slim Hoover and you. Why are you so ready now to take a slanderer's word against his? You were keen enough to accept his story, when it let you out of going to Dick's rescue, and gave you free swing to court his girl. Let me see the name of the damned snake-in-the-grass that's at the bottom of all this!" And he snatched for the letter in Payson's hand. The ranchman quickly thrust the missive into pocket. The injustice of Bud's reflections on former actions gave to his uneasy conscience just the pretext he desired for justifying his present course. His cause being weak and unworthy, he whipped up his indignation by adopting a high tone and overbearing manner, even demeaning himself by using his position as Bud's employer to crush the younger man. Indeed, at the end of the scene which ensued he well-nigh convinced himself that he had been most ungratefully treated by Bud while sincerely attempting to save the boy from the companionship of a fiend in human guise. "No matter who told me, young man," he exclaimed; "I got it straight, and you can take it straight from me. You either give up Buck McKee or the Sweetwater Ranch. Snake-in-the-grass!" he was working himself up into false passion; "it is you, ungrateful boy, who are sinking the serpent's tooth in the hand that would have helped you. I tell you that I intended to make you foreman, though Sage-brush Charley is an older and better man. It was for Dick's sake I would have done it." "No!" Bud burst forth; "for your guilty conscience's sake. It would have been to pay for stepping into Dick's place in the heart of a faithless girl. To hell with your job; I'm through with you!" And, leaping on his horse, Bud rode furiously back to rejoin Buck McKee in Florence. Jack Payson's purpose was now cinched to suppress Dick Lane's letter until Echo Allen was irrevocably joined to him in marriage. He argued with himself that she loved him, Jack Payson, yet so loyal was she by nature that if Dick Lane returned before the wedding and claimed her, she would sacrifice her love to her sense of duty. This would ruin her life, he reasoned, and he could not permit it. There was honesty in this argument, but he vitiated it by deferring to act upon the suggestion that naturally arose with it: Why, then, not take Jim Allen, Echo's father, to whom her happiness was the chief purpose in life, into confidence in regard to the matter? There will be time enough to tell the Colonel before the wedding, he thought. In the meantime something might happen to Dick,, and he may never return. He is certain not to get back ahead of his money. After the time that the note secured by the mortgage fell due, the young ranchman had already secured two extensions of it for three months each. He arranged a third, and began negotiating for the sale of some of his cattle to take up the note at the time of payment. "I can't take the money from Dick," he thought, "even if he does owe it to me. And yet if I refuse it, it will be like buying Echo--'paying for stepping into Dick's place,' as Bud expressed it. What to do I don't know. Well, events will decide." And by this favorite reflection of the moral coward, Jack Payson marked the lowest depths of his degradation. That afternoon Payson rode to Allen Hacienda to see Echo, and to sound her upon her feelings to Dick Lane. He wished thoroughly to convince himself that he, Jack Payson, held complete sway over her heart. Perhaps he might dare to put her love to the test, and fulfil the trust his friend had imposed on him, by giving her Dick's letter. Payson overtook Polly riding slowly on her way home from Florence. She barely greeted him. "Has she met Bud, and has he been slurring me?" he thought. He checked his pacing horse to the half-trot, half-walk, of Polly's mount, and, ignoring her incivility, began talking to her. "'D'yeh see Bud in Florence?" "Yep. Couldn't help it. Him an' Buck McKee are about the whole of Florence these days." "Too bad about Bud consorting with that rustler. I've had to fire him for it." "Fire him? Well you ARE a good friend. Talk about men's loyalty! If women threw men down that easy you all would go to the bowwows too fast for us to bake dog-biscuit. Now, I've settled Buck McKee's hash by putting Slim Hoover wise to that tongue-slittin'. Oh, I'll bring Bud around, all right, all right, even if men that ought to be his friends go back on him." "But, Pollykins--" "Don't you girlie me, Jack Payson. I'm a woman, and I'm goin' to be a married one, too, in spite of all you do to Bud. Yes, sirree, bob. I've set out to make a man of him, and I'll marry him to do it if he ain't a dollar to his name. But money'd make it lots quicker an' easier. He was savin' up till he run in with Buck McKee." A sudden thought struck Payson. Here was a way to dispose of Dick Lane's money when it came. "All right, Mrs. Bud Lane to be. Promise not tell Bud, and through you I'll soon make good to him many times over for the foreman's wages he's lost. It's money that's coming from an enterprise that his brother and I were partners in, and Bud shall Dick's share. He's sore on me now, and I can't tell him. Besides, he'd gamble it away before he got it to Buck McKee. Bud isn't strictly ethical in regard to money matters, Polly, and you must manage the exchequer." "Gee, what funny big words you use, Jack! But I know what you mean; he's too free-handed. Well, he'll be savin' as a trade rat until we get our home paid for. And I'll manage the checker business when we're married. No more poker and keno for Bud. Thank you, Jack. I always knew you was square." Polly's sincere praise of his "squareness" was the sharpest thrust possible at Payson's guilty conscience. Well, he resolved to come as near being square and level as he could. He had told half-truths to Bud and Polly; he would present the situation to Echo as a possible, though not actual, one. If Polly were wrong, and Echo loved him so much that she would break the word she had pledged to Dick Lane, then he would confess all, and they would do what could be done to make it right with the discarded lover. Echo, observing from the window who was Polly's companion, ran out to Jack with a cry of joy. He looked meaningly at Polly. She said: "Oh, give me your bridle; I know how many's a crowd." Jack leaped to the ground and took Echo in his arms while Polly rode off with the horses to the corral, singing significantly: "Spoon, spoon, spoon, While the dish ran away with the spoon." Jack and Echo embraced clingingly and kissed lingeringly. "It takes a crazy old song like that to express how foolish we lovers are," said Jack. "Why, I feel that I could outfiddle the cat, outjump the cow, outlaugh the dog, and start an elopement that would knock the performance of the tableware as silly as--well, as I am talking now. I'm living in a dream--a Midsummer Night's Dream, such as you were reading to me." "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet," quoted Echo suggestively. Dusk was falling. From the bunk-house rose the tinkling notes of a mandolin; after a few preliminary chords, the player, a Mexican, began a love-song in Spanish. The distant chimes of Mission bells sounded softly on the evening air. Jack and Echo sat down upon the steps of the piazza. Jack continued the strain of his thought, but in a more serious vein: "Echo, I'm so happy that I am frightened." "Frightened?" she asked wonderingly. "Yes, scared--downright scared," he answered. "I reckon I'm like an Indian. An Indian doesn't believe it's good medicine to let the gods know he's big happy. For there's the Thunder Bird--" "The Thunder Bird?" "The evil spirit of the storm," continued Jack. "When the Thunder Bird hears a fellow saying he's big happy, he sends him bad luck--" Echo laid her hand softly on the mouth of her sweetheart. "We won't spoil our happiness, then, by talking about it. We will just feel it--just be it." She laid her head upon Jack's knee. He placed his arm lightly but protectingly over her shoulder. They sat in silence listening to the Mexican's song. Finally Jack bent over and whispered gently in her ear: "Softly, so the Thunder Bird won't hear, Echo; tell me you love me; that you love only me; that you will always love me, no matter what shall happen; that you never loved, until you loved me." Echo sat upright, with a start. "What do you mean?" she exclaimed. "Of course I love you, and you only, but the future and the past are beyond our control. Unless you know of something that is going to happen which may mar our love, your question is silly, not at all like your Mother Goose nonsense--that was dear. And as for the past, you mean Dick Lane." "Yes, I mean Dick Lane," confessed Payson, in a subdued tone. "I am jealous of him--that is--even of his memory." "That is not like Jack Payson. What has come over you? It is the shadow of your Thunder Bird. You know what my feeling was for Dick Lane, and what it is, for it remains the same, the only difference being that now I know it never was love. Even if it were, he is dead, and I love you, Jack, you alone. Oh, how you shame me by forcing me to speak of such things! I have tried to put poor Dick out of my mind, for every time I think of him it is with a wicked joy that he is dead, that he cannot come home to claim me as his wife. Oh, Jack, Jack, I didn't think it of you!" And the girl laid her face within her hands on her lover's knee and burst into a fit of sobbing. Jack Payson shut his teeth. "Well, since I have lowered myself so far in your esteem, and since your mind is already sinning against Dick Lane, we might as well go on and settle this matter. I promise I will not mention it again. I, too, have troubles of the mind. I am as I am, and you ought to know it. I said I was jealous of Dick Lane's memory. It is more. I am jealous of Dick Lane himself. If he should return, would you leave me and go with him--as his wife?" Again she sat upright. By a strong effort she controlled her sobbing. "The man I admired does not deserve an answer, but the child he has proved himself to be and whom I cannot help loving, shall have it. Yes, if Dick Lane returns true to his promise I shall be true to mine." She arose and went into the house. Payson rode homeward through the starlight resolved of tormenting doubt only to be consumed by torturing jealousy. He now had no thought of confiding in Jim Allen. He regretted that he had touched so dangerously near the subject of Dick Lane's return in talking to Bud and Polly. His burning desire was to be safely married to Echo Allen before the inevitable return of her former lover. "Fool that I was not to ask her one more question: Would she forgive her husband where she would not forgive her lover? What will she think of me when all is discovered, as it surely will be? Well, I must take my chances. Events will decide." On his return to Sweetwater Ranch he put the place in charge of his new foreman, Sage-brush Charlie, and went out to a hunting-cabin he had built in the Tortilla Mountains. Here he fought the problem over with his conscience--and his selfishness won. He returned, fixed in his decision to suppress Dick Lane's letter, and to go ahead with the marriage. CHAPTER IV The Hold-up Riding hard into Florence from Sweetwater Ranch Bud Lane hunted up Buck McKee at his favorite gambling-joint, and, in a white heat of indignation informed him in detail of everything that had passed between Payson and himself. At once McKee inferred that the writer of the letter was none other than Dick Lane. Realizing that Payson was already informed of his villainy, and that in a very short time Dick Lane himself would make his appearance on the Sweetwater, the half-breed concluded to make a bold move while he yet retained the confidence of Bud. "Bud," he said, "I know the man who is sendin' the money to Payson. It's Dick, your brother." "But," stammered Bud, his brain whirling, "if that's so, you lied about the Apaches killing him you--why you--must have been the renegade, the devil who tortured prospectors." "Why, Bud, Dick never wrote all that dime-novel nonsense about the man who stood by him to--well, not the very last, for Dick has managed somehow to pull through--probably he was saved by the Rurales that were chasin' the band that rounded us up. No, it's Payson, Jack Payson, that made up that pack of lies, just to keep you away from me, the man that was last with Dick and so may get on to Jack's game and block it." "Game! what game?" asked Bud, bewildered. "Why, you told me it yourself--to marry Dick's girl, and live on Dick's hard-earned money." "But Dick borrowed the three thousand of Jack," objected Bud. "Well, the dollars he borrowed have all gone, ain't they? And the money he's sendin' back Dick dug out of the ground by hard work, didn't he? Leastways, Payson hadn't ort 'o use the money to rope in Dick's girl. It ort 'o be kep' from him, anyhow, till Dick comes on the ground his own self. That 'u'd hold up the weddin', all right, if I know Josephine. It 'u'd be easy to steer her into refusin' to let Echo go into a mortgiged home." Simple-minded Bud readily accepted the wily half-breed's explanations and surmises, and fell into the trap he was preparing. This was to hold up the express-agent and rob him of the money Payson was expecting, on securing which it was McKee's intention to flee the country before Dick Lane returned to denounce him. To ascertain just when the money came into the agent's hands, and to act as a cover in the robbery itself, an accomplice was needed. For this purpose no man in all the Sweetwater region was better adapted than Bud Lane. Frank and friendly with every one, he would be trusted by the most suspicious and cautious official in Pinal County. The fact that he had chosen Buck McKee as an associate had already gone far to rehabilitate this former "bad man" in the good graces of the community. Under cover of this friendship, McKee hoped to escape suspicion of any part in the homicide he contemplated. For it was murder, foul, unprovoked murder that was in the black soul of the half-breed. He intended to incriminate Bud so deeply as to put it beyond all thought that he would confess. Young Lane, passionately loyal to his brother, was ready for anything that would delay Payson's marriage to Echo Allen. Together with the wild joy that sprang up in his heart at the thought that his brother was alive, was entwined a violent hatred against his former employer. In the fierce turbulence within his soul, generated by the meeting of these great emotions, he was impelled to enter upon a mad debauch, in which McKee abetted and joined him. Filling up on bad whisky, they rode through the streets of Florence, yelling and shooting their "guns" like crazy men. It was while they were engaged in this spectacular exhibition of horsemanship, gun-play, and vocalization that Bud's sweetheart rode into town to execute some commissions in preparation for Echo Allen's wedding. Already "blue" over the thought that her own wedding was far in the dim future, poor Polly was cast into the depths of despair and disgust by the drunken riot in which her prospective husband was indulging with her particular aversion, the cruel, calf-torturing half-breed, McKee. Thoroughly mortified, she slipped out of town by a side street, and moodily rode back to Allen Hacienda, meeting on the way, as we have seen, Jack Payson. After the debauch was over, and the merry, mad devil of nervous excitement was succeeded by the brooding demon of nervous depression, McKee broached to Bud the idea of robbing the express-agent of the money coming to Payson. This fell in readily with the young man's revengeful mood. He unreservedly placed himself under the half-breed's orders. In accordance with these, Bud hung about the road-station a great deal, cultivating the friends of Terrill, the agent. 'Ole Man' Terrill, as he was called, although he was a vigorous specimen of manhood on the under side of sixty, was ticket and freight agent, express-messenger, and telegraph-operator, in fact, the entire Bureau of Transportation and communication at Florence station. Bud frankly told him he was out of a job, and had, indeed, decided in view of his coming marriage, to give up horse-wrangling for some vocation of a more elevating character. So Terrill let him help about the station, chiefly in the clerical work. While so engaged, Bud learned that a package valued at three thousand dollars was expected upon a certain train. Although no consignee was mentioned, the fact that the amount tallied exactly with the sum Payson was expecting caused him to conclude it was Dick's repayment of his loan. Accordingly he informed McKee that the time they were awaiting had arrived. Florence had grown up as a settlement about a spring of water some time before the advent of the railroad. Builders of the line got into trouble with the inhabitants, and in revenge located the station half a mile away from the spring, thinking new settlers would come to them. In this they were disappointed. The point was an isolated one, and the station a deserted spot between trains. Eastward and westward the single track of railroad drifted to shimmering points on the horizon. To the south dreary wastes of sand, glistening white under the burnished sun and crowned with clumps of grayish green sage-brush, stretched to an encircling rim of hills. Cacti and yucca palms broke the monotony of the roll of the plains to the uplands. Sahuaroes towered over the low station, which was built in the style of the old Spanish missions. Its red roof flared above the purple shadows cast by its walls. In the fathomless blue above a buzzard sailed majestically down an air current, and hovered motionless over the lonely outpost of civilization. Within the station a telegraph-sounder chattered and chirruped. 'Ole Man' Terrill was at the instrument. His duties were over for the forenoon, the east-bound express, which, with the west-bound, composed the only trains that traversed that section of the road each day, having arrived and departed a half-hour before, and he had cut in on the line to regale himself with the news of the world. But there was a dearth of thrilling events, such as his rude soul delighted in. The Apache uprising, that was feared, had not taken place. Colonel Hardie, of Fort Grant, had the situation well in hand. The Nihilists were giving their latest czar a breathing-spell. No new prize-fighter had arisen to wrest the championship of the world from John Sullivan, who had put all his old rivals 'to sleep.' 'Ole Man' Terrill proceeded to follow their example. He had been up late the night before at a poker game. His head fell forward with a jerk. Aroused by the shock, he glanced drowsily about him. Heat-waves danced before the open window. Deep silence hung over his little world. Again his eyelids closed; his head dropped, and slowly he slipped into sleep. Tragedy was approaching him now, but not along the wire. Down an arroyo, or "draw" (the dry bed of a watercourse), that wound in a detour around the town of Florence, and debauched into the open plain near the station, crept two men in single file, each leading a horse. They were Buck McKee and Bud Lane, who had ridden north from the town that morning with the declared purpose of going to Buck's old ranch, the Lazy K. They had circled about the town, timing their arrival at the station a little after the departure of the train which was expected to bring Dick Lane's money. McKee emerged first from the mouth of the draw. He wore a coarse flannel shirt, loosened at the throat. About his neck was a handkerchief. His riding-overalls were tucked into high boots with Spanish heels and long spurs. A Mexican hat with a bead band topped a head covered with coarse black hair, which he inherited from his Cherokee mother. Save for the vulture floating high in air not a living thing was in sight. With the caution of a coyote, McKee crept to the station door and peered blinkingly through the open door into the room. The change from the dazzling light without to the shaded interior blinded him for a moment. He heard the heavy breathing of the sleeper before he saw him. Returning to the mouth of the arroyo, McKee motioned to his companion to bring out the horses. When this was done, the two men cinched the saddles and made every preparation for sudden flight. Lane and the horses remained outside the station behind a freight-car on a siding, while McKee stole softly through the open door to 'Ole Man' Terrill's side. Now, the agent used as a safe-deposit vault his inside waistcoat pocket, the lock upon which was a huge safety-pin. For further defense he carried a revolver loosely hung at his hip, and easily reached. His quickness on the draw in the hour of need, and his accuracy of aim made him a formidable antagonist. Some men are born into the world to become its watch-dogs; others to become its wolves. The presence of a human wolf is, as it were, scented by the human watch-dog, even when the dog is asleep. McKee was known instinctively as a man-wolf to the born guardians of society; Slim Hoover, himself a high type of the man-mastiff, used to say of the half-breed: "I can smell that b'ar-grease he slicks his hair with agin' the wind. He may be out o' sight an' out of mind, when somethin' tells me 'McKee's around'; then I smell b'ar-grease, and the next thing, Bucky shows up, with his ingrasheatin' grin. It's alluz 'grease before meet, as the Sky Pilot would say." 'Ole Man' Terrill was of the watch-dog breed. Whether warned by the instinct of his kind or wakened by the scent of McKee's bear-grease, he suddenly opened his eyes. Like all men accustomed to emergencies, he was instantly in full possession of his wits, yet he pretended to be slightly confused in order to get a grasp upon the situation before greeting his visitor. "Howdy, Buck," he said, adjusting his revolver as he swung half-round in his chair, that he might reach his weapon more readily in an emergency. "Bustin' or busted?" "Well, I'm about even with the game," replied McKee, pulling from his pocket a bag of tobacco and papers, and deftly rolling a butterfly cigarette. "Goin' to shake it before I lose my pile. It's me for the Lazy K. Dropped in to say good-by." Terrill, who had recently had an expensive seance with McKee at poker, remonstrated: "Yuh ought 'o give me another chanct at yuh, Buck. Yo're goin' away with too much of my money." "Well, 'Ole Man,' I'm likely to rob yuh of a lot more ef you ain't keerful," answered McKee. "Yuh can't jet yeta while," said Terrill. "Dead broke." "Aw, come off! everybody knows ye're a walkin' bank. Bet yuh got three thousan' in that inside pocket o' your'n this minute." Terrill started at McKee's naming the exact amount he was carrying. He forgot his customary caution in his surprise. "Well, you did just hit it, shore enough. I believe ye're half-gipsy instid o' half-Injun. Jus' like yer knowin' I stood pat on four uv a kind when you had aces full, and throwin' down yer cyards 'fore I c'u'd git even with yuh. How do yuh do it, Buck?" McKee gave a smile of cunning, inscrutable superiority. "Oh, it's jes' a power I has. 'Keen sabby,' as the Greasers say--I'm keen on the know-how. Why, I kin tell yuh more about the money. It's fer Jack Payson--" "Now, there's whur ye're way off as a cleervoyant, Buck," said Terrill triumphantly. "Yuh guessed oncet too often, as yer old pard on the Lazy K said to the druggist. 'Peruna?' ast the druggist. 'Yep,' said yer pard. 'Beginnin' mild on a new jag?' ast the druggist a second time. 'Hell, no!' said yer pard they calls Peruna now from the in-sih-dent, 'ending up strong on an old one.' Nope, the three thousan' is county money, consigned to Sheriff Hoover. Jack Payson has jes' lef' with a package from K. C., but it wasn't money. It was a purty, gilt chair--a weddin'-present fer the gal he's go'n' to marry." At that moment the sounder of the telegraph began clicking the call of the station. Terrill whirled about in his swivel-chair and faced the table. McKee stood close behind him. His lips twitched nervously. His eyes narrowed as he watched every movement of the agent's big shoulders as he operated the key. At the same time the half-breed drew his revolver and covered the back of Terrill's head. The agent completed his message and turned to continue his interrupted conversation. He found himself gazing into the muzzle of a .44, big, it seemed, as a thirteen-inch gun. "Why--what?" he stammered. "I'm actin' jes' now as Slim's deppity," said McKee. "Unbutton an' han' that money over." Once having his victim in his power, all the innate cruelty of the Indian blood of his maternal ancestors flashed to the surface. Terrill was at his mercy. For one desperate moment he would play with him; even torture him as his forefathers had once made miserable the last moments of a captive. He knew that unless he silenced Terrill his life must pay the forfeit. Death was the penalty of detection. The arm of the express company was long. Ultimate capture was certain. Pursued out of Arizona by the sheriff, he would be trailed through every camp and town in the far West. With an oath, Terrill tried to rise and face his antagonist, reaching for his revolver as he did so. The butt of his weapon had caught in the arm of the chair hampering his movements. McKee threw him roughly back into the chair. "Throw up your han's," he cried. "Don't try that." Up went Terrill's hands high over his head. He faced the open window. Not a sign of help was in sight. Quickly the agent turned over in his mind various schemes to foil McKee, who now stood behind him with the muzzle of his revolver pressing into the middle of his back. Each was rejected before half-conceived. McKee laughed sneeringly, saying: "You oughtn't to be so keerless to show where you cache your roll. Worse than a senorita with a stocking. She never keeps a whole pair when Manuel is playing faro." Terrill made no reply. His hope of escape was slowly fading. McKee had reached his left hand over his prisoner's shoulder to disarm Terrill, who moved slightly away from him, drawing in his feet as he did so. One chance had come to him. He knew that, if he failed, death was certain, yet he determined to take the risk in order to retrieve the slip he had made in admitting that he had money in his possession to a gambling crony; and so to keep clean his record for trustiness, of which he was so proud. This last desperate resource was an old wrestler's trick; one with which he had conquered others in the rough games of the corral. Again Terrill moved to the right and farther under McKee, who had to extend his arm and body far beyond an upright position. Holding his revolver against Terrill handicapped the half-breed in his movements. With a quick turn, Terrill grasped McKee's left arm, jerking it down sharply on his shoulder. With his right hand he grasped the back of his antagonist's neck, pulling his head downward and inward. Using his shoulder for a fulcrum, with a mighty heave of his legs and back he sought to toss McKee over his head. So surprised for an instant was the cowboy by suddenness of the attack that he made no effort escape the clutches of the desperate express-agent. His feet had left the floor, and he was swinging in the air before his finger pressed the trigger. There was a muffled report. The two men fell in a heap on the floor, McKee on top. Dazed and shaken, McKee scrambled to his feet. The air was pungent with odor of powder smoke. Terrill rolled over on his side, trembled convulsively, and died. He had paid the penalty for a moment's indiscretion with his life. McKee quickly unfastened the pin and seized the roll of bills. Skimming through the package, he smiled with satisfaction to see that the most of it was in small bills, and none of them stained. Carefully avoiding the fast-forming pool of blood which was oozing from the hole in the dead man's head, he hurried to the door. A glance showed him the coast was clear. Running across the tracks, he joined Lane, who was waiting for him behind the freight-car with impatience. In silence they mounted their horses. For a short distance McKee led the way upon the railroad-track, in order to leave no hoof-prints, and then struck across the desert toward the hills in the south. "Why did you shoot?" gasped Lane. "He drew on me," snarled McKee. "It wasn't Dick's money, but you'll get half. Shut up." The burning sun rose higher and higher. The buzzard dropped lower in the sky. The silence of death brooded over the railroad-station. CHAPTER V Hoover Bows to Hymen Unknown to Bud Lane and Buck McKee, who were rioting in Florence, Jack Payson had hurried up the wedding. Colonel Jim had wheedled Josephine into consenting that it should take place two months ahead of the time that had been fixed. "April is the month fer showers, Josie, an' we'll let you weep all you please." Two weeks' notice, however, gave scant time for preparation for the important ceremony that Mrs. Allen deemed necessary. During this period the busiest spot in Arizona was the kitchen of Allen hacienda. An immense cake, big as a cheese, was the crowning effort of Josephine, who wept copiously at the thought of losing her daughter as she measured and mixed the ingredients. A layer of frosting an inch in thickness encrusted this masterpiece of the art of pastry-making. Topping the creation were manikins of a bride and bridegroom. This climax of the bridal cake had been brought up by wagon from Tucson with more caution than if it were a month's clean-up of a paying mine. Mrs. Allen allowed no one to go near the artistic achievement. Others might look at it from afar, but at the slightest movement to get close to it, she would push the observer back, with the warning: "Keep yer dirty fingers off'n it. "'Tain't common icin'; that's confectionary." Enough chickens to feed a darky camp-meeting were killed for the feast. Fried, roasted, cold or minced as tamales, the dishes filled ovens and tables, and overflowed into the spring-house. Favorite recipes carried across the plains by the wives of the Argonauts met in rivalry with the dishes of the cooks of old Mexico. Colonel Allen wandered aimlessly about the ranch, while the preparations for the feast were in progress. The women folk drove him from one favorite loafing-place to another. His advice was scorned and his wishes made a subject for jests. Defiantly he had taken full charge of the liquid refreshments. A friendly barkeeper in Tucson, acting under his orders, had shipped him cases of champagne, a barrel of beer, and a siphon of seltzer. Why the seltzer he never could explain. Later the unlucky bottle marred the supper and nearly caused a tragedy. A guest picked it up and peered into the metal tube to see "how the durned thing worked." As he gazed and pondered, shaking the bottle in effort to solve the mystery, he pressed the handle. The stream struck him fairly between the eyes. Shocked, surprised, and half-blinded, he pulled his gun and declared immediate war on the "sheep-herder who had put up the job on him." Allen's other supplies were of the kind taken straight in the Southwest, and were downed with a hasty gulp. Driven from the house on the day of the wedding he took refuge on the piazza. From behind the hacienda floated dreamily on the sun-drenched air the music of guitars and mandolins played by Mexicans, practising for the dance which would follow the ceremony. The Colonel dozed and dreamed. Suddenly the peace of the afternoon was shattered by the wild "yip-yips" of a band of cowboys, riding up the trail. Revolver-shots punctuated their shrill cries. Allen bounded from his chair, shaking himself like a terrier. This riotous sound was the music he longed to hear. When the staccato beats of the ponies' hoofs ceased, he shouted: "Come on, boys, make this your home. Everything goes, and the Sweetwater outfit is always welcome." The foreman was the first to pull up in front of the house. "Hullo, Uncle Jim!" he cried. "Hello, Sage-brush," answered the Colonel, a broad smile illuminating his face. Holding his pipe in one hand, he licked his lips at the thought of "lickering up" without the invention of an excuse for his wife. Then he joined in a hearty laugh with the men about the corral as he heard the grunts and stamping of a plunging mustang. A cow-pony had entered into the spirit of the occasion and was trying to toss his rider over his head. Fresno was the victim of the horse's deviltry. His predicament aroused wild shouts of mirth and sallies of the wit of the corral. "Hunt leather, Fresno, or he'll buck you clean over the wall," shouted Sage-brush. "Grab his tail," yelled Show Low, with a whoop. "All over," was the chorus, as Fresno, with a vicious jab of his spurs and a jerk of the head, brought the animal into subjection. "Come right in, boys!" called Allen. "Let the Greasers take the hosses." With shrill shouts, whoops, and much laughter the guests crowded about the ranchman. Each wore his holiday clothes; new handkerchiefs were knotted about their necks. Fresno had stuck little American flags in the band of his hat, the crown of which he had removed. "I want head-room for the morning after," he had said. Show Low's chaps were conspicuously new, and his movements were heralded by the creaking of unsoftened leather. Last of the band was Parenthesis, short, bow-legged, with a face tanned and seamed by exposure. The cowboys ran stiffly, toeing slightly inward. Long hours in the saddle made them apparently awkward and really ungraceful when on the ground. They greeted Allen with hearty enthusiasm, slapping him on the back, poking him in the ribs, and swinging him from one to the other, with cries of: "Howdy, Uncle Jim!" "Howdy, Sage-brush? Hello, Fresno! Waltz right in, Show Low. Glad to see you all!" cried Allen, as he, in turn, brought his hand down with ringing slaps upon shoulder and back. Meantime Parenthesis hopped about the outer edge of the ring, seeking an entrance. Failing to reach his host, he crowed: "How de doddle do," to attract his attention. Allen broke from the ring. Grasping Parenthesis by the hand, he said: "I'm tolerable, thankee, Parenthesis. Where's Jack?--didn't he come over with you?" "What! the boss? Ain't he got here yet?" asked the foreman. Tall and lean, with hardened muscles, Sage-brush Charley was as lithe as a panther on horseback. His first toy had been a rope with which, as a toddler, he had practised on the dogs and chickens about the ranch-yard. He could not remember when he could not ride. Days on the round-up, hours of watching the sleeping herd in the night-watch, had made him quiet and self-contained in his dealings with men. His eyes looked out fearlessly on the world. All of his life he had handled cattle. Daily facing dangers on the long drives or in the corral, he schooled himself to face emergencies. Acquiring self-control, he was trusted and admired. When Lyman, the old foreman of the Sweetwater resigned, Jack Payson promoted Sage-brush, although next to Bud Lane he was at the time the youngest man in the outfit. He made his employer's interests his own. At the mention of Payson's name he always became attentive. With a shade of anxiety he awaited Allen's answer. "No," replied the ranchman, looking from one of his guests to the other. "Why, he started three hours ahead of us!" explained Parenthesis. With a challenging note in his tones, as if his word was disputed, the host answered: "Well, he ain't showed up." The little group had become silent. Arizona was in a period of unrest. Rumors of another Apache uprising were growing stronger each day. Then Payson was successful, and, therefore, despised by less fortunate men ever eager for a quarrel. After a moment's thought Sage-brush brushed aside his fears and brightened up his comrades with the remark: "Mebbe he rid over to Florence station to get a present for Miss Echo. He said somethin' about gettin' an artickle from Kansas City." "Mebbe so," agreed Allen, eager to cast out any forebodings. "It's time," he continued, "he wuz turnin' up, if this weddin's to be pulled off by the clock." "Has the Sky Pilot got here yet?" asked Sage-brush. "No," replied Allen. "He's started, though. There's one thing sartin, we can't tighten up the cinches till the bridegroom gits here." The absence of Jack Payson and the failure of the minister to arrive aroused the suspicions of Sage-brush. Coming closer to Allen, he smiled knowingly, and, speaking in a confidential tone, asked: "Say, Jim, they ain't figgerin' on gittin' away on the sly-like, are they?" Show Low interrupted with the explanation: "You see, we're goin' to decorate the wagon some." The suggestion that any one connected with Allen Hacienda would ride in anything on wheels, except the driver of the chuck-wagon out on round-up, aroused the indignation of the old cattleman. For him the only use to which a wheeled vehicle drawn by a horse should be put was to haul materials that could not be packed on a horse. "They ain't using any wagon!" he fairly shouted; "they're goin' away in the leather." The idea of carrying out the traditions of the horse in Pinal County even to a wedding-journey tickled the boys immensely. Slapping one another on the back and nodding their heads in approbation, they shouted: "That's the ticket. Hooray!" "This ain't no New York idea, where the bride and groom hits the life-trail in a hired hack," cried Fresno. Allen's feelings apparently were not yet fully soothed. Turning to Sage-brush, he said: "Wheels don't go in my family. Why, her ma and me were married on hossback. The preacher had to make a hurry job of it, but it took." "Hush, now," was Parenthesis' awed comment. "For her pop was a-chasin' us, and kept it up for twenty miles after the parson said 'Amen.'" "Did he ketch you?" asked Fresno, with great seriousness. "He sure did," answered Allen, with a twinkle in his eye, "an' thanked me for takin' Josephine off his hands." The boys laughed. The joke was upon themselves, as they had expected to hear a romantic story of earlier days. When the laughter had subsided, Show Low suggested: "If we can't decorate the wagon, let's put some fixin's on the ponies." The proposal was received with more whoops, shouting, and yipping. They waltzed about the smiling rancher. "That's what!" cried Sage-brush enthusiastically. Allen grew sarcastic, remarking: "I reckon you-all must have stopped some time at the water-tank." Renewed laughter greeted this sally. "This is my first wedding," explained Sage-brush, rather apologetically. "I want to know!" exclaimed Allen, in surprise. "I'm tellin' you. I never seed a weddin' in all my life," replied Sage-brush, as seriously as if he was denying a false accusation of a serious crime. "Mother used to tell me about her'n, an' I often wisht I had been there." Fresno shouted with amusement. He had Sage-brush rattled. The coolest man on the ranch was flustered by the mere thought of attending a wedding-ceremony. "He's plum locoed over this one. Ain't you, Sage-brush?" he drawled tauntingly. Sage-brush took his jibing in the best of humor. It was a holiday, and they were with people of their own kind. Had a stranger been present the remarks would have been resented bitterly. On this point cowboys are particularly sensitive. In the presence of outsiders they are silent, answering only in monosyllables, never leading in any conversation, and if any comment is necessary they make it indirectly. "Well, I ain't no society-bud like you are," laughed Sage-brush. The others joined with him in his merriment over Fresno's discomfiture. "Weddin's ain't so frequent where I come from as they is in Californy." "It's the climate," answered Fresno, with a broad grin. "So you ain't never been at a weddin'?" asked Allen, who was looking for another opening to have more fun with Sage-brush. Again the cowboy became serious and confessed: "Nope; I've officiated at several plain killin's, an' been chief usher at a lynchin', but this yere's my first weddin', an' I'm goin' to turn loose some and enjoy it." Sage-brush grinned in anticipation of the good times that he knew lay in store for him at the dance. "You're fixed up as if you was the main attraction at this event," said Allen, looking Sage-brush over carefully and spinning him around on his heel. "Ain't I mussed up fine?" answered Sage-brush. "You're the sure big turkey," interrupted Parenthesis. "Served up fine, with all the trimmin's," laughed Fresno, taking another jab at his friend. Their sport was broken up for the time being by the appearance of Polly at the door of the ranch-house. "Hello, boys," she shouted, with the fascinating cordiality of the Western girl, wherein the breath of the plains, the purity of the air, and the wholesomeness of life is embraced in a simple greeting and the clasp of a hand. The cowboys took off their hats, and made elaborate bows to the young woman. "Howdy, Miss Polly!" they cried. "You sure do look pert," added Sage-brush, with what he considered his most winning smile. Fresno snickered and hastily brushed back the hair from his forehead. "Where's Jack?" she asked the two men, who at once ranged themselves one on each side of her. "He did not start with the boys," explained Allen. "He'll be along soon, Polly." "Well, now when it comes to lookers, what's the matter with Polly Hope?" exclaimed Sage-brush slyly. Glances of admiration were cast at the girl, who was dressed simply and plainly in a little white gown which Mrs. Allen had made for her for the wedding. Polly's youth, good nature, and ability to take care of herself made her a favorite on the ranch. She had no need of defenders, but if an occasion should arise that Polly required a knight, there were a score of guns at her service at an hour's notice. "Looks like a picture from a book," said Fresno, hoping to win back the ground he had lost by Sage-brush's openly expressed admiration. Polly was flattered by the comments and the glances of the boys, which expressed their approval of her appearance more loudly than spoken words. She pretended, however, to be annoyed. "Go 'long," she said. "Where's Bud Lane? Didn't you give him his invite?" The boys turned from one to the other with feigned glances of disgust at being slighted by Polly for an absent one. The one-sided courtship of Bud and Polly was known up and down the valley, and indefinite postponement of their wedding-day was one of the jests of the two ranches. "Oh, we sent it on to him at Florence. He'll git it in time, if he ain't gone to the Lazy K with Buck McKee," said Sage-brush; then, turning to the other cowboys, he added in an aggrieved tone: "Polly ain't got no eyes for no one excep' Bud." Polly stepped to Allen's side, and, laying her head on his shoulder, said: "Ain't I?" Allen patted the girl's head. He was very fond of her, looking upon her as another daughter. Polly smiled back into his face, and then, with a glance at the cowboys, said: "Say, Uncle Jim, there's some bottles to be opened." The invitation was an indirect one, but all knew what it meant, and started for the house. "Root-beer," added Polly mischievously; "the corks pull awful hard." Allen glanced at her in feigned alarm. "What do you want to do--stampede the bunch?" Before she could answer, the approach of a horse attracted the attention of the group. "There's Jack, now!" cried Sage-brush, in tones which plainly showed his relief; "no, it ain't," he added reflectively, "he rode his pacin' mare, and that's a trottin' horse." The cry of the rider was heard quieting his mount. Allen recognized the voice. "It's Slim Hoover," he cried. Polly clapped her hands, and said mischievously to Sage-brush: "Now you'll see me makin' goo-goo eyes to somebody besides Bud Lane. I ain't a-going to be the only girl in Pinal County Slim Hoover ain't set up to." "An' shied off from," added Sage-brush, a little nettled by Polly's overlooking him as a subject for flirtation. "But what's Slim doin' over this way?" "Come to Jack's weddin', of course," replied Polly, adding complacently: "And probably projectin' a hitch-up of his own." Slim ran around the corner of the house directly into the crowd, who seized him before he could recover from his surprise, and proceeded to haze him, to their intense delight and the Sheriff's embarrassment, for he knew that Polly was somewhere near, enjoying his discomfiture. Polly waited until her victim was fully ready for her particular form of torture. The reception of the cowboys was crude to her refined form of making the fat Sheriff uncomfortable. With the velvety cruelty of a flirt she held out her hand, saying: "Hello, Slim." The Sheriff flushed under his tan. The red crept up the back of his neck to his ears. He awkwardly took off his hat. With a bow and a scrape he greeted her: "Howdy, Miss Polly, howdy." Meantime he shook her hand until she winced from the heartiness of the grip. "What's the news?" she asked, as she slowly straightened out her fingers one by one. "There's been a killin' over Florence way," announced the Sheriff, putting on his hat and becoming an officer of the law with duty to perform. "Who is the misfortunate?" asked Sage-brush, as they gathered about Hoover and listened intently. Murder in Arizona was a serious matter, and punishment was meted out to the slayer or he was freed by his fellow citizens. Far from courts of justice and surrounded by men to whom death was often merely an incident in a career of crime, the settlers were forced to depend upon themselves to keep peace on the border. They acted quickly, but never hastily. Judgment followed quickly on conviction. Their views were broad, and rarely were their decisions wrong. "'Ole Man' Terrill," replied the Sheriff. "Happened about ten this mornin'. Some man caught him alone in the railroad-station and blowed his head half-off." "Do tell!" was Allen's exclamation. "Yep," continued the Sheriff. "He must have pulled a gun on the fellow. He put up some sort of a fight, as the room is some mussed up." "Robbery?" queried Polly, with wide-open eyes. "That's what!" answered Slim, turning to her. "He had three thousan' dollars pinned in his vest--county money for salaries. You know how he toted his wad around with him, defyin' man or the devil to get it 'way from him? Well, some one who was both man an' devil was too much for him." "Who found him?" "I did myself. Went over around noon after the money. Didn't stop to go back to town fer a posse. Trail was already too cold. Could tell it was a man that rode a pacin' horse." His auditors looked at each other, striving to remember who of their acquaintance rode a pacing horse. Sage-brush Charley shook his head. "Nobody down this way, 'ceptin', of course, the boss, rides a pacer. Must be one of the Lazy K outfit, I reckon." "Most likely," said the Sheriff; "he struck out south, probably to throw me off scent. Then he fell in with two other men, and this balled me up. I lost one of the tracks, but follered the other two round Sweetwater Mesa, till I came where they rode into the river. Of course I couldn't follow the trail any farther at that p'int, so, bein' as I was near Uncle Jim's, I rode over fer help to look along both banks an' pick up the trail wherever it comes out of the river. Sorry I must break up yer fun, boys, but some o' yuh must come along with me. Duty's duty. I want Sage-brush, anyhow, as I s'pose I can't ask fer Jack Payson." Sage-brush pulled a long face. At any other time he would have jumped at the chance of running to earth the dastardly murderers of his old friend Terrill. But in the matter of this, his first experience a wedding, he had tickled his palate so long with the sweets of anticipation that he could not bear to forgo the culminating swallow of realization. "I don't see why I shouldn't be let off as well as Jack," he grumbled; "our cases are similar. You see it's my first weddin'," explained the foreman to the sheriff. The other cowboys howled with delight. The humor of the situation caught their fancy, and they yelled a chorus of protestation in Hoover's ears. In this Colonel Allen joined. "Don't spile the weddin'," he pleaded. "This event has already rounded up the Sweetwater outfit fer yuh, an' saved yuh more time than you'll lose by waitin' till it's over. Then we'll all jine yuh." Hoover commanded silence, and, rolling a cigarette, gravely considered the proposition. He realized that the murderers should be followed up at once, but that if he forced the cowboys by the legal power exercised to forego the pleasure they had been anticipating so greatly, they would not be so keen in pursuit as if they had first "given the boss his send-off." The considerations being equal, or, as he put it, "hoss an' hoss," it seemed to him wise to submit to Allen's proposition, backed as it was by the justice of his plan that the occasion of the wedding had already saved valuable time in assembling the posse. He assented, therefore, but, to maintain the dignity of his office and control of the situation, with apparent reluctance. "Well, hurry up the sacreements an' ceremonies, then, an' the minute the preacher ties the knot, every man uv yuh but Jack an' the parson an' Uncle Jim gits on his boss an' folluhs me. I'll wait out in the corral." At this there was another storm of expostulation, led this time by Allen. Of course Hoover was to come to the wedding, and be its guest of honor. "You shall be the first to wish Jack and Echo lucky," said Allen. "That means you'll be the next one to marry." The ruddy-faced Sheriff blushed to the roots of his auburn hair. "Much obliged, but I ain't fixed up fer a weddin'," and he looked down at his travel-stained breeches tucked in riding-boots white with alkali-dust, and felt of his buttonless waistcoat and gingham shirt open at the throat, with the bandanna handkerchief his neck in lieu of both collar and tie. Polly assured him that he would do very well as he was, that for her part she "wouldn't want no better-dressed man than he to be present at her wedding, not even the feller she was goin' to be hitched up to;" whereat Slim Hoover was greatly set at ease. Polly was bounding up the piazza steps to tell Echo of the accession to her party, when Hoover held up his hand. A terrifying suggestion had flashed through his mind. "Hold on a minute!" he exclaimed, and, turning to Allen, he asked anxiously: "Does this yere guest of honor haf to kiss the bride?" The question was so foreign to the serious topic which had just been under discussion that everyone laughed in relief of the nervous tension. Allen's fun-loving nature at once bubbled to the surface. With an air of assumed anger he said to the Sheriff: "Of course; every guest has to do it." Then, turning to the cowboys, he asked: "Is there any one as holds out strong objection to kissin' my daughter?" "Not me," laughed Sage-brush, "I'm here to go the limit." "I'm an experienced kisser, I am," said Parenthesis, "I don't lose no chance at practise." "I'll take two, please," simpered Fresno. Show Low interrupted the general sally which followed this remark, saying: "I strings my chips along with Fresno." "Slim's afraid of females!" drawled Polly provokingly. "Oh, thunder!" exclaimed Slim to Polly. "No, I ain't, nothin' of the sort. I'm a peaceful man, I am. I never likes to start no trouble." "Get out, what's one kiss?" laughed Allen. "I've seen a big jack-pot of trouble opened by chippin' in just one kiss," wisely remarked the Sheriff. Sage-brush, at this point, announced decisively: "The bride has got to be kissed." Slim tried to break through the group and enter the house, thinking that by making such a move he would divert their attention, and that in the excitement of the wedding he could avoid kissing the bride, an ordeal which to him was more terrible than facing the worst gun-fighter in Arizona. "I deputize you to do the kissin' for me," he said to Parenthesis, who had laid his hand shoulder to detain him. "No, siree," the cowboy replied. "Every man does his own kissin' in this game." Slim half-turned as if undecided. Suddenly he turned on his heel, started for the corral. "I'll wait outside," he shouted. "No, you don't!" cried his companions. He turned to face a semicircle of drawn revolvers. He looked from one man to another, as if puzzled what move to make next. Allen was annoyed by the sheriff's actions, taking it as an insult that he would not kiss his daughter, although he had started to twit the Sheriff in the beginning. "You ain't goin' to insult me and mine that way. No man sidesteps kissin' one of my kids," he said angrily. Slim was plaintively apologetic: "I ain't kissed a female since I was a yearlin'." "Time you started," snapped Polly. "You kiss the bride, or I take it pussenel," said Allen, thoroughly aroused. "Well, if you put it that way, I'll do it," gasped Slim, in desperation. The agreement restored the boys to their good nature. "You will have to put blinders on me, though, and back me up," cautioned Hoover. "We'll hog-tie you and sit on your head," laughed Sage-brush, as the guests entered the house. CHAPTER VI A Tangled Web After fording Sweetwater River several times to throw pursuit off the track, Buck McKee and Bud Lane entered an arroyo to rest their mounts and hold council as to their future movements. During the flight both had been silent; McKee was busy revolving plans for escape in his mind, and Bud was brooding over the tragic ending of the lawless adventure into which he had been led by his companion. When McKee callously informed him that the agent had been killed in the encounter, Bud was too horrified to speak. A dry sob arose in his throat at the thought of his old friend lying dead, all alone, in the station. His first impulse was to turn back to Florence and surrender himself to the Sheriff. Had this entailed punishment of himself alone, he would have done it but he still retained a blind loyalty in his associate and principal in the crime. Murder, it seemed, was to be expected when one took the law in his own hands to right an injustice. He didn't clearly understand it. It was his first experience with a killing. The heartlessness of McKee both awed and horrified him. Evidently the half-breed was used to such actions. It appeared to be entirely justified in his code. So Bud followed in dull silence the masterful man who had involved him in the fearful deed. When they dismounted, however, his pent-up emotion burst forth. "You said there would be no killing," he gasped, passing his hand wearily across his forehead as if to wipe out the memory of the crime. "Well, what did the old fool pull his gun for?" grumbled McKee petulantly, as if Terrill was the aggressor in the encounter. Bud threw himself wearily on the ground. "I'd give the rest of my life to undo to-day's work," he groaned, speaking more to himself than to his companion. McKee heard him. His anger began to arise. If Bud weakened detection was certain. Flight back to Texas must be started without delay. If he could strengthen the will of the boy either by promise of reward or fear of punishment, the chances of detection would lessen as the days passed. "And that would be about twenty-four hours if you don't keep quiet. Why didn't he put up his hands when I hollered? He starts to wrastle and pull gun, and I had to nail him." McKee shuddered spite of his bravado. Pulling himself together with an apparent effort, he continued: "We'll hold the money for a spell--not spend a cent of it till this thing blows over--they'll never get us. Here, we'll divide it." "Keep it all. I never want to touch a penny of it," said Bud earnestly, moving along the ground to place a greater distance between him and the murderer. "Thanks. But you don't git out of your part of the hold-up that easy. Take your share, or I'll blow it into you," said McKee, pulling his revolver. Bud, with an effort, arose and walked over to Buck. With clenched fists, in agonized tones, he cried: "Shoot, if you want to. I wish I'd never seen you--you dragged me into this--you made me your accomplice in a murder." McKee looked at him in amazement. This phase of human character was new to him, trained as he been on the border, where men rarely suffered remorse and still more rarely displayed it. "Shucks! I killed him--you didn't have no hand in it," answered Buck. "This ain't my first killin'. I guess Buck McKee's pretty well known in some sections. I took all the chances. I did the killin'. You git half. Now, brace up and take yer medicine straight." "But I didn't want to take the money for myself," replied Bud, as if to soothe his conscience. "Oh! Buck, why didn't you let me alone?" he continued, as the thought of his position again overwhelmed him. Buck gasped at the shifting of the full blame upon his shoulders. "Well, I'll be darned!" he muttered. "You make me sick, Kid." His voice rose in anger and disgust. "Why, to hear you talk, one would think you was the only one had right feelin's. I'm goin' to take my share and start a decent life. I'm goin' back to Texas an' open a saloon. You take your half, marry your gal, and settle down right here. 'Ole Man' Terrill's dead; nothin' will bring him back, an' you might as well get the good o' the money. It's Slim Hoover's, anyhow. If Jack Payson can marry your brother Dick's gal on Dick's money--fer there's no hope o' stoppin' that now--you can cut Slim out with Polly, on Slim's salary. Aw, take the money!" and McKee pressed half of the bills into Bud's lax fingers. The young man's hand closed upon them mechanically. A vague thought that he might some day make restitution conspired with McKee's insidious appeal to his hatred and jealousy to induce him to retain the blood-money, and he thrust it within an inside pocket of his loose waistcoat. "Now," said McKee, thoroughly satisfied that he had involved Bud in the crime too deeply for him to confess his share in it, "we'll shake hands, and say 'adios.' Slim Hoover's probably on our track by this time, but I reckon he'll be some mixed in the trail around the mesa, and give the job up as a bad one when he reaches the river. I'll show up on the Lazy K, where the whole outfit will swear I've been fer two days, if Hoover picks on me as one of the men he's been follerin'. You're safe. Nobody'd put killin' anybody on to you, let alone your ole frien' Terrill. Why, yuh ain't a man yet, Bud, though I don't it to discurrudge yuh. You've made a start, an' some day yuh won't think no more'n me of killin' a feller what stan's in yer way. I shouldn't be so turribly surprised if Jack Payson got what's comin' to him someday. But what have you got there, Bud?" he inquired, as he saw the young man holding a letter he had withdrawn from the pocket into which he had put the bills. "Letter I got in Florence yesterday when I was too full to read it," said Bud. He opened it. "Why, it's from Polly!" he exclaimed, "it's an invite--by God! it's an invite to Jack an' Echo's wedding! It's today! That damned scoundrel has hurried the thing up for fear Dick will get back in time to stop it! Buck McKee, I believe you're right! I could kill Jack Payson with no more pity than I would a rattler or Gila monster!" At this exhibition of hatred by his companion, a new thought flashed suddenly through the satanic mind of the half-breed. It involved an entire change of his plans, but the devilish daring of the conception was irresistible. "Say," he broke in, with seeming irrelevance, "don't Payson ride a pacin' mare?" "Yes," answered Bud, "what of it?" "Oh, nothin'," said McKee; "it jus' struck me as sorter funny. PAYSON and PACIN', don't you see." Bud was mystified. Had his companion gone daft? McKee saw instantly that it would be very easy to fix the charge of murdering the station-agent upon Payson. The ranchman had evidently left the station a short time before the murder, and had gone straight south to the Sweetwater. Unless it had become confused with their own tracks, the trail would be a plain one, owing to the fact that it was made by a pacing horse, and the pursuit would undoubtedly follow this. Payson rode the only pacing horse in the Sweetwater and Bar One outfits, and it was certain to come to light, from Terrill's receipts, that he had been with the agent about the time of the killing. The motive for the robbery would be evident. Payson was in need of three thousand dollars to pay off the mortgage on his ranch. McKee said to Bud: "I've changed my mind. I think I'll see a little fun before I break for Texas. I'll go with you to the weddin'." "But you ain't got no invite," objected Bud. "Oh, I reckon they'll take me along on yours. I know too much fer Payson to objeck to me too strenuous." They rode up to Allen Hacienda shortly after Slim Hoover had arrived. They could hear the merriment of the wedding-guests in the kitchen. Loud laughter was punctuated by the popping of corks, and McKee, who rode in advance of Bud, distinguished the voice of the Sheriff in expostulation against the general raillery concentrated upon him. The half-breed grinned wolfishly. It was evident that the bloodhound of the law had tracked the supposed murderer just as the real criminal had conjectured and desired. Polly ran out on the piazza. She saw the man whom she regarded as her lover's evil genius. As he greeted her ingratiatingly: "Howdy, Miss Polly," she replied sharply: "You ain't got no invite to this weddin'." "I come with my friend Bud," he explained, with an elaborate bow. "I didn't see you, Bud," answered Polly slightly mollified, as she crossed the door-yard to shake hands with her sweetheart. Buck offered her his hand, but she ignored him. McKee shrugged his shoulders, and started for the house. "Bud, he's some cast down because it's not his weddin'," was McKee's parting shot at the young couple. "I 'low I'll go in and join the boys. Excuse me." "With pleasure," coldly replied the girl. The half-breed ignored the sarcasm and, answering innocently, "Much obliged," he entered the house. Polly turned on Bud, displaying her resentment. "You an' him always kick up the devil when you're together. What did you bring him along fer?" she demanded. "It's his last chance to see any fun around here; he's leavin' for Texas," explained Bud. "Fer how long?" "Fer good." "Fer our good, you mean. There's too many of his kind comin' into this country. Did you hear about 'Ole Man' Terrill?" Bud did not wait for her to explain, but nervously answered: "They told us about it in Florence when we were coming through, We've been at the Lazy K." "Wasn't it dreadful?" rattled on Polly. "Slim's here--the boys are goin' to turn out with him after the weddin' to see if they can ketch the feller who did the killin'." Bud paled as he heard the news. To conceal his distress he moved toward the door. Anywhere to get away from the girl to whom he feared he would betray himself. "I'll join 'em," he huskily answered. Polly, however, could see no reason for his evident haste to leave her. She felt hurt, but thought his actions were due to her scolding him for being with McKee. "You ain't ever ast me how I look," she inquired, seeking to detain him. "You look fine," complimented Bud perfunctorily. "W'en a feller ain't seen a feller in a week, seems like a feller ought to brace up and start something," replied Polly, in an injured tone. Bud smiled in spite of his fears. Catching the girl in his arms, he kissed her, and said: "I was a-waitin' for the chance." Polly disengaged herself from his embrace, and sighed contentedly. "That's something like it. What's the use of bein' engaged to a feller if you can't have all the trimmin's that goes with it. You look as if you wasn't too happy." Bud pulled himself together with an effort. He realized that if he did not show more interest in the girl and the wedding he might be suspected of connection with the murder. He trumped up an explanation of his moodiness. "Well, what call have I to be happy? Ain't I lost my job?" "Yes, but that's because you were hot-headed, gave your boss too much lip. But everything will come out all right. Jack says--" "Has that low-down liar an' thief been comin' it over you, Polly? Did he tell you how he gave the place he promised me to Sage-brush?" "That wasn't until you gave him slack, Bud. I'm sure he ain't a thief; why--" "Thief, of course he is, an' a blacker-hearted one than the man that killed Terrill. Ain't he going to steal my brother Dick's girl this very night?" "But Dick is dead," expostulated Polly. "Dick ain't dead; I know it--that is," he stammered, "I feel it in my bones he ain't dead. An' Jack feels it, too; that's why he's hurried up this weddin'." "But your own friend, Buck McKee, saw Dick just before the 'Paches killed him." "But not after it. An' Buck now thinks the Rurales may have come up in time to save him." "Seems to me if that's so he has had time enough since then to write," objected Polly, who was, nevertheless, impressed by Bud's vehemence. "How do you know that he has not written?" Polly could only gasp. These accusations were coming too fast for her to answer. "You can't tell what a man might do in a case like that. Perhaps Dick's 'way in the mountains, away from the railroad, prospectin' down in the Ghost Range, where he has been tryin' to locate the lost lode. There's lots of reasons for his not writing to Echo. But Echo doesn't seem to mind. A year an' a half is enough to mend any woman's heart." "Now, you--" began Polly, who was growing angry under the charges which were being heaped on her two best friends by the overwrought boy. Bud would not let her finish, but cried: "Echo never loved him. If she did she would not be acting like she is goin' to to-night." Rushing to Echo's defense Polly answered: "She may or may not have loved Dick Lane, but I know that she loves Jack Payson now with all her heart and, even if the 'Paches did not get your brother, he's as dead to her as if they had." Polly was startled and confused by Bud's accusations. Accordingly, it was a relief to her when Payson appeared on the scene. They had been so interested in their conversation that they did not hear him ride up to the house. "Hello, Polly! Hello, Bud!" were his cordial greetings, for he was determined to ignore his former employee's hostility. Bud did not answer, but looked moodily on the ground. To Eastern eyes Payson's wedding-attire would appear most incongruous. About his waist was strapped a revolver. His riding-trousers, close-fitting and corded, were buttoned over the calves of his legs. Soft, highly polished leather boots reached to his knees. His shirt was of silk, deeply embroidered down the front and at the collar. His jacket gave him ample breathing-room about the chest, but tapered at the waist and clung closely over the hips. He wore a sombrero and a knotted silk handkerchief. His face was deeply sunburned, except a spot shaped like crescent just below the hairline on the forehead, which was protected from the sun by the hat and the shade of the brim. A similar line of fairer skin ran around the edge of the scalp, beginning over the ears. His hair shaded the upper part of his neck from the sun's rays. When his hair was trimmed the untanned part showed as plainly as if painted. It is the mark of the plainsman in a city or on a holiday. "Well, it's about time that you got here," said Polly, with a sigh of relief. "Where have you been?" "I stopped over to Sam Terrill's to see about something that I ordered from Kansas City. Then I had to go back to my ranch--" Bud started guiltily. Forgetting his determination to ignore Payson, he asked anxiously. "You didn't see Terrill, did you?" "Oh, yes. Why do you ask?" Polly laid her hand on Payson's arm and told him briefly of the shooting of Terrill. "Who shot him?" he asked, when she had finished. "They don't know--he was robbed of a pile of money--Slim Hoover's just rode over to get a posse," she replied, looking toward the door. At this bit of information Payson became anxious about the plans for his wedding. The ceremony was uppermost in his mind at the time. "Well, he can get one after the wedding." Then he asked: "Is the minister here yet?" Polly laughingly replied: "You're feelin' pretty spry now, but you'll be as meek as a baby calf in a little while. In this section a bridegroom is treated worse than a tenderfoot." Payson smiled. He knew he was in for a thorough hazing by the boys. "That's all right. I'll get back at you some day--when you and Bud--" Polly interrupted him with a remark about minding his own business. Bud avoided entering into the conversation. He had walked toward the door and was standing on the steps when he answered for Polly. "Looks as if you're chances of gettin' even with us is a long way off," he said. Turning, he entered the house, to join the other guests who, by the noise, were enjoying Allen's importations from Tucson to the bottom of every glass. Polly looked after Bud, smiling quizzically. "Bud's mighty hopeful, ain't he? Ain't you happy?" "You bet! Don't I look it?" cried Jack, rubbing his hands. "Never thought I could be so happy. A fellow doesn't get married every day in the week." "Not unless he lives in Chicago; I hear it's the habit there," answered Polly. "The sweetest girl in the Territory--" began Jack. "You bet she is," Polly broke in. "If you just want to keep her lovin' and lovin' you--all you've got to do is to treat her white and play square with her." "Play square with her," thought Payson. Was he playing square with her? He knew that he was not, but the chance of losing her was too great for him to risk. "For if you ain't on the level with Echo Allen, well--you might as well crawl out of camp, that's the kind of girl she is," Polly exclaimed loyally. CHAPTER VII Josephine Opens the Sluices Entering the living-room, Bud found Echo surrounded by several girls from Florence and the neighboring ranches, who were driving her almost distracted with their admiring attentions, for she was greatly disturbed about her lover's inexplicable absence. Had she been free from the duties of hospitality, she would have leaped on her horse and gone in search of him. Echo's wedding-attire would seem as incongruous as Jack's to the eyes of an Easterner, yet it was entirely suited to the circumstances, for the couple intended, as soon as they were married, to ride to a little hunting-cabin of Jack's in the Tortilla Mountains, where they would spend their honeymoon. She was dressed in an olive-green riding-habit, which she had brought from the East. The skirt was divided, and reached just below the knee; her blouse, of lighter material, and brown in color, was loose, allowing free play for her arms and shoulders. High riding-boots were laced to the knee. A sombrero and riding-gloves lay on the table ready to complete her costume. Bud coldly acknowledged Echo's affectionate and happy greeting, and curtly informed her that Jack had arrived. She rushed out of doors with a cry of joy. Running across the courtyard toward her lover, who awaited her with outstretched arms, she began: "Well, this is a nice time, you outrageous--" when Polly stopped her with a mock-serious look. "Wait a minute--wait a minute" (the girl drawled as if reining in a too eager horse) "don't commence calling love-names before you get the hitch--time enough after. He has been actin' up something scandalous with me." Jack threw up his hands in protest, hastily denying any probable charge that the tease might make. "Why, I haven't been saying a word!" he cried. Polly laughed as she ran to the door. "No, you haven't," she answered mockingly, as one agrees with a child whose feelings have been hurt. "He's only been tellin' me he loved--" Pausing an instant, she pointed at Echo, ending her sentence with a shouted "you." With her hand on Jack's shoulder, Echo said: "Polly, you are a flirt. You've too many strings to your bow." "You mean I've too many beaux to my string!" laughingly answered the girl. "You'll have Slim Hoover and Bud Lane shooting each other up all on your account," chided Echo. "Nothing of the kind," pouted Polly. "Can't a girl have friends? But I know what you two are waiting for?" "What?" asked Jack. "You want me to vamose. I'm hep. I'll vam." And Polly ran into the kitchen to tell the men that the bridegroom had arrived, but couldn't be seen until the bride was through with an important interview with him. So she hustled them all into the living-room, where the girls were. This room was a long and low apartment, roughly plastered. The heavy ceiling-beams, hewn with axes, were uncovered, giving an old English effect, although this was not striven for, but made under the stress of necessity. The broad windows were trellised with vines, through which filtered the sunshine. A cooling evening breeze stirred the leaves lazily. The chairs were broad and comfortable--the workmanship of the monks of the neighboring mission. In the corners stood squat, earthen water-jars of Mexican molding. On the adobe walls were hung trophies of the hunt; war-bonnets and the crudely made adornments of the Apaches. Navajo blankets covered the window-seats, and were used as screens for sets of shelves built into the spaces between the windows. Polly carried in on a tray a large bowl of punch surrounded by glasses and gourds. This was received with riotous demonstrations. She placed it in the center of a table made of planks laid on trestles, and assisted by the other girls, served the men liberally from the bowl. The guests showed the effects of outdoor life and training. Their gestures were full and free. The tones of their voices were high-pitched, but they spoke more slowly than their Eastern cousins, as if feeling the necessity, even when confined, of making every word carry. No one lolled in his seat, but sat upright, as if still having the feel of the saddle under him. Toward women in all social gatherings, the cowboys act with exaggerated chivalry, but, as Sage-brush would describe it, they "herd by their lonesome." There is none of the commingling of sexes seen in the East. At a dance the girls sit at one end of the room, the men group themselves about the doorway until the music strikes up. Then each will seize his partner after the boldest has made the first move. When the dance-measure ends the cowboy will rarely escort partner to her seat, but will leave her to find her way back to her chum, while he moves sheepishly back to the doorway, to be received by his fellows with slaps on the back and loud jests. At table cowboys carry on little conversation with the girls. They talk amongst themselves, but at the women. The presence of the girls leads them to play many pranks on one another. The ice is long in breaking, for their habitual reserve is not easily worn off. Later in the evening this shyness is less marked. As Jack and Echo entered the doorway, Parenthesis had arisen from his seat at the head of table and was beginning: "Fellow citizens--" Confused cries of "Sit down," "Let him talk!" greeted him. Sage-brush held up his hand for silence: "Go ahead, Parenthesis," he cried encouragingly. Parenthesis climbed on a chair and put a foot on the table. This was too much for the orderly soul of Mrs. Allen. "Take your dirty feet off my tablecloth!" she commanded, making a threatening move toward the offender. Allen restrained her, and Fresno caused Parenthesis to subside by yelling: "Get down offen that table, you idiot. There's the bride an' groom comin' in behind you. We CAN see 'em through yer legs, but we don't like that kin' of a frame." Jack had slipped his arm about Echo's waist. She was holding his hand, smiling at the exuberance of their guests. Buck McKee, who had been drinking freely, staggered to his feet and hiccoughed: "Here, now, this, yere don't go--this spoonin' business--there ain't goin' to be no mush and milk served out before the weddin'--" "Will you shut up?" admonished Slim Hoover. "No, siree," cried the belligerent McKee. "There ain't no man here can shut me up. I'm Buck McKee, I am, and when I starts in on a weddin'-festivities--I deal--" "This is one game you are not in on," answered Jack quietly, feeling that he would have to take the lead in the settlement of the unfortunate interruption of the fun. "That's all right, Jack," McKee began, holding out his hand--"let bygones--" Jack was in no mood to parley with the offender. McKee had not been invited to the wedding. The young bridegroom knew that if the first offense were overlooked it would only encourage him, and he would make trouble all evening. Moreover, he disliked Buck because of his evil habits and ugly record. "You came to this weddin' without an invite," claimed Jack. "I'm here," he growled. "You're not wanted." "What?" shouted McKee, paling with anger. Turning to his friends, speaking calmly and paying no attention to the aroused desperado, Jack said: "Boys, you all know my objection to this man. Dick Lane caught him spring before last slitting the tongue of one of Uncle Jim's calves." "It's a lie!" shouted McKee, pulling his revolver and attempting to level it at his accuser. Hoover was too quick for him. Catching him by the wrist, he deftly forced him to drop the muzzle toward the floor. With frightened cries the girls huddled in a corner. The other cowboys upset chairs, springing to their feet, drawing revolvers half-way from holsters as they did so. Hoover had pressed his thumb into the back of McKee's hand, forcing him to open his fingers and drop his gun on the table. Picking it up, Hoover snapped the weapon open, emptied the cylinders of the cartridges. Jack made no move to defend himself. He was aware his friends could protect him. "That'll do," he said to the raging, disarmed puncher. "You can go, Buck. When I want you in any festivities, I'll send a special invite to you." "I'm sure much obliged," sneered McKee, making his way toward the door. "Here's your gun," cried Slim, tossing the weapon toward him. McKee caught the weapon, muttering "Thanks." "It needs cleaning," sneered the Sheriff. Turning at the doorway, McKee said; "I ain't much stuck on weddin's, anyway." Looking at Jack, he continued threateningly: "Next time we meet it'll be at a little swaree of my own." "Get," was Jack's laconic and ominous command. With assumed carelessness, McKee answered: "I'm a-gettin'. Well, gents, I hopes you all'll enjoy this yere pink tea. Say, Bud, put a piece of weddin'-cake in your pocket for me. I wants to dream on it." "Who brought him here?" asked Jack, facing his guests. "I did," answered Bud defiantly. "You might have known better," was Jack's only comment. "I'm not a-sayin' who's to come and go. This ain't none of my weddin'." Polly stopped further comment by laying her hand over his mouth and slipping into the seat beside him. "Well, let it go at that," said Jack, closing the incident. He rejoined Echo as he spoke. The guests reseated themselves. Mrs. Allen laid her hand on Jack's shoulder and said: "Just the same, it ain't right and proper for you to be together before the ceremony without a chaperonie." "Nothin' that's right nice is ever right proper," laughed Slim. "Well, it ain't the way folks does back East," replied Mrs. Allen tartly, glaring at the Sheriff. "Blast the East," growled Allen. "We does things in our own way out here." With a mischievous smile, Slim glanced at his comrades, and then solemnly observed: "Still, I hear they does make the two contractin'-parties sit off alone by themselves--" "What for?" asked Jack. "Why, to give them the last bit of quiet enjoyment they're goin' to have for the rest of their lives," chuckled Slim. The cowboys laughed hilariously at the sally, but Mrs. Allen, throwing her arms about Echo's neck, burst into tears, crying: "My little girl." "What's the use of opening up the sluices now, Josephine?" "Let her alone, Jim," drawled Slim; "her feelin's is harrowed some, an' irrigation is what they needs most." The outburst of tears was incomprehensible to the bridegroom. Already irritated by the McKee incident, he took affront at the display of sentiment. "I don't want any crying at MY wedding." "It's half my wedding," pouted Echo tearfully. "Ain't I losin' my daughter," sobbed Mrs. Allen. "Ain't you getting my mother's son?" snapped Jack. The men howled with glee at the rude badinage which only called forth a fresh burst of weeping on the part of Mrs. Allen, in which the girls began show symptoms of joining. Polly sought to soothe the trouble by pushing Jack playfully to one side, and saying: "Oh, stop it all. Look here, Echo Allen, you know your hair ain't fixed yet." "An' the minister due here at any minute," added Mrs. Allen. "Come along, we will take charge of you now," ordered Polly. The girls gathered in a group about the bride, bustling and chattering, telling her all men were brutes at time and, looking at the fat Sheriff, who blushed to the roots of his hair at the charge, that "Slim Hoover was the worst of the lot." Mrs. Allen pushed them away, and again fell weeping on Echo's shoulder. "Hold on now, They ain't a soul goin' to do nothin' for her except her mother," she whimpered. "There she goes again," said Jack in disgust. "He's goin' to take my child away from me," wailed the mother. Tears were streaming down Echo's cheek. "Don't cry, mother," she wept. "No, no, don't cry," echoed the girls. "It's all for the best," began Polly. "It's all for the best, it's all for the best," chorused the group. "Well, I'll be--" gasped Jack. "Jack Payson you just ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Polly, stamping her foot. "You nasty, mean old thing," she threw in for good measure. Mrs. Allen led Echo from the room. The girls followed, crying "You nasty, mean old thing" to the unfortunate bridegroom. The cowboys enjoyed the scene immensely. It was a bit of human comedy, totally unexpected. First they imitated the weeping women, and then laughed uproariously at Jack. "Did you ever see such darned carryings on," said the bridegroom, in disgust. "What have I done?" "Shucks! All mothers is like that," remarked Allen sympathetically. "They fuss if their girls marry and they fuss if they don't. Why, my ma carried on something scandalous when Josephine roped me." All of the men chuckled except Jack. "I'm appointed a committees," continued the old rancher, "to sit up with you till the fatal moment." "I'm game," responded Jack grimly. "I know what's coming, but I won't squeal." "You'll git all that's a-comin' to you," grinned Allen. Slim had maneuvered until he reached the door blocking Jack's way. As the bridegroom started to leave the room he took his hand, and with an assumption of deep dejection and sorrow bade him "Good-bye." "Oh, dry up!" laughed Jack, pushing the Sheriff aside. Halting, he requested: "One thing I want to understand right now, if you're goin' to fling any old boots after me remove the spurs." "This yere's a sure enough event, an' I'm goin' to tap the barrel--an' throw away the bung. Wow!" shouted Sage-brush. CHAPTER VIII The Sky Pilot With the waves of immigration which have rolled Westward from the more populous East, the minister of the gospel has always been in the van. Often he combined the functions of the school-teacher with the duties of the medical missionary. Wherever a dozen families had settled within a radius of a hundred miles, the representative of a church was soon to follow. He preached no creed. His doctrines were as wide as the horizon. Living in the open air, preaching to congregations gathered from the ends of the country, dealing with men more unconventional than immoral, his sermons were concerned with the square deal rather than with dogma. His influences were incalculable. He made ready the field for the reapers who gathered the glory with the advance of refinement. On the frontier he married the children, buried the dead, consoled the mourners, and rejoiced with those upon whom fortune smiled. His hardships were many and his rewards nothing. Of all the fields of human endeavor which built up the West, the ministry is the only one in which the material returns have not been commensurate with the labor expended. The Reverend Samuel Price was the representatives of the Christian army in Pinal County, Arizona, at the time of our story. He was long and lank, narrow in the chest, with sloping shoulders. Even life on the plains could not eradicate the scholarly droop. His trousers were black, and they bagged at the knees. When riding, his trousers would work up about his calves, showing a wide expanse of white socks. For comfort he wore an alpaca coat, which hung loosely about him, and, for the dignity of his profession, the only boiled shirt in the county, with a frayed collar and white string-tie. The Reverend Mr. Price was liked by the settlers. He never interfered with what they considered their relaxations, and he had the saving grace of humor. The guests were performing a scalp-dance about the table when he entered the room. For a tom-tom, Parenthesis was beating a bucket with a gourd, and emitting strange cries with each thump. The noise and shouts confused the minister. As he was blundering among the dancers, they fell upon him with war-whoops, slapping him on the back and crushing his straw hat over his ears. Slim was the first to recognize the minister. He dashed into the group, and, swinging several aside, cried to the others to desist. "Pardon me, but do I intrude upon a scalp-dance?" smilingly asked the parson. "You sure have, Mr. Price," laughed Slim. "We hain't got to the scalpin'-part yet, but we're fixin' to dance off Payson's scalp to-night." Peering at him with near-sighted eyes, Mr. Price extended his hand, saying: "Ah, Mr. Hoover, our sheriff, is it not?" Slim wrung the parson's hand until the preacher winced. Hiding his discomfort, he slowly straightened out his fingers with a painful grin. Slim had not noticed that he had hurt the parson by the heartiness of his greeting. With a gesture he lined up the cowboys for introduction. "Yes, sir, the boys call me Slim because I ain't." Pointing to the first one in the group, he exclaimed: "This is Parenthesis." Mr. Price looked at the awkwardly bowing cowboy in amazement. The name was a puzzle to him. He could not grasp the application. "The editor of the Kicker," explained Slim, "called him that because of his legs bein' built that way." Mr. Price was forced to smile in spite of his efforts to be polite. The editor had grasped the most striking feature of the puncher's physical characteristics for a label. Parenthesis beamed on the minister. "I was born on horseback," he replied. "That fellow there with a front tooth is Show Low," began Slim, speaking like a lecturer in a freak-show. "The one without a front tooth is Fresno, a California product. This yere chap with the water-dob hair is Sage-brush Charley. It makes him sore when you call him plain Charley." "Charley bein' a Chink name," supplemented its owner. Silence fell over the group, for they did not know what was the proper thing to do next. A minister was to be respected, and not to be made one of them. He must take the lead in the conversation. Mr. Price was at a loss how to begin. He had not recovered fully from the roughness of his welcome, so Slim took the lead again. "I heard you preach once up to Florence," he announced, to the profound astonishment of his hearers. "Indeed," politely responded Mr. Price, feeling the futility of making any further observations. He feared to fall into some trap. The answers made by the boys did not seem to fit particularly well with what he expected and was accustomed to. The parson could not make out whether the boys were joking with him, or whether their replies were unconscious humor on their part. "Yep, I lost an election bet, and had to go to church," answered Slim, in all seriousness. The cowboys laughed, and Mr. Price lamely replied: "Oh, yes, I see." "It was a good show," continued Slim, doing his best to appear at ease. The frantic corrections of his companions only made him flounder about the more. "Excuse me," he apologized, "I mean that I enjoyed it." "Do you recall the subject of my discourse," inquired Mr. Price, coming to his assistance. "Your what course?" asked Slim. "My sermon?" answered the parson. "Well, I should say yes," replied the Sheriff, greatly relieved to think that he was once more out of deep water. "It was about some shorthorn that jumped the home corral to maverick around loose in the alfalfa with a bunch of wild ones." The explanation was too much for Mr. Price. Great student of the Bible as he had been, here was one lesson which he had not studied. As told by Slim, he could not recall any text or series of text from which he might have drawn similes fitted for his cowboy congregation, when he had one. "Really, I--" he began. Slim, however, was not to be interrupted. If he stopped he never could begin again, he felt. Waving to the preacher to be silent, he continued his description: "When his wad was gone the bunch threw him down, and he had to hike for the sage-brush an' feed with the hogs on husks an' sech like winter fodder." The minister caught the word "husks." Slim was repeating his own version of the parable of the Prodigal Son. "Husks? Oh, the Prodigal Son," smiled Price. "That's him," Slim sighed, with relief. "This yere feed not being up to grade, Prod he 'lows he'd pull his freight back home, square himself with the old man and start a new deal--" Sage-brush was deeply interested in the story. Its charm had attracted him as it had scholars and outcasts alike since first told two thousand years ago on the plains of Old Judea. "Did he stand for it?" he interrupted. "He sure did," eloquently replied Slim, who was surprised and delighted with the great impression he was making with his experience at church. "Oh, he was a game old buck, he was. Why, the minute he sighted that there prodigious son a-limpin' across the mesa, he ran right out an' fell on his neck--" "An' broke it," cried Fresno, slapping Sage-brush with his hat in his delight at getting at the climax of the story before Slim reached it. The narrator cast a glance of supreme disgust at the laughing puncher. "No, what the hell!" he shouted. "He hugged him. Then he called in the neighbors, barbecued a yearlin' calf, an' give a barn-dance, with fireworks in the evenin'." "That's all right in books," observed Sage-brush, "but if I'd made a break like that when I was a kid my old man would a fell on my neck for fair." "That was a good story, Parson--it's straight, ain't it?" asked Slim, as a wave of doubt swept over him. "It's gospel truth," answered the minister. "Do you know the moral of the story?" "Sure," replied Slim. With a confidence born of deep self-assurance, Slim launched the answer: "Don't be a fatted calf." At first his hearers did not grasp the full force of the misapplication of the parable. Mr. Price could not refrain from laughing. The others joined with him when the humor of the reply dawned upon them. Pointing scornfully at the fat Sheriff, they shouted gleefully, while Slim blushed through his tan. "Now, if you'll kindly show me where--" began Mr. Price. "Sure. All the liquor's in the kitchen--" said Sage-brush, expanding with hospitality. Slim pushed Sage-brush back into his chair, and Parenthesis tapped the minister on the shoulder to distract his attention. "Thanks. I meant to ask for a place to change clothes." "Sure you mustn't mind Sage-brush there," apologized Parenthesis; "he's allus makin' breaks. Let me tote your war-bag. Walk this way." "Good day, gentlemen," smiled Mr. Price. "When you are up my way, I trust you will honor my church with your presence--" adding, after a pause--"without waiting to lose an election bet." The entrance of a Greaser to refill glasses diverted the attention of the guests until the most important function for them was performed. With "hows" and "here's to the bride," they drank the toast. Slim, as majordomo of the feast, felt it incumbent upon himself to keep the others in order. Turning angrily upon Sage-brush, he said. "Why did you tell the Sky Pilot where the liquor was?" "I was just tryin' to do the right thing," answered Sage-brush defiantly. "Embarrassin' us all like that. You ought to know that parsons don't hit up the gasoline--in public," scolded Slim. Sage muttered sulkily: "I never herded with parsons none." Parenthesis diplomatically avoided any further controversy by calling: "They're gettin' ready. Jim's got Jack in the back room tryin' to cheer him up. Boys, is everything ready for the getaway?" "Sage-brush, did you get that rice?" demanded Slim. "That's so--I forgot. I couldn't get no rice though. Dawson didn't have none." Without telling what he did get, Sage-brush ran from the room to the corral. "I told you not to let him have anything to do with it," said Fresno, glaring at his fellow workers. Each was silent, as the accusation was general, and none had been taken into the confidence of Sage-brush and Fresno when arrangements were being made for the feast. Fresno had to blame some one, however. By this time Sage-brush had returned, carrying a bag. "What did you get?" asked Slim. "Corn," replied Sage-brush laconically. "Ain't he the darndest!" Show Low expressed the disgust which the others showed. "Why, darn it," shouted Slim, shaking his fist at the unfortunate Sage-brush, "you can't let the bride and groom hop the home ranch without chuckin' rice at 'em--it's bad medicine." "Ain't he disgustin'!" interrupted Fresno. "What does rice mean, anyhow?" asked the bewildered Sage-brush. "It means something about wishin' 'em good luck, health, wealth, an' prosperity, an' all that sort of thing--it's a sign an' symbol of joy," rattled off Slim. "Well, now, ain't there more joy in corn than in rice?" triumphantly asked Sage-brush. Slim jerked open the top of the bag while Sage-brush stood by helplessly. "Well, the darned idiot!" he muttered, as he peered into it. "If he ain't gone and got it on the ear," he continued, as he pulled a big ear out. "All the better," chuckled Sage-brush. "We'll chuck 'em joy in bunches." "Don't you know that if you hit the bride with a club like this--you'll put her plumb out?" cried Slim. Sage-brush was not cast down, however. Always resourceful, he suggested: "We'll shell some for the bride, but we'll hand Jack his in bunches." The idea appealing to the punchers, each grabbed an ear of corn. Some brandished the ears like clubs; others aimed them like revolvers. "I'll keep this one," said Slim, picking out an unusually large ear. "It's a .44. I'll get one of the Greasers to shell some for the bride." The bride was arrayed in her wedding-gown. Mrs. Allen was ready for a fresh burst of weeping. The girls had assembled in the large room in which the ceremony was to be performed. Polly acted as her herald for the cowboys. Appearing in the doorway, she commanded: "Say, you folks come on and get seated." Slim stood beside Polly as the boys marched past him. His general admonition was: "The first one you shorthorns that makes a break, I'm goin' to bend a gun over your head." The guests grinned cheerfully as they marched past the couple. "There's a heap of wickedness in that bunch," remarked Slim piously to the girl. Tossing a flower to him as she darted away, she cried: "You ain't none too good yourself, Slim." "Ain't she a likely filly," mused the love-sick Sheriff. "If there's anybody that could make me good, it's her. I'm all in. If ever I get the nerve all at once--darn me if I don't ask her right out." But Slim's courage oozed as quickly as it had arisen, and with a sigh he followed his companions to the wedding. CHAPTER IX What God Hath Joined Together Dick Lane, on leaving the hospital at Chihuahua, went straight to the fortified ledge where he had made his heroic defense. As he conjectured, the renegade, McKee, had got there first, and found and made off with the buried treasure. So Dick manfully set to work to replace his lost fortune. It seemed too slow work to go to his mine and dig the gold he immediately required out of the ground, so he struck out for civilization to sell some of his smaller claims. In the course of a month, at the end of which his wanderings brought him to Tucson, he had sold enough of his holdings to give him three thousand dollars in ready cash. As he was near the Sweetwater, he resolved not to express the money to Payson, but to take it himself. He entered the courtyard of Allen Hacienda while the wedding was taking place within. None of his friends would have recognized him. His frame was emaciated from sickness; his head was drawn back by the torture which he had suffered; he limped upon feet that had been distorted by the firebrands in McKee's hands; and his face was overgrown by an unkempt beard. Sounds of laughter fell upon his ears as he mounted the steps. He heard Fresno shout to Slim to hurry up, as he was telling the story about a fellow that was so tanked up he could not say "sasaparilla." Dick halted. "There must be some sort of a party going on here," he thought to himself. "It won't do to take Echo too much by surprise. If Jack got my letter and told her, it's all right, but if it miscarried--the shock might kill her. I'll see Jack first." Dick had ridden first to Sweetwater Ranch, but found the place deserted. The party, he mused, accounted for this. While he was planning a way to attract the attention of some one in the house, and to get Payson to the garden without letting Echo know of his presence, Sage-brush Charley, who had espied the stranger through the window, sauntered out on the porch to investigate. Every visitor to the Territory needed looking over, especially after the trouble with Buck McKee. Sage-brush was bound that there should be no hitch at the wedding of his boss. "Howdy," greeted Lane pleasantly. "I'm looking for Jack Payson." "That so?" answered Sage-brush. "Who may you be?" "I'm a friend of his." The foreman could see no danger to come from this weak, sickly man. "Then walk right in," he invited; "he's inside." Sage-brush was about to reenter the house, when Dick halted him with the request: "I want to see him out here--privately." "What's the name," asked Sage-brush, his suspicions returning. "Tell him an old friend from Mexico." Sage-brush did not like the actions of the stranger and his secrecy. He was there to fight his boss's battles, if he had any. This was not in the contract, but it was a part read into the paper by Sage-brush. "Say, my name's Sage-brush Charley," he cried, with a show of importance. "I'm ranch-boss for Payson. If you want to settle any old claim agin' Jack, I'm actin' as his substitoot for him this evenin'." "On the contrary," said Lane, with a smile at Sage-brush's outbreak, "he has a claim against me." It was such a pleasant, kindly look he gave Sage-brush, that the foreman was disarmed completely. "I'll tell him," he said over his shoulder. Dick mused over the changes that had occurred since he had left the region. Two years' absence from a growing country means new faces, new ranches, and the wiping out of old landmarks with the advance of population and the invasion of the railroad. He wondered if Jack would know him with his beard. He knew--his mirror told him--that his appearance had changed greatly, and he looked twenty years older than on the day he left the old home ranch. His trend of thought was interrupted by the entrance of Jack on the porch from the house. "My name's Payson," Jack began hurriedly, casting a hasty glance backward into the hallway, for the ceremony was about to begin. "You want to see me?" "Jack!" cried Dick, holding out his hand eagerly. "Jack, old man, don't you know me?" he continued falteringly, seeing no sign of recognition in his friend's eyes. Payson gasped, shocked and startled. The man before him was a stranger in looks, but the voice--the voice was that of Dick Lane, the last man in the world he wanted to see at that moment. Frightened, almost betraying himself, he glanced at the half-open door. If Dick entered he knew Echo would be lost to him. She might love him truly, and her love for Dick might have passed away, but he knew that Echo would never forgive him for the deception that he had practised upon her. Grasping his friend's hand weakly, he faltered, "Dick! Dick Lane!" Jack realized he must act quickly. Some way or somehow Dick must be kept out of the house until after the marriage. Then he, Jack, must take the consequences. Dick saw his hesitation. It was not what he had expected. But something dreadful might have happened while he was away, there had been so many changes. "Why, what's the matter?" he asked anxiously. "You got my letter? You knew I was coming?" "Yes, yes, I know," lamely answered Jack. "But I expected notice--you know you said--" "I couldn't wait. Jack, I'm a rich man, thanks to you--" "Yes, yes, that's all right," said Payson, disclaiming the praise of the man he had so grievously wronged with a hurried acknowledgment of his gratitude. "And I hurried back for fear Echo--" "Oh, yes. I'll tell her about it, when she's ready to hear it." "What is the matter, Jack? Are you keeping something from me? Where is she?" "In there," said Payson feebly, pointing to the door. Dick eagerly started toward the house, but Jack halted him, saying: "No--you mustn't go in now. There's a party-you see, she hasn't been well, doesn't expect you to-night. The shock might be too much for her." Jack grasped at the lame excuse. It was the first to come to his mind. He must think quickly. This experience was tearing the heart out of him. He could not save himself from betrayal much longer. "You're right," acquiesced Dick. "You tell her when you get a chance. Jack, as I was saying, I've made quite a bit of money out of my Bisbee holdings. I can pay back my stake to you now." "Not now," said Jack nervously. Would this torture never end? Here was his friend, whom he had betrayed come back in the very hour of his marriage to the woman who had promised first to marry him. Now he was offering him money, which Jack needed badly, for his prospective mother-in-law was complaining about his taking her daughter to a mortgaged home. "Sure, now," continued Dick, pulling a roll of bills from his pocket. "It's three thousand dollars--here it is, all in one bundle." "Not now, let that wait," said Jack, pushing the money aside. "It's waited long enough," cried Dick doggedly. "You put the mortgage on your ranch to let me have the money, and it must be about due now." "Yes, it will be due, but let it wait." "What's the use? I'm all right now. I brought the cash with me on purpose. I wanted to square it with you on sight." Dick pressed the money into Jack's hand, closing his fingers over the roll of bills. With a sigh of relief, as if a disagreeable task was completed, he questioned: "How's Bud?" Jack replied shortly: "All right; he's inside." "I didn't write to him," cheerfully resumed Dick. "I didn't want the kid to know. He is so excitable, he would have blabbed it right out. I'll sure be glad to see the boy again. He's impulsive, but his heart's all right. I know you've kept a lookout over him." This trust in him was getting too much for Jack to bear, so the voice of Polly crying to him to hurry up was music to his ears. "I'm coming," he shouted. "I'll see you in a few minutes," he told Dick. "I've something to tell you. I can't tell you now." "Go in, then," answered Dick. "I'll wait yonder in the garden. Don't keep me waiting any longer than you can help." Dick turned and walked slowly toward the gate which lead to the kitchen-garden, a part of every ranch home in Arizona. It was cut off from the house by a straggling hedge, on which Echo had spent many hours trying to keep it in shape. Jack hesitated about going into the house. Even if Echo married him, he knew that she would never forgive him when she learned of his dastardly conduct from Dick Lane's own mouth. It was better to sacrifice the life of one to save three lives from being ruined. Jack followed Lane up, partly drawing his gun. It would be so easy to shoot him. No one would recognize Dick Lane in that crippled figure. Jack's friends would believe him if he told them the stranger had drawn on him, and he had to shoot him in self-defense. Then the thought of how dastardly was the act of shooting a man in the back, and he his trusting friend, smote him suddenly, and he replaced the pistol in its holster. "It is worse than the murder of 'Ole Man' Terrill," he muttered. Dick walked on entirely unconscious of how close he had been to death, with his friend as his murderer. So interested had the two men been in their conversation, that neither had noticed Buck McKee hiding behind the hedge, listening to their talk, and covering Jack Payson, when he was following Dick with his hand on his revolver. McKee heard Payson's ejaculation, and smiled grimly. Jack's absence had aroused Jim Allen, who hurried out on the porch, storming. "Say, Jack, what do you mean by putting the brakes on this yere weddin'?" "Jim--say, Jim! I--want you to do something for me," cried Jack, as he rushed toward his future father-in-law, greatly excited. "Sure," answered Allen heartily. "Stand here at this door during the ceremony, and no matter what happens don't let any one in." "But--" interrupted Allen. "Don't ask me to explain," blurted Jack. "Echo's happiness is at stake." "That settles it--I've not let any one spile her happiness yet, an' I won't in the few minutes that are left while I'm still her main protector. Nobody gets in." "Remember--no one--no matter who it is," emphasized Jack, as he darted into the house. Jim Allen lighted his pipe. "Now, what's eatin' him?" he muttered to himself. Then, "They're off!" he cried, looking through the window. The Reverend Samuel Price began to drone the marriage-service. It is the little things in life that count, after all. Men will work themselves into hysteria over the buzzing of a fly, and yet plan a battle-ship in a boiler-shop. A city full of people will at one time become panic-stricken over the burning of a rubbish-heap, and at another camp out in the ruins of fire-swept homes, treating their miseries as a huge joke. Philosophers write learnedly of cause and effect. In chemistry certain combinations give certain results. But no man can say: "I will do thus and so, this and that will follow." All things are possible, but few things are probable. Dick Lane had planned to shield Echo by writing to Jack Payson, letting him break the news of his return. Fate would have it that she would not know until too late of his escape. A letter sent directly to her might have prevented much unhappiness and many heartaches. Not till months later, when happiness had returned, did Jack realize that his one great mistake was made by not telling Echo of Dick's rescue. Both Dick and Echo might have had a change of heart when they met again. Echo was young. Dick had wandered far. Both had lost touch with common interests. Jack Payson had entered her life as a factor. He was eager and impetuous; Dick was settled and world-worn by hardship and much physical suffering. Now Jack was at the altar racked with mental torture, while Dick waited in the garden for his traitorous friend. The innocent cause of the tragedy was sweetly and calmly replying to the questions of the marriage-ritual, while Jack was looking, as Allen said to himself, "darned squeamish." "According to these words, it is the will of God that nothing shall sever the marriage-bond," were the words that fell upon Allen's ears as he stooped to look in the window at the wedding-party. "The Sky Pilot's taking a long time to make the hitch. Darned if I couldn't hitch up a twenty-mule team in the time that he's takin' to get them two to the pole," said Allen, speaking to himself. Dick had grown impatient at Jack's absence, and wandered back from the garden to the front of the house. Spying Allen, he greeted him with "Hello, Uncle Jim." "That's my name," answered Allen suspiciously. "But I ain't uncle to every stranger that comes along." "I'm no stranger," laughed Dick. "You know me." "Do I?" replied Allen, unconvinced. "Who are you?" "The poor orphan you took from an asylum and made a man of--Dick Lane." "Dick Lane!" repeated the astonished ranchman. "Come back from the dead!" "No, I ain't dead yet," answered Dick, holding out his hand, which Allen gingerly grasped, as if he expected to find it thin air. "I wasn't killed. I have been in the hospital for a long time. I wrote Jack--he knows." "My God!" Allen cried. "Jack knows--you wrote to him--he knows." Over and over he repeated the astonishing news which had been broken to him so suddenly. Here was a man, as if back from the dead, standing in his own dooryard, telling him that Jack knew he was alive. No word had been told him. What could Echo say? This, then, explained Jack's strange request, and his distress. "And Echo?" Dick questioned, glancing toward the house. "Echo." The name aroused Allen. He saw at once that he must act definitely and quickly. Echo must not see Dick now. It was too late. The secret of his return on the wedding-day must be known only to the three men. "Look here, Dick," he commanded. "You mustn't let her see you--she mustn't know you are alive." Dick was growing confused over the mystery which was being thrown about Echo Allen. First Jack had told him he must wait to see her, and now her father tells him he must never see her again, or let her know that he is alive. His strength was being overtaxed by all this evasion and delay. "Dick," said Allen, with deep sympathy, laying his hand upon the man's shoulder. "She's my daughter an' I want her life to be happy. Can't you see? Do you understand? She thinks you're dead." "What are you saying?" cried Dick, trying to fathom the riddle. "You've come back too late, Dick," sadly explained Allen. "Too late," echoed Dick. "There's something back of all this. I'll see her now." He started to enter the door, but Allen restrained him. "You can't go in," he shouted to the excited man, and pushed him down the steps. It was an easy task for him for Dick was too weak to offer much resistance. "No, you won't," he gently told him. His heart bled for the poor fellow, whom he loved almost as a son, but Echo's happiness was at stake, and explanations could come later. More to emphasize his earnestness than to indicate intention to shoot, he laid his hand on the butt of his revolver, saying: "Not if I have to kill you." Dick began to realize that whatever was wrong was of the greatest consequence. It was a shock to him to have his oldest, his best friend in the West treat him in this fashion. "Jim!" he cried in his anguish. "You've got to go back where you came from, Dick," sternly answered the ranchman. "If ever you loved my daughter, now's your chance to prove it--she must never know you're livin--" "But--" "It's a whole lot I'm askin' of you, Dick," continued Allen. "But if you love her, as I think you do, it may be a drop of comfort in your heart to know that by doin' this great thing for her, you'll be makin' her life better and happier." "I do love her," cried Dick passionately; "but there must be some reason--tell me." Allen held up his hand to warn Dick to be silent. He beckoned him to follow him. Slowly he led him to the door, and, partly opening it, motioned him to listen. "Forasmuch as John Payson and Echo Allen have consented together in holy wedlock" were the words that fell upon his ears. As the doomed man stands, motionless, before his judges, and hears his death-sentence read without a tremor, ofttimes thinking of some trifle, so Dick stood for a moment. At first he did not fully realize what it all meant. Then the full depth of his betrayal flooded him. "What?" he cried. "Payson!" Allen held him back. Again the minister's voice fell upon their ears repeating the solemn words. "And have declared the same before God and in the presence of these witnesses, I pronounce them husband and wife. What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." Dick, shaken and hurt, slowly sank to his knees, covering his face with his hands. A dry sob shook his frame. Here was the end of all his hopes. Here was the sad reward for years of toil and waiting. "Now you know why you can't stay here," said Allen, his tones full of pity. "Now I know." Dick staggered to his feet, and started blindly from the house. "Dick!" cried Allen, in a broken voice, "forgive me. She's my child, she loves him now." The betrayed friend took his hand without looking at him. In vain he tried to hide his deep emotion. "I know," he faltered, "I'll never trouble her. I'll go away never to return." "Where'll you go?" asked Allen. "Back where I came from, back into the desert--into the land of dead things. Good-by!" As he wrung the ranchman's hand and turned to walk out of the life of his old comrades and the woman he loved, he heard the minister repeat: "The blessing of the Almighty Father rest upon and abide with you, now and forevermore. Amen." "Evermore. Amen!" faltered Dick, bidding a last mute farewell to Allen. The old ranchman watched him quietly as he mounted his horse and rode down the trail. His reverie was interrupted by the bursts of laughter of the wedding-guests, and the cries of Fresno: "Kiss the bride, Slim! Kiss the bride!" CHAPTER X The Piano Five weeks had passed since the marriage of Echo and Jack. On her return from the honeymoon in the little hunting cabin in the Tortilla Range, the young wife set to work, and already great changes had been made in the ranch-house on the Sweetwater. Rooms were repapered and painted. The big center room was altered into a cozy living-room. On the long, low window, giving an outlook on fields of alfalfa, corn and the silver ribbons of the irrigation ditches, dainty muslin curtains now hung. Potted geraniums filled the sill, and in the unused fireplace Echo had placed a jar of ferns. A clock ticking on the mantelpiece added to the cheerfulness and hominess of the house. On the walls, horns of mountain-sheep and antlers of antelope and deer alternated with the mounted heads of puma and buffalo. Through the open window one caught a glimpse of the arms of a windmill, and the outbuildings of the home ranch. Navajo blankets were scattered over the floors and seats. Echo had taken the souvenirs of the hunt and trail which Jack had collected, and, with a woman's touch of refinement, had used them for decorative effects. She had in truth made the room her very own. The grace and charm of her personality were stamped upon the environment. The men of the ranch fairly worshiped Echo. Sending to Kansas City, they purchased a piano for her as a birthday-gift. On the morning when the wagon brought it over from Florence station, little work was done about the place. The instrument had been unpacked and placed in the living-room in Echo's absence. Mrs. Allen, Polly, and Jim rode over to be present at the presentation. The donors gathered in the living-room to admire the gift, which shone bravely under the energetic polishing of Mrs. Allen. "That's an elegant instrument," was her observation, as she flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the case. Polly opened the lid, saying: "Just what Echo wanted." Jim cocked his head, as if he were examining a new pinto pony. "Sent all the way up to Kansas City for it, eh?" "That's right, Uncle Jim," chorused the punchers. "Now the room's complete," announced Polly. "Echo's made a big change around here." The group gravely followed Polly's approving glances. "That she has," assented Mrs. Allen. "Looked a barn when Jack was a bachelor. This certainly is the finest kind of a birthday-present you all could have thought of." "Josephine'll cry in a minute, boys," chuckled Allen. "You hesh up," snapped his wife, glaring at the grinning ranchman. Sage-brush poured oil on the roughening waters by changing the conversation. Speaking as if making a dare, he challenged: "What I want to know is, is there anybody here present as can rassle a tune out of that there box?" No one came forward. "Ain't there none of you boys that can play on a pianny?" he demanded. "I've played on the big square one down at the Lone Star," gravely piped up Show Low. "What did you play," asked the inquisitive Polly. "Poker," answered Show Low seriously, his face showing no trace of humor. "Poker!" Polly repeated, in disgust. "That's all they ever plays on it," explained Show Low indignantly. Polly grew impatient. This presentation was a serious affair and not to be turned into an audience for the exploitation of Show Low's adventures. Moreover, she did not like to be used even indirectly as a target for fun-making, although she delighted in making some one else a feeder for her ideas of fun. Fresno modestly announced he was something of a musical artist. "I 'low I can shake a tune out of that," he declared. "Let's hear you," cried Polly, rather doubtful of Fresno's ability. "Step up, perfesser," cried Allen heartily, slapping him on the back. Fresno grinned and solemnly rolled up his sleeves. His comrades eyed his every move closely. He spat on his hands, approached the piano, and glared fiercely at the keyboard. "My ma had one of them there things when I was a yearlin'," he observed. Fresno spun the seat of the piano-stool until it almost twirled off the screw. His actions created greatest interest, especially to Parenthesis, who peered under the seat, to see the wheels go round. Fresno threw his leg over the seat as if mounting a horse. "Well, boys, what'll you have?" he asked, glancing from one to the other in imitation of the manner of his friend, the pianist in the Tucson honkytonk, on a lively evening. "The usual poison," absently answered Show Low. Sage-brush struck him in the breast with the with the back of his hand. "Shut up," he growled. Turning to Fresno, he said: "Give us the--er--'The Maiden's Prayer.'" Fresno whisked about so quickly that he almost lost his balance. Gazing at the petitioner in blank amazement, he shouted: "The what?" Sage-brush blushed under his tan. In a most apologetic voice he said: "Well, that's the first tune my sister learned to play, an' she played it continuous--which is why I left home." "I'd sure like to oblige you, but Maiden's Prayers ain't in my repetory," explained the mollified musician. Fresno raised his finger uncertainly over the keyboard searching for a key from which to make a start. The group watched him expectantly. As he struck a note each member of his audience jumped back in surprise at the sound. Fresno scratched his head and gingerly fingered another key. After several false starts, backing and filling, over the keyboard, he began to pick out with one finger the air "The Suwanee River." "That's it. Now we're started," he cried exultantly. His overconfidence led him to strike a false note. "Excuse me," he apologized. "Got the copper on the wrong chip." Once more he essayed playing the old melody, but became hopelessly confused. "Darn the tune!" he mumbled. Sage-brush, ever ready to cheer up the failing courage of a performer, chirruped: "Shuffle 'em up ag'in and begin a new deal." Fresno spat on his hands and ruffled his hair like a musical genius. Again he sought the rhythm among the keys. He tried to whistle the air. That device failed him. "Will you all whistle that tune? I'm forgettin' it," was his plaintive request. "Sure, let her go, boys," cried Sage-brush. Falteringly, with many stops and sudden they tried to accompany Fresno's halting pursuit over the keyboard after the tune that was dodging about in his mind. All at once the player struck his gait and introduced a variation on the bass notes. "That ain't in it," shouted Show Low indignantly. "Shut up!" bellowed Sage-brush. With both hands hammering the keys indiscriminately, Fresno made a noisy if not artistic finish, and whirled about on the stool, to be greeted by hearty applause. "Well, I reckon that's goin' some!" he boasted, when the hand-clapping subsided, bowing low to Polly and Mrs. Allen. "Goin'?" laughed Polly. "Limpin' is what I call it. If you don't learn to switch off, you'll get a callous on that one finger of yourn." Fresno looked at that member dubiously. "Ain't music civilizin'?" suggested Show Low to Jim Allen. "You bet!" the ranchman agreed. "Take a pianny an' enough Winchesters an' you can civilize the hull of China." "Fresno could kill more with his pianny-play than his gun-play," suggested Show Low. Mrs. Allen bethought herself that there was a lot of work to be done in preparation for the party. Even if everything was ready, the dear old soul would find something to do or worry about. "Come, now, clear out of here, the hull kit an' b'ilin' of you," she ordered. The men hastily crowded out on the piazza. "Take that packin'-case out of sight, if you mean this pianny to be a surprise to Echo. She'll be trottin' back here in no time," she added. Fresno had lingered to assure Jim: "This yere birthday's goin' to be a success. Would you like another selection?" he eagerly asked. "Not unless you wash your finger," snapped Mrs. Allen, busy polishing the keys Fresno had struck. "You left a grease-spot on every key you've touched," she explained. Fresno held up his finger for Allen's inspection. "I've been greasin' the wagon," was his explanation. "Git out with the rest of them," she commanded. "I've got enough to do to look after that cake." Mrs. Allen darted into the kitchen. Jim slowly filled his pipe and hunted up the most comfortable chair. After two or three trials he found one to suit him, and sank back with a sigh of content. "Jack ain't back yet?" Polly put the question. Polly rearranged the chairs in the room, picking up and replacing the articles on the table to suit her own artistic conceptions. She straightened out a war-bonnet on the wall. She was flicking off a spot of dust in the gilt chair that Jack had got as a wedding present for Echo on the day of the station-agent's murder, and, being reminded of the tragedy, she asked: "That posse didn't catch the parties that killed Terrill, did they?" "Not that I hear on. Slim Hoover he took the boys that night an tried to pick up the trail after it entered the river, but they couldn't find where it come out." "One of them fellers, the man that left the station alone, and probably done the job, rode a pacin' horse," answered Jim, between puffs of his pipe. "Then he's a stranger to these parts. Jack's pinto paces--it's his regular gait. It's the only pacing hoss around here." "That's so," he assented, but made no further comment. The full force of the observation did not strike him at the time. Polly began to pump Colonel Jim. There were several recent happenings which she did not fully comprehend. At the inquisitive age and a girl, she wanted to know all that was going on. "Jack's been acting mighty queer of late," she ventured. "Like he's got something on his mind." Jim smiled at her simplicity and jokingly replied: "Well, he's married." The retort exasperated Polly. She was not meeting with the success she desired. "Do hush!" she cried, in her annoyance. "That's enough on any man's mind," Jim laughed as he sauntered out of the door. "Something queer about Jack," observed Polly, seating herself at the table. "He ain't been the same man since the weddin'. He's all right when Echo's around, but when he thinks no one is watchin' him he sits around and sighs." Jack entered the room at this moment. Absent-mindedly he hung his hat and spurs on a rack and leaned his rifle against the wall, sighing deeply as he did so. So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he did not notice Polly until he reached the table. He started in surprise when he saw her. "Hello, Polly!" was his greeting. "Where is Echo?" Polly rose hastily at the sound of his voice. "Didn't you meet her?" she asked. "We got her to ride over toward Tucson this morning to get her out of the way so's to snake the pianny in without her seein' it." Polly glided over to the instrument and touched the keys softly. With admiration Jack gazed at the instrument. "I came around by Florence," answered Jack, with a smile. Eagerly Polly turned toward him. "See anything of Bud Lane?" she queried. "No." Again Jack smiled--this time at the girl's impetuosity. "He'll lose his job with me if he don't call more regular," she said. "Say, Jack, you ain't fergettin' what you promised--to help Bud with the money that you said was comin' in soon, as Dick's share of a speculation you and him was pardners in? I'm powerful anxious to get him away from McKee." Jack had not forgotten the promise, but, alas, under the goading of Mrs. Allen that he should clear off the mortgage on his home, he had used Dick Lane's money for this purpose. In what a mesh of lies and broken promises he was entangling himself! Now he was forced further to deceive trusting little Polly in the matter that was dearest to her heart. "No, Polly, but the fact is--that speculation isn't turning out so well, after all." The disappointed girl turned sadly away, and went out to Mrs. Allen in the kitchen. Jack removed his belt and gun and hung them on the rack by the door. Spying his father at the corral, he called to him to come into the house. "Hello, Jack!" was Allen's greeting as he entered, shaking the younger man's hand. "When did you come over?" "This morning," Allen told him. "Echo's birthday, you know, and the old lady allowed we'd have to be here. Ain't seen you since the weddin'--got things lookin' fine here." Allen slowly surveyed the room. Jack agreed with him with a gesture of assent. A more important topic to him than the furnishing of a room was what had become of Dick Lane. After the wedding ceremony no chance had come to him to speak privately to Allen. The festivities of the wedding had been shortened. Slim had gathered a posse and taken up the trail of the slayers. Jim Allen had joined them. The hazing of Jack, and the hasty departure of the bridal pair on horseback in a shower of corn, shelled and on cob, prevented the two men from meeting. The older man had volunteered no explanation. Jack knew that in his heart Allen did not approve of his actions, but was keeping silent because of his daughter. Jack could restrain himself no longer. "Jim--what happened that night?" he asked brokenly. Allen showed his embarrassment. "Meanin'--" Then he hesitated. "Dick," was all Jack could say. "I seed him. If I hadn't, he'd busted up the weddin' some," was his laconic answer. "Where is he?" Allen relighted his pipe. When he got the smoke drawing freely, he gazed at Jack thoughtfully and answered: "He's gone. Back where he came from--into the desert." Jim puffed slowly and then added: "Looks like you didn't give Dick a square deal." Allen liked his son-in-law, and was going to stand by him, but in Arizona the saying "All's fair in love and war" is not accepted at its face value. "I didn't," acknowledged Jack. "I was desperate at the thought of losing her. She loved me, and had forgotten him--she's happy with me now." "I reckon that's right," was Jim's consoling reply. To clinch his argument and soothe his troublesome conscience, Jack continued: "She never would have been happy with him." "That's what I told him," declared Allen. "He knew it, an' that's why he went away--an' Echo--no matter what comes, she must never know. She'd never forgive you--an', fer that matter, me, neither." Jack looked long out of the window toward the distant mountains--the barrier behind which Dick was wandering in the great desert, cut off from the woman he loved by a false friend. "How I have suffered for that lie!" uttered Jack, in tones full of anguish. "That's what hurts me most--the thought that I lied to her. I might have killed him that night," pondered Jack. He shuddered at the thought that he had been on the point of adding murder to the lie. He had faced the same temptation which Dick had yet to overcome. "Mebbe you did. There's more'n one way of killin' a man," suggested Allen. Jack swung round and faced him. The observation had struck home. He realized how poignantly Dick must have endured the loss of Echo and thought of his betrayal by Jack. As he had suffered mentally so Dick must be suffering in the desert. In self-justification he returned to his old argument. "I waited until I was sure he was dead. Six months I waited after we heard the news. After I had told Echo I loved her and found that I was loved in return--then came this letter. God! What a fight I had with myself when I found that he lived--was thinking of returning home to claim her for his own. I rode out into the hills and fought it out all alone, like an Indian--then I resolved to hurry the wedding--to lie to her--and I have been living that lie every minute, every hour." Jack leaned heavily on the table. His head sank. His voice dropped almost to a whisper. Allen slapped him on the back to cheer him up. Philosophically he announced: "Well, it's got to be as it is. You'll mebbe never hear from him again. You mustn't never tell her. I ain't a-goin' to say nothin' about it--her happiness means everything to me." Jack grasped his hand in silent thankfulness. The two men walked slowly out of the room to the corral. As Echo galloped across the prairie in the glorious morning air, the sunshine, the lowing of the cattle on the hills, and the songs of the birds in the trees along the Sweetwater had banished all depressing thoughts, and her mind dwelt on her love for Jack and the pleasantness of the lines in which her life had fallen. Only one small cloud had appeared on the horizon. Jack had not shared with her his confidences in the business of the ranch. He told her he did not want to worry her with such cares. True, there were times when he was deeply abstracted; but in her presence his moroseness vanished quickly. Carefully as he had tried to hide his secret, she had, with a woman's intuition, seen beneath the surface of things and realized that something was lacking to complete her happiness. As Echo turned toward home a song sprang to her lips. Polly spied her far down the trail. "Boys, she's coming," she shouted to the men, who were at the bunk-house awaiting Mrs. Payson's return. As they passed the corral they called to Jack and Allen to join them in the living-room to prepare for the surprise for Echo. The party quickly reassembled. "Good land!" shouted Allen, "get something to cover the pianny with!" The punchers rushed in confusion about the room in a vain search. "Ain't there a plagued thing we can cover the pianny with?" cried the demoralized Allen, renewing his appeal. Polly came to the rescue of the helpless men by plucking a Navajo blanket from the couch. Tossing one end of it to Show Low, she motioned to him to help hold it up before the instrument like a curtain. "Stand in front of it, everybody," ordered Mrs. Allen, who had left her cake-baking and hurried in from the kitchen. "Polly, spread your skirts--you, too, Jim." Allen ran in front of the piano, holding out an imaginary dress in imitation of Polly. "Which I ain't got none," he cried. Parenthesis jumped in front of the piano-stool, trying vainly to hide it with his legs. "Parenthesis, put your legs together," Mrs. Allen cried. "I can't, ma'am," wailed the unfortunate puncher. He fell on his knees before the stool, spreading out his waistcoat for a screen. Mrs. Allen helped him out with her skirts. "Steady, everybody!" shouted Jack. "Here she is!" yelled Sage-brush, as the door opened and the astonished Echo faced those she loved and liked. Echo made a pretty picture framed in the doorway. She wore her riding-habit of olive-green--from the hem of which peeped her soft boots. Her hat, broad, picturesque, typical of the Southwest, had slipped backward, forming a background for her pretty face. An amused smile played about the corners of her mouth. "Well, what is it?" she smiled inquiringly. The group looked at her sheepishly. No one wanted to answer her question. "What's the matter?" she resumed. "You're herded up like a bunch of cows in a norther." Sage-brush began gravely to explain. He got only as far as: "This yere bein' a birthday," when Echo interrupted him: "Oh! then it's a birthday-party?" Once stopped, Sage-brush could not get started again. He cleared his throat with more emphasis than politeness; striking the attitude of an orator, with one hand upraised and the other on his hip, he hemmed and hawed until beads of perspiration trickled down his temples. Again he nerved himself for the ordeal. "Mebbe," he gasped. Then he opened and closed his mouth, froglike, several times, taking long, gulping breaths. At last, looking helplessly about him, he shouted: "Oh, shucks! you tell her, Jack." He pushed him toward Echo. Jack rested his hand on the table and began: "We've a surprise for you--that is, the boys have--" "What is it?" asked Echo eagerly. "You've got to call it blind," broke in Sage-brush. "Guess it," cried Fresno. "A pony-cart," hazarded Echo. "Shucks! no," said Show Low at the idea of presenting Echo with anything on wheels. Echo then guessed: "Sewing-machine." Sage-brush encouraged her, "That's something like it--go on--go on." "Well, then, it's a--" Sage-brush grew more excited. He raised and lowered himself on his toes, backing toward the piano. "Go it, you're gettin' there," he shouted. "It's a--" Again she hesitated, to be helped on by Sage-brush with the assurance: "She'll do it--fire away--it's a--" "A--" "Go on." Sage-brush in his enthusiasm backed too far into the blanket screen. His spurs became entangled. To save himself from a fall, he threw out his hand behind him. They struck the polished cover of the instrument, slid off, and Sage-brush sat down on the keys with an unmistakable crash. "A piano!" cried Echo exultantly. "Who done that?" demanded Show Low angrily. Parenthesis, from his place on the floor, looked at the mischief-maker in disgust. "Sage-brush!" he shouted. "Givin' the hull thing away," snarled Fresno. Show Low could contain himself no longer. Going up to Sage-brush, he shook his fist in his face, saying: "You're the limit. You ought to be herdin' sheep." The victim of the accident humbly replied: "I couldn't help it." Mrs. Allen smoothed out the differences by declaring: "What's the difference, she wouldn't have guessed, not in a million years--stand away and let her see it." Fresno swept them all aside with the blanket. "Oh, isn't it beautiful, beautiful!" cried Echo. "Who--what--where--" she stammered, glancing from one to the other, her eyes finally resting on Jack. "Not guilty," he cried. "You'll have to thank the boys for this." With happy tears welling up in her eyes, Echo said: "I do thank them, I do--I do--I can't tell how delighted I am. I can't say how much this means to me--I thank you--I say it once, but I feel it a thousand times." She seized each of the boys by the hand and shook it heartily. "Would you like to have another selection?" asked Fresno, relieving the tension of the situation. "No!" shouted the punchers unanimously. Fresno looked very much crestfallen, since he considered that he had made a deep impression by his first effort. "Mrs. Payson's goin' to hit us out a tune," announced Sage-brush. Echo seated herself at the piano. Jack leaned against the instrument, gazing fondly into her eyes, as she raised her face radiant with happiness. Allen had taken possession of the best rocking-chair. Mrs. Allen sat at the table, and the boys ranged themselves about the room. Their faces reflected gratification. They watched Echo expectantly. Echo played the opening bars of "The Old Folks at Home." Before she sang Fresno, holding up his right index-finger, remarked to no one in particular: "I washed that finger." The singing deeply affected her little audience. Echo had a sweet, natural voice. She threw her whole soul into the old ballad. She was so happy she felt like singing, not lively airs, but songs about home. Her new home had become so dear to her at that moment. Mrs. Allen as usual began to cry. Polly soon followed her example. There were tears even in the of some of the punchers, although they blinked vigorously to keep them back. When she repeated the chorus, Sage-brush said to Fresno: "Ain't that great?" That worthy, however, with the jealousy of an artist, and to hide his own deeply moved sensibilities, replied: "That ain't so much." Jack had become completely absorbed in the music. He and Echo were oblivious to surroundings. His arm had slipped about his wife's waist, and she gazed fondly into his face. Sage-brush was the first to notice their attitude. On his calling the attention of the boys to their happiness, these quietly tiptoed from the room. Polly signaled to Mrs. Allen, and followed the boys. Josephine awoke Jim as if from a dream and led him slowly out, leaving the young couple in an earthly paradise of married love. When Echo finished, she turned in surprise to find themselves alone. "Was it as bad as that?" she naively asked Jack. "What?" "Why, they've all left us." Jack laughed softly. "So they have--I forgot they were here," he said, looking fondly down at his wife. Echo began to play quietly another ballad. "I've always wanted a piano," she said. "You'd found one here waiting, if I'd only known it," he chided. "You've given me so much already," she murmured. "I've been a big expense to you." Jack again slipped his arm about her waist and kissed her. "There ain't any limit on my love," he declared. "I want you to be happy--" "Don't you think I am," laughed Echo. "I'm the happiest woman on earth, Jack, and it's all you. I want to be more than a wife to you, I want to be a helpmate--but you won't let me." A wistful expression crept over Echo's countenance. "Who says so?" he demanded playfully, as if he would punish any man who dared make such an accusation. Echo turned on the stool and took his hand. "I know it," she said, with emphasis. "You've been worried about something for days and days--don't tell me you haven't." Jack opened his lips as if to contradict her. "We women learn to look beneath the surface; what is it, Jack?" she continued. Jack loosened his wife's handclasp and walked over to the table. "Nothing--what should I have to worry about?" He spoke carelessly. "The mortgage?" suggested Echo. "I paid that off last week," explained Jack. Echo felt deeply hurt that this news should have been kept from her by her husband. "You did, and never told me?" she chided. "Where did you get the money?" she inquired. "Why, I--" Jack halted. He could not frame an excuse at once, nor invent a new lie to cover his old sin. Deeper and deeper he was getting into the mire of deception. Echo had arisen from the seat. "It was over three thousand dollars, wasn't it?" she insisted. "Something like that," answered Jack noncommittally. "Well, where did you get it?" demanded his wife. "An old debt--a friend of mine--I loaned him the money a long time ago and he paid it back--that's all." Jack took a drink of water from the olla to hide his confusion. "Who was it?" persisted Echo. "You wouldn't know if I told you. Now just stop talking business." "It isn't fair," declared Echo. "You share all the good things of life with me, and I want to share some of your business worries. I want to stand my share of the bad." Jack saw he must humor her. "When the bad comes I'll tell you," he assured her, patting her hand. "You stand between me and the world. You're like a great big mountain, standing guard over a little tree in the valley, keeping the cold north wind from treating it too roughly." She sighed contentedly. "But the mountain does it all." Jack looked down tenderly at his little wife. Her love for him moved him deeply. "Not at all," he said to her. "The little tree grows green and beautiful. It casts a welcome shade about it, and the heart of the mountain is made glad to its rocky core to know that the safety of that little tree is in its keeping." Taking her in his arms, he kissed her again and again. "Kissing again," shouted Polly from the doorway. "Say, will you two never settle down to business? There's Bud Lane and a bunch of others just into the corral--maybe they want you, Jack." Jack excused himself. As he stepped out on the piazza he asked Polly: "Shall I send Bud in?" "Let him come in if he wants to. I'm not sending for him." Polly spitefully turned up her nose at him. Jack laughed as he closed the door. Echo reseated herself at the piano, fingering the keys. "How are you getting on with Bud?" she asked the younger girl. "We don't get on a little bit," she snapped. "Bud never seems to collect much revenue an' we just keep trottin' slow like--wish I was married and had a home of my own." "Aren't you happy with father and mother?" Polly glanced at Echo with a smile. "Lord, yes," she replied, "in a way, but I'm only a poor relation--your ma was my ma's cousin or something like that." Echo laughed. "Nonsense," she retorted. "Nonsense--you're my dear sister, and the only daughter that's at the old home now." "But I want a home of my own, like this," said Polly. "Then you'd better shake Bud and give Slim a chance." Polly was too disgusted to answer at once. "Slim Hoover, shucks! Slim doesn't care for girls--he's afraid of 'em," she said at length. "I like Bud, with all his orneriness," she declared. "Why doesn't he come to see you more often?" "I don't know, maybe it's because he's never forgiven you for marryin' Jack." "Why should he mind that?" she asked, startled. "Well, you know," she answered between stitches, drawing the needle through the cloth with angry little jerks, "Bud, he never quite believed Dick was dead." Echo rose hastily. The vague, haunting half-thoughts of weeks were crystallized on the instant. She felt as if Dick was trying to speak to her from out of the great beyond. With a shudder she into a chair at the table opposite Polly. "Don't," she said, her voice scarcely above a whisper, "I can't bear to hear him spoken of. I dreamed of him the other night--a dreadful dream." Polly was delighted with this new mystery. It was all so romantic. "Did you? let's hear it." With unseeing eyes Echo gazed straight ahead rebuilding from her dream fabric a tragedy of the desert, in which the two men who had played so great a part in her life were the actors. "It seems," she told, "that I was in the desert, such a vast, terrible desert, where the little dust devils eddied and swirled, and the merciless sun beat down until it shriveled up every growing thing." Polly nodded her head sagely. "That's the way the desert looks--and no water." Echo paid no heed to the interruption. Her face became wan and haggard, as in her mind's eye she saw the weary waste of waterless land quiver and swim under the merciless sun. Not a tree, not a blade of grass, not a sign of life broke the monotony of crumbling cliffs and pinnacled rocks. Onward and ever onward stretched yellow ridges and alkali-whitened ravines, blinding the eye and parching the throat. "Then I saw a man staggering toward me," she continued; "his face was white and drawn, his lips cracked and parched--now and then he would stumble and fall, and lie there on his face in the hot sand, digging into it with his bony fingers seeking for water." Echo shut her eyes as if to blot out the picture. Its reality almost overpowered her. "Suddenly he raised his eyes to mine," she resumed, after a pause. "It was Dick." In her excitement she had arisen, stretching out her arms as if to ward off an apparition. "He tried to call me. I saw his lips move, framing my name. Dragging himself to his feet, he came toward me with his arms outstretched. Then another form appeared between us fighting to keep him back. They fought there under the burning sun in the hot dust of the desert until at last one was crushed to earth. The victor raised his face to mine, and--it was Jack." Echo buried her face in her hands. Dry sobs shook her bosom. Awe-stricken, Polly gazed at the over-wrought wife. "PFEW!" she laughed, to shake off her fright. "That was a sure enough nightmare. If I'd a dream like that I'd wake up the whole house yapping like a coyote." As the commonplace ever intrudes upon the unusual, so a knock on the door relieved the tension of the situation. It was Slim. He did not wait for an invitation to enter, but, opening the door, asked: "Can I come in?" "Sure, come in," cried Polly, glad to find any excuse to shake off the depression of Echo's dream. "Howdy, Mrs. Payson, just come over to see Jack," was the jolly Sheriff's greeting. "He's down at the corral," she informed him. Mrs. Allen hurried in from the kitchen at this moment, calling: "Echo, come here, and look at this yere cake. It looks as if it had been sot upon." Echo closed the lid of the piano and called her mother's attention to the presence of Slim Hoover. "How d'ye do, Slim Hoover?--you might have left some of that dust outside." The Sheriff was greatly embarrassed by her chiding. In his ride from Florence to the Sweetwater, the alkali and sand stirred up by the hoofs of the horses had settled on his hat and waistcoat so freely that his clothing had assumed a neutral, gray tone above which his sun-tanned face and red hair loomed like the moon in a fog. Josephine's scolding drove him to brush his shoulders with his hat, raising a cloud of dust about his head. "Stop it!" Mrs. Allen shouted shrilly. "Slim Hoover, if your brains was dynamite you couldn't blow the top of your head off." Polly was greatly amused by Slim's encounter with the cleanly Mrs. Allen. Slim stood with open mouth, watching Mrs. Allen flounce out of the room after Polly, who was trying in vain to suppress her laughter. Turning to the girl, he said: "Ain't seen you in some time." Slim was thankful that the girl was seated at the table with her back to him. Somehow or other he found he could speak to her more freely when she was not looking at him. "That so?" she challenged. "Come to the birthday?" "Not regular," he answered. Polly glanced at him over her shoulder. It was too much for Slim. He turned away to hide his embarrassment. Partly recovering from his bashfulness, he coughed, preparatory to speaking. But Polly had vanished. As one looks sheepishly for the magician's disappearing coin, so Slim gazed at floor and ceiling as if the girl might pop up anywhere. Spying an empty chair behind him, he sank into it gingerly and awkwardly. Meantime Polly returned with a broom and began sweeping out the evidences of Slim's visit. She spoke again: "Get them hold-ups yet that killed 'Ole Man' Terrill?" she asked. "Not yet. But we had a new shootin' over'n our town yesterday." Slim was doing his best to make conversation. Polly did not help him out very freely. "That so?" was her reply. "Spotted Taylor shot two Chinamen." Polly's curiosity was aroused. "What for?" she asked, stopping her sweeping for a moment. "Just to give the new graveyard a start," Slim chuckled. Polly joined in his merriment. "Spotted Taylor was always a public-spirited citizen," was her comment. "He sure was," assented Slim. "Get up there. I want to sweep under that chair." Polly brushed Slim's feet with the broom vigorously. With an elaborate "Excuse me," Slim arose, but re-seated himself in another chair directly in the pathway of Polly's broom. "Get out of there, too," she cried. "Shucks, there ain't any room for me nowhere," he muttered disgustedly. "You shouldn't take up so much of it." Slim attempted to take a seat on the small gilt chair which was Jack's wedding-present to Echo. Polly caught sight of him in time. "Look out," she shouted. "That chair wasn't built for a full-grown man like you." Slim nervously replaced the chair before a writing-desk. Polly wielded her broom about the feet of the Sheriff, who danced clumsily about, trying to avoid her. "You're just trying to sweep me out of here," he complained. "Well, if you will bring dust in with you, you must expect to be swept out," Polly replied, with a show of spirit. Polly was shaking the mat vigorously at the door when Slim said: "I see they buried Poker Bill this mornin'." "Is HE dead?" It was the first Polly had heard of the passing away of one of the characters of the Territory. She had expressed her surprise in the of an interrogation, emphasizing the "he," a colloquialism of the Southwest. Slim, however, had chosen to ignore the manner of speech, and with a grin answered: "Ye-es, that's why they buried him." Polly laughed in spite of herself. "What did he die of?" she asked. As Slim was about to take a drink at the olla, he failed to hear her. "Eh?" he grunted. "What did he die of?" she repeated. "Five aces," was the sober reply of the Sheriff, before he drained the gourd. Polly put the broom back of the door, and was rearranging the articles on the table, before Slim could muster up enough courage to speak on the topic which was always uppermost in his mind when in her presence. "Say, Miss Polly," he began. "If you've anything to say to me, Slim Hoover, just say it--I can't be bothered to-day--all the fixin's and things," saucily advised the girl. "Well, what I want to say is--" began the Sheriff. At this moment Bud Lane, laboring under heavy excitement, burst open the door. "Say, Slim, you're wanted down at the corral," he cried, paying no heed to Polly. "Shucks!" exclaimed the disappointed Sheriff. "What's the row?" "I don't know--Buck McKee--he's there with some of the Lazy K outfit. They want to see you." Slim threw himself out the door with the mild expletive: "Darn the luck!" Bud turned quickly to Polly. "Did Jack pay off the mortgage last week?" he almost shouted at the girl. Polly stamped her foot in anger at what seemed to her to be a totally irrelevant question to the love-making she expected: "How do I know?" she angrily replied. "If that is all you came to see me for, you can go and ask him. It makes me so dog-gone mad!" Polly, with flushed face and knitted brow, left the bewildered Bud standing in the center of the room, asking himself what it was all about. The sound of the voices of disputing men floated in from the corral. Bud heard them, and comprehended its significance. "It's all up with me," he cried, in mortal terror. "Buck McKee has stirred up the suspicion against Jack Payson. Jack paid off his mortgage, and they wanted to know where he raised the money. Well, Jack can tell. If he can't, I'll confess the whole business. I won't let him suffer for me. Buck sha'n't let an innocent man hang for what we've done." The sound of footsteps on the piazza and the opening of the door drove Bud to take refuge in an adjoining room, where he could overhear all that was happening. He closed the door as the cow-punchers entered with Slim at their head. CHAPTER XI Accusation and Confession Buck McKee had not been idle in the days following the slaying of 'Ole Man' Terrill. Having learned that Slim and his posse had discovered only the fact that the murderer had ridden a pacing horse to the ford, McKee took full advantage of this fact. In the cow-camps, the barrooms, and at the railroad-station he hinted, at first, that a certain person every one knew could tell a lot more about the death of the old man than he cared to have known. After a few days he began to bring the name of Payson into the conversation. His gossip became rumor, and then common report. When it became known that Jack had paid off the mortgage on his ranch, Buck came out with the accusation that Payson was the murderer. Finding that he was listened to, Buck made the direct charge that Payson had killed the station-agent, and with the proceeds of the robbery was paying off his old debts. Gathering his own men about him, and being joined by the idle hangers-on, which are to be found about every town, Buck lead his party to the ranch on the Sweetwater to accuse Jack, and so throw off, in advance, any suspicions which might attach to himself. Fortunately, Slim happened to be at Jack's ranch at the time. When he entered the corral he found Jack's accusers and defenders rapidly nearing a battle. Jack was taking the charges coolly enough, as he did not know what support McKee had manufactured to uphold the charges he made. Slim informed McKee he would listen to what he had to say, and if afterward he thought Jack guilty, he would place him under arrest. For all concerned it would be better to go into the house. The Sweetwater boys surrounded Jack as they followed Slim into the living-room. Lining up in opposing groups, Slim stood in the center to serve as judge and jury, with Buck and Jack at his right and left hand. Inside the door Jack said: "Keep as quiet as you can, boys. I don't want to alarm my wife. Now what is it?" The punchers hushed their discussion of the charge, and listened attentively to what the men most interested had to say. "Well, darn it all," apologized the Sheriff to Jack, "it's all darn fool business, anyway. Buck here he started it." Jack smiled sarcastically, and, glancing at McKee, remarked: "Buck McKee's started a good many things in his day--" Buck began to bluster. He could not face Jack fairly. Already placed on the defense, when he had considered he would be the accuser, McKee took refuge in the plea of being wronged by false suspicion. "I ain't goin'," he whined, "to have folks suspicion me of any such doin's as the killin' of 'Ole Man' Terrill. I got a witness to prove I wasn't in twenty miles of the place." "Who's your witness?" asked Slim, in his most judicial tones. "Bud Lane--me an' him rode over to the weddin' together--from the Lazy K, an' I was put out as not fittin' to be there, an' by that very man there that did the killin'." The punchers had to grin, in spite of the seriousness of the occasion. Buck appeared to be deeply hurt at the unceremonious way he had been left out at the feast. "What makes you point to me as the man?" asked Jack quietly. "You was late gettin' to your own weddin'." Fresno could not repress his feelings any longer. He started angrily toward McKee, but Jack and Sage-brush held him back. The others were about to follow his lead, when Slim motioned them back with the caution: "Keep out of this, boys!" "I was late," explained Jack, "but I told you I rode around to the station to get a wedding-present I ordered for my wife--" Jim interrupted him to substantiate the statement. Pointing to a chair, he said: "That's so. There it is, too--that there chair." The Sweetwater outfit nodded in acquiescence, but the others looked incredulous. Buck sneered at the defense which Jack made. "Nobody saw you over that way, did they?" "I saw Terrill. It must have been just before he was killed. I didn't meet anybody else." Jack showed no trace of temper under the inquisition. "Of course you saw him before he was killed--about a minute. Mebbe you didn't plug him the next minute with a .44." The charge roused Sage-brush's fighting blood. Drawing his gun, he attempted to get a fair shot at the accuser. Fresno and Show Low grabbed him by the arms, holding him back. The foreman shouted: "There'll be some one plugged right now if you-all make another break like that." Slim waved his hands over his head, driving the men backward, as if he were shooing away a flock of chickens. "Easy now--easy," he drawled. "There ain't a-goin' to be nothin' doin' here, 'cept law an' justice." Buck laughed sneeringly at the wavering of his men. He would have to do something to put more heart into them and regain the ground he had lost by his single-handed conduct of the case. "There ain't, eh?" he asked contemptuously. "Well, it's lucky I brought some of my own outfit with me." "Mebbe you'll need them if you get too careless with your talk," answered the unruffled Sheriff. Turning to Jack, Slim said: "This fool thing can be settled with one word from you." The young ranchman listened to the Sheriff earnestly. He wished to clear himself forever of all suspicion. He did not want Echo ever to hear that there was a false impression abroad that she was the wife of a slayer. "What is it?" he asked simply. "Why, you paid off a mortgage of an even three thousan' dollars last week, didn't you?" "Yes, what has that to do with it?" he asked. Buck broke in at this point. Here was the strongest card that he had in his hand, and the Sheriff had played it to McKee's advantage. "Plenty," Buck shouted. "Old Terrill was shot and killed and robbed, an' the man who did it got just three thousan' dollars." "An' you mean to say that the boss here--" began Sage-brush, in his anger making a rush at McKee. He was held back, but the disturbance attracted Echo and Mrs. Allen from the kitchen. Echo hurried to her husband's side. He slipped his arm about her waist, and together they faced his accuser. "All you got to say is where did you get that money," cried Buck, who had seen Dick Lane pay it to Payson, and conjectured that Payson did not dare to reveal the fact of this payment, with all the disclosure it implied. "Why, it was paid to me by--" Then Jack stopped. He could not tell who gave him the money without revealing to Echo the return of Dick. The whole miserable lie would then come out. Echo noticed Jack's hesitancy. "What is it--what's the matter?" she asked, in frightened tones. "Nothing, nothing," he answered lightly, to lessen her terror. "Hats off, everybody," commanded Slim, in deference to the presence of Echo. "Who are these men--what's wrong?" pleaded Echo. Buck bowed to the trembling woman, who had thrown her arms about her husband's neck. "Nothin'," he exclaimed. "Only we want to know where your husband got the money to pay off the mortgage on this ranch." The request seemed a very simple one to Echo. All the talk of harming Jack, the high words, the threats, could be silenced easily by her hero. Smiling into his eyes, Echo said: "Tell them, Jack." "I can't," he faltered. "It was paid to him by a friend," bravely began Echo. "A friend to whom he lent it some time ago." Buck interrupted her explanation. "Then let him tell his friend's name, and where we can find him." Turning to Jack, he bullied: "Come on--what's his name?" Jack closed his eyes to shut out the sight of his wife. In his agony he clenched his fists, until his nails sank into the flesh. "I can't tell you that," he cried, in misery. "Of course he can't," sneered Buck, smiling evilly in his triumph. "He can't account for himself on the night of the weddin'; he rides a pacin' horse--rode on that night; he gets three thousan' dollars paid him, and he can't tell who paid it; what's the verdict?" Buck did not wait for an answer. Raising his voice, he shouted: "Guilty." "Damn you," bellowed Sage-brush, lunging toward him, only to be held in restraint by his associates. "Jack! Jack! what have you to say?" begged Echo. "Nothing," was his only answer. "Tell him he lies!" cried Sage-brush. "Jack, we all know you--you're as white a man as ever lived, an' they ain't one of this outfit that ain't ready to die for you right now--" "You bet!" chorused his men. "He ain't goin' to get off like that," declared Buck. Looking confidently at his own followers, he said: "The Lazy K can take care of him." Buck's men moved closer to him, preparing to draw their guns, if need be, and open fire on Jack's defenders. "Look out, boss!" warned Sage-brush, at the hostile movement of Buck and his punchers. "Hold on!" drawled the Sheriff, who, as the danger grew more real, became more deliberate in his movements. "They ain't goin' to be nothin' done here unless it's done in the law--you all know me, boys--I'm the sheriff--this man's my prisoner." Pointing to Jack, he added: "There ain't nobody goin' to take him from me--an' live." Buck saw Jack slipping from his clutches. "You're not goin' to be bluffed by one man, are you, boys?" "No," his punchers answered in unison, crowding toward Jack, who held up his hand and cried: "Stop! I want a fair deal, and I'll get it." "I'll settle this thing all right. All I ask is a few words alone with my wife." Jack clasped Echo to his breast as he begged this boon from the men who sought his life. "No!" blustered Buck. "Yes," ordered Slim quietly but emphatically. "Payson--you'll give me your word you won't try to escape?" "Yes," agreed Jack. "His word don't go with us," shouted Buck. Slim laid his hand on the butt of his revolver, ready to draw, if necessary, to enforce his command. Buck saw the movement, and shouted to him: "Keep your hand away from that gun, Sheriff. You know I am quick on the draw." He significantly fingered his holster as he spoke. "So I've heard tell," agreed Slim, hastily withdrawing his hand from his revolver. Slim appeared to agree to the surrender of Jack to Buck and his punchers, permitting them to deal with him as they saw fit. He fumbled in his left-hand waistcoat pocket, pulling out a bag of tobacco and a package of rice paper. Ostentatiously he began to roll a cigarette. Then, with the quickness of a cat, his left hand was plunged in the inside right-hand pocket of his waistcoat. Grasping a revolver by the muzzle he deftly jerked it upward, and seized the handle in its flight. He covered Buck McKee before that worthy realized what had happened. With his right hand Slim pulled the weapon which swung at his hip, and aimed it at the other boys of the Lazy K. The guns moved up and down the line, backed by the Sheriff's usually mild blue eyes, coldly steady now at the call to battle. "I'll give you a lesson in pullin' guns, though," he declared, his voice as steady as his hands. "Don't move, Buck," he warned, as McKee wavered. "Nor any others of you. I'm playin' this hand alone. Buck McKee, you've been flirtin' with a tombstone for some time. Hands up, gents," he ordered, raising the pistols significantly. "I said GENTS," he repeated, when Buck McKee did not obey him with alacrity. The balked leader of the Lazy K outfit reluctantly held his hands aloft. "Sage-brush!" called Slim. "Here," answered the foreman, covering a man with his revolver. "Parenthesis!" summoned the Sheriff. "Here," the man of the bowlegs replied, as he drew his gun. "Me, too," cried Fresno, while Show Low came to the front with "An' likewise here." When the Lazy K outfit was thoroughly under subjection, Slim stepped forward and said: "Now, gentlemen, if you please. You see, this yere's my party an' I regalate it my way. Jack here gave his word to stay and face this thing out. He's a-goin' to do it. I'm responsible for him--Sage-brush, you will collect at the door sech articles of hardware as these gentlemen has in their belts--I deputize you. Gents, as you walk out the do', you will deposit yo' weapons with Mr. Sage-brush Charley--the same to be returned to you when the court sees fit and proper." "You ain't goin' to let him--" Buck did not finish the sentence, for Slim, thoroughly aroused, shouted: "Buck McKee, if you say another word, I'm goin' to kill you. Gents, there's the door--your hosses are in the corral--get." Preceded by some of the Sweetwater boys, the Lazy K outfit filed out, Sage-brush taking their guns as they passed him. Fresno and Parenthesis brought up the rear. "He needn't think he'll escape. We're bound to have him," declared Buck. "Are you goin'?" demanded Slim, his voice full of menace. "Can't you see me?" sneered Buck. Sage-brush relieved him of his gun as he passed, handing it to Fresno. Buck paused in the doorway long enough to lament: "Talk of hospitality. I never get in but what I am put out." Slim watched McKee from the window until he disappeared through the gate of the corral. Then walking down to Jack, he took him by the hand. "It'll be all right in an hour--thank you, boys," Payson assured them. "We all know you are the whitest man on the Sweetwater," assured Sage-brush, speaking for the punchers, as they left Jack a prisoner with Slim. Speaking in a low tone, Jim asked Jack: "Where did you get that money?" "Don't you know?" he asked, in surprise. "From--" Jack nodded his head. "I'll wait for you in the other room," said Slim. "Maw, Polly, we all better leave 'em alone." As the woman and the girl left the room, the old ranchman paused at the doorway, leading to the kitchen, to advise his son-in-law earnestly: "I 'low you better tell her; it's best." The two young people were left alone in the room in which they had passed so many happy hours to face a crisis in their lives. The day which had begun sunnily was to end in darkest clouds. The awful accusation was incredible to Echo. Her faith in her husband was not shaken. Jack, she felt, could explain. But, no matter what the outcome might be, she would be loyal to the man she loved. On this point she was wholly confident. Had she not pledged her faith at the marriage altar? "Jack?" a volume of questions was in the word. Taking her hands in his and looking searchingly in her eyes, he said: "Before I tell you what's been on my mind these many weeks--I want to hold you in my arms and hear you say: 'Jack, I believe in you.'" Echo put her arms about his neck and, nestling close to his breast, declared: "I do believe in you--no matter what circumstances may be against you. No matter if all the world calls you guilty--I believe in you, and love you." Jack seated himself at the table, and drew his wife down beside him. Putting his arms about her as she knelt before him, he murmured: "You're a wife--a wife of the West, as fair as its skies and as steadfast as its hills--and I--I'm not worthy--" "Not worthy--you haven't--it isn't--" gasped Echo, starting back from him, thinking that Jack was about to confess that under some strange stress of circumstances he had slain the express-agent. "No, it isn't that," hastily answered Jack, with a shudder at the idea. "I've lied to you," he simply confessed. "Lied to me--you?" cried Echo, in dismay. "I've been a living lie for months," relentlessly continued Jack, nerving himself for the ordeal through which he would have to pass. "Jack," wailed Echo, shrinking from him on her knees, covering her face with her hands. "It's about Dick." Echo started. Again Dick Lane had arisen as from out the grave. "What of him?" she asked, rising to her feet and moving away from him. "He is alive." Jack did not dare look at his wife. He sat with his face white and pinched with anguish. The young wife groaned in her agony. The blow had fallen. Dick alive, and she now the wife of another man? What of her promise? What must he think of her? "I didn't know it until after we were engaged," pursued Jack; "six months. It was the day I questioned you about whether you would keep your promise to Dick if he returned. I wanted to tell you then, but the telling meant that I should lose you. He wrote to me from Mexico, where he had been in the hospital. He was coming home--he enclosed this letter to you." Jack drew from his pocket the letter which Dick enclosed in the one which he had sent Jack, telling of his proposed return. She took the missive mechanically, and opened it slowly. "I wanted to be square with him--but I loved you," pleaded Jack. "I loved you better than life, than honor--I couldn't lose you, and so--" His words fell on unheeding ears. She was not listening to his pleadings. Her thoughts dwelt on Dick Lane, and what he must think of her. She had taken refuge at the piano, on which she bowed her head within her arms. Slowly she arose, crushing the letter in her hand. In a low, stunned voice she cried: "You lied to me." Jack buried his face in his hands. "Yes," he confessed. "He came the night we were married. I met him in the garden. He paid that money he had borrowed from me when he went away." Horror-struck, Echo turned to him. "He was there that night?" she gasped. "Oh, Jack. You knew, and you never told me. I had given my word to marry him--you, knowing that, have done this thing to me?" Her deep emotion showed itself in her voice. The more Jack told her the worse became her plight. "I loved you." Jack was defending himself now, fighting for his love. "Did Dick believe I knew he was living?" continued the girl mercilessly. "He must have done so." "Jack! Jack!" sobbed Echo, tears streaming down her face. "What could I do? I was almost mad with fear of losing you. I was tempted to kill him then and there. I left your father to guard the door--to keep him out until after the ceremony." Jack could scarcely control his voice. The sight of Echo's suffering unmanned him. "My father, too," wailed Echo. "He thought only of your happiness," Jack claimed. "What of my promise--my promise to marry Dick? Where is he?" moaned the girl. "He's gone back to the desert." Over her swept the memory of the terrible dream. Dick dying of thirst in the desert, calling for her; crushed to the earth by Jack after battling the awful silence. She moved to the middle of the room, as if following the summons. "The desert, my dream," she whispered, in awe. "He is gone out of our lives forever," cried Jack, facing her with arms outstretched. "And you let him go away in the belief that I knew him to be living?" accused the wife. "What will not a man do to keep the woman he loves? Dick Lane has gone from our lives, he will never return," argued Jack. "He must," screamed Echo. "There is a crime charged against you--he must return to prove your story as to the money--He must know through your own lips the lie that separated us." "You love him--you love him." Jack kept repeating the words, aghast at the knowledge that Echo seemed to be forcing upon him. "Bring him back to me." Firmly she spoke. Jack gazed at her in fear. Chokingly he cried again: "You love him!" "I don't know. All I know is that he has suffered, is suffering now, through your treachery; bring him back to me, that I may stand face to face with him, and say: 'I have not lied to you, I have not betrayed your trust.'" "You love him," he repeated. "Find him--bring him back." Jack was helpless, speechless. Echo's attitude overpowered him. The wife staggered again to the piano, slowly sinking to the seat. She had turned her back on him. This action hurt him more than any word she had spoken. Her face was buried in her hands. Deep sobs shook her shoulders. Jack followed her, to take her again in his arms, but she made no sign of forgiveness. Turning, he strode to the rack, and took down his hat and cartridge-belt. Picking up his rifle, he firmly declared: "I will go. I'll search the plains, the mountains, and the deserts to find this man. I will offer my life, if it will serve to place the life you love beside you. Good-bye." The sound of the closing of the door roused Echo to a full realization of what she had done. She had driven the one man she really loved out of her life; sent him forth to wander over the face of the earth in search of Dick Lane, for whom she no longer cared. She must bring her husband back. She must know that he alone had her heart in his keeping. "No, no, Jack--come back!" she called. "I love you, and you alone--come back! come back!" Before she could throw open the door and summon him back to happiness and trust, Bud, who had heard the full confession from the room in which he had taken refuge when he thought Buck would throw the blame on Jack, caught her by the arm. "Stop!" he commanded. "Bud Lane!" exclaimed Echo, "you have heard--" "I've heard--my brother--he is alive!" Bud spoke rapidly. His belief was confirmed. He would have full revenge for what his brother had suffered at Payson's hands. To Echo's plea of "Don't stop me!" he shouted: "No!" and caught the young wife, and pulled her back from the doorway. Echo struggled to free herself, but the young man was too strong. "He had ruined Dick's life, stolen from him the woman he loved," he hissed in her ear. "Jack! Jack!" was her only answer. "No, he sha'n't come back--let him go as he let my brother go, out of your life forever." "I can't--I can't. I love him!" Throwing Bud off, she ran to the door. Bud pulled his revolver, and cried: "If he enters that door I'll kill him." Outside Echo heard Jack inquiring: "Echo! Echo! you called me?" Echo laid her hand on the knob to open the door, when she heard the click of the pistol's hammer as Bud raised it. With a prayer in her eyes, she looked at the young man. He was obdurate. Nothing could move him. Turning, she shrieked: "No, I did not call. Go! in God's name, go!" "Good-bye!" was Jack's farewell. The rapid beat of horse's hoofs told of his mounting and riding away. "Gone. Oh, Bud, Bud, what have you done?" "I should have killed him," was Bud's answer, a gazed after the retreating form galloping down trail. Mrs. Allen, hearing Echo's calls, hastened in from the kitchen. She found her daughter sobbing at the table. "What is the matter, child?" Then, turning to Bud, she fiercely demanded of him: "What have you been saying to her?" "Nothin'," he replied, as he left the house. "Oh, mother, mother!" wailed Echo. "Jack--I have sent him away." "Sent him away," repeated the startled Mrs. Allen. "Yes," assured Echo. "You don't mean to say he is guilty--you don't mean--" "No, no!" interrupted Echo. "Oh, I never thought of that--he must come back--call Dad, call Slim." Echo had forgotten Jack's promise to Slim. He, too, in his period of stress had overlooked the fact that he was a suspected murderer. Now he had fled. He must be brought back to clear his good name. Mrs. Allen called her husband and the Sheriff into the room. "What's the row?" shouted the Sheriff. "Jack's gone," cried Mrs. Allen. In amazement the two men could only repeat the news, "Gone!" "Gone where?" crisply demanded the Sheriff. "Don't stand there starin'; do something," scolded Mrs. Allen. "He gave me his word to stay and face this thing out," shouted the bewildered Slim. "It's all my fault. I sent him away." Echo seized Slim's hand as she spoke. "You sent him away?" She fell on her knees before him. Lifting her hands as in prayer, she implored: "I never thought of his promise to you. He never thought of it. Go find him--bring him back to me!" "Bring him back?" howled the excited Sheriff, his eyes bulging, his cheeks swelling, his red hair bristling, and his voice ringing in its highest key. "Bring him back? You just bet I will. That's why I'm sheriff of Pinal County." Slim whirled out of the door as if propelled by a gigantic blast. Echo fell fainting at her mother's feet. CHAPTER XII The Land of Dead Things Forth to the land of dead things, through the cities that are forgotten, fared Dick Lane. Tricked by his friend, with the woman he loved lost to him, he wandered onward. Automatically he took up again his quest for buried treasure. That which in the flush of youthful enthusiasm and roseate prospects of life and love had seized him as a passion was now a settled habit. And fortunately so, for it kept him from going mad. He had no thought of gain--only the achievement of a purpose, a monomania. With this impulse was conjoined a more volitional motive--he wished to revenge himself upon the Apaches, and chiefly upon the renegade McKee, whom he supposed still to be with them. Somehow he blamed him, rather than Jack Payson, as being the chief cause of his miseries. "If he had not stolen the buried gold, I would have returned in time," he muttered. "He is at the bottom of all this. As I walked away from Jack in the garden, I felt as if it was McKee that was following me with his black, snaky eyes." Accordingly, Dick directed his way to a region reputed to be both rich in buried treasure and infested by hostile Indians. The fable of the Quivira, the golden city marked now by the ruins of the Piro pueblo of Tabiri, south of the salt-deposits of the Manzano, is still potent in Arizona and New Mexico to lure the treasure-seeker. Three hundred and fifty years ago it inspired a march across the plains that dwarfs the famous march of the Greeks to the sea. It led to the exploration of the Southwest and California before the Anglo-Saxon settlers had penetrated half a hundred miles from the Atlantic coast. The cities are forgotten to-day. The tribe which gave it a name proved to be utter barbarians, eaters of raw meat, clad only in skins, without gold, knowing nothing of the arts; Teton nomads, wandering through Kansas. Yet each decade since witnesses a revival of a wonderful story of the buried treasures of the Grand Quivira. The myth originated in New Mexico in 1540. Antonio de Mendoza was the viceroy of New Spain. Having practically conquered the New World, the adventurers who formed his court, having no fighting to do with common enemies, began to hack each other. Opportunely for the viceroy, Fra Marcos discovered New Mexico and Arizona. Gathering the doughty swordsmen together, Mendoza turned them over to the brilliant soldier and explorer, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, with strict orders to get them as far from the viceroy as he could, and then lose them. Coronado and his band were the first to see the Grand Canon of the Colorado. In the latter weeks of 1540 they were in the town of Tiguex. As they were less welcome than the modern tourists, who are now preyed upon where these preyed, the natives sent them on to the pueblo of the Pecos. Mendoza had sent Coronado into New Mexico on the strength of the trimmings of the myth of the "Seven Cities of Cibola." The fabled cities of gold proved to be peaceful settlements. Coronado attempted to lose his cut-throats by having them settle in the country. A plains Indian, captive among the Pecos, changed his plans, and led him to undertake his wonderful march. The Pecos wished to get rid of the guests, so they concocted a marvelous story of buried treasures, and made the poor captive father it. To the gold-chasers the captive was known as "The Turk," his head being shaven and adorned only with a scalp-lock, a custom noticeable because of its variance from that of the long-haired Pueblos. "The Turk" told of a tribe of plainsmen who had a great store of the yellow substance. They were called the Quivira. He would lead them to the ancient Rockefellers. Coronado put him at the head of his band, and followed him eastward over the plains. For months they plodded after him, the Indian trying to lose Coronado, and that valiant warrior endeavoring to obey orders to "shake" his band. About the middle of what is now the Indian Territory, Coronado began to suspect that "The Turk" was selling him a gold brick instead of a bonanza. Landmarks began to look strangely alike. "The Turk," as he afterward confessed, was leading them in a circle. Coronado sent the most of his band back to the Mexican border, retaining about thirty followers. With the help of heated bayonets and sundry proddings, he then impressed upon "The Turk" that it was about time for him to find the Quiviras, or prepare to go to the happy hunting-grounds of his ancestors. After many hardships, "The Turk" located the tribe they were seeking near the present site of Kansas City. All that Coronado found in the way of metal was a bit of copper worn by a war-chief. Not only was the bubble burst, but the bursting was so feeble that Coronado was disgusted. He beheaded the guide with his own hands as a small measure of vengeance. With his followers he retraced his weary road to Tiguex. The lesson lasted for half a century, when the myth, brighter, more alluring than ever, arose and led others on to thirsty deaths in the bad lands and deserts of the Southwest. It was to the modern version that Lane had succumbed. From the Sweetwater he roved to the south of Albuquerque, where the narrow valley of the Rio Grande is rimmed on the east by an arid plateau twenty miles wide; and this is, in turn, walled in by a long cordillera. Through the passes, over the summit, Lane climbed, descending through the pineries, park-like in their grandeur and immensity, to the bare, brown plains which stretch eastward to the rising sun. In the midst of the desert lies a chain of salines, accursed lakes of Tigua folk-lore. Beyond them the plain melts and rebuilds itself in the shimmering sun. To the south and southeast spectral peaks tower to the clouds. Northward the blue shadows of the Sante Fe fall upon the pine-clad foot-hills. Along the lower slopes of the Manzano are the ruins of the ancient pueblos. Abo and Cuarac are mounds of fallen buildings and desert-blown sand. Solemn in their grandeur, they dominate the lonely landscape in a land of adobe shacks. Thirty miles from Cuarac, to the southeast, lies Tabiri, the "Grand Quivira." Huddled on the projecting slopes of the rounded ridges, access to it is a weary, dreary march. The nearest water is forty miles away. Toiling through sand ankle-deep, the traveler plods across the edge of the plains, through troughlike valleys, and up the wooded slope of the Mesa de los Jumanos. A mile to the south a whale-back ridge springs from the valley, nosing northward. No sound breaks the stillness of the day. From the higher ridges the eye falls upon the pallid ghost of the city. Blotches of juniper relieve the monotony of the brown, lifeless grass. Grays fade into leaden hues, to be absorbed in the ashy, indeterminate colors of the sun-soaked plains. No fitter setting for a superstition could be found. Once a town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, the topography of ridge gave it an unusual shape. Ruins of three four-story terrace houses face one another across narrow alleys. Six circular cisterns yawn amid mounds of fallen walls. At the center of the southerly blocks towers a gray quadrangular wall, the last of a large building. At the western terminus of the village, where the slope falls away to the valley, is a gigantic ruin. Its walls are thirty feet high and six feet thick. The roof has fallen, and the topmost layers of the bluish-gray limestone are ragged and time-worn. The building had a frontage of two hundred and two feet, and its greatest depth was one hundred thirty-one feet. Flat-faced prisms, firmly laid in adobe mortar, are placed at irregular intervals in the walls. The northern part of the ruin is one great cross-shaped room, thirty-eight feet wide and one hundred and thirty-one feet long. A gate fifteen feet wide and eleven feet high opens to the eastward. A mighty timber forms an arch supporting fifteen feet of solid masonry. South of this is a great chamber cut up into smaller rooms, with long halls, with walls twenty feet in height. In one of the rooms is a fireplace, and over the doorways are carved wood lintels. An entrance from the south is given through a spacious antechamber. The rafters, hauled fifteen miles, must have weighed a ton. Here lies the Colchis of the modern Argonaut. At first the Mexican pried through the debris-choked rooms, or feebly tunneled under the walls. With the coming of the white races and the drill, holes have been sunk into the original bed-rock. To the simple stories of the natives, fable-bearers have added maps, dying confessions, and discovered ciphers. This ruin, which has caused so many heart-breaks and disappointments, are but the fragments of an old mission founded by Francisco de Atevedo in 1628. Tabiri was to be the central mission of Abo and Cuarac. The absence of water leads the modern explorer to believe that when the town was deserted the spring was killed. The gentle fathers who built the church supervised the construction of a water-works. On a higher ride are three crudely made reservoirs, with ditches leading to the village. The Piros had no animals save a few sheep, and the water supply was needed only for domestic uses, as the precipitation furnished moisture for small crops of beans and corn. All these towns were wiped out by the Apaches, the red plague of the desert. First they attacked the outlying forts of the Salines, once supposed to be well-watered, teeming with game, and fruitful. Tradition again takes the place of unrecorded history, and tells that the sweet waters were turned to salt, in punishment of the wife of one of the dwellers in the city, who proved faithless. In 1675 the last vestige of aboriginal life was wiped out. For a century the Apaches held undisputed control of the country; then the Mexican pioneer crept in. His children are now scattered over the border. The American ranchman and gold-seeker followed, twisting the stories of a Christian conquest into strange tales of the seekers of buried treasures. Through this land Dick had wandered, finding his search but a rainbow quest. But he kept on by dull inertia, wandering westward to Tularosa, then down to Fort Grant, and toward the Lava Beds of southwestern Arizona. In all that arid land there was nothing so withered as his soul. Jack, well mounted, with a pack-mule carrying supplies, had picked up Dick's trail, after it left Tularosa, from a scout out of Fort Grant. Slim Hoover headed for Fort Grant in his search for Jack. Although the ranchman had only a brief start of him, Slim lost the track at the river ford. Knowing Dick had gone into the desert, Jack headed eastward, while Slim, supposing that Jack was breaking for the border to escape into a foreign country turned southward. From the scout who had met Jack and Dick, the Sheriff learned that the two men were headed for the Lava Beds, which were occupied by hostile Apaches. Detachments of the 3d Cavalry were stationed at the fort, with Colonel Hardie in command of the famous F troop, a band of Indian fighters never equaled. In turn, they chased Cochise, Victoria, and Geronimo with their Apache warriors up and down and across the Rio Grande. Hard pressed, each chieftain, in turn, would flee with his band first to the Lava Beds, and then across the border into Mexico, where the United States soldiers could not follow. Hardie fooled Victoria, however. Texas rangers had met the Apache chief in an engagement on the banks of the Rio Grande. Only eight Americans returned from the encounter. Hardie took up his pursuit, and followed Victoria across the river. The Indians had relaxed their vigilance, not expecting pursuit and despising the Mexican Rurales. Troop F caught them off guard in the mountains. The fight was one to extermination. Victoria and his entire band were slain. This was the troop which was awaiting orders to go after the Apaches. Colonel Hardie told Slim that the Indians were bound to head for the Lava Beds. If the men for whom he was looking were in the desert, the troops would find them more quickly than Slim and his posse. Slim waited at Fort Grant for orders, writing back to Sage-brush, telling him of his plans. Fort Grant followed the usual plan of all frontier posts. A row of officers' houses faced the parade-grounds. Directly opposite were the cavalry barracks fort. On one side of the quadrangle were the stables, and the fourth line consisted of the quartermaster's buildings and the post-trader's store. Small ranchmen had gathered near the fort for protection, and because of the desire of the white man for company. In days of peace garrison life was monotonous. But the Apaches needed constant watching. As a soldier, the Apache was cruel and cowardly. He always fought dismounted, never making an attack unless at his own advantage. As infantryman he was unequalled. Veteran army officers adopted the Apache tactics, and installed in the army the plan of mounted infantry; soldiers who move on horseback but fight on foot detailing one man of every four to guard the horses. Methods similar to those used by the Apaches were put into use by the Boers in the South African War. Indeed, the scouting of these Dutch farmers possessed many of the characteristics of the Apaches. So, too, the Japanese soldiers hid from the Russians with the aid of artificial foliage in the same way that an Indian would creep up on his victim by tying a bush to the upper part of his body and crawling toward him on his knees and elbows. Mounted on wiry ponies inured to hardships, to picking up a living on the scanty herbage of the plains, riding without saddles, and carrying no equipment, the Indians had little trouble in avoiding the soldiers. Leaving the reservation, the Apaches would commit some outrage, and then, swinging on the arc of a great circle, would be back to camp and settled long before the soldiers could overtake them. Hampered by orders from the War Department, which, in turn, was molested by the sentimental friends of the Indians, soldiers never succeeded in taming the Apache Crook cut off communications and thrashed them so thoroughly in these same Lava Beds that they never recovered. In Slim's absence, Buck McKee and his gang had taken possession of Pinal County. Rustlers and bad men were coming in from Texas and the Strip. Slim's election for another term was by no means certain. He did not know this, but if he had, it would not have made any difference to him. He was after Jack, and, at any cost, would bring him back to face trial. The rogues of Pinal County seized upon the flight of Jack as a good excuse to down Slim. The Sheriff was more eager to find Jack and learn from him that Buck's charge was false than to take him prisoner. He knew the accusation would not stand full investigation. Slowly the hours passed until the order for "boots and saddles" was sounded, and the troops trotted out of the fort gate. Scouts soon picked up their trail, but that was different from finding the Indians. Oft-times the troopers would ride into a hastily abandoned camp with the ashes still warm, but never a sight of a warrior could be had. Over broad mesas, down narrow mountain trails, and up canons so deep that the sun never fully penetrated them, the soldiers followed the renegades. For a day the trail was lost. Then it was picked up by the print of a pony's hoof beside a water-hole. But always the line of flight led toward an Apache spring in the Lava Beds. Slim and his posse took their commands from the officers of the pursuers. The cow-punchers gave them much assistance as scouts, knowing the country, through which the Indians fled. Keeping in touch with the main command, they rode ahead to protect it from any surprise. The chief Indian scout got so far ahead at one time in the chase that he was not seen for two days. Once, by lying flat on his belly, shading his eyes with his hands, and gazing intently at a mountainside so far ahead that the soldiers could scarcely discern it, he declared he had seen the fugitives climb the trail. The feat seemed impossible, until the second morning after, when the scout pointed out to the colonel the pony-tracks up the mountainside. The Apache scouts kept track of the soldiers' movements, communicating with the main body with blanket-signals and smoke columns. The sign-language of the Indians of the South is an interesting field of study. On the occasion of a raid like the one described, the warriors who were to participate would gather at one point and construct a mound, with as many stones in it as there were warriors. Then they would scatter into small bands. When any band returned to the mound, after losing a fight and the others were not there, the leader would take from the mound as many stones as he had lost warriors. Thus, the other bands, on returning, could tell just how many men had fallen. In the arid regions of the West, water-signs are quite frequent. They usually consist of a grouping of stones, with a longer triangular stone in the center, its apex pointing in the direction where the water is to be found. In some cases the water is so far from the trail that four or five of these signs must be followed up before the water is found. Only the Indian and the mule can smell water. This accomplishment enabled the fleeing Apaches to take every advantage of the pursuing troopers, who must travel from spring to spring along known trails. In the long, weary chase men and horses began to fail rapidly. Short rations quickly became slow starvation fare. Hardie fed his men and horses on mesquit bean, a plant heretofore considered poisonous. For water he was forced to depend upon the cactus, draining the fluid secreted at the heart of the plant. With faces blistered by the sun and caked with alkali, blue shirts faded to a purple tinge, and trousers and accouterments covered with a gray, powdery dust, the soldiers rode on silently and determinedly. Hour after hour the troop flung itself across the plains and into the heart of the Lava Beds, each day cutting down the Apache lead. CHAPTER XIII The Atonement False dawn in the Lava Beds of Arizona. The faint tinge on the eastern horizon fades, and the stars shine the more brilliantly in the brief, darkest hour before the true daybreak. An icy wind sweeps down canons and over mesas, stinging the marrow of the wayfarer's bones. In the heavens, the innumerable stars burn steadily in crystal coldness. Shadows lie in Stygian blackness at foot of rock and valley. Soft and clear the lights of night swathe the uplands. An awesome silence hangs over the desert. Hushed and humbled by the immensity of space, one expects to hear the rush of worlds through the universe. At times the bosom swells with a wild desire to sing and shout in the glory of pure living. The day comes quickly; the sun, leaping edge of the world, floods mesa and canon, withering, sparing no living thing, lavishing reds and purples, blues and violets upon canon walls and wind-sculptured rocks. But a remorseful glare, blinding, sight-destroying, is thrown back from the sand and alkali of the desert. Shriveled sage-brush and shrunken cactus bravely fight for life. A narrow pathway leads from the mesa down the canon's wall, twisting and doubling on itself to Apache Spring. The trail then moves southward between towering cliffs, a lane through which is caught a far-distant glimpse of the mountains. Little whirlwinds of dust spring up, ever and anon, twirling wildly across the sandy wastes. The air suffocates, like the breath of a furnace. Ever the pitiless sun searches and scorches, as conscience sears and stings a stricken soul. Down the narrow trail, past the spring, ride in single file the Apaches, slowly, on tired horses, for the pursuing soldiers have given them no halting space. Naked, save for a breech-clout, with a narrow red band of dyed buckskin about his forehead, in which sticks a feather, each rides silent, grim, cruel, a hideous human reptile, as native to the desert as is the Gila monster. The horse is saddleless. For a bridle, the warrior uses a piece of grass rope twisted about the pony's lower jaw. His legs droop laxly by the horse's sides. In his right hand he grasps his rifle, resting the butt on the knee. The only sound to break the stillness of the day is the rattle of stones, slipping and sliding down the pathway when loosened by hoofs of the ponies. Creeping down the canon wall, they cross the bottom, pass the spring, and disappear at a turn in the canon walls. Nature and Indian meet and merge in a world of torture and despair. Dick had fared badly in the Lava Beds. One spring after the other he found dry. His horse fell from exhaustion and thirst; he ended the sufferings of his pack-mule with a revolver-bullet. Dick staggered on afoot across the desert, hoping to find water at Apache Spring. His blue shirt was torn and faded to a dingy purple. Hat and shoulders were gray with alkali dust. Contact with the rocks and cactus had rent trousers and leggings. His shoes, cut by sharply pointed stones, and with thread rotted by the dust of the deserts, were worn to shreds. Unshaven and unshorn, with sunken cheeks and eyes bright with the delirium of thirst, he dragged his weary way across the desert. He reached Apache Spring shortly after the passage of the Indians, but craving for water was so great that he did not observe their trail. Reeling toward the spring, he cast aside his hat and flung down his rifle in his eagerness to drink. Throwing himself on his face before the hollow in the rock from which the water trickled, he first saw that the waters had dried up. With his bony fingers he dug into the dry sand, crying aloud in despair. Stiffly he arose and blundered blindly to a rock, upon which he sank in his weakness. "Another day like this and I'll give up the fight," he moaned. "Apache Spring dry--the first time in years; Little Squaw Spring, nothing but dust and alkali; it is twenty miles to Clearwater Spring--twenty miles--if I can make it." Dick trembled with weakness. His swollen tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. His lips were cracked and blackened. Bits of foam flickered about the corners of his mouth. The glare blinded his eyes, which were half-closed. At times fever-waves swept over him; again he shuddered with cold. Sounds of falling waters filled his ears. The sighing of the wind through the canon walls suggested the trickling of fountains. Rivers flowed before his eyes through green meadows, only to fade into the desert as he gazed. "What a land! what a land! It is the abode of the god of thirst! He tempts men into his valley with the lure of gold, and saps the life-blood from their bodies--drop by drop. Drop by drop I hear it falling. No, it is water I hear! There it is! How cool it looks!" Dick rose and staggered toward the cliff. In his delirium of thirst he saw streams of water gush down the mountainside. Holding out his arms, he cried: "Saved, saved!" His hands fell limply by his sides as the illusion faded. He then doubled them into fists, and shook them at the cliff in a last defiance of despair. "You sha'n't drive me mad!" He seized his empty canteen, pressing it to his lips. "No, I drained that two days ago--or was it three?" he whispered in panic, as he threw it aside. Picking up his gun, he falteringly attempted the ascent. "I won't give up--I won't," he shouted huskily. "I've fought the desert before and conquered. I'll conquer again--I'll--" His will-power ebbed with his failing strength. Blindness fell upon him. Oblivion swept over him. He sank, dying of thirst, in the sands of the desert. As the buzzard finds the dead, so an Apache crept upon Dick as he lay prostrate. But as the Indian aimed, he heard footsteps from a draw. He saw a man approaching the spring. Silently he fled behind the rocks. It was Jack. He had entered the Lava Beds from the east, closely following the man for whom he had searched for so many weary months. Others of the Apaches had marked him already. Knowing he would go to the spring, they waited warily to learn if he were alone. The band had scattered to surround him at the water-hole. Jack's horse and burro, which he had left at the head of the canon, were already in the Indians' possession. With him he carried his rifle and a Colt revolver. A canteen of water was slung over his shoulder. The desert had placed its stamp upon him, turning his clothes to gray. The tan of his face was deepened. Lines about the eyes and mouth showed how much he had suffered physically and mentally in his search for the man he believed was his successful rival in love. Reaching the spring, he looked about cautiously before he laid down his Winchester. He tugged at the butt of his revolver to make certain that it could be pulled quickly from the holster. Taking off his hat, he knelt to drink. He smiled, and confidently tapped his canteen when he found the spring dry. He was raising his canteen to his lips when he spied Dick's body. Jumping behind a rock, he pulled his revolver, covering the insensible man. It might be a trap. He scanned the trail, the cliff, the canon. Hearing and seeing nothing, he slipped his revolver into his holster and hurried to Dick's side. At first he did not recognize him. The desert and thirst had wrought many changes in his friend's face. When recognition came, he threw his arms about the prostrate form, crying: "Dick, at last, at last!" His voice was broken with emotion. The search had been so long, so weary, and the ending so sudden. He had found Dick, but it looked as if he came too late. Gathering Dick up in his arms, he raised him until his head rested on his knees. Forcing open his mouth, he poured a little water down his throat. Then with a moistened handkerchief he wetted temples and wrists. Slowly Dick struggled back to life. "Water--water--it's water!" he gasped, struggling for more of the precious fluid. "Easy," cautioned Jack. "Only a little now--more when you're stronger." "Who is it?" cried Dick. Not waiting for Jack to enlighten him, he continued: "No matter--you came in time. I couldn't have held out any longer. All the springs are dry--I figured on reaching Clearwater." Jack helped Dick to his feet. Taking his stricken friend's right arm, he drew it across his shoulders. With his left arm about his waist, Jack led him to a seat upon a convenient rock. "I came by Clearwater yesterday," explained Jack. "It is nothing but mud and alkali." "My horse dropped three days ago. I had to shoot the pack-mule. I--" Dick opened his eyes under the ministrations of Jack. Gazing upward into his face, he shouted joyfully: "Why--it's Jack--Jack Payson." "Didn't you know me, Dick?" asked Jack sympathetically. "Not at first--my eyes went to the bad out yonder in the glare." The effort had been too much for Dick. He sat weakly over Jack's knees. Jack turned him partly on his back, and let more water trickle down his throat. Dick clutched madly at the canteen, but Jack drew it back out of his reach. With his handkerchief he moistened lips and neck. When Dick's strength returned, Jack helped him to sit up. "I've been hunting you for months," he told him. "Hunting for me?" echoed Dick. "Yes," answered Jack. "I traced you through the Lost Cities, then to Cooney, then up in the Tularosas. At Fort Grant they put me on the right trail." As the clouds break, revealing the blue of the heavens, so Dick's memory came back to him. He shrank from the man at his side. "Well?" he asked, as he stared at his betrayer. Jack gazed fixedly ahead. He dared not look in the face of him he had wronged so bitterly. "She wants you," he said, in a voice void of all emotion. "Who wants me?" asked Dick, after a pause. "Echo." "Your wife?" gritted Dick. He fingered his gun as he spoke. Huskily Jack replied: "Yes." Bitter thoughts filled the mind of one; the other had schooled himself to make atonement. For the wrong he had done, Jack was ready to offer his life. He had endured the full measure of his sufferings. The hour of his delivery was at hand. Hard as it was to die in the midglory of manhood, it was easier to end it all here and now, than to live unloved by Echo, hated by Dick, despised by himself. "She sent me to find you. 'Bring him back to me.' That's what she said," Jack cried, in his agony. "Your wife--she said that?" faltered Dick. Fiercely in his torture Jack answered: "Yes--my wife--my wife said it. 'Bring him back to me.'" "Back?" Dick paused. "Back to what?" he asked himself. "She's your wife, isn't she?" he demanded. "That's what the law says," answered Jack. With the thought of the evening in the garden when he heard Jack and Echo pronounced man and wife surging over him, Dick murmured: "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." "That's what the Book says," answered Jack. "But when hands alone are joined and hearts are asunder, it can't go on record as the work of God." Dick bowed his head in his hands. "I don't understand." Stubbornly Jack pursued his message to Dick. "She doesn't love me. I thought I had won her, but she married me with your image in her heart. She married me, yet all the while you were the man she loved--you--you--and in the end I found it out." Jack's voice sank almost into a whisper as he finished his revelation to Dick, who raised his head and cried: "And yet she broke her faith with me--" Jack arose in his misery. His task was harder than he expected. Dick was forcing him to tell all without concealing even the smallest trifle of his shame. "She thought--you were dead. I never told her otherwise. I lied to her--I lied to her." "She never knew?" asked Dick joyfully. "The letter--?" "I never gave it to her," answered Jack simply. Dick leaped to his feet, pulling his revolver from his holster. "And I thought her false to her trust!" He aimed his gun at Payson's heart. "I ought to kill you for this!" Jack spread out his arms and calmly replied: "I'm ready." Dick dropped his gun and slipped it into the holster with a gesture of despair. "But it's too late now, too late!" In his eagerness to tell Dick the way he had solved the problem, Jack spoke nervously and quickly. "No, it isn't too late. There's one way out of this--one way in which I can atone for the wrong I've done you both, and I stand ready to make that atonement. It is your right to kill me, but it is better that you go back to her without my blood on your hands--" "Go--back--to her?" questioned Dick, as the meaning of the phrase slowly dawned upon him. "Yes," said Jack, holding out his hands. "Go back with clean hands to Echo Allen. It is you she loves. There's my horse up yonder. Beyond, there're the pack-mule loaded with water and grub. Plenty of water. We'll just change places, that's all. You take them and go back to her and I'll stay here." Dick walked toward the spring, but, a spell of weakness came over him and he almost sank to the ground. Jack caught him and held him up. "It would be justice," muttered Dick, as if apologizing for his acceptance of Jack's renunciation. Leaning over his shoulder, Jack said: "Sure, that's it, justice. Just tell her I tried to work it out according to my lights--ask her to--forgive, to forgive, that's all." Jack took off his canteen and threw the strap around Dick's neck. As Lane weakly staggered toward the mouth of the canon, where the horse had been staked out, Jack halted him with a request: "There's another thing; I left home under a cloud. Buck McKee charged me with holding up and killing 'Ole Man' Terrill for three thousand dollars. Tell Slim Hoover how you paid me just that sum of money." "I will, and I'll fix the murder where it belongs, and then fix the real murderer." Jack stepped to Lane's side and, holding out his hand, said: "Thank you. I don't allow you can forgive me?" "I don't know that I could," coldly answered Dick. "You'd better be going." Again Dick started for the horse, but a new thought came to him. Pausing, he said. "She can't marry again until--" "Well?" asked Jack; his voice was full of sinister meaning, and he fingered his gun as he spoke. Dick realized at once that Jack's plan was to end his life in the desert with a revolver-shot. "You mean to--" he shuddered. Jack drew his gun. "Do you want me to do it here and now?" he cried. Staggering over to him the weakened man grappled with his old friend, trying to disarm him. "No, no, you sha'n't!" he shouted, as Jack shook him free. "Why not?" demanded Jack. "Go. There's my horse--he's yours--go! When you get to the head of the canon, you'll hear and know--know that she is free and I have made atonement." "Why should I hesitate?" argued Dick with himself. "I wanted to die. I came here in the desert to make an end of it all, but when I met death face to face, the old spirit of battle came over me, and fought it back, step by step. Now--now you come and offer me more than life--you offer to restore to me all that made life dear, all that you have stolen from me by treachery and fraud. Why should I hesitate? She is mine, mine in heart, mine by all the ties of love--mine by all its vows--I will go back, I will take your place and leave you here--here in this land of dead things, to make your peace with God!" Beads of sweat broke out on Jack's forehead as he listened. He bit his lips until they bled. Clenching his fingers until the nails sank into the palms of his hands, he cried warningly in his agony: "I wouldn't say no more, if I was you. Go--for God's sake, go!" Dick slowly moved toward the mouth of the canon, still hesitating. From the hillside a rifle-shot rang out. The ball struck Dick in the leg. He fell, and lay motionless. Pulling his revolver, Jack stooped and ran under the overhanging ledge, peering about to see where the shot had come from. He raised his gun to fire, when a volley of rifle-shots rang through the canon, the bullets kicking up little spurts of dust about him and chipping edges off the rocks. Jack dropped on his knees and crept to his rifle, clipping his revolver back into his holster. Crouching behind a rock with his rifle to his shoulder, he waited for the attackers to show themselves. Experience on the plains taught them that the fight would be a slow one, unless the Apaches sought only to divert attention for the time being to cover their flight southward. After the one shot, which struck Dick, and the volley directed at Jack, not a rifle had been fired. Peering over the boulder, Jack could see nothing. The Lava Beds danced before his eyes in the swelter of the glaring sunshine. Far off the snow-capped mountains mockingly reared their peaks into the intense blue of the heavens. Since the attackers were covered with alkali-dust from the long ride, a color which would merge into the desert floor when a man lay prone, detection of any movement was doubly difficult. Behind any rock and in any clump of sage-brush might lie an assailant. Dick had fallen near the spring. He struggled back to consciousness, to find his left leg numb and useless. When the ball struck him he felt only a sharp pinch. His fainting was caused by a shock to his weakened body, but not from fear or pain. With the return to his senses came a horrible, burning thirst, and a horrible sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. He lay breathing heavily until he got a grip on himself. Then he tore the bandanna handkerchief from his neck and bound up the wound, winding the bandage as tightly as his strength permitted to check the blood-flow. "What is it?" asked Jack, over his shoulder. "Indians--the 'Paches are out. I'm hit," gasped Dick. He crawled painfully and slowly to Jack's side, dragging his leg after him. He pulled with him his rifle, which he picked up as he passed from the spot where it had fallen in his first wild rush for water. "The soldiers told me at Fort Grant about the 'Paches being out," Jack whispered hoarsely. "I thought they'd crossed the border into Mexico." Seeing a spasm of pain sweep over Dick's face, he asked: "Are you hurt bad?" "I don't know. My left leg is numb." Both men spoke scarcely above a whisper, fearing to betray their positions by the sound of their voices. Dick lay on his back gathering strength to ward off with rifle and revolver the rush which would come sooner or later. Jack caught the sound of a falling stone. Peering cautiously over the rock, he saw an Indian creep up a draw toward them. Throwing his rifle to his shoulder, he took quick aim and fired. The Apache jumped to his feet, ran a few steps forward, and fell sprawling. A convulsive shudder shook him, and he lay still. "I got him!" cried Jack exultantly, as he saw the result of the shot. But the exposure of his head and shoulders above their barricade had drawn forth more shots from other members of the band. The bullets struck near the two men, showing that the Apaches had the range. Dick's wound was bleeding freely, but the shock of the blow had passed away, and his strength returned. Drawing his revolver, he crept closer to Jack, crying: "I can shoot some." "I reckon you haven't more than a flesh-wound," encouraged Jack. "Can you crawl to the horse?" "I think I can," answered Dick. "Then go. Take the trail home. I'll keep these fellows busy while you get away." The Apaches were showing themselves more as they darted from rock to rock, drawing closer to the entrapped men down the boulder-strewn draws or ravines leading into the canon. An Apache had crawled to the head of a draw, and crossed the butte into a second ravine, which led to the trail down the cliffside. On his belly he had wormed his way up the pathway until he overlooked the rear of the defensive position the two men occupied. Screened by a hedge he awaited a favorable shot. Jack again cautiously raised his head and peered over the barricade. Still not an enemy was in sight. As the Apaches had ceased to fire, he knew they were gathering for another simultaneous rush. The purpose of these dashes was twofold: While one or two men might be killed in the advance, the whole party was nearer the object of attack at the finish, and the defenders were demoralized by the hopelessness of all resistance. For the silent rising of naked, paint-daubed Indians from out of the ground, the quick closing in of the cordon, similar to the turn of a lariat around a snubbing-post when a pony weakens for a moment, is calculated to shake the nerves of the strongest of Indian-fighters. In the breathing-space which the Apaches had given them Jack, who had resigned himself to die, took a new grip on life. His dream of atonement had worked out better than he had planned. Selling his life bravely fighting in a good cause was far, far better than ending it by his own hand. It was a man's death. Fate had befriended him in the end. Reaching his hand out to Dick, he touched his shoulder, rousing him from a stupor into which he was sinking. "Quick, Dick, they're coming closer. Go," he ordered. "Don't be a fool, only one of us can escape. One of us alone. Let it be you, Dick, go back to her, back to home and happiness." Dick struggled to a sitting posture, offering a fair target for the Indian hidden behind the ledge on the cliff trail. The Apache took full advantage and fired, but missed. Dick returned the shot with his revolver before the warrior could sink back behind the rock. The Apache lurched forward in his death-blindness, with the last convulsive obedience of the muscles ere the will flees. Then his legs crumpled up beneath him and he toppled forward off the ledge. His breech-clout caught in a rocky projection, causing the body to hang headlong against the side of the cliff. His rifle fell from his nerveless hands, clattering and breaking on the rocks below. The sight served as a tonic to Dick. His success braced his strength and will. The old battle-spirit surged over him. Only with an effort did he suppress the desire to laugh and shout. He would have left Jack to fight it out alone but a minute before, but the one shot drove all such ideas from his mind. "No. I'll be damned if I'll go!" he shouted. "I'll stay and fight with you," and, seizing his rifle joined Jack in stopping a rush of the Apaches. "We stopped them that time," Jack cried, with satisfaction. In the lull he again urged his comrade to escape to the horse and return to Echo. "Take the horse," he insisted. "Go while there's a chance." "No," shouted Dick determinedly. It was as much his fight as Jack's now. Jack thought more for Echo in that moment than he did for himself. Here was the man she loved. He must go back to her. The woman's happiness depended upon it. But Jack realized that while he was alive, Dick would stay. One supreme sacrifice was necessary. "Go," he cried, "or I'll stand up and let 'em get me." "No, we can hold them off," begged Dick, firing as he spoke. Jack's hour had struck. It was all so supremely simple. There were no waving flags, no cheering comrades. He was only one of two men in the desert, dirty, grimy, and sweaty; his mouth dry and parched, his eyes stinging from powder-fumes, his hands numb from the effects of rapid firing. His mind worked automatically; he seemed to be only an onlooker. The man who first fought off the Apaches and who was now to offer himself as a sacrifice was only one of two Jack Paysons, a replica of his conscious self. Swiftly Jack Payson arose and faced the Indians. "Good-bye!" he cried to his comrade. Dick struggled to his feet and threw himself on Jack to force him down behind the barricade. For a moment both men were in full view of the Apaches. A volley crashed up and across the canon. Both men fell locked in each other's arms, then lay still. The Indians awaited the result of the shots. The strange actions of the men might be only a ruse. Silence would mean they were victorious. Both Jack and Dick had been struck. Jack was the first to recover. Reviving, he struggled out of the clasp of his unconscious comrade. "He's hit bad," he said to himself, "and so am I. I'll fight it out to the last, and if they charge they won't get us alive." Dick groaned and opened his eyes. "I'm hit hard," he whispered, "you'd better go." Jack was on his hands and knees crawling toward his rifle when his comrade spoke. "Listen," he replied. "We're both fixed to stay now, so lie close. I'll hold 'em off as long as I can, but if they rush, save one shot for yourself--you understand?" "Yes, not alive!" answered Dick weakly, his voice thin and his face ashen white with pain. Jack reached the boulder, and with an effort raised himself and peered over the edge. "They're getting ready. Will you take my hand now?" he asked, as he held it out to Dick. "I sure will," his wounded comrade cried, grasping it with all the strength he possessed. Jack smiled in his happiness. He felt he had made his peace with all men and at last was ready to meet death with a clear conscience. "It looks like the end. But we'll fight for it." The shrill war-whoops of the Indians, the first sound they had made in the fight, showed they felt confident of overcoming the men in the next rush. Jack and Dick had abandoned the rifles and were now fighting the Indians off with their revolvers as they closed in on them. Hardie had halted the night before at Clearwater Spring. Finding it but mud and alkali, he had merely rested his men and horses for a few hours, and then pushed on for Apache Spring, where he hoped to strike water. The troop rode through the early morning hours, full of grit, and keen to overtake the Apaches, traces of whose flight were becoming more evident every mile. All weariness had vanished. Even the horses felt there was something in the air and answered the bugle-call with fresh vigor and go. A scout first heard the firing at the spring. He did not wait to investigate, knowing he could do nothing alone. The volleys, the difference in the reports of the rifles, proved to him that one party was firing Springfields and the other Winchesters. He knew that the Apaches were being held off. Galloping back to the troop, he reported the fight to its commander. The bugles sounded. The horses were forced into a gallop. With clashing accouterments and jingling spurs and bits, they dashed across the mesa to the head of the trail. Here they met Slim Hoover and his posse coming from an opposite direction. The firing in the canon was more intermittent now. Dick and Jack were saving their revolver-shots. The Indians were closing in for the last rush. Hardie dismounted his men and threw his troops as groups of skirmishers down the draws leading into one side of the canon. Slim and his posse were on the left flank, armed with revolvers. Hardie, with a section, dashed down the trail. They came upon the Apaches with the rush of a mountain torrent, striking them in the front and on the flank. The cavalrymen fired at will, each plunging from one cover to another as he picked out his man. The Indians, for a few moments, replied shot for shot. Their stand was a short one, however, and they began to fall back. Slim entered the canon at the head of the scouts, driving the Apaches before him. Both Jack and Dick had fallen. Across the bodies a wave of the battle flowed. Once the Indians rallied, but so sudden was the attack, so irresistible the forward dash of the cavalrymen, that they became discouraged, and broke and fled toward their horses, with the soldiers in pursuit. Slim hurried to Dick's side, seeing he was the worst hurt. As he knelt beside him, the dying man opened his eyes and smiled. Leaning over him, Slim heard him gently whisper: "Tell her I know she was true, and not to mind." With a deep sigh, his eyelids fluttered, and all was still. The scouts had taken charge of Jack, who was unconscious, and bleeding freely. From the spring the fighting had drifted southward. Few of the Indians reached the horses, and fewer still got away. Scattering shots showed the hunt for those who fled on foot was still on. Then soft and mellow over canon and mesa and butte floated the bugle-call, recalling the cavalrymen to the guidon. Back they came, cheering and tumultuous, only to be silenced by the presence of their dead. They buried Dick's body near the spring, and carved his name with a cavalry saber on a boulder near-by. At dawn the next day they began the long march back to Fort Grant. Slim took charge of Jack, nursing him back to life. CHAPTER XIV The Round-up Much has been written of the passing of the cowboy. With the fenced range, winter feeding, and short drives his occupation once appeared to be gone. But the war of the sheep and cattlemen in the Western States has recently caused the government to compel the cattlemen to remove the fences and permit the herds of sheep and cattle to range over public lands, and this means a return of the regime of the cowboy, with its old institutions. Chief among these is the round-up. A sheepman can shear wherever he happens to be. He can entrain at the nearest shipping-point to his grazing-bed. But a herd of cattle will range four hundred miles in a season, so the cattlemen will be forced to revive the round-up, and make the long drives either back to the home ranch, or to the railroad. More cowboys will have to be employed. All the free life of the open will return. At work the cow-puncher is not of the drinking, carousing, fight-hunting type; nor again is he of the daring romantic school. He is a Western man of the plains. True, after loading up his cattle and getting "paid off," he may spend his vacation with less dignity and quiet than a bank clerk. But after a year of hard work with coarse fare he must have some relaxation. He takes what he finds. The cattle-towns cater to his worst passions. He is as noisy in his spending as a college boy, and, on the average, just as good natured and eager to have a good time. Only a man of tried and proved courage can hold his job. Skill and daring are needed to handle the half-wild beasts of the herds. The steer respects no one on foot, but has a wholesome fear for a mounted man. Taken separately, neither man nor horse has the smallest chance with range cattle, but the combination inspires the fear noticeable among the Apaches for cavalryman as compared with their contempt for foot-soldiers. The longhorned steer will fight with the ferociousness of a tiger. A maddened cow will attack even a man on horseback. The most desperate battles of the range are with cows who have lost their calves. The cow-puncher first comes in contact with his cattle at the round-up. The outfit consists of a foreman with eight men to each thousand head as drivers. Each man has from six to ten mounts. The broncos are only half-broken. But they follow a steer like a terrier does a ball. They delight in the game as much as a polo-pony. A chuck-wagon accompanies each outfit. This is usually of the United States Army type, solidly built and hauled by four mules. The cook of the outfit is the driver. He has a helper, a tenderfoot, or a boy learning the trade. In the field only the bravest dares defy the cook. His word on the camp is law. All the men are subject to his call. In the wagon are carried a tent, the men's bedding, sleeping-bags, and stores consisting of pork, navy beans, flour, potatoes, canned tomatoes, and canned peaches. At the rear end of the wagon bed is a built-up cupboard, the door of which can be lowered with straps to make a table. Dishes, the lighter food supplies, and a small medicine-chest are stored there. A water-barrel is strapped to the side of the wagon. Enough fire-wood for emergency use is packed under the driver's seat. No wagon is complete without a bucket hanging from the axle. The spare horses are driven with the herd, the men taking turns at the task. At daybreak each morning the cowboys scatter from the mess-wagon, riding up and down the draws and over the hills, driving in the cattle for branding and the "cutting out," or separating from the herd, of marketable beeves. These are known as "dogies," "sea-lions," and "longhorns." The size as well as the nickname depends upon the location of the range. The cattle of the Sweetwater valley were smaller than the northern stock. From four to six thousand were driven at a time. The calves are lassoed and thrown, and the owner's brand is burned into the hide, leaving a scar which, if the work is well done, will last until the beef is sold. Branding is hard work. The dust, the odor of burning flesh, the heat of the corral fire for heating the irons, the bellowing of frightened mother cows, and the bleating of the calves, the struggles with the victims, these try men's strength and tempers severely. Once branded, the calf is turned loose and not touched again until it is four years old and ready for the market. Stray unbranded cattle over a year old are known as "mavericks," and become the property of any person branding them. Having cut out the stock for the drive, a road mark, a supplementary brand for identification burned into the hides. The long march then begins. A start is made usually in the late spring to reach the railroad in the fall. The drive is as orderly as the march of an army. By natural selection the leaders of the cattle take the head of the herd. They are especially fitted for the place. The same ones are found in the front every day, and the others fall into position, so that throughout the drive the cattle occupy the same relative position each day. A herd of a thousand beef will stretch out for two miles. The leaders are flanked by cowboys riding upon Mexican saddles with high backs and pommels. The stirrups are worn long, the riders standing in them in emergency. The Mexican is the only saddle fitted for rough work. The cowboy's seat, his ease in the saddle, would make a poor showing in a riding academy or in a cavalry school. Yet the park rider and the soldier would be helpless on the range. The cow-puncher of the plains and the Cossack of the steppes are said to be the best riders in the world, yet each has a different saddle and seat. An exchange of equipment makes poor riders of both of them. The cow-puncher of Texas and Arizona wears chaps of leather or sheepskin to protect his legs from the mesquit-bushes or the thorns of the cactus. These plants not being found in the northern plains, chaps are not worn there. The cowboy wears a handkerchief about the neck, not for protection from the sun, but to cover the mouth while riding through sand and windstorms. Flankers ride on each side of the herd at regular intervals. The chuck-wagon and the spare horses follow far enough in the rear to avoid the dust. For the first few days the drives are long and hard, averaging from twenty-five to thirty miles a day, until the cattle are well tired. Then the pace is set at twelve to fifteen miles. From dawn until noon the herd is allowed to water and graze along the trail toward their destination. About noon they become restive. The cowboys then drive them steadily forward for eight or ten miles, until early evening, when they are halted for another graze. As night falls they are turned into the bedding grounds. The men ride slowly around the herd, crowding them into a compact mass. As the circle lessens the beasts lie down to rest and chew their cuds. About midnight the cattle usually get up, stand a while, and then lie down again, having changed sides. The night-guard slowly circles the herd, the men relieving each other at stated intervals. On rainy, stormy nights, the guard has to double, as the cattle are restless and easily stampeded. Under a clear sky, breathing the bracing air of the plains, with the herd well in hand, the day's work is a pleasant one. But in a steady downpour, with the thunder rolling and the animals full of fear, the task is one to tax the stoutest heart. The cause of a stampede is always some trifle. A heavy clap of thunder, a flash of lightning, the breaking of a stick, the howl of a wolf, will start the herd off in a blind rush in any direction, heedless of cliffs over which they may tumble, or of rivers whose current will sweep hundreds of the frightened beasts to death. Once the cattle are off on a stampede, the cowboys ride recklessly, madly to the head of the herd, getting to one side of the leaders. With shouts and pistol-shots they turn the leaders to one side, gradually at first, and then into the arc of a great circle. Blindly racing after the leaders the other cattle follow; and round they plunge until head and tail of the herd meet, and "milling" begins. Any that fall are ground to death by the hoofs of the others. This mighty grind continues until the animals are exhausted or they have recovered from the fight. To soothe the hysterical beasts, the men begin to sing. Any song will do, but the drawling old hymn tunes of the Methodist camp-meetings have the best effect. Ofttimes the more hysterical members of the herd are shot, as a stampede means a great loss. Animals that stampede once are prone to do it again. The mingling of herds increases the danger. In old days the approach of a herd of buffalo was sure to start a stampede among cattle. Men were detailed to turn the shaggy monsters aside whenever they came within hearing. Rivers are crossed by one of the cow-punchers swimming his horse in the lead and the other men driving the animals after him. Once near the shipping-point, the herd is allowed to rest up and fatten, while the owner makes his deal with the cattle-buyers of Omaha or Chicago. The animals are driven or decoyed into the cars, and the last journey, to the packing-house, begins. Punchers accompany them to feed and water the beasts on the trip. They help turn them into the pens. One night in Chicago, one meal, a dinner ending with a "Lillian Russell" (peaches or apple pie covered with ice-cream) as dessert, and the punchers start West again to begin anew the work of the fall roundup, which is on a smaller scale than the spring one. It is dawn in the valley of the Sweetwater. The spring rains have freshened the verdure of the plain. Clumps of coarse grass fringe the river's brink. Cacti and Spanish bayonets nod in the morning breeze, which sweeps down from the mountains. Yucca palms and sahuaroes glisten with the dew. In the distance rise the foot-hills crowned with stunted live-oaks. On the horizon tower the mountains, pine-clad to the timber-line, bare and desolate above. The outfit of Sweetwater Ranch has gathered for the round-up and the drive to the railroad. In the absence of her husband, Echo Payson had assumed complete charge of the ranch, and with the help of Sage-brush had carried on the work just as she thought Jack would do, hoping against hope for his return in safety, and hiding her sorrow from those about her. Under a clump of cottonwood, a chuck-wagon has halted. Many of the boys on the round-up are still asleep, the night herders returning to camp. The cook has started his preparations for breakfast. His wagon has a covered top like a prairie-schooner. The tail-board has been lowered to form a table, supported by rawhide straps. About him are scattered tin cups and kitchen utensils. A thin spiral of smoke arises from the fire which has been made in a shallow pit to prevent a spread of flames. The flickering flashes illumine the cook's face as he bends over a steaming pot of coffee, and reveal the features of Parenthesis. Parenthesis is mixing dough in a dish-pan set on the tail-board. Sage-brush kneels near him, putting on his spurs, preparatory to saddling up as he goes on the first relief. "Wake up Texas and the other boys, Fresno," ordered Sage-brush. The Californian threw away the butt of his cigarette and shook each man by the shoulder. With much yawning and rubbing of eyes the men crawled from their sleeping-bags. Dashing cold water into their faces from a basin beside the water-barrel, they drank copiously of the coffee which Parenthesis poured out for them. "Mostly all the boys are in now, ain't they?" asked Parenthesis, looking about the group. "Yep," answered Sage-brush, "we'll finish brandin' the calves to-day. I reckon Fresno will have to take charge of the drive. I can't leave the ranch until Jack gets back." Show Low was the only sleeper who had not responded to Parenthesis' call. That worthy walked over and gave him a kick which brought forth a grunt but no other sign of an awakening. Returning to the fire, Parenthesis took a tin cup and poured himself out a cup of coffee. "Heard any word from him yet?" he asked, as he gulped the beverage. "Nothin'," replied Sage-brush grimly. "Slim wrote from Fort Grant he was on the trail, but the 'Paches were out an' they wouldn't let him leave the fort till the soldiers went with him." "Slim hadn't oughter gone and left things the way he did. Buck McKee is gettin' a lot of bad men together, and 'lows he is goin' to run for sheriff himself," growled Fresno. "He's sure got a tough outfit with him; Slim being away ain't doin' us any good. All the rustlers from Texas an' New Mexico came trailin' into the country just as soon as they heard he was gone. Won't surprise me if we have a run in with the bunch afore we git through with this round-up." "I got my eye on that Peruna," interjected Fresno. "Peruna! who's he?" asked Texas. "One of Buck's outfit," answered Fresno. "He is mighty slick with the runnin'-iron and brandin' other folks' calves." "We can't be too careful," warned Sage-brush. "Things is strained to the bustin'-point, and any promise of gun-play is goin' to set off a whole lot of fireworks." Show Low was on the verge of waking up. This he did, by gradually increasing the volume of each snore and breaking it off with a whistle. At the very moment Sage-brush suggested gun-play, Show Low snorted his loudest. "What's that?" asked Sage-brush, grabbing his revolver. "Show Low. He's a regular brass band when he gets started--from the big trombone down to the tin whistle," laughed Fresno. "It's a wonder he can sleep alongside of that noise." "He can't," Fresno volunteered. "He'll wake himself up in a minute. He's off now." The snores of Show Low grew more frequent until he climaxed his accompaniment to sleep with one awful snort, which awakened him. "Eh, what's that?" he yelled, as he bounded to a sitting posture. "Didn't I tell you?" queried Fresno. Sage-brush grinned and slowly arose, gathering up his saddle and rope. Swinging one over each arm, he started toward the corral, saying: "Come on, boys, we got a lot to do to-day. Git your hosses." The night riders, were coming into camp greeting their comrades with grunts, or in a few words telling them what to guard against in some particular part of the grazing herd. The sun had risen. The cattle were on their feet browsing the short, sweet grass, moving slowly toward the river. "Work," growled Show Low, "darn me if I ain't commenced to hate it." Fresno picked up his saddle to follow his foreman, but paused long enough to fire this parting shot at the cook: "Say, Parenthesis, if them biscuits you're makin' is as hard as the last bunch, save four of 'em for me. I want to shoe that pony of mine." Parenthesis threw a tin cup at Fresno, who dodged it. Punching the dough viciously, he said: "Darn this housekeepin'. Gets a feller's hands all rough,--it's enough to spile the disposition of a saint." His soliloquy was interrupted by Buck McKee riding up to the wagon from Lazy K outfit, which was camping a mile below them. "Hello, Cookie! How goes it?" was his greeting. "You wind it up, and it goes eight days." Parenthesis bellowed, his temper fast reaching the breaking-point. "Jack Payson ain't back yet?" Buck asked, paying no attention to the bad humor of Parenthesis. "Not that I knows on." The cook rolled the dough with elaborate care. "Nor Hoover?" "Ain't seen him," he replied curtly. "Well, they ain't comin' back, either. They pulled it off pretty slick on us fellers. Hoover he lets Payson go and makes a bluff at chasin' after him. Then they gets off somewhere, splits up the money, and gives us the laugh." Parenthesis turned on him in anger and shouted: "'I'll bet my outfit against a pair of green socks either one of 'em or both will be back here before this round-up is over." "You will, eh?" snarled Buck. "Well, we're just waitin' for 'em. We'll swing Payson so high he'll look like a buzzard, and as for Hoover--well, he's served his last term as sheriff in this yere county, you hear me shouting." McKee cut his pony with his quirt and dashed away in time to escape an unwelcome encounter with several members of the Sweetwater outfit who were riding back to camp. "S-t-a-y with him, Bud, s-t-a-y with him," shouted Parenthesis, as the first of the cowboys pitched on a bucking horse past the chuck-wagon, the rider using quirt and spurs until he got the bronco into a lope. The other boys followed, each cayuse apparently inventing some new sort of deviltry. For two weeks before the round-up the outfit had been busting broncos at the home ranch. Each morning at dawn they started, working until the heat of the day forced them to rest. When the temperature crawls to 104 in the shade, and the alkali-dust is so thick in the corral that the hoofs raise a cloud in which horses can hide themselves twenty feet away, when eyes smart and the tongue aches in the parched mouth, it becomes almost impossible to handle yourself, let alone a kicking, struggling bronco. As one day is like another, and one horse differs from another only in the order of his tricks to avoid the rope and the saddle, a glimpse of the horsemanship of Bud Lane and his fellows will serve as a general picture of life on any Western ranch. The breaking of the ponies was the work of Bud Lane, who, through the influence of Polly, had broken with McKee and returned to work on Sweetwater Ranch in order to assist Echo, with whom he had become reconciled on discovering that she had been loyal to his brother even to the extent of sending her husband into the desert to bring Dick back. Bud was the youngest of the hands, but a lad born to the saddle and rope. "Weak head and strong back for a horse-fighter" is a proverb on the plains, and Bud had certainly acted the part. Fresno and Show Low, with four flankers, had driven into the corral a half-dozen horses untouched by man's hands since the days of colthood. A shout, a swing of a gate, and the beasts were huddled in the round corral, trembling and snorting. This corral has a circular fence slightly higher than a man's head with a snubbing-post in the center. While this is going on, Bud has laid out his cow-saddle, single-rigged, his quirt, and pieces of grass rope for cross-hobbling. "Ready, Bud?" asks Sage-brush. "Yep," he replies, as he drops into the corral. Bud adjusts the hondo and loop of his lariat, keeping his eye on the circling horses, and picking out his first victim. The rope snakes through the air, and falls over the head of a pony. Leaping, bucking, striking with his hoofs at the rope about his neck, the horse fights and snorts. As the rope tightens, shutting off his wind, he plunges less viciously. Bud, with the help of Fresno and Show Low, takes a turn about the snubbing-post, easing up the rope to prevent the horse from breaking his neck when he falls. The pony, with braced feet, hauls on the lariat, until choking, it throws itself. Bud in a twinkling has his knee on the bronco's neck. Grasping the under jaw, he throws the head up in the air until the nose points skyward. The turn is slipped from the post, and the noose is slackened and pulled like a bridle over the animal's head, to be fastened curbwise to his under jaw. Stunned and choked, the horse fights for breath, giving Bud time to hobble his front feet and bridle it. Bud jumps aside as the bronco struggles to his feet. But every move of the beast to free itself results in a fall. Meantime the hind foot has been noosed and fastened to the one in front. Bud has cross-hobbled the horse, preparing it for the saddle and the second lesson. Holding the pony by the reins and rope, Bud, after many failures, throws a saddle-blanket across its back. With one hand he must also toss a forty-pound saddle into place. Every move Bud makes is fought by the bronco, every touch of blanket resented. With his free hand, Bud must now slip the latigo strap through the cinch-ring. Dodging, twisting, struggling, covered with sweat, the horse foils Bud's quick movements. Finally he succeeds, and with one tight jerk the saddle is in place. No time to think is given the beast. Fresno and Show Low remove the hobbles, but Bud is twisting an ear to distract its attention. This new torture must be met with a new defense, and the horse is so dazed that it stands still to puzzle out the problem. This is what Bud has been waiting for. With the agility of a cat, he swings himself into the saddle. The pony arches its back like a bow-string, every muscle taut. Bud jerks the reins. The horse moves forward, to find that its legs are free. Up it goes in a long curve, alighting with his four feet stiffly planted together. The head is down. Maddened and frightened, the bronco bawls, like a man in a nightmare. Up in air the animal goes again, drawing up its hind feet toward the belly, as if it would scrape off the cinch-strap. The fore feet are extended stiffly forward. Every time the bronco hits the ground, the jar is like the fall of a pile-driver's weight. Bud watches every move. When the feet hit the earth, he rises in stirrups to escape the jolt. But always he is in the saddle, for any unexpected move. The horse rises on its hind legs to throw the rider. Should it fall backward, the wind will be knocked of the animal, but Bud will be out of the saddle before he strikes the ground, and into it again before horse can struggle erect. If it tries the trick again, Bud uses the quirt, lashing it about the ears, the flanks, and under the belly. There is not a part of the body into which the biting leather does not cut. Lashing the flanks drives the horse forward. The struggle has been going on for twenty minutes. Bud is covered with sweat and dust. The horse has begun to sulk. It will not respond to rein or quirt. Now is the time for the steel. Bud drives the spurs deep into its flanks. The horse plunges forward with a bounding leap. Again the spurs rasp, and again it plunges. The bronco finds that going ahead is the only way in which to avoid punishment. Round and round the corral it gallops until exhausted. The sweat is pouring off the brute in rivulets. It has taken Bud forty minutes to give the first lesson. Easing up the bronco, Bud swings out of the saddle, and then remounts. This is done a half-dozen times, as the horse stands panting and blowing. Then, with a quick movement, the saddle and bridle are flung against the post. Bud pats the bronco on the neck and the flank, and turns it loose for a second lesson in a couple of days. A third will follow before the end of the week. Then he will saddle the horses, unaided, ride them once or twice about the corral, and finally let one of the hands give each the first lesson on the open plains. This means a wild dash anywhere away from the ranch. The rider must avoid holes in the ground, and keep up the pace until the horse slows up on its own account. Four or five of these lessons with a post-graduate course in dodging a waving slicker, and Sage-brush will declare all of the broncos are "plumb gentle." The men were riding out their new string to-day. As each passed, Parenthesis flung a jibe at him. He had resumed his bread-making when Polly rode to the wagon. "Hello, Parenthesis!" was her greeting. "What's the matter with you?" "Nothin'. This yere housekeepin' is gettin' on my nervous system some fearful." Parenthesis struck the dough a savage whack, and added: "I ain't cut out for housekeepin'." "You've been cut out all right," retorted Polly, glancing at his legs, "whatever it's for." Parenthesis was not abashed. "Yep, fer straddlin' a hoss," he proudly replied, as if that were the chief end of man. Polly, thus balked in her teasing, tried a new form of badinage. "Say, the boys are all braggin' on your bread-makin'. Won't you give me your receipt?" "Good cooks," said Parenthesis, "never give away their receipts. Brings bad luck to 'em next time." "Aw, come now, Parenthy, tell me, an' I'll let you make my weddin'-cake." "Will you? an' let me put in whatever I want fer jokes on the boys?" "Yep, everything goes." "Oh, I'll give 'em somethin' to dream on, you can bet yer sweet life! Soap fer Fresno's finger, clothes-pin fer Show Low's nose, bottle o' anty-fat fer Slim. It's a swop, Miss Polly!" "Well, out with yer great secret o' bread-makin'." "Well, Miss Polly, I take flour, an' water, an' sourin's, an' a pinch o' salt--" "Flour an' water, an' sourin's, an' a pinch o' salt," repeated Polly, totting the list off on her fingers. "Why, so do I, an' so does every one. It must lie in the workin'. How long do you work the dough, Parenthesis?" "It must lie in the workin'," repeated Parenthesis solemnly. "Why, I work it, an' work it--" he continued, with exasperating slowness. "How long do you work it?" asked Polly impatiently. "Till my han's look purty clean like!" said Parenthesis, holding up his floury paws. "Then you've got a day's work still before you!" snapped Polly, huffed at seeing herself the victim of a chaffing that she herself had begun. "I won't bother you any longer. So long!" Parenthesis, however, desired to continue the conversation. "When is this yere hitch between you and Bud comin' off?" he asked. Polly drew herself up proudly, and, speaking assumed haughtiness, replied: "We're figurin' on sendin' out the cards next month." The cowboy's eyes twinkled. "Well, I'm a-goin' to give up cigaroot-smokin'." "What for?" asked Polly, in surprise. "Goin' in trainin' to kiss the bride." "That's nice!" said Polly, beaming. "Yep, have to take up chawin', like Bud Lane." Polly was saved from having to answer by Sage-brush galloping up to the wagon. "Put on your gun!" he shouted to Parenthesis. Asking no questions, the cow-puncher obeyed his foreman. Trouble was brewing, that he could plainly see. All he had to do was to obey orders, and shoot when any one tried to point a gun at him. Turning to Polly, he cried: "Where's Mrs. Payson?" "She came over with me, but stopped to look over the tally for those cows that are goin' with the drive." More to himself than to Parenthesis or Polly, Sage-brush said: "I wish she'd stayed at the ranch. This range is no place for women now. Buck McKee and his outfit has tanked up with Gila whisky, an' they're just pawin' for trouble." "What's come over people lately?" asked Polly. "It's all along of Hoover goin' away like he did, and leavin' us without a sheriff, or nobody that is anybody makin' a bluff at law and order," cried Sage-brush. "It's sot this section back twenty years," observed Parenthesis. "That's what it has," agreed the foreman. "Fresno reports that he found that Peruna slappin' the Lazy K brand on one of our calves. There ain't nobody can maverick no calves belongin' to this outfit. Not so long as I'm ranch boss an' captain of the round-up. We've got to take the law in our own han's an' make an example of this bunch, right now." Sage-brush meant what he said. He was gathering reenforcements from his own men. He knew that the boys of the Allen ranch would side with him, and he felt that there were enough lovers of law and order in the county to declare themselves against the high-handed methods of Buck McKee and his followers. "Come on, you fellows!" shouted Show Low, as he rode past the wagon up the range. "What is it now?" asked Sage-brush. Over his shoulder Show Low shouted: "We all had a run in with that Buck McKee's bunch. Fresno's laid out with a hole in his shoulder. Billie Nicker's cashed in. I've got some of the Triangle boys, and we're goin' to make a clean-up." "You ain't goin' to do nothin' unless I say so. We don't want no range-war--we'll git the man that did the killin'. Come on," commanded Sage-brush. Polly galloped after the men, saying: "Gee, I'll miss something if I don't hurry up." CHAPTER XV Peruna Pulls His Freight When Jack closed the door behind him to follow and find Dick Lane and bring him back to the woman who, the restorer believed, loved him, Echo Payson realized the supremacy over her soul--her pure ideals, her lofty sense of justice--of its tenement, the woman's body--that fair but fragile fabric which trembled responsive to the wild wind of emotional desire, and the seismic shock of the passion of sex. Ever since Jack had revealed to her his jealousy of Dick Lane, she knew that he was living on a lower moral and spiritual plane than herself, and that no longer could she look up to him as the strong protector, the nobler being than herself that had been her girlish ideal of a husband. Instead of this, another love sprang instantly into her heart, that of the stronger soul for the weaker, like to the feeling of the mother toward the child. The moral side of her desire toward Jack now became fixed in the purpose to lift him up to her own level. Now that he had gone from her on a mission that was fulfilling this very purpose of regeneration, although she had not sent him upon it for his own sake, but her own--Echo knew that, after all, she was a woman. She loved Jack Payson with the unreasoning and unrestrained passion that sways even the highest of her sex. By the balance of natural law she was lowering herself to meet him as he was coming up in the moral scale, and thus preparing for herself and her husband a happy union of a mutual understanding of weaknesses held in common. Were Echo to remain always on the heights and Jack in the valley, sooner or later a cloud would have separated them, a ghostly miasma rising from the grave of Dick Lane, whom Echo would have idealized as the nobler man. She very sensibly took refuge from these perplexing problems by jumping into the active life of the ranch. Faithfully she tried to perform all that she thought Jack would have done. Her father and mother wanted her to come back to her old home until he returned. There she would have more company and fewer memories of Jack surrounding her. Each offer, each suggestion was kindly but firmly put aside. When Jack returned she must be the first to welcome him, the first to greet him at his threshold, whether it was broad daylight or in the silent watches of the night. From her lips he must learn he had been forgiven; she alone must tell him how much she loved him, and that together they must go through life until the last round-up. Echo and her father, who was looking after his own cattle on the round-up, rode up to the chuck-wagon, after Parenthesis and Sage-brush crossed the valley to mete out justice to Peruna and fight out any attempts at a rescue. Dismounting, Echo walked wearily to the fire and sat down on a box. Bravely though she tried to conceal it, the strain was beginning to tell upon her. The tears would come at times, despite her efforts to fight them off. The burden was so heavy for her young shoulders to bear. A note from Slim, written at Fort Grant, with a lead-pencil, on a sheet of manila paper, told her briefly that he was going into the Lava Beds with the troops--as the Apaches were out. Dick and Jack, he wrote, were somewhere in the Lava Beds, and he would bring them back with him. She dared not let herself think of the Apaches and the horrors of their cruelties. "Better let me get you somethin' to eat," said her father, returning from picketing the horses. Echo smiled wanly at her father's solicitude. "I am not hungry, Dad." Jim seated himself by the fire. He recognized his helplessness in this trouble. There was nothing he could do. If one of the boys was what Allen would have called it, "down on his luck," he would have asked him to have a drink, but with Josephine and the girls he was at his wit's end. The sufferings of his loved daughter cut deeply into his big heart. "You been in the saddle since sunup," he said. "You hain't had nuthin' to eat since breakfast--I don't see what keeps you alive." "Hope, Dad, hope. It is what we women live upon. Some cherish it all their lives, and never reap a harvest. I watch the sun leap over the edge of the world at dawn, and hope that before it sinks behind the western hills the man I love will come home to my heart. Oh, Dad, I'm not myself! I haven't been myself since the day I sent him away--my heart isn't here. It's out in the desert behind yon mountains--with Jack." "Thar, thar, don't take on so, honey." Kneeling beside her father, she laid her head on his lap, as she did in childhood when overwhelmed with the little troubles of the hour. Looking into his eyes, she sighed: "Oh, Dad, it's all so tangled. I haven't known a peaceful moment since he went away. I've sent him away into God knows what unfriendly lands, perhaps never to return--never to know how much I loved him." Patting her head, as if she were a tired child, he said: "It'll all come out right in the end. You can't never tell from the sody-card what's in hock at the bottom of the deck." Further confidences between father and daughter were interrupted by the boys of the round-up dashing up to the wagon, with Peruna in the midst of the group. Peruna had been disarmed. Dragging the prisoner from his bronco, they led him before Allen, who had risen from his seat. "What's all this, boys?" asked the ranchman. Sage-brush, as foreman, explained: "This yere's Peruna of the Lazy K outfit." Allen looked at the prisoner, who maintained a sullen silence. "What's he been doin'?" "Mostly everything, but Fresno caught red-handed brandin' one of our yearlin's," cried Sage-brush. "It's a lie!" broke in Peruna, glancing doggedly from one to another of his guards. He knew death was the penalty of the crime of which he stood accused. He felt that a stout denial would gain him time, and that Buck and his outfit might come up and save him. "Polite your conversation in the presence of a lady," cried Parenthesis, nodding toward Echo. "That calf was follerin' my cow," answered Peruna sullenly. "It was follerin' one of our longhorned Texas cows with the Sweetwater brand spread all over her," shouted Show Low, moving menacingly toward the cowering Peruna. "Fresno he calls him," continued Sage-brush, taking up the story; "an' this yere Peruna--drinking bad turns loose his battery and wings Fresno some bad--then little Billie Nicker comes along, and Peruna plugs him solid." Poor Billie had been Show Low's bunkie on many a long drive. That veteran now paid this last tribute to his friend. "Billie, who ain't never done no harm to no one--" "He reached for his gun--" began Peruna. Sage-brush would not let him finish his lame defense. "You shet up!" he cried. "We don't want your kind on this range, an' the quicker that's published the quicker we'll get shet of ye. We're goin' to take the law in our own hands now--come on, boys." Two of the boys seized Peruna, dragging him toward his horse. Echo halted them, however, with the query: "What are you going to do with this man?" "Take him down to the creek and hang him to that big cottonwood--" cried Show Low savagely. Before Echo could answer, Peruna demanded a hearing. "Hol' on a minute, I got something to say about that!" "Out with it," growled Sage-brush. "Las' time there was an affair at that cottonwood the rope broke, an' the hoss-thief dropped into the creek, swum acrost, and got away." Sage-brush glared grimly at Peruna. "Well, we'll see that the rope don't break with you." In all seriousness Peruna replied: "I hope so. I can't swim." Polly, glancing down the valley, saw Buck McKee with a half-dozen of his outfit, riding furiously to the rescue of Peruna. "Look out, boys, here comes Buck McKee now!" she shouted. Unconsciously the men laid their hands on their guns and assumed offensive attitudes. Allen cried sharply: "Keep your hands off your guns, boys. One bad break means the starting of a lot of trouble." Buck and his band threw themselves off their horses, ranging themselves opposite Sage-brush the Sweetwater boys. Swaggering up to Sage-brush, the half-breed insolently demanded: "Who's the boss of this yere Payson outfit?" "I reckon you are talkin' to him now," coolly replied the foreman. "You've got one of my boys over here," bellowed Buck, adding with the implied threat: "an' we've come for him." Sage-brush was not bluffed by Buck's insolence or his swaggering manners. "I reckon you can't have him just yet." "What's he been doing?" demanded Buck. "He killed Billie Nicker--that's one thing." "Self-defense," loftily replied Buck. "He was 'tendin' to his own business when your two men come up and begin pickin' on him." Bursting with anger, Parenthesis strode up to Buck, and shouted: "He was brandin' one of our yearlin's, that's what his business was." Sage-brush suggested, in addition: "Perhaps you mean that brandin' other folks' cattle is the reg'lar business of the Lazy K outfit." "Anythin' with hide and no mark is Lazy K to you all--" growled Show Low. "Your goin' strong on reg'lar proceedin's, I see," said Buck to Sage-brush. "You ain't sheriff of this yere county, air you?" "That's jest it. Somebody's got to act sooner or later, an' if there ain't no reg'lar law, we'll go back to the old times, an' make our own." The Sweetwater outfit assented unanimously to Sage-brush's declaration of freedom from outlaw rule in the county. "You're a fine lot to set up as law-abidin' citizens--" sneered Buck. "Workin' for a man that had to hop the country to keep clear of the rope," interjected Peruna, who, heartened up by the advent of McKee, began pouring oil on a smoldering fire. Sage-brush turned savagely upon him: "That'll do for you." Echo walked hastily to Sage-brush's side. She felt her presence might help to avoid the outbreak which she saw could not long be avoided. Peruna had lost control of tongue and discretion by this time. "You'll never see him back in this section again. You all know where he is--across the line in Mexico--why, she's fixin' to make a clean-up now, an' sell out and join him!" Sage-brush reached for his gun, but Echo restrained him. "You--" he cried. Buck turned angrily on Peruna. "You keep your mouth shet," he shouted. Peruna subsided at his boss' command, mumbling: "There ain't no female can pull the forelock over my eyes." "Take care," warningly called Buck. Peruna fired up again, regardless of consequences. "Why, I see through her game. She's glad to get rid of him, so's she can play up to her ranch boss, Handsome Charley there." Buck had to act instantly to preserve his supremacy over his men. Before any of the Sweetwater outfit could reach Peruna's side, or pull a gun to resent the insult, Buck was on top of him. With a blow full in the mouth, he knocked him sprawling. Echo had seized Sage-brush's hand, preventing him from firing. The other men moved as if to kick Peruna as he lay prostrate. "Let him alone. He's goin' to ask the lady's pardon," snarled Buck, covering him with his gun. Peruna raised himself on one arm. "No, I'll be--" he began. Buck bent over him, speaking in a low tone, tensely and quickly. "Quick! I don't want to have to kill you. You damn' fool, don't you see what I'm playin' fer?" "He ain't fit to live!" shouted Show Low. Buck turned on the cowboy. It was his fight, and he was going to handle it in his own fashion. "Lem me handle this case," he interrupted. "Ther' ain't no man can travel in my outfit and insult a woman--you ask her pardon--right smart." Peruna struggled to his feet. Buck commanded: "On your knees." A glance at Buck showed Peruna how deadly in earnest he was. Reluctantly he sank to his knees. "I didn't mean what I said. I hope you will excuse me--" he whined. "That's enough. Now git up. Pull your freight," Buck ordered. "By God, no!" interposed Sage-brush. The cowboys seized Peruna. Buck saw that his bluff at bossing the situation was called. He turned appealingly to Echo, and rapidly fabricated a moving tale about Peruna's heroic rescue of himself from drowning in the Gila River. "An I swore I would do as much fer him some day. Now I perpose that we all give him a kick, an' let him go; let him have two hours' start, after which the game-laws will be out on him." Sage-brush cried out against the plan, but Echo was moved by McKee's appeal for his comrade, and, speaking low and beseechingly to Sage-brush, said: "It will save a range-war that we can't afford to have till Jack and Slim get back." Sage-brush finally assented. "Two hours' start. Well, he'll have to go some, if he gets away. Kick him and let him go," he commanded. Echo turned away. The cowboys who held Peruna threw him to the ground, and every man of the Allen and Payson ranches gave him a vicious kick, Show Low putting in an extra one for his murdered bunkie. Last of all, McKee approached the prostrate man, and made the mistake which was to cost him his life by booting Peruna cruelly. The man was a stupid fellow by nature, and what wits he had were addled by the habit he had acquired of consuming patent-medicines containing alcohol, morphin, and other stimulating and stupefying drugs. He was as revengeful as stupid, and could have forgiven McKee's putting the rope around his neck more easily than Buck's joining in the humiliation which saved his life. Rising from the ground and trembling with anger, Peruna turned on the half-breed, saying: "I'll square this deal, Buck McKee." "Losin' vallyble time, Peruna. Git!" was all that his former boss deigned to answer. Peruna limped over to his horse, which Parenthesis had been holding in custody, mounted it, and rode off at a lope for the river ford. He crossed it in sight of the Sweetwater outfit, and disappeared behind the riverbank. Here he dismounted, and, picking a small branch of cactus, put it under his horse's tail. The poor beast clapped the tail against it, and, with a scream, set off on a wild gallop across the mesa. Peruna hobbled up the river a mile or so, half-waded, half-swam, to the other side, and entered an arroyo, whose course led back near the camp of the Sweetwater outfit. He had been disarmed by the cowboys of his revolver, but not of his knife. After Peruna had been visited with his punishment, Echo retraced her steps. Bowing to her, hat in hand, Buck made his apologies. "Ma'am, I'm plumb sorry. My mother was a Cherokee squaw, but I'm white in some spots. If you'll let your ranch boss come along with us, we'll settle this brandin'-business right now." Sage-brush did not care to accept the offer, but Echo ordered him to go with the Lazy K outfit. Seeing it was useless to argue with her, he said: "Come on, boys." Ere they had ridden out of sight, Echo sank, exhausted, on the seat by the fire. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Polly played the role of comforter. "Don't mind 'em," she said. "Better come to the ranch with me. You're all tuckered out. You've been runnin' this ranch fer a month like a man." "I'll take your advice, Polly, and ride home. Tell Dad I want him, will you?" CHAPTER XVI Death of McKee, Disappointed Desperado Bud's conscience was not troubling him so much now. In fact, he was rather proud of his conduct of late. He had "shaken" Buck McKee, and he had forgiven Echo for all the hard thoughts he had against her--without considering that she would be more than woman if she failed to harbor resentment against the man who had prevented her from calling her husband back from the desert. In the absence of Slim, both Bud and McKee attained a feeling of security in the matter of Terrill murder. McKee had already ventured to use some of his share of the robbery in gambling. Bud had not yet convinced himself either of the right or the advisability of spending his share. Both conscience and fear advised him to keep the blood-money intact. He carried it with him wherever he went, and became, in time, quite pleased with himself because of his compunctions in doing so. He was even pharisaical about McKee's gambling. No, when his mind had come clear about keeping it, he would make an honest use of it, such as investing it in a saloon in Florence. When, however, he suggested to Polly that dispensing liquors over a bar and running a faro-game on the side would be a congenial occupation, suited to their talents, she sat down forcibly upon his aspiration, and they finally compromised on Polly's proposition to conduct a livery-stable in Tucson, where, Polly felt, though she did not say so to Bud, that Sheriff Hoover, with whom she had been flirting too dangerously, would not be in evidence, as in Florence. Polly, however, was greatly puzzled over Bud's confidence in his ability to raise the wind that would launch this delectable, but to her mind illusory, enterprise. In a moment of weakness he intimated that he already had the money in hand. How had he got it? she demanded. "Saved it," he said. When she asked him how he could have saved the thousand dollars demanded for the stable out of his salary of forty dollars a month, he replied: "By economizin'. I've cut off my chawin-tobacco." "That cost you two bits a week, an' you've taken up cigarettes at a dime a day," said observant Polly. "I know what you've been doin', you've been gamblin'." "Cross my heart, Polly, I haven't," said Bud, and Polly, who had no great objection to using money won at cards, so long as she did not positively know the fact, discontinued her objections, and resumed the delightful occupation of castle-building. The home she had in view consisted of three rooms over the livery-stable. "I want a red carpet in the front room, and wallpaper like that at Bowen's store, with hosses jumpin' gates on it--" "Don't you think there will be a leetle too much hoss there, Polly, with the stable under us, an' the smell a-comin' up--" "Sho, Bud, you can't have too much hoss. Why, it was the hoss smell about your clothes that made me fall in love with you," exclaimed the enthusiastic horsewoman. She continued: "An' I want a yellow plush furniture set, an' a photograph-album to match, an' a center-table, an' a Rock-of-Ages picture, an' a boudoir--" A boudoir was beyond the ken of Bud. He knew nothing of housekeeping. This must be one of those strange articles, the mystery of which he would have to solve before he could feel that he was really a married man. "What the devil is a boudoir?" he asked. "I don't know what it is, but all rich women have them." Bud took both of Polly's hands in his. Looking her fondly in the eyes, he said: "Then, by thunder, I'll get you two of 'em. We'll raise the limit when we furnish that shack. I'm the happiest man in the country." "Well you ought to be," laughed Polly. "Just see what you are gettin'." "I've got to chase myself back to the house. You're ridin' night herd to-night, ain't you?" she added. "Yes. I'm on the cocktail to-night. I am goin' to bunk down here. I'll be up to the house at sunup, and we can go over to Florence together." "I'll have breakfast ready for you. Rope my pony for me, will you?" Bud was smiling and happy again. All of his troubles were forgotten. "All right!" he cried, as he started to mount. "Say, you're awful forgetful, aren't you?" asked Polly demurely. Bud looked about him slightly bewildered. Then he realized his oversight. He ran to Polly's and tried to kiss her, but she motioned him aside, saying: "Too late--you lose." "But I didn't know," stammered Bud. "Next time you'll know. On your way," airily commanded the girl. Bud's face darkened. "Oh, well, good-by." Polly looked after him perplexed and angry. His surrender to her whims without a fight nettled her. "Good-by, yourself," she snapped. "He's the most forgetful man I ever loved. If I thought he was a gamblin'-man, I'd get a divorce from him before I married him. I would sure," murmured Polly, as Bud disappeared toward the corral. Polly's musing was interrupted by the return of Buck McKee. "Is Bud Lane over yere?" he asked. "You must have passed him just now. He's just got in from night-herdin'." "I thought I seed him comin' this way. When's the weddin'-bells goin' to ring?" Polly flushed. "Next month. Then you'll lose Bud's company fer good," she answered defiantly. "Well, I ain't been doin' him much good," Buck assented. "I'm goin' back home, though." Polly gazed at Buck in surprise. Here was a new view of the man; one she had never considered. It was strange to hear this outlaw and bad man talk of a home. The repetition of the word "home" by Polly, led him to continue: "Yep. Up to the Strip, where I was borned at. This yere climate's a leetle too dry to suit me. I'm goin' to get a leetle ranch and a leetle gal, an' settle down for sure." "I wish you may," said Polly heartily. "You sure acted mighty fine about that Peruna insultin' Mrs. Payson." Harshly as Polly had felt toward Buck, his actions in the recent incidents had softened her feelings toward him. "I admire to hear you say it," said Buck, bowing. "I've played square with women all my life. I ain't never slipped a card nor rung in a cold deck on any one of 'em yet." Buck sat down on the step of the wagon. He hesitated for a moment, and then asked: "Say, did you ever have a premonition?" "Nope! The worst I ever had was the hookin'-cough." Buck smiled, but did not explain to Polly the meaning of the word. "Well, this premonition," he continued, "hits me hard, an' that's what makes me start for home. Thought I'd like to say good-by to you an' Bud. I go north with the big drive in the mornin', an' won't see you ag'in." "Well, good luck and good-by to you." Polly held out her hand in her most friendly fashion. Buck arose and took off his hat. As he stepped toward her, he cried: "Same to you. Good-by." Grasping her by the hand, he added warmly: "An'--happiness." "I'll tell Bud you're here," cried Polly over her shoulder. Buck looked after the girl as she swung across the prairie to find Bud. "She's a darned fine leetle gal, she is," mused Buck. "Seein' Bud so happy, kinder makes me homesick. Things is gettin' too warm for me here, anyway. If Payson gets back, he'll be able to clear himself about that Terrill business, an' things is likely to p'int pretty straight at me an' Bud. I'm sorry I dragged Bud into that. I could have done it alone just as well--an' kep' all the money." McKee sat down to wait for Bud. His mind was filled with pleasant thoughts. Having assumed a chivalrous role in the Peruna incident, he was tasting something of the sweet sensations and experiences that follow a sincerely generous action. Smiles and pleasant greetings from Polly, who had heretofore met him with venomous looks and stinging words, were balm to his soul. He felt well-satisfied with himself and kindly toward the whole world. The fiendish torturer of helpless men and harmless beasts, the cold-blooded murderer, the devilish intriguer to incriminate an innocent man, thought that he was a very good fellow, after all; much better than, say, such a man as Jack Payson. He had at least always treated women white, and had never gone back on a friend. When he thought how Payson had drawn his pistol on trusting, unsuspecting Dick Lane in the garden, he was filled with the same pharisaic self-righteousness that inflated Bud when comparing himself with McKee. His enjoyment in contemplating his own virtues was overclouded, however, by a vague presentiment of impending danger, the "premonition" he had of to Polly--a word he had picked up from fortune-tellers, whom he often consulted, being very superstitious, as are most gamblers. And Nemesis in the person of Peruna was indeed approaching. The outlaw crept up out of the draw behind the contemplative half-breed, and, leaping upon his back, plunged his knife in McKee's neck, with a fierce thrust, into which he concentrated all his hatred for the humiliation he had endured. With a stifled cry Buck struggled to his feet to face his assailant, drawing his gun instinctively. The knife had bitten too deeply, however. With a groan he fell; weakly he tried to level his gun, his finger twitching convulsively at the trigger. Peruna waited to see if he had strength enough to fire. A sneering smile added to the evil appearance of his face. Seeing Buck helpless, he snatched the gun from his hand. Then he turned his victim over so he could reach the pocket of his waistcoat. With the blood-stained knife he ripped open the cloth and extracted a roll of paper and money. Peruna was kneeling beside the body of his former friend, when a voice drawled: "Drop that knife!" Peruna jumped up with a grunt of dismay to see Slim Hoover sitting on horseback, with his revolver held upright, ready for use. Peruna hesitated: "Drop it!" ordered Slim sharply, slightly lowering the gun. Peruna tossed away the knife with a snarl. "I'll take care of your friend's bundle, and the papers and money you took from his pocket. Drop them. I didn't figure on gettin' back to business as soon as I got home, but you never can tell. Can you?" The last remark was addressed to his deputy, Timber Wiggins, who had joined him. "This yere's Timber Wiggins, deputy sheriff from Pinal County," explained Slim, for Peruna's enlightenment. "Mr. Wiggins, will you take care of this friend of mine?" continued the Sheriff, glancing from Peruna, who looked at him stolidly, to Wiggins. "I reckon he's been doin' something naughty." The two men dismounted, keeping the outlaw covered and watching his every glance. "Anything to oblige," replied Wiggins, who had solemnly entered with Slim into his assumed formality. Wiggins stepped behind Peruna, and reaching forward, removed Buck's gun from the outlaw's holster, which had been empty since Buck, earlier in the day, had taken his revolver after he had insulted Echo. "Anything to oblige," said Wiggins to Slim. Then to Peruna he commanded: "Let's take a walk. You first. I'm noted for my politeness." "You might tie him up some," suggested Slim. "I sure will," answered the deputy, as he marched his prisoner toward the corral. Slim hastened to the side of the fallen man, and turned him over on his back to get a glimpse of Peruna's victim. He saw that Buck was still breathing although mortally wounded, the blood gushing from his mouth. McKee recognized the Sheriff. "Hullo! when did you git back?" he asked. "Jes' now. Is this your money?" said Slim, holding the roll in front of McKee's eyes. "No; it's your'n. Part o' what I took from 'Ole Man' Terrill. The idee o' not recognizin' your own property!" McKee grinned at his joke on the Sheriff. "I held the old man up, and that's all there is to it." "Who was with you?" asked Slim. "There was two." McKee was silent. "Bud Lane was the other man," hazarded Slim. "No--" began Buck, but Slim interrupted him. "He was with you that night. He came to the weddin' with you. It ain't no use in denyin' it. I've been thinkin' it all out. I was fooled by Jack's pacing hoss. You and Bud--" Here McKee interrupted with a solemn denial. Whether from a desire to foil the Sheriff, whom he knew was Bud's rival in love, and so thought him the young man's enemy, or from the benevolent spirit induced by the recent contemplation of his virtues, McKee was impelled to give an account of the murder which very convincingly indicated Bud as a protesting catspaw, rather than a consenting accomplice. At the end of the story he smiled grimly: "So while you were out o' the county on a wil'-goose chase after an inercent man, Peruna, he goes loco on paten'-medicine, an' gits the guilty party. Joke's on you, Slim. I nomernate Peruna fer nex' sheriff." Exhausted with the effort and pain of talking, McKee dropped his head upon Hoover's broad breast in a faint. Hoover bore him down to the spring, and bathed his wound and mouth. McKee revived, and in broken phrases, which were accompanied with blood from his pierced lungs frothing out of his mouth, continued his observations on the ridiculous and unfortunate mistake Peruna made in killing him. "Damn' fool--'s bes' fren'--I would herd--'th low-down intellecks--nev' 'preciated--no chance--to be firs'-class--bad man." And so Buck McKee, desperado, died like many another ambitious soul, with expressions of disappointment on his lips. CHAPTER XVII A New Deal Bud Lane, returning to camp, saw the returned Sheriff supporting the dying murderer of Terrill, and listening to what was undoubtedly his confession. He stole away before he was observed. "It's all up with me," he thought. "Buck has told him. Slim hates me along o' Polly. I'll get away from here' to-night." He met Polly by the mess-wagon. At once she saw that something had happened. Bud was deathly pale. He trembled when she spoke to him. "Why, what on earth is the matter?" she asked. "Nothing. I--" answered Bud, glancing about him, as if seeking some way to escape. "You're looking mighty pale--are you sick?" persisted the girl. "Slim Hoover--he's back--" Bud could scarcely speak. His throat was parched. Beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. "What!" cried Polly joyfully. "Is Jack with him?" "Listen here," exclaimed the young wooer. "Slim's heard about our goin' to get married, and he's sworn to shoot me at sight--" It was a lame, halting explanation, but the best Bud could invent on the spur of the moment. He wanted to get away to have time to think. "I don't believe it!" replied Polly indignantly. "Why, Slim--" In his excitement Bud would not let her continue her defense of the Sheriff. "It's so. He's plum locoed. The sun mus' have tetched his brains out in the desert," he explained, with rapid invention. "I don't want no run-in with a crazy man. I might have to shoot, an' Slim's been a good fr'en' of mine. So I'm going to keep out of his way for a while. I'll ride over to the railroad." Polly could not comprehend this strange behavior of Bud. Thinking to make him tell her his trouble by taunting him with cowardice, she asked: "Say, look here, are you scared of Slim Hoover? Just let me handle him." "No, no," expostulated Bud. "Can't you understand? We've been such good friends and--and--I can't pull a gun on him--" Polly was speechless with surprise. "Here he comes now," shouted Bud. "I'll hide in the wagon here--" "Don't hide!" counseled Polly. "Why?" Bud gave her no answer, for he had already disappeared under the cover of the mess-wagon. "I don't like that a little bit. Slim never acted locoed before. I'll have to be mighty careful, I s'pose, for I think a heap of both Slim and Bud." Slim came up to the wagon with his face wreathed in smiles. "If it ain't Miss Polly--" he yelled. Polly, having heard that crazy people had to be humored, ran to meet him, and threw her arms about his neck. "You dear, sweet, old red-headed thing!" she cried; "when did you get back? Where have you been? Where's Jack? Have you seen Echo?" One question was piled upon the other by the enthusiastic girl--Slim had tried to stop her talking that he might answer her, but he might as well have tried to check a sand-storm. Out of breath and puffing, he finally gasped: "Whoa! whoa! Yes'm. I've heard of them Kansas cyclones, but I ain't never got hit with one afore." Polly started all over again. "And Jack, did you find him?--tell me all about it." "See yeah," answered Slim, "I ain't goin' to say nuthin' to nobody till I see Mrs. Payson." "Oh, pshaw!" pouted Polly; "not even me?" "Not even--what I've got to say she must heah first. I'm kinder stiff--if you don't mind, I'll set down a spell." Slim's face was drawn and worn. Although he had lost none of his weight, he showed the effects of the siege of hard riding and fighting through which he had passed. The mental strain under which he had labored had also worn him down. Polly was more than solicitous for his comfort. Not only did she like the Sheriff, but she was now fencing with him to protect her sweetheart from his wrath. She had concluded that Bud's charge that the Sheriff was locoed and jealous was a cover to conceal some genuine apprehension. "You look tuckered out," she said. "Well, I 'low as maybe I am. Been in the saddle for two weeks. Kin I have a cup of coffee?" Polly began to mother him. This appeal for bodily comforts aroused all her womanly instincts. She made him sit down and poured the coffee for him saying: "You sure can. With or without?" "I'll play it straight," grinned Slim. "I reckon you'll have to, anyway. Here you are." Slim took the cup with a "thankee." He drank long and deeply. Then he paused, made a wry face, and danced his feet up and down, as a child does in anger or excitement. "What's the matter?" asked the girl, with a laugh. "If this yeah's coffee give me tea, an' if it's tea give me coffee." The Sheriff put down his cup with a shrug of the shoulders. "It's the best we've got," replied Polly. "Sage-brush got it." "Oh, that's it. I thought it tasted like sage-brush. How's Bud?" he suddenly demanded. Polly glanced nervously at the speaker. "All right, I s'pose." She tried to be noncommittal. Her nervousness almost betrayed her. "Ain't you seen him lately?" Slim insisted. Polly peeped into the wagon before she answered the question. "Yes--I see him every once in a while." In an effort to change the subject of conversation, and get him away from all thoughts of Bud, she asked: "Say, Slim, what's a boudoir?" "A what whar?" stuttered Slim. "A boudoir," Polly repeated. Slim was puzzled, and looked it. Then a new thought lighted up his face. "You don't mean a Budweiser, do you?" Polly, deeply serious, replied: "No--that ain't it--boudoir." Slim ransacked his memory for the word. "Boudoir," he continued reflectively. "One of them 'fo' de wah' things we ust to have down in Kentucky?" An explanation was demanded of him, and he proceeded to invent one. "Well, first you get a--get a--" Polly had fooled him so many times that he became suspicious in the midst of his creation, and asked: "Look a here--you're sure you don't know what boudoir is?" "Why, of course not," answered Polly simply. Slim was relieved by her reply. "All right," he resumed, crossing his legs, as if the position would help him better to think. "A boudoir is a see-gar." "A see-gar?" echoed Polly, distinctly disappointed. Bud's offer to duplicate the boudoir was now reduced to the proportions of "two fer a nickel." "Yep," assured the Sheriff. "They are named after a Roosian--one of them diplomat fellers." "What's a diplomat?" Polly was finding Slim a mine of information, but all of the sort that needed plenty of expansion. Slim chuckled, and with a twinkle in his eye drawled: "A diplomat is a man that steals your hat and coat, and then explains it so well that you give him your watch and chain. Sabe?" Polly did not understand. She felt that Slim was laughing at her, but she could not see any fun in his remark. To end the discussion, however, she said: "I sabe." Polly sauntered away from the wagon. As she passed Slim, he tried to put his arm about her waist. She skilfully evaded him. The Sheriff joined her in the shade of cottonwood. "You know I've been thinking a lot of you lately, Miss Polly?" "Only lately?" she asked mischievously. "Well, yes--that is--" This conversation was becoming too personal for Bud, who in an effort to hear all Slim had to say moved incautiously in the wagon. Slim heard him. "Who's in that wagon?" he cried, moving toward it. "Show Low asleep?" "No. Buddy," said Polly, thinking she might as well confess the deception first as last, and using the childish nickname of her lover in order to soften Slim's anger against him. "Nobody," repeated Slim, not fully convinced that he was mistaken, but stopping in deference to Polly's apparent denial. "Who do you s'pose," asked Polly pertly, taking courage when she found that Slim did not continue his investigation. "You ain't after any Buddy, are you?" "No, but I'll just take a look in here, 'cause I got somethin' particular to say to you, Miss Polly, an' I don't want no listeners." And he moved forward again. At this juncture Polly began to ply her arts as a coquette. Looking shyly at Slim, she murmured, "Are you sure you are not after ANYbody?" The emphasis on the last word was so plain that a shrewder love-maker than Slim would have been deceived. "Eh? What's that?" Polly turned her back to him with assumed bashfulness. Slim's courage arose at the sight. "Well, I reckon this is a pat hand for me, and that's the way I'm a-goin' to play it, if I've got the nerve." Slim smoothed down his tangled hair, and brushed off some of the dust which whitened his shoulders. "Look yeah, Miss Polly--" Then his courage failed him, and he stopped. Polly glanced at him, to help him over the hard places. Slim was greatly embarrassed. "My heart is right up in any throat. Well, I might as well spit it out," he thought aloud. Again Slim started toward the girl to tell her of his love, and again his courage failed him, although Polly was doing her best to help him. "Look yeah, Miss Polly, I've been after somebody for a long time now--" "Horse-thief?" asked Polly coquettishly. "No, heart-thief," blurted Slim. "Stealing hearts ain't no harm." "Well, just the same, I'm goin' to issue a writ of replevin, an' try for to git mine back," laughed Slim. He was about to slip his arm about her waist when she turned and faced him. The action so disconcerted him that he jumped backward, as if the girl was about to attack him. "Where is it?" asked Polly. Slim, deeply in earnest, replied: "You know it's hid. You know just as well as I kin tell you." Polly became remorseful. She realized how much Slim was suffering, and she was sorry that her answer to him would be a disappointment. "Please don't say any more, Slim,"--as she stepped away from him. Slim followed her up, and, speaking over her shoulder, said: "I can't help it. You've got my feelin's stampeded now, an' they sure has to run. I've had an itchin' in my heart for you ever since I first knowed you. You come from Kentucky--well, I was kinder borned up that way myself--in Boone County, an' that sorter makes--well, if it did, what I want to know is--" Slim hesitated, and nervously hauled at his chaps. "Will you be my--" Frightened at his boldness, he clapped his hand over his mouth. "Can I be your--" he began again. Angry at himself, he said under his breath: "I'll never get this damn' thing out of my system." In his earnestness he doubled up his fist and shook it behind the girl's back. Suddenly she turned, and found his clenched hand directly under her nose. She started back in dismay. "Excuse me," humbly apologized Slim. "I didn't mean for to do that, ma'am--deedy, I didn't--I was only--that's--well, I reckon I'm a little bit--" Slim looked directly at the girl for the first time. She was trying to restrain her hearty laughter. Slim's face broadened in a grin. "You're a mighty fine piece of work, you are, an' I've got an 'awful yearnin' to butt into your family." Polly was greatly moved by Slim's sincerity. "Don't, please don't!" she pleaded. "Why, I've known all along that you love me, but--" "But what?" he asked, when she hesitated. "I've always liked you real well, and I've been glad that you liked me. I don't want to lose your friendship, though--and, oh, please forgive me, please do." Polly was very repentant, showing it by the tones of her voice and in her eyes. Slim was puzzled at first. Then it came to him that the girl had refused to marry him. "Oh! I 'low you-all ain't a-goin' to say you love me, then." "I don't believe I am." Polly smiled through her tears. Slim paused, as if steadying himself to meet the full force of the blow. "Mebbe it's along of my red hair?" "It is red, isn't it?" Polly smiled kindly. Slim ran his fingers through his locks, and looked at his fingers, as if expecting the color would come off on his hands. "Tain't blue," he said. Another thought came to him. "Freckles," he asked laconically. Polly only shook her head. "There's only one cure for freckles--sandpaper," grinned Slim. "But it isn't freckles," replied the girl. Slim looked at his hands and feet. "Maybe it's fat?" he hazarded. "Oh, I know I'm too fat! It beats all how I do keep fat." Slim looked into his hat and sighed. "Well, I suppose we don't get married this year, do we?" "No, Slim," said Polly gently. "Nor any other year to come?" Slim was still hopeful. "That's the way it looks now." Slim put on his hat and tried to walk jauntily to the fire, whistling a bit of a tune. The effort was a sad failure. "Here's where I get off. I'm in sure bad luck. Somebody must have put a copper on me when I was born. I 'low I gotter be movin'." "You won't hate me, will you, Slim?" The Sheriff took the girl's hands in his and kissed them. "Hate you?" he almost shouted. "Why, I couldn't learn to do that; no, siree! Not in a thousand years." Polly slapped Slim on the back. "I'm glad of that," she cried. "Brace up. You'll get a good wife some day. There's lots of good fish in the sea." Slim glanced at her ruefully. "I don't feel much like goin' fishin' jest now. Would you mind tellin' me if I lose out on this deal along of somebody else a-holdin' all the cards?" Slim waited for Polly's answer. "Why, don't you know?" "No," he said simply. "But he told me--" "Who is it?" he insisted. "No--if you don't know his name, I won't tell you," decided Polly. "Mebbe it's jest as well, too," assented Slim. "I don't think I'd feel any too friendly toward him." Slim moved toward the wagon. The action was purely involuntary, but it frightened Polly so that she cried aloud. Slim grasped at once the reason for her fear. "Is the feller in that wagon?" he shouted. "You wouldn't do him any harm, would you?" cried Polly. "Is he in that wagon?" Slim repeated angrily. Polly caught hold of his arm. "What's he hiding for?" he demanded. Slim pulled his gun and covered the opening. "Come out, you coward," he shouted. Polly caught Slim by the right wrist, so he could not fire. Bud leaped from the wagon, drawing his gun as he did so. "You sha'n't call me a coward," he shouted to Slim. Polly ran behind Bud, and, reaching her arms about his waist, held down his hands, depressing the muzzle of his revolver. Slim danced up and down in the excitement with his revolver in his hand. Polly kept calling on both of the men not to shoot. "Let him alone," shouted Slim excitedly. "Let him alone, Miss Polly. He's only four-flushin', and I ain't gun shy." "Now, look a yeah, sonny," he cried to Bud, "if that squirt-gun of yours goes off an' hits me, an' I find it out--well, I reckon I'll have to spank you." Bud tried to break away from Polly, begging her to "Let go." The girl laid her hands on his shoulder, gazing pleadingly into his flushed face. "Don't, don't," she cried; "it's all right. Slim knows all about it. He knows I love you, and he wouldn't hurt any one that I love, would you, Slim?" Polly smiled at the Sheriff, completely disarming him. Shoving his gun back into the holster, Slim grinned, and said: "I reckon I wouldn't." "We've been engaged forever so long now, waitin' for Bud to get rich, and now--and now it's come." Her face radiated her happiness. Bud showed his alarm, motioning her to be silent, but Polly rattled on: "Bud's been saving and saving, 'till he's got over a thousand dollars and--" Slim could not contain his indignation at the deception practised by the boy. "You derned thief," he shouted. Then he plainly showing his annoyance at his lack of repression. Bud's hand dropped to his gun. "You--" he began, but Polly stopped him with a gesture, looking from one to the other of the men, dazed and frightened. "A thief. Bud a thief? What does it mean? Tell me," she gasped. Turning to Bud, she demanded: "Bud, you heard what he said?" Dropping his head, fearing to look at either of them, he muttered sullenly: "He lied." Slim checked his first betrayal of his anger and kept himself well in hand. "Oh, Slim," pleaded Polly, "say you didn't mean it." Simply and sadly Slim answered: "I didn't. I reckon as how I'm some jealous, an'--an'--I lied." His voice dropped, and he turned aside, stepping away from the young couple. Polly was still in doubt. Slim's actions were so strange. It was not like this big-hearted, brave Sheriff to accuse a man of stealing without being sure of his charges. Then Slim's accusing himself of lying was entirely at variance with his character. "I'm sorry," she said. "Please forgive me. It was all my fault. I didn't know that you--" Slim held up his hand to silence her. "Wouldn't you mind leavin' us together a bit," he requested. In answer to Polly's frightened glance, he continued: "There hain't goin' to be no trouble, only me an' him's got a little business to talk over. Ain't we, Bud? Eh?" Slim led Polly toward the corral, glancing at Bud over his shoulder with a reassuring smile. "Just you step out yonder a bit and wait," he said to Polly. "Now, you won't--" "Can't you trust me any more?" he asked sincerely. Grasping him by the hand, she looked him fairly and fearlessly in the eye, saying: "I do trust you. I trust you both." As the girl strode out of ear-shot, Slim, absent-mindedly, kept shaking the hand she had held. Awakening suddenly to the fact that his hand was empty, he looked at it curiously, and sighed. Turning quickly, he slapped his hat on his head, hitched up his chaps, and stepped up to Bud, who stood with a sneer on his lips. "So you're the man that Polly loves," he said. "She's a good girl, and she loves a thief." Bud turned on him fiercely, drawing his gun. "Take care!" he warned. "You won't shoot. If you meant to shoot, you'd 'a' done it long ago, when you pulled your gun," exclaimed Slim coolly. "I might do it now." Bud held his gun against Slim's breast. Slim threw up his hands to show he was not afraid of the boy. "Go ahead. Squeeze your hardware. I reckon I'm big enough to kill," he said. Then he took Bud's hand and gently slid the revolver back into the holster. The action broke down Bud's bravado. All barriers fell before the simple action. "It's all up with me," he said brokenly. Slim sympathized with the boy in his trouble. "Buck, he told me. Buck, he 'lowed you had your share of that money," he explained. The boy drew the money from his pocket and handed it to Slim, remarking: "Here it is--all of it, I never touched it--I was goin'--" Bud was about to lie again, but he realized the futility of more falsehoods. "Take it," he added. Slim counted the money and slipped it in his pocket. "Bud," he said to that young man. "Me an' you have been pretty good friends, we have. I learned you how to ride--to throw a rope, an' Bud--Bud--what did you take it for? I know you didn't murder Terrill for it, but what did you keep the money for?" He asked the question with anger and annoyance. Slim had seated himself by the fire. He spoke to the boy as he would to a comrade. "Can't you see?" the boy asked. "Polly. I wanted to make a home for her--and now she'll know me for what I am, a thief--a thief." Bud buried his face in his hands, the tears trickling through his fingers, although he fought strongly against showing his weakness. Slim rose and stepped to his side, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Mebbe she won't have to know. Buck, he's dead, and only you and I know." Bud looked at the speaker in amazement. A lovable smile crept over Slim's face. "I'm goin'," he said, "to slip you a new deck, an' give you a fresh deal. That was part my money that was stole. I never came back at the county fer it. Buck, he's paid half. I'll let 'em all think it was the whole. I'll put in a thousan' I have at home, that I was savin' to buy in with the Triangle B, in case I don't git elected nex' time. So, Bud, I'm going to lend a thousan' o' this to you, just to give you a chance at that little home." "You're the whitest man I ever knew!" cried Bud. "I reckon I ain't colored, 'cept a little red mite on top," laughed Slim. He disliked any show of feeling by the boy over the offer he had made. "But I can't take your money," Bud protested. "Yes, you can," assured Slim. "You pay it back when you get on your feet again. I'm going to take your word." Slim's generosity overwhelmed the boy. "Take my word!" he cried. Slim laid his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Yes," he declared, "You've made your first bad break, but you've had your first lesson. An' you ain't going to forget it," he added emphatically. "And Polly?" he faltered. "There ain't nobody going to tell her." Speaking sternly to Bud, he added: "You make her a good husband." Bud seized the Sheriff's hand, wringing it warmly. "I will, Slim; I will," he promised. The wait had been too long for Polly. She returned before Slim called her, saying: "I'm tired of waiting on you-all. Haven't you finished up that business yet?" "Yes, ma'am, it's finished," replied Slim. "Did Bud tell you about it?" inquired Polly. "He told me. Seems like you two are going to get married." "Uh-huh," laughed Polly happily. "And, oh, say, will you stand up for Bud?" "I reckon Bud can stand up for himself now, with you to help him," answered Slim emphatically. "We'll run over and tell the boys you're back," shouted Bud. Slim took the hands of the young people in his own big ones. "I'm right glad you two are going to hitch up," he said. "I am dead sure you'll make a even runnin' team." Polly glanced shyly at Slim. "Bud won't mind if you kiss me," she hinted. Slim grinned sheepishly. In his embarrassment he rubbed one foot on his other leg. "Well--I ain't--never--that is--" he stammered, "Bud, if you-all don't mind," he boldly asserted, after his bashfulness had waned, "I reckon I will play one little bet on the red." The Sheriff never did anything in a small way. The kiss he gave her full on the lips was a resounding one. Bud took Polly by the hand, and silently led her to the house. Slim sat down on a keg behind the fire. Taking some loose tobacco and a film of rice-paper from his pocket, he deftly rolled a cigarette, and lighted it with a brand from the blaze. With a sigh he removed his hat. He was the picture of dejection. For several moments he sat in deep thought. Then, with a deep in-drawing of his breath, and a shrug of the shoulders, he cried: "Hell! nobody loves a fat man." CHAPTER XVIII Jack! When Polly told the boys in the corral that Slim had returned and was waiting for them at the mess-wagon, they dropped their work and made for him with wild whoops and yells. Slim smiled as he heard the coming. Show Low made a running jump, throwing his arms about the Sheriff's neck. Parenthesis and Sage-brush each grabbed a hand, pumping up and down emphatically. The others slapped him on the back. All talked at once, asking him the news, and whether Jack had returned. "Did you nip it up with the 'Paches," asked Parenthesis. "Talk, durn ye, talk!" shouted Show Low, "or we'll hang out your hide." Slim shook the hands of his comrades, in turn, affectionately. For each he had his own, particular form of greeting. "No, boys," he said, when the group became more orderly, "I ain't a-goin' to say a word 'till I see Mrs. Payson first." Polly had ridden at once to the house to tell the joyful news of Slim's return to Echo, who hurried at once to the boys about the wagon. Parenthesis spied her riding down the trail. "She's comin' now," he cried. "Boys," requested Slim, "would you mind herdin' off yonder a bit?" The cow-punchers strolled over to the cottonwood, leaving Echo to meet Slim alone. "Where is he?" was Echo's tearful greeting. "Well, ma'am, there's a man out yonder that's been through fire and brimstone for you!" Echo stared over the prairies. Then Jack was still searching for Dick. Slim had failed to find him. "Out yonder," she moaned, wringing her hands. "Wait a minute," says Slim. "He says to me, says he: 'Break it to her, Slim; tell her gentle--an' if she wants me--call, and I'll come.' Ma'am, Dick Lane is dead." Echo shuddered. "Dead," she repeated. "By his--" "No, no," interrupted Slim; "not that way. Indians. Jack found Dick, an' the Indians found 'em both. When I come up with the soldiers from Fort Grant they was havin' the derndest mixup with Indians you ever did see. Both men were bad hurted, an' Dick--well, ma'am--I leaned over him jest in time to hear him say: 'Tell her I know she was true--and not to mind.' Then he gave a little ketch of his breath, and dropped back into my arms." Echo sighed. The tragedy of the desert was very real to her. In the many months that the two men had been away she had lived through it with them in poignant imagination. "Great-hearted Dick," she said. "I was not worthy of his love. And Jack, where is he?" "Wait a minute--he wants to know if you can forgive him--if you will take him back." "Slim!" was the only word Echo uttered, but the volume of love it contained told him everything. "You needn't say nothin' more--I see it shinin' in your eyes," cried Slim. "Jack! Jack!" he shouted, "you derned idiot, come a-runnin--" Payson hurried up from the arroyo within which he had been waiting. "Echo, I have not altogether failed in my mission. I have not brought Dick Lane back, but I hope I come from him bearing something of his loyalty and simple faith. If you ever can learn to trust me again--if you ever can learn to love me--" he said to Echo humbly. "Don't be a derned fool, Jack," blurted Slim; "can't you see she ain't never loved no one else?" "Echo, is it so?" asked Jack eagerly. Slim grinned. Going over to Echo's side, he gave her a slight push, saying: "Go tell him." "Jack!" was her only cry, as her husband enfolded her in his arms. * * * * * * * With the next election for sheriff in Pinal County, William Henry Harrison Hoover had no opposition, for Buck McKee's nomination for that office of one Peruna, formerly of the Lazy K outfit, was not ratified for several reasons, the chief of which was that W. H. H. Hoover, alias Slim, had, just previous to election, officially declared that the said Peruna was deceased, having come to his death in the jail-yard of Pinal County, by a sudden drop at the end of a new hempen rope, which did not break, as Slim, before the ceremony, had assured the apprehensive Peruna it would not. The sudden and successive removals of its two most honored and influential members, Buck McKee and Peruna, greatly demoralized the Lazy K outfit, and the demoralization was completed by the pernicious activity of the reelected Sheriff in interfering with the main purpose of that industrial organization, which was the merger of the Sweetwater cattle-business through a gradual amalgamation of all brands into the Lazy K. One by one the captains or cavaliers of this industry sought more congenial regions, where public inquisition into such purely private concerns as theirs was not so vigorously prosecuted. It must not be thought that the social graces and persuasive abilities of Sheriff Hoover were confined to the conduct of legalized necktie-parties and the dispersion of outlaws. In its extended account of the "Lane-Hope Nuptials," the Florence Kicker devoted much of the space to the part taken by the "best man" in the ceremony, "our genial and expansive boniface of the new county apartment hotel." And soon after it recorded that the same Sheriff Hoover had induced the "charming Miss Wiggins, sister of our deputy sheriff, to be his partner for life, as she had been for the dance at the Lane-Hope nuptials, described in our issue of June 15," and that "the happy couple receive their friends--which we are instructed our readers is an 'invite' to the entire county--at their future home, the new county jail, on the Fourth of July." And in a "local" paragraph of the issue containing the latter notice, the editor of the Kicker remarks: "Remember the Sheriff's Round-up on the Fourth. As ( ), our friend from the Sweetwater with the 'all round understanding,' says: '[right curly brace symbol, i.e. "brace"] up, Slim; all the boys will be there to [right-pointing finger] you a few; you'll sure see * * * [Updater's note: stars].'" 
39937	----	THE LONG DIM TRAIL By FORRESTINE C. HOOKER A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY FORRESTINE COOPER HOOKER PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA LOVINGLY DEDICATED TO MY FATHER, BRIGADIER-GENERAL CHARLES L. COOPER, U. S. A. MY BROTHER, MAJOR HARRY L. COOPER, U. S. A. AND MY UNCLE, CAPTAIN LOUIS R. CHESTER. U. S. N. OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN. WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT REPROACH F. C. H. PART ONE CHAPTER ONE "Everything all right, Limber?" asked Allan Traynor, boss of the Diamond H ranch, as a cowboy with jingling spurs reined his pony before the closed gates of the corral. Doctor Powell, standing beside Traynor, scrutinized the rider, whose broad-brimmed Stetson, caught by the wind, flapped from his face, exposing the sun-brown skin, firm chin and grey eyes. It needed no student of psychology to decide that Limber was not a man who would flinch when facing a six-shooter held by a rustler. The cowboy nodded answer to Traynor's query. Limber's eyes scanned the herd, then, satisfied, he leaned across the neck of his pinto pony, and said, "Paddy Lafferty wants to sell out." "Who told you?" Traynor spoke with undisguised surprise. "Dillon. Paddy tol' him he was gettin' too old, that the rheumatiz is botherin' again, an' he's goin' to quit because he won't trust no one to run his herd when he can't get 'round to it hisself." "Did Paddy say how much he wanted?" "Nope," was the laconic reply. "I'll find out. It's a mighty good bunch of stuff. Lots of three-year steers, an' thar ain't many three-year-olds left in these parts, now." "It's worth looking up," commented Traynor. "I'm glad you spoke of it. How soon will you be ready to hit the trail?" "'Bout ten minutes." "Keep the boys out of mischief this trip, if you can." There was a twinkle in Traynor's eyes that was reflected in the grey ones of the cowboy, who said soberly, "I'll do my best. But when they get to mixin' in things they're slipperier than a bunch of quicksilver. You think you got hold of it and you find you ain't." Limber turned his pony toward the corrals, twisting in his saddle as Traynor called after him, "Tell some one to saddle my pony and Doctor Powell's. We'll ride out with you." As the cowboy disappeared, Traynor said, "It will give you a faint idea of the work. You'll find it mighty different from the cowpuncher's life of moving pictures." The doctor laughed. "I feel like a small boy about to wriggle under the canvas of a circus tent. I never dreamed that Arizona was such a wonderland." The eyes of the two men swept across the Sulphur Spring Valley that undulated twenty miles from the Galiuro Mountains on the west to the Grahams on the east; starting sixty miles north of the Diamond H in the narrow Aravaipa Cañon, it gradually broadened into a great plain that terminated at the Mexican border. "Of course," continued the doctor, "I had a vague idea of its mineral wealth and cattle interests, but I must confess that until I reached here the name of Arizona conjured visions of burning desert, Gila monsters, rattlesnakes, horn-toads and Apaches. Even when I stepped from the train and met you, the impression of a 'No-Man's Land' was strong upon me. Yet now that I have been here a month I feel as though I shall never want to leave it." "You can make sure of that," retorted Traynor, "if you will go to the Hasayampa River, kneel on the brink and drink of the water. You must be very careful, though, to kneel above the crossing. This will keep you from ever wishing to leave Arizona and you will receive the gift of absolute truthfulness; but, should you drink while kneeling below the crossing, truth and you will be divorced the balance of your life." "Did you drink below the crossing or above?" challenged the doctor with an amused smile. "There is only one case on record where a man acknowledged that he drank the water below the crossing. His name was Hasayampa Bill. He died a year ago. Hasayampa Bill was a victim of circumstances, not intention. He said that he was drinking above the crossing when he lost his balance and fell into the stream which carried him far below. Though Hasayampa swore solemnly that he kept his mouth shut--for the first time on record--his reputation was thoroughly established. A letter addressed to the 'Biggest Liar in Arizona' was accorded him by popular vote." The doctor was about to reply, when the air was filled with ear-splitting whistles and staccato cries. Then the big gates of the corral swung open, and an avalanche of cattle tumbled madly through and headed in a wild rush down the road that led south toward Willcox--excited bellows and plaintive lowing of calves seeking their mothers, mingled with the voices of invisible men, completely obliterated by the clouds of alkali dust. Traynor led the way into the stable where two saddled ponies twisted nervously. The men looked at each other and smiled as the doctor approached the pinto pony. Its eyes showed whites, its ears went back. It sheered nervously, but Powell gained the saddle and, with Traynor close beside him, they reached the moving herd. Through the haze of dust a shadowy rider would loom momentarily, then disappear. Traynor rode on the outer edge of the herd. Doctor Powell became aware that Limber had materialized at his side, and forgot everything else in his admiration of the cowpuncher's unconscious grace as his lithe, swaying figure adjusted itself to each movement of the wiry, dancing pony. "Head off that buckskin," shouted Limber, rising in his stirrups and waving his quirt at a cow that was making a wild dash for freedom. Bronco's pony emerged from the haze and tore madly after the cow, reaching her side just as she made up her bovine mind that she had no intention of deserting. Her expression of injured innocence as she ambled quietly back roused Doctor Powell's mirth and Bronco's ire. The cowpuncher reined his pony beside Powell's, muttering imprecations that finally ended in a verbal explosion. "Durn her! Whenever you turn an old buckskin cow like that loose in the herd it's as bad as sickin' a mother-in-law on a happy family. She won't rest till she gets 'em millin' and stampedes everything in sight, and then she picks up her knittin' and looks innercent and says she never allowed to start nothin' noways! Gee! I wish I could strike a ranch where there warn't nothin' but steers. The minute you mix up with a female critter, cow or petticoats, you're roundin' up trouble for yourself and lots of others." He paused long enough, to jerk out a sack of tobacco and cigarette papers, letting the reins fall on his pony's neck as he glared at the cow. She was slowly dropping to the rear of the herd, but Bronco and his pony did not relax their vigilance. "Mebbe you thought I didn't know you, you old buckskin bag o' bones," apostrophized Bronco. "I'd know that derned twisted horn if I was dead twenty years!" Holy Dick galloped up, grinning broadly. "Hello, Bronc! Ain't that your ol' buckskin friend?" Bronco snorted. "Yep! An' you bet she's goin' to keep movin' until she's loaded in the car and headed for trouble somewhar else. Arizona ain't big enough to hold her an' me." Holy rode off, turning in his saddle and screaming in a shrill nasal whine that he fondly imagined was singing: "'Tis ye-a-a-rs since las-s-s-st we-e-ee met An' we ma-a-aa-ay not me-ee-et agin. I stru-ug-gle to-o-oo forgit But I stru-ug-g-g-gg-g-ll-l-ll-le aa-aal in va-aa a-in." Holy's pony contributed to the tremolo effect by its short, nervous trot. "I'm glad she's a gittin' offen the range," soliloquized Bronco, "but I'll always be sorry we didn't butcher her on the ranch so's I could help chaw her up. If ever I get to Heaven all I'll ask is to eat buckskin cows for everlastin'." As he uttered the last words Bronco raced ahead, leaving Doctor Powell at liberty to laugh and wonder what the mystery of the buckskin hoodoo might be. Then his eyes wandered from the dust-cloud ahead of him to the purple-blue peaks that reached thousands of feet upward as if striving to pierce the brilliant sky; across the valley clumps of greyish brown saccaton grass, slender tufts of waving gietta interspersed by tall spikes of Spanish Dagger formed a typical Arizona landscape. "Well, what do you think of it?" asked Traynor, riding up to him. Powell's eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. "It's a wonderful country! How far away is Hasayampa River? I'm ready to start now for that drink!" They laughed together as their ponies' heads were reined toward the ranch, but Powell could not resist a backward glance at the herd which had now settled down to a steady amble. The sunlight filtering through the dust formed a golden mist in which the cowpunchers and their ponies were dimly silhouetted. "Of course there are annoyances, unpleasant people to encounter at times, bad seasons to offset the good ones,"--Traynor deftly rolled a cigarette with his right hand as he spoke, his left resting lightly on the high pommel of his saddle. "Taking it all in all, though, when I ride across the valley or reach a high peak and look down where thousands of cattle graze undisturbed by the in-roads of civilization, I feel it is a royal heritage. Do you think I would barter it, like Esau, even though my menu might read, 'Pottage a la champagne and truffles'?" "Is the role of Prodigal Son necessary to qualify for a fatted calf in Arizona?" queried Powell. "I'm as hungry as the proverbial bear. Oh, that reminds me. Bronco was bewailing the fact that a certain buckskin cow had not been butchered at the ranch. He seems a bit sensitive regarding buckskins. What's the trouble?" Traynor's mouth twitched as he answered, "Ask him. It's too good a story for any one else to spoil in the telling." They reached the stables and left the ponies with the Mexican stableman. As they entered the large court-yard which formed the center of the house, they were greeted by the welcome sound of the lunch bell and Fong, in immaculate white and with neatly coiled queue, smiled amiably from the dining room door. After lunch the two men sat smoking and chatting in the deep porch between the dining room and living room, where easy chairs, a hammock, a table littered with newspapers and magazines, tempted one to loiter. The stable boy interrupted them, speaking in Mexican, and Traynor explained that there was some trouble with the acetelyn plant. "I always take care of that myself, and unless I do so we will have to resort to coal-oil lamps. I'll be back shortly. Make yourself comfortable." Powell leaned back lazily in his chair, trying to reconcile Traynor who had just spoken with the Traynor he once knew; a young chap fresh from college, unlucky enough to lose his last remaining relative at the same time he inherited a fairly good-sized fortune. It had been the usual story of "wild oats." Then Traynor's revulsion had been complete, though not in time to avoid a quarrel with the girl to whom he was engaged. Exaggerated stories of various episodes, exploited by a Sunday paper, caused her to return his ring and refuse absolutely to see him or listen to his explanations. Traynor thrashed the reporter, paid a heavy fine for that privilege and started on a trip West with no definite idea except to get as far as possible from a place filled with bitter memories. During the journey he met a young army officer returning from leave of absence, and the lieutenant's invitation to visit Fort Grant had been accepted by Traynor. Some months later Traynor, disposing of all his Eastern interests, had purchased the Diamond H ranch, the owner of which had recently died. In the seven years after this purchase, Cuthbert Powell was the only one of Traynor's former acquaintances who ever heard from the young rancher. Powell had promised to visit the ranch, but not until now had that promise been fulfilled. It was not easy to recognize the tanned, alert chap who grasped his hands as he alighted from the Pullman. As days went by, it was a constant source of surprise to the doctor to note that the mental change in his friend was more marked than the physical. It was as though the breadth and strength of the country had been absorbed by the owner of the "Diamond H." Traynor returned and slipped into the chair he had vacated. "You see, on a ranch one becomes blacksmith, veterinarian, doctor, cowpuncher, carpenter, farmer--. In fact, a veritable jack of all trades. No one cares what your family is, how much money you own or what your social status elsewhere, past, present or future, may be. It is yourself that is judged. There is no court of appeal if you are condemned. You've got to look a man in the eyes, grip his hand as a comrade, shoot as quickly as the other chap, roll in your blanket and take any weather that comes, without growling. If you can do these things the life will suit you and the vastness of the place sinks into your soul. It mends one's broken faith in humanity." Powell, watching his friend, saw the lines about his mouth harden and knew that the memory of the past was burning like a corroding acid. Then the mood passed and Traynor turned with a half-smile. "Well, what do you think of your first experience as a cowhand?" "I'm thankful that I knew how to ride before I came here," laughed Powell. "That was rather a gay little nag I had this morning." "That animal's name is Hot Tamale. The boys wanted to try you out a bit. I knew you could take care of yourself, so did not say anything. The joke is on them now; but you have won their respect and will be free from other pranks." "I think I'll insist on riding Hot Tamale hereafter," asserted Powell. "By the way, when Limber spoke to you about that bunch of cattle, I thought I would like to buy them, provided you, yourself, did not intend to do so. Of course, I realize that I am a tenderfoot, ignorant of the first rudiments of the cattle business, but what would you advise about my locating in this section?" "It would be a good move," responded Traynor. "Paddy's range lies between my own and the Hot Springs country across the Galiuros. He has permanent water, which is a gold mine, especially during a dry season. The mountains between here and Hot Springs are rich in feed, so Paddy's cattle work that way." He puffed silently on his cigar for a few seconds, then turned suddenly to Powell. "Look here, Cuthbert, if you are really serious about locating in this section, why don't you get in touch with Doctor King who owns the Hot Springs? The place would interest you professionally, for the water comes out of solid rock at a temperature of 140 degrees and is the purest water I have ever tasted. It is noted in the Territory as a cure for various complaints." "I would certainly like to see it," answered the doctor enthusiastically, "if you can arrange it for me." "King only held Squatter's Right until recently. Under that, the possessor loses title unless he stays on the ground. It is not under government survey yet, so could not be patented like surveyed land. I advised King to patent it under Indian Script and make his title secure. He has just done this. King has been hoping to erect a sanitarium at the Springs, but lack of funds, and his flat refusal to consider anyone as a partner except a resident physician able to finance the plans, has blocked his scheme." "It might appeal to him to let me carry out my own idea of establishing a sanitarium for tubercular children in Arizona. I don't mean wealthy invalids, attended by a retinue of nurses and other impedimenta, but poor children who otherwise would have no hope of health. The climate, altitude and all conditions would be simply ideal. I should like to talk to him myself." "Do you know that you are setting forth the very ideas that King discussed with me the last time I saw him? That was, a place for poor, tubercular children. He loves every child that he sees. His own boy died at the age of six. The mother died soon after. King gave me no details, and I doubt whether anyone else besides myself, knows this much. I fancy his thought was to make the place a memorial to the boy he lost." "It would be a splendid idea to carry out with such a man!" exclaimed Powell, deeply moved. "How soon do you think it could be arranged for me to meet him?" "It's a waste of time to write. No one but King and a family named Glendon live in that section. Mail lies at the Willcox post-office until one or the other happens to be in town. It's thirty-five miles from Willcox to Hot Springs, and twenty-four across the Galiuro trail from here. When Limber gets back, you and he could ride over the mountains, have a look at the Springs and talk it over with Doctor King. I feel very confident that you might join forces." "Fine!" ejaculated Powell. "Now, what about that cattle deal?" "You are determined to 'jump in with both feet' as the boys would say," laughed Traynor. "However, it would be wise to take that matter up as soon as possible. Paddy is a queer character, so you had better stay out of the deal until I get it arranged with him. If you make the buy and at any time wish to sell out, I will take the herd and ranch at the same price you pay for it, so you will not run any risk of being tied up here if you wish to leave." "I asked you to tell me how far it is to the Hasayampa River?" reminded the doctor. "Even if I do not indulge in a drink from that historic stream, I am here to stay." "You'll make good," asserted Traynor, heartily. "The man who is a real man wins out here in the end, if he lets whiskey and cards alone. Living on ranches, miles away from civilization, one does not have the problem of women. 'Cherchez la femme' does not apply to this section of the country, thank the good Lord! That's why this place appealed most strongly to me. Unless I go to Willcox I can forget there is such a creature as woman in the universe." "All women are not the same, Allan," protested Powell, placing his hand on Traynor's arm and looking at him earnestly. "I hope the right one will come into your life some day. One who can appreciate you as you deserve, and who will be big enough and fine enough to be a wife in the best sense of the word. Why, man! Think of the pride and pleasure you would have in this place, knowing that it was the heritage of your son!" Traynor rose hastily, turned abruptly from his friend and stood staring through the open door of the porch across the wide pastures. His face was white when he confronted Powell. "What would you do if you found that the patient upon whom you are operating has not succumbed to the anaesthetic, Cuthbert? Cut without pity?" "Yes," answered Powell, "if it meant life or death to waver or hesitate a second." "I thought I was numb; that it would not hurt any more; but when you spoke of--a son--it cut into my heart. I've tried to forget--it's like burying something that is alive. In the night I hear its voice; I see its shadow even in the darkness." He rose and moved restlessly; his face white. "No one knows what it meant to give her up. She believed those damned reports and gave me no chance to prove the truth, and I--, why--it would not have mattered of what she was accused; the blackest charges proved against her,--I would have held her and fought the world for her, innocent or guilty. I believed she loved me as I loved her--she refused to hear my story." "Did she never know the truth?" asked Powell. "Returned my ring, asked me to spare her the humiliation of talking to me. Yet, after I came here, I wrote telling her that the man in my automobile with that woman, was not myself. You remember the newspapers spared the woman's name. She had a husband and child--eloping with that cad, Brunton. Cheap machine broke down at two o'clock in the night. I recognized them. Put 'em in my machine and told her to get back home before it was too late. Oh, she was ready enough then to be decent. Brunton took her to her door, then he went to his place, but that fool reporter saw the number of the machine, and wrote the story. You know it. Woman's name kept out, my name not mentioned outright, but description sufficient to identify me beyond doubt. Couldn't sue the paper, my lawyer said, and Brunton lit out for Europe. Rotten mess all around. "I wrote the full truth to Nell, begged a word from her as a man dying of thirst begs for a drop of water. She never answered the letter. A year later I wrote again, and that one was returned unclaimed." "You say that the second letter came back unclaimed," spoke Powell, "but, you have no proof that the first one ever reached her. Had you thought of that?" "Yes. Both letters had my Arizona address on the envelope as well as inside. When I did not hear in reply to the first letter, and it was not returned to me, I communicated with the Dead Letter Office, but no such letter had been turned over to that department. The only logical conclusion was that she did not wish to answer." The doctor made no comment. Traynor's reasoning was too convincing for suggestions. "Yet, I made a second effort," went on the boss of the Diamond H. "After that, there was nothing more to do but accept the situation. Now you know the truth, Cuthbert. No other woman will ever fill her place in my life,--but, I cannot keep her out of my thoughts, day or night." "I'm sorry I spoke, old man," answered the doctor. "I'm glad you did," replied Traynor. "Now, you understand." As the shadows lengthened on the prairie the two friends smoked and spoke of other things. And yet--both Traynor and Powell--and many another--had read with the careless glance of the unscathed, the account of a train wreck in Kansas, in which the loss of life had been appalling, and the loss of mail had not been mentioned. CHAPTER TWO The cattle that Powell and Traynor had watched starting from the Diamond H, constituted the first shipment of the season, contracted to an Eastern buyer. Official inspection by the Live Stock Sanitary Board was exacted, not only regarding the health of shipped cattle, but also to protect cattlemen from rustlers on the miles of open range. After reaching Willcox, the boys of the Diamond H drove the herd into the shipping pens beside the railroad track, locked the gates and turned with joyous expectation toward the main street of town. Limber parted from the others a short distance from the corrals. "I'll tell the inspector we'll be ready tomorrow mornin' soon as the cars get in," he said, and without waiting reply rode toward the part of town where the more pretentious houses were bunched. Like schoolboys out for a holiday, Bronco, Holy and Roarer raced their ponies to the Cowboys' Rest Corral. Here they were greeted vociferously by Buckboard Bill, who had retired from driving a skeleton stage and established the only place where horses or vehicles might be hired. A few minutes elapsed before the three cowpunchers, afoot, made their way along the street. Ponies standing with dangling reins and hoofs buried fetlock deep in the fine, white alkali sand in front of the stores, told that many other cowpunchers from other ranches were in town. The Diamond H boys quickly identified the owner of each pony by its brand. A row of irregular buildings, consisting of three stores, a Chinese restaurant, several saloons and a hotel, formed the principal street of Willcox. Facing the stores across the dusty expanse, lay the Southern Pacific depot which was the heart of the town, while radiating from it east and west, like great arteries, ran the steel tracks of the railroad. Pack burros, loaded with miners' supplies, shuffled out on the road to Dos Cabezas. Many of these tiny animals were animated woodpiles--only legs and wagging ears visible from beneath a canopy of split wood destined for a camp where fuel was not procurable, otherwise. The only break in the grey monotone of the landscape was the few cottonwood trees, planted by optimistic souls around their dwelling places. It was a typical frontier town of three hundred people, two-thirds of whom were Mexicans speaking no English. If, by chance, a stranger alighted from the "passenger" train, the arrival of which was the most important event of each day, the town, like a naughty child with dirty face and torn clothes, looked the new-comer over critically. If he met the inspection squarely, it held out a friendly hand, and as long as he "played fair" that hand was ready to fight for him and his. The boys from the Diamond H sauntered leisurely along the street, exchanging greetings with those they knew, until, under their usual pretext of expecting mail, they reached the combination store and post-office. It was an important duty to ascertain beyond doubt whether any letters were waiting to be claimed by Peter N. Hewland, Dick Reynolds and Henry Jackson, who were thus able to keep their legal identification. At all other times they were known as Bronco Pete, Holy Dick, whose vocabulary of cuss-words held the Arizona record, and Hell-roarer Jack, with a gentle falsetto voice which under stress of emotion became a tiny squeak. Convenience had curtailed these names to Bronc, Holy and Roarer. Having digested the information that no mail awaited them, they entered into conversation. One could learn the news of territory, county and nation in the post-office, besides ascertaining what outfits were in town. Additional attractions were found in the posters to be read, notices of round-up work, advertisements of stolen horses or stray cattle. It was while browsing on such literature that Bronco halted with mouth half-open and disbelieving eyes. He read the hand-written notice deliberately to the end twice before he turned to where Roarer and Holy were inspecting silver-mounted spurs--which they did not need, but intended to buy because they had to spend their money someway. "Say, boys, thar's goin' to be a ice-cream festival tonight!" "Shucks!" squeaked Roarer. "Try something else, Bronc. You all know that thar ain't no ice any nearer than Tucson. And nobody's fool enough to send ninety miles and pay cut-throat rates for ice just to make ice-cream, except a regular ijit." The grin on Roarer's face and the faces of other by-standers recalled Bronco's exploit of ordering ice from Tucson, and reaching the Diamond H with nothing but a wet blanket in the wagon. Succumbing to the alluring display in a mail order catalogue, Bronco had bought an ice-cream freezer, declaring he was going to get filled up on that delicacy for once in his life--if it took three months' pay. The episode became historic, and the freezer kindling wood. "If you don't believe me," challenged Bronco, "come and see for yourself! What's more, it says here, it's goin' to be free with cake throwed in," he finished triumphantly. Holy edged beside Bronco and peered over his shoulder. "Derned if it ain't so," he acknowledged at last. "But, mebbe that air paper's lyin'." "What do you think of that?" ruminated Bronco, his mouth watering in anticipation. "Ice-cream--and cake throwed in free gratis for nothin'. Looks like some one's struck it rich--turnin' all that loose on the range for everybody to corral." "I don't believe it," gloomily asserted Holy, who had acted as escort for Bronco and the ice that failed. "You can't get ice from Tucson so's thar'd be anything left unless you order a whole carload at onct." "Well," retorted Bronco in self-defence, "it depends on who's cartin' the ice. You would keep on cussin' all the way to the ranch that time, Holy, an it's no wonder the ice was all melted up. But, this yer ice is goin' to be in the church and won't have its constitution tried so hard." Holy and Roarer looked at each other uncertainly. They hungered for that ice-cream and cake; but the necessity of treading consecrated board floors made the matter serious. "I wonder if you've got to have 'em deal you a ticket if you don't belong in the pasture?" speculated Bronco, unable to tear himself from the vicinity of the poster. "Say, Larry," he called to the store-keeper, "how about this here ice-scream layout? Is it a bluff, or sure enough free-for-all?" "Sure enough," answered Larry. "There's a new minister come to town and the women-folks have pitched in and fixed this up so he can get acquainted with people. You boys had better take it in. Every one's going to be there. We're shutting up the stores at seven o'clock tonight, so everybody can go." "Say, Larry, did they sure enough get the ice here all right?" questioned Holy doubtfully. "They sure did! And that ice-cream and cake is way up in G. Home-made, every bit of it. What's more, the ladies went to the saloon-keepers and got them all to promise to shut up the saloons from seven till eleven tonight. So every one's got to go to the Festival or else go home to bed." "I guess we're headed for the ice-scream, boys;" announced Bronco, and the others nodded acquiescence. They filed out of the store and, after registering on the empty page of the hotel book, received a key and mounted the protesting stairs that ascended outside the hotel to the upper rooms. While they were engaged in splashing soapy water over faces and hands, brushing dusty coats and plastering down anarchistic locks, Limber joined them and was informed of the evening plans. "Well, I'll see you over there," he promised. "I'm goin' to supper now. Then I've got to have a talk with Paddy Lafferty and find out what he's holdin' his herd at." He reached the door, paused and looked back quizzically. "I reckon you boys'll be all right tonight, seein' as how you'll all be in church. So long." After supper the three cowboys joined a stream of people moving toward the church, where open doors emitted rays of welcoming light. It was a medley of humanity possible only in a frontier town. Women had resurrected dresses more or less old in style, from the depths of swaddling sheets necessary to keep them from the dust of sandstorms penetrating chests and trunks. Husbands, whose "best suits" smelled of camphor, helped shoo small girls in stiffly starched white dresses, tied with varied-coloured sashes, and boys who twisted and squirmed uneasily under the galling yoke of white collars and shirts. Fortified with promises of ice-cream and cake, the youngsters were distributed on a double row of chairs back of the minister and facing the audience, where they had a full view of the other victims. Many miners had wandered into town for their usual Saturday-night and Sunday recreation, only to face the unprecedented situation of the closed stores and saloons--learning that there was no "balm in Gilead" from seven till eleven, for the first time on record in the Territory, they headed voluntarily for the church. Mexicans, whose own Catholic church was only opened twice a year, when the Padre came to marry and baptize wholesale--and frequently married the parents when he baptized the infant--rubbed elbows with clerks from the stores, bartenders and prospectors. Holy, Bronco and Roarer, with amiable, though uneasy grins, faced the pretty school-teacher, Miss Gordon, a recent importation from San Francisco. She smiled sweetly at them and held out a small, white hand, which Bronco took hold of as gingerly as though it were a hot branding-iron, and let it drop as quickly. Holy, not to be outdone, extended his own horny hand, but Miss Gordon said, "I have to ask for your pistols, please, until you are ready to go. There are so many people here tonight we had to make this rule." In consternation that was almost paralysis, they stared at her outstretched hand, then looked at her wheedling smile. Reluctantly, half-bewildered, each man slowly drew his beloved gun from the holster in which it reposed, and helpless, watched her add it to the stack on a table behind her. Then they looked at each other forlornly. Still under the influence of that dazzling smile, they made no resistance as Miss Gordon drove them forward. They were as embarrassed as though stripped of more conventional apparel than six-shooters, but they hoped the contortions of their faces might be classed as happy smiles when they saw they were expected to shake hands with the long, rigid line of the Committee of Ladies which flanked the minister. As Limber entered the church, he saw his outfit run the gauntlet of introductions, then they turned precipitately with relieved countenances and slipped into chairs at the centre of the room. Bronco advised this location. "Ice-cream might give out if we get too fur back. Thar's a lot of people here tonight." A program followed in which the school children sang a song, pitched in as many keys as there were voices. A recitation by a boy of fourteen, starting in a megaphone voice, and after the fifth line lapsing into a whisper, a gasp, silence--a bobbing head--and ending in hasty exit. Next a five-year old carefully starched youngster galloped breathlessly without a pause through a couple of verses, exploiting her knowledge that she knew the audience would be surprised that "one my age should speak in public on the stage." The applause had hardly died when a buxom lady with white kid slippers three sizes too small, appropriated the piano. She arranged her toes on the pedals, then wiggled her feet until the heels slid out. An expression of beatitude adorned her face, her chubby hands were lifted and came down on the tinkling keys. The assaulted, helpless piano responded with the familiar "Maiden's Prayer," while an apparition in a white lace curtain materialized at the back door of the room, flopping and twisting toward the spell-bound spectators. The number had been announced as an "Interpretative dance," and Holy whispered cautiously to Bronco, "Is it an Apache dance, or has she just tooken carbolic acid?" "Search me," was the response. "Looks like a mixture of both of 'em." The dancer was agile and angular. She had the distinction of being the only old maid in the county. Her bare, thin arms waved, gyrated, supplicated; her knees cracked audibly several times, but her mind was far away. She was mentally repeating the instructions she had studied so carefully from a book entitled, "The Art of Classic Dancing without a Teacher." Then with a last squirm, a convulsive shudder, she flopped to the floor, and ended the agony with one or two feeble kicks. "It was a fit!" decided Bronco. "But it's the wust one I ever seed anything have." The last number on the program was a little, weazened man with brilliant red hair, lighter red beard, faded blue eyes, who had brought a small talking machine. With stupendous dignity he wound it up, then stood with a new record ready to immediately replace the one being scratched out by the needle. The pile of records was formidable and he was apparently determined to skip none, until the head committee lady gently, but firmly and diplomatically, came to the rescue. He bowed his appreciation of the tumulutous applause, assuming it was intended for him. It continued unabated. He opened his mouth wide, to express his gratification at the ovation accorded. The muscles of his face twitched, his eyes stared wildly and as the audience leaned forward anxiously, a terrific sneeze smote the air and a set of false teeth catapulted like a meteor in the midst of the audience. A suppressed titter, a bobbing of bodies in the vicinity of the teeth, and then one of the children, groping on the floor, located the lost property and rose with a triumphant squeal. "I got 'em!" The red-haired individual grasped the rescued property with a smile that proved Nature may abhor a vacuum but sometimes permits it to exist. The owner of the touring teeth surveyed them, then nonchalantly popped them into their accustomed place before he gathered up his records, machine, and resumed his seat in the front row of the audience, which directed its attention to the minister. He was a tall, raw-boned man in long-tailed coat and the white muslin tie needed a woman's touch, for one end had escaped and hung like the tail of a kite, as he advanced to the table on which stood a white pitcher, decorated with brilliantly coloured flowers; a part of the china set loaned by one of the ladies, whose artistic soul scorned such trifles as proportion, perspective or the mere "holding the mirror up to Nature." In a few words the minister expressed his delight at this large gathering when he had expected a small one, and thanked the dear ladies who had arranged the beautiful program. Then he beamed graciously at the wiggling children. "I know these little ones are growing impatient, so will only hold you long enough to relate an incident that returned to my memory as I sat here tonight. "Many years ago I was travelling through an unsettled Southern district, and passing a high, board fence heard a child's voice praying. I stood up in my buggy and looked over. I saw a little girl, a dog, a cat and a small Jersey calf. I waited till her prayer ended, then asked, 'My dear, what are you doing?' "'I'm playing Sunday school,' she replied. 'Kitty and Ponto and the calf are my Sunday-school scholars, and I'm the preacher.' "A few more words and I went on my way, meditating upon the beauty of the child's devotion. I did not happen to return for nearly a year, but when I approached the fence I paused and peered over. The child was there alone. "'How is your Sunday-school getting along?' I asked. She broke into sobs. "'Kitty and Ponto got to fighting something awful,' she answered, 'and--' "'And where is the calf?' I said. "'He got too big to come--unless I had a box of grain for him to eat!' "The story came back to me and I wondered how many of you who are here tonight will get 'too big to come' to services tomorrow morning?" There were amused titters from many, guilty faces and sidelong glances, but the tension was relieved by the next words of the minister; "Now, we will enjoy the refreshments so generously provided by our dear sisters!" At the back of the room were three immense ice-cream freezers. The committee, armed with heaping plates of the frozen delicacy, flanked by generous slices of chocolate layer cake, moved swiftly among the audience. Miss Jenkins carried a large tray to the group formed by Holy, Bronco and Roarer. Their eyes appraised the huge heaps of tri-coloured cream--chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, without a doubt. Their hands were reaching to appropriate the plates when Miss Jenkins, who had danced the Maiden's Prayer, lisped affectedly, "Won't you boys help me a tiny, tiny bit, peath?" She held out the tray and rolled her eyes pathetically. "It's awfully heavy for poor little me, and there are so many people to wait on. Won't you, peath, path it around and when it's all gone I'll have some more ready for you to therve." Appalled they stared at her, as she continued her baby appeal and kept the tray in front of them so there was no possible retreat. The three reached out simultaneously. By some slip the tray lowered a bit and Holy's hand went into a cold, wet mess. With a half-choked oath he jerked back--and the tray crashed to the floor. A scream rose from the lady who had lent her hand-painted plates, and in the confusion that followed the three cowpunchers slipped out of the church obsessed with visions of a tri-coloured milky way that wended between gobs of squashed chocolate cake and hand-painted flowers. Down the street they moved. It was no time for mere words. Even Holy's vocabulary was inadequate to express their feelings. Everything was dark, every place was closed. It was not later than eight o'clock and there was no place to go except to their room in the hotel. In gloomy silence they mounted the stairs and sought refuge in the little room. Through the window they had a view of the church and the moving silhouettes within. The iron entered more deeply. Roarer went to the window, and like the prophet of old contemplated the Promised Land that his feet were not to tread. Suddenly his gentle, falsetto voice pierced the silence. "I hope that ice-scream will choke that outfit, especially that lace-curtain female critter! Why didn't she let us alone, anyhow? We was gettin' along all right until she went and butted in!" There was no response, and he continued forlornly, "Gosh! There was strawberry and chocolate and vanilly all on the same plate, and that hunk of cake was as big as my fists! And every one in town's eatin' it exceptin' us!" They lighted the tiny coal oil lamp and tried to reconcile themselves to the inevitable. As the smoke from their cigarettes filled the room their effervescent spirits reasserted themselves. Holy minced over to one of the narrow beds and robbed it of a sheet which he proceeded to pull over his shoulders and twist about his wrists while the other two watched him curiously. Then the empty corridors and rooms rang with shouts of laughter as Holy twisted, cavorted and gyrated, waved his long arms and extended supplicating hands in an amusingly accurate imitation of the dance of the Maiden's Prayer. It was their revenge for the loss of the cream. An unexpected climax was reached when the sheet slipped and precipitated Holy full-length on the floor, but the sounds that rose on the air could never be confused with the words of any Maiden's Prayer. Bronco leaned forward listening intently, and as silence reigned once more, he announced, "Say, Holy, that was the best you ever done yet. I counted sixteen new cuss words that I never heerd you use before. That was the best Maiden's Swear I ever listened to!" Roarer looked up suddenly. "Say, did you notice them freezers was right along side the back door? Mebbe we kin slip over and corral one of 'em without being cotched. I'm powerful thirsty and there ain't no place to get nothin' till eleven o'clock except the church." "We could make a try at it," responded the others hopefully. They slipped down the stairs. At the bottom, Bronco suggested they get spoons from the hotel kitchen. It was a matter of generalship to boost Roarer through the window, where his collision with pots and pans was no impediment to his triumphal return with a soup ladle and two large spoons. In the darkness Roarer was able to retain the ladle for himself, handing the spoons to the other boys. Thus equipped they sneaked to the rear of the church and crawled cautiously to the open door. One of the cans was within easy reach--the other two some distance from the door. Conversation was in full swing and every one's attention was directed toward the minister at the front part of the room. "Slip her quick," whispered Bronco, "and then we kin pack her out on the prairie and eat all we want." The plan was carried out successfully. Roarer and Bronco slid the freezer until it was outside the door. Swiftly they lifted the tin can from the tub of ice and hastened away with their prize, while Holy kept pace with them. At a safe distance from the church, they paused and removed the cover. Roarer thrust his dipper down, but had to reach further than he expected. Deeper he scooped without reward. Once more he tried. It was too dark to see inside of the can. "Say, are you tryin' to hog it all yourself?" protested Bronco. "Nope, Take your turn now." Bronco wasted no time, and the other two listened to the click of his spoon against the tin can. After a few seconds, he raised up, saying, "All right, Holy. You're next!" "How is it?" asked Holy as he leaned over the can. "Fine as silk," was Bronco's recommendation. "Best ice-scream I ever et," asserted Roarer. Holy's spoon tattooed on the tin; it scraped forlornly, then there was breathless silence, a grunt, followed by the sound of an empty ice-cream freezer receiving several vigorous kicks accompanied by a terrific volley of cuss-words. "You darn chumps," he gasped at last, "what made you go and take the one that hadn't northin' in it!" "Oh, darn it all. What's the use," piped Roarer's gentle voice. "Let's go back and go to bed. Thar ain't nothin' else to do in this yere town." They were settled in their beds when Limber opened the door and peered into the room. "Hello! I been lookin' all over for you," he announced. "When did you get back? I was up here a while ago and none of you was in." "Oh, we was just walkin' around town a piece," was Bronco's answer. "Well, I got your guns for you. You all went off in sech a hurry from the church that you forgot 'em. It's too bad you boys didn't stay for the feed. It was fine." "Oh, we knowed we had a hard day's work ahead of us," drawled Bronco, "so we figured we'd better come home and git to bed." "Some one stole one of the freezers," continued Limber, soberly. "But whoever done it got the empty one." "Served the derned galoots right," pronounced Bronco virtuously. "That's what I say," endorsed Roarer, while Holy expressed his sentiments more forcibly. Limber struck a match which he held to his cigarette, but his eyes regarded the grave faces of the boys. The match flickered out and the room was again in darkness, but not before they had seen the ghost of a twinkle in Limber's grey eyes. "They got the freezer all right," he continued in the darkness. "Who found it?" asked Bronco carelessly, pretending to smother a yawn. "I done it," said Limber. "I was just a walkin' around town a piece, like you all was doin', and I come across it accidental like." Silence was the only comment. "The Inspector will be ready for us at eleven o'clock. Agent says the cars will be here by that time, so we can load out and get back to the ranch by supper." "All right," chorused three voices in the dark, and Limber went to his own room. As he lighted the lamp there was a broad grin on his face, and his eyes danced with laughter, while he reiterated Bronco's denunciation, "Served the darned galoots right!" Willcox slept late Sunday morning, so no one noticed shadowy figures dismount from three cowponies two hours before daylight. A struggling calf was making a heroic fight for freedom, but found itself propelled toward the picket fence surrounding the church and thrust through the gate. The mysterious men hitched the animal firmly inside the fence, then two placards of pasteboard, tied loosely together, were thrown across the calf's back and secured like a pack-saddle by strong cord. This accomplished, the three men mounted their ponies and disappeared in the starlight. Willcox woke, rubbed its eyes and remembered a minister was to hold Divine Services that day of the year. Ten o'clock arrived. The first youngsters and their adult family connections approached the church gate. They congregated in animated groups, were joined by others, and finally spectators across the street, realizing that something interesting was detaining the congregation from entering the church, sauntered over. These inquirers hastened back to town and circulated news that caused a veritable stampede. By the time the minister reached the scene the crowd composed the entire population of the town--men, women, children and dogs, several of the latter adding to the excitement by proceeding to settle feuds of long standing. The Reverend Silas Hunter passed through the gate and his eyes swept the crowd, then rested on the centre of attraction--a husky, white-faced calf tethered to the fence by a rope. The animal had been lying down, in no way disturbed by the people or dog-fights, but as the Dominie scrutinized it, it rose and bellowed loudly into his face amid shouts of laughter. Across the calf's back swung the placards on which, printed in irregular letters, were the words; I AM NOT TO BIG TO KUM BUT FOR GODS SAKE HEAD OF THE PROJIGUL SON. "Oh!" ejaculated the Reverend Hunter, beaming upon the assemblage. "I see we have a donation. We will keep the calf, sell it and apply the proceeds to our Church Funds. Now," he addressed two half-grown lads, "you boys sit close to the door during services and see that the calf does not get away. Some unprincipled person might try to steal it, you know. We will find a place to care for it after services." Across the street Bronco, Roarer and Holy stood in consultation. They had hovered on the edge of the crowd when the minister made his announcement, and they realized there was to be no opportunity to get possession of that calf in order to turn it loose--as they had planned. "Say, he sure called our hands," said Holy despondently. "He's too derned smart to be a minister. What the devil are we goin' to do about it?" "Let him keep the doggone calf and we'll have to put up a jackpot for the feller that owns it," advised Bronco. "It ain't marked," squeaked Roarer excitedly. "Did any of you see the brand on the cow it was with?" None of them had noticed such a trifle in their desire to capture the calf and accomplish the trick without discovery. "Well, I guess we'll have to own up," asserted Holy, as they dropped side by side on the wooden bench in front of the hotel, and stared hopelessly across at the calf and the widely-opened church door. "We sure got a hoodoo on us this trip," said Bronco. "First we got buncoed out of the ice-scream by that female window-curtain, then we goes and steals an empty ice-cream freezer and now we're stuck about that air calf. It'd be easy enough, to pay for it if we knowed the mother's brand, but seein' as we didn't pay attention to that, we've just got to buck up and go to that gospel-shark and tell him we done it. There's no tellin' what he'll do about it, let alone the feller that owns the calf. Darn it all, why didn't Limber stick along with us all the time and keep us from gettin' into this mix-up?" "Looks to me like Limber can't do nothin' more'n he's done, except he chloroforms us the next time we get in town," replied Holy emphatically. Then the unexpected happened. The restless calf, working against the stiff, new rope, untied it. Before any one in the church had observed it, the animal was down the railroad track and pushing its way among numbers of cattle that always congregated near the inspection chutes. It moved to and fro, searching for its mother. The watching cowboys could see the two placards still firmly in place. "Gee! If we could just get them pasteboards off'n her, nobody would know what calf it is"; Bronco said breathlessly. "Come along!" It was Holy who spoke and led the way to where their ponies stood tied and saddled ready for work when Limber and the Inspector arrived. "We kin ride down there and scoop it off in no time." The ponies dashed forward in a cloud of dust, but as they neared the group, a long-horned buckskin cow turned angrily as the calf pushed against it, and with a sidesweep of her horn she caught the string that held the placards. The string broke, but the placards snapped over the cow's eyes, twisted lightly to her horn, and with a frightened bellow she dashed down the railroad track, past the emerging congregation, with the pasteboards banging and flapping across her face until she disappeared. "That's the fust decent buckskin cow I ever seed," said Bronco. "She may have a yeller hide but she's a thoroughbred Hereford inside, you bet!" Then Limber and the Inspector came toward them, and joined in the ride to the corrals. As they passed the group of cattle they saw the calf contentedly taking nourishment from a cow that was evidently its mother. Bronco, Holy and Roarer cast surreptitious glances at the ear-marks and brand of the cow. Their eyes met. Idiotic grins spread over each face. The cow was branded Diamond H. None of them spoke. The cattle were inspected and loaded without any untoward incident, and Limber breathed more easily as the time approached for him to head his men toward the ranch. It was only during leisure hours in town that mischief hatched, and the foreman could never tell what might develope in a very short time. It was with a feeling of relief from responsibility that Limber tucked the certified check in his pocket, but as they started homeward the boys were as glad as he. Bronco's ear-splitting whistles, "Home, sweet home," found sympathetic response in the breasts of the other men. It had been a strenuous trip. The ranch loomed like a haven of rest. The next morning Powell and Traynor discussed Paddy's proposition with Limber, as they sat in the court-yard of the ranch, after Limber had started the men for their day's work. "Thirty-five thousand in gold coin is what he wants," said the foreman, "and his bunch of stuff is worth every cent of it with the ranch throwed in. He won't count anything under six months old, if you want to tally the herd out, and tail 'em." "It's a good buy," Traynor replied. Then turned to Powell. "Paddy is unique. He is seventy-six years old and has toiled many years to accumulate a herd. He cannot read or write a word, and carries every item of his accounts in his memory. The storekeepers say that Paddy never makes an error when their statements for six months are read to him, no matter whether the mistake is to his advantage or not. He lives alone. Refuses to accept silver or paper money and insists on gold for all sales. He buries his money secretly, as he has no faith in banks. He is a joke in the corrals, but no joke, however, when he is roused. A bunch of rustlers found that out to their sorrow." Limber's eyes twinkled, as Traynor added, "Tell the doctor what happened. You were there, I wasn't." "Well, the rustlers rounded up a band of fine horses and cattle and was makin' for the Mexican border. Pretty near got thar when ol' Paddy run into them alone. Him and me had just parted trails, and when I heerd shootin' I hurried to him. The rustlers was back of some rocks on the hill-slope, Paddy a lyin' down in back of a bit of brush not big enough to hide a good-sized jack-rabbit. His head was hid and all the rest of him in plain sight, and those rustlers was pumpin' lead as fast as they could. So was Paddy, but they had the advantage of him every way. Four of 'em back of the rocks. Paddy had shot two of their horses from under them, and they let the stolen stock run whilst they hunted shelter afoot. Jest as I got near enough to help him, he got a cartridge jammed in his Winchester, and couldn't get it out. He worked and cussed around, then got right up on his feet and walked around that hillside, as if he was prospectin' for a mine, takin' his time to find something to pry out that cartridge. And those rustlers kept popping away at him. Every time the dust kicked up close, Paddy'd squint at the rocks and cuss harder. Then jest as I got into the game, he got that gun fixed, and derned if he didn't jest walk slow up the hill, and fust thing, the rustlers come a humping out from the rocks in every direction, and all of 'em--four men--with their hands helt up over their heads, and Paddy back of 'em." "That was one of the times Paddy did not whisper," laughed Traynor. "Well, I'll see Paddy for you, and now, Limber, Doctor Powell wants to go see the Hot Springs and talk with Doctor King." "Doctor Powell could cut across the Galiuros the day the boys start from here with the herd," said Limber, "or, if Doctor Powell wanted to stay at the Springs a couple of days with King, I could take him there and then go on to Willcox to attend to the loadin', and go back to the Springs. Anyway suits me that suits him and you." "That would be the best," commented Traynor. "You and Doctor Powell can leave here the same day that the herd starts to Willcox. Then let the doctor wait at Hot Springs until you get back there after the shipment." "It would suit me perfectly," was Powell's hearty reply. "That is if I will not be imposing unwarrantedly on Doctor King's hospitality." "If you knew him you would not say that," Traynor spoke earnestly. "He is one of the biggest-hearted men I have ever known. You and he will find many topics of mutual interest apart from your profession. I am pretty sure he will be delighted with your idea of sanitarium for children as he loves children dearly. He has not an enemy in Arizona. Every one likes him." So the matter was settled, and four days later Limber and Doctor Powell started just after daylight breakfast for their ride of twenty-six miles across the Galiuro Mountains to the Hot Springs. CHAPTER THREE Katherine Glendon stood outside the door of the Circle Cross ranch house. On every side the view was blocked by the tall Galiuro Mountains above which loomed a sky of intense, glaring blue without a cloud to soften it--a sky as hard and defiant as the mountains that stared back at it; a masculine sky--a masculine country. For eight years she had called four crude adobe rooms home. Other women had attempted to live in the Hot Springs Cañon. But the isolation was too oppressive, and one by one the squatters drifted away, leaving deserted ranches to testify to their defeat, until only the Glendons and old Doctor King, three miles distant, remained. The morning meal was over, and Juan led a saddled pony from the stable to a hitching-post in front of the house. A tall, heavily set man slouched out, and the Mexican paused to ask; "Shall I saddle my pony, señor?" "Not now," Glendon replied. "I want you to mend the fence in the lower pasture. When you get done you can follow me." "Bueno, señor!" The man tied the pony and went back to the barn, and Glendon dropped on the steps of the porch, scowling at the ground. Accustomed to these spells of moodiness, his wife made no attempt to rouse him, knowing it would only increase his surliness. A child appeared at the side of the house; glanced quickly from the man to the woman and then, seeing his mother smile, made his way quietly to her side as she seated herself on the steps. He held a book in his hand, and as he leaned against her knee, with her arm about his shoulder, turned the pages slowly, looking at her occasionally but uttering no word. The sound of hoofs on the road caused the three to start curiously, for it was not very often that a visitor passed the Circle Cross. Only on a few occasions during the past eight years had anyone except a cowboy or a prospector entered the house. Once Doctor King had ridden down at intervals, but Glendon's aggressive disposition made these calls unpleasant for all of them. Katherine, knowing her husband was in one of his ugliest tempers, was sorry when she recognized the white-haired old doctor, who loped his grey pony up to the gate, smiling as he dismounted and slipped his reins over the post. "Hello, everybody!" he called cheerily. "A day like this makes a man glad to be alive, even if he is old enough to die." Glendon stared at the ground, making no response. Doctor King, with a comprehensive look, passed him by and smilingly held out his hand to Katherine, who came down the steps while Donnie ran ahead of her, holding up his book. "It's about Sir Galahad and the Holy Grail," the child began eagerly, "and there's a picture--" "His mother is always filling his head with a lot of trash," growled Glendon, and the boy shrank back, the happy light dying from his little face; but the doctor smiled down at him as he took the book and turned over the pages. "It's just the right kind of a story for Donnie to read," asserted the old man warmly. "This world would be a happier, better place it we all had the strength to live up to our Vision." Turning to Mrs. Glendon, he continued: "I can only say 'howdy and good-bye' today. I'm on my way to see a couple of sick people on the San Pedro River, but will stop when I come back in three or four days. By the way," he said to Glendon, "when I was in town last week, there was a telegram from Fort Apache to Fort Grant saying that old Geronimo and about a hundred and twenty-five Chiricahua Apaches have jumped the reservation and the troops are out after them." "Do you suppose there is any real danger?" asked Katherine, who had lived too long in Arizona to be frightened at rumors. "No one can count on an Apache. He's a twin-brother to Mark Twain's jack-rabbit--'Here he comes--there he goes!' He knows that Army officers are tangled with red tape and unable to use their own judgment in pursuing him and takes advantage of that fact. However, you know there is one safe place in Arizona and that is the Hot Springs; because the Apaches are superstitious about the water. The house is safer than any fortress for that reason. I've lived there twenty-five years and never been bothered by them. Even Indians employed as Government scouts have the fear, and will not camp within a mile of the Springs, I've been told by officers and interpreters. I wish you folks lived a bit closer to me." He rose as he spoke. "Well, I'll stop on my way back, Mrs. Glendon. It's hardly neighbourly, rushing off this way, but you know a doctor is not his own master. Take my advice, young man," he added to Donnie, "never be a doctor, whatever you may do. Why, just think how ungrateful people are! You get them well, or try to help them, and when they see you they stick out their tongues at you!" Donnie laughed, and King continued: "I don't believe those people on the San Pedro would mind if I took time to give you a ride. You see, a little bird told me that today was your birthday, and we haven't had a ride for a long time." Placing the book in his mother's hand, the boy hastened to the old grey horse and was lifted up in front of the saddle. Doctor King mounted and slipped his arm about the little fellow as the pony started at an easy lope down the road towards Hot Springs lying south of the Circle Cross in the opposite direction from the San Pedro River. "So you are six years old today?" quizzed the Doctor. "Getting a big boy now, and it won't take many birthdays for you to be a man." "Marmee gave me a book." Donnie spoke freely, now that he was not in the vicinity of his father. "She made a cake for me with white icing and six little red candles; and Juan bought a mouthorgan for me when he was in Willcox, and he is going to show me how to play on it when Daddy isn't home, so the noise won't make him nervous. Daddy is going to Jackson Flats, and Marmee and I are going to read the book tonight. We lit the candles and cut the cake this morning, so Daddy and Juan could see it and have some in their lunch. I'll give you a piece of it when we get back home. It was awful pretty." The doctor's hand reached over the boy's shoulder. "You can't guess what I have in it," he challenged, and Donnie shook his head slowly. "Open my hand, and findings shall be keepings," bade the old man. After several futile attempts, the fingers relaxed and Donnie gave a cry of delight. It was a penknife with four bright blades--a real penknife like those men carried--the first knife he had ever owned in his life. "Oh!" the child's surprise could find no other word for a few seconds, as he surveyed his treasure; then he lifted his happy face. "I always kiss Marmee when she 'sprises me," he said shyly, "but Daddy says men don't slobber." The grey horse came to a halt and began nibbling contentedly at the bunch grass between the rocks. He was accustomed to these halts when Donnie and the doctor rode and talked of many things. When one is young in the world it is easy to clasp hands with those who are nearing the border of another world. Together they see life in the same light. Youth has not learned to place a false value on imitations and age has turned from them in disgust. So the child and the old man understood each other. "Once upon a time, Donnie, many years ago, I had a little boy, and when he was six years old I gave him that knife, and when I gave it to him, he kissed me. Then, afterward, we made a wonderful boat with sails. When I come back from the River, you and I will make a boat like it to sail in the big pond at the Springs." The child looked up, then his arms went about the neck of the old man and their lips met. As the grey horse turned back toward the Circle Cross, Donnie was silent for a few minutes, then asked, "Where is your little boy, now?" King's face bent over the child's curls, his chin rested on his chest, his eyes were dim with recollection, as he answered gently, "He went away from me, Donnie." "Did he die?" "Yes; and that was when he gave his knife for them to give to me when I got back home." They neared the porch where Katherine stood talking earnestly to her husband. Doctor King let the child slip from the saddle without himself dismounting. Donnie ran to show his new gift. "What a perfectly splendid knife!" exclaimed his mother, opening the blades. "Why! It has four blades!" Gratified, the child turned uncertainly to his father, holding out the knife for his inspection and approval. "See, Daddy!" Glendon impatiently brushed away the hand and knife. Katherine's eyes dimmed with sudden tears at the crestfallen face of the boy and she held out her hand again for the knife. King's eyes flashed angrily, and he checked the horse he was riding away. "Marmee, can't I give doctor a piece of my birthday cake?" begged the child, and Katherine with hearty assent went into the house, followed by the boy. In a few seconds they emerged, Donnie proudly bearing a bit of cake crudely decorated with white icing and a tiny red candle that had burnt low. No words had been exchanged between the two men in the interval. Doctor King regarded the cake with admiration; ate it and was loud in his praise as the finest birthday cake he had ever tasted, and Donnie's face lighted up once more. Glendon paid no attention to this episode and moved to the hitching-post where his pony waited. He unfastened the tie-rope without uttering a word. Doctor King studied the sullen face. "Which way are you going?" he asked pleasantly as Glendon swung on the pony and dug spurs into the animal's sides, yanking viciously at the cruel Spanish bit as the pony started. "Jackson Flats," was the curt answer. "Do you think it wise? This report is reliable." "Back tomorrow afternoon." "I'll ride as far as the forks of the trail with you," said King, ignoring the surliness of the other man and congratulating himself upon having an opportunity to broach a topic that had occupied his thoughts for many months. Glendon's look was not inviting, but side by side, the two men rode into the Hot Springs Cañon toward the San Pedro River. The wagon road terminated at the stable of the Circle Cross, and from there merged into a narrow, rocky trail which twisted zig-zag at the bottom of the cañon for five miles, then divided. One fork of the trail struck up the side of the mountain and led to Jackson Flats, twenty odd miles distant; the other followed the bed of the dry creek to the San Pedro River, fifteen miles away. In the rainy season the sandy cañon became a raging mountain stream that was impassable. The two men carried on a perfunctory conversation at intervals, the doctor trying to find a suitable opening that he might not antagonize the other and so defeat his purpose; while Glendon, submerged in his mood, replied in monosyllables. King looked at the younger man in disgusted anger; but remembering the woman and child, restrained the bitter words that burned on his tongue. "I wish it were not necessary for me to make this trip just now," the doctor said, assuming a casual tone, "but I cannot put it off any longer. I was thinking this morning, Glendon, that it might be wise to have Mrs. Glendon and Donnie stay in Willcox until things are more settled." "If I kept them there till rumours of Apaches are settled, they would never come home at all," retorted Glendon. "You know as well as I do there is less danger when the Indians are reported off the reservation than when it is supposed they are quiet. Besides, they will be in too much of a hurry just now, trying to get across the Mexican border before the Tenth Cavalry catches them. They won't be up to any deviltry for a while." King could not help acknowledging the truth in Glendon's words, but a sense of uneasiness oppressed him. They reached the parting of the trails. "So long!" muttered Glendon, but King laid a detaining hand on his shoulder. Glendon turned his bloodshot eyes on the old man and hitched his shoulder from the wrinkled hand. "Glendon, there's something I have wanted to say to you for a long time. I'm an old man, and being a doctor gives me many privileges, you know." Glendon's lips tightened. He made no reply as he slouched in his saddle, slapping his leather 'chaps' with his quirt. King hesitated a second and then went on speaking in his kindly voice. "My life has been long, Glendon, and my trail has led over many rough places. I'm almost at the end of it now. When one looks back, one can see more clearly. You are just starting life. It is easy to avoid the places where others have stumbled, if someone points them out. You have a splendid wife and a fine boy; the future holds many possibilities for you--possibilities that I and many other men envy. Glendon, don't sell your birthright for a mess of pottage." The other man scowled, but was silent, and King hoped that his words were reaching the man's heart. "Let me help you," pleaded the doctor eagerly. "I understand what a struggle it is to overcome one's self. Years ago I threw away my chances, and I know the cost. I saw friends avoid me, and I did not care. My patients deserted me, because I was not to be relied upon; my wife and boy were taken from me while I was too drunk to know they were dead. My father pleaded with me and I cursed him. Then I became a tramp, drifting from place to place, my only ambition in life to get whiskey. The train crew threw me off a freight car one day and I wandered around in Arizona, penniless and friendless, until I was able to conquer myself and find my lost manhood. Thirty years ago!" His head sunk and his voice trembled as he added, "Nothing can ever give back the things I threw away, nor can I undo the suffering I caused those who loved me best. I saw the Vision, but had not the strength to follow it." Glendon laughed sneeringly; "So, like most reformed characters, who have had their own fling to their heart's content, you want to drag everyone by the hair of the head into the particular straight and narrow path you select for him. Thank you for your interesting sermon, King. I prefer stumbling alone. I'm perfectly able to look out for myself. By your own admission I couldn't place much confidence in your assistance. Hereafter, mind your own business and keep away from me and my family!" He jerked his pony toward the upper trail, and kicked it with his spurred heels. As it snorted and jumped, Glendon sawed its mouth with the reins. Doctor King watched this unnecessary brutality, then moved his pony beside Glendon's. The man's eyes gleamed with fury, but the old man made one more appeal. "Glendon, think of your wife and boy, just a moment! You are crushing all the happiness from their lives. It is taking advantage of their helplessness. Only a coward would do that!" King had said more than he intended; but now that he had spoken his true thoughts he gazed steadily into Glendon's bloodshot eyes. He did not flinch as Glendon wheeled his horse against the grey pony. Leaning over the doctor, the other man volleyed a stream of oaths. The doctor's face expressed only pity. Glendon realized it, and his fury broke all bounds. He lifted the heavy leather whip that hung on his wrist and struck viciously at King's face. The grey pony leaped in fright, so the blow glanced to the old man's shoulder. Glendon raised the whip a second time, then let it fall by his side. There was no resentment in the doctor's face, only infinite pity as he held out his hand. "Glendon, I understand. I struck and cursed the man who tried to wake me. It was my own father." "You mind your own business after this," snarled Glendon. "I'm sick of your meddling, posing and preaching. I won't let you, Katherine, or anyone else dictate to me about what I shall do. Damn the whole bunch of you, anyhow!" His pony scrambled up the steep trail under the sharp prods of the spurs and the lashing of Glendon's whip. Doctor King looked after him, sadly. "The same old road--each one stumbling over the same rough places--learning only from his own bruises and wounds. God pity the broken hearts of those who commit no sin save loving." The peculiar foreboding that had oppressed him all day, returned more strongly. King wondered whether he had better retrace the trail and put off his trip till tomorrow. Then, recalling that Juan was at the Circle Cross with Katherine and Donnie, and that Glendon would return the next evening, while Leon's sick baby needed sorely the doctor's care, he finally headed the grey pony toward the San Pedro determined to make the trip as quickly as possible. CHAPTER FOUR The shadows on the ground told Katherine's practised eyes that it was nearly ten o'clock when she closed the book she had been reading to Donnie. "We'll finish it this afternoon," she said, "and now the bread has to be worked, you know." "I wish I could be like Sir Galahad, Marmee," answered the child wistfully. "Do knights hunt for the Sangreal any more?" "Not in suits of armour, my dear; but we all can be like Sir Galahad, even today. The Vision of Right and Wrong comes to everyone. Then the true knight puts on his invisible armour and takes the oath of the Round Table;--never to wrong rich or poor; never to be cruel; to show mercy to those that ask it; always to be true; to take no part in wrongful quarrel, but to help the weak and helpless and serve the King loyally." "Can't I be a knight? I'm six years old and Doctor King said I would soon be a real man." His mother looked down at the eager face, then said tenderly, "Yes, dear. You can be mother's little Knight. Kneel down, like Sir Galahad and take the oath." Slowly and solemnly the childish voice repeated the words of the Round Table oath, while the distant yelp of a coyote quivered faintly in the air and the hooting of an owl sounded like derisive laughter for the woman and child alone in the wild cañon. Neither of them heard the sounds. Lightly the child's mother touched him on the shoulder. Her eyes were misty as she gazed down at the little knight who must someday go out alone against the hordes of invisible foes. Would he have the strength to live up to the Vision? A leering face with bloodshot eyes seemed to confront her, and the child's father drew the boy away, saying, "He is mine as well as yours." She put the thought from her. "Rise, Sir Knight! Defender of the weak and helpless!" she said, while her hand rested on the boy's shoulder. The child rose with serious eyes, then remembering what the book had said, he knelt and kissed his mother's hand, looking up as he said, "Marmee, now I'm your knight really and truly and I'm going to take care of you all the time." Katherine caught him in her arms, and the newly-made knight forgot the dignity just conferred, to nestle against her breast and talk of the wonderful things he was going to do for her when he was a big man; but not once did he speak the name of his father. As they talked, Katherine's eyes glanced at the high edge of the cañon, where the trail led to Jackson Flats; she was surprised at seeing something that moved along the trail toward the house. Two horsemen were distinctly silhouetted against the sky, then a turn in the trail hid them from view. She rose hastily, speaking to the child. "Your father and Juan are coming back," she said. "So, if you will run and get some dry wood, I'll start the stove." Donnie laid his book on the front room table and hurried out the back door, but Katherine, knowing the riders would reappear at another turn of the trail, took a pair of field glasses from a nail, and focused them on the point. She wondered if her imagination tricked her when she saw several other figures in the gap where the first two had appeared. Three, this time; then more followed, a fourth group loomed for a few minutes, then they, too, vanished like wraiths. Her breath fluttered, her heart pounded heavily, for she knew too well what that line of riders meant. The glasses crashed from her nerveless hands, and Donnie came running to her side. She looked at him, paralyzed by the knowledge that those coming down the trail toward the little home, were Geronimo, the grim, blood-thirsty Medicine Man of the Apaches, and his band of bronco Indians. Stories of the hideous fates that had befallen women and children at various times of the Apache outbreaks, flashed across her brain. Then she recalled Doctor King's words, "You can't get an Indian within a mile of my place." To remain in her home and barricade herself was hopeless, but she could try to reach the protection of the Hot Springs with her boy. Donnie asked no questions when she went into the house and returned at once, buckling a belt of cartridges about her waist. A pistol swung in the holster. The field glasses had not been broken in the fall; she lifted them and looked once more at the gap of the trail. There was nothing to be seen. The Indians could not make fast time down from that point, she knew, nor could they see the ranch or cañon until almost upon the little corral back of the house. "Come, dear," she said, as she seized the child's hand, and together they hurried down the steps through the dense mesquite and shrubbery, on the road to Hot Springs. The child could not keep pace with her nerve-driven feet. She felt him lag, and looked down into his white face and tear-filled eyes, and realized that he understood their danger. She stopped and clasped him in her arms. "Don't be afraid, dear. They won't find us." He tried to smile, but his lips quivered. In her desperation a thought was born. It would be impossible to reach the Springs, but up on the side of the cañon was a large cave. She and the child had often gone there pretending they were explorers. The entrance was concealed by heavy brush and surrounded by huge boulders. It had been a place of refuge many times for the child when his father's irascible temper awakened. "We'll go to our cave," she said, "and you know we're the only ones who can find it." Donnie's hand gripped hers tightly, and with a sharp survey of the trail to Jackson, she started the climb up the steep cañon side, always keeping in the thickest part of the mesquite. Down the cañon they had to cross the bed of the dry creek, but once that was passed the boulders stood thickly. Slowly they made their way, for the rarefied Arizona air, the sharp pitch of the incline, the almost dead weight of the stumbling child, the fear of those who rode back of them made the climb doubly hard. At last they reached the entrance of the cave, and sinking to her knees, she half-pushed, half-dragged the terrified child into their place of refuge. With her arm about the boy, she sat huddled against the side of the cave, but through the brush at the mouth, she could discern the Indians riding down the trail that ended at the corral. They circled cautiously about the ranch, then growing bolder broke into three bunches. Two groups approached the house from front and rear, while the third party dashed into the corral where the milk calf was kept, and in a few minutes it was dead. The Apaches, apparently in frenzied haste, slaughtered and quartered the calf, not taking time to skin the carcass which was tied in sections to the ponies. Others chased and captured all the chickens possible, wringing their necks and adding them to other plunder, until the leader, whom Katherine recognized as Geronimo, gave a command which was reluctantly obeyed. The entire cavalcade mounted and dashed down the cañon, following the road toward the Hot Springs ranch. Katherine knew that the real danger now confronted her. Though the cañon was a mass of rocks, the roadbed where she had crossed was sandy, making it possible that her footprints might be discovered by the sharp-eyed hostiles, who were constantly on the alert for signs. A short distance from the spot which might betray her steps, several of the Indians halted suddenly, whirling their ponies and gesticulating to the others. The woman in the cave gripped the revolver more tightly. "They will have to come up single file," she thought, then wondered why she no longer feared. Carefully she calculated her chances, grateful for the obstructing brush, the gloom of the cave and its projecting sides which would protect her so long as her ammunition held out. One by one, she counted the cartridges in the belt, without taking her eyes from the figures in the cañon below. The distance across the cañon was so narrow, that the call of a quail on the other side of the Apaches could be distinctly heard by the woman. "Six, seven, eight," the pitifully few cartridges slipped through her hands until the last two lay in her upturned palm. She looked at them, then her eyes travelled to the child, and she knew that she would not flinch at the last moment. It was the only thing for a mother to do in Arizona, miles away from any living being except 'bronco' Apaches. Donnie's eyes met hers, but he asked no question with his lips. The Indians were becoming more excited. Their voices reached the place where the mother and boy had found refuge. Katherine peered through the bushes. Geronimo was speaking, the others listened, and in obedience to his gesture, wheeled their ponies and rode up the side of the cañon opposite the cave. They reached the ridge, halted a few minutes in consultation, then turned their ponies' south-east along the backbone of the elevation until they vanished like a hideous nightmare. "They are gone," she spoke with white-lipped tenseness, as she held the trembling boy in her arms, and the full realization of their narrow escape swept over her. Immediate danger was past, but it would not be safe to venture from the cave. Stragglers might arrive at any moment. Familiar with Apache superstition which prevents raids or fighting during night, she decided to remain in the cave until it was dark, then creep to the house and obtain food and water. Sunrise was the favourite time with Apaches in making attacks. She dared not further attempt to reach the Hot Springs. Then she wondered if her husband and Juan had escaped the Indians or not. CHAPTER FIVE It was almost noon when Katherine saw two horsemen coming along the road that led from Hot Springs, and her fears returned. But as the riders approached more closely, a look of almost incredulous relief showed on her pale face. Hastening from the cave, she stood on the slope of the cañon, holding out her arms. "Limber! Limber!" she called, half-laughing, half-sobbing. The men jerked their ponies suddenly, stared up and exchanged a few hasty words, then sprang from their saddles and hurried toward her. "What is the matter, Mrs. Glendon?" Limber was the first to reach her, and his face was almost as white as hers, as she swayed slightly. Her outstretched hands were caught in his firm grasp and the touch steadied her. She tried to smile into his eyes. "I'm all right now," she said, making a brave effort to control her faltering voice, "but, you see, the Indians passed here this morning. Donnie and I hid in the cave. I thought they were coming back when I saw you." "Whar's Glendon?" demanded Limber sharply, his eyes narrowing as he spoke. "At Jackson Flats with Juan. They will be home tonight." "He had no business leavin' you alone;" the cowboy's voice was angry. "He knowed the Indians was restless. I warned him last week when I seen him down in town, and he promised me he wouldn't take no chances with you and Donnie." "Doctor King told us this morning, but we did not think there was any immediate danger, Limber," she said. The man understood the gentle reproof. "I didn't mean to knock Glendon, but it was takin' a heap of chances, jest the same, and Glen hadn't orter done it when he knowed Geronimo had jumped the Reservation an' your ranch right on the old Indian trail to Mexico." He turned to Powell who had been observing the woman. "This is Doctor Powell, Mrs. Glendon. We rid across from the Diamond H to see Doctor King. He ain't home today, though." Powell clasped the extended hand and felt the quivering nerves, but before he could speak, Donnie appeared at the entrance of the cave, his darkly-circled eyes telling the hours of fear. "Hello, Donnie!" called Limber cheerfully, placing a calloused hand gently on the lad's shoulder. "You fooled ol' Geronimo that time, all right. We've got the laugh on him, haven't we?" A faint smiled rewarded the cowboy, whose glance now rested on the little pile of cartridges and the pistol. Limber said nothing, but stooped for the gun and ammunition, then he saw the two cartridges lying apart from the others. The muscles of his jaws twitched. As he picked up the last two, he hesitated and looked closely at the ground. His eyes travelled toward the rear of the cave then past the brushy entrance. Katherine and Powell were making their way down the side of the cañon and Donnie's hand was held by the doctor. Limber followed them, lifted the child to Peanut's back, and with a nod at Powell, mounted the other pony and rode slowly toward the ranch house, while the doctor and Katherine talking earnestly together, took a shorter cut. They found the kitchen of the ranch in chaos. It had been rifled of all provisions, but owing to the haste of Geronimo nothing but blankets and some Navajo rugs had been taken from the rest of the house. Limber, hearing the milk cow bawling at the corral, left Powell, Donnie and Katherine in the house taking inventory while he announced his intention of milking the cow. When the cowboy opened the corral gate, Beauty, the cow, rushed into the corral and sniffed the ground suspiciously. She caught the scent of fresh blood and lifted her head, her eyes rolling wildly as she bellowed rapidly and shrilly, sucking her breath audibly between her cries, like terrible sobs. "You may be only a cow, but you know enough to have it hurt you jest like humans," said Limber pityingly, as he offered feed which she refused to touch. Gently he stroked her heaving sides, and she paused in her cries, looking at him with eager, appealing eyes. Then, as though understanding he could not help her, she resumed her shrill grief. Limber tied her to the fence, milked her and carried the bucket to the kitchen. He put it on the table, glanced at the empty wood-box and left the room. In a few minutes the sound of splitting wood mingled with Donnie's chatter and Powell's occasional remarks to Limber. From the kitchen they heard the cheerful clatter of pans and the hum of an egg-beater. The little dining-room into which Powell was summoned half an hour later, showed no traces of the hurried visit of the Apaches. The table was spread with fresh linen and decorated with a bowl of wild flowers. Despite the raid on her larder, Katherine had managed to provide a luncheon to tempt even a jaded palate. "You must have Aladdin's lamp hidden somewhere," Powell remarked admiringly as he took the place opposite Limber. Katherine glanced up smiling, as she served a dainty omelette. "Nothing so magical as that," she said. "The truth is that the Indians overlooked the springhouse where we keep surplus stores. Limber helped more than Aladdin, for he milked the cow, found a few eggs and chopped the wood. With that much accomplished, any woman could manage a meal." "We must agree to disagree," dissented Powell, but the conventional compliment was sincere. He was filled with admiration for the woman, who within twenty-four hours had gone through such experiences, yet retained her poise. "I wish some of my hysterical women patients could meet you, Mrs. Glendon." Her surprise was not assumed. "Don't give me credit that I do not deserve," she answered simply. "When circumstances conspire against one, there is no time to plan or think. You just do things instinctively. Then, too, women living on ranches learn to adapt themselves to many things that would seem hardships to other women. Beside, you and Limber reached me just as I was beginning to quake. So I don't feel entitled to any praise." "I am thankful that we happened to come when you needed us most," the doctor responded heartily. "We wanted to see Doctor King; but, finding him away from the ranch, Limber suggested that we ride down here and possibly find out when he might return." "Leon's baby was sick," she explained, and Limber nodded. "He'll be back in a couple of days, he said." "I want to find out whether the doctor will consider a proposition of mine regarding building a sanitarium at the Springs," Powell went on. "Mr. Traynor said King had such an idea, himself, and needed a partner-physician. That was how Limber and I came this way today." "You know our Arizona custom--our homes are the homes of our friends. You are royally welcome to the best we have until Doctor King returns." The two men exchanged sudden glances, and Limber hastened to say, "I've got to get to Willcox this evening, for the boys are on the road with a shipment of stock. But, Doctor Powell could wait here till King gets back. I was thinkin' I had better ride down to Leon's and head King back this way. Then he and Doctor Powell could talk together, whilst I kin go to Willcox by the San Pedro road instead of comin' back here." "Don't change any plans on my account," the woman said quickly, sensing their thoughts. "My husband and Juan will be home tonight, so there is no occasion for anxiety." "We'll wait till they come," Powell's voice was decided. "After they reach here, Limber and I can follow Doctor King. We have a new moon tonight and Limber says the trail is plain." Then Powell changed the conversation by asking Donnie if he spoke Spanish, and the child nodded assent. "Marmee and I talk with Juan in Spanish all the time." The doctor continued, "I used to live in South America, so I learned it down there. It varies a bit, but I have been able to understand and make myself understood, so far." Luncheon over, the doctor went on the porch with mother and child, and Limber sauntered back to the stables to water their ponies. He was holding the halter-ropes of the animals while they stood by the water-trough, when he saw Glendon and Juan riding down the trail back of the house. "Hello, Limber!" called Glendon as he swung from his saddle. Limber regarded him with angry eyes. "Well, Glen, you sure kept your word to me in fine shape," he said in open disgust. The other man shrugged his shoulders. "There's no danger. I can't sit around the place all the time holding a gun because some fool rumour is started about the Indians." He was unfastening the double cinches of his saddle, but the leather straps fell from his fingers when Limber said slowly and meaningly; "No. Thar ain't no danger now! The whole bunch headed by ol' Geronimo passed here today. That's all!" Glendon's face paled; "Katherine--" Limber relented. "Mrs. Glendon seen 'em in time to get away, or else the Apaches would of got her and Donnie. She hid in a cave, and when we found her thar was two cartridges put one side. You know what that means. 'Tain't a pleasant thing for any woman to be alone and get to a point where she has to save two cartridges. No man has any right to ast her to take such chances--and if he is skunk enough to expect it, he ain't wuth doin' it for." "How did you happen to find her?" asked Glendon, fingering the hanging strap of the cinch, and avoiding the other man's eyes. "I come over with Doctor Powell. He's a friend of Mr. Traynor's and been at the Diamond H over a month. We come to see Doc King and rid down here to trail him up. He wasn't at the Springs. That's how we found Mrs. Glendon, and it made me hot all the way through." "Oh, she's able to take care of herself. I guess there wasn't so much danger. Katherine always exaggerates things. She's too melodramatic. I'm used to her ways, you aren't." Limber's eyes flashed and he grasped Glendon's arm roughly, compelling the man to face him. "Look here, Glen! I've stood by you when every other decent man has throwed you down for a yellow cur. I done it because I thought mebbe thar was a white streak in you that didn't show on top, but the bunch you're getting mixed with ain't goin' to do you no good, and you've got to pull up mighty quick. Best thing you kin do, and what you'd oughter done without any one telling you, is quit this country. If you ain't man enough to do it for your own sake, do it for their'n;" Limber's head jerked toward the house. "You've been a true friend, Limber, or else I wouldn't let you talk to me that way. I can't leave here now, but I will pull out as soon as I can arrange it. I give you my word of honour." Limber gripped the outstretched hand, "I'm durned glad you told me," he said earnestly. "I'll do anything I know how for you and Mrs. Glendon any time you call on me." Juan approached and removed the bridle from Glendon's pony, replacing a halter on it he was turning away, when Limber spoke, "Thar's fresh lion tracks leadin' to that cave whar Mrs. Glendon and Donnie hid this mornin'. I didn't tell 'em, but they'd better keep away from the cave. _Lucky the lion wasn't thar._ You lay for it, Juan." "Si, Señor," the Mexican's promise was emphatic, and Glendon, too, declared he would "run the brute down." "I've been having a lot of bad luck lately," Glendon said as he and Limber walked to the house. "This rough range is hard to work and cattle so wild you can't round 'em up without running all the fat off their bones. By the time they are driven thirty-five miles to Willcox, no butcher wants 'em. The longer I stay here the worse off I will be. I've written the old man and asked him to give me a chance somewhere else. He may not answer my letter, but it won't be any worse than now, if he doesn't. I didn't have enough money when I started to pay expenses." They reached the house where Glendon welcomed Doctor Powell effusively. Something of the charm that had attracted friends in other days, still was apparent when Glendon was not drinking. Powell's keen eyes observed the handsome face marred by lines of weakness and self-indulgence. "Glad to meet you," Glendon's voice sounded sincere and he grasped Doctor Powell's hand warmly. "We don't have very many visitors around here, but from what Limber tells me, it's been a regular reception day at the ranch. I wouldn't have gone away from the house if I had thought there was any real danger." Powell, remembering that Limber had warned Glendon previously about the Indians, and that Mrs. Glendon had spoken of Doctor King's warning them, knew Glendon was lying, and Powell hated a liar. Glendon's eyes shifted under the steady gaze of the doctor, and he hastened to say, "I don't suppose Katherine offered you a drink. Lucky I don't keep it in the closet or Geronimo would have it by this time." He started to get the liquor, but Powell prevented it by rising from his chair and holding out his hand to Mrs. Glendon. "Now that you are not alone, I think Limber and I had better be on our way, trailing Doctor King. I am anxious to meet him as soon as possible." Katherine and Donnie bade him farewell. Glendon kept talking volubly. "I'm glad we know the Apaches have passed here. No danger when you have a line on their whereabouts, but when you don't know, they always bob up. They hike for the Mexican border when the soldiers make it too hot for 'em in Arizona." Limber now led the ponies to the gate, and Glendon held out his hand to Powell, saying, "Glad to have met you, Doctor, and let me know if there is anyway in which I can show my appreciation for what you have done for Mrs. Glendon and Donnie." Katherine smiled her gratitude, then Powell and Limber rode down the trail to the San Pedro River, followed by the eyes of husband and wife who stood on the porch of the Circle Cross ranch. As the turn of the trail back of the stables hid the riders from view, Glendon said to his wife, "I wonder what they want to see King about. Looks urgent, chasing him that way." "Doctor Powell said that he and Doctor King might form a partnership to build a Sanitarium at the Springs. You know that has been Doctor King's dream for many years; but he never has found any one who could qualify as physician and also have sufficient capital. I hope they may carry out the plan. It is such a splendid idea!" "Oh, you do, eh?" Glendon snarled the words as he scowled at his wife. "Well, you may be interested in knowing that I'm figuring on getting the Springs myself. I've written father about the place. The only hitch would be that it is on unsurveyed ground, and no one can get a title except Squatter's Rights." "But Doctor King won't sell to any one except a physician who will live there with him and establish a Sanitarium," Katherine asserted. "I've heard him say that so many times. He also told me that Mr. Traynor had made a good offer for the place, but it was refused for those reasons. Maybe Mr. Traynor wrote Doctor Powell about it. You see, Doctor Powell could qualify as a physician, and if he has not the money to finance the buildings, Mr. Traynor could supply that, or interest other capital." Glendon did not answer, but sat on the lower step of the porch, staring moodily down the cañon trail toward San Pedro. His wife, learning from Juan that they had not eaten the lunch in their saddle bags, busied herself preparing an early dinner, for the hands of the clock announced four. She arranged the table then came to the front door and spoke quietly. Glendon did not hear her. She moved to his side and touched him lightly on the shoulder, saying, "Dinner is ready, Jim. Juan said you had not eaten lunch." He leaped violently to his feet uttering an oath and glaring at her. "What are you doing? Spying on me?" he demanded furiously, and brushed past her, knocking against her shoulder as she stood in the doorway. Her face paled. She made no answer, but turned to the dining-room where Juan was at the table. Glendon fortified his ragged nerves with a generous drink of whiskey and slumped into his chair, only to grumble at everything before him and finally push away his untasted food. Then he rose so suddenly that his chair fell backward with a crash. He started, glanced at the chair, gave it a kick and with another oath, flung himself from the house. Through the window Katherine saw him again mount his pony. She sat with trembling lips, tears slowly forcing themselves from the drooping eyelids and wetting her white cheeks. Juan's face was filled with pity, but he knew he could do nothing--say nothing, and he rose softly and slipped away that she might be alone with her misery. Donnie's hand touched her cheek, and she opened her eyes and smiled at him, thankful that the child was safe. Nothing else mattered, after all. So while she removed and washed the dishes, she talked cheerfully to Donnie. Back in the front room again, the boy moved to and fro, and at last turned his anxious face to his mother. "I can't find my book, Marmee. Do you think the Indians took it?" "Why, no, dear," she replied, looking at the table. She had noticed the book where Donnie had left it. It had been there when she called Glendon from the porch for dinner. No one had passed through the room since then but Glendon. Carefully she and Donnie searched the room, but no trace of the book could be found. She stood staring down the front walk to the gate, unwilling to acknowledge her suspicions against the father of her child. Then on the walk she saw something that caused her to hurry out. The wind carried a torn page to her feet. She stooped and picked up the fluttering, tell-tale bit of paper, and as she held it in her trembling hand, the words caught her eyes, "and he shall be a better man than his father." On the upper part of the page rode Sir Galahad. "Donnie, dear," she called and the boy came quickly to her side. "Come and help me look out here for the book. Maybe we can find it in the bushes, somewhere. See, here is a page, and the rest of it must be close by." They found it torn, soiled, the covers broken and cracked, and the child's sobs came unchecked as his mother's arms went about him; the ache in her heart was too great for tears. "Donnie, we can mend it so it will be almost as good as ever," she cheered him, and the child's sobs were choked though the quiet tears rolled down his cheeks, as he went back to the house with his mother, the mutilated book held in his little hands. CHAPTER SIX In the meantime Powell and Limber were riding down the cañon, immersed in deep thought until Limber said, "Thar was fresh lion tracks leadin' into that cave." Powell jerked about, "Good Lord!" he ejaculated, realizing what it would have meant had the brute been there when the woman and child sought the place of refuge. "I told Glendon and Juan, and they're layin' for it, and Juan'll tell Mrs. Glendon to keep away from the cave. He won't forget it." "Well," Powell commented, "I'm glad you told the Mexican. That fellow Glendon thinks of no one but himself. I was watching the child when his father came on the porch, and I'd hate to have any child or animal look at me with such abject fear. It made me sick with fury. How can that woman stand such a life!" "Glen really does think a heap of her, in his own way," Limber replied slowly, "But when he gets the smell of the cork of a whiskey bottle, he goes plum loco. That's what made the row between him and his folks back East. His father has heaps of money, but won't have nothin' to do with Glen. Leastways, that's what Glen tole me hisself, onct. He said today that he's goin' to pull up stakes as soon as he kin fix it to move, and take his fambly where the Apaches can't run 'em like they done today." "I'll give him credit for some decent instincts when he moves them to a half-civilized place; but I wouldn't take his word for anything. He's a natural liar, I think. I'm sorry for that wife of his, and for the child." "She's one of the finest women that ever drawed breath," answered Limber. "She's stood a lot, and she'll stand a heap more." Conversation ceased until the cowboy pointed to a high peak. "See that peak up yonder? An ol' fellow lived thar fifteen years prospectin' for gold. Stayed all alone. He was always cocksure he was goin' to find a big mine someday. Some one called him Monty Cristy, and the name stuck to him like a cockle-burr in a horse's mane. One day I was deer-huntin' and run into his camp. He had a dugout in the side of the mountain and a tunnel whar he'd been prospectin'. I went into the tunnel to look at the ore, and found him sittin' thar against the side wall. His pick was across his knees and a piece of ore in his hand, but he had been dead over a week. I buried him up thar." "Was the mine ever developed?" "Twarn't nothin' to develope. The bit of rock in his hand was like all the stuff on the dump outside the tunnel. Plum worthless. Chock full of iron pyrites--not worth a damn. 'Fools' Gold' is what the miners calls it." The cowboy leaned over and petted his pony's neck gently, then straightened up in the saddle and went on; "I've often wondered whether ol' Monty knowed at the last that it was only 'Fools' Gold.' Thar's a heap of people besides ol' Monty that keeps on diggin', hopin' for a strike and gettin' nothin' but 'Fools' Gold.' Tain't no use talkin' to them. It's the lucky ones what don't find out the truth, after they've put in the best of their lives workin' on a false lead." Powell's thoughts went back to the woman at the Circle Cross, and he answered soberly, "You are right, Limber." A number of buzzards circled in the cañon a short distance ahead of them, but not directly on the trail. Limber called the doctor's attention to them, and added, "We'd better go over and see what it is that interests them. Maybe only a dead cow; but when the Indians is out, you never know what you're running into. You learn not to pass anythin' by when you find buzzards." They left the trail, worked through the dense underbrush that was matted with dead grass and other debris from past heavy floods. Buzzards flew up thickly at their approach. Then they sat looking down at a grey horse huddled in the rocks. Saddle and bridle were gone. A few feet away was the body of an old man, his white hair clotted with blood from a bullet wound in the left temple; his sightless grey eyes upturned to the blue skies, as though in mute questioning. "God!" ejaculated Limber, as he leaped from his horse. "It's ol' Doctor King! Damn them Apaches!" Powell's shock was not less than the cowboy's, and he knelt beside the body of the man whom he had hoped to work with at the Springs. He did not think of the annihilation of his own plans, but the things he had heard of the kindly old man. Death had been instantaneous. The bullet had entered the left temple, ranged downward and out behind the right ear. The two men looked at each other, then Powell's eyes went up to the broken side of the cañon. From back of one of those rocks had sped the messenger of death, with no warning to the old doctor who was on his errand of mercy to a little Mexican baby. "Why didn't the Indians take the horse?" was Powell's question. "Because it's grey. They ain't got no use for a grey or white horse, specially when they're out for trouble." Limber studied the ground about the horse and its dead owner. "Too rocky to show any trail," he commented at last. "He's been dead over night," Powell asserted as he finished examining the body. "The Apaches have been hangin' about for several nights in the Graham range. Thar's two bunches. I seen 'em signalling three nights ago right back of Fort Grant where the soldiers couldn't catch sight of their fires. They keep lookouts on the high peaks and hold a blanket in front of the fire. Beats a telegraph office. Thar ain't nothin' smarter 'n an Apache, unless it's two Apaches. You can't trust one unless he's dead. Chances is that the two bunches figure to come together at Point of Mountains, seven miles north of Willcox. Then when it's dark they'll jump across the valley to Cochise Stronghold and work into Mexico." "But, the soldiers could head them off," Powell interposed. Limber snorted. "Sounds that way all right. But, if you jest look at these mountains and cañons, you'll pretty soon see that the soldiers has jest as much chanct against them Apaches as an elephant would have if you set him in a hayfield to kill a flea by trompin' on it. When they're tired of killin' people and want a vacation and no hard work, they come in and give themselves up and go home to the Reservation." "There's nothing to be done here now, except to notify the proper authorities at Willcox, I suppose," Powell resumed. "We found him--but it's a different ending from the way we thought." Limber unstrapped a Navajo blanket from the back of his saddle, and together they wrapped the stiffened form of the old doctor. "Thar's heaps of people goin' to miss him," the cowpuncher said slowly, as they stood looking down. "Nobody ever called him that he didn't go, rain or shine. He never took one cent for what he done. Jest tol' 'em to feed him an' his ol' grey horse and that was all the pay he wanted. He was sure a good man;" both heads were uncovered in silent homage. "I'll stay here," continued Limber, "if you'll ride back to Glendon's and get his spring wagon, so we kin take the body to Willcox. It'll be hard gettin' the wagon in the cañon, but I guess we kin make it. We'll lead our ponies behind the wagon." Powell was already mounting his horse, as Limber added, "'Twon't take a Coroner's jury long to bring in a verdict. I'm doggone glad, though, we ain't a packin' Mrs. Glendon and Donnie along with Doctor King. They sure had a close call this mornin'. If Geronimo hadn't been in a hurry to get across to that other bunch, they'd sure trailed Mrs. Glendon to that cave." "It is no place for any woman to live," Powell's voice vibrated with indignation. "I can't understand how any man could bring a woman like her to such surroundings. I'm glad he intends to move his family away. Any place would be better than this, for her." Limber watched his companion ride off, then busied himself with a second examination of the ground in the vicinity of the dead man and horse. Satisfied at last that he had overlooked no trace, he dropped on a boulder and rolled a cigarette, but as he shook the tobacco from the sack into the brown paper, a portion of it fell to the ground unnoticed. Limber was staring into space, an expression of doubt lurking in his grey eyes. "Derned if I kin understand why they took so much trouble hidin' their trail, Peanut," he spoke to the little pinto pony at his side. "The main bunch must of rid higher up and one of 'em come down for the bridle and saddle after King was shot; but, thar ain't a moccasin or any other track nowhars. It beats me." When Powell returned he was accompanied by Glendon, who climbed into the driver's seat and picked up the reins after they placed King's body in the wagon. Limber, leading Powell's pony, followed the wagon, mounted on Peanut. The vehicle bumped and jerked over large rocks of a trail that never before had been traversed by wagon wheels. Powell was not inclined to talk, but Glendon forced conversation, though it savoured of a monologue. "King told us he had no one belonging to him," Glendon's voice broke the silence of the cañon, while the team headed for the Circle Cross. "Katherine said you expected to form a partnership with him and establish a sanitarium at the Springs. I suppose his death will alter your plans. All this part of the country, you know, is unsurveyed ground and title held by possession only. I'd have bought the Springs myself if there had been a regular title. Hesitated at it because I only could acquire Squatter's Rights, you know. However, I took the matter up recently with my father, and am now waiting his reply. I don't understand why King didn't let you know I was figuring on it. Did he give you any option?" "No;" answered the Doctor, wondering at the statement which conflicted with what Limber had just said regarding Glendon's plans to leave the cañon. Then he recalled that Traynor had asserted King would not sell to any one except a physician who would co-operate with him in his plans. He knew the man beside him was lying for some reason, but what that reason was, Powell could not decide. "I have not even broached the matter to Doctor King. I came over today to look at the place and if it suited me, to make a proposition to him. I never met him and I don't believe he ever heard of me." "Of course," Glendon went on, as Powell stopped abruptly wondering if Glendon had no sense of decency to keep talking while the dead man lay in the wagon they were driving, "I had no written agreement with King. Out here, a verbal contract is all we ask of a man. So I ought to have prior right because of our understanding. I don't suppose he made any will, as he had no heirs, and could not will the Springs, anyway, without a legal title to it himself. In that case, the estate would revert to the Territory. A Government Patent would have made less complication." He glanced furtively at Powell, who made no reply, as they had reached the corral of the Circle Cross. Katherine Glendon stood on the porch, her eyes blinded with tears, her lips quivering. Glendon climbed heavily from the driver's seat, and Powell saw that his steps were uncertain. Limber tied his pony, Peanut, and the doctor's horse to the back axle of the wagon. A few quiet words were spoken by the two men to Mrs. Glendon, then they went on their way with their tragic burden, and each man was busy with his own thoughts. It was past sunset when they reached Willcox. After reporting the tragedy and turning the body over to the authorities, there was nothing more they could do, and Powell went to the Willcox Hotel where he obtained a room. Limber parted from him at the door. "I guess I'd better hunt up the boys and see how things is goin' along with the cattle." Though neither spoke of it, the uppermost thoughts in the minds of the two men was the woman at the Circle Cross, alone with a man whose indifference to her danger had almost cost her life and that of her boy's. Back in the lonely cañon a coyote skulked past the empty house at the Hot Springs. Further down the road a woman stood at the door of her home staring into the darkness. When she had made her final visit to see if Donnie were all right for the night, and leaned over to press a kiss on the child's cheek, something slipped from his relaxed hand. Wondering which of his toys he had smuggled to bed with him, she stooped and saw the pen-knife that old Doctor King had treasured through his long, lonely years. A wave of realization overwhelmed her. There would be no more visits from this loyal old friend, now. The future loomed ahead of her as black as the night that wrapped the cañon. CHAPTER SEVEN The second shipment of the Diamond H cattle had reached Willcox a little after noon, and Holy lingered at the Cowboys' Rest with Buckboard Bill, while Bronco and Roarer proceeded up the street. They were not visible when Holy, hastening through the corral gate, encountered Montgomery Walton. The latter's manner was so cordial that Holy halted in surprise. Montgomery Walton, the most unpopular man in Southern Arizona, was almost seventy years old, though as alert as a man of forty. His white, flowing hair and patriarchal beard were contradicted emphatically by ferret-like face and shifty eyes, while his oily smile exposed yellowed tusks. He owned a fairly good-sized herd of cattle that were preternaturally prolific, as his cows were very often seen with twin calves following them. Walton discouraged calls from other cattle men, and lived alone except for a half-witted Mexican--Loco. To the disgust as well as amazement of Holy, Walton ambled along at his side, and finally, tugging at the cowboy's blue flannel sleeve, drew him to a bench on the edge of the sidewalk. Then he produced a letter, extracted a small photograph and handed it to Holy. "What do you think about her?" asked Walton with a smirk, as he pressed more confidentially towards the cowpuncher. Holy studied the picture of a sweet-faced girl. "Why!" he ejaculated enthusiastically, "She's a regular peacherina. Who is she?" Walton replaced the picture as he said, "She's coming on the west-bound train today and we're going to be married at once." "Gee! You sly old dog!" commented Holy jocularly, while he wondered if the picture really looked like the girl, and if so, why she was going to marry a man like old Walton. Then an inspiration dawned upon him, and he turned to Walton, clapping him heartily on the shoulder. "Well! Why shouldn't you get married, I'd like to know?" he demanded as though that privileged had been questioned by some invisible individual. "A man's age ain't to be reckoned by his years. No, sirree! I've seed some men who was ready to die of old age when they was twenty-five, and I've seed others that was young when they'd past eighty. Now, no one would ever think you was a day over forty, Walton, if it wasn't for that air white hair and beard of yourn." Walton preened foolishly and tried to look incredulous, as he replied, "Do you really think so, Holy?" "Sure thing!" asserted the other. He looked contemplatively at Walton, then leaned closer and whispered, "Say, Walton, why don't you get Dunning to dye your hair and beard before the girl gets here. It'll make a difference of thirty years in your looks." Walton hesitated. "Maybe I will," he temporized. "You see, I sent her a picture of myself, but it was taken when I was about twenty-five. So I was a bit worried how she would act when she found I was not so young as she expected. I hadn't thought of getting my hair dyed, though. It's a good suggestion, I think." "You bet it is!" Holy waxed enthusiastic. "Women is queer critters, an' a young and pretty woman likes the man she marries to be somewhar near her own age. She don't want to risk other women thinkin' that she had to go to an Ol' Man's Home and kidnap a husband. You jest take my advice, Walton, an' have a heart to heart talk with Dunning right away." "I'll think about it," evaded Walton, as Holy with congratulations, parted from him, knowing Bronco and Roarer could be located behind the swinging doors that led to the bar-room of the Willcox Hotel. Holy's smile expanded to a broad grin as he recognized his friends at the end of the room and made his way to them. "Thar's somethin' interestin' goin' to be cut loose if you fellows will chip in," he announced confidentially. "Now, don't waste time talkin' or askin' fool questions. You jest come along with me down to Dunning's and fix it up with him. We ain't got no time to lose." Before he had finished speaking, he was half-way to the door--the other two close at his heels. Holy vouchsafed no explanations for his mysterious actions. Hurrying down the street they entered a small barber-shop which was unoccupied save for the owner. Dunning was the only barber in Willcox. He was an autocrat. A chair, facing the wall on which was a fly-specked mirror, a row of wooden seats, and a conspicuous placard bearing the pleasant, but misleading fiction, "Fresh towel for each customer," constituted the furnishings of the place. Dunning's hair shone glossy brown; his moustache curled tightly as a pug dog's tail, a gorgeous red four-in hand, tight, grey trousers with broad black stripes made him brilliantly conspicuous among the citizens of Willcox. Between shaves and haircuts the barber delved into sentimental fiction. With reluctance he put aside a yellow-backed novel and rose leisurely to his feet. His speculative survey was interrupted by Holy. "Say, Dunning, you know ol' man Walton," he began. "Lived round here fifteen years, never had his hair nor beard cut onct;" catalogued Dunning. "So derned stingy that he'd skin a flea to get its hide and tallow!" "Mebbe you'll git a chanct at him today;" encouraged Holy. "He's goin' to git married!" The others snorted in surprise, and Bronco announced contemptuously, "There ain't a bunch of calico in Arizona that would let him near enough to rope her, let alone carry his brand." "Oh, you make me tired," Holy retorted. "Who said he was workin' any Arizona range? The girl's comin' from the East on today's train. He showed me her picture. I give him a fill about his white hair makin' him look old, and said he'd oughter get Dunning to fix him up. Say!--he swallered it like a rattlesnake swallers a gopher." "She must be locoed," growled Bronco, suspiciously. "I own I ain't been dazzled by the charm that draws her," acknowledged Holy, "but what interests me is that the Diamond H owes ol' Walton for a heap of things he ain't done. Say, Dunning, there's twenty-five pesoes for you, if you fix him good and proper. I got an idee--but you may have to go out of town for a few days." "That's all right. Business ain't pressing. I figured on goin' out prospecting for a couple of weeks, anyhow. If any of the boys wants a hair-cut they can wait till I get back." "Say Dunning, stay away three weeks," begged Bronco. "I'll make it thirty dollars if you do." It was not solicitude for Dunning's safety that prompted this request, but Bronco, remembering that Dunning was the only barber, had a vision of the entire male population of Willcox sporting Rip Van Winklish hair, unless their flowing locks were mutilated by connubial scissors during Dunning's absence. "Thirty goes," agreed Dunning. "Now, what is it you boys want done?" Holy explained, interrupted by bursts of laughter from Bronco and Roarer, and finally, Dunning, with a grin, ended the consultation by saying, "You fellers get him in here and I'll earn that thirty." CHAPTER EIGHT Walton left Soto's store after giving orders that his purchases be ready when he came with his wagon at four o'clock, then he walked slowly down the street, weighing Holy's suggestion. Vanity struggled with parsimony. He reached Dunning's shop and paused uncertainly, without suspicioning three pairs of eyes that peered from a small window in the hotel. Dunning, inside the shop, was seemingly oblivious to the man on the sidewalk but looked up with a professional smile when Walton entered the door. "Well, Walton," Dunning's attitude was almost affectionate, "What can I do for you? Shave? Hair trimmed a leetle bit? I don't wonder you kept away from me all this time, and I'm just artist enough to say if you want me to cut off your beard or hair, I won't do it for you or nobody else. But a leetle bit of trimming would improve it lots." "I--Do you ever dye hair or whiskers, Dunning?" "Sure;" was the answer. "I guarantee my work and mix my own dyes, and you'd be surprised if I told you the names of people I've fixed up. But, my work is confidential. My customers trust me and I never betray them." "Well, do you think you could fix mine?" asked Walton with an uneasy smile. "Bet your boots! Nothing would please me better. Now, I suppose you'd want it dark, wouldn't you?" "Black. That's what it used to be," Walton replied. "But how long will it take?" The barber cocked his head sideways, squinted an eye critically, then walked solemnly around Walton several times, and finally slipped his fingers through the beard and hair. "It's a fine growth," he announced. "I can finish it in an hour." "How much will it cost?" Walton paused in front of the chair which Dunning was adjusting for him. "Well, I usually charge fifteen dollars for such a job, but I'm willing to do it for five, if you promise not to let any one else know I cut the price to you." "I won't give over three," asserted Walton firmly, moving to the door. Dunning, fearing flight and the attendant loss of the thirty dollars, followed Walton humbly. "Now, see here, Walton, why can't we split the difference? If I come down a dollar, you can sure raise one. I'll do a first-class job for four dollars. My regular price is fifteen. Why, man! It will make you look twenty years younger!" Impervious to flattery, Walton kept edging nearer the door. "Three and a half," compromised Dunning desperately. "Three dollars;" declared Walton, reaching for the knob, but watching Dunning sharply. "All right," consented the barber. "Three dollars. But don't you fool yourself into believing you are going to get an everyday, ordinary dye. It's my own invention. Guaranteed permanent or money cheerfully refunded. Results astonish everybody." "Sure you will get it done by train time?" asked Walton anxiously, as Dunning led him to the chair and deftly pinned a sheet about his neck. Dunning glanced at the clock, "Just time to do it fine," he assured Walton, who stretched out luxuriously, determined to get his three dollars' worth as far as possible. Dunning was engaged in mixing various liquids. "Going on a trip?" he asked, standing with his back to Walton while he stirred vigorously. "Not exactly. I'm going to be married. The young lady will arrive on the west bound train, and we're to be married at once and go out to the ranch." "Well, you did the right thing in coming to me," announced Dunning, as he finished manipulating the concoction. "That white hair did make you look old, Walton, and I often wondered why you didn't touch it up a bit. I bet when I get you fixed up, that she won't ask how old you are. Say, I'll stake ten dollars on that bet." "Will it stay black, or have to be done over again?" "Guaranteed permanent. Only way to remove or change the colour after it is once on, is keep the hair shaved close to the roots for six months." Walton twisted nervously. "I wish you'd draw down that shade and lock the door. I don't want any one hanging around while you are busy." "That's what I figured on doing," agreed the barber, acting as he spoke; but winking at the boys of the Diamond H who were sauntering past as the shade was lowered. Walton sank back with a sigh of relief. The silence of the dimly lighted room and the movement of the barber's hands, had a soporific effect on the customer, who closed his eyes and snored peacefully, while Dunning kept a wary eye on the clock until he heard the whistle of the approaching train from the East. "Better hurry, Walton! Train's pretty near the depot, now. I just got done in time." Walton waked with a start as the sheet was jerked off, and Dunning's voice sounded jubilantly in his ears, "Job's done fine. I'm proud of you!" With a hasty glance at the small mirror in the dimly-lighted room, Walton's blinking eyes saw a dark flowing beard, a mass of dark hair. The noise of the train warned that time was precious and fleeting. Thrusting the three dollars into Dunning's palm, he grabbed his hat and ran across the street to the depot, where the train was puffing to a stop. Walton scanned the rows of windows with passengers looking aimlessly at the town. Their bored faces suddenly became animated with smiles. Walton found the tourist sleeper, where he saw a girl in a grey suit on the platform of the car descend the steps, while the porter helped a delicate-looking boy. The bridegroom-elect moved more swiftly, and reached the girl just as the porter shook hands with the child and said, "You'll be a big cowboy before long, Ah reckon;" then the train went on its way, leaving the girl looking about nervously. Among the loiterers at the depot, Bronco, Holy and Roarer glanced at each other in consternation. "Good Lord!" "Holy, that ain't the girl, is it?" Holy did not answer. The enjoyable flavour of the joke had evaporated, like a dose of castor oil in orange-juice, and a decidedly disagreeable taste remained. Holy acknowledged to himself only, that his preconceived idea of the picture as a fake, sent to old man Walton by an unattractive, elderly woman, was without any foundation. This girl was much prettier than the photograph. Any doubt as to the identity was dispelled when Walton sallied up to the girl and took off his hat with an elaborate flourish. She started back, her frightened eyes travelling slowly over Walton's hair and beard. Meeting that prolonged glance, he attributed it to his fascinating appearance, and smirked and preened consciously. "I'm Montgomery Walton," he said unctuously. "Everything is arranged so we can be married without delay and get out to the ranch tonight. The Justice of Peace is waiting for us." The girl's pretty colour faded suddenly as she saw him pick up her valise with an air of proprietorship. She looked at the child, took a step toward Walton--stopped, then cried out, "No! No! I can't do it!" Walton scowled, but controlled himself and said, "You are tired from your long trip just now, I know. It won't take long to get started for the ranch after we are married." He beamed on the child, "Come along, Sonny." The boy shrank back, clung to the girl, who clutched the thin little hand and looked about her desperately. Her eyes swept over strange faces, rough-looking men, then, like an animal at bay, she ran to the waiting-room with the child, and slammed the door violently. Walton stared at the closed door, then at the valise in his hand. The listeners outside heard hysterical sobs, and the soothing voice of Mrs. Green, the agent's wife. Walton, pale with rage, glared at the grinning faces about him, drew himself up, entered the waiting-room and closed the door behind him with a bang. The mingled sounds of a girl's sobs, a woman's angry tones, Walton's voice in _çrescendo_ notes, then the door opened and he dashed out, scattering those who obstructed his wildly waving arms, and stopping at the door of Dunning's shop. It was closed. A notice hung on the door. "OUT OF TOWN." Walton hurried to the bar-room of the Willcox Hotel. His face was aflame with rage; the hand he rested on the bar was shaking as though with palsy. The occupants of the room grinned at him. "Them the latest style in whiskers?" joked the bartender, winking at another man. "Mind your own affairs and give me a glass," ordered Walton. Purposely misunderstanding him, the barkeeper held out a glass of liquor and said, "You seem a leetle nervous, Walton." The glass was struck to the counter. Walton screamed in maniacal fury, "A looking-glass is what I want, you doggone idiot! I want to gaze on my 'seraphic countenance' that seems to paralyze everybody. Look like the 'green fields of Virginia,' do I? 'Rent me out during a drouth,' will they? Where's a glass?" "Keep calm, Walton, here's one;" the bartender handed out a small mirror. Silently Walton gazed at hair and beard of vivid emerald green. The venomous glitter of his eyes was like that of an angry rattlesnake. He laid the glass down and spoke with a voice that was quiet, but deadly. "Some one put Dunning up to this, and I'll find out who it was, before I get through." He flung out of the place and the men in the room glanced at one another. They knew that some day, somebody would pay. Walton was a man whose debts of personal animus, never outlawed by time, were sure to be settled in full with compound interest. CHAPTER NINE "The boys don't mean no harm, but it jest seems they can't come to town without things happenin' when they mix in," Limber had said when he parted from Powell. The cowpuncher went to the corral, mounted his pony and rode down the railroad track to the shipping pens. The cattle were in good shape, gates fastened securely. No matter what the short-comings of the boys of the Diamond H, they never slighted any detail of the work; but Limber felt the responsibility of it all. When Peanut was properly cared for, his master ambled carelessly along the street until he reached the swinging doors of the bar-room of the Willcox Hotel. "Any of my outfit here?" he asked the man behind the bar. "I jest got in from Hot Springs with Doctor Powell." A number of men in the place called to him, others came nearer Limber and held out hands, and he was the centre of a small group when he uttered his next words. "The Apaches killed ol' Doctor King last night in the Hot Springs Cañon below the Circle Cross. We jest brung in his body for the Coroner." Exclamations of sincere regret were voiced by his hearers, for each of them could recall little acts of kindliness to himself or to some one he knew. Limber was plied with questions, and gave the meagre details, but he did not speak of the narrow escape of Mrs. Glendon and her child. Comments were interrupted as the doors swung back once more. Bronco, Holy and Roarer stood bunched together and surveyed the assemblage with brooding eyes. Then, they saw Limber. Their solemn countenances lightened, and Bronco grasped the foreman's arm, leading him to a table at the rear of the room, where they all slumped into chairs. Limber studied each face. "Well, what have you done this time?" he asked in a resigned voice. "Say, Limber, we're in a hell of a mess," confessed Bronco abjectly. The other two punchers confirmed the assertion by silence. "We was waitin' for you to get us straightened out, someway." Limber made no comment until the situation had been fully explained, but his eyes were anxious and his lips harboured no smile. "It ain't a question now of how we got into it," he finally said, assuming the onus of the episode with the culprits, as a matter of course. They had slept side by side in their blankets, bunkhouse and range; had shared chuck and tobacco, storms and fair weather, and, if necessary, each would have used his last cartridge in defense of the others. "The wust of it was that we all promised the Boss not to stir up trouble this time. It's all right about Walton; he don't count in this deal, but it's damn tough on the woman. I don't know what to do about it." "Gosh! Limber, we've got to fix it up--someway," Bronco's tones were desperate. "If we don't, the whole bunch of women in this yer town will be on the war-path after our scalps, and the Diamond H outfit will be huntin' new ranges. You kin lick a man if he gits fresh and sassy, but when a petticoat goes on the rampage, the only thing a feller kin do is cut and run." "It's because a woman is mixed in it that I'm bothered," Limber went on. "You boys know the Boss will stand for pretty near anythin', so long's thar ain't women in it. He's been pretty plain about that, and it's the one thing he'll fire the whole bunch for. It's the worst mix-up we ever got into." The foreman looked at the floor, and the other men looked at him. Limber knew he must either tell the truth and clear himself in the eyes of Traynor, or remain silent and take the blame with the others; even though this might mean losing his job as foreman of the Diamond H. His admiration for Traynor was deep and sincere. It hurt to lose Traynor's faith in him. "We're sure all down and out," Holy's voice was lugubrious, and he let the cigarette he had made, fall unlighted on the table. "I jest felt that if you were turned loose on the range today that you would stampede. I didn't figure you'd get here so quick with the cattle, and, the trouble about King kept me back. I wisht I'd got here sooner, so's to round you up before any damage was done. What started you, anyway, Holy?" "I thought it was a fake picter Walton showed me, until I seen the woman get off'n the train," responded Holy feebly. "Thar's a Kid, too. 'Bout five or six years old. Kinder peaked and sickly and scarey." A long, low whistle was Limber's only comment on this additional complication. "She looks young to have a Kid that big," Bronco put in, "But, then you can't look inter a woman's mouth to tell her age, like it was a horse." Limber's meditations covered many moments, but neither Bronco, Roarer nor Holy interrupted his thoughts. At last he looked up, and they leaned across the table hopefully. "Thar don't seem anythin' to do exceptin' ask Mrs. Green to help us figure it out," was his decision. "Gee! That's just the medicine!" agreed the rest with alacrity, nodding at each other in happy approval. "You kin sure fix it up with her, Limber," was Holy's verdict. Limber's grey eyes were sombre as he contemplated the relieved faces. "Yep!" he said positively, rising as he spoke, "It's the only thing to do. Come along." Consternation eclipsed the smiles; none of them got up from their chairs. Limber looked at them, then said, "Come along." Slowly the chairs were pushed back with a loud rasping noise; slowly the sombreros were transferred from wooden pegs above the table to the heads of the three cowpunchers; slowly the spurred feet moved toward the door, passed draggingly through it, and trailed meekly behind Limber until he reached the rooms above the depot, occupied by the Agent and his wife. Limber knocked. The cowboys' hearts were thumping more loudly than Limber's knuckles, it seemed to them. The door opened, they did not look up, but the feminine voice that bade them enter, sounded ominous. With eyes still downcast, and hats in hands, they followed Limber's heels. They saw nothing else in that room except the rugs on the floor. Then Limber's voice broke the deadly silence. "The boys say they've got into more trouble on the range, Mrs. Green," Limber said soberly. "I should say they have," she retorted vehemently. "They ought to be ashamed of themselves, putting a woman in such a position in a strange place! Making her the laughing stock of the whole country! She's been crying her eyes out, ever since she got here. And, you almost frightened the boy to death with your idiot ideas of fun! It takes a big brain to do those things!" she paused breathlessly to look at them with flashing eyes. Not one of the Diamond H boys would have hesitated at any danger, but now, their one desire was to scurry ignominiously down stairs and hit the home trail without delay. They cast longing eyes at the door that led to freedom and safety. It was closed. Between them and it stood an angry woman. "We came to you because we all are stampeded, Mrs. Green," pleaded Limber, and the men, hearing the incriminating pronoun, swore allegiance to Limber for the rest of their lives. "Can't you get us headed right, somehow?" Mollified, she answered, "What had you thought of doing?" No one had thought of anything, but they were all loathe to admit it, so each one cudgelled his brains vigorously. "Say, so long as we busted up the weddin'," gasped Bronco, "we'll chip in and refund her fare--ship her back in a box car--I mean--pay her way to whar she come from. Won't we, boys?" "Sure!" was the chorus. Now that the ice had been broken, the situation was less strained. "Derned--hanged--! Oh, say, Mrs. Green! We'll do any damned thing you say, to put an end to this yer doggone millin';" floundered Holy, struggling to be intelligible without profanity. "We never figgered it would buffalo no one but ol' Walton, and to Hell--Oh, shucks! I mean he don't count noways!" Holy paused and wiped his perspiring face with a red cotton handkerchief that was not more vivid than his own complexion. His effort had been heroic. Mrs. Green recognized it, and her smile refused to be suppressed longer. A dimple sneaked into her cheek. The boys breathed more freely. Dimples didn't frighten them very badly, unless one of them was alone with it. "Sit down," suggested Mrs. Green, "and let's talk it over together. Maybe we can work out the trouble." Roarer, Bronco and Holy deposited themselves cautiously on edges of chairs, their huge hands hanging pathetically helpless between their leather-clad knees. Their hats decorated the floor and they were conscious of tousled heads. "You see it all came through the child being delicate. Lung trouble, the doctor said, and Arizona the only hope." "He sure does look peaked," Bronco hastened to agree. If Mrs. Green had said the King of England was hiding in the kitchen pantry at that moment, Bronco would have backed that statement with his very life. "Her folks are all dead," continued the Agent's wife, "and she has been supporting the child. It took all the money she had saved, to get here." "That's tough luck," commented Roarer with a squeak of emotion. Then startled at the sound of his own voice, he subsided. "She has got to stay in Arizona on account of the child's health," Mrs. Green explained. "Walton answered her advertisement asking for a place where she could work in return for board for herself and the child. Nobody else answered her. Then he proposed marriage, and she agreed. She says the boy means more to her than her own life." "Well, if she wants to marry Walton," Limber volunteered, "we'll rope him and get her brand on him before you can wink, and you tell her so for us. But, I don't know but we'd be handin' her a worse deal than the fust time." "I told her what kind of a man he was. She never wants to see him again." Mrs. Green's voice was sharp, hope seemed to die in the breasts of the four men. "Well," Roarer's tones rose shrilly in his excitement and nervousness, "Do you think any of us'd do in place of ol' Walton? Seems to be up to one of us to make good. Of course, Limber ain't in on this deal; but the rest of us is, ain't we, boys?" Weakly the rest assented. With deliberate cruelty Mrs. Green critically surveyed each candidate for matrimonial honours. Her eyes roved slowly from their heads to their boots, while their ears grew red, feet shuffled uneasily and mouths were compressed grimly. Cost what it might, the boys of the Diamond H were going to see the trouble straightened out. The clock measured two minutes, but it seemed two hours to those under inspection. "I don't believe that would be the remedy," she concluded. The men sighed with unconcealed relief, and each registered a vow to get even with Roarer later on. It had been a close shave. The agony would never be forgotten. "I think she had better stay with me until she finds work," offered the Agent's wife. "She can help me about the place, and I've got some sewing I want to finish up. Then, you know, I have to help Jack a good bit down in the office. Meantime, she could be prospecting for a place that would suit her. She understands house-keeping, cooking and has been employed in office work. So it won't be long before some one will snap her up, out here." Limber nodded and said gratefully, "We sure are much obliged to you, Mrs. Green," then his hand was thrust into a hip pocket. Had Mrs. Green been a man, she might have been alarmed at the movement, but the hand came out clutching crumpled greenbacks. "It's up to the Diamond H outfit to look out for her till she gets on her feet good and square, and we'll sure be proud to do it." With hasty awkwardness Holy, Roarer and Bronco added to the donation Limber laid on the table, glad there was something at last that could be done. "I'm sure we can get things straightened out before long, some way, and I'll do all I can to help her and you, too;" promised the woman. "I'll talk it over with the Boss when we get home," suggested Limber. The other men looked at him quickly, but after they said "good-bye" to Mrs. Green, Limber parted from them. They sat side by side on a wooden, backless bench in front of the Willcox Hotel, and discussed the situation with its new angles. "Limber ain't to blame, and we're goin' to let the Boss know it, too--and then we'll take our medicine like little men," was Bronco's ultimatum, which was endorsed by Holy and Roarer; but their hearts were heavy at the prospect of being "fired" by the Boss of the Diamond H. No other ranch, or Boss, or foreman would ever be the same to them. CHAPTER TEN Limber started the boys to the ranch at dawn, to make sure they would be safe while he and Doctor Powell attended the inquest over King's body. Holy, Bronco and Roarer reached the Diamond H without adventure, and after caring for their ponies, grouped in the office at the end of the court-yard, waiting Traynor's advent. One comprehensive glance told him that something had happened. "Trouble" was written in capital letters across each face. The Boss seated himself at his desk, looked up and said, "What's the matter, boys? Been fined for shooting up the town again?" "Gee! I wisht it was that," groaned Bronco, as he dropped astride a chair with his arms draped over the back. "Any of you killed any one?" the voice was more serious now. "Nope! It's our funeral this time," squeaked Roarer's falsetto. Traynor twisted about and looked apprehensively at them all. "Great guns! You haven't all gone and gotten married, have you?" "It's worser'n that," Holy's sepulchral accents boomed, "This yer damn fool outfit has been an' busted up a weddin'! That's all we done this time!" The worst was over. The men relaxed and waited the effect of their news. "Well, go ahead. Tell the rest," ordered Traynor curtly, with knit eyebrows. Interspersed with interruptions, interjections and gestures, the three managed to acquaint the Boss with the situation. When their story ended, he said very sternly, "You boys know that I am always ready to stand by you, but I gave you all fair warning when I hired you, that if you got into any trouble or mix-up with a woman, it would mean your time. I certainly never anticipated such a scrape as this. I'm disgusted with you all!" "We knowed that before you said it," Bronco agreed meekly, "but what we want to make plain is--we don't want Limber to get any blame for what we done. He wasn't in town when we busted loose. But Limber's liable to tell you jest as if he was right thar hisself." "You say the woman is looking for ranch work?" "That's what Mrs. Green told us," was Bronco's reply, reinforced by nods from the other two men. "Says she can cook an' keep house and sew an' work in a orfice, an' Mrs. Green says she can stay thar until they find work for her, somewhars." Traynor sat looking thoughtfully at the paper-knife he held in his hand. The eyes of the cowpunchers also stared at the paper-knife, as though hoping it would solve their problem. The knife dropped on the desk and Traynor looked up. "I'll write to Mrs. Green and tell her that if the woman wants to bring her child and come here to supervise the house, I will pay her seventy-five dollars and board her and the boy. Fong is kicking because he doesn't like the housework, and if I get a Mexican woman to come, there's got to be some one to oversee her. This is the only daylight I can see in the muddle you have made of things." "Say, Mr. Traynor," Bronco leaned over the desk and spoke earnestly, "You tell her to say we're ready to lay down in the corral and let her put her iron on us without a squeal." "An' we're all halter-broke, gentle and trained to feed from the hand," piped Roarer over Bronco's shoulder. Holy joined them. "If she don't find things pan out like she wants 'em, anytime, all she's got to do is chaw the rag and cuss, an' you bet your sweet life this yer outfit will see that she gets things her own way." Bronco and Roarer nodded vehemently, and Holy waxed more eloquent. "Tell Mrs. Green if she acts like she's goin' to buck, to talk her into tryin' us out. You know, we're a Hell of a sight better'n we look or act, Mr. Traynor. I'll promise to put hobbles on the damn cuss words the minute she gits here." "All right, boys. I'll do what I can," promised Traynor. With hopeful expressions they trailed through the door, but halted as he called, "What's her name?" "Mrs.---- Mrs.----," began Bronco confidently, then as he saw the shaking heads, he finished, "Derned if we know. None of us ever ast. We'd make fine cowpasture! We're so fresh and green!" his confession wound up in disgust. Left alone, Traynor wrote briefly to the wife of the Station Agent at Willcox. _Dear Mrs. Green:_ I understand that the lady who is with you is looking for employment on a ranch. I would be glad to have her assume charge of the house-keeping at the Diamond H. There will be no menial labour. A Chinaman does the cooking and washing, and I will employ a Mexican woman for the housework. A little assistance on the ranch books would be of great value to me. I will pay seventy-five dollars a month, with room and board for her and the child. If satisfactory, will you write me by next stage, and I will send down for her and her baggage. Kindly state that I regret the pranks of the boys, and hope it has not caused any serious annoyance to you or her. They wish to make amends in any manner possible. Their contrition is sincere, and so are my apologies. Very truly yours, THE UNFORTUNATE BOSS OF THE DIAMOND H. Traynor smiled as he signed the letter, knowing that Mrs. Green and her husband would appreciate the humour of the situation that forced the Boss of the Diamond H to employ a woman for the first time on the ranch. He also sighed, as he realized it would mean readjustment in many ways. But, he was resigned, and the men could not kick at conditions for which they were responsible. It would be a relief, though, to have some one else arrange the list of provisions when necessary, plan menus, and order new sheets and towels as needed. The letter was delivered to the stage-driver Monday, and an answer could be expected on Thursday when the stage returned from Willcox. So when Limber and Powell reached the ranch that evening, the dark cloud had a lovely silver edge that promised a similar lining. Thursday morning Traynor and Doctor Powell rode to the Cienega Ranch, four miles north of the Diamond H. The Cienega, named because of the marsh formed by under ground water, was one of the many smaller watering places belonging to the Diamond H. A man usually stayed at these points to see that the ponds and troughs were kept in shape for cattle to water. The idea of using gasoline engines instead of the orthodox Perkins windmills, was an innovation of Traynor's. Limber and the boys were working on the pasture fences near the ranch house, when the stage from Willcox passed. They looked at it speculatively from the other side of the field. "Wonder if she's wrote that she'll come?" Bronco's audible question voiced the thoughts of the others; but only the return of the Boss could answer that query. At noon the men dismounted in the stable just as the bell that hung outside the door of the men's kitchen rang loud and long. No time was lost in responding to the summons. It was music in their ears after a long morning in the invigourating air, augmented by hard work. Fong's cooking was famous throughout Southern Arizona. Lunch over, they sat peacefully side by side on the wooden bench against the wall of the stable, enjoying the inevitable wheat straw and Durham cigarette, as necessary as a pony to any Arizona puncher. Fong appeared at the door of the men's kitchen, looked across at the group, then ambled over and addressed the foreman. "Bloss no clome home for lunch, maybe. I clatchee lunch in Bloss's dining-loom or I clatchee lunch in chuck-house for lady and lily bloy?" The men started. "What lady?" demanded Limber, with dire foreboding. "Lady clome on stage. Lily bloy clome, allee samee. Glo in parlour." "Good Lord!" ejaculated Bronco. "She ain't writ, she come! An' yer's the Boss and Doctor Powell gone off and left us all alone!" Fong's grin of comprehension was irritating, and Limber ordered, "Fix lunch in the Boss's dining-room, and fix a good one while you're about it, too." The Chinaman hurried to obey. He had made a scientific study of Limber's face and voice. Fong liked the work at the Diamond H; he also like the generous wages and not having to skimp in any way. Limber turned to the rest. "Well, I guess it's up to us to go in and squar things with her," he announced. "She's been sitting thar for two hours now, an' nobody gone near her. Darn that Chink, anyway! Come along, boys." Anxious to make amends for their many sins of commission and omission, they clanked with spurred heels along the cement walk of the court and followed Limber into the living-room of the ranch. Then they stopped, bunched in the doorway. A slender figure, with rippling brown hair, was huddled forlornly in a big chair, asleep. The flushed cheeks bore traces of recent tears. Hat, gloves and a child's cap were in her lap, a suit-case on the floor beside the chair, as though in readiness for departure. On the couch was the boy; but his eyes were wide open. As he saw the four cowpunchers in the doorway, he shrank back timidly and reached out his thin hand. The girl woke instantly. She did not see the men until, as they advanced into the room, Holy's foot collided with the leg of a chair, and he suppressed an ejaculation. The girl flushed with embarrassment as she faced the four cowpunchers of the Diamond H. None of them spoke. She rose to her feet and looked from one to the other, uncertain whom to address, as she said, "Mrs. Green told me of your generous offer. I did not wait to write, but came up on the stage this morning;" her voice was low and tremulous. "I thank you with all my heart. It means so much--to me. I--will do--my very best to please you all," her last words came with a rush. No answer was made by the four ominous figures confronting her. An expression of fear crept into the blue eyes that dimmed with tears. Her hands went out in appeal. "Please, please, don't say that I won't suit you. I am a great deal stronger than I look, and I'm not afraid of hard work. Jamie," her arm went about the child at her side, "won't bother any one," the pitiful catch in her voice seemed to grip the throat of each man, and the words they wanted to utter refused to make a sound. The girl read the pity in Limber's grey eyes, then the foreman smiled at her and said in his quiet, kindly voice; "Thar ain't no reason for you to worry. We was jest scairt that you wouldn't want to stay. That's all. We didn't know you was here till Fong told us jest now. He's fixin' lunch for you. I'm jest Limber, the foreman." He turned and indicated the other punchers who were trying to smile naturally, but making a terrible contortion of facial muscles. "This is Bronco, and Roarer an' Holy, and we're the Diamond H outfit." Awkwardly the men advanced and held out calloused hands, but the grip was a pledge of fealty, and the girl looked gratefully into their eyes. Then Limber happened to note Traynor standing in the open doorway back of the girl, and relief shown plainly in the foreman's face as he said, "Thar's the Boss, now." She whirled sharply, like a tormented creature at bay, sensing a new enemy. Traynor's face was drawn and white through its tan. Unmindful of the men, his hands reached out. The girl stared incredulously. Then the tension was broken by their two voices: "Nell!" "Allan!" The cowpunchers' jaws fell in astonishment, their eyes popped, then with one accord they fled precipitately, jostling each other through the doorway. Limber was the last one to leave the room. He lost no time, but he saw the arms of the Boss of the Diamond H holding a sobbing girl. When Limber reached the stables there was only a cloud of dust to show that the boys were anxious to finish up very important work away from the vicinity of the ranch house. They did not know of the consultation between Traynor and Limber an hour later, nor that Limber had driven down to Eureka Springs, eight miles away, and returned accompanied by Mrs. Burns, wife of the owner of that ranch. Just before supper the foreman found the men in the bunk-house. They looked up at him with hopeless faces, as he surveyed them and remarked, "Well, you sure mixed things up good and plenty that time!" "Oh, you don't have ter tell us that," retorted Bronco, despairingly. "We all knowed it without anyone's help!" "I wisht someone'd put me in a lunitic asylum for the rest of my life," was Holy's disgusted announcement. He stared at the whitewashed wall of the bunkroom, visioning his possible future domicile. "We figgered we'd got it all fixed up fine, an' you know it was, Limber, till the Boss butted in. How'd we know that he knowed her, anyway? Well, now things is millin' worser'n ever." Bronco's voice was almost unrecognizable in its woe. "Say, Limber, are we all fired?" Limber seated himself, took out his sack of tobacco and papers, rolled a cigarette and lighted it, without one word. His face was serious. Six mournful eyes watched him. They read their fate in his silence. There was no appeal. In a corner of the bunk-room three rolls of blankets were stacked. Limber looked at them, but said nothing. Three hands went to hip pockets. In dead silence three cigarettes were made and lighted. It was a cowboy wake. Five minutes went by. They smoked and sank more deeply in gloom. "Of course, we kin get jobs somewhar," Bronco spoke at last. "That ain't what's troublin' me. But it's how we went and made such a mix-up for the Boss, when he's always been so white to us all. I can't figger how he's goin' to get it straight for hisself, now!" Limber studied the cigarette in his hand. "He said thar's only one thing left that you all kin do, now." "We knowed we was fired, Limber," Roarer's voice was a higher pitch than ever before, "You don't have to tell us. Thar warn't anythin' left for him to do but fire the whole bunch of us. We bin an' got our war-bags all packed up and ready." "But, we're derned sorry we made this mess for you and him and the lady," Holy was now on his feet, picking up a roll of blankets from the corner. He slung it over his shoulder and held out his hand to the foreman. "It hurts like Hell to go." Bronco and Roarer with their own rolls, lined beside Holy. "Tell the Boss 'so long' for us," was Bronco's request. "And, we're damned sorry for it all." Limber looked at the three outstretched hands, the three dejected figures with the rolls of blankets across their shoulder, then said, "He told me that the only way you boys kin squar things is for the whole outfit to meet him tomorrow night at Mrs. Green's place at eight o'clock." "What fur?" they three inquired in startled tones, as their hands fell weakly at their sides. "Well," drawled Limber, as a twinkle lit up his eyes and his mouth twitched with a smile, "Thar's goin' to be a weddin'! The Boss says that the only thing left for him to do with you boys, is to let the little Lady run this yer outfit and keep it straight! He owns up it's too much of a job for him to handle!" Three rolls of blankets dropped with dull thuds to the bare floor. Three wild yells broke the quiet air, then with arms intertwined about each other's shoulders, they formed a circle and indulged in an Apache war-dance. A smile that was almost paternal illuminated Limber's face as he watched them. When the exuberance had subsided a bit, and they had finished ejaculating and slapping each other on the back, Bronco turned to Limber. "Say, Limber, this is the wust mix-up of all! Here we go and stampeded the heifer what Walton figgered on ropin' for hisself, and she turns an busts into the home corral with the Diamond H brand on her! Can you beat it?" No one answered. The clamour of the supper bell brought them to their feet once more, and they hurried to the chuck-house, talking as fast as they could. All talked at once; no one replied or listened, but it was a happy bunch of cowpunchers that slid along the wooden bench at the supper-table that night. Back on the floor of the bunk-house lay three rolls of blankets waiting for the men to stumble over them in the dark. CHAPTER ELEVEN Unusual excitement was evident in the Willcox Hotel, as the cowpunchers of the Diamond H rushed in with mysterious packages which afterwards developed into conventional attire. They had ridden to town early in the afternoon, Saturday, the day the wedding of the Boss was to take place. Confusion reigned in their small room. Roarer danced around, struggling to fasten a collar, his face becoming apoplectic; while Holy, with his entire vocabulary and muscular strength, was coaxing his feet into patent leather shoes a size too small. When his frantic efforts culminated in a broken loop-strap, it left him, for once in his life, speechless. Before a bilious mirror, Limber plastered his hair down rigidly with a stick of barber's cosmetique, recommended by the bar-tender; and Bronco stood ruefully contemplating four enormous pairs of white kid gloves reposing in a long row on the bed. "I don't balk at toggin' up swell for the Boss's weddin'," came in a gasp from Roarer as he clutched at his throat, "but derned if I see why the feller what invented collar-buttons and biled shirts wasn't lynched for his fust offense. Doggone the beastly little contraption, anyhow!" The others regarded him sympathetically, for they, too, had struggled, as the numerous twisted, soiled collars about the room testified; even those now decorating their brown throats showed marks of desperate fray. "I've spiled seven collars and busted five collar buttons already," groaned Roarer, pausing in his struggle. "Oh, Lord! Where did that thing go. Any one see it? It's wusser'n a flea the way it lit out." They grasped his meaning. Each had recently been on a voyage of discovery for other collar buttons. "Mebbe it's under the bed," suggested Holy, trying to balance himself and walk in the tight shoes. He paused, standing like a gigantic stork on one foot. "Mine rolled under the bed." Roarer fell to his knees and groped without avail, then crawled out on all fours, gazing up disconsolately into the faces of the other men. "Not a hair nor a hide of it," he puffed, still on his knees. "That's the last one we had, and what's wust, thar ain't no more collar-buttons in the whole blamed town. Everyone's been buyin' 'em this afternoon." "Well, it couldn't get outen the room;" consoled Limber, whose toilet was finished before the others, because he had had the foresight to enlist the services of a clerk in Soto's store, and after buying a shirt, collar and tie, the two had retired to a small back room. Hence, Limber had emerged victorious and unruffled, but his sympathies were with the other punchers. "They say collar-buttons take to a bureau if the bed don't suit 'em," he suggested. "Suppose you start a round-up on that range, Roarer. I'd like to help you out, but this collar checks me up too high." Inspired by the idea, Roarer assumed his devotional attitude and clawed wildly. Something gave way, and he emerged precipitately. "I got her," he triumphed, "but something busted--What was it?" he supplemented with an anxious glance over his shoulder. The others surrounded him. "Suspender," reported Limber. "Button's busted off'n your trousers." "Much damage?" he inquired of the investigating committee, which continued looking him over. "Nothin' but what can be fixed up with a pin," was Bronco's decision. "Any one got a pin?" They shook their heads. It was a pinless crowd, but a brilliant idea struck Holy, who delved into the pockets of his discarded leather chaps and produced a horse-shoe nail. Drawing a piece of the trouser cloth through the button-hole of the suspended flap, he thrust the nail in dexterously. "Thar you are," he pronounced cheerfully. "Say, Holy, you're a wonder!" flattered Roarer obsequiously. Holy grinned at him and demanded, "What do you want me to do for _you_?" Roarer's childish accents pleaded, "Can't you help me get into this collar? It's the only one we got left that's fitten to put on, and it ain't big enough for this shirt, nor me, neither, but I've got to get into it somehow." Holy inspected the dilemma. "I'll go see if I kin find something," he said vaguely as he left the room. In a few minutes he returned. "I got a button-hook off'n the chambermaid. We can fix it up now!" Surrounded by an admiring group, he grasped the collar band of Roarer's shirt, thrust the button-hook through the button-hole of the collar and gave a vigorous twist. An agonized squeal, like a dying pig, assaulted the air and Roarer retreated rapidly with the button-hook hanging to the collar, while he rubbed the prominent bone in his throat that had interfered with the adjustment. "What in thunder do you think you're doin'?" he piped, glaring at Holy. "Looks like you was figgerin' to make cider outen my Adam's apple, the way you squoze." "Well, I done the best I knowed how," defended Holy. "That's the way things goes. I pulled an ol' Bar Z cow outen the mud, and the fust thing the durned cow done was to make a bee-line for me whilst I had my back to her a cinchin' my saddle. She spiled the only pair of trousers I owned, and then went back into the mudhole and died. Thar's a heap of human nature in cows, and heaps of cow nature in humans! Here's the button-hook." Holy rescued it from the floor where it had dropped as Roarer massaged his throat. "You dig yourself outen your own mud-hold. I'm done!" He limped painfully across the room and dropped into a chair, the picture of disgust, and watched with fishy eye as Roarer plied the button-hook until the collar succumbed. The agony was almost over, but the four pairs of gloves promised further trouble. "Say, Bronc," insinuated Roarer as he contemplated the bed, "Couldn't a feller go without wearin' these derned things? Suppose we just put 'em in the outside pockets of our coats and let the fingers hang out, to show we got 'em?" "No, sirree!" vetoed Bronco emphatically, in the self-assumed role of social adviser. "There ain't nothin' too good for the Boss; and the boys down to the store told me that white kid gloves has got to be wore at weddin's. So them gloves has got to go on, if it busts us flat!" With looks of grim determination and the spirit that inspired the 'noble Six Hundred,' they swooped down on the gloves. Appropriating a pair, each man settled himself on a chair. The room was silent. Moments passed unheeded. Four struggling cowpunchers sat in four creaking chairs and laboured until four pairs of huge hands were encased in bedraggled white kid gloves, which the owners surveyed with triumph. "They squinch," announced Holy, closing his hand convulsively, "but they'll stretch if you work 'em a bit." There was an ominous sound, and a look of consternation on Holy's face as he gazed at the split glove on his left hand. "Now, you'll have to get another pair," commanded Bronco. "Hanged if I will," retorted Holy, rebelling at the prospect of repeating his experience. "Then you got to remember to keep your hand shet up," compromised Bronco. "Lucky it's the left hand, because we all got to shake hands with the bride and the minister you know." "Say, Bronc, are you sure about the minister?" asked Limber dubiously. "You bet! You see it's this way," elucidated Bronco. "The groom is in luck to get the girl, ain't he? So you shake hands with him. The girl's lucky to get married, ain't she, stead of dyin' an old maid? So you shake hands with her; and the minister is the luckiest one of the bunch, because he gets paid for marryin' them and he don't take no chances on havin' trouble afterwards. That's why you have to shake hands with the minister." No one disputed the logic. "People makes me think of flies in cold weather when it comes to gettin' married," reflected Limber audibly. "The flies that's outside the window keep tryin' to get in, and them that's inside keep workin' for all they're wuth to get out. Looks like they're just bound to be miserable either way." "I knowed a feller down in Texas had two dogs named David and Jonathan," said Bronco. "Wherever you seen one dog the other was right along side of him, like his shadder. You jest couldn't keep 'em apart. One day some smart geezer seen 'em sleepin' peaceful an' ca'm, side by each, and tied one of David's hind legs to one of Jonathan's, and when them dogs woke up they blamed each other, and from cussin' something awful in dog lingo, they lit in and chawed hair and hide till they was pried apart. Ever since then the minute they see each other, it's just a signal for them to start a free-for-all to a finish. The way them two dogs has soured on each other is a caution." "What's that got to do with gettin' married?" demanded Holy with a snort. Bronco gazed at him a few seconds before he answered, "Well there's lots of folks that would be good friends all their lives if they didn't hunt up a minister to marry 'em and give 'em the right to scrap till they die. When David and Jonathan got too serious, somebody got a club. But if you find a man and his wife scrappin' and you try to ca'm them, they both turn and pitch into you for meddlin' with their family pleasures." Limber took out his watch and announced it was time to start, and Bronco, after a final survey of his charges, led the procession from the chamber of torture. They crossed the street, holding their hands stiffly at their sides, while each gloved finger stood out separately, like an individual Declaration of Independence. As they ascended the stairs leading to Mrs. Green's rooms, Bronco whispered his last instructions, "Don't forget to shake hands with the whole outfit; and you be careful Holy, to keep your left hand shet." Holy, leading the procession, halted suddenly and called back to Bronco, "I thought you said we was only to shake hands with the Boss and the Little Lady and the gospel-shark," but as the door opened in front of them, Bronco made no reply. The room was filled with guests, and after the first wave of bashfulness had receded, the Diamond H boys bunched together like a herd of scared cattle. Doctor Powell crossed the room and joined them, then Mrs. Green entered with Jamie, the little brother of the bride. Powell smiled and the child shyly edged closer, until he was lifted to the doctor's knee. There was a slight confusion. Traynor stepped to a space in front of the minister, and the doctor, rising, consigned the child to Limber, then advanced to his place beside Traynor. The cowboys of the Diamond H fidgeted nervously, and wondered at the Boss's calm appearance, noting with proprietary pride how handsome he looked and how high he held his head. There was a tender smile on his lips and his eyes were fixed on the door leading to the hallway. Bronco leaned closer to Holy, whispering, "I bet he don't even know he's got a collar on. Ain't some men lucky?" "Shet up," boomed Holy's voice treacherously, and many heads turned toward them, while Holy tried to efface himself behind Roarer and Bronco. The door leading to the hall opened and Jack Green came in with Nell on his arm. The women's eyes became moist as they looked at the girl, and the men silently voted Allan Traynor a lucky chap. Mrs. Green had dressed the girl in a pretty white gown, and the real wedding veil that floated about the slender form was the one that had been worn ten years previous by the agent's kind-hearted wife. Outside, a mocking bird sang in the wonderful Arizona moonlight, as though it understood and sent its benison of love while the solemn words were spoken. Traynor stooped and kissed the girl, whose eyes looked into his with a dazzling light that shone through tears, like the sun breaking through a mist. "Till Death us do part," he repeated unsteadily. Then Jamie was beside them, holding up his thin arms to his sister, who kissed him tenderly. The boy turned uncertainly to Traynor, looked up at him, and laughed gayly as he was caught by the man's strong hands and held up a second, while Traynor said, "You've got a grown-up brother, now, old man." Beaming, Jamie slipped his hand into Nell's and stood beside them as the guests showered congratulations on the couple. Bronco marshalled the Diamond H boys in line and Traynor suppressed his inclination to laugh at the unaccustomed regalia of store clothes, 'biled shirts' and white kid gloves, when the men held out their hands to the bride and groom. Holy, recalling Bronco's final instructions on the stairway, forgot the damaged glove in his exuberance, and shook hands vigorously with everyone he could reach. Then with the consciousness of duty nobly done, he sought a corner and mopped his moist forehead with a Lilliputian sheet that he considered a handkerchief. Bronco edged up to him, and a sudden light gleamed in Holy's eyes. "Say, Bronc, what the devil did you keep kickin' me an' trompin' on my feet for?" he demanded indignantly. "You acted like a cayuse with the stringhalt." "Stringhalt!" grunted Bronco, "If you'd had any hoss sense whatsoever, you'd knowed I was doin' my durndest to get you to shet that big fist of your'n." Holy looked down at the tattered glove that dangled in dingy strings from the offending hand, then he pulled it off in sections. "I hope some one will shoot the top of my head off if I ever wear them damned things again. Not on your life--even if the Boss was to get married every day in the year for the rest of his life!" He jerked off the other glove, wadded them together in a compact ball, and deftly tossed it out the open window. The wedding party adjourned to a feast spread in the dining room of the Willcox Hotel, where toasts were given and merriment continued unabated till the west-bound 'Flyer' stopped at the signal, and Traynor and his bride left for a couple of weeks in California, leaving Jamie with Mrs. Green. Powell boarded the train at the same time, as he had to go to Tucson on business connected with his intention to bid for the Hot Springs Ranch. Bonfires had been lighted near the track, and the boys fired a salute to the Boss and his bride. The coloured porter darted back to the platform of the train, and looked at the men with wild eyes. "You ain't got no call to be scairt," reassured Bronco, "We're jest seein' a bridal couple off, that's all." Then the whites of the porter's eyes disappeared entirely, and in the black face shone a row of gleaming teeth. The tail-light of the train disappeared in the distance, the bonfires died away, and the boys of the Diamond H. feeling they had done things up 'good and proper,' sought their beds in the hotel. "Gosh! I'm glad the Boss ain't a Mormon!" sighed Bronco, as he dropped to sleep. The only response to his remark was a chorus of snores in which he soon joined. Out in the dusty road was a tiny ball that had once been a pair of white kid gloves. CHAPTER TWELVE The weekly stage from Willcox to Aravaipa Cañon, which stopped at the ranch on Mondays, brought a letter to Limber from Allan Traynor, instructing the foreman to meet himself and his wife upon their arrival from California on Thursday. There was also a note from Doctor Powell, who was still in Tucson, saying that he would return to the ranch on Wednesday. The men had just eaten lunch and were grouped about the stables when Limber imparted the news to them, adding, "The Boss says to slick up the big room on the front porch, and we've got to hustle to get it done in time. They'll be here in three days." "Say, Limber," interrupted Bronco, who was usually the ruling spirit, "Don't you think we'd oughter get a weddin' present for 'em?" "I sure do!" endorsed Limber, "But, what kin we get? If we'd had any sense among us we'd of sent off long ago for somethin' proper. Mrs. Green would of knowed, but it's too late now." "Let's chip in and get some big Navajo blankets like Mrs. Green's," suggested Holy. "Looked a heap prettier'n carpets on her floor." "Gee! Holy, you do get an idee onct in a while," jeered Bronco, whose chief delight in life was to tease Holy, and, like tourists who throw stones into the crater of a volcano, stand by in admiration of the eruption that followed. "Now, see here," admonished Limber, "don't you and Holy get to millin'. Thar ain't no time for it." Holy glared at Bronco, who grinned back at him and murmured, "Fust blood." Limber reverted to the letter. "It says that Mrs. Traynor will have the little room off'n the big room for her'n, and we'd better whitewash it." He broke off and looked at the others, as he said, "Have we got a whitewash brush that is fitten to use?" "Whitewash your grandmother!" retorted Bronco contemptuously. "We'd oughter paper it. I seen some dandy paper with pink roses stampeding all over it at the Headquarter Store. Whitewash is all O.K. for cowpunchers and bronco busters, but girls likes paper and--and--them sorter things," he concluded hastily. "We don't know how to do it," objected Limber, "and thar ain't no paperhanger in Willcox." "Shucks! Tain't no trick noway," responded Bronco airily. "I'll show you. All you got ter do is get the paper an' do what I tell you." Impressed by his convincing air the quartette engaged in making a list of the things Bronco considered necessary, the principal items being the paper with pink roses and three of 'the biggest, highest priced and reddest Navajo blankets in town.' After watching Bronco start on his mission, Limber and the others saddled their ponies for the daily routine work on the range, as they knew that Bronco could not get home before late that night. It was nearly midnight when Bronco rode into the stables, but the entire bunch of men met him with a volley of questions as he dismounted from his pony. Bursting with importance, he unrolled the Navajo blankets which had been tied to the back of his saddle; while the paper, carefully packed in gunny-sacks, was swung across the front horn. The men grasped the purchases and carried them to the bunkhouse where they opened the sacks eagerly. The blankets had been fully endorsed and admired; but when Bronco, imitating the storekeeper, unrolled a sample of the paper and held it up with a flourish, no words were left to express their delight. "Now, we'll get up early tomorrow so's to tackle the job and get it over," said Limber, after they had disposed of the packages in the room they contemplated papering. Filled with joyful anticipations they tumbled into their bunks. Bronco was the first to waken, and he roused the others before daylight, despite their protests. Roarer sat up and blinked stupidly at the lamp which Bronco was lighting. "I ain't had no sleep that was any good," he quavered in his thin voice. "I was chasin' pink roses all night--they had horns and tails and four legs, jest like cows, and I was tryin' to rope 'em. I'm plumb played out." His tale of woe was unheard by the others as they hurriedly adjusted clothes and tumbled out of the bunkhouse to the ranch kitchen for breakfast. Fong, the cook, was in no amiable mood because he had to serve breakfast an hour earlier than usual; but when he learned that they expected to take possession of his kitchen and sundry utensils, his wrath was expressed in a wordy battle in 'pidgin English. He only succumbed to superior numbers when he retreated to the back porch. His mutterings could be heard distinctly by those in the kitchen, and Bronco cocked his head on one side and listened attentively to the angry cook. "Say, Holy, I don't savvy what that year Chink is sayin', but it sounds a heap worse'n anything I ever heerd you say. He's got you beat to a frazzle. Why don't you learn Chinee? Then when your stock of cuss words gets stale you can start on a new lot." Holy's retort was cut short by Limber, who paused in rolling a cigarette and observed, "You're captain of this round-up, Bronco. How do you start her?" They all gathered about Bronco as he explained the process unhesitatingly. He did not divulge that he had asked information at the store, regarding the preparation of paper, making paste and other necessary details of paperhanging. It had seemed so simple that he was sure he could remember everything. "Well, fust you cut the edges off'n the paper, then you make a biscuit dough and thin her out and stick the paper up, and thar you are! Easy as rollin' off'n a log!" "That's all right so long as the log ain't pinted into a mudhole whar thar's a buckskin cow," murmured Holy, with a side glance at Bronco. The innuendo was loftily ignored, and Holy tried other tactics. "Whar' did you learn to paper, anyhow?" he demanded suspiciously. "You never let on you knowed how until last night." "Think I'm Hasayampering?" Bronco answered indignantly. "I seed them paper a room down to Eureka Springs three years ago. I helped them do it." He reserved the elucidation that he had helped carry in a galvanized tub, nothing more. "Mebbe you don't believe me, but if any of you fellers thinks he knows more'n I do about it, I'm willin' to lay back in harness and let him take the lead, and yours truly won't do no kickin' over the traces, neither." As no one was disposed to dispute his authority, he continued in a mollified voice: "Roarer, you go get all the flour you kin find and bring it here." Roarer looked dubiously toward the back porch and scratched his head, then he tiptoed to the door, peeped through it, and discovering Fong had deserted the place, started on his search, while Bronco issued his commands to the others. "Limber, you kin chase that new whitewash brush I left in the bunkhouse, and Holy can trim the edges off'n the paper. Then you kin all help mix the paste when I get ready." "Does anybody know whar the shears is?" queried Holy, knowing from experience that a needle in a haystack could be located twenty times before the one pair of shears on the ranch was generally found by the searcher. "Bronc, you had them scissors three weeks ago cuttin' Limber's hair. I seed you. Whar are they?" Bronco looked nonplussed, then asserted, "Roarer took 'em away from us before the job was done, and then he disremembered whar he'd put 'em. Limber had to go to town with one side his hair cut and Dunning finished up the job." Limber appeared with the whitewash brush, and at his heels came Roarer dragging two sacks of flour. "This is all I kin find," said Roarer. "Reckon it will be enough?" Bronco was non-committal, "I'll use it up and see how fur it'll go." "Say, Roarer, you got to find the scissors. You was the last one that had 'em. Where are they?" called Holy accusingly. Roarer stared blankly, then whirled out the door. Holy sat swearing until Roarer re-appeared and exhibited the lost shears, explaining, "I just happened to think that I couldn't find the wire-nippers that day when you was cuttin' Limber's hair, and that was why I got 'em from you. I left 'em in the blacksmith shop, but I disremembered it till you spoke about 'em. They may cut paper, but they ain't no good for cuttin' wire." He handed the badly damaged shears to Holy who seated himself on the floor. Selecting a roll of paper from the pile before him, Holy opened and contemplated it in perplexity, finally appealing to Bronco: "Say, Bronc, there's two white edges. Shall I trim 'em both?" Bronco stood gazing down at the paper. "Durned if I know," he confessed. "But thar ain't no use shirkin' the job since we tackled it. Pitch in, Holy. Let 'er go, and cut 'em both off," he directed recklessly before he was attracted by the struggles of Roarer and Limber, who dragged in a galvanized tub. Behind them came Fong, protesting wildly, "No clatchee more flouler. No makee biscuits tomollow." "Well, give us crackers," commanded Bronco. "This year room has got to be papered today. Go chase yourself, Fong." The Chinaman disappeared jabbering and shaking his head, but no one paid attention to Fong's worries. Each was immersed in his own troubles. Holy struggled heroically with spirals of paper, and volcanic outbursts of his pet expressions floated from his part of the room as he endeavoured to extricate himself from the enveloping coils. Bronco hovered over the tub, directing Limber and Roarer, who dumped a sack and a half of flour into it. "You gotter put salt in, next," said Bronco, and the two cowpunchers darted to a cupboard where each captured a small bag of salt. "What next?" they demanded, becoming imbued with enthusiasm as the salt mingled with the tub of flour. "And--er--and--" floundered Bronco hopelessly. "There's something else. What the devil is it?" he implored the others. "Water," prompted Holy from his corner, his head and arms protruding from the paper making him resemble a huge turtle. "I knowed you'd forget that." Bronco's ire found vent in a few words borrowed from Holy's vocabulary, and Limber, mounted on a box, turned from inspecting the cupboard to say: "If we're goin' to paper this room, you two quit scrapin' and get down to business. If you ain't, jest say so, and I'll set Manuel to whitewashin' it." His threat had the desired effect. Bronco appealed to Limber, "Larry told me to mix it like biscuit dough and thin it out with water. There was somethin' else but I've plumb forgot it, Limber." "Well, try lard, then," suggested Limber, poking his head back in the cupboard and scanning the contents hoping to find the missing article, even though it were necessary to add everything on the shelves. "How about some niggerfoot molasses?" "Lard's all right," replied Bronco, "but niggerfoot don't go in biscuits." "Well, it goes on top of 'em pretty slick, and it's good and sticky, so it oughter be a good thing to put in," persisted Limber, holding out the can. "Mebbe Larry forgot to tell you to use it." "Jest a leetle bit," conceded Bronco, wishing heartily that Limber would insist upon whitewashing the room; but not brave enough to suggest it himself. It had taken him two years to live down the episode of the buckskin cow, and he knew that Holy and Roarer would make life a burden if he confessed his inability to finish the work he had so recklessly undertaken. He watched the black molasses trickle into the contents of the tub until the last drop had fallen. Limber ascended the box again. "Thar's another can of niggerfoot. Don't be stingy with it Bronc," admonished Limber. Bronco had not the courage to negative any suggestion, but he groped mentally, "It was a short word," he told Limber with a faint gleam of hope. "Dam!" exploded Holy. "Jest look at this dod-ratted, twistin' paper, will you? Talk about your Hopi snake-dancers, they ain't in it with me! Where am I at?" he demanded from a labyrinth of paper coils. Bronco was glad of the chance to assume knowledge that he did not possess, much as a small boy bolsters up his ebbing courage in a dark lane by whistling loudly. "I told you to cut the edges straight," he announced oracularly, "and these year look like a cross-eyed maverick had been usin' a circular saw to cut wall-paper for a merry-go-round. Why that paper would give a minister a jag to look at it!" "If one of you fellers would hog-tie that end whilst I get a diamond-hitch on this'n, I mought have some show," defended Holy feebly. Roarer went to the rescue and gripped one end of a roll while Holy conscientiously proceeded to mutilate the edges and succeeded in making the scallops a trifle smaller. Limber and Bronco resumed their consultation. "I bet it was yeast," jubilated Limber. "We all forgot about that, and it's a short word, sure enough." "I guess you're right," Bronco agreed with desperate haste, and without delay he dumped a large can of baking powder into the tub. "Now, all we got to do is thin her out and then she's ready to start work." Limber helped him carry the tub into the front room, escorted by Roarer and Holy, who trailed yards of paper which had escaped from their encircling arms. "We need a board and two saw-horses to stand on," said Bronco cheerfully, believing the worst of the trouble was over. "Holy, you and Roarer paste the paper with the whitewash brush, whilst Limber helps me stic'er up. We got to have system if we want to get anything done right." The first strip was duly prepared, and they viewed it with feelings akin to the emotions of Columbus and his crew when they sighted land. Bronco climbed on the plank that rested on the saw-horses. As he reached down for the wet strip which Limber held up to him, the board tipped suddenly. Bronco slid, clawing wildly at space until he enveloped Limber in a pasty embrace. The impact caused them both to fall across Holy and Roarer who were engaged in spreading paste on another strip. The latter proved no obstacle in the mad career of Limber and Bronco, which ended ignominiously in a sea of paste from the overturned tub. When the confusion had subsided sufficiently, the men surveyed the wreck with voiceless disgust, until Holy spoke sarcastically. "I suppose you'll say this belongs in the deal, Bronc. What's next? You sure seem to be the movin' spirit. But, one thing I'm stackin' my chips on, is that I'll know better the next time I start to paper a room and won't do it." "You can quit if you want to. I ain't no quitter. Thar's half a sack of flour left," Bronco challenged over his shoulder as he started for the door to the back porch where he had deposited the surplus flour. The half-sack of flour had disappeared. "I bet that Chink got it," asserted Bronco wrathfully, but there was no sign of Fong in answer to their calls. Then Limber pointed to a couple of burros that were demolishing the last shreds of a flour sack. "That settles it," grunted Bronco, blissfully ignorant that while they had been occupied, Fong had slipped slyly through the screen door of the porch, clutched the half sack of flour, retreated successfully and after dumping the contents of the sack into another sack, which had been washed, the Chinaman with a leer of triumph, tossed the original sack to the burros. Then, complacently he began mixing the dough for the next day's baking; but at intervals he peered at the fast vanishing flour sack, and saw that his ruse was successful when the cowboys discovered the two burros. "Gosh, all we got to show is a nice mess that's got to be cleaned up, and a bill down to the Headquarters for paper with pink roses. Ain't it a shame? Just when we was getting along so fine, too." Bronco's tones were lugubrious, and they all looked regretfully at the coils of paper that cumbered the room. Like mourners at a funeral they gathered around the coils. The pink roses grew more alluring. Bronco lifted one strip and held it against the wall. "Whitewash makes me sick," he affirmed. "Suppose I go over to Eureka and ask Mrs. Burns to lend us enough flour to finish up the job?" Limber made the suggestion and the idea was accepted enthusiastically. While he was gone the others scraped up the paste and collected the scattered rolls of paper, then went to the bunkhouse and waited Limber's return, unaware that almost half a sack of flour reposed in a corner of Fong's tin trunk, while a batch of bread was rising beautifully in the dishpan hidden beneath Fong's bed. Had any of the boys suspicioned the true facts there would have been a badly-frightened Chinaman in Arizona. When Limber returned he was accompanied by Mrs. Burns in her buggy, while Peanut, Limber's pony, trotted at the back of the rig, hitched to the axle. "You boys have certainly run into a bunch of trouble," she laughed as she nimbly climbed from the rig. "I told Limber that I might be able to help you, for I've done all my own papering, you know." Limber extricated a sack that held flour, and joined the procession to the room they were now sure would be decorated with pink roses. Mrs. Burns looked at the remnant of paste in the tub before she asked, "What on earth did you use?" "Everything we could find," confessed Bronco humbly. "We did leave out eggs, sugar and pepper." "All you need is flour, hot water and a little thin glue water," she laughed. "Glue!" they echoed. "I told you Larry said it was a short word," triumphed Bronco. "Why didn't some of you muttonheads think of glue?" "You said he told you to make a thin biscuit dough, an thar ain't no glue in that," retorted Holy, but further argument was avoided as Mrs. Burns began issuing business-like orders. By the time the sun was setting the papered room was pronounced a thorough success, and Mrs. Burns made her way to the stables followed by four cowboys whose hair and clothes spattered with dry paste, testified to an honest day's labour. Mrs. Burns surveyed them as she picked up the reins, ready to start home, while Limber mounted Peanut to accompany her. It was eight miles to Eureka Springs. "I've heard of lost prospectors eating their boots," she said, "but if you boys ate your clothes, you would need anti-fat. Tell the Boss I will be over soon to call on the bride. Adios!" and with a flourish of the whip she drove away, followed by the gratitude of the paste-daubed, tired group. It required numerous trips to the kitchen for buckets of hot water before the boys removed the greater part of the concoction that clung tenaciously to faces, hands and hair; then began a more vigorous attack on their boots and clothes. "It's durned lucky that Bronc disremembered about the glue," congratulated Roarer. "We'd a never got that off." Bronco slumped into a rickety chair, tipping it against the wall to ease its weakest leg, "It takes a woman to round up a stampede like our'n and get the bunch headed right when it gets to millin'. I'm derned glad the Boss is married, for this outfit needs female purtection." "I never worked so hard in my life," sighed Holy, flopping on his bunk. Bronco grinned across the room. "Ain't you forgot the time you wrote a letter to Bill Johnson's sister? You sure worked that time--Set around the bunkhouse till daylight tearin' up paper." "Well, she asked all of us to write her," snapped Holy, "but none of you fellers had the nerve to do it, and when you bet I couldn't, I called your bluff and won out, didn't I?" "You sure did," agreed the others, recalling the historic missive which had been read aloud and duly admired before it was mailed. _Dere Miss Johnson_ as I hav northin mutch to do I wil rite you a few lines we are al wel hear but my pony has a soar back and we hope you are the same as i have northin mutch to say i wil now clos yours truly HOLY. None of the Diamond H knew that Holy's letter, neatly framed, hung in Miss Johnson's room at a fashionable girls' school, where it was the centre of attraction; and a valued souvenir of her summer visit to her brother's ranch, which included the episode of a dance at Willcox. The silence of the prairie brooded over the Diamond H ranch. Inside the bunkhouse four cowpunchers slept serenely unconscious of the odour of freshly baking bread that drifted from the ranch kitchen. CHAPTER THIRTEEN Jamie was tucked comfortably between his sister and the big, new brother, and as they drove swiftly along the smooth prairie road behind the high-headed trotters, the boy forgot his shyness in constant wonder. "This is a prairie-dog town," explained Traynor to the child, but Nell was equally interested. "Those holes are where they live, and when a rain is coming they all get busy heaping up the earth to prevent water going down into their homes and drowning them out. They are good weather prophets." "Oh, look! It's sitting up!" cried the child in delight, pointing at a tiny brown-furred animal squatted on its hind legs and barking shrilly. "Watch him when we get nearer," suggested Traynor. "See, they are stationed at regular intervals, just like soldiers. They are the sentinels who warn the others of approaching enemies." The prairie-dog nearest the carriage, gave a final bark of defiance, wiggled its short tail and dodged into the hole. The next nearest dog then took up the warning bark. "What bright little things they are!" Nell smiled at the yapping little animal that shouted pigmy challenge twenty feet distant. "If they had long tails," Jamie hastened to say, "they'd be like the squirrels we used to feed in the Park." "We'll get Limber to trap one for you," promised Traynor. "You won't have to keep it in a cage after it knows you, for it will dig a hole close to the house and never leave." Jamie's shining eyes met Nell's and he gave an ecstatic sigh as he settled against her shoulder. But in an instant he was alert, watching a cotton-tail rabbit dash across the road. It halted by a mesquite bush. "Maybe I can catch it." Traynor handed the reins to his wife and stepped cautiously until he reached down and picked the cowering creature by its ears. Jamie uttered a cry of delight as his hands closed gently over the rabbit. "Once in a while you can do that," commented the man as he took the reins again. "The Apaches often catch them that way, but I'd hate to have my dinner depend on the success of getting a rabbit by this method." The child was holding the quivering captive against his cheek. Its eyes were bright with terror, and when Jamie looked up at Traynor, his eyes held something of the same bright, frightened appeal. "Won't you please let it go home now? I'm afraid it will be lonesome tonight, like I used to be when Nell was away working all day in New York." Traynor lifted the tiny prisoner and let it slip to the ground. They laughed together as it scurried and leaped across the prairie until it was lost to sight. "He knew the right way home," said Jamie, clapping his hands, "and it has gone to tell its little boys and girls about the giants that caught it and how it got away. They will be awful glad to see him come home, won't they?" Nell nodded, and the boy went on, "Sometimes I used to think maybe a giant would catch Nell so she couldn't come home to me when it got dark, and it made my throat hurt. But you always did come," he finished with a smile at his sister, who thus learned for the first time of his childish fear. Her arm went about him suddenly and she held him close as she answered, "And the giants didn't catch me, you see. Instead, you and I ran away to a wonderful, new country, where the Prince came and found us, and now he is taking us home to live with him." "And we won't have to go back again, ever, will we Nell?" he asked in sudden anxiety. "No, dear," she answered. "It's going to be just like the story books. Don't you remember? 'And they all lived happily for ever afterward!'" The child leaned back with a contented sigh, and his closed eyes did not see the look that passed between Nell and Traynor. The horses had slowed down to a walk and Traynor's right hand held the reins loosely, but his left hand closed over the girl's ungloved one with its new golden band on the slender finger. He smiled at her, and then her eyes filled with quick tears, as he leaned over to kiss her tenderly. "Tears, Nell?" "Tears of happiness," she answered tremulously. "The tears that come when one's heart is too happy for laughter." Nell had a distinct recollection of her first view of the ranch when she had seen it from the stage coach, but the thought now that this was her home and Allan's lent a different interest to the little village of cream-coloured buildings with red roofs, surrounded by cottonwood and willow trees. Here and there poked windmills that supplied the troughs and ponds with water. That other ride had been filled with anxious uncertainty as to what lay before her, but now, the whole world was a wonderful dream of happiness and love. This was her home. The carriage entered the big driveway into the main stable, where the men and Fong were waiting to meet them. A pack of greyhounds lying on the floor, leaped and began to yelp in excitement. From the box-stalls sleek heads of handsome horses peered curiously, then they whinnied a welcome home to the team that pawed the floor impatiently. Nell scarcely had time to note it all when Doctor Powell came from the court-yard of the house and helped her from the carriage. "I got back yesterday," he said, after they had all exchanged words of welcome. His eyes rested on Jamie, "Well, I believe Arizona is fattening you up already," he exclaimed, taking the child's hand in his own. "You and I must be chums, Jamie, for we're both tenderfeet, and have lots to learn. Limber picked out a fine little pony for you to ride, and I found a saddle in Tucson that is just your size. We'll both learn to be cowboys, now. Won't that be fine?" The child's smile told that Powell had won a loyal follower. The doctor's love for children was a magnet that drew them to him at once. Now he looked down at the child, measuring the battle to be fought, and knew the victory would not be easily won, for the child's vitality had been deeply sapped. Nell paused in the court-yard. It was eighty feet square, with deep porches on all four sides. Triangular flowerbeds were in each corner, and over a pergola climbing roses in full bloom mingled with honeysuckle and flowering syringa, which recklessly distilled their combined fragrance. Even the windmill in the centre of the court was completely hidden by vines. She followed her husband into the low-ceilinged living room, and with a little smile she dropped into the same big chair that had held her in sleep when the cowboys discovered her that unforgettable day. "Come see this view," called Allan, and she went to the long French window and stood beside him. "Those mountains are the most wonderful sermons in the world," he said. "It took me a long time to understand them. Limber helped me. When I was discouraged, he did not say anything, but just saddled his little pinto pony, Peanut, and my own horse, Chinati, and we rode silently for hours through long, dim trails, until I found courage and peace. Then we came home again. You and I will ride those trails together dear. They have known my dark hours, and now I want them to share our happiness." He turned, and with his arm about her waist, led her to a door that connected the living-room with an adjoining one. "I told the boys to slick up this room for you, and you can select your furniture from the catalogue. That is how we shop when we live on a ranch, you know." As he threw open the door, the pink roses and red Navajo rugs shrieked discordant welcome, and Traynor started in surprise. "Well!" he exclaimed. "I told them to whitewash it! This certainly is a transformation. I wonder how on earth they managed it? If you don't care for the paper, Nell, it can be changed. It's a trifle gaudy, I must confess." "It's the sweetest room I ever had!" she answered warmly. "I just love every one of those awful pink roses, and I'm going out now to tell the men how I love it!" She darted from the room and found the men in the main stable. They looked at her with evident embarrassment, but she held out her hand, smiling as she cried impulsively, "I want to shake hands with each one of you, and thank you for taking such trouble to make my room so pretty! It is the nicest room I have ever had in my whole life!" They took her hand awkwardly in turn, then each waited for one of the others to answer. Silence gripped them. Holy finally made a heroic effort and distinguished himself by exploding, "Oh, Hell! That warn't northin'! 'Tweren't no trouble whatsomever!" Unable to control the corners of her mouth, Nell retreated to the house, where she sank on a couch and shook with laughter as she related to Allan the result of her appreciation. As soon as her skirt had vanished through the court-yard the men turned wrathfully on Holy. "Say, Holy," Bronco said fiercely, "what the devil do you suppose she will think of this outfit with you cussin' at her that way?" Holy looked abashed and scratched his head, "Damned if I know how I come to say it! But, if one of you fellers had of said somethin' I wouldn't got no chanct to cuss. You all jest made me do it!" He stalked away in offended dignity, while the other men looked after him. "Well, what d'ye think of that?" Bronco demanded of Limber and Roarer, who only shook their heads. Holy's logic was too much for them to pass upon. The day's surprises did not end with the elaborate dinner upon which Fong had lavished his best efforts. In the evening, as Nell, Jamie, Traynor and Powell sat in the living-room, Fong entered bearing what appeared to be a Chinese pagoda of delicate carved ivory. Beaming, he deposited it upon the center-table, and as they drew near, they saw it was a cake with white icing that loomed almost two feet high. It was a lace-work Eiffel tower from which swung fairy-like bridges to the outer base, and this foundation was a mass of intricate designs in pure white icing. Along the edge of the cake, in rose pink letters, was written "Mary Crixmas," for Fong's previous attempts in such lines had been confined to Christmas festivals, and the spelling of the words had slipped from his memory through long disuse. The Chinaman presented a sharp knife to Neil, as he said, "Your clake. You cuttee him." "It's a shame to cut it," she protested, as she took the knife. Then she turned to her husband, "I want the men to see it first, and we'll give them each a piece of it, Allan, if you don't mind." He hurried out of the room to marshal the boys before him. The cake was duly admired and Fong's pride satiated. Then the knife did its deadly work, and the fairy bridges toppled, bit by bit, until the whole outfit had received a generous portion of Fong's masterpiece. "Hold on," said Traynor. "Fong, you get some glasses, and bring one for yourself, too." While Fong obeyed the order, Traynor disappeared to return with several bottles of champagne, which he opened. Thus they drank to the health and happiness of the Boss of the Diamond H and his bride, and in those glasses was pledged an unspoken devotion that would count no sacrifice too great to make for the Boss and the little lady. It was long past midnight before the men settled in their bunks and the light was turned out. For quite a while nothing disturbed the silence, then Roarer's voice pierced the darkness shrilly, "Say, where did Fong get the flour to make that cake? We all seen them burros eatin' the flour sack, didn't we? An' that's all the flour thar was on the ranch?" "Shet up!" responded Holy fiercely. "I don't know whar he got it an' what's more I don't care. It was damned good cake, anyhow!" PART TWO CHAPTER FOURTEEN The life of the ranch was like a series of fairy tales to Nell and Jamie in these first days of their homecoming to the Diamond H. Not the least wonderful and delightful of their new experiences were the riding lessons. A couple of gentle, easy-gaited ponies were saddled for the boy and his sister, and accompanied by Traynor and Doctor Powell they rode to the various outlying ranches that formed a part of the immense Diamond H range. Often Limber rode with them. Always the riders were preceded by the pack of greyhounds that darted yelping after jackrabbits or an occasional coyote. Doctor Powell had been waiting the outcome of King's will, which had been written out by hand with no witnesses. As there were no heirs, and Allan Traynor, the executor, had been appointed in the will without bonds, he was given full power to sell the property in conformance with the terms of the will. This stipulated positively that the property was only to be sold to a physician who would establish a sanitarium upon the place without undue delay; and the Probate Court ordered that these terms be carried out. Until after the will was made public, only Traynor and a few Land Office people were aware that King had patented the land. Glendon expressed his disappointment vehemently. There were many who wished to bid for the Springs, but Powell was the only eligible purchaser, and was ready with the cash. After complying with all legal formalities, he was given immediate possession of the Hot Springs ranch. All proceeds of the sale, according to the will, were to be turned over to the executor until such time as the sanitarium was completed, when this entire fund was to be applied to the maintenance of the place. Thus, Doctor King, unable to live and see the realization of his dream, was assisting in carrying out his plans. It was a partnership between the dead and living owners of the Hot Springs, which Powell felt a sacred obligation. He wished heartily that the old doctor could have lived so they might have worked together; but, he resolved that so far as he was able the undertaking should embody the ideals which the dead doctor had not lived to see fulfilled. Limber was commissioned to find a man to occupy the ranch house at the Springs until the doctor's plans were completed. The search resulted in the hiring of a Mexican dwarf, whose own name, long forgotten, found a substitute in "Chappo," or "Little Chap." When living near any settlement he was unable to resist his fondness for stimulants, yet he was honest and faithful to the core, as Limber knew. The plan of sending him to the place would be an advantage to him as well as to Powell. The doctor spent much of his time at the Diamond H, while awaiting replies to his communications with various architects and managers of sanitaria, in Europe as well as America. Entering the dining-room for breakfast one morning, Nell, with cheeks flushing and eyes sparkling, and every movement radiating happiness, glanced out the window across the wide valley toward Fort Grant. "Isn't this a wonderful place!" she exclaimed turning from the window and dropping into her chair at the table. "It is good just to be alive in this big, free country!" "I am having two hundred cows branded for you, Nell," spoke Traynor as she handed him his coffee. "It's your pin-money, and Jamie will start his herd with fifty cows. Limber is fixing up a special brand for each of you." "Allan! You darling!" gasped Nell, then she darted around the table to where her husband sat and dropped a swift kiss on his forehead when he looked up at her with laughing eyes. Fong, who had just entered with a plate of famous pop-overs, grinned sentimentally, and Nell, blushing furiously, resumed her vacated chair. "I'm beginning to 'act up,' as Bronco calls it. But now I understand why cowpunchers race their ponies and shoot their guns. I'd like to 'whooper up' myself, this morning," she finished with a little laugh. "Dangerous condition," pronounced the doctor gravely. "I'd prescribe a good, hard ride as the only hope for improvement." "All right," responded Traynor with twinkling eyes. "Get your togs on, Nell. We'll all go to the big rodeo at Box Springs. You'll get a faint idea of range work, and now that you have your own herd, you should learn how to run it." "Limber is showing me how to throw a rope," Jamie broke in eagerly, and he scrambled from his chair, clutching his new sombrero that he had deposited on the floor by his chair, the way he noticed the cowboys all did. "Yesterday I mounted my pony all alone. I can saddle him, too--but Limber has to pull the cinches tight." With this final declaration, he hurried through the door, his tiny spurs clicking importantly on the cement walk. The greyhound pack yelped shrill protests at being left behind when they saw Nell and Jamie were in the party. Then Traynor and Powell mounted their own horses and the four swung along the road in a steady lope toward the Galiuro mountains, west of the ranch. When they reached Box Springs, Nell's first impression was a dense cloud of dust stirred up by the restless hoofs of thousands of cattle. Then she saw the chuck-wagon, where the camp cook was busy with his pots and pans over a fire of smouldering oak logs. Near the mountains four or five thousand head of bawling cattle, with cowpunchers dashing to and fro among them, gave the appearance of wildest confusion. Yet, to the initiated, the system was perfect. Part of the cattle were bunched and herded by certain men, while others rode through the weaving, tossing mass of horns, deftly picking their way and 'cutting out' some particular animal. Nell watched it all with frank delight and curiosity, and appealed to her husband from time to time. "What are they doing in that bunch where Limber is riding?" "'Cutting,'" was the answer. "Watch Limber. See how he picks a cow and follows it up? Peanut is a wonderful 'cutting pony.' He seems to know just what Limber is thinking, and once Peanut points the right cow, he never lets it get away from him till it is out of the bunch and where it belongs. He's the champion cutting pony of Arizona. Limber can use a light cord instead of reins. No one but Limber ever rides Peanut. He turns so quickly he would throw any other man. Watch him, Nell!" Powell and Nell lost no movement of the pinto pony and its master, now following a big, bald-faced steer. The animal, knowing it was being singled out, twisted and dodged adroitly from side to side. Then, finding its attempts to escape in vain, it made a sudden dash from the herd and tore wildly toward the mountains back of the camp. Peanut, his little pinto body hugging low to the ground, his hoofs tossing clods of dirt, kept close behind the steer. Limber, leaning slightly forward in his saddle held a coiled rope in his hand. Only a few feet separated them, when the steer's hoof struck a prairie-dog hole, and it went down with a crash. Those who watched gave an involuntary cry. Peanut, too near to stop or turn aside, reached the fallen steer just as it started to rise. Without a second's hesitation, the gallant little pony leaped over the steer, whirled and raced after it as it scurried in the opposite direction. A yell of admiration sounded from all the cowboys; they knew how close had been the danger to pony and rider. Nell gasped in terror and amazement. "That's the finest bit of riding I've ever seen!" Traynor enthused. "Why, no one but Limber and Peanut could have done it! The steer was almost on his forefeet when the pony jumped. If the horse had missed, or waited an instant, it might have meant a broken neck for both man and horse!" "It was magnificent!" Powell exclaimed in accents of hearty admiration. "But, I suppose Limber counts it all in the day's work and nothing more." "That's just it," was the answer from the Boss of the Diamond H. "It's a game of chance each day when you ride the open range." Limber had succeeded in driving the recalcitrant steer into a band of stock herded away from the other cattle. "Why did he have to put it there?" Nell motioned with her whip. "That's the 'stray herd,'" Traynor explained. "You see, Arizona being all open range, cattle mix indiscriminately. Twice a year there is a general round-up, or rodeo. Then notice is sent to all ranchers informing them of the itinerary of the work, which extends over certain sections." They were riding closer to the stray herd as he spoke, and halted the horses a little distance away. "Each rodeo has its Captain, who is general manager for the territory covered by a number of ranches. All ranches contribute their pro rata of men, horses and chuck, making the work co-operative." "That's rather fair toward the small cattle owner," Powell interrupted; "but, that is the spirit of the country here. A square deal for all." Traynor nodded assent. "Frequently cattle are located a hundred miles or more from their 'home range.' We cut these into the stray herd and hold them till the owner drives them back to his place. If he is not represented at the rodeo, he is notified and arranges to get the animals. So, the stray herd is an important item in the round-up work, you see." They had ridden around the herd until reaching the spot where a fire of glowing coals was tended by a couple of cowpunchers, Traynor said, "This is the branding place. Look at Bronco!" He pointed the galloping horse that carried Bronco. "You'll see some pretty work now. Bronco won the championship for roping at the last Territorial contest." "What is it?" demanded Nell. "It's all Greek to me." "A steer is turned loose on the open, then the cowpuncher takes after it, when it has a certain start. He must rope it, throw it and tie it so it cannot rise. Then he lifts his hands in the air. The time taken from the start of the steer to the second the man raises his hands, is what decides the championship roping." Leaning forward eagerly Powell and Nell watched Bronco's arm move swiftly. The coiled riata in his hand shot out like an immense, writhing snake. The big loop dropped over the calf, slipped almost imperceptibly, then jerked taut as Bronco's pony squatted down on its haunches and the calf fell with a heavy thud. A quick turn of the wrist, and Bronco had the end of his rope twisted firmly about the high horn of his saddle. Depending on the pony, with its braced feet, and alert eyes, moving backward and holding the rope from slacking, Bronco snatched a red-hot iron from the fire. A curl of smoke, bellow of pain, two quick slashes of a knife. The calf scrambled up, a freshly burnt brand on its hip, and its bleeding ears, showing the mark of its owner. The animal stood bewildered, snorted, and rushed with a loud bawl to the cow's side. She had been watching anxiously. Now she sniffed at her calf, licked its face in sympathy; then with one accord they scurried away, free to go where they pleased, for they were on their home range and their troubles were over. "It seems cruel," Nell protested warmly. "It's the only way to handle range cattle," Traynor replied. "Formerly," he was speaking to the doctor, "the brands were made as large as possible--now we make them as small as legible. Once in a while we still run across an animal with three immense letters--JIM or HUE--across the entire side of the brute. They were two brothers who determined there should be no dispute over their respective ownerships. It ruined the hide and knocked off a good sum on the sale of the animal. Most brands are on the hip or hind quarter. It's an interesting study once you get into it." "Well, so long as they brand the cattle, why cut the ears, too? Is it necessary?" Nell's sympathy was still with the calf. "It settles ownership where a brand is indistinct or disputed for any reason? Branding is done when the flies are not troublesome, and calves still follow their mothers. Should a calf escape branding at the proper time, through oversight, it soon becomes large enough to leave its mother, and thus is hard to identify the next rodeo. So, if a cowboy on the range sees a large calf with uncropped ears, he investigates at once." "Of course," Powell asserted, "I can see the sense of it now that you have explained it." "Well, even that does not settle a dispute. The long-eared, motherless calves are called mavericks, or in Arizona, where the Mexican language is used, orajanos. The unwritten law of the range gives an unmarked calf to the fellow who catches it, so long as it is not with its mother, you see. Naturally, the man on whose range it is found, is supposed to have a stronger claim. A long-eared calf is a temptation for 'sleepering.'" "In the name of goodness, Allan," said Nell in despair, "what is 'sleepering'? I just get a glimmer of understanding when something new comes up and I'm floundering worse than ever. I don't see how any one ever learns all those terms." "Well," laughed Traynor, "now you can understand how hard it was for me, to learn it all. I didn't dare ask questions, you see. Had to pretend I knew it all. On the range, naturally, the ear-mark shows very plainly at a distance, for the animal will face any rider. If a cowpuncher sees the calf, standing by its mother, bears the same ear-mark, he does not inspect to see if it is branded, unless he has cause for suspicion. The rustler knowing this, ear-marks a calf and takes chances on its being discovered the calf has no brand. The ear-mark of calf tallies with that of the mother, you see. When the calf is old enough to be driven away from the mother, the rustler finishes his work by driving it away, then changes the ear-mark and puts on his brand." "That's what I should class as scientific cattle stealing," Powell decided, and Nell agreed with him, but before they could ask further questions they turned startled faces in the direction of an unclassified noise. The Boss of the Diamond H laughed, and pointed to the camp cook, who held a dishpan and was banging vigorously on it with a huge iron spoon. Far and near, the cowpunchers lifted their voices in the gleeful shout, "Chuck's ready!" Part of the outfit remained on guard over the cattle, while the others raced their ponies pell-mell to the wagon near which the noon-day meal was spread. "I'm hungry," announced Nell, and without further ceremony she led the way on her pony to join the group of men among whom she recognized Limber and Bronco. CHAPTER FIFTEEN As Nell approached the chuck-wagon, the eyes of the cowpunchers of the many ranches represented, looked at her with open approval, not unmixed with curiosity, for they all had heard the episode of Walton's green whiskers, and the romantic meeting of the Boss, of the Diamond H and the girl to whom he had been engaged in the East. Bronco helped her down from her pony, and escorted her to a seat of honour--an empty box that had formerly held canned tomatoes. The men sat tailor-fashion around the canvas that did duty as a table-cloth. Nell's eyes scanned the table. Granite pans full of boiled potatoes, frijoles--the small red bean grown by Mexicans, which forms the principal article of diet on any Arizona ranch--an enormous dish held a stew made of "jerky," which Nell recognized, for she was becoming initiated into many things that were strange. She had seen Fong pounding strips of sun-dried meat, and watched it transformed to a savory stew, while he explained that the cowboys carried it in their pockets and ate it without cooking. She sniffed with appreciation the coffee, and accepted the big tin cup with a smile, then added condensed milk from the can Bronco passed to her. "What lovely biscuit!" she exclaimed, as a white cloth was deposited in front her, and the golden tan biscuit, steaming hot were uncovered. "I don't see how it can be done without a real stove!" The camp cook grinned his approval of a woman of such intelligence. The clatter of tin plates, iron knives and forks, was broken with laughter or jokes by the punchers at each other's expense. Life during the rodeo was a combined circus and school-day vacation when off duty with the herd. Then, it was grim, hard work. The feeling of restraint at first noticeable when Nell sat on her improvised throne, gradually evaporated as she joined in the laughter. It vanished completely when she slipped from the box to the ground, to be "nearer the biscuit," she laughed as she reached out and appropriated one. Jamie, seated between Bronco and Limber, was silent but happy, as they acclaimed him "one of the Diamond H outfit," and a "regular puncher, now." The first relay moved away, some taking their places with the herd to allow the other men their turn at the chuck, but many of them were off duty for a time, and these loafed and talked together, the smoke of their cigarettes forming tiny clouds about their heads. Nell rose and made her way to a fallen log, on which she dropped with a smile at Bronco who had followed her and Jamie from the table. While she admired Limber, there was a boyish irrepressibility about Bronco that made a little bond between them. He reached into the breast-pocket of his blue flannel shirt and withdrew the hand, partly closed. Jamie looked at it curiously as he saw it was extended to him. Bronco's fingers opened, and Nell and the child stared at a strange thing blinking sleepily. "What is it?" they asked simultaneously. "Horn-toad," Bronco replied. "Caught him this mornin' and I was pretty sure you hadn't seen one, so I kept him." "Won't he bite?" Jamie's tones were doubtful. "Not on your life," answered the cowboy. They regarded the little creature as Bronco put it on the ground and dragged a bit of string from his pocket. He tied this about the toad's hind legs close to the body. "Look at him," was the command, as Bronco slid his finger over the rough, tiny-horned back from tail to head. With a wild scurry of legs, the toad raced to the end of the string and struggled to escape; but, Bronco's finger touched its head and moved gently toward the jerking tail. The toad's eyes closed, his head drooped toward the ground, the legs and tail became motionless. Jamie gave a little squeal of delight, and cried, "He's gone to sleep!" "Hang onto the string a minit." Jamie clutched it, while Bronco held a consultation with the cook at the tail-board of the chuck-wagon. Soon he returned with a small, empty match-box. "This'll make a fine wagon," he announced, tying the match-box to the end of the string. "Now, thar we are! All you gotter do to make him move lively is run your finger 'long his back like I done, and contrarywise, from his head to his tail, if you want him to stop. When I was a kid in Texas, me an' my little brother uster catch 'em and have races this way." A grin spread over his face and he looked up at Nell, "Say, Mrs. Traynor, Maw hated horn-toads. Bill an' me rounded-up twenty of 'em once, and hid 'em in a closet in a box. The box got upsot someways in the night, and when Maw got up to start breakfast you never heerd such a whoop! She put her foot on one of 'em. It didn't hurt the toad for she took her foot off too quick, but Bill an me never brung any more into the house after that mornin'. You see, when she put down her other foot, she hit another toad, an' that room was jest naturally alive with 'em. We rounded-up the whole herd, twenty of 'em, but Maw said she knewed thar was a thousand and the rest of 'em got away." "I'm rather inclined to sympathize with your mother, Bronco," was Nell's laughing comment. She shuddered, "Those little sharp horns are bad enough to step on with a bare foot, but to feel the horns moving would be rather upsetting, I should think." "It was," Bronco rejoined soberly. "But Maw wasn't so upsot as we kids was--afterwards." Jamie devoted himself to his new pet, and Nell's eyes wandered to her husband and Doctor Powell who were talking with another man, not far away. She saw this man had a grizzly beard that seemed never to have been cropped or shaven. The dry skin of neck and throat was wrinkled and the texture and colour of a piece of Arizona jerky from long exposure to the sun and wind. On his head, an old straw hat was guiltless of a crown, but flaunted two dilapidated turkey quills. Tufts of unkempt hair peered inquisitively over the broken edges above the ragged brim. A grim mouth made a repository for a corn-cob pipe, and suspicious grey eyes squinted from Powell's face to that of the Boss of the Diamond H. Bronco saw her interest, and explained, "That's Paddy Lafferty, owns the PL ranch and herd, that the doctor figgers on buyin'," then Nell recalled the many stories she had already heard of this eccentric character. Paddy's eyes caught hers, and she flushed guiltily as she glanced away quickly. "It's a dandy rodeo," she heard Bronco's voice beside her, as he sat on the ground, knees drawn up, his muscular hands busy rolling a cigarette. "I suppose I'll get used to wild cattle after a while," Nell hazarded, "but, honestly, Bronco, I'm afraid of them. Their horns are so big and sharp." "Why!" the cowpuncher's amazement was undisguised. "These is short-horns! We ain't got no long-horns on the range. You'd oughter seen some of the ol' Texas long-horns we uster have. Lots of times the horns was so wide we couldn't get a steer loaded into a box-car till we'd sawed off the horns. And wild--" he paused for adequate words before he finished, "Say, they was a cross between a deer an' a mountain-lion, so fur as disposition counts!" "Well, I never feel safe except on my pony." "Say, Mrs. Traynor, you're dead safe anywheres in Arizona," the cowboy assured her earnestly. "Why, if you was to walk over to that air herd, you'd stampede it quick as a wink!" Nell turned on him with dancing eyes, "For gracious' sakes, Bronco! Am I such a scarecrow as all that?" Bronco's face and ears grew red. "Oh, shucks! I didn't mean to say it that way. But--you see--range stock is uster seein' men, foot or horseback--a woman in petticoats is a new critter to 'em and plumb paralyzes a herd. Thar was one time, though," he continued mournfully, "I wisht so hard I was a woman that I derned nigh prayed for petticoats." He was immersed in deep thought for a few seconds, and then he demanded suddenly, "Did the Boss ever tell you about the time I fooled myself into thinkin' I was a bull-fighter?" "No," was the reply, "but please tell me, won't you?" "I don't mind it so much, now," Bronco grinned, "but thar was a time when it sure made me sore to talk about it. You see, I been to Mexico and seed a Mex bull-fighter. The feller what fit the bull belt a red handkerchee out in front of him, and when the bull lit out for him, he jest stepped one side and the bull went runnin' past with the handkerchee hangin' over his eyes, like a widder's veil. Then the feller stuck a bunch of ribbons on the bull and made it madder'n a hornet, an' you can't blame a bull for gettin' mad at being laughed at that way. It looked so easy that I thought it wasn't no trick noways--and I made up my mind I'd do it myself, sometime." Nell faced him expectantly. "Well, one day I was ridin' over from Hot Springs by the Mud Springs trail, and it was near supper time, when the sun went down. I had twelve miles to ride and we had a cranky cook at the ranch, an' I hadn't et anythin' since five o'clock, sun-up. So, when I seen smoke comin' from the camphouse at Mud Springs, you kin bet I humped along pretty lively. "A feller from the east was stayin' thar fer his health. He was all alone, an' glad to have some one call on him fer a change. I made myself as entertainin' as I knowed how, hopin' fer an invite to chuck. He cooked over a campfire, and said he wanted to get as near to Nature as he could; but I couldn't see any sense in what he said. Whilst he kept on cookin' supper an' not sayin' anythin' about expectin' me to stay, I kept playin' fer time. "Thar was an ol' buckskin cow standin' near in the brush, and I tol' him about the bull-fight. He got interested, and I begin to see some chance of chawin' that grub before long. Then I got smart and offered to show him how they done it. He said I'd better not try it. Of course, I was only bluffin' at first, but when he said that, it called my bluff. I ambled over to thet ol' buckskin bag o' bones and guv her a crack over the ridge-pole with my riata, but she never even looked at me. She was thet ol' thet she must of been one of the great-grandmothers' of the herd, and when I seen that I got brash." Bronco stared across space, his hands dropping limp between his knees. "I caught holt of her tail and twisted it, then I slapped her jaw. She woke up some, an' I danced in front of her like a locoed ijit, wavin' my red handkerchee an' yellin' like an Apache on the war-path. She guv one beller, put her nose to the ground and come at me in dead earnest to make me understand that a lady cow her age can't be trifled with. "The tenderfoot yelled, 'Look out!' and made for a walnut tree and shinnied up it, and thar he set peepin' out like a skeered chipmunk. I wisht I was up thar longside of him, but had to get busy doin' what the bull-fighter done. So, I stood thar and helt that durned handkerchee out in front of me, jest like I seed him do, but, honest Injun! I'd ruther hed a solid adobe wall in front of me just then. Well, that doggone animile got five feet away, and then I seen that she had both eyes wide open, instead of shettin' her eyes like a bull does when he charges. "It paralyzed me so I fergot to move thet piece of red calicer and jest stood thar holdin' it in front of me, whilst that damned tenderfoot was whoopin' and screechin' his head off, 'She's a comin'! She's a comin'!' Jest as if I didn't know it a heap sight better'n he did! Thar wasn't any chanct left to run, and that ol' cow sure did come. "She hit me squar and knocked the wind plum outen me, and I went down an' chawed adobe dirt. She made holes all over my clothes, tromped me from head to foot, rolled me over and over like I was a chunk of biscuit dough, then she guv a snort and went off in the brush." Nell's eyes were dancing and she leaned forward eagerly. "I picked myself up," his voice was mournful, "just as the tenderfoot clumb down from his perch. Neither one of us said a word. He was too scairt to talk and I was too mad. The coffee pot was upset, the dinner burnt to a cinder. I got on my horse and hit the trail for home. I tol' the boys that my pony slid down the side of a cañon with me, and they'd never knowed the difference if that damned tenderfoot hadn't come a humpin' down the next day to see if I was hurt very bad." He heaved a sigh, and kicked at a stone beside his foot. "I got even with thet ol' cow, though. She was in the last bunch we shipped for Kansas City, and I seen to it that she didn't get cut outen the herd. But, I'll never forget her so long as thar is a buckskin cow in Arizona Territory. The boys won't give me a chanct;" he paused, gazed reflectively across the Valley, then added dolefully, "I'll never be happy until I see some bigger fool than myself, buyin' all the ol' buckskin cows in Arizona to ship 'em down to Mexico for bull fights." Nell's laughter reached Powell, Traynor and Paddy as they approached where she sat. "This is Paddy Lafferty, Nell," said Traynor. "He has given an option on his ranch and cattle to Doctor Powell." She looked up at a tall, gaunt old man with stooping shoulders and joints that seemed to be held together by loose wires, like a jointed doll subjected to much handling. Paddy regarded Nell sharply from under his ragged eyebrows, but as she rose and held out her hand, smiling into his face, she unconsciously won a loyal friend. He squatted down on the ground beside her and listened to her merry comments on the cattle business. Limber and Bronco, a short distance away on their ponies, noted the episode. "She's sure a thoroughbred prize-winner! Ain't she, Limber?" observed Bronco admiringly. "You bet! She gets her brand on every cowpuncher that comes on her range, and the Kid is jest the same." "Oh, say! Loco's here. Lookin' for a job. Green Whiskers sol' out last week. Went back to Utah, Loco says. He's sure aching to get married," grinned Bronco. "It's kept him busy shavin' and cuttin' his hair, lately." "Loco's a good roper. Of course, he gets them crazy fits, but he's never harmed any one round here. We'll need some extra hands, now, with Doctor Powell buyin' Paddy's herd. We'll have to tail 'em in, so I'll see the Boss about hirin' Loco whilst we got a chanct to get him." Bronco nodded, for tailing a herd meant extra work, as each animal had to be caught, the long hair on its tail cut off, and thus a tally of numbers was made without rebranding. It was only done when an entire herd was sold and the brand included in the sale. "Tell him about that mix-up in the strays," called Bronco after Limber, as the foreman rode toward Traynor. While Limber's pony rubbed noses with Traynor's horse, Limber suggested employing Loco. Traynor assented readily. Then Limber continued, "I don't know just how to figger it out, but some one's tryin' to make trouble for the Diamond H." "How's that?" demanded Traynor, quickly. "Well, two weeks ago Bronco seen a Diamond H calf, new-branded, following a Bar 77 cow. He thought it was just a mistake, so vented it. Then a few days later me and Holy run into two calves with the Diamond H and one was followin' a Flyin' V cow, and the other was suckin' a Three Moon. We straightened that out, and since then we've come across six calves marked with the Diamond H and every durned one of 'em is suckin' a cow with a different brand. We got to stop it quick." Traynor's eyebrows knit angrily, "Any of them here?" "Four in the stray herd," Limber replied, and without further conversation they rode to the strays, where several neighbouring ranchers and a few cowpunchers sat on their ponies. They looked curiously at Traynor and his men, who met the looks steadily. "Limber has just reported to me about these calves with the Diamond H brand," he scanned each face for sign of disbelief. "I don't think it is necessary for me to say that not one of the men belonging to the Diamond H ranch branded those calves. A single instance might occur to any one, as you all know, but this is being done systematically, and evidently with the intention of causing hard feelings. If any of you hear or see any more of this work, let me know at once, and help me find out who is at the bottom of it. I'll pay five hundred dollars for proof against the man who is putting my brand on these calves. I will report this to the Live Stock Sanitary Board at once, and advertise my offer of reward." He turned to Limber and Bronco, saying, "Cut out those calves and vent them at once, boys," and they hastened to obey. "None of us laid the blame on the Diamond H," said Jones, who owned the Flying V Bar. "None of us knew about this work until Limber told us and pointed out the calves in the stray herd. The fellow who is doing this would treat any of us the same way, and it's things like this that start real trouble. We've got to work together to catch him. When we do, we'll run him out of the country." "Better keep him in the country, under six feet of earth," growled Holy with a few complimentary remarks, then he glanced around quickly to see whether Nell were within earshot. And as a result of this episode, a week later Traynor advertised offering five hundred dollars reward for detection of the trouble-maker, while an additional five hundred dollars was offered by the combined other cattlemen whose calves had been misbranded; but from that time on there was no cause for further complaint. The matter remained a mystery. CHAPTER SIXTEEN "I think I will go over to the Springs in the morning," said Powell to Traynor a week after the rodeo, as they sat in the court enjoying after-dinner cigars. "Oh, by the way," Traynor interjected, "I had a talk with Paddy yesterday. He wants the privilege of staying at the PL ranch house for a month after the cattle are tallied in. I rather believe the old fellow hates to leave the place." "How about arranging to have him stay permanently?" suggested Powell. "Limber says some one would have to be there to look after the windmill and water." "I think Paddy would be glad to do it. He hates mountain work, but he's good anywhere on the flats, and he's as honest as the sun. With Limber at the Springs working across the backbone of the Galiuros, we would consolidate the work of both ranges, and our relative expenses could be adjusted without difficulty. I believe Paddy would be glad to take a small sum monthly, and have his grub provided, and feed for that scarecrow of a horse that he thinks so much of." "Won't you need Limber here?" protested Powell. "I can arrange the work with him so that he can stay part of each week at the Springs. So you need not hesitate on that account. We have to ride in the Hot Springs section every few weeks. Many of our cattle drift over there. It's a wild range, and unless the men ride among the stock at frequent intervals, the cattle become too wild to be handled to an advantage. There are five and six year old steers back in the mountains there, that will never be caught except with a bullet--and even then you would have to have the wind in your favour to get in range. They are worse than deer." "Suppose I talk to Limber? I don't want him to go unless he wishes it." "He's taken a liking to you," was Traynor's reply, "and I'm sure the plan will suit him. But, decide that for yourselves. If he doesn't want to go, Bronco or Holy would do, but Limber would be more congenial, I thought." "Limber is one of the finest characters I have ever met," was Powell's remark as he rose and moved toward the entrance of the court leading to the bunk-house. "I'll have a talk with him, now." A light streamed from the open door of the bunk-house where the cowpunchers sat smoking and talking. Bronco, at a small table, was immersed in the pages of a gigantic mail order catalogue. A sheet of paper and bottle of ink portended a purchase. Powell sauntered in, found a seat on an iron cot, lit a cigarette and glanced around at them all. It was a delicate compliment that no one greeted his entrance formally. It proved that he was "one of the bunch." Bronco's face was contorted as he began writing on the printed order sheet of the merchant enterprising enough to send out catalogues broadcast. It was good business strategy, for when the long winter evenings held forth, the big catalogue was the center of attraction on many ranches, and thus articles were ordered with sublime disregard as to utility or cost. "What you sendin' fer this time, Bronc?" questioned Holy, curiously. "Accorjon," the reply was punctuated with scratching pen that spluttered ink over the order list. "Thar's a book goes with it, tellin' you how to play in two hours." "Say," Roarer leaned forward with interest, "why don't you get a talkin' machine like the feller that spit his teeth out. Look 'em up. We could chip in and get one, maybe. It'd be easier on you--an' us, too." With Powell's aid a small talking-machine was decided upon, and Bronco conscientiously inked out the previous order and substituted the latest one. Then each man insisted that the record of his favourite "tune" be included--Golindrina, Over the Waves, Where is my Wandering Boy Tonight, Home, sweet Home, and My Bonnie lies over the Ocean--exhausted their repertoire. "Six," announced Bronco, "say that ain't enough. Why, we kin sing all them without any talkin-machine. We want somethin' we don't sing ourselves when we're punchin' cows." Powell came to the rescue, and with his aid a list was completed, including some really good music. He vetoed the command to pick out "about twenty-five or thirty dollars' worth." "That's a heap sight more sensible than gettin' a cobbler's outfit, like we done the other time," Limber commented with a smile. In answer to Powell's evident desire, he continued, "Bronc and Holy seen it in the catalogue, an' it told how much money you could save by mendin' your own shoes. It was unhandy havin' to pack our boots to Willcox all the time. Mostly we'd forgot to take 'em, or else forgot to bring 'em home. We all rounded up our boots and Bronco figgered that by mendin' 'em, we'd save pretty near two weeks pay each." "Well, it would of," defended Bronco, "But you fellers wouldn't wear 'em after I fixed 'em all up, and blacked 'em too." "We'd a wore 'em," retorted Roarer indignantly, "if we could of got into 'em, but you'd made 'em all so tight that no one could get a foot into them shoes. The wust of it was that you went an' put extra soles on our good shoes and spiled 'em along with the rest." "Well, you seen me throw mine out the same time you fellers chucked yours into the dump heap, didn't you?" Limber's mouth twitched and his eyes twinkled as he turned to Powell, adding the climax, "Say Doc, thar wasn't a pair of boots or shoes that one of us could get into, and the day after Bronc finished up his work, we all got in the spring wagon and druv to Willcox in our socks an' bought shoes for the outfit before we could get to work." "If you'd a guv me another chanct," protested Bronco, "I'd knowed better what to do, but anyway, it was a dandy cobbler's outfit, and wuth the money we guv for it." "What became of it?" demanded Powell when his laughter subsided. "Thar was a Missionary come past here, gettin' money for the heathens in Africa, and we donated the outfit to him. He shore seemed pleased with it, but we always had a sneakin' notion the heathens wasn't the ones that used it. That Missionary was like a billy-goat, ready to take anything you guv him, from a gold-mine to a empty tin tomato can. Last we seen of him he was prospectin' for Hasayampa Bill's lost mine, but nobody ain't heerd of his findin' it, so fur." "How did Hasayampa lose the mine?" Powell interrupted. "Or did he really ever own one?" "We seen the beginning of it," Limber began, and Powell scenting a story, settled with delighted anticipation. "It started this way. We was workin' the rodeo back of Dos Cabezas when we come across a seven-year ol' black horse that was an outlaw. He belonged to the Bar X Bar outfit, but they'd guv up tryin' to break him. For three years the Boss of the Bar X Bar hed offered each Fourth of July to give the horse to any man what'd ride him to a finish. Thar was lots that tried it. He was a good horse and worth considerable if he was busted. "Hasayampa was workin' with us. He'd been havin' a streak of hard luck. His only pony was lame and he couldn't raise cash to buy another. You see, Hasayampa had tried to teach a tenderfoot how to play Stud poker, and that's about the poorest way I know to invest your money, especially when the tenderfoot is dressed like a minister--Hasayampa oughter knowed better. "Howsomever, Hasayampa bet his lame pony that he could ride that black horse, and of course, everybody took him up. "He roped and throwed it without any trouble, and got the saddle on its back; then he jumped inter the saddle. Up to then it was easy work, but afterwards--Say, Doc, every one knows that a horse has only got four feet, but thar wasn't a man watchin' that wasn't ready to bet it was a centipede Hasayampa was tryin' to gentle. The horse was called Black Devil, for thar wasn't a white hair on him, and he sure deserved the rest of the name. "Hasayampa stayed with him, all right, and what's more we all seen him do it, an' I tell you we whooped like Injuns! The next day Hasayampa quit work and left camp, riding his new horse and leadin' the lame pony, and that was the last we seen of him for over six months. "Then he blew in at the Diamond H, riding his old bay pony, but he hadn't mutch to say--Seemed sorter down-hearted like. "Then some one ast him what he done with Black Devil and this is what he tol' us. "When Hasayampa was ridin' Black Devil that day he busted him, the horse seemed to favour one hind foot--acted like he'd sprained it. When Hasayampa started doctorin' it, he pretty near died with suprise, for thar was a nice little nugget of gold smashed on the bottom of Devil's foot, just like a corn. Well Hasayampa didn't lose no time humpin' up to the placed he'd noticed Devil limpin', and he posted his location notice on the Buckin' Bronco Mine. The lead was thar just in plain sight, he said. We all had been campin' on a regular mint of gold an' never knowed it. Leastways, that is what Hasayampa told us. "Well, he took Black Devil down to the blacksmith at Dos Cabezas and hed some shoes made for him. He had quite an argument with the blacksmith to get him to make the shoes the way Hasayampa wanted 'em. He said that after they got through, the blacksmith did what Hasayampa told him." Limber paused to light his cigarette, and philosophize, "It don't pay to argue, if you kin help it. Hurts the other party's feelin's when you get the best of him, an', Hasayampa had fists on him like cannon balls when he warmed up in a argument. All the same, you can't blame the blacksmith for callin' Hasayampa a 'locoed ijit' when you knowed the sort of hoss-shoes he ordered made." "They was half-hollow, as if you dug a slot in 'em with a jack-knife. After Devil was shod, Hasayampa got some chamois skin, quick-silver and a small retort and went back to his claim. "Now, here's what Hasayampa tol' us all for gospel truth, Doc. He put the quick-silver in the slots of them hoss-shoes, then jumped on Black Devil and let him buck up an' down that air claim. Hasayampa said it beat any four-stamp mill he ever seed. Then he got down and scraped the silver outen the hoofs, squoze it in the chamois bag and fired it in his retort to separate the gold. Hasayampa cleaned up a hundred dollars' wuth the fust day. "It didn't take Black Devil long to understand his job o.k. That hoss would just wait for his shoes to be silvered, then go hisself and buck around, only stoppin' to come and git his shoes scraped and re-filled. Meanwhile Hasayampa, seem' Black Devil was handlin' his end of the partnership, put in all his own time runnin' the other end of the business, squozin' the quick-silver, firin' the gold and mouldin' it inter bricks. "Hasayampa figured out jest how long it would take to make him a billionaire, and he'd a done it if it hadn't been for the earthquake in May '91. It did everlastingly shake up the country around here, and lots of permanent springs went plumb dry and never run again. "Hasayampa had gone to Willcox to ship some bricks to the 'Frisco Mint, when he felt that earthquake, and he begun to worry about Devil, for he had turned him loose for a vacation. He humped back to the claim, and when he got thar he said he seen a white horse standin' with his head hangin' down like he was asleep; but never a sign of Black Devil nowhar. "Whilst he was puzzling over what had became of Black Devil, he swars he seen that air white hoss raise his head, lift his hind foot, then begin buckin' in a dazed sorter way. It was Black Devil, and the shock hed turned his hair snow white. "Hasayampa said the Buckin' Bronco Mine hed disappeared off'n the face of the yearth. He tried to make Black Devil understand that he warn't to blame for losin' the mine, but the hoss wouldn't eat nothin'. He'd just buck around, feeble-like, lift his leg and look at it, and then he laid down an' died." Powell's laughter rang through the room. "What a pity such a genius as Hasayampa had to die," he finally gasped. "Say, Doc," Limber spoke, "Hasayampa onct said that a man back east was willin' to pay for his yarns if he'd take time to write 'em down. He ast us what we thought about it, and we all tol' him that if any feller did say that, he was a bigger liar than Hasayampa and could write stories himself, an' Hasayampa said he guessed that was true. Do you, honestly, believe anyone would of paid for 'em?" "I certainly do," was the positive answer. "Hasayampa deserves a monument to his memory! By the way, I never heard anyone tell how he died, but I'm pretty sure he did it in some original way." Limber's face grew serious, and a lighted match in his hand flickered out. He watched it thoughtfully. "Thar is a monument to Hasayampa," he said slowly. "'Tain't very big, nor very grand, and thar ain't many people knows whar it is, but it's a monument, all the same. Hasayampa never tol' this story, but the woman did tell it. "She was jest a common sorter woman, not young, nor pretty, nor anything like that, an' it was out in the Yuma desert. Hasayampa was prospectin', and he rid along past the place where she was camped with her man. It's funny that a woman thet ain't married to a man will put up with heaps of abuse, but them women that hangs around mining camps seems to think it all goes in the game. So when she done somethin' that riled up the man, he up and busted her over the head with a stick of wood and she went down like she was dead. "Hasayampa jumped off'n his hoss and lit into the man, and the feller knifed him, then run away, leavin' Hasayampa lyin' thar a dyin'. "After awhile the woman come back to her senses, and she done all she knowed how; but he was too bad off. The feller that run was wanted for murder up in Montana, the woman said. He had took the two horses they had been ridin' and Hasayampa's pony, too; but what was wuss than everythin' else, he hed carted off all the water thar was in their canteens and left them without a drop. "She said when she told Hasayampa that she wasn't a respectable woman--jest a camp-follower, an' no decent man had any call to fight for her, he jest looked at her an' smiled an' said, 'You're a woman. He hadn't no right to hit you.' "He died that night in the dark, and she sat and helt his hand till sun-up, then she scraped a shallow grave with her bare hands and put him in an' covered him over the best she could. After that she started to hunt the trail. She walked around all day and was beginning to get desert-crazy when some men found her. It was too late. She died in a couple of hours, but she tol' about Hasayampa and ast if they'd bury her alongside of him, because it wouldn't seem so lonesome. An' they done it. So thar's a big cross over them both, with their names on it. Of course, we all knowed Hasayampa couldn't tell the truth if he tried, Doc, but when folks heerd about the way he died, everyone took off his hat to Hasayampa, you bet, for Hasayampa never done dirt to nobody." "Did they catch the man?" "Not that any one knowed of. That's one of the things that puzzles me. Why people what plays a square game is sometimes so out of luck. Seems as if they must of been put down with the grain of the table runnin' against 'em when they was started at the game, or else the Dealer stacked the cards. But, it 'tain't so mutch to a feller's credit holdin' a Royal Flush as it is to keep on playin' a square game to a finish when he ain't dealt nothin' but deuces and treys." "You're right, Limber," said Powell, who was learning to find the gold beneath the surface. He moved to the door, followed by Limber, and for a second they stood looking up into the deep blue of the sky where the countless stars, like clear-cut diamonds, trembled and blinked as though held on threads of silver by the mighty hand of the Creator. "Come into my room," invited Powell, "I want to talk business with you, Limber." The cowboy nodded, and when they were seated and the smoke of their cigars blended, Powell explained the plan of combining the work of the two ranges, adding as he finished; "I told Mr. Traynor that it is entirely up to you. I don't want you there unless you really would like to go. It would double your pay and make you range foreman of all of the ranches owned by Mr. Traynor and myself. I will have my hands full, getting the Sanitarium built, and we would leave the management of my cattle business absolutely to you. How does it strike you? Don't hesitate to speak plainly." "So fur as I'm concerned, I'd ruther be over there. It's this way, Doc. Glendon ain't runnin' very straight, and nobody seems to give a damn exceptin' me. I'd like to do what I can for him, and though I don't know as I could do anythin'--you never can tell what'll turn up. 'Tain't right leavin' Donnie and Mrs. Glendon there by themselves the way he does. Glen told me he was goin' to quit as soon as he got a chanct; but if he stays here much longer he's bound to mix up in trouble. He's runnin' with a pretty bad bunch now. Another thing," the cowpuncher hesitated, "Thar's a Mexican girl named Panchita. I guess Mrs. Glendon is about the only one who don't know about her. Glen's plumb locoed over the girl and that's whar his money goes, when he gets hold of any." Powell started angrily, "The cur! With such a wife and boy! Limber, sometimes I feel ashamed to call myself a man, when such creatures as Glendon are known as men." "Mebbe Glen don't figger just what it is leadin' up to. He was a mighty different sorter person when he fust come here, and everyone liked him. He'd get full onct in a while, but he played white until this last couple of years. He's just the wrong kind of a man for Arizona. Take him some other place and mebbe he'd manage to average up pretty fair with the rest of the bunch; but he's sure goin' the wrong trail here." The cowboy rose, and Powell held out his hand impulsively, saying, "All right, Limber. We pull together." "So long as you want me, Doc." Their hands gripped and as they looked into each other's eyes, both men recognized a bond that was stronger than blood--the brotherhood of real men. After Limber had gone, Doctor Powell sat meditating over what the cowboy had told him concerning Glendon. The wreaths of smoke that rose from his cigar framed a shadowy vision of Katherine Glendon's face, and Powell wondered vaguely where he had seen her before they met in the cave near the Circle Cross. Memory refused to aid him. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Powell and Chappo were alone in the new home at Hot Springs ranch. Limber had gone to the Diamond H in order to adjust the final details of the joint range work. While the Mexican busied himself in the kitchen, Powell smoked contentedly in the living-room as he sat before the fire of blazing mesquite knots. He glanced about the home-like place, with its red-shaded lamp on a large table that was strewn with magazines. A desk occupied one end of the room and book shelves held well-worn volumes at the opposite end. The couch, which was covered with a glowing Indian blanket and mannish pillows, harmonized with the massive brown leather chairs and Navajo rugs on the floor. The pictures bore signatures of well-known artists. "It's just what I've wanted all these years," said Powell aloud. The collie pup at his feet looked up with questioning eyes, then telegraphed reply with bushy tail. The man leaned over and patted the dog's head before selecting a magazine and settling down for the evening. "Buenos noches, Señor," Chappo smiled politely, his shabby sombrero in hand. "Buenos noches, Chappo," answered Powell, whose life for several years in a South American mining camp had familiarized him with the language and the type of people found in all Latin-American sections. A fortunate mining investment during those years had awakened a love of the untrammeled outdoors, and also made it possible for him to carry on his plans for a sanitarium. After Chappo had departed for his bunk-room, the doctor became absorbed in his book. Three hours passed, then the drowsing collie started with a muffled growl and sharply cocked ears. "What's the matter, old chap?" The dog leaped up ran to the door whimpering, and Powell went on the front porch. It was too dark to discern anything and no unusual sounds reached the man, but the dog, with a hysterical yelp darted from the porch into the shadows. The short, sharp barks that broke the stillness were barks of welcome such as always greeted the doctor upon his return to the ranch. A woman's voice spoke to the dog, and Powell ran quickly in the direction the collie had taken. The way led to the Circle Cross; the voice was that of Glendon's wife. "Be quiet, Tatters," called Powell. As the noise abated, he reached Katherine Glendon's side, and in the faint light saw that she was carrying Donnie. "Oh, I am so glad you are home!" she exclaimed. "Donnie is hurt, I don't know how badly--but his arm is broken." Already the doctor had reached for the child. "Let me have him. Don't try to explain anything now." They hurried toward the house, entered the room and Powell laid the child on the couch. The doctor knelt down beside the almost unconscious boy, then with gentle touch felt the broken arm. Chappo came through the door, his faded brown eyes were full of pity as he watched the mother who stood with tightly gripped hands waiting the doctor's words. Donnie looked at her, his quivering lips showed the effort to control his emotions when he tried to move his arm and saw that it was broken. "It really don't hurt very much, Marmee," he said stoutly as Powell finished the examination and rose to his feet. "We'll fix you up in no time," the doctor announced cheerily. "Nothing the matter with you except a broken bone, and that is in the very best place it could happen." He turned to Katherine and continued, "Don't worry, Mrs. Glendon. A healthy child's bones knit quickly and perfectly. It's a simple fracture, fortunately, and above the elbow, so only one bone to knit. He'll be playing around tomorrow." Powell left her sitting by the couch, and Chappo listened carefully to the doctor's low-voiced instructions which were spoken in Spanish. "I understand, Señor," nodded the Mexican. "Lots of times I have helped when there was no doctor. Horses, cows, dogs, and people, all bones are the same." The books on the table were removed for rolls of bandages and surgical splints, then Powell turned briskly to Donnie and put his arm about the child's shoulder as he said, "Now, old man, Chappo and I will take care of that arm for you. It may hurt for a few seconds, but after that it won't bother you at all." "Let him brace himself against you, Mrs. Glendon," continued the physician. Chappo, at a nod from the doctor, grasped the boy's arm and pulled steadily. Donnie's face paled but not a sound escaped his tightly set lips. The doctor's fingers pressed the fractured bone and held it in place while the splints were adjusted. A sling in which the hand rested, finished the operation, then Powell arranged the pillows on the couch. "Take it easy now, old man," he said. "You're the pluckiest boy I ever knew." Donnie tried to smile, but tears filled his eyes and he held out his uninjured hand to his mother. She sat on the couch beside him smoothing his hair and talking in a low voice, until at last, with his right hand still clasped in hers, he fell asleep. "All right now," Powell assured her, as he put away the articles on the table. "He is exhausted from the nerve shock, nothing more." The doctor glanced at Katherine and exclaimed, "Bless my heart! You need attention almost as badly as Donnie." He left the room and returned with a glass. "Just a little port wine. Drink every drop of it," he ordered. Her hand shook as she lifted the glass to her white lips, then she held out the empty glass and sank into a chair that Powell rolled before the fireplace. Her eyes closed wearily. The doctor understood the over taxed nerves, and as he glanced from mother to child, a feeling of rage against Glendon consumed him. The only sound in the room was the sputter of the burning wood. Katherine looked anxiously at the sleeping child, then at the doctor. "He's all right," Powell answered her unvoiced fear. "It had been a terrible strain on you both. The bone will begin to knit in a few days and Donnie will have nothing to remind him of the accident in a short time. It's part of a boy's life to have such things as broken legs and arms," he smiled. "Please don't think I am ungrateful. There are some emotions one almost cannot express, because we feel them too deeply for words. I don't know how to thank you." "How did it happen?" asked Powell, trying to divert her from any sense of obligation. "It came so suddenly that it dazed me," she began. "Last summer the wall of the bedroom bulged and Juan made new adobes to fix it; but Mr. Glendon has been too busy to attend to it. We never thought of danger, for an adobe wall often stands for years with big cracks in it, you know. Donnie was sleeping next to the wall in my bed when the crash came. The wall fell outward, but part of the adobe struck his arm. It was dark. I spoke to him and he did not answer. I thought he was dead until I heard him moan." She stopped and bit her lip fiercely. The doctor placed a fresh log on the fire, and while he prodded the embers, the woman gained control of her voice. "I lit the candle, but when I looked at him he was unconscious. I lifted him and when the bed covers fell from his arm, I saw the bone had been broken. Then--I thought of you, and brought him here." Powell knew that her fear that the child she carried might be dying in her arms, or that she might not find anyone but Chappo at the Springs, must have made the three-mile walk seem endless. "Were you alone?" "Yes. Juan is on the San Pedro for ten days and my husband went to Willcox yesterday morning. He does not expect to return home for a week. I had no horse or I could have ridden here." "You and Donnie must go to bed now and rest," commanded the doctor, cutting short the words she was about to utter. "I have a guest room and Chappo sees to everything necessary, so you need not fear you are causing me the least inconvenience. Tomorrow we can drive down to your place and take inventory of the damage. Since Juan has the adobes ready to use, Chappo and I can fix up the wall. I learned all about adobes while I lived in South America eight years ago." "That was the same year we came here," commented the woman. Powell smothered an ejaculation of indignation and wonder at her endurance of such a life. "Yet," he mused, "a bruised flower becomes more fragrant." His elbow rested on the mantle and he looked down, studying her face line by line. Again that vague resemblance baffled him until he recalled a stream near his boyhood home, where a shallow current reached a bend and formed a deep pool. He had loved to sprawl on the bank and gaze into the wonderful, ever-changing reflections, where rough trees were softened, the sky became more blue and the many-hued flowers more beautiful. It was a magic pool to his boyish eyes; in later years be called it his Pool of Illusion. Down in its mysterious depths lived a shadowy form. A woman's face with steadfast eyes looked back into his own, understanding his unspoken dreams, while her slender white hands were held out to him. The longing to touch them was actual physical pain, and often he dived into the water, but the vision vanished in the ripples. He had gone his way, looking into many women's faces in many lands, always hoping to find what he had seen in his Pool of Illusion, but the years of search had been fruitless. Tonight the firelight from his hearth flickered across that dream face. The dream and reality blended so perfectly that it startled him when Katherine rose from her chair and held out her hand, saying, "I do thank you with all my heart. I shall never forget what you have done for us. Maybe some day I can show my gratitude." "Please don't speak of it again," he replied, and seeing Donnie on his feet, Powell added, "Good night, old man. "It's lucky that adobe fell on the left hand, for it's much harder to learn to use it. My right arm was broken when I was your age. It's funny, though, how quickly my left hand learned to work like its twin brother. After my arm was well, I used my left hand much of the time." Mother and child entered the cheerful guest room and for a while Powell heard their voices through the closed door. He sat by the dying embers of the fire. He had found the woman of the Pool. She was the wife of his neighbour Glendon. The realization of his dream was more unattainable than ever, but his bitterness held an undercurrent of happiness in knowing that he might be able to ease the burden she was bearing so bravely. With a sudden movement he touched the chair where her head had rested. Then he turned out the lamp and went to his own room, but that night in his dreams he saw the Woman of the Pool sitting again before his fireplace, and a child leaned against her shoulder. As he drew nearer, her lips smiled and her eyes met his in perfect confidence and understanding. He held out his arms to her and the child, for they were his own. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The next morning when Powell entered the living room before breakfast, he found Katherine and Donnie already there. The child, though pale, smiled shyly at the Doctor. "Hello! How's the arm this morning, Donnie?" "It doesn't hurt at all," replied the child, while his mother held out her hand to her host and spoke, "He slept splendidly all night, so I know he did not suffer." The doctor's answer was interrupted by Chappo at the door leading into the dining-room. The Mexican smiled mysteriously and beckoned Donnie, who glanced at his mother, then at her nod of acquiescence, the boy followed in Chappo's wake. The noise of sharp barks and childish ejaculation mingled with a stream of chatter in Spanish between the child and Mexican in the kitchen. The door closed, and Katherine and Powell were left alone. Her eyes wandered to the sketches on the walls, and the doctor rose, saying, "My pictures and books have travelled with me to many strange lands, but this is the first time they have really seemed to be at home." She followed him as he pointed out special pictures, and told some intimate detail of the artist's life, for the pictures had been gifts from their creators, his personal friends. Most of the signatures were world-known. Katherine turned to the rows of books, and recognizing many old friends whom she had not seen for years, she dropped impulsively on the floor and touched them with caressing fingers, her face alight with a radiant smile. Powell read the book-hunger, and begged her to select as many as she pleased. "I love my books as few men love their friends," he said earnestly, standing above her and taking a rare first edition from its place. "They will be enhanced in value if you will only share them with me, so I can talk about them with you sometime." Together they selected, while Katherine crouched on the floor read the titles, commenting and questioning, as they agreed or disagreed. "It's like a child with a big box of candy," she laughed as she rose, assisted by Powell, who carried a number of chosen books and placed them upon the table. "I don't know what to start with." She settled again in the chair before the fireplace, and the conversation slipped by degrees into the doctor's work in the east, and his plan to transform the Hot Springs ranch into a sanitarium for poor, tubercular children. "My work in hospitals taught me the need of such a place. There are thousands of children who die each year because they lack the things Nature provides, pure air, nourishing food and an outdoor playground in this wonderful climate with its magical healing powers. I believe that environment can conquer heredity, in physical as well as moral conditions. You cannot realize what child-life means in the slums of our crowded cities of the east, Mrs. Glendon," he turned a face full of enthusiasm and her own glowed in response. "The first step was my good fortune in getting this place. It will take time, money and labour, but I know it is worth the effort." "It will be wonderful to watch you develope your plans! Thank you for telling me about it all!" Chappo appeared and announced breakfast, and Powell with Mrs. Glendon found Donnie already waiting them. The collie, Tatters, was beside the child, and it was evident a friendship had been cemented between the two. The little Mexican cook beamed with pleasure as he installed Mrs. Glendon at the end of the table and placed the coffee-pot before her. Chappo and Juan were old friends, so Katherine and Donnie knew him well. His reputation as a cook was demonstrated in the meal he served, and he watched jealously that nothing was neglected. Donnie's attention was divided between his mother, the doctor and Tatters. The dog sat beside the boy's chair, occasionally poking his nose against Donnie's knee to remind him that he, too, liked butter muffins and tidbits of bacon. Donnie patted him, but hesitated to respond to the dog's appeals, then as the child looked down and broke into a sudden burst of hearty laughter, Katherine was startled into the realization that it was the first time she had ever heard her boy laugh like other children. "Look, Marmee!" The dog, believing his wheedling ineffectual, was sitting on his haunches uncertainly, waving his paws frantically in efforts to keep balanced. It was hard work for a puppy, and his wildly rolling eyes made him more ridiculous. Even Chappo joined in the laughter with the doctor and Katherine. Tatters, understanding approval, barked and danced about them, until Powell tossed a piece of muffin which the dog caught and gulped down. "I'm afraid I am not bringing him up properly," apologized the doctor, "but we are alone so much and he is such an intelligent, affectionate dog, that I spoil him. He thinks your breakfast must be better than mine, Donnie," he ended as the dog rejected a bit of muffin proffered by Powell and swallowed what Donnie held out. At last breakfast was over, and the little party stood on the porch, prepared to start for the Circle Cross. Tatters yelped and begged to be included, but his special efforts were directed at Donnie. "He seems to have adopted you, Donnie," the doctor laughed. "If your mother does not object, I think Tatters would be a fine friend for you." "If he were a less valuable dog--" began Katherine, but Powell cut short her protests by his answer. "It is natural for a boy to have a dog. A pup will desert a man anytime to respond to a boy's smile. If the dog will not cause you any annoyance, I'd be happy to know he was with Donnie. Tatters is unusually intelligent and affectionate, almost uncannily so at times. He would be a loyal friend." Donnie watched with appealing eyes, and when his mother accepted the dog for him, the child's right arm went around Tatters' shaggy neck, and the dog, as though understanding, pledged his fealty with a quick touch of his pink tongue against the lad's cheek. Then Chappo drove the buggy from the stable and stood at the head of the team until Powell, Donnie and Katherine were seated and the reins in the doctor's hands. The Mexican mounted a pony and loped ahead of the handsome span of fast trotters, while Tatters yelped before them, dashing away from the road into the brush to chase imaginary foes. They reached the Circle Cross and after an inspection of the broken wall, Chappo asserted he could fix it unassisted in a couple of days, since the adobe bricks were in good condition in the shed where Juan had stored them the previous summer. No damage had been done to the room inside, or the furniture. "I think you and Donnie had better remain at the Springs until the place is fixed," suggested Powell. "The wall will be damp for a week, you know." "If my bed is moved into the corner of the dining-room, Donnie and I can sleep there and get along splendidly;" was Katherine's answer. "The rest of the house is in good condition. The bedroom was the only room when we came here, and we built on the other three rooms. The old wall at the side of the house cracked last spring, and the rains weakened it, as the roof leaked badly. I noticed the crack widening several weeks ago, but you know, an adobe wall holds together when any other material would break away. We did not dream there was any immediate danger of its falling." "I'll help Chappo," asserted Powell, despite her protest that the repairs could wait until Juan and her husband returned, and Powell and Chappo began their task. Donnie and Tatters trotted to and fro, as Chappo wheeled the adobe bricks to Powell, who whistled cheerfully as he laid them accurately on top of each other between the soft layers of mud which he skillfully applied with a large trowel. The whistle was interrupted by snatches of conversation between Chappo the doctor and Donnie, partly in English and partly Spanish. "Lunch is ready," called Katherine through the kitchen window. "Fine!" answered Powell, "we're all good and hungry," then followed the sounds of splashing water, and in a few minutes Powell, with Donnie at his side, bustled into the dining room announcing they were ready to eat the dishes. It was a merry meal, and afterwards while Chappo was eating his lunch, the doctor and Katherine sat on the porch talking. Donnie perched on the lower step, his eyes betraying his admiration for the man who was unlike any other man the child had ever known in his short life. Work was resumed, and as it neared sunset, Powell said that he must tighten the bandages on Donnie's arm and the adjustment was completed with Katherine's aid. The splints had held in place, and the doctor announced everything satisfactory. "I will be back early in the morning," said the man, clasping Katherine's extended hand. "Oh, by the way, we killed a calf a few days ago, so I will bring down a loin. Chappo and I are cultivating hearty appetites, you see!" He was in the buggy before she could thank him, and the team whirled away in a cloud of dust. Katherine watched the buggy until it disappeared, then Chappo and Donnie emerged from the stable and came toward her, talking volubly in Mexican-Spanish--which the boy had acquired from old Juan. Katherine had also fallen into the habit of using the same tongue when she and Donnie were alone with Juan, whose one symptom of allegiance to Mexico was his persistence in his native tongue, though he spoke English fluently. "I will feed the chickens and bring wood and water, Señora," said Chappo; "then you can tell me what you want me to do. The cow is milked." "There is nothing more, thank you, Chappo;" she replied. "You can go home now, for Donnie and I will manage nicely." "I stay here teel Señor Glendon and Juan come home. El Doctor say 'stay.'" "But, Chappo," she protested, "they may be away a week or more. You must go home and look out for the doctor." "El Padrone say 'stay.' I must stay. He say, 'you come home too queek, I fire you;'" the Mexican smiled expansively, "Eet is all right, Señora. I stay!" She realized that her objections were of no consequence to either the Mexican or the doctor, and a sudden wave of gratitude overwhelmed her. It was so new to have others think of her comfort or safety, to have the heavy burden lifted even for a few hours. What a difference it would have made in her life and Donnie's if Glendon were only a man like the doctor. Then there would have been no loneliness in the cañon, for the high walls could not have held her happiness. Her heart would have sent its message to every tree, bush, rock, bird and cloud, so that the very universe might share her joy. Early the next morning Donnie was on the watch for his new friend, and his delight made him speechless when Powell told the boy that the pony tied to the back of the buggy was for him. "He is too small to carry a man's weight," explained Powell, "but he is perfectly gentle, so you need have no fear." "I can't let you do so much," faltered Katherine, "the dog was more than enough. You are heaping a debt of obligations that I cannot pay. Last night I tried to make Chappo go home, but he refused. He said you had ordered him to remain, and that you would discharge him if he disobeyed you. I know how many things need attention on a ranch and it worries me to cause you any further inconvenience. Donnie and I are used to being alone, you see, so there was no need of Chappo staying here all night." "You must think I am a regular tenderfoot," retorted Powell, smiling. "I have roughed it under the most primitive conditions in South America, and am glad to do a bit of hustling to wear off the rust. Civilization makes many men helpless, you know." "Then, let us compromise," she persisted. "Suppose you come down for your dinner each night while Chappo is here? I cannot consent to his remaining otherwise." "Do you know," confessed Powell gaily, "that was what I was hoping you would say!" So, each afternoon following, when the shadows lengthened in the cañon, Donnie, watching down the road would shout welcome, and Katherine coming on the porch, watched Doctor Powell pause at the bend of the road, waiting for the child, just as old Doctor King had formerly done, then Donnie, perched on the saddle before the doctor, rode in state to the front porch and his smiling mother. On one of these rides, Donnie looked with serious eyes at the man, and said, "When I grow up, I'm going to be a doctor like you, and then, maybe, you'll let me come and help you. Marmee says that helping others is just the same as fighting in tour'ments or hunting the Sangreal!" "Your mother is right, Donnie," was the grave reply. "Someday I want you to be my partner, and we'll work together. Now, remember, this is a contract between us, and I won't forget my promise." After dinner had been eaten each evening, a romp with Donnie and Tatters, or teaching the dog a new trick, occupied Powell and the child, and later, Katherine and the doctor sat on the little porch and talked of the doctor's plans, while Donnie leaned against his mother's knees listening intently, for someday, he, too, would help in the doctor's work. The shadows in Katherine's eyes turned to laughter, her face became girlish in relief from constant worry, and Donnie watched her with adoring, wondering eyes. "Marmee's lots prettier when she laughs, isn't she, Doctor?" asked the child suddenly one evening. Katherine's eyes and Powell's met, and for the first time a feeling of awkwardness tinged their comradeship, but Powell relieved the situation with a laugh, as he said, "Little boys are lucky, because they can say just what they think, but grown-up people are not allowed to do it. How is Pet today?" Donnie launched upon a report of the most wonderful pony in Arizona and the man kept plying him with questions until the strain of the situation had passed. But, Katherine was unusually silent for the rest of the evening, and the doctor rose early to say "Good night." He drove home slowly, thoughtful, troubled and yet glad. No matter what Fate might deny him in life, these wonderful days could never be filched from the treasure-house of Memory. After Donnie had been tucked in bed, Katherine Glendon sat in silent self-examination. She realized the happiness of the last five days could not continue, but even though she could not have the kindly friendship of the doctor, it warmed her heart to know that for these few days they had walked side by side as comrades. It had imbued her with new hopes. Yet, she knew there was not the least tinge of disloyalty to her husband in any word, deed or thought. The pleasure she had experienced was as innocent as that which she felt when she and Donnie, walking in the cañon, found a new flower. So, with untroubled eyes she knelt beside the bed where her boy lay sleeping, and prayed for the child, then her lips moved in a plea for the father of that child. The following day Glendon returned home in a repentant mood, as was usual after a protracted carousal. He thanked Chappo effusively, and to show his gratitude, held out a whiskey bottle. But the little Mexican declined, "I promise El Doctor I would not drink again. Eef I do, maybe I die pretty queek, he say." "Oh, a little whiskey once in a while won't hurt you," urged Glendon, who always liked company when he was drinking. But Chappo was firm, though the battle was not won without a hard struggle when the pungent odour from the glass in Glendon's extended hand reached the dwarf's nostrils. Appreciating his own weakness, Chappo hastened to the barn and saddled his pony without loss of time. Then he rode to the door where Katherine stood. "Adios, Señora. Yo me voy," (Good bye, Señora. I am going,) and he galloped away from temptation as fast as his pony could carry him. Katherine told her husband of the kindness shown her and Donnie, and in response to her entreaties, he rode up to the Springs the following day. Powell received him courteously and tried to evade the effusive thanks, but Glendon had reached a point of intoxication where he was garrulous. "I want you to come down any time and make yourself entirely at home," he urged. "A man gets tired having no one but a woman to talk to, and Katherine's head is always in the clouds. The boy is getting just like her. When he's a little older though, I'm going to take him in hand myself. If Katherine hadn't been so high-headed with my folks things would be mighty different with me today. But here I am, stuck down in a God-forsaken cañon in Arizona and no prospects of ever getting out. If she had catered to my family we wouldn't be here, you bet. So, it's nothing more than she brought on herself, and I've got to take the medicine with her. The old man has plenty money, but it's doubtful if I smell a penny of it when he dies. If she'd come off her high-horse the old man might leave a wad to Donnie. Of course, I take a few drinks when I feel like it. Any man does. Once in a while it gets the upper hand of me, but I can stop when I want to, and I won't make any promises to any one to quit till I get good and ready." Once started he rambled on. Powell gave up any attempt to check the half-drunken confidences, and sat silently smoking, trying to conceal his aversion. It was with a feeling of keen relief he saw Glendon rise and take leave. The heavy-set figure swayed uncertainly in the saddle. Then the memory of that man's wife, of the days they two had shared, swept over the doctor. The knowledge that Katherine was subject to contact of such a man as Glendon made his own loss more poignant. If he had found the woman of his dreams married to a man worthy of her, he knew he would have rejoiced at her happiness, though he went his own way alone through life. "Poor little Lady of the Pool," he whispered, "I have found you only to lose you!" He recalled a beautiful rose, frozen in a block of ice, which had been sent him by a grateful patient. He had longed to warm the cold petals and inhale their fragrance, but he knew that removing the icy barrier would mean destroying the flower. He left it undisturbed. And the rose, in its loveliness passed its life; shut away from the caress of the summer breeze, from the kiss of the butterfly, from the quivering touch of the humming-bird's wings, and all the wonderful mysteries of life that throbbed around it. CHAPTER NINETEEN In May and June each year the Eastern and Northern cattle buyers flock into Arizona to procure "feeders" for their grass ranges in other sections. One, two and three-year old steers are then shipped to be held on pasture and finally "topped" on grain in some Eastern centre, to prepare the animals for the Kansas City, Denver, Omaha or Chicago stockyards. A number of fine steers had been gathered on the Hot Springs range, and were being driven to Willcox to make part of a contract between a Montana buyer and the Diamond H and PL. The spring rains had been abundant. Wild grasses rose to the height of a pony's knees; sleek Hereford cattle browsed contentedly, while white-faced calves romped and raced between. Arizona was at its smiling best. Powell, riding behind the herd while Limber directed a couple of Mexican vaqueros, was satisfied that he had made no mistake in identifying himself with this country. The plans for the Sanitarium were maturing perfectly. Letters with suggestions and experience culled from the best authorities all over the continent, as well as European health resorts, were in each mail. Architects had submitted drafts and plans, from which Powell was selecting the very best ideas. Arrangements regarding the consolidation of the Diamond H work with the PL and Hot Springs herds had proven ideal, and the only unpleasant feature Powell had encountered was embodied in his neighbour, Glendon. Though the man's antagonism to the doctor had now reached a point of open animosity, Powell ignored it. Limber went frequently to the Circle Cross, and old Chappo, making visits to Juan, managed to keep in touch with Katherine. They all knew they were unable to do more than this, unless she should allow it, or some dire necessity force her to call on them for help. Powell was compelled to keep entirely aloof from the Circle Cross, fearing to precipitate some disagreeable scene, should Glendon be in one of his aggressive moods. The doctor knew Glendon's type well enough to understand that the brunt of such situation would fall with its full weight on the woman. He hoped that she did not misinterpret his absence as due to indifference, since it was the only way he could help. Limber dropped back of the herd and rode beside the doctor without speaking. There were long intervals when these two were together that neither spoke, yet each man knew the comradeship of the other. The cattle were plodding along steadily and in the distance could be seen the smoke of a train creeping like a rattlesnake across the flat between Cochise and Willcox. The cowboy threw his leg across the horn of his saddle, sitting sidewise as he rolled a cigarette, which he proffered to Powell. Then making one for himself, the two men smoked as they rode. "Juan told me last night that he had found another dead calf up the riverbed, and poisoned it," said Limber. "Thar was fresh lion tracks. He thinks it's the lion that was in the cave, but it ain't been thar since the day we found Mrs. Glendon and Donnie. It must of smelt our tracks and quit. Juan has been watchin' for it ever since I tole him about it." "How much is the bounty?" asked Powell, puffing at his cigarette. "Twenty-five dollars for a lion scalp," replied Limber. "I hope Juan gets it. We've been having lots of calves killed this year. Mr. Traynor figgers on puttin' a couple of men out trappin' and poisonin' them and the coyotes. It'll pay to do it. We had to shoot two horses not long ago, because their backs was broke." "Do they fight at close quarters?" asked Powell. "The South American ones are nasty things." "Well, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Say, did any one ever tell you about the time Hasayampa fit the mountain lion?" "No, or I should not have forgotten it, I am sure," Powell smiled in anticipation. Limber tossed away his dead cigarette, swung around in his saddle and began, "Hasayampa had a peculiar experience with a mountain-lion onct. You see, he was livin' in a one-room stone cabin down Aravaipa Cañon all alone by hisself, exceptin' for an ol' brindle dog named Killem. Hasayampa allowed that Killem was a canine orphun asylum, because he was related to near every dog between Willcox and the San Pedro. Killem's nose was bull-dog, his ears was collie, his tail looked something like a pug's the way it tried to curl up in a doughnut. He had a brindle coat of hair that was sprinkled with white patches and them mixed with black. He sure done his best to bear a resemblance to every one of his family connections. He had been a dandy scrapper when he was young, but he was so ol' he shed all his teeth, but his ki-yi was guaranteed indestructible. Hasayampa had trouble with a mountain-lion what wanted to make sociable calls, but was too bashful to come in daylight. It formed a strong attachment for some pigs Bill was raisin', an' that lion adopted 'em on the installment plan, an' the ol' sow took on somethin' dreadful. So between the pigs squealin' and Killem ki-yiing, he was pretty near crazy. Hasayampa said he couldn't stand the lady pig's grief, so he killed her and then he guv Killem a good kick to make him shet up, and went back to bed. "The cabin had one door an' a little winder. Hasayampa was lyin' on his bunk with a candle stuck in a beer-bottle on a box longside him, right under the winder. Suddenly ol' Killem hopped right through the winder glass and landed plump on top of Hasayampa. He jumped up to kick Killem out, but before he done it, derned if that lion didn't come through the same way, but he knocked over the box and put out the candle. Then Killem and the lion started in for fust blood. "Hasayampa's six-shooter had been knocked off'n the box and Hasayampa made a break fer the door--the room seemed a leetle bit crowded just then--but the door was locked and the key somewhar on the floor. He begun scratching for that key. "Just about this time the stovepipe got knocked down. Thar warn't mutch fire, but plenty of smoke. Next thing they hit the table whar he had piled up all the tin plates, cups and pans that he washed on Sundays. Hasayampa said the noise was somethin' fierce, for Killem was yellin', 'Pen and ink,' the lion was screechin' its head off, and both of 'em kickin' tin things in every direction. "All this time Hasayampa was havin' troubles of his own. He was clawin' the floor, lookin' for the key or his six-shooter. He didn't care which, but he wanted one of 'em and he wanted it in a hurry, which wasn't unreasonable noways, when you remember it was his own property he was huntin'. He finally got on his stomach and spun aroun' like a cartwheel and that was how he found his gun. Trustin' to luck he edged closer to the noise and put his gun against somethin' and fired. Thar was a yelp from Killem, a screech from the lion, then somethin' flopped around on the floor, but whether it was the lion or the dorg, was a conundrum Hasayampa wasn't prepared to answer off hand. "Things got quiet. He crawled careful till he found the candle and lit it, holdin' his gun ready. Then he looked aroun'. Thar was Killem settin' scrintched up in one corner of the room, a bullet hole through one ear, but thar warn't no lion nowhar to be seen, and Hasayampa figgered he had shot Killem and the lion had gone out the winder, same route he took comin' in. Hasayampa did some tall cussin, and begun pickin' things up, when he seen the end of the lion's tail stickin' out under the bunk. He backed off without losin' no time and shot under the bunk. The lion never even kicked. "After he'd waited to be sure it was dead, Hasayampa hauled it out by the tail, feelin' mighty big at such a shot in a dark room. Then he begun to hunt to see whar the bullet went in. Thar was just one bullet hole, and that was when he shot it under the bunk. He had missed it clar the fust time, but that lion was as dead as a door-nail when he fired the second shot, and Hasayampa knowed it." Limber looked at Powell gravely, "Now don't that beat you?" "But what happened?" demanded the Doctor. "Even Hasayampa must have had some theory about it." "Well," drawled Limber, "ol' Injun George, wher he heerd about it said he had been puttin' pizen out, and findin' a half et pig had fixed up the carcass for the lion, and he allowed the one that visited Hasayampa had made a meal of that pig. But Hasayampa always stuck to it that the lion had naturally died of heart disease and nervous prostration brung on by the excitement. Anyway, that's how Hasayampa Bill won the lion record in Arizona." "He proved his right to spell the word both ways," grinned the doctor as Limber reined Peanut toward the head of the herd. They were approaching the outskirts of Willcox. Already their advent was being heralded by hysterical yelps from innumerable dogs belonging to the Mexican families who occupied shacks at the outskirts of the town. Each shack blazed with strings of dried, red chili peppers, while countless children grouped about each door, or the women gossiped volubly. The cattle were driven into the shipping corrals a short distance from town. The gates secured, Limber and Powell rode side by side up the dusty street to the Cowboys' Rest and left their horses in charge of Buckboard. Several other shipments were in town, being inspected according to rule of precedent. The railroad company was frequently short of engines to transport the heavy trains of cattle, and it often happened that a bunch of stock was delayed a week or longer before starting for its destination. In such event, the cattle were held on the range near town, or in some fenced pasture close at hand which was rented for the time necessary. Limber had put in his order so as to insure the right of way when the cattle from the Hot Springs and Diamond H should arrive in town. He was anxious to ascertain whether they could load out that afternoon or not. The foreman and Doctor Powell walked up the main street together, stopping to speak to other cowmen, many of whom had not before met the new owner of the Hot Springs and PL ranches. Bronco, Holy and Roarer spied and welcomed them vociferously, and Limber was informed that the Diamond H cattle were on a pasture, half a mile from town. The Inspector would be ready to handle their shipment right after lunch, as the cars and engine would be on time for them. "I'll stop for the mail," suggested Powell as they passed the post-office, and suiting the action to the words he turned in the store, while the others continued their way to the Chinese restaurant. They were about to enter, when Walton, carrying an old-fashioned carpet grip hurried through the door. "Hello, Walton," was Limber's casual greeting. Walton, seeing them, stopped short and regarded the group with an angry stare, then without replying, he rushed across the street to the railroad station, where the east-bound train was puffing. "Seems in a hurry," commented Limber as they watched Walton climb aboard the train. "Mebbe he's goin' to get married," grinned Bronco, "and he's scairt for fear somethin' will happen to them whiskers again." Walton's face appeared at one of the windows of the day-coach. As the train puffed past the men, his eyes rested on them in mingled triumph and malice. "Hump!" grunted Holy, "Looks like he'd just drawed four aces!" "Well, I'm glad the country is shet of him," piped Roarer as they met Doctor Powell and imparted the item of news to him. Powell handed a letter to Limber. The pencil writing was crude and the sheet of paper bore an enormous, brilliant red rose across one corner. The eyes of the other cowpunchers focused on that rose, as the letter had been folded backward. "Looks like a love-letter," insinuated Bronco. "Say, Limber ain't that addressed to Holy? He's the only one of the outfit that writes letters to ladies, you know." "It's been in the post-office a week," commented Limber, and they drew closer as he read aloud: _Dere Limber_--I seen Walton puttin' the Diamond H on a Lazy F calf and I give him a week to quit the country. He sold out to a fellow from Douglas, so I guess there won't be no more trouble from him. It wood be hard to make a case that would stick against him, because he wasn't branding the calves for himself. He's a little off his cabazza, and them green whiskers stuck in his craw. My regards to the Boss and the boys. Yours truly, BILLY SAUNDERS. Range Detective for the Live Stock Sanitary Board. "That's why he was in sech a hurry to get that train. He must of thought we knowed about it;" said Limber. "Well, he won't bother us no more." As they all entered the restaurant, Limber spoke to Powell, "The inspector'll be ready for us right after lunch." They were shown a table near the front of the room, which was well-filled with a typical frontier mixture of humanity. Cowpunchers, miners, clerks and storekeepers, a couple of commercial travellers, and an Army officer in uniform, accompanied by his wife and two children, who had evidently just arrived on the train from California. In a corner at the rear end of the room sat Glendon with a cowboy whose mutilated hand had won the name of Three-fingered Jack. They were talking earnestly in guarded tones. Glendon's back was toward the entrance of the place, but Jack, who was classed as a "gunman," because of his expert marksmanship, scrutinized the newcomers sharply. "Who is that with the Diamond H outfit?" he asked. Glendon twisted slightly, took a swift glance, scowled and leaned over to his companion. "That's Powell, damn him! Bought the Hot Springs and PL herd and ranch and is going to put up a sanitarium for tubercular children. Limber stays with him most of the time, and puts in the rest of it at the Diamond H, so you never know when you're going to run into them. It's easy to pull the wool over a tenderfoot, but Limber is another proposition. If there's any trouble, the whole country will side with Limber. He's as sharp as they make em, and every one knows he's so damned straight that he leans backward. That doctor is no fool, either." Three-fingered Jack shrugged his shoulders contemptuously and smiled into the other man's face. Both had been drinking heavily. The smile was a studied insult. Glendon did not notice it. "Losing your nerve, Glen? I'll give that pill-pusher a little scare for you, and I bet when I get done with him he'll look like a cake of soap in a Chinese laundry after a big day's washing." Glendon hesitated. "We'd better steer clear of them. It won't do to have any trouble now. It would ball things up for us." "I'll keep away from Limber," promised Jack, now obsessed with one idea; "but it won't take anything except a good bluff for the tenderfoot." "That Diamond H is mixing into everything," growled Glendon. "If it hadn't been for Traynor, King never would have patented that land and the will wouldn't have been worth the paper it was written on. I've hung out at the Circle Cross all these years expecting to get hold of the Hot Springs, but thanks to Traynor and Powell, I got left in the end. Bad enough when King was alive, shutting me off from the water, but now Powell is stocking up the range and it's going to knock me into a cocked hat. There's bound to be trouble between Powell and me before very long. I'm not going to put up with his prowling around watching things out there." "What the devil do you care for the half a dozen calves he may keep you from rustling?" jeered Jack. "You've got a heap bigger thing ahead of you, if you just keep your shirt on a bit longer. Then you can quit the country for good. But, it won't be safe for us to come out there now, Glen. Better meet somewhere else." "All right," assented Glendon, with a shrug. "You tell Panchita anytime you want me, and she'll get word to me." They made their way rather unsteadily from the long room, unhitched their ponies and rode toward the corral conversing earnestly in low tones. Half an hour later, Powell and the boys of the Diamond H reached the corrals where their entire shipment now was enclosed. Bronco remained down in the narrow chute, while the rest, after tying their ponies to the corral fence, climbed up and perched on the topmost rail. Powell looked down on a mass of surging horns, his ears assaulted by deafening bellows. The inspector sat above a narrow passageway in which a draft of five cattle was driven, then the bar dropped and parted them from the other animals. As these five cows passed toward the car into which they were to be loaded, Bronco called the brand and ear-marks to the inspector, who recorded them. Then the cow was given a slight shove to accelerate its movements into the open door of the car. If it hesitated, it was not long, for only a creature of iron could withstand the fierce prodding in the ribs with sharp wooden poles, and the wild yells would make an Apache war-whoop sound a whisper of first love. While the men worked, Limber, seated beside Powell explained the system of territorial inspection, and that at each shipping point an inspector was stationed to report officially on every brand and ear-mark of cattle offered for shipment. Each brand was registered with the Live Stock Sanitary Board at Phoenix, and reports forwarded immediately after any shipment, stating the owner of each animal, brand, ear-mark, shipper in charge, buyer, consigner and consignee. A certificate of health was also required, and without such official authority from the inspector no railroad company was permitted to move any live stock over its road. The shipper in charge, was also compelled to have copies. In addition to these duties, the inspector was authorized to collect and forward any amounts received for stray cattle, whose owners were not present or represented by an agent. Where a brand was found not officially registered, such animal was sold by the inspector and proceeds remitted to the board. This was given any claimant who could satisfactorily explain negligence to record the brand, and prove beyond doubt his ownership. Limber, sitting beside Powell on the corral fence, explained these laws while they watched the inspection. "Some of the brands are very indistinct," said Powell. "In case there is doubt, how is it decided?" "Inspector clips the hair over the brand with horse-clippers, and if that don't settle it, he sells the animal to the local butcher. You see, when the hide is fresh from a cow, the first brand shows out the plainest, even if another is run over afterwards. Sometimes a brand is registered what gives a feller the chance to alter another. There was, one man ran O Bar O," Limber drew an imaginary brand on the palm of his left hand, O-O. "Afterward they found the Crooked H, O-C, the JH and the D O could be changed to the O-O and work the three biggest herds in the section. The fellow was honest, never aimed to do no dirty work, but the brand was stopped by order of the Live Stock Sanitary Board." The fresh draft, headed by a large cow, was driven into the chute. "This brand's been monkeyed with," Holy called up to the inspector, who sat on an elevated platform just above the chute. There was craning of necks as each one studied the animal, for an altered brand was the business of every cowman in the Territory. "What is it?" demanded the inspector. "She looks more like an inspection certificate than a cow," was the answer. "Jumping Jehosaphat! Did you ever see such a mix-up? There's a B D looks like it's been changed from a P L; an' ol' Mule Shoe Quarter Circle on her side, one ear's slit an' the other's a jinglebob. Hold on, there's something on the other side." Continuing his examination he moved around the animal and ejaculated in surprise; "Damned if here ain't a fresh Circle Cross. What d'ye know about that, Glendon?" Every one looked at Glendon, who sat at Limber's left side on the railing. But before he could reply, Paddy Lafferty jumped into the corral chute and stooping down studied the cow's front legs, then he straightened up and spoke. "Oi don't give a dum what brand she carries, that cow is moine. She runs over the Hot Springs range. Oi'd know the ould haythin anywheres becase she got cut by barbed-wire and I docthered her, and she give me the divvle of a toime when I was doin' it, be jabers! There's the marks of the woire-cuts on her fore ankles. That brand's been burnt since I sold the PL herd to Doctor Powell." "That's a lie!" shouted Glendon. "I bought her four months ago from a Mexican on the San Pedro. The B D is his brand. He had ten cows and sold them all to me before he went back to Mexico." Paddy looked coolly into Glendon's bloodshot eyes. "Yez must hev laid awake noights fixin' up that loi," he sneered, keeping a close watch on Glendon's right hand. "Oi giss the inspecther hed betther take charge of her and sittle the matther. But it stroikes me that B D is a moighty quare brand for a Greaser to be running." "As long as the cow has a P L," spoke Powell suddenly, "I suppose it gives me a voice in the matter also?" The inspector nodded confirmation, and Powell went on, "Let the inspector take charge, as Paddy suggested. I don't want any animal on my range that carries a disputed brand. If the cow belongs to me, I want her shipped or slaughtered, and all possible disputes about her ended." "Ship her," ordered the inspector. "I'll look up that B D brand, and if it is not registered the proceeds of sale will be forwarded to Doctor Powell. If it is registered, and the Greaser has left, as Glendon claims, it is up to Glendon to prove ownership by bill of sale from the Greaser." "'Tain't the furst toime your brand has got on one of my cows, Glen;" asserted Paddy hotly. "Oi sold my brand and herd clane and straight to Docther Powell, and Oi'll sthand boy that sale to the last critter." Glendon's hand slipped back a few inches, but Limber, sitting beside him, saw the movement and gripped his wrist in a steel clutch. It was done so quickly and quietly that no one but Paddy saw it, or heard Limber say, "Don't be such a fool, Glen. Killin' people don't change the laws of the Territory." "If ever I catch that Greaser, I'll make him sweat blood," blustered Glendon. Paddy mounted the fence, settled himself, then filled his corn-cob pipe, lighted it deliberately and took a deep puff before he remarked with a grim smile, "Oi'll hilp yez do it, Glendon--when yez catch him!" His wrinkled, gnarled hand smoothed the leg of his overalls, which had originally been the orthodox blue of all self-respecting overalls, but long since had succumbed to Paddy's washtub and vigorous muscles. Below the edges of these anemic patched garments, loomed one old boot and one shoe, laced crookedly with a piece of rawhide. The hand ceased its caressing movement, and Paddy squinted up again at Glendon, "Don't yez be afther fergittin', Glendon, whin yez catch him I'll take a hand at him--wid yez." CHAPTER TWENTY Limber unsaddled his pony in the Cowboys' Rest, after the trainload had pulled out. He found that the episode of the burnt cow was already being discussed openly. "Glendon's goin' to get into heaps of trouble if he ain't more careful," stated Buckboard to Limber. "He's mixin' in with a mighty bad bunch." Limber hung his saddle on a peg and stood rubbing Peanut's nose gently. "You're sure right, Buckboard;" he replied slowly. "I'm derned sorry about it. I done all I knew how to pull him up, but 'tain't been no good, so fur's I can see. What stumps me is why a fellow what has so many chances to make good works as hard as Glen does a dodgin' 'em. He come here with plenty dinero, had heaps of friends and a rich father to back him. Then he was eddicated and has the dandiest wife that ever stepped on earth. Sometimes I think he's plumb locoed." "Mrs. Glendon's got a good-sized bunch of trouble just now and more a comin', unless Glen wakes up and hits another trail pretty damn quick;" growled Buckboard. "That Mexican woman is making a regular fool of him, and gets every cent that he handles. I've been wondering how much longer the stores will carry him. His herd don't amount to shucks any more." "If I knowed a woman like Glendon's wife was waitin' for me at a ranch, I'd think I was the richest man in Arizona Territory, even if the ranch only had one room and I hadn't but five head of cows;" Limber spoke earnestly, and old Buckboard, catching the look on the cowpuncher's face, paused a second before he answered. "There's plenty good men that would be a heap better to her than Glendon, for all his fancy way of talking. But nobody can't do nothin' to help a woman like her when she's tied up to a skunk like Glendon. It's a damn shame, but a woman of her sort just goes along and plays out the game with a lone hand. But she plays it square." "I know. That's what makes it hard. I try to do what I can to help Glen, just so's to ease the load on her, but he keep's pilin' it up more and more every day." "When a feller like him catches on to other people letting him off easy on account of her, he'll work that game for all it's worth. Instead of tryin' to cover up his tracks, it'd be lots better to give him rope enough to hang himself. Then she could cut loose from him." "No she wouldn't," contradicted Limber. "So long as Glendon is above ground she'll stick to him, no matter what he does. Glen knows that, too." "Then, by God! I hope something will put him under ground before he breaks her heart," exploded Buckboard, giving a vicious slash with a tie-rope at a handy post which relieved his irritation, for he knew Limber had spoken the truth. The conversation was interrupted by Bronco who hastened up to Limber. "Guess there's goin' to be trouble in town," he announced. "Glendon?" demanded Buckboard, hopefully. "Nope. It's Three-fingered Jack this time," was the reply. "Alpaugh, the constable, is away at Tombstone, and Three-finger come in last night and has been tankin' up ever since, and by this time he figgers he's got the range to hisself." "Whar's Peachy? Isn't he Deputy Constable?" asked Limber as they passed through the corral gate. Bronco grunted. "Peachy? Whar's Peachy?" he paused to gather scorn. "Peachy's in hidin'. Jack shot out the lights in the corner saloon last night and every one ducked and stampeded, and that denied Deputy Constable dropped on all fours behind the bar and crawled outen the room jest like the yeller pup he is. All he needs is a few fleas to finish him! Then he lit out in the back yard and one feller told me he seen him jump over that ten-foot board fence back of the saloon, and he swars Peachy never teched it. He's some jack-rabbit when it comes to jumpin', and he's got as much nerve as one. Just because Jack's got the name of bein' a bad man and handy with his gun, he's got the whole town buffaloed. But the funny thing is, no one ever knowed who Jack has killed. He sure ain't done no gun-play here except plug tin cans to show off." "He needs some one to take that freshness outen him;" Limber spoke quietly as though commenting on the weather. "If Peachy ain't handy, looks like it's up to us to see the Jedge and ask if he needs any deputy." "That's why I was huntin' you," was Bronco's answer, but further conversation was interrupted by a fusilade of shots. "I guess he's turned loose," Limber spoke as they ran toward the noises. "Thar ain't no time now to see the Jedge. It's up to us, Bronc. Come along." They were joined by other men who ran from various directions and at a turn of the street they saw Three-fingered Jack standing in the roadway, close to the office of the Justice of the Peace, who represented the only judicial authority in Willcox. Jack's pistol was smoking. He regarded the assembled men insolently. "I heerd there's some one who's going to serve a warrant on me," challenged Jack. "What I'm afraid of is that he won't know just where to find me." He wheeled and sent several bullets against the large plate glass window of a corner store, accompanied by a hair-raising yell as the glass clattered to the ground in fragments. Limber and Bronco reached the outer edge of the crowd and pushed through it, but stopped as they saw a man saunter nonchalantly around the corner from the Main street. He paused, regarded the crowd, then his eyes wandered interestedly to Jack, who was busy slipping fresh cartridges into his pistol. As the gunman started to flourish his weapon, he became aware of the new-comer, who advanced toward him and said, "If I were you I would not shoot so promiscuously, my friend. You might accidentally hit something, you know." "It's Doc," ejaculated Limber, "and he ain't got no gun!" Jack evidently recognized Powell, for he swung and faced him demanding what he was talking about. Powell held out a paper. "If you are Jack Dunlap, known as Three-fingered Jack, and supposed to be a gunman, I have a warrant for your arrest. I've just been made special Deputy Constable." Jack regarded him with open contempt. "Oh, is that so?" he sneered. "Well, here I am! Come on and do your duty, Mr. Special Constable." Limber pressed toward Powell, with Bronco at his side, and close behind them loomed Holy and Roarer, but Powell smiled at them and shook his head at the puzzled punchers of the Diamond H. Limber's finger rested lightly on the trigger of his pistol which apparently hung loosely in the hand at his side. His eyes glinted dangerously, his lips were tightened into a thin line. Bronco glanced at him, and knew Doctor Powell was safe. Only a few men were aware of the quickness with which Limber could draw and how accurately the apparently careless bullets were sent. "I wonder what Doc is up to?" murmured Bronco, but none of them could solve the problem. Powell moved deliberately toward Jack, who suddenly began firing his pistol at the ground close to Powell's feet, yelling, "Dance, you hyena tender-foot! Dance, damn you!" The ground flew up and struck one of Powell's feet, but he only glanced at the place as though interested in Jack's marksmanship. "That isn't so bad," he smiled at the gunman. Jack strode forward, cursing violently, but the doctor seemed oblivious to it, as he took a handsome cigarette case from his pocket, selected a cigarette with solicitous care and lighted it. Then he looked up at Jack. The gun-man was nonplussed. He hesitated to attack an unarmed man, not because of moral scruples but the realization of the consequences to himself. Jack had not seen the men of the Diamond H who were grouped alertly back of him, each man's pistol ready. Measuring the weight and height of Powell, Jack, who was much larger, shoved his pistol into the holster, saying, "I don't care to pot a jack-rabbit." Powell made no move. Jack advanced in front of him, thrust his face against the doctor's and snarled, "Well, what are you going to do about that warrant, Mr. What-d'ye call 'em?" "Oh, nothing except arrest you," was the calm reply as the doctor puffed a little volcano of cigarette smoke into Jack's face and looked him steadily in the eyes. "I am unarmed," said Powell loudly enough to be heard by all the bystanders, "but I believe you are too much of a coward to face any man without your gun, even though you know he is unarmed." Goaded by the challenge, Jack ripped out an oath, unbuckled his pistol belt and handed it to a bystander, who accepted it with evident reluctance. "Now, come along," yelled the gunman. "Come along and arrest me, if you can--but before you do it I'm going to take you across my knee and give you a regular spanking like your mother used to do, sonny." He reached forward. Before any one knew what had happened, Three-fingered Jack was sprawling on the ground, while Powell sat quietly astride the man's chest, holding Jack's arms with his own knees. Jack writhed and struggled, but was unable to disturb the man who smiled down at him. As Jack's curses increased, Powell deliberately patted the outlaw's face gently, saying in soothing accents, "Don't let your temper rise, Jack! It isn't becoming in such a regular little Mama's darling like you!" Howls of laughter roused Jack to the realization that his reputation was at stake. He broke into threats of dire revenge on Powell. The doctor paid no attention to the man who was helpless in the grip of steel, but merely asked, "Has any one here a rope that I could borrow a short time?" Jack stopped cursing, and a disagreeable recollection intruded itself upon him. A man had asked for a rope in Wyoming. The crowd had cut Jack down before he was entirely unconscious, and Jack had emigrated to Arizona without delay. Powell had no such intention. The rope was employed to truss the "gun" man from head to feet, like a fly wound in a spider's web. An involuntary murmur of approval passed among the men who had seen the episode, but at that moment Glendon staggered through the crowd and before any one could move, levelled a pistol at Powell. "Take that rope off," he shouted with a volley of the foulest oaths at his command. "Don't interfere," warned Powell, facing Glendon. "You take that rope off or I'll put daylight through you, you white-livered sneak," screamed the other man. His words died away in a thud, as Powell sprang at him like a wild-cat, clasping him about the arms and falling heavily to the ground with Glendon sprawled underneath. The pistol in Glendon's hand flew through the air, struck the ground and exploded harmlessly in the dust. "I'll need another rope," apologized Powell in unruffled tones. "I'm sorry to trouble you again." There was a laugh, and in less time than it takes to relate, Glendon was as helpless as Jack. The sight of them lying side by side was too much for the gravity of the crowd, and laughter was unrestrained. Powell looked down at Glendon, but there was no triumph in his heart. A woman's pleading face rose between him and the man at his feet who was voicing his vile thoughts and threats. Three-fingered Jack turned his head slightly and there was a twitch of the "gun" man's mouth, but he made no remark. The driver of the one and only town truck was standing on the seat of his wagon surveying the captured men. Powell called to him, "How much will you charge to haul this load to the calaboose?" "Do it for nothing," replied the driver promptly. So he and Powell, assisted by many volunteers, lifted the mummy-like forms into the wagon, then the entire assemblage followed behind the vehicle as it moved slowly down the street. "Gee!" laughed Holy, "That was the funniest sight I ever seed in my life." "Looks like the funeral of a real, respectable citizen," squeaked Roarer. "Well, it's Jack's funeral, sure enough," answered Limber. "He's a dead 'bad man' from now on, but the doctor has won his spurs, you bet!" The wagon stopped in front of the little adobe building which was used as the town jail, and Powell assisted the driver to lift the prisoners bodily into the room which took the place of a cell. The ropes were removed. Jack and Glendon stood free in front of their captor. He eyed them in silence a few seconds, then said, "I want you both to understand that I had no personal feeling in anything I did. Law is law, whether in Arizona or any other place. Gun-play is for bullies, not men." Neither replied. Powell picked up the two ropes and left the place. Outside he found Limber waiting, but there was no reference to what had just taken place. Powell handed the ropes to Limber and asked him to locate the owners, then the doctor continued down the street to the office of the Justice of Peace, who smiled at him cordially. "It was just a simple trick of jiu-jitsu," explained Powell. "But now I want to know how much the fine will be for Jack and Glendon?" "Thirty dollars, or thirty days in the Tombstone jail," answered the Justice. Powell reached across the desk and appropriated a pen which he dipped into the ink-well. He drew out his check-book, saying, "I suppose this is permissable?" The Judge nodded. "It may be a little hard on them to pay the fine," Powell spoke as he wrote. "I don't want them to know who did it. Keep the matter between ourselves. They have had a lesson, I think." "The best in the world," responded the Judge, smiling at his recollection of the two trussed figures in the wagon. It was only a short time later that Limber hunted up the Judge and volunteered to stand good for any fine imposed on Glendon. When he was told that another person had assumed the responsibility already, for both men, Limber left the office feeling pretty certain that Powell had anticipated his own intention. But neither of them ever spoke of the matter. When the full moon peered over the horizon that night, it shone on two men who rode slowly toward the Hot Springs ranch, each of them glad to be back again in the peace of the mountains. And down in a cell, the moonlight flooded the floor criss-crossed with black bars from the window, and two men lay thinking in the silent hours of the night, but like the men who rode to the Springs, neither of them told his inmost thoughts to the other. Some thoughts are too holy to be spoken aloud; others too black. The next morning Glendon and Jack, thoroughly sobered, were brought before the Judge for their hearing. After a sharp warning that a second offense would mean much heavier penalty, a fine of thirty dollars each was imposed. "I can't pay it, Judge," confessed Jack, frankly. "I'm broke, owe three months advance wages and have to find a job." "Maybe Glendon can pay both fines until you are able to work it out," suggested the Judge amiably. "I've got all I can do to pay my own," was the surly reply. "Unless Norton will advance it, I'm stuck." "It seems too bad to have to send you both to the Tombstone jail for thirty days, boys," sympathized the Justice. "If the offense had not been so serious, I might have held you in the calaboose; but the charge was not only disturbing the peace, but also resisting an officer." A grin spread over Jack's face. "Say, Judge, that's a real joke! Did you see how fur we resisted? Well, I guess we deserved it, and it's up to us to take our medicine like little men." "I'm glad to hear you say that, Jack. Now, I want you both to give me your word of honour that you will not make any further disturbance in Willcox after this." "All right," Jack answered readily, looking squarely into the Judge's face. "I don't hold any grudge against Powell. I own up he's a better man than I am." "Glendon?" "I wouldn't have made such an ass of myself if I had been sober," was Glendon's evasive answer, while he eyed a knot hole in the board at his feet. "Both fines have been already paid." They looked up amazed. "Who was it?" demanded Jack. "I am not at liberty to tell," was the reply. Jack stared a moment, then a smile spread over his face, "By Gosh! I bet it was that doctor!" he exclaimed. "Say, Judge if it was him, will you tell him I'm much obliged, and that he's a white man, and I'll lick the stuffing out of any one that picks on him, if he just lets me know anytime!" Glendon made no comments as he left the office, but Jack turned back at the threshold to call, "I'm going to get out of town as fast as I can, Judge. I've got to hustle for a job so I can pay back that fine. I'll see that the money gets to you p. d. q. So long!" "Good luck, boys," answered the Judge heartily. Then turned to his desk and papers, thinking that there was more manhood to the "gun man" than the one who accompanied him. The two walked side by side in apparent friendliness until Jack said, "Well, that was a surprise party all around, Glen. I bet I hit the bull's eye guessing it was the doctor." Glendon's eyes glinted angrily at Jack's open praise of Powell. "He certainly made a laughing-stock of you," snarled Glendon. "Threw you down, trussed you up like a Christmas turkey, loaded you in the town truck, and now you are ready to lick his boots in gratitude after he puts the last insult on you by paying your fine. Pah! You make me sick!" Jack gripped the other man's arm angrily. "See, here, Glen! I'm not such a mollycoddle that I won't fight you or any other man that talks that way to me." Jack stood glaring down at Glendon, who returned the angry stare. Then a grin started on Jack's face, and he drawled slowly, "Don't see that you've got any call over me, Glen. There was two Christmas turkeys, but you did the loudest gobbling. Don't you ever forget that!" "I'm not apt to," retorted the other. "I never would have been mixed up in it if I hadn't been trying to help you out." "And I wouldn't have started anything if it hadn't been for you egging me on. You said he was a tenderfoot. Tenderfoot! Wow! I'd like to know what kind of bad men they have where he came from, if he's a tenderfoot!" He paused to ponder over the possibilities of such an individual. "See, here, Glen, so long as Powell minds his business, I'll mind mine; and if you've got a grudge against him on account of his getting the Springs, you needn't try to get me to take it out on him for you." Glendon's face was white with rage. "I suppose that means you are going to take backwater on everything and join some Church and shout 'Hallelujah! I'm saved!' Eh?" "It means just what I said. If you've got any pick on Powell that is your own business. As far as the other plans go, the cards are dealt already, and I'll stand pat." CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Three months after Glendon and Jack had encountered Doctor Powell in Willcox, Katherine was sitting on the porch of her home reading to Donnie. The noise of crunching wheels sounded far down the cañon long before a vehicle came into sight between the dense mesquite brush. It was Doctor Powell who had returned from a trip to Willcox. Katherine watched her husband receive his mail, but she was not aware that the eyes of the two men met with unconcealed antagonism, and the conversation was as curt as possible. No whisper of the affair in Willcox had reached the ears of Glendon's wife. She had no knowledge that her husband had borrowed money to send to the Judge without a word of thanks to his unknown benefactor. The money had been forwarded to Powell by the Judge. The other fine was sent the Judge by Three-fingered Jack, accompanied by a badly scrawled note of thanks addressed to the Justice of Peace and asking that the man who had paid the fine be told that it was appreciated, and that if he ever needed any help to call on Three-fingered Jack. Aware of Glendon's dislike, Powell's visits to the Circle Cross had ceased some time previous to the Willcox trouble, but Katherine ascribed the doctor's aloofness to his knowledge of her husband's habits. Though she missed the infrequent visits, she did not resent it. She knew that the two men had nothing in common to make them congenial. The doctor, seeing Katherine and Donnie on the porch, hesitated as he was about to drive away. He glanced at them, and with a touch of his hat in greeting, stepped into the buggy and went on his way. The happy light faded from Donnie's eyes, but without a word he slipped down again beside his mother, his arm about Tatters' neck. Glendon came slowly to the porch with the canvas mail-pouch on his arm. He threw off his broad-brimmed Stetson, unbuckled his spurs and sat down to read his letters without vouchsafing a word to his wife. "Is there nothing for me?" she asked finally, hesitating to take the sack from his lap and sort its contents. "Only papers and some of your fool magazines," he snapped. "Seems to me you are old enough to get over reading sentimental trash." Unmindful of his words she reached for the books he tossed angrily toward her. Books were the only antidote for the mental atrophy she dreaded. Rising, she picked them up, but paused as Glendon glanced impatiently from a letter in his hands. "Wait, can't you? Or is the 'continued in our next' too important?" he demanded. She did not reply, but seated herself quietly. Her eyes were unusually bright, for on a page of the magazine she held, she had seen a title. A thrill akin to that when she had first held Donnie in her arms, made her heart throb quickly. Donnie had been flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone; but this, the first-born of her brain, had come through travail of her very soul. It was not necessary for her to read the eight lines of the poem; they were indelibly imprinted on her memory. A mother cannot forget the face of her child, and though it be commonplace and unattractive to all the world, in her eyes it is beautiful. Glendon's voice brought her back from her world of dreams. "I wish you'd stop sitting there staring like a locoed calf, and pay attention to what I have to say." She turned her eyes on him. "I'm sorry, Jim. I didn't hear you speak." "I didn't," he snapped. "No use talking when you have a mooning fit on." "I am listening, dear. What is it?" "Here's a letter from the old man. He wants Donald. You can see for yourself what he says." Glendon handed her the letter, allowing it to drop from his fingers purposely, watching her as she reached down and picked it up. As she read, a grey pallor spread over her face, making it look old and haggard. J. M. Glendon, Jr. Circle Cross Ranch, Arizona. _Dear Sir:_ From reliable sources I have learned of your conduct since you went to Arizona, and understand that my ambition to see my son a man among men will never be gratified; nor will your influence or example make such a man of my grandson, Donald. The full realization of this has prompted me to break my determination never to communicate with you again on any subject. Your wife is too egotistical and assertive, and her influence over the boy cannot fail to be detrimental. Women have no idea how to bring up a boy, especially college-bred women with their fads and theories. They have no judgment outside of flattery; they are all fools,--I do not care where you go, or who the woman may be,--and the man who tries to please a woman's whims is a fool. My lawyer tells me that under the laws of Arizona you are absolute guardian of your child; so the decision as to my offer rests entirely with you. Your wife, legally, has no voice in the matter of selecting a school or any other arrangements you may see fit to make. It is time for you to assert yourself. I will take Donald and educate him, provided he is given to me absolutely until he is of age, but I will not allow any interference with him or my plans for him. I will see that he does not grow up with any sickly, sentimental ideas, but to weigh his own interests first, without illusions about life or women. He will be taught that all women are inferior in intellect and reason, weak in moral force and must be treated accordingly. If he is sent to me, I will see that he is provided for during my lifetime, and at my death he will receive what you have forfeited by your own conduct. I have selected a school for him which he can attend from my house, and where he will receive the training I consider necessary to make him the kind of man I desire. An immediate answer will oblige. Yours truely, J. M. GLENDON, SR. The pages fluttered to the floor of the porch, and then Donnie looked up startled at the tone of his mother's voice, when she said, "Run away and play with Tatters, dear." With a hasty caress, the boy, followed by the dog, moved slowly toward the front gate. "Well," Glendon's irritable tones sounded in her ears, "how soon can you get him ready?" "Let me keep him a little longer, Jim," pleaded the mother. "He's only a baby yet." "He's going on seven," retorted Glendon. "You've always been harping on wanting him to have a good education. Now you've got your wish, I don't see what kick you've got coming. I'll never have money enough to send him away to school unless the old man helps me more than he has done the last five years." Curbing her inclination to remind him bitterly that other men who were not drinking, but attending to their ranches and stock, were able to afford schools for their children, she said, "It has been my ambition ever since he was born, but there are other things more important to his character that I can teach him in the next two years." Glendon lighted a cigarette and an ugly sneer distorted his lips, "Want to tie him to your apron-strings, the way you had me tied? Fine mess you've made of it for me! If you hadn't been so high-headed with my folks, I never would have left home to come to this God-forsaken hole and bury myself alive!" "I hoped it would strengthen you, help you conquer yourself if we came away from companions who dominated you back there; but I was wrong. All your better instincts are dead and there is nothing left between us in common. Jim, if ever you had any love in your heart for me, don't send Donnie away just now. Have you forgotten that prisoners go mad from solitary confinement?" "Your dramatics are wasted on me! I intend to be master in my own home. Father shall have the boy if he wishes, and I hope he will knock some of those fool ideas you have been putting into Donnie's head lately. They'll mould his character into something practical." "They do not understand children," Katherine's voice trembled, "your father means well, but Donnie would learn to be a hypocrite through fear of him, or it would break the child's heart. When Donnie is older, he would understand better." "Go ahead!" Glendon's lip lifted one side of his mouth and gave him the appearance of a dog snarling. His bloodshot eyes glared at his wife. "I say the boy shall go. That settles it!" "You shall not take him from me," Katherine spoke passionately as she rose and faced her husband, who had also risen. "He is mine! For his sake I have endured the isolation of this place, the curses and abuse you have heaped upon me, the degradation that I saw facing you. I have not been blind to the class of men you associate with now, but I struggled to keep you from sinking lower, just because you were the father of my boy. The last eight years of my life have been continual mental starvation and moral crucifixion. Donnie has given me the strength to bear it, now he will give me the strength to keep you from robbing me of him!" "You may as well stop your hysterical ranting," Glendon shouted furiously. "The law gives the boy to me, and I say he shall go to father next week." "The law gives the child to the father," her voice quivered with indignation, "No matter what that father may be; while the mother, who goes down to death to give the child life, has no right! Oh, it is infamous! Why, even the wild animals recognize a mother's rights. Men who frame such a law and enforce it are worse than brutes!" Glendon seized her arm roughly and glared into her white, defiant face, his own was livid with rage. "Nothing on God's earth can prevent Donnie from going." "He shall not go!" her voice became suddenly quiet and determined, and her eyes met Glendon's without flinching. "You owe him to me in return for the things of which you have robbed us both. He has never had a father, never dared to laugh like other children do, because he was afraid of you. I will not never give him up to you or any one else. He is mine!" Glendon thrust her away from him with such violence that she staggered. "I have the law back of me and I'll do what I say, if I have to walk over your dead body to do it!" He flung himself into the house, knocking over a chair as he passed it; then a bottle clinked against a glass. The leaves of the magazine at the woman's feet, fluttered in the breeze while she stared with despairing eyes at the grim mountains that walled her like a prison. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The next morning was Wednesday, and Glendon announced that he would start East with Donnie on Saturday of the following week. Katherine made no reply, uttered no protest. He supposed the silence of despair meant submission, as he and Juan started for Allan Flats, half way to Willcox, to be gone several days. "I'll be home Sunday night," were his last words as he spurred his horse and headed it toward the road leading out of the cañon. Juan lingered a few seconds to say "Adios" to the mother and child. The old Mexican carried a heavy heart, for no one but the child was ignorant of the impending separation. The day passed happily for Donnie, while his mother devoted her entire time to him. They strolled down the cañon, picking wild-flowers, then returning home, decorated the rooms and discovered that Juan had made a chocolate layer cake for their enjoyment. After supper they sat talking of the wonderful things Donnie was to do when he was grown. Then followed an hour in the dining-room with the beloved Galahad. The next morning at breakfast, Donnie asked, "What are we going to do today, Marmee?" "Just whatever you wish," she answered with smiling lips, but sad eyes. "Can't we go on a picnic, Marmee?" "Yes, dear," was her reply. "I'll fix a lunch and saddle the ponies and we'll be adventurers riding out to discover a new country, and we won't come home till the stars are out." Donnie waited happily as his mother prepared the lunch. With practised fingers she saddled their ponies; on the boy's saddle, tied a canteen of water and the flour-sack containing lunch, while on her own was fastened a roll of Navajo blankets. Katherine determined to snatch all the happiness possible for the child and herself during her husband's absence. Today she would forget that there must be a tomorrow; today the child was her own, despite his father, despite the laws of the Territory which said she had no right to her boy. So her smile met the child's laughter as they mounted their ponies and rode down the slope of the cañon to the place where the trail struck up the divide leading to Jackson Flats. It was a tortuous trail. At times, going up the brushy mountain sides, where cat-claw, mesquite, cacti and mescal struggled between immense rocks. Disturbed quail, rabbits, an enormous lizard--the harmless brother of the poisonous Gila Monster--dashed across the trail. Each tiny incident was food for animated conversation between the two riders; a new flower, a change of view as they reached a certain point. In places there was hardly room for their sure-footed ponies to travel single file. One side of the trail was a high, rocky cliff, while the other side dropped a thousand feet below. A displaced rock clattered down the gully, startling a mountain-lion which leaped from a freshly killed calf and skulked away. A coyote appeared between boulders on the opposite side of the cañon, squatted down and watched the riders curiously. Half way up the mountain they rode into a cave that was large enough to shelter twenty horses and men. The domed roof rose forty feet and the sides of the cave were painted with curious emblems of a dead and unknown people. The floor was strewn with bits of broken earthen pottery, decorated with the same characters as the walls. A few arrowheads of green and black flint were scattered among the fragments of pottery; all that was left to tell the history of those who had loved, hated, laughed and wept--then died. It had been a favourite ride for the mother and child, and the relics had made foundation for many games and stories. So the boy gathered pieces of the pottery and amused himself trying to match them together, in emulation of his mother. As they worked she told him the history of those who had lived in this cave and fashioned the earthen jars. After a couple of hours the novelty wore off, and Donnie wanted to ride further. "We can go to the top of the Box," said his mother. "You've never been there yet; but it will be a hard climb." The child begged to try it, for she had told him that when they reached the top of the mountain they could see far across other hill-tops, beyond the San Pedro River--an unknown world to him. After she had tightened the cinches of the saddles and they were mounted, she instructed the boy, "Lean well forward in your saddle and hold the horn tightly, dear. Give Pet a loose rein and you will not have any trouble at all. He will follow Fox. It is a hard climb, and if you jerk on the reins you will make Pet fall back." The horses headed what appeared almost a perpendicular wall. Donnie saw Fox stretch his body like a greyhound and fairly hurl himself in leaps at the steep incline, scattering stones in every direction. Pet stood a moment, undecided, then with a shrill whinny started after Fox. Donnie grasped the horn of the saddle and clung to it desperately, leaning forward and shutting his eyes. His back jerked, his head wouldn't keep still, his heart beat violently. "If Pet would only keep still a minute," thought the child. "Suppose Fox were to fall with Marmee, what would I do?" He pulled on the reins, but Pet, watching Fox, fought the bit, and lunged ahead. As if in answer to Donnie's thoughts, his mother's voice drifted cheerily back to him: "Almost there, dear. Tired?" "Just a little bit," he replied, trying to be brave, but wishing he could ride up beside her and hold her hand a minute. Then he remembered Galahad had ridden alone, and knights were not afraid of anything. He pretended that the trail led to the castle of an enemy and he was going to rescue those held prisoners, so with bolstered courage, he kept his eyes open and fixed on the horse ahead of him. They reached a sharp knoll that formed the apex of the mountain; and after slipping from the ponies and tying them to a stunted bit of scrub oak, Katherine clasped Donnie's hand in her own, and together they approached the edge of the cliff, and peered cautiously over. Two thousand feet below was the cañon, but where they gazed, four solid walls arose like a gigantic box without a cover. There was no entrance or exit. The Mexicans called the place El Cajon, or the Box. Grass, flowers, trees and a trickling stream from a spring lay at the bottom of the Box, but nothing living could reach there. The walls were as straight and sheer as the name of the place implied. They drew back from inspecting it, and at Katherine's suggestion Donnie gathered wild flowers to decorate the table on which she spread the lunch. The mother made a pretense at eating, but the memory of the impending separation thrust itself on her despite her determination to forget it this one day. Neither she nor Glendon had told the child, so no shadow of tragedy spoiled his enjoyment. The ride had tired him, and after lunch was over, she arranged the Navajo blankets. He stretched out lazily, watching his mother draw his favourite book from her saddlebag. Then he curled up with a sigh of ecstasy. "Where shall I read?" she asked, smiling down at him. "How Sir Galahad was made a knight," he answered, "and about the Siege Perilous." So she read until the brown head nodded and the eyes closed slowly, then seeing the boy slept, she laid the book aside, sitting motionless and watching him with miserable eyes. A white-winged butterfly flitted past her and hovered over the boy's hand, finally settling lightly on it then darting on its way. She recalled the story of the baby Galahad in his mother's arms and the white dove that had flown through the window, and the words of the maiden who bore the Sangreal, "And he shall be a much better knight than his father." A mother-quail with her tiny brood slipped from the brush, peering about as she came forward. Fearing nothing from the sleeping child or the mother who did not move, the quail called her little ones about her and shared with them the discovery of some crumbs. Katherine watched them enviously; then her eyes strayed to the child. Rebellion against the law, against her husband, his father, and life itself, overwhelmed her. The quail had more right to its brood than she had to her child. The shadows lengthened as she sat fighting her battle, all the training and beliefs of years falling from her. What was the use of fighting any longer? She looked at the Box. It was so quiet down there; no one could take Donnie away from her. Just a step, and they would be safe together. Her lips grew tense, and smoothing a piece of paper that had been wrapped about the lunch, she searched the saddle pocket until she found a stump of pencil, with which she wrote: _Jim:_ I could not give up my boy to have him learn that money was the only thing worth-while--to be cruel and self-indulgent as your father wants him to be. I told you that you owed him to me in payment of your debt. The law refuses my child to me; you, too, would rob me of him, even though you know it will break his heart and mine. I prayed God to aid me, and He will not answer my prayers. When you read this, Donnie and I will be together at the bottom of the Box. I did the best I could for you, and failed; but I will not fail with the boy. KATHERINE. Her hand was firm as she signed her name, and folding the paper, she tied it to a stone which she placed in the empty sack that had contained the lunch. The stone would attract attention when the sack was untied. Securing the sack to her side-saddle, she removed the halter-ropes from the ponies' necks; then slipping both bridles, she tied them to Donnie's saddle. If the horses did not go home at once, or should there be no one at the Circle Cross for a couple of days, she knew the animals could graze and water and would not suffer. They had left Tatters in the stables with water and food. She wished now that she had taken the dog back to its former master. It would miss them. Heading the horses toward the Hot Springs trail, she slashed Fox across the flank with her whip. The animal gave a snort of surprise then dashed toward home, while Pet stumbled and tugged behind him down the narrow trail. She watched them disappear around the curve; but later she heard the tumbling of small rocks and knew her message was on its way to Glendon. Walking to the edge of the Box she looked down unflinchingly. There was plenty time. When everything was dark and quiet, it would be easy to take the sleeping child in her arms; then neither man nor law could take him from her. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Doctor Powell, lured by Chappo's description of the cave on Jackson trail, had reached the place an hour after Katherine and Donnie had started for the Box. It was while examining the designs on the various bits of pottery that he found fragments of broken geodes, and eagerly continued his search, which was rewarded with several specimens that were unbroken. Powell, who was deeply interested in geology, knew there were few places where the curious white crystals were found, and his delight was augmented when he discovered two of them in which the water could be distinctly heard; moisture which had fallen on hot lava that had hardened too quickly to allow evaporation. He was engaged in wrapping these rare specimens in his handkerchief, when he heard his horse whinny, and as he moved to the entrance of the cave, noticed Fox and Pet picking their way down the steep trail. He saw the saddles and that the ponies were tied together, so concluded the horses had broken away and were homeward bound, leaving Katherine and Donnie afoot higher up on the trail. Powell waited until the ponies stood beside his horse. Then he moved quietly and secured them with his tie-rope, and mounted his horse to lead the strays up the trail. He had no thought of any danger to Katherine or Donnie, until a turn in the trail revealed the top of the climb and a woman standing perilously near the edge of the cliff. He dared not call out, for fear of startling her and precipitating a tragedy; but he dropped the rope of the two horses and urged his own forward. Beads of perspiration stood on his forehead and his teeth bit into his lower lip. The horse puffed and stumbled, for the big Spanish spurs slashed its sides without mercy. Fox and Pet scrambled behind, the tie-ropes dragging on the ground. He reached the summit and closed his eyes, fearing he was too late. With a throb of relief he saw Katherine still poised at the edge of the Box, while bits of decomposed earth crumbled unnoticed beneath her feet. He realized her danger. Chappo had spoken of the treacherous shale overhanging the Box. So engrossed was the woman that she did not hear him slip from his horse and hasten noiselessly to her side; but, when his hand grasped her arm, gently, yet firmly, she turned in shrinking fear that changed to piteous appeal when she saw it was Powell, not Glendon, who stood beside her. The man read the tragedy in her eyes. Slowly he drew her from the danger point, speaking quietly as he did so. "This place is not safe, Mrs. Glendon. A moment's dizziness might seize anyone." The earth at the edge was crumbling as he spoke, a chunk of it crashed down into the cañon below, and Powell drew her further back. "That shale is rotten and liable to slide without an instant's warning. I was in an Indian cave when I saw the ponies had gotten away from you and Donnie." She knew he was giving her a chance to evade explanations, but the woman had reached a point where she scorned further subterfuge. When one faces Eternity all else shrivels to insignificance. "I was not dizzy," she replied in a dull monotone. Then turning on him passionately, she cried, "Why did you come? Do you know Donnie is going away from me? In three days more my boy will be taken out of my life and given to strangers who care nothing for him? Why should we go on struggling? I am tired of it all!" In a flash he understood her purpose, and knew the horses had not escaped accidentally. "And you thought that you could keep him with you--down there?" Powell asked in a voice unsteady with emotion. She looked at him defiantly. "Yes, you may call it a crime; but I am willing to bear the punishment if there is another world--if there is another world! It is a worse crime to take a child from its mother and give it to the father--no matter how unworthy he may be! I have borne everything for the boy's sake; I could go on--bearing everything the rest of my life--if I could only keep my boy!" Her voice dropped. Powell saw that her hands and limbs were shaken with tremors. "I love him enough to give him up with a smile, if I could know that it was for his good. My only happiness lies in knowing I have done the best I could for him." He silently waited the reaction that must come. Her hands covered her face; then a terrible sob shook her body. It was not the sharp cry of remorse; but the terrible soul-rending cry of a heart that is near to breaking, and the man beside her ached to take her in his arms and comfort her as he would a child. "Tell me about it," he said at last, and she raised her tear-stained face. Without reservation, she told the story of the long, bitter struggle to reform her husband; the hope that the child would bring compensation and finally the letter and her husband's decision which had driven her to desperation. "Yet, when it came to the point, you never would have been cowardly enough to take your life and Donnie's," he asserted. "I don't know," she faltered. "A swimmer who struggles against the tide reaches a moment when further efforts are impossible. I have struggled, prayed and fought until I am tired of it all. I want to stop thinking, stop fearing the future--and sleep. It is sometimes easier to die than to keep on living. Life is too hard, too bitter, too hopeless! You can't understand." "But I do understand!" replied Powell earnestly. "Sometimes one reaches a stone wall where there is no way around, no way over it, yet, if we have the courage to hold on, the wall topples when we least expect it. What seems impossible today may be accomplished tomorrow. I am up against the hardest wall in my life, but I shall not give up. In the quest of the Grail there must be no faltering. We all see the vision once in life." He laid his hands on hers, compelling her to look into his eyes. "I have heard a soldier whose bravery was beyond question, say that the impulse to seek a place of safety during a battle is almost overpowering. Many men have been unable to resist the temptation; and the pity is that often one deserts his colours just when victory is at hand. You are brave enough to face the bullets. Don't you know the man who deserts, influences many others to drop their colours too? Carry your colours bravely, comrade, that I may have the courage to go on with my fight--won't you?" She turned impulsively and laid her two hands in his close grasp that imparted new courage. "I was a coward," she said, "but I promise I'll not give up again! You can't realize how much you have helped me! I will prove my gratitude by not running from the bullets." The doctor smiled at her. "That's right," he said heartily; "but you overrate what I have done. You would have won the battle by yourself." He turned then, to see Donnie looking at them from sleep-heavy eyes. "Hello, Rip Van Winkle," called the doctor. With a cry of delight the child leaped up and running to Powell, threw his arms about the man's neck. "Oh, you did come after all!" he cried triumphantly. Then Katherine and Powell understood how the child missed the man. The boy's unrestrained gladness relieved the tension between his mother and the doctor. Finally Powell rose. "Do you know, I forgot that Chappo fixed a lunch for me? Let's see what it is, Donnie. I'm getting hungry." Katherine watched them make their way over the rough ground, the child's hand held by the man. The mingled voices happy with laughter, floated back to her from where the ponies were tied. There might be an occasional gleam of sunshine in life, if only the child were not taken from her, she thought hopefully. Then she saw them returning, carrying various articles which the doctor had extricated from his big saddle bags, and now deposited on the ground at her feet. "Chappo knows I am a confirmed coffee-fiend," confessed Powell. "You gather some sticks, Donnie, and we'll pretend your mother is a captive queen whom we have rescued from the cannibals. I'm Crusoe and you're Friday." "Friday was black," objected Donnie. "Well, that was an island. This is a mountain, so you can be a white Friday here, you see." When the fire crackled and the large cup which Chappo had provided for boiling coffee, sang merrily, the remnants of Katherine's lunch were added to what the Doctor had, so a plentiful meal was spread. "The trail is rather bad," suggested Powell as they finished the impromptu feast, "so we had better start before it grows late." He tightened the cinches of the three saddles and adjusted the bridles while Katherine and Donnie picked up the cups and spoons. She was replacing a few articles in a sack hanging on her saddle when she felt the rock and remembered the note she had written to her husband. Untying the sack, she tore the paper into fragments that were caught by the light evening breeze and tossed over the edge of the Box. She watched them, then with a smile turned to Powell, who waited to lift her to her pony's back. Donnie, already on his pony, followed his mother as Fox picked his way down the trail behind Powell's horse. Six miles away the Rim Rock rose over two thousand feet or more, the massive, jagged sides reflecting a riotous confusion of colours from the setting sun, until its vivid beauty merged into a soft blue-grey, like the plumage on the breast of a wild dove. Sometimes the boy and Powell talked together as they rode down the trail, or the mother joined in the conversation, but all the time she was conscious of a new strength, a sense of comradeship that she had never before known in her entire life. Her heart was lighter than it had been for many years when she, Powell and Donnie reached the gate of the Circle Cross. To her surprise, Glendon slouched on the porch. It was only Thursday and Glendon had said he would be absent until Sunday night. She wondered what it meant. Her eyes turned to the child and fear gripped her heart until it seemed as if she were suffocating. But Powell's words came back to her, "Carry your colours bravely, comrade"--She determined not to meet trouble prematurely. After all, there probably was a very natural explanation of the sudden return. Juan was coming up from the barn, carrying a pail of fresh milk. It was the usual routine of the ranch. She put her fears aside. Powell opening the gate for Katherine and Donnie to ride through, raised his hat courteously and spoke to Glendon. It was the best way to aid Glendon's wife. The other man looked at him between half-closed eyes that were a studied insult, and made no reply. Neither did he make any effort to assist his wife. The doctor helped her from her horse, then lifted Donnie to the ground, paying no heed to Glendon's attitude. With a few words to the woman and boy, Powell rode through the gate toward Hot Springs. His blood boiled, and it required all his will-power to avoid turning back and mauling Glendon as he deserved; but, he realized it would not help the woman. Juan, having disposed of the milk-pail, hastened to lead the ponies to the stable. Knowing that Glendon was in one of his most surly moods, Katherine moved slowly up the steps of the porch, trying to choke back her terrible dread. "Carry your colours," she heard. Something of the new-born hope and peace shone in her eyes as she faced her husband silently. He knew that she stood on heights he could not attain, and from which he was powerless to drag her to his own level. Enraged, he leaned closer. His unshaven face, bloodshot eyes, soiled shirt and hot breath redolent of liquor, struck her senses like a physical blow! With an effort she conquered the sickening repugnance, recalling her promise to Powell to carry her colours bravely. She smiled at her husband and was passing into the house, when he caught her arm in a brutal clutch, jerking her back so that his face was close to her own. "Took you by surprise, coming back today, didn't I?" he said meaningly. The child stood with pale face and frightened eyes. "Thought I was out of the way, and you sneaked off to meet your affinity, using your child as a cloak! You can't fool me. If you and that dude think you are pulling the wool over my eyes, you'll find yourselves mistaken. You can tell him that, next time you and he arrange to meet each other. I thought you'd fall for the trap when I fixed it up yesterday morning." Her face flushed deep red. She had borne every ignominy possible; but this accusation hurt like corroding acid. Her impulse to cry out in self-defense faded as she looked steadily into his wavering eyes. Like a whisper came the memory of Powell's words, "Carry your colours bravely." Quietly she answered, "Down in your heart, Jim, you don't believe what you say. Doctor Powell saved me and Donnie from death today. If he had not been riding on the Jackson trail and found us when he did, the boy and I would both have been lying at the bottom of the Box tonight." "What were you doing up there?" he snarled, glaring at her. "More of your melodramatic drivel, as usual? Powell for an audience!" "I wonder if it would make any difference to you if you knew the truth?" she said brokenly. "I am worn out struggling. The Box seemed the only way." Dumbly, as though she had reached the limit of physical as well as mental endurance, she turned from him and entered the place she called home. For a second Glendon hesitated; then with an oath he called after her: "You can't bluff me with threats of suicide. You haven't the nerve. I've said my last word about sending the boy to Father. I'm going on Monday, whether he's ready or not. I'll break your pride!" Donnie's startled eyes widened and his face grew paler as he realized that he was to be parted from his mother. With a stifled sob the child stumbled blindly up the steps, past his father and threw himself into his mother's arms. "Marmee! Marmee! Don't let me go!" Katherine clasped the boy tightly, her eyes were dry, but it seemed as if her aching heart would burst with agony, knowing that she was helpless. "Oh, God, give me the courage to live!" was her unuttered prayer. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Limber and Powell were riding together in a deep cañon of the Galiuros. Neither had spoken for some time, for often they rode together without exchanging a word. Limber, who was slightly in advance of the doctor, stopped Peanut and leaned forward in his saddle. Then his quick glance brought Powell closer. From the thick undergrowth ahead of them a tiny spiral of smoke rose faintly. Cautiously they urged their ponies; then through the brush, silently watched a man carrying a hot branding iron in his hand. A cow was roped and lying on the ground. The iron burned into the hide, the smell of singed hair, the bellows of pain told the story. The man's back had been toward them, but both Powell and Limber had recognized the figure and walk. They waited. The man loosed the rope that bound the cow. It caught in a snarl, the cow struggled. With an oath, he jerked the rope, at the same time giving the animal a vicious kick on the head. It staggered to its feet and stood dazed for a second, then darted into the brush; but not before Limber and Powell had seen the fresh brand. Limber leaned close to the doctor and whispered, "That's a PL cow and it's been changed to a BD." The eyes of the two men met in understanding. Again they peered through the brush to see the other man rubbing the hot iron in the dirt to cool it. He turned to his horse, the iron in his hand. An inspiration seized Powell. "Quick! Let him know we saw him!" Their ponies jumped forward under the spurs, but Glendon, busy tying the iron to his saddle, did not notice their presence until Peanut's hoof crackled on a loose branch. Glendon leaped to his horse, whirled it around and faced them with his hand resting on his pistol holster. It relaxed as he recognized them. "Oh, hello!" he said affably, plainly speculating as to how long they had been watching him. Limber looked at him curiously. "Been brandin'?" he spoke in a casual voice. "No:" answered Glendon. "I was just looking over the range. Glad we happened to meet." Without comment, the cowpuncher rode to the still smouldering embers, slipped from his saddle, then kicked at the bits of charred and glowing wood. Before Glendon realized it, Limber reached out suddenly and touched the still hot iron fastened to Glendon's saddle. Glendon glared at him as the cowboy said very quietly, "Looks as if your Greaser friend has come back from Mexico, Glendon. I jest seen another of them BD bunch you bought from him. It's got a fresh brand on it, too. You must of just bought it today." Glendon's pony twisted toward Limber, Glendon's hand moved almost imperceptibly, but dropped quickly as Limber called, "Don't tech your gun, you idjit!" The eyes of Glendon shifted cat-like from Limber to Powell, then his hands rested lightly on the horn of his saddle and he leaned forward carelessly, saying, "Don't you think you two have carried your joke about far enough?" "Joke!" vociferated the angry cowpuncher with an oath, "It means the Pen for you--if you call that a joke." Glendon's eyes narrowed as they rested on Powell, and an expression of fury distorted his face. "Oh, I see your little game now!" he snarled. "Going to try to railroad me to the Pen so Powell can make love to my wife. I'll see you both damned before you play your last card. I'll show both of you up--and Katherine, too!" Two shots rang out together. The ponies reared as bullets pinged past, Powell, unarmed, looked at Limber, who stood with smoking pistol in his tense grip. The remnant of Glendon's six-shooter was lying on the ground some distance from his horse--knocked from his hand by the shot from Limber's gun. That shot had saved Powell's life. Not one of the men spoke, but Powell who was unarmed, leaped from his horse. All the rage that had consumed him for months seethed over. He clutched at Glendon, dragged him, despite his struggles, from his horse, and then face to face they met. All the knowledge of the misery inflicted on Katherine by this man, lent additional strength to Powell's blows, while Glendon's hatred responded in full. It was caveman against caveman, with bare hands for weapons. The fight was short but sharp. Though Glendon was a much larger man than Powell, and had once been able to hold his own with the gloves or at wrestling, years of dissipation told on him now. A crashing blow from the doctor stretched him on the ground motionless for several seconds; then his eyes opened and looked into the grim faces of the two men who stood watching him. "Get up," ordered Powell. Glendon dragged himself to his feet, swayed dizzily and passed his hand over his dazed eyes; slowly he moved to a fallen tree and dropped heavily on it. "What are you going to do?" he asked sullenly. "Send me up? You won't get her that way. She'll stick to me." Powell stepped to Glendon's side, his face white with fury, his hands clenched ominously. "Keep your wife's name off your dirty tongue," he commanded tensely, "or, by God! I'll kill you." Glendon knew it was no idle threat, and his eyes sought the ground until he was roused by Powell handing him a note book and fountain pen. "What's this for?" he demanded with an oath. "Write what I dictate," Powell answered. Glendon's head jerked angrily, "I will write nothing," he retorted. "You have ten minutes to do as I say;" Powell's voice was like flint, and so were the angry eyes that regarded the man at his feet. "Write. 'This is to confess that John Burritt and Doctor Powell caught me changing a PL cow to a BD and marking it with the Circle Cross." Glendon laughed contemptously. "Do you think I'm such a fool as to sign a paper that will send me to the penitentiary?" "It's the only way that you can keep from going there," was Powell's reply. "Suppose I sign it?" "Then, so long as you stop your crooked work and behave decently, no one will know of this episode except myself and Limber. In case you try to coerce your wife in any way, or take Donnie from her as you plan, this paper will be used by us to help her keep her boy. A woman has no legal right to her child in Arizona, but neither has the father if he is a convict. So it's up to you. I give you ten minutes." The doctor seated himself on a boulder, holding his open watch in his hand, while Glendon sat staring at the ground in helpless fury. "Time's up," announced Powell, snapping the cover of his watch and placing it in his pocket, "Well, what is your answer?" "I'll write what you say," muttered Glendon, reaching out for the pen and notebook. Powell repeated the words while Glendon with shaking hand signed his name to the confession. His face was white with rage as he returned the book to Powell. "Sign as a witness, please, Limber;" and the cowpuncher signed his name, "John C. Burritt," beneath which was written, "Cuthbert Powell," and the date. Then the doctor pocketed the pen and book. "You might as well know," commented Powell, "that this paper will be forwarded immediately to my attorneys in the East, with instructions how to act in event of any stray bullet or other mysterious accident happening to Limber or me. Our safety is your only protection. Now, I think we understand each other perfectly." Glendon made no answer. The three men mounted their ponies, rode through the cañon, climbed the backbone of the mountain and worked down the narrow trail that merged into the road leading to the Hot Springs. None of them spoke. Each was busy with his own thoughts. As they approached the Hot Springs ranch, Powell looked critically at Glendon's bruised eye and swollen hands. It was a purely professional survey, and Glendon recognized it as such when the doctor spoke. "Come in," was the curt command. "You can't let your wife see you that way, unless you want me to tell her the whole truth." Glendon hesitated, then reined his pony at the gate and dismounted painfully. Though Powell's hands were deft and light, Glendon knew they were not ministering lovingly, while they bandaged the bruises they had inflicted. It goaded him to submit; but he had no alternative. Limber sat watching the two men. The room was silent save for the doctor's movements. "That will do," he said at last, and Glendon rose from the chair, his hands bandaged and one eye covered with a patch. "Limber, you may ride down with him, and tell Mrs. Glendon that her husband met with an accident and we were lucky enough to be near; but there is nothing to cause her any anxiety so long as her husband is careful," he regarded Glendon steadily as he uttered these words. Then without further addressing his patient, the doctor turned into his bedroom, carrying the bandages with him, and Glendon, with the suppressed fury of a volcano, followed the cowboy to the gate. From a window, Powell watched them ride side by side down the road toward the Circle Cross. With grim satisfaction he recalled the fight in the cañon. He knew that Limber would deliver his message to Glendon's wife, and that Glendon would not contradict it. When Limber returned, he reported to the doctor that Mrs. Glendon would care for the patient, and she sent her thanks to Doctor Powell. Limber's eyes had a lurking twinkle that was reflected in Powell's. "It's plumb lucky you thought about fixin' things so's he can't take Donnie away from her," the cowpuncher spoke in admiration. "I'd a never thought of it." For the first time the doctor told Limber of the desperation of the mother, and the narrow averting of a terrible tragedy in the Box. Limber's face was white and his grey eyes glazed. "Doc, do you mean ter tell me that she ain't got no right to Donnie? An' Glen kin take him away anytime he wants to?" "That is the way the law stands now, Limber. I looked up the matter through a lawyer in Tucson after I came to live at the Springs and saw the terrible struggle she was making. She does not believe in divorce, but even if she did, the law is on his side; so long as he keeps from being classed as a criminal. If she leaves Glendon, he can keep the child." "If I'd knowed that," Limber spoke very quietly, "I wouldn't have been so careful aimin' at that pistol in his hand, when he pulled his gun on you and you wasn't armed." "Well, it worked out still better," responded Powell, "We've got him just where we want him now, thank God!" Limber stared at the cigarette rings above his head, and sat thinking for quite a while, before he said, "Some day somethin's goin' to bust them laws. It takes a heap to wake people up, but when they get woke up they'll be like the ol' white horse and the China pump at the Diamond H. "You see, we uster work him at the big pond, and the water was pumped from the well with an' ol' fashioned pump called a China pump. That was before the Boss got gasoline engines. You may believe me, or not, Doc, but it was that ol' white horse that got the first engine on the ranch. For five years ol' Whitey was hitched up to the cross-bar and a blinder put across his eyes, then he was started, an' once he started, he jest kept on goin' round and round without nobody watching him and he never knowed the difference. "But one day he stopped short, and of course, thar warn't no water pumpin', the troughs was dry and the cattle bawlin' their heads off. Me and the Boss rid near, and went over to see what was makin' the trouble. The cows was climbin' over each other's backs trying to get a drink. Well, we found ol' Whitey's blind had slid down so he could see outen one eye. "I fixed it back and said, 'Gittap,' expectin' he would go long jest as he always done, but Whitey never moved a step. "I touched him with my quirt, and then that ol' horse that was old enough to die three times over and had never done a mean thing in his life, turned loose and kicked the stuffin' outen the woodwork of that pump as far as he could reach." Limber paused in retrospection, and Powell said, "What happened next?" "Northin' happened. That was the trouble. They never could use him again on the pump; and every other horse we tried had to have a man stay with it, because Whitey was the only one that had worked without bein' watched, you see. So the Boss put in the gasoline engine down thar. When Whitey found he was bein' fooled into jest goin' around and around and never gettin' nowhar, he up and busted things good and plenty. An' that's the way with people when the blind slips off. Someday, some one's blind is goin' to slip down and then thar'll be Hell to pay with that law in Arizona!" "If the men who frame the laws could see each individual affected unjustly by that law, standing before them and know how it could be twisted to injure a life, they would be more careful in enacting a law. Do you think for a minute, Limber, that any man, or body of men, who passed the law giving a father sole right to his children, would endorse that law today--if they knew what you and I know about Glendon and his wife?" "No! You bet thar isn't a decent man in Arizona that would stand for it," Limber answered emphatically, "But it's thar, and we can't help it now. Only I wisht I knowed all this yesterday, that's all. Arizona's got some good laws. One of 'em is that the feller what draws on an unarmed man, ain't got no right to live hisself." CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Sunday morning Katherine woke in dread. Tomorrow, Donnie would leave her. The child now realized the truth and his grief had torn her heart. His eyes followed her in mute appeal. Breakfast was eaten in silence. Afterward Glendon mounted his horse and rode from the ranch alone. He spoke not a word to Juan or Katherine, and Donnie watching furtively, kept out of his father's sight as much as possible. Through a window Katherine watched her husband ride away. A look of determination shone in her eyes when she turned back to the work of clearing the dining-table. The look grew, while she washed the dishes and straightened the house. Juan was chopping wood and Donnie sat quietly on the steps of the front porch, his troubled eyes clouded with tears that he would not let his mother see. "Juan," called Katherine suddenly from the kitchen window. The Mexican let the ax fall from his hand and trotted to her, "Si, Señora," he smiled. "I'm going to write a letter. Can I trust you with it?" She did not need words to assure her of his faithfulness but he answered, as he made the Sign of the Cross, "On my heart I swear it, Señora!" He went back to his wood-chopping, while Katherine seated herself at the dining-table and began writing. It was a desperate hope. Only the thought of her boy could have forced her to such a step. When Katherine Courtney had been left an orphan at the age of ten, the only legacy had been unblemished reputations of her parents. An aunt of her mother's had come forward with an offer to educate the girl until she could support herself. It was distinctly stated that no further benefits were to be expected, and this was done only to prevent the possibility of even a remote family connection becoming a public charity charge, as was possible. The sum allowed yearly did not tend to affluence or extravagance, and Katherine had felt the obligation from the very first day, she and "Aunt Jane Grimes" had an interview. The old lady's grim, aggressive manner had repressed the lonely child's inclination to fling herself upon the one human being who took any interest in her. Aunt Jane was wealthy, an old maid--and proud of it--energetic, economical to the verge of penuriousness, she recognized three great factors in the universe--her church, her country's flag and Prohibition. The one meeting ended all communication between the child and old lady, until Katherine was graduated with the highest honours, and wrote Aunt Jane that she was now fitted to make her own way in the world as a teacher, and would soon begin paying back the heavy obligation of the years in school. To her surprise, Aunt Jane invited her to come for a visit to the old-fashioned homestead in Maine. "I'd like to see what sort of a person I am responsible for," the old lady wrote. "Your reports from school regarding marks and deportment are satisfactory; but you can't wear these placarded on your breast for the rest of your life. So I'd like to have a look at you." The inspection proved sufficient for the old lady to unbend and become almost human. Katherine's gratitude and her sincere desire to avoid being a burden, won Aunt Jane's silent approbation. After two weeks, when Katherine spoke again of plans to start earning her own living, the old lady had turned on her fiercely. "Do you call that gratitude?" she demanded glaring through her steel-rimmed glasses. "Leaving me alone in this big house with only Ann, and she's a fool!" Ann was the one maid employed, she refused to share her responsibilities with any other servant. Ann was a family heirloom, but despite her age she clung tenaciously to life. In fact, it had become a grim determination on the part of Ann, and likewise on the part of Aunt Jane, not to die first. "Ann's just itching to see me buried," averred Aunt Jane, "and every morning when I go to breakfast she watches to see whether I eat all the boiled egg, or two full pieces of toast. I'm tired of being shut up alone with her all winter." So Katherine remained, and for a wonder, Ann, too, approved. "Miss Grimes is just waitin' for me to die," Ann grumbled, "but her Paw's will says I'm to have a home here as long as I live. And I'll be here long after I hear 'em singing over her coffin. I'm glad you're going to stay here. The winters are terrible when we're snowed in so long, just her and me, and she's awful old and crotchetty." Companion, housekeeper, peacemaker between the two old women; nurse to each in turn; secretary for Aunt Jane's large business correspondence and charities, Katherine paid her debt cheerfully for three years, and nothing broke the monotony of her life. During the winter months the seaside village hibernated, but in the summer it woke as a resort for wealthy society people who wished to avoid what they termed "the rabble." It was only for a short period; and during that time, Aunt Jane shut her front blinds tightly, and with Katherine and various old-fashioned trunks containing her feather bed and own linen, hied to a still more remote farm inland; only returning when the gay, social whirl was a thing of the past. But, the third summer, Aunt Jane succumbed to a touch, of gout, and had not the courage to go away from the old doctor who had attended her family for two generations. He had presided at the advent of Aunt Jane into this world of troubles. "I don't mind his seeing my bare foot and ankle," she announced, "but I'm not going around showing it to any strange man at my age, even if he is a doctor." So the trunks and feather mattress were not disturbed, the green blinds were not fastened, and the wide porch become a place of habitation after Katherine had installed chairs, a couch, books, and at last a tiny table which was used in the afternoons for a cup of tea out of the old-fashioned blue and white china--the pride of Aunt Jane's heart. Ann's austere face relaxed, and on one memorable occasion, Katherine found the erstwhile foes, laughing together over long-forgotten jokes. Then, the unexpected happened. While in a store, a former classmate recognized Katherine, and insisted on calling. Aunt Jane succumbed to the wiles of the newcomer, whose sympathy at Katherine's isolation resulted in various invitations to a "bite of lunch with just me, alone." Thus it was that Jim Glendon saw her one day, obtained an introduction and lost no time in his determination to marry her. Aunt Jane, when the young man called, listened grimly to his family social assets and financial standing, then she looked him up and down appraisingly, and announced calmly, "I don't like you. There's your hat." Glendon retreated in confusion to report to Katherine and her chum. Between his insistence and the urging of the girl friend, the affair terminated in a hasty marriage. When Katherine broke the news to her aunt, she was informed that Katherine Courtney was dead. "I've never been acquainted with any one named Katherine Glendon, and I don't care to meet such a person," was Aunt Jane's ultimatum. Each month, for several years, Katherine had written her aunt, but none of the letters had been answered. Then she wrote to Ann, and received the letter endorsed, DEAD! The writing was that of Aunt Jane, and Katherine had shed bitter tears; for she now understood that these two old women had given her their affection, and shown it in the only way they knew how. Today she wrote again to Aunt Jane. The letter told without reserve or palliation, the conditions at the Circle Cross, the plan of Glendon to rob her of Donnie, and that the law gave men such rights. She reminded Aunt Jane of their last interview, "You said then, 'When you wish the shelter of my home from the man you have married, you will be welcome--but not till then!' I beg sanctuary for my boy and myself. I will work till the flesh wears from my fingers, if you will try to help me someway now. I cannot give him up. If you ever loved any one in your entire life, Aunt Jane, try to remember it now, for my boy is the only thing that makes me try to live." The letter was splashed with tears. It was her last hope. She gave it to Juan; "Take it to the Hot Springs and ask them to please send it to town by the first person who goes from there." Juan's eyes looked into hers, "Si, Señora, I understand." He tucked the letter into his shirt, mounted his waiting pony and loped down the cañon. He did understand, and what he told Doctor Powell and Limber caused the cowpuncher to saddle Peanut, take the letter and ride to Willcox at once. Juan went back to the Circle Cross and reported, "Leember, he was ready to start to Weelcox, so he took the letter with heem, Señora." Juan knew that the Priest told him it was a mortal sin to lie; but he did not count this any lie--Limber had taken the letter to Willcox. Katherine wondered at herself, planning surreptitiously to oppose her husband for the first time in the years of their married life; but, when her eyes went to the boy, she felt she had done right. Aunt Jane, if favourably disposed, would use all her wits to circumvent Glendon, whom she hated. If Glendon knew that Aunt Jane was ready to take her part and the boy's, he probably would not press the matter of sending Donnie away. Glendon's father had refused further financial aid, or to even communicate with his son, and Aunt Jane was wealthy. This might influence Glendon. In her anxiety to get the letter off, Katherine had omitted mentioning her complete isolation from all mail facilities. Even, now she forgot it. Night fell. Two hours after dark Glendon reached home. The horse from which he dismounted was worn and weary; the hair was stiff with dried sweat and lather, its flanks drawn. Without a word, Glendon ate the belated supper. Donnie watched him with frightened eyes. Juan hovered in the kitchen on various excuses, until Glendon went to bed. Monday morning broke. Breakfast was a silent meal. Katherine's face was pallid, deep circles of black lay under her eyes, her lips quivered. The morning passed. Glendon loafed about the ranch all day, coming into the house at frequent intervals. Each time he did so, his wife started nervously, and Donnie's breath came more quickly. Glendon scrutinized them with a malignant smile. He knew they were both suffering with dread, but was determined he would not relieve their fears. He gloated at their mental torture. When a boy, Glendon had revelled in tearing the wings from butterflies, so that their delicate flight in the sunshine must end in creeping mutilated upon the ground. Though his wife was not responsible for his thwarted plans, still he gloried in his power to torture her for his humiliation by Powell and Limber. Monday passed, and Tuesday followed. She dared not hope, for she did not know what hour Glendon might decide to start. She feared to ask any question that might precipitate the crisis she dreaded. She felt like a prisoner condemned to death who is kept in ignorance of the day or hour of his execution, and each passing moment, dies a new death. Glendon studied the dumb agony in her face. It gave a new zest to his life. He knew that neither Powell nor Limber would tell her of the paper he had signed, so long as Donnie was not sent away; but, neither Powell nor Limber had thought they were giving him a weapon to use upon her--the torture of uncertainty that drives to madness. So the days passed into weeks, but not once did Glendon allow her a glimmer of hope. All the while she waited for an answer to the letter she had written Aunt Jane. But, at last she gave that up in despair. For three months the situation remained unchanged. Katherine grew haggard, her movements listless, and Donnie still watched his father's goings and comings with frightened eyes and beating heart. The drouth was telling on Glendon's small herd, but he had more important things to think about now. His trips to Willcox were frequent; his periods in town stretched over many days. Katherine might have wondered, had she not been occupied with her own anxiety--Donnie. Each time Glendon made preparations to drive to Willcox, she waited the command that would tear the boy from her. When trip after trip was made without the ordeal, her heart began to take courage. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Arizona, like a pouting child, was indulging in one of her periodic drouths, and cattle were slowly succumbing to starvation. The winter snows and rains had been insufficient to start the Spring grass, and though it was now late in August and the summer rains usually began in June, not a drop had fallen. Most of the water-holes were dry, and water in the wells of ranches sank further from the surface each day. Many springs considered permanent, degenerated into mere mudholes where cattle bawled and crowded one another into the bogs till the weakest fell and were suffocated or trampled to death. The country was not only devoid of green grass, but what dry feed was left contained no nutriment whatever. Ranchers fortunate enough to own permanent springs, or wells that were not yet dry, guarded the water jealously, notifying neighbours to come and care for the stray cattle that lingered bellowing around the closed watering places, or walked aimlessly for miles beside the barbed wire fences that kept them from the water they could smell. Tiny calves trailed weakly behind skeleton cows; other cows abandoned their young; and all added hysterically to the din of constant bellowing wherever there was a pool of water to lure them. Sulphur Springs Valley was over a hundred miles long. It spread twenty miles across from the Grahams to the Galiuros, and was broken by groups of cottonwood trees clustering about small ponds of water supplied by windmills. Ordinarily these ponds were open to all stock, but now the gates were closed. Unless the water were used economically there would soon be none in reserve, as a few days without wind would cut off the daily supply from the windmills, and dry up the ponds. Each day at ten o'clock the gates were opened. Cowboys stood guard, allowing the cattle bearing the ranch brands to enter the water-corrals, all other stock being "cut" away from water. The owners of these strays, having been notified, sent men to drive their own cattle home; but the animals would not remain away. Accustomed to ranging and watering in a certain locality, they would return and stand dumbly watching other cattle drink, waiting patiently for their own turn. When night fell, they lay down by the fence, lowing pitifully until morning, when they would again stagger to their feet. Sometimes, in frenzy, an animal tried to break through the wire fence, cutting itself on the barbs and growing steadily weaker hour by hour, till at last there was another carcass to be hauled away from the fence about the water corrals. The August heat was intensified by the drouth, and a discussion in the corrals had annoyed Traynor. With the mood still on him, he entered the living-room of the Diamond H, where his wife was sitting beside a couch on which Jamie was sleeping. The boy had grown listless of late, and Nell tried to deceive herself by blaming the weather. Doctor Powell had been with them almost constantly, battling with all his skill for the waning life. Traynor stooped over the child, then paced restlessly up and down the room. "I wish I could see a way to get you and the boy off to California, Nell, until this drouth is over. You both need the change. You have been a plucky little woman, never making a single complaint; yet I know how much the boy means to you. He is as dear as an own son to me, and it is maddening to be tied hand and foot, so that I cannot help you. I was a fool that I did not accept the offer of that Eastern syndicate last Fall--but cattlemen are all fools! None of us will sell during a good year. When the drouth hits us we curse ourselves for letting a sale slip. Drouth or no drouth, the men have to be paid; grain bought for the horses and provisions for us all. Where the money is coming from, the Lord only knows--I don't." He flung himself moodily into a chair. Rising swiftly, Nell went to his side and slipped her arm about his neck, looking down into his face as he tried to smile up at her. "Can't you pay the men with checks on the stores as you have always done?" she asked. "You told me once the stores carried all bills for five or six months, and accounts were settled when cattle were sold at the regular shipping season." "That would be all right, ordinarily; but unfortunately the stores don't see it that way just now. They not only refuse further credit for cash or merchandise, but are asking settlements of all accounts in full, saying they are being pressed by their own creditors. Of course, one cannot very well blame them. They have to 'save their own bacon;' as the boys say." "Is there any chance of getting money from the Tuscon bank?" asked his wife, hopefully. "When Mr. Eisenbart was here he said this ranch was the finest piece of property--not only in the Territory--but in the entire west." "That did not cost him anything," retorted Traynor bitterly. "You see, like most cattlemen, I have never established a credit at any bank, being satisfied to do all my business through the stores which cash my checks. Consequently, now that the stores are closing down on me, I have no other place to turn!" He paced the floor restlessly and Nell watched him with troubled eyes, realizing how little she could help. "I should have opened an account with some California bank long ago," he continued. "However, there's no use crying over spilled milk. I did not fully understand how critical my position was until I wrote to Eisenbart two weeks ago. I offered a mortgage on the ranches and all the stock, at twelve per cent. for a five thousand dollar loan! Why, this place is worth five hundred thousand dollars! He answered they were not making any new loans and were calling in all outstanding notes. No one wants a mortgage on dead or dying cattle, but the land would have been ample security for ten times what I needed." Traynor stood by the window, staring out at the sky. He turned and resumed his restless walking to and fro, "God! If it would only rain! It's not just myself, but you and Jamie, and I want to get you two away to the Coast for a while. Then I got Powell into the mess, too. This drouth hits his plans pretty hard. All his money is now tied up in the Springs and the PL herd that he bought from Paddy!" "But the Springs are not affected?" said Nell, "Limber told me that nothing can influence that water supply." "No; there is that much to be thankful for, at least," he admitted wearily, sinking down into a chair, and letting his head drop into his hands. Nell crossed softly, and her hand caressed the bowed head, until Traynor's face looked up at her. The haggard, drawn lines about eyes and mouth, distinct in the glaring light from the window, smote her heart with pity and longing to comfort him. "Dearest, I don't care how poor we are, so long as I have you and Jamie;" she was looking into his eyes bravely. "You did not marry a rich girl; but one who knew what poverty meant, and poverty where there was no one to speak an encouraging word. We have a roof that is our own. Even if the cattle die, the drouth cannot last for ever. When the rains come again we can mortgage the land, and get--why we can get a few chickens and a milk-cow, maybe," she laughed. "I have learned to make dandy butter, so we can sell butter and eggs if we can't get money enough to buy a bunch of cattle. We won't stay down, if we do get bowled over!" "Nell! Bless your heart, you'd help any man get on his feet. Someday, please God, I will be able to give you everything money can buy." "Nothing you could buy would make me as happy as knowing I am able to help you," she smiled through a mist of tears. "I must go out and see what the boys are doing," and with head erect Allan Traynor passed through the door. Soon Nell heard his whistle--the first time for many days. The regular round-up had been deferred until Fall, as the cattle were too weak to be handled and branded. The Diamond H men were kept busy, however, working the cattle at the watering places or riding the range where the weakest stock was "cut out" and driven slowly to the ranch and fed at the big stacks of native hay, or in the pastures that Traynor's foresight had reserved for such an emergency. Other ranchers, who had been amused at his idea of fencing pastures when the whole country was an open range, now saw his plans had been good judgment, and looked with chagrin at their own dying cattle which might have been saved by such measures. One afternoon near sunset, Paddy Lafferty appeared at the Diamond H stables. Tying his dejected, flea-bitten grey horse in a stall, he unbuckled his rusty spurs and hung them over the horn of his saddle. "Whar's Limber?" he asked Bronco, who passed the door of the building. "Hot Springs," Bronco returned, in gasps of lighting a cigarette. "Doc's at--Tucson." "Whar's the bye?" "Inside the house." Paddy waited no longer, but stalked through the Court and knocked at the door of the sitting-room. Nell met him and her eyes lighted with pleasure, for his quaint, Irish humour was never tiresome to her. Then, too, she saw the sincerity under the surface. Paddy stepped with awkward care across the room and seated himself on the edge of a chair. "How do he bye a doin'?" he asked in his customary hoarse whisper, jerking his head toward the lounge where Jamie lay in uneasy sleep. "Not as well as usual, Paddy. He tires easily," she answered sadly, knowing only too well that the little life was slipping away hour by hour, though she had kept the thought to herself, believing that Traynor was still blind to the truth and not wishing to add to his many anxieties. She was unaware that Powell and Traynor had warned the boys not to speak to her of the child's serious condition. Paddy had also been told of the deception, and had given his word to Traynor. He sat looking at Nell intently, knitting his shaggy eye-brows, and trying to think what to say without betraying his knowledge. "Mebbe it's the weather do be a doin' it. Misthress Thraynor. Whin the rain comes he will be afther falin' betther." "Oh, if we could only get rain!" she cried. "Do you think the cattle blame us for their suffering when they look at us with their pitiful, patient eyes? I want to tell them we are suffering, too. Yesterday I watched a cow, standing by her dying calf, licking its face. It was like something human. After it died the mother stood there--and this morning she would not leave it until I asked Bronco to take it away from her. I couldn't stand it. Please don't think I am crazy, Paddy, but it seemed so cruel that a tiny, helpless creature should come into the world for a few weeks, only to suffer and die." "Yez ain't the only wan that do be a worritin' over the sayson, Misthress Thraynor," rejoined Paddy, who had found conversational bearings at last. "Paple passes on the road widout savin' ache ither, becoz they're all so busy lookin' up at the sky--" he was trying hard to tide her over the danger point. "They're all a boyin' linnyments to rub their necks, becoz of the kinks from lookin' for the clouds." Nodding approval at a faint smile he had evoked, he went on: "Yez was talkin' about cattle havin' rayson, Misthress Thraynor. Did yez be afther knowin' whin ould cows on the range have young calves too wake to walk fur, they all put their heads together and talk it over, loike a lot of women-folks does, an' thin wan of thim cows sthays and takes care of four or foive calves, whilst the ither cows goes off to wather, mebbe tin miles away. Thin she takes her turn whin the ithers comes back. Now, if that ain't rayson, be jabers, phwat is it?" "I believe all animals have some reason, Paddy. It is human beings who do not understand them. We call them dumb brutes, because we lack the patience or intelligence to comprehend. I have learned a great deal since coming here to live." "Did yez iver say a cow funeral, Misthress Thraynor?" asked Paddy. "No, but I have heard the boys speak of them," she answered. "It's a funny thing," went on Paddy. "Sometoimes a critter's been killed a wake or two, and no soign of it to be seen. Thin an ould cow will come along wid her nose to the ground, loike a dog on a trail, shniffin', and suddenly she raises up her head and lits out a yell loike an Apache Injun. As soon as she does thot all the cattle that are nigh enough to hear comes a runnin' to beat the divvle, an' yellin' as loud as they can. Thin they all sthand around ashniffin' and bawlin' and pawin' up the ground to beat the band. They don't seem to moind if a cow dies natural, but when wan of thim is killed so its blood touches the ground, it upsets the bunch of thim as soon as they find out about it. There was a tinder-foot that committed suicide three years ago, when he laughed at one of the Erie outfit that was tellin' about a cow funeral. The Erie boys had things pretty much their own way, them days." "Suicide?" asked Nell, wonderingly. "Well, it figured out that way. He killed hisself by bein' too slow drawin' his gun." "How much longer do you think the cattle will hold out, Paddy?" she asked anxiously. "Oi belave the strongest wans kin hould out six wakes, but the poorest wans can't last over two. Yez say, afther the rains comes it beats down the dry fade that is lift, and there won't be any strength to the new fade for siveral wakes, so thot makes it harder for a whoile afther the rains stharts. Thin's the toime cattle gives up." Paddy paused and smoked reflectively, while Nell rocked slowly, immersed in anxious thoughts. Paddy squinted at her from under his heavy eyebrows, then broke the silence, saying, "Did yez iver say ould man Brandther?" Nell shook her head. "Will," resumed Paddy, "he's the only wan in Arizony I'm not sorry for. He's gittin' it in the nick, now, an' Oi'm dumned glad of it! Oi till yez, he's a genywine hypercrit! Always says grace at male toimes; and whin he gits out of bed mornin's he goes on his knaze wid his noight-shirt a floppin' around his shanks and t'umps his craw and tills the Good Lard what a fine man ould Brandther is! Thin, he goes on the range and swoipes a couple of calves; and when noight comes, he gits on his knaze agin an t'umps his craw, and t'anks the Good Lard for all the marcies He has besthowed that day." Despite her heavy heart, Nell's eye twinkled, her mouth twitched and a dimple began to show. The dimple had been hidden away for many days. Paddy saw and approved it. "He sthayed to my place wan noight the last toime he come to his ranch, and thot's how I know about his religious belafes of hisself. Afther he had lift, Oi flopped on my knaze and t'anked the Saints and the Good Lard that thar wasn't but wan real good and holy man in Arizony so long as I was in the cattle raising business." In spite of her anxiety, Nell's laughter rang through the room, as she pictured the pompous Mr. Brander thumping his "craw." The man was very wealthy, and only visited his ranch at intervals, but was so rabidly anti-Catholic that he never missed any opportunity to harangue on the topic, and he allowed no Mexicans employed on his ranch, because of their religion. "It seems pitiful that we need rains so badly here, while the farmers in the East are complaining of too much," Nell said, unable to avoid the topic that was so vital to them all. "Oi'm siventy-foive years ould, Misthress Thraynor, and Oi've found things ginerally works that way. Boy-the-boy, have yez iver been to Nye Yark?" "I was born there and lived there with my parents till they died, then the money went and I worked, Paddy. I had to earn enough for Jamie and myself, you see. There was no one to help us. You get frightened when you know you are only one in the four millions people around you." "The nixt toime yez go to Nye Yark," said Paddy, "there's a little restyrant yez want to be afther thryin'. Oi disremember the name of the strate yez sthart from, but ony way, yez go tin strates to the roight, thin thray strates to the lift, and thin yez kape straight on till yez say the place, and there yez are. Yez can't miss it. Yez can git the best male yez iver ate in your loife," he leaned over and dropped his voice more confidentially, "and they only charge tin cints!" In order to hide the twitching corners of her mouth, as she conjured up a vision of turning cannibal and devouring "the best male yez iver ate in your loife," Nell moved to the window and stood picking dead leaves from a common geranium growing in a crude window box on the inner ledge formed by the thick adobe walls of the house. "It's growing beautifully, Paddy," she said to the old man, "and Jamie and I love to watch it. Only, I hate to have you give it up yourself after you have had it so long. It's a beautiful geranium." "Oh, well," Paddy replied carelessly, waving his hand with the pipe, "I was away from the house so much that half the toime I'd fergit to wather it. It's a long ways betther since you took care of it. Only, yez remimber, yez mustn't give it away to anybody ilse. Yez see, it belonged to the ould Dootch woman I married, and she thought a lot of it. Oi wouldn't give it to any wan ilse but you and Jamie." Nell's face was sympathetic. She had heard of the strange wife of old Paddy, who spoke only Holland Dutch, while Paddy spoke not one word of the language; but they had managed to get along together till she passed away. Paddy had never called her anything except "The ould Dootch woman." "It needs water now," Nell spoke after prodding in the earth. "I'll get some from the well." When she left the room, Paddy laid his beloved pipe aside, then drew his chair near the sleeping boy. As he watched the pale, parted lips, the faint breath, the dark rings under the half-closed eyes, something warm and moist slipped down the old man' cheek and dropped upon his wrinkled, calloused hand. "Lard," he whispered hoarsely, "I can't see why yez let an ould useless bag o' bones like me kape on livin' and take the little lad that iverywan wants and loves. Can't ye swap us?" Then Nell returned, and Paddy straightened up. "He never even peeped," he announced, turning to watch her water the plants. There was a peculiar expression on his face as he walked slowly over to where Nell let the water flow gently on the dry soil, then taking a pair of scissors from her work-box she pruned the plants carefully, saying, "Jamie usually takes care of them himself, but the last week I have done it for him. He is so easily tired. Did you ever think that life is just like a plant, Paddy? It starts out so bravely, sending its roots deep into the soil, and spreading its tender leaves to the sunshine--Happy, just because it is alive. Then the Gardener comes and prunes the stalks, and the plant does not understand why it is treated so cruelly. Sometimes it seems as though the leaves would never start again, but after a while the blossoms are more beautiful than ever, for pruning makes it stronger." She paused, looking down at the plants, then her voice trembled a little, "I am trying so hard, Paddy, to believe that the Gardener knows what is best." He knew she was thinking of the child on the couch, and he held out his rough hand; "Oi giss yez are roight, Misthress Thraynor. Things wurrk out in the ind, if we do be doin' the bist we know how. Oi've lived among the cattle so long that I don't know anything ilse but cows and cow-talk, but if iver yez nade a frind, jist yez remimber ould Paddy." PART THREE CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Glendon, just back from one of his numerous trips to town, tossed a letter to his wife without a word. It fell to the floor, but she reached for it quickly, her heart beating fast at the thought it might be a reply from her Aunt Jane. There had been no further discussion between herself and her husband about Donnie going away, but she did not know at what hour the ordeal might face her. Even if Aunt Jane declined to advise her in this matter, or aid in any way, Katherine wished that the strained relations between herself and the only one belonging to her by ties of blood, might be more kindly. She had come to understand Aunt Jane's attitude and to acknowledge that the old lady had read Glendon's character better than the girl who married him. Looking back, Katherine saw all too clearly, that what she had mistaken for love, had been reaction against the dull monotony of her life with Ann and Aunt Jane, and a longing for some outlet for her repressed emotions. This very knowledge made her more staunch in her attitude to Glendon, fearing that her own lack of deep affection made her more alive to his shortcomings. Her husband stood watching her, and she knew that whatever might be the contents of that letter, he would demand the right to see it. She had no friends who wrote her. If Aunt Jane mentioned receiving any letter, or referred to the appeal, Glendon would at once understand that his wife had written without his knowledge and this very fact would precipitate the catastrophe she had hoped to avert. The letter was lying face down between them on the floor. Hiding the nauseating fear, she picked it up and turned it over. The engraved address of a firm of lawyers met her eyes. Her name, the ranch, typed. Puzzled, she tore open the long envelope and started to read. Then she looked up at Glendon, her eyes full of tears, her lips trembling, as she said brokenly, "Aunt Jane is dead!" "Well, what of it?" he demanded. "Do you expect me to howl with grief? You've not heard from her for years. Can't see that it makes much difference to you whether she's dead or alive. The old cat!" Her eyes went back to the pages in her hand. They were typed and lengthy. She read them through, then, without comment handed them to Glendon. "It's a legacy," she said simply. He sat down and began perusing the contents of the communication, his brows knitting angrily as he grasped the purport. _Dear Madam:_ Miss Jane Grimes, whose will has been left in our hands, has made you and your son, Donald, beneficiaries subject to certain conditions. A sufficient sum to educate your son is set aside, all bills to be rendered to the Trust Company and paid by them. Your desires to be considered in the selection of proper school, but one which must be approved by the Trust Company. Twelve hundred dollars annuity to be paid to you after the death of your husband, James W. Glendon. Until demise of James W. Glendon, the twelve hundred dollars per annum and accruing interest shall be held by the Trust Company. In event of failure to agree to the terms set forth in the will, copy of which is herewith enclosed, the entire estate is to revert to the Prohibition Society of America. Otherwise, the estate will pass to your son on his thirtieth birthday. Kindly communicate with us at your earliest convenience, and oblige, Yours very respectfully, GOODRICH TRUST COMPANY. P. S. Letter enclosed from Miss Grimes. The other letter read, _Dear Katherine:_ You have had time now to realize that my estimate of James Glendon's character was correct. I have been at some pains and expense during the last seven years, since you moved to Arizona, to keep myself informed as to your husband's actions. I feel that I was justified, and it impels me to do all I am able to assist you after I am gone, without being of any comfort or benefit to a man whom I despise. You are to confer with the Trust Company regarding a school for Donnie. It must be a school where self-respect and honour are taught; in fact, an old-fashioned school where boys are trained in the almost forgotten standards of an old-fashioned gentleman. The annuity of twelve hundred dollars a year will be paid you at the death of your husband, for I know your inflexible principles and that you will never invoke the aid of the law to protect you by a divorce. It is because I, myself, am opposed to the wide-spread evil of divorce, that I am trying my best to aid you without aiding your husband financially. I wish to prevent him from benefitting in any way. I am confident that you will sorely need enough to provide a roof and food in event of his death, and should I make any other provisions for you and your child, I do not believe either of you would benefit one cent by my legacy. He is the type of man who has no sense of moral obligation, but I want you to understand that you have my sympathy, and that you always had my love. Affectionately, AUNT JANE GRIMES. Glendon finished the two letters, returned them to his wife with a shrug of his shoulders, saying, "Sweet old cat! She certainly had it in for me from the very first day we met!" Katherine waited for a violent tirade, but Glendon turned on his heel and left the room. It was a relief to her, but the uncertainty was not dispelled. Four days went by, and then Katherine broached the topic. "Jim, I've got to answer that letter." He was sitting on the porch step smoking, his thoughts evidently far-afield. "What letter?" "About the legacy and sending Donnie to school," was the woman's reply. She knew that the future of the child depended on the answer she waited from the child's father. Her hands lay in her lap, gripped tensely, her eyes looked pleadingly at the face of the man. "Do as you please about it," the words were indifferent. "I haven't any time to waste talking over these things. This drouth will about wind up my remnant of credit in Arizona. It won't make any difference to you, for you're heeled for life, if I am out of the way." She tried to tell him her appreciation, "Jim! I will stand by you, no matter what comes! With Donnie's education provided for, we can surely win out together!" she moved impulsively to his side, laid her hand on his shoulder and stooped over to kiss him, but Glendon's shoulder jerked away roughly, as he answered, "Oh, for God's sake, Katherine, stop your melodramatics and let me alone!" Despite the rebuff, her heart was singing with joy as she hurried to write the Trust Company, and stated that she could have Donnie ready to start East in two weeks; but that she had not the money, nor could she come with him on that account. The drouth in Arizona had stagnated all cattle business temporarily. Katherine explained to the child that his going away was with her full consent, and that it did not mean he was to stay away, except during the school term. They could be together for the summer vacations. She also told him of the strange old aunt who had cared for her own education, and who, though dead, now made it possible for him to go to a good school, such as his father could not afford. She made him understand, too, that his father had given consent, and without such consent, no one could have done anything. The reply from the Trust Company informed her that one of the members of the firm would meet the child at Willcox on a date specified. That business matters had made a trip to California imperative, and the return trip would be arranged via Willcox, if the child were there at the time. Katherine timidly told this to her husband, but met with no opposition. His acquiescence surprised and touched her. She ascribed it to his desire to make amends, and her gratitude was pathetic. Yet, knowing his vacillating character, she hastened to perfect arrangements. Not until she saw the child in charge of the man who met them at Willcox, and accompanied them to the depot platform, did she feel safe. She clasped the boy in a last, close embrace and watched him wave from the window of the train. The "stone wall had toppled over," and the hideous fear of losing her boy completely was laid to rest. Aunt Jane had not answered her letter but now Katherine knew that the old lady had understood the situation and set her wits to work to aid the niece she really loved. Before the train pulled out Doctor Powell crossed the street, and stood talking with Donnie, thus helping both in their battle to be brave. Then, Katherine and Powell stood side by side, watching the train pull away until it disappeared in the gap between the Graham and Dos Cabezas ranges. But, long before the crags intervened, it had vanished from the mother's eyes in a blur of tears. "Tell me," Powell spoke, "Is Donnie going to his grandfather?" He was thinking of the paper that reposed in the hands of his lawyers, and wondered if Glendon had dared defy him. "No," Katherine smiled happily, "Jim gave up that intention some time ago. It was a legacy from an aunt of mine, which provides for Donnie's education. So, you see, you were right. The stone wall has toppled over!" Powell's hand gripped hers, "I'm glad for your sake and for Donnie's!" CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Another month passed and the drouth was still unbroken. Stores were threatened with bankruptcy and cattlemen saw vast herds, accumulated through years of hard toil, dwindle to one-fourth the original number, and faced the possibility of losing that also. The Arizona ranges for years had been badly overstocked; but each rancher waited for his neighbour to get rid of the surplus cattle, hoping thereby to benefit his own herd. Over-crowding ranges resulted in the tramping out of the roots, and what was more serious, grass was cropped so closely that there was no opportunity for seed to mature and fall to the ground and germinate for another year. In former times a drouth would not have been so disastrous as under the existing conditions of the ranges. Having done all in his power to mitigate the situation, Traynor fought a despondency that was entirely foreign to his nature. It was augmented by his desire to conceal the facts from his wife, and to this was added his knowledge that Jamie was continually growing weaker. He had called the men into the office and told them frankly that he would not be able to keep them much longer, as he was straining every financial possibility. The result of that conference was a surprise that unmanned him. Limber, Bronco, Holy and Roarer declined to be "fired," stating they would work for "chuck" until the drouth was over, and when he remonstrated, the four of them stalked out of the room, as Limber remarked, "We've got business to attend to outside--instead of talking foolishness inside." "If I could manage to get a few thousands," said Traynor to Nell as they left the breakfast table one morning, "I would not hesitate to round up all the weakest cattle and ship at once to Colorado, leaving the stronger ones take their chances here on the range. However, I might as well wish for rain; that would be less improbable than obtaining the money. The most aggravating thing is knowing that I could save the greater part of the herd if I could only ship them. Native grass is plentiful and pasturage cheap in Colorado this year; once I had the cattle there I could easily raise money at one of the Colorado banks on the stock, and so relieve the tension here as well as there. If I pull through this year, I will keep money in readiness for such an emergency, hereafter. It's been a good lesson; but a mighty expensive one." As he walked slowly to the barn, he passed Paddy with a large parcel coming into the courtyard. "Oi've got somethings for the bye and the misthress," he explained, and Traynor told him they were in the living-room. "Hello, ould Sphort!" Paddy said to the boy, who was standing by his sister, watching her water the geraniums. "There's a new bunch of buds Paddy;" the child announced and Paddy examined the plants critically. "Yez can't giss what Oi brought wid me for yez;" he said. "A babby deer. Oi caught it at Mud Springs an' brung it in fer yez." "Oh, Paddy!" Jamie's face glowed with delight. "How did you catch it? Where is it?" "From the looks of it, its mother has been dead for a couple of days. Giss the coyotes or a lion got her, and the little fellow was mighty wake, and was willin' to make friends. Oi carried him twelve moiles in me arrums on the ould grey horse. He's out in the stables now, and the byes says for yez to come out and get introjuiced to him. They're goin' to give him milk from a bottle till it gits big enough to ate ither things." The child's eyes were bright with excitement as he made his way to the barn, where Bronco and the other boys surrounded a small fawn. Holy was holding a bottle of milk to its mouth, while Bronco stroked the throat to help it swallow, for the fawn was very weak. "Gee! he was hungry!" said Holy to Jamie. "We have to learn him to take the milk this way, and when he gets a little stronger he can take it from a pan. Isn't he pretty? He is such a dark brown on the back, and just look how plain his spots is. Funny they lose 'em when they're yearlings!" "What you goin' to name it, Kid?" asked Bronco. "Patsy," replied Jamie promptly, as he knelt and stroked the soft fur with his thin hand. The fawn turned its head and licked his hand, then gazed at the child with its beautiful eyes. The thin arms went about the fawn's neck gently. "He knows you won't hurt him, Kid;" spoke Holy, then turned away quickly, swearing to himself. "They're both about all in, an' nobody can't do nothin'." After Jamie left the room, Paddy untied the string that held a flour-sack in an unsightly bundle. He tiptoed over to the table and laid the parcel beside Mrs. Traynor's work-basket. "Oi just got this from the stage dhriver, Yez mabbe afther hearin' Oi niver knowed how to rade an' write, Misthress Thraynor?" She nodded her head, and Paddy, finding the string obdurate, produced a gigantic pocket-knife, such as is used by cattlemen in ear-marking calves. "Will, Oi hed an agrayment wid ould man Sullivan that he was to rade the poipers fer me, an' would yez belave it, the dummed ould skoonk was afther thryin' to make me pay him for radin' thim. He says, says he, 'Oi've been to the throuble of radin' thim for wan year, an' be jabers, Oi desarve cumpinsation.' An Oi says to him, says Oi, 'Ahl roight, Sullivan. Phwat's the damidge?' 'Foive dollars,' says he as bould as brass. 'Ahl roight,' says Oi. 'Oi'll pay yez foive dollars fer radin' thim poipers, Misther Sullivan, and yez are goin' to pay me tin dollars for the use of thim.' He jumped up and roared at me, 'Thim poipers only cost foive dollars for wan year.' 'Thrue for yez,' says Oi; 'and yez nadent git hot in the collar about it, at all, at all. Oi'm only charging yez fer takin' up my toime whilst Oi was waitin' fer yez to spill out the big wurrds!'" Paddy smiled grimly as he crowded some fresh tobacco into his pipe, and after taking a few preliminary puffs, he continued. "Will, Sullivan niver collected thot foive dollars. Oi thought Oi would be afthar bringin' thim poipers here, so you can rade thim and till me the news forinst Oi come again." As he spoke, he shook the sack, and a solitary paper fell on the table--_The Tombstone Epitaph_--which was published weekly at the County seat. It consisted of one page of local gossip, two pages of pictured cattle, bearing various hieroglyphics, which to the initiated represented brands and ear-marks, while the fourth page was filled with advertising matter of the local stores. A similar paper was published weekly at Willcox. "Oi loike the _Epitaph_ and the Willcox poiper," explained Paddy with twinkling eyes, "becaze Oi can look at the cows and tell which ind of the poiper goes bottom side up. Here's a book the stage dhriver got fer me. He says it's foine; and yez can rade it to yourself, then tell me about it, sometoime. It's called 'The Revinge of Bloody Dick.'" A final shake of the sack and "Bloody Dick" appeared, followed by several magazines of fashions, and a couple of home periodicals, containing carefully censored stories for women and children, which huddled together limply like shocked old maids surprised in questionable company. Nell struggled with a hysterical desire to laugh, as she glanced from the strangely garbed figure of the old man to the conventional fashion-plates; but, appreciating the rough chivalry that had inspired the act, a lump grew in her throat, and dropping her head on the table the sobs came unchecked. Paddy moved to her side and stroked her hair gently, speaking as though to an injured child. "Shure, Oi didn't mane to make yez fale bad, at all, at all, little gurrl. Oi thuoght if yez was radin' yez wouldn't be worritin' so much about the cattle." "It is Jamie, too," she sobbed. "I know he is growing weaker; but Allan does not know it, yet. I've been keeping it from him, for he has so much worry now. If he could ship the cattle to Colorado and save them, he said he could get money there to carry us through." Paddy listened thoughtfully. "He's roight about that," said the old man. "It would save the wakest wans, and lave more fade for the sthrong wans. Don't be afther sayin' anythin' to the Boss, Misthress Thraynor, but yez know Oi have some money put away handy, and if the Boss wants to borry it to hilp ship his cattle, Oi'll lind it to him. Oi've got the money from the sale of the PL Ranch, and there's a few more dollars ilsewhere that I can get widout trouble. The Diamond H is good property whin the drouth is done, and Oi'm not afraid of losin' the principal wid the Boss. Oi niver thrust any banks becoz they moight go boosted any toime." Paddy crammed fresh tobacco in his pipe. "Oi kin let the Boss have twenty-foive thousand dollars in gold if he wants it. Now moind, don't yez till him onything, but lit me fix it up my own way wid him. Oi'm goin' to Willcox airly in the marnin', Misthress Thraynor, an' whin Oi come back Oi'll talk wid the Boss, and foind out whin he wants the money ready." Nell started up, but Paddy waved her back. "Don't yez begin a thankin' me," he commanded fiercely, "or ilse Oi won't lit him have a dummed cent! It's jist a matter of business, an' Oi'll charge him intherest, all roight. Oi moight as well be makin' intherest on my money as to be lavin' it buried in the ground." He held out a grimy, calloused hand, saying, "Good noight, Misthree Thraynor. Git a good noight's slape and don't worrit ony more. Oi'll say that the Boss has what money he nades, and a little over, so that you and the bye can go to Californy for a while, until this dry spell is over. Thin whin the rains comes, the little chap will be afther comin' back with chakes as rid as thim posies;" and he disappeared through the door, leaving Nell feeling he had carried her troubles with him. A couple of hours after sunrise the next morning, Paddy riding leisurely along the road from the Diamond H to Willcox, encountered Limber a few miles out of town. Limber had ridden from the Hot Springs. After the usual salutation, Paddy reined his grey, gaunt horse close to Peanut's side, leaned over, held his hand cupped about his mouth and with a glance at the miles of prairie that sheltered no eavesdropper, the old Irishman whispered, "Say, Limber, thar's somewan sleeperin'. Warkin' on the PL and Diamond H. Oi tould the Boss and he's goin' to warn the byes to look out. Oi mebbe misthaken, but Oi've got an idee that Glendon's at the bottom of it. 'Twon't hurt to kape an oye on him over at the Springs. Goin' back soon?" "I have some thing to attend to for the doctor. He's up to Tucson this week," Limber answered as they unsaddled their ponies at the Rest. "I'm goin' to the Diamond H tonight, after sundown. It'll be cooler then and give Peanut a good rest." "Oi'll see yez before yez start." Paddy had reached the gate but turned back, "Say, Limber, Oi want yez to pick out a noice little collar. I found a fawn and packed it in for the bye, so long as you're goin' to the Diamond H, yez can take it along. I've got to go to the San Pethro for a few days." He held out a twenty-dollar gold piece, which Limber slipped into his pocket. "Say, Paddy, if I was you I'd put my dinero in a bank. You take lots of chances," remonstrated Limber seriously. "Someday you'll go to your cache and find your money's been dug up." "They'll have a dummed hard toime a foindin' it," retorted Paddy cunningly, "and a dummed harder toime gettin' away wid it, for Oi kape a close watch on it. Oi'm figgerin' on makin' a loan to the Boss, so's to help him ship cattle. Oi got thirty-five thousand dollars put away. Oi ain't no Rockyfeller, but Oi've got enough for salt pork and frijoles for the nixt tin years, an' Oi don't belave Oi'll be in urgent nade of thim afther that toime. If the Good Lard thinks Oi'll pass the Inspection Chute, Oi'll be fading on milk an' honey widout payin' fer it. Oi'm siventy-six, come my nixt birthday." "Well, your money will be safer if the Boss has it," Limber finished the conversation as he turned into the store, while Paddy walked up the street, stopping to speak to people he knew. Every one liked the old fellow, who was noted for his sobriety and honesty as much for his peculiarities. He was passing the swinging door of a saloon which had none too savory a reputation, when Alpaugh, the Constable of Willcox, who was also the Deputy Sheriff of Cochise County, called to him. "Hello, Paddy! Come in and have a drink," he invited cordially slapping the old man's shoulder. "Ahl roight, Dick," was the reply, "Oi'm goin' to git somethin' to ate, and it will be an appytizer. I rid from the Diamond H this marnin', but it was too airly for breakfast whin I started out." The bar-tender mixed the concoctions ordered and set two glasses on the bar, then saying, "I'll be back in a minute," he left the room in response to a call, leaving Paddy and Alpaugh alone, except for a man sprawled across a table at the end of the room. Paddy looked at the man. "That Glendon is always dhrunk," he remarked in disgust. "Pity his woife don't loight out and lave him." He moved, nearer, "Say, Dick," he whispered, though his voice carried distinctly, "Oi think yez had betther kape an oye on Thray-fingered Jack, Glendon, Bentz and Burks. Oi run into them last wake nigh Glendon's place, and they was squattin' on the ground drawin' loines. They didn't say me, but they was talkin' about the Express car to the Jumpin' Frog Moines. Oi don't loike the looks of it." Alpaugh glanced at him sharply. "Much obliged, Paddy;" he replied. "Did you speak of it to any one else?" "Nary a sould," responded Paddy. "Don't tell any one else," cautioned Alpaugh. "Ahl roight, Dick;" answered Paddy, lifting the glass to his lips. "Here's lookin' at yez." A shot pinged through the air, and the glass fell from Paddy's fingers as he tumbled in a grotesque heap on the floor. Glendon, holding the still smoking pistol, sprang to Paddy's side and emptied four more cartridges into the motionless figure. Alpaugh stooped quickly, breaking the buckskin thong around the trigger of Paddy's pistol, and threw the gun beside the dead man. "He didn't know you and Bentz saw him out there. Stick to self-defence," said Alpaugh. "Dead men tell no tales, and the damn fool knew too much." A crowd of excited men filled the place when Limber came running in. "Who done it?" he demanded, looking around. "I did," replied Glendon, facing him; and Limber stepped back as though menaced with a blow. "You--" "Yes! Alpaugh was drinking with Paddy when he turned on me without any warning, and I shot in self-defence. The old man's been nutty for some time, and had it in for me ever since we had trouble at the corral over that cow. If you don't believe me, you can ask Alpaugh. He saw it all." Alpaugh looked at the faces of the crowd, and knew he must keep his head level, for Glendon was not popular, and Paddy had many friends. "I saw Paddy going past, and asked him in to have a drink with me," said the constable with apparent frankness. "Otto mixed the drinks and went back to the end of the room, and Paddy was talking to me. Glendon was at the other end of the room, but got up and started to walk over to us, and I was going to ask him to have something with us, when Paddy saw him and reached for his gun. Glendon had to shoot quick or be shot himself. The trigger of Paddy's gun caught in the buckskin loop of his holster, or else he'd got Glendon first. That's all there is about it. Paddy's been itchy against Glendon for some time. Every one knows that." He turned to Glendon, "I've got to arrest you, Jim, until after the inquest." "That's all right," answered Glendon, then he saw Limber scrutinizing him sharply. "Say, Limber, will you tell my wife? She's expecting me home tonight." Limber's eyes were riveted on Glendon, as though trying to read the man's thoughts. "Yes," he replied curtly, turning on his heel and walking out the room without another word. "There's something crooked in back of it," he muttered to himself, as he reached the Cowboys' Rest and picked up his saddle. Then he remembered Paddy's promised assistance for Traynor. "No one knows where Paddy hid his money, and that settles the Boss," he stopped to pet the nose of Paddy's gaunt, old, flea-bitten grey horse, which had been a joke with every one, then Limber flung his saddle on Peanut and mounted. "Sometimes it looks like it don't pay to be square, Peanut," he said as the little pinto pony headed for the road leading to the Circle Cross Ranch. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Katherine sat on the porch of her home, watching the road that led to town. It was long after six o'clock and Glendon had promised faithfully he would return early in the afternoon. The Circle Cross herd which had not been large enough to pay its owner's debts under the most favourable circumstances, had dwindled through the drouth until Glendon refused to try to save what was left. Juan rode out alone each day, doing the best he was able, while Glendon puttered about the house and corral, or stretched in a half-drunken stupor on the couch in the tiny living-room. Katherine was spared the knowledge that Alpaugh held a note worth more than the remnant of their cattle and that the money had been used by Glendon to pay several gambling debts, as well as to keep Panchita in a good humour. Her meditations were interrupted as Tatters came to the porch steps and thrust his moist nose into her hand. "What do you think is wrong this time, Tatters?" she asked, looking down at the dog's intelligent eyes. Since Donnie had left, the woman and dog had been drawn together by their mutual longing for the boy, and Katherine had fallen unconsciously into the habit of talking to the collie. She slipped an arm about the shaggy neck, and silently watched the twilight deepen into darkness. Juan hovered anxiously in the doorway, and tried to persuade her to eat supper; but she put him off, saying she would come soon. A foreboding clutched her; she had no desire for food. Shaking his head dolefully, the Mexican retreated to the kitchen. Suddenly the dog stiffened, sniffed the air and gave a low growl. Then he sprang from the steps and ran to the gate, where he squatted down, and stared sharply at the road. Katherine heard the faint sounds of hoof beats, and confident that it was her husband returning, she hastened to see if the belated supper was beyond hope. There was a knock at the door. Surprised, she turned to open it, when she heard a man's voice speaking. "Don't be frightened, Mrs. Glendon. It's only Limber, I brung a message for you from Glendon." He entered the room, and blinked in the lamplight, but Katherine, seeing the expression on his face, was not deceived. "What's the matter?" she asked quickly. Limber hesitated, cleared his throat and wondered how it would be best to tell his message. All the way he had been puzzling what to say. If it had been a man, or any other woman, it would have been easier; but the cowpuncher shrank from adding to the troubles of the woman. It was like striking her. "Why--it's--just--don't be frightened, Mrs. Glendon," floundered Limber, and cursed himself for making matters worse. "It's not so serious--" She clutched the back of a chair; her face was white, but her voice steady. "Tell me, just as you would another man, Limber. I won't break down. Is he dead?" "Not a bit of it," replied Limber in relieved tones. "He's all right--well as I am. But thar's been trouble in town and Glen shot Paddy Lafferty. Dick Alpaugh seen it and says it was self-defence. So Glen will be acquitted all right; but he's under arrest till the inquest. He wanted me to come and tell you." Limber repeated the meager details, avoiding her eyes as much as possible, and watching Tatters, whose head he was stroking as he talked. The silence became oppressive after he ceased speaking, and Limber lifted his eyes. Katherine, apparently forgetful of his presence, sat staring at the wall, her hands twitching nervously at her kitchen apron. Her face was deathly white. Limber wished she would cry, though he dreaded a woman's tears. "Don't take it so hard, Mrs. Glendon. It's just a matter of form, him bein' held. Glendon will be home tomorrow night." "Did you see him kill Paddy?" her eyes searched Limber's, forcing the reluctant truth from his lips and telling him plainly that she doubted the story as he had told it. "No, Mrs. Glendon. I got thar afterwards. I heard Alpaugh say what happened. He was there. Then Glendon ast me to come and tell you. That's all I know." She rose. "Thank you, Limber. I understand. It was good of you to come the thirty-five miles. After you have supper I will be ready to go back with you, if your pony can stand the trip. Fox is the only horse I have here, Jim took the team to town." "Peanut is good for the trip," asserted Limber, "but it is a mean ride at night till we strike the flats. Mebbe you'd better wait till mornin' if you think you'd oughter go." "I must go tonight;" she replied and Limber made no further protest. He knew the tension under which she laboured. Juan insisted that she make an effort to eat, while Limber swallowed a cup of coffee, then necessary articles in a small bundle were tied to her saddle as Fox and Peanut rubbed friendly noses. The old Mexican's heart was heavy as he watched them ride away, and the dog's ears drooped dejectedly. Out on the long night ride the ponies swung into a steady lope. The soft breeze fanned the cheeks of the riders like a cool spray. A young moon slipped coyly over the horizon. The air was heavy with the perfume of Yucca that even the drouth could not kill, while faint and sweet came the lilt of a mocking-bird. Katherine could not make herself believe that out of the beauty and peace of the night she would find the man she had sworn to 'love, honour and obey' with human blood on his hands--the murderer of an old, defenceless man who had done many an act of kindness for her and her boy. Once she turned and spoke. "Where is he?" "In the hotel;" answered Limber. "Alpaugh has charge of him till the inquest is over." They rode again in silence, each absorbed in thought until, after weary hours, the lights of the town grew visible. At last the ponies stopped in front of the Willcox Hotel. A few men loitering about, stared curiously as Limber helped Katherine from her saddle. It was after two in the morning. The by-standers who recognized Mrs. Glendon, lifted their hats respectfully. One of them spoke her name. She turned her dull eyes on him. Her lips moved but there was no sound. The man understood, and choked an oath. Limber untied the bundle from her saddle, and she followed him stiffly into the hotel, shrinking in the narrow, dimly lighted hallway while the cowboy made arrangements with the sleepy nightman. "I'll take you up to the room," said Limber. She nodded silently. On the second floor the cowboy paused at the door and knocked. "Come in!" called Glendon's voice. Limber smiled reassuringly to Katherine; then he turned and left her. She stood biting her lips, trying to control her emotion, and holding the doorknob in a nerveless hand that was trembling with exhaustion. "What the blazes is the matter? Come in, I say!" The door was jerked open violently and Glendon stood staring at his wife. An oath rose to his lips. "What brought you here?" he demanded roughly. She passed into the room, turned and held out her hands to him, saying simply, "Where else should I be, Jim, when you are in trouble? I thought you wanted me to come." "Well, I didn't. I might have known you'd not be able to resist an opportunity to twit and remind me how you've begged me to stay away from town, and all that rot! I only asked Limber to go and tell you what had happened, and as usual, you go to extremes and come hiking in here in the middle of the night. You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. I'd been home by this evening. There was not the least excuse for your coming here." Obeying an impulse, she moved near and laid her hand on his shoulder. He shook it off roughly and started from the chair into which he had slumped. "For God's sake, Katherine, cut out that rot! I'm sick of your saintly pose, and I don't want any preaching or praying. I had to shoot Lafferty or be shot myself." "Was it self-defence, Jim?" He noted the undercurrent of doubt and ripped out an oath. "I told you once, and I'm not going to keep jabbering about it the rest of the night. You go to the inquest and hear Alpaugh's testimony, as long as you don't believe me." He strode across the room to the table and poured out a generous glass of raw whiskey, which he followed by a second, then a third, and at last threw himself on the bed. In a few minutes the room was heavy with the fumes of liquor and noisy with snores of the drunken sleeper. Softly Katherine lifted the little window, and let the clean pure air blow across her face. Somewhere a clock struck three. The woman, sitting in the darkness, stared with dry aching eyes, thinking of the past, wondering what the future held. It was like looking into a chasm. When grey dawn, like a feeble, sick thing, crept through the window, Glendon woke refreshed and buoyant; but his wife was haggered and worn, with great dark rings under her eyes. Her husband looked at her critically, contrasting her with the flamboyant attractions of Panchita. "Can't you fix yourself up a bit?" he demanded in aggrieved tones. "You're losing your good looks completely. Anyone would take you for twice your age. Lot of good you do me, coming here with your glum face!" She made no reply, which added to the anger he vented by kicking a chair out of his way. Glendon's hand shook as he poured out a drink of liquor to steady his nerves, while Katherine opened the parcel she had brought with her, laying out his razor, a clean shirt and collar. His clothes were creased and rumpled, as he had slept all night in them. Then she picked up a small pitcher and went in search of hot water. She finally obtained it from the Chinese cook in the kitchen, for the hotel bragged no bell-boys or bells. The inquisitive glance of the Chinaman and a Mexican whom she passed at the kitchen door, brought to her the full realization of the ordeal she was facing. If she could only believe that her husband had acted in self-defence, she would stand unshaken beside him, defying the entire world; but she could not make herself credit his story. Always when he had tried to deceive her, some subtle instinct betrayed him to her. Through the night she had reiterated again and again, "It was self-defence," but louder and louder a chorus of voices kept whispering in her ears, "He is lying! It was murder!" She seized the pitcher of water from the Chinaman's hand and hurried up stairs to her room. Glendon accepted her services as a matter of course, proffering no word of thanks. Half an hour later Alpaugh knocked, and the three went to the hotel dining-room for breakfast. Glendon's appetite was excellent. Alpaugh and he talked casually, occasionally interjecting a joke; but the food choked Glendon's wife, and with a feeling of relief she rose and returned to the bedroom followed by her husband. Alpaugh, as a matter of form, hovered at the entrance of the hotel. "The inquest is at nine," said Glendon as they entered their room. "It's half-past eight now," he consulted his watch. "Jim," she hesitated, "I think I will stay here in the room. I'm not feeling quite well this morning." He looked at her and a sullen rage consumed him. He realized that she was not deceived by his story. "Going to shirk it, eh?" he asked sneeringly, "Well, you will have to come, that's all there is to it. Look fine for me when everyone knows you rode here last night and then hid away just at the time when you, or any decent wife, should stand by a man. That would be enough to condemn any one in my fix." It was not that he desired her company; but he was aware that her presence would have its influence, in case anything should upset Alpaugh's testimony. The bartender might have seen more then they thought; besides there was no telling what unexpected snag might be struck during the inquest. Paddy had many staunch friends. As these thoughts beset him, Glendon looked at his wife. "Well, are you going to stand by me, or not?" Her reply was to pick up her hat which she adjusted. As he opened the door, she said imploringly, "It was self-defence, wasn't it, Jim?" "Good God, Katherine, you will drive me mad! I said it once. Now you can listen to Alpaugh and make up your mind about it as you please. Stop nagging me." Without further conversation, husband and wife accompanied Alpaugh to the little office of the Justice of Peace, where the inquest was to be held. A group of men at the entrance, glanced peculiarly at Glendon; then their expressions changed as they saw the woman at his side. Glendon was quick to notice this and congratulated himself that Katherine was with him. With assumed solicitude he led her to a chair and stood silently beside her, his eyes on her bowed head, until the proceedings began. The inquest fully exonerated Glendon, as the bar-tender had not seen what occurred and Alpaugh was the only actual witness. The broken buckskin thong was admitted as proof that Paddy had drawn his gun, thus making it impossible for any jury to bring in a verdict against Glendon. There were many witnesses to the quarrel at the shipping-corral, when Paddy had refused to shake hands with Glendon after the latter had apologized to him; and as no one had heard Glendon utter any threats against Paddy, there was apparently no motive except that of self-defence. On the other hand, the old Irishman had often expressed his dislike for Glendon. As soon as the verdict was rendered, Glendon was surrounded and congratulated by Bentz, Three-fingered Jack, Burks and Alpaugh. With smiles and light words he shook their hands; but other men exchanged glances and left the room, talking in subdued voices. Katherine saw the doubt in many faces, and shrank at the reflection of the fear in her own heart. Glendon's callous indifference, his careless air, revealed her husband in a new and hideous light. With trembling limbs she made her way to his side, placing her hand on his arm. He looked down in surprise, and an expression of annoyance crossed his face. He had completely forgotten his wife's presence and had been about to suggest to the crowd that drinks were in order at the most convenient place. She realized it all, and wished that she had remained at the ranch. "Jim--I don't feel very well. Will you take me to the hotel?" He shrugged his shoulders, but remembering others were watching, answered, "Yes." Husband and wife moved side by side toward the door. "See you later, Glen," said Three-fingered Jack, and Alpaugh added: "You're not going out today, are you?" Katherine looked up. Glendon, with a sudden sense of shame, replied; "I'll go back with my wife this afternoon when it gets cooler, but I'll see you both before I leave town." Her eyes were grateful. Glendon, conscious of a halo of self-importance and good intentions, walked down the street, speaking to passers-by, though many of them responded only in deference to the woman at his side. As they passed along the street, several men standing in front of the post office, watched them disappear into the hotel. "Glen's turned over a new leaf," observed one of them. "'Twon't last very long. New leaves are awful tender. They get torn mighty quick," laughed another. "It'd been all-fired excitin' if Panchita had been in town. There'd been fur flyin', and I bet Glendon would have vamoosed and let 'em fight it out to a finish. You can get a rise outen Panchita any time you speak about Mrs. Glendon." "If it ever comes to a show down between 'em I bet on the Mexican girl for a winner. She's got the inside track sure. Glen's wife is too high-headed to win the race." None of them noticed Limber pausing close by as he heard Mrs. Glendon's name. The cowboy's eyes glinted, his lips were compressed and his hands clenched. "I ain't so sure about Mrs. Glendon losing the race," retorted the first speaker. "I noticed that Glen quit prancing mighty quick when his wife slipped the halter over his head and led him off to the home pasture!" The burst of laughter that greeted this witticism was hushed suddenly, as Limber broke through the group and faced them with blazing eyes. "You are a fine bunch of things to call yourselves men! You fellers ain't fit to wipe the dust off'n Mrs. Glendon's shoes, let alone takin' her name on your dirty tongues. The feller what makes any more remarks about her has got me to fight just as soon as I hear his name. If there's any one here that don't like what I say, he knows what he kin do." Limber waited a reply, but the thoroughly abashed men were silent, and the cowboy stalked away. When he was well out of hearing, one of the men, a recent arrival in Arizona, uttered an oath, "I ain't goin' to stand for that sass from nobody," he blustered. Another man grabbed his arm. "Look here! You ain't been very long in this section and you won't be here very long if you think you can put it over Limber. He's the best pistol shot in the Territory." "And you'd have as much chance against him," warned another bystander, "as a jackrabbit would have, if it smelt the cork of a whiskey bottle and then got brash and slapped a bull-dog in the jaw." "Go ahead and try it, if you want to," commented the third man, "We haven't had a funeral 'round here for some time now. It'd liven things up a bit for all of us--except yourself." The new-comer looked after Limber's figure with respectful eyes. CHAPTER THIRTY When Nell heard the news of Paddy's death she felt she had lost a sincere friend. As her eyes rested on the door she seemed to see the wrinkled face with a strangely softened look, and hear his voice saying, "Good noight, Misthress Thraynor. Git a good noight's rist and don't worrit any more." Poor old Paddy! How little they dreamed of the long rest he would find the next night. She was glad that she had obeyed his injunction not to let her husband know anything of the promised loan until Paddy himself should speak of it. Her silence had saved Allan from indulging in plans that could not now be carried out. Everything seemed more hopeless than ever. Doctor Powell had been trying to secure a loan through friends in the east, in order to assist Traynor to ship some of his stock; but his efforts had been fruitless, so far, and a letter told them that he was going to Los Angeles to see if anything could be done there. The stage-driver who delivered Powell's letter, brought the little collar that Paddy had commissioned Limber to buy for the fawn. The cowboy had scribbled a few words explaining that the gift came from Paddy. Jamie was delighted. They did not tell him that his old friend was dead. A week after Paddy's death, Nell stood picking a few withered leaves from the geranium in the window, and her tears fell on the brilliant red flowers. She stared out the window, wondering why those who tried to do right, found life the hardest. A gaunt calf stumbled weakly and fell near the fence, making no effort to rise, as though understanding the futility of struggling any longer. "Oh, it is horrible!" she cried, turning away that she might not see the dying convulsions of the animal. She felt the drouth was a living, relentless thing, wrapping its coils about them all, men and brutes alike, choking and crushing the very heart of the universe. Unnerved by constant anxiety over the sick child, the worry of the drouth, and the shock of Paddy's death, she fell sobbing to her knees beside the couch where the boy lay asleep, breathing heavily, his cheeks burning with fever. In the distance a strange haze had formed. It moved slowly and majestically nearer, gradually growing thicker--first a misty grey, then changing to a black velvety curtain, dropping straight down from sky to earth. Creeping stealthily, it turned to a brilliant red hue that looked as if it were dripping with fresh blood, a colour that stung the eyeballs until one put up a hand to shut out the grewsome sight. Its hot breath crawled into the lungs and stifled one; licked the face and fanned the hair. Then with diabolic menace the colour changed to an inky blackness, while high above rose the edge of the pall. Tipped with grey and white it bellied out like the crest of an enormous black wave that seemed to poise a second before hurling itself to the earth. Cattle bellowed and tramped frantically beside the fences, trying to escape the dry scorching air, as with a great swirl and deep suction, like a mighty sob, the dust storm enveloped the ranch. Although it was three o'clock in the afternoon the rooms were dark enough to need lights. The rays from the jets filtering through the misty, moving clouds of dust, looked weird and uncanny. Every window was tightly closed; the air was stifling. Jamie moaned and moved his head restlessly as Nell sat fanning him. Slowly the dust sifted through the windows and under the doors, settling on every thing, until the pillow under the child's head became grey and finally brown. For two terrible hours the storm lasted in all its fury, then a faint gleam of light slowly turned from grey to liquid gold, and Nell ran to raise the windows and let in the fresh air. The window sash was warped and stubborn; the woman excited, and in her anxiety something caught on the flower-box. With an impatient exclamation she hauled the heavy box nearer the edge of the wide window-sill, and then leaning forward, she forced up the sash. A wave of fresh, pure air, tinged with a peculiar odour, filled the room. As Nell, panting from her exertion, leaned against the ledge, there was a sudden crash, and the box of geraniums lay wrecked at her feet. Something else lay there. Shining gold in twenty dollar pieces--Paddy's legacy to Jamie. She stared stupidly a moment, then clutched at the gold pieces. They showered from her hands as she lifted and kissed the coins passionately. This would mean life and happiness for Allan and Jamie. A strange rumble startled her. Then came the sound of a frightful crash, the rush of hurrying feet, and the door was flung open as Traynor clashed in. "Look--look, Nell! Rain! Rain! Rain! Thank God! We are saved!" The deafening roar of the storm almost drowned his voice as the rain beat on the corrugated iron roof and flooded the court. Then he saw the box and the scattered gold. While the storm shrieked and flooded the country, making great running streams of the dry prairie, Nell told her husband of the secret she had held with Paddy. She slipped down on the floor, lifting the coins into her lap, and counted them slowly. "Twenty-five thousand dollars!" she exclaimed, and the last gold piece fell with a tinkle like laughter, as though old Paddy, standing by, invisible, were chuckling at his joke. "Poor old Paddy!" said Traynor, "We none of us understood the old chap except you and Jamie. You've been a plucky little woman, and now the rains, and this legacy of Paddy's, everything is coming out right!" Nell picked up the broken geranium and held it against her lips. "God bless you, Paddy!" she said. She rose to her feet and her husband slipped an arm around her waist as they stood together at the long, French window, looking out at the glorious rain, while Paddy's gold lay shining at their feet. All night the rain fell in torrents, and then for the following weeks, each day brought its storm, filling the ditches and watering places in the flats and mountains, while the cattle scattered over the ranges instead of crowding in the few spots where there was water. The worst drouth in the history of Arizona was over. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Doctor Powell, who had returned from Los Angeles a few days previously, was following Chappo about the garden after supper, praising the flowers the little Mexican had planted and cultivated with such success. Limber, coming from the stable after a final visit to see that the horses were all right for the night, noticed a rider on the road from the Circle Cross. "Juan is coming," announced the cowpuncher. Powell turned quickly. "I hope nothing is wrong." They walked toward the gate. Juan dismounted, slipped the reins over his pony's head and held a note to Powell, saying, "From La Señora. El Señor Glendon is seek." The doctor hastened into the house, lighted a lamp and read; _Dear Doctor:_ Will you come back with Juan? My husband is ill. He had a severe chill, but is now in a stupor and I cannot rouse him. I do not know what is the matter. Please hurry, for I am much alarmed. Sincerely yours, KATHERINE GLENDON. Powell returned to the porch and questioned Juan, who told him Glendon had not been well for a couple of days and had refused to allow his wife to consult the doctor as she had wished to do. Hurriedly packing what medicines he thought might be necessary, while Chappo saddled a horse, Powell explained the situation briefly to Limber and set out, Juan at his side, for the Glendon ranch. Katherine was at the door when he dismounted and handed the reins of his horse to Juan. "Oh, I am so glad you have come!" she exclaimed. "I don't know what is the matter. I have never seen him this way before. Usually I know what to do for him." She led the way into the bedroom, as she spoke, and Powell noted the unconscious revelation in her words. Glendon lay on the bed, his red congested face and relaxed sensual lips adding to a bestial appearance. The doctor drew a chair to the bedside and lifted the limp, heavy hand from the coverlet, then he leaned down and placed his ear against Glendon's chest. Slowly the seconds ticked away. The doctor leaned back and studied the dissipated countenance, while Katherine waited at the foot of the bed. "Is it serious?" she asked anxiously. "Pneumonia," replied Powell gravely. "I will have to be frank, Mrs. Glendon. He has wrecked a fine constitution. The heart is in bad condition from drinking. Alcoholism and pneumonia combined leave very slight chance for recovery in this altitude." "I understand that," answered Glendon's wife, "but there is a fighting chance, isn't there?" "Yes--a fighting chance, nothing more. His heart is weak. When the crisis comes it may stop, or it may respond to treatment and rally sufficiently to go on. That is the one chance for him to pull through." As Powell turned again to his patient, she asked very quietly, "Is there anything I can do?" "Bring a spoon, glass of fresh water, and some strips of flannel, if you have them?" She hurried away, and returned in a few minutes. "That's good," approved the doctor, as she laid the neatly rolled flannel bandages on the table beside him and arranged the tumbler, spoon and pitcher of water where he could reach them conveniently. "Heat that camphorated oil, please." She followed his instructions and watched him saturate the flannel, which he slipped around Glendon's chest and across his back with the deftness and gentleness of a woman. Then he drew the coverlet smoothly and looked at Katherine's pale face. "You had better get a little rest," he said. "I will stay here until the crisis is past. Take this," he commanded, preparing a mixture in the glass and holding it out to her. Katherine swallowed the contents of the tumbler, while Powell added, "You have a couch in the other room? I'll call when it's necessary. There is nothing you can do now, and you must save your strength all you can." The reaction from three days of anxiety and responsibility aided the sedative in bringing sorely needed mental and physical relaxation. The door leading into the sitting-room was open, and after a short interval the doctor moved softly to satisfy himself that she was sleeping. A chill was creeping through the house. He went to the bedroom and lifted an extra coverlet from the foot-board of the bed, and carried it to the other room. The light from the bed-room fell upon her face and throat, and as the doctor carefully placed the coverlet over her, he saw dark bruises against the pallor of the skin. In repose, the lines of suffering were revealed plainly, and the pathetic droop of the mouth like that of a sorrowing child. Through her half-parted lips he heard the quivering sound of a suppressed sob. He gazed at her, a world of love and pity in his eye, then he glanced through the open door at the man who lay on the bed. Slowly the doctor returned to the chair at the bedside, he leaned over and looked at Glendon intently. The crisis was not very far off. Powell studied the heart action, took count of the pulse, then his eyes went to the medicine on the table. No sound except the ticking of the clock and the stentorian breathing of Glendon broke the silence. In the other room Katherine slept quietly. The doctor's eyes did not move now from the face of the man on the bed. The pulse beats were growing weaker. Powell's hand reached toward the medicine, paused a second, then withdrew and fell heavily in his lap. Moments went by, and still the woman in the other room rested quietly; the man on the bed drifted more closely to the whirlpool of Eternity, and the man beside the bed, with white face, tightly set mouth and eyes like smouldering flame, sat waiting. Once the doctor rose and walked softly back and forth across the room, the hands clasped behind him were bruised by the nails that cut into the flesh. On the mantel of the living room was a picture of Donnie. The child's eyes looked into his own, they followed him as he moved about. Powell returned to the bed and sank into the chair, then his face was buried in his hands. With a quick movement he roused himself and watched Glendon steadily. At last he turned slowly to the table and grasped the vial. He held it before him and looked once again at Glendon, but this time the doctor's eyes were untroubled. Slowly and carefully he poured a few drops of the fluid that would drive the sluggish blood to the heart that had almost ceased to beat. Slowly it responded. Then, in the silence of the night Powell began his battle to save Katherine Glendon's husband. Dawn like a shadowy grey wolf, crawled over the tops of the Galiuros and slipped down into the Hot Springs Cañon. The cragged peaks were bathed in sunlight as Powell looked at them, his face drawn and haggard, his eyes weary, but in his heart a prayer of thanksgiving and a plea for strength to carry on his battle without faltering. A slight noise at the door caused him to turn. Katherine came swiftly to his side. "How is he?" she asked eagerly. "Rallying perfectly. The crisis is past for the present. Unless something unexpected occurs, we shall pull him through." "Why didn't you call me?" asked Katherine. "You needed the rest," he replied. "Though the danger point is almost over, you will have a long siege of nursing that will tax your utmost strength. I shall remain here until I am reasonably sure he is safe, and then, you can take charge. Do you know how to use a thermometer or take a pulse?" "Yes. Doctor King taught me that." "Then you can manage as well as though you had a trained nurse here. But, remember! You must conserve your strength. That is rule number one for a nurse. It is inflexible. Understand?" "I promise to do exactly what you say," she replied. "Now I am going to get your breakfast and a good strong cup of coffee will be ready very soon." Glendon continued to improve during the day, and Powell's vigilance never relaxed. Katherine relieved the doctor for a few hours at a time. When a week had elapsed without developing unfavourable symptoms, Glendon was pronounced practically out of danger. The doctor knew his own weakness now, and with his patient on the road to recovery, Powell's antagonism to the man returned with greater intensity. Yet, as the doctor rode home he determined that as soon as Glendon was well enough, he would try to awaken any shred of decency that might be dormant in the husband of Katherine Glendon, the woman whom Powell loved. The professional calls continued several weeks, but Powell and Katherine only met in the room where Glendon lay weak and thoroughly frightened, for Powell impressed upon Glendon the seriousness of his physical condition and the inevitable result of continuous drinking, which had weakened his heart. Glendon's promises to reform were genuine. Another month went past. An awkward restraint had grown gradually between Katherine and the doctor, and though he flayed his conscience, he could find no reason for it. As days went by, it became unbearable torture for him to see her in her home with Glendon, and yet, it was still harder to resist the temptation to go there. Finally Powell determined to leave the Springs, and Chappo a week later carried a note to Katherine. _Dear Mrs. Glendon:_ I shall be at the Diamond H ranch for a month, after which time I am leaving Arizona for an indefinite period, on business pertaining to the plans for the Sanitarium. Limber and Chappo will be at the Springs all the time, so do not hesitate to call on them should you require assistance at any time or in any way. With my sincere regards for your husband and yourself, Most cordially yours, CUTHBERT POWELL Katherine read the note in her room. Her eyes blurred with sudden tears. Now that Powell had gone out of her life, thoughts that she had held in restraint, rushed across her like angry animals breaking their leashes. She saw with unblinded eyes the hideousness of her life, the hopelessness of the future, for during the past few days Glendon had started again to drink. The note trembled in her fingers, a tear dropped on it and her heart was sick with despair. She understood at last the meaning of the courage, the peace that had come into her life, and she knew that she could go on to the end that she might purify her love for Powell, by the flame of sacrifice. As the note blazed up in the fireplace, then died to a quivering grey mass, she lifted her face to the tall peaks that bent over the cañon, and their strength seemed to reach out to her. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO With the breaking of the drouth, Jamie seemed to acquire fresh vitality, and by the time the grass covered the valley he was able to take short rides on his pony, carefully guarded from over-exertion by Limber and Doctor Powell. Under their united care the little patient gained additional strength. They all hoped that the crisis might be successfully tided over. One day when Limber and Jamie had returned from their ride, the cowpuncher accosted Traynor in the stable, while unsaddling the ponies. "Thar's goin' to be a sale of Government horses at Port Grant tomorrow, and maybe I'd better go an' look 'em over." "Good idea," assented the Boss. "Better get over early and size them up before the bidding commences." Early the next morning Limber reached the garrison and made his way to the Quartermaster's Corral where the horses destined for sale were tethered. Frequently good horses could be gotten cheaply at such sales, because of blemishes that rendered them unfit for Cavalry use, yet did not interfere with other work. Only a perfect horse was reckoned a match for the ponies of the Apaches. Limber selected two animals, then stood watching the sales. He noticed with surprise that no one was bidding on a big, handsome sorrel with cream mane and tail and eyes that were alight with intelligence. The slender legs and tapering ears showed heritage of racing blood. The cowboy examined the animal, but there was no sign of blemish. Puzzled, he watched inferior horses put up and sold after lively bidding; but no one made an offer on the sorrel, that watched the other horses with evident interest that was almost amused curiosity. Limber liked the horse, somehow. "What's he condemned for?" asked Limber of a soldier who stood near him. "Unmanageable. Breaks rank, won't face with the other horses, dances when he ought to stand still, and runs like the Devil, everytime they line up in parade. He's racing stock. A dandy horse, alright, but too high-lived for Cavalry work, and they can't break him in to it. He's got more sense than any other horse in the troop, but after they punished him a few times, he got to fighting every time a saddle was put on his back." Limber remembered several excellent horses at the Diamond H that had been more unpromising material. When he went back to the ranch after the sale, he led the big sorrel horse, intending to handle it himself. Jamie was in the stable when Limber arrived, and the horse leaned out its graceful neck until its nose touched the child's shoulder. A sudden thought struck Limber. The horse had been used to children, evidently, at some period of its life. "Go get some sugar," said Limber to Bronco, and when he returned, Limber handed a lump of sugar to the child. "See if he will take it from you." Jamie held out the sugar, and Gov'ner, with a little nicker, took it carefully from the boy's hand. After repeating the operation several times, the boy moved slowly away, holding out his hand, and the horse followed him, threading gingerly between the buggies, around the men, and receiving his reward. Traynor and Nell came out to watch them, and Gov'ner condescended to make friends with the woman, also, but flatly refused to accept sugar from any of the men. He plainly showed his preference for the child, and Traynor laughed as he said, "He has no use for any one but you, Jamie. He's your horse from now on; but you must not ride him until Limber says that it will be all right." So for days Gov'ner was educated, gently and kindly, and always with the child near by. At first the boy was placed on the animal's back, while it was led about the barn. After that, Limber, mounted on Peanut, led Gov'ner on the road at a walk, while Jamie talked to the horse or patted the shining neck. Not once was there any indication of fractiousness on the part of Gov'ner. A child's love and kindness had conquered where discipline had failed. Mornings, when the day's work on the range was light, Gov'ner would be led out and the miniature cowboy saddle placed on his back. Neatly coiled and tied to the saddle was a beautifully made riata, the gift of Bronco, who was noted for his skill in making these ropes. When the childish figure appeared, equipped with leather leggings and tiny spurs, there would be a sharp, joyous yelp from Dash, the leader of the greyhound pack, and an answering call as Killem, Catchem, Scrub and Beauty came leaping in delight, knowing there were rabbits and coyotes to chase. Fong shuffled out with a lard-pail slipped into a flour sack, which he carefully tied to the little saddle, with the smiling information, "Clake and clookies." Then Nell kissed the boy good-bye, saying, "Take good care of him, Limber;" and the man, turning in his saddle would reply, "Don't you fret, Mrs. Traynor. We all look out for the Kid." In the evening, the cowpuncher, dwindling to a tiny white-robed figure, crawled into Nell's arms as she sat in front of the big, "comfy" fire-place, to tell her about the baby calves, and how many rabbits had been chased. Once, with shining eyes and flushed cheeks, how "Me and Limber roped a coyote--but we let it go home again to its fambly--'cause I told Limber I knew they would be waiting for it to come." One day Jamie did not come out to Gov'ner's stall, and the horse whinnied in vain. The men went around speaking softly, taking off their spurs to avoid any possible noise on the board floor of the stable, and Doctor Powell never left the bedside of the darkened, quiet room, where he battled for the life of the child they loved so deeply. "You had better take him and Mrs. Traynor to Los Angeles," the doctor advised Traynor. "She is breaking down under the long strain, and in her condition needs care as much as the boy. I will go with you and stay as long as I can be of any assistance." "Do you think there is any hope for him?" asked Traynor. "A child's life is a bit of delicate mechanism," answered Powell, "even when all hope was lost, I have seen wonderful rallies. Not through the skill of a physician, but through some peculiar recuperative power we don't understand, as yet." Traynor wrung the doctor's hand silently. Arrangements for the trip were completed, the trunks and luggage loaded on the heavy wagon had already started for Willcox. As Traynor assisted Nell into the carriage, Gov'ner, poking his head from the box stall, wondering what it was all about, saw Limber carry a limp little figure from the courtyard into the stable. The horse recognized the boy and whinnied joyously. Jamie lifted his head and spoke to Limber, who carried him over to the horse. Gov'ner's nose reached out and the thin little hand stroked it weakly. "Good-bye, Gov'ner," came the faint voice. "Limber will be good to you till I come home. Won't you, Limber?" Limber's face twitched as he answered, "No one shall ride Gov'ner whilst you are gone, Kid." After the carriage disappeared and the men had gone about the various duties of the day, Fong shuffled into the barn and looked around cautiously. Seeing no one, he sneaked into the saddle room and picked up a shiny little lard pail, that had once been used to hold cookies. Clutching it tightly the Chinaman ran swiftly across to the kitchen, and shut the door with a bang. Limber, who had been saddling Peanut, unobserved by Fong, witnessed the incident, and when evening came, the cowboy knew it was not opium that caused the Chinaman's red-rimmed eyelids. Gov'ner was very lonely in the stables and pastures all day when the other horses were busy, and at first he called incessantly. Then finding that it brought no response from the child he loved, he stood patiently watching the door that led into the court. Letters came from Traynor saying that they were winning the battle, and that Jamie would come back to them better than ever before in his life. Then came another letter which Limber read with a choking voice, for Traynor told the boys of the Diamond H that they now had a new Boss, and that the little mother was well, happy, and sent her love to them all. That she said they were "all her boys," and she would not be satisfied until she got back home again and showed them the wonderful baby. Traynor added that Doctor Powell would be home that week, but the rest of them would not return for another month. Fong, on a hunt for eggs, passed through the stable as the letter was finished, and Limber called him to tell him the news. The old Chinaman's eyes filled up with tears that streamed down his face. "Klid he comme home all light; new blaby clommee allee samee. When he clome? I blake a cake!" That night the Mail Order catalogue was the centre of attraction in the bunk-house, and for hours the index and illustrations were scanned in search of a suitable gift for the new Boss. Saddles, spurs, chaps were debated as not quite fit articles for immediate use, as the recipient would be about two months old when he reached the Diamond H. In a quandary they hunted up Fong. The old Chinaman bristled with importance and put on the horn spectacles that made him resemble a reincarnated Confucius. Slowly and critically he squinted at the catalogue, then a "smile that was child-like and bland" expanded his face, while his long-nailed finger pointed triumphantly. "You clatchee him. He all light for blaby." They stared at the illustration, gazed blankly at Fong and then looked again at the book. "What's it for?" demanded Bronco. "No savey? Blimeby--blaby clatchee teeth!" Fong gave a vivid impersonation by chewing the end of a fork which he seized. "I guess that's o.k. so far as it goes," Roarer endorsed, "but we've got to get somethin' else. That's too durned measly." Once again they studied, suggested, rejected, and finally, in the hours approaching dawn, the order sheet was filled out. The articles enumerated ranged from the teething-ring and rattle, a baby buggy, a high chair, silver mug, one pair silver-mounted spurs, one silver-mounted bit, a small-sized saddle, bridle and a gold bracelet "for a lady" that was to be inscribed "from the boys of the Diamond H." A letter explained the circumstances and eventful arrival, and asked if the head of the store would take special care with the order, and pick out a nice bracelet, as they were all cowpunchers and didn't know anything but cows,--perhaps the store-keeper might get his wife to pick out the right sort of bracelet. Two weeks later they received word that their order had been carefully filled, and a handsome, plain gold bracelet inscribed as desired had been forwarded, together with the other articles in their esteemed order. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE The morning that Traynor was due at the ranch with his family, the men and Fong were up long before daybreak. Inside and out, the ranch had been scrutinized mercilessly, to see if everything was in perfect order. Fong's pigtail jerked like an expiring rattlesnake, as he rushed here and there, putting the final touches to a meal which was to be the culinary achievement of his life. When the carriage was finally driven into the stable, the men crowded around, talking and laughing, asking questions but not waiting replies, until Traynor piloted his wife and baby into the house; Jamie lingered with his friends. There was a joyful reunion between the child and the greyhounds which had been shut in the corral. Then, surrounded by the leaping, yelping pack, Jamie and the men turned to Gov'ner's stall. The door was opened by Limber, and they all stood waiting till Jamie called to the horse, "Gov'ner! I'm back home again!" Gov'ner's head flung up alertly, his nostrils distended, his eyes shone; then as he saw the little chap outside the stall the horse whinnied, tossed his head and pranced through the door. The proud head lowered as the horse reached the child, and the lips nipped playfully at Jamie's coat, while the boy laughed in delight, petting the satiny neck, as he said triumphantly, "You see, he didn't forget me while I was away." It was a new Jamie that had come back to them. For sometime Powell had been studying the cause of the boy's retarded recovery, and had finally concluded it was due to other reasons than the tubercular tendency. He had not suggested this to Traynor until consultation with two noted specialists, had confirmed his diagnosis. After the operation which was found necessary, the lad's improvement was astonishing; so when he reached the Diamond H, nothing more was necessary than outdoor life in the high, dry climate and plenty of nourishing food, to make him a normally healthy boy. Traynor joined the boys as they watched the reunion of Gov'ner and the child. Then he asked, "Don't you boys intend to come in and meet the new Boss and his mother? They're expecting you." Without hesitation the men followed him into the living room where the young mother, with the baby on her lap, waited the homage she knew would be accorded freely by these loyal friends. Cautiously they all approached and regarded the small atom of humanity that gazed back at them with serene eyes. "Feel how heavy he is," offered Nell, holding the infant toward them. Each one shrunk back a bit and their eyes shifted to each other. "Take him, Bronco. He won't bite;" laughed Nell. Bronco edged back of Limber, as he replied, "Limber's the foreman. He's got the first throw!" Limber's arms went out, and the little mother laid the child carefully upon them, fussing with the dainty white dress, and smiling down into the baby face against the blue flannel shirt. As she stepped back, she caught a passing expression on Limber's face, and her eyes grew misty. Though he did not know it, she glimpsed Limber's soul in that moment. The baby blinked up, then a quivering, uncertain little smile touched his lips. "Gee! Look at him," ejaculated Bronco. "Say, he's made friends with Limber already. Isn't he the smart little geezer, though?" Gaining courage the rest of the men pressed closer, and Bronco put out a horny finger to touch the pink palm. Like the leaves of a sensitive plant, the fingers curled tightly around the cowboy's digit, then pulled determinedly toward a puckering mouth, while Bronco's eyes opened in consternation. "Say, you don't want to eat me, do you? That ain't a stick of candy!" he pulled gently but firmly until he managed to rescue the threatened finger, and the other men chuckled in unison. "Ain't he got a dandy grip! He'll be able to hang onto a steer when he gets it roped, you bet!" Roarer's squeak asserted. "Smartest baby I ever seen," Holy pronounced oracularly, ignoring the fact that it was the first time in his life he had ever been near a young baby. Fong hovered in the doorway, and as they looked up they saw a cake with gorgeous white icing. It was Fong's only way of expressing his fealty and congratulations. He deposited the cake on the table, and Nell beamed on him. "We'll make baby cut his own cake, Fong!" Then she turned, "Limber, won't you call Allan?" Traynor joined them, and the entire outfit stood in admiration, while Nell held the tiny hand about the big butcher knife and thrust it into the heart of the lacy design of icing. Fong's eyes blinked rapidly, and he kept saying, over and over, "Velly fline blaby! Him velly fline bloy!" Once again Traynor brought champagne, and the glasses were lifted as he gave the toast, "To the Boss of the Diamond H and his mother. God bless them both!" After that Nell got the teething-ring, and when the child grasped and thrust it into its open mouth, the men all grinned. "He sure knows what that is made for," chortled Bronco, "an' that's more'n we knowed till Fong tol' us." They bombarded Nell with questions regarding his weight, how soon he would acquire real teeth, and how long before he would be wearing trousers. They were thirsting for information regarding infantile development, and when Roarer, in an off-hand manner, referred to his "sister's twins in Texas," they looked at him with envious eyes. Roarer did not disclose that said twins were almost as old as himself. He dilated on various events in their careers, which he remembered hearing the aforesaid twins relate themselves. He cudgeled his brain for historic data. The boys were feeling very much at home, when the baby began to squirm uneasily in its mother's arms. Its face screwed up, its eyes squinted and disappeared entirely, and the boys looked anxiously at Nell. "Does he have fits?" inquired Bronco solicitously. "I know its all right for puppies to have 'em, but does babies?" The infant answered for himself with a sneeze, and Nell looked around at the open window. This gave the men an excuse to plead work, and tiptoe from the room. Once in the stable they halted, and Bronco, still seeking information, faced Roarer. "Say, Roarer, did your sister's twins in Texas have fits?" "Sure," answered Roarer cheerfully. "They was so uster havin' 'em that we never paid no attention at all when one come on. It's just like puppies, you know. 'Twouldn't be noways natural if thar wasn't fits--an' fleas. Don't do no hurt. Jest look at all the people that lives to grow up, anyways!" But that night Roarer borrowed the big book, telling "How to be Your Own Doctor," which was the Court of Final Appeal for everything from cooking recipes to getting rid of bedbugs, lawsuits and other worries, together with a complete list of the "ills to which the human flesh is heir," and infallible remedies for all. The men did not know that he was studying assiduously every bit of data obtainable regarding the diseases of infants. They wondered afterwards at Roarer's unfailing supply of information about babies, well or ill; but he ascribed his knowledge entirely to his associations with the Texas Twins. Once more the interrupted routine of ranch life was resumed and Limber divided his time between the Diamond H and the Hot Springs. Though the cowpuncher passed the Circle Cross at intervals he never dismounted. Chappo and Juan kept in touch with each other, and through them Limber and Powell knew that Glendon's wife found life more bearable since the anxiety about Donnie had been removed. Yet she never suspected the part that Doctor Powell and Limber had taken in forcing Glendon's acquiescence to her wishes and plans for the boy. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Unlike most ranches in Arizona, the Diamond H cultivated a number of its fenced fields. Millet, sorghum and other cattle feed was stacked for use of the horses and the thoroughbred bulls during winter, thus insuring first-class condition of this particular stock when the grass started and they were turned out on the open range. This system of Traynor's avoided losing time that would be otherwise required to put his bulls in good breeding condition each spring. During the plowing season, the blacksmith at the Diamond H suddenly decided to leave for parts unknown, between sunset and sunrise. The cowboys were all able to shoe their own ponies, but tires had to be set, tools sharpened, plowpoints kept in shape, pumping machinery needed constant repairing, and a first-class blacksmith was a necessity on the Diamond H. Willcox could not fill the vacancy, and advertisements in Tucson and even Los Angeles papers brought no response. Each of the men on the ranch had done the best he could to fill the void, but all acknowledged ruefully, "it's a durn sight different from jest shoein' a pony." In this emergency Loco, the Mexican who had obtained work at the Diamond H after leaving Walton, announced that he had been a blacksmith in Mexico. "Well, he can't do no worse than the rest of us," Bronco decided, but one day's trial proved Loco was first-class in that work, and so he was transferred from range work to the blacksmith shop with increased pay and additional respect. He was pounding a red-hot iron on the anvil one day, when Traynor sauntering to the entrance of the shop, stood watching him. "How soon will you be ready to start, Loco?" he asked. "In a few minutes I will finish, Señor." "What is it?" Traynor asked idly. Without looking up the Mexican replied; "It is a branding iron, Señor." He skillfully bent the end of the iron, thrust it into a tub of water for a couple of seconds, then withdrew and examined it critically, after which he heated it again. It was a peculiarly shaped iron, and Traynor dropped on a box and looked with interest, as Loco pressed it on a board, leaving a mark covering a space four inches each way. O--O X X "That's an odd brand," said Traynor, picking up the burnt board and scrutinizing it, while the Mexican regarded him closely. "It is my horse brand," explained Loco. "Apache is leg weary and I am going to turn him on the range a while. I bought another horse." "There are plenty good horses in the herd without using your pony, Loco." The Mexican shook his head; "Many thanks, Señor, but I can do better work with my own horse." "Well suit yourself;" Traynor agreed carelessly. "I want you to go with me this morning to Mud Springs, so I can show you where I want the ditch dug and the mill put up." Loco was studying the iron with the smile of an artisan who recognizes a satisfactory piece of work. "I will get the horses, Señor;" he said, and turned to the stable carrying the branding iron in his hand. If Apache, Loco's pony, was leg-weary, it was not very evident as it pranced and danced along the road beside gay little Chinati, whose swift movements had earned his name, "Blackbird." Mud Springs lay twelve miles away from the Diamond H, in the Galiuros toward Hot Springs. The trail through Mud Springs was not often used, as the Box Springs trail, a few miles further north, was more direct and also much easier. It was a wild, desolate place and the spring in a narrow, rocky cañon, so cattle preferred the valley during the grass season. This spring was of great value to the Diamond H and PL ranges, however, giving cattle access to feed in the mountains that otherwise would be too far from water. Traynor, having learned wisdom from the drouth, had decided to build a huge reservoir at the mouth of this cañon for the storage of water that would otherwise be wasted by spreading. He explained the details carefully to Loco, pointing out where the ditch was to be dug to conduct the water to the reservoir site. "I want the wind-mill put up beside the reservoir, like the one at the house. I'll get the boys at work next week; but you can go on with the mill work before then. I am going over to Hot Springs for a few days." "How long did you live in Mexico, Señor?" asked Loco. "I have never been there," answered Traynor, wondering at the question. "Only Americanos who have lived in Mexico speak as you do," persisted Loco. "I learned Spanish at college," replied Traynor. "By Jove! What a shot! It's too far for a pistol!" He was gazing up at a magnificent blacktail deer which stood like a statue on a ledge six hundred feet above them. Its head was thrown back, nostrils dilated, the slender legs were tense and ready for flight as it sniffed the wind. Then with a snort, it whirled and vanished. Traynor had been so absorbed in admiration of the buck that he had momentarily forgotten Loco's presence. The Mexican, fifteen feet in the rear of Traynor had untied the riata which hung on his saddle and coiled it cautiously, watching the other man sharply. With a swift movement he flung the rope about Traynor's body, pinioning his arms firmly. Chinati, feeling the jerk on his bridle, leaped forward and Traynor fell helpless to the ground. The sun was setting when Traynor again became conscious of his surroundings and saw Loco standing over him. "What happened, Loco?" he asked stupidly. "Was I thrown?" Loco made no reply, and as Traynor still dazed from a deep gash on his head, tried to rise, he realized that he was securely bound, hand and foot. The loss of blood made him faint and sick, and his brain seemed incapable of lucid ideas. He had struck his head on a sharp rock in falling from his horse. For a while he lay with closed eyes, then he looked up and saw Loco a short distance away, gathering pieces of dead wood, which he heaped systematically into a pile. Traynor recalled the Mexican's peculiar ways and wondered if the man had suddenly become insane. He knew that if such were the case, the best plan would be to avoid irritating him. Traynor turned his head. The hope that Chinati had gotten away and might give the alarm by returning to the ranch riderless died, when he saw his own pony standing quietly beside Loco's. Then he noticed his pistol glistening a few feet from him, and wondered if he could worm his way to it without attracting Loco's attention. Keeping close watch upon the Mexican, Traynor slowly writhed toward the firearm until he was within a foot of it. By half turning he believed he could grasp the pistol as his hands were tied in front of him. Loco lit the fire, and with a fiendish grin untied the branding iron from his saddle and laid it on the flame. A thrill of sickening fear shot through Traynor as he strained at the rope binding him. One more effort and he would be able to touch the pistol. The Mexican calmly arranged the wood which had fallen, then walked over to Traynor, who closed his eyes, hoping to throw the man off his guard; but Loco, with a malicious leer, picked up the pistol and seated himself on the ground beside his captive. "I saw you, Señor;" he chuckled. "What are you going to do, Loco?" asked Traynor, trying to appear unconcerned. He now understood that he was at the mercy of a maniac, and thought what a fool he had been to forget the many irrational actions of the man, whose name, Loco, should have been warning enough in itself. The loco weed of Arizona and Mexico effects the brains of horses, causing even the most reliable and well-broken animal to develop sudden fits of viciousness. Loco's moodiness, his outbursts of anger, had fastened the nickname on him while he worked for Walton. Loco rolled a cigarette, which he lighted deliberately. "So! You have not been in Mexico, Señor?" he drawled sarcastically. "Never! I have no object in lying typo about it;" said Traynor earnestly. "Why should I deny it?" "Oh, no, Señor! You never knew Ramoncita?" "I never heard of her." Then catching sight of a small crucifix that hung against Loco's breast where the blue flannel shirt fell apart, Traynor looked the man steadily in the eyes, and said slowly, "Hold that crucifix before me, Loco, and I will swear that. I am telling you the truth." The man wavered a second, then laughed cunningly, "A crucifix means nothing to a Gringo, and fear makes liars of all men." "Let me go, and I will give you money to make life easy for you, Loco. You can go back to Mexico to your friends and be happy." The words roused the man to frenzy. He leaped to his feet, murder and insanity stamped on his distorted features. "Go back to Mexico, you Gringo dog? Do you know when I will go back there? When I have killed you, as I swore. You stole her from me. You rode away laughing, and that night she killed herself!" He jerked the crucifix from his breast, and shook it in front of Traynor's face. "You would swear it? On this--? You did not know that I took this Cross from her dead heart! And I swore on it as I knelt beside her coffin, that I would leave my country, my friends, and never rest or return until I had found you, who had made her an outcast. Every one turned from her while she was alive, and when she killed herself, the Church turned from her, and she was buried in unconsecrated ground just outside the Church fence. The Padre said that the Saints and the Holy Angels turn away because she took her own life." His voice rose more shrilly, "You did not think I could find you, but Walton knew you. He saw you with her in Mexico while I was away. Walton knew you, you Gringo dog! You killed her body! You killed her soul! You thought you were safe, but Walton knew you!" "Walton lied to you," Traynor answered furiously, recalling rumours of Walton's threats of retaliation on the Diamond H owner and cowboys. The Mexican, Loco, had been Walton's catspaw. Traynor subsided, groping for some plan to influence the Mexican. "You cannot escape this time!" gloated Loco, circling about Traynor as buzzards circle about their prey. "I swore you should pay." He went to the fire and tested his iron. Then, seeing it was not yet hot enough, he came back and leaned over the prostrate man. "They are waiting patiently, Señor! As patiently as I have waited seven long years." A number of crows rose from the bushes with discordant caws as he waved his arms wildly in the air and cried, "Look!" They soon settled down again, to watch the two men. Higher in the air circled a couple of buzzards, and the faint, quivering yelp of a coyote disturbed the silence. "I shall not kill you, for I want you to live long enough to suffer. I will leave my brand on your face and shall cut your ears as they do the calves. Then I will go back to Mexico to my amigos and say, 'I have kept my oath!' The buzzards and coyotes will keep you company after I have gone, Señor!" With a half-suppressed groan, Traynor thought of his wife. He had told her he would remain a few days at Hot Springs, so there would be no alarm at his absence. Later, when they missed him, a few tattered shreds of clothing and fleshless, scattered bones would tell where the buzzards and coyotes had feasted. Muttering, the Mexican brought the white hot iron from the embers and knelt by Traynor's side. He pulled the crucifix from his bosom, kissed it reverently and replaced it; then he made the sign of the Cross in the air above Traynor's face. His eyes gleamed exultingly as he clutched Traynor's hair and brought the hot iron closer and closer. Traynor could smell and feel the heat, and great beads of anguish broke out as he made a last convulsive effort to free himself of his bonds. It was useless! His muscles relaxed, he closed his eyes, clenched his teeth and waited. Loco was too intent upon his revenge to notice a cowboy racing toward them down the side of the cañon, until a wild yell woke the echo of the rocky walls. The Mexican looked up and recognized Limber. Fearful of being thwarted in his revenge, Loco stooped quickly over Traynor and lowered the iron deliberately while a fiendish smile distorted his face, and a sibilant hiss, like a rattlesnake about to strike, sounded between the gleaming teeth. Traynor, too, had heard the yell, but he had no hope that Limber would reach him in time. His eyes looked into Loco's. The iron almost touched Traynor's flesh, the grip of the Mexican's hand that clutched his victim's hair, was so tense that Traynor could feel the quivering nerves. A shot rang out. A look of surprise flashed over Loco's face, the iron slid from his hand, but Traynor jerked suddenly so that it fell against the ground, while Loco crumpled slowly across the body of the other man. Weak with reaction Traynor became unconscious once more, and when he opened his eyes, Limber had slipped his arms under Traynor's shoulders and held a flask to the white lips of the rancher. "Drink it," commanded the cowpuncher, who was now, trembling with nervousness. "That was a mighty close call. Did he hurt you any?" "I'll be all right in a few minutes," answered Traynor, as Limber cut the rope and assisted him to his feet. The tight coils had made his body numb and the cut on his head was an ugly one. Traynor was no coward, but he felt a spasm of nausea as he looked at the iron which was now turning from white heat to dull red. "Better let me fix that cut," suggested Limber. He helped Traynor to the spring, and washed the ugly wound as tenderly as a woman, then he bound it with Traynor's white silk handkerchief as he listened to the explanation of what happened. "It's a lucky thing for Walton he ain't in the Territory," said the cowboy tersely. "You can't blame the Greaser for believin' Walton's lies. He's been off his cabeza a long time and everybody knowed it; but Loco wouldn't of hurt nobody if Walton hadn't put him up to it. We wondered why Walton was so all-fired rushed to catch that train, and had figgered out it was because Billy Saunders ordered him to quit the country. It's Walton oughter be layin' there instead of Loco." The two men moved to the side of the dead Mexican, and as they stood looking down at him, Traynor recalled Loco's words, "and she was buried in unconsecrated ground, just outside the Church fence, and the Padre said the Saints and Holy Angels turn away because she took her own life." The little crucifix dangling from the cord on Loco's neck had slipped from the half-open shirt. Traynor knelt down and placed it on the dead man's breast, then lifted the limp hands and laid them above the crucifix. Limber took off his coat and covered the Mexican's face. "I'll send a wagon from the ranch," said Traynor. "It's a mighty lucky thing for me that you happened across here today. I was on my way to the Springs to see you about a letter I had from Doctor Powell." "I was workin' on the Divide, when I seen you and Loco comin' this way; but I was busy with some cattle and didn't pay much attention. When I got through and rid up on the Divide I seen Loco with the two horses and you layin' on the ground. I thought mebbe you'd been throwed till I got near enough to see what he was up to. I had to shoot him. Thar wasn't nothin' else to do." Traynor laid his hand on the cowboy's shoulder, looking at him earnestly, "I owe you a debt that can never be paid, Limber." The cowboy flushed with embarrassment. "You ain't got no call to thank me, Mr. Traynor. Peanut done it, not me. He just busted hisself gettin' here in time. I never seen him run so fast. Looked like he knowed it was up to him and he done it." "Peanut can't have all the credit," responded Traynor. Then he drew a letter from his pocket. "Doctor Powell has written me that he would like to make you his partner in the P L ranch and cattle, provided it would not interfere with my plans." Limber looked up in open surprise. "I ain't got enough to pay for 'em" he said. "I only saved up nine hundred dollars, all told." "Well, Powell says if you won't accept half interest, he will close out his cattle entirely. The Sanitarium will take all his time and attention, and he wanted you to handle the stock for him. I wrote him I would be glad to see you two in partnership." The cowboy stared at the ground. "I don't say that I wouldn't be glad to take the chanct, because I've been savin' up hopin' some day I could buy a bunch of stock; but I can't let him give it to me. I can't owe no man, Mr. Traynor." "Neither can I, Limber," was the quick retort. "The debt I owe you can never be paid; but I can pay part of the interest due on it. Let me buy the half-interest for you from Powell." Limber shook his head slowly. "I don't want you to think I'm mulish, or that I don't appreciate what you and Doctor Powell is offerin' me, but I just can't do it." "Then, let me make it a straight business deal, as if we were all strangers. Give me your note and pay when you feel able. Surely you can't make any objection to that?" Limber took the proffered hand, "If you make the note out reg'lar, just as if it was some one else," he stipulated. Traynor smiled broadly, "All right, Limber. That's a go. I'll write Powell about it. Now, I'll hurry down to the ranch and send one of the boys with the wagon." Peanut looked up as Chinati galloped away with Traynor, but seeing Loco's horse, Apache, tethered to a bush, and that Limber was sitting quietly not far away, the gallant little pony fell contentedly to cropping the grass. Limber rose, loosened the cinch and removed the saddle and blanket from Peanut's lathered back which he rubbed with a wisp of grass. He stroked the pony's nose absently and looked with pity at the dead Mexican. "Dern that Walton! The cards was sure stacked against you, Loco. I'm sorry I had to do it." CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE In spite of the general impression of frontier lawlessness that prevailed during the 'eighties', Arizona had probably as clean a moral standard as many of the Eastern States which considered themselves far in advance of the unsettled country. Though men 'packed' guns, and personal affronts were settled out of Court, Arizona could brag that any good woman was protected by every man in the Territory. So, when the Southern Pacific train was held up west of Willcox, the community was as much surprised and shocked as any more conventional town might be. Seventy thousand dollars were taken from the express car by the robbers, and no definite clue to their identity or whereabouts could be discovered. The railroad people, believing the first success would encourage others, secretly armed all express messengers with sawed-off shotguns, heavily loaded with buckshot, the most deadly weapon known for short-range work. These precautions were justified six months later, when the regular west-bound train was nearing Cochise, a little place twelve miles west of Willcox. The engineer, observing a danger signal, slowed down and finally stopped. As the track was treacherous at that point during rainy weather, he had no suspicions. Frequent washouts occurred in the sandy roadbed. The track-walker approached, swinging his lighted lantern. "What's the trouble?" asked the engineer, as he and the fireman leaned over the side of the engine, staring through the darkness. "Track's soft. You'll have to go slow for about a quarter of a mile," was the reply. "They wired to Willcox from Cochise but you had left on time. Hold on a minute and I'll ride back with you." "All right," answered the engineer, then as the man swung on the cab, "You're a new man?" "Yes. Just went to work this week. I was on the Santa Fe before I came down here," he drew a pipe from his pocket, filled and lighted it as the engineer turned to start the engine. The fireman had returned to the rear of the cab and set to work shovelling coal. "Hands up!" Two armed, masked men confronted the engineer and the fireman faced three others. There was no alternative except to obey. The train was made up of an engine, express car, three Pullmans and two day coaches; the express, as usual, being directly back of the engine and coal car. Three of the bandits guarded the fireman and engineer, the other two running back a short distance. As the brakeman approached to ascertain the trouble, he was met and commanded to uncouple the express car and engine from the rest of the train. Then, having complied under protest, he was compelled to join the other two men who were under guard. "Pull ahead till we tell you to stop," was the order, and the engine puffed on its way, leaving the passengers and conductors to discover their predicament later. Four miles from Cochise, in a spot where there was no human habitation, the engineer was forced to halt. Three robbers remained on guard while the other two went to the express car and knocked sharply on the door. "What is it?" the messenger demanded. "Open the door!" There was no reply. "Open the door, and we won't hurt you;" called the robber a second time. Again there was absolute silence. "We'll give you one minute to open that door, or we'll blow you and the car to Hell!" The man inside the car knew there was nothing to be gained by delay. "All right," he called. "I'll open it, boys." There was slipping of bolts and creaking of wood. The door opened slowly about two inches. Three-fingered Jack standing close to it, jumped backward and thrust the barrel of his pistol through the aperture. A flash, a scream of agony, and the door closed with a bang. The messenger stood with blood streaming from his right arm, the sawed-off shot gun smoking at his feet; but as he slipped unconscious to the floor, he knew one of the robbers was badly hurt. Outside, the men surrounded Three-fingered Jack, who had torn the red handkerchief from his face. Blood poured from a gaping wound in his side. His comrades eased him to the ground, then turned their attention to the express car. This time it would be short work--dynamite. "Hurry!" urged the leader. They moved to obey; but stopped with oaths. Down the track from Cochise shone the headlight of an engine. They knew there was no other passenger train due either way at that hour; but they could not count on freights or specials. The railroad officials had given instructions that each train-despatcher keep close watch on the time between stations, and if any train were late to wire at once to the last station; then, unless satisfied, rush out an extra engine, or pusher, with armed men. These men, seeing the headlight of the stalled engine, were ready for action as the 'pusher' raced forward at full speed. The robbers, realizing that flight was imperative, ran to the horses they had left tied in the brush, only pausing long enough to seize their wounded comrade. They boosted him roughly to a pony, leading it by the reins while Jack clung moaning to the horn of the saddle. Each movement was excruciating agony, as they rode madly through the mesquite brush in the darkness. The rescue party found the unconscious messenger, and the kidnapped engine and express car were backed to the rest of the train, while the pusher raced to Cochise for a posse and horses to trail the robbers. It did not take very long to load armed men and saddled ponies into an empty box-car at Cochise, and in record-breaking time the little special again reached the hold-up. While they were unloading their ponies, the belated passenger train, carrying its excited passengers, its untouched express car and the wounded man, rattled past the posse. The engineer leaned from his cab, waved a grimy hand and sounded a long-drawn whistle. Out in the darkness, the fleeing outlaws heard and knew what it meant. Their progress had been impeded by the condition of Jack, and each movement of his pony brought groans and curses. The leader halted. "It's him, or all of us," he said, and the rest agreed. "We're sorry. Jack, but it can't be helped. We've got to leave you behind." The wounded man cursed them for cowards and traitors; but fell limp as they helped him to the ground and made him as comfortable as possible. Then they rode away, carrying his pistol with them, for they would need it worse than Jack. His curses followed them. The darkness made it impossible for the posse to strike the trail until dawn, but no time was lost after that. Whether the robbers had some definite plan, or had become too demoralized at their surprise, puzzled the trailers; for the riders had kept together instead of scattering in order to make pursuit more difficult. The work of following was made easy by the softened condition of the country from recent rain, and occasionally a splatter of blood on a stone proved that the messenger was justified in his assertion that he had wounded one of the outlaws. Five miles from the railroad track they found Three-fingered Jack at the point of death. He lay gasping, and watched them approach until they stood looking down on him. A sardonic smile twisted his features. He would have his revenge on the men who had deserted him. With curses and vituperation he told the names of those who had fled to save themselves--then added names of others in the band. Several names mentioned were not unexpected, as they were men known to be ready for any crime; but no one was prepared to hear him accuse Jim Glendon and Alpaugh, who was the constable of Willcox and Deputy Sheriff of Cochise County. Tom Graham, the constable of Cochise and leader of the posse, leaned down and said, "What was that? Did you say Alpaugh and Glendon?" Jack saw the incredulity on the faces above him. Quietly, but with rasping voice, he replied, "I said Glendon and Alpaugh. I'm making this statement before I die, and I want you all to witness what I say. They didn't play square with me;--they even took my pistol so I couldn't shoot myself. Glen and Alpaugh were staying home to prove an alibi--We were to go to Glendon's after the job was done--give the money--to him--till row was over." His eyes closed. The men thought he was dead, but he gathered his ebbing strength once more. "We were to share--and--quit the country--" Blood choked his utterance; his head sank back and the jaws relaxed. The group looked at him, then glanced at each other dubiously. The accusation against Alpaugh astonished them. He was acknowledged a good officer, sober, fearless and apparently worthy of the confidence the community placed in him while Glendon, though known to drink heavily and be aggressive in his cups, had never been considered criminal in his tendencies. But, Jack's statement, made in full consciousness that he was dying, and with apparently clear mind, was damning evidence. Slowly the posse returned to the track, carrying the dead man across a saddle-horse, while the original rider sat behind, balancing the limp form. When they reached the railroad the body was placed on the floor of the caboose and the engine started to Willcox. Rumours of the hold-up drew a curious crowd to the depot and questions were asked eagerly; but no information was vouchsafed for fear of alarming those implicated. Limber was crossing the street of Willcox when Graham saw him, and taking him aside, said, "I want to swear you in as deputy, Limber, and may need you several days. I want men who can hold their tongues and be relied upon. We're up against a well-organized bunch." The cowboy listened to Graham's concise statement of the hold-up and Three-fingered Jack's death; but was not told of the accusation regarding Alpaugh and Glendon. "I'm ready any time you want me," was Limber's assertion. "Might as well come with me now." "Which way you goin' first?" "Alpaugh's house." Believing that the constable of Cochise intended to co-operate with Alpaugh, the Willcox constable, Limber strode beside big Tom Graham, though neither of them again spoke. When they reached the neat little cottage where Alpaugh and his wife resided, the constable was sitting on the porch smoking, and came down the steps to meet them. "Hear you had a lively time out your way last night, Tom," he commented. "I was ready to go out and join the chase but as it was in your section and you did not wire for help, supposed you did not need me. Catch your men?" "One of 'em. The others had a good start; but a strong posse with relay horses is trailing them. Three-fingered Jack is dead." Graham watched the effect of his information. Alpaugh started, but recovered himself. "Dead? Was he one of them? Well, you know he's always had a fishy reputation." "He was wounded by the express messenger. Lived long enough to make a full confession." "Who?" asked Alpaugh, trying to appear unconcerned. "Hold up your hands, Dick. Don't make trouble. I've got to arrest you." Limber controlled his amazement, and in obedience to a nod from Graham, removed the pistol from Alpaugh's hip pocket. Then Graham told his prisoner he might put down his hands. The constable laughed in amusement. "Well, I might get mad if it wasn't all so darned foolish. I can't figure out whether you are off your cabeza, Tom, or if it was Three-fingered Jack trying to get back at me because I arrested him once." His voice dropped and his face grew serious. "I don't want my wife to know this. It's all a big mistake and you'll find it out later on; but I don't want her to worry. You've got to do your duty, Tom, so I haven't any hard feelings against you or Limber. I'd like to make an excuse to Jennie about going away, if you don't mind." "All right. Don't stir up trouble, Dick; that's all," warned Graham. "It's too silly to make any row over," Alpaugh answered with open contempt as he walked to the hall door and called to his wife, "I've got to go out of town at once, Jennie. Graham wants me. There's been a hold-up near Cochise. Don't get worried if I'm gone several days. I won't need any war-bag. Be back as soon as I can make it." Mrs. Alpaugh was a plump, quick body, with brown eyes, brown skin, smooth brown hair and alert way of cocking her head on one side, much like an impudent sparrow. She came on the porch and smiled at them. "I might as well be an old maid," she pouted. "Dick is away nearly all the time, lately." "Good-bye, Jennie," interrupted her husband, fearing she might innocently complicate matters. "Don't let the train-robbers catch you all," she laughed as they headed across the street, where Alpaugh was taken to a room in the hotel, to be held in custody until the Sheriff from Tombstone, the County seat, should arrive. Limber and Graham walked together from the hotel. "Got to get our horses," said the officer. At the Cowboy's Rest they were joined by other men who were waiting. Limber flung the saddle on Peanut, adjusted the headstall of the bridle and mounted. Out on the street Graham rode up to him, and Limber's eyes met his. "Who else, Tom?" "Glendon," was the reply. The cowboy twisted quickly in his saddle, his face filled with consternation. "How did he get in?" "Don't ask me," was the moody answer. "Three-fingered Jack made a dying statement and accused them both; so I've got to arrest him. 'Tain't a pleasant job when you've known the men for years and have slept with them, shared chuck and worked together. It's bad enough mess when there ain't any women, but Alpaugh and Glendon have decent wives. What business has a man with a family getting into such a mess, anyhow?" he growled, voicing the thoughts of the man who rode beside him. Limber wished heartily that Powell were home at the Springs, now. In imagination he pictured Glendon's wife alone at the Circle Cross with only Juan and the dog to sympathize with her in this new trial; he regretted that Graham had selected him as one of the posse, but it could not be helped now. It was a very quiet quartette which rode up to the gate of the Circle Cross. Glendon came down the front walk. "Hello, boys! Off on a hunting trip?" he asked affably. "Get down and have a drink." "We're after you, Jim," said Graham bluntly. "Three-fingered Jack split on the gang." Glendon started in surprise. "What the Dickens are you talking about. What have I to do with Three-fingered Jack? You must be joking!" He regarded them so frankly that they wondered uncomfortably whether the dead man had told the tale in spite, as Glendon hastened to suggest. "I had trouble with Jack over two months ago, and I suppose this is his way of getting even with me." "He said you were with them on the first hold-up, and that they were to bring the loot to you this time for you to take care of for them. I guess it's up to you to go quietly, Jim. We don't go much on what he said, but we can't help ourselves." "It's a fine proposition when a man stays home and minds his own business, then finds he's accused of being mixed in a thing like this," Glendon spoke indignantly. "I bet Three-fingered Jack won't repeat that story to my face." "No he won't, Jim;" returned Graham quietly. "He's dead. He made his statement when he knew he was dying, and called the posse to witness what he said. He shot the express messenger;--got a load of buckshot himself." Glendon shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "Oh, well, I suppose I've got to go, but you're on the wrong trail this time, boys. I haven't been away from home for over a month, as my wife can tell you." He turned toward the house as though to call for corroboration. "No use dragging Mrs. Glendon into it," said Limber, quickly. "I guess you can get other witnesses outside of her, if you need 'em Jim. It ain't the sort of thing for any woman to be mixed up in, and we don't want to make it harder for her than we have to." The others nodded approvingly; but Glendon's eyes narrowed and he faced Limber in sudden fury. "Look here, Limber, you're an old friend, but don't presume too far. I'm not as big a fool as you think I am. You mind your own business, damn you! What's my wife to you anyhow? You and Powell have butted in a good bit in my family affairs!" Limber's face was white; his right hand flashed to his pistol, then fell away. His eyes stared in dumb misery toward the house. The other men saw Katherine Glendon standing in the doorway. Every head was bared instantly. She understood that something was wrong, and an expression of dread darkened her eyes as she moved to her husband's side. "What is it, Jim?" she asked. Glendon kicked the gravel but no one answered. Then as her eyes moved from face to face, she recognized Limber. "What is wrong, Limber?" The cowpuncher kept his eyes on the horn of his saddle. He would have shot Glendon for the insult passed, but he could not force himself to tell Glendon's wife their mission. Graham cursed inwardly. Glendon's lips wore an ugly smile, and he refused to speak. "The train was robbed again last night, Mrs. Glendon," explained Graham, at last. "Three-fingered Jack was killed. He made a statement accusing Glendon and Alpaugh. We're all friends of Glendon's and don't believe the story was true; but we have to take him back with us. We can't help ourselves." Katherine held tightly to the picket fence while the man was speaking. "You are making a terrible mistake," she cried in relief. "He has not been away from home for over a month." "He told us that," was the answer, "and we're glad of it, too." She turned to her husband, her hand rested on his arm. "Jim, tell me you are innocent, and I will believe in you in spite of everything," she implored. He glanced suspiciously at the men. "You forget, Katherine, these men will be witnesses to every word I speak." "We will ride off a bit, Glendon, but we've got to watch you," replied Graham. Following the constable, the rest rode out of earshot, leaving husband and wife practically alone. "Are you mixed up in it, Jim?" "No;" he replied boldly, trying to look her in the eyes. As his glance wavered, she knew that he was lying, and he knew that she read his guilt. The knowledge roused his resentment. "Jim, be honest with me," she begged earnestly. "Trust me. No matter what has happened--what you may have done, you are my husband and I will stand by you. Tell me the truth." "There is nothing to go into hysterics over," he retorted. "You know as much about the affair as I do. You know I have not been away from home for a month. If you want to help me, as you pretend you do, that statement from you will counteract anything Jack may have said. I don't know whether your testimony would even be admitted as evidence." "I could say that truthfully," she answered; "and, oh, Jim! I am so thankful." "I know you have already accused, tried and sentenced me as guilty," he shrugged his shoulders and walked over to the men. "I'll be ready as soon as I can saddle up." Katherine stood by the gate, numb with the shock, and as the men rode past, they touched their hats. She only saw the careless nod that her husband gave her, and he rode away, chatting with the men. Motionless Glendon's wife watched the last trace of the dust-cloud from the horses' hoofs, then, she turned with dragging steps into the house. A few days later, she learned through Juan, who had been to see Chappo, that the posse had caught up with the fleeing bandits near the Mexican border. Their surrender was effected after the ponies of the outlaws had been shot from under them. Downing, Burks, Wentz and two brothers, named Rowan, constituted the remainder of the band. They, together with Alpaugh and Glendon, were taken to the County jail at Tombstone to await their trial. Then a note from Glendon reached Katherine. He wanted her to come to Tombstone at once and stay there until the trial was over. So, leaving Juan in full charge, she obeyed the wishes of the man she had married. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX When the trial took place, the fact that Alpaugh and Glendon had been in their homes, and there being no proof of their actual connection with the attempted robbery, merely the unsupported statement of Three-fingered Jack, augured their complete vindication. As the case was about to be closed, a bomb was thrown by the prosecuting attorney, who asked to have Wentz put on the stand as a witness for the Prosecution. Alpaugh and Glendon, with their attorneys were not prepared for Wentz' evidence which corroborated the story of Three-fingered Jack. Assured of a very light sentence, or possible freedom, as result of his turning State's evidence, Wentz made a complete confession of his part in the matter, and the convincing details remained unshaken by the most severe cross-examination by the lawyers for the defence. Alpaugh and Glendon, as the testimony progressed exchanged glances of consternation, and the confusion of their attorneys was apparent not only to Judge and jury, but also to casual spectators who had no knowledge of the twists of legal procedure. The jury was out but a short time, and the verdict of "Guilty" was no surprise to any one who was in the Court room. A few days later Glendon and Alpaugh, together with all the others implicated, were sentenced to ten years in the Yuma Penitentiary. Public sentiment approved of the verdict, but many sympathizing eyes turned on Katherine Glendon, who sat white-faced, at the back of the Court room. She had remained in Tombstone during the entire time of the trial, and like many others, believed Glendon and Alpaugh the victims of spite on the part of Three-fingered Jack. To her, the unexpected development was crushing. In her heart she felt it was the truth, although her husband persisted in declaring his and the constable's innocence. Her own testimony had been brief and convincing, but in no way conflicted with the minute circumstances stated by Wentz regarding Glendon's activities. In fact, it only served to prove that Glendon had planned a perfect alibi with his wife as an innocent accomplice. Immediately after the conviction, Wentz was given his liberty as promised. With his first appearance a few hours later on the streets of Tombstone, the open threats of friends of the convicted men, caused him to hasten back to the County jail and ask its protection until he could arrange to get away from Arizona safely. The warden allowed him the privilege, but was not enthusiastic over it, as he said, "Well, Wentz, you're in a fine mess, now. I wouldn't change places with you for a lot! You're out a job, busted, got no friends and have to quit the country. Derned if I haven't got more respect for those fellows in the cells!" Wentz made no reply, but slumped down in a chair, trying to figure some way out of his dilemma, and the warden, lighting a cigar, continued grimly, "You're in the same fix as the feller that sawed the limb off the tree, while he was sitting on the end of the limb." The other man scowled, but held his tongue. This was his only place of refuge at present. Even those who had no sympathy for the outlaws had still less use for the man who had betrayed them. The warden rose with a smile as Katherine Glendon entered the room. She had come to see her husband. Wentz' head dropped until he heard their retreating steps in the corridor. "Is there anything I can do?" Katherine asked almost hopelessly, as she sat in the cell talking to Glendon when they were alone. "Go home," commanded Glendon. "There's no use hanging around here any more. Forbes, our lawyer, says that the railroad company stretched a point in having the indictment read 'interfering with the United States mail.' No one touched the mail car. The railroad company never could have won, and that's why they made it a Federal case. It was a put up job all around, and Wentz stood in with the railroad people to get us." "Why should Three-fingered Jack have accused you?" she uttered a thought that had puzzled her. "Well, you see I had a row with him in Willcox the last time I was in there," Glendon replied glibly, then hurried to add, "Now, see here, Katherine, you've got a chance to help me, and no one else can do it. Will you stand by me? I swear that if I get out of this trouble you will have no further cause to reproach me. I have done a few decent things since I married you. Not many, but can't you remember that I let you keep Donnie instead of sending him to father, as I had a legal right to do?" "Yes, Jim! I will never forget it! But even without that, I would do my utmost to help you, because you are the father of my boy." "You're a brick, Katherine! Now, see here, I want you to circulate a petition for my pardon, after the first excitement has died down and I have shown myself a model prisoner. You will have to get a certain number of names, as the petition has to go to Washington, because it was a Federal case. The Governor of the Territory has no jurisdiction over it. You won't refuse to do this for me, will you? Every one is against me now, and if you fail me, I shall take advantage of the first opportunity to kill myself." "Jim, have I ever failed you yet?" she asked simply. "No; you've been a long way too good for me," he answered, "and if I can get this squared, I'll show you how I appreciate you and what you have done." Despite his promises, she left the jail with a heavy heart, knowing his weak and vacillating character, and feeling that his protestations were not to be reckoned seriously. But, she also knew that when the time came, she would help in any way she was able. So husband and wife parted, and the woman returned to the Circle Cross ranch the following day. Juan and Tatters met her with delight. The old Mexican hovered about her in dumb sympathy. A letter from Donnie was full of his childish interests. The touch of the badly scrawled pages comforted her as though the child's hands were laid on her own. A feeling of thanksgiving surged over her, that the boy was away where no knowledge of the shadow in their home could cloud his eyes. When the Mexican stood in the door of the kitchen, saying in his liquid, native tongue, "Buenos noches, Señora" (Good night), she remembered that she could not keep the man, there was so little money left now. Gently she explained the situation to Juan. The bewildered expression on his face suddenly changed to eagerness. "Señora, I have saved up money. Eet is for both of us. Some day--mañana--you pay me back." "I cannot use your money, Juan." Her voice told how the offer touched her. "I must look out for the cattle myself, there is not enough to pay you wages." "You have frijoles, no?" demanded Juan. "Eet is enough. I stay!" The matter was ended by Juan hurrying from the room before she could protest further. Each time during the following days when Katherine broached the subject, Juan evaded the issue by having important work, and Katherine unable to do otherwise, let their lives settle in a routine that promised to stretch into years. She made one more trip to Tombstone after the sentence had been passed. Glendon instructed her about circulating the petition, but bade her wait until four or five months after he had begun serving his term. She left him in his cell, carrying with her an undefinable impression of a man whom she did not know; for already she sensed a subtle change. The day before the convicted men were to be transported to the penitentiary, Glendon lay on his bunk in his cell, wondering whether his plans would fail or succeed. He was playing for high stakes; to lose meant forfeiting his life. Panchita had called at the jail several times since the trial, ostensibly to sell tamales to the prisoners and their guards. In no way had the Mexican girl been identified with the train-robbers, so her actions created no suspicion. She managed to let Glendon understand that she was ready to co-operate in any plans he might make. He had given up his original idea of hoping to win a pardon, which if obtained, would only mean being financially penniless, and branded as a felon. The more he thought of the alternative, the more alluring it became. Panchita had told him that the money from the first train hold-up, was safely sewn in a bustle made of newspapers which she wore constantly. She had whispered this while he pretended to joke and dicker for tamales. Tonight, there would be little steel saw-blades in the tamales she was to bring for his supper. In order to disarm any suspicion, she had laughingly promised to bring tamales for all of them, because they were going on their long journey the next morning. The warden had given consent, especially as she had promised double allowance for him so that he could take them home to his wife. Glendon knew that once he possessed those tiny saws, he could cut the bars of his cell before morning. Panchita would be waiting with a pony, and later she would follow to Mexico where they would meet. He had no fear of her failing him, knowing her insane jealousy of his wife. He rose and paced the floor nervously, as the afternoon waned. Five o'clock passed--half-past five--then the clock in the sheriff's room struck six. The jailer passed the barred door. "Say," called Glendon, "hasn't that tamale girl been around yet? She promised to give us all a tamale supper tonight, you know. Celebrating our journey." "She's dead," answered the jailer, stopping at the door. "The place where she was staying caught fire last night. It was a frame shack, and the rest all got out except her. She wasn't burnt but smothered in the smoke." "That's tough luck," said Glendon, trying to appear careless. "Was it much of a fire?" "No, they got it out in half an hour." "Was she living with her folks?" Glendon was striving not to betray his disappointment and anxiety, but he felt like springing at the jailer and choking the truth from his lips. Panchita was dead--but where was the money? "She boarded with a Mexican family, and they didn't know anything except she came here lately and sold tamales. She was making tamales last night just before they all went to bed." "Who takes charge of the body and property in such cases?" "Oh, the County buries them and burns up their old duds. These Mex women never have nothing! Funny thing, though, about that," he paused to coax a cigar that failed to draw properly. "Gosh! That's a rank cigar!" he ejaculated taking it from his mouth and regarding it in disgust, while Glendon's fingers twitched. "I gave two bits for it, too." "You were saying something about the tamale girl's duds. What was the joke?" "Oh, yes"; the jailer resumed, laughing. "You see, there is a Mexican woman that lives in the same shack and she works for my wife. Does washing. She had some of our clothes there and so came up to explain that she couldn't get them done up on time. She told my wife all about the fire, and that the girl had only an old dress and a black shawl, but a fine pair of high-heeled slippers and silk stockings, and--ha! ha! ha! a bustle made out of newspapers. Can you beat that? Got to be in style, someway." Glendon's eyes flickered and he caught his breath quickly. "Funny combination, wasn't it? But all women folks are alike. If one of them rigs up so she has a hump on her back like a camel, all the others break their necks fixing up humps. If they were born that way, it would keep the doctors busy operating to get rid of 'em." Glendon stretched his face in an effort to smile, but the muscles were almost rigid. "Well," continued the narrator, enjoying his own story, "after the body was taken away, this old washwoman and another one started to clean up the place, and picking around they found the things. They got to scrapping over the stockings and shoes, that was too small for either of them to wear. But they never let up till they had 'em tore to pieces. The old woman was crying when she told about it. My wife almost had hysterics when she told me the story." Glendon pretended to enjoy the joke hugely. Then after a short period, he asked, "But what did they do with the bustle? Who got that souvenir?" "Oh, they burnt that up. It was just old newspapers. Nobody wanted that. My wife asked about it, because she thought the old woman might be wearing it herself. So that's why none of us got our tamales tonight!" the man concluded as he moved away from the cell door. Glendon threw himself on the bunk, cursing his ill-luck. "Seventy thousand gone up in smoke!" he muttered, never giving a thought to the girl who had risked everything for his sake. His only regret was that her inopportune death interfered with his plans for escape. His former passion for the woman turned to resentment. "Paddy's money is safe," he meditated as he lay staring at the wall. "If I could only get out!" His last hope lay in the slim possibility that Katherine might be able to obtain a pardon for him, then he could get Paddy's money and go to South America. But such a pardon would take months to accomplish. Glendon got up and walked the length of his cell, kicking the wall when he reached the end of the room. Curses rose to his lips. The wall in front of him reminded him of the grim grey walls of the Arizona Penitentiary, and he felt that if he could only get Wentz by the throat and choke him slowly to death, he would be willing to go to the Penitentiary for life. But--Wentz was free. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN Wentz, hovering in the corridor of the Tombstone jail, had overheard the conversation between the jailer and Glendon. With knowledge of Panchita's death, Wentz realized that his own plans were in chaos. Glendon's nonchalant attitude at the news confirmed Wentz's belief that Glendon knew where the money had been concealed by the Mexican girl. "If Glendon were free," Wentz muttered, "he would probably get the money at the first opportunity. There may be a chance after all." Deep in thought, he returned to the room where the jailer waited for the deputy to relieve him that he might go home to supper. Wentz picked up a newspaper and began to read. The deputy entered the room, and nodded to the jailer, who exchanged a few casual words with him and departed. Wentz had greeted the new-comer, but a curt nod had been the only response. The curse of Judas was upon Wentz. Since the trial none of the men he had betrayed would speak to him, and their eyes were threatening. Other men in the jail, officials as well as prisoners, held him in open contempt. Outside were those who made dire threats of vengeance. Wentz envied his former comrades and began to feel that he would rather share their punishment than face his own black future. He was without money. No place in Arizona would harbour a traitor; no man would trust him or hold out a hand in comradeship. The railroad would give him work, so he would not starve, but life would be unbearable. If he made his way to another section, it would mean without a cent in his pocket, no credit, no work. If he could only find where that undivided money from the first hold-up had been hidden, then he could laugh at them all. The deputy had picked up a book. Yawning and stretching, Wentz dropped his paper, then rising slowly walked along the corridor. He reached Glendon's cell, paused and called, "Hello, Glen!" The figure on the bunk turned heavily, and Glendon's bloodshot eyes glared in fury at his former comrade. He uttered no word. With a peculiar expression Wentz returned to the office. The deputy glanced up carelessly, and resumed his reading. Wentz passed back of him and, with a swift movement, snatched the man's pistol from the holster that hung on his hip, and struck him a stunning blow on the head. The deputy dropped to the floor. Tying and gagging him, Wentz secured the keys, then ran rapidly along the corridor, unlocking the door of each cell until he reached Glendon's. "Get up, Glen! Hurry!" Already the escaping prisoners, including Alpaugh and the other train-robbers, were rushing past. Glendon leaped to his feet bewildered. "You--" "Don't waste time, you fool! Some one may come!" said Wentz, pulling Glendon through the door and keeping close at his heels as they reached the street, having stopped only to pick up guns and cartridges in the room where the deputy, now conscious but helpless, watched the procession of escaping prisoners. A number of cowponies were tied to the hitching-posts in the streets, as is usual, while their owners were about town, or eating supper. These were hastily mounted by the outlaws. The presence of a number of horsemen galloping through the streets of Tombstone was too common a sight at the County seat to cause curiosity or comment. The escaping prisoners broke into small groups and left town in different directions, to avoid any suspicion. The fugitives had another advantage in the unusual darkness, not only because of the hour, but, also, of the gathering black clouds that presaged a storm at any moment. So, even those who might have recognized the men in the daytime, would be apt to pass them without a second glance in the dim light. When the jailer returned from supper an hour later and discovered what had happened, a posse was formed without delay. It divided into several parties, that all roads might be covered as soon as possible; otherwise the darkness and approaching storm would make pursuit practically impossible until morning. By that time any trail made by the horses of the fleeing men, would be completely obliterated, should it rain. The band headed by the furious deputy who had been the victim of the treachery, finally caught sight of Wentz and Glendon, who were keeping together; and a rapid-fire duel began between the pursuers and prisoners. The gait of the horses, the uncertain light, and the intervening rocks about the outlying district of Tombstone, all favoured the fugitives. A bullet brought down the horse Wentz was riding, pinning the man under it as it fell. He struggled desperately to free himself. Seeing capture was inevitable, the traitor lifted his pistol to his own head--and the posse saw a flash. Glendon, in advance of Wentz, heard the shot and looked back. Then something struck his leg and he felt the blood oozing down into his boot. Rather than give up now, he determined to follow Wentz' example and use a bullet on himself. Ahead of him rose huge boulders, looming like gigantic tombstones. Once he could attain their shelter, it would be almost impossible for the posse to catch him, or to take accurate aim. The horse he was riding responded to the hammering of the man's heels--he had no whip or spurs. At last he reached the shelter of the rocks and darted in circles from one to the other, keeping them between himself and any chance bullets. By degrees, the sounds of shots died away, the voices of his pursuers ceased. He knew he had outwitted them for the night; but there was no time to lose before dawn. When he had pressed on a couple of miles, he pulled up his horse and slipped to the ground, laying his ear against the wet earth while he listened intently. But the only sound he heard was the rumble of distant thunder growing louder and louder. Back of him the sky was inky black, punctured at short intervals with zigzag streaks of dazzling light. The storm was already upon the town from which he had escaped. With a sigh of relief, he examined the wound in his leg. It was superficial. Glendon tore a sleeve from his shirt and bandaged the wound. Then, mounting the panting horse, he doubled back on his trail for a mile and made a cut across the mountains at a point where no one but an Apache had ever dared to cross, except in daylight. This trail had not been used for a long time. Glendon knew the danger of it; but death in the mountains at the bottom of a gully, was preferable to the Yuma Penitentiary for ten years, or longer. By morning the rain would have completely obliterated his tracks, and the posse would, no doubt, continue their search in the direction they had last seen him following. He realized there was another danger. He was trying to reach the Circle Cross. The authorities would probably telegraph to Willcox and a posse be started from that point to Hot Springs. He must reach the Circle Cross, get clothes, food and a fresh horse before any one else could make that ranch. But first, there was something else to do. His thoughts were interrupted by the storm breaking over his head. The reverberating thunder, incessant flashes of lightning and shrieking wind sounded as though all the fiends of the netherworld were keeping pace with him, rejoicing at his escape and conspiring to aid him. Across the backbone of the range he urged his frightened, stumbling horse. Five miles from the Circle Cross, Glendon halted and sat peering in all directions when a flash illuminated the brush and trees. He had no fear of pursuers now, but he was searching for one particular tree, and it was hard to identify in the fitful glare. At last he found it, dismounted and tied his horse. Then from the underbrush Glendon dragged a rusty shovel and began to dig. The ground was soft from recent rains, but he paused frequently to wipe the beads of perspiration that mingled with the rain dashing into his eyes. "I didn't put it so deep," he muttered, plying the shovel more rapidly. "I wonder if some one else has found it!" A rustling in the trees caused him to straighten up suddenly and with a startled jump he glared about on all sides. The lightning showed only the waving branches, the pouring rain and the wind-whipped bushes. His tongue licked his lips. "God! I wish I had a drink! My nerve's all shot to pieces!" He dug furiously. "It's lucky I caught old Paddy burying this money. That gave me a chance to get the old fool out of the way without suspicion. Even Alpaugh was in the dark about that. He's as big a fool as the rest. Damn 'em. Why didn't they blow out Three-fingered Jack's brains before they left him there!" Still he dug, and the rain hammered down while the wind whistled and screamed around him. The shovel struck a deep root of the tree. Something brushed against Glendon's face. With a scream of fright he dropped the shovel and ran to the snorting horse. Glendon's eyes staring into the darkness pictured Paddy's sardonic face in the bushes, and back of Paddy was old Doctor King, looking at him with infinite pity. Glendon's arm went across his face as though shielding himself, and his foot was thrust into the stirrup of his saddle. The horse moved a few paces, then Glendon looked back, and jerked violently on the reins. He lifted his fist and shook it at the gloom, shouting wildly, "Damn you! You can't frighten me away! I'll have it in spite of you and Heaven and Hell!" He leaped from his saddle and grabbed the shovel, cursing as he resumed his work until he found the canvass bags with the buried money. Unable to cram the sacks into the saddle pouches, he tore off the strings of the bags and poured the gold into the leather saddle pouches on either side of the horse. Once more he mounted, but as he faced the trail to the Circle Cross he shouted at the nickering shadows, "Damn you! I've got it!" Then he rode on his way. "It'll take four hours yet for any posse to reach the Circle Cross from Willcox," he said, leaning low on the saddle to avoid the lash of the wind and the rain. "There'll be a big flood at Hot Springs. I'll have to leave this gold with Katherine. It's too heavy to pack and too big a risk. I'll take a couple of hours to rest and get ready. Then I can hit the trail for the border. Easy to do after I get away from here and across the Willcox flats. I'll take Fox. He has no brands on him. My saddle's at the ranch, too--That'll get rid of this horse and saddle--They'll all be looking for this outfit now. With Fox and some money--I can make my way without any trouble, once I get clear of the flats. I must cross before dawn--or hide in the mountains till tomorrow night, then cross. Sixty miles to the border--then I am safe!" A thought of his wife intruded. "I suppose she will balk at keeping the gold," he muttered, "but she will have to do it! There is no one else I can trust with it. I won't stand any nonsense now. She'll have to do what I tell her, by God!" He had no fear of Juan, knowing the Mexican's dog-like devotion to Katherine. Beside, the Mexican could not reach any place to give an alarm until after Glendon was well upon his way. Katherine's exaggerated sense of duty would keep her silent, no matter what might transpire. Everything was propitious. His hand went back and patted the wet leather of the saddle-bags that held ten thousand dollars in gold, and his lips twisted in a sneer, "You old fool, Paddy! You thought it was safe!" CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT Limber, who had been across the Galiuros riding the Sulphur Springs Valley for a couple of days, decided to go home by the way of Willcox instead of cutting over the mountain trail, as he was anxious to hear from Doctor Powell to whom he had written about the hold-up and trial. Powell was in New York intending to sail for Europe within a few days. As the cowboy came out of the Chinese restaurant, after having eaten supper, Jack Green, the station agent, hailed him. "Hello, Limber! There's been a telegram at the office two days for you, but I hadn't any chance to send it out your way. I guess it'll be like the Irishman's letter, for it was to let you know that the doctor was coming. He arrived this afternoon, and I told him." "Is he here?" asked Limber eagerly. "No. He got a horse at the corral and went right out to Hot Springs. Said he wanted to see you as soon as possible." "Sorry I missed him. I came in thinkin' I'd hear from him. So I'll get out as soon as Peanut's had a couple hours' rest." They walked across the street together. As Green opened the door of the station, he heard the telegraph instrument calling insistently. "Just a minute, till I take this call," he said, seating himself at the table. As the message began coming in rapidly, Green's face was startled. He jumped up as he closed the message, turning to Limber. "The whole bunch of train-robbers and all the other prisoners in the Tombstone jail are loose. Wentz did it. They want a posse to start at once for Hot Springs." He and Limber started rapidly. "They think Glendon will try to reach the Circle Cross, and probably others will be with him. I've got to see the constable and Judge at once." Green darted down the street. Limber hurried to the Cowboy's Rest and saddled Peanut. "Goin' to be a big storm," said Buckboard. "Why don't you lay over till mornin', Limber?" "I been at the Diamond H," Limber replied as he slipped the headstall over Peanut's ears. "I missed Doctor Powell and want to get out to the ranch tonight." He led his pony from the stall as he spoke. "Wait a minute and I'll lend you a slicker," offered Buckboard, disappearing in his sleeping quarters and returning with the unwieldy, yellow, water-proof coat. "Won't you need it, yourself?" "I got another in the bunkhouse. You can send it back when it's handy." Limber thanked him and tied it across the back of his saddle, glancing up at the threatening sky. "Guess I'll need it before long," he said, riding to the gate. "Much obliged. So long!" He turned Peanut's head to the Point of the Mountains, northwest of town, passing the O T ranch five miles out. Then he struck the road to Hot Springs, which lay thirty-five miles north of Willcox on a road that was totally invisible, now. Limber did not hesitate to urge his pony into a swift gallop, for he knew he could rely on Peanut's wonderful instinct to carry his rider safely. "If we kin reach the Springs before Glendon does," the cowboy spoke to his pony, and the tapering ears went back at the sound of the voice Peanut knew and loved, "We kin warn Glen the posse's comin' so's he kin git away in time. She'd had enough troubles without being thar to see him get killed or kill somebody else, Peanut. Thar's goin' to be shootin' if they find Glen!" Steadily the pony swung along, and the storm beat down on them mercilessly. The constant flashes of lightning revealed a stream of running water where the road bed, worn deeply by wagon wheels and hoofs of teams, left a high ridge in the centre. Peanut, with goat-like agility kept on the top of this ridge. It was the only solid ground visible. All else was a swamp. The road had never seemed so long to Limber as when at last, the pony slipped down into the mouth of the Hot Springs Cañon. "Seven miles more, Peanut!" It was the only way to reach the Springs or Circle Cross. During the dry season, there was no water in the bed of the creek, as the Hot Springs Creek seeped into the ground a short distance from the ranch house, and the little stream was usually only two or three feet wide and a few inches deep. Owing to the immense watershed of the cañon, a rain of short duration often made crossing impossible. The banks of the creek rose fifteen feet, or more, perpendicularly from constant floods, and often these banks were over-running. This knowledge was the basis of Limber's hope as well as his anxiety. If he could cross the creek before the flood, that very thing might prove an obstacle to the posse, and give Glendon a chance to get a good start. If the flood was ahead of him, the cowboy knew he would have to wait and lose any opportunity of seeing Glendon first. Then the other men would be there with him. He listened intently. As the sound he feared--a smothered roar--reached his ears, he leaned forward in his saddle, and Peanut started with a snort at the unusual touch of the sharp spurs. It was a race for life now. Limber knew he must reach the one spot in the cañon where his pony could scramble up the sheer embankment to the upper road before the flood could catch them. Stumbling, panting, the pony tore over the rocks and fallen trees that had been washed down in previous floods, and crashed among dead limbs in the darkness. Peanut fell heavily to his knees, but struggled up instantly, while Limber spurred and called, "Yip! Yip! Yip! Peanut! Go on, you rascal!" The pony's ears were flattened back. He knew the danger, now. The noise of approaching water grew louder. Watching for the next flash of lightning, Limber's eyes measured the distance between himself and the point where the road struck sharply up the steep incline that led to safety. With the same glance, he saw the wall of seething water tumbling close to the crossing. Could they reach it in time? The sounds became a deafening roar, and Peanut flagged. Limber leaned over his shoulder and spoke to him, and at the sound of the loved voice, the little pony made another effort. With a convulsive leap he reached the slope of the road and scrambled wildly to safety, then stopped with low drooping head and quivering limbs. Limber jumped from the saddle and went to the pony's head, putting his arm over the rain-soaked neck, the cowboy stroked the mane and forelock. They could rest now. No living thing could cross that cañon until the storm ceased and the flood subsided. As the lightning flashed, Limber watched the flood sweep below, carrying great cottonwood trees like straws, and over-turning immense boulders as if they were marbles. Man and pony had ridden against Death that night, and Peanut had won the race. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE Katherine was looking out the window at the storm-swept cañon. Juan had ridden to the San Pedro that morning. He figured that he might work up a trade of two unbroken colts for a gentle workhorse. Then when he was compelled to make a trip to town with the team, Katherine could use her own pony, Fox, to care for the cattle on the range. As the fury of the storm increased, she closed the heavy shutters to protect the glass windows from the branches that were broken and flung violently against the little house. The storm on the outside seemed emblematic of her life. Yet she remembered that it would pass and the sun creep gently into the places where the bruised things had been beaten down, and by degrees the beauty would be restored. Lighting the lamp, she seated herself at the table and drew a letter toward her. In the stress of events following her husband's illness and Paddy's subsequent murder, the publication of her verses had passed from her memory. Many months had elapsed before Katherine happened to pick up the magazine in which her poem was printed. Like a seed that had lain dormant, waiting the proper season to germinate, rose an impulse to tell the thoughts that surged within her. In this mood she had written a story of the little ranch in the lonely cañon, and the things that made life for the woman living there with the old Mexican, the dog and the mountains. Hesitatingly, she had sent the story to a magazine; it had been accepted and the editor had written a pleasant note to her, asking for more of her work. The letter opened a world of possibilities. Not that she dreamed of leaping into fame and fortune as a writer; but because it gave her empty life an object. In grasping at a straw, she had found a friendly hand that dragged her from the black waves of despair and pointed a beacon light, encouraging her to struggle on. The way was no longer lonely; it was peopled by unknown friends with whom she could share thoughts which had been suppressed for years. The legacy received from her aunt would amply provide for Donnie's education until he was able to assist himself; she could remain on the ranch with old Juan, caring for the remnant of the Circle Cross herd, which would furnish what they needed, with the help of the garden-patch, chickens and a cow. If she could sell a few stories, Donnie could spend his summer vacations with her. "Ten years," she thought, ashamed of the knowledge that it meant peace unspeakable. "Ten years--and then?" Forcing the thought from her, she took the second letter from its envelope. It was from Glendon's father, reiterating his offer to take the boy and educate him. The tone of the letter was the same as the first one he had written his son about Donnie. It was a grim, hard letter. Katherine, reading between the lines, felt no resentment; she realized the old man's keen disappointment in his only son, and her heart cried out in sympathy. So she wrote, thanking her husband's father explaining courteously about the legacy providing for the boy's education, and stating that she would remain at the ranch until such time as her husband returned to it. Having sealed the letter, she sat idly listening to the storm, when a knock on the door startled her. She thought there was no one in the neighbourhood except herself and old Chappo at the Hot Springs ranch, and she wondered what could have brought him out in such a night. A second knock sounded before she opened the door, holding it with difficulty against the wind, her eyes blinded by the darkness of the night, and the rain beating across the threshold. "Is that you, Chappo?" she called above the noise of the storm. "Katherine!" Her eyes became tragic and her face white as Powell entered the room. "You?" she whispered doubtingly and yet with a little thrill of gladness in her voice. He grasped her cold hands, looking eagerly into her face. "You poor child!" Only three words, but they seemed to cover her with warmth and protection. Then she remembered, and drawing her hands from his, sank trembling into a chair, while Powell stood by her side. A great happiness illumined his face, for he had caught the look in her eyes and had heard the note in her voice. "I tried to stay away," he said at last. "I thought I could blot you out of my life, but I could not. I was in New York when Limber's letter reached me, telling about the hold-up, trial and conviction. I took the first train home. If the letter had been a day later, I should have been on my way to Europe. You will never know what it meant, picturing you alone here with this new trouble to bear." "Don't!" pleaded Katherine. "Do you realize what has happened?" "I know that the law has taken it course justly," replied Powell. "Glendon's conviction is sufficient to justify your appeal for a divorce. No further sacrifice is necessary on your part. Surely you will not hesitate, now?" "He has no one else," she answered slowly, "Therefore my obligation is the heavier." "No obligation is due a man like him. He has heaped indignity and suffering on you and Donnie. You cannot point one redeeming trait in his character." "He is my husband. Only death can cancel that obligation." "He is a curse to humanity," Powell's voice vibrated with emotion. "Even should you remain here until he serves his time, it will a mean a more hideous life after he returns. Either Donnie will succumb to his father's influence, and you will have two brutes to cope with, or the boy will hate his father, and someday Glendon will kill Donnie or Donnie will kill his father. You have no right to force such a situation on the boy, to face such a future for yourself." Katherine stood before him, her hands tightly locked together to control the trembling, she did not answer, but the look in her eyes told that she realized the truth of his words. Powell was overcome with compunction and tenderness. His hands were laid gently on hers. "Please forgive me," he begged. "It maddens me to see you in such trouble and know I am powerless to help you. The only gift I crave of life is the privilege to serve and protect you and Donnie." She lifted her eyes to the hands that were reaching out to her, then her gaze rested on his face. "Can you understand," she said, "how a hungry beggar feels outside in the storm and cold, looking into a warm room where a banquet of rich food and wine is spread before his eyes? I am starving for a crumb of your love; yet I must turn away hungry." He started toward her with a cry of joy, but she moved farther from him. "Do you think I would have told you, if I had not believed I had the strength to turn away?" she asked in a dull voice. "It is my atonement. I tried so hard to be true to him, in spite of everything; but at night you came to me in my dreams, and I lived in another world, till dawn brought me back here again. Oh, why does God let us make such terrible mistakes when He knows we have only one little life to live? I am tired--so tired of struggling!" Powell knew that it was her moment of weakness, and the temptation was strong upon him to urge her; but he also knew that no happiness would be lasting unless she came to him without a shadow of the past falling across their lives. "You are right, Katherine," he said, gravely. "I shall not worry you any more. All I ask is that you will remember I am waiting, to help you when you need me." He lifted her hand to his lips and then she watched him pass out into the storm. CHAPTER FORTY The wind beat the windows and screamed like a living thing in maniacal rage; it struck the door and whipped the trees, tearing away branches and throwing them down the cañon. One crash barely died in the distant rumble when another crash succeeded. A cloud-burst added to the wildness of the scene. The flashes that lit the huge cliffs about the Circle Cross, revealed a rain-sodden figure mounted on an exhausted, stumbling horse back of the little ranch-house. The horse picked its way uncertainly until it reached the shelter of the stable shed. Glendon slipped stiffly from its back and opening the door, led the animal into an empty stall. The horse stumbled and Glendon gave it a vicious kick as he cursed it. Fox stopped munching his hay to poke an inquisitive nose across at the stranger, while Glendon started to unbuckle the saddle-bags. As he lifted them, he saw a saddled horse in the stall on the opposite side of Fox. Cursing his luck, the man tossed the saddle-bags back on the horse he had ridden, and adjusted them hastily. Then he reached up behind the hay at the end of the stable and extracted a bottle of whiskey which he had put there just before his arrest. After taking a couple of copious drinks, he thrust the bottle into his coat pocket and mounted the horse whose stiffened movements told that it was badly foundered. Glendon dug his heels into the heaving sides, and the animal with low hanging head, stumbled wearily through the trees directly back of the house. Glendon checked the horse at a point where the dense undergrowth protected him, yet allowed a view of the house and stables in the flashes of lightning. He wondered who could be there at that hour, unless Chappo were visiting old Juan. Had the unknown rider intended to remain all night, the strange horse would have been unsaddled. Glendon sat shivering until overcome with curiosity and the knowledge that each moment's delay was dangerous, he dismounted, tied his horse and crept cautiously to the side of the house where he peered through the crevice of a broken window shutter. Possibly some one had already reached the Circle Cross from Willcox, and was now waiting to catch him if he appeared. Through the shutter he saw Powell and Katherine. The noise of the storm deafened their voices, but the man outside read the story in their faces. He saw Powell lift Katherine's hand to his lips. Glendon started in fury. He reached for the pistol he had taken from the jail; but remembering that he needed his wife's assistance, decided that his vengeance could wait. He would let the man go, but the woman should pay for both. Later Powell should know of it. Glendon's lips twisted in a vicious smile. When Powell started toward the door, Glendon shrank against the adobe wall where the chimney jutted out. The doctor passed him, entered the stable, then Glendon watched him ride swiftly toward the Hot Springs. Feeling secure from other intruders, Glendon returned to the horse and led it to the stable where he unsaddled it. He made his plans. Fox had never been branded, so would not be easily identified, and with his own saddle he would be fairly safe, once he reached the Mexican border. No one would ever suspect Katherine of having the gold, and when he felt safe, she could come to him with it. It was a good thing Panchita was out of the way, now. He grasped the heavy saddlebags and staggered to the dark and silent house. Tatters, hearing the approaching steps, barked fiercely. Glendon twisted the knob, but the door was locked. He knocked sharply. "One minute," he heard Katherine call. "Is that you, Juan?" Glendon did not reply. Then the door opened and Katherine, with a bathrobe over her thin white gown and her bare feet thrust into a pair of shabby little kid slippers, saw her husband, dripping from the rain, brush past her into the room. Tatters ran up but received a kick, while Glendon dropped the gold-laden bags with a dull thud on the floor. "Damn that brute!" he snarled. "Make him quit his noise and keep out of my way if you don't want him killed!" The collie crept under the bed and Glendon threw off his streaming coat. "God! What a night!" Katherine stared at him, dazed and uncomprehending. He regarded her with a nasty smile. "Well, you don't seem overjoyed to see me," he sneered. "Nice wifely reception I get. Thought I was locked up for good, I suppose. Didn't expect any visitors tonight, eh?" The significance of his remark did not penetrate her thoughts. She stood silently looking at him, trying to understand how he was here, waiting his explanation. Glendon turned in rage. "What do you mean standing there staring like an idiot?" he demanded. "This is no time to waste. Get a move on you. I want some grub and dry clothes." Mechanically, dumbly, she hastened to obey him. Glendon ate the food that she set before him, then he finished with several drinks from the bottle in his pocket. The warmth of the room began to effect his head, after drinking; it loosened his tongue. The woman who watched him with dead eyes, made no comment. "Wentz knocked the deputy over and tied him and opened the jail doors," he bragged as he ate. "They didn't find it out for some time, and when they saw us it was so dark they could not keep track of me among the rocks. They shot Wentz's horse and he killed himself. Damn him! It served him right. If he had held his tongue at the trial, Alpaugh and I would have escaped conviction. Then we could have helped them all as we promised to do. Alpaugh and Bravo Juan kept together. I've got to keep moving. They got me in the leg, it's only a scratch." He limped across the room and dragged the saddlebags to the table. With trembling hands he unfastened the straps and let the gold flow out in a dull, glowing stream, fingering it caressingly. "Take care of this money until I write to or send word where you can join me with it;" he ordered. "I'm going to cut across to the Mexican border; then work my way down to South America. Any man speaking Spanish can get along there. It's a country where they don't ask too many questions. There's ten thousand dollars," he ran his hands over the coins. "That will give me a good start down there. I'll write you under the name of Reese, but not for five or six months. I'll have to cover my tracks pretty well, or the Federal officers will locate me. I'll take Fox and my own saddle. I don't want Juan to know I'm here tonight; but after I leave, you must start him out to the Rim Rock with the horse I rode tonight. Tell him to hide the saddle and shoot the horse and skin it, and bury the hide. He'll do anything that you ask him, and won't talk." "Juan sold your saddle after the trial. We needed money so badly," said the woman slowly. "Then I'll take Juan's. I dare not risk using the one I rode tonight, nor the horse, either." "Juan is riding his own saddle. He won't be back for several days. He is trying to trade some colts." Glendon paced the room cursing his ill-luck as he saw his carefully formed plans disintegrate. He bit his knuckles nervously as he tried to decide what to do. Katherine leaned across the table as Glendon paused and once more ran his fingers through the coins. She looked up and his eyes met hers. "Where did you get that gold, Jim?" she asked quietly. "None of your business," he retorted, deceived by her even tones. "It's mine--do you hear? Mine! No one else can claim it!" "No one else can claim it," she echoed. Then her eyes widened. "It is Paddy's money!" she cried. Glendon shrugged his shoulders. "What of it? He buried his money and every one knew it. He had no one belonging to him. It is Paddy's money! Now, what have you got to say about it?" "You found that money first and killed him afterwards," she said tensely. "Oh! I knew there was something wrong when you killed him." She recoiled in horror. "I was acquitted," he faced her like a trapped coyote. "No one can prove it wasn't self-defence! You're my wife and you've got to hold your tongue!" Possibly the repugnance in her face stung, for he reeled to her side with an oath. She looked at him unafraid and the knowledge that he had no more power over her goaded him to frenzy. His clenched fist was lifted and brought down with a crashing blow in her face. She fell against the sharp edge of the window-ledge, clinging blindly as she struggled to her feet, but he knew she was unconquered. Dragging the pistol from his belt, he hurled the loaded weapon at her. It struck the window casing a few inches above her head, then dropped to the floor, the black composition handle shattered, leaving only the steel rim, but the cartridges failed to explode. Glendon glared at her as she stood panting against the wall, her white face contrasting vividly with the blood that oozed from cuts on cheek and lip--the eyes that regarded him held no fear. She knew that death was standing beside her, but it seemed a welcome friend, with outstretched, sheltering arms. "I'll make you understand that you are my wife," the man started threateningly toward her, his hand reaching down to pick up the pistol on the floor. Neither of them saw the dog which had been watching from beneath the bed, and now was dragging itself stealthily forth, its lips twitching, its eyes blazing in fury. With a sudden spring, it caught Glendon's hand in its strong, gleaming teeth. The man's curses mingled with deep-throated growls, and as they fought, the woman stood dumb, unable to move. The blood on her face dripped slowly on the white gown. There was a shot, and Glendon rose to his feet, kicking the dog that lay dying on the floor. With a cry of pity, Katherine stooped, and the brute that had given its life in an effort to protect her, lifted its head feebly and licked her hand. Then with its eyes on her face, it gave a convulsive shudder. With quivering lips and trembling hand she laid it down on the floor, rose and faced her husband. "Will you do what I tell you?" he demanded. "No! You can kill me as you have killed Tatters, but I will not touch that money!" He leaped at her, caught her by the throat and flung her violently to the floor. Weak, voiceless, still unconquered, he watched her drag herself again to her feet. He levelled the pistol at her head. She did not flinch as she faced it. Glendon thrust it back into the holster. "Damn you! I'll get along without you; but I won't kill you. I'm going to kill that dude doctor and see how you like that to remember me by!" He poured more liquor, then bending under the weight of the saddle bags, he strode through the door. Katherine stood dazed, staring down at the dead dog on the floor, as though her brain had ceased working. Outside, in a lull of the storm, sounded the sharp beat of hoofs. Glendon was riding past the house. "He is taking the road to the Springs, Tatters," she said slowly, her eyes on the dead dog as she spoke to it. There were chains on her brain;--it could not think; chains on her hands and feet--she could not move. A tiny red stream was creeping over the wooden floor toward her and she wondered what she would do when it reached her. Fascinated she watched it, then when it touched the hem of her gown making a stain like those above it, she woke in a wild frenzy of despair. "No! No!" she cried flinging the door open. "I will do anything you wish, Jim! Come back! Come back!" But Glendon was gone. The wind tore and lashed the curtains with the gay cretonne bands. It blew out the flame of the lamp and the rain beat down on the bright Navajo rugs and the dead dog lying on the floor. The woman ran to the stable. The heavy door banged on broken hinges. She clung to the empty stall and thought she saw her husband riding up to the Hot Springs Ranch. She saw him jump from his horse and knock at the door--Saw Powell open that door, and then--she saw a tiny red stream trickling across the wooden floor. Without stopping to reason that she had no chance against a man on a horse, she turned and faced the storm. The wind whipped her long, dark hair across her face and tore the robe back from the thin white gown. Her slippers, rain-soaked, dropped from her bare feet, and the sharp stones cut the tender flesh. She ran on, unconscious of everything except the knowledge that Powell--the man she loved--was in danger. Slowly and more slowly she ran, her breath coming in sharp little gasps that hurt. She staggered a few more feet, then with a tired sigh, sank to the ground, trying with her last conscious thought to remember whether it was Tatters or Doctor Powell lying dead, where the little scarlet thread kept creeping--creeping--creeping--. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE "Only a little way further, Peanut, old boy," Limber encouraged the pony, patting its neck as he swung once more to its back; and Peanut, knowing the distance home, started willingly on his way through the storm. They were on the main road which led directly to the Hot Springs ranch, but a few feet from the creek-crossing it forked to the Circle Cross. As they neared this Y, the pony jumped and stopped, snorting. Limber leaped from his saddle and sheltered by Peanut's body, crouched low, holding his pistol ready. When the next flash came, illuminating the landscape as brilliantly as though it were midday, he slipped the pistol quickly into the holster at his hip and ran to a white heap huddled in the road. Limber stooped at the woman's side and held his shaking hand against her heart; then he opened his flask and forced whiskey between the closed teeth, and chafed the cold hands. There was no response. Hurriedly, he unfastened the yellow slicker he was wearing, and gently wrapped it about the unconscious form. Then, lifting her in his arms, the cowboy mounted his pony, thankful that Doctor Powell was so near. The wind blew the woman's hair across his lips, and a wonderful sense of happiness thrilled him. In the flashes he could see her pale face lying against his wet coat, and his heart throbbed with love and tender pity. Doctor Powell opened the door in response to Limber's call. A vivid flash showed Peanut with Limber on his back holding Katherine in his arms. "What's the matter, Limber?" "I found her at the forks of the road on the ground. She's just fainted, I think," explained the cowboy as he placed the unconscious form in the doctor's arms. Chappo ran from the house and took the reins from Limber, leading Peanut to the stable while the two men entered the house. The doctor laid Katherine on the couch and brought restoratives. Limber knelt beside her and gently chafed the cold hands. "Glendon's broke jail at Tombstone with the rest of the bunch. There's a posse, comin' from Willcox. I was comin' out to let you know; but they can't cross the Creek now. It's runnin' from bank to bank. Peanut just made it by a scratch." The light from the lamp fell across the cut and bruised face, and Limber's eyes turned to Powell. "Do you think she done that fallin' in the road?" he asked significantly. "No," was the positive reply, as Powell studied her face. "It looks like a blow; besides, those are finger marks on her throat. I saw her two hours ago--she was all right then--Juan is away--I left her there alone." Limber rose from the side of the couch and looked into Powell's eyes. "Nobody would lay a hand on her exceptin' Glendon." Powell uttered no sound, but his face was pale with emotion as the cowboy went on speaking in low, tense voice. "They got away at six o'clock, and if Glendon had a good mountain pony and took the old Indian trail, he could've got to the Circle Cross before now. If I knowed he'd hit her, I'd kill him on sight! She's the nerviest woman I have ever seen--and the finest." Doctor Powell held out his hand and gripped Limber's. "You've been a loyal friend to her, Limber." "Thar ain't nothin' I wouldn't do for her," said the cowpuncher, simply. "Thar's lines that is drawed between humans, jest as in animals. Glendon wasn't meant for her, noway." Understanding each other thoroughly, the two men who loved her sat watching the unconscious woman until her eyes opened slowly, resting curiously on Limber; then as she saw the other man, her expression turned to one of terror. With a cry, she tried to rise, but Powell's hand restrained her. "Lie still," he said quietly. "You are safe." She looked up wildly. "Bar the door! Quick!" she cried. "He is coming to kill you!" Their first impression that she did not realize what she was saying, vanished as they listened to her story. She did not speak of the blow, nor her refusal to hide away the money, but told them that Glendon had seen the doctor talking with her, and left the house with the avowed intention of killing him. "Thar's been plenty time for him to get here ahead of you, Mrs. Glendon," Limber assured her. "He'd a been here long before I found you at the forks of the road, if he was comin'. I guess he was just bluffin' you, and when he found it didn't work he lit out with the two horses." Powell agreed heartily with Limber, but to calm her fears, the cowboy barred the door. Katherine, succumbing to the sedative the doctor administered, relaxed gradually. Her lids closed wearily, but her lips moved, and in half-broken sentences she went over the terrible scene; pleading with her husband for Powell's life, or talking to the dead dog, begging it not to let the little scarlet thread reach her; then she sank into silence, unconscious of all that she had revealed. The men's eyes met. They read each other's thoughts. Limber's face was set and white, as, with a nod to the doctor, he rose and tiptoed from the room into the kitchen where Chappo was sitting near the stove. The cowboy took his pistol from the holster at his hip, and looked at the cylinder. Twisting it between his fingers he slipped the cartridges from it. They were wet from the rain. "Got some lard?" he asked Chappo, and when the Mexican brought it, Limber greased the cartridges and put them back into the cylinder, then dropped the pistol into the holster of his cartridge belt. A Winchester rifle hung in a leather scabbard on the kitchen wall, and Limber lifted it down. Chappo watched him examine the magazine of the gun. "Eet is all right," he said. "Eet shoots good." The Mexican's eyes met Limber's. "You go hunting, Leember? Take heem." "Yes. Give me some jerky, Chappo. I may not get any game for a couple of days." Chappo understood, and hastened to get the stiff strips of sun-dried meat which he put in a small cotton sack and handed to the cowboy, saying, "Good luck, Leember! Shoot straight!" With a grim smile the Mexican saw the cowboy and gun disappear. Peanut looked up in surprised reproach as his master reached for the saddle hung on a peg. The pony knew he had well-earned his blanket and bin of oats that night. "We've got some more work to do, Peanut," said Limber, throwing the saddle across the pony's back, and Peanut, with a final bite at the oats, turned again to face the storm with his master. The cowboy was sure that Glendon had pushed on toward the border, and not knowing about the gold he was carrying with him, supposed he had taken Fox as a relay horse. This would give Glendon the advantage should the chase be protracted; but, Limber knew that Peanut's nervous energy and staying qualities in the mountains made him equal to any two ordinary horses. "We'll follow him till Hell freezes over, Peanut, and we'll sure get him in the end," said the cowpuncher as he rode into the night. He did not try to justify himself by recalling that Glendon was an outlaw, whose capture or death was demanded by the law of the country; he did not remind himself that Glendon had killed old Paddy and had broken the unwritten law of fair play. It was the recollection of the woman with the cut face and finger-marked throat that sent Limber out into the storm. The woman Glendon had tried to drag into the mire of his own infamy as a reward for nine years of loyal devotion; the woman whom Limber had held in his heart and worshipped reverently. Peanut slipped on the rain-sodden earth, and Limber, leaning forward in his saddle, kept his Winchester ready as he listened for the faintest indication of Glendon's presence. Limber did not believe that Glendon had carried out his assertion that he would go to the Hot Springs. Otherwise, he would have been there long before. It was more possible that he had doubled back on his tracks, and struck out through the mountains toward the south, heading for the border, in order to cover his trail as much as he could by dawn. He would have to keep well-hidden in the day time. Suddenly, from the darkness sounded the shrill neigh of a horse. Limber threw himself on Peanut's neck and reached down, grasping the pony's nose firmly to prevent him from answering. Still keeping a grip on Peanut's nostrils, the cowboy dropped to the ground, and stood back of the pony's shoulder, believing that Glendon had seen him and was creeping on him in the dark. The flashes of lightning were less frequent. The rain and wind raged more furiously. Then from the gloom trotted a riderless pony, calling again and again as it approached them. A flash enabled Limber's keen eyes to recognize Fox. With a little nicker of delight, it trotted to Peanut's side and stood rubbing its nose against the other pony's shoulder. Limber saw a weather-beaten saddle and new saddlebags on Fox's back, while a broken halter-rope dangled from the animal's neck. He knew the horse had broken away from Glendon, and was probably making its way back to the Circle Cross, the only home it had ever known. If so, Glendon would follow until he caught it, for he would need the extra horse in his long flight. Limber hastily tied the broken halter-rope to the horn of Peanut's saddle, and left the two animals standing in the centre of the road as a decoy, while he crawled to a projecting clump of brush and slowly wormed his way parallel to the road. He was following Apache tactics, now. A prolonged flash of quivering, dazzling light, and Limber's half-blinded eyes scanned the brush and trees. Then the rifle leaped to his shoulder and his finger rested on the trigger. Down the road he had seen Glendon. At the same time he knew that Glendon had seen him. Back into the brush he slipped lying flat on his face and writhing cautiously forward. There would be no time for a second shot--Glendon was waiting, too. How close was he, now? Inch by inch Limber dragged himself. Somewhere in the night, another man was crawling toward him, gun in hand--The man who had left the marks of his fingers on a woman's throat. God! Would there be no flash of lightning now that he needed just one more. It came, as though in answer to his prayer. Dazzling, blinding and with frightful crash as though the whole world had fallen into space and crushed another world to atoms. A sharp tingling pain shot through Limber's muscles, his gun dropped from his hand and exploded; he wondered if Glendon had hit him, but it was rain, not blood that soaked his sleeve. He gripped his gun and threw another cartridge into place. Once more he began creeping and waiting. When another flash came, the cowboy lowered his gun, and rose to his feet. At the side of the road ahead of him was an uprooted cottonwood tree. Under it lay a horse and a man. Uncertain whether the man was dead or merely stunned, Limber crouched warily in the brush, waiting a tell-tale movement. But the horse and man did not stir. Then the cowboy approached and looked down in the fitful glare of the flashes, and saw an immovable figure--face distorted with agony--open eyes staring unseeing into the storm--clothes across a charred breast--an odour of burnt flesh and singed hair--the body of a dead horse. Limber gazed down at the man, his mind filled with conflicting emotions. He had intended killing Glendon as he would have killed a mad coyote or a rattlesnake, and he would have felt no regret; but, now-- He raised the dripping hat from his head. Not because of the broken thing that lay at his feet, but in recognition of something higher and more incomprehensible which rules the Universe--with its three unfathomable mysteries, Life, Death and Eternity. Replacing his hat, Limber made his way back to the horses and slipped the Winchester into the scabbard which hung from Peanut's saddle. "It's worked out all right, Peanut," said the cowboy as he mounted the pony and faced the Hot Springs ranch. "I'm glad I didn't have to kill him. Just the same I'd a done it ruther than let him drag her through Hell another hour. He can't bother her no more, now." He stabled Fox and Peanut, then went to the kitchen where Chappo, like a faithful old watchdog, was dozing beside the stove. He started to his feet as Limber entered, but asked no questions when the cowboy, without a word, hung the Winchester on the pegs where he had found it. Powell, sitting by the couch in the front room, heard Limber's steps. With a glance at the sleeping woman, he rose softly and went to the door that led into the kitchen. He closed the door and his eyes met Limber's. "He's dead," said the cowboy. Then, reading the unspoken question in the doctor's eyes, he added, "No. It was the lightning done it. A tree fell on him and his horse." "Thank God!" said Powell, but his tone was reverent, not jubilant. "Is she all right?" asked Limber anxiously. "Resting quietly. We'll take her over to Mrs. Traynor in the morning, Limber. She needs a woman friend, now." "The Little Lady will look out for her," said the cowboy. Then he glanced at Chappo, and after a slight hesitation continued, "I wish you'd come out and take a look at Peanut's ankle, Doc." Powell, catching the peculiar tone, nodded and followed to the barn where the ponies stood contentedly in their stalls. Limber closed the stable door and spoke in a low voice. "Glendon was ridin' the horse and saddle he stole in Tombstone. It's a Lazy F pony. The lead-rope on Fox was busted." "All right. I'll notify the Lazy F people," Powell replied wondering why Limber thought secrecy necessary. "That ain't what's troublin' me. You see when Glen was arrested he rid his own saddle to town with the posse. I was with 'em, and I knowed his saddle. Besides, I bought it from Juan afterwards, when they was hard up for dinero. Mrs. Glendon didn't know I bought it. That saddle's over to the Diamond H and been thar for two months." He walked to the corner of the barn and pointed at the saddle he had taken from Fox. "That's the saddle that was on Fox," he said slowly. "It belonged to old Doctor King--we all thought the Apaches got it." Powell grasped Limber's arm. "You don't think Glendon killed King, do you?" "Thar ain't no way I can see to think he didn't," responded the cowpuncher. "From all we could find out, King and Glendon rid to the forks together and separated. King was goin' down the San Pedro and Glendon to Jackson's Flats. You can see how easy Glendon could of shot from the upper trail. The bullet went into King's head above the left temple and came out behind the right ear. You seen that yourself. I thought it was kinder queer when I heard Mrs. Glendon say the Apaches didn't reach the Circle Cross till noon and you said King had been dead over night. But then I figgered the Indians was snoopin' round that part for a couple of days." "What object would Glendon have had?" "He'd pick a fight with any one when he was tanked up a bit. You know he always wanted the Hot Springs, and King wouldn't sell it to him. He didn't know the land was patented, and mebbe he figgered that if King was dead it would be easy to jump the Springs. Of course, he didn't know about King makin' any Will, nor that you and the Boss was workin' up a deal with King. That's why Glendon's had it in for the Diamond H and for you ever since." The chain of circumstantial evidence seemed conclusive as forgotten details were recalled. "Thar's a heap of gold coins in the saddle bags that was on Fox," Limber went on. "Looks like it was Paddy's money that every one was hunting for. We all knowed that he had thirty-five thousand dollars in gold buried some place around. Thar was twenty-five thousand in that flower-box he guv to Jamie and the Little Lady; and this makes ten more. Paddy scattered it around." "I wonder how Glendon happened to locate it?" mused the doctor. Limber whirled about. "He located that money before he killed old Paddy! That's why he done it, and Alpaugh stood in with him! Glendon was too much of a coward to do anythin' exceptin' shoot old men and bully his wife. He was too rotten to live and too damn rotten to die! But, now what I want to know, Doc, is what are we goin' to do about that saddle and money? The posse will be here soon as the creek falls." "Suppose I take charge of it and consult an attorney," suggested Powell after a few minutes' thought. "We have no absolute proof that it belonged to Paddy. As he had no heirs I am rather at sea about the proper procedure." "All right. I'm goin' to take that saddle of King's and bury it," asserted Limber. "Thar ain't no use shoutin' about it now. Glen's dead and 'twon't do King no good, and Mrs. Glendon's got enough trouble to pack without havin' this extra bunch." Powell returned to the house and told Chappo to go to bed. Out where the brush grew most thickly, Limber dug a deep hole like a small grave, and Doctor King's saddle was covered, while the steadily pouring rain obliterated all tell-tale marks of disturbed earth. As the hours passed, the thunder grew faint and fainter; the lightning ceased; the rain fell in a soft patter, like children's voices whispering in the night. A dim, grey light mingled with the darkness of the sky, sleepy chirps and twitters sounded from rain-soaked nests, the pink fingers of Morning reached out and caressed the tips of the mountains. Down the cañon near the crossing a man stood waiting to guard the woman he loved from knowledge of what had happened in the night. The rushing torrent was fast subsiding. He lifted his head at the sound of galloping hoofs and men's voices, then he turned and looked down at the posse from Willcox. They reached the opposite bank of the stream and let the reins fall loosely on their ponies' necks as they recognized Limber. "Hello, Limber! You was lucky to get here last night," called the leader. "We all were stuck at the mouth of the cañon till this morning. Seen any signs of Glendon?" Limber was among them now. "Yep. He's on the road between here and the Circle Cross," was the answer. "All right. Much obliged. Hurry up boys;" but Limber's upheld hand made them pause. "You all don't need to hurry. Glen's dead. Lightnin' hit him and his horse. Mrs. Glendon's up here. She's sick and don't know nothin' about it yet. Doctor Powell is goin' to take her over to the Diamond H Ranch this mornin' to Mrs. Traynor." "Gosh! It's sure tough on her anyway you put it." "Is there anything we can do for her?" asked the leader of the posse. "Jest don't let her know you're here, and try to manage so's to get Glendon away without her seein' him. That's all." "We'll sure do that, Limber. She's a fine woman and we're glad to do anything we can for her. Glendon was no good to any one. Not even to himself." "Juan is away with the Circle Cross team, but I'll send Chappo down with the wagon," were Limber's last words as the posse rode slowly down the cañon. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO A year and a half passed by. Katherine sitting in her room at the Diamond H Ranch, was thinking of the many changes that had come into her life. Doctor Powell and Limber had brought her to Mrs. Traynor, and for long weeks afterward they had battled untiringly to save the life that threatened to slip away. With tender, encouraging words they fought the reaction of despair; but it was Nell who suggested sending for Donnie; Nell, who laid her baby boy in Katherine's arms; Nell, whose constant watchfulness and loving little caresses, finally brought answering smiles to Katherine's pale lips. Donnie and Jamie at once struck up a friendship akin to David and Jonathan, and when the two lads would wake the ranch with their happy laughter--it was tonic to Katherine's bruised and aching heart. For a long time she had believed that Glendon had escaped to Mexico; but at last Nell told her the truth. Donnie knew only that his father had been killed by lightning in a storm. Over at the Hot Springs, work was being pushed rapidly on the Sanitarium, and Limber and Powell divided their time between the two places. There had been a "surprise party" as Bronco called it, when a couple of weeks previously, Traynor and Powell had called the four cowboys into the office, and handed each one an official envelope addressed by name. Upon opening it, they discovered that the Hot Springs, PL, Diamond H and Circle Cross ranches had been incorporated into the "Galiuro Cattle Corporation," Traynor as president; Powell, secretary and treasurer; and Limber, general manager. Bronco, Roarer and Holy were astounded to receive stock to the value of five thousand dollars; but Limber's envelope held, not only the five thousand dollars worth of stock, like the other boys; but also his note which he had given Traynor in return for the half interest in the PL herd. Limber looked at it puzzled, then he saw across the face of the note, the endorsement, "Paid in full with compound interest in loyalty and devotion." Beneath these words were the signatures of Allan Traynor, Nell Traynor and Cuthbert Powell. The cowpuncher tried to speak, but was unable to utter a word. In silence he gripped Traynor's hand. That was an uproarious evening on the Diamond H. The boys and old Fong surrounded the foreman in the bunkhouse after dinner. Fong, once again, had fashioned a huge cake. When it was set down on the wooden table, the Chinaman lifted the tissue paper that veiled it, and the boys let out a wild whoop. A five-strand fence bounded the edge of the cake; a small white cabin loomed in the centre, with a desperate attempt at a cow in icing beside it. A naturalist might have scorned the cow, but there was no mistaking the Diamond H brand in red icing that was the finishing touch on the animal's hip. The boys clapped Fong on the back till his pigtail squirmed like an eel, and his grin threatened to split the lower part of his face. Traynor standing outside watched the proceeding, then went over to tell Nell and Katherine. "Poor Limber had to make a speech," he chuckled. "Fong joined with the rest, and they kept at him till he had to say something to get peace. Say, Nell, I wish you could have seen him! He stood up, looked at them, got red in the face, opened his mouth, shut it, then burst out, 'You're the orneriest bunch of boys in Arizona Territory, and if you don't quit pesterin' me, I'm goin' to fire the whole outfit the very first thing I do!'" "Poor Limber!" laughed Nell, but the laugh was very tender. "They do worry him; but he knows they would give their lives for him!" Like a panorama, these memories flitted swiftly before the eyes of Katherine Glendon, obliterating the darker days of her life. There was no bitterness now. Like the terrible storm of the cañon, they had passed away forever, and over the broken places bloomed beautiful flowers; a message of forgiveness. The bit of lace she was sewing on a dress for Nell's baby, slipped from her hands, and her eyes wandered through the open door to the snow-cap of Mt. Graham across the Valley. At first, Powell had hesitated to allow her return to the Hot Springs to live, dreading the effect of those terrible memories upon their happiness. When he told her of this, and that he would find a partner to live at the place, she had convinced him that her happiness lay helping him with his work at the Springs; so it had been decided. Now, that the project was nearing completion, Powell received offers from many sources, so that he might carry out the plans on the most extensive scale. The money found in the saddle-bags the night Glendon died, had been also added to the funds, after communication and consultation with proper legal authority. This provided for the maintenance of additional children. All the plans had been discussed between Powell, Traynor, Nell and Katherine, and the two women had made many suggestions the men overlooked. There were even toys, games, books with wonderful fairy tales, already unpacked at the Springs. Two weeks had been passed there happily, arranging, sorting and working together. Donnie and Jamie, with their ponies and Juan and Chappo as guides, had explored trails and planned many future adventures. The two old Mexicans were as happy as children, and at night, when they related tales of Mexico, or Chappo told of his captivity among the Apaches, the boys felt that life could hold no more fascinating experiences. Katherine's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of steps. She rose quickly and turned to the open door. A pink Rambler rose in full bloom twined above the porch, and a puff of wind caught the blossoms and showered the fragrant petals over her as she held out her hands to welcome the man she loved. He looked at her with happy eyes and saw--no longer a vague dream--a living, glorious reality, smiling with no shadow on her beautiful face, his Lady of the Pool. The rose leaves fell softly, about them. "See, dearest," he said, "it is a symbol of our future. The roses are shedding their petals on your path, so that not even the tiniest pebble shall bruise your feet!" She smiled at him, her eyes misty with happiness, then together they entered the room, to discuss their plans. "I've got to have a talk with Donnie today," said Powell. "I hope he will understand." They heard the noise of ponies dashing into the stable, the laughter of happy voices. Like a small cyclone, Donnie rushed into the room and faced Powell in boyish delight. "Is the Sanitarium almost done?" he asked breathlessly. "Finished, at last!" Powell's arm was across the lad's shoulder. He smiled into the glowing, upturned face, thankful that it bore no resemblance to Glendon. Donnie was his mother in every feature. "The first children will be here next month!" "I bet they'll get good and well after we have them awhile," prophesied Donnie. "You know, you promised I could be your partner." "Yes, old man! I want you to study so that when you grow up you can work with me. I'm going to take you over to the Springs so you can start your studies very soon. How will that suit you?" The boy's face clouded. He glanced from Powell to his mother. "I can't leave Marmee alone. I'm her Knight, and the only one she's got to look out for her, now." "How about taking her over with us?" suggested Powell. "Oh, will you?" Donnie's face glowed with delight. "Marmee, you will go, won't you?" The doctor laid his hands on the boy's shoulders and looked at him seriously. "Donnie, would you let me be your father, so that I can take care of your mother and you, and we all be partners as long as we live?" The child's startled eyes wandered from the man to the woman. For a brief space he made no reply. Then flinging his arms about his mother's neck, he clung to her in the first pang of renunciation. The eyes that looked at him were very tender. With a strange little dignity, he drew himself up and held out his hand to the doctor, saying, "I'm awful glad she likes you." The voice trembled, the lips were uncertain, a lump hurt in his throat. Donnie was afraid that he was going to cry. He was too big to cry now--his shoulders squared. Quickly, he turned and left the room. The man and woman watched the pathetic little figure, with drooping head, pass the window. "He will understand soon that I am not going to take you away from him," Powell's voice was gentle, "but I know how it hurts at first." Drawing some letters from his pocket, he seated himself beside Katherine on the couch. "These are from the children and the matron who will travel with them and help care for them at the Springs," he explained. Together they read misspelled words scrawled in crude characters. One child wanted to know if he could have a real, live chicken; another asked nothing but a chance to see trees and places where 'the cops don't make you keep off;' a third begged permission to bring his cat, Nigger, "becoz Nigger ain't got no one to luv him but me--becoz he has got a crooked tail and one eye's gone, but I luv him and he luvs me and he'll be lonesome after I go way." Katherine remembered the dog that had been her sole companion so many hours--the dog that Limber had buried in a little grave at the Circle Cross. "Of course, Nigger is coming?" she laughed with a catch in her voice. "A special invitation has already gone for him, and the matron is authorized to buy a basket for Nigger's comfort;" was the answer. Katherine was silent for a moment, and Powell leaned toward her. His hand lifted her face gently, "Sweetheart, what are your thoughts?" Her eyes were dim and her voice trembled, "'And a Knight shall come that shall have a head of gold, the look of a lion, a heart of steel, conditions without weakness, the valour of a man, and faith and belief in God. And he shall be the best Knight in the world.'" Powell's arms slipped about her and he drew her close. "May I prove worthy to be your Knight for all the days of my life, dear Lady of the Pool!" CHAPTER FORTY-THREE Only the Galiuros knew that a pinto pony had trodden unbroken trails through the night, until it reached a spot where the tangled growth of brush thinned and ended on a high ledge overlooking the undulating flat of the Sulphur Springs range. The mysterious beauty of coming dawn merged with dying starlight, where faint shadows outlined the rugged peaks of the Grahams across the broad Valley. Above them all Mt. Graham lifted its glorious, snow-capped head. Unconquered, unscathed by the storms of centuries past, it gazed steadfastly at the sky above it, while the world slept at its feet. Limber sat on the back of the pinto pony. His grey eyes shone with a wonderful light, for the strength of his loved mountains had crept into his heart during the long hours of his silent battle. Out of the storm and turmoil, the trail had led to peace. A faint rustling sounded sibilantly. It was a vagrant, gossiping breeze telling the leaves and grasses that a new day had been born. Yesterday, with its joys and sorrows, its ambitions and disappointments, was dead. Its ghost floated into the clear blue sky that smiled down between the drifting clouds. Today came laughing over the mountains. Her gold-shod feet twinkled as she ran. The sunbeam in her hand gleamed like a magic wand, transmuting each thing to dazzling beauty. It reached a little pinto pony standing on an overhanging ledge. Like the flash of a golden lance, the sunbeam rested on the shoulder of the man, who craved no greater privilege than to give all, and ask nothing in return. His head was bare. The sunlight touched his upturned face and the tender smile on his lips. "God bless her, and make her happy," he whispered softly. * * * * * {Transcriber's Note: Hyphen variations left as printed.] 
47491	----	available by Villanova University Digital Library (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrated book cover. See 47491-h.htm or 47491-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47491/47491-h/47491-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47491/47491-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Villanova University Digital Library. See http://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:304205 Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). Motor Stories Thrilling Adventure Motor Fiction No. 6 Apr. 3, 1909 Five Cents MOTOR MATT'S RED FLIER OR ON THE HIGH GEAR by STANLEY R. MATTHEWS Street & Smith, Publishers, New York. [Illustration: _"Leaf dot alone!" yelled Carl, floundering to get to the girl's aid, "dot pelongs to Moder Matt!"_] Motor Stories Thrilling Adventure Motor Fiction _Issued Weekly. By subscription $2.50 per year. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1909, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C., by_ STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y._ No. 6. NEW YORK, April 3, 1909. Price Five Cents. MOTOR MATT'S RED FLIER OR, ON THE HIGH GEAR. By the author of "MOTOR MATT." CONTENTS CHAPTER I. STRANDED "UNCLE TOMMERS." CHAPTER II. THE RED FLIER GETS A LOAD. CHAPTER III. THE STOLEN RUNABOUT. CHAPTER IV. THE COAT IN THE RUMBLE. CHAPTER V. MATT BEGINS A SEARCH. CHAPTER VI. LOSING THE BOX. CHAPTER VII. A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE. CHAPTER VIII. SPIRITED AWAY. CHAPTER IX. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. CHAPTER X. A DARING PLAN. CHAPTER XI. ON THE ROAD. CHAPTER XII. A CLOSE CALL. CHAPTER XIII. CAR AGAINST CAR. CHAPTER XIV. DOWN THE MOUNTAIN. CHAPTER XV. MOTOR MATT'S TEN-STRIKE. CHAPTER XVI. MORE TROUBLE FOR THE "UNCLE TOMMERS." CHAPTER XVII. CONCLUSION. A SNOWBALL FIGHT. SECRETS OF TRICK SHOOTING. REELFOOT LAKE. A FLOATING SLUM. WILD HORSES OF NEVADA. CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY. =Matt King=, concerning whom there has always been a mystery--a lad of splendid athletic abilities, and never-failing nerve, who has won for himself, among the boys of the Western town, the popular name of "Mile-a-minute Matt." =Carl Pretzel=, a cheerful and rollicking German lad, who is led by a fortunate accident to hook up with Motor Matt in double harness. "=Legree=," a member of the stranded "Uncle Tom" Company, about whom something mysterious seems to hover. "=Little Eva=," who turns out to be other than appearances would seem to indicate. "=Eliza=," } "=Uncle Tom=," } other members of the unlucky road combination "=Topsy=," } helped by Motor Matt. =Brisco=, } a brace of reckless adventurers with whom Matt and his =Spangler=, } Dutch pard have a particularly exciting inning. =O'Grady=, an inn-keeper. =Lem Nugent=, the owner of the stolen runabout. CHAPTER I. STRANDED "UNCLE TOMMERS." "Help! Some ob yo' folks ahead, dar! Unc' Tawm's in de ruvver! He drapped de box, an' went in afteh hit head first lak er frawg. He's drowndin', he sholey is! By golly! Legree! Eliza! Come back hyeh dis minyit! Unc' Tawm's drowndin'!" Topsy was making a terrific commotion. While she screeched for help she ran circles on the river-bank, tossing her hands wildly. If she had put some of her aimless energy into helping Uncle Tom, the kinky-headed old negro in the water would have been a whole lot better off. He was floundering and thrashing and making a good deal of noise himself. "Hit's ovah mah haid!" he spluttered. "Ah's done got de crampus en mah lef' laig an' Ah's monsus bad off! Bl-r-r-r! Dat's twicet Ah's gawn down, en de nex' time Ah's gwine down tuh stay. Doan' put yo'se'f out none--doan' scramble so ha'd yo' lose yo' bref. Hit's only a coon whut's drowndin', so take yo' time gittin' hyeh an'----" Uncle Tom swallowed a bucket of water, more or less, just then, and his language was submerged. "Mercy sakes!" cried Eliza breathlessly, hurrying back through the brush, closely tagged by Little Eva and Legree. "Do something, somebody! Oh, I wish we had a rope. Hang onto the box, Uncle Tom," she added encouragingly; "we'll get you out!" "Oh, biscuits!" scoffed Little Eva. "Stop t'rowin' yerself around like dat an' try ter float. De way yous handles yerself, Uncle Tom, gives me a pain. Can't y' swim?" Legree was carrying a blacksnake whip. "Here," he yelled, posting himself on the edge of the bank and reaching out to throw the whip-lash toward the old negro, "grab hold of that and I'll snake you ashore too quick for any use." Uncle Tom was beyond talking, but he shook the water from his eyes, saw the whip and grabbed it. Thereupon Legree laid back on the handle and pulled. Uncle Tom was brought upright, his feet on the river-bed. The water came just above his knees, and he waded ashore. "Well, de old geezer!" exploded Little Eva. "Say, give me a pair o' high-heeled shoes an' I'll walk acrost dat roarin' torrent widou' never wettin' me kicks. How much water does it take ter drown yous, Uncle Tom? Oh, sister, what a jolt." Little Eva began to laugh. "Dat's right," gurgled Uncle Tom, splashing around on one foot to get the water out of his ear, "laff, laff an' show yo' ignunce. Dat didun' git away f'um me, nohow," and he threw a small tin box on the ground in front of Legree. Eliza stooped and picked up the box. "You take care of that, Eliza," said Legree. "Uncle Tom must have been careless. What were you and Topsy walking along by the river for?" he added, turning to the old negro. "We reckons we mout hook er fish," explained Topsy, pointing to the ground where a stick with a fish-line attached to its end had been dropped. "Ah'm gettin' pow'ful hongry," complained Uncle Tom, "en Ah doan' see how we-all's gwine tuh eat if we doan' ketch er fish er kill er possum, er somepin lak dat. Mah goodness, but Ah'm holla cleah down tuh mah shoes. If a piece ob bresh hadun' switched dat box out'n mah han', Ah wouldn't hab got en de ruvver. Anybody dat wants tuh kin tote dat 'ar box. Ah done had enough ob it." "Cheer up, Uncle Tom," said Eliza. "When we get to the next town we'll have something to eat." "Huccome yo' allow dat, Miss 'Liza? Whah we git de money, huh?" "I've got a ring," answered Eliza, with a little break in her voice, "and I'll pawn it." "No, you don't, Eliza," said Legree. "I've got a watch, and I'll pawn that." "Wisht I had somet'in' t' soak," said Little Eva. "Brisco's head wouldn't be a bad t'ing, eh? Say, mebby I couldn't hand dat mutt a couple o' good ones if he was handy!" Legree brought his hand around and boxed the boy's ears--for "Little Eva," in this case, was a boy of nine. "Stow it," growled Legree, who happened to be the boy's father. "You can talk a lot without saying much, kid. Come on, everybody," he added. "The quicker we get to Fairview the quicker we eat. You and Topsy keep in the road, Uncle Tom, and don't lag behind." "How's Ah gwine tuh git dried off?" fretted Uncle Tom. "De rheumatix is li'ble tuh come pesterin' erroun' if Ah ain't mouty keerful wif mahse'f." "Walk fast, Uncle Tom," said Legree, starting back toward the road. "Ah kain't walk fast," said the old man; "hit's all Ah kin do tuh walk at all, kase Ah's mighty nigh tuckered. Dishyer walkin'-match is monsus tough on er ole man, sho' as yo's bawn. Ain't dey no wagons in dis country? Whaffur dey got er road if dey ain't got no wagons? Ah'd give a mulyun dollahs if Ah had it fo' a mu-el en a wagon." Topsy pushed close to Uncle Tom's side, grabbed his wet sleeve and helped him along. In a few minutes they broke away from the river-bank into the road. Little Eva didn't seem to mind walking. He pranced along with a pocket full of stones, and every once in a while he stopped to make a throw at a road-runner or a chipmunk. Trees and brush lined the road on each side, growing so thickly that it was impossible to see very far into the timber. Eliza and Legree, talking over the difficulties in which they found themselves and trying to plan some way for surmounting them, were pretty well in advance, while Uncle Tom and Topsy were pretty well in the rear. Little Eva was dodging around in between, now and then shying at something with a stone. The strange little party had not proceeded far before the boy heard a noise in the brush. Heedless of what he might find in such a wild country, he jumped into the thicket. And then he jumped out again, yelling like a Comanche. "Run!" he piped frenziedly, tearing along the road. "Dere's somet'ing chasin' me an' it's as big as a house an' has a mout' like a church door. Sprint! Sprint fer yer lives!" The other four gave their immediate attention to Little Eva, and then changed it to something that rolled out of the undergrowth directly behind them. "A bear!" yelled Legree. "Hunt a tree, kid! Everybody climb a tree!" This is exactly what everybody proceeded to do. Little Eva shinned up a sapling, Legree gave Eliza a boost into a scrub oak, and then started for a neighboring pine himself, and Uncle Tom displayed a tremendous amount of reserve force, considering his age and his recent experience. "Ah knows dis trip is gwine tuh be de deaf ob me," he fluttered, getting astride a limb and hugging the trunk of the tree with both arms. "Mah goodness!" he chattered, craning his neck to get a good look at the cause of the disturbance. "Go 'way f'um hyeh, you! We-all doan' want no truck wif you." The bear was a grizzly--not a large grizzly, but plenty large enough. There were lots of bigger bears in that part of Arizona, but this was the biggest one Fate had to run in among those unlucky "Uncle Tommers." Having gained a position about half-way up and down the line of treed actors, the bear sat down in the road and proceeded to enjoy the situation. "Are you all right?" sang out Legree from the top of the pine: "is everybody all right?" "If bein' hung up like dis is wot yous call all right, dad," answered Little Eva, "den it's a lead pipe dat we's all t' de good. But, say, I ain't feelin' real comfertable in me mind." "Shoo dat animile away, Mistah Legree," begged Topsy. "Hit ain't right tuh make us stay hyeh lak dis when we's all tiah'd out." "Go right up to de beah, Legree," suggested Uncle Tom, "en tie dat whip erroun' his neck an' strangle de life outen him. Beah meat is mighty nigh as good as possum, an' we kin git fo' er five dollahs fo' de pelt." "Oh, dear!" murmured Eliza. "I do wish he'd go away. I guess he's thinking more about making a meal off of us than letting us make one from him." "Dey trabbles in paihs," called Uncle Tom in trembling tones, by way of enlivening the situation. "Hit's lak snakes, en wherebber yo' finds one yo' sholey is gwine tuh fin' anudder." "Ah hears de odder!" screamed Topsy. "He's champin' down de road lak er singed cat. Heah him! Oh, mah golly! We's all as good as daid--we's all gwine tuh be et up." Strange noises were coming from along the back track, coming rapidly and growing louder and louder. "Dat odder one's bigger 'n a efelunt!" palpitated Uncle Tom, climbing a couple of limbs higher. "All Ah hopes is dat he ain't big enough tuh reach up en take me outen de tree. Ah's a gone niggah, Ah feels hit en mah bones." The bear heard the approaching noise, and it seemed to puzzle him. He sniffed the air, shook his head forebodingly, and then dropped down on all fours and ambled into the brush. The next moment, to the astonishment of the four actors, a sparkling red automobile rushed into sight, coming from the direction of Ash Fork and headed toward Fairview. A youth in leather cap and jacket was in the driver's seat; beside him was a young German in a "loud" suit and a red vest. "Pretzel!" yelled Little Eva; "I'm a jay if it ain't Pretzel!" "Saved!" cried Eliza. The big red touring-car came to a halt in about the same place where the bear had recently held the fort. The faces of the two boys in the car were pictures of amazement as they stared at the odd assortment of actors hanging in the trees. "Vell, py shinks," exclaimed the Dutch boy, "dis vas a jeerful pitzness und no mistake. It iss der fairst time I efer knowed it bossiple to pick actor-peoples oudt oof der drees. Vat you t'ink oof dot, Motor Matt?" CHAPTER II. THE RED FLIER GETS A LOAD. Motor Matt didn't know what to think. The queerest lot of people he ever saw were dropping out of the trees and hurrying toward the automobile. First, there was a young woman of seventeen or eighteen, wearing a dust-coat and gauntlets. There was a look of intense relief on her pretty face. Following her came a tall, slimly built man, whose clothes suggested the ruffian, but whose face was anything but vicious. He carried a blacksnake whip. A boy trailed after the man. He wasn't a handsome boy, by any means, but his eyes were bright and sharp and he had a clever look. From the other way along the road came an old darky in tattered, soggy clothes. A young negro girl hurried along beside him. "Well," breathed Motor Matt, "if this ain't a brain-twister I don't want a cent. Who are they, Carl? One of them seems to know you." "Sure I knows him," spoke up the boy. "Got wise t' Carl Pretzel in Denver. 'Pretzel an' Pringle, Musical Marvels.' W'ere's Pringle, Dutch?" "Don't say someding aboudt him," answered Carl. "I haf scratched him off my visiding-list, yah, you bed you. Pringle iss some pad eggs, und ve don'd ged along mit each odder. Matt, dis vas Liddle Efa, who blays mit a Ungle Dom's Capin Gompany. Ven he geds his leedle curly-viggies on, he looks fine--schust like some girls, yes. Who iss der odder peobles, Efa?" "Dis is me fader, Dutch," answered the boy; "he's de guy wot licks Uncle Tom in de show. De loidy is Eliza, an' say, she's got 'em all skinned w'en it comes t' jumpin' acrost de river on cakes of ice. Dat's Uncle Tom, scramblin' into de auto wit'out waitin' f'r an invite, an' de goil is Topsy." "Young man," said Legree, stepping forward and addressing Motor Matt, "we're what's left of Brisco's Uncle Tom's Cabin Company. Brisco took all the funds and left us in the lurch at Brockville, the station west of Ash Fork. The constable took our tent, and properties, and even the bloodhounds. We were left with the clothes we stood in, and that's all. Marks, and St. Clair, and the rest, made a raise and rode back to Denver in the train. They didn't have enough to help us out, and so we've started to walk as far as Flagstaff. When we get there, we're going to get up some sort of an entertainment and see if we can't pull down enough hard cash to see us through to Denver. Brisco owes all of us money. Barrin' the kid, here, he beat each one of us out of more'n a hundred dollars. But we're goin' to get him; you see if we don't." A grim look came to Legree's face. "Veil," said Carl, "be jeerful und don'd vorry. I haf der same kindt oof pad luck, den I met oop mit Modor Matt und der luck dook a shange. Meppy yours vill dake a shange, too." "We're going to Albuquerque," spoke up Matt, "and if you don't mind being crowded we can give you a lift as far as Flagstaff." A long breath of satisfaction broke from Uncle Tom. "Dat's fine," said he. "Dis niggah am sholy tuckered. Why doan' yo'-all git intuh de wagon? Dat beah am li'ble tuh come snoopin' an' pesterin' back." "Pear?" cried Carl. "Vat you say, huh? Iss dere a pear aroundt here?" "Dat's no dream, Dutch," answered the boy. "Wot did yous t'ink it was chased us up dem trees?" "Everythin's been goin' wrong with us ever since we hit Brockville," said Legree. "A lot more'll happen, too, but I reckon we're done with the bear. This machine scared the brute away. How'll you have us in the car, Motor Matt?" "Little Eva, as you call him," said Matt, laughing a little as he looked at the boy, "had better get in front here with Carl. That will leave four of you for the tonneau. It won't be long until we get to Fairview, and we'll stop there for dinner." "Um-yum," said Topsy; "golly, but dat sounds good! Dinnah! Heah dat, Unc' Tawn?" Uncle Tom smacked his lips and rolled up the whites of his eyes. "Doan' say a wo'd, chile," he cautioned. "Dis seems jess lak er dream, dis ride in de debble-wagon, de dinnah, en all. Yo' speak too loud, Ah's fearin' Ah's done gwine tuh woke up." With his load of stranded actors aboard, all rejoicing in the good luck that had brought Matt and Carl along with the automobile at that particular time, the young motorist cranked up, threw in the clutch and started. Hardly were they under good headway when a sharp cry came from Eliza. "Stop! The box! I dropped it when I got up into that tree." Matt stopped the Red Flier. "Pox?" cried Carl; "vat iss dot?" "Dat's whut got me into de ruvver," said Uncle Tom. "Ah 'lows dat box is er heap mo' trouble dan hit's worf." "If we ever get hold of Brisco," returned Legree, "it'll be that box that does it for us. Wait here a minute, Motor Matt, and I'll go back and get it. I think I know right where it is." Legree got out of the car, went back along the road, and vanished among the bushes. "Is der money in der pox?" asked Carl. "We don't know what's in it," answered Eliza. "Dot's keveer. How vill dot pox helup you ged holt oof Prisco?" "Brisco always kept it by him," went on Eliza, "so we know he thinks it's valuable. He told Legree, once, he wouldn't lose the box for ten thousand dollars." "How did you come to get hold of it?" inquired Matt. "That's the queer part of it. Brisco left the Brockville hotel during the night----" "An' I picked it up by de door, next mornin'," chimed in the boy. "Brisco must have dropped it when he made dat getaway. It was blacker dan a stack o' black cats, dat night, an' he wasn't able t' use his lamps." "When Marks, and Harris, and St. Clair, and the rest of the company left Brockville," continued Eliza, "they told us to keep the box and not give it up until Brisco paid over what he owed. We lost our wages and everything else we had except the clothes on our backs." "Dot's me," spoke up Carl; "I vas fixed der same vat you are. Den, pympy, Modor Matt come along mit himseluf, shpoke some jeerful vorts mit me, dook me for a bard, und luck made a shange. Meppy dot iss how it vill be mit you." "Seems lak he was a long time findin' dat dere box," said Uncle Tom. "Ah's honin' fo' dat hotel in Fairview, an' fo' dat dinnah, an' fo' to dry dese clothes. Mistah Legree is a monstus long time, an' no mistake." "Stay here, all of you," said Matt, getting out of the car. "I'll go back and see if I can help find the box. If it's so important, it won't do to leave it behind." "I'll go 'long wit' yous," chirped the boy. Before he could get out of the car, the sharp, incisive note of a revolver echoed from the bushes at the trail-side, close to the place where Legree had vanished into them. Eliza stifled a scream. "Mah goodness!" fluttered Topsy. "Somebody's done gone tuh shootin'!" "It wasn't dad, dat's a cinch!" cried the boy. "He didn't have no gun!" "Stay there!" called Matt to the boy, as he whirled and hurried on. "Stand ready to crank up the machine, Carl," he added, "in case we have to start in a hurry." Matt had dropped into the troubles of these forlorn "Uncle Tommers" with bewildering suddenness. He hadn't had the remotest notion that there was going to be any violence, or shooting, and the report of the revolver had sent a thrill of alarm through him. Had Brisco been tracking the unfortunate actors, and had he attempted to make way with the tin box just as Legree was about to secure it? As Matt drew closer to the thicket, he heard sharp and angry voices. One voice he recognized as belonging to Legree, and the other struck a strangely familiar note in his ear. He had heard that voice somewhere before--but where? There were only two voices taking part in the talk, but the man who had intercepted Legree was armed. Matt knew it would stand him in hand to be cautious, so, instead of turning directly from the road into the brush, he darted for the timber some distance beyond the scene of the altercation. Then, making his way back warily, he pushed through the bushes. He made very little noise--so little that his approach was not heard by either of the two men. Legree, however, was standing in such a position that he could not help seeing Matt. He was facing the other man, and the latter had his back to the young motorist. There was something familiar about that back, but even yet Matt could not recall who the man was. The fellow was roughly dressed. In his right hand he was holding a revolver, pointing it squarely at Legree, and in his left hand he was holding a small tin box. "If ye think ye can fool Hank Brisco," the man with the weapon was saying, "ye're far wide o' yer trail. He's got a ottermobill, now, what kin shoot through the kentry like a cannon-ball, an' I reckon thar'll be some Cain raised on this part o' the range afore many moons. You take my advice an' hike out o' here without tryin' ter make Hank any trouble, er----" Just at that moment Motor Matt's opportunity came. Flinging himself forward suddenly, he grabbed the revolver out of the ruffian's hand. "Bully for you, Matt!" cried Legree. The next instant Legree's blacksnake whip had curled itself about the ruffian's left wrist, girdling the skin like a loop of fire. The man roared out an oath. The pain must have been intense, for his fingers curled away from the box and he caught his wrist with his other hand. Matt stared. When the ruffian had turned and rushed into the woods, cursing and vowing vengeance, Matt continued to stare. "Ever seen that man before, Matt?" asked Legree, surprised at the boy's manner. "I should say so!" exclaimed Matt. "Let's get back to the car. You've got back the box, but we haven't seen the last of this--not by a long shot." CHAPTER III. THE STOLEN RUNABOUT. Shouts of relief went up from those in the Red Flier at sight of Matt and Legree sprinting down the road, Legree with the box and Matt with the revolver. "Hoop-a-la!" jubilated Carl; "be jeerful, eferypody. Here dey come alretty, und mit more as dey vent to ged!" "Fo' de lan' sake!" chattered Topsy; "Ah sholy expected some one had done been kilt." "Git right in de kyah," urged Uncle Tom, "so we kin git erway f'om dis hyeh place. Beahs, en robbahs, en oddah spontaneous excitements is monstus tryin' to er niggah wif er empty stummick. Ah doan' lak shootin' nohow." "Was dat some guy t'rowin' a bullet at yous, dad?" inquired Little Eva. "How close did he come t' ringin' de bell?" "How many were there?" cried Eliza; "are they following us?" Matt jumped into his seat, and Legree scrambled for the tonneau. "Take this, Legree," called Matt, and dropped the revolver over the back of the seat. Carl, who had been posted at the front of the machine, had already "turned over" the engine. As she took the spark Carl crawled to his place beside Matt, and the Red Flier glided away. The young motorist was silent for a while, listening as Legree told how he had gone searching for the box and found it in the hands of a scoundrel whom he had never seen before. The Unknown had fired a revolver, but it had been more to intimidate Legree and keep him at a distance, for the bullet had not come anywhere near him. Legree finished with an account of how Matt had come up behind the ruffian and had saved the day. "Dot's der vay Modor Matt does pitzness," said the admiring Carl. "You bed my life he vas some virlvinds ven he leds himseluf oudt." "The name of the man who ran off and left your company stranded was Hank Brisco, was it?" asked Matt. "That was his name, Matt," replied Legree. "But who was that tough-looking citizen that had me cornered, there in the thicket?" "I'll have to tell you something that happened to Carl and me, a few days ago, in order for you to understand that part of it," answered Matt. "This touring-car belongs to Mr. James Q. Tomlinson, a wholesale jeweler who lives in Denver. He and his driver, Gregory, have been touring the Southwest in it. A gang of thieves, among whom was a fellow called Hank, and another called Spangler, robbed Mr. Tomlinson on the trail, several miles west of Ash Fork. Carl and I got mixed up in the trouble, and we had some exciting times racing the Red Flier against a high-powered runabout that the thieves stole from a wealthy cattleman named Lem Nugent. "Mr. Tomlinson recovered his stolen property and went on to Albuquerque with his driver, Gregory, hiring me to take the touring-car from Ash Fork to Albuquerque. That's how we happened to come along in time to help you out, Mr. Legree." "If this man, Tomlinson, got back his stolen property," asked Legree, "what became of the thieves?" "Two of them, Hank and Spangler, got away with the cattleman's car. The stolen runabout can go like a blue streak, and is lighter and faster than the Red Flier. Now, the man that tried to get the tin box, back there in the thicket, was none other than Spangler; and the other villain, who was called by the name of 'Hank,' was the fellow who left you in the lurch at Brockville." "Shiminy grickets, how t'ings vill turn oudt mit demselufs, vonce und again!" clamored Carl. "Domlinson vould like more as he can dell to haf dose fellers ketched, and Nuchent vants pooty pad dot he geds his car pack some more. He vill gif fife huntert tollars to any vone vat vill findt der car, und he vill gif fife huntert more for Hank, und der same for Spangler." Carl leaned toward Matt with his eyes almost popping from his head. "Bard," he asked, "can ve scoop it in?" "I'd like to get back that runabout for Mr. Nugent," said Matt, "but I don't know as we ought to take the time to go fooling along on our way to Albuquerque." "Vell, Misder Domlinson say dot dere vasn't any hurry." "He also said," continued Matt, "that he wouldn't trust this car with everybody. If we should get to tearing around after Hank and Spangler, and damage the Flier, we would find ourselves in a hole." "You hadn't better bother trying to take us to Flagstaff, then," put in Legree, "for as long as we've got this tin box Brisco is going to keep on trying to get hold of it. If he chases us with that stolen runabout, which you say is a faster car than the Red Flier, you're goin' to run some risks with this machine." "If we work it right," said Matt, "I guess we can get you people to Flagstaff without being bothered much by Hank and Spangler. It's queer, though, to have it turn out that those two scoundrels are mixed up in these troubles of yours." "Ah's done had trouble enough," wailed Uncle Tom, "en Ah doan' know how Ah could stand any mo'. Ah's er pretty ole niggah tuh go traipsin' erroun' afteh robbahs, en drappin' intuh rivvers, an' climbin' trees tuh sabe my hide from beahs. All de same, Ah 'lows some ob dat money fo' ketchin' dat 'ar Brisco would come mouty handy. But Mistah Legree, yo' listen hyeh. If Brisco sets sich er pow'ful store by dat 'ar box, mebby he'd buy hit offen de lot ob us, payin' us whut he owes jess tuh git holt ob hit. Why not, sah, entah intuh prognostications wif him wif de view ob settlin' ouah compunctions in er pleasin' manner?" A shadow of a grin wreathed itself around Legree's lips. "Well, Uncle Tom," he answered, "it's hard to prognosticate with a chap who's so hard to find as Brisco is." "Vere vas Hank vile Spangler vas looking for der pox, Matt?" asked Carl. "That's a conundrum, Carl." "Und vere vas der runaboudt?" "Another conundrum." "Vell, ditn't Spangler ride to der blace vere he come for der din pox in der runaboudt?" "I didn't see anything of the machine, but I was afraid it was somewhere around--which is the reason I was in such a hurry to make a fresh start for Fairview." "Ve don'd vas shased py der runaboudt, anyvay, und dot means dot it vasn't some blace around vere Spangler vas." "Chee!" came from Little Eva, as he pointed ahead. "Dere's de burg wot we're headin' fer. I'm a jay if it don't look almost big enough fer two 'r t'ree people t' live in." From the rising ground on which the Red Flier and its passengers found themselves, at that moment, Fairview could be fairly viewed. Perhaps there were twenty-five or thirty houses in the place, the main street being bordered by half a dozen stores. "Doan' yo' go an' tell me dar ain't no hotel," faltered Uncle Tom. "No matter how small a town is, Uncle Tom," returned Eliza, "travelers can always find a place to stay. Our hardest work will be, I think, to discover some one who will lend money on our jewelry." "I'll furnish the jewelry, Eliza," said Legree. "This watch of mine is worth enough, I think, to furnish us with food and lodging while Motor Matt gives us a lift to Flagstaff." "If you're out of cash," spoke up Matt, in his usual generous style, "I'll foot the bills. Some time, when you get on Easy Street, you can pay me back." Uncle Tom's anxiety over the prospect fell from him like a wet blanket. "Yo's a gemman, Mistah Motah Matt," he declared, "yo' is what Ah calls a puffick gemman. Ah'm mos'ly independent in dese money mattahs--dis is de fust time since Ah can remembah dat Ah habn't had all ob two dollars in mah clo's--so hit is mouty spognoocious tuh mah pride, sah, to be fo'ced tuh accept a loan. Still, sah, Ah brings mahse'f to hit bekase yo' is so willin' an' so spendacious. In retu'n fo' dat, Mistah Motah Matt, Ah becomes on de spot yo' official mascot. Yassuh. Ah takes yo' luck en mah own han's, an' evah time what yo' do anyt'ing, Ah agrees tuh make yo' a winnah." "Much obliged, Uncle Tom," laughed Matt. "Go on wif yo'!" cried Topsy. "Why didun' yo' mascot dat 'ar company so dat Brisco couldn't do lak what he done? Mascot! Yah, yah, yah!" "Laff," returned Uncle Tom tartly, "laff an' show yo' ignunce! What yo' unnerstan' about luckosophy an' mascots? Yo' mouty triflin' an' tryin', dat's what yo' is. Wait twell yo' see what Ah does fo' Motah Matt." During this talk, the Red Flier had glided down a long slope into the little town. It did not take long to traverse the main street, and as they jogged onward all eyes looked carefully for a hotel. Finally they saw a sign with a picture of something that looked like a four-leaved clover. Under the picture were the printed words, "Shamrock House." "Dat 'ar fo'-leaved clovah means luck," averred Uncle Tom. "It's supposed to be a shamrock, Uncle Tom," said Eliza, "and not a clover-leaf." "Ah knows dat," went on Uncle Tom, "but hit sho' means luck. Ah done got de feelin'." Motor Matt and Carl Pretzel "got the feeling," too, for around at one side of the hotel they saw another automobile. There was no one around the car. Carl nearly dropped off his seat. "Vas I plind mit meinseluf," he whispered, "or iss it der real t'ing vat I see? Matt, dere iss der shtolen runaboudt, mit nopody aroundt! Fife huntert tollars saying it righdt oudt loud, 'Come, oh, come, somepody und pick me oop!'" Matt was astounded; yet there was not the least doubt about the runabout being the same car that had been stolen. "Is that the automobile Brisco ran away with?" demanded Legree, leaping energetically out of the tonneau. "That's the one!" declared Matt. "Then come with me, Matt, you and Carl," said Legree, starting for the hotel door. "Keep behind, though. I'm armed, now, and can meet Brisco in his own way if he shows fight." CHAPTER IV. THE COAT IN THE RUMBLE. Matt, while following Legree toward the front of the hotel, was doing some quick thinking to account for this surprising discovery of the runabout. Very likely Brisco and Spangler were planning to recover the tin box. It must have been these plans that had brought them eastward from the vicinity of Ash Fork. Spangler had been dropped on the road to intercept the stranded players and get the box, while Brisco had come recklessly into Fairview. Possibly Brisco had been compelled to come into town after gasoline and oil. "Ah doan' want tuh be erroun' if dar's goin' tuh be any shootin'," palpitated Uncle Tom, rolling out of the tonneau with more haste than grace. "Ah used tuh be a reg'lar fire-eatah, en mah youngah days, but Ah dun kinder got ovah hit. Topsy, yo' an' Miss 'Liza come right along wif me, dis instinct. We'll go off whah dar's er safe place fo' me tuh do mah mascottin' fo' Motah Matt." Eliza and Topsy hurriedly descended from the car. Little Eva was already on the ground, but instead of going around the hotel with Eliza, Topsy, and Uncle Tom, he strolled over to the runabout. In their excitement, the others did not miss the boy. There were two windows in the hotel office--one in the front wall, a dozen feet from the door, and one just around the corner in the side wall. The window in the side wall overlooked the runabout. Matt, doing some quick figuring, jumped at the conclusion that Brisco, taken by surprise by Legree, would make a bolt through one of the windows, both of which were open. Close to the front window an eave-spout entered a rain-water barrel. Matt did not believe Brisco, if he tried to escape by a window, would come out at the front, but at the side, where he would be nearer the runabout. With this idea in mind, Matt placed Carl behind the water-barrel, while he went around the corner. Through the window on that side the young motorist stole a cautious look. Two men were leaning over a counter in the office. One was plainly an Irishman, and the proprietor of the place, and the other was as plainly Hank Brisco. Matt knew Brisco too well to be mistaken in him. Neither Brisco nor the Irish proprietor had heard the approach of the Red Flier, nor the entrance of Legree into the office. With a grim smile on his face, and the revolver in his hand, Legree was leaning against the wall, just inside the door, waiting for Brisco to turn around. "Begorry," the proprietor was saying, "fifty cints a gallon f'r th' gasoline is all I'm afther chargin' yez. Oi know av robbers around here who'd be chargin' yez a dollar a gallon, but that's not the way wid Terence O'Grady. Fifty cints is th' most Oi'll take from yez. Fifteen gallons at fifty cints is sivin-fifty; then wan dollar f'r oil makes eight-fifty. Eight-fifty from tin laves wan an a half, an' there yez are. Will yez shtay f'r dinner? Faith, we've as foine a male t'day as yez iver put tooth in, an' a dollar is all ut will cost yez." "I reckon I'll stay, O'Grady," replied Brisco, picking his change off the counter and sliding it into his pocket. Then he turned, and met the leveled weapon of Legree. Brisco's astonishment was ludicrous to behold. And O'Grady was fully as startled. "Phat th' blazes d'yez mean by thot?" and O'Grady jumped over the counter and stood glaring at Legree. "I'll explain," said Legree, with a coolness that filled Matt with admiration, "but while I'm talking, O'Grady, don't get between the point of this weapon and that man, there." "Is ut a hould-up?" demanded O'Grady. "Not at all. The man behind you knows me, and he knows that he owes me a hundred and twenty dollars." "I don't know anything of the kind," replied Brisco, every whit as cool as Legree. "You've made a mistake, my man; and, besides, even if I did owe you money, you're trying to collect it in the wrong way." "Roight yez are!" put in O'Grady. "Shtick thot pisthol in yer pocket an' go off wid yez. This is a dacint, rayspectible hotel, an' guns ain't allowed in th' place at all, at all. Av yez don't hike, begorry, Oi'll call in th' town marshal." "Call the marshal," said Legree; "he's the man I'd like to have here. That fellow who just bought gasoline and oil at this place is one of the gang who robbed Tomlinson, the Denver jeweler, over west of Ash Fork, and stole the automobile belonging to Nugent, the cattleman----" Brisco began to laugh. "What do you think of that, O'Grady?" he cried. "Why, that car you just helped me fill with gasoline is Tomlinson's car! I'm taking it east for him. Who this man is, or what game he's trying to play, is more than I know." Brisco was edging around toward the side window. "Look out, Mr. Legree!" called Matt, through the opening. "He's trying to get where he can drop out here." Matt's words caused Brisco and O'Grady to swerve their glances in his direction. A glint darted into Brisco's eyes at sight of Matt. Hank Brisco had good reason to remember the young motorist. "This looks like a put-up job, O'Grady," said Brisco, still keeping the whip-hand of himself. "Well, begob," cried O'Grady, "no pack av blackguards can come into th' Shamrock Hotel an' shtir up throuble f'r me customers. Clear out av here," he added, brandishing his fists, "or Oi'll be afther gittin' busy wid me hands." "Is that man the one who helped rob Tomlinson, Matt?" asked Legree, nodding his head toward Brisco. "He's the one," answered Matt. "I'd know him anywhere. Don't let him----" Just at that moment, O'Grady, wofully deceived, but thinking he was doing exactly what was right, kicked a chair at Legree. The chair struck Legree's shins with a force that hurled him back against the wall. "Now, then," roared O'Grady to Brisco, "make a run av it! Oi'll take care av this boonch av meddlers!" With that, he hurled himself upon Legree and the two began to struggle, falling over the chair and dropping heavily on the floor. They were directly across the doorway, and Brisco sprang for the front window and pushed himself through it. "Shtop a leedle!" whooped Carl, dodging around the rain-water barrel; "you don'd got avay so easy as dot, und---- Himmelblitzen!" Brisco had grabbed the barrel. That happened to be the dry season and the barrel was empty. Giving it a whirl, he threw it against the Dutch boy with a force that took him off his feet. Thrashing his arms wildly, Carl laid himself down on the rolling barrel and went caroming off toward the road. Meantime, Matt, seeing that Brisco was making for the window guarded by Carl, had rushed around to the front of the hotel. He reached the scene of the scrimmage just in time to be grabbed by O'Grady. The racket in the office had brought O'Grady's Chinese cook from the kitchen; and, while the Chinaman continued the tussle with Legree, the proprietor of the hotel had rushed out to see what more he could do for the man who had paid him so well for gasoline and oil. "Oi've got yez, yez meddlin' omadhoun!" shouted O'Grady. "Oi'll tach yez t' come interferin' wid dacint people!" With that he flung his arms around Motor Matt and hung to him with all his strength. "Hang onto him, O'Grady!" cried Brisco, dashing for the runabout. "Niver yez fret!" panted the Irishman reassuringly; "good-by t' yez. Next toime yez come we'll give yez betther treatment; there won't be so many hoodlums around t'----" "Let go!" shouted Matt. Then, suddenly freeing his hands, he struck the deluded Irishman a quick blow. O'Grady's hands relaxed for an instant. That instant gave Motor Matt his opportunity, and he tore himself free. About the same moment, Legree, hatless, angry, and chagrined, came running out of the office. "Where's Brisco?" he demanded. Just then the question was answered by Brisco himself. The runabout, leaping around the corner of the hotel, shot toward the road, a mocking laugh from Brisco trailing out behind. "Not this time, Legree!" called Brisco, over his shoulder. "Look out for me, from now on--you and Motor Matt!" The runabout was headed westward. In the rumble behind, lying partly over the rumble-seat, was a dust-coat. It undoubtedly belonged to Brisco, and he must have thrown it aside while attending to the automobile, a few minutes before. While Motor Matt and Legree stood staring at the receding car, the coat lifted a little and a hand was waved. "Great Scott!" cried Matt; "it's that boy." Legree, far from showing any consternation, leaned against the wall of the building and laughed softly. Matt was amazed. "What's the matter with you, Legree?" he demanded. "I'm just enjoying a situation that has a bad outlook for Brisco," was Legree's queer answer. "It has a bad outlook for the boy, too," said Matt. "Don't worry about Little Eva. I know him better than you do, and he'll take care of himself." At this moment the Chinaman came out of the hotel office and handed the revolver to O'Grady. "Oi've had about all Oi want av this rough-house!" shouted O'Grady, his temper badly warped by the disturbance and the blow Matt had dealt him. "Yez will shtay roight here, bedad, until Oi can have th' Chink go afther th' town marshal. Go f'r Jennings, Ping," he added, flourishing the weapon in the faces of Matt and Legree, "an hustle. We'll make this slab-soided roosther laugh on t'other soide av his face befure we're done wid him." CHAPTER V. MATT BEGINS A SEARCH. Carl, having untangled himself from the barrel, brushed off his clothes and rubbed his sore spots, came bristling up to O'Grady. "You vas grazy," he cried, "so grazy as I don'd know. Oof you hatn't fooled mit us, t'ings vould haf peen tifferent. Ve lose vone t'ousant tollars py vat you do! Yah, so helup me! Pud avay der gun und ged reasonaple." "Huccome dat 'ar resolver change han's lak what Ah see?" inquired Uncle Tom, stepping gingerly around the corner of the hotel. "Didun' Ah do yo no good, mascottin' fo' yo', Motah Matt?" Eliza and Topsy followed Uncle Tom, peering about them excitedly and evidently expecting to find Brisco a prisoner. "Something went crossways, Uncle Tom," said Matt. "Brisco got away, and he took the stolen car with him. Mr. O'Grady, here, the proprietor of the hotel, didn't understand the case and helped the wrong side." By that time O'Grady was himself beginning to think that he had made a mistake. The sight of the big red touring-car, and of the odd assortment of passengers who had arrived in it, afforded him food for thought. So he was thinking, lowering the revolver meanwhile and grabbing Ping, the Chinaman, by the queue to keep him from going after the marshal. "Where did th' lot av yez come from?" O'Grady finally inquired. "Ash Fork," replied Legree. "Them colored folks come wid yez?" "Yes." "Well, mebby Oi did make a bobble, Oi dunno. Tell me something more about ut." Briefly as he could, Legree told of the robbery of Mr. Tomlinson and of the stealing of the cattleman's car, then wound up the recital by describing how Brisco had run off and left his theatrical company, and how Motor Matt had picked up those who were tramping along the road and was giving them a lift as far as Flagstaff. O'Grady seemed to take more stock in Motor Matt than in any of the others. He watched the boy out of the tails of his eyes while listening to Legree. "Faith," said he, "yez are a har-r-d hitter, me lad. Oi'm feelin' th' rap yez give me this minyit, an' me jaw'll be lame f'r a wake; but sure Oi desarved ut av so be Oi'm raysponsible f'r th' mon gittin' away. A good custhomer he was, an' Oi make ut a rule t' trate good custhomers wid ivery consideration. Oi supplied him wid gasoline out av me private barrel, an' sint th' Chinee f'r oil which Oi let him have at double th' proice Oi paid f'r ut. By th' same token, Oi felt loike tratin' th' mon white, d'yez see? Now, av yez won't say annythin' more about th' fracas, sure Oi won't, an' we'll let bygones be bygones. Was yez all thinkin' av takin' dinner at th' Shamrock?" "Dat 'ar was de notion we had, boss," spoke up Uncle Tom eagerly. "Then, begorry, Oi'll make yez a special rate av sivin dollars f'r th' six av yez." "I'll give you three," said Matt. "T'ree ut is," was the prompt rejoinder. "Th' ladies can go t' th' parlor, an' th' gintlemen will foind a wash-bench by th' kitchen dure. Hurry up wid th' meal, Ping," the proprietor added to the Chinaman. O'Grady handed the revolver to Legree, excused himself and went into the hotel. "It don't take him long to forget the trouble he made us," remarked Legree, with a wink. "He's wise, too, in being willing to overlook the matter if we are." Motor Matt couldn't understand Legree. He didn't appear to be worried in the least about the boy; on the contrary, he seemed pleased with the situation. "Where's the kid?" inquired Eliza. "He went away with Brisco," replied Legree. Startled exclamations came from Eliza, Uncle Tom, and Topsy. "Don't fret about him," went on Legree, with a calm confidence that was too deep for Matt, "for he'll come back. I'll have to stay here and wait for him, of course, and if Matt feels as though he has to pull out for Flagstaff before the kid gets here, why, we'll have to come along the best we can." "The boy's in danger," said Matt, "and I'm not going to leave Fairview until I try to do something for him." "Don't go to any trouble, Matt," returned Legree, "for I tell you again the kid's able to look out for himself. This work of his may result in the capture of Brisco and the recovery of the stolen car. After we eat, I'm going to find a cot, lie down, and take a snooze. I've got that coming to me, I think, considering what I've been through to-day. Let's hunt up that wash-bench and get ready for dinner." Matt was in a quandary. He knew, by his own experience, that Brisco was a desperate man, and Legree's firm conviction that the boy would keep out of trouble looked like the craziest kind of misjudgment. Following the dinner, to which they all did ample justice, Uncle Tom curled up on a door-step in the sun, Legree found a hammock in the shade, and Eliza and Topsy disappeared inside the hotel. Matt led Carl off to the Red Flier. "It's a queer layout, Carl," said Matt, nodding his head in the direction of the hotel. "Hasn't it struck you that way?" "Vell," returned Carl, running his fingers reflectively through his mat of tow-colored hair, "I vas making some reflections on der soobjeck. Leedle Efa don't seem to cut mooch ice mit Legree, hey? Or meppy he cut a whole lot dot ve don'd know aboudt." "You knew the boy in Denver?" went on Matt. "Yah, aber I forged vat his name vas, or vat he dit. Und I ditn't know vedder he hat a fader." "Well, I don't think we ought to go on to Flagstaff until we find out something as to what becomes of the boy." "Me, neider; aber how ve find oudt, hey?" "We'll take the Flier and see if we can't track the runabout." "Und oof ve come too close py der runaboudt, den vat?" "We'll take some old bottles along. If the runabout shows up and tries to chase us, we'll make a run of it and smash the bottles in the road behind us." Carl chuckled. That was an expedient to which Motor Matt had already had recourse--and with brilliant success. "Pully! I vill go findt der pottles, Matt, vile you ged der macheen retty." Carl went off toward a junk-pile back of the wood-shed. By the time Matt had made the Red Flier ready, Carl was back with an armful of bottles. "Ve vas on der high gear dis drip, you bed you," observed Carl, dumping the bottles into the tonneau. "I like dose oxcidements, yah, so. It vas goot for der nerfs und makes a fellow jeerful like nodding." As they got into the car, ready for the start, Eliza came hurrying out of the hotel. She carried the box in her hand and made straight for the automobile. "Where are you going, Matt?" she asked breathlessly. "We're not intending to run off and leave you," Matt laughed. "We want to see if we can't find out something about Little Eva, as you call him. It don't seem right to let the boy be carried off like this and not try to do something to help him." "He's a queer kid," said Eliza thoughtfully. "He and Legree were only with the company about two months, and they both had a queer way about them, sometimes. But if Legree isn't worried I don't know why we ought to be." "I don't know, either," said Matt, "but I am, all the same. Carl and I are going to see if we can't follow the trail of the runabout for a ways. I don't think we'll be gone more than an hour or two." "May I go along?" "Why, yes, if you want to; but hadn't you better leave that box here?" "Legree told me to keep it by me all the time," answered the girl. "Probably he didn't intend for you to take it out into the hills. Well, never mind. If it's so mighty valuable I guess Legree would be taking care of it himself. Jump in, Eliza." The girl climbed into the tonneau, and Carl closed the door. Matt started at low speed, getting into the road at the same place where Brisco had driven the runabout. The trail of the broad wheels was well defined in the dust, and led along the course followed by the Red Flier in coming into town. "Prisco vent oudt like ve come in," said Carl. "I'm vonderin' in my mindt oof he vent pack py Ash Fork?" "Give it up, Carl," answered Matt. "I don't know where he went. There's a whole lot about this business that's the rankest kind of guesswork." "Sure! Liddle Efa vas foolish mit himseluf for gedding indo der car; und he vas foolish some more for shtaying der car in ven he mighdt chump it off. Aber meppy he hat his reasons, hey?" "He must have had a reason for doing such a reckless thing, but he don't know Brisco so well as we do." "He ought to, Matt," spoke up Eliza; "he was with the company for two months." "At that time," Matt answered, "Brisco had the best part of his character uppermost. Carl and I have seen the worst side of him, and he's the biggest scoundrel out of jail." "Vorse as dot!" averred Carl. The tracks of the car led up the slope, out of the valley that contained the town, and on along the Ash Fork road. Matt held the Flier down to an easy pace. For several miles the little party had a pleasant ride, without any excitement whatever. But there was plenty of excitement in store, and when it arrived it came suddenly. A turn in the wooded road brought those in the car abruptly into a long, straightaway stretch. The instant they were able to look along the trail beyond the turn, a thrill shot through the nerves of all of them. Three mounted men were coming toward the car at a tearing clip. Evidently they had heard the pounding of the motor and had put their horses to top speed. "Prisco!" shouted Carl; "und dere iss Spangler, too. Durn aroundt, Matt! Durn aroundt so kevick as der nation vill let you! Shiminy grickets, aber dis vas sutten!" Motor Matt had recognized two of the riders as Brisco and Spangler, even before Carl had given his frightened yell. Where had Brisco exchanged his seat in the runabout to the saddle of the horse? And why had he changed, and where had he left the car? All this darted through the young motorist's mind as he halted the Flier, reversed, and began backing to make the turn. CHAPTER VI. LOSING THE BOX. Matt had not dreamed of being pursued by horsemen. The Red Flier would have no difficulty in running away from anything on hoofs, and certainly she could leave these three riders behind providing she could turn and get under headway before being overhauled. Brisco, Spangler, and the other man were dangerously close before Matt got the Red Flier turned the other way. Just back from the bend there was a grassy hill, along the foot of which the road ran smoothly. It was an excellent place for speed, and Matt jumped from first to second, and from second to third with masterful quickness, considering the fact that he had to be careful about stripping the gear. As the car leaped away, like a spirited horse under the spur, Brisco was alongside the tonneau. A scream from Eliza called the attention of both boys. Matt, of course, was busy with his driving and could not turn to see what was the matter. Carl, however, got on his knees in his seat, face to the rear. What he saw brought an angry shout from his lips. Brisco, leaning from his saddle, was reaching over the side of the tonneau. He had caught hold of the tin box, and Eliza, hanging to it with both hands, was struggling to keep him from securing it. "Leaf dot alone!" yelled Carl, floundering to get to the girl's aid; "dot pelongs to Modor Matt!" Carl was excited, but it wasn't excitement alone that caused him to say the box belonged to Matt. He knew Brisco was after a box he had once owned himself, and Carl had a hazy idea that if he said the box belonged to Matt it might be left alone. The gathering speed of the car carried it away from Brisco; and, as Brisco's one hand was stronger than the girl's two, the box remained with him. Carl got into the tonneau, head over heels and with a crash like the breaking of a dozen windows--for he fell into the heap of useless bottles. When he picked himself up, the three riders, with jeering laughs, had pointed their horses the other way. "It's gone, Matt!" cried the girl wildly; "the box is gone! Brisco snatched it out of my hands!" "Vat a luck it iss!" growled Carl, holding one hand to his face, where it had been cut by a piece of glass. "I got pack here so kevick as I couldt, Miss Eliza, aber dot Prisco feller was kevicker as me. Donnervetter! Matt, ve come oudt to look for dot poy und ve lose der pox! Dot vill be some nice t'ings to dell Legree." "Oh," cried the girl, half-crying; "I shouldn't have come! Even if it was all right for me to come I ought to have left the box at the hotel. Now we'll never be able to get our money from Brisco!" Matt slowed down the car and took a look rearward. The three men were out of sight beyond the turn. "Don't worry about it, Eliza," said Matt. "If any one is to blame, I'm the one. There's something queer about that tin box. If it's so valuable, why didn't Legree take care of it himself? Why did he trust it to you?" "Before I had it," returned the girl, "Uncle Tom was carrying it. He lost it in the river, and had to jump in after it." "More carelessness on Legree's part! Uncle Tom, as I figure it, is about the most irresponsible member of your party, and yet Legree allowed him to carry a box which, Brisco had said, was worth ten thousand dollars. It don't look reasonable to me." "Dot's vat it don'd!" exclaimed Carl. "Aber Prisco vanted dot pox pooty pad to go afder it like vat he dit. Meppy it vas vort' a lod to him, und nodding to Legree and der rest oof der parn-shtormers." "Just because it _was_ valuable to Brisco is the very reason I should have been more careful with it," went on the girl. "We might have made him pay us what he owed us, and then we could all have gone back to Denver. Now--now----" The girl began to cry. "Say," wheedled Carl, "I vouldn't do dot. You don'd helup nodding novay oof you cry. Don'd fret aboudt der olt pox. Matt und me vill gif you der money to go py Tenver. Jeer oop a liddle." "Take my word for it, Eliza," said Matt, as the girl lifted her head and got better control of her feelings, "that box isn't worth a whole lot or Legree wouldn't have taken chances with it like he did. I'm sorry Brisco got away with it, of course, and I'm going to hurry back to Fairview and do something I ought to have done before--and that is, find an officer and put him on Brisco's track." "Dot von't amoundt to nodding, Matt," said Carl, climbing back into the front seat. "Prisco vill ged off der horse und indo der runaboudt und der officer mighdt as vell dry to ketch some shtreaks oof greased lighdning." "It may be, Carl," speculated Matt, "that the runabout has broken down. I don't believe Brisco and Spangler would be able to fix the machine if anything very serious got the matter with it. Perhaps they had to leave the car and take to horses." "Vat's deir game, anyvay? Dot's vat I vant to know. Oof deir game vas to ged der pox, den it vas all ofer, und ve don'd haf nodding to do mit Brisco und Spangler some more. Py shinks! Dot knocks us oudt oof a t'ousand tollars, Matt." "All Legree was keeping the box for," quavered the girl, "was so that Brisco would follow us and try to get it. That would give us a chance to make Brisco pay what he owed us." "Legree ought to have hung onto the box himself," insisted Matt. "Prisco iss too schlick for Legree," asserted Carl. "I wish I understood what Brisco and Legree are up to," muttered Matt. "There's more to this than appears on the surface." "Yah, I bed you," agreed Carl, wagging his head. "Oof I knew as mooch as I vould like, den I vould tell you all aboudt it, vich I don'd. Den dere iss Efa. His monkey-doodle pitzness makes der t'ing vorse." A quarter of an hour later the Red Flier drew up in its old berth alongside the hotel. Eliza got out and ran hurriedly to tell Legree what had happened to the tin box. "I'm sorry for Eliza," said Matt, climbing slowly over the brakes as he got out of the car. "She's a nice girl, and it's too bad she has to feel all cut up over the way the box was taken from her. I've got a notion that Legree is fooling them all--and you and me into the bargain, Carl." "How you t'ink so, Matt?" asked Carl, opening his eyes wide. "I don't know how he's doing it, or why he's doing it, but it's just a hunch I've got." "How long ve going to shtay here?" "I don't want to pull out until we learn something more about this business. There are parts of it that have a crooked look to me." At that moment Legree issued from the hotel. He did not act at all excited, although he must certainly have learned from Eliza what had happened. "Eliza's been telling me what a time you've had," said he. "The principal thing is that Brisco has left the car and got onto a horse. I was surprised to hear that. I can't imagine why a rascal, who's as badly wanted as he is, should leave a swift automobile and take to horseback." "I should think, Mr. Legree," remarked Matt, "that you would be more interested in the loss of that box than in anything else." "Not at all. In fact, I haven't thought so much of that box since the lot of us left Ash Fork. It was a good thing to hang onto, but it wasn't so terribly important. I've told Eliza not to feel bad over what happened. I'd feel worse myself if the kid hadn't got away in that runabout, like he did." All that Legree said merely made the whole situation darker for Matt. And for Carl, too. The Dutch boy stood blinking at Legree, and running his fingers through the tangle of tow he called his hair. "You were keeping the box in the hope that Brisco would came after it and give you a chance at him, weren't you?" demanded Matt. "Yes," answered Legree. "Well, now that Brisco has got the box you can't expect him to come after it." "Hardly," and Legree gave a short laugh. Noting the perplexity of the two boys, he went on: "You miss one point, Matt, in sizing up this situation. We're not done with Brisco--not by a long chalk. It isn't the box, but what was in it, that Brisco is anxious to get." "Wasn't there anything in the box?" queried Matt. "No, and there hasn't been since we left Ash Fork. I opened the box on the q. t. in that town and took out what it contained. That object is in my possession. I intend to stay in this town, Matt, until Brisco is captured. I don't care anything about Spangler; Brisco is the man I want. If you've got time, you can stay and help me; and you can keep all you get for recovering the runabout for yourself." "What will you get for your work?" "Why, I'll send Brisco over the road. _The contents of that box will do it!_" Matt and Carl were dumfounded. The situation was clearing a little, but not much. CHAPTER VII. A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE. "Do you know this cattleman in Ash Fork who had the runabout stolen from him?" asked Legree. "I know him by sight," answered Matt; "I'm not acquainted with him." "Are you sure that he will pay five hundred dollars for the recovery of his automobile?" "He said he would, and he's able to do it. And he offers to pay five hundred dollars apiece for the capture of Brisco and Spangler." "Then there's a chance for you to make fifteen hundred. I'd advise you to stay here and do it." Matt leaned against the car and went into a brown study. Mr. Tomlinson had not required him to get to Albuquerque in a hurry. He could take a reasonable amount of time for the trip. But Mr. Tomlinson _did_ expect the car to be brought safely to its destination. Would Matt in any way endanger the car by staying a short time in Fairview? That was the question that bothered him. "I t'ink, Matt," said Carl, "dot I could use some oof dot fifdeen huntert. Vy nod shtay und dry dem a virl?" "If I stay, Legree," observed Matt, "I won't be called on to use the Red Flier for chasing Brisco and Spangler, will I? The car doesn't belong to me and I can't take any chances with it." "You can do as you please about that, Matt. I'm after Brisco. If you get Spangler and the runabout, you'll have to do it in your own way. Spangler and Brisco, though, seem to be working together, just now, so my work ought to help you." "Why not get an officer here and----" "Do you want to divide with an officer what the cattleman is willing to pay?" "You know a lot that you're not telling me, Legree," said Matt quietly. "Well," grinned Legree, "when it comes to that, I know a lot that I'm not telling anybody--just now. You've heard more from me than any one else--excepting the kid." "I think I'll lay over here until to-morrow," said Matt. "Hoop-a-la!" exulted Carl. "Be jeerful, everypody. I t'ink, Matt," he added, "dot I vill infest my haluf oof dot fifdeen huntert tollars in gofermend ponds, und----" "Don't invest it till you get it, Carl," interposed Matt dryly. "Pull off your coat, now, and we'll wash up the car and fill the tanks." For two hours the boys were more than busy. While in Motor Matt's hands, the machine was always as carefully groomed as a race-horse. Not only that, but after the day's run he made it a point to go over the machinery with a wrench and pliers, tightening up everything that had worked loose and making sure that every part was in complete working order. The water-tank was filled. Ten gallons of gasoline were needed for the gasoline reservoir, but before he bought any from O'Grady, Matt tested it carefully with a hydrometer. Finding it nearly the same grade as he had been using, he funneled it into the tank, not only straining it through wire gauze but through thin chamois skin as well. The oil supply was also replenished. When the boys were through, the Red Flier was as spick and span as when it had come from the shop. Not only that, but it was fit to take the road at a moment's notice and make a record run. To Matt's regret, there was no place in town where the car could be housed for the night. There were two or three old barns, but they were so foul and unclean that he would not take the machine into them. He preferred to leave it outdoors all night, sleeping in the tonneau and guarding against tampering. When supper was announced, Carl watched the car while Matt ate; and when Matt had finished, Carl went in for his own meal. Uncle Tom, feeling much better now that his physical necessities had been relieved, walked out to the car with Matt when he left the dining-room. There was something on the old negro's mind. He seemed flustered and backward about getting at it. Finally he broached the astonishing proposition, leading up to it by degrees. "Ah's done let out ob er job by de scan'lous actions ob dat 'ar Brisco, Marse Matt," said he moodily. "Hard luck, Uncle Tom," answered Matt sympathetically. "Where do you live when you're at home?" "Ah's one ob dem 'ar rolling stones, en Ah ain't had no home sense Ah was knee-high tuh a possum, no, suh. Fo' de las' few houahs, Marse Matt, Ah's been kind ob cogitatin' en mah haid an' I 'bout come tuh de conclusion dat yo' outlook in life is juberous, yassuh. Yo's a puffick gemman, but yo' take so many chances dat yo' prospecks am sholy juberous." "How can I help that, Uncle Tom?" asked Matt, enjoying immensely the old darky's vagaries. "Ah knows how dat kin be fixed, sah," went on Uncle Tom. "What yo' has got tuh hab is a official mascot, sah, tuh be wif yo' all de time an' wuk off de hoodoo. Ah 'lows, sah, dat I could fill dat job. How much yo' willin' tuh pay fo' an official mascot by de monf?" That was too much for Motor Matt. Laying back in the tonneau he laughed till he shook. "Doan' laff, Marse Matt," begged the old fraud; "hit's a mouty complexus bizness. Tu'n hit ober in yo' mind, sah, en if yo' t'ink Ah'm wuth mah bo'd an' keep, jess considah Ah'm engaged." "Why, Uncle Tom," said Matt, "I haven't much more than enough to board and keep myself, so I guess my prospects will have to continue to be 'juberous.'" "Doan' say dat, sah; t'ink it ober. Ah'll hold mahse'f open fo' de engagemunt." Uncle Tom stumped back into the house, and Matt kicked off his shoes and snuggled down under a blanket which O'Grady had furnished him. Half an hour later, Carl came out with a blanket of his own. "What are you going to do, Carl?" asked Matt, rousing up and peering at his friend through the gloom. "Dis iss some games vot two can blay ad, my poy," chuckled Carl. "I vill shleep py der machine mit you." "Go on!" scoffed Matt. "What's the use of denying yourself a good bed when you can just as well have one?" "Vell, I dredder shtay mit you. Don'd say nodding, pecause it vasn't any use. My mindt iss made oop, yah, you bed you." "All right, then," said Matt. "Curl up on the steering-wheel and enjoy yourself." The front seat, of course, was divided into two sections, so it was impossible for Carl to stretch himself out in it; however, he wrapped his blanket around him and crowded down between the seat and the dash, head and shoulders over the foot-board on one side, and his feet tangled up in the foot-pedals and levers on the other. Just as Matt was getting to sleep a wild _honk, honk!_ brought him up like a shot out of a gun. "What's that?" called Matt. "Dot vas my feets," explained Carl coolly. "I hit dem against dot rupper pag vat makes a noise. Oof der car vas vider, den I vouldn't be too long for der blace vat I am. Meppy I puy somet'ing else don gofermend ponds mit dot money. Meppy, yah--so----" and Carl's words drifted off into a snore. Matt settled down again, and this time nothing disturbed him. Carl had some bad dreams that night. He thought his feet were caught in a giant clothes-wringer, and that a locomotive was hitched to his head. Some one would run him through the wringer, flattening him out up to the knees, and then the locomotive would back up and pull him out again. When his dreams had tired him out with that set of incidents, they shut him up in a little tin box, and three men on horseback played football with him; other experiences, too numerous to mention, followed, and at the wind-up Carl thought he dropped several miles through the air and smashed through a skylight. Starting up with a groan, he rubbed his eyes and looked around. It was morning. Carl was sitting up on the ground, chilled and chattering. At first he thought that skylight episode was not a dream, and he looked up to see the place he had come through. Instead of seeing anything so unsubstantial, his eyes encountered the face of Legree. "You sleep like a log, Carl!" exclaimed Legree. "Where's Motor Matt? What's become of the automobile?" Then, in a flash, Carl's hazy mind connected with the tangible things surrounding him when he went to sleep. "Vy," he cried, struggling to his feet and staring around, "I vas in der car mit Modor Matt! I vent to shleep in it mit him." "I know you did; but where are Matt and the car now?" Carl rubbed his eyes again, and then took a more careful look about him. He was standing in the very place where the car had stood. But there was no sign of the car! And no sign of Motor Matt! The blanket Carl had taken into the Red Flier with him was lying crumpled on the ground, a dozen feet away. "Vell, py shinks!" gasped Carl. "I don'd like dot. I don'd like some shokes vere sooch a monkey-doodle pitzness iss made mit me. Modor Matt nefer made dot shoke." "There's no joke, Carl," answered Legree; "I wish to gracious it _was_ a joke. The Red Flier left here some time during the night. No one heard it. No one knew it was gone until I looked out of the window of my room. You were lying on the ground here, but neither the car nor Matt were in sight. Do you think Matt would pull out and leave you?" "Leaf me? Matt? Vell, he vas my bard, und how you figure oudt dot he do dot? No, py shinks! Oof he ain'd here he vas dook off, und oof he vas dook off id vas dot Prisco und Spangler vat dit it!" With that, Carl went over to the well and sat down. He was still confused, but slowly the realization of what had happened was growing upon him. And as the realization grew, his temper mounted with it. CHAPTER VIII. SPIRITED AWAY. Carl was not the only one who had been troubled with dreams that night. Motor Matt floundered through one of the worst nightmares he had ever had. The whole scheme of the thing was rather vague, but mighty depressing. He seemed to be engaged in some tremendous struggle, striking away and countering a thousand or more huge fists that leaped at him out of the gloom. One by one he put the clenched hands out of business, and when he had conquered the last of them he opened his eyes in bewilderment. The humming of a motor was in his ears. It was the Red Flier's motor, he could tell that instinctively. The stars were overhead, the cool, damp smell of the night was all around, and the glow of the acetylene lamps was glimmering and dancing in advance. The car was moving briskly through the silence. Matt had a queer, sick feeling at the pit of his stomach. Counting out the time he raced the limited train on his motor-cycle, collided with a freight-wagon and was laid up for a fortnight, he had never been confined to his bed for a week in his life. He wondered what ailed him, and his mind was sluggish and slow in working out the problem. He had felt just as he did then once before. That was the time he had been drugged and taken out of Phoenix to keep him from racing with the Prescott champion, O'Day. Had he been drugged now? If so, why, and by whom? By degrees the cool air cleared his befogged brain. He went back over the chain of events, picking it up where he had dropped it. The queer party of stranded actors--the arrival at Fairview--the escape of Brisco from the hotel--the ride into the hills to look for the boy--the pursuit by the horsemen and the loss of the tin box--all these events dragged through Matt's mind. He and Carl had gone to sleep in the automobile. Why was the car moving? Had Carl, giving rein to some wild impulse, cranked up the car and started for a night ride? Matt stirred. "Carl!" he called, "what are you trying to do?" Matt became aware, then, that there was some one beside him in the tonneau. "Carl, hey?" came a jeering voice, as a strong hand reached over and pushed Matt back in the seat. "Ye got another guess comin'. Thar ain't no Dutchman along, this trip." "Tuned up, has he?" asked a voice from the front seat. "Yep; he's got back ter airth, Hank." "Surprised?" The man in front laughed hoarsely as he asked the question. "Waal, kinder. He thought his Dutch pard was erlong." Matt, while this talk was going forward, realized with a shock that the two men in the car were Brisco and Spangler. Brisco was in the driver's seat, and Spangler was in the tonneau. With a quick gathering of all his strength, Matt flung himself toward the door of the tonneau. His first unreasoning impulse was to get away from his captors. The car must have been going forty miles an hour, and the roadside was lined with sharp stones. If Matt had succeeded in his desperate attempt, he could hardly have escaped without serious injury; but his rash move was nipped in the bud. Spangler, who was in the tonneau for the purpose, grabbed Matt and hurled him back into the seat. "None o' that!" he growled. "Want ter break yer bloomin' neck? Not as I keer much about yer neck, but Hank an' me hev got diff'rent plans fer ye." Matt was still dizzy and weak. The nausea at his stomach was leaving him slowly, but it made him feel as limp as a rag and utterly helpless. "Did you men run away with this car?" he asked. "Looks that-away, don't it?" returned Spangler. "Where's Carl?" "Didn't hev no time ter bother with the Dutchman, so we left him behind." "Was he hurt?" "Hurt? Nary, he wasn't hurt. We ain't opinin' ter hurt anybody this trip so long as we hev our way. The Dutchman was snoring like a house afire. All we did was ter lift him out o' the keer an' lay him on the ground. We give him a smell o' somethin' on a han'kercher, jest ter make him snooze a leetle harder, that's all." "You drugged both of us, then?" "That was the easiest way ter keep ye from makin' er noise." "Where are you taking me?" "Ye'll know afore long." It was a rugged road they were traveling, and the Red Flier negotiated it with many a juggling bump. Mountainous rocks, half-screened by bushes and trees, glided by, and there were dusky gashes and seams, and now and then a splash of falling water. Rougher and rougher grew the trail, and the reckless driving of Brisco caused Matt's nerves to thrill with fears for the car. "You'll rack the car to pieces if you keep driving like that!" Matt called sharply. "What's it to you?" taunted Brisco. "It means a whole lot to me. This car belongs to Mr. Tomlinson, and I've promised to take it safely to Albuquerque." "Be hanged to you and Mr. Tomlinson!" snarled Brisco. "We'll fix this car before we're done with it. If you ever take it to Albuquerque, you'll have to scoop up the pieces and tote 'em there in a lumber-wagon. That's part of what we're going to do to play even with you and him!" Matt's heart skipped a beat, and a cold chill ran through his body. Could the villains really mean to destroy the Red Flier? "You'd better think well about what you do," warned Matt. "If you ruin this car, Mr. Tomlinson will never let up on you till he puts you where you belong." Spangler brought his hand around in a sweeping blow. Matt dodged the hand so that the stroke was only a glancing one. "Shut up!" he cried savagely. "Ye ain't here ter make any threats, 'r throw any bluffs." At that moment, Brisco brought the car to a stop, putting on the brakes so suddenly that the wheels locked and slid. "I reckon this'll be far enough," said Brisco, turning in his seat. "Make him get out, Spang." "Hear that?" cried Spang. "Open the door and git down." "What's this for?" returned Matt, making no move to obey. For answer, Spangler, with an oath, seized him by the collar and jerked him roughly out of the tonneau. Matt was unable to make any resistance. As he stood in the road, the jagged uplifts by which he was surrounded seemed to swim about him in circles. Spangler got back in the car, as Matt staggered to a big boulder and leaned against it, and Brisco backed the car around until it was headed along the back course. "Wait!" cried Matt, as a thought of what all this might mean to him took shape in his brain. "We're going to wait--and for just about a minute," returned Brisco. "Are you going to steal that car?" asked Matt, "just as you stole Nugent's?" "You're too much of a meddler," snapped Brisco. "If you could go along and mind your own business, you'd be a whole lot better off. You had to tangle up with Tomlinson, back there at Ash Fork, and you hadn't any call to butt in. If it hadn't been for you, we'd 'a' won out on that game and been all to the good. I don't reckon we'd have bothered you at all, though, if you'd been content to carry out your orders and push on to Albuquerque. But you couldn't do that; oh, no. You're trying to be first aid to the weak and down-trodden wherever you run into them, so you had to mix up with that bunch of stranded actors. "When I drove the runabout into Fairview after gasoline and oil, I dropped Spangler off to lay for the tramps and get that tin box. You had to butt in, as per usual. I got away from Fairview by the skin of my teeth, picked up Spang at the place where he was waiting, and we went on to where our other pard had some horses. We side-tracked the runabout there, and slid back toward Fairview, intending to push through the timber--a move we couldn't make in the car. Then"--and here a swirling oath dropped from Brisco's lips--"we dropped into your little trap." "What trap?" demanded Matt. "Oh, no, you don't know a thing about that, do you? You weren't moseying out there just to give us a chance to lift that tin box, were you? And you hadn't the least notion it was empty, had you? If you hadn't turned that trick, my bantam, we wouldn't have turned this one. We're going to settle with you, all right. This is a part of the country that isn't traveled once a week, and you're seventy-five miles from Fairview. By the time you get back to town, we'll have got what was in that box, and have smashed the Red Flier into a heap of jack-straws. I know a nice little cliff alongside the road, and when we're through with the car we'll lash the wheel, open her up and let her go over the edge! I reckon that'll cook your goose with Tomlinson. He didn't calculate you were going to use his car transporting a lot of stranded actors, and mixing up in their affairs on the way to Albuquerque." For a space, Motor Matt's heart stood still. "You wouldn't dare do that!" he shouted. "Wouldn't I?" and a reckless, mocking laugh came with the words. "From what you know of me don't you think I would? Hope you'll have a nice, easy walk to Fairview, Motor Matt! There'll be some surprises in store for you when you get there. Good-by!" Spangler also shouted a jeering farewell. The car got in motion, the humming slowly decreased, and the glow of the tail light winked suddenly into darkness. Motor Matt had been abandoned. But, worse than that, the two scoundrels who had spirited him away from Fairview were bent on the wanton destruction of Mr. Tomlinson's car! CHAPTER IX. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. Motor Matt came nearer being utterly cast down, at that moment, than ever before in his life. Weak and sick as he was, perhaps his discouragement was not to be wondered at. Sinking down at the foot of the boulder against which he had been leaning, he began finding fault with himself. It was all right to pick up the stranded actors and carry them on to Fairview. That was merely a kindness for which no one could blame him. But to jump into their troubles, at a time when he was engaged in work for Mr. Tomlinson and was not, strictly speaking, his own boss, that gave the affair another look. Now, because of his desire to help Legree, Eliza, and the rest, there he was, hung up in the hills seventy-five miles from Fairview, with the Red Flier in Brisco's hands and pointed for the scrap-heap. Mr. Tomlinson would be perfectly justified in laying the destruction of the car to Matt's own disregard of orders. And it was Mr. Tomlinson who had selected Matt to take the Red Flier to Albuquerque because he was satisfied the car would receive better care in his hands than in any other! There was enough in these reflections to make Motor Matt dissatisfied with himself. But he was not, and never had been, a "quitter." And the one cry of his soul had always been for Fate to keep him from joining the ranks of the "quitters." As a matter of fact, Motor Matt was a self-reliant American boy, and there was never the least danger of his going over to the useless crowd of mistakes and failures. Naturally, he might make a misplay now and then--running behind just enough to keep him "gingered up" for ultimate success in the big things. While he crouched at the foot of the boulder, the cool air clearing his brain and the sick feeling leaving him, he fell to planning for turning the tables against his enemies. What was there he could do, afoot and seventy-five miles from town? At first, the prospect seemed utterly hopeless; but Matt knew that a brave heart and a firm will had time and again snatched victory from seeming defeat. He would start for Fairview. Possibly, although the road was not much traveled, he might have the good luck to encounter some freighter who would give him a lift. Without losing a moment longer, he got up and started off in the direction taken by Brisco and Spangler. He wondered, as he swung along, what Carl would think when he came to himself and found the car missing--and Matt gone with it. And what would Legree think? And Eliza? But what those in Fairview might think was a minor consideration. The great point was the recovery of the Red Flier before the car's captors could wreck the machine. Brisco was the only one of the two scoundrels who could run a car, and even Brisco's knowledge was superficial. An hour's instruction, from the driver of Nugent's runabout, was all Brisco had had. Brisco now had two stolen cars and he could run only one of them--unless, indeed, the third man he had picked up knew something about motors. Matt, perhaps, had walked a mile through the gloomy hills, when he heard a noise as of some one in the road ahead. He halted, half-fearing that Brisco and Spangler were coming back. But that could not be, he reasoned. If they had wanted to come back, they would have used the car--and the noise Matt heard was of footsteps. He listened, straining his ears and eyes. Only one man was coming. He could not see, but hearing alone told him there was but one. Backing into the deep shadow of a nest of boulders, he continued to wait. The man, whoever he was, was coming hurriedly. Sometimes he ran, and occasionally he stumbled. As he drew closer, Matt saw that he was a small man, and as he came closer still the figure resolved itself into that of a mere boy. "Hello!" called Matt, stepping out into the road again. The figure gave a startled jump. "Chee!" it cried. "Say, who's dat?" Matt's pulses quickened, and a glow of hope ran through him. "Hello, kid!" he shouted. "What're you doing here?" "I'm a jay if it ain't Motor Matt!" came delightedly from the boy as he dashed forward. "How's dis f'r a come-off? Say, it sure knocks de wind out o' me! Where'd yous come from, yerself? Was yous on dat automobile wid Brisco an' Spang?" By then the boy was close enough to grab Matt's hand and give it a shake. "Yes," answered Matt; "I was on the car with them and they let me out and turned back." "How'd de mutts come t' git yous on de mat, hey?" Matt explained how he had been spirited away. "Well, on de level," breathed the boy, "dat's de rummest move I ever connected wit'. Raw? Oh, sister!" "Now tell me something about yourself," said Matt. "Why did you get into that car? And where have you been since you left Fairview?" "Easy, cull! T'ings is bein' pulled off in such a bunch it's hard t' straighten dem out. Le's do de ham-restin' act, right here on dis nice bunch o' rocks, while we chin a little." They sat down, side by side. "You must have had some reason, Eva, for hiking out with Brisco like you did, and----" "Cut out de 'Eva.' Fergit de styge name. I was on'y dat back o' de tin lamps, an' no more of 'em fer mine. Call me Josh. Not dat I'm a josher, understan', 'cause I ain't. An' here's somet'in' else I'm battin' up t' yous: Dere's a few t'inks rattlin' around in me block dat I can't let yous in on. Not bekase I ain't willin' meself, but bekase it ain't on de program. See? "First off, Matt, I crowded into dat car becase de idee looked good t' me. Dat's all yous is t' know about dat f'r now. I rode t' w'ere Brisco stopped de car an' took on Spang--about de place w'ere dad an' yous had de set-to on account o' dat box. "Den we moved on ag'in, me still under de coat an' wonderin' how long I could keep shy o' de lamps o' dem two dubs. You can bet yer lid, Matt, I didn't breathe on'y when necessary. I was de sly boy, all right. W'en we pulled up ag'in, we was clost t' t'ree horses, all saddled an' bridled, an' wit' a beer-faced guy on one o' dem. "De runabout was backed into de brush, an' Brisco an' Spang got onto two o' de horses an' all t'ree o' dat strong-arm bunch pulled deir freight back down de road. It was right den I wished dat I knowed how t' work dem cranks an' t'ings so'st I could make dat car go w'ere I wanted. But I didn't know de tail lamp from de carburetter, so I jess had t' lay low an' wait. "W'en dem jays got back, dere was yer Uncle John right under de coat, same as usual, an' still holdin' his breat'. If one o' de mugs lifted de coat, I was plannin' to work me pins an' head right into de weeds, like anot'er bear was on me trail. "But dey didn't look under de coat, none of dem. Dey was too mad. Chee! but dey was r'iled! Blatter, blatter, blatter, dey went, swearin' like a plumber wot's burned hisself wit' his torch. Say, de air was blue an smelt like de odder place. If dey'd piped me off den, dey'd have took me skelp, all right. "From de spiel dey was givin' each odder, I hooked onto de infermation dat dey'd got de box an' dat dere wasn't not'in' in it--w'ich I knowed all de time. Dey was crowdin' all deir swear-words onto Motor Matt. Yous had fooled dem, dey said, an' dey was goin' t' saw off even if it took a leg. "Brisco give de mug on de horse his orders to go t' some place w'ere Brisco an' Spang would go foist an' wait. Wid dat we started up ag'in--me on de job an' still sayin' me prayers back'ards, for'ards, an' sideways. I couldn't see where we went, but we was goin' f'r a hunderd years, seemed like, I was dat worked up t'inkin' I might git nabbed. Den we stopped, backed t'roo some brush, an' stopped ag'in, dat time t' stay. "I had drawn into me shell, listenin' w'ile Brisco an' Spang was rammin' around de place w'ere we was. After a w'ile, deir bazoos seemed t' move off, an' I stuck out me coco an' piped de layout. "We was in a well. Anyways dat's how it looked. De well was about fifteen feet acrost, steep rocks all around an' on'y one place w'ere dere was a break. De break was choked up wit' brush, an' I'm wise right off dat we'd backed t'roo it w'en we come into de well. "I see anot'er nice little clump of brush off t' de right, an' it looked so invitin' dat I slipped out from under de coat an' ducked f'r it. "I was in dat clump w'en de odder bloke, who dey called Klegg, blowed in t'roo de break wid de hosses; an' I was still dere w'en night come down, an' de t'ree of dem lighted up de runabout an' went away w'id it. "Couldn't git in de back seat den, kase Klegg was dere, so dey bumped off into de night an' left me in de well wit' de t'ree horses. "I kinked me thinker all up t'ryin' t' guess whedder I'd better stay right dere or borry one o' dem horses an' ride some place. Well, I didn't ride, not knowin' any good place t' ride to. Couldn't even make a guess which way de town was. "I went out t'roo de brush an' moseyed around in de dark till _chugetty-chug!_ along come dat runabout ag'in an' backed t'roo de brush into de well. But dere was on'y one man in it, an' it was Klegg. W'ere was Brisco an' Spang? Dat was wot fretted me. W'ile I was frettin', along comes dat red tourin'-car. I made out Brisco in front, an' Spang in de rear--an' dere was some odder mug in de rear wot I couldn't get next to. De tourin'-car went on past de well. "Chee, but I was rattled! Wot was happenin', I says t' meself, an' w'y was it happenin'? De tourin'-car come back ag'in an' in it was Brisco an' Spang, but de odder guy had been left somew'ere. De tourin'-car was backed into de well, w'ere de runabout had gone, an' I started dis way t' see wot I could find. Say, Matt, I was knocked stiff w'en I found yous! Great, ain't it, how luck takes a shoot, once in a w'ile? If dat---- Wot's de matter w'id yous? W'ere yous goin'?" Matt had jumped up, grabbed Josh by the arm and was pulling him down the road. "Come on!" said he. "We haven't got any time to lose!" CHAPTER X. A DARING PLAN. "Say," panted Josh, as he and Matt traveled rapidly along the road, "put me wise to dis move, can't yous? Wot's in yer block, Matt?" "Do you know what Brisco intends to do with the Red Flier?" asked Matt. "He's layin' in a supply o' benzine-buggies t' start a garage, 'r somet'ing, ain't he?" "He ran off with that touring-car just to play even with me, Josh. He says I've meddled with his affairs long enough, and that he's going to run the Red Flier over a cliff just to pay me back for using the car to help you people." "Wouldn't dat frost yous?" muttered Josh. "And he said I was seventy-five miles from Fairview," went on Matt, "and that by the time I had walked to the town he would have finished his business there." "Brisco has got anodder guess comin'. He ain't so warm. Dad can show him a t'ing 'r two, an' don't yous fergit dat. Chee! Dat guy's de limit. But wot's yer game, cull?" "You say that both cars are in that 'well,' as you call it?" "Dat's w'ere dey was w'en I started for here." "Well, I'm going to get the Red Flier away from that outfit!" Matt spoke as confidently as though he had merely remarked that he was going over to the hotel after his dinner. "Say, cull," returned the boy, "I like yer nerve, all right, an' I marks yous up f'r de entry, but how yous goin' t' git under de wire? Dere's t'ree o' dem guys, an' dey've got a lot o' artillery. How we goin' t' git away wit' de car if dey don't want us to?" "I don't know," replied Matt, "but we've got to do it somehow." "Yous is a reg'lar lollypaloozer, Motor Matt, an' I'd back yous t' win any ole day, but dis looks like too big a load. But yous can count on me. Dad'll tell yous dat I'm big f'r me age an' no mutt in a getaway, so jest set yer pace an' I'll push on de reins." "How far is it to the place where the automobiles were left?" "We're close t' dere now. I'm wonderin' w'y Brisco dropped yous widin a short walk o' de hang-out--dat is, if he was fixin' t' stay at de place?" "I don't know," answered Matt; "but that's what he did and it's enough for me. I've got to recover that car, Josh. If I don't, and if anything happens to it, I'd look nice making my report to Tomlinson, wouldn't I?" "If yous hadn't picked up dat bunch o' tramps on de road yous wouldn't have got into dis fix." "I'm not sorry I helped you out, Josh." "Sure not. Yous ain't dat kind, Motor Matt. All de same, yous would have been peggin' along to'rds Albuquerque, nice as yous please, if it hadn't been for dat crowd o' Uncle Tommers. Dere'll be doin's in Fairview in de mornin', w'en dad finds out yous ain't w'ere yous ought t' be." "What can your father do?" "He can do a lot w'en he gits started. Don't yous never t'ink he's a slow one, Matt." Matt knew that Legree could keep a cool head in a pinch, but, for all that, he didn't see how he could do anything when he didn't have money enough even to pay his board-bill. "Mr. Tomlinson has a lot of confidence in me," said Matt; "and, if that car is wrecked, I'll have----" "Sh-h-h!" whispered Josh, coming to a wary halt and laying a hand on Matt's arm. "Look ahead, dere. See dat black splotch on de side o' de hill by de road?" "Yes," answered Matt, straining his eyes in the direction indicated. "Dat's de brush dat hides de openin'. Are we bot' goin' t' blow in dere an' try t' make a run wit' de red car?" "We can't do the trick in such a hurricane way as that. We've got to lay some other plan. I'll go in and look the ground over, Josh, and maybe I can get hold of an idea." "I'll try t' git holt o' one, too, w'ile I'm waitin' fer yous. Don't make much noise w'ile yous is in de bushes, Matt, or dem terriers'll pepper yous." "I'm going to sneak into the place as quietly as I can. I don't think they'll hear me." Leaving the boy a little way from the dark patch of verdure clinging to the face of the hill, Matt went on carefully. As he approached closer to the vague blot it gradually took form under his eyes. The wall of the hill seemed to be cracked through from crest to base and wrenched apart until it formed a narrow opening. Up both sides of the opening grew the bushes, their branches spreading out and forming a thick screen. On account of the darkness, Matt could not make a very close examination of the queer fissure, but he saw enough to convince him that Nature had contrived a secure retreat for Brisco and Spangler. The bottom of the opening, Matt judged, was all of ten feet in width. Dropping down on his hands and knees, he began crawling through the middle of the break, parting the bush branches from in front of him as he advanced. So wary was he that he made very little noise. He had gone perhaps a dozen feet through the brushy tangle, when a glow of light struck on his eyes. This acted as a sort of beacon, and served to guide him the rest of the way. A dozen feet more brought him to the opposite side of the opening and to the edge of the bushes. Crouching silently on the ground he proceeded to survey the peculiar niche in front of him. Josh's description, likening the place to a "well," was quite appropriate. The niche was circular in form and its walls arose steeply to a height of at least fifty feet. In the shadow of the walls the place was very dark, but the glowing lamps of an automobile enabled Matt to see enough to send a chill of disappointment through him. There was only one automobile in the niche! And that one was the runabout! Brisco and Spangler must have emerged and gone off somewhere with the Red Flier. Had they taken it away to destroy it? The three horses were not far from the runabout. They were secured to some bushes, and could be heard pawing and stamping. Matt could also hear something else, and that was the snoring of a man in deep sleep. After a moment's hesitation he continued to creep onward, redoubling his care and vigilance. He was upon the man before he was fairly aware of it, one of his groping hands coming in contact with an outstretched foot. The snoring ceased with an explosive grunt and Matt drew back breathlessly. The man did not rouse up. Shifting his position slightly he continued to snore. Making a détour, Matt got around the man--whom he knew was not Brisco or Spangler, and consequently must be Klegg--and reached the runabout. Pausing there, the young motorist let his mind circle about this new phase of the situation. If he couldn't get the Red Flier, why not take the runabout? That would afford himself and Josh a quick means for making the return trip to Fairview. Besides, no matter what happened to the Red Flier, there was something to be gained in getting the runabout away from the thieves. Close to the car was a heap of horse-trappings. Matt felt about among the saddles, bridles and blankets until he had found two coiled riatas. Could he, by quick work, get one of the ropes around Klegg's hands before he was thoroughly awake and able to struggle? Josh would have been of use in such an attempt, and Matt decided that he could not make it successfully unless he did have the other to help. He would go back after Josh, he decided; but first he would look over the runabout and make sure it was ready for the road. Laying the ropes in the front of the car, he arose to his feet, softly removed the tail lamp from its bracket, and flashed it into the rumble. The coat, used so cleverly by the boy, was still there, crumpled on the floor as though by a man's feet. Passing on to the forward part of the car, the pencil of light jumped from point to point, Matt's eyes following critically. Everything seemed to be shipshape and in good order. A small object on one of the front seats caught the youth's attention. It was pushed well back into the angle where the back joined the seat, and Matt picked it up and held it in the glow of light. It was a small bottle, and the label bore the written word, "Chloroform." Matt stifled an exclamation. Undoubtedly it had been some of that bottle's contents which had helped Brisco and Spangler get the better of him, in Fairview, and run off with the touring-car. Then a startling expedient darted through Matt's mind. Turn about was fair play. With the aid of the drug he could clear a passage for the runabout, and without resort to any violence. Setting the lamp down on the front seat, Matt drew the cork of the bottle, took a handkerchief from his pocket and proceeded to wet it with the chloroform. Then, re-corking the bottle and laying it aside, he went down on his hands and knees and started toward Klegg. A lightening of the sky over the steep walls that hemmed in the niche told of coming day. The darkness would be a help to Matt and Josh in getting to the road and away, and if advantage was to be taken of night Matt knew he would have to hurry. But he was well equipped to carry out his plans now, and lost no time in getting about them. CHAPTER XI. ON THE ROAD. Kneeling beside Klegg, Matt leaned over and held the saturated handkerchief close to his face. The fumes were strong, and seemed to strangle him. With a gurgling grunt he shifted his position. Matt moved the handkerchief and again held it over his face. This time Klegg sputtered a little, but did not change his position. Evidently the narcotic was beginning to have its effect. After a moment, Matt allowed the handkerchief to drop on Klegg's face. He left it there for two or three minutes and then threw it aside. Klegg was breathing heavily and seemed to be completely under the influence of the drug. Catching hold of the blanket on which the man was lying, Matt began to pull it toward the wall of the niche. "Chee!" whispered a voice close to Matt's side. "Wot kind of a smell is dat, cull? Wot yous done to Klegg?" "I thought you were going to wait outside, Josh?" answered Matt. "Dat's wot I t'ought, but yous was so long in comin' dat I took de notion t' come in an' look yous up. Wot's de play?" "I found a bottle of chloroform in the runabout, and it must have been out of that same bottle that Brisco took the stuff that put me to sleep. Thought I'd see how it worked on Klegg." "Yous is a jim dandy, Matt!" laughed Josh delightedly. "But w'ere's Brisco an' Spang?" "They're not here, and neither is the touring-car." "Tough luck! Yous figgerin' on makin' a getaway wit' de runabout?" "Yes. We might use that for a quick run to Fairview and get the sheriff to hunt up Brisco and Spangler. I'll go with the sheriff and use the runabout. It's a faster car than the Flier, and we may be able to catch the two thieves before they wreck Mr. Tomlinson's car." "Yous has got a head on yous, Matt, an' no mistake," said the boy admiringly. "An' yous pulled all dis off yerself! Well, say, if yous ain't a winner dis heat yous ought t' be. Dat's right--on de level an' no stringin'. Dad would like t' have a guy like yous t' work wit' all de time. An' so would Little Eva, de child wonder. But it's gittin' daylight, Matt, an' if we're goin' t' pull our freight, let's be at it." It was already light enough so that they could see without the lamps. These were extinguished, and then Matt put the tail lamp back in its place, started the engine and got into the driver's seat. On the low gear they moved slowly across the bottom of the niche. Josh was still laughing softly to himself. "Chee, cull, but I'd like t' be around w'en Brisco an' Spang find dat Klegg feller!" he chuckled. "Dat would be as good as a circus. Dis is almost too good t' be true, ain't it?" "It will be, Josh," replied Matt, "if I can only get back the Red Flier." "Dem coves'll be careful o' dat odder machine when dey find dis one has been took away from dem." "I know that--providing they find out the runabout is gone before they destroy the Flier." Setting the runabout at the bushes, Matt drove through the undergrowth, Josh keeping the branches out of his face while he attended to the steering. "On de road ag'in!" jubilated the boy, as they emerged from the mouth of the opening and turned to the left. "All I wish is," answered Matt, "that I knew we were going right." "Dere's on'y two ways t' go, cull. One's up to'rds w'ere you was dropped by Brisco an' Spang, an' t'odder's de way we're headin'. It's a cinch we're hittin' it off about proper. W'ere d' youse t'ink dem odder mutts went wid de tourin'-car?" "I'm afraid they took it off to carry out their threat and make junk of it." "I hope yous ain't got it right. If dey did dat, it 'u'd put yous in a bad hole. Yous couldn't make Tomlinson take dis car f'r de odder, could yous?" "Hardly. This car belongs to Nugent, in Ash Fork." Something was rattling about the car, and it got onto Matt's nerves. Halting for a moment, he located the difficulty. The screw-cap of the gasoline-tank was loose. Taking a wrench out of the tool-box he tightened the cap, then dropped the wrench in the rumble and returned to his seat. "Yous don't like t' hear anyt'ing rattle, hey?" queried Josh. "Makes me nervous," laughed Matt. "Now hold onto your teeth, Josh. I'm going to let her out!" "De quicker we kin go de better. Let's see how fast de ole gal kin travel." They whirled around a turn in the narrow valley. The unexpected was lying in wait for them, for they came upon Spangler, on foot and walking toward the niche. Josh gave a startled yell. Spangler, dumfounded at sight of the runabout, charging toward him with Motor Matt and the boy in front, stood as though rooted to the ground. "Down, Josh!" cried Matt, advancing the spark; "get down behind the dashboard!" As Matt spoke he sounded the horn. Spangler climbed out of the way with more haste than grace, and the runabout dashed past him. "Yi-yip-ee!" tuned up the boy, waving his hand mockingly. "D'radder do dat dan git run down, hey?" "Drop!" yelled Matt, and in a tone that made Josh crumple down between the seat and the dash. Bang! Matt had expected a bullet, and he was not disappointed. But it went wide. Bang! The next one came closer, but still left a safe margin. There was no more shooting. Wondering at it, Josh rose up and looked backward. "Now wot d'youse t'ink o' dat!" he cried. "Wot's dat mug doin' dat for?" "What's he doing?" asked Matt. "W'y he's hustlin' a big stone into de middle o' de road. See 'im work! Chee! Wot's de meanin' o' dat?" The car whipped around another turn, wiping Spangler and his strange activities out of sight. Josh dropped down on the seat. "That's got a bad look," said Matt, coaxing the runabout to a still faster gait. "We've got to get out of this as quick as we can." "Chee!" cried the boy, holding to the seat with both hands, "we're goin' fast enough. Gid-ap! Wow! wot a spurt! Don't let anyt'ing slip a cog, cull. If de ole benzine-buggy hit a rock an' stopped, I'd go right on f'r a couple o' miles afore I landed. Oh, wot a clip! We've got de Cannonball Limited licked t' a frazzle!" Then they took another turn, the rear wheels skidding and Matt deftly catching the motor up and sending the car onward. The runabout did not follow the curve of the road, but made an angling turn--a hair-raising stunt copied after Oldfield, the daredevil racer. Josh gave a yell, and came within a hair of being heaved over Matt and into the road. Then, with a muttered exclamation, Matt cut off the power, applied the brakes and quickly reversed, backing for the side of the road. It all happened so quick that it took the boy's breath. "Wot's dat fer?" he asked. Matt was whirling the wheel and starting the car on the back track. "Brisco is heading us off," he answered--"Brisco in the Red Flier!" Josh turned to stare along the road. Matt was right. Brisco, still a long distance off, was whooping it up in their direction. "Wouldn't dat crimp yous?" gasped the boy, awed at the gathering perils. "Dey've got us f'r fair, Matt! W'y didn't yous keep on an' give Brisco de go-by?" "There wasn't room enough in the road to pass!" flung back Matt. "Dat's w'y Spang was rollin' dem stones in de road! He knew dat Brisco was comin', and dat he'd git us between him an' de rock-pile. Chee! We're It, dis time, an' no mistake." Matt, his face white and set and his gray eyes snapping, was leaning over the steering-wheel, watching every foot of road as they swept over it. "We've got to pass that rock-pile before it gets too big!" said he through his teeth. "Den w'ere'll we go?" "Anywhere, just so we keep away from Brisco. This car is a faster one than the Red Flier. We can show him our heels at any stage of the game." They fairly flew, and rocks rushed past them as though hurled by some giant hand. "There'll be some danger when we get to the place where Spangler is waiting, Josh," said Matt. "I'll slow down and you can get out, if you want to." "Wot d'youse take me fer?" cried the boy. "I'm wid yous, Matt, win 'r lose. See? Make yer ole play. If Uncle Josh ain't wit' yous at de finish, den call him a quitter an' mark him off'n yer callin'-list." Hurling onward, and skidding around the turns, Matt kept straining his eyes constantly ahead. Their source of peril was now wrapped up in Spangler. If his pile of boulders did not block the road completely--if there was a chance for the runabout to get past the stones, or over them, there was still a fighting chance for escape. Half a minute later, as the car reached out for the place where Spangler had been at work, Matt's heart went down into his boots. Spangler was nowhere in sight, but he had worked to good purpose. A few big boulders were cunningly placed so as to make the road impassable. With a despairing cry, Matt brought the runabout to a quick stop. CHAPTER XII. A CLOSE CALL. "Pile out, Josh, and get busy with those rocks!" yelled Matt. It was a forlorn hope, for the pounding of the Red Flier could be heard around the turn, coming up hand over fist. Long before the way could be cleared, Brisco would be upon them. And what had become of Spangler. Where had he gone? And _why_ had he gone? That was a conundrum, and Matt had no time to give to conundrums just then. Josh, eager to do all he could, was tugging and straining at the rocks. "It won't do, Josh!" shouted Matt. "Run for those boulders at the side of the road and wait for me." To think quickly in an emergency was Motor Matt's long suit. Many a time his cool head had helped him out of a bad difficulty. While he was shouting to the boy he was running back to the car. Snatching the wrench from where he had dropped it in the rumble, Matt went to work with lightninglike energy on the cap of the gasoline-reservoir. In record time he had the cap off. Bending down he scooped up a handful of sand from the road and dumped the most of it into the reservoir, then, as quickly as he had removed the cap, he replaced it, flung the wrench into the car and jumped for the boulders. Hardly was he back of the big stones that clustered along that edge of the valley, when the Red Flier shoved her nose through a cloud of dust and came scorching onward. Brisco must have been astounded to see the runabout, deserted and at a halt in the road. The way, of course, was blocked for him as well as for the runabout, and he halted the Red Flier at a good distance from the other machine, leaped out and came running to the other car. The stones in the road probably gave him a pretty good idea of what had happened, for he immediately began looking around him as though expecting to see some one--possibly Matt and Josh. "Spang!" he whooped. "Where are you, Spang?" "Here!" answered Spangler, appearing suddenly around the bend. "What you been doing?" demanded Brisco. "The dickens is ter pay, an' no mistake!" stormed Spang. "That young cub of a Motor Matt found out whar we'd cached the runabout, an' blamed if he didn't go in an' snake it right out from under Klegg's----" "Thunder!" broke in Brisco. "Don't you reckon I _saw_ the whelp? He was bearing down on me like a hurricane, slamming the runabout through for all she was worth." "He went past here gally-whoopin'," answered Spang, "while I was makin' fer that hole in the hill. Come mighty nigh runnin' me down at that. I got out o' the way, faced around an' sent a couple o' bullets arter him, but the brat's too lucky ter stop any lead----" "Depends on who throws the lead," snarled Brisco. "I kin throw it with ary man that walks! But I didn't take time ter throw much. I calculated the runabout would come up ferninst you, Hank, afore it got out o' the valley, an' that King would have ter turn around an' chase back this way. So what does I do but begin pilin' stones whar they'd do the most good. Jest got enough down ter do the biz, an' went ter see what had happened ter Klegg. Great jumpin' sand-hills! What d'ye think that infernal kid done ter him?" "What?" fumed Brisco. "Doped him, by thunder! Doped him out er the same bottle we used last night! Klegg's up thar in the notch, dead ter the world!" "What did you leave the hang-out for?" roared Brisco angrily. "Didn't I tell you, when I left, to stay there with Klegg? If you'd done as I said, this wouldn't have happened." "I come out ter see if that kid was moseyin' down the valley," was the sullen rejoinder from Spang. "Ye said I was ter watch out an' make sure he didn't blunder outer the notch." "Well, you made sure, didn't you?" taunted Brisco. "Where'd Legree's kid spring from? How'd he come to be along with King?" "How'd I know? Think I'm a mind-reader?" "Deuced funny thing! He was with King, and I'd like to know where he came from, and how he got here. There's a nigger in the fence, I'll bet. Where'd those boys go?" "I don't know that, nuther." "Did they pass you and go up the valley?" "Nary, they didn't!" "Then they must be hiding around here somewhere! Let's get 'em. If I lay hands on Motor Matt again he won't get off so easy." There was only one place in that vicinity where any one could hide, and that was among the scattered rocks not far from where the runabout was standing. Brisco and Spangler, making a hasty survey of the surroundings, at once hit upon the boulders as the place for them to look. "They're over thar," cried Spangler, "an' I'll bet money on it." As he spoke, he started at a run for the side of the valley, pulling a revolver as he went. "Don't do any shooting," called Brisco, starting after Spangler, "just grab 'em and hold 'em." "We'll tie King in that thar automobile when we run it over the cliff!" yelped Brisco viciously. "We'll l'arn him ter play his tricks on _us_!" Matt and Josh had heard all this conversation. They were not standing still, either, but were busily finding some place where they could stow themselves away. A fight with the two armed men was to be avoided, if possible. Matt knew that he and Josh would stand little chance in such a one-sided combat; and Matt had formed plans which he was eager to be carrying out. A little way up the steep hillside there was a ledge, with a recess back of it. Matt's quick eye picked out the spot, and he climbed briskly, hauling Josh along after him. The boulders shielded them from view while they were getting to the ledge, and Matt pushed Josh into the recess, and then rolled into it himself. From this position Matt was able to peer over the ledge and keep track of the movements of Brisco and Spangler. "Are they comin' dis way, cull?" whispered the boy. "Yes," answered Matt. "Got deir guns ready, eh?" "Of course, Josh. Scoundrels like Brisco and Spangler always draw and shoot if you give 'em half a chance." "Dey're hot at de two of us, an' dey'll sure lay out ter do us up." "We'll have to fight, if they force it on us." "Wot kin we do?" "There's a stone on the ledge. If they come too close I'll push it down on them." "Better give dat dere stone a push right off, bekase----" "Hist!" cautioned Matt. Silence fell between the boys. Matt drew in his head, fearing he would be seen. He listened intently, however, and could tell by the scrambling feet below just how near Brisco and Spangler were coming. When they came too close, Matt was intending to push the stone down on them. "Beats the deuce where those whelps went to!" grumbled the voice of Brisco. "They must be here. Thar wasn't any place else they could go. I wasn't gone from the road more'n five minits, Hank." "They wouldn't have had time to get past you?" "Nary, they wouldn't. They're here, I tell ye; they must be." "The whole side-hill is under our eyes. If you can see the cubs you can do better than I can." "Seems like there was a shelf up thar a ways. Mebby they're on the shelf?" "Gammon! That shelf isn't wide enough for a chipmunk to sit on." "Anyways, I'm goin' up an' take a look." Matt got ready to push out and roll the stone off the shelf. Before he could do that, however, a shout from Brisco halted him. "Say, you! There were three horses in the hang-out with Klegg!" "What o' that?" answered Spangler. "Why, those boys have gone there and are getting the horses." "How could they go thar, Hank? They didn't pass me." "They might have got there when you didn't see them. While we're wasting time here, I'll bet something handsome they're getting out those horses. Come on! Don't lose another second fooling around among those rocks!" "Waal, I don't reckon----" "Come on, I say!" roared Brisco. The two men were heard scrambling down the slope, getting farther and farther away. Back in the little recess Matt could hear the boy chuckling and talking to himself. "Come on, Josh!" whispered Matt, starting up. "Be careful, though! This is our day for luck, all right." "Well, I guess!" answered the boy, rolling over the ledge. "Chee, but dey're a pair o' dough-heads. Good t'ing f'r us, too. What next, Matt?" "We'll get to the Red Flier, turn it the other way along the trail, and ride back to Fairview." "Oh, Lucy!" giggled Josh. "Fer a kid dat ain't had not'in' t' eat since yesterday mornin' I'm feelin' some fine! We gits de Red Flier, after all, an' dem guys is beat, hands down." They were proceeding down the hillside while Josh was talking. When Matt reached the boulders that lined the road, he looked out. Brisco and Spangler, hurrying as fast as their legs could carry them, were just vanishing around the bend. "Now for the Red Flier--and Fairview!" said Matt, running out from among the boulders and laying a direct course for the red car. "Dat's de talk, cull!" laughed Josh, hustling along after Matt. Certainly it looked as though they were to have everything their own way, for a while at least--but they were not so lucky as they thought. CHAPTER XIII. CAR AGAINST CAR. It may be that Matt and Josh made too much racket getting down the rocks, or that Brisco had a premonition that something was wrong. Be that as it might, however, yet Brisco and Spangler turned back a minute after they had gone charging around the bend. Motor Matt, at that moment, was bending to the crank of the Red Flier, and it was Josh who excitedly announced the approach of their two enemies. The boy had done his jubilating too soon, and the sight of Brisco and Spangler filled him with panic. "Oh, chee!" he fluttered. "Dey're after us, Matt, like a couple o' grizzlies! Wow! Let's duck f'r de rocks agin!" "Get into the car!" shouted Matt, giving the crank a whirl. One beauty of the Red Flier was the quickness with which the machine caught up its cycle; and it had been the same with Matt's twin-cylinder motorcycle. Half a turn of the pedal was enough for the little _Comet_, and one pull of the crank did the business for the red car's motor. While the machine popped its defiance of Brisco and Spangler, Motor Matt ran around and vaulted into his old familiar place. He felt at home--much more so than he had when driving the runabout. Neither Brisco nor Spangler wasted any time with their revolvers. Both knew that the runabout was a faster machine than the Red Flier, and both felt confident that a quick start after the boys and a few minutes' chase would tell the tale. Spangler scrambled into the car. Brisco slipped as he rounded the front of the runabout to turn over the engine, fell sprawling and hit his head on the handle of the crank. He was not very much hurt, apparently, although from his flow of language his temper must have been severely injured. Besides, he had lost ten seconds--no very serious matter, considering the usual speed of the runabout--but Brisco was anxious for a rapid start and a quick finish for the chase. As he yanked the lever savagely, the popping from up the road sounding like the rapid discharge of a Gatling gun. Motor Matt had turned the Red Flier with his customary celerity, and was off on the high gear with the muffler cut out. "By thunder," howled the frantic Spangler, "oncet I ketch that Motor Matt I'll wring his neck fer him!" "I'll help you," answered Brisco vindictively. There was a patch of skin gone from his forehead and a little dribble of red was flowing down his cheek. "If they wasn't out o' sight," growled Spangler, "I'd pepper 'em." "What's the use of peppering them?" scowled Brisco. "We'll climb right over 'em in less'n five minutes." "Do it!" cried Spangler, as they shot ahead recklessly. "Do what?" asked Brisco, just missing a boulder by a hair's breadth. "Why, climb over 'em," snorted Spangler. "Run 'em down an' shove 'em inter the rocks! Let's hev a smash, with that young whelp right in the middle of it. He's made us trouble enough!" "Don't be a fool, Spang!" returned Brisco. "If we ran into them we might smash the runabout. We've got use for this machine--after we clean up on Legree and this Motor Matt." "That's so, too," said Spangler. "We may hev use fer it even if ye don't clean up on Legree. With another pair o' shoes an' tubes, an' a place whar we kin keep a supply o' gasoline an' oil, an' them steel bottles o' compressed air, we could circle all around through this here Southwestern kentry, takin' our toll wharever we wanted ter pick it up." "Sure we could, and we _will_!" "I'm glad o' one thing," observed Spangler. "What's that?" "Why, thar won't be any more glass throwed in the road, same as thar was during t'other chase we had with that Red Flier. King had a lot in the red car, if ye remember, an' I dumped it all out." "We'll nip 'im this time," said Brisco, through his teeth. "We got ter, that's what. If we don't---- Tear an' ages, Hank! Be keerful!" The runabout had been hurled at a curve. There was no lessening of the speed, and the entire machine slid sideways to the edge of the road, banging into the rocks with a force that pitched Spangler against the dashboard. He came within one of going clear over upon the hood. "Get back in your seat and hang on!" yelled Brisco. "We haven't commenced to run yet." After that Spangler had no time to talk--he was too busy holding himself in the car. Meanwhile the Red Flier had been streaking it through the hills, Josh keeping a pair of keen eyes on the back track, and Matt giving his entire attention to the road ahead. "Chee, wot a bump!" cried Josh. He had seen the runabout skid across the road, take a welt at the rock wall and then leap onward like a bullet from a gun. "What's the matter?" shouted Matt. He had to shout, for the wind of their flight caught the words out of his teeth and flung them, a mere wisp of sound, far to rearward. "Brisco tried t' knock over a hill wit' his hind wheels," yelled Josh, "an' Spang tried t' turn a handspring over de bonnet. Wow! but dey're goin some, Matt!" "So are we," screamed Matt, "Fifty-eight miles an hour." "Ever race dat runabout afore?" "Yes." "W'ch winned?" "The Flier--by a fluke. I scattered glass in the road--the runabout got into it and went lame." "Got any glass along now?" "Yes, in the tonneau; but----" "None dere now, cull." "Then Brisco must have thrown it out. It'll all right, though. This is going to be our race." "We'd better keep our lamps skinned f'r Fairview. It's on'y seventy-five miles from w'ere we started, an we're goin' so fast we might run past de place an' never see it." Josh felt hilarious. His panic was leaving him and his usual nerve was coming back. "How's the runabout coming?" roared Matt. "Gainin'!" whooped the boy. "Oh, sister, how she's comin'! Wisht I had some glass." "She'll never catch us, Josh!" "How's dat?" "Because I've fixed her so she won't." "I hope yous ain't shy in yer calkilations, Matt. Dem blokes'll sure kill us if we drops into deir hands." "Watch her, Josh! Tell me when her speed slackens, or when anything goes wrong." "She ain't slackenin' none yet, an' nuttin' ain't gone wrong." "Well, watch and tell me." Matt couldn't understand why the runabout wasn't beginning to develop trouble in the vicinity of the needle-valve. But it would come, sooner or later. Some of the sand was bound to get through the supply-pipe in time. The valley had widened considerably, and now it began to develop dips and rises which afforded Matt opportunity for nursing the motor and preventing overheating. He could cut off the power on the down grades and give the throbbing cylinders a breathing spell. Brisco had no such fine ability or discrimination. He took everything on the high gear. "Still gainin'!" announced Josh. "How far are they behind?" "A hundred feet. It's a wonder dey don't shake some bullets out o' deir guns dis way. One of 'em's tootin' his bazoo at us." "What does he say? Can you hear?" "He says ter stop 'r he'll put a bullet into one o' our tires. Chee! If he does dat----" Matt snatched one hand from the steering-wheel. Honk, honk! he answered derisively. Sping! The warning report was followed by the whistle of a bullet. It did not come anywhere near the Red Flier, but spatted harmlessly into the valley wall. Josh laughed wildly and waved his hand. The spirit of the race was surging through his veins and had wiped out all sense of fear. "Wow!" he shouted. "Yous ought t' seen dat! Spang has been holdin' on t' de seat wit' bot' hands, but he let go wit' one t' fire at us. De runabout jumped sideways an' he lost his pepper-box overboard. Come clost t' goin' hisself! Say, I wisht he had!" The runabout was devouring the distance in remarkable style. It was now only twenty-five feet behind, and so near that the sand and pebbles kicked up by the flying rear wheels of the red car struck in the faces of Brisco and Spangler. Spangler lowered his head. Brisco jerked the goggles down over his eyes. "Stop!" he roared, "or I'll run into you!" Honk, honk! tooted Matt defiantly. Brisco swore and gritted his teeth. With his temper at fever heat, what did he care how he injured the runabout just so he evened his score with Motor Matt? Closer and closer came the runabout. Josh measured the decreasing distance with his eyes. "Ten feet! Five, Matt, _five_! She's up t' us, now--look out!" Not knowing what was to happen, Josh curled over the back of the seat and hung on with both hands. There was a slight jar, followed by a sudden slewing on the part of the runabout, a quick lessening of speed and the whirr of a racing engine. "Dey're stoppin'!" shouted the boy; "somet'ing has gone wrong wid de odder car!" "I knew _something_ would happen!" shouted Matt, as he slowed his speed a little to give the Red Flier a bit of a rest. CHAPTER XIV. DOWN THE MOUNTAIN. "Dat engine o' deirs went wrong just at de right time t' save our bacon, Matt," said Josh. Matt tossed a look backward. The runabout was at a stop, and Brisco was on the ground, tinkering frantically. "If he knows what to do," said Matt, "he'll be able to come on again. But he'll have more trouble; and he'll continue to have trouble until he takes time to overhaul his fuel-tank." "What did yous do?" asked the boy. "Mixed a handful of sand with his gasoline." "W'en?" "While we were hung up in front of those rocks Spangler had laid for us." "Didn't dat geezer see yous?" "I got out of the way before Brisco showed up; and Spangler, at the time, was away looking for the man in the notch." "Chee, but you're a wonder! Motor Matt heads de percession an' carries de banner! Yous t'ought o' all dat while I was hustlin' t' git behind dem rocks! Did yous t'ink we was goin' t' have a race?" "I didn't know but we might. Anyhow, I thought it good policy to fix the machine so it wouldn't be reliable. What's the news from the rear, Josh?" "Brisco is gittin' back in his seat." "Is he coming on?" "Dat's wot." "Fast as ever?" "I don't see no diff'rence in de runnin'." "Well, something is sure to go wrong, just as it did before. One grain of sand clogged the needle-valve, Josh, and there's a thousand more grains to come down the supply-pipe. Face around a minute. The road forks here. Which one shall we take? Do you remember coming this way?" The boy flopped around in his seat. The Red Flier was rushing toward a place where the road forked. Both roads were bordered by rocky walls, and both had the appearance of being equally well traveled--which wasn't saying much for the travel, at that. "I don't remember nuttin'," answered the boy, "bein' scart stiff all de w'ile I was in de runabout. I'd say go t' de right. Dat's always a good t'ing t' do." "If we had the least notion which way Fairview lay we could shape our course a little better. But we don't know, so we'll take chances and go to the right." There was a slowing of speed while Matt made the turn. For a long distance this fork was a straightaway stretch and fairly level. Matt and Josh were congratulating themselves on the fact that they had made a fortunate choice, when suddenly they whirled out on a vista that surprised them. At the end of the straightaway stretch, a sudden angle brought the side of a steep mountain under the boy's eyes. The road could be seen clinging to the mountain's side, describing horseshoe after horseshoe--edging its way between dizzy chasms and high cliffs. "Wow!" gasped Josh, and collapsed in his seat. "Right here's w'ere we fall off de eart'." Matt took another look behind. The runabout, with the stern, relentless face of Brisco over the wheel, was surging toward them. "Here we go!" called Matt. "Hang on, Josh!" "I'm glued! Yous can't shake me!" The boy was game, and Matt flung the Red Flier at the mountainside and down the ribbon of treacherous road. There were places where a cliff overhung the trail, and the wheels on the left almost scraped the rocks, while those on the right barely tracked on the brink of a gulf. The boy's face went white, but his eyes glimmered brightly. He looked back from time to time and saw the runabout sliding after them. A quick fear had rushed to Matt's brain. Oddly enough, it was not a fear for his own safety, for he knew the Red Flier and knew what he could do with it; but the runabout! If that trickle of sand cut off the power and caused the machine to slew ever so slightly, it would go over the chasm's edge and carry Brisco and Spangler with it! The world would have been better off, perhaps, if such a mishap had come to pass; but Matt did not want it that way. His own instrumentality in the matter would have been too hideously clear. And yet, if something did not happen to the runabout, the machine might collide with the Red Flier and drive it over the brink. Matt knew he must keep ahead. Never had he driven more masterfully than then. His nerves were steady, his brain alert, and every inch of that curving, treacherous down grade was covered by his eyes. It was more like falling down a hill than riding down. The Red Flier quivered like a thing of life, seeming to realize what was expected of it, and responding nobly. Far off, over the level plain at the mountain's foot, could be seen the little cluster of houses that represented Fairview. It glowed in the morning sun like a toy village on a toy map. As the road curved, struck a short straightaway, then curved again, the town swept vividly into view and again as quickly vanished. At the most desperate part of the trail a rock had crumbled from the wall and rolled to the edge of the chasm. There it lay, almost under the nose of the rushing car. The boy cast a despairing look into Motor Matt's set, determined face. All he saw was a swift gleam of the gray eyes. Crash! The car, skilfully guided so that it touched the inward side of the boulder, forced it from the edge and sent it bounding and smashing downward into the gulf. A sharp breath tore through the boy's lips. Confidence again took possession of him. After that escape, what difficulty could come up that Motor Matt was not able to conquer? Matt seemed to be made of steel. With one foot on the brake and both hands on the wheel, he kept rigidly to his work. "How're they making it behind, Josh?" he called. The boy knelt in his seat and looked back up the steep incline. Fortune was riding with Brisco that day. But for that he must have been hurled from the trail in a dozen places. Driving a car was comparatively new work for him, and the chances are that never before had he been on such a dangerous piece of road. Yet he was naturally a man of iron nerve, and would not hold back where Motor Matt led. Spangler, from his appearance, was as frightened a man as there ever was in Arizona. A gray pallor had spread over his face, and his eyes were fairly popping from his head. Gripping his seat with both hands, he braced himself with his feet against the forward dip of the car. "Dey're slidin' after us, cull," reported the boy. "Gaining?" "Dat's wot, but not like dey did on de level road." "The foot of the mountain is just ahead of us. Can we get there before they overtake us?" "Well, mebby we kin, but I wish de foot o' de mountain was half a mile nearer dan wot it is." Facing about in his seat, Josh looked at the foot of the mountain for himself. They were dropping toward it swiftly. There were no more curves--nothing but a straight fall, a shoot between bordering rocks and then a cheerful reach of road over the plain. "We're in luck t' git out o' dis widout a broken neck," said Josh. "Chee, but dat level place looks good t' me." "The Flier's a dandy car!" declared Matt. "She's got a dandy driver, an' dat's no dream. W'ere'd we been widout Motor Matt at de steerin'-wheel? Yous is a four-time winner, an' dere's odders dat'll hear me say it." "The runabout will be hot after us as soon as we hit the level ground again." "Dey'll never ketch us, cull. I don't care how hot dey come, wit' yous handlin' de Flier." With a final spurt the red car rushed through the rocks, and, for the first time since it had taken that up-and-down trail, both ends were on a level. As they glided out onto the plain, Matt cast a look backward. There was a feeling of relief came over him at sight of the runabout charging through the rocks at the mountain's foot. But, as he looked, and just as the runabout was on the point of striking level ground, there was a jerk to the left, a crash, and a sudden stop. Brisco pitched forward over the wheel, shot clear past the hood, and doubled up and rolled along the stony trail. Spangler went out on the left side, ricochetting into the air and turning a couple of grotesque somersaults. Like Brisco, when he dropped, he lay still. A sharp breath escaped Matt's lips. Turning the Red Flier, he started back until he had come almost upon the silent form of Brisco; then he brought the Flier to a halt and jumped out. "Chee, Moses!" muttered Josh, awed by the abrupt termination of the chase. "Do yous t'ink dem guys is killed, Matt?" "That's what we've got to find out," flung back Matt, hurrying to Brisco and kneeling down beside him. Human enmity seemed a paltry thing to Matt as his hand went groping over Brisco's breast, feeling for the heart-beats. A thrill of satisfaction shot through him as he found that Brisco was alive. Hurrying on to Spangler, he was immensely relieved to find that worthy sitting up in the road and drawing a hand over his dazed eyes. "What--what happened?" faltered Spangler. "Nothing to what's going to happen now, Spangler," answered Matt, and picked up the second and last revolver which the ruffian had had about him. "There ought to be some ropes in the runabout, Josh," called Matt. "Go and get them." CHAPTER XV. MOTOR MATT'S TEN-STRIKE. Josh hustled for the runabout. One of the coiled ropes Matt had put in the car was hanging over a lamp, and the other had been thrown into the road. Taking the one off the lamp, the boy hurried back to the place where Matt was training the revolver on Spangler. "Fine bizness!" laughed Josh. "Wot d'yous want me t' do, Matt? Put a bow-knot on his lunch-hooks?" "Stand up, Spangler!" ordered Matt. Spangler got lamely to his feet. He was still confused and bewildered. "Somethin' hit us," he mumbled. "From the way I was throwed it must hev been a landslide. Whar's Hank? Is he killed?" "Brisco will get along, I guess," said Matt. "Put your hands behind you, Spangler." Just then, for the first time, it began to dawn on Spangler that Matt was making a prisoner out of him. The ruffian, although practically uninjured, had been badly shaken up. Nevertheless, he was in condition to resist, and he leaped backward, swearing. "If ye think ye kin rope, down an' tie me," he cried, "jest bekase that thar machine bucked an' dumped me inter the road, ye got another----" "Come this way!" cut in Matt. The words, hard and keen, jumped at Spangler like so many knife-points. Motor Matt meant business, and showed it in every movement. Spangler stepped forward. "That's far enough," snapped Matt. "Now put those hands behind you." With the open end of his own gun staring him in the face, there was nothing for Spangler to do but to obey. His hands went meekly behind him. "Can you tie a good hard knot, Josh?" asked Matt. "T'ink I ain't good f'r nuttin'?" protested the boy. Passing behind Spangler, he used the free end of the rope for a few moments and then stepped back with the rest of the coil in his hands. "If he gits dem mitts out o' dat he's a good 'un," announced Josh. "W'ere d'yous want him, Matt?" "In the Red Flier. Step lively, Spangler. We've got to look after Brisco." "Get ap!" clucked Josh, shaking the rope. With a black scowl on his face, the baffled Spangler made his way to the touring-car. "Get in on the back seat," went on Matt. Spangler obeyed the order. "Now, Josh," pursued Matt, "cut the rope and tie a piece of it around his feet." The boy finished the work expeditiously, and when he and Matt drew away from the Red Flier they left Spangler helpless and fuming in the tonneau. Brisco was still lying where he had fallen, and he was still unconscious. Matt made a more thorough examination of him. His pulse was stronger and, so far as Matt could discover, there were no broken bones. "Wot keeps 'im in a trance?" asked the boy. "He's stayin' a long time in de Land o' Nod for not havin' nuttin' wrong wit' 'im." "Pick up his revolver, Josh," returned Matt briskly, "and then sit down beside him and wait till he gets his wits back. Don't let him get away from you." "Get away from me? Not on yer life, cull. I'd radder take dis mutt into Fairview dan pull down a t'ousan' in de long green. Dad wants _him_." Paying no attention to the boy's rather obscure remark, Matt went to the runabout. He was expecting to find the machine badly smashed, and was happily disappointed. Both front lamps were broken, and the mud-guard over the right wheel forward had been ripped away. The guard had fallen between the wheel and the rock, and undoubtedly had kept the wheel from being dished. The tire was punctured and the jolt had disabled the motor. For all that, however, the machine, with a few temporary repairs, could travel on its own wheels if not under its own power. Brisco had not yet corralled his wits. Aided by Josh, Matt dragged the man off to one side, where he would be out of the way; then, cutting about six feet of rope from the other riata, he threw it down where Josh could get at it. "When Brisco wakes up, Josh," said Matt, "just hold him steady till we put that rope on him." "Wot yous goin' t' do, Matt?" inquired the wondering Josh. "Yous is busier dan a monkey wit' his hand in a coconut." "We're going to haul the runabout into Fairview," said Matt. "But I've got to patch her up first." Getting into the Red Flier, Matt backed her as close to the disabled car as he could; then, hitching onto the runabout with the ropes, he pulled it down onto the level plain. With a jack taken from the touring-car he swung the runabout's wheel off the ground. The mud-guard, having been ripped off, was not in his way. After locating the puncture and marking it with chalk, he unscrewed the wing-nuts, pushed out the security-bolt, and then, with levers, dug out the inner tube. Perhaps he was an hour getting the hole patched up, tire back in place and reinflated. When he was through, the runabout was ready to be dragged to Fairview. "How's Brisco?" asked Matt, putting on his leather coat, which he had thrown off while working with the runabout. "Same as wot he was, cull," replied Josh. "He ain't twitched an eye-winker." "He may be shamming," said Matt, "in the hope of making a bolt for his liberty. We'll put him in the tonneau. You can ride with him and watch him every minute. I'll take Spangler in front with me." "We're goin' t' take de hull outfit into Fairview?" grinned Josh. "That's the idea." "A whale of an idee it is, too, an' no stringin'. Reg'lar line-up o' crooks an' stolen automobiles, wit' Motor Matt in charge o' de bunch. Wow! It's de biggest come-easy dat I ever mixed up wit'. Mebby dere won't be rejoicin' w'en we goes pokin' into town wit' all dis load. Well, I guess yes." Between them, Matt and Josh succeeded in carrying Brisco to the touring-car and getting him into the tonneau. Spangler, having been transferred to one of the front seats, had been chewing the cud of reflection. "Looky here, Motor Matt," said he, "ye ain't got no call ter kerry me ter Fairview. Think o' Klegg, down an' out an' mebby dyin' back thar in that notch. If anythin' happens ter him ye'll be responsible. Better turn me loose an' let me go back an' take keer o' him." "Don't do so much worrying over Klegg," answered Matt. "I intend to have him looked after. Just as soon as we get to Fairview I'll have the sheriff, or some other officer, go to the notch and see that Klegg gets all the attention he deserves." "Waal, even at that, ye ain't got no call ter lug me inter town. I ain't done a thing. Brisco was the feller that had it in fer you. It's him ye want ter git even with, an' not me." "You didn't have a hand in robbing Mr. Tomlinson, did you?" said Matt sarcastically. "There are a lot of other things you've done, too, and I'm going to turn you over to Lem Nugent, the man who owns the runabout, as soon as we reach Fairview. It won't take long to get Nugent up from Ash Forks." "Yous is a game loser, I don't t'ink," scoffed the boy. "W'ere's yer nerve, Spangler?" "Say," said Spangler, giving his attention to Josh, "where did you butt inter this game?" "I rode out o' Fairview wit' Brisco," grinned Josh. "He give me a ride." "Give ye a ride?" echoed Spangler. "Sure, on'y he didn't know it. I was under de coat in de back o' de runabout; an' I was still dere w'en yous mutts went t' dat hole in de wall. 'Course yous didn't see me. Yous was too mad at Motor Matt t' see anyt'ing." The whole situation rushed over Spangler with demoralizing clearness. He was able to understand how Josh and Matt, by the exercise of pluck and brains, had succeeded in balking the plans of Brisco. Spangler swore heartily. It seemed to be his only method for easing his feelings. "The worst move we ever made," he muttered savagely, "was takin' Motor Matt out o' town last night. I didn't want ter do it, but Brisco had made up his mind, an' that settled it. We ain't got no one ter blame but ourselves fer what's happened. Go on. The quicker we git ter Fairview an' hev this thing over with, the better I'll be suited." Spangler, resigning himself to the situation, sank back in his seat. Matt went around to the rear of the car to make the ropes attaching it to the runabout more secure. As near as he had been able to discover there was a level road all the way to Fairview. They were coming into the town from the north and east, and not along the Ash Fork road, where there was a hill to be descended in order to reach the valley. Having reassured himself about the ropes, Matt returned to the side of the Red Flier and mounted the running-board. Looking over the side of the tonneau, he swept his gaze over Brisco's unconscious face. "I can't understand what keeps him that way, Josh," said Matt. "Mebby he's badly shook up inside," answered the boy. "Wot he needs is a doctor." "Well, he'll have one before long. Stay right beside him and watch him every minute. If he's playing possum with us, we want to make sure he don't gain anything by it." "I'm right on de job," said Josh. Matt climbed into his seat and started on the low gear. There was a creaking of the ropes as they took the pull, and the runabout started. Everything worked smoothly, and Matt, with a load worth fifteen hundred dollars, set his face toward Fairview. CHAPTER XVI. MORE TROUBLE FOR THE "UNCLE TOMMERS." The disappearance of Motor Matt and the Red Flier made Carl Pretzel not only bewildered but furiously angry. He was angry at Brisco and bewildered to account for the way he had pulled off his night raid. "Oof dot feller inchures a hair oof Modor Matt's headt," wheezed Carl, shaking his fist in the air, "I vill camp by his drail, py chimineddy! I vill go on some var-paths! I vill make him be sorry for vat he dit, yah, so helup me!" Leaving Carl to rant and vow vengeance, Legree rushed over to the railroad-station and sent a message. The message, owing to financial embarrassment on the part of Legree, had to go collect. "LEM NUGENT, Ash Fork. "Come at once to Fairview. Important developments regarding your automobile. MOTOR MATT." Legree signed the message with Matt's name because he knew the cattleman wouldn't know anything about a man named Legree; and he also felt sure that Motor Matt's name would secure the cattleman's instant attention. On his way back to the hotel he inquired for the sheriff. Fairview was too small to have a sheriff, but the town had a deputy sheriff. The deputy, however, was just then attending his father's golden-wedding, in Flagstaff, the marshal had gone with him, and the town was without an officer. As if this was not sufficiently discouraging, when Legree got back to the hotel he found a very disquieting state of affairs. The Uncle Tommers had been chased out of the hostelry by O'Grady and Ping Pong, his Chinese cook. They were gathered in a forlorn group in front, and Carl Pretzel was with them. "Mistah O'Grady, sah," Uncle Tom was saying with all the dignity he could work up, "Ah's de official mascot ob Motah Matt. While Ah's been stayin' in yo' 'stablishment, Ah's been mascottin' fo' him. He will come back, yo' ma'k what Ah say. Gib us ouah breakfus en yo' sho gits yo' money!" "Begorry, yez have got into me f'r all yez are goin' to," yelled the proprietor. "It's a passel av thramps yez are, iv'ry wan av yez! Av th' marshal was in town, Oi'd have yez all in th' cooler. Get out, befure Oi sic th' dog on yez! Scatther!" "What's the matter here?" demanded Legree, pushing to the front. "Py chincher," flared Carl, "dot Irish feller t'inks ve vas vorkin' some shkin games on him. He vas grazier as a pedpug, und he von't gif us some preakfast." "En we's all hongry es sin," piped Uncle Tom plaintively. "Ah been mascottin' fo' Motah Matt twell Ah's dat fagged Ah dunno whut Ah's about, no, sah." "I tried to get him to take my ring, Legree," put in Eliza, "but he won't. He says we're only a lot of dead beats, and never intend to pay him." "Ah tole him," spoke up Topsy, "dat Ah'd wuk in his kitchum fo' de price ob a breakfus, an' he wouldn' hab it. Ah's honest, dat's whut Ah is. Ah nebber stole a cent fum anybody en mah life." "See here, O'Grady," remarked Legree, "Motor Matt has money and he has offered to pay our expenses while we're stopping with you. I'll have money myself in a few days, and then I'll pay you. You're not taking any chances on this crowd." "Faith, an' yez are roight about thot," scowled O'Grady. "Oi'm takin' no more chances wid yez. Motor Matt! Why, he run aff lasht noight! Sure, he did! He shneaked away so he wouldn't have t' pay me f'r yer kape. Oi'm keen enough t' see thot!" "Py shinks," whooped Carl, dancing around and waving his fists, "don'd you say dod some more. I can lick der feller vat says somet'ings aboudt Modor Matt like dot. Ven he say he pay, he mean vot he say, und he do it, too. Yah, you bed you! Modor Matt vas my bard, und he don'd vas leafing a bard in der lurch like vat you say." "Av Motor Matt is yer pard," said O'Grady, "bedad but it's sthrange yez haven't money. Git out, Oi say! Oi'm done wid yez." "I tell you," went on Legree, "I'll have money myself in a few days." "Yez can't make me belave any cock-an'-bull shtory like thot. Niver again will Oi take in anny wan widout baggage. Shoo! Clear out befure Oi git violent." In O'Grady's present temper there was no reasoning with him, so Legree marshaled his comrades and led them off to a neighboring wood-pile, where they all sat down disconsolately. "Ah's been accustomed tuh bettah treatment," mourned Uncle Tom. "Ah's got de bigges' notion dat evah was tuh put a hoodoo on dat hotel. Ah could do hit, but Ah restrains mahse'f till Ah gits odahs fum Motah Matt." "Go 'long wif sich talk!" cried Topsy, out of patience. "'Peahs lak yo' done put dat hoodoo on de rest ob us. Nuffin' ain't gone right sence we left dat 'ar Brockville place." "There'll be some one here from Ash Fork before long, who, maybe, will help us," said Legree. "Just be as patient as you can, friends, and we'll hope for the best." "All de patience in de worl', Mistah Legree," answered Uncle Tom, "'doan' fill a pusson's stummick. Mah goodness, Ah didun' know Ah was so pesterin' hongry." "I tell you somet'ing," said Carl, "oof I knowed vich vay Modor Matt vas, I vould go und findt him. I vas madt as some vet hens ofer dis pitzness. Here ve vas, hung oop on a vood-pile mit nodding to eat, und not knowing vere Modor Matt vent mit himseluf. Chonny Hartluck iss hanging aroundt mit us." Leaving his disconsolate friends, Legree went back to the railroad-station. There he waited for four hours for the local train from Ash Fork. He was rewarded, however, by seeing a big man get off the train, stop on the platform, and look around expectantly. Legree walked up to the arriving passenger. "Mr. Nugent?" he asked. "You've hit it," replied the cattleman, staring the stranded actor up and down with an unfavoring eye. "Ah! Well, sir, my name's Legree. I suppose you're looking for Motor Matt?" "Another bull's-eye for you. I came here on a telegram from Motor Matt saying that there had been important developments concerning my automobile that was stolen from me near Ash Fork. Where's Motor Matt?" "He is unavoidably absent just now," answered Legree, "but I am confidently expecting him to appear at any moment. To be frank with you, sir, I sent that telegram and signed Motor Matt's name to it." The cattleman became indignant. "You're pretty fresh, seems to me!" said he. "What business had you doing a thing like that?" "Because I wanted you here. Your car was in town yesterday. One of the thieves brought it in for a supply of gasoline and oil. Motor Matt and I tried to capture the thief, but he got away from us and took the car with him." "Who are you, if you haven't any objection to answerin' a straight question?" demanded the cattleman. "Step into the waiting-room with me for a few moments," replied Legree, "and I'll explain." They went into the waiting-room and were gone possibly five minutes. When they came out on the platform once more, Nugent seemed to have developed a vast amount of confidence in Legree. "Why didn't you tell Motor Matt what you've told me?" asked the cattleman. "I wasn't telling anybody that, Mr. Nugent," answered Legree, "and I wouldn't be telling you now if I hadn't wanted to fix things with O'Grady so that I and my friends can continue to remain at his hotel." "I know O'Grady," said Nugent. "Come along with me and I'll fix things up for you." They went to the hotel at once. O'Grady, tilted back against the wall in front, was smoking a pipe and keeping a sharp eye on the wood-pile. Uncle Tom, with a red bandanna over his face, was leaning back against the wood and was apparently asleep. All the rest were hovering listlessly about, waiting patiently for something to happen. The sight of Lem Nugent, who was known throughout all that part of the country, wrought a great change in O'Grady. The cattleman and the actor were approaching together, and seemed to be on cordial terms. "O'Grady," said Nugent, after he had exchanged greetings with the proprietor, "this gentleman is a friend of mine, and his friends are my friends, understand? Take them all in and give them the best you've got. And don't bleed me, you shyster. I'll stand the damage, but I won't be robbed." "Whativer yez say goes wid me, Lem," said O'Grady. "Come on, all av yez," he cried, standing up and motioning toward the wood-pile. "Oi'll have th' Chink put a male on th' table f'r yez to wanst." Uncle Tom may have been asleep, but he heard those welcome words and was up like a shot. "Ah was mascottin fo' dat very t'ing," he admitted, as he ran toward the hotel. "Layin' back dar wid mah bandannah ober mah face, Ah was wukin' lak er hiahed man, yassuh. Now, den, yo' Topsy, yo' see what Ah kin do when Ah lays mahse'f out!" Just as they were starting into the hotel, a shout from Carl brought them all to a halt and an about-face. "Hoop-a-la!" yelled Carl, dancing around and throwing his cap in the air. "Look vonce ad vat's coming! Vat dit I say? Here vas a drain oof cars, mit Modor Matt pringing dem in. Ach, himmel, I peen so habby as I can't dell! Modor Matt iss coming!" Under the startled eyes of those in front of the hotel two cars could be seen coming along the road. The Red Flier, with Matt and three passengers, was in the lead, and towing behind was the runabout. "My car, by thunder!" shouted Nugent, starting for the road. "And Spangler is with Motor Matt," cried the amazed Legree, "and Brisco, and the kid! How in blazes do you think that happened?" A disgusted look crossed Uncle Tom's face. "How yo' t'ink dat happened!" he muttered sarcastically; "en me a-mascottin' fo' Motah Matt all de time!" CHAPTER XVII. CONCLUSION. Whether O'Grady really thought Motor Matt had taken French leave during the night or not, is a question. Certainly he was as surprised to see Matt traveling into town as were any of the rest of them. All those around the hotel flocked to the road. "Hello, Matt!" called Nugent, reaching up his hand. "It looks like you'd been accomplishing something." Matt's acquaintance with the cattleman had been of exceedingly brief duration, and never before had he been hailed by him in that cordial tone. "How are you, Mr. Nugent?" he returned, taking the cattleman's hand. "How did you happen to come over this way?" "Got a telegram from you----" "From me?" echoed Matt. "I sent it, Matt," put in Legree, "and signed your name to it. When you disappeared last night I knew something had to be done, and that there ought to be a man with money to do it. So I sent for Nugent." "It's all right, my boy," said Nugent, "and I'm tickled to death because I came. You're bringing in my car, I see, and the two fellows that took it away from me. Good! If we don't put 'em through for their crooked work, my name ain't Nugent." "You'll have to send for a doctor for Brisco," said Matt. "He's been unconscious for two hours, and I don't know whether he's badly hurt or not. You see----" At that moment Brisco proved that he was far from being badly hurt. With a jump he got out of the tonneau and started at a run toward the edge of town. Uncle Tom happened to be in his way, and was knocked heels over head. "Dere he goes!" yelled Josh excitedly. "Clear out o' de way so I kin git a shot at 'im!" But Josh was not allowed to carry out his warlike intentions. Legree took after the escaping ruffian, overhauled him before he had gone far, grabbed him by the shoulders, and hurled him to the ground. O'Grady, rushing to Legree's assistance, lent a willing hand. Brisco had been a good customer of O'Grady's, but the situation had changed somewhat since the Uncle Tommers had been staying at the Shamrock Hotel. "I reckon, Matt," remarked Lem Nugent dryly, "that the fellow ain't very badly hurt. How did you happen to get hold of the scoundrels?" "They were chasing us," answered Matt. "We were in the Red Flier and they were in your car. Brisco ran into the rocks, and he and Spangler were thrown out. Neither of them seemed very much hurt, and Josh and I captured Spangler before he had fully got back his wits. Brisco appeared to be all right, but he was unconscious. I had an idea that he might be shamming. Probably he came to himself just as we got here, and thought the best thing for him to do would be to make a break." "His break didn't help him any," said Legree, as he and O'Grady came marching back with Brisco between them. "Go up to my room, Josh," Legree went on, "and get those two plates. You'll find 'em under the northeast corner of the carpet. Front room, boy." "Dat's me," answered Josh, handing Brisco's weapons to his father and bounding away. "I'm going to tell you people something," proceeded Legree, "that will no doubt surprise you. And I think," he finished grimly, "that Brisco will be as much surprised as anybody." Josh presently returned with a couple of flat, square packages. Leaving O'Grady to take care of Brisco, Legree took the packages in his hands. "A crook by the name of Denver Denny, alias James Trymore," went on Legree, "escaped from the authorities at Denver and came to this part of the country. Denver Denny was a clever counterfeiter, and worked in conjunction with Hank Brisco. At least, following the output of the 'queer' as it trailed along in the wake of that Uncle Tom's Cabin Company, I came to that conclusion. "Denny owned a set of very fine plates for the manufacture of bogus five-dollar silver certificates. When he was captured in Denver those plates were nowhere to be found. I conceived the notion that they might be in Brisco's possession, and in order to make sure, I became letter-perfect in the part of Legree, and Josh here got the part of Little Eva by heart, and we arranged to join Brisco's company of barn-stormers. "We were with them for some time, watching Brisco all the while. Brisco was not shoving any of the 'queer' while we were with him, and I was inclined to think that I had made a mistake in connecting him with Denny's operations. However, Brisco had a little tin box, of which he was very choice and careful. His solicitude for that box aroused my curiosity. When Brisco pulled out between two days in Denver, and left his company stranded, by some freak of chance he dropped the box. Josh found it. We opened the box in Ash Fork and found these two packages in it." Legree lifted the two flat parcels so all could see. "I knew perfectly well that Brisco would come after his box, so I continued to play the part of a stranded actor, hoping to get my hands on him. "Fate was kind to us," and here Legree turned and dropped a friendly hand on the young motorist's shoulder, "by bringing Motor Matt along. He came to the front gallantly and helped us. I should have captured Brisco sooner or later, even without his aid, but he has closed the affair in hurricane fashion and saved the government lots of trouble." Everybody, Uncle Tommers, Matt, Carl, and Brisco and Spangler, were astounded. Nugent was the solitary exception, for Legree had revealed his identity to the cattleman in the railroad-station. "These are the plates," went on Legree. "Brisco had them in the tin box." "And you are----" began Matt, staring at Legree. "A secret service man in the employ of the government." A cry of fierce anger escaped Brisco. He made a fierce attempt to get at Legree, but O'Grady restrained him. "Faith," said O'Grady, with cheerful disregard of his past actions, "Oi knowed yez was a bad egg th' minyit Oi set eyes on yez." "Dis," remarked Uncle Tom, with immense pride, "is de best job ob mascottin' whut Ah's done yit!" "Better give up, Brisco!" called Spangler from the touring-car. "They've got it on us an' we'll have ter take our medicine." "Got it on us, yes," stormed Brisco, "but they wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been for Motor Matt." "Not so quick, I'll admit," said Legree amiably, "but I'd have caught you sooner or later, Brisco. In my report I shall have something to say to the head of the department about Motor Matt. I'd like to hear, though, just how he happened to make this haul." "Josh helped me," said Matt. "Not enough so yous could notice it," returned Josh promptly; "Motor Matt was de man on de job from start t' finish. Yous take it from Little Eva, an' no stringin'." The boy turned to Matt with a wide grin. "Yous is wise t' why I went off wit' Brisco in dat runabout now, ain't yous? I wanted t' find out w'ere he had 'is hang-out so dad could turn a trick fer de gov'ment. But yous cut out dad, Matt." "Listen, vonce," cried Carl, who had been trying for some time to get in a few words, "Matt's der pest efer. He prings luck venefer he goes mit anypody. Yah, dot's righdt. I know, pecause he prought luck mit me." Uncle Tom was disposed to butt in with an objection, but the cattleman had something to say. "There's fifteen hundred of my money goes to somebody for all this," said he. "Who gets it, Matt?" "Divide it up between all of us," answered the boy generously. "The Uncle Tommers need it." A shout of delight went up from the actor contingent. "You can leave Josh in the division," said Legree, "but cut me out of it. I'm working for Uncle Sam." Just at that moment the Chinaman stepped to the door and announced dinner. "We'll talk all this over while we eat," said Nugent. "Come on, everybody." * * * * * Motor Matt and Carl, having lost more time in Fairview than they could well afford, started for Albuquerque early in the afternoon. Eliza, Topsy, and Uncle Tom, now well supplied with money, were to proceed to Denver by train. The secret service man and Josh were to remain in Fairview for a few days with their prisoners, and then to take them to Denver for trial. "Matt," said Carl seriously, as the Red Flier leaped onward toward Albuquerque, "I vas a lucky feller to hook oop mit you. Vone oof dose tays, oof you don'd go pack on me, I vill vear tiamonts!" "I'll never go back on you, Carl," laughed Matt; "but I'm a little 'juberous' about the diamonds." THE END. THE NEXT NUMBER (7) WILL CONTAIN MOTOR MATT'S CLUE; OR, THE PHANTOM AUTO. A Night Mystery--Dick Ferral--La Vita Place--The House of Wonder--Sercomb--The Phantom Auto Again--Surrounded by Enemies--The Kettle Begins to Boil--Ordered Away--A New Plan--A Daring Leap--Desperate Villiany--Tippoo--In the Nick of Time--A Startling Interruption--The Price of Treachery--The Luck of Dick Ferral. MOTOR STORIES THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION NEW YORK, April 3, 1909. TERMS TO MOTOR STORIES MAIL SUBSCRIBERS. (_Postage Free._) Single Copies or Back Numbers, 5c. Each. 3 months 65c. 4 months 85c. 6 months $1.25 One year 2.50 2 copies one year 4.00 1 copy two years 4.00 =How to Send Money=--By post-office or express money-order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. At your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage-stamps in ordinary letter. =Receipts=--Receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. If not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once. ORMOND G. SMITH, } GEORGE C. SMITH, } _Proprietors_. STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York City. A SNOWBALL FIGHT. By HORATIO ALGER, Jr. The snow had fallen to the depth of six inches during the night, filling in the yards and covering the door-steps, throughout the town of Conway. Among those who hailed the arrival of the snow with joy was Frank Taylor, a boy of fourteen, the son of the Widow Taylor, who lived in a miserable little tenement not far from the mill. Why he was glad to see the snow will soon appear. Early in the morning he shoveled a path to the street, and then putting his shovel over his shoulder, said to his mother: "I'm going over to Squire Ashmead's to see if he doesn't want me to shovel paths in his yard." "He's got a boy of his own," said Mrs. Taylor; "perhaps he will do it." Frank laughed. "Sam Ashmead is proud and lazy," he said. "You won't catch him shoveling paths. I think I shall get the job. I want to earn something so that you need not sit all day sewing. It is too hard for you." "I ought to think myself lucky to get employment at all," said the widow. "I wish I could get steady work somewhere," said Frank; "but I've tried and tried, and it seems impossible." "Willing hands will not want work long," said his mother. "I hope not, mother. But I must be going, or somebody will get the start of me." While Frank is on his way to Squire Ashmead's, a few words of explanation may be given. His mother had been a widow for two years. Her husband had been a man of some education, having at times taught school, but he had never succeeded in laying up any money, and his widow was left almost penniless. Frank, who was a stout boy, and a good boy as well, had earned something by doing odd jobs, but had failed to obtain permanent employment. The burden of their joint support, therefore, was thrown upon his mother, who was very industrious with her needle, but was compelled to labor beyond her strength. All this troubled Frank, who felt that, as a stout, strong boy, he ought to bear at least half the expense. In due time he reached Squire Ashmead's, and was glad to see that the snow remained undisturbed. He rang the bell, and asked if he might shovel the paths that were necessary. Squire Ashmead was absent in New York, to which city he had gone the morning previous on business, but his wife agreed to employ Frank. He went to work with a will, and soon had a path dug from the front door to the gate. A path was also required from the back door to the stable, which was situated in the rear of the house. This was quite a distance, and as Frank wished to do the work thoroughly, it required considerable time. He was about half through this portion of his task when a snowball whistled by his ear. Looking round quickly, he saw Sam Ashmead standing at the corner of the house, engaged in making a fresh snowball. "Don't fire any more snowballs, Sam Ashmead," said Frank. "I shall, if I please," said Sam. "I haven't time to fire back now," said Frank. "Wait till I get through, and we'll have a match if you like." "But I don't like," said Sam scornfully. "Do you think I would have a match with a beggar like you?" "I am no beggar, Sam Ashmead," said Frank, "and if I were I don't think I would beg of you." "Oh, you're mighty proud," sneered Sam, "considering that you live in an old hut not half as good as our stable." "Yes, I am poor, and I live in a poor house," said Frank calmly, "but that isn't a crime that I know of. Some time I shall live in a better house, I hope." So saying, he went back to work, and began shoveling the snow vigorously. He did not anticipate any further attack from Sam, but in this he soon found himself mistaken. In the course of a minute he felt a pretty hard blow in the center of his back, and looking round saw Sam Ashmead laughing insolently. "How does that feel?" asked Sam. "That's the second snowball you've fired at me," said Frank quietly, but there was a light in his eyes as he spoke. "I advise you not to fire another if you know what is good for yourself." "So you threaten me, do you? Suppose I fire again, what's going to happen?" demanded Sam, with an unpleasant sneer. "I think you will be sorry for it," said Frank. Sam hesitated a moment, but only a moment. He was a year older than Frank, and larger in size. Certainly he ought to be a match for him. But he did not believe that Frank would have the audacity to touch him, the son of Squire Ashmead, the richest man in the village. He therefore deliberately made another snowball, and firing it, struck Frank in the back of his head. Frank no sooner felt the blow than he threw down his shovel, and ran toward his assailant. "Keep off, you beggar!" said Sam. "It's too late," said Frank. "I warned you not to fire again." Sam placed himself in an attitude of defense, but found himself seized violently round the middle, and before he fairly knew what was going to happen he was lying in a snow-bank with Frank standing over him. He struggled to his feet mad with rage, and "pitched into" Frank, as the boys express it, and endeavored to retaliate in kind. But Frank was watchful and wary, and evading the attack, seized him again when his strength was half spent, and Sam found himself once more occupying an involuntary bed in the snow. A third struggle resulted in the same way. Sam was furious, but he saw that Frank was more than a match for him. Just then a servant called out from the door: "Master Sam, your mother says it's time for you to be going to school." To tell the truth, Sam was rather glad of the summons, as it gave him an excuse for retiring from the contest. "I'll be even with you yet," he said, shaking his fist at Frank. "I'll let my father know how you insulted me, you young beggar!" "If anybody has been insulted, I have," said Frank. "You must remember that you began it." Sam scowled vindictively, and brushing the snow from his coat went into the house. Before Frank finished the path at the back of the house he was gone to school. Mrs. Ashmead sent out fifty cents to Frank for his morning's work, with which he went home, well satisfied, wishing that he might earn as much every day. He wondered a little whether Sam would tell his father what had occurred between them. He did not speak of it to his mother, for she was nervous, and would be troubled by it, as she received considerable work to do from the Ashmead family which she might fear would be taken away. On the afternoon of the next day, however, Frank received a note, which proved to come from Squire Ashmead. It ran as follows: "FRANK TAYLOR: Please call at my office to-morrow morning at ten o'clock. JAMES ASHMEAD." This note Frank thought best to show to his mother. "What does it mean, Frank? Have you any idea?" she asked. Frank thereupon told her the story of his difficulty with Sam. "It may be about that," he said. "Oh, dear," said the widow. "I'm afraid he's very angry. I hope you will apologize, Frank." "No, mother," said Frank, "I don't see why I should. I only defended myself from a bully. I should be ashamed to do anything else. I didn't hurt him, and didn't intend to, but I wanted to teach him that he couldn't insult me without having to pay for it." "I am afraid some harm will come of it," said the widow anxiously. "Don't trouble yourself, mother," said Frank soothingly. "If we do only what's right, God will take care of us." Still it was with some anxiety that Frank made his way the next morning to the office of Squire Ashmead. This gentleman was the agent of a large manufactory in the town, of which also he was a considerable owner, so that he received an income of over ten thousand dollars a year, which made him the most prominent and influential citizen in the town. When Frank entered the office, Squire Ashmead was conversing with a stranger on business. "Sit down," he said, turning to Frank. "I will be at leisure in a moment." "Well," he said, after the stranger had departed, "Sam tells me you and he have had a little difficulty." "Yes, sir," said Frank. "I would like to explain how it occurred." "Very well. Go on." It will be unnecessary to give the explanation, as it was strictly in accordance with the facts. "Do you blame me for what I did?" asked Frank, at the end. "No, I do not," said the squire. "Sam acted like a bully, and was properly punished. Let that pass. Now let me ask you how you and your mother are getting along?" "Poorly, sir," said Frank. "If I could have steady work, it would be different, but that I cannot get. It troubles me to see my mother work so hard all day. I think it is too much for her." "How would you like to come into my office?" Frank's eyes sparkled. "I should think myself very lucky, sir, to get so good a chance." "I want some boy whom I can trust, who can grow up to the business, and after a time relieve me of a portion of my cares. I would take Sam, but I am sorry to say, though he is my own son, that he would not answer my purpose. I have heard good accounts of you from your teacher and the people in the village. I will take you at a salary of six dollars a week, to be increased from time to time if you will suit me. Can you come Monday morning?" "Yes, sir," said Frank, "and I will do my best to give you satisfaction." "Very well, my lad. Good morning." Frank left the office, feeling as if his fortune was made. His mother, who was awaiting the result of the interview anxiously at home, was overwhelmed with astonishment at the unexpected good fortune of her son. Sam was disagreeably surprised, and tried to shake his father's resolution, but Squire Ashmead was a sensible man, and not to be moved. Frank commenced his duties the next Monday. He was so faithful that he was rapidly advanced, and at twenty-one was receiving twelve hundred dollars a year. At twenty-five, on the sudden death of Squire Ashmead, he succeeded to his agency, and now lives with his mother in the mansion at which he once thought himself lucky to be permitted to shovel the paths. As for Sam, he squandered the handsome property received from his father, and died at thirty from the effects of intemperate habits. SECRETS OF TRICK SHOOTING. When a champion rifle shot fires blindfolded at a wedding-ring, or a penny held between his wife's thumb and finger, or, seated back to her, shoots, by means of a mirror, at an apple upon her head or on a fork held in her teeth, the danger of using a bullet is obvious. None, of course, is needed; the explosion is enough. The apple is already prepared, having been cut into pieces and stuck together with an adhesive substance, and a thread with a knot at the end, pulled through it from the "wings," so that it flies to bits when the gun is fired, is "how it is done." Generally, the more dangerous a feat appears the more carefully is all danger guarded against. In the "William Tell" act the thread is often tied to the assistant's foot. When, again, the ash is shot off a cigar which the assistant is smoking, a piece of wire is pushed by his tongue through a hollowed passage in the cigar--thus thrusting off the ash at the moment of firing. A favorite but simple trick is the shooting from some distance at an orange held in a lady's hand. Great applause is invariably forthcoming when the bullet drops out on her, cutting open the fruit. It is inserted by hand earlier in the evening. Another popular trick is that of snuffing out lighted candles. Half a dozen are placed in front of a screen in which as many small holes are bored, one against each candlewick. At the moment of firing, a confederate behind the screen sharply blows out each candle with a pair of bellows. This trick was accidentally exposed one evening by a too zealous assistant. The lady in the gallery pulled the trigger, but the rifle failed to go off; the candle, however, went out just the same. In most instances, where a ball or other object has to be broken on a living person's head, blank cartridge is used and the effect produced by other means. A special wig, with a spring concealed in it, worked by a wire under the clothes, is generally used, the confederate manipulating the spring simultaneously with the firing of the rifle. As the ball is of extremely thin glass, a mere touch suffices to shatter it. In these exhibitions some of the rifle "experts" invite gentlemen from the audience to testify that the weapon is indeed loaded. The cartridge shown looks very well, but it is a shell of thin wax blackened to resemble a leaden bullet. It would not hurt a fly. REELFOOT LAKE. The physical history of Reelfoot Lake, of night-rider fame, is not without a certain interest of its own. The lake came into existence as the result of a series of earthquakes, which began in December, 1811, and continued until June, 1812. Some authorities say that the earthquakes merely heaved up a great ridge of land across the path of the Reelfoot River, which runs into the Mississippi, and that this dam caused the water to back up and broaden out and form a lake; but the favorite account in the neighborhood is to the effect that the ground sank, springs were opened up, neighboring creeks diverted from their course, and the overflowing water of the Mississippi rushed in during the flood season of the spring of 1812. It is said that for an hour and a half the waters of the Mississippi flowed up-hill while filling up the depression caused by the earthquakes. Both accounts likely have this much of truth in them that the entire configuration of the ground was changed by the earthquakes. Big Lake, west of the Mississippi, in Arkansas, is said to have been formed in the same way at the same time. Reelfoot Lake is sixteen or eighteen miles long, very irregular in shape, and covers from 35,000 to 40,000 acres of land. It varies in width from a mile in some places to four or five miles in others. The northern end is extended by a series of sloughs and bayous into Kentucky. The most distinctive feature of the lake's appearance, the feature which first impresses and stays longest with the observer's fancy, is a certain grotesque effect, as if a set of crazy men had been operating a pile-driver there for the last century, for the trunks, stumps, and stark branches of dead trees stick out of it everywhere in desolate parody of some such human handiwork; far below the surface the fish dart among the boles and branches where the squirrels frolicked a hundred years ago. There are beautiful spots here and there, but the effect, as a whole, is not beautiful; at its best, when the mist rises and myriad protruding tree trunks are white and ghostly in the moonlight, it is weird; the general remembrance is of something uncouth. It is a kind of sloven lake that has preferred to sit down with its hair uncombed all day long, but at night it does manage to achieve a touch of wizard dignity. A FLOATING SLUM. Stand beside the imperial custom-house at Canton and let the eye range down the river toward Hongkong. As far as the sight can reach lie boats, boats, and again boats. These are no ordinary craft, mere vessels of transport plying hither and thither, but the countless homes of myriad Chinese, in which millions of human beings have been born, have lived, and have died. They are the dwellings of the very poor, who live in them practically free from rent, taxes, and the other burdens of the ordinary citizen. The Tankia--which means boat-dwellers--as the denizens of these floating houses are called, form a sort of caste apart from the rest of the Cantonese. The shore-dwellers regard them as belonging to a lower social order; and indeed they have many customs, peculiar to themselves, which mark them as a separate community. How the swarming masses of them contrive to support existence is a mystery, but their chief mode of employment is in carrying merchandise and passengers from place to place. WILD HORSES OF NEVADA. Horses are cheap in Nevada. On the government ranges, where they are protected by game-laws, droves of wild horses exist which in the aggregate are said to amount to fifteen thousand. Formerly there was a law in Nevada permitting the shooting of these wild horses for their hides, but there were hunters who were not particular, and the ranchers found their domestic horses disappearing if they let them out on the range. So their shooting was prohibited, and since that time the droves have grown to be exceedingly troublesome. They can be domesticated, but they are not needed there, and it costs too much to ship them East. It seems a pity that, while so many sections could use them to advantage, the transportation problem makes it impossible to get them at a price which they are worth. _ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT!!_ MOTOR STORIES _A New Idea in the Way of Five-Cent Weeklies._ Boys everywhere will be delighted to hear that Street & Smith are now issuing this new five-cent weekly which will be known by the name of MOTOR STORIES. This weekly is entirely different from anything now being published. It details the astonishing adventures of a young mechanic who owned a motor cycle. Is there a boy who has not longed to possess one of these swift little machines that scud about the roads everywhere throughout the United States? Is there a boy, therefore, who will not be intensely interested in the adventures of "Motor Matt," as he is familiarly called by his comrades? Boys, you have never read anything half so exciting, half so humorous and entertaining as the first story listed for publication in this line, called "=Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel=." Its fame is bound to spread like wildfire, causing the biggest demand for the other numbers in this line, that was ever heard of in the history of this class of literature. Here are the titles to be issued during the next few weeks. Do not fail to place an order for them with your newsdealer. No. 1. Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel. No. 2. Motor Matt's Daring; or, True to His Friends. No. 3. Motor Matt's "Century" Run; or, The Governor's Courier. No. 4. Motor Matt's Race; or, The Last Flight of the _Comet_. 32 LARGE SIZE PAGES SPLENDID COLORED COVERS PRICE, FIVE CENTS PER COPY AT ALL NEWSDEALERS, OR SENT POSTPAID BY THE PUBLISHERS UPON RECEIPT OF THE PRICE. _STREET & SMITH, Publishers, NEW YORK_ _THE BEST OF THEM ALL!!_ MOTOR STORIES IT IS NEW AND INTENSELY INTERESTING We knew before we published this line that it would have a tremendous sale and our expectations were more than realized. It is going with a rush, and the boys who want to read these, the most interesting and fascinating tales ever written, must speak to their newsdealers about reserving copies for them. =MOTOR MATT= sprang into instant favor with American boy readers and is bound to occupy a place in their hearts second only to that now held by Frank Merriwell. The reason for this popularity is apparent in every line of these stories. They are written by an author who has made a life study of the requirements of the up-to-date American boy as far as literature is concerned, so it is not surprising that this line has proven a huge success from the very start. Here are the titles now ready and also those to be published. You will never have a better opportunity to get a generous quantity of reading of the highest quality, so place your orders now. =No. 1.--Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel.= =No. 2.--Motor Matt's Daring; or, True to His Friends.= =No. 3.--Motor Matt's Century Run; or, The Governor's Courier.= =No. 4.--Motor Matt's Race; or, The Last Flight of the "Comet."= TO BE PUBLISHED ON MARCH 22nd =No. 5.--Motor Matt's Mystery; or, Foiling a Secret Plot.= TO BE PUBLISHED ON MARCH 29th =No. 6.--Motor Matt's Red Flier; or, On the High Gear.= TO BE PUBLISHED ON APRIL 5th =No. 7.--Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto.= TO BE PUBLISHED ON APRIL 12th =No. 8.--Motor Matt's Triumph; or, Three Speeds Forward.= =Price, Five Cents= To be had from newsdealers everywhere, or sent, postpaid, upon receipt of the price by the publishers _STREET & SMITH, Publishers, NEW YORK_ * * * * * * Transcriber's note: Added table of contents. Retained some inconsistent hyphenation (e.g. "motorcycle" vs. "motor-cycle"). Retained some inconsistent spellings in dialect (e.g. "becase" vs. "bekase"). Page 3, added missing comma after ""Vell, py shinks." Added missing apostrophe after "doan" in "Why doan' yo'-all git." Removed unnecessary quote after "Matt stopped the Red Flier." Page 4, removed unnecessary quote after "Legree was about to secure it?" Page 5, changed "as she pointed" to "as he pointed." Page 10, "would came after it" looks like a typo but has been retained in case it is intentional dialect. Page 12, replaced ligature in "Phoenix" with "oe." Ligature is retained in HTML edition. Page 14, removed unnecessary quote before "Matt's pulses quickened." Page 18, added missing period after "Josh turned to stare along the road." Page 19, changed "Mat" to "Matt" in "Matt was intending to push the stone." Page 20, the sentence "As he yanked the lever savagely, the popping from up the road sounding like the rapid discharge of a Gatling gun." seems incorrect, but it is reproduced as originally printed. 
57017	----	THE HERITAGE OF UNREST [Illustration: Logo] THE HERITAGE OF UNREST BY GWENDOLEN OVERTON New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1901 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped February, 1901. Reprinted April, twice, 1901; June, 1901. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. THE HERITAGE OF UNREST It is one thing to be sacrificed to a cause, even if it is only by filling up the ditch that others may cross to victory; it is quite another to be sacrificed in a cause, to die unavailingly without profit or glory of any kind, to be even an obstacle thrown across the way. And that was the end which looked Cabot in the face. He stood and considered his horse where it lay in the white dust, with its bloodshot eyes turned up to a sky that burned like a great blue flame. Its tongue, all black and swollen, hung out upon the sand, its flanks were sunken, and its forelegs limp. Cabot was not an unmerciful man, but if he had had his sabre just then, he would have dug and turned it in the useless carcass. He was beside himself with fear; fear of the death which had come to the cow and the calf whose chalk-white skeletons were at his feet, of the flat desert and the low bare hills, miles upon miles away, rising a little above the level, tawny and dry, giving no hope of shelter or streams or shade. He had foreseen it all when the horse had stumbled in a snake hole, had limped and struggled a few yards farther, and then, as he slipped to the ground, had stood quite still, swaying from side to side, with its legs wide apart, until it fell. He gritted his teeth so that the veins stood out on his temples, and, going closer, jerked at the bridle and kicked at its belly with the toe of his heavy boot, until the glassy eye lighted with keener pain. The column halted, and the lieutenant in command rode back. He, too, looked down at the horse, pulling at his mustache with one gauntleted hand. He had played with Cabot when they had been children together, in that green land of peace and plenty which they called the East. They had been schoolmates, and they had the same class sympathies even now, though the barrier of rank was between them, and the dismounted man was a private in Landor's own troop. Landor liked the private for the sake of the old times and for the memory of a youth which had held a better promise for both than manhood had fulfilled. "Done up,--is it?" he said thoughtfully. His voice was hard because he realized the full ugliness of it. He had seen the thing happen once before. Cabot did not answer. The gasping horse on the sand, moving its neck in a weak attempt to get up, was answer enough. He stood with his hands hanging helplessly, looking at it in wrath and desperation. Landor took stock of the others. There had been five led horses twenty-four hours before, when they had started on a hot trail after the chief Cochise. But they had taken the places of five others that had dropped in their tracks to feed the vultures that followed always, flying above in the quivering blue. They were a sorry lot, the two score that remained. In the spring of '61, when the handful of frontier troops was pressed with enemies red and brown and white, the cavalry was not well mounted. Landor saw that his own horse was the best; and it bid very fair to play out soon enough. But until it should do so, his course was plain. He gathered his reins in his hands. "You can mount behind me, Cabot," he said. The man shook his head. It was bad enough that he had come down himself without bringing others down too. He tried to say so, but time was too good a thing to be wasted in argument, where an order would serve. There was a water hole to be reached somewhere to the southwest, over beyond the soft, dun hills, and it had to be reached soon. Minutes spelled death under that white hot sun. Landor changed from the friend to the officer, and Cabot threw himself across the narrow haunches that gave weakly under his weight. It went well enough for a time, and the hills seemed coming a little nearer, to be rougher on the surface. Then the double-loaded horse fagged. Cabot felt that it did, and grasped hard on the burning cantle as he made his resolve. When Landor used his spurs for the first time, he loosed his hold and dropped to the ground. Landor drew rein and turned upon him with oaths and a purpled face. "What the devil are you trying to do now?" he said. Cabot told him that he was preparing to remain where he was. His voice was firm and his lips were set under the sun-bleached yellow of his beard, but his face was gray, for all the tan. He lapsed into the speech of other days. "No use, Jack," he said; "it's worse than court-martial--what I've got to face here. Just leave me some water and rations, and you go on." Landor tried another way then, and leaned from his saddle in his earnestness. He put it in the light of a favor to himself. But Cabot's refusal was unanswerable. It was better one than two, he said, and no horse in the command could carry double. "I will try to reach the water hole. Leave a man there for me with a horse. If I don't--" he forced a laugh as he looked up at the buzzard which was dropping closer down above him. "You could take turns riding behind the men." "No," Cabot told him, "I couldn't--not without delaying you. The trail's too hot for that. If you'll put a fourth and last bullet into Cochise, the loss of a little thing like me won't matter much." He stopped short, and his chin dropped, weakly, undecided. "Jack," he said, going up and running his hand in and out underneath the girths. He spoke almost too low to be heard, and the men who were nearest rode a few feet away. "Jack, will you do something for me? Will you--that is--there is a fellow named McDonald up at the Mescalero Agency. He's got a little four-year-old girl he's taking care of." He hurried along, looking away from Landor's puzzled face. "She's the daughter of a half-breed Mescalero woman, who was killed by the Mexicans. If I don't come out of all this, will you get her? Tell McDonald I told you to. I'm her father." He raised his eyes now, and they were appealing. "It's an awful lot to ask of you, Jack, even for old sake's sake. I know that. But the little thing is almost white, and I cared for her mother--in a way. I can't let her go back to the tribe." His lips quivered and he bit at them nervously. "I kept meaning to get her away somehow." There was a sort of pity on Landor's face, pity and half contempt. He had heard that from Cabot so often for so many years, "I kept meaning to do this thing or the other, somehow, some day." "But it looks as though you might have to do it now. Will you, lieutenant?" He tugged at the cinchings while he waited. Landor was without impulses; the very reverse from boyhood of the man on the ground beside him, which was why, perhaps, it had come to be as it was now. He considered before he replied. But having considered, he answered that he would, and that he would do his best for the child always. Once he had said it, he might be trusted beyond the shadow of a doubt. "Thank you," said Cabot, and drew his hand from the girths. He cut Landor short when he tried to change him again. "You are losing time," he told him, "and if you stay here from now to next week it won't do any good. I'll foot it to the water hole, if I can. Otherwise--" the feeble laugh once more as his eyes shifted to where a big, gray prairie wolf was going across the flat, stopping now and then to watch them, then swinging on again. They came around him and offered him their horses, dismounting even, and forcing the reins into his hands. "You don't know what you are doing," a corporal urged. "You'll never get out alive. If it ain't Indians, it'll be thirst." Then he looked into Cabot's face and saw that he did know, that he knew very well. And so they left him at last, with more of the tepid alkali water than they well could spare from their canteens, with two days' rations and an extra cartridge belt, and trotted on once more across the plain. He stood quite still and erect, looking after them, a dead light of renunciation of life and hope in his eyes. They came in search of him two days later and scoured the valley and the hills. But the last they ever saw of him was then, following them, a tiny speck upon the desert, making southwest in the direction of the water hole. The big wolf had stopped again, and turned about, coming slowly after him, and two buzzards circled above him, casting down on his path the flitting shadows of their wings. I There was trouble at the San Carlos Agency, which was in no wise unusual in itself, but was upon this occasion more than ever discouraging. There had been a prospect of lasting peace, the noble Red-man was settling down in his filthy rancheria to become a good citizen, because he was tagged with little metal numbers, and was watched unceasingly, and forbidden the manufacture of tizwin, or the raising of the dead with dances, and was told that an appreciative government was prepared to help him if he would only help himself. Then some bull-teams going to Camp Apache had stopped over night at the Agency. The teamsters had sold the bucks whiskey, and the bucks had grown very drunk. The representatives of the two tribes which were hereditary enemies, and which the special agent of an all-wise Interior Department had, nevertheless, shut up within the confines of the same reservation, therewith fell upon and slew each other, and the survivors went upon the warpath--metal tags and all. So the troops had been called out, and Landor's was at San Carlos. Landor himself sat in his tent, upon his mess-chest, and by the light of a candle wrote a despatch which was to go by courier the next morning. Gila valley mosquitoes were singing around his head, a knot of chattering squaws and naked children were peering into his tent, the air was oven-hot, coyotes were filling the night with their weird bark, and a papoose was bawling somewhere close by. Yet he would have been sufficiently content could he have been let alone--the one plea of the body military from all time. It was not to be. The declared and standing foes of that body pushed their way through the squaws and children. He knew them already. They were Stone of the Tucson press, sent down to investigate and report, and Barnwell, an Agency high official, who would gladly assist the misrepresentations, so far as in his power lay. Landor knew that they were come to hear what he might have to say about it, and he had decided to say, for once, just what he thought, which is almost invariably unwise, and in this particular case proved exceedingly so, as any one could have foretold. On the principle that a properly conducted fist fight is opened by civilities, however, he mixed three toddies in as many tin coffee cups. They said "how," and drank. After which Stone asked what the military were going to do about certain things which he specified, and implied the inability of the military to do anything for any one. Landor smiled indolently and said "Quien sabe?" Stone wished to be told if any one ever did know and suggested, acridly, that if the by-word of the Mexican were poco-tiempo, that of the troops was certainly quien-sabe? Between the two the citizen got small satisfaction. "I don't know," objected Landor; "you get the satisfaction of beginning the row pretty generally--as you did this time--and of saying what you think about us in unmistakable language after we have tried to put things straight for you." Stone considered his dignity as a representative of the press, and decided that he would not be treated with levity. He would resent the attitude of the soldiery; but in his resentment he passed the bounds of courtesy altogether, forgetting whose toddy he had just drunk, and beneath whose tent pole he was seated. He said rude things about the military,--that it was pampered and inefficient and gold laced, and that it thought its mission upon earth fulfilled when it sat back and drew princely pay. Landor recalled the twenty years of all winter campaigns, dry camps, forced marches, short rations, and long vigils and other annoyances that are not put down in the tactics, and smiled again, with a deep cynicism. Barnwell sat silent. He sympathized with Stone because his interests lay that way, but he was somewhat unfortunately placed between the military devil and the political deep sea. Stone was something of a power in Tucson politics, and altogether a great man upon the territorial stump. He was proud of his oratory, and launched into a display of it now, painting luridly the wrongs of the citizen, who, it appeared, was a defenceless, honest, law-abiding child of peace, yet passed his days in seeing his children slaughtered, his wife tortured, his ranches laid waste, and himself shot down and scalped. Landor tried to interpose a suggestion that though the whole effect was undoubtedly good and calculated to melt a heart of iron, the rhetoric was muddled; but the reporter swept on; so he clasped his hands behind his head and leaning back against a tent pole, yawned openly. Stone came to an end at length, and had to mop his head with a very much bordered handkerchief. The temperature was a little high for so much effort. He met Landor's glance challengingly. "Well done!" the officer commended. "But considering how it has heated you, you ought to have saved it for some one upon whom it would have had its effect--some one who wasn't round at the time of the Aravaypa Cañon business, for instance." The Agency man thought a question would not commit him. He had not been round at that time, and he asked for information. The lieutenant gave it to him. "It was a little spree they had here in '71. Some Tucson citizens and Papago Indians and Greasers undertook to avenge their wrongs and show the troops how it ought to be done. So they went to Aravaypa Cañon, where a lot of peaceable Indians were cutting hay, and surprised them one day at sunrise, and killed a hundred and twenty-five of them--mostly women and children." The reporter interposed that it was the act of men maddened by grief and their losses. "I dare say," Landor agreed; "it is certainly more charitable to suppose that men who hacked up the bodies of babies, and abused women, and made away with every sort of loot, from a blanket to a string of beads, were mad. It was creditably thorough for madmen, though. And it was the starting-point of all the trouble that it took Crook two years to straighten out." Stone held that the affair had been grossly exaggerated, and that the proof thereof lay in the acquittal of all accused of the crime, by a jury of their peers; and Landor said that the sooner that highly discreditable travesty on justice was forgotten, the better for the good fame of the territory. The press representative waxed eloquent once more, until his neck grew violet with suppressed wrath, which sputtered out now and then in profanity. The officer met his finest flights with cold ridicule, and the Agency man improved the opportunity by pouring himself a drink from the flask on the cot. In little it was the reproduction of the whole situation on the frontier--and the politician profited. In those days some strange things happened at agencies. Toilet sets were furnished to the Apache, who has about as much use for toilet sets as the Greenlander has for cotton prints, and who would probably have used them for targets if he had ever gotten them--which he did not. Upon the table of a certain agent (and he was an honest man, let it be noted, for the thing was rare) there lay for some time a large rock, which he had labelled with delicate humor "sample of sugar furnished to this agency under--" but the name doesn't matter now. It was close on a quarter of a century ago, and no doubt it is all changed since then. By the same working out, a schoolhouse built of sun-baked mud, to serve as a temple of learning for the Red-man, cost the government forty thousand dollars. The Apache children who sat within it could have acquired another of the valuable lessons of Ojo-blanco from the contractors. Beef was furnished the Indians on the hoof and calculated by the pound, and the weight of some of those long-horn steers, once they got upon the Agency scales, would have done credit to a mastodon. By this method the Indian got the number of pounds of meat he was entitled to _per capita_, and there was some left over that the agent might dispose of to his friends. As for the heavy-weight steers, when the Apache received them, he tortured them to death with his customary ingenuity. It made the meat tender; and he was an epicure in his way. The situation in the territory, whichever way you looked at it, was not hopeful. When the moon rose, Barnwell and Stone went away and left Landor again with the peeping squaws and the wailing papooses, the mosquitoes and the legacy of their enduring enmity,--an enmity not to be lightly despised, for it could be as annoying and far more serious than the stings of the river-bottom mosquitoes. As they walked across the gleaming dust, their bodies throwing long black shadows, two naked Indian boys followed them, creeping forward unperceived, dropping on the ground now and then, and wriggling along like snakes. They were practising for the future. II In the '70's the frontier was a fact and not a memory, and a woman in the Far West was a blessing sent direct from heaven, or from the East, which was much the same thing. Lieutenants besought the wives of their brother officers to bring out their sisters and cousins and even aunts, and very weird specimens of the sex sometimes resulted. But even these could reign as queens, dance, ride, flirt to their hearts' content--also marry, which is not always the corollary in these days. The outbreak of a reservation full of Indians was a small thing in comparison with the excitement occasioned by the expectation of a girl in the post. There was now at Grant the prospect of a girl, and for days ahead the bachelors had planned about her. She was Landor's ward,--it was news to them that he had a ward, for he was not given to confidences,--and she was going to visit the wife of his captain, Mrs. Campbell. When they asked questions, Landor said she was eighteen years old, and that her name was Cabot, and that as he had not seen her for ten years he did not know whether she were pretty or not. But the vagueness surrounding her was rather attractive than otherwise, on the whole. It was not even known when she would arrive. There was no railroad to Arizona. From Kansas she would have to travel by ambulance with the troops which were changing station. There was only Mrs. Campbell who knew the whole story. Landor had gone to her for advice, as had been his custom since the days before she had preferred Campbell to him. "Felipa," he said, "writes that she is going to run away from school, if I don't take her away. She says she will, and she undoubtedly means it. I have always noticed that there is no indecision in her character." Mrs. Campbell asked where she proposed running to. Landor did not know; but she was part Apache, he said, and Harry Cabot's daughter, and it was pretty certain that with that blood in her veins she had the spirit of adventure. She asked what he had thought of doing about it. "I've thought of bringing her on here. But how can I? In a bachelor establishment? My sister won't have her at any terms. She suggested an orphan asylum from the first, and she hasn't changed her mind." Mrs. Campbell appliqued a black velvet imp on a green felt lambrequin, and thought. "Do you ever happen to realize that you have your hands very full?" "Yes," he said shortly, "I realize it." He sat staring over her head for a moment of silence. "I foresaw it when I told Cabot I'd take her." "Might not an orphan asylum have been best, after all?" "It might for me," he said, "but not for her, and I told Cabot I'd do my best for her." It had seemed to him his plain duty, and he had done it, and he asked no approbation. Mrs. Campbell took it as he did, for a matter of course. She wasted no words in expressing admiration for what he had done, but kept to the main issue, making herself useful, as women are rarely content to do when they deal with men, without indulging her taste for the sentimental. "Suppose I were to take her?" she suggested. He opposed drawbacks. "You can't keep her always." She smiled. "The chances that she will marry are excellent." He did not answer at once, but sat watching the trumpeter come out of the adjutant's office to sound recall. "Yes, she will marry," he agreed; "if no one else marries her, I will. I am as old as her father would have been but it would save telling some fellow about her birth." "Did the girl know her own story?" she asked. She did not. He had merely told her that her father was his friend and had died on the plains. "She thinks her mother died at Stanton. It is so near the Mescalero Agency that I let it go at that." They argued it from all sides during the whole of a day, and Campbell lent his advice, and the end of it was that Felipa Cabot came out to the land of her forbears. Pending her arrival, Landor brought himself to look upon it as his plain duty and only course to marry her. It would save her, and any man who might otherwise happen to love her, from learning what she was. That she might refuse to look at it in that way, did not much enter into his calculations. It required a strong effort for him to decide it so, but it was his way to pick out the roughest possible path before him, to settle within himself that it was that of duty, and to follow it without fagging or complaint. He dreaded any taint of Apache blood as he dreaded the venom of a rattler. He had seen its manifestations for twenty odd years, had seen the hostile savage and the civilized one, and shrank most from the latter. But he had promised Cabot to do his best by the waif, and the best he could see was to marry her. There was always before him, to urge him on to the sacrifice, the stalwart figure of his boyhood's friend, standing forsaken in the stretch of desert with the buzzards hovering over him in the burning sky. He permitted himself to hope, however, that she was not too obviously a squaw. When the day came he rode out with most of the garrison to meet her. He was anxious. He recalled Anne of Cleves, and had a fellow-feeling for the King. By the time they came in sight of the marching troops, he had worked himself to such an implicit faith in the worst that he decided that the wide figure, heavily blue-veiled, and linen-dustered, on the back seat of the Dougherty was she. It is one of the strongest arguments of the pessimist in favor of his philosophy, that the advantage of expecting the disagreeable lies in the fact that, if he meets with disappointment, it is necessarily a pleasant one. Felipa Cabot proved to be a lithe creature, who rode beside the ambulance with the officers, and who, in spite of the dust and tan and traces of a hard march, was beautiful. In the reaction of the moment Landor thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. But she froze the consequent warmth of his greeting with a certain indefinable stolidity, and she eyed him with an unabashed intention of determining whether he were satisfactory or not, which changed his position to that of the one upon approbation. If she had been less handsome, it would have been repellent. Before they had reached the post, he had learned a good deal about her. The elderly major who had come with her from Kansas told him that a lieutenant by the name of Brewster was insanely in love with her, that the same Brewster was a good deal of an ass,--the two facts having no connection, however,--that she was an excellent travelling companion, always satisfied and always well. What the major did not tell him, but what he gathered almost at once, was that the girl had not endeared herself to any one; she was neither loved nor disliked--the lieutenant's infatuation was not to be taken as an indication of her character, of course. But then she was beautiful, with her long, intent eyes, and strong brows and features cut on classic lines of perfection. So Landor left the major and cantered ahead to join her, where she rode with Brewster. "Has the trip been hard?" he asked. She answered that she had enjoyed it all, every day of it, and Brewster joined in with ecstatic praises of her horsemanship and endurance, finishing with the unlucky comment that she rode like an Indian. "Apaches ride badly, don't they?" she said, with calm matter of fact. "If you mean that I am hard on my horse, though, you are right." Her voice was exquisitely sweet, without modulation. In the weeks that followed, Landor spent days and some nights--those when he sat up to visit the guard, as a rule--attempting to decide why his ward repelled him. She seemed to be quite like any other contented and natural young girl. She danced, and courted admiration, within the bounds of propriety; she was fond of dress, and rather above the average in intelligence. Usually she was excellent company, whimsical and sweet-humored. She rode well enough, and learned--to his intense annoyance--to shoot with a bow and arrow quite remarkably, so much so that they nicknamed her Diana. He had remonstrated at first, but there was no reason to urge, after all. Archery was quite a feminine sport. When his analysis of her failed, he went to Mrs. Campbell again. "Do you grow fond of Felipa?" he asked point blank. She tried to parry and evade, but he would not have it, and obliged her to admit that she did not. "Not that I dislike her," she explained. "I like to have her round. I dare say it is a whim." He shook his head. "It is not a whim. It is the same with every one. Of course Brewster has lost his head, but that argues nothing. The endearing quality seems to be lacking in her." She sat considering deeply. She was rocking the baby, with its little fair head lying in the hollow of her shoulder, and Landor found himself wondering whether Felipa could ever develop motherliness. "It is quite intangible," Mrs. Campbell half crooned, for the baby's lids were drooping heavily. "I can't find that she lacks a good characteristic. I study her all the time. Perhaps the fault is in ourselves, as much as anything, because we insist upon studying her as a problem, instead of simply a very young girl. She is absolutely truthful,--unless she happens to have a grudge against some one, and then she lies without any scruple at all,--and she is generous and unselfish, and very amiable with the children, too." Landor asked, with a gleam of hope, if they were attached to her. "Yes," she told him, "they are, and it is that makes me think that the fault may be ours. She is so patient with them." At that moment Felipa herself came up the steps and joined them on the porch. She walked with the gait of a young athlete. Her skirts were short enough to leave her movements unhampered, and she wore on her feet a pair of embroidered moccasins. She seemed to be drawing the very breath of life into her quivering nostrils, and she smiled on them both good-humoredly. "Look," she said, going up to Landor with a noiseless tread that made him shiver almost visibly. Mrs. Campbell watched them. She was sorry for him. Felipa held out her hand and showed a little brown bird that struggled feebly. She explained that its leg was broken, and he drew back instinctively. There was not a trace of softness or pity in her sweet voice. Then he took the bird in his own big hand and asked her how it had happened. "I did it with an arrow," said Diana, unslinging her quiver, which was a barbaric affair of mountain-lion skin, red flannel, and beads. "I can't see why you should take pleasure in shooting these harmless things," he said impatiently; "the foot-hills are full of quail, and there are ducks along the creek. For that matter you might try your skill on prairie dogs, it seems to me." She looked down at the curled toe of her moccasin with a certain air of repentance, and answered his question as to what she meant to do with it by explaining that she meant to keep it for a pet. He stroked its head with his finger as it lay still, opening and shutting its bright little eyes. "It won't live," he told her, and then the thought occurred to him to put her to the test. He held the bird out to her. "Wring its neck," he said, "and end its misery." She showed no especial repugnance at the idea, but refused flatly, nevertheless. "I can't do that," she said, dropping down into the hammock and swinging herself with the tip of her foot on the floor. "I fail to see why not. You can wound it." "But that is sport," she answered carelessly. He felt that he ought to dislike her cordially, but he did not. He admired her, on the contrary, as he would have admired a fine boy. She seemed to have no religion, no ideals, and no petty vanity; therefore, from his point of judgment, she was not feminine. Perhaps the least feminine thing about her was the manner in which she appeared to take it for granted that he was going to marry her, without his having said, as yet, a word to that effect. In a certain way it simplified matters, and in another it made them more difficult. It is not easy to ask a woman to marry you where she looks into your eyes unhesitatingly. But Landor decided that it had to be done. She had been in the post four months, and with the standing exception of Brewster, whom she discouraged resolutely, none of the officers cared for her beyond the flirtation limit. So one night when they were sitting upon the Campbells' steps, he took the plunge. She had been talking earnestly, discussing the advisability of filing off the hammer of the pistol he had given her, to prevent its catching on the holster when she wanted to draw it quickly. One of her long, brown hands was laid on his knee, with the most admirable lack of self-consciousness. He put his own hand upon it, and she looked up questioningly. She was unused to caresses from any but the two Campbell children, and her frank surprise held a reproach that softened his voice almost to tenderness. "Do you think you could love me, Felipa?" he asked, without any preface at all. She said "Yes" as frankly as she would have said it to the children. It was blighting to any budding romance, but he tried hard nevertheless to save the next question from absolute baldness. He had a resentful sort of feeling that he was entitled to at least a little idealism. As she would not give it, he tried to find it for himself, noting the grace of her long free neck, the wealth of her coarse black hair, and the beauty of her smiling mouth. But the smiling mouth answered his low-spoken "Will you marry me then, dear?" with the same frank assent. "Not for a good while, though," she added. "I am too young." That was all, and in a moment she was telling him some of Brewster's absurdities, with a certain appreciation of the droll that kept it from being malicious. As he had made Mrs. Campbell his confidante from the first, he told her about this too, now, and finished with the half-helpless, half-amused query as to what he should do. "It may be any length of time before she decides that she is old enough, and it never seems to occur to her that this state of things can't go on forever, that she is imposing upon you." "And the most serious part of it," he added after a while, "is that she does not love me." "You don't love her, for that matter, either," Mrs. Campbell reminded him. But she advised the inevitable,--to wait and let it work itself out. So he waited and stood aside somewhat, to watch the course of Brewster's suit. He derived some little amusement from it, too, but he wondered with rather a deeper tinge of anxiety than was altogether necessary what the final outcome would be. One morning Brewster met Felipa coming from the hospital and carrying a wide-mouthed bottle. He joined her and asked if the little lady were going to grow flowers in it. The little lady, who was quite as tall as and a good deal more imposing than himself, answered that it was for a vinagrone. He remonstrated. She was surely not going to make a pet of one of those villanous insects. No. She had caught a tarantula, too, and she was going to make them fight. "Were you catching the tarantula yesterday when I saw you lying upon the ground by the dump heap?" "Yes," she said, "did you see me? I dare say you thought I was communing with Nature in the midst of the old tin cans and horseshoes. Well, I wasn't. I was watching the trap of a tarantula nest, and I caught him when he came out. I've watched that hole for three days," she announced triumphantly. "As for the vinagrone, the cook found him in his tent, and I bottled him. Come and see the fight," she invited amiably. Presently she returned with two bottles. In one was the tarantula, an especially large and hideous specimen, hairy and black, with dull red tinges. In the other the vinagrone, yet more hideous. She went down to the side of the house and emptied both into the wide-mouthed bottle. Brewster was in agony. He reached out and caught her hand. "My darling," he cried, "take care!" She turned on him quickly. "Let me be," she commanded, and he obeyed humbly. Then she corked the bottle and shook it so that the animals rolled on top of each other, and laying it on the ground bent over it with the deepest interest. Brewster watched too, fascinated in spite of himself. It was so very ugly. The two wicked little creatures fought desperately. But after a time they withdrew to the sides of the bottle, and were quite still. The tarantula had left a leg lying loose. Felipa turned from them and waited, clasping her hands and smiling up at Brewster. He, misinterpreting, felt encouraged and begged her to leave the disgusting insects. He had something very different to talk about. She said that she did not want to hear it, and would he bet on the tarantula or the vinagrone? "Don't bring them into it," he implored. "If you will not come away, I will tell you now, Felipa, that I love you." He was more in earnest than Landor had been. She felt that herself. His voice broke, and he paled. But she only considered the insects, which were beginning to move again, and answered absently that she knew it, that he had said it before. "Oh! Mr. Brewster, bet quickly," she urged. He caught her by the arm, exasperated past all civility, and shook her. "Do you hear me, Felipa Cabot? I tell you that I love you." She was strong, slender as she was, and she freed herself almost without effort. And yet he would not be warned. "Don't you love me?" he insisted, as though she had not already made it plain enough. "No," she said shortly. "You had better bet." He made as if to kick the bottle away, but quick as a flash she was on her feet and facing him. "You touch that," she said resolutely, "and I'll let them both loose on you." He turned on his heel and left her. Landor and the adjutant came by, and she called to them. The adjutant backed the vinagrone with a bag of sutler's candy, and Felipa took the tarantula. It was mainly legless trunk, but still furious. Landor studied her. She was quiet, but her eyes had grown narrow, and they gleamed curiously at the sight of the torn legs and feelers scattering around the bottle, wriggling and writhing. She was at her very worst. It ended in victory for the vinagrone, but he died from his wounds an hour later. Felipa told Landor so, as they started for a ride, early in the afternoon. "The vinagrone is dead," she said; "Mr. Brewster didn't like my fighting them." Then she assumed the lofty dignity that contrasted so oddly sometimes with her childish simplicity. "He lacks tact awfully. Think of it! He took the occasion to say that he loved me. As though he had not told me so a dozen times before." "And you--what did you say?" asked Landor. He was a little surprised to find how anxiously he waited, and the extent of his relief when she answered, "I told him to let me be, or I would set them loose on him." Official business called Brewster to the Agency next day. He stopped overnight, on the way, at a ranch whose owners depended more upon passing travellers than upon the bad soil and the thin cattle. And here fate threw in his way one whom he would have gone well out of that way to find. It was a civilian with whom he was obliged to share his room. He did not fancy having to share his room at all, in the first place, and this and other things made his temper bad. The civilian, on the other hand, was in good temper, and inclined to be communicative. He tried several ways of opening a conversation, and undaunted by rebuffs tried yet once more. Like Bruce and the spider, it was exactly the seventh time that he succeeded. "How's things up at Grant?" he drawled through his beard, as he took off that sacred and ceremonious garment known to the true frontiersman as his vest, and without which he feels as lost as without his high-heeled boots. Brewster mumbled out of a towel that he guessed they were all right, and implied what the dickens did it matter to him how they were. "I hear you got Jack Landor up there?" Then Brewster began to listen. "Yes," he said, emptying the soap-caked water from the Indian basket wash basin upon the earth floor; "why?"--"I used to know him in '61. He came up to the Mescalero Agency then, not long before the Texans overran the place. I recollect there was a sort of blizzard and it was seventeen below. He came after a kid me and another feller'd been looking after. Pretty little cuss, about four years old. I gave her her first bow'n arrow." Brewster took on an elaborate and entirely unnecessary air of indifference, and yawned to heighten the effect. "What did he want of the child?" he asked negligently. "Her father was dead. He left her to him." "Who was her father?" Brewster wanted to know. The man told him. "He'd been a private up to Stanton, and had been killed by some of Cochise's people that summer. Her mother was a half-breed by the name of Felipa. Good-looking squaw, but dead, too--killed by Mexicans. Do you happen to know whatever became of the kid?" Brewster told him that she was with Landor at the post now. "She must be a woman by this time," reflected the civilian. "Is she married to him?" Brewster explained that she was visiting Captain Campbell's family. Did she show the squaw? he asked. "Not unless you knew it was there," the officer said tolerantly. Then he went to bed and slept with that peace of mind which comes of a proud consciousness of holding the handle of the whip. In the morning he got the man's name and address before he went on up to the Agency. There he heard of Landor again. This time it was through Barnwell, and the descriptions were picturesque. Brewster encouraged them, paying a good deal more heed to them than to the little complaints of the Indians he had been sent up to investigate. Then he returned to Grant, taking with him in the ambulance an enlisted man returning to receive his discharge. Barnwell had told Brewster about him also. "His name is Cairness,--Charles Cairness,--and he's got a lot of fool theories too," he explained. "He goes in for art, makes some pretty good paintings of the Indians, and has picked up some of their lingo. Made himself agreeable to the squaws, I guess. The interpreter says there's one got her nose cut off by her buck, on his account." Brewster suggested that he thought Crook had put a stop to those mutilations, but the official shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know how true it was, and I certainly ain't going to look her up in her rancheria to find out." The hero of the episode rode in the ambulance, sitting on the front seat, holding his carbine across his knees, and peering with sharp, far-sighted blue eyes over the alkali flats. Occasionally he took a shot at a jack rabbit and brought it down unfailingly, but the frontiersman has no relish for rabbit meat, and it was left where it dropped, for the crows. He also brought down a sparrow hawk wounded in the wing, and, having bound up the wound, offered it to Brewster, who took it as an opening to a conversation and tried to draw him out. "Barnwell tells me," he began, "that you have picked up a good deal of Apache." "Some Sierra Blanca, sir," said the soldier. It was respectful enough, and yet there was somewhere in the man's whole manner an air of equality, even superiority, that exasperated the lieutenant. It was contrary to good order and military discipline that a private should speak without hesitation, or without offence to the English tongue. Brewster resented it, and so the next thing he said was calculated to annoy. "He says you are quite one of them." "He is mistaken, sir." "Have you an Indian policy?" Cairness's eyes turned from a little ground owl on the top of a mound and looked him full in the face. "I really can't see, sir," he said, "how it can matter to any one." It did not in the least matter to Brewster, but he was one of those trying people whom Nature has deprived of the instinct for knowing when to stop. A very perceptible sneer twitched his lips. "You seem to be English," he said. "I am," announced the soldier. Now it is a hazardous undertaking to question an Englishman who does not care to be questioned. A person of good judgment would about as lief try to poke up a cross lion to play. But Brewster persisted, and asked if Cairness would be willing to live among the Apaches. "They have their good traits, sir," said the man, civilly, "and chief among them is that they mind their own business." It was impossible to misunderstand, and Brewster was vexed beyond the bounds of all wisdom. "The squaws have their good traits, too, I guess. I hear one had her nose cut off on your account." He should not have said it. He knew it, and he knew that the private knew it, but the man made no reply whatever. The remainder of the drive Cairness devoted to caring for the broken wing of the hawk, and, during halts, to sketching anything that presented itself,--the mules, the driver, passing Mexicans, or the cows trying to graze from ground where the alkali formed patches of white scum. He also accomplished a fine caricature of the lieutenant, and derived considerable silent amusement therefrom. The night of their return to the post, Cairness, crossing the parade ground shortly before retreat, saw Felipa. He had been walking with his eyes on the earth, debating within himself the question of his future, whether he should reënlist, succumb to the habit of the service, which is to ambition and endeavor what opium is to the system, or drop back into the yet more aimless life he had been leading five years before, when a fit of self-disgust had caused him to decide that he was good for nothing but a trooper, if even that. A long sunset shadow fell across his path, and he looked up. Felipa was walking beside a little white burro, and holding Mrs. Campbell's golden-curled baby upon its back. She carried her head superbly erect, and her step, because of the moccasins, was quite noiseless. The glow of the sunset shone in her unflinching eyes, and lost itself in the dull black mass of her hair. She studied his face calmly, with a perfectly impersonal approval. Cairness went on, back to the barracks, and sitting at the troop clerk's desk, made a memory sketch of her. It did not by any means satisfy him, but he kept it nevertheless. That night he sat upon the edge of his bunk, in the darkness, after taps, with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hand, and thought the matter to a conclusion. The conclusion was that he would not reënlist, and the reason for it was the girl he had met on the parade ground. He knew the power that beauty had over him. It was as real, as irresistible, as a physical sensation. And he thought Felipa Cabot the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. "She should be done in a heroic bronze," he told himself; "but as I can't do it, and as I haven't the right to so much as think about her, I shall be considerably happier at a distance, so I'll go." He went the next day but one, riding out of the post at daylight. And he saw Felipa once more. She was standing by the creek, drawing an arrow from her quiver and fitting it to her bow. Then she poised the toe of her left foot lightly upon the ground, bent back, and drew the bow almost to a semicircle. The arrow flew straight up into the shimmering air, straight through the body of a little jay, which came whirling, spinning down among the trees. Felipa gave a quick leap of delight at having made such a shot, then she darted down in search of the bird. And Cairness rode on. III "Hullo there!" Cairness drew up his pinto pony in front of a group of log cabins, and, turning in his saddle, rested his hands upon the white and bay flanks. "Hullo-o-o!" he repeated. A mule put its head over the wall of a corral and pricked interrogative ears. Then two children, as unmistakably Angles as those of Gregory the Great, came around the corner, hand in hand, and stood looking at him. And at length a man, unmistakably an Angle too, for all his top boots and flannel shirt and cartridge belt, came striding down to the gate. He opened it and said, "Hullo, Cairness, old chap," and Cairness said, "How are you, Kirby?" which answered to the falling upon each other's neck and weeping, of a more effusive race. Then they walked up to the corral together. Kirby introduced him to his two partners, Englishmen also, and finished nailing up the boards of a box stall which a stallion had kicked down in the night. After that he threw down his hammer, took two big nails from his mouth, and sat upon the tongue of a wagon to talk long and earnestly, after the manner of men who have shared a regretted past. "And so," said Kirby, as he drew a sack of short cut from his pocket and filled his brier, "and so you have chucked up the army? What are you going to do next? Going in for art?" "Good Lord! no," Cairness's smile was rueful. "I've lost all ambition of that sort years since. I'm too old. I've knocked about too long, and I dare say I may as well knock about to the end." Kirby suggested, with a hesitation that was born not of insincerity but of delicacy, that they would be awfully glad to have him stop with them and help run the Circle K Ranch. But Cairness shook his head. "Thanks. I'll stop long enough to recall the old times, though I dare say it would be better to forget them, wouldn't it? Ranching isn't in my line. Not that I am at all sure what is in my line, for that matter." After a while Kirby went back to his work, directing several Mexicans, in hopelessly bad Spanish, and laboring with his own hands at about the proportion of three to one. Cairness, talking to one of the other men, who was mending a halter, watched him, and recalled the youth in spotless white whom he had last seen lounging on the deck of an Oriental liner and refusing to join the sports committee in any such hard labor as getting up a cricket match. It was cooler here in the Arizona mountains, to be sure; but it was an open question if life were as well worth living. When the sun was at midheaven, and the shadows of the pines beyond the clearing fell straight, the clanging of a triangle startled the mountain stillness. The Mexicans dropped their tools, and the white teamster left a mule with its galled back half washed. In a moment there were only the four Englishmen in the corral. Kirby finished greasing the nut of a wagon. Then he went to the water trough and washed his hands and face, drying them upon a towel in the harness room. He explained that they didn't make much of a toilet for luncheon. "Luncheon!" said Cairness, as he smoothed his hair in front of a speckled and wavy mirror, which reflected all of life that came before it, in sickly green, "cabalistic word, bringing before me memories of my wasted youth. There was a chap from home in my troop, until he deserted, and when we were alone we would say luncheon below our breaths. But I haven't eaten anything except dinner for five years." At the house he met Kirby's wife, a fair young woman, who clung desperately here in the wilderness, to the traditions, and to as many of the customs as might be, of her south-of-England home. The log cabin was tidy. There were chintz curtains at the windows, much of the furniture, of ranch manufacture, was chintz covered, the manta of the ceiling was unstained, there were pictures from London Christmas papers on the walls, and photographs of the fair women at "home." There were also magazines and a few books in more than one language, wild flowers arranged in many sorts of strange jars, and in the corner, by an improvised couch, a table stacked with cups and plates of Chelsea-Derby, which were very beautiful and very much out of place. The log cabins were built, five of them, to form a square. The largest contained the sitting room and a bedroom, the three others, bedrooms and a storehouse, and the kitchen and dining room were in the fifth. When they went into this last, the ranch hands were already at a long oilcloth-covered table. The Kirbys sat at a smaller one, laid with linen, and the lank wife of one of the men served them all, with the help of a Mexican boy. Cairness pitied Mrs. Kirby sincerely. But if she felt herself an object of sympathy, she did not show it. The woman fairly flung the ill-cooked food upon the table, with a spitefulness she did not try to conceal. And she manifested her bad will most particularly toward the pretty children. Cairness felt his indignation rise against Kirby for having brought a woman to this, in the name of love. "We have tea at five," Mrs. Kirby told him, as they finished, and her husband started out to superintend and help with the digging of an acequia. So at five o'clock Cairness, coming again into that part of the cabin which his hostess persistently named the drawing-room, found the three Englishmen taking their tea, and a little man in clerical garb observing the rite with considerable uncertainty. He would have no tea himself, and his tone expressed a deep distrust of the beverage. By the side of his chair stood a tall silk hat. It was in all probability the only one in the territories, or west of the Missouri, for that matter, and it caught Cairness's eye at once, the more especially as it was pierced by two round holes. As he stirred his tea and ate the thin slices of buttered bread, his glance wandered frequently to the hat. "Lookin' at my stove-pipe?" asked the Reverend Mr. Taylor. "Only one in these parts, I reckon," and he vouchsafed an explanation of the holes. "Them holes? A feller in Tucson done that for me." What had he done to the fellow, if he might ask, Cairness inquired. "What did I do? The same as he done unto me. Let the air into his sombrero." He told them that he was studying the flora of the country, and travelling quite alone, with an Indian pony, a pack-mule, and a dog--a prospector's outfit, in short. After tea the ranchers settled down to smoke and read. The Reverend Taylor brought out his collection of specimens and dilated upon them to Cairness. "I put them in this here book," he said, "betwixt the leaves, and then I put the book under my saddle and set on it. I don't weigh so much, but it works all right," he added, looking up with a naïve smile that reached from one big ear to the other. "To-morrow," he told him later, "I'm going to ride over here to Tucson again. What way might you be takin'?" "I think perhaps I'll go with you, if you'll wait over a day," Cairness told him. He had taken a distinct fancy to the little botanist who wore his clerical garb while he rode a bronco and drove a pack-mule over the plains and mountains, and who had no fear of the Apache nor of the equally dangerous cow-boy. Cairness asked him further about the hat. "That chimney-pot of yours," he said, "don't you find it rather uncomfortable? It is hot, and it doesn't protect you. Why do you wear it?" The little man picked it up and contemplated it, with his head on one side and a critical glance at its damaged condition. Then he smoothed its roughness with the palm of his rougher hand. "Why do I wear it?" he drawled calmly; "well, I reckon to show 'em that I can." At six o'clock Kirby knocked the ashes from his pipe, the other two men, who had buried themselves in the last _Cornhill_ and _Punch_ with entire disregard of the rest of the room, put down the magazines, and all of them rose. "We dine at seven," Mrs. Kirby said to Taylor and Cairness as she passed through the door, followed by her husband. "Where are they all goin' to?" the Reverend Taylor asked in plaintive dismay. He had risen to his feet because he had seen Cairness do it, and now he sat again because Cairness had dropped back on the couch. He was utterly at sea, but he felt that the safest thing to do would be that which every one else did. He remembered that he had felt very much the same once when he had been obliged to attend a funeral service in a Roman Catholic Church. All the purple and fine linen of the Scarlet Woman and the pomp and circumstance surrounding her had bewildered him in about this same way. Cairness reached out for the discarded _Cornhill_, and settled himself among the cushions. "They're going to dress, I rather think," he said. The minister almost sprang from his chair. "Good Lord! I ain't got any other clothes," he cried, looking ruefully at his dusty black. "Neither have I," Cairness consoled him, from the depths of a rehearsal of the unwisdom of Ismaïl Pasha. The Reverend Taylor sat in silence for a time, reflecting. Then he broke forth again, a little querulously. "What in thunderation do they dine at such an hour for?" Cairness explained that it was an English custom to call supper dinner, and to have it very late. "Oh!" said Taylor, and sat looking into the fire. A few minutes before seven they all came back into the sitting room. The men wore black coats, by way of compromise, and Mrs. Kirby and the children were in white. "Like as not she does up them boiled shirts and dresses herself, don't you think?" was the minister's awed comment to Cairness, as they went to bed that night in the bare little room. "Like as not," Cairness agreed. "She's mighty nice looking, ain't she?" Cairness said "yes" rather half heartedly. That fresh, sweet type was insipid to him now, when there was still so fresh in his memory the beauty of a black-haired girl, with eagle eyes that did not flinch before the sun's rays at evening or at dawn. "I'll bet the help don't like the seven o'clock dinner." Cairness suggested that they were given their supper at six. "I know that. But they don't like it, all the same. And I'll bet them cutaways riles them, too." Cairness himself had speculated upon that subject a good deal, and had noticed with a slight uneasiness the ugly looks of some of the ranch hands. "They are more likely to have trouble in that quarter than with the Indians," he said to himself. For he had seen much, in the ranks, of the ways of the disgruntled, free-born American. Before he left with Taylor on the next morning but one, he ventured to warn Kirby. But he was met with a stolid "I was brought up that way," and he knew that argument would be entirely lost. "Over here to Tucson" was a three days' ride under the most favorable circumstances; but with the enthusiastic botanist dismounting at short intervals to make notes and press and descant upon specimens, it was five days before they reached, towards nightfall, the metropolis of the plains. They went at once for supper to the most popular resort of the town, the Great Western Saloon and Restaurant. It was a long adobe room, the whitewash of which was discolored by lamp smoke and fly specks and stains. There were also bullet holes and marks of other missiles. At one end was a bar, with a tin top for the testing of silver coins. Several pine tables were set out with cracked sugar bowls, inch-thick glasses, bottles of pickles and condiments, still in their paper wrappings, and made filthy by flies, dust, and greasy hands. Already there were half a dozen cow-boys and Mexicans, armed to the teeth, standing about. They glanced sideways at the big Englishman, who appeared to be one of themselves, and at the little minister. On him, more especially on his hat, their eyes rested threateningly. They had heard of him before, most of them. They answered his genial greeting surlily, but he was quite unruffled. He beamed upon the room as he seated himself at one of the tables and ordered supper, for which, in obedience to a dirty sign upon the wall, he paid in advance. Having finished, he left Cairness to his own devices, and dragging a chair under a bracket lamp, set peacefully about reading the newspapers. For fully an hour no one heeded him. Cairness talked to the bartender and stood treat to the aimless loungers. He had many months of back pay in his pocket, and to save was neither in his character nor in the spirit of the country. The ill-smelling room filled, and various games, chiefly faro and monte, began. At one table two men were playing out a poker game that was already of a week's duration. The reek of bad liquor mingled with the smell of worse tobacco and of Mexican-cured leather--like which there is no odor known to the senses, so pungent and permeating and all-pervading it is. Several of the bracket lamps were sending up thin streams of smoke. The Reverend Taylor gradually became aware that the air was very bad. He laid down the newspaper and looked round. Then a big cow-boy left the bar and loitering over, with a clink of spurs, touched him on the shoulder. "The drinks are on you," he menaced. The minister chose to ignore the tone. He rose, smiling, and stretching his cramped arms. "All right, my friend, all right," he said, and going with the big fellow to the bar he gave a general invitation. In the expectation of some fun the men gathered round. Those at the tables turned in their chairs and sat watching and pulling at their fierce mustaches as they peered from under the brims of their sombreros. In the midst of them all the little parson looked even smaller than he was. But he was sweetly undaunted and good-humored. When the barkeeper had served the others, he turned to him. "What'll you take?" he demanded, not too courteously. "I'll take a lemon soda, thanks," said Taylor. There followed one of those general pauses as explosive as a pistol shot. Then the cow-boy who had touched him on the shoulder suggested that he had better take a man's drink. But he was not to be changed. "I'll take lemon soda," he said to the tender, with an amiability that the cow-boy made the mistake of taking for indecision. "You better do what I say!" He was plainly spoiling for a fight. But the minister still refused to see it. He looked him very squarely in the eyes now, however. "See here, I am going to take lemon pop, my friend," he said. The friend swore earnestly that he would take what he was told to. "You are mistaken, my good fellow, because I won't." There was not the shadow of hesitation in his voice, nor did he lower his mild blue eyes. The cow-boy broadened the issue. "You will, and you'll take off that plug, too, or I'll know what for." "I reckon you'll know what for, then," beamed Taylor, immovably. Cairness had been standing afar off, with his hands in his pockets, watching with a gleam of enjoyment under his knitted brows, but he began to see that there threatened to be more to this than mere baiting; that the desperado was growing uglier as the parson grew more firmly urbane. He drew near his small travelling companion and took his hands suddenly from his pockets, as the cow-boy whipped out a brace of six-shooters and pointed them at the hat. Slowly, with no undue haste whatever, the Reverend Taylor produced from beneath the skirts of his clerical garb another revolver. There was a derisive and hilarious howl. When it had subsided, he turned to the barkeeper. "Got my lemon pop ready?" he asked. The man pushed it over to him, and he took it up in his left hand. "Drop that!" called the cow-boy. "Here's how," said the parson, and raised his glass. A bullet shattered it in his grasp. Cairness, his hand on the butt of his own pistol, wondered, a little angrily, if Taylor were never going to be roused. He had looked down at the broken glass and the stream of water, and then up quite as calmly but a little less smilingly. "If you do that again, I'll shoot," he said. "Give me another pop." There was a chuckle from the group, and a chorus to the effect that they would be eternally condemned, the truth of which was patent in their faces. "Leave the little codger be," some one suggested; "he ain't skeered worth a sour apple." It would have become the sentiment of the crowd in another moment, but the little codger took up the second glass, and raised it again. Then it fell smashing to the floor. A second bullet had broken his wrist. Cairness started forward and levelled his Colt, but the divine was too quick for him. He fired, and the cow-boy sank down, struggling, shot through the thigh. As he crouched, writhing, on the ground, he fired again, but Cairness kicked the pistol out of his hand, and the bullet, deflected, went crashing in among the bottles. "Now," said Taylor, distinctly, "oblige me with another lemon pop, mister." A cheer went up, and the minister standing above his fallen enemy raised the third glass. "Here's to your better judgment next time, my friend. 'Tain't the sombrero makes the shot," he said. His seamed, small face was pale underneath its leathery skin, but by not so much as a quiver of an eyelid did he give any further sign of pain. "The gentleman who broke them glasses can settle for his part of the fun," he said, as he paid his reckoning. Then he drew Cairness aside and held out the limp wrist to be bound, supporting it with his other hand. And presently they went out from the restaurant, where the powder smoke was added to the other smells, and hung low, in streaks, in the thick atmosphere, to hunt up a surgeon. The surgeon, whose lore was not profound, and whose pharmacy exhibited more reptiles in alcohol than drugs, set the bones as best he knew how, which was badly; and, taking a fancy to Taylor, offered him and Cairness lodgings for the night,--the hospitality of the West being very much, in those times, like that of the days when the preachers of a new Gospel were bidden to enter into a house and there abide until they departed from that place. In the morning Cairness left them together and started for the San Carlos Agency. He was to meet a prospector there, and to begin his new fortunes by locating some mines. IV It was a bitterly cold January morning. There had been a rain in the night, and the clouds yet hung gray over Mt. Graham and the black gap. The wet wind went howling over the valley, so that the little flag at the top of the staff snapped and whipped as though it would be torn from the halyards. Sunday inspection and guard mounting had been chilling ceremonies, performed in overcoats that were hardly more blue than the men's faces. Having finished them, Brewster hurried across the parade to Captain Campbell's quarters. He found Felipa curled on the blanket in front of a great fire, and reading by the glare of the flames, which licked and roared up the wide chimney, a history of the Jesuit missionaries. It was in French, and she must have already known it by heart, for it seemed to be almost the only book she cared about. She had become possessed of its three volumes from a French priest who had passed through the post in the early winter and had held services there. He had been charmed with Felipa and with her knowledge of his own tongue. It was a truly remarkable knowledge, considering that it had been gained at a boarding-school. "You speak with the utmost fluency, my daughter," he had commended, and she had explained that she found expression more easy in French. "It is curious," she said, "but it has always seemed as though English were not my native tongue." When the father returned to Tucson, he had sent her the history, and she had read and reread it. In a way she was something of a linguist, for she had picked up a good deal of Spanish from Mexicans about the post, chiefly from the nurse of the Campbell children. There is a certain class of persons to whom it is always irritating to find any one reading a book. It rubs them the wrong way instantly. They will frequently argue that their own, and the best, manner of studying life is from nature--an excellent theory in sound, and commonly accepted as unanswerable, but about as practical in fact as the study of music on the instrument alone, without primer or method. The mere sight of Felipa on the buffalo robe before the fire, poring over the old history, exasperated Brewster. "That book again?" he said crossly, as he drew up a chair and held out his hands to the flames; "you must know it by heart." "I do," she answered, blinking lazily. He reflected that it is a trait of the semi-civilized and of children that they like their tales often retold. But he did not say so. He was holding that in reserve. Instead, he changed the subject, with an abrupt inquiry as to whether she meant to ride to-day. "I suppose not?" he added. "I do, though," she said perversely, as she bent her head and tried to put into order the tumbled mass of her hair. "I am going at eleven o'clock." "Alone?" "No, not alone." "It is bitterly cold." "I don't mind, and neither does Captain Landor." Her guardian had recently gotten his captaincy. Brewster's irritation waxed. "Landor again?" he queried suggestively. "Landor again," she yawned, ignoring his meaning-fraught tone. But she watched his face from under her long lashes. He glanced over his shoulder at the door. It was closed; so he leaned forward and spoke in a lower voice. "Felipa, are you going to marry Landor, or are you not?" It was more than a mere impertinent question, and she did not pretend to ignore it any longer. She clasped her hands slowly about her knees and looked straight at him. But he was unabashed, "What is he to you?" he insisted. She thought for a moment before she answered. Then she spoke deliberately, and there was a purring snarl under her voice. "It is none of your business that I can see. But I will tell you this much, he is a man I respect; and that is more than I have said of you when I have been asked the same question." "It is not only my business," he said, overlooking the last, and bending more eagerly forward, "it is not only my business, it is the business of the whole post. You are being talked about, my dear young lady." She sprang to her feet so suddenly that her arm struck him a blow in the face, and stood close in front of him, digging her nails into her palms and breathing hard. "If you--if you dare to say that again, I will kill you. I can do it. You know that I can, and I will. I mean what I say, I will kill you." And she did mean what she said, for the moment, at any rate. There was just as surely murder in her soul as though those long, strong hands had been closed on his throat. Her teeth were bared and her whole face was distorted with fury and the effort of controlling it. She drew up a chair, after a moment, and sat in it. It was she who was leaning forward now, and he had shrunk back, a little cowed. "I know what you are trying to do," she told him, more quietly, her lips quivering into a sneer, "you are trying to frighten me into marrying you. But you can't do it. I never meant to, and now I would die first." He saw that the game had reached that stage where he must play his trump card, if he were to have any chance. "You are a mean little thing," he laughed. "It is the Apache blood, I suppose." She sat for a moment without answering. It was less astonishment than that she did not understand. She knitted her brow in a puzzled frown. But he mistook her silence for dismay, and went on. "It is only what one might expect from the daughter of a drunken private and a Mescalero squaw." She was still silent, but she leaned nearer, watching his face, her lips drawn away from her sharp teeth, and her eyes narrowing. She understood now. In his growing uneasiness he blundered on rashly. "You didn't know it? But it is true. Ask your guardian. Do you think he would have you for a wife?" He gave a short laugh. "He hates an Apache as he does a Gila monster. Very few men would be willing to risk it." She leaned back in her chair, tapping her foot upon the floor. It was the only sign of excitement, but the look of her face was not good. Brewster avoided it, and became absorbed in making the tips of his fingers meet as he pressed his hands together. "Still," said Felipa, too quietly, "I would rather be the daughter of a drunken private and a Mescalero squaw than the wife of a coward and sneak." He stood up and went nearer to her, shaking his finger in her face. He knew that he had lost, and he was reckless. "You had better marry me, or I will tell your birth from the housetops." But he was making the fatal mistake of dealing with the child that had been, instead of with the woman he had aroused. She laughed at him--the first false laugh that had ever come from her lips. "You had better go now," she said, rising and standing with her arms at her side, and her head very erect. He hesitated, opening his mouth to speak and shutting it again irresolutely. "I told you to go," she repeated, raising her brows. He took up his cap from the table, and went. When Landor came in half an hour later he found her in her riding habit, sitting in front of the fire. She was still alone, and he felt instantly that there was more softness than ever before in the smile she gave him, more womanliness in the clinging of her hand. Altogether in her attitude and manner there was less of the restlessly youthful. He drew a chair beside hers, and settled back comfortably. "Mr. Brewster has just been here," she said at length, and she played with the lash of her whip, avoiding his eyes, which was also a new way for her. "I wish Brewster would not come so often," he said. For answer she put out her hand and laid it upon his, not as she had often done it before, in the unattentive eagerness of some argument, but slowly, with a shadow of hesitation. He was surprised, but he was pleased too, and he took the long fingers in his and held them gently. "Do you still want me to marry you?" she asked him. He told her that he most certainly did, and she went on. "Is it because you think you ought to, or because you really want me?" She was looking at him steadily now, and he could not have lied to her. But the slender hand was warm and clinging, the voice low and sweet, the whole scene so cosey and domestic, and she herself seemed so much more beautiful than ever, that he answered that it was because he wanted her--and for the moment it was quite true. Had so much as a blush come to her cheek, had she lowered her earnest gaze, had her voice trembled ever so little, it might have been true for all time. But she threw him back upon himself rudely, with an unfeminine lack of tact that was common with her. "Then I will marry you whenever you wish," she said. "I began to tell you," she resumed directly, "that Mr. Brewster was here, and that he informed me that my mother was a squaw and my father a drunken private." Landor jumped up from his chair. "Felipa!" he cried. At first he was more shocked and sorry for her than angry with Brewster. "I don't mind," she began; and then her strict truthfulness coming uppermost, she corrected herself: "At least, I don't mind very much, not so much as you thought I would." He strode up and down, his face black with rage, expressing his violent opinion of Brewster. Then he came to a stop, in front of her. "How did he happen to tell you?" he asked. She explained. "He says he will tell it broadcast," she ended, "but he won't. It wouldn't be safe, and he knows it." Her cool self-possession had its effect on him. He studied her curiously and began to calm down. She asked him about her father and mother. Going back to his chair he told her everything that he knew, save only the manner of Cabot's death. "Then I took you to Yuma," he finished, "and from there to the East, via Panama." There was a pause. And then came the question he had most dreaded. "Did my father leave me any money?" she asked. There was nothing for it but to admit that from the day of her father's death she had been utterly Landor's dependant,--at a cost to him of how many pleasures, she, who knew the inadequacy of a lieutenant's pay, could easily guess. She sat thinking, with her chin in her palm, and a quite new look of loneliness deep in her eyes. He could see that in the last hour she had grasped almost the fulness of her isolation--almost, but not all; only the years could bring forth the rest. She gave a heavy sigh. "Well, I am glad I love you," she said. But he knew that she did not love him. She was grateful. It was sometimes an Apache trait. He realized that it was his curse and hers that he could not for an instant forget the strain. He read her character by it, half unconsciously. He saw it in her honesty, her sinewy grace, her features, her fearlessness, her kindness with children,--they were all Apache characteristics; and they were all repellent. From his youth on, he had associated the race with cruelty and every ghastly sight he had come upon, on the plains and in the mountains. It was a prejudice with more than the force of a heritage. He went on with his study of her, as she sat there. He was always studying her. But he could not decide whether it was that she lacked sensitiveness and was really not greatly disturbed, or a savage sort of pride in concealing emotions. He rose to his feet, shaking off an impatience with her and with himself. "Come," he said peremptorily; and they went out and mounted and rode away in the face of a whipping wind up the gradual slope to the mountains, black and weird beneath the heavy, low-hanging rain clouds. Felipa had taught her horse to make its average gait a run, and she would have started it running now, but that Landor checked her. It was high time, he said, that he should teach her to ride. Now she was more than a little proud of her horsemanship, so she was annoyed as well as surprised. But he went on, instructing her how it was not all of riding to stick on, and rather a question of saving and seat and the bit. "You give your horse a sore back whenever you go far, and you always bring him back in a lather." It was half because she felt it would prick him, and half in humility, that she answered, "I suppose that is the Indian in me." His horse started. He had dug it with the rowels. Then he reined it in with a jerk that made it champ its curb. "Don't dwell on that all the time," he said angrily; "forget it." And then it flashed across him, the irreparable wrong he would be doing her if he taught her to consider the Apache blood a taint. She gave him an odd, furtive glance and did not answer for a time. He was never quite able to divine with her just how much of his thoughts she understood, and it put him at some disadvantage. Presently she said: "I can't forget. And you can't. As for other people--they don't matter anyway." In her scheme of things other people rarely did matter. She hedged herself round with a barrier of indifference that was very nearly contempt, and encouraged no intimacies--not even with Landor. And he knew it. She made it plainer to him by and by, as she went on to advise his course about Brewster. "If I were you, I would ignore his having told me, Jack. I ought to have pretended that I knew it, but I was taken by surprise. He must not think you resent it as though it were an insult, though. As for me, I won't have anything more to do with him; but that is for reasons of my own." He demanded that he be told the reasons, but she refused very sweetly and very decidedly. And he was forced to accept the footing upon which she placed him, for all time. * * * * * * * * It was quite in keeping with everything that had gone before that, the day after a passing Franciscan priest had married them, Landor should have been ordered off upon a scout, and Felipa should have taken it as a matter of course, shedding no tears, and showing no especial emotion beyond a decent regret. They had not gone upon a wedding trip for the excellent reason that there was no place to go; and as they sat at dinner together in their sparsely furnished quarters, there was a timid ring at the door-bell, and Landor's Chinaman, the cook of his bachelor days, ushered in the commanding officer, who looked humble apology for the awkwardness of a visit he could not delay. He went straight to the matter in hand, in spite of the tactful intentions that had made him come himself instead of sending a subordinate. "I say, Landor," he began, after having outwardly greeted Felipa and inwardly cursed his luck at being obliged to tear a man away from so fair a bride, "I say, there's been the dickens of a row up at the Agency." Landor went on with his dinner coolly enough. "There's quite likely to be that at any time," he said, "so long as a pious and humane Indian Bureau sends out special agents of the devil who burn down the Agency buildings of peaceful Apaches as a means of inducing them to seek illness and death in malarious river bottoms." "That," objected the major, testily, "is ancient history. This trouble started the way of most of the troubles of this age--whiskey." In his agitation he carefully spilled a spoonful of salt on the cloth and scraped it into a little mound with a knife. Then recollecting that spilled salt causes quarrels, he hurriedly threw a pinch of it over his left shoulder. "And--and, the worst of the whole business is, old man, that you've got to go. Your troop and one from Apache are ordered out. I'm awfully sorry." He would not look at Felipa at all. But he stared Landor fairly out of countenance, as he waited for a storm of tears and protestations. When, therefore, Mrs. Landor said, with the utmost composure, that it was too bad, his gasp was audible. The captain knitted his thick brows and interposed quickly, talking against time. "If the Tucson ring and the Indian Bureau had one head, I should like the detail of cutting it off." His annoyance seemed to be of an impersonal sort, and the commandant began to feel that he must have handled the thing rather well, after all. He gained in self-esteem and equanimity. Felipa rose from the table, and going over to her husband laid her hand on his shoulder. She asked when he must go. "To-night, my dear lady, I am afraid," soothed the commandant. But she appeared to be in no need of humoring, as she turned to Landor and offered to do what she might to help him. He had dreaded a scene, but he was not so sure that this was not worse. "You are the wife for a soldier," he said somewhat feebly; "no tears and fuss and--all that kind of thing." Landor winced as he folded his napkin and stood up. "I am ready," he said, and going into the long hallway took his cap from the rack and went with the major out into the night. In half an hour he was back, and having produced his scouting togs from the depths of a sky-blue chest, smelling horribly of tobacco and camphor, he fell to dressing. Felipa sat on the edge of the bunk and talked to him, a little excited, and very anxious to try what a scout was like for herself. As he put on his faded blouse he went and stood before her, holding out his arms. She moved over to him and laid her head on his shoulder. "Are you not sorry to have me go?" he asked, in the tones of one having a grievance. He felt that he was entitled to something of the sort. Of course she was sorry, she protested, a little indignant that he should ask it. She would be horribly lonesome. He tried hard to warm her to something more personal. "I might never come back, you know, dear." He realized that he was absolutely begging for affection, most futile and unavailing of all wastes of energy. But she only answered that that was unlikely and slipped her arm around his neck, as she added that if anything were to happen to him, she would not have one real friend in the world. There was something pathetic in the quiet realization of her loneliness. He stroked her hair pityingly. After all, she was only a half-savage creature bound to him by the ties of gratitude. He had seen the same thing in a Chiricahua girl baby he had once rescued, horribly burned, from the fire of an abandoned Indian camp, where she had been thrown by the fleeing hostiles, because she was sickly and hampered their progress. The hideous, scarred little thing had attached herself to him like a dog, and had very nearly pined herself to death when he had had to leave her for good. Afterward she had married--at the ripe age of twelve--a buck of her own tribe. He thought of how she also had slipped her hard, seamed arm around his neck, and he drew away from Felipa. When, in the darkness of a cloudy night, he said good-by to her on the road before his quarters, bending to kiss the warm mouth he could not see, he knew that it would have been possible for him to have loved her, had she been nearly all that she was not. Then he mounted the horse the orderly held for him, and trotted off. V The Gila River cutting straight across the southern portion of Arizona, from the Alkali flats on the east to the Colorado at Yuma on the west, flowed then its whole course through desolation. Sometimes cottonwoods and sycamore trees rose in the bottom, and there was a patch of green around some irrigated land. But, for the most part, the basin was a waste of glittering sand and white dust, and beyond, the low hills, bare of every plant save a few stunted wild flowers, cacti and sage, greasewood and mesquite, rolled for miles and miles of barrenness. The chicken hawk and crow sailed through the fiercely blue sky, the air waved and quivered with incredible heat. At night malaria rose from the ground, the coyote barked and whined at the light of the brilliant stars, and the polecat prowled deliberately. Here, toward the eastern part of the territory, the government had portioned off the San Carlos Agency for its Apache wards, and some thirty miles away, not far from the banks of the river, Camp Thomas for its faithful soldiery. On a day when the mercury registered 120 degrees, Felipa Landor drove into the camp. Her life, since her marriage three years before, had been the usual nomadic one of the place and circumstances, rarely so much as a twelvemonth in one place, never certain for one day where the next would find her. Recently Landor had been stationed at the headquarters of the Department of Arizona. But Felipa had made no complaint whatever at having to leave the gayest post in the territories for the most God-forsaken, and she refused flatly to go East. "I can stand anything that you can," she told her husband when he suggested it, which was apparently true enough, for now, in a heat that was playing out the very mules, covered as she was with powdery, irritating dust, she was quite cheerful as he helped her from the ambulance. She stood looking round the post, across the white-hot parade ground, to the adobe barracks and the sutler's store. Then she turned and considered the officers' quarters. They were a row of hospital, wall, and A tents, floored with rough boards and sheltered by ramadas of willow branches. In the middle of the line there was a one-room mud hut. This, with the tents back of it, was her home. Landor had fitted up the hut with Navajo blankets, Indian baskets, dolls, saddle bags, war bonnets, and quivers; with stuffed birds and framed chromos, camp-chairs and some rough quartermaster's furniture. A gray blanket, with a yellow Q. M. D. in the centre, kept the glare out at the window, and the room was cool enough. One advantage of adobe--and it has others--is that it retains all summer the winter cold, and all winter the summer heat. Felipa expressed decided approval, and set to work making herself comfortable at once. Within ten minutes she had changed her travelling things for a white wrapper, had brushed the dust from her hair, and left it hanging straight and coarse and dead black, below her waist,--she was given to loosing it whenever the smallest excuse offered,--and had settled herself to rest in a canvas lounging chair. Landor had come to agree with the major at Grant, that she was an excellent wife for a soldier. Her tastes were simple as those of a hermit. She asked only a tent and a bunk and enough to eat, and she could do without even those if occasion arose. She saw the best of everything, not with the exasperating optimism which insists upon smiling idiotically on the pleasant and the distinctly disagreeable alike, and upon being aggressively delighted over the most annoying mishaps, but with a quiet, common-sense intention of making the objectionable no more so for her own part. There were wives who made their husbands' quarters more dainty and attractive, if not more neat; but in the struggle--for it was necessarily a struggle--lost much peace of mind and real comfort. Upon the whole, Landor was very well satisfied, and Felipa was entirely so. She was utterly indifferent to being set down at a three-company post, where her only companion was to be a woman she disliked from the first, openly and without policy, as was her way. The woman called early in the blazing afternoon, appearing clad in silks, waving a gorgeous fan of plumes, and sinking languidly into a chair. Felipa sat bolt upright on a camp-stool, and before the close of an hour they were at daggers' points. The commandant's wife used cheap French phrases in every other breath, and Felipa retaliated in the end by a long, glib sentence, which was not understood. She seemed absolutely dense and unsmiling about it, but Landor was used to the mask of stolidity. He got up and went to the window to arrange the gray blanket, and hide a smile that came, even though he was perfectly aware of the unwisdom of making an enemy of the C. O.'s wife. From thenceforth the elegant creature troubled Felipa as little as the nature of things would permit. She said that Mrs. Landor was _une sauvage_ and so _brune_; and Mrs. Landor said she was a fool and dyed her hair. She was not given to mincing words. And she had small patience with a woman who lay in bed until the sun was high, and who spent her days lounging under the ramada, displaying tiny, satin-shod feet for the benefit of the enlisted men and the Indians who wandered over from the reservation. She herself was up before dawn, riding over the hills with her husband, watching the sun rise above the blue mountains on the far-away horizon, and strike with lights of gold and rose the sands and the clumps of sage, visiting the herd where it struggled to graze, under well-armed guard, and gathering the pitiful wild flowers from the baked, lifeless soil. She shot quail and owls, and dressed their skins. She could endure any amount of fatigue, and she could endure quite as well long stretches of idleness. Having no children of her own, she took for protégé a small White Mountain, son of a buck who hung about the post most of the time, bought him candy and peanuts at the sutler's store, taught him English, and gathered snatches of his tribe's tongue in return. Landor humored her, but did not quite approve. "If you begin that, every papoose at the Agency will be brought down to us," he suggested; and once when he had grown a little tired of having the noiseless, naked little savage forever round, he offered him a piece of canned lobster. Whereupon the boy fled wildly, and would not be coaxed back for many days. Felipa seemed really to miss him, so Landor never teased him after that, making only the reasonable request that the youngster be not allowed to scratch his head near him. Another of her pets was a little fawn a soldier had caught and given to her. It followed her tamely about the post. One morning, shortly before dinner call, she sat under the ramada, the deer at her feet, asleep, the little Apache squatted beside her, amusing himself with a collection of gorgeous pictorial labels, soaked from commissary fruit and vegetable cans. The camp was absolutely silent, even the drowsy scraping of the brooms of the police party having stopped some time before. Landor was asleep in his tent, and presently she herself began to doze. She was awakened by the sound of footsteps on the gravel in front of the ramada, and in another moment a tall figure stood in the opening, dark against the glare. Instantly she knew it was the man with whom she had come face to face long before on the parade ground at Grant, though from then until now she had not thought of him once, nor remembered his existence. She rose to her feet, standing slender and erect, the roused fawn on one side and the naked savage on the other. And they faced each other, disconcerted, caught mute in the reverberation, indefinite, quivering, of a chord which had been struck somewhere in the depths of that Nature to which we are willing enough to grant the power of causing the string of an instrument to pulse to the singing of its own note, but whose laws of sympathetic vibration we would fain deny beyond material things. The man understood, and was dismayed. It is appalling to feel one's self snatched from the shifting foothold of individuality and whirled on in the current of the Force of Things. Felipa did not understand. And she was annoyed. She crashed in with the discord of a deliberate commonplace, and asked what she could do for him, speaking as to an inferior; and he, with a stiff resentment, answered that he wished to see Captain Landor. She did not return to the ramada, but before long her husband came in search of her. "That man is going to stay to luncheon," he told her. She echoed "To luncheon!" in amazement. "But, Jack, he was a soldier, wasn't he?" "He was, but he isn't. I sent for him about some business, and he is a very decent sort of a fellow. He has a little ranch on the reservation." "A squaw-man?" she asked. "I dare say," he answered carelessly. "Come and meet him. You'll like him." She went, with none too good a grace. Cairness said to himself that she was regal, and acknowledged her most formal welcome with an ease he had fancied among the arts he had long since lost. "I have seen you before, Mrs. Landor," he said after a while. "Yes?" she answered, and stroked the head of the fawn. "Yes," he persisted, refusing to be thwarted, "once when you were crossing the parade at Grant, at retreat, and two days afterward when you shot a blue jay down by the creek." She could not help looking at him now, and his eyes held hers through a silence that seemed to them so enduring, so unreasonable, that Landor must wonder at it. But he had seen men put at a disadvantage by her beauty before, and he had grown too used to her lack of conventionality to think much about it, one way or the other. "Can't we send the hostile away?" he suggested, glancing at the small Apache, who was digging viciously at his head and watching Cairness with beady orbs. Felipa spoke to him, and he went. "Do you like his kind?" the Englishman asked curiously. "They have their good points," she answered, exactly as he himself had answered Brewster's baiting long ago. Then she fastened her gaze on the roof of the ramada. It was evident that she had no intention of making herself agreeable. Landor had learned the inadvisability and the futility of trying to change her moods. She was as unaffected about them as a child. So he took up the conversation he and Cairness had left off, concerning the Indian situation, always a reliable topic. It was bad that year and had been growing steadily worse, since the trouble at the time of his marriage, when Arizona politicians had, for reasons related to their own pockets, brought about the moving of the White Mountain band to the San Carlos Agency. The White Mountains had been peaceable for years, and, if not friendly to the government, at least too wise to oppose it. They had cultivated land and were living on it inoffensively. But they were trading across the territorial line into New Mexico, and that lost money to Arizona. So they were persuaded by such gentle methods as the burning of their Agency buildings and the destruction of their property, to move down to San Carlos. The climate there was of a sort fatal to the mountain Apaches,--the thing had been tried before with all the result that could be desired, in the way of fevers, ague, and blindness,--and also the White Mountains were hereditary enemies of the San Carlos tribes. But a government with a policy, three thousand miles away, did not know these things, nor yet seek to know them. Government is like the gods, upon occasions: it first makes mad, then destroys. And if it is given time enough, it can be very thorough in both. In the period of madness, more or less enduring, of the victim of the Great Powers' policy, somebody who is innocent usually suffers. Sometimes the Powers know it, oftener they do not. Either way it does not worry them. They set about doing their best to destroy, and that is their whole duty. Not having had enough of driving to madness in '75 and '76, they tried it again three years later. They were dealing this time with other material, not the friendly and the cowed, but with savages as cruel and fierce and unscrupulous as those of the days of Coronado. Victorio, Juh, and Geronimo were already a little known, but now they were to have their names shrieked to the unhearing heavens in the agony of the tortured and the dying. The Powers said that a party of Indians had killed two American citizens, and had thereby offended against their sacred laws. To be sure the Americans had sold the Indians poisonous whiskey, so they had broken the laws, too. But there is, as any one should be able to see, a difference between a law-breaking Chiricahua and a law-breaking territorial politician. Cairness refused to see it. He said things that would have been seditious, if he had been of any importance in the scheme of things. As it was, the Great Powers did not heed them, preferring to take advice from men who did not know an Apache from a Sioux--or either from the creation of the shilling shocker. "I am not wasting any sympathy on the Apaches, nor on the Indians as a whole. They have got to perish. It is in the law of advancement that they should. But where is the use in making the process painful? Leave them alone, and they'll die out. It isn't three hundred years since one of the biggest continents of the globe was peopled with them, and now there is the merest handful left, less as a result of war and slaughter than of natural causes. Nature would see to it that they died, if we didn't." "The philanthropist doesn't look at it that way. He thinks that we should strive to preserve the species." "I don't," Cairness differed; "it's unreasonable. There is too much sympathy expended on races that are undergoing the process of extinction. They have outgrown their usefulness, if they ever had any. It might do to keep a few in a park in the interests of science, and of that class of people which enjoys seeing animals in cages. But as for making citizens of the Indians, raising them to our level--it can't be done. Even when they mix races, the red strain corrupts the white." Landor glanced at his wife. She seemed to take it without offence, and was listening intently. "It's the old saying about a dog walking on its hind legs, when you come to civilizing the Indian. You are surprised that he civilizes at all, but he doesn't do it well, for all that. He can be galvanized into a temporary semblance of national life, but he is dead at the core, and he will decay before long." "They could kill a good many of us before they died out, if we would sit still and take it," Landor objected. "It's six one, and half a dozen the other. They'd be willing enough to die out in peace, if we'd let them. Even they have come to have a vague sort of instinct that that's what it amounts to." Landor interrupted by taking the slipper from Felipa's foot and killing with it a centipede that crawled up the wall of the abode. "That's the second," he said, as he put the shoe on again. "I killed one yesterday; the third will come to-morrow." Then he went back to his chair and to the discussion, and before long he was called to the adjutant's office. Felipa forgot her contempt for Cairness. She was interested and suddenly aroused herself to show it. "How do you come to be living with the Indians?" she asked. It was rarely her way to arrive at a question indirectly. "Have you married a squaw?" He flushed angrily, then thought better of it, because after all the question was not impertinent. So he only answered with short severity that he most certainly had not. Felipa could not help the light of relief that came on her face, but realizing it, she was confused. He helped her out. "I have drifted in a way," he went on to explain. "I left home when I was a mere boy, and the spirit of savagery and unrest laid hold of me. I can't break away. And I'm not even sure that I want to. You, I dare say, can't understand." Yet he felt so sure, for some reason, that she could that he merely nodded his head when she said briefly, "I can." "Then, too," he went on, "there is something in the Indian character that strikes a responsive chord in me. I come of lawless stock myself. I was born in Sidney." Then he stopped short. What business was it of hers where he had been born? He had never seen fit to speak of it before. Nevertheless he intended that she should understand now. So he made it quite plain. "Sidney was a convict settlement, you know," he said deliberately, "and marriages were promiscuous. My grandfather was an officer who was best away from England. My grandmother poisoned her first husband. That is on my mother's side. On my father's side it was about as mixed." He leaned back, crossing his booted legs and running his fingers into his cartridge belt. His manner asked with a certain defiance, what she was going to do about it, or to think. And what she did was to say, with a deliberation equal to his own, that her mother had been a half-breed Mescalero and her father a private. He looked at her steadily, in silence. It did not seem that there was anything to say. He would have liked to tell her how beautiful she was. But he did not do it. Instead, he did much worse. For he took a beaded and fringed leather case from his pocket and held out to her the drawing he had made of her four years before. She gave it back without a word, and bent to play with the buckskin collar on the neck of the fawn. Cairness put the sketch back in the case and stood up. "Will you tell Captain Landor that I found that I could not wait, after all?" he said, and bowing went out from the ramada. She sat staring at the white glare of the opening, and listening to his foot-falls upon the sand. VI Landor said that he had put in a requisition for kippered mackerel and anchovy paste, and that the commissary was running down so that one got nothing fit to eat. He was in an unpleasant frame of mind, and his first lieutenant, who messed with him, pulled apart a broiled quail that lay, brown and juicy, on its couch of toast and cress, and asked wherein lay the use of taking thought of what you should eat. "Every prospect is vile, and man is worse, and the sooner heaven sends release the better. What is there in a life like this? Six weeks from the nearest approach to civilization, malaria in the air by night and fire by day. Even Mrs. Landor is showing it." "I didn't know that I had made any complaint," she said equably. "You haven't, but the summer has told on you just the same. You are thin, and your eyes are too big. Look at that!" He held out a hand that shook visibly. "That's the Gila Valley for you." "Sometimes it's the Gila Valley, and sometimes it's rum," said Landor. "It's rum with a good many." "Why shouldn't it be? What the deuce has a fellow got to do but drink and gamble? You have to, to keep your mind off it." The lieutenant himself did neither, but he argued that his mind was never off it. Felipa thought it was not quite so bad as that, and she poured herself another cup of the Rio, strong as lye, with which she saturated her system, to keep off the fever. "You might marry," Landor suggested. "You can always do that when all else fails." "Who is there to marry hereabouts? And always supposing there were some one, I'd be sent off on a scout next day, and have to ship her back East for an indefinite time. It would be just my blamed luck." The breakfast humor when the thermometer has been a hundred and fifteen in the shade for long months, is pessimistic. "Don't get married then, please," said Felipa, "not for a few days at any rate. I don't want Captain Landor to go off until he gets over these chills and things." There was a knock at the door of the tent, and it opened. The adjutant came in. "I say, Landor--" "I say, old man, shut that door! Look at the flies. Now go on," he added, as the door banged; and he rose to draw a chair to the table. "Can't stay," said the adjutant, all breathless. "The line's down between here and the Agency; but a runner has just come in, and there's trouble. The bucks are restless. Want to join Victorio in New Mexico. You've both got to get right over there." It was the always expected, the never ceasing. Landor looked at his wife and stroked his mustache with a shaking hand. His face was yellow, and his hair had grown noticeably grayer. "You are not fit to go," Felipa said resignedly, "but that doesn't matter, of course." "No," he agreed, "it doesn't matter. And I shall do well enough." Then the three went out, and she finished her breakfast alone. In less than an hour the troop was ready, the men flannel-shirted and gauntleted, their soft felt hats pulled over their eyes, standing reins in hand, foot in stirrup, beside the fine, big horses that Crook had substituted for the broncos of the plains cavalry of former years. Down by the corrals the pack-mules were ready, too, grunting under their aparejos and packs. A thick, hot wind, fraught with sand, was beginning, presaging one of the fearful dust storms of the southwest. The air dried the very blood in the veins. The flies, sticky and insistent, clung and buzzed about the horses' eyes and nostrils. Bunches of tumbleweed and hay went whirling across the parade. Landor came trotting over from his quarters, followed by his orderly, and the troops moved off across the flat, toward the river. Felipa stood leaning listlessly against the post of the ramada, watching them. After a time she went into the adobe and came out with a pair of field-glasses, following the course of the command as it wound along among the foot-hills. The day dragged dully along. She was uneasy about her husband, her nerves were shaken with the coffee and quinine, and she was filled, moreover, with a vague restlessness. She would have sent for her horse and gone out even in the clouds of dust and the wind like a hot oven, but Landor had forbidden her to leave the post. Death in the tip of a poisoned arrow, at the point of a yucca lance, or from a more merciful bullet of lead, might lurk behind any mesquite bush or gray rock. She set about cleaning the little revolver, self-cocking, with the thumb-piece of the hammer filed away, that her husband had given her before they were married. To-night she wanted no dinner. She was given to eating irregularly; a good deal at a time, and again nothing for a long stretch. That, too, was in the blood. So she sent the soldier cook away, and he went over to the deserted barracks. Then she tried to read, but the whisper of savagery was in the loneliness and the night. She sat with the book open in her lap, staring into a shadowy corner where there leaned an Indian lance, surmounted by a war bonnet. Presently she stood up, and stretched her limbs slowly, as a beast of prey does when it shakes off the lethargy of the day and wakens for the darkness. Then she went out to the back of the tents. The stars were bright chips of fire in a sky of polished blue. The wind of the day had died at dusk, and the silence was deep, but up among the bare graves the coyotes were barking weirdly. As she looked off across the low hills, there was a quick, hissing rattle at her feet. She moved hastily, but without a start, and glanced down at a rattler not three feet away. Landor's sabre stood just within the sitting room, and she went for it and held the glittering blade in front of the snake. Its fangs struck out viciously again and again, and a long fine stream of venom trickled along the steel. Then she raised the sabre and brought it down in one unerring sweep, severing the head from the body. In the morning she would cut off the rattle and add it to the string of close upon fifty that hung over her mirror. But now the night was calling to her, the wild blood was pricking in her veins. Running the sabre into the ground, she cleaned off the venom, and went back to the adobe to put it in its scabbard. After she had done that she stood hesitating for just a moment before she threw off all restraint with a toss of her head, and strapped about her waist a leather belt from which there hung a bowie knife and her pistol in its holster. Then slipping on her moccasins, she glided into the darkness. She took the way in the rear of the quarters, skirting the post and making with swift, soundless tread for the river. Her eyes gleamed from under her straight, black brows as she peered about her in quick, darting glances. Not a week before--and then the Agency had been officially at peace--a Mexican packer had been shot down by an arrow from some unseen bow, within a thousand yards of the post, in broad daylight. The Indians, caking their bodies with clay, and binding sage or grass upon their heads, could writhe unseen almost within arm's reach. But Felipa was not afraid. Straight for the river bottom she made, passing amid the dump-heaps, where a fire of brush was still smouldering, filling the air with pungent smoke, where old cans and bottles shone in the starlight, and two polecats, pretty white and black little creatures, their bushy tails erect, sniffed with their sharp noses as they walked stupidly along. Their bite meant hydrophobia, but though one came blindly toward her, she barely moved aside. Her skirt brushed it, and it made a low, whining, mean sound. Down by the river a coyote scudded across her path as she made her way through the willows, and when he was well beyond, rose up on his hind legs and looked after her. At the water's edge she stopped and glanced across to the opposite bank. The restlessness was going, and she meant to return now, before she should be missed--if indeed she were not missed already, as was very probable. Yet still she waited, her hands clasped in front of her, looking down at the stream. Farther out, in the middle, a ripple flashed. But where she stood among the bushes, it was very dark. The water made no sound, there was not a breath of air, yet suddenly there was a murmur, a rustle. Felipa's revolver was in her hand, and cocked and pointed straight between two eyes that shone out of the blackness. And so, for an appreciable time, she stood. Then a long arm came feeling out; but because she was looking along the sight into the face at the very end of the muzzle, she failed to see it. When it closed fast about her waist, she gave a quick gasp and fired. But the bullet, instead of going straight through the forehead beneath the head band, as she had meant it to do, ploughed down. The grasp on the body relaxed for an instant; the next it had tightened, and a branch had struck the pistol from her hand. And now it was a struggle of sheer force and agility. She managed to whip out the knife from her belt and to strike time and time again through sinewy flesh, to the bone. The only noise was the dragging of their feet on the sand, the cracking of the willows and the swishing of the blade. It was savage against savage, two vicious, fearless beasts. The Apache in Felipa was full awake now, awake in the bliss of killing, the frenzy of fight, and awake too, in the instinct which told her how, with a deep-drawn breath, a contraction, a sudden drop and writhing, she would be free of the arms of steel. And she was free, but not to turn and run--to lunge forward, once and again, her breath hissing between her clenched, bared teeth. The buck fell back before her fury, but she followed him thrusting and slashing. Yet it might not, even then, have ended well for her, had there not come from somewhere overhead the sound most dreaded as an omen of harm by all Apaches--the hoot of an owl. The Indian gave a low cry of dismay and turned and darted in among the bushes. She stood alone, with the sticky, wet knife in her hand, catching her breath, coming out of the madness. Then she stooped, and pushing the branches aside felt about for her pistol. It lay at the root of a tree, and when she had picked it up and put it back in the holster, there occurred to her for the first time the thought that the shot in the dead stillness must have roused the camp. And now she was sincerely frightened. If she were found here, it would be more than disagreeable for Landor. They must not find her. She started at a swift, long-limbed run, making a wide detour, to avoid the sentries, bending low, and flying silently among the bushes and across the shadowy sands. She could hear voices confusedly, men hurriedly calling and hallooing as she neared the back of the officers' line and crept into her tent. The door was barely closed when there came a knock, and the voice of the striker asking if she had heard the shot across the river. "Yes," she said, "I heard it. But I was not frightened. What was it?" He did not know, he said, and she sent him back to the barracks. Then she lit a lamp and took off her blood-stained gown. There was blood, too, on the knife and its case. She cleaned them as best she could and looked into the chamber of her revolver with a contemplative smile on the lips that less than half an hour before had been curled back from her sharp teeth like those of a fighting wolf. She wondered how badly the buck had been hurt. And the next day she knew. When she came out in front of her quarters in the morning, rather later than usual, there was a new tent beside the hospital, and when she asked the reason for it, they told her that a wounded Apache had been found down by the river soon after the shot had been fired the night before. He was badly hurt, with a ball in his shoulder, and he was half drunk with tizwin, as well as being cut in a dozen places. She listened attentively to the account of the traces of a struggle among the willows, and asked who had fired the shot. It was not known, they said, and the sullen buck would probably never tell. When she saw the post surgeon come out from his house and start over to the hospital, she called to him. "May I see your new patient?" she asked. He told her that he was going to operate at once, to remove the ball and the shattered bone, but that she might come if she wished. His disapproval was marked, but she went with him, nevertheless, and sat watching while he picked and probed at the wound. The Apache never quivered a muscle nor uttered a sound. It was fine stoicism, and appealed to Felipa until she really felt sorry for him. But presently she stood up to go away, and her eyes caught the lowering, glazed ones of the Indian. Half involuntarily she made a motion of striking with a knife. Neither the doctor nor the steward caught it, but he did, and showed by a sudden start that he understood. He watched her as she went out of the tent, and the surgeon and steward worked with the shining little instruments. VII Landor came in a few weeks later. He had had an indecisive skirmish in New Mexico with certain bucks who had incurred the displeasure of the paternal government by killing and eating their horses, to the glory of their gods and ancestors, and thereafter working off their enthusiasm by a few excursions beyond the confines of the reservation, with intent to murder and destroy. Being shaved of the thick iron-gray beard, and once again in seemly uniform, and having reported to the commandant, he sat down to talk with his wife. She herself lay at full length upon a couch she had devised out of packing cases. It occurred to Landor that she often dropped down to rest now, and that she was sallow and uneasy. He looked at her uncomfortably. "I am going to get you out of this, up into the mountains somewhere," he said abruptly; "you look peaked." She did not show the enthusiasm he had rather expected. "I dare say it is my bad conscience," she answered with some indifference. "I have a sin to confess." He naturally did not foresee anything serious, and he only said, "Well?" and began to fill his pipe from a buckskin pouch, cleverly sketched in inks with Indian scenes. "By the way," he interrupted as she started to speak, "what do you think of this?" He held it out to her. "That fellow Cairness, who wouldn't stay to luncheon that day, did it for me. We camped near his place a couple of days. And he sent you a needle-case, or some such concern. It's in my kit." She looked at the pouch carefully before she gave it back; then she clasped her hands under her head again and gazed up at the manta of the ceiling, which sagged and was stained where the last cloud-burst had leaked through the roof. "Well?" repeated Landor. "I disobeyed orders," said Felipa. "Did you, though?" "And I went outside the post the night after you left, down to the river. Some one will probably tell you about a wounded Sierra Blanca found down among the bushes in the river bottom that same night. I shot him, and then I hacked him up with my knife." He had taken his pipe from his mouth and was looking at her incredulously, perplexed. He did not understand whether it was a joke on her part, or exactly what it was. But she sat up suddenly, with one of her quick movements of conscious strength and perfect control over every muscle, clasped her hands about her knees, and went on. "It was very curious," and there came on her face the watchful, alert, wild look, with the narrowing of the eyes. "It was very curious, I could not have stayed indoors that night if it had cost me my life--and it very nearly did, too. I had to get out. So I took my revolver and my knife, and I went the back way, down to the river. While I was standing on the bank and thinking about going home, an Indian stole out on me. I had an awful struggle. First I shot. I aimed at his forehead, but the bullet struck his shoulder; and then I fought with the knife. As soon as I could slip out of his grasp, I went at him and drove him off. But I didn't know how badly he was hurt until the next day. The shot had roused them up here, and they went down to the river and found him bleeding on the sand. "They put him in a tent beside the hospital, and the next morning I went over with the doctor to see him. He was all cut up on the arms and neck and shoulders. I must have been very strong." She stopped, and he still sat with the puzzled look on his face, but a light of understanding beginning to show through. "Are you joking," he asked, "or what?" "Indeed, I am not joking," she assured him earnestly. "It is quite true. Ask any one. Only don't let them know it was I who wounded him. They have never so much as suspected it. Fortunately I thought of you and ran home all the way, and was in my tent before it occurred to any one to come for me." She burst into a low laugh at his countenance of wrath and dismay. "Oh! come, Jack dear, it is not so perfectly, unspeakably horrible after all. I was disobedient. But then I am so sorry and promise never, never to do it again." "You might have killed the Indian," he said, in a strained voice. It did not occur to either of them, just then, that it was not the danger she had been in that appalled him. She was astonished in her turn. "Killed him! Why, of course I might have killed him," she said blankly, frowning, in a kind of hopeless perplexity over his want of understanding. "I came very near it, I tell you. The ball made shivers of his shoulder. But he was brave," she grew enthusiastic now, "he let the doctor probe and pick, and never moved a muscle. Of course he was half drunk with tizwin, even then." "You didn't stay to see the operation?" His voice was ominously quiet. "For a while, yes. And before I came away I made a sign to show him it was I. You should have seen his surprise." There followed a fury-fraught silence. Landor's face was distorted with the effort he was making to contain himself, and Felipa began to be a little uneasy. So she did the most unwise thing possible, having been deprived by nature of the good gift of tact. She got up from the couch and drew the knife from its case, and took it to him. "That," she said, showing the red-brown stains on the handle, "that is his blood." He snatched it from her then, with a force that threw her to one side, and sent it flying across the room, smashing a water jug to bits. Then he pushed her away and going out, banged the door until the whitewash fell down from the cracks. Felipa was very thoroughly frightened now. She stood in wholesome awe of her husband, and it was the first time she had ever made him really angry, although frequently he was vaguely irritated by her. She had had no idea the thing would infuriate him so, or she would probably have kept it to herself. And she wished now that she had, as she went back to the couch and sat on the edge of it, dejectedly. When he returned at the end of a couple of hours she was all humility, and she had moreover done something that was rare for her: made capital of her beauty, putting on her most becoming white gown, and piling her hair loosely on the top of her head, with a cap of lace and a ribbon atop of it. Landor liked the little morning caps, probably because they were a sort of badge of civilization, but they were incongruous for all that, and took from the character of her head. His anger was well in leash, and he gave her the mail which had just come in by the stage, quite as though nothing had occurred. "And now," he commenced, when he had glanced over the Eastern papers, "I have seen the C. O.; he wants the line between here and Apache fixed. He will give me the detail if you care to go." He plainly meant to make no further reference to her confession, but she would have been more than woman if she had known when to let a matter drop. Her face lighted with the relief of a forgiven child, and she went to him and put her arms around his neck. "You are so good to me," she said penitently, "and I was so disobedient." He bit his lip and did not reply, either to the words or to the caress. "You need a month of the mountains, I think," he said. The telegraph between Thomas and Apache always gave something to think about. The Indians had learned the use of the White-eye's talking wire very promptly. In the early '70's, when it first came to their notice, they put it to good use. As when an Apache chief sent to a Yuma chief the message that if the Yumas did not hold to a certain promise, the Apaches would go on the war-path and destroy them, root and branch. The Indians and the cow-boys used the insulators to try their marksmanship upon, and occasionally--in much the same spirit that the college man takes gates from their hinges and pulls down street signs--the young bucks cut the wires and tied the ends with rubber bands. Also trees blown down by storms fell crashing across the line, and some scheme for making it a little less tempting and a little more secure was much needed. Landor had long nursed such an one. So a week later he and Felipa, with a detail of twenty men and a six-mule wagon, started across the Gila Valley to the White Mountains. By day Felipa was left in camp with the cook, while Landor and the men worked on ahead, returning at sundown. At times she went with them, but as a rule she wandered among the trees and rocks, shooting with pistol and bow, but always keeping close to the tents. She had no intention of disobeying her husband again. Sometimes, too, she read, and sometimes cooked biscuits and game over the campfire in the Dutch oven. Her strength began to return almost from the first, and she had gone back, for comfort's sake, to the short skirts of her girlhood. The Indians who came round talked with her amicably enough, mainly by signs. She played with the children too, and one day there appeared among them her protégé of the post, who thereafter became a camp follower. And on another morning there lounged into the space in front of the tents, with the indolent swing of a mountain lion, a big Sierra Blanca buck. He was wrapped from neck to moccasins in a red blanket, and carried an elaborate calf's-hide quiver. He stopped in front of Felipa, who was sitting on the ground with her back against the trunk of a fallen tree reading, and held out the quiver to her. "How," he said gruffly. "How," answered Felipa, as unconcernedly as though she had not recognized him almost at once for the buck she had last seen in the A tent beside the hospital, with the doctor picking pieces of bone and flesh from his shoulder. Then she took the quiver and examined it. There was a bow as tall as herself, and pliable as fine steel, not a thing for children to play with, but a warrior's arm. Also there were a number of thin, smooth, gayly feathered arrows. "_Malas_," he told her, touching the heads. "_Venadas_" and she knew that he meant that they were poisoned by the process of dipping them in putrid liver, into which a rattler had been made to inject its venom. Even then the sort was becoming rare, though the arrow was still in use as a weapon and not merely as an attraction for tourists. The buck sat down upon the ground in front of Felipa and considered her. By the etiquette of the tribe she could not ask him his name, but the boy, her protégé, told her that it was Alchesay. All the afternoon he hung around the camp, taciturn, apparently aimless, while she went about her usual amusements and slept in the tent. Once in a way he spoke to her in Spanish. And for days thereafter, as they moved up along the rough and dangerous road,--where the wagon upset with monotonous regularity, big and heavy though it was,--he appeared from time to time. For some days Felipa had noticed a change, indefinable and slight, yet still to be felt, in the manner of the Indians all about. Not that they were ever especially gracious, but now the mothers discouraged the children from playing hide-and-seek with her, and although there were quite as many squaws, fewer bucks came around than before. But Alchesay could always be relied upon to stalk in, at regular intervals, and seat himself near the fire, or the hot ashes thereof. They had been four days camping on Black River, a mountain stream rushing between the steep hills, with the roar of a Niagara, hunting deer and small game, fishing with indifferent success,--to the disgust of the Apaches, who would much rather have eaten worms than fish,--and entertaining visitors. There were any number of these. One party had come out from Fort Apache, another from a camp of troops on the New Mexico road, and some civilians from Boston, who were in search of a favorable route for a projected railway. In the opinion of Landor, who knew the impracticable country foot for foot, they were well-intentioned lunatics. But they were agreeable guests, who exchanged the topics of the happy East for the wild turkey and commissary supplies of the Far West, and in departing took with them a picturesque, if inexact, notion of army life on the frontier, and left behind a large number of books for Felipa, who had dazzled their imaginations. She had read one of the books one afternoon when she was left alone, until the sun began to sink behind the mountain tops, and the cook to drag branches to the fire preparatory to getting supper. Then she marked her place with a twig, and rose up from the ground to go to the tent and dress, against Landor's return. The squaws and bucks who had been all day wandering around the outskirts of the camp, speaking together in low voices, and watching the cook furtively, crowded about the opening. She warned them off with a careless "_ukishee_." But they did not go. Some ten pairs of eyes, full of unmistakable menace, followed her every movement. She let down the tent flaps and tied them together, taking her time about it. She was angry, and growing angrier. It was unendurable to her to be disobeyed, to have her authority put at naught on the few occasions when she chose to exercise it. She could keep her temper over anything but that. And her temper was of the silent sort, rolling on and on, like a great cold swell at sea, to break finally against the first obstacle with an uncontrollable force. She had never been really angry but twice in her life. Once when she was in school, and when a teacher she liked, judging her by her frequent and unblushing lies to a teacher she disliked, doubted her word upon an occasion when she was really speaking the truth. It was after that that she had written to her guardian that she would run away. The second time had been when Brewster had tried to bully her. She knew that it would soon be a third time, if the Indians went on annoying her. And she was far more afraid of what she might do than of what they might do. But she took off the waist of her gown and began to brush her hair, not being in the least squeamish about letting the Apaches see her fine white arms and neck, if they were to open the flaps again. Which was what they presently did. She expected it. A long, wrinkled hand reached in, feeling about for the knots of the tape. She stood still with the brush in her hands, watching. Another hand came, and another. She caught up her quirt from the cot, then realizing that the sting of the lash would only prove an exasperation and weaken her authority, if she had any whatever,--and she believed that she had,--she threw it down. The cook was probably in the kitchen tent and did not know what was going on. And she would have died before she would have called for help. The lean hands found the knots, untied them, and threw back the flaps defiantly. The ten pairs of eyes were fastened on her again. She returned the gaze steadily, backing to a little camp table and slipping her hand under a newspaper that lay upon it. "_Ukishee, pronto_," she commanded, in the accepted argot. They stood quite still and unyielding; and she knew that if she were to be obeyed at all, it must be now. Or if she were to die, it must be now also. But the hand that drew from beneath the newspaper the little black-butted Smith and Wesson, which was never out of her reach, did not so much as tremble as she aimed it straight between the eyes of the foremost buck. "_Ukishee_," she said once again, not loudly, but without the shadow of hesitation or wavering. There answered a low muttering, evil and rising, and the buck started forward. Her finger pressed against the trigger, but before the hammer had snapped down, she threw up the barrel and fired into the air, for a big, sinewy arm, seamed with new scars, had reached out suddenly and struck the buck aside. It was all done in an instant, so quickly that Felipa hardly knew she had changed her aim, and that it was Alchesay who had come forward only just in time. The cook came running, six-shooter in hand, but Alchesay was driving them away and lowering the canvas flaps. Felipa told the cook that it was all right, and went on with her dressing. Although she had no gifts for guessing the moods and humors of her father's race, she understood her mother's considerably better, and so she did not even call a "_gracias_" after Alchesay. She merely nodded amicably when she went out and found him sitting on the ground waiting for her. He returned the nod, a degree less graciously, if possible, and began to talk to her in bad Spanish, evidently putting small faith in her command of the White Mountain idiom, marvellous, to be sure, in a White-eye squaw, for such were of even greater uselessness than the average woman, but of no account whatever in a crisis. And such he plainly considered this to be. "_Usted, vaya prontisimo_," he directed with the assumption of right of one to whom she owed her life. She looked down at him in a somewhat indignant surprise. "_Pues porque?_" she asked, maintaining the haughtiness of the dominant race, and refusing to acknowledge any indebtedness. "Why should I go away?" "_Hombre!_" grunted the Indian, puffing at a straw-paper cigarette, "_excesivamente peligroso aqui_." "Why is it dangerous?" she wanted to know, and shrugged her shoulders. She was plainly not to be terrorized. "_Matarán á Usted._" "They will kill me? Who will kill me, and what for?" He gave another grunt. "Go away to-morrow. Go to the Fort." He pointed with the hand that held the bit of cigarette in the direction of Apache. "Tell your man." She threw him an indifferent "I am not afraid, not of anything." It was a boast, but he had reason to know that it was one she could make good. He rolled another cigarette, and sat smoking it unmoved. And she went into the mess tent. Nevertheless she decided that it might be best to tell her husband, and she did so as they sat together by the fire after the moon had risen into the small stretch of sky above the mountain peaks. They had bought a live sheep that day from a Mexican herder who had passed along the road, and they were now cutting ribs from the carcass that hung from the branch of a near-by tree, and broiling them on the coals. Felipa finished an unimpassioned account of the afternoon's happenings and of Alchesay's advice, and Landor did not answer at once. He sat thinking. Of a sudden there was a rustle and a step among the pines, and from behind a big rock a figure came out into the half shadow. Felipa was on her feet with a spring, and Landor scrambled up almost as quickly. The figure moved into the circle of red firelight and spoke, "It is Cairness." Felipa started back so violently that she struck against the log she had been sitting upon, and lost her balance. Cairness jumped forward, and his arm went around her, steadying her. For a short moment she leaned against his shoulder. Then she drew away, and her voice was quite steady as she greeted him. He could never have guessed that in that moment she had learned the meaning of her life, that there had flashed burningly through her brain a wild, unreasoning desire to stand forever backed against that rock of strength, to defy the world and all its restrictions. There was a bright I. D. blanket spread on the ground a little way back from the fire, and she threw herself down upon it. All that was picturesque in his memories of history flashed back to Cairness, as he took his place beside Landor on the log and looked at her. Boadicea might have sat so in the depths of the Icenean forests, in the light of the torches of the Druids. So the Babylonian queen might have rested in the midst of her victorious armies, or she of Palmyra, after the lion hunt in the deserts of Syria. Her eyes, red lighted beneath the shadowing lashes, met his. Then she glanced away into the blackness of the pine forest, and calling her dog to lie down beside her, stroked its silky red head. "I knew," Cairness said, turning to Landor after a very short silence, "that you and Mrs. Landor were somewhere along here. So I left my horse at a rancheria across the hill there," he nodded over his shoulder in the direction of the looming pile just behind, "and walked to where I saw the fire. I saw you for some time before I was near, but I ought to have called out. I really didn't think about startling you." "That's all right," Landor said; "are you hunting?" He hesitated. "I have done some shooting. I am always shooting more or less, for that matter." Landor went to the tree and cut another rib from the mutton and threw it on the coals. Then he walked across the clearing to the tent. Cairness and Felipa were alone, and he leaned nearer to her. "Do you know," he asked in a low voice, "that there have been all sorts of rumors of trouble among the Indians for some time?" She nodded. "I have kept near you for a week, to warn you, or to help you if necessary." Her lips parted, and quivered, and closed again. The winds from the wide heavens above the gap whined through the pines, the river roared steadily down below, and the great, irresistible hand of Nature crushed without heeding it the thin, hollow shell of convention. The child of a savage and a black sheep looked straight and long into the face of the child of rovers and criminals. They were man and woman, and in the freemasonry of outlawry made no pretence. "You know that I love you?" he said unevenly. "I know it," she whispered, but she took her shaking hand from the dog's head, and, without another word, pointed to the shadow of Landor's figure, thrown distorted by the candle light against the side of the tent. And he understood that the shadow must rise always between them. He had never expected it to be otherwise. It was bound to be so, and he bowed his head in unquestioning acceptance. The shadow was swallowed up in darkness. The candle had been blown out, and Landor came back to the fire. "You must get Mrs. Landor into the post to-morrow," Cairness said abruptly; "Victorio's band is about." Landor asked him to spend the night at the camp, and he did so, being given a cot in the mess tent. About an hour after midnight there came thundering through the quiet of the night the sound of galloping hoofs along the road at the foot of the ravine. Cairness, lying broad awake, was the first to hear it. He sprang up and ran to the opening of the tent. He guessed that it was a courier even before the gallop changed to a trot, and a voice called from the invisible depths below, "Captain Landor?" with a rising intonation of uncertainty. "Yes," Cairness called back. "Is that Captain Landor's camp?" A score of voices answered "Yes." They were all aroused now. Landor went down to meet the man, who had dismounted and was climbing up toward him, leading his horse. It was a courier, sent out from Apache, as Cairness had supposed. "Sixty of Victorio's hostiles have been at the Agency, and are on their way back to New Mexico. Will probably cross your camp," the captain read aloud to the men, who crowded as near as was compatible with discipline. Then he went off to inspect the stock and the pickets, and to double the sentries. "You had better sleep on your arms," he told the soldiers, and returned to his cot to lie down upon it, dressed, but feigning sleep, that Felipa might not be uneasy. He need not have resorted to deception. Felipa had not so much as pretended to close her eyes that night. Before dawn Cairness was out, hastening the cook with the breakfast, helping with it himself, indeed, and rather enjoying the revival of the days when he had been one of the best cooks in the troop and forever pottering about the mess chests and the Dutch oven, in the field. As the sun rose,--though daybreak was fairly late there in the cañon,--the cold, crisp air was redolent of coffee and bacon and broiling fresh meat. Felipa, lifting her long riding skirt, stepped out from the tent, and stood with hand upraised holding back the flap. A ray of sun, piercing white through the pines, fell full on her face. She had the look of some mysterious priestess of the sun god, and Cairness, standing by the crackling fire, prodding it with a long, charred stick, watched her without a word. Then she came forward, holding out her hand in the most matter-of-fact way, if, indeed, any action of a very beautiful woman can be matter of fact. "I shall ride into Apache with you in Captain Landor's stead, if he will allow me," he told her, and added, "and if you will." She bowed gravely, "You are very kind." At the instant a cloud floated over the sun, and soon a black bank began to fill up the sky above the cañon. As they ate their breakfast in the tent, the morning darkened forebodingly. Felipa finished the big quart cup of weak coffee hurriedly, and stood up, pushing back her camp-stool. Her horse and four others were waiting. Landor had agreed to trust her to Cairness and an escort of three soldiers. He could ill spare time from the telegraph line, under the circumstances; it might be too imperatively needed at any moment. He mounted his wife quickly. "You are not afraid?" he asked. But he knew so well that she was not, that he did not wait for her answer. Cairness mounted, and looked up anxiously at the sky, as he gathered his reins between his fingers. The wind had begun to howl through the branches of the trees. It promised to be a wild ride. "I will be back to-night, Landor, to report," he said; "that is, if the storm doesn't delay us." And they started off down the hill. He rode beside Mrs. Landor along the road in the ravine bed, and the soldiers followed some twenty yards in the rear. They were making as much haste as was wise at the outset, and Felipa bent forward against the ever rising wind, as her horse loped steadily on. There was a mutter of thunder and a far-off roar, a flame of lightning through the trees, and the hills and mountains shook. Just where they rode the cañon narrowed to hardly more than a deep gulch, and the river ran close beside the road. "We must get out of this," Cairness started to say, urging his little bronco; but even as he spoke there was a murmur, a rustle, a hissing roar, and the rain fell in one solid sheet, blinding them, beating them down. "Take care!" yelled Cairness, as Felipa, dazed and without breath, headed straight for the stream. He bent and snatched at her bridle, and, swerving, started up the sheer side of the hill. She clung to the mane instinctively, but her horse stumbled, struggled, slipped, and scrambled. She had lost all control of it, and the earth and stones gave way beneath its hoofs just as a great wall of water bore down the bed of the river, sweeping trees and rocks away, and making the ground quiver. "Let go your stirrup!" cried Cairness, in her ear; and as she kicked her foot loose, he leaned far from the saddle and threw his arm around her, swinging her up in front of him across the McLellan pommel, and driving the spurs into his horse's belly. It had the advantage of her horse in that it was an Indian animal, sure of foot as a burro, and much quicker. With one dash it was up the hillside, while the other rolled over and over, down into the torrent of the cloud burst. Cairness slid to the ground, still holding her close, and set her upon her feet at once. He had not so much as tightened the grasp of his arm about her, nor held her one-half second longer than there was absolute need. He tried to see if the soldiers were safe, but though they were not a hundred feet away, the trunks and the mist of water hid them. The rain still pounded down, but the rush of the wind was lessening sensibly. Felipa leaned against the tree under which they were, fairly protected from the worst of the storm; and Cairness stood beside her, holding his winded horse. There was nothing to be said that could be said. She had lost for once her baffling control of the commonplace in speech, and so they stood watching the rain beat through the wilderness, and were silent. When the storm had fairly passed, they found Felipa's gray lodged in the root of a tree some distance down the creek; in no way hurt, oddly enough, but trembling and badly frightened. The saddle, even, was uninjured, though the pigskin was water-soaked and slippery. Cairness sent one of the soldiers back to report their safety to Landor, and they mounted and hurried on again, swimming the river twice, and reaching the post some time after noon. The commandant's wife took Mrs. Landor in, and would have put her to bed with hot drinks and blankets, but that Felipa would have nothing more than some dry clothes and a wrapper in place of her wet habit. The clothes were her own, brought by one of the men, safe in a rubber poncho, but the wrapper belonged to her hostess, who was portly, whereas Felipa was slender. But to Cairness, who had stopped for luncheon, she seemed, in the voluminous dull red draperies, more splendid than ever before. He rode away at once after they had lunched. And Felipa went to her room, and dropped down shivering beside the little red-hot iron stove, moaning between her clenched teeth. VIII Six years of fighting, of bloodshed, of heavy loss in blood and treasure to the government, the careers of the incarnate devils Juh, Victorio, and Geronimo--all the evils let loose on the southwest from '78 to '85 were traceable primarily to the selling of bad whiskey to a hunting party of Chiricahuas by two storekeepers, greedy of gain. Of course there were complications following, a long and involved list of them. Of course the Indians only sought the excuse, and very probably would have made it if it had not been made for them. And of course the Interior Department bungled under the guidance of politicians, of whom the best that possibly can be said is that they were stupid tools of corrupt men in the territories, who were willing to turn the blood of innocent settlers into gold for their own pockets. And still, those who hated the Apache most--officers who had fought them for years, who were laboring under no illusions whatever; the Commanders of the Department of Arizona and of the Division of the Missouri--reported officially that Victorio and his people had been unjustly dealt with. And these were men, too, who had publicly expressed, time and again, their opinion that the Apaches were idle and worthless vagabonds, utterly hopeless, squalid, untrustworthy; robbers and thieves by nature. They had none of Crook's so many times unjustified faith in the red savage,--that faith which, wantonly betrayed, brought him to defeat and bitter disappointment at the last. Since Crook had gone to the northern plains, in the spring of '75, the unrest among the Apaches had been steadily growing, until five years later it was beyond control, and there began the half decade which opened with Victorio on the war-path, and closed with the closing of the career of the unfortunate general--most luckless example of the failing of failure--and the subjection of Geronimo. The never ending changes of the service, which permitted no man to remain in one spot for more than two years at the utmost limit, had sent Landor's troop back to Grant, and it was from there that he was ordered out at the beginning of the summer. The curtain-raiser to the tragedy about to come upon the boards was a little comedy. One fine afternoon the post was moving along in its usual routine--that quiet which is only disturbed by the ever recurring military formalities and the small squabbles of an isolated community. There had been a lull in the war rumors, and hope for the best had sprung up in the wearied hearts of the plains service, much as the sun had that day come out in a scintillating air after an all-night rain-storm. Mrs. Landor sat on the top step of her porch. Landor was with her, also his second lieutenant Ellton, and Brewster, who in the course of events had come into the troop. There had been, largely by Felipa's advice, an unspoken agreement to let the past be. A troop divided against itself cannot stand well on the inspector general's reports. And as Brewster was about to marry the commanding officer's daughter, it was well to give him the benefit of the doubt of his entire sanity when he had been under the influence of what had been a real, if short-lived, passion for Felipa. They were all discussing the feasibility of getting up an impromptu picnic to the foot-hills. "Miss McLane will go, I suppose?" asked Felipa. Brewster answered that she would, of course. He was rather annoyingly proprietary and sure of her. "But you have no Jill," she said, smiling at Ellton. His own smile was very strained, but she did not see that, nor the shade of trouble in his nice blue eyes. There fell a moment's pause. And it was broken by the sound of clashing as of many cymbals, the clatter of hoofs, the rattle of bouncing wheels, and around the corner of the line there came tearing a wagon loaded with milk tins. A wild-eyed man, hatless, with his hair on end, lashed his ponies furiously and drew up all of a heap, in front of the commanding officer's quarters. Landor and his lieutenant jumped up and ran down the walk. "What's all this, Dutchy?" they asked. Dutchy was a little German, who kept a milk ranch some seven miles from the post. "Apachees, Apachees," he squealed, gasping for breath. "Where?" the commandant asked. "I see dem pass by my ranch. Dey weel run off all my stock, seexty of dem, a hundred mebee. I come queek to tell you." "You came quick all right enough," said Landor, looking at the lathered broncos. But Major McLane was inquiring, and the result of his inquiries was that two troops were hurried in hot pursuit. The post was tremendously excited. As the cavalry trotted off up the slope toward the foot-hills, the men left behind went to the back of the post and watched, women looked through field-glasses, from the upper windows, children balanced upon the fences of the back yards, and Chinese cooks scrambled to the top of chicken coops and woodsheds, shading their eyes with their hands and peering in the direction of the gap. Dogs barked and hens cackled and women called back and forth. Down at the sutler's store the German was being comforted with beer at a dollar a bottle. In the storm-cleared atmosphere the troops could be seen until they turned into the gap, and shortly thereafter they reappeared, coming back at a trot. The milk ranch and the stock were unhurt, and there were not even any Indian signs. It was simply another example, on the milkman's part, of the perfection to which the imagination of the frontier settler could be cultivated. "I see him, I see him all the same," he protested, with tears and evident conviction. "I guess not," said Landor, tolerantly, as he turned his horse over to his orderly; "but, anyway," he added to Ellton, "we had a picnic--of a sort." And before the next morning the picnic that kept the southwest interested for five years had begun. Victorio and two hundred hostiles had left the Mescalero Agency for good and all, killing, burning, torturing, and destroying as they went, and troops from all the garrisons were sent out post haste. At noon Landor got his orders. He was to leave at four o'clock, and when he told Felipa she planned for dinner at three, with her usual manner of making all things as pleasant as possible, and indulging in no vain and profitless regrets. "We may as well have Mr. Brewster and Nellie McLane, too," she decided, and went off in search of them, bareheaded and dancing with excitement. She dearly loved rumors of war. The prospect of a scout was always inspiriting to her. Ellton messed with them regularly, but he was not to go out, because he was acting adjutant. To his intense disgust and considerable mortification--for he was young and very enthusiastic and burdened with ideals--he was obliged to appear spick and span in irreproachable undress, beside his superiors in their campaign clothes. "They're out from Apache, two troops under Kimball and Dutton; Morris has a band of scouts, Bayard has sent two troops, Wingate one. Oh! it's going to be grim-visaged war and all that, this time, sure," Brewster prophesied. Ellton could not eat. He bewailed his hard fate unceasingly. "Shut up," said Brewster, with malicious glee. "They also serve who only stand and wait, you know," he chuckled. "You can serve your admiring and grateful country quite as well in the adjutant's office as summering on the verdant heights of the Mogollons." Ellton retaliated with more spirit. "Or guarding a water hole on the border for two or three months, and that's quite as likely to be your fate." "True, too," Brewster admitted perforce. "I've been talking to a fellow down at the Q. M. corral," Landor said, "Englishman named Cairness,--Charley Cairness. He's going as a scout. He can't resist war's alarms. He used to be in my troop a few years ago, and he was a first-rate soldier--knew his place a good deal better than if he had been born to it, which he very obviously wasn't." "Squaw-man, isn't he?" Brewster asked. Landor shrugged his shoulder, but Felipa would not have it so. "You know he is not, Jack," she said a little petulantly, which was noticeably unwonted on her part. "I don't know anything whatever about it," he answered; "that is none of my affair. I should be surprised if he were, and I must say I am inclined to think he is not." "I know he is not," she said decisively. "I beg pardon," said Brewster, pointedly, accentuating the slight awkwardness. But Landor was not aware that there was any. "Cairness is a very decent sort of a fellow," he said good-humoredly. "And, personally, I am indebted to him for having saved Mrs. Landor's life up Black River way." Ellton filled in the pause that threatened, with a return to the dominant topic. "This not having any pack-train," he opined, "is the very deuce and all. The only transportation the Q. M. can give you is a six-mule team, isn't it?" "Yes; but it happens to be enough for the next few weeks. We are going to camp around San Tomaso to afford the settlers protection. We can't follow any trails, those are our orders, so the pack-train doesn't matter anyway. By that time they will have scared up one." As they came out from dinner the orderlies had the horses at the door. Landor gave his wife parting instructions the while Brewster took an ostentatiously affectionate farewell of Miss McLane, who was herself neither so affectionate nor so sorrowful as she might have been expected to be. The adjutant watched them, furtively and unhappily. Felipa herself was not as unmoved as usual. When Landor had trotted off, and she and the girl were left alone, she went into the house and came back with a pair of field-glasses. Through them she could see her husband riding at the head of the column, along the road, and another figure beside him, mounted on a bony little pinto bronco. So he was near her again. She had not seen him in many months, but she had felt that he must be always, as he had been through those days in the fastnesses of the Sierra Blanca, following her afar off, yet near enough to warn her, if need arose. She was too superstitious to watch him out of sight, and she turned back into the house, followed by Miss McLane, just as stable call sounded, and the white-clad soldiers tramped off to the corrals. IX Under the midnight sky, misty pale and dusted with glittering stars, the little shelter tents of Landor's command shone in white rows. The campfires were dying; the herd, under guard, was turned out half a mile or more away on a low mesa, where there was scant grazing; and the men, come that afternoon into camp, were sleeping heavily, after a march of some forty miles,--all save the sentry, who marched up and down, glancing from time to time at the moving shadows of the herd, or taking a sight along his carbine at some lank coyote scudding across the open. But presently he saw, coming from down the road, two larger bodies, which showed themselves soon, in the light of the stars against the sands, to be a pair of horsemen and evidently no Apaches. He watched them. They rode straight up to the camp and answered his challenge. They wished, they said, to speak to the officer in command. The sentry was of the opinion that it was an unseemly hour to arouse a man who had marched all day, but it was not for him to argue. He walked deliberately, very deliberately indeed, that the citizens might be impressed, over to Landor's tent and awoke him. "There's two citizens here, sir, asking to see you, sir." His tone plainly disclaimed any part in the affair. Landor came out, putting on his blouse, and went over to the horsemen. One of them dismounted and raised his hat. "My name, sir, is Foster." Landor expressed pleasure, without loss of words. "I represent, sir, the citizens of San Tomaso." "Yes?" said Landor. He knew the citizens of the district, and attached no particular sacredness to the person of their envoy. "They have expressed the desire that I should convey to you, Colonel--" "I am Captain--Captain Landor." "Captain Landor," he corrected urbanely, "pleased to meet you, sir. They have expressed the desire that I should convey to you, sir, their wish to accompany you in the search for hostile Apaches." That was evidently how it was to go into the papers. The officer knew it well enough, but he explained with due solemnity that he was acting under instructions, and was not to follow Indians into the hills. "I am only to camp here to protect the citizens of the valley against possible raids." The civilian protested. "But there is a big company of us, sir, thirty or thirty-five, who can put you on the trail of a large band." Landor explained again, with greater detail, vainly trying to impress the nature of a military order on the civilian brain. "It would not do for me to disobey my instructions. And besides there are several officers who are to follow trails, out with larger commands. I have no pack-train, and I can't." It did not seem to strike the representative of the citizens of San Tomaso that that was much of an argument. He continued to urge. "Of course," said the officer, "I understand that the hostiles are not in the immediate vicinity?" "Well, not in the immediate vicinity," he admitted. "No; but they passed along the foot-hills, and stole some stock, an' killed three men no later than this evening." "Say we were to get off at sun-up, then," objected Landor, "they would even in that way have twelve hours' start of us." "Yes, sir. But they ain't likely to travel fast. They'll think themselves safe enough up there in the mountains. We could easy overtake them, being as we wouldn't be hampered with drove stock. They stole about fifty head, an' we could most likely get it back if we started at once. It is the wish of the citizens of San Tomaso, ain't it?" He turned to the man who had remained mounted, and who had not opened his mouth. The man nodded. "I couldn't follow more than two days," Landor expostulated hopelessly. "As I tell you, I've no pack-train. The men would have to carry their rations in their saddle pockets." Foster hastened to assure him that two days would easily do it. "We know the country round here, Colonel, know it better than the hostiles themselves; and a big party of us volunteers to put you on the trail and bring you to them. You can't hardly refuse, seein' as you say you are here to protect us, and this is the protection we ask, to get back the stock we've lost." Landor stood considering and pulling at his mustache, as his way was. Then he turned on his heel and went back to the tent for Brewster. He explained the matter to him. "I tell Mr. Foster," he said, "just what risk I would take if I acted contrary to orders, but the force of my argument doesn't seem to strike him. If any harm were to come to the citizens around here, I'd be responsible." "You won't, I don't guess, if it was the citizens' own wish," insisted the indomitable one. "You wouldn't be gone more than two days at the outside. And a big party of us will go with you." "How many did you say?" he wanted to know, having the laudable intention of committing the man before Brewster. And Foster answered him that there would be thirty or forty. Was he quite certain that the trail was of hostiles, and not of cow-boys or of other troops? "Certain, dead sure. It's a band of Apaches that went across the river. Why, half a dozen seen them." Landor consulted with his lieutenant. "Very well," he said in the end, "I'll go. I take serious risks, but I understand it to be the wish of the citizens hereabouts." Their envoy assured him that it most certainly was, and became profuse in acknowledgments; so that Landor shut him off. He had come many miles that day and must be on the march again at dawn, and wanted what sleep he could get. "When and where will you meet me?" he demanded with the curtness of the military, so offensive to the undisciplined. "At eight o'clock, sir," he answered resentfully, "in front of the dry-goods store on the main street. If that is convenient for your men." "That will do," said Landor. "See there is no delay," and he wheeled about and went back to his tent with Brewster. The citizens rode off. "They won't be ready. No use making haste, Captain," Cairness suggested at daybreak, as Landor hurried the breakfast and saddling. They knew that the chances were ten to one that it would be a wild goose chase, and the captain already repented him. But at seven the men were mounted, with two days' rations in their saddle bags, and trotting across the flat in the fragrance of the yet unheated day, to the settlement of San Tomaso. Two aimless citizens lounged on their horses, rapt in argument and the heavy labor of chewing--so much so that they barely took notice of the troops. Landor rode up to them and made inquiries for Foster. "Foster?" one drawled, "he'll be along presently, I reckon." Landor went back to his command and waited. Another man rode up and joined the two. Ten minutes passed, and the troops grew restless. Landor went forward again. "Can you, gentlemen, tell me," he demanded a trifle wrathfully, "where I can find Mr. Foster?" They reckoned, after deliberation, that he might be in Bob's saloon. Which might Bob's saloon be? The man pointed, hooking his thumb over his shoulder, and went on with his conversation and his quid. A dozen or more loafers, chiefly Mexicans, had congregated in front of the dry-goods store. Landor rode over to Bob's place, and giving his horse to the trumpeter, strode in. There were eight men around the bar, all in campaign outfit, and all in various stages of intoxication. Foster was effusive. He was glad to see the general. General Landor, these were the gentlemen who had volunteered to assist Uncle Sam. He presented them singly, and invited Landor to drink. The refusal was both curt and ungracious. "If we are to overtake the hostiles, we have got to start at once," he suggested. But it was full two hours, in the end, before they did start. Flasks had to be replenished, farewell drinks taken, wives and families parted from, the last behests made, of those going upon an errand of death. Citizens burning with ardor to protect their hearths and stock were routed out of saloons and dance halls, only to slip away again upon one pretext or another. The sun was now high and blazing down into the one street of the mud settlement. The enlisted men were angry that Landor, fearing they, too, would be led astray into dives, would not dismount them. Sitting still in the full sun, when even in the shade the mercury is many degrees above the hundreds, is not calculated to improve the disposition. But at length the volunteers were herded together. The thirty-five promised had dwindled to eight, and Foster was not of the number. He came lurching up at the last moment to explain that he would be unable to go. His wife was in hysterics, he said. So the troops and the volunteers rode away without him, and a few miles off, among the foot-hills, struck the trail. Here Landor, giving ear to the advice of the citizens, found himself whirled around in a very torrent of conflicting opinions. No two agreed. The liquor had made them ugly. He dismounted the command for rest, and waited, filled with great wrath. "I ought to have known better than to come at all," he told Brewster, as they stood beside their horses; "it is always like this." Brewster nodded. He had seen the same thing himself. The territorial citizen was a known quantity to both of them. Cairness came up. "Are we going into camp, Captain?" he wanted to know, "or are those fellows going to follow the trail?" Landor took his arm from the saddle and stood upright, determinedly. "We are going to stop this mob business, that's what we are going to do," he said, and he went forward and joined in a discussion that was upon the verge of six-shooters. He set forth in measured tones, and words that reverberated with the restrained indignation behind them, that he had come upon the assurance that he was to strike Indians, that his men had but two days' rations in their saddle bags, and that he was acting upon his own responsibility, practically in disobedience of orders. If the Indians were to be hit, it must be done in a hurry, and he must get back to the settlements. He held up his hands to check a flood of protests and explanations. "There has got to be a head to this," his drill-trained voice rang out, "and I propose to be that head. My orders have got to be obeyed." There was a murmur. They had elected a captain of their own; they were Indian fighters of experience themselves. Landor suggested his own experience of close on two decades, and further that he was going to command the whole outfit, or going to go back and drop the thing right there. They assented to the first alternative, with exceedingly bad grace, and with worse grace took the place of advance guard he detailed them to, four hundred yards ahead. "You know the country. You are my guides, and you say you are going to lead me to the Indians. Now do it." There was nothing conciliating in his speech, whatever, and he sat on his horse, pointing them to their positions with arm outstretched, and the frown of an offended Jove. When they had taken it, grumbling, the column moved. "It's only a small trail, anyway," Cairness informed them as a result of a minute examination he had made, walking round and leading his bronco, bending double over the signs, "just some raiding party of twelve or fifteen bucks. Shot out from the main body and ran into the settlements to steal stock probably." Landor agreed with him, "I told the citizens so, but they knew better." "They are travelling rapidly, of course. We shan't overtake them." "I dare say not," said Landor, his face growing black again; "they'll cover fifty or seventy-five miles a day. We can't do that, by a good deal. We couldn't even if those damned civilians would keep their distance ahead." But this the civilians were very plainly not minded to do. They dropped back, now to cinch up, now to take a drink from the flasks, now to argue, once for one of their number to recover from an attack of heart disease. Landor swore. He would keep them their proper distance ahead, if he had to halt at all their halts from now to sunset. They were high among the mountains, and here and there in the shadows of the rocks and pines were patches of snow, left even yet from the winter. By all the signs the trail was already more than half a day old. Landor's fear of leaving the settlements unguarded grew. "We will get up among these mountains and be delayed, and we are in no condition whatever to travel, anyway," he told Brewster, as the advance guard halted again, and Landor, with curses in his heart but a civil tongue withal, trotted up to them. They were fighting. "Captain, what do you say to following this trail?" they clamored. Landor explained to them that he was not doing the thinking, that it was their campaign. "You are my guides. You know the country, and I don't." He reminded them again that they had promised to lead him to Indians, and that he was ready to be led. If they thought the hostiles were to be reached by following the trail, he would follow it. Some of them did think so. Some of them thought on the contrary, that it would be surer to make a detour, leaving the trail. They knew the spot, the bed of an ancient mountain lake, where the hostiles were sure to camp. Landor sat and heard them out, silence on his lips and wrath upon his brow. "We will go wherever you say," he reiterated immovably. The captain they had elected for themselves was for following; the seven others agreed upon a detour. They had ideas of their own concerning obedience to superiors. They left the trail in spite of the vehement assurance of their captain that they would without doubt get all manner of profanity knocked out of them, and hasten their inevitable journey to Gehenna if they went into the timber. The advance guard advanced less and less. Half drunk and ever drinking, in quaking fear of the timber, it kept falling back. "I'll be hanged," opined Landor, as his own horse bit at the croup of a citizen's horse, eliciting a kick and a squeal, "I'll be hanged if you shall demoralize my column like this. You'll keep ahead if I have to halt here all night to make you. I've given you the post of honor. If I put my men in the van, I'd choose the best ones, and they'd be flattered, too. You wouldn't catch them skulking back on the command." They spurred forward unwillingly, thus urged. At sundown they came to the old lake bed and camped there. According to the citizens it was a regular Indian camping-place for the hostiles, since the days of Cochise. The horses were tied to a ground line, to avoid the embarrassment of a loose herd, in the event of an engagement. Pickets were sent out to give warning at the approach of Indians. It was winter here in the mountains, while it was hot summer in the alkali flats below, but the men were forbidden fires. And it was a fierce grievance to the citizens, as was also that they were not allowed to go out to shoot wild turkeys. They remonstrated sulkily. Landor's patience was worn out. "It's a confoundedly curious thing," he told them, "for men who really want to find Indians, to go shooting and building fires." And he sent them to rest upon their arms and upon the cold, damp ground. But there was no night alarm, and at daybreak it began to be apparent to the troops that they had been led directly away from all chance of one. They made fires, ate their breakfast, resaddled, and took their way back to the settlements, doubling on their own trail. They came upon signs of a yet larger band, and it was more probable than ever that the valley had been in danger. Landor cursed the malpais and the men who were leading him over it. "How much more of this rough country is there going to be?" he demanded, as they stopped to shoe two horses that had come unshod on the sharp rocks. "Colonel," they made answer with much dignity, "we are more anxious than you to get back to our defenceless women and children." The defenceless women and children were safe, however: a captain, ranking Landor, reported to that effect when he met them some dozen miles outside San Tomaso. He reported further that he had a pack-train for Landor and orders to absorb his troop. Landor protested at having to retrace their trail at once. His men and his stock were in no state to travel. The men were footsore and blistered. They had led their horses, for the most part, up and down rough hills for two days. But the trail was too hot and too large to be abandoned. They unsaddled, and partaking together of coffee and bacon and biscuits, mounted and went off once more. Their bones ached, and the feet of many of them bled; but the citizens had gone their way to their homes in the valley, and they felt that, on the whole, they had reason to be glad. X It was tea time at the Circle K Ranch. But no one was enjoying the hour of rest. Kirby sat on the couch and abstractedly ate slice after slice of thin bread and butter, without speaking. Mrs. Kirby made shift to darn the bunch of stockings beside her, but her whole attention was strained to listening. The children did not understand, though they felt the general uneasiness, and whispered together as they looked at the pictures in the illustrated paper, months old. Kirby's assistants, the two young Englishmen, had not come back when they were due. One had gone to the mail station in the valley, three days before, and he should have returned at noon, at the furthest limit. By three o'clock, the other had jumped on a horse and gone out to look for him. And now, one was lying in the road five miles from the ranch, with an arrow through his eye. The other, a mile nearer home, was propped against a pine trunk, so that the ragged hole beneath his shoulder blade, where a barb had been torn out, did not show. His wide eyes, upon the lid of one of which the blood from a head wound had clotted, looked up sightless through the branches, at a patch of blue sky. Their end had been a common enough one, and had come to them both without a moment of warning. At noon that day a cow-boy had ridden from the hills with a rumor that Victorio's people were about. But Kirby had kept it from his wife. It might not be true. And even if it were, the danger was really small. With the hands and the two Englishmen, the quadrangle of log cabins, well stocked with food and ammunition, could withstand any attack. It had been built and planned to that end. The silence, cut by the nervous whispering of the children, became unendurable. "Are you very uneasy about them?" Mrs. Kirby asked. "It's not so much that," he evaded, getting up to put a lump of sugar he did not need into his tea, "it's not so much that as it is the everlasting strain of fighting the hands. It would be easier to meet an open rebellion than it is to battle against their sullen ugliness." Mrs. Kirby could understand that very well. She had the same thing to oppose day after day with the woman, and of late it had been more marked. Out in the corral the cow-boy was holding forth. The men had stopped work on the instant that Kirby had turned his back. If Kirby could loll on soft cushions and drink tea, as free-born Americans and free-souled Irishmen they might do the same. "It's all right," said the cow-boy, with a running accompaniment of profanity, as he cleaned his brutal Mexican bit. "Johnny Bull don't have to believe in it if he don't like. But all the same, I seen a feller over here to the 3 C Range, and he told me he seen the military camped over to San Tomaso a week ago, and that there was a lot of stock, hundred head or so, run off from the settlements. You see, them Apaches is making for the southern Chiricahuas over in Sonora to join the Mexican Apaches, and they're going to come this here way. You see!" and he rubbed at the rust vigorously with a piece of soft rawhide. The woman joined her voice. She had a meat cleaver in her hand, and there was blood on her apron where she had wiped the roast she was now leaving to burn in the stove. "Like as not we'll all be massacred. I told Bill to get off this place two weeks ago, and he's such an infernal loafer he couldn't make up his mind to move hisself." She flourished her cleaver toward the big Texan, her husband, who balanced on the tongue of a wagon, his hands in his pockets, smiling ruefully and apologetically, and chewing with an ardor he never put to any other work. "We been here four years now," she went on raspingly, "and if you all feel like staying here to be treated like slaves by these John Bulls, you can do it. But you bet I know when I've got enough. To-morrow I quits." Her jaws snapped shut, and she stood glaring at them defiantly. The words of a woman in a community where women are few carry almost the weight of inspiration. Be she never so hideous or so vile, she is in some measure a Deborah, and the more yet, if she be moved to the lust and love of revenge of the prophetess who sang in the frenzy of blood drunkenness, "Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber, the Kenite, be. Blessed shall she be above women in the tent." The Declaration of Independence roused the screeching eagle of freedom in the breasts of all the white men. With the Mexicans it was a slightly different sentiment. At best they could never be relied upon for steady service. A couple of months' pay in their pockets, and they must rest them for at least six. It is always to be taken into consideration when they are hired. They had been paid only the day before. And, moreover, the Greaser follows the Gringo's lead easily--to his undoing. The murmurs in the corral rose louder. It was not that Kirby and his partners underpaid, underfed, or overworked the American citizens. It was that their language was decent and moderate; and the lash of the slave driver would have stung less than the sight of the black coats and the seven o'clock dinner. In the midst of white savages and red, the four clung to the forms of civilization with that dogged persistence in the unessential, that worship of the memory of a forsaken home, for which the Englishman, time and again, lays down his life without hesitation. That was the grievance. While Kirby went through the oppressive rite of afternoon tea within the slant-roofed log cabin, and tried to hide from his wife the fear which grew as the shadows lengthened across the clearing out in the corral, the men had reached open mutiny. The smouldering sullenness had at last burst into flaming defiance, blown by the gale of the woman's wrath. After he had had his tea Kirby got up, went out to the corral, and called to one of the men, who hesitated for a moment, then slouched over, kicking with his heavy booted toe as he passed at the hocks of a horse in one of the stalls. Kirby saw him do it, but he checked his wrath. He had learned to put up with many things. "Don't you think," he suggested, "that it might be a good idea for you and some other man to ride down the road a bit--" The man interrupted, "I ain't going daown the road, nor anywheres else before supper--nor after supper neither, if I don't feel like it." He was bold enough in speech, but his eyes dropped before Kirby's indignant ones. It was a fatal want of tact perhaps, characteristic of the race, but then the characteristic is so fine. "You will do whatever I tell you to do," the voice was low and strained, but not wavering. It reached the group by the harness-room door. With one accord they strode forward to the support of their somewhat browbeaten brother. What they would do was exactly as they pleased, they told the tyrant. They shook their fists in his face. It was all in the brutal speech of the frontier, mingled with the liquid ripple of argot Spanish, and its vicious, musical oaths. The deep voice of the woman carried above everything, less decent than the men. It was a storm of injury. Kirby was without fear, but he was also without redress. He turned from them, his face contracted with the pain of his impotence, and walked back to the house. "I could order them off the ranch to-night," he told his wife, as he dropped on a chair, and taking up the hearth brush made a feint of sweeping two or three cinders from the floor; "but it's ten to one they wouldn't go and it would weaken my authority--not that I have any, to be sure--and besides," he flung down the brush desperately and turned to her, "I didn't want to tell you before, but there is a pretty straight rumor that Victorio's band, or a part of it, is in these hills. We may need the men at any time." Neither spoke of the two who should have been back hours ago. The night closed slowly down. The Texan woman went back to the kitchen and finished cooking the supper for the hands--a charred sort of Saturnalian feast. "She can git her own dinner if she wants to," she proclaimed, and was answered by a chorus of approval. While the men sat at the long table, shovelling in with knife and three-pronged fork the food of the master their pride forbade them to serve, a horse came at a run, up to the quadrangle, and a cow-boy rushed into the open doorway. "Apaches!" he gasped, clutching at the lintel, wild-eyed, "Apaches!" They sprang up, with a clatter of dishes and overturning of benches and a simultaneous cry of "Whereabouts?" He had seen a large band heading for the ranch, and had found a dead white man on the north road, he said, and he gesticulated madly, his voice choked with terror. Had it been all arranged, planned, and rehearsed for months beforehand, the action could not have been more united. They crowded past him out of the door and ran for the corrals, and each dragged a horse or a mule from the stalls, flinging on a halter or rope or bridle, whatever came to hand, from the walls of the harness room. But there was more stock than was needed. "Turn the rest loose," cried the woman, and set the example herself. Kirby, hurrying from the house to learn the cause of the new uproar, was all but knocked down and trodden under the hoofs of all his stock, driven from the enclosure with cracking of whips and with stones. Then a dozen ridden horses crowded over the dropped bars, the woman in the lead astride, as were the men. "What is this?" he shouted, grabbing at a halter-shank and clinging to it until a knife slashed down on his wrist. "Apaches on the north road," they called back; and the woman screamed above it all a devilish farewell, "Better have 'em to dinner in claw-hammer coats." It was a sheer waste of good ammunition, and it might serve as a signal to the Indians as well; Kirby knew it, and yet he emptied his six-shooter into the deep shadows of the trees where they had vanished, toward the south. Then he ran into the corral, and, snatching up a lantern from the harness room, looked around. It was empty. There was only a pack-burro wandering loose and nosing at the grains in the mangers. He turned and went back to the cabin, where his wife stood at the door, with the children clinging to her. From down the north road there came a blood-freezing yell, and a shot, reverberating, rattling from hill to hill, muffling into silence among the crowding pines. As he shut the door and bolted it with the great iron rods, there tore into the clearing a score of vague, savage figures. It looked, when he saw it for an instant, as he put up the wooden blinds, like some phantom dance of the devils of the mountains, so silent they were, with their unshod ponies, so quick moving. And then a short silence was broken by cries and shots, the pinge of bullets, and the whizz of arrows. There were two rooms to the cabin where they were, the big sitting room and the small bedchamber beyond. Kirby went into the bedroom and came out with two rifles and a revolver. He put the revolver into his wife's hands. "I'll do my best, you know, dear. But if I'm done for, if there is no hope for you and the children, use it," he said. And added, "You understand?" Of a truth she understood only too well, that death with a bullet through the brain could be a tender mercy. "Not until there is no hope," he impressed, as he put the barrel of his rifle through a knot hole and fired at random. She reloaded for him, and fired from time to time herself, and he moved from the little round hole in the wall to one in the window blind, in the feeble, the faithless hope that the Indians might perhaps be deceived, might fancy that there was more than the one forsaken man fighting with unavailing courage for the quiet woman who stayed close by his side, and for the two children, huddled whimpering in one corner, their little trembling arms clasped round each other's necks. Twenty, yes ten, of those who, as the sound of the firing reached their ears, were making off at a run down the south road for the settlement in the valley, could have saved the fair-haired children and the young mother, who helped in the fruitless fight without a plaint of fear. Ten men could have done it, could have done it easily; but not one man. And Kirby knew it now, as the light of flames began to show through the chinks of the logs, and the weight of heavy bodies thudded against the door. It was a strong door, built of great thick boards and barred with iron, but it must surely cede before fire and the blows. It wrenched on its huge hinges. Kirby set down his gun and turned to his wife, holding out his arms. She went to him and he kissed her on the forehead and the lips, in farewell. "Good-by," he said; "now take the children in there." No need to tell her that her courage must not falter at that last moment, which would soon come. He knew it, as he looked straight into those steadfast, loving eyes. She clung to his hand and stooped and kissed it, too; then she went to the children and took them, quivering and crying, into the other room, and closed the dividing door. Kirby, with a revolver in each hand, placed himself before it. It would avail nothing. But a man must needs fight to the end. And the end was now. There was a stronger blow at the door, as of a log used by way of a ram. It gave, swayed, and fell crashing in, and the big room swarmed with screaming fiends, their eyes gleaming wildly in the light of the burning hay and the branches piled against the cabin, as they waved their arms over their feathered heads. The one man at bay whirled round twice, with a bullet in his heart and an arrow through his neck. "Now!" he made one fierce effort to cry, as he staggered again and dropped on his face, to be trampled under forty feet. It was the signal to the woman in that other room behind the locked door, and above all the demoniacal sounds it reached her. Only an instant she hesitated, until that door, too, began to give. Then a cold muzzle of steel found, in the darkness, two little struggling, dodging faces--and left them marred. And once again the trigger was unflinchingly pulled, as greedy arms reached out to catch the white, woman's figure that staggered and fell. * * * * * * * * Cairness and Landor and a detachment of troops that had ridden hard all through the night, following an appalling trail, but coming too late after all, found them so in the early dawn. There was a mutilated thing that had once been a man's body on the floor in the half-burned log cabin. And in another room lay two children, whose smooth, baby foreheads were marked, each with a round violet-edged hole. Beside them was their mother, with her face turned to the rough boards--mercifully. For there had been no time to choose the placing of that last shot, and it had disfigured cruelly as it did its certain work. XI It was not quite an all-summer campaign. The United States government drove the hostiles over the border into the provinces of the Mexican government, which understood the problem rather better than ourselves, and hunted the Apache, as we the coyote, with a bounty upon his scalp. Thereafter some of the troops sat down at the water-holes along the border to watch, and to write back pathetic requests for all the delicacies supplied by the commissariat, from anchovy paste and caviare to tinned mushrooms and cove oysters. A man may live upon bacon and beans and camp bread, or upon even less, when his duty to his country demands, but it is not in the Articles of War that he should continue to do so any longer than lack of transportation compels. Others of the troops were ordered in, and among them was Landor's. It had gone out for a twenty days' scout, and had been in the field two months. It was ragged and all but barefoot, and its pack-train was in a pitiable way. Weeks of storm in the Mogollons and days of quivering heat on the plains had brought its clothing and blankets to the last stages. Moreover, Landor was very ill. In the Mogollons he had gathered and pressed specimens of the gorgeous wild flowers that turn the plateaux into a million-hued Eden, and one day there had lurked among the blossoms a sprig of poison weed, with results which were threatening to be serious. He rode at the head of his column, however, as it made for home by way of the Aravaypa Cañon. Were the cañon of the Aravaypa in any other place than Arizona, which, as the intelligent public knows, is all one wide expanse of dry and thirsty country, a parched place in the wilderness, a salt land, and not inhabited; were it in any other place, it would be set forth in railway folders, and there would be camping privileges and a hotel, and stages would make regular trips to it, and one would come upon groups of excursionists on burros, or lunching among its boulders. Already it has been in a small way discovered, and is on the road to being vulgarized by the camera. The lover of Nature, he who loves the soul as well as the face of her, receives when he sees a photograph of a fine bit of scenery he had felt in a way his own property until then, something the blow that the lover of a woman does when he learns that other men than he have known her caresses. But in the days of Victorio and his predecessors and successors, Aravaypa Cañon was a fastness. Men went in to hunt for gold, and sometimes they came out alive, and sometimes they did not. Occasionally Apaches met their end there as well. There was one who had done so now. The troops looking up at him, rejoiced. He was crucified upon an improvised cross of unbarked pine branches, high up at the top of a sheer peak of rock. He stood out black and strange against the whitish blue of the sky. His head was dropped upon his fleshless breast, and there was a vulture perched upon it, prying its hooked bill around in the eye sockets. Two more, gorged and heavy, balanced half asleep upon points of stone. It was all a most charming commentary upon the symbol and practice of Christianity, in a Christian land, and the results thereof as regarded the heathen of that land--if one happened to see it in that way. But the men did not. It was hardly to be expected that they should, both because the abstract and the ethical are foreign to the major part of mankind, in any case; and also because, with this particular small group of mankind, there was too fresh a memory of a dead woman lying by the bodies of her two children in a smouldering log cabin among the mountains and the pines. They rode on, along the trail, at a walk and by file, and directly they came upon the other side of the question. Landor's horse stopped, with its forefeet planted, and a snort of fright. Landor had been bent far back, looking up at a shaft of rock that rose straight from the bottom and pierced the heavens hundreds of feet above, and he was very nearly unseated. But he caught himself and held up his hand as a signal to halt. There were two bodies lying across the trail in front of him. He dismounted, and throwing his reins to the trumpeter went forward to investigate. It was not a pleasant task. The men had been dead some time and their clothing was beginning to fall away in shreds. Some of their outfit was scattered about, and he could guess from it that they had been prospectors. A few feet away was the claim they had been working. Only their arms had been stolen, otherwise nothing appeared to be missing. There was even in the pockets considerable coin, in gold and silver, which Landor found, when he took a long knife from his saddle bags, and standing as far off as might be, slit the cloth open. The knife was one he had brought from home, seizing it from the kitchen table at the last minute. It was very sharp and had been Felipa's treasured bread cutter. It came in very well just now, chiefly because of its length. He called the first sergeant to his aid. Brewster was in the rear of the command, and, as had occurred with increasing frequency in the last two months, showed no desire to be of any more use than necessary. As for Cairness, who had been more of a lieutenant to Landor than the officer himself, he had left the command two days before and gone back to the San Carlos reservation. So the captain and the first sergeant took up the money and the loose papers, together with a couple of rings from the hands, and wrapping them in a poncho, carried them off to serve as possible means of identification, for it had got beyond all question of features. Then two men moved the bodies from the trail, with long sticks, and covered them with a pile of stones. Landor found a piece of board by the mouth of the claim and drew on it, with an end of charred stick, a skull and cross bones with a bow and arrow, and stood it up among the stones, in sign to all who might chance to pass thereby that since men had here died at the hands of the Apaches, other men might yet meet a like fate. On the next day they were in the flat, nearing the post. There was a dust storm. Earlier in the morning the air had grown suddenly more dry, more close and lifeless than ever, suffocating, and a yellow cloud had come in the western sky. Then a hot wind began to blow the horses' manes and tails, to snarl through the greasewood bushes, and to snap the loose ends of the men's handkerchiefs sharply. The cloud had thinned and spread, high up in the sky, and the light had become almost that of a sullen evening. Black bits floated and whirled high overhead, and birds beat about in the gale. Gradually the gale and the dust had dropped nearer to the earth, a sand mist had gone into every pore and choked and parched. And now the tepid, thick wind was moaning across the plain, meeting no point of resistance anywhere. Landor still rode at the head of his column, but his chin was sunk down on his red silk neckerchief, his face was swollen and distorted under its thick beard, and his eyes were glazed. They stared straight ahead into the sand whirl and the sulphurous glare. He had sent Brewster on ahead some hours before. "You will want to see Miss McLane as soon as possible," he had said, "and there is no need of both of us here." Brewster had taken an escort and disappeared down the vista of white sands and scrub growth, though it was Landor himself who should have gone. He swayed now in the saddle, his thick lips hung open, and he moved in a mental cloud as dense as the one of dust that poured round him. Brewster reached the post some eighteen hours ahead of him. He reported, and saw Miss McLane; then he made himself again as other men and went down to the post trader's, with a definite aim in view, that was hardly to be guessed from his loitering walk. There were several already in the officers' room, and they talked, as a matter of course, of the campaign. "Seen the way Landor's been catching it?" they asked. And Brewster said he had not. They went on to tell him that it was all in the Tucson papers, which Brewster knew, however, quite as well as they did themselves. He had made friends among the citizen volunteers of San Tomaso on the night they had camped by the old lake bed, and they had seen that he was kept supplied with cuttings. But he pleaded entire ignorance, and the others were at considerable pains to enlighten him. It appeared that Landor was accused of cowardice, and that his name was handled with the delicate sarcasm usual with Western journalism--as fine and pointed as a Stone-age axe. Brewster poured himself a glass of beer and drank it contemplatively and was silent. Then he set it down on the bare table with a sharp little rap, suggesting determination made. It was suggestive of yet more than this, and caused them to say "Well?" with a certain eagerness. He shrugged his shoulders and changed the subject, refusing pointedly to be brought back to it, and succeeding altogether in the aim which had brought him down there. But that same night he picked two for their reputation of repeating all they knew, and took them into his own rooms and told his story to them. And he met once again with such success that when Landor rode into the post the next day at about guard-mounting, three officers, meeting him, raised their caps and passed on. It struck even through Landor's pain-blurred brain that it was odd. But the few faculties he could command still were all engaged in keeping himself in the saddle until he could reach his own house, where Ellton and Felipa were waiting to get him to his room. He went upon the sick report at once, and for three days thereafter raved of crucified women with fair hair, of children lying dead in the cañon, of the holes in his boot soles, and a missing aparejo, also of certain cursed citizens, and the bad quality of the canned butter. Then he began to come to himself and to listen to all that Felipa had to tell him of the many things she had not put in her short and labored letters. He saw that she looked more beautiful and less well than when he had left her. There was a shadow of weariness on her face that gave it a soft wistfulness which was altogether becoming. He supposed it was because she had nursed him untiringly, as she had; but it did not occur to him to thank her, because she had done only what was a wife's duty, only what he would have done for her if the case had been reversed. Toward the end of the day he began to wonder that no one had been to see him, and he spoke of it. "Mr. Ellton was here this morning," Felipa told him, "and he will be in again before retreat." But he was not satisfied. His entry into the post and the cool greeting of the three officers began to come back to him. Felipa could be untruthful with an untroubled soul and countenance to those she disliked. In her inherited code, treachery to an enemy was not only excusable, but right. But not even in order to save her husband worry could she tell him a shadow of an untruth. She did her best, which was far from good, to evade, however. The others would probably come, now that he could see them. But had they come? he insisted. The commandant had sent his orderly with a note. He raised himself from the pillows too abruptly for a very weak man. "What is the matter, Felipa?" he demanded. She told him that she did not know, and tried to coax him back to quietness. "There is something," he insisted, dropping his head down again wearily. "Perhaps there is," she admitted unwillingly. He lay thinking for a while, then had her send the striker for Ellton, who promptly, and awkwardly, replied to the anxious question as to what might be the trouble, that he was not quite sure, but perhaps it had to do with these--"these" being a small roll of newspaper clippings he took from his portfolio. Landor looked them over and gave them back contemptuously. "Well?" he said, "there's nothing new in all that. It's devilish exasperating, but it's old as Hamilcar. I made an enemy of a fellow from Tucson, reporter named Stone, over at the San Carlos Agency a few years ago. He's been waiting to roast me ever since. There must be something else." The adjutant agreed reluctantly. "I think there is. It wouldn't surprise me if some one had been talking. I can't get at it. But you must not bother about it. It will blow over." As an attempt at consolation, it failed. Landor fairly sprang into a sitting posture, with a degree of impulsiveness that was most unusual with him. His eyes glistened from the greenish circles around them. "Blow over! Good Lord! do you suppose I'll let it blow over? It's got to be sifted to the bottom. And you know that as well as I do." He lay weakly back again, and Felipa came to the edge of the bed and, sitting upon it, stroked his head with her cool hand. Ellton ventured some assistance. "I do know this much, that the C. O. got a telegram from some Eastern paper, asking if the reports of your cowardice as given in the territorial press were true." Landor asked eagerly what he had answered. "I didn't see the telegram, but it was in effect that he had no knowledge of anything of the sort, and put no faith in it." "Doesn't he, though? Then why doesn't he come around and see me when I'm lying here sick?" He was wrathful and working himself back into a fever very fast. Felipa shook her head at Ellton. "Don't get yourself excited about it, Jack dear," she soothed, and Ellton also tried to quiet him. "He will come, I dare say. And so will the others, now that you are able to see them. Brewster inquired." The captain's lips set. Ellton wondered, but held his peace. And the commandant did go to Landor's quarters within the next few hours. Which was Ellton's doings. "I don't know what has been said, Major, but something more than just what's in the papers must have gotten about. That sort of mud-slinging is too common to cause comment, even. It must be some spite work. There's no reason to suppose, surely, that after a quarter of a century of gallant service he's been and shown the white feather. He's awfully cut up, really he is. He's noticed it, of course, and it's too deuced bad, kicking a man when he's down sick and can't help himself." The major stopped abruptly in his walk to and fro and faced him. "Do you know more about it, then, than Brewster who was with him?" Ellton fairly leaped in the air. "Brewster! So it's Brewster! The in--" Then he recollected that Brewster was going to be the major's son-in-law, and he stopped short. "No wonder he keeps away from there," he simmered down. "He told me it was because he and Landor had had some trouble in the field, and weren't on the best of terms." "I say, Major, if he's got any charges to prefer why doesn't he put them on paper and send them in to you, or else shut up his head?" He was losing his temper again. The major resumed his walk and did not answer. Ellton went on, lapsing into the judicial. "In the meantime, anyway, a man's innocent until he's proven guilty. I say, do go round and see him. The others will follow your lead. He's awfully cut up and worried, and he's sick, you know." So that evening when all the garrison was upon its front porches and the sidewalk, the major and the lieutenant went down the line to Landor's quarters. And their example was followed. But some hung back, and constraint was in the air. Because of which Landor, as soon as he was up, went in search of the commanding officer, and found him in the adjutant's office, and the adjutant with him. He demanded an explanation. "If any one has been saying anything about me, I want to know it. I want to face him. It can't be that newspaper rot. We are all too used to it." "It seems, Landor," the major said, "to be rather that which is left unsaid." Landor asked what he meant by that. "I'm sick of all this speaking in riddles," he said. The major told him a little reluctantly. "Well, it's this, then: Brewster will not, or cannot, defend your conduct in the matter of the San Tomaso volunteers." Landor sat speechless for a moment. Then he jumped up, knocking over a pile of registers. He seized a bone ruler, much stained with official inks, red and blue, and slapped it on the palm of his hand for emphasis. "I'll demand a court of inquiry into my conduct. This shan't drop, not until the strongest possible light has been turned on it. Why doesn't Brewster prefer charges? Either my conduct was such that he can defend it openly, or else it was such as to call for a court-martial, and to justify him in preferring charges. Certainly nothing can justify him in smirching me with damning silence. That is the part neither of an officer nor of a man." He kicked one of the registers out of the way, and it flapped across the floor and lay with its leaves crumpled under the fair leather covers. "By George! McLane, it strikes me as devilish odd that you should all give ear to the insinuations of a shave-tail like Brewster, against an old hand like myself. Be that as it may, however, until this thing has been cleared up, I shall thank all of you to continue in your attitude of suspicion, and not in any way draw on your charity by extending it to me. I shall demand a court of inquiry." He laid the ruler back on the desk. "I report for duty, sir," he added officially. It was the beginning of a self-imposed Coventry. He sent in a demand for a court of inquiry, and Brewster, with much show of reluctance and leniency, preferred charges. The post talked it over unceasingly, and commented on Landor's attitude. "He stalks around in defiant dignity and makes everybody uncomfortable," they said. "Everybody ought to be uncomfortable," Ellton told them; "everybody who believed the first insinuation he heard ought to be confoundedly uncomfortable." He resigned from the acting adjutancy and returned to his troop duties, that Landor, who had relieved Brewster of most of the routine duties, and who was still fit for the sick list himself, might not be overburdened. So the demand and the charges lay before the department commander, and there was a lull, during which Landor came upon further trouble, and worse. He undertook the examination of the papers he had found in the dead men's pockets. They had been buried in earth for two weeks. He found that it had been father and son come from the Eastern states in search of the wealth that lay in that vague and prosperous, if uneasy, region anywhere west of the Missouri. And among the papers was a letter addressed to Felipa. Landor held it in the flat of his hand and frowned, perplexed. He knew that it was Cairness's writing. More than once on this last scout he had noticed its peculiarities. They were unmistakable. Why was Cairness writing to Felipa? And why had he not used the mails? The old, never yet justified, distrusts sprang broad awake. But yet he was not the man to brood over them. He remembered immediately that Felipa had never lied to him. And she would not now. So he took the stained letter and went to find her. She was sitting in her room, sewing. Of late she had become domesticated, and she was fading under it. He had seen it already, and he saw it more plainly than ever just now. She looked up and smiled. Her smile had always been one of her greatest charms, because it was rare and very sweet. "Jack," she greeted him, "what have you done with the bread knife you took with you, dear? I have been lost without it." "I have it," he said shortly, standing beside her and holding out the letter. She took it and looked from it to him, questioningly. "What is this?" she asked. Then it was the first, at any rate. His manner softened. "It smells horribly," she exclaimed, dropping it on the floor, "it smells of hospitals--disinfectants." But she stooped and picked it up again. "It is from Cairness," said Landor, watching her narrowly. Her hand shook, and he saw it. "From Cairness?" she faltered, looking up at him with frightened eyes; "when did it come?" Her voice was as unsteady as her hands. She tore it open and began to read it there before him. He stood and watched her lips quiver and grow gray and fall helplessly open. If she had been under physical torture, she could have kept them pressed together, but not now. "Where did you--" she began; but her voice failed, and she had to begin again. "Where did you get this?" He told her, and she held it out to him. He started to take it, then pushed it away. She put down her work and rose slowly to her feet before him. She could be very regal sometimes. Brewster knew it, and Cairness guessed it; but it was the first time it had come within Landor's experience, and he was a little awed. "I wish you to read it, John," she said quietly. He hesitated still. "I don't doubt you," he told her. "You do doubt me. If you did not, it would never occur to you to deny it. You doubt me now, and you will doubt me still more if you don't read it. In justice to me you must." It was very short, but he held it a long time before he gave it back. "And do you care for him, too?" he asked, looking her straight in the eyes. It was a very calm question, put--he realized it with exasperation--as a father might have put it. She told him that she did, quite as calmly. Her manner and her tone said it was very unfortunate, that the whole episode was unfortunate, but that it was not her fault. He went over to the window and stood looking out of it, his hands clasped behind his back. Some children were playing tag around the flag-staff, and he watched a long-limbed small daughter of the frontier dodging and running, and was conscious of being glad that she touched the goal. It was characteristic of Felipa that she forgot him altogether and reread the letter, her breath coming in audible gasps. "I give this to a friend," it ran, "to be delivered into your own hands, because I must tell you that, though I should never see you again--for the life I lead is hazardous, and chance may at any time take you away forever--I shall love you always. You will not be angry with me, I know. You were not that night by the campfire, and it is not the unwaveringly good woman who resents being told she is loved, in the spirit I have said it to you. I do not ask for so much as your friendship in return, but only that you remember that my life and devotion are yours, and that, should the time ever come that you need me, you send for me. I will come. I will never say this to you again, even should I see you; but it is true, now and for all time." Landor turned away from the window and looked at her. It was in human nature that she had never seemed so beautiful before. Perhaps it was, too, because there was warmth in her face, the stress of life that was more than physical, at last. It struck him that he was coolly analytical while his wife was reading the love-letter (if that bald statement of fact could be called a love-letter) of another man, and telling him frankly that she returned the man's love. Why could not he have had love, he who had done so much for her? There was always the subconsciousness of that sacrifice. He had magnified it a little, too, and it is difficult to be altogether lovable when one's mental attitude is "see what a good boy am I." But he had never reflected upon that. He went on telling himself what--in all justice to him--he had never thrown up to her, that his life had been one long devotion to her; rather as a principle than as a personality, to be sure, but then-- And yet she loved the fellow whom she had not known twenty-four hours in all--a private, a government scout, unnoticeably below her in station. In station, to be sure; but not in birth, after all. It was that again. He was always brought up face to face with her birth. He tried to reason it down, for the hundredth time. It was not her fault, and he had taken her knowingly, chancing that and the consequences of her not loving him. And these were the consequences: that she was sitting rigid before him, staring straight ahead with the pale eyes of suffering, and breathing through trembling lips. But she would die before she would be faithless to him. He was sure of that. Only--why should he exact so much? Why should he not make the last of a long score of sacrifices? He had been unselfish with her always, from the day he had found the little child, shy as one of the timid fawns in the woods of the reservation, and pretty in a wild way, until now when she sat there in front of him, a woman, and his wife, loving, and beloved of, another man. He went and stood beside her and laid his hand upon her hair. She looked up and tried hard to smile again. "Poor little girl," he said kindly. He could not help it that they were the words of a compassionate friend, rather than of an injured husband. She shook her head. "It is the first you have known of it, Jack," she said; "but I have known it for a long while, and I have not been unhappy." "And you care for him?" She nodded. "Are you certain of it? You have seen so very little of him, and you may be mistaken." If he had had any hope, it vanished before her unhesitating, positive, "No; I am not mistaken. Oh, no!" He took a chair facing her, as she put the letter back in its envelope and laid it in her work-basket. It was very unlike anything he had ever imagined concerning situations of the sort. But then he was not imaginative. "Should you be glad to be free to marry him?" he asked, in a spirit of unbiassed discussion. She looked at him in perplexity and surprise. "How could I be? There is no use talking about it." He hesitated, then blurted it out, in spite of the inward warning that it would be unwise. "I could let you free yourself." His glance fell before hers of dismay, disapproval, and anger--an anger so righteous that he felt himself to be altogether in the wrong. "Do you mean _divorce_?" She said it like an unholy word. He had forgotten that the laws and rites of the Church of Rome had a powerful hold upon her, though she was quite devoid of religious sentiment. He admitted apologetically that he had meant divorce, and she expressed her reproach. In spite of himself and what he felt ought properly to be the tragedy of the affair, he smiled. The humor of her majestic disapproval was irresistible under the circumstances. But she had little sense of humor. "What would you suggest, then, if I may ask?" he said. He had to give up all pathos in the light of her deadly simplicity. "Nothing," she answered; "I can't see why it should make any difference to you, when it hasn't with me." She had altogether regained the self-possession she had been surprised out of, with an added note of reserve. And so he had to accept it. He rose, with a slight sigh, and returned to the examination of his spoils. But when he was away from Felipa and her blighting matter of fact, the pathos of it came uppermost again. Troubles seemed to thicken around him. His voluntary Coventry was making him sensitive. He had thought that his wife was at least giving him the best of her cool nature. Cool! There was no coldness in that strained white face, as she read the letter. The control she had over herself! It was admirable. He thought that most women would have fainted, or have grown hysterical, or have made a scene of some sort. Then he recalled the stoicism of the Apache--and was back at her birth again. He realized for the first time the injury his thought of it did her. It was that which had kept them apart, no doubt, and the sympathy of lawlessness that had drawn her and Cairness together. Yet he had just begun to flatter himself that he was eradicating the savage. She had been gratifyingly like other women since his return. But it was as Brewster had said, after all,--the Apache strain was abhorrent to him as the venom of a snake. Yet he was fond of Felipa, too. Someway it had not occurred to him to be any more angry with Cairness than he had been with her. The most he felt was resentful jealousy. There was nothing more underhand about the man than there was about Felipa. Sending the note by the prospectors had not been underhand. He understood that it had been done only that it might make no trouble for her, and give himself no needless pain. Cairness would have been willing to admit to his face that he loved Felipa. That letter must have been written in his own camp. He heard his wife coming down the stairs, and directly she stood in the doorway. "Will you let me have that knife, Jack dear?" she asked amiably. He turned his chair and studied her in a kind of hopeless amusement. "Felipa," he said, "if you will insist upon being told, I cut open the pockets of those dead men's clothes with it." "But I can have it cleaned," she said. He turned back abruptly. "You had better get another. You can't have that one," he answered. Was it possible that twenty minutes before he had risen to the histrionic pitch of self-sacrifice of offering her her freedom to marry another man? XII It was unfortunate for Landor, as most things seemed to be just then, that the Department Commander happened to have an old score to settle. It resulted in the charges preferred by Brewster being given precedence over the request for a court of inquiry. The Department Commander was a man of military knowledge, and he foresaw that the stigma of having been court-martialled for cowardice would cling to Landor through all his future career, whatever the findings of the court might be. An officer is in the position of the wife of Cæsar, and it is better for him, much better, that the charge of "unsoldierly and unofficer-like conduct, in violation of the sixty-first article of war," should never come up against him, however unfounded it may be. It was a very poor case, indeed, that Brewster made out, despite a formidable array of specifications. As it progressed, the situation took on a certain ludicrousness. The tale of woe was so very trivial; it seemed hardly worth the trouble of convening twelve officers from the four corners of the Department to hear it. And there was about Brewster, as he progressed, a suggestion of dragging one foot after the other, leaving out a word here, overlooking an occurrence there, cutting off a mile in one place, and tacking on an hour in another. Landor's wrath was mighty, but he smiled as he sat balancing a ruler on his fingers and hearing how the citizens of San Tomaso, eager to avenge their wrongs, had met him at early morning, had gone bravely forward, keen on the scent, had implored him to hasten, while he halted on worthless pretexts, and had, towards evening, reluctantly left a hot trail, going from it at right angles, "and camping," said Brewster, regretfully, "as far away as it was possible to get, considering the halts." At one moment it appeared that Landor had given his command into the hands of the citizens, at another that he had flatly refused to follow them into danger, that he had threatened and hung back by turns, and had, in short, made himself the laughing-stock of civilians and enlisted men, by what Brewster called "his timid subterfuges." Yet somehow "timid subterfuges" seemed hardly the words to fit with the hard, unswerving eye and the deep-lined face of the accused. It struck the court so. There were other things that struck the court, notably that Brewster had criticised his captain to civilians and to enlisted men. The Judge Advocate frowned. The frown settled to a permanency when Brewster sought out that honorable personage to complain, unofficially, that his case was being neglected. It was about upon a par with an accusation of bribery against a supreme judge in civil life, and naturally did not do the plaintiff much good when the Judge Advocate rose, terrible in his indignation, to repeat the complaint officially to the assembled court at the next sitting. The court was resentful. It listened and weighed for six days, and then it acquitted Landor on every charge and specification "most honorably," to make it more strong, and afterward went over, in a body, to his quarters, to congratulate him. The rest of the post followed. Landor was in the dining room, and Felipa stood in the sitting room receiving the praises of her husband with much tact. If he were the hero of the hour, she was the heroine. The officers from far posts carried their admiration to extravagance, bewitched by the sphinx-riddle written somehow on her fair face, and which is the most potent and bewildering charm a woman can possess. When they went away, they sent her boxes of fresh tomatoes and celery and lemons, from points along the railroad, which was a highly acceptable and altogether delicate attention in the day and place. The garrison gave a hop in her honor and Landor's. It was quite an affair, as many as five and thirty souls being present, and it was written up in the _Army and Navy_ afterward. The correspondent went into many adjectives over Mrs. Landor, and her fame spread through the land. Brewster stood in his own window, quite alone, and watched them all crowding down to Landor's quarters. The beauty of the Triumph of Virtue did not appeal to him. He was very uneasy. Countercharges were looming on his view. To be sure, he had not lied, not absolutely and in so many words, but his citizen witnesses had not been so adroit or so careful. It would not have taken much to make out a very fair case of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. Practical working texts, anent looking before leaping, and being sure you are right ere going ahead, occurred to him with new force. His morality at the moment was worthy the law and the prophets. He was Experience in person, and as such would have been an invaluable teacher, if there had been any seeking instruction. But there was none. They were all with Landor, drinking his wine and helping success succeed, than which one may find less pleasant occupations. Yet there came a rap at his door directly. It was the McLane's striker, bearing a note from Miss McLane. Brewster knew what was in it before he opened it. But he went back to the window and read it by the fading light. When he looked up it was to see Miss McLane and Ellton going up the walk together, returning from Landor's house. And at another window Felipa also stood looking out into the dusk. There had been a shower in the afternoon, and the clouds it had left behind were like a soft moss of fire floating in the sky. A bright golden light struck slantwise from the sunset. They had all gone away to dine and to dress for the hop; Landor had walked down to the post trader's for the mail, and she was left alone. She watched the figure of a man coming down the line. Because of the dazzling, low light behind him, the outline was blurred in a shimmer. At first she thought without any interest in it, one way or another, that he was a soldier, then she could see that he was in citizen's clothes and wore a sombrero and top boots. Even with that, until he was almost in front of the house, she did not realize that it was Cairness, though she knew well enough that he was in the post, and had been one of Landor's most valuable witnesses. He had remained to hear the findings, but she had kept close to the house and had not seen him before. He was a government scout, a cow-boy, a prospector, reputed a squaw-man, anything vagrant and unsettled, and so the most he might do was to turn his head as he passed by, and looking up at the windows, bow gravely to the woman standing dark against the firelight within. The blaze of glory had gone suddenly from the clouds, leaving them lifeless gray, when she turned her eyes back to them; and the outlook across the parade ground was very bare. She went and stood by the fire, leaning her arm on the mantel-shelf and setting her determined lips. Three weeks later she left the post and the West. Landor's health was broken from the effects of the poisonweed and the manifold troubles of the months past. In lieu of sick leave, he was given a desirable detail, and sent on to Washington, and for a year and a half he saw his wife fitted into a woman's seemly sphere. She was heralded as a beauty, and made much of as such, and the little vanities that had rarely shown before came to the surface now. He was proud of her. Sought after and admired, clothed in purple and scarlet and fine linen, within the limits of a captain's pay, a creature of ultra-civilization, tamed, she was a very charming woman indeed. There seemed to be no hint of the Apache left. He all but forgot it himself. There was but one relapse in all the time, and it chanced that he had no knowledge of that. Yet, in the midst of her little triumph, Felipa fell ill, failing without apparent cause, and then the uneasiness that had only slept in Landor for eighteen months came awake again. He did not believe when the doctors told him that it was the lassitude of the moist, warm springtime which was making the gray circles about her eyes, the listlessness of her movements. When she lay, one day, with her face, too white and sharp, looking out from the tangle of hair upon the pillow, he asked her almost abruptly if she had rather go back to the West. He could not bring himself to ask if she were longing to be near Cairness. He shrank too much from her frank, unhesitating assent. The face on the pillow lighted quickly, and she put out her hand to him impulsively. "Could we go back, Jack, even before the detail is up?" she said. And yet her life of late had surely been one that women would have thought enviable--most women. He himself had never dreamed how it irked her until now. It was many years since he had been in the East, not, indeed, since Felipa had been a small child. Keeping his promise to Cabot, as he understood it, had left him little for such pleasures as that. But he had done his duty then; he would do it again, and reap once more what seemed to him the inevitable reward, the reward which had been his all through his life,--sheer disappointment, in all he prized most, ashes and dust. "I can throw up the detail," he said indifferently, "I dare say I might as well. There is only half a year more of it. Some one will be glad enough to take that." "But you," said Felipa, wistfully, "you do not want to go back?" For a moment he stood looking straight into her eyes, yet neither read the other's thoughts. Then he turned away with a baffled half laugh. "Why should it matter to me?" he asked. XIII Cairness rode at a walk round and round the crowding, snorting, restless herd of cattle that was gathered together in the pocket of the foot-hills under the night sky. There were five other cow-boys who also rode round and round, but they were each several hundred yards apart, and he was, to all intents, alone. Now and then he quickened the gait of his bronco and headed off some long-horned steer or heifer, that forced itself out of the huddled, dark mass, making a break for freedom. But for the most part he rode heavily, lopsided in his saddle, resting both hands on the high pommel. He had had time to unlearn the neat horsemanship of the service, and to fall into the slouchy manner of the cow-boy, skilful but unscientific. It was a pitchy night, in spite of the stars, but in the distance, far off across the velvety roll of the hills, there was a forest fire on the top of a range of mountains. It glowed against the sky and lighted the pocket and the prairie below, making strange shadows among the cattle, or bringing into shining relief here and there a pair of mighty horns. A wind, dry and hot, blew down from the flames, and made the herd uneasy. Not far from where those flames were licking up into the heavens, Cairness thought as he watched them, had been the Circle K Ranch. In among the herd, even now, were Circle K cattle that had not yet been cut out. Those six people of his own race had been all that was left to him of his youth. To be sure, he had seen little of them, but he had known that they were there, ready to receive him in the name of the home they had all left behind. And since that gray dawn when he had picked his way through the ashes and charred logs, and had bent over the bodies of his friend and the dead mother and the two children, he had been possessed by a loathing that was almost physical repulsion for all Indians. That was why he had left the stone cabin he had built for himself in the White Mountains, forsaking it and the Apaches who had been, in a way, his friends. But he had done it, too, with the feeling that now he had nowhere to lay his head; that he was driven from pillar to post, buffeted and chased; that he was cursed with the curse of the wanderer. If it had not been that he had an indefinite theory of his own concerning the Kirby massacre, as it was known throughout the country, and that he meant to, some day, in some way, avenge it upon the whites who had abandoned them to their fate, he would have killed himself. He had been very near it once, and had sat on the edge of his bunk in the cabin with a revolver in his hand, thinking it all out for an entire evening, before deciding dispassionately against it. He was not desperate, merely utterly careless of life, which is much worse. Desperation is at the most the keen agony of torture at the stake; but indifference toward all that is held by this world, or the next, is dying in a gradual vacuum. He believed that he had no ties now, that friendships, the love of woman, and the kiss of children all had missed him, and that his, thenceforth, must be but vain regret. So far as he knew, Felipa had gone away without ever having received his letter. The man he had intrusted it to had been killed in the Aravaypa Cañon: that he was certain of; and it never entered his head that his papers might have fallen into other hands, and the note have finally been delivered to her. She was leading the sort of life that would most quickly put him entirely out of her mind. He was taking the Washington papers, and he knew. She had gone away, not even sure that he had given her a thought since the night in the Sierra Blanca when Black River had roared through the stillness, and they had been alone in all the wild world. What a weird, mysterious, unearthly scene it had been, quite outside the probabilities of anything he had imagined or contemplated for a single minute. He had never regretted it, though. He believed in impulses, particularly his own. Two steers, locking their horns, broke from the herd and swaying an instant so, separated and started side by side across the prairie. He settled in his saddle and put his cow-pony to a run, without any preliminary gait, going in a wide circle to head them back. Running across the ground, thick with coyote and dog holes, was decidedly perilous; men had their necks broken in that way every few days; but it would not have mattered to him especially to have ended so. Wherefore he did not, but drove the steers back to the herd safely. And then he returned to the monotonous sentry work and continued thinking of himself. What had he done with four and thirty years, putting it at the very highest valuation? He had sunk so far below the standard of his youth that he would not be fit for his old companions, even if he had wanted to go back to them, which, except in certain fits of depression, he did not. His own mother cared very little what became of him. At Christmas time she always sent him a letter, which reached him much later, as a rule, and he answered it. His brothers had forgotten him. His sister, of whom he had been very fond once, and for whom he had hoped a great deal, had married well enough and gone to London; but she, too, had forgotten him long since. So much for his past. As for his present. His only friends were treacherous savages and some few settlers and cow-boys. They would none of them miss him if he were to be laid under a pile of stones with a board cross at his head anywhere by the roadside, in the plains or among the hills. Some of them were honest men, some were desperadoes; none were his equals, not one understood the things that meant life to him. He had no abode, not so much as the coyote over there on the top of the little swell. He made his living in divers and uncertain ways. Sometimes he sent pictures to the East, studies of the things about him. They sold well. Sometimes he was a scout or a guide. Sometimes he prospected and located claims with more or less good luck. Sometimes he hired himself out as a cow-boy at round-ups, as he was doing now. On the whole, he was, from the financial standpoint, more of a success than from any other. Also he was in love with the wife of a man he liked and respected--and who trusted him. Yet in spite of that, he had come near--so near that it made him cold to think about it--to following in the way of many frontiersmen and marrying a Mexican. It had been when he had first learned that Felipa Landor had gone East for two years; and the Mexican had been very young and very pretty, also very bad. It was not a nice outlook. But he found it did not grow any better for the thought that Felipa might have forgotten all about him, though that would unquestionably have been the best thing that could have happened for all concerned, from the standpoint of common sense. But there were two chances, of a sort, that made it worth while worrying along. One was that Felipa might some day, in the working out of things, come into his life. The other was that he could ferret out the truth of the Kirby massacre. Love and revenge are mighty stimulants. As for the Kirby affair, there had been no hint of treachery in the published or verbal accounts of it. The ranch hands who had escaped had told a plain enough tale of having fled at the approach of the Indians, vainly imploring the Kirbys to do the same. It seemed that the most they could be accused of was cowardice. It had all been set forth in the papers with much circumstance and detail. But Cairness doubted. He remembered their dogged ugliness, and that of the raw-boned Texan woman. That very day the doubt had attained the proportions of a certainty. The sight of a Circle K cow had called up the subject of the massacre, and a cow-boy had said, "Them are the property of Bill Lawton, I reckon." Cairness asked who Bill Lawton might be, and was told that he had been one of the Kirby men, "Big fellow with a big wife. If you was ever there, you'd ought to remember her. She was a Venus and a Cleopatrer rolled into one, you bet." The cow-boy was not devoid of lore for all his lowly station. Cairness did remember, but he did not see fit to say so. A half dozen cow-boys came riding over from the camp of the outfit to relieve those on duty. Cairness was worn out with close on eighteen hours in the saddle, tearing and darting over the hills and ravines, quick as the shadow from some buzzard high in the sky, scrambling over rocks, cutting, wheeling, chasing after fleet-footed, scrawny cattle. He went back to camp, and without so much as washing the caked dust and sweat from his face, rolled himself in a blanket and slept. The round-up lasted several days longer, and then the men were paid off, and went their way. The way of most was toward Tombstone, because the opportunities for a spree were particularly fine there. Not because of these, but because the little parson lived there now, Cairness went also. Moreover, it was as good a place as another to learn more about the massacre. Cow-boys coming from other round-ups and getting drunk might talk. The famous mining town was two years old. It had ceased to be a "wind city" or even a canvas one, and was settling down to the dignity of adobe, or even boards, having come to stay. But it was far too new, too American, to have any of the picturesqueness of the Mexican settlements of the country. Cairness tied his cow-pony to a post in front of a low calcimined adobe, and going across the patch of trodden earth knocked at the door. The little parson's own high voice called to him, and he went in. The Reverend Taylor was tipped back in his chair with his feet upon the table, reading the Tucson papers. He sprang up and put out his hand in a delighted welcome, his small face turning into a very chart of smiling seams and wrinkles. But his left hand hung misshapen, and Cairness saw that it did not bend at the wrist as he motioned to an empty soda-pop bottle and a glass on the table beside a saucer of fly-paper and water. "That's what I still take, you see," he said, "but I'll serve you better;" and he opened a drawer and brought out a big flask. "I reckon you've got a thirst on you this hot weather." He treated himself to a second bottle of the pop, and grew loquacious, as another man might have under the influence of stronger drink; and he talked so much about himself and so little about his guest that Cairness wondered. Presently the reason made itself manifest. It was the egotism of the lover. The Reverend Taylor was going to be married. He told Cairness so with an expression of beatitude that answered to a blush, and pointed to a photograph on his mantel-shelf. "She ain't so pretty to look at," he confided, which was undoubtedly true, "nor yet so young. But I ain't neither, 'sfar as that goes. She's amiable. That's the great thing after all, for a wife. She's amiable." Cairness congratulated him with all solemnity, and asked if she were a widow. He was sure she must be, for the gallantry of the West in those days allowed no woman to pass maturity unwed. But she was, it appeared, a maiden lady, straight from Virginia. The Reverend Taylor was the first man she had ever loved. "It was right funny how it come about," he confided, self absorbed still. "Her mother keeps the res'rant acrost the street where I take my meals (I used to have a Greaser woman, but I got sick of _frijoles_ and _gorditas_ and _chili_ and all that stuff), and after dinner every afternoon, she and me would put two saucers of fly-paper on a table and we would set and bet on which would catch the most flies before four o'clock. You ain't no idea how interestin' it got to be. The way we watched them flies was certainly intense. Sometimes, I tell you, she'd get that excited she'd scream when they couldn't make up their minds to light. Once her mother come runnin' in, thinkin' I was tryin' to kiss her." He beamed upon Cairness, and accepted congratulations charmingly, sipping his soda-pop with quite a rakish little air. "What brought you here?" he remembered to ask, at length. Cairness told him that he had been in the 3 C round-up, and then went on to his point. "Taylor, see here. I want to find out more about the Kirby massacre. There is more to that than has appeared in print." The minister nodded his head. "Yes, I reckon there is," he agreed. "You remember that woman," Cairness went on, making and rolling adroitly a straw-paper cigarette, "the one who was cook on the ranch for so long? She could tell us what it is, and I'll bet on it." The Reverend Taylor nodded again. "Reckon she could. But--" he grabbed at a fly with one hand, and caught and crushed it in his palm with much dexterity, "but--she's lit out." "So?" said Cairness, with the appearance of stolidity he invariably assumed to cover disappointment or any sort of approach to emotion. "Where's she gone to?" Taylor shrugged his shoulders. "_Quien sabe?_ Can't prove it by me. Just _vamoosed_. Fell in love with a little terrier of a Greaser half her size, and cleaned out. Lawton was in here a day or two ago, lookin' for her and raisin' particular Cain with whiskey and six-shooters--bawlin' about her all over the place." "Is he here now?" He had gone back. Cairness made another cigarette and considered. "I think I'll hire to him," he said, after a while. "Hire to him!" exclaimed Taylor, "what for?" "For the fun of it, and 'found.' Can you give me a recommendation?" The parson said that he could not. "Lawton ain't any use for me. I guess it's because he remembers me, that's why. He'll remember you, too." "No," said Cairness, "he won't. I've met him since. That was a long time ago, and I was smooth shaven." Taylor smiled. Cairness's small, brown mustache, curving up at the ends, was hardly a disguise. "There's a fellow here who could get you the job, though," he suggested. "Fellow named Stone. Newspaper man, used to be in Tucson. He seems to have some sort of pull with that Lawton fellow." "I know him," Cairness said; "he used to be round San Carlos when I was an enlisted man. He won't remember me, either. And you needn't necessarily mention that I was with Landor in the San Tomaso affair, or that I was a scout. He may know it, of course. And again, he may not." He got up and went to the window, which was iron-barred, after the Mexican fashion, and stood, with his hands run into his belt, looking down at a row of struggling, scraggly geraniums in tin cans. They were the most disheartening part of the whole disheartening prospect, within or without. The Reverend Taylor got his hat. It was still a silk one, but new, and without holes. They went over to the false front board structure which was Stone's office. It appeared from the newspaper man's greeting that it was a case of the meeting of prominent citizens. Taylor presented Cairness, with the elegant, rhetorical flourishes he was capable of when he chose. "He is a friend of mine," he added, "and anything that you can do for him will be appreciated, you _sabe_?--" Stone did understand, and Taylor left them alone together. They opened upon non-committal topics: the weather, which had been scorching and parched since April, and would continue so, in all probability, until September; the consequent condition of the crops, which was a figure of speech, for there were none, and never had been, deserving of the name; and then Cairness, having plenty of time, brought it round to the troops. In the tirade that followed he recognized a good many of the sentiments, verbatim, of the articles in the Tucson papers of the time of Landor's scout. But he half shut his eyes and listened, pulling at the small, brown mustache. Stone set him down, straightway, as an ass, or English, which was much the same thing. Cairness was still in his dust-grayed outfit, his hair was below where his collar would have been had he been wearing one, and his nose was on its way to at least the twentieth new skin that summer. In all his years of the frontier, he had never become too well tanned to burn. His appearance was not altogether reassuring, Stone thought. He was not only an ass, he was also tough--the sort of a fellow with whom it was as well to remember that your six-shooter is beneath the last copy of your paper, on the desk at your elbow. "I have never especially liked you," Cairness decided, for his part, "and I can't say that you improve upon acquaintance, you know. You wrote those articles about Landor, and that's one I owe you." Stone wore his oratory out after a time, and Cairness closed his eyes rather more, to the end that he might look a yet greater ass, and said that he wanted to hire out as a cow-boy or ranch hand of some sort. "Taylor told me you knew a fellow named Lawton, I think it was. Would he be wanting one now?" He took considerable satisfaction in his own histrionic ability, and lapsed into the phraseology of the job-hunter. Stone thought not. He had not heard Lawton speak of needing help. But he wrote a very guarded note of recommendation, falling back into the editorial habit, and dashing it off under pressure. Cairness, whose own writing was tiny and clear and black, and who covered whole sheets without apparent labor, but with lightning rapidity, watched and reflected that he spent an amount of time on the flourish of his signature that might have been employed to advantage in the attainment of legibility. "I'm a busy man," said Stone, "a very busy man, the busiest man in the territory." No one in the territory was busy. The atmosphere was still too much that of the Mexican possession; but Cairness said it was undoubtedly so, and took his leave, clanking his spurs, heavy footed, and stooping his long form, in continuance of the rôle of ass. He knew well enough that he had been so summed up. It is a disadvantage the British citizen labors under in the West. The next day he left for the Circle K Ranch. Lawton did not appear to need help. But he fired a Greaser, nevertheless, and took Cairness on. He seemed to stand in as abject awe of Stone's note as an Arab might have stood of a bit of the black covering of the Kaabah stone. And Cairness stayed with him, serving seven months, and seeking what he might discover. But he discovered nothing more than that the Circle K Ranch, for all that it might be the Texan's in name, was Stone's in point of fact, and that Lawton's dread of that mighty man was very much greater than his hope of heaven. The knowledge was slight and of no plain value; but it might be of use some day. Life had taught Cairness, amongst other things, that it usually proved so. He stored it away with the other gleanings of experience in his mental barns, and went in search of new adventures. XIV The chief Alchise and a half hundred of his kind--one so deaf that he held to his savage old ear a civilized speaking-trumpet--squatted about on the ground, and explained to Crook the nature of their wrongs. "We were planting our own corn and melons," said Alchise, "and making our own living. The agent at San Carlos never gave us any rations, but we didn't mind about that. We were taking care of ourselves. One day the agent--" He stopped and scowled at a squaw a few yards away, whose papoose was crying lustily. The squaw, having her attention thus called to the uproar of her offspring, drew from somewhere in the folds of her dirty wrappings a nursing-bottle, and putting the nipple in its mouth, hushed its cries. The chief went on: "One day the agent sent up and said that we must give up our own country and our corn patches, and go down there to the Agency to live. He sent Indian soldiers to seize our women and children, and drive us down to the hot land." He was a simple, sullen Apache, and his untutored mind could only grasp effects. Causes were beyond it. He did not, therefore, understand that coal had been discovered on his reservation, also silver, and that the agent and the agent's friends were trying to possess themselves of the land in order to dispose of it to the Eastern capitalist. He knew that his cattle were driven off by the white cow-boys and could not be gotten back, that he was given but one cup of flour every seven days, that beef was so difficult to obtain that it practically formed no part of his diet; but he did not know of the "boys" in Tucson and officials in Washington who were profiting from the sale of Indian supplies to white squatters. He knew that the stores which should have gone to him were loaded upon wagon-trains and hurried off the reservation in the dead of night; but he did not know why the Apache who was sent to humbly ask the agent about it was put in the guard-house for six months without trial. He knew that his corn patches were trampled down, but not that it was to force him to purchase supplies from the agent and his friends, or else get out. He knew that his reservation--none too large, as it was, for three thousand adults more or less--had been cut down without his consent five different times, and that Mormon settlers were elbowing him out of what space remained. But, being only a savage, it were foolish to expect that he should have seen the reason for these things. He has not yet learned to take kindly to financial dishonesty. Does he owe you two bits, he will travel two hundred miles to pay it. He has still much to absorb concerning civilization. Another thing he could not quite fathom was why the religious dances he had, in pursuance of his wild pleasure, seen fit to hold on Cibicu Creek, had been interfered with by the troops. To be sure, the dances had been devised by his medicine men to raise the dead chiefs and braves with the end in view of re-peopling the world with Apaches and driving out the Whites. But as the dead had not consented to the raising, it might have been as well to allow the Indians to become convinced of the futility of it in that way. However, the government thought otherwise, and sent its troops. Because they were sent, a fine officer had fallen victim to Apache treachery of the meanest sort and to the gross stupidity of others, and Arizona was on the verge of the worst disorder of all its disorderly history. So Crook was sent for, and he came at once, and looked with his small, piercing eyes, and listened with his ears so sharp to catch the ring of untruth, and learned a pretty tale of what had gone on during his absence on the troubled northern plains. A great many delightful facts, illustrative of the rule of the Anglo-Saxon in for gain, came to his knowledge. There were good men and just in Arizona, and some of these composed the Federal Grand Jury, which reported on the condition of affairs at the Agency. When a territorial citizen had anything to say in favor of the Redskin, it might be accepted as true. And these jurymen said that the happenings on the San Carlos Agency had been a disgrace to the age and a foul blot upon the national escutcheon. They waxed very wroth and scathing as they dwelt upon how the agent's vast power made almost any crime possible. There was no check upon his conduct, nor upon the wealth he could steal from a blind government; and to him, and such as him, they attributed the desolation and bloodshed which had dotted the plains with the graves of murdered victims. It was the rather unavailing wail of the honest citizen caught between the upper and nether millstones of the politician and the hostile. Crook had been recalled too late, and he knew it. Every Apache on the reservation was ready for the war-path. It was not to be averted. One man, even a very firm and deft one, could not straighten out in a few weeks the muddle of ten years of thievery, oppression, and goading. It takes more than just a promise, even though it is one likely to be kept, to soothe the hurt feelings of savages who have seen eleven of their friends jailed for fourteen months without the form of accusation or trial. They feel bitter toward the government whose minions do those things. The new general was hailed by the territories as deliverer until he found the truth and told it, after which they called him all manner of hard names, for that is the sure reward of the seeker after fact. He prepared for war, seeing how things were, but he tried for peace the while. He sent to the bucks who lurked in the fastnesses and strongholds, and said that he was going out alone to see them. He left his troops and pack-train, and with two interpreters and two officers repaired to the cañon of the Black River, where he scrambled and slid, leading his scrambling, sliding mule down the precipices of basalt and lava among the pines and junipers. Bright, black eyes peered down from crevasses and branches. An Apache lurked behind every boulder and trunk. But only the squaws and the children and twenty-six bucks in war toilet, naked from shoulder to waist, painted with blood and mescal, rings in their noses, and heads caked thick with mud, came down to the conference. It was not of much avail in the end, the conference. There was more than one tribe to be pacified. The restlessness of the wild things, of the goaded, and of the spring was in their blood. The last straw was laid on when an Indian policeman arrested a young buck for some small offence. The buck tried to run away, and would not halt when he was told to. The chief of police fired and killed a squaw by mistake; and though he was properly sorry for it, and expressed his regret, the relatives and friends of the deceased squaw caught him a few days later, and cutting off his head, kicked it round, as they had seen the White-eye soldier do with his rubber foot-ball. Then they, aroused and afraid too of punishment, fled from the reservation and began to kill. It was a halcyon time for the press. It approved and it disapproved, while the troops went serenely on their way. It gave the government two courses,--removal of the Apaches, one and all, to the Indian territory (as feasible as driving the oxen of Geryon), or extermination--the catchword of the non-combatant. The government took neither course. There was but one other resort. The exasperated, impotent press turned to it. "If the emergency should arise, and it now looks as though it may come soon," flowed the editorial ink, "enough resolute and courageous men can be mustered in Tombstone, Globe, Tucson, and other towns and settlements to settle the question, once and forever: to settle it as such questions have often been settled before." In pursuance of which the resolute and courageous men arose at the cry of their bleeding land. They have gone down to history (to such history as deigns to concern itself with the reclaiming of the plains of the wilderness, in area an empire of itself) as the Tombstone Toughs. The exceedingly small respectable element of Tombstone hailed their departure with unmixed joy. They had but one wish,--that the Toughs might meet the Apaches, and that each might rid the face of the desert of the other. But the only Apaches left to meet were the old and feeble, and the squaws and papooses left at San Carlos. The able-bodied bucks were all in the field, as scouts or hostiles. The resolute and courageous men, led by a resolute and courageous saloon-keeper, found one old Indian living at peace upon his rancheria. They fired at him and ran away. The women and children of the settlers were left to bear the brunt of the anger of the Apaches. It was too much for even the Tucson journalist. He turned from denunciation of the military, for one moment, and applied his vigorous adjectives to the Tombstone Toughs. Arizona had its full share of murder and sudden death. But New Mexico had more than that. Spring passed on there, with warmth for the snow-wrapped mountains, and blistering heat for the dead plains, and her way was marked with lifeless and mutilated forms. Landor's troop was stationed at Stanton, high up among the hills. It had come there from another post down in the southern part of the territory, where anything above the hundreds is average temperature, and had struck a blizzard on its march. Once when Felipa got out of the ambulance to tramp beside it, in the stinging snow whirls, and to start the thin blood in her veins, she had looked up into his blanket-swathed face, and laughed. "I wonder if you looked like that when you took me through this part of the world twenty years ago," she said. He did not answer, and she knew that he was annoyed. She had come to see that he was always annoyed by such references, and she made them more frequent for that very reason, half in perversity, half in a fixed determination not to be ashamed of her origin, for she felt, without quite realizing it, that to come to have shame and contempt for herself would be to lose every hold upon life. She was happier than she had been in Washington. Landor saw that, but he refused to see that she was also better. However much a man may admire, in the abstract, woman as a fine natural animal, unspoiled by social pettiness, he does not fancy the thing in his wife. From the artistic standpoint, a regal barbarian, unconfined, with her virtue and her vices on a big scale, is very well; from the domestic, it is different. She is more suitable in the garb of fashion, with homemade character of parlor-ornament proportions. Felipa had discarded, long since, the short skirt and moccasins of her girlhood, and had displayed no inconsiderable aptitude in the matter of fashions; but she was given to looseness of draperies and a carelessness of attire in her own home that the picturesqueness of her beauty alone only saved from slatternliness. There was one manifestation of ill taste which she did not give, however, one common enough with the wives of most of the officers. She was never to be found running about the post, or sitting upon the porches, with her husband's cape around her shoulders and his forage-cap over her eyes. Her instinct for the becoming was unfailing. This was a satisfaction to Landor. But it was a secret grievance that she was most contented when in her riding habit, tearing foolhardily over the country. Another grievance was the Ellton baby. Felipa adored it, and for no reason that he could formulate, he did not wish her to. He wanted a child of his own. Altogether he was not so easy to get on with as he had been. She did not see why. Being altogether sweet-humored and cheerful herself, she looked for sweet humor and cheerfulness in him, and was more and more often disappointed. Not that he was ever once guilty of even a quick burst of ill temper. It would have been a relief. Sometimes when she was quite certain of being undisturbed, she took Cairness's one letter from the desk, and read and reread it, and went over every word and look she had had from him. She had forgotten nothing, but though her olive skin would burn and then grow more colorless than ever when she allowed herself to recall, not even a sigh would come from between the lips that had grown a very little set. Yet she not only loved Cairness as much as ever, but more. Her church had the strong hold of superstition upon her, but she might have thrown it off, grown reckless of enforced conventions, and have gone to him, had not faithfulness and gratitude held her yet more powerfully. Landor had been good to her. She would have gone through anything rather than have hurt him. And yet it was always a relief now when he went away. She was glad when he was ordered into the field at the beginning of the spring. Of old she had been sufficiently sorry to have him go. But of old she had not felt the bit galling. Life went on very much the same at the post when there was only the infantry left in possession. As there was nothing to do at any time, there was nothing the less for that. On the principle that loneliness is greatest in a crowd, Stanton was more isolated now than Grant had been in the days when there had been no railroad west of Kansas. The railroad was through the southwest now, but it was a hundred miles away. It was unsafe to ride outside the reservation, there was no one for hops, the only excitement was the daily addition to the list of slaughtered settlers. Felipa spent most of her time with the Ellton baby. Miss McLane had been married to Landor's second lieutenant for a year and a half, and they were very happy. But Felipa in the knowledge of the strength of her own love, which gained new might each time that she wrestled with it and threw it back upon the solid ground of duty, found their affection decidedly insipid. Like the majority of marital attachments, it had no especial dignity. It was neither the steadfast friendship she felt for her husband, nor the absolute devotion she would have given Cairness. But the baby was satisfactory. She amused it by the hour. For the rest, being far from gregarious, and in no way given to spending all the morning on some one else's front porch, and all the afternoon with some one else upon her own, she drew on the post library and read, or else sat and watched the mountains with their sharp, changing shadows by day, and their Indian signal flashes by night,--which did not tend to enhance the small degree of popularity she enjoyed among the post women. Some thirty miles to the southeast was the Mescalero Indian Agency. Landor had consented with the worst possible grace to take her there sometime when the road should be passable and safe. She had openly resented his disinclination, though she usually appeared not to notice it. "It is very natural I should want to see the place where I was born," she had said, "and I think we should both be more comfortable if you would not persist in being so ashamed of it." The story of her origin was an open secret now. Landor had never been able to discover who had spread it. The probabilities were, however, that it had been Brewster. He had been suspended for a year after Landor's trial, and driven forth with contempt, but he was back again, with a bold front, and insinuating and toadying himself into public favor, destined by that Providence which sometimes arouses itself to reward and punish before the sight of all men, to be short-lived. XV Landor sat at the centre table and went over requisition blanks by the light of a green-shaded student lamp. The reflection made him look livid and aging. Felipa had noticed it, and then she had turned to the fire and sat watching, with her soft eyes half closed, the little sputtering sparks from the mesquite knot. She had been immovable in that one position for at least an hour, her hands folded with a weary looseness in her lap. If it had not been that her face was very hard to read, even her husband might have guessed that she was sad. But he was not thinking about her. He went on examining the papers until some one came upon the front porch and knocked at the door. Then he got up and went out. It was the post-trader, he told Felipa when he came back, and he was asking for help from the officer-of-the-day. Some citizens down at the store were gambling and drinking high, and were becoming uproarious. Landor sent for a squad of the guard and went to put them out. It was just one of the small emergencies that go to make up the chances of peace. He might or he might not come back alive; the probabilities in favor of the former, to be sure. But the risks are about equal whether one fights Indians or citizens drunk with liquor and gaming. The men went away, however, without much trouble beyond tipsy protests and mutterings, and the sutler rewarded the guard with beer, and explained to Landor that several of the disturbers were fellows who were hanging round the post for the beef contract; the biggest and most belligerent--he of the fierce, drooping mustachios--was the owner of the ranch where the Kirby massacre had taken place, as well as of another one in New Mexico. Landor paid very little attention just then, but that same night he had occasion to think of it again. It was his habit to go to bed directly after taps when he was officer-of-the-day, and to visit the guard immediately before reveille the next morning. But the requisitions and some troop papers kept him until almost twelve, so that he decided to make his rounds as soon as the clock had struck twelve, and to sleep until sunrise. Felipa had long since gone off to bed. He turned down the lamp, put on his cape and cap, and with his revolver in his pocket and his sabre clicking a monotonous accompaniment went out into the night. It was not very dark. The sky was thick with clouds, but there was a waning moon behind them. The only light in the garrison was in the grated windows of the guard-house. Visiting the guard is dull work, and precisely the same round, night after night, with hardly ever a variation. But to-night there occurred a slight one. Landor was carrying his sabre in his arm, as he went by the back of the quarters, in order that its jingle might not disturb any sleepers. For the same reason he walked lightly, although, indeed, he was usually soft-footed, and came unheard back of Brewster's yard. Brewster himself was standing in the shadow of the fence, talking to some man. Landor could see that it was a big fellow, and the first thing that flashed into his mind, without any especial reason, was that it was the rancher who had been in trouble down at the sutler's store. It gave cause for reflection; but an officer was obviously at liberty to talk to whomsoever he might choose around his own premises, at any hour of the day or night. So the officer of the day went on, treading quietly. But he had something to think about now that kept off drowsiness for the rest of the rounds. Brewster's fondness for the society of dubious civilians was certainly unfortunate. And the conjunction of the aspiring beef contractor and the commissary officer was also unfortunate, not to say curious. Because of this. The beef contract was about to expire, and the commandant had advertised for bids. A number of ranchers had already turned their papers in. Furnishing the government's soldiers with meat is never an empty honor. The bids, duly sealed, were given into the keeping of the commissary officer to be put in his safe, and kept until the day of judgment, when all being opened in public and in the presence of the aspirants, the lowest would get the contract. It was a simple plan, and gave no more opportunity for underhand work than could be avoided. But there were opportunities for all that. It was barely possible--the thing had been done--for a commissary clerk or sergeant, desirous of adding to his pittance of pay, or of favoring a friend among the bidders, to tamper with the bids. By the same token there was no real reason why the commissary officer could not do it himself. Landor had never heard, or known, of such a case, but undoubtedly the way was there. It was a question of having the will and the possession of the safe keys. There were only the bids to be taken out and steamed open. The lowest found, it was simple enough for the favored one to make his own a quarter of a cent less, and to turn it in at the last moment. But one drawback presented itself. Some guileful and wary contractors, making assurance twice sure, kept their bids themselves and only presented them when the officers sat for the final awarding. Certainly Brewster would have been wiser not to have been seen with the big civilian. During the two days that elapsed before the awarding of the contract, Landor thought about it most of the time. It came to pass in the working out of things that the commandant elected to spend the night before the opening of the bids, in the small town some miles away, where one of the first families was giving a dinner. This left Landor, as next in rank, in temporary command. It had happened often enough before, in one way or another, but this time the duties of the position seemed to weigh upon him. He was restless and did not care to sleep. He sent Felipa off to bed, and sat watching where her lithe young figure had gone out of the door for some minutes. Then he ran his hand across his mouth contemplatively, stroked his mustache, and finally went out of the house and down to Ellton's quarters. When the baby began to cry, as it was always quite sure to do sooner or later, and Mrs. Ellton went up to it, Landor spoke. "If I should come for you at any hour to-night, I wish you would hold yourself in readiness to go out with me immediately." He was not the sort of a man of whom to ask explanations. Ellton said "Very well," and proceeded to talk about the troop's hogs and gardens, both of which were a source of increase to the troop funds. Mrs. Ellton returned before long, and Landor went back home. "I shall be in and out all night, more or less," he told Felipa. She reached her hands from the bedclothes and stroked the deep lines on his forehead, the lines she had had most to do with putting there. But she did not ask for confidences. She never did. It was not her way. He kissed her and went out into the night again, to sit upon his porch at a spot where, through the cottonwood branches, he commanded a view of Brewster's front door and of the windows of the commissary office. The silence of the garrison was absolute. Over in the company clerk's office of one of the infantry barracks there was a light for a time. Then, at about midnight, it too was put out. A cat came creeping from under the board walk and minced across the road. He watched it absently. When he looked up again to Brewster's house, there was a chink of faint light showing through a curtain. He got up then and went down to Ellton's quarters. Ellton himself answered the muffled knock. "I didn't turn in," he said to the mysterious figure, shrouded in a cape, with a visor down to its peering eyes. Landor told him to get his cap and come out. He followed the shadows of the trees near the low commissary building, and they stood there, each behind a thick cottonwood trunk. Landor watched the light in Brewster's window. It disappeared before long, and they held their breaths. Ellton began to guess what was expected to happen. Yet Brewster himself did not come out. Landor had almost decided that he had made an ungenerous mistake, when Ellton came over with one light spring and, touching him on the shoulder, pointed to the window of the commissary office. A thick, dark blanket had evidently been hung within, but the faintest red flicker showed through a tiny hole. Then Landor remembered for the first time that there was a back door to Brewster's quarters and to the commissary. He crept over to the commissary and tried the door gently. It was fast locked. Then he went to the window. It was a low one, on a level with his chest, with wide-apart iron bars. He ran his hand between them now, and, doubling his fist, broke a pane with a sudden blow. As the glass crashed in, he grasped the gray blanket and drew it back. Brewster was standing in front of the open safe, the package of bids in his hands, and the big rancher was beside him holding a candle and shading it with his palm. They had both turned, and were staring, terror-eyed, at the bleeding hand that held back the blanket. "Can you see, Ellton?" Landor asked in his restrained, even voice. He evidently meant that there should be no more noise about this than necessary, that the post should know nothing of it. "I can see, sir," the lieutenant answered. Then Landor spoke to the commissary officer. "You will oblige me, Mr. Brewster, by returning those bids to the safe and by opening the door for me." He dropped the blanket, drew back his cut hand, warm and wet with blood, and wrapped it in a handkerchief very deliberately, as he waited. Presently the front door opened. The commissary officer evidently had all the keys. Landor and Ellton, who were commandant and adjutant as well, went through the close-smelling storeroom, which reeked with codfish and coffee, into the office. The citizen was still there, still holding the candle and shading it, scared out of the little wits he had at the best of times. He was too frightened as yet to curse Brewster and the wary scoundrel back in Arizona, who had set him on to tampering with the military, and had put up the funds to that end--a small risk for a big gain. Landor pointed to him. "Who is this?" he asked. Brewster told him. "It is Mr. Lawton, of the Circle K Ranch." "What is he doing here?" "He was helping me." "Helping you to do what?" "To get out the bids." His courage was waxing a little. "For what purpose?" went on the cross questions. "To take them over to my quarters and keep them safe." "Yes?" said Landor. The inflection was not pleasing. It caused Brewster to answer somewhat weakly, "Yes." "Do you think, sir, that you could tell that to twelve officers and make them believe it?" Brewster was silent, but he neither flinched nor cowered, nor yet shifted his eyes. Landor turned to the citizen. "Where is your bid, Mr. Lawton?" "I ain't put it in yet," he stammered feebly. "Don't put it in, then. Leave the reservation to-night. You understand me, do you? Now go!" Lawton set down the candle upon the desk, and crept away by the rear door. After he had gone, Landor turned to Brewster once more. "Are all the bids in the safe again?" They were. "Is it closed?" It was. "Give me the keys--all the keys." He handed them over. Ellton stood by the door, with his hands in his pockets, and a countenance that tried hard to maintain the severity of discipline. But he was plainly enjoying it. "Now, Mr. Brewster," said Landor, going to the safe and resting his elbow upon it, and leaning forward in his earnestness, "I am going to tell you what you are to do. It would be better for the service and for all concerned if you do it quietly. I think you will agree with me, that any scandal is to be avoided. Come to the opening of the bids to-morrow, at noon, quite as though nothing of this disgraceful sort had happened. I will keep the keys until then. But by retreat to-morrow evening I want your resignation from the service in the hands of the adjutant. If it is not, I shall prefer charges against you the next morning. But I hardly think you will deem it advisable to stand a court-martial." He stopped and stood erect again. Brewster started to protest, still with the almost unmoved countenance of an innocent man. At any rate, he was not an abject, whining scoundrel, thought Ellton, with a certain amount of admiration. Landor held up a silencing hand. "If you have any explanations that you care to make, that it would be worth any one's time to listen to, you may keep them for a judge advocate." He pointed to the door. Brewster hesitated for a moment, then walked out, a little unsteadily. They blew out the candle and took down the gray blanket. "A stone can have broken that pane, and I cut my hand on a bottle," said Landor. Ellton answered "Very good," and they went out, locking the door. XVI The contract went to a needy and honest contractor when the bids were opened. And by night the whole garrison was in excitement over Brewster's inexplicable resignation. It was inexplicable, but not unexplained. He went around to all the officers with the exception only of Landor and Ellton, and told that he had some time since decided to give up the service and to read and practise law in Tucson. No one was inclined to believe it. But no one knew what to believe, for Ellton and his captain held their tongues. They left the commandant himself in ignorance. Brewster got hunting leave, pending the acceptance of his resignation, and went to the railway. In less than a week he was all but forgotten in a newer interest. A raiding party of hostiles had passed near the fort, and had killed, with particular atrocity, a family of settlers. The man and his wife had been tortured to death, the baby had had its brains beaten out against the trunk of a tree, a very young child had been hung by the wrist tendons to two meat hooks on the walls of the ranch-house, and left there to die. One big boy had had his eyelids and lips and nose cut off, and had been staked down to the ground with his remains of a face lying over a red-ant hole. Only two had managed to escape,--a child of ten, who had carried his tiny sister in his arms, twenty miles of cañons and hills, to the post. Felipa had taken charge of the two, being the only woman in the place not already provided with children of her own, and had roused herself to an amount of capability her husband had never suspected her of. She belonged to the tribe of unoccupied women, as a rule, not that she was indolent so much as that she appeared to have no sense of time nor of the value of it. Landor, who had always one absorbing interest or another to expend his whole energy upon, even if it were nothing larger than running the troop kitchen, thought her quite aimless, though he never addressed that or any other reproach to her. He was contented at the advent of the hapless orphans for one thing, that they superseded the Ellton baby, which he secretly detested with a kind of unreasonable jealousy. His contentment was not to last for long, however. The quartermaster broke in upon it rudely as he sat on the porch one morning after guard-mounting, "Have you seen the man who came up with the scouts from Grant?" Landor knew that the scouts had come in the afternoon before, and were in camp across the creek; but he had not seen their chief, and he said so. "Handsome fellow," went on the quartermaster, "and looks like a gentleman. Glories in the Ouida-esque name of Charles Morely Cairness, and signs it in full." "Sounds rather like a family magazine novel hero, doesn't it?" Landor said, with a hint of a sneer, then repented, and added that Cairness had been with him as guide, and was really a fine fellow. He turned his eyes slowly, without moving, and looked at Felipa. She was sitting near them in a patch of sun-sifted shade behind the madeira vines, sewing on a pinafore for the little girl who was just then, with her brother, crossing the parade to the post school, as school call sounded. He knew well enough that she must have heard, her ears were so preternaturally sharp. But the only sign she gave was that her lips had set a little. So he waited in considerable uneasiness for what might happen. He understood her no more than he had that first day he had met her riding with the troops from Kansas, when her indifferent manner had chilled him, and it was perhaps because he insisted upon working his reasoning from the basis that her character was complicated, whereas it was absolutely simple. He met constantly with her with much the same sort of mental sensation that one has physically, where one takes a step in the dark, expecting a fall in the ground, and comes down upon a level. The jar always bewildered him. He was never sure what she would do next, though she had never yet, save once, done anything flagrantly unwise. He dreaded, however, the moment when she might chance to meet Cairness face to face. Which happened upon the following day. And he was there to see it all, so that the question he had not cared to ask was answered forever beyond the possibility of a misunderstanding. It was stable time, and she walked down to the corrals with him. He left her for a moment by the gate of the quartermaster's corral while he went over to the picket line. The bright clear air of a mountain afternoon hummed with the swish click-clock, swish click-clock of the curry-combs and brushes, and the busy scraping of the stable brooms in the stalls. Felipa stood leaning against the gate post, her bare head outlined in bold black and white against the white parasol that hung over her shoulders. She was watching one of the troop herds coming up from water,--the fine, big horses, trotting, bucking, rearing, kicking, biting at each other with squeals and whinnyings, tossing their manes and whisking their tails. Some of them had rolled in the creek bed, and then in the dust, and were caked with mud from neck to croup. They frisked over to their own picket line, and got into rows for the grooming. She was looking at them with such absorbed delight that she started violently when close behind her a voice she had not heard in four long, repressed years spoke with the well-remembered intonation: "He had better go to the farrier the first thing in the morning. I can't have him stove-up," and Cairness came out of the gate. He saw her, and without the hesitation of an instant raised his slouch hat and kept on. A government scout does not stop to pass the time of day with an officer's wife. It would have been best so, and she knew it, had indeed meant to make it like this on her part, but a feeling swept over her that if they did not speak now, they would pass down to their deaths in silence. She reached out her hand to stop him, and spoke. He turned about and stood still, with his head uncovered, looking straight into her face. Another man might have wished it a little less open and earnest, a little more downcast and modest, but he liked it so. Yet he waited, erect and immovable, and she saw that he meant that every advance should come from her. He was determined to force her to remember that he was a chief of scouts. She waited, too, made silent by sudden realization of how futile anything that she might say would be. "I am glad to see you again," she faltered; "it is four years since Black River and the cloud-burst." She was angry at her own stupidity and want of resource, and her tone was more casual than she meant it to be. His own was instantly as cold. "I supposed you had quite forgotten all that," he said. She had done very well, up to then, but she was at the end of her strength. It had been strained to the snapping for a long while, and now it snapped. Slowly, painfully, a hot, dark flush spread over her face to the black line of her hair. The squaw was manifested in the changed color. It altered her whole face, while it lasted, then it dropped back and left a dead gray pallor. Her lips were quivering and yellow, and her eyes paled oddly, as those of a frightened wild beast do. But still they were not lowered. Cairness could not take his own from them, and they stood so for what seemed to them both a dumb and horrible eternity, until Landor came up, and she caught at his arm to steady herself. The parasol whirled around on its stick and fell. Cairness picked it up, knocked off the dust, and handed it to Landor. He could see that he knew, and it was a vast relief. It is only a feeble love in need of stimulants and spicing that craves secrecy. A strong one seeks the open and a chance to fight to the end, whatever that may be, before the judges of earth and heaven. They stood facing each other, challenging across the woman with the look in their eyes that men have worn since long ere ever the warriors of old disputed the captive before the walls of Troy. It made it none the better that only Landor had the right to give her the strength of his arm, and that only Cairness had the right to the desperate, imploring look she threw him. It was a swift glance of a moment, and then she reached out a steady enough hand for the parasol, and smiled. It had been much too tragic to last--and in those surroundings. It was a flash of the naked swords of pain, and then they were sheathed. But each had left a sharp gash. No one had seen it. Perhaps to many there would have been nothing to see. Landor was the first to find speech. In the harsh light of the pause he saw that it was foolish as well as useless to beg the issue. "Has Mrs. Landor told you that I found your letter to her on the body of the prospector, and delivered it to her?" The words were sufficiently overbearing, but the manner was unendurable. It occurred to Cairness that it was ungenerous of Landor to revenge himself by a shot from the safe intrenchment of his rank. "Mrs. Landor has had time to tell me nothing," he said, and turned on his spurred heel and went off in the direction of the post. But it was not a situation, after all, into which one could infuse much dignity. He was retreating, anyway it might be looked at, and there is bound to be more or less ignominy in the most creditable retreat. As they walked back to the post, Landor did not speak to Felipa. There was nothing he could say unless he were to storm unavailingly, and that was by no means his way. And there was nothing for which he could, with reason, blame her. All things considered, she had acted very well. She moved beside him serenely, not in the least cowed. Later, when he came in from dress parade, he found her reading in the sitting room. She looked up and smiled, but his face was very angry, and the chin strap of his helmet below his mouth and the barbaric yellow plume added to the effect of awful and outraged majesty. He stopped in front of her. "I have been thinking things over," he said. She waited. "Three years ago I offered you your liberty to marry that man. I repeat the offer now." She stood up very deliberately and faced him with a look he had never seen before in her eyes, dark and almost murderous. But she had her fury under control. He had guessed that her rage might be a very ugly thing, but he drew back a step at the revelation of its possibilities. Twice she tried hard to speak. She put her hand to her throat, where her voice burned away as it rose. Then it came from the depths of that being of hers, which he had never fathomed. "Are you trying to drive me off?" she said measuredly. "Do you wish me to go away from you? If you do, I will go. I will go, and I will never come back. But I will not go to him--not on my own account. It doesn't matter what happens to me; but on your account and on his, I will never go to him--not while you are alive." She stopped, and every nerve in her body was tense to quivering, her drawn lips worked. "And if I were out of the way?" he suggested. She had never been cruel intentionally before, and afterward she regretted it. But she raised her eyebrows and turned her back on him without answering. XVII Lawton believed himself to be ill-used. He had written to Stone a strangely composed and spelled account of the whole matter, and mingled reproaches for having gotten him into it; and Stone had replied that it was no affair of his one way or another, but so far as he could make out Lawton had made a mess of it and a qualified fool of himself. Whereupon the rancher, his feelings being much injured, and his trust in mankind in general shattered, did as many a wiser man has done before him,--made himself very drunk, and in his cups told all that he knew to two women and a man. "I'd like to know whose affair it is, if it ain't his, the measly sneak. He sicked me on,"--oaths, as the grammars phrase it, "understood." The tears dribbled off his fierce mustache, and the women and the man laughed at him, but they were quite as drunk as he was, and they forgot all about it at once. Lawton did not forget. He thought of it a great deal, and the more he thought, the more he wanted revenge. Now if one cannot have revenge upon the real malefactor himself, because one is afraid of him, there is still satisfaction to be derived, to a certain extent, from wreaking it upon the innocent, of whom one is not afraid. Lawton felt, in his simple soul, that Stone was astute with the astuteness of the devil and all his angels. On the other hand, he believed the government to be dull. It was big, but it was stupid. Was not the whole frontier evidence of that fact to him? Clearly, then, the government was the one to be got even with. He had been in hiding three weeks. Part of the time he had stayed in the town near the post, small, but as frontier towns went, eminently respectable and law-abiding. For the rest he had lain low in a house of very bad name at the exact edge of the military reservation. The poison of the vile liquor he had drunk without ceasing had gotten itself into his brain. He had reached the criminal point, not bold,--he was never that,--but considerably more dangerous, upon the whole. He drank more deeply for two days longer, after he received Stone's letter, and then, when he was quite mad, when his eyes were bleared and fiery and his head was dry and hot and his heart terrible within him, he went out into the black night. It was still early. The mountain echoes had not sung back the tattoo of the trumpets as yet. There was a storm coming on from the snow peak in the west, and the clouds, dark with light edges, were thick in the sky. Lawton was sober enough now. Not so far away in its little pocket among the hills he could see the post, with all its lights twinkling, as though one of the clear starry patches in the heavens were reflected in a black lake in the valley. And the road stretched out faint and gray before him. He went in through the gate, and was once more upon that reservation he had been commanded by the overbearing tyrant representative of the military to leave, several weeks before. As he trudged along, tattoo went. In the clear silence, beneath the sounding-boards of the low clouds, he heard the voice of one of the sergeants. He shook his fist in the direction. Tattoo being over, some of the lights were put out, but there were still plenty to guide him. He did not want to get there too early, so he walked more slowly, and when he came to the edge of the garrison, he hesitated. The chances of detection would certainly be less if he should go back of the officers' quarters, instead of the barracks. But to do that he would have to cross the road which led from the trader's to the quadrangle, and he would surely meet some one, if it were only some servant girl and her lover. He had observed and learned some things in his week of waiting in the post--that week which otherwise had gone for worse than nothing. He took the back of the barracks, keeping well away from them, stumbling in and out among rubbish heaps. He had no very clear idea of what he meant to do, or of why he was going in this particular direction; but he was ready for anything that might offer to his hand. If he came upon Landor or the adjutant or any of them, he would put a knife into him. But he was not going to the trouble of hunting them out. And so he walked on, and came to the haystacks, looming, denser shadows against the sky. Then taps sounded, ringing its brazen dirge to the night in a long, last note. It ended once, but the bugler went to the other side of the parade and began again. Lawton repeated the shaking of his fist. He was growing impatient, and also scared. A little more of that shrill music, and his nerves would go into a thousand quivering shreds--he would be useless. Would the cursed, the many times cursed military never get to bed? He waited in the shadow of the corrals, leaning against the low wall, gathering his forces. The sentry evidently did not see him. The post grew more and more still, the clouds more and more thick. Gradually it began to form itself in his softened brain what he meant to do. It is safest to avenge oneself upon dumb beasts, after all. By and by he began to feel along the adobe wall, and when he found a niche for his foot, he started to clamber up. He had climbed so many corral walls, to sit atop of them with his great, booted legs dangling, and meditatively whittle when he should have been at work, that it was easy for him, and in a moment he was on the shingled roof, lying flat. In another he had dropped down upon a bed of straw. He put out his hand and touched a warm, smooth flank. The horse gave a little low whinny. Quick as a flash he whipped out his knife and hamstrung it, not that one only, but ten other mules and horses before he stopped. He groped from stall to stall, and in each cut just once, unerringly and deep, so that the poor beast, which had turned its head and nosed at the touch of the hand of one of those humans who had always been its friends, was left writhing, with no possible outcome but death with a bullet in its head. He was waking now to his work. But he had enough of horses. He stopped, sheathed his knife, and, feeling in his pockets, drew out a box of matches. A little spluttering flame caught in a pile of straw, and showed a hind foot dragging helplessly. It crept up, and the mule plunged on three legs, dragging the other along. It snorted, and then every animal in that corral, which was the quartermaster's, smelt danger and snorted too, and struck from side to side of its stall. Those in the next corral caught the fear. If the sentry outside heard, he paid no attention. It was common enough for the horses to take a simultaneous fit of restlessness in the night, startled by some bat flapping through the beams or by a rat scurrying in the grain. In ten minutes more a flame had reached the roof. In another ten minutes the sentry had discharged his carbine three times, fire call had been sounded in quick, alarming notes, and men and officers, half dressed, had come running from the barracks and the line. Any other fire--excepting always in an ammunition magazine--is easier to handle than one in a stable. It takes time to blind plunging horses and lead them out singly. And there is no time to take. Hay and straw and gunny-sacks and the dry wood of the stable go up like tinder. It has burned itself out before you can begin to extinguish it. There were four corrals in the one, and two of them were on fire. They had spread wet blankets on the roof of the third, but it, too, caught directly. The big, yellow-hearted flames poured up into the sky. The glow was cast back again from the blackness of the low clouds, and lit up the ground with a dazing shimmer. It blinded and burned and set the rules of fire drill pretty well at naught, when the only water supply was in small buckets and a few barrels, and the horses had kicked over two of the latter. In the corral where the fire had started and was best under way, and in the stall farthest from the gate, a little pinto mustang was jerking at its halter and squealing with fear. It was Cairness's horse. He had been allowed to stable it there, and he himself was not down with his scouts in the ill-smelling camp across the creek, but had a room at the sutler's store, a good three-quarters of a mile from the corrals. As soon as the bugle call awoke him, he started at a run; but the fire was beyond fighting when he got there. He grabbed a man at the gate, who happened to be the quartermaster sergeant himself, and asked if his horse had been taken out. The sergeant spent more time upon the oaths with which he embellished the counter-question as to how he should know anything about it, than would have been consumed in a civil explanation. Cairness dropped him and went into the corrals to see for himself. The fire roared and hissed, flung charred wood into the air, and let it fall back again. He remembered, in an inconsequent flash, how one night in the South Pacific he had taken a very pretty girl below to see the engines. They had stood in the stoke-hole on a heap of coal, hand in hand, down beneath the motion of the decks where the only movement seemed to be the jar of the screw working against the thrust block and the reverberation of the connecting-rod and engines. A luckless, dust-caked wretch of a stoker had thrown open the door of a furnace in front of them, and they had seen the roaring, sputtering, seething whirl of fire within. They had given a simultaneous cry, hiding their scorched faces in their arms, and stumbled blindly over the coal beds back to the clattering of the engine rooms. It had all been very like this, only that this was a little worse, for there were half a dozen dead animals lying across the stalls, and others were being shot. The pistols snapped sharply, and the smell of powder was more pungent than all the other smells. He passed an officer who had a smoking six-shooter in his hand, and yelled in his ear, "Why are you doing that?" He had forgotten that it was by no means his place to question. "Been hamstrung," the officer bawled back hoarsely. In the end stall the bronco was still squealing and whimpering in an almost human key. He struck it on the flank with his open palm and spoke, "Get over there." It had been made so much of a pet, and had been so constantly with him, that it was more intelligent than the average of its kind. It got over and stood quiet and still, trembling. He cut the halter close to the knot, turned it out of the stall, and flinging himself across its back dug his heels into its belly. Just for a moment it hesitated, then started with the bronco spring, jumping the dead mules, shying from right to left and back again, and going out through the gates at a run. Cairness held on with his knees as he had learned to do when he had played at stock-rider around Katâwa and Glen Lomond in the days of his boyhood, as he had done since with the recruits at hurdle drill, or when he had chased a fleet heifer across the prairie and had had no time to saddle. He could keep his seat, no fear concerning that, but it was all he could do. The pony was not to be stopped. He had only what was left of the halter shank by way of a bridle, and it was none at all. A Mexican knife bit would hardly have availed. They tore on, away from the noise of the flames, of the falling timber and the shouted commands, around the haystacks so close to the barbed-wire fence that the barbs cut his boot, off by the back of the quarters, and then upon the road that led from the reservation. If the pony could be kept on that road, there was small danger from dog holes. He would run himself out in time. The length of time was what was uncertain, however. A cow-pony can go a good many hours at a stretch. Cairness sat more erect, and settled down to wait. The motion was so swift that he hardly felt it. He turned his head and looked back at the flaming corrals, and, remembering the dead animals, wondered who had hamstrung them. Then he peered forward again the little way he could see along the road, and began to make out that there was some one ahead of him. Whoever it was scurrying ahead there, bent almost double in his speed, was the one who had hamstrung the mules and horses, and who had set fire to the corrals. The pony was rather more under control now. It could be guided by the halter shank. The man, still running, dodged from the road and started across country. Cairness wheeled and followed him. It was open ground, with not so much as a scrub oak or a rock in sight. The thick darkness offered the only chance of escape. But Cairness had chased yearlings in nights as black, and had brought them back to the herd. Down by the creek where the trees were thick, there would have been a good chance for escape, almost a certainty indeed, but there was little here. The man dodged again. It was just to that very thing that the pony had been trained. Habit got the better of stampede with it. It, too, dodged sharply. Cairness leaned far over and made a grab, but the first time he missed. The second he caught the neckerchief and held it, dragging the man, who resisted with all his giant strength, digging his toes into the ground as they tore along. And he was heavy. Cairness had no stirrup or pommel to trust to. He saw that it was a case of falling or of leaving go, and he decided to fall. The man would go underneath anyway. The man did go underneath and bravely offered resistance. Cairness had the twofold strength of his wiry build and of his bull-dog race. But Lawton--he knew it was Lawton now--would have been stronger yet, save that the three weeks' spree had told, and he was breathless. Cairness sat across him and held a revolver to his mouth. The life of the plains teaches agility of various sorts, but chiefly in the matter of drawing a six-shooter. "You fired the corrals," Cairness gasped. The fall had knocked the breath from his body. The under dog did not answer. "And you hamstrung those horses." No answer still. "Why did you do it?" No answer. "I'll break your jaws if you don't open them." The jaws opened forthwith, but no sound came, and Lawton struggled feebly. It occurred to Cairness then that with no breath in your lungs and with twelve stone on your chest, speech is difficult. He slid off and knelt beside the rancher, still with the revolver levelled. "Now, why did you do it, eh?" He enforced the "eh" with a shake. "I dunno. I didn't." "Didn't you, then? You did, though, and you can go back with me till we find out why. Give me your firearms. Lively!" Lawton produced a brace of revolvers. "And your knife." He handed it over also. "Now you get up and walk in front of me, and don't you try to bolt. I can run faster than you can, and, anyway, I'll shoot you if you try it." Lawton moved ahead a few steps; then he began to cry, loudly, blubbering, his nerves gone all to shreds. He implored and pleaded and wailed. He hadn't known what he was doing. He had been drunk. They had treated him badly about the beef contract. Stone had gone back on him. The oaths that he sobbed forth were not new to Cairness, but they were very ugly. "Cheese that cussing, do you hear?" he ordered. Lawton stopped. To forbid him swearing was to forbid him speech. He shuffled ahead in silence. When Cairness got him to the post and turned him over to the officer-of-the-day, the fire had burned itself out and quiet was settling down again. Big warm drops were beginning to splash from the clouds. The officer-of-the-day put Lawton into the care of the guard and asked Cairness in to have a drink, calling him "my good man." Cairness was properly aware of the condescension involved in being asked into an officer's dining room, but he objected to being condescended to by a man who doubled his negatives, and he refused. "Is there anything, then, that I can do for you? the officer asked. His intentions were good; Cairness was bound to realize that, too. "Yes, sir," he answered; "you can see that I get a mounted man and a horse at reveille to-morrow. I want to hunt for my pony. I lost it when I caught that man." The officer-of-the-day agreed. And Cairness, not having a hat to raise, forgot himself and saluted. Then he went back to the sutler's through the already pelting rain. He was glad he had caught Lawton, mainly because of what he hoped to get out of him yet, about the Kirby affair. But he was sorry for the big clumsy fool, too. He had been an easy-going, well-intentioned boss in the days when Cairness had been his hand. And, too, he was sorry, very sorry, about the pony. If it were to fall into the hands of Mexicans or even of some of the Mescalero Indians, his chances of seeing it again would be slight. And he was fond of it, mainly because it had helped him to save Mrs. Landor's life. XVIII Cairness had made a tune for himself and was putting to it the words of the ill-fated poet of his own Land of the Dawning. "Oh! wind that whistles, o'er thorns and thistles Of the fruitful earth, like a goblin elf, Why should he labor to help his neighbor, Who feels too reckless to help himself?" He felt altogether reckless. In just such a mood, he reflected, his grandmother had probably poisoned her first husband. He could almost have poisoned Landor, the big duty-narrowed, conventional, military machine. Why could he not have married some one of his own mental circumspection?--Mrs. Campbell, for instance. He had watched that affair during his enlistment. More the pity it had come to nothing. Landor could have understood Mrs. Campbell. Then he thought of Felipa, as he had seen her first, looking full into the glare of the sunset, and afterward at him, with magnificent impersonality. "He has caught a lioness and tricked her out in fashionable rags and taught her some capers, and now he thinks he has improved the animal," he said to himself, and raged inwardly, asking the intangible Fate, which was always opposing him, if there was not enough little doll women in the world that such an one as Felipa must be whittled down to the size. The probable outcome of things at the rate they were going was perfectly apparent. Landor would advance in age, respectability, and rank, and would be retired and settle down on three-fourths pay. He himself would end up in some cow-boy row, degraded and worthless, a tough character very probably, a fine example of nothing save atavism. And Felipa would grow old. That splendid triumphant youth of hers would pass, and she would be a commonplace, subdued, middle-aged woman, in whom a relapse to her nature would be a mere vulgarity. He recalled the dark, unbecoming flush that had deepened the color of her skin just enough to show the squaw, beyond mistaking, at least to one who knew. It was all very well now. But later, later she would look like that frequently, if not all the time. With youth she would lose her excuse for being. He knew that very well. But it was the youth, the majestic, powerful youth, that he loved. He had seen too many old hags of squaws, disfigurers of the dead and wounded, drudges of the rancheria, squatting on hides before their tepees, not to know what Felipa's decline would be in spite of the Anglo-Saxon strain that seemed to show only in her white skin. Her only salvation, he knew that too, was to keep that strain always uppermost, to force it to the surface, exactly as Landor was doing now. Conventional, stately, reserved, in the garb of civilization, she would have a certain dignity. But youth was too good to sell for that. "Where is the use of the lip's red charm, The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow, And the blood that blues the inside arm?"-- He laughed crossly. Evidently he was dropping back into the poetical tendencies of his most callow youth. He would be doing her a sonnet next, forsooth. He had done two or three of them in his school days for Sydney damsels. That was when he had aspired to be ranked in his own country with Gordon. Good Lord! how many aspirations of various sorts he had had. And he was a cow-boy. Somewhere in that same poem, he remembered, there had been advice relative to a man's contending to the uttermost for his life's set prize, though the end in sight were a vice. He shrugged his shoulders. It might be well enough to hold to that in Florence and the Middle Ages. It was highly impracticable for New Mexico and the nineteenth century. So many things left undone can be conveniently laid to the prosaic and materialistic tendencies of the age. Things were bad enough now--for Landor, for himself, and most especially for Felipa. But if one were to be guided by the romantic poets, they could conceivably be much worse. He struck his pony with the fringed end of the horse-hair lariat that hung around his pommel, and cantered on in the direction of the post. The pony had been found among the foot-hills, without any trouble. That, at any rate, had been a stroke of luck. He had led it into the fort just at the end of guard-mounting, and had met a party of riders going out. Mrs. Landor was with them. She had a little battered, brass trumpet hanging from her horn, and he knew that they were going to play at hare and hounds. She and the three with her were evidently the hares. They would take a ten minutes' start; then, at the sound of the trumpet, the hounds would follow. The riding was sometimes reckless. A day or two before he had seen Felipa leap an arroyo, the edges of which were crumbling in, and take a fallen tree on very dangerous ground. He looked about now for a sign of either party. Across the creek was some one riding slowly along the crest of a hill, seeming so small and creeping that only a very trained eye could have made it out. It was probably a hound. The hares lay low, in cañons and gullies and brush, as a rule. As he scanned the rest of the valley, his horse stopped short, with its fore legs planted stiffly. He looked down and saw that he was at the brink of a sheer fall of twenty feet or more, like a hole scooped in the side of the little rise he was riding over. He remembered, then, that there was a cave somewhere about. He had often heard of it, and probably it was this. He dismounted, and, tying the pony in a clump of bushes, walked down and around to investigate. It was plainly the cave. He went and stood in the mouth and looked into the dark, narrowing throat. A weird silence poured up with the damp, earthy smell. He went farther in, half sliding down the steep bank of soft, powdery, white earth. There was only the uncanny light which comes from reflection from the ground upward. But by it he could see innumerable tiny footprints, coyote, squirrel, prairie-dog, polecat tracks and the like. It took very little imagination to see yellow teeth and eyes gleaming from black shadows also, although he knew there were no dangerous animals in those parts. When he was well within, he began to investigate, and he recalled now that he had heard a great deal of this cave. It was very large, supposedly, but almost unexplored. Tradition ran that the Spaniards, in the long-past days of their occupation, had had a big silver mine in there, worked by padres who had taught the timid Indians to believe that it was haunted, that they might not take it for themselves, nor yet guide others to it. And, too, it had been the refuge and hiding-place of Billy the Kid for years. It was said that since then a corporal and three men had gone in once, and that a search party had found their gnawed skeletons by the edge of the river that flowed there underground. Oddly enough, and thanks to the missionary fathers, it had never served as an Indian stronghold, though its advantages for such a use were manifest. Cairness sat himself down and tried to listen for the flow of the great black river yonder in the great black hollow. By dint of straining his ears he almost fancied that he did catch a sound. But at the same instant, there came a real and unmistakable one. He started a little, not quite sure, just at first, what manner of wild beast, or man, or genius of the cave might pounce out upon him. It was only some one standing at the mouth of the hole, however, a shadow against the shimmering sunlight. And it was a woman--it was Felipa. He sat quite still, clinching his teeth and clawing his fingers tensely. In the great crises of life, training and upbringing and education fall away, and a man is governed by two forces, his instincts and his surroundings. And Cairness's instincts were in entire accord with his surroundings; they were of the Stone Age, when men fought with the beasts of the wilderness in their cave homes, and had only the law of sheer strength. He leaned forward, holding his breath, and watched her. Had she seen his horse tied up above, and come here to find him--because he was here? She might have seen two dots of light fixed on her from the shadow, if she had looked that way. But she did not, and came unconcernedly down. She was sure-footed and agile, and she was daring, too. He himself had felt a qualm at coming here. But she did not appear to hesitate once. She came on, close by where he sat, and going to the dark passage peered in. Then she turned away and caught sight of him. He was accustomed to the gloom by now, but she was not. She could only see that there was some one in the shadow. It flashed through his mind that she would scream, but the next moment he knew that she would not. She drew herself up and grasped her loaded quirt more firmly. There are some natures to which flight from a thing feared is physically impossible. They must not only face danger, they must go up to it. It is a trait, like any other. Felipa took two steps toward him. He came out of the rock nook into the half light and spoke her own name. She was frightened now. The quirt fell from her hand with a thud. She loosed her hold upon her long riding skirt and tripped over it. If he had not sprung forward, with his arms outstretched to catch her, she would have fallen, face downward in the dust. It was three times now he had so saved her. He knew even then while her hand grasped at his arm, that he should have set her upon her feet, as he had done before. He knew that she had merited at least that. But he held her tight and close, and bending back her head, his own very close above it, looked into her eyes. Then he stopped, with every muscle drawn, for he had seen in her answering, unflinching gaze that he was losing her, surely, irrevocably losing her. He let her go, almost throwing her away, and she caught hold of a ledge of rock to steady herself. He picked up the heavy quirt and held it out to her, with a shaking hand, shame-faced, and defiant, too. She took it, and they both stood for a time without speaking. Then she turned her head and looked up at the sunshine. "I think I must go," she whispered. But she did not move. He asked her angrily why she had ever come at all, and she explained, with a piteous whimper, like a penitent child's, that she had left her horse tied in a little hollow and had come to explore. She had often meant to explore before this. He was still more exasperated, with himself and with her, that he had allowed himself to think for one moment that she had come on purpose to find him. Where were the others? How did she happen to be here alone? he asked. She told him that they had all scattered some time before, with the hounds in full cry. "I must go," she repeated more firmly now, "they will be looking--" She stopped short. There was the crunching of heavy feet up above, on the gravel. It came to them both, even to her, that for them to be seen there together would be final. There would be no explaining it away. Cairness thought of her. She thought of her husband. It would ruin him and his life. It was done before either of them was conscious of doing it. The black throat of the cave was open behind him. Cairness jumped back into it, and she turned away and stood waiting, stiff with fear, not of the man whoever it might prove to be up there, but for the one who had stepped into the unknown dangers of the darkness behind her. The man up above showed himself, and putting his hands to his mouth shouted, "Felipa!" She gave a cry of relief. "Mr. Cairness, Mr. Cairness," she called, "it is only my husband." She went herself a little way into the passage. "Jack, Mr. Cairness has gone in there, call to him." And she called again herself. Landor came sliding and running down. His face was misshapen with the anger that means killing. She saw it, and her powers came back to her all at once. She put both hands against his breast and pushed him back, with all the force of her sinewy arms. His foot slipped on a stone and he fell. She dropped beside him and tried to hold him down. "He did not know I was coming here," she pleaded. "It was a mistake, Jack! Will you wait until I tell you? Will you wait?" She was clinging around his neck and would not be shaken off. He dragged her in the dust, trying to get free himself. Cairness had groped his way back. He stood watching them. And he, too, was ready to kill. If Landor had raised his hand against her, he would have shot him down. But, instead, Landor stopped abruptly, rigid with the force of will. "I will wait. Go on," he said. His voice was low and rasping. It dawned upon Cairness that this was rather more than a military machine after all, that he had underestimated it. Felipa stood up and told the truth shortly. "It was my fault, if it was any one's," she ended. "You may kill me, if you like. But if you hurt him, I will kill myself." It was she who was threatening now, and she never said more than she meant. She turned almost disdainfully from them, and went up and out of the cave. Landor stopped behind, looking at Cairness undecidedly for a moment longer. "It is well for you that I can believe her implicitly," he said. It had been a relapse to the Stone Age, but the rebound to the nineteenth century was as quick. Cairness bowed, with no realization of the humor of it. "You are equally fortunate," he said easily, and motioned with his hand to the opening above, where Felipa was going. He might have been under his own roof, and that the door. Landor went. Felipa waited for him, already mounted. He mounted his own horse and rode beside her back to the post. They did not speak, and he was conscious above his anger that his fondness for her had been gradually turning to dislike, and was now loathing. He had seen her dragging in the dust before him, pleading abjectly. She had humiliated him and herself in the presence of Cairness, of all men, and he would never forget it. A woman who once grovels at a man's feet has lost thenceforth her power over him. XIX If you take even a good-humored puppy of a savage breed and tie him to a kennel so that all his natural energy strikes in; if you feed him upon raw meat, when you feed him at all, but half starve him for the most part; and if you tantalize and goad him whenever you are in search of a pastime, he is more than likely to become a dangerous beast when he grows up. He is then a menace to the public, so you have but one course left--to take him out and shoot him. That is the proper way to bring up dogs. It makes them useful members of society. And it applies equally well to Indians. It has worked beautifully with them for several hundred years. In Canada they have run it on another principle. But they have missed much of the fun we have had out of it. In the territories there was plenty of such fun. And it had pretty well reached its height in the spring of '83. The Indians, being wicked, ungrateful, suspicious characters, doubted the promises of the White-eyes. But it is only just to be charitable toward their ignorance. They were children of the wilderness and of the desert places, walking in darkness. Had the lights of the benefits of civilization ever shone in upon them, they would have realized that the government of these United States, down to its very least official representative, never lies, never even evades. "Have I ever lied to you?" Crook asked them. And the deaf old chief Pedro answered for them: "No," he said, "when you were here before, whenever you said a thing, we knew that it was true, and we kept it in our minds. When you were here, we were content; but we cannot understand why you went away. Why did you leave us? Everything was all right when you were here." He was but an unlearned and simple savage, and the workings of a War Department were, of course, a mystery to him. He and his people should have believed Crook. The thoughtful government which that much-harassed general represented had done everything possible to instill sweet trustfulness into their minds. But the Apache, as all reports have set forth, is an uncertain quantity. The quiet, observant, capable man, whose fate it was to be always called in for the thankless task of undoing the evil work of others, made every effort to pacify this time, but he failed. "Yes, we believe you," said the Apache; "but you may go away again." So he refused to be cajoled, and going upon the war-path, after much bloodshed, fled into Mexico. The general took a couple of hundred Indian scouts, enlisted for six months' service, a troop of cavalry, and a half-dozen guides and interpreters, and followed across the border. There was a new treaty, just made to that end. It was the fiercest of all the Apache tribes, the Chiricahuas, that had hidden itself in the fastnesses of the Sierra Madre, two hundred miles south of the boundary line. Geronimo and Juh and Chato, and other chiefs of quite as bloody fame, were with him. To capture them would be very creditable success. To fail to do so would entail dire consequences, international complications perhaps, and of a certainty the scorn and abuse of all the wise men who sat in judgment afar off. The general kept his own counsel then, but afterward, when it was all over, he confessed,--not to the rejoicing reporter who was making columns out of him for the papers of this, and even of many another, land,--but to the friends who had in some measure understood and believed in him, that the strain and responsibility had all but worn him out. And he was no frail man, this mighty hunter of the plains. The general of romance is a dashing creature, who wears gold lace and has stars upon his shoulder straps, and rides a fiery charger at the head of his troops. He always sits upon the charger, a field-glass in his hand and waiting aides upon every side, or flourishes a sword as he plunges into the thick of the battle smoke. But Crook was not dashing, only quiet and steady, and sure as death. Upon parade and occasions of ceremony he wore the gold lace and the stars. To do his life's work he put on an old flannel shirt, tied a kerchief around his neck, and set a pith helmet over those farseeing, keen little eyes. He might have been a prospector, or a cow-boy, for all the outward seeming of it. His charger was oftenest a little government mule, and he walked, leading it over many and many a trail that even its sure feet could not trust. There were plenty such trails in the Sierra Madre, through which the Apache scouts were guiding him to their hostile brothers. Cairness had come along with his own band of scouts. He had seen rough work in his time, but none equal to this. Eight mules stepped a hand's breadth from the path, and lay hundreds of feet below at the base of the precipice, their backs broken under their aparejos. The boots were torn from the men's feet, their hands were cut with sharp rocks. They marched by night sometimes, sometimes by day, always to the limit of their strength. And upon the fourteenth morning they came upon the Chiricahua stronghold. Without the scouts they could never have found it. The Indian has betrayed the Indian from first to last. It was a little pocket, a natural fortress, high up on a commanding peak. Cairness crept forward flat along the rocks, raised his head cautiously and looked down. There in the sunrise light,--the gorgeous sunrise of the southern mountain peaks where the wind is fresh out of the universe and glitters and quivers with sparks of new life,--there was the encampment of the hostiles. It was a small Eden of green grass and water and trees high up in the Sierra--that strange mountain chain that seems as though it might have been the giant model of the Aztec builders, and that holds the mystery of a mysterious people locked in its stone and metal breasts, as securely as it does that of the rich, lost mines whose fabled wonders no man can prove to-day. There is a majesty about the mountains of the desolate regions which is not in those of more green and fertile lands. Loneliness and endurance are written deep in their clefts and cañons and precipices. In the long season of the sun, they look unshrinking back to the glaring sky, with a stern defiance. It is as the very wrath of God, but they will not melt before it. In the season of the rains, black clouds hang low upon them, guarding their sullen gloom. But just as in the sternest heart is here and there a spot of gentleness, so in these forbidding fastnesses there are bits of verdure and soft beauty too. And the Indian may be trusted to know of these. Here where the jacales clustered, there was grass and wood and water that might last indefinitely. The fortifications of Nature had been added to those of Nature's man. It was a stronghold. But the Apaches held it for only a day, for all that. They were unprepared and overconfident. Their bucks were for the most part away plundering the hapless Mexican settlements in the desert below. They had thought that no white troops nor Mexicans could follow here, and they had neglected to count with the scouts, who had been hostiles themselves in their day, and who had the thief's advantage in catching a thief. And so while the bucks and children wandered round among the trees or bathed in the creek, while the hobbled ponies grazed leisurely on the rank grass, and the squaws carried fuel and built fires and began their day of drudgery, they were surprised. The fight began with a shot fired prematurely by one of the scouts, and lasted until nightfall--after the desultory manner of Indian mountain fights, where you fire at a tree-trunk or lichened rock, or at some black, red-bound head that shoots up quick as a prairie dog's and is gone again, and where you follow the tactics of the wary Apache in so far as you may. The curious part of it is that you beat him at his own game every time. It is always the troops that lose the least heavily! The Indian wars of the southwest have been made a very small side issue in our history. The men who have carried them on have gained little glory and little fame. And yet they have accomplished a big task, and accomplished it well. They have subdued an enemy many times their own number. And the enemy has had such enormous advantages, too. He has been armed, since the 70's, even better than the troops. He has been upon his own ground--a ground that was alone enough to dismay the soldier, and one that gave him food, where it gave the white man death by starvation and thirst. He knew every foot of the country, fastnesses, water holes, creeks, and strongholds over thousands of miles. The best cavalry can travel continuously but twenty-five or thirty miles a day, carrying its own rations. The Apache, stealing his stock and food as he runs, covers his fifty or seventy-five. The troops must find and follow trails that are disguised with impish craft. The Apache goes where he lists, and that, as a general thing, over country where devils would fear to tread. Then throw into the scale the harassing and conflicting orders of a War Department, niggardly with its troops, several thousand miles away, wrapped in a dark veil of ignorance, and add the ever ready blame of the territorial citizen and press, and the wonder is, not that it took a score of years to settle the Apache question, but that it was ever settled at all. The all-day fight in the Sierra Madre stronghold was a very uneven one. There were two hundred and fifty of the government forces against some thirty-five bucks. But, after all, the number comes to nothing. You may as well shoot at one enemy as at a thousand, if he is not to be seen anyway, and you cannot hit him. Cairness reflected upon this as he fired for exactly the seventh time at a pair of beady eyes that flashed at him over a bush-topped rock by the creek, not five and twenty yards away, and then vanished utterly. There was something uncanny about it, and he was losing patience as well as ammunition. Three bullets from a repeating rifle had about finished him. One had gone through his hat. The eyes popped up again. Cairness fired again and missed. Then he did a thoroughly silly thing. He jumped out from behind his shelter and ran and leapt, straight down, and over to the rock by the stream. The beady eyes saw him coming and sparkled, with an evil sort of laughter. If Cairness had not slipped and gone sprawling down at that moment, the fourth bullet would have brought him up short. It sung over him, instead, and splashed against a stone, and when he got to his feet again the eyes had come out from their hiding-place. They were in the head of a very young buck. He had sprung to the top of his rock and was dancing about with defiant hilarity, waving his hands and the Winchester, and grimacing tantalizingly. "_Yaw! ya!_" he screeched. Cairness discharged his revolver, but the boy whooped once more and was down, dodging around the stone. Cairness dodged after him, wrath in his heart and also a vow to switch the little devil when he should get him. But he did not seem to be getting him. The fighting stopped to watch the Ojo-blanco playing tag with the little Apache, right in the heart of the stronghold. The general stood still, with a chuckle, and looked on. "Naughty little boy," he remarked to the captain of the scouts; "but your man Cairness won't catch him, though." With the sublime indifference to the mockery of the world, characteristic of his race, Cairness kept at it. It was ridiculous. He had time to be dimly aware of that. And it certainly was not war. He did not know that they were affording the opposing forces much enjoyment. He had not even observed that the firing had stopped. But he meant to catch that much qualifiedly impudent little beast, or to know the reason why. And he would probably have known the reason why, if one of the Apache scouts, embarrassed by no notions of fair play, had not taken good aim and brought his youthful kinsman down, with a bullet through his knee. The black eyes snapped with pain as he fell, but when Cairness, with a breathless oath at the spoiler of sport, whoever he might be, pounced down upon him, the snap turned to a twinkle. The little buck raised himself on his elbow. "How! Cairness," he grinned. "How Mees Landor?" Cairness stopped short, speechless, with his mouth open. He did not even dodge after a bullet had hummed past his head. "Who the devil--!" he began. Then it dawned upon him. It was Felipa's protégé of the old Camp Thomas days. He was standing, and the boy was lying, and the shots of the Apaches flew about them. He stooped, and catching up his defeated foe, whose defeat was not half so entire as his own, scrambled out of the pocket and back among the troops. He carried his prisoner, who kicked vigorously with his good leg, and struck with both fists in protest against the ignominy of being held under anybody's arm like a sack of grain, back to the tied horses. "Look out for the little customer, will you?" he said to the medical officer. "He's a great chum of mine. Many's the can of condensed milk and bag of peanuts the ungrateful young one has had out of me." "What are you doing here?" he asked in the White Mountain idiom; "you aren't a Chiricahua." The boy grinned again. "How Mees Landor?" he repeated. His savage perception had noted that those words had some "medicine" or other that paralyzed the Ojo-blanco temporarily. Cairness swore at him in good English, and went off abruptly. At sunset the camp surrendered. There were seven dead bucks found, but no one ever knew, of course, how many had fallen into ravines, or dragged themselves off to die in nooks. The Apache does not dread death, but he dreads having the White-man know that he has died. The spoils of the rancheria were varied, and some of them interesting as well. There were quite a hundred mules and horses, and there was money, to the sum of five thousand dollars or more. Also there were gold and silver watches and clothes and saddles and bridles--all the loot of the unhappy haciendas and pueblas down on the flat. But the most treasured of all their possessions was a little photograph album which had begun its varied career in the particular home of the misguided Indian philanthropist, Boston. There was human plunder, too--women from the villages, all Mexicans but one, and that one was American. Cairness, having gone off with some scouts to reconnoitre, did not see them that night. When he came back it was already dark, and he took his supper; and rolling himself in his blanket slept, as he had always for the past fortnight, with only the faintly radiant night sky above him. In the morning, while the cooks were getting breakfast and the steam of ration-Rio mounted as a grateful incense to the pink and yellow daybreak heavens, having bathed in the creek and elaborated his toilet with a clean neckerchief in celebration of victory, he walked over to the bunch of tepees to see the women captives. He knew while he was yet afar off which was the American. She stood, big and gaunt, with her feet planted wide and her fists on her hips, looking over toward the general's tent. And when Cairness came nearer, strolling along with his hands in his pockets, observing the beauties of Nature and the entire vileness of man, she turned her head and gave him a defiant stare. He took his hands from his pockets and went forward, raising his disreputable campaign hat. "Good morning, Mrs. Lawton," he said, not that he quite lived up to the excellent standard of Miss Winstanley, but that he understood the compelling force of civility, not to say the bewilderment. If you turn its bright light full in the face of one whose eyes are accustomed to the obscurity wherein walk the underbred, your chances for dazzling him until he shall fall into any pit you may have dug in his pathway are excellent. Nor was he disconcerted that she met him with a stony front and a glare of wrath. She glanced down at his outstretched hand, and kept her own great bony one on her hip still. Then she looked at him squarely again. She did not say "Well?" but she meant it. So he answered it blandly, and suggested that she had probably forgotten him, but that he had had the pleasure of meeting her once in the States. She continued to stare. He held that a husband is a husband still until the law or death says otherwise, and that it was no part of a man's business to inquire into the domestic relations of his friends; so he said that he had had the pleasure of meeting her husband recently. "He was at Fort Stanton," he added, "upon some little matter of business, I believe. You will be glad to hear that he was well." He did not see fit to add that he was also in the county jail, awaiting trial on charge of destruction of government property. "What's your name, young feller?" she demanded. Cairness was hurt. "Surely, Mrs. Lawton, you have not so entirely forgotten me. I am Charles Cairness, very much at your service." But she had forgotten, and she said so. He hesitated with a momentary compunction. She must have suffered pretty well for her sins already; her work-cut, knotty hands and her haggard face and the bend of her erstwhile too straight shoulders--all showed that plainly enough. It were not gallant; it might even be said to be cruel to worry her. But he remembered the dead Englishwoman, with her babies, stiff and dead, too, beside her on the floor of the charred cabin up among the mountains, and his heart was hardened. "I spent a few days with the Kirbys once," he said, and looked straight into her eyes. They shifted, and there was no mistaking her uneasiness. He followed it up instantly on a bold hazard. It had to be done now, before she had time to retreat to the cover of her blank stolidity. "Why did you leave them to be massacred? What did you have against her and those little children?" "I didn't. None of your business," she defied him. "I beg your pardon, madam," he said. "It happens to be my business, though." Breakfast call sounded. At the first shrill note she started violently. She was very thoroughly unnerved, and he decided that an hour of thinking would make her worse so. He told her that he would see her after breakfast, and raising his hat again left her to the anticipation, and to helping the Mexican captives cook their meal of mescal root and rations. Later in the day, when the general and the interpreters were engaged in making clear to the bucks, who came straggling in to surrender, the wishes and intentions of the Great Father in Washington as regarded his refractory children in Arizona, he went back to the captives' tepee. The Texan was nowhere to be seen. He called to her and got no answer, then he looked in. She was not there. One of the Mexican women was standing by, and he went up to her and asked for the Gringa. The woman shrugged her round brown shoulders from which the rebozo had fallen quite away, and dropped her long lashes. "_No se_," she murmured. "_Ay que si!_ You do know," he laughed; "you tell me _chula_, or I will take you back to the United States with me." She laughed too, musically, with a bewitching gurgle, and gave him a swift glance, at once soft and sad. "_Ella es muy fea, no es simpatica, la Gringa._" Undoubtedly, as she said, the American was ugly and unattractive; but the Mexican was pretty and decidedly engaging. Cairness had been too nearly trapped once before to be lured now. He met the piece of brown femininity upon her own ground. "You are quite right, _querida mia_. She is ugly and old, and you are beautiful and young, and I will take you with me to the States and buy a pink dress with lovely green ribbons, if you will tell me where the old woman is." "_'Stá bajo_," she stuck out her cleft chin in the direction of the trail that led out of the pocket down to the flat, far below. "_De veras?_" asked Cairness, sharply. He was of no mind to lose her like this, when he was so near his end. "Truly," said the little thing, and nodded vehemently. He left her ignominiously, at a run. She stood laughing after him until he jumped over a rock and disappeared. "She is his sweetheart, the _vieja_," she chattered to her companions. Cairness called to four of his scouts as he ran. They joined him, and he told them to help him search. In half an hour they found her, cowering in a cranny of rocks and manzanita. He dismissed the Indians, and then spoke to her. "Now you sit on that stone there and listen to me," he said, and taking her by the shoulder put her down and stood over her. She kept her sullen glance on the ground, but she was shaking violently. "Your husband is in jail," he said without preface. He had done with the mask of civility. It had served its purpose. "No he ain't." "Yes he is. And I put him there." He left her to what he saw was her belief that it was because of the Kirby affair. "You'll see when you get back. And I'll put you there, too, if I care to. The best chance you have is to do as I tell you." She was silent, but the stubbornness was going fast. She broke off a bunch of little pink blossoms and rolled it in her hands. "Your best chance for keeping out of jail, too," he insisted, "is to keep on the right side of me. _Sabe?_ Now what I want to know is, what part Stone has in all this." He did not know what part any one had had in it, as a matter of fact, for he had failed in all attempts to make Lawton talk, in the two days he had had before leaving the post. "Why don't you ask him?" said Mrs. Lawton, astutely. "Because I prefer to ask you, that's why--and to make you answer, too." He sat down cross-legged on the ground, facing her. "I've got plenty of time, my dear woman. I can stop here all day if you can, you know," he assured her. Afterward he made a painting of her as she had sat there, in among the rocks and the scrub growth, aged, bent, malevolent, and in garments that were picturesque because they were rags. He called it the Sibyl of the Sierra Madre. And, like the Trojan, he plied her with questions--not of the future, but of the past. "Well," he said, "are you going to answer me?" "Didn't you find out from him?" she asked. He changed his position leisurely, stretching out at full length and resting his head on his hand by way of gaining time. Then he told her that it was not until after he had caught and landed her husband that he had discovered that Stone was in it. "Who told you he was?" she asked. "Never mind all that. I'm here to question, not to be questioned. Now listen to me." And he went on to point out how she could not possibly get away from him and the troops until they were across the border, and that once there, it lay with him to turn her over to the authorities or to set her free. "You can take your choice, of course. I give you my word--and I think you are quite clever enough to believe me--that if you do not tell me what I want to know about Stone, I will land you where I've landed your husband; and that if you do, you shall go free after I've done with you. Now I can wait until you decide to answer," and he rolled over on his back, put his arms under his head, and gazed up at the jewel-blue patch of sky. There was a long pause. A hawk lighted on a point of rock and twinkled its little eyes at them. Two or three squirrels whisked in and out. Once a scout came by and stood looking at them, then went on, noiselessly, up the mountain side. "What do you want to know for?" asked the woman, at length. He repeated that he was not there to be questioned, and showed her that he meant it by silence. Presently she began again, "Well, he wasn't in it at all. Stone wasn't." This was not what Cairness wanted either. He persisted in the silence. A prolonged silence will sometimes have much the same effect as solitary confinement. It will force speech against the speaker's own will. Mrs. Lawton gritted her teeth at him as though she would have rejoiced greatly to have had his neck between them. By and by she started once more. "Bill jest told him about it--like a goldarned fool." "That," said Cairness, cheerfully, "is more like it. Go on." "That's all." "Begging your pardon, it's not all." "What the devil do you want to know, then?" He considered. "Let me see. For instance, when did Lawton tell him, and why, and exactly what?" "You don't say!" she mocked. "You want the earth and some sun and moon and stars, don't you, though? Well, then, Bill told him about a week afterward. And he told him because Stone had another hold on him (it ain't any of your business what that was, I reckon), and bullied it out of him (Bill ain't got any more backbone than a rattler), and promised to lend him money to set up for hisself on the Circle K Ranch. Want to know anything else?" she sneered. "Several things, thanks. You haven't told me yet what version of it your husband gave to Stone." Cairness was a little anxious. It was succeed or fail right here. "Told him the truth, more idjit he." "I didn't ask you that," he reminded her calmly. "I asked what he told." "Say!" she apostrophized. "Yes?" "You're English, I reckon, ain't you?" "Yes, and you don't like the English, I know that perfectly." "You're right, I don't. You're as thick-headed as all the rest of them." "Thanks. But you started out to tell me what Lawton told Stone." "He told him the truth, I tell you: that when we heard the Apaches were coming, we lit out and drove out the stock from the corrals. I don't recollect his words." So that was it! It took all the self-command that thirty-five varied years had taught him not to rise up and knock her head against the sharp rocks. But he lay quite still, and presently he said: "That is near enough for my purposes, thank you. But I would be interested to know, if you don't mind, what you had against a helpless woman and those two poor little babies. I wouldn't have supposed that a woman lived who could have been such a fiend as all that." The woman launched off into a torrent of vituperation and vile language that surprised even Cairness, whose ears were well seasoned. "Shut up!" he commanded, jumping to his feet. "You killed her and you ought to be burned at the stake for it, but you shall not talk about her like that, you devilish old crone." She glared at him, but she stopped short nevertheless, and, flinging down the stone she had been holding, stood up also. "All right, then. You've done with me, I reckon. Now suppose you let me go back to the camp." He turned and walked beside her. "Don't you believe I know all that I want to. I've only just begun. So that scoundrel knew the whole murderous story, and went on writing lies in his papers and covering you, when you ought to have been hung to the nearest tree, did he?--and for the excellent reason that he wanted to make use of your husband! I worked on the Circle K Ranch and on that other one over in New Mexico, which is supposed to be Lawton's, and it didn't take me long to find out that Stone was the real boss." "He's got Bill right under his thumb," she sneered at her weak spouse. They clambered up the mountain side, back to the camp, and Cairness escorted her to the tepee in silence. Then he left her. "Don't try to run away again," he advised. "You can't get far." He started off and turned back. "Speaking of running away, where's the Greaser you lit out with?" She replied, with still more violent relapse into foul-tongued abuse, that he had gone off with a woman of his own people. "Got me down into this hell of a country and took every quartillo I had and then skedaddled." Cairness smiled. There was, it appeared, a small supply of poetic justice still left in the scheme of things to be meted out. "And then the Apache came down and bore you off like a helpless lamb," he said. "If I'd been the Apache I'd have made it several sorts of Hades for you, but I'd have scalped you afterward. You'd corrupt even a Chiricahua squaw. However, I'm glad you lived until I got you." And he left her. But he kept a close watch upon her then and during all the hard, tedious march back to the States, when the troops and the scouts had to drag their steps to meet the strength of the women and children; when the rations gave out because there were some four hundred Indians to be provided for, when the command ate mescal root, digging it up from the ground and baking it; and when the presence of a horde of filthy savages made the White-man suffer many things not to be put in print. But they were returning victorious. The Chiricahuas were subdued. The hazard had turned well. There would be peace; the San Carlos Agency, breeding-grounds of all ills, would be turned over to military supervision. The general who had succeeded--if he had failed it would have been such a very different story--would have power to give his promise to the Apaches and to see that it was kept. The experiment of honesty and of giving the devil his due would have a fair trial. The voices that had cried loudest abuse after the quiet soldier who, undisturbed, went so calmly on his way, doing the thing which seemed to him right, were silenced; and the soldier himself came back into his own land, crossing the border with his herds and his tribes behind him. There was no flourish of trumpets; no couriers were sent in advance to herald that the all but impossible had been accomplished. On a fine Sunday morning in June the triumphant general rode into a supply camp twelve miles north of the line, and spoke to the officer in command. "Nice morning, Colonel," he said. And then his quick eyes spied the most desirable thing in all the camp. It was a tin wash basin set on a potato box. The triumphant general dismounted, and washed his face. XX There was peace and harmony in the home of the Reverend Taylor. An air of neatness and prosperity was about his four-room adobe house. The mocking-bird that hung in a willow cage against the white wall, by the door, whistled sweet mimicry of the cheep of the little chickens in the back yard, and hopped to and fro and up and down on his perches, pecking at the red chili between the bars. From the corner of his eyes he could peek into the window, and it was bright with potted geraniums, white as the wall, or red as the chili, or pink as the little crumpled palm that patted against the glass to him. He whistled more cheerily yet when he saw that small hand. He was a tame mocking-bird, and he had learned to eat dead flies from it. That was one of the greatest treats of his highly satisfactory life. The hand left the window and presently waved from the doorway. The Reverend Taylor stood there with his son in his arms. The mocking-bird trilled out a laugh to the evening air. It was irresistible, so droll that even a bird must know it,--the likeness between the little father and the little son. There was the same big head and the big ears and the big eyes and the body that was too small for them all, a little, thin body, active and quivering with energy. There were the very same wrinkles about the baby's lids, crinkles of good humor and kindly tolerance, and the very same tufts of hair running the wrong way and sticking out at the temples. The tufts were fuzzy yellow instead of gray, and the miniature face had not yet grown tanned and hard with the wind and the sun, but those were mere details. The general effect was perfect. There was no mistaking that the lively fraction of humanity in the Reverend Taylor's arms was the little Reverend. That was the only name he went by, though he had been christened properly on the day he was six months old, Joshua for his father and Randolph for his mother, in memory of Virginia, and her own long maidenhood. She was herself a Randolph, and she wanted the fact perpetuated. But in Tombstone, Joshua Randolph Taylor was simply the little Reverend. The little Reverend was the first thing on earth to his father. For the wife had made that step in advance, which is yet a step in descent in a woman's life, when she becomes to her husband less herself than the mother of his child. The Reverend Taylor grabbed at a fly and caught it in his palm. He had become very expert at this, to his wife's admiration and his son's keen delight. It was because the little Reverend liked to see him do it, and derived so much elfish enjoyment from the trick, that he had perfected himself in it. He gave the crushed fly to the baby, and held him up to feed the bird. The bird put its head through the bars and pecked with its whiskered bill, and the little Reverend gurgled joyfully, his small face wrinkling up in a way which was really not pretty, but which his father thought the most engaging expression in the world. The puppy which had been born the same day as the little Reverend, a beast half coyote, half shepherd, and wholly hideous, came and sat itself down beside them on the sill, looked up with its tongue hanging out to one side, and smiled widely. The beaming good nature of the two Reverends was infectious. The baby squealed gleefully, and kicked until it was set down on the doorstep to pat the dog. Presently the nurse came, a big, fat Mexican woman, with all her people's love of children showing on her moon face as she put out her arms. She had been with the Taylors since before the baby's birth, and she had more of its affection than the mother. The little Reverend understood only Spanish, and his few words, pronounced with a precision altogether in keeping with his appearance, were Spanish ones. The old nurse murmured softly, as she took him up, "_Quieres leche hombrecito, quieres cenar? El chuchu tiene hambre tambien. Vamos á ver mamá._" The little Reverend was not to be blandished. He was willing to go because it was his supper time and he knew it, but the big-eyed look of understanding he turned up to the gentle, fat face said plainly enough that he was too wise a creature to be wheedled. He submitted to be carried in, but he cast a regretful glance at the "chuchu," which sat still in the doorway, and at his father, who was watching the line of flying ants making their way, a stream of red bodies and sizzing white wings, out of the window and across the street. They had been doing that for three days. They came down the chimney, made across the floor in a line that never changed direction, nor straggled, nor lessened, up the wall and out a crack in the window. They did no harm, but followed blindly on in the path the first one had taken. And the minister had said they should not be smoked back or thwarted. The little Reverend had been much interested in them also. He had sat for several hours sucking an empty spool, and observing them narrowly, in perfect silence. His father had great hopes of him as a naturalist. Finally the minister raised his eyes and looked down the street. It was almost empty, save for two men in high-heeled top boots and sombreros who sat in chairs tilted back against the post-office wall, meditating in mutual silence. The only sounds were the rattling of dishes over in his mother-in-law's restaurant across the street, and the sleepy cheeping of the little chickens in his own back yard, as they cuddled under their mother's wing. The Reverend Taylor was about to go to the coops and close them for the night, when he saw a man and a woman on horseback coming up the street. The woman was bending forward and swaying in her saddle. He stood still and watched. The red sunset blaze was in his face so that he could not see plainly until they were quite near. Then he knew that it was Cairness and--yes, beyond a doubt--Bill Lawton's runaway wife. They halted in front of him, and the woman swayed again, so much that he ran to her side. But she righted herself fiercely. Cairness was dismounted and was beside her, too, in an instant. He lifted her from the horse, pulled her down, more or less; she was much too ungainly to handle with any grace. "May I take her in?" he said, nodding toward the open door. "Surely," said the minister, "surely." There might have been men who would have remembered that Mrs. Lawton was a tough woman, even for a mining town, and who would in the names of their own wives have refused to let her cross the threshold of their homes. But he saw that she was ill, and he did not so much as hesitate. Cairness put his arm around the big angular shoulders and helped her into the sitting room. She dropped down upon the sofa, and sat there, her head hanging, but in sullenness, not humility. Mrs. Taylor came to the dining-room door and looked in. "Can I do anything?" she asked. "Come in," said her husband. He was pouring out a drink of whiskey. She came and stood watching, asking no questions, while the woman on the sofa gulped down the raw whiskey and gave back the glass. Cairness had gone out to hitch the horses. When he came in he spoke to Mrs. Lawton, as one possessed of authority. He told her to lie down if she wanted to. "With your leave, Mrs. Taylor?" he added. Mrs. Taylor was already beside her, fussing kindly and being met with scant courtesy. Cairness took the Reverend Taylor to the door. "You know that is Bill Lawton's wife?" he said. Taylor nodded. "The one who sloped with the Greaser?" The parson nodded again. "Do you object to taking her into your house for a short time?" The Reverend Taylor did not object. "And your wife?" "She will shrink, I guess, at first," he admitted. "Women who ain't seen much of life kind of think they ought to draw aside their skirts, and all that. They were taught copy-book morals about touching pitch, I reckon,"--he was wise concerning women now--"and it takes a good deal of hard experience to teach them that it ain't so. But she'll take my word for it." "She is ill, you see?" The parson had seen. "She may be ill some time. Would it be asking too much of you to look after her?" The bachelor showed in that. Taylor realized from the Benedict's greater knowledge that it was asking a great deal, but still not too much. He assured Cairness that she should be cared for. "She was a captive among the Chiricahuas up in the Sierra Madre. She's had a hard time of it. That and the return march have been too much for her." The parson expressed pity--and felt it, which is more. "Yes," Cairness said, "of course it's hard luck, but she's deserved it all, and more too. You may as well know the whole thing now. It's only fair. She and her husband were the cause of the Kirby massacre. Drove off the stock from the corrals and left them no escape." His teeth set. The little man gasped audibly. "Good God!" he said, "I--" he stopped. "I rather thought that might be too much for even you," said Cairness. "No, no; it's a good deal, but it ain't too much. Not that it could be more, very well," he added, and he glanced furtively at the woman within, who had stretched out on the lounge with her face to the wall. Mrs. Taylor was fanning her. "You will still keep her then?" Cairness wished to know. He would still keep her, yes. But he did not see that it would be in the least necessary to tell his wife the whole of the woman's iniquity. It took quite all his courage, after they had gotten her safely in bed, to remind her that this was the same woman who had gone off with the Mexican. Mrs. Taylor folded her hands in her lap, and simply looked at him. "Well?" said he, questioningly, setting his mouth. It answered to the duellist's "On guard!" She had seen him set his mouth before, and she knew that it meant that he was not to be opposed. Nevertheless there was a principle involved now. It must be fought for. And it would be the first fight of their marriage, too. As he had told Cairness once, she was very amiable. "Well," she answered, "I think you have done an unspeakable thing, that is all." "Such as--" "To have brought an abandoned woman into our home." "If her presence blackens the walls, we will have them whitewashed." But she was not to be turned off with levity. It was a serious matter, involving consequences of the sternest sort. Mrs. Taylor was of the class of minds which holds that just such laxities as this strike at the root of society. "It is not a joke, Joshua. She pollutes our home." "Are you afraid she will contaminate me?" he asked. He was peering at her over the top of a newspaper. She denied the idea emphatically. "Baby, then?" Equally absurd. "Or the nurse?" It was too foolish to answer. "Then," said the Reverend Taylor, laying down the paper, "you must be scared for yourself." "Never!" she declared; it was merely because she could not breathe the same air with that creature. "I wonder, my dear, what sort of air you breathed in your mother's restaurant at meal times?" Mrs. Taylor was silent. Her pop blue eyes shifted. "Trouble is," he went on evenly, "trouble is, that, like most women, you've been brought up to take copy-book sentiments about touchin' pitch, and all that, literal. You don't stop to remember that to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. If she can't do you any harm spiritually, she certainly ain't got the strength to do it physically. I can't say as I'd like to have her about the place all the time unless she was going to reform,--and I don't take much stock in change of heart, with her sort,--because she wouldn't be a pleasant companion, and it ain't well to countenance vice. But while she's sick, and it will oblige Cairness, she can have the shelter of my manta. You think so too, now, don't you?" he soothed. But she was not sure that she thought so. She wanted to know why the woman could not be sent to the hotel, and he explained that Cairness wished a very close watch kept on her until she was able to be up. Curiosity got the better of outraged virtue then. "Why?" she asked, and leaned forward eagerly. But the Reverend Taylor's lips set again, and he shrugged his narrow shoulders. "I'm not certain myself," he said shortly. An eminent student of the sex has somewhere said that women are like monkeys, in that they are imitative. The comparison goes further. There is a certain inability in a monkey to follow out a train of thought, or of action, to its conclusion, which is shared by the major part of womankind. It is a feminine characteristic to spend life and much energy on side issues. The lady forgot almost all about her original premise. She wished especially to know that which no power upon earth would induce her lord to tell. He took up his paper again. "He ain't told me the whole thing yet," he said. She wished to hear as much as he had confided. The Reverend Taylor shook his head. "I may tell you sometime, but not now. In the meanwhile I'm sure you think we had better keep Mrs. Lawton here, don't you now?" She did not. She would as lief touch a toad. "Ain't it funny how narrow-minded some good women can be, though?" he speculated, looking at her very much as he was in the habit of looking at his specimens. And he quoted slowly, as if he were saying over the names and family characteristics of a specimen. "'And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.' I wonder how many women who have lived up to every word of the Decalogue have made it all profitless for want of a little charity?" She asked, with the flat Virginia accent of the vowels, if he would like her to go and embrace the woman, and request her to make their home henceforth her own. "No," he said, "I wouldn't like you to, and she wouldn't want it, I reckon." He dropped back into his usual speech. "She ain't any repentant sinner, by a good deal. But as Cairness wants me to keep an eye on her, and as she's sick, I wish you to let her stay in the house, and not to make a rumpus about it. If you really don't like to go near her, though," he finished, "I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll take her in her food myself, and nurse can clean out her room." Perhaps the Scripture texts had taught their lesson, or perhaps there yet lingered a hope of learning that which her husband would not tell. Anyway, for the week which the woman lay on the cot in the little whitewashed chamber, which had no outlet save through the sitting room where some one was always on guard night and day, Mrs. Taylor served her with a good enough grace. When she was able to be up, Cairness went in to see her. She was sitting on a chair, and looking sulkily out of the window. "You got me jailed all right," she sneered, "ain't you?" and she motioned to the grating of iron. "You can go whenever you like now," Cairness told her. She demanded to know where she was to go to, and he answered that that was not his affair, but that he would suggest a safe distance. "Somebody else getting hold of the truth of the Kirby business mightn't be so easy on you as I am." "How do I know you're done with me yet?" she snapped. He told her that she didn't know it, because he was not; and then he explained to her. "What I want of you now is for you to come over with Taylor and me to see Stone." She jumped to her feet. "I ain't going to do it." "Yes," he assured her unmoved, "you are. At least you are going to do that, or go to jail." "What do you want me to say to Stone?" "Nothing much," he told her. He and Taylor could take care of the talking. Her part would be just to stand by and pay attention. "And after that?" "After that, as I said before, you may go." He suggested that the sooner she felt that she could go the better, as she had been a good deal of a burden to the Taylors. She laughed scornfully. "It ain't me that asked them to take me in," she said; "I'm as glad to go as they are to have me." She wore a calico wrapper that Cairness had bought for her, and other garments that had been gathered together in the town. Now she put a battered sombrero on her head, and told him she was ready. He and the parson followed her out of the house. She had not cared to say good-by to Mrs. Taylor, and she glared at the little Reverend, who balanced himself on his uncertain small feet and clutched at a chair, watching her with his precocious eyes and an expression combined of his mother's virtuous disapproval and his father's contemplative scrutiny, the while the tufts of his hair stood out stiffly. The Reverend Taylor and Cairness had managed, with a good deal of adroitness, to keep the identity of their patient a secret. Stone was consequently not at all prepared to have her stride in upon him. But he was not a man to be caught exhibiting emotions. The surprise which he showed and expressed was of a perfectly frank and civil, even of a somewhat pleased, sort. He called her "my dear madam," and placed a chair for her. She sat in it under protest. He kept up the social aspect of it all for quite five minutes, but sociability implies conversation, and Cairness and the minister were silent. So was the woman--rigidly. When all his phrases were quite used up, Stone changed the key. What could be done for Mr. Taylor? Mr. Taylor motioned with his usual urbanity that the burden of speech lay with Cairness. What could he do for Mr. Cairness, then? "Well," said Cairness, twisting at the small mustache, and levelling his eyes straight as the barrels of a shot-gun--and they gave the journalist a little of the same sensation--"I think, Mr. Stone, that you can get out of the country within the next three days." Stone did not understand. He believed that he missed Mr. Cairness's meaning. "I don't think you do," said Cairness; "but I'll make it plainer, anyway. I want you to get out of the country, for the country's good, you know, and for your own. And I give you three days to do it in, because I don't wish to hurry you to an inconvenient extent." Stone laughed and inquired if he were joking, or just crazy. "Neither," drawled Cairness. "But Mrs. Lawton, here, has been good enough to tell me that you have known the exact truth about the Kirby massacre ever since a week after its occurrence, and yet you have shielded the criminals and lied in the papers. Then, too," he went on, "though there is no real proof against you, and you undoubtedly did handle it very well, I know that it was you that set Lawton on to try and bribe for the beef contract. You see your friends are unsafe, Mr. Stone, and I have been around yours and Lawton's ranches enough to have picked up a few damaging facts." "Always supposing you have," interposed Stone, hooking his thumbs in his sleeve holes and tipping back his chair, "always supposing you have, what could you do with the facts?" "Well," drawled Cairness again,--he had learned the value of the word in playing the Yankee game of bluff,--"with those about the beef contract and those about the Kirby massacre, also a few I gathered around San Carlos (you may not be aware that I have been about that reservation off and on for ten years), with those facts I could put you in the penitentiary, perhaps, even with an Arizona jury; but at any rate I could get you tarred and feathered or lynched in about a day. Or failing all those, I could shoot you myself. And a jury would acquit me, you know, if any one were ever to take the trouble to bring it before one, which is doubtful, I think." Stone glanced at the Lawton woman. She was grinning mirthlessly at his discomfiture. "What have you been stuffing this fellow here with?" he asked her contemptuously. "Just what he's dishin' up to you now," she told him. "It's a lot of infernal lies, and you know it." But she only shook her head and laughed again, shortly. Stone made a very creditable fight. A man does not throw up the results of years of work without a strong protest. He treated it lightly, at first, then seriously. Then he threatened. "I've got a good deal of power myself," he told Cairness angrily; "I can roast you in the press so that you can't hold up your head." "I don't believe you can," Cairness said; "but you might try it, if it will give you any pleasure. Only you must make haste, because you've got to get out in three days." "I can shoot, myself, when it comes to that," suggested Stone. Cairness said that he would of course have to take chances on that. "You might kill me, or I might kill you. I'm a pretty fair shot. However, it wouldn't pay you to kill me, upon the whole, and you must take everything into consideration." He was still twisting the curled end of his small mustache and half closing his eyes in the way that Stone had long since set down as asinine. "My friend Mr. Taylor would still be alive. And if you were to hurt him,--he's a very popular man,--it might be bad for your standing in the community. It wouldn't hurt me to kill you, particularly, on the other hand. You are not so popular anyway, and I haven't very much to lose." Then the journalist tried entreaty. He had a wife and children. Cairness reminded him that Kirby had had a wife and children, too. "Well, I didn't kill them, did I?" he whined. "Not exactly, no. But you were an accessory after the fact." "Why are you so all-fired anxious to vindicate the law?" He dropped easily into phrases. Cairness assured him that he was not. "It is not my mission on earth to straighten out the territories, heaven be praised. This is purely a personal matter, entirely so. You may call it revenge, if you like. Lawton's in jail all safe, as you know. I got him there, and if he gets out anyway, I'll put him back again on this count." Mrs. Lawton started forward in her chair. "What's he in for now? Ain't it for this?" she demanded. "For destruction of government property," Cairness told her, and there was just the faintest twinkle between his lids. "I didn't know all these interesting details about the Kirbys until you told me, Mrs. Lawton." She sat with her jaw hanging, staring at him, baffled, and he went on. "I've got Lawton jailed, as I was saying. I'll have you out of the country in three days, and as for Mrs. Lawton, I'll keep an eye on her. I'll know where she is, in case I need her at any time. But I'm not fighting women." He stood up. "I'll see you off inside of three days then, Stone," he said amicably. "Where do you want me to go?" he almost moaned, and finished with an oath. "Anywhere you like, my dear chap, so that it's neither in Arizona or New Mexico. I want to stop here myself, and the place isn't big enough for us both. You'll be a valuable acquisition to any community, and you can turn your talent to showing up the life here. You are right on the inside track. Now I won't ask you to promise to go. But I'll be round to see that you do." He held the door open for the Texan woman and the parson to go out. Then he followed, closing it behind him. Two days later Stone left the town. He took the train for California, and his wife and children went with him. He was a rich man by many an evil means, and it was no real hardship that had been worked him, as Cairness well knew. The Lawton woman had heard of an officer's family at Grant, which was in need of a cook, and had gone there. "And now," said the Reverend Taylor, fingering the lock of hair over the little Reverend's right ear, as that wise little owl considered with uncertain approval a whistle rattle Cairness had bought for him, "and now what are you going to do?" Cairness stood up, ran his hands into his pockets, and going over to the window looked down at the geraniums as he had done once, long before. "I am going back to my ranch on the reservation," he said measuredly. "Cairness," said the parson, fixing his eyes upon the back of the bent head, as if they were trying to see through into the impenetrable brain beneath, "are you going to spend the rest of your life at this sort of thing?" "I don't know," Cairness answered, with a lightness that was anything but cheering. "You are too good for it." "I am certainly not good enough for anything else." He began to whistle, but it was not a success, and he stopped. "See here," insisted Taylor; "turn round here and answer me." Cairness continued to stand with his head down, looking at the geraniums. The parson was wiser than his wife in that he knew when it was of no use to insist. "What's keeping you around here, anyway? You ought to have gotten out when you left the service--and you half meant to then. What is it?" Cairness raised his shoulders. "My mines," he said, after a while. The Reverend Taylor did not believe that, but he let it go. "Well," he said more easily, "you've accomplished the thing you set out to do, anyway." "One thing," muttered Cairness. "Eh?" the parson was not sure he had heard. "Just nothing," Cairness laughed shortly, and breaking off one of the treasured geranium blossoms, stuck it in a buttonhole of his flannel shirt. "I heard you," said the little man; "what's the other?"--"Oh, I dare say I'll fail on that," he answered indifferently, and taking up his sombrero went out to saddle his horse. XXI The civilization of the Englishman is only skin deep. And therein lies his strength and his salvation. Beneath that outer surface, tubbed and groomed and prosperous, there is the man, raw and crude from the workshops of Creation. Back of that brain, trained to a nicety of balance and perception and judgment, there are the illogical passions of a savage. An adaptation of the proverb might run that you scratch an Englishman and you find a Briton--one of those same Britons who stained themselves blue with woad, who fell upon their foes with clumsy swords and flaming torches, who wore the skins of beasts, and lived in huts of straw, and who burned men and animals together, in sacrifice to their gods. And the savage shows, too, in that your Englishman is not gregarious. His house is his castle, his life is to himself, and his sentiments are locked within him. He is a lonely creature, in the midst of his kind, and he loves his loneliness. But it is because of just this that no scion of ultra-civilization degenerates so thoroughly as does he. Retrogression is easy to him. He can hardly go higher, because he is on the height already; but he can slip back. Set him in a lower civilization, he sinks one degree lower than that. Put him among savages, and he is nearer the beasts than they. It does not come to pass in a day, nor yet at all if he be part of a community, which keeps in mind its traditions and its church, and which forms its own public opinion. Then he is the leaven of all the measures of meal about him, the surest, steadiest, most irresistible civilizing force. But he cannot advance alone. He goes back, and, being cursed with the wisdom which shows him his debasement, in loathing and disgust with himself, he grows sullen and falls back yet more. It was so with Cairness. He was sinking down, and ever down, to the level of his surroundings; he was even ceasing to realize that it was so. He had begun by studying the life of the savages, but he was so entirely grasping their point of view that he was losing all other. He was not so dirty as they--not yet. His stone cabin was clean enough, and their villages were squalid. A morning plunge in the river was still a necessity, while with them it was an event. But where he had once spent his leisure in reading in several tongues--in keeping in touch with the world--and in painting, he would now sit for hours looking before him into space, thinking unprofitable thoughts. He lived from hand to mouth. Eventually he would without doubt marry a squaw. The thing was more than common upon the frontier. He was in a manner forgetting Felipa. He had forced himself to try to do so. But once in a way he remembered her vividly, so that the blood would burn in his heart and head, and he would start up and beat off the thought, as if it were a visible thing. It was happening less and less often, however. For two years he had not seen her and had heard of her directly only once. An officer who came into the Agency had been with her, but having no reason to suppose that a scout could be interested in the details of the private life of an officer's wife, he had merely said that she had been very ill, but was better now. He had not seen fit to add that it was said in the garrison--which observed all things with a microscopic eye--that she was very unhappy with Landor, and that the sympathy was not all with her. "Mrs. Landor is very beautiful," Cairness hazarded. He wanted to talk of her, or to make some one else do it. "She is very magnificent," said the officer, coldly. It was plain that magnificence was not what he admired in woman. And there it had dropped. Cairness remembered with an anger and disgust with himself he could still feel, that last time he had seen her in the mouth of the cave. That had been two springs ago. Since then there had been no occupation for him as a guide or scout. The country had been at peace. The War Department and the Indian Department were dividing the control of the Agency, with the War Department ranking. Crook had been trying his theories as practice. He had been demonstrating that the Indian can work, with a degree of success that was highly displeasing to the class of politicians whose whole social fabric for the southwest rested on his only being able to kill. But the star of the politician was once more in the ascendant. For two years there had been not one depredation, not one outrage from the Indians, for whose good conduct the general had given his personal word. They were self-supporting, and from the products of their farms they not only kept themselves, but supplied the neighboring towns. It was a state of affairs entirely unsatisfactory to the politician. So he set about correcting it. His methods were explained to Cairness by an old buck who slouched up to the cabin and sat himself down cross-legged in front of the door. He meant to share in the venison breakfast Cairness was getting himself. "So long as these stones of your house shall remain one upon the other," began the Apache, "so long shall I be your friend. Have you any tobacco?" Cairness went into the cabin, got a pouch, and tossed it to him. He took a package of straw papers and a match from somewhere about himself and rolled a cigarette deftly. "I have been lied to," came the muttering voice from the folds of the red I. D. blanket, which almost met the red flannel band binding down his coarse and dirty black hair. It was early dawn and cold. Cairness himself was close to the brush fire. "I have been cheated." Cairness nodded. He thought it very likely. "The Sun and the Darkness and the Winds were all listening. He promised to pay me _dos reales_ each day. To prove to you that I am now telling the truth, here is what he wrote for me." He held it out to Cairness, a dirty scrap of wrapping-paper scrawled over with senseless words. "Yes," said Cairness, examining it, "but this has no meaning." "That is a promise," the Indian insisted, "to pay me _dos reales_ a day if I would cut hay for him." The White explained carefully that it was not a contract, that it was nothing at all, in fact. "Then he lied," said the buck, and tucked the scrap back under his head band. "They all lie. I worked for him two weeks. I worked hard. And each night when I asked him for money he would say to me that to-morrow he would pay me. When all his hay was cut he laughed in my face. He would pay me nothing." He seemed resigned enough about it. Cairness gave a grunt that was startlingly savage--so much so that he realized it, and shook himself slightly as a man does who is trying to shake himself free from a lethargy that is stealing over him. "And then, there was the trouble about the cows. They promised us one thousand, and they gave us not quite six hundred. And those--the Dawn and the Sky hear that what I tell you is true--and those were so old we could not use them." Cairness nodded. He knew that the Interior Department had sent an agent out to investigate that complaint, and that the agent had gone his way rejoicing and reporting that all was well with the Indian and honest with the contractor. It was not true. Every one who knew anything about it knew that. Cairness supposed that also was the work of the politicians. But there are things one cannot make plain to a savage having no notions of government. The buck went on, the while he held a piece of venison in his dirty hand and dragged at it with his teeth, to say that there was a feeling of great uneasiness upon the reservation. The Chiricahuas could see that there was trouble between the officials, both military and civil, and the government. They did not know what it was. They did not understand that the harassed general, whose word--and his alone--had their entire belief, nagged and thwarted, given authority and then prevented from enforcing it, had rebelled at last, had asked to be relieved, and had been refused. But they drew in with delight the air of strife and unrest. It was the one they loved best, there could and can be no doubt about that. "Geronimo," mumbled the Apache, "has prayed to the Dawn and the Darkness and the Sun and the Sky to help him put a stop to those bad stories that people put in the papers about him. He is afraid it will be done as they say." The press of the country was full just then, and had been for some time past, of suggestions that the only good use the much-feared Geronimo could be put to would be hanging, the which he no doubt richly deserved. But if every one in the territories who deserved hanging had been given his dues, the land would have been dotted with blasted trees. "Geronimo does not want that any more. He has tried to do right. He is not thinking bad. Such stories ought not to be put in the newspapers." Cairness also thought that they should not, chiefly because they had a tendency to frighten the timid Apaches. But he went on quietly eating his breakfast, and said nothing. He knew that only silence can obtain loquacity from silent natures. He was holding his meat in his fingers, too, and biting it, though he did not drag it like a wild beast yet; and, moreover, he had it upon a piece of bread of his own baking. "There will be trouble with Geronimo's people soon." "Shall you go with them?" asked Cairness. "No, I am a friend of the soldier. And I am a friend of Chato, who is the enemy of Geronimo. I have no bad thoughts," he added piously. "And you think there will be trouble?" He knew that the buck had come there for nothing but to inform. "I think that Geronimo will make trouble. He knows that the agent and the soldiers are quarrelling, and he and his people have been drinking tizwin for many days." Cairness stood up and walked down to the water to wash his hands. Then he went into the cabin and brought out a small mirror, and all the shaving apparatus he had not used for months, and proceeded to take off his thick brown beard, while the Indian sat stolidly watching him with that deep interest in trifles of the primitive brain, which sees and marks, and fails to learn or to profit correspondingly. And later in the day, when the buck had shuffled off again, Cairness brought out his pony,--a new one now, for the little pinto one had died of a rattlesnake bite, from which no golondrina weed had been able to save it,--and saddled it. Then he went again into the cabin. There was but one thing there that he valued,--a life-size head of Felipa he had done in charcoal. It was in a chest beneath his cot. He locked his chest, and going out locked the door also, and putting both keys upon a ring, mounted and rode off along the trail. It was his intention to go to Crook and to warn him if he needed warning, which was not probable, since he was never napping. He would then offer his services as a scout. He was sincerely attached to the general, and felt his own career in a way involved with that of the officer, because he had been with him, in one capacity or another, in every campaign he had made in the southwest. Already he felt more respectable at the mere prospect of contact with his kind again. He was glad that the unkempt beard was gone, and he was allowing himself to hope, no, he was deliberately hoping, that he would see Felipa. XXII He failed in the warning. He had barely gotten off the reservation before Geronimo and Nachez and their sympathizers broke out and started to reach again that fastness in the Sierra Madre from which they had been routed two years before. But he succeeded without the least difficulty in obtaining the position of chief of scouts. And he succeeded in seeing Felipa. It was most unexpected. He had believed her to be in Stanton, a good many hundred miles away. But Landor having been sent at once into the field, she had come on to Grant to visit the Campbells, who were again stationed there. He met her face to face only once, and he measured with one quick look all the changes there were between the girl of ten years before and the woman of to-day. The great, sad pity that rose within him, and seemed to grasp at his throat chokingly, was the best love he had felt for her yet. It wiped out the wrong of the short madness in the cave's mouth. She was quite alone, wandering among the trees and bushes in the creek bottom, and her hands were full of wild flowers. She had pinned several long sprays of the little ground blossoms, called "baby-blue eyes," at her throat, and they lay along her white gown prettily. She stopped and spoke to him, with a note of lifelessness in her high, sweet voice; and while he answered her question as to what he had been doing since she had seen him last, she unpinned the "baby-blue eyes" and held them out to him. "Would you like these?" she asked simply. He took them, and she said "Good-by" and went on. She was broken to the acceptance of the inevitable now,--he could see that, any one could see it. She had learned the lesson of the ages--the futility of struggle of mere man against the advance of men. That it had been a hard lesson was plain. It showed in her face, where patience had given place to unrest, gentleness to the defiance of freedom. She had gained, too, she had gained greatly. She was not only woman now, she was womanly. But Cairness did not need to be told that she was not happy. He went on the next day with his scouts, and eventually joined Landor in the field. Landor was much the same as ever, only more gray and rather more deeply lined. Perhaps he was more taciturn, too, for beyond necessary orders he threw not one word to the chief of scouts. Cairness could understand that the sight of himself was naturally an exasperation, and in some manner a reproach, too. He was sorry that he had been thrown with this command, but, since he was, it was better that Landor should behave as he was doing. An assumption of friendliness would have been a mockery, and to some extent an ignoble one. Landor's troop, with one other, was in the San Andres Mountains of New Mexico when Cairness joined it. They were on the trail of a large band of renegades, and it led them through the mountains, across the flats, and down to the lava beds. Once in the æons which will never unfold their secrets now, when the continent of the Western seas was undreamed of by the sages and the philosophers of the Eastern world, when it was as alone, surrounded by its wide waters, as the planets are alone in their wastes of space, when it was living its own life,--which was to leave no trace upon the scroll of the wisdom of the ages,--the mountains and the bowels of the earth melted before the wrath of that same Lord whose voice shook the wilderness of Judæa. At His bidding they ran as water, and poured down in waves of seething fire, across the valley of death. It is a valley of death now, parched and desolate, a waste of white sand--the dry bone dust of the cycles. But then, when the lava came surging and boiling and flaming across the plain, not a thin stream, but a wide, irresistible current, there was life; there was a city--one city at least. It is there now, under the mass of sharp, gray, porous rock; how much of it no one knows. But it is there, and it has given up its unavailing hints of a life which may have been older than that of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and is as much more safely hidden from the research of the inquiring day as its walls are more hopelessly buried beneath the ironlike stone than are those of the cisalpine cities beneath their ashen drift. And the great river of rock is there, too, frozen upon the land like some devouring monster changed by a Gorgon head into lifeless stone. It is a formidable barrier across the hardly less formidable bad lands. It can be crossed in places where it is narrowest, not quite a mile in width, that is. But horses slip and clamber, and men cut through the leather of their heaviest shoes. If the sea, whipping in huge waves against the fury of a typhoon, were to become on the instant rocks, it would be as this. There are heights and crevasses, hills and gulches, crests and hollows, little caves and crannies, where quail and snakes and cotton-tails and jack-rabbits, lizards and coyotes, creatures of desolation and the barrens, hide and scamper in and out. It is an impregnable stronghold, not for armies, because they could not find shelter, but for savages that can scatter like the quail themselves, and writhe on their bellies into the coyotes' own holes. And so the hostiles took shelter there from the cavalry that had pursued them hard across the open all night, and gave battle after the manner of their kind. It was a very desultory sort of a skirmish, for the troops did not venture into the traps beyond the very edge, and the Indians were simply on the defensive. It was not only desultory, it promised to be unavailing, a waste of time and of ammunition. The Chiricahuas might stay there and fire at intervals as long as they listed, killing a few men perhaps. And then they might retreat quite safely, putting the barrier between themselves and the pursuers. Obviously there were only two courses wherein lay any wisdom,--to retreat, or to cut off their retreat. Landor said so to the major in command. "And how, may I ask, would you suggest cutting off their retreat?" the major inquired a little sharply. His temper was not improved by the heat and by twelve hours in the saddle. It was certainly not apparent, on the face of it, how the thing was to be done, but the captain explained. "I've been stationed here, you know, and I know the roads. We are about a half a mile or more from where the Stanton road to the railway crosses the lava. It is narrow and rough, and about from three-quarters of a mile to a mile wide, but cavalry can go over it without any trouble. I can take my troop over, and then the Indians will be hemmed in between us. We might capture the whole band." The major offered the objection that it would be foolhardy, that it would be cutting through the enemy by file. "They'll pick you off, and you'll be absolutely at their mercy," he remonstrated. "No, I can't hear of it." "Suppose you let me call for volunteers," suggested Landor. He was sure of his own men, down to the last recruit. The major consented unwillingly. "It's your lookout. If you come out alive, I shall be surprised, that's all. Take some scouts, too," he added, as he lit a cigar and went on with his walk up and down among his men. The entire command volunteered, as a matter of course, and Landor had his pick. He took thirty men and a dozen scouts. Cairness rode up and offered himself. They looked each other full in the face for a moment. "Very well," said Landor, and turned on his heel. Cairness was properly appreciative, despite the incivility. He knew that Landor could have refused as well as not, and that would have annoyed and mortified him. He was a generous enemy, at any rate. The volunteers mounted and trotted off in a cloud of dust that hung above them and back along their trail, to where the road, as Landor had said, entered the malpais. Just at the edge of the rock stream there was an abandoned cabin built of small stones. Whatever sort of roof it had had in the beginning was now gone altogether, and the cabin itself was tumbling down. Through the doorway where there was no door, there showed a blackened fireplace. Once when a party from the post had been taking the two days' drive to the railroad, they had stopped here, and had lunched in the cabin. Landor remembered it now, and glanced at the place where Felipa had reclined in the shade of the walls, upon the leather cushion of the ambulance seat. She very rarely could be moved to sing, though she had a sweet, plaintive voice of small volume; but this time she had raised her tin mug of beer and, looking up to the blue sky, had launched into the "Last Carouse," in a spirit of light mockery that fitted with it well, changing the words a little to the scene. "We meet 'neath the blazing heavens, And the walls around are bare; They shout back our peals of laughter, And it seems that the dead are there. Then stand to your glasses steady, We drink to our comrades' eyes One cup to the dead already. Hurrah! for the next that dies." "Hurrah! for the next that dies," thought Landor himself, with a careless cynicism. The barrel of a Winchester gleamed above a point of rock, a little sharp sparkle of sunlight on steel, and a bullet deflected from the big leather hood of his stirrup. He rode on calmly, and his horse's shoes clicked on the lava. The men followed, sitting erect, toes in. They might have been on mounted inspection except for the field clothes, stained and dusty. They were to go down a narrow path for close on a mile, between two rows of rifle barrels, and that not at a run or a gallop, but at a trot, at the most, for the lava was slippery as glass in spots. They were willing enough to do it, even anxious--not that there was any principle involved, or glory to be gained, but because their blood was up and it was part of the chances of the game. They were not destined to get beyond the first fifty yards, nevertheless. The rifle that had fired at Landor as he came upon the malpais went glistening up again. There was a puff of blue-hearted smoke in the still air, and Cairness's bronco, struck on the flanks, stung to frenzy, stopped short, then gathering itself together with every quivering sinew in a knot, after the way of its breed, bounded off straight in among the jagged boulders. It was all done in an instant, and almost before Landor could see who had dashed ahead of him the horse had fallen, neck to the ground, throwing its rider with his head against a point of stone. Landor did not stop to consider it. It was one of the few impulses of his life, or perhaps only the quickest thinking he had ever done. Cairness was there among the rocks, disabled and in momentary danger of his life. If it had been a soldier, under the same circumstances, Landor might have gone on and have sent another soldier to help him. It was only a chief of scouts, but it was a man of his own kind, for all that--and it was his enemy. Instinct dismounted him before reason had time to warn him that the affair of an officer is not to succor his inferiors in the thick of the fighting when there are others who can be better spared to do it. He threw his reins over his horse's head and into the hands of the orderly-trumpeter, and jumped down beside Cairness. When the sergeant reported it to the major afterward, he said that the captain, in stooping over to raise the chief of scouts, had been struck full in the temple by a bullet, and had pitched forward with his arms stretched out. One private had been wounded. They carried the two men back to the little cabin of stones, and that was the casualty list. But the dash had failed. They laid Landor upon the ground, in the same patch of shade he had glanced at in coming by not five minutes before. His glazed eyes stared back at the sky. There was nothing to be done for him. But Cairness was alive. They washed the blood from his face with water out of the canteens, and bound his head with a wet handkerchief. And presently he came back to consciousness and saw Landor stretched there, with the bluing hole in his brow, and the quiet there is no mistaking on his sternly weary face. And he turned back his head and lay as ashy and almost as still as the dead man, with a look on his own face more terrible than that of any death. After a time, when a soldier bent over him and held a flask to his teeth, he drank, and then he pointed feebly, and his lips framed the question he could not seem to speak. The soldier understood. "Trying to save you, sir," he said a little resentfully. But Cairness had known it without that. It was so entirely in keeping with the rest of his fate, that every cup which ought to have been sweet should have been embittered like this. He rolled his cut and throbbing head over again, and watched the still form. And he was conscious of no satisfaction that now there was nothing in all the world to keep him from Felipa, from the gaining of the wish of many years, but only of a dull sort of pity for Landor and for himself, and of a real and deep regret. XXIII It was a splendid spring morning. There had been a shower overnight, and the whole mountain world was aglitter. The dancing, rustling leaves of the cottonwoods gleamed, the sparse grass of the parade ground was shining like tiny bayonets, the flag threw out its bright stripes to the breeze, and when the sun rays struck the visor of some forage cap, they glinted off as though it had been a mirror. All the post chickens were cackling and singing their droning monotonous song of contentment, the tiny ones cheeped and twittered, and in among the vines of the porch Felipa's mocking-bird whistled exultantly. The sound shrilled sweetly through the house, through all the empty rooms, and through the thick silence of that one which was not empty, but where a flag was spread over a rough box of boards, and Ellton sat by the window with a little black prayer-book in his hand. He was going over the service for the burial of the dead, because there was no chaplain, and it fell to him to read it. Now and then one of the officers came in alone or with his wife and stood about aimlessly, then went away again. But for the rest, the house was quite forsaken. Felipa was not there. At the earliest, she could not return for a couple of days, and by then Landor's body would be laid in the dreary little graveyard, with its wooden headboards and crosses, and its neglected graves among the coyote and snake holes. The life of the service would be going on just as usual, after the little passing excitement was at an end. For it was an excitement. No one in the garrison would have had it end like this, but since what will be will be, and the right theory of life is to make the most of what offers and to hasten--as the philosopher has said--to laugh at all things for fear we may have cause to weep, there was a certain expectation, decently kept down, in the air. It rose to a subdued pitch as there came the gradual rattling of wheels and the slow tramp of many feet. A buckboard, from which the seats had been removed, came up the line, and behind it marched the troops and companies, Landor's own troop in advance. They halted in front of his quarters, and four officers came down the steps with the long box between them. The mocking-bird's trill died away to a questioning twitter. The box was laid in the buckboard, and covered with the flag once more. Then the mules started, with a rattle of traces and of the wheels, and the tramp of feet began again. The drums thrummed regularly and slowly, the heart beats of the service, and the fifes took up the dead march in a weird, shrill Banshee wail. They went down the line, the commandant with the surgeon and the officers first, and after them the buckboard, with its bright-draped burden. Then Landor's horse, covered with black cloths, the empty saddle upon its back. It nosed at the pockets of the man who led it. It had been taught to find sugar in pockets. And then the troops, the cavalry with the yellow plumes of their helmets drooping, and the infantry with the spikes glinting, marching with eyes cast down and muskets reversed. A gap, then the soldiers' urchins from the laundress row, in for anything that might be doing. The roll of the drums and the whistle of the fifes died away in the distance. There was a long silence, followed by three volleys of musketry, the salute over the open grave. And then taps was pealed in notes of brass up to the blue sky, a long farewell, a challenge aforetime to the trumpet of the Last Day. They turned and came marching back. The drums and fifes played "Yankee Doodle" in sarcastic relief. The men walked briskly with their guns at carry arms, the black-draped horse curved its neck and pranced until the empty stirrups danced. The incident was over--closed. The post picked up its life and went on. Two afternoons later the ambulance which had been sent for Felipa came into the post. She stepped out from it in front of the Elltons' quarters so majestic and awe-inspiring in her black garments that Mrs. Ellton was fairly subdued. She felt real grief. It showed in her white face and the nervous quiver of her lips. "I am going out to the graveyard," she told Mrs. Ellton almost at once. Mrs. Ellton prepared to accompany her, but she insisted that she was going alone, and did so, to the universal consternation. In the late afternoon the lonely dark figure crossed the open and dropped down on the new grave, not in an agony of tears, but as if there was some comfort to be gotten out of contact with the mere soil. The old feeling of loneliness, which had always tinged her character with a covert defiance, was overwhelming her. She belonged to no one now. She had no people. She was an outcast from two races, feared of each because of the other's blood. The most forsaken man or woman may claim at least the kinship of his kind, but she had no kind. She crouched on the mound and looked at the sunset as she had looked that evening years before, but her eyes were not fearless now. As a trapped animal of the plains might watch a prairie fire licking nearer and nearer, making its slow way up to him in spurts of flame and in dull, thick clouds of smoke that must stifle him before long, so she watched the dreary future rolling in about her. But gradually the look changed to one farther away, and alight with hope. She had realized that there was, after all, some one to whom she belonged, some one to whom she could go and, for the first time in her life, be loved and allowed to love. It had not occurred to her for some hours after Mrs. Campbell had told her of Landor's death that she was free now to give herself to Cairness. She had gasped, indeed, when she did remember it, and had put the thought away, angrily and self-reproachfully. But it returned now, and she felt that she might cling to it. She had been grateful, and she had been faithful, too. She remembered only that Landor had been kind to her, and forgot that for the last two years she had borne with much harsh coldness, and with a sort of contempt which she felt in her unanalyzing mind to have been entirely unmerited. Gradually she raised herself until she sat quite erect by the side of the mound, the old exultation of her half-wild girlhood shining in her face as she planned the future, which only a few minutes before had seemed so hopeless. And when the retreat gun boomed in the distance, she stood up, shaking the earth and grasses from her gown, and started to carry out her plans. A storm was blowing up again. Clouds were massing in the sky, and night was rising rather than the sun setting. There was a cold, greenish light above the snow peak, and darkness crept up from the earth and down from the gray clouds that banked upon the northern horizon and spread fast across the heavens. A bleak, whining wind rustled the leaves of the big trees down by the creek, and caught up the dust of the roadway in little eddies and whirls, as Felipa, with a new purpose in her step, swung along it back to the post. She would not be induced to go near her own house that night. When Ellton suggested it, she turned white and horrified. It had not occurred to him before that a woman so fearless of everything in the known world might be in abject terror of the unknown. "It's her nature," he told his wife. "Underneath she is an Apache, and they burn the wigwams and all the traps of their dead; sometimes even the whole village he lived in." Mrs. Ellton said that poor Captain Landor had had a good deal to endure. The two children whom Felipa had taken in charge two years before had been left in the care of the sergeant of Landor's troop and his wife, and they manifested no particular pleasure at seeing her again. They were half afraid of her, so severely black and tall and quiet. They had been playing with the soldier's children, and were anxious to be away again. The young of the human race are short of memory, and their gratefulness does not endure for long. There is no caress so sweet, so hard to win, as the touch of a child's soft hand, and none that has behind it less of nearly all that we prize in affection. It is sincere while it lasts, and no longer, and it must be bought either with a price or with a wealth of love. You may lavish the best that is within you to obtain a kiss from baby lips, and if they rest warm and moist upon your cheek for a moment, the next they are more eager for a sweetmeat than for all your adoration. "Yes," whispered the little girl, squirming in Felipa's arms, "I am dlad you's come. Let me doe." "Kiss me," said Felipa. The child brushed at her cheek and struggled away. "Come, Billy," she called to the brother who had saved her life; and that small, freckle-faced hero, whose nose was badly skinned from a fall, flung his arms around his benefactress's neck perfunctorily and escaped, rejoicing. The Elltons' pretty child was like its mother, gentler and more caressing. It lay placidly in her arms and patted her lips when she tried to talk, with the tips of its rosy fingers. She caught them between her teeth and mumbled them, and the child chuckled gleefully. But by and by it was taken away to bed, and then Felipa was alone with its father and mother. Through the tiresome evening she felt oppressed and angrily nervous. The Elltons had always affected her so. She asked for the full particulars of her husband's death, and when Ellton had told her, sat looking straight before her at the wall. "It was very like Jack," she said finally, in a low voice, "his whole life was like that." And then she turned squarely to the lieutenant. "Where is Mr. Cairness? Where did they take him?" She was surprised at herself that she had not thought of that before. He told her that he had gone on to Arizona, to Tombstone, he believed. "By the way," he added, "did you hear that Brewster has married a rich Jewish widow down in Tucson?" "Yes, I heard it," she said indifferently. "Was Mr. Cairness really much hurt?" "Very much," said Ellton; "it was a sharp cut on the forehead--went through the bone, and he was unconscious, off and on, for two or three days. He seemed to take it hard. He went off yesterday, and he wasn't fit to travel either, but he would do it for some reason. I think he was worse cut up about Landor than anything, though he wasn't able to go to the funeral. I like Cairness. He's an all-round decent fellow; but after all, his life was bought too dear." Felipa did not answer. He did not try to discuss her plans for the future with her that night; but two days afterward, when she had disposed of all her household goods and had packed the few things that remained, they sat upon two boxes in the bare hallway, resting; and he broached it. "I am going to ask the quartermaster to store my things for the present, and of course the first sergeant's wife will look out for the children," she said. But that was not exactly what he wanted to know, and he insisted. "But what is going to become of you? Are you going back to the Campbells?" He had asked her to stay with his wife and himself as long as she would, but she had refused. "No," she said, "I told the Campbells I would not go to them." And he could get nothing definite from her beyond that. It annoyed him, of course; Felipa had a gift for repulsing kindness and friendship. It was because she would not lie and could not evade. Therefore, she preserved a silence that was, to say the least of it, exasperating to the well-intentioned. Early in the morning of the day she was to leave she went to the graveyard alone again. She was beginning to realize more than she had at first that Landor was quite gone. She missed him, in a way. He had been a strong influence in her life, and there was a lack of the pressure now. But despite the form of religion to which she clung, she had no hope of meeting him in any future life, and no real wish to do so. She stood by the mound for a little while thinking of him, of how well he had lived and died, true to his standard of duty, absolutely true, but lacking after all that spirit of love without which our actions profit so little and die with our death. She had a clearer realization of it than ever before. It came to her that Charles Cairness's life, wandering, aimless, disjointed as it was, and her own, though it fell far below even her own not impossibly high ideals, were to more purpose, had in them more of the vital force of creation, were less wasted, than his had been. To have known no enthusiasms--which are but love, in one form or another--is to have failed to give that impulse to the course of events which every man born into the world should hold himself bound to give, as the human debt to the Eternal. Felipa felt something of this, and it lessened the vague burden of self-reproach she had been carrying. She was almost cheerful when she got back to the post. Through the last breakfast, which the Elltons took for granted must be a sad one, and conscientiously did their best to make so, she had some difficulty in keeping down to their depression. It was not until they all, from the commandant down to the recruits of Landor's troop, came to say good-by that she felt the straining and cutting of the strong tie of the service, which never quite breaks though it be stretched over rough and long years and almost forgotten. The post blacksmith to whom she had been kind during an illness, the forlorn sickly little laundress whose baby she had eased in dying, the baker to whose motherless child she had been good--all came crowding up the steps. They were sincerely sorry to have her go. She had been generous and possessed of that charity which is more than faith or hope. It was the good-bys of Landor's men that were the hardest for her. He had been proud of his troop, and it had been devoted to him. She broke down utterly and cried when it came to them, and tears were as hard for her as for a man. But with the officers and their women, it rose up between her and them that they would so shortly despise and condemn her, that they would not touch her hands could they but know her thoughts. Ellton was going with her to the railroad. They were to travel with a mounted escort, as she had come, on account of the uncertain state of the country. And they must cross, as she had done in coming also, the road over the malpais, where Landor had fallen. As the hoofs of the mules and the tires of the wheels began to slip and screech on the smooth-worn lava, and the ambulance rattled and creaked up the incline, Ellton leaned forward and pointed silently to a hollow in the gray rock a few yards away. It was where Landor had pitched forward over the body of the mounted chief of scouts. Felipa nodded gravely, but she did not speak, nor yet weep. Ellton, already thrown back upon himself by her persistent silence with regard to her intentions, recoiled even more. He thought her hard beyond all his previous experience of women. "I will write to you where you are to send my mail," she told him, when the train was about to pull out. He bowed stiffly, and raising his hat was gone. She looked after him as he went across the cinder bed to the ambulance which was to take him back, and wondered what would have been the look upon his nice, open face, if she had told him her plans, after all. But she was the only one who knew them. And Cairness himself was startled and utterly unprepared when the Reverend Taylor opened the door of the room where he lay and let her pass in. The little parson uttered no word, but there was a look on his face which said that now the questions he had put with no result were answered. It was for this that Cairness had given the best of his life. Cairness lay white and still, looking up at her. He was very weak and dazed, and for the instant he could only remember, absurdly enough, the Andromaque he had seen a French actress play once in his very early youth when he had been taken with all the children of the Lycée, where he was then at school, to the theatre on a Thursday afternoon. The Andromaque had been tall and dark and superb, and all in black, like that woman in the doorway there. And then his thoughts shot back to the present with quick pain. She should not have come here, not so soon. He had taken a long, hard trip that had nearly ended in his death, to avoid this very thing, this meeting, which, just because it made him so terribly happy, seemed a treachery, a sacrilege. Had she less delicacy of feeling than himself? Or had she more love? It was that, he saw it in her beautiful eyes which were growing wide and frightened at his silence. He took his hand from under the sheets and stretched it out to her. She went to him and dropped on her knees beside the bed, and threw her arms about him. He moved his weak head closer to her shoulder, and pressing her fingers to his face gave a choking sob. He was happy, so very happy. And nothing mattered but just this. XXIV "Cairness!" called Crook, and Cairness, turning aside, came over to where the general sat upon a big stone eating a sandwich two inches thick. "Well?" said the officer. "Well," answered Cairness, "I have been talking to them, chiefly to Geronimo. They have a good place for their rancheria on that hilltop. It is an old lava bed, an extinct crater, and it is a perfect fortress. There are three gulches between us and them, and a thousand men couldn't take the place." "I came here to parley, not to fight," said the general, rather sharply. "What is their disposition?" "I dare say they are willing to surrender, upon terms to suit them. But they are very much afraid of treachery. They are on the lookout for deception at every turn. In fact, they are not in altogether the most amiable frame of mind, for the greater part. However, you can decide that for yourself when they come over, which will be directly." He seated himself upon a low branch of sycamore, which grew parallel to the ground, and went on to tell what he had seen on the hilltop in the hostile camp. "They are in capital condition. A lot of them are playing koon-kan. There were some children and one little red-headed Irishman about ten years old with them. He was captured in New Mexico, and seems quite happy. He enjoys the name of Santiago Mackin--plain James, originally, I suppose." The general smiled. He treated Cairness as nearly like an equal as possible always, and got his advice and comment whenever he could. "Then they all have 'medicine' on," Cairness continued, "redbird and woodpecker feathers, in buckskin bags, or quail heads, or prairie-dog claws. One fellow was making an ornament out of an adobe dollar. Every buck and boy in the band has a couple of cartridge belts and any quantity of ammunition, likewise new shirts and _zarapes_. They have fitted themselves out one way or another since Crawford got at them in January. I don't think there are any of them particularly anxious to come in." Another officer came up, and Cairness dropped from the twisted bow and walked away. "That fellow Cairness may be a good scout and all that, but he must be an unmitigated blackguard too," said the officer, stretching himself on the ground beside Crook. The general turned his head sharply, and his eyes flashed, but he only asked dryly, "Why?" "You know he's the man Landor lost his life saving upon the malpais in New Mexico?" "Yes," said Crook. "And inside of a fortnight he and Mrs. Landor went to some Roman Catholic priest in Tombstone and were married. I call that indecent haste." "What!" ejaculated the general. He was moved altogether from his imperturbable calm. "That's the straight bill. Ask him. He isn't fit to be spoken to." "Is that the very handsome Mrs. Landor who was at Grant a year or so ago?" The general seemed to have difficulty in grasping and believing it. "That same. She was part Mescalero, anyway." "Where is she now?" "On his ranch, living on the fat of a lean land, I believe. He's rich, you know. I don't know much about them. I've small use for them. And I used to like Cairness, too. Thought he was way above his job. Those squaw-men lose all sense of honor." "Cairness never was a squaw-man," corrected Crook. "Well, he is now, then," insisted the officer; "Mrs. Landor is a squaw at bottom. Poor old Jack!" he sat up and fired a stone at the stalk of a Spanish bayonet, "I guess he's better off in the Happy Hunting Grounds. His wasn't a bed of roses." The general sat silent for a while. "I didn't know that when I sent for him this time," he said at length, in partial explanation. Then he turned his head and looked up over his shoulders at the hostiles' conical hill. A band of Chiricahuas was coming down the side toward the soldiers' camp. It was the first scene of the closing act of the tragic comedy of the Geronimo campaign. That wily old devil, weary temporarily of the bloodshed he had continued with more or less regularity for many years, had sent word to the officers that he would meet them without their commands, in the Cañon de los Embudos, across the border line, to discuss the terms of surrender. The officers had forthwith come, Crook yet hopeful that something might be accomplished by honesty and plain dealing; the others, for the most part, doubting. The character of Geronimo, as already manifested, was not one to inspire much confidence, nor was his appearance one to command respect. The supposititious dignity of the savage was lacking entirely. The great chief wore a filthy shirt and a disreputable coat, a loin-cloth, and a dirty kerchief wound around his head. His legs were bare from the hips, save for a pair of low moccasins. His whole appearance was grotesque and evil. The general refused the withered hand he put out, and looked at him unsmilingly. The feelings of the old chief were hurt. He sat down upon the ground, under the shadows of the cottonwoods and sycamores, and explained his conduct with tears in his bleary eyes. The officers and packers, citizens and interpreters, sat round upon the ground also, with the few Indians who had ventured into the White-man's camp in the background, on the rise of the slope. There was a photographer too, who had followed the command from Tombstone, and who stationed himself afar off and took snap-shots during the conference, which, like most conferences of its sort, was vague enough. It was the usual tale of woe that Geronimo had to tell, much the same that the old buck had recited to Cairness in the spring of the last year. His particular grievance was the request for his hanging, which he had been told had been put in the papers, and his fear of three White-men who he believed were to arrest him. "I don't want that any more. When a man tries to do right, such stories ought not to be put in the newspapers. What is the matter with you that you do not speak to me? It would be better if you would look with a pleasant face. I should be more satisfied if you would talk to me once in a while." The interpreter translated stolidly. "Why don't you look at me and smile at me? I am the same man. I have the same feet, legs, and hands, and the Sun looks down on me a complete man." There was no doubt about that, at any rate, and perhaps it was not an unmixed good fortune. The general's long silence was making the complete man nervous. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and he twisted his hands together. "The Sun, the Darkness, and the Winds are all listening to what we now say. To prove to you that I am telling the truth, remember that I sent you word that I would come from a place far away to speak to you here, and you see me now. If I were thinking bad, I would never have come here. If it had been my fault, would I have come so far to talk with you?" he whined. The general was neither convinced nor won over. He had Geronimo told that it was a very pretty story, but that there was no reason why forty men should have left the reservation for fear of three. "And if you were afraid of three, what had that to do with the way you sneaked all over the country, killing innocent people? You promised me in the Sierra Madre that that peace should last. But you lied. When a man has lied to me once, I want better proof than his word to believe him again." The tears trickled down the withered cheeks, and Crook gave a shrug of exasperation and disgust. "Your story of being afraid of arrest is all bosh. There were no orders to arrest you. You began the trouble by trying to kill Chato." Geronimo shook his head, as one much wronged and misunderstood. "Yes you did, too. Everything that you did on the reservation is known. There is no use your lying." Then he delivered his ultimatum, slowly, watching the unhappy savage narrowly from under the visor of his pith helmet. "You must make up your mind whether you will stay out on the war-path or surrender--without conditions. If you stay out, I'll keep after you and kill the last one, if it takes fifty years. I have never lied to you," he stood up and waved his hand; "I have said all I have to say. You had better think it over to-night and let me know in the morning." He walked away, and Geronimo went back to his rancheria on the hilltop, crestfallen. He had failed of his effect, and had not by any means made his own terms. The troops settled down to wait, and Cairness, having further sounded some of the Chiricahua squaws, went again in search of Crook. He was seated under an ash tree with his back against the trunk and a portfolio upon his knee, writing. When Cairness stopped in front of him, he glanced up. There was an expression in his eyes Cairness did not understand. It was not like their usual twinkle of welcome. "Wait a moment," he said, and went on with his writing. Cairness dropped down on the ground, and, for want of anything else to do, began to whittle a whistle out of a willow branch. Crook closed up the portfolio and turned to him. "I didn't know you were married, Mr. Cairness, when I sent for you." Cairness reddened to the roots of his hair, and the scar on his forehead grew purple. He understood that look now. And it hurt him more than any of the slights and rebuffs he had received since he had married Felipa. He had, like most of those who served under the general, a sort of hero-worship for him, and set great store by his opinion. It was only because of that that he had left Felipa alone upon the ranch. It had been their first separation and almost absurdly hard for two who had lived their roving lives. It was more for her than for himself that the rebuke hurt him. For it was a rebuke, though as yet it was unsaid. And he thought for a moment that he would defend her to the general. He had never done so yet, not even to the little parson in Tombstone whose obvious disapproval he had never tried to combat, though it had ended the friendship of years. But Crook did not look like a man who wished to receive confidences. He was asking for facts, and seeking them out with a cold, sharp eye. "I have been married nearly a year," said Cairness, shortly. "To Captain Landor's widow, I am told." "To Captain Landor's widow, yes;" he met the unsympathetic eyes squarely. "I came to tell you, general, what I have gathered from the squaws. It may serve you." Crook looked away, straight in front of him. "Go on," he said. It was not the conversation of equals now. It was the report of an inferior to a superior. However familiar the general might wish to be upon occasions, he held always in reserve the right to deference and obedience when he should desire them. It was short and to the point upon Cairness's part, and having finished he stood up. "Is that all?" asked the general. "That is all." "Thank you," he said; and Cairness walked away. The next two days he kept to himself and talked only to his Apache scouts, in a defiant return to his admiration for the savage character. A Chiricahua asked no questions and made no conventional reproaches at any rate. He was not penitent, he was not even ashamed, and he would not play at being either. But he was hurt, this last time most of all, and it made him ugly. He had always felt as if he were of the army, although not in it, not by reason of his one enlistment, but by reason of the footing upon which the officers had always received him up to the present time. But now he was an outcast. He faced the fact, and it was a very unpleasant one. It was almost as though he had been court-martialled and cashiered. He had thoughts of throwing up the whole thing and going back to Felipa, but he hated to seem to run away. It would be better to stop there and face it out, and accept the position that was allowed him, the same, after all, as that of the majority of chiefs of scouts. And things were coming to an end, anyway. He could see it in the looks of the Apaches, and hear it in their whispers. They consented to come in, and even to put themselves at the discretion of the government, but there was a lack of the true ring in their promises. So when, on the third morning, before it was yet daylight, two chiefs came hurrying into camp and awoke the general with bad news, he was not greatly surprised. He had warned Crook of the possibility, for that matter. It was the eternal old story of the White-man's whiskey. A rancher living some four hundred yards from the boundary line upon the Mexican side had sold it to the Indians. Many of them were dead or fighting drunk. The two sober Indians asked for a squad of soldiers to help them guard the ranchman, and stop him from selling any more mescal. They were right-minded themselves and really desired peace, and their despair was very great. Geronimo and four other warriors were riding aimlessly about on two mules, drunk as they well could be, too drunk to do much that day. But when night came, and with it a drizzling rain, the fears the ranchman and his mescal had put in their brains assumed real shapes, and they betook themselves to the mountains again, and to the war-path. It was failure, flat failure. The officers knew it, and the general knew it. It was the indefinite prolongation of the troubles. It was the ignominious refutation of all his boasts--boasts based not so much upon trust in himself, as on belief in the nature of the Apache, whose stanch champion he had always been. The fault of this last, crowning breach of faith was not all with the Red-men by any means. But the difficulty would be to have that believed. The world at large,--or such part of it as was deigning to take heed of this struggle against heavy odds, this contest between the prehistoric and the makers of history,--the world at large would not go into the details, if indeed it were ever to hear them. It would know just this, that a band of Indians, terrible in the very smallness of their numbers, were meeting the oncoming line of civilization from the East with that of the savagery of the West, as a prairie fire is met and checked in its advance by another fire kindled and set on to stop it. It would know that the blood of the masters of the land was being spilled upon the thirsty, unreclaimed ground by those who were, in right and justice, for the welfare of humanity, masters no more. It would know that the voice which should have been that of authority and command was often turned to helpless complaint or shrieks for mercy. And it would not stop for the causes of these things; it could not be expected to. It would know that a man had come who had promised peace, confidently promised it in the event of certain other promises being fulfilled, and that he had failed of his purpose. The world would say that Crook had held in his grasp the Apaches and the future peace of an empire as large as that of Great Britain and Ireland, France and Germany in one, and that he had let it slip through nerveless fingers. It was signal failure. Such Apaches as had not gone back on the war-path returned to the States with the troops; but there were five months more of the outrages of Geronimo and his kind. Then in the summer of the year another man, more fortunate and better fitted to deal with it all, perhaps,--with the tangle of lies and deceptions, cross purposes and trickery,--succeeded where Crook had failed and had been relieved of a task that was beyond him. Geronimo was captured, and was hurried off to a Florida prison with his band, as far as they well could be from the reservation they had refused to accept. And with them were sent other Indians, who had been the friends and helpers of the government for years, and who had run great risks to help or to obtain peace. But the memory and gratitude of governments is become a proverb. The southwest settled down to enjoy its safety. The troops rested upon the laurels they had won, the superseded general went on with his work in another field far away to the north. The new general, the saviour of the land, was heaped with honor and praise, and the path of civilization was laid clear. But before then Cairness returned to his ranch and set his back upon adventure for good and all. "Crook will be gone soon," he said to Felipa; "it is the beginning of his end. And even if he were to keep on, he might not need me any more." "Why?" she asked, with a quick suspicion of the dreariness she caught in his tone. He changed it to a laugh. "A scout married is a scout marred. I am a rancher now. It behooves me to accept myself as such. I have outlived my usefulness in the other field." XXV Felipa sat up in bed, and leaning over to the window beside it drew up the shade and looked out. The cold, gray world of breaking day was battling furiously with a storm of rain. The huddling flowers in the garden bent to the ground before the rush of wind from the mountains across the prairie. The windmill sent out raucous cries as it flew madly around, the great dense clouds, black with rain, dawn-edged, charged through the sky, and the shining-leaved cottonwoods bent their branches almost to the earth. The figures of Cairness and a couple of cow-boys, wrapped in rubber coats, passed, fighting their way through the blur,--vague, dark shadows in the vague, dark mist. The storm passed, with all the suddenness it had come on, and Felipa rose, and dressing herself quickly went out upon the porch. Three drenched kittens were mewing there piteously. She gathered them up in her hands and warmed them against her breast as she stood watching the earth and sky sob themselves to rest. All the petunias in the bed by the steps were full of rain, the crowfoot and madeira vines of the porch were stirring with the dripping water. Many great trees had had their branches snapped off and tossed several yards away, and part of the windmill had been blown to the top of the stable, some distance off. She wondered if Cairness had been able to get the cut alfalfa covered. Then she took the kittens with her to the house and went into the kitchen, where the Chinese cook already had a fire in the stove. She ordered coffee and toast to be made at once, and leaving the kittens in the woodbox near the fire, went back to the sitting room. It was a luxurious place. As much for his own artistic satisfaction as for her, Cairness had planned the interior of the house to be a background in keeping with Felipa, a fit setting for her, and she led the life of an Orient queen behind the walls of sun-baked clay. There was a wide couch almost in front of the roaring fire. She sank down in a heap of cushions, and taking up a book that lay open where her husband had put it down the night before, she tried to read by the flickering of the flame light over the pages. She was drowsy, however, for it was still very early, and she was almost dropping off to sleep when the Chinaman brought the coffee and set it down upon a table near her, with a deference of manner not common to the Celestial when serving the Occidental woman, who, he believes, has lost the right to it directly she shows the inclination to do work herself. But Felipa was a mistress to his taste. As he bowed himself abjectly from her presence, Cairness came in. He had taken off his rubber coat and big hat, and was full of the vigor of life which makes the strong and healthy-minded so good to look upon at the beginning of a day. Felipa, from her place on the couch, smiled lazily, with a light which was not all from the fire in her half-closed eyes. She put out her hand, and he took it in both his own and held it against his cold cheek as he dropped down beside her. She laid her head on his shoulder, and for a while neither of them spoke. Then there came a chuckling scream of baby laughter and a soft reproach, spoken in Spanish, from across the hall. She stood up and poured the coffee, but before she took her own she went out of the room and came back in a moment, carrying her small son high upon her shoulder. Cairness watched how strong and erect and how sure of every muscle she was, and how well the blond little head looked against the dull blackness of the mother's hair. The child was in no way like Felipa, and it had never taken her place in its father's love. He was fond of it and proud, too; but, had he been put to the test, he would have sacrificed its life for that of its mother, with a sort of fanatical joy. She put the baby between them, and it sat looking into the fire in the way she herself so often did, until her husband had called her the High Priestess of the Flames. Then she sank down among the cushions again and stirred her coffee indolently, drowsily, steeped in the contentment of perfect well-being. Cairness followed her movements with sharp pleasure. Later, when the sun was well up in the jewel-blue sky, and the world was all ashine, they began the real routine of the day. And it would have been much like that of any of the other days that had gone before it for two years, had not Cairness come in a little before the noon hour, bringing with him a guest. It was an Englishman, whom he presented to Felipa as a friend of his youth, and named Forbes. He did not see that there was just the faintest shadow of pausing upon Forbes's part, just the quickest passing hesitation and narrowing of the eyes with Felipa. She came forward with unquestioning welcome, accustomed to take it as a matter of course that any traveller, minded to stop for a time, should go into the first ranch house at hand. He told her, directly, that he was passing through Arizona to hunt and to look to certain mining interests he held there. And he stayed, talking with her and her husband about the country and the towns and posts he had visited, until long after luncheon. Then Cairness, having to ride to the salt lick at the other end of the ranch, up in the Huachuca foot-hills, suggested that Forbes go with him. It was plain, even to Felipa, how thoroughly he enjoyed being with one who could talk of the past and of the present, from his own point of view. His Coventry had been almost complete since the day that the entire army, impersonated in Crook, had turned disapproving eyes upon him once, and had then looked away from him for good and all. It had been too bitter a humiliation for him ever to subject himself to the chance of it again. The better class of citizens did not roam over the country much, and no officers had stopped at his ranch in almost two years, though they had often passed by. And he knew well enough that they would have let their canteens go unfilled, and their horses without fodder, for a long time, rather than have accepted water from his wells or alfalfa from his land. He could understand their feeling, too,--that was the worst of it; but though his love and his loyalty toward Felipa never for one moment wavered, he was learning surely day by day that a woman, be she never so much beloved, cannot make up to a man for long for the companionship of his own kind; and, least of all,--he was forced to admit it in the depths of his consciousness now,--one whose interests were circumscribed. They had lived an idyl for two years apast, and he begrudged nothing; yet now that the splendor was fading, as he knew that it was, the future was a little dreary before them both, before him the more, for he meant that, cost him what it might, Felipa should never know that the glamour was going for himself. It would be the easier that she was not subtle of perception, not quick to grasp the unexpressed. As for him, he had wondered from the first what price the gods would put upon the unflawed jewel of their happiness, and had said in himself that none could be too high. Forbes and her husband having gone away, Felipa lay in the hammock upon the porch and looked up into the vines. She thought hard, and remembered many things as she swayed to and fro. She remembered that one return to Nature long ago of which Landor had not known. There had been an afternoon in Washington when, on her road to some reception of a half-official kind, she had crossed the opening of an alleyway and had come upon three boys who were torturing a small, blind kitten; and almost without knowing what she did, because her maternal grandfather had done to the children of his enemies as the young civilized savages were doing to the kitten there, she stopped and watched them, not enjoying the sight perhaps, but not recoiling from it either. So intent had she been that she had not heard footsteps crossing the street toward her, and had not known that some one stopped beside her with an exclamation of wrath and dismay. She had turned suddenly and looked up, the pupils of her eyes contracted curiously as they had been when she had watched the tarantula-vinagrone fight years before. The man beside her was an attaché of the British legation, who had been one of her greatest admirers to that time, but thereafter he sought her out no more. He had driven the boys off, and taking the kitten, which mewed piteously all the way, had gone with her to her destination and left her. She had been sufficiently ashamed of herself thereafter, and totally unable to understand her own evil impulse. As she lay swinging in the hammock, she remembered this and many other things connected with that abhorred period of compulsory civilization and of success. The hot, close, dead, sweet smell of the petunias, wilting in the August sun, and the surface-baked earth came up to her. It made her vaguely heartsick and depressed. The mood was unusual with her. She wished intensely that her husband would come back. After a time she roused herself and went into the house, and directly she came back with the baby in her arms. The younger of the two children that she had taken under her care at Stanton, the little girl, followed after her. It was a long way to the salt lick, and the chances were that the two men would be gone the whole afternoon. The day was very hot, and she had put on a long, white wrapper, letting her heavy hair fall down over her shoulders, as she did upon every excuse now, and always when her husband was out of the way. There was a sunbonnet hanging across the porch railing. She put it on her head and went down the steps, carrying the child. Back of her, a score or more of miles away, were the iron-gray mountains; beyond those, others of blue; and still beyond, others of yet fainter blue, melting into the sky and the massed white clouds upon the horizon edge. But in front of her the flat stretched away and away, a waste of white-patched soil and glaring sand flecked with scrubs. The pungency of greasewood and sage was thick in the air, which seemed to reverberate with heat. A crow was flying above in the blue; its shadow darted over the ground, now here, now far off. Half a mile beyond, within the same barbed-wire enclosure as the home buildings and corrals, was a spring-house surrounded by cottonwoods, just then the only patch of vivid green on the clay-colored waste. There were benches under the cottonwoods, and the ground was cool, and thither Felipa took her way, in no wise oppressed by the heat. Her step was as firm and as quick as it had been the day she had come so noiselessly along the parade, across the path of the private who was going to the barracks. It was as quiet, too, for she had on a pair of old red satin slippers, badly run down at the heel. Cairness started for the salt lick, then changed his mind and his destination, and merely rode with Forbes around the parts of the ranch which were under more or less cultivation, and to one of the water troughs beneath a knot of live oaks in the direction of the foot-hills. So they returned to the home place earlier than they otherwise would have done, and that, too, by way of the spring-house. They caught sight of Felipa, and both drew rein simultaneously. She was leaning against a post of the wire fence. The baby was carried on her hip, tucked under her arm, the sunbonnet was hanging by the strings around her neck, and her head, with its straight loose hair, was uncovered. The little girl stood beside her, clutching the white wrapper which had trailed in the spring-house acequia, and from under which a muddy red slipper showed. That she was imposing still, said much for the quality of her beauty. She did not hear the tramp of the two horses, sharp as her ears were, for she was too intent upon watching a fight between two steers. One had gone mad with loco-weed, and they gored each other's sides until the blood ran, while only a low, moaning bellow came from their dried throats. A cloud of fine dust, that threw back the sun in glitters, hung over them, and a flock of crows, circling above in the steel-blue sky, waited. "Felipa!" shouted Cairness. He was angry--almost as angry as Forbes had been when he had come upon Mrs. Landor watching the boys and the kitten in the alleyway. She heard, and again her eyes met Forbes's. There was a flash of comprehension in them. She knew what he was thinking very well. But she left the fence, and, pushing the sunbonnet over her head, joined them, not in the least put out, and they dismounted and walked beside her, back to the house. Cairness was taciturn. It was some moments before he could control his annoyance, by the main strength of his sense of justice, by telling himself once again that he had no right to blame Felipa for the manifestations of that nature he had known her to possess from the first. It was not she who was changing. Forbes explained their early return, and spoke of the ranch. "It might be a garden, this territory, if only it had water enough," he said; "it has a future, possibly, but its present is just a little dismal, I think. Are you greatly attached to the life here, Mrs. Cairness?" He was studying her, and she knew it, though his glance swept the outlook comprehensively, and she was watching the mail-carrier riding toward them along the road. It was the brother of the little girl who followed along behind them, and who ran off now to meet him, calling and waving her hand. "Yes," she said, "I am very much attached to it. I was born to it." "Do you care for it so much that you would not be happy in any other?" "That would depend," she answered with her enigmatical, slow smile; "I could be happy almost anywhere with Mr. Cairness." "Of course," he laughed tolerantly, "I dare say any wilderness were paradise with him." Felipa smiled again. "I might be happy," she went on, "but I probably should not live very long. I have Indian blood in my veins; and we die easily in a too much civilization." That evening they sat talking together long after the late dinner. But a little before midnight Felipa left them upon the porch, smoking and still going over the past. They had so much to say of matters that she in no way understood. The world they spoke of and its language were quite foreign to her. She knew that her husband was where she could never follow him, and she felt the first utter dreariness of jealousy--the jealousy of the intellectual, so much more unendurable than that of the material. With the things of the flesh there can be the vindictive hope, the certainty indeed, that they will lose their charm with time, that the gold will tarnish and the gray come above the green, but a thought is dearer for every year that it is held, and its beauty does not fade away. The things of the flesh we may even mar ourselves, if the rage overpowers us, but those of the intellect are not to be reached or destroyed; and Felipa felt it as she turned from them and went into the house. There was a big moon, already on the wane, floating very high in the heavens, and the plain was a silvery sheen. "This is all very beautiful," said Forbes, after a silence. Cairness did not see that it called for a reply, and he made none. "But it is doing Mrs. Cairness an injustice, if you don't mind my saying so." "What do you mean?" asked Cairness, rather more than a trifle coldly. He had all but forgotten the matter of that afternoon. Felipa had redeemed herself through the evening, so that he had reason to be proud of her. "I used to know Mrs. Cairness in Washington," Forbes went on, undisturbed; "she has probably told you so." Cairness was surprised almost into showing his surprise. Felipa had said nothing of it to him. And he knew well enough that she never forgot a face. He felt that he was in a false position, but he answered "Yes?" non-committally. "Yes," answered Forbes, "she was very much admired." He looked a little unhappy. But his mind was evidently made up, and he went on doggedly: "Look here, Morely, old chap, I am going to tell you what I think, and you may do as you jolly well please about it afterward--kick me off the ranch, if you like. But I can see these things with a clearer eye than yours, because I am not in love, and you are, dreadfully so, you know, not to say infatuated. I came near to being once upon a time, and with your wife, too. I thought her the most beautiful woman I had ever known, and I do yet. I thought, too, that she was a good deal unhappier with Landor than she herself realized; in which I was perfectly right. It's plainer than ever, by contrast. Of course I understand that she is part Indian, though I've only known it recently. And it's because I've seen a good deal of your Apaches of late that I appreciate the injustice you are doing her and Cairness Junior, keeping them here. She is far and away too good for all this," he swept the scene comprehensively with his pipe. "She'd be a sensation, even in London. Do you see what I mean, or are you too vexed to see anything?" Cairness did not answer at once. He pushed the tobacco down in his brier and sat looking into the bowl. "No," he said at last, "I'm not too vexed. The fact is, I have seen what you mean for a long time. But what would you suggest by way of remedy, if I may ask?" They were both talking too low for their voices to reach Felipa through the open window of her bedroom. "That you take them to civilization--the missus and the kid. It's the only salvation for all three of you--for you as well as them." "You heard what Mrs. Cairness said this afternoon. She was very ill in school when she was a young girl, and still more so in Washington afterward." He shook his head. "No, Forbes, you may think you know something about the Apache, but you don't know him as I do, who have been with him for years. I've seen too much of the melting away of half and quarter breeds. They die without the shadow of an excuse, in civilization." But Forbes persisted, carried away by his idea and the determination to make events fit in with it. "She was ill in Washington because she wasn't happy. She'd be happy anywhere with you; she said so this afternoon, you remember." "She also said that it would kill her." Forbes went on without noticing the interruption. "You are a great influence in her life, but you aren't the only one. Her surroundings act powerfully upon her. When I knew her before, she was like any other beautiful woman--" "I am far from being sure that that is entirely to be desired, very far," said Cairness, with conviction. He had never ceased to feel a certain annoyance at the memory of that year and a half of Felipa's life in which he had had no part. Forbes shrugged his shoulders. "You'll pardon me if I say that here she is a luxurious semi-barbarian." It was on his tongue's tip to add, "and this afternoon, by the spring-house, she was nearly an Apache," but he checked it. "It's very picturesque and poetical and all that,--from the romantic point of view it's perfect,--but it isn't feasible. You can't live on honeycomb for more than a month or twain. I can't imagine a greater misfortune than for you two to grow contented here, and that's what you'll do. It will be a criminal waste of good material." Cairness knew that it was true, too true to refute. "I am speaking about Mrs. Cairness," Forbes went on earnestly, "because she is more of an argument for you than the child is, which is un-English too, isn't it? But the child is a fine boy, nevertheless, and there will be other children probably. I don't need to paint their future to you, if you let them grow up here. You owe it to them and to your wife and to yourself--to society for that matter--not to retrograde. Oh! I say, I'm out and out lecturing on sociology. You're good-tempered to put up with it, but I mean well--like most meddlers." "I have the ranch; how could I get away?" Cairness opposed. But the argument was weak. Forbes paid small heed to it. "You've a great deal besides. Every one in the country knows your mines have made you a rich man. And you are better than that. You are a talented man, though you've frittered away your abilities too long to amount to anything much, now. You ought to get as far off from this kind of thing as you can." He did not even hint that he knew of the isolation of their lives, but Cairness was fully aware that he must, and that it was what he meant now. "You ought to go to another country. Not back to Australia, either; it is too much this sort, but somewhere where the very air is civilizing, where it's in the atmosphere and you can't get away from it. I'll tell you what you do." He stood up and knocked the ashes from his pipe against the porch rail. "You've plenty of friends at home. Sell the ranch, or keep it to come back to once in a way if you like. I'm going back in the autumn, in October. You come with me, you and Mrs. Cairness and the boy." Cairness clasped his hands about one knee and bent back, looking up at the stars,--and far beyond them into the infinity of that Cause of which they and he and all the perplexing problems were but the mere effects. "You mustn't think I haven't thought it over, time and again," he said, after a while. "It's more vital to me than to you; but my way isn't clear. I loved Mrs. Cairness for more than ten years before I could marry her. I should lose her in less than that, I am absolutely certain, if I did as you suggest. She is not so strong a woman as you might suppose. This dry air, this climate, are necessary to her." He hesitated a little, rather loath to speak of his sentiments, and yet glad of the chance to put his arguments in words, for his own greater satisfaction. "You call it picturesque and poetical and all that," he said, "but you only half mean it after all. It is picturesque. It has been absolutely satisfactory. I'm not given to talking about this kind of thing, you know; but most men who have been married two years couldn't say truthfully that they have nothing to regret; that if they had had to buy that time with eternity of damnation and the lake of fire, it would not have come too dear. And I have had no price to pay--" he stopped short, the ring of conviction cut off, as the sound of a bell is when a hand is laid upon it. The hand was that of a fact, of the fact that had confronted him in the Cañon de los Embudos, and that very day by the cottonwoods of the spring-house. "Mrs. Cairness would go where I wished gladly," he added, more evenly; "but if it were to a life very different from this, it would end in death--and I should be the cause of it. There it is." He too rose, impatiently. "Think it over, in any case," urged Forbes; "I am going in, good night." "I have thought it over," said Cairness; "good night." Cairness sat for a long time, smoking and thinking. Then Felipa's voice called to him and he went in to her. She was by the window in a flood of moonlight, herself all in flowing white, with the mantle of black hair upon her shoulders. He put his arm about her and she laid her head against his breast. "I am jealous of him," she said, without any manner of preface. He made no pretence of not understanding. "You have no need to be, dear," he said simply. "He gives you what I can't give," she said. "You give me what no one else could give--the best things in life." "Better than the--other things?" she asked, and he answered, unhesitating, "Yes." There was another silence, and this time he broke it. "Why did you not tell me you had known Forbes, Felipa?" If it had not been that she was commonly and often unaccountably reticent, there might have been some suspicion in the question. But there was only a slight annoyance. Nor was there hesitation in her reply. "It brought back too much that was unpleasant for me. I did not want to talk about it. He saw that I did not, too, and I can't understand why he should have spoken of it. I should have told you after he had gone." She was not disconcerted in the slightest, only a little vindictive toward Forbes, and he thought it would hardly be worth his while to point out the curious position her silence put him in. He gathered his courage for what he was going to say next, with a feeling almost of guilt. "Forbes says that I am doing you an injustice, keeping you here; that it is no life for you." "It is the only one I can live," she said indifferently enough, stating it as an accepted, incontrovertible fact, "and it's the one you like best." He had told her that many times. It had been true; perhaps it was true still. "He does not understand," she continued; "he was always a society man, forever at receptions and dances and teas. He doesn't see how we can make up to each other for all the world." She moved away from him and out of the ray of moonlight, into the shadow of the other side of the window, and spoke thoughtfully, with more depth to her voice than usual. "So few people have been as happy as we have. If we went hunting for more happiness somewhere else, we should be throwing away the gifts of the gods, I think." Cairness looked over at her in some surprise, but her face was in the shadow. He wondered that she had picked up the phrase. It was a common one with him, a sort of catchword he had the habit of using. But she was not given to philosophy. It was oddly in line with his own previous train of thought. He laughed, a little falsely, and turned back into the room. "The gods sell their gifts," he said. XXVI Forbes left the ranch after breakfast the next day, and Cairness went with him to Tombstone. He had business there, connected with one of his mines. Felipa spent the day, for the most part, in riding about the ranch and in anticipating the night. Her husband had promised to be back soon after moonrise. When it had begun to turn dark, she dressed herself all in white and went out to swing in the hammock until it should be time for her lonely dinner. Before long she heard a horse coming at a gallop up the road, to the front of the house. She put out her hand and pushed aside the vines, but could see little until the rider, dismounting and dropping his reins to hang on the ground, ran up the steps. It was the mail carrier, the young hero of the Indian massacre. Felipa saw in a moment that he was excited. She thought of her husband at once, and sat up in the hammock. "Well?" she said peremptorily. "It's--" the boy looked around nervously. "If you'd come into the house--" he ventured. She went into the bedroom, half dragging him by the shoulder, and shut the door. "Now!" she said, "make haste." "It's Mr. Cairness, ma'am," he whispered. "Is he hurt?" she shook him sharply. The boy explained that it was not that, and she let him go, in relief. "But he is goin' to be. That's what I come so quick to tell you." He stopped again. "Will you make haste?" cried Felipa, out of patience. "He's coming back from Tombstone with some money, ain't he?" Felipa nodded. "A very little," she said. "Well, they think it's a lot." "Who?" "The fellers that's after him. They're goin' to hold him up fifteen miles out, down there by where the Huachuca road crosses. He's alone, ain't he?" "Yes," said Felipa. "How do you know this?" "Old Manuel he told me. You don't know him. It's an old Greaser, friend of mine. He don't want no one to tell he told, they'd get after him. But it's so, all right. There's three of them." A stable man passed the window. Felipa called to him. "Bring me my horse, quick, and mount four men! Don't take five minutes and be well armed," she ordered in a low voice. Hers was the twofold decision of character and of training that may not be disregarded. The man started on a run. "What you goin' to do?" the boy asked. He was round-eyed with dismay and astonishment. Felipa did not answer. She broke her revolver and looked into the chambers. Two of them were empty, and she took some cartridges from a desk drawer and slipped them in. The holster was attached to her saddle, and she rarely rode without it. "You ain't goin' to try to stop him?" the boy said stupidly. "He was goin' to leave Tombstone at sundown. He'll be to the place before you ken ketch him, sure." "We'll see," she answered shortly; "it is where the Huachuca road crosses, you are certain?" He nodded forcibly. "Where all them mesquites is to one side, and the arroyo to the other. They'll be behind the mesquite. But you ain't goin' to head him off," he added, "there ain't even a short cut. The road's the shortest." The stableman came on a run, leading her horse, and she fairly leaped down the steps, and slipping the pistol into the holster mounted with a spring. "All of you follow me," she said; "they are going to hold up Mr. Cairness." On the instant she put her horse to a run and tore off through the gate toward the open country. It was dark, but by the stars she could see the road and its low bushes and big stones that danced by as her horse, with its belly to the ground, sped on. She strained her ears and caught the sound of hoofs. The men were following her, the gleam of her white dress guiding them. She knew they could not catch her. The horse she rode was a thoroughbred, the fastest on the ranch; not even Cairness's own could match it. It stretched out its long black neck and went evenly ahead, almost without motion, rising over a dog hole now and then, coming down again, and going on, unslacking. She felt the bit steadily and pressed her knee against the hunting horn for purchase, her toe barely touching the stirrup, that she might be the freer in a fall. If it went like this, she thought, she might get to the cross-road first, and beyond. The four men would not matter much then, if she could but stop her husband. Why had he started back alone--and carrying money too? It was foolhardy. But then there was so little money, she knew, that he had probably not thought of it as booty. She turned her uncovered head and listened. Her hair had fallen loose and was streaming out in the wind. She could not hear the others now. They must be well behind. There was a faint, white light above the distant mountains in the east. The moon was about to rise. In a few moments more it came drifting up, and the plain was all alight. Far away on the edge was a vague, half-luminous haze, and nearer the shadows of the bushes fell sharp and black. A mile ahead, perhaps, along the road, she could make out the dark blot of the mesquite clump. Behind, as she looked again, she could just see four figures following. It occurred to her now for the first time that there was danger for herself, so far in front, so entirely alone. The chances for passing the mesquites were not very good. If the men were already there, and that might be counted upon, they would not let her pass if they could help it. It occasioned her but one fear--that she could not stop her husband. If she were to turn from the road out into the open, she would lose time, even if the horse did not fall, and time was not to be lost. The mesquites were very near. She bent down over the horse's neck and spoke to him. His stride lengthened out yet more. She drew the little revolver, and cocked it, still bending low. If they were to fire at her, the white gown would make a good mark; but she would show as little of it as might be, and she would not waste time answering shots, if it could be helped. The mesquites were directly ahead. A horseman came out from behind them and placed himself across the road. There was a sheen of moonlight on a revolver barrel and a shouted "Halt there!" He was in front of her, not a hundred feet away; to the left were the mesquites, to the right the ragged arroyo. There could be no turning aside. She threw up her own revolver, and fired, not at the man, but at the head of his horse. It reared and fell, and a moment after her own rose in the air, touched the ground beyond, and went on. It had leapt the fallen one and his rider, and was leaving them behind. The man on the ground twisted his body around on his crushed leg, pinned under the pony, aimed deliberately at the white figure, and fired. Felipa's firm hold upon her revolver turned to a clutch, and her mouth fell open in a sharp gasp. But very deliberately she put the revolver into its holster, and then she laid her hand against her side. At once the palm was warm with blood. She drew her horse down to a gallop, and the jar of the changed gait made her moan. There was no haste now. Her own men had come upon the desperadoes and there was a quick volley. And ahead, riding fast toward her from the top of a little rise, was a man on a white horse--her husband, she knew. She gave a dry little sob of unutterable glad relief and tried to raise her voice and call to him, the call they used for one another when they rode about the ranch. But the sound was only a weak, low wail. The horse came down to a walk. She had lost all control of the reins now, and clung to the pommel with both hands, swaying from side to side. She could hear galloping hoofs, behind and in front--or was it only the blood, the icy cold blood, pounding in her ears? The horse stopped, and she reeled blindly in her seat into a pair of strong arms that caught her and drew her down. A voice was saying words she could not hear, but she knew the voice so well. And she smiled and dropped her head down upon her husband's shoulder. "Just--just in time," she whispered very low. "In time, Felipa? In time for what, dear?" but there was no answer. He turned her face up to the moonlight, and the head fell heavily back with the weight of hair. The half-closed eyes looked unseeing up to him, and the quiet lips smiled still. "Felipa!" he cried, "Felipa!" But only a coyote barked from a knoll near by. 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Here his genius for story telling is seen at its best."--_Boston Herald._ "For sustained intensity and graphic description Marion Crawford's new novel is inapproachable in the field of recent fiction."--_Times Union_, Albany. "Don John of Austria's secret marriage with the daughter of one of King Philip's officers is the culminating point of this story.... An assassination, a near approach to a palace revolution, a great scandal, and some very pretty love-making, besides much planning and plotting, take place."--_Boston Transcript._ "Mr. Crawford wastes no time in trying to re-create history, but puts his reader into the midst of those bygone scenes and makes him live in them.... In scenes of stirring dramatic intensity.... It all seems intensely real so long as one is under the novelist's spell."--_Chicago Tribune._ "No man lives who can endow a love tale with a rarer charm than Crawford."--_San Francisco Evening Bulletin._ "No book of the season has been more eagerly anticipated, and none has given more complete satisfaction ... a drama of marvellous power and exceptional brilliancy, forceful and striking ... holding the reader's interest spell-bound from the first page of the story to the last, reached all too soon."--_The Augusta Herald._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK THE REIGN OF LAW A Tale of the Kentucky Hempfields By JAMES LANE ALLEN _Author of "The Choir Invisible," "A Kentucky Cardinal," etc._ Illustrated by J. C. EARL and HARRY FENN Cloth. 12 mo. $1.50 "The whole book is a brilliant defence of Evolution, a scholarly statement of the case. Never before has that great science been so presented; never before has there been such a passionate yet thrilling appeal."--_Courier Journal._ "This is a tremendous subject to put into a novel; but the effort is so daring, and the treatment so frank and masterly on its scientific side, that the book is certain to command a wide hearing, perhaps to provoke wide controversy."--_Tribune_, Chicago. "'When a man has heard the great things calling to him, how they call, and call, day and night, day and night!' This is really the foundation idea, the golden text, of Mr. James Lane Allen's new and remarkable novel."--_Evening Transcript_, Boston. "In all the characteristics that give Mr. Allen's novels such distinction and charm 'The Reign of Law' is perhaps supreme ... but it is pre-eminently the study of a soul ... religion is here the dominant note."--_The New York Times' Saturday Review._ "In David there is presented one of the noblest types of our fiction; the incarnation of brilliant mentality and splendid manhood.... No portrait in contemporary literature is more symbolic of truth and honor."--_The Times_, Louisville. "Mr. Allen has a style as original and almost as perfectly finished as Hawthorne's, and he has also Hawthorne's fondness for spiritual suggestion that makes all his stories rich in the qualities that are lacking in so many novels of the period.... If read in the right way, it cannot fail to add to one's spiritual possessions."--_San Francisco Chronicle._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
60795	----	[Illustration: Cover art] ARIZONA ARGONAUTS [Frontispiece: (gunman and horse)] ARIZONA ARGONAUTS BY H. BEDFORD-JONES GARDEN CITY NEW YORK GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC. 1924 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Two Palms II. Shipwrecked Men III. Bill Hobbs Arrives IV. Sandy Invests Twice V. Clairedelune VI. Deadoak Feels Remorse VII. Stung! VIII. Doctor Scudder IX. The News Story X. Flight XI. The Sun Strikes XII. Scudder Comes XIII. Untangled ARIZONA ARGONAUTS CHAPTER I TWO PALMS Piute Tompkins, sole owner and proprietor of what used to be the Oasis Saloon but was now the Two Palms House, let the front feet of his chair fall with a bang to the porch floor and deftly shot a stream of tobacco juice at an unfortunate lizard basking in the sunny sand of Main Street. "That there Chinee," he observed, with added profanity, "sure has got this here town flabbergasted!" "Even so," agreed Deadoak Stevens, who was wont to agree with everyone. Deadoak was breaking the monotony of an aimless existence by roosting on the hotel veranda. "I wisht," he added wistfully, "I wisht that I could control myself as good as you, Piute! The way you pick off them lizards is a caution." Piute waved the grateful topic aside. "That there Chinee, now," he reverted, stroking his grizzled mustache, "is a mystery. Ain't he? He is. Him, and that girl, and what in time they're a-doing here." "Even so," echoed Deadoak, as he rolled a listless cigarette. "Who ever heard of a chink ownin' a autobile? Not me. Who ever heard of a chink havin' a purty daughter? Not me. Who ever heard of a chink goin' off into the sandy wastes like any other prospector? Not me. I'm plumb beat, Piute!" "Uh-huh," grunted Piute Tomkins. "Pretty near time for him to be shovin' out as per usual, too. He was askin' about the way to Morongo Valley at breakfast, so I reckon him an' the gorl is headin' north this mornin'." The two gentlemen fell silent, gazing hopefully at the listless waste of Main Street as though waiting for some miracle to cause that desert to blossom as the rose. At either side of the porch, rattled and crackled in the morning breeze the brownish and unhappy-looking palms which had given the city its present name. They were nearly ten feet in height, those palms, and men came from miles around to gaze upon them. It was those two palms that had started Piute Tomkins in the orchard business, which now promised to waken the adjacent countryside to blooming prosperity. At present, however, Two Palms was undeniably paralyzed by the odd happenings going on within its borders. Contributory to this state of petrifaction was the location and environment of the desert metropolis itself. Lying twenty miles off the railroad spur that ended at Meteorite, and well up into the big bend of the Colorado, in earlier days Two Palms had been a flourishing mining community. It was now out of the world, surrounded by red sand and marble cañons and gravel desert and painted buttes; Arizona had gone dry, and except for Piute Tomkins and his orchard business, the future of Two Palms would have been an arid prospect. Piute Tomkins was the mayor of Two Palms and her most prominent citizen, by virtue of owning the hotel and general store, also by virtue of owning no mines. Everyone else in Two Palms owned mines--chiefly prospect holes. All around the town for scores of miles lay long abandoned mining country; the region had been thoroughly prospected and worked over, but was still given a tryout by occasional newcomers. The Gold Hill boom in particular had sent revivifying tremors up through the district, several unfortunate pilgrims having wandered in this direction for a space. Inspired by the rustling quivers of the brownish palms outside his hostelry, Piute Tomkins had passed on the inspiration to other prominent citizens. They had clubbed together, and managed to get some wells bored out in the desert--installing mail-order pumping machinery to the indignation of Haywire Smithers, proprietor of the hardware emporium across the street. They then set out pear and almond trees, and sat down to get rich. Piute Tomkins had been sitting thusly for five years, and after another five years he expected to have money in the bank. "I was wonderin' about them pears, when they come to bearin'," he reflected to Deadoak. "What we goin' to do with 'em when we get 'em? It's twenty miles south to Meteorite, and thirty mile west to Eldorado on the river, an' fifty mile north to Rioville. How we goin' to get them pears to market?" "They come in an' buy 'em on the trees," said Deadoak encouragingly. It paid Deadoak to be heartening in his advice. He was the only man thereabouts who understood the workings of cement, and during the orchard boom he had put in a hectic six months making irrigation pipe. He also owned several mines up north. "Speakin' o' that chink, now," he said, sitting up suddenly, "you say he's headin' for Morongo Valley to-day? I bet he's heard about that there mine o' mine--the one that stove in on Hassayamp Perkins an' broke his neck. Sure he didn't mention it?" "He ain't talked mines a mite," said Piute, casting about for a lizard. "Nope, not a mite. Haywire was tryin' to interest him in them two holes west o' the Dead Mountains, but he plumb wouldn't interest in nothin'. It's my opinion, private, that he's aimin' to raise garden truck. Most like, he's heard of the irrigation projects around here--they was wrote up in the Meteorite paper last year--and he's come down to find the right place for garden truck. Chinks are hell on raisin' lettuce an' stuff." "What in hallelujah would he do with it when he got it?" demanded Deadoak witheringly. "Eat it? Not him. Now, the way I take it----" He hushed suddenly. The hotel door had opened to give egress to a large man--a tall, widely built man, clad in khaki--and a girl, also clad in khaki. The man moved out into the white sunlight, looking neither to right nor left, and vanished around the side of the building. His features, one realized, were those of a Chinaman. The girl, who flashed a bright "Good morning!" to the two men and then followed, was slender and lithe, and carried over her shoulder a black case and tripod slung in a strap. "Camera again," observed Deadoak, as she too disappeared. "Why in time do they go out workin' with that picture machine? It don't look sensible to me. Didn't you ask him?" "Him?" Scorn sat in Piute's tone. "Tom Lee? He don't never talk. Don't know when I've seen a man that talked less than him. That is, in company. Up in his own room I've heard him jabber away by the hour. Him and the girl always speaks English----" "Say!" exclaimed Deadoak, excited. "I bet I got you now! You remember that guy come out three years ago an' boarded over to Stiff Enger's place by Skull Mountain? Lunger, he was, and his folks sent money for his carcass when he cashed in. Stiff said that he'd stalk around by the hour talkin' queer talk to himself and wavin' his hands at the scenery." "He was an actor, wasn't he?" "Certain. Well, that's what this chink is--that's why he's learnin' his parts up in his room! Then he goes out in the desert somewheres with the girl, and she puts him through his paces and takes pictures of him! Piute, I bet a dollar he's a movin' picture actor and they're makin' pictures of him--that's why they always go some different place!" "Might be some sense to that notion," ruminated Piute Tomkins. "Still, it don't look----" From behind the hotel burst forth the roar of a flivver. The car careened into sight, the big yellow man sitting in the rear, the girl at the wheel. It skidded into the dusty street, righted, and darted away. At the next corner--the only corner--it turned up past Stiff Enger's blacksmith shop and disappeared. "Uh-huh," commented Piute. "They're headin' for Morongo Valley, all right, if they don't stop somewheres first. They're plumb liable to stop, too. That ain't but a track these days; no travel atall that way. I told the chink it was a bum road, but he just grinned and allowed the car could make it." "Well, there's scenery a-plenty up Morongo way," averred Deadoak. "That's all there is, scenery an' rattlers. Wisht they'd take a notion to dig into that mine o' mine, they might dig up ol' Hassayamp. He had a bag o' dust on him when she caved in, but I reckon he's all o' twenty feet inside the hill." Why Tom Lee had come to Two Palms, no one knew. A most amazing Chinaman who spoke very good English, who put up at the hotel and seemed to have plenty of money, and whose business like himself was a mystery. He would go for one day, or two or three into the desert, and invariably come back empty-handed, so far as anyone could tell. What was even more astonishing, his daughter always drove him. At least, Tom Lee said she was his daughter, and she seemed quite satisfied. Everyone in Two Palms fairly gasped at the bare thought, however; for she was actually a pretty girl and looked as white as anyone. More so than most, perhaps, for life in Two Palms was not conducive to lily complexions, yet the desert sun had barely given her features a healthy sun-glow. A pilgrim, during some prospecting toward Eldorado, had come upon the girl sitting in the car, one day, and had been struck dumb by sight of her. Later, he had wandered morosely into the Two Palms, begging a drink in charity, and murmuring something about having proposed mattermony before the ol' man showed up and he had realized the dread secret of her birth. Still murmuring, the pilgrim had wandered off toward Meteorite and had been no more seen of men. "Still an' all," observed Deadoak, whose mind had reverted to this incident, "I dunno but what a man _might_ do worse. She's durn pretty, I will say, and always has a right sweet word for folks. I dunno but what she might be glad to take up----" "Now, Deadoak, you look here!" Piute turned in his chair and transfixed the other with a steely gaze. "I'm mayor o' this here town, an' deputy sheriff, and it's my duty to uphold morality and--and such things. Don't you go to shootin' off your mouth that-a-way, I warn you, legal! Don't you take too much for granted. We need irrigation pipe, and we're liable to need more, but that don't give you no license to presume. You go to outragin' the moral feelin's of this here community and somethin' will happen quick!" "I was just thinkin'," Deadoak weakly defended himself. "And Mis' Smithers allows that she's a right smart girl, considerin' what's behind her----" "Don't you think too hard," said Piute, getting up and shoving back his chair, "or you'll have a accident! Mind me, now." He stamped inside the hotel, calling to Mrs. Tomkins in the kitchen that the guests had departed and she could tidy up the rooms a bit. CHAPTER II SHIPWRECKED MEN Sandy Mackintavers was slowly piloting his big Twin-Duplex along a rough and rugged road. It crested the bleak mesa uplands like a red-bellied snake. A twining, orderly road of brickish red, now and again broken into by flat outcrops of yellow sand or white limestone cut into its tires most pitifully. One who knew Arizona would have recognized that road, although Sandy himself might have gone unrecognized. He was coated with the dust of several bathless days, and underneath the dust, his heavy features were drawn and knotted. Sandy had a general idea that he was in Arizona, but did not care particularly where he was, so long as the car kept going and he drifted westward, unknown of men. Six weeks previous to this momentous day, Mackintavers had been a power in the world of mesa, ranch, and mine that centered about Albuquerque and Socorro; the world that he had now left far behind him to the eastward, forever. His wealth had been large. His unscrupulous fingers had been clutched deep in a score of pies, sometimes leaving very dirty marks about the edge. Mining was his specialty, although he was interested in trading stores and other enterprises on the side. Any bank in the Southwest would have O.K.'d the signature of Alexander Mackintavers for almost any amount. Yet Sandy had few friends or none. His enemies, mainly those whom he had cheated or bluffed or robbed, feared him deeply. He gave no love to any man or woman. He was said to own the courts of the state and to be above the law; the same has been said of most wealthy men, and with about the same degree of truth. For, of a sudden, the world of Sandy Mackintavers had cracked and smashed around him. Somewhere a cog slipped; he had been indicted for bribery. That had broken the thick crust of fear which had enveloped him, had released his enemies from the shackles of his strong personality. Overnight, it seemed, a dozen men went into the courts against him, backed by the evidence of those who had taken his money and had done his dirty work. Sandy Mackintavers, for the first time in his life, had thrown up his hands and quit. His magic had gone; little things done in careless confidence now suddenly loomed up huge and threatening against him. He faced the penitentiary, and knew it; too many of his own hirelings had turned upon him. Fortunately for himself, he slipped through the bribery charge on a technicality, and devoted himself to buying off his worst enemies. That saved him from the courts and the penitentiary, but it brought down upon him a horde of vultures--both men and women with whom he had in times past dealt with after his own fashion. Now they dealt with him, and in full measure. Mackintavers was broken in spirit. Before he could rally, before he could get breath to fight, they crushed him with staggering blows on every side. Sins ten years old rose up from the past and smote him. He deserved all he got, of course. The vultures gathered around and stripped him to the bones, as pitilessly as he had stripped them in other days. His ranch, his mines, his trading stores--all of them went, one by one. When Sandy saw the last of his wealth vanishing, with more vultures hovering on the horizon and not a soul sticking by him, he climbed into his big car, the last remnant of prosperous days, and "beat it." At forty-eight he was beginning life over again, with most of his nerve gone, at least temporarily, and a beggarly five hundred dollars in his sock. He had no idea of what might happen to him next, so he buried his wad in this first national bank and started. With this brief digression, we find Sandy Mackintavers at the wheel of his big car, aimlessly crawling over the bleak mesa toward no place in particular. In the rear of the car were heaped a camping outfit and Sandy's personal baggage. Mackintavers knew that he was already far away from Albuquerque and his usual haunts, and well on the way to California; but he had no definite city of refuge in mind, unless he were to strike down across the border into Mexico. He had a hazy notion of selling his car somewhere, and then--well, his brain was still too staggered to be of much value to him. He was as a man dazed, awaiting the next blow and caring not. When Mackintavers observed two men on the road ahead of him, he slowed down. He had lived thirty years in the Southwest, and he believed in giving men a ride, even if they were tramps, as the blanket-rolls showed. "Ride, boys?" he sang out, slowing down between the two men, who had separated. "You bet!" The man to the left, a tall, rangy individual, hopped to the running board and opened the tonneau door behind Sandy. An instant later, Mackintavers felt something cold and round pressed into his neck, and heard the stranger's drawling speech. "Sit quiet, partner, and leave both hands on the steering wheel--that's right. Now, Willyum, investigate our catch." Mackintavers glanced at the other man and found him to be a rough-jawed individual, who was nearing him with a grin. Across the haggard, pouched features of Mackintavers flitted an ironic smile. "What's this--a holdup?" he inquired calmly. "Exactly," answered the cultivated voice behind his ear. "The owner of so highly pedigreed a car as this one, must perforce need his loose cash far less than Willyum and I. We are, I assure you, rank amateurs at the holdup game; this, in fact, is our initial venture, so be careful not to joggle this revolver. Amateurs, you know, are far more irresponsible with a gun than are professionals." "You needn't be wastin' time and breath on me," said Mackintavers. "If there was any money to be made in your business, I'd join ye myself. Ye'll find eight dollars and eleven cents in my pockets, no more." "Hold, Willyum!" ejaculated the bandit in the rear. "Let us engage our victim in pleasing discourse. Is it possible, worthy sir, that you do not own this fine motor car?" "I own it until I meet someone who knows me," said Mackintavers grimly. He had none too great a sense of humor--one contributing cause of his downfall. But he knew that his five hundred was reasonably safe, since the average car driver does not carry money in his sock. "There's something familiar about the shape of your head," observed the bandit in reflective voice. "I cannot presume to say that we have met socially, however. May I inquire as to your name?" Mackintavers hesitated. He was warned by a vague sense of familiarity in this man's voice, yet he could not place the man or his companion. However, he felt fairly confident that they were not former victims, and concealment of his identity would in any case be futile. "My name's Mackintavers. Aiblins, now, ye've heard of me?" The hand holding the revolver jumped. The bandit slowly withdrew his weapon, and made a gesture which held his companion from entering the car to search the victim. "Mackintavers!" he repeated. "Why, sir, we have read great things of you in the public prints! I am glad we had your name, for we could not rob you--on two counts. First, there is honor among thieves; second, you are a repentant sinner. We have read in the papers that you have devoted your entire fortune to reimbursing those whom in past years you have dealt with ungenerously. Sir, I congratulate you!" Mackintavers winced before the slightly sardonic voice. It was true that the newspapers had pilloried him unmercifully; they had joined in the landslide that had swept him away, and their tongues had cut into him deeply. "Who the devil are you?" he rasped, with something of his old asperity. "You talk like a fool!" The bandit laughed. "Mr. Mackintavers," he said gaily, "meet Willyum Hobbs, formerly known as Bill Hobbs! At one time a famous burglar and safecracker--I believe the technical term is 'peterman'--Willyum was some time ago converted to the paths of rectitude. His present lapse from virtue is due solely to hunger. Willyum, meet Mr. Mackintavers!" Hobbs grinned cheerfully and stuck forth his hand. He was a solemn man, was Hobbs, a very earnest and unassuming sort. It was rather difficult to believe him a criminal. Also, Bill Hobbs had his own ideas about society, being a well-read man of a sort. "Glad to meet yuh," exclaimed Hobbs beamingly. "Say, that's on the level, too! I mean, about us bein' empty. I gotta admit it don't look honest to be stickin' yuh up, but gee! We had to do somethin' quick! We been on the square until now, the doc an' me." "The doc!" Mackintavers turned about, a sudden flash in his cold eyes, to meet the quizzical regard of the man in the tonneau. For a moment the two gazed silently at each other. The bandit was not an old man, being distinctly young in comparison with either of the other two; yet something had seared across his face an indefinable shadow. It was a rarely fine face, beneath its stubble of reddish beard. It was not the handsome face of a tailor's advertisement--it was the handsome face that is chiseled by character and suffering and achievement. Despite its harshness, despite the cynical eyes that sneered through their laughter, this red-headed man was a flame of virile strength and surging energy--tensed high, nervous, like steel in temper. The blanket-roll across his shoulders swung like a feather. His hands, as his bronzed face, were lean and energetic, unspeakably strong. It was evident that this man and Willyum had come from the very antipodes of life and environment. An overwhelming surprise lighted the broken face of Mackintavers as he gazed. "The doc!" he repeated slowly. "Why--why--aiblins, now--man, ye can't be the same!" "I am, Mackintavers; the same man who removed that broken appendix from your insides two years ago in St. Louis, and a thousand dollars from your pocketbook for the job. Quite a drop for me, eh? Quite a drop for Douglas Murray, to be a bindle stiff, eh?" Mackintavers stared, as at a ghost. "I can't believe it!" he said. "Aiblins, now, it's some joke--some damned nonsense! Why, you were one of the finest surgeons in the country, a man at the top, not yet thirty----" Bitterness seared itself across the face of Murray. "That's exactly what broke me," he asserted in biting tones. "But I don't understand!" blurted Mackintavers. Willyum Hobbs made a gesture, an imploring gesture; across his homely, earnest features flitted a look of appeal, of anxious worry. He glanced at Murray as a dog eyes his troubled master, with love and uneasiness. But Douglas Murray laughed jeeringly, harshly. "Come, Mackintavers, look alive! It was success that downed me--too much work. I had to keep going twenty hours a day to save human lives during the influenza epidemic. It started me working on dope. I knew better, of course, but thought myself strong. "The dream book got me at last, like it gets all the fools. One day, in the middle of an operation, I broke down. I had to have a shot quick, and I got it. I had to do it openly, if the man on the table were not to die; so I did it. Inside of a week, the news had spread through the whole city. "It spread everywhere. I made an effort to fight, of course; did my desperate best to conquer the dream book. In the end, I won the fight, but by that time my nerve was gone. Everyone passing me in the street knew that I was a dope fiend. It was whispered at me socially and financially--from all quarters. At last I woke up to the fact that my money and good repute were gone. I can still practise medicine--if I have the nerve." "Hm!" grunted Sandy. "Why didn't you stick it out? Aiblins, now, a man like you!" "Why didn't you stick it out yourself?" Murray's laugh bit like acid. "Do you know why I stood in the top rank of surgeons? Because a great surgeon must be like a sword; he must decide instantly, quick and true and sharp--and he must be right. The hemming and hawing kind never reach the top, Mackintavers. And I--well, my nerve was gone after the publicity, and all. I was a branded man! Like yourself." Mackintavers shivered slightly. "You haven't lost your nerve," he retorted, "or you would not admit it so readily." "Rats! I've been on the road for six months, trying to recuperate under the open air and get away from everything. Now, Willyum! Roll a cigarette and don't shake your head at me. You'll like Willyum, friend Mackintavers. He has a proprietary interest in me. He believes that I restored some of his vitality----" "Aw! you knows it damn well!" broke out Hobbs affectionately, and turned to Sandy. "He found me layin' in a ditch, and he cut me open an' took care o' me----" "Oh, hush your babbling!" snapped Douglas Murray. "Let's discuss more pleasant matters. Where are you going from here, Mackintavers? You offered us a ride, you know----" Sandy made a vague gesture. He could not have been recognized as the Mackintavers of a month ago; he was pitifully broken and indecisive. "Anywhere," he said weakly. "Into Mexico--anywhere. You'd better hop in. We'll go on to California, huh?" There was silence to his invitation. Hobbs was rolling a cigarette, Murray produced a briar pipe and raked up some loose tobacco from his coat pocket. He was sitting on the equipage in the tonneau of the car. The broiling sun of Arizona drifted down upon them, insufferable and suffocating. "We're not broke," said Hobbs suddenly. "We're not broke, but we gotta get to grub quick. That's why we stopped you. This desert----" Mackintavers waved his hand. "I have some grub back there. And a little money hidden. Let's go together, eh?" Murray lighted his pipe and glanced at Hobbs, inquiringly, his eyebrows uplifted in a satirical questioning. Hobbs frowned in his earnest fashion. "Why, Mackintavers, you and us has met up kinda queer; we're all in the same boat, sort of. But I dunno about goin' on together. I'm tellin' you straight, we gotta eat, but we aim to do it on the level--far's we can." "You--what?" blurted Sandy. "You hold me up, and then you----" Douglas Murray intervened. "What Willyum is attempting to express," he said blithely, "is a simple, but profound thought. He has been a burglar; he is now reformed, and I trust is ambitious of leading an honest life. As for me, I have no particular ambition, unless it is to win a fairly honest place somewhere at the back of the world, and a chance to explore the anatomy of unfortunate humans. The idea, as you will gather, is that while we are shipwrecked men like yourself, we are essentially honest in our endeavors. We, at least, have no illusions. If we rob, it is from the necessity of remaining honest men at heart. You relish the paradox, I hope! It is really excellent. "But how about yourself? I would not insinuate that we are better men than you, heaven knows! However, if you are about to enter upon a career of rapine and plunder, my dear Sandy, our ways had best separate here----" Sandy Mackintavers, his head sunk upon his breast, made a gesture as if demanding peace. He stared out at the desert road, his fingers tapping the steering-wheel. "You're a queer pair!" he reflected aloud. "Aye, a queer pair. To tell ye the truth, now, d'ye know what's broke me? It's because I've not a friend to my name. And why not?" Murray spoke, with the cold, clear analysis of a vivisector. "Because there's been no honesty in you. Sincerity is what makes friends." "Aiblins, yes. They've taken my money--they've been afraid of me; when the pinch came, they turned on me and sank their fangs. And I've come to know what I've missed. D'ye mind, now, I'd like fine to have a friend or two!" In the voice of Mackintavers, in his sunken face, there was the tragic wistfulness of a lost child seeking the way home. "I would that," he pursued slowly. "Now, I could start clear again--if a man can ever start clear of his past. Can he? I dunno. I've always admired ye, Murray, and the way ye handled me that time in St. Louis; I've never forgotten it. To think that here ye are, to-day! 'Tis a queer world. Shipwrecked men, like ye say, and we're driftin' wild. Well, I've tried the other way, I've fought wi' the wrong weapons. If ye say the word, Murray, I--I'll start clear again!" Murray knocked out his pipe and motioned to Willyum Hobbs. "Hop in here, Willyum; I believe the grub is underneath me. Drive on, comrade!" "Where to?" demanded Sandy, wonder in his eyes. "Follow the road! Follow the path of ambition, to California. Let us find a town at the back of the world, and carve out our destiny from the desert sands!" The starting gears whirred. The big car gathered momentum and drew onward along the blazing road that wound snakily across the scorched mesa land. The shipwrecked men were on their way to nowhere. And Bill Hobbs burgled a can of tomatoes with gusto. CHAPTER III BILL HOBBS ARRIVES Sandy Mackintavers had a very definite reason for guiding the Twin-Duplex in the direction of Meteorite, at the end of the railroad spur that runs north from the main line and the highway. The three partners had decided--or rather, Sandy and Douglas Murray had decided, for the vote of Willyum was always that of Murray--not to go on to California, and not to cross the line into Mexico. It was too hard making a living in California, and it was too hard to keep alive in Mexico. Their decision was to seek a one-horse town at the back door of things, and there to seek a general recuperation of spirit. In order to do this with the proper degree of unconcern, it was necessary to sell the big car and to buy a flivver that would negotiate anything once. Meteorite was a live town and was the headquarters of a stage line which would undoubtedly use the Twin-Duplex, so Sandy headed north to Meteorite. Thus did destiny weave her gossamer net. "This is no place to settle down!" Douglas Murray wrinkled up his thin nostrils at the oil tanks and the dump heap which fringed Meteorite. They were arriving late in the afternoon. "This is an abode of filth--a commercial metropolis!" "It's a good place to start from, ain't it!" quoth Willyum, gazing afar at the blue peaks rimming the horizon. "Once we could get out in them hills--aw, look at the colors on 'em! Wouldn't it be great to camp out there?" Sandy smiled grimly at the wistful ignorance of the ex-burglar. "I've done it in hills like 'em," he said, "lookin' for color of another kind, and I've been glad to drink the water out o' my radiator! Aiblins, now, we'll find what we're looking for, beyond Meteorite. Don't know much about this country." It was four o'clock when they purred into Meteorite and drew up at the hotel--where was also the stage headquarters. The travelers were hot, dusty, and thirsty. Directly across the street from the hotel, was a flaring soft-drink parlor, its depths cool and inviting. "Good!" exclaimed Douglas Murray, as he felt the hot sand beneath his feet. "Come on over to the liquid emporium, boys, and I'll set up the drinks!" "Not me," Sandy grimaced. "That sort o' stuff gets my innards, Murray. Besides, I'd better be seein' about business right now. Aiblins, we might make a deal to-night and be gone to-morrow." "Suit yourself," Murray shrugged. "How about you, Willyum? Ice cream or business?" "Me fer the cold stuff," averred Bill Hobbs. "I'm dry." "Come on, then. You register for us, Sandy? Thanks. We'll be back and join you shortly." "Need any money?" volunteered Mackintavers. "Nope. Not yet. We're far from broke, thanks." Murray and Hobbs walked across the street, stiff-legged with much riding, and entered the alluring portals of the refreshment palace. A single man leaned over the bar, slowly consuming a bottle of near-beer and talking with the white-aproned proprietor. He was a dusty man, a withered, sun-browned, sand-smitten specimen of desert rat, and was palpably the owner of the two burros tethered outside the entrance. "Ice cream," ordered Murray, ranging up alongside the prospector. "Have a dish, partner?" "Thanks," rejoined the other, nodding assent. "Sure. As I was sayin', Bill, it was the gosh-willingest thing I ever struck! Think o 'me purposin' mattermony, right off the bat like that--and a good-lookin' girl, I'm sayin'! And when she was feelin' around for the right words to accept me, prob'ly meanin' to fish around an' make me urge her a mite, I seen her ol' man come walkin' along. In about two shakes I seen he was a chink." "Yes?" The proprietor tipped Murray a wink, and set forth the ice cream. "What then?" "I faded right prompt," said the desert rat. "Right prompt! I dunno--it kind o' dazed me fer a spell. When I got into Two Palms next day, I was tellin' Piute Tomkins about it, and he up an' says them two was stayin' at his hotel--the chink and the girl, which same bein' his daughter, he allowed it was all right an' proper. I judge Piute was soakin' them right heavy, else he wouldn't ha' stood for chinks boardin' on him. Piute has his pride----" "And he got a pocketbook likewise," put in the proprietor. "I know _him_, I do! Piute would skin his grandmother for a dime. What's the chink doin' over to Two Palms?" "Damfino," rejoined the desert rat. "Piute don't know, an' if he don't, who does?" "Where's Two Palms?" inquired Murray, who had been absorbing this information with interest. "Near here?" "Near and far," said the proprietor. "Near in mileage, but far in distance, so to speak. It ain't nothin' but a waterhole at the back door o' creation. Ain't goin' there, I hope?" "Heading that way," said Murray. "What's there?" "Well they got a bank, or did have, unless she's broke by now; and a hotel and a few other things. If I was you I'd go somewheres else." "Where?" "It don't matter particular--anywheres." Murray grinned. "You seem to have a down on Two Palms, partner. What's the idea?" "Well, they's a close corporation there, a bunch of oldtimers that's mostly related and don't take much stock in outsiders, if you savvy. Nothin' there but desert. Stage runs up there once a week with the mail, which same if it wasn't contracted for wouldn't go." "What's this about the chink and the girl?" put in Hobbs. "Sounds queer." "If you ask me, it is queer!" said the desert rat, with some profanity to boot. "They come through here, I remember 'em," spoke up the proprietor, leaning on the bar. "Darned pretty girl, too. Mebbe he's _mining_." "Piute said not." "Oh!" exclaimed Hobbs quickly. "Are there mines around Two Palms? Gee! Say, doc, let's get us a mine!" "Might do anything," said Murray sardonically. "Want to find it or buy it?" "Buy it!" exclaimed Hobbs with fervent intonation. "Sure, buy it! Let Sandy do it; don't he know all about them things? Let's go on to Two Palms an' do it!" Murray nodded and turned from the bar. "Well, so long!" he said in farewell, and sauntered out into the street. Hobbs followed him. The desert rat gazed after them with bulging eyes; then, shoving the remainder of his ice cream into his mouth, he drew the back of his hand across his lips and left the place hurriedly. Disdaining to notice his burros, he shuffled up the street to the post office, entered, and bought a postal. Over the writing desk in the corner he bent awkwardly, and indited a laborious message to one Deadoak Stevens, at Two Palms. "There!" He gazed upon his handiwork with great satisfaction. "If this yere intimation don't git Deadoak to work, it'll be funny! They got the coin, them three pilgrims has--look at the car they rode up in! I bet I done Deadoak a good turn. If I had a decent hole o' my own, now, I'd unload on them birds!" Sandy Mackintavers, meantime, had fallen to work with true Scottish thrift; when the others rejoined him in the hotel, he was displaying the Twin-Duplex to the proprietor of the stage line. The latter gentleman exhibited very little interest in the proposed deal, and disclaimed any notion of buying the car; however, he crawled into her, over her, and under her, then summoned one of his drivers from the group of loafers on the hotel veranda and ordered him to drive the car around and bring her back. In five minutes the driver returned, and violently disparaged the car so far as stage use was concerned. "Well, I'll tell ye, now," said the owner, "I really ain't got much use for her. But I got a couple o' flivvers over in the garage, last year's model, good shape; if ye'd consider a trade and take 'em both off'n my hands, we might talk turkey. Step in the office, gents." They stepped in, and presently stepped out again. Sandy had rid himself of the big car, attaining two flivvers and five hundred cash. That evening he did a thing which would have mightily astonished anyone who had known the old Mackintavers. He called the other two into his room, and laid upon the table all his worldly wealth. "Now, partners," he stated, "there's all I got. Split it up and start even." Murray's keen eyes swept his face, and read there a stubborn earnestness. It was not without an effort that Sandy had achieved this moment. "Aw, hell!" broke out Hobbs. "Wot kind o' guys d'you take us for, Mac?" "We're partners, aren't we?" affirmed Sandy. "Aiblins, now, one friend ought to help another and----" "We're more than partners, Mac," said Murray quietly. "We're friends, as you say. Is it your proposition that we throw all we have into a common fund?" "Just that," said Mackintavers doggedly. "Each one of us helps the other to get on his feet, eh?" "And use the common funds for that purpose? I get you." Murray puffed a moment. "Well, Willyum, say your mind!" "I say, Yes!" spoke up Bill Hobbs eagerly. "Mac's playin' on the level with us, ain't he? Well, then, meet him square. If all of us is goin' to be pals we----" Murray made a gesture of assent, and reached under his armpit. "Willyum was a hobo when we met," he said, "and hobos go heeled, Mac. I didn't leave St. Louis bone dry myself. Here's our contribution. We'll each drive a flivver from here, and if I were you, I'd convert this wad into travelers checks before we leave in the morning. They'll be good anywhere." He opened a flat purse and drew out a roll of bills. Mackintavers gasped as they fell on the table. His features slowly purpled. "Good gosh!" he ejaculated. "Why----" "Nine hundred," said Murray. "Evens up pretty well with your thousand. You keep the bank, Sandy. Say, there's a place north of here called Two Palms, with an interesting yarn attached regarding a chink and a girl; smacks of mystery. Also, it's a mining country and little known. Let's go there to-morrow!" "All right," said Sandy brokenly. "You--you boys now, how d'ye know I won't beat it with your pile? What right ye got to treat me----" "We're friends and partners, aren't we?" cut in Hobbs. "Forget it, Sandy--forget it! Us guys is goin' to hang together, that's all. We're usin' your flivver, ain't we? Well, that's all right. If you see a chance to buy a mine, buy it; we'll be partners. If doc sees a chance to cut a guy open an' make some money, we're partners. If I see a chance to--to--to----" "To crack a safe?" suggested Murray whimsically. Hobbs gave him a glance of earnest reproach. "Aw! Come off o' that, Doc; well, whatever I see a chance to do, we'll do. Right?" Mackintavers nodded, and raked the money together. A fact which the desert rat had foreseen, but which hardly appeared to Murray as any momentous factor in the affairs of destiny, was that on the following morning the stage went to Two Palms with the mail. A few hours after the stage pulled out, the two flivvers were filled with the necessary elements and crated tins of spare gasoline; Sandy Mackintavers piloted one in the lead, and Murray and Bill Hobbs followed in the second. The road to Two Palms was good, comparatively speaking; that is, it was a road. Before noon, Sandy paused to lower the top of his car. Bodily discomfort meant nothing to him; and he was more used to sun than to wearing a hole through stout imitation-leather with the top of his head, to say nothing of the risk of breaking his neck. "You bob around like a cork in a washtub, Mac," observed Murray. "When you hit that dry wash a mile back----" "Don't mention it!" grunted Sandy. "I forgot which way the gas throttle worked--it's different in an automobile. Why didn't we bring some lunch?" "Too much interested in Meteorite scenery," said Murray. "Willyum! Peter a can of something--if 'peter' is the correct expression----" "It ain't," retorted Hobbs cheerfully, "but I will." A frugal luncheon disposed of, they continued the journey northward. That eighteen miles or so to Two Palms, was longer than any fifty they had previously experienced. Meteorite lay among the hills, and in order to get to the basin which encompassed Two Palms, the road twined endlessly through the sandy washes and graveled valleys of the bleak red hills. They encountered the stage on its return journey, and had to back fifty feet to a turnout, a proceeding which was nerve-racking in the extreme. But at length the sandy desert basin unfolded before them, and Two Palms in all its glory. It was not unlike a score of other desert towns they had encountered; a string of adobes and unpainted frame structures, crouching chameleon-like upon the sand, with wagon tracks in lieu of roads winding away to north and west. Drawing closer, the pilgrims discerned the details of Main Street, with its hitching posts and straggling fronts; the hotel, notable by reason of its twin palms; the hardware store, the general store and post office, the blacksmith shop at the corner; the long, low chain of roofless adobes where in more prosperous days Mexican workmen had lived; the abandoned newspaper office, the little group of men and women in the shade of the hotel porch, watching the new arrivals. And, hardly to be observed, was the figure of Deadoak Stevens, off to one side, with the fragments of a small-torn postal about his feet and a look of eager secretiveness in his eyes. Deadoak was thankful that he had grabbed that postal before Piute, as post-master, had a chance to read it; having read, he had promptly destroyed the secret, and meant to garner to full harvest of these pilgrims unto himself. Douglas Murray failed to observe a slight raise in the road which Sandy had negotiated with ease; his thoughts were all upon the hotel and group of live human beings ahead, and the correct manner in which to stop his car. Thus, he killed his engine a hundred feet from the goal. "Curses on the beast!" he ejaculated, and crawled out. Bill Hobbs was ensconced in the tonneau. Murray cranked--and then something happened. He remembered afterward that he had forgotten to brake the car in neutral. He remembered it after the radiator hit him over the ear and one of the fenders gently pushed him twenty feet distant. Bill Hobbs sat on top of the load, paralyzed with terror, as the car leaped away. From the watchers on the hotel porch burst yells of grateful delight over this break in the monotony of existence. The flivver plunged at the nearest hitching post, blithely carried it away, and decided to investigate the abandoned print-shop. When Murray sat up and wiped the sand from his eyes, he ruffled up his red hair and stared amazedly. The flivver was there, to be sure; one wheel had burst in the door of the printing office, the other was wedged about the steps, and the machine was lifeless. But Bill Hobbs had vanished. Unforeseeing the sudden halt of his equipage, he had shot headfirst from his perch, and neatly catapulted into the open doorway. Murray was the first to reach the spot, while from the hotel porch streamed the others. "Willyum!" "Comin' right up," answered the voice of Bill Hobbs, and the latter showed himself in the doorway, grinning. "I've busted up somebody's place and----" "Don't worry about that, stranger," said Deadoak Stevens, at Murray's elbow. "It ain't been occupied since Jack Haskins cashed in. He left a sister back east, but she ain't seen fit to remove the remains yet. Glad to meet ye, gents! James Cadwallader Stevens is me, but Deadoak Stevens by preference an' example." "Meet Bill Hobbs, Deadoak." Murray waved his hand toward the rumpled figure in the doorway, and turned as Sandy and the others joined him. "And this gentleman is Sandy Mackintavers, mining expert of parts East, who expects to settle here as Bill Hobbs has settled. I am Douglas Murray, doctor of medicine and surgeon extraordinary----" Piute Tomkins hastened to rescue matters from the unseemly grasp of Deadoak, and performed the introductions with gusto. "As mayor of this here municeepality, gents," he concluded, "I welcome you to our midst. Two Palms is on the crescent curve to prosperity an' wealth. The population is increasin' daily----" "Say!" broke in Bill Hobbs, wrinkling up his face earnestly. "What's that you guys say about this here printin' office? There's machines and stuff in here--don't nobody want it?" Piute waved his hand. "There is no printer in our midst, pilgrim. All this flourishin' place needs is a real newspaper, but so far fate----" "I'm it!" exclaimed Bill Hobbs gleefully. "I believe in signs, Doc--us guys was sure guided here! I'm goin' to take over this joint where I landed!" Murray looked up at the ex-burglar. "You! Why, Willyum, I didn't know you were a printer or----" "I ain't," said Willyum earnestly, "but I will be. Is it agreeable to you guys?" Piute Tomkins bowed his lank figure. "Stranger, set right in the game! Them chips are yourn." He turned to Murray, caressing his mustache mournfully. "But, Doc, I'm right glad to welcome you to our midst, only we don't need no internal investigator in these parts, seein' that nobody ever dies here except by sudden accident----" He paused, stared over Murray's shoulder, and his grizzled jaw gaped. Down the street came a flivver, swaying and roaring--a dusty flivver containing no one except the girl at the wheel. She halted the car with a grind of brakes, and, seeming quite oblivious of the strangeness of the' scene before her, leaned put. "Mr. Tomkins!" she cried, an anxious excitement in her face. "Does anybody here know anything about medicine? My--my father has been hurt and----" "Praise be to providence!" orated Piute quickly. "Miss Lee, meet Doc Murray--Doc, meet Miss Lee! I'm sure glad the good name o' Two Palms has been saved this-away--you'll make a livin' here yet, Doc----" "Get in, please!" exclaimed the girl, with a swift gesture to Murray. "You'll have to come with me at once----" "With pleasure, madam." Murray bowed, recovered his battered hat, and climbed into the flivver. The engine roared; the car crawled off, got its second wind, and vanished around the corner of the blacksmith shop on two wheels, Sandy and Bill Hobbs staring blankly after it. CHAPTER IV SANDY INVESTS TWICE The coming and departure of the girl was dramatic enough to leave all of assembled Two Palms transfixed with astonishment, until Piute Tomkins gave vent to his feelings, forgetful that Mrs. Tomkins and Mrs. Smithers were present. The indignation of Mrs. Tomkins at the language of her spouse quite absorbed the attention of Piute pro tem., and in this brief interval Deadoak Stevens got in his thoughtful work. Sandy Mackintavers caught a murmur at his elbow and turned to find Deadoak addressing him in lowered tones. "You're the mining gent, ain't you?" "Aiblins, now," hesitated Sandy, "ye'll not consider----" "Tut, tut!" exclaimed Deadoak, winking. "I understand things, pardner; a friend o' mine over to Meteorite sent me word that two gents were on rout here with a minin' sharp. Now, let me warn you not to give ear to these here desert rats all around, but step over to one side with me. I got a confidential communication----" "Keep it, then," said Sandy brutally, "until we get settled here! Come up to the hotel to-night." "And ye won't talk mines to nobody else first?" "Nary a soul," returned Mackintavers. "Hey, Hobbs! You goin' to come out o' that place?" Bill Hobbs scratched his head and considered his position. "If you guys will drag the corpse out of the way," and he gestured toward the flivver. "I'm goin' to give this joint the once over, Mac. Join you over to the hotel later. Gee! You ought to see this joint, Mac! Where did Doc go to?" Willing hands removed the flivver from the doorway. Deadoak, being rebuffed by Sandy, remained to scrape an acquaintance with Bill Hobbs and elucidate the kidnapping of Murray; while Piute Tomkins, taking in hand his guest, performed the same office to Mackintavers, en route to the hotel. That evening, Deadoak sidled cautiously to Mackintavers's room, knocked, and slid inside as the door opened. "Ah!" he exclaimed, breathing more freely. "Ding my dogs, but I had a stiff time eludin' that pirootin' son of a gun, Piute Tomkins! He suspects somethin'." "So do I," said Mackintavers, grimly eyeing his guest. He did not know that Deadoak had just come from a long and involved conference with Piute, wherein property had changed hands and other arrangements had been made; he did not need to know all this, however, to realize that his visitor had not come for philanthropic purposes. Deadoak, blissfully unconscious that he was introducing a new game and a cold deck to the gentleman who had invented that game and patented the cold deck, sank into a chair and blinked solemnly at the lamp. He produced a battered corncob pipe, filled and lighted it, then straightened out his legs along the floor and blew a cloud of smoke. "If I had money," he prologued dismally, "I wouldn't ask odds o' no man----" "Me the same," struck in Sandy. "Aiblins, now, I'd wager there ain't a man in this country who couldn't develop a promising hole if he had money. Go ahead." Slightly daunted by the grimly sophisticated front of his host, Deadoak took a new pull at his pipe and began afresh. "It's a right queer yarn, this story I got on my mind," he observed dreamily. "Up north of here is the Dead Mountains, and it's a good name. If there's anything deader'n them hills, I'd admire to see it! Ye go out the good road along to where Piute an' me has got pear orchards an' wells. After that, it ain't no road--it's an excuse. I don't reckon anybody has traveled that way sinct ol' Hassayamp Perkins got stove in by the cave-in." "How long ago?" queried Sandy seeking facts. "Two year. I ain't been that-a way myself, and nobody else ain't got right good reasons for doin' it, except that there crazy chink. He went that-a way this mornin', and he ain't got back yet. Another hill fell on _him_ I reckon. After ye get through the marble cañon, there ain't only volcanic ash and rock till ye come into the basin. I been over in Death Valley an' the Aztec Fryin' Pan, and they don't hardly show up alongside that basin to speak of. It ain't big, however, and from there ye go into Morongo Valley." "Sounds lively," commented Mackintavers without great interest. "It is. If ye take two steps in any direction, there comes such a buzzin' ye can't hear a man shout at ye twenty feet away--that's how many rattlers there is! Well, as I was sayin', Hassayamp homesteaded Morongo Valley. It ain't but a few hundred acres, and he'd located a spring o' water big enough for all he wanted--he didn't wash much, Hassayamp didn't." The shaggy brows of Mackintavers were bent upon the speaker in a silent but forbidding fashion that somehow discouraged the careful narrative which Deadoak had built up in his mind--a narrative with cunning discursions and excursions. He decided to throw it all overboard and to reach the point at once. "As I was sayin', Hassayamp homesteaded that valley to keep out other folks----" "'Twouldn't protect his mineral rights," shot in Sandy shrewdly. "Mineral rights belong to the state. Did he homestead the valley an' lease the mineral rights?" "I was comin' to that if ye give me time," said Deadoak plaintively. "Yep, he done so. Reg'lar five-year lease. Now, Hassayamp was Piute Tomkins' father-in-law by marriage, savvy? Well, when the shaft fell in and wiped out Hassayamp, Piute fell heir to the homestead, which same had been proved up all correct, and the mine." "Piute owns it now, then?" "He do. I'm comin' to that if ye give me time. But here's somethin' Piute don't know! A spell before Hassayamp got stove in, he come to town needin' money. Piute Tomkins, whose repytation for pinchin' the eagle into a sparrer ain't laid over by no one this side o' Phoenix, didn't have no faith in him; but I did. So Hassayamp comes to me, quiet, and gives me samples an' eloocidates how he'd got a road up to the mine and had rigged up a hand crusher and done other work there, and needed money to see her through. I give him five hundred an' took out a mortgage on the hull prop'ty." "Homestead and minerals?" queried Sandy casually. "Certain! I took in everything, you can bet!" Deadoak tapped his pocket. "You got the papers to prove it, of course?" "Comin' to that if ye give me time. Ding my dogs, ain't you got no patience? Well, me an' Piute don't hitch extra well. After Hassayamp cashed in that-a way, Piute always figgered on takin' over the place, but he never got time. I figgered on takin' it over, but never got around to it, rightly, so let her drift. Piute don't know yet that I got that mortgage, which same can be foreclosed any time a-tall, it bein' two year old. So I got her sewed up plumb legal, ye see." "I see." Sandy's shrewd eyes narrowed. If there was anyone in the Southwest who knew mining law down to the ground, it was Sandy Mackintavers. "What's in the mine?" "Ding my dogs! I'm comin' to that now. Hassayamp got gold there--struck a lode o' quartz that runs about twenty-five to the ton and promises to get richer quick. Here's the samples he brung me." Deadoak had now reached the apex of his elaborately conceived edifice. Producing a buckskin bag, he emptied it on the table. Specimens of very average gold quartz littered the table. Among them were several pieces of a reddish crystalline substance. "That don't look so bad," commented Sandy, fingering the quartz. He indicated the glassy red samples. "What's that stuff?" "Volcanic bottle-glass, I reckon--how it come with the samples I dunno, unless Hassayamp thought it was pretty. This here quartz, like you say, ain't bad; I'd say it was pretty dinged good, if ye ask me!" Sandy's eyes glinted at the red-glass specimens, and suspicion filled his heart. "Uh-huh," he grunted. "What's your proposition?" "Well, I don't want to sell outright. That there lode is goin' to pay big when she's developed. Looks to me, the way them specimens shape up, like she'd run into rotten quartz an' free gold; ye can see that for yourself. Sooner'n sell the hull thing, I'd hang on a spell longer. But here's my idee: You an' your pardners buy the mortgage an' give me a one-fourth int'rest in the mine. You'll have to foreclose the mortgage----" "Is it recorded?" "Sure--I recorded her after Hassayamp cashed in an' Piute got his title." "Uh-huh." "Bein's you'll have to settle Piute, an' develop her an' so forth, I ain't aimin' to stick ye none. Say, you buy the mortgage for five hundred, go ahead an' foreclose her, keep the homestead if ye want it, and give me one-fourth int'rest in the mine. Ain't that fair?" Sandy frowned thoughtfully. He knew that on this basis he was going to be stuck somewhere--and he believed that he knew exactly where. Deadoak was trying to unload upon him a worthless mortgage. Since that mortgage covered the mining rights and the improvements thereon--property of the state and not subject to mortgage--the document was illegal. Mackintavers had made a fortune because he knew men, could probe into their minds and motives, could find their weak points and utilize them. He had lost that fortune because he had tackled the wrong man, and he had no intention of repeating the mistake. He sized up Deadoak for exactly what that gentleman was--a shiftless desert rat planning to take in the innocent stranger, without any very deep or well-laid plot. It aroused all the predatory instinct in Sandy. Forgotten were his virtuous resolves and high aspirations. Before his mind's eye unfolded a simple but beautifully perfect scheme by which he might grab this property entire. Being tempted, he fell. He could not well be blamed, for those red-glass samples on the table, those carelessly lumped pieces of "volcanic bottle-glass," showed the richest ruby silver Sandy had ever seen outside Nevada! Sandy had already weighed the possibility of those samples not having come from Morongo Valley; he had decided that they had done so. He was staking his game now upon his judgment of Deadoak Stevens, who was palpably a weak stick. Swiftly weighing things, he decided that Deadoak was trying to rid himself of a worthless mortgage upon an ignorant stranger. And having so decided, he gambled. "Aiblins, now," he said at length, "I'll tell ye! Want to look over the ground first, ye understand. I'll give ye ten dollars cash for that mortgage, and my note for the balance, ninety days, includin' in the note that the title is clear except for this mortgage, and that the samples ye got there come from this mine in question." "A note?" exclaimed Deadoak in obvious dismay. "Why, I was figgerin' cash----" "Well make the note thirty days, then. I ain't buyin' a mine from a set o' samples!" "Oh, that's fair enough, I reckon," said Deadoak. "Sure, fair enough. You can pick up that lode five minutes after ye get there, and match up them samples with the outcrop! That quartz sticks out o' the surface, Mac! If Hassayamp hadn't got ambitious to strike the rotten streak, he'd ha' been rich now." "Where's the nearest State Land office?" "Meteorite--that's the county seat, too," replied Deadoak, entirely unconscious that Sandy wanted that bit of information very, very badly. "Here's the mortgage--it ain't a mortgage, it's the other thing, the one that lets ye grab a place the minute payments ain't made, with no legal notice or nothin'. I had a cousin oncet that cleaned up a lot o' money over in California, usin' them things instead o' mortgages, so I used it too." Deadoak handed over a much thumbed but entirely legal deed of trust, Mackintavers inspected it carefully, then calmly jotted down the details as to the location of the defunct Hassayamp's property. "Aiblins, now," he said, rising, "I'll just run down and see Piute Tomkins' deed to that property--make sure it corresponds with this location, and is clear otherwise. Ye don't mind, o' course?" Deadoak looked up in weak protest, then yielded. "O' course not," he said with dignity. "Bein' a stranger, it's natural that ye should take precautions; but when ye've been here a spell, ye'll find out that----" "Ain't doubtin' you," said Sandy. "Not a mite! Now, you write out that note to suit yourself, but make it contingent upon the facts bein' as you say. And write out a conveyance o' that mortgage to me." Leaving the room, Mackintavers slowly descended the stairs toward the office, where Piute Tomkins and Haywire Smithers were engaged at their nightly cribbage. He paused on the landing, to chuckle to himself. "This mine is comin' cheap!" he reflected. "Volcanic bottle-glass--that's a good one! Aiblins, now, it's a gamble. Should I do it to-night or wait? If Deadoak had paid the least attention to the ruby silver--but he didn't! Not a mite. He was all afire over selling me that mortgage. I'll do it!" He went on down stairs. His whole scheme of action, which promised to work with the beautiful precision of a machine, demanded that he conclude the deal to-night and get Bill Hobbs off to Meteorite within the hour. Reaching the hotel doorway, he saw a bobbing light across the street in the newspaper office. His voice lifted in a bellow. "Bill Hobbs! You there?" "Want me?" came the reply. "Is Doc back? I been lookin' over this joint----" "Get over here in a hurry. I need you." Sandy turned to the office, where the two cribbage players were gazing up at him. He jerked his head slightly to Piute. "Can I see ye a moment in private?" "Certain, certain!" Piute rose with almost suspicious alacrity. He had been waiting and praying for just such an invitation. "Step into the back office, will you?" When the two men were alone in the inner office, with the lamp lighted and the door closed, Sandy Mackintavers brushed aside all preamble and came direct to the point. He held in his hand the deed of trust, which he had not returned to Deadoak. "I understand ye have a homestead in Morongo Valley. I'll offer ye a hundred cash for it." Piute's leathery complexion changed color. "A hundred!" he repeated in injured accents. "Why, that there homestead is the very pride an' joy of my heart! She sure is. I aim to lay out pears in that there Valley next Jan'ary. Got water, she has----" "Here's a mortgage on the property," and Sandy brutally tapped the paper in his hand. "I've bought it. It's two years old. Sooner than foreclose, I'll buy your title. Aiblins, now, ye have a price?" Piute looked a trifle staggered, but shook his head firmly. "Nope. Nothin' under a thousand takes that there place! I dunno 'bout this mortgage--ain't heard of it----" "Look at it," struck in Sandy. "I'll go to law and take the place if I want! Give ye two hundred cash, not a cent more." "Nope," said Piute, bristling. "I got a few rights my own self, and I know 'em! If it's the minerals ye're after----" "Minerals!" exclaimed Mackintavers with scorn. "I'm done with mining. I want a homestead." "Well," proposed Piute, "that's diff'rent. I'll give ye an option on the homestead for a thousand. Ye look her over, and if she's what ye want----" "Nothing doing," rejoined Sandy. "I'm offering cash down, here an' now. And I won't listen to a thousand." Piute hesitated. He had not glimpsed Sandy's roll of travelers' checks, these three pilgrims looked none too prosperous, and he began to think that he had set the ante too high. "Tell ye what," he said, "I wa'n't figgerin' on selling, but cash is diff'rent. And this here mortgage thing--well, say seven hundred!" Sandy thought of that ruby silver ore, and fished for his check book. "You show me clear title an' give me a deed, and I'll give you five hundred. Take it or leave it! That's the last word out o' me." "All right," said Piute. Mackintavers signed up checks to that amount. Bill Hobbs arrived in time to join Haywire Smithers in witnessing the transfer, then accompanied Sandy to the upstairs room where Deadoak awaited them. Hobbs was mystified, but Sandy refused explanations. "I brought Mr. Hobbs along," said Sandy, "as his money will be partially concerned. Aiblins, now, if you've got the note and conveyance made out----" "Here they be," said Deadoak, trembling with concealed joy. Mackintavers read over the papers carefully, while Deadoak explained the situation to the bewildered Bill Hobbs. "Ten dollars cash--here ye are," said Mackintavers. He signed the note and returned it with a ten-dollar bill. "When Doc Murray gets back, we'll go out and look over the place." "Suits me," and Deadoak sidled to the door. "Good luck, gents! See you later." Left alone, Sandy Mackintavers pressed Willyum into a chair and set forth exactly what he had accomplished. He took up the samples of ruby silver ore. "I never saw anything to beat that ore--anywhere!" he said. "And these desert rats never heard of such a thing; all they know is gold. Can ye run a flivver, Bill?" "I can't," said the bewildered Hobbs, "but I guess I can. Why?" "You got to run back to Meteorite to-night--right now!" "Gee!" breathed Willyum, his eyes bulging. "What's the rush?" "Shut up and listen!" roared Sandy. "Aiblins, now, ye think I'm a fool. Well, I'm not! If a minin' lease ain't worked, it lapses; if proper reports ain't made, it lapses; if it's mortgaged, with improvements, it's illegal. Deadoak's deed o' trust ain't worth the paper it's written on, and he knew it!" "But--but you bought it----" "I gave him ten dollars as a free gift. That note, now--when he comes to collect, he'll get nothin'. But I got hold o' the mortgage to save trouble, that's all." "You ain't goin' to pay the note?" "Not hardly!" said Sandy with a grim smile. "My property will all belong to you an' the doc. I guess I can trust you men with it! Now, I bought Piute's deed in order to have clear title to everything. Savvy?" "Not--not yet," murmured Willyum dazedly. "Who owns the mining rights?" "The state! The lease has lapsed long ago, and ain't been renewed. I'm goin' to write out a bill o' sale, givin' you an' Doc all I own, so Deadoak will have nothin' to sue on when he presents that note. After he's out o' the way, we'll settle things. You beat it for Meteorite right off, and when the land office opens in the morning--be there! Take out a mining lease on this entire Morongo Valley homestead land--in your own name. Get it for five years, under the precious metals clause. I'll convey the mortgage to you. Record that in your own name and let her go. We don't need to foreclose on that worthless paper. It simply clinches everything in our name, clear." "But listen! Wait till Doc comes home and----" "Wait for nothin'!" shouted Sandy furiously. "Aiblins, now, d'ye know what this Deadoak scoundrel will do? He knows as well as I do that his mortgage is illegal. About to-morrow night he'll be in Meteorite expecting to lease mining rights on that valley, meaning to stick us later on. Savvy that?" "How d'you know none of these guys ain't done it already?" asked the worried and still bewildered Hobbs. "I'm gambling on their general shiftlessness. Men of that stamp, not expecting us to arrive and not expecting me to buy the place without seeing it, will think they have lots of time to work the double cross. Now, ye'd better run some gas out o' my flivver and fill up your own tank." "But this--this ain't on the square, is it?" protested Bill Hobbs weakly. "On the square!" repeated Sandy, stifling his own doubts with a ferocious mien. "Of course it is! I bought a worthless mortgage with a worthless note--ain't that even?" Bill Hobbs declined to struggle further with the problem, and gave up. Meantime, Deadoak Stevens was closeted below stairs with Piute Tomkins in the inner office. Deadoak was just pocketing two hundred and fifty dollars. "Fall for it?" said Deadoak. "Piute, ding my dogs if he didn't fall clear through the crust and he ain't stopped yet!" "Well, we got a good price, I'm bound to admit," said Piute thoughtfully. "As a beginning, it's good. But I'm a bit worried over them minin' rights, Deadoak. If we'd knowed a couple o' days ahead that them pilgrims was on the way, we could ha' renewed the lease or took out a new one. You got to tend to that pronto." "Yep," agreed Deadoak. "I'll take that cayuse o' your'n and ride over to Meteorite in a couple o' days. Then I'll lease them mineral rights. Might's well try to shave that note over to town, too; mebbe somebody will know who Mac is." "Don't wait no couple o' days," said Piute sagely. "You light out on that cayuse 'fore daybreak! When them pilgrims gets tired o' lookin' for ruby silver in that there prop'ty, they'll most like go to workin' Hassayamp's gold lode. Then we trots out the minin' lease on 'em, with threats o' prosecution for workin' without no lease." "She listens good," and Deadoak nodded. "Ding my dogs, Piute, if I ain't sure glad them pilgrims come to Two Palms to-day!" "I'm sure glad," corrected Piute, "that we knowed they was coming! But I wisht we'd knowed it a few days earlier.' I didn't allow they'd bite so quick an' sudden, without even lookin' over the place. Them ruby silver samples was what done it." "Them," admitted Deadoak modestly, "and the way I played my hand." "Well, you get them rights, and get the lease sewed up quick!" admonished Piute. "But don't advertise it none. Go to the newspaper office and stick a piece in the paper about them wise men from the east alightin' in Two Palms an' buyin' property reckless and regardless. Say the printin' office was sold for two thousand, and Hassayamp's homestead for five thousand, and there's a big boom comin' this-a-way----" "But, Piute," protested Deadoak, "they'll know we're plumb liars, them Meteorite folks will!" "They know it anyhow," and Piute Tomkins grinned as he closed his safe. CHAPTER V CLAIREDELUNE Douglas Murray, sitting beside the unknown girl as she drove out of Two Palms, was for a moment dazed by the face of her. With Koheleth, Murray had sworn that all was vanity and an empty chasing after winds; yet the very sight of this girl's face, anxious and smitten as it was with hurried fear, for a space struck the cynicism from him. "You're a real physician?" she asked, her eyes not lifting from the road ahead. "I am, madam; Douglas Murray, at your service. I arrived in Two Palms about ten minutes ago, and from what I have seen of the place, I do not wonder at your astonishment." "Oh--I remember now! There were automobiles there." She flashed him a sudden, swift glance, then returned her gaze to the road. "My name is Claire Lee. My father has been hurt--we had a puncture, and while I was fixing it, he wandered off on the hillside. I think he fell. After I got him back into the car, he fainted, and he looked so terribly ill that I stopped at the first opportunity to leave him in the shade, and managed to get him there. The road is so rough that I thought it would hurt his leg----" "Very well done," said Murray quietly. He wondered what kind of a man her father could be, to let this girl fix a puncture. "The road is pretty bad, beyond a doubt. Was his leg broken?" "I don't know. I was so afraid--I thought it might have been a rattlesnake, but he said no----" Something in the way she bit off her words hurriedly and anxiously, struck Murray as out of the ordinary. He dismissed the query as he studied her face, feeling a little in awe of its startling and indefinable beauty. Despite its quietly poised strength, despite the upflung chin, its every line was carven with a rarely delicate precision. Each contour was mose exquisitely balanced. The hands and fingers, too, revealed this same fine artistry of line. In her face lay character, strong and sensitive; no whit out of drawing, as Murray would have expected to find in a girl of the desert places. Only in her eyes lay a deeply indefinite shadow, a hint of rebellious pride, expectant, as though ready to take up arms instantly against some dogging trouble-maker. The sheer beauty that shone from her clearly level blue eyes and veiled her pale, sun-golden skin, was about her like an evanescent gossamer substance, striking her lightest word into shiftings of lost meanings and half-sensed sweetness. "Clairedelune!" thought Murray. "Clairedelune--lady of the troubadours, sweet lovehurt of the soul--dear spirit-fragrant whiteness of the silvern moonbeam in the fairy ring! Clairedelune--embodied ecstasy of the poet's soul, the light that never was on land or sea----" A sardonic curve tipped his lips as the flivver bucked and reared and cracked his brow against its top. "Oh!" exclaimed the girl penitently. "I'm sorry I I always do the wrong thing with this car. I've just learned to drive it, and it's so different from a Twin-Duplex! I always open the throttle when I mean to close it." So she had been driving a Twin-Duplex! The more Murray studied her, the more her presence here puzzled him. Wealth and breeding--even in the lines of the khaki dress was the one, and the other lay in her eyes. "You've not been long in this country?" he asked. "No, we came from San Francisco." She checked the words abruptly, as though she had spoken before thought. Then, perhaps finding it necessary to avoid abruptness, she added: "And I broke the plate-holders when I got father into the car--just as we thought we had succeeded! That means it must be done all over again." "Taking photographs, eh?" Murray laughed whimsically. "It seems to me, Miss Lee, that you could take photographs anywhere in this country and they'd be all the same!" "Oh, no indeed! We've been looking for a particular place--well, no matter. There's where father is." She pointed ahead to a patch of green and brown. This was Piute's so-called ranch--a frame shack beside the road, with a few young Lombardy poplars sprouting into the sky, and acres of young pears stretching symmetrically across the desert floor. The dull clank clank of the pumping engine reverberated ceaselessly. No one lived on the place, but Piute Tomkins came out twice a week and had the engine going during these intervals, for irrigation purposes. Experiments of some kind, thought Murray; that explained it very well. The father was a scientist engaged in work here, no doubt. Murray thought at first that the road ended here; then he saw that it continued, an indefinite track winding away over the blazing, sun-white desert surface, winding between outpost yuccas, across to the horizon of this level expanse, as level as a billiard table, swept and garnished by the desert winds. "Oh, he is conscious--and watching us!" exclaimed the girl as she halted the car. Murray leaped out. In the scant shade under the poplars, beside the road, lay the figure of a man, shoulders and head propped up by his rolled-up coat. His open eyes were fastened upon Murray as the latter approached. It was with a distinct mental shock, almost a physical shock, that Murray realized this man was a most unmistakable Chinaman. Then, for the first time, he remembered the tale of the desert rat in Meteorite. So he understood now the shadow in the girl's eyes--yet, he swore to himself that there must be some tremendous error of providence here! He did not look back at the girl; he gave his whole attention to the matter in hand. He heard her voice speaking his name, and saw the man before him make a quiet gesture of acceptance. Then Tom Lee spoke. "My left leg, doctor. The knee is hurt. The pain is severe." Murray saw now, that the strong, masterful, yellow features were beaded with the sweat of pain. He knelt, then glanced up. "A knife, Miss Lee? I shall cut these trousers to avoid causing further suffering----" It was Tom Lee who silently reached into his pocket and produced a knife, which the girl took and opened, handing it to Murray. The latter fell to work. For ten seconds, the slender, powerful hands of Murray busied themselves about the injured member; a scant ten seconds, touching lightly and deftly. Then from Tom Lee broke a low, tensioned grunt of agony. His fingers clenched at the ground, his head fell back into the arms of the girl. He was senseless. "Oh!" she cried out. "What is it--what have you done----" Murray rose. The old sardonic twist was in his face now as he looked upon them. Still the clear beauty of the girl drove into his heart; the frightened, wondering face of her was like a sweet hurt to the soul. "A dislocated knee," he said quietly. "I have replaced it. Perhaps we had better lift him and place him in the car now, while he is unconscious. A few days of repose will see him none the worse." "There is nothing else?" she exclaimed. "But you have not examined----" Murray's brows lifted. "My dear young lady," he said drily, "more than one surgeon has been glad to stand at my operating table and learn of my technique. In this case, I have both examined and operated; there remains only convalescence." A slow flush crept into her face, as she stared at him. But she ignored his rebuke. "Why--it was wonderful! A touch--only a touch----" Murray bowed. He had left his hat in the car, and the late afternoon sun struck his coppery hair to red gold. "Thank you, Miss Lee," he said, and smiled frankly. "I value that compliment more than many I have received in other days. And now, may I suggest that we lift him into the car at once? I will take--or wait! There is a house of some kind here; let us make him comfortable for the night. You return to town in that car, and obtain some more easy-riding conveyance. He is a large man, and would have to sit doubled up; we could not get into town before dark, and I would like to bandage his knee properly without delay. An hour or so might make a difference of days in his recovery." "Just as you think best," she answered. "He must recover as soon as possible----" "I'll look around here." As he sought the shack, Murray angrily shrugged his shoulders. The discovery of the racial identity of her father had left him dazed; now he revolted inwardly against the fact. There was nothing good in the world after all. Beautiful as this girl was, exquisite as she was, she was a living lie--not by her own fault, perhaps, but no less a lie. For Murray, the world was tainted again. He found the shack to be a one-room affair, containing two bunks with dubious blankets, a table, and two chairs. Behind it was a shed containing the clanking gas-engine, upon which he promptly put a quietus. Returning, he found Tom Lee still unconscious. "Let us carry him. I'll take him about the hips--you take his shoulders." Although he had perforce taken for granted her ability, Murray was a little surprised at the way in which the girl carried her share of the burden--lightly and with ease. Strength in that fragility, he thought! When they had put the man in one of the bunks, Claire spoke quietly. "If you'll wait here, please, I'll get some stuff for bandages." He nodded, and sat down beside the bunk. He watched the face of Tom Lee curiously, and to his inward astonishment found himself reckoning it a very fine face. Here was not one of hybrid orientals who seeks notoriety by taking unto himself a white wife; in repose, the man's face was singularly massive, eloquent of self-repression, instinct with a firm command. Not a handsome face in any sense, but most striking. A man, thought Murray, who lived a stern inner life--a man who had mastered the secret of reserve. "Here," said the girl's voice. Murray turned to her. She was extending several strips of silk and one of linen; her clear eyes spoke of anxious solicitude, but were unembarrassed. "He has not recovered yet?" "Thank you. These are excellent, Miss Lee! I'll have him fixed up in no time. No, I don't want him to recover just yet." He was aware that she had again left the shack, but now he was bending over the man's figure, intent upon his task, bandaging the injured knee firmly and deftly. When at length he finished and sat back, he found that the liquid black eyes of Tom Lee were open and were calmly regarding him. "Broken?" demanded the yellow man laconically. "No; dislocated. You'll be around in a few days." The massive chest heaved, as though in a deep breath of relief. The eyes flickered again to the doorway; following them, Murray saw Claire enter, a basket in her hand. "Fortunately, we've some lunch left, Doctor Murray--oh!" She saw that Tom Lee was awake, and she hastened to the bunk, pressing her lips to the cheek of the yellow man. "I'm so glad it's nothing serious, Father! And wasn't it wonderful to find Doctor Murray----" The big powerful hand of the yellow man patted her shoulder. "It's all right, my dear," said Tom Lee, surprising Murray again by the perfection of his English. "No great harm done. The pictures are safe?" "I broke them--getting you into the car----" "Never mind." The yellow face was quite impassive. "Easy enough to get more, Claire. Why am I in this place, Doctor? And where is it?" Murray explained to him in a few words. "I'll stop here with you, while Miss Lee goes in to town for a wagon or vehicle of some sort--even a buckboard might do. There's no great hurry about it. We're only a few miles from town, and I'd not advise moving you before the morning." "Very well, Doctor," said the deep, grave voice. "Suppose that you leave Claire with me, and you take the car into town. You'll find a thermos of tea in the car--we had an extra one that we did not use. If you'd not mind getting it, I think we can provide a very fair meal." Murray nodded and passed out to the car. Upon reaching it, he saw what he had not previously observed--the rear of the front seat was fitted with a large carrying bag, and in the tonneau was an open camera case, from which had been disgorged half a dozen plate-holders, most of them trampled and cracked. The carrying bag was unstrapped, and from it Murray took a quart thermos bottle, then returned. He found the table covered with the contents of the basket--sandwiches, tinned meat, and half a dozen odd little crocks filled with the most amazing Chinese delicacies. Tom Lee ate nothing, but smoked a tiny pipe of gold-mounted bamboo, which Claire filled and lighted for him. Nor did he talk at all, save to answer a direct question, leaving the burden of conversation to Murray and the girl. His eyes watched Murray sharply, however; perhaps he did not fail to note that while the red-headed medico was discreet enough to ask no questions regarding them, he also avoided all reference to himself. "I expect to settle in Two Palms," said Murray suddenly, feeling that they were wondering about him even as he was about them. "For my health. I came here with two friends, and we may all become citizens of the desert for a time." The girl's eyes went to her father, as though to seek from him permission to speak. But Tom Lee watched Murray through his pipe-smoke, and made no sign. "It is a wonderful place," and the girl sighed a little. "Savage and----" "Ah!" exclaimed Murray. "You must have blankets; these nights are cold. You can't use these horribly soiled ones in the bunks, Miss Lee." "There is a suitcase strapped behind the car," spoke up Tom Lee. "Everything necessary is in it." Murray went out to the car and began unstrapping the suitcase he found there. The sun had fallen behind the western buttes--purple-red peaks that seemed to jut out of the level desert floor, solid blocks of shadowed Tyrian now, that with the sunrise would betray the most delicate of greens and pinks, and that with noon would gleam savagely in the harshest and crudest of stark reds. And here the green pear trees, five-year trees, silvered the sunset-reddened sand as though reflecting the pale whiteness of the sky that would darken soon into the deep blue of the spangled night. Murray paused and looked at it all, awed before the silence. Then came a crunch of sand and a voice behind him. "It is the magic hour of the desert--this and the sunrise, yet each so different! I wonder that artists do not try to paint such things, instead of hills in the sun and the bald architecture of buildings! Here is the miracle, and they see it not." Murray turned to the girl. "The miracle indeed, Clairedelune!" he said softly. Her eyes met his, and she was laughing. "That," she said unexpectedly, "is what Father calls me!" "Oh!" said Murray, remembering suddenly. How in the name of everything could a Chinaman pick upon such a name as that--a name of poetry, of romance, almost of oblivion! A sudden distaste for that name seized upon Murray. The girl read the sardonic thoughts in his face, and turned away. A coldness was upon her when she spoke; as it were, a veil was drawn between them. "If you'll bring the suitcase inside, please, we'll get Father fixed up comfortably." Murray obeyed dumbly. Half an hour later, he started for Two Palms. He should have covered the few intervening miles in no time, but one of his forward tires blew out with a roar and left him sitting thoughtfully in the mountain places. By the time complete darkness fell, he had found a spare tube and was patching up the blown tire with fumbling fingers. Presently he got the stubborn rubber obedient to his wishes, and for fifteen minutes labored over a wheezing pump. It was nearly midnight when he came laboring into Two Palms under the flooding moonlight, and with sighs of fervent relief brought his vehicle to a halt beside the dark and silent frame of the hotel. "No, I guess I'll stick to the name," he thought, as he climbed out and gazed at the silvern glory of the night. "Clairedelune! Shall I let a big yellow man drive all the romance out of things? Not yet. Find the best that remains in your life, my boy, and transmute it into precious metal if you can; you need it! Well, it's been a strenuous day--I'm for bed. Time enough in the morning to organize the rescue party." CHAPTER VI DEADOAK FEELS REMORSE Haywire Smithers had at one time maintained a livery, which was now defunct. However, he disinterred an ancient surrey, hitched up one of Piute's horses, oiled his springs, and set forth with Murray to fetch in Tom Lee and Claire. Before leaving town, however, Murray was interviewed by Sandy Mackintavers, who laid bare the little deal in real estate. Murray listened without comment, his keen eyes searching the heavy features of Mackintavers. "I thought," he said quietly, "that you had decided to throw overboard all the shady tricks of yesterday, Sandy?" Mackintavers flushed. "Shady? And what's shady about this, will ye tell me?" "Giving a note that you don't expect to pay, for one thing." "Wasn't the paper worthless that I gave it for?" "No matter; it was unnecessary. That note will be met and paid, Sandy." "Man, ye don't understand this game!" said Sandy with earnest conviction. "There was nothin' wrong about it; one man get ahead of the other, that's all! Aiblins, now----" "Aiblins, now," and Murray smiled quickly, "we're partners, so say no more about it. Only, after this, let me in on these little deals, Mac; if I'd been here last night, you'd not have given that note. After this, we'll pull together--and go slow. I'll wager that when Hobbs gets back, you'll find that you've been neatly stung." "How?" "Lord, man, I don't know! I was merely expressing an opinion. We'll put the deal over, however, and if Willyum holds to his notion of being a printer, we'll give him a helping hand." "Right." So Murray went forth into the desert, and it was nearly noon when he returned. The surrey discharged its passengers at the hotel, and Tom Lee was carried to his room. He had a slight touch of fever and Murray assumed prompt charge of him, installing Claire as nurse and ordering that the injured man be kept alone and unexcited. Luncheon over, and his patient reported asleep, Murray discussed immediate plans with Sandy. To go out to Morongo Valley and investigate their purchase, was naturally the first impulse of both men; but they had to await the return of Bill Hobbs, in order to make sure of their position. That Hobbs himself would accompany them to Morongo Valley, was unlikely. "We may get off in the morning," said Sandy. "He'll not like it there, Doc. He's taken a notion to the printin' business, and his heart will be back here." "Let him stay here, then," assented Murray, "and go in for his chosen profession! At least, for the present. He'll get tired of playing by himself, I imagine. Suppose we go over and get the shop cleaned up a bit for him?" Sandy agreed. On the hotel porch they encountered Piute Tomkins, who was busily engaged in hounding unfortunate lizards to a miserable fate. Murray paused and addressed him. "As the mayor of this municipality and deputy sheriff, Mr. Tomkins, we call upon your aid! Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. Arise and shine! If you want a print-shop opened here, let's go and open it. Our estimable partner Bill Hobbs will be back anon, and upon his return he'll find the place cleaned up. It will encourage him." "Where's he gone?" queried Piute, untangling his legs from his chair and rising. "Joy-riding. Careening blithely forth upon the desert winds, his soul unblemished by care and his tires filled with ethereal zephyrs. Comest thou?" Piute looked a trifle blank, and followed. The shop was just as the defunct owner had left it--or rather, as Willyum had left it the night previous. The neglect and dirt of a twelvemonth faced them, and they attacked it valiantly. After half an hour, however, they gave it up as a hopeless job. "I never seen a clean printer yet," observed Piute thoughtfully, "and there ain't no use tryin' to improve on the Lord's handiwork, I reckon. I'm goin' to rest a spell." He departed. Murray looked at Sandy, and grinned. "Well, the floor looks cleaner, at least! Let's take an inventory!" Sandy dismally shook his head and drifted away in the tracks of Piute. But Murray, who was operating with the interests and future of Bill Hobbs in view, continued his labors. He was enjoying himself, sating his archæological cravings, as it were. Having rescued Bill Hobbs from an aimless existence of more or less criminality, he felt that if Hobbs now had leanings toward settled life in this spot, he should be aided and encouraged thereto. Murray was not oblivious of a sense of responsibility; besides, he had a real affection for the earnest Willyum. He explored the place thoroughly. Coming in from the outside world, in touch as he had been with the prices of things, he was astonished to find that the shop must have been well stocked up shortly before the demise of the late proprietor. The ink-rack was filled with tubes and tins; a gasolene drum reposed in the corner; news print paper was stacked high in a closet, ready cut, and there were two untouched rolls; bond and job paper of all kinds was in abundance. The large foot-power job press seemed new and good, while the cutter and other varied machines were in fair condition, type racks, furniture, stones--all the paraphernalia of a printing establishment were here. Murray was not so sure about the press, and with reason. This was an ancient and much mended relic, a flat-bed hand-power creation such as made Ben Franklin famous; an instrument such as is keenly sought after by dilettanti print-artists who love good work, and shunned by those who seek commercial results. "Looks to me as though Willyum can step right in and take hold," thought Murray. "He can learn to set type easily enough--he'll have to! There's a place to sleep in back, and he can rustle his own meals. I guess Bill can manage." Returning to the hotel, he took a chair beside Piute and Sandy, and was talking idly when Claire Lee appeared in the doorway. "Mr. Tomkins!" she exclaimed. "How can I get off some letters and telegrams?" "Give 'em to me," said Piute. "Stage comes in next week." "Next week!" Dismay filled the girl's face. "But--but these are important! They must go off at once!" Piute pulled at his mustache and frowned. "Sho!" he exclaimed. "If I'd knowed that this mornin', you could ha' sent 'em by Deadoak. He took my hoss an' rode over to Meteorite." Mackintavers gave Murray a significant glance, followed by a wink. "But surely," persisted the girl, "there must be some way----" "There is," said Piute encouragingly. "If ye don't want to take 'em yourself in that car, why, I reckon Shovelface Ryan would saddle up and ride over for five dollars. He's the helper up to the blacksmith shop. Shovelface done set off a blast too soon one time and it plumb disorganized his talkin' and hearin' apparaytus, but if Stiff Enger is around he can interpret for ye." The girl hesitated an instant, then came out into the sunlight and walked up the street. "It's right queer, now----" and Piute favored his auditors with an exposition of his own views, the views of Deadoak, the views of Haywire, and in fact the views of Two Palms in particular and in general, upon the subject of Tom Lee and Claire. Before Piute had exhausted the subject, Claire came into sight again, returning. At the steps she thanked Piute for his suggestion. "Mr. Ryan is going," she said, then paused. "Father is still asleep, Doctor Murray. Do you think he's all right?" "Absolutely, Miss Lee," answered Murray. "He must be kept quiet for a few days, that's all. I'll look in on him tonight." She nodded and was gone. Conferring with Sandy, Murray decided to get one of the flivvers in shape for the trip to Morongo Valley, and ascertained the road carefully from Piute. That gentleman was openly curious as to the whereabouts of Bill Hobbs, but gained no satisfaction; and presently took his departure in somewhat of a huff. "Aiblins, now," said Mackintavers, "we may take for granted that Hobbs will be back sometime tonight, so that we can start in the morning, if his report's good. Suit ye?" Murray nodded. They took the car over to the hardware emporium of Haywire Smithers, and filled her with gasolene and oil; their spare cans were still untouched. Claire joined them at the supper table with word that her father had awakened, and when his meal was finished, Murray went to visit his patient. He found Tom Lee taciturn, the fever departed, and mentioned that he would be gone for a few days. "We've invested in a mine," he explained, smilingly, "and we're anxious to look the ground over. You'll need no attention, Mr. Lee, if you keep quiet. Three days in bed, and you'll be able to step around with a cane. I'll see you when I return." "Very well," said Tom Lee without comment. Murray went downstairs to find Bill Hobbs at the table, devouring everything in sight. Piute was hanging around, so the cautious Willyum made no reference to his trip, beyond stating the unavoidable fact that he had been to Meteorite. And at this, Piute Tomkins could not repress his uneasiness. "Gee, that road was suttinly fierce!" remarked Willyum between bites. "I left there about noon, and had two punctures comin' over the rocks. Say, I met a guy on horseback, too! That guy Deadwood----" "Deadoak!" said Piute explosively. "Yep, Deadoak. He give me a hand blowin' up a tire." Piute was looking very melancholy when the three partners left the dining room and adjourned to their own room. Once in private, Bill Hobbs unbosomed himself of sundry papers. He had carried out his business, and he merely turned over his papers to Mackintavers with a grin. Sandy examined the documents, and nodded grimly. "Good! D'ye mind, Murray, what our host said about Deadoak? Ye met him, Hobbs. He was on his way to Meteorite, to get the mining lease!" "Oh!" said Bill. "Come to think of it, he did look kinda funny!" Murray chuckled. "Then, Sandy we own everything in sight?" "Everything," assented Mackintavers vigorously. "And a good job it is!" "All right. You look dead for sleep, Willyum, so turn in. We're off in the morning to inspect the property. Want to go along?" Hobbs hesitated. "Well, I want to bad enough, only for that there joint across the street----" "All right." Murray chuckled again. "We've cleaned up a bit for you, so fall to work! In two or three days we'll be back, and have an arrangement in regard to the future. If you're seriously set on opening up a print-shop, we'll agree----" "As partners?" queried Willyum anxiously. "Sure," asserted Sandy, with one of his rare smiles. "We go three-square in everything! Mine and homestead and newspaper--we'll be running the country next!" "'Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile,'" quoth Murray, and grinned. His grin was worthy the name, and was most reprehensible in a man of his years and experiences. "You take the papers," said Mackintavers, extending them. "Don't leave 'em with Bill. 'Twouldn't be safe. A mere ex-burglar would be an infant in arms with these natives to plunder him!" "I s'pose so," agreed Bill Hobbs mournfully, and bade his partners farewell. At six in the morning, Murray and Sandy Mackintavers drove out along the north road toward Morongo Valley, and vanished for a space from human ken. At a later hour, Bill Hobbs went forth to his "joint," and was too much absorbed to show up again at the hotel until supper. And, in the meantime----! Toward noon, Claire summoned Piute Tomkins to her father's room, with word that Tom Lee wished to speak with him. Piute obeyed the summons. When he entered, Tom Lee gazed at him steadily for a moment. "I wish to know, Mr. Tomkins," he said slowly, "who owns the valley at which we looked the other day--Morongo Valley, I think the name is." "Who--who owns it?" stammered Piute. He was of a sudden acutely mindful of a sub rosa transaction by which Deadoak had transferred that property to him, and he to Mackintavers. "Why--d'ye mean the homestead or the mine, now?" "Both," snapped Tom Lee impatiently. "All of it--all of the little valley!" Piute was positively staggered. He had no certain clue from this whether Tom Lee wanted the mine or not; chances were, he did. Murray and Mackintavers were gone--and Bill Hobbs, he guessed shrewdly, knew little of the matter, or at least could sign away nothing. "Well, I'll tell ye," said Piute, desperate. "Right queer about that there place, it is! Ye see, the feller that homesteaded it an' worked the mine, he got stove in under his own shaft. My father-in-law, he was, and a right mean ol' scoundrel to boot. Well, Deadoak Stevens, he wanted the prop'ty, on account o' Hassayamp havin' a bag o' dust on him and meanin' to dig up the remains----" "Who owns the property?" cut in Tom Lee impatiently. "Why, Deadoak!" rejoined Piute. "At least, he done so a couple of days ago, and I reckon still does." "Where is he?" "I dunno. Went off to Meteorite yes'day. He'll be back soon enough." "If you'll send him to me, Mr. Tomkins, I'll appreciate it greatly." "Certain, certain," and Piute backed out, pausing in the corridor to mop his beaded brow. Tom Lee had been to Morongo Valley and had found something. Mackintavers had been deluded into buying the property." "Plague take it!" said Piute. "If Deadoak was here now!" Late that night, Deadoak staggered into the hotel and fell upon the neck of Piute Tomkins with tears,--metaphorically speaking. Curses were nearer the truth. "He done beat us to it!" sorrowed Deadoak, rolling a cigarette while Piute rustled him a cup of coffee in the kitchen. "He done grabbed the minin' rights, Piute----" "Let it go!" exclaimed Piute energetically. "Listen here, now----" He expounded the interview with Tom Lee. "That there chink has found somethin'!" he declared with vigor. "You chase up to his room an' see if he wants to buy the place." "Ding my dogs, Piute! I can't sell that there place no more--she don't belong to me!" "If he wants it, get an offer. If it's enough, buy it back from Mackintavers!" Deadoak protested. He was saddle-galled and weary, disconsolate and disgusted, and he had no heart for intrigue. Piute Tomkins goaded him to it, however, and sent him despite protests to the room of Tom Lee. Fifteen minutes later, Deadoak stumbled downstairs to the office where Piute awaited him. He dropped limply into a chair. "Well?" snapped Piute. "Ain't no well--nothin' but a dry hole," mourned Deadoak. "That there chink offered--or rather, I brung him up to offer--five thousand cash for the place. Ding my dogs! If only we hadn't acted so preceptous with that there pilgrim! I ain't never knowed what real remorse was until right now----" "Well, saddle up an' beat it to Morongo Valley pronto," exclaimed Piute. "Buy back----" "Not me! I done had enough ridin' to last my mortal lifetime----" "You're goin', and you're goin' in the morning!" asserted Piute emphatically. "Savvy? See what that there chink found--trail him down! I got no use for yeller men cheatin' honest citizens out o' their rights. You're goin', understand?" Deadoak assented weakly that he understood. Presently, however, he rallied again. "Now, Piute, show some sense!" he pleaded. "Ain't you jest said that the chink and this Doc Murray were out together? Well, they framed up the deal on us, that's all; the doc got the chink to----" "You're a plumb fool, Deadoak," exclaimed Piute scornfully. "Why, the deal hadn't been put through when Murray went out to 'tend to the chink! 'Course, it might ha' been framed up since; all these here pilgrims seem a durn sight smarter'n you'd think for. I tell ye what----" "Say!" broke in Deadoak with sudden remembrance. "I met Shovelface Ryan on his way to Meteorite--the chink girl had give him ten dollars to take some letters over there pronto. Tellygrams too. Well, Shovelface give me a squint at 'em, but he wouldn't let me open 'em a-tall; he's a queer cuss, Shovelface is, in some ways! Them letters was addressed to chinks in San Francisco, and they had photygrafts inside--they'd been put in damp and had curled up; I could feel 'em----" "That proves it!" cried Piute in triumph. "That proves it, Deadoak! This here chink done located somethin' out to that place. And by whiz, he photygrafted it! Then he writ back to all his chink friends to let 'em in on the good thing." "But all this," said Deadoak thoughtfully, "ain't nothin' to me no more. I don't own no mine in Morongo Valley! I don't own nothin' except a note for five hundred----" "Well, _I_ got some money to work with," broke in Piute. "You vamose out to that there mine and look her over! The chink an' the girl brung back some pictures and some of 'em was broke, but I guess a few was saved; the girl developed 'em in that closet the chink hired for a dark room. Most likely she left 'em there. I'll have a look in there early in the mornin', and mebbe we can get a clue. "Then, you chase out to the valley an' keep your eye on things. Take some grub and a pair o' blankets, and watch what them pilgrims does, savvy? Take them glasses o' mine, and you can lay up top o' the hill all snug." "The sun lays up there, too," said Deadoak, plaintively. "It lays up snug, and it's hotter'n hell, and brings out the rattlers an'----" "You never mind," cut in Piute. "You're a-goin', that's all!" Deadoak bowed his head in bitter assent. "My, but you're plumb sot in your ways, Piute!" he returned feebly. "I'll go." CHAPTER VII STUNG! Sandy Mackintavers was desert-wise, so far as automobile travel was concerned. He did not travel without spare water-bags and lengths of rolled chicken-wire, and at Meteorite he had fitted his flivver with a running-board pump. After passing the marble cañon and negotiating the stretch of bad land where volcanic ash sifted into the air and obsidian glittered under foot, Murray steered the flivver down into the basin where all road was lost, where the loose sifting sands were blazing with the heat of an inferno, and where the car bogged down into the bottomless dust. Sandy deflated the tires, and when this would no longer serve, utilized the chicken-wire to run out of holes; by some miracle of desert sense, he managed to hold the right direction, although the rude map furnished them by Piute was useless to Murray. It was nearly evening when they arrived at the spot dignified by the name of Morongo Valley, and the westering sun transmuted the sterile scene into one of glorious radiance and scarlet-tinged hues. All around stretched the peaks of the Dead Mountains, not clothed with the glorious forests of New Mexico, but with their naked eminences now gleaming in blue and scarlet fires of sunset, their valleys long streamers of darker purples, their bald slopes a yellow golden glory. The valley itself was a box cañon, a small one, the upper end a solid mass of greenery. There was water here--a tiny trickle, that had been brought from the hillside to vivify the upper flat, and had given its precious life to all the higher slopes, before it lost itself in the farther sands. The road, better preserved here, led them to the shack of Hassayamp. It was scarce worthy the name of shack--a rough erection of boards and scraps of tin, designed only to afford shelter from the elements. Sandy, standing beside the car and scrutinizing the hill-slopes, pointed upward. "That's the mine, I'm thinkin'--that contraption o' timbers halfway up. It seems to have caved in. We're not interested in that, however; ruby silver is what'll make us sit up! Time for that in the morning." Murray viewed the interior of the shack, and declared for sleeping in the open air. They were up and about by sunrise. Murray was cool and rather sardonic in regard to the whole affair, but Mackintavers was cheerful and blithe as any boy of a prospector on his first search for earth-gold. The sight of that glittering silver ore, that wondrous ruby silver ore whose arsenic had ruined many a man and whose silver content had made thousands rich, was like a tonic in the blood of Sandy. By evening they had gone over the ridge wherein lay the unfortunate Hassayamp, and had found no ruby silver vein. They had struck gold in promising lodes, but gold was naught before the ruby silver--if they found it. Sandy continued cheerful, and Murray was coolly complacent, doing as Mackintavers bade him but frankly without hope of success. With the following morning, they took picks and labored valiantly until shortly before noon. Then Murray descried a little group of figures breaking its way toward them--not from the direction of Two Palms, but from the north, from the desert of the Colorado. The group resolved itself into two plodding, patient burros and the nondescript outline of a desert rat. The latter greeted them as they met him at the shack. "Howdy, pilgrims! Seen your smoke this mornin', and sinct I was headin' in for town anyhow, I come this way. My land, but you're in style, ain't ye! Autobile an' all--say, is that a real autobile? I seen one oncet, las' time I was over to Eldorado--but sho! Here I be, forgettin' all decency! My name's George Beam, gents, though most folks address me as Sagebrush." "Glad to meet you," said Sandy cordially, completing the introductions, "and ye better sit in with us for a snack, old-timer. Any luck?" "Ain't kickin' none," said Sagebrush, combing the sand from his wealth of sodden gray whiskers. His eyes followed Murray. "Say, is them real bakin' powder biscuits ye got? Well, I never! They look real good, too, for them kind; I allus had a notion folks ought to study sour-dough more back in the settlements, but mebbe there's somethin' to bakin' powder----" Sagebrush drifted along garrulously, glad of a chance to talk. Presently, when the coffee had been finished and pipes were lighted, he gazed around and grew personal. "This here is a good place," he observed, "if it's quartz you're after, gents. If it don't intrude none, what ye lookin' for?" Mackintavers chuckled, and produced his ruby silver samples. "This," he answered laconically. "Know it?" Sagebrush took the samples, inspected them, and then began to grin widely. "Ruby silver!" he ejaculated. "Ye don't mean to say--my gosh! Pilgrims, I'm right pained to hear tell o' this, but----" "Huh?" queried Sandy with a grunt. "What d'ye mean?" "Ye didn't allow them samples come from here, did ye?" "Understood so," returned Sandy, frowning. "What d'ye mean, huh?" Sagebrush grinned again. "Why," he said, hefting the samples, "las' time I seen these here spec'mens, they was reposin' on the desk o' Piute Tomkins, back to Two Palms. Piute brung 'em home from Tonopah three year ago, and was right proud of 'em, too. I reckon that there no-account Deadoak pirated 'em from him and passed 'em off on you. Deadoak is right smart, some ways----" Murray looked at the gaping Mackintavers, and rolled over with a shout of laughter. "Stung, Sandy!" he cried, sitting up. "Hurray! The bad man of New Mexico stung by a simple Arizona native--whoop! The biter got bit--oh, Sandy, Sandy! And look at the big blisters on my perfectly good hands----" Sandy growled something inarticulate, then rose to his feet. "I'm goin' to look at them quartz lodes," he grunted. "See ye later!" Sagebrush gazed after him with sober mirth. "Too bad ye got took in," he observed. "But I'm right glad ye take it calm, pilgrim. If ye didn't get bit too deep, ye got a fine place right here. Me, I like to git farther away from settlements--too many folks around spoil the desert. But if ye like this here oasis, she ain't bad. Say, if you're a doctor, wisht ye'd look at that there Jenny burro o' mine. She ain't been right peart for two-three days; kind o' down on her feed. Ye might light right on what she needed----" Murray assented and strolled over to the burro in the train of Sagebrush. The whimsical irony of it struck him full; Douglas Murray, peer of the finest surgeons in the land, giving advice upon a sick burro! But he gave the advice, and grinned as he watched the aged desert rat shuffle off down the valley with his animals. Sagebrush wended his way down the valley in patient tolerance of sun and sand. But of a sudden he wakened to the startling fact that his name was being called; amazedly, he peered up at the hillsides, shaded his eyes with his hand, and descried the figure of Deadoak Stevens approaching, carefully leading one of Piute's cayuses down the rocky descent. An hour afterward, Deadoak was riding up to the shack in the valley, with a fine appearance of just finishing the end of a toilsome journey. A meeting with Sagebrush had afforded him a plan of campaign. He observed Murray sitting before the shack cleaning a revolver, and dismounted with a cheerful greeting; his cheerful expression vanished quickly, however, when Murray pointed the revolver at him and rose, blazing with wrath. "So you've come to the scene of your crime, Deadoak! Put those hands up--that's right! And stand still--don't back away; you've nowhere to back." "Wh-what's the matter?" stammered the paralyzed Deadoak. "The matter?" repeated Murray. "You know! You've defrauded honest men, and now you're going to settle up. If you've any last words to say, say 'em quick! My finger's trembling on the trigger. Tonight you'll be reposing under that tree; we're here alone, Deadoak Stevens, and you shall perish at the hands of the man whom you----" Deadoak trembled, and his jaw sagged. "Say!" he croaked. "I--I--honest, now, I come out here to square things up! I heard that Mac was lookin' for ruby silver--them samples was a mistake! Piute said he'd put 'em in with Hassayamp's stuff one time. I rid here to----" "What!" Murray lowered his weapon, in genuine amazement. Deadoak leaped at the chance. "Yep, that's right, Doc! _I_ didn't go to defraud nobody! If you ain't satisfied with the deal, I'll take back the prop'ty and no hard feelin's--that's what I rid out here to say, if ye give me a chance. Ding my dogs, I ain't no gunman. P'int that thing another way!" Murray obeyed. "You don't mean that you'll take back the property? At the price we paid?" "Certain!" assented Deadoak, fervently virtuous and hugely relieved. "Give ye a profit, if ye feel bad. Why, Doc, we wouldn't go to pirootin' no pilgrims--future denizens o' this here great an' glorious Two Palms! We wouldn't have ye feel that we was anythin' but honest an' simple natives, welcomin' you to our midst. We'll go to 'most any length to make things good. If we'd knowed that Mac was attracted by them ruby silver samples--which same I didn't know--we'd have run down the thing then an' there----" "Hold on," interjected Murray. "Here's Mackintavers now." Sandy had descried the arrival of the visitor from afar, and was now hastening toward the cabin. It was a rare thing, an unknown thing, for Sandy Mackintavers to meet any man who had successfully bilked _him_; he arrived upon the spot somewhat out of breath, and gazed upon Deadoak more in sorrow than in wrath. Deadoak, however, hastened to avoid any trouble by apprising Sandy of the reason which he avowed had caused his visit. "And now," he added, screwing up his leathery countenance into sanctimonious lines, "I stand ready to do the right thing, gents. I'm offerin', this bein' on behalf o' me and Piute together, what ye paid for the prop'ty and five hundred to boot." "What about your mortgage?" queried Sandy shrewdly. "Include that in the takin' back if ye like. All I want is to do the right thing." "All right," said Sandy. "Murray, let me speak with ye to one side." Deadoak sat down and rolled a cigarette. Taking Murray's arm, Sandy mopped his face and walked out of earshot, then he paused. As he met Murray's puzzled gaze, an earnest look crept into his heavy features. "Ye'll leave this matter to me?" he queried. "In other words, will you be willing to let me gamble for the good o' the firm?" Murray smiled quizzically. "Go as far as you like, Sandy! I'll back your play." "And if we go broke on it, no hard feelings?" Murray laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't be a fool! We're men and not children. Play your own game!" Sandy looked vastly relieved, then strode back to Deadoak. "Well, now, your proposition is good," he said cordially, even genially. "I'm proud to meet a man like you, Deadoak Stevens! We thought you and Mr. Tomkins had trimmed us, and were inclined to be sore about it--now that we've found the mistake, we apologize." "Then you take me up?" queried Deadoak eagerly. "No." "Wh--what! Ye said no?" "Of course!" returned Sandy warmly, taking no heed of the thunderstruck look which had clouded Deadoak's staggered features. "Would we take advantage of ye that way? Not us! We're not that sort! We don't whine, Deadoak; we're not kids. We'll keep what we got, and make the best of it!" Deadoak's countenance was a study in futility. "You--d'ye mean----" he choked, then continued feebly. "Have ye found somethin'?" "Maybe, we have!" Sandy beamed upon him. "Just between ourselves, friend, I'll tell ye that we have. So--ye see?" His wink was significant. "I see," agreed Deadoak mournfully. "'Twill make ye rejoice, no doubt," pursued Sandy, "to know that our luck was good. We appreciate your disinterested----" "'Senough!" blurted Deadoak, turning. "I'll be weavin' back, I guess. So long." "Won't ye wait till mornin', anyhow?" queried Sandy with concern. "Nope, thanks." Dejectedly, hopelessly, Deadoak stumbled to his cayuse, pulled himself aboard, waved a limp hand, and rode down the valley. He was slumped in the saddle like a man who sees no hope in the future. "He's mighty cheerful over something," said Murray drily, and chuckled. "Cheerful?" "Well, Sandy, suppose you elucidate? Why did you turn him down?" Sandy faced his friend and made a wide gesture. "Murray," he said earnestly, "I'm playin' a hunch. Why should that fellow come here and make us an offer? I don't know--but there was something behind it. We've got something that somebody wants. And I've a notion who that somebody is." "Oh!" Murray gave him a keen glance. "Then you really found something?" Sandy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Come with me and I'll show you." Murray accompanied him past the shack, up toward the head of the canyon. Sandy led the way to one side, where a high rocky wall formed a solid background. Before this was a stretch of sand, perfectly level, a hundred feet wide; this was enclosed on either hand by a low growth of manzanita, whose grotesque, wine-red limbs curled eerily in the sunlight. "Look there," said Sandy, pointing. On either side of this little clearing, a stake had been thrust into the sand. About the head of either stake, had been bound a scrap of red paper. One scrap had been torn away by the wind. On the scrap which fluttered from the other stake, was a flaring black Chinese ideograph. "Aiblins, now," said Sandy, while Murray examined the paper, "that looks like a chink laundry-man's mark, eh? And ye said that the chink, Tom Lee, had been out here and was comin' home when ye treated his leg. What did he put those stakes in for?" "I'll bite," said Murray, gazing at the scene with a frown of perplexity. "What?" "Blamed if I know," returned Sandy. CHAPTER VIII DOCTOR SCUDDER Days of honest work and virtuous toil evolved a new Bill Hobbs--a grimy individual streaked with sweat and daubed with printer's ink, yet as absorbedly delighted in his new task as a child with a fresh toy. For the first time in his life, Willyum was his own boss at actual labor. The financial aspect of his travail had not yet arisen to trouble him. Naturally swift to comprehend things mechanical, he set himself to learn type, and succeeded more or less. He had found enough old job stuff set up to show him the use of the quoins, sticks, and furniture--although these names meant nothing to him--and after various attempts in which some type was sadly ruined, he managed to get the hang of the job press. The flatbed was a simpler proposition. "Gee!" he observed, standing in his doorway one noon with a fine air of proprietorship, and watching the dusty stage roll in from the south. "Here's another stranger comin' to town. And the doc ain't back yet with Sandy! Well, I guess I'd better eat an' then begin to get out the first issue of the paper. We'll see who this stranger is, huh?" He walked across to the hotel, where already most of Two Palms was assembling with avid curiosity to watch the debarkation of the new arrival. Bill Hobbs took one square look at the stranger, then he suddenly became inconspicuous. The arrival was a tall man, well dressed, his luggage expensive and heavy. His features were very remarkable; they were features, once seen, never to be forgotten. He seemed fairly young, virile and energetic. When he removed his straw hat to wipe the dust from his face, he displayed a high, narrow brow that was white with the pallor of the city. Beneath this brow were straight black eyebrows like a bar across his face. The eyes, too, were black--an intense and glittering black, luminous as black crystal. A finely trimmed black vandyke shaded his mouth, but accentuated the high, thin lines of his countenance. The whole face was undeniably aristocratic, very handsome in a mesmeric way, yet it held an indefinable hint of vulpine. The stranger's hands were long, white, powerful. "I have a friend, a Mr. Lee," said the stranger to Piute Tomkins. His voice was smooth and very self-assured, pregnant with authority. "He has, I believe, engaged a room in advance of my coming?" "He ain't," returned Piute, surveying the stranger. "But come in and eat, 'less ye want to miss dinner. I guess we can rustle a room somehow. We're havin' a treemenjous boom right now and all the bellhops is off to the gold rush, but I s'pose we can put ye up." The spectators grinned at this elaborate irony. The stranger, however, fastened his black eyes upon Piute, and after a few seconds Piute began to look uncomfortable. "Ah, you are a very facetious gentleman!" said the stranger coolly. "May I inquire if Mr. Lee is stopping here?" "Yep," said Piute, reddening a trifle. "He's up in his room with a busted leg--but ye'd better pile in to dinner 'fore seein' him. Dinner don't last long here." "I hope not," said the stranger, going toward the hotel doorway, while the crowd guffawed at the confusion of Piute Tomkins. Bill Hobbs, with incredulity in his eyes, slid into the hotel office and listened unashamedly while the stranger conversed with Piute. The conversation was largely concerned with Tom Lee, and Piute got some information which made his eyes widen. Willyum got the same information; and, when the stranger was gone from the office, he sidled up to the desk and inspected the register. He saw that the stranger had signed as "James Scudder, M.D." of San Francisco. "Gee!" Bill Hobbs grinned suddenly. "He ain't even usin' a alleyas, huh? Gee! I got a real story to write up now----" Forgetful of dinner, he turned and put for his office across the street in a burst of feverish energy. Once there, he seized a pencil and began to scribble down what he had overheard, and then grabbed a stick and turned to the nearest type-case. In another moment the butchery was going forward merrily. In the meantime, Doctor Scudder finished a hasty meal and then was taken to the room of Tom Lee. Presently he was sitting beside the latter's bed and inquiring into the accident. In the adjoining room sat Claire Lee, busy with some sewing; but there was a flutter of fear in her eyes, and from time to time her lips trembled, as though she were fighting down some inner repulsion, some frightful and unspeakable horror whose talons were gripping at her from that inner room. And yet the two men, whose conversation came clearly to her, were not speaking of her at all. "You wired me that you had found the place--the place which exactly suited you," said Scudder calmly. "So I came right along." "Good!" said Tom Lee, who was sitting up in bed. "Good! I am eager to get to work. Did you arrange for a contractor as I ordered?" The doctor nodded. "Yes. I stopped in Meteorite and got hold of a good man there. He's coming over this afternoon--drives his own car--and you can go over the plans with him to-night. Of course, you'll have to figure on expensive work, for men and supplies will have to be shipped from Meteorite by truck." Tom Lee waved his hand negligently, as though the question of expense were one to be waived altogether. "That goes without saying," he responded. "But I am glad that you came; I need you very badly. The allowance of opium that you gave me ran out four days ago." Scudder laughed, and relaxed in his chair. "And how are you doing without it?" he inquired. "Can you get along?" "Not here in bed," he rejoined. "If I were outside, actively engaged, at work upon our plans, I think that the activity would help me tremendously. When I was busy with Claire looking up the place, I found this to be true." Scudder's black eyes narrowed very slightly, as though inwardly he were a bit astonished. But his words gave the lie to this supposition. "That's exactly what I calculated on," he returned easily, "and it proves that my theories have been correct. Fortunately, I brought along a good supply. By the way, I'm interested in this fellow who fixed you up--did you say his name was Murray? What did he look like?" Tom Lee described Murray very accurately. From Scudder broke a word of astonishment. "By George!" he exclaimed. "Do you know, that's very remarkable!" "What?" demanded Tom Lee, gazing at him with heavy-lidded calm. "That he should turn up here!" Scudder was animated, vigorous. "You know him, then?" "No, but I know of him. Why, that fellow was one of the greatest surgeons in the country until a year ago! He went all to pieces in a hurry and dropped out of sight; it was more or less hushed up, of course, but in professional circles the truth is known. It was caused by morphia; the poor fellow; must have been a hopeless victim." "He does not look it now," said Tom Lee. His features contracted slightly. "Morphia! And that goes back to opium again. All the more need of our getting to work without further delay, Doctor Scudder! You will remain here for a time?" Scudder's eyes went for an instant to the door of the other room. "Yes, as long as you want me," he rejoined. "In fact, I think I'll remain here until things shape up right, then return to San Francisco for my things, and come back here for good. I'll want to keep an eye on the building work." Silently, without a word, Tom Lee took from a table beside the bed a little round cup of horn. Once it had contained a brownish substance, but now it was scraped clean inside, scraped down to the very horn. Silently, he held it out to the doctor. It was an opium _toy_. Scudder smiled and nodded as he took the little cup. "I'll attend to it at once," he said, and rose. "Do you like this desert country as much as you expected?" "Yes," said Tom Lee gravely. "It is wonderful; it is ideal! I like it for itself, no less than for our purpose. I am an American; I love this country, I am part of it--and this desert is to me like the great wilderness of my own Shensi, the very heart of the ancient land, full of great unguessed things and strange powers! Yes, I like this desert." Scudder, shrugging his shoulders as though to indicate that it was all a matter of choice, turned away. At the door of the other room, Claire halted him. "Doctor! Is it true--what you said about Doctor Murray?" For a moment Scudder looked into her eyes as though reading what lay behind her eagerness, her compassionate words. Beneath his beard, his lips tightened. "Yes," he said. "I'm sorry to say that's quite true, Miss Lee. Of course, this Murray may not be the same man. I'm delighted by your father's improvement; I think this country is going to do wonders for him! If you'll excuse me, I'll get him a little opium now. It'll help him greatly and put him in shape to go over things with the contractor tonight." He left for his own room, which was across the hall. When the door had closed behind him, Claire Lee stood motionless, both hands at her breast. In her eyes was a numbed, wondering look, the look of one who was inwardly fluttering with fear of the unknown and the intangible. Then, as Tom Lee called her, the look vanished and she turned to the other room. Tom Lee looked up at her, then held out his hand. She took it, silently, and his strong fingers closed upon hers in a mutely significant gesture. It was an endearment, that quiet touching of the hands, but it was more than an endearment. From the massive personality of the man there went out to the girl a quiet force, a compellant for poise; a reassurance of strength and faith and love unassailable. "You are not glad he has come?" asked Tom Lee, watching her eyes. "No," she answered simply. "I do not believe in him!" A wistful smile came to her lips, as she touched his coarse black hair with caressing fingers. "My dear," said Tom Lee gravely, "he has done great things for me; his treatment is helping me tremendously. He is efficient, that man!" Claire said no more. She turned away and opened a box that lay upon the table. From it she took a lamp, filled the bowl with peanut oil--which is odorless--and lighted it. She laid out a bamboo opium pipe, a needle, a set of the simple, but ingenious scales, and then turned again as Doctor Scudder knocked and entered the room. Late that afternoon, two other men drifted into Two Palms. One came from the north, and this was Deadoak Stevens. He tramped disconsolately into the hotel and sought out Piute Tomkins, with whom he was closeted for some time. The two men emerged from their talk with an air of hopelessness; Piute had chewed at his ragged mustache until it had become a wisp. The other arrival was the Meteorite contractor, by name Patrick Hennesy. He greeted Piute jovially; a brawny, red-faced man, and registered for the night. Then he inquired for Doctor Scudder, and was directed to the latter's room. As he turned from the register, he was frowning. "What's this?" he said, beckoning to Piute and pointing with one stubby finger to the register. "Who's this guy Mackintavers? He don't go by the front name o' Sandy, I suppose?" Piute assented with a trace of surprise. Patrick Hennesy broke into a lurid oath and inquired as to the whereabouts of said Mackintavers. When informed that Sandy was then somewhere to northward, he doubled up one huge fist. "What's bitin' you?" inquired Piute with interest. "Know him, do you?" "Know him?" Hennesy glared for a minute, then relaxed. "Well, I used to know him--and I sure want to see if he comes back to-night! If he don't--then don't say nothin' about me, savvy? I'll connect with that cuss later." Piute assented, not knowing just what to make of all this. He felt too hopeless over the report of Deadoak Stevens, however, to push his inquiries into the matter. Bill Hobbs, in the interim, was working feverishly through the hot afternoon in his printing office across the street. He had already evolved some principles of type setting, and now he was alternately cursing and blessing the implements to his hand, as he set up a grotesque and fearful array of words. Toward sunset he viewed his labors with a marvelling satisfaction. The late proprietor had left a front-page form already in shape to receive news articles, and Bill Hobbs hung over the stone with an admiring eye as he studied the news article which he had supplied in part. "Gee!" Willyum sucked in his breath admiringly. "I'll break off for supper, then do some more. Tomorrow I'll have her done. Gee! Ain't she great!" That evening he continued his labors by lamplight. In the room of Tom Lee across in the hotel, Patrick Hennesy was that evening poring over blue prints and architect's plans, discussing them with Tom Lee and Doctor Scudder, while Claire listened and made occasional comments. Hennesy looked completely stumped and extremely mystified. He was unable to arrive at the purpose of the buildings which Tom Lee wished him to erect, and the probable cost of them staggered him. But when Tom Lee calmly extended him a check which ran into four large figures, and told him to take it on account, he was forced to accept matters. "Then I'll be back later," he said in conclusion. "I'll run out to that place soon's you got the deed, and see just what gradin' will have to be done, and git a shovel to work." Early in the morning, the contractor departed back to Meteorite, repulsing all efforts of Piute and Deadoak to penetrate his mysterious business with Tom Lee. Through the morning, Bill Hobbs slaved in his printing office. At noon, he announced jubilantly to Piute and other citizens of Two Palms, over the dinner table, that his forms were locked and on the press, and that he'd run off a newspaper that afternoon that would sure make 'em sit up some when they read it! At two o'clock, after some slight delays incidental to inking and other complicated matters, the _Helngon Star_ went to press. "Gee!" exclaimed Willyum as he drew the first sheet away and looked it over with humble devotion in his eyes. "Gee! Ain't that wonderful, now?" He was right. It _was_ wonderful. CHAPTER IX THE NEWS STORY The last game of cribbage had been settled, and Haywire Smithers had departed to his own place; Mrs. Tomkins had come home from the weekly meeting of the Two Palms Ladies' Aid and had gone up to bed; and Piute Tomkins was locking up for the night when Murray and Sandy Mackintavers came in from Morongo Valley--dusty, sun-bitten, and hungry. Piute listened sadly to their request for grub, and agreed to rustle up some. He was no longer proud and haughty before them; he had given up the unequal battle and had ceased to struggle. Virtue had descended gloomily upon him, even as a mantle. "Step into the dinin' room, gents, and I'll discover somethin'," he announced. "How's my patient?" asked Murray, pausing en route to the wash room. "The chink? All right. Say, I reckon ye ain't heard the news about him?" Piute went back to his desk and procured a sheet of paper. "And about Scudder, too. Your friend sure busted somethin' in these parts, he sure did! Look over this here paper; it come out to-day, and I guess Scudder ain't seen it yet. I want to be watchin' when he does see it, that's all! Then I got a business proposal to lay before ye whilst ye eat." Murray took the sheet, and an ejaculation broke from him as he saw that it was the first issue of Willyum's paper. He hurried after Sandy, made haste to get the sand and alkali out of his eyes and hair, and passed into the dining room. Piute lighted a lamp, and the two friends settled down to peruse the astounding results of Bill Hobbs's labors. Mere print cannot reproduce the phenomenon. Mere printers cannot set in type all that Willyum, in his blissful ignorance, had achieved in that primary issue of the revived Helngon Star. The date had been unchanged. The advertisements along the sides had been untouched;, yet Willyum had managed to fill four columns, by dint of ornaments and other aids to progress. The news story touched first upon Tom Lee, and was begun with this lead: We got in our midst today tmo guys that come direct from tHe hall oj & Fame iNtwo tHe sentrel Presinct oF Two Palms$ tHe misterY has beeu sollved:* The article went on to say, more or less legibly, that Tom Lee was immensely wealthy, and that he owned a string of oriental shops in the Bay region of San Francisco. He was, in fact, a magnate pure and simple in the antique line, and was rated many times a millionaire. "Aiblins, now," observed Sandy, puzzling over the page with knotted brows, "Bill is tryin' to say somethin' about a man named Scudder, but I ain't right sure----" Piute joined them, bringing in some dishes. "Scudder is a doc," he put in, "and a friend of the Chinee. I'd say, offhand, that he's due to raise partic'lar hell about to-morrow, when he sees that there paper!" Murray whistled, as he perused the paper. "Say, Sandy--listen here!" Willyum's remarks on Doctor Scudder were frankly illuminating about Willyum himself: I wunst seen tHis gink iN neworLeens.?; wHen i was vagGed and hE was iN tHe dOck two for pedLing dope & Happy dust two the nlgge*rs & jUdje give him hEll,? for it---- Willyum's remarks, apparently, knew no shame over the fact that he had been "vagged"; but they excoriated Doctor Scudder as a peddler of "dream-books" and a supplier of dope. They went on to say that Scudder had been forced to leave New Orleans for his own health; that he had there been a "dope" supplier to the underworld. In language of beautiful simplicity, Willyum said that Doctor Scudder was a top-notch crook and would murder his grandmother for a dollar. Sandy broke into a roar of laughter, but Murray frowned gravely. "Willyum's asleep now, I imagine--well, let him rest in peace until to-morrow! He's in bad." "How come?" queried Mackintavers, while Piute stood by the kitchen door and listened hard. "Libel. If these things aren't true, this man Scudder can just about rake the hair off Willyum! Confound it all, you go and put your foot in it when I'm not around, and then Bill Hobbs goes and does the same thing! Why, Scudder can sue for big damages----" "Huh!" grunted Sandy complacently. "Let him sue! You can't draw blood out of a turnip, not even with the law to help ye. So this Tom Lee is a rich man, is he? That's interestin'." Murray nodded. "Seems to be. Queer what he's doing here, Sandy! But the girl--the girl Claire! I tell you, she's white! That's the queerest thing of all." Piute came forward, bearing coffee and flapjacks, and sat down to light his corncob. He wore a portentous and solemn air. "Ye don't think there's nothin' wrong, do ye?" he asked. "No," said Murray decisively. "Nothing. It's something we don't understand, but it's nothing wrong. Tom Lee is no ordinary man." "I reckon not," said Piute drily. "He done offered five thousand for Morongo Valley." The two friends quickly glanced at each other, then stared at Piute. "Five thousand?" repeated Sandy, incredulous. "Yep. Now I'm putting it straight up to you gents, layin' all cards down, and leavin' it to you to do the right thing if ye sell to him. He wants to see you and buy the property. I guess you'll sell at _that_ figger, huh?" Murray leaned back in his chair and gazed at Sandy. "It's up to you, Mac," he said briefly. "What's he want? the minin' rights or----?" "The whole works," returned Piute. "Or so he allowed. All of it!" "No tellin' his game," quoth Sandy. "Doc, find out his object when ye see him in the mornin', and we'll talk it over." Murray nodded assent, astonished and mystified by such an offer for Morongo Valley. He was too weary to discuss it now, however, and he wended his way to bed without further delay. Early in the morning he was aroused by voices, and sat up. Sandy, who occupied a second bed in the same room, was talking with Bill Hobbs, and the latter turned to Murray with a proud but modest grin. "Hello, Doc! Mac says you seen the paper last night. Kinda nifty, ain't it?" "A miracle," said Murray gravely. "How you did it, I can't figure out yet!" "Oh, printin' ain't so much," observed Bill loftily. "There was a few mistakes, I seen on readin' her over, but next time she'll come through better. But what's this Mac is tellin' me about gettin' in bad?" "All depends," responded Murray. "That story about Doctor Scudder--where on earth did you get the nerve to print that, you big boob?" "Why, it's true!" asserted Willyum stoutly. "I was vagged down to N'Orleans, just like I printed it, and seen him in court bein' tried for supplyin' dust an' hop to----" "Was he convicted?" demanded Murray. "Nope. He slid through; his pals squared the bulls, I guess." "Good Lord!" Murray began to dress. "Well, he can't get any money out of you, that's some satisfaction." "Well, I ain't worried none," said Bill. "Leavin' all that out, how did the paper strike you--honest, now?" "Great stuff, Willyum," responded Murray, whereat the earnest William glowed delightedly. "You've hit your vocation, if you can make it pay in these parts. You get to work learnin' how to print, and we'll look into the business end of it. If it seems likely to pay, then we'll all put it through together." "That's treatin' me white, Doc," answered Bill. "Well," said Murray thoughtfully, "what we'll do, I don't know yet." He turned to Sandy and put the issue squarely up to him. "I'll see Tom Lee after breakfast. If there's no valid reason for keeping the place, why not make a good profit while we can? Let him take the whole place--unless you think there is any reason to keep it." The mining man stared reflectively out of the window. "There is and there ain't," he said slowly. "I'll be frank with ye, Murray--that place out there attracts me! We could settle there and make a fair livin' from the valley itself, what with the water there and all. Aiblins, now the quartz will pay, too. It's not big, but I'm thinking it runs big later on. Lookin' at it from the development angle, instead o' from the prospector's viewpoint, it might be worth keeping." "All right, then we'll keep it." Murray turned to the doorway. "Come on down and let's get breakfast." Half an hour later, the three partners were just pushing back their chairs from the breakfast table when they caught the sound of loud voices coming from the hotel office. The voices drew nearer, then in the doorway appeared the figures of Doctor Scudder and Piute. "That's him," and Piute pointed out Bill Hobbs. His face white with anger, a copy of the _Helngon Star_ clenched in his hand, Doctor Scudder faced the amateur printer with blazing indignation. "This is an outrage! As sure as my name is Scudder, I'll have you jailed for this criminal----" Murray stepped between the two men, in an attempt to pacify his brother physician. "One moment, sir," he intervened. "Our friend here is not a printer and has allowed himself to be carried too far through his unfortunate ignorance of the libel laws. As a professional man myself I can realize how you must feel; but if you will allow me to explain the matter----" Murray checked himself. In the blazing black eyes of Scudder he suddenly read a scornful anger that was now directed against himself. "I don't desire any explanation from a man of your character, Doctor Murray," snapped Scudder. "I recognize you; you are the once eminent member of a profession which you disgraced! I have exposed you to Mr. Lee and his daughter in your true colors, as a dope fiend and one who should have been long ago ejected from the medical fraternity----" It was at this point that the fist of Murray collided violently with the countenance of his colleague. Doctor Scudder was flung backward, caught his foot against a chair, and fell into the corner; he sat there motionless, staring up with one hand clapped against his bruised cheek, in his eyes an expression of dazed, but virulent enmity. "That'll be enough from you," said Murray, standing over him. "If you want to argue the matter any further, get up! You don't want to, eh? All right. I'd advise you to go mighty slow with your libel talk against Mr. Hobbs, because if you start anything, I fancy that I would have a pretty good case of malicious slander against you. So think it over." Murray turned away and left the dining room with his friends. Outside, he quickly hushed their indignant utterances; he was once more cool and calm, entirely master of himself again. "Let the matter drop right here," he said briefly. "That fellow won't make any more trouble; our best bet is to leave him absolutely alone. I'll go up now and see Tom Lee." He ascended the stairway to the upstairs hall, and knocked at the entrance of the two rooms occupied by the Lees. Claire admitted him. Beneath her radiant greeting he noticed as he had previously noticed, the undefinable shadow that hovered in her eyes. The shadow, he thought, had deepened since he had last seen her. Tom Lee was awake and expecting him. Murray returned the greeting of the big Chinaman, then met the latter's inflexible gaze with a square challenge. "I understand," he said quietly, "that your friend Doctor Scudder is here. I presume, naturally, that you would prefer to have him in charge of the case. He has just advised me that he has made you aware of certain facts----" Tom Lee lifted his hand commandingly. "I am very sorry," he said, "that you and Doctor Scudder have had any misunderstanding, as your manner would imply. He told us a little of your story, not in any unkindly spirit, but simply because the mention of your name drew the memory from him. I wish you to retain charge of the case by all means. When you have looked at my leg, please sit down; I want to speak with you." Murray bowed. He examined the injured knee, pronounced it to be mending in good shape, and informed the patient that in another two days he could walk a little. At a gesture from Tom Lee, he took the chair beside the bed. The oriental gazed at him for a moment, then spoke. "I know from my own experience that you are a man of great skill. I understand from Doctor Scudder that you were at one time a victim of morphia, but I can see very plainly that you have overcome this danger." In the manner of the speaker there was a serene calm that quite swept aside any possible search after information. Tom Lee continued, his gaze holding that of Murray. "We may speak frankly, Doctor Murray. For many years I was a victim of opium. I was born in this country, and in business affairs I have become a rich and even powerful man; but I have never succeeded in getting loose from the chains of the poppy. Some time ago, I came in contact with Doctor Scudder, a man who has had great experience with drug users. He undertook to cure me, and I believe that he is succeeding." Murray listened to this confession in some astonishment. The oriental did not speak with any symptom of shame. He seemed to face the matter in a very blunt and straightfordward way, which was very significant of the man's strong character. "I determined," pursued Tom Lee, "to devote a portion of my wealth to helping others of my race to rid themselves of the opium habit. To this end I have been seeking a place which will be out of the world and remote from any accessibility to the drug. This portion of the desert, with its climate and situation, is ideal for my purpose. I propose to erect a sanitarium and colony at my own cost, and to maintain it myself. "Since meeting you, I believe that you can assist me. Doctor Scudder, who has agreed to give my enterprise the benefit of his knowledge and skill, is a thoroughly good physician. I shall also need a surgeon, however, and I believe that you can fill that position admirably if you will. After much search, the spot which I have chosen is the place called Morongo Valley, north of here. I understand that you have recently bought it. I will be glad to buy it back from you at any price you may consider; and will make a flat offer of five thousand dollars." Murray listened to this proposal in astounded silence. He realized that this man was one who swept aside all small things, and who dealt upon a large and broad scale with everything and everyone. Thus he was not so much surprised at the offer to use his services, as at the outline of Tom Lee's business in this part of the country and the philanthropic ambitions of the Chinaman. Before the man, he felt ashamed. When he contrasted his own endeavors, and those of Mackintavers, to scheme and obtain Morongo Valley and keep it, with the frankly stated aims of this yellow man, he felt very small. He felt dwarfed before the personality of Tom Lee. "My two friends have joined me in buying this land," he answered slowly. He did not do his patient the injustice of considering the offered position in the light of a bribe to sell the valley. "If we sell to you at this figure, we shall make a profit--yet we had already decided not to sell it. Mr. Mackintavers thinks there is gold in those hills----" Tom Lee smiled. "Keep the gold, then," he said. "Listen! I have my plans all drawn, ready for work. I have in prospect a hundred more of my countrymen--most of them my own employees--in San Francisco, who have consented to break with opium if I will help them. My idea is to keep them at physical work--to use them here in the construction of my buildings, and in reclaiming the soil--as a part of the cure. If you and your friends wish to work a mine, I will provide the labor. Why not? Keep the mining rights to the land if you wish." Murray's face cleared. "That is eminently fair," he said reflectively. From the outer room had come a murmur of voices, and as Claire now appeared he rose. "I'll speak with my partners about it, and let you know. As concerns your offer of a position--may I reserve judgment upon that for a time?" "There is no hurry," said Tom Lee, and looked at Claire. "Doctor Scudder was here but would not come in," said the girl, a faint color in her cheeks. Murray, catching her glance, read a strange expression in her eyes, an expression so fleeting and indefinable that it wakened him instantly to the sense of something unusual. What had Scudder said out there? What did the girl think of Tom Lee's proposals? "You have heard our conversation, Miss Lee," said Murray quickly, turning to her with his swift disarming smile. "May I inquire whether you think me a fit person to be associated in such a work?" She met his gaze squarely, although her color deepened a trifle. "I should be only too glad," she answered him, "to know that you would accept!" He was surprised by the evident sincerity of her words. "Something queer about all this!" he thought to himself, when he had taken his departure and was on his way downstairs. "Something queer about Scudder, too--I shouldn't wonder if Willyum had told the truth about him! And Clairedelune seems afraid of something. A white girl, I could swear, and as good as she is beautiful. What is her origin, then? Where is the answer to this riddle?" He passed across the street to the printing office, where he found Mackintavers awaiting him. He told the two exactly what had been said, and they held a long discussion. Bill Hobbs swore that there was something crooked about anything with which Doctor Scudder was connected; but Murray, more correctly, considered that Bill was prejudiced. In the end, they decided to accept Tom Lee's offer. As soon as Willyum was established in his printing office, Murray and Sandy Mackintavers were to visit Morongo Valley on a more extended prospecting trip. Their first business was to get Willyum settled. Ascertaining from the subscription list of the late proprietor that there was a goodly scattering of ranchers and homesteaders and prospectors about the district and learning that a newspaper would be welcomed and supported by some advertising, all three partners got down to steady work. Sandy and Murray canvassed the town with no little success. Two days later, a derelict in human shape blew in from the south, having heard that a paper was to be started in Two Palms. He was a hobo printer, a shiftless fellow who would be worthless to any real establishment--but to Bill Hobbs he was a providential shower of manna. Bill engaged him on the spot as preceptor. During the three days which elapsed thus, Murray saw Claire Lee at intervals. He also informed Tom Lee of the decision regarding Morongo Valley, received a check for five thousand dollars, and made over the deed to the land in the name of Claire, as requested. He and his friends encountered Doctor Scudder frequently, but the encounters were very cold and formal. On the third evening Patrick Hennesy arrived from Meteorite in his car, and was at once closeted with Tom Lee. As the latter was still confined to his room by Murray's orders, supper was served there by Piute. Hennesy beckoned Piute aside. "Is that fellow Mackintavers still here?" he demanded in a grim whisper. Piute allowed that he was. "Then don't say nothin', but fix it up for me to meet him back o' the hotel early in the morning--all alone. Will ye? I don't want no interference." Piute grinned suddenly. "Will I?" he retorted. "Say! Them fellers--I put 'em next to a sale for their prop'ty, all fair and square; and they didn't even so much as slide me a ten-spot! Ain't that gratitood? I'm askin' ye--ain't it? Well, don't you worry none, Hennesy!" "Ain't you a deputy sheriff?" demanded the contractor. "Me an' Deadoak is both depitties. Why?" "Tell you later," and Patrick Hennesy winked joyfully at Piute. CHAPTER X FLIGHT Upon the following morning, Murray was at the printing establishment watching Bill Hobbs and his human derelict swear at each other, when Piute Tomkins beckoned him outside to the street. Piute stood there, ostentatiously fingered a burnished deputy's star which adorned his sun-faded vest, twirled his melancholy mustache and spoke. "Doc, the pris'ner wants to see ye." "Prisoner? What prisoner?" "Your partner, Mac." "Good lord!" Murray stared blankly at him. "You don't mean he's--arrested?" "Certain." "On what charge?" "Assault with 'tent to kill. Him and another man been mixin' it up consid'able back of the hotel; other man's Hennesy, the contractor from Meteorite. Seems like Mac took after him with an ol' wagon spoke and nigh riled him to death. I got him locked up in an extry room, so come along." Murray followed, bewildered and angered. Sandy arrested! Piute led the way into the hotel, and to a room at the door of which stood Deadoak Stevens on guard. A stern and implacable proponent of justice, Deadoak was also possessed of a polished badge and an ancient revolver, both of which he displayed with ostentation. "Hennesy's goin' right back to town," he informed Piute, "he wants to see ye 'fore he pulls out." Piute strode away. Murray, meantime, entered the room, where he found Mackintavers sitting, the picture of disconsolate despair. Sandy glanced up, then dropped a battered countenance into his hands and groaned. "Hello!" said Murray cheerfully. "Hear you've been fighting. What's the fun about?" "Doc, it's no use," groaned Sandy. "I'm a branded man! I thought nobody'd know me around here--but along comes a man named Hennesy, a man whom I'd had dealin's with in New Mexico. Fact is, I made him leave there for his health. Now he's turned up here. I run up against him--wham! Then we went to it, that's all." "I hope," said Murray, "that you hurt him worse than he hurt you?" "I done my best," was the gloomy response. "I sure knocked him out--then this here deputy sheriff dropped a gun on me." Deadoak Stevens introduced his head inside the door, which he had placed ajar. "He's goin' to Meteorite after the sheriff," he announced, "and you'll stay right here until he gets back----" "Nonsense!" declared Murray. I'll bail him out and----" "There ain't no one here to bail him out to," said Deadoak. "You got to wait, that's all. Ding my dogs, this here ain't no city!" "Don't you try to stick with me, Doc," said Mackintavers hopelessly. "It ain't fair to you an' Hobbs. Things like this'll come croppin' up all the while----" "Don't be a fool," snapped Murray, and rose. "I'll see what can be done, Sandy. We'll take care of this fellow somehow. Did you have a wagon-spoke in your hand?" "I don't know," said Sandy. "I was hittin' him with everything in sight." Murray chuckled and left the room. He saw Piute Tomkins in the office downstairs, and speedily found that there was no way of freeing Mackintavers until the sheriff arrived in person. Piute flatly refused to accept bail, and there was no justice of the peace in town--the one and only J.P. being at the moment some score of miles away looking for a tungsten mine in the Saddleback hills. Murray gave up the attempt in disgust. As he left the office, he saw that an automobile was standing at one side of the hotel, its engine purring. Standing talking to the driver was Doctor Scudder. Scudder stepped back, waved his hand, and the car drove away in the direction of Meteorite. Too late to halt the driver, Murray realized that it must be the man with whom Sandy had mixed. But what business had the man with Doctor Scudder? Scudder passed him with a single flashing look, and Murray went on across the street, where he imparted to Bill Hobbs what had happened. They were still debating the matter, when the doorway was darkened--and Murray looked up to see Claire Lee. She had already met Bill Hobbs, and had displayed much interest in his activities. But now she responded to Willyum's greeting with only a faint smile, and turned to Murray a gaze that was distinctly troubled. "Doctor Murray," she said, a trace of color in her cheeks, "will you take me up to Morongo Valley in your car--right away?" Murray was taken aback by this flat request. "I--why, Miss Lee, what do you mean? Your father can't travel yet----" "It's not a question of my father," she said, biting her lip. "Here is a note that he asked me to hand you----" She extended a paper, which the astounded Murray took and opened. The note was brief: My dear Doctor Murray: Please do as Claire says--and don't delay or ask questions. TOM LEE. Murray looked from Bill Hobbs to Claire, and choked down the questions that rose to his lips. "When do you want to go?" "Now," said the girl quietly. "I'll get my things in a few minutes." "How long do you want to stay?" "Until we hear from my father." "Hadn't I better see him----?" "No. He wants me to go at once." Murray scratched his red thatch, more embarrassed and put to confusion than he cared to admit. This thing was preposterous on its face! No reason assigned--nothing but the request to take this girl away out there to the Morongo Valley, for an indefinite stay! He looked helplessly at Bill Hobbs. "Willyum, can you take care of Sandy?" "Sure," asserted Willyum, wide-eyed. "I am at your service, Miss Lee," said Murray. "You--you are very good, Doctor," she said, and he thought that her lip trembled. "I'll be ready in five minutes." "Very well. I'll meet you behind the hotel, at my car--it's the one stacked with supplies in the back seat." She turned and left the print shop. Bill Hobbs looked at Murray bewilderedly. "What's it mean, Doc?" "How the devil do I know?" Murray swore in puzzled disgust. "Looked to me like she'd been cryin', Doc." Murray swore again, and started for the door. "Come on and help me throw some things together--put one of those extra gas cans in the back of my car, will you? Fortunately she's full up on everything. And you'll have to get Sandy's money before the sheriff gets it----" They crossed to the hotel, and while he prepared for the trip, Murray instructed his henchman, whom he placed in charge of the mutual funds, to explain matters to Sandy and to do whatever might be possible. The two men descended to the car, which was already filled with a mass of supplies made ready by Murray and Sandy against their return to the valley on a prolonged prospecting trip. Willyum turned over the engine, and as he did so, Claire appeared, bearing only a small handbag. The anxiety in her countenance broke in a smiling greeting, and she climbed in beside Murray. The latter shoved down on his pedal and sent the flivver toward the street. He waved a hasty farewell to Bill Hobbs; and as he did so, a backward glance showed him the tall figure of Doctor Scudder, standing in the doorway of the hotel and gazing after them. Somehow, the remembrance of that impassive, high-browed, jet-bearded figure left a feeling of disquiet within him. Not until they had left Two Palms behind them, was the silence broken. Then Murray, seeing Claire's handkerchief going to her eyes, put on the brakes. "What's the matter?" he exclaimed. "Nothing--please go on!" The girl forced a smile. "I'll tell you what's happened--I'll tell you what's happened----" Murray drove on frowning. Presently Claire spoke, her voice low. "You'll have to try and understand everything, Doctor Murray; I know that you're a gentleman, and father agrees with me. He isn't an ordinary Chinaman, you know--a coolie. Before the revolution, he went into business. He consolidated a number of antique shops near San Francisco into one big combine, and he's wealthy. But he has so set his heart on doing good to other men who have the opium habit, and helping them to break it, that whoever can approach him in the right way can--can win his trust. Doctor Scudder has done this." "Ah!" said Murray. "You don't like Scudder, eh?" "I don't trust him!" exclaimed the girl passionately. "I think he's been deliberately keeping Father under the influence of opium, while pretending to cure him; a doctor can obtain the drug now, you know, and no one else can. Well, this morning I met Doctor Scudder in the hall, and he said something--something I resented, and when I told Father, there was a row. I'll have to be perfectly frank about it, Doctor Murray. "Doctor Scudder apologized to me and said I had misunderstood him, then he launched a bitter attack on you and said that he meant to prove you were not what you seemed to be at all--that you were engaged in smuggling drugs----" "I?" exclaimed Murray, then laughed amusedly. "Nonsense!" "Well, there was a fuss," said the girl. "I hoped that Father might begin to see Doctor Scudder as I saw him; but I don't know--it's terribly hard to tell just what he thinks and does not think, for he seldom says anything. When we were alone, he told me to take that note out to you, and to have you take me to Morongo Valley at once--without any delay." "And no reason given?" asked Murray, in open astonishment. "None," she responded. "I thought that perhaps he wanted to get you away from Doctor Scudder, to prevent trouble; but why should I go too? He refused absolutely to explain anything." Murray reflected that there might be excellent reasons for the girl going too, but that certainly none appeared. "Well," he said whimsically, "since we're on our way, we might as well go! I certainly am honored and delighted by your company, Miss Lee. I think you're a very wonderful sort of woman, and that your father should send you with me, like this, implies a trust which I shall try to deserve." The girl glanced at him, and to his amazement he saw that a smile was rippling in her face. "You've been wondering about me, I suppose? Most people do; they seem to think that it must be terrible to acknowledge a Chinaman as one's father, and to love him! I remember that when some of the girls came home with me one vacation, they could not see the wealth and happiness around me, the devoted servants such as they had never been used to, the love and affection which had been flung about me. All they could see was the yellow man who was their host----" Her voice trailed off, and suddenly Murray realized that her smile had not been one of mirth. A quick flash of pity leaped through him. He saw her life as it must be--always a stigma upon her, always the yellow man whom she loved and who loved her, always the shadow that enveloped her friendships and all that she did! "A year ago, Miss Lee," he said quietly, "I was among the leaders of my profession. Through the deadly sin of heedlessness, of failure to observe what I was doing in the effort always to do more in my profession, I became a drug fiend. Since then, I have conquered myself--but in the world's eyes I can never be rehabilitated. So I, too, have learned the folly of caring what the world thinks or says. It is the inward self that matters; nothing else." "Oh, but you are cynical about it!" she answered simply. "Rather, you are trying to be cynical, and not succeeding very well. Haven't you found that after all life is very good as it is--that in one sense the world does not matter, but that in another sense one must regard it very keenly? To be thought ill of, hurts, and hurts much. There is always self-respect, and the inner guidance of one's own life to be followed; but all the same, one must bring one's self into accord with the things outside. "It does not worry me to be considered the daughter of a yellow man. I am only sorry that people cannot know, as I know, the wonderful character and goodness of Tom Lee. Why, if he is able to do what he came here to do, he will be a tremendous benefactor of his own race! Hundreds of the men who work for him are still slaves to opium, although most of them would be glad to be free again." Murray followed the road mechanically. It was a poor road, merely a track across the white-gray desert face, dodging to avoid ancient "Joshua trees" or groups of cacti, ever following the line of least resistance and curving endlessly. The road did not interest Murray; he was thinking of the girl beside him and her situation. "At least," he said gravely, "I think that I can appreciate the character of your father; and if I were you, I wouldn't worry about my own position. You're a marvelously beautiful girl, Clairedelune--beautiful beyond words, and with a deep fund of personality to back it. To have your trust and confidence and affection would be an unbounded honor to any man alive! For you to think, perhaps, that any man who cared for you might be prejudiced because there is Chinese blood in your----" "Oh!" cried out the girl suddenly. Her voice startled him, shook him. He saw that her face had mantled with crimson. "Oh! But that isn't so!" "What?" Murray turned toward her, slowed the car, stared uneasily at her. She met his gaze with level eyes, although her bosom was heaving tumultuously. "I thought you knew!" she exclaimed. "I'm only an adopted daughter, Doctor Murray; father found me in San Francisco at the time of the fire, and could never discover my real parents. So he adopted me----" "Adopted you? Would such a thing be allowed?" "Yes, for all the records were destroyed; besides, at that time Father was known as a Manchu prince, and his position was highly respected. To save trouble, Father merely took the adoption for granted; it was never legal, perhaps, but it was never questioned. And so----" Murray sat in a daze, unable to find words in the astounded comprehension that burst upon him. He could see only the one great fact--that she was bred of no oriental race! He knew now that he must have been prejudiced before that supposition; he had fought the prejudice, had conquered it, but none the less he felt a surge of relief, and a song uprose in his heart. Then he told himself that he was a fool to think such thoughts. What matter to him? As to what the girl had suggested about his being a drug smuggler, quoting Scudder, Murray never gave this another thought. He forgot it completely. CHAPTER XI THE SUN STRIKES More than once did Murray curse himself for a fool as he piloted the car northward into the wastes, but he continued his course without delay. The girl's story had moved him strangely, stirred him to the depths. Still it was not clear to him why he was thus taking Claire out into the desert--except that he was compelled thereto by the dominant will and massive personality of Tom Lee. To tell the truth, Murray was far from urging upon himself any logical reasoning for what he was doing; the presence of Claire beside him was reason enough. He was joyful at the intimacy established between them, at the friendly confidence that had risen. It was long since Douglas Murray had craved the company of a woman--and now he felt strangely happy and buoyant. They were in the marble cañon now, and repairing a tire that had blown out. There was about them the full heat of a desert day, sickening and insufferable. The white walls of the cañon, where was no shade or relief from the blinding dazzle of the white sun, refracted the heat tenfold and shimmered before their eyes in waves of smoldering fire. All breeze was dead. The car, where the sunlight smote it, was blistering to the touch. Murray got the tire repaired, and with a deep sigh of relief flung the jack into the car. He refilled the boiled-over radiator from one of the water canteens swinging beside the car, then climbed under the wheel. He paused to mop his streaming face. "Do you think your father means to come out to Morongo Valley?" "I think so, with the contractor--perhaps tomorrow or today. Really, Doctor Murray, I can't say just what he intends! When Father gives no explanation of his actions he simply is inscrutable." Murray nodded and started the car forward. He could well understand that Tom Lee, masked by oriental calm and being governed by the unfathomable oriental mind, was, even to Claire, an absolutely unknown quantity. They cleared the cañon at last. Here was not the table-flat desert, however. From the canyon the trail debouched into a wilderness of volcanic ash and wind-eroded pinnacles, where along the rocky portals great smears of smoke-weed hung wavering like the wraith of long-dead fires. From here, at last, back to the desert--and into one of those salt sinks of the desert, a basin of some ancient sea, perhaps, where the road wound precariously between stretches of sun-baked, salty earth that none the less quivered to the touch of any object, and formed at the bottom of the baked crust a quagmire from which was no escape. The fiery air made the travelers gasp as each parched gust of breath smote their lungs; and the salty, invisible dust stung their skins and choked their throats with remorseless burning. And in this cockpit of hell, the blistering heat combined with the rarefied atmosphere to blow out another tire--and to blow it out this time beyond repair. "Whew!" exclaimed Murray disconsolately, viewing the damage. "Nothing for it but to strip her and put on the other spare." "Can't you run on the rim?" queried Claire anxiously. "No chance, with this load of stuff in back, and the road we must follow! We'd smash every spring in the car. Well, here goes!" There was no breeze. The far vistas of the horizon hung dancing with heat waves, like painted scenery jerking on springs. Mountains and mirages, all hung there and danced, a weird dance of death and desolation. The unstirred air was heavy and thick with invisible dust. Sunlight crawled and slavered white-hot brilliance over everything, pierced into everything. His face running with blinding sweat, Murray impatiently threw aside his hat. Presently his unruly red hair was no longer wet and blackened; it crowned his flushed features like an aureole, crisp and dry and very hot. He had the new tube and casing on, and attached the pump. Laboring steadily, he cursed to himself at the heat--the broiling, insufferably dry heat of that salt basin. A sudden breath of hot air caused him to glance up, and his lips cracked in a smile. Claire was leaning from the car and fanning him, her straw hat flapping the air down over him. "Thanks, Clairedelune," he croaked hoarsely. "It helps." "Will you have a drink? The water bottle----" "No, thanks. I'll finish this job first." The tire was beginning to harden. He bent again over the pump, driving himself to the labor. At last it was done--done well enough, at least. He disconnected the pump and tossed it into the car. A word from Claire broke in upon him. "What's that! Something moved against the sand--oh! It's a snake!" He laughed unsteadily as he looked. A snake in truth--an incoherent, feeble object that slipped across the sand and blended there, shapeless and indistinct; a stark-blind thing, a living volute of death and venom. Murray flung a handful of sand. The reptile lashed out viciously at the air. "A rattler shedding its old skin; blind and deadly poisonous at this season," he said. "I remember Mackintavers warned us about it--no rattles, no sound at all!" He laughed, for his own voice astonished him; it sounded thin and tenuous, far away, distant. With a distinct effort of the will, he forced himself to stoop after the jack; disengaging it, he rose and lifted it into the tonneau, with strange effort. Claire got out of the car in order to let him in more easily, but he did not climb into the shadow of the top. Instead, he held to the open door for an instant, then sank down upon the running board. "I think I'll rest," he said, looking from bloodshot eyes at the figure of the girl beside him--the slender, cool figure that seemed to defy the sunlight. "Clairedelune--it comes from the troubadours, that name--the softly sweet glory of the silven moonlight--the sheer beauty that wrings the heart and soul of a man with pain and sweetness----" His head jerked suddenly. As though some inner instinct had wakened to fear and danger within him, his voice broke out sharply, clearly: "No cold water, mind! It kills--no cold water, mind!" Not until his head fell back into the car doorway did Claire Lee realize that something was actually wrong. She had thought him babbling a bit--now, for a terrible moment, she thought him dead. Yet his last words abode with her, remained fixed and distinct in her mind. No cold water! His heart was beating; he was not dead after all. He must have realized, in that moment, what the trouble was! Sunstroke. She realized it now, realized it with a fearful sense of her own futility. She had no water, except the ice-cold water in the porous waterbags beside the car! Hesitation and fear, but only for an instant. She seized the nearest bag, her hands trembling in desperate haste, and jerked out the cork. Part of that precious fluid she poured into the sands, then stumbled to the front of the car and stooped to the petcock of the blistering radiator. As the hot water poured into the bag, she could feel its coldness change to a tepid warmth. Hastily she ran back to Murray and poured the contents of the bag over his head and shoulders. She grew calmer, now; he was at least alive, and she had done her best! But there was more to do. Morongo Valley lay ahead, not so far, and she knew the road. With much effort, she lifted the unconscious body into the front seat, where it reposed limply, and then climbed over it. She had forgotten to crank the car, and had to go back again, out into the sunlight. No word, no cry from her clenched lips. She cranked, climbed again into the car, and closed the door that would hold Murray in place. Then she drove, with an occasional frantic glance at the lurching, senseless man beside her. She drove as fast as she dared set the car through the loose sands. When she had driven that road first, it was trackless. Now there lay faint markings to guide her--the tracks of her own and of Murray's car, the shuffled traces of hooves and feet. No wind ever lifted in this basin, no flurry of sand ever drove across the burning surface, down below the level of the surrounding desert. Until the rains or a storm came, the tracks would be there undisturbed, as the dust-marks within a pyramid of ancient Rameses. Soon, so soon that she scarce realized it, the blue and brown mountains that had been trembling over the horizon were drawn into sharper and richer colorings, and the long walls of the valley were opening out ahead. The Dead Mountains, those--bare of men or beasts or devils! Morongo Valley at last--the sharp turn, with the Box Cañon opening out ahead, rich and sweetly splendid in its touch of vivid greens! It was only two hundred yards in length, after that turn; yet to the tortured girl, those two hundred yards seemed endless. She did not pause at the shack, but drove on, toward the right-hand wall. Still within her mind dwelt the last words uttered by Murray--"no cold water!" The trickle of the creek was icy cold; out of the ground and in again. But she knew where there was a seepage of warmer water--water unfit for drinking. She had found it while she was here with Tom Lee; it was a little up the hillside, above and facing that natural amphitheatre which Tom Lee had staked out as a building site. About it there was shade, for the water had provoked green growths on the hillside--a clump of green there against the brown. She knew that this was the spot, and she headed for it. Recklessly, she drove the car at the steep hill, rocking and lurching across gullies and rocks, until the engine died down; then in low again, climbing a mad course, until at last a boulder blocked the wheel and the engine died on the crash. There was but a little way to go. She got Murray out of the car, somehow, and dragged him, spurred by fear that she had been too late in getting here. Yet he still lived. She laid him on his back in the course of the tiny seepage of water--and then it seemed so cold to her that new fear gripped on her soul. She tasted it, and grimaced. It was not cold, and it was brackish, impregnated with minerals. So slight was the flow, that it existed for little more than the length of Murray's body. And there was not the shade here that she had anticipated--it was too slight, too little, here at noonday! That was easily remedied. A trip to the car, and she had opened Murray's lashed bundles. A trip down the hillside to the shack provided her with stakes. From four of these she stretched a blanket above the recumbent man, and saw that now the congestion had died out of his face. He was breathing more easily, too. Then reaction came upon her, and bodily weariness, and flooding tears. She rallied, however, and fell to work. By mid-afternoon she had accomplished much. Seeing no hope of moving Murray to the shack, she made another low canopy of blankets, preparatory to removing him from the seepage; opened out provisions, brought up a tiny sheet-iron stove from the shack--it would be cold with the night, bitter cold! There were many things to be done, and her hands were unaccustomed to doing these things; but she did them. And when they were done, she took the hand-ax she found in the car, and sallied down past the shack in search of firewood, for the hillside was bare. When she returned, and came into sight of the camp, she dropped her burden and ran forward; for Murray was standing there in the sunlight, one hand to his head, staring around him dazedly! Her cry of protest swung him about. He managed a wan smile, then obeyed her imperative, panted orders and dropped beneath the blanket canopy she had erected. She came up to him, breathless with effort and fear. "The sun got me, eh?" murmured Murray. "Clairedelune, you're a wonder! I don't see how you did it. Lord but I feel ill again----" He dropped back limply, and she burst into tears of despair and helplessness as she knelt above him. Again she lashed herself to work, removed the blanket from above the seepage, and laid it aside for a night-covering. A Californian, she knew little about sunstroke; but she believed that now he had fallen into a coma, which might pass into sleep, and his regular breathing gave her some assurance. The afternoon dragged into evening, and the night came. Still Murray lay senseless, breathing heavily but evenly. The sun slipped out of sight under the western rim, and darkness clamped down until the stars shone. Claire spread her blankets above the tiny shelter she had made for Murray, and lay with her face to the south and Two Palms. What time it was when she wakened, she did not know; she lay for a moment wondering why she had roused, then glanced toward Murray's shelter. In the starlight she could see that he had not moved. She could hear his breathing, as it had been. Then--her gaze leaped to the desert floor, where two moving stars were drawing close. An automobile! Hope sprang within her, drew a quick, glad cry from her lips. She leaped up and arranged her dress with shaking fingers. Tom Lee was coming, then, was almost here! Hurriedly she made shift to light a tiny blaze from the fragments of her fire, to guide the arrivals. As the car came into the valley below, the sound apprised her that it was a flivver, and she became certain that Tom Lee had come. The car threaded its way up the hillside, and ten feet from Murray's car, came to a halt. Its engine was not shut off, and its headlights held Claire in the center of this scene, lighting the place dimly, but efficiently. Two dark figures leaped from the car and came toward her. A cry broke from Claire, and she drew back--not Tom Lee after all! Here was Piute Tomkins, and with him a stranger whom she did not know. But her fear vanished swiftly, and she choked down her disappointment. "I'm _so_ glad you came!" she exclaimed. "Doctor Murray has been hurt--why, what's the matter?" She halted, blankly astounded. The stranger and Piute both produced revolvers, and their manner was distinctly unfriendly. The stranger now flashed the badge of a sheriff; he was a keen-eyed man, bronzed and resolute. "You're under arrest, Miss Lee," he said. "So is Doctor Murray. That him yonder?" "Arrest?" faltered the girl, shrinking in amazement and fear. "Yep, complicity," said Piute. "The doc had a lot of opium in his room, and morphine--and you're helpin' him in his getaway! This here is the sheriff--Hennesy sent him over a-flyin'----" "But--but it's impossible!" wailed the girl, anguish in her voice. "He's ill--he's had sunstroke! And he's never had any opium----" The sheriff, who seemed to dislike his job, shook his head. "Sorry, Miss Lee, but we got the goods on him. My car broke down and we had to impress Bill Hobbs to bring us out here----" At this instant another figure came into the rays of light from the car. It was Bill Hobbs. "What's the matter, Miss Lee?" he demanded. "Where's the doc?" "He's ill--he had to fix a tire and the sun made him ill," she said weakly. "These men are trying to arrest him and me--oh, it's ridiculous!" "Gee!" breathed Willyum, staring from her to the recumbent figure beneath the blankets. Then he swung on the other two. "So that was why you had me run you out here, huh? Tryin' to make a pinch, huh? You kept darned quiet about it!" "Enough for you," snapped the sheriff. "Get busy, and help carry that man----" Suddenly Bill Hobbs changed. In a moment, he became a new man. Across his face swept an altered look; his hand leaped to his armpit, and an automatic flickered out toward the two men. He took them completely by surprise, covered them before their weapons could lift. "Put up yer mitts!" he breathed hoarsely, a wild light in his flaring eyes. "Put 'em up, youse! So help me, if I gotta croak you----" The two obeyed, utterly astounded. "You'll do time for this," began the sheriff furiously. Bill Hobbs flung an excited, reckless laugh at him. "Will I? You'll go to hell first! Now look here--the doc ain't done nothin' at all, and you'd ought to know it! You big stool, you," Bill cast the words venomously at Piute. "I'll cook ye for this!" "Hey! It wasn't me!" spoke up Piute in obvious alarm. "It was Doc Scudder! Don't go to p'inting that there gun too reckless----" "Scudder, was it?" Bill Hobbs swore. "I said that gink was crooked! So he tried to frame the doc, here, did he?" "Good lord!" uttered the sheriff suddenly. He had been staring hard at Bill Hobbs; now he took a step backward, across his face flitting a look of recognition. "It's Swifty Bill!" Willyum snarled at him. "Yah, Swifty Bill!" he jeered. "Seen me before, have ye?" "I've got pictures of you, my man," said the sheriff. "And word that you're wanted in Memphis--you've been wanted there for a long time! Those handbills have been up on my office wall for three years--why I didn't know you before, I can't say why----" Bill Hobbs spat a vicious oath at him. Claire had shrunk back, white-faced and fearful, watching the intense scene before her with eyes that only half comprehended. "Know me, do you?" flung out Bill Hobbs. "And ye'll try to pinch one o' Swifty Bill's mob, will ye? I guess not! The doc ain't done nothin', I tell you! Youse guys ain't goin' to frame him an' get away with it, not for a minute!" "See here," broke out the sheriff. "You're trying to buck the Government, Swifty Bill, and you know what _that_ means! This man Murray had a lot of opium and morphine in his possession, and has no permit for it. You'd better put down that gun----" "I got that gat down on _you_," said Bill firmly, "and she stays like she is." Suddenly he paused, then broke out anew, an impulsive eagerness brightening in his face. "Say! What d'you guys say to this--leave the girl an' the doc go, and take me with you? I'll go! How's that, now? If ye want me, all right. If ye don't, I'll sure croak both of youse if we don't blow out o' here!" Piute looked at the sheriff, but the latter scarcely hesitated. Those three-year-old handbills on the wall of his office recurred to his memory; Swifty Bill was implicated in a federal job back in Memphis, and there was more credit to be gained from the capture of such a man, than from taking in Murray. Besides, the drugs had been confiscated, and the chances were that Murray could not be punished for merely having them in his possession. "You're on!" said the sheriff quickly. "Then leave your guns and beat it to the car. I'll come in a minute." The sheriff nodded to Piute. The two men dropped their weapons and retraced their steps. After watching them for an instant, Bill Hobbs turned to Claire Lee, and gestured toward Murray; his eyes were suddenly brimming with devoted affection. "He ain't dead, miss?" "No--but he's very ill----" "Listen! I gotta beat it with these guys, see? When we get to Two Palms, I'll wise up your dad. I guess the doc ain't bad hurt. What's in this dope frame-up, anyhow?" "I don't know--it's all some mistake," said Claire vaguely. "All right, then. Say, tell the doc I'm squarin' things up, will you? Him and me's pals, see. Tell him, will you?" Claire nodded dumbly. So quickly had the situation evolved itself, that she was not yet fully sensible of its significance. The meaning of all this rapid-fire exchange of words was as yet only partially comprehensible to her. She could only nod assent. Bill Hobbs turned and stumbled away to the car and the waiting handcuffs. CHAPTER XII SCUDDER COMES The night passed, and the day, and another night, dragging their weary length above Morongo Valley. After the car that bore Piute, Willyum, and the sheriff had vanished over the desert horizon, that horizon had remained unbroken. No one had come. Murray slept the clock around, and wakened hungry but very weak. All strength seemed to have fled out of him. The rare sunstroke of the desert had smitten fiercely. When he heard Claire's narrative of what had happened during the preceding night, his first thought was to get back to the aid of Bill Hobbs; but when the girl inspected the car, she pronounced the task hopeless. "The front axle's all crooked, and the left wheel is half twisted off," she reported, her eyes resting upon him anxiously. "I must have done it getting up here----" "No matter," said Murray, losing all energy. The least movement appeared to drain his strength. The slightest touch of that blinding sunlight sent his brain whirling and reeling. "I give up," he went on. "I'm good for nothing. Take a look around for rattlers; you have to watch out for them this season, for they give no warning but strike blindly;--and they're bad medicine. Lord, but I'm helpless!" As he lay there, he reviewed the girl's story of the attempted arrest, and believed that he understood it very plainly, although he did not attempt to explain matters to Claire. She had enough to worry her, he decided. He remembered that Scudder had been talking with the contractor when Hennesy left to get the sheriff. He knew already that Scudder had opium, for the use of Tom Lee. It would have been no hard matter for Scudder to have planted some of the drug among his own effects, he reflected. "I'll settle with you, Scudder!" he vowed to himself. Toward sunset they searched the horizon, but vainly. What was happening beyond that horizon, over the rim of the world? Murray worried, more about his friends than himself, for he was little concerned over Scudder's enmity and attempts to disprove him in the eyes of Tom Lee. But Sandy Mackintavers was in the toils, and as for Bill Hobbs--Murray groaned at the thought. He knew that Willyum had only recently come out of "stir" when he had picked up the ex-burglar. Now that Bill Hobbs had deliberately sacrificed himself in order to save Murray and Claire Lee, it meant a setback that would put him in the criminal ranks again for good. And at this moment, when both his friends needed him so sorely, Murray was stretched out here in the desert, helpless and impotent--himself under the menace of a cloud! During that day, Murray and the girl lived long, came to know each other deeply; not with the superficial words and phrases and acts of civilized life, but in primitive ways and fashions. When the night closed down again like a mantle above the desert, it drew them yet closer together. "Your father will be here tomorrow at latest," said Murray reflectively. "He should have come long ago." Claire's eyes were filled with somber shadows. "I'm afraid that--that Doctor Scudder has been keeping him under the influence of opium. How I detest and fear that man! I wish that Father could be made to see him as I see him, that he would break with the man!" "I think he will, eventually," said Murray, and smiled grimly to himself at thought of the reckoning he would have with Scudder. The night passed. Once, Murray wakened; it seemed to him that he caught, in the desert silence and cold stillness, the throbbing motor of an automobile. Yet he could see no lights, and Claire had not wakened. He lay for a space, watching vainly, and at last fell asleep again. With the morning, Murray opened his eyes to find Claire already up and breakfast nearly ready. He tried to rise, and managed to leave his blankets, but he was giddy and too weak to walk. With a muttered curse at his own feebleness, he sank down again upon the sand. "If no one shows up here by afternoon," he declared resolutely, while they breakfasted and discussed the situation, "I think we'd better make an effort to get back with the car. She may run; when it comes to flivvers, the days of miracles are by no means over----" At this instant, Claire sprang to her feet with a cry of joy. "Look--look! A car!" Murray twisted around, and saw a moving object upon the desert face. From where they were upon the hillside, it was possible to see only the stretch of the cañon floor immediately below them; a twist in the cañon walls hid the remainder of the road from their sight, until it came out again upon the desert basin half a mile away. It was out there, crawling in from the low horizon, that the moving automobile appeared. "It's Father!" cried the girl, watching the car intently as it rapidly drew closer to them. "It's our car! I know it because we had to put the license plate on the right fender--oh, I'm so glad. Now everything's all right!" Silence fell upon them both. They watched without further speech as the car came in toward them, and finally vanished from sight. Five minutes later, it appeared down below in the little valley, its cheerful thrum reverberating upon the morning silence, echoing back from the cañon walls. But, as Claire watched, uneasiness grew in her eyes. There was but one man in the car, the driver. The flivver was halted down by the shack, and its driver alighted. Murray glanced at the girl, and read a swift flutter of fear in her eyes. "It's not Father at all--it's Doctor Scudder!" she breathed. "Don't worry," said Murray coolly. "I expect your father sent him here. Ah, he's coming up! That's good." His calm manner exerted a quieting effect upon Claire. Toward them from the cañon climbed Doctor Scudder. As he came closer, his cheery "Good morning!" floated to them, and both Murray and Claire made answer. Scudder completed the climb, panting a little, and removed his hat to wipe his brow. "Where's Father?" exclaimed Claire eagerly. "I'm sorry to say, Miss Lee, that he's not well," returned Scudder, his eyes taking in each detail of the scene. "Hobbs came into town yesterday in custody of the sheriff, and told us of the situation here. Your father hoped to be able to come himself, but early this morning he was taken rather ill. So I came in his place." "Did you give him more opium?" cried the girl accusingly. Scudder's brows lifted. "No, I mean that he was really ill, Miss Lee. For the past two days he has not touched the drug, and his system is not yet inured to the deprivation. What's this, Murray--sunstroke? I hope you'll let me do anything in my power----" "Thanks," said Murray quietly. Instinct told him that the words of Scudder were a tissue of lies, yet he knew that he was in need of the man's skill. "I'd like to have a talk with you all alone. Miss Lee, would you have any objection to leaving me and Doctor Scudder in private for a few moments?" "Ah!" said Scudder suavely. "I was about to make the same request!" He smiled thinly. "And I have a very good excuse, Miss Lee. The contractor arrived yesterday to come out here with your father; but as their trip has been temporarily delayed, your father asked if you would take some pictures of the ground just back and above the place he had selected as a building site. It has something to do, I believe, with the building of a tank or a reservoir for water from the spring. You'll find the camera in the rear of the car." "Very well," said Claire, with a nod of her head. She departed down the hillside, and Scudder gazed reflectively after her, watching her lift the camera from his car, and then start toward the wall of manzanita that cloaked the upper end of the valley. Murray's voice caused him to turn. "Well, Scudder, we'd better have a showdown," said Murray calmly, gazing up at the man. "The sheriff was out here, as you know, and told about finding dope in my belongings. What made you plant the dope there? That was a silly way to try and discredit me in the eyes of Tom Lee." Scudder looked down at him and smiled. There was nothing mirthful in the smile, however. It was a cold, hard, deadly smile, like the fixed and drawn-back lips of a snake waiting to strike. "You guessed right, Murray," he said unexpectedly. "It _was_ a rather futile thing, and I've found a much better way. I don't mind telling you that I gave Tom Lee enough opium last night to keep him doped for a week, so there'll be no interference." Murray swore. "You damned whelp!" he said, trying to raise himself, but vainly. "If----" Scudder leaned forward and shoved him back in his place, with a chuckle. "No more fisticuffs, eh?" he sneered. "Not in condition just now, are you? Well, I'll have you fixed up in no time! Morphia victim, weren't you? Well, I'll pump morphia into you for about three weeks--and turn you loose. That'll take care of you, I guess." From his pocket, Scudder took a hypodermic case, and a bottle of tablets. He filled the tiny thimble-cup with water from the spring, dropped a tablet into it, unfolded the inch-square metal stand, and set the cup in place. Then he put the stand down, struck a match, and held it beneath the cup. "Handy affair, this!" he observed. Murray watched him in horror which changed from incredulity to realization that the man intended his words literally. Knowing that Murray had been a morphia victim, he was now deliberately taking advantage of his helplessness to inject the drug again--and with Murray in his charge, he could put him hopelessly under the spell of the drug once more! "Good God, man!" cried Murray, getting up on one elbow. "You can't mean----" Scudder put out a foot and shoved him back again. "Lie put, will you?" he chuckled. "Wait till I get this syringe filled, and by the time Claire comes back, you'll be past speech! And you won't speak to her again until I'm ready to let you." While he spoke, Scudder filled the syringe, and adjusted a needle. Then, the syringe in his hand, he came and stood over Murray. "Struggling won't do you any good," he said, and bent down. Murray struck at him--struck weakly and vainly. Scudder seized his right wrist and drew it down--put it under his foot and held it there. Then he seized Murray's left arm, gripped the wrist, and drew it up to meet the syringe. "Now for happyland!" he said. "One slight prick----" He paused suddenly--paused and jerked himself upright, a flood of color sweeping into his pale features as his head came up. From the clumps of manzanita twenty feet away, had come a voice. "Hold on, Scudder!" And from that covert of twisting, grotesque, blood-red manzanita trees, stepped Tom Lee. Murray felt something of the fright that had seized upon Scudder, for the presence of Tom Lee seemed nothing short of an apparition. "I waited for this, Scudder!" rang out the voice of the yellow man, his eyes fastened upon the horrified gaze of Scudder. "When you gave me all that dope last night, I guessed that you were coming here; I discovered that you had planted the stuff in Doctor Murray's suitcase, I had begun to penetrate your wiles and deviltry! Now it's ended." Tom Lee came forward. Before him, Scudder shrank. The syringe dropped from his nerveless fingers; he stepped back from the figure of Murray, retreated from the advancing form of Tom Lee in visible terror and consternation. "You devil!" cried the oriental, a deep and surging passion filling his voice. "I came here last night in Hennesy's car--I've been waiting for you! I heard all your lies, heard all your plotted deviltry. You thought you'd dispose of Murray and have Claire in your power, didn't you?" There was reason for the sheer terror that filled Scudder. The face of the advancing man had changed into a frightful mask; it had changed and altered into the face of the great stone Buddha that watches over the Yungmen caves--it had become a purely Asian face, filled with terrible and deadly things, unguessed menaces. Murray painfully got to one elbow again and watched. The others were oblivious of him; all their attention was fastened upon each other. Still Scudder retreated, and still Tom Lee advanced upon him, weaponless, yet in his advance a potent and fearful threat. Before that threat, Scudder still retreated, his face ghastly. "Damn you!" he cried, his voice shrill. "What d'ye mean by all this----?" "You can't get away from me," said Tom Lee impassively. "I'm going to have a reckoning with you." "No, but I can stop your game!" retorted Scudder with an oath. The mask was gone now, and he cursed luridly. "You can't run any damned Chinese bluff on me----" With the words, he plucked a revolver from his pocket and fired. The shot echoed and reëchoed in the cañon. Tom Lee did not move. Scudder glared up at him and made as if to lift the weapon again, then he hurled it from him with another curse, and kicked at something on the sand at his feet. A shrill scream broke from him. Something fell away from his kick--an incoherent, feeble object that slipped to the sand and blended there, shapeless and invisible; a stark-blind thing, a living volute of death and venom--a rattler, that had struck blind, but that had struck home! With that scream still on his lips, Scudder whirled about and began to run. He fled, as though after him pursued some invisible and awful thing. He ran blindly down the valley as though in search of something, desperate in his extremity; he passed the automobile in which he had come, running, stumbling through the soft sand. And so out of sight around the twist in the cañon. "Let him go! It is finished." The words came from Tom Lee. He turned to Murray, smiling, and the smile seemed fastened in his face. He lifted his arm, and looked at the hand, curiously. A cry broke from Murray, for the hand was streaming with a scarlet fluid. Abruptly, Tom Lee pitched forward and lay in a heap, just as Claire, called by the shot, appeared. CHAPTER XIII UNTANGLED A flivver that bore two men, came crawling down the slope of the desert-rim in the early morning. Near the approach to Morongo Valley, it halted. The two men alighted to inspect a heap in the sand, from which a carrion bird flapped heavily away. They looked at the body, glanced at each other, then silently got into the car and continued their journey. "Rattler, I judge," observed Sandy Mackintavers. "And a good job." The car crept up the valley to the shack, stopped, coughed, and became silent. Murray was awaiting it, pale and weak but walking; beside him was Claire, and joining them was Tom Lee, his right arm in a sling. Murray's face lighted up, and his hand shot out. "Willyum!" he cried delightedly. "We thought we must be dreaming when we saw you! And Sandy too--but I thought you were behind the bars!" Across the earnest features of Bill Hobbs broke a rippling light of gleeful mirth. "Say!" he exclaimed, while he pumped Murray's hand. "Say, I gotta hand it to that sheriff for bein' a prize boob! I was wanted all right--three years ago! Since then, I done the time an' got out again, see? When the answer come to his wire, that was the sickest guy you ever seen! But say, Doc, how are you?" "Fine! Coming around all right." Murray's gaze went to Sandy Mackintavers. "What stroke of luck turned you loose, Sandy?" The voice of Tom Lee interposed, with a chuckle. "That was my doing, gentlemen," he said blandly. "The contractor, Hennesy, preferred to withdraw all charges against Mr. Mackintavers, to losing my contract. And, Mr. Mackintavers! I wish you'd come up the hill here. There's something I want to show you." Sandy nodded and joined him, and the two men ascended toward the seepage where Murray had lain. Bill Hobbs looked from the face of the girl, alight with a strange happiness, to the incisive, quizzical eyes of Murray. He seemed to sense a constraint, flushed slightly, and was turning away when Murray's hand halted him. "Hold on there, Willyum! I'm glad, old man, very glad, that everything's clear for you! By the way, I've an item of news for your paper. You know what I told you about the sanitarium? Well, Mr. Lee is going ahead with his plans, and I'm to be in charge----" "Say!" broke out Hobbs with sudden remembrance. "What happened to Scudder? We seen him out yonder, and Mac laid it to a rattler." "Mac was right, I suppose," said Murray, thoughtfully. "Although I'm not so sure that it wasn't the hand of Providence, Willyum. But lay it to the rattler and play safe. He shot Tom Lee through the arm before the rattler got him; he sure had panic, blind panic! And, by the way, I have another item of news for you----" Murray glanced at Claire, who smiled happily. "Miss Lee," he pursued, "has decided to chance being the wife of a country doctor." A shout from the hillside drew their attention. Tom Lee was standing beside Claire's camp, and out of the seepage of water near by, shouting and waving his hands, was Sandy--dirty, streaked with sand and water, adrip with perspiration and exultancy. "Aiblins, now, will ye look at this!" He pointed to the seepage, a blaze of excitement lighting his face. "We see it," answered Murray, laughing. "What's the matter with it?" "Matter with it?" shouted Sandy, waving his arm at the brow of the hill. "Free gold, that's what! It'll take us smack into rotten quartz, that's what!" A little later, Bill Hobbs, standing by his automobile, rolled a cigarette. "Aw!" he muttered to himself. "Aw, gee! And now I gotta go back to the printshop and work all alone with that old derelict--and Sandy's gotta work all alone at the mine--aw, gee! Ain't it hell how a woman busts up everything! I wisht I was a poor man again!" 
9661	----	MORMON SETTLEMENT IN ARIZONA A RECORD OF PEACEFUL CONQUEST OF THE DESERT BY JAMES H. McCLINTOCK ARIZONA HISTORIAN 1921 [Illustration: THOS. E. CAMPBELL Governor of Arizona] [Illustration: COL. JAS. H. McCLINTOCK Arizona Historian] [Illustration: "EL VADO," THE CROSSING OF THE FATHERS Gateway of the Pioneers Into Arizona] FOREWORD This publication, covering a field of southwestern interest hitherto unworked, has had material assistance from Governor Thos. E. Campbell, himself a student of Arizona history, especially concerned in matters of development. There has been hearty cooperation on the part of the Historian of the Mormon Church, in Salt Lake City, and the immense resources of his office have been offered freely and have been drawn upon often for verification of data, especially covering the earlier periods. There should be personal mention of the late A.H. Lund, Church Historian, and of his assistant, Andrew Jenson, and of Church Librarian A. Wm. Lund, who have responded cheerfully to all queries from the Author. There has been appreciated interest in the work by Heber J. Grant, President of the Church, and by many pioneers and their descendants. The Mormon Church maintains a marvelous record of its Church history and of its membership. The latter record is considered of the largest value, carrying out the study of family genealogy that attaches so closely to the theology of the denomination. During the fall of 1919, Andrew Jenson of the Church Historian's office, started checking and correcting the official data covering Arizona and New Mexico settlements. This involved a trip that included almost every village and district of this State. Mr. Jenson was accompanied by LeRoi C. Snow, Secretary to the Arizona State Historian and a historical student whose heart and faithful effort have been in the work. Many corrections were made and many additions were secured at first hand, from pioneers of the various settlements. At least 2000 letters have had to be written by this office. The data was put into shape and carefully compiled by Mr. Snow, whose service has been of the largest value. As a result, in the office of the Arizona State Historian now is an immense quantity of typewritten matter that covers most fully the personal features of Mormon settlement and development in the Southwest. This has had careful indexing. Accumulation of data was begun the last few months of the lifetime of Thomas E. Farish, who had been State Historian since Arizona's assumption of statehood in 1912. Upon his regretted passing, in October of 1919, the task of compilation and writing and of possible publication dropped upon the shoulders of his successor. The latter has found the task one of most interesting sort and hopes that the resultant book contains matter of value to the student of history who may specialize on the Southwest. By no means has the work been compiled with desire to make it especially acceptable to the people of whom it particularly treats--save insomuch as it shall cover truthfully their migrations and their work of development. With intention, there has been omitted reference to their religious beliefs and to the trials that, in the earlier days, attended the attempted exercise of such beliefs. Naturally, there has had to be condensation of the mass of data collected by this office. Much of biographical interest has had to be omitted. To as large an extent as possible, there has been verification from outside sources. Much of the material presented now is printed for the first time. This notably is true in regard to the settlement of the Muddy, the southern point of Nevada, which in early political times was a part of Arizona Territory and hence comes within this work's purview. There has been inclusion of the march of the Mormon Battalion and of the Californian, New Mexican and Mexican settlements, as affecting the major features of Arizona's agricultural settlement and as contributing to a more concrete grasp of the idea that drove the Mormon pioneers far afield from the relative comfort of their Church centers. JAS. H. McCLINTOCK, Arizona State Historian. Phoenix, Arizona, May 31, 1921. SUMMARY OF SUBJECTS Chapter One WILDERNESS BREAKERS--Mormon Colonization in the West; Pioneers in Agriculture; First Farmers in Many States; The Wilderness Has Been Kept Broken. Chapter Two THE MORMON BATTALION--Soldiers Who Sought No Strife; California Was the Goal; Organization of the Battalion; Cooke Succeeds to the Command; The March Through the Southwest; Capture of the Pueblo of Tucson; Congratulation on Its Achievement; Mapping the Way Through Arizona; Manufactures of the Arizona Indians; Cooke's Story of the March; Tyler's Record of the Expedition; Henry Standage's Personal Journal; California Towns and Soldier Experiences; Christopher Layton's Soldiering; Western Dash of the Kearny Dragoons. Chapter Three THE BATTALION'S MUSTER-OUT--Heading Eastward Toward "Home"; With the Pueblo Detachment; California Comments on the Battalion; Leaders of the Battalion; Passing of the Battalion Membership; A Memorial of Noble Conception; Battalion Men Who Became Arizonans. Chapter Four CALIFORNIA'S MORMON PILGRIMS--The Brooklyn Party at San Francisco; Beginnings of a Great City; Brannan's Hope of Pacific Empire; Present at the Discovery of Gold; Looking Toward Southern California; Forced From the Southland; How Sirrine Saved the Gold. Chapter Five THE STATE OF DESERET--A Vast Intermountain Commonwealth; Boundary Lines Established; Segregation of the Western Territories; Map of State of Deseret. Chapter Six EARLY ROADS AND TRAVELERS--Old Spanish Trail Through Utah; Creation of the Mormon Road; Mormon Settlement at Tubac; A Texan Settlement of the Faith. Chapter Seven MISSIONARY PIONEERING--Hamblin, "Leatherstocking of the Southwest"; Aboriginal Diversions; Encounter with Federal Explorers; The Hopi and the Welsh Legend; Indians Await Their Prophets; Navajo Killing of Geo. A. Smith, Jr.; A Seeking of Baptism for Gain; The First Tour Around the Grand Canyon; A Visit to the Hava-Supai Indians; Experiences with the Redskins; Killing of Whitmore and McIntire. Chapter Eight HAMBLIN AMONG THE INDIANS--Visiting the Paiutes with Powell; A Great Conference with the Navajo; An Official Record of the Council; Navajos to Keep South of the River; Tuba's Visit to the White Men; The Sacred Stone of the Hopi; In the Land of the Navajo; Hamblin's Greatest Experience; The Old Scout's Later Years. Chapter Nine CROSSING THE MIGHTY COLORADO--Early Use of "El Vado de Los Padres"; Ferrying at the Paria Mouth; John D. Lee on the Colorado; Lee's Canyon Residence Was Brief; Crossing the Colorado on the Ice; Crossings Below the Grand Canyon; Settlements North of the Canyon; Arizona's First Telegraph Station; Arizona's Northernmost Village. Chapter Ten ARIZONA'S PIONEER NORTHWEST--History of the Southern Nevada Point; Map of Pah-ute County; Missionaries of the Desert; Diplomatic Dealings with the Redskins; Near Approaches to Indian Warfare; Utilization of the Colorado River; Steamboats on the Shallow Stream; Establishing a River Port. Chapter Eleven IN THE VIRGIN AND MUDDY VALLEYS--First Agriculture in Northern Arizona; Villages of Pioneer Days; Brigham Young Makes Inspection; Nevada Assumes Jurisdiction; The Nevada Point Abandoned; Political Organization Within Arizona; Pah-ute's Political Vicissitudes; Later Settlement in "The Point,"; Salt Mountains of the Virgin; Peaceful Frontier Communities. Chapter Twelve THE UNITED ORDER--Development of a Communal System; Not a General Church Movement; Mormon Cooperative Stores. Chapter Thirteen SPREADING INTO NORTHERN ARIZONA--Failure of the First Expeditions; Missionary Scouts in Northeastern Arizona; Foundation of Four Settlements; Northeastern Arizona Map; Genesis of St. Joseph; Struggling with a Treacherous River; Decline and Fall of Sunset; Village Communal Organization; Hospitality Was of Generous Sort; Brigham City's Varied Industries; Brief Lives of Obed and Taylor. Chapter Fourteen TRAVEL, MISSIONS AND INDUSTRIES--Passing of the Boston Party; At the Naming of Flagstaff; Southern Saints Brought Smallpox; Fort Moroni, at LeRoux Spring; Stockaded Against the Indians; Mormon Dairy and the Mount Trumbull Mill; Where Salt Was Secured; The Mission Post of Moen Copie; Indians Who Knew Whose Ox Was Gored; A Woolen Factory in the Wilds; Lot Smith and His End; Moen Copie Reverts to the Indians; Woodruff and Its Water Troubles; Holbrook Once Was Horsehead Crossing. Chapter Fifteen SETTLEMENT SPREADS SOUTHWARD--Snowflake and Its Naming; Joseph Fish, Historian; Taylor, Second of the Name; Shumway's Historic Founder; Showlow Won in a Game of "Seven-Up"; Mountain Communities; Forest Dale on the Reservation; Tonto Basin's Early Settlement. Chapter Sixteen LITTLE COLORADO SETTLEMENTS--Genesis of St. Johns; Land Purchased by Mormons; Wild Celebration of St. John's Day; Disputes Over Land Titles; Irrigation Difficulties and Disaster; Meager Rations at Concho; Springerville and Eagar; A Land of Beaver and Bear; Altitudinous Agriculture at Alpine; In Western New Mexico; New Mexican Locations. Chapter Seventeen ECONOMIC CONDITIONS--Nature and Man Both Were Difficult; Railroad Work Brought Bread; Burden of a Railroad Land Grant; Little Trouble with Indians; Church Administrative Features. Chapter Eighteen EXTENSION TOWARD MEXICO--Dan W. Jones' Great Exploring Trip; The Pratt-Stewart-Trejo Expedition; Start of the Lehi Community; Plat of Lehi; Transformation Wrought at Camp Utah; Departure of the Merrill Party; Lehi's Later Development. Chapter Nineteen THE PLANTING OF MESA--Transformation of a Desert Plain; Use of a Prehistoric Canal; Moving Upon the Mesa Townsite; An Irrigation Clash That Did Not Come; Mesa's Civic Administration; Foundation of Alma; Highways Into the Mountains; Hayden's Ferry, Latterly Tempe; Organization of the Maricopa Stake; A Great Temple to Rise in Mesa. Chapter Twenty FIRST FAMILIES OF ARIZONA--Pueblo Dwellers of Ancient Times; Map of Prehistoric Canals; Evidences of Well-Developed Culture; Northward Trend of the Ancient People; The Great Reavis Land Grant Fraud. Chapter Twenty-one NEAR THE MEXICAN BORDER--Location on the San Pedro River; Malaria Overcomes a Community; On the Route of the Mormon Battalion; Chronicles of a Quiet Neighborhood; Looking Toward Homes in Mexico; Arizona's First Artesian Well; Development of a Market at Tombstone. Chapter Twenty-two ON THE UPPER GILA--Ancient Dwellers and Military Travelers; Early Days Around Safford; Map of Southeastern Arizona; Mormon Location at Smithville; A Second Party Locates at Graham; Vicissitudes of Pioneering; Gila Community of the Faith; Considering the Lamanites; The Hostile Chiricahuas; Murders by Indian Raiders; Outlawry Along the Gila; A Gray Highway of Danger. Chapter Twenty-three CIVIC AND CHURCH FEATURES--Troublesome River Conditions; Basic Law in a Mormon Community; Layton, Soldier and Pioneer; A New Leader on the Gila; Church Academies of Learning. Chapter Twenty-four MOVEMENT INTO MEXICO--Looking Over the Land; Colonization in Chihuahua; Prosperity in an Alien Land; Abandonment of the Mountain Colonies; Sad Days for the Sonora Colonists; Congressional Inquiry; Repopulation of the Mexican Colonies. Chapter Twenty-five MODERN DEVELOPMENT--Oases Have Grown in the Desert; Prosperity Has Succeeded Privation. BIBLIOGRAPHY PLACE NAMES OF THE SOUTHWEST CHRONOLOGY TRAGEDIES OF THE FRONTIER INDEX MAP OF ARIZONA MORMON SETTLEMENT _THE ILLUSTRATIONS_ "El Vado," Pioneer Gateway into Arizona Mormon Battalion Officers Battalion Members at Gold Discovery in California Battalion Members who Returned to Arizona Battalion Members who Returned to Arizona Battalion Members who Returned to Arizona The Mormon Battalion Monument Old Spanish Pueblo of Tubac Jacob Hamblin, "Apostle to the Lamanites" The Church Presidents Lieutenant Ives' Steamboat on the Colorado in 1858 Ammon M. Tenney, Pioneer Scout of the Southwest Early Missionaries Among the Indians Moen Copie, First Headquarters of Missionaries to the Moquis Pipe Springs or Windsor Castle Moccasin Springs on Road to the Paria In the Kaibab Forest, near the Home of the Shivwits Indians A Fredonia Street Scene Walpi, One of the Hopi (Moqui) Villages Warren M. Johnson's House at Paria Ferry Crossing of the Colorado at the Paria Ferry Brigham Young and Party at Mouth of Virgin in 1870 Baptism of the Tribe of Shivwits Indians Founders of the Colorado River Ferries Crossing the Colorado River at Scanlon's Ferry Crossing the Little Colorado River with Ox Teams Old Fort at Brigham City Woodruff Dam, After One of the Frequent Washouts First Permanent Dam at St. Joseph Colorado Ferry and Ranch at the Mouth of the Paria (G.W. James) Lee Cabin at Moen Avi (Photo by Dr. Geo. Wharton James) Moen Copie Woolen Mill Grand Falls on the Little Colorado Old Fort Moroni with its Stockade Fort Moroni in Later Years Erastus Snow, Who Had Charge of Arizona Colonization Anthony W. Ivins Joseph W. McMurrin Joseph Fish, an Arizona Historian Joseph H. Richards of St. Joseph St. Joseph Pioneers and Historian Andrew Jenson Shumway and the Old Mill on Silver Creek First Mormon School, Church and Bowery at St. Johns David K. Udall and His First Residence at St. Johns St. Johns in 1887 Stake Academy at St. Johns Founders of Northern Arizona Settlements Group of Pioneers Presidents of Five Arizona Stakes Old Academy at Snowflake New Academy at Snowflake The Desolate Road to the Colorado Ferry Leaders of Unsuccessful Expeditions First Party to Southern Arizona and Mexico Second Party to Southern Arizona and Mexico Original Lehi Locators Founders of Mesa Maricopa Stake Presidents Maricopa Delegation at Pinetop Conference The Arizona Temple at Mesa Jonathan Heaton and His Fifteen Sons Northern Arizona Pioneers Teeples House, First in Pima First Schoolhouse at Safford Gila Normal College at Thatcher Gila Valley Pioneers Pioneer Women of the Gila Valley Killed by Indians Killed by Outlaws SPECIAL MAPS State of Deseret Pah-ute County, Showing the Muddy Settlements Northeastern Arizona, Showing Little Colorado Settlements Lehi, Plan of Settlement Ancient Canals of Salt River Valley Southeastern Arizona Arizona Mormon Settlement and Early Roads Chapter One Wilderness Breakers Mormon Colonization In the West The Author would ask earliest appreciation by the reader that this work on "Mormon Settlement in Arizona" has been written by one entirely outside that faith and that, in no way, has it to do with the doctrines of a sect set aside as distinct and peculiar to itself, though it claims fellowship with any denomination that follows the teachings of the Nazarene. The very word "Mormon" in publications of that denomination usually is put within quotation marks, accepted only as a nickname for the preferred and lengthier title of "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Outside the Church, the word, at least till within a decade or so, has been one that has formed the foundation for much of denunciation. There was somewhat of pathos in the remark to the Author by a high Mormon official, "There never has been middle ground in literature that affected the Mormons--it either has been written against us or for us." From a religious standpoint, this work is on neutral ground. But, from the standpoint of western colonization and consequent benefit to the Nation, the Author trusts the reader will join with him in appreciation of the wonderful work that has been done by these people. It is this field especially that has been covered in this book. Occasionally it will be found that the colonizers have been referred to as "Saints." It is a shortening of the preferred title, showing a lofty moral aspiration, at least. It would be hard to imagine wickedness proceeding from such a designation, though the Church itself assuredly would be the first to disclaim assumption of full saintliness within its great membership. Still, there might be testimony from the writer that he has lived near the Mormons, of Arizona for more than forty years and in that time has found them law-abiding and industrious, generally of sturdy English, Scotch, Scandinavian or Yankee stock wherein such qualities naturally run with the blood. If there be with such people the further influence of a religion that binds in a union of faith and in works of the most practical sort, surely there must be accomplishment of material and important things. Pioneers in Agriculture In general, the Mormon (and the word will be used without quotation marks) always has been agricultural. The Church itself appears to have a foundation idea that its membership shall live by, upon and through the products of the soil. It will be found in this work that Church influence served to turn men from even the gold fields of California to the privations of pioneer Utah. It also will be found that the Church, looking for extension and yet careful of the interests of its membership, directed the expeditions that penetrated every part of the Southwest. There was a pioneer Mormon period in Arizona, that might as well be called the missionary period. Then came the prairie schooners that bore, from Utah, men and women to people and redeem the arid southland valleys. Most of this colonization was in Arizona, where the field was comparatively open. In California there had been religious persecution and in New Mexico the valleys very generally had been occupied for centuries by agricultural Indians and by native peoples speaking an alien tongue. There was extension over into northern Mexico, with consequent travail when impotent governments crumbled. But in Arizona, in the valleys of the Little Colorado, the Salt, the Gila and the San Pedro and of their tributaries and at points where the white man theretofore had failed, if he had reached them at all, the Mormons set their stakes and, with united effort, soon cleared the land, dug ditches and placed dams in unruly streams, all to the end that farms should smile where the desert had reigned. It all needed imagination and vision, something that, very properly, may be called faith. Sometimes there was failure. Occasionally the brethren failed to live in unity. They were human. But, at all times, back of them were the serenity and judgment and resources of the Church and with them went the engendered confidence that all would be well, whatever befell of finite sort. It has been said that faith removes mountains. The faith that came with these pioneers was well backed and carried with it brawn and industry. "Mormon Settlement in Arizona" should not carry the idea that Arizona was settled wholly by Mormons. Before them came the Spaniards, who went north of the Gila only as explorers and missionaries and whose agriculture south of that stream assuredly was not of enduring value. There were trappers, prospectors, miners, cattlemen and farmers long before the wagons from Utah first rolled southward, but the fact that Arizona's agricultural development owes enormously to Mormon effort can be appreciated in considering the establishment and development of the fertile areas of Mesa, Lehi, the Safford-Thatcher-Franklin district, St. David on the San Pedro, and the many settlements of northeastern Arizona, with St. Johns and Snowflake as their headquarters. It is a remarkable fact that Mormon immigrants made even a greater number of agricultural settlements in Arizona than did the numerically preponderating other peoples. However, the explanation is a simple one: The average immigrant, coming without organization, for himself alone, naturally gravitated to the mines--indeed, was brought to the Southwest by the mines. There was little to attract him in the desert plains through which ran intermittent stream flows, and he lacked the vision that showed the desert developed into the oasis. The Mormon, however, came usually from an agricultural environment. Rarely was he a miner. Of later years there has been much community commingling of the Mormon and the non-Mormon. There even has been a second immigration from Utah, usually of people of means. The day has passed for the ox-bowed wagon and for settlements out in the wilderness. There has been left no wilderness in which to work magic through labor. But the Mormon influence still is strong in agricultural Arizona and the high degree of development of many of her localities is based upon the pioneer settlement and work that are dealt with in the succeeding pages. First Farmers in Many States It is a fact little appreciated that the Mormons have been first in agricultural colonization of nearly all the intermountain States of today. This may have been providential, though the western movement of the Church happened in a time of the greatest shifting of population ever known on the continent. It preceded by about a year the discovery of gold in California, and gold, of course, was the lodestone that drew the greatest of west-bound migrations. The Mormons, however, were first. Not drawn by visions of wealth, unless they looked forward to celestial mansions, they sought, particularly, valleys wherein peace and plenty could be secured by labor. Nearly all were farmers and it was from the earth they designed drawing their subsistence and enough wherewith to establish homes. Of course, the greatest of foundations was that at Salt Lake, July 24, 1847, when Brigham Young led his Pioneers down from the canyons and declared the land good. But there were earlier settlements. First of the faith on the western slopes of the continent was the settlement at San Francisco by Mormons from the ship Brooklyn. They landed July 31, 1846, to found the first English speaking community of the Golden State, theretofore Mexican. These Mormons established the farming community of New Helvetia, in the San Joaquin Valley, the same fall, while men from the Mormon Battalion, January 24, 1848, participated in the discovery of gold at Sutter's Fort. Mormons also were pioneers in Southern California, where, in 1851, several hundred families of the faith settled at San Bernardino. The first Anglo-Saxon settlement within the boundaries of the present State of Colorado was at Pueblo, November 15, 1846, by Capt. James Brown and about 150 Mormon men and women who had been sent back from New Mexico, into which they had gone, a part of the Mormon Battalion that marched on to the Pacific Coast. The first American settlement in Nevada was one of Mormons in the Carson Valley, at Genoa, in 1851. In Wyoming, as early as 1854, was a Mormon settlement at Green River, near Fort Bridger, known as Fort Supply. In Idaho, too, preeminence is claimed by virtue of a Mormon settlement at Fort Lemhi, on the Salmon River, in 1855, and at Franklin, in Cache Valley, in 1860. The earliest Spanish settlement of Arizona, within its present political boundaries, was in the Santa Cruz Valley not far from the southern border. There was a large ranch at Calabasas at a very early date, and at that point Custodian Frank Pinkley of the Tumacacori mission ruins lately discovered the remains of a sizable church. A priest had station at San Xavier in 1701. Tubac as a presidio dates from 1752, Tumacacori from 1754 and Tucson from 1776. These, however, were Spanish settlements, missions or presidios. In the north, Prescott was founded in May, 1864, and the Verde Valley was peopled in February, 1865. Earlier still were Fort Mohave, reestablished by soldiers of the California Column in 1863, and Fort Defiance, on the eastern border line, established in 1849. A temporary Mormon settlement at Tubac in 1851, is elsewhere described. But in honorable place in point of seniority are to be noted the Mormon settlements on the Muddy and the Virgin, particularly, in the very northwestern corner of the present Arizona and farther westward in the southern-most point of Nevada, once a part of Arizona. In this northwestern Arizona undoubtedly was the first permanent Anglo-Saxon agricultural settlement in Arizona, that at Beaver Dams, now known as Littlefield, on the Virgin, founded at least as early as the fall of 1864. The Wilderness Has Been Kept Broken Of the permanence and quality of the Mormon pioneering, strong testimony is offered by F. S. Dellenbaugh in his "Breaking the Wilderness:" "It must be acknowledged that the Mormons were wilderness breakers of high quality. They not only broke it, but they kept it broken; and instead of the gin mill and the gambling hell, as corner-stones of their progress and as examples to the natives of the white men's superiority, they planted orchards, gardens, farms, schoolhouses and peaceful homes. There is today no part of the United States where human life is safer than in the land of the Mormons; no place where there is less lawlessness. A people who have accomplished so much that is good, who have endured danger, privation and suffering, who have withstood the obloquy of more powerful sects, have in them much that is commendable; they deserve more than abuse; they deserve admiration." Chapter Two The Mormon Battalion Soldiers Who Sought No Strife The march of the Mormon Battalion to the Pacific sea in 1846-7 created one of the most picturesque features of American history and one without parallel in American military annals. There was incidental creation, through Arizona, of the first southwestern wagon road. Fully as remarkable as its travel was the constitution of the Battalion itself. It was assembled hastily for an emergency that had to do with the seizure of California from Mexico. Save for a few officers detailed from the regular army, not a man had been a soldier, unless in the rude train-bands that held annual muster in that stage of the Nation's progress, however skilled certain members might have been in the handling of hunting arms. Organization was a matter of only a few days before the column had been put into motion toward the west. There was no drill worthy of the name. There was establishment of companies simply as administrative units. Discipline seems to have been very lax indeed, even if there were periods in which severity of undue sort appears to have been made manifest by the superior officers. Still more remarkable, the rank and file glorified in being men of peace, to whom strife was abhorrent. They were recruited from a people who had been driven from a home of prosperity and who at the time were encamped in most temporary fashion, awaiting the word of their leaders to pass on to the promised western Land of Canaan. For a part of the way there went with the Battalion parts of families, surely a very unmilitary proceeding, but most of people, whom they were to join later on the shore of the Great Salt Lake of which they knew so little. They were illy clad and shod, were armed mainly with muskets of type even then obsolete, were given wagon transportation from the odds and ends of a military post equipment and thus were set forth upon their great adventure. Formation of the Mormon Battalion came logically as a part of the determination of the Mormon people to seek a new home in the West, for in 1846 there had come conclusion that no permanent peace could be known in Illinois or in any of the nearby States, owing to religious prejudice. The High Council had made announcement of the intention of the people to move to some good valleys of the Rocky Mountains. President Jesse C. Little of the newly created Eastern States Mission of the Church, was instructed to visit Washington and to secure, if possible, governmental assistance in the western migration. One suggestion was that the Mormons be sent to construct a number of stockade posts along the overland route. But, finally, after President Little had had several conferences with President Polk, there came decision to accept enlistment of a Mormon military command, for dispatch to the Pacific Coast. The final orders cut down the enlistment from a proffered 2000 to 500 individuals. California Was the Goal There should be understanding at the outset that the Mormon Battalion was a part of the volunteer soldiery of the Mexican War. At the time there was a regular army of very small proportions, and that was being held for the descent upon the City of Mexico, via Vera Cruz, under General Scott. General Taylor had volunteers for the greater part of his northern army in Mexico. Doniphan in his expedition into Chihuahua mainly had Missouri volunteers. In California was looming a very serious situation. Only sailors were available to help American settlers in seizing and holding the coast against a very active and exceptionally well-provided and intelligent Mexican, or Spanish-speaking, opposition. Fremont and his "surveying party" hardly had improved the situation in bringing dissension into the American armed forces. General Kearny had been dispatched with all speed from Fort Leavenworth westward, with a small force of dragoons, later narrowly escaping disaster as he approached San Diego. There was necessity for a supporting party for Kearny and for poor vision of troops to enforce an American peace in California. To fill this breach, resort was had to the harassed and homeless Saints. The route was taken along the Santa Fe trail, which then, in 1846, was in use mainly by buffalo hunters and western trading and trapping parties. It was long before the western migration of farm seekers, and the lure of gold yet was distant. There were unsatisfactory conditions of administration and travel, as narrated by historians of the command, mainly enlisted men, naturally with the viewpoint of the private soldier. But it happens that the details agree, in general, and indicate that the trip throughout was one of hardship and of denial. There came the loss of a respected commander and the temporary accession of an impolitic leader. Especially there was complaint over the mistaken zeal of an army surgeon, who insisted upon the administration of calomel and who denied the men resort to their own simple remedies, reinforced by expression of what must have been a very sustaining sort of faith. A more popular, though strict, commander was found in Santa Fe, whence the Battalion was pushed forward again within five days, following Kearny to the Coast. The Rockies were passed through a trackless wilderness, yet on better lines than had been found by Kearny's horsemen. Arizona, as now known, was entered not far from the present city of Douglas. There were fights with wild bulls in the San Pedro valley, there was a bloodless victory in the taking of the ancient pueblo of Tucson, there was travail in the passage of the desert to the Gila and a brief respite in the plenty of the Pima villages before the weary way was taken down the Gila to the Colorado and thence across the sands of the Colorado desert, in California, to the shores of the western ocean. All this was done on foot. The start from Leavenworth was in the heat of summer, August 12, 1846. Two months later Santa Fe was entered, Tucson was passed in December and on January 27, 1847, "was caught the first and a magnificent view of the great ocean; and by rare chance it was so calm that it shone like a great mirror." In detail, the following description of the march, as far as Los Angeles, mainly is from the McClintock History of Arizona. Organization of the Battalion Col. Stephen W. Kearny, commanding the First Dragoon regiment, then stationed at Fort Leavenworth, selected Capt. James Allen of the same regiment to be commander of the new organization, with volunteer rank as lieutenant-colonel. The orders read: "You will have the Mormons distinctly understand that I wish to have them as volunteers for twelve months; that they will be marched to California, receive pay and allowances during the above time, and at its expiration they will be discharged, and allowed to retain as their private property the guns and accouterments furnished them at this post." Captain Allen proceeded at once to Mount Pisgah, a Mormon camp 130 miles east of Council Bluffs, where, on June 26, 1846, he issued a recruiting circular in which was stated: "This gives an opportunity of sending a portion of your young and intelligent men to the ultimate destination of your whole people at the expense of the United States, and this advance party can thus pave the way and look out the land for their brethren to come after them." July 16, 1846, five companies were mustered into the service of the United States at Council Bluffs, Iowa Territory. The company officers had been elected by the recruits, including Captains Jefferson Hunt, Jesse B. Hunter, James Brown and Nelson Higgins. George P. Dykes was appointed adjutant and William McIntyre assistant surgeon. The march westward was started July 20, the route through St. Joseph and Leavenworth, where were found a number of companies of Missouri volunteers. Colonel Allen, who had secured the confidence and affection of his soldiers, had to be left, sick, at Leavenworth, where he died August 23. At Leavenworth full equipment was secured, including flintlock muskets, with a few caplock guns for sharpshooting and hunting. Pay also was drawn, the paymaster expressing surprise over the fact that every man could write his own name, "something that only one in three of the Missouri volunteers could accomplish." August 12 and 14 two divisions of the Battalion left Leavenworth. Cooke Succeeds to the Command The place of Colonel Allen was taken, provisionally, by First Lieut. A. J. Smith of the First Dragoons, who proved unpopular, animus probably starting through his military severity and the desire of the Battalion that Captain Hunt should succeed to the command. The first division arrived at Santa Fe October 9, and was received by Colonel Doniphan, commander of the post, with a salute of 100 guns. Colonel Doniphan was an old friend. He had been a lawyer and militia commander in Clay County, Missouri, when Joseph Smith was tried by court martial at Far West in 1838 and had succeeded in changing a judgment of death passed by the mob. On the contrary, Col. Sterling Price, the brigade commander, was considered an active enemy of the Mormons. At Santa Fe, Capt. P. St. George Cooke, an officer of dragoons, succeeded to the command, as lieutenant-colonel, under appointment of General Kearny, who already had started westward. Capt. James Brown was ordered to take command of a party of about eighty men, together with about two-score women and children, and with them winter at Pueblo, on the headwaters of the Arkansas River. Fifty-five more men were sent to Pueblo from the Rio Grande when found unable to travel. Colonel Cooke made a rather discouraging report on the character of the command. He said: "It was enlisted too much by families; some were too old, some feeble, and some too young; it was embarrassed by too many women; it was undisciplined; it was much worn by travel on foot and marching from Nauvoo, Illinois; clothing was very scant; there was no money to pay them or clothing to issue; their mules were utterly broken down; the quartermaster department was without funds and its credit bad; animals scarce and inferior and deteriorating every hour for lack of forage. So every preparation must be pushed--hurried." The March Through the Southwest After the men had sent their pay checks back to their families, the expedition started from Santa Fe, 448 strong. It had rations for only sixty days. The commander wrote on November 19 that he was determined to take along his wagons, though the mules were nearly broken down at the outset, and added a delicate criticism of Fremont's self-centered character, "The only good mules were taken for the express for Fremont's mail, the General's order requiring the 21 best in, Santa Fe." Colonel Cooke soon proved an officer who would enforce discipline. He had secured an able quartermaster in Lieut. George Stoneman, First Dragoons. Lieutenant Smith took office as acting commissary. Three mounted dragoons were taken along, one a trumpeter. An additional mounted company of New Mexican volunteers, planned at Santa Fe, could not be raised. Before the command got out of the Rio Grande Valley, the condition of the commissary best is to be illustrated by the following extract from verses written by Levi Hancock: "We sometimes now lack for bread, Are less than quarter rations fed, And soon expect, for all of meat, Nought less than broke-down mules to eat." The trip over the Continental Divide was one of hardship, at places tracks for the wagons being made by marching files of men ahead, to tramp down ruts wherein the wheels might run. The command for 48 hours at one time was without water. From the top of the Divide the wagons had to be taken down by hand, with men behind with ropes, the horses driven below. Finally a more level country was reached, December 2, at the old, ruined ranch of San Bernardino, near the south-eastern corner of the present Arizona. The principal interest of the trip, till the Mexican forces at Tucson were encountered, then lay in an attack upon the marching column by a number of wild bulls in the San Pedro Valley. It had been assumed that Cooke would follow down the San Pedro to the Gila, but, on learning that the better and shorter route was by way of Tucson, he determined upon a more southerly course. Capture of the Pueblo of Tucson Tucson was garrisoned by about 200 Mexican soldiers, with two small brass fieldpieces, a concentration of the garrisons of Tubac, Santa Cruz and Fronteras. After some brief parley, the Mexican commander, Captain Comaduron, refusing to surrender, left the village, compelling most of its inhabitants to accompany him. No resistance whatever was made. When the Battalion marched in, the Colonel took pains to assure the populace that all would be treated with kindness. He sent the Mexican commander a courteous letter for the Governor of Sonora, Don Manuel Gandara, who was reported "disgusted and disaffected to the imbecile central government." Little food was found for the men, but several thousand bushels of grain had been left and were drawn upon. On December 17, the day after the arrival of the command, the Colonel and after fifty men "passed up a creek about five miles above Tucson toward a village (San Xavier), where they had seen a large church from the hills they had passed over." The Mexican commander reported that the Americans had taken advantage of him, in that they had entered the town on Sunday, while he and his command and most of the inhabitants were absent at San Xavier, attending mass. The Pima villages were reached four days later. By Cooke the Indians were called "friendly, guileless and singularly innocent and cheerful people." In view of the prosperity of the Pima and Maricopa, Colonel Cooke suggested that this would be a good place for the exiled Saints to locate, and a proposal to this effect was favorably received by the Indians. It is possible that his suggestion had something to do with the colonizing by the Mormons of the upper part of the nearby Salt River Valley in later years. About January I, 1847, to lighten the load of the half-starved mules, a barge was made by placing two wagon bodies on dry cottonwood logs and on this 2500 pounds of provisions and corn were launched on the Gila River. The improvised boat found too many sandbars, and most of its cargo had to be jettisoned, lost in a time when rations had been reduced to a few ounces a day per man. January 9 the Colorado River was reached, and the command and its impedimenta were ferried over on the same raft contrivance that had proven ineffective on the Gila. Colonel Cooke, in his narrative concerning the practicability of the route he had taken, said: "Undoubtedly the fine bottomland of the Colorado, if not of the Gila, will soon be settled; then all difficulty will be removed." The Battalion had still more woe in its passage across the desert of Southern California, where wells often had to be dug for water and where rations were at a minimum, until Warner's ranch was reached, where each man was given five pounds of beef a day, constituting almost the sole article of subsistence. Tyler, the Battalion historian, insists that five pounds is really a small allowance for a healthy laboring man, because "when taken alone it is not nearly equal to mush and milk," and he referred to an issuance to each of Fremont's men of ten pounds per day of fat beef. Congratulation on Its Achievement At the Mission of San Diego, January 30, 1847, the proud Battalion Commander issued the following memorable order: "The Lieutenant-Colonel commanding congratulates the Battalion on their safe arrival on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, and the conclusion of their march of over 2000 miles. "History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry. Half of it has been through a wilderness, where nothing but savages and wild beasts are found, or deserts where, for want of water, there is no living creature. There, with almost hopeless labor we have dug wells, which the future traveler will enjoy. Without a guide who had traversed them, we have ventured into trackless tablelands where water was not found for several marches. With crowbar and pick, and ax in hand, we worked our way over mountains, which seemed to defy aught save the wild goat, and hewed a pass through a chasm of living rock more narrow than our wagons. To bring these first wagons to the Pacific, we have preserved the strength of our mules by herding them over large tracts, which you have laboriously guarded without loss. The garrisons of four presidios of Sonora concentrated within the walls of Tucson, gave us no pause. We drove them out with our artillery, but our intercourse with the citizens was unmarked by a single act of injustice. Thus, marching, half-naked and half-fed, and living upon wild animals, we have discovered and made a road of great value to our country. "Arrived at the first settlements of California, after a single day's rest, you cheerfully turned off from the route to this point of promised repose, to enter upon a campaign and meet, as we supposed, the approach of an enemy; and this, too, without even salt to season your sole subsistence of fresh meat. "Lieutenants A. J. Smith and George Stoneman of the First Dragoons have shared and given invaluable aid in all these labors. "Thus, volunteers, you have exhibited some high and essential qualities of veterans. But much remains undone. Soon you will turn your attention to the drill, to system and order, to forms also, which are all necessary to the soldier." Mapping the Way Through Arizona The only map of the route of the Mormon Battalion is one made by Colonel Cooke. Outlined on a map of Arizona, it is printed elsewhere in this work, insofar as it affects this State. The Colonel's map is hardly satisfactory, for only at a few points does he designate locations known today and his topography covers only the district within his vision as he marched. Judging from present information of the lay of the land, it is evident that LeRoux did not guide the Mormon Battalion on the easiest route. Possibly this was due to the fact that it was necessary to find water for each daily camp. The Rio Grande was left at a point 258 miles south of Santa Fe, not far from Mesilla. Thence the journey was generally toward the southwest, over a very rough country nearly all the way to the historic old rancho of San Bernardino, now on the international line about 25 miles east of the present city of Douglas. The rancho had been abandoned long before, because of the depredating Apaches. It was stated by Cooke that before it had been deserted, on it were 80,000 cattle, ranging as far as the Gila to the northward. The hacienda was enclosed by a wall, with two regular bastions, and there was a spring fifteen feet in diameter. The departure from San Bernardino was on December 4, 1846, the day's march to a camp in a pass eight miles to the westward, near a rocky basin of water and beneath a peak which Nature apparently had painted green, yellow and brown. This camp was noted as less than twenty miles from Fronteras, Mexico, and near a Coyotero trail into Mexico. On the 5th was a march of fourteen miles, to a large spring. This must have been almost south of Douglas or Agua Prieta (Blackwater). On the 6th the Battalion cut its way twelve miles through mesquite to a water hole in a fine grove of oak and walnut. It is suggested by Geo. H. Kelly that this was in Anavacachi Pass, twelve miles southwest of Douglas. On December 8 seventeen miles were made northwest, to a dry camp, with a view of the valley of the San Pedro. On the 9th, either ten or sixteen miles, for the narrative is indefinite, the San Pedro was crossed and there was camp six miles lower down on the western side. There is notation that the river was followed for 65 miles, one of the camps being at what was called the Canyon San Pedro, undoubtedly at The Narrows, just above Charleston. December 14 there was a turn westward and at a distance of nine miles was found a direct trail to Tucson. The day's march was twenty miles, probably terminating at about Pantano, in the Cienega Wash, though this is only indicated by the map or description. On the 15th was a twelve-mile march to a dry camp and on the 16th, after a sixteen-mile march, camp was made a half mile west of the pueblo of Tucson. From Tucson to the Pima villages on the Gila River, a distance of about 73 miles, the way was across the desert, practically on the present line of the Southern Pacific railroad. Sixty-two miles were covered in 51 hours. At the Gila there was junction with General Kearny's route. From the Pima villages westward there is mention of a dry "jornada" (journey) of about forty miles, caused by a great bend of the Gila River. Thus is indicated that the route was by way of Estrella Pass, south of the Sierra Estrella, on the present railroad line, and not by the alternative route, just south of and along the river and north of the mountains. Thereafter the marches averaged only ten miles a day, through much sand, as far as the Colorado, which was reached January 8, 1847. The Battalion's route across Arizona at only one point cut a spot of future Mormon settlement. This was in the San Pedro Valley, where the march of a couple of days was through a fertile section that was occupied in 1878 by a community of the faith from Lehi. This community, now known as St. David, is referred to elsewhere, at length. Manufactures of the Arizona Indians Colonel Cooke told that the Maricopas, near the junction of the Gila and the Salt, had piled on their house arbors "cotton in the pod for drying." As he passed in the latter days of the year, it is probable he saw merely the bolls that had been left unopened after frost had come, and that this was not the ordinary method for handling cotton. That considerable cotton was grown is evidenced by the fact that a part of Cooke's company purchased cotton blankets. Historian Tyler states that when he reached Salt Lake the most material feature of his clothing equipment was a Pima blanket, from this proceeding an inference that the Indians made cotton goods of lasting and wearing quality. In the northern part of Arizona, the Hopi also raised cotton and made cloth and blankets, down to the time of the coming of the white man, with his gaudy calicoes that undoubtedly were given prompt preference in the color-loving aboriginal eye. Cooke's Story of the March "The Conquest of New Mexico and California" is the title of an excellent and entertaining volume written in 1878 by Lieut.-Col. P. St. George Cooke, commander of the Battalion. It embraces much concerning the political features found or developed in both Territories and deals somewhat with the Kearny expedition and with the Doniphan campaign into Mexico that moved from Socorro two months after the Battalion started westward from the Rio Grande. Despite his eloquent acknowledgment of good service in the San Diego order, he had little to say in his narrative concerning the personnel of his command. In addition to the estimate of the command printed on a preceding page, he wrote, "The Battalion have never been drilled and though obedient, have little discipline; they exhibit great heedlessness and ignorance and some obstinacy." The ignorance undoubtedly was of military matters, for the men had rather better than the usual schooling of the rough period. At several points his diary gave such details as, "The men arrived completely worn down; they staggered as they marched, as they did yesterday. A great many of the men are wholly without shoes and use every expedient, such as rawhide moccasins and sandals and even wrapping the feet in pieces of woolen and cotton cloth." It is evident that to the Colonel's West Point ideas of discipline the conduct of his command was a source of irritation that eventually was overcome when he found he could depend upon the individuals as well as upon the companies. Several stories are told of his encounters in repartee with his soldiers, in which he did not always have the upper hand, despite his rank. Brusque in manner, he yet had a saving sense of humor that had to be drawn upon to carry off situations that would have been intolerable in his own command of dragoons. Tyler's Record of the Expedition The best of the narratives concerning the march of the Battalion is in a book printed in 1881 by Daniel Tyler, an amplification of a remarkable diary kept by him while a member of the organization. This book has an exceptionally important introduction, written by John Taylor, President of the Mormon Church, detailing at length the circumstances that led to the western migration of his people. He is especially graphic in his description of the riots of the summer of 1844, culminating in the assassination of Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum at Carthage, Illinois, on June 27th. Taylor was with the Prophet at the time and was badly wounded. There also is an interesting introductory chapter, written by Col. Thos. L. Kane, not a Mormon, dramatically dwelling upon the circumstances of the exodus from Nauvoo and the later dedication there of the beautiful temple, abandoned immediately thereafter. He wrote also of the Mormon camps that were then working westward, describing the high spirit and even cheerfulness in which the people were accepting exile from a grade of civilization that had made them prefer the wilds. Colonel Kane helped in the organization of the Battalion, in bringing influence to bear upon the President and in carrying to Fort Leavenworth the orders under which the then Colonel Kearny proceeded. Henry Standage's Personal Journal One of the treasures of the Arizona Historian's office is a copy of a journal of about 12,000 words kept by Henry Standage, covering his service as a member of the Mormon Battalion from July 19, 1846, to July 19, 1847. The writer in his later years was a resident of Mesa, his home in Alma Ward. His manuscript descended to his grandsons, Orrin and Clarence Standage. Standage writes from the standpoint of the private soldier, with the soldier's usual little growl over conditions that affect his comfort; yet, throughout the narrative, there is evidence of strong integrity of purpose, of religious feeling and of sturdiness befitting a good soldier. There is pathos in the very start, how he departed from the Camp of Israel, near Council Bluffs, leaving his wife and mother in tears. He had been convinced by T. B. Platt of the necessity of obedience to the call of the President of the United States to enlist in the federal service. The narrative contradicts in no way the more extensive chronicle by Tyler. There is description of troubles that early beset the inexperienced soldiers, who appear to have been illy prepared to withstand the inclemency of the weather. There was sage dissertation concerning the efforts of an army surgeon to use calomel, though the men preferred the exercise of faith. Buffalo was declared the best meat he had ever eaten. On November 1 satisfaction was expressed concerning substitution to the place of Philemon C. Merrill. When the sick were sent to Pueblo, November 10, Standage fervently wrote, "This does in reality make solemn times for us, so many divisions taking place. May the God of Heaven protect us all." [Illustration 1: MORMON BATTALION OFFICERS 1--P. St. George Cooke, Lieut. Col. Commanding 2--Lieut. George P. Dykes, Adjutant, succeeded by 3--Lieut. Philemon C. Merrill, Adjutant] [Illustration 2: BATTALION MEMBERS AT GOLD DISCOVERY Above--Henry W. Bigler, Azariah Smith Below--Wm. J. Johnston, James S. Brown] [Illustration: BATTALION MEMBERS WHO RETURNED TO ARIZONA 1--Sergt. Nathaniel V. Jones 2--Wm. C. McClellan 3--Sanford Porter 4--Lot Smith 5--John Hunt 6--Wilson D. Pace 7--Samuel Lewis 8--Wesley Adair 9--Lieut. James Pace 10--Christopher Layton] San Bernardino, in Sonora, was reached December 2, being found in ruins, "though all around us a pleasant valley with good water and grass." Appreciation was expressed over the flavor of "a kind of root, baked, which the Spaniards called mas kurl" (mescal). Many of the cattle had Spanish brands on their hips, it being explained, "Indians had been so troublesome in times past that the Spaniards had to abandon the towns and vineyards, and cross the Cordillera Mountains, leaving their large flocks of cattle in the valley, thus making plenty of food for the Apalchas." In San Pedro valley were found "good horse feed and fish in abundance (salmon trout), large herds of wild cattle and plenty of antelope and some bear." The San Pedro River was especially noted as having "mill privileges in abundance." Here it was that Lieutenant Stoneman, accidentally shot himself in the hand. Two old deserted towns were passed. Standage tells that the Spanish soldiers had gone from Tucson when the Battalion arrived, but that, "we were kindly treated by the people, who brought flour, meal, tobacco and quinces to the camp for sale, and many of them gave such things to the soldiers. We camped about a half mile from the town. The Colonel suffered no private property to be touched, neither was it in the heart of any man to my knowledge to do so." Considering the strength of the Spanish garrison, Standage was led to exclaim that, "the Lord God of Israel would save his people, inasmuch as he knoweth the causes of our being here in the United States." Possibly it was unfair to say that no one but the Lord knew why the soldiers were there, and Tucson then was not in the United States. The journey to the Gila River was a hard one, but the chronicler was compensated by seeing "the long looked-for country of California," which it was not. The Pimas were found very friendly, bringing food, which they readily exchanged for such things as old shirts. Standage especially was impressed by the eating of a watermelon, for the day was Christmas. January 10, 1847, at the crossing of the Colorado, he was detailed to the gathering of mesquite beans, "a kind of sweet seed that grows on a tree resembling the honey locust, the mules and men being very fond of this. The brethren use this in various ways, some grinding it and mixing it in bread with the flour, others making pudding, while some roast it or eat it raw." "January 27, at 1 o'clock, we came in sight of the ocean, the great Pacific, which was a great sight to some, having never seen any portion of the briny deep before." California Towns and Soldier Experiences At San Diego, which was reached by Standage and a small detachment January 30, provisions were found very scarce, while prices were exorbitant. Sugar cost 50 cents a pound, so the soldier regaled himself with one-quarter of a pound and gathered some mustard greens to eke out his diet. For 26 days he had eaten almost nothing but beef. He purchased a little wheat from the Indians and ground it in a hand mill, to make some cakes, which were a treat. Late in April, at Los Angeles, there was a move to another camping ground, "as the Missouri volunteers (Error, New York volunteers--Author) had threatened to come down upon us. A few days later we were called up at night in order to load and fix bayonets, as Colonel Cooke had sent word that an attack might be expected from Colonel Fremont's men before day. They had been using all possible means to prejudice the Spaniards and Indians against us." Los Angeles made poor impression upon the soldiers in the Battalion. The inhabitants were called "degraded" and it was declared that there were almost as many grog shops and gambling dens as private houses. Reference is made to the roofs of reeds, covered with pitch from tar springs nearby. Incidentally, these tar "springs" in a later century led to development of the oil industry, that now is paramount in much of California, and have been found to contain fossil remains of wonderful sort. The Indians were said "to do all the labor, the Mexicans generally on horseback from morning till night. They are perhaps the greatest horsemen in the known world and very expert with lariat and lasso, but great gamblers." Food assuredly was not dear, for cattle sold for $5 a head. Many cattle were killed merely for hides and tallow and for the making of soap. About the most entertaining section of Standage's journal is that which chronicles his stay in Southern California, possibly because it gave him an opportunity to do something else beside tramping. There is much detail concerning re-enlistment, but there was general inclination to follow the advice of Father Pettegrew, who showed "the necessity of returning to the prophets of the Lord before going any further." Just before the muster-out, the soldiers were given an opportunity to witness a real Spanish bull fight, called "a scene of cruelty, savoring strongly of barbarity and indolence, though General Pico, an old Mexican commander, went into the ring several times on horseback and fought the bulls with a short spear." What with the hostility of the eastern volunteers, the downright enmity of Fremont's company and the alien habits of the Mexican population, the sober-minded members of the Battalion must have been compelled to keep their own society very largely while in the pueblo of Los Angeles, or, to give it its Spanish appellation, "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula." Still, some of them tried to join in the diversions of the people of the country. On one occasion, according to Historian Eldridge, there was something of a quarrel between Captain Hunt and Alcalde Carrillo, who had given offense by observing that the American officer "danced like a bear." The Alcalde apologized very courteously, saying that bears were widely known as dancers, but the breach was not healed. Christopher Layton's Soldiering. Another history of the Battalion especially interesting from an Arizona standpoint, is contained in the life of Christopher Layton, issued in 1911 and written by Layton's daughter, Mrs. Selina Layton Phillips, from data supplied by the Patriarch. The narrative is one of the best at hand in the way of literary preparation, though with frank statement that President Layton himself had all too little education for the accomplishment of such a task. Layton was a private soldier in Company C, under Capt. James Brown. There is nothing of especial novelty in the narrative, nor does there seem anything of prophecy when the Battalion passed through the Valley of the San Pedro in December, 1846, through a district to which Layton was to return, in 1883, as leader of a Mormon colony. Layton was one of the number that remained in California after the discharge of the Battalion, eventually rejoining the Saints, at Salt Lake, by way of his native land, England. In B. H. Roberts' very interesting little work on the Mormon Battalion is told this story of the later patriarch of the Gila settlement: "While Colonel Cooke was overseeing the ferrying of the Battalion across the Colorado River, Christopher Layton rode up to the river on a mule, to let it drink. Colonel Cooke said to him, 'Young man, I want you to ride across the river and carry a message for me to Captain Hunt.' It being natural for the men to obey the Colonel's order, he (Layton) tried to ride into the river, but he had gone but a few steps before his mule was going in all over. So Brother Layton stopped. The Colonel hallooed out, 'Go on, young man; go on, young man.' But Brother Layton, on a moment's reflection, was satisfied that, if he attempted it, both he and his mule would stand a good chance to be drowned. The Colonel himself was satisfied of the same. So Brother Layton turned his mule and rode off, saying, as he came out, 'Colonel, I'll see you in hell before I will drown myself and mule in that river.' The Colonel looked at him a moment, and said to the bystanders, 'What is that man's name?' 'Christopher Layton, sir.' 'Well, he is a saucy fellow.'" That the Mormon Battalion did not always rigidly obey orders is shown in another story detailed by Roberts: "While the Battalion was at Santa Fe, Colonel Cooke ordered Lot Smith to guard a Mexican corral, and, having a company of United States cavalry camped by, he told Lot if the men came to steal the poles to bayonet them. The men came and surrounded the corral, and while Lot was guarding one side, they would hitch to a pole on the other and ride off with it. When the Colonel saw the poles were gone, he asked Lot why he did not obey orders and bayonet the thieves. Lot replied, 'If you expect me to bayonet United States troops for taking a pole on the enemy's ground to make a fire of, you mistake your man.' Lot expected to be punished, and he was placed under guard; but nothing further was done about it." Western Dash of the Kearny Dragoons Of collateral interest is the record of the Kearny expedition. The Colonel, raised to General at Santa Fe, left that point September 25, 1846, with 300 dragoons, under Col. E.V. Sumner. The historians of the party were Lieut. W.H. Emory of the Corps of Topographical Engineers (later in charge of the Boundary Survey) and Capt. A. R. Johnston, the latter killed at San Pascual. Kearny was piloted by the noted Kit Carson, who was turned back as he was traveling eastward with dispatches from Fremont. The Gila route was taken, though there had to be a detour at the box canyon above the mouth of the San Pedro. Emory and Johnston wrote much of the friendly Pima. The former made prophecy, since sustained, concerning the development of the Salt and other river valleys, and the working of great copper deposits noted by him on the Gila, at Mineral Creek. The Colorado was crossed November 24. On December 6 the small command, weary with its march and illy provisioned, was attacked at San Pascual by Gen. Andres Pico. Two days of fighting found the Americans in sad plight, with eighteen killed and thirteen wounded. The enemy had been severely handled, but still barred the way to the nearby seacoast. Guide Kit Carson and Naval Lieutenant E.F. Beale managed to slip through to San Diego, there to summon help. It came to the beleaguered Americans December 10, a party of 180 well-armed sailors and marines, sent by Commodore Stockton, falling upon the rear of the Mexican host, which dispersed. The following day, Kearny entered San Diego, thence proceeding northward to help in the final overthrow of Mexican authority within Alta California. Chapter Three The Battalion's Muster-Out Heading Eastward Toward "Home" Muster-out of the Battalion was at Los Angeles, July 16, 1847, just a year after enlistment, eight days before Brigham Young reached Great Salt Lake. The joyous ceremonial was rather marred by the fact that the muster-out officer was none other than Lieutenant Smith. There was an attempt to keep the entire Battalion in the service, both Kearny and Colonel Mason urging reenlistment. At the same time was an impolitic speech by Colonel Stevenson of the New York Volunteers. He said: "Your patriotism and obedience to your officers have done much toward removing the prejudices of the Government and the community at large, and I am satisfied that another year's service would place you on a level with other communities." This speech hardly helped in inclining the men toward extension of a service in which it was felt all that had been required had been delivered. Stevenson, a politician rather than a soldier, seemed to have a theory that the Mormons were seeking reenlistment of a second battalion or regiment, that California might be peopled by themselves. There was opposition to reenlistment among the elders, especially voiced by "Father" Pettegrew and by members Hyde and Tyler. Even promise that independent command would be given to Captain Hunt did not prove effective. Only one company was formed of men who were willing to remain in California for a while longer. In this new company were Henry G. Boyle, Henry Brizzee, Lot Smith and George Steele, all later residents of Arizona. Most of the soldiers of the Battalion made haste in preparation to rejoin the main body of the people of their faith. Assuredly they had little knowledge of what was happening in the Rocky Mountains. On the 20th of July, four days before the Mormon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, most of the men had been organized to travel "home" after what Tyler called "both the ancient and the modern Israelitish custom, in companies of hundreds, fifties and tens." The leaders were Andrew Lytle and James Pace, with Sergeants Hyde, Tyler and Reddick N. Allred as captains of fifties. The first intention to travel via Cajon Pass was abandoned, and the companies took the northern route, via Sutter's Fort on the Sacramento River, to follow Fremont's trail across the Sierras. On the Sacramento they received the first news of their brethren since leaving Fort Leavenworth, a year before. They learned that the Saints were settling the Great Salt Lake Valley, and there also was news of the Brannan party at San Francisco. With full assent from the leaders, some of the brethren remained in the vicinity of Sutter's Fort, where work was plenty, and probably half of those who went on across the mountains returned on receipt of advices that came to them at Donner Lake, at the hands of Capt. James Brown, of the Pueblo detachment. The Church authorities instructed all who had insufficient means to remain in California and labor and to bring their earnings with them in the spring. Tyler, with his party, arrived in Salt Lake Valley October 16, to find his relatives living in a fort, which had all rooms opening into an enclosure, with port-holes for defense cut in the outer walls. The new company, with additional enlistment of six months, was placed under Capt. Daniel C. Davis, who had been in command of Company E. The company was marched to San Diego, arriving August 2. A detachment under Lieut. Ruel Barrus garrisoned San Luis Rey. In San Diego the men appeared to have had little military duty. They were allowed to work as mechanics, repaired wagons, did blacksmithing and erected a bakery. They became very popular with the townspeople, who wanted to retain them as permanent residents. It was noted that the Mormons had conquered prejudice and had effected a kind of industrial revolution in languid Alta California. [Illustration: BATTALION MEMBERS WHO RETURNED TO ARIZONA 1--Samuel H. Rogers 6--Hyrum Judd 2--Henry Standage 7--Samuel Thompson 3--Edward Bunker 8--Wm. A. Follett 4--Henry W. Brizzee 9--Schuyler Hulett 5--George Steele 10--David Pulsipher] [Illustration: BATTALION MEMBERS WHO RETURNED TO ARIZONA 1--Rufus C. Allen 2--John Steele 3--Reuben Allred 4--Elzada Ford Allred 5--Wm. B. Maxwell 6--Henry G. Boyle 7--Zadok K. Judd] The enlistment term expired in January, but it was March, 1848, before the men were paid off and discharged. Most of the 78 members of the company went northward, but one party of 22, led by Henry G. Boyle, taking a wagon and 135 mules, started to Salt Lake by way of the Mojave desert, reaching its destination June 5. This would appear to have been a very important journey, the party probably being first with wagons to travel what later became known as the Mormon road. Following the very practical customs of their people, the members of the Battalion picked up in California a large quantity of seeds and grains for replanting in Utah, welcomed in establishing the marvelous agricultural community there developed. Lieut. James Pace brought in the club-head wheat, which proved especially suited to inter-mountain climatic conditions. From Pueblo other members brought the Taos wheat, which also proved valuable. Daniel Tyler brought the California pea. Although the Author has seen little mention of it, the Battalion membership took to Utah much valuable information concerning methods of irrigation, gained at Pueblo, in the Rio Grande Valley and in California. While most of the emigrants were of the farming class, their experience had been wholly in the Mississippi Valley or farther east, where the rains alone were depended upon to furnish the moisture necessary for crops. With the Pueblo Detachment Capt. James Brown would have led his band from Pueblo as soon as the snows had melted in the passes, but held back on receipt of information that the main body of Saints still was on the plains. As it was, he and his charge arrived at Salt Lake, July 29, 1847, five days after the advent of Brigham Young. Brown remained only a few days, setting out early in August for California, there to receive the pay of his command. The main body had been paid off at Los Angeles, July 15. On his westward way, Brown led a small company over the Carson route. In the Sierras, September 6, he met the first returning detachment of Battalion soldiers. To them he delivered letters from the First Presidency telling of the scarcity of food in the Salt Lake Valley. Sam Brannan, leader at San Francisco, had passed, going westward, only the day before, giving a gloomy account of the new home of the Saints. So about half the Battalion men turned back to Sutter's Fort, presumably with Brown. Brown returned from Los Angeles with the pay of his men, money sorely needed. The Pueblo detachment arrived in Salt Lake with about fifty individuals from Mississippi added to the 150 men and women who had been separated from the main body of the Battalion in New Mexico. Forty-six of the Battalion men accompanied President Young when he started back, August 8, for Winter Quarters, on the west side of the Missouri, five miles above Omaha, to help in piloting over the plains the main body of Saints. Captain Brown, according to a Brigham Young manuscript, was absent in California three months and seven days, returning late in November, 1847, bringing back with him the pay due the Pueblo contingent. Several stories were given concerning the amount. One was that it was about $5000, mainly in gold, and another that the amount was $10,000 in Mexican doubloons. The Pueblo detachment had been paid last in Santa Fe in May, 1846. The muster-out rolls were taken by Brown to Paymaster Rich of Colonel Mason's command in California. Pay included July 29, 1847, thirteen days after expiration of the term of enlistment. A part of the money, apparently considered as community property, was used early in 1848 in the purchase of a tract of land, about twenty miles square, at the mouth of Weber Canyon. The sum of $1950, cash, was paid to one Goodyear, who claimed to own a Mexican grant, but who afterward proved to have only a squatter right. The present city of Ogden is on this same tract. California Comments on the Battalion Very generally there has come down evidence that the men of the Battalion were of very decent sort. Colonel Mason, commanding the California military department, in June, 1847, made report to the Adjutant General of the Army: "Of the service of this Battalion, of their patience, subordination and general good conduct you have already heard; and I take great pleasure in adding that as a body of men they have religiously respected the rights and feelings of these conquered people, and not a syllable of complaint has reached my ears of a single insult offered or outrage done by a Mormon volunteer. So high an opinion did I entertain of the Battalion and of their especial fitness for the duties now performed by the garrisons in this country that I made strenuous efforts to engage their services for another year." With reference to the Mormon Battalion, Father Engelhardt, in his "Missions and Missionaries of California," wrote: "It is not likely that these Mormons, independent of United States and military regulations, would have wantonly destroyed any part of the church property or church fixtures during their several months' stay at San Luis Rey. Whatever some of the moral tenets held by them in those days, the Mormons, to all appearances, were a God-fearing body, who ... manifested some respect for the religious convictions and feelings of other men, notably of the Catholics. It is, therefore, highly improbable that they ... raved against ... religious emblems found in the missions of California. On the contrary, they appear to have let everything alone, even made repairs, and minded their own duties to their Creator, in that they practiced their religion openly whithersoever they went...." Leaders of the Battalion Colonel Cooke for a while was in command of the southern half of Alta California, incidentally coming into a part of the row created when Fremont laid claim upon the governorship of the Territory. In this his men were affected to a degree, for Fremont's father-in-law and patron, Senator Benton, was believed one of the bitterest foes of the Mormon people. Cooke resigned as lieutenant-colonel of volunteers, effective May 13, 1847, he thus leaving the Battalion before the date of its discharge. He accompanied General Kearny on an 83-day ride eastward, returning to Fort Leaven worth August 22. With them was Fremont, arrested, charged with mutiny in refusing to acknowledge the authority of Kearny in California. He was found guilty, but a sentence of dismissal from the army was remitted by President Polk. Fremont immediately resigned from the service. Cooke, in 1857-8, led the cavalry of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston's expedition to Utah and there is a memorandum that, when his regiment marched through the streets of Salt Lake City, the Colonel rode with uncovered head, "out of respect to the brave men of the Mormon Battalion he had commanded in their march to the Pacific." In the Civil War he was a brigadier-general, with brevet of major-general in 1865. Lieut. A. J. Smith, whose disciplinary ideas may have been too severe for a command that started with such small idea of discipline, nevertheless proved a brave and skillful officer. He rose in 1864 to be major-general of volunteers and was brevetted major-general of regulars for distinguished service in command of the Sixteenth army corps, under General Thomas, at the battle of Nashville. Lieut. George Stoneman in 1854 commanded a dragoon escort for Lieut. J. G. Parke, who laid out a railroad route across Arizona, from the Pima villages through Tucson, much on the line of the present Southern Pacific. He was a captain, commanding Fort Brown, Texas, at the outbreak of the Civil War, in which he rose to the rank of major-general of volunteers, with fame in the Virginia campaign as chief of cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, in which he later was a division and corps commander. In 1870 and 1871 he commanded the military department of Arizona, during the time of the Old Fort Grant massacre, and his name is still borne by the Stoneman Grade, above Silver King, a trail built by him to better command the Indian-infested mountains beyond. He was Democratic Governor of California from 1883 to 1887. A son, Geo. J. Stoneman, for years resided in Phoenix. Lieut. Edw. F. Beale, who helped save the Kearny expedition near San Diego was a member of a party that had been sent from San Diego to meet the dragoons. The following March, he and Carson carried dispatches east, taking the Gila route. In August, 1848, again in California, he was made the naval messenger to advise Washington of the discovery of gold in California. In 1857 he made a remarkable survey of the 35th parallel across Arizona, using camels, and he repeated the trip in 1859. The camels had been brought from Syria. They carried three times a mule load and were declared ideal for pioneer transportation uses. But Beale was alone in their praise and the camels eventually were turned loose on the plains. He was minister to Austria in 1878. Both adjutants of the Mormon Battalion later became permanent residents of Arizona. Geo. P. Dykes for years was a resident of Mesa, where he died in 1888, at the age of 83. Philemon C. Merrill, in 1881, was one of the custodians of the Utah stone, sent from Salt Lake, for insertion in the Washington Monument, in Washington. He and his family constituted the larger part of the D.W. Jones party that founded Lehi in March, 1877, and it was he, who, soon thereafter, led in the settlement of St. David in the San Pedro Valley, on the route of the Mormon Battalion march. He died at San Jose, in the Gila Valley, September 15, 1904. Pauline Weaver, the principal guide, was a Frenchman, who had been in the Southwest at least since 1832, when he visited the Pima villages and Casa Grande. In 1862, while trapping, he was one of the discoverers of the La Paz gold diggings. The following year he was with the Peeples party that found gold on Rich Hill, in central Arizona. Thereafter he was an army scout. He died at Camp Verde in 1866. Antoine LeRoux, the other guide named, was with the Whipple expedition across northern Arizona in 1853. His name is borne by LeRoux Springs, northwest of Flagstaff, and by LeRoux Wash, near Holbrook. Passing of the Battalion Membership No member of the Mormon Battalion now is living. The last to pass was Harley Mowrey, private Co. C, who died in his home in Vernal, Utah, October 21, 1920, at the age of 98. He was one of the men sent from New Mexico to Pueblo and who arrived at Salt Lake a few days after the Pioneers. On the way to Salt Lake he married the widow of another Battalion member, Martha Jane Sharp, who survives, as well as seven children, 41 grandchildren, 94 great-grandchildren and thirty of the latest generation. Mowrey and wife were members of the San Bernardino colony. A Memorial of Noble Conception On the Capitol grounds at Salt Lake soon is to arise a noble memorial of the service of the Mormon Battalion. The legislature of Utah has voted toward the purpose $100,000, contingent upon the contribution of a similar sum at large. A State Monument Commission has been created, headed by B.H. Roberts, and this organization has been extended to all parts of Utah, Idaho and Arizona. In the 1921 session of the Arizona Legislature was voted a contribution to the Battalion Monument Fund of $2500 this with expression of State pride in the achievement that meant so much to the Southwest and Pacific Coast. From nineteen designs submitted have been selected the plans of G. P. Riswold. A condensed description of the monument is contained in a report of the Commission: "The base is in triangular form, with concave sides and rounded corners. A bronze figure of a Battalion man is mounted upon the front corner. Flanking him on two sides of the triangle are: cut in high relief, on the left, the scene of the enlistment of the Battalion under the flag of the United States of America; on the right a scene of the march, where the men are assisting in pulling the wagons of their train up and over a precipitous ascent, while still others are ahead, widening a cut to permit the passage of the wagons between the out-jutting rocks. The background is a representation of mountains of the character through which the Battalion and its train passed on its journey to the Pacific. "Just below the peak, in the center and in front of it, is chiseled a beautiful head and upper part of a woman, symbolizing the 'Spirit of the West.' She personifies the impulsive power and motive force that sustained these Battalion men, and led them, as a vanguard of civilization, across the trackless plains and through the difficult defiles and passes of the mountains. The idea of the sculptor in the 'Spirit of the West' is a magnificent conception and should dominate the whole monument. "The bronze figure of the Battalion man is dignified, strong and reverential. He excellently typifies that band of pioneer soldiers which broke a way through the rugged mountains and over trackless wastes. "Hovering over and above him, the beautiful female figure, with an air of solicitous care, guards him in his reverie. Her face stands out in full relief, the hair and diaphanous drapery waft back, mingling with the clouds, while the figure fades into dim outline in the massive peaks and mountains, seeming to pervade the air and the soil with her very soul." Battalion Men Who Became Arizonans Of the Battalion members, 33 are known to have become later residents of Arizona, with addition of one of the women who had accompanied the Battalion to Santa Fe and who had wintered at Pueblo. There is gratification over the fact that it has been found possible to secure photographs of nearly all the 33. Reproduction of these photographs accompanies this chapter. When this work was begun, only about ten Battalion members could be located as having been resident in this State. Some of those who came back to Arizona were notable in their day, for all of them now have made the last march of humanity. Jas. S. Brown, who helped find gold in California, was an early Indian missionary on the Muddy and in northeastern Arizona. Edward Bunker founded Bunkerville, a Virgin River settlement, and later died on the San Pedro, at St. David. Geo. P. Dykes, who was the first adjutant of the Battalion, did service for his Church in 1849 and 1850 in Great Britain and Denmark. Philemon C. Merrill, who succeeded Dykes as adjutant, was one of the most prominent of the pioneers of the San Pedro and Gila valleys. There is special mention, elsewhere, of Christopher Layton. In the same district, at Thatcher, lived and died Lieut. James Pace. Henry Standage was one of the first settlers of Alma Ward, near Mesa. Lot Smith, one of the vanguard in missionary work in northeastern Arizona and a leader in the settlement of the Little Colorado Valley, was slain by one of the Indians to whose service he had dedicated himself. Henry W. Brizzee was a leading pioneer of Mesa. Henry G. Boyle became the first president of the Southern States mission of his church, and was so impressed with the view he had of Arizona, in Battalion days, that, early in 1877, he sent into eastern Arizona a party of Arkansas immigrants. Adair, in southern Navajo County, was named after a Battalion member. A complete list of Arizona Battalion members follows: Wesley Adair, Co. C.--Showlow. Rufus C. Allen, Co. A.--Las Vegas. Reuben W. Allred, Co. A.--Pima. Mrs. Elzada Ford Allred--Accompanied husband. Henry G. Boyle, Co. C.--Pima. Henry W. Brizzee, Co. D.--Mesa. James S. Brown, Co. D.--Moen Copie. Edward Bunker, Co. E.--St. David. George P. Dykes, Co. D.--Mesa. Wm. A. Follett, Co. E.--Near Showlow. Schuyler Hulett, Co. A.--Phoenix. John Hunt--Snowflake--Accompanied his father, Capt. Jefferson Hunt. Marshall (Martial) Hunt, Co. A.--Snowflake. Wm. J. Johnston, Co. C.--Mesa.. Nathaniel V. Jones, Co. D.--Las Vegas. Hyrum Judd, Co. E.--Sunset and Pima. Zadok Judd, Co. E.--Fredonia. Christopher Layton, Co. C.--Thatcher. Samuel Lewis, Co. C.--Thatcher. Wm. B. Maxwell, Co. D.--Springerville. Wm. C. McClellan, Co. E.--Sunset. Philemon C. Merrill, Co. B.--Pima. James Pace, Co. E.--Thatcher. Wilson D. Pace, Co. E.--Thatcher. Sanford Porter, Co. E.--Sunset. Wm. C. Prous (Prows), Co. B.--Mesa. David Pulsipher, Co. C.--Concho. Samuel H. Rogers, Co. B.--Snowflake. Henry Standage, Co. E.--Mesa. George E. Steele, Co. A.--Mesa. John Steele, Co. D.--Moen Copie. Lot Smith, Co. E.--Sunset and Tuba. Samuel Thompson, Co. C.--Mesa. [Illustration: THE MORMON BATTALION MONUMENT Proposed to be erected at a cost of $200,000 on the Utah State Capitol Grounds.] [Illustration: OLD SPANISH TOWN OF TUBAC. Map made 1754. Where a Mormon Colony located in the fall of 1851; 42 miles south of Tucson.] Chapter Four California's Mormon Pilgrims The Brooklyn Party at San Francisco The members of the Mormon Battalion were far from being the first of their faith to tread the golden sands of California. Somehow, in the divine ordering of things mundane, the Mormons generally were very near the van of Anglo-Saxon settlement of the States west of the Rockies. Thus it happened that on July 29, 1846, only three weeks after the American naval occupation of the harbor, there anchored inside the Golden Gate the good ship Brooklyn, that had brought from New York 238 passengers, mainly Saints, the first American contribution of material size to the population of the embarcadero of Yerba Buena, where now is the lower business section of the stately city of San Francisco. The Brooklyn, of 450 tons burden, had sailed from New York February 4, 1846, the date happening to be the same as that on which began the exodus from Nauvoo westward. The voyage was an authorized expedition, counseled by President Brigham Young and his advisers in the early winter. At one time it was expected that thousands would take the water route to the west shore, on their way to the Promised Land. Elder Samuel Brannan was in charge of the first company, which mainly consisted of American farmer folk from the eastern and middle-western States. The ship had been chartered for $1200 a month and port charges. Fare had been set at $50 for all above fourteen years and half-fare for children above five. Addition was made of $25 for provisions. The passengers embraced seventy men, 68 women and about 100 children. There was a freight of farming implements and tools, seeds, a printing press, many school books, etc. The voyage appears to have been even a pleasant one, though with a few notations of sickness, deaths and births and of trials that set a small number of the passengers aside from the Church. Around Cape Horn and as far as the Robinson Crusoe island of Juan Fernandez, off the Chilian coast, the seas were calm. Thereafter were two storms of serious sort, but without phase of disaster to the pilgrims. The next stop was at Honolulu, on the Hawaiian Islands, thence the course being fair for the Golden Gate. When Captain Richardson dropped his anchors in the cove of Yerba Buena it appears to have been the first time that the emigrants appreciated they had arrived at anything save a colony of old Mexico. But when a naval officer boarded the ship and advised the passengers they were in the United States, "there arose a hearty cheer," though Brannan has been quoted as hardly pleased over the sight of the Stars and Stripes. Beginnings of a Great City As written by Augusta Joyce Cocheron, one of the emigrants: "They crowded upon the deck, women and children, questioning husbands and fathers, and studied the picture before them--they would never see it just the same again--as the foggy curtains furled towards the azure ceiling. How it imprinted itself upon their minds! A long sandy beach strewn with hides and skeletons of slaughtered cattle, a few scrubby oaks, farther back low sand hills rising behind each other as a background to a few old shanties that leaned away from the wind, an old adobe barracks, a few donkeys plodding dejectedly along beneath towering bundles of wood, a few loungers stretched lazily upon the beach as though nothing could astonish them; and between the picture and the emigrants still loomed up here and there, at the first sight more distinctly, the black vessels--whaling ships and sloops of war--that was all, and that was Yerba Buena, now San Francisco, the landing place for the pilgrims of faith." In John P. Young's "Journalism in California" is recited: "It is not without significance that the awakening of Yerba Buena did not occur till the advent of the printing press. From the day when Leese built his store in 1836 till the arrival of the Mormon colony on July 31, 1846, the village retained all the peculiarities of a poverty-stricken settlement of the Spanish-American type. From that time forward changes began to occur indicative of advancement and it is impossible to disassociate them from the fact that a part of the Brooklyn's cargo was a press and a font of type, and that the 238 colonists aboard that vessel and others who found their way to the little town, brought with them books--more, one careful writer tells us, than could be found at the time in all the rest of the Territory put together." Brannan and his California Star had a part in the very naming of San Francisco. This occurred January 30, 1847, rather hurried by discovery of the fact that a rival settlement on the upper bay proposed to take the name. So there was formal announcement in the Star that, from that date forward, there would be abandonment of the name Yerba Buena, as local and appertaining only to the cove, and adoption of the name of San Francisco. This announcement was signed by the Alcalde, Lieut. Washington A. Bartlett, who had been detached by Capt. J. B. Montgomery from the man-of-war Portsmouth on September 15, 1846, and who rejoined his ship the following February. One of the Brooklyn's passengers in later years became a leader in the settlement of Mesa, Arizona. He was Geo. W. Sirrine, a millwright, whose history has been preserved by a son, Warren L. Sirrine of Mesa. The elder Sirrine was married on the ship, of which and its voyage he left many interesting tales, one being of a drift to the southward on beating around Cape Horn, till icebergs loomed and the men had to be detailed to the task of beating the rigging with clubs to rid it of ice. When danger threatened there was resort to prayer, but work soon followed as the passengers bore a hand with the crew. Sirrine, who had had police experience in the East, was of large assistance to Brannan in San Francisco, where the rougher element for a time seized control, taking property at will and shooting down all who might disagree with their sway. It was he who arrested Jack Powers, leader of the outlaws, in a meeting that was being addressed by Brannan, and who helped in the provision of evidence under which the naval authorities eliminated over fifty of the desperados, some of them shipping on the war vessels in port. Some of the Mormons still had a part of their passage money unpaid and these promptly proceeded to find employment to satisfy their debt. The pilgrims' loyalty appears to have been of the highest. They had purchased arms in Honolulu and had had some drill on the passage thence. At least on one occasion, they rallied in San Francisco when alarm sounded that hostile Mexicans might attack. According to Eldridge, historian of San Francisco: "The landing of the Mormons more than doubled the population of Yerba Buena. They camped for a time on the beach and the vacant lots, then some went to the Marin forests to work as lumbermen, some were housed in the old Mission buildings and others in Richardson's Casa Grande (big house) on Dupont Street. They were honest and industrious people and all sought work wherever they could find it." Brannan's Hope of Pacific Empire A party of twenty pioneers was sent over to the San Joaquin Valley, to found the settlement of New Hope, or Stanislaus City, on the lower Stanislaus River, but the greater number for a while remained on the bay, making San Francisco, according to Bancroft, "for a time very largely a Mormon town. All bear witness to the orderly and moral conduct of the Saints, both on land and sea. They were honest and industrious citizens, even if clannish and peculiar." There was some complaint against Brannan, charged with working the Church membership for his own personal benefit. New Hope had development that comprised a log house, a sawmill and the cultivation of eighty acres of land. It was abandoned in the fall, after word had been received that the main body of the Saints, traveling overland, would settle in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Brannan pushed with vigor his idea that the proper location would be in California. He started eastward to present this argument and met the western migration at Green River in July, and unsuccessfully argued with Brigham Young, returning with the vanguard as far as Salt Lake. His return to San Francisco was in September, on his way there being encounter with several parties from the Mormon Battalion, to them Brannan communicating rather gloomy ideas concerning the new site of Zion. It is one of the many remarkable evidences of the strength of the Mormon religious spirit that only 45 adults of the Brooklyn party, with their children, remained in California, even after the discovery of gold. The others made their way across the Sierra Nevadas and the deserts, to join their people in the intermountain valley. A few were cut off from the Church. These included Brannan, who gathered large wealth, but who died, poor, in Mexico, in 1889. There might be speculation over what would have been the fate of the Mormon Church had Brannan's idea prevailed and the tide of the Nauvoo exodus continued to California. Probably the individual pilgrims thereby might have amassed worldly wealth. Possibly there might have been established in the California valleys even richer Mormon settlements than those that now dot the map of the intermountain region. But that such a course would have been relatively disruptive of the basic plans of the leaders there can be no doubt, and it is also without doubt that under a condition of greater material wealth there would have been diminished spiritual interest. Possibly even better was the grasp upon the people shown in Utah at the time of the passage of the California emigrants, in trains of hypnotized groups all crazed by lust for the gold assumed to be in California for the gathering. The Mormons sold them provisions and helped them on their way, yet added few to their numbers. In after years, President Lorenzo Snow, referring to the Brannan effort, stated his belief that it would have been nothing short of disastrous to the Church had the people gone to California before they had become grounded in the faith. They needed just the experiences they had had in the valley of Salt Lake, where home-making was the predominant thought and where wealth later came on a more permanent basis. Present at the Discovery of Gold By a remarkable freak of fortune, about forty of the members of the Mormon Battalion discharged at Los Angeles, were on hand at the time of the discovery of gold in California. Divided into companies, they had made their way northward, expecting to pass the Sierras before the coming of snow. They found work at Sutter's Fort and nearby in the building of a sawmill and a grist-mill and six of them (out of nine employees) actually participated in the historic picking up of chunks of gold from the tailrace they had dug under the direction of J. W. Marshall. Sutter in after years wrote: "The Mormons did not leave my mill unfinished, but they got the gold fever like everybody else." They mined especially on what, to this day, is known as Mormon Island, on the American River, and undoubtedly the wealth they later took across the mountains did much toward laying a substantial foundation for the Zion established in the wilderness. Henry W. Bigler, of the gold discovery party, kept a careful journal of his California experiences, a journal from which Bancroft makes many excerpts. An odd error is in the indexing of the Bancroft volumes on California, Henry W. Bigler being confused with John Bigler. The latter was governor of California in 1852-55. A truckling California legislature unsuccessfully tried to fasten his name upon Lake Tahoe. But the Mormon pioneer turned his back upon the golden sands after only a few months of digging, and later, for years, was connected with the Mormon temple at St. George, Utah. January 24, 1898, four of the six returned to San Francisco, guests of the State of California in its celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of gold. They were Henry W. Bigler, Jas. S. Brown, Wm. J. Johnston and Azariah Smith. A group photograph, then taken, is reproduced in this volume. The others of the Mormon gold discoverers, Alexander Stephens and James Barger, had died before that date. Looking Toward Southern California All through the Church administration led by Brigham Young there was evidence of well-defined intention to spread the Church influence southward into Mexico and, possibly tracking back the steps of the Nephites and Lamanites, to work even into South America. There seemed an attraction in the enormous agricultural possibilities of Southern California. The long-headed Church President, figuring the commercial and agricultural advantages that lay in the Southwest, practically paved the way for the connection that since has come by rail with Los Angeles. It naturally resulted that the old Spanish trail that had been traversed by Dominguez and Escalante in 1776 was extended on down the Virgin River toward the southwest and soon became known as the Mormon Road. Over this road there was much travel. It was taken by emigrants bound from the East for California and proved the safest at all seasons of the year. It was used by the Mormons in restocking their herds and in securing supplies and for a while there was belief that the Colorado River could be utilized as a means of connecting steamboat transportation with the wagons that should haul from Callville, 350 miles from Salt Lake. In 1851, nearly four years after the settlement at Salt Lake, President Young made suggestion that a company be organized, of possibly a score of families, to settle below Cajon Pass and cultivate the grape, olive, sugar cane and cotton and to found a station on a proposed Pacific mail route. There was expectation that the settlement later would be a gathering place for the Saints who might come from the islands of the Pacific, and even from Europe. The idea proved immensely popular, the suggestion having come after a typical Salt Lake winter, and the pilgrimage embraced about 500 individuals. President Young, at the time of their leaving, March 24, said he "was sick at the sight of so many Saints running to California, chiefly after the gods of this earth" and he expressed himself unable to address them. Arrival at San Bernardino was in June. The Author has been fortunate in securing personal testimony from a member of this migration, Collins R. Hakes, who later was President of the Maricopa Stake at Mesa, and, later, head of the Bluewater settlement in New Mexico. The hegira was led by Amasa M. Lyman and Chas. C. Rich, prominent Mormon pioneers. A short distance below Cajon Pass, Lyman and Rich in September purchased the Lugo ranch of nine square leagues, including an abandoned mission. They agreed to pay $77,500 in deferred payments, though the total sum rose eventually to $140,000. Even at that, this must be accounted a very reasonable price for nearly thirty square miles of land in the present wonderful valley of San Bernardino. Forced From the Southland With those of the Carson Valley, the California brethren mainly returned to Utah, late in 1857, or early in 1858, at the time of the Johnston invasion. Mr. Hakes gave additional details. On September 11, 1857, occurred the Mountain Meadows massacre in the southwest corner of Utah. This outrage, by a band of outlaws, emphatically discountenanced by the Church authorities and repugnant to Church doctrines, which denounce useless shedding of blood, was promptly charged, on the Pacific and, indeed, all over the Union, as something for which the Mormon organization itself was responsible. So it happened that, in December, 1857, J. Riley Morse, of the colony, rode southward post haste from Sacramento with the news that 200 mountain vigilantes were on their way to run the Mormons out of California. Not wishing to fight and not wishing to subject their families to abuse, about 400 of the San Bernardino settlers, within a few weeks, started for southern Utah, leaving only about twenty families. The news of this departure went to the Californians and they returned to their homes without completing their projected purpose. Many Church and coast references tell of the "recall" of the San Bernardino settlers, but Hakes' story appears ample in furnishing a reason for the departure. Many of these San Bernardino pioneers later came into Arizona. Those who remained prospered, and many of the families still are represented by descendants now in the Californian city. The settlement is believed to have been the first agricultural colony founded by persons of Anglo-Saxon descent in Southern California. How Sirrine Saved the Gold Geo. W. Sirrine, later of Mesa, had an important part in the details of the San Bernardino ranch purchase. Amasa M. Lyman and Chas. C. Rich went to San Francisco for the money needed for the first payment. They selected Sirrine to be their money carrier, entrusting him with $16,000, much of it in gold, the money presumably secured through Brannan. Sirrine took ship southward for San Pedro or Wilmington, carrying a carpenter chest in which the money was concealed in a pair of rubber boots, which he threw on the deck, with apparent carelessness, while his effects were searched by a couple of very rough characters. Delivery of the money was made without further incident of note. Sirrine helped survey the San Bernardino townsite, built a grist mill and operated it, logged at Bear Lake and freighted on the Mormon road. Charles Crismon, a skillful miller, also a central Arizona pioneer, for a while was associated with him. Crismon also built a sawmill in nearby mountains. Sirrine spent his San Bernardino earnings, about $10,000, in attempted development of a seam of coal on Point Loma, near San Diego, sinking a shaft 183 feet deep. He left California in 1858, taking with him to Salt Lake a wagonload of honey. In a biography of Charles Crismon, Jr., is found a claim that the elder Crismon took the first bees to Utah, from San Bernardino, in 1863. This may have added importance in view of the fact that Utah now is known as the Beehive State. Chapter Five The State of Deseret A Vast Intermountain Commonwealth Probably unknown to a majority of Arizonans is the fact that the area of this State once was included within the State of Deseret, the domain the early Mormons laid out for themselves in the western wilds. The State of Deseret was a natural sort of entity, with a governor, with courts, peace officers and a militia. It was a great dream, yet a dream that had being and substance for a material stretch of time. Undoubtedly its conception was with Brigham Young, whose prophetic vision pictured the day when, under Mormon auspices, there would be development of the entire enormous basin of the Colorado River, with seaports on the Pacific. The name was not based upon the word "desert." It is a Book of Mormon designation for "honey bee." This State of Deseret was a strictly Mormon institution, headed by the Church authorities and with the bishops of all the wards ex-officio magistrates. At the same time, there should be understanding that in nowise was it antagonistic to the government of the United States. It was a grand plan, under which there was hope that, with a population at the time of about 15,000, there might be admission of the intermountain region into the union of States. The movement for the new State started with a call issued in 1849, addressed to all citizens of that portion of California lying east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There was a convention in March, probably attended by very few outside the Church, despite the broadness of the plan. In the preamble of the constitution adopted there was recitation that Congress had failed to provide any civil government, so necessary for the peace, security and prosperity of society, that "all political power is inherent in the people, and governments instituted for their protection, security and benefit should emanate from the same." Therefore, there was recommendation of a constitution until the Congress should provide other government and admit the new State into the Union. There was expression of gratitude to the Supreme Being for blessings enjoyed and submission to the national government freely was acknowledged. Boundary Lines Established Deseret was to have boundaries as follows: Commencing at the 33d parallel of north latitude, where it crosses the 108th deg. of longitude west of Greenwich; thence running south and west to the boundary of Mexico; thence west to and down the main channel of the Gila River (or the northern line of Mexico), and on the northern boundary of Lower California to the Pacific Ocean; thence along the coast northwesterly to 118 degrees, 30 minutes of west longitude; thence north to where said line intersects the dividing ridge of the Sierra Nevada Mountains; thence north along the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the dividing range of mountains that separate the waters flowing into the Columbia from the waters running into the Great Basin; thence easterly along the dividing range of mountains that separate said waters flowing into the Columbia River on the north, from the waters flowing into the Great Basin on the south, to the summit of the Wind River chain of mountains; thence southeast and south by the dividing range of mountains that separate the waters flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the waters flowing into the Gulf of California, to the place of beginning, as set forth in a map drawn by Charles Preuss, and published by order of the Senate of the United States in 1848. This description needs some explanation. The point of beginning, as set forth, was at the headwaters of the Gila River near the Mexican line, which then, and until the Gadsden Purchase in 1854, followed down the Gila River to the Colorado. At that time the boundary between Upper and Lower California had been established to the point below San Diego, which thus became included within the territory claimed. Here, naturally, there was inclusion of practically all Southern California to a point near Santa Barbara. Thence the line ran northward and inland to the summit of the Sierra Nevadas, not far from Mt. Whitney. It followed the Sierra Nevadas to the northwestward, well within the present California line, up into northwestern Nevada, thence eastward through southern Idaho and Wyoming to about South Pass, where the eastern line was taken up southward, along the summit of the Rockies to the point of beginning. So, there was general inclusion of that part of California lying east of the Sierras, of all southern California, all Nevada and Utah, the southern portions of Oregon and Idaho, southwestern Wyoming, western Colorado, not reaching as far as Denver, western New Mexico and all Arizona north of the Gila. There can be no doubt that the region embraced, probably too large for a State under modern conditions, at that time was as logical a division as could have been made, considering the semi-arid climatic conditions, natural boundaries, generally by great mountain ranges, a single watershed, that of the Colorado River, and, in addition to all these, the highway outlet to the Pacific Ocean, to the southwest, through a country where the mountains broke away, along the course of the Colorado, even then demonstrated the most feasible route from Great Salt Lake City to the ocean. Segregation of the Western Territories At no time was there more than assumption by this central Salt Lake government of authority over any part of the area of the State of Deseret, save within the central Utah district, where the settlers, less than two years established, were striving to carve out homes in what was to be the nucleus of this commonwealth of wondrous proportions. There was nothing very unusual about the constitution. It was along the ordinary line of such documents, though the justices of the Supreme Court at first were chosen by the Legislature. Brigham Young was the first Governor, Willard Richards was Secretary and Heber C. Kimball Chief Justice. [Illustration: OUTLINE OF THE STATE OF DESERET] The first Legislature met July 2, 1849, at Great Salt Lake City and supported an application to Congress for the organization of a territorial government. The boundaries of the Territory of Deseret were somewhat changed from the original. The northern line was to be the southern line of Oregon and to the east there was to be inclusion of most of the present State of Colorado. Another memorial, soon thereafter, asked admission as a full State and still another plan, later proposed, was that Deseret and California be admitted as a single State, with power to separate thereafter. This suggestion was not well received in California and had short life. September 9, 1850, President Millard Fillmore signed a bill creating the Territory of Utah, to be bounded on the west by California, on the north by Oregon, on the east by the summit of the Rocky Mountains and on the south by the 37th parallel of north latitude. South of this parallel there had been recognition of New Mexico, which included the present Arizona. Thus was denial of the dream of an empire state that should embrace the entire inter-mountain region. Chapter Six _Early Roads and Travelers_ Old Spanish Trail Through Utah There can be little more than speculation concerning the extent of the use of the old Spanish Trail, through southern Utah, by the Spaniards. It is known, however, that considerable travel passed over it between Santa Fe and the California missions and settlements. In winter there was the disadvantage of snow in the Rockies and in summer were the aridity and heat of the Mohave desert. In Utah was danger from the Utes and farther westward from the Paiutes, but expeditions went well armed and exercised incessant watchfulness. The much more direct route across Arizona on the 35th parallel was used by few Spaniards, though assuredly easier than that northward around the Canyon of the Colorado River. This direct route was traversed in 1598 by Juan de Onate, New Mexico's first Spanish governor, and, in 1776, Father Garces went from the Colorado eastward to the Hopi villages. There was travel over what became known as the "Road of the Bishop" from Santa Fe to the Zuni and Hopi towns, but not beyond. Possibly the preference for the San Juan-Virgin route lay in the fact that it had practicable river fords. This old Spanish Trail from Santa Fe to Los Angeles, undoubtedly was over a succession of aboriginal highways. The first Europeans to follow it were the Franciscan friars Escalante and Dominguez, in 1776. They took a route running northwest from Taos, New Mexico, through the San Juan country into Utah as far as Utah Lake, not reaching Great Salt Lake, and thence to the southwest through the Sevier Valley to the upper waters of the Virgin hoping to work through to California. They had an intelligent idea concerning the extent of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and knew there could be no crossing for several hundred miles. After traveling down the Santa Clara and Virgin to about where the Arizona line now is, they turned eastward again, probably because of lack of supplies and fear of the desert. Their travel eastward was not far from the 37th parallel on either side and their Indian guides finally led them, by way of the mouth of the Paria, to the Ute ford of the Colorado, now known as the Crossing of the Fathers. Thence, crossing the river November 8, 1776, they made their way to the Hopi villages and back to the Rio Grande, finishing one of the most notable exploring trips ever known in the west. It is interesting to consider how, nearly a century later, the "Pathfinder," John C. Fremont, thought himself on a new line of discovery when he took much the same road westward through the passes of the Rockies. This Spanish Trail is outlined on a fur-trade map in the Bancroft Library, covering the period from 1807 to 1843. No road is marked across the present area of Arizona. The Spanish Trail seems to have been considered as the western extension of the Santa Fe Trail. The famous old traveler, Jedediah Smith, in 1826 and 1827, journeyed by the Sevier and Virgin River route to the Colorado River, though he appears to have made his own way, paralleling the aboriginal highway. In August of 1827, a number of his party were killed by Mohave Indians on the Colorado River. Creation of the Mormon Road The discovery of gold in California gave very great added importance to this southern Utah route. When the Washoe passes were closed by snow, California travel by the plains route necessarily was diverted, either around by Oregon or southward through the Virgin River section. The latter route appears to have been safe enough in winter, save for occasional attacks by Indians, who were bent more upon plunder than upon murder. Occasionally, parties sought a shorter cut to the westward and suffered disaster in the sands of the Amargosa desert or of Death Valley. Sometimes such men as Jacob Hamblin were detailed to act as guides, but this seemed to be more needed with respect to dealings with the Indians than to show the road, as the highway was a plain one through to San Bernardino and San Gabriel. Of summers, undoubtedly the travel was much lessened, as the goldseekers chose the much more direct and better-watered routes passing either north or south of Lake Tahoe, by Donner Lake and Emigrant Gap or by the Placerville grade. The western end of the southern Utah-Nevada trail, after the establishment of the San Bernardino colony, soon became known as the Mormon road, a name preserved. Mail service was known over the old Spanish or Mormon Trail, down the Virgin and to Los Angeles, at different times between 1850 and 1861. This service seems to have been as an alternative when the passes of the Sierra Nevadas were closed. The best evidence at hand concerning this route is contained within a claim made by one Chorpending, for compensation from the United States for mules and equipment stolen by Indians in 1854-1856. John Hunt, later of Snowflake, carried mail on the route in 1856 and 1857. There must be assumption that stage stations were maintained on the Muddy and at Vegas. With the Lyman and Rich expedition, in 1851, one of the wagons bore Apostle Parley P. Pratt who, accompanied by Rufus C. Allen, was starting upon a mission to the southwest coast of South America. On May 13, there was note of encampment at "a large spring, usually called Las Vegas," after having traveled 200 miles through worthless desert and between mountains of naked rock. Mormon Settlement at Tubac To Commissioner John R. Bartlett, of the International Boundary Survey, the Author is indebted for a memorandum covering what clearly was the first Mormon settlement within the present confines of Arizona. It was at the old Spanish pueblo of Tubac, in the Santa Cruz valley, about forty miles south of Tucson. Both places then (in July, 1852), still were in Mexico, the time being two years before perfecting the Gadsden Purchase. Tubac, according to the Commissioner, was "a collection of dilapidated buildings and huts, about half tenantless, and an equally ruinous church." He called it "a God-forsaken place," but gave some interesting history. After a century and a half of occupation, usually with a population of about 400, it had been abandoned a year before the Commissioner's arrival, but had been repopulated by possibly 100 individuals. There was irrigation from the Santa Cruz, but of uncertain sort, and it was this very uncertainty that lost to Arizona a community of settlers of industry surely rare in that locality. Bartlett's narrative recites: The preceding fall (of 1851), after the place has been again occupied, a party of Mormons, in passing through on their way to California, was induced to stop there by the representations of the Mexican comandante. He offered them lands in the rich valley, where acequias (irrigation ditches) were already dug, if they would remain and cultivate it; assuring them that they would find a ready market for all the corn, wheat and vegetables they could raise, from the troops and from passing emigrants. The offer was so good and the prospects were so flattering that they consented to remain. They, therefore, set to work, plowed and sowed their lands, in which they expended all their means, anticipating an abundant harvest. But the spring and summer came without rain: the river dried up; their fields could not be irrigated; and their labor, time and money was lost. They abandoned the place, and, though reduced to the greatest extremities, succeeded in reaching Santa Isabel in California, where we fell in with them. The Santa Isabel meeting referred to had taken place in the previous May, 1852. Santa Isabel was an old vista of San Diego Mission, about forty miles northeast of San Diego and on the road from that port to Fort Yuma. In the Commissioner's party, eastbound, was the noted scout, Antoine LeRoux, who had been one of the guides of the Mormon Battalion westward, in 1846. Bartlett wrote: "LeRoux had been sent to the settlement at San Bernardino, to purchase a vehicle from newly-arrived Mormon immigrants and to return with it to Santa Isabel. When the wagon came ... it was driven by its owner, named Smithson. After paying him, I invited him to remain with us over night, as he had had a fatiguing day's journey. We were very much amused during the evening in listening to the history of our Mormon friend, who also enlightened us with a lecture on the peculiar doctrines of his sect. He seemed a harmless, though zealous man, ardent in his religious belief and was, I should think, a fair specimen of his fraternity. His people had lately purchased the extensive haciendas and buildings at San Bernardino, covering several miles square, for $70,000, one-half of which amount they had paid in cash. This is one of the richest agricultural districts in the State and is said to have been a great bargain." Bartlett's narrative, while interesting, does not inform concerning the identity of the Mormons at Tubac. Including Smithson, doubtless they were swallowed within the San Bernardino settlement. Just where the Tubac settlers came from is not clear. There seems probability that they were from one of the southern States, started directly for San Bernardino, instead of via Salt Lake, in the same manner that an Arkansas expedition went directly to the Little Colorado settlements in later years. Tubac dates back to about 1752. Possibly not pertinent to the subject of this work, yet valuable, is a map of Tubac, herewith reproduced, drawn about 1760 by Jose de Urrutia. This map lately was found in the British Museum at London by Godfrey Sykes, of the Desert Laboratory at Tucson. From him receipt of a copy is acknowledged, with appreciation. The plat includes the irrigated area below the presidio. A Texan Settlement of the Faith The Commissioner traveled broadly and chronicled much and the Author is indebted to his memoirs for several items of early Mormon settlement in the Southwest. One of the earliest details given by Bartlett concerns his arrival, October 14, 1850, at the village of Zodiac, in the valley of the Piedernales River, near Fredericksburg, about seventy miles northwest of San Antonio, Texas. Zodiac he found a village of 150 souls, headed by Elder Wight, locally known as "Colonel," who acted as host. That the settlement, even in such early times, was typically Mormon, is shown by the following extract from Bartlett's diary: "Everywhere around us in this Zodiacal settlement we saw abundant signs of prosperity. Whatever may be their theological errors, in secular matters they present an example of industry and thrift which the people of the State might advantageously imitate. They have a tract of land which they have cultivated for about three years and which has yielded profitable crops. The well-built houses, perfect fences and tidy dooryards give the place a homelike air such as we had not seen before in Texas. The dinner was a regular old-fashioned New England farmer's meal, comprising an abundance of everything, served with faultless neatness. The entire charge for the dinner for twelve persons and corn for as many animals was $3.... The colonel said he was the first settler in the valley of the Piedernales and for many miles around. In his colony were people of all trades. He told me his crop of corn this year would amount to 7000 bushels, for which he expected to realize $1.25 a bushel." Chapter Seven _MISSIONARY PIONEERING_ Hamblin, "Leatherstocking of the Southwest" In Southern Arizona the first pioneering was done by devoted Franciscans and Jesuits, their chiefest concern the souls of the gentile Indians. In similar wise, the pioneering of northern Arizona had its initiation in a hope of the Mormon Church for conversion of the Indians of the canyons and plains. In neither case was there the desired degree of success, but each period has brought to us many stories of heroism and self-sacrifice on the part of the missionaries. In the days when the American colonists were shaking off the English yoke, our Southwest was having exploration by the martyred Friar Garces. Three-quarters of a century later, the trail that had been taken by the priest to the Hopi villages was used by a Mormon missionary, Jacob Hamblin, sometimes called the "Leatherstocking of the Southwest," more of a trail-blazer than a preacher, a scout of the frontier directly commissioned under authority of his Church, serene in his faith and confident that his footsteps were being guided from on high. The Author has found himself unable to write the history of northernmost Arizona without continual mingling of the name and the personal deeds of Jacob Hamblin. Apparently Hamblin had had no special training for the work he was to do so well. It seemed to "merely happen" that he was in southwestern Utah, as early as 1854, when his Church was looking toward expansion to the southward. Hamblin's first essay into the Arizona country was in the troublous fall and winter of 1857, a year when he and his family were living in the south end of Mountain Meadows, Utah. He happened to be in Salt Lake when the famous Arkansas emigrant train passed through his district. Brigham Young sent a messenger southward with instructions to let the wagon train (an especially troublesome one) pass as quietly as possible, but these instructions were not received and Hamblin learned on the way home, of the massacre. The information came personally from John D. Lee, the assassin-in-chief. In Hamblin's autobiography is written, "The deplorable affair caused a sensation of horror and deep regret throughout the entire community, by whom it was unqualifiedly condemned." Thereafter, Hamblin and his associates rode hard after other emigrants who were to be attacked by Indians, and found a company on the Muddy, surrounded by Paiutes preparing to attack and destroy them. As a compromise, the Indians were given the loose horses and cattle, which later were recovered, and the Mormons remained with the company to assist in its defense. Aboriginal Diversions Late in the autumn of 1857, a company came through on the way to California, bringing a letter from President Young, directing Hamblin to act as guide to California. On his way to join the train, Hamblin found a naked man in the hands of the Paiutes, who were preparing "to have a good time with him," that is, "they intended to take him to their camp and torture him." He saved the man's life and secured the return of his clothing. As the caravan neared the Muddy, news came of another Indian attack. Hamblin rode ahead and joined the Indians. He later wrote, "I called them together and sat down and smoked a little tobacco with them, which I had brought along for that purpose." Apparently there was a good deal of native diplomacy in the negotiations. There were some promises of blankets and shirts and finally there was agreement to let the travelers proceed. [Illustration: JACOB HAMBLIN "Apostle to the Lamanites"] [Illustration: CHURCH PRESIDENTS Brigham Young--above; Lorenzo Snow--above; John Taylor--above Wilford Woodruff--below; Joseph Smith, the Prophet--center Heber J. Grant--below; Joseph F. Smith--below] Incidentally, they were met by Ira Hatch and Dudley Leavitt, on their return from a mission to the Mohave Indians. The Mohaves, careless of the Gospel privileges afforded, held a council over the Mormon missionaries and decided that they should die. Hatch thereupon knelt down among the savages and "asked the Lord to soften their hearts, that they might not shed further blood." The prayer was repeated to the Mohaves by a Paiute interpreter. "The heart of the chief was softened" and before dawn the next morning he set the two men afoot on the desert and directed them to Las Vegas Springs, eighty miles distant. Their food on the journey was mesquite bread, "made by pounding the seeds of the mesquite fruits in the valley." Hamblin at all times was very careful in his dealings with the Indians. At an early date he might have killed one of them, but his gun missed fire, a circumstance for which he later repeatedly praised the Lord. Probably his greatest influence came through his absolute fearlessness. He was firmly convinced that he was in the Lord's keeping and that his time would not come till his mission had been accomplished. Without doubt, Hamblin's course was largely sustained by a letter received by him March 5, 1858, from President Brigham Young, in which he prophesied that "the day of Indian redemption draws nigh," and continued, "you should always be careful to impress upon them that they should not infringe upon the rights of others; and our brethren should be very careful not to infringe upon their rights, thus cultivating honor and good principles in their midst by example, as well as precept." In the spring of 1857, Hamblin and Dudley Leavitt, at a point 35 miles west of Las Vegas, smelted some lead ore, Hamblin having some knowledge of the proper processes. The lead later was left on the desert. The wagons were needed to haul iron, remnants of old emigrant wagons that had been abandoned on the San Bernardino road. Encounter with Federal Explorers In the course of his missionary endeavor, in the spring of 1858, Hamblin took five men and went by way of Las Vegas Springs to the Colorado River, at the foot of the Cottonwood Hills, 170 miles from the Santa Clara, Utah, settlement. Upon this trip he had remarkable experiences. On the river he saw a small steamer. Men with animals were making their way upstream on the opposite side. Thales Haskell, sent to investigate, returned next morning with information that the steamer company was of military character and very hostile to the Mormons, that the expedition had been sent out by the Government to examine the river and learn if a force could not be taken through southern Utah in that direction, should it be needed, to subjugate the Mormons. Hamblin returned to Las Vegas Springs and thought the situation so grave that he counseled abandonment of the Mormon settlement then being made at that point. This record is very interesting in view of contemporary history. Without doubt, the steamboat he saw was the little "Explorer," of the topographical exploration of the Colorado River in the winter of 1857-8. Commanding was Lieut. J.C. Ives of the army Topographical Corps, the same officer who had been in the engineering section of Whipple's railway survey along the 35th parallel. The craft was built in the east and put together at the mouth of the river. The journey upstream was at a low stage of water and there was continual trouble with snags and sandy bars. Finally, when Black Canyon had been reached, the "Explorer" ran upon a sunken rock, the boiler was torn loose, as well as the wheelhouse, and the river voyage had to be abandoned, though Ives and two men rowed up the stream as far as Vegas Wash. The steamboat was floated back to Yuma, but Ives started eastward with a pack train, guided by the Mohave chief, Iritaba, taking the same route that had been pursued many years before by Friar Garces through the Hava Supai and Hopi country. It is to be regretted that Hamblin did not go on board the "Explorer," where no doubt he would have received cordial welcome. Even at that time, Brigham Young undoubtedly would have been pleased to have helped in forwarding the opening of a route to the southwestern coast by way of the Colorado River. Incidentally, the steamer had a trip that was valuable mainly in the excellent mapping that was done by Ives and his engineers. Captain Johnston and the steamer "Colorado" had been over the same stretch of river before the "Explorer" came and had served to ferry across the stream, about where Fort Mohave later stood, the famous camel party of Lieutenant Beale. The Hopi and the Welsh Legend There was serious consideration by the Church authorities of a declaration that the Moqui (Hopi) Indians of northern Arizona had a dialect that at least embraced many Welsh words. President Young had heard that a group of Welshmen, several hundred years before, had disappeared into the western wilds, so, with his usual quick inquiry into matters that interested him, he sent southward, led by Hamblin, in the autumn of 1858, a linguistic expedition, also including Durias Davis and Ammon M. Tenney. Davis was a Welshman, familiar with the language of his native land. Tenney, then only 15, knew a number of Indian dialects, as well as Spanish, the last learned in San Bernardino. They made diligent investigation and found nothing whatever to sustain the assertion. Not a word could they find that was similar in anywise to any European language. It happens that the Hopi tongue is a composite, mainly a Shoshonean dialect, probably accumulated as the various clans of the present tribe gathered in northeastern Arizona, from the cactus country to the south, the San Juan country to the northward and the Rio Grande valley to the eastward. But the Welsh legend was slow in dying. This expedition of 1858, besides the two individuals noted, included Frederick and William Hamblin, Dudley and Thomas Leavitt, Samuel Knight, Ira Hatch, Andrew S. Gibbons (later an Arizona legislator), Benjamin Knell and a Paiute guide, Naraguts. The journey started at Hamblin's home in the Santa Clara settlement and was by way of the mouth of the Paria, where a good ferry point was found, but not used, and the Crossing of the Fathers on the Colorado, probably crossed by white men for the first time since Spanish days. The Hopi villages were found none too soon, for the men were very hungry. They had lost the mules that carried the provisions. The Hopi were found hospitable and furnished food until the runaway mules were brought in. There was some communication through the Ute language, after failure with the language of Wales. William Hamblin, Thomas Leavitt, Gibbons and Knell were left as missionaries and the rest of the dozen made a difficult return journey to their homes, a part of the way through snow. The missionaries left with the Hopi returned the same winter. They had not been treated quite as badly as Father Garces, but there had been a division among the tribes, started by the priesthood. There was very good prophecy, however, by the Indians, to the effect that the Mormons would settle in the country to the southward and that their route of travel would be by way of the Little Colorado. It might be well to insert, at this point, a condensation of the Welsh legend, though affecting, especially, the Zuni, a pueblo-dwelling tribe, living to the eastward of the Hopi and with little ethnologic connection. The following was written by Llewellyn Harris (himself of Welsh extraction), who was a Mormon missionary visitor to the Zuni in January, 1878, and is reprinted without endorsement: "They say that, before the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, the Zuni Indians lived in Mexico. Some of them still claim to be the descendants of Montezuma. At the time of the conquest they fled to Arizona and settled there. They were at one time a very powerful tribe, as the ruins all over that part of the country testify. They have always been considered a very industrious people. The fact that they have, at one time, been in a state of civilization far in advance of what they are at present, is established beyond a doubt. Before the Catholic religion was introduced to them, they worshipped the sun. At present they are nearly all Catholics. A few of them have been baptized into our Church by Brothers Ammon M. Tenney and R.H. Smith, and nearly all the tribe say they are going to be baptized. "They have a great many words in the language like the Welsh, and with the same meaning. Their tradition says that over 300 years before the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, some white men landed in Mexico and told the Indians that they had come from the regions beyond the sea to the east. They say that from these white men came the ancient kings of Mexico, from whom Montezuma descended. "These white men were known to the Indians of Mexico by the name of Cambaraga; and are still remembered so in the traditions of Zuni Indians. In time those white people became mixed with Indians, until scarcely a relic of them remained. A few traditions of the Mexican Indians and a few Welsh words among the Zunis, Navajos and Moquis are all that can be found of that people now. "I have the history of the ancient Britons, which speaks of Prince Madoc, who was the son of Owen Guynedd, King of Wales, having sailed from Wales in the year 1160, with three ships. He returned in the year 1163, saying he had found a beautiful country, across the western sea. He left Wales again in the year 1164, with fifteen ships and 3000 men. He was never again heard of." Indians Await Their Prophets President Young kept the Hopi in mind, for the following year (1859) he sent Hamblin on a second trip to the Indians, with a company that consisted of Marion J. Shelton, Thales Haskell, Taylor Crosby, Benjamin Knell, Ira Hatch and John Wm. Young. They reached the Hopi villages November 6, talked with the Indians three days and then left the work of possible conversion on the shoulders of Shelton and Haskell, who returned to the Santa Clara the next spring. The Indians were kind, but unbelieving, and "could make no move until the reappearance of the three prophets who led their fathers to that land and told them to remain on those rocks until they should come again and tell them what to do." Both ways of the journey were by the Ute ford. Navajo Killing of Geo. A. Smith, Jr. In the fall of 1860, Hamblin was directed to attempt to establish the faith in the Hopi towns. This time, from Santa Clara, he took Geo. A. Smith, Jr., son of an apostle of the Church, Thales Haskell, Jehiel McConnell, Ira Hatch, Isaac Riddle, Amos G. Thornton, Francis M. Hamblin, James Pearce and an Indian, Enos, with supplies for a year. Young Ammon Tenney was sent back. This proved a perilous adventure. Hamblin told he had had forebodings of evil. Failure attended an attempt to cross the Colorado at the Paria. For two days south of the Crossing of the Fathers, there was no water. The Navajo gathered around them and barred further progress. There was a halt, and bartering was started for goods that had been brought along to exchange for Indian blankets. At this point, Smith was shot. The deed was done with his own revolver, which had been passed to an Indian who asked to inspect it. The Indians readily admitted responsibility, stating that it was in reprisal for the killing of three Navajos by palefaces and they demanded two more victims before the Mormon company would be allowed to go in peace. The situation was a difficult one for Jacob, but he answered bravely, "I would not give a cent to live after I had given up two men to be murdered; I would rather die like a man than live like a dog." Jacob went out by himself and had a little session of prayer and then the party started northward, flanked by hostile Navajos, but accompanied by four old friendly tribesmen. Smith was taken along on a mule, with McConnell behind to hold him on. Thus it was that he died about sundown. His last words, when told that a stop could not be made, were, "Oh, well, go on then; but I wish I could die in peace." The body was wrapped in a blanket and laid in a hollow by the side of the trail, for no stop could be made even to bury the dead. About a week later, Santa Clara was reached by the worn and jaded party, sustained the last few days on a diet mainly of pinon nuts. That winter, through the snow and ice, Hamblin led another party across the Colorado out upon the desert, to bring home the remains of their brother in the faith. The head and the larger bones were returned for burial at Salt Lake City. It was learned that the attacking Indians were from Fort Defiance and on this trip it was told that the Navajo considered their own action a grave mistake. A Seeking of Baptism for Gain That the Shivwits were susceptible to missionary argument was indicated about 1862, when James H. Pearce brought from Arizona into St. George a band of 300 Indians, believed to comprise the whole tribe. All were duly baptized into the Church, the ceremony performed by David H. Cannon. Then Erastus Snow distributed largess of clothing and food. Ten years later Pearce again was with the Indians, greeted in affectionate remembrance. But there was complaint from the Shivwits they "had not heard from the Lord since he left." Then followed fervent suggestions from the tribesmen that they be taken to St. George and be baptized again. They wanted more shirts. They also wanted Pearce to write to the Lord and to tell Him the Shivwits had been pretty good Indians. The First Tour Around the Grand Canyon Hamblin's adventures to the southward were far from complete. In the autumn of 1862 President Young directed another visit to the Hopi, recommending that the Colorado be crossed south of St. George, in the hope of finding a more feasible route. Hamblin had had disaster the previous spring, in which freshets had swept away his grist mill and other improvements. Most of the houses and cultivated land of the Santa Clara settlement had disappeared. He was given a company of twenty men, detailed by Apostles Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow. A small boat was taken to the river by wagon. Hamblin's chronicle does not tell just where the crossing was made, but it is assumed that it was at the mouth of the Grand Wash. From the river crossing there were four days of very dry travel toward the southeast, with the San Francisco Mountains in the far distance. There is no reference in his diary to the finding of any roads, but it is probable that most of the journey was on aboriginal trails. Snow was found at the foot of the San Francisco Mountains and two days thereafter the Little Colorado was crossed and then were reached the Hopi, who "had been going through some religious ceremonies to induce the Great Spirit to send storms to water their country that they might raise abundance of food the coming season." This may have been the annual Snake Dance. The Hopi refused to send some of their chief men to Utah, their traditions forbidding, but finally three joined after the expedition had started. There had been left behind McConnell, Haskell, and Hatch to labor for a season, and as hostages for the return of the tribesmen. This journey probably was the first that ever circled the Grand Canyon, for return was by the Ute Crossing, where fording was difficult and dangerous, for the water was deep and ice was running. The three Hopi were dismayed over their violation of tradition, but were induced to go on. Incidentally, food became so scarce that resort was had to the killing and cooking of crows. The Indians were taken on to Salt Lake City and were shown many things that impressed them greatly. An unsuccessful attempt was made to learn whether they spoke Welsh. Hamblin wrote that the Indians said, "They had been told that their forefathers had the arts of reading, writing, making books, etc." [Illustration: LIEUTENANT IVES' STEAMER ON THE COLORADO IN 1858] [Illustration: AMMON M. TENNEY Pioneer Scout of the Southwest] Here it may be noted that the Grand Canyon was circumtoured in the fall of 1920 by Governor and Mrs. Campbell, but under very different circumstances. The vehicle was an automobile. Crossing of the Colorado was at the Searchlight ferry, about forty miles downstream from old Callville. On the first day 248 miles were covered, mainly on the old Mormon road, to Littlefield, through the Muddy section, now being revived. St. George and other pioneer southern Utah settlements were passed on the way to Kanab and Fredonia. The road to the mouth of the Paria and to Lee's Ferry appears to have been found very little less rough than when traveled by the Mormon ox teams, and the river crossing was attended by experiences with quicksand and other dangers, while the pull outward on the south side was up a steep and hazardous highway. A Visit to the Hava-Supai Indians Hamblin had about as many trips as Sindbad the Sailor and about as many adventures. Of course, he had to take the Hopi visitors home, and on this errand he started from St. George on March 18, 1863, with a party of six white men, including Gibbons, Haskell, Hatch and McConnell. They took the western route and found a better crossing, later called Pearce's Ferry. At this point they were overtaken by Lewis Greeley, a nephew of Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, who had been sent on to the river by Erastus Snow. A trail was taken to the left of the former route. This trail very clearly was the main thoroughfare used by the Wallapai into Cataract Canyon, which was so known at that time. Down the trail, into the abysmal "voladero" of Father Garces, they traveled a day and part of another, leading their horses most of the way. In many places they could not have turned their animals around had they wished to do so. Cataract Canyon, the home of the Hava-Supai, is a veritable Yosemite, with craggy walls that rise nearly 3000 feet to the mesa above. Hamblin especially noted the boiling from the bottom of the canyon of a beautiful large spring, the same which today irrigates the lands of the well-disposed Indians. These Indians gave assistance to the party and told of an attack made a short time before by Apaches from the southeast, who had been met in a narrow pass where several of their number had been slain. Assuring the Hava-Supai they would send no enemies into their secret valley, Hamblin led his party to the eastward, up the Tope-Kobe trail to the plateau. This was reached April 7. Though along the Moqui trail at no point were they very far from the Grand Canyon, that gorge was not noted in Hamblin's narrative, for the brethren were not sight-seeing. A few days later they were in the Hopi towns, to which the three much-traveled Indians preceded them, in eagerness to see their people again. Only two days were spent with the Indians and on April 15, taking Haskell, Hatch and McConnell, the party struck toward the southwest, to find the Beale road. On the 20th, Greeley discovered a pond of clear cold water several acres in extent in the crater of a volcanic peak. The San Francisco peaks were passed, left to the southward, and the Beale road was struck six miles west of LeRoux Springs, the later site of Fort Moroni, seven miles northwest of the present Flagstaff. The Beale road was followed until the 28th. Thence, the men suffered thirst, for 56 hours being without water. Ten of their eighteen horses were stolen. This, it was explained, was due to the failure of the Hava-Supai to return Wallapai horses which the men had left in Cataract Canyon on the outward journey. St. George was reached May 13, 1863. The main result had been the exploration of a practicable, though difficult, route for wagons from St. George to the Little Colorado and to the Hopi towns. Experiences with the Redskins Ammon M. Tenney in Phoenix lately told the Author that the Navajo were the only Indians who ever really fought the Mormons and the only tribe against which the Mormons were compelled to depart from their rule against the shedding of blood. It is not intended in this work to go into any history of the many encounters between the Utah Mormons and the Arizona Navajo, but there should be inclusion of a story told by Tenney of an experience in 1865 at a point eighteen miles west of Pipe Springs and six miles southwest of Canaan, Utah. There were three Americans from Toquerville, the elder Tenney, the narrator, and Enoch Dodge, the last known as one of the bravest of southern Utah pioneers. The three were surrounded by sixteen Navajos, and, with their backs to the wall, fought for an hour or more, finally abandoning their thirteen horses and running for better shelter. Dodge was shot through the knee cap, a wound that incapacitated him from the fight thereafter. The elder Tenney fell and broke his shoulder blade and was stunned, though he was not shot. This left the fight upon the younger Tenney, who managed to climb a twelve-foot rocky escarpment. He reached down with his rifle and dragged up his father and Dodge. The three opportunely found a little cave in which they secreted themselves until reasonably rested, hearing the Indians searching for them on the plateau above. Then, in the darkness, they made their way fifteen miles into Duncan's Retreat on the Virgin River in Utah. "There is one thing I will say for the Navajo," Tenney declared with fervor. "He is a sure-enough fighting man. The sixteen of them stood shoulder to shoulder, not taking cover, as almost any other southwestern Indian would have done." Apparently, on each of the visits that had been made by Hamblin to the Hopi, he had made suggestion that the tribes leave their barren land and move to the northward, across the Colorado, where good lands might be allotted them, on which they might live in peace and plenty, where they might build cities and villages the same as other people, but, according to Hamblin's journal, "They again told us that they could not leave their present location until the three prophets should appear again." This was written particularly in regard to a visit made to the villages in 1864, and in connection with a theft of horses by Navajos near Kanab. It was found inexpedient to go into the Navajo country, as Chief Spaneshanks, who had been relatively friendly, had been deposed by his band and had been succeeded by a son of very different inclination. In autumn of the same year, Anson Call, Dr. Jas. M. Whitmore, A.M. Cannon and Hamblin and son visited Las Vegas Springs and the Colorado River, stopping a while with the Cottonwood Island Indians and the Mohave, and establishing Callville. Killing of Whitmore and McIntire January 8, 1866, Doctor Whitmore and his herder, Robert McIntire, were killed in Arizona, four miles north of Pipe Springs by a band of Paiede Paiutes and Navajos, that drove off horses, sheep and cattle. There was pursuit from St. George by Col. D. D. McArthur and company. A tale of the pursuit comes from Anthony W. Ivins, a member of the company, then a mere boy who went out on a mule with a quilt for a saddle. The weather was bitterly cold. The bodies were found covered with snow, which was three feet deep. Each body had many arrow and bullet wounds. The men had been attacked while riding the range, only McIntire being armed. A detachment, under Captain James Andrus, found the murderous Indians in camp and, in a short engagement, killed nine of them. The trail to the Hopi towns must have been well known to the Mormon scout when in October, 1869, again he was detailed to investigate the sources of raids on the Mormon borders. He had a fairly strong company of forty men, including twenty Paiutes. The crossing was at the mouth of the Paria. Apparently all that was accomplished on this trip was to learn that the Indians intended to make still another raid on the southern settlements. Hamblin wanted to go back by way of the Ute trail and the Crossing of the Fathers, but was overruled by his brethren, who preferred the Paria route. When they returned, it was to learn that the Navajos already had raided and had driven off more than 1200 head of animals, and that, if the Mormon company, on returning, had taken the Ute trail, the raiders would have been met and the animals possibly recovered. The winter was a hard one for the Mormons who watched the frontier, assisted by friendly Paiutes. The trouble weighed heavily upon Hamblin's mind and, in the spring of 1870, at Kanab, he offered himself to President Young as an ambassador to the Navajo, to prevent, if possible, further shedding of blood. Chapter Eight Hamblin Among the Indians Visiting the Paiutes with Powell It was in the summer of 1870 that Hamblin met Major J.W. Powell, who had descended the Colorado the previous year. Powell's ideas coincided very well with those of Hamblin. He wanted to visit the Indians and prevent repetition of such a calamity as that in which three of his men had been killed near Mount Trumbull, southwest of Kanab. So, in September, 1870, there was a gathering at Mount Trumbull, with about fifteen Indians. What followed is presented in Powell's own language: "This evening, the Shivwits, for whom we have sent, come in, and after supper we hold a long council. A blazing fire is built, and around this we sit--the Indians living here, the Shivwits, Jacob Hamblin and myself. This man, Hamblin, speaks their language well and has a great influence over all the Indians in the region round about. He is a silent, reserved man, and when he speaks it is in a slow, quiet way that inspires great awe. His talk is so low that they must listen attentively to hear, and they sit around him in deathlike silence. When he finishes a measured sentence the chief repeats it and they all give a solemn grunt. But, first, I fill my pipe, light it, and take a few whiffs, then pass it to Hamblin; he smokes and gives it to the man next, and so it goes around. When it has passed the chief, he takes out his own pipe, fills and lights it, and passes it around after mine. I can smoke my own pipe in turn, but when the Indian pipe comes around, I am nonplussed. It has a large stem, which has at some time been broken, and now there is a buckskin rag wound around it and tied with sinew, so that the end of the stem is a huge mouthful, exceedingly repulsive. To gain time, I refill it, then engage in very earnest conversation, and, all unawares, I pass it to my neighbor unlighted. I tell the Indians that I wish to spend some months in their country during the coming year and that I would like them to treat me as a friend. I do not wish to trade; do not want their lands. Heretofore I have found it very difficult to make the natives understand my object, but the gravity of the Mormon missionary helps me much. "Then their chief replies: Your talk is good and we believe what you say. We believe in Jacob, and look upon you as a father. When you are hungry, you may have our game. You may gather our sweet fruits. We will give you food when you come to our land. We will show you the springs and you may drink; the water is good. We will be friends and when you come we will be glad. We will tell the Indians who live on the other side of the great river that we have seen Kapurats (one-armed--the Indian name for Powell) and that he is the Indian's friend. We will tell them he is Jacob's friend." The Indians told that the three men had been killed in the belief they were miners. They had come upon an Indian village, almost starved and exhausted with fatigue, had been supplied with food and put on their way to the settlements. On receipt of news that certain Indians had been killed by whites, the men were followed, ambushed and slain with many arrows. Powell observes that that night he slept in peace, "although these murderers of my men were sleeping not 500 yards away." Hamblin improved the time in trying to make the Indians understand the idea of an overruling Providence and to appreciate that God was not pleased with the shedding of blood. He admitted, "These teachings did not appear to have much influence at the time, but afterwards they yielded much good fruit." Wm. R. Hawkins, cook for this first Powell expedition, died a few years ago in Mesa, Arizona. Willis W. Bass, a noted Grand Canyon guide, lately published an interesting booklet carrying some side lights on the Powell explorations. In it is declared, on Hawkins' authority, that the three men who climbed the cliffs, to meet death above, left the party after a quarrel with Powell, the dispute starting in the latter's demand for payment for a watch that had been ruined while in possession of one of the trio. Powell is charged with having ordered the man to leave his party if he would not agree to pay for the watch. A Great Conference with the Navajo One of the greatest of Hamblin's southern visitations was in the autumn of 1870, when he served as a guide for Major Powell eastward, by way of the Hopi villages and of Fort Defiance. Powell's invitation was the more readily accepted as this appeared to be an opening for the much-desired peace talk with the Navajo. In the expedition were Ammon M. Tenney, Ashton Nebecker, Nathan Terry and Elijah Potter of the brethren, three of Powell's party and a Kaibab Indian. According to Tenney, in the previous year, the Navajo had stolen $1,000,000 worth of cattle, horses and sheep in southern Utah, Tenney, in a personal interview with the Author in 1920, told that the great council then called, was tremendously dramatic. About a dozen Americans were present, including Powell and Captain Bennett. Tenney estimated that about 8000 Indians were on the council ground at Fort Defiance. This number would have included the entire tribe. It was found that the gathering was distinctly hostile. Powell and Hamblin led in the talking. The former had no authority whatever, but gave the Indians to understand that he was a commissioner on behalf of the whites and that serious chastisement would come to them in a visit of troops if there should be continuation of the evil conditions complained of by the Mormons. Undoubtedly this talk had a strong effect upon the Indians, who in Civil War days had been punished harshly for similar depredations upon the pueblos of New Mexico and who may have remembered when Col. Kit Carson descended upon the Navajo, chopped down their fruit trees, and laid waste their farms, later most of the tribe being taken into exile in New Mexico. Dellenbaugh and Hamblin wrote much concerning this great council. Powell introduced Hamblin as a representative of the Mormons, whom he highly complimented as industrious and peaceful people. Hamblin told of the evils of a war in which many men had been lost, including twenty or thirty Navajos, and informed the Indians that the young men of Utah wanted to come over to the Navajo country and kill, but "had been told to stay at home until other means of obtaining peace had been tried and had failed." He referred to the evils that come from the necessity of guarding stock where neither white nor Indian could trust sheep out of sight. He then painted the beauties of peace, in which "horses and sheep would become fat and in which one could sleep in peace and awake and find his property safe." Low-voiced, but clearly, the message concluded: "What shall I tell my people, the Mormons, when I return home? That we may live in peace, live as friends, and trade with one another? Or shall we look for you to come prowling around our weak settlements, like wolves in the night? I hope we may live in peace in time to come. I have now gray hairs on my head, and from my boyhood I have been on the frontiers doing all I could to preserve peace between white men and Indians. I despise this killing, this shedding of blood. I hope you will stop this and come and visit and trade with our people. We would like to hear what you have got to say before we go home." Barbenceta, the principal chief, slowly approached as Jacob ended and, putting his arms around him, said, "My friend and brother, I will do all that I can to bring about what you have advised. We will not give all our answer now. Many of the Navajos are here. We will talk to them tonight and will see you on your way home." The chief addressed his people from a little eminence. The Americans understood little or nothing of what he was saying, but it was agreed that it was a great oration. The Indians hung upon every word and responded to every gesture and occasionally, in unison, there would come from the crowd a harsh "Huh, Huh," in approval of their chieftain's advice and admonition. A number of days were spent at Fort Defiance in attempting to arrive at an understanding with the Navajo. Hamblin wrote, "through Ammon M. Tenney being able to converse in Spanish, we accomplished much good." On the way home, in a Hopi village, were met Barbenceta and also a number of chiefs who had not been at Fort Defiance. The talk was very agreeable, the Navajos saying, "We hope that we may be able to eat at one table, warm by one fire, smoke one pipe, and sleep in one blanket." An Official Record of the Council Determination of the time of the council has come to the Arizona Historian's office, within a few days of the closing of the manuscript of this work, the data supplied from the office of the Church Historian at Salt Lake City. In it is a copy of a final report, dated November 5, 1870, and signed by Frank F. Bennett, Captain United States Army, agent for the Navajo Indians at Fort Defiance. The report is as follows: "To Whom It May Concern: "This is to certify that Capt. Jacob Hamblin of Kanab, Kane Co., Southern Utah, came to this agency with Prof. John W. Powell and party on the 1st day of November, 1870, and expressed a desire to have a talk with myself and the principal men of the Navajo Indians in regard to depredations which the Navajos are alleged to have committed in southern Utah. "I immediately informed the chiefs that I wished them to talk the matter over among themselves and meet Captain Hamblin and myself in a council at the agency in four days. This was done and we, today, have had a long talk. The best of feeling existed. And the chiefs and good men of the Navajo Indians pledge themselves that no more Navajos will be allowed to go into Utah; and that they will not, under any circumstances, allow any more depredations to be committed by their people. That if they hear of any party forming for the purpose of making a raid, that they will immediately go to the place and stop them, using force if necessary. They express themselves as extremely anxious to be on the most friendly terms with the Mormons and that they may have a binding and lasting peace. "I assure the people of Utah that nothing shall be left undone by me to assist these people in their wishes and I am positive that they are in earnest and mean what they say. "I am confident that this visit of Captain Hamblin and the talk we have had will be the means of accomplishing great good." Together with this Bennett letter is one addressed by Jacob Hamblin to Erastus Snow, dated November 21, 1870, and reciting in detail the circumstances of the great council, concluded November 5, 1870. Most of the debate was between Hamblin and Chief Barbenceta, with occasional observations by Powell concerning the might of the American Nation and the absolute necessity for cessation of thievery. Hamblin told how the young men and the middle-aged of his people had gathered to make war upon the Navajo, "determined to cross the river and follow the trail of the stolen stock and lay waste the country, but our white chief, Brigham Young, was a man of peace and stopped his people from raiding and wanted us to ask peace. This is my business here." He told that, five years before, the Navajos were led by three principal men of the Paiutes and at that time seven Paiutes were killed near the place where the white man was killed. These were not the right Indians, not the Paiutes who had done the mischief. Barbenceta talked at great length. To a degree he blamed the Paiutes, but could not promise that no more raids would be made, but he told the agent he would endeavor to stop all future depredations and would return stolen stock, if found. Navajos to Keep South of the River There finally was agreement that Navajos should go north of the river only for horse trading, or upon necessary errands, and that when they did go, they would be made safe and welcome, this additionally secure, if they were to go first to Hamblin. The Hopi and the Navajo, at that time, and probably for many years before, were unfriendly. There was a tale how the Hopi had attacked 35 Navajos, disarmed them, and then had thrown them off a high cliff between two of their towns. Hamblin went to the place indicated and found a number of skeletons and remains of blankets and understood that the deed had been done the year before. The Navajo had plundered the Hopi for generations and the latter had retaliated. Hamblin's diary gives the great Navajo council as in 1871. There also is much confusion of dates in several records of the time. But the year appears to be definitely established through the fact that Powell was in Salt Lake in October and November of 1871. It is a curious fact, also, that Powell, in his own narrative of the 1870 trip, makes no reference to Hamblin's presence with him south of the river or even to the dramatic circumstances of the great council, set by Hamblin and Dellenbaugh on November 2. Powell's diary places him at Fort Defiance October 31, 1870, and at a point near Fort Wingate November 2. Tuba's Visit to the White Men It was on the return from the grand council with the Navajo, in November, 1870, that Hamblin took to Utah, Tuba, a leading man of the Oraibi Hopi and his wife, Pulaskaninki. In Hamblin's journal is a charming little account of how Tuba crossed the prohibited river. Tuba told Hamblin, "I have worshipped the Father of us all in the way you believe to be right. Now I wish you would do as the Hopi think is right before we cross." So the two knelt, Hamblin accepting in his right hand some of the contents of Tuba's medicine bag and Tuba prayed "for pity upon his Mormon friends, that none might drown, and for the preservation of all the animals we had, as all were needed, and for the preservation of food and clothing, that hunger nor cold might be known on the trail." They arose and scattered the ingredients from the medicine bag into the air, upon the men and into the waters of the river. Hamblin wrote, "To me the whole ceremony seemed humble and reverential. I feel the Father had regard for such petitions." There was added prayer by Tuba when the expedition safely landed on the opposite shore, at the mouth of the Paria. Tuba had a remarkable trip. He was especially interested in the spinning mill at Washington, for he had made blankets, and his wife, with handmill experience, thought of labor lost when she looked at the work of a flour mill. At St. George they saw President Young, who gave them clothing. Tuba was taken back home to Oraibi in safety in September, 1871, and his return was celebrated by feasting. Of date December 24, 1870, in the files of the Deseret News is found a telegram from George A. Smith, who was with President Brigham Young and party in Utah's Dixie, at St. George. He wired: "Jacob Hamblin, accompanied by Tooby, a Moqui magistrate of Oraibi village, and wife, who are on a visit to this place to get information in regard to agriculture and manufactures, came here lately. Tooby, being himself a skillful spinner, examined the factory and grist mill at Washington. Upon seeing 360 spindles in operation, he said he had no heart to spin with his fingers any more." On the trip southward in 1871, on which Hamblin returned Tuba and his wife to their home, he served as guide as far as the Ute ford for a party that was bearing provisions for the second Powell expedition. He arrived at the ford September 25, but remained only a day, then going on to Moen Copie, Oraibi and Fort Defiance, where he seems to have had some business to conclude with the chiefs. In his journal is told that he divided time at a Sunday meeting with a Methodist preacher. Returning, with three companions and nine Navajos, Hamblin reached the Paria October 28, taken across by the Powell party, though Powell had gone on from Ute ford to Salt Lake, there to get his family. The expedition had reached the ford October 6, and had dropped down the river to the Paria, where arrival was on the 22d. Hamblin went on to Salt Lake. The Sacred Stone of the Hopi The trust placed in Mormon visitors to the Hopi was shown by exhibition to them of a sacred stone. On one of the visits of Andrew S. Gibbons, accompanied by his sons, Wm. H. and Richard, the three were guests of old Chief Tuba in Oraibi. Tuba told, of this sacred stone and led his friends down into an underground kiva, from which Tuba's son was despatched into a more remote chamber. He returned bringing the stone. Apparently it was of very fine-grained marble, about 15x18 inches in diameter and a few inches in thickness. Its surface was entirely covered with hieroglyphic markings, concerning which there was no attempt at translation at the time, though there were etched upon it clouds and stars. The Indians appeared to have no translation and only knew that it was very sacred. Tuba said that at one time the stone incautiously was exhibited to an army officer, who attempted to seize it, but the Indians saved the relic and hid it more securely. The only official record available to this office, bearing upon the stone, is found in the preface of Ethnological Report No. 4, as follows: Mr. G. K. Gilbert furnished some data relating to the sacred stone kept by the Indians of the village of Oraibi, on the Moki mesas. This stone was seen by Messrs. John W. Young and Andrew S. Gibbons, and the notes were made by Mr. Gilbert from those furnished him by Young, Few white men have had access to this sacred record, and but few Indians have enjoyed the privilege. The stone is a red-clouded marble, entirely different from anything found in the region. In the Land of the Navajo In 1871, 1872 and 1873 Hamblin did much exploration. He located a settlement on the Paria River, started a ranch in Rock House Valley and laid out a practicable route from Lee's Ferry to the Little Colorado. Actual use of the Lee's Ferry road by wagons was in the spring of 1873 by a party headed by Lorenzo W. Roundy, who crossed the Colorado at Lee's Ferry, passing on to Navajo Springs, seven miles beyond, and thence about ten miles to Bitter Springs and then on to Moen Copie. The last he described as a place "a good deal like St. George, having many springs breaking out from the hills, land limited, partly impregnated with salts." He passed by a Moqui village and thence on to the overland mail route. The Little Colorado was described as "not quite the size of the Virgin River, water a little brackish, but better than that of the Virgin." In May of the same year, Hamblin piloted, as far as Moen Copie, the first ten wagons of the Haight expedition that failed in an attempt to found a settlement on the Little Colorado. Just as the Chiricahua Apaches to the southward found good pickings in Mexico, so the Navajo early recognized as a storehouse of good things, for looting, the Mormon settlements along the southern border of Utah. A degree of understanding was reached by the Mormons with the Ute. There was more or less trouble in the earlier days with the Paiute farther westward, this tribe haying a number of subdivisions that had to be successively pacified by moral or forcible suasion. But it was with the Navajo that trouble existed in the largest measure. Hamblin was absolutely sure of the identity of the American Indians with the Lamanites of the Book of Mormon. He regarded the Indians at all times as brethren who had strayed from the righteous path and who might be brought back by the exercise of piety and patience. Very much like a Spanish friar of old, he cheerfully dedicated himself to this particular purpose, willing to accept even martyrdom if such an end were to serve the great purpose. Undoubtedly this attitude was the basis of his extraordinary fortitude and of the calmness with which he faced difficult situations. There is admission by him, however, that at one time he was very near indeed to death, this in the winter of 1873-74. It is noted that nearly all of Hamblin's trips in the wild lands of Arizona were at the direction of the Church authorities, for whom he acted as trail finder, road marker, interpreter, missionary and messenger of peace to the aborigines. So it happened that it was upon Hamblin that Brigham Young placed dependence in a very serious situation that came through the killing of three Navajos, on the east fork of the Sevier River, a considerable distance into south-central Utah. Four Navajos had come northward to trade with the Ute. Caught by snow, they occupied a cabin belonging to a non-Mormon named McCarty, incidentally killing one of his calves. McCarty, Frank Starr and a number of associates descended upon the Indians, of whom one, badly wounded, escaped across the river, taking tidings to his tribesmen that the murder had been by Mormons. The Indian was not subtle enough to distinguish between sects, and so there was a call for bloody reprisals, directed against the southern Mormon settlements. The Indian Agent at Defiance sent an investigating party that included J. Lorenzo Hubbell. Hamblin's Greatest Experience In January, 1874, Hamblin left Kanab alone, on a mission that was intended to pacify thousands of savage Indians. Possibly since St. Patrick invaded Erin, no bolder episode had been known in history. He was overtaken by his son with a note from Levi Stewart, advising return, but steadfastly kept on, declaring, "I have been appointed to a mission by the highest authority of God on earth. My life is of small moment compared with the lives of the Saints and the interests of the kingdom of God. I determined to trust in the Lord and go on." At Moen Copie Wash he was joined by J.E. Smith and brother, not Mormons, but men filled with a spirit of adventure, for they were well informed concerning the prospective Navajo uprising. At a point a day's ride to the eastward of Tuba's home on Moen Copie Wash, the three arrived at a Navajo village, from which messengers were sent out summoning a council. The next noon, about February 1, the council started, in a lodge twenty feet long by twelve feet wide, constructed of logs, leaning to the center and covered with dirt. There was only one entrance. Hamblin and the Smiths were at the farther end. Between them and the door were 24 Navajos. In the second day's council came the critical time. Hamblin knew no Navajo and there had to be resort to a Paiute interpreter, a captive, terrified by fear that he too might be sacrificed if his interpretation proved unpleasant. His digest of a fierce Navajo discussion of an hour was that the Indians had concluded all Hamblin had said concerning the killing of the three men was a lie, that he was suspected of being a party to the killing, and, with the exception of three of the older Indians, all present had voted for Hamblin's death. They had distinguished the Smiths as "Americans," but they were to witness the torture of Hamblin and then be sent back to the Colorado on foot. The Navajos referred especially to Hamblin's counsel that the tribe cross the river and trade with the Mormons. Thus they had lost three good young men, who lay on the northern land for the wolves to eat. The fourth was produced to show his wounds and tell how he had traveled for thirteen days, cold and hungry and without a blanket. There was suggestion that Hamblin's death might be upon a bed of coals that smoked in the middle of the lodge. [Illustration: EARLY MISSIONARIES AMONG THE INDIANS 1--Andrew S. Gibbons 2--Frederick Hamblin 3--James Pearce 4--Samuel N. Adair] [Illustration: MOEN COPIE-FIRST HEADQUARTERS OF MISSIONARIES TO THE MOQUI INDIANS] The Smiths tightened their grasps upon their revolvers. In a letter written by one of them was stated: "Had we shown a symptom of fear, we were lost; but we sat perfectly quiet, and kept a wary eye on the foe. It was a thrilling scene. The erect, proud, athletic form of the young chief as he stood pointing his finger at the kneeling figure before him; the circle of crouching forms; their dusky and painted faces animated by every passion that hatred and ferocity could inspire, and their glittering eyes fixed with one malignant impulse upon us; the whole partially illuminated by the fitful gleam of the firelight (for by this time it was dark), formed a picture not easy to be forgotten. "Hamblin behaved with admirable coolness. Not a muscle in his face quivered, not a feature changed as he communicated to us, in his usual tone of voice, what we then fully believed to be the death warrant of us all. When the interpreter ceased, he, in the same easy tone and collected manner, commenced his reply. He reminded the Indians of his long acquaintance with their tribe, of the many negotiations he had conducted between his people and theirs, and his many dealings with them in years gone by, and challenged them to prove that he had ever deceived them, ever had spoken with a forked tongue. He drew a map of the country on the ground, and showed them the improbability of his having been a participant in the affray." In the end, the three were released after a discussion in the stifling lodge that had lasted for eleven hours, "with every nerve strained to its utmost tension and momentarily expecting a conflict which must be to the death." The Indians had demanded 350 head of cattle as recompense, a settlement that Hamblin refused to make, but which he stated he would put before the Church authorities. Twenty-five days later, according to agreement, he met a delegation of Indians at Moabi. Later he took Chief Hastele, a well-disposed Navajo, and a party of Indians to the spot where the young men had been killed, and there demonstrated, to the satisfaction of the Indians, the falsity of the accusation that Mormons had been responsible. In April, 1874, understanding that the missionaries south of the river were in grave danger, a party of 35 men from Kanab and Long Valley, led by John R. Young, was dispatched southward. At Moen Copie was found a gathering of about forty. It appeared the reinforcement was just in time, as a Navajo attack on the post had been planned. Hamblin persisted in braving all danger and set out with Ammon M. Tenney and a few others for Fort Defiance, but found it unnecessary to go beyond Oraibi. The Utah affair, after agency investigation, was brought up again at Fort Defiance, August 21, with Hamblin and Tenney present, and settled in a way that left Hamblin full of thanksgiving. In 1875, Hamblin located a road from St. George to the Colorado River, by way of Grand Wash. The Old Scout's Later Years In May, 1876, Hamblin served as guide for Daniel H. Wells, Erastus Snow and a number of other leading men of Utah on their way to visit the new Arizona settlements. The Colorado was at flood and the passage at Lee's Ferry, May 28, was a dangerous one. The ferryboat bow was drawn under water by the surges and the boat swept clear of three wagons, with the attendant men and their luggage. One man was lost, Lorenzo W. Roundy, believed to have been taken with a cramp. His body never was found. L. John Nuttall and Hamblin swam to safety on the same oar. Lorenzo Hatch, Warren Johnson and another clung to a wagon from which they were taken off by a skiff just as they were going over the rapids. In the same year, in December, Hamblin was assigned by President Young to lay out a wagon route from Pearce's Ferry, south of St. George, to Sunset on the Little Colorado. The Colorado was crossed at a point five miles above the old crossing. The animals were made to swim and the luggage was conveyed in a hastily constructed skiff. The route was a desert one, about on the same line as that to be used by the proposed Arizona-Utah highway between Grand Wash and the present Santa Fe railroad station of Antares. Returning, Hamblin went as far south as Fort Verde, where Post Trader W.S. Head advanced, without money, provisions enough to last until the party arrived at the Colorado, south of St. George. An interview at St. George with President Young succeeding this trip was the last known by Hamblin with the Church head, for the President died the following August. In that interview, December 15, 1876, Hamblin formally was ordained as "Apostle to the Lamanites." In the spring of 1877, Hamblin journeyed again into Arizona by the Lee's Ferry route to the Hopi towns, trying to find an escaping criminal. On this trip, the Hopi implored him to pray for rain, as their crops were dying. Possibly through his appeal to grace, rain fell very soon thereafter, assuring the Indians a crop of corn, squashes and beans. There was little rain elsewhere. When Hamblin returned to his own home, he found his crops burned from drought. The estimation in which the Indians held the old scout may have indication in a story told lately in the Historian's office by Jacob Hamblin Jr. It follows: "One day my father sent me to trade a horse with an old Navajo Indian chief. I was a little fellow and I went on horseback, leading the horse to be traded. The old chief came out and lifted me down from my horse. I told him my father wanted me to trade the horse for some blankets. He brought out a number of handsome blankets, but, as my father had told me to be sure and make a good trade, I shook my head and said I would have to have more. He then brought out two buffalo robes and quite a number of other blankets and finally, when I thought I had done very well, I took the roll on my horse, and started for home. When I gave the blankets to my father, he unrolled them, looked at them, and then began to separate them. He put blanket after blanket into a roll and then did them up and told me to get on my horse and take them back and tell the chief he had sent me too many. When I got back, the old chief took them and smiled. He said, 'I knew you would come back; I knew Jacob would not keep so many; you know Jacob is our father, as well as your father.'" In 1878 Hamblin moved to Arizona and was made a counselor to President Lot Smith. He was appointed in 1879 to preside over the Saints in Round Valley, the present Springerville, living at Fort Milligan, about one mile west of the present Eagar. He died of malarial fever, August 31, 1886, at Pleasanton, in Williams Valley, New Mexico, where a settlement of Saints had been made in October, 1882. Hamblin's remains were removed from Pleasanton before 1889, to Alpine, Arizona, where was erected a shaft bearing this very appropriate inscription: "In memory of JACOB V. HAMBLIN, Born April 2, 1819, Died August 31, 1886. Peacemaker in the Camp of the Lamanites." Chapter Nine Crossing the Mighty Colorado Early Use of "El Vado de Los Padres" The story of the Colorado is most pertinent in a work such as this, for the river and its Grand Canyon formed a barrier that must be passed if the southward extension of Zion were to become an accomplished fact. Much of detail has been given elsewhere concerning the means of passage used by the exploring, missionary and settlement expeditions that had so much to do with Arizona's development. In this chapter there will be elaboration only to the extent of consideration of the ferries and fords that were used. The highest of the possible points for the crossing of the Colorado in Arizona, is on the very Utah line, in latitude 37. It is the famous "Vado de los Padres," the Crossing of the Fathers, also known as the Ute ford. The first historic reference concerning it is in the journal of the famous Escalante-Dominguez priestly expedition of 1776. The party returning from its trip northward as far as Utah Lake, reached the river, at the mouth of the Paria, about November 1. The stream was found too deep, so there was a scaling of hills to the Ute ford, which was reached November 8. This ford is approached from the northward by natural steps down the precipices, traveled by horses with some difficulty. On the southern side, egress is by way of a long canyon that has few difficulties of passage. The ford, which is illustrated in the frontispiece of this work, reproduced from an official drawing of the Wheeler expedition, may be used more than half the year. In springtime the stream is deep when the melted snows of the Rockies are drained by the spring freshet. Usually, the Mormon expeditions southward started well after the summer season, when the crossing could be made without particular danger. The Ute ford could hardly be made possible for wagon transportation, so there was early effort to find a route for a through road. As early as November, 1858, with some such idea in view, Jacob Hamblin was at the mouth of the Paria, 35 miles southwest of the Ute ford, but was compelled, then and also in November, 1859, to pursue his journey on, over the hills, to the ford. Ferrying at the Paria Mouth The first crossing of the river, at the mouth of the Paria, was made by a portion of a party, headed by Hamblin, in the fall of 1860. A raft was constructed, on which a few were taken across, but, after one animal had been drowned and there had been apparent demonstration that the dangers were too great, and that there was lack of a southern outlet, the party made its way up the river to the ford. The first successful crossing at the Paria was in March, 1864, by Hamblin, on a raft. The following year there was a Mormon settlement at or near the Paria mouth. August 4, 1869, the first of the Powell expeditions reached the mouth of the Paria, this on the trip that ended at the mouth of the Virgin. In September, 1869, Hamblin crossed by means of a raft. That the route had been definitely determined upon was indicated by the establishment, January 31, 1870, of a Paria fort, with guards. In the fall of that year President Brigham Young visited the Paria, as is shown in a letter written by W.T. Stewart, this after the President had seen the mouth of the Virgin and otherwise had shown his interest in a southern outlet for Utah. In this same year, according to Dellenbaugh, Major Powell built a rough scow, in order to reach the Moqui towns. This was the crossing in October, when Jacob Hamblin guided Powell to the Moqui villages and Fort Defiance. In his expedition of 1871, Powell left the river at the Ute ford and went to Salt Lake. A few days later, October 22, his men, with a couple of boats, reached the Paria for a lengthy stay, surveying on the Kaibab plateau, in the vicinity of Kanab. It was written that the boat "Emma Dean" was hidden across the river. By that time ferry service had been established, for on October 28, 1871, Jacob Hamblin and companions, on their way home from the south, were rowed across. John D. Lee on the Colorado It is remarkable, in the march of history, how there will cling to a spot a name that, probably, should not have been attached and that should be forgotten. This happens to be the case with Lee's Ferry, a designation now commonly accepted for the mouth of the Paria, though it commemorates the Mountain Meadows massacre, through the name of the leading culprit in that awful frontier tragedy. Yet John Doyle Lee was at the river only a few years of all the years of the ferry's long period of use. The name seems to have been started within that time, firmly fixed in the chronicles of the Powell expedition, in the books of the expeditions later and of Dellenbaugh. John D. Lee located at the mouth of the Paria early in 1872 and named it "Lonely Dell," by Dellenbaugh considered a most appropriate designation. Lee built a log cabin and acquired some ferry rights that had been possessed by the Church. An interesting detail of the ferry is given by J. H. Beadle, in his "Western Wilds." He told of reaching the ferry from the south June 28, 1872. The attention of a ferryman could not be attracted, so there was use of a boat that was found hidden in the sand and brush. This was the "Emma Dean," left by Powell. The ferryman materialized two days later, calling himself "Major Doyle," but his real identity was developed soon thereafter. Beadle gives about a chapter to his interview with Lee, whom he called "a born fanatic." Beadle, who had written much against the Church, also had given a false name, but his identity was discovered by Mrs. Lee through clothing marks. Beadle quoted "Mrs. Doyle" as saying that her husband had been with the Mormon Battalion. This was hardly exact, though it does appear that Lee, October 19, 1846, was in Santa Fe with Howard Egan, the couple returning to Council Bluffs with pay checks the Battalion members were sending back toward the support of their families. The two messengers had overtaken the Battalion at the Arkansas crossing. But Beadle slept safely in Lee's house, which he left on Independence Day, departing by way of Jacob's Pools. July 13, another of Powell's boats was brought down the river. Just a month later, Powell arrived at Lonely Dell from Kanab. August 17, he started down the river again from the Paria, leaving the "Nellie Powell" to the ferryman. This trip was of short duration, for the river was left, finally, at Kanab Wash. In May, 1873, came the first of the real southern Mormon migration. This was when H. D. Haight and his party crossed the river at the Paria, on a trip that extended only about to Grand Falls, but which was notable from the fact that it laid out the first Mormon wagon road south of the river, down to and along the Little Colorado. October 15, 1873, was launched at the ferry, by John L. Blythe, a much larger boat than had been known before, made of timber brought from a remote point near the Utah line. That same winter Hamblin located a new road from the Paria mouth to the San Francisco Mountains. In June of 1874, an Indian trading post was established at the ferry and there was erection of what was called a "strong fort." In the fall of 1874, Lee departed from the river, this for the purpose of securing provisions in the southern settlements of Utah. Several travelers noted in their journals that Lee wanted nothing but provisions in exchange for ferry tolls. It was on this trip he was captured by United States marshals in southern Utah, thereafter to be tried, convicted and legally executed by shooting (March 23, 1877), on the spot where his crime had been committed. Lee's Canyon Residence Was Brief Much of romance is attached to Lee's residence on the Colorado. The writer has heard many tales how Lee worked rich gold deposits nearby, how he explored the river and its canyons and how, for a time, he was in seclusion among the Hava-Supai Indians in the remote Cataract Canyon, to which, there was assumption, he had brought the fruit seeds from which sprang the Indian orchards. This would appear to be mainly assumption, for Lee made his living by casual ferrying, and had to be on hand when the casual traveler called for his services. Many of the old tales are plausible, and have had acceptance in previous writings of the Author, but it now appears that Lee's residence on the Canyon was only as above stated. J. Lorenzo Hubbell states that Lee was at Moen Copie for a while before going to take charge of the ferry. In the summer of 1877, Ephriam K. Hanks was advised by President Brigham Young to buy the ferry, but this plan fell through on the death of the President. The ferry, later, was bought from Emma Lee by Warren M. Johnson, as Church agent, he paying 100 cows, which were contributed by the people of southern Utah and northern Arizona settlements, they receiving tithing credits therefor. About ten years ago, Lee's Ferry was visited by Miss Sharlot M. Hall, Arizona Territorial Historian. She wrote entertainingly of her trip, by wagon, northwest into the Arizona Strip, much of her diary published in 1912 in the Arizona Magazine. The Lee log cabin showed that some of its logs originally had been used in some sort of raft or rude ferryboat. There also was found in the yard a boat, said to have been one of those of the Powell expedition. This may have been the "Nellie Powell." Of the Lee occupancy, Miss Hall tells a little story that gives insight into the trials of the women of the frontier: "When Lee's wife stayed here alone, as she did much of the time, the Navajo Indians often crossed here and they were not always friendly. A party of them came one night and built their campfire in the yard and Mrs. Lee understood enough of their talk to know she was in danger. Brave woman as she was, she knew she must overawe them, and she took her little children and went out and spread a bed near the fire in the midst of the hostile camp and stayed there till morning. When the Navajos rode away they called her a brave woman and said she should be safe in the future." The first real ferryboat was that built by John L. Blythe, on October 15, 1873, a barge 20x40 feet, one that would hold two wagons, loads and teams. It was in this boat that the Jas. S. Brown party crossed in 1875, and a much larger migration to the Little Colorado in the spring of 1876. In 1877, there was consideration of the use of the Paria road, as a means for hauling freight into Arizona, at least as far as Prescott, which was estimated by R.J. Hinton as 448 miles distant from the terminus, at that time, of the Utah Southern Railroad. Via St. George and Grand Wash, the haul was set at 391 miles, though the Paria route seemed to be preferred. It should be remembered that at that time the nearest railroad was west of Yuma, a desert journey from Prescott of about 350 miles. Crossing the Colorado on the Ice The Paria crossing had served as route of most of the Mormon migration south. The ferry has been passed occasionally by river explorers, particularly by the Stanton expedition, which reached that point on Christmas Day, 1889, in the course of a trip down the Colorado that extended as far as salt water. The ferryboat was not needed at one stage of the history of Lee's Ferry. The story comes in the journals of several members of a missionary party. Anthony W. Ivins (now a member of the Church First Presidency) and Erastus B. Snow reached the river January 16, 1878, about the same time as did John W. Young and a number of prospective settlers bound for the Little Colorado. The Snow narrative of the experience follows: "The Colorado River, the Little Colorado and all the springs and watering places were frozen over. Many of the springs and tanks were entirely frozen up, so that we were compelled to melt snow and ice for our teams. We (that is J.W. Young and I), crossed our team and wagon on the ice over the Colorado. I assure you it was quite a novelty to me, to cross such a stream of water on ice; many other heavily loaded wagons did the same, some with 2500 pounds on. One party did a very foolish trick, which resulted in the loss of an ox; they attempted to cross three head of large cattle all yoked and chained together, and one of the wheelers stepped on a chain that was dragging behind, tripped and fell, pulling his mate with him, thereby bringing such a heft on the ice that it broke through, letting the whole into the water; but the ice being sufficiently strong they could stand on it and pull them out one at a time. One got under the ice and was drowned, the live one swimming some length of time holding the dead one up by the yoke." Concerning the same trip, Mr. Ivins has written the Arizona Historian that, "the river was frozen from shore to shore, but, above and below for a short distance, the river was open and running rapidly." Great care was taken in crossing, the wagons with their loads usually pulled over by hand and the horses taken over singly. Thus the ice was cracked. Mr. Ivins recites the episode of the oxen and then tells that a herd of cattle was taken across by throwing each animal, tying its legs and dragging it across. One man could drag a grown cow over the smooth ice. Mr. Ivins tells that he remained at the river several days, crossing on the ice 32 times. On the 22d the missionaries and settlers all were at Navajo Springs, ready to continue the journey. It is believed that the Colorado has not been frozen over since that time. There now is prospect that the Paria route between Utah and Arizona will be much bettered by construction of a road that avoids Paria Creek and attains the summit of the mesa, to the northward, within a comparatively short distance. At a point six miles below the ferry, the County of Coconino, with national aid, is preparing for construction of a suspension bridge, with a 400-foot span. Upon its completion, Lee's Ferry will pass, save for its place in history. Crossings Below the Grand Canyon Below Lee's Ferry comes the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, cut a full mile deep for about 200 miles, in a winding channel, with only occasional spots where trails are feasible to the river's edge. A suspension bridge is being erected by the United States Forest Service below El Tovar, with a trail northward up Bright Angel Canyon. A feasible trail exists from the mouth of Kanab Wash to the northward. To the southward there is possibility of approach to the river by wagon at Diamond Creek, but the first real crossing lies immediately below the great Canyon at Grand Wash, a point where there was ferrying, in 1862, by Hamblin and a party who brought a boat from Kanab. Return on this expedition was via the Ute ford. Hamblin, with Lewis Greeley, crossed again at the Grand Wash in April, 1863, and there is record of a later trip of indefinite date, made by him on the river from Grand Wash to Callville, in company with Crosby and Miller. Several of the Hamblin expeditions crossed at Grand Wash in the years thereafter, but it appears that it was not until December, 1876, that a regular ferry there was established, this by Harrison Pearce. The place bears the name of Pearce's Ferry unto this day, though the maps give it as "Pierce." A son of Harrison Pearce, and former assistant in the operation of the ferry, James Pearce, was the first settler of Taylor on Silver Creek, Arizona, where he still resides. The next ferry was at the mouth of the Virgin, where there were boats for crossing at necessity, including the time when President Brigham Young and party visited the locality, in March, 1870. When the settlers on the Muddy and the Virgin balloted upon the proposition of abandoning the country, Daniel Bonelli and wife were the only ones who voted the negative. When the Saints left southern Nevada, Bonelli and wife moved to a point about six miles below the mouth of the Virgin, and there established a ferry that still is owned by a son of the founder. This is the same noted on government maps as Stone's Ferry, though there has been a change of a few miles in location. About midway between the Virgin and Grand Wash, about 1881, was established the Mike Scanlon ferry. Downstream, early-day ferries were operated at the El Dorado canyon crossing and on the Searchlight road, at Cottonwood Island. W.H. Hardy ferried at Hardyville. About the later site of Fort Mohave, Capt. Geo. A. Johnston, January 23, 1858, in a stern wheel steamer, ferried the famous Beale camel expedition across the river. Settlements North of the Canyon Moccasin Springs, a few miles south of the Utah line and eighteen miles by road southwest of Kanab, has had no large population at any time, save that about 100 Indians were in the vicinity in 1900. The place got its name from moccasin tracks in the sand. The site was occupied some time before 1864 by Wm. B. Maxwell, but was vacated in 1866 on account of Indian troubles. In the spring of 1870, Levi Stewart and others stopped there for a while, with a considerable company, breaking land, but moved on to found Kanab, north of the line. This same company also made some improvements around Pipe Springs. About a year later, a company under Lewis Allen, mainly from the Muddy, located temporarily at Pipe Springs and Moccasin. To some extent there was a claim upon the two localities by the United Order or certain of its members. The place for years was mainly a missionary settlement, but it was told that "even when the brethren would plow and plant for them, the Indians were actually too lazy to attend to the growing crops." That the climate of Moccasin favors growth of sturdy manhood is indicated by the history of one of its families, that of Jonathan Heaton. At hand is a photograph taken in 1905, of Heaton and his fifteen sons. Two of the sons died in accidents within the past two years, but the others all grew to manhood, and all were registered for the draft in the late war. With the photograph is a record that, of the whole family, not one individual has tasted tea, coffee, tobacco or liquor of any kind. Arizona's First Telegraph Station Pipe Springs is situate three miles south of Moccasin Springs and eight miles south of the Utah line. It was settled as early as 1863 by Dr. Jas. M. Whitmore, who owned the place when he was killed by the Indians January 8, 1866. President Brigham Young purchased the claims of the Whitmore estate and in 1870 there established headquarters of a Church herd, in charge of Anson P. Winsor. Later was organized the Winsor Castle Stock Growing Company, in which the Church and President Young held controlling interest. It is notable that one of the directors was Alexander F. Macdonald, later President of Maricopa Stake. At the spring, late in 1870, was erected a sizable stone building, usually known as Winsor Castle, a safe refuge from savages, or others, with portholes in the walls. In 1879 the company had consolidation with the Canaan Cooperative Stock Company. The name, Pipe Springs, had its origin, according to A.W. Ivins, in a halt made there by Jacob Hamblin and others. William Hamblin claimed he could shoot the bottom out of Dudley Leavitt's pipe at 25 yards, without breaking the bowl. This he proceeded to do. Pipe Springs was a station of the Deseret Telegraph, extended in 1871 from Rockville to Kanab. While the latter points are in Utah, the wires were strung southward around a mountainous country along the St. George-Kanab road. This would indicate location of the first telegraph line within Arizona, as the first in the south, a military line from Fort Yuma to Maricopa Wells, Phoenix, Prescott and Tucson, was not built till 1873. Arizona's Northernmost Village Fredonia is important especially as the northernmost settlement of Arizona, being only three miles south of the 37th parallel that divides Utah and this State. It lies on the east bank of Kanab Creek, and is the center of a small tract of farming land, apparently ample for the needs of the few settlers, who have their principal support from stock raising. The first settlement was from Kanab in the spring of 1885, by Thomas Frain Dobson, who located his family in a log house two miles below the present Fredonia townsite. The following year the townsite was surveyed and there was occupation by Henry J. Hortt and a number of others. The name was suggested by Erastus Snow, who visited the settlement in its earliest days, naturally coming from the fact that many of the residents were from Utah, seeking freedom from the enforcement of federal laws. Fredonia is in Coconino County, Arizona, with county seat at Flagstaff, 145 miles distant in air line, but across the Grand Canyon. The easiest method of communication with the county seat is by way of Utah and Nevada, a distance of over 1000 miles. Fredonia was described by Miss Sharlot M. Hall, as "the greenest, cleanest, quaintest village of about thirty families, with a nice schoolhouse and a church and a picturesque charm not often found, and this most northerly Arizona town is almost one of the prettiest. The fields of alfalfa and grain lie outside of the town along a level valley and are dotted over with haystacks, showing that crops have been good." Reference is made to the fact that some of the families were descended from the settlers of the Muddy Valley. There had been the usual trouble in the building of irrigating canals and the washing away of headgates by floods that came down Kanab Creek. Miss Hall continued, "I am constantly impressed with the courage and persistence of the Mormon colony; they have good, comfortable houses here that have been built with the hardest labor amidst floods and drought and all sorts of discouragement. It is one of the most beautiful valleys I have seen in Arizona and has a fine climate the year round; but these first settlers deserve a special place in history by the way they have turned the wilderness into good farms and homes." Concerning the highway to Fredonia, Miss Hall observes, "The Mormon colonists who traveled this road certainly had grit when they started, and grit enough more to last the rest of their lives on the road." For years efforts have been made by Utah to secure from Arizona the land lying north of the Colorado River, on the ground that, topographically, it really belongs to the northern division, and that its people are directly connected by birth and religion with the people of Utah. As a partial offset, they have offered that part of Utah that lies south of the San Juan River, thus to be created a northern Arizona boundary wholly along water courses. The suggestion, repeatedly put before Arizona Legislatures, invariably has met with hostile reception, especially based upon the desire to keep the whole of the Grand Canyon within Arizona. Indeed, in later years, the great 200-mile gorge of the Colorado more generally is referred to as the Grand Canyon of Arizona, this in order to avoid confusion with any scenic attributes of the State of Colorado. [Illustration: PIPE SPRINGS OR WINSOR CASTLE. The sign on the upper porch is of the first telegraph line in Arizona, built in 1870] [Illustration: MOCCASIN SPRINGS ON ROAD TO THE PARIA] [Illustration: IN THE KAIBAB FOREST NEAR THE HOME OF THE SHIVWITS INDIANS] Chapter Ten Arizona's Pioneer Northwest History of the Southern Nevada Point Assuredly within the purview of this work is the settlement of what now is the southern point of Nevada, a part of the original area of New Mexico and, hence, included within the Territory of Arizona when created in 1863. This embraced the district south of latitude 37, westward to the California line, west and north of the Colorado River. The main stream of the district is the Virgin, with a drainage area of 11,000 square miles, Muddy River and Santa Clara Creek being its main tributaries. It is a torrential stream, subject to sudden floods and carrying much silt. A section of its valley in the northwestern corner of the present Arizona, near Littlefield, is to be dammed in the near future for the benefit of small farms that have been cultivated for many years and for carrying out irrigation plans of much larger scope. Especial interest attaches to this district through the fact that its area once was embraced within the now almost forgotten Arizona County of Pah-ute or was part of the present Arizona county of Mohave. In the Bancroft Library at Berkeley, much information concerning the Nevada point was found in a series of pioneer maps. Of very early designation were old Las Vegas Springs and Beaver Dams, the latter now known as Littlefield. South of the 37th parallel, on a map of 1873, are found Cane Springs, Grapevine Springs and West Point, with Las Vegas (Sp., The Meadows) and Cottonwood as stations on the Mormon road, which divided to the westward at the last-named point. The main road to Callville appears to have been down the Virgin for a short distance from St. Thomas, and then to have led over the hills to the westward. From Callville, a road connected with the main highway at Las Vegas. A map of California, made by W.M. Eddy in 1853, has some interesting variations of the northwestern New Mexico nomenclature. The Muddy is set down as El Rio Atascoso (Sp., "Boggy") and Vegas Wash as Ojo del Gaetan (galleta grass?). Nearby was Agua Escorbada, where scurvy grass probably was found. There also was Hernandez Spring. There was an outline of the Potosi mining district. North of Las Vegas on a California map of 1864, was placed the "Old Mormon Fort." Reference by the reader is asked to the description of the Old Spanish Trail, which was followed partially by the line of the later Mormon road. On a late map of the section that was lost by Arizona to Nevada, today are noted only the settlements of Bunkerville, Moapa, Logan, St. Joseph, Mesquite, Overton and St. Thomas. There is a ferry at Rioville, at the mouth of the Virgin, and another is at Grand Wash. The name of Las Vegas is borne by a railroad station on the Salt Lake and Los Angeles line, a few miles from the Springs. There are the mining camps of Pahrump, Manse, Keystone, El Dorado and Newberry. The westernmost part of the triangle, at an elevation of about 3000 feet, is occupied by the great Amargosa desert, which descends abruptly on the California side into the sink of Death Valley to below sea level. There has been no development of large value in this strip. Its interest to Arizona is merely historical. Today, few Arizonans know that Pah-ute County once existed as an Arizona subdivision, or that Nevada took a part of Arizona, or that later, Nevada was given full sixty miles expansion eastward of her boundary line, at the expense of both Arizona and Utah. The natural boundary line in that section between Nevada and Arizona would have been the Virgin River. [Illustration: Map] The information contained in this chapter has been gathered from diverse sources, but largely from the records of the Church Historian at Salt Lake, wherein, practically, is the only history of the Mormon settlements of the southwestern section of what was and is known as "Utah's Dixie." The southern Nevada point had some value in a mineral way. As early as 1857, Mormons worked the Potosi silver mines, eighteen miles southwest of Las Vegas. Little data is at hand concerning their value. In Bancroft is found this sober chronicle: "Believing the mines to be lead, Brigham Young sent miners to work them, in anticipation of war with the United States, but the product was found too hard for bullets and the mines were abandoned." The Congressional Act of May, 1866, giving Nevada all that part of Arizona lying between the Colorado River and California, from about longitude 114, took from Arizona 31,850 square miles. This followed the extension of Nevada eastward for one degree of longitude. Annexed was appropriation of $17,000 for surveys. Missionaries of the Desert In the record of the Whipple expedition of 1853-4, is found evidence of Mormon influence already material in the Southwest. Whipple thought highly of the agricultural possibilities of the valley of the Colorado River, above the mouth of Bill Williams' Fork and wrote, "The Mormons made a great mistake in not occupying the valley of the Colorado." This Whipple expedition made a painful journey from the Colorado across the Mohave desert and, on March 13, 1854, struck what even then was known as the Mormon Road. The next day Whipple met a party of Mormons en route to Salt Lake. He told them of the murder of one of his Mexican herders by the Paiutes, but the travelers expressed no fear. They said they were at peace with the Indians, a statement over which Whipple expressed surprise. About the earliest American occupation of the southern Nevada point available in the records upon which this office has worked, appears to have been the detail by Brigham Young in 1854 of a party of thirty young men "to go to Las Vegas, build a fort there to protect immigrants and the United States mail from the Indians, and to teach the latter how to raise corn, wheat, potatoes, squash and melons." The missionary party arrived at Las Vegas June 14, 1855. Four days later was started construction of an adobe fort on the California, road, on an eminence overlooking the valley. This fort, 150 feet square, had walls, upon a stone foundation, fourteen feet high, with bastions on the southeast and northwest corners. Gates were not procured until the following year. Houses were built against the inside of the wall and lots were drawn to decide just where each of the brethren should erect his dwelling. There was a garden plot, just below, on the creek, and small farms were provided nearby. Inside the fort was a schoolhouse, in which meetings also were held, this indicating that families soon followed the pioneer missionaries. It is told that "the gospel was preached and that many Indians were converted and baptized." One of these missionaries was Benjamin Cluff, who in later years became a prominent member of the Gila Valley settlements in Arizona. In his biography is found notation that the Las Vegas missionaries worked in lead mines, assumed to have been those in the Potosi section. Some of this lead undoubtedly went back to Utah but, happily, was not used at the time of the 1858 invasion. Another notable member was Wm. C. A. Smoot who died in Salt Lake City in the spring of 1920, and who was one of the original Pioneers who reached Salt Lake July 24, 1847. Having been the last of the first pioneer company to enter the valley, it was quite in keeping that he was the last of the company to leave the valley for the celestial shores. Here there might be notation that of the venerated Salt Lake Pioneers, the following-named later had residence in Arizona: Edmund Ellsworth, Charles Shumway, Edson Whipple, Francis M. Pomeroy, Conrad Klineman, Andrew S. Gibbons and Joseph Matthews. Of the Pioneers of especial distinction, the following-named were later visitors to Arizona: Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, Geo. A. Smith, Erastus Snow, Amasa M. Lyman and Lorenzo D. Young. Missionaries John Steele and Wm. A. Follett were former Battalion members. Rufus C. Allen, who was Private No. 1 of the First Company of the Mormon Battalion, returned from Chile to become a missionary in the Las Vegas section and in the Virgin River country. One of Allen's daughters, Mrs. Rachael Berry of St. Johns, represented Apache County in the House of Representatives of Arizona's Second State Legislature, in 1915. Diplomatic Dealings with the Redskins With the exception of the missionaries and the travelers between Utah and San Bernardino, the white man had little place in the southern point of Nevada in the early days. At hand, however, is a tale of the adventures of Ira Hatch, who was sent into the lonely, barren desert in the hope that something of missionary value might be done with the Indians. These Indians, Paiutes, were described as "always ready to attack the weak and defenseless traveler, including any opportunity to prey upon the animals of the watchful and strong." Nevertheless missionaries from southern Utah attempted Christianization. Whatever their degree of success, and though often in serious danger, they made the redskins understand that, personally, they were friendly. This missionary effort, it was hoped, would serve to make safer the through road. Elder Hatch, in January, 1858, was sent alone into the Muddy Valley, 100 miles from the nearest settlement, Santa Clara. He was among the savages for two weeks, camped in a broken-down wagon left by one of the Crismons. His main trouble was in saving food from the Indians, who descended upon him like locusts and manifested their friendliness by stealing everything they could carry away. Hatch held the fort, however, translating and serving as guide for travelers, and occasionally having to threaten with his pistol redskins who menaced him with their bows and arrows. After a fortnight, Jacob Hamblin sent him a companion, Thales Haskell, another noted pioneer, and together the two spent the balance of the winter in the lonely outpost. There was an interesting diversion in the passage of Col. Thos. L. Kane, the statesman who had done so much for the Mormon people at the time of exodus from Nauvoo and who later served so effectively as a mediator between Deseret and the national government. Kane, with a party, was on his way from California to Salt Lake. He had an idea of creating a haven of refuge for beleagured travelers in a cave about sixty miles northeast of Overton. In this cave he had placed bottles of medicine, which he wished the Indians to understand was good only for white men. This refuge he called the "Travelers' Home." It had been known as "Dr. Osborn's Cave." A number of the Indians were gathered and a treaty was concluded. At this meeting there developed the unusual condition that Hatch had spent so much time with the Indians that his English was very imperfect and broken, while Colonel Kane's language was of cultured sort, unfamiliar and almost unintelligible to Hatch. So a third person (Amasa M. Lyman) had to interpret between Kane and Hatch and the latter then interpreted to the Indians, the return message going the same route back to the Colonel. Inasmuch as the treaty had been upon the basis of certain trade articles that were to have been furnished by the Utah Indian agent, and were not furnished, the contract was not completed. Ammon M. Tenney, a mere lad, spent several months in Las Vegas at that time. Hatch and Haskell returned to their homes in Utah in March, 1858. Near Approaches to Indian Warfare Continual trouble was known with the Indians, though, after a few years, was written, "many of the Indians are being taught to labor and are learning better things than to rob and murder." When the first agricultural settlers came, they were visited by To-ish-obe, principal chief of the Muddy Indians, and a party of other redskins, who transmitted information that had been sent them to the effect that President Erastus Snow had planned to poison the Muddy and kill off all the Indians. The chief was disabused of the idea. The same chief appears to have been decent enough. In February, 1866, there is record how he had declared outlaws two Indians who had stolen horses and cattle. One of these Indians, Co-quap, was taken prisoner and was killed at St. Thomas. About the same time, Indians on the Muddy, above Simonsville (a grist mill site), stole wheat from about thirty acres and left for the mountains, threatening the Muddy settlers. Within a month, 32 head of horses, mules and cattle were driven off by Indians, from St. Joseph and Simonsville. An expedition of 25 men started after the marauders, but failed to recapture the stock. Andrew S. Gibbons (who had come in 1864), sought To-ish-obe on the upper Muddy, to interpret and make peace, if possible. In June at St. Joseph was a conference between Erastus Snow and a group of the leading Indians, representing the Santa Clara, Muddy, Colorado and other bands, in all seven chiefs and 64 of their men. The conference was an agreeable one and it was felt that some good had been done. [Illustration: A STREET IN FREDONIA] [Illustration: WALPI-ONE OF THE HOPI (MOQUI) VILLAGES] [Illustration: WARREN M. JOHNSON'S HOUSE AT PARIA FERRY] [Illustration: CROSSING THE COLORADO AT THE PARIA FERRY] There was more trouble with the Indians in February, 1868, when the tribesmen on the upper Muddy, where a new settlement had been formed, came to the camp in anger, with blackened faces, armed with bows and arrows, to demand pay for grain lands that had been occupied by the whites. Gibbons acted as peacemaker, but told, "the fact that the brethren were all well armed appeared to pacify the Indians more than any arguments." The farmers formed in battle line, with Helaman Pratt as captain, Gibbons in front, interpreting. The Indians of the region, mainly Paiutes, were a never-ending source of irritation and of potential danger to the settlers. They had grown fields of a few acres along the Muddy and hence resented the coming of the settlers who might include the aboriginal farms within their holdings. In accordance with the traditional policy of the Church, however, conciliation was used wherever possible, though the settlers sometimes, when goaded to the last extremity, had to exhibit firearms and make a show of force. In 1868, Joseph W. Young wrote, "These Indians were considered about the worst specimens of the race. They lived almost in a state of nudity and were among the worst thieves on the continent. But through the kind, though determined, course pursued towards them by our brethren who have been among them, they are greatly changed for the better, and I believe I may safely say that they are the best workers of all the tribes. They are, nevertheless, Indians, and much wisdom is required to get along with them pleasantly. Brother Andrew Gibbons is worthy of honorable mention, because of the good influence that he maintains over these rude men." In November, 1870, the Indians were reported "very hostile and saucy." The Chemehuevis and Mohaves were at war. A band of the former, about 100 or more, came into the Muddy Valley. In December a band of Wallapai came for a friendly visit. Utilization of the Colorado River The Colorado River drains nearly all the lands of present Mormon settlement, mainly lying betwixt the Rockies and the Sierras. The Colorado, within the United States is reckoned as only inferior to the Mississippi-Missouri and Columbia, with an annual flow sufficient to supply for irrigation needs about 20,000,000 acre feet of water. It has a drainage area of 244,000 square miles and a length of 1700 miles. It is of torrential character, very big indeed in the late spring and early summer and very low most of the remainder of the year. In years, not far distant, there will be storage dams at many points, to hold back the springtime floods from the melting of the snows of the Rockies, and from the river's flow will be generated electric power for the turning of the wheels of the Southwest. All this is in plans made by the League of the Southwest, a body now headed by Governor Campbell of Arizona. But these things are of the future, and it is the past we especially are considering. Several attempts were made during and prior to the Civil War to make of the Colorado a highway through which Utah, southern Nevada and northern Arizona might have better transportation. The scheme was not a wild one by any means, though handicapped by the difficulties of both the maximum and minimum flows. Inspector General J.F. Rusling had recommended that military supplies for the forces in Utah be brought in by way of the Colorado River. Fort Yuma was visited late in 1854 by Lieut. N. Michler, of the Topographical Engineers, who wrote: "The belief is entertained and strongly advocated that the Colorado will be the means of supplying the Mormon territory, instead of the great extent of land transportation now used for that purpose. "Its headquarters approach the large settlements of Utah and may one day become the means of bearing away the products of those pioneers of the far West. With this idea prominent in the minds of speculators, a city on paper, bearing the name of 'Colorado City,' had already been surveyed, the streets and blocks marked out and many of them sold. It is situated on the east bank, opposite Fort Yuma." From 1858 to about 1882, even after the Santa Fe railroad had reached Needles, there was much traffic on the Colorado. Supplies went by river to the mines, which sent downstream occasional shipments of ore. Military supplies went by water to Fort Mohave or to Ehrenberg, the latter point a depot for Whipple Barracks and other posts. Salt came down stream from the Virgin River mines, for use mainly in the amalgamation processes of the small stamp mills of the period. Steamboats on the Shallow Stream Traffic on the river had been established as early as December, 1852. Capt. Geo. A. Johnston, an early steamboat pilot, ferried the Beale party, in January, 1858, near where Fort Mohave later was established. Johnston made several trips far up the river with the Jesup and with a newer steamer, the Colorado. He is understood to have gone even farther than Lieut. J. C. Ives, of the Topographical Corps, in the little steamer Explorer. This stern-wheeler made the trip in January, 1858, and was passed by Johnston on his way downstream. The river was at low stage and the Explorer butted into snags and muddy banks continually. Finally there was disaster when Black Canyon was reached, when the boat ran upon a sunken rock. Ives rowed as far up as Vegas Wash. In 1866, the Arizona Legislature, at Prescott, by resolution thanked "Admiral" Robert Rogers, commander of the steamer Esmeralda, and Capt. William Gilmore, for the successful accomplishment of the navigation of the Colorado River to Callville, "effected by the indomitable energy of the enterprising Pacific and Colorado Navigation Co.," a concern managed by Thos. E. Trueworthy, an experienced steamboat man from the Sacramento River of California. Both Arizona and Nevada Legislatures petitioned Congress to improve the stream. Captain Johnston later formed the Colorado Steam Navigation Company and, more or less, controlled the river traffic for years. There were other noted Captains, including C.V. Meeden, Isaac Polhamus, A.D. Johnson, William Poole, S. Thorn, J.H. Godfrey and J.A. Mellen. Captain Mellen told that sometimes schooner barges were used in the lower canyons, where the wind was either upstream or downstream. When it was downstream, the upward-bound craft moored until the breeze changed to astern. The deck hands were Cocopah or Yuma Indians, amphibious, always ready to plunge overboard to help in lightening their craft over any of the numerous sand bars. Mellen told of lying 52 days in one bar and of often being held up for a week. There was no possible mapping of the river channel, for the bars changed from week to week. Even in the earliest times, steamboats were never molested by the Indians. They seemed in awe of the puffing, snorting craft that threw showers of sparks from the smokestacks. Not infrequently, a steamer had to tie up for a few days at a point where fuel conveniently could be cut from the cottonwood or mesquite thickets. In June, the river is at flood, with danger always present in floating trees and driftwood, muddy torrents coming from the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains. In the autumn the river falls, until in places there are mere trickles around the muddy banks. Navigation, perforce, had to be suspended. These were the conditions under which it was proposed to make of the Colorado the great trade artery of the inter-mountain region. The Colorado now absolutely has lost all possibilities for commerce. Pioneer conditions are about the same as far southward as the Laguna dam. This structure, built to divert water for the Yuma and Imperial valleys, absolutely bars the river channel for navigation. Above it and below it now are only ferries and a few power boats. The great Imperial canal system, at a point below Yuma, for much of the year drains the river flow. Where good-sized steamers once plied from tidewater, at the head of the Gulf of California, now, for months at a time, is only a dry sand wash. To this extent the advance of civilization has obliterated a river that ranks, in geography at least, among the greatest streams of the United States. Establishing a River Port Callville, established on the Colorado by Anson Call in December, 1864, for a while was the southernmost outpost of Mormon settlement. Call himself was a pioneer of most vigorous sort. November 24,1851, he was one of the founders of Fillmore, Millard County, 150 miles south of Salt Lake, a settlement for a while the capital of the Territory of Utah, created during the administration of President Millard Fillmore in 1850. In the following year he built Call's Fort in Box Elder County, in the extreme northern part of Utah. In a compilation made by Andrew Jenson is found definite statement that the settlement made by Anson Call on the Colorado was "as agent for the Trustee in Trust (the President) of the Church in December, 1864, according to a plan which was conceived of at that time to bring the Church immigration from Europe to Utah via Panama, the Gulf of California and up the river to this landing." In conjunction with this, a number of leading merchants of Salt Lake City combined to build a warehouse on the Colorado, with a view to bringing goods in by the river route. This company also constituted Anson Call its agent. November 1, Call was directed to take a suitable company, locate a road to the Colorado, explore the river, find a suitable place for a warehouse, build it and form a settlement at or near the landing. All these things he accomplished. At St. George he employed Jacob Hamblin and son, Angus M. Cannon and Dr. Jas. M. Whitmore. The journal of travel tells of leaving the mouth of the Muddy, continuing down the Virgin twelve miles, thence up what was named Echo Wash, twelve miles, and thence twenty miles, generally southwestward, to the Colorado, a mile below the narrows, above the mouth of Black Canyon, where, on December 2, was found a black rocky point, considered a suitable spot for the erection of a warehouse, above high-water mark. This later was named Callville. With the exception of a small bottom around the warehouse site, the country was considered most barren and uninviting. Two and a half miles down the river was the mouth of Las Vegas Wash, up which Call and party traveled to old Fort Vegas, where a half-dozen men were found established. In the company's journeyings, El Dorado Canyon was found occupied by miners and there were some adventurers on Cottonwood Island, a tract of bottom land nearby. The expedition was ferried across the Colorado to Hardy's Landing, 337 miles above Yuma. Hardy had a rather extensive establishment, with a store, warehouse, hotel, blacksmith shop, carpenter shop and several dwelling houses. Possibly notable was the launching at that time of the barge "Arizona," fifty feet long and ten feet wide, sharp at both ends and flat-bottomed. By river there was a visit to Fort Mohave. This, garrisoned by forty soldiers of the California Column, was of log and willow houses, the latter wattled and daubed with mud. There was reference by Call to the Colorado River mosquito, described as "very large." Returning to Call's Landing, there were measured off forty lots, each 100 feet square, and a start was made by leaving Thomas Davids and Lyman Hamblin, on December 18, to dig the foundation of the warehouse. This expedition made a preliminary survey of the Muddy and declared settlement upon the stream entirely feasible. Wm. H. Hardy of Hardyville, or Hardy's Landing, was not at home when Anson Call visited in December, but returned soon thereafter and, January 2, 1865, started northward with his new barge, propelled by poles and oars and a sail. A distance of 150 miles by river was made in twelve days. Though later some jealousy was expressed over the activities at Callville, Hardy proffered all possible assistance and expressed belief that from July to November steamers could ply from the mouth of the Colorado to Call's Landing. The warehouse was built, but appears to have been little used. Capt. Geo. A. Johnston had submitted the Church authorities formal proposals to ship direct from New York to the mouth of the river, in barques of about 600 tons burden, preferably arriving at the river mouth in the fall. The cost of freight from New York to the river mouth was set at $16 a ton, and the cost to El Dorado Canyon at $65, but, figuring currency at 50 cents, the freight was estimated to cost $7.16 per 100 pounds in currency. In March, 1865, Capt. Thos. E. Trueworthy, told of opposition at Hardy's Landing to the establishment of Callville. He had started for Call's Landing with 100 tons of freight, including 35,000 feet of lumber, to find that Call had returned to Utah. Trueworthy left his boat and cargo below Callville and went on to Salt Lake. He stated the trip from the mouth to Call's Landing would take a boat a month, there being difficulty in passing rapids and in finding wood for fuel. Historian B.H. Roberts states: "There was shipment of some goods from that point, though at first there were some disappointments and dissatisfaction among the Salt Lake merchants who patronized the route. Two steamboats, the Esmeralda and Nina Tilden made the trip somewhat regularly from the mouth of the Colorado to Call's Landing, connecting with steamships plying between the mouth of the Colorado and San Francisco. The owners of the river boats carried a standing advertisement in the Salt Lake Telegraph, thus seeking trade, up to December 1, 1866. Doubtless the certainty of the early completion of the transcontinental railroad from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean stopped the development of this southwest route for immigration and freight, via Utah's southern settlements and the Colorado River." The port of Callville had only a short life. In June, 1869, the Deseret News printed an article that Callville then had been abandoned. This was in connection with the escape of three horsethieves from St. George. These men wrenched four large doors from the Callville warehouse for the construction of a raft, upon which they committed themselves to the river at flood time, leaving horses and impedimenta behind. Whether they escaped has not been chronicled. As late as 1892, the walls of the old storehouse still were standing, the only remaining evidences of a scheme of broad ambition designed to furnish a new supply route for a region comprising at least one-fourth of the national expanse. [Illustration: PRESIDENT BRIGHAM YOUNG AND PARTY AT THE MOUTH OF THE VIRGIN, MARCH 17, 1870. Others in the party are: Amelia Young, Geo. A. Smith, Bathsheba W. Smith, John Taylor, Erastus Snow, Minerva Snow, Jos. W., Lorenzo D. and Brigham Young, Jr., B.S. and Albert C. Young, A.S. Gibbons, Jno. W. Young, Nathaniel V. Jones, John Squires, Joseph Asay, Van Ettu, Levi Stewart. Photo by C.R. Savage] [Illustration: BAPTISM OF SEVERAL HUNDRED SHIVWITS INDIANS BY DAVID H. CANNON AT ST. GEORGE] Chapter Eleven In the Virgin and Muddy Valleys First Agriculture in Northern Arizona There can be no doubt that the first agricultural settlement in northern Arizona was by a Mormon party, led by Henry W. Miller, which made location at Beaver Dams, on the north bank of the Virgin River on the earlier Mormon road to California. On a tract of land lying six miles below the point where the river emerges from a box canyon, land was cleared in the fall of 1864, crops were put in "and then the enterprise was dedicated to the Lord," according to a report by the leader at Salt Lake. An item in the Deseret News tells that Miller was "called" in the fall of 1863 to go to the Virgin. Early in 1865, another report told, "affairs in the settlement are progressing very satisfactorily. A large number of fruit trees and grapevines have been set out. Corn, wheat and other vegetation are growing thriftily and the settlers are very industriously prosecuting their several useful vocations, with good prospects of success." There was notation of some trouble because beavers were numerous and persisted in damming irrigation ditches. In 1867 a river flood destroyed much of the results of the colonists' labors and there was abandonment of the location. Between 1875 and 1878 settlers began to come again and a thriving community now is in existence at that point, known as Littlefield. It is to benefit in large degree by plans approved by the Arizona Water Commissioner, for damming of the canyon for storage of water to irrigate land of the Virgin Valley toward the southwest. Littlefield is the extreme northwestern settlement of the present Arizona five miles south of the Utah line and three miles east of the Nevada line. In the same fall conference of 1864 that sent Anson Call on his pioneering expedition, there was designation of a large number (183, according to Christopher Layton) of missionaries, to proceed, with their families, to the Muddy and lower Virgin, thereon to establish colonies that might serve as stations in the great movement toward the Pacific. Undoubtedly, full information was at hand concerning the country and its possibilities, for the colonists began to arrive January 8, 1865, before there could have been formulation of Call's report. Thos. S. Smith was in charge of the migration, and after him was named St. Thomas, one of the settlements. May 28, Andrew S. Gibbons settled at St. Thomas, sent as Indian interpreter. Joseph Warren Foote led in a new settlement at St. Joseph. Villages of Pioneer Days In what was known as the Muddy section, comprising the valleys of the lower Virgin River and its main lower tributary, the Muddy, were seven settlements of Mormon origin, during the time when the locality was included in the area of Arizona. These settlements were Beaver Dams on the Virgin, St. Thomas, on the Muddy, about two and a half miles from its junction with the Virgin, Overton, on the same side of the Muddy Valley, about eight miles northwest of St. Thomas, St. Joseph, which lay on the opposite side of the stream, five miles to the northward, West Point (now Logan), on the west bank, possibly fifteen miles west of St. Joseph, and Mill Point and Simonsville between St. Joseph and Overton. To these was addition of the port of Callville. Nearly westward from the last-named point was Las Vegas Springs, distant about twenty miles, a camping point on the road between San Bernardino and Salt Lake, and permanent residence of missionaries. In later days were established Junction City, otherwise Rioville, at the mouth of the Virgin, Bunkerville on the east bank of the Virgin, three miles west of the later Arizona line, and Mesquite, which lay east across the river. The valley of the Virgin offered very limited opportunities for settlement, as the stream, an alkaline one, usually ran between deep cliffs. The Muddy, however, despite its name, was a clear stream of slight fall, with a lower valley two miles wide, continuing, upstream, northwesterly for eighteen miles. A number of swamps had to be drained by the first residents. These people constructed a canal, nine miles long, on the southwest side and were preparing to dig a similar canal on the opposite side when there was abandonment. St. Thomas has been described as a beautiful village, its streets outlined by rows of tall cottonwoods that still survive. There were 85 city lots of one acre each, about the same number of vineyard lots, two and a half acres each, and of farm lots of five acres. St. Joseph mainly comprised a fort on a high bluff, from which the town had been laid out on a level bench west and northward. It included a flour mill, owned by James Leithead. In August, 1868, the fort was almost destroyed by fire, which burned up nineteen rooms and most of their contents, the meetinghouse and a cotton gin also being included in the destruction. There was a stiff gale and most of the men were absent. Every settlement along the Virgin and Muddy was organized into a communal system, the United Order. Of this there will be found more detail in Chapter Twelve of this work. At St. Joseph, June 10, 1869, was organized a cooperative mercantile institution for the Muddy settlement, with Joseph W. Young at its head, R.J. Cutler as secretary and James Leithead as business agent. There were the usual casualties of the desert country. In June, James Davidson, wife and son died of thirst on the road from the Muddy settlements to St. George, their journey delayed on the desert by the breaking of a wagon wheel. On a visit made by Erastus Snow and company in the summer of 1869, the Muddy settlements subscribed heavily toward the purchase of stock in a cotton factory at St. George, and toward extension of the Deseret telegraph line. In the record of this company's journey it is told that the Virgin River was crossed 37 times before arrival at St. Thomas. The condition of the brethren late in 1870 was set forth by James Leithead as something like destitution. He wrote that, "many are nearly naked for want of clothing. We can sell nothing we have for money, and the cotton, what little there is, appears to be of little help in that direction. There are many articles we are more in need of than the cloth, such as boots and shoes and tools of various kinds to work with." Brigham Young Makes Inspection President Brigham Young was a visitor to the Muddy settlements in March of 1870. Ammon M. Tenney states that the President was disappointed, for he found conditions unfavorable for agriculture or commercial development. The journey southward was by way of St. George, Utah, a point frequently visited by the Presidency. The return journey was northward, by the desert route. In the party were John Taylor, later President of the Church, Erastus Snow, Geo. A. Smith, Brigham Young, Jr., Andrew S. Gibbons and other notables. In the fall (September 10), was authorized the founding of Kanab. From St. George the President followed the rough road through Arizona to the Paria, personally visiting and selecting the site of Kanab. Very opportunely, from D.K. Udall, lately was received a photograph of the Young party (herewith reproduced), taken March 17 on a mesa overlooking the Colorado at the mouth of the Virgin. Here may be noted that every president of the Mormon Church, with the exception of Joseph Smith, the founder, and Lorenzo Snow has set foot on Arizona soil. Nevada Assumes Jurisdiction The beginning of the end of the early Muddy settlements came in a letter from the Church Presidency, dated December 14, 1870, addressed to James Leithead, in charge. It referred to the Nevada survey, placing the settlements within the jurisdiction of that State, the onerous taxes, license and stamp duties imposed, the isolation from the market, the high rate at which property is assessed in Nevada, the unscrupulous character of many officials, all as combining to render conditions upon the Muddy matters of grave consideration, even though the country occupied might be desirable. The settlers, it was said, had done a noble work, making and sustaining their outposts of Zion against many difficulties, amid exposure and toil. It was advised that the settlers petition the Nevada Legislature for an abatement of back taxes and for a new county, but, "if the majority of the Saints in council determine that it is better to leave the State, whose burdens and laws are so oppressive, let it be so done." There was suggestion that if the authorities of Lincoln County, Nevada, chose to enforce tax collections, it might be well to forestall the seizure of property, to remove it out of the jurisdiction of the State. The Nevada Point Abandoned December 20, 1870, the people of the Muddy met with John W. Young of Salt Lake and resolved to abandon the location and to look for new homes. The only opposing votes were those of Daniel Bonelli and wife. Bonelli later was a ferryman on the Colorado and his son now is a prominent resident of Mohave County. Among those who voted to move were a number who later were residents of the Little Colorado settlements of Arizona. In accordance with the suggestion from Salt Lake, the Nevada Legislature was petitioned for relief. It was told that seven years before had been established St. Joseph and St. Thomas. Thereafter Congress had taken one degree of longitude from Utah and Arizona and attached this land to Nevada. Taxes had been paid in Utah and Arizona. For two years the authorities of Lincoln County, Nevada, had attempted to assess the back taxes. To the Nevada authorities was presented statement of a number of facts, that $100,000 had been expended on water projects, that the settlers had been compelled to feed the Indian population, outnumbering their own, and that they had been so remote from markets that produce could not be converted into cash. It was asked that a new county, that of Las Vegas, be organized, taking in the southern point of Nevada. Attached to the petition were 111 names of citizens of St. Joseph, Overton and St. Thomas. A similar petition was sent to Congress. There was detail how lumber had to be hauled 150 miles at a cost of $200 per 1000 feet. There had been constructed 150 dwellings. Orchards and vineyards had been planted and 500 acres of cotton fields had been cleared. In all 3000 acres were cultivated. Nevada had imposed a tax of 3 per cent upon all taxable property and $4 poll tax per individual, all payable in gold, something impossible. It therefore was asked that Congress cede back to Utah and Arizona both portions of country detached from them and attached to Nevada. At that time, the State gave the Muddy-Virgin settlement a population of 600. St. Joseph had 193, St. Thomas about 150, West Point 138 and Overton 119. In other settlements around, namely Spring Valley, Eagle Valley, Rye Valley, Rose Valley, Panaca and Clover, were 658, possibly two score of them not being of the Church. Thus was shown a gross population of 1250. Most of the settlers on the Muddy left early in 1871, the exodus starting February 1. On returning to Utah, very largely to Long Valley, they left behind their homes, irrigating canals, orchards and farms. The crops, including 8000 bushels of wheat, were left to be harvested by an individual who failed to comply with his part of the contract and who later tore down most of the remaining houses. Political Organization Within Arizona Including practically all the Mormons then resident within the new Territory of Arizona, the first Arizona county to be created by additional legislative enactment, following the Howell Code, was that of Pah-ute, in December, 1865, by the first act approved in the Second Arizona Territorial Legislative Assembly. The boundaries of the county were described as: Commencing at a point on the Colorado River known as Roaring Rapids; thence due east to the line of 113 deg. 20 min. west longitude; thence north along said line of longitude, to its point of intersection with the 37th parallel of north latitude; thence west, along said parallel of latitude, to a point where the boundary line between the State of California and the Territory of Arizona strikes said 37th parallel of latitude; thence southeasterly along said boundary line, to a point due west from said Roaring Rapids; thence due east to said Roaring Rapids and point of beginning. Callville was created the seat of justice and the governor was authorized to appoint the necessary county officers. The new subdivision was taken entirely from Mohave County, which retained the southernmost part of the Nevada point. It may be noted that its boundaries were entirely arbitrary and not natural and the greater part of the new county's area lay in what now is Nevada. October 1, 1867, the county seat was moved to St. Thomas. November 5, 1866, a protest was sent in an Arizona memorial to Congress against the setting off to the State of Nevada of that part of the Territory west of the Colorado. The grant of this tract to Nevada under the terms of a congressional act approved May 5, 1866, had been conditioned on similar acceptance by the Legislature of Nevada. This was done January 18, 1867. Without effect, the Arizona Legislature twice petitioned Congress to rescind its action, alleging, "it is the unanimous wish of the inhabitants of Pah-ute and Mohave Counties and indeed of all the constituents of your memorialists that the territory in question should remain with Arizona; for the convenient transaction of official and other business, and on every account they greatly desire it." But Congress proved obdurate and Nevada refused to give up the strip and the County of Pah-ute, deprived of most of her area, finally was wiped out by the Arizona Legislature in 1871. At one time there was claim that St. George and a very wide strip of southern Utah really belonged to Arizona. Pah-ute's Political Vicissitudes In the Second Legislature, at Prescott, in 1865, at the time of the creation of Pah-ute County, northwest Arizona, or Mohave County, was represented in the Council by W. H. Hardy of Hardyville and in the House by Octavius D. Gass of Callville. In the Third Legislature, which met at Prescott, October 3, 1866, Pah-ute was represented in the Council by Gass, who was honored by election as president of the body, in which he also served as translator and interpreter. He was described as a very able man, though rough of speech. He explored many miles of the lower Grand Canyon. He was not a Mormon, but evidently was held in high esteem by his constituents, who elected him to office in Arizona as long as they had part in its politics. Royal J. Cutler of Mill Point represented the county in the House of Representatives. In the Fourth Legislature, which met at Prescott, September 4, 1867, Gass, who had moved to Las Vegas, was returned to the Council where again he was chosen president, and Cutler, who had moved to St. Joseph, again was in the House. On the record of the Legislature's proceedings, Gass is styled "ranchero" and Cutler "farmer." Though most of the area of Pah-ute County already had been wiped out by congressional enactment and given to Nevada, Gass again was in the Legislature in 1868, in the fifth session, which met in Tucson, December 10. The House member was Andrew S. Gibbons of St. Thomas, a senior member of a family that since has had much to do with the development of northeastern Arizona. A very interesting feature in connection with this final service in the Legislature, was the fact that Gass and Gibbons floated down the Colorado River to Yuma and thence took conveyance to Tucson. They were in a fourteen-foot boat that had been built at St. Thomas by James Leithead. Gibbons' son, William H. (now resident at St. Johns), hauled the craft to Callville, twenty miles, and there sped the legislators. At the outset, there was necessity for the voyageurs to pass through the rapids of Black Canyon, an exciting experience, not unmixed with danger. Gibbons knew something of boating and so was at the oars. Gass, seated astern, firmly grabbed the gunwales, shut his eyes and trusted himself in the rapids to providence and his stout companion, with at least one fervent admonition, "For God's sake, Andy, keep her pointed down stream." The passage was made in safety, though both men were soaked by the dashing spray. The start was made November 1. By day all possible progress was made, the boat being kept in midstream and away from bushes, for fear of ambush by Indians. At night a place for camp would be selected in a secluded spot and a fire would be lighted only when safety seemed assured. There was some delay in securing transportation eastward from Fort Yuma. Indians had been active along the stage route and had just waylaid a coach and killed its driver. Thus it came that the members from Pah-ute were six days late in their taking seats in the territorial assembly. At the close of the legislative session, Gibbons journeyed home on horseback, for much of the way through districts infested by wild Indians of several tribes, a trip of at least 500 miles. Gass went to California before returning home. Such a return journey is not mentioned, however, in an interesting record, furnished the Author by A.V., Richard and Wm. H. Gibbons, sons of the pioneer. Royal J. Cutler, on April 3, 1869, came again into official notice as clerk of the Probate and County Court of Rio Virgen County, which had been created out of the western part of Washington County, Utah, by the Utah Legislature. The first session of the court was at St. Joseph, with Joseph W. Young as magistrate. This county organization is not understood, even under the hypothesis that Utah claimed a sixty-mile strip of Nevada, for St. Joseph, on the Muddy, lies a considerable distance south of the extension of the southern Utah line, the 37th parallel. A tax was levied of one-half of 1 per cent, this later increased to three-quarters of 1 per cent. Direct taxes in 1869 had been received of $156.19, and the amount transferred from Pah-ute County was $24.10, a total of $180.29, which hardly could be considered an onerous levy or fat treasury for the support of a political subdivision. The treasurer had on hand $28.55 in cash, $20 in flour and $12.45 in wheat. Later Settlement in "The Point" Bunkerville, settled January 6, 1877, was named for Edward Bunker, a member of the Mormon Battalion. Latterly to a degree it has become connected with Arizona through the fact that lands in its vicinity are to be irrigated from a reservoir to be established upon the Virgin within Arizona. January 24, 1877, there were visitors of notable sort, Capt. Daniel W. Jones and company, on their way to a location in the Salt River Valley of Arizona. Bunkerville had elaborate organization under the United Order, and it is agreed that the large amount of irrigation work accomplished hardly could have been done under any other plan. The organization lasted until the summer of 1879, it being found that some of the members, "through their economy and industry were gathering and, laying up in abundance, while others, through carelessness and bad management, were wasting the funds of the company, each year being increasing in debt." This was very unsatisfactory to those whose ambition was to assure at least the necessaries of life. The Mesquite settlement, across the Virgin from Bunkerville, was established in 1880, but was abandoned a few years later, again to be settled in 1895, from Utah. There was a returning of the Saints to the Muddy Valley early in 1881, the Patterson ranch, which included the town of Overton, being purchased by Mrs. Elizabeth Whitmore of St. George. Among the names of the settlers was at least one of Arizona association, that of Jesse W. Crosby. In 1892, when visited by Andrew Jenson, in the locality of the main four settlements of the older occupation were only a score of families. Salt Mountains of the Virgin Arizona lost one asset of large value in the transfer of the Virgin River section to Nevada. Therein is an enormous salt deposit, locally called the Salt Mountain, though three such deposits are along the Virgin between St. Thomas and the Colorado River. One of them is described as cropping out along the foot of a high bluff of brown clay, exposed for 80 feet in height from the base of the hill, though the depth below its surface is unknown. The salt is obtained by blasting, as it is too hard to dig with picks. It is of excellent quality and of remarkable purity. In early days, from this deposit was obtained the salt needed in southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and much of Arizona, steamers carrying it down the Colorado southward. W. H. Johnson was in early charge of the salt mines. His widow now is resident in Mesa. Peaceful Frontier Communities Writing about Overton, an early historian gives details of the happiness that comes to an individual who relies wholly upon the produce of his land and who lives apart from what is called civilization and its evils. He tells of the sense of comfort, security and satisfaction felt by the brethren who own the land whereon their homes are set and are not afraid of a little expense of bone and muscle to sustain themselves comfortably. They dress as well or better than those in more favored circumstances, set a plentiful table and enjoy such peace and quiet that seldom falls to the lot of people in these troublous times. No profaning is heard; the smoking, chewing and drinking habits are strangers to the "hope of Israel" here; no racing of horses at breakneck speed through the streets is endured in our peaceful little town; in fact the only complaint is, and not without just cause, that it is rather too quiet. Along this same line, Dellenbaugh wrote of the southern Utah settlements: "As pioneers the Mormons were superior to any class I have ever come in contact with, their idea being homemaking and not skimming the cream off the country with a six-shooter and a whiskey bottle. One of the first things the Mormon always did in establishing a new settlement was to plant fruit, shade trees and vines and the like, so that in a very few years there was a condition of comfort only attained by a non-Mormon settlement after the lapse of a quarter of a century. Dancing is a regular amusement among the Mormons and is encouraged by the authorities as a harmless and beneficial recreation. The dances were always opened by prayer." In the journal of Major J.W. Powell, under date of August 30, 1869, there is special mention of the hospitable character of the Mormons of the Virgin River section. They had been advised by Brigham Young to look out for the Powell expedition and Asa (Joseph Asay) and his sons continued to watch the river, though a false report had come that the Powell expedition was lost. They were looking for wreckage that might give some indication of the fate of the explorers when Powell's boats appeared. Powell was very appreciative of Asaqy's kindness and wrote enthusiastically of the coming, next day from St. Thomas, of James Leithead, with a wagonload of supplies that included melons. Chapter Twelve The United Order Development of a Communal System At one stage of Church development there was disposition to favor the establishment in each village of the Saints of communal conditions, wherein work should be done according to the ability of the individual. Crops and the results of all industry were to be gathered at a common center for common benefit. Something of the same sort was known among the Shakers and other religious sects in eastern states. Thus in Utah was founded the United Order, which, however, at no time had any direct connection with the central Church organization. The best development of the idea was at Brigham City, Utah, sixty miles north of Salt Lake City, where the movement was kept along business lines by none other than Lorenzo Snow, later President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the officer credited with having first put that great organization upon a business footing. He established a communal system that proved a potent beneficial force both for the individual and the community. The start was in 1864, with the establishment of a mercantile business, from which there were successive expansions to include about forty industries, such as factories at which were made felt and straw hats, clothing, pottery, brooms and brushes, harnesses and saddles, furniture, vehicles and tinware, while there were three sawmills, a large woolen mill and a cotton goods mill, the last with large attached cotton acreage, in southern Utah. There were 5000 sheep, 1000 head of stock cattle and 500 cows, supplying a model dairy and the community meat market. The settlement was self-clothed and self-fed. Education had especial attention and all sorts of entertainment of meritorious character were fostered. Members of the Order labored in their own industries, were paid good wages in scrip and participated in the growth of general values. In 1875 the value of the products reached $260,000. By 1879 there had been departure from the complete unity of the United Order plan, though eleven departments still remained intact. There had been adverse circumstances, through which in nine months had been lost about $53,000. The woolen mill, a model, twice had been destroyed by fire. There had been jealousies outside the movement, through which a profitable railroad contract had been ruined, and federal authorities had taxed the scrip issue about $10,000 per annum. The first assessment was paid, but later was turned back. But, with all these reverses piled upon the people, the unity remained intact, and today, upon the foundation laid by the United Order and its revered local leader, Brigham City is one of the most prosperous communities of the intermountain region. Edward Bellamy, the writer, became so much interested in what he had heard of the United Order in Brigham City, that he made a special trip to Utah in 1886, to study its operation. He spent three days with President Lorenzo Snow, listening to his experiences and explanation of the movement. As a result of this lengthy interview, Mr. Bellamy, the following year, wrote his book, "Looking Backward." Another example of the operation of the United Order was in Kane County, Utah, about eighteen miles north of the Arizona line. In March, 1871, there was re-settlement of Long Valley, where two towns, Berryville and Winsor, had been deserted because of Indian encroachments. The new settlers mainly came from the breaking up of the Muddy Mission settlements in Nevada, Long Valley having been suggested by President Brigham Young as a possible location. About 200 of the former Muddy residents entered the valley in March, 1871, founding Glendale and Mount Carmel. The residents of the latter, in March, 1874, organized into the United Order. The following year, a number who wished to practice the Order in its fullness, founded a new settlement, midway between Glendale and Mount Carmel, and named it Orderville. This settlement still is in existence, though the communistic plan had to be broken up about 1883, there having arisen a spirit of competition and of individual ambition. The plan of operation was comprehensive of many features, yet simple. The community ate in a common dining hall, with kitchen and bakery attached. Dwelling houses were close together and built in the form of a square. There were work shops, offices, schoolhouse, etc., and manufactories of lumber and woolen products. Not a General Church Movement There had been an idea among the adherents to the Order that they were fulfilling a Church commandment. They were disabused by Apostle Erastus Snow, who suggested that each occupation be taken up by small companies, each to run a different department. There was conference with the First Presidency, but the Church declined responsibility sought to be thrown upon it. So there were many defections, though for years thereafter there was incorporation, to hold the mills and machinery, lands and livestock. The United Order by no means was general. It was limited to certain localities and certain settlements, each of which tried to work out its own problems in its own way, entirely without connection with any other community of the sort. In a few instances the plan proved successful, but usually only where there was some directing leader of integrity and business acumen, such as at Brigham City. [Illustration: FOUNDERS OF THE COLORADO FERRIES 1--John L. Blythe 2--Harrison Pearce 3--Daniel Bonell 4--Anson Call] [Illustration: Crossing the Colorado River at Scanlon's Ferry] The United Order principle was used, with varying degrees of relative success, in a number of northern Arizona settlements, especially in the early camps on the lower Little Colorado, as noted elsewhere. The Jones party, that founded Lehi, was organized for traveling and working under the United Order, drawing from a common storehouse, but each family, nevertheless, looked out for its own interest. The United Order lasted until the end of Jones' control of the colony. An attempt was made in the early part of 1880 at Mesa, to organize, under the laws of Arizona, to carry out the principles of the United Order as far as practicable. A corporation was formed, "The Mesa Union," by President Alex. F. Macdonald, Geo. C. Dana, Timothy Mets, Hyrum Smith Phelps and Chas. H. Mallory. About the only thing done by this organization was to purchase some land, but this land later was taken by members of the Church. Mormon Cooperative Stores In the economy and frugality that marked, necessarily, the early days of the Mormon people, there naturally was resort to combination in the purchases of supplies and in the marketing of products. When the United Order declined, there was resort to another economic pioneer enterprise, the cooperative store, established in many of the new communities. Each store, to an extent, was under local Church supervision and, while open to the trade of all, still was established primarily for the benefit of the brethren. Under early-day conditions, the idea undoubtedly was a good one. Mercantile profits were left within the community, divided among many, while the "Co-op" also served as a means through which the community produce could be handled to best advantage. In the north, June 27, 1881, at Snowflake, with Jesse N. Smith at its head, was organized a company that started a cooperative store at Holbrook, taking over, largely for debt, a store that had been operated by John W. Young at old Holbrook. In January, 1882, this establishment was left high and dry by the moving of Holbrook station a mile and a half west to Berardo's, or Horsehead Crossing. There was difficulty in getting a location at the new site, so this store, in February, 1882, was moved to Woodruff. In January, 1881, at Snowflake was started a "Co-op" that merged into the Arizona Cooperative Mercantile Institution. The following month, under David K. Udall, a similar institution was opened at St. Johns, where there was attached a flouring mill. Both at St. Johns and Snowflake were cooperative livestock herds. One of the most extensive enterprises of this sort was started in Mesa in September, 1884, with Chas. I. Robson, George Passey and Oscar M. Stewart at its head. The first stock was valued at $45, yet in 1894, the Zenos Cooperative Mercantile & Manufacturing Institution had a paid-up capital stock of over $25,000 and a two-story building, and had paid dividends ranging from 10 to 50 per cent annually. Almost every phase of communal effort now appears to have been abandoned in Arizona Mormon business life, probably because found unnecessary in the latter-day development in which the membership of the Church has had so large a share. The Author feels there should be addition of a statement that the Church is far from acceptance of the European idea of communism, for one of its tenets is, "Thou shalt not be idle, for he that is idle shall not eat of the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer." Nothing of political socialism ever was known in the United Order. Chapter Thirteen Spreading Into Northern Arizona Failure of the First Expeditions The first attempt from the north of the Mormon Church to colonize within the present limits of Arizona failed. It was by means of an expedition placed in charge of Horton D. Haight. A number of the colonists met March 8, 1873, in the old tabernacle in Salt Lake City, and there were instructed by President Brigham Young. At Winsor Castle they were warned to be friendly to but not too trustful of the Indians and not to sell them ammunition, "for they are warring against our government." The route was by way of Lee's Ferry, the crossing completed May 11. On the 22d was reached the Little Colorado, the Rio de Lino (Flax River) of the Spaniards. From the ferry to the river had been broken a new road, over a tolerably good route. There was no green grass, and water was infrequent, even along the Little Colorado, it being found necessary to dig wells in the dry channel. Twenty-four miles below Black Falls there was encampment, the road blocked by sand drifts. On June 1 there returned to the expedition in camp an exploring party, under Haight, that had been absent eight days and that had traveled 136 miles up the river. There was report of the trip that the country was barren, with narrow river bottoms, with alkaline soil, water bad and failing, with no spot found suitable in which to settle. There also appeared to be fear of the Apache. So the expedition painfully retraced its steps to Navajo Springs, sending ahead a dispatch to President Young, giving a full report of conditions and making suggestion that the settlement plan had better be abandoned. At Moen Copie on the return was met a party of 29 missionaries, under Henry Day. An interesting journal of the trip was written by Henry Holmes of the vanguard. He was especially impressed with the aridity of the country. He thought it "barren and forbidding, although doubtless the Lord had a purpose in view when He made it so. Few of the creeks ran half a mile from their heads. The country is rent with deep chasms, made still deeper by vast torrents that pour down them during times of heavy rains." There were found petrified trees. One of them was 210 feet long and another was over five feet across the butt, this in a land where not a tree or bush was found growing. Holmes fervently observed, "However, I do not know whether it makes any difference whether the country is barren or fruitful, if the Lord has a work to do in it," in this especially referring to the Indians, among whom there could be missionary effort. Jacob Miller acted as secretary of the expedition. On the back track, the company all had ferried to the north bank of the river by July 7, although there had to be improvised navigation of the Colorado, for the ferry-boat had disappeared in the spring flood and all that remained was a little skiff, behind which the wagon bodies were floated over. In all, were ferried 54 wagons, 112 animals, 109 men, 6 women and a child. This first company had been called from different parts of Utah and was not at all homogeneous, yet traveled in peace and union. The members assembled morning and evening for prayers, at which the blessings of the Lord were asked upon themselves and their teams and upon the elements that surrounded them. President Young directed the members of the 1873 party to remain in Arizona, but the message was not received till the river had been passed. The following year he ordered another expedition southward. According to a journal of Wm. H. Solomon, who was clerk of the party, departure from Kanab was on February 6, 1874. John L. Blythe (who had remained at Moen Copie after the 1873 trip) was in charge. With Blythe was his wife. Ira Hatch took his family. Fifteen other individuals were included. Progress southward was stopped at Moen Copie by reports of a Navajo uprising. Most of the party returned to Utah after a few weeks, leaving behind Hamblin, Hatch and Tenney. Missionary Scouts in Northeastern Arizona When the unsuccessful expedition turned back to Utah in the summer of 1873, there remained John L. Blythe of Salt Lake and a number of other missionaries. They located among the Indians on the Moen Copie, where they sowed the ground and planted trees and grapevines, also planting at Moabi, about seven miles to the southwest. Blythe remained at Moen Copie, alone with his family, until 1874, including the time of the Indian trouble more particularly referred to in this volume in connection with the work of Jacob Hamblin. The failure of the Haight expedition in no wise daunted the Church authorities in their determination to extend southward. In general, reports that came concerning the Little Colorado Valley were favorable. Finally, starting from Salt Lake October 30, 1875, was sent a scouting expedition, headed by Jas. S. Brown, who had a dozen companions when he crossed into Arizona. This party made headquarters at Moen Copie, where a stone house was built for winter quarters. Brown and two others then traveled up the Little Colorado for a considerable distance, not well defined in his narrative, finding a fine, open country, with water plentiful and with grass abundant, with good farming land and timber available. The trio followed the Beale trail westward to a point southwest of the San Francisco Mountains, where there was crossing back to the Little Colorado. Christmas Day, before Moen Copie was reached, the scouts were placed in serious danger by a terrific snowstorm. Brown returned to Salt Lake with his report, January 14, 1876, after traveling 1300 miles, mainly on horseback. Here might be stated that Brown was none other than a Mormon Battalion member who had participated in the discovery of gold at Sutter's Fort in California. At some time prior to coming to Arizona he had lost a leg, shot off by hunters who had mistaken him for a bear. He should not be confounded with Capt. James Brown of the Battalion. Foundation of Four Settlements The first Presidency apparently had anticipated Brown's favorable report, for quick action was had immediately thereafter. Four companies, each of fifty men and their families, were organized, under Lot Smith, Jesse O. Ballenger, George Lake and Wm. C. Allen. The 200 missionaries were "called" from many parts of Utah, but mainly from the north and around Salt Lake. There was no formal gathering of the companies. Each member went southward as he could, to report to his leader on the Little Colorado. The assembling point was Kanab. Thence there was assemblage of groups of about ten families each, without reference to companies. An entertaining detail of this journey lately was given the Historian in Phoenix by David E. Adams, captain of one of the Tens. The leading teams reached Sunset Crossing on the Little Colorado March 23, 1876, the migration continuing for many weeks thereafter. Allen, Smith and Lake continued up the river twenty miles, to a point about five miles east of the present site of St. Joseph. From exact data furnished by R. E. Porter of St. Joseph is learned that Allen's company settled at the point where this march ended, establishing Allen's Camp. There was later change to a point one mile east of the present location, a site maintained till 1877. The name was changed January 21,1878, to St. Joseph, after Prophet Joseph Smith. [Illustration: NORTHEASTERN ARIZONA--The Little Colorado Country] Lot Smith's company retraced, to establish Sunset, three miles north of Sunset Crossing, on the north side of the river. Lake's company established itself across the river, three miles south and west of the present site of St. Joseph. The settlement was named Obed. Ballenger's company located four miles southwest of Sunset Crossing, on the south side of the river, near the site of the present Winslow. Genesis of St. Joseph There was quick work in the way of settlement at Allen's Camp, where the first plowing was on March 25, 1876, by John Bushman and Nathan Cheney. Jacob Morris immediately commenced the construction of a house. Two days later an irrigation ditch was surveyed and on the following day John Bushman got out the first logs for a diversion dam. April 3, Bushman sowed the first wheat. A temporary structure was built for protection and for storage. May 26 the name of Allen City was given the settlement, in preference to a second suggestion, Ramah City. Early in August, 23 men, including Allen, started back to Utah, from which a few returned with their families. On Allen's return southward with a number of families, the old Spanish Trail was used, in its eastern section, via the San Juan region, with some idea that it might be made the main thoroughfare, for thus would be obviated the ferrying of the Colorado River, either above or below the Canyon. But the way into Arizona through northwestern New Mexico was too long, and the experiment was not considered successful. In the fall, the families moved into a stockade fort, planned to be 152 feet wide and 300 feet long. Only part of this was finished. Probably twenty or more houses were built within it. [Illustration: CROSSING THE LITTLE COLORADO] [Illustration: THE OLD FORT AT BRIGHAM CITY] [Illustration: WOODRUFF DAM, AFTER ONE OF THE FREQUENT WASHOUTS] [Illustration: THE FIRST PERMANENT DAM ON THE LITTLE COLORADO AT ST. JOSEPH] August 23, 1876, a postoffice was established, with John McLaws in charge. A weekly mail service operated between Santa Fe and Prescott. The first child in the settlement was Hannah Maria Colson, July 17, 1876. The first death was exactly a year later, that of Clara Gray. The first school district was established and the first school was taught during the winter of 1877-78. Of all the lower Little Colorado settlements, this is the only one now existent. The present St. Joseph lies only a hundred rods from the main line of the Santa Fe railroad system, 25 miles east of Winslow. The first Allen's Camp, in April, 1876, was three miles east of the present site. There was a change to the western location in June, at the suggestion of Daniel H. Wells, who had followed for an inspection of the new settlements. Later there was survey, nearby, of a townsite, the same that now is occupied. Among the few remaining settlers of the Little Colorado settlements, is Joseph Hill Richards, who writes that he was the first justice of the peace for Yavapai County in that region and the first captain there of territorial militia. He also was prominent in the Church organization. Struggling with a Treacherous River Every settlement along the Little Colorado River has known repeated troubles in maintaining its water supply. It would be vain recapitulation to tell just how many times each of the poor struggling communities had to rally back on the sands of the river bed to built up anew the structure of gravel and brush that must be depended upon, if bread were to be secured from the land. The Little Colorado is a treacherous stream at best, with a broad channel that wanders at will through the alluvial country that melts like sugar or salt at the touch of water. There are instances that stand out in this struggle for water. The first joint dam of Allen's Camp and Obed cost the settlers $5000. It is told that 960 day's work was done on the dam and 500 days more work on the Allen ditch. This dam went down at the first flood, for it raised the water about twelve feet. Then, in the spring of 1877, another dam was built, a mile and a half upstream, and this again washed away. In 1879 the St. Joseph settlers sought the third damsite at LeRoux Wash, about two and a half miles west of the present Holbrook. In 1881 they spent much money and effort on a plan to make a high dam at the site of the first construction, but this again was taken downstream by the river. In 1882, a pile dam was built across the river, and it again was spoiled by the floods. This dam generally was in use until 1891, but had to be repaired almost every year. In the year named, work was started upon what was hoped to be a permanent dam, at an estimated cost of $60,000. In 1894, Andrew Jenson wrote that at least $50,000 had been lost by the community upon its dams. Noting the fact that only fifteen families constituted the population, he called St. Joseph "the leading community in pain, determination and unflinching courage in dealing with the elements around them." St. Joseph, as early as 1894, had completed its eighth dam across the river. Jos. W. Smith wrote of the dedication of the dam, in March of that year. He remarked especially upon the showing of rosy-cheeked, well-clad children, of whom the greater part of the assemblage was composed, "showing that the people were by no means destitute, even if they had been laboring on ditches and dams so much for the last eighteen years." The main prayer of the exercise was brief, but characteristic: "O Lord, we pray that this dam may stand, if it be Thy will--if not, let Thy will be done." The invocation was effective. The dam stood, as is illustrated within this book. Decline and Fall of Sunset Sunset, the lowest of the settlements, was near the present railroad crossing of the river, below the river junction with Clear Creek. There had been a temporary location two miles upstream. The main structure was a stockade, twelve rods square, mainly of drift cottonwood logs. Within were rock-built houses, a community dining hall and a well. Combination was made with Ballenger, across the stream, in the building of a dam, two and a half miles above the settlement. Apparently the sandy land and the difficulty of irrigating it drove the settlers away, until, finally, in 1885, Lot Smith's family was the only one left upon the ground, and it departed in 1888. Years later, Andrew Jenson found the rock walls and chimneys still standing. "Everything is desert," he wrote, "the whole landscape looks dreary and forbidding and the lonely graveyard on the hillside only reminds one of the population which once was and that is no more." Only ruin marks the place where once was headquarters of the Little Colorado Stake of Zion. The settlement was badly placed, for floods came within a rod of the fort and covered the wheat fields. Lot Smith wrote in poetic vein, "This is a strange country, belonging to a people whose lands the rivers have spoiled." Very practically, however, he wrote of good lands and slack water supply, "though the river shows it would be a mighty rushing torrent when the rains commence in summer, with the appearance of being 25 miles broad, and the Indians told us that if we are indeed to live where we are encamped, we had better fix some scaffolding in the trees." In August, 1878, a correspondent of the Deseret News wrote from Sunset that for a week the rain had been pouring down almost incessantly, that the whole bottom was covered with water, that some of the farms were submerged and grain in shocks was flooded, that the grain of Woodruff was entirely destroyed, the grist mill of Brigham City inundated and the grain stacks there were deep in water, with the inhabitants using boats and rafts to get around their farms. Village Communal Organization The settlements all established themselves under the United Order. Early in 1876 one of the settlers wrote from Allen's Camp, "It is all United Order here and no beating around the bush, for it is the intention to go into it to the full meaning of the term." This chronicler, John L. Blythe, April 11, 1876, again wrote, "The companies are going into the United Order to the whole extent, giving in everything they possess, their labor, time and talent." In August there was a report from the same locality that "the people are living in a united system, each laboring for the good of all the community and an excellent feeling prevails." The communal system was given formal adoption at Allen's Camp April 28, 1877, when articles were agreed upon for a branch of the United Order. June 5, 1877, with Wm. C. Allen presiding, there was an appraisal of property and a separation of duties. Henry M. Tanner (who still is in St. Joseph), was secretary, John Bushman foreman of the farm, James Walker water master and Moses D. Steele superintendent of livestock. Niels Nielsen was in charge of ox teams and Jos. H. Rogers in charge of horse teams, harness and wagons. The Church historian has given in detail the manner in which the system worked: "From the beginning the Saints at Allen's Camp disciplined themselves strictly according to Church rules. Every morning the Saints, at the sound of the triangle, assembled in the schoolhouse for prayer, on which occasion they would not only pray and sing, but sometimes brethren would make brief remarks. The same was resorted to in the evening. They did not all eat at the same table (a common custom followed in the other camps), but nevertheless great union, peace and love prevailed among the people, and none seemed to take advantage of his neighbor. Peace, harmony and brotherly love characterized all the settlers at Allen's Camp from the very beginning." In August, 1878, Samuel G. Ladd wrote from the new St. Joseph, that the United Order worked harmoniously and prosperously. In that year manufacturing of brooms was commenced by John Bushman. Up to 1882 each family was drawing from one common storehouse. In 1883 the Order was dissolved at St. Joseph and the stewardship plan adopted. Each family received its part of the divided land and a settlement of what each man originally had put into the Order. Proforma organization of the Order was continued until January, 1887. Hospitality Was of Generous Sort From Sunset Crossing Camp, G. C. Wood wrote, in April, 1876, "The brethren built a long shanty, with a long table in it and all ate their meals together, worked together and got along finely." In February, 1878, President Lot Smith wrote the Deseret News in a strain that indicated doubt concerning the efficiency of the United Order system. His letter told: "This mission has had a strange history so far, most who came having got weak in the back or knees and gone home. Some, I believe, have felt somewhat exercised about the way we are getting along, and the mode in which we are conducting our culinary affairs. Now, I have always had a preference for eating with my family and have striven to show that I was willing to enlarge as often as circumstances require, and the same feeling seemed to prevail in these settlements. We have enlarged ourselves to the amount of forty in one day. We have noticed that most people who pass the road are willing to stop and board with us a week or two, notwithstanding our poor provisions and the queer style it was served up." In July of the same year, Lorenzo Hatch wrote from Woodruff, "At Sunset, Brigham City and Woodruff, the settlements eat at one table, hence we have no poor nor rich among us. The Obed camp also had gone into the United Order in the fullest sense in May, 1876." Brigham City's Varied Industries Ballenger, in September, 1878, was renamed Brigham City, in honor of President Brigham Young. Its people were found by Erastus Snow in September, 1878, with a remarkable organization, operating in part under the United Order system. There was a fort 200 feet square, with rocky walls seven feet high. Inside were 36 dwelling houses, each 15x13 feet. On the north side was the dining hall, 80x20 feet, with two rows of tables, to seat more than 150 persons. Adjoining was a kitchen, 25x20 feet, with an annexed bakehouse. Twelve other dwelling houses were mentioned, as well as a cellar and storehouse. Water was secured within the enclosure from two good wells. South of the fort were corrals and stockyards. The main industry was the farming of 274 acres, more than one-half of it in wheat. A pottery was in charge of Brother Behrman, reported to have been confident that he could surpass any of the potteries in Utah for good ware. Milk was secured from 142 cows. One family was assigned to the sawmill in the mountains. J. A. Woods taught the first school. Jesse O. Ballenger, the first leader, was succeeded in 1878 by George Lake, who reported that, "while the people were living together in the United Order they generally ate together at the same table. The Saints, as a rule, were very earnest in their endeavors to carry out the principles of the Order, but some became dissatisfied and moved away." Discouragement became general, and in 1881 all were released from the mission. The settlement practically was broken up, the people scattering, though without dissension. Some went to Forest Dale, and later to the Gila River, and some left Arizona altogether. There was a surplus from the experiment of about $8000, which went to the Church, after the people had drawn out their original capital, each taking the same number of animals and the same amount of property contributed originally. In 1882 only a couple of families were left and an added surplus of $2200 was used by the Church in settling the Gila country. In 1890 only the family of Sidney Wilson remained on the old site of Brigham City. The Brigham City water-power grist mill built in 1878, a present from the Church, was given to the people of Woodruff, but was not used. The abandonment of Brigham City should not be blamed to the weakness of a communistic system. There had been frequent failures of crops and there had come a determination to find a locality where nature would smile more often upon the barley, so scouts were sent to the San Juan country in Utah, the Salt River country and to the Gila. George Lake, Andrew Anderson and George W. Skinner constituted the Gila party. Near Smithville they bought land, a transaction elsewhere referred to. Anderson and Skinner, in December, 1880, returned to Brigham City. At that point a business meeting was called at once and the authorities of the United Order approved the purchases made. January 1, 1878, was announced a census of the settlement of the Little Colorado country. Sunset had 136 inhabitants, Ballenger 277, Allen's Camp 76, Woodruff 50 and Moen Copie 25, a total of 564, with 115 families. Brief Lives of Obed and Taylor The settlement of Obed, three miles southwest of St. Joseph, directly south of old Allen's Camp and across the river, bears date from June, 1876, having been moved a short distance from the first camp ground. At that time was built a fort of remarkable strength, twelve rods square. In places, the walls were ten feet high. There were bastions, with portholes for defense, at two of the corners, and portholes were in the walls all around. The camp at the start had 123 souls. Cottonwood logs were sawed for lumber. The community had a schoolhouse in January, 1877, and a denominational school was started the next month, with Phoebe McNeil as teacher. The settlement was not a happy one. The site was malarial, selected against Church instructions, and there were the usual troubles in the washing away of brush and log dams. The population drifted away, until there was abandonment in 1878. Taylor was a small settlement on the Little Colorado, about three miles below the present St. Joseph, and should not be confounded with the present settlement of the same name near Snowflake. This first Taylor was established January 22, 1878, by eight families, mainly from Panguitch and Beaver, Utah. In the United Order they built a dining hall, a quarter-mile back from the river and organized as a ward, with John Kartchner at its head. But there was discouragement, not unnaturally, when the river dam went out for the fifth time. Then, in July, 1878, members of the settlement departed, going to the present site of Snowflake on Silver Creek. They included a number of Arkansas immigrants. There had been little improvement outside of the stockade and dining hall, and for most of the time the people lived in their wagons. [Illustration: THE COLORADO FERRY AND RANCH AT THE MOUTH OF THE PARIA By courtesy of Dr. George Wharton James] [Illustration: LEE CABIN AT MOEN AVI] [Illustration: MOEN COPIE WOOLEN MILL. First and Only One in Arizona] Chapter Fourteen Travel, Missions and Industries Passing of the Boston Party Keen interest in the Southwest was excited early in 1876 by a series of lectures delivered at New England points by Judge Samuel W. Cozzens, author of "The Marvellous Country." There was formed the American Colonization Company, with Cozzens as president. Two companies of men, of about fifty individuals each, were dispatched from Boston, each man with equipment weighing about thirty pounds. The destination was a fertile valley in northeastern Arizona, a land that had been described eloquently, probably after only casual observation. The end of the Santa Fe railroad was in northern New Mexico. There the first party purchased four wagons and a number of mules from a grading contractor, Pat Shanley, afterward a cattleman in Gila County. The best story at hand of the Bostonians is from one of them, Horace E. Mann, who for years has been a prospector and miner and who now is a resident of Phoenix. He tells that the journey westward was without particular incident until was reached, about June 15, the actual destination, the valley of the Little Colorado River, on the route of the projected Atlantic & Pacific Railroad. The travelers were astonished to find the country already taken up by a number of companies of Mormon colonists. In New England the Mormons were considered a blood-thirsty people, eager to slay any Gentile who might happen along. It is not to be intimated that the Bostonians were mollycoddles. They appear to have been above even the average of the time, manly and stalwart enough, but the truth is, as told by Mr. Mann, the expedition did not care either to mingle with the Mormons or to incur danger of probable slaughter. Therefore, the parties hurried along as fast as possible. The same view is indicated in a recent interview with David E. Adams, of one of the Mormon settlements. He told the Historian that he found the Bostonians suspicious and fearful. At that time the Utah people still were living in their wagons. They were breaking ground and were starting upon the construction of dams in the river. The second Boston party passed June 23. At Sunset Crossing Mann and three of his companions entered upon an adventure assuredly novel in arid Arizona. They constructed a raft of drift cottonwood and thought to lighten the journey by floating down the river. It was found that the stream soon bent toward the northward, away from the wagon trail. Sometimes there were shoals that the raft had to be pushed over and again there were deep whirlpools, around which the raft went merrily a dozen times before the river channel again could be entered. The channel walls grew higher and higher until, finally, the navigators pulled the raft ashore and resumed their journey on foot, finding their wagon in camp at the Canyon Diablo crossing. There, apparently considering themselves safe from massacre, was an encampment of a week or more. At the Naming of Flagstaff Mann, his bunkie, George E. Loring (later express agent at Phoenix), a Rhode Islander named Tillinghast and three others formed an advance party westward. This party made camp at a small spring just south of San Francisco Mountains, where Flagstaff is now. Mann remembers the place as Volunteer Springs in Harrigan Valley. While waiting for the main party to come up, the advance guard hunted and explored. Mann remembers traveling up a little valley to the north and northwest to the big LeRoux Springs, below which he found the remains of a burnt cabin and of a stockade corral, possibly occupied in the past as a station on the transcontinental mail route. With reference to the naming of Flagstaff, Mr. Mann is very definite. He says that, while waiting for the main party, this being late in June, 1876, and merely for occupation, the limbs were cut from a straight pine tree that was growing by itself near the camp. The bark was cut away, leaving the tree a model flagstaff and for this purpose it was used, the flag being one owned by Tillinghast and the only one carried by the expedition. The tree was not cut down. It was left standing upon its own roots. This tale is rather at variance with one that has been of common acceptance in the history of Flagstaff and the date was not the Fourth of July, as has been believed, for Mann is sure that he arrived in Prescott in June. The main section of the first party came a few days later, and was on the ground for a celebration of the centennial Fourth of July that centered around the flagstaff. Mann also remembers that Major Maynadier, one of the leaders of the expedition, surveyed a townsite for Flagstaff, each of the members of the expedition being allotted a tract. The second party joined the first at Flagstaff. Word had been received that mechanics were needed at Prescott and in the nearby mines, with the large wages of $6 a day, and hence there was eagerness to get along and have a share in the wealth of the land. It remains to be stated that all the men found no difficulty in locating themselves in and around Prescott and that no regret was felt over the failure of the original plan. Southern Saints Brought Smallpox One of the few parties of Southern States Saints known for years in any of the Stakes of Zion joined the poverty-stricken colonists on the Little Colorado in the fall of 1877. Led by Nelson P. Beebe, it numbered about 100 individuals, coming through New Mexico by wagon, with a first stop at Savoia. The immigrants were without means or food and there had to be haste in sending most of them on westward, more wagons being sent from the Little Colorado camps for their conveyance. At Allen's Camp was a burden of sickness, mainly fever sufferers from the unfortunate Obed. To these visitors were added seventy of the "Arkansas Saints," who came October 4. Yet the plucky Allenites not only divided with the strangers their scanty store of bread, but gave a dance in celebration of the addition to the pioneers' strength. The arrivals brought with them a new source of woe. One of their number, Thomas West, had contracted smallpox at Albuquerque and from this case came many prostrations. Fort Moroni, at LeRoux Spring One of the most important watering places of northeastern Arizona is LeRoux Spring, seven miles northwest of Flagstaff on the southwestern slope of the San Francisco Mountains. This never-failing spring was a welcome spot to the pioneers who traveled the rocky road along the 35th parallel of latitude. San Francisco Spring (or Old Town Spring) at the present Flagstaff, was much less dependable and at the time of the construction of the Atlantic & Pacific railroad in 1881-2, water often was hauled to Flagstaff from the larger spring, at times sold for $1 a barrel. The importance of this water supply appears to have been appreciated early by the long-headed directing body of the Mormon Church. Early in 1877, under direction of John W. Young, son and one of the counselors of Brigham Young, from the Little Colorado settlements of St. Joseph and Sunset, was sent an expedition, that included Alma Iverson, John L. Blythe and Jos. W. McMurrin, the last at this writing president of the California Mission of the Church, then a boy of 18. According to Ammon M. Tenney, this LeRoux spring was known to the people of the Little Colorado settlements as San Francisco spring. Mr. McMurrin personally states his remembrance that the expedition proceeded along the Beale trail to the spring, near which was built a small log cabin, designed to give a degree of title to the water and to the locality, probably also to serve as a shelter for any missionary parties that might travel the road. There is no information that it was used later for any purpose. The men were instructed to build a cabin at Turkey Tanks, on the road to the Peaks, this cabin to be lined with pine needles and to be used as a storage icehouse, Counselor Young expressing the opinion that there would be times in the summer heat of the Little Colorado Valley when ice would be of the greatest value. The tanks were hardly suitable for this purpose, however, and the icehouse was not built. Location of the LeRoux spring by the Iverson-Blythe party in 1877 appears to have been sufficient to hold the ground till it was needed, in 1881, by John W. Young, in connection with his railroad work. About sixty graders and tie cutters were camped, mainly in tents, on LeRoux Prairie or Flat, below the spring, according to Mrs. W. J. Murphy, now of Phoenix, a resident of the Prairie for five months of 1881, her husband a contractor on the new railroad. She remembers no cattle, though deer and antelope were abundant. Stockaded Against the Indians In the early spring came reports of Indian raids to the eastward. So Young hauled in a number of double-length ties, which he set on end, making a stockade, within which he placed his camp, mainly of tents. Later were brush shelters within, but the great log house, illustrated herein, was not built until afterward. Thereafter was attached the name of Fort Moroni, given by Young, who organized the Moroni Cattle Company. At the time of the coming of the grade to Flagstaff, Young also had a camp in the western end of the present Flagstaff townsite. Fort Moroni was acquired about 1883 by the Arizona Cattle Company. The large building was used as a mess house. The stockade ties were cut down to fence height and eventually disappeared, used by the cowboys for fuel. An entertaining sidelight on the settlement of what later generally was known as Fort Valley has been thrown by Earl R. Forrest of Washington, Penn., in early days a cowboy for the Arizona Cattle Company. He writes that the building formed one side of a 100-foot square, with the stockade on the other three sides. In his day, the name of the ranch was changed to Fort Rickerson, in honor of Chas. L. Rickerson, treasurer of the company. Capt. F.B. Bullwinkle, the manager, a former Chief of the Chicago Fire Department, and a lover of fast stock, was killed near Flagstaff, thrown from a stumbling horse while racing for the railroad station. Thereafter the property passed into the possession of the Babbitt Brothers of Flagstaff. The old building was torn down late in 1920. In August, 1908, the first forest experiment station in the United States was established in Fort Valley. The great spring is used only for watering cattle, and the spring at Flagstaff appears to have been lost in the spread of civilization. LeRoux spring was named for Antoine LeRoux, principal guide of the famous survey expedition of Lieut. A.W. Whipple, along the 35th parallel, in 1853. Incidentally, this is the same LeRoux who was principal guide of the Mormon Battalion. Mormon Dairy and the Mount Trumbull Mill Mormon Mountain, Mormon Lake and Mormon Dairy still are known as such, 28 miles southeast of Flagstaff. The Dairy was established in September, 1878, by Lot Smith, in what then was known as Pleasant Valley, in the pines, sixty miles west of Sunset. In that year 48 men and 41 women from Sunset and Brigham City, were at the Dairy, caring for 115 cows and making butter and cheese. Three good log houses had been built. Seven miles south of Pleasant Valley (which should not be confounded with the Tonto Basin Pleasant Valley of sanguinary repute), was the site of the first sawmill on the Mogollon Plateau, upon which a half-dozen very large plants now operate to furnish lumber to the entire Southwest. This mill, probably antedated in northern Arizona only at Prescott, first was erected, about 1870, at Mount Trumbull, in the Uinkaret Mountains of northwestern Arizona, to cut lumber for the new temple at St. George, Utah, fifty miles to the northward. This mill, in 1876, was given by the Church authorities to the struggling Little Colorado River settlements. Taken down in August by the head sawyer, Warren R. Tenney, it was hauled into Sunset late in September and soon was re-erected by Tenney, and, November 7, put into operation in the pine woods near Mormon Lake, about sixty miles southwest of Sunset, soon turning out 100,000 feet of boards. Its site was named Millville. The mill, after the decline of the first settlements, passed into the possession of W. J. Flake. In the summer of 1882, it was transferred to Pinedale and in 1890 to Pinetop. It now is at Lakeside, where, it is assumed, at least part of the original machinery still is being operated. Its first work at Pinetop was to saw the timbers for a large assembly hall, or pavilion, to be used for the only conference ever held that included all the Arizona Stakes. Also in the timber country are to be noted Wilford, named in honor of President Wilford Woodruff, and Heber, named for Heber C. Kimball, small settlements fifty miles southwest of St. Joseph, established in 1883 from St. Joseph and other Little Colorado settlements, for stock raising and dry farming. John Bushman is believed to have been the first Mormon resident of the locality. Log houses were built and at Wilford was a schoolhouse, which later was moved to St. Joseph, there used as a dwelling. When a number of the brethren went into Mexican exile, their holdings were "jumped" by outsiders. Wilford has been entirely vacated, but Heber still has residents. Where Salt Was Secured Salt for the early settlements of northern Arizona very generally was secured from the salt lake of the Zuni, just east of the New Mexican line, roughly 33 miles from St. Johns. As early as 1865, Sol Barth brought salt on pack mules from this lake to points as far westward as Prescott. In the records of a number of the Little Colorado settlements are found references to where the brethren visited a salt lake and came back with as much as two tons at a load. This lake is of sacred character to the Zuni, which, at certain times of the year send parties of priests and warriors to the lake, 45 miles south of the tribal village. There is elaborate ceremonial before salt is collected. Undoubtedly the lake was known to prehistoric peoples, for salt, probably obtained at this point, has been found in cliff ruins in southern Colorado, 200 miles from the source of supply. The Zuni even had a special goddess, Mawe, genius of the sacred salt lake, or "Salt Mother," to whom offerings were made at the lake. Warren K. Follett, in 1878, told that the lake lies 300 feet lower than the general surface of the country. The salt forms within the water, in layers of from three to four inches thick, and is of remarkable purity. The Hopi secured salt from a ledge in the Grand Canyon, below the mouth of the Little Colorado, about eighty miles northwest of their villages. At the point of mining, sacrifices were made before shrines of a goddess of salt and a god of war. The place has had description by Dr. Geo. Wharton James, whose knowledge of the gorge is most comprehensive. On the upper Verde and in Tonto Creek Valley are salt deposits, though very impure. Upper Salt River has a small deposit of very good sodium chloride, which was mined mainly for the mills of Globe, in the seventies. The Verde deposit now is being mined for shipment to paper mills of its sodium sulphate. Reference elsewhere is made to the salt mines of the Virgin River Valley. [Illustration: GRAND FALLS ON THE LITTLE COLORADO RIVER] [Illustration: ORIGINAL FORT MORONI WITH ITS STOCKADE] [Illustration: FORT MORONI IN LATER YEARS] The Mission Post of Moen Copie One of the most interesting early locations of the Mormon Church in Arizona was that of Moen Copie, about 75 miles southeast of Lee's Ferry. The name is a Hopi one, signifying "running water" or "many springs." The soil is alkaline, but it is a place where Indians had raised crops for generations. The presiding spirit of the locality was Tuba, the Oraibi chief, who had been taken by Jacob Hamblin to Utah, there to learn something of the white man's civilization. Joseph Fish wrote that at an early date Moen Copie was selected as a missionary post by Jacob Hamblin and Andrew S. Gibbons and that in 1871 and 1872, John L. Blythe and family were at that point. Permanent settlement on Moen Copie Creek was made December 4, 1875, by a party headed by Jas. S. Brown. There was establishment of winter quarters, centering in a stone house 40x20 feet, with walls twenty inches thick. The house was on the edge of a cliff, with two rows of log houses forming three sides of a square. Indians Who Knew Whose Ox Was Gored The Author is pleased to present here a tale of Indian craft, delightfully told him by Mrs. Elvira Martineau (Benj. S.) Johnson, who, in 1876, accompanied her husband to Moen Copie, where he had been sent as a missionary. July 4 the women had just prepared a holiday feast when Indians were seen approaching. The men were summoned from the fields below the cliff. Leading the Indians was a Navajo, Peicon, who, addressing Brown as a brother chieftain, thrust forward his young son, dramatically stating that the lad had killed three cows owned at the settlement of Sunset and offering him for any punishment the whites might see fit to inflict, even though it be death. Brown mildly suggested that the Sunset people should be seen, but that he was sure that all they would ask would be the value of the animals. During the protracted argument a party of accompanying Utes came into the discussion, threatening individuals with their bows and arrows. The Navajos were fed and then was developed the truth. It was that the men of Sunset had killed three Indian cattle and the wily chief had been trying to get Brown to fix a drastic penalty upon his own people. Brown went with the Navajos to Sunset, there to learn that the half-starved colonists had killed three range animals, assumed to have been ownerless. The matter then was adjusted with little trouble and to the full satisfaction of the redskins. In September, 1878, Erastus Snow visited Moen Copie, where the inhabitants comprised nine families, with especial mention of Andrew S. Gibbons, of the party of John W. Young and of Tuba. There had been a prosperous season in a farming way. This visit is notable from the fact that on the 17th, Snow and others proceeded about two miles west of north and at Musha Springs located a townsite, afterward named Tuba City. Tuba City was visited in 1900 by Andrew Jenson, who found twenty families resident, with one family at the old Moen Copie mission and three families at Moen Abi, seven miles to the southwest. A Woolen Factory in the Wilds Primarily the Tuba settlement was a missionary effort, with the intention of taking the Gospel into the very center of the Navajo and Hopi country. Agriculture flourished a all times, with an abundant supply of water for irrigation. But there was an attempt at industry and one which would appear to have had the very best chance of success. The Navajo and Hopi alike are owners of immense numbers of sheep. The wool in early days almost entirely was utilized by the Indians in the making of blankets, this on rude hand looms, where the product was turned out with a maximum of labor and of time. John W. Young, elsewhere referred to in connection with the establishment of Fort Moroni and with the building of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad, thought he saw an opportunity to benefit the Indians and the Church, and probably himself, so at Tuba City, in the spring of 1879, he commenced erection of a woolen factory, with interior dimensions 90x70 feet. The plant was finished in November, with 192 spindles in use. In the spring of 1880 was a report in the Deseret News that the manufacture of yarns had commenced and that the machinery was running like a charm. Looms for the cloth-making were reported on the way. Just how labor was secured is not known, but it is probable that Indians were utilized to as large an extent as possible. There is no available record concerning the length of time this mill was operated. It is understood, however, that the Indians soon lost interest in it and failed to bring in wool. Possibly the labor supply was not ample and possibly the distance to the Utah settlements was too great and the journey too rough to secure profit. At any event, the factory closed without revolutionizing the Navajo and Hopi woolen industry. In 1900 was written that the factory "has most literally been carried away by Indians, travelers and others." Old Chief Tuba took particular pride in watching over the remains of the factory, but after his death the ruination of the building was made complete. Some of the machinery was taken to St. Johns. Lot Smith and His End In general the Saints at Tuba appear to have lived at peace with their Indian neighbors, save in 1892 when Lot Smith was killed. The simple tale of the tragedy is in a Church record that follows: "On Monday, June 20, 1892, some Indians at Tuba City turned their sheep into Lot Smith's pasture. Brother Smith went out to drive the sheep away, and while thus engaged he got into a quarrel with the Indians and commenced shooting their sheep. In retaliation the Indians commenced firing upon Lot Smith's cows and finally directed their fire against Lot Smith himself, shooting him through the body. Though mortally wounded, he rode home, a distance of about two miles, and lived about six hours, when he expired. It is stated on good authority that the Indians were very sorry, as Smith always had been a friend to them." The Author here might be permitted to make reference to the impression generally held in the Southwest that Lot Smith was a "killer," a man of violence, who died as he had lived. Close study of his record fails to bear out this view. Undoubtedly it started in Utah after his return from Mormon Battalion service, when he became a member of the Mormon militia that harassed Johnston's army in the passes east of the Salt Lake Valley. There is solemn Church assurance that not a life was taken in this foray, though many wagons were burned in an attempt, October 3, 1857, to delay the march of the troops. Smith (who in no wise was related to the family of the Prophet Joseph) became a leader in the Deseret defense forces, but there is belief that in all his life he shed no blood, unless it was in connection with a battle with the Utes near Provo, in February, 1850. In this fight were used brass cannon, probably those that had been bought at Sutter's Fort by returning Mormon Battalion members. According to a friendly biographer, "There never was a man who held the life and liberty of man more sacred than did Lot Smith." Ten years after his death there was re-interment of his remains at Farmington, Utah. Moen Copie Reverts to the Indians In 1900 Moen Copie ward embraced 21 families and about 150 souls. There had been an extension of the Navajo reservation westward and the Indians, though friendly, had been advised to crowd the Mormons out, on the ground that the country in reality belonged to the aborigines. There was no title to the land, which had not been surveyed and which was held only by squatter rights. There had been some success in a missionary way, but conditions arose which made it appear best that the land be vacated to the Indians. There was much negotiation and at the end there was payment by the government of $45,000, this divided among the whites according to the value of their improvements and acreage. In this wise the Mormon settlement of Tuba City was vacated in February, 1903, the inhabitants moving to other parts of Arizona and to Utah and Idaho. A large reservation school has been established on the Wash, many Indians there being instructed in the arts of the white man, while government farmers are utilizing the waters of the stream and of the springs in the cultivation of a considerable acreage. A feature of this school is that fuel is secured, at very slight cost, from coal measures nearby. Woodruff and Its Water Troubles Closely following settlement of the ephemeral lower Little Colorado towns came the founding of Woodruff, about 25 miles upstream from St. Joseph and about twelve miles above the present Holbrook. It is still a prosperous town and community, though its history has been one in which disaster has come repeatedly through the washing away of the dam which supplies its main canal with water from the Little Colorado and Silver Creek. In the locality the Mormons were antedated by Luther Martin and Felix Scott. The section was scouted in December, 1876, by Joseph H. Richards, Lewis P. Garden, James Thurman and Peter O. Peterson, from Allen's Camp, and they participated in starting a ditch from the river. There appeared to have been no indication of occupancy when, in March, 1877, Ammon M. Tenney passed through the valley and determined it a good place for location. In the following month, however, Cardon and two sons, and Wm. A. Walker came upon the ground, with other families, followed, three weeks later, by Nathan C. Tenney, father of Ammon M., with two sons, John T. and Samuel, Hans Gulbrandsen and Charles Riggs. For about a year the settlement was known simply as Tenney's Camp. L. H. Hatch was appointed to take charge in February, 1878. About that time the name of Woodruff was adopted, in honor of President Wilford Woodruff, this suggestion made by John W. Young. The first settlement was in a rock and adobe fort, forming a half square. There was a common dining room as, for a while, there was adherence to the system of the United Order. It is told that all save two of the settlers participated and there is memorandum of how three sisters were detailed weekly for cooking, with girls as assistants. In February, 1882, was survey of the present townsite, on which John Reidhead built the first house. This townsite was purchased from the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company, in May, 1889, for $8 an acre. At first it had not been appreciated that the town had not been built upon government land. The history of Woodruff has in it much of disastrous incident through the frequent breaking of the river dams. In May, 1880, the dam had to be cut by the settlers themselves, in order to permit the water to flow down to St. Joseph, where there was priority of appropriation. At several times, the Church organization helped in the repair or building of the many dams, after the settlers had spent everything they had and had reached the point of despair. At suggestion of Jesse N. Smith in 1884, all the brethren in the Stake were called upon to donate one day each of labor on the Woodruff dam. Up to 1890, the dam had been washed out seven times and even now there is trouble in its maintenance. Of passing interest is the fact that President Wilford Woodruff, after whom the settlement was named, was a visitor to Woodruff on at least two occasions, in 1879, and in 1887, when an exile from Utah. He was at Moen Copie when there came news, which later proved erroneous, that pursuers had crossed at Lee's Ferry. Then, guided by Richard Gibbons, he rode westward, making a stop of a few days at Fort Moroni. Holbrook Once Was Horsehead Crossing Holbrook, on the Little Colorado, county seat of Navajo County, shipping point on the Santa Fe railroad system for practically all of Navajo and Apache Counties, had Mormon inception, under its present name, that of an Atlantic and Pacific railroad locating engineer, F.A. Holbrook. The christening is said to have been done in 1881 by John W. Young, then a grading contractor, applied to a location two miles east of the present townsite. Young there had a store at his headquarters. Later the railroad authorities established the town on its present location. The settlement, since the first coming of English-speaking folk, had been known as Horsehead Crossing. For years before the railroad came, a roadside station was kept at the Crossing by a Mexican, Berardo, whose name was differently spelled by almost every traveler who wrote of him. One of the tales is from E.C. Bunch, who came as a young member of the Arkansas immigration in 1876, and who later became one of the leaders in Arizona education. He tells, in referring appreciatively to Mexican hospitality, that "Berrando's" sign, painted by an American, read, "If you have the money, you can eat." But the owner, feeling the misery coldheartedness might create, wrote below, "No got a money, eat anyway." Berardo loaned the colonists some cows, whose milk was most welcome. Chapter Fifteen Settlement Spreads Southward Snowflake and its Naming Snowflake, one of the most prosperous of towns of Mormon origin, lies 28 miles almost south of Holbrook, with which it was given railroad connection during 1919. The first settler was James Stinson who came in 1873, and who, by 1878, had taken out the waters of Silver Creek for the irrigation of about 300 acres. In July, 1878, Stinson (later a resident of Tempe) sold to Wm. J. Flake for $11,000, paid in livestock. July 21, the first Mormons moved upon the Stinson place. They were Flake, James Gale, Jesse Brady, Alexander Stewart and Thomas West, with their families, most of them from the old Taylor settlement. Others followed soon thereafter, including six Taylor families, headed by John Kartchner, they taking the upper end of the valley. Actual foundation of the town came in an incident of the most memorable of the southwestern trips of Erastus Snow. He and his party arrived at the Kartchner ranch September 26, 1878, the location described by L. John Nuttall of the party as "a nice little valley." As bishop was appointed John Hunt of Savoia, who was with the Mormon Battalion, and who remained in the same capacity till 1910. Flake's location was considered best for a townsite and to it was given the name it now bears, honoring the visiting dignitary and the founder. The townsite was surveyed soon thereafter by Samuel G. Ladd of St. Joseph, who also laid out several ditch lines. Even before there was a town, there was a birth, that of William Taylor Gale, son of James Gale. [Illustration: ERASTUS SNOW. In Charge of Pioneer Arizona Colonization] [Illustration: JOSEPH W. McMURRIN] [Illustration: ANTHONY W. IVINS] January 16, 1879, arrived Jesse N. Smith, president of the newly-created Eastern Arizona Stake, appointed on recommendation of Erastus Snow. After trying to negotiate for land at St. Johns, he returned, and he and his company concluded to locate in Snowflake, where they took up lots not already appropriated. The farming land went in a drawing of two parcels each to the city lot owners, who thus became possessed of twenty acres each. Joseph Fish headed a committee on distribution, which valued each city lot at $30, each first-class farming plot of ten acres at $110 and each second-class plot at $60, giving each shareholder property valued at $200, or ten head of stock, this being at the rate that Flake paid for the whole property. Flake took only one share. The Mormon towns usually were of the quietest, but occasionally had excitement brought to them. On one such occasion at Snowflake, December 8, 1892, was killed Chas. L. Flake, son of Wm. J. Flake. A message had come from New Mexico asking detention of Will Mason, a desperado said to have had a record of seven murders. Charles and his brother, Jas. M., attempted the arrest. Mason fired twice over his shoulder, the first bullet cutting James' left ear, and then shot Charles through the neck. Almost the same moment a bullet from James' pistol passed through the murderer's head, followed by a second. Of modern interest, indicative of the trend of public sentiment, is an agreement, entered into late in 1920, by the merchants of Snowflake and the towns to the southward, to sell no tobacco, in any form. Snowflake was the first county-seat of Apache County, created in 1879, the first court session held in the home of Wm. J. Flake. At the fall election, the courthouse was moved to St. Johns. In 1880, by the vote of Clifton, which then was within Apache County, Springerville was made the county seat. In 1882, St. Johns finally was chosen the seat of Apache County government. Joseph Fish, Historian The first consecutive history of Arizona, intended to be complete in its narration, undoubtedly was that written by Joseph Fish, for many years resident in or near Snowflake. Though Mr. Fish is a patriarch of the Mormon Church, his narration of events is entirely uncolored, unless by sympathy for the Indians. His work never had publication, a fact to be deplored. A copy of his manuscript is in the office of the State Historian, and another is possessed by Dr. J. A. Munk, held by him in his library of Arizoniana in the Southwestern Museum at Garvanza, Cal. The history has about 700 pages of typewritten matter, treating of events down to a comparatively late date. Mr. Fish has a clear and lucid style of narration and his work is both interesting and valuable. Though of no large means, he gathered, at his home on the Little Colorado, about 400 books and magazines, and upon this basis and by personal interviews and correspondence he secured the data upon which he wrote. He is a native of Illinois, of Yankee stock, and is now in his eightieth year. He came to Arizona in 1879 and the next year was in charge of the commissary department for the contract of John W. Young in the building of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad. His first historical work was done as clerk of the Eastern Arizona Stake. In 1902 he began work on another historical volume, "The Pioneers of the Rocky Mountains." He now is resident in Enterprise, Utah. Another historic character resident in the Stake was Ralph Ramsey, the artist in wood who carved the eagle that overspreads the Eagle gate in Salt Lake City. Taylor, Second of the Name Taylor, the second settlement of the name in the Mormon northeastern occupation, lies three miles south of Snowflake (which it antedates). It is on Silver Creek, which is spanned by a remarkable suspension bridge that connects two sections of the town. When the first Mormon residents came, early in 1878 the settlement was known as Bagley. Then there was to be change to Walker, but the Postoffice Department objected, as another Walker existed, near Prescott. The present name, honoring John Taylor, president of the Church, was adopted in 1881, at the suggestion of Stake President Jesse N. Smith. The first settler was James Pearce, a noted character in southwestern annals, son of the founder of Pearce's Ferry across the Colorado at the mouth of Grand Wash, at the lower end of the Grand Canyon. James Pearce was a pioneer missionary with Jacob Hamblin among the Paiutes of the Nevada Muddy region and the Hopi and Navajo of northeastern Arizona. He came January 23, 1878, in March joined by John H. Standiford. Other early arrivals were Jos. C. Kay, Jesse H. and Wm. A. Walker, Lorenzo Hatch, an early missionary to the northeastern Arizona Indians, Noah Brimhall and Daniel Bagley. A ditch was surveyed by Major Ladd, who did most of such work for all the settlements, but the townsite, established in 1878, on the recommendation, in September, of Erastus Snow, was surveyed in December by a group of interested residents, led by Jos. S. Carden, their "chain" being a rope. The irrigation troubles of the community appear to have been fewer than those of the Little Colorado towns, though in the great spring flood of 1890 the dams and bridges along Silver Creek were carried away. Shumway's Historic Founder Shumway, on Silver Creek, five miles above Taylor, has interest of historical sort in the fact that it was named after an early settler Charles Shumway, one of the most noted of the patriarchs of the Church. He was the first to cross the Mississippi, February 4, 1846, in the exodus from Nauvoo, and was one of the 143 Pioneers who entered Salt Lake with Brigham Young the following summer. In December, 1879, his son, Wilson G. Shumway, accepted a call to Arizona. Most of the winter was spent at Grand Falls in a "shack" he built of cottonwood logs, roofed with sandstone slabs. In this he entertained Apostle Woodruff, who directed the chiseling of the name "Wilford Woodruff" upon a rock. Charles Shumway and N.P. Beebe bought the mill rights on Silver Creek, acquired through location the previous year by Nathan C. and Jesse Wanslee, brought machinery from the East and, within a year, started a grist mill that still is a local institution. The village of Shumway never has had more than a score of families. Charles Shumway died May 21, 1898. His record of self-sacrifice continued after his arrival in Arizona early in 1880, the first stop being at Concho. There, according to his son, Wilson G., the family for two years could have been rated as among "the poorest of poor pioneers," with a dugout for a home, this later succeeded by a log cabin of comparative luxury. For months the bread was of barley flour, the diet later having variety, changed to corn bread and molasses, with wheat flour bread as a treat on Sundays. Showlow Won in a Game of "Seven-Up" Showlow, one of the freak Arizona place names, applied to a creek and district, as well as to a thrifty little settlement, lies about south of Snowflake, twenty miles or more. The name antedates the Mormon settlement. The valley jointly was held by C.E. Cooley and Marion Clark, both devoted to the card game of "seven-up." At a critical period of one of their games, when about all possible property had been wagered, Clark exclaimed, "Show low and you take the ranch!" Cooley "showed low." This same property later was sold by him to W.J. Flake, for $13,000. The Showlow section embraces the mountain communities of Showlow, Reidhead (Lone Pine), Pinedale, Linden, Juniper, Adair (which once had unhappy designation as "Fools' Hollow"), Ellsworth, Lakeside (also known as Fairview and Woodland), Pinetop and Cluff's Cienega. Cooley, in the Cienega (Sp., marsh) is the site of a large sawmill and is the terminus of a railroad from Holbrook. But the noted scout Cooley, lived elsewhere, at Showlow and at Apache Springs. The first Mormons to come to Showlow were Alfred Cluff and David E. Adams, who were employed by Cooley in 1876. They were from Allen's Camp, almost driven away by necessity. Others soon came, including Moses and Orson Cluff, Edmund Ellsworth and Edson Whipple, a Salt Lake Pioneer. There was gradual settlement of the communities above listed, generally prior to 1880. While only one member of the faith was killed during the Indian troubles of the eighties, log and stone forts were erected in several of the villages for use in case of need. Mountain Communities Out in the woods, twenty miles southwest of Snowflake, is the village of Pinedale, settled in January, 1879, by Niels Mortensen and sons and Niels Peterson. The first location was at what now is called East Pinedale, also known at different times as Mortensen and Percheron. In the following winter, a small sawmill was brought in from Fort Apache and in 1882 came a larger mill, the original Mount Trumbull mill. In that year a townsite had rough survey by James Huff and in 1885 a schoolhouse was built. The brethren had much trouble with desperados, horse and cattle thieves, but peace came after the Pleasant Valley war in Tonto Basin, in which thirty of the range riders were killed. Reidhead, also known at times as Woolf's Ranch, Lone Pine Crossing, Beaver Branch and Reidhead Crossing, is one of the deserted points of early settlement, historically important mainly in the fact that it was the home of Nathan B. Robinson, killed nearby by Apaches June 1, 1882. Fear of the Indians then drove away the other settlers and, though there was later return, in 1893 was final abandonment. Reidhead lay on Showlow Creek, ten miles above Taylor and ten miles from Cooley's ranch. It was one of the places of first white settlement in northeastern Arizona, a Mexican having had his ranch there even before Cooley came into the country. Then came one Woolf, from whom squatter rights were bought in April, 1878, by John Reidhead, then lately from Utah. Pinetop, 35 miles south of Snowflake, dates back to March, 1888, when settled by Wm. L. Penrod and sons, including four families, all from Provo, Utah. Progress started with the transfer to Pinetop of the Mount Trumbull mill in 1890. The name is said to have been given by soldiers, the first designation having been Penrod. A notable event in local history was a joint conference in Pinetop, July 4, 1892, with representatives from all Arizona Stakes and attended by President Woodruff's counselors, Geo. Q. Cannon and Jos. F. Smith. For this special occasion was built a pavilion, the largest in Arizona, a notable undertaking for a small community. The structure was destroyed by fire a few years ago. Forest Dale on the Reservation In the settlement of what now is southern Navajo County, the Mormon settlers a bit overran the present line of the Apache Indian reservation, where they located early in 1878 upon what now is known as Forest Dale Creek, a tributary of Carrizo Creek. The country is a beautiful one, well watered from abundant rains and well wooded, possibly a bit more favored than the present settlements of Showlow, Pinetop and Lakeside, which lie just north of the reservation line. There is reference in a letter of Llewellyn Harris, in July, 1878, to the settlement of Forest Dale, but the name is found in writings several months before. Harris and several others refer to the Little Colorado country as being in "Aravapai" County. This was in error. The county then was Yavapai, before the separation of Apache County. The valley was found by Oscar Cluff while hunting in the fall of 1877 and soon thereafter he moved there with his family. In February there followed his brother, Alfred Cluff, who suggested the name. The settlement was started February 18, 1878, by Jos. H. Frisby, Merritt Staley, Oscar Mann, Orson and Alfred Cluff, Ebenezer Thayne, David E. Adams and a few others. The overrunning referred to was not done blindly. Jos. H. Frisby and Alfred Cluff went to San Carlos. There they were assured by Agent Hart that Apache Springs and the creek referred to were not on the reservation, and that the government would protect them if they would settle there. It was understood that the reservation line lay about three miles south of the settlement. This information is contained in a letter signed by Agent Hart and addressed to Colonel Andrews, Eleventh Infantry, commanding Fort Apache. Mr. Hart stated that he would be "glad to have the settlers make permanent homes at Forest Dale, for the reason that the Indians strayed so far from their own lands that it was hard to keep track of them as conditions then were, and that the settlement of the country would have a tendency to hold the Indians on their own lands upon the reservation." Lieutenant Ray was sent with a detachment of troops and the Indians at Apache Springs were removed and the main body of the settlers, then temporarily located on the Showlow, moved over the ridge into the new valley. In March, 1878, the settlers included Merritt Staley, Oscar Mann, Ebenezer Thayne, David E. Adams, Jos. H. Frisby, Alfred Cluff, Isaac Follett, Orson Cluff and several unmarried men. In September, Erastus Snow found a very prosperous settlement. A ward organization was established. The first white child, Forest Dale Adams, is now the wife of Frank Webster, of Central, Arizona. Seven springs of good water, known as Apache Springs, formed the headwaters of Carrizo Creek. In 1879, Missionaries Harris and Thayne appear to have made a mistake similar to that of the Arab who allowed the camel to thrust his nose inside of the tent. They secured permission from the commanding officer of creek. The missionary efforts appear to have failed, and the Indians simply demanded everything in sight. Reports came that the locality really was on the reservation and the white population therefore drifted away, mainly into the Gila Valley. In December, 1879, only three families were left, and the following year the last were gone. In 1881 rumors drifted down the Little Colorado that Forest Dale, after all, was not on the reservation. So William Crookston and three others re-settled the place, some of them from the abandoned Brigham City. Then came the Indian troubles of 1881-82. When Fort Apache was attacked, the families consolidated at Cooley, where they built a fort. Some went north to Snowflake and Taylor. In December, 1881, President Jesse N. Smith of the Eastern Arizona Stake advised the Forest Dale settlers to satisfy the Indians for their claims on the place, and received assurance from General Carr at Fort Apache, that the locality most likely was not on the reservation and that, in case it was not, he would be pleased to have the Mormon settlers there. A new ward was established and William Ellsworth and twenty more families moved in, mainly from Brigham City. In May, 1882, the Indians came again to plant corn and were wrathful to find the whites ahead of them. An officer was sent from Fort Apache and a treaty was made by which the Indians were given thirty acres of planted land. June 1, 1882, Apaches killed Nathan B. Robinson at the Reidhead place and shot Emer Plumb at Walnut Springs, during a period of general Indian unrest. Soon thereafter, President Smith advised the settlers that they had better look for other locations, as the ground was on the reservation. In December, Lieutenant Gatewood, under orders from Captain Crawford (names afterward famous in the Geronimo campaign to the southward) came from Fort Apache and advised the settlers they would be given until the spring to vacate. The crops were disposed of at Fort Apache and the spring of 1883 found Forest Dale deserted, houses, fences, corrals and every improvement left behind. The drift of the settlers was to the Gila Valley. [Illustration: JOSEPH FISH. An Arizona Historian] [Illustration: JOSEPH H. RICHARDS OF ST. JOSEPH. One of the few original settlers who still lives on the Little Colorado] [Illustration: A GROUP OF ST. JOSEPH PIONEERS AND HISTORIAN ANDREW JENSON] [Illustration: SHUMWAY AND THE OLD MILL ON SILVER CREEK] This Forest Dale affair was made a national matter, January 24, 1916, when a bill was introduced by Senator Ashurst of Arizona for the relief of Alfred Cluff, Orson Cluff, Henry E. Norton, Wm. B. Ballard, Elijah Hancock, Susan R. Saline, Oscar Mann, Celia Thayne, William Cox, Theodore Farley, Adelaide Laxton, Clara L. Tenney, Geo. M. Adams, Charlotte Jensen and Sophia Huff. Later additions were David E. Adams and Peter H. McBride. The amounts claimed by each varied from $2000 to $15,000. A similar bill had been introduced by the Senator in a previous Congress. In his statement to the Indian Affairs Committee, the Senator stated that the settlements had been on unreserved and vacant Government lands and that the reservation had been extended to cover the tract some time in 1882. Appended were affidavits from each of the individuals claiming compensation. All told of moving during the winter, under conditions of great hardship, of cold and exposure and loss of property. David E. Adams, one of the few survivors of the Forest Dale settlement, lately advised the Author that the change in the reservation line undeniably was at the suggestion of C.E. Cooley, a noted Indian scout, who feared the Mormons would compete with him in supplying corn and forage to Fort Apache. Tonto Basin's Early Settlement Soon after location on the Little Colorado there was exploration to the southwest, with a view toward settlement extension. At the outset was encountered the very serious obstruction of the great Mogollon Rim, a precipice that averages more than 1000 feet in height for several hundred miles. Ways through this were found, however, into Tonto Basin, a great expanse, about 100 miles in length by 80 in width, lying south and southwest of the Rim, bounded on the west by the Mazatzal Mountains, and on the south and southeast by spurs of the Superstitions and Pinals. The Basin itself contains a sizable mountain range, the Sierra Ancha. The first exploration was made in July, 1876, by Wm. C. Allen, John Bushman, Pleasant Bradford and Peter Hansen. Their report was unfavorable, in considering settlement. In the fall of the following year there was exploration by John W. Freeman, John H. Willis, Thomas Clark, Alfred J. Randall, Willis Fuller and others. They returned a more favorable report. In March, 1878, Willis drove stock into the upper Basin and also took the first wagon to the East Verde Valley. He was followed by Freeman and family and Riel Allen. Freeman located a road to the Rim, from Pine Springs to Baker's Butte, about forty miles. Price W. Nielson (or Nelson) settled on Rye Creek, in 1878. In the following year was started the Pine settlement, about twenty miles north of the East Verde settlement, with Riel Allen at its head. There is record that most of the settlers on the East Verde moved away in 1879, mainly to Pine, and others back to the Little Colorado. However, the Author, in September of 1889, found a very prosperous little Mormon settlement on the East Verde, raising alfalfa, fruit and livestock. It was called Mazatzal City and lay within a few miles of the Natural Bridge, which is on the lower reaches of Pine Creek before that stream joins the East Verde. A settlement was in existence at least as late as 1889 on upper Tonto Creek. The first resident was David Gowan, discoverer of the Natural Bridge, he and two others taking advantage of the presence of a beaver-built log dam, from which an irrigating canal was started. The first of the Mormon settlers at that point, in 1883, were John and David W. Sanders, with their families, they followed by the Adams, Bagley and Gibson families. This location was a very lonely one, though less than ten miles, by rocky trail, from the town of Payson. It was not well populated, at any time, though soil, climate and water were good. Erastus Snow in 1878 made formal visit to the Tonto settlements. He found on Rye Creek the Price Nelson and Joseph Gibson families, less than a mile above where the stream entered Tonto Creek. Thereafter were visited the East Verde settlements, from which most of the men had gone to southern Utah after their families and stock, and Pine Creek and Strawberry Valley, where later was considerable settlement. According to Fish, the first settlement in Tonto Basin was by Al Rose, a Dane, in 1877, in Pleasant Valley, though he lived for only a few months in a stockade home which he erected. Then came G.S. Sixby and J. Church from California. There followed Ed. Rose, J.D. Tewksbury and sons, the Graham family and James Stinson, the last from Snowflake. Sixby is renowned as the hero of a wonderful experience in the spring of 1882, when, his brother and an employee killed, he held the fort of his log home against more than 100 Indians, the same band later fought and captured by Capt. Adna R. Chaffee in the fight of the Big Dry Wash. There was good reason for the delayed settlement of Tonto Basin, for it was a region traversed continually by a number of Indian tribes. It was a sort of No Man's Land, in which wandered the Mohave-Apache and the Tonto, the Cibicu and White Mountain Apaches, not always at peace among themselves. Several times the Pleasant and Cherry Creek Valleys were highways for Indian raids of large dimensions. The Pleasant Valley war, between the Tewksbury and Graham factions cost thirty lives. No Mormon participated. Most of the land holdings necessarily were small. The water supply is regular in only a few places. Hence it is natural that most of the Mormons who settled, moved on, to better agricultural conditions found farther southward. Abandonment of all Tonto Basin settlements was authorized at a meeting of President Woodruff with the heads of the Arizona Stakes, held at Albuquerque August 14, 1890. Chapter Sixteen Little Colorado Settlements Genesis of St. Johns One of the most remarkable of Arizona settlements is St. Johns, 58 miles southeast of Holbrook, its railroad station. Though its development has been almost entirely Mormon and though it is headquarters for the St. Johns Stake of the Church, its foundation dates back of the Mormon occupation of the valley of the Little Colorado. Very early in the seventies, New Mexican cattle and sheep men spread their ranges over the mountains into the Little Colorado Valley and there were occasional camps of the Spanish-speaking people. In 1872 a mail carrier, John Walker, had built a cabin on the river, five miles below the site of St. Johns. As early as 1864 the locality had been visited by Solomon Barth, a Jewish trader, who dealt with the Indians as far eastward as Zuni and who, on burros, packed salt from the Zuni salt lake to the mining camps of the Prescott section. Barth, oddly enough, for a while had been connected with the Mormons, at the age of 13, a new arrival from Posen, East Prussia, joining his uncle in a push-cart caravan to Salt Lake. Later he was in San Bernardino, there remaining after the 1857 exodus, to go to La Paz, Arizona, in 1862. In 1864 he carried mail on the route from Albuquerque to Prescott, as contractor. In November, 1868, he was captured by Apaches, but was liberated, with several Mexican associates, all almost naked, reaching the Zuni villages, on foot, four days later. For food they shared the carcass of a small dog. In 1870 he was post trader at Fort Apache, then known as Camp Ord, in the year of its establishment. In 1873, a game of cards at El Badito (Little Crossing), a settlement on the Little Colorado, on the St. Johns site, determined his future terrestrial place of residence. From his adversaries, New Mexicans, he won several thousand head of sheep and several thousand dollars. Then he left the life of the road and settled down. A.F. Banta, a pioneer of Arizona pioneers, then known by his army name of Charlie Franklin, tells that he was at Badito (Vadito) in 1876, the place then on a mail route southward to Fort Apache and the military posts on the Gila. In the same connection, James D. Houck, in 1874, contracted to carry mail across the Little Colorado Valley, between Fort Wingate and Prescott. Another mail route was from Wingate to St. Johns and Apache. Sol Barth and his brothers, Morris and Nathan, settled at St. Johns in the fall of 1873, with a number of New Mexican laborers. At once was commenced construction of a dam across the Little Colorado and of ditches and there was farming of a few hundred acres adjoining the site of the present town. In all, Barth laid claim to 1200 acres of land, though it proved later he had only a squatter title. With him originated the name of St. Johns, at first San Juan, given in compliment to the first female resident, Senora Maria San Juan Baca de Padilla. With this conspicuous exception, all saintly names in Arizona were bestowed by either Catholic missionaries or by Mormons. Ammon M. Tenney, a scout of Mormondom second only to Jacob Hamblin, in 1877 at Kanab received from President Brigham Young instructions to go into Arizona and select places for colonization. He visited many points in western New Mexico and eastern Arizona, but his recommendation was confined to St. Johns, Concho, sixteen miles west of St. Johns, The Meadows, eight miles northwest, and Woodruff. With the Tenney report in mind, in January, 1879, St. Johns was visited by Jesse N. Smith, just arrived in Arizona to be president of the Little Colorado Stake. But Smith was unable to make terms with Barth and his Mexican neighbors and turned back to Snowflake. Land Purchased by Mormons Under instructions from the Church, Ammon M. Tenney returned to St. Johns late in 1879 and, November 16, succeeded in effecting the purchase of the Barth interests, including three claims at The Meadows. The purchase price was 770 head of American cows, furnished by the Church, though 100 were loaned by W. J. Flake. The value of the livestock, estimated at $19,000, in later years was donated by the Church toward the erection of the St. Johns academy. Other land purchases later were made by arriving members. Tenney was the first head of the colony, which was started in December, by the arrival of Jos. H. Watkins and Wm. F. James, missionaries sent from Ogden, who came with their families. In December, Apostle Wilford Woodruff, later President of the Church, held the first religious meeting, this at the home of Donasiano Gurule, a New Mexican. The Church authorities were active in their settlement plans and at a quarterly Stake conference in Snowflake, March 27, 1880, 190 souls were reported from the St. Johns branch. A few days after the conference, Apostle Woodruff located a townsite one and a half miles below the center of the present site. This location, though surveyed and with a few houses, was abandoned the following September, on recommendation of Apostles Erastus Snow and Francis M. Lyman, for higher ground, west and north of the Mexican village. In the summer of 1880 the settlement, named Salem, was given a postoffice, but the Mormon postmaster appointed, Sixtus E. Johnson, failed to secure his keys from a non-Mormon, E.S. Stover, incumbent at San Juan. A notable arrival, October 9, 1890, was David K. Udall, called from Kane County, Utah, to serve as bishop of St. Johns ward. With continuous ecclesiastical service, he now is president of St. Johns Stake, elevated in July, 1887. Occupation of the new townsite started early in October, 1880, the public square designated by President Jesse N. Smith on the 9th. Twenty square-rod city lots were laid off in blocks 24 rods square, with streets six rods wide. In the spring of 1881 the farming land was surveyed into forty 40-acre blocks, these later subdivided. During the winter of 1881 was built a log schoolhouse, through private donations. The first teacher was Mrs. Anna Romney. The first church was a "bowery" of greasewood. That the years following hardly were ones of plenty is indicated by the fact that in the spring of 1885 President John Taylor issued a tithing office order for $1000 and $1187 more was collected in Utah stakes, to aid the St. Johns settlers in the purchase of foodstuffs and seed grain. A.F. Banta started a weekly newspaper, "The Pioneer Press," soon after occupation of the townsite, this journal in January, 1883, bought by Mormons and edited by M.P. Romney. Wild Celebration of St. John's Day There was a wild time in St. Johns on the day of the Mexican population's patron saint, San Juan, June 24, 1882, when Nat Greer and a band of Texas cowboys entered the Mexican town. The Greers had been unpopular with the Mexicans since they had marked a Mexican with an ear "underslope," as cattle are marked, this after a charge that their victim had been found in the act of stealing a Greer colt. The fight that followed the Greer entry had nothing at its initiation to do with the Mormon settlers. Assaulted by the Mexican police and populace, eight of the band rode away and four were penned into an uncompleted adobe house. Jim Vaughn of the raiders was killed and Harris Greer was wounded. On the attacking side was wounded Francisco Tafolla, whose son in later years was killed while serving in the Arizona Rangers. It was declared that several thousand shots had been fired, but there was a lull, in which the part of peacemaker was taken up by "Father" Nathan C. Tenney, a pioneer of Woodruff and father of Ammon M. Tenney. He walked to the house and induced the Greers to surrender. The Sheriff, E.S. Stover, was summoned and was in the act of taking the men to jail when a shot was fired from a loft of the Barth house, where a number of Mexicans had established themselves. The bullet, possibly intended for a Greer, passed through the patriarch's head and neck, killing him instantly. The Greers were threatened with lynching, but were saved by the sheriff's determination. Their case was taken to Prescott and they escaped with light punishment. [Illustration: FIRST MORMON SCHOOL, CHURCH AND BOWERY AT ST. JOHNS] [Illustration: DAVID K. UDALL AND HIS FIRST RESIDENCE AT ST. JOHNS] [Illustration: ST. JOHNS IN 1887. Sol Barth's House with the Tower] [Illustration: THE STAKE ACADEMY AT ST. JOHNS] In the fall of 1881 the community knew a summary execution of two men and there were other deeds of disorder, but in no wise did they affect the Mormon people, save that the lawless actions unsettled the usual peaceful conditions. Disputes Over Land Titles It is not within the province of this work to deal in matters of controversial sort, especially with those that may have affected the religious features of the Mormon settlement but there may be mention of a few of the difficulties that came to the people of St. Johns in their earlier days. The general subject of land titles in the Mormon settlements that came within the scope of railroad land grants has been referred to on other pages. In St. Johns there was added need for defense of the squatter titles secured from Barth and the Mexicans, while there was assault on the validity of the occupation of the townsite. On several occasions, especially in March, 1884, there was attempted "jumping" of the choicest lots and there was near approach to bloodshed, prevented only by the pacific determination of Bishop Udall. The opposition upset a house that had been placed upon one lot and riotous conditions prevailed for hours. reinforcements quickly came from outlying Mormon settlements and firearms were carried generally in self defense. A number of lawsuits had to be defended, at large expense. There was friction with the Mexican element, which lived compactly in the old town, just east of the Mormon settlement, and clashes were known with a non-Mormon American element that had political connection with the Mexicans. About May 18, 1884, was discovered a plot to waylay and harm Apostle Brigham Young, Jr., and Francis M. Lyman, on the road to Ramah, but a strong escort fended off the danger. In the Stake chronicles is told that the brethren for a time united in regular fasting and prayer, seeking protection from their enemies. Irrigation Difficulties and Disaster St. Johns had its irrigation troubles, just as did every other Little Colorado settlement, only on a larger scale. In the beginning of the Mormon settlement, claim was made by the Mexicans upon the larger part of the river flow. Later there was compromise on a basis of three-fifths of the flow to the Mormons and two-fifths to the Mexicans, and in 1886 a degree of stability was secured by formation of the St. Johns Irrigation Company. A large dam, six miles south of St. Johns, created what was called the Slough reservoir. However, this dam was washed out in 1903, after years of drought. Then were several years of discouragement and of loss of population. Thereafter came the idea of building a larger dam at a point twelve miles upstream, creating a reservoir to be drained through a deep cut. The plan was approved by the Church, which appropriated $5000 toward construction. There was formation of an irrigation company, to which was attached the name of Apostle F.M. Lyman, who had taken a personal interest in the improvement. A Colorado company provided one-half the necessary capital and the community the balance, and plans were made for the reclamation of 15,000 acres upon higher land than had been irrigated before. After expenditure of $200,000, the dam was completed and the reservoir filled. Construction was faulty and in April, 1915, the dam was washed away, with attendant loss of eight lives and with large damage to flooded farms below. There was reorganization of the Lyman Company and about $200,000 more was spent, with the desired end of water storage still unreached. Then came appeal to the State, which, through the State Loan Board, advanced large sums, taking as security mortgages on the land and dam. State investment in the Lyman project today approximates $800,000. The dam now is about finished and is claimed to be a structure that will stand all flood conditions. Meager Rations at Concho Concho was a Mexican village, at least a dozen years established, when the first Mormon settlers arrived. The name probably is from the Spanish word "concha," a shell. The settlement lies sixteen miles west of St. Johns. There were two sections, the older, in which Spanish was spoken and in which stock raising was the main occupation, and the Mormon settlement, a mile up the valley, in which there was effort to exist by agriculture on what was called a "putty" soil, with lack of sufficient water supply. The first of the Mormons to come was Bateman H. Wilhelm, who arrived in March, 1879. Soon thereafter Wm. J. Flake and Jesse J. Brady purchased the main part of the valley, the former paying for his half interest eight cows, one mule, a set of harness and a set of blacksmith tools. Before the end of the year, about thirty Saints were resident in the locality, some of the later arrivals being David Pulsipher, a Mormon Battalion member, Geo. H. Killian and Chas. G. Curtis. A townsite was roughly surveyed by brethren who laid their stakes by the North Star. September 26, 1880, there was organization of a Church ward and there was assumed the name of Erastus, in honor of Erastus Snow, who then was presiding at a Snowflake conference. This name was abandoned for that of Concho at a Church meeting held in St. Johns December 6, 1895. In later years, the Mormon residents, after building a reservoir and expending much effort toward irrigation, generally have turned from agriculture to stock raising. Hunt is an agricultural settlement seventeen miles down the stream from St. Johns and one mile below a former Mexican settlement, near San Antonio, above which at some time subsequent to 1876 there settled an army officer named Hunt, who left the service at Fort Apache and whose descendants live in the county. The first Mormon settler was Thomas L. Greer in 1879, the old Greer ranch still maintained, a mile east of the present postoffice. Thereafter, the location was known as Greer Valley. In 1901, D.K. Udall became a resident and in that year his wife, appointed postmaster, was instrumental in naming the office and locality after her father, John Hunt, of the Mormon Battalion, who had a farm in the locality a year or so thereafter, though not actually resident. The Meadows purchase, eight miles northwest of St. Johns, was occupied November 28, 1879. Among the settlers was the famous Indian missionary, Ira Hatch. Walnut Grove, twenty miles south of St. Johns, was settled early in 1882 by Jas. W. Wilkins and son, who bought Mexican claims. There was trouble over water priorities on the flow of the Little Colorado and the place now has small population, much of it Spanish-speaking. Springerville and Eagar Valle Redondo (Round Valley), 32 miles southeast of St. Johns, was the original name of the Springerville section. The first settler was Wm. R. Milligan, a Tennessean, who established a fort in the valley in 1871. The name was given in honor of Harry Springer, an Albuquerque merchant, who had a branch store in the valley. A.F. Banta states that the first town was across the Little Colorado from the present townsite. Banta was the first postmaster, in Becker's store. The first Mormons on the ground, in February, 1879, were Jens Skousen, Peter J. Christofferson and Jas. L. Robertson, from St. Joseph. Soon thereafter came Wm. J. Flake, with more cows available for trade, giving forty of them to one York, for a planted grain field. Flake did not remain. In March came John T. Eager, who located four miles south of the present Springerville, in Water Canyon, and about the same time arrived Jacob Hamblin, the scout missionary. The latter took up residence in the Milligan fort and was appointed to preside over the Saints of the vicinity, but remained only till winter. In 1882, President Jesse N. Smith divided Round Valley into two wards, the upper to be known as Amity and the lower as Omer. In 1888 the people of these wards established a townsite, two miles above and south of Springerville, which was a Spanish-speaking community. The new town, at first known as Union, later was named Eagar, after the three Eagar brothers. A Land of Beaver and Bear Nutrioso, sixteen miles southeast of Springerville, is very near the dividing ridge of the Gila and Little Colorado watersheds. The name is a combination of nutria (Sp., otter) and oso (Sp., bear). "Nutria" was applied to the beaver, of which there were many. The first English-speaking settler was Jas. G.H. Colter, a lumberman from Wisconsin, who came to Round Valley in July, 1875, driving three wagons from Atchison, Kansas, losing a half year's provision of food to Navajos, as toll for crossing the reservation. He grew barley for Fort Apache, getting $9 per 100 pounds. In 1879, at Nutrioso, he sold his farm, for 300 head of cattle, to Wm. J. Flake. The Colter family for years had its home four miles above Springerville, at Colter, but the founder is in the Pioneers' Home at Prescott. One of the sons, Fred, was a candidate for Governor of Arizona in 1918. Flake parcelled out the land to John W., J. Jas. M. and Hyrum B. Clark, John W., J.Y., and David J. Lee, Geo. W. Adair, Albert Minerly, Adam Greenwood, George Peck and W. W. Pace, the last a citizen of later prominence in the Gila Valley. The grain they raised the first season, 1700 bushels, chiefly barley, was sent as a "loan" to the Little Colorado settlers, who were very near starvation. In 1880 was built a fort, for there was fear of Apaches, who had been wiping out whole villages in New Mexico. There was concentration in Nutrioso of outlying settlers, but the Indians failed to give any direct trouble. A sawmill was started in 1881 and a schoolhouse was built the following year. A postoffice was established in 1883. In Lee's Valley, sixteen miles southwest of Springerville, is Greer, established by the Saints in 1879. The first to come were Peter J. Jensen, Lehi Smithson, James Hale, Heber Dalton and James Lee. In 1895, was added a saw-mill, built by Ellis W. Wiltbank and John M. Black. The name Greer was not applied till 1896. The postoffice dates from 1898. Altitudinous Agriculture at Alpine Alpine, in Bush Valley, near the southern edge of Apache County, four miles from the New Mexican line, has altitude approximating 8000 feet and has fame as probably being the highest locality in the United States where farming is successfully prosecuted. Greer is about the same altitude. The principal crop is oats, produced at the rate of 1000 bushels for every adult male in the community. Crop failures are unknown, save when the grasshoppers come, as they have come in devouring clouds in a number of years. The location is a healthful and a beautiful one, in a valley surrounded by pines. Anderson Bush, not a Mormon, was the first settler, in 1876. March 27, 1879, came Fred Hamblin and Abraham Winsor, with their families. For years there were the wildest of frontier conditions, between outlaws and Indians. the latter stole horses and cattle, but spared Mormon lives. This was the more notable in that many villages of Spanish-speaking people were raided by the redskins in New Mexico. Naturally, the settlers huddled together, for better defense. In 1880 the log homes were moved into a square, forming a very effective sort of fort, nearly a mile southeast of the present townsite. Until that time the community had kept the name of Frisco, given because of the nearby head-waters of the San Francisco River. In 1881 most of the settlers moved over to Nutrioso for protection, but only for a few weeks. Alpine is the resting place of the bones of Jacob Hamblin, most noted of southwestern missionaries of his faith. In 1920 the County Agricultural Agent reported that only two farmers in the United States were growing the Moshannock potato, Frederick Hamblin at Alpine and Wallace H. Larson at Lakeside. In Western New Mexico Luna, in New Mexico, twelve miles east of Alpine, Arizona, was on the sheep range of the Luna brothers, who did not welcome the advent of the first Mormon families, those of the Swapp brothers and Lorenzo Watson, February 28, 1883. Two prospectors had to be bought out, to clear a squatter's title. In the summer came "Parson" Geo. C. Williams, also a pioneer of Pleasanton. The first name adopted was Grant, in honor of Apostle Heber J. Grant, this later changed to Heber, as there was an older New Mexican settlement named Grant's. But even this conflicted with Heber, Arizona (named after Heber C. Kimball), and so the original name endures, made official in 1895. The first house was a log fort. A notable present resident is Frederick Hamblin, brother of Jacob and of the same frontier type. There is local pride over how he fought, single-handed, with a broken and unloaded rifle, the largest grizzly bear ever known in the surrounding Mogollon Mountains. This was in November, 1888. The bear fought standing and was taller than Hamblin, a giant of a man, two inches over six feet in height. The rifle barrel was thrust down the bear's throat after the stock had been torn away, and upon the steel still are shown the marks of the brute's teeth. The same teeth were knocked out by the flailing blows of the desperate pioneer, who finally escaped when Bruin tired of the fight. Then Hamblin discovered himself badly hurt, one hand, especially, chewed by the bear. The animal later was killed by a neighbor and was identified by broken teeth and wounds. New Mexican Locations As before noted in this work, the Mormon Church sought little in New Mexico in the pioneering days, for little opportunity existed for settlement in the agricultural valleys. In western New Mexico, however, the country was more open and there was opportunity for missionary effort. Missionaries were in the Navajo and Zuni country in very early days and at the time of the great Mormon immigration of 1876 already there had been Indian conversions. In that year, by direct assignment from President Brigham Young, then at Kanab, Lorenzo Hatch, later joined by John Maughn, settled in the Zuni country, at Fish Springs and San Lorenzo. Thereafter, on arrival of other missionaries, were locations at Savoia and Savoietta. It should be explained that these names, pronounced as they stand, are rough-hewn renditions of the Spanish words cebolla, "onion," and cebolleta, "little onion." Nathan C. Tenney and sons were among the colonists of 1878. In 1880 were Indian troubles that caused abandonment of the locations, but a new start was made in 1882, when a number of families came from the deserted Brigham City and Sunset. A new village was started, about 25 miles east of the Arizona line, at first known as Navajo, but later as Ramah. The public square was on the ruins of an ancient Indian pueblo. Ira Hatch came in the fall. A large degree of missionary success appears to have been achieved among the Zuni, with 165 baptisms by Ammon M. Tenney, but at times there was friction with Mexican residents. The land on which the town stood later had to be bought from a cattle company, which had secured title from the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company. [Illustration: FOUNDERS OF NORTHERN ARIZONA TOWNS 1--Henry W. Miller 2--Wm. C. Allen 3--George Lake 4--Wm. J. Flake 5--Charles Shumway 6--Geo. H. Crosby, Sr. 7--J.V. Bushman] [Illustration: A FEW MORE PIONEERS 1--Almeda McClellan 6--Benj. F. Johnson 2--Mrs. A.S. Gibbons 7--Martha Curtis 3--Mary Richards 8--Josephine Curtis 4--Joseph Foutz 9--Wm. N. Fife 5--Virginia Curtis 10--J.D. Fife] Bluewater, near the Santa Fe railroad, about thirty miles northeast of Ramah, is a Church outpost, established in 1894 by Ernst A. Trietjen and Friehoff G. Nielson from Ramah. For a while, from 1905, it was the home of C.R. Hakes, former president of the Maricopa Stake. Bluewater now is a prosperous agricultural settlement, with assured stored water supply and an excellent market available for its products. Most southerly of the early New Mexican Church settlements was Pleasanton, on the San Francisco River, in Williams Valley, and sixty miles northwest of Silver City. The first settler was Geo. C. Williams, who came in 1879. At no time was there much population. Jacob Hamblin here spent the few last years of his life, dying August 31, 1886. His family was the last to quit the locality, departing in 1889. Chapter Seventeen Economic Conditions Nature and Man Both Were Difficult To the struggle with the elements, to the difficulties that attended the breaking of a stubborn soil and to the agricultural utilization of a widely-varying water supply, to the burdens of drought and flood and disease was added the intermittent hostility of stock interests that would have stopped all farming encroachment upon the open range. Concerning this phase of frontier life in Arizona, the following is from the pen of B.H. Roberts: "The settlers in the St. Johns and Snowflake Stakes have met with great difficulties, first on account of the nature of the country itself, its variable periods of drought, sometimes long-continued, when the parched earth yields little on the ranges for the stock, and makes the supply of water for irrigation purposes uncertain; then came flood periods, that time and again destroyed reservoir dams and washed out miles of irrigating canals. This was also the region of great cattle and sheep companies, occupying the public domain with their herds, sometimes by lease from the government, sometimes by mere usurpation. The cattle and sheep companies and their employees waged fierce war upon each other for possession of the range, and both were opposed to the incoming of the settlers, as trespassers upon their preserves. The stock companies often infringed upon the settlers' rights, disturbed their peace, ran off their stock and resorted to occasional violence to discourage their settling in the country. Being 'Mormons,' the outlaw element of the community felt that they could trespass upon their rights with impunity, and the civil officers gave them none too warm a welcome into the Territory. The colonists, however, persisted in their efforts to form and maintain settlements in the face of all these discouraging circumstances. The fighting of the great cattle and sheep companies for possession of range privileges is now practically ended; the building of more substantial reservoirs is mastering the flood problems and the drought periods at the same time, and the Saints, by the uprightness of their lives, their industry, perseverance, and enterprise, have proven their value as citizens in the commonwealth, until the prejudices of the past, which gave them a cold reception on their advent into Arizona, and slight courtesy from the older settlers, have given way to more enlightened policies of friendship; and today peace and confidence and respect are accorded to the Latter-day Saints of Arizona." A view of early-day range conditions along the Little Colorado lately was given by David E. Adams: "When we came to Arizona in 1876, the hills and plains were covered with high grass and the country was not cut up with ravines and gullies as it is now. This has been brought about through over-stocking the ranges. On the Little Colorado we could cut hay for miles and miles in every direction. The Aztec Cattle Company brought tens of thousands of cattle into the country, claimed every other section, overstocked the range and fed out all the grass. Then the water, not being held back, followed the cattle trails and cut the country up. Later, tens of thousands of cattle died because of drought and lack of feed and disease. The river banks were covered with dead carcasses." Breaking the ground in Arizona was found a very serious task, even on the plains or where Nature had provided ample rains. Where industry created an oasis, to it ever swarmed the wild life of the surrounding hills or deserts. Prairie dogs, rabbits and coyotes took toll from the pioneer farmer, sometimes robbing him of the whole of the meager store of foodstuffs so necessary to maintain his family and to secure his residence. From 1884 to 1891 there were occasional visitations, in the Little Colorado Valley, of grasshoppers. For several years the settlement of Alpine was reported "devastated" and for a couple of years at Ramah the crops were so taken by grasshoppers that the men had to go elsewhere for work to secure sustenance for their families. St. Johns, Erastus and Luna all suffered severely at times from insect devastation. Winters were of unusual severity. Railroad Work Brought Bread Just as the Saints of Utah benefited by the construction of the Central and Union Pacific railroads, so there was benefit in northeastern Arizona through the work of building the Atlantic and Pacific railroad in 1880-82. John W. Young and Jesse N. Smith, joined by Ammon M. Tenney, in the spring of 1880 took a contract for grading five miles, simply to secure bread for the people of the Little Colorado Valley. During the previous winter there had been a large immigration from Utah, where, erroneously, it had been reported the Arizonans had raised good crops, so comparatively little food was brought in. The limited crop of 1879 soon was consumed and the spring found the settlers almost starving. Lot Smith had loaned the people a quantity of wheat the previous season and much of the crop was due him. Young and Smith went as far as Pueblo, where they secured their contract and on their return made arrangements with merchants at Albuquerque for supplies. The first contract was for a section about 24 miles east of Fort Wingate, N.M., and to that point in July went all the men who could possibly leave home. The first company was from Snowflake, Jesse N. Smith taking about forty men. Soon thereafter, flour was sent back to the settlements and there was grateful relief. After a while, Smith drew out of the railroad work. Tenney returned to the railroad the following year to assist Young in filling a contract for the grading of 100 miles and the furnishing of 50,000 ties. The work on the railroad, while securing food in a critical period, still caused neglect of agriculture at home, where the few men remaining, together with the women and children, had to labor hard. Burden of a Railroad Land Grant The settlers on the Little Colorado appear to have had something more than their share of land trouble. Not only were hardships in their journeyings thither, with following privations in the breaking of the wilderness for the use of mankind, but there came an additional and serious blow when even title to their hard-earned lands was disputed, apparently upon adequate legal ground. The best story at hand concerning this feature of early life on the Little Colorado is found in the Fish manuscript, told by one who was on the ground at the time and who participated in the final settlement: "In March, 1872, the General Government gave a railroad land grant of every alternate section of land bordering the proposed Atlantic and Pacific railroad, extending out for forty miles each side of said road, through the public lands of the United States in the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona. The rule was that any lands settled upon, prior to the date of the grant, should be guaranteed to the settler, and the railroad be indemnified with as much land as was thus taken up on an additional grant of ten miles each side, called lieu lands, just outside the forty-mile limits of the main grant. In the fall of 1878 and the winter of 1879, when the settlers arrived on the ground where Snowflake and Taylor now stand, they supposed the railroad grant would doubtless lapse, as there was then no indication that the road would be built. They bought the Stinson ranch, paying an enormous price for it. The Government had not then surveyed the land and the government sections were not then open for entry at the land office. But early in 1880 the railroad company began building its road west from Albuquerque. In May of said year, Jesse N. Smith, on behalf of the settlers of Snowflake, applied to the railroad company for the railroad lands they occupied, and received the assurance that they, the settlers, should have the first right to their land, and the first refusal thereof, and that the price would not be raised on account of their improvements. The railroad company even furnished blank applications, which a number of the settlers made out and filed with the company, which were afterwards ignored. About this time capitalists and moneyed men, many of them foreigners, began turning their attention to cattle raising in our Territory. Among others, a company known as the Aztec Land and Cattle Company was organized, composed mostly of capitalists from the east. This company bought a very large block of the railroad lands, including Snowflake and Taylor, and all in that vicinity. The new owners immediately served notice on the settlers that they must buy or lease the railroad portion, the odd-numbered sections of the land they occupied. The settlers appointed Jesse N. Smith and Joseph Fish a committee to represent their claims, but no definite understanding could be obtained from the local officers of the company, all such business being referred to the central office in New York City. The railroad company not having sold the land at Woodruff, it served a similar notice on the settlers there, and it seemed that they would all be compelled to abandon their improvements and move away. In this emergency, the settlers, who were of the Mormon faith, applied to the Presidency of the Church for relief. An estimate of the value of the improvements of the settlers was made and the amount was found to so far exceed the probable cost of the land that the Presidency of the Church appropriated $500 for the expenses and sent Brigham Young, Jr., and Jesse N. Smith east to negotiate a purchase. They started on their mission in the latter part of February, 1889. They finally, on April 2, 1889, closed a contract in New York City for seven full sections of land at $4.50 per acre, one-fifth of the price being paid down, and Jesse N. Smith giving his note for the remainder, to run four years at 6 per cent interest; one-fourth the amount to be paid at the end of each year, and the interest to be added and paid every half year." While in New York they also bargained with J.A. Williamson, the railroad land commissioner, for one section of land at Woodruff at $8 per acre, one-half at the expiration of each year, with 6 per cent interest to be added each half year. Payment was made for the last purchase in Albuquerque, the contract being closed May 3, 1889. The Mormon Church furnished much of that money for these purchases, receiving back a small portion, as individuals were able to pay the same, and appropriating the remainder for the benefit of schools and reservoirs in the vicinity of said towns. Little Trouble With Indians It is notable that the settlers on the Little Colorado had very little actual trouble with the Indians, with the Navajo of the north or the Apache of the south. The Indians were frequent visitors to the settlements and were treated with usual Mormon hospitality. There were no depredations upon the livestock, and when the peace of the settlements was disturbed it was by the white man and not by the red brother. During the time of the building of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad, there was an Indian scare. This originated in the outbreak of Nockedaklinny, a medicine man of the Coyoteros, who, August 30, 1881, was killed in the Cibicu country, a day's travel from Fort Apache, by troops led by Col. E.A. Carr, Fifth Cavalry. Two days later the Indians attacked Camp Apache itself, after killing eight men on the road, and the post probably was saved from capture by the hurried return of its commander, with his troops. He left behind seven of his men, having been treacherously fired upon by 23 Indian scouts, whom he had taken with him. A number of murders were committed by the Indians in northern Tonto Basin, but the insurrection extended no farther northward than Camp Apache. Still it created great uneasiness within the comparatively unprotected settlements of the river valley. June 1, 1882, was the killing of Nathan B. Robinson, this the only Indian murder of a Mormon in this section. Church Administrative Features While this work in no wise seeks to carry through any records of Church authority, it happens that the leader in each of the southwestern migrations and settlements was a man appointed for that purpose by the Church Presidency and the greater number of the settlers came by direct Church "call." In the case of the Little Colorado settlements, this "call" was not released till January, 1900, in a letter of President Lorenzo Snow, borne to St. Johns by Apostle (now President) Heber J. Grant. The several organizations of the northeastern districts are set forth, with official exactness, by Historian Roberts, as follows: "On January 27, 1878, the Latter-day Saints who had settled on the Little Colorado, in Navajo (then Yavapai) County, under the leadership of Major Lot Smith, by that time grouped into four settlements, were organized into a Stake of Zion, with Lot Smith as president and Jacob Hamblin and Lorenzo H. Hatch as counselors. Three of the settlements were organized into wards, a bishop being appointed in each; the fourth was made a 'branch' with a presiding elder. This was the first stake organization effected in Arizona. Before the expiration of the year, viz., 27th December, President John Taylor directed that the settlements forming further up the Little Colorado in Apache County, be organized into a Stake. A line running southward from Berardo's (now Holbrook, on the Santa Fe railroad), was to be the dividing line between the two Stakes thus proposed. The western division was to be the Little Colorado Stake, and the eastern division, Eastern Arizona Stake of Zion. The division of the Stakes on these lines was not carried out at that time; the Little Colorado continued for several years, while the Eastern Arizona Stake had within its jurisdiction, for a number of years, the settlements on Silver Creek, in the southeast corner of Navajo County, and also the settlement of St. Johns near the headwaters of the Little Colorado, and other minor settlements in Apache County. In 1887, however, the directions of President Taylor, with reference to the division of these settlements into two Stakes, were carried into effect. The name of the Eastern Arizona Stake, however, was changed at the time of the reorganization, July 23, 1887, to St. Johns Stake, David K. Udall, bishop of St. Johns, being chosen President, with Elijah Freeman and Wm. H. Gibbons as counselors. Later, viz., December 18, the settlements on the west side of the line running south from Holbrook, on upper Silver Creek, Woodruff Ward, and the fragments of settlements formerly constituting the Little Colorado Stake, by now discontinued, were organized under the name of the Snowflake Stake of Zion, Jesse N. Smith, formerly of the Eastern Arizona Stake, being made President." Here there may be notation that David K. Udall, still president at St. Johns, is one of the very oldest in seniority in such office within the Church. At Snowflake today the president is Samuel F. Smith, son of Jesse N. Smith, who died in his home town June 5, 1906. [Illustration: STAKE PRESIDENTS 1--Lot Smith, Little Colorado 3--Samuel F. Smith, Snowflake 5--Christopher Layton, St. Joseph 2--Jesse N. Smith, E. Ariz. and Snowflake 4--David K. Udall. St. Johns 6--Andrew Kimball, St. Joseph] [Illustration: SNOWFLAKE ACADEMY. Destroyed by Fire Thanksgiving Day, 1910] [Illustration: PRESENT SNOWFLAKE ACADEMY. Dedicated Thanksgiving Day, 1913--Cost $35,000] Chapter Eighteen Extension Toward Mexico Dan W. Jones' Great Exploring Trip The honor of leading Mormon pioneering in south-central Arizona lies with Daniel W. Jones, a sturdy character, strong in the faith. He had been in the Mexican war, in 1847, as a Missouri volunteer, and had remained in Mexico till 1850. In the latter year he started for California, from Santa Fe, and, in the Provo country of Utah, embraced Mormonism within a settlement that had treated him kindly after he had accidentally wounded himself. About that time he dedicated himself to life work among the Indians, the Lamanites of the Book of Mormon. He appeared to be successful thereafter in gaining the confidence of the red men and in carrying out the policy so literally expressed by Brigham Young, "It is cheaper to feed the Indians than to fight them." Speaking Spanish, he helped in translation by Meliton G. Trejo, of a part of the Book of Mormon. The printing done, a missionary party was started southward September 10, 1875, from Nephi, Utah, its members being, besides Jones, J.Z. Stewart, Helaman Pratt, Wiley C. Jones, a son of the leader, R.H. Smith, Ammon M. Tenney and A.W. Ivins. The journey was on horseback, by way of Lee's Ferry and the Hopi Indian villages and thence to the southwest. At Pine Springs, in the Mogollons, were met Dr. J.W. Wharton and W.F. McNulty, who told them something of Phoenix and the Salt River Valley and who advised settlement in the upper valley. Jones' personal story of his impressions of the future metropolis of the State and of the Salt River Valley possibly should be given in his own language: "We were much surprised on entering Salt River Valley. We had traveled through deserts and mountains (with the exception of the Little Colorado Valley, a place which we did not particularly admire) for a long ways. Now there opened before us a sight truly lovely. A fertile looking soil and miles of level plain. In the distance the green cotton wood trees; and, what made the country look more real, was the thrifty little settlement of Phoenix, with its streets planted with shade trees for miles. Strange as it may seem, at the time we started, in September, 1875, the valley of Salt River was not known even to Brigham Young. "Our animals were beginning to fail, as they had lived on grass since leaving Kanab. We bought corn at 4 cents a pound and commenced feeding them a little. Although Salt River Valley is naturally fertile, owing to the dryness of the climate, there is no grass except a little coarse stuff called 'sacaton.' "We camped on the north side of the river. On making inquiry, we learned that Tempe, or Hayden's Mill, seven miles further up the river, would be a better place to stop for a few days than Phoenix. C.T. Hayden, being one of the oldest and most enterprising settlers of the country, had built a grist mill, started ranches, opened a store, blacksmith shop, wagon shop, etc. "On arriving at Hayden's place, we found the owner an agreeable, intelligent gentleman, who was much interested in the settlement and development of the country, he being a pioneer in reality, having been for many years in the west, and could sympathize with the Mormon people in settling the deserts. He gave us much true and useful information about the country and natives. Here we traded off some of our pack mules and surplus provisions. We had already traded for a light spring wagon, finding that the country before could be traveled with wagons. We remained here a few days, camping at the ranch of Mr. Winchester Miller. His barley was up several inches high, but he allowed us to turn our animals into his fields and treated us in a kind, hospitable manner. The friendly acquaintance made at this time has always been kept up. Mr. Miller was an energetic man, and manifested a great desire to have the Mormons come there and settle. He had already noticed the place where the Jonesville ditch is now located. He told me about it, saying it was the best ditch site on the river. What he said has proved true. We wrote to President Young, describing the country." The party tried some proselyting among the Pimas and Papagos. At Tucson they met Governor Safford who offered welcome to Mormon colonists. Sonora was in the throes of revolution, so they passed on to El Paso, on the way talking to a camp of Apaches, given permission by the agent, Thos. T. Jeffords. The San Pedro Valley was looked over for possible settlement. In January, 1876, the party passed the international line at Paso del Norte. Jones claimed this to have been the first missionary expedition that ever entered Mexico. The party found it a good land and started back in May with a rather favorable impression of the country for future settlement. Return was by way of Bowie, Camp Grant and the Little Colorado. At Allen's Camp were met Daniel H. Wells, Brigham Young, Jr., and Erastus Snow, with whom return to Utah was made. President Young was met late in June, at Kanab, there expressing appreciation of the determination that had brought Jones through every difficulty in the ten months of journeying. The Pratt-Stewart-Trejo Expedition Of notable interest is the fact that certain members of the Jones expedition were so deeply interested in what they saw that they made request for immediate return. So, October 18, 1876, there started southward, from Salt Lake, at the direction of the Church Presidency, another expedition, in character missionary, rather than for exploration. It embraced Helaman Pratt, Jas. Z. Stewart, Isaac J. Stewart, Louis Garff and George Terry. Meliton G. Trejo joined at Richfield. Phoenix was reached December 23, there being found several families of the Church who had come the previous year. The day the missionaries arrived happened to be exactly thirty years after the date on which the Mormon Battalion passed the Pima villages on the Gila River, just south of Phoenix. The members of the party worked all over southern Arizona, especially among the Mexicans and Indians. In February of 1877 headquarters were at Tubac. In April, after a Mexican trip, a letter was received from President Brigham Young asking that Sonora be explored as a country for possible settlement. Later in May the Stewarts started eastward, in continuing danger from hostile Apaches after they had crossed the San Pedro. On the road, while the missionaries were passing, a mail rider was killed. At Camp Bowie the Apaches were found beleaguering the post. East of that point the Stewarts had to replace a wagon tire just as they were passing a point of Apache ambush. Return to Utah was in December, 1877. It was concluded that border settlements better had wait on Indian pacification. Trejo was a remarkable character. He was of aristocratic Castilian birth and had been an officer in the Spanish army in the Philippines. It would appear that he became interested in the Mormon doctrine, which, in some manner, had reached that far around the earth, and that he resigned his commission and straightway went to Utah. There his knowledge of Spanish, backed by good general schooling, made him valuable as a translator, though his English was learned in the Jones family. His later work was in Arizona and Mexico, as a missionary, his home in 1878 moved to Saint David on the San Pedro, where he died a few years ago. He was a fluent writer and sent many interesting letters to the Deseret News. In January, 1878, he wrote from Hayden's Ferry: "We are now between the Salt and Gila Rivers, on a very extensive rich plain, covered with trees and small brush, watered in some places by means of canals from the two rivers named. The river dams and canals are very easy made, on account of the solid bottoms of the rivers and pure farming clay of the plain. In fact, the people who are now living here find it very easy to get good farms in one or two years without much hard labor. They unite as we do in making canals. The climate is one of the most delightful in the world and until a few years ago, one of the most healthy too, but lately the people have been troubled with fevers, which nobody seems to know the cause. The water is good and the sky is clear, there being no stagnant pools; the ground is dry and the winds blow freely in every direction. I don't believe these fevers are naturally in the country, but are caused by the people not taking proper care of themselves." An interesting letter has been found, dated at Tubac, March 4, 1877, addressed to President Brigham Young and written by Elder Jas. Z. Stewart. It told that the country is "better than the north part of the Territory, from the fact that the land is as good, if not better, the water is good and regular and the climate more pleasant." He referred to the ruins of whole towns, to the rich mines, to the abundance of game and to the drawback of Apache raids. He described the southern Arizona Mexicans as "all very poor, having no cows, horses, houses nor lands and but very little to live on. Though they live for days on parched corn, they are willing to divide their last meal with a stranger. They are industrious, but ignorant, it being seldom you can find one who can write." Start of the Lehi Community The reports from the south gave ample encouragement to expansion ideas within the First Presidency. So, after due deliberation, was organized another Jones expedition for the settlement of the land. As letters of the time are read and instructions found, it becomes the more evident that President Brigham Young and his counselors had in view a great plan of occupation of the intermountain valleys, reaching down into Mexico, or beyond. It was a time when the Church was growing very rapidly and when new lands were needed for converts who were streaming in from Europe or from the eastern States. Logically, the expansion would be southward, though there was disadvantage of very serious sort in the breaking of continuity of settlement by the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River and by the deserts that had to be passed to reach the fertile valleys of the southland. When the second Jones party started, according to an official account, "President Young sat with a large map of America before him, while saying that the company of missionaries called were to push ahead as far as possible toward the Yaqui country in Mexico, which would finally be the objective point; but if they could not reach that country they might locate on the San Pedro or Salt River in southern Arizona." [Illustration: GROUND PLAN OF LEHI] In either case there would be a station on the road, or a stepping stone to those who later would go on to the far south. President Young also said to the brethren on that occasion that if they would do what was right and be guided by the spirit of inspiration, they would know the country as they passed through, and would know where to locate, the same as did the Pioneers when they first reached the valley of the Great Salt Lake. The pioneering expedition was organized in St. George, in southwestern Utah. In the party were 83 individuals, the family heads being Jones, Philemon C. Merrill, Dudley J. Merrill, Thomas Merrill, Adelbert Merrill, Henry C. Rogers, George Steele, Thomas Biggs, Ross R. Rogers, John D. Brady, Joseph McRae, Isaac Turley and Austin O. Williams. Start was made January 17, 1877. The way was through Beaver Dams to the mouth of the Virgin. That profiteering was not unknown in those early days is shown by the fact that the expedition, at Stone's Ferry on the Colorado, had to pay ferriage of $10 per wagon. Much of this cost was borne by Joseph McRae, who turned over one wagon, some horses and a little money to the ferryman. To the southward was found a road, well-traveled in those days, that led from the Fort Mohave ferry to Prescott. But Prescott, then the capital, was left to one side and a direct route was taken from Chino Valley, through Peeples Valley and Wickenburg, to Phoenix. At the latter point there was agreement that the travelers had about reached the limit of their resources and of the strength of their horses. There was remembrance of the valley section of which Winchester Miller had told. So determination to stop was reached in a council of the leaders. There was fear, apparently well grounded, that claim jumpers would cause trouble if the destination of the party became known. On this account, departure from Phoenix was not by way of Hayden's Ferry, but by the McDowell road, as far as Maryville, an abandoned military subpost and station on Salt River, at the Maricopa Wells-McDowell road ford. Here the river was crossed, and the weary immigrants were at their journey's end. The day was March 6, 1877. The camp was at the site of the canal head, the settlement later placed a few miles below. Henry C. Rogers took charge of the construction of the ditch, started the day after arrival. Ross R. Rogers was the engineer. His only instruments were a straight edge and a spirit level. This still is known as the Utah ditch. Its first cost was $4500. There was the planting of a nursery by George Steele, the trees kept alive by hauling water to them. Jones wrote to Salt Lake that Salt River was at least four times as big as the Provo and had to be tapped through deep cuts, as the channel was "too expensive to dam." Sunday, May 20, 1877, Jones baptized his first Indians in Salt River, four of the "Lamanites" being immersed. In July, 1877, Fort Utah was located as a place of protection. It was built upon the cross line of four quarter-sections of land, enclosed with an adobe wall, and with a well, on the inside, 25 feet deep. The families lived there while the men went out to work. President Young soon wrote Jones in a vein indicating that the stop on Salt River was considered merely a camp on the way still farther southward, saying: "We should also like to know what your intentions are with regard to settling the region for which you originally started. We do not deem it prudent for you to break up your present location, but, possibly next fall, you will find it consistent to continue your journey with a portion of those who are now with you, while others will come and occupy the places vacated by you. We do not, however, wish you to get the idea from the above remarks that we desire to hurry you away from where you are now, or to enforce a settlement in the district to which you refer, until it is safe to do so and free from the dangers of Indian difficulties; but we regard it as one of the spots where the Saints will, sooner or later, gather to build up Zion, and we feel the sooner the better." [Illustration: ON THE DESOLATE SANDY ROAD TO THE COLORADO CROSSING] [Illustration: LEADERS OF UNSUCCESSFUL EXPEDITIONS 1--Horton D. Haight 2--Jacob Miller 3--Daniel H. Wells 4--Lorenzo W. Roundy] [Illustration: THE FIRST EXPEDITION INTO MEXICO Wiley C. Jones, A. W. Ivins Heleman Pratt, D. W. Jones, Jas. Z. Stewart] [Illustration: THE SECOND PARTY SENT TO MEXICO 1--Jas. Z. Stewart 2--Meliton O. Trejo 3--George Terry 4--Isaac J. Stewart 5--Heleman Pratt] Transformation Wrought at Camp Utah The newcomers found pioneering conditions very harsh indeed, for it is a full man's task to clear away mesquite and brush and to dig a deep canal. Joseph A. McRae made special reference to the heat, to which the Utah settlers were unaccustomed. He wrote, "as summer advanced, I often saturated my clothing with water before starting to hoe a row of corn forty rods long, and before reaching the end my clothes were entirely dry." But there was raised an abundance of corn, sugar cane, melons and vegetables, and, in spite of the heat, the health of the people was excellent. Concerning the early Jonesville, a correspondent of the Prescott Miner wrote: "The work done by these people is simply astounding, and the alacrity and vim with which they go at it is decidedly in favor of cooperation or communism. Irrespective of capital invested, all share equally in the returns. The main canal is two and a half miles long, eight feet deep, and eight feet wide. Two miles of small ditch are completed and four more are required. Their diagram of the settlement, as it is to be, represents a mile square enclosed by an adobe wall about seven feet high. In the center is a square, or plaza, around which are buildings fronting outward. The middle of the plaza represents the back yards, in which eleven families, or eighty-five persons are to commingle. They are intelligent, and all Americans." The settlers, with their missionary turn of mind, were pleased to find the Indians of southern Arizona friendly and even inclined to be helpful. One chief offered to loan the settlers seed corn and wheat. The Indians gathered around to listen to whatever discourse the Saints should offer, the latter, at the same time energetically wielding shovels on a canal that "simply had" to be built in a given time. An appreciated feature was that Salt River abounded in fish, supplementing very acceptably the plain diet on which the pioneers had been subsisting. Possibly it was as well that the Saints had rules against the use of table luxuries. One pioneer of the Lehi settlement told how his family had lived for weeks almost entirely upon wheat, which had been ground in a coffee mill and then cooked into mush, to be eaten with milk. "We thought ourselves mighty fortunate to have the milk," he said. Soon after the settlement of Camp Utah, Jones' methods of administration excited keen opposition among the brethren. There was special objection to his plan that the settlement should receive Indians on a footing of equality, this being defended as a method that assuredly would tend toward the conversion of the Lamanites speedily and effectively. Jones was fair in his statement of the matter, and hence special interest attaches to his own story of the earliest days of the settlement: "We commenced on the ditch March 7, 1877. All hands worked with a will. Part of the company moved down on to lands located for settlements. Most of the able-bodied men formed a working camp near the head of the ditch, where a deep cut had to be made. "We hired considerable help when we could procure it, for such pay as we could command, as scrub ponies, 'Hayden scrip,' etc. Among those employed were a number of Indians, Pimas, Maricopas, Pagagos, Yumas, Yaquis and one or two Apache-Mohaves. The most of them were good workers. "Some of the Indians expressed a desire to come and settle with us. This was the most interesting part of the mission to me, and I naturally supposed that all the company felt the same spirit, but I soon found my mistake, for, on making this desire of the Indians known to the company, many objected, some saying that they did not want their families brought into association with these dirty Indians. So little interest was manifested by the company that I made the mistake of jumping at the conclusion that I would have to go ahead whether I was backed up or not. I learned afterward that if I had been more patient and faithful, I would have had more help, but at the time I acted according to the best light I had and determined to stick to the Indians. "This spirit manifested to the company showing a preference to the natives, naturally created a prejudice against me. Soon dissatisfaction commenced to show. The result was that most of the company left and went on to the San Pedro, in southern Arizona, led by P.C. Merrill. After this move, there being but four families left, and one of these soon leaving, our little colony was quite weak." Departure of the Merrill Party It was a sad blow to the settlement when the Merrill company departed, in August, 1877, leaving only the Jones, Biggs, Rogers and Turley families. Nearly all the teams available went with the Merrills, thus delaying completion of the canal, which at that time had reached the settlement. The fort also was left in an incomplete state. The few left behind mainly were employed by Chas. T. Hayden of Tempe, who was described as, "so very kind to the brethren and their families, giving them work and furnishing them with means in advance, on credit, so that they might subsist." A very interesting item in a letter written by Jones is: "This country is so productive and easy of cultivation, but, notwithstanding, this colony was too poor at seed time to buy a common plow. From present prospects, we hope to be able to save up and have enough for seed and plow the coming season. You speak of the ancient Egyptians using a crooked stick for plowing; if you will call down here soon, we can show you some 300 acres of good wheat patch plowed by our colony with a crooked stick plow, without so much as a ram's horn point." Probably Jones included a part of the holdings of his Indian wards in this demonstration of primeval agriculture. For years following the advent of the white man, the Pima Indians habitually plowed by means of a crooked mesquite stick, connected by a rope to a pole, tied firmly across the horns of a couple of oxen. Whatever the dissension between Jones and the other pioneers, he appeared at all times to have been popular with his Indian wards. This is evidenced by the fact that to the north of Lehi is a thriving Pima-Papago Mormon settlement, known as Papago ward. Dan P. Jones followed his father in its administration. A few years ago it had a population of 590 Indians, mainly Pimas, and of four white families, headed by Geo. F. Tiffany, with an Indian counselor, Incarnacion Valenzuela. This counselor has been described by Historian Jenson as "one of the most intelligent Indians I have ever met. He speaks Spanish fluently, as well as the Papago and Pima language; he also understands English, but does not like to speak it." Henry C. Rogers also was a successful Indian missionary. Tiffany's son now is in charge of the Lehi Indians. Besides the Indians directly belonging to the ward, is a record of 1500 baptized Mormon Indians, mainly Papago, in the desert region to the southward, as far as the Mexican line. Sunday schools and meetings are held in the Papago ward schoolhouse, built a few years ago. The Indians farm and raise stock; some of them live in good houses and all are learning the habits and ways of their neighbors, who have been their friends from the beginning. Jones was charged by the people of Phoenix and Tempe with protection of Indians who had trespassed upon crops. He was warned by the Indian agent at Sacaton that he must cease his proselyting, a warning he calmly ignored. He seemed to have had assistance generally from the military authorities at Camp McDowell, about fifteen miles northward, for a time commanded by Capt. Adna R. Chaffee, Sixth Cavalry. Trouble was known with Pima Indians, who lived across the river, where they had been placed a few years before by Tempe settlers, as a possible buffer against Apache raids. This reservation's extension cost Lehi several sections of land. Altogether, Jones' life in the Salt River Valley was not an easy one. Finally he joined a community in northern Tonto Basin, where his wife and youngest child were killed by accident. After that he moved to Tempe. Thereafter he went to Mexico, where he had mining experience. In the winter of 1884, he helped Erastus Snow and Samuel H. Hill to cross the border at El Paso. His latter days mainly were spent in Utah and California. Early in 1915 he returned to Arizona. His death occurred April 20 of that year, at the Mesa home of a son. His life work is well set out in a book written by himself and published in 1890. The descendants of the sturdy old pioneer are many in southern Arizona and numbers of them have occupied responsible office with credit. A son, Dan. P. Jones of Mesa, is a member of the current Legislature. Other sons and grandsons have been prominent especially in educational work. Lehi's Later Development Lehi now is a thriving settlement in bottom lands along Salt River, where growth necessarily is limited. Its school-house is about three miles north of Mesa, which has made by far the greater growth. First known as Camp Utah, or Utahville, for years it was called Jonesville, but finally the postoffice name of Lehi, suggested by Apostle Brigham Young, Jr., has firmly attached. The first Mormon marriage in the Salt River Valley was at Lehi, that of Daniel P. Jones and Mary E. Merrill, August 26, 1877. The first birth was of their son. The first permanent separate house, of adobe, at Lehi, was built by Thomas Biggs, in the spring of 1878. There was a public school as early as 1878, taught by Miss Zula Pomeroy. In 1880 an adobe schoolhouse was built at a cost of $142, the ground donated by Henry C. Rogers, with David Kimball its main supporter. The following year was built a much better schoolhouse. The settlement has a townsite of six blocks, each 26 rods square, with streets four rods wide, surveyed in November, 1880, by Henry C. Rogers. Lehi was badly damaged February 19, 1891, when Salt River reached a height never known before or since. The stream flooded the lower parts of Phoenix and inundated a large part of the farming land at Lehi. A second flood, a few days later, was three feet higher than the first. Five Lehi Indians were drowned and several hundred of them lost their possessions. Chapter Nineteen The Planting of Mesa Transformation of a Desert Plain Though by no means with exclusive population of the faith, Mesa, sixteen miles east of Phoenix and in the Salt River Valley, today includes the largest organization of the Saints within Arizona and is the center of one of the most prosperous Stakes of the Church. It is beautifully located on a broad tableland, from which its Spanish name is derived, and is the center of one of the richest of farming communities. In general, the soil is of the best, without alkali, and its products cover almost anything that can be grown in the temperate or semi-tropic zones. At all times since its settlement, Mesa has prospered, but its prosperity has been especially notable since the development, a few years ago, of the Pima long-staple cotton. Nearly every landowner, and Mesa is a settlement of landowners, has prospered through this industry, though it has been affected by the post-war depression. The region is one of comfortable, spacious homes and of well-tilled farms, with less acreage to each holding than known elsewhere in the valley. Mesa is second only to Phoenix in size and importance within Maricopa County. There are fine business blocks and all evidences of mercantile activity. The farming area is being extended immensely. The community was one of the first to enter the association that secured storage of water at Roosevelt. Thereafter, to the southward came extension of the farming area by means of pumping, this continuing nearly to the Gila River, out upon the Pima reservation. Now there is further extension eastward, and the great plain that stretches as far as Florence is being settled by population very generally tributary to Mesa. It would be idle to speculate upon the future of the city, but its tributary farming country is fully as great as that which surrounds Phoenix. Mesa was founded by Latter-day Saints from Bear Lake County, Idaho, and Salt Lake County, Utah. The former left Paris, Idaho, September 14, 1877, were joined at Salt Lake City by the others and traveled the entire distance by wagon, using the Lee's Ferry route, and coming over the forested country to Camp Verde. The immigrants included, with their families, Chas. I. Robson, Charles Crismon (of the San Bernardino colony) of Salt Lake, Geo. W. Sirrine (of the Brooklyn ship party), Francis M. Pomeroy (a '47 pioneer), John H. Pomeroy, Warren L. Sirrine, Elijah Pomeroy, Parley P. Sirrine, all of Paris, Idaho, Wm. M. Newell, Wm. M. Schwartz, Job H. Smith, Jesse D. Hobson and J.H. Blair of Salt Lake. Altogether were 83 individuals. The valley of the Verde proved a pleasant one, after the cold and hardship known on the plateau, though Christmas was spent in a snowstorm. Both humanity and the horses needed rest. So camp was made at Beaver Head, a few miles from the river, while a scouting party went farther to spy out the land. This party, which went by wagon, included Robson, F. M. Pomeroy, Charles Crismon and G.W. Sirrine. The scouts, within a few days, had covered about 125 miles that lay between Beaver Head and Camp Utah. Their New Year dinner was taken with Jones, who extended them all welcome. It was proposed that the newcomers settle upon land adjoining that of the first party, but there was a likelihood of crowding in the relatively narrow river valley, and there were attractive possibilities lying along the remains of an ancient canal shown them by Jones. [Illustration: ORIGINAL LEHI LOCATORS 1--Daniel W. Jones 2--Philemon C. Merrill 3--Thomas Biggs 4--Henry C. Rogers] [Illustration: FOUNDERS OF MESA: Charles Crismon, Francis M. Pomeroy, George W. Sirrine] Legal appropriation of the head of this old water way was made and Crismon was left behind, with a couple of the Camp Utah men as helpers, to start work on the new irrigation project. Incidentally, Crismon made location of land near the heading and thus separated his interests from those of the main party. Later, he started a water-power grist mill on the Grand canal, east of Phoenix. He had rights to a large share in the canal, as well as to lands on the mesa. These he later sold. Robson, Pomeroy and Sirrine returned to the Verde Valley, to pilot the rested travelers southward. The journey was by way of the rocky Black Canyon road, with difficulty encountered in descending the steep Arastra Creek pass. Fording Salt River at Hayden's Ferry, Camp Utah was reached February 14, 1878. The journey had been a slow one, for cattle had to be driven. A few days were spent at Camp Utah and then the new arrivals moved upstream five miles, where tents were pitched on a pleasant flat, a couple of miles below the canal heading. There had been conclusion to settle upon the tableland to the southwest. Pomeroy and Sirrine made a rough, though sufficient, survey with straight-edge and spirit level, along what then was named the "Montezuma Canal," eleven miles to a point where a townsite was selected. Use of a Prehistoric Canal Nothing short of Providential was considered the finding of the canal, dug by a prehistoric people into the edge of the mesa, which it gradually surmounted. This canal, in all probability, had been cut more than 1000 years before. It could be traced from the river for twenty miles, maintaining an even gradient, possibly as good as could have been laid out with a modern level, and with a number of laterals that spread over a country about as extensively cultivated as at present. A lateral served the Lehi section and other ditches conducted water to the southwest, past the famous ancient city of Los Muertos (later explored by Frank H. Cushing) and then around the southeastern foothills of the Salt River Mountains to points not far distant from the Gila River. The main canal cut through the tableland for two miles, with a top width of even fifty feet and a depth of twelve feet, chopped out in places, with stone axes, through a difficult formation of hardpan, "caliche." The old canal was cleaned out for the necessities of the pioneers, at a cost of about $48,000, including the head, and afterward was enlarged. At the time, there was an estimate that its utilization saved at least $20,000 in cost of excavation. There were 123 miles of these ancient canals. This canal undertaking was a tremendous one, especially in consideration of the fact that for the first five months the Mesa settlers available for work were only eighteen able-bodied men and boys. The brethren were hardly strong enough in man power to have dug the canal had it not been for the old channel. A small stream was led to the townsite in October, 1878, and in the same month building construction was begun. An early settler wrote: "We were about nine months in getting a small stream of water out at an expense of $43,000 in money and labor, so that we could plant gardens and set out some fruit trees. A man was allowed $1.50 and a man and team $3 per day for labor. Our ditch ran through some formation that would slack up like lime; and as whole sections of it would slide, it kept us busy nearly all the time the following year enlarging and repairing the canal. Our labors only lessened as our numbers increased, and the banks became more solid, so that today (1894) we have a good canal carrying about 7000 inches of water." It would appear that a tremendous amount of optimism, energy and self-reliance lay in the leaders of the small community, in digging through the bank of a stubborn cliff, in throwing a rude dam across a great flood stream and in planting their homes far out on a plain that bore little evidence of agricultural possibilities, beyond a growth of creosote bush, the Larrea Mexicana. There were easier places where settlements might have been made, at Lehi or Tempe, or upon the smaller streams, but there must have been a vision rather broader than that of the original immigrant, a vision that later has merged into reality far larger and richer than had been the dream. Within this prosperity are included hundreds of Mormon pioneers and their children. It often is said that the development of a country is by the "breaking" of from three to four sets of immigrants. It is not true of Mesa, for there the original settlers and their stock generally still hold to the land. Moving Upon the Mesa Townsite The honor of erection of the first home upon the mesa lies with the Pomeroy family, though it was hardly considered as a house. Logs and timbers were hauled from the abandoned Maryville, an outpost of Fort McDowell, at the river crossing northeast of Fort Utah. It was erected Mexican fashion, the roof supported on stout poles, and then mudded walls were built up on arrowweed latticing. This Pomeroy residence later was used as the first meetinghouse, as the first schoolhouse and as the first dance hall, though its floor was of packed earth. It might be added that there were many dances, for the settlers were a lighthearted lot. Most of the settlers re-erected their tents, each family upon the lot that had been assigned. The first families on the mesa were those of John H. Pomeroy, Theodore Sirrine and Chas. H. Mallory. The Mallory and Sirrine homes quickly were started. Mallory's, the first adobe, was torn down early in 1921. By the end of November, 1878, all the families had moved from the river camp upon the new townsite. Early arrivals included a strong party from Montpelier, Bear Lake County, Idaho, the family heads John Hibbert, Hyrum S. Phelps, Charles C. Dana, John T. Lesueur, William Lesueur, John Davis, Geo. C. Dana and Charles Warner. Others, with their families, were Charles Crismon, Jr., Joseph Cain and William Brim from the Salt Lake section. Nearly all of the settlers who came in the earlier days to Mesa were fairly well-to-do, considered in a frontier way, and were people of education. Soon, by intelligence and industry, they made the desert bloom. Canals were extended all over the mesa. In 1879 was gathered the first crop of cereals and vegetables and that spring were planted many fruit trees, which grew wonderfully well in the rich, light soil. An Irrigation Clash That Did Not Come The summer of 1879 was one of the dryest ever recorded. Though less than 20,000 acres were cultivated in the entire valley, the crops around Phoenix suffered for lack of water. Salt River was a dry sand expanse for five miles below the Mesa, Utah and Tempe canal headings. The Mormon water appropriation was blamed for this. So in Phoenix was organized an armed expedition of at least twenty farmers, who rode eastward, prepared to fight for their irrigation priority rights. But there was no battle. Instead, they were met in all mildness by Jones and others, who agreed that priority rights should prevail. There was inspection of the two Mormon ditches, in which less than 1000 miners' inches were flowing and then was agreement that the two canal headgates should be closed for three days, to see what effect this action would have on the lower water supply. But the added water merely was wasted. The sand expanse drank it up and the lower ditches were not benefited. There was no more trouble over water rights. Indeed, this is the only recorded approach to a clash known between the Mormon settlers and their neighbors. Mesa's Civic Administration In May, 1878, T.C. Sirrine located in his own name the section of land upon which Mesa City now stands, thereafter deeding it to Trustees C.I. Robson, G.W. Sirrine and F.M. Pomeroy, who named it and who platted it into blocks of ten acres each, with eight lots, and with streets 130 feet wide, the survey being made by A.M. Jones. Each settler for each share worked out in the Mesa canal, received four lots, or five acres. Two plazas were provided. For many years there was a general feeling that the streets of Mesa were entirely too wide, though it had been laid out in loving remembrance of Salt Lake City, and the question of ever paving (or even of crossing on a hot summer day) was serious. It appears from latter-day development that the old-timers builded wisely, for probably Mesa is alone in all of Arizona in having plenty of room for the parking of automobiles. The main streets have been paved at large expense. In several has been left very attractive center parking, for either grass or standing machines. Mesa was incorporated July 15, 1883. The first election chose A.F. Macdonald as Mayor, E. Pomeroy, G.W. Sirrine, W. Passey and A.F. Stewart as Councilmen, C. I. Robson as Recorder, J.H. Carter as Treasurer, H.C. Longmore as Assessor, W. Richins as Marshal, and H.S. Phelps as Poundkeeper. All were members of the faith, for others were very few in Mesa at that time. Growth was slow for a number of years, for in a city census, taken January 4, 1894, there was found population of only 648, with an assessment valuation of $106,000. The 1920 census found 3036. Mail at first was received at Hayden's Ferry. Soon thereafter was petition for a postoffice. The federal authorities refused the name of "Mesa" on the ground that it might be confused with Mesaville, a small office in Final County. So, in honor of their friend at the Ferry, there was acceptance of the name Hayden. Though the Ferry had the postoffice name of Tempe, there ensued much mixture of mail matter. In 1887, there followed a change in the postoffice name to Zenos, after a prophet of the Book of Mormon. In the order of things, Mesaville passed away and then the settlement quickly availed itself of the privilege opened, to restore the commonly accepted designation of Mesa. Foundation of Alma Alma is a prosperous western extension of Mesa, of which it is a fourth ward. The locality at first, and even unto this day, has borne the local name of Stringtown, for the houses are set along a beautiful country road, cottonwood-bordered for miles. The first settlers of the locality were Henry Standage (a veteran of the Mormon Battalion), Hyrum W. Pugh, Chauncey F. Rogers and Wm. N. Standage, with their families. These settlers constituted a party from Lewiston and Richmond, Cache County, Utah, and arrived at Mesa, January 19, 1880. In that same month they started work on an extension of the Mesa canal, soon thereafter aided by neighbors, who arrived early in 1881. There were good crops. Early in 1882 houses were erected. Highways Into the Mountains In 1880, the Mesa authorities took steps to provide a better highway to Globe, this with the active cooperation of their friend, Chas. T. Hayden. Globe was a rich market for agricultural products, yet could be reached only by way of Florence and the Cane Springs and Pioneer road, over the summit of the Pinal Mountains, or by way of the almost impassable Reno Mountain road from McDowell into Tonto Basin, a road that was ridden in pain, but philosophically, by the members of the Erastus Snow party that passed in 1878. The idea of 1880 was to get through the Pinal Mountains, near Silver King. A new part of this route now is being taken by a State road that starts at Superior, cutting a shelf along the canyon side of Queen Creek, to establish the shortest possible road between Mesa and Globe. The first adequate highway ever had from Mesa eastward was the Roosevelt road, later known as the Apache Trail, built in 1905 by the Reclamation Service, to connect the valley with Roosevelt, which lies at the southern point of Tonto Basin. Hayden's Ferry, Latterly Tempe Tempe, eight miles east of Phoenix on Salt River, was first known as Hayden's Ferry. Its founder was Chas. Trumbull Hayden, a pioneer merchant who early saw the possibilities of development within the Salt River Valley and who built a flour mill that still is known by his name. Arizona's Congressman, Carl Hayden, is a son of the pioneer merchant, miller and ferryman. The name of Tempe (from a valley of ancient Greece) is credited to Darrell Duppa, a cultured Englishman, who is also understood to have named Phoenix. It was applied to Hayden's Ferry and also to a Mexican settlement, something over a half-mile distant, locally known as San Pablo. Hayden welcomed the advent of the Mormons, led to the country by Daniel W. Jones in 1877, and befriended those who followed, thus materially assisting in the upbuilding of the Lehi and Mesa settlements. Tempe, as a Mormon settlement, started July 23, 1882, in the purchase by Benjamin Franklin Johnson, Jos. E. Johnson and relatives, from Hayden, of eighty acres of land that lay between the ferry and the Mexican town. For this tract there was paid $3000. The Johnson party left Spring Lake, Utah, in April and traveled via Lee's Ferry. There was survey of the property into lots and blocks, and the Johnsons at once started upon the building of homes. There was included also a small cooperative store. The foundation was laid for a meeting house, but religious services usually were held in a bowery or in the district schoolhouse that had been built before the Saints came. In the fall of 1882 there arrived a number of families, most of them Johnsons or relatives. When the Maricopa Stake was organized December 10, 1882, David T. LeBaron was presiding at Tempe. June 15, 1884, Tempe was organized as a ward, successively headed by Samuel Openshaw and Jas. F. Johnson. In August, 1887, most of Tempe's Mormon residents moved to Nephi, west of Mesa, mainly upon land acquired by Benj. F. Johnson, the settlement popularly known as Johnsonville. The departure hinged upon the building of a branch railroad of the Southern Pacific from Maricopa, through Tempe, to Phoenix. An offer was made by a newly-organized corporation for the land that had been taken by the Johnsons, who sold on terms then considered advantageous. Upon this land now is located a large part of the prosperous town of Tempe, within which is a considerable scattering of Mormon families, though without local organization. Patriarch B.F. Johnson died in Mesa, November 18, 1905, at the age of 87. At that time it was told that his descendants and those married into the family numbered 1500, probably constituting the largest family within the Church membership. Organization of the Maricopa Stake The Church history of Mesa started October 14, 1878, when Apostle Erastus Snow, on his memorable trip through the Southwest, at Fort Utah, appointed a late arrival, Jesse N. Perkins, as presiding elder and H.C. Rogers and G.W. Sirrine as counselors. Perkins died of smallpox in northeastern Arizona. In 1880, President John Taylor at St. George, Utah, appointed Alexander F. Macdonald to preside over the new stake. He arrived and took office in February of that year. Macdonald was a sturdy, lengthy Scotchman, a preacher of the rough and ready sort and of tremendous effectiveness, converted in Perth, in June, 1846, and a Salt Lake arrival by ox team in 1854. In 1882, on permanent organization of the Stake, Chas. I. Robson succeeded Sirrine as counselor. Robson December 4, 1887, succeeded to the presidency, with H.C. Rogers and Collins R. Hakes as counselors, Macdonald taking up leadership in the northern Mexican Stakes, pioneering work of difficulty for which he was especially well suited. In December, 1884, he headed an expedition and surveying party into Chihuahua, Mexico, looking for settlement locations, and secured large landed interests. He became ill at El Paso, on his way back to his home at Colonia Juarez. He died at Colonia Dublan, thirty miles short of his destination, March 21, 1903. [Illustration: MARICOPA STAKE PRESIDENTS 1--Alexander F. Macdonald 3--Collins R. Hakes 2--Chas. I. Robson 4--Jno. T. Lesueur 5--Jas. W. Lesueur] [Illustration: MARICOPA DELEGATION AT PINETOP CONFERENCE OF THE FOUR ARIZONA STAKES, JULY, 1892] Chas. I. Robson served as President to the day of his death, February 24, 1894. He was of English ancestry, born February 20, 1837, in Northumberland. He was specially distinguished in the early days of Utah through his success in starting the first paper factory known in western America. As a boy, he had worked in a paper factory in England. In 1870, he was warden of the Utah penitentiary. May 10, 1894, Collins R. Hakes (of the San Bernardino colony) succeeded to the presidency of Maricopa Stake, with Henry C. Rogers and Jas. F. Johnson as counselors. At that time were five organized wards, with 2446 souls, including 1219 Indians in the Papago ward, and to the southward toward Mexico. Mesa then was credited with 648 people of the faith, Lehi 200, Alma 282 and Nephi 104. In 1905, President Hakes transferred his activities to the development of a new colony of his people at Bluewater, N.M., near Fort Wingate. His death was in Mesa, August 27, 1916. To the Maricopa Stake Presidency, November 26, 1905, succeeded Jno. T. Lesueur, transferred from St. Johns, where, from Mesa, he settled in 1880. He is still a resident of Mesa. He resigned as president in 1912, the position taken, on March 10 of that year, by his son, Jas. W. Lesueur, who still is in office. December 20, 1898, first was occupied the Stake tabernacle, 75x45 feet in size, built of brick and costing $11,000. At its dedication were Apostle Brigham Young, Jr., and a number of other Church dignitaries. For more than a year plans have been in the making for erection at Mesa of a great temple of the Church, to cost about $500,000. It is to be the ninth of such structures. The others, in the order of their dedication, are (or were): at Kirtland, Ohio, of date 1836; at Nauvoo, Illinois, 1846; at St. George, Logan, Manti and Salt Lake, Utah, and at Laie, Hawaiian Islands. Another is being built at Cardston, Alberta, Canada. The Kirtland edifice was abandoned. That at Nauvoo was wrecked by incendiaries in 1848. The great Temple at Salt Lake, its site located by Brigham Young four days after his arrival, in July, 1847, was forty years in building and its dedication was not till 1893. Merely in the way of explanation, it may be noted that a Mormon temple is not a house of public worship. It is, as was the Temple of Solomon, more of a sanctuary, a place wherein ecclesiastical ordinances may have administration. It has many lecture rooms, wherein to be seated the classes under instruction, and there is provision of places for the performance of the ordinances of baptism, marriage, confirmation, etc. Especially important are considered the baptism and blessings (endowments) bestowed vicariously on the living for the benefit of the dead. There also is added solemnity in a temple marriage, for it is for eternity and not merely for time. Due to this is the unusual activity of the Church members in genealogical research. It is believed that the Mormon Church is the only denomination that marries for eternity, this marriage also binding in the eternal family relation the children of the contracting individuals. The temple administration is separate from that of the Stake in which it may be situated and its doors, after dedication, are closed save to its officers and to those who come to receive its benefits. In the past years these ordinances have been received outside of Arizona, at large expense for travel from this State. Naturally, there has been a wish for location of a temple more readily to be reached by the devout. The temple idea in Arizona appears to date back to an assurance given about 1870 in St. George by Brigham Young. A prediction was made by Jesse N. Smith about 1882, to the effect that a temple, at some future day, would be reared on the site of Pima in Graham County. The first donation toward such an end was recorded January 24, 1887, in the name of Mrs. Helena Roseberry, a poor widow of Pima, who gave $5 toward the building of a temple in Arizona, handing the money to Apostle Moses Thatcher. This widow's mite ever since has been held by the Church in Salt Lake. Possibly it has drawn good interest, for through the Church Presidency has come a donation of $200,000 to assure the end the widow had wished for. Another "nest egg," the first contribution received directly for the Mesa edifice, came from another widow, Mrs. Amanda Hastings of Mesa, who, on behalf of herself and children, three years ago, gave the Stake presidency $15. The new temple, of which there is reproduction herewith of an artist's sketch, is to rise in the eastern part of Mesa upon a tract of forty acres, which is to be a veritable park, its edges occupied by homes. The architects are Don C. Young and Ramm Hansen of Salt Lake. The temple will rise 66 feet, showing as a vast monument upon a foundation base that will be 180x195 feet. This base will contain the offices and preparation rooms. While the structure will be sightly from all sides, on its north will be a great entrance. Between the dividing staircase will be a corridor entry to the baptismal room. The staircase, joined at the second story, will stretch 100 feet in a great flight, its landings successively taking the initiates to the higher planes of instruction. In this respect, the plan is said by Church authorities to be the best of any temple of the faith. The rooms will be ample in size for instruction of classes of over 100. The building of the Mesa temple was the primary subject at all meetings of congregations of the faith on September 12, 1920, and from voluntary donations on that day there was added to the temple fund $112,000. Chapter Twenty First Families of Arizona Pueblo Dwellers of Ancient Times In considering the development features of the settlement of central Arizona, the Author feels it might be interesting to note that the immigrants saw in the Salt River Valley many evidences of the truth of the Book of Mormon, covering the passage northward of the Nephites of old. There was found a broad valley that had lain untouched for a thousand years, unoccupied by Indian or Spaniard till Jack Swilling and his miners dug the first canal on the north side of the river a few years before the coming of the Saints to Jonesville. The valley had lain between the red-skinned agriculturists of the Gila and the Apache Ishmaelites of the hills. There had been no intrusion of Spanish or Mexican grants. The ground had been preserved for utilization of the highest sort by American intelligence. Yet this same intelligence found much to admire in the works of the people who had passed on. From the river had been taken out great canals of good gradient, and it was clear that they had been dug by a people of homely thrift and of skill in the tilling of the soil. There still were to be seen piles of earth that marked where at least seven great communal houses had formed nuclei for a numerous people. These were served by 123 miles of canals. These people were not Aztec. According to accepted tradition, the Aztecs passed southward along the western coast, reaching Culiacan, in northwestern Mexico, about 700 A.D., and there named themselves the Mextli. The ancient people of the Salt River Valley probably had moved, or were moving, about that same time. They appear to have been of Toltecan stock and undoubtedly came from the southward, from a land where was known the building of houses and wherein had been established religious cults of notable completeness and assuredly of tenacious hold. Just why they left the Salt River Valley is as incomprehensible as why they entered it, and how long they stayed is purely a matter of conjecture. Probably occupation of the valley was not simultaneous. Probably the leaving was by families or clans, extending over a period of many years. Probably they left on the ending of a cycle of peace, on the coming to the Southwest of the first of the Apache, or of similar marauders, who preyed upon the peaceful dwellers of the plains. That they were people of peace cannot be doubted, people who in the end had to defend their towns, yet sought no aggression. [Illustration: ANCIENT CALALS COVERING 123 MILES, AND PUEBLOS OF SALT RIVER VALLEY. Surveyed by Herbert R. Patrick] Evidences of Well-Developed Culture Possibly a great epidemic, of the sort known to have swept Mexico before the coming of the Spaniard, gravely cut down the numbers of the ancient valley settlers. Near every communal castle is to be found a cemetery, filled with burial urns, their tops usually less than a foot below the surface. These urns (ollas) are filled with calcined human bones. By them are to be found the broken pottery, of which the spirits were to accompany the late lamented on their journey to the happy hunting grounds. These dishes once contained food, intended for the spirit travelers' nourishment. When there was a child, ofttimes now is found the clay image of a dog, for a dog always knows the way home. The dog is believed to have been the only domestic animal of the time. In some cases, in the greater houses, walled into crypts that might have served as family lounging places, have been found the skeletons of those who were of esoteric standing, considered able, by the force of will, to separate spirit from body. In other cases the cleansing and disintegrating effects of fire secured the necessary separation of the spirit from the body. With these mortuary evidences also are found domestic implements, stone clubs, arrow points and, particularly valuable, prayer sticks and religious implements that clearly show the archaeologist a connection with the pueblo-dwelling peoples who still live, under similar communal conditions, to the northward. Northward Trend of the Ancient People That these ancient peoples went north there can be no doubt. North of the valley, nearly fifty miles, on the Verde, is a great stone ruin and beyond it are cavate dwellings of remarkable sort. In Tonto Creek Valley, a dozen miles north of the Roosevelt dam, is an immense ruin built of gypsum blocks. To the eastward, Casa Grande, most famed of all Arizona prehistoric remains, still stands, iron-roofed by a careful government, probably of a later time of abandonment, but still a ruin when first seen by Father Eusebio Kino in 1694. All the way up the Gila, and with a notable southern stem through the Mimbres Valley, are found these same evidences of ancient occupation. Chichilticalli, "the Red House," mentioned by Marco de Niza and by Coronado's historians in 1539-40, lay somewhere near where another group of Mormons again reclaimed the desert soil by irrigation in the upper Gila Valley. Ruins extended from Pueblo Viejo ("Old Town"), above Solomonville, down to San Carlos. Into the valleys of the Salt and of the Gila, from the north come many waterways. In none of these tributary valleys can there be failure to find evidences of the northward march of the Indians who lived in houses. In this intermediate region, the houses usually, for protection, were placed in the cliffs. Particularly notable are the cave dwellings of the upper Verde and in Tonto Basin, near Roosevelt, and in the Sierra Anchas and near Flagstaff. [Illustration: THE ARIZONA TEMPLE AT MESA] [Illustration: JONATHAN HEATON OF MOCCASIN AND HIS FIFTEEN SONS] [Illustration: 1--Ira Hatch, Indian Missionary 2--Thales Haskell, Indian Missionary 3--Wm. C. Prows, Battalion Member 4--Nathan B. Robinson, killed by Indians] Again there was debouchment upon a river valley, that of the Little Colorado. Possibly some of the tribes worked eastward into the valley of the Rio Grande. Another section, and for this there is no less evidence than that of Frank Hamilton Cushing, formed at least a part of the forefathers of the Zuni. Swinging to the northwest, the Water House and other clans formed the southern branch of the three from which the Moqui, or Hopi, people are descended. This last is history. The early Mormons remarked upon the pueblo ruins that lay near their first Little Colorado towns, above St. Joseph. These ruins are known to the Hopi as "Homolobi," and much is the information concerning them to be had from the historians of the present hilltop tribes. Reports of similarity have been so many, there can be no surprise that the earlier settlers from Utah wrote home joyously, telling that proofs had been found of the northern migration so definitely outlined in their ecclesiastical writings, according to the Book of Mormon. _The Great Reavis Land Grant Fraud_ For about ten years from 1885 all the lands of the Salt and Gila valleys of Arizona lay under a serious cloud of title. There had been elimination of the Texas-Pacific landgrant, which unsuccessfully had been claimed by the Southern Pacific. Then came the Reavis grant, one of the most monumental of attempted swindles ever known. James Addison Reavis, a newspaper solicitor, claimed a tract 78 miles wide from a point at the junction of the Gila and Salt Rivers, eastward to beyond Silver City, N.M., on the basis of an alleged grant, of date December 20, 1748, by Fernando VI, King of Spain, to Senor Don Miguel de Peralta y Cordoba, who then was made Baron of the Colorados and granted 300 square leagues in the northern portion of the viceroyalty of New Spain. The grant was said to have been appropriated in 1757. Reavis had first claimed by virtue of a deed from one Willing, of date 1867, but there was switching later, Reavis thereafter claiming as agent for his wife, said to have been the last of the Peralta line, but in reality a half-breed Indian woman, found on an Indian reservation in northern California, and one who had no Mexican history whatever. Reavis renamed himself "Peralta-Reavis," and for a while had headquarters for his "barony" at Arizola, a short distance east of Casa Grande, where he maintained his family in state, with his children in royal purple velvet, with monogrammed coronets upon their Russian caps. He arrogated to himself ownership of all the water and the mines and sold quit-claim deeds to the land's owners. It is said that the Southern Pacific bought its right of way from him and that the Silver King and other mines similarly contributed to his exchequer. He claimed Phoenix, Mesa, Florence, Globe, Silver King, Safford and Silver City. He planned a storage basin on Salt River and another above Florence on the Gila, and advertised that he intended to reclaim 6,000,000 acres on the Casa Grande and Maricopa plains, "thereafter returning to the Gila any surplus water." Just how accurate his figures were may be judged by the fact that government engineers have found that the waters of the Gila, above Florence, are sufficient for the irrigation of not more than 90,000 acres. He viewed things on a big scale, however. At Tonto Basin he was to build a dam 450 feet high and the water was to be taken from the river channel by means of a 44,000-foot tunnel. Whenever one of his prospective customers failed to contribute, he often deeded the land to a third party. Some of these deeds are to be seen on the records of Maricopa County. His case had been so well prepared that many were deceived, even the lawyers who served him as counsel, including Robert G. Ingersoll. Naturally something approximating a panic for a while was known by the farmers of the valleys affected. Meanwhile, very largely from moneys obtained as above noted, Reavis was spending royally at many points. At Madrid, Spain, he had a gorgeous establishment, whereat he even entertained the American Legation. At many points in Mexico, he scattered coin lavishly and accumulated cords of alleged original records and he even found paintings of his wife's alleged ancestors. The grant was taken into politics and was an issue in the congressional campaign of 1887. About 1898 there was establishment of the United States Court of Private Land Claims, especially for adjudication of many such claims in the Southwest. Reavis' elaborately prepared case tumbled almost from the day it was brought into court. Government agents found bribery, corruption and fraud all along his trail. He had interpolated pages in old record books and had even changed and rewritten royal documents, including one on which the grant was based. Some of his "ancient" documents were found to have been executed on very modern milled paper. On one of them appeared the water mark of a Wisconsin paper mill. Others had type that had been invented only a few years before. The claim was unanimously rejected by the land court and on the same day Reavis was arrested on five indictments for conspiracy. He was convicted in January, 1895, and sentenced to six years in the penitentiary. After serving his sentence, he made a brief confession, telling that he had been "playing a game which to win meant greater wealth than that of Gould or Vanderbilt." The district covered by his claim today has property valued at at least one billion dollars. When Mesa first was settled, every alternate section was called "railroad land." claimed by the Southern Pacific, under virtue of the old Tom Scott-Texas & Pacific land grant. Early in the eighties, this claim vanished, it being decided that the Southern Pacific had no right to the grant. Chapter Twenty-one Near the Mexican Border Location on the San Pedro River Much historical value attaches to the settlement of the Saints upon the San Pedro River, even though prosperity there has not yet come in as large a degree as has been known elsewhere within the State. It is not improbable that within the next few years an advance in material riches will be known in large degree, through water storage, saving both water and the cutting away of lands through flood, and that permanent diversion works will save the heart-breaking tasks of frequent rebuilding of the temporary dams heretofore washed out in almost every freshet. Elsewhere has been told the story of the Daniel W. Jones party that settled at Lehi and of the dissension that followed objections on the part of the majority to the rulings of the stout old elder, whose mind especially dwelt upon the welfare of red-skinned brethren. There had been general authorization to the Jones-Merrill expedition to go as far southward as it wished. Under this, though not till there had been consultation with the Church Presidency, the greater number of the Lehi settlers left Salt River early in August, 1877. There was expectation that they were to settle on the headwaters of the Gila or on the San Pedro. There must have been a deal of faith within the company, for the departure from camp was with provisions only enough to last two days and there was appreciation that much wild country would need to be passed. But there was loan of the wages of A.O. Williams, a member of the party who had been employed by C.T. Hayden at Tempe, and with this money added provisions were secured. Necessarily, the journey was indirect. At Tucson employment was offered for men and teams by Thomas Gardner, who owned a sawmill in the Santa Rita Mountains. Much of the money thus earned was saved, for the party lived under the rules of the United Order, and very economically. So, in the fall, with the large joint capital of $400 in cash, added to teams and wagons and to industry and health, there was fresh start, from the Santa Ritas, for the San Pedro, 45 miles distant. The river was reached November 29, 1877. These first settlers comprised Philemon C., Dudley T., Thomas, Seth and Orrin D. Merrill, George E. Steele, Joseph McRae and A.O. Williams. All but Williams and O.D. Merrill had families. Ground was broken at a point on the west side of the river, on land that had been visited and located October 14, by P.C. Merrill on an exploring trip. The first camp was about a half mile south of the present St. David and soon was given permanency by the erection of a small stone fort of eight rooms. That winter, for the common interest, was planting of 75 acres of wheat and barley, irrigated from springs and realizing very well. Malaria Overcomes a Community As was usual in early settlement of Arizona valleys, malarial fever appeared very soon. At one time, in the fall of 1878, nearly all the settlers were prostrated with the malady, probably carried by mosquitoes from stagnant water. That year also it was soberly told that fever and ague even spread to the domestic animals. At times, the sick had to wait on the sick and there was none to greet Apostle Erastus Snow when he made visitation October 6, 1878. His first address was to an assembly of 38 individuals, of whom many had been carried to the meeting on their beds. It is chronicled by Elder McRae that, "notwithstanding these conditions, the Apostle blessed the place, prophesying that the day would come when the San Pedro Valley would be settled from one end to the other with Saints and that we had experienced the worst of our sickness. When he left, all felt better in body and in spirit." It was a decidedly hot season. "Vegetation grew so rank that a horseman mounted on a tall horse could hardly be seen at a distance of a quarter of a mile. Hay could be cut a stone's throw from our door." The first death was on October 2, 1878, of the same A.O. Williams whose money had brought the people to the new land. Possibly the settlement needed the mental and spiritual encouragement of Apostle Snow, for more than a year had passed of hardships and of labor, and, including the Lehi experience, there had been no recompense, unless it might have been in the way of mental and moral discipline. The early malaria of the Arizona valleys nearly all has disappeared, with the draining of swampy places, the eradication of beaver dams and mosquitoes and the knowledge of better living conditions. Elsewhere has been told of the abandonment of Obed and other early Little Colorado settlements, because of chills and fever. Something of the same sort was known on the upper Gila, from 1882 to 1890, around Pima, Curtis and Bryce. In this same upper Gila Valley, Fort Goodwin had to be abandoned on account of malarial conditions. The same is true of old Fort Grant, across the divide, on the lower San Pedro. The upper Verde, the Santa Cruz and nearly all similar valleys knew malaria at the time of settlement. According to Merrill, on March 26, 1879, the sick and sorry settlers went into the Huachuca Mountains to summer, but, "the wind blew so much that we moved back to the river, near where Hereford now is, rented some land and put in some crops." This location is just about where the members of the Mormon Battalion, in 1846, had their memorable fight with the wild bulls. A Merrill report, rendered March 16, 1881, was far from hopeful and asked that the writer be relieved of his responsibilities. On the Route of the Mormon Battalion This office has been unable to find any reference connecting Merrill's later experiences in the San Pedro Valley with the time when he was an officer of the Mormon Battalion, though it can be imagined that his later associates had the benefit of many reminiscences of that period of the march just prior to the taking of Tucson. The San Pedro Valley is a historic locality. Down it passed Friar Marco de Niza, in 1539, and the Coronado expedition of the following year. The waters of the stream were a joyous sight to the Mormon Battalion, when it passed that way during the Mexican War. The country then had been occupied to some extent by Spaniards or Mexicans, who had established large ranches, with many cattle, from which they had been driven by the Apaches, years before the Battalion came. The country once had been the ranging ground of the friendly Sobaipuri Indians, but they too had been driven away by the hillmen and had established a village on the Santa Cruz, near their kinsmen, the Papago, almost on the site where Tucson was founded as a Spanish presidio in 1776. The river, when the Merrill party came, was found usually in a deep gully, in places twenty feet below the surface of the silty ground. Naturally, difficulty has attended the attempts to dam the stream. Chronicles of a Quiet Neighborhood St. David was named by Alexander F. Macdonald in honor of David W. Patten, a martyr of the Church, who died at the hands of the same mob that killed Joseph Smith. Its first mail was received at Tres Alamos, sixteen miles down the river. A postoffice was established in 1882, Joseph McRae in charge. When the Southern Pacific came through, Benson was established, nine miles to the northward. Tombstone lies sixteen miles to the southeast. In May, 1880, the present St. David townsite was laid out. John Smith Merrill built the first house. The following year an adobe schoolhouse was built, this used for public gatherings until shaken down by an earthquake, May 3, 1887, happily while the children were at recess. Much damage was done in the town. The settlement had little or no trouble with Indians, though for nine years Apache bands scouted and murdered in the nearby mountains and committed depredations within the San Pedro Valley, both to the northward and southward. Early in 1879 John Campbell, a new member, from Texas, built a sawmill, in the Huachuca Mountains, that furnished a diversity of industry, from it much lumber being shipped to Tombstone. Macdonald was a southern extension of the St. David community on the San Pedro, established in 1882 by Henry J. Horne, Jonathan Hoopes and others, and named in honor of Alexander F. Macdonald, then president of the Maricopa Stake. It was of slow growth, owing to claims upon the lands as constituting a part of the San Juan de las Boquillas y Nogales grant, later rejected. In 1913, nine miles west of St. David, was established the community of Miramonte. Looking Toward Homes in Mexico While the Saints were establishing themselves upon the San Pedro and Gila, the Church authorities by no means had lost sight of the primary object of the southern migration. January 4, 1883, Apostle Moses Thatcher, with Elders D. P. Kimball, Teeples, Fuller, Curtis, Trejo and Martineau, left St. David for an exploring trip into Mexico. September 13, 1884, another party left St. David to explore the country lying south of the line, along the Babispe River, returning October 7, by way of the San Bernardino ranch, though without finding any locations considered favorable. In November, 1884, Apostles Brigham Young, Jr., and Heber J. Grant, with a company from St. Joseph Stake, with thirty wagons, went into Sonora, where they were given a hearty welcome by the Yaqui Indians, who expressed hope of a settlement among them. St. David was the scene of one of the most notable councils of the Church, held in January, 1885, and presided over by none other than President John Taylor, who left Salt Lake City, January 3, and whose party at St. David included also Apostles Joseph F. Smith, Erastus Snow, Brigham Young, Jr., Moses Thatcher and Francis M. Lyman, with other dignitaries of the Church. At St. David were met Jesse N. Smith, Christopher Layton, Alex. F. Macdonald and Lot Smith, presidents of the four Stakes of Arizona. The discussion at this conference appeared to have been mainly upon the Church prosecution, then in full sway, a matter not included within the purview of this work. There was determination to extend the Church settlements farther to the southward. According to Orson F. Whitney: "In order to provide a place of refuge for such as were being hunted and hounded, President Taylor sent parties into Mexico to arrange for the purchase of land in that country, upon which the fugitive Saints might settle. One of the first sites selected for this purpose was just across the line in the State of Sonora. Elder Christopher Layton made choice of this locality. Other lands were secured in the State of Chihuahua. President Taylor and his party called upon Governor Torres at Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora, and were received by that official with marked courtesy." Historian Whitney states that the Taylor party then went westward by way of the Salt River Valley settlements to the Pacific Coast. And this office has a record to the effect that, in January, President Taylor visited also the settlements of the Little Colorado section and counseled concerning the disposition of several of the early towns of that locality. Of Arizona interest is the fact that for two and a half years thereafter, the President of the Mormon Church was in exile, till the date of his death, July 25, 1887, in Kaysville, Utah. Much of the intervening time was spent in Arizona and a part of it in Mexico, in the settlements that had been established as places of refuge. His declining months, however, were spent in Utah, even entire communities guarding well the secret of the presence of their spiritual head. Arizona's First Artesian Well Possibly the first artesian well known in Arizona was developed in the St. David settlement. In 1885 a bounty of $1500 was offered for the development of artesian water. The reward was claimed by the McRae brothers, who developed a flow of about thirty gallons a minute, but who failed to receive any reward. Five years ago, J.S. Merrill of St. David reported that within the San Pedro Valley were about 200 flowing wells, furnishing from five to 150 gallons a minute. The deepest valley well was about 600 feet. At that time about 2000 acres were irrigated by the St. David canal and by the wells, sustaining a population of about 600 souls. Development of a Market at Tombstone It happened on the San Pedro, just as in many other places, that the Mormons were just a little ahead of some great development. September 3, 1877, at Tucson, Ed. Schieffelin recorded the first of his mining claims in Tombstone District, which then lay in Pima County. Schieffelin's first discovery was several miles from the later site of Tombstone and about four miles from the San Pedro. Later, with Dick Gird and Al Schieffelin, the original discoverer located the lower group of mines in the camp of Tombstone, then established. A number of other settlements sprang up, including the nearby Richmond, Watervale and the mill towns of Charleston and Contention City, both on the San Pedro, where water could be secured. Several miles west of Tombstone, just where Ed Schieffelin camped at the time of the discovery of his Tombstone claim, is a large monument of cemented rock, under which lie his remains, brought back from the Northwest for interment in the land he loved. His death was on May 12, 1897. The Tombstone Gold & Silver Milling & Mining Company, of which former Gov. A.P.K. Safford was president, in 1880 owned the original group of Schieffelin claims, of which the Tough Nut was the main property. A stamp mill was built on the San Pedro and a contract entered into with the Mormons to build a dam and ditch, from which it was hoped to secure motive power. Concerning this job, estimated to cost $6000, Merrill later wrote that the contractors found themselves fined $300 for six days' overtime on completion of the job. Joseph McRae's record tells that, in 1879, some of the brethren went up the river, twenty miles above St. David, and put in a rip-rap dam and a mile and a half of ditch at Charleston for the Boston Mining Company. This may have been the Boston & Arizona Smelting & Reduction Company, a Massachusetts corporation which had a twenty-stamp mill and a roasting furnace on the San Pedro, between Charleston and Contention, ten miles from Tombstone. This job returned $6000 in cash. The mines brought a relative degree of prosperity to the San Pedro settlement, furnishing a ready and profitable market for agricultural products, but especially calling upon all transportation facilities that could be afforded. Teams were busy hauling from the terminus of the railroad at Tucson and at Benson, until, in October, 1882, there was completion of the New Mexico and Arizona railroad, then a Santa Fe corporation, from Benson to Nogales, much of the way through the San Pedro Valley, past St. David and the milling towns. The mines paid $30 a cord for fuel wood and even $40 a ton for hay. Lean days descended upon the community, however, in the early summer of 1886, when the great pumps of the Grand Central mine were stopped by fire. The following year Tombstone practically was abandoned and the market it had afforded was lost. Not till 1901 did the camp revive. It closed again in June, 1903, by the drowning of the pumps. Latterly the old mines, consolidated, have been worked to some extent by the Phelps-Dodge Corporation, but again have been closed, early in April, 1921. Chapter Twenty-two On the Upper Gila Ancient Dwellers and Military Travelers Possibly as representative a region as is known in the settlement area of the Mormon people lies for about 25 miles along the Gila River in eastern Arizona, in Graham County, and within St. Joseph Stake. Over a dozen communities are contained within this section and all are distinctly Mormon in settlement and local operation, save Solomonville, at the upper end, and Safford, the county seat and principal town. Most of the land is owned by the Saints, who control, as well, a dozen small canals. Within the Stake have been included Mormon settlements of the San Pedro Valley and those upon the upper Gila, in Greenlee County, extending over into New Mexico and El Paso. The settlement of the Graham County section of the Gila Valley did not start with the Mormons. Far from it. In the upper end of the cultivated region is one of the most notable groups of ruins in the Southwest. This group, since the coming of the Spaniard, appears to have borne the name of Pueblo Viejo (Sp., "Old Town"). Somewhere farther down the stream is assumed to have been "Chichilticalli," the "red house" mentioned in the chronicles of Marco de Niza and the Coronado expedition. The valley was traversed, from east to west, by Gen. S.W. Kearny, on his way, with a dragoon escort, in 1846, to take California from the Mexicans, this command, from the Pima villages westward, forming the advance guard for the Mormon Battalion. Much interesting data of the Gila Valley trip was written by Lieutenant Emory, who later was chief of the Boundary Survey. It is notable that in 1846 Mount Graham already was known by that name. Early Days Around Safford A few Mexicans were in the valley as early as 1871, farming in the vicinity of Pueblo Viejo, immediately below which later arose the town of Solomonville. In 1872 was the first Anglo-Saxon settlement, a group of farmers coming from Gila Bend, upon the Gila River, where they had attempted farming and had failed because the wandering river had washed away their dams and headgates. These farmers, financed in Tucson for the building of the Montezuma canal, settled in the vicinity of Safford, where about that time, was established a townsite, named in honor of Gov. A.P.K. Safford who, from Tucson, then was making a tour of that part of Arizona Territory. One of the very earliest valley residents was D.W. Wickersham, who wrote the Author lately, covering his early experiences. To later serve as the first teacher, he arrived in Safford the summer of 1876, there finding Joshua E. Bailey and Hiram Kennedy, who had come from Gila Bend. Bailey he considers the founder of Safford and believes it was he who named the settlement. Both Bailey and Kennedy came with California troops during the Civil War. The former died in Michigan and Kennedy was murdered in Safford in 1877. Others of the early settlers were Wm. A. Gillespie, John Glasby, John Conley, A.F. Perigo, Edw. E. Tuttle and E.T. Ijams. In 1876 appeared Isador E. Solomon, who for many years occupied a leading position. He came primarily to burn charcoal for the rude adobe furnaces that had been erected by the Lesynzskys to smelt the free ores of the famous Longfellow mine in Chase Creek Canyon, a few miles above Clifton. For charcoal Solomon found abundant material in an almost unbroken mesquite forest that stretched for many miles along the river. Solomon purchased a road house and small store that had been established near Pueblo Viejo by one Munson, and the place soon became a trading post for a large extent of country, its importance increasing with the development of the great mining region around Globe. I.E. Solomon still is living, an honored resident of Tucson, his children prominent in the business affairs of the State. Solomonville was so named, in 1878, by none other than Bill Kirkland, who raised the American flag in Tucson in 1856 and who, for a while, carried mail from Fort Thomas to Clifton. [Illustration: SOUTHEASTERN ARIZONA. The Salt, San Pedro and Gila Valleys and Routes of travel] Apostle Erastus Snow appears to have been the first of the Mormon faith to cross this Gila Valley region. His party arrived on the San Pedro River, October 6, 1878. The most easterly point reached in the Gila Valley was at old Camp Goodwin, not far from the present railroad station of Fort Thomas and at the extreme western or lower end of the present farmed area. It would require a separate volume to follow Apostle Erastus Snow on his journeyings through the Southwest, where he appears to have served as a veritable inspector-general for his Church. On the 1878 trip, L. John Nuttall of Snow's company, writes of passing into the Gila Valley through a rocky canyon, "a terrible place, almost impassable, the dread of all who travel this way." The same road is very little better to this day. At one point was passed a ridge known as Postoffice Hill, where was found the grave of a white man, killed several years before by Apaches. Every time an Apache passed, he put a rock on the grave mound, at that time about twenty feet square at the base and four feet high. The travelers added another rock, on the principle of, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Mormon Location at Smithville The Mormon settlement of the Gila Valley was one of the few made without particular and direct instruction from the general Church authorities. It was caused, primarily, by trouble over the land tenure at Forest Dale, in the mountains to the northward, where settlers, at first permitted, even encouraged by the reservation authorities, finally were advised that they were on Indian land and would have to move. The first question before the colonists immediately became where they should find a new abiding place. All of them had come from the northward, seeking a better location than afforded along the Little Colorado River or in the mountain settlements. So there was determination to see what could be found in the way of farming land on the Gila, to the southward. [Illustration: THE TEEPLES HOME, FIRST HOUSE IN PIMA] [Illustration: THE FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE AT SAFFORD] [Illustration: GILA NORMAL COLLEGE AT THATCHER] In February, 1879, an expedition started over the hills to view the valley of the Gila. It included W.R. Teeples, John Wm. Tanner, Ben Pierce and Hyrum Weech. The last-named told that the party looked over the country and finally selected a location for a town. He wrote, "We traveled from one end of the valley to the other on both sides of the river, looking for the best place to take out a ditch, because we had very little means and could not go to large expense. This (near the location of Smithville, later known as Pima) seemed to be about the easiest place on the river to take out water, so we decided on making the location here." The Smithville ditch was on the basis of prior location by Gillespie and was extended to cover the Mormon land in 1880. Somewhat higher was the Central ditch, which had been built several years before as far down as the later site of Thatcher and which was extended above Pima in 1882. Somewhat of a Samaritan was found on the ground in one Markham, from Oregon, from whom were hired a team and wagon and who refused to take any pay. With a pocket compass, Smithville was laid out. The settlement could not be scattered, because Indians and outlaws threatened. Foundations were laid on sixteen corners, each under the name of one of the families expected to come from the north. The pioneer party then made close investigation of the valley, traveling up the Gila into New Mexico, and viewed the country around Clifton and along the Blue and Black Rivers. The whole trip took about a month. The report was, "that the country looked good for stock raising and farming." On March 16, at Moses Cluff's camp, the proposed migration was approved by Stake President Jesse N. Smith, who appointed Jos. K. Rogers to lead it. In the first company were Rogers, Teeples, Weech, Henry D. Dall, William Thompson and the families of all except Weech and Dall. To these were added John and Thomas Sessions and Earlton Haws, making 28 in all. Arrival was on April 8, 1879. The Cluffs (three families) came very soon after the first party. In a later migration came Samuel Curtis, Heber Reed, Edgar Sessions and William Asay. E.G. Curtis, one of the earliest of the settlers, told that in passing Fort Thomas in March, "the country is found entirely covered with poppies, one of the most beautiful sights I ever expect to see. The grass was high and when the wind would blow it down in great waves, you could see great bunches of antelope." A Second Party Locates at Graham In the Church history of Graham Ward is found additional data concerning the early Gila Valley settlement. It is told that, "the settlers of Brigham City on the Little Colorado, getting discouraged because of frequent failures of crops and poor prospects, sent explorers out to look for new locations. Two went to the San Juan country in Utah, two to the Salt River Valley and three, George Lake, Andrew Anderson and George Skinner, to the Gila River." The journey was via Fort Apache, the arrival at Smithville being in the latter part of November, 1880. At the Graham settlement there was purchase of a water ditch and a quit-claim deed to four quarter-sections of land that had been farmed by non-Mormons. The record recites, "it was merely a rustlers' ranch, possessed by horsethieves and speculators who had a small house on it, for which the brethren paid about $1800, in cows valued at $35 per head." Lake remained in the valley. Anderson and Skinner returned in December to Brigham City, where the authorities of the United Order accepted the purchase. Anderson and Skinner started again for the Gila, accompanied by their families, by Moses M. Curtis and William Hawkins and their families and a number of unmarried men, taking with them seed grain, farming implements, cows, sheep and other animals. Transportation was by ox teams. Christmas Day was spent at St. Joseph on the Little Colorado and New Year at Showlow, arrival on the Gila being in January. Lake, in the meantime, had been joined by Jorgen Jorgensen and Jerome J. Adams, the two who had been sent to the Salt River Valley. The new arrivals at once set at work, clearing their lands and putting in grain, raising good crops. The manual labor, of the hardest sort, was performed under the conditions of the United Order and on a diet principally of bread and beans. The sheep band was turned over to the Church, as profits of the Order, and the wheat and other products were divided according to the number of families and the number of persons. A stockade fort was built, but the homes for months consisted of sheds or tents and even of the wagons. In 1884, on the newly-surveyed townsite of Graham, was built a meeting house, called the "factory house," with mesquite posts and dirt roof and with walls only of heavy unbleached muslin, which appears to have been called "factory." One of the early settlements of the Gila Valley is Matthews (successively Matthewsville, Fairview and Glenbar), founded in December, 1880, by Joseph Matthews and family, from Round Valley, and Wm. R. Waddill. In 1881 they built a stockade and though no local Indian depredations were known, in that year the Matthews settlers moved to Pima for better protection. A townsite was selected by the Stake President September 17, 1886, but was not occupied. A resident of note was the first district school teacher, John F. Nash, who came with his father to Arizona in 1874, first settling in Williamson Valley near Prescott. He arrived in the valley in 1881, the progress of the family toward Texas stopped on the Gila by the stealing of a band of Nash horses by "rustlers." Vicissitudes of Pioneering Eden, first known as Curtis, lies on the northern side of the Gila, nine miles northwest of Pima. It dates from early in 1881, when there was arrival from Brigham City, Arizona, of a party of United Order settlers, headed by Moses M. Curtis. Though other immigrants occupied holdings nearby, M.M. Curtis and Wm. R. Hawkins were the only residents of the present Eden townsite in 1881. The men first turned their attention toward the construction of a ditch from the river, this completed the following year. For a while the young community was on very short rations. At times there could be only one meal a day, that a meager one of beans, served at noon to the workers, who scarcely could summon strength for more than a half day's labor. Some of the early settlers built boweries of brush under which they rolled their covered wagons, to secure better protection from the pitiless Arizona summer sun, and with no other home for weeks. There were Indian "scares," as elsewhere told, and life was far from comfortable, with occasional crossing of the Gila at flood to secure protection at the more populous Pima. In January, 1882, was a moving back to five log houses that had been built on the Curtis townsite, but even after that was flight to Pima when word came of an Indian raid. In the fall of 1882 eight families were living in a little stockade fort that enclosed a half acre of ground, near the river. The present townsite was located May 10, 1883. Gila Communities of the Faith Thatcher, present Stake headquarters, derives its name from Apostle Moses Thatcher, who was a Christmas visitor in 1882, in company with Apostle Erastus Snow. The first settler was John M. Moody, who came with his family from Utah, arriving when Nature had warm welcome indeed, on July 4, 1881. In 1882 he was joined by the Cluff and Zufelt families and by James Pace of the Mormon Battalion, who built a stockade, and a little later by Hyrum Brinkerhoff and wife Margaret, "Aunt Maggie," who bought and occupied the Moody place. They were prominent among the Southern Utah and Muddy pioneers. The Thatcher townsite was selected by President Layton May 13, 1883, a school district being established the following month. Among the arrivals of the following year was Samuel Claridge, one of the pioneers of the Muddy section. October 19, 1885, the presidency located a new townsite about one-half mile to the southward and on higher land. Much of the old Moody ranch since the Brinkerhoff purchase has disappeared, from the encroachments of the Gila River. Bryce, across the river from Pima, dates from January, 1883, when Ebenezer Bryce, Sr., and sons commenced construction of a ditch, completed the next year. The first house was that of Ebenezer P. Bryce, occupied in December, 1884. Central, between Thatcher and Pima, took its name from the Central canal, which irrigates part of the settlement. Its first settlers were Orson and Joseph Cluff of Forest Dale, from which they came southward in the spring of 1882. The Hubbard settlement is an outgrowth of the Graham and Bryce wards and is of comparatively late occupation. It is named after Elisha F. Hubbard, Sr., the first ward bishop. The Layton settlement, named for the first stake president, is one of the most prosperous, and is the third in order of population of the St. Joseph Stake wards. The first settler was Hyrum H. Tippets, who came January 13, 1883, direct from Brigham City, Utah. The Franklin settlement, above Duncan on the Gila, is about seven miles in length, most of it in Arizona, though lapping over into New Mexico. Its first Mormon settler was Thomas J. Nations, in 1895. He joined, with others of the brethren, in taking out a canal. Thomas A. McGrath is understood to have been the first settler of the locality. The name was given in 1898, at the time of the visit of Apostles John Henry Smith and John W. Taylor, and is in honor of Franklin D. Richards, an apostle of the Church, who in no wise had been associated with Arizona affairs. In the same vicinity, wholly in New Mexico, is the settlement of Virden, mainly populated by refugees from Mexico. In these upper Gila communities the Mormons have created a veritable garden, where careless cultivation had been known. Graham County was created by the Arizona Legislature in the spring of 1881, the settlement south of the Gila theretofore having been in Pima County. The first county seat was Safford, but county government was transferred to Solomonville by an act of the Legislature in 1883. In 1915, after the setting off of Greenlee County, the court-house went back to Safford. Considering the Lamanites In the entertaining flood of reminiscence that comes from almost any of the devout pioneers, there often is found expression of abiding belief of personal protection extended by Omnipotence. Possibly, save in the development of character by trials and by tribulation, the average pioneer of the faith, from a present viewpoint, would appear to have been little favored, yet thankful devotion ever was present. One story that indicated celestial intervention in time of danger, has been told by Orson Cluff. He and several brothers and their families were on the road south from Forest Dale to the Gila, and had camped at a point twenty miles south of Fort Apache. In the morning there was the usual prayer, from which the company arose, refreshed in spirit, for another hard day's journey. A short time later, an Indian told how he was a member of a band of redskins that lay in ambush about the Mormon camp that very morning. The work of massacre was about to begin when the intended victims were seen to drop upon their knees and to lift their hands aloft in supplication. The startled Indians were overcome by some mysterious power and stole away. Possibly they feared that potent "medicine" was being made against them, but the Cluffs are sure that the Holy Spirit had descended to save them for further earthly experience. The Gila Valley saw much of Indian rapine in its earlier days. The section considered in this chapter lies just east of the San Carlos Apache reservation and is flanked on the northward by the White Mountain reservation. When the California Column, under General Carleton, was established in Arizona in 1863, after beating the Confederates back beyond the Rio Grande, it was found necessary to establish military stations in that locality. Camp Goodwin, named after the first Governor of the Territory, was at the lower end of the valley. A number of years after its abandonment, there was established, five miles to the eastward, Camp Thomas, maintained until after the final subjugation of the hostile Indians. Thomas was a veritable guard post for the Mormon settlers. To the southwest was Camp Grant, in the northern extension of the Sulphur Springs Valley, this post a successor to old Camp Grant, which was at the mouth of Aravaipa Creek, at the junction of that stream with the San Pedro River. To the northward was Fort Apache and to the southward Fort Bowie. The Hostile Chiricahuas The native Pinaleno Indians of the San Carlos region, while inclined toward spasmodic outbreaks, were not as hostile as their western neighbors, the Mohave and Yuma Apaches. A very dangerous element was added when, in 1876, under direction of the army, Agent John P. Clum moved to San Carlos 325 Indians of the Chiricahua-Apache strain from a reservation in southeastern Arizona. Within a few years, 4500 Indians were concentrated at San Carlos. The Chiricahuas, unsettled and forever yearning to get back to the scene of their marauding along the emigrant road to the southward and in Mexico, constantly were slipping away from the reservation by individuals and by bands, and their highway usually was up the river. In the early eighties the settlers along the Gila lived forever in terror of the savage foe. The military was efficient. Hardriding troopers would dash forth from one or all of the guardian posts whenever danger threatened, and to these same troops undoubtedly is due the fact that general massacres were not known in and around the Gila Valley towns. Often the Author finds in the manuscripts of personal experiences that have been accumulated by the score in his office, a note indicating the conditions under which the land was settled. There have been attempts in other parts of this work to make clear the fact that the Mormons always tried to be friendly with the Indians and suffered without protest treatment from the aborigines that would have led to the shedding of blood by others. One interesting little item of this sort is in a record contributed by Mrs. W.R. Teeples. She found the Indians on the Gila Hirer in 1879 were friendly, possibly too much so. She wrote, "When I was cooking pancakes over the fire in our camp, the Indians would sit around watching, and they would grab the cakes out of the pan before they were done, so I had to cover the pancakes up to keep them for ourselves." Mrs. J.N. Stratton wrote of the same period: "Besides the fear of getting out of food was the greater fear of the Indians. They were on the San Carlos reservation and were supposed to be peaceful, but bands often went out on the warpath and spread terror throughout the country, so the people never knew what to expect from them. The mesquite and sage brush were so thick where Safford's streets and houses are now, that one could only see a little distance, and it was no uncommon occurrence for an Indian to slip out from behind the brush and come walking in at the cabin door, or put his face up against the window and peer in, if the door happened to be closed. One settler who had two doors had her husband nail one up so that when the Indians did come to call on them, she could stand in the other door and keep them from coming in. The mothers never let their children get out of their sight, for fear they would be stolen." I.E. Solomon and his family had many experiences with the Indians, and in several cases narrowly escaped death. A number of Solomon's employees were killed in the open country toward Clifton. An interesting chronicle is from Mrs. Elizabeth Hanks Curtis, who came with her family in April, 1881. Incidentally, she is a descendant of the Hanks family, tracing relationship to Abraham Lincoln. A mile above Eden they built a log fort. In September this had to be abandoned, word brought by a friendly Indian of the coming of a large band of Indians and of imminent danger. Will Ransom from Pima provided a raft to cross the river upon and the settlers concentrated at Pima. The settlers were driven into Pima again in April of the following year, after huddling for days in Moses Curtis' cabin. Protection came from Fort Thomas. Murders by Indian Raiders July 19, 1882, Jacob S. Ferrin of Pima was killed under circumstances of treachery. A freighting camp, of which he was a member, was entered by a number of Apaches, led by "Dutchy," escaped from custody at San Carlos. Pretending amity, they seized the teamsters' guns and fired upon their hosts. Ferrin was shot down, one man was wounded and the others escaped. On the morning of December 1, 1885, Lorenzo and Seth Wright were killed by Indians who had been combing the valley for horses. The Wrights had started, with members of a posse, from Layton, and were joined at Solomonville by Sheriff Stevens and two other men, after there had been recovered a number of the stolen horses, for the pursuers rode harder and faster than the fleeing thieves. There had been assumption that the thieves were Mexicans and so there was an element of recklessness in the pursuit that would have been missing had the truth been known, that they were Apaches. The four leading men of the posse were ambushed by the redskins, who had halted by the roadside. Seth Wright was shot from his horse. His brother immediately dismounted and opened fire upon the Indians. Lorenzo's right arm was broken by a bullet, and then, while he was running, he was shot in the back. This same band had killed a man and a boy at Black Rock and a herdsman at Bear Springs Flat. May 23, 1886, Frank Thurston of Pima, while starting a lime kiln, six miles from the town, was surprised by eight Apaches and killed. This band passed by the Curtis settlement, driving off a number of horses. Concerning the Indian situation, James H. Martineau, on June 1, 1886, wrote that the Apaches then were riding in many small bands, but were kept on the move constantly by the vigorous measures of General Miles, and he assumes that the Apache question would have been settled had his predecessor, General Crook, been less dilatory. The writer expressed his conclusion that in military skill, strategy and ability the Indians far excelled their opponents, and details that fifty or sixty Apaches the year before had killed more than 75 white settlers, all the while pursued by seventeen companies of United States troops, without losing a single Indian. Outlawry Along the Gila The Mormons of the Gila Valley maintained most amicable relations with their neighbors, but occasionally had to participate in some of the ordinary frontier episodes. James R. Welker, an arrival in Safford in 1883, tells that, "The cowboys had things about their own way for a few years. They would ride right into a town, go straight to the saloon and commence shooting the place up. They were expert with the pistol too. I have seen some very wonderful shots among those cowboys. They did not do much killing around here, but they were pretty wild and did about as they pleased." W.T. Barney wrote, "The rustlers gave us quite a bit of trouble, perhaps even more than the Indians." The peaceful Saints in the Gila Valley undoubtedly found much that was foreign to their habits of life. A tale of the frolicsome cowboy is told by Isaac P. Robinson of Thatcher, who was in Safford in 1884: "There were but very few houses in Safford then. About the only business house was the Glasby building, which had a saloon and also a store. The cowboys had things about their own way. They would come into the store and take possession. Mr. Glasby would go out and leave it to them. They would shoot up the store, help themselves to what they wanted, pay for everything they had taken, shoot up the town and go on. But I don't want to see any more of it. You haven't the remotest idea what a lot of trouble they made. This was the main route from the north into Mexico and the principal rendezvous for a lot of those rough characters." In the way of outlawry, the valley had unwelcome notoriety, when from its rougher element was constituted a band which, May 11, 1889, ambushed Paymaster J.W. Wham of the United States army, on the road between Fort Grant and Fort Thomas, and stole about $28,000 in gold and silver, intended for the pay of the troops at the latter post. An escort of eleven colored infantrymen, led by a sergeant, apparently deserted by the Major, fought well, but was driven away after five of the soldiers had been wounded. Thirteen bandits were understood to have been implicated. Eight individuals were arrested. There was trial at Tucson, where Wham and the soldiers were notably poor witnesses and where the defendants were acquitted. A Gray Highway of Danger Just as the Mormon settlements on the Little Colorado providentially were given assistance by the building of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad, just so the struggling pioneers on the Gila found benefit in the opening of the silver and copper mines at Globe. Freight teams were in demand for hauling coke and supplies from the railroad at Willcox and Bowie and for hauling back from the mines the copper bullion. Much of this freighting was done with great teams of mules and horses, veritable caravans, owned by firms such as Tully & Ochoa or M.G. Samaniego of Tucson, but enough was left for the two and four-horse teams of the Mormons, who thus were enabled from the hauling of a few tons of coke to provide provisions for their families and implements for the tilling of their fields. The road from the railroad to Globe ofttimes was a gray highway of danger. After leaving the Gila towns, it led through the length of the Apache Indian reservation. Usually the teams went in sort of military order. The larger "outfits" had strict rules for defense, each driver with his pistol and rifle and each "swamper" similarly armed. Every night the wagons were drawn into a circle, within which the horses were corralled or tied to the wagon poles, where they were fed. Pickets were kept out and care was incessant day and night. But, sometimes, a freighter, eager to earn extra pay for a quick trip, or wishing to drive ahead of the cloud of dust that enveloped each large convoy, would push along by himself. Possibly the next day, the train would come to the embers of what had been wagons and their contents. Nearby would be the bodies of the tortured and murdered teamsters. So the careful ones united, remaining at the railroad until at least a score of wagons had accumulated, and then made their way northward, relatively safe through united vigilance. In 1899 the Gila Valley, Globe & Northern railroad was completed from Bowie, through the Gila Valley towns, to Globe, a distance of 124 miles, though the loss to the freighters was more than balanced by the general good to the community of bettered transportation facilities. Right-of-way through the reservation was accorded by the Indians after a diplomatic distribution to them by a railroad agent of $8000, all in silver coin. Chapter Twenty-three Civic and Church Features Troublesome River Conditions In the memory of Americans still living, the Gila River through the Safford region, was a relatively narrow stream, over which in places a stone could be tossed. There were occasional lagoons, some of them created by beaver dams--picturesque, but breeding places for mosquitoes and sources of malaria. Camp Goodwin was abandoned because of malarial conditions in 1869-70, troops being transferred to the new post of Camp Ord (Apache). The river situation of later years has been very different indeed from that known to the pioneers. The lagoons drained and the underbrush, grass and trees cut away, the river floods have had full sweep and, as a result, there has been tremendous loss in the washing away of the lower lying land. The farms have been pushed back toward the mesas. Now under consideration is a comprehensive irrigation system that will cost several millions of dollars, with a great concrete diversion dam above Solomonville and with two head canals that economically will serve both sides of the river. But in the early days the colonists did what they could, not what economically was advisable. They did not have such trouble as was known along the Little Colorado and their water supply was much larger and somewhat more regular. They took out little canals at different points, with headworks that were easily replaced when washed away. For a few years around 1910, there appeared a prospect that the Gila Valley farms would have to be abandoned unless something could be done to stop the flow of tailings from the concentrating mills of the Clifton-Morenci country, on the San Francisco River, a tributary of the Gila. The finely pulverized rock was brought down in the irrigation water and spread out upon the fields in a thick layer, almost impervious to the growth of vegetation. Mit Simms, then a farmer near Safford, tells that the dried tailings upon his farm spread out in a smooth sheet, that could be broken like glass, with a blow from a hammer. The mining companies refused to heed demand to impound their tailings flow, and so the matter was taken into the courts. Decisions uniformly were with the settlers, the matter finally being disposed of in their favor in the United States Supreme Court. Then the companies, using the tailings material for the making of dams, created great tailings reservoirs in the hills near their plants, and filled up valley after valley with the rejected material. Incidentally, they spent in this work enormous sums, believed to have been sufficient to have bought all the farms of the Gila Valley, at the price put upon them ten years ago. This expended money, however, may yet be returned, for plans have been set afoot for leaching copper treasure out of the tailings banks. Artesian water was struck in the Gila Valley in 1887, according to John A. Lee, understood to have been the first well borer in the artesian district, within which are the present towns of Algodon (otherwise Lebanon) and Artesia. The first water was struck at a depth of 330 feet and better flows were secured with deeper borings down to 1000 feet. The first few years of the Gila Valley settlement, every alternate section was assumed to be the property of the Texas Pacific Railroad Company, a land grant claimed by the Southern Pacific. This claim was decided against by the United States authorities early in 1885, and the lands thus were thrown open to entry by the settlers. Pima was on railroad land and filing of its townsite formally was accomplished by Mayor W.W. Crockett. Basic Law in a Mormon Community Interest attaches to the Church commission, dated February 20, 1883, received by Christopher Layton on his appointment as head of the San Pedro and Gila Valley settlers. It was signed by John Taylor and Jos. F. Smith of the First Presidency and contains instructions and admonitions that might well have served as a basic law of any God-fearing community. President Layton was instructed to see that the settlers did not scatter themselves promiscuously throughout the land, that surveys be made for townsites, that the people settle in these localities, with facilities for public schools and meeting houses, and that due provision be made to protect the settlers against depredations of the lawless and unprincipled combinations of brigands and other hostile marauders. A notably interesting paragraph recites, "You will understand that our object in the organization of the Stake of St. Joseph is to introduce the Gospel into the Mexican nation, or that part of it which lies contiguous to your present settlement, and also, when prudence shall dictate and proper arrangements are entered into, that a settlement may commence to be made in that country." It was recommended, in forming cities either in Arizona or Mexico, "care should be had to place them in proper localities, convenient to land and water, with careful examination of the sanitary conditions. It is the general opinion that it is more healthy and salubrious on the plateaus or mesas than on the low land, the latter of which in your district of country are more or less subject to malarial diseases, which ought, always, when practicable, to be avoided." The streets should be wide and commodious, with public squares for church, county, school and ornamental purposes. [Illustration: GILA VALLEY PIONEERS 1--Wm. R. Teeples 2--John M. Moody 3--Jos. K. Rogers 4--Ebenezer Pryce 5--Hyrum Brinkerhoff 6--Samuel H. Claridge 7--Frank N. Tyler] [Illustration: PIONEER WOMEN OF THE GILA VALLEY 1--Elizabeth Hanks Curtis 2--Mrs. W.R. Teeples 3--Elizabeth Moody 4--Margaret Brinkerhoff 5--Elizabeth Layton 6--Josephine Wall Rogers 7--Rebecca Claridge] School and church affairs should be kept separate. There was warning against favoritism in the allotment of town lands and a recommendation that the principles of the United Order be approached, without the placing of the communities under rigid rules. Another interesting paragraph recites, "The order of Zion when carried out, will be that all men should act in the interest of and for the welfare of Zion, and individualism, private speculation and covetousness will be avoided, and that all act in the interest of all and for the welfare of the whole community. We may not, at present, be able to carry out these ideas in full, but without any special formality or rule, we may be approaching these principles as fast as circumstances will admit of it. We profess to be acting and operating for God, and for His Kingdom, and we are desirous that our acts should be in consonance with our professions." In the selection of elders, care was enjoined that all such persons should be honorable, free from any pernicious or degrading habits, "for if men cannot control themselves, they are not fit to be rulers or leaders in the Kingdom of God." There was special injunction that the Lamanites, the Indians, be treated with all consideration and shown that the Mormons do not teach one thing and practice another. The Indians should be taught to be "friendly with the government of the United States or Mexico and to live at peace with one another, to be chaste, sober and honest and subject to the law of God." Tithing of one-tenth was stipulated as in the interest of the people. The new leader was advised that, "God has placed you as a watchman on the walls of Zion and He will hold you accountable for your acts," and he was directed to see that the laws of God were carried out in his community, irrespective of persons or families. Layton Soldier and Pioneer Christopher Layton was a rough diamond, almost illiterate, yet possessed of much energy and a keen, practical judgment that served him and his people well through the course of a long life. He was an Englishman, born in Bedfordshire, March 8, 1821. His first practical experience was at 7 years of age, when he kept crows from the wheatfields for the large salary of 56 cents a week, boarding himself. In 1843 he crossed the ocean. Elsewhere is noted his experience with the Mormon Battalion. Following discharge, for a few years he lived in California, finally taking ship from San Francisco back to Liverpool, where he arrived in March, 1850. On the same ship's return, James Pennell led 250 converts to America, landing at New Orleans proceeding by river to St. Louis, and then Utah. In September, 1852, Layton first saw Salt Lake, arriving at the head of an expedition of 52 wagons, including the first threshing outfit in Utah. In 1856 he was in the Carson Valley of Nevada, where he proceeded toward the very notable undertaking of building a wagon road across the Sierra Nevadas to Hangtown, early Placerville. With the rest of the Utah Saints, he was recalled to Salt Lake in the fall of 1857. Layton arrived at St. David February 24, 1883. In May he organized wards on the Gila, at Pima, Thatcher, Graham and Curtis, under Jos. K. Rogers, John M. Moody, Jorgen Jorgensen and Moses Curtis. In March of the next year, he organized Layton branch near Safford. President Layton's own story of his advent in the Gila Valley includes: "The Saints were wanting to settle close together, so I bought a 600-acre tract of land of a syndicate living in Tucson. Then I bought out the squatters' rights and improvements by taking quit-claim deeds of them. Thus I was in a position to help the Saints to get homes. In July I bought 320 acres of Peter Anderson (adjoining the other tract) and laid it out in a townsite which we named Thatcher. I built a three-roomed adobe house in Thatcher ward (it being the second house built on the townsite) and we moved into it. I gave a lot for a schoolhouse and the few Saints who were settling here then built an adobe building on it. The mesquite was so thick that when we tried to go any place we were very fortunate if we did not get lost. I gave the Seventies a lot, but they never made any use of it; also gave the bishop a lot for tithing purposes. The Academy was afterward built on it." Layton, aided by his many sons, was active in business, as well as in the faith, operating stores, a flour mill, an ice factory and a number of stage lines, one of which stretched all the way from Bowie Station through the Gila Valley, to Globe, and, through the Tonto Basin, to Pine and Fort Verde, the longest stage mail line in the Southwest at the time. The transfer of headquarters of St. Joseph Stake appears to have been determined upon very soon after the arrival of Layton at St. David. One of his counselors, David P. Kimball, visited Smithville March 10, 1883, and in May Layton himself was on the ground, visiting Smithville (Pima) and Safford. There was approval of the new settlement of Curtis on May 10 and on the 13th was location of the townsite of Thatcher. At this time there appears to have been determination to move headquarters of the Stake from St. David to Smithville, where the first formal quarterly conference of the Stake was held June 3. No record can be found of this transfer nor of the subsequent change to Thatcher. A New Leader on the Gila In 1897 President Layton's health declined and on January 27, 1898, he was released from his spiritual office, to which was appointed Andrew Kimball, this with a letter from President Wilford Woodruff, expressing the highest appreciation of Layton's labors. Christopher Layton left Arizona June 13, 1898, for his old home in Kaysville, Utah, where he died August 7. At a reunion, about six years ago, of the Layton descendants and their families, were present 594 individuals. Andrew Kimball, successor to the presidency of St. Joseph Stake, had formal installation January 30, 1898, at the hands of Apostles John Henry Smith and John W. Taylor, at the same time there being general reorganization of the Church subdivision. President Kimball, who still most actively is in office, is a son of the noted Apostle Heber C. Kimball, First Counselor to President Brigham Young. President Kimball from the very first showed keen enthusiasm in the work of upbuilding his community. In October of the year of his installation he returned to Utah, like the spies returned from the land of Canaan, bringing equally large stories of the fertility of the new land. Instead of bearing a huge bunch of grapes, he had to take with him photographs, in order to secure reception of his stories of corn that was sixteen feet tall, Johnson grass eight feet high, a sweet potato that weighed 36 pounds, of peaches too big to go into the mouth of a preserving jar, sunflower stalks that were used for fence poles, weeds that had to be cut with an ax and sugar cane that grew four years from one planting. On the strength of his enthusiasm, very material additions were made to the population of the Gila Valley, and the President even yet keeps busy in missionary work, not only of his Church, but work calculated to assist in the upbuilding of the Southwest along irrigated agricultural lines. Church Academies of Learning Every Mormon community gives especial attention to its schools, for education in the regard of the people follows closely after their consideration of spiritual affairs. The normal schools of the State always have had a very large percentage of the youth of the faith, training to be teachers. Three of the four Arizona Stakes maintain academies, wherein the curriculum also carries religious instruction. The largest of the three Church schools, at Thatcher, lately was renamed the Gila Normal College. It was established in January, 1891, under instruction that had been received over two years before from the general Church Board of Education. Its first sessions were in the meetinghouse at Central, with Joy Dunion as principal. The second year's work was at Thatcher, where the old adobe meetinghouse was occupied. Thereafter a tithing house was used and was expanded for the growing necessities of the school, which has been in continuous operation ever since, with the exception of two years following 1896, when the finances of the Stake were at low ebb. The academy was revived on assumption of Andrew Kimball to the Stake Presidency, under Principal Emil Maeser, he a son of one of Utah's most noted educators. Andrew C. Peterson has been in charge of the school most of the time since 1906. In 1909 was occupied a new building, erected and furnished at a cost of about $35,000. Leland H. Creer now is principal. At St. Johns the St. Johns Stake Academy was founded January 14, 1889, with John W. Brown as its first principal. The present building was dedicated December 16, 1900. Howard Blazzard now is in active charge, while Stake President David K. Udall, first president of the Academy's Board, still occupies the same position, after 27 years of service. The Snowflake Stake Academy was founded, with E.M. Webb in charge, only a week later than that of St. Johns. The two institutions for many years were the only means provided for local education, beyond the grammar grades. At Snowflake industrial and agricultural courses are given prominence in the curriculum. Thanksgiving Day, 1910, fire destroyed the large school building, which was replaced by a more modern structure, that cost $35,000 and that was dedicated Thanksgiving Day, 1913. For years the school was directed by Joseph Peterson. At Mesa, Chandler and Gilbert are maintained seminaries, mainly for advanced instruction in Church doctrine. Chapter Twenty-four Movement Into Mexico Looking Over the Land The Mormon settlement of Mexico, as elsewhere told, was a cherished plan of Brigham Young, who saw to the southward a land wherein his Church, its doctrines and influence could find room for expansion. He died while the southern migration started by him still was far short of a Mexican destination, though that country had been explored to an extent by several missionary parties. The first Mormons to enter Mexico were the soldiers of the Mormon Battalion who, in 1846, passed south of the Gila in Mexican territory, and then entered the present Mexico by a swing of the column southward from the San Bernardino ranch around to the valley of the San Pedro. The D.W. Jones party was the first missionary expedition into Mexico, crossing the Rio Grande at Paso del Norte, the present Juarez, January 7, 1876. The Pratt-Stewart party, including Meliton G. Trejo, was in northern Mexico early in '77, and small missionary parties followed thereafter from time to time. November 15, 1879, Apostle Moses Thatcher was in Mexico City with J.Z. Stewart and Trejo, there founding the first organization of the Church within the Republic. Decided impetus was given the southward movement when it became evident that the national prosecution against plural marriage was to be pushed to the extreme. January 4, 1883, with the idea of finding an asylum for the Saints in Mexico, Apostle Thatcher traveled from St. David on the San Pedro, to the southeast as far as Corralitos, where some arrangement was made for lands. In the following September, another party from St. David explored the country along the Babispe River. Still more important, November 2, 1884, Apostles Brigham Young, Jr., and Heber J. Grant investigated the Yaqui River section of Sonora, this with three companies of prospective settlers from the Salt River, Gila and San Pedro Valleys, together with some additions from Salt Lake. In January, 1885, migration was under personal charge of President John Taylor, who, after a notable conference at St. David, as noted in the history of that section, led a party southward into Sonora and held a satisfactory conference with Governor Torres, yet made no settlement. In the same month, however, notation has been found that Alexander F. Macdonald was at Corralitos, Chihuahua, from Mesa. A few parties were in that locality in February, 1885, one expedition of seventy having come from Arizona, under Captain Noble. Something of a setback was known when, on April 9, 1885, the Governor of Chihuahua ordered departure of all Mormon settlers within his State. Apostles Young and Thatcher, May 18, visited the City of Mexico and secured from the federal government permission for the immigrants to remain. Colonization in Chihuahua It was in 1886 that the main Mormon exodus traveled across the border. The way had been prepared by the organization of a Colorado corporation, the Mexican Colonization & Agricultural Company, this under the management of Anthony W. Ivins, a northern Arizona pioneer. This company had been granted the usual colonists' privileges, including the introduction, without duty, of livestock, agricultural implements and household effects, but had no special concessions. It was given the usual exemption from taxation for ten years. Through this company, land was acquired at Colonia Juarez and Colonia Diaz, by purchase from Ignacio Gomez del Campo and others. Payment was made with money that had been donated in Utah and from Church funds. Colonies were established, in which were consolidated the Mormons already south of the line and the newcomers. Diaz was on the Janos River, near the Mexican town of Ascension, and Colonia Juarez was 75 miles upstream on a branch of the Janos river, the Piedras Verdes. At the former place about 100,000 acres were acquired and at the latter 25,000. A prior settlement at Corralitos had been established in the fall of 1884. Juarez had the first meeting-house, built January 31, 1886, but the town had to be moved two miles, in January, 1887, on discovery that the site was outside of the lands that had been purchased. Largely from data secured from Mr. Ivins is found much of detail concerning northern Mexican settlement. One important step was the acquirement in 1886, of 100,000 acres of Mexican government timber land in the Sierra Madre Mountains, near Colonia Juarez, and on this tract was established Colonia Pacheco, wherein the main industry was lumbering. Then two other mountain tracts were acquired, of 6000 acres each, upon which were established Colonia Garcia and Colonia Chuichupa, sixteen miles to the southwest of Colonia Juarez. In 1889 was established Colonia Dublan, upon a 60,000-acre tract that was most valuable of all, considered agriculturally. Naturally this became the strongest of all the settlements of the colonist company. There had been exploration, however, to the westward, in the State of Sonora, and in 1896, a tract of 110,000 acres was acquired on the Babispe River. There was established Colonia Oaxaca. The land was mainly valuable for grazing, but some good farming land was along the river. Twenty-five miles below Oaxaca, three years later was acquired a tract of 25,000 acres, whereon Colonia Morelos was established, to be the center of an agricultural section, with attached grazing land. Prosperity in an Alien Land As colonization generally was directed from a central agency, each of the colonies had somewhat the same method of establishment and of operation, this founded upon the experience of the people in Utah and Arizona. There would be laid out a townsite, near which would be small tracts of garden land, and farther away larger tracts of agricultural and grazing land, sold to the colonists at cost with ample time for payment, title remaining in the company until all the purchase price had been paid. In each colony one of the very first public works was erection of a schoolhouse, used as a house of worship and for public hall, as well. Graduates from the colony grammar schools could be sent to an academy at Colonia Juarez, where four years' high school work was given. Skilled teachers were secured wherever possible. Instruction was free, both to the children of the colonists and to the Mexicans. Wherever sufficient school maintenance could not be provided, the deficiency was made up by the Church. In each colony the rough homes of adobe or rock later were replaced by houses of lumber or brick, until, it is told, these Mexican towns were among the best built known in the Southwest. Agriculture was notably successful. There were fine orchards, vegetables were abundant and good crops of grain and potatoes were known. The best breeds of cattle and horses were imported and improved agricultural machinery was brought in. Hundreds of miles of roads were constructed by the colonists, turned over to the government without cost, and taxation was cheerfully paid on the same basis as known by neighboring Mexican settlements. Wherever water could be developed were well-surveyed ditches, heading on the Casas Grandes, Janos and Babispe Rivers and their tributaries, though, without reservoirs, there often was shortage of water. Water power was used for the operation of grist and lumber mills and even for electric lighting. By 1912 there were five lumber and shingle mills, three grist mills, three tanneries, a shoe factory and other manufacturing industries and there was added a telephone system, reaching all Chihuahua colonies. In general, relations with the Mexican government and with the neighboring Mexicans appear to have been cordial. Possibly the best instance of this lies in an anecdote concerning the visit to the Chihuahua State Fair of President Porfirio Diaz. There he saw a remarkable exhibit of industry and frugality presented by the Mormon colonies, including saddles and harness, fruit, fresh and preserved, and examples of the work of the schools. Then it was the General fervently exclaimed, "What could I not do with my beloved Mexico if I only had more citizens and settlers like the Mormons." The colonists took no part in the politics of the country. Only a few became Mexican citizens. Junius S. Romney stated that in each settlement pride was taken in maintaining the best ideals of American government. Occasionally there was irritation, mainly founded upon the difference between the American and Mexican judicial systems. According to Ammon M. Tenney, in all the years of Mormon occupation, not a single colonist was convicted of a crime of any sort whatever. In 1912 the colonists numbered 4225. Abandonment of the Mountain Colonies At the break-up of the Diaz government, May 25, 1911, fear and disorder succeeded peaceful conditions that had been known in the mountain settlements. Sections of Chihuahua were dominated by Villa, Salazar, Lopez, Gomez and other revolutionary leaders. A volume might be written upon the experiences of the colonists on the eastern side of the mountains. There would appear to have been little prejudice against them and little actual antagonism, but they had amassed a wealth that was needed by the revolutionary forces, and there were recurring demands upon them for horses, wagons, supplies, ammunition and finally for all weapons. Patience and diplomacy were needed in the largest degree in the conferences with the Mexican military leaders. Soon it was evident, however, that nothing remained but flight to the United States. July 29, 1912, most of the settlers were hurried aboard a train, almost without time in which to change their clothing. The stores and public buildings were closed. The colonists were huddled, with small personal property, into boxcars or cattle cars and hauled from Colonia Dublan to El Paso. There, there was immediate assistance by the City of El Paso and the United States government, soon reinforced by friends and relatives in Arizona and Utah. At one time 1500 Mormon refugees were encamped in El Paso. A. W. Ivins tells: "As soon as the colonists were gone, a campaign of looting and destruction was commenced by the Mexican revolutionist and local Mexicans near the colonies. The stores were broken into and looted of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. Private homes were treated in the same manner. Livestock was appropriated, until almost every available thing was carried away or destroyed. There was little wanton destruction of property except at Colonia Diaz, where the better part of the residences and public buildings was burned. The homes and farm buildings were not destroyed." Some of the colonists returned as soon as a degree of safety was assured, to check up the property remaining and to plan for the eventual return of their people. But again there had to be an exodus, this late in December, 1915. At that time it is told that Villa was only a few miles away, preparing to march upon the Mormon settlements, with all orders given to that end. But in the morning the plans were changed, apparently by celestial intervention, and he marched his men in another direction, into the Galiana Valley. On one of the flights, after all but the most vigorous of the men had departed, there came peremptory demand for surrender of all arms and ammunition. Some guns were surrendered, but the best had been deposited at a mountain rendezvous. To that point the men hurried and, well-armed and well-mounted, made their way by mountain trails to the border, avoiding conflict with Mexican bands that sought to bar the way. Sad Days for the Sonora Colonists In 1905 was known a disastrous flood, which at Oaxaca swept away forty brick houses, though without loss of life. At Morelos a number of houses were swept away and about 1000 acres of choice farming land was rendered worthless. Then Morelos and Oaxaca colonists in the Batepito Valley, nine miles north of Morelos, founded Colonia San Jose, with new canals, in addition to those of the Babispe. In 1912, Colonia Morelos had in granary over 50,000 bushels of wheat, while the orchards, gardens and alfalfa fields had produced an abundance. These Sonora colonists had 4000 acres of cultivated and fenced lands. A flour mill was operated, succeeding one that had been destroyed by fire of incendiary origin. The Morelos canal had cost $12,000. Many local industries had been established, a good schoolhouse was in each settlement and no saloons were tolerated. In general, there was good treatment from the national Mexican government, though "local authorities had demands called very oppressive and overbearing." War came to the western colonies in November, 1911, on the arrival of a band of seventy men under Isidro Escobosa, repulsed at El Tigre and fleeing to Morelos, followed by federal cavalry, who are reported to have been at least as destructive as the bandits. Thereafter was continuous grief for the colonists. In June, 1500 federals were quartered on the streets and in the school buildings at Morelos, with open depredations upon the settlers' personal property, and scandalous conditions from which no appeal was effective. There then was demand for wagons and teamsters to accompany the federals. The settlers sent their horses into secret places in the mountains and thus saved most of them. Much the same conditions were known at Oaxaca. When it became evident that Mexican conditions were unendurable, the sick and the older people were sent into the United States. August 30, 1912, following news that the rebel Salazar, was marching into Sonora, a large number of women and children were sent northward. Sixty wagons constituted the expedition, carrying 450 people. The journey was through a rough country, in which there was one fatal accident, and in the rainy season, with attendant hardship. At Douglas was cordial reception, with assistance by the United States and by citizens. September 3, still more of the women and children went northward, leaving about 25 men in the colonies, as guards. Occasional parties kept up connection between the border and the colonies for some time thereafter. A few of the expeditions were captured by the Mexicans and robbed. The colonies had been entirely abandoned for some time when a Mormon party from Douglas returned on a scouting trip. According to a chronicler of the period: "On arriving at the colonies they found that every house had been looted and everything of value taken, sewing machines and furniture ruthlessly smashed up and lying around as debris, while house organs, which were to be found in nearly every Mormon home, were heaps of kindling wood. The carcasses of dead animals lay about the streets, doors and windows were smashed in, stores gutted and the contents strewn everywhere about, while here and there a cash register or some other modern appliance gave evidence of the hand of prejudice-destroying ignorance." In October, Consul Dye of Douglas made a formal inspection. Some of the colonists returned when conditions apparently had bettered, and there is at hand a record of what may be considered to have been the final abandonment. In the first days of May, 1914, at Douglas, 92 Americans from the three Sonora colonies, arrived in 21 wagons, being the last of the colonists. They practically had been ordered out, after having been notified by the American Secretary of State that the protection of their country would not be extended to them. Most of their property was left behind, at the mercy of the Mexican authorities. Congressional Inquiry In September, 1912, at El Paso, was an investigation under the terms of a Senate resolution, which sought to find whether the Mexican troubles had been incited by American citizens or corporations. Senator Smith of Michigan was chairman of the committee. At the hearings there was repeated inquiry apparently seeking to demonstrate that the Standard Oil Company, to a degree, was responsible for the Madera revolution. There also was considerable inquiry, apparently hostile, seeking to define ulterior reasons why the Mormons should have chosen Mexico as an abiding place. The investigation covered all parts of Mexico where American interests had suffered, and only incidentally touched the Mormon settlements. There was ample evidence to the effect that the Mormons retained their American citizenship and American customs, that they had lived in amity with the former stable Mexican government, that any troubles they may have had were not due to any actions of their own, but to the desire for loot on the part of the roaming national and revolutionary soldiery and that their departure was forced and necessary. No especial definition seems to have been given to the exact amount of the loss suffered, but there was agreement that the damage done to these American citizens was very large. At the outbreak of the revolution, according to evidence presented, guarantees had been received by the Mormons from both of the major Mexican factions, but, when these guarantees were referred to, General Salazar sententiously observed, "They are but words." Repopulation of the Mexican Colonies A few valiant souls returned to the colonies and remained as best they could, forming nuclei for others who have drifted back from time to time, though neither their going nor coming was under direct Church instruction. Early in 1920, President J.C. Bentley of the Juarez Stake told of the revival of the Mexican missions, and in the latter part of the same year, A.W. Ivins, returning from the Chihuahua colonies, told that 779 colonists were found, approximately one-fifth of the total number of refugees. To a degree their property had been maintained and their orchards kept alive by the few who had remained over the troublous period. The academy at Colonia Juarez had been running some time, with 100 students. He told of the great work of reconstruction that would have to be done, in restoration of fences and homes, and expressed confidence that all now would be well under the more stable government that has been provided in the southern republic. There was restoration of order in Mexico in 1920 and assumption of an apparently stable political government under President Alvaro Obregon, a Sonora citizen, with whom is associated P. Elias Calles, who had somewhat to do with the Morelos-Oaxaca troubles. Assurances have been given that protection will be extended to all immigrants, the Mormon land titles have been accepted and a fresh movement southward has been started across the border. But there are many, possibly a half of those who fled, who will not return. They have established themselves, mainly in Arizona, under conditions they do not care to leave. So, it is probable, further extension southward of the Church plans of agricultural settlement will be a task that will lie upon the shoulders of a younger generation. Chapter Twenty-five Modern Development Oases Have Grown in the Desert The Mormons of Arizona today are not to be considered in the same manner as have been their forebears. The older generation came in pilgrimages, wholly within the faith, sent to break the wilderness for generations to come. These pioneers must be considered in connection with their faith, for through that faith and its supporting Church were they sent on their southward journeyings. Thus it happens that "Mormon settlement" was something apart and distinctive in the general development of Arizona and of the other southwestern sections into which Mormon influences were taken. It has not been sought in this work even to infer that Mormons in anywise had loftier aspirations than were possessed by any other pioneer people of religious and law-abiding sort. However, there must be statement that the Mormons were alone in their idea of extension in concrete agricultural communities. Such communities were founded on well-developed ideals, that had nothing in common with the usual frontier spirit. They contained no drinking places or disorderly resorts and in them rarely were breaches of the peace. Without argument, this could have been accomplished by any other religious organization. Something of the sort has been done by other churches elsewhere in America. But in the Southwest such work of development on a basis of religion was done only by the Mormons. There was need for the sustaining power of Celestial Grace upon the average desert homestead, where the fervent sun lighted an expanse of dry and unpromising land. The task of reclamation in the earlier days would have been beyond the ability and resources of any colonists not welded into some sort of mutual organization. This welding had been accomplished among the Mormons even before the wagon trains started southward. Thereafter all that was needed was industry, as directed by American intelligence. Prosperity Has Succeeded Privation Today the Mormon population of Arizona does not exceed 25,000, within a total population of over 300,000. The relative percentage of strength, however, is larger than the figures indicate, this due, somewhat, to the fact that the trend of Mormon progress still is by way of cultivation of the soil. Of a verity, a family head upon a farm, productive and independent, is of larger value to the community and of more importance therein than is the average city dweller. The immigrant from Utah who came between 1876 and 1886 no longer has the old ox-bowed wagon. His travel nowadays is by automobile. His log or adobe hut has been replaced by a handsome modern home. His children have had education and have been reared in comfort that never knew lack of food. Most of the Mormon settlements no longer are exclusively Mormon. There has come a time when immigration, by rail, has surrounded and enveloped the foundations established by the pioneers. To the newer generation this work is addressed especially, though its dedication, of right, is to the men and women who broke the trails and whose vision of the future has been proven true. Many of the pioneers remain and share with their children in the benefits of the civilization that here they helped to plant. The desert wilderness has been broken and in its stead oases are expanding, oases filled with a population proud of its Americanism, prosperous through varied industry and blessed with consideration for the rights of the neighbor. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bancroft, Hubert Howe, History of Arizona and New Mexico, History of Nevada, History of California: San Francisco, 1889. Bartlett, John R., Personal Narrative: Appleton, 1854. Beadle, S.H., Western Wilds: Jones Bros., Cincinnati, 1878. Church Chronology, Deseret News, Salt Lake. Church Historian's Office, Mss. data of Arizona Stakes and Wards. Cooke, Col. P. St. George, Conquest of New Mexico and California: Putnam's Sons, New York, 1878. Dellenbaugh, F.S., Breaking the Wilderness: Putnam's Sons, 1908. The Romance of the Colorado River: 1909. A Canyon Voyage, New York, 1908. Donaldson, Thomas, Moqui Pueblo Indians: Census Bureau, 1893. Englehardt, Rev. Zephyrin, Missions of California: 4 vols., Barry Co., San Francisco, 1905-15. Farish, Thos. E., History of Arizona: 8 vols., Filmer Co., San Francisco, 1915-18. Fish, Joseph, Mss. History of Arizona. Gregory, Herbert, The Navajo Country: Interior Dept., 1916. Hamblin, Jacob, Personal Narrative, by Little: Deseret News, 1909. Hinton, R.J., Handbook to Arizona: Payot-Upham, San Francisco, 1878. Hodge, F.W., Handbook of the American Indians: Bureau of American Ethnology. James, Dr. Geo. Wharton, In and Around the Grand Canyon: Little-Brown Co., Boston, 1900. Jenson, Andrew, Biographical Encyclopedia: 3 vols. Deseret News, 1900, 1910, 1920. Jones, D.W., Forty Years Among the Indians: Salt Lake, 1890. Layton, Christopher, Autobiography (Mrs. Selina L. Phillips, John Q. Cannon): Deseret News, 1911. McClintock, Jas. H., History of Arizona: 2 vols., Clarke Co., Chicago, 1916. Munk, Dr. J.A., Arizona Sketches: Grafton Press, N.Y., 1905 Powell, J.W., Canyons of the Colorado: Flood-Vincent, Meadville, Penn., 1895. Roberts, B.H., History of the Mormon Church: Salt Lake. Standage, Henry, Mss. Story of Mormon Battalion. Twitchell, Ralph W., Leading facts of New Mexican History: Torch Press, Cedar Rapids, IA., 1911. Tyler, Daniel, Mormon Battalion: Salt Lake, 1881. Whitney, Orson F., History of Utah: 3 vols., Geo. Q. Cannon Co., Salt Lake, 1892. MORMON SETTLEMENT PLACE NAMES (Capital letters indicate present settlement names) See map of Arizona ADAIR, Fools Hollow--2 1/2 m. w. of Showlow ALGODON, Lebanon--7 m. se. of Thatcher ALMA, Stringtown--about 1 m. w. of Mesa Allen City, Allen Camp, Cumorah, ST. JOSEPH--Little Colorado settlement ALPINE, Frisco, Bush Valley--60 m. se. of St. Johns Apache Springs--at Forest Dale Apache Springs--sw. of Pinetop, Cooley's last ranch Amity and Omer, Union, EAGAR--upper Round Valley Arivaipa Canyon--western route Gila Valley to San Pedro ARTESIA--in Gila Valley, about 18 m. se. of Thatcher ASHURST, Redlands, Cork--about 15 m. nw. of Thatcher Badger Creek--on Mormon wagon road 10 m. w. of Lee's Ferry Bagley, Walker, TAYLOR--3 m. s. of Snowflake Ballenger, Brigham City--was Little Colorado town Beaver Dams, LITTLEFIELD, Millersburg--nw. corner of State Beaver Ranch, Woolf Ranch, Lone Pine Crossing, Reidhead--12 m. s. of Snowflake Berardo, Horsehead Crossing, HOLBROOK--on Little Colorado Binghampton--6 m. n. of Tucson; near Ft. Lowell Bisbee--in se. Arizona, near Mexican border Bitter Springs--on Mormon road, 18 m. s. of Lee's Ferry Black Falls--on Little Colorado, 56 m. s. of Moen Copie BLUEWATER--in New Mexico on rr. 107 m. w. of Albuquerque Bonelli's, STONE'S FERRY--near mouth of Virgin r. Brigham City, Ballenger--was Little Colorado r. settlement Buckskin Mountains--between Kanab and Colorado r. BUNKERVILLE--Muddy settlement, 45 m. sw. of St. George Burke Tanks--On road Pleasant Valley to Grand Falls BRYCE--in Gila Valley, 2 m. n. of Pima Bush Valley, Frisco, ALPINE--60 m. se. of St. Johns CALLVILLE, Call's Landing--16 m. w. of mouth of Virgin r. CEDAR RIDGE--on Mormon road, 33 m. s. of Lee's Ferry Cedar Ridge--10 m. ne. of Pleasant Valley Cedar Springs--Barney & Norton Double "N" ranch, 30 m. sw. of Thatcher CENTRAL--3 m. w. of Thatcher, in Gila Valley CHANDLER--8 m. s. of Mesa Clark's Ranch--Just off Ft. Apache road, near Showlow Clay Springs--Snowflake Stake Cluffs Cienega--6 m. e. of Pinetop, embraces new town of Cooley COLTER--17 m. se. of Springerville Columbine--near top of Mt. Graham, Graham Co. COOLEY--at lumber camp near Pinetop, rr. terminus Cooley's ranch--At Showlow--C.E. Cooley's first ranch Cooley's ranch--where C.E. Cooley died, sw. of Pinetop Cumorah, Allen's Camp, ST. JOSEPH--Little Colorado settlement CONCHO, Erastus--about half way between Snowflake and St. Johns Cork, Redlands, ASHURST--15 m. nw. of Thatcher Crossing of the Fathers, Vado de los Padres, El Vado, Ute Crossing, Ute Ford--Colorado river crossing just n. of Utah line Curtis, EDEN--about 15 m. nw. of Thatcher, in Gila Valley DOUGLAS--near Mexican border, se. Arizona EAGAR, Round Valley--2 m. s. of Springerville Eagle Valley--upper end of Muddy Valley Eastern Arizona Stake--1878. Included wards e. of Holbrook in ne. Arizona East Pinedale, PINEDALE--15 m. sw. of Snowflake East Verde--Mazatzal City--was near Payson, in n. Tonto Basin EDEN, Curtis--about 15 m. nw. of Thatcher in Gila Valley Ellsworth--was 1-3/4 m. s. of Showlow Emery--w. of Fort Thomas in Gila Valley Enterprise--was near San Jose, 15 m. e. of Thatcher Erastus, CONCHO--about half way between Snowflake and St. Johns Eureka Springs--in Arivaipa Valley about 25 m. sw. of Thatcher Fairview, LAKESIDE, Woodland--about 30 m. s. of Snowflake Fairview, Matthews, GLENBAR--10 m. nw. of Thatcher in Gila Valley Fools Hollow, ADAIR--in ravine 2-1/2 m. w. of Showlow Forest Dale--8 m. sw. of Showlow FORT DEFIANCE--near N.M. line 30 m. n. of Santa Fe rr. Fort Milligan--was 1 m. w. of present Eagar Fort Moroni, Fort Rickerson--7 m. nw. of Flagstaff in LeRoux Flat Fort Thomas--in Gila Valley, 22 m. nw. of Thatcher Fort Utah, Utahville, Jonesville, LEHI--3 m. ne. of Mesa FRANKLIN--near N.M. line 50 m. e. of Thatcher FREDONIA, Hardscrabble--3 m. s. of Utah line, 8 m. s. of Kanab Frisco, ALPINE, Bush Valley--near N.M. line 60 m. se. of St. Johns Gila Valley--in Graham Co., in se. Arizona GILBERT--6 m. se. of Mesa GLENBAR, Fairview, Matthews--10 m. w. of Thatcher in Gila Valley GLOBE--80 m. nw. of Thatcher GRAHAM--across the Gila river n. of Thatcher Grand Falls--on Little Colorado, 5 m. below ford and 47 m. below Winslow Grand Wash--leads s. of St. George into Colorado r. Grant, Heber, LUNA--across N.M. line, 40 m. se. of Springerville GREER--15 m. sw. of Eagar HARDYVILLE--landing on Colorado, about 90 m. s. of Callville Hayden, Zenos, Mesaville, MESA--Headquarters of Maricopa Stake, 16 m. e. of Phoenix HAYDEN--35 m. s. of Globe Hayden's Ferry, San Pablo, TEMPE--9 m. e. of Phoenix Heber, Grant, LUNA--across N. M. line, 40 m. se. of Springerville HEBER--near Wilford, 50 m. sw. of Holbrook HEREFORD--on San Pedro, 33 m. s. of St. David HOLBROOK, Horsehead Crossing, Berardo--on Little Colorado Horsehead Crossing, Berardo, HOLBROOK--on Little Colorado House Rock Springs--on Mormon road, 38 m. sw. of Lee's Ferry HUBBARD--6 m. nw. of Thatcher HUNT--on Little Colorado, 17 m. nw. of St. Johns Jacob's Pools--on Mormon road, 27 m. sw. of Lee's Ferry JOHNSON'S--on Mormon road, 14 m. ne. of Kanab, n. of Utah line Johnsonville, Nephi--was successor of Tempe ward, 3 m. w. of Mesa Jonesville, Utahville, Ft. Utah, LEHI--3 m. ne. of Mesa Joppa--in Snowflake Stake Junction (City), RIOVILLE--at junction of Muddy r. with Virgin r. Juniper, LINDEN--8 m. w. of Showlow KANAB--just n. of Utah line, about 65 m. e. of St. George LAKESIDE, Fairview, Woodland--ward 30 m. s. of Snowflake LAVEEN--on Salt River, 12 m. sw. of Phoenix LAYTON--3 m. e. of Thatcher Lebanon, ALGODON--in cotton district, 7 m. se. of Thatcher Lee Valley--15 m. sw. of Eagar LEE'S FERRY, Lonely Dell--on Colorado r., 18 m. s. of Utah line LEHI, Jonesville, Utahville, Ft. Utah--ward 3 m. ne. of Mesa LeRoux Springs and Flat--about 7 m. nw. of Flagstaff, location of Ft. Moroni Limestone Tanks--on Mormon road, 27 m. s. of Lee's Ferry LINDEN, Juniper--8 m. w. of Showlow Little Colorado Stake--first Arizona Stake, embraced Little Colorado settlements LITTLEFIELD, Beaver Dams, Millersburg--on Virgin r., 3 m. e. of Nevada line LOGAN, West Point--s. of Muddy r., 15 m. w. of St. Joseph Lonely Dell, LEE'S FERRY--crossing on Colorado r., 18 m. s. of Utah line Lone Pine, Beaver ranch, Woolf ranch, Reidhead--12 m. s. of Snowflake LUNA (Valley), Grant, Heber--across N.M. line, 40 m. se. of Springerville Macdonald--on San Pedro, 5 m. s. of St. David MARICOPA STAKE--Headquarters at Mesa Matthews, Fairview, GLENBAR--10 m. nw. of Thatcher in Gila Valley Mazatzal City--in Tonto Basin, on East Verde r. McClellan Tanks--on Mormon road, about 35 m. s. of Lee's Ferry Meadows--on Little Colorado r., 8 m. nw. of St. Johns MESA, Hayden, Zenos, Mesaville--Maricopa Stake Headquarters, 16 m. e. of Phoenix MESQUITE--on n. side of Virgin r., 1 m. w. of Nevada line MIAMI--6 m. w. of Globe, 86 m. nw. of Thatcher Milligan Fort--was 1 m. w. of present Eagar Millersburg, Beaver Dams, LITTLEFIELD--on Virgin r., nw. corner of Arizona Millville--was on Mogollon plateau, 35 m. s. of Flagstaff Mill Point--6 m. nw. of St. Thomas on Muddy r. Miramonte--9 m. w. of Benson Moaby, Moa Ave, Moen Abi, Moanabby--7 m. sw. of Tuba, 60 m. s. of Lee's Ferry MOCCASIN SPRINGS--3 m. n. of Pipe Springs MOEN COPIE--was mission headquarters, 2 m. s. of Tuba Mohave Spring--in Moen Copie wash, s. of Tuba Mormon Dairy--near Mormon Lake, belonged to Sunset and Brigham City Mormon Lake--about 28 m. se. of Flagstaff, 50 m. w. of Sunset Mormon Road--west extension of Spanish Trail, St. George to Los Angeles Mormon Road--wagon road from Lee's Ferry to Little Colorado r. Mormon Range--at head of Muddy Valley, now se. Nevada Mormon Flat--on Apache Trail, Phoenix to Globe, 20 m. ne. of Mesa Mormon Fort--n. of Las Vegas, in Nevada Mortensen, Percheron, East Pinedale--Just e. of Pinedale settlement Mt. Carmel, Winsor--United Order ward in Long Valley n. of Kanab, Utah Mt. Trumbull--in Uinkarat Mnts., 30 m. w. of mouth of Kanab Wash Mt. Turnbull--37 m. nw. of Thatcher Muddy, river and valley, in present Nevada, near nw. corner of Arizona Musha Springs--just s. of Tuba, townsite of Tuba City, n. of Moen Copie Navajo, Savoia, RAMAH--in N. M., 22 m. n. of Zuni, 80 m. ne. of St. Johns Navajo Spring--on Mormon road, 8 m. s. of Lee's Ferry Navajo Wells--16 m. e. of Kanab, in Utah, foot of Buckskin mts. Nephi, Johnsonville--was successor of Tempe ward, 3 m. w. of Mesa NUTRIOSO--17 m. se. of Springerville Obed--was on Little Colorado r., 3 m. sw., across river, from St. Joseph Omer and Amity, Union, EAGAR--in lower Round Valley, Apache Co. OVERTON, Patterson's Ranch--8 m. nw. of St. Thomas, Nevada ORAIBI--Indian village, about 40 m. se. of Moen Copie Orderville--was United Order ward in Long Valley, n. of Kanab, in Utah PAPAGO--Indian ward on both sides of Salt r., just nw. of Mesa. Paria River--enters Colorado r. from n., just above Lee's Ferry Patterson's Ranch, OVERTON--8 m. nw. of St. Thomas, Nevada PAYSON--in upper Tonto Basin, 75 m. w. of Showlow Peach Springs--10 m. ne. of station of same name on Santa Fe, 58 m. w. of Ash Fork Pearce's Ferry--Colorado r. crossing at mouth of Grand Wash Penrod, PINETOP--12 m. se. of Showlow Percheron, Mortensen, PINEDALE--15 1/2 m. w. of Showlow PHOENIX--Capital of Arizona, in Salt River Valley PIMA, Smithville--in Gila Valley, 6 m. nw. of Thatcher PINE--on Pine Creek, Tonto Basin, 70 m. w. of n. of Roosevelt dam PINEDALE, Percheron, Mortensen--15-1/2 m. w. of Showlow Pine Springs--near Pine Creek in Tonto Basin PINETOP, Penrod--12 m. se. of Showlow PIPE SPRINGS, Winsor Castle--on Mormon road, 20 m. sw. of Kanab PLEASANTON--in Williams Valley, N. M., 36 m. s. of Luna Valley PLEASANT VALLEY--location of sawmill and dairy, 25 m. se. of Flagstaff POMERENE--4 m. n. and e. of Benson RAMAH, Navajo, Savoia--in N. M., 80 m. ne. of St. Johns RAY--25 m. sw. of Globe Redlands, ASHURST, Cork--about 15 m. nw. of Thatcher REIDHEAD, Beaver Ranch, Woolf Crossing, Lone Pine Crossing--10 m. s. of Taylor RICHVILLE, Walnut Grove, 18 m. s. of St. Johns RIOVILLE, Junction (City)--junction of Muddy r. with Virgin r. Round Valley, EAGAR--35 m. s. of St. Johns ST. JOHNS, Salem--St. Johns Stake hdqrs., 60 m. se. of Holbrook ST. JOHNS STAKE--Embraces eastern Arizona, n. of Graham Co. ST. DAVID--on San Pedro r., 7 m. se. of Benson in se. Arizona ST. JOSEPH--5 m. n. of Overton, n. side of Muddy r., now in Nevada ST. JOSEPH, Allen Camp, Cumorah--on Little Colorado r., 10 m. w. of Holbrook ST. JOSEPH STAKE--embraces se. Arizona, hdqrs. at Thatcher ST. THOMAS--w. side of Muddy, 1-3/4 m. above junction with Virgin r. SAFFORD--3 m. e. of Thatcher Salem, ST. JOHNS--St. Johns Stake hdqrs., 60 m. se. of Holbrook Salt Lake--33 m. e. of St. Johns; is in New Mexico Salt Mountains--Salt deposits on Virgin r., below St. Thomas San Francisco Mountains--n. of Flagstaff SAN BERNARDINO, Cal.--about 50 m. e. of Los Angeles San Bernardino Ranch--in extreme se. comer of Arizona San Pablo, Hayden's Ferry, TEMPE--9 m. e. of Phoenix San Pedro--river and valley in se. Arizona Savoia, Navajo, RAMAH--Savoia was 6 m. e. of present Ramah SHOWLOW--22 m. s. of Snowflake SHUMWAY--ward on Silver creek, 7 m. s. of Snowflake Simonsville--was mill location, 6 m. nw. of St. Thomas Smithville, PIMA--6 m. nw. of Thatcher, once St. Joseph Stake hdqrs. SNOWFLAKE--Snowflake Stake hdqrs., 30 m. s. of Holbrook SNOWFLAKE STAKE--embraces practically Navajo County Soap Creek (Springs)--on Mormon road, 16 m. sw. of Lee's Ferry SOLOMONVILLE--e. end of Gila Valley SPRINGERVILLE--35 m. se. of St. Johns Stinson Valley--former name of valley in which Snowflake is located STONE'S FERRY, Bonelli's--Colorado r. crossing, w. of mouth of Virgin r. Strawberry Valley--in n. Tonto Basin Sulphur Springs Valley--in se. Arizona Sunset, Sunset Crossing--Little Colorado r. settlement, 25 m. w. of St. Joseph Sunset Sawmill--was 7 m. s. of Mormon Dairy Surprise Valley--10 m. nw. of Hunt, along Surprise Creek, 27 m. nw. of St. Johns Surprise Valley--near mouth of Kanab Canyon Taylor--was settlement across Colorado r., 3 m. w. of St. Joseph TAYLOR, Bagley, Walker--on Silver Creek, 3 m. s. of Snowflake TEMPE, San Pablo, Hayden's Ferry--9 m. e. of Phoenix Tenney's Camp, WOODRUFF--on Little Colorado r., 12 m. ne. of Holbrook THATCHER--St. Joseph Stake hdqrs., in Gila Valley Tonto Basin--in central Arizona TUBA (CITY)--on Mormon road, 60 m. se. of Lee's Ferry TUBAC--on Santa Cruz r., 42 m. s. of Tucson Turkey Tanks--about 10 m. ne. of Flagstaff Union, Omer, Amity, EAGAR--ward embraced Round Valley settlements Utahville, Fort Utah, LEHI, Jonesville--3 m. ne. of Mesa Ute Ford, Vado de los Padres, CROSSING OF THE FATHERS--on Colorado r., just n. of Arizona line Vermilion Cliffs--w. of Colorado r., extending into both Arizona and Utah VERNON--ward includes Concho and Hunt branches VIRDEN--just over New Mexico line on Gila r., 8 m. ne. of Franklin Walker, Bagley, TAYLOR--on Silver Creek, 3 m. s. of Snowflake Walnut Grove, RICHVILLE--18 m. s. of St. Johns on Little Colorado r. West Point, LOGAN--s. of Muddy r., 15 m. w. of St. Joseph, Nevada Whitewater--22 m. e. of Tombstone. Wilford--6 m. sw. of Heber, 56 m. sw. of Holbrook Williams Valley--in New Mexico, 36 m. s. of Luna Valley Willow Springs--on Mormon road, 7 m. nw. of Tuba Winsor, Mt. Carmel--was United Order ward in Long Valley n. of Kanab Winsor Castle, PIPE SPRINGS--on Mormon road, 20 m. sw. of Kanab WOODRUFF, Tenney's Camp--ward on Little Colorado r., 12 m. se. of Holbrook Woolf Crossing, ranch, Beaver ranch, Lone Pine, Reidhead--10 m. s. of Taylor Woodland, Fairview, LAKESIDE--3 m. nw. of Pinetop Zenos, Hayden, Mesaville, MESA--16 m. e. of Phoenix CHRONOLOGY OF LEADING EVENTS 1846--Feb. 4, Chas. Shumway first to cross Mississippi in exodus from Nauvoo; Feb. 4, "Brooklyn" sailed from New York, with 235 L. D. S.; July 29, arr. San Francisco; July 20, Mormon Battalion left Council Bluffs; Aug. 1, arr. Ft. Leavenworth; 12, left Leavenworth; 23. Col. Allen died; Oct. 9, 1st detachment at Santa Fe; 13, Cooke in command; Sept. 16, families sent to Pueblo; Oct. 19, left Sant Fe; Nov. 21, turned to west; 28, at summit Rockies; Dec. 18, at Tucson; 22, arr. Pima villages. 1847--Jan. 8, Battalion at mouth of Gila; 10, crossed Colorado r.; 29, arr. near San Diego; July 16, discharged; 24, Pres. Young and Utah pioneers reached Salt Lake Valley. 1848--Jan. 24, gold discovered at Sutter's Fort, Cal. 1851--June, Lyman and Rich and about 500 from Utah located San Bernardino, Cal.; fall, Mormons located at Tubac. 1853--First missionaries in Las Vegas district. 1855--May 10, 30 missionaries left Salt Lake for Las Vegas. 1857--Ira Hatch and Dudley Leavitt among Paiutes; Hamblin sees Ives steamer "Explorer;" Sept. 11, Mountain Meadows massacre. 1858--Jan., Ira Hatch sent to Muddy; Feb., Col. Kane treaty with Paiutes; San Bernardino vacated; spring, Hamblin to Colorado r.; first trip across Colorado r. 1859--Oct., Hamblin to Hopi. 1860--Oct., Hamblin to Hopi; Nov. 2, Geo. A. Smith, Jr., killed by Indians near Tuba. 1862--Nov., Hamblin to Hopi. 1863--Feb. 24, Arizona Territory organized from New Mexico; Mar. 18. Hamblin to Hopi; Pipe Springs located by Dr. J. M. Whitmore. 1864--Mar., Hamblin party parleys with Navajos; Moccasin Springs settled; United Order established in Brigham City. Utah, by Lorenzo Snow; Oct., Anson Call directed to establish Colorado r. port, Beaver Dams settled by Henry W. Miller; Dec. 2. Call party at site of Call's landing; 18, work begun at Call's Landing. 1865--Jan. 8, first settlers at St. Thomas on Muddy r., settlement of St. Joseph on Muddy r.; settlement on Paria Creek; Dec., Muddy section organized as Pah-ute County, Arizona. 1866--Jan. 8, Whitmore and McIntire killed by Indians near Pipe Springs; June 4, conference with Indians on Muddy r.; Moccasin vacated through Indian troubles; Nov., steamer "Esmeralda" on upper Colorado r. 1867--Jan. 18, Pah-ute county claimed by Nevada; spring, floods caused abandonment of Beaver Dams; Oct. 1, county seat of Pah-ute moved from Callville to St. Thomas. 1868--Feb. 10, trouble with Paiutes on Muddy r.; August 18, destructive fire at St. Joseph; Nov. 1, Andrew S. Gibbons and O.D. Gass started from Callville to Ft. Yuma by boat. 1869--Feb. 8, Junction City (Rioville) established; Feb. 15, Utah organized Rio Virgen County, including Muddy settlements; May 29, Powell started first trip down Canyon; June 12, Davidson family died of thirst on desert near Muddy r.; June 16, Callville abandoned; August, 3 of Powell's men killed by Indians; 29, Powell ended trip below Canyon; Oct., Hamblin at Hopi. 1870--Mar., Brigham Young party visited Muddy settlements; June 14, settlement on Kanab Creek; Sept., Hamblin to Mt. Trumbull with J.W. Powell; Nov. 5, Hamblin peace talk with Navajos at Ft. Defiance; took Chief Tuba to Utah; Dec., determination to abandon Muddy settlements. 1871--Spring, abandonment Muddy district; Pah-ute County abolished by Arizona Territory; Aug., Hamblin, with Powell, on second Colorado r. trip; Moccasin Springs re-settled; Moen Copie made mission post; 1872--John D. Lee located at mouth of Paria; June 28, J.H. Beadle at Lee's Ferry. 1873--Mar. 8, Brigham Young instructed Arizona colonists in Salt Lake; spring, L.W. Roundy and Hamblin at Moen Copie; May 1, H.D. Haight party left Utah for Little Colorado Valley; May 22, Haight party on Little Colorado r.; June 30, Haight party turned back. 1874--Jan., Hamblin to Hopi to prevent war; Aug., Hamblin to Ft. Defiance on peace mission. 1875--Feb. 20, Orderville established; Sept. 16, D.W. Jones exploration party left Salt Lake; Oct. 27, Jones party crossed Colorado r.; 30, Jas. S. Brown exploring party left Salt Lake; Dec. 4, Brown party at Moen Copie; 14, Jones party at Tucson. 1876--Jan., Jones party in Mexico; Feb. 3, Little Colorado settlers left Salt Lake; Mar. 23, advance company at Sunset; 24-31, locations of Allen City, Obed, Sunset, Ballenger; 28, work commenced on St. Joseph dam; Apr., location of Tenney's (Woodruff) Camp, on Little Colorado r.; 17, United Order established on Little Colorado r.; Daniel H. Wells and party on Little Colorado r.; May, Boston party passed Little Colorado settlements; June 24, L.W. Roundy drowned in Colorado r.; 27, Obed moved to new location; June, D.W. Jones party returns to Utah; first L.D.S. settlers on Showlow Creek; July 17, exploration of Tonto Basin; 17, first child born in Allen City; 19, Allen City dam washed away; Aug., Lorenzo H. Hatch located at Savoia; Oct. 18, Pratt-Stewart part left Utah for Arizona; Nov. 7, Mt. Trumbull sawmill re-established near Mormon Lake; Dec. 23, Pratt party reached Phoenix; Dec., Harrison Pearce established ferry at mouth of Grand Wash; Hamblin located new route to Sunset, via Grand Wash. 1877--Jan. 6, Jones settlement party organized at St. George by Brigham Young, Bunkerville located, first L.D.S. school in Arizona, at Obed; 17, Jones party left St. George; Mar. 6, arr. Salt River, founded Lehi; Mar. 23, J.D. Lee executed; May 20, first Indian baptism on Salt r.; Aug., Merrill company left Lehi; 29, death of Brigham Young, Hamblin at Hopi; Sept. 14, start of Idaho-Salt Lake party that founded Mesa; 14, Merrill company on San Pedro r.; Nov. 12, Arkansas L.D.S. arr. on Little Colorado r.; 29, Merrill party location on San Pedro r. 1878--Jan., C.I. Robson and others selected Mesa location; 20, Colorado r. frozen over at Lee's Ferry; 22, location of Taylor on Little Colorado r.; 23, James Pearce first L.D.S. settler on Silver Creek; 27, Little Colorado Stake organized, name of Ballenger changed to Brigham City, name of Allen changed to St. Joseph; Feb. 5, Robson party at Fort Utah; 9, naming of Woodruff; 18, settlers at Forest Dale; May 15, first L.D.S. locations in Tonto Basin; July 21, Flake and Kartchner moved the site of Snowflake; Sept.-Dec., Erastus Snow and party travel in Arizona; Sept. 27, Erastus Snow party located and named Snowflake, selected Jesse N. Smith as President Eastern Arizona Stake; Oct. 26, first settlers on Mesa townsite; Dec., re-settlement of Beaver Dams. 1879--Jan. 16, arr. at Snowflake of Jesse N. Smith; Feb., L.D.S. explorers at Smithville on Gila r.; Mar., L.D.S. settlement in Concho; Apr. 8, Showlow company located at Smithville; Completion of J. W. Young woolen factory at Moen Copie; settlement at Shumway; first session of court in Apache County; Nov. 16, purchase of Barth claims at St. Johns. 1880--Mar. 29, St. Johns townsite selected by Wilford Woodruff; Sept. 19, re-location of St. Johns townsite; Sept. 26, naming of Alpine; fall, re-settlement of Overton; Oct. 6, arr. at St. Johns of D. K. Udall; Nov., land at Graham on Gila r. bought by Brigham City settlers; Dec., settlement of Matthews on Gila r. 1881--Jan., location at Graham; Mar., settlement at Curtis (Eden), trouble with Indians; location of Holbrook; name of Smithville changed to Pima. 1882--Jan. 28, re-location of Holbrook townsite; June 1, N.B. Robinson killed by Indians, Indian troubles in mountain settlements; June 24, N. C. Tenney killed at St. Johns; July, establishment of first paper in Apache County; July 19, L.D.S. settlement at Tempe; Dec. 10, Maricopa Stake organized; Dec. 25, naming of Thatcher. 1883--Jan. 4, location party in Mexico from St. David; 13, settlement of Layton; Feb. 25, establishment of St. Joseph Stake at St. David; spring, Forest Dale abandoned; Aug. 25, Wilford and Heber organized; Nov., naming of Lehi. 1884--Mar., land jumping in St. Johns; Nov., Young and Grant party visit Yaqui Indian country. 1885--Feb. 9, departure of first L.D.S. Mexican colony; Nov.-Dec., Indian depredations in Gila Valley; Dec. I, killing of Lorenzo and Seth Wright on Gila r.; Wilford abandoned. 1886--Feb. 9, Andrew S. Gibbons died at St. Johns; Aug. 31, death of Jacob Hamblin at Pleasanton; Sept. 8, Isaac C. Haight died at Thatcher. 1887--Jan. 24, first donation to Arizona temple; May 3, earthquake at St. David; Fredonia settled; July 24, St. Johns Stake organized; Dec. 4, C.I. Robson president of Maricopa Stake; Dec.18, Snowflake Stake organized. 1889--Jan. 14, St. Johns Stake Academy established; 21, Snowflake Academy established; Apr. 2, Brigham Young Jr., and Jesse N. Smith purchased Little Colorado Valley lands in New York; May 11, Wham robbery, near Ft. Grant. 1890--Feb., Great floods on Little Colorado r. and Silver Creek. 1891--Feb., large damage done by Salt r. floods. 1892--June 20, Lot Smith killed by Indians near Tuba City; July 3-4, general conference of Arizona Stakes at Pinetop; Dec. 8, Chas. L. Flake killed at Snowflake. 1893--Feb. 19, artesian flow struck at St. David. 1894--Feb. 24, C.I. Robson died at Mesa; May 10, C.R. Hakes president of Maricopa Stake. 1898--Jan. 29, St. Joseph Stake reorganized under Andrew Kimball; May 21, death of Chas. Shumway; Sept. I, St. Joseph Stake Academy opened at Thatcher. 1903--Feb., Tuba settlers sell to Indian Bureau. 1904--Sept. 15, death of P.C. Merrill. 1905--May I, breaking of St. Johns reservoir. 1906--June 5, death of Jesse N. Smith. TRAGEDIES OF THE FRONTIER It is notable that few were the Mormons who have met untimely death by violence in the Southwest. It is believed that the following brief record is, very nearly, complete: George A. Smith, Jr.--Nov. 2, 1860. Killed by Navajos near Tuba City. Dr. J.M. Whitmore and Robert McIntire--Jan. 8, 1866. Killed by Navajos near Pipe Springs. Elijah Averett--Jan. 1866. Killed by Navajos near Paria Creek. Averett had been with the Capt. James Andrus expedition after the Whitmore-McIntire murderers and had been sent back, with a companion, with dispatches from about the Crossing of the Fathers. He was killed on this return journey and his companion wounded. Joseph Berry, Robert Berry and the latter's wife, Isabella--April 2, 1866. Killed by Paiutes at Cedar Knoll near Short Creek, west of Pipe Springs. The three were in a wagon and had attempted to escape by running their horses across country, but the Indians cut them off. They fought for their lives and one dead Indian was found near their bodies. In the woman's body was a circle of arrows. Joseph Davidson, wife and son--June 12, 1869. Perished of thirst on Southern Nevada desert, in Muddy Valley section. Lorenzo W. Roundy--May 24, 1876. Drowned in Colorado River. Nathan B. Robinson--June 1, 1882. Killed by Apaches near Reidhead. Nathan C. Tenney--June 24, 1882. Unintentionally shot by Mexicans in course of riot at St. Johns. Jacob S. Ferrin--July 19, 1882. Killed by Apaches 12 miles east of San Carlos. Mrs. W.N. Fife--Sept. 11, 1884. Murdered at her home in the Sulphur Springs Valley. She had given a Mexican dinner and was rewarded by a shot in the back. A 13-year-old daughter was saved by the timely arrival of a Mexican employee. The murderer, only known as Jesus, was captured the following day by a posse of settlers and, after full determination of guilt, was hanged to a tree. The murderer's skull now is in possession of Dr. Ezra Rich of Ogden, Utah. Lorenzo and Seth Wright--Dec. 1, 1885. Ambushed by Apaches in Gila Valley. Frank Thurston--May 23, 1886. Killed by Apaches six miles west of Pima. Lot Smith--June 20, 1892. Killed by Navajos near Tuba. Chas. L. Flake--Dec. 8, 1892. Killed by fugitive criminal at Snowflake. Horatio Merrill and 14-year-old daughter, Eliza--Dec. 3, 1895. Killed by Apaches at Ash Springs, 30 miles east of Pima. This crime has been charged to the infamous Apache Kid. Isaac Benj. Jones--May 12, 1897. Killed at El Dorado Canyon, near the Colorado River. While freighting ore to a mill, he was ambushed and shot from his wagon by a Paiute, Avote, who murdered several other whites before being run down and killed by Indians on Cottonwood Island, where he had taken refuge. John Bleak--Jan. 26, 1899. Killed by Mexicans, near Hackberry, Mohave County. The body was found with many knife thrusts, with indications of a desperate resistance of two assailants. Frank Lesueur and Augustus Andrew Gibbons--Mar. 27, 1900. Killed by outlaws near Navajo, eastern Apache County. They had been deserted by six Mexican members of a posse trailing American cattle thieves, who were fleeing northward from near St. Johns, and were ambushed in a mountain canyon. Lesueur was killed instantly by a shot in the forehead and Gibbons, already shot through the body, was killed by a shot in the head at very short range. The murderers were not apprehended. Wm. T. Maxwell--1901. Killed by outlaws near Nutrioso. He was the son of a Mormon Battalion member. Wm. W. Berry--Dec. 22, 1903. Murdered in Tonto Basin. John and Zach Booth, goat owners, were arrested for the crime. The latter was hanged and the former released after disagreement of the jury. The crime also embraced the murder of a 16-year-old boy, Juan Vigil, son of a herder. Berry at the time was in charge of a band of sheep. Hyrum Smith Peterson--Nov. 12, 1913. Killed near Mesa. Peterson, city marshal, was shot down by thieves whom he was trying to arrest. Frank McBride and Martin Kempton--Feb. 10, 1918. Killed 60 miles west of Pima. McBride was sheriff of Graham County and Kempton was deputy. The two sought arrest of the Powers brothers and Sisson, draft evaders, who were in a cabin in the Galiuro Mountains. With them was killed another deputy, Kane Wootan. In a following special session of the Legislature, the families of the three were given $17,500, to be invested for their benefit. [Illustration: KILLED BY INDIANS 1--Geo. A. Smith, Jr. 2--Dr. Jas. M. Whitmore 3--Seth Wright 4--Jacob Ferrin 5--Eliza Merrill 6--Diana Davis Fife 7--Lorenzo Wright] [Illustration: KILLED BY OUTLAWS 1--Nathan C. Tenney 2--Chas. L. Flake 3--Frank Lesueur 4--Augustus Andrew Gibbons 5--Wm. Wiley Berry 6--Hyrum S. Peterson 7--R. Franklin McBride 8--Martin Kempton] INDEX See Chronology, Mormon Settlement Place Names A Adair Named for early resident Adair, Samuel N. Photo. Adair, Wesley Battalion member, photo. Agriculture Mormon pioneers in, first in N. Ariz. Allen, Lt.-Col. Jas. Commander Battalion, died Allen, Rufus C. Battalion member, to S. America, in Las Vegas section Allen, W.C. Heads L. Colorado party, photo. Alma Est. Allred, Mrs. R.W. With husband on Battalion march, photo. Allred, Reuben W. Battalion member, photo. Alpine Burial place of Jacob Hamblin, est. Ancient Races Canal at Mesa, in Arizona, canals of, in Gila Valley Andrus, Capt. Jas. Led party against Indians Apaches Encroachments on Forest Dale, attack on Col. Carr's command, attack on Camp Apache, experiences with in Gila Valley, Chiricahua outbreaks, murders in Gila Valley Arkansas Immigrants At Taylor, on L. Colorado Artesian Water At St. David, wells in Gila Valley Asay, Joseph Aids Powell exp. Atlantic & Pacific R.R. Land grant B Ballenger, Jesse O. Heads L. Colorado settlement Ballenger's Camp (Brigham City) Est. Banta, A.F. Arizona pioneer Barbenceta Navajo Chief Barrus, Lt. Ruel Battalion officer at San Luis Rey Barth, Sol On L. Colorado Bartlett, John R. At Tubac, in Texas Bass, Willis W. Grand Canyon guide Beadle, J.H. Visit to Lonely Dell and J. D. Lee Beale, E.F. At San Pascual, camel survey, carried dispatches east, advised Washington of discovery of gold Beaver Dams--Early occupation, settlement Beebe, Nelson P.--Leader of Arkansas party Bees--First in Utah Bellamy, Edward--Study of United Order Bennett, Capt. Frank F.--In great Navajo council Berardo--At Horsehead Crossing Berry, Mrs. Rachael--State legislator Berry, Wm. Wiley--Killed by outlaws, photo. Bibliography Biggs, Thos.--Lehi settler, photo. Bigler, Henry W.--At gold discovery, photo. Bluewater N. M--Settlement Blythe, John L.--Launched boat at Lee's Ferry, at Moen Copie, at Le Roux Spring, photo. Bonelli, Daniel--Early ferryman, photo. Boston Party--In L. Cotorado Valley Boyle, Henry G.--Battalion member, outlined Mormon road, first president S. States Mission, photo. Brannan, Samuel--Head of "Brooklyn" exp., Wyoming conference with Brigham Young, died in Mexico Brigham City, Ariz.--Est., naming, abandonment, photo. of old fort Brigham City, Utah--Experiences in United Order Brinkerhoff, Hyrum--Muddy r. and Gila v. pioneer, photo. Brinkerhoff, Margaret--Muddy r. and Gila v. pioneer, photo. Brizzee, H. W.--Battalion member, in Arizona, photo. "Brooklyn"--Mormon immigrant ship Brown, Capt. Jas.--Led at Pueblo, Colo., battalion officer, arr. Salt Lake, to Cal. for pay Brown, Jas. S.--On Muddy r., at Cal. gold discovery, head of 1875 scouting party, battalion member, photo. Bryce--Est. Bryce, Ebenezer--Early Gila settler, photo. Bushman, John V.--N. E. Ariz, settler, photo. C Call, Anson--Founded Callville, photo. Callville--Port on Colorado r., est., abandonment, county seat of Pah-ute Co. Camels--Brought by Beale survey Campbell, Gov. T. E.--Assistance in work, circumtoured Grand Canyon, Prest. League of the Southwest Cannon, Angus M.--At Callville, on Colorado r. Cannon, David H.--Baptism of Shivwits at St. George, photo. Carson, Kit--Guide of Kearny exp., carried dispatches east, campaign against Navajo Carson Valley, Nev.--Settled by Mormons Casa Grande--Ancient ruin Cataract Canyon--Home of Hava-supai, entered by Hamblin, by Garces, by Ives Central--Est. Chemehuevis Indians--War band in Muddy r. district Chronology Chuichupa, Colonia--Mexican settlement Claridge, Rebecca--Photo Claridge, Samuel H.--Muddy and Gila r. pioneer, photo. Cluff, Benjamin--At Las Vegas Coal--Dug at San Diego by G. W. Sirrine Cocheron, Augusta Joyce--Description of Yerba Buena Cocopah Indians--Colorado r. deck hands Colorado City--Est. on site of Yuma Colorado River Reached by Battalion, watershed embraced within State of Deseret, ferries of, frozen over, transportation, efforts to utilize water and power, drainage area, flow, water storage, navigation, watershed now barred for navigation Colter, J. G. H--At Round Valley Concho Hard living conditions, est., naming Cooke, Lt.-Col. P. St. George Commander Mormon Battalion, congratulatory order, story of march, left Santa Fe, crossed Colorado r., led Johnston's cavalry to Utah, resignation, photo. Cooley, C. E.--Won Showlow in card game, sold Cooperative Stores--Est. in many communities Co-quap--Paiute killed at St. Thomas Cotton--Raised by Maricopas, Pima long-staple Crismon, Chas.--At San Bernardino, took first bees to Utah, at founding of Mesa, photo. Crosby, Geo. H. Sr.--Photo. Crosby, Jesse W.--In re-settlement of Muddy Crosby, Taylor--At Hopi Crossing of the Fathers--Passed by Escalante and Dominguez, Hamblin's was first crossing by white men since Spanish days, early use of, photo. Curtis--Est. Curtis, Elizabeth Hanks--Photo., in Gila Valley Curtis, Josephine--Photo., in Gila Valley Curtis, Martha--Photo., in Gila Valley Curtis, Moses M. Gila Valley pioneer, at Eden Curtis, Virginia--Photo., in Gila Valley Cushing, Frank H.--Southwestern ethnologist Cutler, R. J. Muddy settler, Rep. Pah-ute Co. in Ariz. 3d and 4th legislatures, clerk Rio Virgen Co. D Davidson, Jas.--Death of family of thirst Davis, Capt. Daniel C.--Battalion officer Davis, Durias--Visit to Hopi Day, Henry--In charge at Moen Copie Defiance, Fort Est., great council with Navajo, settlement by Hamblin of Indian troubles Dellenbaugh, F. S. Estimate of Mormon settlements, wrote of Navajo council Deseret State of, map, origin of name, boundaries, organization, legislature Diaz, Colonia--Mexican settlement Dixie, Utah's--Brigham Young in, ref. to Dobson, Thos. F.--First settler at Fredonia Dodge, Enoch--Fight with Navajos Dominguez and Escalante--On Spanish Trail Dublan, Colonia--Mexican settlement Dykes, Geo. P.--Battalion officer, photo., death E Eagar--Est. Earthquake--At St. David Eastern Arizona Stake--Est. Eden--Est. Ehrenberg--Military depot El Dorado Canyon--At Cottonwood Island Ellsworth, Edmund--Salt Lake Pioneer Emory, W. H.--With Kearny exp. Engelhardt, Father Z.--Estimate of Battalion members Escalante-Dominguez--On Spanish Trail, at Crossing of the Fathers "Explorer"--Ives' steamboat on Colorado r., photo. F Farish, Thos. E.--Former Arizona Historian Ferrin, Jacob S.--Killed by Apaches, photo. Fife, Diana Davis--Killed by Indians, photo. Fife, J. D.--Sulphur Springs Valley pioneer, photo. Fife, Wm. N.--Sulphur Springs Valley pioneer, photo. Fish, Joseph--Early historian, photo. Flagstaff--Naming of Flake, Chas. L.--Killed by outlaw, photo. Flake, Wm. J.--Land purchases at Snowflake, at Showlow, at Concho, at Springerville, at Nutrioso, photo. Follett, Wm. A.--Battalion member, to Arizona, photo. Foote, Jos. Warren--At St. Joseph, Nevada Forest Dale--Est., Indian encroachments, abandonment, claims for damages Foreword Foutz, Joseph--Photo. Franklin--Est. Fredonia--Visited by Gov. Campbell, est., naming, description of, view Fremont, John C.--Dissension in American forces, arrest and trial, on Spanish Trail G Garces, Father Francisco--Early Spanish priest, at Hopi Garcia, Colonia--Mexican settlement Gass, Octavius D.--Represented Mohave Co. in 2d legislature and Pah-ute Co. in 3d and 4th Legislatures, in 5th Legislature, floated down Colorado r. Genoa--First American settlement in Nevada Gibbons, Andrew S.--Investigated Welsh legend, took Hopi visitors home, shown sacred stone of Hopi, Salt Lake Pioneer, interpreter on Muddy, trip down Colorado r., in Ariz. Legislature from Pah-ute Co., photo. Gibbons, Mrs. A. S--Photo. Gibbons, Augustus A.--Killed by Indians, photo. Gibbons, Richard--At Hopi village Gibbons, Wm. H.--At Hopi village Gila River--Barge made by Battalion, route of Battalion, land erosion, trouble with mill tailings Gold--Battalion party present at discovery Goodwin, Camp--In Gila Valley, abandonment Graham--Est. Graham County--Est. Grand Canyon--Visited by Escalante-Dominguez, circumtoured by Hamblin, by Gov. Campbell, expl. by Powell, to be bridged Grand Falls--Haight party at, view Grand Wash--Ferry site, crossed by Hamblin Grant--Early name of Luna Grant Camp--Old and new, south of Gila Grant, Heber J.--Church President in, photo., visit to St. Johns Mexican trips Greeley, Lewis--With 1863 Hamblin party Greer--Est. H Haight, Horton D.--Crossed river at Paria, first attempt at Arizona colonization, photo. Hakes, Collins R.--At San Bernardino, President Maricopa Stake, at Bluewater, death, photo. Hall, Miss S. M.--Description of Lee's Ferry, of Fredonia Hamblin, Frederick--At Hopi, at Alpine, fight with bear, photo. Hamblin, Jacob--Frontier guide, missionary to Indians, entry in Muddy section, Mountain Meadows massacre, saves wagon trains, photo., at Las Vegas lead mines, encounter with Ives party, at Colorado r., trips to Hopi, took Hopi visitors home, with Powell at Shivwits council, guide for Powell, council with Navajo, error in date of great Navajo council, took provisions to second Powell exp., visited Fort Defiance, 1871-2-3 trips, ambassador to Navajo, in danger of death, located Grand Wash road, wagon route to Sunset, guide for D. H. Wells 1876 party, ordained Apostle to the Lamanites, moved to Arizona, death, monument inscription, first Colorado r. crossing at Ute ford, 1858, crossed at Paria on raft, located road to San Francisco mountains, in 1862 crossed river at Ute ford, in 1863 crossed at Grand Wash Hamblin, Wm.--At Hopi, at naming of Pipe Springs Hancock, Levi--Battalion poet Hardy's Landing--Visited by Call, Callville visited by Hardy Harris, Llewellyn--Welsh legend Haskell, Thales--Investigated steamer on Colorado r., at Hopi, left Hopi, in Muddy district, with Paiutes, photo. Hatch, Ira--With Paiutes, with Hopi, at Meadows, photo. Hatch, Lorenzo--Escape from drowning, at Taylor Hava-supai Indians--See Cataract Canyon Hawkins, Wm. R.--With Powell exp. Hayden, C. T.--Visited by Jones party, assistance to settlers, est. Hayden's Ferry Head, W. S.--Post trader at Verde Heaton, Jonathan--Resident of Moccasin, photo, with sons Heber--In Mogollons, in New Mexico Holbrook--Naming Holmes, Henry--Description of L. Colorado valley Hopi--Visited by Father Garces, by Escalante, by Jacob Hamblin, Welsh legend, composite language, snake dance, tribesmen taken to Salt Lake, threw Navajos from cliff, Tuba taken to Utah, sacred stone, southern origin Hortt, Henry J.--Fredonia settler Hubbard--Est. Hubbell, J. L.--Investigated Utah Indian troubles Hulett, Schuyler--Battalion member, photo. Hunt--Est. Hunt, Capt. Jefferson--Battalion officer Hunt, John--Battalion member, Mormon road mail carrier, at Snowflake, photo. Hunt, Marshall--Battalion member Hunter, Capt. Jesse B.--Battalion officer I Idaho--Agricultural settlement Index--To book Irritaba--Mohave chief Iverson, Alma--At LeRoux Spring Ives, J. C.--Colorado r. exploration Ivins, Anthony W.--Indian warfare, crossed Colorado r. on the ice, agent for Mexican lands, photo. J Jenson, Andrew--Assistant Church Historian, data on Callville, in Muddy Valley, in L. Colorado Valley, at Tuba City, photo. Johnson, B. F.--At Tempe, at Nephi, death, photo. Johnson, Warren M.--Escape from drowning, photo, of Lee's Ferry home Johnson, W. H.--In charge of Virgin salt mines Johnston, Capt. A. R.--Killed at San Pascual Johnston, Gen. A. S.--Exp. to Utah Johnston, Capt. Geo. A.--Ferried Beale camel exp. across river, offered to handle Salt Lake freight Johnston, W.J.--Batt. member, gold disc., photo. Jones, D.W.--First exp. to Mexico, foundation of Lehi, death, photos. Jones, Nathaniel V.--Battalion member, photo. Jonesville--See Lehi Jones, Wiley C.--With Jones party, photo. Juarez, Colonia--Mexican settlement Judd, Hyrum--Battalion member, photo. Judd, Zadok K.--Battalion member, photo. Junction City--On Colorado r. K Kaibab Plateau--Visited by Powell, view Kanab--Passed in 1920 by Gov. Campbell, Powell exploration at, est. Kane, Col. Thos. L.--Introduction to Tyler history, conference with Paiutes Kapurats--Paiute name for Maj. Powell Kearny, Gen. S.W.--In command California invasion Kempton, Martin--Killed by outlaws, photo. Kimball, Andrew--Prest. St. Joseph Stake, photo. Kimball, Heber C.--Chief Justice of Deseret Klineman, Conrad--Salt Lake Pioneer L Laguna Dam--Bars Colorado navigation Lake, George--Leader on L. Colorado, to Gila Valley, photo. Land Grants--Atlantic & Pacific, Reavis fraud, Texas-Pacific claim Las Vegas, Nev.--Visited by P.P. Pratt, station on Mormon road, detail of missionaries, visited by Call Las Vegas County--Creation asked "Latter-day Saints"--Designation of Layton--Est. Layton, Christ.--Battalion member, instructions to, biography, photo. Layton, Elizabeth--Photo. Lead mines--In Nevada League of the Southwest--Water storage plans Leavitt, Dudley--Smelted lead ore in Nevada, at Hopi, at naming of Pipe Springs LeBaron, David T.--Tempe settler Lee, John D.--Location on Paria, messenger for Battalion, residence on Canyon, capture, in Utah, execution, experience of wife with Indians, photo, of home at Moen Avi Lee's Ferry--Visited by Gov. Campbell, passage of Roundy party, early crossings by Hamblin, Powell at, John D. Lee's residence at, ferry bought by Church, description of, river frozen, Stanton exp., main route into Arizona Lehi--Map, est., floods, arr. of Mesa party Leithead, Jas. In charge of Muddy settlements, built boat, supplied Powell exp. Lemhi, Fort Early settlement in Idaho LeRoux, Antoine Guide to Battalion, Arizona places named for, guide for Bartlett party LeRoux Springs History Lesueur, Frank Killed by outlaws, photo. Lesueur, Jas. W. President Maricopa Stake, photo. Lesueur, John T. President Maricopa Stake, photo. Lewis, Samuel Battalion member, photo. List of Illustrations Little Colorado River Irrigation difficulties, floods, view of crossing Little Colorado Stake Org. Little Colorado Valley Haight exp., settlement, Arizona experiences, drought Littlefield Northwestern Arizona settlement, visited by Gov. Campbell Lonely Dell Lee's name for mouth of Paria Los Angeles Battalion experiences, Standage's description of, name, muster-out of Battalion Los Muertos Ancient city Luna Est. Lund, A.H. Church Historian Lund, A. Wm. Church Librarian Lyman, Amasa M. San Bernardino experiences, in Arizona, with Col. Kane on Muddy r. Lyman, Francis M. Exp. near St. Johns, at St. David M Macdonald Est. Macdonald, A.F. Director of cattle company at Pipe Springs, President Maricopa Stake, transfer to Mexico, death, named St. David, in Mexico, photo. Malaria At Obed, on San Pedro and Gila Maps State of Deseret, Pah-ute County, Northeastern Arizona, Plat of Lehi, Prehistoric canals, Southeastern Arizona, Arizona and Roads Maricopa Indians Maricopa Stake Org. Matthews Est. Maxwell, Wm. B. Battalion member, at Moccasin Springs, photo. Mazatzal City Tonto Basin settlement McBride, R. Franklin Killed by outlaws, photo. McClellan, Almeda Photo. McClellan, Wm. C. Battalion member, photo. McIntire, Robert Killed by Indians McIntyre, Wm. Battalion surgeon McConnell, Jehiel At Hopi, McMurrin, Jos. W. At LeRoux Spring, photo. Meadows Purchase, occupied Meeden, C.V. Early Colorado r. pilot Merrill, Eliza Killed by Indians, photo. Merrill, Philemon C. Adjutant Battalion, custodian of Utah stone, pioneer on San Pedro, photos., in Lehi party, separation from Jones, est. of St. David Mesa Org. of "The Mesa Union", est., canal digging, building of first house, civic est., naming Mesquite Settlement on Virgin Mexico Jones party trip, exploration for settlement, exploration, est. of colonies, flight from, repopulation Mill Point Est. on Muddy r. Miller, Henry W. At Beaver Dams, photo. Miller, Jacob Sec'y to Haight exp., photo. Milligan, Fort Est. Moabi Near Moen Copie Moccasin Springs Occupation of, view Moen Copie Visited by Hamblin, Blythe location, mission post, Indian experiences, land bought by government, view Mohave County Embraced Nevada point Mohave, Fort Est. Moody, Elizabeth Photo. Moody, John M. First settler of Thatcher, photo. Morelos, Colonia Sonora settlement Mormon Battalion Reason for formation, muster at Council Bluffs, at San Bernardino ranch, arr. Tucson, arr. Pima villages, left San Bernardino, experiences, muster-out, gold discovery Mormon Battalion Monument Arizona contributes, photo. Mormon Dairy Est. Mormon Road Broken by Boyle party, early travel, mail service, stations on Moroni, Fort Est., use by John W. Young, named Fort Rickerson, photos. Mountain Meadows Massacre, Hamblin resident in Mount Trumbull Powell and Hamblin at Indian council, sawmill Mowrey, Harley Last Battalion survivor Muddy Valley Settlement, population, Arizona Legislature protested separation, return of settlers Munk, Dr. J. A. Library of Arizoniana N Naraguts Paiute guide Navajo Indians Fight near Pipe Springs, stole stock in Utah, great council with Powell and Hamblin, captured by Hopi, agreement to remain south of river, killing of three tribesmen in Utah Nephi Est. Nevada First American settlement by Mormons, jurisdiction over Muddy district, old mapping, Muddy abandoned, protest against separation from Arizona New Hope Early California colony Northeastern Arizona Map Nutrioso Est. Nuttall, L. John Exper. in crossing Colorado r. O Oaxaca, Colonia Sonora settlement Obed Est. abandonment Ogden Site bought with Battalion pay Onate, Juan de First New Mexican governor Orderville United Order settlement Osborn's Cave In Muddy section Overton Muddy settlement P Pace, Lt. Jas. Photo., Battalion officer, brought wheat to Utah, at Thatcher Pace, Wilson D. Battalion member, photo. Pace, W. W. At Nutrioso Pacheco, Colonia Mexican settlement Pah-ute Early Arizona county, map, created by Arizona Legislature, boundaries, county seat, abandoned by Arizona, representation in Legislature Paiutes Danger from, missionary efforts, threatened Muddy settlers Paria Visited by Escalante exp., settlement near mouth, photo., view of ranch and ferry Parke, Lt. A. J. Survey party Patrick, H. R. Map of ancient canals Pearce, Harrison Photo. Pearce, James At Hopi, brought Indians to be baptized, at Taylor, photo. Pearce's Ferry Crossed by Hamblin, at Grand Wash Perkins, Jesse N. Head of Mesa colony Peterson, Hyrum S. Killed by outlaws, photo. Pettegrew, "Father" David Advice to Battalion Phoenix Visited by Jones party, by Pratt-Trejo exp., by Lehi settlers Pima Est. Pima Indians Visited by Battalion Pinedale Est. Pinetop Est. Church conference, view Pipe Springs Settlement and naming, first telegraph office in Arizona, view Place Names of the Southwest Pleasanton, N. M Settlement, death of Hamblin Pleasant Valley War Polhamus, Isaac Early Colorado r. pilot Pomeroy, Francis M. Salt Lake Pioneer, at founding of Mesa, photo. Population Latter-day Saints in Arizona Porter, Sanford Battalion member, photo. Powell, Maj. J. W. Visited Paiutes, met Hamblin, in council with Navajo, first exp. reached mouth of Paria, to Moqui towns, to Salt Lake, explorations from Paria, at Kanab Wash, Mormon assistance at end of first voyage Pratt, Helaman Capt. of Muddy militia 109, in second southern exp., photos. Prescott Founded Prows, Wm. C. Battalion member, photo. Pueblo First Anglo-Saxon settlement in Colorado, Company ordered to winter at, Battalion sick sent to, departure of detachment Pulsipher, David Battalion member, photo. R Railroads Construction northern Arizona, Atlantic & Pacific grant, construction through Gila Valley Ramah, N.M. Settlement Ramsey, Ralph Utah artist, moved to Ariz. Reidhead Est. Reidhead, John Woodruff settler Richards, Joseph H. L. Colorado settler, photos. Richards, Mary Photos. Rioville At mouth of Virgin Roberts, B. H. Story of Battalion, Utah historian Robinson, Nathan B. Killed by Apaches, photo. Robson, Chas. I. At founding of Mesa, President Maricopa Stake, death, photo. Rogers, Henry C. In Lehi party, Church officer, photo. Rogers, J.K. Leader in Gila settlement, photo. Rogers, Josephine Wall Photo. Rogers, Samuel H. Battalion member, photo. Roundy, Lorenzo W. Led party across Colorado r., drowned, photo. Rusling, Gen. J.F. Recommended use of Colorado r. as waterway S Safford Est., outlawry, first school house photo. Safford, Gov. A. P. K. At Tombstone, on Gila Salt From Virgin r. mines, description of deposit, Zuni salt lake, Hopi source of supply, central Arizona deposits Salt Lake Pioneers Later Arizonans Salt River Valley Visited by Jones party, Trejo description San Bernardino (Cal.) Settlement, est., abandonment, Bartlett account of purchase San Bernardino Ranch Reached by Battalion, Standage reference San Diego On route of Battalion, Standage reference to, arr. Kearny exp., post of Battalion company, Battalion experiences San Francisco Arr. "Brooklyn" party San Jose, Colonia Sonora settlement San Pedro Valley Battalion march, Standage description, settlement Santa Cruz Valley Earliest Spanish settlement Santa Fe On Battalion route San Xavier Early mission in southern Arizona Savoia (N.M.) Est. Savoietta (N.M.) Est. Scanlon's Ferry View Schools Gila Normal College, Thatcher, photo., St. Johns Academy, St. Johns, photo., Snowflake Academy, photos, (old and new), Academy at Colonia Juarez Shivwits Indians Whole tribe baptized, in council with Powell and Hamblin, photo. Showlow Won in a card game, settlement Shumway Est. view Shumway, Chas. Salt Lake Pioneer, leader in Nauvoo exodus, resident of Shumway, death, photo. Simonsville Muddy settlement Sirrine, Geo. W. Brooklyn pioneer, at San Bernardino, carried gold payment, developed coal, at founding of Mesa, Church officer, photo. Skinner, G.W. Gila River pioneer Smallpox Brought to L. Colorado Smith, Lt. A.J. Battalion officer, army record Smith, Azariah Gold discoverer, photo. Smith, Geo. A. Account of Tuba's visit, in Arizona, on the Muddy Smith, Geo. A. Jr. Killed by Navajos, photo. Smith, J.E. With Hamblin to Navajo Smith, Jedediah Early trapper Smith, Jesse N. Location at Snowflake, President of Eastern Arizona and Snowflake Stakes, railroad contracts, photo. Smith, Joseph Assassination of, photo. Smith, Joseph F. At St. David, photo. Smith, Lot Battalion member, remained in California, head of Sunset party, killed by Indians, President of L. Colorado Stake, photos. Smith, Samuel F. President Snowflake Stake, photo. Smith, Thos. S. In charge of first Muddy migration Smithville Est. Smoot, W.C.A. Salt Lake and Las Vegas Pioneer Snow, Erastus Visited Arizona settlements, named Fredonia, conference with Paiutes, promoted cotton factory at St. George, selected site of Snowflake, photo. Snow, Erastus B. Description of ice bridge at Lee's Ferry Snow, LeRoi C. Assistance in this work Snow, Lorenzo Reference to Brannan, founded United Order at Brigham City, Utah, photo. Snowflake Cooperative store, est., naming, early experiences, photos, of Academy Snowflake Stake Est. Solomon, I.E. In Gila Valley Solomon, W.H. Clerk of 1874 Blythe exp. Southeastern Arizona Map Spaneshanks Navajo Chief Spanish Trail Route of, map, use of eastern end Springerville Est. Standage, Henry Journal of Battalion march, Battalion experiences, settler at Alma, photo. Stanislaus City Early California colony Stanton Expedition Down Colorado r. Steele, Geo. Battalion member, photo. Steele, John Battalion member, in Arizona, photo. Stephens, Alexander Gold discoverer Stewart, Isaac J. Photo. Stewart, Jas. Z. In southern Arizona, photos. Stewart, Levi At Moccasin Springs Stoneman, Lt. Geo. Battalion quartermaster, recognition of service, record of Stone's Ferry On Colorado r. St. David Est. St. George Cotton factory, claimed by Arizona St. Johns Made county seat of Apache Co., est., Barth ownership, sold to Mormons, townsite est., first newspaper, street battle, killing of Nathan C. Tenney, land title dispute, irrigation difficulties, state aids dam construction, grasshopper plague, photo. first school, photo. Stake Academy, early view St. Johns Stake Est. St. Joseph (Nev.) Mormon settlement, damaged by fire St. Joseph (Ariz.) Formerly Allen's Camp, naming, est., view of dam, photo. of pioneer group St. Joseph Stake Creation, St. Thomas (Nev.) Est. Summary of Subjects Sunset Est. abandonment Sutter's Fort Gold disc. Batt. members at T Taylor On L. Colorado est. abandoned Taylor On Silver Creek, est. Taylor, President John Introduction to Tyler's Battalion history, directed est. of Arizona Stakes, visited Arizona, death, Mexican trip, photo. Teeples, Wm. R. Photo. photo, of home Teeples, Mrs. W.R. Frontier experiences, photo. Telegraph First in Arizona Tempe Johnson party arr., removal to Nephi Temple Arizona, at Mesa, other Temples of the Church, photo. Tenney, Ammon M. First visit to Hopi, fight with Navajos, in Powell party, account of great council with Indians, with Hamblin to Oraibi, at Las Vegas, on site of Woodruff, purchase of St. Johns, at Zuni, railroad contracts, with first Jones exp. photo. Tenney, Nathan C. Fight with Navajos, killed at St. Johns, photo. Terry, George In second Mexican exp., photo. Thatcher, Moses In Mexico Thatcher Est. photo, normal college Thomas, Camp In Gila Valley Thompson, Samuel Battalion member photo. Thurston, Frank Killed by Apaches To-ish-obe Paiute Chief Tombstone Mining history Tonto Basin Settlement abandonment authorized Tragedies of the Frontier List of Latter-day Saints killed by Indians or outlaws Trejo, M. G. Spanish missionary photo. Trueworthy, Thos. E. Early Colorado r. pilot steamboat trip up Colorado r. Trumbull, Mount Indian council sawmill to Arizona Tuba Oraibi chief, with Hamblin to Utah shows sacred stone returns to Oraibi at Tuba City Tuba City Est. woolen factory killing of Lot Smith sold to government Tubac Map Mormon colony visited by second Mexican exp. Tucson Settlement taking of by Battalion Standage reference Tumacacori Est. of mission Tyler, Daniel Battalion history Tyler, Frank N. Photo. U Udall, D. K. Arr. at St. Johns President St. Johns Stake photo, first home photo. United Order Est. in Muddy settlements development not a general Church movement in Lehi on L. Colorado r. at Woodruff Utah Creation of Territory seeks land north of Colorado r. Utah, Camp See Lehi Utahville See Lehi Ute Ford See Crossing of the Fathers V Vado de los Padres See Crossing of the Fathers Virden Est. Virgin River Settlements on W Wallapai Indians Visited Muddy Valley Walnut Grove Settled Walpi Hopi village, view Weaver, Pauline Principal guide to Battalion, gold discoveries, death Wells, Daniel H. Visited Arizona settlements on L. Colorado r. photo. Welsh Legend of the Hopi West Point Muddy settlement Wham robbery Near Gila settlements Whipple Expedition Whitmore, Dr. Jas. M. At founding of Callville, killed by Indians, at Pipe Springs, with Anson Call on Colorado r., photo. Wilford Mountain settlement Winsor, A. P. At Pipe Springs Winsor Castle Pipe Springs, photo. Woodruff Est., irrigation, view Woodruff, Wilford In Arizona, in northeastern Arizona, photo. Woods, J. A. Early teacher Woolen Factory At Tuba City, photo. Wright Brothers Killed by Apaches, photos. Wyoming First Mormon settlement Y Yerba Buena Early Spanish name of San Francisco Young, Brigham Arr. Salt Lake, authorized "Brooklyn" exp., extended Church influence southward, San Bernardino colonization, conception of Deseret, first governor of Deseret, photo, sent party to investigate Welsh legend, sent Hamblin to Indians, death, ordained Hamblin as Apostle to the Lamanites, bought Whitmore estate, detailed missionaries to Las Vegas, visit in 1870 to Muddy section and Paria, directed first L. Colorado exp, order for Blythe 1874 exp, photo, with party, received report of Jones party, directed exploration of Sonora, plans for Mexican settlement, Arizona Temple idea Young, John R. Sent to rescue missionaries Young, John W. Led party of southern settlers, at Holbrook, directed occupation of LeRoux Spring, Tuba City woolen factory, railroad contracts Young, John Wm. At Hopi Young, Joseph W. Estimate of Paiutes Yuma Indians Colorado r. deck hands Z Zodiac Settlement in Texas Zuni Indians Welsh legend 
756	----	ARIZONA SKETCHES by Joseph A. Munk CHAPTER I. A ROMANTIC LAND II. MY FIRST TRIP TO ARIZONA III. THE OPEN RANGE IV. RANCH LIFE V. THE ROUND-UP VI. RANCH HAPPENINGS VII. A MODEL RANCH VIII. SOME DESERT PLANTS IX. HOOKER'S HOT SPRINGS X. CANON ECHOES XI. THE METEORITE MOUNTAIN XII. THE CLIFF DWELLERS XIII. THE MOQUI INDIANS XIV. A FINE CLIMATE CHAPTER I A ROMANTIC LAND A stranger on first entering Arizona is impressed with the newness and wildness that surrounds him. Indeed, the change is so great that it seems like going to sleep and waking up in a new world. Everything that he sees is different from the familiar objects of his home, and he is filled with wonder and amazement at the many curious things that are brought to his notice. Judging the country by what is common back east, the average man is disappointed and prejudiced against what he sees; but, estimated on its merits, it is found to be a land of many attractions and great possibilities. A hasty trip through the country by rail gives no adequate idea of its intrinsic value, as such a limited view only affords a superficial glimpse of what should be leisurely and carefully examined to be properly understood or appreciated. At the first glance it presents the appearance of a desert, but to one who is acquainted with its peculiarities it is by no means desolate. It furnishes a strong contrast to the rolling woodlands of the far east, and to the boundless prairies of the middle west; and, though it may never develop on the plan of the older states, like California, it has an individuality and charm of its own; and its endowment of natural wealth and beauty requires no borrowing from neighbors to give it character or success. It has grand scenery, a salubrious climate, productive soil, rich mineral deposits and rare archaeological remains. It also has a diversified fauna and flora. The peccary, Gila monster, tarantula, centipede, scorpion and horned toad are specimens of its strange animal life; and, the numerous species of cacti, yucca, maguey, palo verde and mistletoe are samples of its curious vegetation. It is, indeed, the scientist's Paradise where much valuable material can be found to enrich almost every branch of natural science. Hitherto its growth has been greatly retarded by its remote position in Uncle Sam's domain; but, with the comparatively recent advent of the railroad, the influx of capital and population, and the suppression of the once dreaded and troublesome Apache, a new life has been awakened that is destined to redeem the country from its ancient lethargy and make it a land of promise to many home seekers and settlers. When the Spaniards under Coronado first entered the land more than three hundred and fifty years ago in search of the seven cities of Cibola, they found upon the desert sufficient evidence of an extinct race to prove that the land was once densely populated by an agricultural and prosperous people. When or how the inhabitants disappeared is unknown and may never be known. It is even in doubt who they were, but, presumably, they were of the Aztec or Toltec race; or, perhaps, of some civilization even more remote. The Pueblo Indians are supposed to be their descendants, but, if so, they were, when first found, as ignorant of their ancestors as they were of their discoverers. When questioned as to the past they could give no intelligent answer as to their antecedents, but claimed that what the white man saw was the work of Montezuma. All that is known of this ancient people is what the ruins show, as they left no written record or even tradition of their life, unless it be some inscriptions consisting of various hieroglyphics and pictographs that are found painted upon the rocks, which undoubtedly have a meaning, but for lack of interpretation remain a sealed book. The deep mystery in which they are shrouded makes their history all the more interesting and gives unlimited scope for speculation. Arizona is a land that is full of history as well as mystery and invites investigation. It has a fascination that every one feels who crosses its border. Paradoxical as it may seem it is both the oldest and newest portion of our country--the oldest in ancient occupation and civilization and the newest in modern progress. In natural wonders it boasts of the Grand Canon of Arizona, the painted desert, petrified forest, meteorite mountain, natural bridge, Montezuma's well and many other marvels of nature. There are also ruins galore, the cave and cliff dwellings, crumbled pueblos, extensive acequias, painted rocks, the casa grande and old Spanish missions. Anyone who is in search of the old and curious, need not go to foreign lands, but can find right here at home in Arizona and the southwest, a greater number and variety of curiosities than can be found in the same space anywhere else upon the globe. Arizona is a land of strong contrasts and constant surprises, where unusual conditions prevail and the unexpected frequently happens. From the high Colorado plateau of northern Arizona the land slopes toward the southwest to the Gulf of California. Across this long slope of several hundred miles in width, numerous mountain ranges stretch from the northwest to the southeast. Through the middle of the Territory from east to west, flows the Gila river to its confluence with the Colorado. This stream marks the dividing line between the mountains which descend from the north and those that extend south, which increase in altitude and extent until they culminate in the grand Sierra Madres of Mexico. The traveler in passing through the country never gets entirely out of the sight of mountains. They rise up all about him and bound the horizon near and far in every direction. In riding along he always seems to be approaching some distant mountain barrier that ever recedes before him as he advances. He is never clear of the encircling mountains for, as often as he passes out of one enclosure through a gap in the mountains, he finds himself hemmed in again by a new one. The peculiarity of always being in the midst of mountains and yet never completely surrounded, is due to an arrangement of dovetailing or overlapping in their formation. His winding way leads him across barren wastes, through fertile valleys, among rolling hills and into sheltered parks, which combine an endless variety of attractive scenery. An Arizona landscape, though mostly of a desert type, is yet full of interest to the lover of nature. It presents a strangely fascinating view, that once seen, will never be forgotten. It stirs a rapture in the soul that only nature can inspire. Looking out from some commanding eminence, a wide spreading and diversified landscape is presented to view. Though hard and rugged, the picture, as seen at a distance, looks soft and smooth and its details of form and color make an absorbing study. The eye is quick to note the different hues that appear in the field of vision and readily selects five predominating colors, namely, gray, green, brown, purple and blue, which mingle harmoniously in various combinations with almost every other color that is known. The most brilliant lights, sombre shadows, exquisite tints and delicate tones are seen which, if put on canvas and judged by the ordinary, would be pronounced exaggerated and impossible by those unfamiliar with the original. The prevailing color is gray, made by the dry grass and sandy soil, and extends in every direction to the limit of vision. The gramma grass of the and region grows quickly and turns gray instead of brown, as grasses usually do when they mature. It gives to the landscape a subdued and quiet color, which is pleasing to the eye and makes the ideal background in a picture. Into this warp of gray is woven a woof of green, spreading in irregular patches in all directions. It is made by the chaparral, which is composed of a variety of desert plants that are native to the soil and can live on very little water. It consists of live oak, pinion, mesquite, desert willow, greasewood, sage brush, palmilla, maguey, yucca and cacti and is mostly evergreen. The admixture of gray and green prevails throughout the year except during the summer rainy season, when, if the rains are abundant, the gray disappears almost entirely, and the young grass springs up as by magic, covering the whole country with a carpet of living green. In the midst of the billowy grass myriads of wild flowers bloom, and stand single or shoulder to shoulder in masses of solid color by the acre. Upon the far mountains is seen the sombre brown in the bare rocks. The whole region was at one time violently disturbed by seismic force and the glow of its quenched fires has even yet scarcely faded away. Large masses of igneous rocks and broad streams of vitrified lava bear mute testimony of the change, when, by some mighty subterranean force, the tumultuous sea was rolled back from its pristine bed and, in its stead, lofty mountains lifted their bald beads above the surrounding desolation, and stand to-day as they have stood in massive grandeur ever since the ancient days of their upheaval. Rugged and bleak they tower high, or take the form of pillar, spire and dome, in some seemingly well-constructed edifice erected by the hand of man. But the mountains are not all barren. Vast areas of fertile soil flank the bare rocks where vegetation has taken root, and large fields of forage and extensive forests of oak and pine add value and beauty to the land. The atmosphere is a striking feature of the country that is as pleasing to the eye as it is invigorating to the body. Over all the landscape hangs a veil of soft, purple haze that is bewitching. It gives to the scene a mysterious, subtle something that is exquisite and holds the senses in a magic spell of enchantment. Distance also is deceptive and cannot be estimated as under other skies. The far-off mountains are brought near and made to glow in a halo of mellow light. Manifold ocular illusions appear in the mirage and deceive the uninitiated. An indefinable dreamy something steals over the senses and enthralls the soul. Arching heaven's high dome is a sky of intense blue that looks so wonderfully clear and deep that even far-famed Italy cannot surpass it. The nights are invariably clear and the moon and stars appear unusually bright. The air is so pure that the stars seem to be advanced in magnitude and can be seen quite low down upon the horizon. The changing lights that flash in the sky transform both the sunrise and sunset into marvels of beauty. In the mellow afterglow of the sunset, on the western sky, stream long banners of light, and fleecy clouds of gold melt away and fade in the twilight. At midday in the hazy distance, moving slowly down the valley, can be seen spiral columns of dust that resemble pillars of smoke. They ascend perpendicularly, incline like Pisa's leaning tower, or are beat at various angles, but always retaining the columnar form. They rise to great heights and vanish in space. These spectral forms are caused by small local whirlwinds when the air is otherwise calm, and are, apparently, without purpose, unless they are intended merely to amuse the casual observer. A cloudy day is rare and does not necessarily signify rain. Usually the clouds are of the cumulus variety and roll leisurely by in billowy masses. Being in a droughty land the clouds always attract attention viewed either from an artistic or utilitarian standpoint. When out on parade they float lazily across the sky, casting their moving shadows below. The figures resemble a mammoth pattern of crazy patchwork in a state of evolution spread out for inspection. The impression that is made while looking out upon such a scene is that of deep silence. Everything is hushed and still; but, by listening attentively, the number of faint sounds that reach the ear in an undertone is surprising. The soft soughing of the wind in the trees; the gentle rustle of the grass as it is swayed by the passing breeze; the musical ripple of water as it gurgles from the spring; the piping of the quail as it calls to its mate; the twitter of little birds flitting from bush to bough; the chirp of the cricket and drone of the beetle are among the sounds that are heard and fall soothingly upon the ear. The trees growing upon the hillside bear a striking resemblance to an old orchard and are a reminder of home where in childhood the hand delighted to pluck luscious fruit from drooping boughs. A walk among the trees makes it easy to imagine that you are in some such familiar but neglected haunt, and instinctively you look about expecting to see the old house that was once called home and hear the welcome voice and footfall of cherished memory. It is no little disappointment to be roused from such a reverie to find the resemblance only a delusion and the spot deserted. Forsaken as it has been for many years by the native savage Indians and prowling wild beasts, the land waits in silence and patience the coming of the husbandman. CHAPTER II MY FIRST TRIP TO ARIZONA I recall with vivid distinctness my first trip to Arizona and introduction to ranch life in the spring of 1884. The experience made a deep impression and has led me to repeat the visit many times since then, with increased interest and pleasure. During the previous year my brother located a cattle ranch for us in Railroad Pass in southeastern Arizona. The gap is one of a series of natural depressions in a succession of mountain chains on the thirty-second parallel route, all the way from New Orleans to San Francisco over a distance of nearly twenty-five hundred miles. The Southern Pacific Railroad is built upon this route and has the easiest grade of any transcontinental line. Railroad Pass is a wide break between two mountain ranges and is a fine grazing section. It is handsomely bounded and presents a magnificent view. To the north are the Pinaleno mountains, with towering Mt. Graham in their midst, that are nearly eleven thousand feet high and lie dark in the shadows of their dense pine forests. Far to the south rise the rugged Chiricahuas, and nearby stands bald Dos Cabezas, whose giant double head of granite can be seen as a conspicuous landmark over a wide scope of country. The distance across the Pass as the crow flies is, perhaps, fifty miles. Beyond these peaks other mountains rise in majestic grandeur and bound the horizon in every direction. At the time that the ranch was located the Pass country was considered uninhabitable because of the scarcity of water and the presence of hostile Indians. No permanent spring nor stream of water was known to exist in that whole region, but fine gramma grass grew everywhere. Its suitability as a cattle range was recognized and caused it to be thoroughly prospected for water, which resulted in the discovery of several hidden springs. All of the springs found, but one, were insignificant and either soon went dry or fluctuated with the seasons; but the big spring, known as Pinaleno, was worth finding, and flows a constant stream of pure, soft water that fills a four-inch iron pipe. When the spring was discovered not a drop of water was visible upon the surface, and a patch of willows was the only indication of concealed moisture. By sinking a shallow well only a few feet deep among the willows, water was struck as it flowed through coarse gravel over a buried ledge of rock that forced the water up nearly to the surface only to sink again in the sand without being seen. A ditch was dug to the well from below and an iron pipe laid in the trench, through which the water is conducted into a reservoir that supplies the water troughs. Again, when the ranch was opened the Indians were bad in the vicinity and had been actively hostile for some time. The ranch is on a part of the old Chiricahua reservation that was once the home and hunting grounds of the tribe of Chiricahua Apaches, the most bold and warlike of all the southwest Indians. Cochise was their greatest warrior, but he was only one among many able Apache chieftains. He was at one time the friend of the white man, but treachery aroused his hatred and caused him to seek revenge on every white man that crossed his path. His favorite haunt was Apache Pass, a convenient spot that was favorable for concealment, where he lay in wait for weary travelers who passed that way in search of water and a pleasant camp ground. If attacked by a superior force, as sometimes happened, he invariably retreated across the Sulphur Spring valley into his stronghold in the Dragoon mountains. Because of the many atrocities that were committed by the Indians, white men were afraid to go into that country to settle. Even as late as in the early eighties when that prince of rascals, the wily Geronimo, made his bloody raids through southern Arizona, the men who did venture in and located ranch and mining claims, lived in daily peril of their lives which, in not a few instances, were paid as a forfeit to their daring. The Butterfield stage and all other overland travel to California by the southern route before the railroads were built, went through Apache Pass. Although it was the worst Indian infested section in the southwest, travelers chose that dangerous route in preference to any other for the sake of the water that they knew could always be found there. The reputation of Apache Pass, finally became so notoriously bad because of the many murders committed that the Government, late in the sixties, built and garrisoned Ft. Bowie for the protection of travelers and settlers. The troops stationed at the post endured much hardship and fought many bloody battles before the Indians were conquered. Many soldiers were killed and buried in a little graveyard near the fort. When the fort was abandoned a few years ago, their bodies were disinterred and removed to the National cemetery at Washington. Railroad Pass is naturally a better wagon road than Apache Pass, but is without water. It was named by Lieut. J. G. Parke in 1855 while engaged in surveying for the Pacific Railroad, because of its easy grade and facility for railroad construction. I timed my visit to correspond with the arrival at Bowie station on the Southern Pacific Railroad, of a consignment of ranch goods that had been shipped from St. Louis. I was met at the depot by the ranch force, who immediately proceeded to initiate me as a tenderfoot. I inquired of one of the cowboys how far it was to a near-by mountain. He gave a quien sabe shrug of the shoulder and answered me in Yankee fashion by asking how far I thought it was. Estimating the distance as in a prairie country I replied, "Oh, about a mile." He laughed and said that the mountain was fully five miles distant by actual measurement. I had unwittingly taken my first lesson in plainscraft and prudently refrained thereafter from making another sure guess. The deception was due to the rarefied atmosphere, which is peculiar to the arid region. It not only deceives the eye as to distance, but also as to motion. If the eye is steadily fixed upon some distant inanimate object, it seems to move in the tremulous light as if possessed of life, and it is not always easy to be convinced to the contrary. However, by putting the object under inspection in line with some further object, it can readily be determined whether the object is animate or still by its remaining on or moving off the line. Another peculiarity of the country is that objects do not always seem to stand square with the world. In approaching a mountain and moving on an up grade the plane of incline is suddenly reversed and gives the appearance and sensation of going downhill. In some inexplicable manner sense and reason seem to conflict and the discovery of the disturbed relation of things is startling. You know very well that the mountain ahead is above you, but it has the appearance of standing below you in a hollow; and the water in the brook at your feet, which runs down the mountain into the valley, seems to be running uphill. By turning squarely about and looking backwards, the misplaced objects become righted, and produces much the same sensation that a man feels who is lost and suddenly finds himself again. We immediately prepared to drive out to the ranch, which was ten miles distant and reached by a road that skirted the Dos Cabezas mountains. The new wagon was set up and put in running order and lightly loaded with supplies. All of the preliminaries being completed, the horses were harnessed and hooked to the wagon. The driver mounted his seat, drew rein and cracked his whip, but we didn't go. The horses were only accustomed to the saddle and knew nothing about pulling in harness. Sam was a condemned cavalry horse and Box was a native bronco, and being hitched to a wagon was a new experience to both. The start was unpropitious, but, acting on the old adage that "necessity is the mother of invention," which truth is nowhere better exemplified than on the frontier where conveniences are few and the most must be made of everything, after some delay and considerable maneuvering we finally got started. The road for some distance out was level and smooth and our progress satisfactory. As we drove leisurely along I improved the opportunity to look about and see the sights. It was a perfect day in April and there never was a brighter sky nor balmier air than beamed and breathed upon us. The air was soft and tremulous with a magical light that produced startling phantasmagoric effects. It was my first sight of a mirage and it naturally excited my curiosity. It seemed as if a forest had suddenly sprung up in the San Simon valley where just before had appeared only bare ground. With every change in the angle of vision as we journeyed on, there occurred a corresponding change in the scene before us that produced a charming kaleidoscopic effect. The rough mountain was transformed into a symmetrical city and the dry valley into a lake of sparkling water,--all seeming to be the work of magic in some fairyland of enchantment. In a ledge of granite rock by the wayside were cut a number of round holes which the Indians had made and used as mills for grinding their corn and seeds into meal. Nearby also, were some mescal pits used for baking the agave, a native plant that is in great demand as food by the Indians. The spot was evidently an old rendezvous where the marauding Apaches were accustomed to meet in council to plan their bloody raids, and to feast on mescal and pinole in honor of some successful foray or victory over an enemy. We next crossed several well-worn Indian trails which the Apaches had made by many years of travel to and fro between their rancherias in the Mogollon mountains and Mexico. The sight of these trails brought us back to real life and a conscious sense of danger, for were we not in an enemy's country and in the midst of hostile Indians? Nearly every mile of road traveled had been at some time in the past the scene of a bloody tragedy enacted by a savage foe. Even at that very time the Apaches were out on the warpath murdering people, but fortunately we did not meet them and escaped unmolested. The road now crossed a low hill, which was the signal for more trouble. The team started bravely up the incline, but soon stopped and then balked and all urging with whip and voice failed to make any impression. After several ineffectual attempts to proceed it was decided not to waste any more time in futile efforts. The horses were unhitched and the wagon partly unloaded, when all hands by a united pull and push succeeded in getting the wagon up the hill. After reloading no difficulty was experienced in making a fresh start on a down grade, but a little farther on a second and larger hill was encountered, when the failure to scale its summit was even greater than the first. No amount of coaxing or urging budged the horses an inch. They simply were stubborn and would not pull. Night was approaching and camp was yet some distance ahead. The driver suggested that the best thing to do under the circumstances was for the rest of us to take the led horses and ride on to camp, while he would remain with the wagon and, if necessary, camp out all night. We reluctantly took his advice, mounted our horses and finished our journey in the twilight. Aaron, who was housekeeper at the ranch, gave us a hearty welcome and invited us to sit down to a bountiful supper which he had prepared in anticipation of our coming. Feeling weary after our ride we retired early and were soon sound asleep. The only thing that disturbed our slumbers during the night was a coyote concert which, as a "concord of sweet sounds was a dismal failure" but as a medley of discordant sounds was a decided success. The bark of the coyote is particularly shrill and sharp and a single coyote when in full cry sounds like a chorus of howling curs. We were all up and out early the next morning to witness the birth of a new day. The sunrise was glorious, and bright colors in many hues flashed across the sky. The valley echoed with the cheerful notes of the mocking bird and the soft air was filled with the fragrance of wild flowers. The scene was grandly inspiring and sent a thrill of pleasure through every nerve. While thus absorbed by the beauties of nature we heard an halloo, and looking down the road in the direction of the driver's bivouac we saw him coming swinging his hat in the air and driving at a rapid pace that soon brought him to the ranch house. In answer to our inquiries as to how he had spent the night he reported that the horses stood quietly in their tracks all night long, while he slept comfortably in the wagon. In the morning the horses started without undue urging as if tired of inaction and glad to go in the direction of provender. They were completely broken by their fast and after that gave no further trouble. After a stay of four weeks, learning something of the ways of ranch life and experiencing not a few exciting adventures, I returned home feeling well pleased with my first trip to the ranch. CHAPTER III THE OPEN RANGE Arizona is in the arid belt and well adapted to the range cattle industry. Its mild climate and limited water supply make it the ideal range country. Indeed, to the single factor of its limited water supply, perhaps, more than anything else is its value due as an open range. If water was abundant there could be no open range as then the land would all be farmed and fenced. Arizona is sometimes spoken of as belonging to the plains, but it is not a prairie country. Mountains are everywhere, but are separated in many places by wide valleys. The mountains not only make fine scenery, but are natural boundaries for the ranches and give shade and shelter to the cattle. There are no severe storms nor blizzard swept plains where cattle drift and perish from cold. The weather is never extremely cold, the mercury seldom falling to more than a few degrees below freezing, except upon the high plateaus and mountains of northern Arizona. If it freezes during the night the frost usually disappears the next day; and, if snow flies, it lies only on the mountains, but melts as fast as it falls in the valleys. There are but few cloudy or stormy days in the year and bright, warm sunshine generally prevails. There has never been any loss of cattle from cold, but many have died from drought as a result of overstocking the range. The pastures consist of valley, mesa and mountain lands which, in a normal season, are covered by a variety of nutritious grasses. Of all the native forage plants the gramma grass is the most abundant and best. It grows only in the summer rainy season when, if the rains are copious, the gray desert is converted into a vast green meadow. The annual rainfall is comparatively light and insufficient to grow and mature with certainty any of the cereal crops. When the summer rains begin to fall the rancher is "jubilant" and the "old cow smiles." Rain means even more to the ranchman than it does to the farmer. In an agricultural country it is expected that rain or snow will fall during every month of the year, but on the range rain is expected only in certain months and, if it fails to fall then, it means failure, in a measure, for the entire year. Rain is very uncertain in Arizona. July and August are the rain months during which time the gramma grass grows. Unless the rain falls daily after it begins it does but little good, as frequent showers are required to keep the grass growing after it once starts. A settled rain of one or more days' duration is of rare occurrence. During the rainy season and, in fact, at all times, the mornings are usually clear. In the forenoon the clouds begin to gather and pile up in dark billowy masses that end in showers during the afternoon and evening. But not every rain cloud brings rain. Clouds of this character often look very threatening, but all their display of thunder and lightning is only bluff and bluster and ends in a fizzle with no rain. After such a demonstration the clouds either bring wind and a disagreeable dust storm, or, if a little rain starts to fall, the air is so dry that it evaporates in mid air, and none of it ever reaches the earth. In this fashion the clouds often threaten to do great things, only to break their promise; and the anxious rancher stands and gazes at the sky with longing eyes, only to be disappointed again and again. As a rule water is scarce. A long procession of cloudless days merge into weeks of dry weather; and the weeks glide into months during which time the brazen sky refuses to yield one drop of moisture either of dew or rain to the parched and thirsty earth. Even the rainy season is not altogether reliable, but varies considerably one year with another in the time of its appearance and continuance. The soil is sandy and porous and readily absorbs water, except where the earth is tramped and packed hard by the cattle. One peculiarity of the country as found marked upon the maps, and that exists in fact, is the diminution and often complete disappearance of a stream after it leaves the mountains. If not wholly lost upon entering the valley the water soon sinks out of sight in the sand and disappears and reappears at irregular intervals, until it loses itself entirely in some underground channel and is seen no more. Many a pleasant valley in the range country is made desolate by being destitute of any surface spring or running brook, or water that can be found at any depth. Occasionally a hidden fountain is struck by digging, but it is only by the merest chance. Wells have been dug to great depths in perfectly dry ground in an eager search for water without finding it, and such an experience is usually equivalent to a failure and the making of a useless bill of expense. A never-failing spring of good water in sufficient quantity to supply the needs of a ranch in the range country is of rare occurrence, considering the large territory to be supplied. Only here and there at long intervals is such a spring found, and it is always a desirable and valuable property. It makes an oasis in the desert that is an agreeable change from the surrounding barrenness, and furnishes its owner, if properly utilized, a comfortable subsistence for himself and herds. His fields produce without fail and the increase of his flocks and herds is sure. The isolated rancher who is well located is independent. He is in no danger of being crowded by his neighbors nor his range becoming over stocked with stray cattle. His water right gives him undisputed control of the adjacent range, even though he does not own all the land, which is an unwritten law of the range and respected by all cattlemen. Because of the scarcity of water the range country is sparsely settled and always will be until more water is provided by artificial means for irrigation. Even then a large portion of the land will be worthless for any other purpose than grazing, and stock-growing on the open range in Arizona will continue to be a staple industry in the future as it has been in the past. The range is practically all occupied and, in many places, is already over stocked. Where more cattle are run on a range than its grass and water can support there is bound to be some loss. In stocking a range an estimate should be made of its carrying capacity in a bad year rather than in a good one, as no range can safely carry more cattle than it can support in the poorest year; like a chain, it is no stronger than its weakest link. A good range is sometimes destroyed by the prairie dog. Wherever he establishes a colony the grass soon disappears. He burrows in the ground and a group of such holes is called a dog town. Like the jack-rabbit he can live without water and is thus able to keep his hold on the desert. The only way to get rid of him is to kill him, which is usually done by the wholesale with poison. His flesh is fine eating, which the Navajo knows if the white man does not. The Navajo considers him a dainty morsel which is particularly relished by the sick. If a patient can afford the price, he can usually procure a prairie dog in exchange for two sheep. The Navajo is an adept at capturing this little animal. The hunter places a small looking-glass near the hole and, in concealment near by, he patiently awaits developments. When the prairie dog comes out of his hole to take an airing he immediately sees his reflection in the glass and takes it for an intruder. In an instant he is ready for a fight and pounces upon his supposed enemy to kill or drive him away. While the prairie dog is thus engaged wrestling with his shadow or reflection the hunter shoots him at close range with his bow and arrow--never with a gun, for if wounded by a bullet he is sure to drop into his hole and is lost, but the arrow transfixes his body and prevents him from getting away. He has been hunted so much in the Navajo country that he has become very scarce.[1] Much of the ranch country in southern Arizona is destitute of trees, and shade, therefore, is scarce. Upon the high mountains and plateaus of northern Arizona there are great forests of pine and plenty of shade. But few cattle range there in comparison to the large numbers that graze on the lower levels further south. What little tree growth there is on the desert is stunted and supplies but scant shade. In the canons some large cottonwood, sycamore and walnut trees can be found; upon the foot hills the live oak and still higher up the mountain the pine. Cattle always seek the shade and if there are no trees they will lie down in the shade of a bush or anything that casts a shadow. The cattle are so eager for shade that if they can find nothing better they will crowd into the narrow ribbon of shade that is cast by a columnar cactus or telegraph pole and seem to be satisfied with ever so little if only shade is touched. Twenty years ago before there were many cattle on the southwestern range, the gramma grass stood knee high everywhere all over that country and seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of feed for an unlimited number of cattle during an indefinite term of years. It was not many years, however, after the large herds were turned loose on the range until the grass was all gone and the ground, except in a few favored spots, left nearly as bare of grass as the traveled road. At the present time whatever grass there is must grow each year which, even in a favorable year, is never heavy. If the summer rains fail, no grass whatever can grow and the cattle are without feed. The grass about the springs and water holes is first to disappear and then the cattle must go farther and farther from water to find any grass. When cattle are compelled to travel over long distances in going from grass to water, they naturally grow thin from insufficient food and are worn out by the repeated long journeys. A cow that is thin and weak will postpone making the trip as long as possible--two, three and even four days in the hottest weather she will wait before attempting the trip. At last, when the poor creature reaches water, she is so famished from thirst that she drinks too much. In her feeble condition she is unable to carry the enormous load of water which she drinks and lies down by the side of the friendly water trough to die from exhaustion. If cattle are turned loose upon a new range they act strange and are inclined to scatter. Until they become accustomed to the change they should be close herded, but after they are once located they are not liable to stray very far. As they are only worked by men on horseback they are not frightened at the sight of a horse and rider; but let a stranger approach them on foot, in a moment after he is sighted every head is raised in surprise and alarm and the pedestrian is, indeed, fortunate if the herd turns tail and scampers off instead of running him down and tramping him under foot in a wild stampede. Nowhere else can be found a finer sight than is witnessed in the range country. In every direction broad meadows stretch away to the horizon where numberless cattle roam and are the embodiment of bovine happiness and contentment. Scattered about in irregular groups they are seen at ease lying down or feeding, and frisking about in an overflow of exuberant life. Cow paths or trails converge from every point of the compass, that lead to springs and water holes, on which the cattle travel. It is an interesting sight to watch the cattle maneuver as they form in line, single file, ready for the march. They move forward in an easy, deliberate walk one behind the other and may be seen coming and going in every direction. They make their trips with great regularity back and forth from grass to water, and vice versa, going to water in the morning and back to the feeding grounds at night. Cows have a curious fashion, sometimes, of hiding out their calves. When a cow with a young calf starts for water she invariably hides her calf in a bunch of grass or clump of bushes in some secluded spot, where it lies down and remains perfectly quiet until the mother returns. I have many times while riding the range found calves thus secreted that could scarcely be aroused or frightened away, which behavior was so different from their usual habit of being shy and running off at the slightest provocation. The calf under such circumstances seems to understand that it is "not at home," and cannot be seen. At another time a lot of calves are left in charge of a young cow or heifer that seems to understand her responsibility and guards her charge carefully. The young calves are too weak to make the long trip to water and thus, through the maternal instinct of the mother cow, she provides for the care of her offspring almost as if she were human. After viewing such a large pasture as the open range presents, which is limitless in extent, the small fenced field or pasture lot of a few acres on the old home farm back east, that looked so large to boyish eyes in years gone by, dwindles by comparison into insignificance and can never again be restored to its former greatness. [1] This statement is made on the authority of Mr. F. W. Volz, who lives at Canon Diablo, and is familiar with the customs of the Navajos. CHAPTER IV RANCH LIFE Ranch life on the open range may be somewhat wild and lonely, but it is as free and independent to the rancher as it is to his unfettered cattle that roam at will over a thousand hills. As a place of residence for a family of women and children it is undesirable because of its isolation and lack of social and educational privileges; but for a man who cares to "rough it" it has a rare fascination. Its freedom may mean lonesomeness and its independence monotony, yet it is very enjoyable for a season. Like anything else it may become wearing and wearisome if continued too long without a change, but its novelty has a charm that is irresistible. Ranch life is untrammeled by social conventionalities and is not burdened by business cares, but is an easy, natural life that is free from all kinds of pressure. It relieves the tension of an artificial existence, and worry and vexation are forgotten. Time loses its rapid flight and once more jogs on at an easy pace; and its complete isolation and quiet gives nature a chance to rest and recuperate "Away from the dwellings of careworn men." The environment of ranch life is highly conducive to good health. The scenery is delightful, the air pure and bracing, the food wholesome and nutritious, the couch comfortable and the sleep refreshing. Walking and riding furnish the necessary exercise that nature demands. Indeed, there is no better exercise to be found than riding horseback to stimulate sluggish organs, or excite to healthy action the bodily functions. It stirs the liver, causes deep breathing, strengthens the heart and circulation, tones the nerves and makes an appetite that waits on good digestion. An outdoor life is often better than medicine and is a panacea for the "ills that human flesh is heir to." The ranchman, if he is in tune with his surroundings, finds a never-failing spring of pleasure. If he is company for himself he is well entertained and if he is a lover of nature he finds interesting subjects for study upon every hand. His wants are few and simple and the free life that he lives develops in him a strong and sturdy manhood. He is the picture of health and is happy and contented as the day is long. However, such a life does not suit everyone, as individual tastes differ. Prejudice also exerts an influence and is apt to estimate all western life as crude and undesirable, being in a transition state of change from savagery to civilization. Be it even so; for, if the savage had never existed to furnish the ancestry that civilized man boasts, civilization would not have been possible. It is only natural that this should be so as, in the order of nature, evolution begins at the bottom and works up. There is perhaps no condition in life that can be called perfect, yet of the two extremes we choose to believe that civilization is preferable to barbarism; but an intermediate state has the advantage over both extremes by avoiding native crudeness upon the one hand and excessive refinement upon the other, both being equally undesirable. Happiness, which we all profess to seek, exists in some degree everywhere but we are always striving to acquire something more. In our constant struggle for improvement, progress undoubtedly is made in the right direction. With refinement comes increased sensibility and an enlarged capacity for enjoyment. But, such a state in itself is not one of unalloyed bliss, as might be supposed, since it is marred by its antithesis, an increased amount of sickness and suffering, which is the inevitable penalty of civilization. In such a progression the pleasures of life become more, but the acuteness of suffering is also increased. The mistake lies in the fact that in our eager pursuit after the artificial we forget nature and not until we acquire a surfeit of that which is artificial and grow weary of the shams and deceits of the world do we stop and think or turn again to nature to find the truth. In the early days the frontier was the rendezvous for rough and lawless characters of every description. That time has gone by never to return in the history of the nation, as the rustlers have either reformed and become good citizens or long ago left the country by the lead or hemp routes. The change in the times has been such that never again will it be possible to return to the conditions that existed in the early settlement of the west which gave to desperadoes a safe hiding place. The people now living on what is left of the frontier will, as a class, compare favorably with those of any other community. There may be small surface polish, as the world goes, but there is much genuine gold of true character that needs only a little rubbing to make it shine. The population being sparse there is comparatively little opportunity or inclination for wrongdoing. Whatever anybody does is noticed at once and everything that happens is immediately found out. The favorite haunt of vice and crime is not in a sparsely settled community, public opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, but in the centers of population, in, our large cities where temptation to do evil is strong and dark deeds find ready concealment in the mingling and confusion of the throng. The ranchman deserves to be correctly judged by his true character and not by any false standard that is artfully designed to misrepresent him or to unjustly bring him into contempt. He may have a rough exterior, not intending to pose in a model fashion plate, but in real life where he is tried there is found under his coarse garb a heart that is honest and true which responds with sympathy and kindness for anyone in distress; and his generosity and hospitality are proverbial and stand without a rival. Men from every position in life, including college graduates and professional men, are engaged in ranching and whoever takes them to be a lot of toughs and ignoramuses is egregiously mistaken. The strength, virtue and intelligence of the nation is found in its large middle class of laboring people that is largely composed of farmers and mechanics, men who work with their hands and live natural lives and are so busy in some useful occupation that they have no time to think of mischief. In this favored land of freedom all of our great men have been of the common people and struggled up from some humble position. A life of toil may seem to be hard, but it conforms to nature and natural laws and favors the development of the best that is in man; and he who shirks toil misses his opportunity. Whatever tends to wean men from work only weakens them. Luxury and indolence travel on the downward road of degeneracy. They may make pleasant temporary indulgence, but are fatal to ultimate success. Locomotion on a ranch consists almost entirely of horseback riding as walking is too slow and tiresome and wheeled conveyance is often inconvenient or impossible for cross-country driving. When the ranchman mounts his horse in the morning to make his daily rounds he has a clear field before him. He is "monarch of all he surveys" and practically owns the earth, since his neighbors live many miles away and his road leads in any direction clear to the horizon. The average ranch is not intended to furnish luxuries, but to serve the best interests of the business in hand, that of growing cattle. It is usually a "stag camp" composed entirely of men who occupy a rude cabin near some convenient spring or stream of water, where they keep house in ranch style and live after a fashion. No money is ever expended in unnecessary improvements, but every dollar spent in repairs is put where it will do the most good. The house furnishings are all of the plainest kind and intended to meet only present necessities. The larder is not supplied with luxuries nor is the cuisine prolific of dainties, but there is always on hand a supply of the necessaries of life. Every man has his particular work to perform, but unless it be on some large ranch where the force of men employed is sufficiently large to require the services of a chef, he is also expected to assist in keeping house. It is an unwritten law of the ranch that everybody on the place must share in this work and if anyone shirks his duty he must either promptly mend his ways or else quit his job. It is seldom, however, that this rule has to be enforced, as the necessities of the case require that every man shall be able to prepare a meal as he is liable to be left alone for days or weeks at a time when he must either cook or starve. The equipment of the cowboy is his horse and reata. They are his constant companions and serve his every purpose. His work includes much hard riding, which he greatly enjoys if no accident befalls him. But dashing on in heedless speed while rounding up cattle he is ever liable to mishaps, as his horse, although sure footed, may at any time step into a prairie dogs' hole or stumble on a loose rock that is liable to throw both horse and rider to the ground in a heap. He is, indeed, fortunate if he escapes unhurt, or only receives a few bruises and not a fractured bone or broken neck. His work consists in riding over the range and marking the condition of the cattle; line riding to prevent the stock from straying; looking after the springs and water holes and keeping them clean; branding calves, gathering steers for market and assisting in the general work of the round-up. Every day has its duty and every season its particular work, yet there are times of considerable leisure during the year. After his day's work is done he repairs to the ranch house, or to some outlying camp, whichever happens to be nearest when night overtakes him, for every large ranch has one or more such camps posted at some convenient point that furnishes temporary shelter and refreshment, where he rests and eats his frugal meal with a relish that only health and rough riding can give. If he is at the home ranch in winter he spends the long evenings before an open hearth fire of blazing logs and by the light of the fire and the doubtful aid of a tallow dip lounges the hours away in reading and cogitation; or, if in the company of congenial companions, engages in conversation and pleasantry or any amusement that the party may select. At an early hour he turns in for the night and after a sound and refreshing sleep is up and out with the dawn. After breakfast he mounts his horse and in his striking and characteristic costume of broad sombrero, blue flannel shirt, fringed chaperejos and jingling spurs he rides forth to his work a perfect type of the gallant caballero. CHAPTER V THE ROUND-UP In the range cattle business it is important for every owner of live stock to have some mark by which he can tell his own cattle. It is impossible for any man to remember and recognize by natural marks every animal in a large herd. On the open range there are no fenced pastures to hold the cattle, but all are permitted to run free and mix promiscuously. To distinguish the cattle of different owners a system of earmarks and brands has been devised by which each ranchman can identify and claim his own stock. The branding is usually done during a round-up when every calf found is caught and branded in the brand of its mother. If a calf remains unbranded until after it is weaned and quits its mother, it becomes a maverick and is liable to be lost to its owner. A calf, if left to itself, will follow its mother for several months and then leave her to seek its own living. Occasionally a calf does not become weaned when it should be, but continues the baby habit indefinitely. If a yearling is found unweaned it is caught and "blabbed" which is done by fitting a peculiarly shaped piece of wood into its nose that prevents it from sucking but does not interfere with feeding. If a calf loses its mother while very young it is called a "leppy." Such an orphan calf is, indeed, a forlorn and forsaken little creature. Having no one to care for it, it has a hard time to make a living. If it is smart enough to share the lacteal ration of some more fortunate calf it does very well, but if it cannot do so and has to depend entirely on grazing for a living its life becomes precarious and is apt to be sacrificed in the "struggle for the survival of the fittest." If it survives the ordeal and lives it bears the same relation to the herd as the maverick and has no lawful owner until it is branded. If an unbranded calf has left or lost its mother it has lost its identity as well and finds it again only after being branded, although it may have swapped owners in the process. Theoretically, a maverick belongs to the owner of the range on which it runs, but, practically, it becomes the property of the man who first finds and brands it. Although the branding is supposed to be done only during a round-up there is nevertheless some branding done in every month of the year. The ranchman is compelled to do so to save his calves from being stolen. Therefore early branding is generally practiced as it has been found to be the best safeguard against theft. Either the spring or fall is considered a good time to brand, but the only best time to brand a calf is when you find it. Dishonest men are found in the cattle business the same as in other occupations and every year a large number of cattle are misappropriated and stolen from the range. Cattle have been stolen by the wholesale and large herds run off and illegally sold before the owner discovered his loss. Calf stealing, however, happens more frequently than the stealing of grown cattle and many ingenious devices have been invented to make such stealing a success. A common practice is to "sleeper" a calf by a partial earmark and a shallow brand that only singes the hair but does not burn deep enough to leave a permanent scar. If the calf is not discovered as an imperfect or irregular brand and becomes a maverick, it is kept under surveillance by the thief until he considers it safe to finish the job when he catches it again and brands it with his own iron. Different methods are employed to win a calf and fit it for unlawful branding. Sometimes the calf is caught and staked out in some secluded spot where it is not liable to be found and away from its mother until it is nearly starved when it is branded by the thief and turned loose; or, the calf's tongue is split so that it cannot suck and by the time that the wounded tongue has healed the calf has lost its mother, and the thief brands it for himself. Again, the mother cow is shot and killed, when the orphan calf is branded in perfect safety as "the dead tell no tales." The owner of cattle on the open range must be constantly on his guard against losses by theft. Usually the thief is a dishonest neighbor or one of his own cowboys who becomes thrifty at his employer's expense. Many a herd of cattle was begun without a single cow, but was started by branding surreptitiously other people's property. It is not an easy matter to detect such a thief or to convict on evidence when he is arrested and brought to trial. A cattle thief seldom works alone, but associates himself with others of his kind who will perjure themselves to swear each other clear. The cow ponies that are used in range work are small but active and possessed of great power of endurance. They are the descendants of the horses that were brought into Mexico by the Spaniards, some of which escaped into the wilderness and their increase became the wild horses of the plains. They are known by the various names of mustang, bronco and cayuse according to the local vernacular of the country in which they roam. They are wild and hard to conquer and are sometimes never fully broken even under the severest treatment. Bucking and pitching are their peculiar tricks for throwing a rider and such an experience invariably ends in discomfort if not discomfiture, for if the rider is not unhorsed he at least receives a severe shaking up in the saddle. The native cattle, like the horses, are small and wild, but are hardy and make good rustlers. The native stock has been greatly improved in recent years by cross breeding with thoroughbred Durham and Hereford bulls. Grade cattle are better suited for the open range than are pure bred animals, which are more tender and fare better in fenced pastures. By cross breeding the quality of range cattle has steadily improved until the scrub element has been almost bred out. As a breeding ground Arizona is unsurpassed, but for maturing beef cattle the northern country is preferable. Thousands of young cattle are shipped out annually to stock the ranges of Wyoming and Montana and to fill the feed lots of Kansas, Missouri and other feeding states. A dash of native blood in range cattle is desirable as it enables them to endure hardships without injury and find subsistence in seasons of drought and scant forage. The general round-up occurs in the fall, just after the summer rains, when there is plenty of grass and the horses and cattle are in good condition. The ranchmen of a neighborhood meet at an appointed time and place and organize for systematic work. A captain is chosen who is in command of the round-up and must be obeyed. Each cowboy has his own string of horses, but all of the horses of the round-up not in use are turned out to graze and herd together. A mess wagon and team of horses in charge of a driver, who is also the cook, hauls the outfit of pots, provisions and bedding. The round-up moves from ranch to ranch rounding up and marking the cattle as it goes and is out from four to six weeks, according to the number of ranches that are included in the circuit. When camp is made and everything ready for work the cowboys ride out in different directions and drive in all the cattle they can find. After the cattle are all gathered the calves are branded and the cattle of the several owners are cut into separate herds and held until the round-up is finished when they are driven home. Every unbranded calf is caught and branded in its mother's brand. In a mix-up of cattle as occurs at a round-up, a calf sometimes gets separated from its mother so that when caught its identity is uncertain. To avoid making a mistake the calf is only slightly marked, just enough to hurt it a little, and is then turned loose. A calf when it is hurt is very much like a child, in that it cries and wants its mamma. As quick as it is let go it immediately hunts its mother and never fails to find her. When cow and calf have come together the calf is again caught and the branding finished. The pain produced by the hot branding iron makes the calf bawl lustily and struggle to free itself. The mother cow sometimes resents the punishment of her offspring by charging and chasing the men who are doing the branding; or, if she is of a less fiery disposition, shows her displeasure by a look of reproach as much as to say, "You bad men, what have you done to hurt my little darling?" A peculiarity of brands is that they do not all grow alike. Sometimes a brand, after it is healed, remains unchanged during the life of the animal. At other times it enlarges to several times its original size. Various reasons are assigned to account for this difference. Some claim that the brand only grows with the calf; others assert that it is due to deep branding; and, again, it is ascribed to lunar influence. But, as to the real cause of the difference, no explanation has been given that really explains the phenomenon. The cowboy's work is nearly all done in the saddle and calls for much hard riding. He rides like a Centaur, but is clumsy on his feet. Being so much in the saddle his walking muscles become weakened, and his legs pressing against the body of his horse, in time, makes him bowlegged. In addition he wears high-heeled Mexican boots which throw him on his toes when he walks and makes his already shambling gait even more awkward. A cowboy's life has little in it to inspire him with high ideals or arouse his ambition to achieve greatness. He leads a hard life among rough men and receives only coarse fare and rougher treatment. His life is narrow and he works in a rut that prevents him from taking a broad view of life. All that he has is his monthly wages, and, possibly, a hope that at some future day he may have a herd of cattle of his own. Managing a herd of range cattle successfully is an art that can only be acquired by long practice, and it is surprising how expert men can become at that business. All the work done among cattle is on horseback, which includes herding, driving, cutting and roping. The trained cow pony seemingly knows as much about a round-up as his master, and the two, together, form a combination that is invincible in a herd of wild cattle. The cow or steer that is selected to be roped or cut out rarely escapes. While the horse is in hot pursuit the rider dexterously whirls his reata above his head until, at a favorable moment, it leaves his hand, uncoiling as it flies through the air, and, if the throw is successful, the noose falls over the animal's head. Suddenly the horse comes to a full stop and braces himself for the shock. When the animal caught reaches the end of the rope it is brought to an abrupt halt and tumbled in a heap on the ground. The horse stands braced pulling on the rope which has been made fast to the horn of the saddle by a few skillful turns. The cowboy is out of the saddle and on his feet in a jiffy. He grasps the prostrate animal by the tail and a hind leg, throws it on its side, and ties its four feet together, so that it is helpless and ready for branding or inspection. The cowboys have tying contests in which a steer is sometimes caught and tied in less time than a minute. It is a comical sight to see an unhorsed cowboy chase his runaway horse on foot as he is almost sure to do if caught in such a predicament. He ought to know that he cannot outrun his fleet steed in such a race, but seems to be impelled by some strange impulse to make the attempt. After he has run himself out of breath he is liable to realize the folly of his zeal and adopt a more sensible method for capturing his horse. The cowboy who works on the southwestern range has good cause to fear the malodorous hydrophobia skunk. At a round-up all of the cowboys sleep on the ground. During the night, while they are asleep, the little black and white cat-like animal forages through the camp for something to eat. Without provocation the skunk will attack the sleeper and fasten its sharp teeth in some exposed portion of his anatomy, either the nose or a finger or toe and will not let go until it is killed or forcibly removed. The wound thus made usually heals quickly and the incident is, perhaps, soon forgotten; but after several weeks or months hydrophobia suddenly develops and proves fatal in a short time. The only known cure for the bite of the skunk is the Pasteur treatment and, since its discovery, as soon as anyone is bitten, he is immediately sent to the Pasteur Institute in Chicago for treatment. CHAPTER VI RANCH HAPPENINGS Ranch life is often full of thrilling incidents and adventures. The cowboy in his travels about the country looking after cattle, hunting wild game or, in turn, being hunted by yet wilder Indians, finds plenty of novelty and excitement to break any fancied monotony which might be considered as belonging to ranch life. In a number of visits to the range country during the past twenty years, the writer has had an opportunity to observe life on a ranch, and experience some of its exciting adventures. One day in the summer of 1891, Dave Drew, our foreman, Tedrow, one of the cowboys, and myself, made a trip into East Canon in the Dos Cabezas mountains, in search of some large unbranded calves which had been seen running there. We rode leisurely along for some time and passed several small bunches of cattle without finding what we were looking for. As we neared a bend in the canon, Dave, who rode in advance, saw some cattle lying in the shade of a grove of live oak trees. Instantly he spurred his horse into a run and chased after the cattle at full speed, at the same time looking back and shouting that he saw two mavericks and for us to hurry up and help catch them. It was a bad piece of ground to cover and we found it difficult to make progress or to even keep each other in sight. Tedrow hurried up as fast as he could while I brought up the rear. In trying to get through in the direction that Dave had gone, we tried to make a short cut in order to gain time, but soon found our way completely blocked by immense boulders and dense thickets of cat-claw bushes, which is a variety of mesquite covered with strong, sharp, curved thorns. We turned back to find a better road and after some time spent in hunting an opening we discovered a dim trail which soon led us into a natural park of level ground hidden among the foothills. Here we found Dave who alone had caught and tied down both the calves and was preparing to start a fire to heat the branding irons. What he had done seemed like magic and was entirely incomprehensible to an inexperienced tenderfoot. Dave explained afterwards that to be successful in such a race much depended on taking the cattle by surprise, and then by a quick, bold dash start them running up the mountain, when it was possible to overtake and rope them; but if once started to running down hill it was not only unsafe to follow on horseback but in any event the cattle were certain to escape. Taking them by surprise seemed to bewilder them and before they could collect their scattered senses, so to speak, and scamper off, the work of capture was done. Another adventure, which did not end so fortunately for met happened in the fall of I 887 when the country was yet comparatively new to the cattle business. I rode out one day in company with a cowboy to look after strays and, incidentally, to watch for any game that might chance to cross our path. We rode through seemingly endless meadows of fine gramma grass and saw the sleek cattle feeding on plenty and enjoying perfect contentment. Game, also, seemed to be abundant but very shy and as we were not particularly hunting that kind of stock, we forebore giving chase or firing at long range. After riding about among the hills back of the Pinaleno ranch and not finding anything we concluded to return home. On starting back we separated and took different routes, going by two parallel ravines in order to cover more ground in our search. I had not gone far until I found the cattle we were looking for going to water on the home trail. Jogging on slowly after them and enjoying the beauty of the landscape, I unexpectedly caught a glimpse of a deer lying down under a mesquite tree on the brow of a distant hill. I was in plain sight of the deer, which was either asleep or heedless of danger as it paid no attention whatever to my presence. Deer and antelope soon become accustomed to horses and cattle and often mix and feed familiarly with the stock grazing on the open range. The deer did not change its position as I quietly rode by and out of sight behind the hill. There I dismounted and stalked the quarry on foot, cautiously making my way up the side of the hill to a point where I would be within easy shooting distance. As I stood up to locate the deer it jumped to its feet and was ready to make off, but before it could start a shot from my Winchester put a bullet through its head, and it scarcely moved after it fell. The deer was in good condition and replenished our depleted ranch larder with some choice venison steaks. The head, also, was a fine one the horns being just out of velvet and each antler five pointed, was saved and mounted. The shot and my lusty halloo soon brought my cowboy friend to the spot. Together we eviscerated the animal and prepared to pack it to camp on my horse. As we were lifting it upon his back the bronco gave a vicious kick which hit me in the left knee and knocked me down. The blow, though severe, glanced off so that no bone was broken. What made the horse kick was a mystery as he was considered safe and had carried deer on other occasions. But a bronco, like a mule, is never altogether reliable, particularly as to the action of its heels. With some delay in getting started and in somewhat of a demoralized condition we mounted and rode home. Soon after the accident I had a chill which was followed by a fever and there was much pain and swelling in the knee that was hit. A ranch house, if it happens to be a "stag camp" as ours was, is a cheerless place in which to be sick, but everything considered, I was fortunate in that it was not worse. By the liberal use of hot water and such other simples as the place afforded I was soon better; but not until after several months' treatment at home did the injured knee fully recover its normal condition. The excitement of running cattle or hunting game on the open range in those days was mild in comparison to the panicky feeling which prevailed during every Indian outbreak. The experience of many years had taught the people of Arizona what to expect at such a time and the utter diabolical wickedness of the Apaches when out on the warpath. During the early eighties many such raids occurred which were accompanied by all the usual horrors of brutality and outrage of which the Apaches are capable. When it became known in the fall of 1885 that Geronimo was again off the reservation and out on another one of his bloody raids the people became panic-stricken. Some left the Territory until such time when the Indian question would be settled and the Government could guarantee freedom from Indian depredations. Those who remained either fled to some near town or fort for protection, or prepared to defend themselves in their own homes as best they could. What else could the settlers in a new country do? They had everything invested in either mines or cattle and could not afford to leave their property without making some effort to save it even if it had to be done at the risk of their own lives. They had no means of knowing when or where the stealthy Apaches would strike and could only wait for the time in uncertainty and suspense. Many who were in this uncomfortable predicament managed to escape any harm, but others fell victims to savage hatred whose death knell was sounded in the crack of the deadly rifle. Some personal experiences may help to illustrate this feeling of panic, as I happened to be at the ranch during the time and know how it was myself. One day in the month of October, 1885, while Geronimo was making his raid through southern Arizona, my brother and I rode through Railroad Pass from Pinaleno ranch to the Lorentz Place, a distance of fifteen miles. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon that we ascended to the top of a hill to take observations and see if anything was happening out of the ordinary. We saw nothing unusual until we were about to leave when we noticed somewhat of a commotion on the old Willcox and Bowie wagon road which parallels the Southern Pacific track. The distance was too great to see distinctly with the naked eye, but looking through our field glasses, which we always carried when out riding, we could plainly see three loaded wagons standing in the road. The drivers had evidently unhitched their teams and, mounted upon the horses' backs, were riding furiously in a cloud of dust down the road towards Bowie. I asked the judge, who was a resident and supposed to be familiar with the customs of the country while I was only a tenderfoot, what their actions meant. He admitted that he did not understand their conduct unless it was that they had concluded that they could not make Willcox on that day and were returning to some favorable camp ground which they had passed on their way up, to spend the night; but the manner of their going was certainly peculiar. After watching them disappear down the road we rode on and reached our destination in safety. The incident was forgotten until a few days later when we were in Willcox a friend inquired what had become of the Indians which had lately been seen on our range. We replied that we had not seen any Indians nor known of any that had been there. He then related to us how only a few days before three freighters had seen two Indians ride upon a hill and halt. The sight of Indians was enough and their only care after that was to get away from them. They quickly unhitched their horses from the wagons and rode ten miles to Bowie where they gave the alarm and spent the night. The next morning, having heard nothing more from the Indians during the night, they took fresh courage and ventured to return to their wagons, which they found as they had left them unmolested, when they continued their journey. When the freighters were asked why they did not stand off the Indians they said that they only had one gun and not knowing how many more redskins there might be decided that to retreat was the better part of valor. It was my brother and I whom they had seen and mistaken for Indians. A few days after this event I had a similar scare of my own and after it was over I could sympathize with the poor, frightened freighters. I was alone at the ranch house packing up and preparing to leave for home. While thus occupied I chanced to go to the open door and looking out, to my dismay, I saw Indians. "My heart jumped into my mouth" and for a moment I felt that my time had surely come. Two men were seen riding horseback over the foot hills followed by a pack animal. As I stood watching them and took time to think, it occurred to me that I might be mistaken, and that the men were not Indians after all. As they drew nearer I saw that they were dressed like white men and, therefore, could not be Indians; but my scare while it lasted was painfully real. The men proved to be two neighboring ranchmen who were out looking for lost cattle. In this raid, the Apaches, after leaving their reservation in the White mountains, traveled south along the Arizona and New Mexico line, killing people as they went, until they reached Stein's Pass. From there they turned west, crossed the San Simon valley and disappeared in the Chiricahua mountains. When next seen they had crossed over the mountains and attacked Riggs' ranch in Pinery canon, where they wounded a woman, but were driven off. The next place that they visited was the Sulphur Spring ranch of the Chiricahua Cattle Company, where they stole a bunch of horses. The cowboys at the ranch had received warning that there were Indians about and had brought in the horse herd from the range and locked them in the corral. The Apaches came in the night and with their usual adroitness and cunning stole the corral empty. The first intimation which the inmates had that the ranch had been robbed was when the cowboys went in the morning to get their horses they found them gone. From the Sulphur Spring ranch they crossed the Sulphur Spring valley in the direction of Cochise's stronghold in the Dragoon mountains. Before reaching the mountains they passed Mike Noonan's ranch where they shot its owner, who was a lone rancher and had lived alone in the valley many years. He was found dead in his door yard with a bullet hole in the back of his head. He evidently did not know that the Indians were near and was seemingly unconscious of any danger when he was killed. The Indians were not seen again after entering the stronghold until they crossed the line into Mexico, where they were pursued by United States soldiers. After a long, stern chase Geronimo surrendered himself and followers to General Miles, who brought them back to Arizona. As prisoners they were all loaded into cars at Bowie and taken to Florida. The general in command thought it best to take them clear out of the country in order to put an effectual stop to their marauding. Later they were removed to the Indian Territory where they now live. The rest of the Apaches remain in Arizona and live on the San Carlos reservation on the Gila river where they are being inducted into civilization. Since the disturbing element among them has been removed there has been no more trouble. They seem to have settled down with a sincere purpose to learn the white man's way and are quiet and peaceable. They are laborers, farmers and stockmen and are making rapid progress in their new life. CHAPTER VII A MODEL RANCH Any one who has been in Arizona and failed to visit the Sierra Bonita ranch missed seeing a model ranch. Henry C. Hooker, the owner of this splendid property, was born in New England and is a typical Yankee, who early emigrated west and has spent most of his life on the frontier. He went to Arizona at the close of the Civil War and engaged in contracting for the Government and furnishing supplies to the army. It was before the days of railroads when all merchandise was hauled overland in wagons and cattle were driven through on foot. He outfitted at points in Texas and on the Rio Grande and drove his cattle and wagons over hundreds of miles of desert road through a country that was infested by hostile Indians. Such a wild life was naturally full of adventures and involved much hardship and danger. The venture, however, prospered and proved a financial success, notwithstanding some losses in men killed, wagons pillaged and cattle driven off and lost by bands of marauding Apaches. In his travels he saw the advantages that Arizona offered as a grazing country, which decided him to locate a ranch and engage in the range cattle business. The ranch derives its name from the Graham or Pinaleno mountains which the Indians called the Sierra Bonita because of the many beautiful wild flowers that grow there. It is twenty miles north of Willcox, a thriving village on the Southern Pacific Railroad, and ten miles south of Ft. Grant, that nestles in a grove of cotton trees at the foot of Mt. Graham, the noblest mountain in southern Arizona. The Sierra Bonita ranch is situated in the famous Sulphur Spring valley in Cochise County, Arizona, which is, perhaps, the only all grass valley in the Territory. The valley is about twenty miles wide and more than one hundred miles long and extends into Mexico. Its waters drain in opposite directions, part flowing south into the Yaqui river, and part running north through the Aravaipa Canon into the Gila and Colorado rivers, all to meet and mingle again in the Gulf of California. Fine gramma grass covers the entire valley and an underground river furnishes an inexhaustible supply of good water. In the early days of overland travel before the country was protected or any of its resources were known, immigrants, who were bound for California by the Southern route and ignorant of the near presence of water, nearly perished from thirst while crossing the valley. The water rises to within a few feet of the surface and, since its discovery, numerous wells have been dug and windmills and ranch houses dot the landscape in all directions; while thousands of cattle feed and fatten on the nutritious gramma grass. Its altitude is about four thousand feet above the sea and the climate is exceptionally fine. The Sierra Bonita ranch is located on a natural cienega of moist land that has been considerably enlarged by artificial means. In an average year the natural water supply of the ranch is sufficient for all purposes but, to guard against any possible shortage in a dry year, water is brought from the mountains in ditches that have been constructed at great labor and expense and is stored in reservoirs, to be used as needed for watering the cattle and irrigating the fields. The effect of water upon the desert soil is almost magical and even though the rains fail and the earth be parched, on the moist land of the cienega the fields of waving grass and grain are perennially green. The owner has acquired by location and purchase, title to several thousand acres of land, that is all fenced and much of it highly cultivated. It consists of a strip of land one mile wide and ten miles long, which is doubly valuable because of its productiveness and as the key that controls a fine open range. The original herd of cattle that pastured on the Sierra Bonita ranch thirty years ago was composed of native scrub stock from Texas and Sonora. This undesirable stock was sold at the first opportunity, and the range re-stocked by an improved grade of Durham cattle. The change was a long stride in the direction of improvement, but, later on, another change was made to Herefords, and during recent years only whitefaces have been bred upon the ranch. Col. Hooker has a strong personality, holds decided opinions and believes in progress and improvement. He has spent much time and money in experimental work, and his success has demonstrated the wisdom of his course. Just such men are needed in every new country to develop its resources and prove its worth. He saw that the primitive methods of ranching then in vogue must be improved, and began to prepare for the change which was coming. What he predicted came to pass, and the days of large herds on the open range are numbered. Many of them have already been sold or divided up, and it is a question Of only a short time when the rest will meet the same fate. When this is done there may be no fewer cattle than there are now but they will be bunched in smaller herds and better cared for. Scrubs of any kind are always undesirable, since it has been proved that quality is more profitable than quantity. A small herd is more easily handled, and there is less danger of loss from straying or stealing. The common method of running cattle on the open range is reckless and wasteful in the extreme and entirely inexcusable. The cattle are simply turned loose to rustle for themselves. No provision whatever is made for their welfare, except that they are given the freedom of the range to find water, if they can, and grass that often affords them only scant picking. Under the new regime the cattle are carefully fed and watered, if need be in a fenced enclosure, that not only gives the cattle humane treatment but also makes money for the owner. The men are instructed to bring in every sick or weak animal found on the range and put it into a corral or pasture, where it is nursed back to life. If an orphan calf is found that is in danger of starving it is picked up, carried home and fed. On the average ranch foundlings and weaklings get no attention whatever, but are left in their misery to pine away and perish from neglect. The profit of caring for the weak and sick animals on the Sierra Bonita ranch amounts to a large sum every year, which the owner thinks is worth saving. Another peculiarity of ranch life is that where there are hundreds or, perhaps, thousands of cows in a herd, not a single cow is milked, nor is a cup of milk or pound of butter ever seen upon the ranch table. It is altogether different on Hooker's ranch. There is a separate herd of milch cows in charge of a man whose duty it is to keep the table supplied with plenty of fresh milk and butter. No milk ever goes to waste. If there is a surplus it is fed to the calves, pigs and poultry. During the branding season the work of the round-up is all done in corrals instead of, as formerly, out upon the open range. Each calf after it is branded, if it is old and strong enough to wean, is taken from the cow and turned into a separate pasture. It prevents the weak mother cow from being dragged to death by a strong sucking calf and saves the pampered calf from dying of blackleg by a timely change of diet. Instead of classing the cattle out on the open range as is the usual custom, by an original system of corrals, gates and chutes the cattle are much more easily and quickly classified without any cruelty or injury inflicted upon either man or beast. Classing cattle at a round-up by the old method is a hard and often cruel process, that requires a small army of both men and horses and is always rough and severe on the men, horses and cattle. Besides the herds of sleek cattle, there are also horses galore, enough to do all of the work on the ranch as well as for pleasure riding and driving. There is likewise a kennel of fine greyhounds that are the Colonel's special pride. His cattle, horses and dogs are all of the best, as he believes in thoroughbreds and has no use whatever for scrubs of either the human or brute kind. The dogs are fond of their master and lavish their caresses on him with almost human affection. In the morning when they meet him at the door Ketchum pokes his nose into one of his master's half open hands and Killum performs the same act with the other hand. Blackie nips him playfully on the leg while Dash and the rest of the pack race about like mad, trying to express the exuberance of their joy. In the bunch is little Bob, the fox terrier, who tries hard but is not always able to keep up with the hounds in a race. He is active and gets over the ground lively for a small dog, but in a long chase is completely distanced and outclassed to his apparent disgust. Aside from the fine sport that the dogs afford, they are useful in keeping the place clear of all kinds of "varmints" such as coyotes, skunks and wild cats. How much Col. Hooker appreciates his dogs is best illustrated by an incident. One morning after greeting the dogs at the door, he was heard to remark sotto voce. "Well, if everybody on the ranch is cross, my dogs always greet me with a smile." There appears to be much in the dog as well as in the horse that is human, and the trio are capable of forming attachments for each other that only death can part. The ranch house is a one-story adobe structure built in the Spanish style of a rectangle, with all the doors opening upon a central court. It is large and commodious, is elegantly furnished and supplied with every modern convenience. It affords every needed comfort for a family and is in striking contrast with the common ranch house of the range that is minus every luxury and often barely furnishes the necessaries of life. CHAPTER VIII SOME DESERT PLANTS Much of the vegetation that is indigenous to the southwest is unique and can only be seen at its best in the Gila valley in southern Arizona. The locality indicated is in the arid zone and is extremely hot and dry. Under such conditions it is but natural to suppose that all plant life must necessarily be scant and dwarfed, but such is not the fact. Upon the contrary many of the plants that are native to the soil and adapted to the climate grow luxuriantly, are remarkably succulent and perennially green. How they manage to acquire so much sap amidst the surrounding siccity is inexplicable, unless it is that they possess the function of absorbing and condensing moisture by an unusual and unknown method. It is, however, a beneficent provision of nature as a protection against famine in a droughty land by furnishing in an acceptable form, refreshing juice and nutritious pulp to supply the pressing wants of hungry and thirsty man and beast in time of need. Another peculiarity of these plants is that they are acanaceous; covered all over with sharp thorns and needles. Spikes of all sorts and sizes bristle everywhere and admonish the tenderfoot to beware. Guarded by an impenetrable armor of prickly mail they defy encroachment and successfully repel all attempts at undue familiarity. To be torn by a cat-claw thorn or impaled on a stout dagger leaf of one of these plants would not only mean painful laceration but, perhaps, serious or even fatal injury. Notwithstanding their formidable and forbidding appearance they are nevertheless attractive and possess some value either medicinal, commercial or ornamental. The maguey, or American aloe, is the most abundant and widely distributed of the native plants. It is commonly known as mescal, but is also called the century plant from a mistaken notion that it blossoms only once in a hundred years. Its average life, under normal conditions, is about ten years and it dies immediately after blossoming. It attains its greatest perfection in the interior of Mexico where it is extensively cultivated. It yields a large quantity of sap which is, by a simple process of fermentation, converted into a liquor called pulque that tastes best while it is new and is consumed in large quantities by the populace. Pulque trains are run daily from the mescal plantations, where the pulque is made, into the large cities to supply the bibulous inhabitants with their customary beverage. In strength and effect it resembles lager beer, and is the popular drink with all classes throughout Mexico where it has been in vogue for centuries and is esteemed as "the only drink fit for thirsty angels and men." The agave is capable of being applied to many domestic uses. Under the old dispensation of Indian supremacy it supplied the natives their principal means of support. Its sap was variously prepared and served as milk, honey, vinegar, beer and brandy. From its tough fiber were made thread, rope, cloth, shoes and paper. The strong flower stalk was used in building houses and the broad leaves for covering them. The heart of the maguey is saccharine and rich in nutriment. It is prepared by roasting it in a mescal pit and, when done, tastes much like baked squash. It is highly prized by the Indians, who use it as their daily bread. Before the Apaches were conquered and herded on reservations a mescal bake was an important event with them. It meant the gathering of the clans and was made the occasion of much feasting and festivity. Old mescal pits can yet be found in some of the secluded corners of the Apache country that were once the scenes of noisy activity, but have been forsaken and silent for many years. The fiery mescal, a distilled liquor that is known to the trade as aguardiente, or Mexican brandy, is much stronger than pulque, but less used. Both liquors are said to be medicinal, and are reputed to possess diuretic, tonic and stimulant properties. Next in importance to the mescal comes the yucca. There are several varieties, but the palm yucca is the most common, and under favorable conditions attains to the proportions of a tree. Fine specimens of yucca grow on the Mojave desert in California that are large and numerous enough to form a straggling forest. The tree consists of a light, spongy wood that grows as a single stem or divides into two or more branches. Each branch is crowned by a tuft of long, pointed leaves that grow in concentric circles. As the new leaves unfold on top the old leaves are crowded down and hang in loose folds about the stem like a flounced skirt. When dry the leaves burn readily, and are sometimes used for light and heat by lost or belated travelers. White threads of a finer fiber are detached from the margins of the leaves that are blown by the wind into a fluffy fleece, in which the little birds love to nest. A grove of yucca trees presents a grotesque appearance. If indistinctly viewed in the hazy distance they are easily mistaken for the plumed topknots of a band of prowling Apaches, particularly if the imagination is active with the fear of an Indian outbreak. The wood of the yucca tree has a commercial value. It is cut into thin sheets by machinery which are used for surgeon's splints, hygienic insoles, tree protectors and calendars. As a splint it answers an admirable purpose, being both light and strong and capable of being molded into any shape desired after it has been immersed in hot water. Its pulp, also, makes an excellent paper. Another variety of yucca is the amole, or soap plant. Owing to the peculiar shape of its leaves it is also called Spanish bayonet. Its root is saponaceous, and is pounded into a pulp and used instead of soap by the natives. It grows a bunch of large white flowers, and matures an edible fruit that resembles the banana. The Indians call it oosa, and eat it, either raw or roasted in hot ashes. A species of yucca called sotal, or saw-grass, grows plentifully in places, and is sometimes used as food for cattle when grass is scarce. In its natural state it is inaccessible to cattle because of its hard and thorny exterior. To make it available it is cut down and quartered with a hoe, when the hungry cattle eat it with avidity. Where the plant grows thickly one man can cut enough in one day to feed several hundred head of cattle. There are several other varieties of yucca that possess no particular value, but all are handsome bloomers, and the mass of white flowers which unfold during the season of efflorescence adds much to the beauty of the landscape. The prickly pear cactus, or Indian fig, of the genus Opuntia is a common as well as a numerous family. The soil and climate of the southwest from Texas to California seem to be just to its liking. It grows rank and often forms dense thickets. The root is a tough wood from which, it is said, the best Mexican saddletrees are made. The plant consists of an aggregation of thick, flat, oval leaves, which are joined together by narrow bands of woody fiber and covered with bundles of fine, sharp needles. Its pulp is nutritious and cattle like the young leaves, but will not eat them after they become old and hard unless driven to do so by the pangs of hunger. In Texas the plant is gathered in large quantities and ground into a fine pulp by machinery which is then mixed with cotton-seed meal and fed to cattle. The mixture makes a valuable fattening ration and is used for finishing beef steers for the market. The cholla, or cane cactus, is also a species of Opuntia, but its stem or leaf is long and round instead of short and flat. It is thickly covered with long, fine, silvery-white needles that glisten in the sun. Its stem is hollow and filled with a white pith like the elder. After the prickly bark is stripped off the punk can be picked out through the fenestra with a penknife, which occupation affords pleasant pastime for a leisure hour. When thus furbished up the unsightly club becomes an elegant walking stick. The cholla is not a pleasant companion as all persons know who have had any experience with it. Its needles are not only very sharp, but also finely barbed, and they penetrate and cling fast like a burr the moment that they are touched. Cowboys profess to believe that the plant has some kind of sense as they say that it jumps and takes hold of its victim before it is touched. This action, however, is only true in the seeming, as its long transparent needles, being invisible, are touched before they are seen. When they catch hold of a moving object, be it horse or cowboy, an impulse is imparted to the plant that makes it seem to jump. It is an uncanny movement and is something more than an ocular illusion, as the victim is ready to testify. These desert plants do not ordinarily furnish forage for live stock, but in a season of drought when other feed is scarce and cattle are starving they will risk having their mouths pricked by thorns in order to get something to eat and will browse on mescal, yucca and cactus and find some nourishment in the unusual diet, enough, at least, to keep them from dying. The plants mentioned are not nearly as plentiful now as they once were. Because of the prolonged droughts that prevail in the range country and the overstocking of the range these plants are in danger of being exterminated and, if the conditions do not soon change, of becoming extinct. The saguaro, or giant cactus, is one of nature's rare and curious productions. It is a large, round, fluted column that is from one to two feet thick and sometimes sixty feet high. The trunk is nearly of an even thickness from top to bottom but, if there is any difference, it is a trifle thicker in the middle. It usually stands alone as a single perpendicular column, but is also found bunched in groups. If it has any branches they are apt to start at right angles from about the middle of the tree and curve upward, paralleling the trunk, which form gives it the appearance of a mammoth candelabrum. The single saguaro pillar bears a striking resemblance to a Corinthian column. As everything in art is an attempt to imitate something in nature, is it possible that Grecian architecture borrowed its notable pattern from the Gila valley? Southern Arizona is the natural home and exclusive habitat of this most singular and interesting plant and is, perhaps, the only thing growing anywhere that could have suggested the design. Wherever it grows, it is a conspicuous object on the landscape and has been appropriately named "The Sentinel of the Desert." Its mammoth body is supported by a skeleton of wooden ribs, which are held in position by a mesh of tough fibers that is filled with a green pulp. Rows of thorns extend its entire length which are resinous and, if ignited, burn with a bright flame. They are sometimes set on fire and have been used by the Apaches for making signals. The cactus tree, like the eastern forest tree, is often found bored full of round, holes that are made by the Gila woodpecker. When the tree dies its pulp dries up and blows away and there remains standing only a spectral figure composed of white slats and fiber that looks ghostly in the distance. Its fruit is delicious and has the flavor of the fig and strawberry combined. It is dislodged by the greedy birds which feed on it and by arrows shot from bows in the hands of the Indians. The natives esteem the fruit as a great delicacy, and use it both fresh and dried and in the form of a treacle or preserve. The ocotillo, or mountain cactus, is a handsome shrub that grows in rocky soil upon the foothills and consists of a cluster of nearly straight poles of brittle wood covered with thorns and leaves. It blossoms during the early summer and each branch bears on its crest a bunch of bright crimson flowers. If set in a row the plant makes an ornamental hedge and effective fence for turning stock. The seemingly dry sticks are thrust into yet drier ground where they take root and grow without water. Its bark is resinous and a fagot of dry sticks makes a torch that is equal to a pineknot. The echinocactus, or bisnaga, is also called "The Well of the Desert." It has a large barrel-shaped body which is covered with long spikes that are curved like fishhooks. It is full of sap that is sometimes used to quench thirst. By cutting off the top and scooping out a hollow, the cup-shaped hole soon fills with a sap that is not exactly nectar but can be drunk in an emergency. Men who have been in danger of perishing from thirst on the desert have sometimes been saved by this unique method of well digging. Greasewood, or creasote bush as it is sometimes called on account of its pungent odor, grows freely on the desert, but has little or no value and cattle will not touch it. Like many other desert plants it is resinous and if thrown into the fire, the green leaves spit and sputter while they burn like hot grease in a frying pan. The mesquite tree is peculiarly adapted to the desert and is the most valuable tree that grows in the southwest. As found growing on the dry mesas of Arizona, it is only a small bush, but on the moist land of a river bottom it becomes a large forest tree. A mesquite forest stands in the Santa Cruz valley south of Tucson that is a fair sample of its growth under favorable conditions. Its wood is hard and fine grained and polishes beautifully. It is very durable and is valuable for lumber, fence posts and firewood. On the dry mesas it seems to go mostly to root that is out of all proportion to the size of the tree. The amount of firewood that is sometimes obtained by digging up the root of a small mesquite bush is astonishing. It makes a handsome and ornamental shade tree, having graceful branches, feathery leaves and fragrant flowers, and could be cultivated to advantage for yard and park purposes. Its principal value, however, lies in its seed pods, which grow in clusters and look like string beans. The mesquite bean furnishes a superior article of food and feeds about everything that either walks or flies on the desert. The Indians make meal of the seed and bake it into bread. Cattle that feed on the open range will leave good grass to browse on a mesquite bush. Even as carnivorous a creature as the coyote will make a full meal on a mess of mesquite beans and seem to be satisfied. The tree exudes a gum that is equal to the gum arabic of commerce. The palo verde is a tree without leaves and is a true child of the desert. No matter how hot and dry the weather the palo verde is always green and flourishing. At a distance it resembles a weeping willow tree stripped of its leaves. Its numerous long, slender, drooping branches gracefully criss-cross and interlace in an intricate figure of filigree work. It has no commercial value, but if it could be successfully transplanted and transported it would make a desirable addition to green-house collections in the higher latitudes. The romantic mistletoe that is world renowned for its magic influence in love affairs, grows to perfection in southern Arizona. There are several varieties of this parasitic plant that are very unlike in appearance. Each kind partakes more or less of the characteristics of the tree upon which it grows, but all have the glossy leaf and waxen berry. CHAPTER IX HOOKER'S HOT SPRINGS Arizona has several hot springs within her borders but, perhaps, none are more valuable nor picturesquely located than Hooker's hot springs. These springs are located in the foothills on the western slope of the Galiura mountains in southeastern Arizona, thirty-five miles west of Willcox on the Southern Pacific Railroad. The spot is beautifully situated, commanding an extended view of valley and mountain scenery. There are a dozen springs, big and little, in the group and are scattered over several acres of hillside. The temperature of the water is 130 degrees Fahrenheit and too hot to drink but, if sipped slowly, it makes an admirable hot-water draught. The springs evidently have their source deep down in the earth and the flow of water never varies. When the water from the different springs is all united it forms a good sized brook. The water is conducted through pipes into the bath house, where it supplies a row of bath-tubs with water of any desired temperature. The surplus water flows into a large earthern tank or artificial lake and is used for irrigating a small farm that produces grain, fruits and vegetables. The water from these springs is in great demand and is not only sought by the human biped, but is also in favor with the equine quadruped. Every morning after the stable doors are thrown open and the horses turned loose they invariably, of their own accord, proceed to the lake, wade out into shallow water and take a bath. They lie down and splash the water about like a lot of schoolboys taking a swim. The water from all the springs is perfectly soft and pure. It cannot be called a mineral water, as an analysis shows that it contains only a trace of any kind of mineral matter. This peculiarity of the water is no damage to the springs, since purity is the best recommendation that any water can have. Water that is heavily mineralized may be medicinal, but is not necessarily remedial, or even wholesome, notwithstanding the popular belief to the contrary. Water that is charged with much mineral is spoiled for drinking. Moderately hard water need not be injurious to anybody, but is especially beneficial to children. The assimilative function in the child appropriates mineral water tardily and sometimes absorbs it altogether too slowly for the child's good. Its absence in the system causes a disease called rickets, in which, from all lack of lime, the bones of the child become soft and yielding. The bones of a rickety child will bend rather than break. It is slow to walk and inclines to become bow-legged. It is entirely different in old age. As the years multiply the system absorbs an abnormal and ever increasing amount of calcareous matter. The bones become unduly hard and brittle and are easily broken. Bony matter is liable to be deposited in and about the joints, when they become stiff and painful. It also lodges in the various soft tissues of the body, and ossification of the valves of the heart and walls of the arteries sometimes happens. It weakens the blood vessels so that they easily rupture, which causes apoplexy, paralysis and death. Calcareous concretions in the kidneys and bladder, also, come from the same cause, and are called gravel. Such deposits are not only annoying and painful to the patient, but in time may prove fatal if not removed by surgery. Middle-aged and elderly people should never drink anything but soft water. If a natural supply of soft water cannot be obtained distilled water should be substituted. If neither natural soft water nor distilled water are available, and there is doubt as to the purity of the water that is being used, it should be boiled and then let stand to cool and settle. Boiling not only destroys and renders harmless any organic germs that may be present, but also precipitates and eliminates much of its inorganic salts. A few drops of a weak solution of nitrate of silver added to a glass of water will quickly determine its quality. If the water that is being tested is free from mineral matter no change is produced, but if it contains mineral it turns the water opaque or milky. The value of mineral water as a healthful or necessary drink has been greatly exaggerated. While it may do good in some instances, it is not nearly as beneficial as is commonly supposed. Instead of it always doing good the contrary is often true. If a mineral water is desired there is no necessity of visiting a mineral spring to obtain it, as it can be made artificially at home or at the nearest pharmacy in any quantity or of any quality desired, with the additional advantage of having it contain exactly the ingredients wanted. There are nearly as many mineral waters on the market as there are patent medicines, and both are about equally misrepresented and deceiving. All classes of people would undoubtedly be greatly benefited in health, strength and longevity if more attention was given to the quality of our domestic water supply. Any one who needs a change, other things being equal, should seek a resort that furnishes pure, soft water rather than choose a spring that only boasts of its mineral properties. Not all of the benefit that is derived from a course at watering place is due to the virtues of the water, be it ever so potent. The change of environment, climate, diet, bathing, etc., are each factors that contribute something towards a cure. Next to using pure water as a beverage it is important to know how to bathe properly, such knowledge being simple and plain enough if only common sense is used. Usually the more simply a bath is administered the better are the results. Some people seem to think that in order to derive any benefit from a bath it is necessary to employ some unusual or complicated process. Nothing is further from the truth. The plain, tepid bath is the best for general use. It thoroughly cleanses the body and produces no unpleasant shock. A hot bath is rarely needed but, if it is used, enough time should be given after it to rest and cool off before going out into the open air in order to avoid taking cold. The good or harm of a bath must be judged by its effects. A bath is only beneficial when it is followed by a healthy reaction, which is indicated by an agreeable feeling of warmth and comfort, and is injurious if the subject feels cold, weak or depressed. A bath does not affect all people alike; what will do one person good may injure another. It is never wise to prescribe a stereotyped treatment for every patient. The disease, temperament and constitution of each individual must be taken into account and the temperature and frequency of the bath must be determined and regulated by the necessity and idiosyncrasies of each case. The amount of bathing that a strong, full-blooded person could endure would mop out the life of a thin, bloodless weakling. Locally, these springs have become famous because of the remarkable cures they have effected, and are sought by many sick people who have failed to find relief by other means. Before the white man came the Indians used the water for curing their sick. The water is curative in rheumatism, neuralgia, dyspepsia, blood and skin disorders and kidney complaint. The water cure is all right even if it does not always fulfill every expectation. Hooker's hot springs is a pleasant place to visit for people who are not invalids. It is off the beaten path of travel and is an ideal spot for the tired man who needs a rest. It has not yet been overrun by the crowd, but retains all of the natural charm of freshness which the old resorts have lost. Here nature riots in all of her wild beauty and has not yet been perceptibly marred by the despoiling hand of man. Aside from the luxury of the baths which the place affords the visitor can find a great deal to please him. The climate is healthful and the weather pleasant during most of the year. In the near vicinity much can be found in nature that is interesting. Never-failing mountain streams, deep canons and dark forests wait to be visited and explored, while curiosities in animal and vegetable life abound. Not far off is a place here perfect geodes of chalcedony are found. Mining and ranching are the leading industries of the country and a visit to some neighboring mine or cattle ranch is not without interest to the novice. But, if he starts out on such a trip he must decide to make a day of it, as the country is sparsely settled and the distances long between camps. If the accommodations where he stops are not always luxurious the welcome is cordial and the entertainment comfortable. The new experience is also delightfully romantic. CHAPTER X CANON ECHOES The Colorado Plateau, in northern Arizona, is the union of the Rocky and Sierra Nevada mountains in their southward trend, and forms the southern rim of the Great Basin. This depression was once a vast inland sea, of which nothing remains but the Salt Lake of Utah, and is drained by the Colorado river. The entire plateau region is remarkable for its grand scenery--abysmal chasms, sculptured buttes and towering cliffs, which are "brightly colored as if painted by artist Gods, not stained and daubed by inharmonious hues but beautiful as flowers and gorgeous as the clouds." The plateau is an immense woodland of pines known as the Coconino Forest. The San Francisco mountains, nearly thirteen thousand feet high, stand in the middle of the plateau which is, also, the center of an extensive extinct volcanic field. The whole country is covered with cinders which were thrown from active volcanoes centuries ago. The track of the Santa Fe Pacific railroad, clear across Arizona, is ballasted with cinders instead of gravel that were dug from pits on its own right of way. Near the southern base of the San Francisco mountains is the town of Flagstaff built in a natural forest of pine trees. It is sometimes called the Skylight City because of its high altitude, rarefied atmosphere and brilliant sky. It is said to have been named by a company of soldiers who camped on the spot while out hunting Indians, when the country was new. It happened to be on the Fourth of July and they celebrated the day by unfurling Old Glory from the top of a pine tree, which was stripped of its branches and converted into a flagstaff. Here is located the Lowell Observatory, which has made many valuable discoveries in astronomy. It is a delightful spot and offers many attractions to the scientist, tourist and health seeker. One of the many interesting objects of this locality is the Ice Cave situated eight miles southwest of the town. It not only attracts the curious, but its congealed stores are also drawn on by the people who live in the vicinity when the domestic ice supply runs short. The cave is entered from the side of a ravine and its opening is arched by lava rock. How the ice ever got there is a mystery unless it is, as Mr. Volz claims, glacial ice that was covered and preserved by a thick coat of cinders which fell when the San Francisco Peaks were in active eruption. As far as observed the ice never becomes more nor ever gets less, except what is removed by mining. The region is unusually attractive to the naturalist. It is the best field for the study of entomology that is known. But all nature riots here. Dr. C. Hart Merriam, in his report of a biological survey of the San Francisco mountains and Painted Desert, states that there are seven distinct life zones in a radius of twenty-five miles running the entire gamut from the Arctic to the Tropic.[1] The variety of life which he found and describes cannot be duplicated in the same space anywhere else upon the globe. But the greatest natural wonder of this region and, it is claimed by competent judges of the whole world, is the Grand Canon of Arizona, which is seventy-two miles north of Flagstaff. Thurber's stage line, when it was running, carried passengers through in one day, but after the railroad was built from Williams to Bright Angel the stage was abandoned. However it is an interesting trip and many people make it every summer by private conveyance who go for an outing and can travel leisurely. It is a good natural road and runs nearly the entire distance through an open pine forest. Two roads leave Flagstaff for the Canon called respectively the summer and winter roads. The former goes west of the San Francisco mountains and intersects with the winter road that runs east of the peaks at Cedar Ranch, which was the midway station of the old stage line. The summer road is the one usually travelled, as the winter road is almost destitute of water. The road ascends rapidly from an elevation of seven thousand feet at Flagstaff to eleven thousand feet at the summit, and descends more gradually to Cedar Ranch, where the elevation is less than five thousand feet and in distance is about halfway to the Canon. Here cedar and pinon trees take the place of the taller pines. Cedar Ranch is on an arm of the Painted Desert, which stretches away towards the east over a wide level plain to the horizon. From this point the road ascends again on an easy grade until it reaches an elevation of eight thousand feet at the Canon. During the long drive through the pine woods the appearance of the country gives no hint of a desert, but beautiful scenery greets the eye on every hand. The air is filled with the fragrance of pine and ozone that is as exhilarating as wine. No signs of severe windstorms are seen in broken branches and fallen trees. If an occasional tree is found lying prostrate it was felled either by the woodman's ax or one of nature's destructive forces, fire or decay, or both. But the large number of shattered trees which are encountered during the day give evidence that the lightning is frequently very destructive in its work. The bark of the pine trees is of a reddish gray color, which contrasts brightly with the green foliage. The winter road furnishes even more attractions than the summer road on which line a railroad should be built through to the Canon. Soon after leaving town a side road leads to the cliff dwellings in Walnut Canon. Along the wayside a signboard points the direction to the Bottomless Pit, which is a deep hole in the ground that is only one of many such fissures in the earth found on the Colorado Plateau. Four miles east of Canon Diablo a narrow fissure from a few inches to several feet wide and hundreds of feet deep has been traced in a continuous line over one hundred miles. Further on a group of cave dwellings can be seen among the rocks upon a distant bill. A turn in the road next brings the Sunset Mountain into view. Its crest glows with the colors of sunset, which unusual effect is produced by colored rocks that are of volcanic origin. Black cinders cover its steep sides and its brow is the rim of a deep crater. Between Sunset Peak and O'Leary Peak is the Black Crater from which flowed at one time thick streams of black lava that hardened into rock and are known as the lava beds. Scores of crater cones and miles of black cinders can be seen from Sunset Mountain, and lava and cinders of this region look as fresh as if an eruption had occurred but yesterday. A peculiarity of the pine trees which grow in the cinders is that their roots do not go down but spread out upon the surface. Some of the roots are entirely bare while others are half buried in cinders. They are from an inch to a foot thick and from ten to fifty feet long, according to the size of the tree which they support. The cause of the queer root formation is not apparent. The whole plateau country is scarce of water. The Grand Canon drains the ground dry to an unusual depth. The nearest spring of water to the Canon at Grand View is Cedar Spring, forty miles distant. Until recently all the water used at the canon was either packed upon burros from springs down in the canon or caught in ponds or reservoirs from rains or melted snow. Since the completion of the railroad the water is hauled in on cars constructed for that purpose. The watershed of the canon slopes away from the rim and instead of the storm water running directly into the river it flows in the opposite direction. Only after a long detour of many miles does it finally reach the river by the Little Colorado or Cataract Creek. Now that the Grand Canon is made accessible by rail over a branch road of the Santa Fe from Williams on the main line, it is reached in comparative ease and comfort. But to stop at the Bright Angel Hotel and look over the guard rail on the cliff down into the canon gives merely a glimpse of what there is to see. A brief stay of one day is better than not stopping at all, but to get even an inkling of its greatness and grandeur days and weeks must be spent in making trips up and down and into the canon. After having seen the canon at Bright Angel the next move should be to go to Grand View fourteen miles up the canon. An all day's stage ride from Flagstaff to the canon was tiresome, but the two hours' drive through the pine woods from Bright Angel to Grand View is only pleasant recreation. Seeing the Grand Canon for the first time does not necessarily produce the startling and lachrymose effects that have been described by some emotional writers, but the first sight never disappoints and always leaves a deep and lasting impression. As immense as is the great chasm it is formed in such harmonious proportions that it does not shock the senses. But as everything about the canon is built on such a grand scale and the eyes not being accustomed to such sights it is impossible to comprehend it--to measure its dimensions correctly or note every detail of form and color at the first glance. As the guide remarked, "God made it so d-- big that you can't lie about it." To comprehend it at all requires time to re-educate the senses and make them accustomed to the new order of things. But even a cursory view will always remain in the memory as the event of a lifetime in the experience of the average mortal. Distance in the canon cannot be measured by the usual standards. There are sheer walls of rocks that are thousands of feet high and as many more feet deep, but where the bottom seems to be is only the beginning of other chasms which lie in the dark shadows and descend into yet deeper depths below. The canon is not a single empty chasm, which is the universal conception of a canon, but consists of a complex system of sub and side canons that is bewildering. Out of its depths rise an infinite number and variety of castellated cliffs and sculptured buttes that represent every conceivable variety of architecture. They have the appearance of a resurrected city of great size and beauty which might have been built by an army of Titans then buried and forgotten. A trip into the canon down one of the trails makes its magnitude even more impressive than a rim view. The distance across the chasm is also much greater than what it seems to be, which is demonstrated by the blue haze that fills the canon. The nearby buttes are perfectly distinct, but as the distance increases across the great gorge the haze gradually thickens until the opposite wall is almost obscured by the mist. The myriads of horizontal lines which mark the different strata of rocks have the appearance of a maze of telegraph wires strung through the canon. A ride leisurely on horseback along the rim trail from Thurber's old camp to Bissell's Point, seven miles up the canon, and back is easily made in a day. It presents a panorama of magnificent views all along the rim, but Bissell's is conceded to be the best view point on the canon. From this point about thirty miles of river can be seen as it winds in and out deep down among the rocks. The Colorado river is a large stream, but as seen here a mile below and several miles out, it dwindles into insignificance and appears no larger than a meadow brook. The river looks placid in the distance, but is a raging, turbulent torrent in which an ordinary boat cannot live and the roar of its wild waters can be distinctly heard as of the rushing of a distant train of cars. A second day spent in riding down the canon to Grand View Point and back is equally delightful. Looking across a bend in the canon from Grand View Point to Bissell's Point the distance seems to be scarcely more than a stone's throw, yet it is fully half the distance of the circuitous route by the rim trail. There are three trails leading into the canon and down to the river, the Bright Angel, Grand View and Hance trails, which are at intervals of eight and twelve miles apart. They are equally interesting and comparatively safe if the trip is made on the back of a trained pony or burro with a competent guide. The Hance trail is a loop and is twenty miles long. It is seven miles down to the river, six miles up the stream and seven miles back to the rim. It was built single handed by Captain John Hance, who has lived many years in the canon. The trail is free to pedestrians, but yields the captain a snug income from horse hire and his own services as guide for tourists who go over the trail. Captain Hance is an entertaining raconteur and he spins many interesting yarns for the amusement, if not the edification, of his guests. The serious manner in which he relates his stories makes it sometimes hard to tell whether he is in jest or earnest. His acknowledged skill in mountaineering, and felicity in romancing has won for him more than a local reputation and the distinguished title of Grand Canon Guide and Prevaricator. He relates how "once upon a time" he pursued a band of mountain sheep on the rim of the canon. Just as he was about to secure his quarry the sheep suddenly turned a short corner and disappeared behind some rocks. Before he realized his danger he found himself on the brink of a yawning abyss and under such a momentum that he could not turn aside or stop his horse. Together they went over the cliff in an awful leap. He expected to meet instant death on the rocks below and braced himself for the shock. As the fall was greater than usual, being over a mile deep in a perpendicular line, it required several seconds for the descending bodies to traverse the intervening space, which gave him a few moments to think and plan some way of escape. At the critical moment a happy inspiration seized and saved him. On the instant that his horse struck the rock and was dashed to pieces, the captain sprang nimbly from the saddle to his feet unharmed. To prove the truth of his statement he never misses an opportunity to point out to the tourist the spot where his horse fell, and shows the white bones of his defunct steed bleaching in the sun. At Moran's Point there is a narrow cleft in the rocks which he calls the Fat Woman's Misery. It received its name several years ago from a circumstance that happened while he was conducting a party of tourists along the rim trail. To obtain a better view the party essayed to squeeze through the opening, in which attempt all succeeded except one fat women who stuck fast. After vainly trying to extricate her from her uncomfortable position he finally told her that there was but one of two things to do, either remain where she was and starve to death or take one chance in a thousand of being blown out alive by dynamite. After thinking a moment she decided to try the "one chance in a thousand" experiment. A charge of dynamite was procured and the fuse lighted. After the explosion he returned to the spot and found the result satisfactory. The blast had released the woman, who was alive and sitting upon a rock. He approached her cheerfully and said: "Madam, how do you feel?" She looked up shocked, but evidently very much relieved, and replied "Why, sir, I feel first rate, but the jolt gave me a little toothache." He tells another story of how he once took a drink from the Colorado river. The water is never very clear in the muddy stream but at that particular time it was unusually murky. He had nothing with which to dip the water and lay down on the bank to take a drink. Being very thirsty he paid no attention to the quality of the water, but only knew that it tasted wet. The water, however, grew thicker as he drank until it became balled up in his mouth, and stuck fast in his throat and threatened to choke him. He tried to bite it off but failed because his teeth were poor. At last becoming desperate, he pulled his hunting knife from his belt and cut himself loose from his drink. Different theories have been advanced to account for the origin of the Grand Canon, but it is a question whether it is altogether due to any one cause. Scientists say that it is the work of water erosion, but to the layman it seems impossible. If an ocean of water should flow over rocks during eons of ages it does not seem possible that it could cut such a channel. Water sometimes does queer things, but it has never been known to reverse nature. By a fundamental law of hydrostatics water always seeks its level and flows in the direction of least resistance. If water ever made the Grand Canon it had to climb a hill and cut its way through the backbone of the Buckskin mountains, which are not a range of peaks but a broad plateau of solid rock. Into this rock the canon is sunk more than a mile deep, from six to eighteen miles wide and over two hundred miles long. In order to make the theory of water erosion tenable it is assumed that the Colorado river started in its incipiency like any other river. After a time the river bed began to rise and was gradually pushed up more and more by some unknown subterranean force as the water cut deeper and deeper into the rock until the Grand Canon was formed. Captain Hance has a theory that the canon originated in an underground stream which tunneled until it cut its way through to the surface. As improbable as is this theory it is as plausible as the erosion theory, but both theories appear to be equally absurd. At some remote period of time the entire southwest was rent and torn by an awful cataclysm which caused numerous fissures and seams to appear all over the country. The force that did the work had its origin in the earth and acted by producing lateral displacement rather than direct upheaval. Whenever that event occurred the fracture which marks the course of the Grand Canon was made and, breaking through the enclosing wall of the Great Basin, set free the waters of an inland sea. What the seismic force began the flood of liberated water helped to finish, and there was born the greatest natural wonder of the known world. There are canons all over Arizona and the southwest that resemble the Grand Canon, except that they were made on a smaller scale. Many of them are perfectly dry and apparently never contained any running water. They are all so much alike that they were evidently made at the same time and by the same cause. Walnut Canon and Canon Diablo are familiar examples of canon formation. The rocks in the canons do not stand on end, but lie in horizontal strata and show but little dip anywhere. Indeed, the rocks lie so plumb in many places that they resemble the most perfect masonry. The rim rock of the Mogollon Mesa is of the same character as the walls of the Grand Canon and is an important part of the canon system. It is almost a perpendicular cliff from one to three thousand feet high which extends from east to west across central Arizona and divides the great northern plateau from the southern valleys. It is one side of an immense vault or canon wall whose mate has been lost or dropped completely out of sight. In many of the canons where water flows continuously, effects are produced that are exactly the opposite of those ascribed to water erosion. Instead of the running water cutting deeper into the earth it has partly filled the canon with alluvium, thereby demonstrating nature's universal leveling process. Even the floods of water which pour through them during every rainy season with an almost irresistible force carry in more soil than they wash out and every freshet only adds new soil to the old deposits. If these canons were all originally made by water erosion as is claimed, why does not the water continue to act in the same manner now but, instead, completely reverses itself as above stated? There can be but one of two conclusions, either that nature has changed or that scientists are mistaken. The Aravaipa in southern Arizona is an interesting canon and is typical of its kind. Its upper half is shallow and bounded by low rolling foothills, but in the middle it suddenly deepens and narrows into a box canon, which has high perpendicular walls of solid rock like the Grand Canon. It is a long, narrow valley sunk deep into the earth and has great fertility and much wild beauty. It measures from a few feet to a mile in width and drains a large scope of rough country. The surface water which filters through from above reappears in numerous springs of clear cold water in the bottom of the canon. In the moist earth and under the shade of forest trees grow a variety of rare flowers, ferns and mosses. Where the canon begins to box a large spring of pure cold water issues from the sand in the bottom of a wash which is the source of the Aravaipa creek. It flows through many miles of rich alluvial land and empties into the San Predo river. The valley was settled many years ago by men who were attracted to the spot by its rare beauty, fertility of soil and an abundance of wood and water. The land is moist and covered by a heavy growth of forest trees, which will average over one hundred feet high. The trees are as large and the foliage as dense as in any eastern forest. Being sunk deep in the earth the narrow valley at the bottom of the canon can only be seen from above. When viewed from some favorable point it has the appearance of a long green ribbon stretched loosely over a brown landscape. The sight of it is a pleasant surprise to the weary wayfarer who, after traveling over many miles of dreary desert road, finds himself suddenly ushered into such pleasant scenes. The canons of Arizona are unrivaled for grandeur, sublimity and beauty, and will attract an ever increasing number of admirers. [1] Results of a Biological Survey of the San Francisco Mountain Region and Painted Desert of the Little Colorado, Arizona. 1890. CHAPTER XI THE METEORITE MOUNTAIN Ten miles southeast of Canon Diablo station on the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad, stands the Meteorite Mountain of Arizona, on a wide, open plain of the Colorado Plateau. It is two hundred feet high and, as seen at a distance, has the appearance of a low, flat mountain. Its top forms the rim of an immense, round, bowl-shaped hole in the ground that has almost perpendicular sides, is one mile wide and over six hundred feet deep. The hole, originally, was evidently very much deeper than it is at the present time, but it has gradually become filled with debris to its present depth. The bottom of the hole has a floor of about forty acres of level ground which merges into a talus. This formation is sometimes called the Crater, because of its shape, but there is no evidence of volcanic action. Locally it is known as Coon Butte, which is a misnomer; but Meteorite Mountain is a name with a meaning. It is not known positively just how or when the mountain was formed, but the weight of evidence seems to favor the meteorite theory, which is that at some remote period of time a monster meteorite fell from the sky and buried itself in the earth. Mr. F. W. Volz, who has lived in the country twenty years and is an intelligent observer of natural phenomena, has made a careful study of the mountain, and it is his opinion that such an event actually occurred and that a falling star made the mountain. When the descending meteorite, with its great weight and terrific momentum, hit the earth something had to happen. It buried itself deep beneath the surface and caused the earth to heave up on all sides. The effect produced is aptly illustrated, on a small scale, by throwing a rock into thick mud. The impact of the meteorite upon the earth not only caused an upheaval of the surface, but it also crushed and displaced the rocks beneath. As the stellar body penetrated deeper into the earth its force became more concentrated and either compressed the rocks into a denser mass or ground them to powder. The plain on which the mountain stands is covered by a layer of red sandstone of variable thickness, as it is much worn in places by weather erosion. Below the top covering of red sandstone lie three hundred feet of limestone and beneath the limestone five hundred feet more of white sandstone. This arrangement of the rocks is plainly seen in the walls of Canon Diablo. The displaced strata of rocks in the hole are tilted and stand outwards and great boulders of red sandstone and limestone lie scattered all about. If the hole had been made by an explosion from below large pieces of rock from each one of the different rock strata would have been thrown out; but, while as just stated, there are plenty of huge blocks of red sandstone and limestone, there are no large pieces of white sandstone. After the superficial layers of rock had been broken up and expelled en masse, the deeper rock of white sandstone, being more confined, could not reach the surface in the shape of boulders, but had first to be broken up and ground to powder before it could escape. Then the white sandstones in the form of fine sand was blown skywards by the collision and afterwards settled down upon the mountain. The mountain is covered with this white sand, which could only have come out of the big hole as there is no other white sand or sandstone found anywhere else upon the entire plain. In the vicinity of the mountain about ten tons of meteorites have been found, varying in size from the fraction of an ounce to one thousand pounds or more. Most of the meteorites were found by Mr. Volz, who searched diligently every foot of ground for miles around. The smaller pieces were picked up on or near the rim, and they increased in size in proportion as they were distant from the mountain until, on a circle eight miles out, the largest piece was found. Meteorites were found upon all sides of the mountain but they seemed to be thickest on the east side. The writer first visited the mountain in the summer of 1901 and it was the greatest surprise of his six weeks' trip sightseeing in northern Arizona where are found many natural wonders. He was fortunate enough to find a three pound meteorite within five minutes after arriving on the rim, which Mr. Volz said was the first specimen found by anyone in over four years. Professor G. K. Gilbert of the United States Geological Survey visited the mountain several years ago to investigate the phenomenon and, if possible, to determine its origin by scientific test. He gave the results of his researches in a very able and comprehensive address,[1] delivered before the Geological Society of Washington, D.C. The existing conditions did not seem to fit his theories, and he concluded his work without arriving at any definite conclusion. After disposing of several hypotheses as being incompetent to prove the origin of the mountain he decided to try the magnetic test. He assumed that if such a meteorite was buried there the large mass of metallic iron must indicate its presence by magnetic attraction. By means of the latest scientific apparatus he conducted an elaborate magnetic experiment which gave only negative results. He discussed at length the various hypotheses which might explain the origin of the crater and concluded his notable address as follows: "Still another contribution to the subject, while it does not increase the number of hypotheses, is nevertheless important in that it tends to diminish the weight of the magnetic evidence and thus to reopen the question which Mr. Baker and I supposed we had settled. Our fellow-member, Mr. Edwin E. Howell, through whose hands much of the meteoric iron had passed, points out that each of the iron masses, great and small, is in itself a complete individual. They have none of the characters that would be found if they had been broken one from another, and yet, as they are all of one type and all reached the earth within a small district, it must be supposed that they were originally connected in some way. "Reasoning by analogy from the characters of other meteoric bodies, he infers that the irons were all included in a large mass of some different material, either crystalline rock, such as constitutes the class of meteorites called 'stony,' or else a compound of iron and sulphur, similar to certain nodules discovered inside the iron masses when sawn in two. Neither of these materials is so enduring as iron, and the fact that they are not now found on the plain does not prove their original absence. Moreover, the plain is strewn in the vicinity of the crater with bits of limonite, a mineral frequently produced by the action of air and water on iron sulphides, and this material is much more abundant than the iron. If it be true that the iron masses were thus imbedded, like plums in an astral pudding, the hypothetic buried star might have great size and yet only small power to attract the magnetic needle. Mr. Howell also proposes a qualification of the test by volumes, suggesting that some of the rocks beneath the buried star might have been condensed by the shock so as to occupy less space. "These considerations are eminently pertinent to the study of the crater and will find appropriate place in any comprehensive discussion of its origin; but the fact which is peculiarly worthy of note at the present time is their ability to unsettle a conclusion that was beginning to feel itself secure. This illustrates the tentative nature not only of the hypotheses of science, but of what science calls its results. "The method of hypotheses, and that method is the method of science, founds its explanations of nature wholly on observed facts, and its results are ever subject to the limitations imposed by imperfect observation. However grand, however widely accepted, however useful its conclusions, none is so sure that it cannot be called into question by a newly discovered fact. In the domain of the world's knowledge there is no infallibility." After Prof. Gilbert had finished his experiments, Mr. Volz tried some of his own along the same line. He found upon trial that the meteorites in his possession were non-magnetic, or, practically so. If these, being pieces of the larger meteorite which was buried in the hole, were non-magnetic, all of it must be non-magnetic, which would account for the failure of the needle to act or manifest any magnetic attraction in the greater test. Mr. Volz also made another interesting discovery in this same connection. All over the meteorite zone are scattered about small pieces of iron which he calls "iron shale." It is analogous to the true meteorite, but is "burnt" or "dead." He regards these bits of iron as dead sparks from a celestial forge, which fell from the meteorite as it blazed through the heavens. In experimenting with the stuff he found that it was not only highly magnetic, but also possessed polarity in a marked degree; and was entirely different from the true meteorite. Here was a curiosity, indeed; a small, insignificant and unattractive stone possessed of strong magnetic polarity, a property of electricity that is as mysterious and incomprehensible as is electricity itself. Another peculiarity of Canon Diablo meteorite is that it contains diamonds. When the meteorite was first discovered by a Mexican sheep herder he supposed that he had found a large piece of silver, because of its great weight and luster, but he was soon informed of his mistake. Not long afterwards a white prospector who heard of the discovery undertook to use it to his own advantage, by claiming that he had found a mine of pure iron, which he offered for sale. In an attempt to dispose of the property samples of the ore were sent east for investigation. Some of the stone fell into the hands of Dr. Foote, who pronounced it to be meteorite and of celestial origin. Sir William Crookes in discussing the theory of the meteoric origin of diamonds[2] says "the most striking confirmation of the meteoric theory comes from Arizona. Here, on a broad open plain, over an area about five miles in diameter, were scattered from one to two thousand masses of metallic iron, the fragments varying in weight from half a ton to a fraction of an ounce. There is little doubt that these masses formed part of a meteorite shower, although no record exists as to when the fall took place. Curiously enough, near the center, where most of the meteoritics have been found, is a crater with raised edges three quarters of a mile in diameter and about six hundred feet deep, bearing exactly the appearance which would be produced had a mighty mass of iron or falling star struck the ground, scattering in all directions, and buried itself deep under the surface. Altogether ten tons of this iron have been collected, and specimens of Canyon Diablo Meteorite are in most collectors' cabinets. "An ardent mineralogist, the late Dr. Foote, in cutting a section of this meteorite, found the tools were injured by something vastly harder than metallic iron, and an emery wheel used in grinding the iron had been ruined. He examined the specimen chemically, and soon after announced to the scientific world that the Canyon Diablo Meteorite contained black and transparent diamonds. This startling discovery was afterwards verified by Professors Friedel and Moissan, who found that the Canyon Diablo Meteorite contained the three varieties of carbon--diamond (transparent and black), graphite and amorphous carbon. Since this revelation the search for diamonds in meteorites has occupied the attention of chemists all over the world. "Here, then, we have absolute proof of the truth of the meteoric theory. Under atmospheric influences the iron would rapidly oxidize and rust away, coloring the adjacent soil with red oxide of iron. The meteoric diamonds would be unaffected and left on the surface to be found by explorers when oxidation had removed the last proof of their celestial origin. That there are still lumps of iron left in Arizona is merely due to the extreme dryness of the climate and the comparatively short time that the iron has been on our planet. We are here witnesses to the course of an event which may have happened in geologic times anywhere on the earth's surface." About a year ago several mineral claims were located in the crater by a company of scientific and moneyed men. The required assessment work was done and a patent for the land obtained from the government. The object of the enterprise is for a double purpose, if possible to solve the mystery of the mountain, and if successful in finding the "hypothetic buried star" to excavate and appropriate it for its valuable iron. A shaft has been sunk one hundred and ninety-five feet deep, where a strong flow of water was encountered in a bed of white sand which temporarily stopped the work. A gasoline engine and drill were procured and put in operation and the drill was driven down forty feet further when it stuck fast in white quicksand. It is the intention of the company to continue the work and carry it on to a successful finish. Nothing of value was found in the hole dug, but some of the workmen in their leisure hours found on the surface two large meteorites weighing one hundred and one hundred and fifty pounds respectively, besides a number of smaller fragments. The Meteorite Mountain is in a class by itself and is, in a way, as great a curiosity as is the Grand Canon. It is little known and has not received the attention that it deserves. It is, indeed, marvelous and only needs to be seen to be appreciated. [1] The Origin of Hypotheses. 1895. [2] Diamonds. Wm. Crookes, F.R.S. Smithsonian Report. 1897. CHAPTER XII THE CLIFF DWELLERS In the canons of the Colorado river and its tributaries are found the ruins of an ancient race of cliff dwellers. These ruins are numerous and are scattered over a wide scope of country, which includes Arizona and portions of Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. Many of them are yet in a good state of preservation, but all show the marks of age and decay. They are not less than four hundred years old and are, in all probability, much older. Their preservation is largely due to their sheltered position among the rocks and an exceptionally dry climate. The houses are invariably built upon high cliffs on shelving rocks in places that are almost inaccessible. In some instances they can only be reached by steps cut into the solid rock, which are so old and worn that they are almost obliterated. Their walls so nearly resemble the stratified rocks upon which they stand, that they are not easily distinguished from their surroundings. The cliffs are often sloping, sometimes overhanging, but more frequently perpendicular. The weather erosion of many centuries has caused the softer strata of exposed rocks in the cliffs to disintegrate and fall away, which left numberless caverns wherein this ancient and mysterious people chose to build their eyrie homes to live with the eagles. The houses are built of all shapes and sizes and, apparently, were planned to fit the irregular and limited space of their environment. Circular watch towers look down from commanding heights which, from their shape and position, were evidently intended to serve the double purpose of observation and defense. In the search for evidence of their antiquity it is believed that data has been found which denotes great age. In the construction of some of their houses, notably those in the Mancos Canon, is displayed a technical knowledge of architecture and a mathematical accuracy which savages do not possess; and the fine masonry of dressed stone and superior cement seem to prove that Indians were not the builders. On the contrary, to quote a recent writer, "The evidence goes to show that the work was done by skilled workmen who were white masons and who built for white people in a prehistoric age." In this connection it is singular, if not significant, that the natives when first discovered believed in a bearded white man whom they deified as the Fair God of whose existence they had obtained knowledge from some source and in whose honor they kept their sacred altar fires burning unquenched. The relics that have been found in the ruins are principally implements of the stone age, but are of sufficient variety to indicate a succession of races that were both primitive and cultured and as widely separated in time as in knowledge. The cliff dwellings were not only the abodes of their original builders, but were occupied and deserted successively by the chipped stone implement maker, the polisher of hard stone, the basket maker and the weaver. Among the relics that have been found in the ruins are some very fine specimens of pottery which are as symmetrical and well finished as if they had been turned on a potter's wheel, and covered with an opaque enamel of stanniferous glaze composed of lead and tin that originated with the Phoenicians, and is as old as history. Can it be possible that the cliff dwellers are a lost fragment of Egyptian civilization? The cliff ruins in Arizona are not only found in the canons of the Colorado river, but also in many other places. The finest of them are Montezuma's Castle on Beaver creek, and the Casa Blanca in Canon de Chelly. Numerous other ruins are found on the Rio Verde, Gila river, Walnut Canon and elsewhere. The largest and finest group of cliff dwellings are those on the Mesa Verde in Colorado. They are fully described in the great work[1] of Nordenskiold, who spent much time among them. The different houses are named after some peculiarity of appearance or construction, like the Cliff Palace, which contains more than one hundred rooms, Long House, Balcony House, Spruce Tree House, etc. He obtained a large quantity of relics, which are also fully described, consisting of stone implements, pottery, cotton and feather cloth, osier and palmillo mats, yucca sandals, weaving sticks, bone awls, corn and beans. Many well-preserved mummies were found buried in graves that were carefully closed and sealed. The bodies were wrapped in a fine cotton cloth of drawn work, which was covered by a coarser cloth resembling burlap, and all inclosed in a wrapping of palmillo matting tied with a cord made of the fiber of cedar bark. The hair is fine and of a brown color, and not coarse and black like the hair of the wild Indians. Mummies have been exhumed that have red or light colored hair such as usually goes with a fair skin. This fact has led some to believe that the cliff dwellers belonged to the white race, but not necessarily so, as this quality of hair also belongs to albinos, who doubtless lived among the cliff dwellers as they do among the Moquis and Zunis at the present day, and explains the peculiarity of hair just mentioned. These remains may be very modern, as some choose to believe, but, in all probability, they are more ancient than modern. Mummies encased in wood and cloth have been taken from the tombs of Egypt in an almost perfect state of preservation which cannot be less than two thousand years old, and are, perhaps, more than double that age. As there is no positive knowledge as to when the cliff dwellers flourished, one man's guess on the subject is as good as another's. An important discovery was recently made near Mancos, Colorado, where a party of explorers found in some old cliff dwellings graves beneath graves that were entirely different from anything yet discovered. They were egg-shaped, built of stone and plastered smoothly with clay. They contained mummies, cloth, sandals, beads and various other trinkets. There was no pottery, but many well-made baskets, and their owners have been called the basket makers. There was also a difference in the skulls found. The cliff dwellers' skull is short and flattened behind, while the skulls that were found in these old graves were long, narrow and round on the back.[2] Rev. H. M. Baum, who has traveled all over the southwest and visited every large ruin in the country, considers that Canon de Chelly and its branch, del Muerto, is the most interesting prehistoric locality in the United States. The Navajos, who now live in the canon, have a tradition that the people who occupied the old cliff houses were all destroyed in one day by a wind of fire.[3] The occurrence, evidently, was similar to what happened recently on the island of Martinique, when all the inhabitants of the village of St. Pierre perished in an hour by the eruption of Mont Pelee. Contemporaneous with the cliff dwellers there seems to have lived a race of people in the adjoining valleys who built cities and tilled the soil. Judged by their works they must have been an industrious, intelligent and numerous people. All over the ground are strewn broken pieces of pottery that are painted in bright colors and artistic designs which, after ages of exposure to the weather, look as fresh as if newly made, The relics that have been taken from the ruins are similar to those found in the cliff houses, and consist mostly of stone implements and pottery. In the Gila valley, near the town of Florence, stands the now famous Casa Grande ruin, which is the best preserved of all these ancient cities. It was a ruin when the Spaniards first discovered it, and is a type of the ancient communal house. Its thick walls are composed of a concrete adobe that is as hard as rock, and its base lines conform to the cardinal points of, the compass. It is an interesting relic of a past age and an extinct race and, if it cannot yield up its secrets to science, it at least appeals to the spirit of romance and mystery. Irrigating ditches which were fed from reservoirs supplied their fields and houses with water. Portions of these old canals are yet in existence and furnish proof of the diligence and skill of their builders. The ditches were located on levels that could not be improved upon for utilizing the land and water to the best advantage. Modern engineers have not been able to better them and in many places the old levels are used in new ditches at the present time. Whatever may have been the fate of this ancient people their destruction must be sought in natural causes rather than by human warfare. An adverse fate probably cut off their water supply and laid waste their productive fields. With their crops a failure and all supplies gone what else could the people do but either starve or move, but as to the nature of the exodus history is silent. Just how ancient these works are might be difficult to prove, but they are certainly not modern. The evidence denotes that they have existed a long time. Where the water in a canal flowed over solid rock the rock has been much worn. Portions of the old ditches are filled with lava and houses lie buried in the vitreous flood. It is certain that the country was inhabited prior to the last lava flow whether that event occurred hundreds or thousands of years ago. It is claimed that the Pueblo Indians and cliff dwellers are identical and that the latter were driven from their peaceful valley homes by a hostile foe to find temporary shelter among the rocks, but such a conclusion seems to be erroneous in view of certain facts. The cliff dwellings were not temporary camps, as such a migration would imply, but places of permanent abode. The houses are too numerous and well constructed to be accounted for on any other hypothesis. A people fleeing periodically to the cliffs to escape from an enemy could not have built such houses. Indeed, they are simply marvelous when considered as to location and construction. The time that must necessarily have been consumed in doing the work and the amount of danger and labor involved--labor in preparing and getting the material into place and danger in scaling the dizzy heights over an almost impassible trail, it seems the boldest assumption to assert that the work was done by a fleeing and demoralized mob. Again, it would be a physical impossibility for a people who were only accustomed to agricultural pursuits to suddenly and completely change their habits of life such as living among the rocks would necessitate. Only by native instinct and daily practice from childhood would it be possible for any people to follow the narrow and difficult paths which were habitually traveled by the cliff dwellers. It requires a clear head and steady nerves to perform the daring feat in safety--to the truth of which statement modern explorers can testify who have made the attempt in recent years at the peril of life and limb while engaged in searching for archaeological treasures. Judged by the everyday life that is familiar to us it seems incredible that houses should ever have been built or homes established in such hazardous places, or that any people should have ever lived there. But that they did is an established fact as there stand the houses which were built and occupied by human beings in the midst of surroundings that might appall the stoutest heart. Children played and men and women wrought on the brink of frightful precipices in a space so limited and dangerous that a single misstep made it fatal. It is almost impossible to conceive of any condition in life, or combination of circumstances in the affairs of men, that should drive any people to the rash act of living in the houses of the cliff dwellers. Men will sometimes do from choice what they cannot be made to do by compulsion. It is easier to believe that the cliff dwellers, being free people, chose of their own accord the site of their habitation rather than that from any cause they were compelled to make the choice. Their preference was to live upon the cliffs, as they were fitted by nature for such an environment. For no other reason, apparently, do the Moquis live upon their rocky and barren mesas away from everything which the civilized white man deems desirable, yet, in seeming contentment. The Supais, likewise, choose to live alone at the bottom of Cataract Canon where they are completely shut in by high cliffs. Their only road out is by a narrow and dangerous trail up the side of the canon, which is little traveled as they seldom leave home and are rarely visited. To affirm that the cliff dwellers were driven from their strongholds and dispersed by force is pure fiction, nor is there any evidence to support such a theory. That they had enemies no one doubts, but, being in possession of an impregnable position where one man could successfully withstand a thousand, to surrender would have been base cowardice, and weakness was not a characteristic of the cliff dwellers. The question of their subsistence is likewise a puzzle. They evidently cultivated the soil where it was practicable to do so as fragments of farm products have been found in their dwellings, but in the vicinity of some of the houses there is no tillable land and the inhabitants must have depended upon other means for support. The wild game which was, doubtless, abundant furnished them with meat and edible seeds, fruits and roots from native plants like the pinon pine and mesquite which together with the saguaro and mescal, supplied them with a variety of food sufficient for their subsistence as they do, in a measure, the wild Indian tribes of that region at the present day. [1] The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, by F. Nordenskiold, Stockholm. 1893. [2] An Elder Brother of the Cliff Dwellers, by T. M. Prudden, M.D. Harper's Magazine, June, 1897. [3] Pueblo and Cliff Dwellers of the Southwest. Records of the Past, December, 1902. CHAPTER XIII THE MOQUI INDIANS The Indians of Arizona are, perhaps, the most interesting of any of the American aborigines. They are as unique and picturesque as is the land which they inhabit; and the dead are no less so than the living. The Pueblo Indians, with which the Moquis are classed, number altogether about ten thousand and are scattered in twenty-six villages over Arizona and New Mexico. They resemble each other in many respects, but do not all speak the same language. They represent several wholly disconnected stems and are classified linguistically by Brinton as belonging to the Uto-Aztecan, Kera, Tehua and Zuni stocks. He believes that the Pueblo civilization is not due to any one unusually gifted lineage, but is altogether a local product, developed in independent tribes by their peculiar environment, which is favorable to agriculture and sedentary pursuits.[1] The houses are constructed of stone and adobe, are several stories high and contain many apartments. None of the existing pueblos are as large as some that are in ruins which, judging by the quantity of debris, must have been huge affairs. Since the advent of the Spaniard the style of building has changed somewhat to conform to modern ideas, so that now some families live in separate one-story houses having doors and windows, instead, as formerly, only in large communal houses that were built and conducted on the communal plan. Their manners and customs are peculiar to themselves and make an interesting study. Their civilization is entirely original, though modified to some extent by centuries of contact with the whites. They understand the Spanish language, but have not forgotten their mother tongue. They hold tenaciously to their old customs and have not changed materially during the past four hundred years. During that time the Catholic missionaries endeavored to convert them to Christianity, but with only partial success. While they appeared to acquiesce, by giving formal obedience to the requirements of the new religion, they yet held sacred their old beliefs and in the privacy of the estufa practiced in secret the rites and ceremonies of their ancient faith. The Spaniards undertook to conquer a free and independent people by teaching them dependence and submission, but signally failed. After a struggle of two hundred and eighty years Spanish civilization withdrew and left the Pueblo civilization victorious. Under successive Spanish, Mexican and American rule the Pueblo has preserved itself intact which fact stamps the Pueblo people as being eminently valiant, self-reliant and persevering. They are peaceable, industrious and hospitable and are said to be the best governed people in the world. As nearly as can be ascertained they are free from every gross vice and crime and Mr. C. F. Lummis, who knows them well, believes them to be a crimeless people. The Moquis of Arizona are the most primitive of the Pueblo Indians and are worthy representatives of their race. They are of the Aztecan branch of the Shoshonean family and probably the lineal descendents of the cliff dwellers. Their home is on the Painted Desert in northeastern Arizona where they have lived for many centuries. It is a barren and desolate spot and has been likened to Hades with its fires extinguished. Nevertheless it is an exceedingly interesting region and furnishes many attractions. The landscape is highly picturesque and the phantasmagoric effects of the rarified atmosphere are bewitching. In the early Spanish days Moqui land was designated as the Province of Tusayan and was shrouded in mystery. The seven Moqui towns were at one time regarded as the seven Cities of Cibola, but later it was decided that Zuni and not Moqui was the true Cibola. When Coronado, at the head of his intrepid army, marched through the land in the year 1540, he procured native guides to aid him in exploring the country, hoping to find fabulous wealth which failed to materialize. He heard of a race of giants whom he wished to meet, but instead of finding them discovered a river with banks so high that they "seemed to be raised three or four leagues into the air." What he saw was the Colorado River with its gigantic canon walls and wealth of architectural grandeur and beauty. The bewildering sight naturally astonished him as it does every beholder. Think of a fissure in the earth over a mile deep! But the Grand Canon of Arizona is more that a simple fissure in the earth. It is composed of many canons which form a seemingly endless labyrinth of winding aisles and majestic avenues--fit promenades for the Gods. The land of the Moquinos is full of surprises and, although they are not all as startling as the Grand Canon, they are sufficiently striking to make Arizona a wonderland that is second to none on the continent. The Moquis live in seven towns or pueblos which are built upon three rocky mesas that are many miles apart. The mesas are about seven thousand feet above sea level and from six to eight hundred feet higher than the surrounding plain. Upon the first or eastern mesa are located the three towns of Te-wa, Si-chom-ovi and Wal-pi. Tewa is the newest of the three towns and was built by the Tehuan allies who came as refugees from the Rio Grande after the great rebellion of 1680. They were granted permission to build on the spot by agreeing to defend the Gap, where the trail leaves the mesa, against all intruders. Upon the second or middle mesa are the towns of Mi-shong-novi, Shi-pauli-ovi and Shong-o-pavi; and on the third mesa is O-rai-bi, which is the largest of the Moqui villages, and equal to the other six in size and population. The entire population of the seven Moqui towns numbers about two thousand souls. In 1583 Espejo estimated that the Moquis numbered fifty thousand, which, doubtless, was an over estimate, as he has been accused of exaggeration. However, since their discovery their numbers have greatly diminished and steadily continue to decrease, as if it were also to be their fate to become extinct like the ancient cliff dwellers. The Moqui Pueblos are well protected by natural barriers upon all sides except towards the south. Perched upon their high mesas the people have been safe from every attack of an enemy, but their fields and flocks in the valley below were defenseless. The top of the several mesas can only be reached by ascending steep and difficult trails which are hard to climb but easy to defend. The paths on the mesas have been cut deep into the hard rock, which were worn by the soft tread of moccasined feet during centuries of travel, numbering, perhaps, several times the four hundred years that are known to history. The houses are built of stone and mortar, and rise in terraces from one to five stories high, back from a street or court to a sheer wall. Some of the remodeled and newly built houses have modern doors and windows. The upper stories are reached from the outside by ladders and stone stairways built into the walls. The rooms are smoothly plastered and whitewashed and the houses are kept tidy and clean, but the streets are dirty and unsanitary. In these sky cities the Moquis live a retired life that is well suited to their quiet dispositions, love of home life and tireless industry. The men are kind, the women virtuous and the children obedient. Indeed, the children are unusually well behaved. They seldom quarrel or cry, and a spoiled child cannot be found among them. The Moquis love peace, and never fight among themselves. If a dispute occurs it is submitted to a peace council of old men, whose decision is final and obeyed without a murmur. They are shy and suspicious of strangers, but if addressed by the magic word lolomi, their reserve is instantly gone. It is the open sesame to their hearts and homes, and after that the house contains nothing too good to bestow upon the welcome guest. They are true children of nature, and have not yet become corrupted by the vices of white civilization. The worst thing they do is that the men smoke tobacco. Their industries are few, but afford sufficient income to provide for their modest needs. They are primarily tillers of the soil, and as agriculturists succeed under circumstances that would wholly baffle and discourage an eastern farmer. Several years ago a man was sent out from Washington to teach the Moquis agriculture, but before a year had passed the teacher had to buy corn from the Indians. They make baskets and pottery, weave cloth and dress skins for their own use and to barter in trade with their neighbors. They like silver and have skilled workmen who make the white metal into beads and buttons and various trinkets for personal adornment. They care nothing for gold, and silver is their only money. Chalchihuitl is their favorite gem and to own a turquoise stone is regarded as an omen of good fortune to the happy possessor. Just how the Spaniards got the notion that the Moquis loved gold and possessed vast stores of that precious metal is not apparent unless it be, as Bandelier suggests, that it originated in the myth of the El Dorado, or Gilded Man.[2] The story started at Lake Guatanita in Bogota, and traveled north to Quivera, but the wealth that the Spaniards sought they never found. Their journey led them over deserts that gave them but little food and only a meager supply of water, and ended in disaster. The mesas are all rock and utterly barren, and their supplies are all brought from a distance over difficult trails. The water is carried in ollas by the women from springs at the foot of the mesa; wood is packed on burros from distant forests; and corn, melons and peaches are brought home by the men when they return from their work in the fields. A less active and industrious people, under similar circumstances, would soon starve to death, but the Moquis are self-supporting and have never asked nor received any help from Uncle Sam. In the early morning the public crier proclaims in stentorian tones from the housetop the program for the day, which sends everyone to his daily task. They are inured to labor and do not count work as a hardship. It is only by incessant toil that they succeed at all in earning a living with the scanty resources at their command, and the only surprise is that they succeed so well. There is scarcely an hour during the day or night that men and women are not either coming or going on some errand to provision the home. The men travel many miles every day going to and from their work in the fields. If a man owns a burro he sometimes rides, but usually prefers to walk. What the burro does not pack, the man carries on his back. He often sings at his work, just as the white man does in any farming community, and his song sounds good. The burro is the common carrier and, because of his sterling qualities, is a prime favorite in all of the pueblos. If he has any faults they are all condoned except one, that of theft. If he is caught eating in a corn field he is punished as a thief by having one of his ears cut off; and if the offense is repeated he loses his other ear in the same manner. The area of tillable land is limited and is found only in small patches, which cause the farms to be widely scattered. The soil is mostly sand which the wind drifts into dunes that sometimes cover and destroy the growing crops. The peach trees are often buried in sand or only their top branches remain visible. There are no running streams of water and rains are infrequent. Corn is the principal crop and support of the Moquis. If there is a good crop the surplus is stored away and kept to be used in the future should a crop fail. The corn is planted in irregular hills and cultivated with a hoe. It is dropped into deep holes made with a stick and covered up. There is always enough moisture in the sand to sprout the seed which, aided by an occasional shower, causes it to grow and mature a crop. The corn is of a hardy, native variety that needs but little water to make it grow. The grain is small and hard like popcorn and ripens in several colors. It is carried home from the field by the men, and ground into meal by the women. The sound of the grinding is heard in the street and is usually accompanied by a song that sounds weird but musical. The meal is ground into different grades of fineness and when used for bread is mixed with water to form a thin batter which is spread by the hand upon a hot, flat stone. It is quickly baked and makes a thin wafer that is no thicker than paper. When done it is removed from the stone by the naked hand and is rolled or folded into loaves which makes their prized pici bread. It is said to be only one of fifty different methods which the Moquis have of preparing corn for the table, or about twice the number of styles known to any modern chef. The Moqui woman is favored above many of her sex who live in foreign lands. As a child she receives much attention and toys galore, as the parents are very fond of their children and devote much time to their amusement. They make dolls of their Katcinas which are given to the children to play with. A Katcina is the emblem of a deity that is represented either in the form of a doll carved out of wood, woven into a plaque or basket, or painted on tiles and pottery. There are between three and four hundred Katcina dolls each one representing a different divinity. When a doll is given to a child it is taught what it means, thus combining instruction with amusement. The method is a perfect system of kindergarten teaching, which the Moquis invented and used centuries before the idea occurred to Froebel. When the girl is ten years old her education properly begins and she is systematically inducted into the mysteries of housekeeping. At fifteen she has completed her curriculum and can cook, bake, sew, dye, spin and weave and is, indeed, graduated in all the accomplishments of the finished Moqui maiden. She now does up her hair in two large coils or whorls, one on each side of the head, which is meant to resemble a full-blown squash blossom and signifies that the wearer is of marriageable age and in the matrimonial market. It gives her a striking yet not unbecoming appearance, and, if her style of coiffure were adopted by modern fashion it would be something unusually attractive. As represented by Donaldson in the eleventh census report the handsome face of Pootitcie, a maiden of the pueblo of Sichomovi, makes a pretty picture that even her white sisters must admire. After marriage the hair is let down and done up in two hard twists that fall over the shoulders. This form represents a ripe, dried squash blossom and means fruitfulness. Her dress is not Spanish nor yet altogether Indian, but is simple, comfortable and becoming, which is more than can be said of some civilized costumes. She chooses her own husband, inherits her mother's name and property and owns the house in which she lives. Instead of the man owning and bossing everything, as he so dearly loves to do in our own civilization, the property and labor of the Moqui husband and wife are equally divided, the former owning and tending the fields and flocks and the latter possessing and governing the house. The Moquis are famous for their games, dances and festivals, which have been fully described by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes in various reports to the Smithsonian Institution. They have many secret orders, worship the supernatural, and believe in witchcraft. Their great fete day is the Snake Dance, which is held in alternate years at Walpi and Oraibi, at the former place in the odd year and at the latter place in the even year, some time during the month of August. It is purely a religious ceremony, an elaborate supplication for rain, and is designed to propitiate the water god or snake deity. Preliminary ceremonies are conducted in the secret Kiva several days preceding the public dance. The Kiva is an underground chamber that is cut out of the solid rock, and is entered by a ladder. It has but a single opening on top on a level with the street, which serves as door, window and chimney. The room is only used by the men, and is, in fact, a lodge room, where the members of the several secret orders meet and engage in their solemn ceremonials. It is a sacred place, a holy of holies, which none but members of a lodge may enter, and is carefully guarded. The snakes used in the dance are all wild, and captured out on the open plain. Four days prior to the dance the snake men, dressed in scanty attire and equipped with their snake-capturing paraphernalia, march out in squads and scour the surrounding country in search of snakes. One day each is spent in searching the ground towards the four points of the compass, in the order of north, west, south and east, returning at the close of each day with their catch to the Kiva, where the snakes are kept and prepared for the dance. The snakes caught are of several varieties, but much the largest number are rattlesnakes. Respect is shown for serpents of every variety and none are ever intentionally harmed, but the rattlesnake is considered the most sacred and is proportionately esteemed. Its forked tongue represents lightning, its rattle thunder and its spots rain-clouds. The number of snakes they find is surprising, as they catch from one to two hundred during the four days' hunt on ground that might be carefully searched by white men for months without finding a single reptile. The snake men are very expert in catching and handling serpents, and are seldom bitten. If one is bitten it is nothing serious, as they have a secret medicine which they use that is both prophylactic and curative, and makes them immune to the poison so that no harm ever results from a bite. The medicine is taken internally and also applied locally. Efforts have been made to discover its composition but without success. If a snake is located which shows fight by the act of coiling it is tickled with a snake-whip made of eagle's feathers, which soon soothes its anger and causes it to uncoil and try to run away. It is then quickly and safely caught up and dropped from the hand into a bag carried for that purpose. Visitors who attend the dance are under no restrictions, but are free to come and go as they please, either sightseeing or in search of curios. If the visitor has a supply of candy, matches and smoking-tobacco to give away he finds frequent opportunities to bestow his gifts. The children ask for "canty," the women want "matchi," and the men are pleased with a "smoke." On the morning of the dance both the men and women give their hair an extra washing by using a mixture of water and crushed soap-root. The white fibers of the soap-root get mixed with the hair, which gives it a tinge of iron gray. The children also get a bath which, because of the great scarcity of water, is not of daily occurrence. To the Moquis the snake dance is a serious and solemn affair, but to the visitors it is apt to be an occasion for fun and frolic. Owing to a misunderstanding of its true meaning, and because of misconduct in the past on similar occasions, notice is posted on the Kiva asking visitors to abstain from loud laughing and talking. In other words it is a polite request made by the rude red man of his polished (?) white brother to please behave himself. The dance begins late in the afternoon and lasts less than one hour, but while it is in progress the action is intense. The snakes are carried in a bag or jar from the Kiva to the Kisa, built of cotton-wood boughs on one side of the plaza, where the snakes are banded out to the dancers. After much marching and countermarching about the plaza, chanting weird songs and shaking rattles, the column of snake priests, dressed in a fantastic garb of paint, fur and feathers, halts in front of the Kisa and breaks up into groups of three. The carrier takes a snake from the Kisa puts it in his mouth, and carries it there while dancing. Some of the more ambitious young men will carry two or more of the smaller snakes at the same time. The hugger throws his left arm over the shoulder of the carrier and with his right hand fans the snake with his feather whip. The gatherer follows after and picks up the snakes as they fall to the ground. After the snakes have all been danced they are thrown into a heap and sprinkled with sacred corn meal by the young women. The scattering of the meal is accompanied by a shower of spittle from the spectators, who are stationed on, convenient roofs and ladders viewing the ceremony. Fleet runners now catch up the snakes in handfuls and dash off in an exciting race over the mesa and down rocky trails to the plains below where the snakes are returned unharmed to their native haunts. While the men are away disposing of the reptiles the women carry out large ollas, or jars, filled with a black liquid, which is the snake medicine that is used in the final act of purification by washing. When the men return to the mesa they remove their regalias and proceed to drink of the snake medicine which acts as an emetic. With the remainder of the concoction, and assisted by the women, they wash their bodies free from paint. After the men are all washed and puked they re-enter the Kiva, where the long fast is broken by a feast and the formal ceremonies of the snake dance are ended. The snake dance is annually witnessed by many visitors who gather from different sections of the country and even foreign lands. As there are no hotels to entertain guests every visitor must provide his own outfit for conveyance, eating and sleeping. Even water is scarce. Local springs barely furnish enough water to supply the native population; and when the number of people to be supplied is increased from one to two hundred by the visitors who attend the dance, the water question becomes a serious problem. On the lower portion of the road which leads up from the spring to the gap at Walpi on the first mesa, the trail is over drifted sand which makes difficult walking. To remedy this defect in the trail, a path has been made of flat stones laid in the sand, which shows that the Moquis are quick to recognize and utilize an advantage that contributes to their convenience and comfort. The Santa Fe Pacific is the nearest railroad, which runs about one hundred miles south of the Moqui villages. The tourist can secure transportation at reasonable rates of local liverymen either from Holbrook, Winslow, Canon Diablo or Flagstaff. The trip makes an enjoyable outing that is full of interest and instruction from start to finish. Some years ago the government, through its agents, began to civilize and Christianize these Indians and established a school at Keam's Canon, nine miles east of the first mesa, for that purpose. When the school was opened the requisition for a specified number of children from each pueblo was not filled until secured by force. As free citizens of the United States, being such by the treaty made with Mexico in 1848 and, indeed, already so under a system of self-government superior to our own and established long before Columbus discovered America, they naturally resented any interference in their affairs but, being in the minority and overpowered, had to submit. When the object of the school was explained to them, they consented to receive secular instructions but objected to any religious teaching. They asked to have schools opened in the pueblos on the plan of our public schools where the children could attend during the day and return home at night, and their home life be not broken up, but their prayer was denied. The reservation school was opened for the purpose of instructing the Moqui children in civilization, but the results obtained have not been entirely satisfactory. The methods employed for enforcing discipline have been unnecessarily severe and have given dissatisfaction. As recently as the year 1903 the children of this inoffensive and harmless people were forcibly taken from their homes and put into the schools. The time selected for doing the dastardly deed was during the night in midwinter when the weather was cold and the ground covered with snow. Under the orders of the superintendent the reservation police made the raid without warning or warrant of any kind. While the people slept, the police entered their houses, dragged the little children from their comfortable beds and drove them naked out into the snow and cold, where they were rounded up and herded like cattle. The indignity and outrage of this and other similar acts have embittered the Moquis until they have lost what little respect they ever had for Christianity and civilization. The policy of the government is to make them do whatever they do not want to do, to break up the family and scatter its members. The treatment has created two factions among the Moquis known as the "hostiles" who are only hostile in opposing oppression and any change in their religious faith and customs; and the "friendlies" who are willing to obey the boss placed over them and comply with his demands. Religion is the dearest treasure of mankind, and when assailed always finds ready defenders. Possessed by this innate feeling of right and rankling with the injustice of the past, is it surprising that they should spurn any proffered help? They remember what they have suffered in the past and do not care to repeat the experiment. To this day the Moquis hold the mission epoch in contempt and nothing could induce them to accept voluntarily any proposition that savored ought of the old regime. Every vestige of that period has been obliterated from the pueblos that nothing tangible should remain to remind them of their undeserved humiliation. They are a highly religious people worshiping after their own creed, and are sincere and conscientious in their devotions. Almost everything they do has some religious significance and every day its religious observance. Their religion satisfies them and harms no one, then why not leave them in peace? We believe that we can benefit them, which is doubtless true, but might they not also teach us some useful lessons? It would sometimes be more to our credit if we were less anxious to teach others, and more willing to learn ourselves. Next to their religion they love their homes most. The rocks upon which they live, are they not dear from associations? Is it not the land of their birth and the home of their fathers during many generations? They cling with stubborn tenacity to their barren mesas and nothing thus far has succeeded in driving them away; neither war, pestilence nor famine. Repeated attempts have been made to induce them to leave, but without success. Tom Polaki, the principal man of Tewa, was the first man to respond to the call to come down. He left the mesa several years ago, and went to the plain below to live. Having captured the bell wether it was presumed that the balance of the flock would soon follow, but the contrary proved to be true. At the foot of the bluff near a spring on the road that leads up to the gap Tom built a modern house and tried to imitate the white man. But the change did not suit him, and after living in his modern house for a number of years, he finally sold it and returned to his old home on the mesa. A few others at different times have tried the same experiment with no better success. The man would stay for a short time in the house provided for him, but never made it a permanent home for his family. That the Moquis are changing is best illustrated by reference to one of their marriage customs. It is the custom when a youth contemplates matrimony to make a marriage blanket. He grows the cotton, spins the yarn and weaves the cloth, which requires a year or more of time to finish. Since the children have gone to school it is not deemed necessary for a young man to go to so much trouble and expense as to make a marriage blanket, but instead, he borrows one from a friend in the village, and after the ceremony is over returns it to the owner. Even now it is not easy to find such a blanket, and very soon they will be priceless as no more such garments will be made. The only reasonable explanation why any people should select a location like that of the Moquis is on the hypothesis of choice. There is much of the animal in human nature that is influenced by instinct, and man, like the brute, often unconsciously selects what is most congenial to his nature. Thus instinct teaches the eagle to nest on the highest crag and the mountain sheep to browse in pastures which only the hardiest hunter dare approach. For no better reason, apparently, do the Moquis occupy their barren mesas; they simply prefer to live there above any other place. Safety has been urged as a motive for their conduct but it alone is not a sufficient reason for solving the problem. Their position is safe enough from attack but in the event of a siege their safety would only be temporary. With their scant water supply at a distance and unprotected they could not hold out long in a siege, but would soon be compelled either to fight, fly or famish. Again, if safety was their only reason for staying, they could have left long ago and had nothing to fear, as they have been for many years at peace with their ancient enemy the predatory Navajo. But rather than go they have chosen to remain in their old home where they have always lived, and will continue to live so long as they are left free to choose. The modern iconoclast in his unreasonable devotion to realism has, perhaps, stripped them of much old time romance, but even with all of that gone, enough of fact remains to make them a remarkable people. Instead of seeking to change them this last bit of harmless aboriginal life should be spared and preserved, if possible, in all of its native purity and simplicity. [1] The American Race, by D. G. Brinton, 1891. [2] The Gilded Man, by A. F. Bandelier, 1893. CHAPTER XIV A FINE CLIMATE The climate of Arizona as described in the local vernacular is "sure fine." The combination of elements which make the climate is unusual and cannot be duplicated elsewhere upon the American continent. The air is remarkably pure and dry. Siccity, indeed, is its distinguishing feature. That the climate is due to geographical and meteorological conditions cannot be doubted, but the effects are unexplainable by any ordinary rules. The region involved not only embraces Arizona, but also includes portions of California and Mexico and is commonly known as the Colorado Desert. Yuma, at the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers, is approximately its geographical center. The general aspect of the country is low and flat and in the Salton sink the dry land dips several hundred feet below the level of the ocean. Only by extreme siccity is such land possible when more water rises in evaporation than falls by precipitation. There are but few such places in the world, the deepest one being the Dead Sea, which is about thirteen hundred feet lower than the ocean. The Colorado Basin is the dry bed of an ancient sea whose shore line is yet visible in many places upon the sides of the mountains which surround it. Its floor is composed of clay with deposits of sand and salt. Strong winds sometimes sweep over it that shift and pile up the sand in great dunes. The entire region is utterly bare and desolate, yet by the use of water diverted from the Colorado river it is being reclaimed to agriculture. The rainfall is very scant the average annual precipitation at Yuma being less than three inches. The climate is not dry from any lack of surface water, as it has the Gila and Colorado rivers, the Gulf of California and the broad Pacific Ocean to draw from. But the singular fact remains that the country is extremely dry and that it does not rain as in other lands. Neither is the rainfall deficient from any lack of evaporation. Upon the contrary the evaporation is excessive and according to the estimate of Major Powell amounts fully to one hundred inches of water per annum. If the vapors arising from this enormous evaporation should all be condensed into clouds and converted into rain it would create a rainy season that would last throughout the year. The humidity caused by an abundant rainfall in any low, hot country is usually enough to unfit it for human habitation. The combined effect of heat and moisture upon a fertile soil causes an excess of both growing and decaying vegetation that fills the atmosphere with noxious vapors and disease producing germs. The sultry air is so oppressive that it is more than physical endurance can bear. The particles of vapor which float in the atmosphere absorb and hold the heat until it becomes like a steaming hot blanket that is death to unacclimated life. All of this is changed where siccity prevails. The rapid evaporation quickly dispels the vapors and the dry heat desiccates the disease creating germs and makes them innocuous. The effect of heat upon the body is measured by the difference in the actual and sensible temperatures, as recorded by the dry and wet bulb thermometers. When both stand nearly together as they are apt to do in a humid atmosphere, the heat becomes insufferable. In the dry climate of Arizona such a condition cannot occur. The difference in the two instruments is always great, often as much as forty degrees. For this reason, a temperature of 118 degrees F. at Yuma is less oppressive than 98 degrees F. is in New York. A low relative humidity gives comfort and freedom from sunstroke even when the thermometer registers the shade temperature in three figures. A dry, warm climate is a stimulant to the cutaneous function. The skin is an important excreting organ that is furnished with a large number of sweat glands which are for the dual purpose of furnishing moisture for cooling the body by evaporation and the elimination of worn out and waste material from the organism. As an organ it is not easily injured by over work, but readily lends its function in an emergency in any effort to relieve other tired or diseased organs of the body. By vicarious action the skin is capable of performing much extra labor without injury to itself and can be harnessed temporarily for the relief of some vital part which has become crippled until its function can be restored. A diseased kidney depends particularly upon the skin for succor more than any other organ. When the kidneys from any cause fail to act the skin comes to their rescue and throws off impurities which nature intended should go by the renal route. For this reason diabetes and albuminuria, the most stubborn of all kidney diseases, are usually benefited by a dry, warm climate. The benefit derived is due to an increase of the insensible transpiration rather than to profuse perspiration. The air of Arizona is so dry and evaporation so rapid that an increase in perspiration is scarcely noticeable except when it is confined by impervious clothing. The disagreeable feeling of wet clothes which accompanies profuse perspiration in a damp climate is changed to an agreeable sensation of coolness in a dry one. The atmosphere of Arizona is not only dry but also very electrical, so much so, indeed, that at times it becomes almost painful. Whenever the experiment is tried, sparks can be produced by friction or the handling of metal, hair or wool. It affects animals as well as man, and literally causes "the hair to stand on end." The writer has on various occasions seen a string of horses standing close together at a watering-trough, drinking, so full of electricity that their manes and tails were spread out and floated in the air, and the long hairs drawn by magnetic attraction from one animal to the other all down the line in a spontaneous effort to complete a circuit. There are times when the free electricity in the air is so abundant that every object becomes charged with the fluid, and it cannot escape fast enough or find "a way out" by any adequate conductor. The effects of such an excess of electricity is decidedly unpleasant on the nerves, and causes annoying irritability and nervousness. The hot sun sometimes blisters the skin and burns the complexion to a rich, nut-brown color, but the air always feels soft and balmy, and usually blows only in gentle zephyrs. The air has a pungent fragrance which is peculiar to the desert, that is the mingled product of a variety of resinous plants. The weather is uniformly pleasant, and the elements are rarely violently disturbed. In the older settled sections of our country, whenever there is any sudden or extreme change in the weather of either heat or cold, wet or dry, it is always followed by an increase of sickness and death. The aged and invalid, who are sensitive and weak, suffer mostly, as they feel every change in the weather. There is, perhaps, no place on earth that can boast of a perfect climate, but the country that can show the fewest and mildest extremes approaches nearest to the ideal. The southwest is exceptionally favored in its climatic conditions, and is beneficial to the majority of chronic invalids. Atmospheric pressure is greatest near the earth's surface, and exerts a controlling influence over the vital functions. Atmospheric pressure is to the body what the governor is to the steam engine, or the pendulum to the clock. It regulates vital action, insures safety and lessens the wear and tear of machinery. Under its soothing influence the number of respirations per minute are diminished, the heart beats decreased in frequency, and the tired brain and nerves rested. It is often better than medicine, and will sometimes give relief when all other means fail. Arizona has a diversity of altitudes, and therefore furnishes a variety of climates. The elevations range from about sea level at Yuma to nearly thirteen thousand feet upon the San Francisco mountains. By making suitable changes in altitude to fit the season it is possible to enjoy perpetual spring. Because Arizona is far south geographically it is only natural to suppose that it is all very hot, which is a mistake. In the low valleys of southern Arizona the summers are hot, but it is a dry heat which is not oppressive, and the winters are delightfully pleasant. In northern Arizona the winters are cold and the summers cool. There is no finer summer climate in the world than is found on the high plateaus and pine-topped mountains of northern Arizona. Prescott, Williams and Flagstaff have a charming summer climate, while at Yuma, Phoenix and Tucson the winter weather is simply perfect. A mountain residence is not desirable for thin, nervous people or such as are afflicted with any organic disease. A high altitude is too stimulating for this class of patients and tends to increase nervousness and aggravates organic disease. Such persons should seek a coast climate and a low altitude, which is sedative, rather than risk the high and dry interior. Any coast climate is better than the mountains for nervous people, but the Pacific Coast is preferable to any other because of its freedom from electrical storms and every other form of disagreeable meteorological disturbance that tries the nerves. The nervousness that is produced by a high altitude does not, as a rule, develop suddenly, but grows gradually upon the patient. Those of a sensitive nature feel it most and women more than men. After making a change from a low to a high altitude sleep may be sound for a time, but it soon becomes fitful and unrefreshing. It has been discovered that altitude increases the amount of hemoglobulin and thus enriches the blood and is particularly beneficial to pale, thin people. It also sharpens the appetite and promotes digestion and assimilation. Persons suffering from rheumatism, neuralgia, advanced pulmonary consumption, organic heart disease and all disorders of the brain and nerves should avoid a high altitude. Patients that are afflicted with any of the above-mentioned diseases are more comfortable in a low altitude and should choose between the coast of California and the low, dry lands of the lower Gila and Colorado rivers, according to the season of the year and the quality of climate desired. The diseases which are especially benefited by the climate of Arizona are consumption, bronchitis, catarrh and hay fever. Anyone going in search of health who has improved by the change should remain where the improvement took place lest by returning home and being again subjected to the former climatic conditions which caused the disease the improvement be lost and the old disease re-established with increased severity. Most sick people who are in need of a change live in a humid atmosphere where the winters are extremely cold and the summers uncomfortably hot, and to be benefited by a change must seek a climate in which the opposite conditions prevail. The climate of the southwest furnishes just what such invalids require. The sick who need cold or damp weather, if there be any such, can be accommodated almost anywhere, but those who want a warm, dry climate must go where it can be found. Not every invalid who goes in search of health finds a cure, as many who start on such a journey are already past help when they leave home. When a case is hopeless the patient should not undertake such a trip, but remain quietly at home and die in peace among friends. As already intimated the climate of the Colorado basin is ideal in winter, but becomes very hot in summer. Its low altitude, rainless days, cloudless skies and balmy air form a combination that is unsurpassed and is enjoyed by all either sick or well. The heat of summer does not create sickness, but becomes monotonous and tiresome from its steady and long continuance. Many residents of the Territory who tire of the heat and can afford the trip take a vacation during the summer months and either go north to the Grand Canon and the mountains or to the Pacific Coast. Every summer witnesses a hegira of sun baked people fleeing from the hot desert to the mountains or ocean shore in search of coolness and comfort. Life in the tropics, perhaps, inclines to indolence and languor, particularly if the atmosphere is humid, but in a dry climate like that of Arizona the heat, although sometimes great, is never oppressive or debilitating. It has its lazy people like any other country and for the same reason that there are always some who were born tired and never outgrow the tired feeling, but Arizona climate is more bracing than enervating. The adobe house of the Mexican is a peculiar institution of the southwest. It may be interesting on account of its past history, but it is certainly not pretty. It is nothing more than a box of dried mud with its roof, walls and floor all made of dirt. It is never free from a disagreeable earthy smell which, if mingled with the added odors of stale smoke and filth, as is often the case, makes the air simply vile. The house can never be kept tidy because of the dirt which falls from the adobe, unless the walls and ceilings are plastered and whitewashed, which is sometimes done in the better class of houses. If the house is well built it is comfortable enough in pleasant weather, but as often as it rains the dirt roof springs a leak and splashes water and mud over everything. If by chance the house stands on low ground and is surrounded by water, as sometimes happens, after a heavy rain the walls become soaked and dissolved into mud when the house collapses. The adobe house may have been suited to the wants of a primitive people, but in the present age of improvement, it is scarcely worth saving except it be as a relic of a vanishing race. In order to escape in a measure the discomforts of the midday heat the natives either seek the shade in the open air where the breeze blows, or, what is more common, close up tight the adobe house in the morning and remain indoors until the intense heat from the scorching sun penetrates the thick walls, which causes the inmates to move out. In the cool of the evening they visit and transact business and when the hour comes for retiring go to bed on cots made up out of doors where they sleep until morning, while the house is left open to cool off during the night. This process is repeated every day during the hot summer months and is endured without complaint. The natives, also, take advantage of the dry air to operate a novel method of refrigeration. The cloth covered army canteen soaked in water and the handy water jug of the eastern harvest field wrapped in a wet blanket are familiar examples of an ineffectual attempt at refrigeration by evaporation. But natural refrigeration find its best illustration in the arid regions of the southwest by the use of an olla, which is a vessel made of porous pottery, a stout canvas bag or a closely woven Indian basket. A suitable vessel is selected, filled with water and suspended somewhere in midair in the shade. If it is hung in a current of air it is all the better, as any movement of the atmosphere facilitates evaporation. A slow seepage of water filters through the open pores of the vessel which immediately evaporates in the dry air and lowers the temperature. The water in the olla soon becomes cold and if properly protected will remain cool during the entire day. The dry air also acts as a valuable preservative. During the winter, when the weather is cool but not freezing, if fresh meat is hung out in the open air, it will keep sweet a long time. A dry crust soon forms upon its surface which hermetically seals the meat from the air and keeps it perfectly sweet. In the summer it is necessary to dry the meat more quickly to keep it from spoiling. It is then made into "jerky" by cutting it into long, thin strips and hanging them up in the sun to dry. After it is thoroughly dried, it is tied up in bags and used as needed, either by eating it dry from the pocket when out on a tramp, or, if in camp, serving it in a hot stew. Even the carcass of a dead animal that is left exposed upon the ground to decompose does not moulder away by the usual process of decay, but what is left of the body after the hungry buzzards and coyotes have finished their feast, dries up into a mummy that lasts for years. Climate everywhere unquestionably influences life in its evolution, but it is not always easy to determine all of its effects in detail. In Arizona, which is but a comparatively small corner of our country, live several races of men that are as different from each other as nature could make them, yet all live in the same climate. The Pueblo Indian is in a manner civilized, peaceable and industrious. He is brave in self-defense, but never seeks war nor bloodshed. Quite different is his near neighbor, the bloodthirsty Apache, who seems to delight only in robbing and killing people. Cunning and revenge are pronounced traits of his character and the Government has found him difficult to conquer or control. The Mexican leads a shiftless, thriftless life and seems satisfied merely to exist. He has, unfortunately, inherited more of the baser than the better qualities of his ancestors, and, to all appearance, is destined to further degenerate. The American is the last comer and has already pushed civilization and commerce into the remotest corners and, as usual, dominates the land. As diverse as are these several races in many respects, each one of them furnishes splendid specimens of physical manhood. The Indian has always been noted for his fine physique, and is large bodied, well muscled and full chested. One advantage which the southwest has over other countries is that the climate is mild and favorable to an outdoor life, which is conducive to health and physical development. No single race of men flourish equally well everywhere, but each one is affected by its own surroundings; and, what is true of a race, is also true of an individual. The pioneer in any country is always an interesting character, but he differs in peculiarities according to his environment of mountain, plain or forest. Occupation also exerts an influence and in time develops distinct types like the trapper, miner, soldier and cowboy, that only the graphic pencil of a Remington can accurately portray. The eccentricities of character which are sometimes met in men who dwell on the frontier are not always due alone to disposition, but are largely the product of the wild life which they live, that inclines them to be restless, reckless and even desperate. There is no better field for observing and studying the effects of environment upon human life than is furnished by the arid region of the southwest. 
753	----	ARIZONA NIGHTS by STEWART EDWARD WHITE TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAP. I. THE OLE VIRGINIA II. THE EMIGRANTS III. THE REMITTANCE MAN IV. THE CATTLE RUSTLERS V. THE DRIVE VI. CUTTING OUT VII. A CORNER IN HORSES VIII. THE CORRAL BRANDING IX. THE OLD TIMER X. THE TEXAS RANGERS XI. THE SAILOR WITH ONE HAND XII. THE MURDER ON THE BEACH XIII. BURIED TREASURE XIV. THE CHEWED SUGAR CANE XV. THE CALABASH STEW XVI. THE HONK-HONK BREED PART II--THE TWO GUN MAN I. THE CATTLE RUSTLERS II. THE MAN WITH NERVE III. THE AGREEMENT IV. THE ACCOMPLISHMENT PART III--THE RAWHIDE I. THE PASSING OF THE COLT'S FORTY-FIVE II. THE SHAPES OF ILLUSION III. THE PAPER A YEAR OLD IV. DREAMS V. THE ARRIVAL VI. THE WAGON TIRE VII. ESTRELLA VIII. THE ROUND-UP IX. THE LONG TRAIL X. THE DISCOVERY XI. THE CAPTURE XII. IN THE ARROYO XIII. THE RAWHIDE XIV. THE DESERT CHAPTER ONE THE OLE VIRGINIA The ring around the sun had thickened all day long, and the turquoise blue of the Arizona sky had filmed. Storms in the dry countries are infrequent, but heavy; and this surely meant storm. We had ridden since sun-up over broad mesas, down and out of deep canons, along the base of the mountain in the wildest parts of the territory. The cattle were winding leisurely toward the high country; the jack rabbits had disappeared; the quail lacked; we did not see a single antelope in the open. "It's a case of hole up," the Cattleman ventured his opinion. "I have a ranch over in the Double R. Charley and Windy Bill hold it down. We'll tackle it. What do you think?" The four cowboys agreed. We dropped into a low, broad watercourse, ascended its bed to big cottonwoods and flowing water, followed it into box canons between rim-rock carved fantastically and painted like a Moorish facade, until at last in a widening below a rounded hill, we came upon an adobe house, a fruit tree, and a round corral. This was the Double R. Charley and Windy Bill welcomed us with soda biscuits. We turned our horses out, spread our beds on the floor, filled our pipes, and squatted on our heels. Various dogs of various breeds investigated us. It was very pleasant, and we did not mind the ring around the sun. "Somebody else coming," announced the Cattleman finally. "Uncle Jim," said Charley, after a glance. A hawk-faced old man with a long white beard and long white hair rode out from the cottonwoods. He had on a battered broad hat abnormally high of crown, carried across his saddle a heavy "eight square" rifle, and was followed by a half-dozen lolloping hounds. The largest and fiercest of the latter, catching sight of our group, launched himself with lightning rapidity at the biggest of the ranch dogs, promptly nailed that canine by the back of the neck, shook him violently a score of times, flung him aside, and pounced on the next. During the ensuing few moments that hound was the busiest thing in the West. He satisfactorily whipped four dogs, pursued two cats up a tree, upset the Dutch oven and the rest of the soda biscuits, stampeded the horses, and raised a cloud of dust adequate to represent the smoke of battle. We others were too paralysed to move. Uncle Jim sat placidly on his white horse, his thin knees bent to the ox-bow stirrups, smoking. In ten seconds the trouble was over, principally because there was no more trouble to make. The hound returned leisurely, licking from his chops the hair of his victims. Uncle Jim shook his head. "Trailer," said he sadly, "is a little severe." We agreed heartily, and turned in to welcome Uncle Jim with a fresh batch of soda biscuits. The old man was one of the typical "long hairs." He had come to the Galiuro Mountains in '69, and since '69 he had remained in the Galiuro Mountains, spite of man or the devil. At present he possessed some hundreds of cattle, which he was reputed to water, in a dry season, from an ordinary dishpan. In times past he had prospected. That evening, the severe Trailer having dropped to slumber, he held forth on big-game hunting and dogs, quartz claims and Apaches. "Did you ever have any very close calls?" I asked. He ruminated a few moments, refilled his pipe with some awful tobacco, and told the following experience: In the time of Geronimo I was living just about where I do now; and that was just about in line with the raiding. You see, Geronimo, and Ju [1], and old Loco used to pile out of the reservation at Camp Apache, raid south to the line, slip over into Mexico when the soldiers got too promiscuous, and raid there until they got ready to come back. Then there was always a big medicine talk. Says Geronimo: "I am tired of the warpath. I will come back from Mexico with all my warriors, if you will escort me with soldiers and protect my people." "All right," says the General, being only too glad to get him back at all. So, then, in ten minutes there wouldn't be a buck in camp, but next morning they shows up again, each with about fifty head of hosses. "Where'd you get those hosses?" asks the General, suspicious. "Had 'em pastured in the hills," answers Geronimo. "I can't take all those hosses with me; I believe they're stolen!" says the General. "My people cannot go without their hosses," says Geronimo. So, across the line they goes, and back to the reservation. In about a week there's fifty-two frantic Greasers wanting to know where's their hosses. The army is nothing but an importer of stolen stock, and knows it, and can't help it. Well, as I says, I'm between Camp Apache and the Mexican line, so that every raiding party goes right on past me. The point is that I'm a thousand feet or so above the valley, and the renegades is in such a devil of a hurry about that time that they never stop to climb up and collect me. Often I've watched them trailing down the valley in a cloud of dust. Then, in a day or two, a squad of soldiers would come up, and camp at my spring for a while. They used to send soldiers to guard every water hole in the country so the renegades couldn't get water. After a while, from not being bothered none, I got thinking I wasn't worth while with them. Me and Johnny Hooper were pecking away at the old Virginia mine then. We'd got down about sixty feet, all timbered, and was thinking of cross-cutting. One day Johnny went to town, and that same day I got in a hurry and left my gun at camp. I worked all the morning down at the bottom of the shaft, and when I see by the sun it was getting along towards noon, I put in three good shots, tamped 'em down, lit the fusees, and started to climb out. It ain't noways pleasant to light a fuse in a shaft, and then have to climb out a fifty-foot ladder, with it burning behind you. I never did get used to it. You keep thinking, "Now suppose there's a flaw in that fuse, or something, and she goes off in six seconds instead of two minutes? where'll you be then?" It would give you a good boost towards your home on high, anyway. So I climbed fast, and stuck my head out the top without looking--and then I froze solid enough. There, about fifty feet away, climbing up the hill on mighty tired hosses, was a dozen of the ugliest Chiricahuas you ever don't want to meet, and in addition a Mexican renegade named Maria, who was worse than any of 'em. I see at once their hosses was tired out, and they had a notion of camping at my water hole, not knowing nothing about the Ole Virginia mine. For two bits I'd have let go all holts and dropped backwards, trusting to my thick head for easy lighting. Then I heard a little fizz and sputter from below. At that my hair riz right up so I could feel the breeze blow under my hat. For about six seconds I stood there like an imbecile, grinning amiably. Then one of the Chiricahuas made a sort of grunt, and I sabed that they'd seen the original exhibit your Uncle Jim was making of himself. Then that fuse gave another sputter and one of the Apaches said "Un dah." That means "white man." It was harder to turn my head than if I'd had a stiff neck; but I managed to do it, and I see that my ore dump wasn't more than ten foot away. I mighty near overjumped it; and the next I knew I was on one side of it and those Apaches on the other. Probably I flew; leastways I don't seem to remember jumping. That didn't seem to do me much good. The renegades were grinning and laughing to think how easy a thing they had; and I couldn't rightly think up any arguments against that notion--at least from their standpoint. They were chattering away to each other in Mexican for the benefit of Maria. Oh, they had me all distributed, down to my suspender buttons! And me squatting behind that ore dump about as formidable as a brush rabbit! Then, all at once, one of my shots went off down in the shaft. "Boom!" says she, plenty big; and a slather of rock, and stones come out of the mouth, and began to dump down promiscuous on the scenery. I got one little one in the shoulder-blade, and found time to wish my ore dump had a roof. But those renegades caught it square in the thick of trouble. One got knocked out entirely for a minute, by a nice piece of country rock in the head. "Otra vez!" yells I, which means "again." "Boom!" goes the Ole Virginia prompt as an answer. I put in my time dodging, but when I gets a chance to look, the Apaches has all got to cover, and is looking scared. "Otra vez!" yells I again. "Boom!" says the Ole Virginia. This was the biggest shot of the lot, and she surely cut loose. I ought to have been half-way up the bill watching things from a safe distance, but I wasn't. Lucky for me the shaft was a little on the drift, so she didn't quite shoot my way. But she distributed about a ton over those renegades. They sort of half got to their feet uncertain. "Otra vez!" yells I once more, as bold as if I could keep her shooting all day. It was just a cold, raw blazer; and if it didn't go through I could see me as an Apache parlour ornament. But it did. Those Chiricahuas give one yell and skipped. It was surely a funny sight, after they got aboard their war ponies, to see them trying to dig out on horses too tired to trot. I didn't stop to get all the laughs, though. In fact, I give one jump off that ledge, and I lit a-running. A quarter-hoss couldn't have beat me to that shack. There I grabbed old Meat-in-the-pot and made a climb for the tall country, aiming to wait around until dark, and then to pull out for Benson. Johnny Hooper wasn't expected till next day, which was lucky. From where I lay I could see the Apaches camped out beyond my draw, and I didn't doubt they'd visited the place. Along about sunset they all left their camp, and went into the draw, so there, I thinks, I sees a good chance to make a start before dark. I dropped down from the mesa, skirted the butte, and angled down across the country. After I'd gone a half mile from the cliffs, I ran across Johnny Hooper's fresh trail headed towards camp! My heart jumped right up into my mouth at that. Here was poor old Johnny, a day too early, with a pack-mule of grub, walking innocent as a yearling, right into the bands of those hostiles. The trail looked pretty fresh, and Benson's a good long day with a pack animal, so I thought perhaps I might catch him before he runs into trouble. So I ran back on the trail as fast as I could make it. The sun was down by now, and it was getting dusk. I didn't overtake him, and when I got to the top of the canon I crawled along very cautious and took a look. Of course, I expected to see everything up in smoke, but I nearly got up and yelled when I see everything all right, and old Sukey, the pack-mule, and Johnny's hoss hitched up as peaceful as babies to the corral. "THAT'S all right!" thinks I, "they're back in their camp, and haven't discovered Johnny yet. I'll snail him out of there." So I ran down the hill and into the shack. Johnny sat in his chair--what there was of him. He must have got in about two hours before sundown, for they'd had lots of time to put in on him. That's the reason they'd stayed so long up the draw. Poor old Johnny! I was glad it was night, and he was dead. Apaches are the worst Injuns there is for tortures. They cut off the bottoms of old man Wilkins's feet, and stood him on an ant-hill--. In a minute or so, though, my wits gets to work. "Why ain't the shack burned?" I asks myself, "and why is the hoss and the mule tied all so peaceful to the corral?" It didn't take long for a man who knows Injins to answer THOSE conundrums. The whole thing was a trap--for me--and I'd walked into it, chuckle-headed as a prairie-dog! With that I makes a run outside--by now it was dark--and listens. Sure enough, I hears hosses. So I makes a rapid sneak back over the trail. Everything seemed all right till I got up to the rim-rock. Then I heard more hosses--ahead of me. And when I looked back I could see some Injuns already at the shack, and starting to build a fire outside. In a tight fix, a man is pretty apt to get scared till all hope is gone. Then he is pretty apt to get cool and calm. That was my case. I couldn't go ahead--there was those hosses coming along the trail. I couldn't go back--there was those Injins building the fire. So I skirmished around till I got a bright star right over the trail head, and I trained old Meat-in-the-pot to bear on that star, and I made up my mind that when the star was darkened I'd turn loose. So I lay there a while listening. By and by the star was blotted out, and I cut loose, and old Meat-in-the-pot missed fire--she never did it before nor since; I think that cartridge-- Well, I don't know where the Injins came from, but it seemed as if the hammer had hardly clicked before three or four of them bad piled on me. I put up the best fight I could, for I wasn't figuring to be caught alive, and this miss-fire deal had fooled me all along the line. They surely had a lively time. I expected every minute to feel a knife in my back, but when I didn't get it then I knew they wanted to bring me in alive, and that made me fight harder. First and last, we rolled and plunged all the way from the rim-rock down to the canon-bed. Then one of the Injins sung out: "Maria!" And I thought of that renegade Mexican, and what I'd heard bout him, and that made me fight harder yet. But after we'd fought down to the canon-bed, and had lost most of our skin, a half-dozen more fell on me, and in less than no time they had me tied. Then they picked me up and carried me over to where they'd built a big fire by the corral. Uncle Jim stopped with an air of finality, and began lazily to refill his pipe. From the open mud fireplace he picked a coal. Outside, the rain, faithful to the prophecy of the wide-ringed sun, beat fitfully against the roof. "That was the closest call I ever had," said he at last. "But, Uncle Jim," we cried in a confused chorus, "how did you get away? What did the Indians do to you? Who rescued you?" Uncle Jim chuckled. "The first man I saw sitting at that fire," said he, "was Lieutenant Price of the United States Army, and by him was Tom Horn." "'What's this?' he asks, and Horn talks to the Injins in Apache. "'They say they've caught Maria,' translates Horn back again. "'Maria-nothing!' says Lieutenant Price. 'This is Jim Fox. I know him.'" "So they turned me loose. It seems the troops had driven off the renegades an hour before." "And the Indians who caught you, Uncle Jim? You said they were Indians." "Were Tonto Basin Apaches," explained the old man--"government scouts under Tom Horn." [1] Pronounced "Hoo." CHAPTER TWO THE EMIGRANTS After the rain that had held us holed up at the Double R over one day, we discussed what we should do next. "The flats will be too boggy for riding, and anyway the cattle will be in the high country," the Cattleman summed up the situation. "We'd bog down the chuck-wagon if we tried to get back to the J. H. But now after the rain the weather ought to be beautiful. What shall we do?" "Was you ever in the Jackson country?" asked Uncle Jim. "It's the wildest part of Arizona. It's a big country and rough, and no one lives there, and there's lots of deer and mountain lions and bear. Here's my dogs. We might have a hunt." "Good!" said we. We skirmished around and found a condemned army pack saddle with aparejos, and a sawbuck saddle with kyacks. On these, we managed to condense our grub and utensils. There were plenty of horses, so our bedding we bound flat about their naked barrels by means of the squaw-hitch. Then we started. That day furnished us with a demonstration of what Arizona horses can do. Our way led first through a canon-bed filled with rounded boulders and rocks, slippery and unstable. Big cottonwoods and oaks grew so thick as partially to conceal the cliffs on either side of us. The rim-rock was mysterious with caves; beautiful with hanging gardens of tree ferns and grasses growing thick in long transverse crevices; wonderful in colour and shape. We passed the little canons fenced off by the rustlers as corrals into which to shunt from the herds their choice of beeves. The Cattleman shook his head at them. "Many a man has come from Texas and established a herd with no other asset than a couple of horses and a branding-iron," said he. Then we worked up gradually to a divide, whence we could see a range of wild and rugged mountains on our right. They rose by slopes and ledges, steep and rough, and at last ended in the thousand-foot cliffs of the buttes, running sheer and unbroken for many miles. During all the rest of our trip they were to be our companions, the only constant factors in the tumult of lesser peaks, precipitous canons, and twisted systems in which we were constantly involved. The sky was sun-and-shadow after the rain. Each and every Arizonan predicted clearing. "Why, it almost never rains in Arizona," said Jed Parker. "And when it does it quits before it begins." Nevertheless, about noon a thick cloud gathered about the tops of the Galiuros above us. Almost immediately it was dissipated by the wind, but when the peaks again showed, we stared with astonishment to see that they were white with snow. It was as though a magician had passed a sheet before them the brief instant necessary to work his great transformation. Shortly the sky thickened again, and it began to rain. Travel had been precarious before; but now its difficulties were infinitely increased. The clay sub-soil to the rubble turned slippery and adhesive. On the sides of the mountains it was almost impossible to keep a footing. We speedily became wet, our hands puffed and purple, our boots sodden with the water that had trickled from our clothing into them. "Over the next ridge," Uncle Jim promised us, "is an old shack that I fixed up seven years ago. We can all make out to get in it." Over the next ridge, therefore, we slipped and slid, thanking the god of luck for each ten feet gained. It was growing cold. The cliffs and palisades near at hand showed dimly behind the falling rain; beyond them waved and eddied the storm mists through which the mountains revealed and concealed proportions exaggerated into unearthly grandeur. Deep in the clefts of the box canons the streams were filling. The roar of their rapids echoed from innumerable precipices. A soft swish of water usurped the world of sound. Nothing more uncomfortable or more magnificent could be imagined. We rode shivering. Each said to himself, "I can stand this--right now--at the present moment. Very well; I will do so, and I will refuse to look forward even five minutes to what I may have to stand," which is the true philosophy of tough times and the only effective way to endure discomfort. By luck we reached the bottom of that canon without a fall. It was wide, well grown with oak trees, and belly deep in rich horse feed--an ideal place to camp were it not for the fact that a thin sheet of water a quarter of an inch deep was flowing over the entire surface of the ground. We spurred on desperately, thinking of a warm fire and a chance to steam. The roof of the shack had fallen in, and the floor was six inches deep in adobe mud. We did not dismount--that would have wet our saddles--but sat on our horses taking in the details. Finally Uncle Jim came to the front with a suggestion. "I know of a cave," said he, "close under a butte. It's a big cave, but it has such a steep floor that I'm not sure as we could stay in it; and it's back the other side of that ridge." "I don't know how the ridge is to get back over--it was slippery enough coming this way--and the cave may shoot us out into space, but I'd like to LOOK at a dry place anyway," replied the Cattleman. We all felt the same about it, so back over the ridge we went. About half way down the other side Uncle Jim turned sharp to the right, and as the "hog back" dropped behind us, we found ourselves out on the steep side of a mountain, the perpendicular cliff over us to the right, the river roaring savagely far down below our left, and sheets of water glazing the footing we could find among the boulders and debris. Hardly could the ponies keep from slipping sideways on the slope, as we proceeded farther and farther from the solidity of the ridge behind us, we experienced the illusion of venturing out on a tight rope over abysses of space. Even the feeling of danger was only an illusion, however, composite of the falling rain, the deepening twilight, and the night that had already enveloped the plunge of the canon below. Finally Uncle Jim stopped just within the drip from the cliffs. "Here she is," said he. We descended eagerly. A deer bounded away from the base of the buttes. The cave ran steep, in the manner of an inclined tunnel, far up into the dimness. We had to dig our toes in and scramble to make way up it at all, but we found it dry, and after a little search discovered a foot-ledge of earth sufficiently broad for a seat. "That's all right," quoth Jed Parker. "Now, for sleeping places." We scattered. Uncle Jim and Charley promptly annexed the slight overhang of the cliff whence the deer had jumped. It was dry at the moment, but we uttered pessimistic predictions if the wind should change. Tom Rich and Jim Lester had a little tent, and insisted on descending to the canon-bed. "Got to cook there, anyways," said they, and departed with the two pack mules and their bed horse. That left the Cattleman, Windy Bill, Jed Parker, and me. In a moment Windy Bill came up to us whispering and mysterious. "Get your cavallos and follow me," said he. We did so. He led us two hundred yards to another cave, twenty feet high, fifteen feet in diameter, level as a floor. "How's that?" he cried in triumph. "Found her just now while I was rustling nigger-heads for a fire." We unpacked our beds with chuckles of joy, and spread them carefully within the shelter of the cave. Except for the very edges, which did not much matter, our blankets and "so-guns," protected by the canvas "tarp," were reasonably dry. Every once in a while a spasm of conscience would seize one or the other of us. "It seems sort of mean on the other fellows," ruminated Jed Parker. "They had their first choice," cried we all. "Uncle Jim's an old man," the Cattleman pointed out. But Windy Bill had thought of that. "I told him of this yere cave first. But he allowed he was plumb satisfied." We finished laying out our blankets. The result looked good to us. We all burst out laughing. "Well, I'm sorry for those fellows," cried the Cattleman. We hobbled our horses and descended to the gleam of the fire, like guilty conspirators. There we ate hastily of meat, bread and coffee, merely for the sake of sustenance. It certainly amounted to little in the way of pleasure. The water from the direct rain, the shivering trees, and our hat brims accumulated in our plates faster than we could bail it out. The dishes were thrust under a canvas. Rich and Lester decided to remain with their tent, and so we saw them no more until morning. We broke off back-loads of mesquite and toiled up the hill, tasting thickly the high altitude in the severe labour. At the big cave we dumped down our burdens, transported our fuel piecemeal to the vicinity of the narrow ledge, built a good fire, sat in a row, and lit our pipes. In a few moments, the blaze was burning high, and our bodies had ceased shivering. Fantastically the firelight revealed the knobs and crevices, the ledges and the arching walls. Their shadows leaped, following the flames, receding and advancing like playful beasts. Far above us was a single tiny opening through which the smoke was sucked as through a chimney. The glow ruddied the men's features. Outside was thick darkness, and the swish and rush and roar of rising waters. Listening, Windy Bill was reminded of a story. We leaned back comfortably against the sloping walls of the cave, thrust our feet toward the blaze, smoked, and hearkened to the tale of Windy Bill. There's a tur'ble lot of water running loose here, but I've seen the time and place where even what is in that drip would be worth a gold mine. That was in the emigrant days. They used to come over south of here, through what they called Emigrant Pass, on their way to Californy. I was a kid then, about eighteen year old, and what I didn't know about Injins and Agency cattle wasn't a patch of alkali. I had a kid outfit of h'ar bridle, lots of silver and such, and I used to ride over and be the handsome boy before such outfits as happened along. They were queer people, most of 'em from Missoury and such-like southern seaports, and they were tur'ble sick of travel by the time they come in sight of Emigrant Pass. Up to Santa Fe they mostly hiked along any old way, but once there they herded up together in bunches of twenty wagons or so, 'count of our old friends, Geronimo and Loco. A good many of 'em had horned cattle to their wagons, and they crawled along about two miles an hour, hotter'n hell with the blower on, nothin' to look at but a mountain a week way, chuck full of alkali, plenty of sage-brush and rattlesnakes--but mighty little water. Why, you boys know that country down there. Between the Chiricahua Mountains and Emigrant Pass it's maybe a three or four days' journey for these yere bull-slingers. Mostly they filled up their bellies and their kegs, hoping to last through, but they sure found it drier than cork legs, and generally long before they hit the Springs their tongues was hangin' out a foot. You see, for all their plumb nerve in comin' so far, the most of them didn't know sic 'em. They were plumb innocent in regard to savin' their water, and Injins, and such; and the long-haired buckskin fakes they picked up at Santa Fe for guides wasn't much better. That was where Texas Pete made his killing. Texas Pete was a tough citizen from the Lone Star. He was about as broad as he was long, and wore all sorts of big whiskers and black eyebrows. His heart was very bad. You never COULD tell where Texas Pete was goin' to jump next. He was a side-winder and a diamond-back and a little black rattlesnake all rolled into one. I believe that Texas Pete person cared about as little for killin' a man as for takin' a drink--and he shorely drank without an effort. Peaceable citizens just spoke soft and minded their own business; onpeaceable citizens Texas Pete used to plant out in the sagebrush. Now this Texas Pete happened to discover a water hole right out in the plumb middle of the desert. He promptly annexed said water hole, digs her out, timbers her up, and lays for emigrants. He charged two bits a head--man or beast--and nobody got a mouthful till he paid up in hard coin. Think of the wads he raked in! I used to figure it up, just for the joy of envyin' him, I reckon. An average twenty-wagon outfit, first and last, would bring him in somewheres about fifty dollars--and besides he had forty-rod at four bits a glass. And outfits at that time were thicker'n spatter. We used all to go down sometimes to watch them come in. When they see that little canvas shack and that well, they begun to cheer up and move fast. And when they see that sign, "Water, two bits a head," their eyes stuck out like two raw oysters. Then come the kicks. What a howl they did raise, shorely. But it didn't do no manner of good. Texas Pete didn't do nothin' but sit there and smoke, with a kind of sulky gleam in one corner of his eye. He didn't even take the trouble to answer, but his Winchester lay across his lap. There wasn't no humour in the situation for him. "How much is your water for humans?" asks one emigrant. "Can't you read that sign?" Texas Pete asks him. "But you don't mean two bits a head for HUMANS!" yells the man. "Why, you can get whisky for that!" "You can read the sign, can't you?" insists Texas Pete. "I can read it all right?" says the man, tryin' a new deal, "but they tell me not to believe more'n half I read." But that don't go; and Mr. Emigrant shells out with the rest. I didn't blame them for raisin' their howl. Why, at that time the regular water holes was chargin' five cents a head from the government freighters, and the motto was always "Hold up Uncle Sam," at that. Once in a while some outfit would get mad and go chargin' off dry; but it was a long, long way to the Springs, and mighty hot and dusty. Texas Pete and his one lonesome water hole shorely did a big business. Late one afternoon me and Gentleman Tim was joggin' along above Texas Pete's place. It was a tur'ble hot day--you had to prime yourself to spit--and we was just gettin' back from drivin' some beef up to the troops at Fort Huachuca. We was due to cross the Emigrant Trail--she's wore in tur'ble deep--you can see the ruts to-day. When we topped the rise we see a little old outfit just makin' out to drag along. It was one little schooner all by herself, drug along by two poor old cavallos that couldn't have pulled my hat off. Their tongues was out, and every once in a while they'd stick in a chuck-hole. Then a man would get down and put his shoulder to the wheel, and everybody'd take a heave, and up they'd come, all a-trembling and weak. Tim and I rode down just to take a look at the curiosity. A thin-lookin' man was drivin', all humped up. "Hullo, stranger," says I, "ain't you 'fraid of Injins?" "Yes," says he. "Then why are you travellin' through an Injin country all alone?" "Couldn't keep up," says he. "Can I get water here?" "I reckon," I answers. He drove up to the water trough there at Texas Pete's, me and Gentleman Tim followin' along because our trail led that way. But he hadn't more'n stopped before Texas Pete was out. "Cost you four bits to water them hosses," says he. The man looked up kind of bewildered. "I'm sorry," says he, "I ain't got no four bits. I got my roll lifted off'n me." "No water, then," growls Texas Pete back at him. The man looked about him helpless. "How far is it to the next water?" he asks me. "Twenty mile," I tells him. "My God!" he says, to himself-like. Then he shrugged his shoulders very tired. "All right. It's gettin' the cool of the evenin'; we'll make it." He turns into the inside of that old schooner. "Gi' me the cup, Sue." A white-faced woman who looked mighty good to us alkalis opened the flaps and gave out a tin cup, which the man pointed out to fill. "How many of you is they?" asks Texas Pete. "Three," replies the man, wondering. "Well, six bits, then," says Texas Pete, "cash down." At that the man straightens up a little. "I ain't askin' for no water for my stock," says he, "but my wife and baby has been out in this sun all day without a drop of water. Our cask slipped a hoop and bust just this side of Dos Cabesas. The poor kid is plumb dry." "Two bits a head," says Texas Pete. At that the woman comes out, a little bit of a baby in her arms. The kid had fuzzy yellow hair, and its face was flushed red and shiny. "Shorely you won't refuse a sick child a drink of water, sir," says she. But Texas Pete had some sort of a special grouch; I guess he was just beginning to get his snowshoes off after a fight with his own forty-rod. "What the hell are you-all doin' on the trail without no money at all?" he growls, "and how do you expect to get along? Such plumb tenderfeet drive me weary." "Well," says the man, still reasonable, "I ain't got no money, but I'll give you six bits' worth of flour or trade or an'thin' I got." "I don't run no truck-store," snaps Texas Pete, and turns square on his heel and goes back to his chair. "Got six bits about you?" whispers Gentleman Tim to me. "Not a red," I answers. Gentleman Tim turns to Texas Pete. "Let 'em have a drink, Pete. I'll pay you next time I come down." "Cash down," growls Pete. "You're the meanest man I ever see," observes Tim. "I wouldn't speak to you if I met you in hell carryin' a lump of ice in your hand." "You're the softest _I_ ever see," sneers Pete. "Don't they have any genooine Texans down your way?" "Not enough to make it disagreeable," says Tim. "That lets you out," growls Pete, gettin' hostile and handlin' of his rifle. Which the man had been standin' there bewildered, the cup hangin' from his finger. At last, lookin' pretty desperate, he stooped down to dig up a little of the wet from an overflow puddle lyin' at his feet. At the same time the hosses, left sort of to themselves and bein' drier than a covered bridge, drug forward and stuck their noses in the trough. Gentleman Tim and me was sittin' there on our hosses, a little to one side. We saw Texas Pete jump up from his chair, take a quick aim, and cut loose with his rifle. It was plumb unexpected to us. We hadn't thought of any shootin', and our six-shooters was tied in, 'count of the jumpy country we'd been drivin' the steers over. But Gentleman Tim, who had unslung his rope, aimin' to help the hosses out of the chuckhole, snatched her off the horn, and with one of the prettiest twenty-foot flip throws I ever see done he snaked old Texas Pete right out of his wicky-up, gun and all. The old renegade did his best to twist around for a shot at us; but it was no go; and I never enjoyed hog-tying a critter more in my life than I enjoyed hog-tying Texas Pete. Then we turned to see what damage had been done. We were some relieved to find the family all right, but Texas Pete had bored one of them poor old crow-bait hosses plumb through the head. "It's lucky for you you don't get the old man," says Gentleman Tim very quiet and polite. Which Gentleman Tim was an Irishman, and I'd been on the range long enough with him to know that when he got quiet and polite it was time to dodge behind something. "I hope, sir" says he to the stranger, "that you will give your wife and baby a satisfying drink. As for your hoss, pray do not be under any apprehension. Our friend, Mr. Texas Pete, here, has kindly consented to make good any deficiencies from his own corral." Tim could talk high, wide, and handsome when he set out to. The man started to say something; but I managed to herd him to one side. "Let him alone," I whispers. "When he talks that way, he's mad; and when he's mad, it's better to leave nature to supply the lightnin' rods." He seemed to sabe all right, so we built us a little fire and started some grub, while Gentleman Tim walked up and down very grand and fierce. By and by he seemed to make up his mind. He went over and untied Texas Pete. "Stand up, you hound," says he. "Now listen to me. If you make a break to get away, or if you refuse to do just as I tell you, I won't shoot you, but I'll march you up country and see that Geronimo gets you." He sorted out a shovel and pick, made Texas Pete carry them right along the trail a quarter, and started him to diggin' a hole. Texas Pete started in hard enough, Tim sittin' over him on his hoss, his six-shooter loose, and his rope free. The man and I stood by, not darin' to say a word. After a minute or so Texas Pete began to work slower and slower. By and by he stopped. "Look here," says he, "is this here thing my grave?" "I am goin' to see that you give the gentleman's hoss decent interment," says Gentleman Tim very polite. "Bury a hoss!" growls Texas Pete. But he didn't say any more. Tim cocked his six-shooter. "Perhaps you'd better quit panting and sweat a little," says he. Texas Pete worked hard for a while, for Tim's quietness was beginning to scare him up the worst way. By and by he had got down maybe four or five feet, and Tim got off his hoss. "I think that will do," says he. "You may come out. Billy, my son, cover him. Now, Mr. Texas Pete," he says, cold as steel, "there is the grave. We will place the hoss in it. Then I intend to shoot you and put you in with the hoss, and write you an epitaph that will be a comfort to such travellers of the Trail as are honest, and a warnin' to such as are not. I'd as soon kill you now as an hour from now, so you may make a break for it if you feel like it." He stooped over to look into the hole. I thought he looked an extra long time, but when he raised his head his face had changed complete. "March!" says he very brisk. We all went back to the shack. From the corral Tim took Texas Pete's best team and hitched her to the old schooner. "There," says he to the man. "Now you'd better hit the trail. Take that whisky keg there for water. Good-bye." We sat there without sayin' a word for some time after the schooner had pulled out. Then Tim says, very abrupt: "I've changed my mind." He got up. "Come on, Billy," says he to me. "We'll just leave our friend tied up. I'll be back to-morrow to turn you loose. In the meantime it won't hurt you a bit to be a little uncomfortable, and hungry--and thirsty." We rode off just about sundown, leavin' Texas Pete lashed tight. Now all this knocked me hell-west and crooked, and I said so, but I couldn't get a word out of Gentleman Tim. All the answer I could get was just little laughs. We drawed into the ranch near midnight, but next mornin' Tim had a long talk with the boss, and the result was that the whole outfit was instructed to arm up with a pick or a shovel apiece, and to get set for Texas Pete's. We got there a little after noon, turned the old boy out--without firearms--and then began to dig at a place Tim told us to, near that grave of Texas Pete's. In three hours we had the finest water-hole developed you ever want to see. Then the boss stuck up a sign that said: PUBLIC WATER-HOLE. WATER, FREE. "Now you old skin," says he to Texas Pete, "charge all you want to on your own property. But if I ever hear of your layin' claim to this other hole, I'll shore make you hard to catch." Then we rode off home. You see, when Gentleman Tim inspected that grave, he noted indications of water; and it struck him that runnin' the old renegade out of business was a neater way of gettin' even than merely killin' him. Somebody threw a fresh mesquite on the fire. The flames leaped up again, showing a thin trickle of water running down the other side of the cave. The steady downpour again made itself prominent through the re-established silence. "What did Texas Pete do after that?" asked the Cattleman. "Texas Pete?" chuckled Windy Bill. "Well, he put in a heap of his spare time lettin' Tim alone." CHAPTER THREE THE REMITTANCE MAN After Windy Bill had finished his story we began to think it time to turn in. Uncle Jim and Charley slid and slipped down the chute-like passage leading from the cave and disappeared in the direction of the overhang beneath which they had spread their bed. After a moment we tore off long bundles of the nigger-head blades, lit the resinous ends at our fire, and with these torches started to make our way along the base of the cliff to the other cave. Once without the influence of the fire our impromptu links cast an adequate light. The sheets of rain became suddenly visible as they entered the circle of illumination. By careful scrutiny of the footing I gained the entrance to our cave without mishap. I looked back. Here and there irregularly gleamed and spluttered my companions' torches. Across each slanted the rain. All else was of inky blackness except where, between them and me, a faint red reflection shone on the wet rocks. Then I turned inside. Now, to judge from the crumbling powder of the footing, that cave had been dry since Noah. In fact, its roof was nearly a thousand feet thick. But since we had spread our blankets, the persistent waters had soaked down and through. The thousand-foot roof had a sprung a leak. Three separate and distinct streams of water ran as from spigots. I lowered my torch. The canvas tarpaulin shone with wet, and in its exact centre glimmered a pool of water three inches deep and at least two feet in diameter. "Well, I'll be," I began. Then I remembered those three wending their way along a wet and disagreeable trail, happy and peaceful in anticipation of warm blankets and a level floor. I chuckled and sat on my heels out of the drip. First came Jed Parker, his head bent to protect the fire in his pipe. He gained the very centre of the cave before he looked up. Then he cast one glance at each bed, and one at me. His grave, hawk-like features relaxed. A faint grin appeared under his long moustache. Without a word he squatted down beside me. Next the Cattleman. He looked about him with a comical expression of dismay, and burst into a hearty laugh. "I believe I said I was sorry for those other fellows," he remarked. Windy Bill was the last. He stooped his head to enter, straightened his lank figure, and took in the situation without expression. "Well, this is handy," said he; "I was gettin' tur'ble dry, and was thinkin' I would have to climb way down to the creek in all this rain." He stooped to the pool in the centre of the tarpaulin and drank. But now our torches began to run low. A small dry bush grew near the entrance. We ignited it, and while it blazed we hastily sorted a blanket apiece and tumbled the rest out of the drip. Our return without torches along the base of that butte was something to remember. The night was so thick you could feel the darkness pressing on you; the mountain dropped abruptly to the left, and was strewn with boulders and blocks of stone. Collisions and stumbles were frequent. Once I stepped off a little ledge five or six feet--nothing worse than a barked shin. And all the while the rain, pelting us unmercifully, searched out what poor little remnants of dryness we had been able to retain. At last we opened out the gleam of fire in our cave, and a minute later were engaged in struggling desperately up the slant that brought us to our ledge and the slope on which our fire burned. "My Lord!" panted Windy Bill, "a man had ought to have hooks on his eyebrows to climb up here!" We renewed the fire--and blessed the back-load of mesquite we had packed up earlier in the evening. Our blankets we wrapped around our shoulders, our feet we hung over the ledge toward the blaze, our backs we leaned against the hollow slant of the cave's wall. We were not uncomfortable. The beat of the rain sprang up in the darkness, growing louder and louder, like horsemen passing on a hard road. Gradually we dozed off. For a time everything was pleasant. Dreams came fused with realities; the firelight faded from consciousness or returned fantastic to our half-awakening; a delicious numbness overspread our tired bodies. The shadows leaped, became solid, monstrous. We fell asleep. After a time the fact obtruded itself dimly through our stupor that the constant pressure of the hard rock had impeded our circulation. We stirred uneasily, shifting to a better position. That was the beginning of awakening. The new position did not suit. A slight shivering seized us, which the drawing closer of the blanket failed to end. Finally I threw aside my hat and looked out. Jed Parker, a vivid patch-work comforter wrapped about his shoulders, stood upright and silent by the fire. I kept still, fearing to awaken the others. In a short time I became aware that the others were doing identically the same thing. We laughed, threw off our blankets, stretched, and fed the fire. A thick acrid smoke filled the air. The Cattleman, rising, left a trail of incandescent footprints. We investigated hastily, and discovered that the supposed earth on the slant of the cave was nothing more than bat guano, tons of it. The fire, eating its way beneath, had rendered untenable its immediate vicinity. We felt as though we were living over a volcano. How soon our ledge, of the same material, might be attacked, we had no means of knowing. Overcome with drowsiness, we again disposed our blankets, resolved to get as many naps as possible before even these constrained quarters were taken from us. This happened sooner and in a manner otherwise than we had expected. Windy Bill brought us to consciousness by a wild yell. Consciousness reported to us a strange, hurried sound like the long roll on a drum. Investigation showed us that this cave, too, had sprung a leak; not with any premonitory drip, but all at once, as though someone had turned on a faucet. In ten seconds a very competent streamlet six inches wide had eroded a course down through the guano, past the fire and to the outer slope. And by the irony of fate that one--and only one--leak in all the roof expanse of a big cave was directly over one end of our tiny ledge. The Cattleman laughed. "Reminds me of the old farmer and his kind friend," said he. "Kind friend hunts up the old farmer in the village. "'John,' says he, 'I've bad news for you. Your barn has burned up.' "'My Lord!' says the farmer. "'But that ain't the worst. Your cow was burned, too.' "'My Lord!' says the farmer. "'But that ain't the worst. Your horses were burned.' "'My Lord!' says the farmer. "'But, that ain't the worst. The barn set fire to the house, and it was burned--total loss.' "'My Lord!' groans the farmer. "'But that ain't the worst. Your wife and child were killed, too.' "'At that the farmer began to roar with laughter. "'Good heavens, man!' cries his friend, astonished, 'what in the world do you find to laugh at in that?' "'Don't you see?' answers the farmer. 'Why, it's so darn COMPLETE!' "Well," finished the Cattleman, "that's what strikes me about our case; it's so darn complete!" "What time is it?" asked Windy Bill. "Midnight," I announced. "Lord! Six hours to day!" groaned Windy Bill. "How'd you like to be doin' a nice quiet job at gardenin' in the East where you could belly up to the bar reg'lar every evenin', and drink a pussy cafe and smoke tailor-made cigareets?" "You wouldn't like it a bit," put in the Cattleman with decision; whereupon in proof he told us the following story: Windy has mentioned Gentleman Tim, and that reminded me of the first time I ever saw him. He was an Irishman all right, but he had been educated in England, and except for his accent he was more an Englishman than anything else. A freight outfit brought him into Tucson from Santa Fe and dumped him down on the plaza, where at once every idler in town gathered to quiz him. Certainly he was one of the greenest specimens I ever saw in this country. He had on a pair of balloon pants and a Norfolk jacket, and was surrounded by a half-dozen baby trunks. His face was red-cheeked and aggressively clean, and his eye limpid as a child's. Most of those present thought that indicated childishness; but I could see that it was only utter self-unconsciousness. It seemed that he was out for big game, and intended to go after silver-tips somewhere in these very mountains. Of course he was offered plenty of advice, and would probably have made engagements much to be regretted had I not taken a strong fancy to him. "My friend," said I, drawing him aside, "I don't want to be inquisitive, but what might you do when you're home?" "I'm a younger son," said he. I was green myself in those days, and knew nothing of primogeniture. "That is a very interesting piece of family history," said I, "but it does not answer my question." He smiled. "Well now, I hadn't thought of that," said he, "but in a manner of speaking, it does. I do nothing." "Well," said I, unabashed, "if you saw me trying to be a younger son and likely to forget myself and do something without meaning to, wouldn't you be apt to warn me?" "Well, 'pon honour, you're a queer chap. What do you mean?" "I mean that if you hire any of those men to guide you in the mountains, you'll be outrageously cheated, and will be lucky if you're not gobbled by Apaches." "Do you do any guiding yourself, now?" he asked, most innocent of manner. But I flared up. "You damn ungrateful pup," I said, "go to the devil in your own way," and turned square on my heel. But the young man was at my elbow, his hand on my shoulder. "Oh, I say now, I'm sorry. I didn't rightly understand. Do wait one moment until I dispose of these boxes of mine, and then I want the honour of your further acquaintance." He got some Greasers to take his trunks over to the hotel, then linked his arm in mine most engagingly. "Now, my dear chap," said he, "let's go somewhere for a B & S, and find out about each other." We were both young and expansive. We exchanged views, names, and confidences, and before noon we had arranged to hunt together, I to collect the outfit. The upshot of the matter was that the Honourable Timothy Clare and I had a most excellent month's excursion, shot several good bear, and returned to Tucson the best of friends. At Tucson was Schiefflein and his stories of a big strike down in the Apache country. Nothing would do but that we should both go to see for ourselves. We joined the second expedition; crept in the gullies, tied bushes about ourselves when monumenting corners, and so helped establish the town of Tombstone. We made nothing, nor attempted to. Neither of us knew anything of mining, but we were both thirsty for adventure, and took a schoolboy delight in playing the game of life or death with the Chiricahuas. In fact, I never saw anybody take to the wild life as eagerly as the Honourable Timothy Clare. He wanted to attempt everything. With him it was no sooner see than try, and he had such an abundance of enthusiasm that he generally succeeded. The balloon pants soon went. In a month his outfit was irreproachable. He used to study us by the hour, taking in every detail of our equipment, from the smallest to the most important. Then he asked questions. For all his desire to be one of the country, he was never ashamed to acknowledge his ignorance. "Now, don't you chaps think it silly to wear such high heels to your boots?" he would ask. "It seems to me a very useless sort of vanity." "No vanity about it, Tim," I explained. "In the first place, it keeps your foot from slipping through the stirrup. In the second place, it is good to grip on the ground when you're roping afoot." "By Jove, that's true!" he cried. So he'd get him a pair of boots. For a while it was enough to wear and own all these things. He seemed to delight in his six-shooter and his rope just as ornaments to himself and horse. But he soon got over that. Then he had to learn to use them. For the time being, pistol practice, for instance, would absorb all his thoughts. He'd bang away at intervals all day, and figure out new theories all night. "That bally scheme won't work," he would complain. "I believe if I extended my thumb along the cylinder it would help that side jump." He was always easing the trigger-pull, or filing the sights. In time he got to be a fairly accurate and very quick shot. The same way with roping and hog-tying and all the rest. "What's the use?" I used to ask him. "If you were going to be a buckeroo, you couldn't go into harder training." "I like it," was always his answer. He had only one real vice, that I could see. He would gamble. Stud poker was his favourite; and I never saw a Britisher yet who could play poker. I used to head him off, when I could, and he was always grateful, but the passion was strong. After we got back from founding Tombstone I was busted and had to go to work. "I've got plenty," said Tim, "and it's all yours." "I know, old fellow," I told him, "but your money wouldn't do for me." Buck Johnson was just seeing his chance then, and was preparing to take some breeding cattle over into the Soda Springs Valley. Everybody laughed at him--said it was right in the line of the Chiricahua raids, which was true. But Buck had been in there with Agency steers, and thought he knew. So he collected a trail crew, brought some Oregon cattle across, and built his home ranch of three-foot adobe walls with portholes. I joined the trail crew; and somehow or another the Honourable Timothy got permission to go along on his own hook. The trail was a long one. We had thirst and heat and stampedes and some Indian scares. But in the queer atmospheric conditions that prevailed that summer, I never saw the desert more wonderful. It was like waking to the glory of God to sit up at dawn and see the colours change on the dry ranges. At the home ranch, again, Tim managed to get permission to stay on. He kept his own mount of horses, took care of them, hunted, and took part in all the cow work. We lost some cattle from Indians, of course, but it was too near the Reservation for them to do more than pick up a few stray head on their way through. The troops were always after them full jump, and so they never had time to round up the beef. But of course we had to look out or we'd lose our hair, and many a cowboy has won out to the home ranch in an almighty exciting race. This was nuts for the Honourable Timothy Clare, much better than hunting silver-tips, and he enjoyed it no limit. Things went along that way for some time, until one evening as I was turning out the horses a buckboard drew in, and from it descended Tony Briggs and a dapper little fellow dressed all in black and with a plug hat. "Which I accounts for said hat reachin' the ranch, because it's Friday and the boys not in town," Tony whispered to me. As I happened to be the only man in sight, the stranger addressed me. "I am looking," said he in a peculiar, sing-song manner I have since learned to be English, "for the Honourable Timothy Clare. Is he here?" "Oh, you're looking for him are you?" said I. "And who might you be?" You see, I liked Tim, and I didn't intend to deliver him over into trouble. The man picked a pair of eye-glasses off his stomach where they dangled at the end of a chain, perched them on his nose, and stared me over. I must have looked uncompromising, for after a few seconds he abruptly wrinkled his nose so that the glasses fell promptly to his stomach again, felt his waistcoat pocket, and produced a card. I took it, and read: JEFFRIES CASE, Barrister. "A lawyer!" said I suspiciously. "My dear man," he rejoined with a slight impatience, "I am not here to do your young friend a harm. In fact, my firm have been his family solicitors for generations." "Very well," I agreed, and led the way to the one-room adobe that Tim and I occupied. If I had expected an enthusiastic greeting for the boyhood friend from the old home, I would have been disappointed. Tim was sitting with his back to the door reading an old magazine. When we entered he glanced over his shoulder. "Ah, Case," said he, and went on reading. After a moment he said without looking up, "Sit down." The little man took it calmly, deposited himself in a chair and his bag between his feet, and looked about him daintily at our rough quarters. I made a move to go, whereupon Tim laid down his magazine, yawned, stretched his arms over his head, and sighed. "Don't go, Harry," he begged. "Well, Case," he addressed the barrister, "what is it this time? Must be something devilish important to bring you--how many thousand miles is it--into such a country as this." "It is important, Mr. Clare," stated the lawyer in his dry sing-song tones; "but my journey might have been avoided had you paid some attention to my letters." "Letters!" repeated Tim, opening his eyes. "My dear chap, I've had no letters." "Addressed as usual to your New York bankers." Tim laughed softly. "Where they are, with my last two quarters' allowance. I especially instructed them to send me no mail. One spends no money in this country." He paused, pulling his moustache. "I'm truly sorry you had to come so far," he continued, "and if your business is, as I suspect, the old one of inducing me to return to my dear uncle's arms, I assure you the mission will prove quite fruitless. Uncle Hillary and I could never live in the same county, let alone the same house." "And yet your uncle, the Viscount Mar, was very fond of you," ventured Case. "Your allowances--" "Oh, I grant you his generosity in MONEY affairs--" "He has continued that generosity in the terms of his will, and those terms I am here to communicate to you." "Uncle Hillary is dead!" cried Tim. "He passed away the sixteenth of last June." A slight pause ensued. "I am ready to hear you," said Tim soberly, at last. The barrister stooped and began to fumble with his bag. "No, not that!" cried Tim, with some impatience. "Tell me in your own words." The lawyer sat back and pressed his finger points together over his stomach. "The late Viscount," said he, "has been graciously pleased to leave you in fee simple his entire estate of Staghurst, together with its buildings, rentals, and privileges. This, besides the residential rights, amounts to some ten thousands pounds sterling per annum." "A little less than fifty thousand dollars a year, Harry," Tim shot over his shoulder at me. "There is one condition," put in the lawyer. "Oh, there is!" exclaimed Tim, his crest falling. "Well, knowing my Uncle Hillary--" "The condition is not extravagant," the lawyer hastily interposed. "It merely entails continued residence in England, and a minimum of nine months on the estate. This provision is absolute, and the estate reverts in its discontinuance, but may I be permitted to observe that the majority of men, myself among the number, are content to spend the most of their lives, not merely in the confines of a kingdom, but between the four walls of a room, for much less than ten thousand pounds a year. Also that England is not without its attractions for an Englishman, and that Staghurst is a country place of many possibilities." The Honourable Timothy had recovered from his first surprise. "And if the conditions are not complied with?" he inquired. "Then the estate reverts to the heirs at law, and you receive an annuity of one hundred pounds, payable quarterly." "May I ask further the reason for this extraordinary condition?" "My distinguished client never informed me," replied the lawyer, "but"--and a twinkle appeared in his eye--"as an occasional disburser of funds--Monte Carlo--" Tim burst out laughing. "Oh, but I recognise Uncle Hillary there!" he cried. "Well, Mr. Case, I am sure Mr. Johnson, the owner of this ranch, can put you up, and to-morrow we'll start back." He returned after a few minutes to find me sitting' smoking a moody pipe. I liked Tim, and I was sorry to have him go. Then, too, I was ruffled, in the senseless manner of youth, by the sudden altitude to which his changed fortunes had lifted him. He stood in the middle of the room, surveying me, then came across and laid his arm on my shoulder. "Well," I growled, without looking up, "you're a very rich man now, Mr. Clare." At that he jerked me bodily out of my seat and stood me up in the centre of the room, the Irish blazing out of his eyes. "Here, none of that!" he snapped. "You damn little fool! Don't you 'Mr. Clare' me!" So in five minutes we were talking it over. Tim was very much excited at the prospect. He knew Staghurst well, and told me all about the big stone house, and the avenue through the trees; and the hedge-row roads, and the lawn with its peacocks, and the round green hills, and the labourers' cottages. "It's home," said he, "and I didn't realise before how much I wanted to see it. And I'll be a man of weight there, Harry, and it'll be mighty good." We made all sorts of plans as to how I was going to visit him just as soon as I could get together the money for the passage. He had the delicacy not to offer to let me have it; and that clinched my trust and love of him. The next day he drove away with Tony and the dapper little lawyer. I am not ashamed to say that I watched the buckboard until it disappeared in the mirage. I was with Buck Johnson all that summer, and the following winter, as well. We had our first round-up, found the natural increase much in excess of the loss by Indians, and extended our holdings up over the Rock Creek country. We witnessed the start of many Indian campaigns, participated in a few little brushes with the Chiricahuas, saw the beginning of the cattle-rustling. A man had not much opportunity to think of anything but what he had right on hand, but I found time for a few speculations on Tim. I wondered how he looked now, and what he was doing, and how in blazes he managed to get away with fifty thousand a year. And then one Sunday in June, while I was lying on my bunk, Tim pushed open the door and walked in. I was young, but I'd seen a lot, and I knew the expression of his face. So I laid low and said nothing. In a minute the door opened again, and Buck Johnson himself came in. "How do," said he; "I saw you ride up." "How do you do," replied Tim. "I know all about you," said Buck, without any preliminaries; "your man, Case, has wrote me. I don't know your reasons, and I don't want to know--it's none of my business--and I ain't goin' to tell you just what kind of a damn fool I think you are--that's none of my business, either. But I want you to understand without question how you stand on the ranch." "Quite good, sir," said Tim very quietly. "When you were out here before I was glad to have you here as a sort of guest. Then you were what I've heerd called a gentleman of leisure. Now you're nothin' but a remittance man. Your money's nothin' to me, but the principle of the thing is. The country is plumb pestered with remittance men, doin' nothin', and I don't aim to run no home for incompetents. I had a son of a duke drivin' wagon for me; and he couldn't drive nails in a snowbanks. So don't you herd up with the idea that you can come on this ranch and loaf." "I don't want to loaf," put in Tim, "I want a job." "I'm willing to give you a job," replied Buck, "but it's jest an ordinary cow-puncher's job at forty a month. And if you don't fill your saddle, it goes to someone else." "That's satisfactory," agreed Tim. "All right," finished Buck, "so that's understood. Your friend Case wanted me to give you a lot of advice. A man generally has about as much use for advice as a cow has for four hind legs." He went out. "For God's sake, what's up?" I cried, leaping from my bunk. "Hullo, Harry," said he, as though he had seen me the day before, "I've come back." "How come back?" I asked. "I thought you couldn't leave the estate. Have they broken the will?" "No," said he. "Is the money lost?" "No." "Then what?" "The long and short of it is, that I couldn't afford that estate and that money." "What do you mean?" "I've given it up." "Given it up! What for?" "To come back here." I took this all in slowly. "Tim Clare," said I at last, "do you mean to say that you have given up an English estate and fifty thousand dollars a year to be a remittance man at five hundred, and a cow-puncher on as much more?" "Exactly," said he. "Tim," I adjured him solemnly, "you are a damn fool!" "Maybe," he agreed. "Why did you do it?" I begged. He walked to the door and looked out across the desert to where the mountains hovered like soap-bubbles on the horizon. For a long time he looked; then whirled on me. "Harry," said he in a low voice, "do you remember the camp we made on the shoulder of the mountain that night we were caught out? And do you remember how the dawn came up on the big snow peaks across the way--and all the canon below us filled with whirling mists--and the steel stars leaving us one by one? Where could I find room for that in English paddocks? And do you recall the day we trailed across the Yuma deserts, and the sun beat into our skulls, and the dry, brittle hills looked like papier-mache, and the grey sage-bush ran off into the rise of the hills; and then came sunset and the hard, dry mountains grew filmy, like gauze veils of many colours, and melted and glowed and faded to slate blue, and the stars came out? The English hills are rounded and green and curried, and the sky is near, and the stars only a few miles up. And do you recollect that dark night when old Loco and his warriors were camped at the base of Cochise's Stronghold, and we crept down through the velvet dark wondering when we would be discovered, our mouths sticky with excitement, and the little winds blowing?" He walked up and down a half-dozen times, his breast heaving. "It's all very well for the man who is brought up to it, and who has seen nothing else. Case can exist in four walls; he has been brought up to it and knows nothing different. But a man like me-- "They wanted me to canter between hedge-row,--I who have ridden the desert where the sky over me and the plain under me were bigger than the Islander's universe! They wanted me to oversee little farms--I who have watched the sun rising over half a world! Talk of your ten thou' a year and what it'll buy! You know, Harry, how it feels when a steer takes the slack of your rope, and your pony sits back! Where in England can I buy that? You know the rising and the falling of days, and the boundless spaces where your heart grows big, and the thirst of the desert and the hunger of the trail, and a sun that shines and fills the sky, and a wind that blows fresh from the wide places! Where in parcelled, snug, green, tight little England could I buy that with ten thou'--aye, or an hundred times ten thou'? No, no, Harry, that fortune would cost me too dear. I have seen and done and been too much. I've come back to the Big Country, where the pay is poor and the work is hard and the comfort small, but where a man and his soul meet their Maker face to face." The Cattleman had finished his yarn. For a time no one spoke. Outside, the volume of rain was subsiding. Windy Bill reported a few stars shining through rifts in the showers. The chill that precedes the dawn brought us as close to the fire as the smouldering guano would permit. "I don't know whether he was right or wrong," mused the Cattleman, after a while. "A man can do a heap with that much money. And yet an old 'alkali' is never happy anywhere else. However," he concluded emphatically, "one thing I do know: rain, cold, hunger, discomfort, curses, kicks, and violent deaths included, there isn't one of you grumblers who would hold that gardening job you spoke of three days!" CHAPTER FOUR THE CATTLE RUSTLERS Dawn broke, so we descended through wet grasses to the canon. There, after some difficulty, we managed to start a fire, and so ate breakfast, the rain still pouring down on us. About nine o'clock, with miraculous suddenness, the torrent stopped. It began to turn cold. The Cattleman and I decided to climb to the top of the butte after meat, which we entirely lacked. It was rather a stiff ascent, but once above the sheer cliffs we found ourselves on a rolling meadow tableland a half-mile broad by, perhaps, a mile and a half in length. Grass grew high; here and there were small live oaks planted park-like; slight and rounded ravines accommodated brooklets. As we walked back, the edges blended in the edges of the mesa across the canon. The deep gorges, which had heretofore seemed the most prominent elements of the scenery, were lost. We stood, apparently, in the middle of a wide and undulating plain, diversified by little ridges, and running with a free sweep to the very foot of the snowy Galiuros. It seemed as though we should be able to ride horseback in almost any given direction. Yet we knew that ten minutes' walk would take us to the brink of most stupendous chasms--so deep that the water flowing in them hardly seemed to move; so rugged that only with the greatest difficulty could a horseman make his way through the country at all; and yet so ancient that the bottoms supported forests, rich grasses, and rounded, gentle knolls. It was a most astonishing set of double impressions. We succeeded in killing a nice, fat white-tail buck, and so returned to camp happy. The rain, held off. We dug ditches, organised shelters, cooked a warm meal. For the next day we planned a bear hunt afoot, far up a manzanita canon where Uncle Jim knew of some "holing up" caves. But when we awoke in the morning we threw aside our coverings with some difficulty to look on a ground covered with snow; trees laden almost to the breaking point with snow, and the air filled with it. "No bear today" said the Cattleman. "No," agreed Uncle Jim drily. "No b'ar. And what's more, unless yo're aimin' to stop here somewhat of a spell, we'll have to make out to-day." We cooked with freezing fingers, ate while dodging avalanches from the trees, and packed reluctantly. The ropes were frozen, the hobbles stiff, everything either crackling or wet. Finally the task was finished. We took a last warming of the fingers and climbed on. The country was wonderfully beautiful with the white not yet shaken from the trees and rock ledges. Also it was wonderfully slippery. The snow was soft enough to ball under the horses' hoofs, so that most of the time the poor animals skated and stumbled along on stilts. Thus we made our way back over ground which, naked of these difficulties, we had considered bad enough. Imagine riding along a slant of rock shelving off to a bad tumble, so steep that your pony has to do more or less expert ankle work to keep from slipping off sideways. During the passage of that rock you are apt to sit very light. Now cover it with several inches of snow, stick a snowball on each hoof of your mount, and try again. When you have ridden it--or its duplicate--a few score of times, select a steep mountain side, cover it with round rocks the size of your head, and over that spread a concealing blanket of the same sticky snow. You are privileged to vary these to the limits of your imagination. Once across the divide, we ran into a new sort of trouble. You may remember that on our journey over we had been forced to travel for some distance in a narrow stream-bed. During our passage we had scrambled up some rather steep and rough slopes, and hopped up some fairly high ledges. Now we found the heretofore dry bed flowing a good eight inches deep. The steep slopes had become cascades; the ledges, waterfalls. When we came to them, we had to "shoot the rapids" as best we could, only to land with a PLUNK in an indeterminately deep pool at the bottom. Some of the pack horses went down, sousing again our unfortunate bedding, but by the grace of fortune not a saddle pony lost his feet. After a time the gorge widened. We came out into the box canon with its trees. Here the water spread and shoaled to a depth of only two or three inches. We splashed along gaily enough, for, with the exception of an occasional quicksand or boggy spot, our troubles were over. Jed Parker and I happened to ride side by side, bringing up the rear and seeing to it that the pack animals did not stray or linger. As we passed the first of the rustlers' corrals, he called my attention to them. "Go take a look," said he. "We only got those fellows out of here two years ago." I rode over. At this point the rim-rock broke to admit the ingress of a ravine into the main canon. Riding a short distance up the ravine, I could see that it ended abruptly in a perpendicular cliff. As the sides also were precipitous, it became necessary only to build a fence across the entrance into the main canon to become possessed of a corral completely closed in. Remembering the absolute invisibility of these sunken canons until the rider is almost directly over them, and also the extreme roughness and remoteness of the district, I could see that the spot was admirably adapted to concealment. "There's quite a yarn about the gang that held this hole," said Jed Parker to me, when I had ridden back to him "I'll tell you about it sometime." We climbed the hill, descended on the Double R, built a fire in the stove, dried out, and were happy. After a square meal--and a dry one--I reminded Jed Parker of his promise, and so, sitting cross-legged on his "so-gun" in the middle of the floor, he told us the following yarn: There's a good deal of romance been written about the "bad man," and there's about the same amount of nonsense. The bad man is justa plain murderer, neither more nor less. He never does get into a real, good, plain, stand-up gunfight if he can possibly help it. His killin's are done from behind a door, or when he's got his man dead to rights. There's Sam Cook. You've all heard of him. He had nerve, of course, and when he was backed into a corner he made good; he was sure sudden death with a gun. But when he went for a man deliberate, he didn't take no special chances. For a while he was marshal at Willets. Pretty soon it was noted that there was a heap of cases of resisting arrest, where Sam as marshal had to shoot, and that those cases almost always happened to be his personal enemies. Of course, that might be all right, but it looked suspicious. Then one day he killed poor old Max Schmidt out behind his own saloon. Called him out and shot him in the stomach. Said Max resisted arrest on a warrant for keepin' open out of hours! That was a sweet warrant to take out in Willets, anyway! Mrs. Schmidt always claimed that she saw that deal played, and that, while they were talkin' perfectly peacable, Cook let drive from the hip at about two yards' range. Anyway, we decided we needed another marshal. Nothin' else was ever done, for the Vigilantes hadn't been formed, and your individual and decent citizen doesn't care to be marked by a gun of that stripe. Leastwise, unless he wants to go in for bad-man methods and do a little ambusheein' on his own account. The point is, that these yere bad men are a low-down, miserable proposition, and plain, cold-blood murderers, willin' to wait for a sure thing, and without no compunctions whatsoever. The bad man takes you unawares, when you're sleepin', or talkin', or drinkin', or lookin' to see what for a day it's goin' to be, anyway. He don't give you no show, and sooner or later he's goin' to get you in the safest and easiest way for himself. There ain't no romance about that. And, until you've seen a few men called out of their shacks for a friendly conversation, and shot when they happen to look away; or asked for a drink of water, and killed when they stoop to the spring; or potted from behind as they go into a room, it's pretty hard to believe that any man can be so plumb lackin' in fair play or pity or just natural humanity. As you boys know, I come in from Texas to Buck Johnson's about ten year back. I had a pretty good mount of ponies that I knew, and I hated to let them go at prices they were offerin' then, so I made up my mind to ride across and bring them in with me. It wasn't so awful far, and I figured that I'd like to take in what New Mexico looked like anyway. About down by Albuquerque I tracked up with another outfit headed my way. There was five of them, three men, and a woman, and a yearlin' baby. They had a dozen hosses, and that was about all I could see. There was only two packed, and no wagon. I suppose the whole outfit--pots, pans, and kettles--was worth five dollars. It was just supper when I run across them, and it didn't take more'n one look to discover that flour, coffee, sugar, and salt was all they carried. A yearlin' carcass, half-skinned, lay near, and the fry-pan was, full of meat. "Howdy, strangers," says I, ridin' up. They nodded a little, but didn't say nothin'. My hosses fell to grazin', and I eased myself around in my saddle, and made a cigareet. The men was tall, lank fellows, with kind of sullen faces, and sly, shifty eyes; the woman was dirty and generally mussed up. I knowed that sort all right. Texas was gettin' too many fences for them. "Havin' supper?" says I, cheerful. One of 'em grunted "Yes" at me; and, after a while, the biggest asked me very grudgin' if I wouldn't light and eat, I told them "No," that I was travellin' in the cool of the evenin'. "You seem to have more meat than you need, though," says I. "I could use a little of that." "Help yourself," says they. "It's a maverick we come across." I took a steak, and noted that the hide had been mighty well cut to ribbons around the flanks and that the head was gone. "Well," says I to the carcass, "No one's going to be able to swear whether you're a maverick or not, but I bet you knew the feel of a brandin' iron all right." I gave them a thank-you, and climbed on again. My hosses acted some surprised at bein' gathered up again, but I couldn't help that. "It looks like a plumb imposition, cavallos," says I to them, "after an all-day, but you sure don't want to join that outfit any more than I do the angels, and if we camp here we're likely to do both." I didn't see them any more after that until I'd hit the Lazy Y, and had started in runnin' cattle in the Soda Springs Valley. Larry Eagen and I rode together those days, and that's how I got to know him pretty well. One day, over in the Elm Flat, we ran smack on this Texas outfit again, headed north. This time I was on my own range, and I knew where I stood, so I could show a little more curiosity in the case. "Well, you got this far," says I. "Yes," says they. "Where you headed?" "Over towards the hills." "What to do?" "Make a ranch, raise some truck; perhaps buy a few cows." They went on. "Truck" says I to Larry, "is fine prospects in this country." He sat on his horse looking after them. "I'm sorry for them" says he. "It must he almighty hard scratchin'." Well, we rode the range for upwards of two year. In that time we saw our Texas friends--name of Hahn--two or three times in Willets, and heard of them off and on. They bought an old brand of Steve McWilliams for seventy-five dollars, carryin' six or eight head of cows. After that, from time to time, we heard of them buying more--two or three head from one man, and two or three from another. They branded them all with that McWilliams iron--T 0--so, pretty soon, we began to see the cattle on the range. Now, a good cattleman knows cattle just as well as you know people, and he can tell them about as far off. Horned critters look alike to you, but even in a country supportin' a good many thousand head, a man used to the business can recognise most every individual as far as he can see him. Some is better than others at it. I suppose you really have to be brought up to it. So we boys at the Lazy Y noted all the cattle with the new T 0, and could estimate pretty close that the Hahn outfit might own, maybe, thirty-five head all told. That was all very well, and nobody had any kick comin'. Then one day in the spring, we came across our first "sleeper." What's a sleeper? A sleeper is a calf that has been ear-marked, but not branded. Every owner has a certain brand, as you know, and then he crops and slits the ears in a certain way, too. In that manner he don't have to look at the brand, except to corroborate the ears; and, as the critter generally sticks his ears up inquirin'-like to anyone ridin' up, it's easy to know the brand without lookin' at it, merely from the ear-marks. Once in a great while, when a man comes across an unbranded calf, and it ain't handy to build a fire, he just ear-marks it and let's the brandin' go till later. But it isn't done often, and our outfit had strict orders never to make sleepers. Well, one day in the spring, as I say, Larry and me was ridin', when we came across a Lazy Y cow and calf. The little fellow was ear-marked all right, so we rode on, and never would have discovered nothin' if a bush rabbit hadn't jumped and scared the calf right across in front of our hosses. Then we couldn't help but see that there wasn't no brand. Of course we roped him and put the iron on him. I took the chance to look at his ears, and saw that the marking had been done quite recent, so when we got in that night I reported to Buck Johnson that one of the punchers was gettin' lazy and sleeperin'. Naturally he went after the man who had done it; but every puncher swore up and down, and back and across, that he'd branded every calf he'd had a rope on that spring. We put it down that someone was lyin', and let it go at that. And then, about a week later, one of the other boys reported a Triangle-H sleeper. The Triangle-H was the Goodrich brand, so we didn't have nothin' to do with that. Some of them might be sleeperin' for all we knew. Three other cases of the same kind we happened across that same spring. So far, so good. Sleepers runnin' in such numbers was a little astonishin', but nothin' suspicious. Cattle did well that summer, and when we come to round up in the fall, we cut out maybe a dozen of those T 0 cattle that had strayed out of that Hahn country. Of the dozen there was five grown cows, and seven yearlin's. "My Lord, Jed," says Buck to me, "they's a heap of these youngsters comin' over our way." But still, as a young critter is more apt to stray than an old one that's got his range established, we didn't lay no great store by that neither. The Hahns took their bunch, and that's all there was to it. Next spring, though, we found a few more sleepers, and one day we came on a cow that had gone dead lame. That was usual, too, but Buck, who was with me, had somethin' on his mind. Finally he turned back and roped her, and threw her. "Look here, Jed," says he, "what do you make of this?" I could see where the hind legs below the hocks had been burned. "Looks like somebody had roped her by the hind feet," says I. "Might be," says he, "but her heels lame that way makes it look more like hobbles." So we didn't say nothin' more about that neither, until just by luck we came on another lame cow. We threw her, too. "Well, what do you think of this one?" Buck Johnson asks me. "The feet is pretty well tore up," says I, "and down to the quick, but I've seen them tore up just as bad on the rocks when they come down out of the mountains." You sabe what that meant, don't you? You see, a rustler will take a cow and hobble her, or lame her so she can't follow, and then he'll take her calf a long ways off and brand it with his iron. Of course, if we was to see a calf of one brand followin' of a cow with another, it would be just too easy to guess what had happened. We rode on mighty thoughtful. There couldn't be much doubt that cattle rustlers was at work. The sleepers they had ear-marked, hopin' that no one would discover the lack of a brand. Then, after the calf was weaned, and quit followin' of his mother, the rustler would brand it with his own iron, and change its ear-mark to match. It made a nice, easy way of gettin' together a bunch of cattle cheap. But it was pretty hard to guess off-hand who the rustlers might be. There were a lot of renegades down towards the Mexican line who made a raid once in a while, and a few oilers [2] livin' near had water holes in the foothills, and any amount of little cattle holders, like this T 0 outfit, and any of them wouldn't shy very hard at a little sleeperin' on the side. Buck Johnson told us all to watch out, and passed the word quiet among the big owners to try and see whose cattle seemed to have too many calves for the number of cows. The Texas outfit I'm tellin' you about had settled up above in this Double R canon where I showed you those natural corrals this morning. They'd built them a 'dobe, and cleared some land, and planted a few trees, and made an irrigated patch for alfalfa. Nobody never rode over this way very much, 'cause the country was most too rough for cattle, and our ranges lay farther to the southward. Now, however, we began to extend our ridin' a little. I was down towards Dos Cabesas to look over the cattle there, and they used to send Larry up into the Double R country. One evenin' he took me to one side. "Look here, Jed," says he, "I know you pretty well, and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm all new at this cattle business--in fact, I haven't been at it more'n a year. What should be the proportion of cows to calves anyhow?" "There ought to be about twice as many cows as there're calves," I tells him. "Then, with only about fifty head of grown cows, there ought not to be an equal number of yearlin's?" "I should say not," says I. "What are you drivin' at?" "Nothin' yet," says he. A few days later he tackled me again. "Jed," says he, "I'm not good, like you fellows are, at knowin' one cow from another, but there's a calf down there branded T 0 that I'd pretty near swear I saw with an X Y cow last month. I wish you could come down with me." We got that fixed easy enough, and for the next month rammed around through this broken country lookin' for evidence. I saw enough to satisfy me to a moral certainty, but nothin' for a sheriff; and, of course, we couldn't go shoot up a peaceful rancher on mere suspicion. Finally, one day, we run on a four-months' calf all by himself, with the T 0 iron onto him--a mighty healthy lookin' calf, too. "Wonder where HIS mother is!" says I. "Maybe it's a 'dogie,'" says Larry Eagen--we calls calves whose mothers have died "dogies." "No," says I, "I don't hardly think so. A dogie is always under size and poor, and he's layin' around water holes, and he always has a big, sway belly onto him. No, this is no dogie; and, if it's an honest calf, there sure ought to be a T 0 cow around somewhere." So we separated to have a good look. Larry rode up on the edge of a little rimrock. In a minute I saw his hoss jump back, dodgin' a rattlesnake or somethin', and then fall back out of sight. I jumped my hoss up there tur'ble quick, and looked over, expectin' to see nothin' but mangled remains. It was only about fifteen foot down, but I couldn't see bottom 'count of some brush. "Are you all right?" I yells. "Yes, yes!" cries Larry, "but for the love of God, get down here as quick as you can." I hopped off my hoss and scrambled down somehow. "Hurt?" says I, as soon as I lit. "Not a bit--look here." There was a dead cow with the Lazy Y on her flank. "And a bullet-hole in her forehead," adds Larry. "And, look here, that T 0 calf was bald-faced, and so was this cow." "Reckon we found our sleepers," says I. So, there we was. Larry had to lead his cavallo down the barranca to the main canon. I followed along on the rim, waitin' until a place gave me a chance to get down, too, or Larry a chance to get up. We were talkin' back and forth when, all at once, Larry shouted again. "Big game this time," he yells. "Here's a cave and a mountain lion squallin' in it." I slid down to him at once, and we drew our six-shooters and went up to the cave openin', right under the rim-rock. There, sure enough, were fresh lion tracks, and we could hear a little faint cryin' like woman. "First chance," claims Larry, and dropped to his hands and knees at the entrance. "Well, damn me!" he cries, and crawls in at once, payin' no attention to me tellin' him to be more cautious. In a minute he backs out, carryin' a three-year-old goat. "We seem to be in for adventures to-day," says he. "Now, where do you suppose that came from, and how did it get here?" "Well," says I, "I've followed lion tracks where they've carried yearlin's across their backs like a fox does a goose. They're tur'ble strong." "But where did she come from?" he wonders. "As for that," says I, "don't you remember now that T 0 outfit had a yearlin' kid when it came into the country?" "That's right," says he. "It's only a mile down the canon. I'll take it home. They must be most distracted about it." So I scratched up to the top where my pony was waitin'. It was a tur'ble hard climb, and I 'most had to have hooks on my eyebrows to get up at all. It's easier to slide down than to climb back. I dropped my gun out of my holster, and she went way to the bottom, but I wouldn't have gone back for six guns. Larry picked it up for me. So we went along, me on the rim-rock and around the barrancas, and Larry in the bottom carryin' of the kid. By and by we came to the ranch house, stopped to wait. The minute Larry hove in sight everybody was out to once, and in two winks the woman had that baby. They didn't see me at all, but I could hear, plain enough, what they said. Larry told how he had found her in the cave, and all about the lion tracks, and the woman cried and held the kid close to her, and thanked him about forty times. Then when she'd wore the edge off a little, she took the kid inside to feed it or somethin'. "Well," says Larry, still laughin', "I must hit the trail." "You say you found her up the Double R?" asks Hahn. "Was it that cave near the three cottonwoods?" "Yes," says Larry. "Where'd you get into the canyon?" "Oh, my hoss slipped off into the barranca just above." "The barranca just above," repeats Hahn, lookin' straight at him. Larry took one step back. "You ought to be almighty glad I got into the canyon at all," says he. Hahn stepped up, holdin' out his hand. "That's right," says he. "You done us a good turn there." Larry took his hand. At the same time Hahn pulled his gun and shot him through the middle. It was all so sudden and unexpected that I stood there paralysed. Larry fell forward the way a man mostly will when he's hit in the stomach, but somehow he jerked loose a gun and got it off twice. He didn't hit nothin', and I reckon he was dead before he hit the ground. And there he had my gun, and I was about as useless as a pocket in a shirt! No, sir, you can talk as much as you please, but the killer is a low-down ornery scub, and he don't hesitate at no treachery or ingratitude to keep his carcass safe. Jed Parker ceased talking. The dusk had fallen in the little room, and dimly could be seen the recumbent figures lying at ease on their blankets. The ranch foreman was sitting bolt upright, cross-legged. A faint glow from his pipe barely distinguished his features. "What became of the rustlers?" I asked him. "Well, sir, that is the queer part. Hahn himself, who had done the killin', skipped out. We got out warrants, of course, but they never got served. He was a sort of half outlaw from that time, and was killed finally in the train hold-up of '97. But the others we tried for rustling. We didn't have much of a case, as the law went then, and they'd have gone free if the woman hadn't turned evidence against them. The killin' was too much for her. And, as the precedent held good in a lot of other rustlin' cases, Larry's death was really the beginnin' of law and order in the cattle business." We smoked. The last light suddenly showed red against the grimy window. Windy Bill arose and looked out the door. "Boys," said he, returning. "She's cleared off. We can get back to the ranch tomorrow." [2] "Oilers"--Greasers--Mexicans. CHAPTER FIVE THE DRIVE A cry awakened me. It was still deep night. The moon sailed overhead, the stars shone unwavering like candles, and a chill breeze wandered in from the open spaces of the desert. I raised myself on my elbow, throwing aside the blankets and the canvas tarpaulin. Forty other indistinct, formless bundles on the ground all about me were sluggishly astir. Four figures passed and repassed between me and a red fire. I knew them for the two cooks and the horse wranglers. One of the latter was grumbling. "Didn't git in till moon-up last night," he growled. "Might as well trade my bed for a lantern and be done with it." Even as I stretched my arms and shivered a little, the two wranglers threw down their tin plates with a clatter, mounted horses and rode away in the direction of the thousand acres or so known as the pasture. I pulled on my clothes hastily, buckled in my buckskin shirt, and dove for the fire. A dozen others were before me. It was bitterly cold. In the east the sky had paled the least bit in the world, but the moon and stars shone on bravely and undiminished. A band of coyotes was shrieking desperate blasphemies against the new day, and the stray herd, awakening, was beginning to bawl and bellow. Two crater-like dutch ovens, filled with pieces of fried beef, stood near the fire; two galvanised water buckets, brimming with soda biscuits, flanked them; two tremendous coffee pots stood guard at either end. We picked us each a tin cup and a tin plate from the box at the rear of the chuck wagon; helped ourselves from a dutch oven, a pail, and a coffee pot, and squatted on our heels as close to the fire as possible. Men who came too late borrowed the shovel, scooped up some coals, and so started little fires of their own about which new groups formed. While we ate, the eastern sky lightened. The mountains under the dawn looked like silhouettes cut from slate-coloured paper; those in the west showed faintly luminous. Objects about us became dimly visible. We could make out the windmill, and the adobe of the ranch houses, and the corrals. The cowboys arose one by one, dropped their plates into the dishpan, and began to hunt out their ropes. Everything was obscure and mysterious in the faint grey light. I watched Windy Bill near his tarpaulin. He stooped to throw over the canvas. When he bent, it was before daylight; when he straightened his back, daylight had come. It was just like that, as though someone had reached out his hand to turn on the illumination of the world. The eastern mountains were fragile, the plain was ethereal, like a sea of liquid gases. From the pasture we heard the shoutings of the wranglers, and made out a cloud of dust. In a moment the first of the remuda came into view, trotting forward with the free grace of the unburdened horse. Others followed in procession: those near sharp and well defined, those in the background more or less obscured by the dust, now appearing plainly, now fading like ghosts. The leader turned unhesitatingly into the corral. After him poured the stream of the remuda--two hundred and fifty saddle horses--with an unceasing thunder of hoofs. Immediately the cook-camp was deserted. The cowboys entered the corral. The horses began to circle around the edge of the enclosure as around the circumference of a circus ring. The men, grouped at the centre, watched keenly, looking for the mounts they had already decided on. In no time each had recognised his choice, and, his loop trailing, was walking toward that part of the revolving circumference where his pony dodged. Some few whirled the loop, but most cast it with a quick flip. It was really marvellous to observe the accuracy with which the noose would fly, past a dozen tossing heads, and over a dozen backs, to settle firmly about the neck of an animal perhaps in the very centre of the group. But again, if the first throw failed, it was interesting to see how the selected pony would dodge, double back, twist, turn, and hide to escape second cast. And it was equally interesting to observe how his companions would help him. They seemed to realise that they were not wanted, and would push themselves between the cowboy and his intended mount with the utmost boldness. In the thick dust that instantly arose, and with the bewildering thunder of galloping, the flashing change of grouping, the rush of the charging animals, recognition alone would seem almost impossible, yet in an incredibly short time each had his mount, and the others, under convoy of the wranglers, were meekly wending their way out over the plain. There, until time for a change of horses, they would graze in a loose and scattered band, requiring scarcely any supervision. Escape? Bless you, no, that thought was the last in their minds. In the meantime the saddles and bridles were adjusted. Always in a cowboy's "string" of from six to ten animals the boss assigns him two or three broncos to break in to the cow business. Therefore, each morning we could observe a half dozen or so men gingerly leading wicked looking little animals out to the sand "to take the pitch out of them." One small black, belonging to a cowboy called the Judge, used more than to fulfil expectations of a good time. "Go to him, Judge!" someone would always remark. "If he ain't goin' to pitch, I ain't goin' to make him", the Judge would grin, as he swung aboard. The black would trot off quite calmly and in a most matter of fact way, as though to shame all slanderers of his lamb-like character. Then, as the bystanders would turn away, he would utter a squeal, throw down his head, and go at it. He was a very hard bucker, and made some really spectacular jumps, but the trick on which he based his claims to originality consisted in standing on his hind legs at so perilous an approach to the perpendicular that his rider would conclude he was about to fall backwards, and then suddenly springing forward in a series of stiff-legged bucks. The first manoeuvre induced the rider to loosen his seat in order to be ready to jump from under, and the second threw him before he could regain his grip. "And they say a horse don't think!" exclaimed an admirer. But as these were broken horses--save the mark!--the show was all over after each had had his little fling. We mounted and rode away, just as the mountain peaks to the west caught the rays of a sun we should not enjoy for a good half hour yet. I had five horses in my string, and this morning rode "that C S horse, Brown Jug." Brown Jug was a powerful and well-built animal, about fourteen two in height, and possessed of a vast enthusiasm for cow-work. As the morning was frosty, he felt good. At the gate of the water corral we separated into two groups. The smaller, under the direction of Jed Parker, was to drive the mesquite in the wide flats. The rest of us, under the command of Homer, the round-up captain, were to sweep the country even as far as the base of the foothills near Mount Graham. Accordingly we put our horses to the full gallop. Mile after mile we thundered along at a brisk rate of speed. Sometimes we dodged in and out among the mesquite bushes, alternately separating and coming together again; sometimes we swept over grassy plains apparently of illimitable extent, sometimes we skipped and hopped and buck-jumped through and over little gullies, barrancas, and other sorts of malpais--but always without drawing rein. The men rode easily, with no thought to the way nor care for the footing. The air came back sharp against our faces. The warm blood stirred by the rush flowed more rapidly. We experienced a delightful glow. Of the morning cold only the very tips of our fingers and the ends of our noses retained a remnant. Already the sun was shining low and level across the plains. The shadows of the canons modelled the hitherto flat surfaces of the mountains. After a time we came to some low hills helmeted with the outcrop of a rock escarpment. Hitherto they had seemed a termination of Mount Graham, but now, when we rode around them, we discovered them to be separated from the range by a good five miles of sloping plain. Later we looked back and would have sworn them part of the Dos Cabesas system, did we not know them to be at least eight miles' distant from that rocky rampart. It is always that way in Arizona. Spaces develop of whose existence you had not the slightest intimation. Hidden in apparently plane surfaces are valleys and prairies. At one sweep of the eye you embrace the entire area of an eastern State; but nevertheless the reality as you explore it foot by foot proves to be infinitely more than the vision has promised. Beyond the hill we stopped. Here our party divided again, half to the right and half to the left. We had ridden, up to this time, directly away from camp, now we rode a circumference of which headquarters was the centre. The country was pleasantly rolling and covered with grass. Here and there were clumps of soapweed. Far in a remote distance lay a slender dark line across the plain. This we knew to be mesquite; and once entered, we knew it, too, would seem to spread out vastly. And then this grassy slope, on which we now rode, would show merely as an insignificant streak of yellow. It is also like that in Arizona. I have ridden in succession through grass land, brush land, flower land, desert. Each in turn seemed entirely to fill the space of the plains between the mountains. From time to time Homer halted us and detached a man. The business of the latter was then to ride directly back to camp, driving all cattle before him. Each was in sight of his right- and left-hand neighbour. Thus was constructed a drag-net whose meshes contracted as home was neared. I was detached, when of our party only the Cattleman and Homer remained. They would take the outside. This was the post of honour, and required the hardest riding, for as soon as the cattle should realise the fact of their pursuit, they would attempt to "break" past the end and up the valley. Brown Jug and I congratulated ourselves on an exciting morning in prospect. Now, wild cattle know perfectly well what a drive means, and they do not intend to get into a round-up if they can help it. Were it not for the two facts, that they are afraid of a mounted man, and cannot run quite so fast as a horse, I do not know how the cattle business would be conducted. As soon as a band of them caught sight of any one of us, they curled their tails and away they went at a long, easy lope that a domestic cow would stare at in wonder. This was all very well; in fact we yelled and shrieked and otherwise uttered cow-calls to keep them going, to "get the cattle started," as they say. But pretty soon a little band of the many scurrying away before our thin line, began to bear farther and farther to the east. When in their judgment they should have gained an opening, they would turn directly back and make a dash for liberty. Accordingly the nearest cowboy clapped spurs to his horse and pursued them. It was a pretty race. The cattle ran easily enough, with long, springy jumps that carried them over the ground faster than appearances would lead one to believe. The cow-pony, his nose stretched out, his ears slanted, his eyes snapping with joy of the chase, flew fairly "belly to earth." The rider sat slightly forward, with the cowboy's loose seat. A whirl of dust, strangely insignificant against the immensity of a desert morning, rose from the flying group. Now they disappeared in a ravine, only to scramble out again the next instant, pace undiminished. The rider merely rose slightly and threw up his elbows to relieve the jar of the rough gully. At first the cattle seemed to hold their own, but soon the horse began to gain. In a short time he had come abreast of the leading animal. The latter stopped short with a snort, dodged back, and set out at right angles to his former course. From a dead run the pony came to a stand in two fierce plunges, doubled like a shot, and was off on the other tack. An unaccustomed rider would here have lost his seat. The second dash was short. With a final shake of the head, the steers turned to the proper course in the direction of the ranch. The pony dropped unconcernedly to the shuffling jog of habitual progression. Far away stretched the arc of our cordon. The most distant rider was a speck, and the cattle ahead of him were like maggots endowed with a smooth, swift onward motion. As yet the herd had not taken form; it was still too widely scattered. Its units, in the shape of small bunches, momently grew in numbers. The distant plains were crawling and alive with minute creatures making toward a common tiny centre. Immediately in our front the cattle at first behaved very well. Then far down the long gentle slope I saw a break for the upper valley. The manikin that represented Homer at once became even smaller as it departed in pursuit. The Cattleman moved down to cover Homer's territory until he should return--and I in turn edged farther to the right. Then another break from another bunch. The Cattleman rode at top speed to head it. Before long he disappeared in the distant mesquite. I found myself in sole charge of a front three miles long. The nearest cattle were some distance ahead, and trotting along at a good gait. As they had not yet discovered the chance left open by unforeseen circumstance, I descended and took in on my cinch while yet there was time. Even as I mounted, an impatient movement on the part of experienced Brown Jug told me that the cattle had seen their opportunity. I gathered the reins and spoke to the horse. He needed no further direction, but set off at a wide angle, nicely calculated, to intercept the truants. Brown Jug was a powerful beast. The spring of his leap was as whalebone. The yellow earth began to stream past like water. Always the pace increased with a growing thunder of hoofs. It seemed that nothing could turn us from the straight line, nothing check the headlong momentum of our rush. My eyes filled with tears from the wind of our going. Saddle strings streamed behind. Brown Jug's mane whipped my bridle band. Dimly I was conscious of soapweed, sacatone, mesquite, as we passed them. They were abreast and gone before I could think of them or how they were to be dodged. Two antelope bounded away to the left; birds rose hastily from the grasses. A sudden chirk, chirk, chirk, rose all about me. We were in the very centre of a prairie-dog town, but before I could formulate in my mind the probabilities of holes and broken legs, the chirk, chirk, chirking had fallen astern. Brown Jug had skipped and dodged successfully. We were approaching the cattle. They ran stubbornly and well, evidently unwilling to be turned until the latest possible moment. A great rage at their obstinacy took possession of us both. A broad shallow wash crossed our way, but we plunged through its rocks and boulders recklessly, angered at even the slight delay they necessitated. The hardland on the other side we greeted with joy. Brown Jug extended himself with a snort. Suddenly a jar seemed to shake my very head loose. I found myself staring over the horse's head directly down into a deep and precipitous gully, the edge of which was so cunningly concealed by the grasses as to have remained invisible to my blurred vision. Brown Jug, however, had caught sight of it at the last instant, and had executed one of the wonderful stops possible only to a cow-pony. But already the cattle had discovered a passage above, and were scrambling down and across. Brown Jug and I, at more sober pace, slid off the almost perpendicular bank, and out the other side. A moment later we had headed them. They whirled, and without the necessity of any suggestion on my part Brown Jug turned after them, and so quickly that my stirrup actually brushed the ground. After that we were masters. We chased the cattle far enough to start them well in the proper direction, and then pulled down to a walk in order to get a breath of air. But now we noticed another band, back on the ground over which we had just come, doubling through in the direction of Mount Graham. A hard run set them to rights. We turned. More had poured out from the hills. Bands were crossing everywhere, ahead and behind. Brown Jug and I went to work. Being an indivisible unit, we could chase only one bunch at a time; and, while we were after one, a half dozen others would be taking advantage of our preoccupation. We could not hold our own. Each run after an escaping bunch had to be on a longer diagonal. Gradually we were forced back, and back, and back; but still we managed to hold the line unbroken. Never shall I forget the dash and clatter of that morning. Neither Brown Jug nor I thought for a moment of sparing horseflesh, nor of picking a route. We made the shortest line, and paid little attention to anything that stood in the way. A very fever of resistance possessed us. It was like beating against a head wind, or fighting fire, or combating in any other of the great forces of nature. We were quite alone. The Cattleman and Homer had vanished. To our left the men were fully occupied in marshalling the compact brown herds that had gradually massed--for these antagonists of mine were merely outlying remnants. I suppose Brown Jug must have run nearly twenty miles with only one check. Then we chased a cow some distance and into the dry bed of a stream, where she whirled on us savagely. By luck her horn hit only the leather of my saddle skirts, so we left her; for when a cow has sense enough to "get on the peck," there is no driving her farther. We gained nothing, and had to give ground, but we succeeded in holding a semblance of order, so that the cattle did not break and scatter far and wide. The sun had by now well risen, and was beginning to shine hot. Brown Jug still ran gamely and displayed as much interest as ever, but he was evidently tiring. We were both glad to see Homer's grey showing in the fringe of mesquite. Together we soon succeeded in throwing the cows into the main herd. And, strangely enough, as soon as they had joined a compact band of their fellows, their wildness left them and, convoyed by outsiders, they set themselves to plodding energetically toward the home ranch. As my horse was somewhat winded, I joined the "drag" at the rear. Here by course of natural sifting soon accumulated all the lazy, gentle, and sickly cows, and the small calves. The difficulty now was to prevent them from lagging and dropping out. To that end we indulged in a great variety of the picturesque cow-calls peculiar to the cowboy. One found an old tin can which by the aid of a few pebbles he converted into a very effective rattle. The dust rose in clouds and eddied in the sun. We slouched easily in our saddles. The cowboys compared notes as to the brands they had seen. Our ponies shuffled along, resting, but always ready for a dash in chase of an occasional bull calf or yearling with independent ideas of its own. Thus we passed over the country, down the long gentle slope to the "sink" of the valley, whence another long gentle slope ran to the base of the other ranges. At greater or lesser distances we caught the dust, and made out dimly the masses of the other herds collected by our companions, and by the party under Jed Parker. They went forward toward the common centre, with a slow ruminative movement, and the dust they raised went with them. Little by little they grew plainer to us, and the home ranch, hitherto merely a brown shimmer in the distance, began to take on definition as the group of buildings, windmills, and corrals we knew. Miniature horsemen could be seen galloping forward to the open white plain where the herd would be held. Then the mesquite enveloped us; and we knew little more, save the anxiety lest we overlook laggards in the brush, until we came out on the edge of that same white plain. Here were more cattle, thousands of them, and billows of dust, and a great bellowing, and slim, mounted figures riding and shouting ahead of the herd. Soon they succeeded in turning the leaders back. These threw into confusion those that followed. In a few moments the cattle had stopped. A cordon of horsemen sat at equal distances holding them in. "Pretty good haul," said the man next to me; "a good five thousand head." CHAPTER SIX CUTTING OUT It was somewhere near noon by the time we had bunched and held the herd of some four or five thousand head in the smooth, wide flat, free from bushes and dog holes. Each sat at ease on his horse facing the cattle, watching lazily the clouds of dust and the shifting beasts, but ready at any instant to turn back the restless or independent individuals that might break for liberty. Out of the haze came Homer, the round-up captain, on an easy lope. As he passed successively the sentries he delivered to each a low command, but without slacking pace. Some of those spoken to wheeled their horses and rode away. The others settled themselves in their saddles and began to roll cigarettes. "Change horses; get something to eat," said he to me; so I swung after the file traveling at a canter over the low swells beyond the plain. The remuda had been driven by its leaders to a corner of the pasture's wire fence, and there held. As each man arrived he dismounted, threw off his saddle, and turned his animal loose. Then he flipped a loop in his rope and disappeared in the eddying herd. The discarded horse, with many grunts, indulged in a satisfying roll, shook himself vigorously, and walked slowly away. His labour was over for the day, and he knew it, and took not the slightest trouble to get out of the way of the men with the swinging ropes. Not so the fresh horses, however. They had no intention of being caught, if they could help it, but dodged and twisted, hid and doubled behind the moving screen of their friends. The latter, seeming as usual to know they were not wanted, made no effort to avoid the men, which probably accounted in great measure for the fact that the herd as a body remained compact, in spite of the cowboys threading it, and in spite of the lack of an enclosure. Our horses caught, we saddled as hastily as possible; and then at the top speed of our fresh and eager ponies we swept down on the chuck wagon. There we fell off our saddles and descended on the meat and bread like ravenous locusts on a cornfield. The ponies stood where we left them, "tied to the ground", the cattle-country fashion. As soon as a man had stoked up for the afternoon he rode away. Some finished before others, so across the plain formed an endless procession of men returning to the herd, and of those whom they replaced coming for their turn at the grub. We found the herd quiet. Some were even lying down, chewing their cuds as peacefully as any barnyard cows. Most, however, stood ruminative, or walked slowly to and fro in the confines allotted by the horsemen, so that the herd looked from a distance like a brown carpet whose pattern was constantly changing--a dusty brown carpet in the process of being beaten. I relieved one of the watchers, and settled myself for a wait. At this close inspection the different sorts of cattle showed more distinctly their characteristics. The cows and calves generally rested peacefully enough, the calf often lying down while the mother stood guard over it. Steers, however, were more restless. They walked ceaselessly, threading their way in and out among the standing cattle, pausing in brutish amazement at the edge of the herd, and turning back immediately to endless journeyings. The bulls, excited by so much company forced on their accustomed solitary habit, roared defiance at each other until the air fairly trembled. Occasionally two would clash foreheads. Then the powerful animals would push and wrestle, trying for a chance to gore. The decision of supremacy was a question of but a few minutes, and a bloody topknot the worst damage. The defeated one side-stepped hastily and clumsily out of reach, and then walked away. Most of the time all we had to do was to sit our horses and watch these things, to enjoy the warm bath of the Arizona sun, and to converse with our next neighbours. Once in a while some enterprising cow, observing the opening between the men, would start to walk out. Others would fall in behind her until the movement would become general. Then one of us would swing his leg off the pommel and jog his pony over to head them off. They would return peacefully enough. But one black muley cow, with a calf as black and muley as herself, was more persistent. Time after time, with infinite patience, she tried it again the moment my back was turned. I tried driving her far into the herd. No use; she always returned. Quirtings and stones had no effect on her mild and steady persistence. "She's a San Simon cow," drawled my neighbour. "Everybody knows her. She's at every round-up, just naturally raisin' hell." When the last man had returned from chuck, Homer made the dispositions for the cut. There were present probably thirty men from the home ranches round about, and twenty representing owners at a distance, here to pick up the strays inevitable to the season's drift. The round-up captain appointed two men to hold the cow-and-calf cut, and two more to hold the steer cut. Several of us rode into the herd, while the remainder retained their positions as sentinels to hold the main body of cattle in shape. Little G and I rode slowly among the cattle looking everywhere. The animals moved sluggishly aside to give us passage, and closed in as sluggishly behind us, so that we were always closely hemmed in wherever we went. Over the shifting sleek backs, through the eddying clouds of dust, I could make out the figures of my companions moving slowly, apparently aimlessly, here and there. Our task for the moment was to search out the unbranded J H calves. Since in ranks so closely crowded it would be physically impossible actually to see an animal's branded flank, we depended entirely on the ear-marks. Did you ever notice how any animal, tame or wild, always points his ears inquiringly in the direction of whatever interests or alarms him? Those ears are for the moment his most prominent feature. So when a brand is quite indistinguishable because, as now, of press of numbers, or, as in winter, from extreme length of hair, the cropped ears tell plainly the tale of ownership. As every animal is so marked when branded, it follows that an uncut pair of ears means that its owner has never felt the iron. So, now we had to look first of all for calves with uncut ears. After discovering one, we had to ascertain his ownership by examining the ear-marks of his mother, by whose side he was sure, in this alarming multitude, to be clinging faithfully. Calves were numerous, and J H cows everywhere to be seen, so in somewhat less than ten seconds I had my eye on a mother and son. Immediately I turned Little G in their direction. At the slap of my quirt against the stirrup, all the cows immediately about me shrank suspiciously aside. Little G stepped forward daintily, his nostrils expanding, his ears working back and forth, trying to the best of his ability to understand which animals I had selected. The cow and her calf turned in toward the centre of the herd. A touch of the reins guided the pony. At once he comprehended. From that time on he needed no further directions. Cautiously, patiently, with great skill, he forced the cow through the press toward the edge of the herd. It had to be done very quietly, at a foot pace, so as to alarm neither the objects of pursuit nor those surrounding them. When the cow turned back, Little G somehow happened always in her way. Before she knew it she was at the outer edge of the herd. There she found herself, with a group of three or four companions, facing the open plain. Instinctively she sought shelter. I felt Little G's muscles tighten beneath me. The moment for action had come. Before the cow had a chance to dodge among her companions the pony was upon her like a thunderbolt. She broke in alarm, trying desperately to avoid the rush. There ensued an exciting contest of dodgings, turnings, and doublings. Wherever she turned Little G was before her. Some of his evolutions were marvellous. All I had to do was to sit my saddle, and apply just that final touch of judgment denied even the wisest of the lower animals. Time and again the turn was so quick that the stirrup swept the ground. At last the cow, convinced of the uselessness of further effort to return, broke away on a long lumbering run to the open plain. She was stopped and held by the men detailed, and so formed the nucleus of the new cut-herd. Immediately Little G, his ears working in conscious virtue, jog-trotted back into the herd, ready for another. After a dozen cows had been sent across to the cut-herd, the work simplified. Once a cow caught sight of this new band, she generally made directly for it, head and tail up. After the first short struggle to force her from the herd, all I had to do was to start her in the proper direction and keep her at it until her decision was fixed. If she was too soon left to her own devices, however, she was likely to return. An old cowman knows to a second just the proper moment to abandon her. Sometimes, in spite of our best efforts a cow succeeded in circling us and plunging into the main herd. The temptation was then strong to plunge in also, and to drive her out by main force; but the temptation had to be resisted. A dash into the thick of it might break the whole band. At once, of his own accord, Little G dropped to his fast, shuffling walk, and again we addressed ourselves to the task of pushing her gently to the edge. This was all comparatively simple--almost any pony is fast enough for the calf cut--but now Homer gave orders for the steer cut to begin, and steers are rapid and resourceful and full of natural cussedness. Little G and I were relieved by Windy Bill, and betook ourselves to the outside of the herd. Here we had leisure to observe the effects that up to this moment we had ourselves been producing. The herd, restless by reason of the horsemen threading it, shifted, gave ground, expanded, and contracted, so that its shape and size were always changing in the constant area guarded by the sentinel cowboys. Dust arose from these movements, clouds of it, to eddy and swirl, thicken and dissipate in the currents of air. Now it concealed all but the nearest dimly-outlined animals; again it parted in rifts through which mistily we discerned the riders moving in and out of the fog; again it lifted high and thin, so that we saw in clarity the whole herd and the outriders and the mesas far away. As the afternoon waned, long shafts of sun slanted through this dust. It played on men and beasts magically, expanding them to the dimensions of strange genii, appearing and effacing themselves in the billows of vapour from some enchanted bottle. We on the outside found our sinecure of hot noon-tide filched from us by the cooler hours. The cattle, wearied of standing, and perhaps somewhat hungry and thirsty, grew more and more impatient. We rode continually back and forth, turning the slow movement in on itself. Occasionally some particularly enterprising cow would conclude that one or another of the cut-herds would suit her better than this mill of turmoil. She would start confidently out, head and tail up, find herself chased back, get stubborn on the question, and lead her pursuer a long, hard run before she would return to her companions. Once in a while one would even have to be roped and dragged back. For know, before something happens to you, that you can chase a cow safely only until she gets hot and winded. Then she stands her ground and gets emphatically "on the peck." I remember very well when I first discovered this. It was after I had had considerable cow work, too. I thought of cows as I had always seen them--afraid of a horseman, easy to turn with the pony, and willing to be chased as far as necessary to the work. Nobody told me anything different. One day we were making a drive in an exceedingly broken country. I was bringing in a small bunch I had discovered in a pocket of the hills, but was excessively annoyed by one old cow that insisted on breaking back. In the wisdom of further experience, I now conclude that she probably had a calf in the brush. Finally she got away entirely. After starting the bunch well ahead, I went after her. Well, the cow and I ran nearly side by side for as much as half a mile at top speed. She declined to be headed. Finally she fell down and was so entirely winded that she could not get up. "Now, old girl, I've got you!" said I, and set myself to urging her to her feet. The pony acted somewhat astonished, and suspicious of the job. Therein he knew a lot more than I did. But I insisted, and, like a good pony, he obeyed. I yelled at the cow, and slapped my bat, and used my quirt. When she had quite recovered her wind, she got slowly to her feet--and charged me in a most determined manner. Now, a bull, or a steer, is not difficult to dodge. He lowers his head, shuts his eyes, and comes in on one straight rush. But a cow looks to see what she is doing; her eyes are open every minute, and it overjoys her to take a side hook at you even when you succeed in eluding her direct charge. The pony I was riding did his best, but even then could not avoid a sharp prod that would have ripped him up had not my leather bastos intervened. Then we retired to a distance in order to plan further; but we did not succeed in inducing that cow to revise her ideas, so at last we left her. When, in some chagrin, I mentioned to the round-up captain the fact that I had skipped one animal, he merely laughed. "Why, kid," said he, "you can't do nothin' with a cow that gets on the prod that away 'thout you ropes her; and what could you do with her out there if you DID rope her?" So I learned one thing more about cows. After the steer cut had been finished, the men representing the neighbouring ranges looked through the herd for strays of their brands. These were thrown into the stray-herd, which had been brought up from the bottom lands to receive the new accessions. Work was pushed rapidly, as the afternoon was nearly gone. In fact, so absorbed were we that until it was almost upon us we did not notice a heavy thunder-shower that arose in the region of the Dragoon Mountains, and swept rapidly across the zenith. Before we knew it the rain had begun. In ten seconds it had increased to a deluge, and in twenty we were all to leeward of the herd striving desperately to stop the drift of the cattle down wind. We did everything in our power to stop them, but in vain. Slickers waved, quirts slapped against leather, six-shooters flashed, but still the cattle, heads lowered, advanced with slow and sullen persistence that would not be stemmed. If we held our ground, they divided around us. Step by step we were forced to give way--the thin line of nervously plunging horses sprayed before the dense mass of the cattle. "No, they won't stampede," shouted Charley to my question. "There's cows and calves in them. If they was just steers or grown critters, they might." The sensations of those few moments were very vivid--the blinding beat of the storm in my face, the unbroken front of horned heads bearing down on me, resistless as fate, the long slant of rain with the sun shining in the distance beyond it. Abruptly the downpour ceased. We shook our hats free of water, and drove the herd back to the cutting grounds again. But now the surface of the ground was slippery, and the rapid manoeuvring of horses had become a matter precarious in the extreme. Time and again the ponies fairly sat on their haunches and slid when negotiating a sudden stop, while quick turns meant the rapid scramblings that only a cow-horse could accomplish. Nevertheless the work went forward unchecked. The men of the other outfits cut their cattle into the stray-herd. The latter was by now of considerable size, for this was the third week of the round-up. Finally everyone expressed himself as satisfied. The largely diminished main herd was now started forward by means of shrill cowboy cries and beating of quirts. The cattle were only too eager to go. From my position on a little rise above the stray-herd I could see the leaders breaking into a run, their heads thrown forward as they snuffed their freedom. On the mesa side the sentinel riders quietly withdrew. From the rear and flanks the horsemen closed in. The cattle poured out in a steady stream through the opening thus left on the mesa side. The fringe of cowboys followed, urging them on. Abruptly the cavalcade turned and came loping back. The cattle continued ahead on a trot, gradually spreading abroad over the landscape, losing their integrity as a herd. Some of the slower or hungrier dropped out and began to graze. Certain of the more wary disappeared to right or left. Now, after the day's work was practically over, we had our first accident. The horse ridden by a young fellow from Dos Cabesas slipped, fell, and rolled quite over his rider. At once the animal lunged to his feet, only to be immediately seized by the nearest rider. But the Dos Cabesas man lay still, his arms and legs spread abroad, his head doubled sideways in a horribly suggestive manner. We hopped off. Two men straightened him out, while two more looked carefully over the indications on the ground. "All right," sang out one of them, "the horn didn't catch him." He pointed to the indentation left by the pommel. Indeed five minutes brought the man to his senses. He complained of a very twisted back. Homer set one of the men in after the bed-wagon, by means of which the sufferer was shortly transported to camp. By the end of the week he was again in the saddle. How men escape from this common accident with injuries so slight has always puzzled me. The horse rolls completely over his rider, and yet it seems to be the rarest thing in the world for the latter to be either killed or permanently injured. Now each man had the privilege of looking through the J H cuts to see if by chance steers of his own had been included in them. When all had expressed themselves as satisfied, the various bands were started to the corrals. From a slight eminence where I had paused to enjoy the evening I looked down on the scene. The three herds, separated by generous distance one from the other, crawled leisurely along; the riders, their hats thrust back, lolled in their saddles, shouting conversation to each other, relaxing after the day's work; through the clouds strong shafts of light belittled the living creatures, threw into proportion the vastness of the desert. CHAPTER SEVEN A CORNER IN HORSES It was dark night. The stay-herd bellowed frantically from one of the big corrals; the cow-and-calf-herd from a second. Already the remuda, driven in from the open plains, scattered about the thousand acres of pasture. Away from the conveniences of fence and corral, men would have had to patrol all night. Now, however, everyone was gathered about the camp fire. Probably forty cowboys were in the group, representing all types, from old John, who had been in the business forty years, and had punched from the Rio Grande to the Pacific, to the Kid, who would have given his chance of salvation if he could have been taken for ten years older than he was. At the moment Jed Parker was holding forth to his friend Johnny Stone in reference to another old crony who had that evening joined the round-up. "Johnny," inquired Jed with elaborate gravity, and entirely ignoring the presence of the subject of conversation, "what is that thing just beyond the fire, and where did it come from?" Johnny Stone squinted to make sure. "That?" he replied. "Oh, this evenin' the dogs see something run down a hole, and they dug it out, and that's what they got." The newcomer grinned. "The trouble with you fellows," he proffered "is that you're so plumb alkalied you don't know the real thing when you see it." "That's right," supplemented Windy Bill drily. "HE come from New York." "No!" cried Jed. "You don't say so? Did he come in one box or in two?" Under cover of the laugh, the newcomer made a raid on the dutch ovens and pails. Having filled his plate, he squatted on his heels and fell to his belated meal. He was a tall, slab-sided individual, with a lean, leathery face, a sweeping white moustache, and a grave and sardonic eye. His leather chaps were plain and worn, and his hat had been fashioned by time and wear into much individuality. I was not surprised to hear him nicknamed Sacatone Bill. "Just ask him how he got that game foot," suggested Johnny Stone to me in an undertone, so, of course, I did not. Later someone told me that the lameness resulted from his refusal of an urgent invitation to return across a river. Mr. Sacatone Bill happened not to be riding his own horse at the time. The Cattleman dropped down beside me a moment later. "I wish," said he in a low voice, "we could get that fellow talking. He is a queer one. Pretty well educated apparently. Claims to be writing a book of memoirs. Sometimes he will open up in good shape, and sometimes he will not. It does no good to ask him direct, and he is as shy as an old crow when you try to lead him up to a subject. We must just lie low and trust to Providence." A man was playing on the mouth organ. He played excellently well, with all sorts of variations and frills. We smoked in silence. The deep rumble of the cattle filled the air with its diapason. Always the shrill coyotes raved out in the mesquite. Sacatone Bill had finished his meal, and had gone to sit by Jed Parker, his old friend. They talked together low-voiced. The evening grew, and the eastern sky silvered over the mountains in anticipation of the moon. Sacatone Bill suddenly threw back his head and laughed. "Reminds me of the time I went to Colorado!" he cried. "He's off!" whispered the Cattleman. A dead silence fell on the circle. Everybody shifted position the better to listen to the story of Sacatone Bill. About ten year ago I got plumb sick of punchin' cows around my part of the country. She hadn't rained since Noah, and I'd forgot what water outside a pail or a trough looked like. So I scouted around inside of me to see what part of the world I'd jump to, and as I seemed to know as little of Colorado and minin' as anything else, I made up the pint of bean soup I call my brains to go there. So I catches me a buyer at Henson and turns over my pore little bunch of cattle and prepared to fly. The last day I hauled up about twenty good buckets of water and threw her up against the cabin. My buyer was settin' his hoss waitin' for me to get ready. He didn't say nothin' until we'd got down about ten mile or so. "Mr. Hicks," says he, hesitatin' like, "I find it a good rule in this country not to overlook other folks' plays, but I'd take it mighty kind if you'd explain those actions of yours with the pails of water." "Mr. Jones," says I, "it's very simple. I built that shack five year ago, and it's never rained since. I just wanted to settle in my mind whether or not that damn roof leaked." So I quit Arizona, and in about a week I see my reflection in the winders of a little place called Cyanide in the Colorado mountains. Fellows, she was a bird. They wasn't a pony in sight, nor a squar' foot of land that wasn't either street or straight up. It made me plumb lonesome for a country where you could see a long ways even if you didn't see much. And this early in the evenin' they wasn't hardly anybody in the streets at all. I took a look at them dark, gloomy, old mountains, and a sniff at a breeze that would have frozen the whiskers of hope, and I made a dive for the nearest lit winder. They was a sign over it that just said: THIS IS A SALOON I was glad they labelled her. I'd never have known it. They had a fifteen-year old kid tendin' bar, no games goin', and not a soul in the place. "Sorry to disturb your repose, bub," says I, "but see if you can sort out any rye among them collections of sassapariller of yours." I took a drink, and then another to keep it company--I was beginnin' to sympathise with anythin' lonesome. Then I kind of sauntered out to the back room where the hurdy-gurdy ought to be. Sure enough, there was a girl settin' on the pianner stool, another in a chair, and a nice shiny Jew drummer danglin' his feet from a table. They looked up when they see me come in, and went right on talkin'. "Hello, girls!" says I. At that they stopped talkin' complete. "How's tricks?" says I. "Who's your woolly friend?" the shiny Jew asks of the girls. I looked at him a minute, but I see he'd been raised a pet, and then, too, I was so hungry for sassiety I was willin' to pass a bet or two. "Don't you ADMIRE these cow gents?" snickers one of the girls. "Play somethin', sister," says I to the one at the pianner. She just grinned at me. "Interdooce me," says the drummer in a kind of a way that made them all laugh a heap. "Give us a tune," I begs, tryin' to be jolly, too. "She don't know any pieces," says the Jew. "Don't you?" I asks pretty sharp. "No," says she. "Well, I do," says I. I walked up to her, jerked out my guns, and reached around both sides of her to the pianner. I run the muzzles up and down the keyboard two or three times, and then shot out half a dozen keys. "That's the piece I know," says I. But the other girl and the Jew drummer had punched the breeze. The girl at the pianner just grinned, and pointed to the winder where they was some ragged glass hangin'. She was dead game. "Say, Susie," says I, "you're all right, but your friends is tur'ble. I may be rough, and I ain't never been curried below the knees, but I'm better to tie to than them sons of guns." "I believe it," says she. So we had a drink at the bar, and started out to investigate the wonders of Cyanide. Say, that night was a wonder. Susie faded after about three drinks, but I didn't seem to mind that. I hooked up to another saloon kept by a thin Dutchman. A fat Dutchman is stupid, but a thin one is all right. In ten minutes I had more friends in Cyanide than they is fiddlers in hell. I begun to conclude Cyanide wasn't so lonesome. About four o'clock in comes a little Irishman about four foot high, with more upper lip than a muley cow, and enough red hair to make an artificial aurorer borealis. He had big red hands with freckles pasted onto them, and stiff red hairs standin' up separate and lonesome like signal stations. Also his legs was bowed. He gets a drink at the bar, and stands back and yells: "God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" Now, this was none of my town, so I just stepped back of the end of the bar quick where I wouldn't stop no lead. The shootin' didn't begin. "Probably Dutchy didn't take no note of what the locoed little dogie DID say," thinks I to myself. The Irishman bellied up to the bar again, and pounded on it with his fist. "Look here!" he yells. "Listen to what I'm tellin' ye! God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle! Do ye hear me?" "Sure, I hear ye," says Dutchy, and goes on swabbin' his bar with a towel. At that my soul just grew sick. I asked the man next to me why Dutchy didn't kill the little fellow. "Kill him!" says this man. "What for?" "For insultin' of him, of course." "Oh, he's drunk," says the man, as if that explained anythin'. That settled it with me. I left that place, and went home, and it wasn't more than four o'clock, neither. No, I don't call four o'clock late. It may be a little late for night before last, but it's just the shank of the evenin' for to-night. Well, it took me six weeks and two days to go broke. I didn't know sic em, about minin'; and before long I KNEW that I didn't 'know sic 'em. Most all day I poked around them mountains---not like our'n--too much timber to be comfortable. At night I got to droppin' in at Dutchy's. He had a couple of quiet games goin', and they was one fellow among that lot of grubbin' prairie dogs that had heerd tell that cows had horns. He was the wisest of the bunch on the cattle business. So I stowed away my consolation, and made out to forget comparing Colorado with God's country. About three times a week this Irishman I told you of--name O'Toole--comes bulgin' in. When he was sober he talked minin' high, wide, and handsome. When he was drunk he pounded both fists on the bar and yelled for action, tryin' to get Dutchy on the peck. "God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" he yells about six times. "Say, do you hear?" "Sure," says Dutchy, calm as a milk cow, "sure, I hears ye!" I was plumb sorry for O'Toole. I'd like to have given him a run; but, of course, I couldn't take it up without makin' myself out a friend of this Dutchy party, and I couldn't stand for that. But I did tackle Dutchy about it one night when they wasn't nobody else there. "Dutchy," says I, "what makes you let that bow-legged cross between a bulldog and a flamin' red sunset tromp on you so? It looks to me like you're plumb spiritless." Dutchy stopped wiping glasses for a minute. "Just you hold on" says he. "I ain't ready yet. Bimeby I make him sick; also those others who laugh with him." He had a little grey flicker in his eye, and I thinks to myself that maybe they'd get Dutchy on the peck yet. As I said, I went broke in just six weeks and two days. And I was broke a plenty. No hold-outs anywhere. It was a heap long ways to cows; and I'd be teetotally chawed up and spit out if I was goin' to join these minin' terrapins defacin' the bosom of nature. It sure looked to me like hard work. While I was figurin' what next, Dutchy came in. Which I was tur'ble surprised at that, but I said good-mornin' and would he rest his poor feet. "You like to make some money?" he asks. "That depends," says I, "on how easy it is." "It is easy," says he. "I want you to buy hosses for me." "Hosses! Sure!" I yells, jumpin' up. "You bet you! Why, hosses is where I live! What hosses do you want?" "All hosses," says he, calm as a faro dealer. "What?" says I. "Elucidate, my bucko. I don't take no such blanket order. Spread your cards." "I mean just that," says he. "I want you to buy all the hosses in this camp, and in the mountains. Every one." "Whew!" I whistles. "That's a large order. But I'm your meat." "Come with me, then," says he. I hadn't but just got up, but I went with him to his little old poison factory. Of course, I hadn't had no breakfast; but he staked me to a Kentucky breakfast. What's a Kentucky breakfast? Why, a Kentucky breakfast is a three-pound steak, a bottle of whisky, and a setter dog. What's the dog for? Why, to eat the steak, of course. We come to an agreement. I was to get two-fifty a head commission. So I started out. There wasn't many hosses in that country, and what there was the owners hadn't much use for unless it was to work a whim. I picked up about a hundred head quick enough, and reported to Dutchy. "How about burros and mules?" I asks Dutchy. "They goes," says he. "Mules same as hosses; burros four bits a head to you." At the end of a week I had a remuda of probably two hundred animals. We kept them over the hills in some "parks," as these sots call meadows in that country. I rode into town and told Dutchy. "Got them all?" he asks. "All but a cross-eyed buckskin that's mean, and the bay mare that Noah bred to." "Get them," says he. "The bandits want too much," I explains. "Get them anyway," says he. I went away and got them. It was scand'lous; such prices. When I hit Cyanide again I ran into scenes of wild excitement. The whole passel of them was on that one street of their'n, talkin' sixteen ounces to the pound. In the middle was Dutchy, drunk as a soldier-just plain foolish drunk. "Good Lord!" thinks I to myself, "he ain't celebratin' gettin' that bunch of buzzards, is he?" But I found he wasn't that bad. When he caught sight of me, he fell on me drivellin'. "Look there!" he weeps, showin' me a letter. I was the last to come in; so I kept that letter--here she is. I'll read her. Dear Dutchy:--I suppose you thought I'd flew the coop, but I haven't and this is to prove it. Pack up your outfit and hit the trail. I've made the biggest free gold strike you ever see. I'm sending you specimens. There's tons just like it, tons and tons. I got all the claims I can hold myself; but there's heaps more. I've writ to Johnny and Ed at Denver to come on. Don't give this away. Make tracks. Come in to Buck Canon in the Whetstones and oblige. Yours truly, Henry Smith Somebody showed me a handful of white rock with yeller streaks in it. His eyes was bulgin' until you could have hung your hat on them. That O'Toole party was walkin' around, wettin' his lips with his tongue and swearin' soft. "God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" says he. "And the fool had to get drunk and give it away!" The excitement was just started, but it didn't last long. The crowd got the same notion at the same time, and it just melted. Me and Dutchy was left alone. I went home. Pretty soon a fellow named Jimmy Tack come around a little out of breath. "Say, you know that buckskin you bought off'n me?" says he, "I want to buy him back." "Oh, you do," says I. "Yes," says he. "I've got to leave town for a couple of days, and I got to have somethin' to pack." "Wait and I'll see," says I. Outside the door I met another fellow. "Look here," he stops me with. "How about that bay mare I sold you? Can you call that sale off? I got to leave town for a day or two and--" "Wait," says I. "I'll see." By the gate was another hurryin' up. "Oh, yes," says I when he opens his mouth. "I know all your troubles. You have to leave town for a couple of days, and you want back that lizard you sold me. Well, wait." After that I had to quit the main street and dodge back of the hog ranch. They was all headed my way. I was as popular as a snake in a prohibition town. I hit Dutchy's by the back door. "Do you want to sell hosses?" I asks. "Everyone in town wants to buy." Dutchy looked hurt. "I wanted to keep them for the valley market," says he, "but--How much did you give Jimmy Tack for his buckskin?" "Twenty," says I. "Well, let him have it for eighty," says Dutchy; "and the others in proportion." I lay back and breathed hard. "Sell them all, but the one best hoss," says he--"no, the TWO best." "Holy smoke!" says I, gettin' my breath. "If you mean that, Dutchy, you lend me another gun and give me a drink." He done so, and I went back home to where the whole camp of Cyanide was waitin'. I got up and made them a speech and told them I'd sell them hosses all right, and to come back. Then I got an Injin boy to help, and we rustled over the remuda and held them in a blind canon. Then I called up these miners one at a time, and made bargains with them. Roar! Well, you could hear them at Denver, they tell me, and the weather reports said, "Thunder in the mountains." But it was cash on delivery, and they all paid up. They had seen that white quartz with the gold stickin' into it, and that's the same as a dose of loco to miner gents. Why didn't I take a hoss and start first? I did think of it--for about one second. I wouldn't stay in that country then for a million dollars a minute. I was plumb sick and loathin' it, and just waitin' to make high jumps back to Arizona. So I wasn't aimin' to join this stampede, and didn't have no vivid emotions. They got to fightin' on which should get the first hoss; so I bent my gun on them and made them draw lots. They roared some more, but done so; and as fast as each one handed over his dust or dinero he made a rush for his cabin, piled on his saddle and pack, and pulled his freight on a cloud of dust. It was sure a grand stampede, and I enjoyed it no limit. So by sundown I was alone with the Injin. Those two hundred head brought in about twenty thousand dollars. It was heavy, but I could carry it. I was about alone in the landscape; and there were the two best hosses I had saved out for Dutchy. I was sure some tempted. But I had enough to get home on anyway; and I never yet drank behind the bar, even if I might hold up the saloon from the floor. So I grieved some inside that I was so tur'ble conscientious, shouldered the sacks, and went down to find Dutchy. I met him headed his way, and carryin' of a sheet of paper. "Here's your dinero," says I, dumpin' the four big sacks on the ground. He stooped over and hefted them. Then he passed one over to me. "What's that for?" I asks. "For you," says he. "My commission ain't that much," I objects. "You've earned it," says he, "and you might have skipped with the whole wad." "How did you know I wouldn't?" I asks. "Well," says he, and I noted that jag of his had flew. "You see, I was behind that rock up there, and I had you covered." I saw; and I began to feel better about bein' so tur'ble conscientious. We walked a little ways without sayin' nothin'. "But ain't you goin' to join the game?" I asks. "Guess not," says he, jinglin' of his gold. "I'm satisfied." "But if you don't get a wiggle on you, you are sure goin' to get left on those gold claims," says I. "There ain't no gold claims," says he. "But Henry Smith--" I cries. "There ain't no Henry Smith," says he. I let that soak in about six inches. "But there's a Buck Canon," I pleads. "Please say there's a Buck Canon." "Oh, yes, there's a Buck Canon," he allows. "Nice limestone formation--make good hard water." "Well, you're a marvel," says I. We walked together down to Dutchy's saloon. We stopped outside. "Now," says he, "I'm goin' to take one of those hosses and go somewheres else. Maybe you'd better do likewise on the other." "You bet I will," says I. He turned around and taked up the paper he was carryin'. It was a sign. It read: THE DUTCH HAS RUSTLED "Nice sentiment," says I. "It will be appreciated when the crowd comes back from that little pasear into Buck Canon. But why not tack her up where the trail hits the camp? Why on this particular door?" "Well," said Dutchy, squintin' at the sign sideways, "you see I sold this place day before yesterday--to Mike O'Toole." CHAPTER EIGHT THE CORRAL BRANDING All that night we slept like sticks of wood. No dreams visited us, but in accordance with the immemorial habit of those who live out--whether in the woods, on the plains, among the mountains, or at sea--once during the night each of us rose on his elbow, looked about him, and dropped back to sleep. If there had been a fire to replenish, that would have been the moment to do so; if the wind had been changing and the seas rising, that would have been the time to cast an eye aloft for indications, to feel whether the anchor cable was holding; if the pack-horses had straggled from the alpine meadows under the snows, this would have been the occasion for intent listening for the faintly tinkling hell so that next day one would know in which direction to look. But since there existed for us no responsibility, we each reported dutifully at the roll-call of habit, and dropped back into our blankets with a grateful sigh. I remember the moon sailing a good gait among apparently stationary cloudlets; I recall a deep, black shadow lying before distant silvery mountains; I glanced over the stark, motionless canvases, each of which concealed a man; the air trembled with the bellowing of cattle in the corrals. Seemingly but a moment later the cook's howl brought me to consciousness again. A clear, licking little fire danced in the blackness. Before it moved silhouettes of men already eating. I piled out and joined the group. Homer was busy distributing his men for the day. Three were to care for the remuda; five were to move the stray-herd from the corrals to good feed; three branding crews were told to brand the calves we had collected in the cut of the afternoon before. That took up about half the men. The rest were to make a short drive in the salt grass. I joined the Cattleman, and together we made our way afoot to the branding pen. We were the only ones who did go afoot, however, although the corrals were not more than two hundred yards' distant. When we arrived we found the string of ponies standing around outside. Between the upright bars of greasewood we could see the cattle, and near the opposite side the men building a fire next the fence. We pushed open the wide gate and entered. The three ropers sat their horses, idly swinging the loops of their ropes back and forth. Three others brought wood and arranged it craftily in such manner as to get best draught for heatin,--a good branding fire is most decidedly a work of art. One stood waiting for them to finish, a sheaf of long JH stamping irons in his hand. All the rest squatted on their heels along the fence, smoking cigarettes and chatting together. The first rays of the sun slanted across in one great sweep from the remote mountains. In ten minutes Charley pronounced the irons ready. Homer, Wooden, and old California John rode in among the cattle. The rest of the men arose and stretched their legs and advanced. The Cattleman and I climbed to the top bar of the gate, where we roosted, he with his tally-book on his knee. Each rider swung his rope above his head with one hand, keeping the broad loop open by a skilful turn of the wrist at the end of each revolution. In a moment Homer leaned forward and threw. As the loop settled, he jerked sharply upward, exactly as one would strike to hook a big fish. This tightened the loop and prevented it from slipping off. Immediately, and without waiting to ascertain the result of the manoeuvre, the horse turned and began methodically, without undue haste, to walk toward the branding fire. Homer wrapped the rope twice or thrice about the horn, and sat over in one stirrup to avoid the tightened line and to preserve the balance. Nobody paid any attention to the calf. The critter had been caught by the two hind legs. As the rope tightened, he was suddenly upset, and before he could realise that something disagreeable was happening, he was sliding majestically along on his belly. Behind him followed his anxious mother, her head swinging from side to side. Near the fire the horse stopped. The two "bull-doggers" immediately pounced upon the victim. It was promptly flopped over on its right side. One knelt on its head and twisted back its foreleg in a sort of hammer-lock; the other seized one hind foot, pressed his boot heel against the other hind leg close to the body, and sat down behind the animal. Thus the calf was unable to struggle. When once you have had the wind knocked out of you, or a rib or two broken, you cease to think this unnecessarily rough. Then one or the other threw off the rope. Homer rode away, coiling the rope as he went. "Hot iron!" yelled one of the bull-doggers. "Marker!" yelled the other. Immediately two men ran forward. The brander pressed the iron smoothly against the flank. A smoke and the smell of scorching hair arose. Perhaps the calf blatted a little as the heat scorched. In a brief moment it was over. The brand showed cherry, which is the proper colour to indicate due peeling and a successful mark. In the meantime the marker was engaged in his work. First, with a sharp knife he cut off slanting the upper quarter of one ear. Then he nicked out a swallow-tail in the other. The pieces he thrust into his pocket in order that at the completion of the work he could thus check the Cattleman's tally-board as to the number of calves branded.[3] The bull-dogger let go. The calf sprang up, was appropriated and smelled over by his worried mother, and the two departed into the herd to talk it over. It seems to me that a great deal of unnecessary twaddle is abroad as to the extreme cruelty of branding. Undoubtedly it is to some extent painful, and could some other method of ready identification be devised, it might be as well to adopt it in preference. But in the circumstance of a free range, thousands of cattle, and hundreds of owners, any other method is out of the question. I remember a New England movement looking toward small brass tags to be hung from the ear. Inextinguishable laughter followed the spread of this doctrine through Arizona. Imagine a puncher descending to examine politely the ear-tags of wild cattle on the open range or in a round-up. But, as I have intimated, even the inevitable branding and ear-marking are not so painful as one might suppose. The scorching hardly penetrates below the outer tough skin--only enough to kill the roots of the hair--besides which it must be remembered that cattle are not so sensitive as the higher nervous organisms. A calf usually bellows when the iron bites, but as soon as released he almost invariably goes to feeding or to looking idly about. Indeed, I have never seen one even take the trouble to lick his wounds, which is certainly not true in the case of the injuries they inflict on each other in fighting. Besides which, it happens but once in a lifetime, and is over in ten seconds; a comfort denied to those of us who have our teeth filled. In the meantime two other calves had been roped by the two other men. One of the little animals was but a few months old, so the rider did not bother with its hind legs, but tossed his loop over its neck. Naturally, when things tightened up, Mr. Calf entered his objections, which took the form of most vigorous bawlings, and the most comical bucking, pitching, cavorting, and bounding in the air. Mr. Frost's bull-calf alone in pictorial history shows the attitudes. And then, of course, there was the gorgeous contrast between all this frantic and uncomprehending excitement and the absolute matter-of-fact imperturbability of horse and rider. Once at the fire, one of the men seized the tightened rope in one hand, reached well over the animal's back to get a slack of the loose hide next the belly, lifted strongly, and tripped. This is called "bull-dogging." As he knew his business, and as the calf was a small one, the little beast went over promptly, bit the ground with a whack, and was pounced upon and held. Such good luck did not always follow, however. An occasional and exceedingly husky bull yearling declined to be upset in any such manner. He would catch himself on one foot, scramble vigorously, and end by struggling back to the upright. Then ten to one he made a dash to get away. In such case he was generally snubbed up short enough at the end of the rope; but once or twice he succeeded in running around a group absorbed in branding. You can imagine what happened next. The rope, attached at one end to a conscientious and immovable horse and at the other to a reckless and vigorous little bull, swept its taut and destroying way about mid-knee high across that group. The brander and marker, who were standing, promptly sat down hard; the bull-doggers, who were sitting, immediately turned several most capable somersaults; the other calf arose and inextricably entangled his rope with that of his accomplice. Hot irons, hot language, and dust filled the air. Another method, and one requiring slightly more knack, is to grasp the animal's tail and throw it by a quick jerk across the pressure of the rope. This is productive of some fun if it fails. By now the branding was in full swing. The three horses came and went phlegmatically. When the nooses fell, they turned and walked toward the fire as a matter of course. Rarely did the cast fail. Men ran to and fro busy and intent. Sometimes three or four calves were on the ground at once. Cries arose in a confusion: "Marker" "Hot iron!" "Tally one!" Dust eddied and dissipated. Behind all were clear sunlight and the organ roll of the cattle bellowing. Toward the middle of the morning the bull-doggers began to get a little tired. "No more necked calves," they announced. "Catch 'em by the hind legs, or bull-dog 'em yourself." And that went. Once in a while the rider, lazy, or careless, or bothered by the press of numbers, dragged up a victim caught by the neck. The bull-doggers flatly refused to have anything to do with it. An obvious way out would have been to flip off the loop and try again; but of course that would have amounted to a confession of wrong. "You fellows drive me plumb weary," remarked the rider, slowly dismounting. "A little bit of a calf like that! What you all need is a nigger to cut up your food for you!" Then he would spit on his hands and go at it alone. If luck attended his first effort, his sarcasm was profound. "There's yore little calf," said he. "Would you like to have me tote it to you, or do you reckon you could toddle this far with yore little old iron?" But if the calf gave much trouble, then all work ceased while the unfortunate puncher wrestled it down. Toward noon the work slacked. Unbranded calves were scarce. Sometimes the men rode here and there for a minute or so before their eyes fell on a pair of uncropped ears. Finally Homer rode over to the Cattleman and reported the branding finished. The latter counted the marks in his tally-book. "One hundred and seventy-six," he announced. The markers, squatted on their heels, told over the bits of ears they had saved. The total amounted to but an hundred and seventy-five. Everybody went to searching for the missing bit. It was not forth-coming. Finally Wooden discovered it in his hip pocket. "Felt her thar all the time," said he, "but thought it must shorely be a chaw of tobacco." This matter satisfactorily adjusted, the men all ran for their ponies. They had been doing a wrestler's heavy work all the morning, but did not seem to be tired. I saw once in some crank physical culture periodical that a cowboy's life was physically ill-balanced, like an oarsman's, in that it exercised only certain muscles of the body. The writer should be turned loose in a branding corral. Through the wide gates the cattle were urged out to the open plain. There they were held for over an hour while the cows wandered about looking for their lost progeny. A cow knows her calf by scent and sound, not by sight. Therefore the noise was deafening, and the motion incessant. Finally the last and most foolish cow found the last and most foolish calf. We turned the herd loose to hunt water and grass at its own pleasure, and went slowly back to chuck. [3] For the benefit of the squeamish it might be well to note that the fragments of the ears were cartilaginous, and therefore not bloody. CHAPTER NINE THE OLD TIMER About a week later, in the course of the round-up, we reached the valley of the Box Springs, where we camped for some days at the dilapidated and abandoned adobe structure that had once been a ranch house of some importance. Just at dusk one afternoon we finished cutting the herd which our morning's drive had collected. The stray-herd, with its new additions from the day's work, we pushed rapidly into one big stock corral. The cows and unbranded calves we urged into another. Fifty head of beef steers found asylum from dust, heat, and racing to and fro, in the mile square wire enclosure called the pasture. All the remainder, for which we had no further use we drove out of the flat into the brush and toward the distant mountains. Then we let them go as best pleased them. By now the desert bad turned slate-coloured, and the brush was olive green with evening. The hard, uncompromising ranges, twenty miles to eastward, had softened behind a wonderful veil of purple and pink, vivid as the chiffon of a girl's gown. To the south and southwest the Chiricahuas and Dragoons were lost in thunderclouds which flashed and rumbled. We jogged homewards, our cutting ponies, tired with the quick, sharp work, shuffling knee deep in a dusk that seemed to disengage itself and rise upwards from the surface of the desert. Everybody was hungry and tired. At the chuck wagon we threw off our saddles and turned the mounts into the remuda. Some of the wisest of us, remembering the thunderclouds, stacked our gear under the veranda roof of the old ranch house. Supper was ready. We seized the tin battery, filled the plates with the meat, bread, and canned corn, and squatted on our heels. The food was good, and we ate hugely in silence. When we could hold no more we lit pipes. Then we had leisure to notice that the storm cloud was mounting in a portentous silence to the zenith, quenching the brilliant desert stars. "Rolls" were scattered everywhere. A roll includes a cowboy's bed and all of his personal belongings. When the outfit includes a bed-wagon, the roll assumes bulky proportions. As soon as we had come to a definite conclusion that it was going to rain, we deserted the camp fire and went rustling for our blankets. At the end of ten minutes every bed was safe within the doors of the abandoned adobe ranch house, each owner recumbent on the floor claim he had pre-empted, and every man hoping fervently that he had guessed right as to the location of leaks. Ordinarily we had depended on the light of camp fires, so now artificial illumination lacked. Each man was indicated by the alternately glowing and waning lozenge of his cigarette fire. Occasionally someone struck a match, revealing for a moment high-lights on bronzed countenances, and the silhouette of a shading hand. Voices spoke disembodied. As the conversation developed, we gradually recognised the membership of our own roomful. I had forgotten to state that the ranch house included four chambers. Outside, the rain roared with Arizona ferocity. Inside, men congratulated themselves, or swore as leaks developed and localised. Naturally we talked first of stampedes. Cows and bears are the two great cattle-country topics. Then we had a mouth-organ solo or two, which naturally led on to songs. My turn came. I struck up the first verse of a sailor chantey as possessing at least the interest of novelty: Oh, once we were a-sailing, a-sailing were we, Blow high, blow low, what care we; And we were a-sailing to see what we could see, Down on the coast of the High Barbaree. I had just gone so far when I was brought up short by a tremendous oath behind me. At the same instant a match flared. I turned to face a stranger holding the little light above his head, and peering with fiery intentness over the group sprawled about the floor. He was evidently just in from the storm. His dripping hat lay at his feet. A shock of straight, close-clipped vigorous hair stood up grey above his seamed forehead. Bushy iron-grey eyebrows drawn close together thatched a pair of burning, unquenchable eyes. A square, deep jaw, lightly stubbled with grey, was clamped so tight that the cheek muscles above it stood out in knots and welts. Then the match burned his thick, square fingers, and he dropped it into the darkness that ascended to swallow it. "Who was singing that song?" he cried harshly. Nobody answered. "Who was that singing?" he demanded again. By this time I had recovered from my first astonishment. "I was singing," said I. Another match was instantly lit and thrust into my very face. I underwent the fierce scrutiny of an instant, then the taper was thrown away half consumed. "Where did you learn it?" the stranger asked in an altered voice. "I don't remember," I replied; "it is a common enough deep-sea chantey." A heavy pause fell. Finally the stranger sighed. "Quite like," he said; "I never heard but one man sing it." "Who in hell are you?" someone demanded out of the darkness. Before replying, the newcomer lit a third match, searching for a place to sit down. As he bent forward, his strong, harsh face once more came clearly into view. "He's Colorado Rogers," the Cattleman answered for him; "I know him." "Well," insisted the first voice, "what in hell does Colorado Rogers mean by bustin' in on our song fiesta that way?" "Tell them, Rogers," advised the Cattleman, "tell them--just as you told it down on the Gila ten years ago next month." "What?" inquired Rogers. "Who are you?" "You don't know me," replied the Cattleman, "but I was with Buck Johnson's outfit then. Give us the yarn." "Well," agreed Rogers, "pass over the 'makings' and I will." He rolled and lit a cigarette, while I revelled in the memory of his rich, great voice. It was of the sort made to declaim against the sea or the rush of rivers or, as here, the fall of waters and the thunder--full, from the chest, with the caressing throat vibration that gives colour to the most ordinary statements. After ten words we sank back oblivious of the storm, forgetful of the leaky roof and the dirty floor, lost in the story told us by the Old Timer. CHAPTER TEN THE TEXAS RANGERS I came from Texas, like the bulk of you punchers, but a good while before the most of you were born. That was forty-odd years ago--and I've been on the Colorado River ever since. That's why they call me Colorado Rogers. About a dozen of us came out together. We had all been Texas Rangers, but when the war broke out we were out of a job. We none of us cared much for the Johnny Rebs, and still less for the Yanks, so we struck overland for the West, with the idea of hitting the California diggings. Well, we got switched off one way and another. When we got down to about where Douglas is now, we found that the Mexican Government was offering a bounty for Apache scalps. That looked pretty good to us, for Injin chasing was our job, so we started in to collect. Did pretty well, too, for about three months, and then the Injins began to get too scarce, or too plenty in streaks. Looked like our job was over with, but some of the boys discovered that Mexicans, having straight black hair, you couldn't tell one of their scalps from an Apache's. After that the bounty business picked up for a while. It was too much for me, though, and I quit the outfit and pushed on alone until I struck the Colorado about where Yuma is now. At that time the California immigrants by the southern route used to cross just there, and these Yuma Injins had a monopoly on the ferry business. They were a peaceful, fine-looking lot, without a thing on but a gee-string. The women had belts with rawhide strings hanging to the knees. They put them on one over the other until they didn't feel too decollotey. It wasn't until the soldiers came that the officers' wives got them to wear handkerchiefs over their breasts. The system was all right, though. They wallowed around in the hot, clean sand, like chickens, and kept healthy. Since they took to wearing clothes they've been petering out, and dying of dirt and assorted diseases. They ran this ferry monopoly by means of boats made of tules, charged a scand'lous low price, and everything was happy and lovely. I ran on a little bar and panned out some dust, so I camped a while, washing gold, getting friendly with the Yumas, and talking horse and other things with the immigrants. About a month of this, and the Texas boys drifted in. Seems they sort of overdid the scalp matter, and got found out. When they saw me, they stopped and went into camp. They'd travelled a heap of desert, and were getting sick of it. For a while they tried gold washing, but I had the only pocket--and that was about skinned. One evening a fellow named Walleye announced that he had been doing some figuring, and wanted to make a speech. We told him to fire ahead. "Now look here," said he, "what's the use of going to California? Why not stay here?" "What in hell would we do here?" someone asked. "Collect Gila monsters for their good looks?" "Don't get gay," said Walleye. "What's the matter with going into business? Here's a heap of people going through, and more coming every day. This ferry business could be made to pay big. Them Injins charges two bits a head. That's a crime for the only way across. And how much do you suppose whisky'd be worth to drink after that desert? And a man's so sick of himself by the time he gets this far that he'd play chuck-a-luck, let alone faro or monte." That kind of talk hit them where they lived, and Yuma was founded right then and there. They hadn't any whisky yet, but cards were plenty, and the ferry monopoly was too easy. Walleye served notice on the Injins that a dollar a head went; and we all set to building a tule raft like the others. Then the wild bunch got uneasy, so they walked upstream one morning and stole the Injins' boats. The Injins came after them innocent as babies, thinking the raft had gone adrift. When they got into camp our men opened up and killed four of them as a kind of hint. After that the ferry company didn't have any trouble. The Yumas moved up river a ways, where they've lived ever since. They got the corpses and buried them. That is, they dug a trench for each one and laid poles across it, with a funeral pyre on the poles. Then they put the body on top, and the women of the family cut their hair off and threw it on. After that they set fire to the outfit, and, when the poles bad burned through, the whole business fell into the trench of its own accord. It was the neatest, automatic, self-cocking, double-action sort of a funeral I ever saw. There wasn't any ceremony--only crying. The ferry business flourished at prices which were sometimes hard to collect. But it was a case of pay or go back, and it was a tur'ble long ways back. We got us timbers and made a scow; built a baile and saloon and houses out of adobe; and called her Yuma, after the Injins that had really started her. We got our supplies through the Gulf of California, where sailing boats worked up the river. People began to come in for one reason or another, and first thing we knew we had a store and all sorts of trimmings. In fact we was a real live town. CHAPTER ELEVEN THE SAILOR WITH ONE HAND At this moment the heavy beat of the storm on the roof ceased with miraculous suddenness, leaving the outside world empty of sound save for the DRIP, DRIP, DRIP of eaves. Nobody ventured to fill in the pause that followed the stranger's last words, so in a moment he continued his narrative. We had every sort of people with us off and on, and, as I was lookout at a popular game, I saw them all. One evening I was on my way home about two o'clock of a moonlit night, when on the edge of the shadow I stumbled over a body lying part across the footway. At the same instant I heard the rip of steel through cloth and felt a sharp stab in my left leg. For a minute I thought some drunk had used his knife on me, and I mighty near derringered him as he lay. But somehow I didn't, and looking closer, I saw the man was unconscious. Then I scouted to see what had cut me, and found that the fellow had lost a hand. In place of it he wore a sharp steel hook. This I had tangled up with and gotten well pricked. I dragged him out into the light. He was a slim-built young fellow, with straight black hair, long and lank and oily, a lean face, and big hooked nose. He had on only a thin shirt, a pair of rough wool pants, and the rawhide home-made zapatos the Mexicans wore then instead of boots. Across his forehead ran a long gash, cutting his left eyebrow square in two. There was no doubt of his being alive, for he was breathing hard, like a man does when he gets hit over the head. It didn't sound good. When a man breathes that way he's mostly all gone. Well, it was really none of my business, as you might say. Men got batted over the head often enough in those days. But for some reason I picked him up and carried him to my 'dobe shack, and laid him out, and washed his cut with sour wine. That brought him to. Sour wine is fine to put a wound in shape to heal, but it's no soothing syrup. He sat up as though he'd been touched with a hot poker, stared around wild-eyed, and cut loose with that song you were singing. Only it wasn't that verse. It was another one further along, that went like this: Their coffin was their ship, and their grave it was the sea, Blow high, blow low, what care we; And the quarter that we gave them was to sink them in the sea, Down on the coast of the High Barbaree. It fair made my hair rise to hear him, with the big, still, solemn desert outside, and the quiet moonlight, and the shadows, and him sitting up straight and gaunt, his eyes blazing each side his big eagle nose, and his snaky hair hanging over the raw cut across his head. However, I made out to get him bandaged up and in shape; and pretty soon he sort of went to sleep. Well, he was clean out of his head for nigh two weeks. Most of the time he lay flat on his back staring at the pole roof, his eyes burning and looking like they saw each one something a different distance off, the way crazy eyes do. That was when he was best. Then again he'd sing that Barbaree song until I'd go out and look at the old Colorado flowing by just to be sure I hadn't died and gone below. Or else he'd just talk. That was the worst performance of all. It was like listening to one end of a telephone, though we didn't know what telephones were in those days. He began when he was a kid, and he gave his side of conversations, pausing for replies. I could mighty near furnish the replies sometimes. It was queer lingo--about ships and ships' officers and gales and calms and fights and pearls and whales and islands and birds and skies. But it was all little stuff. I used to listen by the hour, but I never made out anything really important as to who the man was, or where he'd come from, or what he'd done. At the end of the second week I came in at noon as per usual to fix him up with grub. I didn't pay any attention to him, for he was quiet. As I was bending over the fire he spoke. Usually I didn't bother with his talk, for it didn't mean anything, but something in his voice made me turn. He was lying on his side, those black eyes of his blazing at me, but now both of them saw the same distance. "Where are my clothes?" he asked, very intense. "You ain't in any shape to want clothes," said I. "Lie still." I hadn't any more than got the words out of my mouth before he was atop me. His method was a winner. He had me by the throat with his hand, and I felt the point of the hook pricking the back of my neck. One little squeeze--Talk about your deadly weapons! But he'd been too sick and too long abed. He turned dizzy and keeled over, and I dumped him back on the bunk. Then I put my six-shooter on. In a minute or so he came to. "Now you're a nice, sweet proposition," said I, as soon as I was sure he could understand me. "Here I pick you up on the street and save your worthless carcass, and the first chance you get you try to crawl my hump. Explain." "Where's my clothes?" he demanded again, very fierce. "For heaven's sake," I yelled at him, "what's the matter with you and your old clothes? There ain't enough of them to dust a fiddle with anyway. What do you think I'd want with them? They're safe enough."' "Let me have them," he begged. "Now, look here," said I, "you can't get up to-day. You ain't fit." "I know," he pleaded, "but let me see them." Just to satisfy him I passed over his old duds. "I've been robbed," he cried. "Well," said I, "what did you expect would happen to you lying around Yuma after midnight with a hole in your head?" "Where's my coat?" he asked. "You had no coat when I picked you up," I replied. He looked at me mighty suspicious, but didn't say anything more--he wouldn't even answer when I spoke to him. After he'd eaten a fair meal he fell asleep. When I came back that evening the bunk was empty and he was gone. I didn't see him again for two days. Then I caught sight of him quite a ways off. He nodded at me very sour, and dodged around the corner of the store. "Guess he suspicions I stole that old coat of his," thinks I; and afterwards I found that my surmise had been correct. However, he didn't stay long in that frame of mind. It was along towards evening, and I was walking on the banks looking down over the muddy old Colorado, as I always liked to do. The sun had just set, and the mountains had turned hard and stiff, as they do after the glow, and the sky above them was a thousand million miles deep of pale green-gold light. A pair of Greasers were ahead of me, but I could see only their outlines, and they didn't seem to interfere any with the scenery. Suddenly a black figure seemed to rise up out of the ground; the Mexican man went down as though he'd been jerked with a string, and the woman screeched. I ran up, pulling my gun. The Mex was flat on his face, his arms stretched out. On the middle of his back knelt my one-armed friend. And that sharp hook was caught neatly under the point of the Mexican's jaw. You bet he lay still. I really think I was just in time to save the man's life. According to my belief another minute would have buried the hook in the Mexican's neck. Anyway, I thrust the muzzle of my Colt's into the sailor's face. "What's this?" I asked. The sailor looked up at me without changing his position. He was not the least bit afraid. "This man has my coat," he explained. "Where'd you get the coat?" I asked the Mex. "I ween heem at monte off Antonio Curvez," said he. "Maybe," growled the sailor. He still held the hook under the man's jaw, but with the other hand he ran rapidly under and over the Mexican's left shoulder. In the half light I could see his face change. The gleam died from his eye; the snarl left his lips. Without further delay he arose to his feet. "Get up and give it here!" he demanded. The Mexican was only too glad to get off so easy. I don't know whether he'd really won the coat at monte or not. In any case, he flew poco pronto, leaving me and my friend together. The man with the hook felt the left shoulder of the coat again, looked up, met my eye, muttered something intended to be pleasant, and walked away. This was in December. During the next two months he was a good deal about town, mostly doing odd jobs. I saw him off and on. He always spoke to me as pleasantly as he knew how, and once made some sort of a bluff about paying me back for my trouble in bringing him around. However, I didn't pay much attention to that, being at the time almighty busy holding down my card games. The last day of February I was sitting in my shack smoking a pipe after supper, when my one-armed friend opened the door a foot, slipped in, and shut it immediately. By the time he looked towards me I knew where my six-shooter was. "That's all right," said I, "but you better stay right there." I intended to take no more chances with that hook. He stood there looking straight at me without winking or offering to move. "What do you want?" I asked. "I want to make up to you for your trouble," said he. "I've got a good thing, and I want to let you in on it." "What kind of a good thing?" I asked. "Treasure," said he. "H'm," said I. I examined him closely. He looked all right enough, neither drunk nor loco. "Sit down," said I--"over there; the other side the table." He did so. "Now, fire away," said I. He told me his name was Solomon Anderson, but that he was generally known as Handy Solomon, on account of his hook; that he had always followed the sea; that lately he had coasted the west shores of Mexico; that at Guaymas he had fallen in with Spanish friends, in company with whom he had visited the mines in the Sierra Madre; that on this expedition the party had been attacked by Yaquis and wiped out, he alone surviving; that his blanket-mate before expiring had told him of gold buried in a cove of Lower California by the man's grandfather; that the man had given him a chart showing the location of the treasure; that he had sewn this chart in the shoulder of his coat, whence his suspicion of me and his being so loco about getting it back. "And it's a big thing," said Handy Solomon to me, "for they's not only gold, but altar jewels and diamonds. It will make us rich, and a dozen like us, and you can kiss the Book on that." "That may all be true," said I, "but why do you tell me? Why don't you get your treasure without the need of dividing it?" "Why, mate," he answered, "it's just plain gratitude. Didn't you save my life, and nuss me, and take care of me when I was nigh killed?" "Look here, Anderson, or Handy Solomon, or whatever you please to call yourself," I rejoined to this, "if you're going to do business with me--and I do not understand yet just what it is you want of me--you'll have to talk straight. It's all very well to say gratitude, but that don't go with me. You've been around here three months, and barring a half-dozen civil words and twice as many of the other kind, I've failed to see any indications of your gratitude before. It's a quality with a hell of a hang-fire to it." He looked at me sideways, spat, and looked at me sideways again. Then he burst into a laugh. "The devil's a preacher, if you ain't lost your pinfeathers,"' said he. "Well, it's this then: I got to have a boat to get there; and she must be stocked. And I got to have help with the treasure, if it's like this fellow said it was. And the Yaquis and cannibals from Tiburon is through the country. It's money I got to have, and it's money I haven't got, and can't get unless I let somebody in as pardner." "Why me?" I asked. "Why not?" he retorted. "I ain't see anybody I like better." We talked the matter over at length. I had to force him to each point, for suspicion was strong in him. I stood out for a larger party. He strongly opposed this as depreciating the shares, but I had no intention of going alone into what was then considered a wild and dangerous country. Finally we compromised. A third of the treasure was to go to him, a third to me, and the rest was to be divided among the men whom I should select. This scheme did not appeal to him. "How do I know you plays fair?" he complained. "They'll be four of you to one of me; and I don't like it, and you can kiss the Book on that." "If you don't like it, leave it," said I, "and get out, and be damned to you." Finally he agreed; but he refused me a look at the chart, saying that he had left it in a safe place. I believe in reality he wanted to be surer of me, and for that I can hardly blame him. CHAPTER TWELVE THE MURDER ON THE BEACH At this moment the cook stuck his head in at the open door. "Say, you fellows," he complained, "I got to be up at three o'clock. Ain't you never going to turn in?" "Shut up, Doctor!" "Somebody kill him!" "Here, sit down and listen to this yarn!" yelled a savage chorus. There ensued a slight scuffle, a few objections. Then silence, and the stranger took up his story. I had a chum named Billy Simpson, and I rung him in for friendship. Then there was a solemn, tall Texas young fellow, strong as a bull, straight and tough, brought up fighting Injins. He never said much, but I knew he'd be right there when the gong struck. For fourth man I picked out a German named Schwartz. He and Simpson had just come back from the mines together. I took him because he was a friend of Billy's, and besides was young and strong, and was the only man in town excepting the sailor, Anderson, who knew anything about running a boat. I forgot to say that the Texas fellow was named Denton. Handy Solomon had his boat all picked out. It belonged to some Basques who had sailed her around from California. I must say when I saw her I felt inclined to renig, for she wasn't more'n about twenty-five feet long, was open except for a little sort of cubbyhole up in the front of her, had one mast, and was pointed at both ends. However, Schwartz said she was all right. He claimed he knew the kind; that she was the sort used by French fishermen, and could stand all sorts of trouble. She didn't look it. We worked her up to Yuma, partly with oars and partly by sails. Then we loaded her with grub for a month. Each of us had his own weapons, of course. In addition we put in picks and shovels, and a small cask of water. Handy Solomon said that would be enough, as there was water marked down on his chart. We told the gang that we were going trading. At the end of the week we started, and were out four days. There wasn't much room, what with the supplies and the baggage, for the five of us. We had to curl up 'most anywheres to sleep. And it certainly seemed to me that we were in lots of danger. The waves were much bigger than she was, and splashed on us considerable, but Schwartz and Anderson didn't seem to mind. They laughed at us. Anderson sang that song of his, and Schwartz told us of the placers he had worked. He and Simpson had made a pretty good clean-up, just enough to make them want to get rich. The first day out Simpson showed us a belt with about an hundred ounces of dust. This he got tired of wearing, so he kept it in a compass-box, which was empty. At the end of the four days we turned in at a deep bay and came to anchor. The country was the usual proposition--very light-brown, brittle-looking mountains, about two thousand feet high; lots of sage and cactus, a pebbly beach, and not a sign of anything fresh and green. But Denton and I were mighty glad to see any sort of land. Besides, our keg of water was pretty low, and it was getting about time to discover the spring the chart spoke of. So we piled our camp stuff in the small boat and rowed ashore. Anderson led the way confidently enough up a dry arroyo, whose sides were clay and conglomerate. But, though we followed it to the end, we could find no indications that it was anything more than a wash for rain floods. "That's main queer," muttered Anderson, and returned to the beach. There he spread out the chart--the first look at it we'd had--and set to studying it. It was a careful piece of work done in India ink, pretty old, to judge by the look of it, and with all sorts of pictures of mountains and dolphins and ships and anchors around the edge. There was our bay, all right. Two crosses were marked on the land part--one labelled "oro" and the other "agua." "Now there's the high cliff," says Anderson, following it out, "and there's the round hill with the boulder--and if them bearings don't point due for that ravine, the devil's a preacher." We tried it again, with the same result. A second inspection of the map brought us no light on the question. We talked it over, and looked at it from all points, but we couldn't dodge the truth: the chart was wrong. Then we explored several of the nearest gullies, but without finding anything but loose stones baked hot in the sun. By now it was getting towards sundown, so we built us a fire of mesquite on the beach, made us supper, and boiled a pot of beans. We talked it over. The water was about gone. "That's what we've got to find first," said Simpson, "no question of it. It's God knows how far to the next water, and we don't know how long it will take us to get there in that little boat. If we run our water entirely out before we start, we're going to be in trouble. We'll have a good look to-morrow, and if we don't find her, we'll run down to Mollyhay[4] and get a few extra casks." "Perhaps that map is wrong about the treasure, too," suggested Denton. "I thought of that," said Handy Solomon, "but then, thinks I to myself, this old rip probably don't make no long stay here--just dodges in and out like, between tides, to bury his loot. He would need no water at the time; but he might when he came back, so he marked the water on his map. But he wasn't noways particular AND exact, being in a hurry. But you can kiss the Book to it that he didn't make no such mistakes about the swag." "I believe you're right," said I. When we came to turn in, Anderson suggested that he should sleep aboard the boat. But Billy Simpson, in mind perhaps of the hundred ounces in the compass-box, insisted that he'd just as soon as not. After a little objection Handy Solomon gave in, but I thought he seemed sour about it. We built a good fire, and in about ten seconds were asleep. Now, usually I sleep like a log, and did this time until about midnight. Then all at once I came broad awake and sitting up in my blankets. Nothing had happened--I wasn't even dreaming--but there I was as alert and clear as though it were broad noon. By the light of the fire I saw Handy Solomon sitting, and at his side our five rifles gathered. I must have made some noise, for he turned quietly toward me, saw I was awake, and nodded. The moonlight was sparkling on the hard stony landscape, and a thin dampness came out from the sea. After a minute Anderson threw on another stick of wood, yawned, and stood up. "It's wet," said he; "I've been fixing the guns." He showed me how he was inserting a little patch of felt between the hammer and the nipple, a scheme of his own for keeping damp from the powder. Then he rolled up in his blanket. At the time it all seemed quite natural--I suppose my mind wasn't fully awake, for all my head felt so clear. Afterwards I realised what a ridiculous bluff he was making: for of course the cap already on the nipple was plenty to keep out the damp. I fully believe he intended to kill us as we lay. Only my sudden awakening spoiled his plan. I had absolutely no idea of this at the time, however. Not the slightest suspicion entered my head. In view of that fact, I have since believed in guardian angels. For my next move, which at the time seemed to me absolutely aimless, was to change my blankets from one side of the fire to the other. And that brought me alongside the five rifles. Owing to this fact, I am now convinced, we awoke safe at daylight, cooked breakfast, and laid the plan for the day. Anderson directed us. I was to climb over the ridge before us and search in the ravine on the other side. Schwartz was to explore up the beach to the left, and Denton to the right. Anderson said he would wait for Billy Simpson, who had overslept in the darkness of the cubbyhole, and who was now paddling ashore. The two of them would push inland to the west until a high hill would give them a chance to look around for greenery. We started at once, before the sun would be hot. The hill I had to climb was steep and covered with chollas, so I didn't get along very fast. When I was about half way to the top I heard a shot from the beach. I looked back. Anderson was in the small boat, rowing rapidly out to the vessel. Denton was running up the beach from one direction and Schwartz from the other. I slid and slipped down the bluff, getting pretty well stuck up with the cholla spines. At the beach we found Billy Simpson lying on his ace, shot through the back. We turned him over, but he was apparently dead. Anderson had hoisted the sail, had cut loose from the anchor, and was sailing away. Denton stood up straight and tall, looking. Then he pulled his belt in a hole, grabbed my arm, and started to run up the long curve of the beach. Behind us came Schwartz. We ran near a mile, and then fell among some tules in an inlet at the farther point. "What is it?" I gasped. "Our only chance--to get him--" said Denton. "He's got to go around this point--big wind--perhaps his mast will bust--then he'll come ashore--" He opened and shut his big brown hands. So there we two fools lay, like panthers in the tules, taking our only one-in-a-million chance to lay hands on Anderson. Any sailor could have told us that the mast wouldn't break, but we had winded Schwartz a quarter of a mile back. And so we waited, our eyes fixed on the boat's sail, grudging her every inch, just burning to fix things to suit us a little better. And naturally she made the point in what I now know was only a fresh breeze, squared away, and dropped down before the wind toward Guaymas. We walked back slowly to our camp, swallowing the copper taste of too hard a run. Schwartz we picked up from a boulder, just recovering. We were all of us crazy mad. Schwartz half wept, and blamed and cussed. Denton glowered away in silence. I ground my feet into the sand in a help less sort of anger, not only at the man himself, but also at the whole way things had turned out. I don't believe the least notion of our predicament had come to any of us. All we knew yet was that we had been done up, and we were hostile about it. But at camp we found something to occupy us for the moment. Poor Billy was not dead, as we had supposed, but very weak and sick, and a hole square through him. When we returned he was conscious, but that was about all. His eyes were shut, and he was moaning. I tore open his shirt to stanch the blood. He felt my hand and opened his eyes. They were glazed, and I don't think he saw me. "Water, water!" he cried. At that we others saw all at once where we stood. I remember I rose to my feet and found myself staring straight into Tom Denton's eyes. We looked at each other that way for I guess it was a full minute. Then Tom shook his head. "Water, water!" begged poor Billy. Tom leaned over him. "My God, Billy, there ain't any water!" said he. [4] Mulege--I retain the Old Timer's pronunciation. CHAPTER THIRTEEN BURIED TREASURE The Old Timer's voice broke a little. We had leisure to notice that even the drip from the eaves had ceased. A faint, diffused light vouchsafed us dim outlines of sprawling figures and tumbled bedding. Far in the distance outside a wolf yelped. We could do nothing for him except shelter him from the sun, and wet his forehead with sea-water; nor could we think clearly for ourselves as long as the spark of life lingered in him. His chest rose and fell regularly, but with long pauses between. When the sun was overhead he suddenly opened his eyes. "Fellows," said he, "it's beautiful over there; the grass is so green, and the water so cool; I am tired of marching, and I reckon I'll cross over and camp." Then he died. We scooped out a shallow hole above tide-mark, and laid him in it, and piled over him stones from the wash. Then we went back to the beach, very solemn, to talk it over. "Now, boys," said I, "there seems to me just one thing to do, and that is to pike out for water as fast as we can." "Where?" asked Denton. "Well," I argued, "I don't believe there's any water about this bay. Maybe there was when that chart was made. It was a long time ago. And any way, the old pirate was a sailor, and no plainsman, and maybe he mistook rainwater for a spring. We've looked around this end of the bay. The chances are we'd use up two or three days exploring around the other, and then wouldn't be as well off as we are right now." "Which way?" asked Denton again, mighty brief. "Well," said I, "there's one thing I've always noticed in case of folks held up by the desert: they generally go wandering about here and there looking for water until they die not far from where they got lost. And usually they've covered a heap of actual distance." "That's so," agreed Denton. "Now, I've always figured that it would be a good deal better to start right out for some particular place, even if it's ten thousand miles away. A man is just as likely to strike water going in a straight line as he is going in a circle; and then, besides, he's getting somewhere." "Correct," said Denton, "So," I finished, "I reckon we'd better follow the coast south and try to get to Mollyhay." "How far is that?" asked Schwartz. "I don't rightly know. But somewheres between three and five hundred miles, at a guess." At that he fell to glowering and grooming with himself, brooding over what a hard time it was going to be. That is the way with a German. First off he's plumb scared at the prospect of suffering anything, and would rather die right off than take long chances. After he gets into the swing of it, he behaves as well as any man. We took stock of what we had to depend on. The total assets proved to be just three pairs of legs. A pot of coffee had been on the fire, but that villain had kicked it over when he left. The kettle of beans was there, but somehow we got the notion they might have been poisoned, so we left them. I don't know now why we were so foolish--if poison was his game, he'd have tried it before--but at that time it seemed reasonable enough. Perhaps the horror of the morning's work, and the sight of the brittle-brown mountains, and the ghastly yellow glare of the sun, and the blue waves racing by outside, and the big strong wind that blew through us so hard that it seemed to blow empty our souls, had turned our judgment. Anyway, we left a full meal there in the beanpot. So without any further delay we set off up the ridge I had started to cross that morning. Schwartz lagged, sulky as a muley cow, but we managed to keep him with us. At the top of the ridge we took our bearings for the next deep bay. Already we had made up our minds to stick to the sea-coast, both on account of the lower country over which to travel and the off chance of falling in with a fishing vessel. Schwartz muttered something about its being too far even to the next bay, and wanted to sit down on a rock. Denton didn't say anything, but he jerked Schwartz up by the collar so fiercely that the German gave it over and came along. We dropped down into the gully, stumbled over the boulder wash, and began to toil in the ankle-deep sand of a little sage-brush flat this side of the next ascent. Schwartz followed steadily enough now, but had fallen forty or fifty feet behind. This was a nuisance, as we bad to keep turning to see if he still kept up. Suddenly he seemed to disappear. Denton and I hurried back to find him on his hands and knees behind a sagebrush, clawing away at the sand like mad. "Can't be water on this flat," said Denton; "he must have gone crazy." "What's the matter, Schwartz?" I asked. For answer he moved a little to one side, showing beneath his knee one corner of a wooden box sticking above the sand. At this we dropped beside him, and in five minutes had uncovered the whole of the chest. It was not very large, and was locked. A rock from the wash fixed that, however. We threw back the lid. It was full to the brim of gold coins, thrown in loose, nigh two bushels of them. "The treasure!" I cried. There it was, sure enough, or some of it. We looked the rest through, but found nothing but the gold coins. The altar ornaments and jewels were lacking. "Probably buried in another box or so," said Denton. Schwartz wanted to dig around a little. "No good," said I. "We've got our work cut out for us as it is." Denton backed me up. We were both old hands at the business, had each in our time suffered the "cotton-mouth" thirst, and the memory of it outweighed any desire for treasure. But Schwartz was money-mad. Left to himself he would have staid on that sand flat to perish, as certainly as had poor Billy. We had fairly to force him away, and then succeeded only because we let him fill all his pockets to bulging with the coins. As we moved up the next rise, he kept looking back and uttering little moans against the crime of leaving it. Luckily for us it was winter. We shouldn't have lasted six hours at this time of year. As it was, the sun was hot against the shale and the little stones of those cussed hills. We plodded along until late afternoon, toiling up one hill and down another, only to repeat immediately. Towards sundown we made the second bay, where we plunged into the sea, clothes and all, and were greatly refreshed. I suppose a man absorbs a good deal that way. Anyhow, it always seemed to help. We were now pretty hungry, and, as we walked along the shore, we began to look for turtles or shellfish, or anything else that might come handy. There was nothing. Schwartz wanted to stop for a night's rest, but Denton and I knew better than that. "Look here, Schwartz," said Denton, "you don't realise you're entered against time in this race--and that you're a damn fool to carry all that weight in your clothes." So we dragged along all night. It was weird enough, I can tell you. The moon shone cold and white over that dead, dry country. Hot whiffs rose from the baked stones and hillsides. Shadows lay under the stones like animals crouching. When we came to the edge of a silvery hill we dropped off into pitchy blackness. There we stumbled over boulders for a minute or so, and began to climb the steep shale on the other side. This was fearful work. The top seemed always miles away. By morning we didn't seem to have made much of anywhere. The same old hollow-looking mountains with the sharp edges stuck up in about the same old places. We had got over being very hungry, and, though we were pretty dry, we didn't really suffer yet from thirst. About this time Denton ran across some fishhook cactus, which we cut up and chewed. They have a sticky wet sort of inside, which doesn't quench your thirst any, but helps to keep you from drying up and blowing away. All that day we plugged along as per usual. It was main hard work, and we got to that state where things are disagreeable, but mechanical. Strange to say, Schwartz kept in the lead. It seemed to me at the time that he was using more energy than the occasion called for--just as man runs faster before he comes to the giving-out point. However, the hours went by, and he didn't seem to get any more tired than the rest of us. We kept a sharp lookout for anything to eat, but there was nothing but lizards and horned toads. Later we'd have been glad of them, but by that time we'd got out of their district. Night came. Just at sundown we took another wallow in the surf, and chewed some more fishhook cactus. When the moon came up we went on. I'm not going to tell you how dead beat we got. We were pretty tough and strong, for all of us had been used to hard living, but after the third day without anything to eat and no water to drink, it came to be pretty hard going. It got to the point where we had to have some REASON for getting out besides just keeping alive. A man would sometimes rather die than keep alive, anyway, if it came only to that. But I know I made up my mind I was going to get out so I could smash up that Anderson, and I reckon Denton had the same idea. Schwartz didn't say anything, but he pumped on ahead of us, his back bent over, and his clothes sagging and bulging with the gold he carried. We used to travel all night, because it was cool, and rest an hour or two at noon. That is all the rest we did get. I don't know how fast we went; I'd got beyond that. We must have crawled along mighty slow, though, after our first strength gave out. The way I used to do was to collect myself with an effort, look around for my bearings, pick out a landmark a little distance off, and forget everything but it. Then I'd plod along, knowing nothing but the sand and shale and slope under my feet, until I'd reached that landmark. Then I'd clear my mind and pick out another. But I couldn't shut out the figure of Schwartz that way. He used to walk along just ahead of my shoulder. His face was all twisted up, but I remember thinking at the time it looked more as if he was worried in his mind than like bodily suffering. The weight of the gold in his clothes bent his shoulders over. As we went on the country gradually got to be more mountainous, and, as we were steadily growing weaker, it did seem things were piling up on us. The eighth day we ran out of the fishhook cactus, and, being on a high promontory, were out of touch with the sea. For the first time my tongue began to swell a little. The cactus had kept me from that before. Denton must have been in the same fix, for he looked at me and raised one eyebrow kind of humorous. Schwartz was having a good deal of difficulty to navigate. I will say for him that he had done well, but now I could see that his strength was going on him in spite of himself. He knew it, all right, for when we rested that day he took all the gold coins and spread them in a row, and counted them, and put them back in his pocket, and then all of a sudden snatched out two handfuls and threw them as far as he could. "Too heavy," he muttered, but that was all he could bring himself to throw away. All that night we wandered high in the air. I guess we tried to keep a general direction, but I don't know. Anyway, along late, but before moonrise--she was now on the wane--I came to, and found myself looking over the edge of a twenty-foot drop. Right below me I made out a faint glimmer of white earth in the starlight. Somehow it reminded me of a little trail I used to know under a big rock back in Texas. "Here's a trail," I thought, more than half loco; "I'll follow it!" At least that's what half of me thought. The other half was sensible, and knew better, but it seemed to be kind of standing to one side, a little scornful, watching the performance. So I slid and slipped down to the strip of white earth, and, sure enough, it was a trail. At that the loco half of me gave the sensible part the laugh. I followed the path twenty feet and came to a dark hollow under the rock, and in it a round pool of water about a foot across. They say a man kills himself drinking too much, after starving for water. That may be, but it didn't kill me, and I sucked up all I could hold. Perhaps the fishhook cactus had helped. Well, sir, it was surprising how that drink brought me around. A minute before I'd been on the edge of going plumb loco, and here I was as clear-headed as a lawyer. I hunted up Denton and Schwartz. They drank, themselves full, too. Then we rested. It was mighty hard to leave that spring-- Oh, we had to do it. We'd have starved sure, there. The trail was a game trail, but that did us no good, for we had no weapons. How we did wish for the coffeepot, so we could take some away. We filled our hats, and carried them about three hours, before the water began to soak through. Then we had to drink it in order to save it. The country fairly stood up on end. We had to climb separate little hills so as to avoid rolling rocks down on each other. It took it out of us. About this time we began to see mountain sheep. They would come right up to the edges of the small cliffs to look at us. We threw stones at them, hoping to hit one in the forehead, but of course without any results. The good effects of the water lasted us about a day. Then we began to see things again. Off and on I could see water plain as could be in every hollow, and game of all kinds standing around and looking at me. I knew these were all fakes. By making an effort I could swing things around to where they belonged. I used to do that every once in a while, just to be sure we weren't doubling back, and to look out for real water. But most of the time it didn't seem to be worth while. I just let all these visions riot around and have a good time inside me or outside me, whichever it was. I knew I could get rid of them any minute. Most of the time, if I was in any doubt, it was easier to throw a stone to see if the animals were real or not. The real ones ran away. We began to see bands of wild horses in the uplands. One day both Denton and I plainly saw one with saddle marks on him. If only one of us had seen him, it wouldn't have counted much, but we both made him out. This encouraged us wonderfully, though I don't see why it should have. We had topped the high country, too, and had started down the other side of the mountains that ran out on the promontory. Denton and I were still navigating without any thought of giving up, but Schwartz was getting in bad shape. I'd hate to pack twenty pounds over that country even with rest, food, and water. He was toting it on nothing. We told him so, and he came to see it, but he never could persuade himself to get rid of the gold all at once. Instead he threw away the pieces one by one. Each sacrifice seemed to nerve him up for another heat. I can shut my eyes and see it now--the wide, glaring, yellow country, the pasteboard mountains, we three dragging along, and the fierce sunshine flashing from the doubloons as one by one they went spinning through the air. CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE CHEWED SUGAR CANE "I'd like to have trailed you fellows," sighed a voice from the corner. "Would you!" said Colorado Rogers grimly. It was five days to the next water. But they were worse than the eight days before. We were lucky, however, for at the spring we discovered in a deep wash near the coast, was the dried-up skull of a horse. It had been there a long time, but a few shreds of dried flesh still clung to it. It was the only thing that could be described as food that had passed our lips since breakfast thirteen days before. In that time we had crossed the mountain chain, and had come again to the sea. The Lord was good to us. He sent us the water, and the horse's skull, and the smooth hard beach, without breaks or the necessity of climbing hills. And we needed it, oh, I promise you, we needed it! I doubt if any of us could have kept the direction except by such an obvious and continuous landmark as the sea to our left. It hardly seemed worth while to focus my mind, but I did it occasionally just by way of testing myself. Schwartz still threw away his gold coins, and once, in one of my rare intervals of looking about me, I saw Denton picking them up. This surprised me mildly, but I was too tired to be very curious. Only now, when I saw Schwartz's arm sweep out in what had become a mechanical movement, I always took pains to look, and always I saw Denton search for the coin. Sometimes he found it, and sometimes he did not. The figures of my companions and the yellow-brown tide sand under my feet, and a consciousness of the blue and white sea to my left, are all I remember, except when we had to pull ourselves together for the purpose of cutting fishhook cactus. I kept going, and I knew I had a good reason for doing so, but it seemed too much of an effort to recall what that reason was. Schwartz threw away a gold piece as another man would take a stimulant. Gradually, without really thinking about it, I came to see this, and then went on to sabe why Denton picked up the coins; and a great admiration for Denton's cleverness seeped through me like water through the sand. He was saving the coins to keep Schwartz going. When the last coin went, Schwartz would give out. It all sounds queer now, but it seemed all right then--and it WAS all right, too. So we walked on the beach, losing entire track of time. And after a long interval I came to myself to see Schwartz lying on the sand, and Denton standing over him. Of course we'd all been falling down a lot, but always before we'd got up again. "He's give out," croaked Denton. His voice sounded as if it was miles away, which surprised me, but, when I answered, mine sounded miles away, too, which surprised me still more. Denton pulled out a handful of gold coins. "This will buy him some more walk," said he gravely, "but not much." I nodded. It seemed all right, this new, strange purchasing power of gold--it WAS all right, by God, and as real as buying bricks-- "I'll go on," said Denton, "and send back help. You come after." "To Mollyhay!" said I. This far I reckon we'd hung onto ourselves because it was serious. Now I began to laugh. So did Denton. We laughed and laughed. "A damn long way To Mollyhay." said I. Then we laughed some more, until the tears ran down our cheeks, and we had to hold our poor weak sides. Pretty soon we fetched up with a gasp. "A damn long way To Mollyhay," whispered Denton, and then off we went into more shrieks. And when we would sober down a little, one or the other of us would say it again: "A damn long way To Mollyhay," and then we'd laugh some more. It must have been a sweet sight! At last I realised that we ought to pull ourselves together, so I snubbed up short, and Denton did the same, and we set to laying plans. But every minute or so one of us would catch on some word, and then we'd trail off into rhymes and laughter and repetition. "Keep him going as long as you can," said Denton. "Yes." "And be sure to stick to the beach." That far it was all right and clear-headed. But the word "beach" let us out. "I'm a peach Upon the beach," sings I, and there we were both off again until one or the other managed to grope his way back to common sense again. And sometimes we crow-hopped solemnly around and around the prostrate Schwartz like a pair of Injins. But somehow we got our plan laid at last, slipped the coins into Schwartz's pocket, and said good-bye. "Old socks, good-bye, You bet I'll try," yelled Denton, and laughing fit to kill, danced off up the beach, and out into a sort of grey mist that shut off everything beyond a certain distance from me now. So I kicked Schwartz, he felt in his pocket, threw a gold piece away, and "bought a little more walk." My entire vision was fifty feet or so across. Beyond that was grey mist. Inside my circle I could see the sand quite plainly and Denton's footprints. If I moved a little to the left, the wash of the waters would lap under the edge of that grey curtain. If I moved to the right, I came to cliffs. The nearer I drew to them, the farther up I could see, but I could never see to the top. It used to amuse me to move this area of consciousness about to see what I could find. Actual physical suffering was beginning to dull, and my head seemed to be getting clearer. One day, without any apparent reason, I moved at right angles across the beach. Directly before me lay a piece of sugar cane, and one end of it had been chewed. Do you know what that meant? Animals don't cut sugar cane and bring it to the beach and chew one end. A new strength ran through me, and actually the grey mist thinned and lifted for a moment, until I could make out dimly the line of cliffs and the tumbling sea. I was not a bit hungry, but I chewed on the sugar cane, and made Schwartz do the same. When we went on I kept close to the cliff, even though the walking was somewhat heavier. I remember after that its getting dark and then light again, so the night must have passed, but whether we rested or walked I do not know. Probably we did not get very far, though certainly we staggered ahead after sun-up, for I remember my shadow. About midday, I suppose, I made out a dim trail leading up a break in the cliffs. Plenty of such trails we had seen before. They were generally made by peccaries in search of cast-up fish--I hope they had better luck than we. But in the middle of this, as though for a sign, lay another piece of chewed sugar cane. CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE CALABASH STEW I had agreed with Denton to stick to the beach, but Schwartz could not last much longer, and I had not the slightest idea how far it might prove to be to Mollyhay. So I turned up the trail. We climbed a mountain ten thousand feet high. I mean that; and I know, for I've climbed them that high, and I know just how it feels, and how many times you have to rest, and how long it takes, and how much it knocks out of you. Those are the things that count in measuring height, and so I tell you we climbed that far. Actually I suppose the hill was a couple of hundred feet, if not less. But on account of the grey mist I mentioned, I could not see the top, and the illusion was complete. We reached the summit late in the afternoon, for the sun was square in our eyes. But instead of blinding me, it seemed to clear my sight, so that I saw below me a little mud hut with smoke rising behind it, and a small patch of cultivated ground. I'll pass over how I felt about it: they haven't made the words-- Well, we stumbled down the trail and into the hut. At first I thought it was empty, but after a minute I saw a very old man crouched in a corner. As I looked at him he raised his bleared eyes to me, his head swinging slowly from side to side as though with a kind of palsy. He could not see me, that was evident, nor hear me, but some instinct not yet decayed turned him toward a new presence in the room. In my wild desire for water I found room to think that here was a man even worse off than myself. A vessel of water was in the corner. I drank it. It was more than I could hold, but I drank even after I was filled, and the waste ran from the corners of my mouth. I had forgotten Schwartz. The excess made me a little sick, but I held down what I had swallowed, and I really believe it soaked into my system as it does into the desert earth after a drought. In a moment or so I took the vessel and filled it and gave it to Schwartz. Then it seemed to me that my responsibility had ended. A sudden great dreamy lassitude came over me. I knew I needed food, but I had no wish for it, and no ambition to search it out. The man in the corner mumbled at me with his toothless gums. I remember wondering if we were all to starve there peacefully together--Schwartz and his remaining gold coins, the man far gone in years, and myself. I did not greatly care. After a while the light was blotted out. There followed a slight pause. Then I knew that someone had flown to my side, and was kneeling beside me and saying liquid, pitying things in Mexican. I swallowed something hot and strong. In a moment I came back from wherever I was drifting, to look up at a Mexican girl about twenty years old. She was no great matter in looks, but she seemed like an angel to me then. And she had sense. No questions, no nothing. Just business. The only thing she asked of me was if I understood Spanish. Then she told me that her brother would be back soon, that they were very poor, that she was sorry she had no meat to offer me, that they were VERY poor, that all they had was calabash--a sort of squash. All this time she was bustling things together. Next thing I know I had a big bowl of calabash stew between my knees. Now, strangely enough, I had no great interest in that calabash stew. I tasted it, sat and thought a while, and tasted it again. By and by I had emptied the bowl. It was getting dark. I was very sleepy. A man came in, but I was too drowsy to pay any attention to him. I heard the sound of voices. Then I was picked up bodily and carried to an out-building and laid on a pile of skins. I felt the weight of a blanket thrown over me-- I awoke in the night. Mind you, I had practically had no rest at all for a matter of more than two weeks, yet I woke in a few hours. And, remember, even in eating the calabash stew I had felt no hunger in spite of my long fast. But now I found myself ravenous. You boys do not know what hunger is. It HURTS. And all the rest of that night I lay awake chewing on the rawhide of a pack-saddle that hung near me. Next morning the young Mexican and his sister came to us early, bringing more calabash stew. I fell on it like a wild animal, and just wallowed in it, so eager was I to eat. They stood and watched me--and I suppose Schwartz, too, though I had now lost interest in anyone but myself--glancing at each other in pity from time to time. When I had finished the man told me that they had decided to kill a beef so we could have meat. They were very poor, but God had brought us to them-- I appreciated this afterward. At the time I merely caught at the word "meat." It seemed to me I could have eaten the animal entire, hide, hoofs, and tallow. As a matter of fact, it was mighty lucky they didn't have any meat. If they had, we'd probably have killed ourselves with it. I suppose the calabash was about the best thing for us under the circumstances. The Mexican went out to hunt up his horse. I called the girl back. "How far is it to Mollyhay?" I asked her. "A league," said she. So we had been near our journey's end after all, and Denton was probably all right. The Mexican went away horseback. The girl fed us calabash. We waited. About one o'clock a group of horsemen rode over the hill. When they came near enough I recognised Denton at their head. That man was of tempered steel-- They had followed back along the beach, caught our trail where we had turned off, and so discovered us. Denton had fortunately found kind and intelligent people. We said good-bye to the Mexican girl. I made Schwartz give her one of his gold pieces. But Denton could not wait for us to say "hullo" even, he was so anxious to get back to town, so we mounted the horses he had brought us, and rode off, very wobbly. We lived three weeks in Mollyhay. It took us that long to get fed up. The lady I stayed with made a dish of kid meat and stuffed olives-- Why, an hour after filling myself up to the muzzle I'd be hungry again, and scouting round to houses looking for more to eat! We talked things over a good deal, after we had gained a little strength. I wanted to take a little flyer at Guaymas to see if I could run across this Handy Solomon person, but Denton pointed out that Anderson would be expecting just that, and would take mighty good care to be scarce. His idea was that we'd do better to get hold of a boat and some water casks, and lug off the treasure we had stumbled over. Denton told us that the idea of going back and scooping all that dinero up with a shovel had kept him going, just as the idea of getting even with Anderson had kept me going. Schwartz said that after he'd carried that heavy gold over the first day, he made up his mind he'd get the spending of it or bust. That's why he hated so to throw it away. There were lots of fishing boats in the harbour, and we hired one, and a man to run it for next to nothing a week. We laid a course north, and in six days anchored in our bay. I tell you it looked queer. There were the charred sticks of the fire, and the coffeepot lying on its side. We took off our hats at poor Billy's grave a minute, and then climbed over the cholla-covered hill carrying our picks and shovels, and the canvas sacks to take the treasure away in. There was no trouble in reaching the sandy flat. But when we got there we found it torn up from one end to the other. A few scattered timbers and three empty chests with the covers pried off alone remained. Handy Solomon had been there before us. We went back to our boat sick at heart. Nobody said a word. We went aboard and made our Greaser boatman head for Yuma. It took us a week to get there. We were all of us glum, but Denton was the worst of the lot. Even after we'd got back to town and fallen into our old ways of life, he couldn't seem to get over it. He seemed plumb possessed of gloom, and moped around like a chicken with the pip. This surprised me, for I didn't think the loss of money would hit him so hard. It didn't hit any of us very hard in those days. One evening I took him aside and fed him a drink, and expostulated with him. "Oh, HELL, Rogers," he burst out, "I don't care about the loot. But, suffering cats, think how that fellow sized us up for a lot of pattern-made fools; and how right he was about, it. Why all he did was to sail out of sight around the next corner. He knew we'd start across country; and we did. All we had to do was to lay low, and save our legs. He was BOUND to come back. And we might have nailed him when he landed." "That's about all there was to it," concluded Colorado Rogers, after a pause, "--except that I've been looking for him ever since, and when I heard you singing that song I naturally thought I'd landed." "And you never saw him again?" asked Windy Bill. "Well," chuckled Rogers, "I did about ten year later. It was in Tucson. I was in the back of a store, when the door in front opened and this man came in. He stopped at the little cigar-case by the door. In about one jump I was on his neck. I jerked him over backwards before he knew what had struck him, threw him on his face, got my hands in his back-hair, and began to jump his features against the floor. Then all at once I noted that this man had two arms; so of course he was the wrong fellow. "Oh, excuse me," said I, and ran out the back door." CHAPTER SIXTEEN THE HONK-HONK BREED It was Sunday at the ranch. For a wonder the weather had been favourable; the windmills were all working, the bogs had dried up, the beef had lasted over, the remuda had not strayed--in short, there was nothing to do. Sang had given us a baked bread-pudding with raisins in it. We filled it--in a wash basin full of it--on top of a few incidental pounds of chile con, baked beans, soda biscuits, "air tights," and other delicacies. Then we adjourned with our pipes to the shady side of the blacksmith's shop where we could watch the ravens on top the adobe wall of the corral. Somebody told a story about ravens. This led to road-runners. This suggested rattlesnakes. They started Windy Bill. "Speakin' of snakes," said Windy, "I mind when they catched the great-granddaddy of all the bullsnakes up at Lead in the Black Hills. I was only a kid then. This wasn't no such tur'ble long a snake, but he was more'n a foot thick. Looked just like a sahuaro stalk. Man name of Terwilliger Smith catched it. He named this yere bullsnake Clarence, and got it so plumb gentle it followed him everywhere. One day old P. T. Barnum come along and wanted to buy this Clarence snake--offered Terwilliger a thousand cold--but Smith wouldn't part with the snake nohow. So finally they fixed up a deal so Smith could go along with the show. They shoved Clarence in a box in the baggage car, but after a while Mr. Snake gets so lonesome he gnaws out and starts to crawl back to find his master. Just as he is half-way between the baggage car and the smoker, the couplin' give way--right on that heavy grade between Custer and Rocky Point. Well, sir, Clarence wound his head 'round one brake wheel and his tail around the other, and held that train together to the bottom of the grade. But it stretched him twenty-eight feet and they had to advertise him as a boa-constrictor." Windy Bill's story of the faithful bullsnake aroused to reminiscence the grizzled stranger, who thereupon held forth as follows: Wall, I've see things and I've heerd things, some of them ornery, and some you'd love to believe, they was that gorgeous and improbable. Nat'ral history was always my hobby and sportin' events my special pleasure and this yarn of Windy's reminds me of the only chanst I ever had to ring in business and pleasure and hobby all in one grand merry-go-round of joy. It come about like this: One day, a few year back, I was sittin' on the beach at Santa Barbara watchin' the sky stay up, and wonderin' what to do with my year's wages, when a little squinch-eye round-face with big bow spectacles came and plumped down beside me. "Did you ever stop to think," says he, shovin' back his hat, "that if the horsepower delivered by them waves on this beach in one single hour could be concentrated behind washin' machines, it would be enough to wash all the shirts for a city of four hundred and fifty-one thousand one hundred and thirty-six people?" "Can't say I ever did," says I, squintin' at him sideways. "Fact," says he, "and did it ever occur to you that if all the food a man eats in the course of a natural life could be gathered together at one time, it would fill a wagon-train twelve miles long?" "You make me hungry," says I. "And ain't it interestin' to reflect," he goes on, "that if all the finger-nail parin's of the human race for one year was to be collected and subjected to hydraulic pressure it would equal in size the pyramid of Cheops?" "Look yere," says I, sittin' up, "did YOU ever pause to excogitate that if all the hot air you is dispensin' was to be collected together it would fill a balloon big enough to waft you and me over that Bullyvard of Palms to yonder gin mill on the corner?" He didn't say nothin' to that--just yanked me to my feet, faced me towards the gin mill above mentioned, and exerted considerable pressure on my arm in urgin' of me forward. "You ain't so much of a dreamer, after all," thinks I. "In important matters you are plumb decisive." We sat down at little tables, and my friend ordered a beer and a chicken sandwich. "Chickens," says he, gazin' at the sandwich, "is a dollar apiece in this country, and plumb scarce. Did you ever pause to ponder over the returns chickens would give on a small investment? Say you start with ten hens. Each hatches out thirteen aigs, of which allow a loss of say six for childish accidents. At the end of the year you has eighty chickens. At the end of two years that flock has increased to six hundred and twenty. At the end of the third year--" He had the medicine tongue! Ten days later him and me was occupyin' of an old ranch fifty mile from anywhere. When they run stage-coaches this joint used to be a roadhouse. The outlook was on about a thousand little brown foothills. A road two miles four rods two foot eleven inches in sight run by in front of us. It come over one foothill and disappeared over another. I know just how long it was, for later in the game I measured it. Out back was about a hundred little wire chicken corrals filled with chickens. We had two kinds. That was the doin's of Tuscarora. My pardner called himself Tuscarora Maxillary. I asked him once if that was his real name. "It's the realest little old name you ever heerd tell of," says he. "I know, for I made it myself--liked the sound of her. Parents ain't got no rights to name their children. Parents don't have to be called them names." Well, these chickens, as I said, was of two kinds. The first was these low-set, heavyweight propositions with feathers on their laigs, and not much laigs at that, called Cochin Chinys. The other was a tall ridiculous outfit made up entire of bulgin' breast and gangle laigs. They stood about two foot and a half tall, and when they went to peck the ground their tail feathers stuck straight up to the sky. Tusky called 'em Japanese Games. "Which the chief advantage of them chickens is," says he, "that in weight about ninety per cent of 'em is breast meat. Now my idee is, that if we can cross 'em with these Cochin Chiny fowls we'll have a low-hung, heavyweight chicken runnin' strong on breast meat. These Jap Games is too small, but if we can bring 'em up in size and shorten their laigs, we'll shore have a winner." That looked good to me, so we started in on that idee. The theery was bully, but she didn't work out. The first broods we hatched growed up with big husky Cochin Chiny bodies and little short necks, perched up on laigs three foot long. Them chickens couldn't reach ground nohow. We had to build a table for 'em to eat off, and when they went out rustlin' for themselves they had to confine themselves to sidehills or flyin' insects. Their breasts was all right, though--"And think of them drumsticks for the boardinghouse trade!" says Tusky. So far things wasn't so bad. We had a good grubstake. Tusky and me used to feed them chickens twict a day, and then used to set around watchin' the playful critters chase grasshoppers up an' down the wire corrals, while Tusky figgered out what'd happen if somebody was dumfool enough to gather up somethin' and fix it in baskets or wagons or such. That was where we showed our ignorance of chickens. One day in the spring I hitched up, rustled a dozen of the youngsters into coops, and druv over to the railroad to make our first sale. I couldn't fold them chickens up into them coops at first, but then I stuck the coops up on aidge and they worked all right, though I will admit they was a comical sight. At the railroad one of them towerist trains had just slowed down to a halt as I come up, and the towerist was paradin' up and down allowin' they was particular enjoyin' of the warm Californy sunshine. One old terrapin, with grey chin whiskers, projected over, with his wife, and took a peek through the slats of my coop. He straightened up like someone had touched him off with a red-hot poker. "Stranger," said he, in a scared kind of whisper, "what's them?" "Them's chickens," says I. He took another long look. "Marthy," says he to the old woman, "this will be about all! We come out from Ioway to see the Wonders of Californy, but I can't go nothin' stronger than this. If these is chickens, I don't want to see no Big Trees." Well, I sold them chickens all right for a dollar and two bits, which was better than I expected, and got an order for more. About ten days later I got a letter from the commission house. "We are returnin' a sample of your Arts and Crafts chickens with the lovin' marks of the teeth still onto him," says they. "Don't send any more till they stops pursuin' of the nimble grasshopper. Dentist bill will foller." With the letter came the remains of one of the chickens. Tusky and I, very indignant, cooked her for supper. She was tough, all right. We thought she might do better biled, so we put her in the pot over night. Nary bit. Well, then we got interested. Tusky kep' the fire goin' and I rustled greasewood. We cooked her three days and three nights. At the end of that time she was sort of pale and frazzled, but still givin' points to three-year-old jerky on cohesion and other uncompromisin' forces of Nature. We buried her then, and went out back to recuperate. There we could gaze on the smilin' landscape, dotted by about four hundred long-laigged chickens swoopin' here and there after grasshoppers. "We got to stop that," says I. "We can't," murmured Tusky, inspired. "We can't. It's born in 'em; it's a primal instinct, like the love of a mother for her young, and it can't be eradicated! Them chickens is constructed by a divine providence for the express purpose of chasin' grasshoppers, jest as the beaver is made for buildin' dams, and the cow-puncher is made for whisky and faro-games. We can't keep 'em from it. If we was to shut 'em in a dark cellar, they'd flop after imaginary grasshoppers in their dreams, and die emaciated in the midst of plenty. Jimmy, we're up agin the Cosmos, the oversoul--" Oh, he had the medicine tongue, Tusky had, and risin' on the wings of eloquence that way, he had me faded in ten minutes. In fifteen I was wedded solid to the notion that the bottom had dropped out of the chicken business. I think now that if we'd shut them hens up, we might have--still, I don't know; they was a good deal in what Tusky said. "Tuscarora Maxillary," says I, "did you ever stop to entertain that beautiful thought that if all the dumfoolishness possessed now by the human race could be gathered together, and lined up alongside of us, the first feller to come along would say to it 'Why, hello, Solomon!'" We quit the notion of chickens for profit right then and there, but we couldn't quit the place. We hadn't much money, for one thing, and then we, kind of liked loafin' around and raisin' a little garden truck, and--oh, well, I might as well say so, we had a notion about placers in the dry wash back of the house you know how it is. So we stayed on, and kept a-raisin' these long-laigs for the fun of it. I used to like to watch 'em projectin' around, and I fed 'em twict a day about as usual. So Tusky and I lived alone there together, happy as ducks in Arizona. About onc't in a month somebody'd pike along the road. She wasn't much of a road, generally more chuckholes than bumps, though sometimes it was the other way around. Unless it happened to be a man horseback or maybe a freighter without the fear of God in his soul, we didn't have no words with them; they was too busy cussin' the highways and generally too mad for social discourses. One day early in the year, when the 'dobe mud made ruts to add to the bumps, one of these automobeels went past. It was the first Tusky and me had seen in them parts, so we run out to view her. Owin' to the high spots on the road, she looked like one of these movin' picters, as to blur and wobble; sounded like a cyclone mingled with cuss-words, and smelt like hell on housecleanin' day. "Which them folks don't seem to be enjoyin' of the scenery," says I to Tusky. "Do you reckon that there blue trail is smoke from the machine or remarks from the inhabitants thereof?" Tusky raised his head and sniffed long and inquirin'. "It's langwidge," says he. "Did you ever stop to think that all the words in the dictionary stretched end to end would reach--" But at that minute I catched sight of somethin' brass lyin' in the road. It proved to be a curled-up sort of horn with a rubber bulb on the end. I squoze the bulb and jumped twenty foot over the remark she made. "Jarred off the machine," says Tusky. "Oh, did it?" says I, my nerves still wrong. "I thought maybe it had growed up from the soil like a toadstool." About this time we abolished the wire chicken corrals, because we needed some of the wire. Them long-laigs thereupon scattered all over the flat searchin' out their prey. When feed time come I had to screech my lungs out gettin' of 'em in, and then sometimes they didn't all hear. It was plumb discouragin', and I mighty nigh made up my mind to quit 'em, but they had come to be sort of pets, and I hated to turn 'em down. It used to tickle Tusky almost to death to see me out there hollerin' away like an old bull-frog. He used to come out reg'lar, with his pipe lit, just to enjoy me. Finally I got mad and opened up on him. "Oh," he explains, "it just plumb amuses me to see the dumfool at his childish work. Why don't you teach 'em to come to that brass horn, and save your voice?" "Tusky," says I, with feelin', "sometimes you do seem to get a glimmer of real sense." Well, first off them chickens used to throw back-sommersets over that horn. You have no idee how slow chickens is to learn things. I could tell you things about chickens--say, this yere bluff about roosters bein' gallant is all wrong. I've watched 'em. When one finds a nice feed he gobbles it so fast that the pieces foller down his throat like yearlin's through a hole in the fence. It's only when he scratches up a measly one-grain quick-lunch that he calls up the hens and stands noble and self-sacrificin' to one side. That ain't the point, which is, that after two months I had them long-laigs so they'd drop everythin' and come kitin' at the HONK-HONK of that horn. It was a purty sight to see 'em, sailin' in from all directions twenty foot at a stride. I was proud of 'em, and named 'em the Honk-honk Breed. We didn't have no others, for by now the coyotes and bob-cats had nailed the straight-breds. There wasn't no wild cat or coyote could catch one of my Honk-honks, no, sir! We made a little on our placer--just enough to keep interested. Then the supervisors decided to fix our road, and what's more, THEY DONE IT! That's the only part in this yarn that's hard to believe, but, boys, you'll have to take it on faith. They ploughed her, and crowned her, and scraped her, and rolled her, and when they moved on we had the fanciest highway in the State of Californy. That noon--the day they called her a job--Tusky and I sat smokin' our pipes as per usual, when way over the foothills we seen a cloud of dust and faint to our ears was bore a whizzin' sound. The chickens was gathered under the cottonwood for the heat of the day, but they didn't pay no attention. Then faint, but clear, we heard another of them brass horns: "Honk! honk!" says it, and every one of them chickens woke up, and stood at attention. "Honk! honk!" it hollered clearer and nearer. Then over the hill come an automobeel, blowin' vigorous at every jump. "My God!" I yells to Tusky, kickin' over my chair, as I springs to my feet. "Stop 'em! Stop 'em!" But it was too late. Out the gate sprinted them poor devoted chickens, and up the road they trailed in vain pursuit. The last we seen of 'em was a mingling of dust and dim figgers goin' thirty mile an hour after a disappearin' automobeel. That was all we seen for the moment. About three o'clock the first straggler came limpin' in, his wings hangin', his mouth open, his eyes glazed with the heat. By sundown fourteen had returned. All the rest had disappeared utter; we never seen 'em again. I reckon they just naturally run themselves into a sunstroke and died on the road. It takes a long time to learn a chicken a thing, but a heap longer to unlearn him. After that two or three of these yere automobeels went by every day, all a-blowin' of their horns, all kickin' up a hell of a dust. And every time them fourteen Honk-honks of mine took along after 'em, just as I'd taught 'em to do, layin' to get to their corn when they caught up. No more of 'em died, but that fourteen did get into elegant trainin'. After a while they got plumb to enjoyin' it. When you come right down to it, a chicken don't have many amusements and relaxations in this life. Searchin' for worms, chasin' grasshoppers, and wallerin' in the dust is about the limits of joys for chickens. It was sure a fine sight to see 'em after they got well into the game. About nine o'clock every mornin' they would saunter down to the rise of the road where they would wait patient until a machine came along. Then it would warm your heart to see the enthusiasm of them. With, exultant cackles of joy they'd trail in, reachin' out like quarter-horses, their wings half spread out, their eyes beamin' with delight. At the lower turn they'd quit. Then, after talkin' it over excited-like for a few minutes, they'd calm down and wait for another. After a few months of this sort of trainin' they got purty good at it. I had one two-year-old rooster that made fifty-four mile an hour behind one of those sixty-horsepower Panhandles. When cars didn't come along often enough, they'd all turn out and chase jack-rabbits. They wasn't much fun at that. After a short, brief sprint the rabbit would crouch down plumb terrified, while the Honk-honks pulled off triumphal dances around his shrinkin' form. Our ranch got to be purty well known them days among automobeelists. The strength of their cars was horse-power, of course, but the speed of them they got to ratin' by chicken-power. Some of them used to come way up from Los Angeles just to try out a new car along our road with the Honk-honks for pace-makers. We charged them a little somethin', and then, too, we opened up the road-house and the bar, so we did purty well. It wasn't necessary to work any longer at that bogus placer. Evenin's we sat around outside and swapped yarns, and I bragged on my chickens. The chickens would gather round close to listen. They liked to hear their praises sung, all right. You bet they sabe! The only reason a chicken, or any other critter, isn't intelligent is because he hasn't no chance to expand. Why, we used to run races with 'em. Some of us would hold two or more chickens back of a chalk line, and the starter'd blow the horn from a hundred yards to a mile away, dependin' on whether it was a sprint or for distance. We had pools on the results, gave odds, made books, and kept records. After the thing got knowed we made money hand over fist. The stranger broke off abruptly and began to roll a cigarette. "What did you quit it for, then?" ventured Charley, out of the hushed silence. "Pride," replied the stranger solemnly. "Haughtiness of spirit." "How so?" urged Charley, after a pause. "Them chickens," continued the stranger, after a moment, "stood around listenin' to me a-braggin' of what superior fowls they was until they got all puffed up. They wouldn't have nothin' whatever to do with the ordinary chickens we brought in for eatin' purposes, but stood around lookin' bored when there wasn't no sport doin'. They got to be just like that Four Hundred you read about in the papers. It was one continual round of grasshopper balls, race meets, and afternoon hen-parties. They got idle and haughty, just like folks. Then come race suicide. They got to feelin' so aristocratic the hens wouldn't have no eggs." Nobody dared say a word. "Windy Bill's snake--" began the narrator genially. "Stranger," broke in Windy Bill, with great emphasis, "as to that snake, I want you to understand this: yereafter in my estimation that snake is nothin' but an ornery angleworm!" PART II THE TWO GUN MAN CHAPTER ONE THE CATTLE RUSTLERS Buck Johnson was American born, but with a black beard and a dignity of manner that had earned him the title of Senor. He had drifted into southeastern Arizona in the days of Cochise and Victorio and Geronimo. He had persisted, and so in time had come to control the water--and hence the grazing--of nearly all the Soda Springs Valley. His troubles were many, and his difficulties great. There were the ordinary problems of lean and dry years. There were also the extraordinary problems of devastating Apaches; rivals for early and ill-defined range rights--and cattle rustlers. Senor Buck Johnson was a man of capacity, courage, directness of method, and perseverance. Especially the latter. Therefore he had survived to see the Apaches subdued, the range rights adjusted, his cattle increased to thousands, grazing the area of a principality. Now, all the energy and fire of his frontiersman's nature he had turned to wiping out the third uncertainty of an uncertain business. He found it a task of some magnitude. For Senor Buck Johnson lived just north of that terra incognita filled with the mystery of a double chance of death from man or the flaming desert known as the Mexican border. There, by natural gravitation, gathered all the desperate characters of three States and two republics. He who rode into it took good care that no one should ride behind him, lived warily, slept light, and breathed deep when once he had again sighted the familiar peaks of Cochise's Stronghold. No one professed knowledge of those who dwelt therein. They moved, mysterious as the desert illusions that compassed them about. As you rode, the ranges of mountains visibly changed form, the monstrous, snaky, sea-like growths of the cactus clutched at your stirrup, mock lakes sparkled and dissolved in the middle distance, the sun beat hot and merciless, the powdered dry alkali beat hotly and mercilessly back--and strange, grim men, swarthy, bearded, heavily armed, with red-rimmed unshifting eyes, rode silently out of the mists of illusion to look on you steadily, and then to ride silently back into the desert haze. They might be only the herders of the gaunt cattle, or again they might belong to the Lost Legion that peopled the country. All you could know was that of the men who entered in, but few returned. Directly north of this unknown land you encountered parallel fences running across the country. They enclosed nothing, but offered a check to the cattle drifting toward the clutch of the renegades, and an obstacle to swift, dashing forays. Of cattle-rustling there are various forms. The boldest consists quite simply of running off a bunch of stock, hustling it over the Mexican line, and there selling it to some of the big Sonora ranch owners. Generally this sort means war. Also are there subtler means, grading in skill from the re-branding through a wet blanket, through the crafty refashioning of a brand to the various methods of separating the cow from her unbranded calf. In the course of his task Senor Buck Johnson would have to do with them all, but at present he existed in a state of warfare, fighting an enemy who stole as the Indians used to steal. Already he had fought two pitched battles and had won them both. His cattle increased, and he became rich. Nevertheless he knew that constantly his resources were being drained. Time and again he and his new Texas foreman, Jed Parker, had followed the trail of a stampeded bunch of twenty or thirty, followed them on down through the Soda Springs Valley to the cut drift fences, there to abandon them. For, as yet, an armed force would be needed to penetrate the borderland. Once he and his men bad experienced the glory of a night pursuit. Then, at the drift fences, he had fought one of his battles. But it was impossible adequately to patrol all parts of a range bigger than some Eastern States. Buck Johnson did his best, but it was like stopping with sand the innumerable little leaks of a dam. Did his riders watch toward the Chiricahuas, then a score of beef steers disappeared from Grant's Pass forty miles away. Pursuit here meant leaving cattle unguarded there. It was useless, and the Senor soon perceived that sooner or later he must strike in offence. For this purpose he began slowly to strengthen the forces of his riders. Men were coming in from Texas. They were good men, addicted to the grass-rope, the double cinch, and the ox-bow stirrup. Senor Johnson wanted men who could shoot, and he got them. "Jed," said Senor Johnson to his foreman, "the next son of a gun that rustles any of our cows is sure loading himself full of trouble. We'll hit his trail and will stay with it, and we'll reach his cattle-rustling conscience with a rope." So it came about that a little army crossed the drift fences and entered the border country. Two days later it came out, and mighty pleased to be able to do so. The rope had not been used. The reason for the defeat was quite simple. The thief had run his cattle through the lava beds where the trail at once became difficult to follow. This delayed the pursuing party; they ran out of water, and, as there was among them not one man well enough acquainted with the country to know where to find more, they had to return. "No use, Buck," said Jed. "We'd any of us come in on a gun play, but we can't buck the desert. We'll have to get someone who knows the country." "That's all right--but where?" queried Johnson. "There's Pereza," suggested Parker. "It's the only town down near that country." "Might get someone there," agreed the Senor. Next day he rode away in search of a guide. The third evening he was back again, much discouraged. "The country's no good," he explained. "The regular inhabitants 're a set of Mexican bums and old soaks. The cowmen's all from north and don't know nothing more than we do. I found lots who claimed to know that country, but when I told 'em what I wanted they shied like a colt. I couldn't hire 'em, for no money, to go down in that country. They ain't got the nerve. I took two days to her, too, and rode out to a ranch where they said a man lived who knew all about it down there. Nary riffle. Man looked all right, but his tail went down like the rest when I told him what we wanted. Seemed plumb scairt to death. Says he lives too close to the gang. Says they'd wipe him out sure if he done it. Seemed plumb SCAIRT." Buck Johnson grinned. "I told him so and he got hosstyle right off. Didn't seem no ways scairt of me. I don't know what's the matter with that outfit down there. They're plumb terrorised." That night a bunch of steers was stolen from the very corrals of the home ranch. The home ranch was far north, near Fort Sherman itself, and so had always been considered immune from attack. Consequently these steers were very fine ones. For the first time Buck Johnson lost his head and his dignity. He ordered the horses. "I'm going to follow that -- -- into Sonora," he shouted to Jed Parker. "This thing's got to stop!" "You can't make her, Buck," objected the foreman. "You'll get held up by the desert, and, if that don't finish you, they'll tangle you up in all those little mountains down there, and ambush you, and massacre you. You know it damn well." "I don't give a --" exploded Senor Johnson, "if they do. No man can slap my face and not get a run for it." Jed Parker communed with himself. "Senor," said he, at last, "it's no good; you can't do it. You got to have a guide. You wait three days and I'll get you one." "You can't do it," insisted the Senor. "I tried every man in the district." "Will you wait three days?" repeated the foreman. Johnson pulled loose his latigo. His first anger had cooled. "All right," he agreed, "and you can say for me that I'll pay five thousand dollars in gold and give all the men and horses he needs to the man who has the nerve to get back that bunch of cattle, and bring in the man who rustled them. I'll sure make this a test case." So Jed Parker set out to discover his man with nerve. CHAPTER TWO THE MAN WITH NERVE At about ten o'clock of the Fourth of July a rider topped the summit of the last swell of land, and loped his animal down into the single street of Pereza. The buildings on either side were flat-roofed and coated with plaster. Over the sidewalks extended wooden awnings, beneath which opened very wide doors into the coolness of saloons. Each of these places ran a bar, and also games of roulette, faro, craps, and stud poker. Even this early in the morning every game was patronised. The day was already hot with the dry, breathless, but exhilarating, heat of the desert. A throng of men idling at the edge of the sidewalks, jostling up and down their centre, or eddying into the places of amusement, acknowledged the power of summer by loosening their collars, carrying their coats on their arms. They were as yet busily engaged in recognising acquaintances. Later they would drink freely and gamble, and perhaps fight. Toward all but those whom they recognised they preserved an attitude of potential suspicion, for here were gathered the "bad men" of the border countries. A certain jealousy or touchy egotism lest the other man be considered quicker on the trigger, bolder, more aggressive than himself, kept each strung to tension. An occasional shot attracted little notice. Men in the cow-countries shoot as casually as we strike matches, and some subtle instinct told them that the reports were harmless. As the rider entered the one street, however, a more definite cause of excitement drew the loose population toward the centre of the road. Immediately their mass blotted out what had interested them. Curiosity attracted the saunterers; then in turn the frequenters of the bars and gambling games. In a very few moments the barkeepers, gamblers, and look-out men, held aloof only by the necessities of their calling, alone of all the population of Pereza were not included in the newly-formed ring. The stranger pushed his horse resolutely to the outer edge of the crowd where, from his point of vantage, he could easily overlook their heads. He was a quiet-appearing young fellow, rather neatly dressed in the border costume, rode a "centre fire," or single-cinch, saddle, and wore no chaps. He was what is known as a "two-gun man": that is to say, he wore a heavy Colt's revolver on either hip. The fact that the lower ends of his holsters were tied down, in order to facilitate the easy withdrawal of the revolvers, seemed to indicate that he expected to use them. He had furthermore a quiet grey eye, with the glint of steel that bore out the inference of the tied holsters. The newcomer dropped his reins on his pony's neck, eased himself to an attitude of attention, and looked down gravely on what was taking place. He saw over the heads of the bystanders a tall, muscular, wild-eyed man, hatless, his hair rumpled into staring confusion, his right sleeve rolled to his shoulder, a wicked-looking nine-inch knife in his hand, and a red bandana handkerchief hanging by one corner from his teeth. "What's biting the locoed stranger?" the young man inquired of his neighbour. The other frowned at him darkly. "Dare's anyone to take the other end of that handkerchief in his teeth, and fight it out without letting go." "Nice joyful proposition," commented the young man. He settled himself to closer attention. The wild-eyed man was talking rapidly. What he said cannot be printed here. Mainly was it derogatory of the southern countries. Shortly it became boastful of the northern, and then of the man who uttered it. He swaggered up and down, becoming always the more insolent as his challenge remained untaken. "Why don't you take him up?" inquired the young man, after a moment. "Not me!" negatived the other vigorously. "I'll go yore little old gunfight to a finish, but I don't want any cold steel in mine. Ugh! it gives me the shivers. It's a reg'lar Mexican trick! With a gun it's down and out, but this knife work is too slow and searchin'." The newcomer said nothing, but fixed his eye again on the raging man with the knife. "Don't you reckon he's bluffing?" he inquired. "Not any!" denied the other with emphasis. "He's jest drunk enough to be crazy mad." The newcomer shrugged his shoulders and cast his glance searchingly over the fringe of the crowd. It rested on a Mexican. "Hi, Tony! come here," he called. The Mexican approached, flashing his white teeth. "Here," said the stranger, "lend me your knife a minute." The Mexican, anticipating sport of his own peculiar kind, obeyed with alacrity. "You fellows make me tired," observed the stranger, dismounting. "He's got the whole townful of you bluffed to a standstill. Damn if I don't try his little game." He hung his coat on his saddle, shouldered his way through the press, which parted for him readily, and picked up the other corner of the handkerchief. "Now, you mangy son of a gun," said he. CHAPTER THREE THE AGREEMENT Jed Parker straightened his back, rolled up the bandana handkerchief, and thrust it into his pocket, hit flat with his hand the touselled mass of his hair, and thrust the long hunting knife into its sheath. "You're the man I want," said he. Instantly the two-gun man had jerked loose his weapons and was covering the foreman. "Am I!" he snarled. "Not jest that way," explained Parker. "My gun is on my hoss, and you can have this old toad-sticker if you want it. I been looking for you, and took this way of finding you. Now, let's go talk." The stranger looked him in the eye for nearly a half minute without lowering his revolvers. "I go you," said he briefly, at last. But the crowd, missing the purport, and in fact the very occurrence of this colloquy, did not understand. It thought the bluff had been called, and naturally, finding harmless what had intimidated it, gave way to an exasperated impulse to get even. "You -- -- -- bluffer!" shouted a voice, "don't you think you can run any such ranikaboo here!" Jed Parker turned humorously to his companion. "Do we get that talk?" he inquired gently. For answer the two-gun man turned and walked steadily in the direction of the man who had shouted. The latter's hand strayed uncertainly toward his own weapon, but the movement paused when the stranger's clear, steel eye rested on it. "This gentleman," pointed out the two-gun man softly, "is an old friend of mine. Don't you get to calling of him names." His eye swept the bystanders calmly. "Come on, Jack," said he, addressing Parker. On the outskirts he encountered the Mexican from whom he had borrowed the knife. "Here, Tony," said he with a slight laugh, "here's a peso. You'll find your knife back there where I had to drop her." He entered a saloon, nodded to the proprietor, and led the way through it to a boxlike room containing a board table and two chairs. "Make good," he commanded briefly. "I'm looking for a man with nerve," explained Parker, with equal succinctness. "You're the man." "Well?" "Do you know the country south of here?" The stranger's eyes narrowed. "Proceed," said he. "I'm foreman of the Lazy Y of Soda Springs Valley range," explained Parker. "I'm looking for a man with sand enough and sabe of the country enough to lead a posse after cattle-rustlers into the border country." "I live in this country," admitted the stranger. "So do plenty of others, but their eyes stick out like two raw oysters when you mention the border country. Will you tackle it?" "What's the proposition?" "Come and see the old man. He'll put it to you." They mounted their horses and rode the rest of the day. The desert compassed them about, marvellously changing shape and colour, and every character, with all the noiselessness of phantasmagoria. At evening the desert stars shone steady and unwinking, like the flames of candles. By moonrise they came to the home ranch. The buildings and corrals lay dark and silent against the moonlight that made of the plain a sea of mist. The two men unsaddled their horses and turned them loose in the wire-fenced "pasture," the necessary noises of their movements sounding sharp and clear against the velvet hush of the night. After a moment they walked stiffly past the sheds and cook shanty, past the men's bunk houses, and the tall windmill silhouetted against the sky, to the main building of the home ranch under its great cottonwoods. There a light still burned, for this was the third day, and Buck Johnson awaited his foreman. Jed Parker pushed in without ceremony. "Here's your man, Buck," said he. The stranger had stepped inside and carefully closed the door behind him. The lamplight threw into relief the bold, free lines of his face, the details of his costume powdered thick with alkali, the shiny butts of the two guns in their open holsters tied at the bottom. Equally it defined the resolute countenance of Buck Johnson turned up in inquiry. The two men examined each other--and liked each other at once. "How are you," greeted the cattleman. "Good-evening," responded the stranger. "Sit down," invited Buck Johnson. The stranger perched gingerly on the edge of a chair, with an appearance less of embarrassment than of habitual alertness. "You'll take the job?" inquired the Senor. "I haven't heard what it is," replied the stranger. "Parker here--?" "Said you'd explain." "Very well," said Buck Johnson. He paused a moment, collecting his thoughts. "There's too much cattle-rustling here. I'm going to stop it. I've got good men here ready to take the job, but no one who knows the country south. Three days ago I had a bunch of cattle stolen right here from the home-ranch corrals, and by one man, at that. It wasn't much of a bunch--about twenty head--but I'm going to make a starter right here, and now. I'm going to get that bunch back, and the man who stole them, if I have to go to hell to do it. And I'm going to do the same with every case of rustling that comes up from now on. I don't care if it's only one cow, I'm going to get it back--every trip. Now, I want to know if you'll lead a posse down into the south country and bring out that last bunch, and the man who rustled them?" "I don't know--" hesitated the stranger. "I offer you five thousand dollars in gold if you'll bring back those cows and the man who stole 'em," repeated Buck Johnson. "And I'll give you all the horses and men you think you need." "I'll do it," replied the two-gun man promptly. "Good!" cried Buck Johnson, "and you better start to-morrow." "I shall start to-night--right now." "Better yet. How many men do you want, and grub for how long?" "I'll play her a lone hand." "Alone!" exclaimed Johnson, his confidence visibly cooling. "Alone! Do you think you can make her?" "I'll be back with those cattle in not more than ten days." "And the man," supplemented the Senor. "And the man. What's more, I want that money here when I come in. I don't aim to stay in this country over night." A grin overspread Buck Johnson's countenance. He understood. "Climate not healthy for you?" he hazarded. "I guess you'd be safe enough all right with us. But suit yourself. The money will be here." "That's agreed?" insisted the two-gun man. "Sure." "I want a fresh horse--I'll leave mine--he's a good one. I want a little grub." "All right. Parker'll fit you out." The stranger rose. "I'll see you in about ten days." "Good luck," Senor Buck Johnson wished him. CHAPTER FOUR THE ACCOMPLISHMENT The next morning Buck Johnson took a trip down into the "pasture" of five hundred wire-fenced acres. "He means business," he confided to Jed Parker, on his return. "That cavallo of his is a heap sight better than the Shorty horse we let him take. Jed, you found your man with nerve, all right. How did you do it?" The two settled down to wait, if not with confidence, at least with interest. Sometimes, remembering the desperate character of the outlaws, their fierce distrust of any intruder, the wildness of the country, Buck Johnson and his foreman inclined to the belief that the stranger had undertaken a task beyond the powers of any one man. Again, remembering the stranger's cool grey eye, the poise of his demeanour, the quickness of his movements, and the two guns with tied holsters to permit of easy withdrawal, they were almost persuaded that he might win. "He's one of those long-chance fellows," surmised Jed. "He likes excitement. I see that by the way he takes up with my knife play. He'd rather leave his hide on the fence than stay in the corral." "Well, he's all right," replied Senor Buck Johnson, "and if he ever gets back, which same I'm some doubtful of, his dinero'll be here for him." In pursuance of this he rode in to Willets, where shortly the overland train brought him from Tucson the five thousand dollars in double eagles. In the meantime the regular life of the ranch went on. Each morning Sang, the Chinese cook, rang the great bell, summoning the men. They ate, and then caught up the saddle horses for the day, turning those not wanted from the corral into the pasture. Shortly they jingled away in different directions, two by two, on the slow Spanish trot of the cow-puncher. All day long thus they would ride, without food or water for man or beast, looking the range, identifying the stock, branding the young calves, examining generally into the state of affairs, gazing always with grave eyes on the magnificent, flaming, changing, beautiful, dreadful desert of the Arizona plains. At evening when the coloured atmosphere, catching the last glow, threw across the Chiricahuas its veil of mystery, they jingled in again, two by two, untired, unhasting, the glory of the desert in their deep-set, steady eyes. And all the day long, while they were absent, the cattle, too, made their pilgrimage, straggling in singly, in pairs, in bunches, in long files, leisurely, ruminantly, without haste. There, at the long troughs filled by the windmill of the blindfolded pump mule, they drank, then filed away again into the mists of the desert. And Senor Buck Johnson, or his foreman, Parker, examined them for their condition, noting the increase, remarking the strays from another range. Later, perhaps, they, too, rode abroad. The same thing happened at nine other ranches from five to ten miles apart, where dwelt other fierce, silent men all under the authority of Buck Johnson. And when night fell, and the topaz and violet and saffron and amethyst and mauve and lilac had faded suddenly from the Chiricahuas, like a veil that has been rent, and the ramparts had become slate-grey and then black--the soft-breathed night wandered here and there over the desert, and the land fell under an enchantment even stranger than the day's. So the days went by, wonderful, fashioning the ways and the characters of men. Seven passed. Buck Johnson and his foreman began to look for the stranger. Eight, they began to speculate. Nine, they doubted. On the tenth they gave him up--and he came. They knew him first by the soft lowing of cattle. Jed Parker, dazzled by the lamp, peered out from the door, and made him out dimly turning the animals into the corral. A moment later his pony's hoofs impacted softly on the baked earth, he dropped from the saddle and entered the room. "I'm late," said he briefly, glancing at the clock, which indicated ten; "but I'm here." His manner was quick and sharp, almost breathless, as though he had been running. "Your cattle are in the corral: all of them. Have you the money?" "I have the money here," replied Buck Johnson, laying his hand against a drawer, "and it's ready for you when you've earned it. I don't care so much for the cattle. What I wanted is the man who stole them. Did you bring him?" "Yes, I brought him," said the stranger. "Let's see that money." Buck Johnson threw open the drawer, and drew from it the heavy canvas sack. "It's here. Now bring in your prisoner." The two-gun man seemed suddenly to loom large in the doorway. The muzzles of his revolvers covered the two before him. His speech came short and sharp. "I told you I'd bring back the cows and the one who rustled them," he snapped. "I've never lied to a man yet. Your stock is in the corral. I'll trouble you for that five thousand. I'm the man who stole your cattle!" PART III THE RAWHIDE CHAPTER ONE THE PASSING OF THE COLT'S FORTY-FIVE The man of whom I am now to tell you came to Arizona in the early days of Chief Cochise. He settled in the Soda Springs Valley, and there persisted in spite of the devastating forays of that Apache. After a time he owned all the wells and springs in the valley, and so, naturally, controlled the grazing on that extensive free range. Once a day the cattle, in twos and threes, in bands, in strings, could be seen winding leisurely down the deep-trodden and converging trails to the water troughs at the home ranch, there leisurely to drink, and then leisurely to drift away into the saffron and violet and amethyst distances of the desert. At ten other outlying ranches this daily scene was repeated. All these cattle belonged to the man, great by reason of his priority in the country, the balance of his even character, and the grim determination of his spirit. When he had first entered Soda Springs Valley his companions had called him Buck Johnson. Since then his form had squared, his eyes had steadied to the serenity of a great authority, his mouth, shadowed by the moustache and the beard, had closed straight in the line of power and taciturnity. There was about him more than a trace of the Spanish. So now he was known as Senor Johnson, although in reality he was straight American enough. Senor Johnson lived at the home ranch with a Chinese cook, and Parker, his foreman. The home ranch was of adobe, built with loopholes like a fort. In the obsolescence of this necessity, other buildings had sprung up unfortified. An adobe bunkhouse for the cow-punchers, an adobe blacksmith shop, a long, low stable, a shed, a windmill and pond-like reservoir, a whole system of corrals of different sizes, a walled-in vegetable garden--these gathered to themselves cottonwoods from the moisture of their being, and so added each a little to the green spot in the desert. In the smallest corral, between the stable and the shed, stood a buckboard and a heavy wagon, the only wheeled vehicles about the place. Under the shed were rows of saddles, riatas, spurs mounted with silver, bits ornamented with the same metal, curved short irons for the range branding, long, heavy "stamps" for the corral branding. Behind the stable lay the "pasture," a thousand acres of desert fenced in with wire. There the hardy cow-ponies sought out the sparse, but nutritious, bunch grass, sixty of them, beautiful as antelope, for they were the pick of Senor Johnson's herds. And all about lay the desert, shimmering, changing, many-tinted, wonderful, hemmed in by the mountains that seemed tenuous and thin, like beautiful mists, and by the sky that seemed hard and polished like a turquoise. Each morning at six o'clock the ten cow-punchers of the home ranch drove the horses to the corral, neatly roped the dozen to be "kept up" for that day, and rewarded the rest with a feed of grain. Then they rode away at a little fox trot, two by two. All day long they travelled thus, conducting the business of the range, and at night, having completed the circle, they jingled again into the corral. At the ten other ranches this programme had been duplicated. The half-hundred men of Senor Johnson's outfit had covered the area of a European principality. And all of it, every acre, every spear of grass, every cactus prickle, every creature on it, practically belonged to Senor Johnson, because Senor Johnson owned the water, and without water one cannot exist on the desert. This result had not been gained without struggle. The fact could be read in the settled lines of Senor Johnson's face, and the great calm of his grey eye. Indian days drove him often to the shelter of the loopholed adobe ranch house, there to await the soldiers from the Fort, in plain sight thirty miles away on the slope that led to the foot of the Chiricahuas. He lost cattle and some men, but the profits were great, and in time Cochise, Geronimo, and the lesser lights had flickered out in the winds of destiny. The sheep terror merely threatened, for it was soon discovered that with the feed of Soda Springs Valley grew a burr that annoyed the flocks beyond reason, so the bleating scourge swept by forty miles away. Cattle rustling so near the Mexican line was an easy matter. For a time Senor Johnson commanded an armed band. He was lord of the high, the low, and the middle justice. He violated international ethics, and for the laws of nations he substituted his own. One by one he annihilated the thieves of cattle, sometimes in open fight, but oftener by surprise and deliberate massacre. The country was delivered. And then, with indefatigable energy, Senor Johnson became a skilled detective. Alone, or with Parker, his foreman, he rode the country through, gathering evidence. When the evidence was unassailable he brought offenders to book. The rebranding through a wet blanket he knew and could prove; the ear-marking of an unbranded calf until it could be weaned he understood; the paring of hoofs to prevent travelling he could tell as far as he could see; the crafty alteration of similar brands--as when a Mexican changed Johnson's Lazy Y to a Dumb-bell Bar--he saw through at a glance. In short, the hundred and one petty tricks of the sneak-thief he ferreted out, in danger of his life. Then he sent to Phoenix for a Ranger--and that was the last of the Dumb-bell Bar brand, or the Three Link Bar brand, or the Hour Glass Brand, or a half dozen others. The Soda Springs Valley acquired a reputation for good order. Senor Johnson at this stage of his career found himself dropping into a routine. In March began the spring branding, then the corralling and breaking of the wild horses, the summer range-riding, the great fall round-up, the shipping of cattle, and the riding of the winter range. This happened over and over again. You and I would not have suffered from ennui. The roping and throwing and branding, the wild swing and dash of handling stock, the mad races to head the mustangs, the fierce combats to subdue these raging wild beasts to the saddle, the spectacle of the round-up with its brutish multitudes and its graceful riders, the dust and monotony and excitement and glory of the Trail, and especially the hundreds of incidental and gratuitous adventures of bears and antelope, of thirst and heat, of the joy of taking care of one's self--all these would have filled our days with the glittering, changing throng of the unusual. But to Senor Johnson it had become an old story. After the days of construction the days of accomplishment seemed to him lean. His men did the work and reaped the excitement. Senor Johnson never thought now of riding the wild horses, of swinging the rope coiled at his saddle horn, or of rounding ahead of the flying herds. His inspections were business inspections. The country was tame. The leather chaps with the silver conchas hung behind the door. The Colt's forty-five depended at the head of the bed. Senor Johnson rode in mufti. Of his cowboy days persisted still the high-heeled boots and spurs, the broad Stetson hat, and the fringed buckskin gauntlets. The Colt's forty-five had been the last to go. Finally one evening Senor Johnson received an express package. He opened it before the undemonstrative Parker. It proved to contain a pocket "gun"--a nickel-plated, thirty-eight calibre Smith & Wesson "five-shooter." Senor Johnson examined it a little doubtfully. In comparison with the six-shooter it looked like a toy. "How do you, like her?" he inquired, handing the weapon to Parker. Parker turned it over and over, as a child a rattle. Then he returned it to its owner. "Senor," said he, "if ever you shoot me with that little old gun, AND I find it out the same day, I'll just raise hell with you!" "I don't reckon she'd INJURE a man much," agreed the Senor, "but perhaps she'd call his attention." However, the "little old gun" took its place, not in Senor Johnson's hip pocket, but inside the front waistband of his trousers, and the old shiny Colt's forty-five, with its worn leather "Texas style" holster, became a bedroom ornament. Thus, from a frontiersman dropped Senor Johnson to the status of a property owner. In a general way he had to attend to his interests before the cattlemen's association; he had to arrange for the buying and shipping, and the rest was leisure. He could now have gone away somewhere as far as time went. So can a fish live in trees--as far as time goes. And in the daily riding, riding, riding over the range he found the opportunity for abstract thought which the frontier life had crowded aside. CHAPTER TWO THE SHAPES OF ILLUSION Every day, as always, Senor Johnson rode abroad over the land. His surroundings had before been accepted casually as a more or less pertinent setting of action and condition. Now he sensed some of the fascination of the Arizona desert. He noticed many things before unnoticed. As he jingled loosely along on his cow-horse, he observed how the animal waded fetlock deep in the gorgeous orange California poppies, and then he looked up and about, and saw that the rich colour carpeted the landscape as far as his eye could reach, so that it seemed as though he could ride on and on through them to the distant Chiricahuas. Only, close under the hills, lay, unobtrusive, a narrow streak of grey. And in a few hours he had reached the streak of grey, and ridden out into it to find himself the centre of a limitless alkali plain, so that again it seemed the valley could contain nothing else of importance. Looking back, Senor Johnson could discern a tenuous ribbon of orange--the poppies. And perhaps ahead a little shadow blotted the face of the alkali, which, being reached and entered, spread like fire until it, too, filled the whole plain, until it, too, arrogated to itself the right of typifying Soda Springs Valley as a shimmering prairie of mesquite. Flowered upland, dead lowland, brush, cactus, volcanic rock, sand, each of these for the time being occupied the whole space, broad as the sea. In the circlet of the mountains was room for many infinities. Among the foothills Senor Johnson, for the first time, appreciated colour. Hundreds of acres of flowers filled the velvet creases of the little hills and washed over the smooth, rounded slopes so accurately in the placing and manner of tinted shadows that the mind had difficulty in believing the colour not to have been shaded in actually by free sweeps of some gigantic brush. A dozen shades of pinks and purples, a dozen of blues, and then the flame reds, the yellows, and the vivid greens. Beyond were the mountains in their glory of volcanic rocks, rich as the tapestry of a Florentine palace. And, modifying all the others, the tinted atmosphere of the south-west, refracting the sun through the infinitesimal earth motes thrown up constantly by the wind devils of the desert, drew before the scene a delicate and gauzy veil of lilac, of rose, of saffron, of amethyst, or of mauve, according to the time of day. Senor Johnson discovered that looking at the landscape upside down accentuated the colour effects. It amused him vastly suddenly to bend over his saddle horn, the top of his head nearly touching his horse's mane. The distant mountains at once started out into redder prominence; their shadows of purple deepened to the royal colour; the rose veil thickened. "She's the prettiest country God ever made!" exclaimed Senor Johnson with entire conviction. And no matter where he went, nor into how familiar country he rode, the shapes of illusion offered always variety. One day the Chiricahuas were a tableland; next day a series of castellated peaks; now an anvil; now a saw tooth; and rarely they threw a magnificent suspension bridge across the heavens to their neighbours, the ranges on the west. Lakes rippling in the wind and breaking on the shore, cattle big as elephants or small as rabbits, distances that did not exist and forests that never were, beds of lava along the hills swearing to a cloud shadow, while the sky was polished like a precious stone--these, and many other beautiful and marvellous but empty shows the great desert displayed lavishly, with the glitter and inconsequence of a dream. Senor Johnson sat on his horse in the hot sun, his chin in his band, his elbow on the pommel, watching it all with grave, unshifting eyes. Occasionally, belated, he saw the stars, the wonderful desert stars, blazing clear and unflickering, like the flames of candles. Or the moon worked her necromancies, hemming him in by mountains ten thousand feet high through which there was no pass. And then as he rode, the mountains shifted like the scenes in a theatre, and he crossed the little sand dunes out from the dream country to the adobe corrals of the home ranch. All these things, and many others, Senor Johnson now saw for the first time, although he had lived among them for twenty years. It struck him with the freshness of a surprise. Also it reacted chemically on his mental processes to generate a new power within him. The new power, being as yet unapplied, made him uneasy and restless and a little irritable. He tried to show some of his wonders to Parker. "Jed," said he, one day, "this is a great country." "You KNOW it," replied the foreman. "Those tourists in their nickel-plated Pullmans call this a desert. Desert, hell! Look at them flowers!" The foreman cast an eye on a glorious silken mantle of purple, a hundred yards broad. "Sure," he agreed; "shows what we could do if we only had a little water." And again: "Jed," began the Senor, "did you ever notice them mountains?" "Sure," agreed Jed. "Ain't that a pretty colour?" "You bet," agreed the foreman; "now you're talking! I always, said they was mineralised enough to make a good prospect." This was unsatisfactory. Senor Johnson grew more restless. His critical eye began to take account of small details. At the ranch house one evening he, on a sudden, bellowed loudly for Sang, the Chinese servant. "Look at these!" he roared, when Sang appeared. Sang's eyes opened in bewilderment. "There, and there!" shouted the cattleman. "Look at them old newspapers and them gun rags! The place is like a cow-yard. Why in the name of heaven don't you clean up here!" "Allee light," babbled Sang; "I clean him." The papers and gun rags had lain there unnoticed for nearly a year. Senor Johnson kicked them savagely. "It's time we took a brace here," he growled, "we're livin' like a lot of Oilers." [5] [5] Oilers: Greasers--Mexicans CHAPTER THREE THE PAPER A YEAR OLD Sang hurried out for a broom. Senor Johnson sat where he was, his heavy, square brows knit. Suddenly he stooped, seized one of the newspapers, drew near the lamp, and began to read. It was a Kansas City paper and, by a strange coincidence, was dated exactly a year before. The sheet Senor Johnson happened to pick up was one usually passed over by the average newspaper reader. It contained only columns of little two- and three-line advertisements classified as Help Wanted, Situations Wanted, Lost and Found, and Personal. The latter items Senor Johnson commenced to read while awaiting Sang and the broom. The notices were five in number. The first three were of the mysterious newspaper-correspondence type, in which Birdie beseeches Jack to meet her at the fountain; the fourth advertised a clairvoyant. Over the fifth Senor Johnson paused long. It reads "WANTED.-By an intelligent and refined lady of pleasing appearance, correspondence with a gentleman of means. Object matrimony." Just then Sang returned with the broom and began noisily to sweep together the debris. The rustling of papers aroused Senor Johnson from his reverie. At once he exploded. "Get out of here, you debased Mongolian," he shouted; "can't you see I'm reading?" Sang fled, sorely puzzled, for the Senor was calm and unexcited and aloof in his everyday habit. Soon Jed Parker, tall, wiry, hawk-nosed, deliberate, came into the room and flung his broad hat and spurs into the corner. Then he proceeded to light his pipe and threw the burned match on the floor. "Been over to look at the Grant Pass range," he announced cheerfully. "She's no good. Drier than cork legs. Th' country wouldn't support three horned toads." "Jed," quoth the Senor solemnly, "I wisht you'd hang up your hat like I have. It don't look good there on the floor." "Why, sure," agreed Jed, with an astonished stare. Sang brought in supper and slung it on the red and white squares of oilcloth. Then he moved the lamp and retired. Senor Johnson gazed with distaste into his cup. "This coffee would float a wedge," he commented sourly. "She's no puling infant," agreed the cheerful Jed. "And this!" went on the Senor, picking up what purported to be plum duff: "Bog down a few currants in dough and call her pudding!" He ate in silence, then pushed back his chair and went to the window, gazing through its grimy panes at the mountains, ethereal in their evening saffron. "Blamed Chink," he growled; "why don't he wash these windows?" Jed laid down his busy knife and idle fork to gaze on his chief with amazement. Buck Johnson, the austere, the aloof, the grimly taciturn, the dangerous, to be thus complaining like a querulous woman! "Senor," said he, "you're off your feed." Senor Johnson strode savagely to the table and sat down with a bang. "I'm sick of it," he growled; "this thing will kill me off. I might as well go be a buck nun and be done with it." With one round-arm sweep he cleared aside the dishes. "Give me that pen and paper behind you," he requested. For an hour he wrote and destroyed. The floor became littered with torn papers. Then he enveloped a meagre result. Parker had watched him in silence. The Senor looked up to catch his speculative eye. His own eye twinkled a little, but the twinkle was determined and sinister, with only an alloy of humour. "Senor," ventured Parker slowly, "this event sure knocks me hell-west and crooked. If the loco you have culled hasn't paralysed your speaking parts, would you mind telling me what in the name of heaven, hell, and high-water is up?" "I am going to get married," announced the Senor calmly. "What!" shouted Parker; "who to?" "To a lady," replied the Senor, "an intelligent and refined lady--of pleasing appearance." CHAPTER FOUR DREAMS Although the paper was a year old, Senor Johnson in due time received an answer from Kansas. A correspondence ensued. Senor Johnson enshrined above the big fireplace the photograph of a woman. Before this he used to stand for hours at a time slowly constructing in his mind what he had hitherto lacked--an ideal of woman and of home. This ideal he used sometimes to express to himself and to the ironical Jed. "It must sure be nice to have a little woman waitin' for you when you come in off'n the desert." Or: "Now, a woman would have them windows just blooming with flowers and white curtains and such truck." Or: "I bet that Sang would get a wiggle on him with his little old cleaning duds if he had a woman ahold of his jerk line." Slowly he reconstructed his life, the life of the ranch, in terms of this hypothesised feminine influence. Then matters came to an understanding, Senor Johnson had sent his own portrait. Estrella Sands wrote back that she adored big black beards, but she was afraid of him, he had such a fascinating bad eye: no woman could resist him. Senor Johnson at once took things for granted, sent on to Kansas a preposterous sum of "expense" money and a railroad ticket, and raided Goodrich's store at Willets, a hundred miles away, for all manner of gaudy carpets, silverware, fancy lamps, works of art, pianos, linen, and gimcracks for the adornment of the ranch house. Furthermore, he offered wages more than equal to a hundred miles of desert to a young Irish girl, named Susie O'Toole, to come out as housekeeper, decorator, boss of Sang and another Chinaman, and companion to Mrs. Johnson when she should arrive. Furthermore, he laid off from the range work Brent Palmer, the most skilful man with horses, and set him to "gentling" a beautiful little sorrel. A sidesaddle had arrived from El Paso. It was "centre fire," which is to say it had but the single horsehair cinch, broad, tasselled, very genteel in its suggestion of pleasure use only. Brent could be seen at all times of day, cantering here and there on the sorrel, a blanket tied around his waist to simulate the long riding skirt. He carried also a sulky and evil gleam in his eye, warning against undue levity. Jed Parker watched these various proceedings sardonically. Once, the baby light of innocence blue in his eye, he inquired if he would be required to dress for dinner. "If so," he went on, "I'll have my man brush up my low-necked clothes." But Senor Johnson refused to be baited. "Go on, Jed," said he; "you know you ain't got clothes enough to dust a fiddle." The Senor was happy these days. He showed it by an unwonted joviality of spirit, by a slight but evident unbending of his Spanish dignity. No longer did the splendour of the desert fill him with a vague yearning and uneasiness. He looked upon it confidently, noting its various phases with care, rejoicing in each new development of colour and light, of form and illusion, storing them away in his memory so that their recurrence should find him prepared to recognise and explain them. For soon he would have someone by his side with whom to appreciate them. In that sharing he could see the reason for them, the reason for their strange bitter-sweet effects on the human soul. One evening he leaned on the corral fence, looking toward the Dragoons. The sun had set behind them. Gigantic they loomed against the western light. From their summits, like an aureola, radiated the splendour of the dust-moted air, this evening a deep umber. A faint reflection of it fell across the desert, glorifying the reaches of its nothingness. "I'll take her out on an evening like this," quoth Senor Johnson to himself, "and I'll make her keep her eyes on the ground till we get right up by Running Bear Knob, and then I'll let her look up all to once. And she'll surely enjoy this life. I bet she never saw a steer roped in her life. She can ride with me every day out over the range and I'll show her the busting and the branding and that band of antelope over by the Tall Windmill. I'll teach her to shoot, too. And we can make little pack trips off in the hills when she gets too hot--up there by Deerskin Meadows 'mongst the high peaks." He mused, turning over in his mind a new picture of his own life, aims, and pursuits as modified by the sympathetic and understanding companionship of a woman. He pictured himself as he must seem to her in his different pursuits. The picturesqueness pleased him. The simple, direct vanity of the man--the wholesome vanity of a straightforward nature--awakened to preen its feathers before the idea of the mate. The shadows fell. Over the Chiricahuas flared the evening star. The plain, self-luminous with the weird lucence of the arid lands, showed ghostly. Jed Parker, coming out from the lamp-lit adobe, leaned his elbows on the rail in silent company with his chief. He, too, looked abroad. His mind's eye saw what his body's eye had always told him were the insistent notes--the alkali, the cactus, the sage, the mesquite, the lava, the choking dust, the blinding beat, the burning thirst. He sighed in the dim half recollection of past days. "I wonder if she'll like the country?" he hazarded. But Senor Johnson turned on him his steady eyes, filled with the great glory of the desert. "Like the country!" he marvelled slowly. "Of course! Why shouldn't she?" CHAPTER FIVE THE ARRIVAL The Overland drew into Willets, coated from engine to observation with white dust. A porter, in strange contrast of neatness, flung open the vestibule, dropped his little carpeted step, and turned to assist someone. A few idle passengers gazed out on the uninteresting, flat frontier town. Senor Johnson caught his breath in amazement. "God! Ain't she just like her picture!" he exclaimed. He seemed to find this astonishing. For a moment he did not step forward to claim her, so she stood looking about her uncertainly, her leather suit-case at her feet. She was indeed like the photograph. The same full-curved, compact little figure, the same round face, the same cupid's bow mouth, the same appealing, large eyes, the same haze of doll's hair. In a moment she caught sight of Senor Johnson and took two steps toward him, then stopped. The Senor at once came forward. "You're Mr. Johnson, ain't you?" she inquired, thrusting her little pointed chin forward, and so elevating her baby-blue eyes to his. "Yes, ma'am," he acknowledged formally. Then, after a moment's pause: "I hope you're well." "Yes, thank you." The station loungers, augmented by all the ranchmen and cowboys in town, were examining her closely. She looked at them in a swift side glance that seemed to gather all their eyes to hers. Then, satisfied that she possessed the universal admiration, she returned the full force of her attention to the man before her. "Now you give me your trunk checks," he was saying, "and then we'll go right over and get married." "Oh!" she gasped. "That's right, ain't it?" he demanded. "Yes, I suppose so," she agreed faintly. A little subdued, she followed him to the clergyman's house, where, in the presence of Goodrich, the storekeeper, and the preacher's wife, the two were united. Then they mounted the buckboard and drove from town. Senor Johnson said nothing, because he knew of nothing to say. He drove skilfully and fast through the gathering dusk. It was a hundred miles to the home ranch, and that hundred miles, by means of five relays of horses already arranged for, they would cover by morning. Thus they would avoid the dust and heat and high winds of the day. The sweet night fell. The little desert winds laid soft fingers on their checks. Overhead burned the stars, clear, unflickering, like candles. Dimly could be seen the horses, their flanks swinging steadily in the square trot. Ghostly bushes passed them; ghostly rock elevations. Far, in indeterminate distance, lay the outlines of the mountains. Always, they seemed to recede. The plain, all but invisible, the wagon trail quite so, the depths of space--these flung heavy on the soul their weight of mysticism. The woman, until now bolt upright in the buckboard seat, shrank nearer to the man. He felt against his sleeve the delicate contact of her garment and thrilled to the touch. A coyote barked sharply from a neighbouring eminence, then trailed off into the long-drawn, shrill howl of his species. "What was that?" she asked quickly, in a subdued voice. "A coyote--one of them little wolves," he explained. The horses' hoofs rang clear on a hardened bit of the alkali crust, then dully as they encountered again the dust of the plain. Vast, vague, mysterious in the silence of night, filled with strange influences breathing through space like damp winds, the desert took them to the heart of her great spaces. "Buck," she whispered, a little tremblingly. It was the first time she had spoken his name. "What is it?" he asked, a new note in his voice. But for a time she did not reply. Only the contact against his sleeve increased by ever so little. "Buck," she repeated, then all in a rush and with a sob, "Oh, I'm afraid." Tenderly the man drew her to him. Her head fell against his shoulder and she hid her eyes. "There, little girl," he reassured her, his big voice rich and musical. "There's nothing to get scairt of, I'll take care of you. What frightens you, honey?" She nestled close in his arm with a sigh of half relief. "I don't know," she laughed, but still with a tremble in her tones. "It's all so big and lonesome and strange--and I'm so little." "There, little girl," he repeated. They drove on and on. At the end of two hours they stopped. Men with lanterns dazzled their eyes. The horses were changed, and so out again into the night where the desert seemed to breathe in deep, mysterious exhalations like a sleeping beast. Senor Johnson drove his horses masterfully with his one free hand. The road did not exist, except to his trained eyes. They seemed to be swimming out, out, into a vapour of night with the wind of their going steady against their faces. "Buck," she murmured, "I'm so tired." He tightened his arm around her and she went to sleep, half-waking at the ranches where the relays waited, dozing again as soon as the lanterns dropped behind. And Senor Johnson, alone with his horses and the solemn stars, drove on, ever on, into the desert. By grey of the early summer dawn they arrived. The girl wakened, descended, smiling uncertainly at Susie O'Toole, blinking somnolently at her surroundings. Susie put her to bed in the little southwest room where hung the shiny Colt's forty-five in its worn leather "Texas-style" holster. She murmured incoherent thanks and sank again to sleep, overcome by the fatigue of unaccustomed travelling, by the potency of the desert air, by the excitement of anticipation to which her nerves had long been strung. Senor Johnson did not sleep. He was tough, and used to it. He lit a cigar and rambled about, now reading the newspapers he had brought with him, now prowling softly about the building, now visiting the corrals and outbuildings, once even the thousand-acre pasture where his saddle-horse knew him and came to him to have its forehead rubbed. The dawn broke in good earnest, throwing aside its gauzy draperies of mauve. Sang, the Chinese cook, built his fire. Senor Johnson forbade him to clang the rising bell, and himself roused the cow-punchers. The girl slept on. Senor Johnson tip-toed a dozen times to the bedroom door. Once he ventured to push it open. He looked long within, then shut it softly and tiptoed out into the open, his eyes shining. "Jed," he said to his foreman, "you don't know how it made me feel. To see her lying there so pink and soft and pretty, with her yaller hair all tumbled about and a little smile on her--there in my old bed, with my old gun hanging over her that way--By Heaven, Jed, it made me feel almost HOLY!" CHAPTER SIX THE WAGON TIRE About noon she emerged from the room, fully refreshed and wide awake. She and Susie O'Toole had unpacked at least one of the trunks, and now she stood arrayed in shirtwaist and blue skirt. At once she stepped into the open air and looked about her with considerable curiosity. "So this is a real cattle ranch," was her comment. Senor Johnson was at her side pressing on her with boyish eagerness the sights of the place. She patted the stag hounds and inspected the garden. Then, confessing herself hungry, she obeyed with alacrity Sang's call to an early meal. At the table she ate coquettishly, throwing her birdlike side glances at the man opposite. "I want to see a real cowboy," she announced, as she pushed her chair back. "Why, sure!" cried Senor Johnson joyously. "Sang! hi, Sang! Tell Brent Palmer to step in here a minute." After an interval the cowboy appeared, mincing in on his high-heeled boots, his silver spurs jingling, the fringe of his chaps impacting softly on the leather. He stood at ease, his broad hat in both hands, his dark, level brows fixed on his chief. "Shake hands with Mrs. Johnson, Brent. I called you in because she said she wanted to see a real cow-puncher." "Oh, BUCK!" cried the woman. For an instant the cow-puncher's level brows drew together. Then he caught the woman's glance fair. He smiled. "Well, I ain't much to look at," he proffered. "That's not for you to say, sir," said Estrella, recovering. "Brent, here, gentled your pony for you," exclaimed Senor Johnson. "Oh," cried Estrella, "have I a pony? How nice. And it was so good of you, Mr. Brent. Can't I see him? I want to see him. I want to give him a piece of sugar." She fumbled in the bowl. "Sure you can see him. I don't know as he'll eat sugar. He ain't that educated. Think you could teach him to eat sugar, Brent?" "I reckon," replied the cowboy. They went out toward the corral, the cowboy joining them as a matter of course. Estrella demanded explanations as she went along. Their progress was leisurely. The blindfolded pump mule interested her. "And he goes round and round that way all day without stopping, thinking he's really getting somewhere!" she marvelled. "I think that's a shame! Poor old fellow, to get fooled that way!" "It is some foolish," said Brent Palmer, "but he ain't any worse off than a cow-pony that hikes out twenty mile and then twenty back." "No, I suppose not," admitted Estrella. "And we got to have water, you know," added Senor Johnson. Brent rode up the sorrel bareback. The pretty animal, gentle as a kitten, nevertheless planted his forefeet strongly and snorted at Estrella. "I reckon he ain't used to the sight of a woman," proffered the Senor, disappointed. "He'll get used to you. Go up to him soft-like and rub him between the eyes."' Estrella approached, but the pony jerked back his head with every symptom of distrust. She forgot the sugar she had intended to offer him. "He's a perfect beauty," she said at last, "but, my! I'd never dare ride him. I'm awful scairt of horses." "Oh, he'll come around all right," assured Brent easily. "I'll fix him." "Oh, Mr. Brent," she exclaimed, "don't think I don't appreciate what you've done. I'm sure he's really just as gentle as he can be. It's only that I'm foolish." "I'll fix him," repeated Brent. The two men conducted her here and there, showing her the various institutions of the place. A man bent near the shed nailing a shoe to a horse's hoof. "So you even have a blacksmith!" said Estrella. Her guides laughed amusedly. "Tommy, come here!" called the Senor. The horseshoer straightened up and approached. He was a lithe, curly-haired young boy, with a reckless, humorous eye and a smooth face, now red from bending over. "Tommy, shake hands with Mrs. Johnson," said the Senor. "Mrs. Johnson wants to know if you're the blacksmith." He exploded in laughter. "Oh, BUCK!" cried Estrella again. "No, ma'am," answered the boy directly; "I'm just tacking a shoe on Danger, here. We all does our own blacksmithing." His roving eye examined her countenance respectfully, but with admiration. She caught the admiration and returned it, covertly but unmistakably, pleased that her charms were appreciated. They continued their rounds. The sun was very hot and the dust deep. A woman would have known that these things distressed Estrella. She picked her way through the debris; she dropped her head from the burning; she felt her delicate garments moistening with perspiration, her hair dampening; the dust sifted up through the air. Over in the large corral a bronco buster, assisted by two of the cowboys, was engaged in roping and throwing some wild mustangs. The sight was wonderful, but here the dust billowed in clouds. "I'm getting a little hot and tired," she confessed at last. "I think I'll go to the house." But near the shed she stopped again, interested in spite of herself by a bit of repairing Tommy had under way. The tire of a wagon wheel had been destroyed. Tommy was mending it. On the ground lay a fresh cowhide. From this Tommy was cutting a wide strip. As she watched he measured the strip around the circumference of the wheel. "He isn't going to make a tire of that!" she exclaimed, incredulously. "Sure," replied Senor Johnson. "Will it wear?" "It'll wear for a month or so, till we can get another from town." Estrella advanced and felt curiously of the rawhide. Tommy was fastening it to the wheel at the ends only. "But how can it stay on that way?" she objected. "It'll come right off as soon as you use it." "It'll harden on tight enough." "Why?" she persisted. "Does it shrink much when it dries?" Senor Johnson stared to see if she might be joking. "Does it shrink?" he repeated slowly. "There ain't nothing shrinks more, nor harder. It'll mighty nigh break that wood." Estrella, incredulous, interested, she could not have told why, stooped again to feel the soft, yielding hide. She shook her head. "You're joking me because I'm a tenderfoot," she accused brightly. "I know it dries hard, and I'll believe it shrinks a lot, but to break wood--that's piling it on a little thick." "No, that's right, ma'am," broke in Brent Palmer. "It's awful strong. It pulls like a horse when the desert sun gets on it. You wrap anything up in a piece of that hide and see what happens. Some time you take and wrap a piece around a potato and put her out in the sun and see how it'll squeeze the water out of her." "Is that so?" she appealed to Tommy. "I can't tell when they are making fun of me." "Yes, ma'am, that's right," he assured her. Estrella passed a strip of the flexible hide playfully about her wrists. "And if I let that dry that way I'd be handcuffed hard and fast," she said. "It would cut you down to the bone," supplemented Brent Palmer. She untwisted the strip, and stood looking at it, her eyes wide. "I--I don't know why--" she faltered. "The thought makes me a little sick. Why, isn't it queer? Ugh! it's like a snake!" She flung it from her energetically and turned toward the ranch house. CHAPTER SEVEN ESTRELLA The honeymoon developed and the necessary adjustments took place. The latter Senor Johnson had not foreseen; and yet, when the necessity for them arose, he acknowledged them right and proper. "Course she don't want to ride over to Circle I with us," he informed his confidant, Jed Parker. "It's a long ride, and she ain't used to riding yet. Trouble is I've been thinking of doing things with her just as if she was a man. Women are different. They likes different things." This second idea gradually overlaid the first in Senor Johnson's mind. Estrella showed little aptitude or interest in the rougher side of life. Her husband's statement as to her being still unused to riding was distinctly a euphemism. Estrella never arrived at the point of feeling safe on a horse. In time she gave up trying, and the sorrel drifted back to cow-punching. The range work she never understood. As a spectacle it imposed itself on her interest for a week; but since she could discover no real and vital concern in the welfare of cows, soon the mere outward show became an old story. Estrella's sleek nature avoided instinctively all that interfered with bodily well-being. When she was cool and well-fed and not thirsty, and surrounded by a proper degree of feminine daintiness, then she was ready to amuse herself. But she could not understand the desirability of those pleasures for which a certain price in discomfort must be paid. As for firearms, she confessed herself frankly afraid of them. That was the point at which her intimacy with them stopped. The natural level to which these waters fell is easily seen. Quite simply, the Senor found that a wife does not enter fully into her husband's workaday life. The dreams he had dreamed did not come true. This was at first a disappointment to him, of course, but the disappointment did not last. Senor Johnson was a man of sense, and he easily modified his first scheme of married life. "She'd get sick of it, and I'd get sick of it," he formulated his new philosophy. "Now I got something to come back to, somebody to look forward to. And it's a WOMAN; it ain't one of these darn gangle-leg cowgirls. The great thing is to feel you BELONG to someone; and that someone nice and cool and fresh and purty is waitin' for you when you come in tired. It beats that other little old idee of mine slick as a gun barrel." So, during this, the busy season of the range riding, immediately before the great fall round-ups, Senor Johnson rode abroad all day, and returned to his own hearth as many evenings of the week as he could. Estrella always saw him coming and stood in the doorway to greet him. He kicked off his spurs, washed and dusted himself, and spent the evening with his wife. He liked the sound of exactly that phrase, and was fond of repeating it to himself in a variety of connections. "When I get in I'll spend the evening with my wife." "If I don't ride over to Circle I, I'll spend the evening with my wife," and so on. He had a good deal to tell her of the day's discoveries, the state of the range, and the condition of the cattle. To all of this she listened at least with patience. Senor Johnson, like most men who have long delayed marriage, was self-centred without knowing it. His interest in his mate had to do with her personality rather than with her doings. "What you do with yourself all day to-day?" he occasionally inquired. "Oh, there's lots to do," she would answer, a trifle listlessly; and this reply always seemed quite to satisfy his interest in the subject. Senor Johnson, with a curiously instant transformation often to be observed among the adventurous, settled luxuriously into the state of being a married man. Its smallest details gave him distinct and separate sensations of pleasure. "I plumb likes it all," he said. "I likes havin' interest in some fool geranium plant, and I likes worryin' about the screen doors and all the rest of the plumb foolishness. It does me good. It feels like stretchin' your legs in front of a good warm fire." The centre, the compelling influence of this new state of affairs, was undoubtedly Estrella, and yet it is equally to be doubted whether she stood for more than the suggestion. Senor Johnson conducted his entire life with reference to his wife. His waking hours were concerned only with the thought of her, his every act revolved in its orbit controlled by her influence. Nevertheless she, as an individual human being, had little to do with it. Senor Johnson referred his life to a state of affairs he had himself invented and which he called the married state, and to a woman whose attitude he had himself determined upon and whom he designated as his wife. The actual state of affairs--whatever it might be--he did not see; and the actual woman supplied merely the material medium necessary to the reality of his idea. Whether Estrella's eyes were interested or bored, bright or dull, alert or abstracted, contented or afraid, Senor Johnson could not have told you. He might have replied promptly enough--that they were happy and loving. That is the way Senor Johnson conceived a wife's eyes. The routine of life, then, soon settled. After breakfast the Senor insisted that his wife accompany him on a short tour of inspection. "A little pasear," he called it, "just to get set for the day." Then his horse was brought, and he rode away on whatever business called him. Like a true son of the alkali, he took no lunch with him, nor expected his horse to feed until his return. This was an hour before sunset. The evening passed as has been described. It was all very simple. When the business hung close to the ranch house--as in the bronco busting, the rebranding of bought cattle, and the like--he was able to share his wife's day. Estrella conducted herself dreamily, with a slow smile for him when his actual presence insisted on her attention. She seemed much given to staring out over the desert. Senor Johnson, appreciatively, thought he could understand this. Again, she gave much leisure to rocking back and forth on the low, wide veranda, her hands idle, her eyes vacant, her lips dumb. Susie O'Toole had early proved incompatible and had gone. "A nice, contented, home sort of a woman," said Senor Johnson. One thing alone besides the deserts on which she never seemed tired of looking, fascinated her. Whenever a beef was killed for the uses of the ranch, she commanded strips of the green skin. Then, like a child, she bound them and sewed them and nailed them to substances particularly susceptible to their constricting power. She choked the necks of green gourds, she indented the tender bark of cottonwood shoots, she expended an apparently exhaustless ingenuity on the fabrication of mechanical devices whose principle answered to the pulling of the drying rawhide. And always along the adobe fence could be seen a long row of potatoes bound in skin, some of them fresh and smooth and round; some sweating in the agony of squeezing; some wrinkled and dry and little, the last drops of life tortured out of them. Senor Johnson laughed good-humouredly at these toys, puzzled to explain their fascination for his wife. "They're sure an amusing enough contraption honey," said he, "but what makes you stand out there in the hot sun staring at them that way? It's cooler on the porch." "I don't know," said Estrella, helplessly, turning her slow, vacant gaze on him. Suddenly she shivered in a strong physical revulsion. "I don't know!" she cried with passion. After they had been married about a month Senor Johnson found it necessary to drive into Willets. "How would you like to go, too, and buy some duds?" he asked Estrella. "Oh!" she cried strangely. "When?" "Day after tomorrow." The trip decided, her entire attitude changed. The vacancy of her gaze lifted; her movements quickened; she left off staring at the desert, and her rawhide toys were neglected. Before starting, Senor Johnson gave her a check book. He explained that there were no banks in Willets, but that Goodrich, the storekeeper, would honour her signature. "Buy what you want to, honey," said he. "Tear her wide open. I'm good for it." "How much can I draw?" she asked, smiling. "As much as you want to," he replied with emphasis. "Take care"--she poised before him with the check book extended--"I may draw--I might draw fifty thousand dollars." "Not out of Goodrich," he grinned; "you'd bust the game. But hold him up for the limit, anyway." He chuckled aloud, pleased at the rare, bird-like coquetry of the woman. They drove to Willets. It took them two days to go and two days to return. Estrella went through the town in a cyclone burst of enthusiasm, saw everything, bought everything, exhausted everything in two hours. Willets was not a large place. On her return to the ranch she sat down at once in the rocking-chair on the veranda. Her hands fell into her lap. She stared out over the desert. Senor Johnson stole up behind her, clumsy as a playful bear. His eyes followed the direction of hers to where a cloud shadow lay across the slope, heavy, palpable, untransparent, like a blotch of ink. "Pretty, isn't it, honey?" said he. "Glad to get back?" She smiled at him her vacant, slow smile. "Here's my check book," she said; "put it away for me. I'm through with it." "I'll put it in my desk," said he. "It's in the left-hand cubbyhole," he called from inside. "Very well," she replied. He stood in the doorway, looking fondly at her unconscious shoulders and the pose of her blonde head thrown back against the high rocking-chair. "That's the sort of a woman, after all," said Senor Johnson. "No blame fuss about her." CHAPTER EIGHT THE ROUND-UP This, as you well may gather, was in the summer routine. Now the time of the great fall round-up drew near. The home ranch began to bustle in preparation. All through Cochise County were short mountain ranges set down, apparently at random, like a child's blocks. In and out between them flowed the broad, plain-like valleys. On the valleys were the various ranges, great or small, controlled by the different individuals of the Cattlemen's Association. During the year an unimportant, but certain, shifting of stock took place. A few cattle of Senor Johnson's Lazy Y eluded the vigilance of his riders to drift over through the Grant Pass and into the ranges of his neighbour; equally, many of the neighbour's steers watered daily at Senor Johnson's troughs. It was a matter of courtesy to permit this, but one of the reasons for the fall round-up was a redistribution to the proper ranges. Each cattle-owner sent an outfit to the scene of labour. The combined outfits moved slowly from one valley to another, cutting out the strays, branding the late calves, collecting for the owner of that particular range all his stock, that he might select his marketable beef. In turn each cattleman was host to his neighbours and their men. This year it had been decided to begin the circle of the round-up at the C 0 Bar, near the banks of the San Pedro. Thence it would work eastward, wandering slowly in north and south deviation, to include all the country, until the final break-up would occur at the Lazy Y. The Lazy Y crew was to consist of four men, thirty riding horses, a "chuck wagon," and cook. These, helping others, and receiving help in turn, would suffice, for in the round-up labour was pooled to a common end. With them would ride Jed Parker, to safeguard his master's interests. For a week the punchers, in their daily rides, gathered in the range ponies. Senor Johnson owned fifty horses which he maintained at the home ranch for every-day riding, two hundred broken saddle animals, allowed the freedom of the range, except when special occasion demanded their use, and perhaps half a thousand quite unbroken--brood mares, stallions, young horses, broncos, and the like. At this time of year it was his habit to corral all those saddlewise in order to select horses for the round-ups and to replace the ranch animals. The latter he turned loose for their turn at the freedom of the range. The horses chosen, next the men turned their attention to outfit. Each had, of course, his saddle, spurs, and "rope." Of the latter the chuck wagon carried many extra. That vehicle, furthermore, transported such articles as the blankets, the tarpaulins under which to sleep, the running irons for branding, the cooking layout, and the men's personal effects. All was in readiness to move for the six weeks' circle, when a complication arose. Jed Parker, while nimbly escaping an irritated steer, twisted the high heel of his boot on the corral fence. He insisted the injury amounted to nothing. Senor Johnson however, disagreed. "It don't amount to nothing, Jed," he pronounced, after manipulation, "but she might make a good able-bodied injury with a little coaxing. Rest her a week and then you'll be all right." "Rest her, the devil!" growled Jed; "who's going to San Pedro?" "I will, of course," replied the Senor promptly. "Didje think we'd send the Chink?" "I was first cousin to a Yaqui jackass for sendin' young Billy Ellis out. He'll be back in a week. He'd do." "So'd the President," the Senor pointed out; "I hear he's had some experience." "I hate to have you to go," objected Jed. "There's the missis." He shot a glance sideways at his chief. "I guess she and I can stand it for a week," scoffed the latter. "Why, we are old married folks by now. Besides, you can take care of her." "I'll try," said Jed Parker, a little grimly. CHAPTER NINE THE LONG TRAIL The round-up crew started early the next morning, just about sun-up. Senor Johnson rode first, merely to keep out of the dust. Then followed Torn Rich, jogging along easily in the cow-puncher's "Spanish trot" whistling soothingly to quiet the horses, giving a lead to the band of saddle animals strung out loosely behind him. These moved on gracefully and lightly in the manner of the unburdened plains horse, half decided to follow Tom's guidance, half inclined to break to right or left. Homer and Jim Lester flanked them, also riding in a slouch of apparent laziness, but every once in a while darting forward like bullets to turn back into the main herd certain individuals whom the early morning of the unwearied day had inspired to make a dash for liberty. The rear was brought up by Jerky Jones, the fourth cow-puncher, and the four-mule chuck wagon, lost in its own dust. The sun mounted; the desert went silently through its changes. Wind devils raised straight, true columns of dust six, eight hundred, even a thousand feet into the air. The billows of dust from the horses and men crept and crawled with them like a living creature. Glorious colour, magnificent distance, astonishing illusion, filled the world. Senor Johnson rode ahead, looking at these things. The separation from his wife, brief as it would be, left room in his soul for the heart-hunger which beauty arouses in men. He loved the charm of the desert, yet it hurt him. Behind him the punchers relieved the tedium of the march, each after his own manner. In an hour the bunch of loose horses lost its early-morning good spirits and settled down to a steady plodding, that needed no supervision. Tom Rich led them, now, in silence, his time fully occupied in rolling Mexican cigarettes with one hand. The other three dropped back together and exchanged desultory remarks. Occasionally Jim Lester sang. It was always the same song of uncounted verses, but Jim had a strange fashion of singing a single verse at a time. After a long interval he would sing another. "My Love is a rider And broncos he breaks, But he's given up riding And all for my sake, For he found him a horse And it suited him so That he vowed he'd ne'er ride Any other bronco!" he warbled, and then in the same breath: "Say, boys, did you get onto the pisano-looking shorthorn at Willets last week? "Nope." "He sifted in wearin' one of these hardboiled hats, and carryin' a brogue thick enough to skate on. Says he wants a job drivin' team--that he drives a truck plenty back to St. Louis, where he comes from. Goodrich sets him behind them little pinto cavallos he has. Say! that son of a gun a driver! He couldn't drive nails in a snow bank." An expressive free-hand gesture told all there was to tell of the runaway. "Th' shorthorn landed headfirst in Goldfish Charlie's horse trough. Charlie fishes him out. 'How the devil, stranger,' says Charlie, 'did you come to fall in here?' 'You blamed fool,' says the shorthorn, just cryin' mad, 'I didn't come to fall in here, I come to drive horses.'" And then, without a transitory pause: "Oh, my love has a gun And that gun he can use, But he's quit his gun fighting As well as his booze. And he's sold him his saddle, His spurs, and his rope, And there's no more cow-punching And that's what I hope." The alkali dust, swirled back by a little breeze, billowed up and choked him. Behind, the mules coughed, their coats whitening with the powder. Far ahead in the distance lay the westerly mountains. They looked an hour away, and yet every man and beast in the outfit knew that hour after hour they were doomed, by the enchantment of the land, to plod ahead without apparently getting an inch nearer. The only salvation was to forget the mountains and to fill the present moment full of little things. But Senor Johnson, to-day, found himself unable to do this. In spite of his best efforts he caught himself straining toward the distant goal, becoming impatient, trying to measure progress by landmarks--in short acting like a tenderfoot on the desert, who wears himself down and dies, not from the hardship, but from the nervous strain which he does not know how to avoid. Senor Johnson knew this as well as you and I. He cursed himself vigorously, and began with great resolution to think of something else. He was aroused from this by Tom Rich, riding alongside. "Somebody coming, Senor," said he. Senor Johnson raised his eyes to the approaching cloud of dust. Silently the two watched it until it resolved into a rider loping easily along. In fifteen minutes he drew rein, his pony dropped immediately from a gallop to immobility, he swung into a graceful at-ease attitude across his saddle, grinned amiably, and began to roll a cigarette. "Billy Ellis," cried Rich. "That's me," replied the newcomer. "Thought you were down to Tucson?" "I was." "Thought you wasn't comin' back for a week yet?" "Tommy," proffered Billy Ellis dreamily, "when you go to Tucson next you watch out until you sees a little, squint-eyed Britisher. Take a look at him. Then come away. He says he don't know nothin' about poker. Mebbe he don't, but he'll outhold a warehouse." But here Senor Johnson broke in: "Billy, you're just in time. Jed has hurt his foot and can't get on for a week yet. I want you to take charge. I've got a lot to do at the ranch." "Ain't got my war-bag," objected Billy. "Take my stuff. I'll send yours on when Parker goes." "All right." "Well, so long." "So long, Senor." They moved. The erratic Arizona breezes twisted the dust of their going. Senor Johnson watched them dwindle. With them seemed to go the joy in the old life. No longer did the long trail possess for him its ancient fascination. He had become a domestic man. "And I'm glad of it," commented Senor Johnson. The dust eddied aside. Plainly could be seen the swaying wagon, the loose-riding cowboys, the gleaming, naked backs of the herd. Then the veil closed over them again. But down the wind, faintly, in snatches, came the words of Jim Lester's song: "Oh, Sam has a gun That has gone to the bad, Which makes poor old Sammy Feel pretty, damn sad, For that gun it shoots high, And that gun it shoots low, And it wabbles about Like a bucking bronco!" Senor Johnson turned and struck spurs to his willing pony. CHAPTER TEN THE DISCOVERY Senor Buck Johnson loped quickly back toward the home ranch, his heart glad at this fortunate solution of his annoyance. The home ranch lay in plain sight not ten miles away. As Senor Johnson idly watched it shimmering in the heat, a tiny figure detached itself from the mass and launched itself in his direction. "Wonder what's eating HIM!" marvelled Senor Johnson, "--and who is it?" The figure drew steadily nearer. In half an hour it had approached near enough to be recognised. "Why, it's Jed!" cried the Senor, and spurred his horse. "What do you mean, riding out with that foot?" he demanded sternly, when within hailing distance. "Foot, hell!" gasped Parker, whirling his horse alongside. "Your wife's run away with Brent Palmer." For fully ten seconds not the faintest indication proved that the husband had heard, except that he lifted his bridle-hand, and the well-trained pony stopped. "What did you say?" he asked finally. "Your wife's run away with Brent Palmer," repeated Jed, almost with impatience. Again the long pause. "How do you know?" asked Senor Johnson, then. "Know, hell! It's been going on for a month. Sang saw them drive off. They took the buckboard. He heard 'em planning it. He was too scairt to tell till they'd gone. I just found it out. They've been gone two hours. Must be going to make the Limited." Parker fidgeted, impatient to be off. "You're wasting time," he snapped at the motionless figure. Suddenly Johnson's face flamed. He reached from his saddle to clutch Jed's shoulder, nearly pulling the foreman from his pony. "You lie!" he cried. "You're lying to me! It ain't SO!" Parker made no effort to extricate himself from the painful grasp. His cool eyes met the blazing eyes of his chief. "I wisht I did lie, Buck," he said sadly. "I wisht it wasn't so. But it is." Johnson's head snapped back to the front with a groan. The pony snorted as the steel bit his flanks, leaped forward, and with head outstretched, nostrils wide, the wicked white of the bronco flickering in the corner of his eye, struck the bee line for the home ranch. Jed followed as fast as he was able. On his arrival he found his chief raging about the house like a wild beast. Sang trembled from a quick and stormy interrogatory in the kitchen. Chairs had been upset and let lie. Estrella's belongings had been tumbled over. Senor Johnson there found only too sure proof, in the various lacks, of a premeditated and permanent flight. Still he hoped; and as long as he hoped, he doubted, and the demons of doubt tore him to a frenzy. Jed stood near the door, his arms folded, his weight shifted to his sound foot, waiting and wondering what the next move was to be. Finally, Senor Johnson, struck with a new idea, ran to his desk to rummage in a pigeon-hole. But he found no need to do so, for lying on the desk was what he sought--the check book from which Estrella was to draw on Goodrich for the money she might need. He fairly snatched it open. Two of the checks had been torn out, stub and all. And then his eye caught a crumpled bit of blue paper under the edge of the desk. He smoothed it out. The check was made out to bearer and signed Estrella Johnson. It called for fifteen thousand dollars. Across the middle was a great ink blot, reason for its rejection. At once Senor Johnson became singularly and dangerously cool. "I reckon you're right, Jed," he cried in his natural voice. "She's gone with him. She's got all her traps with her, and she's drawn on Goodrich for fifteen thousand. And SHE never thought of going just this time of month when the miners are in with their dust, and Goodrich would be sure to have that much. That's friend Palmer. Been going on a month, you say?" "I couldn't say anything, Buck," said Parker anxiously. "A man's never sure enough about them things till afterwards." "I know," agreed Buck Johnson; "give me a light for my cigarette." He puffed for a moment, then rose, stretching his legs. In a moment he returned from the other room, the old shiny Colt's forty-five strapped loosely on his hip. Jed looked him in the face with some anxiety. The foreman was not deceived by the man's easy manner; in fact, he knew it to be symptomatic of one of the dangerous phases of Senor Johnson's character. "What's up, Buck?" he inquired. "Just going out for a pasear with the little horse, Jed." "I suppose I better come along?" "Not with your lame foot, Jed." The tone of voice was conclusive. Jed cleared his throat. "She left this for you," said he, proffering an envelope. "Them kind always writes." "Sure," agreed Senor Johnson, stuffing the letter carelessly into his side pocket. He half drew the Colt's from its holster and slipped it back again. "Makes you feel plumb like a man to have one of these things rubbin' against you again," he observed irrelevantly. Then he went out, leaving the foreman leaning, chair tilted, against the wall. CHAPTER ELEVEN THE CAPTURE Although he had left the room so suddenly, Senor Johnson did not at once open the gate of the adobe wall. His demeanour was gay, for he was a Westerner, but his heart was black. Hardly did he see beyond the convexity of his eyeballs. The pony, warmed up by its little run, pawed the ground, impatient to be off. It was a fine animal, clean-built, deep-chested, one of the mustang stock descended from the Arabs brought over by Pizarro. Sang watched fearfully from the slant of the kitchen window. Jed Parker, even, listened for the beat of the horse's hoofs. But Senor Johnson stood stock-still, his brain absolutely numb and empty. His hand brushed against something which fell, to the ground. He brought his dull gaze to bear on it. The object proved to be a black, wrinkled spheroid, baked hard as iron in the sunshine of Estrella's toys, a potato squeezed to dryness by the constricting power of the rawhide. In a row along the fence were others. To Senor Johnson it seemed that thus his heart was being squeezed in the fire of suffering. But the slight movement of the falling object roused him. He swung open the gate. The pony bowed his head delightedly. He was not tired, but his reins depended straight to the ground, and it was a point of honour with him to stand. At the saddle horn, in its sling, hung the riata, the "rope" without which no cowman ever stirs abroad, but which Senor Johnson had rarely used of late. Senor Johnson threw the reins over, seized the pony's mane in his left hand, held the pommel with his right, and so swung easily aboard, the pony's jump helping him to the saddle. Wheel tracks led down the trail. He followed them. Truth to tell, Senor Johnson had very little idea of what he was going to do. His action was entirely instinctive. The wheel tracks held to the southwest so he held to the southwest, too. The pony hit his stride. The miles slipped by. After seven of them the animal slowed to a walk. Senor Johnson allowed him to get his wind, then spurred him on again. He did not even take the ordinary precautions of a pursuer. He did not even glance to the horizon in search. About supper-time he came to the first ranch house. There he took a bite to eat and exchanged his horse for another, a favourite of his, named Button. The two men asked no questions. "See Mrs. Johnson go through?" asked the Senor from the saddle. "Yes, about three o'clock. Brent Palmer driving her. Bound for Willets to visit the preacher's wife, she said. Ought to catch up at the Circle I. That's where they'd all spend the night, of course. So long." Senor Johnson knew now the couple would follow the straight road. They would fear no pursuit. He himself was supposed not to return for a week, and the story of visiting the minister's wife was not only plausible, it was natural. Jed had upset calculations, because Jed was shrewd, and had eyes in his head. Buck Johnson's first mental numbness was wearing away; he was beginning to think. The night was very still and very dark, the stars very bright in their candle-like glow. The man, loping steadily on through the darkness, recalled that other night, equally still, equally dark, equally starry, when he had driven out from his accustomed life into the unknown with a woman by his side, the sight of whom asleep had made him feel "almost holy." He uttered a short laugh. The pony was a good one, well equal to twice the distance he would be called upon to cover this night. Senor Johnson managed him well. By long experience and a natural instinct he knew just how hard to push his mount, just how to keep inside the point where too rapid exhaustion of vitality begins. Toward the hour of sunrise he drew rein to look about him. The desert, till now wrapped in the thousand little noises that make night silence, drew breath in preparation for the awe of the daily wonder. It lay across the world heavy as a sea of lead, and as lifeless; deeply unconscious, like an exhausted sleeper. The sky bent above, the stars paling. Far away the mountains seemed to wait. And then, imperceptibly, those in the east became blacker and sharper, while those in the west became faintly lucent and lost the distinctness of their outline. The change was nothing, yet everything. And suddenly a desert bird sprang into the air and began to sing. Senor Johnson caught the wonder of it. The wonder of it seemed to him wasted, useless, cruel in its effect. He sighed impatiently, and drew his hand across his eyes. The desert became grey with the first light before the glory. In the illusory revealment of it Senor Johnson's sharp frontiersman's eyes made out an object moving away from him in the middle distance. In a moment the object rose for a second against the sky line, then disappeared. He knew it to be the buckboard, and that the vehicle had just plunged into the dry bed of an arroyo. Immediately life surged through him like an electric shock. He unfastened the riata from its sling, shook loose the noose, and moved forward in the direction in which he had last seen the buckboard. At the top of the steep little bank he stopped behind the mesquite, straining his eyes; luck had been good to him. The buckboard had pulled up, and Brent Palmer was at the moment beginning a little fire, evidently to make the morning coffee. Senor Johnson struck spurs to his horse and half slid, half fell, clattering, down the steep clay bank almost on top of the couple below. Estrella screamed. Brent Palmer jerked out an oath, and reached for his gun. The loop of the riata fell wide over him, immediately to be jerked tight, binding his arms tight to his side. The bronco-buster, swept from his feet by the pony's rapid turn, nevertheless struggled desperately to wrench himself loose. Button, intelligent at all rope work, walked steadily backward, step by step, taking up the slack, keeping the rope tight as he had done hundreds of times before when a steer had struggled as this man was struggling now. His master leaped from the saddle and ran forward. Button continued to walk slowly back. The riata remained taut. The noose held. Brent Palmer fought savagely, even then. He kicked, he rolled over and over, he wrenched violently at his pinioned arms, he twisted his powerful young body from Senor Johnson's grasp again and again. But it was no use. In less than a minute he was bound hard and fast. Button promptly slackened the rope. The dust settled. The noise of the combat died. Again could be heard the single desert bird singing against the dawn. CHAPTER TWELVE IN THE ARROYO Senor Johnson quietly approached Estrella. The girl had, during the struggle, gone through an aimless but frantic exhibition of terror. Now she shrank back, her eyes staring wildly, her hands behind her, ready to flop again over the brink of hysteria. "What are you going to do?" she demanded, her voice unnatural. She received no reply. The man reached out and took her by the arm. And then at once, as though the personal contact of the touch had broken through the last crumb of numbness with which shock had overlaid Buck Johnson's passions, the insanity of his rage broke out. He twisted her violently on her face, knelt on her back, and, with the short piece of hard rope the cowboy always carries to "hog-tie" cattle, he lashed her wrists together. Then he arose panting, his square black beard rising and falling with the rise and fall of his great chest. Estrella had screamed again and again until her face had been fairly ground into the alkali. There she had choked and strangled and gasped and sobbed, her mind nearly unhinged with terror. She kept appealing to him in a hoarse voice, but could get no reply, no indication that he had even heard. This terrified her still more. Brent Palmer cursed steadily and accurately, but the man did not seem to hear him either. The tempest bad broken in Buck Johnson's soul. When he had touched Estrella he had, for the first time, realised what he had lost. It was not the woman--her he despised. But the dreams! All at once he knew what they had been to him--he understood how completely the very substance of his life had changed in response to their slow soul-action. The new world had been blasted--the old no longer existed to which to return. Buck Johnson stared at this catastrophe until his sight blurred. Why, it was atrocious! He had done nothing to deserve it! Why had they not left him peaceful in his own life of cattle and the trail? He had been happy. His dull eyes fell on the causes of the ruin. And then, finally, in the understanding of how he had been tricked of his life, his happiness, his right to well-being, the whole force of the man's anger flared. Brent Palmer lay there cursing him artistically. That man had done it; that man was in his power. He would get even. How? Estrella, too, lay huddled, helpless and defenseless, at his feet. She had done it. He would get even. How? He had spoken no word. He spoke none now, either in answer to Estrella's appeals, becoming piteous in their craving for relief from suspense, or in response to Brent Palmer's steady stream of insults and vituperations. Such things were far below. The bitterness and anger and desolation were squeezing his heart. He remembered the silly little row of potatoes sewn in the green hide lying along the top of the adobe fence, some fresh and round, some dripping as the rawhide contracted, some black and withered and very small. A fierce and savage light sprang into his eyes. CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE RAWHIDE First of all he unhitched the horses from the buckboard and turned them loose. Then, since he was early trained in Indian warfare, he dragged Palmer to the wagon wheel, and tied him so closely to it that he could not roll over. For, though the bronco-buster was already so fettered that his only possible movement was of the jack-knife variety, nevertheless he might be able to hitch himself along the ground to a sharp stone, there to saw through the rope about his wrists. Estrella, her husband held in contempt. He merely supplemented her wrist bands by one about the ankles. Leisurely he mounted Button and turned up the wagon trail, leaving the two. Estrella had exhausted herself. She was capable of nothing more in the way of emotion. Her eyes tight closed, she inhaled in deep, trembling, long-drawn breaths, and exhaled with the name of her Maker. Brent Palmer, on the contrary, was by no means subdued. He had expected to be shot in cold blood. Now he did not know what to anticipate. His black, level brows drawn straight in defiance, he threw his curses after Johnson's retreating figure. The latter, however, paid no attention. He had his purposes. Once at the top of the arroyo he took a careful survey of the landscape, now rich with dawn. Each excrescence on the plain his half-squinted eyes noticed, and with instant skill relegated to its proper category of soap-weed, mesquite, cactus. At length he swung Button in an easy lope toward what looked to be a bunch of soap-weed in the middle distance. But in a moment the cattle could be seen plainly. Button pricked up his ears. He knew cattle. Now he proceeded tentatively, lifting high his little hoofs to avoid the half-seen inequalities of the ground and the ground's growths, wondering whether he were to be called on to rope or to drive. When the rider had approached to within a hundred feet, the cattle started. Immediately Button understood that he was to pursue. No rope swung above his head, so he sheered off and ran as fast as he could to cut ahead of the bunch. But his rider with knee and rein forced him in. After a moment, to his astonishment, he found himself running alongside a big steer. Button had never hunted buffalo--Buck Johnson had. The Colt's forty-five barked once, and then again. The steer staggered, fell to his knees, recovered, and finally stopped, the blood streaming from his nostrils. In a moment he fell heavily on his side--dead. Senor Johnson at once dismounted and began methodically to skin the animal. This was not easy for he had no way of suspending the carcass nor of rolling it from side to side. However, he was practised at it and did a neat job. Two or three times he even caught himself taking extra pains that the thin flesh strips should not adhere to the inside of the pelt. Then he smiled grimly, and ripped it loose. After the hide had been removed he cut from the edge, around and around, a long, narrow strip. With this he bound the whole into a compact bundle, strapped it on behind his saddle, and remounted. He returned to the arroyo. Estrella still lay with her eyes closed. Brent Palmer looked up keenly. The bronco-buster saw the green hide. A puzzled expression crept across his face. Roughly Johnson loosed his enemy from the wheel and dragged him to the woman. He passed the free end of the riata about them both, tying them close together. The girl continued to moan, out of her wits with terror. "What are you going to do now, you devil?" demanded Palmer, but received no reply. Buck Johnson spread out the rawhide. Putting forth his huge strength, he carried to it the pair, bound together like a bale of goods, and laid them on its cool surface. He threw across them the edges, and then deliberately began to wind around and around the huge and unwieldy rawhide package the strip he had cut from the edge of the pelt. Nor was this altogether easy. At last Brent Palmer understood. He writhed in the struggle of desperation, foaming blasphemies. The uncouth bundle rolled here and there. But inexorably the other, from the advantage of his position, drew the thongs tighter. And then, all at once, from vituperation the bronco-buster fell to pleading, not for life, but for death. "For God's sake, shoot me!" he cried from within the smothering folds of the rawhide. "If you ever had a heart in you, shoot me! Don't leave me here to be crushed in this vise. You wouldn't do that to a yellow dog. An Injin wouldn't do that, Buck. It's a joke, isn't it? Don't go away and leave me, Buck. I've done you dirt. Cut my heart out, if you want to; I won't say a word, but don't leave me here for the sun--" His voice was drowned in a piercing scream, as Estrella came to herself and understood. Always the rawhide had possessed for her an occult fascination and repulsion. She had never been able to touch it without a shudder, and yet she had always been drawn to experiment with it. The terror of her doom had now added to it for her all the vague and premonitory terrors which heretofore she had not understood. The richness of the dawn had flowed to the west. Day was at hand. Breezes had begun to play across the desert; the wind devils to raise their straight columns. A first long shaft of sunlight shot through a pass in the Chiricahuas, trembled in the dust-moted air, and laid its warmth on the rawhide. Senor Johnson roused himself from his gloom to speak his first words of the episode. "There, damn you!" said he. "I guess you'll be close enough together now!" He turned away to look for his horse. CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE DESERT Button was a trusty of Senor Johnson's private animals. He was never known to leave his master in the lurch, and so was habitually allowed certain privileges. Now, instead of remaining exactly on the spot where he was "tied to the ground," he had wandered out of the dry arroyo bed to the upper level of the plains, where he knew certain bunch grasses might be found. Buck Johnson climbed the steep wooded bank in search of him. The pony stood not ten feet distant. At his master's abrupt appearance he merely raised his head, a wisp of grass in the corner of his mouth, without attempting to move away. Buck Johnson walked confidently to him, fumbling in his side pocket for the piece of sugar with which he habitually soothed Button's sophisticated palate. His hand encountered Estrella's letter. He drew it out and opened it. "Dear Buck," it read, "I am going away. I tried to be good, but I can't. It's too lonesome for me. I'm afraid of the horses and the cattle and the men and the desert. I hate it all. I tried to make you see how I felt about it, but you couldn't seem to see. I know you'll never forgive me, but I'd go crazy here. I'm almost crazy now. I suppose you think I'm a bad woman, but I am not. You won't believe that. Its' true though. The desert would make anyone bad. I don't see how you stand it. You've been good to me, and I've really tried, but it's no use. The country is awful. I never ought to have come. I'm sorry you are going to think me a bad woman, for I like you and admire you, but nothing, NOTHING could make me stay here any longer." She signed herself simply Estrella Sands, her maiden name. Buck Johnson stood staring at the paper for a much longer time than was necessary merely to absorb the meaning of the words. His senses, sharpened by the stress of the last sixteen hours, were trying mightily to cut to the mystery of a change going on within himself. The phrases of the letter were bald enough, yet they conveyed something vital to his inner being. He could not understand what it was. Then abruptly he raised his eyes. Before him lay the desert, but a desert suddenly and miraculously changed, a desert he had never seen before. Mile after mile it swept away before him, hot, dry, suffocating, lifeless. The sparse vegetation was grey with the alkali dust. The heat hung choking in the air like a curtain. Lizards sprawled in the sun, repulsive. A rattlesnake dragged its loathsome length from under a mesquite. The dried carcass of a steer, whose parchment skin drew tight across its bones, rattled in the breeze. Here and there rock ridges showed with the obscenity of so many skeletons, exposing to the hard, cruel sky the earth's nakedness. Thirst, delirium, death, hovered palpable in the wind; dreadful, unconquerable, ghastly. The desert showed her teeth and lay in wait like a fierce beast. The little soul of man shrank in terror before it. Buck Johnson stared, recalling the phrases of the letter, recalling the words of his foreman, Jed Parker. "It's too lonesome for me," "I'm afraid," "I hate it all," "I'd go crazy here," "The desert would make anyone bad," "The country is awful." And the musing voice of the old cattleman, "I wonder if she'll like the country!" They reiterated themselves over and over; and always as refrain his own confident reply, "Like the country? Sure! Why SHOULDN'T she?" And then he recalled the summer just passing, and the woman who had made no fuss. Chance remarks of hers came back to him, remarks whose meaning he had not at the time grasped, but which now he saw were desperate appeals to his understanding. He had known his desert. He had never known hers. With an exclamation Buck Johnson turned abruptly back to the arroyo. Button followed him, mildly curious, certain that his master's reappearance meant a summons for himself. Down the miniature cliff the man slid, confidently, without hesitation, sure of himself. His shoulders held squarely, his step elastic, his eye bright, he walked to the fearful, shapeless bundle now lying motionless on the flat surface of the alkali. Brent Palmer had fallen into a grim silence, but Estrella still moaned. The cattleman drew his knife and ripped loose the bonds. Immediately the flaps of the wet rawhide fell apart, exposing to the new daylight the two bound together. Buck Johnson leaned over to touch the woman's shoulder. "Estrella," said he gently. Her eyes came open with a snap, and stared into his, wild with the surprise of his return. "Estrella," he repeated, "how old are you?" She gulped down a sob, unable to comprehend the purport of his question. "How old are you, Estrella?" he repeated again. "Twenty-one," she gasped finally. "Ah!" said he. He stood for a moment in deep thought, then began methodically, without haste, to cut loose the thongs that bound the two together. When the man and the woman were quite freed, he stood for a moment, the knife in his hand, looking down on them. Then he swung himself into the saddle and rode away, straight down the narrow arroyo, out beyond its lower widening, into the vast plains the hither side of the Chiricahuas. The alkali dust was snatched by the wind from beneath his horse's feet. Smaller and smaller he dwindled, rising and falling, rising and falling in the monotonous cow-pony's lope. The heat shimmer veiled him for a moment, but he reappeared. A mirage concealed him, but he emerged on the other side of it. Then suddenly he was gone. The desert had swallowed him up.